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THE FOOTPRINT
AND OTHER STORIES
Gouverneur Morris in his study
THE FOOTPRINT
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS
WITH PORTRAIT
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK ::::::::::::::::::::::: 1919
i!_
Copyright, 1908, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
ioioisS
TO ELSIE
This ship of mine does not contain
The precious stuffs that others do;
But bears into the raging main
Assorted yarns, addressed to you.
Because, or course, fine, white or black.
Or skeined or tangled to undo,
You always buy, and send not back,
The yarns I always spin for you.
From day to day, from year to year,
In easy times or in duresse,
You buy my yarns, and buy them dear,
And pay for them in Loveliness.
A thousand times you've paid for all
That I have ever spun. And, in
Outpoured advances, bought the call
On all I ever hope to spin.
So men, of me, when I am not,
Shall say, if anything — "Here lies
A merchant, whose unusual lot
It was to trade in Paradise."
G. M.
Aiken, S. C.
NOTE
Of the stories which compose this volume, "A Carolina
Night's Dream" and "The Execution" are printed for the first
time. For permission to use most of the others, I thank the
editor of COLLIER'S WEEKLY. And I am indebted to the
CENTURY MAGAZINE for the loan of " Captain England," and
to Transatlantic Tales for the loan of "The Best Man"
(formerly " Burnt Bridges "). I should have said, perhaps, that
I heartily thank them all. And as heartily hope to be indebted
to them.
G. M.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Footprint 3
II. Paradise Ranch 51
III. Captain England 85
IV. The Execution 123
V. Simon L'Ouvrier 147
VI. A Carolina Night's Dream .... 173
VII. The Stowing Away of Mr. Bill Ballad 193
VIII. The Explorers 219
IX. The Little Heiress; or the Hunted Look 237
X. The Best Man 271
XI. The Crocodile 305
THE FOOTPRINT
THE FOOTPRINT
BETWEEN TWO BAYS
We were waiting for the tide to ebb before resuming
work on the schooner's bottom. There was nothing the
matter with her planks; but she had become so foul
by months of cruising in the warm, fertile waters of the
Gulf of California that she could not come about in
anything less than a whole-sail breeze. From the water-
line down she had grown a yard-long beard of sea-greens
that must have weighed several tons. This growth,
teeming with marine life — diminutive abalones, crabs,
spiders, baby squids, and enormous barnacles that
looked like extinct volcanoes filled with marrow — made
the work of cleaning her difficult and repulsive. With
the least exposure to the tropic sun she stank like a
rotten fish; the weeds clung to her planks as hair clings
to the head, and we were forever slicing our hands and
forearms on the barnacles. We had warped her into
3
THE FOOTPRINT
one of two small shallow bays, divided from each other
by a high promontory of drifted sand; and as the tide
receded, and left her drying and stinking, we worked
against time and a slender larder to get her clean. When
the unfinished work had been covered by the rising
tide, and further barbering become impossible, we
would retire to the sands that divided the two bays, to
grumble and to smoke.
The sand of which the promontory was composed,
though dry as dust, had a kind of inherent cohesiveness
that caused it to maintain itself in hillocks and pinnacles
and curious monumental forms, among which it was
possible to find shade. Our favorite place to smoke
and grumble was a hollow, round like a bird's nest,
with one beetling elevation of sand to the west of it and
another to the east. Except at high noon there was
always shade in the hollow, and sometimes a kind of
draught (less than the least breeze) was imagined to pass
over it. Looking south or north from this nest the
views were very much the same, except that in the fore-
ground, or forewater of the south exposure, was the
grounded schooner and the schooner's boat moored to
the beach by a staked oar. To the eyes of instruments
there may have been a calculable difference between
the two bays of which we had the prospect, but to the
human eye there was none; nor was there between the
white desert shores, blotched with pale-blue shadows,
4
THE FOOTPRINT
that semicircled them. The two bays were like the
upper-half of a vast pair of blue spectacles, of which the
promontory dividing them was the nosepiece; the semi-
circling beaches, the silver rims; the blue shadows,
tarnishes. It was a prospect with which one soon sick-
ened and soon grew angry. Of vegetation there was
not so much as one dead stem.
During our periods of enforced idleness the prevail-
ing atmosphere was one of pessimism. Our expedi-
tion had been a failure from the beginning. We
were even ashamed to recall what we had once
conceived to be its purpose. We said only: "Let
us once get back to San Francisco and somebody
will smart for his smartness." We had long since
consigned the map, with its alluring directions in
red ink, its infinity of plausible detail, and its gen-
eral and particular verisimilitude, to the reddest devils
of the deep sea. "Let Arundel get the rubies him-
self," we said. " Rubies— hell I "
There were five of us : four young fools, Crisp, Hawes,
Meff and myself, and Morgridge, who was an old fool.
We formed, together with Arundel, sick in a San Fran-
cisco hospital with tuberculosis of the bone (and lucky
to be so well off, we thought), a stock company with a
jointly paid-in capital of twenty-five hundred dollars.
The company had paid Arundel two hundred dollars
for his map, chartered the schooner (renamed her
5
THE FOOTPRINT
the Rvhy), found her in water, provisions, and firearms,
and, with Morgridge in command, set sail for the Gulf
of California.
Arrived without mishap in those sharky, blistering
waters, we cruised week after week, month after month,
seeking the key to Arundel's map. "I can only tell
you," he had said, "that there are two bays, very much
alike, separated by high sand-dunes. The bay to the
north is marked, where it bites deepest into the desert,
by a kind of granite monolith that you can see for miles.
It must be fifty feet high, and looks like an obelisk in
the making. The trail starts a little to the north of
this, and then you can apply the map, and it will tell
you more than I can."
We happened to be seated, grumbling and smoking,
between two such bays as Arundel had described. But
they were not the first pair we had found, nor the
second. The whole coast was pitted with semicircular
bays, and it had been no great trick to discover pair
after pair as like as the eyes in a man's head. The
trick was to find one single, solitary needle of granite.
And in that we had dismally failed. Indeed, in the
course of a hundred landings at various points we had
not found so much as one pebble bigger than a robin's
egg. There was nothing but sand; there wasn't even
sandstone. The only big, hard things were abalone
shells that had been washed ashore. To have continued
6
THE FOOTPRINT
so long to hunt for a granite monolith in a region
which emphatically denied the possibility of its con-
taining one was a reflection upon the intelligence of
all concerned.
Morgridge, who was near-sighted and never without
his binoculars, lay on his belly and elbows, listlessly fol-
lowing the gambols of a porpoise-school in the waters
of the northern bay. He remarked that the sight cooled
him. Meff, with his eye on the tide, said that he was
sorry to say we could get back to work in about twenty
minutes; Hawes and Crisp were quarrelling desultorily
over a game of piquet, in which was involved the filthiest,
most dog's-eared pack of cards I ever saw. "I said
you had point," said Crisp; "shut up and go on."
"Tierce to the king, twice," said Hawes, not with any
great hope. "You saw the discard," said Crisp, "I
only took one card; you must know that I've got the
knave quint in diamonds. It's awfully damn dull play-
ing with you. I have to tell you everything." "Yes,
you're the whole show," said Hawes. "Everybody
knows that." The voices of the two, if sarcastic, were
listless, and neither seemed capable of raising more than
a shadow of resentment in the other. "Lead, fool,"
said Hawes quietly. "Twenty-one, Pinhead," retorted
Crisp, and he led with the king of spades.
"Boys," said Morgridge suddenly, " there s a junk
heading into the bay."
7
THE FOOTPRINT
II
THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW UMBRELLA
The waters of the Gulf of California are rarely sailed;
the shores more rarely tramped. Of the region's
shadows no one is cast by the hand of the law. Diogenes
would find there no honest face in which to shine his
lantern. There men with itching palms, and pasts that
clamor of unsuccess, voyage now and then in ill-formed
craft, drawn by rumors. To some the inland mountains
have yielded metals; now and then a lucky crew are
enticed along a wake of ambrosial sweetness, to find
in the waters a lump of ambergris that floats in the rain-
bow colors of its self-exuded oil, and is more precious
than gold. From beneath the waters now and then are
fished up bright and heavy pearls, orient, and abalone.
But of the crews that go there is one that comes back
with treasure, the mother of rumors, there are two that
come back with nothing but scurvy, and there are seven
that do not come back at all.
Only Chinamen, light of appetite and clean to the last
nail, can long endure the climate, and only the Chinese
expeditions strike an average of success. But in those
unpoliced waters a junk of Chinamen is a thing for
white men to avoid. It is a devil, sea-buffeting, and,
before the wind, swift. It is filled with cheap lives, it
8
THE FOOTPRINT
is full of greed, full of rifles, and formidable in patience
and surprise.
That the crew of the junk now rounding the northern
horn of the northern bay, perhaps a half-mile distant,
would not soon discover us among the shadows and
hollows of the dunes, was probable; and, of course, the
schooner was completely screened from the most alert
eye by the whole mass of the promontory which divided
one bay from the other. But it was also probable that
in the course of time the junk would round that screen
and become unpreventably interested in our private
affairs: interested surely, and perhaps involved. For
if the junk's captain thought that we had anything that
he wanted, he would try to take it. But not at once.
There would pass between the junk and the schooner
very ceremonious and courteous greetings, and the junk
would lumber away as if intent upon some far-off
destiny. But she would not go very far; just out of
sight around the next corner, and she would come back;
not the same night, when all of us would be watching,
nor the night after, when half of us would be still nervous
enough to keep awake, but later by several nights, and
at her own well-chosen and sudden time. She had
a crew, probably of at least twenty-five, with a rifle,
knife, and revolver apiece; she had a little machine-
gun, probably. Surely she had no morals.
To the naked eye the junk presented little but a
9
THE FOOTPRINT
color scheme, and it needed a turn at the binoculars to
see faces and details. The color scheme, like that of
all junks, was a sincere if misguided effort to achieve
the beautiful. Her body was painted indigo blue; the
square sail by which she was drawn slowly into the
bay was pure vermilion. And aft some one had spread,
to keep off the sun, a bright yellow umbrella.
From a brazier in the bow of the junk rose a tottering
thread of bluish smoke, and beside the brazier (all this
through the glass) stood a lofty Chinaman. He was
nearly naked, and absolutely expressionless; a splendid-
ly moulded, utterly lifeless statue of brownish-yellow
clay. An enormous brass cymbal dangled by a thong
from each of his wrists. The inanimate cymbals were
the only things about him that moved. Amidships was
a circle of half-naked men, squatting, gesticulating, and
articulating, who seemed intent upon something in their
midst. We hazarded that it was a game of fan-tan.
In the stern, only a little less statuesque (because of
more drapery) than the man in the bow, stood the helms-
man, his hands clasped about the grip of a twelve-foot
indigo oar, whose blade, half immersed, followed in the
junk's wake like the dorsal fin of a shark. A little in
front, and to one side of the helmsman, was spread the
yellow umbrella. Under it was seated, cross-legged, a
Chinaman, mountainous with robes and fat. He was
more than a detail and, except for his umbrella, less
10
THE FOOTPRINT
than a complete tone of the junk's color scheme. His
voluminous robes, mauvely and greenly brocaded with
indistinguishable patterns, were of the richest and dark-
est blue imaginable. He exuded an atmosphere of
ruches. You knew at once that he was many times a
millionaire. You knew, too, that he had lived well, and
revolved among pleasant episodes and people. There
was an expression upon his face that I have never
before seen upon the face of an Oriental — jollity.
Through the glass we could see that from time to time
he smiled, a broad appreciative smile, begotten doubt-
less of some sudden, transient thought. And whenever
he smiled he twirled the handle of the yellow umbrella
with his fat fingers. On his head was a little blue cap
terminated by a large green button. Occasionally he
fanned himself with a little round fan.
The junk's course was a long curve, parallel to that
of the shore, and as close to it as the shelving nature of
the beach would safely allow. As she was steered more
and more to the starboard her big vermilion sail began
to shut off our view of the stern and to cast its shadow
over the fan-tan players. The helmsman and the man
with the yellow umbrella disappeared, and as the junk
veered more and more a funny fat little vermilion
dinghy came into sight, trailed by a rope off her port
quarter. The breeze had now sunk to a series of mild,
unconnected puffs, and the junk's progress was very
11
THE FOOTPRINT
slow. She had covered half of the bay's curve, and
was distant from us perhaps a quarter of a mile, when
suddenly the man in the bow raised his cymbals and
brought them together. As the cymbals separated for
a second stroke, the clanging, brassy crash of the first
concussion reached our ears; and with it a chorus of
piercing minor falsetto notes from the fan-tan players,
who had risen to their feet.
The junk swung more and more, and the yellow um-
brella began to detach itself from the lower port corner
of the vermilion sail. Two men ran forward to the
anchor, and as the junk came into the wind and to the
end of her momentum let it go with a fine splash. The
junk's stern now faced the shore, and the man with
the yellow umbrella rose and waddled to the rail. The
little round fan disappeared up one of his voluminous
sleeves, and from the same receptacle he drew what
appeared to be a double-ended purse, well filled. This
he flung into the water — a golden sacrifice, we learned
later, to the gods who had given him leave to pass across
their sea. Then he waddled forward, and, seating him-
self on the rail, swung his legs and the skirt of his robe
outboard, dropped heavily into the dinghy, and precipi-
tately seated himself. He was followed by the junk's
helmsman, who, having cast loose, dipped with a long
paddle, and directed the overladen craft toward the
shore. The clashing of the cymbals and the chorus of
12
THE FOOTPRINT
falsetto wails, which had never ceased, now redoubled
in ardor and tempo, and as suddenly stopped when the
dinghy bumped against the beach, and the man with
the yellow umbrella clambered heavily over her bow and
stood upon the shore.
He turned and watched the greatly lightened dinghy
as she returned, powerfully driven, to the junk, and was
swung aboard. He stood, a rotund, mauve, and blue
glory under his yellow umbrella, and watched the lower-
ing of the junk's sail. He did not move a muscle, only
when the junk's anchor was raised and she, under the
impulse of long sweeps that appeared mysteriously from
her sides, began to crawl forward like a huge blue spider
with legs, and turning to return upon her course, he
produced his little round fan and fanned himself. But
until the junk disappeared behind the northern horn of
the bay he did not make any other motion, or take his
eyes from her.
Then, however, he pivoted heavily and, waddling
in a slow but determined manner, crossed the beach,
his gorgeous brocades blazing and sparkling in the
sun as their folds and surfaces shifted and rippled
with his motion, and his right hand working the
little round fan, and his left supporting the yellow
umbrella, he began to mount, slow and determined,
the tumbling desert dunes of sand that stood behind
the beach. Up these and into them bobbed the yellow
13
THE FOOTPRINT
umbrella until, after one last bobbing, it disappeared
from view.
"I'm going to find out where he's going," said Mor-
gridge.
We fetched our rifles from the schooner and, reclimb-
ing the promontory, in a body descended to the beach
on the other side, and followed it to the point where its
smooth surface was broken at right angles by the deeply
marked footprints of the fat Chinaman.
Ill
RENEWED FAITH
We followed the track up into the dunes, with Mor-
gridge leading by twenty feet and Hawes bringing up
the rear. Meff and I, making jocular efforts to bur-
row aids to ascending locomotion from each other,
"scrapped" along in the middle. I had hooked a sur-
reptitious finger into Meff's belt, and thereby lightened
myself during one entire step, when (it was just as Meff
secured his release by planting an elbow in the pit of
my stomach) suddenly Morgridge, who had reached to
the higher levels of the dunes, ejaculated sharply and
sprang out of sight. We scrambled briskly, all four
of us, to be in the know, and found him, his thumbs in
his armpits, a smile on his face (a jocosely assumed
14
THE FOOTPRINT
attitude of low comedy), and his right foot planted high
upon the curve of a gigantic weather-worn pillar of
granite that lay in and out of the sand.
"Morgridge," said he, "that great leader in the act of
discovering Arundel's landmark, and proving to a
sceptical world that Arundel was not a liar. My God I
boys," he cried, his expression shifting from one of low
comedy to one of uncontainable greed and excitement.
"My God! boys, we've as good as got 'em."
"The damn thing," said Crisp, "has fallen down,
and that's why we couldn't see it. Kick it; somebody
with stout shoes."
"Don't kick it," said Meff, "it's a good landmark to
get itself found." He stooped and patted the monolith
as one pats a good dog.
"Now this is where it stood," said Morgridge, "and
Arundel's map says the course is due east from the
pedestal.
"Direction due east," said Hawes, "and distance
forty miles."
Attached to my watch-guard was a very accurate
little compass set in striped tiger's eyes, a boyhood relic
from Petoskey, Michigan. I looked from this to the
tracks made by the fat Chinaman, and found that,
having approached the fallen monolith from a little
south of west, he had, on reaching its former base,
veered a little and pointed his steps due east. Running
15
THE FOOTPRINT
my eyes along the line indicated, I had presently a
glimpse, very far off, of the yellow umbrella bobbing
deeper and deeper into the arid, scorching desert.
"Surely," I said, "our fat friend is going where we
are going, but he won't do any forty miles in one clip.
There must be stopping-places that Arundel missed."
"I believe you," said Morgridge. "We've only to
follow the yellow umbrella."
"And when night comes?" objected Crisp.
"Stars," said Hawes, "stars enough to find this
trail."
We laughed, because the very depth of the fat China-
man's footprints recalled his humorous rotundity and
the waddling, self-satisfied dignity of his gait.
"He will know where to find food and water," said
Morgridge.
"Seriously, though," said Meff, "is it possible that
he should really be entering upon a forty-mile walk in
this heat — at his size?"
"Come along," said Morgridge.
"His food shall be my food," said Meff; "where he
rests will I rest, his drink shall be my drink, and bis
rubies "
"Shall be divided by lot," said Crisp.
We took up the trail, floundering heavily, and making
slow way of it. We were unused to walking; the at-
mosphere at the surface of the desert fumed and gyrated
16
THE FOOTPRINT
in the heat. The sun, now west of the zenith, lay upon
the back like a garment of fire. Our sweat laved the
unfertile sand. We had not, after the first quarter of a
mile, a single joke or happy thought left among us.
At first we gained upon the yellow umbrella, and had
the fat Chinaman looked over his shoulder there were
times when he must have seen us; but he was intent
upon his journey, and waddled eastward at a rate which
was unpleasant to equal, and so difficult to exceed that
we were soon content not to.
He preceded us by half a mile; in that atmosphere it
had the effect of less; and he never swerved from his
course, nor glanced to the right or the left. If my
sweat-stung eyes had been keen for beauty, I should
have admired inordinately the gorgeousness of color
made against the silver desert by the blue robes and
yellow umbrella of our celestial friend. But I was
beneath admiring, and noticed only, and I do not know
why, that, as the sun descended lower from the zenith,
the umbrella was tilted further and further to interrupt
its scorching rays, so that first the Chinaman's head
disappeared behind its lower rim, then his shoulders,
and then his trunk to the waist.
Thus passed a number of hours, but not the limits
of that fat Chinaman's endurance and patience.
Momentarily I expected to see the yellow umbrella turn
to right or left and halt at some cache of water and
17
THE FOOTPRINT
food. But we were destined to enjoy no such blessed
nepenthe that day.
Serenely and indomitably bobbed the yellow um-
brella, carrying its oval of shadow over innumerable
desert miles. From a slender crescent it became a full
orbit that flamed in the rays of the setting sun.
"We must get nearer before dark," said Morgridge,
and he set up a herculean example of progress. But
the fat Chinaman, whom we had laughed at for his
labored waddling, began now to stand in our jaded
minds for the very acme and poetry of motion. By
dusk we respected him; but by dark, though we had
gained a quarter of a mile and wished ourselves dead,
we pronounced him, petticoats and fat considered, the
most wonderful walker that the world had ever known.
At dark he lowered his umbrella, and for a time we
lost sight of him. But as the stars brightened we could
follow his deep steps, and had presently a sight of him,
his robes silvery in the starlight, and perceived that he
had faced about and was coming toward us.
Breathing quickly, but utterly fearless, he waddled
into our midst.
"I come all the way back," he said, "to say I go
altogether forty miles without no stop. I think it very
fine courteous action to take all this trouble for strange
gentlemen. You like to come all the way, I say nothing,
none of my damn business. Only stop to tell you very
18
THE FOOTPRINT
far away, all the way nasty sand. I very fine rich China
merchant, and know how to give very fine courteous
advices. You rest little while and go back. I go on
now, and wish you very fine pleasant evening and return
journey."
He turned and waddled away.
"Hold on," said Morgridge, "we're going with you."
The fat Chinaman paused and considered.
"Very well," he said, "we all travel together, more
or less pleasant way to travel. Only I very clever,
experienced fine traveller, and not put up with
no complaints and damn swearing Like pleas-
ant conversation and all good friends. We go
along two miles in an hour, and by and by finish
journey. You walk along by me" — he pointed to
me with his fat finger. "You got very fine respect-
able face."
"My friends," I said with a bow, "have not had my
advantages."
"Rascals?" asked the fat Chinaman. "Introduce
their names."
I presented the four, and said my own name.
"My name Sang Ti — very fine, revered, damn name,"
said the merchant. "But like fine poet says of time,
'she flies.'"
I walked forward beside him, not knowing whether
to laugh at the jovial absurdity of the gentleman who
19
THE FOOTPRINT
had given me a character, or to cry because his indefati-
gable waddle was so hard to breast.
"You sweat much ?" he asked in a friendly, interested
tone.
IV
SANG TI
"Do you often go where you are going?" I asked.
' ' Go now for first time," said Sang Ti. " Chen Chan
very fine old sacred holy place to end days in."
"You don't expect to end your days at Ch — Chen —
Chan?" I asked. "Do you?"
"Oh, yes, before long. You see, I am dedicate from
little boy to the High Gods. I am requested to have
very fine high successful happy life, through intercession
of parents and promises to the High Gods. All is ac-
complish. I go high up; lead a very fine benevolent
life; accumulate very large fortune; do everything just
right; and now must pay up promises made for me to
the High Gods by parents."
The moon had risen, and the desert was as if flooded
with quicksilver and ink. Sang Ti turned his fat, jolly
face, beaded with sweat, and beamed at me. He thrust
a hand under the silk cord that girdled him at the waist.
"On forty-fifth day of birth," he said, "I hand over
this cord to priest of the High Gods; and he hand over
20
THE FOOTPRINT
to me to hold the ruby box and holy shark tooth; and
I think a little while of the insignificance of life, and am
soon strangled by priest. Then I have paid up."
"Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, "that you are
taking all this trouble to get yourself strangled?"
"The promises of parents," said he, "now dead, is
very fine holy sort of thing, not to be broken. I will
arrange to have you and your friends see the strangling.
It will be very interesting, dignified occurrence."
Though Sang Ti enjoyed, for a Chinaman, a very
large command of the English language, I was conclud-
ing that he either could not possibly know what he was
talking about, or that he was making an elaborate effort
to "string" me, when, with the tail of my eye, I caught
him in the act of feeling his throat, very tenderly, with
a fat thumb and forefinger. His face for the moment
wore an expression of wonder mixed with panic. But
in a moment it passed, and with a sudden laugh he
lowered his hand.
"You are considering me very practical joker," he
said, " but I give you very honest man's word that being
strangled at forty-five is very damn miserable joke. I
am, however, a very fine philosopher."
"What's the holy shark tooth?" I asked.
"Him not too good to touch," said Sang Ti. "He
take care of ruby box."
We labored on in silence, and the moon sailed higher
21
THE FOOTPRINT
and higher in the heavens. A faint, hot breeze arose
and blew in our faces.
"The night 1 ' said Sang Ti, "is a Nubian empress;
her robes are sewed with diamonds; the moon is a gong
of silver; the sand is the ashes of broken words/'
"Are you making that up, or translating?'' I asked.
"The wind, : he said, "is some very fine high god
sighing. I fancy Liang Tsang."
"Who is he?"
"Liang Tsang a yellow elephant by daylight, but by
night-time a very potent, strong god that blows around
the world. He a breeze when he sigh, and a wind when
he groan."
"Isn't he happy?" I asked. "Why does he sigh
and groan?"
"Because he an exile. He can blow everywhere but
not over China. But when the end of the world ap-
proaches it is promised him that for one day in the spring
of year he shall be a violet, with roots in fertile soil of
Shan-tung. It a saying of us, 'Keep your promises,
for the day approaches when Liang Tsang shall be a
violet in the fields of Shan-tung, and the perverted shall
be divided among a thousand thousand hells.'"
"Does your creed embrace so many hells?" I
asked.
"Oh, yes," he said simply, "or what could be done
with all Caucasian and European races? In China-
22
THE FOOTPRINT
man's creed there is very satisfactory place provided
for everybody."
"The policy of the open door?" I suggested.
"Open to go in," he said, "and shut to go out."
I looked over my shoulder and saw that our company
had begun to straggle badly. Only Meff and Morgridge
were in easy speaking distance; Crisp was two hundred
yards behind them, and another hundred yards sep-
arated Hawes and Crisp. As I looked, Morgridge
called to me to stop.
He came up, followed by Meff, exhausted, angry, and
completely blown.
"This not a proper time to stop," said Sang Ti.
" I tell you before, too long a walk for you gentlemen.
I see at once you not well bred for travelling. With me
it very different matter. I come of very fine old stock;
I am descended in straight recorded line from a camel
and a shark. Must get a long way before morning;
cooler now."
"We'll halt now," said Morgridge in an arrant, angry,
bullying voice. "See ? "
"I got no time," said Sang Ti. "You not able to
come, I go alone, wishing you first very pleasant halt
and subsequent journey."
"No you don't," said Morgridge, "you don't lose
this crowd — not in this desert. You'll rest, yourself, till
we're ready to go on."
23
THE FOOTPRINT
Sang Ti stood his umbrella Into the sand, and turned
back the borders of his sleeves.
"You," he said to Morgridge, "are very uncivil, lazy,
selfish damn rascal, and you, too."
He stood between Morgridge and Meff, looking
quickly from one to the other.
"You interfere with Chinese gentleman, he teach you
more respectable damn manners." So saying, and just
as Crisp was coming up, he seized Morgridge and Meff
by the backs of their necks and began to knock their
heads together. He finished the lesson of courtesy by
suddenly jerking in opposite directions and letting go.
Meff fell in his tracks, but Morgridge, dropping his
rifle, staggered for a long distance before he came to
ground.
With a silvery laugh Sang Ti regained his umbrella
and waddled away.
"I'll kill the dog," yelled Morgridge, springing with
blazing eyes for the rifle which had been shaken from
his hand.
"No," said Crisp. And as Morgridge sprang for the
rifle he hooked his foot and threw him heavily. Then
he sat on him.
Morgridge, with all the strength thrashed and pressed
out of him, could only wriggle and swear obscurely in a
whining voice. He was on the verge of tears.
I am far from suspecting Sang Ti of the fear of death,
24
THE FOOTPRINT
but he reserved to himself the choice of its manner, and
had dropped in conversation the hint that he was very
earnest to be strangled. Anyway, though the desert
was flooded with light from the setting moon, he disap-
peared from view in a wonderfully short time; and we
(who were five fools) slept in our tracks while the night
waned, and woke to see the dawn stream up behind the
eastern rim of the desert like a conflagration.
I shall not soon forget the horrible march that then
began, straight into the molten furnace eye of the sun.
Whatever of moisture was in us was sucked out through
the pores of our scorching hides and turned into dust.
We felt ourselves grow light. All the constituents which
had made human beings of us began to diminish except
two: pain swelled in our brains, and in our mouths, our
tongues. The heat that we had endured on the coast
was temperate compared to the blasts of that inland desert.
We would have laid down and died, or some of us
would (Meff was forever suggesting it) if very early in the
morning we had not been led by the Chinaman's tracks to
the top of a long rise, from which could be seen, far in the
distance, what looked like purple feathers stuck into the
sand on the further length of apiece of broken mirror, and
which we knew to be trees growing by a lake. Indeed,
specks of scarlet gleamed among the feathers, and we
guessed that they were roofs upon the habitations of men.
Forward we went, and downward for an hour, and
25
THE FOOTPRINT
then upward, until once more we could see the trees
and the lake and the roofs. But they seemed no nearer
than before. And all day it was so.
We began what was to be our last, long ascent. Dur-
ing it the sun sank so low that our shadows reached the
top an hour before our bodies. But the trees then and
the lake had been drawn wonderfully nearer.
At our feet was spread the lake, shaped roughly like
a vast human foot, and beyond it among the trees we
could see pagoda-shaped buildings and, going and
coming, long-robed Chinamen, and little children and
dogs. We could hear the dogs. And as the dusk deep-
ened, braziers began to twinkle palely here and there.
It was dark when we reached the lake, and, casting
aside our weapons and watches, plunged into it, and
felt the water rush in through our pores and begin to
rebuild our wasted tissues and make rounded men of
us once more. After a while, chin-deep immersed in
deliciousness, with the rapture of hooked fish that have
been returned to their element, we began to drink.
CHEN CHAN
We walked, dripping, around the end of the lake, and
in close order, with weapons handy, for we did not know
what reception to expect, passed down an avenue of
26
THE FOOTPRINT
ragged travellers' palms, and reached the first house of
the single-streeted settlement. In the doorway of the
house, smoking a long thick-stemmed pipe, sat Sang Ti.
The water still running from our clothes, we drew up
before him.
"Everybody gone to bed except me," was his greeting.
" I of opinion that life too short now for sleep. Now sup-
pose you look about a bit, and go back home. Priest say
this very unhealthy place for white men . Only other white
visitor name Arundel; some low damn thieving rascal.
Priest say, if you come up, to say better go way again."
"How many people live here?" asked Morgridge in
a voice which he strove to make civil.
"Maybe about thirty," said Sang Ti.
"Thirty men?" I asked.
"Oh, no," he said, "all kinds."
"You see," I said, "we couldn't go back right off.
We couldn't walk a mile more to save our souls. We'll
have to rest a bit."
"Priest not like that," said Sang Ti; "but never
mind. Suppose all stay except that old rascal." He
indicated Morgridge with his pipe stem.
"I guess we'll all stay," said Crisp firmly.
"All that contrary to rules," objected Sang Ti. " But
all same contrary to rules to use force; so what can do ?
Why you come, anyhow? Maybe you come to steal
very fine High God's ruby box?"
27
THE FOOTPRINT
His eyes twinkled from one guilt-confessing face to
the next, and he chuckled.
"Suppose, yes," he said, "and suppose you make
off with ruby box, and suppose you go a little
way and that uncivil rascal" — again he pointed to
Morgridge — "feel sudden pain and die, and then that
man "
"My name is Crisp," said Crisp.
"Suppose then that man Crisp feel sudden pain and
die, and so on. You think not very nice ? Ruby box
have live in Chen Chan for maybe two thousand years.
Chen Chan oldest settlement in America. Very High
God Liang Tsang cross desert one time, and have to put
foot down once. That make very fine lake. All same
time he drop ruby box and holy shark's tooth, and pretty
soon he cross ocean, and see junk of China fisher-
men. And he blow into junk's sail, and she go
ashore and break to pieces; and all the China fisher-
men and wives crosses desert, and stops at lake and
builds temple for ruby box and shark's tooth, and
then makes one man priest, and builds little holy
village and call her Chen Chan. That mean in Eng-
lish 'The Footprint.'"
"Do many people come here?" I asked.
"Arundel," said he, "and he get away. That be-
cause he drop ruby box. Others have come never get
away. First come Mexicans, five hundred years ago;
28
THE FOOTPRINT
then some Spanish men, and then Arundel, and then
you. And I tell you better go back, and leave very
High Holy God's ruby box alone."
"Could we go to-morrow ?" I asked. "We've got to
have food and rest."
"Well, suppose you stop in house" — he pointed into
the dark doorway — "and not disturb meditation any
longer. Maybe you find some food," he went on.
"And by and by, in the morning, you go away."
"Couldn't we wait till night?" I asked. "It's cooler
going at night."
" I tell you," he said, "you wait till after strangulation,
which takes place ten o'clock sharp. Then you go."
"If you are going to be strangled to-morrow," I said,
"you are the calmest-minded man in this world."
"Between you and me," he said, "I think one very
damn miserable business; but parents make promise,
and what can do?"
He made himself as small as he could in the doorway,
so that we could squeeze past him into the dark house.
It had but one room; and by good luck and much feeling
we found in one corner a vast bowl of cold-boiled rice.
Crisp dragged it into the middle of the room, and, dip-
ping with our hands, we gorged ourselves, and one by
one toppled over and slept.
I was wakened by Crisp. It was broad daylight.
"What," said Crisp, "is all this talk about strangling?
29
THE FOOTPRINT
Is he using a word that he thinks means something else ?
I've been having dreams about it all night."
"The whole thing's like a dream," I said; "but I
believe, as I believe in — well, in hell — that Sang Ti
expects to be put to death this morning. What time
is it?"
"Nine o'clock," said Crisp. We waked the others,
and among us finished the boiled rice. We had scarcely
done so when, from outside, came suddenly the sound
of persistent pounding on a brass gong.
We crowded out of the house to find the twenty-five
or thirty inhabitants of the village — men, women, and
children — in a group in the street, intent upon some-
thing that was approaching from its further end. We
stood aloof from the little crowd, who, if they were aware
of our presence, gave no sign, and craned our necks, to
see what was coming.
It was Sang Ti, waddling along under his yellow um-
brella and fanning himself. Behind him followed an
emaciated Chinaman in flowing gray silk. It was the
latter who was pounding on the gong.
As the procession passed the inhabitants of the village,
all the inhabitants turned as if on one pivot to follow it.
And a moment later our heads turned in the same way.
Sang Ti, with a jolly, contented expression, and
looking neither to the right nor the left, having reached
a point a little beyond where we were standing, turned
30
THE FOOTPRINT
and came back, always followed by the man in gray with
the persistently pounded gong. This passage of the
two up and down the village street was repeated many
times without variation. But it was not till the third
trip that we noticed anything further about the man in
gray. Then we noticed, all of us at the same moment,
that his little green cap suddenly loosened about his
head, rose, perhaps half an inch, made a fraction of a
revolution, and settled back.
Hitherto the procession had struck me as grotesque if
not precisely humorous, believing, as I did, that Sang
Ti's contented expression was muscular and not mental,
but the sudden moving, without apparent agency, of
the green cap, was horrible. It gave me the idea, I do
not know why, that the cap concealed something that
was alive and unclean.
The procession and the gong-beating was continued
until nearly ten o'clock. Then, as Sang Ti made his
usual turn just below where we were standing, the gong
ceased and was followed by a silence peculiarly ac-
cented. Sang Ti passed up the street, followed by the
man in gray, whose cap suddenly moved again, and by
the whole population of the village, even the chow dogs.
And we, as unnoticed as if we had been invisible,
made haste to follow in the wake.
The yellow umbrella halted in front of a dark-red
pagoda of stained and carved wood. Sang Ti furled it
31
THE FOOTPRINT
and thrust it, point down, into the sand at one side of the
steps that led into the pagoda. Then he passed through
the door, and we could see, as the steps elevated him,
that with his hands he was unfastening the silk cord
which girdled his waist.
Inside the pagoda, or temple, there was not much light.
We found ourselves in a high-ceilinged red room about
forty by thirty. At the upper end, on a high granite
pedestal, sat a hideous bronze god, blurred by smoke
which rose from a blue-and-white bowl on his knees.
Against the walls of the place were ranged long poles
of polished teak, finished at their tops with enormous
images, scroll-sawed out of shining brass; masks,
roosters, turtles, scorpions, dragons, and strange fruits.
Immediately in front of the pedestalled god, and
facing us, sat Sang Ti in a vast teakwood chair. He
continued to wear his jolly, contented expression, but
allowed his eyes to rest on no one.
The chair in which he sat had the central panel of
its back prolonged, so that its top extended several
inches above his head and projected on either side.
This back piece was pierced to the top with two series
of holes, each about an inch in diameter, parallel to
each other and perhaps six inches apart. It looked
like an enormous cribbage board.
Sang Ti handed his silk cord to the man in gray, and
the latter, thrusting its ends through two convenient
32
THE FOOTPRINT
and opposite holes, and stepping behind the chair,
drew them until the half loop of the cord lay loosely
across Sang Ti's throat.
Then he knotted the loose ends, and, producing in
some sleight-of-hand manner a golden casket incrusted
with rubies of all qualities, from pigeon blood to pale
pink, placed it in Sang Ti's hands. Sang Ti lowered
his eyes and examined the casket. A very slight shiver
passed through his fat frame, and he shifted his feet
uneasily.
The priest now thrust under the knot at the back of
the loop a long, heavy rod of stained ivory, and gave it
a quick twist from left to right. The loose loop became
tight across Sang Ti's throat, and at a second twist half
disappeared in his flesh.
A horrid choking noise was forced from his half-open
mouth, and he shot at me a sudden look of heart-
breaking appeal that brought my rifle to my shoulder.
But I was not so quick as Morgridge. In that con-
fined place the crack of his rifle was like the detonation
of a small cannon. The place filled with smoke and
the sound of scurrying feet.
We gathered about Sang Ti when the smoke envelop-
ing him had lifted, and found that the bullet meant for
the strangler had been aimed too low. The top of
Sang Ti's skull was split down the middle, and only the
loosened cords kept him from falling forward. But the
33
THE FOOTPRINT
bullet, nevertheless, had done its appointed work, for
the priest lay behind the chair, shot through the dia-
phragm, and a great red stain was spreading over the
front of his gray robes.
And now a very horrid thing happened. From under
the priest's cap, loosened by the fall, crawled a little dust-
colored snake with a venomous head, and ran at Mor-
gridge. Morgridge struck at the reptile with the butt
of his rifle, but not quickly enough. He screamed as its
fang pierced his boot, and fell to the floor as if struck
by a thunderbolt.
The snake, turning, darted for the pedestal on which
the god sat, but not in time wholly to escape the butt of
Crisp's rifle. Dragging a broken tail it disappeared
into a crack between the pedestal and the floor.
We looked at Morgridge. He was purple, horrible.
He might havp been dead for a week. Then we ran —
God, how we ran — through the village and out into the
desert. We ran until Meff began to call from far in the
rear that he could run no more. We waited till he
came up, and hated him for delaying us. But when
we found that even in the first burst of panic he had
had the presence of mind to snatch the ruby box, we
began to praise him and clap him on the back.
We passed it from hand to hand and wondered what
the rubies would bring.
'" I think Arundel overrated them," I said.
34
THE FOOTPRINT
"Yes," said Meff. "But aren't some of them corkers ?
Look at that fellow."
"The light-pink ones," said Hawes, "aren't worth
much more than glass."
"It ought to bring fifty thousand," I said. "See
what's inside."
Hawes found the catch, and, as he raised the lid,
suddenly screamed and flung the box high into the air.
Over and over it turned, and there whirled free from
it a little snake, and the two fell at a distance from each
other. But the fate of that snake was sudden; turn and
dart as he would, bullet after bullet grazed him and
tossed him on spurts of sand. He was torn to pieces
in five seconds, and we turned to Hawes. He had
found the time to thrust his bitten finger into his mouth,
and that was all. He was dead as a stone.
VI
CRISP AND MEFF
The first impulse of us three survivors was once more
to bolt. But where, or to what purpose ? About and
about were the scorching undulations of desert. Behind
the ill-omened visage of Chen Chan, where death lurked
under men's caps and in the reliquaries of their gods.
Ahead, but so far that it could not be reached by any
35
THE FOOTPRINT
sudden panic-born effort, lay the ocean and escape. It
we were to get away at all it could only be by slow-sus-
tained exertion, directed by the quiet mind. I think
Meff was the first to realize this.
"I think," he said, "that we had better rest for a few
minutes."
"We ought to bury poor Hawes," said Crisp. But
one glance at the violet bloated corpse was enough.
No man with a stomach could have handled it. There
was left upon it no trace of a comrade through many
vicissitudes. Personality, that so often fingers after
death and so long resists the chemistry of the grave, was
gone from it, and had left nothing of the friend. The
eyes were repelled, and the muscles, that might have
scraped a hollow in the sands, were turned to water.
The ruby casket lay at a distance. Meff caught it up
(not before a cautious examination with the muzzle of
his rifle), and we did not sit down to rest until we had
placed along undulation of the desert between us and
the corpse of Hawes.
Our situation called for discussion. Whether to
strike circuitously for the broad track which we had
made in coming, or directly for the sea; whether to push
through in one frantic march, so as to keep the start
already made over possible pursuit; or to rest betimes,
one to watch while two slept, and to trust to our rifles
in case of attack by the looted villagers. We agreed,
36
THE FOOTPRINT
finally, to find our way to the schooner by compass
rather than waste time by tedious indirections, and if
we had the endurance, as we surely had the impulse,
to make one march of it. We thought by so doing to
have suffered less in the end. These matters being
ordered, we got to our feet and set our faces to the west.
For the first hour Meff carried the ruby casket; but
after that, for it was heavy and, having no handles, an
akward package, we took turns. It was wonderful,
and turn by turn we noticed it, what a handicap that
small lump of treasure proved to the locomotion of the
individual who carried it. Invariably he fell behind,
with lagging legs, and at heart a petulance that under-
mined his resolution to go on. Had the carrier of it
alone been to consult it would soon have been aban-
doned by the way. Its value was problematical. In
the ultimate distribution of the gems incrusting it we
were sure to be cheated, and meanwhile it was awkward
to hold, heavy to carry, and a diminisher of speed.
Of our subsequent march that day there is nothing to
record but weariness, until about an hour before sun-
down there was formed, by those agencies of nature which
play tricks with the eyes of men, far to the north, a
mirage. We beheld against the sky a range of the desert
across which, his grass-green robes girded about his
loins, there moved upon a course parallel with our own
the wavering, yet distinct and gigantically magnified,
37
THE FOOTPRINT
image of a Chinaman. We had but a minute's view
of him, vast and shadowy, like a storm cloud, or some
vengeful and evil genius out of a dream, and then,
presto, the desert refractions altered and the image
vanished. For the first time in our desert wanderings,
either going in or coming out, we felt cold — cold to the
marrow. That the vast size of the Chinaman was an
hallucination we knew, but we knew also that an actual
man must have been the basis for the magnification,
that his course was parallel to our own, and his sudden
appearance in the heavens an illegible but disquieting
portent. Had but one man of Chen Chan had the hatred
to dog our steps? Or had a council decreed that to
wrest the casket and perhaps our lives from us but one
man was necessary ? If the latter, and a certain fateful
significance in the mirage impelled us to adopt it, what
occult power could he possess to hold our vigilance and
our rifle practice so cheap? And might we not with
certainty look for him to strike in that hour of darkness
which would precede the rising of the moon ? In one
presumption only was there any grain of comfort: that,
forebodings notwithstanding, he might be, like Sang Ti,
a solitary desert voyager intent upon a destiny in no way
commingled with our own. But conscience told us
that this was far-fetched presumption, and we moved
uneasily forward, with roving and scared eyes.
To have been witness to, and part of, so many shock'
38
THE FOOTPRINT
ing deaths; to be bearing the fruits of an unjustifiable
theft; and to have for accompaniment to our march a
fateful and constant, although invisible, presence, was
a torture to the mind and conscience. But it had, too,
the effect of compelling a rate of progress that had
otherwise been impossible, and casting a certain reti-
cence into the demands made upon us by hunger and
thirst.
Well, the dark hour before moonrise came and passed.
Nothing happened. The moon rose, dripping light,
and sailed toward the zenith. Nothing happened. And
we began to believe in such slender promises of security;
to go forward with less determination, and to suffer
acutely from emptiness, parchedness, and fatigue. So
that when Meff made the proposition to rest, and him-
self offered to keep the first watch, Crisp and I were only
too willing. A man is seldom permitted to remember
at just what advance of weariness his mind ceases to
act, and he goes to sleep. But of the present occasion
I seem to remember the exact point. I saw, with an eye
of the mind, the unfortunate Sang Ti sitting in the temple
to be strangled; I heard from Meff a kind of contented
grunt; I shifted my right arm the better to sustain my
head, and at that instant fell asleep.
I was awakened, I think, by the moonlight stealing
under the brim of my hat and shining upon my closed
eyes. I woke, I know, with a kind of dread catching
39
THE FOOTPRINT
at my heart. I sat up and saw that his promise of
vigilance had been beyond Meff's strength to keep. He
lay upon his back with his face completely covered by
his hat. The fingers of his right hand were clasped
tightly about one end of the ruby casket. There were
no grounds for the feeling of dread with which I had
waked. Yet the feeling abode. It was the feeling that
a guilty man has who believes rather than knows that
he is being watched. I looked beyond Meff, across the
desert, and my heart froze. I had seen — I could swear
it — for one fleeting instant, a yellow face that ducked
away behind a near-by ridge of sand.
I seized my rifle and rushed to the point at which it
had vanished. From there I obtained an expansive
view of the desert. But there was no form to show that
a man had been lying in the sand, nor any tracks of feet.
I was mentally staggered, and, after rushing a few
purposeless steps this way and that, returned, thoroughly
dazed, to my companions. The noise of my sudden
upspringing had not disturbed them. They continued
heavily asleep, and had not moved a muscle. Only it
seemed to me that Meff's hat had slipped a little from
his face; and as I looked it actually shifted a little more,
and then — to my horror — it rose a little and settled back.
It was preposterous to think that Meff's quiet breathing
could so move the heavy felt. Then, as if to settle once
for all the agency of the motion, Meff's hand, that had
40
THE FOOTPRINT
been clasped about the ruby casket, went up to his hat
in a kind of petulant way, and removed it.
Whether it was Meff's scream or mine that broke the
silence I shall never know. I only know that I was on
ray feet, wildly firing at a streak of gray that hissed as
it ran and dodged the spurts of sand tossed by the
bullets.
Crisp was on his feet, rifle in hand, staring wildly
about him.
"What is it?" he cried.
"It was under Meff's hat all the time," I shouted
back. "It's the one with the broken tail — that hid
under the altar. That Chinaman is hunting us down
with it," I shouted on; "I tell you he is. Damn him!
We're goners — goners. Look at Meff!"
But it was not good to look at Meff.
"Which way did it go?" said Crisp in a sombre
voice.
"That way," I said. "You can see the track; see
how the broken tail had to drag."
"You missed it — of course."
"Yes," I said, "of course. I nearly got it once.
But I didn't, and that's all there is to it. Except it will
come back. It's following us. It and that Chinaman.
We must hurry now. We must hurry. We mustn't
.stop again, and we must look back all the time."
Crisp stopped and picked up the ruby casket.
41
THE FOOTPRINT
"We must leave that," I said, "it isn't ours, you
know, Crisp. You'll leave it, won't you, Crisp?"
"No," said he. "By God!"
VII
CRISP
But the sun, rising hot upon our backs, found me in
a saner condition than Crisp. For hours he had been
cursing and swearing because he was thirsty; but now
he began to talk with a kind of crazy boastf ulness, saying
that he was not the man to go without water when there
was plenty of it to be had for the mere seeking. He
knew the signs, he said, and as soon as he saw them
would lead me to a spring hole. I needn't be afraid;
he would see to it that I had a good drink. He even
warned me against drinking too fast. "When we
strike water," he said, "you'll be for rushing in and
swigging a bucket, but mind what your uncle says,
and don't. First you want to moisten a rag and suck
it, and when you get used to that you can swallow a
few drops, and then after you begin to swell a bit you
can negotiate your bucket." And so on all the long
hours. His eyes, wide and glassy, roamed the horizon
in search of signs, and toward noon he began to mistake
hillocks of sand for vegetation, and I was obliged to
42
THE FOOTPRINT
join with him in long zigzags that ended in disillusion
and wasted precious time. To have gone against him
in his craziness might have ended murderously. There
was no good in his eye. After a while he began to visit
his disappointments upon me; to curse me because the
green bushes were sand, and to say that I ought to have
told him so in the first place. Several times, too, for he
would not suffer me to carry it, he dropped (impelled,
I think, by a kind of insane mischievousness) the ruby
casket, arid we had to go back for it. It was beyond
patience. But I was not man enough to cross him, or
to say what I thought.
Suddenly he stopped and pointed to the right.
"Well, my boy," he began, "what did I tell you?
Are those green bushes or not ?"
I could see none, but before I could say so he broke
out violently:
"Don't lie to me. Say 'yes' or 'no,' but don't lie.
If you lie," he went on with a very horrid expression,
" I will kill you. Now, then, which is it, bushes or not ? "
It entered my mind to shoot him down, and perhaps
I made a threatening motion. Anyway he sprang at me,
wrenched the rifle from my hands and retreated warily.
"You're gone crazy," he said, and, rather kindly, "a
drop of water'll fix you up. Now you watch out for
that" — here he flung the ruby casket at my feet— "and
I'll go fetch you a drop of water. Sorry you're crazy."
43
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He turned and, like Robinson Crusoe, a gun under
each arm, started away toward his imaginary patch of
green. But was it imaginary — this last patch? Or
was my mind, too, going? It seemed to me at one
moment that there was a patch of green, at the next that
there was not. I stood irresolute, and rubbed my
swollen eyes, blinked, and then made a step or two after
Crisp. But he had developed a wonderful acuteness of
ear, and heard me.
"You stay there," he shouted, "or I'll fix you."
I stood and watched his slow course toward — yes,
it was a patch of green. Of the color I was now as sure
as Crisp had been, but of the substance, no. If it was
vegetation — a sudden fear gagged me for a moment,
and then I shouted to Crisp.
"Look out!" I yelled. "It's silk!"
I saw his head turn and he called to me.
"Water," he called, "it's water."
But it was not water, and Crisp, blinded by his
infatuation, walked straight up to the Chinaman of the
mirage, who, in a girt-up green robe, had risen in his
path. It seemed to me that the Chinaman made a
gesture with his hand, as of a man casting something
quietly on the ground, and then I saw that Crisp had
flung the rifles from him, and was running toward me
with frantic leaps and bounds. He was sane enough
now, poor fellow, and no less aware than I of the gray
44
THE FOOTPRINT
death that struck at his heels. I had one moment of
clear vision. The Chinaman had vanished. With a
scream, that still rings in my ears, and in a shower of
sand, poor Crisp went down, and then there was dark-
ness in my eyes, and I was running, running desperately,
and clasping something heavy to my breast.
In my frenzied panic I must have snatched up the ruby
casket, for when I came to my senses, how much later I
do not know, but soon.forl was still desperately running,
I had it clutched with one aching hand to my breast. I
had been running up a long incline of the desert, but
the impulse of terror came to an end, and I stopped short.
There was no sweat in me to run out; but I glowed and
burned like a furnace, and for a long time my only vision
was a kaleidoscope of crazily swirling white dots. I
looked behind me when my vision had cleared, but there
was nothing to be seen but sand, blazing in the sun.
I climbed then very slowly a few inches to the step,
to the top of the rise, and saw before me, very far, be-
tween hills of sand, segments of the blue and tranquil sea.
VIII
THE CHINAMAN IN GREEN
Had I been alone in the desert I would have had eyes
for nothing but those placid and refreshing stretches of
blue; but it was peopled for me and haunted: by the
45
THE FOOTPRINT
ghosts of comrades, and by the Chinaman in green who
hunted me, and by the broken-tailed snake that he
could loose against me when he conceived that the
hour of his opportunity had struck. I must have cut
a grotesque and horrible figure of fear and caution;
halting to look behind with wild eyes; starting, stop-
ping; sucking at the hot desert air, now breaking for a
few yards into a lumbering run; and now dragging my
feet as if to each there had been riveted a ball and chain.
So a guilty man, and one hounded by fear, might act in
the night-time or the dusk, in a city street, convinced
that in each dark doorway, or behind each corner, the
fearful lurked to spring upon him. But here was I so
acting in broad sunlight, in a region that for miles in
every direction was open to the eye like a book; levelish
and free of cover toward every point of the compass,
and still I advanced, starting, cowering, running, halt-
ing like an actor of melodrama rehearsing a rdleof terror.
The direction that I followed thus stageily intersected
at last the broad trail that our little company had made
on its march to Chen Chan. Here were the deep
footprints of Sang Ti; the shuffled marks of Morgridge's
big feet; Crisp's firm and even tread; Meff's small and
neat impress; the long stride of Hawes; and here I
had gone on well-arched, buoyant feet. Of all that
company I only could now write my progress in the
sands ; I only lived on for a time.
46
THE FOOTPRINT
At another time that broad and tragic spoor nad
turned me aside to break a fresh and unsuggestive path;
but now I had a sense of companionship with it, and
followed it feeling no longer so utterly lonely, afraid, and
alone.
I passed the fallen monolith, and saw in the bay, half
full of tide, the schooner, riding in safety, and the
schooner's boat moored to the beach of the promontory
by a staked oar. On board that schooner was water —
food — home. I had an exhilaration of escaped danger
that lent me wings. I ran along the hard beach toward
the boat and my feet splashed in the advancing rim of
the tide. There was a breeze in my face, and my
fears were blown from me and fell behind. I shouted
as I ran
It was but half a dozen strong strokes to the schooner.
I snatched up the ruby casket from the seat where I
had lain it, and sprang aboard, and found myself face
to face with the Chinaman in green. His robes were
dripping sea water, and there was a kind of smile on
his lips. In one hand, held tenderly as a girl holds a
pet bird, was the little gray snake. White lids covered
its eyes, and its broken tail hung from between his
fingers and dangled listlessly like a bit of string. The
smile on the Chinaman's face wavered and broadened.
There was a kind of friendliness in it. I smiled back
at him. And when he held out his other hand, open, I
47
THE FOOTPRINT
placed in it the ruby casket. And he, gently and
quietly as a girl might slide a necklace into a jewel-box,
slid into it the little gray snake, dead now, for what
reason I know not, and closed the cover with a faint
snap.
I ferried him to the shore, and stood watching him
until he had disappeared over the brow of the desert
with his face toward Chen Chan.
48
II
PARADISE RANCH
PARADISE RANCH
During the five years that it had served him as home,
work, and recreation, the Paradise Ranch had seemed
a real paradise to Emmanuel Mason and Jim Stanley,
his partner during those years, a kind of better angel.
The ranch was a masculine paradise; two thousand
acres of rich meadows and black forest looking boldly
forth between two barren hills upon the open sea,
planned, toiled for, worked, cultivated, inhabited, and
owned by men. The trade-winds blowing up the little
valley had never given occasion to a member of the
gentler sex to snatch with one hand at her petticoats
and with the other at her hat. The lamps of the long
white ranch-house had never looked upon the festive
dance, nor had the moon ever discovered a pair of
lovers seated hand in hand upon the long veranda. The
lamps had never looked upon anything gayer than
a poker game, nor the moon upon anything more excit-
ing than men who smoked and talked. Seasons came
51
PARADISE RANCH
and went. But as yet no woman had found her way
into the Paradise Ranch, and if one had she would have
been politely shown the way out.
But a change was coming; a fact which the telegram
that Emmanuel Mason held open in his hand betrayed
— a telegram that had been brought fifteen miles over
the hills from the railroad at the gallop.
Stanley had been East anent a will in which he had
figured to no great profit, and the telegram was from
him:
My wife and I will be in San Mateo Monday. Send over a
team to meet us.
That was the whole matter, a sudden violent blow
between the eyes for which the recipient had been in no
way prepared. The marriage must have been *very
sudden — as all marriages are — but the courtship must
have been like chain lightning; shorter, perhaps, as
Mason thought with the flicker of a smile, than the
ceremony. The circumstances, however, did not mat-
ter to him in the least; it was the fact. Paradise was
to be invaded, as of old, by a woman, and the next
comer, of course, would be a serpent — a serpent of old
habits laid aside, old times discontinued, furniture
moved to new positions, tobacco frowned on (perhaps);
liquor relegated to the nearest saloon, fifteen miles away;
wholesome meals turned into finical courses, and last,
52
PARADISE RANCH
and worst, the lazy Sunday shave changed into a matu-
tinal or vespertine regularity.
Emmanuel Mason mourned for lost friends. He
must share " Jim," the sweet-tempered, the big-boned,
the guileless, the gentle, with another. When he had
worked all day and become tired and dirty and lazy —
he would have to wash and dress. When the "heap
pain," as they called, it, should pierce him from temple
to temple, he could no longer stamp the veranda till
dawn, Jim's hand on his shoulder, and swear. When
the "heap pain" waked him in the night he could no
longer thrust open Jim's door and call upon the com-
forter to come with him out under the stars, and talk
to him lest he should go mad. That door must not be
opened at random any more, it must be knocked upon.
And the spacious, plastered, airy room beyond looking
south-westward upon the sea, would that receive a coat
of paper and come to be referred to as the " blue" room
or the "pink"?
With the exception of the "heap pain" all had been
paradise till now; it would become purgatory, and the
pain remaining would make the latter hell. The " heap
pain," hitherto the only cloud on the horizon, had never
occurred with sufficient frequency to cause Mason any
real alarm. It came two or three times a year, usually
during the rains, remained a day or two, hurt fearfully,
and went. The pain was similar, only much more
53
PARADISE RANCH
violent, to that which is known as a "stitch in the side."
Mason had it in the head, from temple to temple, and
though he had consulted doctors its cause and nature
remained unexplained.
With so many grounds of foreboding it was not un-
like the man to make the best of the situation, and,
grumbling deeply, to set the house to rights from end
to end. He decked it with great boughs of pungent
bay and fragrant yellow acacia; he filled it with roses
and calla lilies; he straightened the chairs over and over
again. He had a dozen nervous interviews with Jue
Fong, the cook; he saw to the team, the trap, and the
harness which were to go and fetch the bride and groom.
He shaved and donned costly raiment and intended to
drive over the hills for them himself, and then came
the "heap pain," and sent him writhing to his bed. He
lay until he could lie it no longer. He rose and walked
till he could stand it no longer. He groaned and blas-
phemed. And about four of the afternoon the pain
became worse.
Emmanuel Mason clapped a hand to each temple and
literally ran for the low-built clump of huts where his
Chinese laborers dwelt. He smote with his foot upon
the door of Sam Ah and strode in.
"Sam," he said in a thick voice, "have you got any
opium?"
"I no smoke/' said the righteous Sam Ah.
54
PARADISE RANCH
"Who has some?"
"All boys allee samee," said Sam Ah. "Him no
smoke."
This was, of course, a righteous lie. Mason groaned.
"You don't understand, Sam," he said. "If I don't
get smoke I'll die."
"Allite," said Sam Ah, "me go city?"
"You get me smoke,' said Mason, "then you go to
the city and raise hell."
The wily one smiled pleasantly.
"Allite," he said.
And from a room which contained absolutely nothing
but a pallet bed, a mattress, and the bare insides of
four walls, he produced a pipe, a rectangular can half
full of opium, matches, a tiny spirit lamp with a glass
shade to keep the flame steady, and a sort of thin metal
skewer to roll the pill on.
"I don't know how, Sam."
Sam Ah indicated his bed with a hospitable gesture.
"You sabe lie still," he said. "I make pill."
Presently he had lighted the lamp, gathered on the
end of his skewer what appeared to be a lump of soft
tar, and fell to rolling it in the flame. Instantly an in-
describable, penetrating odor (that seems as if it ought
to choke one, but doesn't) filled the room. The opium
sputtered and spat, and the lump seemed to shrink into
itself and become a shape. Every now and then Sam
55
PARADISE RANCH
Ah took It from the flame and gave it a quick telling
mould with his slim fingers. When he was satisfied
with its shape and consistency he. slipped it into the
tiny bowl of the pipe, let it cool for a few seconds and
withdrew the skewer. Mason put the pipe in his mouth
and inhaled the smoke, while Sam Ah kept the pill
burning by a constant application of the lamp.
"More fast," he commanded, "more in."
Mason puffed as rapidly and deeply as he could. The
burning pill guttered, sputtered, and roared like a
miniature volcano.
"More fast," commanded Sam Ah, and in half a
minute the smoke was finished, and Mason, gagged and
gasping, was conscious of no wonderful dream or any
pleasant effect whatever. His head was shot with pains
as before. Meanwhile Sam Ah was rolling another pill.
But scarcely had Mason drawn a breath of the second
smoke into his big lungs than the tormenting pain
left him. He pushed aside the pipe, rose and shook
himself.
"You're a good man, Sam," he said.
" Good men heap scarce," said Sam Ah, and prepared
to finish the relinquished smoke himself.
When Emmanuel Mason came into the outer air he
felt like a happy child. He wanted to laugh and turn
hand-springs. A hedge of artichokes seemed to him more
beautiful than a hedge of roses. An hour later he was
56
PARADISE RANCH
conscious of a slight rawness in his throat and a slight
headache, but not the old torture, nor in the old place.
A little later still he felt perfectly normal.
Then came the sounds of wheels on gravel, a halting
of horses, and steps on the veranda. Emmanuel Mason
flung open the door and advanced with a broad smile
of welcome and outstretched hands.
Jim Stanley's wife was tall and girlish-looking. She
had a big sweet mouth which Emmanuel Mason had
once considered beautiful. He started at sight of her;
then took both her hands in his and made her welcome
in Jim's name and his own.
"You've not changed much," she said.
"But I never expected it would be you.''
There was all the unnecessary clipped talk of question
and answer which the occasion warranted, and the two
friends and the woman went into the house.
"My dear," said the woman to her husband, "now
do go and put something on your hands. . . . Hewoidd
drive," she explained to Mason. "He wouldn't wear
gloves, they were already chapped, and now look what
the sun has done to them."
Indeed, Stanley's hands were a study in raw, cracked
red. It was nothing new to Mason, however, for he had
often seen them as bad or worse.
"I tell him to put cold cream on them," said the bride.
"There's nothing like it for chapped hands."
57
PARADISE RANCH
"Vaseline is better," said the groom in an eager,
gentle voice. "But that doesn't do mine any good."
II
The men, of course, altered radically in their habits
of life; shaving daily, disposing of yesterday's mud, and
dressing for dinner. But these alterations came from a
natural desire to please rather than from the hounding
of a woman's tongue, for if the Ranch had been at one
time a man's paradise, at least the Eve who had entered
it was a man's woman, so that nothing of what Emman-
uel Mason had feared came to pass. Instead, he was
by way of being more comfortable than he had ever
been; and it was long before he realized that to live
in the new condition was no less dangerous than to live
in a house built over a sleeping volcano. To this
ignorance, perhaps, the rains which, for so many weary
weeks, had been appeasing the thirst of the land, and
clothing it with green grass and flowers, contributed by
suddenly coming to an end. There commenced the long
dry season for which California is famous, and during
which every moment spent out of doors is a complete
blessing. All day the sun blazed and the strong salt
trade-winds blew in from the ocean. Each evening, as
the sun set, and the winds thus shorn of heat smote the
hot earth, fog arose along the whole line of the coast and
58
PARADISE RANCH
rushed inland. But, later, the fog diminished until the
stars showed through, and presently all the glittering
heavens appeared. Day after day, night after night,
month after month, it was thus. Every drop of surface
water was sucked from the earth; the green of the hills
yielded to golden brown; the soft muddy roads became
bands of white, hard as iron. Growing things rested
from the labor of growing. The world was at peace
with itself.
It was not too hot by day, nor too cold by night;
much that made for human calm and happiness was an
atmospheric condition. There was no excuse for mor-
bid depression; the cattle became fat on the dry stub-
ble. In irrigated districts fruit swelled and ripened.
There was great prosperity throughout the State,
merrymaking, and out-of-door life. During this period
matters progressed peacefully and with pleasantness at
Paradise Ranch. The woman was firm in the saddle,
strong in the surf, and subtle of tongue; to be with her
was to be gay. And Emmanuel Mason found him-
self thinking that if he had his life to lead over, he
would like to marry her himself. As a mere boy
in the old days he had enjoyed the chance. He had
been her first fancy and she his. They had construed
fancy to mean love (and Heaven only knows whether it
does or not) and they had plighted their troth. Lack
of money had stood in the way of immediate marriage,
59
PARADISE RANCH
and Emmanuel Mason had gone the way of the sun to
carve his fortune. He toiled in mining camps and in
lumber camps, drove fence posts, was partner in a liv-
ery stable, clerk in a bank, was by turn prosperous, on
the verge of riches, poor, dead broke, and again pros-
perous. At this stage he fell in with Jim Stanley, and
together they bought Paradise Ranch and other ad-
jacent properties, which they managed to work with
much pleasure and considerable profit. Entering upon
such vicissitudes as a boy, he was soon developed by
them into a man, and during the transition became
heart-whole and fancy-free. It was the same with the
girl. Long separation, as usual, killed their mutual
fancy. They stopped writing peacefully enough — but
felt as if they had quarrelled. If Emmanuel Mason
had made a visit to the East he would not have called
upon her.
With all that he had gone through and with all that
he had accomplished, it is not to be supposed that Mason
was altogether a strong man. Free from restraint and
at an early age his own master, full of red blood and
high spirits, there had been periods in his career which
are still spoken of with awe on the "Barbary Coast"
and similar districts. He had raised many kinds of
Cain, painted many towns red, had killed a man, been
co-respondent in a divorce suit, and achieved a notoriety
which had been very difficult to five down. Good sense,
60
PARADISE RANCH
coupled with the first intimations that the "heap pain"
was to be an irregular permanency, strong words from
a physician, and perhaps mature years, had all con-
tributed to shape his present healthful and respectable
form of existence. He drank sparingly, smoked rather
too much, and worked long vigilant shifts in the open
air. He looked like a man who had inherited tell-tale
lines of face, rather than a man who had made them.
He was as brown as his adopted hills in the dry weather;
short, broad, erect, gray-eyed, and powerful. There
was something of the tiger in his long, quiet stride,
something of the hawk in his glance, and something of
the holiday school-boy in his smile.
The summer at Paradise Ranch brought three types
of happiness to three people. Jim Stanley was happy,
because in possessing the woman he loved he was not
renounced by the friend he loved. Emmanuel Mason
was happy because he liked his partner's wife, and be-
cause the year was a prosperous one. But the woman
was happy in a very different way. It was not the
peaceful in life that she most enjoyed. She knew that
Emmanuel Mason, who had once fancied her and now
admired her, would end by fancying her again. It
seemed inevitable — a kind of poetic retribution for his
former neglect. To rouse the dormant fancy intrigued
her mind, amused her, and made her happy. Unfortu-
nately she did not realize that playing with matches is
61
PARADISE RANCH
often the cause of a conflagration which may not only
destroy one's neighbor's house but one's own. To
make matters worse, she had a real affection for her
husband — and did not love him in the least. Therefore
she was as tow, and in striving to set fire to Emmanuel
Mason's heart was in a fair way to consume her own.
At first Emmanuel Mason thought that Alice Stanley
was "nice," "sensible," and "amusing." Then that
her face was "pretty"; then, as of old, that her big,
sweet mouth was "beautiful"; then that her face was
beautiful. And after that he began to carry her image
in his mind's eye, and to shorten his hours of work that
he might be with her the more. His first regret was
that he had not married her himself, and his second
was like unto the first. He regretted that she was not
still free. "If she were still free," he thought, "I
believe I would fall in love with her." That under the
circumstances he might as readily fall in love with her
was a supposition which he did not for a moment enter-
tain. And it was not until the unexpected ending of a
vacation which he had decreed unto himself that he
began to perceive danger in the supposition. The
ending of that vacation was in this wise.
Emmanuel Mason was an ardent and jealous lover
of fly-fishing. Once a year, sometimes twice, he jour-
neyed to a section of river which he controlled in the far
Sierras, and fished to his heart's content. Being a
62
PARADISE RANCH
jealous lover, and of an adventurous disposition, he
always went alone, built his own camp, and did his own
catching and cooking. It befell, therefore, that a strong
desire to fish came upon him, and his good-bys were
as brief as those of a thirsty drunkard departing for his
club. It also befell that he came to the far river, cast
his fly, and struck three pounds of shifty muscle, speed,
and endurance. This had often happened before, but
that there should be no joy in the struggle was an en-
tirely new sensation. All that day, however, he fished
conscientiously. The luck ran with him, the fish were
big and strong, but the old ecstasy was gone. Emmanuel
Mason had left his powers of enjoyment in Paradise
Ranch.
The next day he did not fish at all. He sat in the
shade and watched the strong, bright rush of the river
until he was dizzy. He lay on his back and regarded
the intricate patterns drawn by the lofty tree-tops upon
the sky. He thought upon the days of his youth,
neglected opportunities, opportunities seized, moneys
made, moneys lost, manly truths, subtle lies, success,
failure, times of comparative virtue and times of rank
vice. He thought upon his gains and his losses. He
thought of how he had gained in experience of men, in
capital, in sense of living, but he thought also of how,
in the gaining, he had lost the most precious of gifts —
innocence. He became melancholy and restless in the
63'
PARADISE RANCH
shade by the river. A week before he had smoked and
planned with Jim and Alice for the future. Now he
smoked and wondered about the end. For the first time
in his life he felt old; for the first time he felt that most
harrowing and unmanly of feelings, self-pity. A glori-
ous night of stars came, but brought with her no gift
of sleep. Emmanuel Mason thrashed in his blankets
like a newly landed fish. He thought almost with
agony of what was and of what might have been. For
hours he tormented himself, and then fatigue began to
exert itself, and from logical thoughts and facts he
passed to Spanish castles, and thence at length to
dreams. In what is there is seldom peace, in what
was there is less, but man is saved from madness by
the thought of what still may be.
Emmanuel Mason arose with the sun and bathed in
the river. His face, far from being harrowed by the
unquiet night, looked younger than it had in years.
He was exalted and stimulated by the unwise dreams.
He burned his fingers at the cooking and laughed. He
packed his blankets and his rods, and sang aloud. In
an hour he was riding down the mountains with his
face toward the sea. And as he rode he laughed and
sang.
Love is a wonderful and beautiful affair, but it is
most beautiful when if is unalloyed with passion. When
he who loves is first aware of his love, and is abashed
64
PARADISE RANCH
in the presence of his beloved, when for a moment the
hardened sinner recovers his lost innocence, and the
world seems as it should be from pole to pole, there is
no sense of danger, nothing exists but the beautiful.
And so it was with Emmanuel Mason. He was wildly
happy at finding himself in love, but more wildly happy
in the delusion that he was content to possess his love
alone. He did not feel the slightest temptation to de-
clare it. Jim and Alice were man and wife. He was
their friend. He loved them both. He could not be
happy away from them.' Therefore he would go where
they were and stay there, and be, if he could, their
good angel. If ever a man rode innocently into an am-
bush, that man was Emmanuel Mason. If ever a man
believed that love, pure, good, and proof against the
poison of desire, had come into his life, that man was
Emmanuel Mason. If ever a man deluded himself, that
man was Emmanuel Mason.
He reached Paradise Ranch on the evening of the
second day, and, crossing the broad piazza with his
long, quiet, tiger-like strides, pushed open the door of
the living-room and went in.
Stanley and his wife were seated on opposite sides of
a small table, reading. They looked as if they had not
spoken to each other for hours. As a matter of fact,
Stanley had made several offers in the way of conversa-
tion which had been rejected without too much civility
65
PARADISE RANCH
by Mrs. Stanley. At Mason's entrance both rose and
hurried to greet him. In both faces were looks of real
pleasure. But the look in Stanley's face was mingled
with wonder; while, if a heightened color and sparkling
eyes are to be trusted, that in Mrs. Stanley's was alloyed
with a feminine feeling of triumph.
" But for Heaven's sake what has brought you back
so soon ?" cried Stanley, grasping his friend's hand.
"Why, he couldn't stay away from us, Goose," said
his wife.
"But the fishing must have been bad?" said Stanley.
"Awful," said Mason, "not a strike the second day.
What do you think of that?"
This statement was perfectly true, but Mason
blushed in delivering it.
"How disappointing," said Mrs. Stanley. But she
had noted the blush and could not conceal a smile.
"But you must be famished," said Stanley eagerly.
"I'll go to the pantry myself and see what there is."
"Wouldn't you rather I went?" said the wife.
"No, you stay right here, and hear all about it. . . .
I'll be right back."
There was a pathetic awkwardness about Stanley
which belied his manly qualities. When he moved he
seemed to be all knees and elbows. They watched him
out of the room, and it is just possible that Mrs. Stanley
raised her fair shoulders the least fraction of an inch.
66
PARADISE RANCH
"Why did you smile just now," said Mason sud-
denly, "when I said that I didn't get a bite the second
day?"
She looked boldly in his eyes and read as in a primer
what was written there.
"The difference," she said slowly, "between a man
and a woman is that a man lies with his tongue and
tells the truth with his eyes. But a woman lies with
both."
And she turned her own eyes down, and half covered
them with their soft lashes. Color rose in her cheeks,
and Emmanuel Mason realized that his love was not to
be a solace and a delight to his secret heart, but a
menace and a tragedy. He made a step toward her.
" Good-night," she said. " No, I'm not going to stay
and watch you eat your horrible old dinner. I'm tired
out. Don't let Jim sit up too late. Good-night."
At the door she turned. Her eyes met his and
mocked them.
"I'm glad you're back," she said softly. . . . And
vanished.
IH
It was November, but as yet no rain had fallen. The
country was beginning to feel distressed. Farmers
looked anxiously and often upward for signs of clouds;
67
PARADISE RANCH
their brows became puckered from too much gazing
upon the blank, blazing sky. In the reservoirs water
was so low that it was impossible to draw a clean bath.
Along the roads, dust, like dirty snow, enveloped the
trees. Even the dwellers in cities were tired of the
bright weather. Alone the Chinese smoked their
opium and went with calm faces and patient eyes
indefatigably about their business.
Emmanuel Mason and Alice Stanley rode at a walk,
northward, along the ocean beach. On the right hand
the naked brown hills, baked to the hardness of brick,
gleamed like metal in the sun. Upon the left hand the
long blue combers came unbroken from afar — like regi-
ments in line of battle — and were broken among the
shallows. Ahead, the beach extended like a broad tor-
tuous white road between the tumbling ocean and the
steadfast hills. The wind blew greatly from the
southwest.
"I know that, in the world's eyes, what I have pro-
posed to you is wrong. I have been brought up to
believe so. I do believe so. I have no defence to
make. Do I care ? Care ? I want you to come away
with me, that is all. I want it with all my strength.
The more wrong it is the less I care and the more I
want it. If I had not gone away — 'way back at the
beginning of the world — you would have belonged
to me, wouldn't you ? The situation that we are in is
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PARADISE RANCH
only an accident. We were meant for each other.
You know it."
"But you went away, and we forgot each other,
didn't we?"
"Yes, like the pair of young fools we were. If I
went away, now, would I forget ? Would you ? You
are wretched with this — with Jim. For God's sake
give yourself a chance to be happy. Say the word.
. . . You're afraid of conventions, dear, aren't you?
Is that it? Tell me."
"May be. How should I know? I don't know
what to think."
"Let me think for you. Convention is a base and
false fabric that has been erected by the vast majority —
the vast pitiful majority which has ever been unable
to occupy itself with real issues. Convention "
"I believe that at this moment you love me, let us say,
with all your strength. But how can I know that it will
last ? How dare I think that it will ? We were lovers
once who met in after years as strangers. We- — "
He snatched the word from her as it were.
"We are lovers now. That is all that counts. At
this moment we love each other. What is the use of
supposing things that are not very probable? If a
shadow should come between us, is it worth antici-
pating? And, furthermore, I tell you that it can't
come. I won't let it. . . . We are lovers now."
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PARADISE RANCH
"Yes, but I am a woman, and I am afraid of the
shadow."
And of a sudden their faces were both in shadow,
for a dark cloud blown up unperceived from the ocean
had come between them and the sun. The woman
laughed nervously for a second.
"I told you," she said. " Do you think it will rain ? "
"How do I know?" said the man almost roughly.
"Ah!" she said, "you would speak to me like that
after a while. . . . No, thank you."
"Alice, dear," his voice was all tenderness, "if I
spoke rough, I wasn't thinking rough. I wasn't think-
ing about rain, I was thinking how I love you and want
you." He looked upward with great humility. "Yes,
dear, I think it will rain."
"Then we'd better go back."
As they turned the first drop fell. The rain was
slow in getting under way. It seemed as if it were out
of practice, and not exactly sure what to do. And just
as an army sends out scouts and then skirmishers to
prepare the way for the main attack, so the cloud sent
down experimental drops and little showers before
commencing to pour.
"It's going to be a good one," said Mason; "shall we
canter?"
Both Mason and Mrs. Stanley were conscious of a
suppressed feeling of excitement. The wind seemed to
70
PARADISE RANCH
blow stronger and the surf to run higher. Even the
ponies were excited by the coming of the rain. They
began, as they cantered, to fear the waves to which
they were perfectly accustomed; to prick their ears
forward and back, to snort, to shy at dark stones and
lumps of seaweed. The canter became a gallop, the
gallop a run, the run all but a runaway. And in the
midst the cloud let fall its contents, and the earth and
sea rose in smoke to meet them.
Mile after mile and side by side the ponies raced
through the deluge. Water, sweat, and foam poured
from them. They began to gasp and labor in the sand.
The rain and the surf combined in one deafening roar.
Mason shouted something to his companion. She
shouted an answer. It looked rather than sounded
like the query, "What?"
"This won't do^' Mason bellowed. It is not
known whether she heard or not; it is enough that she
understood. They reined in the ponies till they walked.
Presently the heavens grew lighter, and the rain
slackened. It continued to fall for some time, but
mingled with it were bright rays from the sun, and
presently it ceased. The brown parched hills were
streaming with little brooks, that sought ways across
the beach and so into the sea. There was no longer
any dust. The air was cool and greatly fresh. It was
as if nature had suddenly been cured of a fever.
71
PARADISE RANCH
"Wasn't it glorious! Oh, but I loved it!"
He looked at her. Her habit hung shapelessly upon
her. He only thought her figure the better. Her face
was wet and her eyes were still brimful of rain. He
thought her face the more beautiful.
He reined to the left until his knees touched her
pony's ribs. He slipped his left arm about her.
"Alice," he said, "I have not kissed you since I was
a boy."
If the madness had left the scene it had not yet left
the actors.
She shivered slightly and drew a deep breath. Then
she turned her face toward his; the big sweet mouth
was trembling. As their lips came slowly close it
seemed to each as if the face of the other was half
hidden in a wonderful mist. One moment and the
eager lips would have met.
Emmanuel Mason's head was suddenly jerked back
on his shoulders. He relinquished his bridle. His
riding crop fell to the ground. He drew his arm from
about the woman he loved and pressed his hands to his
temples. His eyes rolled and his mouth writhed. His
face had become a frightful mask upon which was
depicted agony incredible.
"For God's sake, what is it? What is it? Can't
you speak to me?"
A groan was wrung from him. It is possible that
72
PARADISE RANCH
the woman had not really loved the man until she saw
him enduring his torture.
He took his hands from his head and gathered up the
reins.
"Never mind the crop," he said. ... "I have these
things once in a while." He spoke between clinched
teeth, his face the color of dust. "They strike like hot
iron. It's the suddenness that . . . that hurts . . .
after that I can stand 'em."
She was trembling with alarm and concern.
"We must hurry home," she said.
Emmanuel Mason strove without success to look
natural and to smile.
"First I want my kiss," he said.
"Not now," she said, "we must hurry. . . . Oh,
man, man, I love you ... I love you!"
Again they put the ponies to the proof.
But as they tore along the beach the pain in his head
was so frightful that Emmanuel Mason had no thought
of the beloved at his side, who loved him and would
endure all things for his sake.
Instead, he thought, with the intensity of a mono-
maniac, of the low-built clump of huts where his
Chinese laborers dwelt, and of the instant relief to be
found in the quarters of Sam Ah.
And an hour later, as he lay sucking the heavy, hot,
white smoke into the innermost recesses of his great
73
PARADISE RANCH
lungs, it seemed to him as if the guttering, sputtering
of the fusing opium was the sound of the rain roaring
about his ears.
IV
It was late in February before the lovers were able
to think of putting into effect the plan which they had
matured for the elopement. The rains, long in coming
and prayed for in all the churches, made up in profusion
what they had lacked in punctuality. The world be-
came green, and all night the tree frogs sang loud and
sweet.
December was a wet month, January a wetter. In
the first half of February there was only one bright day.
It seemed as if the prayers addressed to God must have
been heard by the devil and answered in a spirit of mal-
ice. In particular the winter was a hard one for Em-
manuel Mason. He received and recovered from at-
tack after attack of his trouble. But on each occasion
it took more of the subtle art of Sam Ah to repulse the
enemy. A Chinaman can begin young, smoke opium
hard, do his work, and live to be sixty-five. The
toughest white man will go to pieces in a fifth of that
time. Emmanuel Mason was a strong man, but the
pain told on him some, and its cure told on him much.
He became almost a shadow of himself, haggard, petu-
lant, and without repose. The whites of his eyes
74
PARADISE RANCH
took on a yellowish tinge, and it was noticed that he
no longer loved his tobacco. But the more sick and
more tragic he became the more the woman loved
him.
It is to the credit of both that during that trying
winter they kept apart as much as possible and were
indefatigable in their attempts to be nice to Stanley.
Nor was this a studied hypocrisy of demeanor. They
were truly sorry for him, and, incredible as it may seem,
truly fond of him. They were like a pair of children
preparing to run away from home. Nothing should
prevent them, but they were sorry to go.
Mason's health was so much improved during Feb-
ruary that he implored Mrs. Stanley to fix the hour for
their departure. And in the end she named the first
day of March, on which date the big new steamer of
the Maru Line was to sail for the Orient. Mason made
one trip to town to engage the best suite of rooms on the
hurricane deck, and a second when the ship had reached
port to look the rooms over and to make note of anything
lacking to promote Alice's comfort during the voyage.
By a miracle the day was sunny and bright even
in town. Mason felt better and happier than he had
all winter. And so used had he become to the idea of
an elopement that he no longer regarded it as either
wrong or unusual. He made an early start, so that he
might return to the ranch the same day and report to
75
PARADISE RANCH
Alice. This was the next to the last day in February.
They were to come to town together on the 1st of March,
and the ship with them aboard was to sail early in the
afternoon. There was to be no commotion. No bother
about trunks. Alice had made several trips to town
to buy a new outfit and new trunks to pack it in. For
this purpose she kept a room in the Palace Hotel.
Mason had made his preparations in a similar manner.
There would be little scandal. Paradise Ranch was
little visited, and its inhabitants were less known.
Mason was glad for himself and very sorry for Stanley,
that was all.
He boarded the steamer, and was shown to the suite
which he had engaged. It was capacious and com-
fortable. Two bedrooms, a big bathroom, and a
pleasant lounging room containing a writing-desk and
various easy-chairs. Mason spent some time in the
little apartment, fixing its geography and possibilities
in his mind so as to describe them correctly to Alice.
He made up his mind which of the bedrooms should be
hers and which his. Then he tried the easy-chairs in
the lounging room, one after another. He had a
thousand pleasant dreams to the minute. He was very
happy. At length having completed his list of things
needed, fruit, wine, books, writing materials (to whom
could they write, pray?), etc., he rose to go. Before
doing so he permitted himself a last look into the room
76
PARADISE RANCH
which Alice was to occupy. He pulled aside the curtain
(the door was hooked back) and thought for a moment
that he had mistaken her doorway for the one opening
on the deck. It was a momentary hallucination, to be
sure, for there was the fold-up basin, the rack with
bottles for drinking water and glasses to drink from,
or to hold tooth-brushes; there was the brown carpet
whose pattern had struck his fancy, the swinging lamp,
the hooks upon which to hang clothes, and there was
the brass bedstead with its expanse«of immaculate sheets
folded back over a rose-colored counterpane, embroid-
ered with the company's crest and monogram.
Emmanuel Mason stepped suddenly into the room
and looked upward at the ceiling. No, the ceiling was
perfectly solid, and not, as he had fancied, pierced by a
skylight. He had even fancied that the skylight had
been left open and that — But how utterly ridiculous.
. . . And yet. . . . He stopped and felt of the carpet
It was perfectly dry, of course. . . . And yet. . . . But
he laughed nervously and went ashore.
About this time it began to rain. And it kept on
raining. During the month of March it rained thirty
days out of the possible thirty-one. The curious thing
was that day after day the rain never varied in appear-
ance and effect. It was not the roaring, black rain that
comes out of low-hanging, swiftly driven black clouds,
but the long, gray rain that falls from thin gray clouds,
77
PARADISE RANCH
drifting slowly through the upper strata of the atmos-
phere. It had the effect of making things intensely
damp rather than actually wet, but for turning brown
into green and producing frogs and tree frogs it was in-
comparable. For instance, Emmanuel Mason had seen
a brown carpet whose pattern had struck his fancy
become a new grass-green almost the moment the rain
struck it. He remembered that the carpet was in a kind
of bedroom, which he had left because the newly born
tree frogs had suddenly burst into a loud sweet singing
which was intolerable to his ears. Another peculiar
property of the rain was its power to penetrate opaque
substances. It fell upon the floors in houses, as if there
had been no ceiling to protect them, and turned them
green. On leaving the ship he had made his way to the
Palace Hotel and taken refuge in the bar-room. The
court-yard of the Palace Hotel is covered by a glass dome,
and it was natural enough for that to prove no obstacle
to the rain, but that it should penetrate a roof and all the
floors of a seven-story structure so as to reach the bar-
room in undiminished volume was astonishing. Em-
manuel Mason felt a delicacy in asking the bartender
why this should be. Instead, he contented himself
with saying tentatively: "Doesn't it seem very damp to
you in here?"
"Not to me," said the bartender.
"I must be mistaken then," said Emmanuel Mason,
78
PARADISE RANCH
and he shivered slightly. For all that, he was convinced
that the bartender had lied.
Almost from the first the rain got on his nerves. He
felt that it would be absurd to return to the country in
such weather. He would wait until the sky was clear.
Meanwhile he was damp to the bone, and really troubled
about the singularly penetrating quality of the rain.
He was afraid of his old trouble. He remembered that
in Nevada it was nearly always dry. He stepped into
a rainy ticket office and inquired the price of a ticket to
Reno. He had not enough money to pay for it and
crossed the street to his bank to draw a check. Al-
though the ink ran badly, he managed to fill in the blanks
all but the one for the signature. He could not fill
that, however, for the very annoying reason that he had
forgotten his name. It took him two days and a whole
night of hard thought, during which he walked the
streets in the rain, to remember it. When he had done
so he hastened toward the bank.
On the way he encountered a tall, slim woman, who
made an involuntary gesture toward him with both
hands. Although she smiled and had a big sweet mouth
which seemed oddly familiar to him, he was perfectly
sure he was not acquainted with her. So he smiled,
shrugged his shoulders, looked upward, and was for
passing on. The woman endeavored to block the way
and tried to catch him by the sleeve. But that was a
79
PARADISE RANCH
familiarity which Emmanuel Mason did not propose
permitting to- any woman. He ducked under her out-
stretched arms and ran up the street like a big cat.
When he felt that he was safe from pursuit he laughed
loud and long.
That same day he went to Nevada and was dis-
gusted to find that rain was falling in every part of the
desert State. He left at once for Colorado, but there
it was also raining, and be felt obliged to give it up after
an hour's trial. One thing struck him as odd; the
fact, namely, that he met nobody who carried an um-
brella. He longed to tell them to go in out of the rain,
but remembered just in time that it was a kind of rain
which it was impossible to avoid. It really began to
worry him. And why in the devil was there such a
mighty chorusing of tree frogs in regions where there
was not a tree to be seen ? It was clear to him after
a while that if the frogs didn't stop singing, and
if the rain didn't stop falling, he would be obliged to
go mad.
It was a clever thought to go to Quebec and try a
little snow for a change. But high over the Plains of
Abraham slowly drifted gray clouds, and from them
perpendicularly fell the long gray rain. It was true that
the rain fell upon heavy deposits of winter snow. But
even as Emmanuel Mason looked the snow turned green,
and from the umbrageous gully by which Wolfe had
80
PARADISE RANCH
made his immortal ascent there arose suddenly a great,
sweet, intolerable singing of tree frogs.
As he thought of Wolfe's immortal ascent the lines
of Emmanuel Mason's face smoothed themselves and
he smiled. He must ascend. If there is rain under the
clouds there is surely blue sky above. A moment before
he would have offered his soul to the devil for a sight
of blue sky, in spite of the fact that although the devil
has been trying for years to make a corner in souls, a
sight of blue sky is never the price which he pays. But
now there was no need of that. He would ascend above
the clouds and owe the devil nothing.
From the Plains of Abraham to the top of Madison
Square Tower is but a step for an active man, whose
stride used to be compared to that of a tiger. But at
that elevation he was still beneath the pitiless clouds,
and the beautiful naked Diana from whom the wet
dripped was not potent to retain him. He hastened to
Paris (cursing the delay, for it took him nearly an hour
to get there) and ran nimbly up the steps of the Eiffel
Tower until he reached the topmost platform. But
still the clouds were above, and from them descended
the long gray rains, always at the same pace, always
perpendicular to the earth. " God!" he thought, "if it
would only fall parallel for a moment — just a moment!"
He turned and began wearily to descend the steps.
•Suddenly he stopped and began to roar with laughter.
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PARADISE RANCH
"You fool! You fool!" he cried, and he resumed the
descent at the run. Reaching the foot of the tower,
doubts began again to assail him, and for the second
time he paused. "Of course," he said, "to get high
enough, I must go up in a balloon, but it takes the devil
of a while to make one — and I can't wait. Poor Em-
manuel Mason — can't wait. Because, if he waits — if
he waits another minute — this rain will drive him mad."
He took out his watch and contemplated the second
hand during one revolution.
"Well, I'm not mad yet," he said, and put back the
watch in his pocket. "Perhaps I can hold out until
the balloon is made."
He started to run, stopped, leaned against a railing,
and for the second time roared with laughter. When
he had done laughing he assumed the attitude of an
orator, and with one hand pointing heavenward he
cried to an imaginary audience in a great voice: "And
if the balloon is out of the question, there yet remains
harnessed for the service of man the eternal principle
of the balloon. . . . Why does the balloon rise?"
It was night. Three gas jets flickered through the
rain and illuminated the room. Emmanuel Mason
locked the door and the windows. One after another
he blew out the three lights.
And then he lay down in the darkness to wait for the
time when he should ascend.
82
Ill
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
You gentlemen of England,
That live at home at ease,
How little do you think upon
The danger of the seas!
When the stretch of waves between the white coast
of Britain and the oaken sides of the Hynd Horn had
widened to an impassability for the most enduring
swimmer, the two mariners with pistols in their sashes
quitted the presence of Mr. England, to which they had
clung with pertinacity ever since the elegantly buckled
shoe of that gentleman had first touched the deck. Mr.
England smiled with sweetness after the last disap-
pearing hall-marks of his various misdemeanors, and
seated himself on the rail, where he balanced with
niceness and behaved so alluringly that the ship's cat
leaped to his knee, pUrring. Thence the cat climbed to
his shoulder and rubbed against his cheek.
"O cat," said Mr. England, "in the course of your
nine lives, have you ever been hanged?"
The cat yawned, from the sea-freshness, and elevated
his ample tail.
85
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"And was it painful?" said Mr. England. "And
were you, despairing, made to leave the most beautiful
of all tabbies to the machinations of other toms?"
Mr. England's delicate hand passed in caress the
whole length of the cat from his nose to the tip of his
tail.
" In the midst of life, O cat," said he, " we are in need
of the poets, and
If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be?
But to be hanged, puss! — a dolorous priest — a knot
under the left ear — a drop — kingdom come, and be
damned to you!"
The cat purred loudly.
"What is life?" said Mr. England. "A shoe too
tight to wear. What is death ? An ineptness of nature.
Let us die cheerfully, puss, the stem of a rose between
our teeth, and our feet clad in easy stockings."
Mr. England sighed and looked back on that fast-
sinking shore where he and his crimes and the law had
all met in the same ale-house.
"Feline," said Mr. England, "I am to be judged
where I was born, hanged where I was bred, and buried
where four roads cross, with a stake through my sus-
ceptible heart, and a devil to make me dream. But you,
lamented sir, will die of an indigestion, — cat, 'ware rat!
86
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
— and be hurled by the tail into some corner; and our
respected talents will die with us. Do you draw a
lesson from that? Then down with you, sir, for an
ignoramus!"
Mr. England shifted his shoulder so suddenly as to
send the cat scrambling to the deck. There he gradu-
ally lapsed from an attitude of surprised indignation into
the first position of washing.
Mr. England mused with half-shut eyes.
"Ah, Mr. England," said the captain, "you are com-
fortable, I trust, in body and mind?"
"The sea does not make me sick in body," said Mr.
England, "neither do my thoughts make me sick in
mind. But I am sick at heart, for I have not yet been
presented to Lady Pel ham, and on that straight, short
road which is between me and the gallows there is no
other petticoat in view."
"Mr. England," said the captain, "when I agreed
not to put you in irons during good behavior, but to
give you the run of the ship, I made it clear that you
were not to seek the society of the other passenger, and
you promised a ready obedience to my wish."
"But I thought the other passenger would be a male,"
said Mr. England.
"I had not made the proviso," said the captain, "if
it were to have been a man."
"But, captain," said Mr. England, "think of the
87
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
ladyl How may we find it in our hearts to oblige a
lady — a beautiful, an accomplished, a fashionable, a
young lady — to endure a voyage of inestimable length
and dullness, which might be rendered a shadow less
disagreeable by the society of one who, though not to
the manner born, has been to court, mastered the graces,
the languages, the poets, the game of piquet, and other
arts which, while not to be mentioned before honest
men, have in no wit detracted from his knowledge of
the world or his powers of conversation ?"
"To the point," said the captain. "But how can I
present to this lady, whose guardian and protector I
am for the time being, a man who, however accom-
plished, is for all that a "
"Spare me!" said Mr. England, with a shudder.
"You see," said the captain.
"But she is so beautiful!" said Mr. England.
"I deplore," said the captain, "that duty which
causes me to disoblige a gentleman whom I frankly like
and to deprive a lady, whose loneliness I myself can do
little to alleviate, of his charming society."
"But surely," said Mr. England, "there would be no
harm done. Has crime pock-marked me? Am I
loathsome? Is not the great sweetness of this lady
proof against contamination ? I ask only to be allowed
to render her those delicate attentions which are her
due, and to bend such small talents as I may have to
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
the shape of her amusement. And can you not, sir,
consider me at all? A few weeks — a short trial — a
speedy hangman — a dead England! How gayly could
those weeks be passed in the nearness of a beautiful
lady! How one could disregard the savage judge in
the memory of those weeks! How featly one could
tread the scaffold imagining it a well-pitched deck
beneath an August moon! Would you send me on-
ward, my captain, with no gentle memories ? Must I
grave it to the recollection alone of murder and of sud-
den death? Oh, for a gentle memory at the last —
perchance a tender word to cling to, perchance a ker-
chief given in jest, the memory of a sweet profile against
the moon, the memory of eyes that gave back stars to
heaven! Such memories are fresh garlands hung upon
the dying tree, to which, in the very clutch of death, I
could whisper with the poet ' Hang there like fruit, my
soul, till the tree die.'"
Mr. England turned half away with some show of
bitterness.
"Mr. England," said the captain, moved, "my duty
is as plain as the north star on a clear night; but
in utmost sincerity your sentiments are tearing my
mind."
"Let me appeal to her great graciousness," said Mr.
England. "Let me tell her who and what I am, and
then, if she stand for me "
89
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"You will tell her who and what you are?" said the
captain, weakening.
"My word!" said Mr. England. "At the worst,
she can but spurn and despise me and I shall have
played the story-telling Moor."
"You shall have your chance," said the captain.
"And now, see, she comes hither."
"Her eyes are like the morning," said Mr. England.
And he added : " Captain, in the constant and divert-
ing repetitions of history, it often occurs that when
Mohammed cannot go to the mountain — you know the
anecdote? I will lay my best gilt buckles against a
half-dozen of your Burgundy that the lady takes the
part of the pirate."
"Mr. England," said Lady Pelham, jestingly, "the
time is come when you did promise to confess your man-
ifold sins and wickedness before all men."
The time was night. The full moon like a round of
mottled marble, hung in the heavens. Her sweet light
radiated across the dancing sea, and the white sails of
the Hynd Horn were lighted by it.
Mr. England held up his head proudly, and Lady
Pelham clasped her pretty little hands attentively.
" Lady Pelham," said Mr. England, " it is a poor thing
that boasts of its own gallantry, but I have been no
stranger to the giving and taking of blows, nor to en-
90
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
counters with wild beasts, of which some were lions and
serpents, and some men. I ask you to believe that,
whatever the fear that has tugged at my heart I have
never run away. But now I would fain run from you,
for what I have to tell will lower me unspeakably in your
gracious sight."
"Mr. England," said Lady Pelham gently, "your
voice sounds tired and melancholy, like that of Prince
Hamlet in the play when he becomes sickened of his
part in life. If what you are about to say can in any
way sever an acquaintance so prettily begun, I pray that
you will leave it unsaid. We are two young people in
a wide ocean, cut off from each shore with weeks of
weary sailing before us. Let us leave behind those
things which have been, and be content with what is.
If you are truly gallant, you will not leave the queen of
this ship without a solitary courtier."
"Such a mantle were a cloak to any sin," said Mr.
England. "But such shreds of honor as I may lay
claim to require that I speak. Our queen must know
her courtier for what he is."
"I will pardon my courtier in advance," said Lady
Pelham, "for I need his service."
She looked up at him with a wonderful girlish sweet-
ness.
"I am beyond pardon," said Mr. England, "and for-
giveness. I dare not hope that those gentle elements of
91
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
which I am at this moment composed can secure me
toleration after the monstrous composition that I have
been. Will you listen, lady, from the bitter beginning
to the bitter end ? It may be that no woman will ever
listen to me again."
"I will listen," said Lady Pelham.
"We are to understand," said Mr. England, "that
all those littlenesses, such as tears and laughter, and
crime and goodness, which go to make up the Almighty's
universe were established by some primal cause. In
this way it is possible to conceive of a man who is not
answerable for what he is. But I am answerable for
what I am. I think I had no primal cause. I adhered
to my will when it was good; I clung to it when it was
wicked. I cannot say in my defense, 'Had my parents
not beaten me, I had not done thus and so.' Therefore,
Lady Pelham, you are to judge of a life which was not
made for a man, but which a man made for himself.
"Down to the southward," continued Mr. England,
"there was an island of the sea. Seen from above, it
was like an outstretched hand upon the waters: long,
safe harbors were between its fingers, and the five
knuckles were redoubtable mountains, susceptible to
rare defenses — to the overwhelming of narrow gorges —
to the rolling down of irresistible rocks. But from the
ocean that island was more sweet; for frothy blue waves
lapped the white sands on the one side, and to the other
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came troops of trees and greenery that knelt and bowed
like worshippers. In the harbors of that island was a
great safety and hiding-place for a certain ship, and on
the shores were deep-thatched homes for men. Plan-
tains and many manners of trees gave fruit; other trees,
deep shade; swift brooks, cold water; the mountains,
game. There were storehouses full of silks and satins
and brocades, and spices, and all manner of good things.
Many a chest of gold and silver was in the secret keeping
of the strong sands. Dusky women of the island made
welcome with soft voices, and the captain of the ship,
who was a leader of men, gave good rule to that calm
place."
With a little sigh of approval Lady Pelham settled
deeper to the mystery of listening.
"There was a ship," said Mr. England, "so shapely
above and below the water, and served with such
cunning sails, that not one other ship in all the world
was so swift upon the seas. This ship was manned by
a crew of a hundred men, and captained by a devil."
Lady Pelham shifted uneasily.
"The men," said Mr. England, "were men of Devon
in England and of Portugal and Holland and Spain and
of the Americas. In only two things was there simi-
larity among the men: each had the heart of a lion and
the cruelty of a snake. But the captain! — oh, the cap-
tain! He was a rare bird — a pretty gentleman to look
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
upon, if you like; a man of letters and breeding; a man
of easy language, who could pin a compliment to a heart
and slap his Maker's face in the same breath; a sweet
swordsman, a sure shot, and" — Mr. England's voice
rose almost to a note of command — "a leader of men."
A look of aversion began to creep into Lady Pelham's
eyes.
"Now, what manner of kingdom was that, Lady
Pelham?" said Mr. England. His voice was almost
fierce. "Whence came those satins and brocades, those
chests of gold? What manner of men lived in those
deep-thatched homes and sailed that ship ? What man-
ner of man was their captain ? I will tell you, Lady Pel-
ham. We were bloody pirates, and I was our captain.
We robbed and murdered on the high seas. Those who
despised us we shot; those who were for us we hanged;
those who besought us we hauled down the barnacled
keel. We made coffins of ships "
He paused, sweating from the energy of his discourse.
Lady Pelham shivered.
"Right," she said; "right; you have said enough."
She rose and swayed slightly.
"To the bitter end— to the bitter end!" cried Mr.
England. The sweat was on his forehead and upper
lip. " I have your Ladyship's promise."
And, as it was in the beginning, the woman listened
to the serpent. He spoke in a lower, less shocking voice.
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"A wave of us," said he, "went up and over the side
of a rich ship. When all was finished, and while the
sea, sucking at the shattered bows, was dragging her
down, two brother sstood in the cabin. One was hon-
orably, one basely, born. One was Henry, Lord Clear-
water; one was Thomas England, pirate. One was a
kingly boy with golden hair, and the pride of honor and
innocence set like a crown upon his brow. The other
was a hard man, whose heart was set upon grimness.
"'Sir,' says my Lord Clearwater, 'if you are truly
my brother, I shall be obliged to take my life, which
has become unendurable to me, now that I am connected
with such vileness. I beg, in view of this, that you will
retract your statement, in which case I can consent to
live.'
"The boy was white, and he shook, for it was in his
mind to take his own life, because I was his brother,
and he loathed me, yet he feared to die.
"'Henry,' says England, 'you are my brother, and
I will save you in spite of yourself.' Oh, the horror of
it, Lady Pelham! The words were not free of my
mouth when he shot himself — here in the forehead he
shot himself, through the very crown of his pride and
his innocence. I knelt and kissed the blood from him,
for he was my brother, and a kingly boy."
Though Mr. England's voice broke at the tragedy of
its own conjuration, he sighed with relief when he saw
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
the look of aversion go from Lady Pelham. He went
on falteringly.
"I cut a lock of his yellow hair, and we committed
him with honor to the deep. Then I bade haul for
England, and I laid the lock upon his mother's knee, and
I said, 'Do not weep, lady, for he was a brave and
kingly boy.'" Mr. England controlled his voice with
effort. "I turned at the door and, looking back, saw
the gray head bent over the yellow hair."
Lady Pelham was crying. Mr. England watched
her furtively.
"Lady — lady," he said, almost piteously, "does the
bitterness of that atone a little? As I rode down the
long avenue from the castle, I repented of my shudder-
able life, and said over and over again, 'God help me!
God help me!'"
Mr. England's hand lay upon the rail, white in the
moonlight and frail like an appeal. Lady Pelham
touched it with her fingers.
"God help you!" said she.
Mr. England turned from her so that she might not .
see his face.
"There is more," said he, presently. "It is the bit-
terest part, for it is the death-blow to the new life then
begun. In London is an ale-house where, it is said, if
you sit for a year and a day you shall see all the people
in the world. There are famous meetings in that ale-
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
house. And who do you think met together there one
day ? Why, Tom England and his crimes and the law
they met there, and, so help him God! he is being taken
to the place where he was born, to be tried for all of his
crimes, and for any one of them to be hanged by the
neck until he is dead."
He leaned toward Lady Pelham.
"It was to lay a lock of hair upon a mother's knee
that I went to England," he said. " Gracious, merciful,
and beautiful lady, have I spoken my last word to a
woman this side of the grave ? "
" No," said she, and hot tears coursed down her sweet
cheeks, and she ran below without another word.
Mr. England was joined by the captain, who had
been prowling about in the night.
"Well?" said the captain.
"Captain," said Mr. England, with the utmost cheer-
fulness, "I am your creditor for six bottles of Burgundy.
With your agreeable and esteemed acquiescence we
will open one of them."
And he added to himself:
"That was a saving invention about the brother."
Infinite compassion of woman; infinite forgiveness;
infinite desire to mould and make new; infinite power
to leave her great, tender, true, beautiful, silly heart in
the most brambly places.
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
Those eyes of Lady Pelham's, which Mr. England
himself had said were like the morning, looked into the
eyes of Mr. England, and saw nothing there of all that
horribleness which she had forgiven. She saw there
only the purity and nobility of purpose with which he
had promised her to live until he died; and in the
bottom of her silly, golden heart, she said: "He has
repented. He loves me — he must be saved."
Behind them were three weeks of fair and foul
weather, a thousand pages of the poets, a hundred
games at piquet; conversations wherein were laid down
the laws of life, the meetings and partings of true
lovers. Sometimes they had spoken of death, but more
often of the beginnings of happy lives; sometimes of
the delicate perfections of verse, sometimes of predes-
tination, sometimes of the champ of war, but mostly of
love.
A bright sun was in the heaven, a following wind
was on the sea, and between the Hynd Horn and her
port was an ever-narrowing distance. But between
Priscilla, Lady Pelham, and Mr. Thomas England was
no distance at all, for her elbow touched his arm, and
a wisp of her hair brushed his cheek.
"Beautiful princess," said Mr. England, "I see now,
when it is too late, that the gods have loved me all
along, for, through circumstances too horrid for another
to contemplate, your favor has caused me to be happier
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
than the heir of a kingdom about to mount the royal
throne. I make it my hourly duty to thank God for
the wealth of peace which he has given me. The end,
which had presented itself to my view amid surround-
ings of such boundless dishonor, seems now like the
gentle coming of night. I shall bid you "good night,'
and fall asleep to dream of you. But there will be no
morning, my princess, after that last good night."
"There must be morning somewhere," said Lady
Felham.
"Do you wish it?" said Mr. England.
"I wish it," said she.
"Ah, lady," said Mr. England, "there is such bitter-
ness in brief days! How can you, looking back upon
the glory of this time at sea, — when I am gone, — believe,
in your heart of hearts, that I was a true penitent?
How easy it were to play any part for so little a space!
There is scarce a difference between my case and that of
your sinner who, feeling the tides of life run agonizingly
out, the sweat on his brow, the rattle in his throat, turns
with an ecstatic valedictory from his sins (which he can
commit no more), and writhes to be forgiven. There
is such doubt. Tell me, lady, that you believe — that
you believe me other than that."
'•' I have given you my trust," said Lady Pelham.
"Golden heart!" said Mr. England, and a real tear
ran down his cheek. "Oh," he cried, "for a full frag-
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
ment of life wherein to step from the slough that was
into the broad thoroughfare of a true knight! To
march prospering, with her kerchief on one's sleeve,
with her eyes looking upon one from the high tower,
with her trust in one's keep, with her love to return to!
I tell you, if I had a year to live I would prove before
all men and such a lady that chivalry is not yet gone
from earth, and that dragons are still to be found in the
enchanted forest."
There was such a deep ring, as of gold, in England's
voice, and such an undercurrent of pain and missed
opportunity, like the tolling of a dirge, that Lady Pel-
ham's heart was torn, and became bursting with a
desire to help that same rebirth of chivalry and knightly
deeds upon earth. She laid her hand on his arm.
"If I were Tom England," she said, "I would not
yet give over. Rather a plank in the ocean, a gallant
struggle, one last fight for that same year of life. If I
were a leader of men, I would not suffer myself to be
led meekly like an ox to the slaughter by men."
"A plank?" said Mr. England, looking at the great
waves. "Ah, lady, not a plank!"
"The plank was a figure," said Lady Pelham. "Can
you not think out some stratagem — some desperate
chance?"
"And leave you?" exclaimed Mr. England. "Ah,
beautiful princess!"
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"At the end of such a year as you spoke of," said
Lady Pelham, "you could seek me out, and come before
me, haling the dragon after you."
"And the reward?" said Mr. England.
"The year were its own reward," said Lady Pelham.
"True," said Mr. England, dolefully. "Then you
wish me to escape?"
"Oh, I do!" said Lady Pelham, vehemently.
"I bless you for that," said Mr. England. Then he
looked into her eyes for spme moments.
" Thank God ! " he said at length. " My lot is happier
than that of kings and emperors, for in my life I have
found one person I can trust."
Lady Pelham's eyes filled with tears.
"And you will try," she said, "for my sake?"
"Listen, dearest lady," said Mr. England. "It has
come to my mind that when I am cut off from the sight
of your bright eyes I must have leisure wherein to turn
back my heart and recollect them. Therefore, being
a man of some resource, — the result of experience, not
boasting, — I did decide to essay one desperate chance."
" Ah ! " said Lady Pelham. " And that "
"I have some power over nature," said Mr. England,
mysteriously, "and I have altered the course thereof."
"Altered the course of nature!" said Lady Pelham.
Mr. England took from a pouch a piece of heavy
stone, the color of lead, and the size of a thumb-nail.
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"I had two of these," said he. "You have heard
how the coffin of Mohammed was raised from the floor
of his tomb by the power of the roof, which was lode-
stone. This is part of the roof of Mohammed's tomb,
and so was the other piece. The other piece is now
playing ducks and drakes with the mariner's compass
by which our good captain confidently thinks he is
steering the Hynd Horn direct for the port where I am
to be hanged. As a matter of fact, she has been running
in a somewhat southerly direction. Strange ports offer
strange chances to those who are willing to chance it."
Mr. England laughed softly out of pure satisfaction.
"And now," said he, "observe our astute captain
and his able officers. It is twelve o' the clock, and they
are about to take the sun with the sextant, and locate our
exact whereabouts upon the face of the waters. But they
will not do this, because our prying skipper shall find
within a minute that his instrument — by the way, the
only one now on board — has been irreparably deranged."
Mr. England smiled blissfully at Lady Pelham, and
hummed from the ancient ballad of Sir Patrick Spens
the lines:
O whare will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this new ship of mine?
"And, thank God," said Mr. England, "there is one
person in the world to whom I can tell this thing."
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"You trust me like that?" said Lady Pelham, a
tender light in her eyes.
"I trust you," said Mr. England, "more than I trust
myself."
The captain and his officers stood for a long time
scratching their heads.
"At any rate," the captain had said to his officers,
"we can trust to our compass, which is an excellent
instrument of the latest pattern. At night we must
watch out with redoubled vigilance, lest we fall a prey
to some uncharted body of land. But it's God's own
pity that so pretty a sextant should have met with so
untimely an end."
Though the nights were cloudy, the weather held to
the satisfaction of all on board, especially to that of the
captain and Mr. England, for each was holding himself
responsible for the navigation of the ship. Each spent
several hours a day in reassuring Lady Pelham . The cap-
tain told her that the piny shores of Massachusetts were
dead ahead. Mr. England spoke of palms and guavas.
"It is so warm," said the captain, sententiously, to
Lady Pelham, "because we are approaching the New
World, where it is warmer than with us."
" It is so warm," said Mr. England, " because we are
approaching the equator, where it is hotter than in the
infernal regions."
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"O Lord," said Lady Pelham, on her knees, "make
it right for me not to betray his secret, for he is thine
own true penitent, and I am thy daughter that adores
thee.''
One morning the fan of a palm was seen by Mr.
England to pass to leeward in the boil of waters. A
little later he showed Lady Pelham a school of flying-
fishes, and about noon the lookout cried to those on
deck that he beheld land under the port bow. The
two faces which Mr. England wore as the Hynd Horn
bore down on that island — for island it now showed
itself to be — were of an exact oppositeness. To the
captain he showed a drawn lip, — a beginning-of-the-end
face, as it were, — to Lady Pelham the most dancing of
eyes, the most radiant of smiles. But if the expression
of his face was joyous when he turned it on Lady Pel-
ham, what must have ^ee^p^^ig in his breast when
the dim bluish cloud on the horizon began to assume
a familiar shape?
"By the splendor!" cried Mr. England's heart, "I
have hit the nail on the very head."
The Hynd Horn ran nearer and nearer to the island,
and the captain, who was forward, glass at eye, sud-
denly lurched like a drunken man. He made a new
focus and looked again.
"My God!" he cried— "palms!"
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
Mr. England was at his elbow.
"The tropics!" said he, sweetly.
"This is the devil, Mr. England," said the captain.
"I begin to think it is," said Mr. England. "Sir,
the loan of your glass."
Mr. England looked long and eagerly, and his heart
leaped and bounded, but he kept countenance.
"Sir," said he, "these waters are familiar to me, and
we are in imminent danger of our lives; we are in the
midst of shoals and reefs "
"Condemn that sextant!" cried the captain.
"Sir," said Mr. England, "I beg you to let me take
the wheel before all is lost."
"We will turn back," said the captain. He was dazed
at finding his ship so far to the southward.
" It were foolhardy to turn back," said Mr. England.
"We have no sextant, and the compass has proved as
fickle as woman. I beg you, sir, let me take the wheel.
There is not a moment to lose. We can talk as — as we
save our lives."
The two gentlemen hurried aft, and Mr. England
snatched the wheel from the helmsman's hand.
"Ah!" he sighed, as if relieved of a great burden.
"And now, sir, what do you intend?" asked the
captain.
"That island," said Mr. England, "is a great putting-
in place for ships short of water and supplies. It is
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
inhabited by a gentle race of — of islanders, who will
treat us with courtesy. I propose to conduct the Hynd
Horn to a safe anchorage, and there we must lie until
some other ship touches and we can beg a sextant. Sir,
I pray that you will send a safe man forward to take the
soundings."
"I will do it myself," said the captain. "Sir, you are
proving yourself a man of spirit and resource."
"I think I am," said Mr. England to himself when
the captain had gone forward. He patted the wheel
and added: "Oh, the simplicity of steering through
imaginary shoals and reefs!"
Presently the captain cast the lead.
"Mr. England," he cried, "there is no bottom."
"Thank God!" Mr. England called back. "Then
we are in the channel."
The Hynd Horn was now skirting the shore of the
island within three cable lengths. Mr. England still
steered, and the captain still cast the lead and found no
bottom. Lady Pelham was standing close to Mr.
England.
"It is a sweet place," said she.
"Sweeter than you know, lady," said he. "Do you
notice anything particular about the scene?"
"Only that it is fresh and green and beautiful — a
blessed island!" said Lady Pelham.
"Mark," said Mr. England, "how the frothy blue
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
waves lap the white sands on the one side, and to the
other come troops of trees and greenery that kneel and
bow like worshippers."
"Mr. England," cried the lady, in excitement, "it
is not — it cannot be your island ?"
"In the midst of doubt," said Mr. England, "we
must turn to the poets."
He raised his shapely head proudly, and turned his
eyes on the lady.
"Princess," he said,
"I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute."
"You terrify me," said Lady Pelham, "when you
look like that."
"Oh, my lady," cried Mr. England, "my good, my
blessed angel, how can I terrify youf"
"I have given you my trust," said Lady Pelham,
"and I will not fear you any more."
"My people shall be your lambs," said Mr. England.
The shores kept unfolding great beauties, so that it
was a sheer delight to look upon them — on the surpass-
ing freshness of the green, the wonderful whiteness of
the sands, the slender perfections of the palms, the
bright-colored flashes from the flowers. The extreme
oequetry of nature ornamented those shores.
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
Now and again the captain's voice arose from the
main chains, where he was using the lead:
"There is no bottom."
Now and again Mr. England spoke reassuringly to
Lady Pelham.
Nature had done much to conceal the narrow mouth
of the tortuous harbor into which Mr. England steered
the Hynd Horn. Conceive a bottle from which a
fragmentary and rotten cork has been three parts
drawn. The cork, a dozen little islands, as round as
coins, and densely wooded, was in, and projected from,
the neck of the bottle. These islands were so placed
and related that the channel, in any direction, was
blocked by some one of them; and so close were they
to one another and the main island that to even a near
glance they gave the appearance of being one unbroken
shore. Their inanimate deceits and contrivances so
tricked the eye that it was as if that Providence which
watches over the evil-doer had taken a handful of ever-
lasting dust and thrown it in the face of Justice.
The channel itself was like a narrow tidal river: the
trees on each bank were exceedingly well grown, and
formed, with the various flowery and thorny creepers
which bound them together, an unbreached and im-
penetrable wall; for, whereas the top of the wood
waved energetically in the wind off the sea, the waters
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
of the harbor were as still as death, and the Hynd Horn
seemed to be advanced less by the impulse of moving
air than by a kind of delectable wafting.
A quiet came over the Hynd Horn, and only those
men who were preparing the anchor spoke at all. Mr.
England, his lips pressed tightly together to keep back
any show of that eagerness and triumph which was al-
most bursting his sides, turned the wheel to right or left
with delicate and precise movements of his white hands.
Lady Pelham stood close beside him. She was very
pale.
For a long time that ribbon of still water continued
between its twin vegetable hedges, and then came a
turn, beyond which everything spread. The channel
opened into a great placid fan, dotted thickly with wild
fowl. The matted trees stepped back from one another,
and halted at stately distances, as in an English park.
The shore ahead rose to the dignity of a hill, and dis-
covered among its waving plantains and traveller's-
palms a well-ordered village of deeply thatched cottages.
But no atom of humanity was stirring, and that land-
locked, fan-shaped basin, with its park-like shores,
had been as peaceful as paradise, save for the intrusion
on its shining surface of the shape of an ominously
powerful ship, painted as black as the pit.
As when, at a game of pure chance, it is suspected
that a certain player is causing the intrusion of skill, the
109
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
other players begin to look at him askance, so the
officers and crew of the Hynd Horn began to eye Mr.
England. There was as yet no handle to seize upon;
but the inhuman silence of that place, and the sardonic
power and blackness of the vessel at anchor, worked
upon the imaginings of men like unexplainable sounds
in the night season. All faces became long and grave,
save only that of Mr. England. Alert and flushed, his
eyes glittered coldly over the captain, the officers, and
the crew; even over Lady Pelham, from her head to her
feet, for he knew that the others began to divine that
they had been betrayed.
Lady Pelham, poor dove, stood close to the snake and
trembled.
"Mr. England," said the captain, in a deep voice,
"what place is this?"
"A harbor," said Mr. England, sweetly.
"Sir," said the captain, "I would feel safer on the
high seas without rudder or compass than in such a
harbor."
"The tone of your statement," said Mr. England,
"makes the issue personal rather than geographical.
I brought you here. Am I to understand that "
"You are to understand," said the captain, "that I
have trusted the lives in my care to dangerous hands."
"Ah," said Mr. England, contemptuously, "and your
final judgment?"
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"I reserve that," said the captain. "And in the
meanwhile I will run no risks. We will turn about and
make for open sea."
Mr. England stepped back from the wheel, releasing
the spokes.
"You are too late, captain," he said jauntily. "The
channel up which we have come is now divided by an
indivisible chain of iron, retreat is cut off, and, further-
more — furthermore, we — are — aground."
It was true. The Hynd Horn, either from being left
to her own guidance, or from some last subtle impulse
which Mr. England had given to the wheel, ran, with
a scrunch, upon a submerged bank of soft, clinging
sand.
Instantly all was bustle and menace, but before the
latter had taken the shape of an attempt to arrest the
person of Mr. England, that gentleman had found time
to kneel at Lady Pelham's feet, kiss both her hands, say
in his most tender voice, "Farewell, charmingest," to
mount lightly on the rail, leap gracefully overboard, and
swim leisurely ashore. Not a gun or pistol could be
fired, for none was loaded; not a marline-spike was
thrown, for the thought came to no one.
Mr. England stood dripping on the beach, in easy
view from both vessels. He stood so for a moment,
and then, turning, disappeared among the trees.
Instantly a port opened on the pirate ship, a gun
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
was run out, there was a thunderous discharge, gener-
ating thunderous reverberations, and a ball screamed
between the masts of the merchantman. The Water-
fowl rose from the surface of the harbor with a terrific
roaring of wings, and swung over the trees with terrified
cries.
The captain of the Hynd Horn hauled down the
And Lady Pelham sank sobbing to the deck.
The afternoon passed without a sign from the pirate
ship or the land. Long and short strings of water-fowl
returned to the harbor, and all was as before. That
island world stood still, waiting until Mr. England
should give it command to move.
He might have been seen pacing moodily in a glade
of the forest. For the first time in his adventurous life
he did not know what he was going to do next. He
was possessed of a magnificent devil which was tempt-
ing him to act like a gentleman.
About ten in the morning a small boat was rowed
to the Hynd Horn, and Mr. England came over the
side. He was white and drawn, and there were blue
circles under his eyes, but he had been at some pains
to dress himself according to the latest mandates of
fashion. To the captain, who greeted him, he bowed
shortly, and said:
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"I have come to speak with Lady Pelham. Where
is she?"
" If you have come to insult her, which I doubt not,"
said the captain, stoutly, "you shall have the pleasure
of doing so across a number of dead bodies. I may
have hauled down my flag of commission, but you shall
find my flag of honor nailed to the mast."
The men of the Hynd Horn began to close in.
"For God's sake," said Mr. England, "don't make
me angry! Where is she ?"
"I demand your intentions," said the captain.
Mr. England pursed his lips and looked the captain over.
"My good man," said he, "I spent last night in hang-
ing you for safety's sake and sparing you for courtesy's
sake. I did each about nine hundred and eighty times.
I have barely reached a decision comfortable for all
concerned, when you begin to annoy me and make me
wish to retract. Now I want to speak with Lady
Pelham. Where is she?"
"Sir," said the captain, "whatever decision you may
have reached as to hanging me -or not hanging me, I
stand in the place of a father to .that young lady, and I
ask why "
"Why in— ," said Mr. England, fiercely, "don't you
act as if you were grown up?"
"I'm condemned if you shall stand there insulting
me!" cried the captain.
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"I'm condemned if I sha'n't!" cried Mr. England.
"I tell you — " began the captain, hotly.
But just here came an interruption in the lovable
form of Lady Pelham herself. The very exquisiteness
of her sudden apparition upon the deck — for she was
all in white, and her eyes were like the morning — cooled
the glowing tempers of the two men, as sweetly as rain
cools parched ground.
"Speak to her if she wishes," said the captain, with
a bow.
"Captain," said Mr. England, with a flourish, "I
am under many obligations to you already. I should
like to place myself under one more. I desire to speak
with Lady Pelham alone."
The captain and crew of the Hynd Horn went for-
ward in a body. Mr. England removed his hat and
advanced slowly to Lady Pelham.
"What are you to-day?" said Lady Pelham, not
coldly, but with deep sadness.
"Do you mean am I penitent or pirate?" asked Mr.
England.
Lady Pelham's head drooped in acquiescence.
" I think that forto-day and for many days," said Mr.
England, "I shall be neither pirate nor penitent, but
only a common man — with a broken heart."
"How well I know you now!" said Lady Pelham,
with even more sadness.
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
"Lady," said Mr. England, "I did not think you had
found me out. But since it is so "
"It was yesterday," said Lady Pelham, "when your
eyes glittered so, and you looked me over as if — oh, the
shame of it!" A great blush rose on her cheeks.
"Oh, lady," said Mr. England, "I want you to listen
to me so much!"
"Yes," said Lady Pelham; "and for what reason?"
"For these," said Mr. England — "for the sake of the
moon, and the freshness of the sea."
" I think that you are only going to make me one of
your speeches," said Lady Pelham. "But I will listen
to you for the last time."
"You are right," said Mr. England — "for the last
time."
"And for afterward," said Lady Pelham, almost
piteously, "I have a pistol, which I have been shown
how to use."
"You have the right," said Mr. England, "to hurt
me more than you are hurting me now — if that is pos-
sible. But there will be no afterward, for I shall never
see your face again."
"What!" cried Lady Pelham.
"Will you listen to me, most gracious lady?" said
Mr. England.
"I am listening," said she.
"I am all that you think," began Mr. England, "and
115
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
worse. I have done nothing but He to you. But until
we sighted this island I had no evil design. Then it
came to me like a flash that I could have my escape and
you, too. That was why my eyes insulted you. But,
lady, just before I went ashore, when I stole those kisses
from your dear, innocent hands, do you know what
happened ? I fell in love with you. And I walked out
the night in mortal combat with my worst enemy —
myself. And in the morning the cur laid down his
arms and my heart broke. And that is why, gentlest,
sweetest, dearest lady, I am going to send the Hynd
Horn on her way rejoicing, with all that I ever cared for
on board."
Mr. England's voice was very tired, and he stood
wearily.
"Are you going to say anything to me?" he said.
"I am going to tell you," said Lady Pelham, "that
I know you have been speaking the truth, and that you
are an honorable man."
"For your dear sake," said Mr. England, "I would
leave the old life if I could, but it is too strong upon me.
I am a little king upon this island, and my people are
mine, heart and hand. It is not all murder and rob-
bery. There are fair nights and white moons, and
sometimes you can find, deep in the woods, places where
innocence lurks, and you can go back to it for a little.
Heaven can do no better than that, lady. Indeed, I
116
CAPTAIN ENGLAND
think heaven is a place where we recover our lost inno-
cence. If there is any good in me, lady, it is the love I
bear my kingdom. And I cannot begin again, even for
you. I was born by chance, and chance used to be my
only goddess. I know that I must go back to her, and
to her sister, the spirit of desperate adventure. At their
feet I shall one day die, and be damned, as I deserve."
"I shall never think of you as — as a pirate," said
Lady Pelham.
"For your dear sake I will try and be less hate-
ful," said Mr. England. "But sometimes we are just
like anybody else. Will you try to think of me like
that? Why, lady, there have been true lovers on
this island."
"I shall think of you often," said Lady Pelham.
"To-night," said Mr. England, "as the Hynd Horn
passes the mouth of the harbor, will you wave your
scarf to me ? I shall be on the point."
"I will," said Lady Pelham.
"Thank you," said Mr. England. "It will be sweet
to remember your having done that. And now I am
going to say good-by to you, dearest lady, but first you
will let me look at you a little, for I shall never see your
face again."
Lady Pelham's eyelids drooped, and her graceful
head drooped.
Mr. England looked on her for a long time.
117
CAPTAIN ENGLAND 4
"I have never seen anything so beautiful and pure,"
he said.
A tear stole down Lady Pelham's cheek.
"Good-by, dear," said Mr. England. He stooped
quickly and kissed her hand softly where it hung at
her side.
Lady Pelham burst into tears.
All that day she lay in her berth and cried, and made
great moan, saying:
"Oh, how terrible — how terrible — for I love him!"
There was a wonderful moon that night. She came
brimming out of the sea, dripping with light, and swept
up the heavens, and the fire of all the stars in her path
went out. Only the very youngest stars that had strayed
to the most remote places remained to look at their
mother; and even they became dim.
At the mouth of the harbor, leaning against the stem
of a palm, stood Mr. England. He was back from the
beach in a kind of recess among the trees. Every line
of him expressed fatigue, and his face was very sad.
Presently out of the stillness came the creaking of
rigging and the vowel sounds of commands.
"The end," said Mr. England. He stood more
erect.
The Hynd Horn slipped by like a ghost.
Mr. England followed her with his eyes, at first
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CAPTAIN ENGLAND
eagerly, then surprisedly, then dejectedly, then bitterly.
No scarf was waved to him from the deck of the outward-
bound. She slid behind one of the little islands, and
he saw her no more.
"The end," said Mr. England. He put his hands
over his eyes, and pressed tightly. After a little he took
them down and said:
"She didn't mean to hurt me so."
Then he looked up at the moon.
"Now I will go back to my kingdom," he said.
But a new sound broke the stillness — the splash of
oars unhandily plied. The sound drew nearer, but the
strokes occurred with less and less frequency, as if the
boatman were tiring. Mr. England stepped briskly to
the shore.
A few yards off, and to the left, a boat was headed
for the beach. The boat contained a lady.
Mr. England sprang forward.
"Glorious, golden, gracious, wonderful, beloved,
beautiful!" he cried. It was as if his voice caught fire
and blazed up.
The boat grated on the sand.
"Will you help me out, please?" said Lady Pelham.
119
IV
THE EXECUTION
THE EXECUTION
I
The room was dark as the pit and its midnight
silence was accentuated rather than disturbed by the
soft, steady, grating sound of a rat gnawing in the
wall, and by the loud metallic ticking of a clock.
Suddenly upon one of the walls appeared a perpen-
dicular thread of pale gray. This widened by grada-
tions that were almost imperceptible, and which were
accompanied by faint creaking noises like those made
by iron hinges that have not been oiled. The thread
widened to a rope, to a broad ribbon, after a while to
the width of a broad window. Through the rectangles
of the sash appeared a swirling gray vista of falling
snow, half shrouded by the dark figure of a man, his
cap and shoulders thatched with snow. A pane of
glass fell to the floor with a sharp fang. The rat in
the wall ceased his gnawing; and only the clock con-
tinued to break the silence. Presently the lower half
of the sash began to move upward, until there was a
sufficient opening for the man to pass through. Before
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THE EXECUTION
entering he shook the snow from his cap and shoulders,
and, seated on the window-sill, his body in and his legs
out, brushed the snow from his feet. Then he swung
his legs into the room, one after the other, and, turning,
reached out his arms and drew to the shutters. The
room was again dark as the pit. A faint sound, be-
tween a crunch and a squeak, told that the man had
closed the sash.
Presently the man struck a match. The spurt of
blue and yellow flame showed a thin, white, shaking
hand and a thin, white face — a young face aged by
care, by premature cleverness, by suffering and by sin.
It had a hunted look. The match went out. The man
lighted another and moved about the room as if looking
for something. He lighted match after match, moving
about the room as he did so, so that its disposition and
its effects were gradually disclosed: a great fire-
place with big logs laid upon split shingles and news-
papers, the dark hollow of an old, high-shouldered
leather chair, a grandfather's clock, doors leading to
other parts of the house, four windows, a table covered
with an oil-cloth, a big mirror in a cheap veneered
frame.
From time to time during his stealthy peregrinations
the man felt of his throat with his left hand. The
gesture had the effect of a something characteristic and
habitual; it was as if the man had once been afraid
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THE EXECUTION
for his throat and had got into the habit of feeling to
see if all was still well with it. When he came before
the mirror with a lighted match in one hand, the other,
which went again to his throat, instead of being quickly
withdrawn, remained, and its thin nervous fingers
clasped and pressed here and there, as one clasps and
presses one's throat when it is sore to locate the exact
area of inflammation. With the last flicker of the
match (still feeling of his throat) the man leered at his
reflected image, and nodded to it. And his lips seemed
to form and give out, without any actual utterance, the
words, "you'll do."
His next move, which was to the deep leather chair
in which he seated himself, proved that, whatever his
ultimate motive in entering the house might be, he
had no immediate intentions to the burglarious or
murderous. Indeed, his loud, steady breathing be-
tokened that he was on the point of falling asleep.
But at the very moment when his senses were passing
heavily into oblivion the grandfather's clock, after a
kind of mechanical throat clearing, struck twice. The
man roused himself, drew off his heavy boots, lighted a
match, and, yawning again and again, walked quietly
to one of the doors leading out of the room, opened it,
struck another match, stepped over the threshold, and
closed the door behind him.
The whole house creaked and groaned in a sudden
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THE EXECUTION
gust of wind; a dribble of soot and old mortar fell
rattling into the fireplace. The ticking of the clock
sounded louder after the extraneous noises had ceased.
The rat began once more to gnaw in the wall; guard-
edly at first, but soon with a rasping steadiness that
made it seem as if his whole heart were in the act.
The rat might have been likened to a prisoner who was
trying to work his way out of jail.
Presently the man could be heard moving about in the
room immediately above that which he had just quitted.
But not for long. The sound of his steps soon ceased.
II
Hours later, in the same doorway by which the
young man had left the room, there appeared, palely
illumined by the candle which she carried, the emaciated
figure of an old woman. Her thin, bony face, with its
deep sunken eyes and high-bridged nose, suggested the
face of a hawk; the thin, harsh lips and the harsh, pro-
truding jaw gave her a look of strong will and inflexi-
bility, but the snow-white hair, drawn tightly to a knot
at the back of her head, suggested, it is hard to say why,
a gentleness and motherliness which the hawk face
belied. She was shabbily dressed in black; her skirt
did not reach below her ankles, and disclosed a pair of
bony feet encased in coarse white stockings and broken-
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THE EXECUTION
down slippers. Her movements, though brisk and
sure, were those of a person who does not see clearly;
and she seemed to be laboring under an almost irre-
pressible agitation. Her first action on entering the
room was to hold the candle very close to the face of the
clock, and to advance her eyes equally close to it, so as
to ascertain beyond doubt the exact position of the
hands. The hands indicated that the hour was
exactly a quarter to six. The old woman pressed her
hand nervously against her lean breast, and groaned.
Then she set the candle on the table, and kneeling on
the cold board floor, her face in her hands, began to
mumble and mutter as if in prayer, prayer in which
there were a thousand things to pray and only seconds
in which to pray them. Tears came through her
fingers and trickled down her bony wrists.
In the doorway there now appeared a young woman,
also illumined by a candle which she carried. Her
face, thin and white, had a kind of gentle prettiness
about it and was crowned by glories of dark hair. The
young woman was also dressed in black, but her gown,
though of an old fashion, hung gracefully and was of a
decent fit. The young woman had evidently been cry-
ing, but had composed herself. With a pitying glance
at the old woman who knelt, and prayed and wept, she
crossed to the fireplace and thrust her candle among the
papers and kindlings laid to start the big logs. Having
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THE EXECUTION
assured herself that the fire had caught, she set the can-
dle on the table, slipped her hands under the old
woman's shoulders, and raised her to her feet.
" Mother 1" she said, "I hoped you'd sleep through
it."
"No, dear — no, dear," said the old woman. She
wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands.
" Come by the fire, mother, the cold is terrible."
The old woman suffered herself to be led to the fire,
where she spread her lean hands to the blaze that was
beginning to leap among the logs. She had managed
to stop her tears (it is easy for the old both to begin
tears and to stop them) and to regain a certain com-
posure.
"Yes, it is terribly cold," she said. "I don't re-
member such another storm as we've had. On the
north side of the house the snow is almost up to the
second story windows."
Her eyes sought the face of the clock, but at that
distance she could not see the hands.
"What time is it?" she asked.
"It is just five minutes to six, mother."
"Are you sure the clock is right?"
"Yes, mother."
The old woman began to nod her head repeatedly,
as old people are prone to do when their minds are far
away.
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THE EXECUTION
"Sunrise," she said, "is just at six o'clock to-day."
"Yes, mother."
" But we shan't see the sun to-day, even if the clouds
pass. We must keep the shutters closed all to-day."
"Yes, mother."
"They always say 'at sunrise,'" said the old woman
querulously, " but they mean the time when it rises, not
the sight of it. In the eyes of the law sunrise means a
certain time."
"Yes, mother."
"What time is it now?"
"It is nearly four minutes to six, mother."
"You'll keep an eye on the clock, won't you, dear?"
said the old woman. She rocked before the fire, her
hands still spread to the warmth. " Just at sunrise we
must go on our knees and pray to God."
"Yes, mother. You are trembling with cold; let
me get your shawl for you."
" I don't want my shawl," said the old woman. " I
would have put it on if I'd wanted it."
The young woman knelt by the fire, and readjusted
the logs with quick, dexterous, movements. Combus-
tion answered to the bettered draught and began to
roar up the chimney.
"Beyond the grave," said the old woman, as if an-
swering a question, "there are no clouds." She went on,
still as if questions were being put to her: "Beyond
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THE EXECUTION
the grave there is mercy; the Governor of Heaven will
have mercy on those who have sinned."
"Yes, mother."
"I tell you," cried the old woman in a kind of pro-
phetic ecstacy, "we shall all meet beyond the grave."
If further questions arose in her soul she answered
them by mutterings that were not words. The young
woman crossed to the door by which she had entered,
closed it and returned to the fire.
"What time is it now?" asked the old woman.
"It is three and a half minutes to six."
"He has finished his breakfast now," said the old
woman, "and they are leading him out."
"There came faintly from some inner and upper
portion of the house a sound as of a floor creaking.
"Do you hear anything?" said the old woman, a
kind of awful expectancy in her face. "I thought I
heard the creaking of boards. I thought I heard the
scaffold creaking."
The sound was. repeated.
"It's in the house," said the young woman, "up-
stairs somewhere. Some one is moving about. Listen."
There came now a distinct sound of slow, heavy
steps.
"There is no one in the house but ourselves that can
move," said the old woman.
"Could it be father?"
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THE EXECUTION
"He hasn't moved for three months; you know he
can't move; he's crippled with his rheumatism. He'll
die of it."
The young woman's eyes widened with terror.
" It's coming down the stairs," she said.
The old woman, erect, courageous, full of fight,
stepped briskly between her daughter and the door.
It opened, and in the frame appeared the bent figure of
a gigantic old man. He was clad in a rough heavy over-
coat, the collar turned up; below the skirt of the coat
showed a foot of coarse white nightgown. His hairy
shanks were bare, and his feet were thrust into a pair
of enormous carpet slippers. A Jove-like head and
face, streaming with white hair and beard, crowned the
motley figure. But the face had, instead of eyes,
sockets, and, held to its left ear by an immense, sinewy,
hairy hand, was a long, old-fashioned ear-trumpet of
japanned tin.
"What is wrong?" said the old man, in a voice that
sounded like a heavy wagon crossing a wooden bridge.
The old woman seized him by the shoulders and began
to shake him.
" You will kill yourself ! " she said. " There is nothing
wrong."
"Stop shaking me," said the old man fiercely.
The old woman's hands dropped from his shoulders,
but she continued to scold him.
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THE EXECUTION
"You had no business to get up," she said. "You
must go right back to bed. Do you want to kill your-
self?"
"Something is wrong," persisted the old man. He
pushed his wife aside as if she had been a feather, and
groped toward the fireplace, talking as he went.
"Do you think I could have got up and walked if
there hadn't been something wrong," he said. "Why
are you all up?"
The old woman hovered, so to speak, on the flank of
his advance, anxious, frightened, between scolding and
tears.
"There is nothing wrong," she said.
"You lie," said the old man. "Is it about my
son?"
He turned his head heavily from his wife to his
daughter, as if he could see them with his empty sockets
and read in their faces the truth.
His daughter advanced and took him by the arm.
"Nothing has happened, father." She spoke briskly
and cheerfully. "Come to the fire. How good it is
to see you walking about, just as natural as life. Isn't
it good to see him walking about, mother?"
"Yes, yes," said the old woman, but without convic-
tion, "it is wonderful." She turned her near-sighted
eyes to the clock and tried to read the time.
The old man was conducted by his daughter to the
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THE EXECUTION
large leather chair. He sank into it heavily, as if he
had been a load of stones.
"Your poor feet," she said, "are blue with cold."
After an anxious look at the clock she bent and
commenced to chafe them briskly between her
hands.
"You are both keeping something from me," said
the old man. "When mother got up she thought I
was asleep, but I wasn't. I knew when she left her
bed. And I knew then that something was wrong. Is
it about my boy?"
"No, father."
The old man removed the trumpet from his ear and
laid it across his knees. By that action he cut himself
off from the world of sounds and, blind and deaf,
frowned terribly and worked his bushy eyebrows up and
down. It was at this moment that the clock began to
go through its usual throat clearing preamble to voicing
the hour.
The women, white as death and trembling violently,
sank to their knees and, as if by prearrangement, the
same prayer came brokenly from their lips:
"Almighty and most merciful Father: We have
erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep "
The old man's terrible rumbling voice broke in upon
them, and while he spoke, though they continued the
prayer, it was in silence.
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THE EXECUTION
"As long as we are all up," the old man boomed
and rumbled, "why doesn't somebody get breakfast
ready?"
The clock had finished striking.
"A full stomach is the thing to keep the cold out,"
he said, and, seizing his ear- trumpet, thrust the small
end of it into his left ear.
"What are you saying to mother?" he said.
"Nothing, father."
The old woman kept on praying.
"Why don't you tell me what is wrong? I'm not a
log. I could tear this house down with my hands if I
got angry. I'm not a child. Maybe you heard a noise
and thought somebody had broken into the house.
Was that it ? Answer me."
He staggered heavily to his feet, and turned his
empty sockets this way and that.
The two women rose from their knees and glanced
at each other. Without speaking a word the daughter
managed in that brief glance to ask a question and the
mother to answer it. The daughter turned to her
father. The mother sank once more to her knees.
The fire roared in the chimney.
"Father," said the young woman, speaking into the
mouth of the ear-trumpet, "it was a noise. Mother
heard it and woke me. She thought she heard some
one open a window and then close it. But she must
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THE EXECUTION
have dreamed it, mustn't she? We . . . we've been
all through the house."
"I ought to have been called at once," said the old
man. "Just because I'm deaf and blind you think I
can't look after what belongs to me. Another time
. . . are you sure you've looked everywhere ? "
"Mother must have been dreaming."
"You thought you heard steps, mother?" asked the
old man.
"Yes, father." The old woman rose, tears pouring
down her cheeks.
"Just think," said the old man, "it might have been
somebody after my money."
"But it wasn't, father."
"And she thought she heard a window being opened ?"
"I thought I heard it open and then close," said the
old woman. "But I must have been dreaming."
The old man rose heavily and groped his way to the
door, and fumbled till he had the knob in his hand.
"I'll just go about and make sure," he said. He
passed out into the darkness and closed the door behind
him. The two women heard the key turn in the lock.
"Father has locked us in," said the young woman.
"He doesn't like to be interfered with. Let him go.
He'll soon find that there's nobody."
"Mother," said the young woman, "have we done
right not to tell father?"
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THE EXECUTION
"Done right not to tell father about — about "
"Yes, mother — have we?"
"Father's days are numbered in the land. His
heart's threatened. That's what the doctor said. Any
sudden shock would kill him. I think you'd best make
a cup of hot coffee to give him when he comes back."
"It's terrible to think of him groping in those dark
rooms."
"He couldn't see any better if there were lights in
them. Besides, there's nothing to hurt him."
"How quietly he moves, mother; I can't hear a
sound."
"Most likely he's standing still trying to listen with
his old trumpet."
A curious change had come over the old woman.
She seemed to take a kind of martial pride in the fact
that her blind, half deaf, half crippled old husband had
gone forth so boldly to hunt for a thief. She stood
more erect; she had stopped trembling.
"Mother," said the young woman suddenly, "what
are all these burnt matches doing on the floor?"
"Why, so there are," said the old woman. She
picked one up and examined it. " It's not our kind," she
said. The two women looked at each other in bewilder-
ment; bewilderment that changed gradually to horror.
The old woman ran noiselessly to the door by which
her husband had gone out, and tried to open it.
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THE EXECUTION
"There is somebody," she said. "We must get to
father."
The young woman dragged her away from the door.
"If you make a noise," she said, "you will put them
on their guard. Father must take his chances. We
can't get to him without making a noise. We can't
anyway ; we can't break that door open. Maybe they've
gone."
The two women leaned against the locked door
listening with strained ears.
Suddenly, loudly and distinctly, footsteps sounded in
the room above their heads, light, crisp, firm foot-
steps.
"They're in my boy's room," said the old woman.
"Mother — mother," said the young woman, her eyes
blazing with excitement. " Don't you know that step —
don't you know it?"
The old woman listened carefully. Her heart began
to rise and fall rapidly. Her deep-set eyes seemed al-
most to protrude, so great was her wonder and fear.
" It is — it is." Her voice dropped and broke in her
throat.
"He has got away, mother — he must have got away."
"I wonder," said the old woman excitedly, "if your
father hears him and knows who it is. Why did he
lock this door. We've got to get it open. Your old —
father — so deaf — blind — might get hold of him, and not
137
THE EXECUTION
realize who it was, and, and — God in heaven, girl —
quick, get that poker."
The young woman flashed to the fireplace and back,
bringing the long, solid, old-fashioned wrought-iron
poker.
"Let me, mother." She tried to find a purchase be-
tween the door and the doorstep, but could not at
first.
"Try higher up," said the old woman. "Stop — do
you hear anything?"
They listened intently.
"Not a sound, mother. We must get it open."
They worked at the door frantically, but without
success.
"Stop," said the old woman. "Why don't we warn
him?" She began to beat a tattoo with the poker
against the ceiling. "Boy! — boy!" she cried in a thin,
piercing voice. "Answer me — it's mother."
There was no answer. The silence was leaden,
horrible. "Boy! — boy!" screamed the old woman.
She listened. There was a sound of heavy steps
descending the stair.
" It's all right — father's coming back," said the young
woman. "Nothing can have happened."
"Then why didn't he answer me?"
There was a kind of fumbling sound upon the door,
then the rasp of the key being turned. The old man
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THE EXECUTION
stepped heavily into the room. His face had a high
color, and he was breathing quickly, as an athlete
flushes and breathes after putting out his full strength.
He had removed the key of the door, and now, after
much fumbling, reinserted it, gave it two rasping turns,
and dropped it into his overcoat pocket. Then he
turned to the women, rolling his sockets from one to the
other. He put his ear-trumpet to his ear.
"Daughter," he said, "when it gets to be really day-
light you must go for the sheriff. In the meanwhile
keep out of the room that is above this one — your
brother's room. The man was coming out," he went
on, "and he ran right into me."
Slowly and heavily the old man extended his right
hand; the enormous thumb and fingers clawed into a
trifle more than a semi-circumference — the circumfer-
ence of a medium-sized man's neck. The thumb and
fingers moved sharply inwards, became rigid, knotted,
and began to tremble violently.
"A hangman," said the old man, "couldn't have
done it better with a rope."
The hand fell nerveless, the tin ear-trumpet clattered
hollowly on the floor. The color faded from the old
man's face; his cheeks and chin took on a bluish tinge
in the candle light. A kind of shuddering spasm
passed through him from head to foot.
"Take me back to the fire," he said. "I am cold all
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THE EXECUTION
over." He had never before spoken in such a quiet
dependent voice.
The old woman, her face working with fear and hor-
ror, led him to his big chair. The young woman stood
as if rooted, her face the color. of salt; only her fingers
moved. They kept picking at her skirt.
The old man fell, like a sack of stones, into his chair.
"I want to hear what you're saying," he said pres-
ently. His voice whined. "Give me back my ear-
trumpet. I dropped it by the door."
The young woman, apathetic and numb, moved to
where the trumpet had fallen and picked it up. It fell
twice from her jerking fingers.
The old woman, a black and white flash, crossed the
room and seized her daughter's arm.
"Don't give him that," she cried. "Father mustn't
know what he's done ..."
The old man's voice once more, heavy and sonorous,
broke over the old woman's words like a wave and
drowned them.
" I can't hear what you say," he rumbled. " Give me
my ear-trumpet."
"Not yet," said the old woman quickly; "father must
never know what he's done."
The young woman's mouth opened and shut several
times without uttering a sound. Her swallowing mus-
cles worked violently and she kept licking her lower lip.
140
THE EXECUTION
Suddenly her half-palsied speaking machinery emitted
a voice that was between a wail and a scream.
"He got out of prison" — the voice soared to its
highest register — "and he came home."
" Quiet," said the old woman. Her voice was sharp
and sudden, like a steel spring breaking. "Your father
must not know of this." She seized the young woman
by the shoulders and shook her.
"Can you be calm now?" she said. "Can you col-
lect yourself? Can you speak in your natural voice?"
The young woman could only gasp and mumble.
"Let me do the talking, then," said the old woman,
with a sharp note of impatience. She snatched the ear-
trumpet from her daughter and, flashing back to her
husband, thrust it into his hands. They were lying open
on his lap. The fingers did not close on the trumpet.
His head had fallen forward as if in rumination.
The old woman, brisk and graceful — a young girl
had not been more so — knelt and laid her ear to the old
man's breast. Then she thrust her hand inside his
overcoat and laid it on his heart. She felt rapidly of
his hands, his feet, his legs. They were cold as ice.
She rose heavily, and began to stroke the dead man's
streaming white hair.
"He knows all about it, my dear," she said. It was
difficult to tell if she was addressing the dead man or his
daughter. "He can hear and see now."
141
THE EXECUTION
The young woman approached with halting, leaden
steps.
"We must get him to his bed, somehow," said the o 7 i
woman, "even if it breaks our backs. Nobody must
know that he ever left it. Nobody must ever know
what father has done."
There was not a trace of emotion now in the old
woman's voice. * It was the voice of a calm and zealous
housekeeper, giving orders during a spring house-
cleaning.
"We must hide all the traces of what has hap-
pened," she said. "It wouldn't do to have people
know what father has done. The snow will have cov-
ered all the tracks leading to the house. People must
never know "
"Mother — mother, if you talk so heartlessly I shall
go mad."
"Help me now, we must get your father back to his
bed, and then "
The two women, the one calm, self-reliant and un-
moved, the other hysterical, gasping and useless, were
unable to stir the gigantic body of the old man.
The old woman stood for a long time in thought.
Then she took the door-key from the dead man's over-
coat pocket and thrust it into her daughter's hand.
"Get our bonnets and shawls," she said, "and the
money."
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THE EXECUTION
" What— for— mother ? "
"Do as I tell you."
The old woman occupied the moments of her daugh-
ter's absence by dragging the fire piecemeal from the
fireplace and reconstructing it against the ancient
tinder-dry wainscoting of the room.
The young woman returned to a room full of smoke,
in which the candles made dim yellow halos.
"Mother — mother, what have you done?" she cried.
"My dear," said the old woman, "we couldn't have
gone on living in this house. By the time we can fetch
help there will be nothing left of it but ashes. Come."
143
SIMON L'OUVRIER
SIMON L'OUVRIER
I
The other day Simon L'Ouvrier died. A good half
of the New York dailies, supposed to be devoted to the
promulgation of news, made no mention of the fact.
A number misspelt his name, and at least one had it
that he was a painter. Thus a remarkable man and a
remarkable talent made their exit from this busy stage,
receiving, from the jaded audience, adieus the most
hasty and undignified; scant thanks for past entertain-
ment, and, presently, oblivion.
These days a great man makes as much stir as a stone
thrown into a pond — a splash, ripples, nothing. The
bigger the man, the bigger the splash. Yet for all the
smooth and placid air of forgetfulness assumed with
unseemly haste by the stirred water, the pond is forever
affected by the sinking of the stone. Its general level
is raised. And if the stone was big enough, it shows
eternally above the surface like an island. Such a stone
flung into Europe was Napoleon. Such were Shake-
speare, Cromwell, and the other prodigies that man is
147
SIMON L'OUVRIER
willing enough to forget, but unable. A man could as
easily forget his own sins as Shakespeare.
Simon L'Ouvrier was a small stone, but perfectly
round, and in his time was flung into the pond with
such violence as to make a very great splash. And
then, forgotten, sunk to the bottom, covered with mud,
he was fished up and flung in again. It is given to few
men to make more than one splash. Twice L'Ouvrier
set the pond agog, twice sank to the bottom, and
was twice forgotten. And the other day, by the
grace of God, came death to put him out of his
misery.
Simon L'Ouvrier was born in Tours, in sight of the
statue of De Balzac. His father was a cake-maker of
much talent and address — a man who put as much
genius into a new frosting as Bernard Palissy gave to
his enamels. To the child it matters little if the trans-
mitted influences toward thoroughness and application
come from a cake-maker or a maker of ballads, if only
they come. L'Ouvrier himself believed firmly in hered-
ity and often spoke in proof of it. "This is how I came
to have a talent," was the beginning of his favorite
anecdote, which went on: "My father, the day ended,
left some cakes to bake in a slow oven. His heart was
set on them, for the ingredients were mixed in entirely
new and promising proportions. His heart was equally
set on the return of my mother, who had been spending
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SIMON L'OUVRIER
the week at Blois with her parents. My mother re-
turned, and after the usual embraces proper to such
an occasion, and the rapid, mutual accounts of the days
passed in separation, the worthy couple ascended to
their chamber and prepared for bed. It was November
and bitterly cold, the kind of night when leaving one's
bed is worse than going into battle. 'Now I call this
comfort,' said my mother; 'kiss me good-night.' My
father kissed her, but she felt that his heart was not
wholly in the tenderness. ' What are you thinking of ?'
said she, slightly piqued. 'I was thinking, my dear,'
said my father, 'that it would have been better to have
put the pistache cakes on the warmer side of the oven;
the apricot paste will bake with less heat.' 'Never
mind that,' said my mother, 'do not invite a cold by
descending to the kitchen.' 'Very well,' said my
father, ' I can try again to-morrow. Ah I but it is good
to have you back.' 'Don't talk to me in that tone,'
said my mother, 'you are still thinking of the cakes.'
"That is true,' said my father, 'and I would like to take
just one little look to see how things are going.' 'In
the name of God,' said my mother, 'go. But you are
inviting an inflammation of the chest.' So my father
got out of bed, put on his slippers, and pattered down
to his famous cakes. When he returned he said: 'I
have shifted the cakes and raised the heat one degree,
and now, my treasure, I have thoughts of you only,'
149
SIMON L'OUVRIER
'You are shivering,' said my .mother. 'That is for you
to think about/ said my father."
"It is to these circumstances," L'Ouvrier would con-
clude, "that I owe the qualities which have brought
me a measure of success: passion and the capacity for
taking pains. But for a thorn to modify my pleasure
in these roses, I am diabolically subject to colds."
On one occasion, having concluded this anecdote, a
friend asked him this question: "And what do you owe
your mother?"
"Everything," said L'Ouvrier; "she was a Jew."
II
At an age when most boys are flying kites or dream-
ing of the approaching holidays Simon L'Ouvrier
was plotting the steps by which he should ascend to
eminence.
He was slight, dark, large-featured, big-eared, bright-
eyed, and singularly phlegmatic. He worked long
shifts in the bakery, lending an amazing address to the
work, and thought long thoughts. This is curious:
that in those days he had never been inside of a theatre,
but had already determined to be an actor. We have
his own word for it. To quote from his journal, a
bulky volume, long out of print: "I have but one
dream — to be an actor. To this end I am determined
150
SIMON L'OUVRIER
to devote whatever is in me of inclination, capacity for
suffering and power. I will not allow myself to fail."
Any other boy of fifteen, possessed by such a dream,
would have let it out in some manner to the family
circle. But Simon had the great gift of reticence, the
greater gift of consideration. "Why talk," said the
journal, "when I have as yet formulated no plan of
procedure ? Why trouble my father, who wishes me to
devote my life to frosting and pistache ? Why trouble
my mother, whose dream it is that I should one day
marry a lady? ... By working diligently at a trade
which does not interest me I am gaining character. . . .
I have bought a mirror to make faces in. It is five
inches in diameter, weighs but little, and goes easily in
the pocket."
There is nothing, to my mind, more characteristic of
L'Ouvrier than that mirror. Can you not picture him,
in his blue blouse and baker's cap, waiting till the ovens
can take care of themselves (he never neglected his
work — if we can trust the journal; and I think we can),
whipping out the mirror and making faces in it ?
"The time," he wrote, "is inevitable when I shall be
caught with my mirror and pronounced an imbecile."
Later he wrote: "I have learned to prick up my ears
like a dog, to move my scalp up and down, to frown
horribly, and to stare my own self out»of countenance."
Again he wrote: "My practice is to imagine myself in
151
SIMON L'OUVRIER
a situation: to brood over it until, according to its
nature, I am either (and in real fact) happy, unhappy,
terrified, jocose, pathetic, heroic. Arrived at such a
state of mind, I glance in my mirror, and try to catch,
and store away for future use, the expression written
there for the moment in lights and shadows. By a
diligent pursuit of this method it must arrive that in
the end I shall be able to look jocose without feeling
so; heroic, though afraid. ... I have discovered
something: the emotions of a quiet nature — tender-
ness, gentleness, archness (if that be an emotion),
courtesy, whimsicalness, are expressed by the soul;
that is to say, a man, more easily a woman, can look
these things without moving a muscle. The passions —
jealousy, hate, fear, indeed all except greed — are ex-
pressed by the muscles. Greed may be expressed by
either method. ... I make an analysis of a given
character; then try to put myself in the mental atti-
tude of that character, and then study the reflection of
it in my mirror. Thus I have arrived at the ability to
look like any one in the establishment — my father, my
mother, the apprentices, the maids, etc. This morning
I tried to look like the archbishop. I thought for a
long time of good deeds, quiet cloisters, the crucified
Jesus, and charity. Then I looked into the mirror,
and saw there a face not in the least like the arch-
bishop's. I then imagined myself an archbishop; I
152
SIMON L'OUVRIER
developed the ambition to become a cardinal, then
Pope. I plotted ways and means, I played at politics —
I looked in the mirror, and, in the name of a thousand
saints, I was the archbishop's self! ... I have tried
another experiment. I became, with all the intensity
possible, myself — my whole self — self-centred, ambi-
tious, single-minded, sure of success, full of courage to
endure the means to my self -announced end. I looked
in the mirror, and saw the face of a conqueror. ... I
looked at myself so long that, for the first time in my
life, I allowed the cakes with which I had been entrusted
to burn."
Ill
Simon did not swerve from any of his purposes.
He kept his own counsel. His parents died in peace
and left him the bakery, ten thousand francs which
they had saved, and five locked volumes of culinary
secrets. Simon sold the bakery and his good-will for
the sum of forty thousand francs, tucked the culinary
secrets in a corner of his trunk, the mirror in his pocket,
nodded in a friendly manner to the statue of De Balzac,
and took the train for Paris.
Up to this time — he was now seventeen — he had never
been inside of a theatre nor read a play. Neither
played a part in his scheme of education. Still, the
theatres and the book-stalls of the capital tempted
153
SIMON L'OUVRIER
him, but not beyond his strength. "In ten years,"
says the journal, "I promise myself a performance each
night and a whole library of plays. Meanwhile, I must
devote myself to life, to joy and to sorrow, to nature
and the development of all that is best in me, to the
knowledge, if not the exercise, of all that is worst."
The journal tells us further that Simon quitted Paris
for Marseilles, and played all the way, much to the
alarm and annoyance of other travellers occupying the
same compartment with him, the part of a young fel-
low who has contracted consumption, been taken out
of college by his doting parents, and sent South. "I
tell one old fellow, much to his horror, that I have had
three hemorrhages and am likely at any moment to
have another — alors vous verrez du sang — va!" He
went to Algiers, to a hotel frequented by consumptives,
and continued for many months to play his part, ac-
quiring, he tells us, from observation and practice, a
sufficient perfection to deceive a doctor.
"There is one woman here who will not recover. I
am watching her closely, and causing my own malady
to progress symptom by symptom with hers. But one
of these days she will die, and I will take a turn for the
better. In the cough I am past perfect. I eat little
for two reasons : to appear pale and to husband my re-
sources. Sometimes I cut my arm so that I may show
blood on my handkerchief. ... A young girl came by
154
SIMON L'OUVRIER
to-day's boat. She is very beautiful, but far gone with the
malady. A part suggests itself : A man dying of consump-
tion is in love with a woman dying of consumption."
The journal does not tell the girl's whole name; only
the Christian part of it — Cloise. Simon made love to
her, so he tells us. They were the talk of the hotel.
"The situation is pathetic in the extreme," he writes.
"Without meaning to, I have made her love me. I will
never let her know that I am deceiving her. . . . To-
day she said: 'Simon, dear, if you would only take a
turn for the better, I think I would.' This is very
curious. I wonder if there is any truth in it. To-
morrow I will cough less. ... It is very wonderful;
as I improve, she improves. She is happy — oh, so
happy. Suppose she should recover ? I do not wish to
marry her, for I do not love her in the least; but would
it be honorable to do otherwise ? . . . This morning I
pretended to be worse. But I must not do so again.
She had a hemorrhage, poor child. . . If I can save
her by recovering, I will recover; if I must marry her,
I must. . . . This morning I appeared at breakfast
with a beaming face. 'Cloise,' I said, 'I only coughed
once during the night.' Ah, such joy — such joy! I
imitate her joy faithfully. We are like two happy
birds. . . . Cloise continues to improve. I shall have
to marry her. This is not at all in my scheme of life.
... It is six weeks since Cloise had her hemorrhage.
155
SIMON L'OUVRIER
I have asked her hand in marriage from her parents.
... It is very cold to-day; we shall not go out . . .
a note from Cloise to say that she can not leave her
bed, she has taken cold; will I pass her door sometimes
during the day? It will comfort her, she says. . . .
Have just come from passing her door. She is cough-
ing again. Poor child! I love her a little; that much
is certain. . . . To-day it is still very cold; no note
from Cloise. I must make inquiries of her parents.
I reach their door. Within is a low moaning. . . . For
a moment, I confess it with shame, I am tempted to
rush in and play the heartbroken lover; but only for a
moment. I, even, have better feelings. I will say
nothing. I will go away. Maybe she died happier for
thinking that she was loved. ... I can not make up
my mind what to play next. I am sick of disease. I
think I will be a man of iron — one of these boisterous
fellows that has no ailments, no fatigues, nothing but a
vast energy, a vast appetite, a loud mouth. I shall be
disagreeable enough, I dare say, but pouf! Suppose
that beneath a gruff exterior I ill conceal a heart of
gold?"
IV
That, then, was the way Simon L'Ouvrier went about
learning his art. He lived out hundreds of parts;
sparing no pains to be perfect in the whole and its
156
SIMON L'OUVRIER
components. In the privacy of his own room, in com-
plete solitude, sometimes for whole days of solitude, he
never swerved, he tells us, from the character he had
assumed for the time being. Now he would be a
military man, disappointed in his aspirations; now a
successful man of affairs; now an explorer; now a
priest, author, photographer, lawyer. To the playing
of each character he gave an infinity of thought, re-
search, and temperament. It is said that there are few
professions in which he could not have practised with
aptitude, and perhaps distinction. The journal tells us
of many failures — parts which at first he was unable to
play. To these he returned again and again until, for
so he would have us believe, he succeeded even in de-
ceiving himself. At one period, toward the end of his
self-appointed term of practice, it became his ambition
to visit Lhasa, the forbidden city, in the guise of a pil-
grim. He gave two whole years of the most search-
ing preparation for this feat, living close to the danger
line, studying inflections and Buddhism; accustoming
his body to bear the desert sun. "I am now," he
writes, "so seasoned that I can lie naked in the sun a
whole day and be none the worse. It will not be long
before I am the right color from head to foot. I pass
readily for a native, and shall burn my bridges and
join the next pilgrimage."
It seems that on this journey he penetrated to within
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SIMON L'OUVRIER
five miles of the forbidden city successfully, and was
then exposed by a holy man who had come out to inspect
the pilgrimage. "It was terrible," he wrote afterward;
" there was something in his eye which I could not meet.
He questioned me; I lost my presence of mind, and
stammered. I suffered, I think, from what is called
stage-fright. I was an impostor, patently, self-con-
fessed. They stripped my clothes from me," the nar-
rative continues, "and suspended me to the wall of a
house by means of two nails driven through the palms
of my hands. ... I remained there hanging a day and
a night in mortal agony. ... I said: 'Simon, you
have elected to be a player of parts. Act now the
stoic' But as God is forgiving I could not. To
strangle my screams ere they were fairly bom was the
utmost that I could do. Nor, indeed, is any philosophy
potent in the presence of such pain as I endured at that
time."
He was taken down after hanging for twenty-four
hours, and escorted out of the country by men who
struck him terribly with whips. He writes: "When
the illness following this barbaric usage had passed, I
found myself still firm in the intention to visit the for-
bidden city. It may be that it will be my last part.
Let me leave no stone unturned to be perfect in it."
The second attempt succeeded. He penetrated the
forbidden city and came out alive; unharmed and un-
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SIMON L'OUVRIER
detected. The two attempts, with the preparation for
them, cost him five years. He had devoted already,
from the time of purchasing the mirror, twenty years
to the study of his art.
"I am thirty-seven," he writes. "What does that
matter? I can look eighteen. I have done my best.
I shall now take the world by storm."
I cannot, in justice to my subject, refrain from
quoting another passage from the journal, written on
the journey from the Far East to Paris : " In every part
that I have undertaken to play I have touched perfec-
tion, except in one. It is impossible for me to be a
gentleman. Nor can any self-love convince me that I
shall ever succeed with that illusive and exquisite role.
The many will not know, but the few, those who are
born, will never be satisfied with my interpretation. I
have drunk this bitter cup to the dregs, and no longer
care."
V
It would be interesting to know if at this period,
slightly anterior to his intended debut, Simon L'Ouvrier
had any doubts as to how the public would receive him.
The journal voices none; L'Ouvrier never admitted to
having had any. Acquaintances (friends the man never
had) affirm that doubting had no rooting-place in his
character. De Maupassant is said to have said:
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SIMON L'OUVRIER
"L'Ouvrier? He would play God if they would let
him. Except for purposes of mimicry, he does not
know what modesty is, or conceit for that matter.
Give him so much as a cotton thread and he will hang
himself beautifully; give him a dish of crumpled paper
and you will behold a connoisseur eating ortolan. Give
him nothing and he will be everything."
Madame Bernhardt was present at L'Ouvrier's third
or fourth performance (as, indeed, was all Paris). Dur-
ing the first entr'acte she said: "It is horrible to feel
clumsy all at once." During the second entr'acte she
said, with tears in her golden voice: "I am willing to
admit that I am not an actor, but a buffoon; neverthe-
less this public demonstration of the fact is hard to
bear." The curtain rose on the third act; L'Ouvrier
appeared; Madame Bernhardt burst out laughing; so
did the whole house. Ten minutes later the divine
Sarah was in tears. The curtain fell. The house was
sobbing. Coquelin Aine" left his seat and approached
Madame Bernhardt. Tears were streaming from his
comical eyes. "I am going," said he; "farewell."
"Where are you going?" she asked. "To Pere La
Chaise," said he, "to bury myself." "I will go with
you," said she. "But in the name of God let us wait
till the performance is over. If I know anything of
stage-craft there will be another occasion to make us
laugh. I would not miss it for assured salvation."
160
SIMON L'OUVRIER
"Admit," said Coquelin, "that I am a lumpish ama-
teur." "Never! But admit, you, that my voice is full
of cracks 1" "Never," said Coquelin, and he hastened
back to his seat, for the signal had been given for the
curtain to go up. During the act Coquelin was heard
to say: "Those feet — oh, those feet, how eloquent!"
And when the performance was over he sought out
Madame Bernhardt, and said: "I thank God that at
least this man is a Frenchman." "And I," said
Madame, " thank God that he is a Jew."
But all this is advancing matters too much. How
did L'Ouvrier get his chance to play before Paris ? In
a manner thoroughly characteristic. Says the journal:
"Having ascertained that Monsieur Didot was alone
in his office, and, indeed, in the whole theatre, except
for a boy to answer the bells, I took the latter, an in-
telligent gamin, into my confidence. 'I am an actor,' I
said, 'and I have a grudge against Monsieur Didot. I
am going to frighten him, but I shall not hurt him.
If he calls for help, do not hear. I am only going to
play a trick on him.' Then I gave the gamin a couple
of francs and ascended to Monsieur Didot's office. I
assumed the face of a madman, entered without knock-
ing, locked the door behind me, and put the key in my
pocket. 'They say I am mad,' I said; 'what do you
think?' Monsieur Didot is a large, courageous man,
who has fought a number of duels. He rose and placed
161
SIMON L'OUVRIER
himself so that his large desk was between us. 'I am
not really mad/ I said, 'but sometimes I feel in my
muscles a superhuman force, and I have to exercise it.
That,' I said, in a confidential tone, 'is how I escaped.
There were bars in the window. I took them in my
hands; they came to pieces. It is good to be strong.
Sometimes I feel as if I could tear a man's head from
his body with my hands.' Here I advanced a few
steps, looking more and more insane. 'I must try it
some time,' I said. Monsieur Didot was trembling
violently, like a man in a malarial chill. 'But I'm not
mad,' I said, 'and the proof is that at times I imagine
myself to be a dog.' Here I began to yelp, bark, and
snarl. Monsieur Didot's hand closed on a heavy ruler.
'See,' I said, and I held up my hands so that he could
see the scars in the palms, 'I have been crucified. Do
you wonder that I am a little queer at times ? And the
queerest thing is this, that I have never been in a
theatre and yet at times I imagine myself to be an
actor. Nothing soothes me like reciting. See, at the
thought of it, the mad look leaves my eyes. Would
you like to hear me recite ?' He nodded. He was too
frightened to speak. I let the madness go out of my
face, and in a heart-broken voice counted from one to
twenty in Arabic. When I had finished tears were
rolling down the manager's face. 'That was how I lost
her,' I said. Then I began again at one and counted
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SIMON L'OUVRIER
to twenty in a comic manner. And though he was
shaking in his shoes, laughter burst from Monsieur
Didot's mouth before I had finished saying the number
five. 'See/ I said, 'how rational I can be if I am
humored.' Then, suddenly kneeling, I began to make
love to a chair with the most soul-moving passion.
Again Monsieur Didot wept. Then I scolded the chair,
pretending that it was my little boy and that he had
fallen down in the mud in his Sunday clothes. Then I
made it my confessor, and confessed to the most idiotic
crimes and sins. Monsieur Didot roared with laugh-
ter. Then I became, in a moment, perfectly rational.
'Confess,' I said, 'that you have been entertained. I
am not in the least mad. I want you to stage me in a
play which I shall select. That is all. Perhaps you
have not seen enough of my art to judge. Give me
five minutes, and I will die of consumption, waste away
before your eyes, and spit blood. It is not pretty, but
I can do it, though it is disagreeable to bite the inside
of one's mouth. Or, if you prefer, I will have an
epileptic fit, or strangle myself. Or, if you like, I will
go mad again and frighten you to death.'
" Monsieur Didot vented a long sigh. ' Whatever you
do,' he said, 'don't go mad. It was horrible. But I
will stage you in whatever play you select. You are
wonderful. But what was that first piece you recited ?
I could not understand a word of it, yet it made me
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SIMON L'OUVRIER
cry. ' ' That,' I said, ' was the Arabic for the cardinal num-
bers one to twenty inclusive. And so was the second
piece, which, if I am not mistaken, made you laugh.' "
That was how L'Ouvrier induced a manager to give
him a start. The rest, the first night — (Edipus — be-
longs to dramatic history. On the one side the audience
and critics, experienced playgoers hostile to new blood;
on the other side to do battle against them, a little Jew,
who had never faced an audience till that moment — a
little Jew with big ears, clad in the classic robes of a
Grecian king. The result was never in doubt. The
little Jew appeared — enormous and dominant. His
voice sounded like a great bell tolling. The rigid
tragedy throbbed with passion and life. Horror ap-
peared like something tangible on the most cynical
faces. At the point when (Edipus appears, after putting
out his eyes, to say farewell to his children, many
persons in the audience screamed and fainted. For
days all Paris talked of a Greek king dead these thou-
sands of years.
A critic is said to have asked L'Ouvrier at this time
how, being a smallish man, he managed to make him-
self look large.
"By thinking large," said L'Ouvrier.
"And with whom did you study eloquence?"
"With silence."
Pressed to explain himself, he said : " I went into the
164
SIMON L'OUVRIER
desert, at a season when no winds blow, and day and
night there is complete silence. I stood it as long at I
could. Then I began to talk. At first I had no effect
on the silence, but gradually I forced it out of my
vicinity. I pretended that I was a little village. I
learned to produce all the sounds of one — the women
scolding, the children howling, the hens clucking, the
dogs barking. I peopled the solitude and amused
myself vastly."
VI
Simon L'Ouvrier became the talk of the town.
People rushed to see him, and scrambled to know
him. His journal was published. He was proclaimed
a conqueror, not over nations, but over matter and
mind. The French, with their strong leaning to fanati-
cal worship, set him upon a solitary pinnacle, in the
clouds above other pinnacles, and saw in him the true
apostle of art. Nor was L'Ouvrier backward in pro-
pounding his gospel. He had worked, suffered, sacri-
ficed, sowed — now he would play, rejoice, smell the
grateful incense, and reap.
"In the beginning," he said on one occasion to a
reporter, "there were three ambitions in my family:
my father's, to have me bake cakes well; my mother's,
to have me marry a lady; my own, to become a great
actor. The other day a Royal Personage took luncheon
165
SIMON L'OUVRIER
at my house, incognito. I offered him a little cake
which I had compounded and baked with my own
hands. He pronounced it delicious. Thus my father's
ambition for me may be said to have borne fruit. I
have received two offers of marriage from women who,
to judge by name and position, if not conduct, are ladies.
Thus my mother may rest in peace, for, while I shall
not marry either of them, I could if I would. As for
my own ambition, I need only say that I have been re-
ceived with ovations by the people of Paris, with whom
rests the last word in things appertaining to art. If I
am a great actor it is because I have worked hard. If
I am not, it is because I have not worked hard enough."
By what kind of a moral code did this curious man
live? What was he like? The first question is the
more easily answered. He gave money m charity,
lived frugally and free from all breath of scandal. The
second question is difficult, but, from combining the
accounts of those who knew him best, I have concluded
that he was polite, self-assured, without offense, a little
stiff and distant, a better talker than listener. He
dressed quietly, was scrupulously clean, and quite
without the vagaries of lesser stage favorites. He
played steadily night after night and was open and
consistent in his business obligations — in short, a man
of his word, who took no liberties with the existing
school of manners. He deserved the success for which
166
SIMON L'OUYRIER
he had given so much mind and so much courage.
There could be no better proof than the fact that his
brother and sister artists admired him with all fervor
and no jealousy. He must then have been a very
happy man at this time: financially and socially secure,
enjoying excellent health, and the promise of many
years during which he should give infinite pleasure to
multitudes of people — gloom them with tragedy, burst
them with laughter. But fate had an awful blow for
him in her bludgeon.
When he first met Aime*e de Longueville is not known.
It was not even known for months that they were any-
thing but acquaintances. Then came the announce-
ment of their engagement and approaching marriage.
All Paris rose to applaud. Then came the Charity
Bazar fire, and Aimee de Longueville, in her youth,
beauty, and innocence, was burned to death — horribly,
beyond recognition.
Simon L'Ouvrier did not receive this blow in a man-
ner worthy of his manhood and his genius. He left the
stage and plunged into every excess which his genius
could devise. Houses were no longer open to him,
society cut him, the press forgot him. So fast a pace
did he go that in less than a year he presented a barely
recognizable shadow of himself, a malevolent, evil
shadow, forever dogging the footsteps of vice. He was
dubbed by vicious associates "the Wandering Jew."
167
SIMON L'OUVRIER
All this is very unpleasant to think about. Let us
hasten to the end.
It came out that Aime"e de Longueville's mother was
starving. The directors of the Francais organized a
benefit, sought out Simon L'Ouvrier, and begged him
to take part. Besodden as he was with drink, it took
him some time to understand what was wanted. When
he did, he said: "Very well, I will play the farewell
scene from 'CEdipus.'"
The fact that L'Ouvrier was once more to exercise
his genius set Paris by the ears to obtain seats at the
benefit. And those who were lucky enough to bid
themselves into the theatre were treated to a perform-
ance which, though great, was not in the least what
they had expected. L'Ouvrier appeared with his crown
on the side of his head, two enormous glass eyes hang-
ing around his neck by strings, his ears wiggling, and
his toes turned in. He spoke, indeed, the heartrending
words of CEdipus, but he lent to their utterance the
most comical inflections and by-play. For half an hour
the theatre crashed with laughter; people howled and
held their sides. When the curtain fell the applause
and cries for L'Ouvrier lasted five minutes. The man-
ager stepped before the curtain.
"Monsieur L'Ouvrier," said he, "wishes me to thank
you for your kind attention, and to say further that
he has gone home for ever, and bids you farewell. He
168
SIMON L'OUVRIER
wishes me to thank you further on behalf of your kind-
ness to the memory of Aimee de Longueville."
Simon L'Ouvrier on his deathbed with consumption
played one more part.
"How long have I to live?" said he to the doctor.
"It is a question of minutes, my poor friend," said
the doctor.
"How little you know,"" said L'Ouvrier. "Look, I
am improving; — I am getting well."
The doctor affirms that color came into L'Ouvrier's
cheeks, that his temperature and pulse became normal,
that he gave orders for a hearty meal, laughed and
joked like one who has suddenly and successfully
passed a serious climax, and then, exclaiming hilari-
ously: "I can still do it," collapsed and died.
169
VI
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
While I was dressing for dinner the moon rose, and I
could see, beyond the firm island studded with live
oaks, miles of shaky rice swamps from which protruded
the mouths of straight, narrow canals, looking in the
moonlight like garden paths of silver. Far to the left a
winding screen of trees hinted of a river at its feet, while
here and there among the swamps groups of live oaks,
bushy, low-headed and immense ; like Cyclopean or-
chard trees, signified that the region was either in process
of yielding to the ocean or of establishing more consist-
ently the hoop of a continent. Through my open win-
dow came the loud, consumptive coughing and chug-
ging of an old-fashioned stern-wheeler, which presently
ceased and yielded to the shouts and yells of negroes.
And I knew that the bi-weekly steamer trom George-
town was being made fast to my host's wharf and that
the servants were welcoming a guest. But it all sounded
like an act of piracy.
My host knocked and asked if I had what I wanted.
"Yes," I said, "come in, will you?"
He entered — a long, thin, gracious young host, in
173
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
spotless white linen dinner clothes which contrasted de-
lightfully with his crimson bow tie and shining brown
face.
"Who's being murdered," I asked.
"It's my grandfather Creighton," said Creighton.
"He knew that you were to be here to-night, and
many nights, and he proposes to be among the first to
express satisfaction."
"How far has he come," I asked.
"Forty miles by buggy and steamer."
"How old is he?"
"Eighty."
"I wish," I said, "that I could do something to de-
serve so much honor."
"You can," said Creighton.
"How," said I.
"By taking a drink whenever he does," said Creigh-
ton. "I can't, because I'm married. You'll be down
in a minute? If not, the old gentleman will visit you
with a cocktail. The mixer and ingredients are on the
hall table waiting for him — " Creighton opened the
door and listened. "Come here," he said. Then we
both began to laugh. ' ' He has arrived ,' ' said Creighton.
We could hear the unmistakable and delectable sound
of ice and liquid being shaken in a cocktail mixer. By
this time I was dressed and we started downstairs. On
the landing we met Grandfather Creighton coming up.
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A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
He had not had time to remove his hat or long cloak,
which were streaked with salt-water stains, for, as he
afterward said, it had been rough crossing Georgetown
bay. He was a charming little old gentleman to look
at, smootlHshaven and delicately fashioned like a
porcelain. His slender hands were almost as white as
the silver tray which he carried and upon which were
three straw-colored cocktails in heavy cut glasses. The
old gentleman held the tray steadily with one hand and
employed the other in an easy and graceful removal of
his hat.
"I attribute this meeting," said he, "to the good fort-
une which has followed me for eighty years. Help
yourselves."
Creighton took his grandfather's hat so that the old
gentleman could have a drinking hand, and we put
down our cocktails with one gesture, as it were, and one
swallowing noise, as if three soldiers trained to an act
of discipline.
"I feel that we are better acquainted already," said
the old gentleman. "I shall be forgiven if I do not put
on my evening clothes? My granddaughter by mar-
riage waits for no man. At my age a man should think
twice before letting his soup grow cold."
He then led us downstairs to the hall table where he
found the cocktail things just as he had left them.
Attributing this to the good fortune which had followed
175
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
him for eighty years he mixed three more, and we
joined our hostess in the drawing-room.
"Why, Grandfather Creighton ! " she cried. " Could
nothing but a miserable stranger bring you to see us ?
What have you been doing with yourself all this time ?"
"I have been suffering from thirst," said the old gen-
tleman. "That I have occasionally found relief I attrib-
ute to the good fortune which has followed me for
eighty years."
During dinner champagne was served before I had
swallowed my oysters. The old gentleman was silent
and uncommunicative. But as he prefaced this atti-
tude by stating that he could not do more than two
things at once, on account of his great age, we allowed
him to eat and drink in peace. But when Mrs. Creigh-
ton left us and coffee was brought with gigantic cigars
and fiery brandy, the old gentleman said that he never
smoked until he had drunk as much as he could, and
began to carry the bulk of the conversation. This at
length fell on ways of getting rich, legitimate and other
ways. Grandfather Creighton at something I said
about so and so being no better than a pirate chuckled
immoderately.
"Why," said he, "we Creightons are rich and all our
money comes from piracy, entering vessels on the high
seas, and murder. We didn't do it ourselves; it was
done for us. We reaped the benefit. Those pearls
176
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
which Rob Creighton there wears in his shirt bosom
came from a pair of Spanish earrings that had black
hairs tangled in them and their clasps broken as if they
had been torn from a lady's ears. My father had them
broken up — the earrings — because my mother thought
the design unlovely, and because, to tell the truth, which
is not an elegant one, the settings were greasy. All this
Santee region," the old gentleman went on, "its rivers,
tideways, swamps, seaward ponds, lagoons, harbors
and turtle-backs of dry land, was infested by pirates.
When I was a big boy my father took me to Charleston
on a visit, and while I was there I escaped from him and
went to see one hanged. It was not a spirited scene.
The poor wretch had begged a bottle of laudanum from
his jailor and was in no condition to seize the opportu-
nity which fortune had given of making his exit in a
gallant and sympathetic manner. But when I was a
little boy pirates were not so sodden. It was then that
the golden harvest of their nefarious doings was gath-
ered by us Creightons and put once more to Christian
employment; that is, to drawing interest. One-eyed
Limb, an escaped slave, was the particular devil of this
vicinity — a great pirate, sir, as black-hearted as skinned,
astute, cunning, of a skill with weapons that bordered
on the divine, malicious, humorous, and of an audacity
and sheer courage that compelled a kind of admiration,
even from white men.
177
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
"I was the last person, sir, to see one-eyed Limb
alive. He met his God or his devil, sir, over yonder on the
sea beaches where Gunpowder creek flows into ocean.
"The fresh sea-gull eggs, mackerel and flood-gull, and
the certainty to hook a drum, frequently drew me thither
when I was a little boy. My nurse's stories of the hor-
rible deeds upon bad little boys of one-eyed Limb and
other notable pirates of our Carolina coast as frequently
inspired me to stay away. Even the grown folk did not
feel entirely secure. For, from time to time, we could
see from these very dining-room windows the glow
of fires far off reflected upon the sky, and hear the
sounds of wild men in liquor. There were more preg-
nant alarms than these sometimes, and once, sir, my
father and a number of gentlemen who were his guests,
firing from the upper chambers, stood off a deliberate
attempt of one-eyed Limb to raze the plantation. On
that occasion there was enough carnage among the pi-
rates to reduce their ambition. My nurse carried me in
her arms to the carriage-house where the corpses had
been ranged. There were eleven of them, with eleven
types of bad faces — black, white and yellow. My
mother was for having them decently buried, but my
father gave orders to have stones attached to their necks
and to sink them in the river.
"Among Limb's crew were a number of escaped
slaves — two from this very plantation — and it was not,
178
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
therefore, unnatural that rumors of what the pirates
were about doing or intending reached us from time to
time through the quarters. We heard, for instance,
that Limb would take a terrible revenge for the loss of
his eleven companions, and for nearly two years my
father maintained an elaborate system of outposts and
signals; but with the exception of a few shots fired upon
the house from afar and quite at random, and the mys-
terious disappearance from the quarters of three plump
wenches, nothing of a permanently alarming nature
occurred. . . . You are neglecting the brandy.
"The pirates had their village by the fresh-water
pond on Long Bear, where we will take you wild fowl-
ing when you are less tired than you will be to-morrow
morning, and, always through the quarters, we heard
of their government and civic life. These consisted in
allowing matters to run from bad to worse, until one-
eyed Limb himself could not endure the disorder. He
would then rouse himself, go forth armed from his
cabin, do a murder or two, put the quiet of death upon
the village and return to his wives. Once we heard
that the yellow fever had broken out among the pirates,
and that they were in a fair way to be exterminated.
That alarmed us far more than any rumor of attack.
As a fact, however, the village was agreeably and health-
ily situated, and autumn breezes off ocean put an end to
the plague.
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A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
"It was the spring following that a longing came upon
me to know if the gulls had commenced to lay. I at-
tribute this to the good fortune which has followed me
for eighty years and to which I will empty this diminu-
tive glass of liquor.
"I gave orders to have my canoe provisioned and in
readiness for a start two hours before sunrise. I
threatened my body servants — I had two, big hardy
young bucks, Yap and Yaff — with a hundred lashes
apiece if they overslept, and sent them early to bed.
"At about the appointed time we started, Yap in the
bow, Yaff in the stern, and myself amidships, with my
little fowling-piece and a number of soft rugs. The
night fog was still upon the water, cold and opaque. I
ordered the paddlers not to loiter, and, drawing the rugs
about me, lay flat and slept. I was twelve years old
then, and now I am eighty. In all the intervening
years I have never lost the power to sleep. When we
retired in order after Gettysburg, sir, I slept in the sad-
dle for six hours. I have thus ever been able to give
myself relief from mental anguish, which is the secret
of longevity.
"I awoke at the commencement of sunrise, in time to
admire the dissipation of the fog and the looming into
view of our wild amphibious landscape. We were de-
scending Gunpowder Creek at the leaping pace of a
strongly paddled tide-borne canoe. I could hear already
180
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
the cries of the gulls and the reverberations of ocean
beating upon the hard beaches. A wholesome salt
wind had arisen and was blowing strongly in our faces.
We had entered that part of Gunpowder Creek where
its swampy shores yield for a while to firm banks dense
with bushes and salt-stunted trees, when Yap, who had
the bow paddle, relieved a hand and held it up for si-
lence. Yaff let his paddle, too, trail in the water and
we listened. The wind bore us the sound of oars
grinding against tholl pins and the murmur of a voice
humming in a minor key.
"'Black man's voice,' said Yap, and under his own
ebony hide appeared a sudden visitation of leprosy-
white blotches. It was a credited story among the ne-
groes that one-eyed Limb went about the more devilish
of his deeds sweetly singing.
"'Land!' said I.
" In a few seconds we were back in the bushes, canoe
and all. But had it not been for the strength of the
wind and its direction we must have been heard and, as
events bore out, run to our cover and murdered. Mind-
ful of what was expected of me as white and a master, I
left the negroes, enjoining them to lie flat and make not
a sound until I returned, and proceeded to work my
way through the bushes to the open marsh behind them,
a matter of not more than thirty yards, then down
stream, perhaps a hundred yards; and then diagonally,
181
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
once more through the bushes, to gain a view of the
creek beyond the bend which I had thus eliminated.
"Toward the sandy shore of the cove thus discovered
to my eyes, a row boat, far out on the bosom of the
creek, here as wide as a river, was heading. It con-
tained five negroes naked to the waist. Four had their
backs to me and were rowing. The fifth, sitting in the
stern, faced me and steered with a long oar. He it was
whom we had heard humming, for as I looked he re-
commenced to a different tune, and I was able to dis-
tinguish the words of a song still current among our
coast negroes. The song moved slowly and the boat
fast:
Gambler, Gambler, yo* dice am gwine deceibe you!
Gambler, Gambler, yo' dice am gwine deceibe you!
Gambler, Gambler, yo' dice am gwine deceibe youl
Way down in the grabe!
By the time the song had progressed to that point,
and it was rendered in a wonderful, sweet, sad voice,
the boat had come so near that I could see the singer as
plainly as I see Robert there. He was a very small man,
thin to emaciation, and black as the pit. He had the
head and face of a much larger man, and at first I
thought that he was blind, for my vision in that first
glance seemed to have embraced only the left side of his
face which had a cavity instead of an eye. Indeed,
when I first saw him his one eye must have been closed
182
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
or I could never have overlooked it. It opened now
and I saw what looked like the end of a disgusting yel-
low egg sticking from the man's skull. If that eye had
any iris it was of a yellow indistinguishable from its set-
ting. I had a longing, hardly to be denied, to empty
my stomach of its contents and scream. I closed my
eyes and the nausea passed. While I lay with closed
eyes, Limb, for there remained no doubt under heaven
that it was he, began and concluded, with what cloying
sweetness of voice I cannot hope to describe, the second
stanza of his chantey:
Mother, mother, yo' daughter gwine deceibe yo'l
Mother, mother, yo' daughter gwine deceibe yo' I
Mother, mother, yo' daughter gwine deceibe yo'l
Way down in de grabe.
"I screwed my courage up to the looking point and
discovered that the oarsmen were in the act of giving
the boat the last impetus which should carry it to the
shore. The muscles on the great black backs and
shoulders rippled under the shining hides like deft fingers
playing indescribably complicated instruments. Limb
nodded his chuckle head as if he did not wish by speak-
ing to interrupt himself in the train of thought inspired
by his own singing, the oars came inboard silently, and
the boat with diminishing speed drifted at once down
the creek and toward the shore. This would make the
landing further below me than my first conclusion had
183
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
dared allow, and the relief to my overstrained courage
and imagination was so great that the saliva gathered
head in my mouth and ran out between my lips. I
saw now that amidships in the boat was a seaman's
chest painted a sky blue and reinforced with heteroge-
neous pieces of sheet-iron nailed to the edges and cor-
ners. Limb sang a little louder, a little faster:
Thunder, thunder, thunder, roll ober yonder!
Thunder, thunder, thunder, roll ober yonderl
Thunder, thunder, thunder, roll ober yonderl
Way down in de grabe.
"And the boat ran on the beach. Before the rowers
could move Limb hopped from his seat to the top of the
chest, with a something in his movement that reminded
you of a flea, set foot for the smallest fraction of time on
the nearest black shoulder, and was ashore. The man
who had been used as a stepping-stone turned his head
slowly, all the while rubbing his shoulder, and gave
Limb a grin, at once so sheepish, adoring, good-natured,
and comical that my own mouth began to smile with his.
"My nurse had often regaled my youthful imagina-
tion with the magnificence of costume usually sported
by pirates. What the poverty of raiment which covered
the corpses of the pirates that I had been shown in the
carriage-house had failed practically to establish (for all
children struggle against fact to retain their grasp of the
picturesque and romantic) was now certified. The
184
A CAROLINA NIGHTS DREAM
men before me were clad only in dirty patched trowsers.
They had neither hats, shoes nor weapons, unless Limb,
whose diminutive waist was surrounded by a tawdry
chequered sash, had one concealed therein. As events
proved he had. But I saw none then, and began to
pluck up my spirits, for I at least had a fowling-piece.
Then it occurred to me to be dashed from that point of
comfort by wondering if I had loaded it or not. Mem-
ory refused to be cajoled. Had I, if discovered, one
shot between me and massacre was a speculation that I
could not answer.
" Limb and the four rowers now drew the boat high
and dry on the sands of the cove, and not without labor
got the chest out of her. Limb then ordered one of the
men to scratch his back for him and for several mo-
ments gave himself up to the process with the most
evident signs of relish. After that they hove up the
chest and staggered into the bushes with it.
"They did not go very far and presently the one who
had scratched Limb's back returned to the boat and took
out of it a pick and a shovel. He paused long enough
to kneel in the sand and souse his head in the creek.
Then he took up the tools and went back into the bushes.
"They were an unconscionable time burying the
chest to their own satisfaction, owing, I suppose, to the
tough and intricate network of roots, through which
they must cut, and I was about concluding that the
185
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
silence and suspense were to last forever when the most
awful and sudden burst of screaming split my ears.
There was a frenzied thrashing in the bushes, and out
burst the negro who had grinned, running for his life.
Behind him came, ran, hopped, flew — I know of no
word that describes the kind or the speed of such un-
earthly locomotion — Limb. There was a blazing in
my eyes like that of sun rays deflected and concentrated
by a mirror. It passed and I saw Limb's black pipe-
stem arm drive with a knife at the back of the runner's
neck. I saw him wrench it out and, as the stricken
man whirled and fell, drive it to the hilt in his con-
vulsed face.
"Then, possessing himself of the knife which had
been torn from his hand, he walked quietly back into
the bushes from which he had just emerged with such
demoniac speed. Presently I heard him speak in a quiet
conversational tone that had the effect of a diabolic sneer:
"'Ain't you daid yet, Bluebell?'
"Then I heard the horrid sound with which I had
become familiar, of a knife driven home — once — twice
. . . and the drawling voice again:
"'Now you is sho daid, Bluebell.' And out of the
bushes he strolled, singing, sweet and clear:
" ' Sailor, sailor, yo' captain gwine deceibe you.'
"At the same instant a little voice began to say in my
186
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
head: 'You loaded that gun, I saw you. You put in
buck-shot in case you saw deer or pig. Don't you re-
member. I saw you do it.' Whether I believed or not
I do not know. Likely as not I did, for when Limb
turned and bent to launch the boat I aimed very care-
fully at the little row of whitish knobs made by his spine
just above his trowsers, and the gun went off. I saw
no distinct picture in what followed, only a kaleido-
scopic miracle of black pipe-stem arms and legs that
whirled about a focus made by one awful yellow eye.
I buried my face in my hands and screamed aloud.
And I think, sir, that I must have passed into a state of
unconsciousness. For when I once more saw the boat
and one-eyed Limb there sat upon the gunwhale of the
first three buzzards, and upon the chest of the second,
one.
"And that, sir," concluded the old gentleman, "was
the foundation of the Creighton fortune. And, sir,"
said he, glaring savagely, for the brandy was beginning
to affect him, "I should like to see the man that would
deny to my father the possession of the nicest sense of
honor and integrity imaginable. He made no bones,
sir, about accepting the treasure contained in the blue
chest, and presented to him by an all-wise Providence
and a dutiful son. . . .
" Creighton," said I, when the old gentleman, after a
few indignant puffs, had given himself to the firm em-
187
A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
brace of sleep, "it is not the part of a guest to impeach
the veracity of a host's grandfather, but a little further
down the coast, from the lips of August Lesage (dear
old man!) I have heard a very similar story about a
very similar pirate, according to which narrative,
smacking with the first personal pronoun, was similarly
founded a similar fortune. Did all your grandfathers
eat pirates?"
"August Lesage's treasure chest was painted green,
I think," said Creighton reflectively, "and his Limb
lacked the right eye. My dear sir, all gentlemen are
liars. My grandfather, with all due honor to his white
hairs, has never been known to speak the truth or to
tell an injurious lie. In the Northern States men lie for
profit; we of the South he only to entertain each other
and our guests. It is to this fact more than to any
other that my grandfather attributes the good fortune
which has followed him for eighty years. Shall we go
to bed ? My grandfather will not be alarmed when he
Wakes and finds himself alone with what is left of the
brandy. When that is gone, he will go to sleep, either
here or in his bed, for, as he himself says, the power to
sleep has not failed him for eighty years whenever he
has found it necessary to put a snuffer on mental
anguish."
"How did you Creightons make your money?" I
asked.
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A CAROLINA NIGHT'S DREAM
"One of us lied — for profit," said Creighton. "Rest
his soul! He is the only one of all my ancestors for
whom I have entire respect. Since for the benefit of his
family he sacrificed those qualities which are most pre-
cious to a man — his integrity and his self-respect — he,
no doubt, rests in peace."
"I believe you," said I, "while," said he, "our less
provident ancestors — merely — slumber."
Fortunately I am not married and have no children,
for ten minutes later I was merely slumbering.
The old gentleman came to my room late the next
morning. He winked and said, "Let us visit the
treasure chest."
We did. Among other precious things it contained
ice.
189
VII
THE STOWING AWAY OF MR. BILL
BALLAD
THE STOWING AWAY OF MR. BILL
BALLAD
When Mr. Bill Ballad saw, through the wraith of
white smoke which his pistol had made, the sudden and
terrible contortion of Mr. Heigh's face, the staring eyes,
the opening and shutting mouth, dreadfully grinning;
when he saw Mr. Heigh's left leg buckle like an over-
canvased spar in a squall; when he saw Mr. Heigh
writhing on the turf, and when he heard the sheriff,
panting from hard running, bellow, "Arrest that man!"
then it was that Mr. Bill Ballad forgot the exquisite
quixotism which had led him to make one of a duel
with Mr. Heigh; then it was that he forgot the excellent
nerve with which he had faced the detonation of his ad-
versary's weapon, forgot his dignity, forgot his philoso-
phy, forgot those debts and that unsuccess which, dark-
ening the sun of his young days, had made him reck-
less; forgot the delicious face of Miss Gremley, with
whom he was not acquainted, but in whose cause he
had fought; forgot everything but his bump of locality,
and incontinently took to his toes.
The sheriff and the sheriff's man ran over the graves
193
THE STOWING AWAY
land in and out of the headstones with the celerity of
staghounds, but Mr. Bill Ballad passed over the nar-
row houses of the dead like a swooping hawk, took the
low wall of the burying ground in his stride, went down
Eden Street like a gust of wind, turned into Turtle Lane
and covered the length of it like a thrown stone, passed
the place of business of his late adversary, was dimly
conscious of the letters on the firm's shingle: Flower &
Heigh — seed merchants, bolted down Ship Street toward
the wharves, and finally took breathless refuge in the
sail-loft of Messrs. Spar & Marlin, riggers of ships, and
there, buried from view among ropes, rope ends, can-
vas, and old sacks, he lay and sobbed; for it is dreadful at
twenty-two to be over ears in debt, a writer of philoso-
phies to which the ears of the world are deaf, and liable at
any moment to be laid by the ears for the killing of a man.
It was not until five in the afternoon that Mr. Bill
Ballad looked up from his despair, ceased from his
sobs, and remarked to the canvas ghosts in the sail
loft: "When you are fallen as low as is possible, you
can fall no lower; nothing is stable; all things move
either up or down; wherefore, since I can no lower fall
and since I may not remain stably fallen, I must in some
measure rise. Food would boost me."
He now took measures to make his body more com-
fortable; a bunching of canvas here, a spreading of it
there, a rolling over of himself, and a fine yawn.
194
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"At least," said he, "I have done what I set out to
do, for Mr. Heigh will not marry Miss Gremley in the
morning — for the present I am safe, and blessings be
showered on the head of the unfaithful servant who for-
got to lock the door of this place on a holiday. As for
the future, the darkness will provide. Come night —
heavens be overcast — moon be hidden — stars be blank-
eted — and grant, O merciful Lord, that Jemmy be in
his house when I do call."
Then he fell to thinking of that little book, "The Age
of Folly," the gisty matter between the blue boards, and
of the public — the great, blind, stuttering, strutting
child which preferred the toys brain-y-factured by other
men — and, tossing uneasily, he said: "I don't see why
in hell it doesn't sell," and fell asleep.
Thick was the night, hidden the moon, blanketed the
stars, and Jemmy was in his house at the time when
Mr. Bill Ballad came to call. Jemmy had been in his
house since noon. Jemmy, taking advantage of the
holiday, had risen early and drank himself unconscious;
unconscious he had lain on the floor of his library
through the late afternoon, the evening, and part of the
night. Unconscious he lay when Mr. Bill Ballad
slipped through the open window, but when Mr. Bill
Ballad shook him by the arm (as one testing the mech-
anism of a new pump) he began to awake.
"Wha' time is it?" he said.
195
THE STOWING AWAY
"Midnight," said Mr. Ballad.
"Time turn in,' r said Jemmy, sighing.
"Wake up," said Mr. Ballad. " My life's in danger."
"What light's in danger?" inquired Jemmy. "Put
it out."
"Wake up, you drunken swine."
"Swine yourself — swine herself — swine himself — all
swine holiday this morning."
" Jemmy, does any ship sail from here in the morn-
ing?"
"Thish my library — ships don't sail from libraries.
Library place to sleep in — nice to lie on snuggle rug an'
sleep."
"Would a good kicking help you, Jemmy?"
It did. Jemmy sat up.
"What you kicking me for?"
"Beg your pardon," said Mr. Ballad, "but I thought
you were dead. Will you try and pull yourself together,
please ? I'm in trouble."
"Wait till I wash my face, then." Jemmy arose and
left the room somnolently. He returned much re-
freshed. "Now you may fire away," he said.
Mr. Bill Ballad shuddered. And then he told Jemmy
his trouble. "Have you heard nothing of it?" he
asked.
"No," said Jemmy, "I don't remember anything
after noon. You may not have hurt him much."
196
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"O Jemmy — I saw his face — I heard the breath
whistle out of him — and, O God! I saw him fall."
Jemmy began to think hard.
"The Mallow." he said presently, "goes out in the
morning tide, in hides, for Jamaica. If we can slip you
aboard, and hide you, well provisioned "
"Yes, yes," cried Mr. Ballad, "that's the thing— it's
making up for a brute of a blow, and there'll be no one
on deck. But where'll I hide ?"
"I can't think of the name of the place," said
Jemmy; "wait — no, I can't think — but I know the
hatch that opens into it — it's below the fo'c's'le — where
they keep spare stores — what in hell — no, I can't
think."
"We must start at once."
"We must larder you first."
"What have you in the house?"
"We'll look. Then they began to rummage. They
found a ham, two loaves of bread, one loaf of spice cake,
and a fine hunk of cheese.
"You must have water," said Jemmy, and he filled a
great stone jug. "Want any wine ?"
"No— no," cried Mr. Bill Ballad, "I have had
enough wine to last me till the Judgment Day, and to
damn me then."
" I haven't," said Jemmy, " but I shall hope to have
had. Come along, boy — take my blue cloak. . . .
197
THE STOWING AWAY
Hold hard, you'll want flint and steel and a lantern
. . . have you your watch?"
"Herodotus, the Jew, hath it," said Mr. Bill Ballad
with a faint smile.
"You shall have mine. Now, then, I'll look abroad
a little; it may be that the coast is obscure."
The front door struggled in Jemmy's hands like a
live thing. "All the glims of heaven are doused," said
he, "and it's blowing like hell. Come along."
The streets were deserted, but lively with the rustling
of dead leaves, and the blowing about of all that was
unstable. Jemmy and Mr. Bill Ballad, each with a
sack of provisions over his shoulder, slunk through the
dark and blowy town like a pair of marauders laden
with plate. In Ship Street, a malicious inequality of the
paving caught Jemmy by one of his unsteady feet and
hurled him to the ground. "O Liberty!" he cried,
"what crimes are committed in thy name."
He gathered himself and his sack together, and they
went on. Jemmy owned a staunch skiff, out of which
the two friends had often shot at wild-fowls. They
found her riding snugly in the lee of Mr. Caruthers'
long wharf and embarked. Rounding the end of the
wharf, the wind and sea struck her in power.
"Can you keep her head to it, Jemmy?"
"Watch me." The oars tore at the water, the wind
tore at the skiff, the water slammed her on the bows,
198
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
but inch by inch she dropped the long wharf behind
and made headway into the whistling dark.
"Where does the Mallow lie ?" Mr. Bill Ballad was
obliged to trumpet his hands and bellow the question.
Jemmy, his teeth gritted and his breath coming and
going in great grunts, jerked his head backward for
answer.
"Hope to — we can find her," bellowed Mr. Ballad.
Twenty minutes later Jemmy rested on his oars and
began to look about him, trying with sweat-filled eyes
to pierce the black. At that moment, as a joker might
suddenly snatch back the bedclothes from one sleeping,,
the storm fairly ripped a cloud from before the face of
the Lady Moon. For an instant the backs of the charg-
ing waves glimmered; for an instant, as if revealed by
pale lightning, the harbor became a shape and familiar
landmarks flashed into view; for an instant the two
friends beheld the great black bulk of a ship leaping
back against the bite of her mooring chain; and then
out went the moon, and Jemmy, heading the skiff in the
ascertained direction, began to row like mad.
Ten minutes later, dripping and bruised, they had
won over the side of the leaping ship and were creeping
forward along her creaking deck.
Jemmy pulled the hatch to, and the roaring of the
weather was cut off as clearly as a slice of bread is cut
off by a sharp knife.
199
THE STOWING AWAY
"Whew," said Jemmy.
"Thank God," said Mr. Bill Ballad.
They lit the lantern, and found that they were in a
triangular place three parts full of undeterminate bulk,
and wholly full of the nauseating odor of bilge water
and unclean woodwork.
"You'll be very comfortable here," said Jemmy.
"God bless you, my boy, and good luck. Will write
you to Jamaica and give you the news." He held out
his hand.
"Jemmy," said Mr. Bill Ballad, "you know Miss
Gremley — a long time from now tell her my story; how
I saw her but once, yet could not bear to think that so
much loveliness should be sold to an old man; tell her
that for the sake of all her excellence I fought and came
to an unhappy end " — Mr. Bill Ballad was almost aburst
with tears — "tell her this a long time from now, so that
she may say in her heart: 'Ah, but one man loved me. '
. . . God bless you, Jemmy . . . will you make back
all right?"
"The wind will hand me ashore," said Jemmy, "just
as after dancing with her a courteous gentleman hands
a beautiful young lady back to the seat beside her
mother. I hate to leave you with nothing to drink but
water."
The trap opened — the howls of the wind sounded —
the trap closed — and the howls ceased. Mr. Ballad
200
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
found himself alone in the shifting, creaking, stinking
asylum that he had chosen, and shed a few tears.
Nelson, eater of ships, sea-lion, scourge of Napoleon,
etc., was often made dreadfully sick by the great bil-
lows of his chosen element, so that had there been no
fighting to do, one might be tempted to exclaim: "Mon
Dieu, qu'allait il fair dans cette galere ?"' But the busi-
ness of fighting seems to have taken his mind off the
dolorous motions of his flagship and toughened him in-
side to a whalish serenity. In short, cruising and ship's
pork made the man sick; but when the battle was met,
his constitution suffered a revulsion, and he not only ate
ships, but kept them down, and, to use his own thought,
"would not have been elsewhere for thousands."
The atmosphere in Mr. Bill Ballad's hiding-place,
coupled with the fantastic and Gallic manner in which
the hiding-place danced about, brought that young
gentleman to inactive extremities, yet he was content to
be where he was; and when, in the midst of a trance-
like nap, an immense rat ran across his face, the excite-
ment, as with Nelson at sight of the enemy, took away
his qualms and rendered him once more fit to reflect
and to endure.
"I suppose," he reflected, "that I must stick to this
sty for at least two days, so that there may be no possi-
bility of them putting me ashore. Then I shall throw
open the hatch, discover myself to the captain, and be
201
THE STOWING AWAY
put at some disagreeable sea work, climbing masts per-
haps," and he shivered.
His chief reflections, however, in that dark, bilgy and
plunging place were upon the duration of time, the in-
stability of human affairs, and the disregard of hard
boards for the sensitive joints of the human frame. In
the extremes of aching discomfort the events of the pre-
ceding day receded from his complaining mind. The
terrible collapse of Mr. Heigh upon receiving the bullet,
the breathless flight from the scene of the duel, and the
lovely face of Miss Gremley, were pictures which came
to visit him with less and less frequency. Eventually
he thought about nothing but the disadvantages of
bones to the human frame, and wished himself a jelly-
fish. But for all his uninuredness to hard surfaces,
sleep visited him in dreamy snatches; once he awoke
with a start and a half consciousness that for a moment
the storm had howled down the hatchway and roared
in his ears. Indeed, he fancied during those first star-
tled, waking seconds that some one had opened the
hatch, drawn it to, and descended into his hiding-place.
But with complete wakefulness he attributed his im-
pression to the machinations of a sea-rat. He never
knew how many hours had passed of his incarceration
when, being set upon by hunger and curiosity, he lighted
his lantern, and discovered that the watch which
Jemmy had loaned him had run down.
202
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
" Damn! " said Mr. Bill Ballad. But he began to eat
of his provisions (in particular of the ham) with a great
show of appetite. In the midst of a large and tooth-
some mouthful he had suddenly the horrible sensation
of one who, fancying himself alone, becomes aware
that he is being watched. His scalp seemed to bristle,
and he stopped chewing the better to listen.
"I thought," thought he, "that I heard some one
breathe." He listened hard. But the sound was not
repeated. He heard only the thumping of his own
heart, the faint and distant echoes of the gale, and the
creaking of the ship. "I wonder," he thought, "if it is
possible for a rat to breathe audibly. I fancy not.
But possibly an old grandfather rat" — he became face-
tious, with fear going — "who was asthmatic or suffer-
ing from a cold in the head" — and, just as he was about
to resume the business of untrammelled eating, there
sounded from the deep dark that lurked upon the out-
skirts of the ring of light cast by his lantern a husky
voice.
Mr. Bill Ballad never knew the precise words uttered
by the husky voice. Fear petrified him, but not, un-
fortunately, in time to prevent his overturning the
lantern, which rolled off, clashing into the sudden and
absolute darkness caused by its own extinction.
Mr. Bill Ballad, trembling in every limb, gasped like
a man coming to the surface after a long swim under
203
THE STOWING AWAY
water. Sweat cold as ice ran down his sides . . . and
then once more the silence was broken by the husky
voice, whjch said tremblingly, "I beg your pardon, sir,
but I forgot to bring any water, and I've eaten a lot of
pickles, and I think I shall die of thirst."
Mr. Bill Ballad drew a long staccato sigh of relief.
But he was angry at the voice for having frightened
him so, and he said angrily:
"Why didn't you say so at first?"
" I told you not to be frightened the first time I spoke,"
said the voice.
"Frightened!" exclaimed Mr. Ballad, beginning to-
tremble again in spite of the gentle and plaintive quality
of the husky voice. "I frightened; why, man, I'm
armed to the teeth."
"S — so — am — I," came back in a stuttering kind of
a whine. "But why did you overturn the lantern ?"
"As a precaution," said Mr. Ballad boldly, for he
felt himself greatly heartened by the timidity now evi-
dent in the voice. "But come out of there — I won't
hurt you, and you shall have a drink — if," he put in
with courtesy, "you don't mind drinking out of the
same jug."
Then was heard a bungling movement in the dark,
followed by a sharp exclamation of pain.
"What's the matter now?" said Mr. Ballad, all pat-
ronage.
204
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"My shin," said the voice, and exclaimed instantly
again.
"Well?" said Mr. Ballad.
"My other shin," said the voice.
" Deuced clumsy, aren't you," said Mr. Ballad. " Oh,
there you are." His outstretched hand came in con-
tact with the top of a hatted [head. "Here's the jug —
for goodness' sake don't spill it."
The stranger drank greedily with a gluggling noise.
"Now," said Mr. Ballad, "you stay here — and keep
saying where you are, so that I will know where I am,
while I crawl about and look for that damned lantern.
... I think I know where it rolled."
Mr. Ballad began to crawl cautiously in the direction
in which he imagined the lantern to have rolled, while
every now and then, to give him the location, the stran-
ger said loudly, "Here I am." Between two of these
pieces of data Mr. Ballad began to swear.
"What's the matter now?" said the stranger.
"My shin!" said Mr. Ballad furiously.
"Here I am!" said the stranger.
Presently Mr. Ballad swore again.
"Well?" said the stranger.
"My other shin," said Mr. Ballad, and, to do him
credit, though he began testily, he finished laugh-
ing.
"Deuced clumsy, aren't you," said the stranger, ren-
205
THE STOWING AWAY
dered bold by Mr. Ballad's boyish laugh. . . . "Here I
am." . . .
The next silence was terminated by an awful crash
and a grunt of real pain.
" Here I am," said the stranger.
"Oh, you are, are you," said Mr. Ballad angrily, but
with a ginger quality of voice. "Well, I've crawled off
the edge of something, and here I am."
"Are you hurt?"
"I should think I was hurt. It's my knee . . .
where are you ? I'm coming back — damn the lantern
— sing out, can't you."
"Here I am," said the stranger. . . .
" it," cried Mr. Ballad suddenly.
"What's the matter?"
"My other knee," said Mr. Ballad.
"Here I am," said the stranger.
" I should say you were," said Mr. Ballad furiously,
" and heartily amused, I daresay. I've a good mind to
punch your head — ouch — where are you?" No an-
swer.
" Where are you ? " No answer.
"I won't punch your head, you little fool."
The stranger raised his voice. "Here I am," said
he.
"Have you a watch?" asked Mr. Bill Ballad.
" No," said the stranger.
206
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"Then it doesn't matter about the lantern," said
Mr. Ballad, "because my watch has run down, and I
do not feel any particular curiosity to be gratified by a
look at you. But you may as well tell me why you are
here."
"Because I had to run away from home," said the
stranger.
"You sound reasonably well bred," said Mr. Ballad.
"So I daresay it is a question of bills which you are
unable to pay. But I don't really care to know. What
have you brought in the way of provisions ?"
" Pickles, macaroons, jam, and a little candy," said
the stranger.
"You never should have left your mother," said Mr.
Bill Ballad. "You are the most ignorant youth with
whom I have ever come in contact."
"You only came in contact with the top of my hat,"
said the stranger.
"I came in contact with every other damn thing in
this ship," said Mr. Ballad, and he tried to caress all
his bruises at once.
"I may be ignorant," said the stranger, "but I don't
swear. I wonder where we are. "
"I forget the name of the place," said Mr. Ballad,
" but if you mean where the Mallow is, why, I suppose,
she's well off shore. She must have sailed hom?
207
THE STOWING AWAY
"It's pretty rough, isn't it?" said the stranger.
"Are you a good sailor?"
"No," said Mr. Ballad, "in fact, some time ago I
threatened to be very sick, but a rat ran over my face
and startled me back into a pink glow of health. Then
you appeared, and I must admit that your piquant con-
versation and absurd youthfulness have so shaken me
with internal laughter that I feel as if I should never
experience another qualm. What do you expect to
have happen to you when we are discovered ?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," said the stranger; "any-
thing to get away. But why are you here 1"
Mr. Bill Ballad reflected for a moment, but he loved
talk for its own sake, had never suffered very acutely
from discretion, and wished to play the man in the im-
agination of his young and callow acquaintance; there-
fore he said: " I will tell you."
"Do," said the stranger.
"Did you ever hear of a Miss Gremley," said Mr.
Bill Ballad.
The stranger was silent for some moments. "A
little pock-marked thing?" he said finally.
"Pock-marked yourself," exclaimed Mr. Bill Ballad.
"She's the most exquisite girl that God ever made, and
considering the practice He has had — well, never mind.
Her parents are swine."
The stranger laughed. "In what way?" said he.
208
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"In all ways," said Mr. Ballad. "They arranged,
for instance, to marry this lovely child to an old, ugly,
lean, underbred, rich, black-hearted , by the name
of Heigh. It was simply a sale. The ewe lamb for the
butcher — a fat commission for the parents."
"But if they were swine," said the stranger, "how
could the child be a ewe lamb ?"
Mr. Bill Ballad waved his hand in the dark and did
not deign to reply.
"The wedding," he said, "was to have been to-day.
That is, if to-day is to-day, and not already to-morrow,
which is hard to establish in the dark. Well, a certain
young gentleman of romantical nature who was not
acquainted with Miss Gremley, but who worships inno-
cence and beauty, was so incensed by the affair when it
came to his ears that he sought out this Heigh and
pulled his nose for him."
"Had the young gentleman been drinking?" asked
the stranger.
"He had," said Mr. Bill Ballad.
"And what happened ?"
"They fought back of the green church — and Heigh
fell."
"Good God!" cried the stranger, "dead?'.'
"I don't know," said Mr. Bill Ballad with a shudder.
"He fell horribly, and I ran away."
"Then it was you?"
209
THE STOWING AWAY
"It was," said Mr. Ballad.
"You risked your life for the happiness of a young
woman whom you only knew by sight ?"
"I had been drinking," said Mr. Ballad.
"I do not believe it," said the stranger strongly;
"you are trying to make light of a wonderful and beau-
tiful piece of chivalry."
"Call it that if you like," said Mr. Bill Ballad.
"I would like to shake your hand," said the stranger.
Mr. Bill Ballad (himself somewhat moved by the recol-
lection of his own wonderful and beautiful, if spiritu-
ous, chivalry) thrust forth a hand in the dark, and as
suddenly drew it back.
"What is that?" he said.
"My petticoat," said the stranger.
"Who are you?" said Mr. Ballad.
"I am Miss Gremley — where are you going?"
"After the lantern," exclaimed Mr. Ballad. It
took him half an hour of painful crawling, during which
he did not swear once, to find it. He crawled back in
triumph, and lighted it. Then he held it aloft.
"Let me look at you," he said. He looked long into
a pair of round, gray, glimmering eyes.
"Forgive me," he said in a faltering voice, "for what
I said about your parents."
"I forgive you," said Miss Gremley.
" Forgive me for having sworn so abominably."
210
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"I forgive you."
"Forgive me for boasting about the — the Heigh
business."
" I forgive you — and I shall not forget."
During all this time he had continued to hold the lan-
tern aloft the better to look into the gray eyes. His
arm now began to tremble violently with the tension on
it, and he put down the lantern.
"You are very beautiful," he said.
"You also are pleasant to look at," said Miss
Gremley.
"My life has not been handsome," said Mr. Ballad
with emotion.
"That," said Miss Gremley, "I shall never believe."
"Did you run away because of — of Heigh?"
"Yes."
"Poor child," said Mr. Ballad.
" I am rich in my defender," said Miss Gremley.
"Miss Gremley," said Mr. Ballad, "I am far from
wishing to take an advantage of you, but the bulkhead
against which you are leaning is, as I know by dolorous
experience, harder than jasper. If you would care to
regard my arm as a sort of buffer, and not as a part of
the human male anatomy, I could contrive to make you
a little more comfortable."
She leaned forward without hesitation and back
against his encircling arm.
211
THE STOWING AWAY
And then, having blown out the lantern to save the
oil, they sat in the dark, until Mr. Bill Ballad's arm had
lost all sensation, save that of bliss, and a great craving
for food had settled in them both. Then they relit the
lantern and ate heartily and with laughter.
"It seems warmer," said Miss Gremley; "we must
have made considerable s — southing."
"It is smoother also," said Mr. Ballad.
"How long do you suppose we have been in here?"
"Not more than ten minutes," said Mr. Ballad politely.
"I don't know why it should," said Miss Gremley,
"but my head aches and I feel faint."
"The air in here must be pretty well used up by now,"
said Mr. Bill Ballad. " But I think we would best stick
things out a little longer. If we've been beating to
windward all this — I mean the ten minutes we have
been in here — why, we cannot have got far, and I for
one don't wish to be put ashore."
"What shall you do when we get to Jamaica ?"
"I shall try very hard to play the man and to look
after you," said Mr. Ballad. A pressure of the hand,
unexpected and delicious, rewarded him, and uncon-
sciously his right arm, which Miss Gremley had been
told to regard as an inanimate buffer against hard
woodwork, tightened.
"Does your head ache very much ?" said Mr. Ballad,
tenderly.
212
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
"Very," said Miss Gremley.
He shifted his right arm a little, and drew her close
to him. His free hand sought her right cheek, and,
very gently, he drew the aching little head down on his
shoulder. He tipped his own head to the right so that
his cheek rested against hers.
"Jus' a few more buffers," he said in a breaking
voice. "Are you more comfable?" She did not
answer. She hung upon him limply. He laid his
hand over her heart, but could not discern a single
beat. . . .
Mr. Bill Ballad never knew how he found the hatch-
way of their prison so easily and flung it open. It was
a work of seconds only. Fresh air and the light of day
rushed in, and Miss Gremley revived all at once, just
as primroses open in the cool of evening.
"Come," said Mr. Ballad, and he gave her his two
hands to help her rise, "and we will go on deck . . .
and do not forget that I shall take care of you. . . .
Kiss me, My Heart, and put heart into me. ..."
He took her in his arms, and, just as he made sure
that she was only going to let him kiss her cheek, she
smiled and put up her mouth like a little child.
"My love — my darling — my heart — my treasure —
my comfort — my sweetheart — my — " began Mr. Bal-
lad in a choking voice, but with the manful intention of
saying all the pretty names he knew.
213
THE STOWING AWAY
"Better come up," came a loud laughing voice
•down the hatchway.
The grinning and rosy face of Jemmy was seen to
be looking down upon the lovers. They went on
deck.
Mr. Bill Ballad rubbed his eyes and looked about
him. Then he rubbed them again.
During his incarceration the vessel had not moved,
and he beheld, blinking, the familiar wharves of his
natal town. The wind had subsided, and the after-
noon, blue and sweet, shimmered exquisitely.
Jemmy leaned against the foremast and roared with
laughter. "The game's up!" exclaimed Mr. Bill Bal-
lad, and, in spite of him, his voice shook.
"We don't seem to have made as much southing as I
had supposed," said Miss Gremley.
"Jemmy," said Mr. Ballad, "why is this ship here
and where is her crew ?"
"This ship," said Jemmy, "has been set aside by the
authorities to be coated with tar and burned as a naval
spectacle to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the found-
ing of the Fire Hose Company. The Mallow sailed
with the tide."
"Did you know that I was stowing away on the
wrong ship?" asked Mr. Ballad sternly.
"Why, yes," said Jemmy, "for I knew that if you got
to Jamaica I would never see my watch again. . . .
214
OF MR. BILL BALLAD
Miss Gremley, shall we go ashore ? You have nothing
to fear."
"How about me?" said Mr. Ballad.
Jemmy pulled as long a face as he could.
"Eater of men, manslayer, criminal, jail-bird," he
said sternly, "the pistols were loaded only with powder.
It has also transpired that one of the legs upon which
your late adversary stood to face you was of Spanish
cork, fastened to the heroic stump of its flesh-and-blood
predecessor by an exquisite arrangement of straps,
pads and buckles. On receiving your fire, the hero
seems to have flinched to such an extent that one of the
straps broke. Hence the dreadful suddenness with
which he came to the ground "
"But," cried Mr. Ballad, delightfully agitated, "why
then did he open and shut his mouth as if dying, and
make such dreadful noises ?"
"It seems," said Jemmy, "that his false, fluting and
perjured teeth were also dislodged, and by him swal-
lowed. They stuck in his throat and his life was de-
spaired of until early this morning, when Dr. Scalpel,
aided by Dr. Setit and a buttonhook, succeeded in fish-
ing them up. They are not injured in the least. . . .
My dear boy, the whole town is laughing, Mr. Heigh
has rushed from among us, his fingers in his ears, like
Christian in 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and as for you, there
is not a single copy of your book to be had for love or
215
MR. BILL BALLAD
money. The printers are sweating out a new edition
of five thousand copies."
"The Age of Folly," said Mr. Bill Ballad.
"As for you, Miss Gremley," said Jemmy, "I per-
ceive that our young friend has told you those things
which are best to hear, and as for me, I shall declare a
holiday and get drunk." They helped Miss Gremley
into the skiff, and Jemmy set himself leisurely to the
rowing.
As the skiff neared the shore, it was seen that Mr.
Caruthers' long wharf was densely packed with people.
Prom among them cheers, laughter and hats began to
rise. . . .
"Do you by any chance feel sheepish?" said Miss
Gremley.
"Not in the least," said Mr. Bill Ballad; "it has al-
ways been my heartfelt ambition to be a great man."
216
VIII
THE EXPLORERS
THE EXPLORERS
I
In my early youth I had vacillated between so many
trades and professions that I grew up jack of all. But,
strictly speaking, I became a discontented graduate of
the Physicians and Surgeons, and began to establish a
practice in East Eighteenth Street. Materially I pros-
pered from the first, but mentally I was in a turmoil of
other ambitions and desires. It was my tragedy to be-
lieve that I was a born forester, landscape-gardener
sailor or soldier, and had elected to live in a- city, like a
rat in a hole, and minister to the sick. The longer I
practised, the more sharply did I feel myself caught be-
tween the horns of dilemma; I had neither the money
to turn back and recast my lines nor the will to go
ahead and land my fishes. Then, as is usual with di-
lemmas, fate stepped in, or, rather, dropped at my door
William Dane, the Arctic navigator and explorer, over-
come by the June heat.
Even before he had come to his senses, I took to the
man, and was engulfed by his personality. He had a
219
THE EXPLORERS
head and face and mane like the stone lion of Lucerne,
imperturbable and vast; hard, smooth, colossal limbs;
a chest like a bay-window, and hands at once the larg-
est and most beautiful that I have ever seen; a man
formidable in thought and action. "This," said I to
Miss Ma, my assistant, "is somebody."
"This is who it is," she said, and showed me on the
first page of the morning paper, which I had not had the
inclination to read, two pictures — a ship and a man.
While I continued to apply restoratives, Miss Ma
gave me brief extracts from the article below the pict-
ures, which was captioned:
"Captain Dane morally certain to find the North Pole"
"Was going to sail to-day," she said; "put it off be-
cause doctor gave out — fifteenth Arctic voyage — sixty
years old — doesn't look forty, does he ?"
"Why did the doctor give out?" I asked.
"Panic," said Miss Ma, and she went on: "Many
answers to advertisements for doctor — applicants un-
suitable on various scores — Captain Dane says he will
sail without a doctor rather than with a narrow-chested
one — says that nine-tenths of good Arctic work has been
done by blond men with gray eyes."
Here Captain Dane himself interrupted, his transi-
tion from insensibility to alert mental equipoise being
nearly instantaneous.
220
THE EXPLORERS
*
"Damn the heat, anyway!"
" I can't agree with you," said I, " since it has brought
me so distinguished a patient."
"I hope to be more so," said he; "will you call me
a cab ? I won't risk the sun again."
"Please call a cab, Miss Ma."
"What is your fee, sir?" asked Captain Dane.
"Five dollars," said I, "but I would like to contrib-
ute that much to your voyage. We have been reading
you up in the paper, while you were coming to."
"I won't prevent your contributing," said he, "if you
want to; but five dollars is a great deal of money.
Money is a devilish hard thing to collect."
"By the way," I said, "the paper says that you have
advertised for a doctor."
"I have," said he, "but the right one doesn't turn
up."
A general restlessness and dissatisfaction with life,
particularly at the advent of the hot months, impelled
me to say: "Would I do?"
"You are built right," he said; "you have light hair
and gray eyes, and I see by your diploma that you are
a graduate of the P. and S.; but you aren't sure that
you want to go."
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"Because you didn't answer the advertisement."
"I didn't see it."
221
THE EXPLORERS
"If you had been keen to go," said he, "you wouldn't
have missed it."
"Well," said I, "I wasn't keen to go, that's the
truth. But I am now."
"Why?" said he.
"You've made me," I said; "you make me more so
every time you speak. I'd like to serve under you."
"Doctor's billet," said he, "is the hardest of all.
Even I can he up if I fall sick, but the doctor can't. I
don't even allow my doctors to die when they want to.
Up there," he said, thumbing northward, "men go
down on their knees and ask to be allowed to die. Some
of them I have to let die, but never the doctor. Do you
still want to go?"
"Yes," I said, stoutly.
"Well," said he, "I'll drive around to headquarters,
and if nobody better has showed up, I'll send for you."
"Hold on," I said, "I'm not so low-spirited as that.
You can take me or leave me, but I don't dangle on any
man's waiting-list."
"That's better," said he, and his voice, hitherto very
matter-of-fact, became abundantly hearty. "You'll
do."
Then he made me sit down and write a long list of
things to get and where to get them.
"Take a cab," he said, "and hustle."
"When do we sail ?" said I.
222
THE EXPLORERS
"The minute you're aboard."
"Where's the ship?"
"Off Thirty-third Street in the North River. I call
her The Needle because she points toward the pole.
Have you many good-bys, much to arrange?"
"No," said I, "I'll turn my practice over to the doc-
tor across the hall, give Miss Ma a month's wages; and
that's about all."
"Have you no relatives — no entanglements?"
"None of the first," said I, "that matter — and none
of the last, not even a professional one."
"Blessed are the pure in heart," said Captain Dane,
"for they have strong bodies and leave no trail."
Three hours later we were steaming down the North
River through the blistering June heat. Every flag on
the river was dipped to us, and all the whistles were
blown.
II
From the first I was more interested in Captain Dane
than in Arctic phenomena; just as, in my profession,
I was ever more alive to the bearing of the sick than to
their diseases. To which habit, more than to any skill
in medicine, or determination to succeed, I attribute the
ease which I had had in attracting patients to my prac-
tice. But, furthermore, the North is too overwhelming
and magical to be interesting: the gorgeous blazing of
223
THE EXPLORERS
the sun through the ice, the aurora flaming in the heav-
ens at night, the very shape of the bergs, running to
every grotesque of form and every shade of astonishing
color, even the atmosphere putting to scorn the clarity
of crystals and the sparkle of diamonds, are too aston-
ishing and remote to excite in a man any but his dumber
faculties, whose voices are exclamations. No man is
truly interested except when his mental processes are
engaged in analysis — processes which the Northscape
in its mildest moments defies. A time soon came when
I was sick to death of those wasted glories, obdurate
against the most fascinating rainbow or the most em-
phatic green of the sea. But Captain Dane held my
keenest interest from the start.
Prior to our acquaintance I had often asked myself —
or a friend for the sake of discussion—" Why the devil
does a man want to discover the North Pole ? What's
the use of discovering it?" and the like — questions
which, properly answered, would, I thought, bring to
bear a great light on many occult workings of the hu-
man mind. If Dane had any finite reason which
bound him to that grail, he would not give them frankly,
or else they shifted from day to day. "It's been such
an endless sacrifice of lives," I said to him once, and he
answered whimsically: "That's just it."
"Let us," said he, "for the sake of argument, call the
pole hunt a nonsensical quest, to which are sacrificed
224
THE EXPLORERS
many lives that might in other walks of life be valuable.
Well, it's up to some one to stop the drain." Here he
named a mighty list of explorers who had lost their
lives in the Arctic. "Many of them," he said, "were
strong and talented men, devoted thinkers, and brave
beyond compare. Until the pole is found there will
continue to be lost to civilization a constant trickling of
the most elect citizens. Wouldn't it be service enough
to put a stop to such a waste as that — a waste that hu-
manity cannot afford and ought not to endure?"
" It would turn the course of the adventurous south,"
said I.
"It would," said he, "toward the other pole. When
that, too, has been discovered there will be an end of
the nonsense."
"You don't think it nonsense ?" said I.
"As an act, yes," he said; "as an accomplishment,
no. The man who sets his country's flag on the pole
will save, or rather divert into more useful channels,
many splendid lives that come after his."
But on other occasions his arguments were all at
variance with this.
"Is it for the glory of finding it," I asked him, "or
for the glory of being known to have found it ?"
"I shall be content to find it," he said, "and to die
then and there. You can carry out the proofs, and
reap the honors."
225
THE EXPLORERS
"But," said I, "dead or not, your name would go
down to the remotest posterity in big type. Doesn't
that thought influence you 1"
"I think not," he said, "but I will think it over."
The log-book of The Needle gives all the longitudes
and latitudes, and scientific observations and data, of
our voyage. These things are not important to my
narrative. Suffice that we passed the winter, the cold-
est, bleakest, blackest winter, farther north than it had
ever been passed before, and in the spring made our
dash for the pole. The winter brought out great quali-
ties in Dane — an overmastering humor and good-hu-
mor, a great gentleness to those who were impatient
and sick, an almost god-like tenderness over those that
died. He was like a great statue in the making, when
each blow of the sculptor's hammer, instead of dam-
aging the marble, brings out new strengths and beau-
ties. Even at that time, before our hardships had
fairly begun, we looked on our Captain as on one who
had brought us out rather than on one who was leading
us in. The day for starting came, and Dane spoke to
those who were to go and those who were to stay.
"Men," he said, "it is as hard to stay as to go.
Therefore I have divided you equally, as boys choose
sides for a game. It is important that brave, patient
men go with me, and it is important that brave, patient
men remain. I wish I could take only those that want
226
THE EXPLORERS
to go and leave only those that want to stay. But you
all want to go. So I have had to pick and choose for
myself. I shall think of those that stay as of a rock that
will wait for me to come. That's the important thing,
to find you waiting when we come back. You must
not let yourselves get sick; and you must not let your-
selves think too much about home; and you mustn't
quarrel when you begin to think there is nothing else
to do. When you have waited for us as long as you can,
then wait a little longer, and then go. God bless you all."
No one of us that went ever again saw those that stayed.
We parted forever, with laughter and shaking of hands.
As long as things went well, strength held, and food
tasted sweet, our dash for the pole had in it something
of a holiday lark. The dogs, strong, savage, and eager,
strained at the sledges, the men lent their backs to the
passage of rough places with deep-sea unison. Our
supplies were calculated to a nicety, and we knew it.
We believed that the plateau (it was neither ice nor
snow, but a mixture of the two, at once firm and crum-
bling like sand) over which we were pressing held all the
way to the pole. And at each resting-place, when
progress would be calculated, we marvelled and re-
joiced to know how far and how fast we had gone.
Strung out over the white plains in marching order, we
looked like some grotesque turn in a circus — a quantity
of bears walking on their hind legs, behaving exactly
227
THE EXPLORERS
like men, and driving the trains of dogs. It was Dane's
scheme that each man should have his turn in leading
the procession; thus one day bringing responsibility to
one man, the next to another. Great rivalry rose
among us as to who should have the credit of leading the
longest march. As we neared the pole, excitement and
jubilation rose among us. We had but fifty miles to go;
there had not yet been any serious hitch. The far
north had shown us whatever favors it had to show.
We vied in health with our dogs. And then — whether
it came from Billy Smith's furs, bought during the win-
ter from an Eskimo, or where it came from I do not
know — there leapt among us a germ of smallpox. I
only know that the disease broke out with awful sav-
ageness, that we went into permanent camp at the very
gates of the pole, and began to die. Billy Smith was
the first to go. Captain Dane knelt beside him for
seven hours, exhorting him to stay and do his duty.
But the flesh was weak with the sickness, and weepingly
suffered the spirit to depart. Captain Dane's face was
furrowed with ice where the tears had run down.
Ill
Captain Dane looked me steadily in the eyes across
a new-made grave.
"Where are my brave, patient men ?" said he.
228
THE EXPLORERS
"They have gone," I said, bitterly, "all gone. But
God knows I tried to save them."
"At work they were lions," said he, "in obedience,
lambs. Not one of them cursed me. Think of that,
all you who deride the splendor of the human soul.
They came to the gates of the pole, like sheep to the
slaughter. I brought them. They said I was their
father, and they came with me — Americans, English-
men, Germans — they all came with me; and they died
without cursing — all the nations."
It was horrible to hear the man rave on, his eyes
bright with fever, his face set like a stone.
"You must lie down, Captain, and rest," I said.
"Will the fever go out of me if I lie down and rest ?"
said he. "My God, no! Do you think that with my
mortal sickness on me, and the pole just over there,
that I'm going to lie down and rest ? I watched them
all die. When they were taken sick I made them lie
down. But there wasn't one of them but would have
marched and fought one day more if I'd told him to.
When I lie down to rest, the pole shall be under me."
I pleaded with him to lie down, to husband his
strength, to fight with the fever. I swore to him that
I would bring him through. He laughed in my face.
And what could I do? He was stronger than five of
me, and mad, to boot.
"Go back to The Needle," he said, "and tell them
229
THE EXPLORERS
that I went forward alone, and discovered the pole.
Will you go back, or won't you ?"
I do not wish to make myself out a hero. If wishing
could have taken me back to The Needle, or thousands
of miles beyond, back I would have gone. But to make
that long journey alone, to drive dogs, in which I had
no skill, or even to find the way, I knew to be impos-
sible. For me there was nothing but death — death to
go back, death to stay. I preferred, not cheerfully,
but still decidedly, and all things considered, to take
my quietus in the immediate vicinity of the pole.
"I won't go back," I said. "Let's find this
pole, and have done with it."
"Man talk that," said Captain Dane. "It's this
way, Johnny, if we give in here, these men's lives will
have been wantonly sacrificed. But if we can reach the
pole, and die there, then they won't have died in vain."
"Who's to know?" said I.
"The cold," said he, "will preserve our bodies im-
maculately. Some day they will be found at the pole,
with the record of our journey, and our names, and the
names of those who died for us. Let's along, boy."
Then began a horrible nightmare that lasted seven
days. Captain Dane, all broken out with the smallpox,
and delirious with fever, trudged over the plain, laugh-
ing, shouting, moaning. Wild words poured from his
deluded brain, and yet the idea that he must and would
230
THE EXPLORERS
go forward, and his senses for direction and finding the
line, by observations or calculating and the deviation
of the needle from the true pole to the magnetic, never
once forsook him. I think that all that was mortal of
him died before we reached the end of our journey, and
was dragged forward by his immortal soul.
We struck at length into a region that bore marks of
terrific winds. For in many places the black bed-rock
was naked and bare of ice or snow. As we progressed,
the expanses of smooth, naked rock prevailed more and
more in the scape, until, on the morning of the eighth
day, all traces of ice and snow vanished. Here I first
began to be sensible of difficulty, not altogether the
result of fatigued muscles, in lifting my feet, which
increased from hour to hour. Each of us carried a
compass, and I noticed that the needle in mine was be-
ginning to act in a queer, uncertain manner — like a
hound that finds a trail, steadies to it a moment, and
then loses it. Obviously, we were about to arrive. If
I took any mental interest in the fact, it was a feeling
of disappointment.
Some point ahead of that black rocky plain over
which we were plodding, with feet that seemed to stick
like plasters to the rock, was the great.goal of explorers.
There was nothing to mark it. It might be on a rise or
in a depression. Measurements alone could mark it
for us. There would be nothing to give one single mo-
231
THE EXPLORERS
merit of ante-mortem excitement to the eye. I was
wrong.
We climbed painfully up a little ridge of rock, per-
haps a dozen feet high. On the further slope lay seven
corpses wrapped in fur.
"Here we are, Johnny," said Captain Dane sud-
denly. There was a complete sanity in his voice.
And he fell to examining the corpses. As for me, I
simply sat down and watched him. I was terribly tired,
and did not want to die.
"My God!" cried the captain, "here's an old-timer.
He drew a slip of sheepskin from the dead man's glove.
"I don't make out the name," he went on; "but there's
a date — August 9, 1798. This man discovered the
pole, Johnny; take off your hat. And the others came
after. Where's the last— here's the last— '98— 1898.
That was the year Jamie graduated. I belong next to
him. Here goes."
Captain Dane laid himself down by the side of that
last comer with a sigh, like that of a tired little child
gathered into its mother's arms, and when I got to him
he was dead.
I had, I think, no feeling of sorrow, or loneliness; I
felt neither thirst nor hunger. I sat soddenly among
the discoverers, and nodded my head. I sat for hours
nodding my head. It nodded of its own accord, like
the heads of those Chinese toys you buy on Twenty-
232
THE EXPLORERS
third Street. Then a shadow covered me, and it stopped
nodding. I sprang to my feet, wildly alert, and looked
upward.
Twenty feet above and slowly descending was a bal-
loon; over the edge of the car peered a face, a tiny,
brown, man-monkey sort of face. A little fur paw
shot up to the face, salute fashion, and a shrill voice
called :
"Salut!"
The balloon came to earth, and a little Frenchman
hopped out (for all his great bundle of furs he actually
hopped).
"Is your party all asleep?" said he (this time in
French-English) .
"No," said I, "all these are dead. They are men
who have discovered the pole at different times, and
died, and with each the news of his discovery. I was
this man's doctor — Captain Dane. He died of — "
A horrible fear seized me that if I said smallpox the
Frenchman would desert me. But he uncovered the
Captain's face and saw for himself.
"Smallpox," said he. "That is ghastly— what ?"
He hopped into the car of his balloon and hopped out
with a kodak between his fur paws. He focussed the
thing on the dead man, made ready to press the button,
and suddenly desisted.
"Not nice," he said, "to kodak those brave, dead
233
THE EXPLORERS
fellows. Well, it is all very disappointing. Let us be
off."
"You will take me ?" I said.
"My God! of course," said he.
The little man bowed gravely and stood aside with
many polite gestures while I climbed painfully into the
car. He followed me with a single hop — like a flea.
"All my ingenuity go for nothing," said he; "all the
cold and wind I have swallowed go for nothing. We
come too late, the little balloon and I. . . . "
He threw out some blocks of ice that he had for
ballast, the balloon began to tug at its braces, and pres-
ently to rise.
"Higher up," said the little Frenchman, "is more
wind. Once up there we shall leave in a great hurry.
. . . Farewell the dead heroes. ..."
I heard no more. When I came to, we had left the
pole a thousand miles behind and were scudding
southward.
234
IX
THE LITTLE HEIRESS; OR, THE
HUNTED LOOK
THE LITTLE HEIRESS; OR, THE
HUNTED LOOK
The little heiress had a hunted look. And it was not
the hunted look of the girl who is hunted for herself
alone. Nor the hunted look that the hunted wears in
full flight when the chance of capture is balanced by
the chance of escape. Under fair conditions (had she
been worth but one million, or even two), she might,
like the nimble jack-rabbit of her native plains, have
furnished rare sport. From two hounds, or even half a
dozen, she might then have run like a ghost, foreseeing
the strategy of their pursuit, doubling and dodging to
confuse it, and vanishing finally, with a burst of speed
and a joyous laugh. But she was weighted in the race
by many more millions than two. On the day of her
birth the first million had come to her in the form of a
cheque, the signature in her grandfather's trembling and
honored hand. On the envelope enclosing it he had
written in the same trembling hand: "A Nest Egg, for
Baby."
237
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
But after that the millions came to her in sad ways
and with sad words. First the heart that most loved
her ceased to beat, and the busy fingers that had vied
with Paris and Flanders in sewing for the baby were
still. And they gave the baby more millions, but for a
long time could not dry her eyes. When she was ten
the old grandfather died, and though they gave her
banks, and ranches, and oil wells and mines, she cried
for him. And after that she became the one flower in
the heart of a stern gray man who owned many gardens.
Him she loved with all her strength, and called My
father with immeasurable pride. Even governesses and
music masters faded before his iron will. She would
be snatched from her French lesson to flash across the
continent in a "special." In the midst of spelling,
likely as not at that very awkward word 'phthisis, would
come one in buttons and pride to say "would Miss
please be ready to ride with her father in twenty min-
utes." Then she would so hurry to be ready in time
that her cheeks would flush scarlet, and breeched and
booted she would clatter down the marble stair, and
appear before her father, gasping and speechless.
Sometimes, but after more preparation, they would ride
for days into the mountains, and always at evening
come suddenly in some wild place upon white tents, a
chef in his cap and apron, hot water to bathe in, brass
and linen beds to sleep in, a bearded demigod in a broad
238
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
felt hat to lift the weary little heiress from her horse,
the smell of cooking to make her hungry, the mountain
air to make her sleepy, and the exertion and admiration
of all the world to make her glad. When the little
heiress rode with her father into the mountains she car-
ried a rifle, and on the stock she had burnt with a red-
hot hat-pin A (for antelope) B (for bear) D (for deer)
and L (for lion), but there were no notches after these
letters, and sometimes when the Little Heiress came to
be hunted herself she thought of this, and was glad.
Though there were never any little girls for her to play
with, she was not very different from the general run of
them. When she ran furiously she got red in the face,
when she fell down and bumped her nose it bled, when
her garters broke her stockings came down; when she
was thwarted she flew into a passion, and when her
stomach ached she howled. The heavy millions had
not yet begun to weigh her down. It may be that there
were not enough. But many more were on the way, and,
as before, to pay her for the death of somebody she loved.
She waited up one Christmas Eve till very late for her
father to come home. He had telegraphed that he would
come. He would come, the secretary told her, over his
pet railroad in his pet car with his pet engineer at the
throttle, and he would make such time that the country
would gasp. But the great man came home more
slowly than had been expected, and in a conveyance in
239
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
which he had never ridden before. He came feet first
into the big house, carried by soft moving men in high
silk hats, and he rode in a plain black coffin with silver
handles. But they would not let the Little Heiress look
at his face, and she learned somehow — from one of the
servants, I think — that "fire had added to the horror of
the accident."
But to comfort her there came the old man who was
her father's lawyer, and he made her a present of the
railroad that had killed her father, and other railroads,
and other things, too many and too valuable to mention.
He gave her this million and that — may be a hundred of
them and more — but she could not be comforted. Nor
did it comfort her, during the ten minutes in which the
Bishop consigned the dust which was her father unto
the dust of which he had been made, to know that all
the locomotives of all the trains of all the railroads of all
the United States stood still upon their rails during those
ten minutes, and that all the travellers and engineers and
conductors and brakemen and train boys in all the
trains spoke of her father in low voices, and honored his
memory, and said how great he had been.
Thus all those who really loved the Little Heiress
passed out of her life, and she was taken to live with her
father's sister, Aunt Katharine, who learned to love her
after a while. Aunt Katharine and her husband lived
when their household was stationary in one of several
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
houses. They had two white ones, made of marble —
one that stood on a corner and looked over Central
Park, in New York City, and one that was in Newport
and looked over the ocean. There was a red brick
house with white trimmings in London, and an old
house made of wood in Westchester, which Aunt Kath-
arine's husband called "Home" and which they visited
for a week every year in the spring time; and they had
another wooden house, very new and comfortable, in a
little southern town called Aiken. And they had a
brown stone house with battlements in the city where
the Little Heiress had been born, but they only lived in
that when they had to "on business." But although
Aunt Katharine had so many pleasant homes to go to,
she was happiest when she was travelling. And some
people thought that she was not very happy then; and
everybody knew that she never went to Paris. And
even the Little Heiress knew why. Aunt Katharine's
little boy had died in Paris. That was why. He had
taken the scarlet fever, in London probably, and on the
way to Paris he had come down with it. And Aunt
Katharine had driven all over Paris with him, looking
for a bed to put him in. But that cold rainy day there
were no beds to be had in Paris; no, not for the million
francs that Aunt Katharine could have drawn her
cheque for. She tried the hotels, and they would not
have the sick boy; she tried to hire a house, but the
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
landlords feared the sick boy like grim death. And
Aunt Katharine became desperate, and lied, and said
that her little boy had a bad cold, nothing more; but
nobody believed her, and all the doors were closed in her
face. Finally the hack driver understood how matters
lay and turned them out of his hack. And after that
Aunt Katharine carried her little boy from house to
house in her arms. And when her strength gave out
she sat with him in a doorway, and called on the passers-
by for mercy, just as if she had been a woman of the
streets. There she sat in her sables, with pearls as big
as cherries round her neck inside of her dress, and others
in her ears, and wonderful rings on her fingers, and
many bank-notes in her purse; but she was the poorest
woman in Paris because she could not buy a bed for the
little boy who lay drenched and burning in her lap.
Aunt Katharine had rung the bell of the door before
which she sat, but it was a long time before the bell was
answered; and when the door did open, and a woman's
voice said, "What is the matter?" Aunt Katharine had
lost all hope and could not answer. Then the woman
who belonged to the voice took the little boy out of
Aunt Katharine's lap and carried him into the house.
The Little Heiress could never find out just what kind
of a woman she was, or what kind of a house she lived
in. She gathered only that she had never been a very
good woman until she took the little boy into her house
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
and laid him in her own bed to die, and nursed him and
prayed over him. But that had made a very good
woman of her — almost a saint. And she lived with
Aunt Katharine now, and was her maid Therese; only
she was never allowed to do any hard work, and Aunt
Katharine loved her like a sister. She had refused
Aunt Katharine's money and her pearls (that was after
the little boy died), but she had gone on her knees to
Aunt Katharine and begged her for honest employment
and a chance to be good.
So it was the death of the little boy that prevented
Aunt Katharine from being absolutely happy, and it
was the coming of the Little Heiress to live with her that
kept her from being absolutely sad. Indeed, as the
Little Heiress grew older and wiser, Aunt Katharine
grew younger and happier. And, of course, when they
met in the middle they were the same age — seventeen —
and loved each other dearly.
II
The Little Heiress had a hunted look. All the after-
noon she had been hunted with cards and cut flowers.
And now she was being hunted by the phalanx of shirt-
fronts. Turn where she would a shirt-front blocked
her path, and the slow-moving phalanx drove her into
it from behind. But she, preferring to fall to the lot of
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
the pack, would turn back and be surrounded by it.
To matrons and girls less fortunate than the Little
Heiress there would appear moving from one part of
the ball-room to another a phalanx of black backs.
Then it would stop and open to let forth the Little
Heiress and the shirt-front with which she had agreed
to dance; and the black backs, pivoting, would show
white fronts and above them pairs of eyes that followed
the progress of the Little Heiress in the dance. As a
rule she looked very little and like a child against the
man with whom she was dancing, and when it was time
to tell him that she could not sit out the next dance with
him in the conservatory, she had to turn up her face to
him to do so. And then she looked so little, and so
sweet and enticing, just the way a pansy looks, that, as
one man, the phalanx ground its teeth. And the eyes
belonging to the shirt-fronts tried to catch her eyes as
she drifted past, and brains belonging to the shirt-fronts
tried to calculate in just what part of the room she
would be when the music stopped. And the phalanx,
having calculated, would scatter and reform about the
Little Heiress when she stopped dancing.
"If I were poor," she thought to herself, "there might
be a man or two waiting for me (she had just seen her
face, that was so like a pansy, in a long mirror), but now
it has to be just shirt-fronts." And the Little Heiress
sighed as the phalanx closed about her. She did not
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
even look at the ring of faces above the ring of shirt-
fronts; for she knew very well what faces were there;
and more, she knew what face was not. The face that
the Little Heiress liked to look at was rather a proud
young face, that kept itself apart from the phalanx.
When the man who owned the face thought that it was
his duty to dance with the Little Heiress he would cut
through the phalanx as a yacht cuts through water, and
ask her. And she would be ready for him with her
gladdest smile; just such a smile as the beautiful lady
wore when the hero rescued her from the horrible sea
monster. But gladdest smiles, and the little hand on
his arm, made very little impression on Proud Face.
When, for hospitality received, or any reason as good, it
was his duty to ask her to dance, he asked her; when it
was not his duty, he didn't. And there the matter
rested. But when the Little Heiress did get a chance to
dance with Proud Face she lost her hunted look.
Twice, three times round the great room; the back of
her neck ached a little with looking up at Proud Face,
and her lips trembled a little, perhaps because they
smiled at him so much. But she felt that she could go
on dancing with him, and turning up her face to look at
him — forever. "He won't ask me again to-night,"
sighed the Little Heiress to herself, "so don't stop,
music — don't stop."
But the music stopped, and Proud Face, conducting
245
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
the Little Heiress to Aunt Katharine (and the advance
guard of the approaching phalanx), bowed and said it
had been a pleasure, and left her. Then the hunted
look came back to her, and before she could smile
upon her tormentors she had to deal with a restless
tear.
"My dear," said Aunt Katharine, "somebody has
put his foot through your gown."
" It was that clumsy man," said the Little Heiress, in
her clear voice of a little child, and she pointed to one of
the shirt-fronts. The face above the shirt-front red-
dened and began to mumble. But the Little Heiress
broke into her clear laugh of a little child, for, though
she could not escape from the hounds, she dearly loved
to tease and to annoy them.
"You had better go to Therese," said Aunt Katha-
rine, "and get her to put in a stitch."
The Little Heiress had seen Proud Face leave the
room, and she thought that if she hurried she might
overtake him on his way to the smoking-room, and —
just overtake him and pass him, and that would be all.
But she had not noticed that one of the shirt-fronts had
detached himself from the phalanx and left the room by
the same door.
"I'll go at once," said the Little Heiress. In her
eagerness she forgot that she was no longer a little child
and, the long, torn flounce of her dress streaming be-
246
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
hind, she danced across the polished floor, a flash of
pink, a twinkle of pink slippers, and vanished.
But she was not in time to catch up with Proud Face.
And, beyond a shirt-front that suddenly blocked her
way, she saw him lift the portiere of the smoking-room
and pass in.
"How you frightened me," said the Little Heiress
swallowing her disappointment.
"I'm sorry," said the shirt-front.
"Forgiven then," said the Little Heiress, and she
made to pass.
"Give me a minute. I must speak to you."
"To me?" said the Little Heiress, and she looked
straight up into the eyes of shirt-front, and saw that he
was one of those who had proposed to her before.
"Can't you change your mind," he said, "dear?"
"Often — often," said the Little Heiress. "But not
my heart — but not my heart."
"Give me a chance," said shirt-front. "Give me a
little hope. You know I love you. I love you with
my whole heart and soul." But there was no more
passion or conviction in shirt-front's voice than in a
parrot's. There was neither hunger nor longing.
"A chance!" said the Little Heiress. "I give you
the whole wide world in which to make a name for
yourself. I give you a will to keep you straight "
"Then you do care for me," said shirt-front, though
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
the remarks of the Little Heiress were not meant to be
so construed.
"I!" cried the Little Heiress. And she meant to
say no more. But shirt-front's words had carried to
her clear nostrils a smell of drink, and she lost her
temper. "I — when I love," said the Little Heiress,
"will love a man."
"And what am I but a man ?"
"You," she cried, "you are a shirt-front."
His face flushed and throbbed with fury.
"You will live to repent your words," he said.
"I shall more likely live to repeat them," said the
Little Heiress. She escaped and ran up the stairs.
"Why are you out of breath ?" said The'rese.
" Because I ran," said the Little Heiress. " Look — "
The'rese knelt at the Little Heiress's feet and began to
sew the torn flounce to its place. "First I ran after a
man," panted the Little Heiress, "and then I ran away
from a shirt-front."
"Why?" asked The'rese.
"The first," said the Little Heiress, "because / was
covetous, the second because he was."
"Is covetous, coveted?" asked The'rese.
"No," said the Little Heiress. "But which do you
mean "
"Miss Covetous, I mean," said The'rese, "who
else?"
248
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"No," said the Little Heiress, "she is not coveted."
And she sighed. . . .
" It is finished," said Therese.
"Thank you," said the Little Heiress. "Tell me
that I look like new."
"You look like a flower," said Therese.
"Like a pansy?" said the Little Heiress in a coaxing
voice.
" Like a pansy," said Therese.
The Little Heiress laughed her clear laugh of a little
child. But she went slowly down the stair, and had a
hunted look.
Just as she reached the foot of the stair, however,
Proud Face came out of the smoking-room.
"You!" said the Little Heiress.
"I," said Proud Face.
"I've been to be mended," said the Little Heiress.
"What have you been doing?"
"I have been smoking," said Proud Face, "and
losing money at cards; and now I am going to thank
your aunt for a delightful evening."
"But it's so very early," said the Little Heiress.
"Not for me," said Proud Face. "You see, I be-
long to a great banker, and if I oversleep he will get
somebody else to stand in my shoes."
"Let him," said the Little Heiress, defiantly.
"And if I did," said Proud Face, "who would pay
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
brother's expenses through college, and who would
keep the wolf from mother's door?" Proud Face
smiled at the Little Heiress.
"I should think if you need money so badly," said
the Little Heiress, and, although she was only per-
petrating a joke, she blushed at certain thoughts which
it roused in her, "I should think that you would
rather stay up town and try to marry me. Lots of
men do."
"Men?" queried Proud Face.
"Shirt-fronts," corrected the Little Heiress.
Proud Face laughed.
"I've no doubt it would be very pleasant," he said.
The Little Heiress turned a fiery, a defiant red.
"Try it," she said.
"Princess," said Proud Face gravely — sometimes he
called her Princess in a mocking voice — "turn your
face to the light and let me look at you."
She turned her face obediently to the light and her
lips quivered.
"I see," he said very gently, "I see." And he stood
a while in thought.
The Little Heiress turned her face away from the
light.
"You do see?" she said in a voice that was barely
audible, "you do?"
"Is it bad," he said, "very bad?"
250
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
The Little Heiress took his hand and placed it over
her heart. He could feel the heart beating and flut-
tering against it like a distracted bird.
"What does my heart say?" she whispered. "What
does my heart say?"
"But if I don't love you?" said Proud Face.
"I will make you," said the Little Heiress. She
reached up her little hands to his big shoulders.
"I love you with all my heart and soul," she said.
Her slim body rocked and she held fast by his shoul-
ders. "I'll give you the truest heart that ever beat
for a man," she said.
But it was in Proud Face's mind to shock her love
to the death.
"And how many millions will you give me?" he
asked.
"All that I have," she said.
"And how many have you?"
"How many shot are there in a load?" asked the
Little Heiress. "How many roses in a rose house?
How do I know."
Proud Face stood in thought.
"I tried to offend you," he said.
"But how could you succeed?" said the Little
Heiress. "I love you."
Visions of ease and plenty assailed Proud
Face.
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"I don't love you," he said after a time, "but I will
be good to you."
"You will love me," said the Little Heiress, "I will
make you."
She stood upon the tips of her little pink slippers.
"Take that to your mother," she said, "and say I
sent it."
"Mother — mother!" It was not Proud Face, but
Shame Face, that knocked upon his mother's door.
"Come in."
His mother lay in her bed reading.
"Mother," he said, and again, "motherl"
"What has happened, my dear?"
" I am going to marry the Little Heiress, mother."
She looked him in the face for a long time.
"Do you love her, my dear?"
Shame Face buried his face in the bedclothes and
sobbed aloud.
But there was nothing shamefaced about the Little
Heiress. And she returned to the ball-room almost
blazing with beauty. And as the shirt-fronts of the
phalanx closed about her, her eyes shone with a won-
derful proud light and she cried in her clear voice of a
little child:
"I am all mended, now — gentlemen!"
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
III
The Little Heiress had a hunted look. Never since
congratulations were invented were any so cold as
those which she received. The very night of the ball,
after she found that sleep would not close her eyes,
she got up and, regardless of anybody that might see
her, ran down the hall in her night gown and knocked
at Aunt Katharine's door. Aunt Katharine was sound
asleep, but she waked up and made room at her side
for the shivering Little Heiress. When the Little Heir-
ess had stopped shivering she hid her face in the pil-
lows (because there was a night light in the room), and
told Aunt Katharine that she was going to be married.
"To whom?" asked Aunt Katharine, with fear and
suspicion in her voice, for she had been terribly afraid
all along that some undeserving, fortune-hunting shirt-
front would capture the Little Heiress. The Little
Heiress said to whom; and at first Aunt Katharine
gave a little sigh of relief, for he was a great favorite
with her, but then she began to feel suspicious even
of him, and after sliding her arm about the Little
Heiress and giving her a hug, she said:
"Are you sure he loves you ?"
The Little Heiress had been preparing herself for
that question; but her preparation went for nothing
because when it came to the point she could not lie.
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"I love him," she said, "with all my heart and soul,
and I got him alone in the hall and told him so, and
asked him to marry me. I told him that I would make
him love me, if he would marry me, and finally he said
he would."
"Does he love you?"
"No, but he's going to; I'm going to make
him. Didn't any man ever tell you that if you
would only marry him he would make you love
him?"
Aunt Katharine was made very miserable by what
she had heard, but she laughed.
"Dozens of men have said that to me," said the
Little Heiress, "dozens."
"But, dearie," said Aunt Katharine, "your uncle
and I won't hear of your engaging yourself to a man
who doesn't love you."
"Why?" said the Little Heiress. "He's poor and
loveless, and I give him love and millions. If I were
a man, and he were a girl, everybody would say 'how
beautiful!'"
"Not if the girl didn't love the man," said Aunt
Katharine. "The man would be buying her."
" I want him," said the Little Heiress, " why shouldn't
I buy him?"
"Because you wouldn't want a man that could be
bought."
254
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"But I do," said the Little Heiress. "And besides,
he's going to love me."
"Until that happens," said Aunt Katharine, "there
mustn't be any talk of engagements. I won't hear
of it."
"Nonsense!" said the Little Heiress. Neither of
them spoke for some time. The Little Heiress began
to get very sleepy.
"Are you sleepy?" she asked.
"I don't feel as if I should ever sleep again."
"I am," said the Little Heiress. She drew her
knees up and made herself very comfortable.
"It's beginning to be daylight," said the Little Heir-
ess. "When I get up I'll have breakfast, and then
I'll go see his mother, and ask for his hand in mar-
riage."
"You'll do no such thing," said Aunt Katharine.
"I will," said the Little Heiress.
Then there was another silence.
"Aunt Katharine — " The Little Heiress's voice
was very sleepy.
"What?"
"I shall always be very good to him."
Aunt Katharine set her mouth firmly and did not
deign to answer.
"I shall find out when his birthday is and give him a
railroad."
255
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"You'll be sent to a lunatic asylum if you're not
careful."
"Nonsense!"
Another long silence.
"Aunt Katharine "
"What?"
"Nothing." . . .
When she had had her breakfast, for she was up by
eleven o'clock that morning, the Little Heiress wrote
notes to all the men who had ever proposed to her,
and told them that she was going to be married. The
notes were all exactly alike, and she wrote them as fast as
she could. Except for the different names at the begin-
ning of each note, they were like this — spelling included :
— Because you often say you have my happiness at heart, I
tell you as fast as I can that I am happy for allways now, and
going to be married to the best man God ever made, and live with
him allways and be happy. I hope that you will allways be
happy. And that everybody will —
Then she went to see his mother.
"Please say," she burst out with, "that you don't
mind my marrying your son. I love him so, and I
will be a good daughter to you, and a good wife to him
always. Did he give you the kiss I sent you? And
may I give you another, please ? I want to kiss every-
body and everything that belongs to him."
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
His mother's eyes were full of tears.
"Dear child," she said, and she folded the Little
Heiress to her heart, "you mustn't think of marrying
him."
"Just what my aunt says," said the Little Heiress.
"But why— but why?"
"He doesn't love you," said his mother.
"But he will," said the Little Heiress, "I will make
him."
"He is going to you this afternoon to say that he
cannot marry you."
"Nonsense!" said the Little Heiress, but she turned
white at the thought. "There are law courts, and
suits for breach of promise," She laughed. But his
mother didn't laugh.
"I don't know why he doesn't love you," she said.
"I wish to heaven he did. I do."
"Do you?" cried the Little Heiress. "Oh! I love
you for loving me. And by and by he will love me
for loving him. He must; mustn't he must?"
It was Saturday, which the Little Heiress had for-
gotten, and just as she had spoken the door opened
and in he came.
"Oh," he said.
"Oh," said the Little Heiress. And his mother left
them. He was no longer Shame Face, but Proud Face
again.
257
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"I have told our engagement to everybody I could,"
said the Little Heiress.
"You haven't," said he.
"I have," she said.
"Don't tell me," he said, "that you meant what you
said last night."
"Mean it!" cried the Little Heiress. "Why am I
here but to tell your mother that I love you, and ask
her permission to marry you, and say that I will be a
good daughter to her?"
"Is that why you are here?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"She threw me down — she threw me down," said the
Little Heiress. "But it's a poor love that shies at
opposition."
"She was right."
" She was wrong. And you haven't seen me for hours,
and you have promised to marry me, and you ought
to come forward and kiss me."
He came forward smiling, but a little distressed.
"Wait," said the Little Heiress. "Is it to be all for
my pleasure and none for yours? Do you want to
kiss me ?"
"I think," said Proud Face, "that I can go so far
as to say that I do." He came still further for-
ward.
258
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"Wait," she said. "Last night — did you want to
kiss me?"
He thought carefully.
"Not exactly, I think," he said.
"But now you want to," cried the Little Heiress
triumphantly. "That's something — that's something.
Oh! my dear love."
In spite of himself the kiss thrilled Proud Face to
the heart.
"And what," said the Little Heiress, "is all this
talk of me giving you up ? I won't."
"How old are you ?" said Proud Face.
"I am seventeen," said the Little Heiress. "But I
look younger, and I know my own mind, if that's
what you mean."
"It's like robbing a cradle," said Proud Face.
But the Little Heiress turned up her face, which was
so like a pansy, to him, and there was an immense
seriousness in her eyes.
"My God!" began Proud Face with a kind of sob in
his voice, but he could not go on, and he said, "My
God!" again.
"How are you going to help loving me," cried the
Little Heiress, " when I love you so. Tell me. Are you
trying to help it?"
Proud Face thought for a moment, and then he
smiled.
259
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"Perhaps I am trying," he said.
"But you mustn't try not," said the Little Heiress.
"You must try to. Think how happy you will be when
you do."
"I am not worthy," said Proud Face, "to kiss the
dust on your little shoes. May I?"
"If you do," said the Little Heiress, "I will kiss the
dust on yours."
IV
"If I come to see you," wrote Proud Face to the
Little Heiress, "you will hypnotize me and I won't be
able to say what I mean. Can I tell you to your face
that I do not love you, and, not loving you, cannot,
will not marry you? No. Not to your lovely face.
Do you think it is easy to write it? And to confess
that I am a fool ? Sure anybody but a fool would love
you, and most of the fools, too, as I think. But this
fool doesn't. Hate me — hate me! Hate me!"
And the Little Heiress wrote back:
"I draw the line at any further humiliation. I give
you up. Give my love to your stubborn heart. Think
of me kindly if you can. We shall not see each other
any more, except by accident. I can't think of any
more to say. Good-by." . . .
Though this answer was what Proud Face told him-
self he had hoped for, it came to him as something of a
260
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
shock. There were not, after all, so many flowers in
the garden of his life that he cared to have the Little
Heiress lifted from it, roots and all, and set in some
other garden beyond the wall, where he could not even
see her any more. All that day, and for many days,
he would have in the midst of his work a sudden sink-
ing feeling, and would realize after a moment or two
that he was thinking of the Little Heiress and how that
she was gone out of his life forever. He was not the
least little bit angry with her for having first announced
the engagement, and then the disengagement. He
met the looks of his friends with an unabashed look, and
nobody dared ask him questions. But in his heart he
was ashamed, humiliated and troubled; and he did
not do his work properly, and he felt his ambitions
slipping away from him. He felt obliged, too, not to
go any more into society for fear that he would meet
the Little Heiress, and make her uncomfortable.
Meanwhile the shirt-fronts gathered once more about
the Little Heiress and beset her goings and her comings
with attentions. But she seemed an easier and more
willing prey than formerly. When this shirt-front or
that talked to her of love she listened as if she enjoyed
listening, and she was always willing to sit out a dance,
and was always "at home" when the shirt-fronts called,
and she adorned herself with selections from the flowers
that they sent her, and she gave this shirt-front her
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
gloves to hold and did not ask them back, and her fan
to that shirt-front, and her most inviting smiles to them
all. And all the shirt-fronts believed that it could not
be long before she would engage herself to one of
them. And each shirt-front thought in his heart of
hearts that it might be to him. For, very wickedly,
she encouraged each one whenever she had the
chance.
"I will make you love me," one would say.
"If you only can," the Little Heiress would answer
earnestly.
"If you'll only give me the chance."
"Now is the chance."
But the suddenness of the opportunity always found
the shirt-front unprepared and left him stuttering before
the sweet gravity and readiness-to-be-made-to-love of
the Little Heiress. Something of the Little Heiress's
flirtations — heaven alone knows how — came to the
knowledge of Proud Face. It may be that where she
was concerned his mind was superhumanly alert. It
may be that his mother heard things and hinted at
them. Anyway, it was constantly in his thoughts
that she was playing fast and loose with her chances
of happiness, and, for none knew her impulsiveness and
rashness better than Proud Face, might readily, be-
cause of pique and disappointment and general head-
strongness, turn deliberately down some path that
262
THE LITTLE HEIRESS
would lead to nothing but misery. "Ah," thought he,
"if I only loved her." And, though he did not love
her, yet whenever he thought of the two kisses she had
given him (which was often), he wished that he did,
and whenever he stopped thinking of them (which was
seldom), he felt sad and disjointed.
Very late one night, as he was walking home from an
usher's dinner, full of discontent, he passed by Aunt
Katharine's house, and, looking up the shimmering
marble face of it, saw that in the windows of one of
the corner rooms there were still lights. "The Little
Heiress is still up," he thought, and he stood in the
shadow of a lamp-post and watched the lights. It
seemed to him that not for a long time had he been in
any employment that was so pleasant. He hoped that
the lights would not soon be put out. The night was
sweet and fresh and warm. The city was silent. Peace
was upon it, and, above, the stars. Proud Face stood
on and on, in the shadow of the lamp-post, and still the
lights burned in the corner windows.
The voices of the bronze-throated bells began sud-
denly to sound in the church steeples. But the silence
returned. . . . Again the bells rang; and back came
the silence, and the lights in the corner windows still
shone.
"But they must go soon," thought Proud Face,
"soon."
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
And with that, just as if they had been waiting for a
signal, out went the lights.
Then Proud Face realized that he was tired and
cold. But for a moment or two longer he kept his sad
eyes upon the windows.
"They want me to take the California branch," he
thought." Everybody wants me to, Mamma wants me
to — and I think that I must — now that the lights are
out — out. Oh," he thought bitterly, "there is nothing
for me — nothing."
His shadow separated from the shadow of the lamp-
post, and his steps rang in the street.
The next morning he accepted the California branch,
and began his preparations for the long journey.
Whether or not a little bird told the Little Heiress
that Proud Face was going to shake the dust of New
York from his feet is unknown. It may be that any
news concerning him was just a part of the air that
she breathed. It doesn't matter. She learned that he
was to go, and after that managed very quickly to learn
when and how. Then she wrote him a note.
"Don't go without saying good-by. If you could come Satur-
day at three. You start Saturday at five, don't you ? Could you
come then? I'd like to wish you good luck to your face."
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
When Proud Face came (Saturday at exactly three),
he found the Little Heiress expecting him. She was
hatted and gloved to go out, and she had a hunted
look.
"So it's good-by," said Proud Face, "and good luck."
"Yes," said the Little Heiress. "But why did you
stand so long and look up at my window — the other
night?"
" Oh," said Proud Face, and he blushed.
"I watched you watch," said the Little Heiress,
"until I thought it couldn't be good for you to stand
so long in the night, and then I put out the lights, and
you went away."
"Yes," said Proud Face, "and then I went away."
"And now you go on a journey. And I," said the
Little Heiress, "go to walk in the Park."
"Alone?" said Proud Face, and he tried to smile.
"Alone," said the Little Heiress. "For you — all
good things — all good luck. You'll not be coming
back soon?"
"Not soon," said Proud Face. And he felt as if he
were ringing the bells at his own funeral.
"Are you going alone?" asked the Little Heiress.
"Alone?" Proud Face did not understand.
"Are you going with gladness, I mean."
"Oh!" said Proud Face, "alone — so far as gladness
goes."
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"Shall we say good-by?" said the Little Heiress.
"Yes," said Proud Face. His voice was very gen-
tle and tired. "Good-by."
"Do you feel a little wretched, too?" said the Little
Heiress.
"Oh, yes," said Proud Face simply. "And," he
faltered, "will you write to me when — you find happi-
ness? There's an old absurd word, 'rejoice,'" he went
on, "I would rejoice to hear that you were happy."
"Me? Happy?" said the Little Heiress, and she
sighed.
"Don't," said Proud Face, "I can't bear it."
"Between us," said the Little Heiress, "there must
always be good wishes."
She held up her face that was so like a pansy, a sad
pansy, to Proud Face, and they kissed. The Little
Heiress trembled a little; for she knew that she had
shot her last bolt.
Presently, very shyly, she looked at Proud Face, and
she found that he was beaming on her like the sun.
His face was like a boy's; like the face of a prisoner
that has been freed; like a demi-god's.
"Oh!" said the Little Heiress, "oh!" And then,
very timidly, she said, "shall you go now?"
"Now!" said Proud Face, in a voice that rang like a
bell. "I shall not go."
"When?" said the Little Heiress.
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THE LITTLE HEIRESS
"Never," said Proud Face.
"Oh," said the Little Heiress. "They will say I
have bought you."
"Not with millions," said Proud Face; "with love-
liness."
"Oh," said the Little Heiress, "say it was the
kisses — the three kisses. It was on those that I staked
my all."
"I don't believe," said Proud Face, "that the kisses
had anything to do with it. I think it was just you —
just you. But I'm going to find out."
"Are you?" cried the Little Heiress, and she dodged
him.
Aunt Katharine was surprised to find them on oppo-
site sides of a big table. The Little Heiress still had a
hunted look, but it was an entirely new kind.
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THE BEST MAN
THE BEST MAN
I
Stanislas Odeskalki, the best man, and O'Gosh, the
interpreter, helped, as did old man Openta. But
Orloff Openta and Olenka were really married by the
mayor. He made Orloff kiss Olenka; shook hands
with them; said that he hoped they would be a loving
couple; made the remark that everybody's name began
with O, and wished them good-day. Then he turned
to a document which demanded his signature, and
puffed at his cigar, which had almost gone out.
Orloff, Olenka, Stanislas Odeskalki and old man
Openta went up town by the Elevated, and hurried to
the rooms in East One Hundred and Twenty-third
Street, near the river, which Orloff had hired for him-
self and his bride and his father to live in. It was a
bitter afternoon in January. Dark clouds hung low
over the city, and occasionally flurries of snow were
torn from them. In many windows lights already
glowed. Old man Openta walked ahead, giving his
arm to Olenka, who was so rosy and fresh-looking that
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THE BEST MAN
men turned their heads to look after her. The best
man and the groom brought up the rear. The bride-
groom's face was bright and smiling, and he kept his
eyes steadily on the bride; but the best man scowled
continually and complained of the cold. Only once
did he speak of anything else.
"But you should have told me," he said, "what a
pretty girl she is. You must look out or some fellow
will take her from you."
He cheered up when the four flights of stairs leading
to the Opentas' new rooms had been surmounted.
"Now we are going to feed," he said. •
Old man Openta unlocked the door, and, motioning
to the others to wait, crossed the threshold, turned and
held out his hands.
"Welgub," he said. He affected the English lan-
guage with ostentation, but the others clung to Polish.
Olenka hesitated and looked at her husband, blushing.
"But go in," he said, and he pushed her gently
toward the opening. "This is no time to hang back."
Old man Openta embraced her when she had crossed
the threshold.
"Welgub do your hobe," he said.
Openta pushed Odeskalki into the room, followed
and closed the door.
"Well, here we are," he said. "What do you think
of it?"
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THE BEST MAN
Odeskalki began to look about critically. " It is easy
to see that a woman has not lived here," he said.
"You ought to have curtains. Mrs. Openta will be
lonely without curtains. But how many rooms are
there?"
"There is this one," said Openta, "for the cooking-
stove and father, and there is that one" — he pointed to
a second door, closed — "for us."
Odeskalki moved toward the closed door and laid
his hand on the knob.
"Do not go in there," said Openta, a little sharply.
"Why not?" said Odeskalki.
"Because it would not be proper," said Openta.
"If I don't know what's proper," said Odeskalki
angrily, "I don't know who does. But the rooms are
yours — such as they are." He shrugged his shoulders.
"You will say next that it will not be proper to light a
fire in the stove. It is terribly cold."
"No," said Openta, "I will not say that"; and he
began to busy himself with an old newspaper and some
kindlings. Soon thick smoke was oozing through the
cracks of the stove, but presently, as the pipe warmed,
the smoke was drawn into it, and a fine crackling sound
filled the room.
"That is better," said Odeskalki. "But the smoke
has made me cough."
Olenka went close to the stove and spread out her
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THE BEST MAN
hands to catch the warmth. "I think a fire is so
home-like," she said.
"But the room is warming up," said Openta. "Don't
stand on ceremony. Let us all take our coats off."
He started forward to help Olenka, but Odeskalki in-
tervened.
"No, let me do it," he said.
"All right," said Openta, "and I will help father off
with his."
In helping Olenka, Odeskalki pressed her shoulders
with his hands, but very slightly, so as not to give
offence.
"Openta," he said, "you will not need the stove with
such a wife."
Openta and Olenka blushed and became greatly
confused.
"Bud," said old man Openta, "be goodn't goog
bidoud a stobe."
"And now," said Openta, "it is time for Olenka to
enter upon her first duties as a wife." He pointed to
a large, broad cupboard in one corner of the room.
" Obed id," said the old man.
Olenka approached the cupboard bashfully and
hesitatingly, as if she expected that something of a
comic nature would spring out of it.
"But open it," said her husband encouragingly.
"Id bill dod bide," said his father.
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Olenka smiled over her shoulder at the three men.
At times she fairly astonished by her prettiness. She
was as out of place in that shabby room as an orchid
would have been. You would not have been sur-
prised to learn that she was a princess — even a fairy
princess — in disguise. Her voice was tender and
haunting, like the middle register of a fine old 'cello
when a master is playing. Her feet moved in and out
under the hem of her skirt, timidly and gently, like two
mice. If you had been in the hall and had heard her
laugh, you would have said, "Somebody is making a
child happy in that room."
Presently, with a great show of courage, she flung
open the cupboard door and at once began to emit ex-
clamations of surprise and pleasure. For, aside from
china and glass of permanent utility, the shelves of the
cupboard displayed enough cold meats, salad, oranges,
nuts, raisins, celery, jelly-cake and wine to give delight
to the moment.
Soon the good things were transferred to the table,
and a real feast began. Olenka presided; but so in-
tent was she on seeing that the men's plates were always
filled that she did not find time to eat more than a few
mouthfuls herself. Old man Openta became loqua-
cious. Openta himself beamed on the party and kept
jumping from his seat to heap fuel into the stove. It
began to get red-hot. Odeskalki scowled continually,
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THE BEST MAN
but it was noticed that he ate and drank as much as he
could get.
" But you mustn't mind his dark looks," said Openta
to Olenka. "At heart he is not an ill-natured fel-
low."
Odeskalki only scowled the more, and, filling his glass,
toasted Olenka. His voice was sulky and funereal, like
that of a bishop consigning a dead person to the
earth.
"May you be happy," he said, and shook his head
gloomily.
"It is always so with him when he drinks," said
Openta. "You would think him a dragon, not a man,
but at heart he is not an ill-natured fellow."
" I gad ead do bore," said old man Openta suddenly,
and probably for the first time in his life. He rose,
carrying his glass of wine, and placed himself with his
back to the stove. From this coign of vantage he
beamed optimistically on the party.
Odeskalki drew out a fat silver watch and scowled
at it.
"Time for us to be off," he said to Openta.
"It is really too bad," said Openta to the bride,
"but I could not seem to make them understand.
And if I were to stay with you I should lose my place.
But next week I shall be put on the day shift. It was
all I could do to get off this afternoon to be married."
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"When do you think you will come back?" said
Olenka.
"Perhaps not before one or two o'clock," said
Openta.
"To-night," said Odeskalki sulkily, "there is to
be a large dinner for men given by a young man
who is going to be married. There will be a real lake
in the middle of the table, with banks of ferns and red
roses, and live ducks swimming in it. It is impossible
to say when the affair will break up, for there will be a
great deal of hard drinking; — and not ordinary white
wine like this, I can tell you. Those young fellows
will not have anything but the best imported cham-
pagne, costing you, perhaps, six dollars the bottle.
That's the kind of a feast to have."
"You see," said Openta gently, "this envious fellow
and I will be kept busy serving courses and drawing
corks until the last guest goes. There will be eight of
us waiters, one for every four guests. But I will come
home as soon as may be, and I will wake you up."
"But I shall not go to sleep until you come," said
Olenka.
The young couple could not meet each other's eyes,
but flushed hotly and looked down.
"Ahem!" said Odeskalki.
Old man Openta, from his position in front of the
stove, began suddenly to speak in a loud, sing-song
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voice. "Barriage," he said, "is dbd all peer ad skid-
dies. Barriage is "
An expression of acute pain suddenly covered his
face. He dropped his glass, clutched the seat of his
trousers with both hands, and sprang forward. Then
tears came into his eyes and he began to tremble.
"What has happened to you, father?" cried Openta,
rushing toward his parent.
"Don'd dudge be," said the old man.
"But what is it ? Are you suffering ?"
"Id is dotig," said the old man presently, in a choking
voice. " I haf purned by pridges pehind be."
Odeskalki scowled at the old man. "You ought to
have known better than to stand so close to the stove,"
he said. "Come, Openta, or we shall be late, and,
furthermore, God ajone knows what may happen
next."
The old man scowled at Odeskalki.
The young men put on their overcoats. Openta
hesitated, looked for a moment sheepishly at Odeskalki,
and then, turning to the little bride, opened his arms
with complete frankness. She ran into them. And
for a few moments, so eager was the embrace, they
swayed to and fro.
Odeskalki fixed his handsome, scowling eyes upon
them. "I hope you will be happy," he said, "but I
do not think much ever comes of hoping."
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II
For about two hours Odeskalki, Openta, and six
other waiters, representing nearly as many different
nationalities, worked swiftly and in silence to promote
the ease and comfort of thirty-two young gentlemen
who had come to sit on the outer edges of a hollow
square and make beasts of themselves. The hollow in
the white damask square was occupied by four descend-
ing banks of maidenhair fern and Jaqueminot roses
which terminated in physical reality at the edges of a
square mirror-bottomed tank, and continued into it in
lovely illusion. In the tank a pair of gorgeous mallard
ducks swam and occasionally dove, seeking vainly to
seize the reflected roses and ferns in their gritty bills.
Occasionally food more substantial than shadows was
tossed to them in the shape of bread pellets, celery ends
and even olives, which they ate with avidity. But the
supply became at length greater than the demand, and
the water in the tank began to look less like good
Croton than bad soup. Whenever their duties brought
them close together Odeskalki whispered sour comments
to Openta.
"Let them look to us for good manners. That fel-
low with red hair has no more breeding than a hog.
Give me wealth and champagne, and I would not talk
like a sewer. The little fat son of a dog is beckoning
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THE BEST MAN
to me and pointing to his empty plate. Let some one
else fill it."
He became more and more displeased with his own
lot and was inclined to visit his wrath on the meek and
inoffensive Openta.
"Such a husband," he said. "You should have
stayed with your wife to-night, even if you lost your
position by doing so. Instead, you are skipping about
like a monkey and currying favor with the rich. For
God's sake, have some spirit; imitate me when you
fill a glass. Do not look as if the act were a pleasure,
but a condescension."
Odeskalki, for all his scorn and scowling, kept a clear
and ready eye on opportunity and had already drunk
enough champagne out of partially emptied bottles to
make his blood boil. But alcohol did not cheer him.
Ever since early in the afternoon, when he had seen
Olenka for the first time, he had been bitter with fate.
Her girlishness, innocence, and beauty had exerted a
powerful physical attraction on the man, and as the
champagne mounted to his head he began to imagine
scenes in which he figured as her lover. "Only let
this silly Openta have a care," he thought, "or he will
wake up some morning with a pair of horns to add to
his absurd appearance." At times the thought that
Openta would possess Olenka made him furious. Un-
consciously, the thought that Openta was absenting
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THE BEST MAN
himself from her rather than lose his position in the
restaurant made him more furious. Then self-pity
would make his heart gentle and swell into pity for
Openta and pity for Olenka. "It is simply terrible,"
he thought, "to think that I shall come between them."
A large screen of Spanish leather in one corner of the
room shielded from view a table covered with removes
and a great tub containing ice and champagne. Several
times during the course of the dinner Odeskalki and
Openta found themselves alone behind this screen. On
one such occasion Odeskalki hastily filled two glasses
with champagne, and said:
"Quick, man — to Olenka!"
Openta hesitated.
"Curse you," said Odeskalki in a fierce whisper.
"I will not be friends with a man who will not drink to
his own wife."
Openta had a weak head, and that one glass stimu-
lated him wonderfully. It was not difficult, a little
later, for Odeskalki to persuade him to take another.
"May you be fruitful and multiply," he said.
The third glass which Openta drank was at his own
instigation.
"Come behind the screen," he said; "it is only right
that we should drink your health now."
Odeskalki went willingly enough. "But don't take
too much, Openta," he said, and experienced a virtuous
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sense of having done his duty. A few minutes later
Openta dropped an armful of plates, and the other
waiters cursed him.
Some of the young gentlemen had begun preparing
for the dinner early in the afternoon by drinking cock-
tails. Others had been making up for lost time by
drinking whole glasses of champagne at a swallow.
Champagne had made its appearance with the oysters.
By each plate were two glasses, one for champagne
and one for water. But the water, for the most part,
had been thrown into the duck pond so that each young
gentleman might utilize the empty vessel for more
champagne. Signs of drunkenness were beginning to
be evident. The waiters were receiving considerable
presents of money and secret directions to keep par-
ticular glasses filled.
Men left their places and carried their chairs to more
alluring neighborhoods. Little groups surrounded the
humorists and roared with laughter whenever these
spoke. Men whom the champagne affected to serious-
ness drew aside in pairs, and with heads nodding close
together, emptied their hearts of matters which for the
moment seemed of paramount importance. Some-
times they sniffled and shed tears.
One or two, on mischief bent, left the dinner, went
upstairs and for a few disgraceful minutes attended a
small dance to which they had not been invited.
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John Tombs upset his coffee-cup; nothing came out
but ashes. "Fat" Randall, sitting solemnly between
two empty chairs, suddenly smiled a silly smile and
poured upon his own head a whole cellar of salt. Jack
Blackwell rose unsteadily and pounded upon the table
with a gilt-edged plate until the- plate broke. Having
thus secured a sufficiency of attention, he raised his
glass, so charged with wine that it slopped over the top
and ran over his hand, and proposed the health of the
bride. The young gentlemen surged to their feet,
shouting and drinking. Jack Blackwell hurled his
empty glass into the duck pond. Some followed this
lead; others threw their glasses backward against the
panelled walls of the room; others upward against the
frescoed ceiling. Some threw plates. One man threw
his glass by mistake straight into "Fat" Randall's face.
It broke into a thousand pieces, but Randall was not
even scratched. One man, a cigar nine inches long be-
tween his teeth, was hit on the back of the head by a
plate. The cigar fairly flew from his mouth into the
duck pond, and the man looked foolishly after it with-
out the least idea as to why it had flown. Another man,
dragging suddenly at a tablecloth, stripped one whole
table of everything on it. The red shade of an over-
turned candle caught fire. John Tombs snatched a
coffee-pot from a waiter and poured its contents on
the conflagration. Openta, from whose hands the
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coffee-pot had been snatched, giggled. He was also
drunk.
It was noticed by some that one of the ducks floated
belly up among the flotsam on the surface of the pond.
A sliver of glass had pierced its brain. The other every
now and then reared itself, and, flapping desperately,
tried to escape on clipped wings.
The dinner began to break up. The young gentle-
men left the room by twos and threes. Downstairs in
the main hall of the restaurant there was a great putting
on of hats and coats; many of the latter were lined with
expensive fur. Presents of money were freely taken by
the boys in charge of the hats and coats. Electric han-
soms received drunken cargoes on more pleasure bent.
And, like the geese in the song,
One flew east and one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.
It was a great night for roulette wheels; a great night
for young women who had plenty of time but no money.
But the future groom came back to the dining-room.
He was a big man and, with his immense fur-lined coat
and high silk hat, looked positively mountainous. His
face was red and shiny with hard drinking, but he was
not drunk.
"Where's the other waiter?" he said, in a loud, as-
sured voice. "I've got something for all of you."
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A swinging door was pushed open, and voices began
to call for Openta to come back.
Openta, very unsteady on his feet and sure of only
one thing — that he wanted to go home — had just
reached the top of a flight of stairs leading to a lower
corridor, at the end of which was a room in which the
waiters deposited their coats and hats. Hearing his
name called he turned, slipped and fell to the bottom of
the stairs.
Those in the dining-room heard the sounds of the
fall, mingled with a sudden burst of foolish laughter,
and then a deep groan. Afterward there was silence.
The groom hurried, with the others, to the bottom of
the stairs.
Openta had already picked himself up. His face was
white and drawn with pain, but he did not seem to have
received any serious injury. He kept feeling the small
of his back with one hand, and taking quick, sniffling
breaths.
"He's all right," said the groom, and he began to
distribute greenbacks among the waiters. They bowed
and scraped and gave thanks — even the gloomy Odes-
kalki. The groom looked up the flight of stairs by
which he had just descended.
"Can I get out of here without going back up those
stairs?" he said.
"This way, sir," said one of the waiters, and he
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walked off, followed by the groom, who muttered a
careless good-night as he left.
The others, all but Odeskalki and Openta, hurried
back to the dining-room for the remnants of the
feast.
"What a stupid fellow you are," said Odeskalki,
"to get drunk arid fall downstairs. You might have
broken your neck. Come, let us go."
"I have hurt my back," said Openta.
"Where?" said Odeskalki brutally. He prodded
Openta's spine with his thumb. Tears of anguish ran
out of Openta's eyes and he staggered.
"Curse you!" he cried.
Odeskalki was taken aback for a moment. "Don't
be a fool, little man," he said presently. "Don't rail
at those who are trying to help you. A nice figure
you'll cut at your bride's bedside, drunk and snivelling.
Pull yourself together, and don't curse your betters."
"I am sorry for what I said, Odeskalki," said Openta
meekly; "I didn't mean it. But you shouldn't have
punched me so hard."
"Punched you," said Odeskalki scornfully. "I punch
you! Man, if I punched you you'd know it. My fist
would come out the other side." He doubled up his
fist and fell to admiring its bony outline.
Openta went up town by the Third Avenue Elevated
and got out at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street;
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but his back hurt him so that he could hardly walk,
and very often he had to stop and rest. The pain made
him cold and sober.
Olenka was sound asleep. Openta stood looking at
her until the match which he had lighted burned his
fingers. Then, walking on tiptoe, he went into the
other room, and, having taken off his coat and trousers
and folded them carefully, he crept into bed with his
father. All night the old man slept and snored. All
night the young man lay awake and moaned.
Ill
The next morning Odeskalki called to find out what
had become of Orloff Openta. The invalid was asleep.
Old man Openta and Olenka took Odeskalki to the
furthest corner of the room and conversed with him in
low tones.
"I woge ub ad he bas id by bed," said the old man.
"He fell down a flight of stairs," said Odeskalki,
"and injured his spine. I hope that it is nothing, but
injuries to the spine are not to be laughed at. He had
just reached the head of the stairs when we called him
to come back and receive a present of money. He
must have slipped in turning. We heard him fall, and
found him at the bottom of the stairs. He was on his
feet, but evidently suffering. Just think, if he hadn't
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been called back to get the present this would not have
happened."
"We have drawn the bed close to the stove/' said
Olenka, " because he complains that his legs are cold."
"Id is doo bad," said the old man.
"Have you consulted a physician?" asked Odes-
kalki.
"Yes," said Olenka, "and he said that Orloff must
lie still for a long time."
"Has he any appetite?"
"Doe," said the old man.
Orloff Openta stirred in his bed and awoke. "Are
you there, Olenka?" he said.
Olenka flew to the bedside. "Yes," she said, "and
here is Mr. Odeskalki to ask after you."
"That is very friendly of him," said Openta. "I
hope you are well, Odeskalki."
Odeskalki approached the bed in a slow and dignified
manner. "I am well," he said, "but it seems that you
are not well, my friend. Do you feel any pain?"
"No," said Openta, "I do not think that I feel any
pain, but my legs do not seem to get warm."
Olenka, blushing a little, slipped her hand under the
bedclothes and felt of his feet.
"They are like ice," she said. "Would you care to
feel for yourself?"
Odeskalki felt a certain repugnance in accepting this
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invitation; nevertheless he felt of Openta's feet and
satisfied himself that they were very cold.
"Can you move your legs ?" he asked.
" Yes," said Openta. " But if I do it hurts my back."
"Hum," said Odeskalki, and looked very wise.
"What worries me," said Openta, "is that all our
savings will be spent, and that perhaps I shall not be
well enough to work even then."
"But I shall find something to do," said Olenka;
"and, besides, we agreed not to speak of that. Could
you drink a cup of soup?"
"I am not hungry," said Openta. "I think I feel a
draught"
"No," said Odeskalki, "there is no draught in the
room. Both windows and both doors are shut."
"Perhaps," said Openta, "one of the windows in
Olenka's room is open, and the door does not fit tightly
enough to keep the cold air out."
"I will see," said Odeskalki.
Openta raised himself in protest, and sank back with
a little gasp. Odeskalki returned in a moment.
"No," he said, "the windows are closed. Your
room is more cheerful than this, Mrs. Openta. There
is an outlook."
"Bud doe stobe," said the old man.
"Haf you purned your pridges to-day?" said Odes-
kalki, giving an execrable imitation of the old man's
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English. And he added in Polish: "Some day you
will be setting the house on fire."
When Odeskalki's back was turned the old man
made a series of faces at him, indicative of scorn and
sarcasm.
Odeskalki laid his hand on Openta's pillow and
patted it lightly.
"It is your duty to get well," he said. "I must go
now, but I will come every day, if possible, to inquire
about you. Mrs. Openta, will you speak with me a
moment?"
She went with him to the head of the stairs, closing
the door behind her.
"Do you think he is seriously ill ?" she asked.
"I do not know," said Odeskalki, "but I am afraid
so. What I want to say is this. Do not hesitate to
call on me if you run short of money. I have had a
good position for a long time and I have saved nearly
a thousand dollars. There is no one dependent on me.
Furthermore, it would be a pleasure for me to do you
a good turn. I am, it is true, a taciturn fell ow, but not
altogether bad. It may be that I can be of help in
other ways. I will come again to-morrow. But you
must not confine yourself entirely to the house. Per-
haps I will make you go for a walk with me. Is it
permitted?"
He had taken her hand and raised it to his lips. If
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he kissed it with more ardor than mere friendship per-
mits, Olenka did not know. She was very grateful to
him for his offers of help and for the kind tone which
he had adopted.
"How I have misjudged this man!" she thought.
Openta was waiting her return with that greedy
eagerness for attention so habitual to novices in suffering.
"But what did he say to you?" he asked almost
querulously.
"He spoke altogether kindly," said Olenka, "offering
help, and even a loan if necessary. I tell you he does
away with that scowling habit of his when people are
in trouble."
"Didn't I always tell you he was a good fellow at
bottom?" said Openta.
" I doe'd lige hib," said the old man, who had been
dozing.
There was a knock on the door, and almost imme-
diately it was opened and Odeskalki reappeared.
"Mrs. Openta," he said, "you are not to hesitate to
send for me in case of need. The best way would be
to send me a telegram direct to Sherry's. I will always
leave word with the head waiter where I am to be found.
Good-bye again. I shall be late; but I do not mind
that."
"Really a sterling fellow," said Openta. "Didn't I
always tell you so?"
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THE BEST MAN
" I doe'd lige hib," said the old man.
Odeskalki came nearly every day. For the most
part he wore, a smiling mask. Sometimes he insisted on
taking Olenka for a walk. Sometimes he read the
papers to Openta and the old man. Once he brought
a friend who played upon the violin with real genius.
Openta was delighted, but the friend made eyes at
Olenka and Odeskalki would not permit the visit to
be repeated. Meanwhile Openta got a little better,
but he could not use his legs without suffering torment,
and his savings were nearly all gone. As a matter of
fact, the doctor y horn they had called in did nothing
for him. He came often, felt of Openta's legs and
back, nodded his head, pocketed his fee and went away.
The weather was bitterly cold; provisions were high,
and more wood went up the stove chimney in the form
of smoke than Olenka cared to think about. But
through it all she preserved her charm, her childishness,
her cheerfulness and her red cheeks. Often she was
possessed of a real gayety, such as might be expected in
one whose troubles had suddenly been brought to an
end. At such times her laughter sounded in the sick-
room like sleigh bells and she would not make serious
answers to questions. Sometimes she would mimic old
man Openta and talk as if she had a dreadful cold in
the head. But Odeskalki, if he had wished, could
have told of moments, carefully screened from the
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THE BEST MAN
Opentas, when the anxiety which was torturing her
came to the surface — sometimes as a fleeting expres-
sion of woe, sometimes in the form of tears. Once, as
they were mounting the last flight of stairs, having
returned from a short walk, she caught hold of the
banister and began to sob. On that occasion Odes-
kalki caught her in his arms and held her to his breast
until she panted for breath. When she had stopped
sobbing she freed herself from him, but gently and not
as one who has taken offence. She seemed rather pre-
occupied and not concerned with what had happened.
On another occasion Olenka complained that she
felt ill and dizzy. She let Odeskalki put his arm around
her for support and half carry her up the stairs. At the
second landing she seemed to lose consciousness for a
moment, causing Odeskalki untold alarm.
"It is nothing," she said, "it is often so. I have a
little something the matter with my heart. Sometimes
it seems as if it were too big, and then I become dizzy
and am ready to faint."
"But you should see a doctor and take a prescrip-
tion."
"Oh, no," said Olenka, "it is nothing; it does not
trouble me."
That same day Odeskalki informed the Opentas
that in the future he would have to work on the day
shift and that it would not be possible for him always
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THE BEST MAN
to come up early enough in the evening to find them
awake.
"It is a pity," said Openta, "that your lodging is
not in the neighborhood somewhere."
"I don't see," said Odeskalki, "why I do not live
with you and bear a portion of the expenses. We could
put another bed in this room. Furthermore, it is very
lonely living by myself. But do not invite me unless
you wish."
Two nights later Stanislas Odeskalki came for the
first time to pass the night under the same roof which
covered Olenka, and old man Openta whispered to his
son:
"The roob bill be warber. Bud I doe'd lige bib."
IV
On a certain evening, when old man Openta was
sleeping heavily, being on the outside of his son's bed,
Odeskalki spoke to the young Opentas of matters which
were troubling him.
"Will either of you deny," he said, "that you reached
the end of your resources two days ago and that I am
bearing all the expenses?"
Neither Orion 5 nor his wife was able to deny this.
"It is nothing," continued Odeskalki. "I ask noth-
ing in return. Let things be as they are until Orloff is
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THE BEST MAN
well. But there is one thing which I cannot endure
much longer. And that is the constant hostility which
is shown me by Orloff's father. He who, after all, is
nothing but a burden, constantly shows his teeth at me
and passes sarcasms. Let him only show a proper
gratitude, and I will not complain. But he does noth-
ing but sleep, or air his English, or demand that more
wood be put in the stove. He is a trial not easily
borne."
Orloff and Olenka knew that there was much truth
in what their benefactor had said. Old man Openta
hated Odeskalki and showed his teeth at him whenever
there was opportunity.
"I am sorry that you have noticed," said Openta.
"But I will speak to him myself. He does not realize,
perhaps, that he is living at your expense. Further-
more, father is old and not very strong in his head. It
is better to laugh at his sarcasms. But I will speak to
him, and after this everything will be better."
Consternation seized even Odeskalki when at this
point it was noticed that the old man had opened his
eyes. He scowled malignantly at Odeskalki, and said
shrilly:
"Id bill dod be pedder. I was dod sleebig."
He rose, muttering to himself, took his overcoat
from the peg where it was hanging and began to put
it on.
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THE BEST MAN
"I bill dod gub bag," he said; "I bill dod gub bag.
I ab dod wanded."
Olenka tried to hold him, out he shook her off an-
grily and made for the door. She threw her arms about
him a second time, but he turned and struck her in
the face and on the breast with his fists. Odeskalki
rushed between them and hurled the old man aside.
" But for God's sake let him go," he cried. " He will
come back soon enough. We are not going to lose him
so easily. It is cold out, and he will soon be hankering
for the stove."
"I bill dod gub bag," shouted the old man.
He tore open the door and began to shuffle down the
stairs. Openta and Odeskalki heard him burst into a
storm of weeping, but Olenka did not hear him, for
she was weeping on her own account. Odeskalki closed
the door.
"Go into your room," he said to Olenka, "and put
cold water on your face — " He hesitated and turned
to Openta. "I will just go and see if she is hurt," he
said.
Olenka poured water into the basin on her wash-
stand, but for the moment she was using it only as a
receptacle for her tears.
" Don't cry," said Odeskalki gently. He took her by
the shoulders and turned her so that she faced him.
"Your cheek is bruised," he said. "But that is a
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THE BEST MAN
trifle. Did he hurt you when he hit you here?" He
touched her breast lightly with his hand. She did not
answer. And Odeskalki began to finger the third
button of her dress. But there must have been some
spark of good in the man, for he suddenly drew back
from her.
Olenka's tears ceased.
"I was frightened only," she said.
"If he had not been an old man," said Odeskalki,
" I would have struck him dead. You do not feel any
pain?"
"No, but everything is going round."
Odeskalki caught her as she fell and carried her to
the bed. He laid her on it and kissed her unresisting
mouth hungrily. Then he brought cold water and
began to bathe her temples.
Meanwhile Openta had turned his head so that he
could see the door leading into his wife's room.
"He ought not to have closed the door," he said
querulously. "He ought to come back and tell me if
she is hurt."
In a few moments anxiety for Olenka began to tor-
ment him.
"Maybe father really hurt her," he said.
Then he began to call for Odeskalki, at first in a low
tone, then more loudly.
Suddenly the door opened and Odeskalki, look-
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THE BEST MAN
ing like a man on fire with anger, appeared in the
frame.
"For God's sake, don't scream so," he cried angrily.
" Mrs. Openta has fainted. I am doing what I can."
He disappeared, slamming the door.
Half an hour passed. Orloff Openta began to cry.
Another half-hour passed. He got out of bed and crept
to the door, for he could not stand. He reached the
knob, turned it and pushed. The door did not open.
Strength came to him. He stood and beat upon the
door with his fists and hurled his light body against it
again and again. In his frenzy it did not occur to him
that in order to open the door he should have pulled
and not pushed.
He desisted after a while and leaned wearily against
the door. It was then that his father, slinking shame-
facedly back, found him.
"We must go," said Openta quietly. "They are in
there. They have been in there for a long' time. We
are not wanted here. Help me put on my clothes."
"Bud you gad walg."
"Oh, yes, I can walk."
Old man Openta helped his son down one flight of
stairs. Then he said:
"Waid for be. I hab begodden subthig."
He was gone quite a long time. And when he re-
turned he carried the key of the outer door in his hand.
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THE BEST MAN
When they reached the street he was still carrying it.
Coming to a drain opening he dropped the key into it.
"I hab logged theb id," he said, "ad embdied the
stobe. Loog!"
The windows of the room which they had quitted
glowed in the night like coals. Openta fell face down-
ward in the gutter.
V
"Her heart must have been weak," thought Odes-
kalki, after he had labored vainly for nearly an hour
and a half to bring Olenka to. "She is certainly dead.
I must tell Openta."
He pushed open the door and sprang back from a
storm of flames. The door closed of itself with a bang.
Odeskalki ran to the window, threw it open and looked
out, right, left, down and up. There was nothing for
it, if the worst came to the worst, but to jump, unless
he could make a rope out of Olenka's bedding. He
rolled her body unceremoniously to the floor, and began
to tear the bedding into broad strips. He worked with
frantic haste, but not so fast as the fire in the next room.
The intervening door sprang inward from its hinges
as if it had been hit by a locomotive. Flame and
smoke poured through the opening. Cries began to
rise from the street below and the reverberations of
fire-gongs. Odeskalki thrust himself half out of the
299
THE BEST MAN
window and screamed for help. In that moment of
agony and fear he saw, among the upturned faces in
the street, the face of old man Openta convulsed with
ghastly merriment. And the old man's shrill voice was
borne up to him, clarion and horrible like the yell of a
ghoul.
"I haf purned your pridges behind you, Odeskalki!"
Odeskalki sprang from the window. The cries and
the reverberations of the fire-bells seemed to combine
in one awful rushing shudder. The crowd fought
cruelly to get back from the place where Odeskalki
would land. Old man Openta did not move. He did
not seem to realize his danger. He stood as if rooted,
with upturned, malevolently smiling face.
It seemed to those who saw the catastrophe that the
old man was literally driven into the street to the head,
as a carpenter drives a nail into a shingle with one blow
of his hammer.
It happened that the train for which Orloff Openta
was waiting at the New York Central's One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth Street station was carrying two young
people to Greenwich on the first stage of their honey-
moon. It was curious that the bridegroom was the
very man whose generosity had been the cause of
Openta's fall and of all his subsequent disasters. If
the bridegroom had known this he might have been
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THE BEST MAN
moved to tears, for he was big and gentle and kind.
But he did not know it, and Openta did not give it a
thought. He was waiting on the very edge of the plat-
form for the train. He did not know where he had
passed the night or the morning nor how he had come
to the edge of the platform. He considered to have
gotten there as the only piece of good luck that he
had ever had. That was all. . . .
"Heavens!" cried the bride. "What's happened?"
"You wait here, dear, and I'll go and find out."
The bridegroom hurried to the end of the car and
looked out. He saw the body of a man, almost torn in
two, being dragged from under the train. The sight
made him feel sick all over. But he turned and went
back to the bride, forcing a smile to his face.
"Was some one hurt ?" said the bride, her face full of
concern.
"No, dear — a man got knocked down — that's all.
They — he picked himself up and walked away with a
silly smile, and everybody is 1-1-laughing at him."
XI
THE CROCODILE
THE CROCODILE
I
The first locality of which I have any recollection was
my father's library — a tall, melancholy room devoted
to books and illusions. Three sides were of books,
sombrely bound, reaching from the floor to within
three feet of the ceiling. Along the shelf, which was
erroneously supposed to protect the tops of the top row
of books from the dust with which our house abounded,
were stationed, at precise intervals, busts done in plaster
after the antique and death-masks. Beginning on the
left was the fury-haunted face of Orestes; next him the
lachrymose features of Niobe; followed her Medusa,
crowned with serpents. The rest were death-masks —
Napoleon, Washington, Voltaire, and my father's father.
The prevailing dust, settled thick upon the heads of
these grim images, lent them the venerable illusion of
gray hair. The three walls of books were each pierced
by a long, narrow window, for the room was an exten-
sion from the main block of the house, but over two of
these the shutters were opaquely closed in winter and
305
THE CROCODILE
summer. The third window, however, was allowed to
extend whatever beneficence of light it could to the
dismal and musty interior. A person of sharp sight,
sitting at the black oak table in the middle of the room,
might, on a fine day, have seen clearly enough to write
on very white paper with very black ink, or to read out
of a large-typed book. Through the fourth wall a
door, nearly always closed, led into the main hall,
which, like the library itself, was a tall and melancholy
place of twilight and illusions. When my poor mother
died, in giving me birth, she was laid out in the library
and buried from the hall. Consequently, according to
old-fashioned custom, these apartments were held
sacred to her memory rather than other portions of the
house in which she had enjoyed the more fortunate
phases of life and happiness. The room in which my
mother had actually died was never entered by any one
save my father. Its door was double locked, like that of
our family vault in the damp hollow among the syca-
mores.
The first thing that I remember was that I had had
a mother who had died and been buried. The second,
that I had a father with a white face and black clothes
and noiseless feet, whose duty in life was to shut doors,
pull down window shades, and mourn for my mother.
The third was a carved wooden box, situated in the
exact centre of the oak table in the library, which con-
306
THE CROCODILE
tained a scroll of stained paper covered with curious
characters, and a small but miraculously preserved
crocodile. I was never allowed to touch the scroll or
the crocodile, but in his lenient moods, which were few
and touched with heartrending melancholy, my father
would set the box open upon a convenient chair and
allow me to peer my heart out at its mysterious contents.
The crocodile, my father sometimes told me, was an
Egyptian charm which was supposed to bring mis-
fortune upon its possessor. "But I let it stay on my
table," he would say, "because in the first place I am
without superstition, and in the second because I am
far distant from the longest and wildest reach of mis-
fortune. When I lost your mother I lost all. Ay! but
she was bonny, my boy — bonny!" It was very sad to
hear him run on about the bonniness of my mother,
and old Ann, my quondam nurse, has told me how at
the funeral he stood for a long time by the casket, say-
ing over and over, "Wasn't she bonny? Wasn't she
bonny?" and followed her to the vault among the
sycamores with the same iteration upon his lips.
It was not until I was near eight years old that my
father could bear the sight of me, so much had we been
divided by the innocent share which I had had in my
mother's death. But I was not allowed to pass those
eight years in ignorance of the results of my being, or
of the constant mourning to which my father had de-
307
THE CROCODILE
voted the balance of his days. I was brought up, so to
speak, on my mother's death and burial. Another
child might have been nurtured thus into a vivid con-
trast, but I ran fluidly into the mould sober, and came
very near to solidifying. Death and its ancientry have
a horrible fascination for children. And for me, wher-
ever I turned, there was a plenitude of morbid sugges-
tion. Indeed, our plantation — held by the family from
the earliest colonization of Georgia, spread along the
low shore of a turbid river tributary to the Savannah,
and dwindled, partly by mismanagement and partly by
the non-success of the rebellion, into a sad fulfilment
of its bright colonial promise — was itself moribund. In
the swamps, still showing traces of the dikes, which had
once divided it into quadrilaterals, the rice which had
been our chief source of income no longer flourished.
The slave quarters, a long double row of diminutive
brick cubes, each with one chimney, one door, and one
window at the side of the door — such dwellings as chil-
dren draw painfully on slates — still standing, for the
most part, damp and silent, showed that the labor
which had made the rice profitable was also a thing of
other days. The house itself, a vastly tall block of
burned bricks, laid side by side instead of end to end,
as in modern building, stood on a slight rise of ground
with its back to the river, among lofty and rugged red
oaks, rotten throughout their tops with mistletoe. An
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THE CROCODILE
avenue, roughened by disuse into a going worse than
that of a lumber road, nearly a mile long, straight as
justice, shaded by a double row of enormous live oaks,
choked and strangled with plumes and beards of gray
moss, led from the county road through the scant cot-
ton fields and strawberry fields to the circle in front
of the house. I used to fancy, and I think Bluebeard's
closet lent me the notion, that the moss in the live oaks
was the hair of unfortunate princesses turned gray
by suffering and hung among the trees in wanton and
cruel ostentation by their enemies.
Nothing but a happy and cheerful woman, a good
housewife, ready-tongued and loving, could have lent
a touch of home to our melancholy disestablishment.
Women we had in the house, two black and ancient
negresses, rheumatic and complaining, one to cook and
one to make the beds, and old Ann, my mother's Scotch
nurse, a hard, rickety female, whose mind, voice, and
memory were pitched in the minor key. We had a
horse, no mean animal, for my father had known and
loved horses before his misfortune, but ugly and un-
kempt, and it was the duty of an old negro named Ec-
clesiastes, the one lively influence about the place, to
look after the interests of this little-used creature. My
father and myself completed the disquieting group of
living things. Concerning things inanimate, we had
enough to eat, enough to wear, and enough to read.
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THE CROCODILE
And the clothes of all of us were black. Until I was
twelve years old I believed fervently that to mourn all
his life long for dead wives and mothers was the whole
end and destiny of man.. In my twelfth year, how-
ever, my uncle Richard, a florid, affectionate, and testy
sportsman, paid us a visit on matters connected with
the mismanagement of the estate. He stayed three
days. On the first he shot duck, on the second quail;
on the morning of the third he talked with my father in
the library; in the afternoon he took me for a walk.
In the evening he went away and I never saw him again.
"Richard," he had said, for I had been given his
name, "I want to see the vault before I go. I haven't
seen it since your mother was buried."
It was a warm, bright, still December day, the day
before Christmas, and my uncle seated himself non-
chalantly on the low wall which surrounded the vault,
his knees crossed, his mouth closed on a big cigar, and
his eyes fixed on the "legended door."
"People who go into that place in boxes," he said,
"never come out. Has that ever occurred to you,
Richard?"
I said that it had.
"You never saw your mother, my boy," he went on,
"but you wear mourning for her."
"It seems to me almost as if I had known her," I
said, "because "
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THE CROCODILE
"Yes," cut in my uncle, "your father has kept her
memory alive. He has neglected everything else in
order to do that. Now tell — what was your mother
like?"
I hesitated, and said finally, "She was very tall and
beautiful."
My uncle smiled grimly.
"You would know her then," he said, "if you saw
her ? Answer me truthfully, and remember that other
women are sometimes tall and beautiful."
I admitted a little ruefully, that I should not know
my mother if I saw her.
"No, you wouldn't," said my uncle, "and for this
reason, too; your mother had an amusing little face,
but she was neither beautiful nor tall."
"But—" I began.
"Your father," my uncle interrupted, "has come to
believe that his wife was tall and beautiful because he
thinks that the idea of lifelong devotion to a memory is
tall and beautiful. He is a little hipped about himself,
my boy, and it makes me rather sick. I will tell you
an anecdote. Once there was a man. He met a girl.
For three weeks they talked foolishly about foolish
things. Then they were married. Nine months later a
son was born to them, and the girl died. The man
mourned for her. At first he mourned because he
missed her. Then because he respected her mem-
311
THE CROCODILE
ory. Then because he liked to pose as one ever-
lastingly unhappy and faithful till death. He made
everybody about him mourn, including the little child,
his son, and finally he died and was put in the vault
with the girl, and no one in the world was the better by
one jot for any act of the man's life. . . . Let me hear
you laugh. . . ."
I looked up at him, much puzzled.
"Not at the anecdote," he said, "which isn't funny —
but just laugh."
I delivered myself of a soulless and conventional ha-
ha. My uncle put back his head and roared. At first I
thought he must be sick, for until that moment I had
never heard any one laugh. I had read of it in books.
And as a dog must have a first lesson in digging, so a
child must have a first lesson in laughing. My uncle
never stopped. He roared harder and louder. Tears
ran down his cheeks. Something shook me, I did not
know what. I heard a sound like that which my uncle
was making, but nearer me and more shrill. I felt
pain in my sides. My eyes became blurred and sting-
ing wet. With these new sounds and symptoms came
strange mental changes — a sudden knowledge that blue
was the best color for the sky, heat the best attribute of
the sun, and the act of living delightful. We roared
with laughter, my uncle and I, and the legended door
of the tomb gave us back hearty echoes. In the desert
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THE CROCODILE
of my childhood I look back upon that oasis of laughter
as the only spot in which I really lived. When my
uncle went away he said: "For God's sake, Dickie, try
to be cheerful from now on. I wish I could take you
with me. But your father says, no. Remember that
the business of living is with Life. And let Death mind
his own business."
The door closed behind that ruddy, cheerful man,
and left us mourners facing each other across the supper
table.
"Papa," said I presently, "haven't we a picture of
mamma?"
"I had them all destroyed," said my father. "They
were not like her. The last picture of her — " here he
tapped his forehead — "will perish when I am gone.
Ay, but laddie," he said, "she is vivid to me."
"Tell me about her, please, papa," I said.
"She was a tall, stately woman, laddie," he said,
"and bonny — ay, bonny. Life without her has
neither breadth nor thickness — only length."
"What color was her hair?" I asked.
"Boy," he said, "you will choke me with your ques-
tions. Her hair was black like the wing of a raven.
Her eyes were black. She moved in beauty like the
night."
Here my father buried his white face in his white
hands, and remained so, his supper untasted, for a
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long time. Presently he looked up and said with
pitiful effort:
"And what did you with your uncle Richard?"
"We sat on the wall of the vault," I answered, "and
laughed."
It was a part of my father's melancholy pose to re-
nounce anger together with all the other passions, but
at the close of my thoughtless words he sprang to his
feet, livid.
"For that word," he cried, "ye shall suffer hel-
lish."
And he dragged me, more dead than alive, to the
library. But what form of punishment he would have
inflicted me with I do not know. For a circumstance
met with in the library — a circumstance trivial in it-
self and, to my mind, sufficiently explicable — shook my
father into a new mood. The circumstance was this:
that one of the servants (doubtless) had opened the
carved box in the centre of the table, taken out the
crocodile, probably to gratify curiosity by a close in-
spection, and forgotten to put it back. But I must
admit that at first sight it looked as if the inanimate and
horrible little creature had of its own locomotion thrust
open the box and crawled to the edge of the table. To
instant and searching inquiry the servants denied all
knowledge of the matter, and it remained a mystery.
My father dismissed the servants from the library, re-
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turned the crocodile to its box, and remained for some
moments in thought. Then he said, very gravely and
earnestly:
"The possession of this dead reptile is supposed to
bring misfortune upon a man. For me that is impos-
sible, for I am beyond its longest and wildest reach.
But with you it is different. Life has in store for you
the possibility of many misfortunes. Take care that
you do not bring them upon yourself. Pray that you
have not already done so by giving vent to ghoulish
laughter in the presence of your dead mother. Now
take yourself off — and leave me with my memories."
That night there was an avenue of moss-shrouded
live oaks in dreamland, down which I fled before the
onrush of a mighty and ominous crocodile.
The next day was Christmas, and we resumed the
monotony of our stolid and gloomy lives.
II
At eighteen I was a very serious and colorless youth.
It may be that I contained the seeds of a rational out-
look upon life, but so far they had not sprouted. My
father's pervading melancholy was more strong in me
than red blood and ambition. With him I looked for-
ward to an indefinite extension of the past, enlivened,
if I may use the paradox, by two demises, his and my
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own. I had much sober literature at my tongue tips,
a condescending fondness for the great poets, a normal
appetite, two suits of black, and a mouth stiff from
never having learned to smile. I stood in stark igno-
rance of life, and had but the vaguest notion as to how
babies are made. My father, preserved in melancholy
as a bitter pickle in vinegar, had not aged or changed
an iota from my earliest memory of him — a very white
man dressed in very black cloth.
One morning my father sent from the library for me,
and when I had presented myself said shortly:
"Your Uncle Richard is dead. He has left nothing.
He was guardian, as you may know, of Virginia Rich-
mond, the daughter of his intimate friend. She is
coming to live with us. Let us hope that she is sedate
and reasonable. You have never seen anything of
women. It may be that you will fall in love with her.
You may consult with me if you do, though I am no
longer in touch with youth. She is to have the south
spare room. You may tell Ann. She will be here this
evening (my father always spoke of the afternoon as the
evening). You may tell her our ways, and our hatred
of noise and frivolity. If she is a lady that will be suffi-
cient. I think that is all."
My father sighed and turned away his face.
"To a large extent," he said, "she has been educated
abroad. I hope that she will not bore you. But even
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if she should, try to be kind to her. I know you will be
civil."
"Shall you be here to welcome her?" I asked.
"I shall hope to be," said my father. "But I have
proposed to myself to gather some of the early jasmine
to — If I am urgently needed for anything I shall be
in the immediate vicinity of the vault."
Virginia Richmond arrived in an express wagon, to-
gether with her three trunks and two portmanteaus.
She sat by the driver, a young negro, with whom she had
evidently established the most talkative terms, and did
not wai; i'or me to help her deferentially to the ground,
but put a slender a foot on the wheel, and jumped.
"It's good to get here," she said. "Are you Richard ?"
"Yes, Virginia," I said, and felt that I was smiling.
"Where's Uncle John?" she said. "I call him
Uncle John because his brother was my adopted uncle
Richard always. And you're my cousin Richard.
And I'm your cousin Virginia, going on seventeen, very
talkative, affectionate and hungry. How old are you ?"
"I shall be nineteen in April," I said, "and my father
is somewhere about the grounds " — I did not like to say
vault — "and I will try to find you something edible.
Are you tired?"
"Do I look tired?"
"No," I said.
"How do I look?"
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"Why," I said, "I think you look very well. I — I
like your look."
A better judge than I might have liked it. She had
a rosy face of curves and dimples, unruly hair of many
browns, eyes that were deep wonders of blue, a mouth
of pearl and pomegranate.
"You," she said, "look very grave — and — yes, hun-
gry. But you have nice eyes and a good skin, though
it ought to be browner in this climate, and if you don't
smile this minute I shall scream."
So I smiled, and we went into the house.
"My God! cousin," she cried, to my mind most irrev-
erently, "can't you open something and let in the light 1"
"My father," I said, "prefers the house dark."
"Then let it be dark when he's in it," she cried,
"and bright when he's out of it." And she ran to a
window and struggled with the shutter. When she had
flung that open she braced herself for an attack upon
the next; but I bowed to the inevitable, and saved her
from the trouble of consummating it. The floods of
light let thus into the hall and dining-room seemed to
my mind, sophisticated only in dark things, a kind of
orgy. But Virginia was the more cheered.
"Now a body can eat," she said. "Ham — hoe-cake
— Sally Lunn— is that Sally Lunn? Oh, Richard, I
have heard of these things — and now — " wherewith she
assaulted the viands.
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"Don't you have ham in Europe, Virginia ?" I asked.
" Ham ! " she cried. " No, Richard, we have quarters
of pig cut in thick slices — but meat like this was never
grown on a pig. This," and she rapped the ham with
her fork, and laughed to hear the solid thump, "was
once part of an angel — a very fat angel."
"And you are a cannibal," I said. It was my first
gallantry.
She gave me a grateful look.
" I had not hoped for it," she said. And for twenty
minutes she ate like a hungry man and talked like a
running brook.
"And now," she said, "for the house. First the
library. Uncle Richard told me about all the death
heads with dusty brows."
"Did he tell you about the crocodile?" I asked.
"Which crocodile?" said Virginia gravely.
"We have one only," I answered. "And I'm afraid
it won't interest you very much. . . . This is the
library."
She was for having the shutters open.
"My father wouldn't like it," I said.
"This once," said she, and I served the whim.
"Yes," she said, after examination, "it is dreadful.
Show me the crocodile, and then let's go."
But she was more interested in the scroll.
"It's Arabic," she said; "I can read it."
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THE CROCODILE
"You can read Arabic?"
" Indeed, yes. When papa's lungs went bad we lived
in Cairo. He died in Egypt, you know. . . . Listen.
... It says: 'That man who holds me (it's the croco-
dile talking) in both hands, and cries thrice the name of
Allah, shall see the face of his beloved though she were
dead.'"
"That's not our version," I said. "We believe that
the possession of that beast invites misfortune."
" But you don't read Arabic," said Virginia. " Quick,
Richard, take this thing in your two hands and call
'Allah' three times — loud, because it's a long way to
Egypt — why, the man doesn't want to play — "
I had taken the crocodile in my hands, but balked,
and I believe blushed, at the idea of raising my voice
above the conversational pitch to further so absurd an
experiment.
"Don't you want to see the face of your beloved ?"
"I have none," said I.
" Then I'd cry ' Allah ' till I had," said she. " Please
— only three times."
So I held the crocodile, looking very foolish, and
called three times upon the prophet. Then I turned to
Virginia and met her eyes. The same thought oc-
curred to us both, for we looked away. It was then that
my father entered.
"Richard," he said, "the shutters "
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I made haste to close them, for I was blushing.
"This is Virginia!" said my father. "Welcome to
our sad and lonely house. I thought just now that I
heard some one calling aloud."
"It was Richard," said Virginia. "This scroll — "
and she translated to my father.
"Oh, for faith to believe," said he. He took the
crocodile in his hands and examined it with sad interest.
"I have just come from her tomb, Virginia," he said.
"I have been laying jasmine about it."
"Oh, the dear jasmine!" cried Virginia. "It's
splendidly out, and to-morrow I shall fill the house
with it.
"The house — " said my father hazily.
"Don't you like flowers, Uncle John?"
"I neither like nor dislike them," said my father.
"Then why, for heaven's sake — " but she stopped
herself. "And you, Richard, don't you like them ?"
"I have grown to think of them," said I, "if at all,
as something odorous and sad, vaguely connected with
funerals."
"Oh, no!" cried Virginia. "They are beautiful and
gay, and they are connected with weddings — "
"Don't," said my father quickly. He was still hold-
ing the crocodile. "But I do not blame you, child.
You will soon learn our ways. Since our great loss we
have kept very quiet. ... Ay, my dear, but you
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should have seen Richard's mother — was she not bon-
ny, Richard?"
I bowed.
"I could fain look upon her again," he said. "And
the scroll — does it not say 'even though she were
dead?' . . . Who was it called 'Allah'? . . . You,
Richard ? . . . And what face did you see ? . . ."
"Tell him," said Virginia.
"Ay, tell me," said my father.
"I saw Virginia's face," said I.
Then we left him. But in the hall Virginia laid her
hand on my shoulder.
"Haven't you noticed?" said she.
"What?" said I.
"Your father," said she.
"No," said I; "what ails him?"
Virginia tapped her forehead.
"Mildewed here," said she.
"I don't understand," said I.
"Never mind then, Richard," said she; "I'll take
care of you."
That night I dreamed that I heard my father calling
the name of Allah. But in the morning I rose early,
and, going to the woods, gathered an armful of jasmine
for Virginia.
She received it cheerfully.
"Is this — er — in memory of any one?" she asked.
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"Yes," I said boldly, "it's in memory of me."
"Then I will keep it, Richard," she said. "Flowers
are for the living."
"Yes," I said.
"And crocodiles," said she, "are for the dead."
Ill
For a long time I looked upon the innocent gayness
and frivolity of Virginia with blinking eyes, as a person
blinks at the sudden match lighted in the middle of the
night. I had been pledged to darkness from my earliest
years, and now, while my character, still happily plastic,
was receiving its definite stamps, I blinked hankeringly
at the light that I might have loved, and at the same
time steeled myself to go through with the prearranged
marriage. As in the Yankee States children are brought
up to believe that it is wicked to be joyous on Sunday
so I had been taught to believe of every twenty-four
hours in the week.
I cannot think peacefully of that unhappy period in
Virginia's life forced on her by us two moribunds. She
was the sun, soaring in bright, beneficent career, brought
suddenly to impotence by a London fog. And I take
it that to be bright and happy, and to fail in making
others so, is the most grievous chapter in life. But
Virginia's glowing nature had its effect on mine, and in
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the end she set my spirits dancing. With my father,
however, the effect of a madcap sunbeam in the house
was altogether different. For it served only to plunge
him deeper into gloom and regret. If we came to din-
ner with him fresh from the joyous morning and in love
with laughter, the misery into which he was too pal-
pably thrown reacted so that for all three of us the
afternoon became clouded. Sometimes his sorrow
would take the form of mocking at all things peaceful
and pleasant. In particular the institution of marriage
aroused in him hostility.
"Ay, marry," he would say, "Richard, and beget
death. It may be hereditary in our family. Ex-
change your wife, who is your soul, for a red and puling
inconsequence, that shall serve down the tiresome years
to remind you day and night of the sunshine which has
been extinguished for you."
And I remember once retorting on him sharply to
the effect that if he threw me so constantly in my own
face I would leave his roof, and in the intemperance of
the moment I fully purposed to do so. "I will do no
worse among strangers," I said, "or in hell, for that
matter."
My father fairly shrivelled before the unfilial words,
and retreated so pathetically from his foolish position
that my attack melted clean away.
"But why," I said afterward to Virginia, "wouldn't
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he let me go ? Why did he say that he could not live
without me? And why, in God's name, when it was
all over, did he cry?"
And Virginia thought for a few moments, which was
unusual with her, and said presently: "Richard, either
your father is the greatest lover that ever lived, or else
he is a tiresome egomaniac. Frankly, I believe the
latter. You are an accessory, a dismal carving on the
mouldy frame in which he pictures himself. When I
first came I used to tell him how terribly sorry I was
that he had lost his wife. But I've given that up. Be-
tween you and me, it made him a little peevish. Now
I say to him, 'Uncle Richard, you're the unhappiest
man I ever saw,' and that comforts him tremendously.
Sometimes he asks me if I really think so, and when I
say that I do he almost smiles. And I have caught him,
immediately after a scene like that, looking at himself
in the mirror and pulling his face even longer than
usual. . . . There, I've shocked you."
"No, Virginia," I said, "but I should hate to believe
of any man what you believe of my father. His grief
must be sincere."
"It may be," said Virginia, "or it may have been
once. I believe it isn't now. I believe that if your
mother came to life your father would "
Virginia did not finish. We were seated in the cool
hall, for the porch was piping hot, and our conversation
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was interrupted by a loud cry emanating from the
library.
"Allah— Allah— Allah!"
" If I weren't charitable, which I am," said Virginia,
" I would say that that was done for effect. He knows
we're here. Bet you, he's looking at himself in the
glass."
"Virginia," I began angrily, and I was for telling her
that she was ill-natured, when the library door opened
and my father came out.
" Oh! " said he, with a fine start, "I did not know you
were there. ..."
Virginia gave me one look, at once hurt and amused.
Then she turned to my father and said gravely: "Did
anything happen, Uncle Richard, when you called?
Did you see the — the face— of "
" No, child," said my father sadly. " I was so foolish,
I may say undignified, as to try a childish and foolish
experiment. It is unnecessary to say that the tall and
stately form and classic face of Richard's dear mother
did not appear to me. But I caught a glimpse of an-
other face, Virginia — a face white and broken by sorrow
and regret, a face that it was not pleasant to see. . . .
How it all comes back to me," he went on. "Here I
stood by her casket, ignorant of time and place — ig-
norant of all earthly things but loss — and for the last
time looked upon her beauty. No, not for the last time,
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THE CROCODILE
"'For all my daily trances
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy bright eye glances
And where thy footstep gleams.'
"Ay, child, but she was bonny! Was she not bonny,
Richard?"
I do not know what prompted Virginia to ask the
sudden question which turned my father's face for a
moment into a painful blank, and placed him in a
position from which he extricated himself, I am forced
to believe, only by a real and searching act of
memory.
"What was her name?" said Virginia quickly.
It was a full half minute before my father managed
to stammer my mother's name. But during the ensu-
ing days it was constantly on his lips, as if he wished to
make up to it for the oblivion into which it had been
allowed to drop.
That afternoon it rained violently, and Virginia per-
suaded me to explore with her the mysteries of the
ancient and cobwebby attic which occupied the whole
upper floor of our house. It was a place in whose
slatted window-blinds sparrows built their nests, and
in which a period, that of my mother's brief mistress-
ship, had been perfectly preserved. It was the most
cheerful part of the house.
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THE CROCODILE
Among other things we found in a trunk of old fash-
ion my mother's wedding regalia. A dress of apple-
green silk embroidered about the neck and wrists with
tiny forget-me-nots, faded to the palest shade of lilac;
a pair of tiny shoes of the same apple-green silk, with
square toes and dark jade buttons; a veil of Venetian
point, from which a large square had been cut, and the
brittle remnants of a wreath — my mother's wedding
wreath, which old Ann had often told me was com-
bined of apple and orange flowers. When Virginia
stood up and held the neck of my mother's dress level
with the neck of her own it did not reach to her ankles,
and she smiled at me.
"Richard," she said, "I could not get into this
dress. Your tall and stately mother was no bigger
than I."
"And no sweeter, I fancy," said I. For the being
together with Virginia over my mother's things had
suddenly opened my heart to her.
"Oh, Virginia," I went on, "it makes me sick to
think of your living on in this dead house. I want
you to be happy. I want to make you happy.
You are the only good thing that was ever in my
life. I know it now. And I — I want to be happy,
too. ..."
We explored the attic no more that day, and after
supper we told my father.
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THE CROCODILE
IV
Prom the very announcement to him of our engage-
ment a marked change came over my father. Hitherto
his influence had been for darkness, but of a silent and
quiet character, like that which clouds spread through
a wood at noon; but now he had become baleful and
pointed in his efforts to make us unhappy.
To set in motion any machinery of escape was too
impracticable and tedious to be thought of. Had I
been for myself alone, I would have left him at this
period and endeavored to support myself. But with
Virginia to care for — and I could not leave her while I
made my own way — the impulse was empty. He made
attacks on our happiness with tongue and contrivance.
He descended to raillery and sneers, even to coarseness.
Yet when the confines of endurance had been ap-
proached too closely, and I threatened to cross them,
he clung to me with such a seeming of feeling and
patheticalness that I was forced to hold back. Through
these harsh times Virginia was all sweetness and pa-
tience, but her cheeks lost their color and her body the
delicious fulness of its lines.
My father was at times so eccentric in his behavior
that I had it often in mind to ask the investigations of
a physician. But as often the horror of a son prying
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THE CROCODILE
after madness in his father withheld me. As always,
his actions centred around the observance of his private
grief. And to that great mental structure which he
had made of my mother's beauties and virtues, he added
incessantly wings and superstructures, until we had
portrayed for us a woman in no way human or pos-
sible. To draw odious comparisons between Virginia
and my mother, between his capacity for loving and my
own, were his constant and indelicate exercises.
"Do you think you love, Richard?" he would say.
"If she were to die this night, where would your love
be at the end of the year? Is she bonny enough to
hold a man's heart till death shall seek him out too?
She's well enough in her way, your Virginia, I'll not
deny that. But does a man remember what was only
well enough? Does a man remember the first peach
he ate ? Nay, he will not remember that. But will he *
forget the first time that he heard Beethoven? Your
mother, she was that — rich, strong music, she was —
the bonny one — the unforgetable. Ah, the majesty of
her, Richard, that was only for me to approach!"
And such like, till the heart sickened in ybu. Often
he made us go with him to the vault and listen to his
speeches, and kneel with him in the wet. Finally he
played on us a trick that had in it something of the
truly devilish, and was the beginning of the end. He
began by insisting that we should be married and ap-
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THE CROCODILE
pointing a day. There was to be a minister, ourselves,
and the servants. We were glad enough to be married,
even on such scanty terms, and I well remember with
what eagerness I arose on the glad morning, and
slipped into my better suit of black, for I had no gayer
clothes. Virginia did not come down to breakfast, but
toward the close of that meal, at which my father was
the nearest he ever came to being cheerful I heard her
calling to me from the upper story. When I knocked
at her door she opened it a little and showed me a
teary face. "Richard," she said, "they've taken away
my clothes and left only a black dress. I won't be
married in black."
"Does it matter, dear?" I said. "Put it on and we
will ransack the attic for something gayer."
But we found the attic locked. My father had pro-
vided against resistance.
"Does it matter, dear?" I said. "It's not your
clothes I'm marrying — it's my darling herself."
So she smiled bravely and we went downstairs. The
ceremony was appointed for eleven in the morning.
But at that hour neither the minister, nor my father,
nor the servants were to be found. We waited until
twelve. Then I went out to look for my father. I
went first to the vault and there found him. He was
kneeling in the wet, facing the door, and holding in his
hands the stuffed crocodile. He had, I suppose, been
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THE CROCODILE
calling the name of Allah in the wild hope of seeing my
mother's face.
"Have you forgotten that we are to be married to-
day?" I said.
He rose, hiding the crocodile beneath his coat.
"No," he said, "I had not forgotten that. Why
should I be forgetting that ? But the minister, he could
not come — at the last minute he could not come."
"Then you should have told us," I said sternly.
"Would you be angry with me, Richard, my son?"
he answered gently.
"Why couldn't the minister come?" I said, giving no
heed to his question.
The gentleness, which must have been play-acting,
went out of my father's voice.
"The minister," he said sneeringly: "faith, the min-
ister, he had a more important funeral to attend."
My gorge rose and fell.
"What have you done with Virginia's trunk?" I
said.
" It will be back in her room by now," said my father.
"Thank you," said I, "and good-day to you."
" Good-day, Richard ? Good-day ? "
"Yes," said I. "I am going to take her away."
"You'll not go far without money," said he.
"With heart," said I, "we shall go to the ends of the
earth."
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THE CROCODILE
My father turned to the vault and addressed the
shade of my mother. "Hear him," cried he, "hear
him that took you from me. He's going to the ends of
the earth. He turns his back upon your hallowed
bones. . . ." His words became unintelligible.
• *•••...
During the packing of my trunk I left off again and
again to go to Virginia's door to ask if all were well
with her. For there had been a look in my father's
face which haunted me like a hint of coming evil. And
although nothing but good came of that afternoon,
still its events were so strange as to make me believe
that men are often forewarned of the unusual. It was
about three o'clock that suddenly I heard my father
shrieking aloud in his library. Thinking that sickness
must have seized him, I bounded down the stairs to
offer assistance or search for it if necessary. But ex-
cept for a pallor unusual even with him, he was not
apparently sick. The crocodile lay belly up on the
table, as if it had been hastily laid down.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Richard," said my father, in great excitement," the
door of the vault is open. But now I heard it creaking
upon its hinges "
Virginia, who had heard the shrieks, now joined us,
her face white with alarm.
"What is it?" she cried.
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THE CROCODILE
"The resurrection of the deadl" cried my father, and,
thrusting my detaining arm suddenly aside, he literally
burst out of the house. I followed at my best speed,
and Virginia brought up the rear. In this order we
raced through the woods, brightly mottled with sun-
shine and shadows, in the direction of the vault. Run
as I would, I could not gain on my father, who seemed
to possess the speed of a pestilence. As he ran he kept
crying: "God is merciful! I shall see the face of my
beloved."
I cannot account for what happened. A little lady,
dressed in apple-green silk, with a wreath of flowers
upon her head, appeared suddenly in the path, ahead
of and facing my father. She held out her arms as if
to detain him. But he bore down upon her at full
speed, and I cried out to warn her. Then they met.
But there was no visible or audible sign of collision.
My father literally seemed to pass through her. He
ran on, always at top speed, and the little lady in the
apple-green silk was no longer to be seen in any direc-
tion. Yet she seemed to have left an influence in the
bright forest, gentle and serene, and I could swear that
there lingered in the air a faint smell of apple blossoms
and orange blossoms. And it may be the echo of a cry
of pain — the ghost of a cry.
When I came to the vault its door was wide open,
and I found my father within, breaking with bis thin
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THE CROCODILE
hands the lid from my mother's coffin. I was not in
time to prevent him from completing his mad outrage.
The lid came clean away with a ripping noise, and my
father gazed eagerly at the face thus rudely revealed to
the light of day. But what horrible alchemy of the
grave had brought into shape the face upon which
my father looked so eagerly is not for mortal man to
know. For the face was not my mother's, but his
own.
Gently he laid his hand on the forehead, and gently
he said: "Was she not bonny, Richard? . . . Was
she not bonny?"
V
Our honeymoon was nearly a week old, when one
morning Virginia and I were taking breakfast in the
glass dining-room of the old Hygeia Hotel. The
waiters, the other guests, the cups, saucers, knives, and
spoons all made eyes at us, but we were wonderfully
happy. An old gentleman approached our table with
a kind of a sad tiptoe gait. Tears were in his eyes.
"My dear boy," he said, "I have not the heart to
congratulate you on your happiness, for I cannot help
remembering what a good father you have so recently
lost. I was present at his wedding, and I have not seen
him since. But as you see — " and the old gentleman
drew attention to the tears in his eyes.
335
THE CROCODILE
"Aren't you mistaken, sir?" said I. "Aren't you
thinking of somebody else's father?"
"Why, no," said he, "your father was .
Don't tell me that he wasn't."
"I shall have to," I said, "for he wasn't. My father
was a crocodile."
336
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