Then suddenly a laugh rang out sweet and clear in the darkness of the musty chapel, a laugh that echoed into the recesses of the old tombs—perhaps in its musical cadences stirring pleasantly the haughty slumber of their noble occupants.

"What are you laughing at?" said the voice suspiciously.

"An adventure at last!" Peggy cried, clapping her hands applaudingly.

"I am glad you take it so cheerfully," returned her companion. "There is only one thing to do," he continued practically, "I thought it out for myself before you woke up and complicated matters by your appearance. Of course with sufficient yelling we can arouse the barrack sentry, and for our pains we'd probably have the whole barrack out to arrest us. There is no way in which you can offend the noble and independent Briton more deeply than by treating lightly his worship of royalty, dead or alive, and we would probably be held for committing lese majeste by getting ourselves locked up with the numerous relicts of Henry the Eighth. But if we wait until morning we can run good chances of slipping out unperceived with the first crowd of tourists."

"I feel just like the little princes in the Tower, or Queen Mary or Charlotte Corday," murmured Peggy in ecstatic historical confusion, "or somebody noble and romantic and beheaded. I think I shall play at being Queen Mary. I once learned a piece about her. It was very sad, but I always stuck at the fifth line and had to sit down. Since we have to stay here till morning we might as well amuse ourselves and you may be Rizzio."

"Who was he?" asked her companion sceptically, "sounds like one of those Italian fellows."

"He was Queen Mary's chaperon," Peggy explained vaguely, "and he sang her love songs."

"Good," said the voice agreeably.

"Can't you think of something else for me?" said the unseen, gloomily appalled by the prospect of having doughnut recipes pronounced over his remains.

"How would you like to be Darnley?" said Peggy. "He was her husband." "I'll be Darnley," came from the darkness so decidedly that Peggy jumped.

"You have to get blown-up right off," she hastened to add. "Darnley did."

"Oh he did, did he?" the voice spoke with deeper gloom.

"Queen Mary did it," added Peggy.

"Well, even in the Dark Ages matrimony seems to have given your sex the same privileges," philosophized her companion cynically.

"How mean!" said Peggy coldly, "I shall play at being Elizabeth all alone."

"It wouldn't suit you," said her discarded leading man, "not with your voice."

"Why not?" said Peggy.

"Because it's not hard and cold and metallic enough. Because it has too much womanly sweetness in it and not enough harsh masculinity."

"What a good dramatic critic you would make!" said Peggy a little spitefully, "and since you are reading voices I can tell quite well by yours that you are fat and red faced."

The man laughed.

"And by the same token you are all sweetness and blue eyes and dearness and dimples," he punished her. Then the banter in his tones died suddenly out.

"There's something I want to tell you," he said abruptly, with a movement that seemed in the darkness like a sudden squaring of his shoulders. "But first I want you to tell me your name."

"What a sudden descent from romance and poetry to mere stupid facts," hedged Peggy. "Think, in this atmosphere of royalties if it should be Bridget, or, still more horrible, Mamie."

"Please," the voice persisted in its gravity, "we have been fellow-prisoners, you know, and you should be kind."

Peggy told him with the full three-syllabled dignity of the "Margaret."

"Mine," he continued, "is John Barrett."

"Now," cried Peggy, "if this were a proper adventure we have reached the place when I should be able to say, 'Why! not the Jack Barrett that Brother Billy knew at Harvard?' Then you would cry, 'And this is my old chum William's little sister Peggy that used to send him fudge!' and then everything would be all right. But I haven't any brother at all," she finished regretfully.

"And Harvard wasn't my college," said her companion. "However," he went on, "it would take more than the conventional backing of many brother Billies to put me right with you after I've told you what I have to tell you."

"Then don't do it," said Peggy softly.

"If I didn't know you'd find it out in a very few minutes I wouldn't," he confessed shamelessly. "But before I tell you I want you to know what finding you here meant to me. You've got to realize the temptation before you can understand the fall. You always got away from me, from that first time in Liverpool——"

"Oh!" said Peggy with a gasp.

"And at Paris and at Calais when you smiled adorably at me——"

"I didn't" said Peggy, blushing in the darkness.

"When you didn't smile adorably at me, then," pursued the voice relentlessly. "It was always the same. I found you and you were gone—snatched away by an unkind fate in the form of your man from Cook's. When you sailed away from me at Calais I was booked to leave that same day from Antwerp, but I came on here after you instead. London is small—the American tourist London, that is—the Abbey, the Museum, the galleries, and the Tower, but I seemed to miss you everywhere. It was fate again that sent me here to find you asleep in the corner."

"Now I know you are going to tell something very foolish," said Peggy reflectively, "when people begin to talk about fate like that you always find they are just trying to shift the responsibility."

"I want you to know it wasn't premeditated, however," pursued the voice. "It wasn't till the guard shut the door that I thought of it. You will believe that, won't you?" he pleaded.

The dimple appeared suddenly in Peggy's cheek. There came an echo from without of many footsteps.

"And so," she took up the tale quickly, "having nicely planned it all out you shook me rudely to wake me up, told me the door was locked, and that it was midnight when it was only four in the afternoon. And it wasn't at all necessary to shake me so hard," she continued, "because I woke up when you came in."

"Peggy you knew!" the voice cried with a sudden realization, "you knew and you stayed!" He caught her hand, and in the darkness she could feel his nearness. Then suddenly the door opened letting into the chapel a flood of bright sunlight. "Ladies and gentlemen," the sonorous voice of the old guard came to them, "this, in the words of Macaulay, is the saddest spot on earth," continued the mournful recital, even as, in happy contradiction, Peggy and her American, secure in their little recess, looked blissfully into each other's eyes.



VII

SANKEY'S DOUBLE-HEADER

A Winter's Tale

By FRANK H. SPEARMAN

THE oldest man in the train service didn't pretend to say how long Sankey had worked for the company. Pat Francis was a very old conductor; but old man Sankey was a veteran when Pat Francis began braking. Sankey ran a passenger train when Jimmie Brady was running—and Jimmie afterward enlisted and was killed in the Custer fight.

There was an odd tradition about Sankey's name. He was a tall, swarthy fellow, and carried the blood of a Sioux chief in his veins. It was in the time of the Black Hills excitement, when railroad men, struck by the gold fever, were abandoning their trains even at way-stations and striking across the divide for Clark's Crossing. Men to run the trains were hard to get, and Tom Porter, trainmaster, was putting in every man he could pick up without reference to age or color. Porter (he died at Julesburg afterward) was a great "jollier," and he wasn't afraid of anybody on earth. One day a war party of Sioux clattered into town and tore around like a storm. They threatened to scalp everything, even to the local tickets. They dashed in on Tom Porter, sitting in the despatcher's office upstairs, while the despatcher was hiding below, under a loose plank in the baggage-room floor. Tom, being bald as a sand-hill, considered himself exempt from scalping parties anyway. He was working a game of solitaire when they bore down on him, and got them interested in it. That led to a parley, which ended by Porter's hiring the whole band to brake on freight trains. Old man Sankey was said to have been one of that original war party.

Now this is merely a caboose story, told on winter nights when trainmen get stalled in the snow that drifts down from the Sioux country. But what follows is better attested.

Sankey, to start with, had a peculiar name—an unpronounceable, unspellable, unmanageable name. I never heard it, so I can't give it to you; but it was as hard to catch as an Indian pony, and that name made more trouble on the payrolls than all the other names put together. Nobody at headquarters could handle it; it was never turned in twice alike, and they were always writing Tom Porter about the thing. Tom explained several times that it was Sitting Bull's ambassador who was drawing that money, and that he usually signed the pay-roll with a tomahawk. But nobody at Omaha ever knew how to take a joke. The first time Tom went down, he was called in very solemnly to explain again about the name, and being in a hurry and very tired of the whole business, Tom spluttered: "Hang it, don't bother me any more about that name! If you can't read it make it Sankey, and be done with it."

They took Tom at his word. They actually did make it Sankey; and that's how our oldest conductor came to bear the name of the famous singer. And more I may tell you: good name as it was—and is—the Sioux never disgraced it.

I suppose every old traveler on the system knew Sankey. He was not only always ready to answer questions; but, what is more, ready to answer the same question twice. It is that which makes conductors gray-headed and spoils their chances for heaven—answering the same questions over and over again. Children were apt to be startled a bit at first sight of Sankey, he was so dark. But Sankey had a very quiet smile that always made them friends after the first trip through the sleepers, and they sometimes ran about asking for him after he had left the train. Of late years—and this hurts a bit—these very same children, grown ever so much bigger, and riding again to or from California or Japan or Australia, will ask, when they reach the West End, about the Indian conductor. But the conductors who now run the overland trains pause at the question, checking over the date limits on the margins of the coupon tickets, and handing the envelopes back, look at the children, and say quietly: "He isn't running any more."

If you have ever gone over our line to the mountains or to the coast, you may remember at McCloud, where they change engines and set the diner in or out, the pretty little green park to the east of the depot, with a row of catalpa trees along the platform line. It looks like a glass of spring water. If it happened to be Sankey's run and a regular West End day, sunny and delightful, you would be sure to see standing under the catalpas a shy, dark-skinned girl of fourteen or fifteen years, silently watching the preparations for the departure of the Overland. And after the new engine had been backed champing down, and harnessed to its long string of vestibuled sleepers; after the air-hose had been connected and examined; after the engineer had swung out of his cab, filled his cups, and swung in again; after the fireman and his helper had disposed of their slice-bar and shovel and given the tender a final sprinkle, and after the conductor had walked leisurely forward, compared time with the engineer, and cried, "All Abo-o-o-ard!" then, as your coach moved slowly ahead, you might notice, under the receding catalpas, the little girl waving a parasol or a handkerchief at the outgoing train. That is, at Conductor Sankey; for she was his daughter, Neeta Sankey. Her mother was Spanish, and died when Neeta was a wee bit. Neeta and the Limited were Sankey's whole world.

When Georgie Sinclair began pulling the Limited, running west opposite Foley, he struck up a great friendship with Sankey. Sankey, though he was hard to start, was full of early-day stories. Georgie, it seemed, had the faculty of getting him to talk; perhaps because when he was pulling Sankey's train he made extraordinary efforts to keep on time; time was a hobby with Sankey. Foley said he was so careful of it that he let his watch stop when he was off duty just to save time. Sankey loved to breast the winds and the floods and the snows, and if he could get home pretty near on schedule, with everybody else late, he was happy; and in respect of that, as Sankey used to say, Georgie Sinclair could come nearer gratifying Sankey's ambition than any engine-runner we had. Even the firemen used to observe that the young engineer, always neat, looked still neater on the days when he took out Sankey's train.

By and by there was an introduction under the catalpas. After that it was noticed that Georgie began wearing gloves on the engine—not kid gloves, but yellow dogskin; and black silk shirts—he bought them in Denver. Then—such an odd way engineers have of paying compliments—when Georgie pulled into town on Number Two, if it was Sankey's train, the big sky-scraper would give a short, hoarse scream, a most peculiar note, just as it drew past Sankey's house, which stood on the brow of the hill west of the yards. Thus Neeta would know that Number Two and her father, and naturally Mr. Sinclair, were in again, and all safe and sound.

When the railway trainmen held their division fair at McCloud there was a lantern to be voted to the most popular conductor—a gold-plated lantern with a green curtain in the globe. Cal Stewart and Ben Doton, who were very swell conductors and great rivals, were the favorites, and had the town divided over their chances for winning it. But at the last moment Georgie Sinclair stepped up to the booth and cast a storm of votes for old man Sankey. Doton's friends and Stewart's laughed at first; but Sankey's votes kept pouring in amazingly. The two favorites got frightened; they pooled their issues by throwing Stewart's vote to Doton. But it wouldn't do. Georgie Sinclair, with a crowd of engineers—Cameron, Kennedy, Foley, Bat Mullen, and Burns—came back at them with such a swing that in the final five minutes they fairly swamped Doton. Sankey took the lantern by a thousand votes. But I understood it cost Georgie and his friends a pot of money.

Sankey said all the time that he didn't want the lantern, but just the same he always carried that particular lantern, with his full name, Sylvester Sankey, ground into the glass just below the green mantle. Pretty soon, Neeta being then eighteen, it was rumored that Sinclair was engaged to Miss Sankey, and was going to marry her. And marry her he did; though that was not until after the wreck in the Blackwood gorge after the Big Snow.

It goes by just that name on the West End yet; for never were such a winter and such a snow known on the plains and in the mountains. One train on the northern division was stalled six weeks that winter, and one whole coach was chopped up for kindling wood. The great and desperate effort of the company was to hold open the main line, the artery which connected the two coasts. It was a hard winter on trainmen. Week after week the snow kept falling and blowing. The trick was not to clear the line; it was to keep it clear. Every day we sent out trains with the fear that we should not see them again for a week. Freight we didn't pretend to move; local passenger business had to be abandoned. Coal, to keep our engines and our towns supplied, we had to carry; and after that all the brains and muscle and motive power were centered on keeping One and Two, our through passenger trains, running.

Our trainmen worked like Americans; there were no cowards on our rolls. But after too long a strain men become exhausted, benumbed, indifferent; reckless, even. The nerves give out, and will-power seems to halt on indecision; but decision is the life of the fast train. None of our conductors stood the hopeless fight like Sankey. He was patient, taciturn, untiring; and in a conflict with the elements, ferocious. All the fighting blood of his ancestors seemed to course again in that struggle with the winter king. I can see him yet, on bitter days, standing alongside the track in a heavy pea-jacket and Napoleon boots, a sealskin cap drawn snugly over his straight black hair, watching, ordering, signaling, while Number One, with its frost-bitten sleepers behind a rotary, tried to buck through ten and twenty-foot cuts which lay bank-full of snow west of McCloud.

Not until April did it begin to look as if we should win out. A dozen times the line was all but choked on us. And then, when snow-plows were disabled and train crews desperate, there came a storm that discounted the worst blizzard of the winter. As the reports rolled in on the morning of the 5th, growing worse as they grew thicker, Neighbor, dragged out, played out, mentally and physically, threw up his hands. It snowed all day the 6th, and on Saturday morning the section men reported thirty feet in the Blackwood canyon. It was six o'clock when we got the word, and daylight before we got the rotary against it. They bucked away till noon without much headway, and came in with their gear smashed and a driving-rod fractured. It looked as if we were at last beaten. Number One pulled into McCloud that day eighteen hours late; it was Sankey's and Sinclair's run west.

There was a long council in the round-house. The rotary was knocked out; coal was running low in the chutes. If the line wasn't kept open for the coal from the mountains, it was plain we should be tied until we could ship it from Iowa or Missouri. West of Medicine Pole there was another big rotary working east, with plenty of coal behind her; but she was reported stuck fast in the Cheyenne Hills. Foley made suggestions, and Dad Sinclair made suggestions. Everybody had a suggestion left. The trouble was, Neighbor said, they didn't amount to anything, or were impossible. "It's a dead block, boys," announced Neighbor sullenly after everybody had done. "We are beaten unless we can get Number One through to-day. Look there: by the holy poker, it's snowing again."

The air was dark in a minute with whirling clouds. Men turned to the windows and quit talking. Every fellow felt the same—hopeless; at least, all but one. Sankey, sitting back of the stove, was making tracings with a piece of chalk. "You might as well unload your passengers, Sankey," said Neighbor. "You'll never get 'em through this winter."

And it was then that Sankey proposed his double-header.

He devised a snow-plow which combined in one monster ram about all the good material we had left, and submitted the scheme to Neighbor. Neighbor studied it, and hacked at it all he could, and brought it over to the office. It was like staking everything on the last cast of the dice, but we were in the state of mind which precedes a desperate venture. It was talked over an hour, and orders were finally given by the superintendent to rig up the double-header and get against the snow with it.

All that day and most of the night Neighbor worked twenty men on Sankey's device. By Sunday morning it was in such shape that we began to take heart. "If she don't get through, she'll sure get back again, and that's what most of 'em don't do," growled Neighbor, as he and Sankey showed the new ram to the engineers.

They had taken the 566, George Sinclair's engine, for one head, and Burns's, the 497, for the other. Behind these were Kennedy, with the 314, and Cameron, with the 296. The engines were set in pairs, headed each way, and buckled up like pack mules. Over the pilots and stacks of the head engines rose the tremendous plows, which were to tackle the worst drifts ever recorded, before or since, on the West End. The ram was designed to work both ways. Under the coal, each tender was loaded with pig-iron.

The beleaguered passengers on Number One, side-tracked in the yards, eagerly watched the preparations Sankey was making to clear the line. Every amateur on the train had his camera out taking pictures of the ram. The town, gathered in a single great mob, looked silently on, and listened to the frosty notes of the sky-scrapers as they went through their preliminary manoeuvers. Just as the final word was given by Sankey, conductor in charge, the sun burst through the fleecy clouds, and a wild cheer followed the ram out of the western yard; it was looked on as a sign of good luck to see the sun again.

Little Neeta, up on the hill, must have seen them as they pulled out. Surely she heard the choppy ice-bitten screech of the 566; for that was never forgotten, whether the service was special or regular. Besides, the head cab of the ram carried this time not only Georgie Sinclair, but her father as well. Sankey could handle a slice-bar as well as a punch, and rode on the head engine, where, if anywhere, the big chances would come. What Sankey was not capable of in the train-service we never knew, because he rose superior to every emergency that ever confronted him.

Bucking snow is principally brute force; there is very little coaxing. West of the bluffs there was a volley of sharp tooting, like code signals between a fleet of cruisers, and in just a minute the four ponderous engines, two of them in the back motion, fires white and throats bursting, steamed wildly into the canyon. Six hundred feet from the first cut, Sinclair's whistle signaled again. Burns and Cameron and Kennedy answered; and then, literally turning the monster ram loose against the dazzling mountain, the crews settled themselves for the shock.

At such a moment there is nothing to be done. If anything goes wrong, eternity is too close to consider. There came a muffled drumming on the steam-chests; a stagger and a terrific impact; and then the recoil, like the stroke of a trip-hammer. The snow shot into the air fifty feet, and the wind carried a cloud of fleecy confusion over the ram and out of the cut. The cabs were buried in white, and the great steel frames of the engines sprung like knitting-needles under the frightful force of the blow. Pausing for hardly a breath, they began the signaling again; then backed up and up and up the line; and again the massive machines were hurled screaming into the cut. "We're getting there, Georgie," cried Sankey when the rolling and lurching had stopped.

No one else could tell a thing about it, for it was snow and snow and snow; above and behind and ahead and beneath. Sinclair coughed the flakes out of his eyes and nose and mouth like a baffled collie. He looked doubtful of the claim until the mist had blown clear and the quivering monsters were again recalled for a dash. Then it was plain that Sankey's instinct was right; they were gaining.

Again they went in, lifting a very avalanche over the stacks, packing the banks of the cut with walls hard as ice. Again, as the drivers stuck, they raced in a frenzy, and into the shriek of the wind went the unearthly scrape of the overloaded safeties. Slowly and sullenly the machines were backed again. "She's doing the work, Georgie," cried Sankey. "For that kind of a cut she's as good as a rotary. Look everything over now while I go back and see how the boys are standing it. Then we'll give her one more, and give it the hardest kind."

And they did give her one more; and another. Men at Santiago put up no stouter fight than these men made that Sunday morning in the canyon of the Blackwood. Once they went in, and twice. And the second time the bumping drummed more deeply; the drivers held, pushed, panted, and gained against the white wall; heaved and stumbled ahead; and with a yell from Sinclair and Sankey and the fireman, the double-header shot her nose into the clear over the Blackwood gorge. As engine after engine flew past the divided walls each cab took up the cry; it was the wildest crowd that ever danced to victory. Through they went and half-way across the bridge before they could check their monster catapult. Then, at a half full, they shot it back again at the cut, for it worked as well one way as the other.

"The thing is done," declared Sankey, when they got into position up the line for a final shoot to clean out the eastern cut and get head for a dash across the bridge and into the west end of the canyon, where there lay another mountain of snow to split. "Look the machines over pretty close, boys," said he to the engineers. "If nothing's sprung, we'll take a full head across the gorge—the bridge will carry anything—and buck the west cut. Then after we get Number One through this afternoon, Neighbor can put his baby cabs in here and keep 'em chasing all night. But it's done snowing," he added, looking at the leaden sky.

He had the plans all figured out for the master mechanic, the shrewd, kindly old man. I think, myself, there's no man on earth like a good Indian; and, for that matter, none like a bad one. Sankey knew by a military instinct just what had to be done and how to do it. If he had lived, he was to have been assistant superintendent. That was the word that leaked from headquarters afterward. And with a volley of jokes between the cabs and a laughing and yelling between toots, down went Sankey's double-header again into the Blackwood gorge.

At the same moment, by an awful misunderstanding of orders, down came the big rotary from the west end with a dozen cars of coal behind. Mile after mile it had wormed east toward Sankey's ram, and it now burrowed through the western cut of the Blackwood, crashed through the drift Sankey was aiming for, and whirled out into the open, dead against him, at forty miles an hour. Each train, in order to make the grade and the blockade against it, was straining the cylinders.

Through the swirling snow that half hid the bridge and interposed between the rushing plows Sinclair saw them coming. He yelled. Sankey saw them a fraction of a second later, and while Sinclair struggled with the throttle and the air, Sankey gave the alarm through the whistle to the poor fellows in the blind pockets behind. But the track was at the worst. Where there was no snow there were "whiskers"; oil itself couldn't have been worse to stop on. It was the old and deadly peril of fighting blockades from both ends on a single track. The great rams of steel and fire had done their work, and with their common enemy overcome, they dashed at each other like madmen across the Blackwood gorge.

The fireman at the first cry shot out the side. Sankey yelled at Sinclair to jump. But Georgie shook his head: he never would jump. Without hesitating, Sankey picked him from the levers in his arms, planted a sure foot, and hurled him like a coal shovel through the gangway far out into the gorge. The other cabs were already empty. But the instant's delay in front cost Sankey his life. Before he himself could jump the rotary crashed into the 566. They reared like mountain lions, pitched sideways and fell headlong into the creek, fifty feet. Sankey went under them. He could have saved himself; he chose to save George. There wasn't time to do both; he had to choose, and to choose instantly. Did he, maybe, think in that flash of Neeta and of whom she needed most—of a young and a stalwart protector rather than an old and failing one? I do not know; I know only what he did. Every one who jumped got clear. Sinclair lit in ten feet of snow, and they pulled him out with a rope: he wasn't scratched. Even the bridge was not badly strained. Number One pulled over it next day.

Sankey was right; there was no more snow; not even enough to cover the dead engines that lay on the rocks. But the line was open: the fight was won.

There never was a funeral in McCloud like Sankey's. George Sinclair and Neeta followed first, and of the mourners there were as many as there were spectators. Every engine on the division carried black for thirty days.

Sankey's contrivance for fighting snow has never yet been beaten on the high line. It is perilous to go against a drift behind it: something has to give. But it gets there, as Sankey got there—always; and in time of blockade and desperation on the West End they still send out Sankey's double-header; though Sankey, as the conductors tell the children, traveling east or traveling west—Sankey isn't running any more.



VIII

AUNT MARY TELEGRAPHS

A Comedy of Everyday Life

By LLOYD E. LONERGAN

"AUNTIE left on the six-o'clock train last night. Meet her at the depot.—CLARA."

This telegram, dated New York, greeted Frank Carey when he reached his pleasant little home on Indiana Avenue, Chicago.

"Aunt Mary will be here to-night," he said to his wife, "my rich aunt from New York, you know. I am to meet her at the depot."

"When does she arrive?" fluttered pretty little Mrs. Carey, a bride of a few months. "Cannot I go with you to the depot?"

Mr. Carey said she could, then he thought for a moment, then he put his doubts into words after a second reading of the telegram.

"I wonder what road she is coming in on?" he said.

"'Twas stupid of her," replied his wife, "but call up the railroads and find out which one has a six-o'clock train from New York. Silly!"

Mr. Carey kissed his wife and remarked that she was the brightest little girl in the world, after which he gaily telephoned, listened intently to someone on the other end of the line, made numerous notes, and turned to his wife in despair.

"Bless Clara!" he said devoutly.

His wife looked surprised, so he hastily explained.

"There is a six o'clock train from New York on the Pennsylvania, also on the Lake Shore, likewise on the Michigan Central, and the Lehigh Valley, and the Grand Trunk, and the West Shore, and the B. &. O.!"

"Which one is auntie coming on?" inquired Mrs. Carey with interest.

"All of them," replied her husband wrathfully. "She is sitting on the cow-catcher of each and every train, and if I'm not there to meet her she'll disinherit me. Haven't you any sense?"

Whereupon there were tears, apologies, and finally a council of war. It was Mrs. Carey who solved the problem.

"All we have to do," she cried, "is to meet all the trains. Won't it be cute?"

Carey didn't think so, but was afraid to express himself. He simply tried to look impressed and listened.

"There are only seven trains," she continued. "Now you," counting on her fingers, "are one, and I am two and Mr. and Mrs. Haines next door, who belong to my whist club, are four; and Ella Haines is five; and I just saw Mr. What's-his-name go in to call on Ella—and he'll be six; and that horrid man on the next block who is in your lodge will have to be seven."

The "train meeters" were gathered together inside of an hour. Mrs. Carey overruled all objections and laughed away all difficulties. She told them it would be a lark, and they believed it—at the time! As none of them had met Mrs. Smith (Aunt Mary), Carey was called upon for a description.

"Aunt Mary," he said, "is of medium height, dark complexion and usually dresses in black. She is fifty-eight years old, but tells people she is under fifty. You cannot miss her." And with this they were compelled to be satisfied.

* * * * *

Ella Haines was assigned to the Pennsylvania depot and arrived late. All the New York passengers had disembarked, but an old woman was standing at the entrance and looking anxiously at the passers-by.

"Mrs. Smith?" said Ella, inquiringly.

"Thank heaven, you have come," was the joyous reply.

"Here," and she stepped to one side and revealed a little girl who was gazing out at the tracks. "I've had such a time with that brat and I'll never travel with another again. I've just got time to catch my train for St. Paul. Good-bye!" Whereupon, disregarding Ella's cries and her protestations, the woman rushed madly to the other end of the depot and disappeared through a gate which closed behind her with a slam. It was the last call for the St. Paul train.

Naturally, Ella did not know what to do. She hung around the depot for half an hour, hoping someone would claim the child. Then she put the little one in a cab and gave the Careys' address in Indiana Avenue.

* * * * *

Walter Haines went to the Lake Shore depot. One of the first passengers to emerge from the New York train was a female, who seemed to answer the general description furnished by Carey. She was breathless as if from running faster than an old woman should run. As she reached Haines, she stopped and glared at him.

"Mrs. Smith?" he inquired, lifting his hat.

The woman grabbed him by the arm. "I knew you would be here, but hurry, that man is after me!"

"What man?" asked Haines in surprise.

"Hush, we cannot talk now," was the reply. "Get a carriage and drive fast, fast; we must escape him."

"George couldn't come, he sent me. My name is Haines," said the puzzled escort.

"I don't care if your name is Beelzebub" was the impatient retort. "You get that carriage or I'll write to Roosevelt." And Mr. Haines, very much astonished, complied.

He thought as he drove away that he heard someone shouting, but was not sure; in fact, he paid no attention, for he was too busy thinking what a queer old aunt his friend Carey had.

The "horrid man who belonged to the lodge" was named Perkins. He reached the B. & O. depot half an hour ahead of time, so he went across the street and had a drink. When he returned he discovered that No. 7 was late, and so had another. Also, several more. By the time the train did arrive he was in such a mellow state that he couldn't tell a parlor car from a lake steamer—and he didn't care! He had likewise forgotten what George's aunt looked like, but that, too, was a trivial matter. So he stood at the gate, beaming blandly at every person that appeared.

"Are you Georsh's saunt?" he inquired of a tall man with white side-whiskers and garbed in ministerial black. His answer was a look of horror, but it had no effect on Perkins, who repeated his question at intervals without result. His lack of success finally drove him to tears.

"Poor Georsh!" he sobbed. "Dear old Georsh! Must have an naunt! Break hish heart if he don't have an naunt! Can't fine his naunt! Get him one myself!"

A gang of immigrants were passing at the time. Perkins grabbed one of them by the arm.

"Be nish fellow," he said persuasively, "be Georsh's aunt."

The immigrant was obdurate, but Perkins was persistent. He drew a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a five. This he pressed upon his new-found friend.

"Be a good aunt," he said, "be a nish aunt, and I'll give you two more like thish!"

The Italian, overcome by the sight of so much wealth, fell captive to the eloquence of Perkins. The latter was delighted. He escorted his victim to a saloon across the street and hurled six drinks into him in rapid succession. The immigrant beamed and forgot all his troubles. He lit a fifteen-cent cigar and puffed away as if he were used to it.

"Be your-a aunt," he said, "be-a anybody's aunt. You good-a feller."

This sentiment led to another round of drinks, and then the pair tumbled into a cab, singing discordantly in two languages. Perkins fortunately remembered the address of Haines, and was able to mumble it so that the hackman could understand. Therefore there was no bar to his enjoyment.

Of course they stopped en route, for Perkins was brimming over with gratitude and the cabman was included in their rejoicing. Long before they reached Indiana Avenue, everybody was drunk except the horse.

In the meantime there was all sorts of trouble in the modest residence of George Carey. The head of the household had fumed and fretted about the Michigan Central depot, and finally started home, auntless. There he met his wife, Mrs. Haines and Ella's young man with similar stories. Five minutes later a carriage drove up and Ella and her charge alighted.

"Isn't she a dear little girl?" gurgled Miss Haines, who, being petite and worried, didn't know anything else to do under the circumstances except to gurgle.

Carey gazed at the young woman with distinct disapproval for the first time in his life.

"I know the popular impression is that old ladies shrink," he said, "but Aunt Mary could never have shrunk to that size. Where did you get her and why?"

Falteringly, Miss Haines explained. Then she cried. The child, who had regarded them gravely up to this point, took it for a signal. She screamed, then she roared. Nobody could comfort her or find out who she was.

The arrival of another cab distracted their attention. The bell rang loudly. As Carey opened the door, an old woman bounded in. Her hat was on one side of her head and her eyes gleamed madly.

"Safe at last!" she cried. Then she ran upstairs, entered Mrs. Haines's room, and locked the door. Through the panels came the sound of hysterical laughter.

Walter Haines entered the house at this moment. His attitude was distinctly apologetic.

"Remarkable old lady, isn't she?" he ventured.

"Who?" asked Mr. Carey.

"Why your aunt, of course; didn't you see her come in?"

Carey choked down his wrath out of respect to the ladies, but it was hard work.

"I never saw that woman before," he remarked; "you brought her here uninvited, now you take her away."

Naturally this provoked argument. Mrs. Haines sided with her husband, Mrs. Carey flew to the aid of her worser half, Miss Haines wept, and the little girl screamed. Upstairs, the bogus Aunt Mary was still laughing.

None of the interested parties could tell afterward how long the talk continued. A louder noise outside drew them all to the front porch. In front of the house was a hansom cab drawn by a disgusted-looking horse. He looked and acted like one who had been compelled against his will to mingle with disreputable associates.

The driver descended from his seat and fell full length upon the pavement. He didn't try to get up, but chanted in a husky tone, "Hail! hail! the gang's all here!!!"

Then the door of the cab opened and Mr. Perkins appeared. Nobody could deny that he was very much the worse for wear. But Mr. Perkins bore himself like a conqueror. He advanced hastily and embraced Carey with enthusiasm. Carey recoiled.

"Dear Georsh," said Perkins. "Got you an naunt!"

Apprehensively, Carey ran to the carriage. Huddled upon the floor was an object that moved faintly. From the atmosphere Sherlock Holmes would have deduced that a whisky refinery had exploded in that cab a few hours before. The onlooker gingerly touched the object. It rolled over, then it rolled out of the cab and lay on the sidewalk beside the driver.

Perkins kept on smiling. "Your naunt," he remarked, blandly. "Couldn't get you what you wanted. Got you thish one!"

At this moment, Carey remembered that he had a telephone. He spurned his "aunt" with his foot and passed into the house. He called up Police Headquarters. His friend, Sergeant Bob O'Rourke, was on duty, which made it easier for him.

"Bob," he said, after greetings had been exchanged, "have you an alarm out for a little girl kidnapped from the Pennsylvania station?"

"Yes."

"And does anybody want a crazy woman, last seen on a Lake Shore train?"

"Yes; her keeper was here half an hour ago," was the reply. "He was taking her to Kankakee and she made a get-away. What do you know about her?"

"They are both here," was the reply. "Send the wagon, and just for good measure I'll throw in an Italian immigrant who came in over the B. & O. and a cab-driver. They are both drunk, very drunk, and please take the cab away too."

The next half hour gave Indiana Avenue residents plenty to talk about for a month. But finally the combat was over, and Carey and his friends sat down exhausted.

"But what I would like to know," remarked the head of the house, "where, oh where is Aunt Mary?"

It was a messenger-boy who brought the answer—a telegram dated Niagara Falls, current date and reading:

"Stopped over here. Isn't the view from Goat Island wonderful? Leave for Chicago on the first train. Meet me."

There was a sudden painful silence.

"Does anybody know how many trains there are from Niagara Falls?" inquired Mrs. Carey, speaking to the company generally. She didn't dare to address her husband.

"Just about as many as there are from New York," replied Haines, with a woebegone look. "But—"

"Don't finish it," returned Carey, "I am not going to ask you to try again, and I am not going to do so myself. Aunt Mary can leave her money to anybody she pleases. If I had another night like this the executors would be compelled to mail me my cheque to an asylum."

And the next evening Aunt Mary, unattended, reached her nephew's house without any trouble at all. She didn't disinherit him; in fact, she felt so sorry because of his troubles that she bought Mrs. Carey a complete spring outfit regardless of cost.

It's a good thing to have an Aunt Mary, even if she is indefinite in her telegrams.



IX

THE VENGEANCE OF THE WOLF

A Drama in Wales

By J. AQUILA KEMPSTER

IN THE great stone hall of Llangarth, Daurn-ap-Tavis, the old Welsh Wolf lay dying. Outside was the night and a sullen gale whose winds came moaning down the hills and clung about the house with little bodeful whispers that grew to long-drawn eerie wails, while pettish rain-squalls spent their spite in futile gusts on door and casement.

And through the night from time to time a horseman came, spurring hard and spitting out strange Welsh oaths at the winds that harried him. Five had passed the door since sun-down, four worthy sons and a nephew of the Wolf. They stood now booted and spurred about the old man's couch, a rough-looking crew with the mud caking them from head to foot, while the leaping flames from the log fire flung their shadows black and distorted far up among the rafters.

They hung around him sullenly, but as he looked them up and down the sick man's eyes took on a new keenness and a low, throaty laugh that was half a growl escaped him.

"Well, Cedric, man, what devil's game have you been playing of late? and, Tad, you black rascal—ah, 'twas a pity you were born to Gruffydd instead of me. Well, well, boys, the old Wolf's cornered at last, cornered at last, and Garm, Levin, Rhys—the Cadwallader's going to live and laugh, aye, he's going to live and laugh while a Tavis roasts in hell."

Garm started with a low growl, while Cedric kicked savagely at a hound that lay beside the logs.

"Aye, Ced, kick the old dog, but it won't stop the Cadwallader's laugh."

Cedric clenched his fists at the taunt and his face grew purple in the fire glow, but old Daurn went on remorselessly: "Twenty years he's laughed at the Wolf and his whelps, an' think you he'll stop now? He was always too lucky for me. I thought when my lads grew strong—— But there, he laid me low, the only man that ever did, curse him! There's the mark, boys; see the shamed blood rise to it?"

He loosened his shirt with a fretful jerk and they bent over and glowered at the red scar which ran across his chest. They had all seen it times before, knew the dark quarrel and the darker fight, had tingled with shame again and again, but to-night it seemed to hold an added sting, for the Wolf was going out with his debt unpaid.

Cedric, the elder, gaped and shuddered, then fell to cursing again, but Daurn drew back the quilt and went on talking: "I swore by the body of God to get even, and day and night I've watched my chance. I tried at Tredegar, and that night ye all mind at Ebbu Vale. Yes, I tell you a dozen times, but he's a fox, curse him! a sly old fox, and now the Wolf's teeth are broken. What's that, Ced? Look to him, Tad—aye, look to all thy cousins. Fine grown lads, big, brave, and fierce, but the Cadwallader still lives and laughs; yes, laughs at old Daurn and his boys. My God! to think of it."

"Curse me! choke me!" Cedric stormed out in spluttering fury, gripping his sword with one hand while he dragged at his coat with the other. "I'll cut—cut his bl-black gizzard, blast him. I'm a c-c-coward, eh! Right in my t-teeth! Well, wait till th'-th' dawn an' see."

He had crammed his hat over his eyes and with coat buttoned all awry was half way to the door before Tad caught and held him, whispering in his ear: "Steady, Ced, steady. He's got some plan or I'm a fool. Come back an' wait a bit, an' if I'm mistaken I'll surely ride along with ye."

Cedric yielded, doubtful and sullen, but Daurn greeted him bravely: "God's truth, lad, you've the spirit of the Wolf at least, but you've got no brains to plan. Come close an' listen, an' if ye truly want a fight thy father'll never balk thee."

Then with faltering breath but gleaming eyes he unfolded the plan he had conceived to make his dying a thing of greater infamy than all his bloody days.

The beginnings of the feud between the House of the Wolf and that of Llyn Gethin, the Cadwallader, were so remote that probably both had forgotten, if they ever knew them, for the old Welsh chieftains passed their quarrels on from generation to generation and their hot blood rarely cooled in the passing. Llyn was about the only man in the country who had been able to hold his own against "the Tavis," but hold it he had with perhaps a trifle to spare. Indeed, of late years he had let slip many an opportunity for reprisals, and thrice had made overtures of peace which had been violently rejected. Llyn had fought fair at least, even if he had struck hard, but the life of the Wolf had been as treacherous as it was bloody. And day by day and year by year, as Daurn's strength began to fail and brooding took the place of action, the bitterness of his hatred grew, and out of this at last the plan. It was simple.

Daurn was old, dying, and weary of the strife. He would pass at peace with the world and particularly with his ancient foe. A messenger should be sent inviting Llyn and his sons to Llangarth. They would suspect nothing, for all Wales knew the Wolf lay low—would probably come unarmed and needs must, as time was short, travel by night. Well, there was a convenient and lonely spot some three miles from Llangarth—did the lads understand? Aye, they understood, but their breath came heavily and they glanced furtively each at the other, while the youngest, Rhys, shivered and drew closer to Tad.

Daurn's burning eyes questioned them one by one, and one by one they bowed their heads but spake never a word.

"Ye'll swear to it, lads," he whispered hoarsely, and drew a long dagger from beneath his pillow. For answer there came the rattle of loosened steel, and as he again bared his breast they drew closer in a half circle, laying their blades flat above his heart, his own dagger adding to the ring of steel.

And then they swore by things unknown to modern men to wipe out the shame that had lain so long upon their house, and that before their father died.

As their voices ceased the wind outside seemed to take up the burden of their bloody oath as if possessed, for it shrieked and wailed down the great chimney like some living thing in pain. And then, in a little lull following on the sobbing cry, there came a curious straining push that shook the closed oak door.

They stood transfixed, for a moment daunted, with their swords half in and half out their scabbards, till with a warning gesture to his cousins, Black Tad stole softly across the floor and, lifting the heavy bar cautiously, opened the door.

He paused an instant on the lintel, motionless and rigid to the point of his sword, his eyes fixed on the white face of a girl who was cowered back against the further wall. For a fraction of time he hesitated, but the awful anguish of the face and the mute, desperate appeal of the whole pose settled him. With a rough clatter he sprang into the dim passage, rattling his sword and stamping his feet, at the same time giving vent with his lips to the yelp of a hound in pain, and following it with rough curses and vituperation. Then, without another glance at the girl, he re-entered the hall and slammed to the door, grumbling at Rhys for not keeping his dogs tied up.

By one o'clock the great hall was still. The men were lying scattered about the house, for the most part sleeping as heavily as many jorums of rum made possible.

But the firelight flickering in the hall caught ever an answering gleam from the old Wolf's eyes as he lay there gray, shaggy, and watchful. From time to time his bony fingers plucked restlessly at his beard, and now and again his lips stretched back over yellow teeth in an evil smile as he gloated over the details of his coming vengeance.

And out in a chill upper hall Gwenith, the fair daughter of a black house, sat in a deep embrasure, her arms clinging to the heavy oak bars desperately. The wind moaned and sighed about her while her white terrified lips echoed the agony of her heart. And the burden of her whispered cry was ever, "Davy!—Davy!" and then: "For the Christ's sake! Davy!—Davy!—Davy!"

So the night drew on with the men and dogs sleeping torpidly; with the old Wolf chuckling grimly as the shadows closed about him, and with the child in the cold above sobbing out pitiful prayers for her lover, for only yesterday she had plighted her troth to Davy Gethin, the Cadwallader's youngest son.

These two had met in the early days when she wandered free over the rolling hills, a wild young kilted sprite, fearful of nothing save her father and his grim sons. And Davy had wooed her ardently, though in secret from the first. It had been charming enough in the past despite the fear that ever made her say him nay. Then yesterday he had won her from her tears and fears, won her by his brave and tender front, and she had placed her little hands on his breast and sworn to follow him despite all else when once her father had passed away. And now, twelve short hours after her fingers had touched him, her fear had caught her by the throat, for they would kill him surely, her prince, the only joy she had ever known.

So went the night, with desperate distracted plans, and the dumb agony of cold despair. And in the very early dawn, when men and things cling close to sleep, she heard a gentle stirring—a muffled footfall on the stairs, and Black Tad stood at her side, a great shadow, questioning her.

"Mistress, what heard you?"

And she answered quick with loathing: "All! all the vile, shameful thing!"

"They are our foes" he muttered moodily.

"Foes! Foes! Nay, none of you are worthy any foe—save the hangman! Ah, God will curse you! Cruel! Cruel!"

She leaned out of her seat toward him, her panting breath and fierce words lashing him so that he stepped back a pace, dazed—she was ever such a gentle child.

"What would you, Gwen?"

"What would I! My God!—a fair fight at least. Oh, Tad, and I thought you were a brave man."

"I—I—damme, I, what can I do?—and what does it matter?"

"Matter?—a foul blot!—matter to you and Ced and father—nothing! Murderers! I hate you all! What has the Cadwallader done? All Wales knows 'twas ever father set on him, not he on father—Always!—always, I say! Aye, I remember that bloody night at Ebbu Vale. Shame! Shame! And the harrying and burning at Rhyll, when the mother and her babes perished. No, you weren't there, Tad, but you know and I know who was. Ah, Tad, she's crying to God—that mother, and holding the little dead things in her hands, close up to his face. And now you'd murder Llyn, for all he's ever been for peace."

"Hush-s-sh! not so loud, Gwen."

"Not so loud! not so loud!" she jibed bitterly. "If you fear my poor voice now, what will it be when all Wales is ringing with this last foul deed?"

Tad breathed hard, then caught her wrists suddenly, crushing them in his fierceness: "Listen, Gwenith. After all I'm no Tavis—I'm Gruffydd, and I love you."

She shrank away with wide, fearful eyes, her breath coming in little painful gasps.

"What—what do you mean, Tad?"

"I love you, Gwen."

"And——?"

"Well, I'm no Tavis—I'm Gruffydd."

Slowly the meaning which he himself hardly understood dawned on her.

"You'll save them, Tad?"

"Na, na. A fair fight is what you said. 'Tis all I can do."

"And you will?"

"I love you," he persisted stubbornly.

She closed her eyes tightly and leaned back against the wooden shutter, her hands still held close in his grasp. And she strove to see clearly through the mist of horror and pain. It was a chance, at least a fighting chance, to save Davy, her prince; the only chance, the only way, and outside that what else mattered?

Her eyes opened and her lips trembled; then she got her strength back and faced him in the dim dawn.

"My life for theirs, Tad,—is that it?"

Her eyes and her question shamed him, but he clung to his text doggedly, for he had loved her long and hopelessly in his wild, stubborn way, and this was his first and only desperate chance.

"I love ye, Gwenith, I love ye!"

There came a stir in the far hall, a long-drawn yawn; and at the sound the girl whispered fiercely: "Well, it's a bargain; give them fair warning and I'll—I'll do—give you your will. Yes, I swear it by the dear Saint David. Quick! let me go—no, not now!—Tad, I command you, I—I—Quick! that's Garm's voice; let me go."

* * * * *

"Llyn Gethin! a word in your ear before we ride on."

It was Tad who spoke to the old Cadwallader out in the moonlight. Llyn had answered Daurn's urgent message for peace, and a few miles north of Llangarth had met Tad. At the words the old man looked at him curiously, but reined his horse in, while his sons watched the pair suspiciously, for they were young, their blood and their hate still ran hotly, and save for their father would have had none of this death-bed reconciliation.

"Well, lad, what is it?" asked Llyn, when they were out of earshot.

"A word of warning, sir—from one who hates you."

"Ah! You were ever a good hater, boy. What is it?"

"'Tis a trick o 'mine, sir—this visit—and you'd better ride back."

"I think not, Tad."

"Well, have your way, but if you ride with me you ride to hell."

"We ride with you, Tad."

"Your blood be on you and your sons, then, Llyn Gethin. You're safe to the stone bridge; after that fend for yourself. I—I'm a cursed traitor, but, by David, I strike with my house. There, I've warned you, and God forgive me."

"Amen, lad! Will you shake hands before we ride?"

"No, choke me! I'd sooner ding my dagger in your neck."

So they rejoined the waiting group and rode forward, Tad moodily in advance, Llyn and his sons in a whispering bunch some yards behind. It had been Tad's own suggestion that he ride forward and meet the Gethins so they might be lured the more easily to the turn beyond the bridge. Now they followed on till they saw the white masonry gleaming in the moonlight, and then the dark form of Tad's horse crossing it, when there was a halt and a grim tightening of belts and loosening of swords. And as the man on the bridge threw up his arm, Llyn answered the sign hoarsely: "God keep thee, son of Gruffydd!" he cried. Then as his sons closed in he turned on them sternly: "Remember, lads! who touches him touches me. Ah! steady now! Forward!"

Even as they clattered on the bridge Tad's challenge and signal to his kinsmen rang out furiously:

"The Wolf! The Wolf and Saint David!"

Then came a rush of horse and steel and wild-eyed men, which but for their preparation would have swept the Gethins down. As it was they met it fiercely as it came. They had not come unarmed—perhaps wise old Llyn distrusted such late penitence even as did his sons. Be that as it may, the cry of "Cadwallader!" rose against "The Wolf!" and bore it back, for even in the first wild rush, Cedric fell away before a long, swift thrust, and a moment later Rhys, the youngest of the house went down and died beneath the stamping iron hoofs.

When Llyn saw this he called to stop the fight, but Tad, in a frenzy of horror and remorse, flung on again with Garth and Levin striking wild beside him. 'Twas a wicked rush, but now the fight stood five to three, and in the crash Levin slipped and got a dagger in his throat, while Tad spurred through an open way. Then as he reined and turned, the end was come, for Garm's shrill death-cry tore the air, and he was left alone.

Thrice he charged like a wounded boar, shouting hoarsely for the house he had betrayed. "The Wolf! The Wolf! Saint David and the Wolf!"

And ever he found that open way and ever their steel avoided him.

At last he reined in his sweating mare and fell to cursing, his face distraught with agony and wet with blood and sweat and tears. So he stood, desperate—at bay, and taunted them with every vileness his furious tongue could frame. Then faltered at last with a great heartbroken sob, for they sat silent and still and would not give him fight.

On the road at his horse's feet Cedric lay and Rhys, and over yonder in the grass the other two. He swayed weakly as he looked, then slid from his saddle and stooping, kissed his cousins one by one, with those grim, silent figures looking on. He broke his sword across his knee—his father, Gruffydd's sword—and flung the pieces with an oath at Llyn. Then, ere they could guess his meaning, his dagger flashed, and with a last weak cry for "the Wolf," he fell with the men of his House.

* * * * *

Back at Llangarth the great hall was aglow and Daurn chuckled and waited and plucked at his beard, till, just past midnight, there came a sudden commotion and the heavy tramp of horses in the outer court. Then Gwenith ran in white and wild, and kneeling, buried her sobs in the drapery of the couch. And ere her father could question her a group of sombre figures filled the doorway.

'Twas a dream—surely 'twas a fearful dream! Or were they ghosts? Yes, that was it; see the blood on them! He was either dreaming or these were the very dead.

They drew up to the couch, Llyn and his tall, stern sons. Daurn knew them well and strove to curse them, but the Cadwallader's grave voice hushed him to a sudden fear.

"Peace be with thee, Daurn-ap-Tavis, we come—to bid thee farewell."

Daurn gasped and stuttered, his fingers clawing fearfully while a cold sweat broke out over his forehead. But ere he found his voice two of Llyn's sons, David and Sion, drew away to the door, and later, Llewellen and Pen. They came back heavily and laid their burdens gently by the fire logs and returned, then came again and went. Five times in all. And an awful fear was in Daurn's eyes as he glared at those still, muffled shapes lying close beside him in the firelight.

Then Llyn spoke, slow and sorrowfully, as he stooped and one by one drew the face-cloths from the dead.

"Peace be with thee, Daurn-ap-Tavis; thy son Cedric—bids thee farewell.

"Rhys—bids thee farewell.

"Also Tad, thy brother's son—bids thee farewell."

But the end was come, for Daurn, with a little childish cry, had gone to seek his sons. Llyn stooped and gently closed the old Wolf's eyes, then with bent head and weary step passed from the room.

But young Davy stole back softly and knelt near the stricken girl at the foot of the couch.



X

THE WOOING OF BETTINA

A Story of Finance

By W.Y. SHEPPARD

MR. PAUL STRUMLEY stood on the veranda of Mr. Richard Stokes's sumptuous home in the fashionable suburb of Lawrenceville and faced the daughter of the house indignantly. The daughter of the house was also plainly perturbed. Their mutual agitation was sharply accentuated by the fresh calmness of the spring morning, which seemed to hover like a north-bound bird over the wide, velvety lawn.

"Bettina," announced Mr. Strumley suddenly, "your father is—is——"

"An old goose."

"No, a brute!"

This explosion appeared momentarily to relieve his state of mind. But in his breast there was still left a sufficiency of outraged dignity to warm his cheeks hotly, and not by any means without an abundance of cause. Scarcely an hour before he had nervously, yet exultantly, alighted from his big touring car in front of the Commercial Bank, to seek the president of that institution in the sanctity of his private office. There, briefly but eloquently, he announced the engagement of Miss Bettina Stokes to Mr. Paul Strumley, and naively requested for the happy young people a full share of the parental sanction and blessing. And his callow confidence can hardly be condemned on recalling that he was one of the wealthiest and most popular young swains in the city. Mr. Stokes, however, did not seem to take this into consideration. On the contrary, he rose to the occasion with an outburst of disapprobation too inflammatory to be set on paper, and quickly followed it with a picturesque and uncompromising ultimatum. In the confused distress of the unexpected Mr. Strumley found himself unable to marshal a single specimen of logical refutation. He could only retreat in haste, to recover, if possible, at leisure.

But this leisure, the time it had taken him to hurl the machine across town to Bettina, had proven sadly insufficient. When he rushed up the steps to the veranda, where sat the object of his affections rocking in beautiful serenity, he was still choking from indignation, and had found it hard to tell her in coherent sentences that her father had energetically refused the honor of an alliance with the highly respectable Strumley family.

The grounds, however, on which had been based this unreasonable objection were of all things under the sun the most preposterous. Mr. Stokes had emphatically declared that his daughter's happiness was too dear to him to be foolishly entrusted to one who could not even manage his own affairs, let alone the affairs of a wife, and, presumably later, of a family. Mr. Strumley was rich at present, so much was readily conceded; but he was not capable himself of taking care of what a thrifty parent had laid by for him. He in his weak-mindedness was compelled to hire the brains of a mere substitute, a manager, if you prefer. Should anything happen, and such things happen every day, where would Mr. Strumley be? And where, pray, would be his wife and family? In the poorhouse!

"My daughter is too good for a man who cannot manage his own concerns," the irate father had summed up. "When you have shown yourself capable, my lad, of competing in the world with grown-up intellects, then there will be time enough for you to contemplate matrimony—and not until then. Good morning to you, Mr. Strumley."

"And he snapped his jaws together like a vise," recalled Paul, coming out from his gloomy retrospection.

"If he shut them so," and Bettina worked her pretty chin out to its farthest extension, "well, that means he is like the man from Missouri; you've got to show him before he changes his mind one iota."

"I ought to have been humping over a desk from the start," regretted Mr. Strumley, feeling his bulging biceps dolefully. "It's all right stroking a crew, and heaps of fun, too, but it doesn't win you a wife. Now there's your dad, he couldn't pull a soap box across a bath tub; but he can pull through a 'deal' I couldn't budge with a hand-spike."

Miss Bettina sighed sympathetically, and smiled appreciatively. She felt deeply for her lover, and was justly proud of such a capable parent. "Every one does say papa is an excellent business man," she remarked; "and he certainly can swing some wonderful deals. Only yesterday I accidentally overheard him telling Mr. Proctor that he held an option—I think that was the word—from Haynes, Forster & Company on thousands and thousands of acres of timber land in Arkansas. He said it would expire to-day at two o'clock, but that he was going to buy the land for cash—'spot cash' he said was what they demanded."

Mr. Strumley smiled ruefully. "And I guess it will be some of my 'spot cash,'" he ruminated. "I am not saying anything against your father, Bettina, but if it wasn't for such idle good-for-nothings as myself, who let their money accumulate in his bank, I doubt if he could swing many of these 'big deals.' If we were like he wanted us to be, we'd be swinging them ourselves."

After Mr. Strumley had finished his bit of philosophy, he fell to communing with himself. Apparently his own wisdom had stirred a new thought within his breast. It had. He was beginning to wonder what would happen if Bettina's father suddenly found himself bereft of sufficient "spot cash" to take advantage of this option. Anyone having a second call on same might be fortunate enough to swing the "big deal"—and profit by it, according to his intentions!

"Paul," Bettina broke in upon his meditations, a little note of hopeful pleading in her voice, "it might not be too late for you to—to reform?"

Mr. Strumley aroused himself with difficulty, and looked into her bewitching face before replying. Then: "Maybe you are right," he mused; "at any rate I have an idea." And kissing her thoughtfully, he strode down the steps toward where encouragingly panted his car.

The car proudly bore Mr. Strumley and his idea to the brand-new offices of a certain young friend of his who had himself only recently metamorphosed from the shell to the swivel chair. Mr. Greenlee looked up in mute surprise. But Mr. Strumley ignored it and came to the point with a rush. Did Mr. Greenlee have twenty thousand dollars in cash to spare? He did? Good! Would he lend it to Mr. Strumley on gilt-edge collateral? Never mind exclamations; they had no market value. Eight per cent. did. Then Mr. Greenlee was willing to make the loan? That was talking business; and Mr. Strumley with the securities would call in two hours for the cash. That would give Mr. Greenlee ample time in which to get it from his bank—the Commercial.

When outside Mr. Strumley allowed himself to smile. Suddenly this evidence of inward hilarity broadened into a heartily exploded greeting, as a familiar figure turned the corner and advanced directly toward him. It was another wealthy customer of the aforesaid bank.

"I was just on my way to your office, Mr. Proctor," Paul announced pleasantly, at the same time cautiously drawing to one side the customer of the Commercial. "I intend investing heavily in real estate," he vouchsafed with admirable sang-froid; "and need, right away, in spot cash, about thirty thousand dollars. Have you got that much to spare at 8 per cent., on first class security?"

Eight per cent! Mr. Proctor's expression expanded. He made his living by lending money for much less. If dear Mr. Strumley would call at his office within two hours he should have it every cent—just as soon as he could get a check cashed at the Commercial.

Next the faithful machine whirled Paul to the rooms of his staid attorney and general manager, Mr. John Edwards.

That elderly gentleman welcomed him with his nearest approach to a smile. But the young man was in no mood for an elaborate exchange of exhilarations. Without preface he inquired the amount of his deposit subject to check in the Commercial Bank. Fifty thousand dollars! A most delightful sum. He needed it every cent within an hour. Also he wanted from his safe-deposit box enough A1 collateral to secure loans of twenty and thirty thousand, respectively. But first would Mr. Edwards kindly call up and get second option on all Arkansas timber lands represented by Haynes, Forster & Company? Mr. Strumley believed that the first option was held by a local party. Furthermore he knew it expired to-day; and had reasons to believe that a local party would not be able to take advantage of it, and he, Mr. Strumley, thought that he could handle the property to a good purpose.

For the first time Mr. Edwards learned that his young client had a will of his own. After a few fruitless exhortations he rose to obey, but remarking: "Right much money in these hard times to withdraw in a lump from the bank." Then, with a sidelong glance at the grave, boyish face, he added significantly: "Know you would not do anything to jeopardize Mr. Stokes's financial standing."

"Oh, a bagatelle like that wouldn't embarrass as shrewd and resourceful a business man as he," assured Paul breezily.

"Money is pretty tight," mused the lawyer. But he called up Haynes, Forster & Company without further remonstrances and afterward went out to perform his commissions. Soon Mr. Strumley lighted a cigar and followed. There would be something doing in the way of entertainment presently in the neighborhood of the musty old Commercial Bank.

In front of that institution he had the good fortune to meet the town miser, who seldom strayed far from the portals behind which reposed his hoard. Mr. Strumley halted to liberally wish the local celebrity an abundance of good health and many days of prosperity. Incidentally he noted through the massive doors that his three cash-seeking friends were in the line before the paying teller's window, the lawyer being last and Mr. Greenlee first. When the latter came out, still busily trying to cram the packages of bills properly in the satchel he carried, Paul remarked confidentially to his companion:

"Must be something doing to-day. The big guns are drawing all of theirs out."

The old fellow gave a start as the suggestion shot home. Before Paul could nurse it further, he had sprinted off up the street like mad, chattering to himself about the desirability of returning immediately with his certificates of deposit.

It is an old adage that no one knows the genesis of a "run on the bank." Maybe Mr. Strumley was the exception which proves the validity of the rule. At any rate he considered with large satisfaction the magical gathering of a panic-inoculated crowd, which, sans courage, sans reason, sans everything but a thirst for the touch of their adored cash, clamored loudly, despairingly, for the instant return of their dearly beloved.

At last through the meshes of the mad throng appeared the shiny pate of Mr. John Edwards. He uttered an exclamation of relief at the sight of his calm client.

"Hope you got it before the storm broke?" Mr. Strumley greeted amiably.

"S-s-sh!" cautioned the attorney dramatically. "I was about to go in search of you." Then he added in even a lower key: "Mr. Stokes asked me to persuade you not to withdraw the money until he had had a chance to get the flurry well in hand."

"But the money is mine, and I want it now," expostulated the young man.

"Come with me, please, and listen to reason," beseeched the lawyer, drawing him resolutely in the direction of a side entrance. "It would be a dire misfortune, sir, a calamity to the community, if the bank were forced to close its doors. So far, however, it is only the small depositors who are clamoring; but the others will quickly enough follow if you do not let your fifty thousand remain to help wipe out this first rush. The bank, though, is as sound as a dollar."

In another instant they were through the door, and before Mr. Strumley could reply, for the second time that morning he stood in the presence of Bettina's father.

"As Mr. Edwards will tell you," explained Paul, unable altogether to suppress his nervousness, "I hold second option for to-day on large timber tracts in Arkansas, represented by Messrs. Haynes, Forster & Company. The first option, I was advised, will expire at two o'clock; and my party was of the belief it would not be closed. It is a big deal, Mr. Stokes,"—Mr. Stokes winced perceptibly—"and I was extremely anxious to swing it, because—er—well, because it's my first big venture and much depends on its success."

"Yes," mused Mr. Stokes sadly, "it is quite probable the first option may be allowed to lapse, and I understand good money is to be made in Arkansas timber." His face had grown a trifle ashy. "Of course, this being the case, I feel in honor bound, Mr. Strumley, to instantly recall my request."

Paul gave a gasp of admiration. He was glad Bettina's father was "game." So was Bettina. In the up-boiling of his feelings he emphatically vetoed the determination of the banker. Indeed, so well and eloquently did he argue for the retention and use of his funds by the Commercial, that even the self-effacing man of "deals" could not resist the onslaught. He rose with unconcealed emotion and grasped the hand of the young man whose generosity would save the credit of the old financial institution.

Later, flushed with victory, Mr. Strumley returned to the cushions of his touring car; and the jubilantly chugging machine whizzed him off in the direction where, surrounded by cash, awaited the 8 per cent. expectations of Messrs. Proctor and Greenlee. Later still he descended with said cash upon the offices of Haynes, Forster & Company. And even later, after an exhilarating spin in the country, he arrived safe and blithesome at his well-appointed rooms in the Hotel Fulton, ready to remove with good soap and pure aqua the stains of mart and road before calling on Miss Bettina Stokes.

The first thing that attracted his eyes on entering his little sitting room was a neatly wrapped parcel on the table. On the top of it reclined a dainty, snowy envelope. Mr. Strumley approached suspiciously. Then he recognized the handwriting and uttered an exclamation of joy. It was from Bettina.

In the short time he held the missive poised reverently in his hand Paul permitted a glow of satisfaction to permeate his being. He had done well and was justly entitled to a moment of self laudation. Mr. Stokes—Bettina's father—would no longer be against him, for who could not say he was not capable of competing in the world-arena with full-grown, gladiatorial intellects? He had even successfully crossed blades with Mr. Stokes's own best brand of Damascene gray matter. And he had won the fray, for the everlasting good and happiness of all parties concerned. In anticipation he already felt himself thrilling proudly beneath the crown of Bettina's love and her father's benediction.

The crackle of the delicate linen beneath his grasp brought him sweetly back to the real. What delicious token could Bettina be sending him? Of course her father had told her all. How happy she, too, must be! Mr. Strumley broke the seal of the envelope and read:

"MR. PAUL STRUMLEY, City.

"DEAR SIR:

"I herewith return your letters, photographs, etc. Papa has told me all. It was at first impossible to believe you capable of taking such a base advantage of my confidence about the Arkansas option; but I am at last thoroughly convinced that you incited the run on the bank to embarrass poor papa and compel him to let the deal fall into your traitorous hands. And the by-play of yours in returning the money you did not really need, though it has completely deceived him, has in my eyes only added odium to your treachery. I trust that I have made it quite clear that in the future we can meet only as strangers.

"BETTINA STOKES."

Mr. Strumley let the letter slip unnoticed through his palsied fingers. He sat down with heavy stupefaction. So this was the sud-spray of his beautiful bubble? It was incomprehensible! Bettina! Bettina! Oh, how could she? Where was her faith? No small voice answered from within the depths of his breast; and Mr. Strumley got clumsily to his feet. He was painfully conscious that he must do something—think something. But what was he to do? What was he to think? Could he ever make her understand? Make her believe? At least he could go and try.

Mr. Strumley finished his toilet nervously; and repaired to the home of Bettina, to cast his hope on the waters of her faith and charity. The butler courteously informed him that she was "not in." But Mr. Stokes was in the library. Would Mr. Strumley like to see him? Mr. Strumley thought not.

It was a bad night for Paul. From side to side he tossed in search of inspiration. Day came; and he rolled wearily over to catch the first beams of the gladsome spring sunshine. From its torrid home ninety-three million miles afar it hurried to his bedside. It shimmered in his face and laughed with warm invigoration into the torpid cells of his brain. It awakened them, filled them with new life, hope—inspiration!

Mr. Strumley leaped from his bed to the bath-tub, and fluttered frolicsomely in the crystal tide. When he sprang out there was the flush of vigorous young manhood on his skin and the glow of an expectant lover's ardency in his breast. Everything was arranged satisfactorily in the space beneath Mr. Strumley's water-tousled hair, wherein sat the goddess of human happiness—reason.

Mr. Strumley, after a hurried stop-over at the office of his astounded charge d'affaires, reached the Commercial Bank before the messenger boys. While waiting in the balm of the spring morning for the doors to open he circumnavigated the block nine times—he counted them. Coming in on the last tack he sighted the portly form of the banker careening with dignified speed around the corner. Another instant he had crossed the mat and disappeared into his financial harbor. Mr. Strumley steered rapidly in his wake.

Again he stood in the presence of Bettina's father. This time, however, he was calm. In fact, the atmosphere about the two men was heavily charged with the essence of good fellowship. Mr. Stokes held out his hand cordially. The younger man pressed its broad palm with almost filial veneration. He noted, too, with a slight touch of remorse, that the banker's countenance was harassed. Evidently his heart still ached for the lost Arkansas timber. Mr. Strumley smiled philanthropically.

He had something to say to Mr. Stokes, and began to say it with the easy enunciation of one who rests confident in the sunshine of righteousness. He spoke evenly, fluently. Of course Mr. Stokes at first might be a trifle perplexed. But please bear with him, hear him through, then he himself should be the sole judge.

He, Mr. Strumley, did not care a rap—no, not a single rap, for every tree that grew in the entire state of Arkansas. What he wanted to do was to show Mr. Stokes—Bettina's father—that he was worth the while. That is, he wanted to demonstrate—it was a good word—to demonstrate that he had brains in his cranium as good as many another variety that boasted a trade mark of wider popularity. Had he done it? And if what he had done did not concur with the elements of high finance, he would like Mr. Stokes—Bettina's father—to tell him what it did concur with. Now, there was the whole story from its incipiency. And as conclusive proof that he did not mean to profit by the deal financially, would Mr. Stokes kindly examine those papers?

Mr. Stokes looked at the documents tossed on the desk before him; and saw that they were several warranty deeds, conveying to Richard Stokes, his heirs and assigns forever, all titles and claims of all kinds whatsoever in certain therein-after described tracts or parcels of land in the state of Arkansas, for value received.

Mr. Strumley leaned back and contentedly watched a flush overspread the banker's face. His automobile waited at the door to whisk him to Bettina, and he was ready to carry on the campaign there the moment her father had finished his effusions of gratitude. Meanwhile the flush deepened; and, all impatience to fly to his lady-love, Paul egged on the speech.

"You will note, Mr. Stokes," he volunteered, "that the price is exactly the same you had proposed paying. At your convenience, of course, you can remit this amount to my attorney, Mr. Edwards."

Mr. Stokes rose slowly. The flush had become apoplectic.

"Mr. Strumley," he began, his large voice trembling, "this trick of yours is unworthy of an honorable man. Here, sir, take these papers and leave my office immediately."

Mr. Strumley rose also. Like the banker's voice, he, too, was trembling.

"But, sir——" he commenced to expostulate.

"Go!" thundered the father of Bettina.

Dazed, confused by the suddenness of the blast, Paul groped his way through the bank to the refuge of his car. Mechanically he put one hand on the lever and glanced ahead for obstacles. Crossing the street, not twenty yards ahead, tripped the most dangerous one conceivable—the beautiful Bettina herself!

Mr. Strumley's hand fell limply to his knee. Fascinated he watched her reach the curb and with a little skip spring to the pavement. Then she came straight toward him; but he could see she was blissfully oblivious of his nearness. Suddenly an odd wave of emotion surged through his brain. His heart leaped with primitive savagery of love, and every fibre in him rebelled fiercely against the decrees and limitations of modern courtship. He had failed in the game as governed and modified by the rules of polite society and high finance. The primogenital man-spirit in him cried out for its inning. Mr. Strumley, as umpire, hearkened to its clamor.

"Bettina!" he called, as that young lady came calmly abreast of the car, "wait a moment. I must speak with you."

She started with a half-frightened exclamation; but met his look, at first defiantly, scornfully, then hesitatingly, faltering as she tried to take another step onward.

"Bettina!" Mr. Strumley's voice vibrated determinedly, "I said I wished to speak with you. I can explain—everything."

She halted reluctantly, and partly turned. In a moment he was at her side, his hand upon her arm. His glance had in it all the compelling strength of unadulterated, pristine manhood. She seemed to feel its potency, and without remonstrance suffered him to lead her toward the machine.

For a moment, for a single moment, Mr. Strumley was exhilaratingly conscious of being borne aloft on a great wave of victorious gladness. Then the waters of triumph let him down with a shock.

"Bettina!"

At the word they both pivoted like pieces of automata. Mr. Stokes, large and severe, was standing between the portals of his financial fortification.

"Bettina!" His voice was almost irresistible in the force of its parental summons.

At the sound of it the primeval lover, newly renascent in Mr. Strumley's breast, cowed before the power of genitorial insistency. Then it came back into its own exultantly.

"Bettina, my darling, get in," he commanded.

She faltered, turned rebelliously, turned again and obeyed.

"Bettina!" The voice of the childless banker faded off in the distance, its last echo drowned in the full-throated: "Bettina, we are going to be married at once," that broke joyously from Mr. Strumley's lips. "I have followed the example of the Romans, and taken me a wife from the Sabines."

Bettina peeped up at him from beneath the dark screens of her lashes. "Then I, like the wise Sabian ladies, shall save the day for peace and for Rome," she smiled archly.

And the machine laughed "Chug-chug!"



XI

THE JAM GOD

A Tale of Nigeria

By H.M. EGBERT

LIEUTENANT PETERS, of the Royal Nigerian Service, was lying upon the ground face downward, under a prickly tree. The sun was nearly vertical, and the little round shadow in which he reclined was interlaced with streaks of hot light. As the sun moved, Peters rolled into the shade automatically. His eyes were shut, and he was in that hot borderland which is the nearest approach to sleep at noontide in Nigeria.

The flies were pestering him, and he was thirsty—not with that thirst of the mouth which may be quenched with a long draught, but with the thirst of the throat that sands and sears. He felt thirsty all over. He had been thirsty, like this, ever since he struck the bend of the Niger. What made it worse, every night he dreamed of fruits that were snatched away, like the food of Tantalus, as he approached to grasp them. Two nights before he had been wandering knee-deep in English strawberry beds; the night before he had been shaking down limes and oranges from groves of trees set with green leaves and studded with golden fruit. Once he had dreamed of a new fruit, a cross between a pear and a watermelon; but when he cut into it he found nothing but hard, small seeds, with a pineapple flavor, which he detested.

Peters was dreaming now, for he twined his fingers in the long grass and tossed uneasily.

"I'll pick them all," he muttered sleepily. "All mixed together, with ten or twelve pounds of damp, brown sugar, and boiled into jam."

He woke and felt his teeth for the hundredth time, to note whether any untoward looseness betokened the advent of the dreaded scurvy. Reassured, he stretched his limbs and rolled over into the shade of the tree.

"When I get back to a white man's country," he murmured—"when I get home to England what is it I am going to do? Why, I shall go into a restaurant and order some rich brown soup. Then I shall have pate de foie gras sandwiches. Then scrambled eggs, chocolate, and muffins buttered with whipped cream. Then half a dozen cans of jam. I shall either begin with strawberry and conclude with apricot, or else I shall begin with apricot and wind up with raspberry. It doesn't matter much; any kind of jam will do except pineapple."

He opened his eyes, brushed away the flies that swarmed noisily round him, took out his hard-tack, and opened a small can of dried beef. He munched for a while, sipping occasionally from the tepid water in his canteen. When he had finished he put the can-opener back in the pocket of his tunic and rose, his face overspread with a look of resolution.

"I believe," he cried, "I believe that I could eat even a can of pineapple!"

He rose, the light of his illusion still in his eyes, and began staggering weakly under the blazing sun in the direction of his camp. He was weaker than he had thought, and when he reached the shelter of his tent he sank down exhausted upon the bed. Through the open flap he could see, five hundred yards away, the round, beehive-shaped huts of the native village and, in their centre, the square palace of King Mtetanyanga, built of sticks and Niger mud, surrounded by its stockade, the royal flag, a Turkish bath-towel stained yellow and blue, floating proudly above.

Lieutenant Peters had been sent by the Nigerian Government along the upper Niger to conclude treaties with the different kings and sweep them within the British sphere of interest. The French were out upon a similar errand, for in this region the two nations possessed only a vague and very indeterminate boundary line. Peters had been successful until he came to the village of King Mtetanyanga, who had balked at affixing his cross to the piece of mysterious parchment on the ground that it was unlawful to do so during the festival of the great Ju-Ju, whose worshipers could be heard wailing and beating tom-toms nightly in some unknown part of the jungle. What this Ju-Ju fetish was nobody could tell; it had come into the village recently, from the coast, men whispered; it possessed awful and mysterious potency; was guarded zealously by some score of priests, who veiled its awful vision; and it was the greatest Ju-Ju for hundreds of miles along the Niger, tribes from distant regions frequently arriving to sacrifice pigs to it.

However, Lieutenant Raguet, the French commissioner, had been equally unsuccessful in inducing the dusky monarch to affix his signature to the French treaty, and the ambassadors of the rival nations were both encamped near the village, waiting for the Ju-Ju festivities to reach their plethoric conclusion before the king sobered up and attended to business.

Raguet, strolling into his rival's camp that evening, found Peters in his tent, flushed, and breathing heavily.

"Tcht! tcht! you are seeck," said the Frenchman sympathetically. "That ees too bad. Have you quinine?"

"Quinine be hanged," cried Peters huskily. "I've taken the stuff until I've floated in it. There's only one thing can cure me, Raguet. I've been living on crackers and canned beef for over a month, and I'm pining for jam. Have you got any jam?"

"Dsham, dsham?" repeated Raguet with a puzzled expression.

"Yes, les preserves—le fruit et le sugar, bouilli—you know what I mean."

"Ah, ze preserve!" said the Frenchman, with an expression of enlightenment. "Ze preserve, I have him not."

"I tell you what, Raguet," said Peters irritably, "I've got to get some jam somewhere or I shall kick the bucket. I'm craving for it, man. If I had one can of the stuff it would put me upon my feet instantly, I can feel it. Now it's ten to one I'll be too sick to see the king after the ceremonies are over, and he'll sign your treaty instead of mine. And I've given him three opera hats, a phonograph, and a gallon of rum, curse the luck! What did you give him, Raguet?"

"Me? I give him a umbrella with ze gold embroider," the Frenchman answered.

"My government won't let me give the little kings umbrellas," said Peters in vexation. "It makes the big chiefs jealous. I say, Raguet," he rambled on, sitting up dizzily, "what is this Ju-Ju idol of theirs?"

"I know not," said the French lieutenant. "Only ze king and ze priests have seen him. If zey tell, zey die—ze idol keel zem."

"I suppose they'll be keeping up these infernal tom-toms for another week," grumbled the sick man, lying back and half closing his eyes from weariness. "Well, I'll have to try to get well in time."

The Frenchman resisted the impulse to leap back in surprise, but his eyes narrowed till they were slits in his face. So! This Englishman did not know that this had been the last day of the sacrifices, that at midnight a hecatomb of pigs was to be killed and eaten in the bush in honor of the Ju-Ju. Nor that the king, when he had broached and drunk the cask of rum, would be in a mood to discuss the treaty. Peters evidently was unaware how much his majesty had been affronted by his failure to present him with an umbrella. La! la! Fortune was evidently upon his side. All this flashed through the Frenchman's mind in an instant. A solitary chuckle escaped him, but he turned it into an exclamation of grief, sighed deeply, seated himself upon the bed, and kissed Peters affectionately on either cheek.

"My Peters, my poor friend," he began, "you must not theenk of leaving your tent for ze next two, t'ree days. Ze fever, he is very bad onless you receive him in bed. I shall take care of you."

"You're a good fellow, Raguet," said Peters, wiping his face surreptitiously with the backs of his hands. When his visitor had left he turned over and sank into a half-delirious doze that lasted until the sun sank with appalling suddenness, and night rushed over the land. Tossing upon his bed, all through the velvet darkness he was dimly conscious, through his delirious dreams, of tom-toms beaten in the bush. His throat was parched, and in his dreams he drank greedily from his canteen; but each time that he awoke he saw it hanging empty from the tent flap. Presently a large, bright, yellow object rose up in front of him. Greedily he set his teeth into it; and even as he did so it disappeared, and he awoke, gasping and choking under the broiling blackness.

"I'll have to take that canteen down to the stream and fill it," he muttered, rising unsteadily and proceeding toward the bank. To his surprise he found that rain had fallen. He was treading in ooze, which rose higher and higher until it clogged his footsteps. He struggled, but now it held him fast, and he was sinking slowly, but persistently, now to the waist, now to the shoulders. Frantically he thrust his hands downward to free himself, and withdrew them sticky with—jam! He scooped up great handsful greedily; and even as he raised it to his mouth it vanished, and he awoke once more in his tent.

He flung himself out of bed with an oath, took down his canteen, and started toward the river. The noise of the tom-toms was louder than ever, proceeding, apparently, from some point in the bush a little to the left of the king's palace. Scrambling and struggling through the thorn thickets, he reached the sandy bed of the stream, filled his water-bottle at a pool, and drank greedily.

It was that still hour of night when the many-voiced clamor of the bush grows hushed, because the lions are coming down to drink at the waters. The rising moon threw a pale light over the land. The tom-toms were still resounding in the bush, but to Peters's distorted mind they took on the sound of ripe mangoes falling to the ground and bursting open as they struck the soil. He counted, "one, two, three," and waited. He counted again. There must be thousands of them. Peters began to edge his way through the reeds in the direction of the sound. After a while he came to a wall of rocks perpendicular and almost insurmountable. He paused and considered, licking his lips greedily as the thud, thud continued, now, apparently, directly in front of him. All at once his eyes, curiously sensitive to external impressions, discovered a little, secret trail between two boulders. He followed it; a great stone revolved at his touch, and he found himself inside the sacred groves. He went on, gulping greedily in anticipation of the feast which awaited him.