THE DESIRE OF THE EYES 
 
T 
 
 HE DESIRE 
 
 OF THE EYES 
 
 JIna other $toil($ 
 
 BY 
 
 GRANT AI,I,EN 
 
 AUTHOR OP "A BRIDE FROM THB DBSBRT," 
 "I'HB WOMAN WHO DID" ETC., BTC 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
 
 112 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 • (I 
 

 Copyright. i89i.»9>'9*-'» 
 GRANT AXASN 
 
 /' 
 
 The Desire of the Eytt 
 
4; 
 
 bc 
 
 3 
 O 
 
 u 
 
 V 
 
 a 
 s 
 u 
 
 c 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Desire of the Eyes 
 
 Cris-Cross Love 
 
 The Governor's Story . 
 
 Dick Prothero's Luck 
 
 The Reverend John Greedy 
 
 Mr. Ghung 
 
 The Gurate of Ghurnside 
 
 An Episode in High Life 
 
 My New Year's Eve Among the Mummies 
 
 The Foundering of the " Fortuna " 
 
 The Mysterious Occurrence in Piccadilly 
 
 Garvalho ...... 
 
 Pausodyne : A Great Ghemical Discovery 
 
 [5] 
 
 Page 
 
 • 7 
 . 25 
 . 61 
 
 • 74 
 . ^9 
 
 . 112 
 
 • 135 
 
 • 175 
 . 205 
 
 . 225 
 
 . 248 
 
 . 266 
 
 • 297 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Two IN a boat, on Windermere. 
 
 The time was late autumn ; the hour was twiM^ht. 
 Faint ghosts of purple mountains floated dim on the 
 water, backed up by the mellow glow of a reflected 
 sunset. Distant sounds of laughter and of singing 
 voices scarcely broke the tingling stillness. It was a 
 moment for love-making. Their souls thrilled within 
 them. 
 
 He dropped the oars, and leaned forward towards 
 the seat in the stern where Thora was sitting. ** Say 
 yes," he cried, eagerly. " It must be yes, Thora." 
 
 He had never called her Thora to her face till that 
 evening. Her name sounded sweeter to her on Lionel 
 Etheredge's lips than she had ever before thought it. 
 But still she held back Her heart struggled within 
 her. 
 
 " No no, Mr. Etheredge," she answered, fighting 
 hard against her own overpowering impulse. " Never 
 ask me again. I mustn't, I mustn't." 
 
 "Why * Mr. Etheredge'?" the young man cried, 
 gazing deep into her eyes. " I said * Thora.' Why 
 not, ' No, Lionel ?'" • • - •: ' ■■- : ....•>... 
 
8 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 The girl's lips fragied the words, faintly. " No, 
 Lionel," she repeated after him, flushing. It was 
 sweet to say " Lionel" aloud to him that night, as she 
 had said it a hundred times before to herself — even 
 though she said it now with an unwilling " No" tacked 
 on to it. 
 
 But Lionel Etheredge laughed a low, melodious 
 laugh to himself. "I have caught you, Thora!" he 
 exclaimed, seizing her hand in his own. " My queen, 
 I have caught you ! When once a woman says *No, 
 Lionel,* in a voice like that, it doesn't mean what it 
 says. It means, ' Yes, Lionel.' It means * Yes, 
 Lionel,' and a great deal more. It means, *I want 
 you ; I long for you ; I must be yours ; but I won't 
 let my heart say what it is bursting to tell you, I 
 love you, I love you.' Isn't that so, Thora ?" 
 
 Thora's face flushed a daintier crimson still in the 
 sunset glow. She clasped her hands hard. He had 
 read her ; he had read her I " Oh, Lionel," she cried, 
 raising her eyelids and glancing at him with the timid 
 confidence of a girl's first love, " how you see through 
 and through me !" Then she shrank away terrified. 
 Had she said too much ! How could she ever draw 
 back now, after so frank a confession ? 
 
 But the man, like a man, knew what followed as of 
 course. He seized her in his arms, regardless cf the 
 dangers of lake navigation, and kissed her a dozen 
 times, fervid lover-like kisses. 
 
 Thora took them without demur. She was too 
 queenly to resist them. It was that indeed that so 
 greatly charmed him in her — her instinctive dignity. 
 People at Windermere hardly took the Braydales for 
 gentlefolk; they were but "statesmen," or yeomen 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 9 
 
 farmers of a few generations standing ; and Thora 
 was companion to a somewhat richer aunt, who had 
 married a Manchester merchant of the second order. 
 But Lionel Etheredge saw in her a queen of women, 
 whom any man might be proud to have won on his 
 merits. " 
 
 After a moment she disengaged him gently, with 
 that unobtrusive imperiousness there is no disobeying. 
 He drew back and gazed at her. She was flushed but 
 beautiful. Her statuesque features were pure Greek 
 in outline ; but that delicate pink glow — no art could 
 equal it. Yet it was not for her stately beauty alone 
 that he loved her, he said to himself as he looked at 
 her. A face like that must harbor a soul beneath it. 
 The light that was in her lighted her eyes as she gazed 
 at him. 
 
 ** It is for the last time, Lionel," she murmured, with 
 a regretful tone, as she drew back and let her lids 
 drop suddenly. 
 
 " No, no, Thora ; the first — the first of ten thousand," 
 the young man answered, eagerly. "When once you 
 have said my name to me like that, you have told me 
 everything; you are mine for ever." * 
 
 Thora gazed at him earnestly. " I wish it were so," 
 she answered frankly, with a lingering cadence. " But 
 it can never be, dear Lionel. I mustn't allow it. For 
 your sake I must be strong and say no once for all to 
 you. Your uncle would never consent to it — and you 
 owe everything to your uncle." 
 
 The young man gave a gesture of impatience. " My 
 uncle," he cried, half-contemptuously. " Oh, bother 
 my uncle I No, Thora, I know he's been kindness it- 
 self to me,"^for there was reproach in her eye at the 
 
lO STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Strong word he had checked ; " but there are matters 
 where a man must take no account of uncles. Here, 
 dearest, I shall row you out a little further again, and 
 we'll talk this over a bit more together. Your aunt ? 
 Oh, aunts are in the same box as uncles. She must 
 wait half-an-hour. I won't let you go till you've said 
 yes outright to me." 
 
 We all know the end of a colloquy that begins in 
 that way. When a woman is fighting against her own 
 heart she has a powerful antagonist ; and when that 
 antagonist is aided and abetted by the man she loves, 
 why the issue of the conflict is a foregone conclusion. 
 Before the boat came to land again Thora Braydale 
 had yielded. She would be Lionel Etheredge's wife 
 as soon as he had obtained his uncle's consent to the 
 marriage. 
 
 " But don't ask Mr. Ashby," she said tremulously, 
 " till Aunt Lizzie and I have got away to Antibes. I 
 shall be afraid to hear what he says to you when you 
 break the news to him. I know he won't like it. And 
 if he gives his consent — which he won't I'm sure — you 
 must come out there to marry me.' 
 
 II 
 
 IL 
 
 Mr. Ashby wore a fur-lined coat, with sable cuffs 
 and collar. Now you know the man. Fur trimmings 
 to a masculine overcoat stamp a type. And the type 
 is Mr. Ashby's. 
 
 He was walking with the Earl on the terrace in 
 Itont of his house in Hertfoi-dshire, The Virginia 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. II 
 
 creeper on the battlements was one blaze of crimson. 
 Mr. Ashby would not have foregone those crenellated 
 battlements for ten thousand pounds. They looked so 
 baronial ! And being a lately-enriched merchant in 
 the Russia trade, Mr. Ashby naturally loved to be 
 baronial. He adored the creeper. It redeemed the 
 rawness of the brand new coat of arms, carved in 
 brand new Bath stone, that stared him in the face 
 above the principal doorway. 
 
 Lionel was Mr. Ashby 's favorite nephew. For 
 Lionel's mother, Mr. Ashby's sister, had married a 
 clergyman ; and a clergyman, as everybody knows, is 
 a most respectable family adjunct. Mr. Ashby had 
 brought Lionel up, his father being dead, and had sent 
 him to Harrow, and in due time to Oxford, and had 
 made a barrister of him, not with any idea of his prac- 
 ticing at the bar for filthy lucre (of which Mr. Ashby 
 had enough for both), but because a wig and gown are 
 such gentlemanly properties ! It was Mr. Ashby's 
 dream in life, indeed, that Lionel should go into Par- 
 liament, and marry a lady of title — a courtesy lady. 
 He wanted to be able to say, " My nephew, Lionel, 
 and his wife. Lady Ethel," or " Lady Ermyntrude," as 
 the case might be, " are stopping with me at Fritting- 
 ton." It would be lifting himself a step nearer to 
 those social heavens where peers dwell apart in solemn 
 grandeur, lonely and self-contained, like the gods of 
 Epicurus. 
 
 And now, Mr. Ashby stood actually within reach of 
 that earthly apotheosis. 
 
 Lord Ballyshannon was only an Irish peer, to be 
 sure, with no rent-roll left him by the land courts to 
 speak of ; and Lady Norah O'Sullivan was not a name 
 
12 < STRANGE STORIES. ' ' 
 
 to conjure with as it stood, it is true ; but what of that? 
 An earl's daughter is an earl's daughter, " be the same 
 more or less," as the lawyers would put it ; and if 
 Lionel married her, why, she would be Lady Norah 
 Etheredge, which is clearly quite another matter. He 
 would have preferred an Ermyntrude or a Gladys to a 
 Norah, it is true ; but when it comes to peerages — 
 well — Russia merchants musn't be choosers. They 
 must take their title wherever they can get it. Lady 
 Norah was pretty ; Lady Norah was young ; Lady 
 Norah had the indefinable grace and charm of Irish 
 manners ; and Lionel had paid her very marked atten- 
 tion at the dance at the Walton De Trafford's last 
 season. If he hinted to Lionel that Lady Norah's 
 papa was open to an arrangement, Lionel would, of 
 course, be delighted to carry out his suggestion. 
 
 ** And your nephew is at the Lakes ?" Lord Bally- 
 shannon mused, pensively, in an unconcerned fashion. 
 " Lucky young dog ! he has nothing on earth to do 
 but run about and enjoy himself ! While my poor, 
 dear boys, Mr. Ashby, have all had to go into Govern- 
 ment offices, and are working for their livings six hours 
 a day, as no O'Sullivan ever did before since the days 
 of the deluge." 
 
 Mr. Ashby did not reply, " It's high time they 
 began then." He contented himself by drawing him- 
 self up in his fur-lined coat, and remarking casually, 
 " Yes, I am fortunate enough to be able to make my 
 nephew a very handsome allowance." 
 
 "He doesn't marry?" the Earl suggested. They 
 both meant business ; but it is etiquette to approach 
 business of the delicate character by dexterous flank 
 movements. 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. * 1$ 
 
 " No, he doesn't marry," the Russian merchant 
 answered with a preoccupied air, weighing his words 
 very carefully. *' He doesn't marry. The fact of it is, 
 Lord Ballyshannon, I'm a trifle particular about the 
 choice of a wife for him. I stand to him, you see, ' in 
 loco parentis.' " Mr. Ashby was proud of that phrase, 
 so he lingered on it lovingly. " * In loco parentis,* " 
 he repeated, hugging it ; " and I don't wish him to 
 marry unless " Mr. Ashby paused and deliber- 
 ated — '* unless I saw he had formed an attachment for 
 a lady whose — well, social position was in every way 
 suitable for him. If he did happen to form an attach- 
 ment for such a lady, I should of course be ready to 
 make her an ample settlement — a very ample settle- 
 ment." He gazed abstractedly at the Earl. "Five 
 thousand a year," he murmured, thoughtfully, " I 
 should call a handsome settlement." 
 
 ** Very handsome," the Earl answered. And they 
 lapsed into silence. 
 
 " You think so ?" Mr. Ashby asked again, after a 
 moment's rumination. 
 
 " Decidedly," answered the Earl ; " if it was tied up 
 upon the lady." 
 
 Mr. Ashby gazed once more at him. " Oh, of 
 course, tied up upon her," he admitted with readiness. 
 
 " Strictly tied up upon her." And he mused again 
 a second. That business was arranged. He saw it in 
 the contented gleam in Lord Ballyshannon's eyes, in 
 the carefully-restrained curl of repressed satisfaction 
 at the corner of Lord Ballyshannon's Milesian mouth. 
 " Have a cigar ?" he said, carelessly, drawing his case 
 from his pocket. '* Let's go and look at the stables !" 
 
 But he telegraphed that evening to Lionel Ether- 
 
14 • STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 edge at Ambleside — " Come back at once. Bally- 
 shannon will accept you. It's all plain sailing. The 
 girl will consent. I have arranged for settlements." 
 
 III. 
 
 That was a week later. Thort, Braydale had just 
 started with her aunt for Antibes. Lionel was glad of 
 that, for he couldn't quite have concealed from her the 
 pangs of agitation this telegram cost him ; and yet, it 
 would have been impossible for him to tell her the whole 
 truth. She would have begged him to go back and 
 marry the Earl's daughter. 
 
 However, he did at once what his uncle ordered 
 him — took the first train up to town next morning, en 
 route for Frittington to see Mr. Ashby on this fresh 
 development. 
 
 Lionel Etheredge had been brought up in the midst 
 of the wickedest society on earth — the " respectable," 
 wealthy, commercial society in London. He had been 
 sent to a public school and to a fashionable college, in 
 order to " form desirable acquaintances," and to pick 
 up the point of view of the " best people." He had 
 been sedulously taught from his childhood upwards 
 that his clear duty was to trample under foot all the 
 holiest and purest instincts of our natu''e ; to sell his 
 manhood for title or position in the best market ; to 
 barter the prospect of his uncle's money against a 
 peer's daughter ; and to hold everything else, either 
 human or divine, subservient to the base desire for 
 " social advancement." He had learnt to think all 
 these things as part of an almost religious code of 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 1$ 
 
 action. He had been assured that an early marriage, 
 an imprudent marriage, a marriage " beneath him," 
 was the culminating point of wickedness and folly ; he 
 had been given to believe that right and wrong were 
 as dust in the scales in comparison with the claims of 
 the best society. 
 
 So he had always thought — till he met Thora Bray- 
 dale. And then, with a rush, the whole false philos- 
 ophy, so sedulously piled up by Mr. Ashby's hands, 
 had tumbled piecemeal. He saw things as they really 
 were. He understood that it is better, nobler, finer to 
 marry a woman you love and respect, a woman who 
 can bring out whatever there is of higher and holier 
 within you, than to marry the daughter of a dozen 
 marquises. It came to him with a flash ; and once it 
 had come, the vile faith in which he had been brought 
 up disappeared as if by magic. He stood face to face 
 at last with the moral realities of the universe. 
 
 It was a stormy meeting that day between uncle 
 and nephew. Mr. Ashby, bland at first, and smirk- 
 ingly self-congratulatory, grew gradually astonished, 
 then angry, then indignant, when he found that the 
 nephew whom he had brought up so well, " for the 
 credit of the family," was going to wreck all in sight of 
 port by refusing to marry Lady Norah O'Sullivan. 
 For some time, he could really hardly understand 
 that Lionel meant it. But when he did understand, 
 his anger was unbounded. 
 
 "You've met some girl in the north," he said, ey- 
 ing him sternly. " Tell me. Who was she ?" 
 
 Lionel did not attempt to deny the accusation. He 
 answered briefly with a restrained yet glowing descrip* 
 tion of Thora. 
 
l6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Mr. Ashby gazed at him in unaffected disgust. " A 
 companion !" he exclaimed. " An old woman's com- 
 panion. A girl of no family, no position, no prospects. 
 And you propose for her sake to chuck over Lady 
 Norah, who, as I understand from Lord Ballyshannon 
 himself, is quite willing to accept you. This is more 
 than foolish; this is more than boyish; this is the 
 conduct of a madman." 
 
 " Madman or not," Lionel answered, calmly, " I 
 mean to stick to it." 
 
 Then Mr. Ashby tried pathos. He had consider- 
 able claims on Lionel ; and Lionel did not attempt 
 to deny or to mitigate them. He only maintained 
 that in a matter like this every man must follow 
 the dictates of his own heart and his own conscience. 
 He would not marry a woman he did not care for ; 
 he would not abstain from marrying a woman he loved 
 and honored. 
 
 At last Mr. Ashby saw argument was useless 
 against this headstrong young idiot. The boy was 
 impracticable. He lost his temper. " Well, this is 
 the long and short of it," he burst out at last. " If 
 you marry the companion girl, you must shift for 
 yourself ; for not another penny of mine shall you 
 ever handle." 
 
 That was unjust, of course, for no man has a right 
 to shape another's life on definite expectations, and 
 then arbitrarily disappoint them ; but Lionel did not 
 say so. He rose with dignity. " Uncle," he began, 
 slowly, *• I have much to thank you for ; and I have 
 never been ungrateful. I thank you for it still ; but 
 what you ask of me to-day, my conscience revolts. 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. ' 17 
 
 against. I cannot obey you. I shall marry Thora — 
 and take the consequences." 
 
 "Then you can take your luggage too," his uncle 
 said, coarsely, the innate vulgarity of the man's nature 
 coming clearly out in that ugly quip from beneath its 
 shallow veneer of " nouveau riche " refinement. " You 
 can take your luggage, for you need never again 
 expect to return to Frittington." 
 
 1-ionel bowed, and backed out of the library. Half 
 an hour later he had left the Hertfordshire Hall for 
 ever, and was speeding up to town to his solitary 
 chambers. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It was not without pride that he telegraphed that 
 evening a long account of the episode to Thora. His 
 feeling was natural. He had suffered for her sake, 
 and he had his own livelihood now to make by his 
 own exertions. He was not afraid. He had abilities, 
 he knew ; and, what was far more important, many 
 friends among solicitors. For abilities, alas, are a 
 drug m the market. So little did Lionel understand 
 his altered position, indeed, that he spent fifteen shil- 
 lings on that unnecessary telegram. When you've 
 been accustomed to an allowance of a thousand a 
 year all your life, you can't realize just at once that 
 fifteen shillings is fifteen shillings. ' 
 
 On one thing he was determined. He would run 
 out to Antibes and see Thora just once before he 
 settled down to work in London to earn himself an - 
 income on which to marry her, 
 
 " Running out to Antibes," seemed nothing to the 
 
1 8 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 young man. He had sixty or seventy pounds to his 
 credit at the bank. That would suffice for the pres- 
 ent. As soon as he got back he must set to work 
 hard at the bar, and meanwhile try to pick up " a little 
 easy journalism." It seems so simple to earn your 
 living by journalism — when you have never tried it. 
 Just a pen, ink, and paper, and there you are. But, 
 oh, heaven, the reality ! 
 
 Next day he set out for Charing Cross by the morn- 
 ing train for the Riviera. He would at least see 
 Thora, to let her know how much he was giving up for 
 her sake, and how cheerfully he did it. 
 
 Calais, Paris, Lyons, he passed them all gayly enough, 
 flushed with youth and hope and buoyed by the con- 
 sciousness of having performed a meritorious — nay, 
 almost a heroic action. For Thora's sake he could do 
 or give up anything. How queenly she had looked 
 that evening at Windermere! How beautiful, how 
 noble ! He would prove himself worthy of her. 
 Lady Norah, indeed ! A mere Irish soubrette, prett/ 
 and piquant, of course — but not like his Thora ! 
 
 All night long the train sped through the darkness 
 down the interminable length of the Rhone valley, and 
 Lionel had time and to spare for thoughts of the future. 
 He was young, he was strong, and the loss of a fortune 
 appalled him but little. His cousin Charlie might take 
 it all and welcome. For himself, he would be proud to 
 build one up for Thora. 
 
 Marseilles came with morning ; hot coffee took off 
 the fatigue of the night ; and then all the next day the 
 train still wound on round those gracious bays and 
 bends of the lapis lazuli Mediterranean. The porphyry 
 crags of the Esterel gleamed crimson in the full flood 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 19 
 
 of the Southern sunshine; but Lionel hardly heedc' 
 them, all glorious as they were, so absorbed was Ik- 
 soul in his expected meeting with Thora. At Antibes 
 station he alighted from the train, and took a fiacre to 
 the hotel on the long white promontory. As soon as 
 he arrived there, forgetful of his long journey, he 
 hastily gulped down a second cup of cofTee, and then 
 went out in search of Thora. A small Provencal boy 
 with a very marked accent volunteered to guide him 
 to her aunt's tiny villa. He reached it in ten minutes 
 — a dainty wee chalet, surrounded by stone-pines, and 
 overlooking a spacious view of the deep blue Golfe 
 Jouan. 
 
 Lionel rang the bell hastily. A neat French maid 
 in a pretty cap of the country, all crimped and crinkled, 
 opened the door for him gingerly. 
 
 " Could he see Mademoiselle Braydale ?" 
 
 No, justement, it was impossible. Mademoiselle 
 was indisposed. She was receiving no one. 
 
 " Indispos d '^" Lionel echoed, drawing back aghast, 
 for the girl's face was serious, "Why, what is the 
 matter with her ?" 
 
 The maid dropped her voice. 
 
 " Actually," she answered low, " the case is isolated. 
 Mademoiselle has smallpox." 
 
 V. 
 
 The blow was terrible. It cut Lionel like a knife. 
 
 " But I can see her," he cried, wringing his hands at 
 this sad end to his little romance. " Give her my card 
 at once, and ask if I cannot see her." 
 
20 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 The girl shook her head. 
 
 " No, monsieur," she answered. "Those are the 
 doctor's orders. I tell you the case is strictly isolated. 
 She may not receive anyone." 
 
 For three weeks Lionel stopped on, chafing at the 
 comfortable Hotel du Cap. With Thora ill, how 
 could he ever go back and begin that new life in bus- 
 tling London ? Day after day he eat away his soul in 
 the long suspense of v/atching and waiting. Inquiries 
 every hour were all he cculd do. The law was strict ; 
 Thora was isolated with all the cruel and unnecessary 
 rigor of French sanitary legislation. It is their way 
 to shut the stable door after the steed is stolen. 
 
 At last she got better, and was released from dur- 
 ance. The very first day she was permitted by the 
 powers that be to see her friends, Lionel went round 
 early to the chalet, all eagerness. To his great sup 
 prise, he was given a message that Thora could not 
 receive him. In vain he remonstrated. The little 
 maid was adamant. " Mademoiselle said no — not on 
 any account, Monsieur Etheredge !" 
 
 What on earth could this mean ? He fumed and 
 fretted. An hour later, a note in Thora's handwrit- 
 ing arrived at the hotel. He tore it open, breathless. 
 
 " Dearest Lionel," it said, " you most not come near 
 me. You must never see me again. My own pride 
 and vanity will not permit it. Think of me as I was ; 
 forget what I have become. Go home and marry Lady 
 Norah, I implore you. My darling, my darling, I love 
 you too much to let you see me now. 
 
 _ . . " Your heartbroken, 
 
 : ' "Thora." 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 21 
 
 What could Lionel do but sit down at once and 
 write her a passionate letter of unalterable affection, 
 declaring that no matter what the disease might have 
 done, he was still, as ever, her devoted Lionel? And 
 he ..: ' ;nt it, every word. He loved her to distraction ; 
 loved her for herself, and also for all he had proposed 
 to give up for her. If you want to love anybody, 
 take my word for it, there is no way so sure as ' 3 
 make for their sake some tremendous sacrifice. 
 
 Even so, for three days, Thora refused to see him. 
 At last, overcome by his entreaties, and her own long- 
 ing to see him, she yielded and received him. 
 
 Lionel entered the little salon full of hope and cer- 
 tainty. The blinds were half drawn ; the light was 
 uncertain. But even so, the truth was evident. Thora 
 rose to greet him, and held out both her hands with a 
 wild, despairing gesture. She knew the worst already. 
 All she could say was, ** Lionel ! Lionel !" 
 
 He gazed at her in silence. He could not utter a 
 word. The shock was too horrible. Yet the voice 
 was Thora's ! 
 
 She paused a second, and looked hard at his face. 
 She read his whole emotion there. He was mute with 
 horror, with anguish, with revulsion ! 
 
 At last, in turn, he spoke just one word, " Thora !" 
 
 Thora burst into tears. Lionel seated himself beside 
 her. He took her hand. He put his arm round her 
 tenderly, and mingled his tears with hers. They could 
 say no other word. Their grief was speechless. 
 
 At last, a change came. Thora held him off bravely. 
 She broke into words. She could never marry him 
 now. He must go home at once and make his peace 
 with Lady Norah O'SullivaHv 
 
22 STRANGE STORIKS. 
 
 Lionel loved her still. He could not help but love 
 her. He leant forward passionately, and declared 
 from his heart that, come what might, he still must 
 marry her. Yet even as he spoke, Thora saw in his 
 face a terrible shadow of shrinking. She held him off 
 once more. " Never, never!" she cried. " For your 
 sake, Lionel, I can't wreck your whole life so !" 
 
 VL 
 
 Three days more passed ; and after that first inter- 
 view, Thora refused again to see her lover. Many 
 times daily Lionel called at the chalet with eager little 
 notes ; Thora refused to receive him. He had not 
 been able to hide on his face the shock of that first 
 sight of what she had now become ; and her woman's 
 pride would not allow her any longer to meet the lover 
 who had looked with such eyes on her. It was inevit- 
 able, she knew ; her own glass told her that ; yet, still, 
 she could not bear it. She shut herself up in her room, 
 and brooded silently. 
 
 At last, one calm evening, she yielded to his entreat- 
 ies, and resolved, in memory of that golden evening 
 at Windermere, to go out on the water with him. 
 She waited till dusk ; he could see her less so, and she 
 could see less the emotion on his features. The even- 
 ing came. She stole forth, closely veiled, and met 
 him by the water. In the dusk, Lionel could make 
 out only the beautiful queenly figure, beautiful and 
 queenly still ; he could hear only the soft voice, mur- 
 muring lower than ever. They stepped into the boat, 
 
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. ' 23 
 
 and pushed out into the bay. The evening lights 
 painted the Esterel purple; a deep glow of sunset 
 gilded the gray crags on the Ee Ste. Marguerite. 
 
 Once clear round the point, Lionel had forgotten 
 everything. It was Thora's figure at the stern, Thora's 
 voice that resounded so musically on the water. He 
 loved her as dearly as ever he had loved her. Indeed, 
 he had never once ceased to love her ; for the first 
 shock was but the inevitable recognition of so great a 
 change. He leant forward to her tenderly. He 
 poured out words of love. He was himself, as at 
 Windermere. Thora listened, and allowed herself to 
 forget for a moment. They thought of Lucy Hutchin- 
 son's words, how God had repaid her lover's devotion 
 in a similiar case by restoring her to him, as the aged 
 lady wrote afterwards with simple unself-consciousness. 
 "as beautiful as ever." The evening wore on. They 
 drifted out unconsciously. The sea was so calm, the 
 night so lovely, they never took thought of time or 
 space ; they just talked and floated. Bit by bit Thora 
 gave way. Lionel's arm was around her. His voice 
 was at her ear. His words were tender. At last, 
 yielding suddenly to a womanly impulse, she clasped 
 him in her arms and kissed him ecstatically. " Why 
 need it matter, darling ?" she cried. " What is it to 
 you and me ? You love me ; I love you. Let it be 
 as you will. After all, I have tried you twice, and 
 found you constant. Lionel, my Lionel, I will trust 
 you. I will marry you !" 
 
 After that they sat still, hand locked in hand, for 
 twenty minutes of unalloyed happiness. 
 
24 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Then the truth came upon them. They had drifted 
 away out of sight of land. Even the peaks of the 
 Esterel were no longer visible. That treacherous cur- 
 rent had carried them seaward unawares. The wind 
 was rising. With the deadly suddenness of a moun- 
 tain squall, the Mistral was upon them. The sea rose 
 — rose — rose — and ever rose more furious. Lionel 
 plied the oars with all his might in vain ; he could see 
 only too clearly he was making no progress. An hour 
 passed slowly in such a wild struggle. Then he laid 
 them down, helpless, and took his seat beside Thora. 
 He clasped her in his arms. She nestled into them 
 naturally. 
 
 " Darling," he said, "this is the end. We can never 
 live through it." 
 
 She looked at him through the gloom. Her voice 
 hardly trembled. *' I know it dearest," she said, with 
 a brave pressure of the hand. " It is better so. We 
 have had one happy hour. We could never have had 
 it again so pure and so happy. I have proved your 
 love, and found it true as steel. I want no more now, 
 but to die in your arms. To live till to-morrow would 
 spoil the perfect dream of it." 
 
 And so they two went down in their moinent of 
 happiness. 
 
•i 
 
 CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 
 
 I. 
 
 They were simply heart-broken. Yes, I repeat it, 
 heart-broken. No diamond cement that ever was 
 made sufficed to repair the injured organs. For when 
 Philip Oilman left London to go out to India, he cried 
 his eyes red over his sad farewells to Aggie Oswald. 
 They two were in love with one another — madly in 
 love — as boys and girls will be, with that unalterable 
 affection which endures for eternity — or, to be more 
 precisely mathematical, for six months at least, on an 
 average computation. Philip had been placed third in 
 the India Civil competition ; and the boundless pros- 
 pective wealth which that position promises (in depre- 
 ciated rupees) he proceeded forthwith to lay at the feet 
 of pretty little Aggie. And no wonder he did so ; for 
 she was an airy, fairy little butterfly as ever flitted 
 through a ballroom among admiring lads of one-and- 
 twenty. Everybody who saw her fell a victim at once 
 to that fluffy brown hair and that arch little smile of 
 hers. No Oxford undergraduate was ever known to 
 resist that tripping tongue ; no subaltern at Aldershot 
 was ever known to withstand the winning grace of 
 those pinky-white cheeks and those cherry-red lips of 
 Aggie Oswald's, 
 
 [25] 
 
^6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 But Philip Gilman was the hero who bore off the 
 prize. What wonder, when he could make love to her 
 in Tamil and Telugu, almost as fluently as in English 
 itself ? Not that Aggie understood one word of either 
 of those learned tongues — a little bad French bounded 
 the tale of her linguistic accomplishments — but the 
 glamour of them shone through to her from his thought- 
 ful brown eyes, which spoke a language universally 
 understanded. He was a clever fellow, Philip, and an 
 earnest one into the bargain ; and if he thought him- 
 self desperately in love with the pretty fluffy hair and 
 the laughing mouth, why, many a good man has made 
 the same sort of mistake at one-and-twenty. We were 
 one-and-twenty ourselves once, you and I — though it's 
 a long time since ; and were the girls we then thought 
 we could never be happy without the same as those 
 with whom we finally decided upon passing a mundane 
 existence together ? I trow not, if I recollect it aright ; 
 our hearts got broken — and very decently mended 
 again — some half dozen times before we were thirty. 
 
 Well, the night before Philip left London he spent 
 at the Oswald's, as in duty bound ; and even that stern- 
 est of chaperons, little Aggie's mamma, under those 
 special circumstances, left them alone in the drawing- 
 room for a couple of hours of agonized leave-taking. 
 Philip was particularly certain as to their plans for the 
 future. 
 
 "I shall save up every anna, Aggie," he said — he 
 spoke of annas familiarly, instead of speaking of far- 
 things, in order to give a touch of local color, and to 
 prove his minute acquaintance with that India he had 
 never yet seen — ** I shall save up every anna, Aggie, 
 till I'm able to send home for you to come out and 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. , 2/ 
 
 marry me ; and when I've got enough to do it, you'll 
 fly across the sea to me like a swallow flying home — 
 won't you, my darling?" 
 
 Aggie laid the fluffy head very trustingly on the 
 future Viceroy's shoulder ; she knew he would never 
 stop till he was at least a Viceroy. 
 
 " Of course I'll come to you, dearest," she answered. 
 " I shall count every minute of the time till you send 
 for me. But will it be very, very long, do you think ? 
 How soon do you suppose you'll be in a position to 
 marry, Phil ?" 
 
 Phil stroked his struggling mustache (you could see 
 it distinctly with a powerful pocket-lens) and assumed 
 an air of adult and manly wisdom. 
 
 " Oh, not so very long, Aggie," he replied, quite 
 airily, " five or six years at the outside, I expect. I 
 mean to get on, and to save every anna." 
 
 Not for worlds would he have consented to state 
 the fact on such a night as that in mere commonplace 
 pennies. 
 
 Aggie's cherry-red mouth pursed itself up into some- 
 thing very like a pretty little pout, — only much more 
 alluring. 
 
 " Five or six years !" she cried, alarmed. " That's 
 an awfully long time, Phil ! I wish it wasn't so long. 
 I can't bear to do without you." 
 
 ** But you can wait for me, darling," Phil cried, with 
 a loving look into those liquid hazel eyes, " You can 
 wait for me, can't you ? Only five or six years ! And 
 I would wait an eternity for you." 
 
 I may observe in passing, he was very much in love 
 with her. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I can wait for you," Aggie answered, 
 
aS STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 drying her eyes the twentieth time. " A hundred 
 years, if necessary. I never can love anybody else in 
 the world but you. It isn't that so much. It's the 
 time while I'm waiting. You don't know how dread- 
 ful it is for me to have to do one day without you !" 
 
 And so, with many genuine tears, and many loving 
 protestations — all true as steel at the time — that even- 
 ing wore away, and Phil took his departure. Next 
 morning, he left by the overland mail, via Brindisi. 
 Aggie saw him off, dissolved in tears, at Charing Cross 
 Station, and was left behind sobbing. For many 
 nights after she cried herself to sleep. You may laugh 
 at her, if you like — you who hold the young palpita- 
 ting human heart a fit object for your gentle middle- 
 aged sarcasm — as for me, I can not. At eighteen 
 which was then exactly Aggie Oswald's age, the loss 
 of a lover, gone to India for six years, is a serious 
 matter. There are of us in the forties who feel these 
 things still. Let a girl in her teens have our sincerest 
 sympathy. 
 
 II. 
 
 Five years rolled on, and Phil Oilman prospered. 
 He wasn't quite a Viceroy, to be sure, but he was a 
 Deputy Collector. Not a man in the Deccan got on 
 better than he did. His Excellency was pleased more 
 than once in that short time to promote Mr. Philip 
 Oilman to successive posts in successively dreary up- 
 country districts. Phil saved and scraped, and all for 
 Aggie. At the end of five years, with his own little 
 income, and his rising pay, he began to feel himself in 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 29 
 
 a position to think about marrying. He would send 
 home for Aggie, now, and ask her to come out to him. 
 He could redeem that long-standing pledge, and make 
 himself, and her, happy. 
 
 Five years had rolled on ; but they had rolled on 
 (as observant souls may often note to be the case) by 
 one day at a time, through twelve months of each 
 year, with long, slow regularity. Now, all those 
 months, Phil Oilman had written by every mail to 
 Aggie ; and by every mail he had heard in return 
 from Aggie again. At first he had sat down to write 
 each time with ardent affection ; he had torn open 
 Aggie's letters, when they f'ame, with eager expect- 
 ancy. But as months passed by, and he never saw 
 Aggie, this first flush of young love began to die 
 away imperceptibly, until at last, almost without 
 knowing it himself, he sat do\/n so many times a week 
 to write his budget as a pure matter of duty. Some- 
 times it rather worried him to have to find something 
 fresh to say to Aggie ; he wrote, not so much because 
 he wanted to write, as because he knew Aggie would 
 be disappointed not to get a letter. And so she would 
 have been, indeed ; she would have cried very bitterly 
 that Phil should have neglected her. Phil was always 
 so punctual ; what could be the meaning of this de- 
 lay ? Was it possible that Phil, her dear Phil, was 
 forgetting her. 
 
 There's a vast deal of difference, however, between 
 twenty-one and twenty-six. For those five long years 
 Phil had saved every penny (he said penny quite 
 naturally now, annas having grown only too common 
 and unclean to him) ; and at the end of that time, 
 when he began to think to himself he might now send 
 
30 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 home for his beloved Aggie — why, a strange sort of 
 discovery broke suddenly over him. Great heavens ! 
 what was this ? Was he overjoyed at the prospect ? 
 Did he hail with effusion the advent of that long-wished 
 for, that much-desired, day ? Was he half mad with 
 delight, half wild with expectancy ? If the truth must 
 be told — oh, dear me, not a bit of it ! It occurred to him 
 all at once that for the last two years, or thereabouts, 
 he had been saving and writing — not for pure, pure 
 love, but by mere force of habit. The original flame 
 had died down ; the original impulse had worn itself 
 out ; and now, in their place, strange critical doubts 
 and fears obtruded all unawares their unwelcome 
 faces. 
 
 Did he really love Aggie quite as well as he used to 
 do ? Did Aggie really love him quite as well as she 
 once said she did ? Had they two changed much in 
 those five years of absence ? Would Aggie's fluffy 
 hair be quite as entrancing and as errant as ever? 
 Would Aggie's simplicity be as engaging as of old ? 
 Or, again, let him see ; she was eighteen then ; would 
 there be any simplicity left at all at twenty-three, he 
 wondered ? Looking at the matter philosophically 
 (and Indian Civil servants are ex-officio philosophers 
 — it's part of the examination), he saw for himself they 
 were both five years older, and five years might have 
 made a deal of difference to both of them. Each 
 might have developed, and each might now take a 
 fresh view of the situation and of the other. Objec- 
 tively, Aggie might be somebody else ; subjectively, 
 he himself might think quite diversely of her. Now, 
 when a man begins to talk of object and subject in 
 these matters at all, you may be perfectly sure the 
 
CKIS-CROSS LOVE. 3 1 
 
 fine flush of love's young dream is pretty well over 
 with him. We certainly don't philosophize in the first 
 full rapture. Phil Oilman realized all at once that 
 love's young dream was well over with himself ; he 
 was aware that the idea of Aggie's arrival in India 
 awakened within him, not transports, nor even calm 
 joy, but a certain languid curiosity as to what she 
 would look like, and how he would feel to her. 
 
 Nevertheless, mind you, Phil Oilman was a man of 
 honor. He stuck to his guns. He hadn't the slight- 
 est idea of going back upon his word, or even of let- 
 ting poor Aggie herself doubt the depth of his affec- 
 tion for her. Perhaps this was wrong — who knows? 
 Perhaps the wisest thing after all, for a man to do in 
 such a case, is just to make a clean breast of it, rather 
 than involve himself and the girl he once loved, in a 
 marriage that may prove unhappy for both of them. 
 But at any rate, Phil Oilman didn't think so, and 
 somehow, do you know, I feel as if any man of honor, 
 in Phil Oilman's place, would have acted just as he did. 
 There's something so horribly cold-blooded in telling 
 a girl who has waited five years for you, you really 
 don't know whether you love her any longer or not, 
 that only a very brutal man, I fancy, could ever con- 
 sent to do it. It may be wise to act like that, no 
 doubt ; but there are qualities, after all, more to be 
 prized than wisdom. I wouldn't give twopence my- 
 self, dear friends, for a young man so wise as all that 
 comes to. 
 
 So, after a brief mental struggle, Phil wrote to 
 Aggie, as impassioned a letter as he could easily pump 
 out — best epistolary fashion — to say that now at last 
 the desire of their hearts for so many years was to be 
 
32 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 fully gratified, and they two were to meet once more 
 and be happy forever. To be sure, when the letter 
 was finished, Phil read it over once or twice, leaning 
 back in his bungalow lounge, with a critically dissatis- 
 fied air ; its ardor seemed rather wanting in spontane- 
 ity, he fancied ; it had no longer the genuine impas- 
 sioned ring of four or five years ago. But what would 
 you have? If one can't quite rise to the height of 
 such an occasion, of one's own mere motion, one must 
 try to gush gently, for the lady's sake alone, with liter- 
 ary aptitude. A man would be hardly a whole man, 
 Phil supposed, if he consented to let a woman see he 
 had begun to forget her. 
 
 However, what the letter lacked in lover-like ardor, 
 it fully made up in business-like definiteness. The 
 Oswalds were poor ; they could hardly have afforded 
 to send Aggie out to him. So Phil had arranged for 
 all that — arranged for it generously. He inclosed a 
 check for a most substantial amount. He hoped it 
 would suffice to pay Aggie's passage, and begged to 
 be permitted to set her up in a proper Indian outfit. 
 She was to meet him in Bombay, where she could stop 
 at the house of a common friend (I daren't say "mu- 
 tual," a much more sensible word, between you and 
 me, because some silly, superfine people raise micros- 
 copic etymological objections) ; and there she was to 
 be married a day or two after landing. Phil flattered 
 himself that his check was a tolerably expansive one. 
 If he didn't love Aggie quite as devotedly as he used 
 to do, at least she should never discover the change by 
 pecuniary symptoms. 
 
 Now, strange to say, when Aggie Oswald received 
 that letter, though she broke it open all of a flutter 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 33 
 
 to see whether Phil wanted her to come out to him at 
 last, she felt hardly so much delighted with the news 
 it contained as she knew she ought to be. On the 
 contrary, she took it down to her mother, half-crying. 
 
 ** What is it, darling ?" her mother asked. 
 
 And Aggie, trembling violently, handed it to her to 
 read. When her mother had read it, Aggie laid that 
 fluffy head on her shoulder and sobbed aloud. 
 
 " Now it comes to the pinch, mother," she said, 
 quivering, ** it seems so hard to go ; so hard to leave 
 you and sail alone so far across the sea. Five years 
 ago it didn't. You see, it's so long since I saw dear 
 Phil — he seems almost like a stranger. I can't bear to 
 think I've got to leave you all, and go away five thou- 
 sand miles to a stranger — even though I love him. He 
 may be so awfully changed, you know. His photo- 
 graph's quite altered. And he may think me so dif- 
 ferent now from his own ideal of me." 
 
 Her mother gazed at her in speechless surprise. 
 Five years are not nearly so long at sixty as at three- 
 and-twenty. 
 
 ** But surely, Aggie," she said, " you wouldn't be so 
 ungrateful to our dear Phil as to throw him over now, 
 and refuse to go out to him, — he who's been true to 
 you so long and behaved so generously ! It would 
 break his heart, poor fellow ! It would just break his 
 heart for him ! Think of him there ! toiling and moil- 
 ing, and saving and scraping, out in India so long, and 
 dreaming of you all the while, and writing every mail 
 to you ! Why, Aggie, what can you mean ? You 
 could never refuse him." 
 
 " Refuse him ! Oh, dear no, mother," Aggie fal- 
 tered out, quite shocked, herself, at the bare suggestion. 
 
34 STRANGE storip:s. 
 
 " I didn't mean that. I meant — I only meant I didn't 
 feel quite so glad, now it's actually come, as — I always 
 used to think I should. I begin to wonder now what 
 Phil will be like, after five years* absence. I've pic- 
 tured him to myself just as he was when we saw him 
 last. I'm trying to picture him now as five years will 
 have made him." 
 
 Mrs. Oswald gave a sigh of distinct relief. It would 
 really have been terrible if Aggie had lost five years of 
 her life — and the best years, too — on this clever young 
 fellow in the Indian Civil, and then thrown him over- 
 board. At twenty-three, after such a long engage- 
 ment, her chances of placing herself would be seriously 
 impaired. And though she had other opportunities, 
 and was made much of everywhere, yet Philip was 
 really a very eligible young man — and a Deputy Col- 
 lector ! Mrs. Oswald set herself forthwith to check, 
 by every means she knew, these vague misgivings. 
 Aggie must not be encouraged in her doubts about 
 Phil. She must be made to feel she was in honor 
 bound to go out and marry him. 
 
 III. 
 
 While he waited for his answer at his up-country 
 station, Phil Gilman himself half hoped Aggie might 
 by this time see things in the same light as he did ; 
 she might perhaps be willing to release him from an 
 engagement which had ceased to be a reality to either 
 of them. No doubt she too had changed a great deal, 
 meanwhile; and there Phil was quite right ; Aggie 
 had deepened and broadened from a girl into a wo- 
 
 ft 
 
CRISCROSS LOVE. 35 
 
 man. She was no longer the mere light-hearted, fluf- 
 fy-headed coquette, leading a butterfly existence in 
 Bayswater ballrooms. Pretty and rosy-cheeked and 
 cherry-lipped as of yore, she had developed mean- 
 while three additional features — a mind, and a will, and 
 a decided conscience. 
 
 These very acquisitions, however, further strength- 
 ened as they were by her mother's exhortations, led 
 Aggie to sacrifice herself, a modern Iphigenia, on the 
 altar of duty, and to write Phil Gilman a letter in re- 
 turn, all replete with ardent expressions of delight and 
 constancy. It was a letter to thrill a lover's heart 
 with joy. Phil Gilman read it with very modified rap- 
 ture. Not that he was quite sure he wasn't in love 
 with Aggie even now. Till he saw her, how could he 
 say? He might be, and he mightn't. He had been 
 in love with the Aggie he had left behind ; he would 
 perhaps be in love with the Aggie who was coming 
 out to him. But after five long years — and at twenty- 
 three, too — you must confess it's a lottery. So he 
 waited in no small-tremor of doubt and misgiving. 
 What a terrible thing if he had to tie himself for life, out 
 of pure chivalry, and to prevent disappointing her, to 
 a tangled mass of fluffy brown hair, with nothing else 
 in particular on earth to recommend it! 
 
 When a man thinks like that, you may be tolerably 
 sure his affections have somehow declined a trifle from 
 their youthful ardor. 
 
 However, Phil put the best face upon it, like a gen- 
 tleman, and waited with outer calm at his up-country 
 station. He waited a week ; then, reflecting that he 
 must meet his bride at Bombay, he applied for a 
 month's leave, in the time-honored way, " on urgent 
 
;36 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 private business." His Excellency was pleased to 
 grant the request ; and Phil Gilman went down to 
 Bombay accordingly, much trembling in soul, to meet 
 his Aggie. 
 
 Of course he couldn't go to the house of the friend 
 with whom Aggie was to stop in the short interval 
 between her arrival and her marriage ; so he put up 
 with another acquaintance of official distinction — a man 
 who had been his superior officer at his first country 
 station. His host was Sir Edward Moulton now, and 
 a K.C.S.I., and a member of Council ; you must have 
 been in India yourself in order fully to appreciate the 
 exalted dignity of a member of Council. He lived in 
 a very fine house on Malabar Hill, with a very fine 
 view of the sea and the city ; and was supposed to 
 keep the very best horses, to drink the very best wine, 
 and to give the very best dinners in the whole Presi- 
 dency. 
 
 When Phil Gilman arrived at Sir Edward's door, 
 half an inch deep in generous dust from the lavish 
 hospitality of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (a 
 line which endows every traveller free of charge with a 
 small landed estate to carry away home with him), he 
 was met on the threshold by a dream of beauty in a 
 loose white dress which fairly took his breath away. 
 The dream of beauty was tall and dark, a lovely 
 woman of that riper and truer loveliness that only 
 declares itself as character develops. Her features 
 were clear-cut and delicate and regular ; her eyes large 
 and lustrous; her lips not too thin, but rich and tempt- 
 ing ; her brow was high, and surmounted by a luscious 
 wealth of glossy black hair, which Phil never remem- 
 bered to have seen equaled before for its silkiness of 
 
> 
 
 CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 37 
 
 texture and its strange blue sheen, like steel, or the 
 grass of the prairies. A queenly grace distinguished 
 her mien. Her motion was equable. As once the 
 sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were 
 fair, and straightway coveted them, even so Philip Gil- 
 man looked at that dignified stranger, and saw at the 
 first glance she was a woman to be loved, a soul high- 
 throned, very calm and beautiful. * 
 
 There was much excuse for him. He had been liv- 
 ing for three years in an up-country station, where he 
 had never once seen a real live white woman ; and 
 under such circumstances the mere sight of one's 
 fellow-countrywomen (believe one who has tried), is a 
 delight and a joy to one. And then, she was so beau- 
 tiful, with such a high type of intellectual beauty ; no 
 mere fluffy-haired schoolgirl with red cheeks and lips, 
 but a genuine woman, with soul in her face, and a per- 
 vading sense of grace and dignity in all her movements. 
 When she stepped forward and smiled and held out 
 her hand to him, Phil's heart sank instantly. To think 
 that in a world which incloses such infinite possibilities 
 as these, he should have tied himself down blindfold — 
 for it was really blindfold — to fifty-five years of pretty 
 Aggie Oswald ! 
 
 The vision of beauty stepped forward, and held out 
 one frank hand. 
 
 *' Mr. Gilman ?" she said, inquiringly. "Ah, yes, I 
 thought so. My uncle's so sorry, but he had to go 
 out, and he asked me to receive you. You've heard 
 my name, I dare say; I'm his niece — Miss Trevel- 
 yan." 
 
 Phil accepted the proffered hand with some slight 
 misgivings — he was so very dusty; and I blush to 
 
38 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 write it, but something much like a little thrill of 
 delight ran through him at touch of her slender 
 fingers. If poor Aggie (at Port Said) could have 
 seen her lover just that moment, she would have 
 turned back that very day and returned by the 
 homeward-bound mail to London. Though, to be 
 sure, poor Aggie herself was that moment engaged 
 in a very desperate and heartfelt flirtation with — 
 but I will not anticipate. 
 
 Phil looked down at his coat, and stammered out 
 feebly some 'narticulate apology. 
 
 " I'm really not fit for lady's society," he mur- 
 mured, with a glance at the landed estate; "from 
 Poonah here is so terribly dusty !" 
 
 Freda Trevelyan smiled. " Oh, we've all done it 
 ourselves," she answered ; " I came from Poonah last 
 week, so I know how to sympathize with you. One 
 feels as if the Indian Ocean didn't hold enough 
 water ever to wash one quite clean again. I won't 
 ask you into the drawing-room now and keep you 
 sitting there in discomfort. You'd better go up to 
 your own room at once ; and as soon as you've got 
 rid of the first few layers, a cup of tea'll be ready 
 down here for you." 
 
 She said it with a friendly smile that was the 
 warmest of welcomes. Phil tumbled upstairs as best 
 he could, and opened his portmanteau. He was a 
 good-looking fellow, with a most manly mustache ; 
 and I am bound to admit he took more pains over 
 his dressing that evening than was strictly necessary, 
 or indeed desirable in Aggie's interest. He endued 
 himself with care in his best afternoon coat, and his 
 newest irnported European tie, and he surveyed 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 39 
 
 himself approvingly in the glass before he descended 
 with slow steps to the drawing-room. I'm sure I 
 don't know V/hat an engaged young man could mean 
 by taking so much pains over his personal appearance ; 
 he could certainly have taken no more if it was Aggie 
 herself, not a strange young lady, who awaited him in 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 When he went down, he found Freda Trevelyan 
 already seated before a most hospitable teapot. You 
 must have lived in a hot climate at least once in your 
 life in order thoroughly to appreciate tne art of tea- 
 drinking. One would say beforehand that nobody 
 would care for hot drinks with the thermometer at 
 ninety. Experience proves the exact contrary. The 
 hotter the weather gets, the more hot tea does human- 
 ity absorb, and the better does it love it. Phil threw 
 himself into an easy-chair, and looked, if not engaged, 
 at least engaging. He was considered the handsomest 
 man on the Boolanuggur hills ; and he certainly looked 
 it that afternoon. There's nothing to make a man 
 look and talk his best like a pretty woman. It was 
 what is euphemistically described as " the cool season " 
 at Bombay, and the windows of the veranda were 
 flung wide open. The view over the sea was beautiful 
 and refreshing. Phil could even hear the gentle plash 
 of the waves on Malabar Point ; and though that 
 deceptive surf is by no means so cool as it looks and 
 sounds, yet it was delightful to his ear after three long 
 years spent away far inland He enjoyed that after- 
 noon more than he had ever enjoyed anything for 
 months and months. Poor Aggie's chances of a whole 
 lover's heart seemed to fade and pale at each succes- 
 sive half hour. 
 
40 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 For Miss Trevelyan, it seemed, was simply charm- 
 ing. She talked so admirably. And besides she was 
 so frank. She had heard beforehand, of course, that 
 Phil had come down to Bombay to meet his future 
 bride ; and when a woman knows a man's already 
 monopolized, she treats him as if he were married ; 
 that is to say, she talks to him like a rational creature, 
 and not like an animal specially created for the sole 
 purpose of flirtation. The consequence was that 
 before half an hour was over, Freda Trevelyan and 
 Phil Oilman were laughing and chatting together as if 
 they'd known one another for half their lives instead 
 of for just about thirty minutes. 
 
 "And your bride's coming out on the Indus?" 
 Freda said, after one short pause. " How soon do 
 you expect her?" 
 
 " She was telegraphed from Port Said this morn- 
 ing," Phil answered, with a consciousness of profound 
 hypocrisy, for he felt the subject was really far more 
 interesting to Miss Trevelyan than he himself could 
 pretend to find it. 
 
 " How anxious you must be for the steamer to 
 come in!" Freda exclaimed, with fervor. "I'm so 
 glad you came here. It's so nice to feel you must both 
 be so happy." 
 
 " Oh, very nice indeed," Phil answered, hesitating. 
 
 " Have you her photograph ?" Freda put in. " I 
 should so much like to see her." 
 
 " Yes, I've got it upstairs — in my portmanteau, some- 
 where," Phil answered, unconcernedly. " I'll bring it 
 down when I go up. It's so awfully kind of you to 
 want to see her." 
 
 " Upstairs in your portmanteau !'* Freda cried, smii- 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 41 
 
 ing astonishment. ** Not in your breast pocket ! And 
 to be married in a fortnight. Oh, Mr. Oilman, that 
 would never do for me! Tm afraid you're a terribly 
 lukewarm lover !" 
 
 " Oh, not lukewarm, I hope," Phil interposed, with 
 an answering smile. "Only you see it's like this — 
 we've been engaged five years, and a little bit more, 
 and by the end of that time one begins to get — well, 
 calmer and more philosophic." 
 
 Freda shook her beautiful head. 
 
 ** That won't do," she answered again. " I hope my 
 lover, if I ever get one, won't talk like that. I never 
 could stand it. I shall require him to be desperately, 
 wildly in love with me ! If he tries to be philosophic, 
 why, he'll have to go elsewhere !" 
 
 Phil was just on the point of answering, " Ah, but if 
 a man was in love with you, that would be altogether 
 different ;" but politeness, to say the truth, rather than 
 loyalty to Aggie, prevented him from voicing the 
 thought that was in him. 
 
 ** Besides," Freda went on, " if you were very much 
 in love — at least as I count it — you wouldn't have 
 said you'd bring her photograph down when you next 
 went up. You'd have rushed up for it at once, that 
 very moment, and exhibited it with pride and joy and 
 confidence. And you wouldn't have said it was kind 
 of me to want to see her. You'd have taken it for 
 granted every human being was dying to behold her 
 beautiful face, and you'd have considered it a great 
 favor to me to show me her portrait." 
 
 Phil laughed in spite of himself. 
 
 "You're quite right," he said, frankly. "That's just 
 how I felt — some four or five years ago. But one can't 
 

 42 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 keep it up to that white heat, you know — at least 
 not " 
 
 " At least not, when ?" Freda put it, as he hesitated. 
 
 " Well, at least not when you don't see the girl you 
 love for iive years or thereabouts," Phil answered, 
 with rare candor. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Oilman!" Freda cried. "I'm afraid 
 you're very fickle !" 
 
 " No ; not fickle," Phil answered, growing hot and 
 red. He couldn't bear to be called perfidious by such 
 beautiful lips. He couldn't bear such lovely eyes to 
 look so reproachfully across at him. Then he leant for- 
 ward gravely. " Miss Trevelyan," he said, with some 
 earnestness, " you miistn't think of me like that. I 
 really couldn't bear that you should imagine me want- 
 ing in due — consideration for Aggie. But remember, 
 we were young, we were both very young, when I went 
 away from England. Aggie was eighteen, and I was 
 one-and-twenty. Naturally, I hardly know what sort 
 of girl she may have grown into by this time. Nat- 
 urally, she can hardly know what sort of man she's 
 going to marry." He paused a second ; then he spoke 
 still more seriously. " At the time we both loved one 
 another dearly. It was heart-rending to part. If we'd 
 married then and there, we should no doubt have gone 
 on loving one another just as dearly to this very day. 
 But then, we should have seen a great deal meanwhile 
 of each other. As it is, conceal it as we may from our- 
 selves, we must meet as strangers. My first anxiety 
 will be to see what kind of girl has come out to marry 
 me ; Aggie's first anxiety will be to see what kind of 
 man she has come out to marry. May I speak to you 
 frankly — only in self-defense, you know, and to repel 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 43 
 
 » 
 
 your charge of fickleness ? Well^ till the moment ar- 
 rived when I could send home for Aggie, my one feel- 
 ing was a longing to be able to marry her. I looked 
 at her photograph day and night with a distinct rap- 
 ture. I looked at it often. It gave me a thrill to look 
 at it. It was only on the very day that I wrote home 
 to ask her to come out to me that another side to the 
 question first occurred to me. Then I thought to my- 
 self, all at once, It's not the Aggie of to-day I'm 
 looking forward to see at all, but the Aggie of five 
 years ago. What reason have I to think she will be to 
 me now at all the same person ? I loved the girl of 
 eighteen when I left England ; and if that girl could 
 come out to me now, I would love her just equally. 
 But how do I know I shall love the girl of twenty-three 
 who now bears the same name? And if I find her 
 altered out of all recognition, what a terrible thing for 
 her! What a terrible thing for me ! What a blow for 
 both of us ! How appalling to feel you're marrying a 
 woman you don't really love. How appalling for her 
 to be marrying a man who can't really love her. We're 
 taking one another now in the dark, put the best face 
 you can upon it." 
 
 " You're too frightened, Mr. Oilman," Freda an- 
 swered with that charming smile of hers. " The 
 moment you see her, the moment she sees you, all your 
 old love will return again with a rush. I'm sure it 
 will, because I can see you're in earnest. You think 
 of her as well as of yourself; and with you men, when- 
 ever a man thinks of the woman as well as of himself, 
 you may be perfectly sure he's a really good fellow." 
 

 44 STRANGE STORIED. 
 
 IV. 
 
 At Port Said meanwhile, Aggie was sitting on deck 
 with that delightful young man who came on board at 
 Brindisi. He was tall and slight and had a straw- 
 colored mustache. Aggie had always had a sneaking 
 fancy for straw color. And besides he was a soldier, 
 and aide-de-camp to the Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Somewhere-Up-Country. (Aggie's Indian geography 
 was as deliciously vague as an Indian secretary's ; and 
 " somewhere-up-country " was about as definite to her 
 as any particular name of any particular district. She 
 regarded all India, indeed, as naturally divided into 
 two main parts: the part where Phil was stationed, 
 and the part where he wasn't. Further than that she 
 never tried to go. When people on board talked to 
 her glibly of the Punjaub or the Central Provinces, 
 Saharanpur or Moozuffernugger, she nodded and 
 smiled benign acquiescence, glossing over her ignor- 
 ance with the charm of her manner.) 
 
 Aggie and the handsome young man got on together 
 admirably. He was a certain Captain Angus Stuart 
 — conjectured from his name to be of Scotch extrac- 
 tion ; and he had fallen a victim to Aggie's fluffy hair 
 the very first moment he ever set eyes on her. Indeed, 
 he had talked to her for half an hour on deck in Brin- 
 disi harbor, and been desolated to learn by that time 
 that she was not only engaged but actually going out 
 to India to get married. Nay, he even reflected with 
 a certain bland pleasure, at that early stage of their 
 brief acquaintance, that there's many a slip 'twixt the 
 
 /, '. '.• 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. ' v 4$ 
 
 cup and the lip, and that people who go out to India 
 to get married don't always persevere in their prime 
 intention when they see their beloved in his Indian 
 avatar. Had it not been for that slight hope, Captain 
 Stuart would have avoided talking to Aggie altogether; 
 for being a Scotchman, he was of course both prudent 
 and superstitious; and he felt the very instant he be- 
 gan to talk to her that here at last was his undoubted 
 Affinity. 
 
 If you have ever lain at anchor in Brindisi harbor, 
 or ever made a trip from thence by P. and O. to Port 
 Said, you will be well aware that there's nothing for a 
 sensible man to do with his time as he skirts the shadowy 
 coast of Crete, but to make love to some fit and proper 
 person. Now Angus Stuart was a most sensible man; 
 and though he had too great a respect for vested in- 
 terests exactly to make love to another fellow's affi- 
 anced bride on her way out to Bombay to join her 
 future husband, yet it must be candidly admitted by 
 an impartial historian that he sailed very close to the 
 wind indeed in that respect, and made himself remark- 
 ably agreeable to Aggie. She had a chaperon, of 
 course ; no well-conducted young woman could trust 
 herself to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean 
 without the services of a chaperon ; but what's the use 
 of that indispensable article in every young lady's 
 wardrobe, I venture to ask, if it persists in being sea- 
 sick and sticking to its berth the whole way out from 
 London to Aden ? The consequence was that Aggie 
 and Captain Stuart were thrown a great deal together 
 during the course of their voyage. When Aggie sang 
 to the Peninsular and Oriental piano in the big saloon, 
 it was Angus Stuart who turned over the leaves of her 
 
46 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 music book ; when Aggie sat on deck and declined 
 lunch with thanks, for pressing reasons, it was Angus 
 Stuart who brought her up the unsugared lemonade 
 and one dry biscuit which alone appealed to her mari- 
 time appetite. Old ladies on board remarked with 
 malicious glee what a pity it was poor dear Mrs. 
 Mackinnon wasn't well enough to come up and look 
 after her charge ; old gentlemen observed with a know- 
 ing smile that Miss Oswald was going out to be married 
 at Bombay — but they rather imagined she'd mistaken 
 the bridegroom. 
 
 Aggie and Angus Stuart, however, went on happily 
 unconscious of the unkind remarks whispered about 
 them in confidence in the saloon at night when they 
 two were engaged in admiring on deck the phosphor- 
 escence on the waves, or the very singular brilliancy 
 of the tropical moonlight. 
 
 On one such evening, in the Red Sea, they stood 
 together by the taffrail with one accord, and looked 
 over in unison into the deep white water. There was 
 silence for a while ; then Stuart spoke abruptly. 
 
 " You haven't seen him for five years," he said, medi- 
 tatively, without anything special to indicate the per- 
 sonality of the him in question. *" That's a very long 
 time you know. Miss Oswald. At your age and his, in 
 five years people often alter wonderfully." (Being 
 himself, just thirty, and square built at that, Angus 
 Stuart affected always to speak to Aggie in the char- 
 acter of a grandfather.) 
 
 " Oh, I hope not !" Aggie cried, fervently, with a 
 little shudder of alarm, for to say the truth, her new 
 friend had just voiced the very terror that was perpet- 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 47 
 
 ually consuming her. " It's only five years, you know, 
 and we were awfully fond of each other!" 
 
 " * Were,' " Angus Stuart answered with a quiet 
 smile. " You say ' were ' yourself. That doesn't 
 quite look as if you were desperately in love with him 
 just at present, does it ?" And he smiled at her 
 wisely. 
 
 A prudent maiden would have diverted conversation. 
 But Aggie hesitated and temporized. 
 
 "Well, five years is a very long time," she admitted 
 with a slight sigh ; " and of course one naturally won- 
 ders whether a person will really strike one now ex- 
 actly as he struck one five whole long years ago." 
 
 " Precisely !" Angus answered, and dropped the 
 subject. He went on to remark on the beauty of the 
 phosphoresence that sparkled and danced upon the 
 surface of the water. They leaned over to look at it 
 once more together. Lovely objects, phosphoresence 
 on the surface of the water — especially when you look 
 over at it, two persons together ! In point of fact, 
 they stopped up looking at it, in that balmy southern 
 air, till almost midnight, and only retired to their re- 
 spective berths just in time for saving the last end 
 of the lights before they were ruthlessly put out for 
 the evening. The old ladies on board shook their 
 heads next day, and observed to one another with 
 scandalized faces that the sooner Miss Oswald got 
 safe to Bombay the better for her lover. 
 
48 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 At Bombay, meanwhile, Phil Oilman was — eating 
 out his heart with suspense ? Oh, dear, no. He was 
 having an exceedingly pleasant time with Freda 
 Trevelyan. The one drawback to his pleasure — oh, 
 faithlessness of man ! — was the thought that his Aggie 
 would so soon come out and spoil it all for him. 
 
 Freda and he got on admirably together. To say 
 the truth, she was far better fitted for him by nature 
 than Aggie Oswald. He saw it clearly himself now ; 
 there was no good denying it. Aggie and he had 
 been thrown together before they knew their own 
 minds, and what was more important still, before 
 their characters had fully developed. They were not 
 fitted by real tastes and instincts for one another. 
 Aggie was a dear little girl, of course, very pretty and 
 dainty, and with lovely fluffy hair ; but was she quite 
 the sort of woman with whom a man of his type 
 would care to pass a whole long lifetime? Wasn't 
 she better adapted, after all, by tastes and habits, for 
 a cavalry officer ? Whereas Freda Trevelyan, now, 
 had a mind and a soul ; she was clever, well-read, 
 sympathetic, quickly perceptive ; her mind went out 
 to his at once by instinct ; she seemed to jump half- 
 way to meet every idea he advanced to her, He 
 could almost have fallen in love with that beautiful 
 woman — if it were not for Aggie ! But Phil Gilman 
 was an honest man, and had plighted his troth to 
 Aggie Oswald. He wouldn't turn aside now, no, not 
 for a hundred Fredas 
 
 And yet 
 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 49 
 
 And yet, isn't it better, he asked himself in his 
 calmer moments, to change your mind before marriage 
 than after it ? Isn't it better to cry off, even at some 
 present cost of pain and humiliation to the girl, than 
 to tie her for life to a man who can give only part of 
 his heart to her? Isn't it better to be miserable once 
 for all in one's life than to be miserable always ? 
 These questions sometimes obtruded themselves pain- 
 fully upon Phil's mind; but being an honest man, 
 why, he waved them aside as transparent sophisms. 
 Having once asked Aggie to come out and marry him, 
 it would be cruel and wicked and selfish and unworthy, 
 to send her home again unwed. Come what might, as 
 things now stood, he must do his best to avoid falling 
 in love with Freda. 
 
 But the human heart is a wayward organ. It re- 
 fuses to be disciplined by the brain or the conscience. 
 
 There was some excuse, you know, after all, for the 
 apparent fickleness of these two young people. Their 
 minds were in both cases filled full beforehand with 
 the idea of marriage. They had nourished their soul 
 for five long years with what the Scotch philosopher 
 called " love in the abstract "; and now, when love in 
 the concrete seemed so near, so very near, neither had 
 at hand the proper person upon whom to expend his 
 or her affection. Besides, it may be unromantic and 
 unconventional to confess the truth ; but I believe it 
 is a fact of human nature that when the feelings are 
 very much roused and the proper person isn't by to 
 make love to, there's a considerable temptation to 
 transfer the love to the first eligible recipient one hap- 
 pens to fall in with. I've found it so myself, and I 
 throw myself upon the mercy of a jury of matrons. 
 
50 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 And in both these cases, as it happened, the first 
 eligible person Phil or Aggie met was also one more 
 fitted by nature for the vacant post than the old love 
 could ever possibly have been. Phil felt uncomfort- 
 ably aware that though nothing on earth would induce 
 him to make love to Freda Trevelyan, still, if he did 
 yield to thai: dreadful temptation, he could have loved 
 her a thousand times better by far than ever he could 
 have loved poor, fluffy-haired Aggie. And Aggie, in 
 turn, felt that though it would be treason to think of 
 Angus Stuart when she was actually on her way out to 
 India to marry Phil Oilman, still, if things had gone 
 otherwise, she could have loved that handsome soldier 
 a thousand times better than ever she could love poor 
 philosopher Phil with his cut-and-dried Deputy-Col- 
 lectorship away somewhere up country. 
 
 They had both one consolation ; perhaps when 
 Aggie turned up, after five years' development, she 
 would no longer be the pretty little fluffy-haired fairy 
 he once admired, but a real live woman — something, 
 don't you know, like Freda Trevelyan ! Or, perhaps 
 when Phil turned up he would no longer be quite so 
 sober and grave as of old ; five years of Indian life 
 might have brightened and sharpened him up into 
 something resembling Angus Stuart. 
 
 Not a very cheering frame of mind, I'm afraid, in 
 which to approach the most solemn gi all human 
 engagements ! 
 
 The Indus was telegraphed on in the ordinary 
 course from Port Said, from Suez, from Aden. The 
 night before she was due to arrive at Bombay, Phil 
 Oilman and Freda Trevelyan sat long talking together. 
 Freda's face was downcast. She was not glad to think 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 51 
 
 that night must be the last night, or almost the last 
 night, they would spend together. Of course no well- 
 conducted girl would ever dream of falling in love 
 with another woman's affianced bridegroom ; but hu- 
 man nature is weak ; and though we mayn't quite fall 
 in love under such special circumstances, we sometimes 
 can't exactly help producing a very good imitation of 
 the genuine article. And Freda Trevelyan certainly 
 liked Phil Oilman exceedingly. He was so bright and 
 so ciever and so different from the other men she met 
 at her uncle's. It was a lovely evening. I've observed 
 lovely evenings are peculiarly dangerous. They rat 
 long and talked together on the veranda alone. Sir 
 Edward Moulton, most correct of men chaperons, 
 thought there could be no possible harm in Freda's 
 sitting out with that pleasant young Oilman the very 
 night before the girl he was going to marry arrived 
 from England. So they sat there and talked — and 
 grew more and more confidential ; till at last a faint 
 tremor showed itself in Freda's voice, and even Phil 
 was conscious of a feeling in his throat, and a regretful 
 moisture in his eye, as he said " good-night " to her. 
 
 He paused and held her hand. " I could have 
 wished " he began. 
 
 Freda started back, half alarmed. " No, no, Mr. Oil- 
 man," she said, anticipating his words. " You may feel 
 it, if you will, but you must not say it." 
 
 "Then you knew what I meant !" Phil cried, leaning 
 forward eagerly. 
 
 Freda's bosom heaved and fell. " How could I help 
 it?" she asked. " You must have felt I knew it." 
 
 Phil looked at her earnestly. " What ought I to do?" 
 he asked. " You see how things stand. I loved her 
 
$t STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 dearly once. Now — yes, I will speak the trutn — I love 
 someone else better. No, don't start away ; I want 
 you to advise, to help me, to counsel me. Is it right 
 of me, then, knowing and feeling all this, to marry 
 her ? Can I meet her to-morrow and pretend I love 
 her as I loved her five years ago ? Ought I not rather 
 to make a clean breast of it from beginning to end, 
 and explain to her that my heart is no longer hers — 
 that as things stand, I ought not to marry her ? Is it 
 right to bind her to me for life when I no longer know 
 whether or not I can make her happy? Oh, Miss 
 Trevelyan — Freda — do counsel me, advise me !" 
 
 The beautiful girl held one hand up deprecatingly. 
 
 " You mustn't call me so," she said in a very low 
 voice. " It is unjust to her — and to me, Mr. Gilman. 
 
 Though, perhaps, if only " she broke off suddenly. 
 
 " But, indeed," she went on, after a deep pause, " I 
 think it would be cruel to her to bring her to Bombay 
 and then not marry her. You must do it now, at all 
 hazards. Either way is bad — to marry a woman you 
 no longer love, or to break the heart of a woman that 
 loves you. But the last is infinitely worse than the 
 first. You must go on with it now, whatever it costs 
 you. It's too late to go back. You may ruin your 
 life, but you save your honor." 
 
 " Well, but, Freda " Phil cried, with a very 
 
 pleading voice, " wouldn't it just be possible " 
 
 "You mustn't call me Freda," the beautiful woman 
 said, with gentle firmness. '* You should never have 
 called me so. You must forget all about me. Take 
 me back to my uncle. It is wrong of us to have 
 stopped here so long together." 
 
 Phil stood off a little and looked at her. 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. $3 
 
 "But we can always be friends," he said, very 
 slowly. 
 
 The woman in Freda rose up irresistibly for a 
 second. 
 
 "Yes, we can always be friends," she answered, 
 with a lingering cadence. Then after a short pause, 
 " Though after all, Mr. Oilman, that's a poor consola- 
 tion." 
 
 And the moment she'd said it womanly shame over- 
 came her, and she rushed back, all blushes, into her 
 uncle's drawing-room. 
 
 But Phil Oilman lay half that livelong night — the 
 night before Aggie was to arrive in India — thinking 
 over to himself the evil turns of fate below, and the 
 curious tricks that fortune sometimes plays us. He 
 knew now that Freda would have married him had he 
 been free to marry her ; she had as good as told him 
 so in those few last words; but come what might, 
 he must marry Aggie. And so those two good young 
 people, one in Bombay and one on the Indian Ocean, 
 were rightly prepared to make four lives unhappy 
 that might all have gone straight, out of pure devotion 
 to the cause of duty. 
 
 It had come down to duty now. They both frankly 
 recognized it. Phil felt he could never do anything 
 but marry Aggie, after bringing her out all the way 
 from England to meet him. Aggie felt she could 
 never do anything but marry Phil, after he had actu- 
 ally paid her passage-money and arranged for her out- 
 fit. And both were prepared to go to their martyr- 
 dom with the best grace they could summon up, for 
 the sake of the other, and the purely historical love 
 they had once felt for another. 
 
54 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Next day was stormy ; and when it's stormy at 
 Bombay, I can tell you it really is stormy. The Indus 
 arrived in due course in the open bay ; surf running 
 very high ; no surf in the world like the surf that 
 beats upon Malabar Point in heavy weather. The 
 passengers were transferred to the little lighter-boats 
 which take people ashore from the ocean steamers. 
 To Aggie, who had never been away from England 
 before, the whole scene of the landing was peculiarly 
 terrifying. The sight of the black boatmen, naked to 
 the waist, all clamoring and jabbering in their un- 
 known tongue ; the high surf on which the little boats 
 danced up and down like corks ; the novelty of the 
 situation ; the painful feeling of parting from her 
 fellow-voyagers, with whom she had struck up a good 
 many friendships on the way ; and the horrid sense of 
 being abandoned to the tender mercies of strangers in 
 a strange land ; — all these things conspired to produce 
 on her mind a terrible sinking of awe and terror. She 
 looked around her helplessly. Mrs. Mackinnon, her 
 chaperon, was to land in the same boat ; but that fact, 
 I will frankly confess, gave Aggie far less comfort 
 than the other consideration that Angus Stuart was 
 also to accompany them. Women are timorous crea- 
 tures. They need the consolation of the opposite sex. 
 Aggie didn't think she could ever have stepped into 
 that dreadful boat, all dancing on the surf, and with 
 those strange black creatures shouting and gesticulat- 
 ing, without a man to take care of her, and if a man, 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 55 
 
 then Angus Stuart by preference. She wasn't afraid 
 «f him, she said to herself ; and she knew he would 
 protect her against sea and savages ; for as so many- 
 savages Aggie simply envisaged those good, unsophis- 
 ticated Bombay boatmen. 
 
 She hardly knew how she ever tumbled into that 
 boat ; but she tumbled in somehow, with Angus 
 Stuart's aid ; and sat cowering in the stern, while the 
 spray dashed up against the sides in a surprising man- 
 ner. In a very few minutes the boat was full, and the 
 boatmen began to get under weigh for the quay with 
 strange cries and loud ejaculations. Aggie had never 
 seen anything so terrific in her life ; and though Angus 
 assured her there wasn't the slightest danger — I'm 
 afraid I must admit she sometimes thought of him as 
 Angus in her own heart, though she was on her way 
 out to marry Phil Oilman — she couldn't quite believe 
 him. At each very big wave, she crouched nearer and 
 nearer him. 
 
 " Oh, Captain Stuart," she cried at last, " do please 
 hold my hand. I don't know what I shall ever do. 
 We can't stop and get out. Oh, I ' am ' so fright- 
 ened !" 
 
 The young man tried his best to assure her there 
 was no danger ; but Aggie was inconsolable. And 
 indeed, the surf was running very high and dangerous. 
 Even the native boatmen looked ahead with evident 
 apprehension. The waves broke over them once or 
 twice and drenched them. It was dreadful to have 
 crossed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea in perfect 
 safety, and then to be tossed and bullied like this, well 
 within sight of Bombay harbor. The nearer they got 
 to shore, the more appalling, of course, did the surf 
 
56 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 become. It's famous, that surf ; it makes Malabar 
 Point itself almost uninhabitable at certain seasons. 
 At last, Aggie could suffer her alarm no longer. She 
 shrank back with all a woman's appealing terror. 
 
 " Oh, do, put your arm round me, Captain Stuart, " 
 she cried in pure feminine fear. ** What ever shall I 
 do? I 'am' so frightened!" 
 
 Just at that moment, one of the boatmen missed 
 his hold on* the treacherous water, and of a sudden 
 the lighter slued round, broadside to the waves ; and 
 all was up with them ! Aggie clapped her hands to 
 her ears. There was a sound of rushing water, a hor- 
 rible sense of wetness and helplessness and terror ; and 
 next instant she was aware of a great salt flood rush- 
 ing in at mouth and eyes and ears and nostrils. She 
 was sinking to the bottom ! They had capsized the 
 boat ! She was drowning ! 
 
 Down, down, down, in that deep warm water ! Even 
 in the midst of her terror, Aggie was dimly conscious 
 of the fact that it was warm, not chilly. If you've 
 got to be drowned, she thought to herself vaguely, as 
 she gasped and choked, it's better to be drowned in 
 warm than cold water. Down, down, down, to the very 
 lowest depths — and then, slowly, up again ! She reached 
 the surface, spluttering. Oh, great heavens, what 
 waves ! what surf ! what large mountains of water ! 
 Aggie couldn't swim ; but even if she could, no swim- 
 mer, she felt sure, could ever live through those irresis- 
 tible billows. One of the black boatmen, more ac- 
 customed to such mishaps, made a desperate grab at 
 her. Aggie, horrified at his dusky hands, wriggled 
 aside and eluded him. She was going down a second 
 time now. Even with the water in her ears and eyes 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 57 
 
 and mouth, she remembered to have read that if you 
 go down three time^j, all is up with you. (A foolish 
 superstition, which must only too often have worked 
 out its^own fulfillment). She gasped and struggled. All 
 at once, she thought to herself. " Oh, if only Captain 
 Stuart could catch me !*' And straightway, upon the 
 thought, she felt two strong arms around her, and was 
 aware that Angus Stuart had come to her rescue. 
 
 What followed she hardly knew. To say the truth, 
 the art of surf swimming is much simpler than it looks. 
 If you try to breast the waves, or even to go broad- 
 side on to them, all is up with you at once. You are 
 tossed a helpless corpse on the beach in front of you. 
 But if you merely rise on the crest, and let the wave 
 carry you with it landward, you find yourself de- 
 posited gently ashore in an incredibly short space of 
 time. All you have to do then is to run deftly out of 
 reach, before the force of the undertow begins to suck 
 you back again. Angus Stuart, as it happened, was 
 an adept in the art ; and almost before Aggie quite 
 realized what was actually happening, he was standing 
 with her on the hard sand, well out of reach of the 
 waves, and holding her tight in her dripping clothes 
 to prevent her from fainting. 
 
 As for Aggie in that first flush of joy and relief 
 at her delivery from such appalling and impending 
 danger — she forgot everything on earth except her 
 sense of gratitude to her brave deliverer, and clung to 
 him passionately, and covered him with kisses. 
 
58 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Phil was standing on the shore, and witnessed with 
 some Httle surprise and restraint this unrehearsed 
 effect in a living drama. His own greeting of Aggie 
 was perhaps a trifle less warm than might have been 
 expected after five years' separation. But then, you 
 see, it might be pleaded in extenuation that Aggie was 
 wet, most painfully wet, and that Angus Stuart was 
 quite obviously in possession. It was an awkward 
 moment. However, after a short pause, Phil took 
 Aggie over, so to speak, and proceeded to accompany 
 her up to the house of their mutual friend, whence she 
 expected to be married. Angus Stuart came round 
 there too, after a very brief interval for changing his 
 clothes. Naturally enough, he was anxious to learn 
 how the lady he had rescued had survived her wetting. 
 
 The young soldier had a word or two alone with the 
 little bride in the room behind, while Phil talked to 
 their hostess in the big front drawing-room. By this 
 time, Aggie had got the fluffy hair tolerably dry, and 
 had endued herself afresh in her pretty little morning 
 dress with the pique waistcoat. She looked really 
 charming. Angus Stuart thought he had never seen 
 her quite so sweet before. She looked up at him 
 appealingly. 
 
 " Well, shall I speak to him?" Angus asked. 
 
 And Aggie drawing back, made answer very low, 
 ** Oh, no ; not for worlds ! You mustn't ! How could 
 
 But the soldier was fortunately of bolder mould. 
 With a resolute face he went up to Philip. 
 
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 59 
 
 " Might I have a few words with you alone, Mr. 
 Gilman ?" he asked, quietly. 
 
 Phil, half expecting what was coming, bowed his 
 head in acquiescence ; and the two men went out 
 together on the broad veranda. 
 
 Angus Stuart cleared his throat. It was an awkward 
 subject to tackle, but there was no avoiding it. 
 
 " It's some years since you saw Miss Oswald, I 
 believe ?" he began, tentatively. 
 
 Phil met him half way. "Yes, some years," he 
 answered; "and I imagine Miss Oswald has had 
 almost time to change her mind meanwhile." He 
 said it a little anxiously. 
 
 " Well, no ; perhaps not quite that," Angus answer- 
 ed with a faint smile of pleasure ; " but you see, I've 
 had it in my power to render her to-day a slight 
 service ; and — but I've no right to speak on her 
 behalf ; and I'm sure she desires to act honorably in 
 the matter." 
 
 '* Precisely my desire," Phil murmured, meaningly. 
 
 Angus Stuart caught by instinct at the faint under- 
 current of intonation m his significant words. 
 
 " To act honorably ?" he repeated, with a tone of 
 abstract inquiry. " You put in on those grounds, 
 then ?" 
 
 " I do, perhaps," Phil answered, catching a 
 sympathetic glance in his neighbor's eye. 
 
 Angus ventured to be still bolder. " Then you 
 wouldn't feel it a slight," he said, quickly, " an irrepar- 
 able slight, if, as a consequence of recent events. Miss 
 Oswald " 
 
 ** On the contrary," Phil answered, frankly, helping 
 
r 
 
 60 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 him out in turn, "recent events on my side, too " 
 
 And he broke off shortly. 
 
 They looked at each other and smiled. They had 
 no need to say much more. But Angus drew back a 
 little. 
 
 "I think I understand," he said. "Another lady." 
 
 " Quite so," Phil answered. " And in Miss Oswald's 
 case, I suppose, another gentleman." 
 
 *' In point of fact — myself," Angus replied, growing 
 hot. 
 
 " Then as a matter of honor, neither side is bound," 
 Phil put in, somewhat timidly. 
 
 " I think not," the soldier replied. "And as to the 
 business arrangements, I fancy you and I can settle 
 those between us." 
 
 When Aggie came to hear of it all afterward, only 
 one serious dif^culty in the way occurred to her. She 
 hesitated to mention it. But Angus Stuart gave her 
 an easy lead. 
 
 " Well, your trousseau '11 do, Aggie," he said, laugh- 
 ing, a little later that very evening. (It was Aggie and 
 Angus by that time between them.) 
 
 " Ye-es," Aggie answered, with a blush, holding her 
 head very low ; " but — the worst of it is, my things, 
 don't you know, are all marked A. Gilman." 
 
 Bombay had never two gayer weddings. And no- 
 body on earth was ever more astonished than poor old 
 Mrs. Oswald, when she received the news that Aggie 
 was married, not to Phil Gilman, but to an officer she 
 had met on board the Indus. 
 
THE GOVERNOR S STORY. 
 
 We were seated at dinner at Government House. 
 It was a balmy West Indian evening, and the cool sea- 
 breeze stole pleasantly in through the open arches of 
 the veranda. Down in the valley below, great palm 
 trees waved their graceful arms in the twilight before 
 each passing gust, and plantains whispered music to 
 the low hum of the insects. Within, all was lamp- 
 light, and flowers, and perfume. A more delicious 
 tropical night I can hardly remember — a night of soft 
 breaths, faint sounds, sweet odors. 
 
 And the talk, too — the talk was most brilliant and 
 interesting ! Our host, the Governor, Sir Everard 
 Spence, is well known throughout Europe as the man 
 of science par excellence in English colonial service. 
 His bronzed and sunburnt face, deep scarred with the 
 lines of many early privations and self-sought hard- 
 ships, always rouses a ready cheer of welcome at the 
 British Association, and a generous greeting at the 
 Royal SGOAtXy soirie. His knowledge of tropical beasts 
 and birds, in particular, is probably unequaled among 
 living Englishmen. He has spent his days in collect- 
 ing, observing, arranging, classifying ; and has been 
 rewarded accordingly by a grateful country with the 
 ill-paid governorship of a fourth-rate colony. Yet a 
 more dignified specimen of Nature's own gentlemen 
 
 [6il 
 
62 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 you won't find in the world than the snowy-haired 
 author of " Life and its Origins." 
 
 As we loitered over our wine, carried away by the 
 charm of the Governor's conversation, a black servant 
 came in with a scrap of paper for Sir Everard. Our 
 host took it in his spare hands and glanced at it care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Who is the man, Thomas ?" he asked in his kindly 
 way. 
 
 And Thomas made answer, with a profound bow, 
 " Him say him an unfortunate Englishman, sah ; don't 
 got no work ; wish to speak with your Excellency." 
 
 The private secretary smiled a somewhat cynical 
 smile. 
 
 "In my experience of the West Indies," he said, 
 with a careless twirl of his waxed mustache, " I've 
 always found that an unfortunate Englishman means 
 in very plain words a drunken reprobate." 
 
 But Sir Everard rose at once, and went out anxiously 
 to the door. " An unfortunate Englishman in the 
 tropics," he answered, in a very slow voice as he went, 
 " always enlists my profoundest sympathies. He may 
 be drunken, of course ; he may be idle and disrepu- 
 table — most often he is ; but the question remains, 
 even then — who or what has made him so." 
 
 *' The Governor's always too generous to tramps," 
 the private secretary went on, as Sir Everard disap- 
 peared. " He's Quixotic in his way, don't you know? 
 Takes a Utopian view of things." 
 
 " Better that than be a cynic," I answered, quietly, 
 as I drained the last drops of my strong black coffee ; 
 for Sir Everard's personality always chained and 
 enthralled me. 
 
THE governor's STORY. 63 
 
 At the end of a few minutes the Governor returned 
 with a very sad face. " Wade," he said to his sec- 
 retary, "take this man round to your rooms at once, 
 please ; give him what food he wants, and a shelter for 
 the night; but, mind you, no liquor. Captain Mor- 
 timer," to the aide-de-camp, " you can go with him if 
 you like. Pearson," to me, " I want half-an-hour's 
 talk with you." 
 
 " Certainly, sir," I answered (you sir a colonial 
 Governor every now and again, exactly as if he were a 
 disobedient man-servant), and I lighted my cigarette 
 and composed myself to listen. 
 
 The Governor paused and looked steadily at me for 
 half a minute. " Pearson," he began at last, " did I 
 ever tell you how I came to have ideas of my own 
 about tramps in the tropics ?" 
 
 "Why no ; I think' not," I said, gazing hard at the 
 slim figure in the evening suit and irreproachable tie, 
 the very picture of a distinguished old colonial satrap. 
 
 *' Well, the wonder of it all is," he went on reflec- 
 tively, *' that I didn't take to drink myself, and go to 
 the bad utterly. There was a time, I believe, when 
 only twenty-four hours stood between me and that 
 poor, penniless creature there." 
 
 " Indeed," I cried, gazing still harder at the grand 
 old head, and respecting him all the more for that 
 candid avowal. 
 
 *' Yes, it's true," the Governor went on musingly. 
 " True, every word of it. And this is the way it all 
 came about, if you don't think it egotistical in an old 
 man to talk about it." 
 
 " By no means," with a quiet smile, I answered ; 
 "your reminiscences are always interesting." 
 
64 • STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 He £:jl.inccd at mc curiously. 
 
 "Well, it's fifty years ago now," he began, "since 
 my brother Fred and I started on our expedition to 
 the lower slopes of the Andes. Fred's Governor of 
 North Australia at present, as you know ; and I — well, 
 Fm here, at Port of France, as you see me ; but in 
 those days we were a pair of young city clerks, without 
 a friend or penny, in a London office. However, even 
 then, we had our heads stuffed as full of ideas as an 
 egg is full of meat ; and we were determined to work 
 out our great theories of life in our own pet way, if we 
 gave the last drop of our blood to do it. Those were 
 the days, you know, when new notions were in the air ; 
 and Fred and I had grand views of our own, which we 
 sprang on the world at last in * Life and its Origins.' 
 We were as poor as church mice, to be sure, but we 
 didn't mind for that ; between us we had laid up a 
 hundred pounds out of our joint salaries, by saving 
 here and scraping there, till we could wait no longer, 
 and with the hundred pounds we set off by ourselves 
 to solve the problems of the universe in the tropical 
 forests. 
 
 " It was a bold attempt, but, as Mill said to me later, 
 the result justified it. 
 
 " Our central idea, as you know, was that equatorial 
 conditions had prevailed over the world till a very late 
 date in geological ages ; and therefore, we said to our- 
 selves, whoever would investigate the origins of life, 
 must investigate them where the conditions are the 
 same — in the equatorial region. So, off we set by 
 ourselves, as blithe as two young bears, to look forth 
 upon our theory from the slopes of the Andes. We 
 thought; a hundred pounds a lot of money in those 
 
THE governor's STORY. 65 
 
 days ; we expected it to last us an indefinite period. 
 Still, for cheapness' sake, we took passage in a worn- 
 out and ramshackled old slaver, the Don Pedro by- 
 name, from Bristol to Bahia ; and in due time as you 
 know, landed in South America. 
 
 ** Without one day's delay, as soon as ever we 
 landed, we made our way up country, by boat and on 
 foot, to the wild forests of the Andes. There we 
 made friends with the Indians of the place. Our idea 
 was to spend what remained of our hundred pounds 
 as slowly as possible, to live to a great extent on the 
 game we shot, and to rely for the future on the sale of 
 our collections, which we knew would bring in a good 
 round sum in England. 
 
 "Once settled in our hut, a poor wattled shelter, we 
 set to work at once and collected with a will, and at 
 the end of twelve months we'd done so finely that 
 Fred went down to Bahia to ship our goods to Lon- 
 don, which we confidently valued at three hundred 
 pounds sterling. We'd worked pretty hard I can tell 
 you to do so much in our time, and we'd lived pretty 
 sparingly on yam and plantain ; but our poor little 
 capital was fairly well eaten up by then, and we'd 
 hardly anything left to live meanwhile upon. 
 
 *' However, the negroes on the few estates about 
 were tolerably friendly, and the Indians trusted us, so 
 by promising to repay them well * when our ship came 
 in,' as we always said, I managed to pull through till 
 Fred's return from Bahia. 
 
 " It took a long time, in those days, to get up and 
 down country by the flat-bottomed boats; and a long 
 time, too, for a ship to sail from Brazil to London ; so 
 it was nearly six months before I heard again from 
 
^ STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Fred ; and all that time I was living on what I could 
 get from the negroes on credit — the credit of my 
 promises, discounting our expected remittance from 
 England. 
 
 "At last, one evening," (he drew his hand across his 
 brow, as if the recollection was too much for him) " I 
 can remember it as though it were yesterday, I was 
 sitting at the door of my hut, skinning a new kind of 
 monkey to add to my collection, when suddenly I 
 heard a noise of slow footsteps through the wood, as 
 of somebody coming up along the trail, very tired and 
 wretched. I looked round. It was Fred. He stood 
 before me and gasped. He was footsore and worn, 
 and pale as a ghost with horror. 
 
 " * Why, Fred,' I cried, ' how's this ? You don't 
 mean to say you're alone! Where's the provisions? 
 the goods? the ammunition? everything?' 
 
 " He flung himself down on the ground, ready to 
 drop where he stood with fatigue and despair. * All 
 gone — all lost,' he gasped out, * every box, every can 
 of them !' 
 
 " * Not Indians !' I cried in horror. * Not Indians, 
 Fred, surely !' 
 
 " * No, not Indians,' he answered, shaking his head 
 very hard. * Worse than that. Far worse. The sea ! 
 the sea ! Gone to the bottom, my dear fellow — every 
 man Jack of them.* 
 
 " I gazed at him horror-struck. 
 
 " It was some time before I could get him composed 
 enough to tell me the whole terrible truth a little 
 more calmly. For cheapness' sake he had shipped our 
 entire collection — our priceless beasts and birds, the 
 labor of twelve months — in the crazy hull of that ram- 
 
THE governor's STORV. 6/ 
 
 shackled Don Pedro ; and the Don Pedro had gone 
 down in an Atlantic cyclone, with our precious orchids 
 and butterflies and skins in her hold — the finest tropi- 
 cal museum ever gathered together. It was pitiable 
 to think of all those wasted months, all that reckless 
 
 « 
 
 destruction of almost unique specimens. 
 
 " * Thank God, Fred,' I cried, fervently, as he fin- 
 ished his story, ' our manuscripts are safe ! The knowl- 
 edge and experience we've gained, at least is left us. 
 No one can take that away from us ! We've got it in 
 our hearts ! It's our own for ever !' For already the 
 materials for ' Life and its Origins * were in embryo in 
 the forest. 
 
 " Well, after this crushing blow we had to think of 
 how we could begin work again, and pile up a second 
 collection as good as the first one. Starvation fairly 
 stared us in the face just then; it was a question of 
 food, not merely of science. Fred had struggled 
 in on foot, more dead than alive, and half faint with 
 hunger. Our ammunition was gone ; our credit bro- 
 ken. What could we do for our living ? That was 
 now the question. 
 
 "We went to a neighboring planter, in the nearest 
 settlement — for we were camping out in the wilds, fifty 
 miles from a house — and put the thing plainly to him. 
 He was a kind-hearted man, in his way, as slavehold- 
 ers go, and he pitied our plight ; though,, like most 
 Portuguese-Americans, he hadn't the slightest idea 
 what on earth we could want to go hunting beetles 
 and weeds for. He didn't even understand what sci- 
 ence meant. He regarded us as a couple of amiable 
 but peculiar lunatics. Still, we were white men, and 
 he pitied our plight. ' I'll tell you what I'll do for 
 
68 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 you/ he said to us in Portuguese, * I'll take you upon 
 my estates to work at the cocoa plantations.' 
 
 " We deHberated together. It was a hard offer — 
 negro's work, wholly unfit for Europeans in that 
 deadly climate. But it was all we could get, and we 
 managed it this way. Every second day Fred took 
 his place on the estate, with the gang of slaves, and 
 did his day's labor, for a slave's rations and a few 
 pence as wages ; while I went out in the forest, as 
 usual, collecting. Then, on the alternate days, I took 
 my place in the gang, while Fred went off with his 
 gun, after birds and monkeys. In this way we counted 
 together as one man, and we lived between us, on one 
 slave's food, eked out with what little we could buy 
 with our daily wage, after keeping ourselves in am- 
 munition and so forth. Talk about the happy negro 
 on the good massa's plantation ! I know what slavery 
 means, Pearson, for to all intents and purposes I've 
 been a slave myself ; and I tell you it's damnable — 
 nothing short of damnable. On Sundays and festas, 
 however, we had a holiday together; and then we col- 
 lected with all our might and main, as it was the only 
 time we could get out into the woods both at once, 
 and in hunting two men abreast can do more in a day 
 than one alone can effect in a fortnight. In the twi- 
 light, too, we made some capital finds, I can tell you, 
 and often we almost did ourselves out of our night's 
 rest in order to make haste with our precious collec- 
 tion. 
 
 It took us eighteen months, all the same, under these 
 altered circumstances, and with ill-made powder, to 
 gather together what we had managed before in twelve. 
 But at last with hard work our collection was ready, 
 
THE governor's STORY. 69 
 
 almost as good as the first, and in some respects 
 richer. 
 
 *' Then the question arose, how were we to get it to 
 the sea and ship it to England ? Fred was the stronger 
 of the two, and there were lots of boxes. So, in spite 
 of his previous misfortune, we decided that he must 
 take charge of it, with a friendly Indian to help him, 
 and must see it off from Bahia in the usual fashion. I 
 was to stop behind, and work on the plantation every 
 day alike, in his absence, saving my wages as far as I 
 could, and then, when he returned, I was to go on to 
 Bahia, with my cash in my hands and await the arrival 
 of our expected remittance, while he in turn worked on 
 upon the estate for a livelihood. 
 
 " I can tell you it was a dreary long time while Fred 
 was away, and I had to toil and moil, all alone by my- 
 self, in that sultry climate, surrounded by negro slaves 
 who talked bad Portuguese, and without a friend or an 
 equal of any sort near me. Sometimes I almost des- 
 paired in the hot tropical noonday, working away 
 under the fierce sun, with the rest of the gang by my 
 side, and not a Christian soul to say God-speed to me 
 anywhere. The very negroes despised me for a * mean 
 white '■ — a ^/r/rt-^j/ gentleman. Night after night I lay 
 awake by myself, and half cried in my misery, and 
 prayed for Fred to return, and thought of one face I 
 had left in England. That's Lady Spence's portrait 
 as she looked in those days — not Lady Spence then, of 
 course — but it doesn't do her justice. I wondered 
 whether I'd done right to come away from her like 
 that, on a wild-goose chase for science's sake, when I 
 ought to have stopped at home and cast up accounts 
 in the City. 
 
70 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 " At last, however, those terrible three months passed 
 away, and Fred returned from the coast very weary 
 and ill, but ready to take my place, and relieve me 
 from duty. It was with a sinking heart I set off in my 
 turn, though I was worn and ill, for I couldn't bear to 
 leave him behind in such lonely slavery as I myself had 
 endured those three months without him. 
 
 " I got to Bahia in due course, with a few pounds in 
 pocket, which soon melted away, as you can easily 
 imagine, with the expenses of life in a civilized city. I 
 was waiting for the mail to arrive from England, bring- 
 ing me in news, and I hoped, too, a remittance, from 
 our London agents. Fred had reported well of our 
 chances of success, for a German professor, who hap- 
 pened to be at Bahia when he was sending them off, 
 inspected the things before they went, and was en- 
 chanted at the variety and value of our collection. 
 We trusted our troubles would soon be over, and we 
 might begin in real earnest collecting on our own ac- 
 count, and making the needful observations to com- 
 plete our theory. 
 
 " Day after day passed, and the mail didn't arrive. 
 Mails to South America, in those days, were very 
 moveable feasts. A week or two more or less hardly 
 astonished anybody. But my money market was 
 getting remarkably tight, and every twenty-four hours 
 to me was a life and death matter. 
 
 " At last the mail came in, and with it a letter. I 
 stood on the steps of the post office in my tattered 
 up-country clothes, and tore it open eagerly. It was 
 from our London agents. They had the honor to 
 acknowledge the receipt of our valuable collection, in 
 very good order, and trusted to have an opportunity 
 
THE GOVERNOR S STORY. 7I 
 
 of submitting it before long, in whole or in part, to 
 the authorities at the British Musuem, who would 
 doubtless be willing to pay a reasonable price for it. 
 
 ** That was all. No remittance, no installment, no 
 sale even. Nothing at all had been done. Only a 
 vague hope or conditional promise. Heaven knew 
 how long yet I might have to wait for my money. 
 
 " And I was penniless, meanwhile, and starving at 
 Bahia." 
 
 The dignified old man wiped his brow once more. 
 Great drops stood on it visibly. It was clear the re- 
 membrance was painfully real to him. 
 
 *' How I ever got through the next three weeks," 
 he went on, after a long deep pause, moistening his 
 lips with coffee, " I don't know to this day. I can't 
 bear to look upon it. I took a room in a negro hut, 
 by pawning my last change of clothes, and there I 
 lived on, watching and waiting for another mail from 
 England. Through the day I skulked ; in the evening 
 I lounged about the streets ; and men whose acquaint- 
 ance I'd picked up while I was in Bahia offered me 
 drinks in the saloons — but never any food — and I was 
 starving — starving. Drink, drink, drink — but not a 
 meal, or a mouthful. I hung around the market in 
 the early morning, and picked up morsels of jam, or 
 little bits of bread-fruit, or stale mangoes, that even 
 the negroes rejected, or half bad oranges, flung away 
 into the gutter. That was all I had to eat, and as to 
 work or money, none could be had anywhere. To 
 the Brazilians I was useless, because I spoke very 
 little Portuguese, and that little picked up from the 
 slaves up country, and when I called upon the English 
 merchants of the place, they surveyed me through 
 
/2 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 their spectacles with very critical eyes — * An unfor- 
 tunate Englishman ! Drink, drink, no doubt. Why, 
 he smells of rum this minute, Jones. Sorry to say, 
 my friend, we can do nothing for you.* 
 
 "So I hung around the saloons, with part of the, 
 manuscript of * Life and its Origins* actually in my 
 pocket — I with my scientific tastes and my philosophic 
 yearnings — and took the rum strangers offered me, for 
 very want of food, and because I was a great deal too 
 hungry and weak to refuse anything on earth with a 
 lump of sugar in it. Sometimes I got a biscuit into 
 the bargain as well, but that was rarely ; most often it 
 was rum — rum, rum, alone — till I wonder at myself 
 that I didn't sink offhand into a miserable drunkard. 
 It was an awful time. It makes my head reel to 
 recall it. 
 
 " At last, one day, when three weeks were over, and 
 no English mail to my knowledge had yet arrived, I 
 stood in my ragged clothes and with my hungry face 
 in a saloon in the town, when suddenly a man whom I 
 knew came in, and looked at me steadily. 
 
 " ' Hullo, Spence,' he said, with a start of surprise, 
 * you look down in the mouth this morning. Cheer 
 up, old fellow. The English mail's in, and there's 
 money for you at the Bank in the Rua do Commercio.* 
 
 " I stared at him in suspense. He was a practical 
 joker. I knew his tricks well. I was afraid to be- 
 lieve him. Perhaps he didn't realize what a matter of 
 life and death that mail was to me. Perhaps he was 
 only trying, as he himself would have said, to take a 
 good rise out of me. 
 
 "^You really mean it?' I gasped out. 'You*re in 
 earnest, not hoaxing me ?' 
 
THE governor's STORY. 73 
 
 " * Honor bright !' he answered, laughing. * Take 
 my davy on it any day. The cashier's a chum of mine ; 
 and he told me just now, if I met Spence lounging 
 about anywhere in the bars, to tell him there was 
 money waiting for him straight out from England.' 
 
 " My fingers trembled. My knees shook. I went 
 round in a fever to the Rua do Commercio. When I 
 reached the bank steps, I didn't dare to go in. My 
 head swam with hunger, and rum, and despair. How 
 dare I ask for money in such rags as these? How 
 dare I present myself, even, in a respectable counting- 
 house ? I was ashamed to enter. 
 
 ** For ten minutes or more I stood there, in doubt, 
 leaning up against the lintel, afraid to move ; then at 
 last I plucked up courage to push open the door, and 
 stagger to the counter. The cashier was an English- 
 man. * Any money to my credit ?* I faltered out, 
 with tremulous lips. * My name is Spence. I'm ex- 
 pecting a remittance.' 
 
 "'Certainly, sir,* he answered. 'Mr. Everard 
 Spence : bill of exchange came in to-day for four 
 hundred and fifty pounds thirteen shillings. To your 
 order at sight. How will you take it ?' 
 
 " I trembled like an aspen leaf. It was nothing to 
 him, but to me it was light, life, deliverance. I sat 
 down and buried my face in my hands. I was saved. 
 Fred was saved. Four hundred and fifty pounds 
 seemed wealth untold. It was more than in our wild- 
 est dreams we'd ever dared to hope for. 
 
 " But ever since that day, I assure you, Pearson, I've 
 always had a very sympathetic feeling for unfortunate 
 Englishmen who take to drink in the tropics." 
 
DICK PROTHERO S LUCK. 
 
 I. 
 
 That farm in Manitoba was always an unlucky one. 
 From the very first day when Dick Prothero left the 
 West Cornwall Rangers, and took him a wife, deter- 
 mined to settle down to agricultural retirement in the 
 Far West, a fatal ill-fortune seemed to dog and pursue 
 him with merciless persistence. At least, so Dick 
 said ; though people who knew Manitoba better, 
 doubted within themselves whether the discipline of 
 the messroom in a crack regiment, where Dick had 
 stood junior captain on the list, was quite the sort of 
 thing to prepare a man beforehand for becoming a 
 vigorous and successful farmer in a raw community. 
 At any rate, things somehow didn't seem to prosper 
 with Dick Prothero. The horses were always getting 
 glanders at unhappy moments ; the cows were always 
 poisoning themselves with uncanny prairie weeds ; the 
 rain was always rough on the standing hay ; the fall 
 wheat was always getting nipped by the first sharp 
 frosts of a Canadian springtide. Dick worked as hard, 
 to be sure, as a man could work ; but he didn't work 
 the right way on, so experts said — all his energy and 
 good will were quite thrown away through his want of 
 knowledge of practical farming. 
 [74] 
 
DICK PROTIIERO'S LUCK. 75 
 
 The worst of it was, too, Manitoba didn't agree with 
 Bertha, and that was Dick's greatest cross of all. For 
 himself, he didn't much mind the small frame house, 
 the long cold winter when the grouse was on the wing, 
 or the changeable spring with its teal and wild duck. 
 A strong and hearty young man, with a sound consti- 
 tution and a natural love of outdoor sport, can put up 
 with roughing it for himself very well, in those wild 
 west countries. But to see his pretty young English 
 wife, delicately bred and nurtured in a Devonshire 
 Rectory, shrinking from the privations of the frozen 
 prairie — that was the sort of thing that makes a man 
 regret he hadn't invested his money instead at two and 
 three-quarters per cent, in the munificent hands of the 
 Right Honorable the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 If Dick could have done it, he'd have sold his farm ; 
 but it's always easier to buy land anywhere in the 
 world than sell it ; so Dick had to hang on as best he 
 might, hoping for better times and a turn in the real 
 estate market. 
 
 Still, if it hadn't been for little Daisy and his brother 
 Archie, Dick, who was a sentimental, rather melo- 
 dramatically-minded young man (in spite of his Sand- 
 hurst training), would sometimes have sat down 
 despondent in the frame house, with a fixed determin- 
 ation to blow his unlucky brains out. But little Daisy, 
 thank heaven, was as strong as a toy Shetland pony ; 
 and Archie, good fellow, was always helpful and always 
 cheery, even when the rain came and spoiled the har- 
 vest. Archie was the best brother any man in this 
 world ever had ; nobody could help being cheered and 
 helped on by that dear, good Archie. 
 
 The frame house where they all lived together — 
 
76 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Dick and his wife, and little Daisy, and Archie — was 
 situated a good many miles from anywhere, and at a 
 great distance from Winnipeg, the centre of mushroom 
 civilization in the Canadian Northwest at the present 
 moment. It was altogether about as dreary a place as 
 any fellow could well ask a young English wife to 
 settle in. It stood alone upon the wide open prairie, 
 a square, bare box, just perched upon the soil, with 
 doors and windows like those of a German toy house, 
 and with not a tree or shrub standing anywhere in 
 sight of it. In front you looked out upon the waving 
 plain of grass and cornfield — monotonous, arid, as far 
 as the eye could reach, with only a few more equally 
 square and bare little wooden shanties dotted about 
 here and there to relieve its utter blank of sameness 
 and dreariness. Sometimes in dry weather the whole 
 unvaried plain caught fire at once, from some careless 
 pipe or match, and then the smoke of it went up to 
 heaven in a great dusky column, and the flames 
 marched abreast like an army over the land, and the 
 farmers defended their own houses and yards as best 
 they might by cutting down and wetting the grass all 
 round ; and next morning nothing remained of the 
 year's labors but a vast black desert, smoking dismal 
 and gray to the lurid sky, where yesterday had been 
 whole acres of corn and meadow land. Those are the 
 chances of war in the great Northwest — the chances of 
 that terrible pioneer warfare which man wages single- 
 handed with valorous heart against the fierce, blind 
 powers of unconscious nature. 
 
 And in this bare, bleak house, with its unlovely sur- 
 roundings, gentle and delicately nurtured English 
 Bertha had to live by herself, for the most part servant- 
 
DICK PROTIIERO'S LUCK. ^f 
 
 less. Now and then, to be sure, some raw Irish lass, 
 fresh out from the Ould Counthry, with a bright red 
 face, and a fine, rich brogue, would accept for a week 
 or two a situation as general help, to assist in the 
 cooking and take care of Daisy. But at the end of a 
 fortnight the help usually came in and informed 
 Bertha, with tears in her eyes, that she found it 
 " lonesome," and that if Bertha would " suit herself " 
 when the month was up, she'd like to go back to a 
 place in Winnipeg. Bertha, as a rule, did not succeed 
 at all in suiting herself ; so she had to do all the cook- 
 ing, and washing, and nursing, and mending, more than 
 half her time for those two strong men and for little 
 Daisy. 
 
 Dick, being a tender-hearted, sentimental fellow, 
 could have cried his eyes out (only that he was 
 ashamed), when he thought of the sort of life he had 
 brought that sweet, pretty little English wife to. 
 There are plenty more of his sort in the West. Young 
 man, stop East. Don't you go and be fooled by de- 
 lusive promises into following his example. 
 
 II. 
 
 That summer was very hot and dry, and things 
 went even worse with the Protheros than usual. In 
 the hay season Bertha fell ill with fever, and as she 
 was then in her chronic servantless condition, for 
 weeks Dick had hard work to nurse and tend her. At 
 last, however, she began to come round again ; and 
 one sunny morning in the August drought, she rose 
 
78 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 and lay on the sofa in the little living-room, by the 
 open window, looking out upon all the view there was 
 — the great blank prairie and the desolate cornfields. 
 Dick brought little Daisy and placed her by her side ; 
 and Bertha, though still too weak to walk, seemed so 
 cheerful and happy at the mere sight of the fields, that 
 Dick almost felt as if that long-expected turn in his 
 luck were coming at last, and things were going to 
 mend in Manitoba. He made everything snug in the 
 bare small parlor for poor pale Bertha, and then he 
 saddled his horse and rode off, better pleased, to see 
 how business looked after so many days absence in the 
 dip by the river. 
 
 When he got there the corn [was certainly most 
 promising, and all was going well with the ripening 
 crops for the agricultural interest. By a rare chance, 
 too, he met a neighbor by the stream, and they stopped 
 long chatting about the Boom at Regina and the Chi- 
 cago futures, and the probability of an advance in 
 spring wheat next Winnipeg market. The neighbor 
 was hopeful, like Dick himself. Land was on the rise, 
 he said, in their own section, and a great development, 
 a great development, sir, was, as sure as fate, in store 
 for Manitoba. A magnificent country, and it was 
 going to be developed. 
 
 Dick hoped so in his heart, and that land would rise 
 till he could get his own price back again for his own 
 farm, take Bertha home to her native shores, show 
 little Daisy what was meant by a decent road, and 
 leave the development of that magnificent country to 
 the more capable hands and arms of others. 
 
 At last he wheeled round his horse once more, and 
 
DICK PROTHERO*S LUCK. 79 
 
 after riding about for a couple of hours, surveying 
 the soil, he made towards home across the open 
 prairie. 
 
 As he did so, a sickening horror seized upon his 
 soul. He looked in front of him and shaded his eyes, 
 incredulous. Great heavens, what he saw was all too 
 true. No farmhouse visible. 
 
 Other houses were there, to be sure, each standing 
 in its place over the vast plain, at wide intervals, and 
 each marked by a long blue line of smoke, where the 
 " smudges" or fly-dispersers were burning in front of 
 them to keep off the mosquitoes. A smudge, in North- 
 w^estern parlance, is a fire of turf kept alight in a sort 
 of standing iron cage or basket, which smoulders away 
 for hours at a time, and is peculiarly offensive to the 
 senses of insects. But though the smudge still 
 smoked in front of the place where his own house had 
 once stood, not a sign of the house itself remained 
 anywhere visible. Dick shaded his eyes and looked in 
 vain. It had melted from the scene as if by magic. 
 
 At the sight the strong man's heart sank down with 
 horror and awe within him. He knew what it meant ; 
 he was too old a hand, indeed, in the ways of Manitoba 
 not to realize at a glance what a terrible, unspeakable 
 thing had happened. The house had been burnt 
 down to the ground in his absence. 
 
 And Bertha? And Daisy? He grew pale w'th 
 terror. Unless Archie had saved them, heaven only 
 knew what nameless misfortune might have fallen 
 upon them. And Archie was away in the Swale with 
 the wagon. 
 
 With a wild cry of despair, the unhappy man urged 
 his horse forward, and never paused for breath till he 
 
80 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 drew rein at last by the smouldering remains of the 
 charred and desolate farmhouse. 
 
 There, the whole truth came upon him in all its aw- 
 ful vividness. 
 
 In front of the yard, the smudge lay on the ground, 
 overturned, and still feebly burning. From the 
 smudge to the spot where the house once stood, a 
 path of fire lay traced on the dry grass, widening from 
 windward. Even in the first burst of his horror and 
 grief, the poor trembling husband and father felt in 
 stinctively just what had occurred. RoUo, the pointef , 
 had upset the smudge, and the fire had run from it 
 before the wind through the parched grass, and set in 
 a blaze the frail timber tenement. 
 
 The rest was obvious. Those frame houses of the 
 West, when once alight, burn to the ground with aw- 
 ful rapidity in a few brief minutes. Constructed as 
 they are of light pitch pine, all wooden throughout, 
 and slight into the bargain, they leave at the end of a 
 quarter of an hour nothing to mark the spot where 
 they once stood, save a pile of gray and smouldering 
 ashes. 
 
 That was all that remained of Dick Prothero's home. 
 And Bertha, and Daisy, must have been burnt or 
 smothered before they could move from the sofa by 
 the window. 
 
 Unmanned with horror, Dick leaped from his horse, 
 and strode over to the smouldering, smoking ruins. 
 For a minute or two he was stupefied by the awful 
 suddenness of that crushing blow. He sat down on 
 the ground, with his head in his hands, and rocked 
 himself idly to and fro in the first full bitterness of his 
 speechless agony. 
 
DICK PROTHERO'S LUCK. 8 1 
 
 And the very last words little Daisy had said to him 
 as he rode away were, " Turn back soon, Papa. Daisy 
 wants to play with 'oo." 
 
 III. 
 
 Ten minutes after Dick had left the house Archie 
 had driven up in front of the door, and seeing Bertha 
 lying on the sofa at the open window, had cried out to 
 her cheerily, in his good-humored fashion, " Come 
 along, Bertha ; you're convalescent now. A bit of 
 fresh air'U do you all the good in the world, I bet you. 
 I'm going to drive in to the post office at Swalebor- 
 ough. You may as well come with me." 
 
 " Oh, Archie, I couldn't," Bertha cried, all aghast. 
 " I'm only just up out of bed to-day, and the wagon's 
 so dreadfully, dreadfully jolty." 
 
 " Nonsense," Archie answered, jumping down and 
 coming over to her. " I'll fetch down the mattress out 
 of the servants' room — it don't get much slept upon ; 
 lay it in the wagon with a couple of pillows; carry you 
 out and set you in comfortably ; and there you are at 
 once fixed up, as the Yankees say, as well as you'd be 
 in an English victoria." 
 
 ** Oh, do!" Daisy cried, clapping her little hands. 
 " Oh, do, mamma, for it amuses Daisy." 
 
 So in three minutes more, with Archie's strong arms 
 to help, the thing was done. Bertha, wrapped round 
 in a big buffalo skin, was laid in the wagon ; Daisy 
 was installed on a pillow by her side, and the three 
 drove off, laughing and talking, with fresh hope in 
 their hearts, as merry as crickets. 
 
82 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 "Where's Rollo, uncle Archie?" Daisy asked, as 
 they jolted along over the rough plain, though Archie 
 drove as carefully as he could to save Bertha any un- 
 necessary shaking. 
 
 " Oh, he's all right," Archie answered, smiling. 
 " He'll come along soon. Here, Rollo, Rollo !" 
 
 At the word, Rollo leaped up from the mat where 
 he was dozing in the sun, and followed the wagon with 
 a bound of delight. They didn't notice, however, that 
 as he came he had upset the smudge, and that the 
 turves were smoking on the dry grass in front of the 
 window. 
 
 Bertha had never enjoyed a drive so much. In 
 spite of the wagon and the jolting road, it was so de- 
 lightful to be out in the fresh air once more, and to 
 feel the motion and the free breeze of heaven. Little 
 Daisy enjoyed it all so thoroughly, too, and made her 
 mother's heart more glad by sympathy. And when at 
 last, after their long drive, they got to the post, there 
 were letters from home, such cheerful letters, with 
 talk of Bertha's shares in that unfortunate concern at 
 the Cape (which her uncle had left her), going up at 
 last, so that perhaps they might in time be able to 
 return to dear old England. Bertha turned to go back, 
 feeling ever so much better, and longing to tell the 
 good news to dear Dick, who had been so terribly 
 down on his luck just lately. 
 
DICK PROTIIERO'S LUCK. 83 
 
 IV. 
 
 But Dick, among the smouldering ruins of his lost 
 house, was sitting still, in an agony of despair, rocking 
 himself to and fro with his head in his hands, and 
 overwhelmed with this awful fate of Bertha and 
 Daisy. 
 
 For a long time he sat there, incapable of thought 
 or act, or motion ; sat there like one dazed by his ter- 
 rible loss, holding his face between his palms in his 
 misery, and incapable even of realizing his own deso- 
 late position. But at last he rose, determined to 
 know the worst, and began with a pick that was lying 
 near to turn ever the hot ashes, in the vain attempt to 
 find some charred and mangled remains of his wife 
 and child, if anything was left of them. He turned 
 the ashes over carefully, but the fire had indeed done 
 its work well. Not a stick or plank, not a beam or 
 rafter, not a leg of chair, or sofa or table, remained 
 distinguishable among all that heap of gray and cal- 
 cined relics. Only the frames of the iron bedsteads 
 and a few castors and other metal objects were to be 
 found in any recognizable shape. The rest was mere 
 cinder or white powdery ashes. 
 
 In the depths of his despair Dick looked around for 
 Archie. But Archie, too, was nowhere to be seen, and 
 Dick remembered he had talked in the morning about 
 going into Swaleborough. The first apathy of grief 
 had worn off now, and Dick had reached that second 
 active stage of wild despondency when a man feels he 
 must go at once and maim or kill himself. As he 
 
84 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 fumbled among the ashes, digging deeper and deeper, 
 a weird idea seemed to frame itself within him. Since 
 all that remained of Bertha and Daisy lay there in 
 those ashes, he would dig a grave on the very spot 
 where they had died — those two that were dearest to 
 him — throw the ashes into it, and then shoot himself 
 there above the relics of his loved ones. When Archie 
 came back with the wagon from Swaleborough, he 
 would find no house, but an open grave, and his 
 brother's dead body, stark and bleeding within it. 
 
 It was one of those awful melo-dramatic ideas vhich 
 sometimes occur with irresistible force to such minds 
 as Dick Prothero's at a great crisis in their lives ; and 
 its very weirdness commended it to his inflamed fancy. 
 He proceeded at once, with the energy of despair, to 
 carry the mad notion into actual practice. He took 
 up the spade which lay in the back yard, untouched 
 by the fire, and began to dig and dig, to drown his 
 misery for awhile in the mere act of digging. If 
 Archie had been there, he might have groaned and 
 cried ; but in his utter solitude, alone with the prairie 
 and his vanished wife and child, he dug and dug, with 
 feverish energy, for very need of some vicient occupa- 
 tion. He dug as he never knew he could dig before, 
 with the wild maniac strength of a terrible sorrow. 
 
 As he dug, the ashes and the smoke blinded his eyes, 
 and the fumes from the fire rose up and choked him. 
 But still he dug on, going deeper and deeper, and 
 flinging out the earth with fierce and frantic eagerness. 
 He must get it all done before Archie came back ; and 
 at the very first sound of Archie's wheels in the dis- 
 tance, he must pull out his revolver, finished or not 
 
DICK PROTHERO*S LUCK. 8$ 
 
 finished, and shoot himself dead before Archie's eyes 
 in the grave he had dug himself. 
 
 He had got down now into a deep subsoil, thick and 
 clayey, and hard to cut through ; but he went on 
 nevertheless, digging it square and even, and taking 
 care to throw the clay w^ell out of the way, where it 
 wouldn't interfere with those sacred ashes. His eyes 
 were blinded with tears and smoke and the dust from 
 the pile ; but still he continued. He came across 
 little stones in the clay now and again. His spade 
 struck against them from time to time, or even cut 
 into them, for they were mere soft nodules. But he 
 shovelled them out with the rest of the dirt, and went 
 blindly on at his ghastly occupation. 
 
 Presently, as he worked, the sound of distant wheels 
 fell on his ear. It was Archie coming back ! It he 
 meant to carry his scheme into execution he must 
 make haste now. There was no time to be lost. If 
 Archie arrived he would disarm him and prevent him. 
 Frantic with grief he pulled out his revolver and held 
 it close to his left temple. For one awful second he 
 paused and prayed. He knew he was mad — what 
 man would not go mad in face of such a blow? — but, 
 all the same, he prayed wildly for forgiveness. Then 
 he snapped the trigger right against his brow, and 
 waited to know he was really dying. 
 
 A terrible moment of suspense followed. What had 
 gone wrong ? The revolver had clearly hung fire 
 somehow ! He had never known that trusty weapon 
 serve him such a trick in his life before. He took it 
 down and looked at it carefully. As he did so the 
 cartridge went off in his hands, and the bullet buried 
 itself in the deep clay bottom. What luck, to be sure ! 
 
86 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 The very powers of inanimate nature seemed to fight 
 against him ! Why, he couldn't even succeed in kill- 
 ing himself comfortably when he tried to do so. He 
 raised the pistol angrily to his head once more. This 
 time, at least, he'd take care it didn't miss and disap- 
 point him. 
 
 But before he could fire again a terrible thrill ran 
 through his brain ; a thrill that made him drop the 
 revolver in his amazement. For he heard, from the 
 direction where the wagon was advancing, a cry of sur- 
 prise — a child's cry of simple wonder and astonishment. 
 The cry went through him like a flash of pain. But it 
 was joy that unnerved him ! Then, Daisy, at least, 
 was safe ! Daisy had gone with Archie in the wagon ! 
 It was Daisy's voice ; and for Daisy's sake, at any rate, 
 he dared not kill himself. 
 
 He raised himself to the top of that strange grave on 
 both his elbows and looked around with dim vision to 
 see what had happened. His eyes were still blinded 
 by the smoke and ash, and he could hardly make out 
 who was in the wagon. Then with another wild burst 
 of gratitude and joy he heard another voice he had 
 never expected to hear again. Contrary to all proba- 
 bility, all possibility almost, Bertha was there as well 
 as Daisy and Archie. 
 
 He flung down the spade in a strange access of 
 delight and rushed to the wagon. To the rest, it was a 
 moment of surprise and terror, to see the house burnt 
 down, and that gaunt, wan man in his grimy shirt 
 sleeves, all stained with smoke and dirt, darting wildly 
 out like some madman to greet them. But to Dick, it 
 was a moment of unspeakable joy. House and land 
 were forgotten altogether in the sudden revulsion of 
 
DICK PROTHERO'S LUCK. 87 
 
 intense delight with which he saw his wife and child 
 brought back to him from the dead again. 
 
 It was some minutes before each party could under- 
 stand exactly what had happened, for at first Dick 
 could only look on and laugh and cry like a maniac, 
 and take Daisy up in his arms over and over again, and 
 lay Bertha down on the ground, crying, upon her mat- 
 tress. But after awhile they grew more calm, and in 
 broken words explained how things had fared on either 
 side with either of them. As to the grave and the re- 
 volver. Indeed, Dick remained for the moment dis- 
 creetly silent ; but the rest, he told as well as he was 
 able in brief sobbing sentences. Then they kissed one 
 another once more, that husband and wife, so strangely 
 restored, and wept with thankfulness, all houseless and 
 homeless, alone on the prairie. 
 
 Presently Archie broke the solemn silence. 
 
 " We must take Bertha somewhere for to-night," he 
 said gazing round ruefully. " Perhaps they could give 
 us a bed at McDougall's." 
 
 They raised the mattress into the wagon again, and 
 were going to lay Bertha back on her improvised in- 
 valid's couch, when Bertha cried out, '* Oh, look at 
 Daisy, Dick ; what's that she's doing over there on that 
 dirt-heap yonder?" 
 
 Dick turned round, and with his bloodshot eyes, saw 
 dimly that Daisy was trying to suck one of the round- 
 ish pebbles he had struck his spade against so often in 
 <^iggirig' It was a pebble as big as a hen's egg, and he 
 was afraid the child would fairly choke herself with it. 
 But he would not go near that open grave himself, 
 from which he had been preserved almost by a miracle. 
 It fairly daunted him. 
 
88 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 " Go over and fetch her, Archie," he cried in a tone 
 of command. And Archie went to her. 
 
 But Daisy didn't want to be deprived of her pebble. 
 
 It's pretty,'* she said, and went on sucking at it. 
 
 Archie snatched it from her. " Why, Dick," he ex- 
 claimed, looking close at the rough lump, and pressing 
 it with his nail, "what on earth's this ? It's as soft as 
 lead, and as yellow as a guinea !" 
 
 Then he burst into a sudden loud laugh of triumph. 
 Dick stared at him in amazement, thinking the painful 
 drama of the last two hours must have fairly made 
 Archie lose his senses. But Archie waved the pebble 
 frantically round his head with a strange air of victory. 
 " Dick, Dick," he cried, in his joy, *' luck's turned at 
 last; they're nuggets! they're nuggets !" 
 
 And that's just how Dick Prothero found the first 
 rich paying placer of alluvial gold that ever was dis- 
 covered in Manitoba. 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 
 
 I. 
 
 *• On Sunday next, the 14th inst., the Reverend 
 John Greedy, B. A., of Magdalen College, Oxford, will 
 preach in Walton Magna Church, on behalf of the 
 Gold Coast Mission." Not a very startling announce- 
 ment that, and yet simple as it looks, it stirred Ethel 
 Berry's soul to its inmost depths. For Ethel had been 
 brought up by her Aunt Emily to look upon foreign 
 missions as the one thing on earth worth living for and 
 thinking about, and the Reverend John Creedy, B. A.» 
 had a missionary history of his own, strange enough 
 even in these strange days of queer juxtapositions be- 
 tween utter savagery and advanced civilization. 
 
 " Only think," she said to her aunt, as they read the 
 placard on the schoolhouse-board, "he's a real African 
 negro, the vicar says, taken from a slaver on the Gold 
 Coast when he was a child, and brought to England to 
 be educated. He's been to Oxford and got a degree ; 
 and now he's going out again to Africa to convert his 
 own people. And he's coming down to the vicar's to 
 stay on Wednesday." 
 
 " It's my belief," said old Uncle James, Aunt Emily's 
 brother, the superannuated skipper, " that he'd much 
 better stop in England for ever. I've been a good bit 
 on the Coast myself in my time, after palm oil and 
 
 I89] 
 
90 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 such, and my opinion is that a nigger's a nigger any- 
 where, but he's a sight less of a nigger in England than 
 out yonder in Africa. Take him to England, and you 
 make a gentleman of him ; send him home again, and 
 the nigger comes out at once in spite of you." 
 
 " Oh, James," Aunt Emily put in, *' how can you 
 talk such unchristianlike talk, setting yourself up 
 against missions, when we know that all the nations 
 of the earth are made of one blood ?" 
 
 " I've always lived a Christian life myself, Emily," 
 answered Uncle James, " though I have cruised a good 
 bit on the Coast, too, which is against it certainly ; 
 but I take it a nigger's a nigger whatever you do with 
 him. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, the 
 Scripture says, nor the leopard his spots, and a nig- 
 ger he'll be to the end of his days ; you mark my 
 words, Emily." 
 
 On Wednesday, in due course, the Reverend John 
 Creedy arrived at the vicarage, and much curiosity 
 there was throughout the village of Walton Magna 
 that week to see this curious new thing, a coal-black 
 parson. Next day, Thursday, an almost equally un- 
 usual event occurred to Ethel Berry, for, to her great 
 surprise, she got a little note in the morning inviting 
 her up to a tennis party at the vicarage the same after- 
 noon. Now though the vicar called on Aunt Emily 
 often enough, and accepted her help readily for school 
 feasts and other village festivities of the milder sort, 
 the Berrys were hardly up to that level of society 
 which is commonly invited to the parson's lawn tennis 
 parties. And the reason why Ethel was asked on 
 this particular Thursday must be traced to a certain 
 ' pious conspiracy between the. vicar and the secretary 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 9I 
 
 of the Gold Coast Evangelistic Society. When those 
 two eminent missionary advocates had met a fortnight 
 before at Exeter Hall, the secretary had represented 
 to the vicar the desirability of young John Greedy *s 
 taking to himself an English wife before his departure. 
 " It will steady him, and keep him right on the Goast,** 
 he said, "and it will give him importance in the eyes 
 of the natives as well." Whereto the vicar responded 
 that he knew exactly the right girl to suit the place in 
 his own parish, and that by a providential conjunction 
 she already took a deep interest in foreign missions. 
 So these two good men conspired in all innocence of 
 heart to sell poor Ethel into African slavery ; and the 
 vicar had asked John Greedy down to Walton Magna 
 on purpose to meet her. 
 
 That afternoon Ethel put on her pretty sateen and 
 her witching little white hat, with two natural dog- 
 roses pinned on one side, and went pleased and proud 
 up to the vicarage. The Reverend John Greedy was 
 there, not in full clerical costume, but arrayed in 
 tennis flannels, with only a loose white tie beneath his 
 flap collar to mark his newly acquired spiritual dignity. 
 He was a comely looking negro enough, full-blooded, 
 but not too broad-faced nor painfully African in type ; 
 and when he was playing tennis his athletic quick 
 limbs and his really handsome build took away 
 greatly from the general impression of an inferior 
 race. His voice was of the ordinary Oxford type, 
 open, pleasant, and refined, with a certain easy-going 
 air of natural gentility, hardly marred by just the faint- 
 est tinge of the thick negro blur in the broad vowels. 
 When he talks to Ethel — and the vicar's wife took 
 good ca.re that they should talk together a great deal 
 
92 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 — his conversation was of a sort that she seldom heard 
 at Walton Magna. It was full of London and Oxford ; 
 of boat-races at Iffley and cricket matches at Lord's ; 
 of people and books whose very names Ethel had 
 never heard — one of them was a Mr. Mill, she thought, 
 and another a Mr. Aristotle — but which she felt 
 vaguely to be one step higher in the intellectual scale 
 than her own level. Then his friends, to whom he 
 alluded casually, not like one who airs his grand ac- 
 quaintances, were such very distinguished people. 
 There was a real live lord, apparently, at the same 
 college with him, and he spoke of a young baronet 
 whose estate lay close by, as plain " Harrington of 
 Christchurch," without any " Sir Arthur " — a thing 
 which even the vicar himself would hardly have ven- 
 tured to do. She knew that he was learned, too ; as 
 a matter of fact he had taken a fair second class in 
 Greats at Oxford ; and he could talk delightfully of 
 poetry and novels. To say the truth, John Greedy, in 
 spite of his black face, dazzled poor Ethel, for he was 
 more of a scholar and a gentleman than anybody with 
 whom she had ever before had the chance of convers- 
 ing on equal terms. 
 
 When Ethel turned the course of talk to Africa, the 
 young parson was equally eloquent and fascinating. 
 He didn't care about leaving England for many 
 reasons, but he would be glad to do something for his 
 poor brethren. He was enthusiastic about missions ; 
 that was a common interest ; and he was so anxious to 
 raise and improve the condition of his fellow-negroes 
 that Ethel couldn't help feeling what a noble thing it 
 was of him thus to sacrifice himself, cultivated gentle- 
 man as he was, in an African jungle, for his heathen 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 93 
 
 countrymen. Altogether, she went home from the 
 tennis-court that afternoon thoroughly overcome by 
 John Greedy *s personality. She didn't for a moment 
 think of falling in love with him — a certain indescrib- 
 able race-instinct set up an impassable barrier against 
 that — but she admired him and was interested in him 
 in a way that she had never yet felt with any other 
 man. 
 
 As for John Greedy, he was naturally charmed with 
 Ethel. In the first place, he would have been charmed 
 with any English girl who took so much interest in 
 himself and his plans, for, like all negroes, he was 
 frankly egotistical, and delighted to find a white lady 
 who seemed to treat him as a superior being. But in 
 the second place, Ethel was really a charming, simple 
 English village lassie, with sweet little manners and a 
 delicious blush, who might have impressed a far less 
 susceptible man than the young negro parson. So, 
 whatever Ethel felt, John Greedy felt himself truly in 
 love. And after all, John Greedy was in all essentials 
 an educated" English gentleman, with the same chival- 
 rous feelings towards a pretty and attractive girl that 
 every English gentleman ought to have. 
 
 On Sunday morning Aunt Emily and Ethel went to 
 the parish church, and the Reverend John Greedy 
 preached the expected sermon. It was almost his 
 first — sounded like a trial trip, Uncle James mut- 
 tered — but it was undoubtedly what connoisseurs de- 
 scribe as an admirable discourse. John Greedy was 
 free from any tinge of nervousness — negroes never 
 know what that word means — and he spoke fervently, 
 eloquently, and with much power of manner about the 
 necessity for a Gold Coast Mission. Perhapo there 
 
94 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 was really nothing very original or striking in what he 
 said, but his way of saying it was impressive and vig- 
 orous. The negro, like many other lower races, has 
 the faculty of speech largely developed, and John 
 Greedy had been noted as one of the readiest and 
 most fluent talkers at the Oxford Union debates. 
 When he enlarged upon the need for workers, the 
 need for help, the need for succor and sympathy in the 
 great task of evangelization. Aunt Emily and Ethel 
 forgot his black hands, stretched out open-palmed 
 towards the people, and felt only their hearts stirred 
 within them by the eloquence and enthusiasm of that 
 appealing gesture. . 
 
 . The end of it all was, that instead of a week John 
 Greedy stopped for two months at Walton Magna, 
 and during all that time he saw a great deal of Ethel. 
 Before the end of the first fortnight he walked out one 
 afternoon along the river-bank with her, and talked 
 earnestly of his expected mission. 
 
 ** Miss Berry," he said, as they sat to rest awhile on 
 the parapet of the little bridge by the weeping willows, 
 " I don't mind going to Africa, but I can't bear going 
 all alone. I am to have a station entirely by myself 
 up the Ancobra river, where I shall see no other Chris- 
 tian face from year's end to year's end. I wish I 
 could have had some one to accompany me." 
 
 "You will be very lonely," Ethel answered. "I 
 wish indeed you could have some companionship." 
 
 "Do you really?" John Greedy went on. "It is 
 not good for man to live alone ; he wants a helpmate. 
 Oh, Miss Ethel, may I venture to hope that perhaps, 
 if I can try to deserve you, you will be mine ?" 
 
 Ethel started in dismay. Mr. Greedy had been very 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY. 95 
 
 attentive, very kind, and she had liked to hear him 
 talk and had encouraged his coming, but she was 
 hardly prepared for this. The nameless something in 
 our blood recoiled at it. The proposal stunned her, 
 and she said nothing but "Oh, Mr. Greedy, how can 
 you say such a thing ?" 
 
 John Greedy saw the shadow on her face, the unin- 
 tentional dilatation of her delicate nostrils, the faint 
 puckering at the corner of her lips, and knew with a 
 negro's quick instinct of face-reading what it all meant. 
 " Oh, Miss Ethel," he said, with a touch of genuine bit- 
 terness in his tone, ** don't you, too, despise us. I 
 won't ask you for any answer now ; I don't want an 
 answer. But I want you to think it over. Do think 
 it over, and consider whether you can ever love me. I 
 won't press the matter on you. I won't insult you by 
 importunity, but I will tell you just this once, and 
 once for all, what I feel. I love you, and I shall 
 always love you, whatever you answer me now. I 
 know it would cost you a wrench to take me, a greater 
 wrench than to take the least and the unworthiest of 
 your own people. But if you can only get over that 
 first wrench, f can promise earnestly and faithfully to 
 love you as well as ever woman yet was loved. Don't 
 say anything now," he went on, as he saw she was 
 going to open her mouth again: "wait and think it 
 over; pray it over; and if you can't see your way 
 straight before you when I ask you this day fortnight 
 'yes or no,' answer me *no,* and I give you my word 
 of honor as a gentleman I will never speak to you of 
 the matter again. But I shall carry your picture writ- 
 ten on my heart to my grave." 
 
96 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 And Ethel knew that he was speaking from his very 
 soul. 
 
 When she went home, she took Aunt Emily up into 
 her little bedroom, over the porch where the dog-roses 
 grew, and told her all about it. Aunt Emily cried 
 and sobbed as if her heart would break, but she saw 
 only one answer from the first. " It is a gate opened 
 to you, my darling," she said : " I shall break my heart 
 over it, Ethel, but it is a gate opened." And though 
 she felt that all the light would be gone out of her life 
 if Ethel went, she worked with her might from that 
 moment forth to induce Ethel to marry John Creedy 
 and go to Africa. Poor soul, she acted faithfully up 
 to her lights. 
 
 As for Uncle James, he looked at the matter very 
 differently. '* Her instinct is against it," he said 
 stoutly, "and our instincts wasn't put in our hearts for 
 nothing. They're meant to be a guide and a light to 
 us in these dark questions. No white girl ought to 
 marry a black man, even if he is a parson. It ain't 
 natural : our instinct is again it. A white man may 
 marry a black woman if he likes ; I don't say any- 
 thing again him, though I don't say I'd do it myself, 
 not for any money. But a white woman to marry a 
 black man, why, it makes our blood rise, you know, 
 'specially if you've happened to have cruised worth 
 speaking of along the Coast." 
 
 But the vicar and the vicar's wife were charmed 
 with the prospect of success, and spoke seriously to 
 Ethel about it. It was a call, they thought, and Ethel 
 oughtn't to disregard it. They had argued themselves 
 out of those wholesome race instincts that Uncle 
 James so rightly valued, and they were eager to argue 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY. 97 
 
 Ethel out of them too. What could the poor girl do ? 
 Her aunt and the vicar on the one hand, and John 
 Creedy on the other, were too much between them for 
 her native feelings. At the end of the fortnight John 
 Creedy asked her his simple question, ** yes or no," and 
 half against her will she answered "yes." John Creedy 
 took her hand delicately in his and fervidly kissed the 
 very tips of her fingers ; something within him told 
 him he must not kiss her lips. She started at the kiss, 
 but she said nothing John Creedy noticed the start, 
 and said within himself, " I shall so love and cherish 
 her that I will make her love me in spite of my black 
 skin." For with all the faults of his negro nature, 
 John Creedy was at heart an earnest and affectionate 
 man, after his kind. 
 
 And Ethel really did, to some extent, love him 
 already. It was such a strange mixture of feeling. 
 From one point of view he was a gentleman by posi- 
 tion, a clergyman, a man of learning and of piety ; and 
 from this point of view Ethel was not only satisfied, 
 but even proud of him. For the rest, she took him as 
 some good Catholics take the veil, from a sense of the 
 call. And so, before the two months were out, Ethel 
 Berry had married John Creedy, and both started 
 together at once for Southampton, on their way to 
 Axim. Aunt Emily cried, and hoped they might be 
 blessed in their new work, but Uncle James never lost 
 his misgivings about the effect of Africa upon a born 
 African. " Instincts is a great thing," he said, with a 
 shake of his head, as he saw the West Coast mail 
 steam slowly down Southampton Water, " and when he 
 gets among his own people his instincts will surely get 
 the better of him, as safe as my name is James Berry." 
 
98 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 II. 
 
 The little mission bungalow at Butabu6, a wooden 
 shed neatly thatched with fan palms, had been built 
 and garnished by the native catechist from Axim and 
 'his wife before the arrival of the missionaries, so that 
 Ethel found a habitable dwelling ready for her at the 
 end of her long boat journey up the rapid stream of 
 the Ancobra. There the strangely matched pair set- 
 tled down quietly enough to their work of teaching 
 and catechizing, for the mission had already been 
 started by the native evangelist, and many of the peo- 
 ple were fairly ready to hear and accept the new re- 
 ligion. For the first ten or twelve months Ethel's 
 letters home were full of praise and love for dear John. 
 Now that she had come to know him well, she won- 
 dered she had ever feared to marry him. No husband 
 was ever so tender, so gentle, so considerate. He 
 nursed her in all her little ailments like a woman ; she 
 leaned on him as a wife leans on the strong arm of her 
 husband. And then he was so clever, so wise, so 
 learned. Her only grief was that she feared she was 
 not and would never be good enough for him. Yet it 
 was well for her that they were living so entirely away 
 from all white society at Butabu6, for there she had 
 nobody with whom to contrast John but the half-clad 
 savages around them. Judged by the light of that 
 startling contrast, good John Greedy, with his culti- 
 vated ways and gentle manners, seemed like an Eng- 
 lishman indeed. • 
 
 John Greedy, for his part, thought no less well of 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 99 
 
 his Ethel. He was tenderly respectful to her; more 
 distant, perhaps, than is usual between husband and 
 wife, even in the first months of marriage, but that was 
 due to his innate delicacy of feeling, which made him 
 half unconsciously recognize the depth of the gulf that 
 still divided them. He cherished her like some saintly 
 thing, too sacred for the common world. Yet Ethel 
 was his helper in all his work, so cheerful under the 
 necessary privations of their life, so ready to put up 
 with bananas and cassava balls, so apt at kneading 
 plantain paste, so willing to learn from the negro 
 women all the mysteries of mixing agadey, cankey, and 
 koko pudding. No tropical heat seemed to put her 
 out of temper ; even the horrible country fever itself 
 she bore with such gentle resignation, John Greedy 
 felt in his heart of hearts that he would willingly give 
 up his life for her, and that it would be but a small 
 sacrifice for so sweet a creature. 
 
 One day, shortly after their arrival at Butabue, John 
 Greedy began talking in English to the catechist about 
 the best way of setting to work to learn the native lan- 
 guage. He had left the country when he was nine 
 years old, he said, and had forgotten all about it. The 
 catechist answered him quickly in a Fantee phrase. 
 John Greedy looked amazed and started. 
 
 *' What does he say ?" asked Ethel. 
 
 " He says that I shall soon learn if only I listen ; but 
 the curious thing is, Ethie, that I understand him." 
 
 " It has come back to you, John, that's all. You are 
 so quick at languages, and now you hear it again you 
 remember it." 
 
 " Perhaps so," said the missionary, slowly, " but I 
 
100 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 have never recalled a word of it for all these years. I 
 wonder if it will all come back to me." 
 
 " Of course it will, dear," said Ethel ; " you know, 
 things come to you so easily in that way. You almost 
 learned Portuguese while we were coming out from 
 hearing those Benguela people." 
 
 And so it did come back, sure enough. Before John 
 Greedy had been six weeks at Butabu^, he could talk 
 Fantee as fluently as any of the natives around him. 
 After all, he was nine years old when he was taken to 
 England, and it was no great wonder that he should 
 recollect the language he had heard in his childhood 
 till that age. Still, he himself noticed rather uneasily 
 that every phrase and word, down to the very heathen 
 charms and prayers of his infancy, came back to him 
 now with startling vividness and without an effort. 
 
 Four months after their arrival John saw one day a 
 tall and ugly negro woman, in the scanty native dress, 
 standing near the rude market-place where the Buta- 
 hu6 butchers killed and sold their reeking goat- 
 meat. Ethel saw him start again, and with a terrible 
 foreboding in her heart, she could not help asking him 
 why he started. " I can't tell you, Ethie," he said, 
 piteously ; " for heaven's sake don't press me. I want 
 to spare you." But Ethel would hear. " Is it your 
 mother, John ?" she asked hoarsely. 
 
 " No, thank heaven, not my mother, Ethie," he 
 answered her, with something like pallor on his dark 
 cheek, " not my mother; but I remember the woman." 
 
 " A relative ?" 
 
 " Oh, Ethie, don't press me. Yes, my mother's 
 sister. I remember her years ago. Let us say no 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY. lOI 
 
 more about it." And Ethel, looking at that gaunt and 
 squalid savage woman, shuddered in her heart and 
 said no more. 
 
 Slowly, as time went on, however, Ethel began to 
 notice a strange shade of change coming over John's 
 ideas and remarks about the negroes. At first he had 
 been shocked and distressed at their heathendom and 
 savagery, but the more he saw of it the more he 
 seemed to find it natural enough in their position, and 
 even in a sort of way to sympathize with it or apol- 
 ogize for it. One morning, a month or two later, he 
 spoke to her voluntarily of his father. He had never 
 done so in England. " I can remember," he said, " he 
 was a chief, a great chief. He had many wives, and 
 my mother was one. He was beaten in war by Kola, 
 and I was taken prisoner. But he had a fine palace at 
 Kwantah, and many fan-bearers." Ethel observed 
 with a faint terror that he seemed to speak with pride 
 and complacency of his father's chieftaincy. She 
 shuddered again and wondered. Was the West Afri- 
 can instinct getting the upper hand in him over the 
 Christian gentleman ? 
 
 When the dries were over, and the koko-harvest 
 gathered, the negroes held a grand feast. John had 
 preached in the open air to some of the market people 
 in the morning, and in the evening he was sitting in 
 the hut with Ethel, waiting till the catechist and his 
 wife should come in to prayers, for they earned out 
 their accustomed ceremony decorously, even there, 
 every night and morning. Suddenly they heard the 
 din of savage music out of doors, and the noise of a 
 great crowd laughing and shouting down the street. 
 John listened, and listened with deepening attention. 
 
lOJ 
 
 STUANviK SroUlMH. 
 
 "l>*>n't \*>u l\is\r it, I'Uhir?" \\c nifil. " It's \\\r (mn- 
 toiws. I know what it incans. It's tlu* l»ai vrst l»atllt% 
 
 fOi\Ht !" 
 
 " How hi»loo\H !'* said I'.thol, shiinKinj; haiK. 
 
 '* Oon't l>o .\(i.ii»l, iK'.msl," )nln\ saiil, smilii\^; at \\vr. 
 "It «uoai\?* i\o lumw. It's oi^ly \\\c pooplo ainii-un^ 
 tluMWsolvos." ,\\\\\ \w W\\,\\\ to Krrp tin\r lo tlw tom- 
 t\MUs iai>ulU' with th«^ pal»ns of Ins hainls. 
 
 Tho iiit\ iht'w inanM. an«l John \\\v\\' more «'vi«hntly 
 ovoitoil at cvtMv step. " l>»>n't yow hrai, l'*thir ?" he 
 saii< a|;aii>. "It's th(* Sah>tijja. What inspiiitin^j 
 mnsiv' ! It's hUo a ilunn an«H"ifo l)anvl ; it's hKf tl»e 
 l>aj;pipos ; it'slik*^ a inihtaiy inatvh. Wy Jov<\ it t oin- 
 pols ono to vlanoo !'* A\\k\ ho p;ol np as \w spoke, in 
 lM>i;hs)\ v'hMical ihoss {^{ov \\c wore iltMiiMl »hess even 
 at lU>tahvie\. an*! h«'j;an capoiinjj '\\\ a s»>rl ol l\ornpipc 
 rv>ui\d tho tiny i<>oin. 
 
 *' 0\\, J»>hn. *lot>'i," viiovl l\tl\tM, "Suppose the 
 catovhist were tv> vv>n\e it\ !" 
 
 Unt loht\'s l>h>otl was np. **l.*>ok here," he said 
 exoiteilly, "it r,oes hke this. Here ytni liohl )'onr 
 n\atvhUHk out ; here yon tue ; here )'*ni eh.u^M* with 
 v: nt lasses ; here yon haek then\ \Knvn before yynx ; here 
 yv^n hoK! np yvnir eneiny's ht\ul in yi>nr hamls, and 
 here yon kick it otY ani<>ni; the woineiu Oh, it's 
 j:;rand !" There w.is a terrihle lii;ht ii\ his ll)k\ek eyes 
 as he spoke, and a terrible trembling in his clenched 
 M.K'k hands. 
 
 " John, * cried l\thel. in an ai;ony of horror, " it isn't 
 Christian, it isn't hnman, it isnH w orthy of yon. 1 can 
 never, never love yon if yon do such a thinj^ a^ain." 
 
 In a moment John's face changed, and his hand fell 
 as if she had stabbed him. " Ethie," he said in a low 
 
vnlir, (Trrpliijr Ikk U to hrr lil<n n wM|»|ir»l 'iiiatdpf, 
 " r.thir, my «Iiiilir»|j, my own mohI, my ln-Invrtl ; what 
 /((irr \ (linw ! ( )li, hravrim, I will never llMlcfi to the 
 arc'urHcil IIiImj^j aijain. ( )li, i'.lhir, fm lieaveirH Hake, 
 for merry's sake, ((H|;ive im- I" 
 
 I'Uliel l.iid lier liaiul, heiiililliii;, nil \\\k Itea'l. jfilm 
 .^ank njton Ihm l<nr(") liefnre liri, hiiiI liowed liiinsrlf 
 ilowti wilh liJM liead ImIwcmii lii^i arms, lil<e one sta^- 
 j;ered and penilriil. I'.llnl liflrd lijin jmiiI ly, ,itid af 
 that moment the (ateihjst and his wife (aine in. John 
 Htood np f'inni)', tnoU down hin Milde ;iiid I'rayer hook, 
 and read thioii|;h evenin|; prayer at om e in his tiftnal 
 inipieMsive lone. In oih" moment he had < h,iii{;ed 
 haek a};ain from tin* I'antee Mavajje to the deiorons 
 ( )xford I lerjjyman. 
 
 it was only a week later that I'*thel, hnntinjj ahout 
 in the little storer(»(Mn, hapjieiied to iioti((; a stout 
 wooden box earefnily C(»V(;red up. .She opened the lid 
 wilh some tliClii iilty, for it wan fastened down with a 
 n.itivc lock, and to her horror she found inside it a siir- 
 r«'ptitious ke|.j of raw ncj^jro rum. .She took the k(r^ 
 «Mit, put it eonspi(u<Mis!y in the midst of the Htor<'rof)m, 
 and said nothin|.[. That ni|dit she heard John in the 
 juimle hehind tlnr yard, and lookin^j out, she saw 
 dindy th.it he was haikinj^ the ke^ t<i j)ieces vehe- 
 mently wilh an axe. After that he was even kind(T 
 and tenderer to lu;r than usual for the next week, hut 
 I'Uhel va|.;uely remiMnbered that once or twice before 
 lie had .seemed a little odd in his manner, and that it 
 wa.s on those tiays that she had seen j^leams of the 
 savage nature j)eepin^ through. I'erhaps, she thought, 
 with a shiver, his civilization was only a veneer, and a 
 glass of raw rum or so was enough to wash it off. 
 
104 • STRANGE STORIES. ' 
 
 Twelve months after their first arrival, Ethel came 
 home very feverish one evening from her girls' school, 
 and found John gone from the hut. Searching about 
 in the room for the quinine bottle, she came once more 
 upon a rum-keg, and this time it was empty. A name- 
 less terror drove her into the little bedroom. There, 
 on the bed, torn into a hundred shreds, lay John 
 Creedy's black coat and European clothing. The 
 room whirled around her, and though she had never 
 heard of such a thing before, the terrible truth flashed 
 across her bewildered mind like a hideous dream. She 
 went out alone, at night, as she had never done before 
 since she came to Africa, into the broad lane between 
 the huts which constituted the chief street of Butabu6. 
 So far away from home, so utterly solitary among all 
 those black faces, so sick at heart with that burning 
 and devouring horror ! She reeled and staggered 
 down the street, not knowing how or where she went, 
 till at the end, beneath the two tall date-palms, she saw 
 lights flashing, and heard the noise of shouts and 
 laughter. A group of natives, men and women to- 
 gether, were dancing and howling round a dancing and 
 howling negro. The central figure was dressed in the 
 native fashion, with arms and legs bare, and he was 
 shouting a loud song at the top of his voice in the 
 Fantee language, while he shook a tom-tom. There 
 was a huskiness as of drink in his throat, and his steps 
 were unsteady and doubtful. Great heavens ! could 
 that reeling, shrieking, black savage be John Greedy ? 
 
 Yes, instinct had gained the day over civilization ; 
 the savage in John Greedy had broken out ; he had 
 torn up his English clothes, and, in West African par- 
 lance, " had gone Fantee." Ethel gazed at him, white 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. " lOJ 
 
 with horror — stood still and gazed, and never cried nor 
 fainted, nor said a word. The crowd of negroes 
 divided to right and left, and John Greedy saw his wife 
 standing there like a marble figure. With one awful 
 cry he came to himself again, and rushed to her side. 
 She did not repel him, as he exp.cted ; she did not 
 speak ; she was mute and cold like a c^ -pse, not like 
 a living woman. He took her up in his strong arms, 
 laid her head on his shoulder, and carried her home 
 through the long line of thatched huts, erect and steady 
 as when he first walked up the aisle of Walton Magna 
 church. Then he laid her down gently on the bed, and 
 called the wife of the catechist. '* She has the fever," 
 he said in Fantee. " Sit by her." 
 
 The catechist 's wife looked at her, and said, "Yes; 
 the yellow fever." 
 
 And so she had. Even before she saw John, the 
 fever had been upon her, and that awful revelation 
 had brought it out suddenly in full force. She lay 
 unconscious upon the bed, her eyes open, staring 
 ghastily, but not a trace of color in her cheek nor a 
 sfgn of life upon her face. 
 
 John Greedy wrote a few words on a piece of paper, 
 which he folded in his hand, gave a few directions in 
 Fantee to the woman at the bedside, and then hurried 
 out like one on fire into the darkness outside. 
 
I06 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was thirty miles through the jungle, by a native 
 trackway, to the nearest mission station at Effuenta. 
 There were two Methodist missionaries stationed there, 
 John Greedy knew, for he had gone round by boat 
 more than once to see them. When he first came to 
 Africa he could no more have found his way across 
 the neck of the river fork by that tangled jungle track 
 than he could have flown bodily over the top of the 
 cocoa palms ; but now, half naked, barefooted, and 
 inspired with an overpowering emotion, he threaded 
 his path through the darkness among the creepers and 
 lianas of the forest in true African fashion. Stooping 
 here, creeping on all fours there, running in the open 
 at full "^speed anon, he never once stopped to draw 
 breath till he had covered the whole thirty miles, and 
 knocked in the early dawn at the door of the mission 
 hut at Effuenta. 
 
 One of the missionaries opened the barred doors 
 cautiously. " What do you want ?" he asked in Fan- 
 tee, of the bare-legged savage, who stood crouching 
 by the threshold. 
 
 "I bring a message from Missionary John Greedy," 
 the bare-legged savage answered, also in Fantee. 
 " He wants European clothes." 
 , " Has he sent a letter?" asked the missionary. 
 
 John Greedy took the folded piece of paper from 
 his palm. The missionary read it. It told him in a 
 few words how the Butabu^ people had pillaged John's 
 hut at night and stolen his clothing, and how he could 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN CREED V. . 10/ 
 
 not go outside his door till he got some European 
 dress again. 
 
 " This is strange," said the missionary. " Brother 
 Felton died three days ago of the fever. You can 
 take his clothes to Brother Greedy, if you will." 
 
 The bare-limbed savage nodded acquiescence. The 
 missionary looked hard at him, and fancied he had 
 seen his face before, but he never even for a moment 
 suspected that he was speaking to John Greedy him- 
 self. 
 
 A bundle was soon made of dead Brother Felton's 
 clothes, and the bare-limbed man took it in his arms 
 and prepared to run back again the whole way to But- 
 abu6. 
 
 ** You have had nothing to eat," said the lonely mis- 
 sionary. " Won't you take something to help you on 
 your way?" 
 
 " Give me some plantain paste," answered John 
 Greedy. " I can eat it as I go." And when they gave 
 it to him he forgot himself for the moment, and an- 
 swered, "Thank you," in English. The missionary 
 stared, but thought it was only a single phrase that he 
 had picked up at Butabu6, and that he was anxious, 
 negro-fashion, to air his knowledge. 
 
 Back through the jungle, with the bundle in his 
 arms, John Greedy wormed his way once more, like a 
 snake or a tiger, never pausing or halting on the road 
 till he found himself again in the open space outside 
 the village of Butabu6. There he stayed awhile, and 
 behind a clump of wild ginger, he opened the bundle 
 and arrayed himself once more from head to foot in 
 English clerical dress. That done, too proud to slink, 
 he walked bold and erect down the main alley, and 
 
I08 ,•' * STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 quietly entered his own hut. It was high noon, the 
 baking high noon of Africa, as he did so. 
 
 Ethel lay unconscious still upon the bed. The 
 negro woman crouched, half asleep after her night's 
 watching, at the foot. John Greedy looked at his 
 watch, which stood hard by on the little wooden table. 
 " Sixty miles in fourteen hours," he said aloud. " Bet- 
 ter time by a great deal than when we walked from 
 Oxford to the White Horse, eighteen months since." 
 And then he sat down silently by Ethel's bi!:dside. 
 
 "Has she moved her eyes ?" he asked tne negress. 
 
 ** Never, John Greedy," answered the woman. Till 
 last night she had always called him " Master." 
 
 He watched the lifeless face for an hour or two. 
 There was no change in it till about four o'clock ; 
 then Ethel's eyes began to alter their expression. He 
 saw the dilated pupils contract a little, and knew that 
 consciousness was gradually returning. 
 
 In a moment more she looked round at him and 
 gave a little cry. "John," she exclaimed, with a sort 
 of awakening hopefulness in her voice, " where on 
 earth did you get those clothes?" 
 
 " These clothes ?" he answered softly. " Why, you 
 must be wandering in your mind, Ethie dearest, to ask 
 such a question now. At Standen's, in the High at 
 Oxford, my darling." And he passed his black hand 
 gently across her loose hair. 
 
 Ethel gave a great cry of joy. " Then it was a 
 dream, a horrid dream, John, or a terrible mistake ? 
 Oh, John, say it was a dream !" 
 
 John drew his hand across his forehead slowly. 
 "Ethie darling," he said, "you are wandering, I'm 
 
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. IO9 
 
 afraid. You have a bad fever. I don't know what 
 you mean." 
 
 " Then you didn't tear them up, and wear a Fantee 
 dress, and dance with a tom-tom down the street ? Oh, 
 John!" 
 
 "Oh, Ethel! No. What a terrible deHrium you 
 must have had !" 
 
 " It is all well," she said. " I don't mind if I die 
 now." And she sank back exhausted into a sort of 
 feverish sleep. 
 
 "John Greedy," said the black catechist's wife 
 solemnly, in Fantee, " you will have to answer for that 
 lie to a dying woman with your soul !" 
 
 " My soul !" cried John Greedy passionately, smit- 
 ing both breasts with his clenched fists. ^'^ My %o\x\\ 
 Do you think, you negro wench, I wouldn't give my 
 poor, miserable, black soul to eternal torments a 
 thousand times over, if only I could give her little 
 white heart one moment's forgetfulness before she 
 dies ?" 
 
 For five days longer Ethel lingered in the burning 
 fever, sometimes conscious for a minute or two, but 
 for the most part delirious or drowsy all the time. 
 She never said another word to John about her terrible 
 dream, and John never said another word to her. But 
 he sat by her side and tended her like a woman, do- 
 ing everything that was possible for her in the bare 
 little hut, and devouring his full heart with a horrible 
 gnawing remorse too deep for pen or tongue to probe 
 and fathom. For civilization with John Greedy was 
 really at bottom far more than a mere veneer; though 
 the savage instincts might break out with him now and 
 again, such outbursts no more affected his adult and 
 
no STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 acquired nature than a single bump supper or wine 
 party at college affects the nature of many a gentle- 
 minded English lad. The truest John Creedy of all 
 was the gentle, tender, English clergyman. 
 
 As he sat by her bedside sleepless and agonized, 
 night and day for five days together, one prayer only 
 rose to his lips time after time : '* Heaven grant she 
 may die !" He had depth enough in the civilized side 
 of his soul to feel that that was the only way to save 
 her from a life-long shame. "If she gets well," he 
 said to himself, trembling, "I will leave this accursed 
 Africa at once. I will work my way back to England 
 as a common sailor, and send her home by the mail 
 with my remaining money. I will never inflict my 
 presence upon her again, for she can not be persuaded, 
 if once she recovers, that she did not see me, as she 
 did see me, a bare-limbed heathen Fantee brandishing 
 a devilish tom-tom. But I shall get work in England 
 — not a parson's; that I can never be again — but 
 clerk's work, laborer's work, navvy's work, anything ! 
 Look at my arms ; I rowed five in the Magdalen 
 eight ; I could hold a spade as well as any man. I 
 will toil and slave, and save, and keep her still like a 
 lady, if I starve for it myself, but she shall never see 
 my face again, if once she recovers. Even then it will 
 be a living death for her, poor angel ! There is only 
 one hope — Heaven grant she may die !'* 
 
 On the fifth day she opened her eyes once. John 
 saw that his prayer was about to be fulfilled. " John," 
 she said feebly — " John, tell me, on your honor, it was 
 only my delirium." 
 
 And John, raising his hand to heaven, splendide 
 mendaxt answered in a firm voice, " I swear it." 
 
THE KEVEKExNl) JOlliN GREEDY. Ill 
 
 Ethel smiled and shut her eyes. It was for the last 
 time. 
 
 Next morning, John Creedy — tearless, but parched 
 and dry in the mouth, like one stunned and unmanned 
 — took a pickaxe and hewed out a rude grave in the 
 loose soil near the river. Then he fashioned a rough 
 coffin from twisted canes with his own hands, and in 
 it he reverently placed the sacred body. He allowed 
 no one to help him or come near him — not even his 
 fellow-Christians, the catechist and his wife; Ethel 
 was too holy a thing for their African hands to touch. 
 Next he put on his white surplice, and for the first and 
 only time in his life he read, without a quaver in his 
 voice, the Church of England burial service over the 
 open grave. And when he had finished he went back 
 to his desolate hut, and cried with a loud voice of ut- 
 ter despair, " The one thing that bound me to civiliza- 
 tion is gone. Henceforth I shall never speak another 
 word of English. I go to my own people." So say- 
 ing, he solemnly tore up his European clothes once 
 more, bound a cotton loin-cloth round his waist, cov- 
 ered his head with dirt, and sat fasting and wailing 
 piteously, like a broken-hearted child, in his cabin. 
 
 Nowadays, the old half-caste Portuguese rum-dealer 
 at Butabue can point out to any English pioneer who 
 comes up the river which one, among a crowd of di- 
 lapidated negroes who lie basking in the soft dust out- 
 side his hut, was once the Reverend John Creedy, 
 B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford. 
 
MR. CHUNG. 
 
 The first time I ever met poor Chung was at one of 
 Mrs. Bouverie Barton's Thursday evening receptions 
 in Eaton Place. Of course you know Mrs. Bouverie 
 Barton, the cleverest literary hostess at this moment 
 living in London. Herself a well-known novelist, she 
 collects around her all the people worth knowing, at 
 her delightful At Homes ; and whenever you go there 
 you are sure to meet somebody whose acquaintance is 
 a treasure and an acquisition for your whole after life. 
 
 Well, it so happened on one of those enjoyable 
 Thursday evenings that I was sitting on the circular 
 ottoman in the little back room with Miss Amelia 
 Hogg, the famous woman's rights advocate. Now, if 
 there is a subject on earth which infinitely bores me, 
 that subject is woman's rights; and if there is a person 
 on earth who can make it absolutely unendurable, that 
 person is Miss Amelia Hogg. So I let her speak on 
 placidly in her own interminable manner about the 
 fortunes of the Bill — she always talks as though her 
 own pet Bill were the only Bill now existing on this 
 sublunary planet — and while I interposed an occasional 
 ** Indeed " or " Quite so " for form's sake, I gave my- 
 self up in reality to digesting the conversation of two 
 intelligent people who sat back to back with us on the 
 other side of the round ottoman. 
 
MR. CHUNG. 113 
 
 " Yes," said one of the speakers, in a peculiarly soft 
 silvery voice which contrasted oddly with Miss Hogg's 
 querulous treble, " his loss is a very severe one to con- 
 temporary philosophy. His book on the * Physiology 
 of Perception ' is one of the most masterly pieces of 
 analytic work I have ever met with in the whole 
 course of my psychological reading. It was to me, I 
 confess, who approached it fresh from the school of 
 Schelling and Hegel, a perfect revelation of i\ pos- 
 tcriori thinking. I shall never cease to regret that he 
 did not live long enough to complete the second 
 volume." 
 
 Just at this point Miss Hogg had come to a pause 
 in her explanation of the seventy-first clause of the 
 Bill, and I stole a look round the corner to see who 
 my philosophic neighbor might happen to be. An 
 Oxford don, no doubt, I said to myself, or a young 
 Cambridge professor, freshly crammed to the throat 
 with all the learning of the Moral Science Tripos. 
 
 Imagine my surprise when, on glancing casually at 
 the silvery-voiced speaker, I discovered him to be a 
 full-blown Chinaman ! \ 3S, a yellow-skinned, almond- 
 eyed, Mongolian-featured Chinaman, with a long pig- 
 tail hanging down his back, and attired in the official 
 amber silk robe and purple slippers of a mandarin of 
 the third grade, and the silver button. My curiosity 
 was so fully aroused by this strange discovery that I 
 determined to learn something more about so curious 
 a product of an alien civilization ; and therefore, after 
 a few minutes, I managed to give Miss Amelia Hogg 
 the slip by drawing in young Harry Farquhar, the 
 artist at the hundred-and-twentieth section, and mak- 
 
114 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 ing my way quietly across the room to Mrs. Bouvcrie 
 Harton. 
 
 " The name of that young Chinaman ?** our hostess 
 said in answer to my question. •' Oh, certainly ; he 
 is Mr. Chung, of the Chinese Legation. A most intel- 
 ligent and well-educated young man, with a great deal 
 of taste for European literature. Introduce you? — of 
 course, this minute." And she led the way back to 
 where my Oriental phenomenon was still sitting, deep 
 as ever in philosophical problems with Professor Wool- 
 stock, a spectacled old gentleman of German aspect, 
 who was evidently pumping him thoroughly with a 
 view to the materials for Volume Forty of his forth- 
 coming great work on " Ethnical Psychology." 
 
 I sat by Mr. Chung for the greater part of what was 
 left of that evening. From the very first he exercised 
 a sort of indescribable fascination over me. His Eng- 
 lish had hardly a trace of foreign accent, and his voice 
 was one of the sweetest and most exquisitely modu- 
 lated that I have ever heard. When he looked at you, 
 his deep, calm eyes bespoke at once the very essence 
 of transparent sincerity. Before the evening was 
 over, he had told me the whole history of his educa- 
 tion and his past life. The son of a well-to-do Pekin 
 mandarin, of distinctly European tastes, he had early 
 passed all his examinations in China, and had been 
 selected by the Celestial Government as one of the 
 first batch of students sent to Europe to acquire the 
 tongues and the sciences of the Western barbarians. 
 Chung's billet was to England ; and here, or in France, 
 he had lived with a few intervals ever since he first 
 came to man's estate. He had picked up our lan- 
 guage quickly ; had taken a degree at London Univer- 
 
MR. CHUNG. • 11$ 
 
 sity ; and had made himself thoroughly at home in 
 English literature. In fact, he was practically an 
 Englishman in everything but face and clothing. His 
 naturally fine intellect had assimilated European 
 thought and European feeling with extraordinary 
 ease, and it v-«: often almost impossible in talking 
 with him to re..iember that he was not one of our- 
 selves. If you shut your eyes and listened, you heard 
 a pleasant, cultivated, intelligent young Englishman ; 
 when you opened them again, it was always a fresh 
 surprise to find yourself conversing with a genuine 
 yellow-faced, pig-tailed Chinaman, in the full costume 
 of the peacock's feather. 
 
 ** You could never go back to live in China ?" I said 
 to him inquiringly after a time. " You could never 
 endure life among your own people after so long a 
 residence in civilized Europe ?" 
 
 " My dear sir," he answered, wi:h a slight shudder 
 of horror, "you do not reflect what my position actu- 
 ally is. My Government may recall me any day. I 
 am simply at their mercy, and I must do as I am bid- 
 den." 
 
 " But you would not like China," I put in. 
 
 " Like it !" he exclaimed, with a gesture which for a 
 Chinaman I suppose one must call violent. " I should 
 abhor it. It would be a living death. You who have 
 never been in China can have no idea of what an awful 
 misfortune it would be for a man who has acquired 
 civilized habits and modes of thought to live among 
 such a set of more than mediaeval barbarians as my 
 countrymen still rem.ain at the present day. Oh, no ; 
 God grant I may never have to return there perma- 
 nently, for it would be more than I could endure. Even 
 
Il6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 a short visit to Pekin is bad enough ; the place reeks 
 of cruelty, jobbery and superstition from end to end ; 
 and I always breathe more freely when I have once 
 more got back on to the deck of a European steamer 
 that flies the familiar British flag." 
 
 " Then you are not patriotic," I ventured to say. 
 
 " Patriotic !" he replied, with a slight curl of the lip ; 
 •* how can a man be patriotic to such a mass of corrup- 
 tion and abomination as our Chinese Government ? I 
 can understand a patriotic Russian, a patriotic Egyp- 
 tian, nay, even a patriotic Turk ; but a patriotic 
 Chinaman — why, the very notion is palpably absurd. 
 Listen, my dear sir ; you ask me if I could live in China. 
 No, I couldn't ; and for the best of all possible reasons 
 — they wouldn't let me. You don't know what the 
 furious prejudice and blind .superstition of that awful 
 country really is. Before I had been there three months 
 they would accuse me either of foreign practices or, 
 what comes to much the same thing, of witchcraft ; 
 and they would put me to death by one of their most 
 horrible torturing punishments — atrocities which I 
 could not even mention in an English drawing-room. 
 That is the sort of Damocles' sword that is always 
 hanging over the head of every Europeanized China- 
 man who returns against his own free will to his native 
 land." 
 
 I was startled and surprised. It seemed so natural 
 and simple to be talking under Mrs. Bouverie Barton's 
 big chandelier with this interesting young man, and 
 yet so impossible for a moment to connect him in 
 thought with all the terrible things that one had read 
 in books about the prisons and penal laws of China. 
 That a graduate of London University, a philosopher 
 
MR. CHUNG. 117 
 
 learned in all the political wisdom of Ricardo, Mill and 
 Herbert Spencer, should really be subject to that bar- 
 baric code of adominable tortures, was more than one 
 could positively realize. I hesitated a moment, and 
 then said, " But of course they will never recall you." 
 
 ** I trust not," he said quietly ; " I pray not. Very 
 likely they will let me stop here all my lifetime. I 
 am an assistant interpreter to the Embassy, in which 
 capacity I am useful to Pekin ; whereas in any home 
 appointment I would of course be an utter failure, a 
 manifest impossibility. But there is really no account- 
 ing for the wild vagaries and caprices of the Vermilion 
 Pencil. For aught I know to the contrary, I might 
 even be recalled to-morrow. If once they suspect a 
 man of European sympathies, their first idea is to cut 
 off his head. They regard it as you would regard the 
 first plague-spot of cholera or smallpox in a great 
 city. 
 
 " Heaven forbid that they should ever recall you," 
 I said earnestly ; for already I had taken a strong 
 fancy to this strange phenomenon of Western educa- 
 tion grafted on an immemorial Eastern stock ; and I 
 had read enough of China to know that what he said 
 about his probable fate if he returned there perma- 
 nently was nothing more than the literal truth. The 
 bare idea of such a catastrophe was too horrible to be 
 realized for a moment in Eaton Place. 
 
 As we drove home in our little one-horse brougham 
 that evening, my wife and Efifie were very anxious to 
 learn what manner of man my Chinese acquaintance 
 might really be ; and when I told them what a charm- 
 ing person I had found him, they were both inclined 
 rather to laugh at me for my enthusiastic description. 
 
Il8 STRANGE STORIES. "^ ' 
 
 Effic, in particular, jeered much at the notion of an 
 intelligent and earnest-minded Chinaman. ** You 
 know, Uncle darling," she said in her bewitching way, 
 *' all your geese are always swans. Every woman you 
 meet is absolutely beautiful, and every man is perfectly 
 delightful — till Auntie and I have seen them." 
 
 ** Perfectly true, Effie," I answered ; " it is an 
 amiable weakness of mine, after all." 
 
 However before the week was out Effie and Marian 
 between them would have it that I must call upon 
 Chung and ask him to dine with us at Kensington 
 Park Terrace. Their curiosity was piqued, for one 
 thing ; and for another thing, they thought it rather 
 the cheese in these days of expansive cosmopolitanism 
 to be on speaking terms with a Chinese attache. 
 *' Japanese are cheap," said Efifie, " horribly cheap of 
 late years — a perfect drug in the market ; but a China- 
 man is still, thank Heaven, at a social premium." 
 Now, though I am an obedient enough husband, as 
 husbands go, I don't always accede to Marian's wishes 
 in these matters ; but everybody takes it for granted 
 that Effie's will is law. Effie, I may mention paren- 
 thetically, is more than a daughter to us, for she is 
 poor Tom's only child ; and of course everybody con- 
 nected with dear Tom is doubly precious to us now, 
 as you may easily imagine. So when Effie had made 
 up her mind that Chung was to dine with us, the thing 
 was settled ; and I called at his rooms and duly in- 
 vited him, to the general satisfaction of everybody 
 concerned. 
 
 The dinner was a very pleasant one, and, for a won- 
 der, Effie and Marian both coincided entirely in my 
 hastily formed opinion of Mr, Chung. His mellow 
 
MR. CHUNG. 119 
 
 silvery voice, his frank truthful manner, his perfect free- 
 dom from self-consciousness, all pleased and impressed 
 those stern critics, and by the end of the evening 
 they wei both quite as much taken with his delight- 
 ful personality as I myself had originally been. One 
 link leads on to another ; and the end of it all was 
 that when we went down for our summer villeggiatura 
 to Abbot's Norbury, nothing would please Marian but 
 that Mr. Chung must be invited down as one of our 
 party. He came willingly enough, and for five or six 
 weeks we had as pleasant a time together as any four 
 people ever spent. Chung was a perfect encyclopaedia 
 of information, while his good humor and good 
 spirits never for a moment failed him under any 
 circumstances whatsoever. 
 
 One day we had made up a little private picnic to 
 Norbury Edge, and were sitting together after luncheon 
 under the shade of the big ash tree, when the conver- 
 sation happened to turn by accident on the small feet 
 of Chinese ladies. I had often noticed that Chung 
 was very reticent about China ; he did not like talking 
 about his native country ; and he was most pleased 
 and most at home when we treated him most like a 
 European born. Evidently he hated the provincialism 
 of the Flowery Land, and loved to lose his identity in 
 the wider culture of a Western civilization. 
 
 " How funny it will be," said Effie, " to see Mrs. 
 Chung's tiny feet when you bring her to London. I 
 suppose one of these days, on one of your flying visits 
 to Pekin, you will take to yourself a wife in your 
 country?" 
 
 "No," Chung answered, with quiet dignity; "I 
 
I20 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 shall never marry — that I have quite decided in my 
 own mind." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that," Marian put in quickly ; " I 
 hate to hear men say they'll never marry. It is such a 
 terrible mistake. They become so selfish, and frump- 
 ish, and oldbachelorish." Dear Marian has a high idea 
 of the services she has rendered to society in saving 
 her own fortunate husband from this miserable and 
 deplorable condition. 
 
 " Perhaps so," Chung replied quietly. " No doubt 
 what you say is true as a rule. But, for my own part, 
 I could never marry a Chinawoman ; I am too 
 thoroughly Europeanized for that ; we should have 
 absolutely no tastes or sympathies in common. You 
 don't know what my countrywomen are like, Mrs. 
 Walters." 
 
 " Ah, no," said my wife contemplatively ; ** I sup- 
 pose your people are all heathens. Why, goodness 
 gracious, Mr. Chung, if it comes to that, I suppose 
 really you are a heathen yourself !" 
 
 Chung parried the question gracefully. " Don't you 
 know," said he, " what Lord Chesterfield answered to 
 the lady who asked him what religion he professed ? 
 ' Madam, the religion to which all wise men belong.* 
 * And what is that ?' said she. * Madam, no wise man 
 ever says.' " 
 
 " Never mind Lord Chesterfield," said Effie, smiling, 
 "but let us come back to the future Mrs. Chung. I'm 
 quite disappointed you won't marry a Chinawoman ; 
 but at any rate I suppose you'll marry somebody ?" 
 
 " Well, not a European, of course," Marian put in. 
 
 " Oh, of course not," Chung echoed with true 
 Oriental imperturbability. 
 
MR. CHUNG. 121 
 
 " Why of course f * Efifie asked half unconsciously ; 
 and yet the very unconsciousness with which she asked 
 the question showed in itself that she instinctively felt 
 the gulf as much as any of us. If Chung had been a 
 white man instead of a yellow one, she would hardly 
 have discussed the question at issue with so much sim- 
 plicity and obvious innocence. 
 
 " Well, I will tell you why," Chung answered. " Be- 
 cause, even supposing any European lady were to con- 
 sent to become my wife — which is in the first place 
 eminently improbable — I could never think of putting 
 her in the terribly false position that she would have to 
 occupy under existing circumstances. To begin with, 
 her place in English society would be a peculiar and a 
 trying one. But that is not all. You must remember 
 that I am still a subject of the Chinese Empire, and a 
 member of the Chinese Civil Service. I may any day 
 be recalled to China, and of course — I say * of course ' 
 this time advisedly — it would be absolutely impossible 
 for me to take an English wife to Pekin with me. So 
 I am placed in this awkward dilemma. I would never 
 care to marry anybody except a European lady ; and 
 to marry a European lady would be an act of injustice 
 to her which I could never dream of committing. But 
 considering the justifiable contempt which all Euro- 
 peans rightly feel for us poor John Chinamen, I don't 
 think it probable in any case that the temptation is at 
 all likely to arise. And so, if you please, as the news- 
 papers always put it, * the subject then dropped.' " 
 
 We all saw that Chung was in earnest as to his wish 
 that no more should be said about the matter, and 
 we respected his feelings accordingly ; but that even- 
 ing, as we sat smoking in the arbor after the ladies 
 
122 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 had retired, I said to him quietly, '* Tell me, Chung, 
 if you really dislike China so very much, and are so 
 anxious not to return there, why don't you throw off 
 your allegiance altogether, become a British subject, 
 and settle down among us for good and all ?" 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, smiling, " you don't 
 think of the difficulties, I may say the impossibilities, 
 in the way of any such plan as you propose. It is easy 
 enough for a European to throw off his nationality 
 whenever he chooses ; it is a very different thing for 
 an Asiatic to do so. Moreover, I am a member of a 
 Legation. My Government would never willingly let 
 me become a naturalized Englishman ; and if I tried 
 to manage it against their will they would demand my 
 extradition, and would carry their point, too, as a 
 matter of international courtesy, for one nation could 
 never interfere with the accredited representative of 
 another, or with any of his suite. Even if I were to 
 abscond and get rid of my personality altogether, what 
 would be the use of it ? Nobody in England could 
 find any employment for a Chinaman. I have no 
 property of my own ; I depend entirely upon my sal- 
 ary for support ; my position is therefore quite hope- 
 less. I must simply let things go their own way, and 
 trust to chance not to be recalled to Pekin." 
 
 During all the rest of Chung's visit we let him roam 
 pretty much as he liked about the place, and Effie and 
 I generally went with him. Of course we never for a 
 moment fancied it possible that EfTie could conceivably 
 take a fancy to a yellow man like him ; the very notion 
 was too preposterously absurd. And yet, just towards 
 the end of his stay with us, it began to strike me un- 
 easily that after all even a Chinaman is human. And 
 
MR. CHUNG. , 123 
 
 when a Chinamen happens to have perfect manners, 
 noble ideas, delicate sensibility, and a chivalrous res- 
 pect for English ladies, it is perhaps just within the 
 bounds of conceivability that at some odd moments 
 an English girl might for a second partially forget 
 his oblique eyelids and his yellow skin. I was some- 
 times half afraid that it might be so with Effie ; 
 and though I don't think she would ever herself have 
 dreamed of marrying such a man — the physical bar- 
 rier between the races is far too profound for that — 
 I fancy she occasionally pitied poor Chung's loneli- 
 ness with that womanly pity which so easily glides 
 into a deeper and closer sentiment. Certainly she 
 felt his isolation greatly, and often hoped he would 
 never really be obliged to go back fc ever to that 
 hateful China. 
 
 One lovely summer evening, a few days before 
 Chung's holiday was to end, and his chief at the 
 Embassy expected him back again, Marian and I had 
 gone out for a stroll together, and in coming home 
 happened to walk above the little arbor in the shrub- 
 bery by the upper path. A seat let into the hedge 
 bank overhung the summer-house, and here we both 
 sat down silently to rest after our walking. As we 
 did so, we heard Chung's voice in the arbor close 
 below, so near and so clear that every word was quite 
 distinctly audible. 
 
 " For the last time in England," he was saying, with 
 a softly regretful cadence in his tone, as we came upon 
 him. 
 
 •* The last time, Mr. Chung !" The other voice was 
 Effie's. " What on earth do you mean by that ?" 
 
124 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 ** What I say, Miss Walters. I am recalled to China ; 
 I got the letters of recall the day before yesterday," 
 
 " The day before yesterday, and you never told us ! 
 Why didn't you let us know before?" 
 
 " I did not know you would interest yourselves in 
 my private affairs." 
 
 " Mr. Chung !" There was a deep air of reproach in 
 Efifie's tone. 
 
 " Well, Miss Walters, that is not quite true. I 
 ought not to have said it to friends so kind as you 
 have all shown yourselves to be. No ; my real reason 
 was that I did not wish to grieve you unnecessarily, 
 and even now I would not have done so, only " 
 
 " Only— ?" 
 
 At this moment I for my part felt we had heard too 
 much. I blushed up to my eyes at the thought that 
 we should have unwittingly played the spy upon these 
 two innocent young people. I was just going to call 
 out and rush down the little path to them ; but as 1 
 made a slight movement forward, Marian held my 
 wrist with an imploring gesture, and earnestly put her 
 finger on my lips. I was overborne, and I regret to 
 say I stopped and listened. Marian did not utter a 
 word, but speaking rapidly on her fingers, as we all 
 had learnt to do for poor Tom, she said impressively, 
 " For God's sake, not a sound. This is serious. We 
 must and ought to hear it out." Marian is a very 
 clever woman in these matters ; and when she thinks 
 anything a point of duty to poor Tom's girl, I always 
 give way to her implicity. But I confess I didn't 
 like it. 
 
 " Only ?" Effie had said. 
 
 " Only I felt compelled to now, I could not leave 
 
MR. CHUNG. 125 
 
 without telling you how deeply I had appreciated all 
 your kindness." 
 
 " But, Mr. Chung, tell me one thing,** she asked 
 earnestly ; " why have they recalled you to Pekin ?" 
 
 " I had rather not tell you.'* 
 
 " I insist.'* 
 
 ** Because they are displeased with my foreign tastes 
 and habits, which have been reported to them by some 
 of my iGWovf-attackes." 
 
 " But, Mr. Chung, Uncle says there is no knowing 
 what they will do to you. They may kill you on some 
 absurd charge or other of witchcraft or something 
 equally meaningless.** 
 
 " I am afraid," he answered imperturbably, " that 
 may be the case. I don't mind at all on my own ac- 
 count — we Chinese are an apathetic race, you know — 
 but I should be sorry to be a cause of grief to any of 
 the dear friends I have made in England." 
 
 ** Mr. Chung!'* This time the tone was one of un- 
 speakable horror. 
 
 ** Don't speak like that," Chung said quickly. 
 " There is no use in taking trouble at interest. I may 
 come to no harm ; at any rate, it will not matter much 
 to any one but myself. Now let us go back to the 
 house. I ought not to have stopped here with you so 
 long, and it is nearly dinner time.'* 
 . ** No,'* said Effie firmly ; " we will not go back. I 
 must understand more about this. There is plenty of 
 time before dinner : and if not, dinner must wait." 
 
 " But, Miss Walters, I don't think I ought to have 
 brought you out here, and I am quite sure I ought not 
 to stay any longer. Do return. Your Aunt will be 
 annoyed." 
 
126 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 "Bother Aunt! She is the best woman in the 
 world, but I must hear all about this. Mr. Chung, 
 why don't you say you won't go, and stay in England 
 in spite of them ?" 
 
 Nobody ever disobeys Effie, and so Chung wavered 
 visibly. " I will tell you why," he answered slowly ; 
 "because I cannot. I am a servant of the Chinese 
 Government, and if they choose to recall me I must 
 
 go- 
 
 " But they couldn't enforce their demand." 
 
 *' Yes, they could. Your Government would give 
 me up." 
 
 " But Mr. Chung, could't you run away and hide for 
 a while, and then come out again, and live like an 
 Englishman ?" 
 
 ** No," he answered quietly ; "it is quite impossible. 
 A Chinaman couldn't get work in England as a clerk or 
 anything of that sort, and I have nothing of my own 
 to live upon." 
 
 There was silence of a few minutes. Both were 
 evidently thinking it out. Effie broke the silence first. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Chung, do you think they will really put 
 you to death .?" 
 
 " I don't think it ; I know it." 
 
 "You know it ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Again a silence, and this time Chung broke it first. 
 
 "Miss Effie," he said, "one Chinaman more or less 
 in the world does not matter much, and I shall never 
 forgive myself for having been led to grieve you for a 
 moment, even though this is the last time I shall be 
 able to speak to you. But I see you are sorry for me, 
 and now — Chinaman as I am, I must speak out^ — I 
 
MR. CHUNG. '; 12/ 
 
 can't leave you without having told all I feel. I am 
 going to a terrible end, and I know it — so you will 
 forgive me. We shall never meet again, so what I am 
 going to say need never cause you any embarrassment 
 in future. That I am recalled does not much trouble 
 me ; that I am going to die does not much trouble me ; 
 but that I can never, could never possibly have called 
 you my wife, troubles me and cuts me to the very 
 quick. It is the deepest drop in my cup of humiliation.** 
 
 " I knew it," said Effie, with wonderful composure. 
 
 *' You knew it ?" 
 
 " Yes, I knew it. I saw it from the second week 
 you were here ; and I like you for it. But of course it 
 was impossible, so there is nothing more to be said 
 about it." 
 
 ** Of course," said Chung. "Ah, that terrible of 
 course / I feel it ; you feel it ; we all feel it ; and yet 
 what a horrible thing it is. I am so human in every- 
 thing else, but there is that one impassable barrier 
 between us, and I myself cannot fail to recognize it. I 
 could not even wish you to feel that you could marry 
 a Chinaman." 
 
 At that moment — for a moment only — I almost felt 
 as if 1 could have said to Effie, "Take him !" but the 
 thing was too impossible — a something within us rises 
 against it — and I said nothing. 
 
 " So now," Chung continued, " I must go. We 
 must both go back to the house. I have said more 
 than I ought to have said and I am ashamed of myself 
 for having done so. Yet, in spite of the measureless 
 gulf that parts us, I felt I could not return to China 
 without having told you. Will you forgive me ?" 
 
128 , STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 "I am so glad you did," said Effic; " it will relieve 
 you." 
 
 She stood a minute irresolute, and then she began 
 again : " Mr. Chung, I am too horrified to know what 
 I ought to do. I can't grasp it and take it all in so 
 quickly. If you had money of your own, would you 
 be able to run away and live somehow?" 
 
 " I might possibly," Chung answered, " but not prob- 
 ably. A Chinaman, even if he wears European cloth- 
 ing, is too marked a person ever to escape. The only 
 chance would be by going to Mauritius or California, 
 where I might get lost in a crowd." 
 
 ** But, Mr. Chun^, I have money of my own. What 
 can I do ? Help me, tell me. I can't let a fellow- 
 creature die for a mere prejudice of race and color. If 
 I were your wife it would be yours. Isn't it my duty ?" 
 
 " No," said Chung. *' It is more sacrifice than any 
 woman ought to make for any man. You like me, but 
 that is all." 
 
 " If I shut my eyes and only heard you, I think I 
 could love you." 
 
 " Miss Effie," said Chung, suddenly, ** this is wrong, 
 very wrong of me. I have let my weakness overcome 
 me. I won't stop any longer. I have done what I 
 ought not to have done, and I shall go this minute. 
 Just once, before I go, shut your eyes and let me kiss 
 the tips of your fingers. Thank you. No, I will not 
 stop," and, without another word he was gone. 
 
 Marian and I stared at one another in blank horror. 
 What on earth was to be done ? All solution were 
 equally impossible. Even to meet Chung at dinner 
 was terrible. We both knew in our heart of hearts 
 that if Chung had been an Englishman, remaining in 
 
MR. CHUNG. 129 
 
 heart and soul the very selfsame man he was, we 
 would willingly have chosen him for Effie s husband. 
 But a Chinaman I Reason about the prejudice as you 
 like, there it is, a thing not to be got over, and at bot- 
 tom so real that even the very notion of getting over 
 it is terribly repugnant to our natural instincts. On 
 the other hand, was poor Chung, with his fine, delicate 
 feelings, his courteous manners, his cultivated intellect, 
 his English chivalry, to go back among the savage 
 semi-barbarians of Pckin, and to be put to death in 
 Heaven knows what inhuman manner for the atro- 
 cious crime of having outstripped his race and nation ? 
 The thing was too awful to contemplate either way. 
 
 We walked home together without a word. Chung 
 had taken the lower path ; we took the upper one and 
 followed him at a distance. Efifie remained behind 
 for a while in the summer-house. I don't know how 
 we managed to dress for dinner, but we did, somehow ; 
 and when we went down into the little drawing-room 
 at eight o'clock, we were not surprised to hear that 
 Miss Effie had a headache, and did not want any din- 
 ner that evening. I was more surprised, however, 
 when, shortly before the gong sounded, one of the 
 servants brought me a little twisted note from Chung, 
 written hurriedly in pencil, and sent, she said, by a 
 porter from the railway station. It ran thus : 
 
 " Dear Mr. Walters : 
 
 " Excuse great haste. Compelled to return to 
 town immediately. Shall write more fully to-morrow. 
 Just in time to catch up express. 
 
 ** Yours ever, 
 
 "Chung." 
 
I30 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Evidently, instead of returning to the house, he had 
 gone straight to the station. After all, Chung had the 
 true feelings of a gentleman. He could not meet 
 Effie again after what had passed, and he cut the Gor- 
 dian knot in the only Vv^ay possible. 
 
 Efifie said nothing to us, and we said nothing to 
 Effie, except to show her Chung's note next morning 
 in a casual, offhand fashion. Two days later a note 
 came for us from the Embassy in Chung's pretty, 
 incisive handwriting. It contained copious excuses 
 for his hasty departure, and a few lines to say that he 
 was ordered back to China by the next mail, which 
 started two days later. Marian and I talked it all 
 over, but we could think of nothing that could be of 
 ar use ; and after all, we said to one another, poor 
 Chung might be mistaken about the probable fate that 
 was in store for him. 
 
 " I don't think," Effie said, when we showed her the 
 letter, *' I ever met such a nice man as Mr. Chung. I 
 believe he is really a hero.'*' We pretended not to un- 
 derstand what she could mean by it. 
 
 The days went by, and we went back again to the 
 dull round of London society. We heard nothing 
 more of Chung for many weeks ; till at last one morn- 
 ing I found a letter on the table bearing the Hong 
 Kong postmark. I opened it hastily. As I supposed, 
 it was a note from Chung. It was written in a very 
 small hand on a tiny square of rice-paper, and it ran as 
 follows : 
 
 ** Thien-Shan Prison, Pekin, Dec. 8. 
 "My Dear Friend, 
 
 " Immediately on my return here I was arrested on 
 
MR. CHUNG. 131 
 
 a charge of witchcraft, and of complicity with the 
 Foreign Devils to introduce the Western barbarism 
 into China. I have now been in a loathsome prison in 
 Pekin for three weeks, in the midst of sights and 
 sounds which I dare not describe to you. Already I 
 have suffered more than I can tell ; and I have very 
 little doubt that I shall be brought to trial and exe- 
 cuted within a few weeks. I write now begging you 
 not to let Miss Effie hear of this, and if my name hap- 
 pens to be mentioned in the English papers, to keep 
 my fate a secret from her as far as possible. I trust 
 to chance for the opportunity of getting this letter 
 forwarded to Hong Kong, and I have had to write it 
 secretly, for I am not allowed pen, ink, or paper. 
 Thank you much for your very great kindness to me. 
 I am not sorry to die, for it is a mistake for a man to 
 have lived outside the life of his own people, and 
 there was no place left for me on earth. Good-bye, 
 
 *'^Ever yours gratefully. 
 
 " Chung." 
 
 The letter almost drove me wild with ineffectual re- 
 morse and regret. Why had I not tried to persuade 
 Chung to remain in England ? Why had I not man- 
 aged to smuggle him out of the way, and to find him 
 some kind of light employment, such as even a China- 
 man might easily have performed ? But it was no use 
 regretting now. The impassable gulf was fixed be- 
 tween us ; and it was hardly possible even then to re- 
 alize that this amiable young student, versed in all the 
 science and philosophy of the nineteenth century, had 
 been handed over alive to the tender mercies of a 
 worse than mediaeval barbarism and superstition. My 
 
132 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 heart sank within me, and I did not venture to show 
 the letter even to Marian. 
 
 For some weeks the days passed heavily indeed. I 
 could not get Chung out of my mind, and I saw that 
 Effie could not either. We never mentioned his 
 name ; but I noticed that Effie had got from Mudie's 
 all the books about China that she could hear of, and 
 that she was reading up with a sort of awful interest 
 all the chapters that related to Chinese law and Chi- 
 nese criminal punishments. Poor child, the subject 
 evidently enthralled her with a terrible fascination ; 
 and I feared that the excitement she was in might bring 
 on a brain fever. 
 
 One morning, early in April, we were all seated in 
 the little breakfast-room about ten o'clock, and Effie 
 had taken up the outside sheet of the Times, while I 
 was engaged in looking over the telegrams on the cen- 
 tral pages. Suddenly she gave a cry of horror, flung 
 down the paper with a gesture of awful repugnance, 
 and fell from her chair as stiff and white as a corpse. 
 I knew instinctively what had happened, and I took 
 her up in my arms and carried her to her room. After 
 the doctor had come, and Effie had recovered a little 
 from the first shock, I took up the paper from the 
 ground where it lay and read the curt little paragraph 
 which contained the news that seemed to us so ter- 
 rible : 
 
 " The numerous persons who made the acquaintance 
 of Chung Fo Tsiou, late assistant interpreter to the 
 Chinese Embassy in London, will learn with regret 
 that this unfortunate member of the Civil Service has 
 been accused of witchcraft and executed at Pekin by 
 
MR. CHUNG. 133 
 
 the frightful Chinese method known as the Heavy 
 Death. Chung Fo Tsiou was well known in London 
 and Paris, where he spent many years of his official 
 life, and attracted some attention by his natural incli- 
 nation to European society and manners." 
 
 Poor Chung ! His end was too horrible for an Eng- 
 lish reader even to hear of it. But Effie knew it all, 
 and I did not wonder that the news should have af- 
 fected her so deeply. 
 
 Efifie was some weeks ill, and at first we almost 
 feared her mind would give way under the pre ..sure. 
 Not that she had more than merely liked poor Chung, 
 but the sense of horror was too great for her easily to 
 cast it off. Even I myself did not sleep lightly for 
 many and many a day after I heard the terrible truth. 
 But while Effie was still ill, a second letter reached us, 
 written this time in blood with a piece of stick, appar- 
 ently, on a scrap of coarse English paper, such as that 
 which is used for wrapping up tobacco. It was no 
 more than this : 
 
 *' Execution to-day. Keep it from Miss Effie. Can- 
 not forgive myself for having spoken to her. Will 
 you forgive me? It was the weakness of a moment ; 
 but even Chinamen have hearts. I could not die 
 without telling her. " CHUNG." 
 
 I showed Effie the scrap afterwards — it had come 
 without a line of explanation from Shanghae — and she 
 has kept it ever since locked up in her little desk as a 
 sacred memento. I don't doubt that some of these 
 days Effie will marry ; but as long as she lives she will 
 
^34 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 bear the impress of what she has suffered about 
 poor Chung. An English girl could not conceivably 
 marry a Chinaman ; but now that Chung is dead, Effie 
 cannot help admiring the steadfastness, the bravery, 
 and the noble qualities of her Chinese lover. It is an 
 awful state of things which sometimes brings the nine- 
 teenth century and primitive barbarism into such close 
 and horrible juxtaposition. 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 
 
 Walter Dene, deacon, in his faultless Oxford 
 clerical coat and broad felt hat, strolled along slowlyv 
 sunning himself as he went, after his wont, down the 
 pretty central lane of West Churnside. It was just the 
 idyllic village best suited to the taste of such an idyllic 
 young curate as Walter Dene. There were cottages 
 with low-thatched roofs, thickly overgrown with yel- 
 low stonecrop and pink houseleek ; there were trellis- 
 work porches up which the scented dog-rose and the 
 fainter honeysuckle clambered together in sisterly 
 rivalry ; there were pargeted gable-ends of Elizabethan 
 farmhouses, quaintly varied with black oak joists and 
 moulded plaster panels. At the end of all, between 
 an avenue of ancient elm trees, the heavy square tower 
 of the old church closed in the little vista — a church 
 with a round Norman doorway and dog-tooth arches, 
 melting into Early English lancets in the aisle, and 
 finishing up with a great Decorated east window by 
 the broken cross and yew tree. Not a trace of Per- 
 pendicularity about it anywhere, thank goodness : 
 for if it were Perpendiculai-," said Walter Dene to him- 
 self often, "I really think, iii spite of my uncle, I 
 should have to look out for another curacy." 
 
 Yes, it was a charming village, and a charming 
 
 [^35] 
 
136 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 country ; 'but, above all, it was rendered habitable and 
 pleasurable for a man of taste by the informing pres- 
 ence of Christina Eliot. 
 
 *' I don't think I shall propose to Christina this 
 week after all," thought Walter Dene, as he strolled 
 along lazily. " The most delightful part of love- 
 making is certainly its first beginning. The little 
 temor of hope and expectation ; the half-needless 
 doubt you feel as to whether she really loves you ; 
 the pains you take to pierce the thin veil of maidenly 
 reserve ; the triumph of detecting her at a blush or a 
 flutter when she sees you coming — all these are deli- 
 cate little morsels to be rolled daintily on the critical 
 palate, and not to be swallowed down coarsely at one 
 vulgar gulp. Poor child, she is on tenter-hooks of 
 hesitation and expectancy all the time, I know ; for 
 I'm sure she loves me now, I'm sure she loves me ; but 
 I must wait a week yet ; she will be grateful to me 
 for it hereafter. We mustn't kill the goose that lays 
 the golden eggs ; we mustn't eat up all our capital at 
 one extravagant feast, and then lament the want of 
 our interest ever afterward. Let us live another week 
 in our first fool's paradise before we enter on the safer 
 but less tremulous pleasures of sure possession. We 
 can enjoy first love but once in a lifetime ; let us enjoy 
 it now while we can, and not fling away the chance 
 prematurely by mere childish haste and girlish pre- 
 cipitancy." 
 
 Thinking which thing, Walter Dene halted a moment 
 by the churchyard wall, picked a long spray of scented 
 wild thyme from a mossy cranny, and gazed into the 
 blue sky above, at the graceful swifts who nested in 
 the old tower, as they curved and circled through the 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 1 37 
 
 yielding air on their evenly poised and powerful 
 pinions. 
 
 Just at that moment old Mary Long came out of 
 her cottage to speak with the young parson. " If ye 
 plaze, Maister Dene," she said in her native west- 
 country dialect, " our Mully would like to zee 'ee. 
 She's main ill to-day, zur, and she be like to die a'most, 
 I'm thinking." 
 
 ** Poor child, poor child," said Walter Dene, ten- 
 derly. " She's a dear little thing, Mrs. Long, is your 
 Nellie, and I hope she may yet be spared to you. I'll 
 come and see her at once, and try if I can do anything 
 to ease her." 
 
 He crossed the road compassionately with the tot- 
 tering old grandmother, giving her his helping hand 
 over the curbstone, and following her with bated 
 breath into the close little sick-room. Then he flung 
 open the tiny casement with its diamond-leaded panes, 
 so as to let in the fresh summer air, and picked a few 
 sprigs of sweet-briar from the porch, which he joined 
 with the geranium from his own buttonhole to make 
 a tiny nOsegay for the bare bedside. After that, he 
 sat and talked awhile gently in an undertone to pale, 
 pretty little Nellie herself, and went away at last prom- 
 ising to send her some jelly and some soup immedi- 
 ately from the vicarage kitchen. 
 
 " She's a sweet little child," he said to himself 
 musingly, "though I'm afraid she's not long for this 
 world now ; and the poor like these small attentions 
 dearly. They get them seldom, and value them for 
 the sake of the thoughtfulness they imply, rather than 
 for the sake of the mere things themselves. I can 
 order a bottle of calf's-foot at the grocer's, and Carter 
 
IjS . STRANGE STORIKS. 
 
 can sot it it\ a mould without any trouble ; while as 
 for the so\ip. notnc tinned inocU-turtlc and a little 
 fresh stock niakes a really capital mixture for this sort 
 of thinp^. It ct>sts so little to give these poor souls 
 pleasure, and it is a j^reat luxury to oneself undeni- 
 ablv. Hut, after all, what a funnv trade it is to set an 
 educated man to \\k> ! They send us up to Oxford or 
 Cambrivli;e, j;ive us a distinct taste for yKschylus and 
 Catullus. Dante and Milton, Mendelssohn and C'hopin, 
 j:^ood claret and olives farcies, and then brin^ us dt>wn 
 to a country villaq;e, to K>ok after the bodily and 
 spiritual ailments of rhevunatic old washerwomen ! If 
 it were not for poetry, flowers, and Christina, I really 
 think I should succumb entirely under the intlictioti." 
 
 " He's adear, i^^ood man, that he is, is youni; passon," 
 murmured old Mary Lon^ as Walter disappeared 
 between the elm trees ; " and he do love the poor and 
 the zick, the same as if he was their own brother. 
 God bless his zoul, the dear, good vulla, vor all his 
 kindness to our NuUv." 
 
 Half-way down the main lane Walter came across 
 Christina Eliot. As she saw him she smiled and col- 
 ored a little, and held out her small gloved hanxl pret- 
 tily. Walter took it with a certain courtlv anil grace- 
 ful chivalry. "An exquisite day. Miss Eliot," he said ; 
 ** such a depth of sapphire in the sky, such a faint 
 undertone of green on the clouds by the horizon, such 
 a lovely humming of bees over the flickering hot 
 meadows ! On days like this, one feels that Schopen- 
 hauer is wrong after all, and that life is sometimes 
 really worth living." • • . 
 
 " It seems to me often worth living," Christina 
 answered ; ** if not for oneself, at least for others. But 
 
TIIK ("UKA'IK (»!• CIHIKNSIhK. 139 
 
 I 
 
 you prctctui to he more of a prssimlst than you really 
 arc, I fancy, Mr. Dciic. Anyone who finih so ninth 
 beauty in the worhl as ynu do can hardly think Hfe 
 poor or meagre. You seem to catdi the h>vehest 
 points in everything you h)ok at, and to throw a httle 
 literary or artistic reflection over them which makes 
 them even lovelier than they are in themselves." 
 
 " Well, no douht one can increase one's possibilities 
 of enjoyment by carefully cultivating one's own facul- 
 ties of admiration anil apj)recialion," said the curate, 
 thoughtfully; "but, after all, life has only a few 
 chapters that are thorouj^hly interesting and enthral- 
 ling in all its history. We ou}.ditn't to hurry over them 
 too li}.(htly, Miss I'Jiot ; we ou}.dit to linj^^er on them 
 lovingly, and make the most of their potentiaIiti(;s; 
 we ou^ht to dwell upon them like ' linked sweetness 
 lonjj^ drawn out.' It is the mistake of the world at 
 lar^e to hurry too rapidly over the pleasantest epi- 
 sodes, just as children pick all the plums at once out 
 of the pudding. I often thiidv that, from the purely 
 selfish and temporal point of view, the real value of a 
 life to its subject may be measured by the space of 
 time over which he has manaj^ed to spread the enjoy- 
 ment of its greatest pleasures. Look, for example, at 
 poetry, now. 
 
 • A faint shade of disappointment passed across Chris- 
 tina's face as he turned from what seemed another 
 j^roovc into that indifferent subject ; but she answered 
 at once, "Yes, of course one f^'cls that with the higher 
 pleasures at least ; but there arc others in which the 
 interest of plot is greater, and then one looks naturally 
 rather to the end. When you begin a good novel, you 
 
140 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 can't liclp hurryinj^ tlirou^li it tn order to find t)iit 
 what l)cctMUcs of everybody at last." 
 
 " Ah, but the highest artistic interest j;oes 1)eyond 
 mere plot interest. 1 like rather to read for the pleas- 
 ure of readinjx, and to loiter over the passaj^es that 
 please nu\ quite irrespective of what poes before or 
 what conies after ; just as you, for your part, like to 
 sketch a beautiful scene for its own worth to you, irre- 
 spective of what may happen to the leaves in autumn, 
 or to the cottai^c roof in twenty years ivom this. Hy 
 the way, have you finished that little water-col<ir of 
 tlic mill yet ? It's the prettiest thins; of your's I've 
 ever seen, and I want to look how you've managed the 
 lii;ht on your forei^round." 
 
 "Come in and see it," said Christina, " It's finished 
 now, and to tell you the truth, I'm ver\' well pleased 
 with it myself." 
 
 " Then I know it nuist be i^ooil," the curate an- 
 swered, ** for you arc always your own harshest critic." 
 And he turned in at the little i^ate with her, and en- 
 tered the village doctor's tiny drawini^-room. 
 
 Christina placed the sketch on an easel near the 
 window-a low window openini; to the ground, with 
 long, lithe festoons of faint-scented jasmine encroach- 
 incr on it frc»m outside— and let the light fall on it 
 aslant in the right direction. It was a pretty and a 
 clever sketch certainly, with more than a mere ama- 
 teur's sense of form and color ; and Walter Dene, who 
 had a true eye for pictures, could conscientiously 
 praise it for its artistic depth and fullness. Indeed, on 
 that head, at least, Walter Dene's veracity was unim- 
 peachable, however lax in other matters. Nothing on 
 earth would have induced him to praise as good a 
 
TIIK CUKATK OF CIUJUNSinK. I4I 
 
 picture or a sculpture in which he saw no real merit. He 
 sat a little while criticising^ and <liscussin^ it, suj^^est- 
 in^ an improvement here or an alteration there, and 
 then he rose hurriedly, remembering all at once liis 
 forgotten promise to little Nellie. " Dear me," he said, 
 " your daujditer's j)iclure has almost made mc overlook 
 my proper duties, Mrs. I'Uiot. I i)ronH'sed to send some 
 jelly and things at once to poor little Nellie Lonj; at her 
 ^grandmother's. Ijow very wronj^ of mc to let my nat- 
 ural inclinations keep me loitering here, when I ou^dit 
 to have been thinkiti}^ of the poor of my parish !" And 
 he went out with just a gentle pressure on Christina's 
 hand, and a look from his eyes that her heart knew 
 how to read aright at the first glance of it. 
 
 " Do you know, Christie," said her father, " I some- 
 times fancy when I hear that new parson fellow talk 
 about his artistic feelings, and so on, that he's just a 
 trifle selfish, or at least self-centred. I le always dwells 
 so much on his own enjoyment of tilings, you know." 
 
 " Oh, no, papa," cried Christina, warmly. " lie's 
 anything but selfish, I'm sure. Look how kind he is 
 to all the poor in the village, and how much he thinks 
 about their comfort and welfare. And whenever he's 
 talking with one, he seems so anxious to make you feel 
 happy and contented with yourself. He has a sort of 
 little subtle flattery of manner about him that's all 
 pure kindliness ; and he's always thinking what he can 
 say or do to please you, and to help you onward. 
 What you say about his dwelling on enjoyment so 
 much is really only his artistic sensibility. He feels 
 things so keenly, and enjoys beauty so deeply, that he 
 can't help talking enthusiastically about it even a little 
 out of season. He has more feelings to display than 
 
142 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 most men, and I'm sure that's the reason why he dis- 
 plays them so much. A ploughboy could only talk 
 enthusiastically about roast beef and dumplings ; Mr. 
 Dene can talk about everything that's beautiful and 
 sublime on earth or in heaven." 
 
 Meanwhile, Walter Dene was walking quickly with 
 his measured tread — the even, regular tread of a cul- 
 tivated gentleman — down the lane toward the village 
 grocer's, saying to himself as he went, " There was 
 never such a girl in all the world as my Christina. 
 She may be only a country surgeon's daughter — a 
 rosebud on a hedgerow bush — but she has the soul 
 and the eye of a queen among women for all that. 
 Every lover has deceived himself with the same sweet 
 dream, to be sure — how over-analytic we have become 
 nowadays, when I must needs half argue myself out 
 of the sweets of first love ! — but then they hadn't so 
 much to go upon as I have. She has a wonderful 
 touch in music, she has an exquisite eye in painting, 
 she has an Italian charm in manner and conversation. 
 I'm something of a connoisseur, after all, and no more 
 likely to be deceived in a woman than I am in a wine 
 or a picture. And next week I shall really propose 
 formally to Christina, though I know by this time it 
 will be nothing more than the merest formality. Her 
 eyes are too eloquent not to have told me that long 
 ago. It will be a delightful pleasure to live for her, 
 and in order to make her happy. I frankly recognize 
 that I am naturally a little selfish — not coarsely and 
 vulgarly selfish ; from that disgusting and piggish vice, 
 I may conscientiously congratulate myself that I'm 
 fairly free ; but still selfish in a refined and cultivated 
 manner. Now, living with Christina and for Christina 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I43 
 
 will correct this defect in my nature, will tend to bring 
 me nearer to a true standard of perfection. When I 
 am by her side, and then only, I feel that I am think- 
 ing entirely of her, and not at all of myself. To her I 
 show my best side ; with her, that best side would be 
 always uppermost. The companionship of such a 
 woman makes life something purer, and higher, and 
 better worth having. The one thing that stands in 
 our way is this horrid practical question of what to 
 live upon. I don't suppose Uncle Arthur will be in- 
 clined to allow me anything, and I can't marry on my 
 own paltry income and my curacy only. Yet I can't 
 bear to keep Christina waiting indefinitely till some 
 thick-headed squire or other chooses to take it into 
 his opaque brain to give me a decent living." 
 
 From the grocer's the curate walked on, carrying 
 the two tins in his hana, as far as the vicarage. He 
 went into the library, sat down by his own desk, and 
 rang the bell. " Will you be kind enough to give 
 those things to Carter, John ?" he said in his bland 
 voice ; "and tell her to put the jelly in a mould, and 
 let it set. The soup must be warmed with a little 
 fresh stock, and seasoned. Then take them both, 
 with my compliments, to old Mary Long the washer- 
 woman, for her grandchild. Is my uncle in ?" 
 
 ** No, Master Walter," answered the man— he was 
 always " Master Walter " to the old servants at his 
 uncle's — "the vicar have gone over by train to Chur- 
 minster. He told me to tell you he wouldn't be back 
 till evening, after dinner." 
 
 " Did you see him off, John ?" 
 
 " Yes, Master Walter. I took his portmantew to 
 the station." . 
 
,1 
 
 144 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 " This will be a good chance, then," thought Walter 
 Dene to himself. " Very well, John," he went on 
 aloud : " I shall write my sermon now. Don't let any- 
 body come to disturb me." 
 
 John nodded and withdrew. Walter Dene locked 
 the door after him carefully, as he often did when 
 writing sermons, and then lit a cigar, which was also a 
 not infrequent concomitant of his exegetical labors. 
 After that he walked once or twice up and down the 
 room, paused a moment to look at his parchment- 
 covered Rabelais and Villon on the bookshelf, peered 
 out of the dulled glass windows with the crest in their 
 centre, and finally drew a curious bent iron instrument 
 out of his waistcoat pocket. With it in his hands, he 
 went up quietly to his uncle's desk, and began fum- 
 bling at the lock in an experienced manner. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, it was not his first trial of skill in lock-pick- 
 ing ; for Walter Dene was a painstaking and method- 
 ical man, and having made up his mind that he would 
 get at and read his uncle will, he took good care to 
 begin by fastening all the drawers in his own bedroom, 
 and trying his prentice hand at unfastening them again 
 in the solitude of his chamber. 
 
 After half a minute's twisting and turning, the wards 
 gave way gently to his dexterous pressure, and the lid 
 of the desk lay open before him. Walter Dene took 
 out the different papers one by one — there was no 
 need for hurry, and he was not a nervous person — till 
 he came to a roll of parchment, which he recognized 
 at once as the expected will. He unrolled it carefully 
 and quietly, without any womanish trembling or excite- 
 ment — " thank Heaven," he said to himself, " I'm 
 above "uch nonsense as that " — and sat down leisurely 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I45 
 
 to read it in the big, low, velvet-covered study chair. 
 As he did so, he did not forget to lay a notched foot- 
 rest for his feet, and to put the little Japanese dish on 
 the tiny table by his side to hold his cigar ash. " And 
 now," he said, "for the important question whether 
 Uncle Arthur has left his money to me, or to Arthur, 
 or to both of us equally. He ought, of course, 
 to leave at least half to me, seeing I have become a 
 curate on purpose to please him, instead of following 
 my natural vocation to the Bar ; but I shouldn't be a 
 bit surprised if he had left it all to Arthur. He's a 
 pig-headed and illogical old man, the vicar ; and he 
 can never forgive me, I believe, because, being the 
 eldest son, I wasn't called after him by my father and 
 mother. As if that was my fault ! Some people's 
 ideas of personal responsibility are so ridiculously 
 muddled." 
 
 He composed himself quietly in the armchair, and 
 glanced rapidly at the will through the meaningless 
 preliminaries till he came to the significant clauses. 
 These he read more carefully. " All my estate in the 
 county of Dorset, and the messuage or tenement 
 known as Redlands, in the parish of Lode, in the 
 county of Devon, to my dear nephew, Arthur Dene," 
 he said to himself, slowly : " Oh, this will never do." 
 " And I give and bequeath to my said nephew, Arthur 
 Dene, the sum of ten thousand pounds, three per 
 cent, consolidated annuities, now standing in my name" 
 — "Oh, this is atrocious, quite atrocious! What's 
 this ?" "And I give and bequeath to my dear nephew, 
 Walter Dene, the residue of my personal estate " — 
 ** and so forth. Oh, no. That's quite sufficient. This 
 must be rectified. The residuary legatee would only 
 
... ;>.-, .J .. ■. Y 
 
 146 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 come in for a few hundreds or so. It*s quitv^ 
 preposterous. The vicar was always an ill-tempered, 
 cantankerous, unaccountable person, but I wonder he 
 has the face to sit opposite me at dinner after that." 
 
 He hummed an air from Schubert, and sat a moment 
 looking thoughtfully at the will. Then he said to 
 himself quietly, " The simplest thing to do would be 
 merely to scrape out or take out with chemicals the 
 name Arthur, substituting the name Walter, and vice 
 versd. That's a very small matter ; a man who draws 
 as well as I do ought to be able easily to imitate a 
 copying clerk's engrossing hand. But it would be 
 madness to attempt it now and here ; I want a little 
 practice first. At the same time, I mustn't keep the 
 will out a moment longer than is necessary ; my uncle 
 may return by some accident before I expect him ; 
 and the true philosophy of life consists in invariably 
 minimizing the adverse chances. This will was 
 evidently drawn up bj^ Watson and Blenkiron, of Chan- 
 cery Lane. I'll write to-morrow and get them to draw 
 up a will for me, leaving all I possess to Arthur. The 
 same clerk is pretty sure to engross it, and that'll give 
 me a model for the two names on which I can do a 
 little preliminary practice. Besides, I can try the stuff 
 Wharton told me about, for making ink fade, on the 
 same parchment. That will be killing two birds with 
 one stone, certainly. And now if I don't make haste 
 I shan't have time to write my sermon." 
 
 He replaced the will calmly in the desk, fastened 
 the lock again with a delicate twirl of the pick, and 
 sat down in his armchair to compose his discourse for 
 to-morrow's evensong. " It's not a bad bit of 
 rhetoric," he said to himself as he read it over for cor- 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I47 
 
 rection, "but I'm not sure that I haven't plagiarized a 
 Httle too freely from Montaigne and dear old Burton. 
 What a pity it must be thrown away upon a Churn- 
 side congregation ! Not a soul in the whole place will 
 appreciate a word of it, except Christina. Well, well, 
 that alone is enough reward for any man." And he 
 knocked off his ash pensively into the Japanese ash- 
 pan. 
 
 During the course of the next week Walter practised 
 diligently the art of imitating handwriting. He got 
 his will drawn up and engrossed at Watson and Blenk- 
 iron's (without signing it, bien entcndii) ; and he spent 
 many solitary hours in writing the two names " Wal- 
 ter " and "Arthur" on the spare end of parchment, 
 after the manner of the engrossing clerk. He also 
 tested the stuff for making the ink fade to his own 
 perfect satisfaction. And on the next occasion when 
 his uncle was safely off the premises for three hours, 
 he took the will once more deliberately from the desk, 
 removed the obnoxious letters with scrupulous care, 
 and wrote in his own name in place of Arthur's so 
 that even the engrossing clerk himself would hardly 
 have known the 'difference. "There," he said to him- 
 self approvingly, as he took down quiet old George 
 Herbert from the shelf and sat down to enjoy an hour's 
 smoke after the business was over, "that's one good 
 deed well done, anyhow. I have the calm satisfaction 
 of a clear conscience. The vicar's proposed arrange- 
 ment was really most unfair; I have substituted for it 
 what Aristotle would have rightly called true distribu- 
 tive justice. For though I've left all the property to 
 myself, by the unfortunate necessity of the case, of 
 course I won't take it all. I'll be juster than the vicar. 
 
148 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Arthur shall have his fair share, which is more, I 
 believe, than he'd have done for me ; but I hate 
 squalid money-grubbing. If brothers can't be gener- 
 ous and brotherly to one another, what a wretched, 
 sordid little life this of ours would really be!" 
 
 Next Sunday mgrning the vicar preached, and Wal- 
 ter sat looking up at him reflectively from his place in 
 the chancel. A beautiful clear-cut face, the curate's, and 
 seen to great advantage from the doctor's pew, set off 
 by the white surplice, and upturned in quiet medita- 
 tion towards the elder priest in the pulpit. Walter 
 was revolving many things in his mind, and most of 
 all one adverse chance which he could not just then 
 see his way to minimize. Any day his uncle might 
 take it into his head to read over the will and discover 
 the — ah, well, the rectification. Walter was a man of 
 too much delicacy of feeling even to think of it to 
 himself as a fraud or a forgery. Then, again, the vicar 
 was not a very old man after all ; he might live for an 
 indefinite period, and Christina and himself might lose 
 all the best years of their life waiting for a useless per- 
 son's natural removal. What a pity that threescore 
 was not the utmost limit of human life ! For his own 
 part, like the Psalmist, Walter had no desire to out- 
 live his own highest tastes and powers of enjoyment. 
 Ah, well, well, man's prerogative is to better and im- 
 prove upon nature. If people do not die when they 
 ought, then it becomes clearly necessary for philo- 
 sophically minded juniors to help them on their way 
 artificially. 
 
 It was an ugly necessity, certainly ; Walter frankly 
 recognized that fact from the very beginning, and he 
 shrank even from contemplating it ; but there was no 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I49 
 
 other way out of the difficulty. The old man had al- 
 ways been a selfish bachelor, with no love for anybody 
 or anything on earth except his books, his coins, his 
 garden, and his dinner ; he was growing tired of all ex- 
 cept the last ; would it not be better for the world at 
 large, on strict utilitarian principles, that he should go 
 at once? True, such steps are usually to be depre- 
 cated ; but the wise man is a law unto himself, and 
 instead of laying down the wooden, hard-and-fast lines 
 that make conventional morality so much a rule of 
 thumb, he judges every individual case on its own 
 particular merits. Here was Christina's happiness 
 and his own on the one hand, with many collateral 
 advantages to other people, set in the scale against the 
 feeble remnant of a selfish old man's days on the 
 other. Walter Dene had a constitutional horror of 
 taking life in any form, and especially of shedding 
 blood ; but he flattered himself that if anything of the 
 sort became clearly necessary, he was not the man to 
 shrink from taking the needful measures to ensure it, 
 at any sacrifice of personal comfort. 
 
 All through the next week Walter turned over the 
 subject in his own mind ; and the more he thought 
 about it, the more the plan gained in definiteness and 
 consistency as detail after detail suggested itself to 
 him. First he thought of poison. Thatwas the clean- 
 est and neatest way of managing the thing, he 
 considered ; and it involved the least unpleasant 
 consequences. To stick a knife or shoot a bullet 
 into any sentient creature was a horrid and revolt- 
 ing act ; to put a little tasteless powder into a cup 
 of coffee and let a man sleep off his life quietly was 
 really nothing more than helping him involuntarily to 
 
r ■ • ' ' . ■ , V -,.-•'< 
 
 150 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 a delightful euthanasia. " I wish anyone would do as 
 much for me at his age, without telling me about it," 
 Walter said to himself seriously. But then the chances 
 of detection would be much increased by using poison, 
 and Walter felt it an imperative duty to do nothing 
 which would expose Christina to the shock of a dis- 
 covery. She would not see the matter in the same 
 practical light as he did ; women never do; their mo- 
 rality is purely conventional, and a wise man will do 
 nothing on earth to shake it. You cannot buy poison 
 without the risk of exciting question. There re- 
 mained, then, only shooting or stabbing. But shoot- 
 ing makes an awkward noise, and attracts attention 
 at the moment ; so the one thing possible was a knife, 
 unpleasant as that conclusion seemed to all his more 
 delicate feelings. 
 
 Having thus decided, Walter Dene proceeded to lay 
 his plans with deliberate caution. He had no inten- 
 tion whatsoever of being detected, though his method 
 of action was simplicity itself. It was only bunglers 
 and clumsy fools who got caught ; he knew that a man 
 of his intelligence and ability would not make such an 
 idiot of himself as — well, as common rufifians always 
 do. He took his old American bowie-knife, bought 
 years ago as a curiosity, out of the drawer where it had 
 lain so long. It was very rusty, but it would be safer 
 to sharpen it privately on his own hone and strop than 
 to go asking for a new knife at a shop for the express 
 purpose of enabling the shopman afterwards to identify 
 him. He sharpened it for safety's sake during sermon- 
 hour in the library, with the door locked as usual. It 
 took a long time to get off all the rust, and his arm got 
 quickly tired. Ohq morning as he was polishing away 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I5I 
 
 at it, he was stopped for a moment by a butterfly 
 which flapped and fluttered against the dulled window- 
 panes. " Poor thing," he said to himself, " it will beat 
 its feathery wings to pieces in its struggles ;" and he 
 put a vase of Venetian glass on top of it, lifted the 
 sash carefully, and let the creature fly away outside in 
 the broad sunshine. At the same moment the vicar, 
 who was strolling with his King Charlie on the lawn, 
 came up and looked in at the window. He could not 
 have seen in before, because of the dulled and painted 
 diamonds. 
 
 ** That's a murderous-looking weapon, Wally," he 
 said, with a smile, as his glance fell upon the bowie and 
 hone. " What do you use it for ?" 
 
 " Oh, it's an American bowie," Walter answered 
 carelessly. " I bought it long ago for a curiosity, and 
 now I'm sharpening it up to help me in carving that 
 block of walnut wood." And he ran his finger lightly 
 along the edge of the blade to test its keenness. What 
 a lucky thing that it was the vicar himself, and not the 
 gardener ! If he had been caught by anybody else the 
 fact would have been fatal evidence after all was over. 
 " M^fiez-vous des papillons," he hummed to himself, 
 after Beranger, as he shut down the window. " One 
 more butterfly, and I must give up the game as use- 
 less." 
 
 Meanwhile, as Walter meant to make a clean job of 
 it — hacking and hewing clumsily was repulsive to all 
 his finer feelings — he began also to study carefully the 
 anatomy of the human back. He took down all the 
 books on the subject in the library, and by their aid 
 discovered exactly under which ribs the heart lay. A 
 little observation of the vicar, compared with the plates 
 
152 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 in Quain's " Anatomy," showed him precisely at what 
 point in his clerical coat the most vulnerable interstice 
 was situated. " It's a horrid thing to have to do," he 
 thought over and over again as he planned it, "but it's 
 the only way to secure Christina's happiness." And 
 so, by a certain bright Friday evening in August, Wal- 
 ter Dene had fully completed all his preparations. 
 
 That afternoon, as on all bright afternoons in sum- 
 mer, the vicar went for a walk in the grounds, attended 
 only by little King Charlie. He was squire and par- 
 son at once in Churnside, and he loved to make the 
 round of his own estate. At a certain gate by Selbury 
 Copse the vicar always halted to rest awhile, leaning 
 on the bar and looking at the view across the valley. 
 It was a safe and lonely spot. Walter remained at 
 home (he was to take the regular Friday evensong) and 
 went into the study by himself. After a while he took 
 his hat, not without trembling, strolled across the 
 garden, and then made the short cut through the 
 copse, so as to meet the vicar by the gate. On his 
 way he heard the noise of the Dennings in the farm 
 opposite, out rabbit-shooting with their guns and fei*- 
 rets in the warren. His very soul shrank within him 
 at the sound of that brutal sport. ** Great heavens !" 
 he said to himself, with a shudder ; " to think how I 
 loathe and shrink from the necessity of almost pain- 
 lessly killing this one selfish old man for an obviously 
 good reason, and those creatures there will go out 
 massacring innocent animals with the aid of a hideous 
 beast of prey, not only without remorse, but actually 
 by way of amusement ! I thank Heaven I am not 
 even as they are." Near the gate he came upon his 
 uncle quietly and naturally, though it would be absurd 
 
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. 1 53 
 
 to deny that at that supreme moment even Walter 
 Dene's equable heart throbbed "hard, and his breath 
 went and came tremulously. "Alone," he thought to 
 himself, " and nobody near ; this is quite providential," 
 using even then, in thought, the familiar phraseology 
 of his profession. 
 
 "A lovely afternoon. Uncle Arthur," he said as 
 composedly as he could, accurately measuring the 
 spot on the vicar's coat with his eye meanwhile. " The 
 valley looks beautiful in this light." 
 
 " Yes, a lovely afternoon Wally, my boy, and 
 an exquisite glimpse down yonder into the church- 
 yard." 
 
 As he spoke, Walter half leaned upon the gate 
 beside him, and adjusted the knife behind the vicar's 
 back scientifically. Then, without a word more, in 
 spite of a natural shrinking, he drove it home up to 
 the haft, with a terrible effort of will, at the exact 
 spot on the back that the books had pointed out to 
 him. It was a painful thing to do, but he did it care- 
 fully and well. The effect of Walter Dene's scientific 
 prevision was even more instantaneous than he had 
 anticipated. Without a single cry, without a sob or a 
 contortion, the vicar's' lifeless body fell over heavily 
 by the side of the gate. It rolled down like a log into 
 the dry ditch beneath. Walter knelt trembling on the 
 ground close by, felt the pulse for a moment to assure 
 himself that his uncle was really dead, and having fully 
 satisfied himself on this all-important point, proceeded 
 to draw the knife neatly out of the wound. He had 
 let it fall in the body, in order to extricate it more 
 easily afterward, and not risk pulling it out carelessly 
 so as to get himself covered needlessly by tell-tale 
 
1 54 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 drops of blood, like ordinary clumsy assassins. But 
 he had forgotten to reckon with little King Charlie. 
 The dog jumped piteously upon the body of his mas- 
 ter, licked the wound with his tongue, and refused to 
 allow Walter to withdraw the knife. It would be un- 
 safe to leave it there, for it might be recognized. 
 *' Minimize the adverse chances," he muttered still ; 
 but there was no inducing King Charlie to move. A 
 struggle might result in getting drops of blood upon 
 his coat, and then, great heavens, what a terrible 
 awakening for Christina ! *' Oh, Christina, Christina, 
 Christina," he said to himself piteously, " it is for you 
 only that I could ever have ventured to do this hid- 
 eous thing." The blood was still oozing out of the 
 narrow slit, and saturating the black coat, and Walter 
 Dene with his delicate nerves could hardly bear to 
 look upon it. 
 
 At last he summoned up resolution to draw out the 
 knife from the ugly wound, in spite of King Charlie, 
 and as he did so, oh, horror ! the little dog jumped at 
 it, and cut his left fore-leg against the sharp edge deep 
 to the bone. Here was a pretty accident indeed ! if 
 Walter Dene had been a common heartless murderer 
 he would have snatched up the knife immediately, left 
 the poor lame dog to watch and bleed beside his dead 
 master, and skulked off hurriedly from the mute wit- 
 ness to his accomplished crime. But Walter was made 
 of very different mould from that ; he could not find 
 it in his heart to leave a poor dumb animal 
 wounded and bleeding for hours together, alone and 
 unattended. Just at first, indeed, he tried sophis- 
 tically to persuade himself his duty to Christina de- 
 manded that he should go away at once, and never 
 
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. 1 55 
 
 mind the sufferings of a mere spaniel ; but his better 
 nature told him the next moment that such soph- 
 isms were indefensible, and his humane instincts 
 overcame even the profound instinct of self-preser- 
 vation. He sat down quietly beside the warm corpse. 
 *' Thank goodness," he said with a slight shiver of 
 disgust, ** I'm not one of those weak-minded people 
 who are troubled by remorse. They would be so 
 overcome by terror at what they had done that they 
 would want to run away from the body immediately, 
 at any price. But I don't think I could [qqX remorse. 
 It is an incident of lower natures — natures that arc 
 capable of doing actions under one set of impulses, 
 which they regret when another set comes uppermost 
 in turn. That implies a want of balance, an imperfect 
 co-ordination of parts and passions. The perfect 
 character is consistent with itself ; shame and repent- 
 ance are confessions of weakness. For my part, I 
 never do anything without having first deliberately de- 
 cided that it is the best or the only thing to do ; and 
 having so done it, I do not draw back like a girl from 
 the necessary consequences of my own act. No 
 fluttering or running away for me. Still, I must 
 admit that all that blood does look very ghastly. 
 Poor old gentleman ! I believe he really died almost 
 without knowing it, and that is certainly a great 
 comfort to one under the circumstances." 
 
 He took King Charlie tenderly in his hands, without 
 touching the wounded leg, and drew his pocket hand- 
 kerchief softly from his pocket. *' Poor beastie," he 
 said aloud, holding out the cut limb before him, "you 
 are badly hurt, I'm afraid ; but it wasn't my fault. 
 We must see what we can do for you." Then he 
 
156 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 wrapped the handkerchief deftly around it, without 
 letting any blood show through, pressed the dog close 
 against his breast, and picked up the knife gingerly 
 by the reeking handle. ** A fool of a fellow would 
 throw it into the river," he thought, with a curl of his 
 graceful lip. " They always dredge the river after 
 these incidents. I shall just stick it down a hole in 
 the hedge a hundred yards off. The police have no 
 invention, dull donkeys ; they never dredge the 
 hedges." And he thrust it well down a disused rabbit 
 burrow, filling in the top neatly with loose mould. 
 
 Walter Dene meant to have gone home quietly and 
 said evensong, leaving the discovery of the body to be 
 made at haphazard by others, but this unfortunate 
 accident to King Charlie compelled him against his 
 will to give the first alarm. It was absolutely neces- 
 sary to take the dog to the veterinary at once, or the 
 poor little fellow might bleed to death incontinently, 
 " One's best efforts," he thought, "are always liable to 
 these unfortunate contretemps. I meant merely to re- 
 move a superfluous person from an uncongenial envi- 
 ronment ; yet I can't manage it without at the same 
 time seriously injuring a harmlesss little creature that 
 I really love." And with one last glance at the life- 
 less thing behind him, he took his way regretfully 
 along the ordinary path back towards the peaceful 
 village of Churnside. 
 
 Halfway down the lane, at the entrance of the vil- 
 lage, he met one of his parishioners. " Tom," he said 
 boldly, "have you seen anything of the vicar? I'm 
 afraid he's got hurt somehow. Here's poor little King 
 Charlie come limping back with his leg cut," 
 
,.J.. 
 
 THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I57 
 
 " He went down the road, zur, 'arf an hour zince, 
 and I arn't zeen him afterwards." 
 
 " Tell the servants at the vicarage to look around 
 the grounds, then ; I'm afraid he has fallen and hurt 
 himself. I must take the dog at once to Perkins's, or 
 else I shall be late for evensong." 
 
 The man went off straight toward the vicarage, and 
 Walter Dene turned immediately with the dog in his 
 arms into the village veterinary 's. 
 
 II. 
 
 The servants from the vicarage were not the first 
 persons to hit upon the dead body of the vicar. Joe 
 Harley, the poacher, was out reconnoitring that after- 
 noon in the vicar's preserves ; and five minutes after 
 Walter Dene had passed down the far side of the 
 hedge, Joe Harley skulked noiselessly from the or- 
 chard up to the cover of the gate by Selbury Copse. 
 He crept through the open end by the post (for it was 
 against Joe's principles under any circumstances to 
 climb over an obstacle of any sort, and so needlessly 
 expose himself), and he was just going to slink off 
 along the other hedge, having wires and traps in his 
 pocket, when his boot struck violently against a soft 
 object in the ditch underfoot. It struck so violently 
 that it crushed in the object with the force of the im- 
 pact ; and when Joe came to look at what the object 
 might be, he found to his horror that it was the bruised 
 and livid face of the old parson. Joe had had a brush 
 with keepers more than once, and had spent several 
 months of seclusion in Dorchester Gaol ; but, in spite 
 
 \ 
 
158 STRANC.R STORIES. 
 
 of his familiarity with minor forms of lawlessness, he 
 was moved enough in all conscience by this awful antl 
 unexpected discovery. He turned the body over clum- 
 sily with his hands, and saw that it had been stabbed 
 in the back once only. In doing so he trod in a little 
 blood, and i^ot a drop or two on his sleeve and trou- 
 sers ; for the pool was bii^i^er now, and Joe was not so 
 handy or dainty with his fini^crs as the idyllic curate. 
 
 It was an awful dilemma, indeed, for a confirmed and 
 convicted poacher. Should he i^ive the alarm then 
 and there, boldly, trusting to his innocence for vindi- 
 cation, and helping the police to discover the mur- 
 derer? Why, that would be sheer suicide, no doubt ; 
 ** for who but would believe," he thought, '* t'was me 
 as done it ?" Or should he slink away quietly and say 
 nothing, leaving others to find the body as best they 
 might ? That was dangerous enough in its way if any- 
 bodv saw him, but not so dangerous as the other 
 course. In an evil hour for his own chances Joe 
 Ilarley chose that worse counsel, and slank off in his 
 familiar crouching fashion towards the opposite corner 
 of the copse. 
 
 On the way he heard John's vofce holloaing for his 
 master, and kept close to the hedge till he had quite 
 turned the corner. But John had caught a glimpse of 
 him too, and John did not forget it when, a few 
 minutes later, he came upon the horrid sight beside 
 the gate of Selbury Copse. 
 
 Meanwhile Walter had taken King Charlie to the 
 veterinary's and had his leg bound and bandaged 
 securely. He had also gone down to the church, got 
 out his surplice, and begun to put it on in the vestry 
 for evensong, when a messenger came at hot haste 
 
THE CUUATE OF CIIURNSIDE. 1 59 
 
 from the vicarage, with news that Master Walter must 
 come up at once, for the vicar was murdered. 
 
 " Murdered !'* Walter Dene said to himself slowly 
 half aloud; "murdered! how horrible ! Murdered!" 
 It was an ugly word, and he turned it over with a 
 genuine thrill of horror. That w:is what they would 
 say of him if ever the thing came to be discovered ! 
 What an inappropriate classification ! 
 
 He threw aside the surplice, and rushed up hurriedly 
 to the vicarage. Already the servants had brought in 
 the body, and laid it out in the clothes it wore, on the 
 vicar's own bed. Walter Dene went in, shuddering, 
 to look at it. To his utter amazement, the face was 
 battered in horribly and almost unrecognizably by a 
 blow or kick ! What could that hideous mutilation 
 mean ? He could not imagine. It was an awful mys- 
 tery. Great heavens ! just fancy if any one were to 
 take it into his head that he, Walter Dene, had done 
 that — had kicked a defenceless old gentleman brutally 
 about the face like a common London ruffian ! The 
 idea was too horrible to be borne for a moment. 
 It unmanned him utterly, and he hid his face between 
 his two hands and sobbed aloud like one broken- 
 hearted. " This day's work has been too much for 
 my nerves," he thought to himself between the sobs ; 
 ** but perhaps it is just as well I should give way now 
 completely." 
 
 That night was mainly taken up with the formalities 
 of all such cases ; and when at last Walter Dene went 
 off, tired and nerve-worn, to bed, about midnight, he 
 could not sleep much for thinking of the mystery. 
 The murder itself didn't trouble him greatly ; that was 
 over and past now, and he felt sure his precautions 
 
, ' • V ;, , V 
 
 l6o STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 had been amply sufficient to protect him even from 
 the barest suspicion ; but he couldn't fathom the 
 mystery of that battered and mutilated face! Some- 
 body must have seen the corpse between the time of 
 the murder and the discovery ! Who could that some- 
 body have been ? and what possible motive could he 
 have had for such a horrible piece of purposeless 
 brutality ? 
 
 As for the servants, in solemn conclave in the hall, 
 they had unanimously but one theory to account for 
 all the facts : some poacher or other, for choice Joe 
 Harley, had come across the vicar in the copse, w^ith 
 gun and traps in hand. The wretch had seen he was 
 discovered, had felled the poor old vicar by a blow in 
 the face with the butt-end of his rifle, and after he fell 
 fainting, had stabbed him for greater security in the 
 back. That was such an obvious solution of the diffi- 
 culty, that nobody in the servants' hall had a moment's 
 hesitation in accepting it. 
 
 When Walter heard next morning early that Joe 
 Harley had been arrested overnight, on John's infor- 
 mation, his horror and surprise at the news were 
 wholly unaffected. Here was another new difficulty, 
 indeed. " When I did the thing," he said to himself, 
 " I never thought of that possibility. I took it for 
 granted it would be a mystery, a problem for the local 
 police (who, of course, could no more solve it than 
 they could solve the pons-asinoruui), but it never 
 struck me they would arrest an innocent person on the 
 charge instead of me. This is horrible. It's so easy 
 to make out a case against a poacher, and hang him 
 for it, on suspicion. One's whole sense of justice re- 
 volts against the thing. After all, there's a great deal 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. l6l 
 
 to be said in favor of the ordinary commonplace 
 morality : it prevents complications. A man of deli- 
 cate sensibilities oughtn't to kill anybody ; he lets 
 himself in for all kinds of unexpected contingencies 
 without knowing it." 
 
 At the coroner's niquest things looked very black 
 indeed for Joe Harley. Walter gave his evidence first, 
 showing how he had found King Charlie wounded in 
 the lane ; and then the others gave theirs, as to the 
 search for and finding of the body. John in particular 
 swore to having seen a man's back and head slinking 
 away by the hedge while they were looking for the 
 vicar ; and that back and head he felt sure were Joe 
 Harley's. To Walter's infinite horror and disgust, the 
 coroner's jury returned a verdict of willful murder 
 against the poor poacher. What other verdict could 
 they possibly have given in accordance with such evi- 
 dence ? 
 
 The trial of Joe Harley for the willful murder of 
 the Reverend Arthur Dene was fixed for the next 
 Dorchester Assizes. In the interval, Walter Dene, for 
 the first time in his placid life, knew what it was 
 to undergo a mental struggle. Wliatever happened, 
 he could not let Joe Harley be hanged for this murder. 
 His whole soul rose up within him in loathing for such 
 an act of hideous injustice. For though Walter Dene's 
 code of morality was certainly not tlie conventional 
 one, as he so often boasted to himself, he was not by 
 any means without any code of morals of any sort. 
 He could commit a murder where he thought it neces- 
 sary, but he could not let an innocent man suffer in 
 his stead. His ethical judgment on that point was 
 just as clear and categorical as the judgment which 
 
l62 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 told him he was in duty bound to murder his uncle. 
 For Walter did not argue with himself on moral ques- 
 tions : he perceived the right and necessary thing 
 intuitively ; he was a law to himself, and he obeyed 
 his own law implicitly, for good or for evil. Such men 
 are capable of horrible and diabolically deliberate 
 crimes ; but they are capable of great and genuine 
 self-sacrifices also. 
 
 Walter made no secret in the village of his disin- 
 clination to believe in Joe Harley's guilt. Joe was a 
 rough fellow, he said, certainly, and he had no objec- 
 tion to taking a pheasant or two, and even to having a 
 free fight with the keepers ; but, after all, our game 
 laws were an outrageous piece of class legislation, and 
 he could easily understand how the poor, whose 
 sense of justice they outraged, should be so set against 
 them. He could not think Joe Harley was capable of 
 a detestable crime. Besides, he had seen him himself 
 within a few minutes before and after the murder. 
 Everybody thought it such a proof of the young par- 
 son's generous and kindly disposition ; he had cer- 
 tainly the charity which thinketh no evil. Even though 
 his own uncle had been brutally murdered on his own 
 estate, he checked his natural feelings of resentment, 
 and refused to believe that one of his own parishion- 
 ers could have been guilty of the crime. Nay, more, 
 so anxious was he that substantial justice should be 
 done the accused, and so confident was he of his inno- 
 cence, that he promised to provide counsel for him at 
 his own expense ; and he provided two of the ablest 
 barristers on the Western circuit. 
 
 Before the trial, Walter Dene had come, after a ter- 
 rible internal struggle, to an awful resolution. He 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 163 
 
 would do everything he could for Joe Harley ; but if 
 the verdict went against him, he was resolved then and 
 there, in open court, to confess, before judge and jury, 
 the whole truth. It would be a horrible thing for 
 Christina ; he knew that ; but he could not love Chris- 
 tina so much, " loved he not honor more "; and honor, 
 after his own fashion, he certainly loved dearly. 
 Though he might be false to all that all the world 
 thought right, it was ingrained in the very fibre of his 
 soul to be true to his own inner nature at least. Night 
 after night he lay awake, tossing on his bed, and pic- 
 turing to his mind's eye every detail of that terrible 
 disclosure. The jury would bring in a verdict of 
 guilty ; then, before the judge put on his black cap, 
 he, Walter, would stand up and tell them that he could 
 not let another man hang for his crime ; he would 
 have the whole truth out before them ; and then he 
 would die, for he would have taken a little bottle of 
 poison at the first sound of the verdict. As for Chris- 
 tina — oh, Christina ! — Walter Dene could not dare to 
 let himself think upon that. It was horrible ; it was 
 unendurable ; it was torture a thousand times worse 
 than dying ; but still, he must and would face it. For 
 in certain phases, Walter Dene, forger and murderer 
 as he was, could be positively heroic. 
 
 The day of the trial came, and Walter Dene, pale 
 and haggard with much vigil, walked in a dream and 
 faintly from his hotel to the court-house. Everybody 
 present noticed what a deep effect the shock of his 
 uncle's death had had upon him. He was thinner and 
 more bloodless than usual, and his dulled eyes looked 
 black and sunken in their sockets. Indeed, he seemed 
 to have suffered far more intensely than the prisoner 
 
164 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 himself, who walked in firmer and more erect, and 
 took his seat doggedly in the familiar dock. He had 
 been there more than once before, to say the truth, 
 though never before on such an errand. Yet mere 
 habit, when he got there, made him at once, assume 
 the hangdog look of the consciously guilty.. 
 
 Walter sat and watched and listened, still in a 
 dream, but without once betraying in his face the real 
 depth of his innermost feelings. In the body of the 
 court he saw Joe's wife weeping profusely and osten- 
 tatiously, after the fashion, considered to be correct by 
 her class ; and though he pitied her from the bottom 
 of his heart, he could only think by contrast of Chris- 
 tina. What were that good woman's tears and sor- 
 rows by the side of the grief and shame and unspeak- 
 able horror he might have to bring upon his Chris- 
 tina ? Pray Heaven the shock, if it came, might kill 
 her outright; that would at least be better than that 
 she should live long years to remember. More than 
 judge, or jury, or prisoner, Walter Dene saw every- 
 where, behind the visible shadows that thronged the 
 court, that one persistent prospective picture of heart- 
 broken Christina. 
 
 The evidence for the prosecution told with damn- 
 ing force against the prisoner. He was a notorious 
 poacher ; the vicar was a game-preserver. He had 
 poaciied more than once on the ground of the vicarage. 
 He was shown by numerous witnesses to have had an 
 animus against the vicar. He had been seen, not in 
 the face, to be sure, but still seen and recognized, 
 slinking away, immediately after the fact, from the 
 scene of the murder. And the prosecution had found 
 stains of blood, believed by scientific experts to be 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 165 
 
 human, on the clothing he had worn when he was ar- 
 rested. Walter Dene listened now with terrible una- 
 bated earnestness, for he knew that in reality it was 
 he himself who was upon his trial. He himself, and 
 Christina's happiness ; for if the poacher were found 
 guilty, he was firmly resolved, beyond hope of respite, 
 to tell all, and face the unspeakable. 
 
 The defence seemed indeed a weak and feeble theory. 
 Somebody unknown had committed the murder, and 
 this somebody, seen from behind, had been mistaken 
 by John for Joe Harley. The blood-stains need not 
 be human, as the cross-examination went to show, but 
 were only known by counter-experts to be mammalian 
 — perhaps a rabbit's. Every poacher — and it was ad- 
 mitted that Joe was a poacher — was liable to get his 
 clothes blood-stained. Grant they were human, Joe, 
 it appeared, had himself once shot off his little finger. 
 All these points came out from the examination of 
 the earlier witnesses. At last, counsel put the curate 
 himself into the box, and proceeded to examine him 
 briefly as a witness for the defence. 
 
 Walter Dene stepped, pale and haggard still, into 
 the witness-box. He had made up his mind to make 
 one final effort " for Christina's happiness." He 
 fumbled nervously all the time at a small glass phial in 
 his pocket, but he answere4 all questions without a 
 moment's hesitation, and he kept down his emotions 
 with a wonderful composure which excited the admira- 
 tion of everybody present. There was a general hush 
 to hear him. Did he see the prisoner, Joseph Harley, 
 on the day of the murder ? Yes, three times. When 
 •was the first occasion? From the library window just 
 before the vicar left the house. What was Joseph 
 
1 66 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Harley then doing? Walking in the opposite direction 
 from the copse. Did Joseph Harley recognize him ? 
 Yes, he touched his hat to him. When was the second 
 occasion ? About ten minutes later when he, Walter, 
 was leaving the vicarage for a stroll. Did Joseph Har- 
 ley then recognize him ? Yes he touched his hat 
 again, and the curate said, " Good-morning, Joe ; a fine 
 day for walking." When was the third time ? Ten 
 minutes later again, when he was returning from the 
 lane, carrying wounded little King Charlie. Would it 
 have been physically possible for the prisoner to go 
 from the vicarage to the spot where the murder was 
 committed, and back again, in the interval between 
 the first two occasions? It would not. Would it have 
 been physically possible for the prisoner to do so in 
 the interval between the second and third occasions ? 
 It would not. 
 
 *' Then in your opinion, Mr. Dene, it is physically 
 impossible that Joseph Harley can have committed 
 this murder ?" 
 
 "In my opinion, it is physically impossible." 
 While Walter Dene solemnly swore amid dead 
 silence to this treble lie, he did not dare to look Joe 
 "Harley once in the face.; and while Joe Harley 
 listened in amazement to' this unexpected assistance 
 to his case — -for counsel, suspecting a mistaken identity, 
 had not questioned him too closely on the subject — he 
 had presence of mind enough not to let his astonish- 
 ment show upon his stolid features. But when Walter 
 ' had finished his evidence in chief, he stole a glance at 
 Joe ; and for a moment their eyes met. Then Walter's 
 fell in utter self-humiliation ; and he said to himself 
 fiercely, " I would not so have debased and degraded 
 
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. l67 
 
 myself before any man to save my own life — what is 
 my life worth me, after all ? — but to save Christina, 
 to save Christina, to save Christina ! I have brought 
 all this upon myself for Christina's sake." 
 
 Meanwhile, Joe Harley was asking himself curiously 
 what could be the meaning of this new move on 
 parson's part. It was deliberate perjury, Joe felt sure, 
 for parson could not have mistaken another person for 
 him three times over ; but what good end for himself 
 could parson hope to gain by it "^ If it was he who 
 had murdered the vicar (as Joe strongly suspected), 
 why did he not try to press the charge home against 
 the first person who happened to be accused, instead 
 of committing a distinct perjury on purpose to com- 
 pass his acquittal ? Joe Harley, with his simple every- 
 day criminal mind, could not be expected to unravel 
 the intricacies of so complex a personality as Walter 
 Dene's. But even there, on trial for his life, he could 
 not help wondering what on earth young parson could 
 be driving at in this business. 
 
 The judge summed up with the usual luminously 
 obvious alternate platitudes. If the jury thought that 
 John had really seen Joe Harley, and that the curate 
 was mistaken in the person whom he thrice saw, or 
 was mistaken once only out of the thrice, or had mis- 
 calculated the time between each occurrence, or the 
 time necessary to cover the ground to the gate, then 
 they would find the prisoner guilty of willful murder. 
 If, on the other hand, they believed John had judged 
 hastily, and that the curate had really seen the prisoner 
 three separate times, and that he had rightly calculated 
 all the intervals, then they would find the prisoner not 
 guilty. The prisoner's case rested entirely upon the 
 
l68 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 alibi. Supposing they thought there was a doubt in 
 the matter, they should give the prisoner the benefit 
 of the doubt. Walter noticed that the judge said in 
 every other case, " If you believe the witness So-and- 
 so," but that in his case he made no such discourteous 
 reservation. As a matter of fact, the one person whose 
 conduct nobody for a moment dreamt of calling in 
 question was the real murderer. 
 
 The jury retired for more than an hour. During all 
 that time two men stood there in mortal suspense, 
 intent and haggard, both upon their trial, but not both 
 equally. The prisoner in the dock fixed his arms in a 
 dogged and sullen attitude, the color half gone from 
 his brown cheek, and his eyes straining with excite- 
 ment, but showing no outward sign of any emotion 
 except the craven fear of death. Walter Dene stood 
 almost fainting in the body of the court, his bloodless 
 fingers still fumbling nervously at the little phial, and 
 his face deadly pale with the awful pallor of a devour- 
 ing horror. His heart scarcely beat at all, but at each 
 long, slow pulsation he could feel it throb distinctly 
 within his bosom. He saw or heard nothing before 
 him, but kept his aching eyes fixed steadily on the door 
 by which the jury were to enter. Junior counsel 
 nudged one another to notice his agitation, and 
 whispered that the poor young curate had evidently 
 never seen a man tried for his life before. 
 
 At last the jury entered. Joe and Walter waited, 
 each in his own manner, breathless for the verdict. 
 " Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not 
 guilty of willful murder?" Walter took the little 
 phial from his pocket, and held it carefully between 
 his finger and thumb. The awful moment had come ; 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 1 69 
 
 the next word would decide the fate of himself and 
 Christina. The foreman of the jury looked up 
 solemnly, and answered with slow distinctness, " Not 
 guilty." The prisoner leaned back vacantly, and 
 wiped his forehead ; but there was an awful cry of 
 relief from one mouth in the body of the court, and 
 Walter Dene sank back into the arms of the bystan- 
 ders, exhausted with suspense and overcome by the 
 reaction. The crowd remarked among themselves that 
 young Parson Dene was too tender-hearted a man to 
 come into court at a criminal trial. He would break 
 his heart to see even a dog hanged, let alone his fel- 
 low-Christians. As for Joe Harley, it was universally 
 admitted that he had had a narrow squeak of it, and 
 that he had got off better than he deserved. The jury 
 gave him the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 As soon as all the persons concerned had returned 
 to Churnside, Walter sent at once for Joe Harley. 
 The poacher came to see him in the vicarage library. 
 He was elated and coarsely exultant with his victory, 
 as a relief from the strain he had suffered, after the 
 manner of all vulgar natures. 
 
 " Joe," said the clergyman slowly, motioning him 
 into a chair at the other side of the desk, " I know 
 that after this trial Churnside will not be a pleasant 
 place to hold you. All your neighbors believe, in 
 spite of the verdict, that you killed the vicar. I feel 
 sure, however, that you did not commit this murder. 
 Therefore, as some compensation for the suffering of 
 mind to which you have been put, I think it well to 
 send you and your wife and family to Australia or 
 Canada, whichever you like best. I propose also to 
 
T/O STRANGE STORIKS. 
 
 made you a present of a hundred pounds, to set you 
 up in your new home." 
 
 " Make it five hundred, passon," Joe said, looking at 
 him significantly. 
 
 Walter smiled quietly, and did not flinch in any 
 ■way. " I said a hundred," he continued calmly, ** and 
 I will make it only a hundred. I should have had no 
 objection to making it five, except for the manner in 
 which you ask it. But you evidently mistake the 
 motive of my gift. I give it out of pure compassion 
 for you, and not out of any other feeling whatsoever." 
 
 ** Very well, passon," said Joe sullenly, "I accept it." 
 
 ** You mistake again," Walter went on blandly, for 
 he was himself again now. '* You are not to accept it 
 as terms ; you are to thank me for it as a pure pres- 
 ent. I see we two partially understand each other ; 
 but it is important you should understand me exactly 
 as I mean it. Joe Harley, listen to me seriously. I 
 have saved your life. If I had been a man of a coarse 
 and vulgar nature, if I had been like you in a similar 
 predicament, I would have pressed the case against 
 you for obvious personal reasons, and you would have 
 been hanged for it. But I did not press it, because I 
 felt convinced of yo'^r innocence, and my sense of 
 justice rose irresistibly against it. I did the best I 
 could to save you ; I risked my own reputation to 
 save you ; and I have no hesitation now in telling you 
 that to the best of my belief, if the verdict had gone 
 against you, the person who really killed the vicar, 
 accidentally or intentionally, meant to have given him- 
 self up to the police, rather than let an innocent man 
 suffer." 
 
 " Passon," said Joe Harley, looking at him intently, 
 
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. I/I 
 
 ** I believe as you're tellin' me the truth. I zeen as 
 much in that person's face afore the verdict." 
 
 There was a solemn pause for a moment ; and then 
 Walter Dene said slowly: 
 
 " Now that you have withdrawn your claim as a 
 claim, I will stretch a point and make it five hundred. 
 It is little enough for what you have suffered. But I, 
 too, have suffered terribly, terribly." 
 
 "Thank you, passon," Joe answered. ** I zeen as 
 you were turble anxious." 
 
 There was again a moment's pause. Then Walter 
 Dene asked quietly : 
 
 " How did the vicar's face come to be so bruised 
 and battered.''" 
 
 "I stumbled up agin 'im accidental like, and didn't 
 know I'd kicked 'un till I'd done it. Must 'a been just 
 a few minutes after you'd 'a left 'un." 
 
 " Joe," said the curate, in his calmest tone, "you had 
 better go ; the money will be sent to you shortly. 
 But if you ever see my face again, or speak or write a 
 word of this to me, you shall not have a penny of it, 
 but shall be prosecuted for intimidation. A hundred 
 before you leave, four hundred in Australia. Now 
 
 go." 
 
 " Very well, passon," Joe answered ; and he went. 
 
 " Pah !" said the curate, with a face of disgust, shut- 
 ting the door after him, and lighting a perfumed pas- 
 tile in his little Chinese porcelain incense-burner, as if 
 to fumigate the room from the poacher's offensive 
 presence. " Pah ! to think that these affairs should com- 
 pel one to humiliate and abase one's self before a vul- 
 gar clod like that ! To think that all his life long that 
 fellow will virtually know — and misinterpret — my se- 
 
172 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 cret. He is incapable of understanding that I did it as 
 a duty to Christina. Well, he will never dare to tell it, 
 that's certain, for nobody would believe him if he did ; 
 and he may congratulate himself heartily that he's got 
 well out of this difficulty. It will be the luckiest 
 thing in the end that ever happened to him. And now 
 I hope this little episode is finally over." 
 
 When the Churnside public learned that Walter 
 Dene meant to carry his belief in Joe Harley's inno- 
 cence so far as to send him and his family at his own 
 expense out to Australia, they held that the young 
 parson's charity and guilelessness was really, as the 
 doctor said, almost Quixotic. And when, in his anx- 
 iety to detect and punish the real murderer, he offered 
 a reward of five hundred pounds from his own pocket 
 for any information leading to the arrest and convic- 
 tion of the criminal, the Churnside people laughed 
 quietly at his extraordinary childlike simplicity of 
 heart. The real murderer had been caught and tried 
 at Dorchester Assizes, they said, and had only got off 
 by the skin of his teeth because Walter himself had 
 come forward and sworn to a quite improbable and 
 inconclusive alibi. There was plenty of time for Joe 
 to have got to the gate by the short cut, and that he 
 did so everybody at Churnside felt morally certain. 
 Indeed, a few years later a blood-stained bowie-knife 
 was found in the hedge not far from the scene of the 
 murder, and the gamekeeper *' could almost 'a took his 
 Bible oath he'd zeen just such a knife along o' Joe 
 Harley." 
 
 That was not the end of Walter Dene's Quixotisms, 
 however. When the will was read, it turned out that 
 almost everything was left to the young parson ; and 
 
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 173 
 
 who could deserve it better or spend it more chari- 
 tably? But Walter, though he would not for the world 
 seem to cast any slight or disrespect upon his dear 
 uncle's memory, did not approve of customs of primo- 
 geniture, and felt bound to share the estate equally 
 with his brother Arthur. 
 
 " Strange," said the head of the firm of Watson and 
 Blenkiron to himself, when he read the little paragraph 
 about this generous conduct in the paper ; '' I thought 
 the instructions were to leave it to his nephew Arthur, 
 not to his nephew Walter ; but there, one forgets and 
 confuses names of people that one does not know so 
 easily." 
 
 " Gracious goodness!" thought the engrossing clerk; 
 " surely it was the other way on. I wonder if I can 
 have gone and copied the wrong names in the wrong 
 places ?" 
 
 But in a big London business, nobody notes these 
 things as they would have been noted in Churnside ; 
 the vicar was always a changeable, pernickety, huffy 
 old fellow, and very likely he had had a reverse will 
 drawn up afterwards by his country lawyer. All the 
 world only thought that Walter Dene's generosity 
 was really almost ridiculous, even in a parson. When 
 he was married to Christina, six months afterwards, 
 everybody said so charming a girl was well mated with 
 so excellent and admirable a husband. 
 
 And he really did make a very tender and loving 
 husband an ) father. Christina believed in him always, 
 for he did his best to foster and keep alive her faith. 
 He would have given up active clerical duty if he 
 could, never having liked it (for he was above hypoc- 
 risy), but Christina was against the project, and his 
 
1/4 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 bishop would not hear of it. The Church could ill 
 afford to lose such a man as Mr. Dene, the bishop said, 
 in these troubled times ; and he begged him as a per- 
 sonal favor to accept the living of Churnside, which 
 was in his gift. But Walter did not like the place, and 
 asked for another living instead, which, being of less 
 value — " so like Mr. Dene to think nothing of the tem- 
 poralities," — the bishop even more graciously granted. 
 He has since published a small volume of dainty- 
 little poems on uncut paper, considered by some critics 
 as rather pagan in tone for a clergyman, but uni- 
 versally allowed to be extremely graceful, the perfec- 
 tion of poetical form with much delicate mastery of 
 poetical matter. And everybody knows that the author 
 is almost certain to be offered the first vacant canonry 
 in his own cathedral. As for the little episode, he 
 himself has almost forgotten all about it ; for those 
 who think a murderer must feel remorse his whole life 
 long, are trying to read their own emotional nature 
 into the wholly dispassionate character of Walter 
 Dene. 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 
 
 Sir Henry Vardon, K.C.B., electrician to the 
 Admiralty, whose title, as everybody knows, was 
 gazetted some six weeks since, is at this moment the 
 youngest living member of the British knighthood. He 
 is now only just thirty, and he has obtained his present 
 high distinction by those remarkable inventions of his 
 in the matter of electrical signalling and lighthouse 
 arrangements which have been so much talked about 
 in Nature this year, and which gained him the gold 
 medal of the Royal Society in 1881. Lady Vardon is 
 one of the youngest and prettiest hostesses in London, 
 and if you would care to hear the history of their 
 courtship, here it is : 
 
 When Harry Vardon left Oxford, only seven years 
 age, none of his friends could imagine what he meant 
 by throwing up all his chances of University success. 
 The son of a poor country parson in Devonshire, who 
 had strained his little income to the uttermost to send 
 him to college, Vardon of Magdalen had done credit 
 to his father and himself in all the schools. He gained 
 the best demyship of his year ; got a first in classical 
 mods.; and then, unaccountably, took to reading 
 science, in which he carried everything before him. 
 At the end of his four years, he walked into a scien- 
 
 [175] 
 
176 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 tific fellowship at Balliol as a matter of course ; and 
 then, after twelve months* residence, he suddenly sur- 
 prised the world of Oxford by accepting a tutorship 
 to the young Earl of Surrey, at that time, as you 
 doubtless remember, a minor, aged about sixteen. 
 
 But Harry Vardon had good reasons of his own for 
 taking this tutorship. Six months after he became a 
 fellow of Balliol, the old vicar had died unexpectedly, 
 leaving his only other child, Edith, alone and unpro- 
 vided for, as was indeed natural ; for the expenses of 
 Harry's college life had quite eaten up the meagre 
 savings of twenty years at Little Hinton. In order to 
 provide a home for Edith, it was necessary that Harry 
 should find something or other to do which would 
 bring in an immediate income. School-mastering, that 
 refuge of the destitute graduate, was not much to his 
 mind ; and so when the senior tutor of Boniface wrote 
 a little note to ask whether he would care to accept 
 the charge of a cub nobleman, as he disrespectfully 
 phrased it, Harry jumped at the offer, and took the 
 proposed salary of ^400 a year with the greatest 
 alacrity. That would far more than suffice for all 
 Edith's simple needs, and he himself could live upon 
 the proceeds of his fellowship, besides finding time to 
 continue his electrical researches. For I will not dis- 
 guise the fact that Harry only accepted the cub noble- 
 man as a stop-gap, and that he meant even then to 
 make his fortune in the end by those splendid electri- 
 cal discoveries which will undoubtedly immortalize his 
 name in future ages. 
 
 It was summer term when the appointment was 
 made ; and the Surrey people (who were poor for 
 their station) had just gone down to Colyford Abbey, 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 77 
 
 the family scat, in the valley of the Axe near Seaton. 
 You have visited the house, I dare say — open to visi- 
 tors every Tuesday, when the family is absent — a fine, 
 somewhat modernized mansion, with some good per- 
 pendicular work about it still, in spite of the havoc 
 wrought in it by Inigo Jones, who converted the 
 chapel and refectory of the old Cistercians into a ban- 
 quetting-hall and ballroom for the first Lord Surrey 
 of the present creation. It was lovely weather when 
 Harry Vardon went down there ; and the Abbey, and 
 the terrace, and the park, and the beautiful valley be- 
 yond were looking their very best. Harry fell in love 
 with the view at once, and almost fell in love with the 
 inmates too at the first glance. 
 
 Lady Surrey, the mother, was sitting on a garden 
 seat in front of the house as the carriage which met 
 him at Colyford station drove up to the door. She 
 was much younger and more beautiful than Harry had 
 at all expected. He had pictured the dowager to 
 himself as a stately old lady of sixty, with white hair 
 and a grand manner; instead of which he found him- 
 self face to face with a well-preserved beauty of some- 
 thing less than forty, not above medium height, and 
 still strikingly pretty in a round-faced, mature, but 
 very delicate fashion. She had wavy chestnut hair, 
 regular features, an exquisite set of pearly teeth, full 
 cheeks whose natural roses were perhaps just a trifle 
 increased by not wholly ungraceful art, and above all 
 a lovely complexion quite unspoilt as yet by years. 
 She was dressed as such a person should be dressed, 
 with no affectation of girlishness, but in the style that 
 best shows off ripe beauty and a womanly figure. 
 Harry was always an impressionable fellow ; and I 
 
178 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 really believe that if Lady Surrey had been alone he 
 would have fallen over head and ears in love with her 
 at first sight. 
 
 But there was something which kept him from fall- 
 ing in love at once with Lady Surrey, and that was the 
 girl who sat half reclining on a tiger-skin at her feet, 
 with a little sketching tablet on her lap. He could 
 hardly take full stock of the mother because he was so 
 busy looking at the daughter as well. I shall not at- 
 tempt to describe Lady Gladys Durant ; all pretty 
 girls fall under one of some half-dozen heads, and de- 
 scription at best can really do no more than classify 
 them. Lady Gladys belonged to the tall and graceful 
 aristocratic class, and she was a good specimen of the 
 type at seventeen. Not that Harry Vardon fell in 
 love with her at once ; he was really in the pleasing 
 condition of Captain Macheath, too much engaged in 
 looking at two pretty women to be capable even men- 
 tally of making a choice between them. Mother and 
 daughter were both almost equally beautiful, each in 
 her own distinct style. 
 
 The countess half rose to greet him — it is conde- 
 scension on the part of a countess to notice the tutor 
 at all, I believe ; but though I am no lover of lords 
 myself, I will do the Durants the justice to say that 
 their treatment of Harry was always the very kindliest 
 that could possibly be expected from people of their 
 ideas and traditions. 
 
 " Mr. Vardon ?" she said interrogatively, as she held 
 out her hand to the new tutor. Harry bowed assent. 
 " I'm glad you have such a lovely day to make your 
 first acquaintance with Colyford. It's a pretty place, 
 
AN EMSODE IN HIGH LIFE. i;9 
 
 isn't it? Gladys, this is Mr. Vardon, who is kindly 
 going to take charge of Surrey for us." 
 
 "I'm afraid you don't know what you're going to 
 undertake," said Gladys, smiling and holding out her 
 hand. " He's a dreadful pickle. Do you know this 
 part of the world before, Mr. Vardon ?" 
 
 "Not just hereabouts," Harry answered; "my 
 father's parish was in North Devon, but 1 know the 
 greater part of the country very well." 
 
 " That's a good thing," said Gladys quickly ; "we're 
 all Devonshire people here, and we believe in the 
 county with all our hearts. I wish Surrey took his 
 title from it. It's so absurd to take your title from a 
 place you don't care about only because you've got 
 land there. I love Devonshire people best of any." 
 
 " Mr. Vardon would probably like to see his 
 rooms," said the countess. " Parker, will you show 
 him up ?" 
 
 The rooms were everything that Harry could wish. 
 There was a prettily furnished sitting-room for him- 
 self on the front, looking across the terrace, with a 
 view of the valley and the sea in the distance ; there 
 was a study next door, for tutor and pupil to work in ; 
 there was a cheerful little bedroom behind, and down- 
 stairs at the back there was a large bare room, for 
 which Harry had specially stipulated, wherein to put 
 his electrical apparatus, for he meant to experiment 
 and work busily at his own subject in his spare time. 
 There was a special servant, too, told off to wait 
 upon him ; and altogether Harry felt that if only 
 the social position could be made endurable, he 
 could live very comfortably for a year or two at 
 Colyford Abbey. 
 
l8o STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 There are some men who could never stand such 
 a life at all. There are others who can stand it be- 
 cause they can stand anything. But Harry Vardon 
 belonged to neither class. He was one of those who 
 feel at home in most places, and who can get on in all 
 society alike. In the first place, he was one of the 
 handsomest fellows you ever saw, with large dark eyes, 
 and that particular black mustache that no woman can 
 ever resist. Then again he was tall and had a good 
 presence, which impressed even those most dangerous 
 of critics for a private tutor, the footmen. Moreover, 
 he was clever, chatty, and agreeable ; ancf it never 
 entered into his head that he was not conferring some 
 distinction upon the Surrey family by consenting to be 
 teacher to their young lordling — which, indeed, was 
 after all the sober fact. 
 
 The train was in a little before seven, and there was 
 a bit of a drive from the station, so that Harry had 
 only just had time to dress for dinner when the gong 
 sounded. In the drawing-room he met his future 
 pupil, a good-looking, high-spirited, but evidently lazy 
 boy of sixteen. The family was alone, so the earl took 
 down his mother, while Harry gave his arm to Lady 
 Gladys. Before dinner was over, the new tutor had 
 taken the measure of the trio pretty accurately. The 
 countess was clever, that was certain ; she took an 
 interest in books and in art, and she could talk lightly 
 but well upon most current topics in the easy spark- 
 ling style of a woman of the world. Gladys was clever 
 too, though not booky ; she was full of sketching and 
 music, and was delighted to hear that Harry could 
 paint a little in water-colors, besides being the owner of 
 a good violin. As to the boy, his fancy clearly ran for 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. l8l 
 
 the most part to dogs, guns and cricket ; and indeed, 
 though he was no doubt a very important person as a 
 future member of the British legislature, I think for 
 the purposes of the present story, which is mainly con- 
 cerned with Harry Vardon's fortunes, we may safely 
 leave him out of consideration. Harry taught him 
 as much as he could be induced to learn for an hour 
 or two every morning, and looked after him as far 
 as possible when he was anywhere within hearing 
 throughout the rest of the day ; but as the lad was 
 alr^i'jst always out around the place somewhere with 
 a gamekeeper or a stable-boy, he hardly entered 
 practically into the current of Harry's life at all, 
 outside the regular hours of study. As a matter of 
 fact, he never learnt much from anybody or did any- 
 thing worth speaking of ; but he has since married a 
 Birmingham heiress with a million or so of her own, 
 and is now one of the most rising young members of 
 the House of Lords. 
 
 After dinner, the countess showed Harry her excel- 
 lent collection of Bartolozzis, and Harry, who knew 
 something about them, showed the countess that she 
 was wrong as to the authenticity of one or two among 
 them. Then Gladys played passably well, and he sang 
 a duet with her in a way that made her feel a little 
 ashamed of her own singing. And lastly Harry 
 brought down his violin, at which the countess smiled a 
 little, for she thought it audacious on the first evening; 
 but when he played one of his best pieces, she smiled 
 again, for she had a good ear and a great deal of taste. 
 After which they all retired to bed, and Gladys 
 remarked to her maid in the privacy of her own room, 
 
1 82 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 that the new tutor was a very pleasant man, and quite 
 a relief af^ such a stick as Mr. Wilkinson. 
 
 At breakfast next morning the party remained un- 
 changed, but at lunch the two younger girls appeared 
 upon the scene, with their governess. Miss Martindale. 
 Though very different in type from Gladys, Ethel 
 Martindale was in her way an equally pretty girl. She 
 was small and mignomiCy with delicate little hands, and 
 a light, pretty figure, not too slight, but very grace- 
 fully proportioned. Her cheeks and chin were charm- 
 ingly dimpled, and her complexion was just of that 
 faintly-dark tinge that one sees so often combined with 
 light-brown hair and eyes in the moorland parts of 
 Lancashire. Altogether she was a perfect foil to 
 Gladys, and it would have been difficult for almost any 
 man, as he sat at that table, to say whicli of the three, 
 mother, daughter, or governess, was really the pret- 
 tiest. For my own part, I give my vote unreservedly 
 for the countess, but then I am getting somewhat 
 grizzled now, and have long been bald ; so my liking 
 turns naturally towards ripe beauty. I hate your self- 
 conscious chits of seventeen, who can only chat and 
 giggle ; I like a woman who has something to say for 
 nerself. But Harry was just turned twenty-three, and 
 perhaps his choice might, not unnaturally, have gone 
 otherwise. 
 
 The governess talked little at lunch, and seemed 
 altogether a rather subdued and timid girl. Harry 
 noticed with pain that she appeared half afraid of 
 speaking to anybody, and also that the footmen made 
 a marked distinction between their manner to him and 
 their manner to her. He would have liked once or 
 twice to kick the fellows for their insolence. After 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 183 
 
 lunch, Gladys and the little ones went for a stroll down 
 towards the river, and Harry followed after with Miss 
 Martindale. 
 
 " Do you come from this part of England ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 ** No," answered Ethel, **I come from Lancashire. 
 My father was rector of a small parish on the moors." 
 
 Harry's heart smote him. It might have been 
 Edith. What a little turn of chance had made all the 
 difference ! " My father was a parson, too," he said, 
 and then checked himself for the half-disrespectful 
 word, " but he lived down here in Devonshire. Do 
 you like Colyford ?" 
 
 *' Oh, yes, — the place very much. There are delight- 
 ful rambles, and Lady Gladys and I go out sketch- 
 ing a great deal. And it's a delightful country for 
 flowers." 
 
 The place, but not the life, thought Harry. Poor 
 child, it must be very hard Tor her. 
 
 " Mr. Vardon, come on here, I want you," called 
 out Gladys from the little stone bridge. " You know 
 everything. Can you tell me what this flower is ?" 
 and she held out a long spray of waving green stuff. 
 
 *' Caper spurge," said Harry, looking at it carelessly. 
 
 ** Oh, no," Miss Martindale put in quickly, " Port- 
 land spurge, surely." 
 
 " So it is, ' Harry answered, looking closer. " Then 
 you are a bit of a botanist. Miss Martindale?" 
 
 '* Not a botanist, but very fond of the flowers." 
 
 *' Miss Martindale's always picking lots of ugly 
 things and bringing them home," said Gladys laugh- 
 ingly ; "aren't you, dear?" 
 
 Ethel smiled and nodded. So they went on past the 
 
1 84 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 bridge and out upon the opposite side, and back again 
 by the little white railings into the park. 
 
 For the next three months Harry enjoyed himself 
 in a busy way immensely. Every morning he had his 
 three hours* teaching, and every afternoon he went a 
 walk, or fished in the river, or worked at his electrical 
 machines. To the household at the Abbey such a 
 man was a perfect godsend. For he was a versatile 
 fellow, able to turn his hand to anything, and the 
 Durants lived in a very quiet way, and were glad of 
 somebody to keep the house lively. The money was 
 all tied up till the boy came of age, and even then 
 there wouldn't be much of it. Surrey had been sent 
 to Eton for a month or two and then removed, by 
 request, to prevent more violent measures ; after which 
 he was sent to two or three other schools, always with 
 the same result. So he was brought home again and 
 handed over to the domestic persuasion of a private 
 tutor. The only thing that kept him moderately quiet 
 was the possibility of running around the place with 
 the keepers ; and the only person who ever taught him 
 anything was Harry Vardon, though even he, I must 
 admit, did not succeed in impressing any very valuable 
 lessons upon the lad's volatile brain. The countess 
 saw few visitors, and so a man like Harry was a real 
 acquisition to the little circle. He was perpetually 
 being wanted by everybody, everywhere, and at the 
 end of three months he was simply indispensable. 
 
 Lady Surrey was always consulting him as to the 
 proper place to plant the new wellingtonias, the right 
 asp^,ct for deodars, the best plan for mounting water- 
 colors, and the correct date of all the neighboring 
 churches. It was so delightful to drive about with 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 8$ 
 
 somebody who really understood the history and 
 geology and antiquities of the county, she said ; and 
 she began to develop an extraordinary interest in 
 prehistoric archaeology, and to listen patiently to Har- 
 ry's disquisitions on the difference between long bar- 
 rows and round barrows, or on the true nature of the 
 earthworks that cap the top of Membury Hill. Harry 
 for his part was quite ready to discourse volubly on 
 all these subjects, for it was his hobby to impart 
 information, whereof he had plenty ; and he liked 
 knocking about the country, examining castles or 
 churches, and laying down the law about matters 
 architectural with much authority to two pretty 
 women. The countess even took an interest in his 
 great electrical investigation, and came into his work- 
 shop to hear all about the uses of his mysterious bat- 
 teries. As for Lady Gladys, she was for ever wanting 
 Mr. Vardon's opinion about the exact color for that 
 shadow by the cottage, Mr. Vardon's aid in practising 
 that difficult bit of Chopin, Mr. Vardon's counsel about 
 the decorative treatment of the passion-flower on that 
 lovely piece of crewel-work. Indeed, contrary to Miss 
 Martindale's express admonition, and all the dictates 
 of propriety, she was always running off to Harry's 
 little sitting-room to ask his advice about five hundred 
 different things, five hundred times in every twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 There was only one person in the household who 
 seemed at all shy of Harry, and that was Miss Martin- 
 dale. Do what he could, he could never get her to 
 feel at home with him. She seemed always anxious to 
 keep out of his way, and never ready to join in any of 
 his plans. This was annoying, because Harry really 
 
1 86 STRANGE STORIES. • 
 
 liked the poor girl and felt sorry for her lonely posi- 
 tion. But as she would have nothing to say to him, 
 why, there was nothing else to be done ; so he con- 
 tented himself with being as polite to her as possible, 
 while respecting her evident wish to be let alone. 
 
 One afternoon, when the four had been out for a 
 drive together to visit the old ruins near Cowhayne, 
 and Harry had been sketching with Gladys and lectur- 
 ing to the countess to his heart's content, he was sit- 
 ting on the bench by the red cedars, when to his sur- 
 prise he saw the governess strolling carelessly across 
 the terrace towards him. " Mr. Vardon," she said, 
 standing beside the bench, " I want to say something 
 to you. You mustn't mind my saying it, but I feel it 
 is part of my duty. Do you think you ought to pay so 
 much attention to Gladys ? You and I come into a 
 famil) of this sort on peculiar terms, you know. They 
 don't think we are quite the same sort of human beings 
 as themselves. Now, I'm half afraid — I don't like to 
 say so, but I think it better I should say it than my 
 lady — I'm half afraid that Gladys is getting her head 
 too much filled with you. Whatever she does, you are 
 always helping her. She is for ever running off to see 
 you about something or other. She is very young ; 
 she meets very few other men ; and you have been ex- 
 tremely attentive to her. But when people like these 
 admit you into their family, they do so on the tacit 
 understanding that you will not do what they would 
 call abusing the position. To-day, 1 half fancied that 
 my lady looked at you once or twice when you were 
 talking to Gladys, and I thought I would try to be 
 brave enough to speak to you about it. If /don't, I 
 think she wiU," 
 
AN KPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 8/ 
 
 ** Really, Miss Martindale," said Harry, rising and 
 walking by her side toward the laburnum alley, " I'm 
 very glad you have unburdened your mind about this 
 matter. For myself, you know, I don't acknowledge 
 the obligation. I should marry any girl I liked, if she 
 would have me, whatever her artificial position might 
 be ; and I should never let any barriers of that sort 
 stand in my way. But I don't know that I have the 
 slightest intention of ever trying to marry Lady Gladys 
 or anybody else of the sort ; so while I remain unde- 
 cided on that point, I shall do as you wish me. By 
 the way, it strikes me now that you have been trying 
 to keep her away from me as much as possible." 
 
 " As part of my duty, I think I ought to do so. 
 Yes." 
 
 " Well, you may rely upon it, I will give you no more 
 cause for anxiety," said Harry; "so the less we say 
 about it the better. What a lovely sunset, and what 
 a glorious color on the cliffs at Axmouth !" And he 
 walked down the alley with her two or three times, 
 talking about various indifferent subjects. Somehow 
 he had never managed to get on so well with her be- 
 fore. She was a very nice girl, he thought, really a 
 very nice girl ; what a pity she would never take any 
 notice of him in any way! However, he enjoyed that 
 quiet half-hour immensely, and was quite sorry when 
 Lady Surrey came out a little later and joined them, 
 exactly as if she wanted to interrupt their conversa- 
 tion. But what a beautiful woman Lady Surrey was 
 too, as she came across the lawn just then in her gar- 
 den hat and the pale blue Umritzur shawl thrown 
 loosely across her shapely shoulders 1 By Jove, she 
 
1 88 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 was as handsome a woman, after all, as he had ever 
 seen. 
 
 After dinner that evening Lady Surrey sent Gladys 
 oflF to Miss Martindale's room on some small pretext, 
 and then put Harry down on the sofa beside her to 
 help in arranging those interminable ferns of hers. 
 Evening dress suited the countess best, and she knew 
 it. She was looking even more beautiful than before, 
 with her hair prettily dressed, and the little simple 
 turquoise necklet setting off her white neck ; and she 
 talked a great deal to Harry, and was really very 
 charming. No more fascinating widow, he thought, to 
 be found anywhere within a hundred miles. At last 
 she stopped, leaning over the ferns, and sat back a 
 little on the sofa, half fronting him. ** Mr. Vardon," 
 she said suddenly, " there is something I wish to speak 
 to you about, privately." 
 
 " Certainly," said Harry, half expecting the topic. 
 
 ** Do you know, I think you ought not to pay such 
 marked attention to Lady Gladys. Two or three times 
 I have fancied I noticed it, and have meant to mention 
 it to you, but I thought it might be unnecessary. On 
 many accounts, however, I think it is best not to let it 
 pass any longer. The difference of station " 
 
 " Excuse me," said Harry, " I'm sorry to differ from 
 you, but I don't acknowledge differences of station." 
 
 ** Well," said the countess, in a conciliatory tone, 
 " under certain circumstances that may be perfectly 
 correct. A young man in your position and with your 
 talents has. of course, the whole world before him. He 
 can make himself whatever he pleases. I don't think, 
 Mr. Vardon, I have ever under-estimated the worth 
 of brains. I do feel that knowledge and culture are 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 189 
 
 much greater things after all than mere position. 
 Now, in justice to me, don't you think I do ?" 
 
 Harry looked at her — she was really a very beautiful 
 woman — and then said, " Yes, I think you have cer- 
 tainly better and more rational tastes than most other 
 people circumstanced as you are." 
 
 " I'm so glad you do," the countess answered, 
 heartily. " I don't care for a life of perfect frivolity 
 and fashion, such as one gets in London. If it were 
 not for Gladys's sake I sometimes think I would give 
 it up entirely. Do you know, I often wish my life had 
 been cast very differently — cast among another set of 
 people from the people I have always mixed among. 
 Whenever I meet clever people — literary people and 
 scholars — I always feel so sorry I haven't moved all 
 my life in their world. From one point of view, I 
 quite recognize what you said just now, that these 
 artificial distinctions should not exist between people 
 who are really equals in intellect and culture." 
 
 " Naturally not," said Harry, to whom this proposi- 
 tion sounded like a famiHar truism. 
 
 " But in Lady Gladys's case, I feel I ought to guard 
 her against seeing too much of anybody in particular 
 just at present. She is only seventeen, and she is of 
 course impressionable. Now, you know a great many 
 mothers would not have spoken to you as I do ; but I 
 like you, Mr. Vardon, and I feel at home with you. 
 You will promise me not to pay so much attention to 
 Gladys in future, won't you ?" 
 
 As she looked at him full in the face with her beau- 
 tiful eyes, Harry felt he could just then have promised 
 her anything, ** Yes," he said, " I will promise." 
 
 " Thank you," said the countess, looking at him 
 
190 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 again ; " I am very much obliged to you." And then 
 for a moment there was an awkward pause, and they 
 both looked full into one another's eyes without say- 
 ing a word. 
 
 In a minute the countess began again, and said a 
 good many things about what a dreadful waste of life 
 people generally made ; and what a privilege it was to 
 know clever people ; and what a reality and purpose 
 there was in their lives. A great deal of this sort she 
 said, and in a low, pleasant voice. And then there was 
 another awkward pause, and they looked at one an- 
 other once more. 
 
 Harry certainly thought the countess very beautiful, 
 and he liked her very much. She was really kind- 
 hearted and friendly ; she was interested in the sub- 
 jects that pleased him ; and she was after all a pretty 
 woman, still young as men count youth, and very 
 agreeable — nay, anxious to please. And then she had 
 said what she said about the artificiality of class dis- 
 tinctions so markedly and pointedly, with such a com- 
 mentary from her eyes, that Harry half fancied — well, 
 1 don't quite know what he fancied. As he sat there 
 beside her on the sofa, with the ferns before him, 
 looking straight into her eyes, and she into his, it 
 must be clear to all my readers that if he had any 
 special proposition to make to her on any abstract 
 subject of human speculation, the time had obviously 
 arrived to make it. But something or other inscru- 
 table kept him back. 
 
 " Lady Surrey ," he said, and the words s.uck 
 
 in his throat. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, softly. 
 
 ** Shall shall we go on with the ferns ?" Lady 
 
AN EPISODE m HIGH LIFE. I9I 
 
 Surrey gave a little short breath, brought back her 
 eyes from dreamland, and turned with a sudden smile 
 back to the portfolio. For the rest of the evening, the 
 candid historian must admit that they both felt like a 
 pair of fools. Conversation lagged, and I don't think 
 either of them was sorry when the time came for re- 
 tiring. 
 
 It is useless for the clumsy male psychologist to 
 pretend that he can see into the heart of a woman, 
 especially when the normal action of said heart is com- 
 plicated by such queer conventionalities as that of a 
 countess who feels a distinct liking for her son's tutor; 
 but if I may venture to attempt that impossible feat 
 of clairvoyance without rebuke, I should be inclined 
 to diagnose Lady Surrey's condition as she lay sleep- 
 less for an hour or so on her pillow that night some- 
 what as follows. She thought that Harry Vardon 
 was really a very clever and a very pleasant fellow. 
 She thought that men in society were generally dread- 
 fully empty-headed and horribly vain. She thought 
 that the importance of disparity in age had, as a rule, 
 been immensely overrated. She thought that rank was 
 after all much less valuable than she used to think it 
 when first she married poor dear Surrey, who was really 
 the kindest of men, and a thorough gentleman, but 
 certainly not at all brilliant. She thought that a 
 young man of Harry's talent might, if well connected, 
 get into parliament and rise, like Beaconsfield, to any 
 position. She thought he was very frank and open, 
 and gentlemanly ; and very handsome, too. She 
 thought he had half hesitated whether he should pro- 
 pose to her or not, and had then drawn back because 
 he was not certain of the consequences. She thought 
 
192 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 that if he had proposed to her — well, perhaps — why, 
 yes, she might even possibly have accepted him. She 
 thought he would probably propose in earnest, before 
 long, as soon as he saw that she was not wholly averse 
 to his attentions. She thought in that case she might 
 perhaps provisionally accept him, and get him to try 
 what he could do in the way of obtaining some sort of 
 position — she didn't exactly know what — where he 
 could more easily marry her with the least possible 
 shock to the feelings of society. And she thought that 
 she really didn't know before, for twenty years, at 
 least, how great a goose she positively was. 
 
 Next morning, after breakfast. Lady Surrey sent 
 for Gladys to come to her in her boudoir. Then she 
 put her daughter in a chair by the window, drew her 
 own close to it, laid her hand kindly on her shoulder — 
 she was a nice little woman at heart, was the countess 
 — and said to her gently, " My dear Gladys, there's a 
 little matter I want to talk to you about. You are 
 still very young, you know, dear ; and I think you 
 ought to be very careful about not letting your feel- 
 ings be played upon in any way, however uncon- 
 sciously. Now, you walk and talk a great deal too 
 much, dear, with Mr. Vardon. In many ways, it 
 would be well that you should. Mr. Vardon is very 
 clever, and very well informed, and a very instructive 
 companion. I like you to talk to intelligent people, and 
 to hear intelligent people talk ; it gives you something 
 that mere books can never give. But you know, 
 Gladys, you should always remember the disparity in 
 your stations. I don't deny that there's a great deal 
 in all that sort of thing that's very conventional and 
 absurd, my dear ; but still, girls are girls, and if they're 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. • I93 
 
 thrown too much with any one young man " — Lady 
 Surrey was going to add, " especially when he's hand- 
 some and agreeable," but she checked herself in time 
 — " they're very apt to form an affection for him. 
 Of course, I'm not suggesting that you're likely to do 
 anything of the sort with Mr. Vardon — I don't for a 
 moment suppose you would — but a girl can never be 
 too careful. I hope you know your position too well ;'* 
 here Lady Surrey was conscious of certain internal 
 qualms ; ** and indeed whether it was Mr. Vardon or 
 anybody else, you are much too young to fill your 
 head with such notions at your age. Of course, if 
 some really good offer had been made to you even in 
 your first season — say Lord St. Ives or Sir Montague 
 —I don't say it might not have been prudent to accept 
 it ; but under ordinary circumstances, a girl does best 
 to think as little as possible about such things until 
 she is twenty at least. However, I hope in future 
 you'll remember that I don't wish you to be quite so 
 familiar in your intercourse with Mr. Vardon." 
 
 " Very well, mamma," said Gladys quietly, drawing 
 herself up ; "I have heard what you want to say, and 
 I shall try to do as you wish. But I should like to 
 say something in return, if you'll be so kind as to lis- 
 ten to me." 
 
 " Certainly, darling," Lady Surrey answered, with a 
 vague foreboding of something wrong. 
 
 " I don't say I care any more for Mr. Vardon than 
 for anybody else ; I haven't seen enough of him to 
 know whether I care for him or not. But if ever I do 
 care for anybody, it will be for somebody like him, 
 and not for somebody like Lord St. Ives or Monty 
 Fitzroy. I don't like the men I meet in town ; they 
 
194 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 all talk to us as if we were dolls or babies. I don't 
 want to marry a man who says to himself, as Surrey 
 says already, * Ah, I shall look out for some rich girl 
 or other and make her a countess, if she's a good girl, 
 and if she suits me.' I'd rather have a man like Mr. 
 Vardon than any of the men we ever meet in Lon- 
 don." 
 
 " But, my darling," said Lady Surrey, quite alarmed 
 at Gladys's too serious tone, *' surely there are gentle- 
 men quite as clever and quite as intellectual as Mr. 
 Vardon." 
 
 "Mamma!" cried Gladys, rising, "do you mean to 
 say Mr. Vardon is not a gentleman?" 
 
 '• Gladys, Gladys ! sit down, dear. Don't get so ex- 
 cited. Of course he is. I trust I have as great a 
 respect as anybody for talent and culture. But what 
 I meant to say was this — can't you find as much talent 
 and culture among people of our own station as — as 
 among people of Mr. Vardon's ?" 
 
 " No," said Gladys shortly. 
 
 " Really, my dear, you are too hard upon the 
 peerage." 
 
 ** Well, mamma, can you mention anyone that we 
 know who is ?" asked the peremptory girl. 
 
 " Not exactly in our own set," said Lady Surrey hesi- 
 tatingly ; " but surely there must be some.'* 
 
 " I don't know them," Gladys replied quietly, " and 
 till I do know them, I shall remain of my own opinion 
 still. If you wish me not to see so much of Mr. Var- 
 don, I shall try to do as you say ; but if I happen to 
 like any particular person, whether he's a peer or a 
 ploughboy, I can't help liking him, so there's an end of 
 it." And Gladys kissed her mother demurely on the 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. I95 
 
 forehead, and walked with a stately sweep out of the 
 room. 
 
 " It's perfectly clear," said Lady Surrey to herself, 
 " that that girl's in love with Mr. Vardon.and what on 
 earth I'm to do about it is to me a mystery." And 
 indeed Lady Surrey's position was by no means an 
 easy one. On the one hand, she felt that whatever she 
 herself, who was a person of mature years, might hap- 
 pen to do, it would be positively wicked in her to 
 allow a young girl like Gladys to throw herself away 
 on a man in Harry Vardon's position. Without any 
 shadow of an arritre pensee^ that was her genuine feel- 
 ing as a mother, and a member of society. But then, 
 on the other hand, how could she oppose it, if she 
 really ever thought herself, even conditionally, of mar- 
 rying Harry Vardon? Could she endure that her 
 daughter should think she had acted as her rival ? 
 Could she press the point about Harry's conventional 
 disadvantEiges, when she herself had some vague idea 
 that if Harry offered himself as Gladys's stepfather, she 
 would not be wholly disinclined to consider his pro- 
 posal ? Could she set it down as a crime in her daugh- 
 ter to form the very selfsame affection which she her- 
 self had well-nigh formed ? Moreover, she couldn't 
 help feeling in her heart that Gladys was right, after 
 all ; and that the daughter's defiance of convent:*. >nality 
 was implicitly inherited from the mother. If she had 
 met Harry Vardon twenty years ago, she would have 
 thought and spoken much like Gladys; in fact, though 
 she didn't speak, she thought so, very nearly, even 
 now. I am sorry that I am obliged to write out these 
 faint outlines of ideas in all the brutal plainness of the 
 English language as spoken by men ; I cannot give all 
 
196 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 those fine shades of unspoken reservations and wo- 
 manly self-deceptive subterfuges by which the poor 
 little countess half disguised her own meaning even 
 from herself ; but at least you will not be surprised to 
 hear that in the end she lay down on the little couch 
 in the corner, covered her face with chagrin and disap- 
 pointment, and had a good cry. Then she got up an 
 hour later, washed her eyes carefully to take off the 
 redness, put on her pretty, dove-colored morning 
 gown with the lace trimming — she looked charming in 
 lace — and went down smiling to lunch, as pleasant and 
 cheery a little widow of thirty-seven as ever you would 
 wish to see. Upon my soul, Harry Vardon, I really 
 almost think you will be a fool if you don't finally 
 marry the countess ! 
 
 " Gladys," said little Lord Surrey to his sister that 
 evening, when she came into his room on her way 
 upstairs to bed — "Gladys, it's my opinion you're get- 
 ting too sweet on this fellow Vardon." 
 
 " I shall be obliged, Surrey, if you'll mind your own 
 business, and allow me to mind mine." 
 
 " Oh, it's no use coming the high and mighty over 
 me, I can tell you, so don't you try it on. Besides, I 
 have something 1 want to speak to you about particu- 
 larly. It's my opinion also that my lady's doing the 
 very same thing." 
 
 ** What nonsense, Surrey !" cried Gladys, coloring 
 up to her eyebrows in a second ; " how dare you say 
 such a thing about mamma ?" But a light broke in 
 upon her suddenly all the same, and a number of little 
 unnoticed circumstances flashed back at once upon her 
 memory with a fresh flood of meaning. 
 
 " Nonsense or not, it's true, I know ; and what I 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. ' I97 
 
 want to say to you is this — If old Vardon's to marry 
 either of you, it ought to be you, because that would 
 save mamma at any rate from making a fool of her- 
 self. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather neither of 
 you did ; for I don't see why either of you should want 
 to marry a beggarly fellow of a tutor " — Gladys's eyes 
 flashed fire — *' though Vardon's a decent enough chap 
 in his way, if that was all ; but at any rate, as one or 
 other of you's cock-sure to do it, I don't want him for 
 a stepfather. " So you see, as far as that goes, I back 
 the filly. Now, say no more about it, but go to bed 
 like a good girl, and mind, whatever you do, you don't 
 forget to say your prayers. Good-night, old girl." 
 
 " I would't marry a fellow like Surrey," said Gladys 
 to herself, as she went upstairs, " no, not if he was the 
 premier duke of England !" 
 
 For the next three weeks there was such a comedy 
 of errors and cross-purposes at Colyford Abbey as was 
 never seen before anywhere outside of one of Mr Gil- 
 bert's clever extravaganzas. Lady Surrey tried to 
 keep Gladys in every possible way out of Harry's sight; 
 while her brother tried in every possible way to throw 
 them together. Gladys on her part half avoided him, 
 and yet grew somewhat more confidential than ever 
 whenever she happened to talk with him. Harry did 
 not feel quite so much at home as before with Lady 
 Surrey ; he had an uncomfortable sense that he had 
 failed to acquit himself as he ought to have done ; 
 while Lady Surrey had a half suspicion that she had 
 let him see her unfledged secret a little too early and 
 too openly. The natural consequence of all this was 
 that Harry was cast far more than before upon the 
 society of Ethel Martindale, with whom he often 
 
198 STRANGE STORIES. ' 
 
 strolled about the shrubbery till very close upon the 
 dressing gong. Ethel did not come down to dinner — 
 she dined with the little ones at the family luncheon ; 
 and that horrid galling distinction cut Harry to the 
 quick every night when he left her to go in. Every 
 day, too, it began to dawn upon him more clearly that 
 the vague reason which had kept him back from pro- 
 posing to Lady Surrey on that eventful night was just 
 this — that Ethel Martindale had made herself a certain 
 vacant niche in his unfurnished heart. She was a dear, 
 quiet, unassuming little girl, but so very graceful, so 
 very tender, so very womanly, that she crept into his 
 affections unawares without possibility of resistance. 
 The countess was a beautiful and accomplished woman 
 of the world, with a real heart left in her still, but not 
 quite the sort of tender, shrinking girlish heart that 
 Harry wanted. Gladys was a lovely girl with stately 
 manners and a wonderfully formed character, but too 
 great and too redolent of society for Harry. He ad- 
 mired them both, each in her own way, but he couldn't 
 possibly have lived a lifetime with either. But Ethel, 
 dear, meek, pretty, gentle little Ethel — well, there, I'm 
 not going to repeat for you all the raptures that Harry 
 went into over that perennial and ever rejuvenescent 
 theme. For, to tell you the truth, about three weeks 
 after the night when Harry did not propose to the 
 countess, he actually did propose to Ethel Martindale. 
 And Ethel, after many timid protests, after much de- 
 mure self-depreciation and declaration of utter un- 
 worthiness for such a man — which made Harry wild 
 with indignation — did finally let him put her little 
 hand to his lips, and whispered a sort of broken and 
 blushing " Yes." 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 99 
 
 What a fool he had been, he thought that evening, 
 to suppose for half a second that Lady Surrey had 
 ever meant to regard him in any other light than her 
 son's tutor. He hated himself for his owi nonsensical 
 vanity. Who was he that he should tancy all the 
 women in England were in love with him ? 
 
 Next morning's Times contained that curious an- 
 nouncement about its being the intention of the Gov- 
 ernment to appoint an electrician to the Admiralty, 
 and inviting applications from distinguished men of 
 science. Now Harry, young as he was, had just per- 
 fected his great system of the double revolving com- 
 mutator and back-action rheostat (Patent Office, No. 
 18,237,504), and had sent in a paper on the subject 
 which had been read with great success at the Royal 
 Society. The famous Professor Brusegay himself had 
 described it as a remarkable invention, likely to prove 
 of immense practical importance to telegraphy and 
 electrical science generally. So when Harry saw the 
 announcement that morning, he made up his mind to 
 apply for the appointment at once ; and he thought 
 that if he got it, as the salary was a good one, he 
 might before long marry Ethel, and yet manage to 
 keep Edith in the Same comfort as before. 
 
 Lady Surrey saw the paragraph too, and had her 
 own ideas about what it might be made to do. It was 
 the very opening that Harry wanted, and if he got it, 
 why then, no doubt he might make the proposal which 
 he evidently felt afraid to make, poor fellow, in his 
 present position. So she went into her boudoir im- 
 mediately after breakfast, and wrote two careful and 
 cautiously worded little notes. One was to Dr. Bruse- 
 gay, whom she knew well, mentioning to him that her 
 
200 v' STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 son's tutor was the author of that remarkable paper on 
 jommutators, and that she thought he would probably 
 be admirably fitted for the post, but that on that point 
 the Professor himself was the best judge ; the other 
 was to her cousin, Lord Ardenleigli, who was a great 
 man in the government of the day, suggesting casually 
 thit he should look into the claims of her friend, 
 Mr. Vardon, for this new place at the Admiralty. 
 Two nicer little notes, written with better tact and 
 judgment, it would be difificult to find. 
 
 At that very moment Harry was also sitting down 
 in his own room, after five minutes' consultation with 
 Ethel, to make formal application for the new post. 
 And after lunch the same day he spoke to Lady Surrey 
 upon the subject. 
 
 " There is one special reason," he said, " why I 
 should like to get this post, and I think I ought to let 
 you know it now." Poor little Lady Surrey's heart 
 fluttered like a girl's. " The fact is, I am anxious to 
 obtain a position which would enable me to marry." 
 (" How very bluntly he puts it," said the countess to 
 herself.) " I ought to tell you, I think, that I have 
 proposed to Miss Martindale, and she has accepted 
 me." 
 
 Miss Martindale! Great heavens, how the room 
 reeled round the poor little woman, as she stood with 
 her hand on the table, trying to balance herself, trying 
 to conceal her shame and mortification, trying to look 
 as if the announcement did not concern her in any 
 way. Poor, dear, good little countess ; from my heart 
 I pity you. Miss Martindale! why, she had never 
 even thought of her. A mere governess, a nobody ; 
 and Harry Vardon, with his magnificent intellect and 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 201 
 
 splendid prospects, was going to throw himself away 
 on that girl ! She could hardly control herself to an- 
 swer him, but with a great effort she gulped down her 
 feelings, and remarked that Ethel Martindale was a 
 very good girl, and would doubtless make an admirable 
 wife. And then she walked quietly out of the room, 
 stepped up the stairs somewhat faster, rushed into her 
 boudoir, double-locked the door, and burst into a per- 
 fect flood of hot, scalding tears. At that moment she 
 began to realize the fact that she had in truth liked 
 Harry Vardon much more than a little. 
 
 By and by she got up, went over to her desk, took 
 out the two unposted notes, tore them into fragments, 
 and then carefully burnt them up piece by piece, in a 
 perfect holocaust of white paper. What a wicked, 
 vindictive little countess ! Was she going to spoil 
 these two young people's lives, to throw every possible 
 obstacle in the way of their marriage ? Not a bit of 
 it. As soon as her eyes allowed her, she sat down and 
 wrote two more notes, a great deal stronger and better 
 than before ; for this time she need not fear the possi- 
 bility of after reflections from an unkind world. She 
 said a great deal in a casual, half-hinting fashion about 
 Harry's merits, and remarked upon the loss that she 
 should sustain in the removal of such a tutor from 
 Lord Surrey ; but she felt that, sooner or later, his 
 talents must get him a higher recognition, and she 
 hoped Dr. Brusegay and her cousin would use their 
 influence to obtain him the appointment. Then she 
 went downstairs feeling like a Christian martyr, kissed 
 and congratulated Ethel, talked gayly about Bartolozzi 
 to Harry, and tried to make b( eve that she took the 
 engagement as a matter of course. Nothing, in fact, 
 
202 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 as she remarked to Gladys, could possibly be more 
 suitable. Gladys bit her tongue, and answered shortly 
 that she didn't herself perceive any special natural 
 congruity about the match, but perhaps her mother 
 was better informed on the subject. 
 
 Now, we all know that in the matter of public 
 appointment anything like backstairs influence or 
 indirect canvassing is positively fatal to the succer s of 
 a candidate. Accordingly, it may surprise you to 
 learn that when Professor Brusegay (who held the 
 appointment virtually in his hands) opened his letters 
 next morning he said to his wife, " Why, Miiria, that 
 young fellow Vardon who wrote that astonishingly 
 clever paper on commutators, you know, is tutor at 
 Lady Surrey's, and she wants him to get this place at 
 the Admiralty. We must really see what we can do 
 about it. Lady Surrey is such a very useful person to 
 . know, and besides it's so important to keep on good 
 terms with her, for the Paulsons would be absolutely 
 intolerable if we hadn't its acquaintance in the peerage 
 to play off against their Lord Poodlebury." And 
 when the Professor shortly afterwards mentioned 
 Harry's name to Lord Ardenleigh, his lordship re- 
 marked immediately, " Why, bless my soul, that's the 
 very man Amelia wrote to me about. He shall have 
 the place by all means." And they both wrote back 
 nice little notes to Lady Surrey, to say that she might 
 consider the matter settled, but that she mustn't men- 
 tion it to Harry until the appointment was regularly 
 announced. Anything so remarkable in this age of 
 purity I for my part have seldom heard of. 
 
 Lady Surrey never did mention the matter to Harry 
 from that day to this ; and Sir Henry Vardon, K.C.B., 
 
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 203 
 
 does not for a moment imagine even now that he owes 
 his advancement to anything but his own native 
 merits. He married Ethel shortly after, and a prettier 
 or more blushing bride you never saw. Lady Surrey 
 has been their best friend in society, and still sighs 
 occasionally when she sees Harry a great magnate in 
 his way, and thinks of the narrow escape he had that 
 night at Colyford. As to Gladys, she consistently 
 refused several promising heirs, at least twenty 
 younger sons, and a score or so of wealthy young men 
 whose papas were something in the City, her first five 
 seasons ; and then, to Lord Surrey's horror, she 
 married a young Scotchman from Glasgow, who was 
 merely a writer for some London paper, and had 
 nothing on earth but a head on his shoulders to bless 
 himself with. His lordship himself "bagged an 
 heiress " as he expressively puts it, with several thou- 
 sands a year of her own, and is now one of the most 
 respected members of his party, who may be counted 
 upon always to vote straight, and never to have any 
 opinions of his own upon any subject except the 
 improvement of the British racehorse. He often 
 wishes Gladys had taken his advice and married 
 Vardon, who is at least in respectable society, instead 
 of that shock-headed Scotch fellow — but there, the 
 girl was always full of fancies, and never would behave 
 like other people. 
 
 For myself, I am a horrid radical, and republican, 
 and all that sort of thing, and have a perfectly rabid 
 hatred of titles and so forth, don't you know ? — but 
 still, on the first day when Ethel went to call on the 
 countess dowager after Harry was knighted, I hap- 
 pened to be present (purely on business), and heard 
 
204 ' STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 her duly announced as " Lady Vardon ": and I give 
 you my word of honor I could not find it in my heart 
 to grudge the dear little woman the flush of pride that 
 rose upon her cheek as she entered the room for the 
 first time in her new position. It was a pleasure to 
 me (who know the whole story) to see Lady Surrey 
 kiss the little ex-governess warmly on her cheek and 
 say to her, " My dear Lady Vardon, I am so glad, so 
 very, very glad." And I really believe she meant it. 
 After all, in spite of her little weakness, there is a 
 great deal of human nature left in the countess. 
 
MY NEW YEARS EVE AMONG THE 
 
 MUMMIES. 
 
 I HAVE been a wanderer and a vagabond on the 
 face of the earth for a good many years now, and I 
 have certainly had some odd adventures in my time ; 
 but 1 can assure you, I never spent twenty-four 
 queerer hours than those which I passed some twelve 
 months since in the great unopened Pyramid of Abu 
 Yilla. 
 
 The way I got there was itself a very strange one. 
 I had come to Egypt for a winter tour with the Fitz- 
 Simkinses, to whose daughter Editha I was at that 
 precise moment engaged. You will probably remem- 
 ber that old Fitz-Simkins belonged originally to the 
 wealthy firm of Simkinson and Stokoe, worshipful 
 vintners ; but when the senior partner retired from the 
 business and got his knighthood, th^e College of Her- 
 alds opportunely discovered that his ancestors had 
 changed their fine old Norman name for its English 
 equivalent sometime about the reign of King Richard 
 I. ; and they immediately authorized the old gentleman 
 to resume the patronymic and the armorial bearings 
 of his distinguished forefathers. It's really quite as- 
 tonishing how often these curious coincidences crop 
 up at the College of Heralds. 
 
 Of course it was a great catch for a landless and 
 
 [205] 
 
2o6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 briefless barrister like myself — dependent on a small 
 fortune in South American securities, and my precari- 
 ous earnings as a writer of burlesque — to secure such 
 a valuable prospective property as Editha Fitz-Simkins. 
 To be sure, the girl was undeniably plain ; but I have 
 known plainer girls than she was, whom forty thou- 
 sand pounds converted into My Ladies; and if Editha 
 hadn't reallv fallen over head and ears in love with 
 me, I suppose old Fitz-Simkins would never have con- 
 sented to such a match. As it was, however, we had 
 flirted so openly and so desperately during the Scar- 
 borough season, that it would have been difificult for 
 Sir Peter to break it off ; and so I had come to Egypt 
 on a tour of insurance to secure my prize, following in 
 the wake of my future mother-in-law, whose lungs were 
 supposed to require a genial climate — though in my 
 private opinion they were really as creditable a pair 
 of pulmonary appendages as ever drew breath. 
 
 Neverthless, the course of our true love did not run 
 so smoothly as might have been expected. Editha 
 found me less ardent than a devoted squire should be ; 
 and on the very last night of the old year she got up 
 a regulation lover's quarrel, because I had sneaked 
 away from the boa^: that afternoon, under the guidance 
 of our dragoman, to witness the seductive perform- 
 ances of some fair Ghawdzi, the dancing girls of a 
 neighboring town. How she found it out heaven only 
 knows, for I gave that rascal Dimitri five piastres to 
 hold his tongue ; but she did find it out somehow, 
 and chose to regard it as an offence of the first magni- 
 tude ; a mortal sin only to be expiated by three days 
 of penance and humiliation. 
 
 I went to bed that night, in my hammock on deck, 
 
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG TllE MUMMIES. 20/ 
 
 with feelings far from satisfactory. We were moored 
 against the bank at Abu Yilla, the most pestiferous 
 hole between the cataracts and the Delta. The mos- 
 quitoes werti l|l*rsc than the ordinary mosquitoes of 
 Egypt, and tfiat is saying a great deal. The heat was 
 oppressive even at night, and the malaria from the lotus 
 beds rose l>':e a palpable mist before my eyes. Above 
 all, I was getting doubtful whether Editha Fitz-Simkins 
 might not after all slip between my fingers, I felt 
 wretched and feverish ; and yet I had delightful inter- 
 lusive recollections, in between, of that lovely little 
 Ghdziyah, who danced that exquisite, marvellous, en- 
 trancing, delicious, and awfully oriental dance that I 
 saw in the afternoon. 
 
 By Jove, she zvas a beautiful creature. Eyes like two 
 full moons; hair like Milton's Penseroso ; movements 
 like a poem of Swinburn's set to action. If Editha 
 was only a faint picture of that girl now ! Upon my 
 word, I was falling in love with a Ghdziyah ! 
 
 Then the mosquitoes came agdUi. Buzz — buzz — 
 buzz. I make a lunge at the loudest and biggest, a 
 sort of prima donna in their infernal opera. I kill 
 the prima donna, but ten more shrill performers come 
 in its place. The frogs croak dismally in the reedy 
 shallows. The night grows hotter and hotter still. At 
 last, I can stand it no longer. I rise up, dress myself 
 lightly, and jump ashore to find some way of passing 
 the time. 
 
 Yonder, across the flat, lies the great unopened 
 Pyramid of Abu Yilla. We are going to-morrow to 
 climb to the top ; but I will take a turn to reconnoitre 
 in that direction now. I walk across the moonlit 
 fields, my soul still divided between Editha and the 
 
2o8 STRANGE STORIKS. 
 
 Ghdziyah, and approach the solemn mass of huge, an- 
 tiquated granite blocks standing out so grimly against 
 the pale horizon. I feel half awake, half asleep, and 
 altogether feverish : but I poke about the base in an 
 aimless sort of way, with a vague idea that I may per- 
 haps discover by chance the secret of its sealed en- 
 trance, which has ere now baffled so many pertinacious 
 explorers and learned Egyptologists. 
 
 As I walk along the base, I remember old Herodo- 
 tus's story, like a page from the " Arabian Nights," 
 of how King Rhampsinitus built himself a treasury, 
 wherein one stone turned on a pivot like a door ; and 
 how the builder availed himself of this his cunning 
 device to steal gold from the king's storehouse. Sup- 
 pose the entrance to the unopened Pyramid should be 
 by such a door. It would be curious if I should chance 
 to light upon the very spot. 
 
 I stood in the broad moonlight, near the northeast 
 angle of the great pile, at the twelfth stone from the 
 corner. A random fancy struck me, that I might turn 
 this stone by pushing it inward on the left side. I 
 leant against it with all my weight, and tried to move 
 it on the imaginary pivot. Did it give way a fraction 
 of an inch? No, it must have been mere fancy. 
 Let me try again. Surely it is yielding ! Gracious 
 Osiris, it has moved an inch or more ! My heart beats 
 fast, either with fever or excitement, and I try a third 
 time. The rust of centuries on the pivot wears slowly 
 off, and the stone turns ponderously round, giving 
 access to a low dark passage. 
 
 It must have been madness which led me to enter 
 the forgotten corridor, alone, without torch or match, 
 at that hour of the evening ; but at any rate I entered. 
 
 ./ 
 
MY NEW year's eve AMONG THE MUMMIES. 209 
 
 The passage was tall enough for a man to walk erect, 
 and I could feel, as I groped slowly along, that the 
 wall was composed of ^^ooth polished granite, while 
 the floor sloped away dov. .iward with a slight but reg- 
 ular descent. I walked with trembling heart and fal- 
 tering feet for some forty or fifty yards down the: 
 mysterious vestibule : and then I felt myself brought 
 suddenly to a standstill by a block of stone placed 
 right across the pathway. I had had nearly enough 
 for one evening, and I was preparing to return to the 
 boat, agog with my new discovery, when my attention 
 was suddenly arrested by an incredible, a perfectly 
 miraculous fact. 
 
 The block of stone which barred the passage was 
 faintly visible as a square, by means of a struggling 
 belt of light streaming through the seams. There 
 must be a lamp or other flame burning within. What 
 if this were a door like the outer one, leading into a 
 chamber perhaps inhabited by some dangerous band 
 of outcasts? The light was a sure evidence of human 
 occupation : and yet the outer door swung rustily on 
 its pivot as though it had never been opened for ages. 
 I paused a moment in fear before I ventured to try 
 the stone : and then, urged on once more by some in- 
 sane impulse, I turned the massive block with all my 
 might to the left. It gave way slowly like its neigh- 
 bor, and finally opened into the central hall. 
 
 Never as long as I live shall I forget the ecstasy of 
 terror, astonishment, and blank dismay which seized 
 upon me when I stepped into that seemingly en- 
 chanted chamber. A blaze of light first burst upon 
 my eyes, from jets of gas arranged in regular rows 
 tier above tier, upcm the columns and walls of the vast 
 
210 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 apartment. Huge pillars, richly painted with red, 
 yellow, blue, and green decorations, stretched in end- 
 less succession down the dazzling aisles. A floor of 
 polished syenite reflected the splendor of the lamps, 
 and afforded a base for red granite sphinxes and dark 
 purple images in porphyry of the cat-faced goddess 
 I'asht, whose form I knew so well at the Louvre and 
 the British Museum. But I had no eyes for any of 
 these lesser marvels, being wholly absorbed in the 
 greatest marvel of all : for there, in royal state and 
 with mitred head, a living Egyptian king, surrounded 
 by his coiffured court, was banqueting in the flesh 
 upon a real throne, before a table laden with Mem- 
 phian delicacies! 
 
 I stood transfixed with awe and amazement, my 
 tongue and my feet alike forgetting their ofiice, and 
 my brain whirling round and round, as I remember it 
 used to whirl when my health broke down utterly at 
 Cambridge after the Classical Tripos. I gazed fixedly 
 at the strange picture before me, taking in all its de- 
 tails in a confused way, yet quite incapable of under- 
 standing or realizing any part of its true import. I 
 saw the king in the centre of the hall, raised on a 
 throne of granite inlaid with gold and ivory ; his head 
 crowned with the peaked cap of Rameses, and his curled 
 hair flowing down his shoulders in a set and formal 
 frizz. I saw priests and warriors on either side, dressed 
 in the costumes which I had often carefully noted in 
 our great collections ; while bronze-skinned maids, with- 
 light garments round their waists, and limbs displayed 
 in graceful picturesqueness, waited upon them, half 
 nude, as in the wall paintings which we had lately ex- 
 amined at Karnak and Syene. I saw the ladies, clothed 
 
MY NEW YEAR'S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 211 
 
 from head to foot in dyed linen garments, sitting 
 apart in the background, banqueting by themselves at 
 a separate table ; while dancing girls, like older repre- 
 sentatives of my yesternoon friends, the Ghawdzi, 
 tumbled before them in strange attitudes, to the music 
 of four-stringed harps and long straight pipes. In 
 shoit, I beheld as in a dream the whole drama of 
 everyday Egyptian royal life, playing itself out anew 
 under my eyes, in its real original properties and per- 
 sons. 
 
 Gradually, as I looked, I became aware that my hosts 
 were no less surprised at the appearance of their an- 
 achronistic guest than was the guest himself at the 
 strange living panorama which met his eyes. In a mo- 
 ment music and dancing ceased ; the banquet paused 
 in its course, and the king and his nobles stood up in un- 
 disguised astonishment to survey the strange intruder. 
 
 Some minutes passed before any one moved forward 
 on either side. At last a young girl of royal appear- 
 ance, yet strangely resembling the Ghdziyah of Abu 
 Yilla, and recalling in part the laughing maiden in the 
 foreground of Mr. Long's great canvas at the previous 
 Academy, stepped out before the throng. 
 
 " May I ask you," she said in Ancient Egyptian, 
 " who you are, and why you come hither to dis- 
 turb us?" 
 
 I was never aware before that I spoke or understood 
 the language of the hieroglyphics ; yet I found I had 
 not the slightest difficulty in comprehending or answer- 
 ing her question. To say the truth, Ancient Egyptian, 
 though an extremely tough tongue to decipher in its 
 written form, becomes as easy as love-making when 
 spoken by a pair of lips like that Pharaonic princess's. 
 
212 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 It is really very much the same as Enghsh, pronounced 
 in a rapid and somewhat indefinite whisper, and with all 
 the vowels left out. 
 
 •* I beg ten thousand pardons for my intrusion," I 
 answered apologetically ; " but I did not know that 
 this Pyramid was inhabited, or I should not have en- 
 tered your residence so rudely. As for the points you 
 wish to know, I am an English tourist, and you will 
 find my name upon this card ;" saying which I handed 
 her one from the case which I had fortunately put into 
 my pocket, with conciliatory politeness. The princess 
 examined it closely, but evidently did not understand 
 its import. 
 
 ** In return," I continued, " may I ask you in what 
 august presence I now find myself by accident ?" 
 
 A court official stood forth from the throng, and an- 
 swered in a set heraldic tone : *' In the presence of the 
 illustrious monarch. Brother of the Sun, Thothmes the 
 Twenty-seventh, king of the Eighteenth Dynasty." 
 
 " Salute the Lord of the World," put in another 
 official in the same regulation drone. 
 
 I bowed low to his Majesty, and stepped out into 
 the hall. Apparently my obeisance did not come up to 
 Egyptian standards of courtesy, for a suppressed titter 
 broke audibly from the ranks of bronze-skinned wait- 
 ing-women. But the king graciously smiled at my at- 
 tempt, and turning to the nearest nobleman, observed 
 in a voice of great sweetness and self-contained 
 majesty : '* This stranger, Ombos, is certainly a very 
 curious person. His appearance does not at all resem- 
 ble that of an Ethiopian or other savage, nor does he 
 look like the pale-faced sailors who come to us from 
 the Achaian land beyond the sea. His features, to be 
 
MY NEW YEAR S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 21 3 
 
 sure, are not very different from theirs ; but his extra- 
 ordinary and singularly inartistic dress shows him to 
 belong to some other barbaric race." 
 
 I glanced down at my waistcoat, and saw that I was 
 wearing my tourist's check suit, of gray and mud color, 
 with which a Bond Street tailor had supplied me just 
 before leaving town, as the latest thing out in fancy 
 tweeds. Evidently these Egyptians must have a very 
 curious standard of taste not to admire our pretty and 
 graceful style of male attire. 
 
 " If the dust beneath your Majesty's feet may ven- 
 ture upon a suggestion," put in the ofHcer whom the 
 king had addressed, " I would hint that this young 
 man is probably a stray visitor from the utterly un- 
 civilized lands of the North. The headgear which he 
 carries in his hand obviously betrays an Arctic habi- 
 tat." 
 
 I had instinctively taken off my round felt hat in 
 the first moment of surprise, when I found myself in 
 the midst of this strange throng, and I standing now 
 in a somewhat embarrassed posture, holding it awk- 
 wardly before me like a shield to protect my chest. 
 
 "Let the stranger cover himself," said the king. 
 
 " Barbarian intruder, cover yourself," cried the her- 
 ald. I noticed throughout that the king never di- 
 rectly addressed anybody save the higher officials 
 around him. 
 
 I put on my hat as desired. " A most uncomfort- 
 able and silly form of tiara indeed," said the great 
 Thothmes. 
 
 " Very unlike your noble and awe-inspiring mitre, 
 Lion of Egypt," answered Ombos. 
 
 " Ask the stranger his name," the king continued, 
 
214 STKANC.E STORIES. 
 
 It was useless to offer another card, so I mentioned 
 it in a clear voice. 
 
 " An uncouth and almost unpronounceable designa- 
 tion truly," commented his Majesty to the Grand 
 Chamberlain beside him. "These savages speak 
 strange languages, widely different from the flowing 
 tongue of Memnon and Sesostris." 
 
 The Chamberlain bowed his assent with three low 
 genuflexions. I began to feel a little abashed at these 
 personal remarks, and I almost think (though I shouldn't 
 like it to be mentioned in the Temple) that a blush 
 rose to my cheek. 
 
 The beautiful princess who had been standing near 
 me meanwhile in an attitude of statuesque repose, 
 now appeared anxious to change the current of the 
 conversation. *' Dear father," she said with a respect- 
 ful inclination, " surely the stranger, barbarian though 
 he be, cannot relish such pointed allusions to his per- 
 son and costume. We must let him feel the grace and 
 delicacy of Egyptian refinement. Then he may per- 
 haps carry back with him some faint echo of its cul- 
 tured beauty to his northern wilds." 
 
 "Nonsense, Hatasou," replied Thothmes XXVII. 
 testily. " Savages have no feelings, and they are as 
 incapable of appreciating Egyptian sensibility as the 
 chattering crow is incapable of attaining the dignified 
 reserve of the sacred crocodile." 
 
 "Your Majesty is mistaken," I said, recovering my 
 self-possession gradually and realizing my position as 
 a free-born Englishman before the court of a foreign 
 despot — though I must allow that I felt rather less 
 confident than usual, owing to the fact that wc were 
 not represented in the Pyramid by a British Consul— 
 
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG THE MUMMTES. 21$ 
 
 " I am an English tourist, a visitor from a modern land 
 "vvhosc civilization far surpasses the rude culture of 
 early Egypt ; and I am accustomed to respectful treat- 
 ment from all other nationalities, as becomes a citizen 
 of the First Naval Power in the World." 
 
 My answer created a profound impression. " He 
 has spoken to the Brother of the Sun," cried Ombos 
 in evident perturbation. " He must be of the Blood 
 Royal in his own tribe, or he would never have dared 
 to do so !" 
 
 "Otherwise," added a person whose dress I recog- 
 nized as that of a priest, '* he must be offered up in 
 expiation to Amon-Ra immediately." 
 
 As a rule I am a decently truthful person, but under 
 these alarming circumstances I ventured to tell a slight 
 fib with an air of nonchalant boldness. " I am a 
 younger brother of our reigning king," I said without 
 a moment's hesitation ; for there was nobody present 
 to gainsay me, and I tried to salve my conscience by 
 reflecting that at any rate I was only claiming con- 
 sanguinity with an imaginary personage. 
 
 " In that case," said King Thothmes, with more 
 geniality in his tone, "there can be no impropriety in 
 my addressing you personally. Will you take a place 
 at our table next to myself, and we can converse to- 
 gether without interrupting a banquet which must 
 be brief enough in any circumstances ? Hatasou, my 
 dear, you may seat yourself next to the barbarian 
 prince.'' 
 
 I felt a visible swelling to the proper dimensions of 
 a Royal Highness as I sat down by the king's right 
 hand. The nobles resumed their places, the bronze- 
 skinned waitresses left off standing like soldiers in a 
 
I • 
 
 2l6 ' STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 row and staring straight at my humble self, the goblets 
 went round once more, and a comely maid soon 
 brought me meat, bread, fruits, and date wine. 
 
 All this time I was naturally burning with curiosity 
 to inquire who my strange hosts might be, and how 
 they had preserved their existence for so many cen- 
 turies in this undiscovered hall ; but I was obliged to 
 wait until I had satisfied his Majesty of my own nation- 
 ality, the means by which I had entered the Pyramid, 
 the general state of affairs throughout the world at 
 the present moment, and fifty thousand other matters 
 of a similar sort. Thothmes utterly refused to believe 
 my reiterated assertion that our existing civilization 
 was far superior to the Egyptian ; ** because,'* said he, 
 " I see from your dress that your nation is utterly de- 
 void of taste or invention ; " but he listened with great 
 interest to my account of modern society, the steam- 
 engine, the Permissive Prohibitory Bill, the telegraph, 
 the House of Commons, Home Rule, and the other 
 blessings of our advanced era, as well as to a brief 
 rc'sunn' oi European history from the rise of the Greek 
 culture to the Russo-Turkish war. At last his ques- 
 tions were nearly exhausted, and I got a chance of 
 making a few counter inquiries on my own account. 
 
 *' And now," I said, turning to the charming Hatasou, 
 whom I thought a more pleasing informant than her 
 august papa, " I should like to know \w\\o you are." 
 
 " What, don't you know ?" she cried with unaffected 
 surprise. " Why, we're mummies." 
 
 She made this astounding statement with just the 
 same quiet unconsciousness as if she had said, " we're 
 French," or " we're Americans." I glanced round the 
 walls, and observed behind the columns, what I had 
 
MY NEW YEAR'S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES 21/ 
 
 not noticed till then — a large number of empty 
 mummy-cases, with their lids placed carelessly by 
 their sides. 
 
 "But what are you doing here?" I asked in a be- 
 wildered way. 
 
 '* Is it possible," said Hatasou, " that you don't 
 really know the object of embalming ? Though your 
 manners show you to be an agreeable and well-bred 
 young man, you must excuse my saying that you are 
 shockingly ignorant. We arc made into mummies in 
 order to preserve our immortality. Once in every 
 thousand years we wake up for twenty-four hours, re- 
 cover our flesh and blood, and banquet once more 
 upon the mummied dishes and other good things laid 
 by for us in the Pyramid. To-day is the first day of a 
 millennium, and so we have waked up for the sixth 
 time since we were first embalmed." 
 
 " The sixth time ?" I inquired, incredulously. " Then 
 you must have been dead six thousand years." 
 
 " Exactly so." 
 
 ** But the world has not yet existed so long," I cried, 
 in a fervor of orthodox horror. 
 
 '* Excuse me, barbarian prince. This is the first day 
 of the three hundred and twenty-seven thousandth 
 millennium." 
 
 My orthodoxy received a severe shock. However, 
 I had been accustomed to geological calculations, and 
 was somewhat inclined to accept the antiquity of man ; 
 so I swallowed the statement without more ado. 
 Besides, if such a charming girl as Hatasou had asked 
 me at that moment to turn Mohammedan, or to wor- 
 ship Osiris, I believe I should incontinently have done 
 so. 
 
, 2l8 " STRANGE STORTES. 
 
 " You wake up only for a single day and night, 
 then ?" I said. 
 
 ** Only for a single day and night. After that, we 
 go to sleep for another millennium." 
 
 ** Unless you are meanwhile burned as fuel on the 
 Cairo Railway," I added, mentally. " But how," I 
 continued aloud, ** do you get these lights?" 
 
 " The Pyramid is built above a spring of inflamma- 
 ble gas. We have a reservoir in one of the side cham- 
 bers, in which it collects during the thousand years. 
 As soon as we awake, we turn it on at once from the 
 tap, and light it with a lucifer match." 
 
 " Upon my word," I interposed, " I had no notion 
 you Ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the use 
 of matches." 
 
 " Very likely not. * There are more things in heaven 
 and earth, Cephrenes, than are dreamt of in your phil- 
 osophy, as the bard of Philae puts it." 
 
 Further inquiries brought out all the secrets of that 
 strange tomb-house, and kept me fully interested till 
 the close of the banquet. Then the chief priest sol- 
 emnly rose, offered a small fragment of meat to a dei- 
 fied crocodile, who sat in a meditative manner by the 
 side of his deserted mummy-case, and declared the 
 feast concluded for the night. All rose from their 
 places, wandered away into the long corridors or side- 
 aisles, and formed little groups of talkers under the 
 brilliant gas lamps. 
 
 For my part, I strolled off with Hatasou down the 
 least illuminated of the colonnades, and took my seat 
 beside a marble fountain, where several fish (gods of 
 great sanctity, Hatasou assured me) were disporting 
 themselves in a porphyry basin. How long we sat 
 

 MY NEW YEAR S KVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 219 
 
 there I cannot tell, but I know that we talked a good 
 deal about fish, and gods, and Egyptian habits, and 
 Egyptian philosophy, and, above all, Egyptian love- 
 making. The last-named subject we found very inter- 
 esting, and when once we got fully started upon it, no 
 diversion afterwards occurred to break the even tenor 
 of the conversation. Hatasou was a lovely figure, tall, 
 queenly, with smooth dark arms and neck of polished 
 bronze ; her big black eyes full of tenderness, and her 
 long hair bound up into a bright Egyptian headdress, 
 that harmonized to a tone with her complexion and 
 her robe. The more we talked, the more desperately 
 did I fall in love, and the more utterly oblivious did I 
 become of my duty to Editha Fitz-Simkins. The 
 mere ugly daughter of a rich and vulgar brand-new 
 knight, forsooth, to show off her airs before me, when 
 here was a Princess of the Blood Royal of Egypt, 
 obviously sensible to the attentions which I was paying 
 her, and not unwilling to receive them with a coy and 
 modest grace. 
 
 Well, I went on saying pretty things to Hatasou, 
 and Hatasou went on deprecating them in a pretty 
 little way, as who should say, " I don't mean what I 
 pretend to mean one bit "; until at last I may confess 
 that we were both evidently as far gone in the disease 
 of the heart called love as it is possible for two young 
 people on first acquaintance to become. Therefore, 
 when Hatasou pulled forth her watch — another piece 
 of mechanism with which antiquaries used never to 
 credit the Egyptian people — and declared that she 
 had only three more hours to live, at least for the next 
 thousand years, I fairly broke down, took out my 
 
220 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 handkerchief, and began to sob Hke a child of five 
 years old. 
 
 Hatasou was deeply moved. Decorum forbade that 
 she should console me with too much emprcssemcnt; 
 but she ventured to remove the handkerchief gently 
 from my face, and suggested that there was yet one 
 course open by which we might enjoy a little more of 
 one another's society. "Suppose," she said quietly, 
 " you were to become a mummy. You would then 
 wake up, as we do, every thousand years ; and after 
 you have tried it once, you will find it just as natural 
 •to sleep for a millennium as for eight hours. Of 
 course," she added with a slight blush, " during the 
 next three or four solar cycles there would be plenty 
 of time to conclude any other arrangements you might 
 possibly contemplate, before the occurrence of another 
 glacial epoch." 
 
 This mode of regarding time was certainly novel 
 and somewhat bewildering to people who ordinarily 
 reckon its lapse by weeks and months ; and I had a 
 vague consciousness that my relations with Editha 
 imposed upon me a moral necessity of returning to the 
 outer world, instead of becoming a millennial mummy. 
 Besides, there was the awkward chance of being con- 
 verted into fuel and dissipated into space before the 
 arrival of the next waking day. But I took one look 
 at Hatasou, whose eyes were filling in turn with sym- 
 pathetic tears, and that look decided me. I flung 
 Editha, life, and duty to the dogs, and resolved at once 
 to become a mummy. 
 
 There was no time to be lost. Only three hours 
 remained to us, and the process of embalming, even in 
 the most hasty manner, would take up fully two. We 
 
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 221 
 
 rushed off to the chief priest, who had charge of the 
 particular department in question. He at once ac- 
 ceded to my wishes, and briefly explained the mode 
 in which they usually treated the corpse. 
 
 That word suddenly aroused me. " The corpse!" I 
 cried; "but I am alive. Vou can't embalm me living." 
 
 " We can," replied the priest, ** under chloroform." 
 
 " Chloroform !" I echoed, growing more and more 
 astonished : " I had no idea you Egyptians knew any- 
 thing about it." 
 
 " Ignorant barbarian !" he answered with a curl of 
 the lip; " you imagine yourself much wiser than the 
 teachers of the world. If you were versed in all the 
 wisdom of the Egyptians, you would know that chloro- 
 form is one of our simplest and commonest anaes- 
 thetics." 
 
 I put myself at once under the hands of the priest. 
 He brought out the chloroform, and placed it beneath 
 my nostrils, as I lay on a soft couch under the central 
 court. Hatasou held my hand in hers, and watched 
 my breathing with an anxious eye. I saw the priest 
 leaning over me, with a clouded phial in his hand, and 
 I experienced a vague sensation of smelling myrrh and 
 spikenard. Next, I lost myself for a few moments, 
 and when I again recovered my senses in a temporary 
 break, the priest was holding a small greenstone knife, 
 dabbled with blood, and I felt that a gash had been 
 made across my breast. Then they applied the chloro- 
 form once more; I felt Hatasou give my hand a gentle 
 squeeze ; the whole panorama faded finally from my 
 view ; and I went to sleep for a seemingly endless time. 
 
 When I awoke again, my first impression led me to 
 believe that the thousand years were over, and that I 
 
222 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 had come to life once more to feast with Hatasou and 
 Thothmcs in the Pyramid of Abu Yilla. But second 
 thoughts, combined with closer observation of the 
 surroundings, convinced me that I was really lying in 
 a bedroom of Shepheard's Hotel at Cairo. An hos- 
 pital nurse leant over me, instead of a chief priest; 
 and I noticed no tokens of Editha Fitz-Simkins's pres- 
 ence. But when I endeavoured to make inquiries 
 upon the subject of my whereabouts, I was peremptor- 
 ily informed that I mustn't speak, as I was only just 
 recovering from a severe fever, and might endanger 
 my life by talking. 
 
 Some weeks later I learned the sequel of my night's 
 adventure. The Fitz-Simkinses, missing me from the 
 boat in the morning, at first imagined that I might 
 have gone ashore for an early stroll. But after break- 
 fast time, lunch time, and dinner time had gone past, 
 they began to grow alarmed, and sent to look for me 
 in all directions. One of their scouts, happening to 
 pass the Pyramid, noticed that one of the stones near 
 the northeast angle had been displaced, so as to give 
 access to a dark passage, hitherto unknown. Calling 
 several of his friends, for he was afraid to venture in 
 alone, he passed down the corridor, and through a 
 second gateway into the central hall. There the Fel- 
 lahin found me, lying on the ground, bleeding pro- 
 fusely from a wound on the breast, and in an advanced 
 stage of malarious fever. They brought me back to 
 the boat, and the Fitz-Simkinses conveyed me at once 
 to Cairo, for medical attendance and proper nur- 
 sing. 
 
 Editha was at first convinced that I had attempted 
 tp commit suicide because I could not endure hav- 
 
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 223 
 
 ing caused her pain, and she accordingly resolved to 
 tend me with the utmost care through my illness. 
 But she found that my delirious remarks, besides 
 bearing frequent reference to a princess, with whom 
 I appeared to have been on unexpectedly intimate 
 terms, also related very largely to our casus belli itself, 
 the dancing girls of Abu Yilla. Even this trial she 
 might have borne, setting down the moral degene- 
 racy which led me to patronize so degrading an ex- 
 hibition as a first symptom of my approaching mal- 
 ady: but certain unfortunate observations, containing 
 pointed and by no means flattering allusions to her 
 personal appearance — which I contrasted, much to 
 her disadvantage, with that of the unknown princess 
 — these, I say, were things which she could not for- 
 give ; and she left Cairo abruptly with her parents 
 for the Riviera, leaving behind a stinging note, in 
 which she denounced my perfidy and empty-heart- 
 edness with all the flowers of feminine eloquence. 
 From that day to this I have never seen her. 
 
 When I returned to London and proposed to lay 
 this account before the Society of Antiquaries, all 
 my friends dissuaded me on the ground of its ap- 
 parent incredibility. They declare that I must have 
 gone to the Pyramid already in a state of delirium, dis- 
 covered the entrance by accident, and sunk exhausted 
 when I reached the inner chamber. In answer, I 
 would point out three facts. In the first place, I un- 
 doubtedly found my way into the unknown passage — 
 for which achievement I afterwards received the gold 
 medal of the Sioci^te Kh^diviale, and of which I retain 
 a clear recollection, differing in no way from my recol- 
 lection of the subsequent events. In the second place, 
 
224 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 I had in my pocket, when found, a ring- of Hatasou*s, 
 which I drew from her finger just before I took the 
 chloroform, and put into my pocket as a keepsake. 
 And in the third place, I had on my breast the 
 wound which I saw the priest inflict with a knife of 
 greenstone, and the scar may be seen on the spot to 
 the present day. The absurd hypothesis of my 
 medical friends, that I was wounded by falling against 
 a sharp edge of rock, I must at once reject as un- 
 worthy a moment's consideration. 
 
 My own theory is either that the priest had not time 
 to complete the operation, or else that the arrival of 
 the Fit2 "iimkins's scouts frightened back the mummies 
 to their cases an hour or so too soon. At any rate, 
 there they all were, ranged around the walls undis- 
 turbed, the moment the Fellahin entered. 
 
 Unfortunately, the truth of my account cannot be 
 tested for another thousand years. But as a copy of 
 this book will be preserved for the benefit of posterity 
 in the British Museum, I hereby solemnly call upon 
 Collective Humanity to try the veracity of this history 
 by sending a deputation of archaeologists to the Pyra- 
 mid of Abu Yilla, on the last day of December, Two 
 thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven. If they 
 do not then find Thothmes and Hatasou feasting in 
 the central hall exactly as I have described, I shall 
 willingly admit that the story of my New Year's Eve 
 among the mummies is a vain hallucination, unworthy 
 of credence at the hands of the scientific world. 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE 
 ''FORTUNA/' 
 
 I. 
 
 I AM going to spin you the yarn of the foundering 
 of the Fortuna exactly as an old lake captain on a 
 Huron steamer once span it for me by Great Mani- 
 toulin Island. It is a strange and a weird story ; and 
 if I can't give you the dialect in which he told it, you 
 must forgive an English tongue its native accent for 
 the sake of the curious Yankee tale that underlies it. 
 
 Captain Montague Beresford Pierpoint was hardly 
 the sort of man you would have expected to find 
 behind the counter of a small shanty bank at Aylmer's 
 Pike, Colorado. There was an engaging English frank- 
 ness, an obvious honesty and refinement of manner 
 about him, which suited very oddly with the rough 
 habits, and rougher western speech of the mining 
 population in whose midst he lived. And yet Captain 
 Pierpoint had succeeded in gaining the confidence and 
 respect of those strange outcasts of civilization by 
 some indescribable charm of address and some invis- 
 ible talisman of quiet good fellowship, which caused 
 him to be more universally believed in than any other 
 man whatsoever at Aylmer's Pike. Indeed, to say so 
 much is rather to underrate the uniqueness of his posi- 
 tion ; for it might perhaps be truer to say that Captain 
 
 [225] 
 
226 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Pierpoint was the only man in the place in whom any- 
 one believed at all in any way. He was an honest- 
 spoken, quiet, unobtrusive sort of man, who walked 
 about fearlessly without a revolver, and never gambled 
 either in mining shares or at poker ; so that, to the 
 simple-minded, unsophisticated rogues and vagabonds 
 of Aylmer's Pike, he seemed the very incarnation of 
 incorruptible commercial honor. They would have 
 trusted all their earnings and winnings without hesita- 
 tion to Captain Pierpoint's bare word ; and when they 
 did so, they knew that Captain Pierpoint had always 
 had the money forthcoming on demand, without a 
 moment's delay or a single prevarication. 
 
 Captain Pierpoint walked very straight and erect, as 
 becomes a man of conspicuous uprightness ; and there 
 was a certain tinge of military bearing m his manner 
 which seemed at first sight sufficiently to justify his 
 popular title. But he himself made no false pre- 
 tences upon that head, he freely acknowledged that 
 he had acquired the position of captain, not in her 
 Britannic Majesty's Guards, as the gossip of Aylmer's 
 Pike sometimes asserted, but in the course of his 
 earlier professional engagements as skipper of a Lake 
 Superior grain-vessel. Though he hinted at times that 
 he was by no means distantly connected with the 
 three distinguished families whose names he bore, he 
 did not attempt to exalt his rank or birth unduly, ad- 
 mitting that he was only a Canadian sailor by trade, 
 thrown by a series of singular circumstances into the 
 position of a Colorado banker. The one thing he 
 really understood, he would tell his mining friends, 
 was the grain-trade on the upper lakes ; for finance he 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 22/ 
 
 had but a single recommendation, and that was that if 
 people trusted him he could never deceive them. 
 
 If any man had set up a bank in Aylmer's Point 
 with an iron strong-room, a lot of electric bells, and an 
 obtrusive display of firearms and weapons, it is toler- 
 ably certain that that bank would have been promptly 
 robbed and gutted within its first week of existence 
 by open violence. Five or six of the boys would have 
 banded themselves together into a body of housebreak- 
 ers, and would have shot down the banker and burst 
 into his strong-room, without thought of the electric 
 bells or other feeble recourses of civilization to that end 
 appointed. But when a quiet, unobtrusive, brave man, 
 like Captain Montague Pierpoint, settled himself in a 
 shanty in their midst, and won their confidence by his 
 straightforward honesty, scarcely a miner in the lot 
 would ever have dreamt of attempting to rob him. 
 Captain Pierpoint had not come to Aylmer's Pike at 
 first with any settled idea of making himself the finan- 
 cier of the rough little community; he intended to dig 
 on his own account, and the role of banker was only 
 slowly thrust upon him by the unanimous voice of the 
 whole diggings. He had begun by lending men 
 money out of his own pocket — men who were unlucky 
 in their claims, men who had lost everything at monte, 
 men who had come penniless to the Pike, and expected 
 to find silver growing freely and openly on the sur- 
 face. He had lent to them in a friendly way, without 
 interest, and had been forced to accept a small pres- 
 ent, in addition to the sum advanced, when the tide 
 began to turn, and luck at last led the penniless ones 
 to a remunerative placer or pocket. Gradually the 
 diggers got into the habit of regarding this as Captain 
 
', ■' 
 
 228 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Pierpoint's natural function, and Captain Pierpoint, 
 being himself but an indifferent digger, acquiesced so 
 readily that at last, yielding to the persuasion of his 
 clients, he put up a wooden counter, and painted over 
 his rough door the magnificent notice, " Aylmer's Pike 
 Bank : Montague Pierpoint, Manager." He got a large 
 iron safe from Carson City, and in that safe which 
 stood by his own bedside, all the silver and other 
 securities of the whole village were duly deposited. 
 " Any one of the boys could easily shoot me and open 
 that safe any night," Captain Pierpoint used to say 
 pleasantly ; " but if he did, by George ! he'd have to 
 reckon afterwards with every man on the Pike ; and I 
 should be sorry to stand in his shoes — that I would, 
 any time." Indeed, the entire Pike looked upon Cap- 
 tain Pierpoint's safe as " Our Bank :" and, united in a 
 single front by that simple social contract, they agreed 
 to respect the safe as a sacred object, protected by the 
 collective guarantee of three hundred mutually sus- 
 picious revolver bearing outcasts. 
 
 However, even at Aylmer's Pike, there were degrees 
 and stages of comparative unscrupulousncss. Two 
 men, newcomers to the Pike, by name Hiram Cofifin and 
 Pete Morris, at last wickedly and feloniously conspired 
 together to rob Captain Pierpoint's bank. Their plan 
 was simplicity itself. They would go at midnight, 
 very quietly, to the Captain's house, cut his throat as 
 he slept, rob the precious safe, and ride off straight for 
 the east, thus getting a clear night's start of any possi 
 ble pursuer. It was an easy enough thing to do ; and 
 they were really surprised in their own minds that 
 nobody else had ever been cute enough to seize upon 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 229 
 
 such an obvious and excellent path to wealth and 
 security. 
 
 The day before the night the two burglars had fixed 
 upon for their enterprise, Captain Pierpoint himself 
 appeared to be in unusual spirits. Pete Morris called 
 in at the bank during the course of the morning, to 
 reconnoitre the premises, under pretence of paying in 
 a few dollars* worth of silver, and he found the Cap- 
 tain very lively indeed. When Pete handed him the 
 silver across the counter, the Captain weighed it with 
 a smile, gave a receipt for the amount — he always 
 gave receipts as a matter of form — and actually invited 
 Pete into the little back room, which was at once 
 kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, to have a drink. Then, 
 before Pete's very eyes, he opened the safe, bursting 
 with papers, and placed the silver in a bag on a shelf 
 by itself, sticking the key into his waistcoat pocket. 
 *' He is delivering himself up into our hands," thought 
 Pete to himself, as the Captain poured out two glasses 
 of old Bourbon, and handed one to the miner opposite. 
 " Here's success to all our enterprises !" cried the Cap- 
 tain gayly. " Here's success, pard !" Pete answered, 
 with a sinister look, which even the Captain could not 
 help noting in a sidelong fashion. 
 
 That night, about two o'clock, when all Aylmer's 
 Pike was quietly dreaming its own sordid, drunken 
 dreams, two sober men rose up from their cabin and 
 stole out softly to the wooden bank house. Two 
 horses were ready saddled with Mexican saddle-bags, 
 and tied to a tree outside the digging, and in half an 
 hour Pete and Hiram hoped to find themselves in full 
 possession of all Captain Pierpoint's securities, and 
 well on their road towards the nearest station of the 
 
230 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 Pacific Railway. They groped along to the door o£ 
 the bank shanty, and began fumbling with their wire 
 picks at the rough lock. After a moment's explora- 
 tion of the wards, Pete Morris drew back in surprise. 
 
 " Pard/* he murmured in a low whisper, " here's 
 suthin' rather extraordinary ; this 'ere lock's not 
 fastened." 
 
 They turned the handle gently, and found that the 
 door opened without an effort. Both men looked at 
 one another in the dim light incredulously. Was 
 there ever such a simple, trustful fool as that fellow 
 Pierpoint ! He actually slept in the bank shanty with 
 his outer door unfastened ! 
 
 The two robbers passed through the outer room and 
 into the little back bedroom-parlor. Hiram held the 
 dark lantern, and turned it full on to the bed. To 
 their immense astonishment they found it empty. 
 
 Their first impulse was to suppose that the Captain 
 had somehow anticipated their coming, and had gone 
 out to rouse the boys. For a moment they almost 
 contemplated running away, without the money. But 
 a second glance reassured them ; the bed had not 
 been slept in. The Captain was a man of very regular 
 habits. He made his bed in civilized fashion every 
 morning after breakfast, and he retired every evening 
 at a little after eleven. Where he could be stopping 
 so late they couldn't imagine. But they hadn't come 
 there to make a study of the Captain's personal habits, 
 and, as he was away, the best thing they could do was 
 to open the safe immediately, before he came back. 
 They weren't particular about murder, Pete and 
 Hiram ; still, if you could do your robbery without 
 bloodshed, it was certainly all the better to do it so. 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA. 23 1 
 
 Hiram held the lantern, carefully shaded by his 
 hand, towards the door of the safe. Pete looked cau- 
 tiously at the lock, and began pushing it about with 
 his wire pick ; he had hoped to get the key out of 
 Captain Pierpoint's pocket, but as that easy scheme 
 was so unexpectedly foiled, he trusted to his skill in 
 picking to force the lock open. Once more a fresh 
 surprise awaited him. The door opened almost of its 
 own accord ! Pete looked at Hiram, and Hiram looked 
 at Pete. There was no mistaking the strange fact that 
 met their gaze — the safe was empty ! 
 
 ** What on airth do you suppose is the meaning of 
 this, Pete?" Hiram whispered, hoarsely. But Pete did 
 not whisper ; the whole truth flashed upon him in a 
 moment, and he answered aloud, with a string of 
 oaths : 
 
 " The Cap'n has gone and made tracks hisself for 
 Madison Depot. And he's taken every red cent in the 
 safe along with him, too ! the mean, low, dirty scoun- 
 drel ! He's taken even my silver that he give me a 
 receipt for this very morning !" 
 
 Hiram stared at Pete in blank amazement. That 
 such base treachery could exist on earth almost sur- 
 passed his powers of comprehension ; he could un- 
 derstand that a man should rob and murder, simply 
 and naturally, as he was prepared to do, out of pure, 
 guileless depravity of heart, but that a man should 
 plan and plot for a couple of years to impose upon the 
 simplicity of a dishonest community by a consistent 
 show of respectability, with the ultimate object of steal- 
 ing its whole wealth at one fell swoop, was scarcely 
 within the limits of his narrow intelligence. He stared 
 
232 ■ STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 blankly at the empty safe, and whispered once more 
 to Pete in a.timid undertone : 
 
 " Perhaps he's got wind of this, and took off the 
 plate to somebody else's hut. If the boys was to come 
 and catch us here, it 'ud be derned awkward for you 
 an' me, Pete." 
 
 But Pete answered grufifly and loudly : 
 
 " Never you mind about the plate, pard. The 
 Cap'n's gone, and the plate's gone with him ; and 
 what we've got to do now is to rouse the boys and 
 ride after him like greased lightnin'. The mean 
 swindler, to go and swindle me out of the silver that 
 I've been and dug out of that there claim yonder with 
 my own pick !" 
 
 For the sense of personal injustice to one's self rises 
 perennially in the human breust, however depraved, 
 and the man who would murder another without a 
 scruple is always genuinely aghast with just indigna- 
 tion when he finds the counsel for the prosecution 
 pressing a point against him with what seems to him 
 unfair persistency. 
 
 Pete flung his lock-pick out among the agave scrub 
 that faced the bank shanty and ran out wildly into the 
 midst of the dusty white road that led down the row 
 of huts which the people of Aylmer's Pike euphemis- 
 tically described as the Main Street. There he raised 
 such an unearthly whoop as roused the sleepers in 
 the nearest huts to turn over in their beds and listen 
 in wonder, with the vague idea that "the injuns " 
 were coming down on a scalping-trail upon the dig- 
 gings. Next, he hurried down the street, beating 
 heavily with his fist on every frame door, and kicking 
 hard at the log walls of the successive shanties. In a 
 
\ 
 
 THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 233 
 
 few minutes the whole Pike was out and alive. Un- 
 wholesome-looking men, in unwashed flannel shirts 
 and loose trousers, mostly barefooted in their haste, 
 came forth to inquire, with an unnecessary wealth of 
 expletives, what the something was stirring. Pete, 
 breathless and wrathful in the midst, livid with rage 
 and disappointment, could only shriek aloud, " Cap'n 
 Pierpoint has cleared out of camp, and taken all the 
 plate with him !" 
 
 There was at first an incredulous shouting and cry- 
 ing ; then a general stampede toward the bank shanty ; 
 and, finally, as the truth became apparent to every- 
 body, a deep and angry howl for vengeance on the trai- 
 tor. In one moment Captain Pierpoint's smooth-faced 
 villainy dawned as clear as day to all Aylmer's Fike ; 
 and the whole chorus of gamblers, rascals, and black- 
 legs stood awe-struck with horror and indignation at 
 the more plausible rogue who had succeeded in swin- 
 dling even them. The clean-washed, white-shirted, fair- 
 spoken villain ! they would have his blood for this, if 
 the United States Marshal had every mother's son of 
 them strung up in a row for it after the pesky business 
 was once fairly over. 
 
 Nobody inquired how Pete and Hiram came by the 
 news. Nobody asked how they had happened to 
 notice that the shanty was empty and the safe rifled. 
 All they thought of was how to catch and punish the 
 public robber. He must have made for the nearest 
 depot, Madison Clearing, on the Union Pacific Line, 
 and he would take the first cars east for St. Louis — 
 that was certain. Every horse in the Pike was 
 promptly requisitioned by the fastest riders, and a 
 rough cavalcade, revolvers in hand, made down the 
 
234 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 gulch and across the plain, full tilt to Madison. But 
 when, in the garish blaze of early morning, they 
 reached the white wooden depot in the valley and 
 asked the ticket-clerk whether a man answering to their 
 description had gone on by the east mail at 4:30, the 
 ticket-clerk swore, in reply, that not a soul had left the 
 depot by any train either way that blessed night. 
 Pete Morris proposed to hold a revolver to his head 
 and force him to confess. But even that strong meas- 
 ure failed to induce a satisfactory retractation. By 
 way of general precaution, two of the boys went on by 
 the day train to St. Louis, but neither of them could 
 hear anything of Captain Pierpoint. Indeed, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, the late manager and present appropriator 
 of the Aylmer's Pike Bank had simply turned his 
 horse's head in the opposite direction, toward the 
 further station at Cheyenne Gap, and had gone west- 
 ward to San Francisco, intending to make his way 
 back to New York vid Panama and the Isthmus Rail- 
 way. 
 
 When the boys really understood that they had been 
 completely duped, they swore vengeance in solemn 
 fashion, and they picked out two of themselves to 
 carry out the oath in a regular assembly. Each con- 
 tributed of his substance what he was able ; and Pete 
 and Hiram, being more stirred with righteous wrath 
 than all the rest put together, were unanimously de- 
 puted to follow the Captain's tracks to San Francisco, 
 and to have his life wherever and whenever they might 
 chance to find him. Pete and Hiram accepted the 
 task thrust upon them, con amore, and went forth zeal- 
 ously to hunt up the doomed life of Captain Montague 
 Beresford Pierpoint. 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 235 
 
 II. 
 
 Society in Sarnia admitted that Captain Pierpoint 
 was really quite an acquisition. An English gentle- 
 man by birth, well educated, and of pleasant manners, 
 he had made a little money out west by mining, it was 
 understood, and had now retired to the City of Sarnia, 
 in the Province of Ontario and Dominion of Canada, 
 to increase it by a quiet bit of speculative grain trad- 
 ing. He had been in the grain trade already, and peo- 
 ple on the lake remembered him well ; for Captain 
 Pierpoint, in his honest, straightforward fashion, dis- 
 dained the vulgar trickiness of an alias, and bore 
 throughout the string of names which he had originally 
 received from his godfathers and godmothers at his 
 baptism. A thorough good fellow Captain Pierpoint 
 had been at Aylmer's Pike ; a perfect gentleman he 
 was at Sarnia. As a matter of fact, indeed, the Cap- 
 tain was decently well-born, the son of an English 
 country clergyman, educated at a respectable grammar 
 school, and capable of being all things to all men in 
 whatever station of life it might please Providence to 
 place him. Society at Sarnia had no prejudice against 
 the grain trade ; if it had, the prejudice would have 
 been distinctly self-regarding, for everybody in the lit- 
 tle town did something in grain ; and if Captain Pier- 
 point chose sometimes to navigate his own vessels, 
 that was a fad which struck nobody as out of the way 
 in an easy-going, money-getting, Canadian city. 
 
 Somehow or other, everything seemed to go wrong 
 with Captain Pierpoint's cargoes. He was always los- 
 
236 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 ing a scow laden with best fall wheat from Chicago 
 for Buffalo ; or running a lumber vessel ashore on the 
 shoals of Lake Erie ; or getting a four-master jammed 
 in the ice packs on the St. Clair river and though the 
 insurance companies continually declared that Captain 
 Pierpoint had got the better of them, the Captain him- 
 self was wont to complain that no insurance could 
 ever possibly cover the losses he sustained by the care- 
 lessness of his subordinates or the constant perversity 
 of wind and waters. He was obliged to take his own 
 ships down, he would have it, because nobody else 
 could take them safely for him ; and though he met 
 with quite as many accidents himself as many of his 
 deputies did, he continued to convey his grain in per- 
 son, hoping, as he said, that luck would turn some 
 day, and that a good speculation would finally enable 
 him honorably to retrieve his shattered fortunes. 
 
 However this might be, it happened curiously 
 enough that in spite of all his losses, Captain Pier- 
 point seemed to grow richer and richer, visibly to the 
 naked eye, with each reverse of his trading efforts. 
 He took a handsome house, set up a carriage and pair, 
 and made love to the prettiest and sweetest girl in 
 all Sarnia. The prettiest and sweetest girl was not 
 proof against Captain Pierpoint's suave tongue and 
 handsome house ; and she married him in very good 
 faith, honestly believing in him as a good woman will 
 in a scoundrel, and clinging to him fervently with all 
 her heart and soul. No happier and more loving pair 
 in all Sarnia than Captain and Mrs. Pierpoint. 
 
 Some months after the marriage. Captain Pierpoint 
 arranged to take down a scow or flat-bottomed boat, 
 laden with grain, from Milwaukee for the Erie Canal. 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THB " FORTUNA." 237 
 
 He took up the scow himself, and before he started 
 for the voyage, it was a curious fact that he went in 
 person down into the hold, bored eight laige holes 
 right through the bottom, and filled each up, as he drew 
 out the auger, with a caulked plug made exactly to fit 
 it, and hammered firmly into place with a wooden mal- 
 let. There was a ring in each plug, by which it could 
 be pulled out again without much difficulty ; and the 
 whole eight were all placed along the gangway of the 
 hold, where no cargo would lie on top of them. The 
 scow's name was the Fortuna : " sit faustum omen et 
 felix," murmured Captain Pierpoint to himself ; for 
 among his other accomplishments he had not wholly 
 neglected nor entirely forgotten the classical lan- 
 guages. 
 
 It took only two men and the ikipper to navigate 
 the scow ; for lake craft towed by steam propellers are 
 always very lightly manned : and when Captain Pier- 
 point reached Milwaukee, where he was to take in 
 cargo, he dismissed the two sailors who had come 
 with him from Sarnia and engaged two fresh hands at 
 the harbor. Rough, miner-looking men they were, 
 with very little of the sailor about them ; but Captain 
 Pierpoint's sharp eye soon told him they were the 
 right sort of men for his purpose, and he engaged 
 them on the spot, without a moment's hesitation. Pete 
 and Hiram had had some difficulty in tracking him, 
 for they never thought he would return to the lakes, 
 but they had tracked him at last, and were ready now 
 to take their revenge. 
 
 They had disguised themselves as well as they were 
 able, and in their clumsy knavery they thought they 
 had completely deceived the Captain. But almost 
 
238 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 from the moment the Captain saw them, he knew who 
 they were, and he took his measures accordingly. 
 " Stupid louts," he said to himself, with the line con- 
 tempt of an educated scoundrel for the unsophisticated 
 natural ruffian ; *' here's a fine chance of killing two 
 birds with one stone !" And when the Captain said 
 the word " killing," he said it in his own mind with a 
 delicate, sinister emphasis which meant business. 
 
 The scow was duly loaded, and with a heavy cargo 
 of grain aboard, she proceeded to make her way 
 slowly, by the aid of a tug, out of Milwaukee Harbor. 
 
 As soon as she was once clear of the wharf, and 
 while the busy shipping of the great port still sur- 
 rounded them on every side, Captain Pierpoint calmly 
 drew his revolver, and took his stand beside the 
 hatches. " Pete and Hiram," he said, quietly, to his 
 two assistants, " I want to have a little serious talk 
 with you two before we go any further." 
 
 If he had fired upon them outright, instead of m^erely 
 calling them by their own names, the two common 
 conspirators could not have started more unfeignedly, 
 or looked more unspeakably cowed, than they did at 
 that moment. Their first impulse was to draw their 
 own revolvers in return ; but they saw in a second 
 that the Captain was beforehand with them, and that 
 they had better not try to shoot him before the very 
 eyes of all Milwaukee. 
 
 " Now, boys," the Captain went on steadily, with 
 his finger on the trigger, and his eye fixed straight on 
 the men's faces, " we three quite understand one 
 another. I took your savings for reasons of my own ; 
 and you h-. ^e shipped here to-day to murder me on the 
 voyage. Lat I recognized you before I engaged you ; 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 239 
 
 and I have left word at Milwaukee that if anything 
 happens to me on this journey, you two have a grudge 
 against me, and must be hanged for it. I've taken care 
 that if this scow comes into any port along the lakes 
 without me aboard, you two are to be promptly 
 arrested." (This was false, of course ; but to Captain 
 Pierpoint a small matter like that was a mere trifle.) 
 " And I've shipped myself along with you, just to show 
 you I'm not afraid of you. But if either of you dis- 
 obeys my orders in anything for one minute, I shoot at 
 once, and no jury in Canada or the States will touch a 
 hair of my head for doing it. I'm a respectable ship- 
 owner and grain merchant ; you're a pair of disreput- 
 able, skulking miners, pretending to be sailors, and 
 you've shipped aboard here on purpose to murder and 
 rob me. If you shoot mc, it's murder ; if / shoot you, 
 it's justifiable homicide. Now, boys, do you under- 
 stand that ?" 
 
 Pete looked at Hiram, and was beginning to speak, 
 when the Captain interrupted him in the calm tone of 
 one having authority. " Look here, Pete," he said, 
 drawing a chalk line amidships across the deck ; ** you 
 stand this side of that line, and you stand there, Hiram. 
 Now, mind, if either of you chooses to step across that 
 line or to confer with the other, I shoot you, whether 
 it's here before all the eyes in Milwaukee, or alone in 
 the middle of Huron. You must each take your own 
 counsel, and do as you like for yourselves. But I've 
 got a little plan of my own on, and if you choose will- 
 ingly to help me in it, your fortune's made. Look at 
 the thing, squarely, boys ; what's the use of your kill- 
 ing me? Sooner or later you'll get hung for it, and it's 
 a very unpleasant thing, I can assure you, hanging." 
 
240 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 As the Captain spoke, he placed his unoccupied hand 
 loosely on his throat, and pressed it gently backward. 
 Pete and Hiram shuddered a little as he did so. 
 " Well, what's the good of ending your lives that way, 
 eh ? But I'm doing a little speculative business on 
 these lakes, where I want just such a couple of men as 
 you two — men that'll do as they're told in a matter of 
 business and ask no squeamish questions. If you care 
 to help me in this business, stop and make your 
 fortunes ; if you don't, you can go back to Milwaukee 
 with the tug." 
 
 " You speak fair enough," said Pete, dubitatively ; 
 " but you know, Cap'n, you ain't a man to be trusted. 
 I owe you one already for stealing my silver." 
 
 " Very little silver," the Captain answered, with a 
 wave of the hand and a graceful smile. " Bonds, 
 United States bonds and greenbacks most of it, con- 
 verted beforehand for easier conveyance by horseback. 
 These, however, are business details which needn't 
 stand in the way between you and me, partner. I 
 always was straightforward in all my dealings, and I'll 
 come to the point at once, so that you can know 
 whether you'll help me or not. This scow's plugged 
 at bottom. My intention is, first, to part the rope that 
 ties us to the tug ; next, to transfer the cargo by night 
 to a small shanty I've got on Manitoulin Island ; and 
 then to pull the plugs and sink the scow on Manitou- 
 lin rocks. That way I get insurance for the cargo and 
 scow, and carry on the grain in the slack season. If 
 you consent to help me unload and sink the ship, you 
 shall have half profits between you ; if you don't, you 
 .:an go back to Milwaukee like a couple of fools, and 
 I'll put into port again to get a couple of pluckier fel- 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 24I 
 
 lows. Answer each for yourselves. Hiram, will you 
 go with me ?" 
 
 " How shall I know you'll keep your promise ?" 
 asked Hiram. 
 
 " For the best of all possible reasons," replied the 
 Captain, jauntily ; " because, if I don't, you can in- 
 form upon me to the insurance people." 
 
 In Hiram Coffin's sordid soul there was a moment's 
 turning over of the chances ; and then greed prevailed 
 over revenge, and he said, grudgingly : 
 
 "Well, Cap'n, I'll go with you." 
 
 The Captain smiled the smile of calm self-approba- 
 tion, and turned half round to Pete. 
 
 " And you ?" he asked. 
 
 " If Hiram goes, I go too," Pete answered, half hop- 
 ing that some chance might occur for conferring with 
 his neighbor on the road, and following out their orig- 
 inal conspiracy. But Captain Pierpoint had been too 
 much for him ; he had followed the excellent rule 
 ''^ divide et impcra," and he remained clearly master of 
 the situation. 
 
 As soon as they were well outside Milwaukee Har- 
 bor, the tug dragged the.i* into the open lake, all un- 
 conscious of the strange scene that had passed on the 
 deck so close to it ; and the oddly mated crew made 
 its way, practically alone, down the busy waters of 
 Lake Michigan. 
 
 Captain Pierpoint certainly didn't spend a comforta- 
 ble time during his voyage down the lake, or through 
 the Straits of Mackinaw. To say the truth, he could 
 hardly sleep at all, and he was very fagged and weary 
 when they arrived at Manitoulin Island. But Pete 
 and Hiram, though they had many chances of talking 
 
242 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 together, could not see their way to kill him in 
 safety ; and Hiram, at least, in his own mind, had 
 come to the conclusion that it was better to make a 
 little money than to risk one's neck for a foolish re- 
 venge. So in the dead of night, on the second day 
 out, when a rough wind had risen from the north, and 
 a fog had come over them, the Captain quietly began 
 to cut away at the rope that tied them to the tug. 
 He cut the rope all round, leaving a sound core in the 
 centre ; and when the next gust of wind came, the 
 rope strained and parted quite naturally, so that the 
 people on the tug never suspected the genuineness of 
 the transaction. They looked about in the fog and 
 storm for the scow, but of course they couldn't find her, 
 for Captain Pierpoint, who knew his ground well, had 
 driven her straight ashore before the wind and beached 
 her on a small shelving cove on Manitoulin Island. 
 There they found five men waiting for them, who 
 helped unload the cargo with startling rapidity, for it 
 was all arranged in sacks, not in bulk, and a high slide 
 fixed on the gangway enabled them to slip it quickly 
 down into an underground granary excavated below 
 the level of the beach. After unloading, they made 
 their way down before the breeze towards the jagged 
 rocks of Manitoulin. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock on a stormy moonlight night, 
 when the Fortuna arrived off the jutting point of the 
 great island. A "black squall," as they call it on the 
 lakes, was blowing down from the Sault Ste. Marie. 
 The scow drove about aimlessly, under very little can- 
 vas, and the boat was ready to be lowered, " in case," 
 the Captain said, humorously, " of any accident." 
 Close to the end of the point the Captain ordered Pete 
 
The foundering of the " fortuna.'* 24^ 
 
 and Hiram down into the hold. He had shown them 
 beforehand the way to draw the plugs, and had ex- 
 plained that the water would rise very slowly, and 
 they would have plenty of time to get up the com- 
 panion-ladder long before there was a foot deep of 
 water in the hold. At the last moment Pete hung 
 back a little. The Captain took him quietly by the 
 shoulders, and without an oath (an omission which 
 told eloquently on Pete) thrust him down the ladder, 
 and told him in his calmest manner to do his duty. 
 Hiram held the light in his hand, and both went down 
 together into the black abyss. There was no time to 
 be lost; they were well off the point, and in another 
 moment the wreck v/ould have lost all show of reason- 
 able probability. 
 
 As the two miners went down into the hold, Captain 
 Pierpoint drew quietly from his pocket a large ham- 
 mer and a packet of five-inch nails. They were good 
 stout nails, and would resist a considerable pressure. 
 He looked carefully down into the hold, and saw the 
 two men draw the first plug. One after another he 
 watched them till the fourth was drawn, and then he 
 turned away, and took one of the nails firmly between 
 his thumb and forefinger. 
 
 Next week everybody at Sarnia was grieved to hear 
 that another of Captain Pierpoint's vessels had gone 
 down off Manitoulin Point in that dreadful black squall 
 on Thursday evening. Both the sailors on board had 
 been drowned, but the Captain himself had managed 
 to make good his escape in the jolly boat. He would 
 be a heavy loser, it was understood, on the value of 
 the cargo, for insurance never covers the loss of 
 grain. 
 
244 STRANGE STORIKS. 
 
 Still, it was a fortunate thing that such a delightful 
 man as the Captain had not perished in the foundering 
 of the Fortuna. 
 
 III. 
 
 Somehow, after that wreck. Captain Pierpoint 
 never cared for the water again. His nerves were 
 shattered, he said, and he couldn't stand danger as he 
 used to do when he was younger and stronger. So he 
 went on the lake no more, and confined his attention 
 more strictly to the " futures " business. He was a 
 thriving and prosperous person, in spite of his losses ; 
 and the underwriters had begun to look a little askance 
 at his insurances even before this late foundering case. 
 Some whispered ominously in underwriting circles that 
 they had their doubts about the Fortu?ia. 
 
 One summer, a few years later, the water on Lake 
 Huron sank lower than it had ever been known to 
 sink before. It was a very dry season in the back 
 country, and the rivers brought down very diminished 
 streams into the great basins. Foot by foot, the level 
 of the lake fell slowly, till many of the wharves were left 
 high and dry, and the vessels could only come along- 
 side in very few deep places. Captain Pierpoint had suf- 
 fered much from sleeplessness, combined with Canadian 
 ague, for some years past, but this particular summer 
 his mind was very evidently much troubled. For 
 some unaccountable reason, he watched the falling of 
 the river with the intensest anxiety, and after it had 
 passed a certain point, his interest in the question be- 
 came painfully keen. Though the fever and the ague 
 gained upon him from day to day, and his doctor 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE "FORTUNA." 245 
 
 counseled perfect quiet, he was perpetually consulting 
 charts and making measurements of the configuration 
 which the coast had now reached, especially at the 
 upper end of Lake Huron. At last, his mind seemed 
 almost to give way, and weak and feverish as he was, 
 he insisted, the first time for many seasons, that he 
 must take a trip upon the water. Remonstrance was 
 quite useless ; he would go on the lake again, he said, 
 if it killed him. So he hired one of the little steam 
 pleasure yachts which are always to let in numbers at 
 Detroit, and started with his wife and her brother, 
 a young surgeon, for a month's cruise into Lake 
 Superior. 
 
 As the yacht neared Manitoulin-Island, Captain Pier- 
 point insisted upon being brought up on deck in a 
 chair — he was too ill to stand — and swept all the coast 
 with his binocular. Close to the point, a flat-topped 
 object lay mouldering in the sun, half out of water, on 
 the shoals by the bank. " What is it, Ernest ?" asked 
 the Captain, trembling, of his brother-in-law. 
 
 ** A wreck, I should say," the brother-in-law an- 
 swered, carelessly. " By Jove, now I look at it with the 
 glass, I can read the name, * Fortuna, Sarnia.' " 
 
 Captain Pierpoint seized the glass with a shaking 
 hand, and read the name on the stern himself, in a 
 dazed fashion. "Take me downstairs," he said, 
 feebly, " and let me die quietly ; and for Heaven's 
 sake, Ernest, never let her know about it all." 
 
 They took him downstairs into the little cabin, and 
 gave him quinine ; but he called for brandy. They 
 let him have it, and he drank a glassful. Then he 
 lay down, and the shivering seized him ; and with his 
 wife's hand in his, he died that night in raving de- 
 
I 
 
 246 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 lirium, about eleven. A black squall was blowing 
 down from the Sault Ste. Marie : and they lay at 
 anchor out in the lake, tossing and pitching, oppo- 
 site the green mouldering hull of the Fortmia. 
 
 They took him back and buried him at Sarnia ; 
 and all the world went to attend his funeral, as of a 
 man who died justly respected for his wealth and other 
 socially admired qualities. But the brother-in-law 
 knew there was a mystery somewhere in the wreck of 
 the Fortuna ; and as soon as the funeral was over, he 
 went back with the yacht, and took its skipper with 
 him to examine the stranded vessel. When they came 
 to look at the bottom, they found eight holes in it. 
 Six of them were wide open ; one was still plugged, 
 and the remaining one had the plug pulled half out, 
 inward, as if the persons who were pulling it had 
 abandoned the attempt for the fear of the rising water. 
 That was bad enough, and they did not wonder that 
 Captain Pierpoint had shrunk in horror from the re- 
 vealing of the secret of the Fortuna. 
 
 But when they scrambled on the deck, they discov- 
 ered another fact which gave a more terrible meaning 
 to the dead man's tragedy. The covering of the 
 hatchway by the companion-ladder was battened 
 down, and nailed from the side with five-inch nails. The 
 skipper loosened the rusty iron with his knife, and after 
 a while they lifted the lid off, and descended carefully 
 into the empty hold below. As they suspected, there 
 was no damaged grain in it ; but at the foot of the com- 
 panion-ladder, left behind by the retreating water, two 
 half-cleaned skeletons in sailor clothes lay huddled to- 
 gether loosely on the floor. That was all that re- 
 mained of Pete and Hiram. Evidently the Captair^ 
 
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 247 
 
 had nailed the hatch down on top of them, and left 
 them there terror-stricken to drown as the water 
 rushed in and rose around them. 
 
 For a while the skipper and the brother-in-law kept 
 the dead man's secret ; but they did not try to destroy 
 or conceal the proofs of his guilt, and in time others 
 visited the wreck, till, bit by bit, the horrible story 
 leaked out in its entirety. Nowadays, as you pass 
 the Great Manitoulin Island, every sailor on the lake 
 route is ready to tell you this strange and ghastly 
 yarn of the foundering of the Foriuna. 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN 
 
 PICCADILLY. 
 I. 
 
 I REALLY never felt so profoundly ashamed of my- 
 self in my whole life as when my father-in-law, Pro- 
 fessor W. Bryce Murray, of Oriel College, Oxford, sent 
 me the last number of the Proceedings of the Society 
 for the Investigation of Supernatural Phenomena. As 
 I opened the pamphlet, a horrible foreboding seized 
 me that I should find in it, detailed at full length, with 
 my name and address in plain printing (not even aster- 
 isks), that extraordinary story of his about the mys- 
 terious occurrence in Piccadilly. I turned anxiously 
 to page 14, which I saw was neatly folded over at the 
 corner; and there, sure enough, I came upon the Pro- 
 fessor's remarkable narrative, which I shall simply 
 extract here, by way of introduction, in his own ad- 
 mirable and perspicuous language. 
 
 *•' I wish to communicate to the Society," says my 
 respected relation, " a curious case of wraiths or 
 doubles, which came under my own personal observa- 
 tion, and for which I can vouch on my own authority, 
 and that of my son-in-law. Dr. Owen Mansfield, keeper 
 of Accadian Antiquities at the British Museum. It is 
 seldom, indeed, that so strange an example of a super- 
 natural phenomenon can be independently attested by 
 two trustworthy scientific observers, both still living. 
 [248] 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN TICCADILLY. 249 
 
 "On the 1 2th of May, 1873 — I made a note of the 
 circumstance at the time, and am therefore able to 
 feel perfect confidence as to the strict accuracy of my 
 facts — I was walking down Piccadilly about four 
 o'clock in the afternoon, when I saw a simulacrum or 
 image approaching me from the opposite direction, 
 exactly resembling in outer appearance an under- 
 graduate of Oriel College, of the name of Owen 
 Mansfield. It must be carefully borne in mind that 
 at this time I was not related or connected with Mr. 
 Mansfield in any way, his marriage with my daughter 
 having taken place some eleven months later : I only 
 knew him then as a promising junior member of my 
 own College. I was just about to approach and 
 address Mr. Mansfield, when a most singular and 
 mysterious event took place. The simulacrum 
 appeared spontaneously to glide up towards me with 
 a peculiarly rapid and noiseless motion, waved a wand 
 or staff which it bore in its hands thrice round my 
 head, and then vanished hastily in the direction of an 
 hotel which stands at the corner of Albemarle Street. 
 I followed it quickly to the door, but on inquiry of 
 the porter, I learned that he himself had observed 
 nobody enter. The simulacrum seems to have dis- 
 sipated itself or become invisible suddenly in the very 
 act of passing through the folding glass portals which 
 give access to the hotel from Piccadilly. 
 
 " That same evening by the last post, I received a 
 hastily-written note from Mr. Mansfield, bearing the 
 Oxford postmark, dated Oriel College, 5 p.m., and 
 relating the facts of an exactly similar apparition 
 which had manifested itself to him, with absolute 
 simultaneity of occurrence. On the very day and 
 
250 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 hour when I had seen Mr. M.inficld's wraith in 
 Piccadilly, Mr. Mansfield himself was walking down 
 the Corn Market in Oxford, in the direction of 
 the Taylor Institute. As he approached the cor- 
 ner, he saw what he took to be a vision or image of 
 myself, his tutor, moving towards him in my usual 
 leisurely manner. Suddenly, as he was on the point 
 of addressing me with regard to my Aristotle lecture 
 the next morning, the image glided up to him in a 
 rapid and evasive manner, shook a green silk umbrella 
 with a rhinoceros-horn handle three times around his 
 head, and then disappeared incomprehensibly through 
 the door of the Randolph Hotel. Returning to the 
 college in a state of breathless alarm and surprise, at 
 what he took to be an act of incipient insanity or 
 extreme inebriation on my part, Mr. Mansfield learnt 
 from the porter, to his intense astonishment, that I 
 was at that moment actually in London. Unable to 
 conceal his amazement at this strange event, he wrote 
 me a full account of the facts while they were still 
 fresh in his memory: and as I preserve his note to 
 this day, I append a copy of it to my present communi- 
 cation, for publication in the Society's Transactions. 
 
 " There is one small point in the above narrative to 
 which I would wish to call special attention, and that 
 is the accurate description given by Mr. Mansfield of 
 the umbrella carried by the apparition he observed in 
 Oxford. This umbrella exactly coincided in every 
 particular with the one I was then actually carrying in 
 Piccadilly. But what is truly remarkable, and what 
 stamps the occurrence as a genuine case of supernat- 
 ural intervention, is the fact that Mr. Mansfield could 
 not possibly ever hc^ve seen that umbrella in my hands 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 2$ I 
 
 because / had only Just that afternoon purchased it at 
 a shop in Bond Street. This, to my mind, conclusively 
 proves that no mere effort of fancy or visual delusion 
 based upon previous memories, vague or conscious, 
 could have had anything whatsoever to do with Mr. 
 Mansfield's observation at least. It was, in short, dis- 
 tinctly an objective apparition, as distinguished from a 
 mere subjective reminiscence or hallucination." 
 
 As I laid down the Proceedings on the breakfast 
 table with a sigh, I said to my wife (who had been 
 looking over my shoulder while I read) : '* Now, Nora, 
 we're really in for it. What on earth do you suppose 
 I'd better do ?" 
 
 Nora laughed at me with her laughing eyes laugh- 
 ing harder and brighter than ever. " My dear Owen," 
 she said, putting the Proceedings promptly into the 
 waste-paper basket, " there's really nothing on earth 
 possible now, except to make a clean breast of it." 
 
 I groaned. " I suppose you're right," I answered, 
 " but it's a precious awkward thing to have to do. 
 However, here goes." So I sat down at once with 
 pen, ink, and paper at my desk, to draw up this pres- 
 ent narrative as to the real facts about the " Mysteri- 
 ous Occurrence in Piccadilly." 
 
 II. 
 
 In 1873 I was a fourth-year man, going in for my 
 Greats at the June examination. But as if Aristotle 
 and Mill and the affair of Corcyra were not enough to 
 occupy one voung fellow's head at the age of twenty- 
 
252 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 three, I had foolishly gone and fallen in love, under- 
 graduate fashion, with the only really pretty girl (I in- 
 sist upon putting it, though Nora has struck it out 
 with her pen) in all Oxford. She was the daughter of 
 my tutor. Professor Bryce Murray, and her name (as 
 the astute reader will already have inferred) was 
 Nora. 
 
 The Professor had lost his wife some years before, 
 and he was left to bring up Nora by his own devices, 
 with the aid of his sister, Miss Lydia Amelia Murray, 
 the well-known advocate of female education, woman's 
 rights, anti-vaccination, vegetarianism, the Tichborne 
 claimant, and psychic force. Nora, however, had no 
 fancy for any of these multifarious interests of her 
 aunt's : I have reason to believe she takes rather after 
 her mother's family: and Miss Lydia Amelia Murray 
 early decided that she was a girl of no intellectual 
 tastes of any sort, who had better be kept at school at 
 South Kensington as much as possible. Especially 
 did Aunt Lydia hold it to be undesirable that Nora 
 should ever come in contact with that very objection- 
 able and wholly antagonistic animal, the Oriel under- 
 graduate. Undergraduates were well known to laugh 
 openly at woman's rights, to devour underdone beef- 
 steaks with savage persistence, and to utter most irrev- 
 erent and ribald jests about psychic force. 
 
 Still, it is quite impossible to keep the orbit of a 
 Professor's daughter from occasionally crossing that 
 of a stray meteoric undergraduate. Nora only came 
 home to Oxford in vacation time : but during the 
 preceding Long I had stopped up for the sake of pur- 
 suing my Accadian studies in a quiet spot, and it was 
 then that I first quite accidentally met Nora. I was 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 253 
 
 canoeing on the Cherwell one afternoon, when I came 
 across the Professor and his daughter in a punt, and 
 saw the prettiest girl in all Oxford actually holding the 
 pole in her own pretty little hands, while that lazy old 
 man lolled back at his ease with a book, on the lux- 
 urious cushions in the stern. As I passed the punt, I 
 capped the Professor, of course, and looking back a 
 minute later I observed that the pretty daughter had 
 got her pole stuck fast in the mud, and couldn't with 
 all her force, pull it out again. In another minute she 
 had lost her hold of it, and the punt began to drift of 
 itself down the river towards Iffley. 
 
 Common politeness naturally made me put back my 
 canoe, extricate the pole, and hand it as gracefully as 
 I could to the Professor's daughter. As I did so I 
 attempted to raise my straw hat cautiously with one 
 hand, while I gave back the pole with the other: an 
 attempt which of course compelled me to lay down 
 my paddle on the front of the canoe, as I happen to 
 be only provided with two hands, instead of four 
 like our earlier ancestors. I don't know whether it was 
 my instantaneous admiration for Nora's pretty blush, 
 which distracted my attention from the purely practi- 
 cal question of equilibrium, or whether it was her own 
 awkwardness and modesty in taking the pole, or finally 
 whether it was my tutor's freezing look that utterly 
 disconcerted me, but at any rate, just at that moment, 
 something unluckily (or rather luckily) caused me to 
 lose my balance altogether. Now, everybody knows 
 that a canoe is very easily upset : and in a moment, 
 before I knew exactly where I was, I found the canoe 
 floating bottom upward about three yards away from 
 me, and myself standing, safe and dry, in my tutor's 
 
2^4 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 punt, beside his pretty blushing daughter. I had felt 
 the canoe turning over as I handed back the pole, and 
 had instinctively jumped into the safer refuge of the 
 punt, which saved me at least the ignominy of appear 
 ing before Miss Nora Murray in the ungraceful atti- 
 tude of clambering back, wet and dripping, into an 
 upset canoe. 
 
 The inexorable logic of facts had thus convinced 
 the Professor of the impossibility of keeping all under- 
 graduates permanently at a safe distance : and there 
 was nothing open for him now except resignedly to 
 acquiesce in the situation so created for him. However 
 much he might object to my presence, he could hardly, 
 as a Christian and a gentleman, request me to jump in 
 and swim after my canoe, or even, when we had at 
 last successfully brought it alongside w^ith the aid of 
 the pole, to seat myself once more on the soaking 
 cushions. After all, my mishap had come about in the 
 endeavor to render him a service : so he was fain 
 with what grace he could to let me relieve his daugh- 
 ter of the pole, and punt him back as far as the barges, 
 with my own moist and uncomfortable bark trailing 
 casually from the stern. 
 
 As for Nora, being thus thrown unexpectedly into 
 the dangerous society of that grewsome animal, the 
 Oriel undergraduate, I think I may venture to say (from 
 my subsequent experience) that she was not wholly dis- 
 posed to regard the creature as either so objectiona- 
 ble or so ferocious as she had been previously led to 
 imagine. We got on together so well that I could see 
 the Professor growing visibly wrathful about the 
 corners of the mouth : and by the time we reached the 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 255 
 
 barges, he could barely be civil enough to say Good- 
 morning to me when we parted. 
 
 " An introduction, however, no matter how obtained, 
 is really in these matters absolutely everything. As 
 long as you don't know a pretty girl, you don't know 
 her, and you can't take a step in advance without an 
 introduction. But when once you do know her, heav- 
 en and earth and aunts and fathers may try their hard- 
 est to prevent you, and yet whatever they try they can't 
 keep you out. I was so far struck with Nora, that I 
 boldly ventured whenever I met her out walking with 
 her father or her aunt, to join myself to the party ; 
 and though they never hesitated to show me that my 
 presence was not rapturously welcomed, they couldn't 
 well say to me pointblank, '* Have the goodness, Mr. 
 Mansfield, to go away and not to speak to me again 
 in future." So the end of it was, that before the 
 beginning of October term, Nora and I understood 
 one another perfectly, and had even managed, in a few 
 minutes' tcte-a-tcte in the parks, to whisper to one an- 
 other the ingenuous vows of sweet seventeen and two- 
 and-twenty. 
 
 When the Professor discovered that I had actually 
 written a letter to his daughter, marked " Private and 
 Confidential," his wrath knew no bounds. He sent 
 for me to his rooms, and spoke to me severely. " I've 
 half a mind, Mansfield," he said, *' to bring the matter 
 before a college meeting. At any rate, this conduct 
 must not be repeated. If it is, Sir," — he didn't finish 
 the sentence, preferring to terrify me by the effective 
 figure of speech which commentators describe as an 
 aposiopesis: and I left him with a vague sense that if 
 it was repeated I should probably incur the penalties 
 
: N< • • 
 
 256 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 of prcemunire (whatever they may be) or be hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered, with my head finally stuck as 
 an adornment on the acute wings of the Griffin, vice 
 Temple Bar removed. 
 
 Next day, Nora met me casually at a confectioner's 
 in the High, where I will frankly confess that I was 
 engaged in experimenting upon the relative merits of 
 raspberry cream and lemon water ices. She gave me 
 her hand timidly, and whispered to me half under her 
 breath, " Papa's so dreadfully angry, Owen, and I'm 
 afraid I shall never be able to meet you any more, for 
 he's going to send me back this very afternoon to 
 South Kensington, and keep me away from Oxford 
 altogether in future." I saw her eyes were red with 
 crying, and that she really thought our little romance 
 was entirely at an end. 
 
 " My darling Nora," I replied in an undertone, 
 " even South Kensington is not so unutterably remote 
 that I shall never be able to see you there. Write to 
 me whenever you are able, and let me know where I 
 can write to you. My dear little Nora, if there were 
 a hundred papas and a thousand Aunt Lydias inter- 
 posed in a square between us, don't you know we 
 should manage all the same to love one another and 
 to overcome all difficulties ?" 
 
 Nora smiled and half cried at once, and then dis- 
 creetly turned to order half a pound of glacd cherries. 
 And that was the last that I saw of her for the time at 
 Oxford. 
 
 During the next term or two, I'm afraid I must admit 
 that the relations between my tutor and myself were 
 distinctly strained, so much so as continually to 
 threaten the breaking out of open hostilities. It 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 2$/ 
 
 wasn't merely that Nora was in question, but the Pro- 
 fessor also suspected me of jeering in private at his 
 psychical investigations. And if the truth must be 
 told, I will admit that his suspicions were not wholly 
 without justification. It began to be whispered 
 among^ the undergraduates just then that the Professor 
 and his sister had taken to turning planchctics, inter- 
 rogating easy-chairs, and obtaining interesting details 
 about the present abode of Shakespeare or Milton 
 from intelligent and well-informed five-o'clock tea- 
 tables. It had long been well known that the Profes- 
 sor took a deep interest in haunted houses, considered 
 that the portents recorded by Livy must have some- 
 thing in them, and declared himself unable to be skep- 
 tical as to facts which had convinced such great men 
 as Plato, Seneca, and Samuel Johnson. But the table- 
 turning was a new fad, and we noisy undergraduates 
 occasionally amused ourselves by getting up an ama- 
 teur stance, in imitation of the Professor, and eliciting 
 psychical truths, often couched in a surprisingly 
 slangly or even indecorous dialect, from a very lively 
 though painfully irreverent spirit, who discoursed to 
 us through the material intervention of a rickety what- 
 not. However, as the only mediums we employed 
 were the very unprofessional ones of two plain decan- 
 ters, respectively containing port and sherry, the Pro- 
 fessor (who was a teetotaler, and who paid five guineas 
 a stance for 'he services of that distinguished psychical 
 specialist, i Grade) considered the interesting results 
 we obtained as wholly beneath the dignity of scientific 
 inquiry. He even most unworthily endeavored to 
 stifle research by gating us all one evening when a 
 materialized spirit, assuming the outer form of the 
 
258 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 junior exhibitioner, sang a comic song of the period 
 in a loud voice with the windows open, and accompa- 
 nied itself noisily with a psychical tattoo on the rickety 
 what-not. The Professor went so far as to observe 
 sarcastically that our results appeared to him to be 
 rather spirituous than spiritual. 
 
 "On May 11, 1873 (I will endeavor to rival the Pro- 
 fessor in accuracy and preciseness), I got a short note 
 from dear Nora, dated from South Kensington, which 
 I, too (though not from psychical motives), have care- 
 fully preserved. I will not publish it, however, either 
 here or in the Society's Proceedings, for reasons which 
 will probably be obvious to any of my readers who 
 happen ever to have been placed in similar circum- 
 stances themselves. Disengaging the kernel of fact 
 from the irrelevant matter in which it was imbedded, 
 I may st:ite that Nora wrote me somewhat to this 
 effect. She was going next day to the Academy with 
 the parents of some schoolfellow ; could I manage to 
 run up to. town for the day, go to the Academy myself, 
 and meet her " quite accidentally, you know, dear," 
 in the Water-color room about half-past eleven? 
 
 This was rather awkward ; for next day, as it hap- 
 pened, was precisely the Professor's morning for the 
 Herodotus lecture ; but circumstances like mine at 
 that moment know no law. So I succeeded in excus- 
 ing myself from attendance somehow or other (I hope 
 truthfully) and took the nine A. M. express up to town. 
 Shortly after eleven I was at the Academy, and wait- 
 ing anxiously for Nora's arrival. That dear little hyp- 
 ocrite, the moment she saw me approach, assumed 
 such an inimitable air of infantile surprise and inno- 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN riCCADILLY. ^59 
 
 cent pleasure at my unexpected appearance that I pos- 
 itively blushed for her wicked powers of deception. 
 
 ** Vou here, Mr. Mansfield !" she cried in a tone of 
 the most apparently unaffected astonishment, "why I 
 thought it was full term time ; surely you ought to be 
 up at Oriel." 
 
 " So I am," I answered, " officially ; but in my pri- 
 vate capacity I've come up for the day to look at the 
 pictures." 
 
 "Oh, how nice!" said that shocking little Nora, 
 with a smile that was childlike and bland. " Mr. Mans- 
 field is such a great critic, Mrs. Worplesdon ; he knows 
 all about art, and artists, and so on. He'll be able to 
 tell'us which pictures we ought to admire, you know, 
 and which aren't worth looking at. Mr. Worplesdon, 
 let me introduce you ; Mrs. Worplesdon — Miss Wor- 
 plesdon. How very lucky we should have happened 
 to come across you, Mr. Mansfield !" 
 
 The Worplesdons fell immediately, like lambs, into 
 the trap so ingenuously spread for them. Indeed, I 
 have always noticed that ninety-nine per cent, of the 
 British public, when turned into an art gallery, are 
 only too glad to accept the opinion of anybody what- 
 soever, who is bold enough to have one, and to express 
 it openly. Having thus been thrust by Nora into the 
 arduous position of critic by appointment to the Wor- 
 plesdon party, I delivered myself ex catJicdrd forthwith 
 upon the merits and demerits of the entire exhibition ; 
 and I was so successful in my critical views that I not 
 only produced an immense impression upon Mr. Wor- 
 plesdon himself, but also observed many ladies in the 
 neighborhood nudge one another as they gazed in- 
 tently backward and forward between wall and cata- 
 
i' . / 
 
 25q strange stories. 
 
 logue, and heard them whisper audibly among them- 
 selves, " A gentleman here says the flesh tones on that 
 shoulder are simply marveHous ;" or " That artist in 
 the tweed suit behind us thinks the careless painting 
 of the ferns in the foreground quite unworthy of such 
 a colorist as Daubiton." So highly was my criticism 
 appreciated, in fact, that Mr. Worplesdon even invited 
 me to lunch with Nora and his party at a neighboring 
 restaurant, where I spent the most deHghtful hour I 
 had passed for the last half-year, in the company of 
 that naughty mendacious little schemer. 
 
 About four o'clock, however, the Worplesdons de- 
 parted, taking Nora with them to South Kensington ; 
 and I prepared to walk back in the direction of Ead- 
 dington, meaning to catch an evening train, and return 
 to Oxford. I was strolling in a leisurely fashion along 
 Piccadilly towards the Park, and looking into all the 
 photographers* windows, when suddenly an awful ap- 
 parition loomed upon me — the Professor himself, com- 
 ing round the corner from Bond Street, folding up a 
 new rhinoceros-handled umbrella as he walked along. 
 In a moment I felt that all was lost. I was up in town 
 without leave ; the Professor would certainly see me 
 and recognize me ; he would ask me how and why I 
 had left the University, contrary to rules ; and I must 
 then either tell him the whole truth, which would get 
 Nora into a fearful scrape, or else run the risk of being 
 sent down in disgrace, which might prevent me from 
 taking a degree, and would at least cause my father 
 and mother an immense deal of unmerited trouble. 
 
 Like a flash of lightning, a wild idea shot instantane- 
 ously across my brain. Might I pretend to be my 
 own double? The Professor was profoundly supersti- 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 261 
 
 tious on the subject of wraiths, apparitions, ghosts, 
 brain-waves, and supernatural appearances generally; 
 if I could only manage to impose upon him for a 
 moment by doing something outrageously uncommon 
 or eccentric, I might succeed in stifling further inquiry 
 by setting him from the beginning on a false track 
 which he was naturally prone to follow. Before I had 
 time to reflect upon the consequences of my act, the 
 wild idea had taken possession of me, body and soul, 
 and had worked itself out in action with all the rapid- 
 ity of a mad impulse. I rushed frantically up to the 
 Professor, with my eyes fixed in a vacant stare on a 
 point in space somewhere above the tops of the chim- 
 ney-pots ; I waved my stick three times mysteriously 
 around h!3 head ; and then, without giving him time 
 to recover from his surprise or to address a single 
 word to me, I bolted off in a red Indian dance to the, 
 nearest corner. 
 
 There was an hotel there, which I had often noticed 
 before, though I had never entered it ; and I rushed 
 wildly in, meaning to get out as best I could when the 
 Professor (who is very short-sighted) had passed on 
 along Piccadilly in search of me. But fortune, as 
 usual favored the bold. Luckily, it was a corner 
 house, and, to my surprise, I found when I got inside 
 it, that the hall opened both ways, with a door on to 
 the side street. The porter was looking away as I 
 entered , so I merely ran in of one door and out of the 
 other, never stopping till I met a hansom, into which 
 I jumped and ordered the man to drive to Paddington. 
 I just caught the 4.35 to Oxford, and by a little over 
 six o'clock I was in my own rooms at Oriel. 
 
 It was very wrong of me, indeed ; I acknowledge it 
 
262 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 now ; but the whole thing had flashed across my un- 
 dergraduate mind so rapidly that I carried it out in a 
 moment, before I could at all realize what a very fool- 
 ish act I was really committing. To take a rise out of 
 the Professor, and to save Nora an angry interview, 
 were the only ideas that occurred to me at the second ; 
 when I began to reflect upon it afterwards, I was con- 
 scious that I had really practiced a very gross and 
 wicked deception. However, there was no help for it 
 now ; and as I rolled along in the train to Oxford, I 
 felt that to save myself and Nora from utter disgrace, 
 I must carry the plot out to the end without flinching. 
 It then occurred to me that a double apparition would 
 be more in accordance with all recognized principles of 
 psychical manifestation than a single one. At Read- 
 ing, therefore, I regret to say, I bought a pencil, and a 
 sheet of paper, and an envelope ; and before I reached 
 Oxfard station, I had written to the Professor what I 
 now blush to acknowledge as a tissue of shocking 
 fables, in which I paralleled every particular of my 
 own behavior to him by a similar imaginary piece of 
 behavior on his part to me, only changing the scene 
 to Oxford. It was awfully wrong, I admit. At the 
 time, however, being yet but little more than a school- 
 boy, after all, I regarded it simply in the light of a capi- 
 tal practical joke. I informed the Professor gravely 
 how I had seen him at four o'clock in the Corn Market, 
 and how astonished I was when I found him waving his 
 green silk umbrella three times wildly around my head. 
 The moment I arrived at Oxford, I dashed up to 
 college in a hansom, and got the Professor's address in 
 London from the porter. He had gone up to town for 
 the night, it seemed, probably to visit Nora, and would 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENXE IN PICCADILLY. 263 
 
 not be back in college till the next morning. Then I 
 rushed down to the post-office, where I was just in 
 time (with an extra stamp) to catch the last post for 
 that night's delivery. The moment the letter was in 
 the box, I repented, and began to fear I had gone too 
 far ; and when I got back to my own rooms at last, and 
 went down late for dinner in hall, I confess I trembled 
 not a little, as to the possible effect of my quite too 
 bold and palpable imposition. 
 
 Next morning by the second post I got a long letter 
 from the Professor, which completely relieved me from 
 all immediate anxiety as to his interpretation of my 
 conduct. He rose to the fly with a charming simplicity 
 which showed how delighted he was at this personal 
 confirmation of all his own most cherished supersti- 
 tions. " My dear Mansfield," his letter began, " now 
 hear what, at the very selfsame hour and minute, hap- 
 pened to me in Piccadilly." In fact, he had swallowed 
 the whole thing entire, without a single moment's scep- 
 ticism or hesitation. 
 
 From what I heard afterwards, it was indeed a lucky 
 thing for me that I had played him this shocking trick, 
 for Nora believes he was then actually on his way to 
 South Kensington on purpose to forbid her most strin- 
 gently from holding any further communication with 
 me in any way. But as soon as this mysterious event 
 took place, he began to change his mind about me alto- 
 gether. So remarkable an apparition could not have 
 happened except for some good and weighty reason, 
 he argued ; and he suspected that the reason might 
 have something to do with my intentions toward Nora. 
 Why, when he was on his way to warn her against me, 
 should a vision, bearing my outer and bodily shape. 
 
264 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 come straight across his path, and by vehement signs 
 of displeasure, endeavor to turn him from his purpose, 
 unless it were clearly well for Nora that my attentions 
 should not be discouraged? 
 
 From that day forth the Professor began to ask me 
 to his rooms and address me far more cordially than 
 he used to do before: he even, on the strength of my 
 singular adventure, invited me to assist at one or two 
 of his psychical sdanccs. Here, I must confess, I was 
 not entirely successful : the distinguished medium 
 complained that I exerted a repellent effect upon the 
 spirits, who seemed to be hurt by my want of generous 
 confidence in their good intentions, and by my sus- 
 picious habit of keeping my eyes too sharply fixed 
 upon the legs of the tables. He declared that when I 
 was present, an adverse influence seemed to pervade 
 the room, due, apparently, to my painful lack of spirit- 
 ual sympathies. But the professor condoned my fail- 
 ure in the regular psychical line, in consideration of 
 my brilliant success as a beholder of wraiths and 
 visions. After I took my degree that summer, he 
 used all his influence to procure me the post of keeper 
 of the Accadian Antiquities at the Museum, for which 
 my previous studies had excellently fitted me : and by 
 his friendly ai>l I was enabled to obtain the post, 
 though I regret to say that, in spite of his credulity in 
 supernatural matters, he still refuses to believe in 
 the correctness of my conjectural interpretation of 
 the celebrated Amalekite cylinders imported by 
 Mr. Ananias, which I have deciphered in so very 
 simple and satisfactory a manner. As everybody 
 knows, my translation may be regarded as perfectly 
 certain, if only one makes the very modest assumption 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 265 
 
 that the cylinders were orginally engraved upside 
 down by an Aztec captive, who had learned broken 
 Accadian, with a bad accent, from a Chinese exile, and 
 who occasionally employed Egyptian hieroglyphics in 
 incorrect senses, to piece out his own very imperfect 
 idiom and doubtful spelling of the early Babylonian 
 language. The solitary real doubt in the matter is 
 whether certain extraordinary marks in the upper left- 
 hand corner of the cylinder arc to be interpreted as 
 accidental scratches, or as a picture representing the 
 triumph of a king over seven bound prisoners, or, 
 finally, as an Accadian sentence in cuneiforms which 
 may be translated either as ** To the memory of Om 
 the Great," or else as " Pithor the High Priest dedi- 
 cates a fat goose to the family dinner on the 25th of 
 the month of midwinter." Every candid and unprej- 
 udiced mind must admit that these small discrepancies 
 or alternatives in the opinions of experts can cast no 
 doubt at all upon the general soundness of the method 
 employed. But persons like the Professor, while 
 ready to accept any evidence at all where their own 
 prepossessions are concerned, can never be induced to 
 believe such plain and unvarnished statements of 
 simple scientific knowledge. 
 
 However, the end of it all was that before I had 
 been a month at the Museum, I had obtained the Pro- 
 fessor's consent to my marrage with Nora ; and as I 
 had had Nora's own consent long before, we were 
 duly joined together in holy matrimony early in 
 October at Oxford, and came at once to live in Hamp- 
 stead. So, as it turned out, I finally owed the sweet- 
 est and best little wife in all Christendom to the mys- 
 terious occurrence in Piccadilly. 
 
CARVALHO. 
 
 I. 
 
 The first time I ever met Ernest Carvalho was just 
 before the regimental dance at Newcastle. I had rid- 
 den up the Port Royal mountains that same morning 
 from our decaying sugar estate in the Liguanea plain, 
 and I was to stop in cantonments with the Major's 
 wife, fat little Mrs. Venn, who had promised my 
 mother that she would undertake to Chaperon me to 
 this my earliest military party. I won't deny that I 
 looked forward to it immensely, for I was then a girl 
 of only eighteen, fresh out from school in England, 
 where I had been living away from our family ever 
 since 1 was twelve years old. Dear mamma was a 
 Jamaican lady of the old school, completely overpow- 
 ered by the ingrained West Indian indolence ; and if I 
 had waited to go to a dance till I could get her to ac- 
 company me, I might have waited till Doomsday, or 
 probably later. So I was glad enough to accept fat 
 little Mrs. Venn's proffered protection, and to go up 
 the hills on my sure-footed mountain pony, while 
 Isaac, the black stable-boy, ran up behind me carrying 
 on his thick head the small portmanteau that con- 
 tained my plain white ball-dress. 
 [266] 
 
CARVALHO. 267 
 
 As I went up the steep mountain-path alone — for 
 ladies ride only with such an unmounted domestic es- 
 cort in Jamaica — I happened to overtake a tall gentle- 
 man with a handsome rather Jewish face and a pair of 
 extremely lustrous black eyes, who was mounted on a 
 beautiful chestnut mare just in front of me. The 
 horse-paths in the Port Royal mountains are very nar- 
 row, being mere zigzag ledges cut halfway up the pre- 
 cipitous green slopes of fern and club-moss, so that 
 there is seldom room for two horses to pass abreast, 
 and it is necessary to wait at some convenient corner 
 whenever you see another rider coming in the op- 
 posite direction. At the first opportunity the tall 
 Jewish-looking gentleman drew aside in such a corner, 
 and waited for me to pass. " Pray don't wait," I said, 
 as soon as I saw what he meant ; "your horse will get 
 up faster than my pony, and if I go in front I shall 
 keep you back unnecessarily." 
 
 " Not at all," he answered, raising his hat grace- 
 fully ; ** you are a stranger in the hills, I see. It is the 
 rule of these mountain-paths always to give a lady the 
 lead. If I go first and my mare breaks into a canter 
 on a bit of level, your pony will try to catch her up 
 on the steep slopes, and that is always dangerous." 
 
 Seeing he did not intend to move till I did, I 
 waived the point at last and took the lead. From that 
 moment I don't know what on earth came over my lazy 
 old pony. He refused to go at more than a walk, or 
 at best a jog-trot, the whole way to Newcastle. Now 
 the rise from the plain to the cantonments is about 
 four thousand feet, I think (I am a dreadfully bad 
 hand at remembering figures), and the distance can't 
 be much less, I suppose, than seven miles. During 
 
268 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 all that time you never see a soul, except a few negro 
 pickaninnies playing in the dustheaps, not a human 
 habitation, except a few huts embowered in mangoes, 
 hibiscus-bushes, and tree-ferns. At first we kept a 
 decorous silence, not having been introduced to one 
 another ; but the stranger's mare followed close at my 
 pony's heels, pull her in as he would, and it seemed 
 really too ridiculous to be solemnly pacing after one 
 another, single file, in this way for a couple of hours, 
 without speaking a word, out of pure punctiliousness. 
 So at last we broke the ice, and long before we got to 
 Newcastle we had struck up quite an acquaintance 
 with one another. It is wonderful how well two 
 people can get mutually known in the course of two 
 hours' tcte-a-tdtc, especially under such peculiar circum- 
 stances. You are just near enough to one another 
 for friendly chat, and yet not too near for casual stran- 
 gers. And then Isaac with the portmanteau behind 
 was quite sufficient escort to satisfy the convenances. 
 In England, one's groom would have to be mounted, 
 which always seems to me, in my simplicity, a distinc- 
 tion without a difference. 
 
 Mr. Carvalho was on his way up to Newcastle on 
 the same errand as myself, to go to the dance. He 
 might have been twenty, I suppose ; and, to a girl of 
 eighteen, boys of twenty seem quite men already. He 
 was a clerk in a Government Office at Kingston, and 
 was going to stop with a sub at Newcastle for a week 
 or two, on leave. I did not know much about men in 
 those days, but I needed little knowledge of the sub- 
 ject to tell me that Ernest Carvalho was decidedly 
 clever. As soon as the first chill wore off our conver- 
 sation, he kept me amused the whole way by his bright 
 
CARVALHO. 269 
 
 sketchy talk about the petty dignitaries of a colonial 
 capital. There was his Excellency for the time being, 
 and there was the Right Reverend of that day, and 
 there was the Honorable Colonial Secretary, and 
 there was the Honorable Director of Roads, and 
 tbere were a number of other assorted Honorables, 
 whose queer little peculiaries he hit off dexterously in 
 the quaintest manner. Not that there was any 
 unkindly satire in his brilliant conversation ; on the 
 contrary, he evidently liked most of the men he talked 
 about, and seemed only ti read and realize their 
 characters so thoroughly that they spoke for them- 
 selves in his dramatic anecdotes. He appeared to me 
 a more genial copy of Thackeray in a colonial society, 
 with all the sting gone, and only the skillful delinea- 
 tion of men and women left. I had never met any- 
 body before, and I have never met anybody since, 
 who struck me so instantaneously with the idea of 
 innate genius as Ernest Carvalho. 
 
 " You have been in England, of course," I said, as 
 we were nearing Newcastle. 
 
 ** No, never," he answered ; ** I am a Jamaican born 
 and bred ; I have never been out of the island." 
 
 I was surprised, for he seemed so different from any 
 of the young planters I had met at our house, most of 
 whom had never opened a book, apparently, in the 
 course of their lives, while Mr. Carvalho's talk was 
 full of indefinite literary flavor. " Where were you 
 educated, then?" I asked. 
 
 " I never was educated anywhere," he answered, 
 laughing. " I went to a small school at Port Antonio 
 during my father's life, but for the most part I have 
 picked up whatever I know (and that's not much) 
 
2/0 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 wholly by myself. Of course, French, like reading and 
 writing, comes by nature, and I got enough Spanish to 
 dip into Cervantes from the Cuban refugees. Latin 
 one has to grind up out of books, naturally ; and as 
 for Greek, I'm sorry to say I know very little, though, 
 of course, I can spell out Homer a bit, and even 
 ^schylus. But my hobby is natural science, and 
 there a fellow has to make his own way here, for 
 hardly anything has been done at the beasts and the 
 flowers in the West Indies yet. But if I live, I mean 
 to work them up in time, and I've made a fair begin- 
 ning already." 
 
 This reasonable list of accomplishments, given 
 modestly, not boastfully, by a young man of twenty, 
 wholly self-taught, fairly took my breath away. I was 
 inspired at once with a secret admiration for Mr. 
 Carvalho. He was so handsome and so clever that I 
 think I was half inclined to fall in love with him at 
 first sight. To say the truth, I believe almost all love 
 is love at first sight ; and for my own part, I wouldn't 
 give you a thank-you for any other kind. 
 
 " Here we must part," he said, as we reached a fork 
 in the narrow path just outside the steep hog's back 
 on which Newcastle stands," unless you will allow me 
 to see you safely as far as Mrs. Venn's. The path to 
 the right leads to the Major's quarters ; this on the 
 left takes me to my friend Cameron's hut. Mi^y I see 
 you to the Major's door ?" 
 
 ** No, thank you," I answered decidedly ; " Isaac is 
 escort enough. We shall meet again this evening." 
 
 " Perhaps, then," he suggested, ** I may have the 
 pleasure of a dance with you. Of course it's quite 
 irregular of me to ask you now, but we shall be for- 
 
CARVALHO. 271 
 
 mally introduced, no doubt, to-night, and I'm afraid 
 if you lunch at the Venns' your card will be filled up 
 by the 99th men before I can edge myself in anywhere 
 for a dance. Will you allow me?" 
 
 " Certainly," I said ; " what shall it be ? The first 
 waltz ?" 
 
 '• You are very kind," he answered, taking out a 
 pencil. ** You know my name — Carvalho ; what may 
 I put down for yours ? I haven't heard it yet." 
 
 '* Miss Hazleden," I replied, " of Palmettos." 
 
 Mr. Carvalho gave a little start of surprise. " Miss 
 Hazleden of Palmettos," he said, half to himself, with 
 a rather pained expression. *' Miss Hazleden ! Then 
 perhaps, I'd better — well, why not? why not, indeed? 
 Palmettos — Yes, I will." Turning to me, he said, 
 louder, " Thank you ; till this evening, then ;" and, 
 raising his hat, he hurried sharply round the corner of 
 the hill. 
 
 What was there in my name, I wondered, which 
 made him so evidently hesitate and falter ? 
 
 Fat little Mrs. Venn was very kind, and not a very 
 strict chaperon^ but I judged it best not to mention to 
 her this romantic episode of the handsome stranger. 
 However, during the course of lunch, I ventured 
 casually to ask her husband whether he knew of any 
 family in Jamaica of the name of Carvalho. 
 
 " Carvalho," answered the Major, " bless my soul, 
 yes. Old settled family in the island; Jews; live 
 down Savannah-la-Mar way ; been here ever since the 
 Spanish time ; doocid clever fellows, too, and rich, 
 most of them." 
 
 "Jews," I thought; " ah, yes, Mr. Carvalho had a 
 very handsome Jewish type of face and dark eyes; but 
 
272 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 why, yes, surely I heard him speak several times of 
 having been to church, r»nd once of the cathedral at 
 Spanish Town. This was curious/' 
 
 " Are any of them Christians?" I asked again. 
 
 "Not a man," answered the Major; "not a man, 
 my dear. Good old Jewish family; Jews in Jamaica 
 never turn Christians; nothing to gain by it." 
 
 The dance took place in the big messroom, looking 
 out on the fan-palms and tree-ferns of the regimental 
 garden. It was a lovely tropical night, moonlight, of 
 course, for all Jamaican entertainments are given at 
 full moon, so as to let the people who ride from a dis- 
 tance get to and fro safely over the breakneck moun- 
 tain horse-paths. The windows, which open down to 
 the ground, were flung wide for the sake of ventilation ; 
 and thus the terrace and garden were made into a sort 
 of vestibule where partners might promenade and cool 
 themselves among the tropical flowers after the heat 
 of dancing. And yet, I don't know how it is, though the 
 climate is so hot in Jamaica, I never danced anywhere 
 so much or felt the heat so little oppressive. 
 
 Before the first waltz, Mr. Carvalho came up, accom 
 panied by my old friend. Dr. Wade, and was properly 
 introduced to me. By that time my card was pretty 
 full, for of course, I was a belle in those days, and be- 
 ing just fresh out from England, was rather run after. 
 But I will confess that I had taken the liberty of filling 
 in three later waltzes (unasked) with Mr. Carvalho's 
 name, for I knew by his very look that he could waltz 
 divinely, and I do love a good partner. He did waltz 
 divinely, but at the end of the dance I was really afraid 
 he didn't mean to ask me again. When he did, a 
 little hesitatingly, I said I had still three vacancies, 
 
CARVALIIO. 273 
 
 and found he had not yet asked anybody else. I en- 
 joyed those four dances more than any others that 
 evening, the more so, perhaps, as I saw my cousin, 
 Harry Verner of Agualta, was dying with jealousy 
 because I danced so much with Mr. Carvalho. 
 
 I must just say a word or two about Harry Verner. 
 He was a planter piir sang, and Agualta was one of 
 the few really flourishing sugar estates then left on the 
 island. Harry was, therefore, naturally regarded as 
 rather a catch ; but, for my part, I could never care 
 for any man who has only three subjects of conversa- 
 tion — himself, vacuum-pan sugar, and the wickedness 
 of the French bounty system, which keeps the poor 
 planter out of his own. So I danced away with Mr. 
 Carvalho, partly because I liked him just a little, you 
 know, but partly, also, I will frankly admit, because I 
 saw it annoyed Harry Verner. 
 
 At the end of our fourth dance, I was strolling with 
 Mr. Carvalho among the great bushy poinsettias and 
 plumbagos on the terrace, under the beautiful soft 
 green light of that tropical moon, when Harry Verner 
 came from one of the windows directly upon us. " I 
 suppose you've forgotten, Edith," he said, ** that 
 you're engaged to me for the next lancers. Mr. Car- 
 valho, I know you are to dance with Miss Wade ; 
 hadn't you better go and look for your partner ?" 
 
 He spoke pointedly, almost rudely, and Mr. Car- 
 valho took the hint at once. As soon he was gone, 
 Harry turned round to me fiercely and said in a low, 
 angry voice, ** You shall not dance this lancers, you 
 shall sit it out with me here in the garden ; come over 
 to the seat in the far corner." 
 
 He led me resistlessly to the seat, away from the 
 
274 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 noise of the regimental band and the dancers, and then 
 sat himself down at the far end from me, like a great 
 surly bear that he was. 
 
 "A pretty fool you've been making of yourself to- 
 night, Edith," he said in a tone of suppressed anger, 
 " with that fellow Carvalho. Do you know who he is, 
 miss ? Do you know who he is ?" 
 
 " No," I answered faintly, fearing he was going to 
 assure me that my clever new acquaintance was a 
 notorious swindler or a runaway ticket-of-leave man. 
 
 "Well, then, I'll tell you," he cried, angrily. "I'll 
 tell you. He's a colored man, miss ! that's what he 
 is." 
 
 " A colored man ?" I exclaimed in surprise ; "why, 
 he's as white as you and I are, every bit as white, 
 Harry." 
 
 " So he may be, to look at," answered my cousin ; 
 ** but a brown man's a brown man, all the same, how- 
 ever much white blood he may have in him ; you can 
 never breed the nigger out. Confound his impudence, 
 asking you to dance four times with him in a single 
 evening ! You, too, of all girls in the island ! Con- 
 found his impudence ! Why, his mother was a slave 
 girl once on Palmettos estate !" 
 
 "Oh, Harry, you don't mean to say so," I cried, for 
 I was West Indian enough in my feelings to have a 
 certain innate horror of colored blood, and I was really 
 shocked to think I had been so imprudent as to dance 
 four times with a brown man. 
 
 " Yes, I do mean it, miss," he answered ; " an octa- 
 roon slave girl, and Carvalho's her son by old Jacob 
 Carvalho, a Jew merchant at the back of the island, 
 who was fool enough to go and actually marry her. 
 
CARVALHO. 275 
 
 So now you see what a pretty mess you've gone and 
 been made of it. We shall have it all over Kingston 
 to-morrow, I suppose, that Miss Hazelden, a Hazelden 
 and a Verner, has been flirting violently with a bit of 
 colored scum off her own grandfather's estate at Pal- 
 mettos. A nice thing for the family, indeed !" 
 
 " But, Harry," I said, pleading, " he's such a perfect 
 gentleman in his manners and conversation, so very 
 much superior to a great many Jamaican young men." 
 
 " Hang it all, miss," said Harry — he used a stronger 
 expression, for he was not particular about swearing 
 before ladies, but I won't transcribe all his oaths — 
 ** hang it all, that's the way of you girls who have been 
 to England. If I had fifty daughters I'd never send 
 one of *em home, not I. You go over there, and you 
 get enlightened, as you call it, and you learn a lot of 
 radical fal-lal about equality and a-man-and-a-brother, 
 and all that humbug ; and then you come back and 
 despise your own people, who are gentlemen and the 
 sons of gentlemen for fifty generations, from the good 
 old slavery days onward. I wish we had them here 
 again, I do, and I'd tic up that fellow Carvalho to a 
 horse-post and flog him with a cow-hide within an inch 
 of his life." 
 
 I was too much accustomed to Harry's manners to 
 make any protest against this vigorous suggestion of 
 reprisals. I took his arm quietly. " Let us go back 
 into the ballroom, Harry," I said as persuasively as I 
 was able, for I loathed the man in my heart, " and for 
 heaven's sake don't make a scene about it. If there 
 is anything on earth I detest, it's scenes." 
 
 Next morning I felt rather feverish, and dear fat 
 little Mrs. Venn was quite frightened about mo. ** If 
 
2/6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 you go down again to Liguanea with this fever on 
 ■you, my dear," 'le said, " you'll get yellow Jack as 
 soon as you arc home again. Better write and ask 
 your mamma to let you stop a fortnight with us 
 here." 
 
 I consented, readily enough, for, of course, no girl of 
 eighteen ever in her heart objects to military society, 
 and the 99th were really very pleasant and well-inten- 
 tioned young fellows. But I made up my mind that if I 
 stayed I would take particular care to see no more of 
 Mr. Carvalho. He was very clever, very fascinating, 
 very nice, but then — he was a brown man ! That was 
 a bar that no West Indian girl could ever be ex- 
 pected to get over. 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, however — I write as I 
 then felt — about three days after, Mr. Venn said to 
 me, "I've invited Mr. Cameron, one of our sub-lieu- 
 tenants, to dine this evening, and I've had to invite his 
 guest, young Carvalho, as well. By the way, Edie, if 
 I were you, I wouldn't talk quite so much as you did 
 the other evening to Mr. Carvalho. You know, dear, 
 though he doesn't look it, he's a brown man." 
 
 " I didn't know it," I answered, " till the end of the 
 evening, and then Harry Verncr told me. I wouldn't 
 have danced with him more than once if I'd known 
 It. 
 
 " Wonderful how that young fellow has managed to 
 edge himself into society," said the major, looking up 
 from his book ; " devilish odd. Son of old Jacob 
 Carvalho ; Jacob left him all his coin, not very much ; 
 picked up his ABC somewhere or other ; got into 
 Government service ; asked to Governor's dances ; 
 goes everywhere now. Can't understand it." 
 
CARVALHO. 277 
 
 "Well, my dear," says Mrs. Venn, "why do we ask 
 him ourselves ''" 
 
 " Because we can't help it," says the major, testily. 
 " Cameron goes and picks him up ; ought to be in the 
 Engineers, Cameron ; too doocid clever for the line 
 and for this regiment. Always picks up some astron- 
 omer fellow, or some botanist fellow, or some fellow 
 who understands fortification or something. Com- 
 petitive examination's ruin of the service. Get all 
 sorts of people into the regiment now. Believe Cam- 
 eron himself lives upon his pay almost, hanged if I 
 don't." 
 
 That evening, Mr. Carvalho came, and I liked him 
 better than ever. Mr. Cameron, who was a brother 
 botanist and a nice ingenuous young Highlander, made 
 him bring his portfolio of Jamaica ferns and flowers, 
 the loveliest things I ever saw — dried specimens and 
 water-color sketches to accompany them of the plants 
 themselves as they grew naturally. He told us all 
 about them so enthusiastically, and of how he used to 
 employ almost all his holidays in the mountains hunt- 
 ing for specimens. " I'm afraid the fellows at the 
 office think me a dreadful muff for it," he said, "but I 
 can't help it, it's born in me. My mother is a descend- 
 ant of Sir Hans Sloane's, who lived here for several 
 years — the founder of the British Museum, you know 
 — and all her family have always had a taste for bush, 
 as the negroes call it. You know, a good many 
 mulatto people have the blood of able English 
 families in their veins, and that accounts, I believe, for 
 their usual high average of general intelligence." 
 
 I was surprised to hear him speak so unaffectedly of 
 bis ancestry on the wrong side of the house, for most 
 
I 
 
 278 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 light colored people studiously avoid any reference to 
 their social disabilities. I liked him all the bettor, 
 however, for the perfect frankness with which he said 
 it. If only he hadn't been a brown man, now! But 
 there, you can't get over those fundamental race preju- 
 dices. 
 
 Next morning, as the Major and I were out riding, 
 we came again across Mr. Cameron and Mr. Carvalho. 
 Faie really seemed determined to throw us together. 
 We were goihg to the Fern Walk to gather gold and 
 silver ferns, and Mr. Carvalho was bound in the same 
 direction, to look for some rare hill-top flowers. At 
 the Walk we dismounted, and, while the two officers 
 went hunting about among the bush, Mr. Carvalho and 
 I sat for a while upon a big rock in the shade of a 
 mountain palm. The conversation happened to come 
 round to somewhat the same turn as it had taken the 
 last evening. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Carvalho, in answer to a question of 
 mine, " I do think that mulattos and quadroons are 
 generally cleverer than the average run of white peo- 
 ple. You see, mixture of race evidently tends to in- 
 crease the total amount of brain power. There are 
 peculiar gains of brain on the one side, and other 
 peculiar gains, however small, on the other ; and the 
 mixture, I fancy, tends to preserve or increase both. 
 That is why the descendants of Huguenots in England, 
 and the descendants of Italians in France, show gen- 
 erally such great ability." 
 
 " Then you yourself ought to be an example," I 
 said, " for your name seems to be Spanish or Portu- 
 guese." 
 
 " Spanish and Jewish," he answered, laughing, 
 
CARVALHO. 279 
 
 " though I didn't mean to give a side-puff to myself. 
 Yes, I am of very mixed race indeed. On my father's 
 side I am Jewish, though of course the Jews acknowl- 
 edge nobody who isn't a pure-blooded descendant of 
 Abraham in both lines ; and for that reason I have 
 been brought up a Christian. On my mother's side I 
 am partly negro, partly English, partly Haitian-French, 
 and, through the Sloanes, partly Dutch as well. So 
 you see I am a very fair mixture." 
 
 " And that accounts," I said, " for your being so 
 clever." 
 
 He blushed and bowed a little demure bow, but said 
 nothing. 
 
 It's no use fighting against fate, and during all that 
 fortnight I did nothing but run up against Mr. Car- 
 valho. Wherever I went, he was sure to be ; wherever 
 I was invited, he was invited to meet me. The fact is, 
 I had somehow acquired the reputation of being a 
 clever girl, arid, as Mr. Cameron was by common con- 
 sent the clever man of his regiment, it was considered 
 proper that he (and by inference his guest) should be 
 always asked to entertain me. The more I saw of Mr. 
 Carvalho the better I liked him. He was so clever, 
 and yet so simple and unassuming, that one couldn't 
 help admiring and sympathizing with him. Indeed, if 
 he hadn't been a brown man, I almost think I should 
 have fallen in love with him outright. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight I went back to Palmettos. 
 A few days after, who should come to call but old 
 General Farquhar, and with him, of all men in the 
 world, Mr. Carvalho! Mamma was furious. She 
 managed to be frigidly polite as long as they stopped, 
 but when they were gone she went off at once into one 
 
280 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 of her worst nervous crisises (that's not the regular 
 plural, I'm sure, but no matter). " I knew his mother 
 when she was a slave of your grandfather's," she said ; 
 " an upstanding proud octaroon girl, who thought her- 
 self too good for her place because she was nearly a 
 white woman. She left the estate immediately after 
 that horrid emancipation, to keep a school of brown 
 girls in Kingston. And then she had the insolence to go 
 and get actually married at church to old Jacob Car- 
 valho ! Just like those brown people. Their grand- 
 mothers never married." For poor mamma always 
 made it a subject of reproach against the respectable 
 colored folk that they tried to live more decently and 
 properly than their ancestors used to do in slavery 
 times. 
 
 Mr. Carvalho never came to Palmettos again, but 
 whenever I went to Kingston to dances I met him, 
 and in spite of mamma I talked to him too. One day 
 I went over to a ball at Government House, and there 
 I saw both him and Harry Verner. For the first time 
 in my life I had two proposals made me, and on the 
 same night. Harry Verner's came first. 
 
 " Edie," he said to me, between the dances, as we 
 were strolling out in the gardens. West Indian fashion, 
 " I often think Agualta is rather lonely. It wants a 
 lady to look after the house, while I'm down looking 
 after the cane pieces. We made the best return in 
 sugar of any estate on the island, last year, you know; 
 but a man can't subsist entirely on sugar. He wants 
 sympathy and intellectual companionship." (This 
 was quite an effort for Harry.) " Now, I've not been 
 in a hurry to get married. I've waited till I could find 
 some one whom I could thoroughly respect and admire 
 
- CARVALHO. 281 
 
 as well as love. I've looked at all the girls in Jamaica 
 before making my choice, and I've determined not to 
 be guided by monetary considerations or any other 
 considerations except those of the affections and of 
 real underlying goodness and intellect. I feel that 
 you are the one girl I have met who is far and away 
 my superior in everything worth living for, Edie ; and 
 I'm going to ask you whether you will make me proud 
 and happy for ever by becoming the mistress of Agu- 
 alta?" 
 
 I felt that Harry was really conceding so very much 
 to me, and honoring me so greatly by offering me a 
 life partnership in that flourishing sugar estate, that it 
 really went to my heart to have to refuse him. But I 
 told him plainly I could not marry him because I did 
 not love him. Harry seemed quite surprised at my 
 refusal, but answered politely that perhaps I might 
 learn to love him hereafter, that he would not be so 
 foolish as to press me further now, and that he would 
 do his best to deserve my love in future. And with 
 that little speech he led me back to the ballroom, and 
 handed me over to my next partner. 
 
 Later on in the evening, Mr. Carvalho too, with an 
 earnest look in his handsome dark eyes, asked leave to 
 take me for a few turns in the garden. We sat down 
 on a bench under the great mango tree, and he began 
 to talk to me in a graver fashion than usual. 
 
 " Your mother was annoyed, I fear. Miss Hazleden," 
 he said, " that I should call at Palmettos." 
 
 " To tell you the truth," I answered, " I think she 
 ' was." 
 
 "I was afraid she would be — I knew she would be, 
 in fact ; and for that very reason I hesitated to do it, 
 
282 ' STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 as I hesitated to dance with you the first time I met 
 you, as soon as I knew who you really were. But I 
 felt I ought to face it out. You know by this time, 
 no doubt, Miss Hazelden, that my mother was once a 
 slave on your grandfather's estate. Now, it is a theory 
 of mine — a little Quixotic, perhaps, but still a theory 
 of mine — that the guilt and the shame of slavery lay 
 with the slave-owners (forgive me if I must needs 
 speak against your own class), and not with the slaves 
 or their descendants. We have nothing on earth to 
 be ashamed of. Thinking thus, I felt it incumbent 
 upon me to call at Palmettos, partly in defense of my 
 general principles, and partly also because I wished 
 to see whether you shared your mother's ideas on 
 that subject." 
 
 " You were quite right in what you did, Mr. Car- 
 valho," I answered ; " and I respect you for the bold- 
 ness with which you cling to what you think your 
 duty." 
 
 " Thank you. Miss Hazleden," he answered, " you 
 are very kind. Now, I wish to speak to you about 
 another and more serious question. Forgive my talk- 
 ing about myself for a moment ; I feel sure you have 
 kindly interested yourself in me a little. I, too, am 
 proud of my birth, in my way, for I am the son of an 
 honest, able man, and of a tender, true woman. I come 
 on one side from the oldest and greatest among civil- 
 ized races, the Jews ; and on the other side from many 
 energetic English, French, and Dutch families, whose 
 blood I am vain enough to prize as a precious inherit- 
 ance, even though it came to me through the veins of 
 an octaroon girl, I have lately arrived at the conclu- 
 sion that it is not well for me to remain in Jamaica. I 
 
CARVALHO. 283 
 
 cannot bear to live in a society which will not receive 
 my dear mother on the same terms as it receives me, 
 and will not receive either of us on the same terms as 
 it receives other people. We are not rich, but we are 
 well enough off to go to live in England ; and to Eng- 
 land I mean soon to go." 
 
 " I am glad and sorry to hear it," I said. " Glad, 
 because I am sure it is the best thing for your own 
 happiness, and the best opening for your great talents ; 
 sorry, because there are not many people in Jamaica 
 whose society I shall miss so much." 
 
 ** What you say encourages me to venture a little 
 further. When I get to England, I intend to go to 
 Cambridge and take a degree there, so as to put my- 
 self on an equality with other educated people. Now, 
 Miss Hazleden, I am going to ask you something 
 which is so great a thing to ask that it makes my heart 
 tremble to ask it. I know no man on earth, least of 
 all myself, dare think himself fit for you, or dare plead 
 his own cause before you, without feeling his own 
 unworthiness and pettiness of soul beside you. Yet 
 just because I know how infinitely better and nobler 
 and higher you are than I am, I cannot resist trying, 
 just once, whether I may not hope that perhaps you 
 will consider my appeal, and count my earnestness to 
 me for righteousness. I have watched you, and 
 listened to you, and admired you, till in spite of my- 
 self I have not been able to refrain from loving you. I 
 know it is madness ; I know it is yearning after the 
 unattainable; but I cannot help it. Oh, don't answer 
 me too soon and crush me, but consider whether per- 
 haps in the future you might not somehow at some 
 time think it possible." 
 
284 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 He leaned forward towards me in a supplicating atti- 
 tude. At that moment I loved him with all the force 
 of my nature. Yet I dared not say so. The spectre 
 of the race prejudice rose instinctively like a dividing 
 wall between my heart and my lips. ** Mr. Carvalho," 
 I said, " take me back to my scat. You must not talk 
 so, please." 
 
 ** One minute, Miss Hazlcden," he went on passion- 
 ately ; " one minute, and then I will be silent forever. 
 Remember, we might live in England, far away from 
 all these unmeaning barriers. I do not ask you to 
 take me now, and as I am ; I will do all I can to make 
 myself more worthy of you. Only let me hope ; don't 
 answer me no without considering it. I know how 
 little I deserve such happiness; but if you will take 
 me, I will live all my life for no other purpose than to 
 make you see that I am striving to show myself grate- 
 ful for your love. Oh, Miss Hazleden, do listen to 
 me." 
 
 I felt that in another moment I should yield ; I could 
 have seized his outstretched hands then, and told him 
 that I loved him, but I dared not. 
 
 "Mr. Carvalho," I said, ** let us go back now, I will 
 write to you to-morrow." 
 
 He gave me his arm with a deep breath, and we 
 went back slowly to the music. 
 
 ** Edith," said my mother sharply, when I got home 
 that night, " Harry has been here, and I know two 
 things. He has proposed to you and you have re- 
 fused him, I'm certain of that ; and the other thing is, 
 that young Carvalho has been insolent enough to make 
 you an offer." ' ' 
 
 I said nothing. 
 
CARVALHO. 285 
 
 " What did you answer him ?" 
 
 " That I would reply by letter." 
 
 " Sit down, tlien, and write as I tell you." 
 
 I sat down mechanically. Mamma began dictating. 
 I cried as I wrote, but I wrote it. I know now how 
 very shameful and wrong it was of me ; but I was only 
 eighteen, and I was accustomed to do as mamma told 
 me in everything. She had a terrible will, you know, 
 and a terrible temper. 
 
 *' * Dear Mr. Carvalho * (you'd better begin so, or 
 he'll know I dictated it), — ' I was too much surprised at 
 your strange conduct last night to give you an answer 
 immediately. On thinking it over, I can only say I 
 am astonished you should have supposed such a thing 
 as you suggested lay within the bounds of possibility. 
 In future, it will be well that we should avoid one an- 
 other. Our spheres are different. Pray do not repeat 
 your mistake of last evening. — Yours truly, E. Hazle- 
 den.' Have you put all that down ?'* 
 
 " Mamma," I cried, "it is abominable. It isn't true. 
 I can't sign it." 
 
 '* Sign it," said my mother briefly. 
 
 I took the pen and did so. 
 
 " You will break my heart, mamma," I said. " You 
 will break my heart and kill me." 
 
 " It shall go first thing to-morrow," said my mother, 
 taking no notice of my words. " And now, Edith, you 
 shall marry Harry Verner." 
 
286 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 II. 
 
 Seven years are a large slice out of one's life, and 
 the seven years spent in fighting poor dear mamma 
 over that fixed project were not happy ones. But on 
 that point nothing on earth would bend me. I would 
 not marry Harry Verner. At last, after poor mam- 
 ma's sudden death, I thought it best to sell the rem- 
 nant of the estate for what it would fetch, and go back 
 to England. I was twenty-five then, and had slowly 
 learnt to have a will of my own meanwhile. But dur- 
 ing all that time I hardly ever heard again of Ernest 
 Carvalho. Once or twice, indeed, I was told he had 
 taken a distinguished place at Cambridge, and had 
 gone to the bar in the Temple ; but that was all. 
 
 A month or two after my return to London my 
 aunt Emily (who was not one of the West Indian side 
 of the house) managed to get me an invitation to Mrs. 
 Bouverie Barton's. Of course you know Mrs. Bou- 
 verie Barton, the famous novelist, whose books every- 
 body talks about. Well, Mrs. Barton lives in Eaton 
 Place, and gives charming Thursday evening recep- 
 tions, which are the recognized rendezvous of all liter- 
 ary and artistic London. If there is a celebrity in 
 town, from Paris or Vienna, Timbuctoo or the South 
 Sea Islands, you are sure to meet him in the little 
 back drawing-room at Eaton Place. The music there 
 is always of the best, and the conversation of the clev- 
 erest. But what pleased me most on that occasion 
 was the fact that Mr. Gerard Llewellyn, the author of 
 that singular book " Peter Martindale," was to be the 
 
CARVALHO. 287 
 
 lion of the party on this particular Thursday. I had 
 just been reading " Peter Martindale " — who had not, 
 that season ? for it was the rage of the day — and I had 
 never read any novel before which so impressed me by 
 its weird power, its philosophical insight, and its trans- 
 parent depth of moral earnestness. So I was naturally 
 very much pleased at the prospect of seeing and meet- 
 ing so famous a man as Mr. Gerard Llewellyn. 
 
 When we entered Mrs. Bouverie Barton's handsome 
 rooms, we saw a great crowd of people whom even the 
 most unobservant stranger would instantly have recog- 
 nized as out of the common run. There was the 
 hostess herself, with her kindly smile and her friendly 
 good-humored manner, hardly, if at all, concealing 
 the profound intellectual strength that lay latent in 
 her calm gray eyes. There were artistic artists and 
 rugged artists ; satirical novelists and gay novelists ; 
 heavy professors and deep professors — every possible 
 representative of " literature, science, and art." At 
 first, I was put off with introductions to young poet- 
 asters, and gentlemen with an interest in cuneiform in- 
 scriptions ; but I had quite made up my mind to get a 
 talk with Mr. Gerard Llewellyn ; and to Mr. Gerard 
 Llewellyn our hostess at last promised to introduce 
 me. She crossed the room in search of him near the 
 big fireplace. 
 
 A tall, handsome young man, with long mustache 
 and beard, and piercing black eyes, stood somewhat 
 listlessly leaning against the mantelshelf, and talking 
 with an even, brilliant flow to a short, stout, Indian- 
 looking gentleman at his side. I knew in a moment 
 that the short stout gentleman must be Mr. Llewellyn, 
 for in all the tall young man, in spite of seven years 
 
288 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 and the long mustaches, I recognized at once Ernest 
 Carvalho. 
 
 But to my surprise Mrs. Bouverie Barton brought 
 the tall young man, and not his neighbor, across the 
 room with her. She must have made a mistake, I 
 thought. " Mr. Carvalho," she said, •* I want you to 
 come and be introduced to the lady on the ottoman. 
 Miss Hazleden, Mr. Carvalho!" 
 
 " I have met Mr. Carvalho long ago in Jamaica," I 
 said warmly, ** but I am very glad indeed to meet him 
 here again. However, I hardly expected to see him 
 here this evening." 
 
 *' Indeed," said Mrs. Barton, with some surprise in 
 her tone ; ' I thought you asked to be introduced to 
 the author of * Peter Martindale.' " 
 
 " So I did," I answered ; " but I understood his 
 name was Llewellyn." 
 
 "Oh!" said Ernest Carvalho, quickly, "that is only 
 my nom de plume. But the authorship is an open 
 secret now, and I suppose Mrs. Barton thought you 
 knew it." 
 
 " It is a happy chance, at any rate, Mr. Carvalho," I 
 said, " which has thrown us two again together." 
 
 He bowed gravely and with dignity. "You are very 
 kind to say so," he said. " It is always a pleasure to 
 meet old acquaintances from Jamaica." 
 
 My heart beat violently. There was a studied cold- 
 ness in his tone, I thought, and no wonder ; but if I 
 had been in love with Ernest Carvalho before, I felt a 
 thousand more times in love with him now as he stood 
 there in his evening dress, a perfect English gentleman. 
 He looked so kinglike with his handsome, slightly 
 Jewish features, his piercing black eyes, his long mus- 
 
CARVALHO. 289 
 
 taches, and his beautiful delicate thin-lipped mouth. 
 There was such an air of power in his forehead, such a 
 speaking evidence of high culture in his general ex- 
 pression. And then, he had written " Peter Martin- 
 dale !" Why, who else could possibly have written it ? 
 I wondered at my own stupidity in not having guessed 
 the authorship at once. But, most terrible of all, I 
 had probably lost his love for ever. I might once 
 have called Ernest Carvalho my husband, and I had 
 utterly alienated him by a single culpable act of fool- 
 ish weakness. 
 
 *' You are living in London, now ?" I asked. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " we have a little home of our 
 own in Kensington. I am working on the staff of the 
 Morning Deto?iater.'* 
 
 " Mrs. Carvalho is here this evening," said Mrs. 
 Bouverie Barton. " Do you know her ? I suppose you 
 do, of course." 
 
 Mrs. Carvalho ! As I heard the name, I was con- 
 scious of a deep but rapid thud, thud, thud in my ear, 
 and after a moment it struck me that the thud came 
 from the quick beating of my own heart. Then Ernest 
 Carvalho was married ! 
 
 " No," he said in reply, seeing that I did not answer 
 
 immediately. " Miss Hazleden has never met her, I 
 
 believe ; but I shall be happy to introduce her ;" and 
 
 .he turned to a sofa where two or three ladies were 
 
 chatting together, a little in the corner. 
 
 A very queenly old lady, with snow-white hair, pret- 
 tily covered in part by a dainty and becoming lace 
 cap, held out her small white hand to me with a gra- 
 cious smile. " My mother," Ernest Carvalho said 
 quietly ; and I took the proffered hand with a warmth 
 
290 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 that must have really surprised the slave-born octa- 
 roon. The one thought that was uppermost in my 
 mind was just this, that after all Ernest Carvalho was 
 7iot married. Once more I heard the thud in my ear, 
 and nothing else. 
 
 As soon as I could notice anybody or anything ex- 
 cept myself, I began to observe that Mrs. Carvalho 
 was very handsome. She was rather dark, to be sure, 
 but less so than many Spanish or Italian ladies I had 
 seen ; and her look and manner were those of a Louis 
 Quinze marquise, with a distinct reminiscence of the 
 stately old Haitian-French politeness. She could never 
 have had any education except what she had picked up 
 for herself ; but no one would suspect the deficiency 
 now, for she was as clever as all half-castes, and had 
 made the best of her advantages meanwhile, such as 
 they were. When she talked about the literary Lon- 
 don in which her son lived and moved, I felt like the 
 colonial-bred ignoramus I really was; and when she 
 told me they had just been to visit Mr. Fradelli's new 
 picture at the studio, I was positively too ashamed to 
 let her see that I had never in my life heard of that 
 famous painter before. To think that that queenly 
 old lady was still a slave girl at Palmettos when my 
 poor dear mother was a little child ! And to think, too, 
 that my own family would have kept her a slave all 
 her life long, if only they had had the power ! I 
 remembered at once with a blush what Ernest Car- 
 valho had said to me the last tine I saw him, about 
 the people with whom the guilt and shame of slavery 
 really rested. 
 
 I sat half in a maze, talking with Mrs. Carvalho all 
 the rest o. that evening. Ernest lingered near for a 
 
CARVALHO. 291 
 
 while, as if to see what impression his mother pro- 
 duced upon me, but soon went off, proudly I thought, 
 to another part of the room, where he got into conver- 
 sation with the German gentleman who wore the big 
 blue wire-guarded spectacles. Yet I fancied he kept 
 looking half anxiously in our direction throughout the 
 evening, and I was sure I saw him catch his mother's 
 eye furtively now and again. As for Mrs. Carvalho, 
 she made a conquest of me at once, and she was evi- 
 dently well pleased with her conquest. When I rose 
 to leave, she took both my hands in hers, and said to 
 me warmly, " Miss Hazelden, we shall be so pleased to 
 see you whenever you like to come, at Merton Gar- 
 dens." Had Ernest ever told her of his proposal ? I 
 wondered. 
 
 Mrs. Bouverie Barton was very kind to me. She 
 kept on asking me to her Thursday evenings, and there 
 time after time I met Ernest Carvalho. At first, he 
 seldom spoke to me much, but at last, partly because 
 I always talked so much to his mother perhaps, he 
 began to thaw a little, and often came up to me in 
 quite a friendly way. ** We have left Jamaica and all 
 that behind. Miss Hazleden," he said once, " and here 
 in free England we may at least be friends." Oh, how 
 I longed to explain the whole truth to him, and how 
 impossible an explanation was. Besides, he had seen 
 so many other girls since, and very likely his boyish 
 fancy for me had long since passed away altogether. 
 You can't count much on the love-making of eighteen 
 and twenty. 
 
 Mrs. Carvalho asked me often to their pretty little 
 house in Merton Gardens, and I went ; but still Ernest 
 never in any way alluded to what had passed. Months 
 
292 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 went by, and I began to feel that I must crush that 
 little dream entirely out of my heart— if I could. One 
 afternoon I went in to Mrs. Carvalho's for a cuf of 
 five-o'clock tea, and had an uninterrupted tHe-h-tite 
 with her for half an hour. We had been exchanging 
 small confidences with one another for a while, and 
 after a pause the old lady laid her gentle hand upon 
 my head and stroked back my hair in such a motherly 
 fashion. " My dear child," she said, half-sighing, " I 
 do wish my Ernest would only take a fancy to a sweet 
 young girl like you." 
 
 ** Mr. Carvalho does not seem quite a marrying 
 man," I answered, forcing a laugh ; " I notice he seldom 
 talks to ladies, but always to men, and those of the 
 solemnest." 
 
 " Ah, my dear, he has had a great disappointment, 
 a terrible disappointment," said the mother, unburden- 
 ing herself. " I can tell you all about it, for you are a 
 Jamaican born, and though you are one of the * proud 
 Palmettos' people you are not full of prejudices like 
 the rest of them, and so you will understand it. Before 
 we left Jamaica he was in love with a young lady 
 there ; he never told me her name, and that is the one 
 secret he has ever kept from me. Well, he talked to 
 her often, and he thought she was above the wicked 
 prejudices of race and color ; she seemed to encourage 
 him and to be fond of his society. At last he proposed 
 to her. Then she wrote him a cruel, cruel letter, a 
 letter that he never showed me, but he told me what 
 was in it ; and it drove him away from the island im- 
 mediately. It was a letter full of wicked reproaches 
 about our octaroon blood, and it broke his heart with 
 
CARVALHO. 293 
 
 the shock of its heartlessness. He has never cared for 
 any woman since." 
 
 " Then does he love her still ?** I asked, breathless. 
 
 " How can he ? No ! but he says he loves the mem- 
 ory of what he once thought her. He has seen her 
 since, somewhere in London, and spoken to her ; but 
 he can never love her again. Yet, do you know, I feel 
 sure he cannot help loving her in spite of himself ; and 
 he often goes out at night, I am sure, to watch her 
 door, to see her come in and out, for the sake of the 
 love he once bore her. My Ernest is not the sort of 
 man who can love twice in a lifetime." 
 
 " Perhaps," I said, coloring, " if he were to ask her 
 again she might accept him. Things are so different 
 here in England, and he is a famous man now." 
 
 Mrs. Carvalho shook her head slowly. " Oh, no !" 
 she answered ; " he would never importune or trouble 
 her. Though she has rejected him, he is too loyal to 
 the love he once bore her, too careful of wounding her 
 feelings or even her very prejudices, ever to obtrude his 
 love again upon her notice. If she cannot love him of 
 herself and for himself, spontaneously, he would not 
 weary her out with oft asking. He will never marry 
 now; of that I am certain." 
 
 My eyes filled with tears. As they did so, I tried 
 to brush them away unseen behind my fan, but Mrs. 
 Carvalho caught my glance, and looked sharply through 
 me with a sudden gleam of discovery. " Why," she 
 said very slowly and distinctly, with a pause and a 
 stress upon each word, '* I believe it must have been you 
 yourself. Miss Hazleden." And as she spoke she held 
 her open hand, palm outward, stretched against me 
 
294 , STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 with a gesture of horror, as one might shrink in alarm 
 from a coiled rattlesnake. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Carvalno," I cried, clasping my hands 
 before her, " do hear me, I entreat you ; do let me 
 explain to you how it all happened." 
 
 " There is no explanation possible," she answered 
 sternly. "Go. You have wrecked a life that might 
 otherwise have been happy and famous, and then you 
 come to a mother with an explanation !" 
 
 " That letter was not mine," I said boldly ; for I saw 
 that to put the truth shortly in that truest and 
 briefest form was the only way of getting her to 
 listen to me now. 
 
 She sank back in a chair and folded her hands 
 faintly one above the other. " Tell me it all," she 
 said in a weak voice. ** I will hear you." 
 
 So I told her all. I did not try to extenuate my 
 own weakness in writing from my mother's dictation ; 
 but I let her see what I had suffered then and what I 
 had suffered since. When I had finished, she drew me 
 towards her gently, and printed one kiss upon my 
 forehead. " It is hard to forget," she said softly, " but 
 you were very young and helpless, and your mother 
 was a terrible woman. The iron has entered into your 
 own soul too. Go home, dear, and I will see about 
 this matter." 
 
 We fell upon one another's necks, the Palmettos 
 slave-girl and I, and cried together glad tears for ten 
 minutes. Then I wiped my red eyes dry, covered 
 them with a double fold of my veil, and ran home 
 hurriedly in the dusk to auntie's. It was such a 
 terrible relief to have got it all over. 
 
 That evening about eleven o'clock, auntie had gone 
 
CARVALHO. 295 
 
 to bed, and I was sitting up by myself, musing late 
 over tl:e red cinders in the little back drawing-room 
 grate. I felt as though I couldn't sleep, and so I was 
 waiting up till I got sleepy. Suddenly there came a 
 loud knock and a ring at the bell, after which Amelia 
 ran in to say that a gentleman wanted to see me in 
 the dining-room on urgent business, and would I 
 please come down to speak with him immediately. I 
 knew at once it was Ernest. 
 
 The moment I entered the room, he never said a 
 word, but he took my two hands eagerly in his, and 
 then he kissed me fervently on the lips half a dozen 
 times over. " And now, Edith," he said, " we need 
 say no more about the past, for my mother has 
 explained it all to me ; we will only think about the 
 future." 
 
 I have no distinct recollection what o'clock it was 
 before Ernest left that evening ; but I know auntie 
 sent down word twice to say it was high time I went 
 to bed, and poor Amelia looked awfully tired and 
 very sleepy. However, it was settled then and there 
 that Ernest and I should be married early in October. 
 
 A few days later, after the engagement had been 
 announced to all our friends, dear Mrs. Bouverie 
 Barton paid me a congratulatory call. " You are a 
 very lucky girl, my dear," she said tome kindly. "We 
 are half envious of you ; I wish we could find another 
 such husband as Mr. Carvalho for my Christina. But 
 you have carried off the prize of the season, and you 
 are well worthy of him. It is a very great honor for 
 any girl to win and deserve the love of such a man as 
 Ernest Carvalho." 
 
 Will you believe it, so strangely do one's first 
 
296 
 
 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 impressions and early ideas about people cling to one, 
 that though I had often felt before how completely 
 the tables had been turned since we two came to 
 England, it had not struck me till that moment that 
 in the eyes of the world at large it was Ernest who 
 was doing an honor to me and not I who was doing an 
 honor to Ernest. I felt ashamed to think that Mrs. 
 Bouverie Barton should see instinctively the true state 
 of the case, while I, who loved and admired him so 
 greatly, should have let the shadow of that old preju- 
 dice stand even now between me and the lover I was 
 so proud to own. But when I took dear old Mrs. 
 Carvalho's hand in mine the day of our wedding, and 
 kissed her, and called her mother for the first time, I 
 felt that I had left the guilt and shame of slavery for 
 ever behind me, and that I should strive ever after to 
 live worthily of Ernest Carvalho's love. 
 
 ( . 
 
PAUSODYNE; 
 
 A GREAT CHEMICAL DISCOVERY. 
 
 Walking along the Strand one evening last year 
 towards Pall Mall, I was accosted near Charing Cross 
 Station by a strange-looking, middle-aged man in a 
 poor suit of clothes, who surprised and startled me by 
 asking if I could tell him from what inn the coach 
 usually started for York. 
 
 " Dear me !" I said, a little puzzled. " I didn't 
 know there was a coach to York. Indeed, I'm almost 
 certpin there isn't one." 
 
 The man looked puzzled and surprised in turn. 
 " No coach to York ?" he muttered to himself, half 
 inarticulately. " No coach to York ? How things 
 have changed ! I wonder whether nobody every goes 
 to York nowadays !" 
 
 " Pardon me," I said, anxious to discover what could 
 be his meaning ; " many people go to York every day, 
 but of course they go by rail." 
 
 " Ah, yes," he answered softly, " I see. Yes, of 
 course, they go by rail. They go by rail, no doubt. 
 How very stupid of me !" And he turned on his heel 
 as if to get away from me as quickly as possible. 
 
 I can't exactly say why, but I felt instinctively that 
 this curious stranger was trying to conceal from me 
 
 r297] 
 
298 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 his ignorance of what a railway really was. I was 
 quite certain from the way in which he spoke that he 
 had not the slightest conception what I meant, and 
 that he was doing his best to hide his confusion by 
 pretending to understand me. Here was indeed a 
 strange mystery. In the latter end of this nineteenth 
 century, in the metropolis of industrial England, 
 within a stone's-throw of Charing Cross terminus, I 
 had met an adult Englishman who apparently did not 
 know of the existence of railways. My curiosity was 
 too much piqued to let the matter rest there. I must 
 find out what he meant by it. I walked after him 
 hastily, as he tried to disappear among the crowd, and 
 laid my hand upon his shoulder, to his evident 
 chagrin. 
 
 " Excuse me," I said, drawing him aside down the 
 corner of Craven Street; "you did not understand 
 what I meant when I said people went to York by 
 rail?" 
 
 He looked in my face steadily, and then, instead of 
 replying to my remark, he said slowly. *' Your name 
 is Spottiswood, I believe ?" 
 
 Again I gave a start of surprise. " It is," I an- 
 swered ; " but I never remember to have seen you 
 before." 
 
 ** No," he replied, dreamily : " no, we have never 
 met till now, no doubt ; but I knew your father, I'm 
 sure ; or perhaps it may have been your grand- 
 father." 
 
 " Not my grandfather, certainly," said I, " for he was 
 killed at Waterloo." 
 
 " At Waterloo ! Indeed ! How long since, pray ?" 
 
 I could not refrain from laughing outright. " Why, 
 
PAUSODYNE. 299 
 
 of course," I answered, "in 181 5. There has been 
 nothing particular to kill off any large number of Eng- 
 lishmen at Waterloo since the year of the battle, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " True," he muttered, " quite true ; so I should 
 have fancied." But I saw again from the cloud of 
 doubt and bewilderment which came over his intelli- 
 gent face that the name of Waterloo conveyed no idea 
 whatsoever to his mind. 
 
 Never in my life had I felt so utterly confused and 
 astonished. In spite of his poor dress, I could easily 
 see from the clear-cut face and the refined accent of 
 my strange acquaintance that he was an educated gen- 
 tleman — a man accustomed to mix in cultivated soci- 
 ety. Yet he clearly knew nothing whatsoever about 
 railways, and was ignorant of the most salient facts in 
 English history. Had I suddenly come across some 
 Caspar Hauser, immured for years in a private prison, 
 and just let loose upon the world by his gaolers ? Or 
 was my mysterious stranger one of the Seven Sleepers 
 of- Ephesus, turned out unexpectedly in modern cos- 
 tume on thestreetsof London ? I don't suppose there 
 exists on earth a man more utterly free than I am 
 from any tinge of superstition, any lingering touch of 
 a love for the miraculous ; but I confess for a moment 
 I felt half inclined to suppose that the man before me 
 must have drunk the elixir of life, or must have dropped 
 suddenly upon earth from some distant planet. 
 
 The impulse to fathom this mystery was irresistible. 
 I drew my arm through his. " If you knew my 
 father," I said, " you will not object to come into my 
 chambers and take a glass of wine with me." 
 
 " Thank you," he answered, half suspiciously ; 
 
300 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 " thank you very much. I think you look like a man 
 who can be trusted, and I will go with you." 
 
 We walked along the Embankment to Adelphi Ter- 
 race, where I took him up to my rooms, and seated 
 him in my easy-chair near the window. As he sat 
 down, one of the trains on the Metropolitan line 
 whirred past the Terrace, snorting steam and whistling 
 shrilly, after the fashion of Metropolitan engines gen- 
 erally. My mysterious stranger jumped back in alarm, 
 and seemed to be afraid of some immediate catas- 
 trophe. There was absolutely no possibility of doubt- 
 ing it. The man had obviously never seen a locomotive 
 before. 
 
 " Evidently," I said, "you do not know London. I 
 suppose you are a colonist from some remote district, 
 perhaps an Australian from the interior somewhere, 
 just landed at the Tower?" 
 
 " No, not an Austrian " — I noted his misapprehen- 
 sion — " but a Londoner born and bred." 
 
 " How is it, then, that you seem never to have seen 
 an engine before ?" 
 
 "Can I trust you ?" he asked in a piteously plaintive, 
 half-terrified tone. " If I tell you all about it, will you 
 at least not aid in persecuting and imprisoning me ?" 
 
 I was touched by his evident grief and terror. " No," 
 I answered, "you may trust me implicitly. I feel 
 sure there is something in your history which entitles 
 you to sympathy and protection." 
 
 " Well," he replied, grasping my hand warmly, " I 
 will tell you all my story ; but you must be prepared 
 for something almost too startling to be credible." 
 
 " My name is Jonathan Spottiswood," he began 
 calmly. v, . 
 
■v 
 
 PAUSODYNE. ^ 301 
 
 Again I experienced a marvellouis start ; Jonathan 
 Spottiswood was the name of my great-great-uncle, 
 whose unaccountable disappearance from London just 
 a century since had involved our family in so much pro- 
 tracted litigation as to the succession to his property. 
 In fact, it was Jonathan Spottiswood's money which 
 at that moment formed the 'ou\k of my little fortune. 
 But I would not interrupt him, so great was my anxiety 
 to hear the story of his life. 
 
 "I was born in London," he went on, "in 1750. If 
 you can hear me say that and yet believe that possibly 
 I am not a madman, I will tell you the rest of my tale ; 
 if not, I shall go at once and for ever." 
 
 " I suspend judgment for the present," I answered. 
 " What you say is extraordinary, but not more ex- 
 traordinary perhaps than the clear anachronism of 
 your ignorance about locomotives in the midst of the 
 present century." 
 
 "So be it, the/. Well, I will tell you the facts 
 briefly in as few words as I can. I was always much 
 given to experimental philosophy, and I spent most of 
 my time in the little laboratory which I had built for 
 myself behind my father's house in the Strand. I had 
 a small independent fortune of my own, left me by an 
 uncle who had made successful ventures in the China 
 trade ; and as I was indisposed to follow my father's 
 profession of solicitor, I gave myself up almost entirely 
 to the pursuit of natural philosophy, following the re- 
 searches of the great Mr. Cavendish, our chief English 
 thinker in this kind, as well as of Monsieur Lavoisier, 
 the ingenious French chemist, and of my friend Dr. 
 Priestley, the Birmingham philosopher, whose new 
 theory of phlogiston I have been much concerned to 
 
302 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 consider and to promulgate. But the especial subject 
 to which I devoted myself was the elucidation of the 
 nature of fixed air. I do not know how far you your- 
 self may happen to have heard respecting these late 
 discoveries in chemical science, but I dare venture to 
 say that you are at least acquainted with the nature 
 of the body to which I refer." 
 
 ** Perfectly," I answered with a smile, "though your 
 terminology is now a little out of date. Fixed air was, 
 I believe, the old-fashioned name for carbonic acid 
 gas." 
 
 "Ah," he cried vehemently, "that accursed word 
 again ! Carbonic acid has undone me, clearly. Yes, 
 if you will have it so, that seems to be what they call 
 it in this extraordinary century ; but fixed air was the 
 name we used to give it in our time, and fixed air is 
 what I must call it, of course in telling you my story. 
 Well, I was deeply interested in this curious question, 
 and also in some of the results which I obtained from 
 working with fixed air in combination with a substance 
 I had produced from the essential oil of a weed 
 known to us in England as lady's mantle, but which 
 the learned Mr. Carl Linna:us describes in his system 
 as Alchemilla vulgaris. .From that weed I obtained 
 an oil which I combined with a certain decoction of 
 fixed air into a remarkable compound ; and to this 
 compound, from its singular properties, I proposed to 
 give the name of Pausodyne. For some years I was 
 almost wholly engaged in investigating the conduct of 
 this remarkable agent ; and lest I should weary you 
 by entering into too much detail, I may as well say at 
 once that it possessed the singular power of entirely 
 suspending animation in men or animals for several 
 
PAUSODYNE. 303 
 
 hours together. It is a highly volatile oil, like 
 ammonia in smell, but much thicker in gravity ; and 
 when held to the nose of an animal, it causes immedi- 
 ate stoppage of the heart's action, makii.^ ♦^ac body 
 seem quite dead for long periods at a time. But the 
 moment a mixture of the pausodyne with oil of vitriol 
 and gum resin is presented to the nostrils, the animal 
 instantaneously revives exactly as before, showing no 
 sign of evil effects whatsoever from its temporary 
 simulation of death. To the reviving mixture I have 
 given the appropriate name of Anegeiric. 
 
 ** Of course you will instantly see the valuable medi- 
 cal applications which may be made of such an agent. 
 I used it at first for experimenting upon the amputa- 
 tion of limbs and other surgical operations. It suc- 
 ceeded admirably. I found that a dog under the in- 
 fluence of pausodyne suffered his leg, which had been 
 broken in a street accident, to be set and spliced with- 
 out the slightest symptom of feeling or discomfort. A 
 cat shot with a pistol by a cruel boy, had the bullet 
 extracted without moving a muscle. My assistant, 
 having allowed his little finger to mortify from neglect 
 of a burn, permitted me to try the effect of my discov- 
 ery upon himself ; and I removed the injured joints 
 while he remained in a state of complete insensibility, 
 so that he could hardly believe afterwards in the 
 actual truth of their removal. I felt certain that I 
 had invented a medical process of the very highest 
 and greatest utility. 
 
 "All this took place in or before the year 1781. 
 How long ago that may be according to your modern 
 reckoning I cannot say ; but to me it seems hardly 
 more than a few months since, Perhaps you would 
 
 „ / 
 
304 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 not mind telling me the date of the current year. I 
 have never been able to ascertain it." 
 
 ** This is 1 88 1," I said, growing every moment more 
 interested in his tale. 
 
 ** Thank you. I gathered that we must now be 
 somewhere near the close of the nineteenth century, 
 though I could not learn the exact date with certainty. 
 Well, I should tell you, my dear sir, that I had con- 
 tracted an engagement about the year 1779 with a 
 young lady of most remarkable beauty and attractive 
 mental gifts, a Miss Amelia Spragg, daughter of the 
 well-known General Sir Thomas Spragg, with whose 
 achievements you are doubtless familiar. Pardon 
 me, my friend of another age, pardon me, I beg of 
 you, if I cannot allude to this subject without emotion 
 after a lapse of time which to you doubtless seems like 
 a century, but is to me a matter of some few months 
 only at the utmost. I feel towards her as towards one 
 whom I have but recently lost, though I now find that 
 she has been dead for more than eighty years." As 
 he spoke, the tears came into his eyes profusely ; and 
 I could see that under the external calmness and 
 quaintness of his eighteenth century language and de- 
 meanor his whole nature was profoundly stirred at the 
 thought of his lost love. 
 
 *' Look here," he continued, taking from his breast 
 a large, old-fashioned gold locket containing a minia- 
 ture ; " that is her portrait, by Mr. Walker, and a very 
 truthful likeness indeed. They left me that when they 
 took away my clothes at the Asylum, for I would not 
 consent to part with it, and the pb^-sician in attend- 
 ance observed that to deprive me of it might only in- 
 crease the frequency and violence of my paroxysms. 
 
PAUSODYNE. 305 
 
 For I will not conceal from you the fact that I have 
 just escaped from a pauper lunatic establishment." 
 
 I took the miniature which he handed me, and looked 
 at it closely. It was the picture of a young and beau- 
 tiful girl, with the features and costume of a Sir Joshua. 
 I recognized the face at once as that of a lady whose 
 portrait by Gainsborough hangs on the walls of my 
 uncle's dining-room at Whittingham Abbey. It was 
 strange indeed to hear a living man speak of himself as 
 the former lover of this, to me, historic personage. 
 
 "Sir Thomas, however," he went on, "was much op- 
 posed to our union, on the ground of some real or 
 fancied social disparity in our positions ; but I at last 
 obtained his conditional consent, if only I could suc- 
 ceed in obtaining the Fellowship of the Royal Society, 
 which might, he thought, be accepted as a passport 
 into that fashionable circle of which he was a member. 
 Spurred on by this ambition, and by the encourage- 
 ment of my Amelia, I worked day and night at the 
 perfectioning of my great discovery, which I was 
 assured would bring not only honor and dignity to 
 myself, but also the alleviation and assuagement of 
 pain to countless thousands of my fellow-creatures. I 
 concealed the nature of my experiments, however, lest 
 any rival investigator should enter the field with me 
 prematurely, and share the credit to which I alone was 
 really entitled. For some months I was successful in 
 my efforts at concealment ; but in March of this year — 
 I mistake; of the year 1781, I should say — an unfor- 
 tunate circumstance caused me to take special and 
 exceptional precautions against intrusion. 
 
 " I was then conducting my experiments upon living 
 animals, and especially upon the extirpation of certain 
 
(■■ 
 
 3o6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 painful internal diseases to which they are subject. I 
 had a number of suffering cats in my laboratory, which 
 I had treated with pausodyne, and stretched out on 
 boards for the purpose of removing the tumors with 
 which they were afflicted. I had no doubt that in this 
 manner, while directly benefiting the animal creation, 
 I should indirectly obtain the necessary skill to operate 
 successfully upon human beings in similar circum- 
 stances. Already I had completely cured several cats 
 without any pain whatsoever, and I was anxious to pro- 
 ceed to the human subject. Walking one morning in 
 the Strand, I found a beggar woman outside a gin- 
 shop, quite drunk, with a small, ill-clad child by her 
 side, suffering the most excruciating torments from a 
 perfectly remediable cause. I induced the mother to 
 accompany me to my laboratory, and there I treated 
 the poor little creature with pausodyne, and began to 
 operate upon her with perfect confidence of success. 
 
 ** Unhappily, my laboratory had excited the suspicion 
 of many ill-disposed persons among the low mob of the 
 neighborhood. It was whispered abroad that I was 
 what they called a vivisectionist ; and these people, 
 who would willingly have attended a bull-baiting or a 
 prize fight, found themselves of a sudden wondrous 
 humane when scientific procedure was under consider- 
 ation. Besides, I had made myself unpopular by re- 
 ceiving visits from my friend Dr. Priestley, whose 
 religious opinions were not satisfactory to the strict 
 orthodoxy of St. Giles's. I was rumored to be a phil- 
 osopher, a torturer of live animals, and an atheist. 
 Whether the former accusation were true or not, let 
 others decide ; the two latter, heaven be my witness, 
 were wholly unfounded. However, when the neigh- 
 
'' %■ 
 
 PAUSODYNE. 307 
 
 boring raoble saw a drunken worn. i with a little girl 
 entering my door, a report got abroad at once that I 
 was going to vivisect a Christian child. The mob soon 
 collected in force, and broke into the laboratory. At 
 that moment I was engaged, with my assistant, in 
 operating upon the girl, while several cats, all com- 
 pletely anaestheticized, were bound down on the boards 
 around, awaiting the healing of their wounds after the 
 removal of tumors. At the sight of such apparent tor- 
 tures the people grew wild with rage, and happening 
 in their transports to fling down a large bottle of the 
 anegeiric, or reviving mixture, the child and the ani- 
 mals all at once recovered consciousness, and began of 
 course to writhe and scream with acute pain. I need 
 not describe to you the scene that ensued. My labor- 
 atory was wrecked, my assistant severely injured, and 
 I myself barely escaped with my life. 
 
 " After this contretemps I determined to be more 
 cautious. I took the lease of a new house at Hamp- 
 stead, and in the garden I determined to build myself 
 a subterranean laboratory where I might be absolute- 
 ly free from intrusion. I hired some laborers from 
 Bath for this purpose, and I explained to them the 
 nature of my wishes, and the absolute necessity of 
 secrecy. A high wall surrounded the garden, and 
 here the workmen worked securely and unseen. I 
 concealed my design even from my dear brother — 
 whose great-grandson I suppose you must be — and 
 when the building was finished, I sent my men back 
 to Bath, with strict injunctions never to mention the 
 matter to any one. A trapdoor in the cellar, artfully 
 concealed, gave access to the passage ; a large oak 
 portal, bound with iron, shut me securely in ; and my 
 
308 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 air supply was obtained by means of pipes communi- 
 cating through blank spaces in the brick wall of the 
 garden with the outer atmosphere. Every arrange- 
 ment for concealment was perfect ; and I resolved in 
 future, till my results were perfectly established, that 
 I would dispense with the aid of an assistant. 
 
 " I was in high spirits when I went to visit my 
 Amelia that evening, and I told her confidently that 
 before the end of the year I expected to gain the gold 
 medal of the Royal Society. The dear girl was pleased 
 at my glowing prospects, and gave me every assur- 
 ance of the delight with which she hailed the proba- 
 bility of our approaching union. 
 
 " Next day I began my experiments afresh in my 
 new quarters. I bolted myself into the laboratory, 
 and set to work with renewed vigor. I was experi- 
 menting upon an injured dog, and I placed a large 
 bottle of pausodyne beside me as I administered the 
 drug to his nostrils. The rising fumes seemed to af- 
 fect my head more than usual in that confined space, 
 and I tottered a little as I worked. My arm grew 
 weaker, and at last fell powerless to my side. As it 
 fell it knocked down the large bottle of pausodyne, 
 and I saw the liquid spreading over the floor. That 
 was almost the last thing that I knew. I staggered 
 toward the door, but did not reach it ; and then I re^. 
 member nothing more for a considerable period." 
 
 He wiped his forehead with his sleeve — he had no 
 handkerchief — and then proceeded. 
 
 " When I woke up again the effects of the pausodyne 
 had worn themselves out, and I felt that I must have 
 remained unconscious for at least a week or a fort- 
 night. My candle had gone out, and I could not find 
 
PAUSODYNE. 309 
 
 my tinderbox. I rose up slowly and with difficulty, 
 for the air of the room was close and filled with fumes, 
 and made my way in the dark towards the door. To 
 my surprise, the bolt was so stiff with rust that it would 
 hardly move. I opened it after a struggle, and found 
 myself in the passage. Groping my way towards the 
 trapdoor of the cellar, I felt it was obstructed by 
 some heavy body. With an immense effort, for my 
 strength seemed but feeble, I pushed it up, and dis- 
 covered that a heap of sea-coals lay on top of it. I 
 extricated myself into the cellar, and there a fresh sur- 
 prise awaited me. A new entrance had been made in- 
 to the front, so that I walked out at once upon the 
 open road, instead of up the stairs into the kitchen. 
 Looking up at the exterior of my house, my brain 
 reeled with bewilderment when I saw that it had dis- 
 appeared almost entirely, and that a different porch 
 and wholly unfamiliar windows occupied its fagade. 
 I must have slept far longer than I at first imagined — 
 perhaps a whole year or more. A vague terror pre- 
 vented me from walking up the steps of my own home. 
 Possibly my brother, thinking me dead, might have 
 sold the lease ; possibly some stranger might resent 
 my intrusion into the house that was now his own. 
 At any rate, I thought it safer to walk into the road. 
 I would go towards London, to my brother's house in 
 St. Mary le Bone. I turned into the Hampstead 
 Road, and directed my steps thitherward. 
 
 " Again, another surprise began to affect me with a 
 horrible and ill-defined sense of awe. Not a single 
 object that I saw was really familiar to me. I rec- 
 ognized that I was in the Hampstead Road, but it was 
 not the Hampstead Road which I used to know before 
 
310 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 my fatal experiments. The houses were far more 
 numerous, the trees were bigger and older. A year, 
 nay, even a few years would not have sufficed for such 
 a change. I began to fear that I had slept away a 
 whole decade. 
 
 " It was early morning, and few people were yet 
 abroad. But the costume of those whom I met 
 seemed strange and fantastic to me. Moreover, I 
 noticed that they all turned and looked after me with 
 evident surprise, as though my dress caused them 
 quite as much astonishment as theirs caused me. I 
 was quietly attired in my snuff-colored suit of small- 
 clothes, with silk stockings and simple buckle shoes, 
 and I had of course no hat ; but I gathered that my 
 appearance caused universal amazement and concern, 
 far more than could be justified by the mere accidental 
 absence of headgear. A dread began to oppress me 
 that I might actually have slept out my whole age 
 and generation. Was my Amelia alive? and if so, 
 would she be still the same Amelia I had known a 
 week or two before ? Should I find her an aged 
 woman, still cherishing a reminiscence of her former 
 love ; or might she herself perhaps be dead and for- 
 gotten, while I remained, alone and solitary, in a world 
 which knew me not ? 
 
 " I walked along unmolested, but with reeling brain, 
 through streets more and more unfamiliar, till I came 
 near the St. Mary Ic Bone Road. There, as I hesitated 
 a little and staggered at the crossing, a man in a curi- 
 ous suit of dark blue clothes, with a grotesque felt 
 helmet on his head, whom I afterwards found to be a 
 constable, came up and touched me on the shoulder. 
 
 " * Look here,' he said to me in a rough voice, 
 
PAUSODYNE. 31 1 
 
 * what are you a-doin' in this 'ere fancy-dress at this 
 hour in the mornin' ? YouVe lost your way home, I 
 take it.* 
 
 "'I was going,* I answered, 'to the St. Mary le 
 Bone Road.* 
 
 *' * Why, you image,* says he rudely, ' if you mean 
 Marribon, why don't you say Marribon ? What house 
 are you a-lookin' for, eh ?* 
 
 " ' My brother lives,' I replied, * at the Lamb, near 
 St. Mary*s Church, and I was going to his residence.' 
 
 " * The Lamb !' says he, with a rude laugh ; * there 
 ain't no public of that name in the road. It*s my 
 belief,' he goes on after a moment, * that you're drunk, 
 or mad, or else you've stole them clothes. Any way, 
 you've got to go along with me to the station, so walk 
 it, will you ?* 
 
 " 'Pardon me,* I said, ' I suppose you are an officer 
 of the law, and I would not attempt to resist your 
 authority' — ' You'd better not,' says he, half to him- 
 self — ' but I should like to go to my brother's house, 
 where I could show you that I am a respectable 
 person.' 
 
 ** * Well,' says my fellow insolently, * I'll go along of 
 you if you like, and if it's all right, I suppose you 
 won't mind standing a bob ?' 
 
 *• * A what ?' said L 
 
 " * A bob,' says he, laughing ; ' a shillin*, you know.' 
 
 " To get rid of his insolence for a while, I pulled 
 out my purse and handed him a shilling. It was a 
 George II. with milled edges, not like the things I see 
 you use now. He held it up and looked at it, and 
 then he said again, * Look here, you know, this isn't 
 good. You'd better conrie along with me straight tq 
 
312 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 the station, and not make a fuss about it. There's 
 three charges against you, that's all. One is, that . 
 you're drunk. The second is, that you're mad. And 
 the third is, that you've been trying to utter false coin. 
 Any one of 'em's quite enough to justify me in takin* 
 you into custody.' 
 
 "I saw it was no use to resist, and I went along with 
 him. 
 
 " I won't trouble you with the whole of the details, 
 but the upshot of it all was, they took me before a 
 magistrate. By this time I had begun to realize the 
 full terror of the situation, and I saw clearly that the 
 real danger lay in the inevitable suspicion of madness 
 under which I must labor. When I got into the court 
 I told the magistrate my story very shortly and simply, 
 just as I have told it to you now. He listened to me 
 without a word, and at the end he turned round to his 
 clerk, and said, * This is clearly a case for Dr. Fitz- 
 Jenkins, I think.' 
 
 " * Sir,' I said, ' before you send me to a madhouse, 
 which I suppose is what you mean by those words, I 
 trust you will at least examine the evidences of my 
 story. Look at my clothing, look at these coins, look 
 at everything about me.' And I handed him my purse 
 to see for himself. 
 
 " He looked at it for a minute, and then he turned 
 towards me very sternly. * Mr. Spottiswood,' he said, 
 'or whatever else your real name may be, if this is a 
 joke, it is a very foolish and unbecoming one. Your 
 dress is no doubt very well designed ; your small col- 
 lection of coins is interesting and well-selected ; and 
 you have got up your character remarkably well. If 
 you are really sane^ which I suspect to be the case, ; ; 
 
PAUSODYNE. 313 
 
 then your studied attempt to waste the time of this 
 court and to make a laughing-stock of its magistrate, 
 will meet with the punishment it deserves. I shall 
 remit your case for consideration to our medical 
 officer. If you consent to give him your real name 
 and address, you will be liberated after his examina- 
 tion. Otherwise, it will be necessary to satisfy our- 
 selves as to your identity. Not a word more, sir,' he 
 continued, as I tried to speak on behalf of my story. 
 * Inspector, remove the prisoner.' 
 
 " They took me away, and the surgeon examined 
 me. To cut things short, I was pronounced mad, and 
 three days later the commissioners passed me for a 
 pauper asylum. When I came to be examined, they 
 said I showed no recollection of most subjects of ordi- 
 nary education. 
 
 " * I am a chemist,' said I ; ' try me with some chem- 
 ical questions. You will see that I can answer sanely 
 enough.* 
 
 " ' How do you mix a gray powder ?' said the com- 
 missioner. 
 
 " * Excuse me,* I said, * I mean a chemical philoso- 
 pher, not an apothecary.' 
 
 " ' Oh^ very well, then ; what is carbonic acid ?' 
 
 " * I never heard of it,' I answered in despair. * It 
 must be something which has come into use since — 
 since I left off learning chemistry.* For I had discov- 
 ered that my only chance now was to avoid all refer- 
 ence to my past life and the extraordinary calamity 
 which had thus unexpectedly overtaken me. ' Please 
 try me with something else.* 
 
 " ' Oh, certainly. What is the atomic weight of 
 chlorine ?* 
 
314 STRANGE STORIES. * ' 
 
 ** I could only answer that I did not know. 
 
 " * This is a very clear case,' said the commissioner. 
 * Evidently he is a gentleman by birth and education, 
 but he can give no very satisfactory account of his 
 friends, and till they come forward to claim him we 
 can only send him for a time to North Street.* 
 
 " * For heaven's sake, gentlemen,' I cried, * before you 
 consign me to an asylum, give me one more chance. I 
 am perfectly sane ; I remember all I ever knew ; but 
 you are asking me questions about subjects on which 
 1 never had any information. Ask me anything his- 
 torical, and see whether I have forgotten or confused 
 any of my facts.' 
 
 *' I will do the commissioner the justice to say that 
 he seemed anxious not to decide upon the case without 
 full consideration. 'Tell me what you can recollect,' 
 he said, ' as to the reign of George IV.' 
 
 " * I know nothing at all about it,* I answered, terror- 
 stricken, * but oh, do pray ask me anything up to the 
 time of George III.' 
 
 *' ' Then please say what you think of the French 
 Revolution.' 
 
 " I was thunderstruck. I could make no reply, and 
 the commissioners shortly signed the papers to send 
 me to North Street pauper asylum. They hurried me 
 into the street, and I walked beside my captors towards 
 the prison to which they had consigned me. Yet I 
 did not give up all hope even so of ultimately regain- 
 ing my freedom. I thought the rationality of my 
 demeanor and the obvious soundness of all my reason- 
 ing powers would sufifice in time to satisfy the medical 
 attendant as to my perfect sanity. I felt sure that 
 
. PAUSODYNE. 315 
 
 people could never long mistake a man so clear-headed 
 and collected as mvself for a madman. 
 
 " On our way, however, we happened to pass a 
 churchyard where some workmen were engaged in re- 
 moving a number of old tombstones from the crowded 
 area. Even in my existing agitated condition, I could 
 not help catching the name and date on one moulder- 
 ing slab which a laborer had just placed upon the edge 
 of the pavement. It ran something like this : Sacred 
 to the memory of Amelia, second daughter of the late 
 Sir Thomas Spragg, knight, and beloved wife of Henry 
 McAlister, Esq., by whom this stone is erected. Died 
 May 20, 1799, aged 44 years.' Though I had gathered 
 already that my dear girl must probably have long 
 been dead, yet the reality of the fact had not yet had 
 time to fix itself upon my mind. You must remember, 
 my dear sir, that I had but awaked a few days earlier 
 from my long slumber, and that during those days I 
 had been harassed and agitated by such a flood of 
 incomprehensible complications, that I could not really 
 grasp in all its fullness the complete isolation of my 
 present position. When I saw the tombstone of one 
 whom, as it seemed to me, I had loved passionately 
 but a week or two before, I could not refrain from 
 rushing to embrace it, and covering the insensible 
 stone with my boiling tears. * Oh, my Amelia, my 
 Amelia,' I cried, *I shall never again behold thee, then ! 
 I shall never again press thee to my heart, or hear thy 
 dear lips pronounce my name !' 
 
 " But the unfeeling wretches who had charge of me 
 were far from being moved to sympathy by my bitter 
 grief. 'Died in 1799,* said one of them with a sneer. 
 ' Why, this madman's blubbering over the grave of 
 
3l6 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 I 
 
 an old lady who has been buried for about a hundred 
 years !* And the workmen joined in their laughter as 
 my gaolers tore me away to the prison where I was to 
 spend the remainder of my days. 
 
 " When we arrived at the asylum, the surgeon in 
 attendance was informed of this circumstance, and the 
 opinion that I was hopelessly mad thus became 
 ingrained in his whole conceptions of my case. I re- 
 mained five months or more in the asylum, but I never 
 saw any chance of creating a more favorable impression 
 on the minds of the authorities. Mixing as I did only 
 with other patients, I could gain no clear ideas of what 
 had happened since I had taken my fatal sleep ; and 
 whenever I endeavored to question the keepers, they 
 amused themselves by giving me evidently false and 
 inconsistent answers, in order to enjoy my chagrin and 
 confusion. I could not even learn the actual date of 
 the present year, for one keeper would laugh and say 
 it was 200I, while another would confidentially advise 
 me to date my petition to the Commissioners, ** Jan. 
 I, A. D. one million." The surgeon, who never played 
 me any such pranks, yet refused to aid me in any way, 
 lest as he said, he should strengthen me in my sad 
 delusion. He was convinced that I must be an histor- 
 ical student, whose reason had broken down through 
 too close study of the eighteenth century ; and he felt 
 certain that sooner or later my friends would come to 
 claim me. He is a gentle and humane man, against 
 whom I have no personal complaint to make ; but his 
 initial misconception prevented him and everybody 
 else from ever paying the least attention to my story. 
 I could not even induce them to make inquiries at my 
 house at Hampstead, where the discovery of the sub- 
 
PAUSODYNE. 317 
 
 terranean laboratory would have partially proved the 
 truth of my account. 
 
 Many visitors came to the asylum from time to time, 
 and they were always told that I possessed a minute 
 and remarkable acquaintance with the history of the 
 eighteenth century. They questioned me about facts 
 which are as vivid in my memory as those of the present 
 month, and were much surprised at the accuracy of 
 my replies. But they only thought it strange that so 
 clever a man should be so very mad, and that my in- 
 formation should be so full as to past events, while 
 my notions about the modern world were so utterly 
 chaotic. The surgeon, however, always believed that 
 my reticence about all events posterior to 1781 was a 
 part of my insanity. I had studied the early part 
 of the eighteenth century so fully, he said, that I 
 fancied I had lived in it ; and I had persuaded myself 
 that I knew nothing at all about the subsequent state 
 of the world." 
 
 The poor fellow stopped a while, and again drew 
 his sleeve across his forehead. It was impossible to 
 look at him and believe for a moment that he was a 
 madman. 
 
 " And how did you make your escape from the asy- 
 lum ?" I asked. 
 
 " Now, this very evening," he answered ; " I simply 
 broke away from the door and ran down toward the 
 Strand, till I came to a place that looked a little like 
 St. Martin's Fields, with a great column and some 
 fountains, and near there I met you. It seemed to 
 me that the best thing to do was to catch the York 
 coach and get away from the town as soon as possible. 
 You met me, and your look and name inspired me 
 
3l8 STRANGE STORIES. 
 
 with confidence. I believe you must be a descendant 
 of my dear brother." 
 
 "I have not the slightest doubt," I answered sol- 
 emnly, " that every word of your story is true, and 
 that you are really my great-great-unclc. My own 
 knowledge of our family history exactly tallies with 
 what you tell me. I shall spare no endeavor to clear up 
 this extraordinary matter, and to put you once more 
 in your true position." 
 
 " And you will protect me ?" he cried, fervently, clasp- 
 ing my hand in both his own with intense eageri^ess. 
 " You will not give me u[ Dnce more to the asylum 
 people ?" 
 
 " I will do everything on earth that is possible for 
 you," I replied. 
 
 He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it several 
 times, while I felt hot tears falling upon it as he bent 
 over me. It was a strange position, look at it how you 
 will. Grant that I was but the dupe of a madman, yet 
 even to believe for a moment that I, a man of well- 
 nigh fifty, stood there in face of my own great-grand- 
 father's brother, to all appearance some twenty years 
 my junior, was in itself an extraordinary and marvellous 
 thing. Both of us were too overcome to speak. It 
 was a few minutes before we said anything, and then a 
 loud knock at the door made my hunted stranger rise 
 up hastily in terror from his chair. 
 
 " Gracious heavens !" he cried, " they have tracked 
 me hither. They are coming to fetch me. Oh, hide 
 me, hide me, anywhere from these wretches !" 
 
 As he spoke, the door opened, and two keepers with 
 a policeman, entered my room. 
 
 " Ah, here he is !" said one of them, advancing to- 
 
TAUSODYNE. ' 319 
 
 wards the fugitive, who shrank away towards the win- 
 dow as he approached. 
 
 " Do not touch him," I exclaimed, throwing myself 
 in the way. " Every word of what he says is true, and 
 he is no more insane than I am." 
 
 The keeper laughed a low laugh of vulgar incredu- 
 lity. " Why, there's a pair of you, I do believe," he 
 said. " You're just as mad yourself as t'other one." 
 And he pushed me aside roughly to get at his charge. 
 
 But the poor fellow, seeing him come towards him, 
 seemed suddenly to grow instinct with a terrible vigor, 
 and hurled off the keeper with one hand, as a strong 
 man might do with a little terrier. Then, before we 
 could see what he was meditating, he jumped upon 
 the ledge of the open window, shouted out loudly, 
 " Farewell, farewell !" and leapt with a spring on to 
 the Embankment beneath. 
 
 All four of us rushed hastily down the three flights 
 of steps to the bottom, and came below upon a 
 crushed and mangled mass on the si)attered pavement. 
 He was quite dead. Even the policeman was shocked 
 and horrified at the dreadful way in which the body 
 had been crushed and mutilated in its fall, and at the 
 suddenness and unexpectedness of the tragedy. We 
 took him up and laid him out in my room ; and from 
 that room he was interred after the incpiest, with all 
 the respect which I should have paid to an undoubted 
 relative. On his grave in Kensal Green Cemetery 1 have 
 placed a stone bearing the simple inscription, " Jona- 
 than Spottiswood. Died 1 88 1." The hint 1 had re- 
 ceived from the keeper prevented me from saying any- 
 thing as to my belief in his story, but I asked for leave 
 to undertake the duty of his interment on the ground 
 that he bore my own surname, and that no other per- 
 
320 STRANGE STORIES. ' 
 
 son was forthcoming to assume the task. The paro- 
 chial authorities were glad enough to rid the ratepay- 
 ers of the expense. 
 
 At the inquest I gave my evidence simply and 
 briefly, dwelling mainly upon the accidental nature of 
 our meeting, and the facts as to his fatal leap. I said 
 nothing about the known disappearance of Jonathan 
 Spottiswood in 1781, nor the other points which gave 
 credibility to his strange tale. But from this day for- 
 ward I give myself up to proving the truth of his 
 story, and realizing the splendid chemical discovery 
 which promises so much benefit to mankind. Forthefirst 
 purpose, I have offered a large reward for the discovery 
 of a trapdoor in a coal-cellar at Hampstead, leading 
 into a subterranean passage and laboratory ; since, 
 unfortunately, my unhappy visitor did not happen to 
 mention the position of his house. For the second 
 purpose, I have begun a series af experiments upon 
 the properties of the essential oil of alchemilla, and 
 the possibility of successfully treating it with car- 
 bonic anhydride ; since, unfortunately, he was equally 
 vague as to the nature of his process and the pro- 
 portions of either constituent. Many people will con- 
 clude at once, no doubt, that I myself have become 
 infected with the monomania of my miserable name- 
 sake, but I am determined at any rate, not to allow 
 so extraordinary an anaesthic to go unacknowledged, 
 if there be even a remote chance of actually proving 
 its useful nature. Meanwhile, I say nothing even to 
 my dearest friends with regard to the researches upon 
 which I am engaged. 
 
 •, THE END.