I II , 1 1 iim 0»'Vi*fO'miii tuat t mMitmfi * Mim»M i >M ii^ y»y m rftm m mm r MMm MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS AUTHOR'S AUTOGRAPH EDITION Cloth Gilt 2s. 6d. Picture Boards 2s. I. LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET. 29. 2. HENRY DUNBAR. 30. 3- ELEANOR'S VICTORY. 3'- 4- AURORA FLOYD. 32- 5- JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY. 33- 6. THE DOCTOR'S WIFE. 34- 7- ONLY A CLOD. 35- 8. SIR JASPER'S TENANT. 36. 9- TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. 37- lO. LADY'S MILE. 38. II. LADY LISLE. 39- 12. CAPTAIN OF THE VULTURE. 40. 13- BIRDS OF PRP;Y. 41. 14- CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE. 42. 15- RUPERT GODWIN. 43- i6. RUN TO EARIH. 44. J7- DEAD SEA FRUIT. 4S- i8. RALPH THE BAILIFF. 46. 19. FENTON'S QUEST. 47- 20. LOVELS OF ARDEN. 48. 21. ROBERT AINSLEIGH. 49. 22. TO THE BITTER END. 50. 23- MILLY DARRELL. SI- 24. STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS. 52. 25- LUCIUS DAVOREN. S3- 26. TAKEN AT THE FLOOD. 54- 27- LOST FOR LOVE. 55. 23. A STRANGE WORLD. 56. HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE DEAD MEN'S SHOES JOSHUA HAGGARD. WEAVERS AND WEFT, AN OPEN VERDICT VIXEN. THE CLOVEN FOOT THE STORY OF BARBARA. JUST AS I AM. ASPHODEL. MOUNT ROYAL. THE GOLDEN CALF. PHANTOM FORTUNE. FLOWER AND WEED. ISHMAEL. WYLLARD'S WEIRD. UNDER THE RED FLAG. ONE THING NEEDFUL. MOHAWKS. LIKE AND UNLIKE. THE FATAL THREE. THE DAY WILL COME. ONE LIFE, ONE LOVE. GERARD. THE VENETIANS. ALL ALONG THE RIVER. THOU ART THE MAN. SONS OF FIRE. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNI* RIVERSIDE THE TRAIL 01^ THE SERPENT BT THE AUTHOB OF ' LADY AUDLEI'S SECEET/ 'AURORA FLOYU' » VIXEN,' 'ISHMAEL,' hto., bto. •• Poor race of men, said the pitying Spirit, Dearly ye pay for jour primal fall ; Some flowers of Eden ye yet ioherit, But the trail of the Serpent is over them all *' Moori, l^ttKolgptb (Bbilion LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO, UMlTlkO, STATIONERS' HALL COURT [All rights rttereeiA MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS. Now Ready at all Booksellers' and Bookstalls, Price 2«. 6d. each, Cloth gilt, THE AUTHOE'S AUTOGRAPH EDITION OF MISS BRADDON'S NOVELL " No one can be dull who bas • novel by Miss Braddon In hand. The most tiresome juvrzi^y is b»'gtyled, aud tho most wearisome Ulne.-s is brightened, by any one ot be> books." "Miss Braddou is the Queen of the circulating lUraries.' rU WorXA. LONDON J SIMPKIN & CO., Limited, Stationebs' Hall Codbt, Af^ at all Railway Bookstalls, Booksellers^, and Libraries. CONTENTS ^ooK tijf Jfirsi. A EESPECTABLE YOUNG MAN. CHAP. I. The Good Schoolmaster .... II. Good for Nothing . . . . , III. The Usher washes his Hands , e IV. Richard Marwood lights his Pipe . , V. The Healing Waters ...» VI, Two Coroner's Inquests .... VII. The Dumb Detective a Philanthropist . VIII. Seven Letters on the Dirty Alphabet IX. "Mad, Gentlemen op the Jury" . , tkMM 5 10 17 21 28 34 38 43 48 A CLEARANCE OF ALL SCORES, I. Blind Peter -. •. II. Like ANi> Unlike III. A Golden Secret ...... IV. Jim looks over the Brink op the Terrible Gulf V. Midnight by the Slopperton Clocks VI. The Quiet Figure on the Heath . , , VIJ. Thk Usher Rksigss his Situation . . • 58 63 66 71 78 82 91 A HOLY INSTITUTION. I. The Value op an Opera-Glass II. Working in the Dark III. The Wrong Footstep IV. Ocular Demonstration V. The Ki.vg op Spades VI. A .Glass of Wine . VII. The Last Act op Luoretia Boroia VIII. Bad Dreams and a Worse Wakino IX. A Marriage in High Lips , X. Animal Magnetism . . , 95 99 104 111 116 124 129 133 \4l 14i Contenti. ^lOoR \\t Jfourllj. NAPOLEON THE GKEAC. 8Hi», »«!>• I. Thk Bot from Slopperton .....: 160 II. Mr. AuousTua Darley and Mr. Joskph Pkterb eo ccr Fishing 162 III. Thr Emperor bids Adieu to Elba 167 IV. Joy and Happiness for Everybody 177 V. The Cherokees take an Oath . . . . 181 VL Mb, Peters relates how hs thought hk had a Clcb, AND how HK lost IT 187 THE DUMB DETECXrVE. I. The Count De Marolles at Home . • • • * 200 II. Mr. Peters sees a Ghost ...... 20.5 III. The Cherokees mark their Man . • . ,212 IV. The Captain, the Chemist, and thk Lasoab . , .23 7 V. The New Milkman in Park Lane . . , . .221 VI. SlQNOR MoSCiUETTI RELATES AN ADVENTURE . . . 225 VII. The Golden Secret is told, and the Golden Bowl is broken ......... 230 V^III. One Step further on the Right Track . . . 235 IS. Captain Lansdown overhears a Conversation which ArPBARS TO interest HIM 241 ON THE TRACK. I. Fathbr akk Son 247 II. Raymond dk Marolles shows himself better than all Bow Street 258 tll. The Left-handed Smasher makes his Mark . . . 263 IV. What they find in the Room in which tub Murder was committed ... .... 271 V. Mr. Pbtees decides on a Straiige Step, and Arrests ihb Dead 282 VI. Thb End of the Dark Road , • • • , ' , 800 ril. Vjlesttfix to Enolabi* .«•••«• Ill THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT §00h 1^5 Jfirst. A EESPECTABLE YOUNG MAN. CHAPTER L THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER. I don't suppose it rained harder in the good town of Slopperton- on-the-Sloshy than it rained anywhere else. But it did rain. There was scarcely an umbrella in Slopperton that could hold its own against the rain that came pouring down that Novem- ber afternoon, between the hours of four and five. Every gutter in High Street, Slopperton ; every gutter in Broad Street (which was of course the narrowest street) ; ia New Street (wliich by the same rule was the oldest street) ; iu East Street, West Street, Blue Dragon Street, and Windmill Street ; every gutter in eveiy one of these thoroughfares was a Httle Niagara, with a maelstrom at the comer, down which such small craft as bits of orange-peel, old boots and shoes, scraps of paper, and fragments of rag were absorbed — as better ships have been in the great northern whirlpool. That dingy stream, the Sloshy, was swollen into a kind of dirty Mississippi, and the graceful coal-barges which adorned its bosom were stripped of the clothes-Unes and fluttering linen which usually were to be seen on their decks. A bad, determined, black-mmded November day. A day on which the fog shaped itself into a demon, and lurked behind men's shoulders, whispering into their ears, " Cut your throat ' — you know you've got a razor, and can't shave witti it, becausvi you've been drinking and your hand shakes ; one little gasli under the left car, and the business is done. It's the best thing you can do. It is, really." A day on wriich the rain, tbs mnnotonouH ceaseless persevering ram, has a voice as it conica 6 The Trail of tlit Serpent. down, and says, "Don't you think you could go mslancholy mad P Look at me ; be good enough to watch me for a couple of hours or so, and think, while you watch me, of the girl who jilted you ten years ago ; and of what a much better man you would be to-day if she had only loved you truly. Oh, I think, if you'U only be so good as watch me, you might really contrive to go mad." Then again the wind. What does the wind say, as it comes cutting through the dark passage, and stabbing you, hke a coward as it is, in the back, just between the shoulders— what does it say ? Why, it whistles in your ear a reminder of the Uttle bottle of laudaniun you've got upstairs, which you had for your toothache last week, and never used. A foggy wet windy November day. A bad day — a dangerous day. Keep ua from bad thoughts to-day, and keep us out of the Pohce Reports next week. Give us a glass of something hot and strong, and a bit of something nice for supper, and bear with us a little this day ; for if the strings of yonder piano — an instrument fashioned on mechanical principles by mortal hands — if they are depressed and slackened by the influence of damp and fog, how do we know that there may not be some string in this more critical instrument, the human mind, not made on mechanical principles or by mortal hands, a Httle out of order on this bad November day? But of coTirse bad influences can only come to bad men ; and of course he must be a very bad man whose spirits go up and down with every fluctuation of the weather-glass. Yirtuoua people no doubt are virtuous always; and by no chance, or change, or trial, or temptation, can they ever become other than virtuous. Therefore why should a wet day or a dark day depress them ? No ; they look out of the windows at houseless men and women and fatherless and motherless cliildren wet through to the skin, and thank Heaven that they are not as other men : like good Christians, punctual rate-payers, and unflinching church-goers as they are. Thus it was with ]\£r. Jabez North, assistant and usher at the academy of Dr. Tappenden. He was not in anywise afiected by fog, rain, or wind. There was a fire at one end of the schoolroom, and Allecompain JMajor had been fined sixpence, and condernned to a page of Latin grammar, for surreptitiously warming his worst chilblain at the bars thereof. But Jabe?: North did not want to go near the fire, though in his ofiicial capacity he might have done so ; ay, even might have warmed his hands in moderation. He was not cold, or if he was cold, he didn't mind being cold. He was sitting at his desk, mending pens and hearing six red-nosed boys conjugate the verb Amare, " to love " — while the aforesaid boys were giving practical illus- Tlie Good Sclioolmasier. 7 Irations of tlie active verb " to shiver," — and the passive ditto, " to be puzzled." He was not only a good young man, this Jabe?: North (and he must have been a very good young man, for his goodness was in almost eveiy mouth m Slopperton — indeed, he was looked upon by many excellent old ladies as an incarnation of the adjective "pious") — but he was rather a handsome young man also. He had delicate features, a pale fair complexion, and, as young women said, very beautiful blue eyes ; only it was unfortunate that these eyes, being, according to report, such a very beautiful colour, had a shifting way with them, and never looked at you long enough for yoti to find out their exact hue, or their exact expression either. He had also what was called a very fine head of fair curly hair, and what some peojile con- sidered a very fine head — though it was a pity it shelved off on either side in the locality where prejudiced people place the organ of conscientiousness. A professor of phrenology, lecturing at Slopperton, had declared Jabez North to be singularly wanting in that small virtue ; and had even gone so far as to hint tha'!/ he had never met with a parallel case of deficiency in the en^.ire moral region, except in the sknll of a very distinguished crimi- nal, who invited a friend to dinner and murdered him on the kitchen stairs while the first course was being dished. But of course the Sloppertonians pronounced this professor to be aa impostor, and his art a piece of charlatanism, as they were only too happy to pronounce any professor or any art that came in their way, Slopperton beheved in Jabez North. Partly because Slopper- ton had in a manner created, clothed, and fed him, set him on his feet, patted him on his head, and reared him under the shadow of Sloppertonian wings, to be the good and worthy indi- vidual he was. The story was in this wise. Nineteen years before this bad November day, a little baby had been dragged, to all appearance drowned, out of the muddy waters of the Sloshy. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, he turned out to be less drowned than dirty, and after being subjected to very sharp treatment — such as being held head downwards, and Bcrubbed raw with a jack-towel, by the Sloppertonian Humane Society, founded by a very excellent gentleman, somewhat re- nowned for maltreating his wife and turning his eldest son out of doors — this helpless infant set up a feeble squall, and evinced other signs of a return to life. He was found in a Slopperton river by a Slopperton bargeman, resuscitated by a Slopperton society, and taken by the Slopperton beadle to the Slopperton workhouse ; he therefore belonged to Slopperton. Slopperton found him a species of barnacle rather difficult to shake off. 8 The Trail of the Serpent. Tho wisest thing, therefore, for Slopperton to do, was to put the best face on a bad matter, and, out of its abundance, rear thia uw-welcome little stranger. And truly virtue has its reward ; for. from the workhouse brat to the Sunday-school teacher ; from the Sunday-school teacher to the scrub at Dr. Tappenden's aca- demy ; from scrub to usher of the fourth form ; and from fourth form usher to first assistant, pet toady, and factotum, were so many steps in the ladder of fortime which Jabez mounted, an in ■even-leagued boots. As to his name, Jabez North, it is not to be supposed that when some wretched drab (mad with what madness, or wretched to what intensity of wretchedness, who shall guess?) throws her hapless and sickly offspring into the river — it is not, I say, to be supposed that she puts his card-case in his pocket, with his name and address inscribed in neat copper-plate upon ena- melled cards therein. No, the foundling of Slopperton was called by the board of the workhouse Jabez ; first, because Jabez vas a scriptural name; secondly, perhaps, because it was an ugiy one, and agreed better with the cut of his clothes and the fasii'on of his appointments than Reginald, Conrad, or Augus- tus might have done. The gentlemen of the board further bestowed tipon him the sui*name of North because he was found on the north bank of the Sloshy, and because North was an unobtrusive and commonplace cognomen, appropriate to a paujjer; hke whose impudence it would indeed be to write himself down Montmorency or Fitz-Hardinge. Now there are many natures (God-created though they be) of so black and vile a tendency as to be soured and embittered by work- house treatment; by constant keeping down ; by days and days which grow into years and years, in which to hear a kind word is to hear a strange language — a language so strange as to bring s choking sensation into the throat, and not unbidden tears into the eyes. Natures there are, so innately wicked, as not to be improved by tyranny ; by the dominion, the mockery, and the insult of little boys, who are wise enough to despise poverty, but not charitable enough to respect misfortune. And fourth- form ushers in a second-rate academy have to endure this sort of thing now and then. Some natures too may be so weak and sentimental as to sicken at a life without one human tie ; a boy- hood without father or mother; a youth without sister or brother. Not such the excellent nature of Jabez North. Tyranny found him meek, it is true, but it left him much meeker. Insult found him mUd, but it left him lamb-hke. Scornful speeches glanced away from him ; cruel words seemed di-ops of water on marble, so powerless were they to strike or wound. He would take an insult from a boy whom with his powerful right handb« Tlie Oocd Schoolmaster. 9 eould liave strangled : lie would emile at the insolence of a brat whom he could have thrown from the window with one uplifting of liis strong arm almost as easily as he threw away a bad pen. But he was a good young man ; a benevolent young man; giving in secret, and generally getting his reward openly. His left hand scarcely knew what his right hand did ; but Slopperton ^lway8 knew it before long. So every citizen of the borough mself tha,t. it i« safe ; shuta his d^l« 10 Tlie Trail of the Serpent. quickly, locts it, puts the key in his waistcoat-pocket ; and when at half-past nine he goes up into his httle bedroom at the top of the house, he will carry the desk under his arm. CHAPTER 11. GOOD FOR NOTItlNG. The November night is darkest, foggiest, wettest, and windiest out on the open road that leads into Sloppevton. A dreary road at the beat of times, this SloiDperton road, and dreariest of all in one spot about a mile and a half out of the town. Upon this spot stands a soHtary house, known as the Black Mill. It was once the cottage of a miller, and the mill still stands, though in disiise. The cottage had been altered and improved within the last few years, and made into a tolerable-sized house; a dreary, rambUng, tumble-down place, it is true, but still with some pre- tension about it. It was occupied at this time by a widow lady, a Mrs. Marwood, once the owner of a large fortime, which had nearly all been squandered by the dissipation of her only son. This son had long left Slopperton. His mother had not heard of him for years. Some said he had gone abroad. She tried to hope this, but sometimes she mourned him as dead. She lived in modest style, with one old female sei-vant, who had been with her since her marriage, and had been faithful through every change of fortune — as these common and unlearned creatures, strange to say, sometimes are. It happened that at this very time Mrs. Marwood had just received the visit of a brother, who had returned from the Bast Indies with a large fortune. This brother, Mr. Montague Harding, had on his lauding in England hastened to seek out his only sister, and the arrival of the wealthy nabob at the solitary house on the Slopperton road had been a nine days' wonder for the good citizens of Slopperton. He brought with him only one servant, a half-caste; his visit was to be a short one, as he was about buying an estate in the south of England, on which he intended to reside with hia widowed sister. Slopperton had a great deal to say about Mr. Hardi]ig. Slopperton gave him credit for the possession of uncounted and uncountable lacs of rupees ; but Slopperton wouldn't give hini credit for the possession of the hundredth part of an ounce of Uver. Slopperton left cards at the Black Mill, and had serioua thoughts of getting up a deputation to indte the rich East Indian to represent its inhabitants at the great congress of Westminster. But both Mr. Harding and Mrs. Marwood kept Oood for Nothing. 1\ alx)f from Slopperton, and were set down accordingly aa m^-ste- rious, not to say dark-minded individuals, forthwith. The brother and sister are seated in the little, warm, lamp-lit drawing-room at the Black Mill this dark November night. She is a woman who has once been handsome, but whose beauty has been fretted away by anxieties and suspenses, which wear out the strongest hope, as water wears away the hardest rock. The Anglo-Indian very much resembles her; but though his face is that of an invalid, it is not care-worn. It is the face of a good man, who has a hope so strong that neither fear nor trouble can disquiet him. He is speaking — " And you have not heard from your son ? " "For nearly seven years. Seven years of cruel suspense; seven years, during which every knock at yonder door seems to have beaten a blow upon my heart — every footstep on yonder garden-walk seems to have trodden down a hope." " And you do not think him dead ? " " I hope and pray not. Not dead, impenitent ; not dead, without my blessing ; not gone away from me for ever, without one pressure of the hand, one prayer for my forgiveness, one whisper of regret for aU he has made me suffer." " He was very wild, then, very dissipated ? " " He was a reprobate and a gambler. He squandered his money like water. He had bad companions, I know ; but was not himself wicked at heart. The very night he ran away, the night I saw him for the last time, I'm sure he was sony for hia bad courses. He said something to that effect ; said his road was a dark one, but that it had only one end, and he must go on to the end." " And you made no remonstrance ? " " I was tired of remonstrance, tired of prayer, and had wearied ont my soul with hope deferred." " My dear Agues ! And this poor boy, this wretched mis- guided boy. Heaven have pity upon him and restore him ! Heaven have pity upon every wanderer, this dismal and pitiless night!" Heaven, indeed, have pity upon that wanderer, out on the bleak highroad to Slopperton ; out on the shelterless Slopi^erton road, a mi^ away from the Black MiU ! The wanderer is a young man, whose garments, of the shabby-genteel order, are worst of all fitted to keep out the cruel weather; a handsome young man, or a man who has once been handsome, but on whom riotous days and nights, drunkenness, recklessness, and folly, have had their dire effects. He is struggling to keep a pa* 14 The 3}rail of the Serpent. dial. He was one of those men whose bad and good angelsi have a sharp fight and a constant struggle, but whom we all hope to see saved at last. " I have a plan which has occurred to me since your unexpec- ted arrival this evening," continued his uncle. " Now, if you stay here, your mother, who has a trick (as all loving mothers have) of fancying you are still a Httle boy in a pinafore and frock — your mother wiU be for having you loiter about from morning till night with nothing to do and nothing to care for; you will fall in again with all your old Slopperton companions, and all those companions' bad habits. This isn't the way to make a man of you, Richard." Richard, very radiant by this time, thinks not. " My plan is, that you start off to-morrow morning before your mother is up, with a letter of introduction which I will give you to an old friend of mine, a merchant in the town of Gardenford, forty miles from here. At my request, he will give you a berth in his office, and will treat you as if you were his own son. You can come over here to see your mother as often as you hke ; and if you choose to work hard as a merchant's clerk, so as to make your own fortune, I know an old fellow just returned from the East Indies, with not enough Hver to keep him aHve many years, who will leave you another fortune to add to it. What do you say, Richard ? Is it a bargain ?" " My dear generous uncle ! " Richard cries, shaking the old man by the hand. "Was it a bargain ? Of course it was. A merchant's office — the very thing for Richard. He would work hard, work night and day to repair the past, and to show the world there was stuff in him to make a man, and a good man yet. Poor Richard, half an hour ago wishing to be hung and put out of the way, now full of radiance and hope, while the good angel has the best of it ! " You must not begin your new Hfe without money, Richard: I shall, therefore, give you all I have in the house. I think I cannot better show my confidence in you, and my certainty that you will not return to your old habits, than by giving you thia money." Richard looks — he cannot speak his gi-atitude. The old man conducts his nephew up stairs to his bedroom, an old-fashioned apartment, in one window of which is a hand- some cabinet, half desk, half bureau. He unlocks this, and takes from it a pocket-book containing one hundred and thirty- odd pounds in small notes and gold, and two bUls for one hundred pounds each on an Anglo-Indian bank in the city. " Take this, Richard. Use the broken cash as you require it for present pui"poses — in purchasing such an outfit aa becomes Good for Nothvng. 15 my nephew ; and on your arrival in Gardenfoid, place the bills in the bani for future exigencies. And as I wish your mother to know nothing of our little plan until you are gone, the beat thing you can do is to start before any one is up — to-moiTOw morning." " I will start at day-break. I can leave a note for my mother." " No, no," said the uncle, " I will tell her all. You can write directly you reach your destination. Now, you will thmk it cruel of me to ask you to leave your home on the very night of your return to it ; but it is quite as well, my dear boy, to strike wliile the iron's hot. If you remain here youi- good resolutions may be vanquished by old influences ; for the best resolution, Richard, is but a seed, and if it doesn't bear the fruit of a good action, it is less than worthless, for it is a He, and promises what it doesn't perform. I've a higher opinion of you than to think that you brought no better fruit of your penitence home to your loving mother than empty resolutions. I believe you have a steady detennination to reform." " You only do me justice in that behef, sir. I ask nothing better than the opportunity of showing that I am in earnest." Mr. Harding is quite satisfied, and once more suggests that Kichard should depart very early the next day. "I will leave this hoiise at five in the morning," said the nephew ; " a train starts for Gardenford about sis. I shall creep out quietly, and not disturb any one. I know the way out of the dear old house — I can get out of the drawing-room window, and need not unlock the hall-door ; for I know that good, stupid old woman Martha sleeps with the key imder her pillow." " Ah, by the bye, where does Martha mean to put you to- night? " " In the Uttle back parlour, I think she said ; the room xinder this." The uncle and nephew went dovsm to this little parlour, where they found old Martha making up a bed on the sofa. " You will sleep very comfortably here- for to-night, Master Richard," said the old woman ; " but if my mistress doesn't have this ceihng mended before long there'll \T6 an accident some day." They all looked up at the ceiling. The plaster had fallen m Beveral places, and there were one or two cracks of considerable size. " If it was daylight," grumbled the old woman, " you could gee through into Mister Harding's bedroom, for his worship won't have a caroet " 16 The Trail of the Serpent. His worship said he had not been used to carpets in lndia» and liked the sight of Mrs. Martha's snow-white boards. " And it's hard to keep them white, sir, I can tell you ; for when I scour the floor of that room the water runs through and spoils the furniture down here." But Daredevil Dick didn't seem to care much for the dilapi- dated ceiling. The madeira, his brightened prospects, and the ixcitement he had gone through, all combmed to make him thoroughly wearied out. He shook his uncle's hand with a brief but energetic expression of gratitude, and then flung him- self half dressed upon the bed. " There is an alarum clock in my room," said the old man, *' which I will set for five o'clock. I always sleep with my doot open ; so you will be sure to hear it go down. It won't disturli your mother, for she sleeps at the other end of the house. An4 now good night, and God bless you, my boy 1 " He is gone, and the returned prodigal is asleep. His hand- some face has lost half its look of dissipation and care, in the renewed Ught of hope; his black hair is tossed ofi" his broad forehead, and it is & fine candid countenance, with a sweet smile playing round the mouth. Oh, there is stuff in him to make a man yet, though he says they should hang such fellows as he ! His uncle has retired to his room, where his half-caste servant assists at his toilette for the night. This servant, who is a Lascar, and cannot speak one word of English (his master converses with him in Hindostanee), and is thought to be as faithful as a dog, sleeps in a Httle bed in the dressing-room adjoining his master's apartment. So, on this bad November night, with the wind howling round the walls as if it were an angry unadmitted guest that cla- moured to come in ; with the ram beating on the roof, as if it had a special purpose and was bent on flooding the old house ; there ia peace and happiness, and a returned and penitent wanderer at the desolate old Black !Mill. The wind this night seems to howl with a peculiar signifi- cance, but nobody has the key to its strange language ; and if, in every shrill dissonant shriek, it tries to teU a ghastly secret or to give a timely warning, it tries in vain, for no one heeds of anderstaudfc Th.€ Usher Wasliea Ms Hands. \~ CnAPTER III. TUB USHER WASHES HIS HANDS. Mr. Jabez North had not his Httle room quite to himself at Dr. Tappeuden's. There are some penalties attendant even on beiug a good young man, and our friend Jabez sometimes found liis very virtues rather inconvenient. It happened that AUecom- pain Junior was ill of a fever — sometimes dehrious ; and as the usher was such an excellent young person, beloved by the pupils and trusted implicitly by the master, the sick httle boy was put under his especial care, and a bed was made up for him in Jabez' room. This very November night, when the usher comes up stairs, his great desk under one arm (lie is very strong, this usher), and a httle feeble tallow candle in his left hand, he finds the boy very ill indeed. He does not know Jabez, for he is talking of a boat-race — a race that took place in the bright summer gone by. He is sitting up on the pillow, waving his Uttle thin hand, and crying out at the top of his feeble voice, " Bravo, red ! Red wins ! Three cheers for red ! Go it — go it, red ! Blue's beat— I say blue's beat! George Harris has won the day. I've backed George Harris. I've bet six-pennorth of toffey on George Harris ! Go it, red ! " " We're worse to-night, then," said the usher ; " so much the better. We're ofi" our head, and we're not likely to take much notice ; so much the better ; " and this benevolent young man began to undress. To undi-ess, but not to go to bed ; for from a small trunk he takes out a dark smock-frock, a pair of leather gaiters, a black scratch wig, and a countryman's slouched hat. He dresses himself in these things, and sits down at a httle table -with his desk before him. The boy rambles on. He is out nutting in the woods with hia little sister in the glorious autumn months gone by. " Shake the tree, Harriet, shake the tree; they'll fall if yon only shake hard enough. Look at the hazel-nuts ! so tluck yuu can't count 'em. Shake away, Harriet ; and take care of your head, for they'll come down like a shower of rain ! " The usher takes the cod of rope from his desk, and begins to unwind it ; he has another coil in his httle trunk, another hidden away under the mattress of his bed. He joins the three to- gether, and they form a rope of considerable length. He lock.s round the room ; holds the hght over the boy's face, but sees no eonsciousness of passing events in those bright feverish eyes. He opens the window of his room ; it is on the second story, and looks out into the playground — a large space shut in from Ihe lane in which the school stands by a wall of considerable li 18 The Trail of the Serpent. height. About half the height of this room are some posta erected for gymnastics ; they are about ten feet from the wall of the house, and the usher looks at them dubiously. He lowers the rope out of the window and attaches one end of it to an iron hook in the wall — a very convenient hook, and very secure apparently, for it looks as if it had been only driven in that very day. He surveys the distance beneath him, takes another dubious look at the posts in the playground, and is al>out to step out of the window, when a feeble voice from the little bed cries out — not in any delirious ramblings this time — " What are you doing with that rope ? Who are you ? What are you doing with that ropeP" Jabez looks round, and although so good a young man, mutters something very much resembling an oath. " Silly boy, don't you know me ? I'm Jabez, your old friend " " Ah, kind old Jabez ; you won't send me back in Virgil, because I've been ill ; eh, Mr. North ? " " No, no ! See, you want to know what I am doing with this rope; why, making a swing, to be sure." "A swing? Oh, that's capital. Such a jolly thick rope too ! When shall I be well enough to swing, I wonder ? It's so dull up here. I'll try and go to sleep ; but I dream such bad dreams." " There, there, go to sleep," says the usher, in a soothing voice. This time, before he goes to the window, he puts out hia tallow candle; the i-ushlight on the hearth he extinguishes also ; feels for something in his bosom, clutches this something tightly ; takes a firm grasp of the rope, and gets out of the window. A curious way to make a swing ! He lets himself down foot by foot, with wonderful caution and wonderful courage. Wlien he gets on a level with the posts of the gymnasium he gives himself a sudden jerk, and swinging over against them, catches hold of the highest post, and his descent is then an easy one for the post is notched for the purpose of climbing, and Jabez, always good at gymnastics, descends it almost as easily a* another man would an ordinary staircase. He leaves the rope still hanging from his bedroom window, scales the playgi-ouud wall, and when the Slopperton clocks strike twelve is out upon the highroad. He skirts the town of Slopperton by a circuitous route, and in another half hour is on the other side of it, bearing towards the Black Mill. A curious manner of making a swing this midnight ramble. Altogether a curious ramble for thia f^ood young usher ; but even good men have sometimes ttrau^s fencies, and this may be one of them. The Usher Washes his Hands. 19 One o'clock from the Sloppertor steeijles : two o'clock : three o'clock. The sick little boy does not go to sleep, but wanders, oh, how wearily, through past scenes in his young life. Midsum- »ner rambles, Christmas holidays, and merry games ; the pretty speeches of the little sister who died three years ago ; unfinished tasks and puzzling exercises, all pass through hia wandering mind ; and when the clocks chime the quarter after three, he is still talking, still rambling on in feeble accents, stiU tossing wearily on his pillow. As the clocks chime the quarter, the rope is at work ao-ain, and five minutes afterwards the usher clambers into the room. Not very good to look upon, either in costume or countenance ; bad to look upon, with his clothes mud-bespattered and torn ; wet to the skin ; his hair in matted locks streaming over his fore- head ; worse to look upon, with his hght blue eyes, bright with a dangerous and wicked fire— the eyes of a wild beast"baulked of his prey ; _ dreadful to look upon, with his hands clenched in fury, and his tongue busy with half-suppressed but terrible imprecations. " AU for nothing ! " he mutters. " All the toil, the scheming, and the danger for nothing — all the work of the brain and the hands wasted — nothing gained, nothing gained ! " _ He hides away the rope in his trunk, and begins to unbutton his mud-stained gaiters. The little boy cries out in a feeble voice for his medicine. The usher pours a tablespoonful of the mixture into a wine- glass with a steady hand, and carries it to the bedside. The boy is about to take it from him, when he utters a suddev ■, cry. " "What's thij matter ? " asks Jabez, angrily. " Your hand ! — your hand ! What's that upon your hand ? ' A dark stain scarcely dry — a dark stain, at the sight of which the boy trembles from head to foot. " Nothing, nothing ! " answers the tutor. " Take your medi- cine, and go to sleep." No, the boy cries hysterically, he won't take his medicine ; he will never take anything again from that dreadful hand. " I know what that horrid staia is. Wliat have you been doing F WTiy did you climb out of the window with a rope ? It wasn't to make a swing; it must have been for something dreadful 1 Why did you stay away three hours in the middle of the night ? I coiinted the hours by the church clocks. "Why have you got those strange clothes on ? "What does it all mean ? I'U ask the Doctor to take me out of this room ! I'U go to him tliis moment, for I'm afraid of you." The boy tries to get out of bed as he speaks ; but the usher 20 The Trail of the Serpent. holds him down with one powerful hand, which he places upon the boy's mouth, at the same time keeping him from stirring and preventing him from crying out. With his free right hand he searches among the bottles; on the table by the bedside. He throws the medicine out of the glass, and pours from Another bottle a few spoonfuls of a dark liquid labelled, " Opium —Poison!'; " Now, sir, take your medicine, or I'U report you to the prin- fipal to-morrow morning." The boy tries to remonstrate, but in vain ; the powerful hand throws back his head, and Jabez pours the liquid down his throat. For a little time the boy, quite delirious now, goes on talking of the summer rambles and the Christmas games, and then falls into a deep slumber. Then Jabez North sets to work to wash his hands. A curious young man, with curious fashions for doing things — above all, a curious fashion of washing his hands. He washes them very carefully in a small quantity of water, and when they are quite clean, and the water has become a dark and ghastly colour, he drinks it, and doesn't make even one wry face at the horrible draught. "Well, well," he mutters, " if nothing is gained by to-night's work, I have at least tried my strength, and I now know what I'm made of." Very strange stuff he must have been made of — very strange and perhaps not very good stuff, to be able to look at the bed on which the ianocent and helpless boy lay in a deep slumber, and say, — " At any rate, lie will tell no tales." No ! he will tell no tales, nor ever talk again of summer ram- bles, or of Christmas holidays, or of his dead sister's pretty words. Perhaps he will join that wept-for Httle sister in a better world, where there are no such good young men as Jabez North. That worthy gentleman goes down aghast, with a white face, next morning, to tell Dr. Tappenden that his poor little charge is dead, and that perhaps he had better break the news to Allecompain Major, who is sick after that supper, which, in his boyish thoughtlessness, and his certainty of his little brother's recovery, he had given last night. " Do, yes, by all means, break the sad news to the poor boy ; for I know, North, 3^ou'll do it tenderly." Sichard Maricood lights hi* ^ipe. '21 CnAPTER IV. KICHAKD IIARWOOD LIGHTS HIS PIPE. 2 AM DEVIL Dick tears the alarum at five o'clock, and leave* his couch very cautiously. He would like, before he leaves the house, to go to his mother's door, if it were only to breathe a prayer upon the threshold. He would like to go to his uncle's bedside, to give one farewell look at the kind face ; but he has promised to be very cautious, and to awaken no one ; so he steals quietly out through the drawing-room window — the same win- dow by which he entered so strangely the preceding evening — into the chill morning, dark as night yet. He pauses in the little garden-walk for a minute while he lights his pipe, and looks up at the shrouded windows of the familiar house. " God bless her ! " he mutters ; " and God reward that good old man, for giving a scamp like me the chance of redeeming his honour!" There is a thick fog, but no rain. Daredevil Dick knows his way so well, that neither fog nor darkness are any hindi'ance to him, and he trudges on with a cheery step, and his pipe in his mouth, towards the Slopperton railway station. The station ia half an hour's walk out of the town, and when he reaches it the clocks are striking six. Learning that the train will not start for half an hour, he walks up and down the platform, looking, with his handsome face and shabby dress, rather conspicuous. Two or three trains for different destinations start while he is waiting on the platform, and several people stare at him, as he strides up and down, his hands in his pockets, and his weather- beaten hat slouched over his eyes — (for he does not want to be known by any Slopperton peojile yet awhile, till his position ia better) — and when one man, with whom he had been intimate before he left the town, seemed to recognize him, and approached as if to speak to him, Richard turned abruptly on his heel and crossed to the other side of the station. If he had known that such a little incident as that could have a dark and dreadful influence on his life, surely he would have thought himself foredoomed and set apart for a cruel destiny. He strolled into the refreshment-room, took a cup of coffee, changed a sovereign in paying for his ticket, bought a news- paper, seated himself in a second-class carriage, and in a few minutes was out of Slopperton. There was only one other passenger in the carriage — a com- mercial traveller; and Richard and he smoked their pipes in de- fiance of the guards at the stations they passed. When did ever Daredevil Dick quail before any authorities P He had faced all 22 The Trail of the Serpent. Bow Street, cliafied ]\Iurllj()ruugli Strei't out of countenatiee, and had kept the station-house awake all night singing, " \Va won't go home till morning." It is rather a dull journey at the best of times from Slopper- ton to Gardenford, and on this dark foggy November morning, of course, duller than usual. It was still dark at half-past six. The station was lighted with gas, and there was a httle lamp in the railway carriage, but for which the two traveUers would not have seen each other's faces. Richard looked out of the window for a few minutes, got up a httle conversation with his fellow traveller, which soon flagged (for the young man was rather out of spirits at leaving his mother directly after their reconcilia- tion), and then, being sadly at a loss to amuse himself, took out his ancle's letter to the Gardenford merchant, and looked at the superscription. The letter was not sealed, but he did not take it from the envelope. " If he said any good of me, it's a great c'nal more than I deserve," said Richard to liimself; " biit I'm yoi'-ng yet, and there's plenty of time to redeem the past." I'ime to redeem the past ! poor Richard ! He twisted the letter about in his hands, lighted another pipe, and smoked till the train arrived at the Gardenford station. Another foggy November day had set in. If Richard Marwood had been a close observer of men and maimers, he might have been rather puzzled by the conduct of a short, thick-set man, shabbily dressed, who was standing on the j^latform when he descended from the carriage. The man was evidently waiting for some one to arrive by this train ; a,nd as surely that some one had arrived, for the man looked perfectly satisfied when he had scanned, with a glance marvellously rapid, the face of every passenger who alighted. But who this some one was, for whom the man was waiting, it was rather difficult to discover. He did not speak to any one, nor approach any one, nor did he appear to have any particular purpose in being there after that one rapid gla^nce at all the travellers. A very minute observer might certain! 7 have detected in him a shght interest i n the movements of Richard Marwood ; and when that individual left the station the stranger strolled out after him, and walked a few paces behind him down the back street that led from the station to the town. Presently ho came up closer to him, and a few minutes afterwards suddenly and unceremoniously hooked his arm into that of Richard. " Mr. Richard Manvood, I think," he said. " I'm not ashamed of my name," replied Daredevil Dick, "and that is my name. Perhaps you'U obUge me with yours, since you're so uncommonly friendly." And the young man tried to withdraw his arm from that of the stranger ; but the Hichard Marwood lights his Pipe. 2S stranf^r was of an affectionate turn of mind, and kept his arm tightly hooked in his. " Oh, never mind my name," he said : " you'll learn my name fast enough, I dare say. But," he continued, as he caught a threatoniog look in Riehai-d's eye, " if you want to call me any- thing, why, call me Jinks." " Very well then, Mr. Jinks, since I didn't come to Garden- ford to make your acqiiaintance, and as now, having made your acquaintance, I can't say I much care about cultivating it further, why I wish you a very good morning !" As he said this, Richard wrenched his arm from that of the stranger, and strode two or three paces forward. Not more than two or three paces though, for the affectionate Mr. Jinks caught him again by the arm, and a friend of ]\Ir. Jinks, who had also been lurking outside the station when the train an-ived, happening to cross over from the other side of the street at this very moment, caught hold of his other arm, and poor Daredevil Dick, firmly pinioned by these two new-found friends, looked with a puzzled expression from one to the other. " Come, come," said Mr. Jinks, in a soothing tone, " the best thing you can do is to take it quietly, and come along with me." " Oh, I see," said Richard. " Here's a spoke in the wheel of my reform; it's those cursed Jews, I suppose, have got wind of my coming down here. Show us your wiit, Mr. Jinks, and teU us at whose suit it is, and for what amount ? I've got a con- siderable sum about me, and can settle it on the spot." " Oh, you have, have you ?" Mr. Jinks was so surprised by this last speech of Richard's that he was obliged to take off his hat, and rub his hand through his hair before he could recover him- self. " Oh !" he continued, staring at Richard, " Oh ! you've got a considerable sum of money about you, have you ? Well, my friend, you're either very green, or you're very cheeky ; and all I can say is, take care how you commit yourself. I'm not a sheriff's officer. If you'd done me the honour to reckon up my nose you might have knowed it " (Mr. Jinks's olfactory organ was a decided snub); " and I ain't going to arrest you for debt." " Oh, very well then," said Dick ; " perhaps you and your affectionate friend, who both seem to be afflicted with rather an over-large allowance of the organ of adhesiveness, will be so very obliging as to let me go. I'll leave you a lock of my hair, as you've taken such a wondei^ful fancy to me." And with a powerful effort he shook the two strangers off hipi ; but Mr. Jinks caught him again by the arm, and Mr, Jinks's friend, producing a nair of handcuffs, locked them on llicliard's wrista with railroad rapidity. 24 Tlie Trail of tie Serpent. " Now, don't you try it on," said Mr. Jinks. " I didn't wan* to use tiiese, you know, if you'd have come quietly. I've heard ;^ou belong to a respectable family, so I thought I wouldn't Ifrnament you with these here objects of higotry " (it is to be presumed Mr. Jinks means bijouterie);' "but it seems there's no help for it, so come along to the station ; we shall catch the eight-thirty train, and be in Slopperton before ten. The inquest won't come on till to-morrow." Richard looked at his wrists, from his wrists to the faces of the two men, with an utterly hopeless expression of wonder. " Am I mad," he said, " or drunk, or dreaming? What have you put these cursed things upon me for ? Why do you want to take me back to Slopperton? What inquest? Who's dead ? " Mr. Jinks put his head on one side, and contemplated the prisoner with the eye of a connoisseur. " Don't he come the /^innocent dodge stunnin' ? " he said, rather to himself than to his companion, who, by the bye, throughout the affair had never once spoken. *' Don't he do it beautiful P Wouldn't he be a first-rate actor up at the Wictoria Theayter in London ? Wouldn't he be prime in the ' Suspected One,' or ' Gonsalvo the Guiltless?' Vy," said Mr. Jinks, with intense admiration, " he'd be worth his two-pound-ten a week and a clear half benefit every month to any manager as is." As Mr. Jinks made these compUmentary remarks, he and his friend walked on. Richard, puzzled, bewildered, and unresist- ing, walked between them towards the railway station; but presently Mr. Jinks condescended to reply to his prisoner's questions, in this wise : — " You want to know what inquest P Well, a inquest on a gentleman what's been barbarously murdered. Tou want to know who's dead? Why, your uncle is the gent as has boen murdered. You want to know why we are going to take you back to Slopperton ? Well, because we've got a warrant to arrest you upon suspicion of having committed the murder." " My uncle murdered ! " cried Richard, with a face that now for the first time since his arrest betrayed anxiety and horror; for throughout his interview with Mr. Jinks he had never once eeemed frightened. His manner had expressed only utter bewil- derment of mind. " Yes, murdered ; his throat cut from ear to ear." " It cannot be," said Richard. " There must be some horrid mistake here. My uncle, Montague Harding, murdered ! I bade him good-bye at twelve last mght in perfect health." " Ajid this morning he was found murdered in his bed ; with SicJiard Marioood lights Ms Pips. 25 the cabinet in his room broken open, and rifled of a pocket-book known to contain upwards of three hundred pounds." " Why, he gave me that pocket-book last night. He gave it to me. I have it here in my breast-pocket." " You'd better keep that story for the coroner," said Mr. Jinks. ** Perhaps he'll beUeve it." " I must be mad, I must be mad," said Eichard. They had by this time reached the station, and Mr. Jinks having glanced into two or three carriages of the train about to start, selected one of the second-class, and ushered Richard into it. He seated himself by the young man's side, while his silent and unobtrusive friend took his place opposite. The guard locked the door, and the train started, Mr. Jinks's quiet friend was exactly one of those people adapted to pass in a crowd. He might have passed in a hun- dred crowds, and no one of the hundreds of people in any of those hundred crowds woidd have glanced aside to look at him. You could only describe him by negatives. He was neither very tall nor very short, he was neither very stout nor very thin, neither dark nor fair, neither ugly nor handsome ; but just such a medium between the two extremities of each as to be utterly commonplace and unnoticeable. If you looked at his face for three hours together, you would in those three hours find only one thing in that face that was any way out of the common — that one thing was the expression of the mouth. It was a compressed mouth with thin Hps, which tightened and drew themselves i-igidly together when the man thought — and the man was almost always thinking : and this was not all, for when he thought most deeply the mouth shifted in a palpa- ble degree to the left side of his face. This was the only thing remarkable about the man, except, indeed, that he was dumb but not deaf, having lost the use of his speech during a terrible illness which he had suffered in his youth. Throughout Richard's arrest he had watched the proceedings with unswerving intensity, and he now sat opposite the pri- soner, thinking deeply, with his compressed lips drawn on one side. The dumb man was a mere scrub, one of the very lowest of the poHce-force, a sort of outsider and employe of Mr. Jinks, the Gardcnford detective ; but he was useful, quiet, and steady, and above all, as his patrons said, he was to be reUed on, because he could not talk. He could talk though, in his own way, and he began to talk Eresently in his own way to Mr. Jinks ; he began to talk with is fingers with a rapidity which seemed marvellous. The ^6 The Trail of He Eerpent. fingers were more aoli'-e than clean, and made rather a dirtf a)])liabet. " Oh, hang it," said Mr. Jinks, after watching him for a momeiit, " you must do it a Httle slower, if you want me to nuderstand. I am not an electric telegraph." The scrub nodded, and began again with his fingers, very slowly. This time Richard too watched him ; for Richard knew this dumb alphabet. He had talked whole reams of nonsense with it, in days gone by, to a pretty girl at a boarding-school, between whom and himself there had existed a platonic attachment, to say nothing of a high wall and broken glass bottles. Richard watched the dirty alphabet. TTirst, two grimy fingers laid flat upon the dirty palm, N. Next, the tip of the grimy forefinger of the right hand upon the tiij* of the grimy third finger of the left hand, ; the next letter is T, and the man snaps his? fingers — the word is finished, Not. Not what ? Richard found himself wondering with an intense eagerness, which, even in the bewildered state of his mind, surprised him. The dumb man began another word — G— U— I— L— Mr. Jinks cut him short. " Not guilty ? Not fiddlesticks ! What do you know about it, I should hke to know ? Where did you get your experience ? Where did you ^et your sharp practice ? What school have you been formed m, I wonder, that you can come out so positive with your opinion ; and vviiat'd the value you put your opinion at, I wonder ? I should be glad to hear what you'd take for your opinion." Mr. Jinks uttered the whole of this speech with the most intense sarcasm ; for Mr. Jinks was a distinguished detective, and prided himself highly on his acumen ; and was therefore very indignant that his sub and scrub should dare to express an opinion. "My uncle murdered!" said Richard; "my good, kind, ffenerons -hearted uncle ! Murdered in cold blood! Oh, it is too horrible ! " The scrub's mouth was very much on one side as Richard muttered this, half to himself. " And I am suspected of the murder ? " " Well, you see," said Mr. Jinks, "there's two or three thinga tell pretty strong against you. Why were you in such a hurry this morning to cut and run to Gardenford ? " My uncle had recommended me to a merchant's ofiice in that town : see, here is the letter of introduction — read it." Hichard ITarwood lif/Jifs Jiis Pipe. -7 "No, it aiu't my place," said Mr. Jinks. "The letter's not sealed, I eee, but I mustn't read it, or if I do, I stand the chance of gettin' snubbed and lectured for goin' beyond my dooty : howsumdever, you can show it to the coroner. I'm sur* I should be very glad to see you clear yourself, for I've heard you belong to one of our good old county families, and it ain't quite the thing to hang such as you." Poor Richard ! His reckless words of the night before came back to him : " I wonder they don't hang such fellows as I am." -' And now," says Jinks, " as I should like to make all things comfortable, if you're willing to come along quietly with me and my friend here, why, I'll move those bracelets, because they are not quite so ornamental as they're sometimes iiseful ; and as I'm going to light my pipe, why, if you like to blow a cloud, too, you can." With this Mr. Jinks unlocked and removed the handcuffs, an J produced his pipe and tobacco. Richard did the same, and took from his pocket a match-box in which there was only one match. " That's awkward," said Jinks, " for I haven't a light about me. They filled the two pipes, and lighted the one match. Now, all this time Richard had held his uncle's letter of intro- duction in his hand, and when there was some little difficulty in lighting the tobacco from the expiring lucifer, he, without a moment's thought, held the letter over the flickering flame, and from the burning paper lighted his pijje. In a moment he remembered what he had done. The letter of introduction ! the one piece of evidence in his favour ! He threw the blazing paper on the ground and stamped on it, but in vain. In spite of all his efforts a few black ashes alone remained. " The devil must have possessed me," he exclaimed. " I have burnt my uncle's letter." " Well," says Mr. Jinks, " I've seen many dodges in my time, and I've seen a many knowing cards ; but if that isn't the neatest dodge, and if you ain't the knowingest card I ever did see, blow me." " I tell you that letter was in my uncle's hand ; written to his friend, the merchant at Gardenford; and in it he mentions having given me the very money you say has been stolen from his cabinet." " Oh, the letter was all that, was it? And you've lighted your pipe with it. You'd better tell that little story before the coroner. It will be so very conwincing to the jury." 8 ^the Trail of the Serpent. The scrub, with his moutli very much to tlie left, spells otrt again the two words, " Not guilty !" " Oh," says Mr. Jinks, "you mean to stick to your opinion, do you, now you've formed it ? Upon my word, you're too clever for a country-town practice ; I wonder they don't send for you up at Scotland Yard ; with your talents, you'd be at the top of the tree in no time, I've no doubt." Daring the journey, the thick November fog had been gra- dually clearing away, and at this very moment the sun broke out with a bright and sudden light that shone full upon the threadbare coat-sleeve of Daredevil Dick. " Not guilty !" cried Mr. Jinks, with sudden energy. " Not guilty ! Why, look here! I'm blest if his coat-sleeve isn't covered mth blood !" Yes, on the shabby worn-out coat the sunhght revealed dark and ghastly stains ; and, stamped and branded by those hideous marks as a villain and a murderer, Eichard Marwood re-entered bis native town. CHAPTEE V. THE HEALING WATERS. The Sloshy is not a beautiful river, unless indeed mud is beau- tiful, for it is very muddy. The Sloshy is a disagreeable kind of compromise between a river and a canal. It is like a canal which (after the manner of the mythic frog that wanted to be an ox) had seen a river, and swelled itself to bursting in imita- tion thereof. It has quite a knack of swelling and bursting, this Sloshy ; it overflows its banks and swallows up a house or two, or tukes an impromptu snack off a few outbuildings, once or twice a year. It is inimical to children, and has been known to suck into its muddy bosom the hopes of divers famihes ; and has afterwards gone down to the distant sea, flaunting on its breast Billy's straw hat or Johnny's pinafore, as a flag of triumph for having done a Uttle amateur business for th| gentleman on the pale horse. It has been a soft pillow of rest, too, this muddy breast of the Sloshy ; and weary heads have been known to sleep more soundly in that loathsome, dark, and sUmy bed than on couches of down. Oh, keep us ever from even whispering to our own hearts that our best chance of peaceful slumber might be in such a bed! An ugly, dark, and dangerous river — a river that is alwayj The Healing Water$. 29 teUing you of trouble, and anguisli, and weariness of spirit — a river tnat to some poor impressionable mortal creatures, who are apt to be saddened by a cloud or brightened by a sunbeam, is not healthy to look upon. I wonder what that woman thinks of the river? A badly- dressed woman carrying a baby, who walks with a slow and restless step up and down by one of its banks, on the afternoon of the day on which the mui'der of Mr. Montague Harding took place. It is a very solitary spot she has chosen, on the furthest out- ekirts of the town of Slopperton ; and the town of Slopperton bein,^ at best a very ugly town, is ugliest at the outskirts, which consist of two or three straggling manufactoi-ies, a great gaunt gaol — the stoniest of stone jugs — and a straggling fringe of shabby houses, some new and only half-built, others ancient and half fallen to decay, which hang all round Slopperton hke the rags that fi-inge the edges of a dirty garment. The woman's baby is fretful, and it may be that the damp foggy atmosphere on the banks of the Sloshy is scarcely calcu- lated to engender either high spirits or amiable temper in the bosom of infant or adult. The woman hushes it impatiently to her breast, and looks down at the httle puny features with a strange unmotherly glance. Poor wretch ! Perhaps she scarcely thinks of that little load as a mother is apt to think of her child. She may remember it only as a shame, a burden, and a grief. She has been pretty ; a bright country beauty, perhaps, a year ago ; but she is a faded, careworn-looking creature now, with a pale face, and hollow circles round her eyes. She has played the only game a woman has to play, and lost the only stake a woman has to lose. " I wonder whether he wiU come, or whether I must wear out my heart through another long long day. — Hush, hush ! As if my trouble was not bad enough without your crying." This is an appeal to the fretful baby ; but that joung gentle- man is engaged at fisticuffs with his cap, and has just destroyed a handful of its tattered border. There is on this dingy bank of the Sloshy a little dingy pubhc-house, very old-fashioned, though surrounded by newly- begun houses. It is a little, one-sided, pitiful place, ornamenteJ witb the cheering announcements of " Our noted Old Tom at 4rZ. per quartern ;" and " This is the only place for the real Mountain Dew." It is a wretched place, which has never seen better days, and never hopes to see better days. The men who fi'equent it are a few stragglers from a factory near, and the colliers whose barges are moored in the neighbourhood. These ■hamble in on dark afternoons, and play at all-fours, or cribbage^ 30 The Trail of the Serpent, in a little dingy parlour witli dirty dog's-eared cards, scoring their points with beer-marks on the sticky tables. Not a very attractive house of entertainment this ; but it has an attraction for the woman with the baby, for she looks at it wistfully, aa iihe paces up and down. Presently she fumbles in her pocket, and produces two or three halfpence — just enough, it seems, for her purpose, for she sneaks in at the half- open door, and in a few minutes emerges in the act of wiping her lips. As she does so, she almost stumbles against a man wi-appod in a great coat, and with the lower part of his face muffled in a thick handkerchief. " I thought you would not come," she said. "Did you? Then you see you thought wrong. But you might have been right, for mj^ coming was quite a chance : I can't be at your beck and call night and day." " I don't expect you to be at my beck and call. I've not been used to get so much attention, or so much regard from you aa to expect that, Jabez," The man started, and looked round as if he expected to find all Slopperton at his shoulder; but there wasn't a creature about, "You needn't be quite so handy with my name," he said ; I' there's no knowing who might hear you. Is there any one in there ?" he asked, pointing to the public-house. " No one but the landlord/' " Come in, then ; we can talk better there. This fog pierces one to the bones." He see*is never to consider that the woman and the child have been exposed to that piercing fog for an hour and more, as he is above an hour after his appoititment He leads the way through the bar hito the little parlour. There are no colhers playing at all-fours to-day, and the dog's- eared cards he tumbled in a heap on one of the sticky tables among broken clay- pipes and beer- stains. This table is near the one window which looks out on the river, and by this window the woman sits, Jabez placing himself on the other side of the table. The fretful baby has fallen asleep, and hes quietly in tlie woman's lap. "Wliat will you take?" " A httle gin," she answers, not without a certain shame in her tone. " So you've found out that comfort, have you ? " He saya this with a glance of satisfaction he cannot repress. " What other comfort is there for such as me, Jal)ez ? It seemed at first to make me forA'et. Nothing can do that now, —except " Tlie Healing Wafers. 31 She did not tinish. this sentence, but sat looking with a dull vacant stare at the black waters of the Slosh y, which, as the tide rose, washed with a hollow noise against the brickwork of the i"»athway close to the window. " Well, as I suppose you didu't ask me to meet you here for the sole purpose of making miserable speeches, pei-haps you'll tell mo what you want with me. My time is precious, and if it were not, I can't say I should much care about stopping long in this place ; it's such a deliciously lively hole and such a charm- ing neighbourhood." " I live in this neighbourhood — at least, I starve in this neighbourhood, Jabez." " Oh, now we're coming to it," 3aid che gentleman, with a very gloomy face, " we're coming to it. You want some money. That's how this sort of thing always ends." " 1 hoped a better end than that, Jabez. I hoped long ago, when 1 thought you loved me " " Oh, we're going over that ground again, are we ? " said lie; and with a gesture of weariness, he took up the dog's-eared cards on the stick}^ table before him, and began to build a housM \%ath them, such as children build in their play. JSTothing could esj^ress better than this action kis thorough determination not to Hsten to what the woman might have to say ; but in spite of this she went on — " You see I was a foolish country girl, Jabez, or I might have known better. I had been accustomed to take my father and my brother's word of mouth as Bible truth, and had nevei known that word to be beUed. I did not think, when the man I loved with all my heart and soul — to utter forgetfulness of every other living creature on the earth, of every duty that I knew to man and heaven — I did not think when the man I loved so much said this or that, to ask him if he meant it honestly, or if it was not a cruel and a wicked Ue. Being so ignorant, I did not think of that, and I thought to be your wife, as you swore I should be, and that this helpless little one lying here might live to look up to you as a father, and be a comfort and an honour to you." To be a comfort and an honour to you ! The fretful bab>y awoke at the words, and clenched its tmy fists with a spiteful action. If the river, as a thing eternal in comparison to man — if tl)e river had been a prophet, and had had a voice in its waters wherewith to pn^phesy, I wonder whether it would have cried — " A shame aud a dishonour, an enemy and an avenger in the days to come ! " Jabez' card-house had risen to three stories; he took tha 32 Tlie Trail of the Serpent. dog's-eared cards one by one in his wliite hands with a slow deliberate touch that never faltered. The woman looked at him with a piteons but tearless glance ; from him to the nver ; and back again to him. " Ton don't ask to look at the child, Jabez." " I don't Hke children," said he. " I get enough of children at the Doctor's. Children and Latin grammar — and the end so far off yet," — he said the last words to himself, in a gloomy tone. " Bat yoixr own child, Jabez — your own." '* As you say," he muttered. She rose from her chair and looked full at him — a long long gaze which seemed to say, " And this is the man I loved ; this is the man for whom I am lost ! " If he could have seen her look ! But he was stooping to pick up a card from the ground ■ — his house of cards was five stories high by this time. " Come," he said, in a hard resolute tone, " you've written to me to beg me to meet you here, for you were dying of a bro- ken heart; that's to say you have taken to drinking gin (I dare say it's an excellent tiling to nurse a child upon), and yon want to be bought off. How much do you expect? I thought to have a sum of money at my command to-day. Never you mind how ; it's no business of yours." He said this savagely, as if in answer to a look of inquiry from her ; but she was standing with her back turned to him, looking steadily out of the window. " I thought to have been richer to-day," he continued, " but I've had a disappointment. However, I've brought as much as I could afford ; so the best thing you can do is to take it, and get out of Slopperton as soon as you can, so that I may nevei see your wretched white face again." He counted out four sovereigns on the sticky table, and then, adding the sixth story to his card-house, looked at the frail erection with a glance of triumph. " And 80 will I build my fortune in days to come," he mut* tered. A man who had entered the dark little parlour very softly passed behind him and brushed against his shoulder at this moment ; the house of cards shivered, and fell in a heap on the table. Jabez turned round with an angry look. " What the devil did you do that for ? " he asked. The man gave an apologetic shrug, pointed with his fingers t< his lips, and shook his head. " Oh," said Jabez, " deaf and dumb 1 So much the better." The strange map seated himself at another table, on which The Ileuhng Waters. S5 tilt landlord placed a pint of beer ; took up a newspaper, and seemed absorbed in it ; but from behind tbe cover of tins news- paper be watched Jabez with a furtive glance, and his mouth, which was very much on one side, twitchsd now and then wit?i a nen'ous action. All this time the woman had never touched the money— never indeed turned from the window by which she stood ; but she now came uj) to the table, and took the sovereigns up one by one. " After what you have said to me this day, I would see this child starve, hour by hour, and die a slow death before my eyes, before I would touch one morsel of bread bought with your money. I have heard that the waters of that river are foul and poisonous, and death to those who live on its bank; but I know the thoughts of your wicked heart to be so much more foul and so much bitterer a poison, that I would go to that black river for pity and help rather than to you." As she said this, she threw the sovereigns into his face with such a strong and violent hand, that one of them, striking him above the eyebrow, 3ut his forehead to tlie bone, and brought the blood gushing over his eyes. The woman took no notice of his pain, but turning once more to the window, threw herself into a chair and sat moodily staring out at the river, as if indeed she looked to that for pity. The dumb man helped the landlord to dress the cut on Jabez* forehead. It was a deep cut, and likely to leave a scar for yeara to come. Mr. North didn't look much the better, either in appearance or temper, for this blow. He did not utter a word to the woman, but began, in a hang-dog manner, to search for the money, which had rolled away into the corners of the room. He could only find three sovereigns ; and though the landlord brought a light, and the three men searched the room in every direction, the fourth could not be found ; so, abandoning the search, Jabez paid his score and strode out of the place without once looking at the wcman. " I've got off cheap from that tiger-cat," he said to himself; " but it has been a bad afternoon's work. ^Vhat can I say about my cut face to the governor?" He looked at his watch, a homely silver one attached to a black ribbon. "Five o'clock; I shall be at the Doctor's by tea-time. I can get into the gymnasium the back way, take a few minutes' turn with the poles and ropes, and say the accident happened in climbing. They alwaya believe what I say, poor dolts." His figure was soon lost in the darkness and the fog — so dense a fog tliat very few people saw the woman with the fretful baby when she emerged from the public-house, and walked along o-'t The Trail of the Serpent. the river-bank, leaving even the outskirts of Sloppei-ton behind, and wandered on and on till she came to a dreary spot, where dismal pollard willows stretched their dark and ngly shadows, like the bare arms of withered hags, over the dismal waters of the lonely Sloshy. river, sometimes so pitiless when thou devourest youth, beauty, and happiness, wilt thou be pitiful and tender to-night, and take a poor wretch, who has no hope of mortal pity, to peace and quiet on thy breast ? O merciless river, so often bitter foe to careless happiness, wilt thou to-night be friend to recklesis misery and hopeless pain P God made thee, dark river, and God made the wretch who stands shivering on thy bank: and may be, in His boundlesa love and compassion for the creatures of His hand, He may have pity even for those so lost as to seek forbidden comfort in thy healing waters. CHAPTER VI. TWO cokoxer's inquests. There had not been since the last general election, when George Augustus Slashington, the Liberal member, had been returned against strong Conservative opposition, in a blaze of triumph and a shower of rotten eggs and cabbage-stumps — there had not been since that great day such excitement in Slopperton as there was on the discovery of the murder of Mr. Montague Harding. A murder was always a great thing for Slopperton. _Wlien John Boggins, weaver, beat out the brains of Sarah his wife, first with the heel of his clog and ultimately with a poker, Slopperton had a great deal to say about it — though, of course, the slaughter of one " hand" by another was no great thing out of the factories. But this murder at the Black Mill was some- thing out of the common. Uncommonly cruel, cowardly, and unmanly, and moreover occurring in a respectable rank of life. Eound that lonely house on the Slopperton road there was a crowd and a bustle throughout that short foggy day on wliich Eichard Marwood was arrested. Gentlemen of the Press were there, sniffing out, with miracu- lous acumen, particulars of the murder, which as yet were known to none but the heads of the Slopperton police force. How many lines at three-halfpence per line these gentlemen Two Coroner's Iiiquesfi. "5 ^flrrote conconiing the dreadful occurrence, ■williout knowing any- thing whatever about it, no one unacquainted with thomyiloricf of their art would dare to say. The two papers wliich appeai'ed on Friday had accounts vari - ing in every item, and the one paper which appeared on Satur- day had a happy amalgamation of the two coniiictiag accounta — demonstrating thereby the triumph of paste and scissors ovei pemiy-a-hners' copy. The head officials of the Slopperton police, attired in plain clothes, went in and out of the Black Mill from an early hour on that dark November day. Every time they camo out, though none of them ever spoko, by some strange magic a fresh report got current among the crowd. I think the magical pro- cess wdi3 this : Some one man, auguring from such and such a significance in their manner, whispered to his nearest neighbour his suggestion of what might have been revealed to them within; and this whispered suggestion was repeated from one to another till it grew into a fact, and was still repeated through the crowed, while with every speaker it gathered interest until it grew into a series of imaginary facts. Of one tiling the crowd was fully convinced — that was, that those grave men in plain clothes, the Slopperton detectives, knew all, and could tell all, if they only chose to speak. And yet I doubt if there was beneath the stars more than one person who really knew the secret of the dreadful deed. The follow^ing day the coroner's inquisition was held at a respectable hostelry near the Black Mill, whither the jury went, accompanied by the medical witness, to contemplate the b'^-xV of the victim. With solemn faces they hovered round the o^d of the murdered man : they took depositions, talked to eac li other in low hushed tones; and exchanged a few remarks, .a a low voice, with the doctor who had probed the deep gashes in that cold breast. All the evidence that transpired at the inquest only amounted to this — The servant Martha, rising at six o'clock on the previous morning, v.-cnt, as she was in the habit of doing, to the door of the old East Indian to call him — he being always an early riser, and getting up even in winter to study by lamp- light. Receiving, after rej^eated knocking at the door, no answer the old woman had gone into the room, and there liad beheld, by the fiint light of her candle, the awful spectacle of the Ajiglo-Indian lying on the floor by the bed-side, his throat cut, cruel stabs upon his breast, and a pool of blood surrounding him ; the cabinet in the room broken onen and ransacked, and 36 ^e trail of tie Serpent tlie pocket-book and money wliicli it was known to coiitaia missing. The papers of the mm-dered gentleman were thrown into confnsion and lay in a heap near the cabinet ; and as there was no blood upon them, the detectives concluded that the cabinet had been rifled pi-ior to the commission of the murder. The Lascar had been found lying insensible on his bed in the little di-essing-room, his head cruelly beaten ; and beyond this there was nothing to be discovered. The Lascar had been taken to the hospital, where little hope was given by the doctors of his recovery from the injuries he had received. In the first horror and anguish of that dreadful morning Mrs, Marwood had naturally inquired for her son ; had expressed her surprise at his disappearance; and when questioned had revealed the history of his unexpected return the night before. Suspicion fell at once upon the missing man. His reappearance after so many years on the return of his rich uncle ; his secret departure from the house before any one had risen — everything told against him. Inquiries were immediately set on foot at the turnpike gates on the several i-oads out of Slopjserton ; and at the railway station from which he had started for Gardenford by the first train. In an hour it was discovered that a man answering td Richard's description had been seen at the station; half an hour afterwards a man appeared, who deposed to having seen and i-ecognized him on the platform — and deposed, too, to Richard's evident avoidance of him. The railway clerks re- membered giving a ticket to a handsome young man with a dark moustache, in a shabby suit, having a pipe in his mouth . Poor Richard! the dark moustache and pipe tracked him at every stage. " Dark moustache — pipe — shabby dress — tall — handsome face." The clerk who played upon the electi-ic-tele- graph wires, as other people play upon the piano, sent these vords shivering down the line to the Gardenford station ; from the Gardenford station to the Gardenford police-office the words were carried in less than five minutes ; in five minutes more 'Mr. Jinks the detective was on the platform, and his dumb assistant, Joe Peters, was ready outside the station ; and they both were ready to recognize Richard the moment they saw him. wonders of civilized life ! cruel wonders, when you help to track an innocent man to a dreadful doom. Richard's story of the letter only damaged his case with the jury. The fact of his having burned a document of such im- portance seemed too incredible to make any impression in hia favour. Throughout the proceedings there stood in the background a Tivo Coroner's Inquests. 37 »Labl)lly-Jre^3ed man, witli watchful observant eyes, and a mouth very much on one side. This man was Joseph Peters, the scrub of the detective force of Garden ford. He rarely took his eyes from Eichard, who, with pale bewildered face, dishevelled hair, and slovenly costume, looked perhaps as much like guilt as innocence. The verdict of the coroner's jury was, as every one expected it would be, to the effect that the deceased had been wilfully murdered by Richard Manvood his nephew ; and poor Dick was removed immediately to the county gaol on the outskirts of Slopperton, there to lie till the assizes. The excitement in Slopperton, as before observed, was im- mense. Slopperton had but one voice — a voice loud in execra- tion of the innocent prisoner, horror of the treachery and cruelty of the dreadful deed, and pity for the wretched mother of this wicked son, whose anguish had thrown her on a sick bed — but who, despite of every proof rej^eated every hour, expressed her assurance of her unfortunate son's innocence. The coroner had plenty of work on that dismal November day: for from the inquest on the unfortunate Mr. Harding he had to hurry down to a httle dingy pubhc-house on the river's bank, there to inquire into the cause of the imtimely death of a vsrretched outcast found by some bargemen in the Sloshy. This sort of death was so common an event in the large and thickly-populated town of Slopperton, that the coroner and the jury (hghted by two guttering tallow candles with long wicks, at four o'clock on that duU afternoon) had very little to say about it. One glance at that heap of wet, torn, and shabby garments — one half-shuddering, half-pitying look at the white face, blue lips, and damp loose auburn hair, and a merciful verdict — " Found drowned." One juryman, a butcher — (we sometimes think them hard- hearted, these butchers) — lays a gentle hand upon the auburn hair, and brushes a lock of it away from the pale forehead. Perhaps so tender a touch had not been laid upon that head for two long years. Perhaps not since the day when the dead woman left her native village, and a fond and happy motlier for the last time smoothed the golden braids beneath her daughter's Sunday bonnet. In half an hour the butcher is home by his cheerful fireside ; and I think he has a more loving and protecting glance than usual for the fair-haired daughter who pours out his tea. No one recognizes the dead woman. No one knows her story; they guoss at it as a very common history, and bury her in a ^8 The Trail oj the Sei^-'ent. parisli burying-ground — a damp and dreary spot not fai froia the river's brink, in wbicb many sucb as sbe are laid. Our friend Jabez North, borrowing the Saturday's paper of his principal in the evening after school-hours, is very much interested in the accounts of these two coroner's inquests. CHAPTER VII. THE DITMB DETECTIVE A PHILANTHROPIST. The dreary winter months pass by. Time, slow of foot to some, and fast of wiug to others, is a very chameleon, such different accounts do different people give of him. He is very rapid in his ffight, no duubt, for the young gentle- men from Dr. Tappenden's home for the Christmas holidays : rapid enough perhaps for the young gentlemen's papas, who have to send their sons back to the academy armed with Dr. Tappenden's Uttle account — which is not such a very little u,ccount either, when you reckon up all the extras, such as dancing, French, gymnastics, di-ill-seijeant, hair-cutting, station- ery, servants, and pew at church. Fast enough, perhaps, is the flight of Time for Allecompain Major, who goes home in a new suit of mourning, and who makes it sticky about the cuffs and white about the elbows before the hohdays are out. I don't suppose he forgets his little dead brother ; and I dare say, by the blazing hearth, where the fire- light falls dullest upon his mother's black dress, he sometimes Uiinks very sadly of the little grave out in the bleak Avinter ••.ijsrht, on which the snow falls so purely white. But " cakes arra ale " are eternal institutions ; and if you or I, reader, died to-morrow, the baker would still bake, and Messrs. Barclay and Perkins would continue to brew the ale and stout for wliich they are so famous, and the friends who were sorriest for ua would eat, drink, ay and be men-y too, before long. Who shall say how slow of foot is Time to the miserable young man awaiting his trial in the dreary gaol of Slopperton P Who shall say how slow to the mother awaiting m agony the result of that trial ? The assizes take place late in February. So, through the fog ftnd damp of gloomy November ; through long, dark, and dreary December nights; through January frost and snow — (of whose outward presence he has no better token than the piercing cold within) — ^Kichard paces up and down liis narrow cell, and broods apon the murder of his uncle, and of his trial which is to come. Ministers of reUgion come to convert himj as they say. 3J« Tlie Duiuh Detective a Philanthropist. 3D tells them tliat he hopes and believes all they can teach him, for that it was taught him in years gone by at his mother's knee. " The best proof of my faith," he says, " is that I am not mad. Do you think, if I did not beheve in an All-seeing Pro- vidence, I should not go stark staring mad, when, night after night, through hours wliich are as years in duration, I thini, and thiiik, of the situation in which I am placed, till my brain grows wild and my senses reel ? I have no hope iu the result of my trial, for I feel how every circumstance tells against me : but I have hope that Heaven, with a mighty hand, and au instrument of its own choosing, may yet work out the saving of an innocent man from an ignominious death." The dumb detective Peters had begged to be transfei-red from Gardenford to Slopperton, and was now in the employ of the pohce force of that town. Of very httle account this scrub among the officials. His infirmity, they say, makes liim scarcely worth his salt, though they admit that his industry is unfailiag. So the scrub awaits the trial of Richard Marwood, in whose fortunes he takes an interest which is in no way abated siuce ho spelt out the words " Not guUty " in the railway carriage^ He had taken up his Slopperton abode in a lodging in a small street of six-roomed houses yclept Little GulUver Street. At No. 5, Little Gulliver Street, Mr. Peters' attention had been attracted by the announcement of the readiness and wiUingness of the occupier of the house to take in and do for a single gen- tleman. Mr. Peters was a single gentleman, and he accordingljr presented himself at No. 5, expressing the amiable desire of being forthwith taken in and done for. The back bedroom of that establishment, he was assured by its proprietress, was an indoor garden-of-E len for a single man ; and certainly, looked at by the light of such advantages as a rent of four-and-sixpence a week, a sofa-bedstead — (that ilehciously innocent white he in the way of furniture which never yet deceived anybody) ; a Dutch oven, a;i apparatus for cooking anytliing, from a pheasant to a red herring; and a little high-art in the way of a young gentleman in red-and- ycllow making honourable proposals to a young lady in yellow- l,nd-red, in picture number one; and the same lady and gen- tleman perpetuating themselves in picture number two, by means of a red baby in a yellow cradle ; — taking into consider- ation such advantages as these, the one-pair back was a para- dise calculated to charm a virtuously-minded single man. Mr. Peters therefore took immediate possession by planting hia honest gingham in a corner of the room, and by placing two- Wid-sbcpence in the hands of the proj>rietress by way of deposit. 40 TJie Trail of tie Serpent. His luggage was more convenient than extensive — consisting of a parcel in the crown of his hat, containing the lighter elegancies of his costume; a small bundle 'a a red cotton pocket handkerchief, which held the heavier articles of hia wardrobe ; and a comb, which he carried in his pocket-book. The proprietress of the indoor Eden was a maiden lady of mature age, with a sharp red nose and metallic pattens. It was with some difficulty that Mx. Peters made her understand, by the aid of pantomimic gestures and violent shakings of the head, that he was dumb, but not deaf; that she need be undei' no necessity of doing violence to the muscles of her throat, as he could hear her with perfect ease in her natural key. He then — stiU by the aid of pantomime — made known a desire for pencil and paper, and on being supplied with these articles wrote the one word " baby," and handed that specimen of caU- graphy to the proprietress. That sharp-nosed damsel's maidenly indignation sent new roses to join the permanent blossoms at the end of her olfactory organ, and she remarked, in a voice of vinegar, that she let her lodgings to single men, and that single men as were single men, and not impostors, had no business with babies. Mr. Peters again had recourse to the pencil, "Not mine- fondling ; to be brought up by hand ; would pay for food and nursing." The maiden proprietress had no objection to a fondling, if paid for its requirements ; Kked children in their places ; would call Kuppins ; and did call Kuppins. A voice at the bottom of the stairs responded to the call of Kuppins ; a boy's voice most decidedly ; a boy's step upon the stau-s announced the approach of Kuppins ; and Kuppins entered the room with a boy's stride and a boy's slouch ; but for all this, Kuppins was a girl. Not very much like a girl about the head, with that shock of dark rough short hair ; not much like a girl about the feet, in high-lows, with hob-nailed soles ; but a girl for all that, as testi- fied by short petticoats and a long blue pinafoi'e, ornameutcJ profusely with every variety of decoration in the way of tlirec- comered slits and grease-spots. Kuppins was informed by her mistress that the gent had come to lodge ; and moreover that the gent was dumb. It is impossible to describe Kuppins' delight at the idea of a dumb lodger. Kuppins had knowed a dumb boy as lived three doors from mother's (Kuppins' mother understood) ; this 'ere dumb boy waa wicious, and when he was gone agin, 'owled 'orrid. Was told that tbe gent wasn't vicious and -qevor ho'^leri, The Dumb Detective a JPTiilanturspist. 41 and seemed, if anything, disappointed. Understood the dumb alphabet, and had conversed in it for hours with the aforesaid dumb boy. The author, as omniscient, may state that Kuppins and the vicious boy had had some love-passages in days gone by. Mr. Peters was deUghted to find a kindred spirit capable of understanding his dirty alphabet, and explained his wish that a baby, " a fondhng " he intended to bring up, might be taken in and done for as well as himself. Kuppins doaled on babies; had nursed nine brothers and sisters, and had nursed outside the family circle, at the rate of fifteen-pence a week, for some years. Kuppins had been oi;t in the world from the age of twelve, and was used up as to Slop- perton at sixteen. Mr. Peters stated by means of the dirty alphabet — (more than usually dirty to-day, after his journey from Gardenford, whence he had transplanted his household gods, namely, the gingham umbrella, the bundle, parcel, pocket-book, and comb) — that he would go and fetch the baby. Kuppins immediately proved herself an adept iu the art of construing this manual language, and nodded triumphantly a great many times in token that she understood the detective's meaning. The baby was apparently not far off, for Mr. Peters returned m five minutes with a limp bundle smothered in an old pea- jacket, which on close inspection turned out to be the " fondUng." Mr. Peters had lately purchased the pea-jacket second-hand, and believed it to be an appropriate outer garment for a baby in long-clothes. The fondling soon evinced signs of a strongly-marked charac- ter, not to say a vindictive disposition, and fought manfully with Kuppins, smiting that young lady in the face, and abstracting handfuls of her hair with an address beyond his years. " Ain't he playful ? " asked that young person, who was evi- dently experienced in fretful babies, and indifferent to the loss of a stray tress or so from her luxuriant locks. '' Ain't he playful pretty hinnercent ! Lor ! he'U make the place quite cheeriul ! ' In corroboration of which prediction the " fondling " set up a dismal wail, varied vnth occasional chokes and screams. Surely there never could have been, since the foundation-stones of the hospitals for abandoned childi-en in Paris and London were laid, such a " fondling " to choke as tliis fondling. The manner in which his complexion would turn — from its original sickly sallow to a vivid crimson, from crimson to dark blue, and ^om blue to black — was something miraculous ; and Kiippini was promised much employment in the way of shakings ati(j pattings on the back, to keep the "fomiling" from an early and unpleasant death. But Kuppins, as we have remarked, liked « 42 The Trail of tlie Serpent. bal)y — and, indeed, would have given the preference to a crosi baby — a cross baby being, as it were, a battle to fight, and a victory to achieve. In half an hour she had conquered the fondUng in a mannel wonderful to behold. She laid him across her knee while she lighted a fire in the smoky little grate ; for the in-door Eden offered a Hobson's choice to its inhabitants, of smoke or damp ; and Mr. Peters preferred smoke. She earned the infant on her left arm, while she fetched a red herring, an ounce of tea, and other comestibles from the chandler's at the corner ; put him under her arm while she cooked the hen-ing and made the tea, and waited on Mr. Peters at his modest repast with the fondling choking on her shoulder. Mr. Peters, having discussed his meal, conversed with Kuppina fs she removed the tea-tliings. The al2:)habet by this time had acquired a piscatorial flavour, from his having made use of the five vowels to remove the bones of his herring. " That baby'a a rare fretful one," says Mr. Peters with rapid fingers. Kuppins had nursed a many fretful babies. " Orphanta was generally fretful ; supposed the ' fondling ' was a orphant." " Poor little chap ! — yes," said Peters. " He's had his trials, though he is a young 'un. I'm afeard he'll never grow up a tee- totaller. He's had a little too much of the water already." Has had too much of the water P Kuppins would very much Hke to know the meaning of this observation. But Mr. Petera relapses into profound thought, and looks at the " fondling " (still choking) with the eye of a philanthropist and almost the tenderness of a father. He who provides for the young ravens had, perhaps, m. the man-ellous fitness of all things of His creation, given to this helpless httle one a better protector in the dumb scrub of tbf police force than he might have had in the father who had cast Kim off, whoever that father might be. Mr. Peters presently remarks to the interested Kuppins, that he shall " ederkate," — he is sometime deciding on the conflicting merits of a c or a Z; for this word— he shall " ederkate the fond- ling, and bring him up to his o%vn business." " What is his business? " asks Kuppins naturally. •• Detecktive," Mr. Peters spells, embellishing the word with en extraneous h. " Oh, perhce," said Kuppins. '' Criky, how jolly ! _ Shouldn't 1 Hke to be a perliceman, and find out all about this 'ere 'orrid Cinrder \ " Mr. Peters brightens at the word '* murder," and he reg.ircll Ktippins with a friendly glance. Seven Leitert o#» the Dirty Al^iliabet. 4.') * So you takes a liinterest in this *ere murder, do ytr P " lie spells out. " Oh, don't I? I bought a Sunday paper. Shouldn't I like to see that there young man as killed his uncle scragged — that's aU!" Mr. Peters shook his head doubtfully, with a less friendly glance at Kuppins. But there were secrets and mysteries oi his art he did not trust at aU times to the dirty alphabet ; and perhaps his opinion on the subject of the murder of Mr. Mon- tague Harding was one of them. Kuppins presently fetched him a pipe ; and as he sat by th(! smoky fire, he watched alternately the blue cloud that issued from his hps and the clumsy figure of the damsel imcing up and down -with the " fondling" (asleep after the exhaustion attendant on a desperate choke) iipon her arms. " If," mused Mr. Peters, with his mouth very much to the left of his nose — " if that there baby was grow'd up, he niiglit help me to find out the rights and wrongs of this 'ere murder." Who so fit? or who so unfit ? Which shall we say? If in the wonderful course of events, this little child shall ever have a part in dragging a murderer to a murderer's doom, shall it be called a monstrous and a terrible outrage of nature, or a j-cot and a fitting retribution P CHAPTER VIIL 8EVEK LETTERS ON THE DIKTT ALPHABET. The 17th of February shone out bright and clear, and a frosty sunlight ilhimined tie windows of the court where Richard Marwood stood to be tried for his life. Never, perhaps, had that court been so crowded; never, per- haps, had there been so much anxiety felt in Slopperton for the result of any trial as was felt that day for the issue of the trial of Richard Marwood. The cold bright sunHght streaming in at the windows seemed to fall brightest and coldest on the wan white face of the pri- soner at the bar. Three months of mental toi-ture had done their work, and had written their progress in. such characters upon that young auj once radiant countenance, as Time, in his smooth and peaceful course, would have taken years to trace. But Richard Marwood was calm to-day, with the awful calmness of that despair which is past all hope. Suspense had exhausted him. But he had 4one with suspense, and felt that his fate was sealed ; rtnlegs. 44 The Trail of tlie Serpent indeed, Heaven — iafindte both in mercy and in power — raised op as by a miracle some earthly instrument to save bim. The court was one vast sea of eager faces ; for, to the specta- tors, this trial was as a great game of chance, which the counsel for the prosecution, the judge, and the jury, played against the prisoner and his advocate, and at which the prisoner staked his Hfe. There was but one opinion in that vast assemblage; and that was, that the accused would lose in this dreadful game, and that he well deserved to lose. There had been betting in Slopperton on the result of this awful hazard. For the theory of chances is to certain minds so dehghtful, that the range of subjects for a wager may ascend from a maggot-race to a trial for murder. Some adventurous spirits had taken desperate odds against the outsider " Ac- quittal;" and many enterprismg gentlemen had made what they considered " good books," by putting heavy sums on the decided favouiite, " Found Guilty." As, however, there might be a commutation of the sentence of death to transportation for hfe, some speculators had bet upon the chance of the prisoner being found guilty, but not executed; or, as it had been forcibly expressed, had backed " Penal Servitude" against "Gallows." So there were private interests, as well as a pubUc interest, among that swelling ocean of men and women; and Richard had but very few backers in the great and terrible game that was being jjlayed. In a comer of the gallery of the court, high up over the heads of the multitude, there was a httle spot railed off from the pubhc, and accessible only to the officials, or persons introduced by them. Here, among two or three policemen, stood our friend Mr. Joseph Peters, with his mouth very much on one side, and his eyes fixed intently upon the prisoner at the bar. The j^alleiy in which he stood faced the dock, though at a great distance from it. If there was one man in that vast assembly who, next to the prisoner, was most wretched, that man was the prisoner's coun&el. He was young, and this was only his third or fourth brief ; and this was, moreover, the first occasion upon which he had ever been intrusted with an important case. He was an intensely nervous and excitable man, and failure would be to him worse than death ; and he felt failure inevitable. He had not one inch of ground for the defence; and, in spite of the prisoner's repeated protestations of his innocence, he beheved that prisoner to be guilty. He was an earnest man ; and this Belief damped his earnestness. He was a conscientious man ; and &even Leitem on the JDirly Alphalet. 4S tie felt that to defend Riclaard Marwood was sonietliing like a dishonest action. The prisoner pleaded "Not gnUty" in a firm voice. We read of this whenever we read of the trial of a great criminal ; we read of the firm voice, the calm demeanour, the composed face, and the dignified bearing ; and we wonder. Would it not be more wonderful were it othenvise ? If we consider the pitch to which that man's feelings have been wrought ; the tension of every nerve ; the exertion of every force, mental and physical, to meet those five or sis desperate hours, we wonder no longer. The man's hfe has become a terrible drama, and he is playing his great act. That mass of pale and watchful faces carries him tlirough the long agony. Or perhaps it is less an agony than an excitement. It may be that his mind is mercifully darkened, and that he cannot see beyond the awful present into the more awful future. He is not busy with the -vdsion of a ghastly structure of wood and iron; a danghng rope swinging loose in the chill morning air, till it is tightened and strained by a quivering and palpitating figure, which so soon grows rigid. He does not, it is to be hoped, see this. Life for him to-day stands still, and there is not room in his breast — absox'bed with the one anxious desire to presei-ve a proud and steady outward seeming — for a thought of that dreadful future which may be so close at hand. So, Richard Marwood, in an unfalteiing voice, pleaded " Not giiilty." There was among that vast crowd but one person who be- lieved him. Ay, Richard ]\rarwood, thou mightest reverence those dirty hands, for they have spelt out the only language, except that of thy wretched mother, that ever spoke conviction of thy innocence. Now the prisoner, though firm and collected in his manner spoke in so low and subdued a voice as to be only clearly audiliU to those near him. It hapjaened that the judge, one of the celebrities of the bench, was afiiicted with a trifling infirmity, which he would never condescend to acknowledge. That infirmity was partial deafness. He was what is called hard of hearing on one side, and his — to use a common expression — game ear happened to be nearest Richard. " Guilty," said the judge. _ " So, so— Guilty. Very good." " Pardon me, my lord," said the counsel for the defence, " the prisoner pleaded not guilty." " Nonsense, sir. Do you suppose me deaf?" asked his lord- ship; at which there was a slight titter among the habituea ol the court. ■ir^ The Trait of the Serpent T^.o barrister c:iivo his lioail a deprccatoiy shate. Ofcourge, a ;j;";iLiL'raan in liis iDi-Jrfhiii'.s nositinn couW not be deaf. "Very well, then," said the judge, "unless I am deaf, the prisoner pleaded guilty. I heard him, sir, with my own ears — my own ears." The barrister thought his lordship should have said " my own ear," as the game organ ought not to count. " Perhajjs," said the judge, " perliaps the prisoner will be good enough to repeat lus plea ; and tliis time he will be good enough to speak oiit." " Not guilty," said Richai'd again, in a firm but not a loud voice — his long imprisonment, with days, weeks, and months of slow agony, had so exhausted his physical powers, that to speak at all, under such circumstances, was an effort. "Not guilty?" said the judge. "Why, the man doesn't know his own mind. The man must be a born idiot — he can't be right in his intellect." Scarcely had the woi-ds passed his lordship's lips, when a long low whistle resounded through the court. Everybody looked up towards a comer of the gallery from which the sound came, and the officials ci-ied " Order !" Among the rest the prisoner raised his eyes, and looking to the spot from which this unexainpled and daring interruption proceeded, recognized the face of the man who had spelt oat the words "Not guilty" in the railway carriage. Their eyes met; and the man signalled to E-ichard to watch his hands, whilst with his fingers he spelt out several words slowly and de- liberately. This occurred during the pause caused by the endeavours of the officials to discover what contumacious person had dared to •whistle at the close of his lordship's remark. The counsel for the prosecution stated the case — a very cleai case it seemed too — against Eichard Marwood. "Here," said the barrister, "is the case of a young man, who, after squandering a fortune, and getting deeply in debt in his native town, leaves that to^vn, as it is thought by all, never to Itturn. For seven years he does not return. His widowed and lonely mother awaits in anguish for any tidings of this heartless reprobate; but, for seven long years, by not so much as one line or one word, sent through any channel whatever, does he attempt to relieve her anxiety. His townsmen believe him to be dead ; his mother believes him to be dead ; and it is to be presumed from his conduct that he wishes to be lost sight of by all to whom he once was dear. But at the end of this seven years, li' ^ uncle, his mother's only brother, a man of large fortune, returns from India and takes up his temporary aboda Seven Letters on the l)lriij Alphabet. 47 &t tte Black Mill. Of course all Slopperton knows of tlio amval of tliis gentleman, and knows also the extent of his wealth. "We are always interested in rich people, gentlemen of the jury. Now, it is not very difficult to imagine, that through eome channel or other the prisoner at the bar was made aware of his uncle's return, and his residence at the Black Mill. The fact was mentioned in every one of the five enterprising jour iiala which are the pride of Slojjperton. The prisoner may have seen one of these joui-nals ; he may have had some former boon companion resident in Slopperton, with whom he may have been in correspondence. Be that as it may, gentlemen, on the eighth night after Mr. Montague Harding's arrival, the prisouei at the bar appears, after seven years' absence, with a long face and a penitent stoiy, to beg his mother's forgiveness. Gentle- men, we know the boundless power of maternal love ; the inex- haustible depth of aflection in a mother's breast. His mother forgave him. The fatted calf was killed ; the returned wanderer was welcomed to the home he had rendered desolate ; the past was wiped out ; and seven long years of neglect and desertion were forgotten. The family retired to rest. That night, gentle- men, a murder was committed of a deeper and darker dye than guilt ordinarily wears : a murder which in centuries hence w-ill stand amongst the blackest chapters in the gloom}^ annals of crime. Under the roof whose shelter he had sought for the repose of his old age, Montague Harding was cruelly and bru- tally murdered. '•Now, gentlemen, who committed this outrage? Who was the monster in human form that perpetrated this villanous, cowardly, and bloodthirsty deed? Suspicion, gentlemen of the jury, only points to one man; and to that num suspicion points with so unerring a finger, that the criminal stands re- vealed in the broad glare of detected guilt. That man is the prisoner at the bar. On the discovery of the murder, the returned wanderer, the penitent and dutiful son, was of course sought for. But was he to be found ? No, gentlemen. The bird had llown. The aflectionate son, who, after seven years' desertion, had returned to his mother's feet— as it was of course presumed never again to leave her — had departed, secretly, in the dead of the night; choosing to sneak out of a window like a burglar, rather than to leave by the door, as the legitimate master of the house. Suspicion at once points to him ; he is sought and found — where, gentlemen? Forty miles from the scene of the murder, with the money rifled from the cabinet of the murdered man in his jwssession, and with his coat-sleevo stamed by the blood of his victim. These, gentlemen, are, in Inef, tlie circumstances of this haiTowing case; and I think you will agree with me t'"^ never did circumstantial evideu(y 4S Tlie trait of the Serpent. BO clearly point out tlie true crimiiial. I sJ"ill now proceed t^ call the witnesses for the crown." There was a pause and a little bustle in tlie court , the wavei of the human sea were agitated for a moment. The backers o\ the favourites, " Guilty " and " Gallows," felt they had made safe books. During this pause, a man pushed his way through the crowd, up to the spot where the prisoner's coimsel was seated, and put a little dirty sHp of paper into his hand. There was written on it only one word, a word of three letters. The counsel read it, and then tore the slip of paper into the smallest atoms it was possible to reduce it to, and threw the fragments on the floor at his feet ; but a warm flush mounted to his face, hitherto so pale, and he prepared himself to watch the evi- dence. Richard Marwood, who knew the strength of the evidence against him, and knew his powerlessness to controvert it, had listened to its recapitulation with the preoccupied air of a man whom the proceedings of the day in no way concerned. His abstracted manner had been noticed by the spectators, and much commented upon. It was singular, but at this most important crisis it appeared as if his cliief attention was attracted by Joseph Peters, for he kept his eyes intently fixed upon the comer where that indi- vidual stood. The eyes of the people, following the direction of Richard's eyes, saw nothing but a little group of officials leaning over a comer of the gallery. The crowd did not see what Richard saw, namely, the fingers of Mr. Peters slowly shaping seven letters — two words — four .letters in the first word, and three letters in the second. There lay before the prisoner a few sprigs of rue ; he took them up one by one, and gathering them together inio a little bouquet, placed them in his button-hole — the eyes of the multi- tude staring at him all the time. Strange to say, this trifling action appeared to be so pleasing to Mr. Joseph Peters, that he danced, as involuntarily, the first steps of an extempore hornpipe, and being sharply called to order by the officials, relapsed into insignificance for the re- mainder of the trial CHAPTER IX. **MAD, GENTLEMEN OP THE JCTai." The first witness called was Richard's mother. From one to another amidst the immense number of persons in that well- packed court-room there ran a murmur of compassion for that helpless woman with the white, anguish-worn face, and tha "Mid, Gentlemen of the Jury r 4A qtiivering Kp which tried so vainly to be still. AH in Slopperton who knew anything of Mrs. Marwood, knew her to be a proud woman; they knew how silently she had borne the wild con- duct of her son ; how deeply she had loved that ion ; and they could guess now the depth of the bitterness oi her soul when called upon to utter words which must help to condemn him. After the witness had been duly sworn, the counsel for the orosecution addressed her thus : " We have every wish, madam, to spare your feeH'^.gs ; I know there is nob one individual present who does not sympathize with you in the position in which you now stand. But the course of Justice is as inevitable as it is sometimes painful, and we must aU of us yield to its stern necessities. You will be pleased to state how long it is since your son left his home P " " Seven years — seven years last August." " Can you also state his reasons for leaving his home ? " •' He had emban-assraents in Slopperton — Sebts, which I have since his departure liquidated." " Can you tell me what species of debts ? " "They were — " she hesitated a little, "chiefly debts of honour." " 7''hen am I to understand your son was a gambler P " " He was unfortunately much addicted to cards." "To any other description of gambUngP" " Yes, to betting on the events of the turf." " He had fallen, I imagine, into bad companionship P '' She bowed her head, and in a faltering voice replied, " He had." " And he had acquired in Sloi")i3erton the reputation of being a scamp — a ne'er-do- weU P " " I am afraid he had." " We will not press you further on this veiy painful subject ; we will proceed to his departure from home. Your son gave you no intimation of his intention of leaving Slopperton ? " " None whatever. The last words he said to me were, that he was sorry for the past, but that he had started on a Ijad road, and must go on to the end." In this manner the examination proceeded, the account o\ the discovery of the murder being ehcited from the witness, whose horror at having to give the details was exceedingly ])ainful to behold. The prisoner's counsel rose and addressed Mrs. Marwood. " In examining you, madam, my learned friend has not asked you whether you had looked upon your son, the prisoner at tho oar, as a good or a bad mn. Will you be kind enough to state your impression on this subject P *' D 50 The Trail oj the Serpent " Apart from liis wild conduct, he was a good soiu He waS kind and affectionate, and I believe it was his regret for the grief his dissipation had caused me that di'ove him away from his home." " He was kind and affectionate. I am to understand, then, that liis disi:)Osition was naturally good ? " "Naturally he had a most excellent disposition. He was nniversally beloved as a boy ; the servants were excessively attached to him ; he had a great love of anhnals — dogs followed him instinctively, as I believe they always do follow people who like them." " A very interesting trait, no doubt, in the prisoner's dis- position ; but if we are to have so much charmingly minute description, I'm afraid we shall never conclude this trial," said the opposite counsel. And a juryman, who had a ticket for a public dimier at four o'clock in his pocket, forgot hiiuself so far that he applauded with the heels of his boots. The prisoner's counsel, regardless of the observation of his "learned friend," proceeded. " ]\Iadam," he said, " had your son, before his departure from home, any serious illness ? " "The question is irrelevant," said the judge. "Pardon me, my lord. I shall not detain yon long. I be- lieve the question to be of importance. Permit me to proceed." Mrs. Marwood looked surprised by the question, but it came from her son's advocate, and she did her best to answer it. " My son had, shortly before his leaving home, a violent attack of brain-fever." " During which he was deUinous? " " Evei'ybody is dehrious in brain-fever," said the judge. " This is trifling with the court, sir." The judge was rather inclined to snub the prisoner's counsel ; first, because he was a young and struggling man, and there- fore ought to be snubbed ; and secondly, because he had in a manner inferred that his lordshiji was deaf. " Pardon me, my lord ; you will see the drift of my question by-and-by." " I hope so, sir," said his lordship, very testily. " "Was your son, madam, delii-ious during this fever P ** " Throughout it, sir." " And you attributed the fever " ** To his bad conduct having preyed upon his mind.** " Were you alarmed for his life during his illness ? " "Much alarmed. But our greatest fear was for his leason.** " Did the faculty appreheiid the loss of his reason ? " "They did." " Tlie doctors who attended him were resident in Slopperton P" "Mad, Genllemen of the Jury.** 51 **Tliey were, and are bo still. Ho waa attended by Dr. Morton and Mr. Lamb." The prisoner's counsel here beckoned to some officials neai Lim — whispered some directions to them, and they immediately left the court. Eesuming the examination of this witness, the counsel said: " You repeated just now the words your son made use of on the night of his departure from home. They were rather sin- gular words — ' he had started on a dark road, and he must go on to the end of it.' " " Those were his exact words, sir." "Was there any wUdness in his manner in saying these words ? " he asked. " His manner was always wild at this time — perhaps wilder that night than usual." *' His manner, you say, was always wild. He had acquu-ed a reputation for a wild recklessness of disposition from an early age, had he not ? " "He had, unfortunately — from the time of his going to ichool." " And his companions, I believe, had given him some najna expressive of this ? " "They had." " And that name was ** " Daredevil Dick." Martha, the old servant, was next sworn. She described the finding of the body of Mr. Harding. The examination by the jjrisuner's counsel of this witness elicited nothing but that — Master Dick had always been a wild boy, but a good boy it heart ; that he had been never known to hurt so much as s worm; and that she, Martha, was sure he'd never done the murder. "When asked if she had any suspicion as to who had done the deed, she became nebulous in her manner, and made some allusions to " the French " — having Uved in the days of Waterloo, and being inclined to ascribe any deed of darkness, from the stealing of a leg of mutton to the exploding of an infernal machine, to the emissaries of Napoleon. Mr. Jinks, who was then examined, gave a minute and rather discursive account of the arrest of Richard, paying several artful compUments to his own dexterity as a detective officer. The man who met Richard on the platform at the railway etation deposed to the prisoner's evident wish to avoid a »ecognition ; to his even crossing the line for that purpose. "There is one wtness," said the counsel for the crown, "I 62 f^ie Trail of tlie Serpent. tun sorry to say I shall be unable to produce. Thtit witness is the half-caste servant of the murdered gentleman, who stiU lies in a precarious state at the county hospital, and whose recovery from the injuries inflicted on hun by the murderer of his master is pronounced next to an impossibility." The case for the prosecution closed; still a very clear case against Eichard Marwood, and still the backers of the " Gallows" thought they had made a very good book. The deposition of the Lascar, the servant of the murdered man, had been taken through an interpreter, at the hospital. It threw little hght on the case. The man said, that on the night of the murder he had been awoke by a sound in Mr. Harding's room, and had spoken La Hindostanee, asking if his master required his assistance, when he received in the darkness a blow on the head, which immediately deprived him of his senses. He could tell nothing of the person who struck the blow, except that at the moment of striking it a hand passed across his face — a hand which was peculiarly soft and delicate, and the fingers of which were long and slender. As this passage in the dej>osition was read, every eye in court was turned to the prisoner, who at that moment hap- pened to be leaning foi-ward with his elbow on the ledge of the dock before him, and his hand shading his forehead — a very white hand, with long slender fingers. Poor Richard ! In the good days gone by he had been rather proud of his delicate and somewhat feminine hand. The prisoner's counsel rose and delivered his speech for the defence. A very elaborate defence. A defence which went to prove that the prisoner at the bar, though positively guUty, was not morally guilty, or legally guilty — " because, gentlemen of the jury, he is, and for some time has been, insane. Yes, mad, gentlemen of the jury. What has been every action of his life but the aji'^ion oi a madman ? His wild boyhood ; his reckless extravagant youth; his dissipated and wasted man- hood, spent among drunken and dangerous companions. What was his return ? Premeditated during the sufferings of deli- rium tremens, and premeditated long before the arrival of his rich uncle at Slopperton, as I shall presently prove to you. What was this, but the sudden repentance of a madman ? Scarcely recovered from this frightful disease — a disease during which men have been known frequently to injure themselves, and those very dear to them, in the most terrible manner — Bcarcely recovered from this disease, he starts on foot, penniless for a journey of upwards of two hundred miles. He accom- plishes that journey — how, gentlemen, in that dreary November weather, I tremble even to think — he accomplishes that long and painful journey ; and on the evening of the eighth day " 3[ad, Oenfhmen of the Jury.** 63 from that on wliich lie left London he falls fainting at hia mother's feet. I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that the jjrisoner left London on the very day on which his uncle arrived in Slopperton; it is therefore impossible he could have had any knowledge of that arrival when he started. Well, gentlemen, the prisoner, after the fatigue, the extreme privation, he has suffered, has yet another trial to undergo — tne terrible agita- tion caused by a reconciliation with his beloved mother. He has eaten scarcely anything for two days, and is injudiciously allowed to drink nearly a bottle of old madeira. That night, gentlemen of the jmy, a cruel murder is perpetrated ; a murder as certain of immediate discovery, as clumsy in execution, as it is frightful in detail. Can there be any doubt that if it was committed by my unhappy client, the prisoner at the bar, it was perpetrated by him while labouring under an access of delirium, or insanity — temporary, if you wiU, but unmitigated insanity — aggravated by excessive fatigue, unprecedented men- tal excitement, and the bad effects of the wine he had been drinking ? It has been proved that the cabinet was rifled, and that the pocket-book stolen therefrom was found in the prison- er's possession. This may have been one of those strange flashes of method which are the distinguishing features of madness. In his hoiTor at the crime he had in his delirium committed, the prisoner's endeavour was to escape. For this escape he required money — hence the plunder of the cabinet. The manner of his attempting to escape again proclaims the madman. Instead of flying to Liverpool, which is only thirty miles from this town — whence he could have sailed for any part of the globe, and thus defied pursuit — he starts without any attempt at disguise for a small inland town, whence escape is next to an impossibility, and is captured a few hours aftef the crime has been committed, with the blood of his unhappy victmi upon the sleeve of his coat. Would a man in hia senses, gentlemen, not have removed, at any rate, this fatal evidence of his guilt? Would a man in his senses not have endeavoured to disguise himself, and to conceal the money lie had stolen P Gentlemen of the jury, I have perfect confidence in your coming to a just decision respecting tliis most unhappy affair. Weighing well the antecedents of the prisoner, and the circumstances of the crime, I can have not one shadow of a doubt that your verdict will be to the effect that the wretched man before you is, alas! too certainly his uncle's murderer, but that he is as certainly irresponsible for a deed committed during an aberration of intellect." Strange to say, the counsel did not once draw attention to the singular conduct of the prisoner while in court ; but thia 64 Tlie Trail of the Serpent. conduct had not been the less remarked by the jury, and did not the less weigh with them. The witnesses for the defence were few in number. The first who mounted the witness-box was rather peculiar in his appear- ance. If you include amongst his personal attractions a red nose (which shone like the danger-signal on a railway through the dusky air of the court) ; a black eye — not that admired larkness of the organ itself which is the handiwork of Hberal nature, but that peculiarly mottled purple-and-green appear- Jiace abont the region which bears witness to the fist of an acquaintance ; a bushy moustache of a fine blue-black dye ; a head of thick black hair, not too intimately acquainted with that modem innovation on manly habits, the comb — you may perhaps have some notion of his physical qualifi- cations. But nothing could ever give a full or just idea of the recklessness, the effrontery of his manner, the twinkle in his eye. the expression in every pimple of that radiant nose, or the depth of meaning he could convey by one twitch of his moustache, or one shake of his forest of black ringlets. His costume inclined towards the fast and furious, consisting of a pair of loose Scotch plaid unmentionables, a bright blue gi'eatcoat, no under-coat or waistcoat, a great deal of shirl ornamented with death's-heads and pink ballet-dancers — to say nothing of cofiee and tobacco stains, and enough sham gold chain meandering over his burly breast to make up for every deficiency. While he was being duly sworn, the eyes of the witness wandered with a friendly and pitying glance towards the wretched prisoner at the bar. " You are a member of the medical profession ?" " I am." " You were, I believe, in the company of the prisoner tha night of his departure from London for this town ?" " I was." " What was the conduct of the prisoner on that night ?" " Eum." On being further interrogated, the witness stated that he had known Mr. Richard Marwood for many years, being himself originally a Slopperton man. " Can yon teU what led the prisoner to determine on return' ing to his mother's house in the month of November last ?" "Blue devils," replied the witness, with determined con- ciseness. "Blue devils P" " Yes, he'd been in a low way for three months, or more ; he'd had a sharp attack of deUrium ti'emens, and a touch of his old complaint " "His old complaint*" ** Mad, Gentlemen of tlie Jury}^ 65 " Tea, brain-fever. During the fever he talked a great deal of his mother; said he had killed her by his bad conduct, but that he'd beg her forgiveness if he walked to Slopperton on his bare feet." " Can you tell me at what date he first expressed this desire to come to Slopperton ?" " Some time during the month of September." " Did you during tliis period consider liim to be in a sound mind ?■' " Well, several of my friends at Guy's used to think rather the reverse. It was customary amongst us to say he had a loose slate somewhere." The coimsel for the prosecution taking exception to thia phrase "loose slate," the witness went on to state that he thought the prisoner very often off his nut ; had hidden his razors during his illness, and pUed up a barricade of furni- txire before the window. The prisoner was remarkable for reckless generosity, good temper, a truthful disposition, and a talent for doing everything, and always doing it better than anybod}' else. This, and a great deal more, was elicited from him by the advocate for the defence. He was cross-examined by the counsel for the prosecution. " I think you told my learned friend that you were a member of the medical profession?" " I did." Was first apprenticed to a chemist and druggist at Slopper- ton, and was now walking one of the hospitals in London with a view to attaining a position in the profession ; had not yet attained eminence, but hoped to do so ; had operated with some success in a desperate case of whitlow on the linger of a servant- girl, and should have effected a surprising cure, if the girl had not grown impatient and allowed her finger to be amputated by a rival practitioner before the curative process had time to develop itself; had always entertained a sincere regard for the prisoner • had at divers times borrowed money of him ; couldn't say he rememl:>ered ever returning any ; perhaps he never had returned any, and that might account for his not remembering the circumstance; had been present at the election of, and instrumental in <^;lecting the prisoner a member of a convivial chib called the " Cheerful Cherokees." No " Cheerful Cherokee" had ever been known to commit a murder, and the club was convinced of the prisoner's innocence. " You told the court and jury a short time ago, that the prisoner's state on the last night you saw him in London was *rum,' " said the learned gentleman conducting the prosecution; "will yon be good enough to favour us with the meaning oi fhat adjective — you intend it for an a(\jective, I presume?" 5G Tf ail of the Serpent, " Certaanly," replied the witness. " Eum, an adjective when applied to a gentleman's conduct ; a substantive when used to denomiaate his tipple." The counsel for the prosecution doesn't clearly understand the meaning of the word " tipple." The witness thinks the learned gentleman had better buy a dictionary before he again assists in a criminal prosecution. "Come, come, sir," said the judge; "you are extremely im- Eertinent. We don't want to be kept here all night. Let uf ave your evidence in a straightforward manner." The witness squared his elbows, and turned that luminary, his nose, full on his lordship, as if it had been a bull's-eye lantern. " Tou used another strange expression," said the counsel, " in tinswer to my friend. Will you have the kindness to explain what you mean by the prisoner having ' a loose slate ' ? " " A tile off. Something wrong about the roof — the garret — the upper story — the nut." The counsel for the prosecution confessed himself to be still in the dark. The witness declared himself sorry to hear it — he could under- take to give his evidence ; but he could not undertake to pro- vide the gentleman with understanding. " I will trouble you to be respectful in your repUes to the counsel for the crown," said the judge. The medical student's variegated eye looked defiantly at his lordship; the counsel for the crown had done with him, and he retired from the witness-box, after bowing to the judge and jury with studious poUteness. The next witnesses were two medical gentlemen of a difierent stamp to the "Cheerfal Cherokee," who had now taken hie place amongst the spectators. These gentlemen gave evidence of having attended the pri- soner some years before, during brain-fever, and having very much feared the fever would have resulted in the loss of the patient's reason. The trial had by this time lasted so long, that the juryman who had a ticket for the public dinner began to feel that his card of admission to the festive board was so much waste paste- board, and that the green fat of the turtle and the prime cut from the haunch of venison were not for him. The counsel for the prosecution deHvered himself of hia second address to the jury, in which he endeavoured to demoUsh the superstructure which his " learned friend " had so ingeni- ously raised for the defence. Why should the legal defender of a man whose life is in the hands of the jury not be privileged to address that jury in favour of his client as often, at least, as the legal representative of the prosecutor ? *• Mad, Gentlemen of the Jury.*'* 67 fhe jadge delivered liis charge to the jury. The jury retired, and in an hour and fifteen minutes returned. They found that the prisoner, Richard Marwood, had mur- dered his uncle, Montague Harding, and had further beaten and injured a half-caste servant in the employ of his uncle, while Buffering from aberration of intellect — or, in simple phraseology, they found the prisoner "Not GruHty, on the ground of in- Banity.** The prisoner seemed httle affected by the verdict. He looked with a vacant stare round the court, removed the bouqiiet of rue from his button-hole and placed it in his bosom ; and then said, with a clear distinct enunciation — " Gentlemen of the jury, I am extremely obliged to you for the politeness with which you have treated me. Thanks to your powerful sense of justice, I have won the battle of Areola, and I think I have secured the key of Italy." It is common for lunatics to fancy themselves some great and distinguished person. This unhappy yonnar inan l>elieved himself to be Napoleon the First. A CLEAEANCE OE ALL SCOKEa CHAPTER L BLIND PETER. The favourite, " Gallows," having lo»t in the race with Richard MarvTood, there was veiy little more interest felt in Slopperton about poor Daredevil Dick's fate. It was known that he was in the county lunatic asylum, a prisoner for life, or, as it is ex- pressed by persons learned in legal matters, during the pleasure of the sovereign. It wag known that his poor mother had taken up her abode near the asylum, and that at intervals she was allowed the melancholy pleasure of seeing the wreck of her once light-hearted boy. Mrs. Marwood was now a very rich woman, inheritress of the whole of her poor murdered brother's wealth — for Mr. Montague Harding's will had been found to bequeath the whole of his immense fortune to his only sister. She spent httle, however, and what she did ex^^end was chiefly devoted to works of charity ; but even her benevolence wag limited, and she did little more for the poor than she had done before from her own small income. The wealth of the East Indian remained accumulating in the hands of her bankers. Mrs. Marwood was, therefore, very rich, and Slopperton accord- ingly set her down as a miser. So the nine-days' wonder died out, and the murder of Mr. Harding was forgotten. The sunsliine on the factor)^ chimneys of Slopperton grew warmer every day. Every day the "hands" appertaining to the factories felt more and more the necessity of frequent application to the public-honse, as the weather grew brighter and brighter — till the hot June sun blazed down upon the pavement of every street in Slopperton, baking and grilling the stones ; till the sight of a puddle or an overflowing gutter ■would have been welcome as j^ools of water in the great desert of Sahara ; tiU the people who lived on the sunny side of the way felt spitefully disposed towards the inhabitants of the shady Bide; till the chandler at the comer, who came out with a watering-pot and sprinkled the pavement before Ins door every JOJind Peter. 69 evening, was thought a public benefactor; till the balcer, "w-ho added hia private stock of caloric to the great firm of Simshine and Co., and baked the pavement above his oven on his cwu account, •was thought a public nuisance, and hot bread an abomination; till the butter Slopperton had for tea was no longer butter, but oil, and eluded the pursuit of the knife, or hid itself in a cowardly manner in the holes of the quartern loaf when the housewife attempted to spread it thereon ; till cattle standing in pools of water were looked upon with envy nad hatred; and till — wonder of wonders! — Slopperton paid up (he water-rate sharp, in fear and anguish at the thought of the j>c3siblecutting-ofF of that refi-esliing tluid. The 17th of June ushered in the midstimmer holidays at Dr. Tappenden's estabUshment, and on the evening of that day Dr. Tappeuden broke up. Of course, this phrase, breaking up, is only a schoolboy's slang. I do not mean that the wortliy Doctor (how did he ever come to be a doctor, I wonder? or where did he get his degree ?) experienced any physical change when he broke up ; or that he underwent the moral change of going into the Gazette and coming out thereof better off than when he went in — wliich is, I beheve, the custom in most cases of bankruptcy; I merely mean to say, that on the evening of the 1 7th of June Dr. Tappenden gave a species of ball, at which Mr. Pranskey, the dancing-master, assisted -ndth his pumps and his violin ; and at which the young gentlemen appeared also in pumps, a great deal of wrist-band and shirt-collar, and shining faces — in a state of painfully high polish, from the effect of tlie yellow soap that had been lavished upon them by the respectable young person who looked to the wardrobe department, and mended the hnen of the young gentlemen. By the evening of the 18th, Dr. Tappenden's young gentle- men, with the exception of two little fellows with dark com- plexions and frizzy hair, whose nearest connections were at Trinidad, all departed to their respective family circles ; and Mr. Jabez North had the schoolroom to himself for the whole of the holidays — for, of course, the little West Indians, ■pl^jmg at a sea-voyage on one of the forms, with a cricket-bat for a mast, ot ri>ading Sinbad the Sailor in a corner, were no hindrance to th ;i1 gentleman's proceedings. Our friend Jabez is as calm-looking as ever. The fair pale complexion may be, perhaps, a shade paler, and the arched mouth a trifle more compressed — (that absurd professor of {jhrenology had declared that both the head and face of Jabez )espoke a marvellous power of secretiveness) — but our friend in as placid as ever. The pale face, delicate aquihne nose, the fair hair and rather slender figure, give a tone of aristocracy to his appearance which even his shabby black suit cannot conceal 60 The Trail of tie Serpent. But Jabez is not too well pleased with his lot. He pacee up and down tlie schoolroom in the twihght of the June evening, quite_ alone, for the little West Indians have retired to the long dormitory which they now inhabit in solitary grandeur. Dr. Tappenden has gone to the sea-side with his shm only daughter, famfliarly known amongst the scholars, who have no eyes for ethereal beauty, as " Skinny Jane." Dr. Tappenden has gone to enjoy himself; for Dr. Tappenden is a rich man. He is said to have some twenty thousand pounds iu a London bank. He doesn't bank his money in Slopperton. And of " Skinny Jane," it may be observed, that there are young men in the town who would give pomething for a glance from her insipid grey eyes, and who think her ethereal figure the very incarnation of the poet's ideal, when they add to that slender form the bulky figures that form the sum-total of her father's banking account. _ Jabez paces up and down the long schoolroom with a step so light that it scarcely wakes an echo (those crotchety physiologists call this Hght step another indication of a secretive disposition) — up and down, in the darkening summer evening. " Another sis months' Latin gi-ammar," he mutters, " another half-year's rudiments of Greek, and all the tiresome old fables of Paris and Helen, and Hector and Achilles, for entertainment ! A nice life for a man with my head — for those fools who preached about my deficient moral region were right perhaps when they told me my intellect might carry me anywhere. What has it done for me yet ? Well, at the worst, it has taken me out of loathsome parish rags ; it has given me independence. And it shall give _ me fortune. But how? What is to be the next trial ? This time it must be no failure. This time my premises must be sure. If I could only hit upon some scheme ! There is a way by which I could obtain a large sum of money ; but then, the fear of detection ! Detection, which if eluded to-day might come to-morrow ! And it is not a year or two's riot and dissipation that I want to purchase ; but a long life of wealth and luxury, with proud men's necks to trample on, and my old patrons to lick the dust ofi" my shoes. This is what I must fight for, and this is what I must attain — but how P How ?" _ He takes his hat up, and goes out of the house. He is quite his own master during these holidays. He comes in and goes out as he likes, provided he is always at home by ten o'clock, when the house is shut up for the night. He strolls with a purposeless step through the streets o! Slopperton. It is half-past eight o'clock, and the factory handa fill the streets, enjoying the coolness of the evening, but quiet and subdued in their manner, being exhausted by the heat of the long June day. Jabez does not much afiect these crowded itreets, and turns out of one of the most busy quarters of the Min^ Peter. 61 toNvn into a little lane of old houses, wliich leads to a great old- fashioned square, in which stand two ancient churches with very high steeples, an antique-looking town-hall (-once a j^rison), a few quaint houses with peaked roofs and projecting upper stories, and a gaunt gnmp. Jabez soon leaves this square behind him, and strolls through two or three dingy, narrow, old-fashioned streets, till he comes to a labyrinth of tumble-down houses, jng- etyes, and dog-kennels, known as Blind Peter's Alley. Who BUnd Peter was, or how he ever came to have this alley — or whether, as a place possessing no thoroughfare and admitting ver}' httle Kght, it had not originally been called Peter's Blind AUey — nobody Hving knew. But if Bhnd Peter was a myth, the alley was a reahty, and a dirty loathsome fetid reality, with regard to which the Board of Health seemed as if smitten vnih the aforesaid Peter's own infirmity, ignoring the horror of the place with fatal bhnduess. So Blind Peter was the Alsatia of Slopperton, a refuge for crime and destitution — since destitution cannot joick its company, but must be content often, for the sake of shelter, to jog cheek by jowl with crime. And thus no doubt it is on the strength of that golden adage about birds of a feather that destitution and crime are thought by numeroua wise and benevolent persons to mean one and the same thing. Blind Peter had risen to popularity once or twice — on the occasion of a girl poisoning her father in the crust of a beef- steak pudding, and a boy of fourteen committing suicide by hanging himself behind a door. BUnd Peter, on the first of these occasions, had even had his portrait taken for a Sunday paper; and very nice indeed he had looked in a woodcut — so nice, that he had found some difficulty in recognizmg liimself ; which perhaps was scarcely wonderful, when it is taken into consideration that the artist, who Hved in the neighbourliood of Holboru, had sketched Bfind Peter from a mountain gorge in the Tyrol, broken up with three or four houses out of Chancery Lane. Certainly Blind Peter had a pecuUar wUdness in his aspect, being built on the side of a steep hill, and looked very much like a London alley which had been removed from its site and pitched haphazard on to a Slojoperton mountain. It is not to be supposed for a moment that so highly resjiectable an individual as Mr. Jabez North had any intention of plunging into the dirty obscurity of BUnd Peter. He had come thus far only on his way to the outskirts of the town, where there was a little brick-bestrewn, pseudo country, very much more Uberally ornamented by oyster-shells, broken crockery, and scaffolding, than by trees or wild flowers — which natural objects were wondrous rarities in this part of the Blopperl/fmian outskirts. So J a be/ pursniod his way past the mouth of Blind Peter— 62 The Trait of the Serpent. which wa3 adorned by two or three broken-down and rust J iron railings that looked like jagged teeth — when he was suddenly arrested by a hideous-looking woman, who threw her amis about him, and addressed him in a shrill voice thus — " What, he's come back to his best friends, has he ? He's come back to his old granny, after frightening her out of her jioor old wits by staying away four days and four nights. Where have you been, Jim, my deary ? Aid where did you get your fine toggery ?'* " ^Yhere did I get my fine toggery ? Wliat do you mean, you old hag ? I don't know you, and you don't know me. Let me pass, will you ? or I'll knock you down !" " No, no," she screamed ; " he wouldn't knock down his old granny; he wouldn't knock down his precious granny that nursed him, and brought him up hke a gentleman, and will tell him a secret one of these days worth a mint of money, if ha treats her well." Jabez pricked up liis ears at the words " mint of money," and said in rather a milder tone — " I tell you, my good woman, you mistake me for somebody else. I never saw you before." " What ! you're not my Jim ? " "No. My name is Jabez North. If you're not satisfied, here's my card," and he took out his card-case. The old woman stuck her anus a kimbo, and stared at him with a gaze of admiration. " Lor'," she cried, " don't he do it nat'ral ? Ain't he a bom genius ? He's been a-doing the respectable reduced tradesman, or the young man brought up to the church, what waits upon the gentry with a long letter, and has a wife and two innocent children staying in another toAvn, and only wants the railway fare to go to 'em. Eh, Jim, that's what j'^ou've been a-doing, ain't it now ? And you've brought home the swag like a good lad to your grandmother, haven't you now ? " she said in a whecdhng tone. " I tell you, you confounded old fool, I'm not the man you take me for." " What, not my Jim ! And you can look at me mth his eyek and tell me so with his voice. Then, if you're not him, ne'a dead, and you're his ghost." Jabez thought the old womaa was mad ; but he was no coward, and the adventure began to interest him. Who was this man who was so like him, and who was to learn a secret Bome day worth a mint of money ? " ^Vill you come with me, then," said the old woman, " and «t me get a light, and see whether you are my Jim or not P " " '^^^lere's the house ? " asked Jabez. JLt/ce and Unlike. 63 "Why, in Bliud Peter, to be siire. Where should it be P" "How sbould I know?" said Jabez, following lier. He thonght liimself safe even in Blind Peter,_ having nothing of value about him, and having considerable faith in the protecting DOwer of his strong right arm. The old woman led the way into the little mountain gorge, choked up vnih rickety hovels lately erected, or crazy old houses which had once been goodly residences, in the days when the Bite of Bhnd Peter had been a pleasant country lane. Thehouse she entered was of this latter class ; and she led the way into a fetone-paved room, which had once been a tolerably spacious entrance-hall. It was hghted by one feeble little candle with a long droojjing wick, stuck in an old ginger-beer bottle ; and by this dim light Jabez saw, seated on heap of rubbish by the desolate hearth, hia own reflection — a man dressed, unhke him, in the rough gar- ments of a labourer, but whose face gave back as faithfully as ever glass had done the shadow of his own. CHAPTER 11. LIKE AND UNLIKE. The old woman stared aghast, first at one of the young men, then at the other. " AYhy, then, he isn't Jim !" she exclaimed. "AVho isn't Jim, grandmother? What do you mean? Here I am, back again ; a bundle of aching bones, old rags, and empty pockets. Pve done no good where I've been; so you needn't ask me for any money, for I haven't earned a farthing either by fair means or foul." " But the other," she said, — " this young gentleman. Look at him, Jim." The man took up the candle, snuffed it with his fingers, and walked straight to Jabez. He held the light before the face of the usher, and surveyed him with a leisurely stare. That indi\dd\iars blae eyes winlced and blinked at the flame like an owl's in the sunshine, and looked every way except straight into the eyes looking into liis. " Why, curse his impudence ! " said the man, with a faint sickly lanjrh ; " I'm blest if he hasn't been and boned my mug. I hope it'll do him more good than it's done me," he added, bitterly. *' I can't make out the meaning of this," mumbled the old woman. " It's all dark to me. I saw where the other one was put myself. I saw it done, and safely done too. Oh. yesr of course ** W. The l.-ail of the Serpent. *' What do you mean by ' the other one '?" asked the nlafl, while Jabez listened intently for the answer. " Why, my deary, that's a part of the secret you're to know some of these days. Such a secret. Gold, gold, gold, as long as it's kept ; and gold when it's told, if it's told at ihe right time, deary." " If it's to be told at the right time to do me any good, it had better be told soon, then," said Jini, with a dreary shiver. " My bones ache, and my head's on fire, and my feet are like lumps of ice. I've walked twenty mUes to-day, and I haven't had bite nor sup since last night. Where's Sillikens ?" " At the factory, Jim deary. Somebody's given her a piece of work — one of the regular hands; and she's to bring home some money to-night. Poor girl, she's been a fretting and a crying her eyes out since you've been gone, Jim." " Poor lass. I thought I might do some good for her and me both by going away where I did ; but I haven't ; and so I've come back to eat her starvation wages, poor lass. It's a cowardly thing to do, and if I'd had strength I should have gone on further, but I couldn't." As he was saying these words a girl came in at the half-open door, and running up to him, threw her arms round his neck. " Jim, you've come back ! I said you would ; I knew you'd never stop away ; I knew you couldn't be so cruel." " It's crueller to come back, lass," he said ; " it's bad to be a burden on a girl like you." "A burden, Jim!" she said, in a low reproachful voice, and then dropped quietly down amongst the dust and rubbish at his feet, and laid her head caressingly against his knee. She was not what is generally called a pretty girl. Hers had not been the delicate nurture which nourishes so frail an exotic as beauty. She had a pale sickly face ; but it was lighted up by large dark eyes, and framed by a heavy mass of dark hair. She took the man's rough hand in hers, and kissed it ten- derly. It is not hkely that a duchess would have done such a thing; but if she had, she could scarcely have done it with better grace. " A burden, Jim !" she said, — " a burden ! Do you think if I worked for you day and night, and never rested, that I should be weary ? Do you think, if I worked my fingers to the bone for y^u, that I should ever feel the pain ? Do you think, if my death could make you a happy man, I should not be glad to the ? Oh, you don't know, you don't know !" She said this half-despairingly, as if she knew there was no power in his soul to fathom the depth of love in hers. "Poor lass, poor lass," he said, as he laid the other rou/jh Like and Unlike. 65 hand gently ».>iQ her black hair. " If it's as bad ao this. I'ni Borry for it — more than ever sorry to-night." " 'i^Tiy, Jim ?" She looked up at him with a sudden glance of alarm. ""^Tiy, Jim? Is anything the matter?" " Not much, lags ; but I don't think I'm quite the thing tc-night." His head drooped as he spoke. The girl put it on her shoulder, and it lay there as if he had scarcely power to lift it up again. " Grandmother, he's ill — he's ill ! why didn't you tell me thig before? Is that gentleman the doctor?" she asked, looking at Jabez, who still stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching the scene within. " No ; but I'll fetch the doctor, if you hke," said that benevo- lent personage, w^ho appeared to take a wonderful interest iu this family group. " Do, SU-, if you wiU be so good," said the girl imploringly ; " he's very HI, I'm sure. Jim, look up, and tell U3 what's the matter?" The man lifted his heavy eyeUds with an effoi-t, and looked up with bloodshot eyes into her face. No, no ! Never cotild he lathom the depth of tliis love which looks down at him now with more than a mother's tenderness, with more than a sister's devotion, with more than a wife's self-abnegation. This love, which knows no change, which would shelter him in those entwining arms a thief or a murderer, and which could hold bira no dearer were he a king upon a throne. Jabez North goes for a doctor, and returns presently with a gentleman, who, on seeing Jim the labourer, pronounces that he had better go to bed at once ; " for," as he whispers to the old woman, " he's got rheumatic fever, and got it pretty sharp, too." The girl they call Silhkens bursts out crying on hearing this announcement, but soon chokes down her tears — (as tears are v.ont to be choked down in Blind Peter, whose inhabitants have little time for weeping) — and sets to work to get ready a poor i'pology for a bed — a worn-out mattress and a thin patch-work c lunterpane ; and on this they lay the bundle of aching bones L !iown to Blind Peter as Jim Lomax. The girl receive?, the doctor's directions, promises to ietcTi E-.)me medicine from his surgery in a few minutes, and then k neels down by the aick man. " Jim, dear Jim," she says, "keep a good heart, for the £:ike of those who love you." She might have said for the sake of her who loves you, for it r.ever surely was the iot of any man, from my lord the mnrquis to Jim tho labourer, to U? twice in hia hfc loved as tliis iiian vvaa l»^vcd by her. 6G The Trail of the Serjjent J&bez North on liis way home must go the same way aa the doctor ; so they walk side by side. " Do you think he will recover ?" asks Jabez. " I doubt it. He has evidently been exposed to great hard- ship, wet, and fatigue. The fever is very strong upon him ; and I'm afraid there's not much chance of his getting over it. I should think something might be done for him, to make him a little more comfortable. You are his brother, I presume, in spite of the appai-ent difference between you in station?" Jabez laughed a scornful laugh. " His brother ! Why, I never saw the man tiU ten minutes before you did." " Bless me!" said the old doctor, "you amaze me. I should I'.ave taken you for twin, brothers. The likeness between you 13 something wonderful; in spite, too, of the great difference in your clothes. Dressed ahke, it would be impossible to tell one from the other." " Tou really think so ?" " The fact must strike any one." Jabez North was silent for a little time after this. Pre- sently, as he parted from the doctor at a street-corner, he said — " And you really think there's very httle chance of this jioot man's recovery ?" " I'm afraid there is positively none. Unless a wonderful change takes place for the better, in three days he wiU be a dead man. Good night." " Good night," says Jabez, thoughtfully. And he walked slowly home. It would seem about this time that he was turning his atten- tion to his personal appearance, and in some danger of becoming a fop ; for the next morning he bought a bottle of hair-dye, and tried some experiments with it on one or two of his own light rijiglets, which he cut off for that purpose. It would seem a very trivial employment for so superior and intellectual a man as Jabez North, but it may be that every action of this man's life, however apparently trivial, bore towards one deep and settled purpose. CHAPTER III. ▲ GOLDEN SECKET. Mb, Jabez North, being of such a truly benevolent character, came the next day to Blind Peter, full of kind and sympathetic inquiries for the sick man. For once in a way he offered something more than sympathy, and administered what little help he could afford fiom his very slender purse. Truly a good young man, this Jabez. A Ooiaen Secret. 67 The dilapidated house in Blind Peter looked still more dreary and dilapidated in the daylight, or in such Hght as was called Jayhght by the denizens of that Avretched alley. By this hght, too, Jim Lomax looked none the better, with hungry pinched features, bloodshot eyes, and two burning ciimson spots on his hollow cheeks. He was asleep when Jabez entered. The girl was stUl seated by his side, never looking up, or taking lier large dark eyes from his iiice — never stirring, except to re- arrange the poor bundle of rags which served as a pillow for the man's weary head, or to pour out his medicine, or moisten his hot forehead with wet hnen. The old woman sat by the great gaunt fireplace, where she had lighted a few sticks, and made the best fire she could, by the doctor's orders ; for the place was damp and draughty, even in this warm June weather. She was rocking herself to and fro on a low three-legged stool, and muttering some disconnected jargon. \Vhen Jabez had spoken a few words to the sick man, and made his ofler of assistance, he did not leave the place, but stood on the hearth, looking with a thoughtful face at the old woman. She was not quite right in her mind, according to general opinion in BUnd Peter; and if a Commission of Lunacy had been called upon to give a return of her state of intellect on that day, I think that return would have agreed with the opinion openly expressed in a friendly manner by her neigh- bours. She kept muttering to herself, "And so, my deary, this is the other one. The water couldn't have been deep enough. But it's not my fault, Lucy dear, for I saw it safely put away." " What did you see so safely put away ? " asked Jabez, in so low a voice as to be heard neither by the sick man nor the girl. "Wouldn't you hke to know, deary ?" mumbled the old hag, looking up at him with a malicious grin. " Don't you very much want to know, my dear ? But you never will ; or if you ever do, you must be a rich man first; for it's part of the secret, and the secret's gold — as long as it is kept, my dear, and it's been kept a many years, and kept faithful." "Does he know it?" Jabez asked, pointing to the sick man. "No, my dear; he'd want to tell it. I mean to sell it somo day, f(ir it's worth a mint of money ! A mint of money I He doesn't know it^ — nor she — not that it matters to her; but it does matter to him." " Then you had best let him know before three days are over or he'll never know it !" said the schoolmaster. •* Why not, deary P" ** Never jou mind 1 I want to spesik to you ; and I don't want 68 The Trail of tJte Serpent those two to hear what I say. Can we go anywhere hereahouti •where I can talk to you without the chance of being overheard ? " The old woman nodded assent, and led the way with feeble tottering steps out of the hoiise, and through a gap in a hedge to some broken ground at the back of Blind Peter. Here the old crone seated herself upon a little hillock, Jabez standing opposite her, looking her full in the face. " Now," said he, with a determined look at the grinning face before him, " now tell me, — what was the something that was put away so safely P And what relation is that man in there to me ? Tell me, and teU me the truth, or " He only finishes the sentence with a threatening look, but the old woman finishes it for him, — " Or you'll kill me — eh, deary? I'm old and feeble, and you might easily do it — eh P Biit you won't — you won't, deary ! You know better than that ! Kill me, and you'll never know tlie secret ! — the secret that may be gold to you some day, and that nobody ahve but me can tell. If you'd got some very precious wine in a glass bottle, my dear, you wouldn't smash the bottle now, would yoi; P becaifise, you see, you couldn't sma^h the bottle without spilling the wine. And you won't lay so much as a rough finger upon me, I know." The usher looked rather as if he would have liked to lay tha whole force of ten very rough fingers upon the most vital part of the grinning hag's anatomy at that moment — but he re- strained himself, as if by an effort, and thrust his hands deep into his trousers-pockets, in order the better to resist temptation. "Then you don't mean to tell me what I asked youp" he said impatiently. " Don't be in a hurry, my dear ! I'm an old woman, and I don't like to be hurried. What is it you want to know ?" " "What that man in there is to me." " Own brother — twin brother, my dear — that's all. And I'm your grandmotliisr — your mother's mother. Ain't you pleased to find your reii,tions, my blessed boy ?" If he were, he had a strange way of showing pleasure; a very strange manner of welcoming newly-found relations, if his feelings were to be judged by that contracted brow and moody glance. " Is this trueP" he asked. The old harridan looked at him and grinned. " That's an ugly mark you've got upon your left arm, my dear," she said, "just above the elbow ; it's very lucky, though, it's under your coat- eleeve, where nobody can see it." Jabez started. He had indeed a scar upon his arm, though very few people knew of it. He remembered it from his earliest days in the Slopjjerton workhouse. A Golden Secret. 69 " Do you know how you came by that mark ? " continued the old woman. " Shall I tell you ? Why, you fell into the fire, deary, when you were only three weeks old. We'd been drinking a Uttle bit, my dear, and we weren't used to drinking much then, nor to eating much either, and one of us let you tumble into the fireplace, and before we could get you oiit, your arm was burnt ; but you got over it, my dear, and three days after that you had the misfortune to fall into the water." " You threw me in, you old she-devil ! " he exclaimed fiercely "Come, come," she said, "you are of the same stock, so 1 wouldn't call names if I were you. Perhaps I did throw yoii into the Sloshy. I don't want to contradict you. If you say so, I dare say I did. I suppose you tliink me a very unnatural old woman ? " " It wouldn't be so strange if I did." " Do you know what choice we had, your mother and me, as to what we were to do mth our youngest hope — ^you're younger by two hours than your brother in there? Why, there was the river on one side, and a Life of misery, perhaps starvation, perhaps worse, on the other. At the very best, such a life as ho m there has led — hard la,bour and bad food, long toilsome daya and short nights, and bad words and black looks from all who ought to help him. So we thought one was enough for that, and we chose the river for the other. Yes, my precious boy, I took you down to the river-side one very dark night and dropped you in where I thought the water was deepest; but, you see, it wasn't deep enough for you. Oh, dear," she said, with an imbecile grin, " I suppose there's a fate in it, and you were never bom to be drowned." Her hopeful grandson looked at her with a savage frown. " Drop that ! " he said, " I don't want any of your cursed wit." " Don't you, deary ? Lor, I was quite a wit in my youn«, days. They used to call me Lively Betty ; but that's a long time ago." There was sufficient left, however, of the HveUness of a long fone ago to give an air of ghastly mirth to the old woman's manner, which made that manner extremely repulsive. What can be more repulsive than old age, which, shorn of the beauties and graces, is yet not purified from the follies or the vices of departed youth ? " And so, my dear, the water wasn't deep enough, and you tvere saved. How did it all come about P Tell us, my precious boy?" "Yes; I dare say you'd Uke to know," replied her "precioua boy," — "but you can keep your secret, and I can keep mine. Perhaps you'll tell me whether my mother is alive or dead P " 70 TU Trail of the Serpent. Now tliis was a question whicli would have cruelly agitated some men in the position of Jabez North ; but that gentleman was a philosopher, and he might have been inquiring the fate of some cast-off garment, for all the fear, tenderness, or emotion ol any kind that his tone or manner betrayed. " Your mother's been dead these many years. Don't you ask jiie how she died. I'm an old woman, and my head's not 8'> right but what some things will set it wrong. Talking of that is one of 'em. She's dead. I couldn't save her, nor help her, nor set her right. I hope there's more pity where she's gone than she ever got here; for I'm sure if trouble can need it, she needed it. Don't ask me anytiiing about her." "Then I won't," said Jabez. "My relations don't seem such an eligible lot that I should set to work to write the history of the family. I suppose I had a father of some kind or other. What's become of him ? Dead or " " Hung, eh, deary ? " said the old woman, relapsing into the mahcious gi-in. "Take care what you're about," said the fascinating Mr, North, "or you'll tempt me to shake the life out of your ehrivelled old carcass." " And then yon'U never know who your father was. Eh ? Ha, ha ! my precious boy ; that's part of the golden secret that none but me can tell." " Then you won't tell me my father's name ? " " Perhaps I've forgotten it, deary ; perhaps I never knew it — who knows ? " "Was he of your class — poor, insignificant, and wretched, the scum of the earth, the mud in the streets, the slush in the gutters, for other people to trample upon with their du-ty boots ? "W'^as he that Boi't of thing ? Because if he was, I shan't put myself out of the way to make any tender inquiries about him." " Of course not, deary. You'd like him to have been a fine gentleman — a baronet, or an earl, or a marquis, eh, my blessed boy ? A marquis is about the ticket for you, eh ? "\A1iat do you say to a marquis ? " It was not very polite, certainly, what he did say ; not quite the tone of conversation to be pleasing to any marquis, or to any noble or potentate whatever, except one, and him, by the laws of polite literature, I am not allowed to mention. Puzzled by her mysterious mumblings, grinnings, and gesti- culations, our friend Jabez stared hard in the old crone's face for about three minutes — looking very much as if he would have liked to throttle her ; but he refrained from that tempta- lion, turned on his heel, and walked ofi" in the direction of Slopperton. The old woman apostrophized his receding figure. Jim looks over the Brinic of the Terrible Gulf. 71 " Oh, yes, deary, you're a nice young man, and a clever, civil- epolcen young man, and a credit to them that reared you ; but you'll never have the golden secret out of me till you've got the money to pay for it." CHAPTER IV. im. LOOKS OVEB, THE BRINK 01' THE TERRIBLE GULF. TuE light had gone down on the last of the days through which, According to the doctor's prophecy, Jim Lomax was to live to see that light. Poor Jim's last sun sank to liis rest upon such cloud-pillowa of purple and red, and drew a curtain of such gorgeous coloura round liim in the western sky, as it would have very much puzzled any earthly monarch to have nMitched. though Ruskin liimself had chosen the colours, and Turner had been the man to lay them on. Of course some of this red sunset flickered awd fided upon the chimney-pots and window-panes — rare luxuries, by the bye, those window-panes — of BUnd Peter ; but there it came in a modified degree only — this blessed sign-manual of an A^l mighty Power — as all earthly and heavenly blessings should come to the poor. One ray of the crimson light fell full upon the face of the sick man, and slanted from him upon the dark hair of the girl, wlio sat on the ground in her old position by the bedside. This light, which fell on them and on no other object in the dusky room, seemed to unite them, as though it were a messenger from the sky that said, " They stand alone in the world, and never have been meant to staud asunder." " It's a beautiful light, lass," said the sick man, " and I viTonder I never cared more to notice or to watch it than I have. Lord, I've seen it many a time sinking behind the sharp edge ot ploughed land, as if it had dug its own grave, and was glad to go down to it, and I've thought no more of it than a bit of candle ; but now it seems such a beautiful hght, and I feel as if I should like to see it again, lass." *' And you will — you will see it again, Jim." She drew hia head upon her bosom, and stroked the rough hair away from his damp forehead. She was half dead herself, with want, anxiety, and fatigue ; but she spoke in a cheerful voice. She had not shed a tear throughout his illness. " Lord help you, Jim dear, you'll live to see many and many a bright sunset — live to see it go down upon our wedding-day, perhaps." "No, no, lass; that's a day no sun will ever sliine upon. You must get another sweetheart, and a better one, maybe, 72 The Trail of the Serpent. I'm sure you deserve a better one, for you're true, lass, true as B.toeL" The girl drew Ma head closer to her breast, and bending over him, kissed his dry lips. She never thought, or cared to knnw, what fever or what poison she might inhale in that caress. If ;^ ^e had thought about it, perhaps she would have prayed that 1!|G same fever which had stnick him down might lay her low besn'.a him. He spoke again, as the light, with a lingering glo\7, brightened, and flickered, and then faded out. " It's gone; it's gone for ever; it's behind me now, lass, an I must look straight before " " At what, Jim ?— at what ? " " At a teiTible gulf, my lass. I'm a-standing on the edge of it, and I'm a-looking down to the bottom of it — a cold dark lonesome place. But perhaps there's another light beyond it, lass ; who knows ?" " Some say they do know, Jim," said the girl ; " some say they do know, and that there is another light beyond, better than the one we see here, and always shining. Some people do know all about it, Jim." " Then why didn't they tell us about it?" asked the man, with an angry expression in his hollow eyes. " I suppose those as taught them meant them to teach us ; but I suppose they didn't tliink us worth the teaching. How many will be sorry for me, lass, when I am gone ? Not grandmother ; her brain's crazed with that fancy of hers of a golden secret— as if she wouldn't have sold it long before this if she'd had asecret— sold it for bread, or more hkely for gin. Not anybody in Blind Peter — they've enough to do to think of the bit of food to put inside them, or of the shelter to cover their unfortunate heads. Nobody but you, lass, nobody but you, will be sorry for me ; and I think you will." He thinks she will be sorry. What has been the story of her life but one long thought and care for him, in which her every Borrow and her every joy have taken their colour from joys and 801T0WS of his ? While they are talking, Jabez comes m, and, seating himself on a low stool by the bed, talks to the sick man. "And so," says Jim, looking him full in the face with a curious glance — " so you're my brother — the old woman's told me all about it — my twin brother; so hke me, that it's quite a treat to look at you. It's hke looking in a glass, and that's a luxury I've never been accustomed to. Light a candle, lass ; I want to see my brother's face." His brother was against the hghting of the candle -it might hurt the eyes of the sufferer, he suggested; but Jim repeated tiis request, and the girl obeyed. Jim looTcs over tJie JBrink of the Terrible Gulf. 7.1 " Now come here and hold the candle, lass, and hold it close to my brother's face, for I want to have a good look at him." Mr. Jabez North seemed scarcely to reUsh the unflinching gaze of his newly-found relation ; and again those fine blue eyes for which he was distinguished, winked and shifted, and hid themselves, under the scrutiny of the sick man. "It's a handsome face," said Jim; "and it looks like the face of one of your fine high-born gentlemen too, which is rather queer, considering who it belongs to ; but for all that, I can't say it's a face I much care about. There's something under — something behind the curtain. I say, brother, you're hatching of some plot to-night, and a very deep-laid plot it is too, or my name isn't Jim Lomax." " Poor fellow," murmured the compassionate Jabez, " his mind wanders sadly." " Does it ? " asked the sick man ; " does my mind wander, lad ? I hope it does ; I hope I can't see very clear to-night, for I didn't want to think my own brother a villain. I don't want to think bad of thee, lad, if it's only for my dead mother's sake." "You hear !" said Jabez, with a glance of appeal to the girl, " you hear how dehrious he is ?" " Stop a bit, lad," cried Jim, with sudden energy, laying his wasted hand upon his brother's wrist ; " stop a bit. I'm dying fast ; and before it's too late I've one prayer to make. I haven't made so many either to God or man that I need forget this one. You see this lass; we've been sweethearts, I don't know how long, now — ever since she was a Httle toddling thing that I could carry on my shoulder; and, one of these days, when wages got to be better, and bread cheaper, and hopes brighter, somehow, for poor folks like us, we was to have been man-ied ; but that's over now. Keep a good heart, lass, and don't look so white ; perhaps it's better as it is. Well, as I was saying, we've been sweethearts for a many 3*ar, and often when I haven't been able to get work, maybe sometimes when I haven't been willing, when I've been lazy, or on the drink, or among bad companions, this lass has kept a shelter over me, and given me bread to eat with the labour of her own hands. She's been trr.e to me. I could teU you how true, but there's something abet it the corners of your mouth that makes me think you wouldn't care to hear it. But if you want me to die in peace, promi.-o me this — that as long as you've got a shUUng she shall never be without a sixpence ; that as long as you've got a roof to covoi your head she shall never be without a shelter. Promise !" He tightened his gi-asp convulsively upon his brother's wrist. That gentleman made an effort to look him full in the face ; but not seeming to relish the searching gaze of the dying man'g ♦'yps, Mr. Jabez North was compelled to drop his own. 74 The Trail of the Serpent. " Come," said Jim ; " promise — swear to me, by all you liol(J sacred, that 3-on'll do this." "I swear!" said Jabez, solemnly. " And if you break your oath," added his brother, " never «ome anigh the place where I'm buried, for I'll lise out of my grave and haunt you." The dying man fell back exhausted on his pillow. The girl poured out some medicine and gave it to him, while Jabez walked to the door, and looked up at the sky. A very dark sky for a night in June. A wide black canopy hung over the earth, and as yet there was not one feeble star to break the inky darkness. A threatening night — the low mur- muring of whose sultry wind moaned and whispered prophecies of a coming storm. Never had the blindness of BHnd Peter been darker than to-night. You could scarcely see your hand before you. A wretched woman who had just fetched half-a- quartern of gin from the nearest pubhc-house, though a denizen of the place, and familiar with every broken flag-stone and crumbhng brick, stumbled over her own threshold, and spilt ^ portion of the precious hquid. It would have been difficult to imagine either the heavens or the earth under a darker aspect in the month of June. No^'i so, however, thought Mr. Jabez North; for, after contemplating the sky for some moments in silence, he exclaimed — " A fine night ! A glorious night ! It could not be better ! " A figure, one shade darker than the night, came between him and the darkness. It was the doctor, who said — " Well, sii-, I'm glad you think it a fine night ; but I must beg to difiier with you on the subject, for I never remember seeing a blacker sky, or one that threatened a more terril.'le storm at this season of the year." " I was scarcely thinking of what I was saying, doctor. ThLit poor man in there " " Ah, yes ; poor fellow ! I doubt if he'll witness the storm, near as it seems to be. I suppose you take some interest in him on account of his extraordinary likeness to you ? " " That would be rather an egotistical reason for being inte- rested in him. Common humanity induced me to come doATa to this wretched place, to see if I could be of any service to tha poor creature." " The action does you credit, sir," said the doctor. " And now for my patient." It was with a very grave face that the medical man looked at poor Jim, who had, by this time, fallen into a fitful and restlesa slumber ; and when Jabez drew him aside to ask his opinion, he said, — " If he Uves through the next half- hour I shall be sur- prised. Where is the old woman — his grandmother ?" Jim loolca over the BrinJc of the Terrible Gulj. 75 "I haven't seen her this evening," answered Jabez. And then, turning to the girl, he asked her if she knew where the old woman was. "No; she went out some time ago, and didn't say where she was going. She's not quite right in her mind, you know, sir, and often goes out after dark." The doctor seated himself on a broken chair, near the mattress on which the sick man lay. Only one feeble guttering candle, with a long, top-heavy wick, lighted the dismal and comfortless room. Jabez paced up and down vni\\ that soft step of which we have before spoken. Although in his character of a philoso- pher the death of a fellow -tcreature could scarcely have been verj"^ distressing to him, there was an uneasiness in his manner on this night which he could not altogether conceal. He looked from the doctor to the girl, and from the girl to his sick brother. Sometimes he paused in his walk up and down the room to peer out at the open door. Once he stooped over th.e feeble candle to look at his watch. There was a listening expression too in his eyes ; an uneasy twitcliing about his moutli ; and at times he could scarcely suppress a tremulous action ot his slender fingers, which bespoke impatience and agitation. Presently the clocks of Slopperton chimed the first quarter after ten. On hearing this, Jabez drew the medical man aside, and whispered to him, — " Are there no means," he said, " of getting that poor girl out of the way ? She is very much attached to that unfortunate creature; and if he dies, I fear there will be a terrible scene. It would be an act of mercy to remove her by some stratagem or other. How can we get her away till it is all over ?" "I think I can manage it," said the doctor. "My partner has a surgery at the other end of the to\vn ; I will send hei tliere." He returned to the bedside, and presently said, — " Look here, my good girl ; I am going to write a prescription for something which I think will do our patient good. Will you t^ike it for me, and get the medicine made up ?" The girl looked at him with an appeaUng glance in hei mournful eyes. " I don't Hke to leave him, air." " But if it's for his good, my dear?" " Yes, yes, sir. You're very kind. I will go. I can run all the the way. And you won't leave him while I'm gone, will you, sir ?" " No, my good girl, I won't. There, there ; here's the pre- Bcription. It's written in pencil, but the assistant will imd(^r- stand it. Now listen, while I teU you where to find tha Burgery." He gave her the direction; and after a lingering and mournful 'Phe Trail of the Serpent. look at her lover, who still slept, she left the house, and darted «ff in the direction of Slopperton. •• If she runs as fast as that all the way," said Jabez, as he watched her receding figure, " she will be back in less than an, hour." _" Then she will find him either past all help, or better," re- plied the doctor. Jabez' pale face turned white as death at this ^V()^d " bettcf." " Better !" he said. " Is there any chance of his recovery P" "There are wonderful chances in this race between life an J death. This sleep may be a crisis. If he wakes, there may be a faint hope of his hving." Jabez' hand shook like a leaf. He turned his back to the doctor,_ walked once up and down the room, and then asked, with his old calmness, — "And you, sir — you, whose time ia of such value to so many sick persons — ^you can afford to desert them all, and remain here, watching this man p" "His case is a singular one, and interests me. Besides, 1 do not know that I have any patient in imminent danger to- night. My assistant has my address, and would send for me were my sei-vices pecuHarly needed." " I will go out and smoke a cigar," said Jabez, after a paupe. " I can scarcely support this sick room, and the suspense of this terrible conflict between life and death." He strode out into the darkness, was absent about five minutes, and returned. " Your cigar did not last long," remarked the doctor. " You are a qxiick smoker. Bad for the system, sir." " My cigar was a bad one. I threw it away," Shortly afterwards there was a knock at the door, and a ragged vagabond-looking boy, peeping in, asked, — " Id Mr. Saunders the doctor here ?" "Yes, my lad. Who wants me?" " A young woman up in Hill Fields, sir, what's took poison, they say. You're wanted very bad." " Poison ! that's urgent," said Mr. Saunders. " Who sent you here for me .P" The lad looked with a puzzled expression at Jabez standing in the shadow,_who, unperceived by the doctor, whispered some- thing behind his hand. " Surgery, sir," answered the boy, still looking at Jabez. " Oh, you were sent from the surgery. I must be ofi', for this is no doubt a desperate case. I must leave you to look after this poor fellow. If he wakes, give him two teaspoonfuls of that medicine there. I could do no more if I stopped myself. Come, my lad." Jim looJcs over the Brink of the Terrible Gulf, 77 The doctor left the house, followed by the boy, aud in a few moments both were lost in the darkness, and far out of the ken ^f BUnd Peter. Five minutes after the departure of the medical man Jabez wont to the door, and after looking out at the squahd houses, which were all dark, gave a long low whistle. A figure crept out of the darkness, and came up to where he etood. It was the old woman, his grandmother. "All's right, deary," she T»^hispered. "Bill Withers has got everything ready. He's a waiting down by the wall yonder. There's not a mortal about ; and I'll keep watch. You'll want Bill's help. "When you're ready for him, you're to whistle fcoftly three times running. He'll know what it means — and Tm going to watch while he helps you. Haven't I managed beautiful, deary ? and shan't I desei-ve the golden sovereigns you've promised me? They was guineas always when I was young, deary. Nothing's as good now as it used to be." " Don't let us have any chattering," said Jabez, as he laid a rough hand upon her arm ; ** unless you want to wake everybody in the place." " But, I say, deary, is it all over? Nothing unfair, you know. Eemember your promise." " All over ? Yes ; half an hour ago. If you hinder me hern with your talk, the girl ^vill be back before we're ready for her." " Let me come in and close his eyes, deary," supplicated the o\ i woman. " His mother was my own child. Let me close his eyes." " Keep where you are, or I'U strangle you !" growled hei dutiful grandson, as he shutjthe door upon his venerable rela- tion, and left her mumbUng upon the threshold. Jabez crept cautiously towards the bed on which his brother lay. Jim at this moment awoke from his restless slumber ; and, opening his eyes to their widest extent, looked full at tbu man by his side. He made no effort to speak, pointed to hi-; lijjs, and, stretching out his hand towards the bottles on the table, made signs to his brother. These signs were a supplica- tion for the cooling draught which always allayed the burning heat of the fever. Jabez never stirred. " He has awoke," he murmured. " This is the crisis of his life, and of my fate." The clocks of Slopperton chimed the quarter before eleven. " It's a black gulf, lass," gasped the dying man ; " and I'ri f;',3t sinking into it." There was no friendly hand, Jim, to draw you back from that terrible gulf. The medicine stood untouched upon the tabic ; and, perhaps as guilty as the first murderer, your twin brother stood by your bed-side. 78 The Trail of the Serpent, CHAPTER V. MIDN'IGHT BY THE SLOPPERTON CLOCKS. The clouds and the sky kept their promise, and as the clocks chimed the quarter before twelve the storm broke ever the steeples at Slopperton. Blue Hghtning-flashes lit up BUnd Peter, and attendant thunder-claps shook him to his very foundation ; while a vio- lent shower of rain gave him such a washing-down of every flagstone, chimney-pot, and door- step, as he did not often get. Slopperton ia bed was almost afraid to go to sleep ; and Slop- perton not in bed did not seem to care about going to bed. Slopperton at supper was nervous as to handling of ghttering knives and steel forks ; and Slopperton going to windows to look out at the hghtning was apt to withdraw huri-icdly at the sight thereof. Slopperton in general was depressed by the stonn ; thought there would be mischief somewhere ; and had a vague idea that something dreadful would happen before the night was out. In Dr. Tappenden's quiet household there was consternation and alarm. Mr. Jabez North, the principal assistant, had gone out early in the evening, and had not retui-ned at the appointed hour for shutting up the house. This was such an unprecedented occun-ence, that it had occasioned considerable uneasiness — especially as Dr. Tappenden was away from home, and Jabez was, in a manner, deputy-master of the house. The young woman who looked after the gentlemen's wardrobes had taken compassion upon the housemaid, who sat up awaiting Mr. North's return, and had brought her workbox, and a lapful of young gentlemen's dilapidated socks, to the modest chamber in which the girl waited. " I hope," said the housemaid, " nothijig ain't happened to him through the storm. I hope he hasn't been getting under no trees." The housemaid had a fixed idea that to go under a tree in a thunderstorm was to encounter immediate death. " Poor dear young gentleman," said the lady of the ward- robes; " I tremble to think what can keep him out so. Such a steady young man ; never known to be a minute after time either. I'm sure every sound I hear makes me expect to see him brought in on a shutter." "Don't now. Miss Smithers!" cried the housemaid, looking behind her as if she expected to see the ghost of Jabez North pointing to a red spot on his left breast at the back of her chair. " I wish you wouldn't now ! Oh, I hope he ain't been murdered. There's been such a many murders in Slopperton since I can remember. It's only three years and a half ago Midnight by the Shpperton ClocTcs. 79 eince a man cut Ids wife's throat down in Wiadmill Lane, because shf hadn't put no salt in the saucepan when she boUed the greens." The frightful parallel between the woman who boiled the greens without salt and Jabez Noiih two hours after his time, struck such terror to the hearts of the young women, that they were silent for some minutes, during which they both looked uneasily at a thief iu the candle which neither of them had the courage to take out — their nerves not being equal to the possible clicking of the snuffers. " Poor young man !" said the housemaid, at last. " Do you know. Miss Smithers, I can't help thinking he has been rather low lately." Now this word " low " admits of several applications, so Mies Smithers rephed, rather indignantly, — " Low, Sarah Anne ! Not in liis language, I'm sure. And as to his manners, they'd be a credit to the nobleman that wrote the letters." "No, no, Miss Smithers; I mean his spu-its. I've fancied lately he's been a fretting about sometliing; perhaps he's in love, poor dear." Miss Smithers coloured up. The conversation was getting interesting. Mr. North had lent her Rasselas, which she tlK>ught a story of thrilling interest ; and she had kept his stockings and shirt buttons in order for three years. Such things had happened; and Mrs. Jabez North sounded more comfortable than Miss Smithers, at any rate. " Perhaps," said Sarah Anne, rather maUciously — " perhaps he's been forgetting his situation and giving way to thoughts of marrying our young missus. She's got a deal of money, you know, Miss Smithers, though her figure ain't much to look at." Sarah Anne's figure was plenty to look at, having a ten- dency to break out into luxuriance where you least ex2)ected it. It was in vain that Sarah Anne or Miss Smithers speculated on the probable causes of the usher's absence. Midnight struck from the Dutch clock in the kitchen, the eight-day clock on the staircase, the time-piece in the drawing-room — a liberal and com])licated piece of machinery which always struck eighteen to the dozen — and eventually from every clock in Slopperton ; and yet there was no sign of Jabez North. No sign of Jabez North. A white face and a pair of glazed eyes staring up at the sky, out on a dreary heath three milea from Slopperton, erposed to the fury of a pitiless storm ; a man l\ ing alone on a wretched mattress m a miserable apartment in Blind Peter — but no Jabez North. Through the heartless storm, dripping wet with the pelting 80 The Trail of the Serpent. rain, the g^l they have christened Sillikens hastens back ta Blind Peter. The feeble glimmer of the candle, with the drooj m\p, vsdck sputtering in a pool of grease, is the only light which illumes that cheerless neighbourhood. The girl's heart beats with a terrible flutter as she approaches that light, for an agon- izing doubt is in her soul about that other light which she left so feebly burning, and which may be now extinct. But she takes courage; and pushing open the door, which opposes neither bolts nor bars to any deluded votaiy of Mercuiy, she enters the dimly-lighted room. The man lies with his face turned to the wall ; the old woman is seated by the hearth, on which a dull and struggling flame is burning. She has on the table among the medicine-bottles, another, which no doubt con- tains spirits, for she has a broken teacup in her hand, from which ever and anon she sips consolation, for it is evident she has been crying. " Mother, how is he — how is he P" the girl asks, with a hurried a;4itation j^ainful to witness, since it reveals how much she dreads the answer. " Better, deary, better — Oh, ever bo much better," the old woman answers in a crying voice, and with another application to the broken teacup. "Better! thank Heaven! — thank Heaven!" and the girl, stealing softly to the bed-side, bends down and listens to the tick man's breathing, which is feeble, but regular. " He seems very fast asleep, grandmother. Jlia ho been Hleei^ing all the time?" " Since when, deary ?" " Since I went out. Where's the doctor?" " Gone, deary. Oh, my blessed boy, to think that it should tome to this, and his dead mother was my only child ! O dear. O dear!" And the old woman burst out crying, only choking her sobs by the aid of the teacup. "But he's better, grandmother; perhaj^s he'll get over it now. 1 always said he would. Oh, I'm so glad — so glad." The gill sat down in her wet garments, of which she never once; thought, on the Uttle stool by the side of the bed. Prcsoutlv the sick man turned round and opened his eyes. " You've been away a long time, lass," he said. Something in his voice, or in his way of speaking, she dii'- not know which, startled her; but she wound her arm rounJ Lis neck, and said — " Jim, my own dear Jim, the danger's past. The black gulf you've been looking down is closed for these many happy years to come, and maylie the sun will shine on our wedding-day yet." "Maybe, lass — maybe. But tell me, what's the time?" "Never mind the time, Jim. Very late, and a very dreadful Midniifht by the Sloj^perion Clocks. 81 night; but no matter for that! You're better, Jim; and if the 8un never shone upon the earth again, I don't think I should be able to be sorry, now you are safe." "Are all the lights out in Blind Peter, lass?" he asked. " All the lights out ? Yes, Jim — these two hours. But why do you ask ?" " And in Slopperton did you meet many people, lass ?" " Not half-a-dozen in all the streets. Nobody wotdd be out in such a night, Jim, that could help it." He turned his face to the wall again, and seemed to sleeji. The old woman kept moaning and mumbling over the broken teacup, — " To think that my blessed boy should come to this — on such a night too, on such a night !" The storm raged with unabated fury, and the rain pouring in at the dilapidated door threatened to flood the room. Presently ♦Jie sick man raised his head a little way from the pillow. " Lass," he said, " could you get me a drop o' wine ? I think, if I could drink a drop o' wine, it would put some strength into me somehow." " Grandmother," said the girl, " can I get him any? You've got some money ; it's only just gone twelve ; I can get in at the public-house. I will get in, if I knock them up, to get a droj) o' wine for Jim." The old woman fumbled among her rags and produced a rixpence, part of the money given her from the slender purse of the benevolent Jabez, and the girl hurried away to fetch the wine. The public-house was called the Seven Stars ; the seven star>) being represented on a signboard in such a manner as to bear rather a striking resemblance to seven yellow hot-cross buns on n very blue background. The landlady rd's Heath, and I've 8^ The Trail of the Serpent. Pfot to go over and look up some evidence in the village. I'll teU you what I'll do with you ; I'U take you and baby over in Vorkins's trap — he said as how he'd lend it me whenever I liked to ask him for the loan of it ; and I'll stand treat to the Rose' bush tea-gardens." Never had the dirty alphabet fashioned such sweet words. A drive in Mr. Vorkins's trap, and the Rosebush tea-gardens ! If Kiippins had been a fairy changeling, and had awoke one ;!ioming to find herself a queen, I don't think she would have ( hosen any higher delight wherewith to celebrate her accession to the throne. Kuppins had, during the few months of Mr. Peters's residence in the indoor Eden of No. 6, Little Gulliver Street, won a very liigh place in that gentleman's regards. The elderly proprietress I if the Eden was as nothing in the eyes of Mr. Peters when compared with KujDpins. It was Kuppins whom he consulted when giving his orders for dinner ; Kuppins, whose eye he knew to be infallible as regarded a chop, either mutton or pork ; whose linger was as the finger of Fate in the matter of hard or soft- loed herrings. It was by Kupi^ins's advice he purchased some mysterious garment for the baby, or some prodigious wonder in tlie shape of a bandanna or a neck-handkerchief for himself; ;ind this tea-garden treat he had long contemplated as a fitting toward for the fidelity of his handmaiden. Mr. Yorkins was one of the officials of the jDolice force, and Mr. Vorkins's trap was a happy combination of the cart of a \ cnder of feline provisions and the gig of a fast young ma,n ol half a century gone by — that is to say, it partook of the dis- advantages of each, without possessing the capabilities of either : but Mr. Peters looked at it with respect, and in the eye of Kuppins it was a gorgeous and fashionable vehicle, which the most distinguished member of the peerage might have (driven along the Lady's Mile, at six o'clock on a midsummer u,fternoon, with pride and delight. At two o'clock on this June afternoon, behold Mr. Vorkins'n (rap at tlie door of No. 6, Ijittlc Gulliver Street, with KuppiDw in a miraculous bonnet, and baby in a wonderful hat, seateil tlierein. Mr. Peters, standing on the jjavement, contemplated the appointments of the equipage with some sense of pride, and the juvenile population of the street hovered around, absorbed in admiration of the turn-out. " Mind your bonnet don't make the wehicle top-heavy, miss," eaid one youthful votary of the renowned Joe Miller ; " it's big enough, anyways." Miss Kuppins (she was Miss Kuppins in her Sxinday costume) flung a Parthian glance at the young barbaiian, and drew down a green veil, which, next to the " fondling," was the pride of hei The Quiet Fij^ure on iJie Seath. 85 heart. Mr. Peters, armed with a formidable whip, mounted to his seat by her side, and away drove the trap, leaving the juvenile population aforesaid venting its envy in the explosicm of a perfect artUleiy of jeux de mots. Mr. Vorkins's trap was as a fairy vehicle to Kuppins, and i\Ir. Vorkins's elderly pony an enchanted quadruped, under thj strokes of whose winged hoofs Slopperton flew away hke a smoky dream, and was no more seen — an enchanted quadruped, by whose means the Slopperton suburbs of unfinished houses, scaffolding, baiTcn ground for sale in building lots, ugly lean streets, and inky river, all melted into the distance, giving place to a road that intersected a broad heath, in the undulations of which lay fairy pools of blue water, in whose crystal depths thd good people might have admired their tiny beauties as in a mirror. Indeed, it was pleasant to ride in Mr. Vorkins's jing- hng trap through the pure country air, scented with the odour.s of distant bean-fields, and, looking back, to see the smoke of Sloppertonian chimneys a mere black daub on the blue sky, and to be led almost to wonder how, on the face of such a fair and lovely earth, so dark a blot as Slopperton could be. The Eosebush tea-gardens were a favourite resort of Slop- perton on a Sunday afternoon ; and many teachers there were in that great city who did not hesitate to say that the rose- bushes of those gardens were shrubs planted by his Satanic ilajesty, and that the winding road over Halford's Heath, though to the ignorant eye bordered by bright blue streams and sweet-smelling wild flowers, lay in reaUty between two lakes of tire and brimstone. Some gentlemen, however, dared to say — gentlemen who wore white neckcloths too, and were familiar and welcome in the dwellings of the poor — that Slopperton might go to more wicked places than Rosebush gardens, and might possibly be led into more evil courses than the consump- tion of tea and watercresses at ninepence a-head. But in spite of all differences of opinion, the Rosebush gardens prospered, and Rosebush tea and bread-and-butter were pleasant in the mouth of Slopperton. Mr. Peters deposited his fair young companion, with the baby in her anus, at the gate of the gardens — after having authoi-ized licr to order two teas, and to choose an arbour — and walked of^ 1 imself into the village of Halford to transact his ofEcial 'msiness. The ordering of the teas and the choosing of the arbour were u labour of love with the fair Kuppins. She selected a rustic n treat, over which the luxuriant tendrils of a hop-vine fell like a thick green curtain. It was a sight to see Kuppins skirmishing with the earwigs and spiders in their sylvan bower, and ulti- mately routing those insects from the nests of their fatliera. 8G The Trail of the Serpent. Mr. Peters returned from the village in about an hour, hot and dusty, but triumphant as to the issue of the busmess he had come about, and with an inordinate thirst for tea at ninepenca a-head. I don't know whether Rosebush gardens made mucl; out of the two teas at ninepence, but I know the bread-and- butter and watercresses disappeared by the aid of the detective and his fair companion as if by magic. It was pleasant to watch the "fondling" during this humble /e^e c/mmptire. He had been brought up by hand, which would be better expressed as by spoon, and had been fed on everyTariety of cosmestible, from pap and farinaceous food to beef-stealcs and onions and th'i soft roes of red herrings — to say nothing of sugar-sticks, bacon rinds, and the claws of shell-fish; he therefore, immediately upon the appearance of the two teas, laid violent hands on a bunch of watercresses and a slice of bread-and-butter, wiping the buttered side upon his face — so as to give himself the appearance of an infant in a violent perspiration — preparatory to its leisurely consumption. He also made an onslaught on Mr. Peters's cup of steaming tea, but scalding his hands therewith, withdrew to the bosom of Kuppins, and gave vent to his indig- nation in loud screams, which the detective said made the gardens qiiite hvely. After the two teas, Mr. Peters, attended by Kuppins and the infant, strolled round the gardens, and peered into the arbours, very few of which were tenanted this week-day afternoon. The detective indulged in a gambling S])eculation with some wonderful machine, the distinguishing features of which were numbers and Barcelona nuts ; and by the aid of which you might lose as much as threepence half-penny before you knew where you were, while you could not by any possibility win anything. There was also a bowling-green, and a swing, which Kuppins essayed to mount, and which repudiated that young lady, by precipitating her forward on her face at the first start. Having exhausted the mild dissipations of the gardens, Mr. Peters and Kuppins returned to their bower, where the gentle- man sat smoking his clay pipe, and contemplating the infant, with a perfect serenity and calm enjoyment delightful to witness. But there was more on Mr. Peters's mind that summer's evening than the infant. He was thinking of the trial of Richard Marwood, and the part he had taken in that trial by means of the dirty alphabet; he was thinking, perhaps, of the fate of Richard — poor unlucky Richard, a hopeless and incurable lunatic, imprisoned for life in a dreary asylum, and comforting himself in that wretched place by wild fancies of imaginary greatness. Presently Mr. Peters, with a preparatoiy snap ol his fingers, asks Kuppins if she can " call to mind that ther* Btoi-y of the lion and the monse." The Quiet Figure on the Heath. 87 Knppins can call it to mind, and proceeds to narrate with volubility, liow a lion, once having rendered a service to a mouse, found liimself caught in a great net, and in need of a friend; how this insignificant mouse had, by sheer industry and perse- verance, efiected the escape of the mighty lion. "Wliether they lived happy ever afterwards Kuppins couldn't say, but had no doubt they did ; that being the legitimate conclusion of every legend, in this young lady's opinion. ]\Ir. Peters scratched his head violently during this story, to which he hsieued with liis mouth very much round the corner ; and when it was finished he fell into a reverie that lasted till the distant Slopperton clocks clfimed the quarter before eight — at v/hich time he laid down his pipe, and departed to prepare Mr. '\'^orkins's trap for the journey home. Perhaps of the two journeys, the journey home was almost the more j^leasant. It seemed to Kuppuis's young imagination as if Mr. Peters was bent on driving Mr. Vorkins's trap straight into the sinking sun, which was going down in a sea of crinisonh behind a ridge of purple heath. Slopperton was yet invi' .ble, except as a dark cloud on the purple sky. This road acro' .•; the heath was very lonely on every evening except Sunday, EJid the little party only met one group of haymakers returning from their work, and one stout farmer's wife, laden with groceries, hastening homo from Slopperton. It was a stiU evening, and not a sound rose upon the clear air, except the last song of a bird or the chirping of a grasshopper. Perhaps, if Kuppin^- had been with anybody else, she might have been frightened for Kuppins had a confused idea that such appearances as high- v/aymen and ghosts are common to the vesper hour ; but in the company of Mr. Peters, Kuppins would have fearlessly met a regiment of highwaymen, or a chu* chyard full of ghosts : for was he not the law and the pohco in person, under whose shadow there could be no fear? Mr. Vorkins's trap was fast paining on the sinking sim, wheii Mr. Peters drew up, and paused irresolutely between two roads. These diverging roads met at a point a httle further on, and the Sunday afternoon pleasm-e-seekers crossing the heath took sometimes one, sometimes the other ; but the road to the left was the least frequented, being the narrower and more hilly, and this road Mr. Peters took, still driving towards the dark line behind which the red sun w^ going down. The broken ^-ound of thp aeath was all a-glow with the warm crimson hght ; a dissipated skylark and an early nightin- gale were singing a duet, to which the grasshoppers seemed to listen with suspended chirpings; a frog of an apparently fretful disposition was keeping up a captious croak in a ditch by tha •ide of the road ; and beyond these voices there seemed to b« 68 The Trail of the Serpent. no sound beneatt the sky. The peaceful landscape and the tranquil evening shed a benign influence upon Kuppins, and awakened the dormant poetry in that young lady's breast. " Lor', Mr. Peters," she said, " it's hard to think in such a place as this, that gents of your purfession should be wanted. I do think tiow, if I was ever led to feel to want to take and murder somebody, which I hopes ain't Hkely — knowin' my duty to my neighbour better— I do think, somehow, this evening would come back to my mind, and I should hear them birds a-singitig, and see that there sun a-sinking, till I shouldn't be able to do it, somehow." Mr. Peters shakes his head dubiously: he is a benevolent man and a philanthropist ; but he doesn't Hke his_ profession rim dov.n, and a murder and bread-and-cheese are inseparable things in his mind. " And, do you know," continued Kupi^ins, " it seems to me as if, when this world is so beautiful and quiet, it's quite hard • to think there's one wicked person in it to cast a shadow on its peace." As Kuppins said this, she and Mr. Peters were startled by a shadow which came between them and the sinking sun— a distorted shadow thrown across the narrow road from the sharp outline of the figure of a man lying upon a hillock a Uttle way above them. Now, there is not much to alarm the most timid l)erson in the sight of a man asleep upon a summer's^ evening among heath and wild flowers; but something in this man's appearance startled Kuppins, who drew nearer to Mr. Peters, and held the "fondling," now fast asleep and muffled in a shawl, closer to her bosom. The man was lying on his back, with his face upturned to the evening sky, and his arms straioht down at his sides. The sound of the wheels of Mr. A'ovkius's trap did not awaken him ; and even when Mr. Peters drew Tip with a sudden jerk, the sleeping man did not raise his 'lead. Now, I don't know why Mr. Peters should stop, or why either he or Kuppins should feel any curiosity about this Bleeping man; but they certainly did feel considerable curiosity. He was'dressed rather shabbily, but still like a gentleman ; and it was perhaps a strange thing for a gentleman to be sleeping BO soundly in such a lonely spot as this. Then again, there was Eomeihiug in his attitude — a want of ease, a certain stiff"nes8, which had a strange effect upon both Kuppins and Mr. Peters "I wish he'd move," said Kuppins; " he looks so awful quiet, lying there all so lonesome." " Cal] to him, my girl," said Mr. Peters with his fingers.^ Kuppins essayed a loud "Hilloa," but it was a dismal failure, on which Mr. Peters gave a long shrill whistle, which roust surely have disturbed the peaceful dreams of the seven l^te Quiet Figure on the Heath. 89 aleepers, thougli it might not have awakened them. The man on the hillock never stirred. The pony, taking advantage of the halt, di-ew nearer to the heath and began to crop the short < rass by the road-side, thus bringing Mr. Vorkins's trap a little nearer the sleeper. "Get down, lass," said the fingers of the detective; "get down, my lass, and have a look at him, for I can't leave this 'ere pony." Kuppins looked at Mr. Peters; and Mr. Peters looked at Kuppins, as much as to say, " AVell, what then?" So Kuppins to whom the laws of the Medes and Persians would have been mild compared to the word of Mr. Peters, surrendered the infant to his care, and descending from the trap, mounted the hillock, and looked at the stiU reclining figure. She did not look long, but returning rapidly to Mr. Peters, took hold of his arm, and said — " I don't think he's asleep — leastways, his eyes is open ; but he don't look as if he could see anything, somehow. He's got a httle bottle in liis hand." Why Kuppins should keep so tight a hold on Mr. Peters's arm while she said this it is difficult to tell ; but she did clutch his coat-sleeve very tightly, looking back while she spoke with her white face turned towards that whiter face under the evening sky. Mr. Peters jumped quickly from the trap, tied the elderly I- )ny to a furze-bush, mounted the hillock, and proceeded to inspect the sleeping figure. The pale set face, and the fixed llue eyes, looked up at the crimson light melting into the purple shadows of the evening sky, but never more would earthly sunlight or shadow, or night or morning, or storm or oalm, be of any account to that qiuet figure lying on the heath. Why the man was there, or how he had come there, was a part of the great mystery under the darkness of which he lay ; and that mystery was Death ! He had died apparently by poison iidministered by his own hand; for on the grass by his side there was a httle empty bottle labelled " Opium," on which his fingers lay, not clasi^ing it, but lying as if they had fallen over it. His clothes were soaked through with wet, so that he must in all probability have lain in that place through the storm of the previous night. A silver watch was in the pocket of hia waistcoat, which Mr. Peters found, on looking at it, to have » topped at ten o'clock — ten o'clock of the night before, mosi likely. His hat had fallen ofi", and lay at a Httle distance, anl his curling Ught hair hung in wet ringlets over his high fore- head. His face was handsome, the features well chiselled, but the cheeks were swnken and hollow, making the large blue evea seem larger. 90 • The Trail of the Serpent, Mr. Peters, in examining the pockets of tlie stiicide, found no clue to his identity ; a handkerchief, a little silver, a few half- pence, a penknife wrapped in a leaf torn out of a Latin Grammar, were the sole contents. The detective reflected for a few moments, with his mouth on one side, and then, mounting the highest hillock near, looked over the sun-ounding country. He presently descried a group of haymakers at a little distance, whom he signalled with a loud whistle. To them, tlirough Kuppins as interpreter, he gave his directions ; and two of the tallest and strongest of the men took the body by the head and feet and carried it between them, with Kuppins's shawl spread over the still white face, rhey were two miles from Slopperton, and those two miles were by no means pleasant to Kupj^ins, seated in Mr. Yorkins's trajj, which Mr. Peters drove slowly, so as to keep pace with the two men and their ghastly burden. Kuppins's shawl, which of course would never be any use as a shawl again, was no good to conceal the sharp outUne of the face it covered; for Kuppins had seen those blue eyes, and once to see was always to see them as she thought. The dreary journey came at lat-t to a dreary end at the police-office, where the men deposited their dreadful load, and being paid for their trouble, departed rejoicing. Mr. Peters was busy enough for the next half-hour giving an account of the finding of the body, and issuing ha,nd- bills of '; Found dead, &c." Kuppins and the " fondling " returned to Little Gulliver Street, and if ever there had been a heroine in that street, that heroine was Kuppins. People came from three streets oil' to see her, and to hear the story, which she told so often that she came at last to tell it mechanically, and to render it slightly obscure by the vagueness of her punctuation. Anything in the way of supper that Kuppins would accept, and two or three dozen suppers if Kuppins would condescend to partake of them, were at Kuppins's service ; and her reign as heroine-in-chief ot this dark romance in real life was only put an end to by the api^earance of Mr. Peters, the hero, who came home by-and-by, hot and dusty, to announce to the world of Little Gulliver Street, by means of the alphabet, very grimy after his exertioua, that the dead man had been recognized as the principal usher of a great school up at the other end of the town, and that liia aame was, or had been, Jabez North. His motive for committing suicide he had carried a secret with him into the dark and mysterious region to which he was a voluntary traveller ; and Mr. Peters, whose business it was to pry about the confines of this shadowy land, though powerless to penetrate the interior, could only discover some faint rumour of an ambitious love for his roustor's daughter as being the cause of the young usher's The Usher resir/ns his Situation. 91 nntimel/ end. What secrets this ilcad man had carried with him into the shadow-land, who shall say? There might ba one, perhaps, which even Mr. Peters, Avith hia utmost acutenesa, could not discover. CHAPTER YII. THE TJSHER RESIGNS HIS SITUATION. On the very day on which Mr. Peters treated Kuppins and the " fondling" to tea and watercresses, Dr. Tappenden and Jane his daughter returned to their household gods at Slopperton. Who shall describe the ceremony and bustle with which that great dignitary, the master of the house, was received? He had announced his return by the train which reached Slop- perton at seven o'clock ; so at that hour a well-furnished tea- table was ready laid in the study — that teiTible apartment which little boys entered with red eyes and pak cheeks, emerg- ing therefrom in a pleasant glow, engendered by a speciHc pecuUar to schoolmasters whose desire it is not to spoil the child. But no ghosts of bygone canings, no infantine whimpers from shadow-land — (though little AUecompain, dead and gone, had received correction in this very room) — haunted the Doctor's sanctorum — a cheerful apartment, warm in winter, and cool in summer, and handsomely furnished at all times. Th' silver teapot reflected the evening sunshine ; and reflecteil to., Sarah Jane laying the table, none the handsomer for being represented upside down, with a tendency to become collapsed or elongated, as she hovered about the tea-tray. Anchovy- paste, pound-cake, Scotch marmalade and fancy bread, all seemed to cry aloud for the an-ival of the doctor and his daughter to demolish them ; but for all that there was fear in the hearts of the household as the hour for that arrival drew near. What would he say to the absence of his factotum? AVho should tell him? Every one was innocent enough, cer- tainly; but in the first moment of his fury might not the descending avalanche of the Doctor's wrath crush the innocent ? Miss Smithers — who, as well as being presiding divinity of the young gentlemen's wardrobes, was keeper of the keys of divers presses and cupboards, and had sundry awful trusts connected with tea and sugar and butchers' bills — was elected by the whole household, from the cook to the knife-boy, as the projier person to make the awful announcement of the unaccountable disappearance of Mr. Jabez North. So, when the doctor and bis daughter had alighted from the fly which brought them and their luggage from the station, Miss Smithers hovered timidly about thorn, on the watch for a propitious moment. •'How have you enioyed yourself, miss? Judjjin» b-y your 62 The Trail of the Serpent. Vioks I Blioiild say very much indeed, for never did I see yo-B looking better," said Miss Smitliers, with more enthusiasm than punctuation, as she removed the shawl from the lovely shouldera of Miss Tappenden. " Thank you, Smithers, I am better," replied the young lady, with languid condescension. Miss Tappenden, on the strength of never having anytliing the matter with her, was always com- plaining, and passed her existence in taking sal-volatile and red lavender, and reading three volumes a day from the circulating library, " And how," asked the ponderous voice of the ponderous Doctor, "how is everything going on, Smithers?" By this time they were seated at the tea-table, and the learned Tappenden was in the act of putting five lumps of sugar in his cup, while the fair Smithers lingered in attendance. " Quite satisfactory, sir, I'm sure," replied that young lady, growing very much confused. " Everything quite satisfactory, sir ; leastways " "What do yon mean by leastways, Smithers?" asked the Doctor, impatiently. " In the fii'st place it isn't English ; and in the next it sounds as if it meant something unpleasant. For goodness sake, Smithers, be straightforward and business-like. Has anything gone wrong ? What is it ? And why wasn't I informed of it?" Smithers, in despair at her incapability of answering these three questions at once, as no doubt she ought to have been able to do, or the Doctor would not have asked them, stammered out, — " Mr. North, sir " '"Mr. North, sir'! Well, what of 'Mr. North, sir'?" By the bye, where is Mr. North ? "Why isn't he here to receive us?" Smithers feels that she is in for it; so, after two or three nervous gulps, and other convulsive movements of the tlrroat, she continues thus — " Mr. North, sir, didn't come home last night, sir. We sat up for him till one o'clock this morning — la.st night, su-." The rising storm in the Doctor's face ia making Smithers's English more -jMi-English every moment. " Didn't come last night? Didn't return to mv house at the hour of ten, which hour has been appointed by me for the retiring to rest of every person in my employment?" cried th« Doctor, aghast. " No, sir ! Nor yet this morning, sir ! Nor yet tliis after- noon, sir ! And the West- Indian pupils have been looking out of the window, sir, and would, which we told them not till we were hoarse, sir." The Usher resigns his Situation. 93 "The person intrusted by me with the care of my pupils abandoning his post, and my pupils looking out of the window!" exclaimed Dr. Tappenden, in the tone of a man who says — " The glory of England has departed ! You wouldn't, perhaps, believe it; but it has !" " Yie didn't know what to do, sir, and so we thought we'd better not do it," continued the bewildered Smithers. " And we thought as you was coming back to-day, we'd better leave it till you did come back — and please, sir, will you take any new- laid eggs?" " Eggs ! " said the Doctor ; " new-laid eggs ! Go away, Smithers. There must be some steps taken immediately. That young man was my right hand, and I would have trusted him with untold gold ; or," he added, " with my cheque-book," As he uttered the words " cheque-book," he, as it were in- stinctivel3s laid his hand upon the pocket which contained that precious volume ; but as he did so, he remembered that he had used the last leaf but one when writing a cheque for a mid- summer butcher's bill, and that he had a fresh book in his desk untouched. This desk was always kept in the study, and tlio Doctor gave an involuntary glance in the direction in which it stood. It was a very handsome piece of furniture, ponderous, like the Doctor himself; a magnificent construction of shining walnut-wood and dark green morocco, with a recess for the Doctor's knees, and on either side of this recess two rows of drawers, with brass handles and Bramah locks. The centre drawer on the left hand side contained an inner and secret drawer, and towards the lock of this drawer the Doctor looked, for this contained his new cheque-book. The walnut-wood round the lock of this centre drawer seemed a little chip] ted ; the Doctor thought he might as well get up and look at it; and a nearer examination showed the brass handle to be slightly twisted, as if a powerful hand had wrenched it out of shape. The Doctor, taking hold of the handle to pull it straight, di-ew the drawer out, and scattered its contents upon the tloor ; also the contents of the inner drawer, and amongst them the cheque- book, half-a-dozen leaves of which had been torn out. " So," said the Doctor, " this man, whom I trusted, has broken open my desk, and finding no money, he has taken blank cheipes, in the hope of being able to forge my name. To think that I did not know this man !" To think that you did not, Doctor ; to think, too, that you do Dot even now, perhaps, know half this man may have been capable of. But it was time for action, not reflection; so the Doctor hurried to the railway station, and telegraphed to his bankers 94 The Trail of the Serpent in Ljndon to stop any cheques presented in Hs signature, and to liave the person presenting encli cheques immediately arrested. From the railway station he hurried, in an undignified perspiiation, to the poUce-office, to institute a search for the missing Jabez, and then returned home, striking terror into the hearts of liis household, ay, even to the soul of his daughter, the lovely Jane, who took an extra dose of sal-volatile, and went to bed to read " Lady Clarinda, or the Heart-breaks of Belgravia." With the deepening twiUght came a telegraphic message from the bank to say that cheques for divers sums had been pre- sented and cashed by different people in the course of the day. On the heels of this message came another from the police- station, announcing that a body had been found upon Halford Heath answering to the description of the missing man. The bewildered schoolmaster, hastening to the station, re- cognises, at a glance, the features of his late assistant. The contents of the dead man's pocket, the empty bottle with the too significant label, are shown him. No, some other ha\id than the usher's must have broken open the desk in the study, and the unfortunate young man's rejautation had been involved in a strange coincidence. But the motive for his rash acl .'' That is exi^lained by a most affecting letter in the dead man's hand, which is found in his desk. It is addressed to the Doctor, exjiresses heartfelt gratitude for that worthy gentleman's past kindnesses, and hints darkly at a hopeless attachment to his daughter, which renders the wi-iter's existence a burden tf>o heavy for him to bear. For the rest, Jabez North has pas?ei a threshold, over which the boldest and most inquisitive scarcely care to follow him. So he takes his own Uttle mystery with him into the land of the great mystery. There is, of course, an inquest, at which two different chemists, who sold laudanum to Jabez North on the night before his dis- appearance, give their evidence. There is another chemist, who deposes to having sold him, a day or two before, a bottle of patent hair-dye, which is also a poisonous compound; but surely he never could have thought of poisoning himself with hair-dye. The London police are at fault in tracing the presenters of the cheques ; and the proprietors of the bank, or the clerks, who maintain a common fund to provide against their own en'ors, are likely to be considerable losers. In the mean while the r/orthy Doctor announces, by advertisements in the SloppertoQ Dapers, that " his pupils assemble on the 27th of July." nOLST INSTITUTIOP«'. CHAPTER L THE VALUE OF AN OPERA- GLASS. Paris ! — City of fashion, pleasure, beauty, wealth, rani:, t:i]sLt, and indeed all the glories of the earth. City of palaces, ia vhich La Valhere smiled, and Scarron sneered ; under whose roofs the echoes of Bossuet's voice have resounded, wliile folly, coming to- be amused, has gone away in tears, only to forget to-morrow what it has heard to-night. Glorious city, in which a bon mot is more famous than a good action ; which is richer ia the records of Ninon de Lenclos than in those of Joan of Arc; for which Beaumarchais wrote, andMarmontel moralised r, which Scottish John Law infected with a furious madness, in those halcyon days when jolly, good-tempered, accomplished, easy-going Philippe of Orleans held the reins of power. Paris, which young Arouet, afterwards Voltaire, ruled with the distant jingle of his jester's wand, from the far retreat of Ferney. Paris, iu which Madame du Deifand dragged out those weary, brilliant, dismal, salon-keeping years, quarrelling with Mademoiselle de I'Espinasse, and corresponding with Horace Walpole; ce cher Horace, who described those brilliant French ladies as women who neglected all the duties of life, and gave very pretty suppers. Paris, in which Bailly spoke, and Madame Roland dreamed ; in which Marie Antoinette despaired, and gentle Princess Elizabeth laid down her saintly life; in which the son of St. Louis went calmly to the red mouth of that terrible machine invented by the charitable doctor who thought to benefit his fellow creatures. City, under whose roofs bilious Robespierre puspected and feared ; beneath whose shadow the glDrious twenty-two went hand in hand to death, with the psalm of freedom swelling from their lips. Paris, which rty'oiced when Llarengo was won, and rang joy-bells for the victories of Lodd Areola, Austmlitz, Auerstadt, and Jena; Paris, Tvliich moamcU 96 The Trail of the Srrpent. over fatal Waterloo, and opened its arms, after weary years of vvaiting, to take to its heart only the ashes of the ruler of its election; Paris, the marvellous; Paris, the beautiful, whose streets are streets of palaces — fairy wonders of opulence and art ; — can it be that under some of thy myriad roofs there are fiuch incidental trifles as misery, starvation, vice, crime, and death ? Nay, we will not push the question, but enter at once into one of the most brilliant of the temples of that goddess whose names are Pleasure, Fashion, FoUy, and Idleness : and fcfhat more splendid shrine can we choose whereat to worship the divinity called Pleasure than the Italian Opera House? To-night the house is thronged with fashion and beauty. B ight unitorms glitter in the backgrounds of the boxes, and Bprinkle the crowded parterre. The Citizen King is there — not King of Prance; no such poor title will he have, but King of the French. His throne is based, not on the broad land, but on theliving hearts of his people. May it never prove to be built on a shallow foundation ! In eighteen hundred and forty-two all is well for Louis Phihppe and his happy family. In the front row of the stalls, close to the orchestra, a young man lounges, with his opera-glass in his hand. He is handsome and very elegant, and is dressed in the most perfect taste and the highest fashion. Dark curUng hair clusters round his deli- cately white forehead ; his eyes are of a bright blue, shaded Ijy auburn lashes, which contrast rather strangely with his dark hair. A very dark and thick moustache only reveals now and then his thin lower lip and a set of dazzHng white teeth. Ilia nose is a delicate aquiline, and his features altogether bear the stamp of aristocracy. He is quite alone, this elegant lounger, and of the crowd of people of rank and fashion around him nut cne turns to speak to him. His listless white hand is throwii on the ciishion of the stall on which he leans, as he glances roind the hoQrie with one indifferent sweep of his opera-glass. Pre- sently his' attention is arrested by the conversation of two gentlemen close to him, and without seeming to Usten, he hears «rhat they are saying. " Is the Spanish princess here to-night .P" asks one. " Wliat, the marquis's niece, the girl who has that immense property m Spanish America ? Yes, she is in the box next to the king's ; don't you see her diamonds ? They and her eyes are Drilliant enough to set the curtains of the box on fire." " She is immensely rich, then P" " She is an Eldorado. The Marquis de Cevennes has no children, and all his property will go to her ; her Spanish Ameri- can property comes from her mother. She is an orphan, as you know, and the marquis is her guardian." "She is handsome; but there's just •< httle too much of tii« The Value of an Opera-gJasa. 97 denion in those great almond-shaped black eyes and that small determined mouth. What a fortune she would be to some intriguing adventurer!" " An adventurer ! Valerie de Cevennesthe prize of an adven- turer ! Show me the man capable of winning her, without ran'c and fortune equal to hers; and I will say you have found the eighth wonder of the world." The Ustener"s eyes Ught up with a strange flash, and hfthig his glass, he looks for a few moments carelessly round the house, and then fixes his gaze upon the box next to that occupied by the royal party. The Spanish beauty is indeed a glorious creature ; of a loveli- ness rich alike in form and colour, but with hauteur and deter- mination expressed in every feature of her face. A man of some fifty years of age is seated by her side, and behind her chair two or three gentlemen stand, the breasts of whose coats ghtter with stars and orders. They are speaking to her; but she pays very little attention to them. If she answers, it is only by a word, or a bend of her proud head, which she does not turn towards them. She never takes her eyes from the curtain, which pre- sently rises. The opera is La Sonnanibula. The Elvino is the great singer of the day — a young man whose glorious voice and handsome face have made him the rage of the musical world. Of his origin different stories are told. Some say he was originally a shoemaker, others declare him to be the son of a prince. He has, however, made his fortune at seven-and- twenty, and can afford to laugh at these stories.^ The opera proceeds, and the powerful glass of the lounger in the staUa records the minutest change in the face of Valerie de Cevennes. It records one faint quiver, and then a firmer compression of the tliin lips, when the Elvino appears; and the eyes of the lounger fasten more intently, if possible, than before upon the face of the Spanish beauty. Presently Elvino sings the grand burst of passionate reproach, in wliich he upbraids Amina's fancied falsehood. As the house applauds at the close of the scene, Valerie's bouquet falls at the feet of the Amina. Elvino, taking it in his hand, presents it to the lady, and as he does so, the lounger's glass — which, more rapidly than the bouquet has fallen, has turned to the stage- records a movement so quick as to be almost a feat of legerde- main. The great tenor has taken a note from the bouquet. The lounger sees the triumphant glance towards the box next the king's, though it is rapid as lightning. He sees the tiny morsel of ghstening paper crumpled in the singer's hand ; and after one last contemplative look at the proud brow and set hpa of Valerie de Cevennes, he lowers the glass. " My glass is well wori-h the fifteen guineas I paid for it," hu a 93 The Trad of tie SoyenL whispers to liimself. "That gii-l can command her eyes; they have not one traitorous flash. But those thin lips cannot keep a secret from a man with a decent amount of brains." When the opera is over, the lounger of the stalls leaves his place by the orchestra, and loiters in the winter night outside the stage-door. Perhaps he is enamoured of some lovely coryphee — ^lovely in all the gorgeousness of flake white and liquid rouge ; and yet that can scarcely be, or he would be still in the stalls, or hovering about the side- scenes, for the hallet is not over. Two or three carriages, belonging to the principal singers, are waiting at the stage-door. Presently a tall, stylish-looking man, in a loose over-coat, emerges; a groom oj^ens the door of a weU- appointed little brougham, but the gentleman says — "No, Faree, you can go home. I shall walk." "But, monsieur," remonstrates the man, "monsieur is not aware that it rains " Monsieur says he is qtdte aware of the rain ; but that he has an umbrella, and prefers walking. So the brougham drives off with the distressed Faree, who consoles himself at a cafe high np on the boulevard, where he plays ecarte with a limp little pack of cards, and drinks effervescing lemonade. The lounger of the stalls, standing in the shadow, hears this little dialogue, and sees also, by the light of the carriage-lamps, that the gentleman in the loose coat is no less a personage than the hero of the opera. The lounger also seems to be indiff'erent to the rain, and to have a fancy for walking; for when Elvino crosses the road and turns into an opposite street, the lounger follows. It is a dark night, with a little drizzling rain — a night by no means calculated to tempt an elegantly-dressed young man to brave all the disagreeables and perils of dirty pavements and ovei-flowing gutters ; but neither Elvino nor the lounger seem to care for mud or rain, for they walk at a rapid pace through several streets — the lounger always a good way behind anii always in the shadow. He has a light step, which wakes no echo on the wet pavement; and the fashionable tenor has no idea that he is followed. He walks through long narrow street !^ to the Rue Rivoli, thence across one of the bridges. Presently he enters a very aristocratic but retired street, in a lonely quar- ter of the city. The distant roll of carriages and the tramp of a passing gendarmes are the only sounds that break the silence. There is not a creature to be seen in the wide street but the two men. Elvino turns to look about him, sees no one, and walks on till he comes to a mansion at the corner, screened from tli? street by a high wall, with g eat gates and a porter's lodge. Detached from the house, and sheltered by an angle of the wall, is a little pavilion, the windows of which look into the courtyard cr garden withm. Clcse to this pavilion is a narrow low dooi Working in the Dark. 99 of carved oak, studded witli great iron nails, and almost hidden in the heavy masonry of the wall which frames it. The house in early times has been a convent, and is now the property of the Marquis de Cevennes. Elvino, with one more glance up and down the dimly-Hghted street, approaches this doorway, and stooping down to the key-hole whistles softly three bars of a melody from Don Giovanni — La ci darem la mano. " So ! " says the lounger, standing in the shadow of a house opposite, " we are getting deeper into the mystery ; the curtain is up, and the play is going to begin." As the clocks of Paris chime the half-hour after eleven the Httle door turns on its hinges, and a faint light in the courtyard within falls upon the f gure of the fashionable tenor. This light comes from a lamp in the hand of a pretty-looking, smartly- dressed girl, who has opened the door. " She is not the woman I took her for, this Valerie," says the lounger, "or she would have opened that door herself. She makes her waiting-maid her confidante — a false step, which proves her either stupid or inexperienced. Not stupid; her face gives the lie to that. Inexperienced then. So much the better." As the spy meditates thus, Elvino passes through the doorway, stooping as he crosses the threshold, and the Ught disappears. " This is either a private marriage, or something worse," mutters the lounger. " Scarcely the last. Hers is the face of a woman capable of a madness, but not of degradation — the face of a Phaedra rather than a Messahna. I have seen enough of the play for to-night." CHAPTEE II. WORKING IN THE DAKK. Early the next morning a gentleman rings the bpll of the porter's lodge belonging to the mansion of the Marquis do Cevennes, and on seeing the porter addi-esses him thus — "The lady's-maid of Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevennes ii perhaps visible at this early hour?" The porter thinks not ; it is very early, only eight o'clock ; Mademoiselle Finette never appears till nine. The toilette of l;er mistress is generally concluded by twelve ; after twelve, I he i^orter thinks monsieur may succeed in seeing Mademoisello Finette — before twelve, he thinks not. The stranger rewards the porter with a five-franc piece for this valuable information; it is very valuable to the stranger, who is the lounger of the last night, to discover that the name of the girl who held the lamp is Finette. 100 The Trail of tie Serpent. Tlie loiingor seems to liave as little to do this morning as he had last night ; for he leans against the gateway, his cane in his hand, and a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, looking up at the honse of the marqnis with lazy indifference. The porter, concihated by the five-franc piece, is inclined to gossip. "A fine old building," says the lounger, still looking up al the house, every window of which is shrouded by ponderous Venetian shutters. " Yes, a fine old building. It lias been in the family of the marquis for two hundred years, but was sadly mutilated in the first revolution ; monsieur may see the work of the cannon amongst the stone decorations." "And that pavillion to the left, with the painted windows and Gothic decorations — a most extraordinary Httle edifice," says the lounger. Yes, monsieur has observed it ? It is a great deal more modem than the house; was built so lately as the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, by a dissipated old marquis who gave supper-parties at which the guests used to pour champagne out of the windows, and pelt the sei-vants in the courtyard with the empty bottles. It is certainly a curious little place ; but would monsieur believe something more curious ? Monsieur declares that he is quite willing to believe anythin':^ the porter may be good enough to tell him. He says tliis with a well-bred indifference, as he fights a fresh cigar, which is quite aristocratic, and which might stamp him a scion of the noble house of De Cevennes itself. "Tl^gai," repfies the porter, "monsieur must know that Mademoiselle Valerie, the proud, the high-born, the beautiful, has lately taken it into her aristocratic head to occupy that l-avilion, attended only by her maid Fiuette, in preference to her magnificent apartments, which monsieur maysee yonder on the first floor of the mansion — a range of ten windows. Does not monsieur think this very extraordinary ? " _ Scarcely. Young ladies have strange wliims. IMonsicKT never allows himself to be surprised by a woman's condu(■^ or he might pass his life in a state of continual astonishment. The porter perfectly agrees with monsieur. The porter is i married man, "and, monsieur ?" the porter ventures to ask with a shrug of inteiTogation. Monseiur says he is not married yet. Something in monsieur'a manner emboldens the porter to say " But monsieur is perhaps contemplating a marriage ? " Monsieur takes his cigar from his mouth, raises his blue eyes to the Ifvel of the range of ten windows, indicated just now by Working in ilie BarJc. 101 .he porter, takes one long and meditative survey of the magni- ficent mansion opposite him, and then rephes, with ai'istocz'atio indifference — " Perhaps. These Cevennes are immensely rich ?" " Immensely ! To the amount of millions." The porter is jirone to extravagant gesticulation, but he cannot lift either liis fyebrows or liis shoulders high enough to express the extent of the wealth of the De Cevennes. The lounger takes out his pocket-book, wi-ites a few lines, anj tearing the leaf out, gives it to the porter, saying — "You will favour me, my good friend, by giving this tc Jlademoiselle Finette at your earhest convenience. You were not always a married man ; and can therefore understand that it will be as well to deliver my httle note secretly." Nothing can exceed the intense significance of the porter's wink as he takes charge of the note. The louuger nods an indifferent good-day, and strolls away. " A marquis at the least," says the porter. " O, Mademoi- selle Finette, you do not wear black satin gowns and a gold watch and chain for nothing." The lounger is ubiquitous, this winter's day. At three o'clock in the afternoon he is seated on a bench in the gardens of the Luxembourg, smoking a cigar. He is dressed as before, in the last Parisian fashion ; but his greatcoat is a little o]:ien at the throat, displaying a loosely-tied cravat of a ixjculiarly bright blue. A young person of the genus lady's-maid, tripping daintilj by, is apjiarently attracted by this bine cravat, for she hover! about the bench for a few moments and then seats herself at the extreme end of it, as far as possible fi-om the indifferent lounger, who has not once noticed her by so much as one glance of his cold blue eyes. His cigar is nearly finished, so he waits till it is quite done; then, thro-wing away the stump, he says, scarcely looking at liis neighbour — " Mademoiselle Finette, I presume ?" " The same, monsieur." " Then perhaps, mademoiselle, as you have condescended to f ivour me -with an interview, and as the business on which I l.ave to address yon is of a strictly private nature, you will lIso condescend to come a httle nearer to me?" He says this without appearing to look at her, while he I'ghts another cigar. He is evidently a desperate srcoker, and c iresses his cigar, looking at the red light and blue smoke almost as if it were his famihar spirit, by whose aid he could work out wonderful calculations in the black art, and without whittli he would perhaps bo powerless. Mademoiselle Finetta 102 ^le Trail of the Serpent looka at him -witli a great deal of surprise and not a Kttle indignation, but obeys him, nevertheless, and seats herself close by his side. " I trust monsieur will believe that I should never have con- Bentcd to afford him this interview, had I not been assured — " " Monsieur will spare you, mademoiselle, the trouble of telling him why you come here, since it is enoiigh for him that you are here. I have nothing to do, mademoiselle, either with your motives or your scruples. I told you in my note that I required you to do me a service, for which I could afford to pay you handsomely; that, on the other hand, if you were un\vilUng to do me this service, I had it in my power to cause your dismissal from your situation. Your coming here is a tacit declaration of your willingness to serve me. So much and no more preface is needed. And now to business." He seems to sweep this curt preface away, as he waves off n cloud of the blue smoke from his cigar with one motion of his small hand. The lady's-maid, thoroughly subdued by a manner which is quite new to her, awaits his pleasure to speak, and stares at him with surprised black eyes. He is not in a hurry. He seems to be consulting the blue smoke jirior to committing himself by any further remark. He takes his cigar from his mouth, and looks into the bright red spot at the lighted end, as if it were the lurid eye of \v^ familiar demon. After consulting it for a few seconds he say ;, with the same indifference with which he would make some observation on the winter's day — " 80, your mistress. Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevenncs, has been so imprudent as to contract a secret marriage with an cpera-singer ? " He has determined on hazarding his guess. If he is right, it is the best and swiftest way of coming at the truth ; if wrong, he is no worse off than before. One glance at the girl's face tells liim he has struck home, and has hit upon the entire tnith. He is strlkiTig in the dark: but he is a mathematician, and can cal- culate the effect of every blow. " Yes, a secret mamage, of which you were the witness." Tliis is his second blow ; and again the girl's face tells him he has sti-uck home. " Fatlier Perot has betrayed us, then, monsieur, for he alone could tell you this," said Finette. The lounger understands in a moment that Father P^rot is the priest who performed the marriage. Another point in his game. He continues, still stopping now and then to take a puff at his cigar, and speaking with an air of complete iadiffe« rence — " You see, then, that thia secret marriage, and the part you WorHvj in the Dark. 103 took with regard to it, liave, no matter whether through the worthy priest, Father Perot "(he stops at this point to knock the ashes from his cigar, and a sidelong glance at the girl's face tells liim that he is right again, Father Perot is the ]iriest) — "or some other channel, come to my knowledge. Though a French woman, you may be acquainted with the celebrated aphorism of one of our English neighbours, ' Know- ledge is power.' Very well, mademoiselle, how if I use my power ?" " Monsieur means that he can deprive me of my present place, and prevent my getting another." As she said this, Mademoi- selle Finette screwed out of one of her black eyes a small bead of water, which was the best thing she could j)roduce in the way of a tear, but which, coming into immediate contact with a sticky white compound called pearl-powder, used by the lady's-maid to enhance her personal charms, looked rather more like a digestive pill than anything else. " But, on the other hand, I may not use my power ; and, indeed, I should deeply regret the painful necessity which would compel me to injure a lady." Mademoiselle Finette, encouraged by this speech, wiped away the digestive pill. " Therefore, mademoiselle, the case resolves itself to this ; serve me, and I will reward you ; refuse to do so, and I can injure you." A cold glitter in the blue eyes converts the words into a threat, without the aid of any extra emphasis from the voice. " Monsieur has only to command," answers the lady's-maid ; " I am ready to serve him." " This Monsiear Elvino will be at the gate of the little pavilion t)-night ?" "At a quarter to twelve." " Then I will be there at half-past eleven. You will admii me instead of him. That is all." " But my mistress, monsieur : she wiH discover that I have betrayed her, and she will kill me. You do not know Mademoi- selle de Cevennes." " Pardon me, I think I do know her. She need never learn, that you have betrayed her. Remember, I have discovered the appointed signal ;— you are deceived by my use of that signal, and you open the door to the wrong man. For the rest I will sliield you from all harm. Your mistress is a glorious creature ; but perhaps that high spirit may be taught to bend." " It must first be broken, monsieur," says T\r.adcmoisclla Finette. " Perhaps,' answers the lounger, rising as he speaks, " Mad*- 104 The Trail of the Serpent moiselle, au revoir" He drops five twinkling pieces of gold into her hand, and strolls slowly away. The lady's-maid watches the receding figure with a bewildered stare. Well may Finette Leris be puzzled by this man : he might mystify wiser heads than hers. As he walks >vith his lounging gait through the winter sunset, many turn to look at his aristocratic figure, fair face, and black hair. If the worst man who looked at him could have seen straight through those clear blue eyes into h. s soul, would there have been something revealed which might hsve shocked and revolted even this worst man ? Perhaps. Treachery is revolting, surely, to the worst of us. The worst of us might shrink appalled from the contempla- tion of those hideous secrets which are hidden in the plotting brain and the unflinching heart of the cold-blooded traitor. CHAPTEE III THE WRONG FOOTSTEP. Half-past eleven from the great booming voice of Notre Dame the magnificent. Half-past eleven from every turret in the vast city of Paris. The musical tones of the timepiece over the chimney in the boudoir of the pavihon testify to the fact five minutes afterwards. It is an elegant timepiece, surmounted by a ^roup from the hand of a fashionable sculptor, a group in which a golden Cupid has hushed a grim bronze Saturn to fcleep, and has hidden the old man's hour-glass under one of his lacquered wings— a pretty design enough, though the sand in the glass will never move the slower, or wrinkles and gray haii-s be longer coming, because of the prettiness of that patrician time- piece ; for the minute-hand on the best dial-plate that all Paris can produce is not surer in its course than that dark end which spares not the brightest beginning, that weary awakening which awaits the fairest dream. This little apartment in the pavilion belonging to the house of the Marquis de Cevennes is furnished in the style of the Pompa- dour days of elegance, luxury, and frivoUty. Oval portraits of the reigning beauties of that day are let into the panels of th. ■ walls, and " Louis the Well- beloved " smiles an insipid Bourbon «mile above the mantelpiece. The pencil of Boucher has im- mortalized those frail goddesses of the Versailles Olympus, and their coquettish loveliness fights the room almost as if they were living creatures, smiling unchangingly on every comer. The chimney-piece is of marble, exquisitely carved with lotuses and water-nymphs. A wood fire bums upon the gilded dogs which ornament the hearth. A priceless Persian carpet covers Ihe centre of the polished floor; and a golden Cui^id. suspended The Wrong Footstep. 105 from the painted ceiling in an attitude wliicli enggests sucli a deter minatioG. of Llood to the head as must ultimately result in apoplexy, holds a lamp of alabaster, which floods the room with a soft light. Under this light the mistress of the apartment, Valerie de Cevennes, looks gloriously handsome. She is seated in a low arm-chair by the hearth — looking sometimes into the red bla/.e at her feet, with dreamy eyes, whose profound gaze, though 1 houghtful, is not sorrowful. This girl has taken a desperate step in marrying secretly the man she loves ; but she has no regret, for she does love ; and loss of position seems so small a thing in the balance when weighed against this love, which is as yet unacquainted with sorrow, that she almost forgets she has lost it. Even while her eyes are fixed upon the wood fire at her feet, you may see that she is Ustening ; and when the clocks have chimed the half-hour, she turns her head towards the door of the apartment, and hstens intently. In five minutes she hears something — a faint sound in the distance, the sound of an outer door turning on its hinges. She starts, and her eyes brighten ; she glances at the timepiece, and from the timepiece to the tiny watch at her side. " So soon !" she mutters ; "he said a quarter to twelve. If my uncle had been here! And he only left me at eleven o'clock !'; She listens again ; the sounds come nearer— two more doors open, and then there are footsteps on the stairs. At the sound of these footsteps she starts again, with a look of anxiety in her face. " Is he iU," she says, " that he walks so slowly P Hark !" Slie turns joale and clasps her hands tightly upon her breast. " It is not his step ! " She knows she is betrayed ; and in that one moment she pre- j>ares herself for the worst. She leans her hand upon the back f>f the chair from which she has risen, and stands, with her thin lips firmly set, facing the door. She may be facing her fate for aught she knows, but she is ready to face anything. The door opens, and the lounger of the morning enters. He wears a coat and hat of exactly the same shape and colour as lliose worn by the fashionable tenor, and he resembles the tenor in build and height. An easy thing, in the obscurity of the right, for the faithful Finette to admit tliis stranger without discovering her mistake. One glance at the face and attitude of ^ alerie de Cevennes tells him that she is not unprepared for his ajipearance. This takes him off his guard. Has he, too, been betrayed by the lady's-maid? He never guesses that his light Btep betrayed him to the listening ear which love has made so acute. He sees that the young and beautiful girl is prepared to 106 Ihe Trail of the Serpent. give him battle. He is disappointed. He had couuteJ upon her surprise and confusion, and he feels that he has lost a point in his game. She does not speak, but stands quietly waiting for him to address her, as she might were he an ordinary visitor. " She is a more wonderful woman than I thought," he says to himself, " and the battle will be a sharp one. No matter ! The victory will be so much the sweeter." He removes his hat, and the Hght falls full upon his pale fair face. Something in that face, she cannot tell what, seems in a faint, dim manner, famihar to her — she has seen some one like this man, but when, or wherfe, she cannot remember. " You are surprised, madame, to see me," he says, for he feely that he must begin the attack, and that he must not spare a single blow, for he is to fight with one who can parry his thrusts and strike again. "You are surprised. You command yourself admirably in repressing any demonstration of surprise, but you are not the less surprised." " I am certainly surprised, monsieur, at receiving any visitor wt such an hour." She says this with perfect composure. " Scarcely, madame," he looks at the timepiece ; " for in five minutes from this your husband will— or should— be here." ^ Her hps tighten, and her jaw grows rigid in spite of heiaelf. ?h_e secret is known, then — known to this stranger, who dares Ai intrude himself upon her on the strength of this knowledge. "Monsieur," she says, "people rarely insult Valerie de Ce- -vonnes with impunity. You shall hear from my uncle to-morrow morning ; for to-night—" she lays her hand upon the mother- of-pearl handle of a little bell ; he stops her, saying, smilingly, "Nay, madame, we are not playing a farce. You wish to show me the door ? You would ring that bell, which no one can answer but Finette, your maid, since there is no one else in this charming little establishment. I shall not be afraid of Finette, even if you are so imprudent as to summon her ; and I shall not leave you till you have done me the honour of granting me an interview. For the rest, I am not talking to Valerie da Cevennes, but to Valerie de Lancy ; Valerie, the wife of Elvino; Valerie, the lady of Don Giovanni." De Lancy is the name of the fashionable tenor. This time the haughty girl's thin lips quiver, with a rapid, convulsive movement. What stings her proud soul is the contempt with wliich this man speaks of her husband. Is it such a disgrace, then, this marriage of wealth, rank, and beauty, with genius and art ? "Monsieur," she says, "you have discovered my secret. 1 have been betrayed either by my servant, or the priest who married me — no matter which of them is the traitor. You, who, from your conduct of to-nght, are evidently an adventurers u The Wrong Footstep. 107 person to v,'liom it would be utterly vain to speak of honour, cliivalry, and gentlemanly feeling — since they are donbtless words of which you do not even know the meaning — you wish to turn the possession of this secret to account. In other words, you desii'e to be bought off. You know, then, what I can afford to pay you. Be good enough to say bow much will satisfy you, and I will appoint a time and place at which you shall receive your earnings. You will be so kind as to lose no time. It is on the stroke of twelve ; in a moment Monsieur De Lancy will be here. He may not be disposed to make so good a bargain with 3'-ou as I am. He might be tempted to throw you out of the window." She has said this with entire self-possession. She might be talking to her modiste, so thoroughly indifferent is she in her high-bred ease and freezing contempt for the man to whom she is speaking. As she finishes she sinks qviietly into lier easy- chair. She takes up a book from a little table near her, and begins to cut the leaves with a jewelled-handled paper-knife. But the battle has only just begun, and she does not yet know her opponent. He watches her for a moment; marks the steady hand with which she slowly cuts leaf after leaf, without once notching the paper ; and then he deliberately seats himself opposite to her in the easy-chair on the other side of the fireplace. She lifts her eyes from the book, and looks him full in the face with an ex- pression of sujiireme disdain ; but as she looks, he can see hov/ eagerly she is also listening for her husband's step. He has a blow to strike which he knows will be a heavy one. " Do not, madame," he says, " distract yourself by listening for your husband's amval. He will not be here to-night." This is a ten-ible blow. She tries to speak, but her lips only move inarticulately. " No, he will not be here. You do not suppose, madamo, that when I contemplated, nay, contrived and arranged an inter- view with so charming a person as yourself, I could possibly ba so deficient in foresight as to allow that interview to be dis- turbed at the expiration of one quarter of an hour? No; Monsieur Don Giovanni will not be here to-night." Again she tries to speak, but the words refuse to come. He continues, as though he interpreted what she wants to say, — " You will naturally ask what other engagement detains hira from his lovely wife's society P Well, it is, as I think, a sujipor at the Trois Freres. As there are ladies invited, the party will no doubt break up early ; and you will, I dare say, sec Monsieur de Lancy by four or five o'clock in the morning." She tries to resume her employment with the paper-knife, but this time she tears the leaves to pieces in her endeavours to cut lOS The Trail of tie Serpenl. them. Her anguisli and her womanliood get the. Letter of her ])ride and her power of endurance. She crumples the book in her clenched hands, and throws it into the lire. Her visitor B miles. His blows are beginning to tell. For a few minutes there is sUence. Presently he takes out I'.is cigar-case. " I need scarcely ask permission, madame. All these opera- singers smoke, and no doubt you are indulgent to the weakness of our dear Elvino ? " " Monsieur de Lancy is a gentleman, and would not presume to smoke in a lady's presence. Once more, monsieur, be good enough to say how much money you require of me to ensure your silence ? " "Nay, madame," he rej^lies, as he bends over the wood fire, a !id Hghts his cigar by the blaze of the burning book, " there is no occasion for such desperate haste. You are really surprisingly superior to the ordinary weakness of your sex. Setting apart )'our courage, self-endurance, and determination, which are l-ositively wonderful, you are so entirely deficient in curiosity." She looks at him with a glance which seems to say she scoma to ask him what he means by this. " You say your maid, Finette, or the good priest, Monsieur Perot, must have betrayed your confidence. Suppose it was from neither of those persons I received my information?" " There is no other source, monsieiir, from which you could obtain it." " Nay, madame, reflect. Is there no other person whoso vanity may have prompted him to reveal this secret ^ Do you tliink it, madame, so utterly improbable that Monsieur de Lancy himself may have been tempted to boast over his wine of his conquest of the heiress of all the De Cevennes ?" " It is a base falsehood, monsieur, which you are uttering." " Nay, madame, I make no assertion. I am only putting a case. Suppose at a supper at the Maison Boree, amongst his comrades of the Opera and his admirers of the stalls — to say nothing of the coryphees, who, somehow or other, contrive to liiid a place at these recherche little banquets — suppose or.r fViend, Don Giovanni, imi^rudently ventures some allusion to a I;idy of rank and fortune whom his melodious voice or his dark eyes have captivated? This little party is not, perhaps, sati > lied with an allusion; it requires facts; it is incredulous; it lays heavy odds that Elvino cannot name the lady ; and in +1 > o end the whole story is told, and the health of Yalerie do Cevennes is drunk in CHquot's finest brand of champagr.". Suppose this, madame, and you may, perhaps, guess whence I got my information." Throughout this speech Valerie has sat facing him, with her Tlie Wrong Footdep> 109 eyes fixed in a strauge and ghastly stare. Ouce slie lifts her hand to her throat, as if to save herself from choking; and when the schemer has finished speaking she slides heavily from her chair, and falls on her knees upon the Persian hearth-rug, with her small hands convulsively clasped aliout her he£!vt. But she is not insensible, and she never takes her eyes from Iws face. She is a woman who neither weeps nor faints — c^.;e STi ffers. " 1 am here, madame," the lounger continues — atid now sle listens to him eagerly; "I am here for two purposes. To heH myself before all things; to help you afterwards, if I can. I have had to use a rough scalpel, madame, but I may not be -I'l unskilful physician. You love tliis tenor singer very deei'l} ; you must do so; since for his sake you were willhig to br..ve the contempt of that which you also love very much — the wor.d — the great world in which you move." " I did love him, monsieur — God ! how deeply, how mad!;-, how bhndly ! Nay, it is not to such an eye as yours thai [ would reveal the secrets of my heart and mind. Enough, I loved liim ! But for the man who could degrade the name ■ t the woman who had sacrificed so much for his sake, and hni 1 the sacrifice so hghtly — for the mau who could make t'.i; u woman's name a jest among the companions of a tavern, Valerie de Cevennes has but one sentiment, and that is — con- tempt." "1 admire your spirit, madame; but then, remember, 11-3 subject can scarcely be so easily dismissed. A husband is u. t to be shaken oft' so lightly; and is it likely that Monsieur uo Lancy will readily resign a man-iage which, as a speculation. !-■ so brilliantly advantageous ? Perhaps you do not know tha'. i t has been, ever since his debut, his design to sell his handsomo face to the highest bidder ; that he has — pardon me, madame* — Ijeen for two years on the look-out for an heiress possessed of more gold than discmnination, whom a few pretty namlv- pamby speeches selected from the librettos of the operas ho i.< familiar with would captivate and subdue." The haughty spirit is bent to the vcrj dust. This girl, tn.'h itself, never for a moment questions the words which are brcr!;.- ing her heart. There is something too painfully probable :n this bitter humiliation. " Oh, what have I done," she cries, "what have I done, lliat the golden dream of my Ufe should be broken by such an twakening as this ?" "Madame, I have told you that I wish, if I can, to liolp you. I pretend no disinterested or Utopian generosity. You urc lich, and can aft'ord to pay me for my services. There ar« Bnlj three persons who, besides yourself, were witnesses of or 110 lie Trail of tTie Serpent. eoncerned in this marriage — i'ather Perot, Finotte, and Mon* eieur de Lancy. The priest and the maid-sen^ant may be silenced; and for Don Giovanni — we -will talk of him to-morrow. Stay, has he any letters of yours in his possession?" "He returns my letters one by one as he receives them," she mutters. " Good — it is so easy to retract what one has said ; but so diiEcult to deny one's handwriting." " The De Oevennes do not lie, monsieur !" " Do they not ? What, madame, have you acted no lies, though you may not have spoken them ? Have you never lied with your face, when you have worn a look of calm indifference, while the mental effort with which you stopped the violent beating of your heart produced a dull physical torture in your breast; when, in the crowded opera-house, you heard 7«'s step upon the stage ? Wasted lies, madame ; wasted torture ; for your idol was not worth them. Your god laughed at your worship, because he was a false god, and the attributes for which you worshipped him — truth, loyalty, and genius, such as man never before possessed — were not his, but the offspring of your own imagination, with which you invested him, because you were in love vnth. his handsome face. Bah! madame, after all, you were only the fool of a chiselled profile and a melodious voice. You are not the first of your sex so fooled ; Heaven forbid you should be the last !" " You have shown me why I should hate tlus man ; shew me my revenge, if you wish to serve me. My countrywomen do not forgive. Gaston de Lancy, to have been the slave of your every word ; the blind idolator of 3'our every glance ; to have given so much ; and, as my reward, to reap only your contempt !" There are no tears in her eyes as she says this in a hoarse voice. Perhaps long years hence she may come to weep over this wild infatuation — now, her despair is too bitter for tears. The lounger still presei-ves the charming indifference which stamps him of her own class. He says, in reply to her en- treaty, — " I can lead you to your revenge, madame, if your noble Spanish blood does not recoil from the ordeal. Dress yourself to-morrow night in your servant's clothes, wearing of course a thick veil ; take a hackney coach, and at ten o'clock be at the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne. I will join you there. You tuall have your revenge, madame, and I will show you how to turn that revenge (which is in itself an expensive luxury) to practical account. In a few days you may p^ei-haps be able to Bay, ' There is no such person as Gaston de Lancy : the terribia delusion was only a dronm ; I have awoke, and I am free V " Ocular l)emonstration. Ill She passes her trembling baud across her brow, and looks at the speaker, as if she tried in vain to gather the meaning of his words. " At ten o'clock, at the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne ? I will be there," she murmurs faintly. " Good ! And now, madame, adieu ! I fear I have fatigued yon by this long interview. Stay ! You should know the name of the man to whom you allow the honour of serviuf you. He takes out his card-case, lays a card on the tiny table at her side, bows low to her, and leaves her — leaves her stricken to the dust. He looks back at her as he opens the door, and watches her for a moment, with a smile upon his face. His blows have had their full effect. O Valerie, Valerie ! loving so wildly, to be so degraded, hu mil iated, deceived! Little wonder that you cry to-night. There is no light in the sky — there is no glory in the world ! Earth is weary, heaven is dark, and death alone is the friend of the broken heart ! CHAPTEB lY. OCULAR DEMONSTEATio::. IxscTRiBED on the card which the lounger leaves on the table of Mademoiselle de Cevennes, or Madame de Lancy, is the name of llaymond Marolles. The lounger, then, is Eaymond Marolles, and it is he whom we must follow, on the morning after the stormy interview in the pavHion. He occupies a charming apartment in the Champs Elysees ; small, of course, as befitting a bachelor, but furnished in the best taste. On entering his rooms there is one thing you could scarcely fail to notice ; and this is the surprising neatness, the almost mathematical precision, with which everything is ar- ranged. Books, pictures, desks, pistols, small-swords, bosdng- gloves, riding-whips, canes, and guns — every object is disposed m an order quite unusual in a bachelor's apartment. But this habit of neatness is one of the idiosyncrasies of Monsieur Marolles. It is to be seen in his exquisitely -appointed dress; in his care- fully-trimmed moustache; it is to be heard even in the inflexioiia of his voice, which rise and fall with rather monotonous though melodious regularity, and which are never broken by anything so vulgar as anger or emotion. At ten o'clock this morning he is still seated et break ftisl lie has eaten nothing, but he is drinking his second cup (A strong coffee, arid it ir; eaav to we that he is thinking verj de€>|^iy. 112 Tlie Trail of the Serpent. " Yes," lie mutters, " I must find a way to convince her ; she must be tlioroughly convinced before she will be induced to act. My first blows have told so well, I must not fail in my master- stroke. But how to convince her — words alone will not satisfy her long; there must be ocular demonstration." He finishes his cup of coffee, and sits playing with the tea- spoon, clinking it with a low musical sound i"i;rMinst the china teacup. Presently he hits it with one loud ringing stroke. That stroke is a note of triumph. He has been working a Eroblem and has found the solution. He takes up his hat and urries out of the house ; but as soon as he is out of doors ho slackens his step, and resumes his usual lounging gait. He crosses the Place de la Concorde, and makes his way to the Boulevard, and only turns aside when he reaches the Italian Opera House. It is to the stage-door he directs his steps. An old man, the doorkcejjer, is busy in the little dark hall, manu- facturing a, pot a feu, and warming his hands at the same time at a tiny stove in a comer.. He is quite accustomed to the apparition of a stylish young man ; so he scar.cely looks up when the shadow of Raymond MaroUes darkens the doorway. " Good morning. Monsieur Concierge," says Raymond ; " you are very busy, I see." " A little domestic avocation, that is all, monsieur, being a bachelor." The doorkeeper is rather elderly, and somewhat snuffy for a bachelor ; but he is very fond of informing the visitors of the stage-door that he has never sacrificed his liberty at the shrine of Hymen. He thinks, perhajis, that they miglit scruple to give their messages to a married man. " Not too busy, then, for a little conversation, my friend?" asks the visitor, slijoping a five-franc jjiece into the i^orter'a dingy hand. " Never too busy for that, monsieur;" and the porter abandons the 2'^ot a feit to its fate, and dusts with his coloured hand- kerchief a knock-kneed-looking easy-chair, which he presents to monsieur. Monsieur is very condescending, and the doorkee.per is very communicative. He gives monsieur a great deal of useful infor- mation about the salaries of the princii^al dancers ; the bouquets and diamond bracelets thrown to them ; the airs and gi-acea indulged in by them ; and divers other interesting facts. Pre- sently monsieur, who has been graciously thoiigh rather lan- guidly interested in all this, says — "Do you happen to have amongst your supernumeraries or choruses, or any of your insignificant people, one of those mimics so generally met with in a theatre ? " " Ah," says the doorkeeper^