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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
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MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS.
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THE AUTHOE'S AUTOGRAPH EDITION
OF MISS BRADDON'S NOVELL
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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
<jaised and applauded this jnodel young man, and many were
jpe prophecies of the day wlien the pauper boy should be one
oi' the greatest men in that greatest of aU towns, the town of
Blopperton.
The bad November day merged into a bad November night.
Dark night at five o'clock, when candles, few and far between,
flickering ia Dr. Tappenden's sch(K)lroom, and long rows of half-
Eint mugs — splendid uistitutions for httle boys to warm their
ands at, being full of a boiling and semi-opaque liquid, par
excellence milk-and-water— ornamented the schoolroom table.
Darker night still, when the half-pint mugs have been collected
by a red maid-servant, with nose, elbows, and knuckles picked
out in purple; when aU traces of the evening meal are removed;
when the six red-nosed first-foim boys have sat down to Virgil
— for whom they entertain a deadly hatred, feeling convinced
that he w.ote with special view to their being flogged from in-
abihty to construe him. Of .ourse, if he hadn't been a spiteful
beast be would have written in English, and then he wouHn't
have hau io lie c<jnstrued. Dirker night stiU at eight o'clock,
when the boys have gone to bed, and perhaps would have gone
to sleep, if AUecompain Major had not a supper-party it bis
room, with Banbury cakes, pigs" trotters, peri^vinkles, acid rock,
and ginger-betr powders, hiid ou~ upon the bolster. Not so dark
by the head assistant's desk, at which Jabez sits, his face inef-
fably calm, examining a pUe of exercises. Look at his face by
that one candle ; look at the eyes, which are steady now, for he
does not dream that any one is watching him — steady and lumi-
nous with a subdued fire, which might blaze out some day into
a deadly flame. Look at the face, the determined mouth, the
thin lips, which form almost an arch — and say, is that the face
of a man to be content wi1;h a Hfe of di-eary and obscure mono-
tony ? A somewhat intellectual face ; but not the face of a
man with an intellect seeking no better employment than the
correcting of French and Latin exercises. If we could look
into his heart, we might find the answers to these questions.
He raises the hd of his desk ; a deep desk that holds many
things — fiaper, pens, letters; and what? — a thick coil of rope.
A strange object in the asBistant's desk, this coil of rope! H€
Iwks at it as if to assure h >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<i cigar alight, and when it goes out, which is about twice in
12 Tlie Trail of the Serpent.
five minutes, lie utters expressions which in Slopperton ara
thought very wicked, and consigns that good city, vnth its vir-
tuous citizens, to a very bad neighbourhood.
He talks to himself between his struggles with the cigar.
•^ Foot-sore and weary, hungry and thirsty, cold and ill ; it is not
a very hopeful way for the only son of a rich man to come back
to his native place after seven years' absence. I wonder what
star presides over my vagabond existence ; if I knew, I'd shake
my fist at it," he muttered, as he looked up at two or three
feeble luminaries gHmmering through the rain and fog. " An-
other mile to the Black ^B-Iill — and then what will she say
to me ? What can she say to me but to curse me P What
have I earned by such a Hfe as mine except a mother's
curse P " His cigar chose tliis very moment of all others to go
out. If the bad three-halfpenny Havannah had been a sentient
thing with reasoning powers, it might have known better. He
threw it aside into a ditch with an oath. He slouched his hat
over his eyes, thrust one hand into the breast of his coat — (he
had a stick cut from some hedgerow iu the other) — and walked
with a determined though a weary air onward through slush
and mire towards the Black Mill, from which abeady the lighted
windows shone through the darkness like so many beacons.
On through slush and mire, with a weary and slouching step.
No matter. It is the step for which his mother has waited
for seven long years ; it is the step whose ghostly echo on the
garden-walk has smitten so often on her heart and trodden out
the light of hope. But surely the step comes on now — full
surely, and for good or ill. Whether for good or ill comes
this long-watched-for step, this bad November night, who shall
say ?
In a quarter of an hour the wanderer stands in the little gar-
den of the Black Mill. He has not courage to knock at the
door; it might be opened by a stranger; he might hear some-
thing he dare not wliisper to his own heart — he might hetir
something which would strike him down dead upon the threshold.
He sees the light in the drawing-room windows. He ap-
proaches, and hears his mother's voice.
It is a long time since he has uttered a prayer : but he falls
on his knees by the long French window and breathes a thanks-
That voice is not stul !
\Vhat shall he do P What can ho hope from his mother, so
cruelly abandoned ?
At this moment Mr. Harding opens the window to look out at
the dismal night. As he does so, the young man falls fainting,
exhausted, into the rooir .
Q-ood for Nbtting. 13
"Draw a curtain over the agitation and the bewildermout of
that scene. The almost broken-hearted mother's joy is toe
Bacred for words. And the passionate tears of the prodigal son
— who shall measure the remorseful agony of a man whose Ufe
has been one long career of recklessness, and who sees his sin
written in his mother's face P
The mother and son sit together, talking gravely, hand in
hand, for two long hours. He tells her, not of all his follies,
but of aU his regrets — his punishment, his anguish, his peni-
tence, and his resolutions for the future.
Surely it is for good, and good alone, that he has come over a
long_ and dreary road, through toil and suffering, to kneel here
at his mother's feet and build up fair schemes for the future.
The old servant, who has known Eichard from a baby, shares
m hia mother's joy. After the shght supper which the weary
wanderer is induced to eat, her brother and her son persuade
Mrs. Marwood to retire to rest ; and left Ute-a-tete, the uncle
and nephew sit down to discuss a bottle of old madeira by the
sea-coal fire.
" My dear Richard " — the young man's name is Richard^
(" Daredevil Dick " he has been called by his -svild companions)
— " My dear Richard," says Mr. Harding very gravely, " I am
about to say something to you, which I trust you will take in
good part."
" I am not so used to kind words from good men that I am
likely to take anything you can say amiss."
_ " You will not, then, doubt the joy I feel in your return this
night, if I ask you what are your plans for the future ? "
The young man shook his head. Poor Richard ! he had never
in his fife had any definite plan for the future, or he might not
nave been what he was that night.
" My poor boy, I believe you have a noble heart, but you have
led a wasted hfe. This must be repaired."
Richard shook his head again. He was very hopeless of
himself.
" I am good for nothing," he said ; " I am a bad lot. I wonder
they don't hang such men as me."
"I wonder they don't hang such men." He uttered this
reckless speech in his own reckless way, as if it would be rathe"
a good joke to be hung up out of the way and done for.
" My dear boy, thank Heaven you have returned to us. Now
I have a plan to make a man of you yet."
Richard looked up this time with a hopeful light in his dark
eyes. He was hopeless at five minutes past ten ; he was radiant
when the minute hand had moved on to the next figure en tl>*
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 <jf the Seven Stars was
jMittingher hair in papers when the girl called Sillikens invaded
the sanctity of her private life. Why she underwent the pain ami
grief of curling her hair for the admiration of such a neighboi!!'-
hood as Blind Peter is one of those enigmas of this drearv
existence to solve which the CEdipus has not yet appeared. I
d;n't suppose she much cared about suspending her toilet, and
opening her bar, for the purpose of selling sixpennyworth '•(
port wine; but when she heard it was for a sick man, she did
not grumble. The girl thanked her heartily, and hurried hon:;;-
wards with her pitiful measure of wine.
Through the pitiless rain, and undor the dark sky, it waa
almost impossible to see your hand before you ; but as Sillikona
entered the mouth of Blmd Peter, a flash of lightning revealed
♦o her the figure of a man gliding with a soft step between tlie
broken iron railings. In the iustfinlanotuis gUmpsc she caught
82 ^e trail of tie Serpent.
|f liini under the blue light, something familiar in his fac« OS
brm quickened the beating of her heart, and made her turn to
/ook back at him ; but it was too dark for her to see more than
the indistinct ^gnre of a man hurrj^ing away in the direction
of Slopperton. Wondering who could be leaving Blind Peter
on such a night and at such an hour, she hastened back to
eany her lover tLi wine.
The old woman still sat before the hearth. The sputtering
candle had gone out, and the light from the miserable little fire
only revealed the dark outlines of the -wretched furniture and
the figure of Jim's grandmother, looking, as she sat mumbling
over the broken teacup, hke a wicked witch performmg an
incantation over a portable cauldron.
The girl hurried to the bed-side — the sick man was not there.
" Grandmother ! Jim — Jim ! Where is he ? " she asked, in an
alarmed voice ; for the figure she had met hun-ying through the
storm flashed upon her with a strange distinctness. " Jim !
Grandmother ! tell me where he is, or I shall go mad ! Not
gone — not gone out on such a night as this, and in a burning
fever?"
" Yes, lass, he's gone. My precious boy, my darhng boy. His
dead mother was my only child, and he's gone for ever and ever,
and on this dreadful night. I'm a miserable old woman."
No other explanation than this, no other words than these*
chattered and muttered again and again, could the wretched
girl extort from the old woman, who, half imbecile and more
than half tipsy, sat grinning and grunting over the teacup till she
JeU asleep in a heap on the cold damp hearth, still hugging the
empty teacup, and still muttering, even in her sleep, —
" His dead mother was my only child ; and it's very cruel it
should come to this at last, and on such a night."
CHAPTER YI.
THE QUIET FIGURE ON THE HEATH.
The morning after the storm broke bright and clear, promising
a hot summer's day, but also promising a pleasant breeze to
counterbalance the heat of the sun. This was the legacy of the
storm, which, dying out about three o'clock, after no purposeless
fury, had left behind it a better and purer air in place of the
sultry atmosphere which had heralded its coming.
Mr. Joseph Peters, seated at breakfast this morning, attended
by Kuppins nursing the " fondUng," has a great deal to say by
means of the dirty alphabet (greasy from the efiects of matutinal
bacon) about last night's storm. Kuppins has in nowise altered
iince we last saw her, and four months have made no change ia
Tlie Quiet Figure on the Heath. 83
tlie inscrutable physiognomy of the silent detective ; but four
mouths have made a difference in the " fondling," now familiarly
known as " baby." Baby is short-coated ; baby takes notice.
This accomplishment of taking notice appears to consist chiefly
in snatching at every article within its reach, from Kuppins's
luxuriant locks to the hot bowl of Mr. Peters's pipe. Baby also
is possessed of a marvellous pair of shoes, which are alternately
in his mouth, xmder the fender, and upon his feet — to say nothi ng
of their occasionally finding their way out of the window, on to
the dust-heap, and into divers other domestic recesses too
numerous to mention. Baby is also possessed of a cap with
frills, which it is Kuppins's dehght to small-plait, and the delight
of baby to demolish. Baby is devotedly attached to Kuppins,
and evinces his atFection by such pleasing demonstrations as
poking his lists down her throat, hanging on to her nose, pushing
a tobacco-pipe up her nostrils, and other equally gratifying
proofs of infantine regard. Baby is, in short, a wonderful
chi'd ; and the eye of Mr. Peters at breakfast wanders from Ids
bacon and his water-cresses to his young adopted, with a look of
pride he does not attempt to conceal.
Mr. Peters has risen in his profession since last February.
He has assisted at the discovery of two or three robberies, and
nas evinced on those occasions such a degree of tact, triumphing
80 completely over the difficulties he labours under from liis
infirmity, as to have won for himself a better place in the police
force of Slopperton — and of course a better salary. But business
has been dull lately, and Mr. Joseph Peters, who is ambitious,
has found no proper field for his abilities as yet.
"I should like an iron-safe case, a regular out-and-o^t
burglary," he muses, " or a good forgery, say to the tune of .^
thousand or so. Or a bit of bigamy; that would be somethi -;
new. But a jolly good poisoning case might make my fortui. -.
If that there little 'un was growed up," he mentally ejaculate'!.
as Kuppins's charge gave an unusually loud scream, " his lungM
might be a fortune to me. Lord," he continued, waxing meta-
physical, " I don't look upon that hiufant as a hinfant, I looks
upon him as a voice."
The " voice " was a veiy powerful one just at this moment ;
for in an interval of affectionate weakness Kuppins had regaled
the " fondling " on the rind of Mr. Peters's rasher, which, not
harmonizing with the limited development of his swallowing
apparatus, had brought out the purple tints in his complexion
»nth alarming violence.
For a long time Mr. Peters mused, and at last, after signalling
Kuppins, as was his wont on commencing a conversation, witb
a loud snap of his finger and thumb, he began thus :
" There' a a case of shop-lifting at Half> 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^ <ihuGkling, " I see monsieur knowi
Onilar Demonstration. Jl3
theatre. "We have indeed two or three mimics; but one abov«
all— a chorus-singer, a great man, who can strike oif an imita-
tion which is hfe itself; a drunken, dissohite fellow, monsieur, or
he would have taken to principal characters and made himself a
name. A fellow with a soul for nothing but dominoes and vulfar
wine-shops ; but a wonderful mimic."
_" Ah ! and he imitates, I suppose, all jour great peoj^le — your
prima donna, your basso, youi' tenor — " hazards Monsieur Rav-
mond MaroUes.
'' Yes, monsieur. You should hear liim mimic this new tenor.
this Monsieur Gaston de Lancy, who has made such a sensati<,;n
this season. lie is not a bad-looking fellow, pretty much the
same height as De Lancy, and he can assume his manner, voice,
and walk, so completely that "
" Perhaps in a dark room you could scarcely tell one from the
other, eh. f*"
" Precisely, monsieur."
" I have rather a curiosity about these sort of people ; and 1
should hke to see this man, if " he hesitates, jingUng some
Kilver in his pocket.
"Nay, monsieur," says the porter; nothing more easy; this
Moucee is always here about this time. They call the chorus to
rehearsal while the great people are lounging over their break-
fasts._ We shall find him either on the stage, or in one of the
dressing-rooms playing dominoes. This way, monsieur."
Raymond Marolles follows the doorkeeper down dark passages
and up mnumerable flights of stairs ; till, very high up, he stops
at a low door, on the other side of which there is evidently a
rather noisy party. This door the porter opens Avithout cere-
mony, and he and Monsieur Marolles enter a long low room,
with bare white-washed walls, scrawled over with charcoal
caricatures of prima donnas and tenors, with impossible noses
and spindle legs. Seated at a deal table is a group of younjf
men, shabbily dressed, j^laying at dominoes, while others loot-
on and bet upon the game. They are all smoking tiny cigarettes
which look like damp curl-papers, and which last about twc
minutes each.
"Pardon me. Monsieur Moucee," says the porter, addressing
one of the domino players, a good-looking young man, with a
])ale dark face and black hair — "pardon me that I disturb your
pleasant game ; but I bring a gentleman who wishes to make
your ac([uaintance."
The chorus-singer rises, gives a lingering look at a double-si.^
be was just going to play, and advances to where Monsieur
Marolles is standing.
" At monsieur's service," he says, with an unstudied but
graceful bow.
a
114 The Ti mi of the Serpent
Kaymond MaroUes, with an ease of manner all his own passej
his arm through that cf the young man, and leads him out into
the passage.
" I have heard, Monsieur Moucee, that you possess a talent
f( )r mimicry which is of a very superior order. Are you willing
to assist with this talent in a httle farce I am preparing for the
amusement of a lady P If so you will have a claim (which I
shall not forget) on my gratitude and on my purse."
This last word makes Paul Moucee prick up his ears. Poor
fallow ! his last coin has gone for the half-ounce of tobacco he
has just consumed. He expresses himself only too happy to
obey the commands of monsieur.
Monsieur suggests that they shall repair to an adjoining cafe,
at which they can have half-an-hour's quiet conversation. They
do so ; and at the end of the half hour, Monsieur MaroUes parts
with Paul Moucee at the door of this cafe. As they separate
Kaymond looks at his watch — " Half-past eleven; all goes better
than I could have even hoped. This man will do very well for
/ or friend Elvino, and the lady shall have ocular demonstration.
Xow for the rest of my work ; and to-night, my proud and
beautiful heiress, for you."
As the clocks strike ten that night, a hackney-coach sto^js
close to the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne ; and as the coach-
; nan checks his horse, a gentleman emerges from the gloom, and
j;-oes up to the door of the coach, which he opens before the
driver can dismount. This gentleman is Monsieur Raymond
MaroUes, and Yalerie de Lancy is seated in the coach.
"Punctual, madame!"he says. "Ah, in the smaUest mat-
ters you are superior to your sex. May I request you to step
out and walk with me for some Httle distance ?"
The lady, who is thickly veiled, only bows her head in re'Jy ;
but she is by his side in a moment. He gives the coachjuan
eome directions, and the man drives off a few paces ; he then
c ft'ers his arm to Valerie.
" Nay, monsieur," she says, in a cold, hard voice, " I can
follow you, or I can walk by your side. I had rather not take
your arm."
Perhaps it is as well for this man's schemes that it is too dark
for his companion to see the smile that lifts his black moustache,
or the glitter in his blue eyes. He is something of a physiologist
as weU as a mathematician, this man ; and he can tell what she
has suffered since last night by the change in her voice alone.
It has a duU and monotonous sound, and the tone seems to
have gone out of it for ever. If the dead could speak, they
Kught speak thus.
" This way, then, madame," he eays. " My first object is to
convince yon of the treacherv of the man for whom you have
Ocular Demonstration. 115
gacrificctl 30 much. Have jou strength to live through tha
discovery?"
" I lived through last night. Come, monsieur, waste no mora
time in words, or I shall think you are a charlatan. Let me
hear from his Hps that I have cause to hate him."
" Follow me, then, and softly."
He leads her into the wood. The trees are veiT young as yet,
but all is obscui-e to-night. There is not a star in the sky ; the
December night is dark and cold. A sUght faU of snow has
wliitenod the ground, and deadens the sound of footstei^s. Ilay-
mond and Valerie might be two shadows, as they ghde amongst
the trees. After they have walked about a quarter of a mile, he
catches her by the arm, and di-aws her hurriedly into the shadow
of a gi-oup of young pine-trees. " Now," he says, " now Usten."
She hears a voice whose every tone she knows. " At Erst
there is a rushing sound in her ears, as if all the blood were
surging from her heart up to her brain ; but presently she hears
distinctly ; presently too, her eyes grow somewhat accustomed
to the gloom ; aud she sees a few paces from her the dim outline
of a tall figure, famihar to her. It ii< Gaston de Lanc}', who is
standing with one arm round the sUght waist of a young girl,
his head bending down with the graceful droop she knows so
well, as he looks in her face.
Marolles' voice whispers in her ear, " The girl is a dancer from
one of the minor theatres, whom he knew before he was a great
man. Her name, I think, is Rosette, or something like it. She
loves him very much ; perhaps almost as much as you do, in
spite of the quarterings on your shield."
He feels the slender hand, which before disdained to lean upon
his arm, now clasp his wrist, and tighten, as if each taper finger
vrere an u'on vice.
" Listen," he says agaiii. " Listen to the drama, madame. I
aril the chorus !"
It is the girl who is speaking. " But, Gaston, this marriage,
this marriage, which has almost broken my heart."
" Was a sacrifice to our love, my Rosette. For your sake
alone would I have made such a sacrifice. But this haughty
lady's wealth wiU make us happy in a distant land. She httle
thinks, poor fool, for whose sake I endure her patrician airs, her
graces oi. the old rer/line, her caprices, and her folly. _ Only be
pat: .ut. Rosette, ami trust me The day that is to unite us for
ever is not far distant, beUeve me."
It is the voice of Gaston de Lancy. Who should better know
those tones than his wife ? Who should better know them than
ehe to whose proud heart they strike death ?
The girl speaks again. " And you do not love this fine lady,
Gaston ? Only tell me that you do not love her I"
116 The Trail of the Serpent.
Again the familiar voice speaks. " Love her ! Bah ! We
never love these fine ladies who give ns such tender glances from
opera-boxes. We' never admire these great heiresses, who fall ia
love with a handsome face, and have not enough modesty to
keep the sentiment a secret; who think they honour us by a
man-iage which they are ashamed to confess ; and who fancy we
must needs be devoted to them, because, after their fashion, they
are in love with us."
" Have you heard enough P " asked Raymond ^larolles.
"Give me a pistol or a dagger!" she gasped, in a hoarse
whisper ; " let me shoot him dead, or stab him to the heart, that
I may go away and die in peace ! "
" So," muttered Raymond, " she has heard enough. Come,
madame. Yet — stay, one last look. You are sure that ig
Monsieur de Lancy?"
The man and the girl are standing a few yards from them ;
his back is turned to Valerie, but she would know him amongst
a thousand by the dark hair and the peculiar bend of the head.
" Sure ! " she answers. " Am I myself ?"
" Come, then; we have another place to visit to-night. Ynn
are satisfied, are you not, madame, now that you have had
ocular demonstration ? "
CnAFIER V.
THE KING or SPADES.
V/iiEN Monsieur Marolles offers his arm to lead Valerie cle
Cevennes back to the coach, it is accepted passively enough.
Little matter now what new degradation she endures. Her
pride can never I'all lower than it has fallen. Despised by the
man she loved so tenderly, the world's contempt is nothing to
her.
In a few minutes they are both seated in the coach driving
through the Champs Elysees.
" Are you taking me home ?" she asks.
" No, madame, we have another errand, as I told you."
"And that errand?"
" I am going to take you where you will have your fortune
told."
" My fortune !" she exclaims, with a bitter laugh.
'' Bah ! madame," says her companion. " Let us understand
each other. I hope I have not to deal with a romantic and love-
sick girl. I will not gall your pride by recalling to youi
recollection in what a contemptible position I have found you.
I offer my services to rescue you from that contemptible
The Kinj of Spadet. 117
position ; bnt I do so in tlie fii-m belief that yon are a woman o!
Hpirit, courage, and determination, and "
" And that I can pay you well," she adds, scornfully.
" And that you can pay me well. I am no Don Quixote,
madame ; nor have I any great respect for that gentleman.
Believe me, I intend that you shall pay me well for my services,
03 you will learn by-and-by."
Agaiu there is the cold glitter in the blue eyes, and th«
ominous smile which a moustache does well to hide.
"But," he continues, "if you have a mind to break your
heart for an opera-singer's handsome face, go and break it in
your boudoir, madame, with no better confidante than your
lady's-maid ; for you are not worthy of the services of Raymond
Marolles."
" You rate your services very high, then, monsieur?"
" Perhaps. Look you madame : you despise me because I
am an adventurer. Had I been bom in the purple — lord, even
in my cradle, of wide lands and a great name, you would
respect me. Now, I respect myself because I am an adventurer ;
because by the force alone of my own mind I have risen from
what I was, to be what I am. I will show you my cradlesoma
day. It had no tapestried coverlet or embroidered curtains, I
can assure you."
They are di-iving now through a dark street, in a neighbour-
hood utterly unknown to the lady.
" Where are you taking me ? " she asks again, with some«
thing hke fear in her voice.
" As I told you before, to have your fortune told. Nay,
madame, unless you trust me, I cannot serve you. Remember,
it is to my interest to serve you well : you can therefore havo
no cause for fear."
As he speaks they stop before a ponderous gateway in the
blank wall of a high dark-looking house. They are somewhere
in the neighbourhood of Notre 'Dame, for the grand old towtr.-?
ioom dimly in the darkness. Monsieur Marolles gets out of
the coach and rings a bell, at the sound of which the porter
opens the door. Raymond assists Valerie to dismount, and
leads her across a courtyard into a little hall, and up a stono
staircase to the fifth story of the house. At another time her
courage might have failed her in this strange house, at so lato
an hour, with this man, of whom she knows nothing; but she
is recklesa to-night.
There is nothing very alarming in the aspect of the room
into wliich Raymond leads her. It is a cheerful little apart-
ment lighted with gas. There is a small stove, near a table,
before which is seated a gentlemanly-looking man, of some forty
years of age. He has a very pale face, a broad forehead, from
118 The frail of ilie Serpent.
whicli tlie hair is brushed away behind the cars : he wears bins
spectacles, which entirely conceal his eyes, and in a manner
shade his face. You cannot tell what he is thinking of; for it
is a peculiarity of this man that the mouth, which with other
people is generally the most expressive feature, has with him
no expression whatever. It is a thin, straight line, which opens
and shuts as he speaks, but which never curves into a smile, or
contracts when he frowns.
He ia deeply engaged, bending over a pack of cards spread
out on the green cloth which covers the table, as if he were
playing ecarte without an opponent, when Raymond opens the
door ; but he rises at the sight of the lady, and bows low to her.
He has the air of a student rather than of a man of the world.
" My good Blurosset," says Raymond, " I_ have brought a
lady to see you, to whom I have been speaking very highly of
your talents."
" With the pasteboard or the crucible ? " asks the impassible
mouth.
"Both, my dear fellow; we shall want both your talents.
Sit down, madame; I must do the honours of the apartment,
for my friend Laurent Blurosset is too much a man of science
to be a man of gallantry. Sit down, madame ; place yourself at
this table — there, opposite Monsieur Blurosset, and then to
business."
This Raymond Marolles, of whom she knows absolutely
nothing, has a strange influence over Valerie; an influence
against which she no longer struggles. She obeys him passively,
and seats herself before the little green baize-covered table.
The blue spectacles of Monsieur Laurent Blurosset look at
her attentively for two or three minutes. As for the eyes
behind the spectacles, she cannot even guess what might be
revealed in their Hght. The man seems to have a strange
advantage in looking at every one as from behind a_ screen.
His own face, with hidden eyes and inflexible mouth, is like a
blank wall.
"Now then, Blurosset, we will begin with the pasteboard.
Madame would like to have her fortune told. She knows of
course that this fortune-telling is mere charlatanism, but she
wishes to see one of the cleverest charlatans."
"Charlatanism! Charlatan! Well, it doesn't matter. 1
believe in what I read here, because I find it true. The first
time I find a false meaning in these bits of pasteboard I shall
throw them into that fire, and never touch a card again.
They've been the hobby of twenty years, but you know I could
do it, En^Ushman !"
"ilnghshman!" exclaimed Yalerie, looking up with astonisli-
raent.
The King of Spades. 119
'' Tes," answered Baymond, laughing; "a surname which
Monsieur Bhirosset has bestowed upon me, in ridicule of my
politics, which happened once to resemble tiiose of our hones*
neighbour, John Bull."
Monsieur Blurosset nods an assent to Eaymond's assertion^
fts he takes the cards in his thin yellow-white hands and begins
shuffling them. He does this ^vith a skill peculiar to himself,
and you could almost guess in watching him that these litt'e
pieces of pasteboard have been liis companions for twenty years.
Presently he arranges them in groups of threes, fives, severs,
and nines, on the green baize, reserving a few cards in liia
hand; then the blue spectacles are liifted and contemplal-o
Valerie for two or three seconds.
" Your friend is the queen of spades," he says, tui ning to
Baymond.
" Decidedly," replies Monsieur Marolles. " How the insipid
diamond beauties fade beside this gorgeous loveliness of the
south !'\
Valerie does not hear the compliment, which at another time
she would have resented as an insult. She is absorbed in
watching the groups of cards over which the blue spectacles
are so intently bent.
Monsieur Blurosset seems to be working some abstruse
calculations with these groups of cards, assisted by those he
has in Ids hand. The spectacles wander from the threes to
the nines ; from the sevens to the fives ; back again ; across
again; from five to nine, from three to seven; from five tu
three, from seven to nine. Presently he says —
"The king of spades is everywhere here." He does net
look up as he speaks — never raising the spectacles from tha
cards. His manner of speaking is so passionless and mechanical,
that he might almost be some calculating automaton.
" The king of spades," says Baymond, " is a dark and hand-
some young man."
"Yes," says Blurosset, "he's everywhere beside the queen of
spades."
Valerie in spite of herself is absorbed by this man's word?.
She never takes her eyes from the spectacles and the thin palo
lips of the fortune-teller.
" I do not hkc Ids influence. It is bad. This king of spades
ia dragging the queen down, down into the very mire."
Valerie's cheeks can scarcely grow whiter than it has been eve?
jince the revelation of the Bois de Boulogne, but she cannot
repress a shudder at these words.
"There is a falsehood," continues Monsieur Blurosset; *' aud
there is a fair woman here."
" A fair woman ! That girl we saw to-night is fair," whispexa
120 The Trail of tie Serpent
Raymond, " No doubt Monsieur Don Giovanni admires blondeg,
having himself the southern beauty."
" The fair woman is always with the king of spades," says
the fortune-teller. " There is here no falsehood— nothing but
devotion. The king of spades can be true ; he is true to tliia
iliamond woman; but for the queen of spa,des be has nothing
but treachery."
" Is there anything more on the cards ?" asks Raymond.
" Yes ! A priest — a marriage — money. Ah ! this king ol
sipades imagines that he is within reach of a great fortune."
""Does he deceive hini^elf ?"
" Yes ! Now the treachery changes sides. The queen of
ppades is in it now But stay — the traitor, the real traitor
is here; this fair man — the knave of diamonds "
Raymond MaroUes lays lais white hand suddenly upon the
card to which Blurosset is pointing, and says, hurriedly, —
"Bah! You have told us all about yesterday; now tell U!i
of to-morrow." And then he adds, in a whisper, in the ear of
Monsieur Blurosset, —
"Fool! have you forgotten your lesson?"
" They^ will speak the truth," mutters the fortune-teller. " I
was carried away by them. I will be more careful."
This whispered dialogue is unheard by Valerie, who sits immov-
able, awaiting the sentence of the oracle, as if the monotonous
voice of Monsieur Blurosset were the voice of Nemesis.
" Now then for the future," says Rayoond. " It is jDossible
to tell what has happened. We wish to pass the confines of tho
possible : tell us, then, what is going to happen."
Monsieur Blurosset collects the cards, shuffles them, and
rearranges them in groujjs, as before. Again the blue sjiecta-
cles wander. From three to nine ; from nine to seven ; from
seven to five; Valerie following them with bright and hollow
eyes. Presently the fortune-teller says, in his old mechanical
way,—
" The queen of spades is very proud."
"Yes," mutters Raymond in Valerie's ear. "Uoaven help
the king who injures such a queen !"
She does not take her eyes from the blue spectacles of Mon-
eieur Blurosset; but there is a tightening of her determined
mouth which seems like an assent to this remark.
" She can hate as well as love. The king of spades is in
danger," says the fortune-teller.
There is, for a few minutes, dead silence, while the blue spec-
tacles shift from group to group of cards; Valerie intently
watching them, Raymond intently watching her.
This time there seems to be something difficult in the calcu-
lation of the numbers. The spectacles shift hither and thither.
Tlie King of Spades. 121
nnd the thin white lips move sUently and rapidly, from seven to
nine, and back again to seven.
"There is something on the cards that puzzles yon," says
Raymond, breaking the deathly silence. " AVhat is it.''"
" A death !" answers the passionless voice of Monsieur Blu^
rosset. "A violent death, which bears no outward sign of
violence. I said, did I not, that the king of spades was in
danger ?"
"Yon did."
From three to five, from five to nine, from nine to seven, from
seven to nine : the groups of cards form a circle : three times
round the circle, as the sun goes ; back again, and three times
round the circle in a contrary direction : across the circle from
three to seven, from seven to five, from five to nine, and the
blue spectacles come to a dead stop at nine.
" Before twelve o'clock to-mon-ow night the king of spades
will be dead !" says the monotonous voice of Monsieur Blurosset.
The voices of the clocks of Paris seem to take up Monsieur
Blurosset's voice as they strike the hour of midnight.
Twenty-four hours for the king of spades !
Monsieur Blurosset gathers up his cards and drops them into
his pocket. Malicious people say that he sleeps with them
under his pillow ; that he plays ecarte by himself in liis sleep ;
and that he has played fiquet with a very tall dark gentleman,
whom the porter never let either in or out, and who left a
sulphureous and sufibcating atmosphere behind him in Monsieur
Blurosset's little apartment.
"Good!" says Monsieur Saymond MaroUes. "So much for
the pasteboard. Now for the crucible."
For the first time since the discovery of the treachery of her
husband Valerie de Lancy smiles. She has a beautiful smile,
which curias the delicate lips without distorting them, and
wliich brightens in her large dark eyes with a glorious tire ot
the sunny south. But for all that, JEeaven save the nuiu wlui
has injured her from the Hght of such a smile as hers of
to-night.
" You want my assistance in some matters of chemistry P"
B^iks Blurosset.
'• Yes ! I forgot to tell you, madame, that my friend Laurent
Blurosset — though he chooses to hide himself in one of the most
obscure streets of Paris — is perhaj^s one of the greatest men in
this mighty city. He is a chemist who will one day worlc a
revolution in the chemical science ; but he is a fanatic, inadanie,
or. let me rather say, he is a lover, and his crucible is his mis-
tress. This blind devotion to a science is surely only another
form of the world's great madness — love ! Who knows what
bright eyes a problem in Euclid may have replaced ? Who cau
122 The Trail of the Serpent.
tell what fair hair may not have been forgotten in the searci;:
after a Greek root ?"
Valerie shivers. Heaven help that shattered heart ! Every
word that touches on the master-passion of her life is a woimd
that pierces it to the core.
"You do not smoke, Blurosset. FooUsh man yon do i:;.t
know how to Uve. Pardon, madame." He hghts his cigar A
the green-shaded gas-lamp, seats himself close to the stove, rjid
smokes for a few minutes in silence.
Valerie, still seated before the little table, watches him with
fixed eyes, waiting for him to speak.
In the utter shipwreck of her every hope this adventurer 13
the only anchor to which she can cUng. Presently he says, in
his most easy and indifferent manner, —
" It was the fashion at the close of the fifteenth and through-
out the sixteenth century for the ladies of Italy to acquire a
certain knowledge of some of the principles of chemistry. Of
course, at the head of these ladies we must place Lucretia
Borgia."
Monsieur Blurosset nods an assent. Valerie looks from
Raymond to the blue spectacles ; but the face of the chemist
testifies no shade of surprise at the singularity of Raymond's
observation.
"Then," contuaued Monsieur MaroUes, "if a lady was deeply
injui-ed or cruelly insulted by the man she loved ; if her pride
was trampled in the dust, or her name and her weakness held
up to ridicule and contempt — then she knew how to avenge
herself and to defy the world. A tender pressure of the traitor's
hand ; a flower or a ribbon given as a pledge of love ; the leaves
of a book hastily turned over with the tips of moistened fingers
^people had such vulgar habits in those days — and behold the
gentleman died, and no one was any the wiser but the worms,
with whose constitutions aqua tofana at second hand may
possibly have disagreed."
"Vultures have died from the effects of poisoned carrion,"
muttered Monsieur Blurosset.
"But in tins degenerate age," continued Raymond, "whnt
can our Parisian ladies do when they have reason to be re-
renged on a traitor? The poor blunderers can only give him
half a pint of laudanum, or an ounce or so of arsenic, and ran
the risk of detection half an hour after his death ! I think that
time is a circle, and that we retreat as we advance, in spite of
our talk of progress."
His horrible words, thrice horrible when contrasted with the
coolness of his easy manner, freeze Valerie to the very heart;
but she does not make one effort to interrupt him.
" Now," my good Blurosset," he resumes, " what I want 0/
The King of Spades. 123
you is this. Sometliing wliicli \vill change a glass of wine into
a death-warrant, but which wUl defy the scrutiny of a college
of physicians. This lady wishes to take a lesson in chemistry.
She will, of course, only experimentalise on rabbits, and she ia
BO tender-hearted that, as you see, she shudders even at th(j
thought of that little cruelty. For the rest, to repay you for
your trouble, if you will give her pen and ink, she will write
you an order on her banker for five thousand francs.
Monsieur Blurosset appears no more surprised at this request
than if he had been asked for a glass of water. He goes to a,
cabinet, which he opens, and after a Uttle search selects a small
tin box, from which he takes a few grains of white powder,
which he screws carelessly in a scrap of newspaper. He is so
much accustomed to handling these compounds that he treats
them with very small ceremony.
" It is a slow poison," he says. " For a full-grown rabbit use
the eighth part of what you have there ; the whole of it woul;!
poison a man ; but death in either case would not be immediate
The operation of the poison occupies some houi-s before it
terminates fatally."
" Madame will use it with discretion," says Raymond ; " do
not fear."
Monsieur Blurosset holds out the little packet as if expecting
Valerie to take it ; she recoils with a ghastly face, and shudders
as she looks from the chemist to Raymond MaroUes.
"In this degenerate age," says Raymond, looking her steadily
in the face, " our women cannot redress their own wi*ongs,
however deadly those wrongs may be ; they must have fathers,
brothers, or uncles to fight for them, and the world to witness
the struggle. Bah ! There is not a woman in France who 'n
any better than a sentimental schoolgii-1."
Valerie stretches out her small hand to receive the packet.
" Give me the pen, monsieur," says she ; and the chemist
presents her a half-sheet of paper, on which she writes hurriedly
an order on her bankers, which she signs in full with her
maiden name.
Monsieur Blurosset looked over the paper as sh« wrote.
"Valerie de Cevennes!" he exclaimed. "I did not know I
was honoured by so aristocratic a visitor."
Valerie put her hand to her head as if bewildered. " JMy
name ! " she muttered, " I forgot, I forgot."
"What do you fear, madame?" asked Raymond, with a
emile. " Are you not among friends ?"
"For pity's sake, monsieur," she said, "give me your arin,
and take mo back to the carriage! I shall drop down dead if I
slay longer in this room.''
124 The Trail of the Serpent.
The blue spectacles contemplated her gravely for a momeiit
Monsieur Blurosset laid one cold hand upon her pulse, and with
the other took a little bottle from the cabinet, out of which he
gave his visitor a few drops of a transparent liquid.
•' She will do now," he said to Eaymond, " till you get her
home; then see that she takes this," he added, handing
]\Ionsieur Marolles another phial; "it is an opiate which will
Ijrocure her six hours' sleep. Without that she woiild go mad."
Eaymond led Valerie from the room ; but, once outside, her
head fell heavily on his shoulder, and he was obliged to carry
her down the steep stairs.
" I think," he muttered to himself as he went out into tho
courtyard with his unconscious burden, "I think we have scaled
the doom of the king of spades ! "
CHAPTEE YI.
A GLASS OF WINE.
Upon a little table in the boudoir of the pavilion lay a letter.
It was the first thing Yalerie de Lancy beheld on entering the
room, with Eaymond Marolles by her side, half an hour after
she had left the apartment of Monsieur Blurosset. This letter
was in the handwriting of her husband, and it bore the post-
mark of Eouen. Valerie's face told her companion whom the
letter came from before she took it in her hand.
"Eead it," he said, coolly. "It contains his excuses, no
doubt. Let us see what pretty storj^ he has invented. In his
early professional career his companions sui-named him Baron
Munchausen."
Valerie's hand shook as she broke the seal ; but she read the
letter carefully through, and then turning to Eaymond she said—
" You are right ; his excuse is excellent, only a little too
transpai'ent : Usten.
" ' The reason of my absence from Paris ' — (absence from
Paris, and to-night in the Bois de Boulogne)—' is most extra-
ordinary. At the conclusion of the opera last night, I was
juiumoned to the stage-door, where I found a messenger waiting
for me, who told me he had come post-haste from Eouen,
where my mother was lying dangerously ill, and to implore me,
if I wished to see her before her death, to start for that place
immediately. Even my love for you, which you weU_ know,
Valerie, is the absorbing passion of my hfe, was forgotten in such
a moment. I had no means of communicating with you vdthout
endangering our secret. Imagine, then, my surprise on my
arrival here, to find that my mother is in perfect health, and
had of course sent no messenger to me. I fear in this mystery
• A Glass of Wine. 125
Bome conspiracy wliicli threatens the safety of or.r secret. I
shall be in Paris to-night, but too late to see you. To-morrow,'at
dusk, I shall be at the dear little paYihon, once more to be blest
by a smile fioiu the only eyes I love. — Gaston de Lancy.' "
" Kather a blundeiing epistle," muttered Eaymond. " I
ehould really have given him credit for something better. Hoa
will receive him to-morrow evening, madame?"
She knew so well the purport of this question that her hand
almost involuntarily tightened on the httle packet given her by
Monsieur Blurosset, which she had held all this time, but she
did not answer him.
" Ton will receive him to-moiTOw ; or by to-morrow night all
Paris will know of this romantic but rather ridiculous marriaga
it will be in aU the newspapers — caricatured in all the print-
Bhops; Charivari will have a word or two about it, and little
boys wiU cry it in the streets, a full, true, and particular
account for only one sous. But then, as I said before, you are
superior to your sex, and perhaps you will not mind this kind of
thing."
" 1 shall see him to-mon-ow evening at dusk," she said, in a
hoarse whisper not pleasant to hear; "and I shall never see
him again after to-morrow."
" Once more, then, good night," says Raymond. " But stay,
Ttlonsieur begs you will take this opiate. Nay," he muttered
with a laugh as she looked at him strangely, "you may be
jterfectly assured of its harmlessness. Remember, I have not
been paid yet."
He bowed, and left the room. She did not Hft her eyes to
look at him as he bade her adieu. Those hollow tearless eyes
were fixed on the letter she held in her left hand. She was
thinking of the first time she saw this handwriting, when every
letter seemed a character inscribed in fire, because his hand had
shaped it; when the tiniest scrap of paper covered with the
most ordinary words was a precious talisman, a jewel of more
price than the diamonds of all the Cevennes.
The short winter's day died out, and through the dusk a
voung man, in a thiclc gi'catcoat, walked rapidly along the
broad quiet street in which the pavilion stood. Once or twice
he looked round to assure himself that he was unobserved
He tried the handle of the little wooden door, found it un-
fastened, opened it softly, and went in. In a few minutes
he was in the boudoir, and by the side of Valerie. The girl's
proud face was paler than when he had last seen it; and when
he tenderly asked the reason of this change, she said, —
" I have been anxious about you, Gaston. You can scarcely
wonde "
128 The Trail of tie Serpent
" The voice too, even your voice is changed," he said anxiously,
" Stay, surely I am the victim of no juggling snare. It is — it
ia Valerie."
The Uttle boudoir was only lighted by the wood fire burning
on the low hearth. He drew her towards the blaze, and looked
her full in the face.
"You would scarcely believe me," he said; "but for tho
moment I half doubted if it were really you. The false alarm,
the hurried journey, one thing and another have upset me so
completely, that you seemed changed — altered; I can scarcely
tcU you how, but altered very much."
She seated herself in the easy-chair by the hearth. There
was an embroidered velvet footstool at her feet, and he placed
himself on tliis, and sat looking up in her face. She laid her
E lender hands on his dark hair, and looked straight into his
eyes. Who shall read her thoughts at this moment ? She had
learnt to despise him, but she had never ceased to love him.
IS lie had cause to hate him ; but she could scarcely have told
ivhether the bitter anguish which rent her heart were nearer
akin to love or hate.
"Pshaw, Gaston!" she exclaimed, "you are full of sUly
fimcies to-night. And I, you see, do not offer to reproach you
oace for the uneasiness you have caused me. See how readily
I accept your excuse for your absence, and never breathe one
doubt of its truth. Now, were I a jealous or suspicious woman,
1 might have a hundred doubts. I might think you did not love
me, and fancy that your absence was a voluntary one. I might
even be so foohsh as to picture you with another whom you
loved better than me."
" Valerie !" he said, reproachfully, raising her small hand to
bas hps.
"Nay," she cried, with a hght laugh, "this might be the
thought of a jealous woman. But could I think so of you,
Gaston?"
" Hark ! " he said, stai-ting and rising hastily ; " did you E.:i
hear something ? "
"What?"
" A rustling sound by that door — the door of your dressing-
room. Finette is not there, is she ? I left her in the jvnteroom
below."
" No, no, Gaston ; there is no one there ; this is another of
your silly fancies."
He glanced uneasily towards the door, but re-seated himself
Rt her feet, and looked once more upward to the proudly
beautiful face. Valerie did not look at her companion, but
at the fire. Her dark eyes were fixed upon the blaze, and
she seemed almost unconscious of Gaston de Lancy's presence.
A Glass of Wine. 127
What did she see in the red light ? Her shipwreeked soul ?
The ruins of her hopes ? TI1& ghost of her dead happiness ?
The image of a long and dreary future, in which the love
on whose foundation she had huilt a bright and peaceful life
to come could have no part? What did she see? A warning
arm stretched out to save her from the commission of a dreadful
deed, which, once committed, must shut her out from all earthly
ej'mpathy, though not perhaps from heavenly forgiveness ; or a
3teni finger pointing to the dark end to which she hastens with
a purpose in her heart so strauge and fearful to her she scarcely
can believe it is her own, or that she is herself?
With her left hand still upon the dark hair — which even now
fihe could not touch without a tenderness, that, having no part
in her nature of to-day, seemed like some relic of the wreck of
the past — she stretched out her right arm towards a table near
her, on which there were some decanters and glasses that clashed
with a silveiy sound under her touch.
" I must try and cure you of your fancies, Gaston. My
physician insists on my taking every daj at luncheon a glass of
tl'.at old Madeira of which my uncle is so fond. Ihaj have
not removed the wine — you shall take some; pour it out
yourself. See, here is the decanter. I will hold the glass
for you."
She held the antique diamond-cut glass with a steady hand
while Gaston poured the wine into it. The light from the woovi
tire flickered, and he spilt some of the ]\Iadeira over her dress.
I'hcy both laughed at this, and her laugh rang out the clearer
of the two.
There was a third person who laughed; but his was a
silent laugh. This third person was Monsieur Marolles, who
stood within the half-open door that led into A^alerie's dressing-
room.
" So," he says to himself, " this is even better than I had
loped. I feared his handsome face would shake her resolution.
'I'he hght in those dark eyes is very beautiful, no doubt, but it
Las not long to bum."
As the fireUght flashed upon the glass, Gaston held it for a
inoment between his e3'es and the blaze.
" Your uncle's wine is not very clear," he said ; " but I would
tVank the vilest vinegar from the worst tavern in Paris, if you
poured it out for me, Valerie."
As he emptied the glass the little time-piece struck six.
"I must go, Valerie. I play Gennaro in Lucretia Borgia,
and the King is to be at the theatre to-night. You will come ?
I shall not smg well if you are not there."
"Yes, yes, Ciaston." SI laid Iut hand upon her head aa
she Bpokti
The Trail of the Serpent.
Are yon ill ? " lie asked, anxioiisly.
" No, no, it is nothing. Go, Gaston ; yon mnst not keep liis
Majesty waiting," she said.
I wonder whether as she spoke ttere rose tlie image in her
mind of a King who reigns in nndispnted power over the earth's
wide face ; whose throne no revolution ever shook ; whose edict
no creature ever yet set aside, and to whom all terrible things
give jilace, owning in him the King of Terrors !
The young man took his wife in his arms and pressed
his Ups to her forehead. It was damp with a deadly cold
perspiration.
" I am sure you are ill, Yalerie," he said.
She shivered violently, but pushing him towards the door,
said, "No, no, Gaston; go, I implore you; you will be late;
at the theatre you wlU see me. Till then, adieu."
He was gone. She closed the door upon him rapidly, and
with one long shudder fell to the ground, striking her head
against the gilded moulding of the door. Monsieur Marolles
smerged from the shadow, and lifting her from the floor, jilaced
her in the chair by the hearth. Her head fell heavily back
npon the velvet cushions, but her large black eyes were
open. I have said before, this woman was not subject to
fainting-fits.
She caught Kaymond's hand in hers with a convulsive
grasp.
"Madame," he said, "you have shown yourself mdeed a
daughter of the haughty Ime of the De Cevennes. You have
avenged yourself most nobly."
The large black eyes did not look at him. They were fixed
on vacancy. Vacancy ? No ! there could be no such thing an
vacancy for this woman. Henceforth for her the whole earth
must be filled with one hideous phantom.
There were two wine-glassos on the table which stood a little
way behind the low chair in which Valerie was seated — very
beautiful glasses, antique, exquisitely cut, and emblazoned with
the arms of the De Cevennes. In one of those glasses, the ono
from which Gaston de Lancy had drunk, there remained a few
drops of wine, and a little wliite sediment. Valerie did not see
Raymond, as with a stealthy hand he removed this glass from
the table, and put it in the pocket of his greatcoat.
He looked once more at her as she sat with rigid moutl
and staring eyes, and then he said, as he moved towards tb
door, —
" I shall see you at the opera, madame ! I shall be in tb'
BtaUs. You will be, with more than your wonted brilliancy
and beauty, the centre of observation in the box next to tlit
King's. Remember, that until to-night is over, your play wil^
The Last Act of Lueretia Borgia. 120
&ot be played out. Aib revoir, madame. To-morrow I shall
Bay mademoiselle.' For to-morrow the secret marriage of
Valeiie de Cevennes with an opera-singer will only be a foolis
memory of the past."
CHAPTER VII.
THE LAST ACT OF LUCKETIA BORGIA.
Two hours after this intei-view in the pavilion Raymond
Marolles is seated in his old place in the front row of the
stalls. Several times during the prologue and the first act of
the opera liis glass seeks the box next to that of the King,
always to find it empty. But after the curtain has fallen on
the finale to the first act, the quiet watcher raises his glass
onco^jiore, and sees Valerie enter, leaning on her uncle's arm.
Her dark beauty loses nothing by its unusual pallor, and her
eyes to-night have a brilliancy which, to the admii-ing crowd,
who know so little and so little care to know the secrets of
her proud soul, is very beautiful. She wears a high dress of
dark green velvet, fastened at the throat with one small dia-
mond ornament, which trembles and emits bright scintillations
of rainbow Hght. This sombre dress, her deadly pallor, and
the strange fire in her eyes, give to her beauty of to-night a
certain peculiarity which renders her more than usually the
observed of all observers.
She seats herself directly facing the stage, laying down her
costly bouquet, which is of one pure white, being composed
entirely of orange- flowers, snowdrops, and jasmine, a mixture
of winter, summer, and hot-house blossoms for wliich her
fldrist knows how to charge her. She veils the intensity which
is the distinctive character of her face with a weary listless
glance to-night. She does not once look round the house,
fehe has no need to look, for it seems as if without looking
she can see the ])ale face of Monsieur MaroUes, who lounges
with his back to the orchestra, and his opera-glass in his hand.
The Marquis de Cevennes glances at the programme of the
opera, and throws it away from him with a dissatisfied air.
"That abominable poisoning woman!" he says; "when will
vhe Parisians be tired of horrors ?"
His niece raises her eyebrows slightly, but does not lift her
eyiilids as she says — "Ah, wlum, indeed!"
" I don't like these subjects," continued the marquis. "Even
the handling of a Victor Hugo cannot make them otherwise
than repulsive : and then again, there is something to be said
on the score of their evil tendency. They set a dangerous
example. Lucretia Borgia, in black velvet, avenging an iusuii
1
:j30 The Trail of the Serpent.
according to tlie rules of high, axt and to the music of Doni-
eetti is very charming, no doubt ; but we don't want our wives
and daughters to learn how they may poison us without fear
of detection. What do you say, Eiaval?" he asked, turning to
a young officer who had just entered the box. " Do yon think
I am right?"
"Entu-ely, my dear marquis. The representation of such
a hideous subject is a sin against beauty and iunocence," he
said, bowing to Yalerie. "And, though the music is very
exquisite " -, ■ •
"Yes," said Valerie, " mj uncle cannot help adnimug tha
music. How have they been siuging to night ?"
" Why, strange to say, for once De Lancy has disappointed
his admu-ers. His Gennaro is a very weak performance."
•'Indeed!" She takes her bouquet in her hand and plays
with the drooping blossom of a snowdrop. "A weak perform-
ance? Yon surprise me really!" She might be speaking
of the flowers she holds, from the perfect indifference of her
tone. . T.- 1 rr
"They say he is ill," continues Monsieur Emval. ' He
almost broke down in the 'Pescator ignobile.' But the cur-
tain has risen — we shall have the poison scene soon, and you
can judge for yourself."
She laughs. " Nay," she says, " I have never been so enthu-
siastic an admirer of this young man as yon are. Monsieur
Rinval. I should not tliink the world had come to an end M
he happened to sing a false note."
The young Parisian bent over her chair, admiring her grace
and beauty — admiiing, perhaps, more than all, the haughty
indifference with which she spoke of the opera- singer, as if he
were something too far removed from her sphere for her to be
in earnest about him even for one moment. Might he not
have wondered even more, if he had admired her less, could he
have known that as she looked up at him with a radiant face,
she could not even see him standing close beside her; that to
her clouded sight the opera-house was only a confusion of
waving Ughts and burning eyes ; and that, in the midst of a
chaos of blood and fire, she saw the vision of her lover and
her husband dying by the hand that had caressed him ?
" Now for the banquet scene," exclaimed Monsieur Einval.
" Ah ! there is Gennaro. Is he not gloriously handsome in
ruby velvet and gold? That clubbed Venetian vng becomea
mm. It is a -vvig, I suppose."
" Oh, no doubt. That sort of people owe half their beauty to
wigs, and white and red paint, do they^ not?" she asked,
tK)ntemptuously ; and even ^ she spoke she was thinkmg of
The Last Act of Lucretia Borgia. 131
the dark hair which her white fingers had smoothed away from
the broad brow so often, in that time which, gone by a few
short days, seemed centuries ago to her. Slie had su0'ercd the
anguish of a life-time in losing the bright dream of her life.
" See," said Monsieur Rinval, " Gennaro has the poisoned
foblot in his hand. He is acting very badly. He is supporting
imself with one hand on the back of that chair, though he has
not yet drvink the fatal draught."
De Lancy was indeed leaning on an antique stage-chair for
support. Once he passed his hand across his forehead, as if
to collect his scattered senses, but he drank the wine, and went
on with the music. Presently, however, every performer in the
orchestra looked up as if thunderstruck. He had. left off sing-
ing in the middle of a concerted piece ; but the Maffeo Orsiui
took up the passage, and the opera proceeded.
" He is either ill, or he does not know the music," said
Monsieur Eiuval. " If the last, it is really shameful ; and ho
presumes on the indulgence of the public."
" It is always the case with these favourites, is it not ?" asked
Valerie.
At this moment the centre of the stage was thrown open.
There entered first a procession of black and shrouded monks
singing a dirge. Next, pale, haughty, and vengeful, the terrible
Lucretia burst upon the scene.
Scornful and triumphant she told the companions of Gennaro
that their doom was sealed, pointing to where, in the ghastly
background, were ranged five coffins, waiting for their destined
occupants. The audience, riveted by the scene, awaited that
thrilling question of Gennaro, " Then, madame, where is the
sixth ?" and as De Lancy emerged from behind his comrades
every eye was fixed upon him.
He advanced towards Lucretia, tried to sing, but his voice
broke on the first note ; he caught with his hand convulsively
at his throat, staggered a pace or two forward, and then fell
heavily to the fioor. There was immediate consternation and
confusion on the stage; chorus and singers crowded rownd
him ; one of the singers knelt down by his side, and raised
his head. As he did so, the curtain fell suddenly.
" I was certain he was ill," said ]\Iousieur Rinval, " I fear it
must be apoplexy."
" It is rather an uncharitable suggestion," said the marquis ;
"but do you not tliink it just possible that the young man
tiiay be tipsy?"
There was a great buzz of surprise amongst the audience, and
I'l about three minutes one of the performers came before the
c-irtain, and announced that in consequence of the sudden and
alarming illness of Monsieur de Lancy it was impossible to c«>n«
132 The Trail of the Serpent.
elude the opera. He requested the indulgence of the aadienoe
for a favourite ballet wliich would 'commence immediately.
The orchestra began the overture of the ballet, and several of
the audience rose to leave the house.
" "Wni you stop any longer, Valerie ? or has this dismal finals
dispirited you ?" said the marquis.
" A Uttle," said Valerie ; " besides, we have promised to look
in at Madame de Vermanville's concert before going to the
duchess's ball."
Monsieur Rinval helped to muffle her in her cloak, and then
offered her his arm. As they passed from the great entrance to
the carriage of the marquis, Valerie dropped her bouquet. A
gentleman advanced from the crowd and restored it to her.
"I congratulate you aUke on your strength of muid, as on
your beauty, mademoiselle .'" he said, in a whisper too low for
ner companions to hear, but with a terrible emphasis on the last
word.
As she stepped into the caiTiage, she heard a bystander say —
'*Foor fellow, only seven-and-t wen ty ! And so mai"veUously
handsome and gifted !"
" Dear me," said Monsieur Einval, di-awing up the carriage
window, " how very shocking ! De Lancy is dead ! "
Valerie did not utter one exclamation at this announcement.
She was looking steadily out of the opposite window. She was
counting the lamps in the streets through the mist of a winter's
night.
" Only twenty-seven !" she cried hysterically, " only twenty-
seven ! It might have been thirty-seven, ibrty-seven, fifty-
seven ! But he despised her love ; he trampled out the best
feehngs of her soul ; so it was only twenty-seven ! Marvel-
lously handsome, and only twenty-seven !"
" For heaven's sake open the windows and stop the carriage,
Kinval ! " cried the marquis — " I'm sure my niece is iU."
She burst into a long, ringing laugh.
*' My dear uncle, you are quite mistaken. I never was better
in my Ufe ; but it eeems to me as if the death of this opera-
einger has driven everybody mad."
They drove rajjidly home, and took her into the house. The
maid Finette begged that her mistress might be carried to the
pavilion, but the marquis overruled her, and had his niece taken
into her old suite of apartments in the mansion. The first
physicians m Paris were sent for, and when they came they
nronounced her to be seized by a brain-fever, wliich promised
to be a very terrible one.
£ad Dreams and a Worse Walcing. 1S3
CHAPTER YIII.
BAD DREAMS AND A WOKSE WAKENG.
I'lTE sudden and melanclioly death of Gaston de Lancy caused
a considerable sensation tlu'ongliout Paris ; more especially aa
it was attributed by many to poison. By whom administered,
or from what motive, none could guess. There was one story,
however, circulated that was beheved by some people, though
it bore very Uttle appearance of probabflity. It was reported
that on the afternoon preceding the night on which De Lancy
died, a stranger had obtained admission behind the scenes of
the opera-house, and had been seen in earnest conversation with
the man whose duty it was to provide the goblets of wine for
the poison scene in Lucretia Borgia. Some went so far as to
sa}-, that this stranger had bribed the man to put the contents
of a small packet into the bottom of the glass given on the
stage to De Lancy. But so impi-obalile a story was beheved by
very few, and, of coui'se, stoutly denied by the man in question.
The doctors attributed the death of the young man to aj^oplexy.
There was no inquest held on his remains ; and at the wish of
his mother he was buried at Kouen, and his funeral was no
doubt a pecuharly quiet one, for no one was allowed to know
when the ceremonial took place. Paris soon forgot its favourite.
A few engravings of him, m one or two of his great characters,
lingered for some time in the windows of the fashionable print-
shops. Brief memoirs of him appeared in several papers, and
in one or two magazines ; and in a couple of weeks he was for-
gotten. If he had been a great general, or a great minister, it
is possible that he would not have been remembered much
longer. The new tenor had a fair complexion and blue eyes,
and had two extra notes of falsetto. So the opera-house was as
brilhant as ever, though there was for the time being a pre-
judice among opera-goers and opera-singers agaiast Lucretia
jBorgia, and that opera was put on the shelf for the remainder
of the season.
A month after the death of De Laney the physician pronounced
Mademoiselle de Cervennes sufficiently recovered to be removed
from Paris to her uncle's chateau in Normandy. Her illnesE
had been a terrible one. For many days she had been dehrioua
Ah, who shall paint the fearful dreams of that delhium!^
dreams, of the anguish of which her disjointed sentences could
tell so little ? The face of the man she had loved had haunted
her in every phase, wearing every expression — now thoughtful,
now sparkling^-with vivacity, now cynical, now melancholy ; but
always distinct and palpable, and always before her night and
day. The scene of her first meeting vdth him ; her secret
134 The Trail of tJie Serpent.
luaniage ; tlie little cliapel a few miles out of Paris ; the old
priest ; the bitter discovery in the Bois de Boulogne— the scene
of his treachery ; the lamp-lit apartment of Monsieur de Blu-
rosset; the cards and the poisons. Every action of this dark
period of her life she acted over in her disordered brain again
and again a hundred times through the long day, and a
hundred times more through the still longer night. So when
at the ex^jiration of a month, she was strong enough to walk
from one room into another, it was but a wreck of his proud
and lovely heiress which met her uncle's eyes.
The chateau of the marquis, some miles from the town of
Caen, was situated in a park which was as wild and unculti-
vated as a wood. A park full of old timber, and marshy reedy
grounds dotted with pools of stagnant water, which in the
good days of the old regime were beaten nightly by the sub-
missive peasantry, that monseigneur, the marquis might sleep
on his bedstead of onnolu and buhl a la Louis Quatorze,
undisturbed by the croaking of the frogs.
Everything around was falling into ruin; the chateau had
been sacked, and one wing of it burnt down, in the year 1793 ;
and the present marquis, then a very little boy, had fled with
his father to the hospitable shores of England, where for more
than twenty years of his life he had lived in poverty and
obscurity, teaching sometimes his native language, eometimes
mathematics, sometimes music, sometimes one thing, sometimes
another, for his daily bread. But with the restoration of the
Bourbons came the restoration of the marquis to title and
fortune. A wealthy marriage with the widow of a rich Buona-
pai-tist restored the house of De Cevennes to its former grandeur;
and looking now at the proud and stately head of that house,
it was a difficult thing to imagine that this man had ever taught
French, musio, and mathematics, for a few shillings a lesson,
in the obscure academies of an Enghsh manufactuiing town.
The dreary park, which surrounded the still more dreary and
tumble-down chateau, was white with the fallen snow, through
which the servants, or their servants the neighbouring peasantry,
coming backwards and forwards with some message or commis-
Bion from the village, waded knee-deep, or well nigh lost them-
selves in some unsuspected hollow where the white drifts had
Bwept and lay collected in masses whose depth was dangerous.
The dark oak-paneUed apartments appropriated to Valerie
k)oked out upon the snow-clad wilderness ; and very dismal they
aeemed in the dying February day.
Grim pictures of dead-and-gone branches of this haughty
iiouse stared and frowned from their heavy frayies at the pale
girl, half seated, half reclining in a great easy-chair in the deep
ambayed window. One terrible mail-clad baron, who had
Sad Dreams and a fVorse IVaMi^g. 135
foaglit and fullen at disastrous Aginconrt, lield an uplifted
axe, and in the evening shadow it seemed to Valerie as if he
raised it with a threatening glance beneath his heavy brows,
which took a purpose and a meaning as the painted eyes met
hers. And turn which way she would, tl e eyes of these dark
portraits seemed to follow ner ; sometimes threateningly, some-
times reproachfully, sometimes with a melancholy look fraught
witii a strange and ominous sadness that chilled her to the soul.
Logs of wood burned on the great hearth, supported by
massive iron dogs, and their flickering light falling now here
now there, left always the corners of the large room in shadow.
The chill white night looking in at the high window strove with
the fire light for mastery, and won it, so that the cheeiy beams
playing bo-peep among the quaint oak carving of the panelled
walls and ceiling hid themselves abashed before the dull stare
of the cold steel-blue winter sky. The white face of the sick
girl under this dismal Ught looked almost as still and lifeless as
the face of her grandmother, in powder and patckes. simpering
down at her from the wall. She sat alone — no book near her,
no sign of any womanly occupation in the great chamber,
no friend to watch or teni her (for she had refused all com-
panionship) ; she sat with listless hands drooping upon the
velvet cushions of her chair, her head thro%vn back, as if in utter
abandonment of all things on the face of the wide earth, and
her dark eyes staring straight before her out into the dead
waste of winter snow.
So she has sat since early morning ; so she will sit till her
maid comes to her and leads her to hei dreary bedchamber.
So she sits when her uncle visits her, and tries every means in
his power to awaken a smUe, or bring one look of animation
into that dead face. Yes, it is the face of a dead woman.
Dead to hope, dead to love, dead to the past ; still more utterly
dead to a future, wliich, since it cannot restore the dead, can
give her nothing.
So the short February days, which seem so long to her, fade
into the endless wnter nights ; and for her the morning has no
light, nor the darkness any shelter. The consolations of that
holy Church, on which for ages past her ancestors have leant
for succour as on a rock of mighty and eternal strength, she
dare not seek. Her uncle's chaplain, a white-haired old man
who had nursed her in his arms a baby, and who resides at
the chateau, beloved and honoured by all around, comes to her
every morning, and on each visit tries anew to win her con-
fidence ; but in vain. How can she pour into the ears of thia
good and benevolent old man her dismal story P Surely h«
would cast her from him witli contumely and horror. Surely
hf would tell her that for her there is no hope; that even a
136 The Trail of tie Serpent.
merciful Heaven, ready to hear the prayer of every sinnep,
would be deaf to the despairing cries of such a guilty wretch
as she.
So, impenitent and despairing, she wears out the time, and
waits for death. Sometimes she thinks of the arch tempter
who smoothed the path of crime and misery in which she had
trodden, and, who, in doing so seemed so much a part of her-
self, and so closely linked with her anguish and her revenge,
that she often, in the weakness of her shattered mind, wondered
if there were indeed such a person, or whether he might not
be only the hideous incarnation of her own dark thoughts. He
had spoken though of payment, of reward for his base services.
If he were indeed human as her wretched self, why did he not
come to claim his due P
As the lonely impenitent woman pondered thus in the wintry
dusk, her uncle entered the chamber in which she sat.
" My dear Yalerie," he said, " I am sorry to disturb you, but
a person has just arrived on horseback from Caen. He has
travelled, he says, all the way from Paris to see you, and he
knows that you will grant him an interview. I told him it
was not likely you would do so, and that you certainly would
not with my consent. Who can this person be who has the
impertinence to intrude at such a time as this? His name
is entirely unknown to me."
He gave her a card. She looked at it, and read aloud — _
" ' Monsieur Raymond Marolles.' The person is quite right,
my dear uncle ; I will see him."
" But, Valerie ! " remonstrated the marquis.
She looked at him, with her mother's proud Spanish blood
mantling in her pale cheek.
" My dear uncle," she said quietly, " it is agreed between us,
is it not, that I am in all thmgs my own mistress, and that you
have entire confidence in me ? When you cease to trust me, we
had better bid each other farewell, for we can then no longer
live beneath the same roof."
He looked with one imploiing glance at the inflexible face,
but it was fixed as death,
" Tell them," she said, " to conduct Monsietir MaroUes to
this apartment. I must see him, and alone."
The marquis left her, and in a few moments Raymond entered
the room, ushered in by the groom of the chambers.
He had the old air of well-bred and fashionable indifierence
wliich so well became him, and carried a Hght gold-headed
riding-whip in his hand.
" Mademoiselle," he said, " will perhaps pardon my intrusion
of this evening, which can scarcely surprise her, if she will be
Sad Breayns and a Worse Wahing. 137
pleased to remember tliat more than a montli has elapsed wnca
a melancholy occurrence at the Koyal Itahan Opera Honse, and
that I have some right to be impatient."
She did not answer him immediately ; for at this moment a
servant entered, carrying a lamp, which he placed on the table
by her side, and afterwards drew the heavy velvet curtaina
across the great window, shutting out the chill winter night.
" You are very much altered, mademoiselle," said Kaymond,
as he scrutinized the wan face under the lamp-Hght.
" That is scarcely strange," she answered, in a chilling tone.
"I am not yet accustomed to crime, and can not wear the
memory of it Ughtly."
Her visitor was dusting his pohshed riding-boot with his
handkerchief as he spoke. Looking up with a smile, he said, —
" Nay, mademoiselle, I give you credit for more philosophy.
^Tiy use ugly words? Grime — poison — murder !" He paused
between each of these three words, as if every syllable had been
some sharp instrument — as if every time he spoke he stabbed
her to the heart and stopped to calculate the depth of the
wound. '' Tiere are no such words as those for beauty and
high ranX. A person far removed from our sphere offends us,
and we sweep him from our path. We might as well regret the
venomous insect wliich, having stung us, we destroy."
She did not acknowledge his words by so much as one glance
or gesture, but said coldly, —
"You were so candid as to confess, monsieur, when you
served me, yonder in Paris, that you did so in the expectation of
A reward. You are here, no doubt, to claim that reward ? "
" He looked up at her with so strange a hght in his blue eyes,
and so singular a smile curving the dark moustache which hid
his thin arched Hps, that in spite of herself she was startled into
looking at him anxiously. He was determined that in the game
they were playing she should hold no hidden cards, and he was
therefore resolved to see her face stripped of its mask of cold
indifference. After a minute's pause he amswered her ques-
tion, —
" I am."
" It is well, monsieur. Will you be good enough to state the
amount you claim for your services ? "
"You are determined, mademoiselle, it appears," he said,
with the strange light still ghttering in his eyes, "you are
determined to give me credit foi none but the most mercenary
sentiments. Suppose I do not claim any amount of money in
repayment of my services ? "
" Then, monsieur, I have wronged you. You are a disinte-
rested villain, and, as such, worthy of the respect of the wicked-
But since this is the case, our interview ia at end. I am sorry
138 The Trail of the Serpent
you decline the reward you have earned so worthily, and I bitVP
the honour to wish you good evening."
He gave a low musical laugh. " Pardon me, mademoiselle,"
he said, " but really your words amuse me. * A disinterested
villain ! ' Believe me, when I teU you that disinterested viUany
is as great an impossibility as disinterested virtue. You are
mistiiken, mademoiselle, but only as to the nature of the reward
I come to claim. You would confine the question to one of
money. Cannot you imagine that I have acted in the hope of a
higher reward than any recompense your banker's book could
afford me ? "
She looked at him with a puzzled expression, but his face was
hidden. He was trifling with his light riding-whip, and looking
down at the hearth. After a minute's pause he lifted his head,
and glanced at her with the same dangerous smile.
" You cannot guess, then, mademoiselle, the price I claim for
my services yonder ? " he asked.
" No."
" Nay, mademoiselle, reflect."
" It would be useless. I might anticipate your claiming half
my fortune, as I am, in a manner, in your power "
" Oh, yes," he murmured softly, interrupting her, " you are,
in a manner, in my power certainly."
"But the possibility of your claiming from me anything
except money has never for a moment occurred to me."
" Mademoiselle, when first I saw you I looked at you through
Eu opera-glass from my place in the stalls of the Italian Opera.
The glass, mademoiselle, was an excellent one, for it revealed
every line and every change in your beautiful face. From my
C'bservation of that face I made two or three conclusions about
your character, which I now find were not made upon false
premises. You are impulsive, mademoiselle, but you are not
far-seeing. You are strong in yoxir resolutions when once your
mind is fixed; but that mind is easily influenced by others.
You have passion, genius, courage — rare and beautiful gifts
which distinguish you from the rest of womankind ; but you
have not that power of calculation, that inductive science,
which never sees the effect without looking for the cause, which
men have christened mathematics. I, mademoiselle, am a
mathematician. As such, I sat down to play a deep and
dangerous game with you ; and as such, now that the hour has
come at which I can show my hand, you wdl see that I hold the
grinning cards."
" I cannot understand, monsieur "
"Perhaps not, yet. When you first honoiired me with an
interview you were pleased to call me ' an adventurer.' You used
the expression as a term of reproach. Strange to say, I never
Bad Dreami and a Worse Wahing. 139
held it iu that liorht. When it pleased Heaven, or Fate —
-.vliichever name you please to give the abstraction — to throw
me out upon a world with which my hfe has been one 2ong war,
it pleased that Power to give me nothing but my brains for
weapons in the great fight. No rank, no rent-roll, neither
mother nor father, friend nor patron. All to win, and nothing to
lose. How much I had won when I first saw you it would be
hard for you, born in those great saloons to which I have strug-
gled from the mire of the streets — ^it would be very hard, I say,
for you to guess. I entered Paris one year ago, possessed of a
sum of money which to me was wealth, but which might, per-
haps, to you, be a month's income. I had only one object — to
mill ti ply that sum a hundredfold. I became, therefore, a specu-
lator, or, as you call it, ' an adventurer.' Aa a speculator, I
took my seat in the stalls of the Opera House the night I first
saw you."
She looked at him in utter bewilderment, as he sat in his most
careless attitude, playing with the gold handle of his riding-
whip, but she did not attempt to speak, and he continued, —
" I happened to hear from a bystander that you were the
richest woman in France. Do you know, mademoiselle, how an
ndventurer, with a tolerably handsome face and a sufficiently
gentlemanly address, generally calculates on enriching himself ?
Or, if you do not know, can you guess ? "
" No," she muttered, looking at him now as if she were in a
trance, and he had some strange magnetic power over her.
" Then, mademoiselle, I must enlighten you. The adventurer
who does not care to grow grey and decrepit in making a fortune
by that slow and uncertain mode which people call * honest
industry,' looks about him for a fortune ready made and waiting
for him to claim it. He makes a wealthy marriage."
"A wealthy marriage?" She repeated the words after him,
as if mechanically.
" Therefore, mademoiselle, on seeing you, and on hearing the
extent of your fortune, I said to myself, ' That is the woman I
must marry ! '"
"Monsieur!" She started indignantly from her reclining
attitude ; but the effort was too much for her shattered frame,
and she sank back exhaiisted.
" Nay, mademoiselle, I did not say ' That is the woman I will
marry,' but rather, ' That is the woman I must try to marry ; ' for
as yet, remember, I did not hold one card in the great game I
had to pjay. I raised my glass, and looked long at your face.
A very beautiful face, mademoiselle, as you and your glass have
long decided between you. I was— pardon me — disappointed-
Had you been an ugly woman, my chances would have been so
much better. Had you been disfigured by a hump — (if it had
140 The Trail of thfi Serpent.
Leen but the faintest elevation of one wMte shoulder, prouder,
perhaps, than its fellow) — had your hair been tinged with even
a suspicion of the ardent hue which prejudice condemns, it
would have been a wonderful advantage to me. Vain hope to
win you by flattery, when even the truth must sound Hke
flattery. And then, again, one glance told me that you were
no pretty simpleton, to be won by a stratagem, or bewildered by
romantic speeches. And yet, mademoiselle, I did not despair.
You were beautiful ; you were impassioned. In your veias ran
the purjDle blood of a nation whose childi-en's love and hate are
both akin to madness ! You had, in short, a soul, and you
might have a secret ! "
"Monsieur!"
" At any rate it would be no lost time to watch you. I
therefore watched. Two or three gentlemen were talking to you ;
you did not listen to them ; you were asked the same question
three times, and on the second rei^etition of it you started, and
rejilied as by an effort. You were weary, or indifferent. Now,
as I have told you, mademoiselle, in the science of mathematics
we acknowledge no effect without a cause ; there was a cause,
then, for this distraction on your part. In a few minutes the
curtain rose. You were no longer absent-minded. Elviuo came
on the stage — you were aU attention. You tried, mademoiselle,
not to appear attentive; but your mouth, the most flexible
feature in your face, betrayed you. The cause, then, of your
late distraction was Elvino, otherAvise the fashionable tenor,
Gaston de Lancy."
" Monsieur, for pity's sake " she cried imploringly.
" This was card number one. My chances were looking up.
In a few minutes I saw you throw your bouquet on the stage
I also saw the note. You had a secret, mademoiselle, and 1
possessed the clue to it. My cards were good ones. The rest
must be done by good play, I knew I was no bad player, and I
eat down to the game with the determiuation to rise a winner."
" Finish the recital of your villany, monsieur, I beg — it really
becomes wearisome." She tried as she spoke to imitate his own
indifference of manner ; but she was utterly subdued and broken
down, and waited for him to continue as the victim might wait
the pleasure of the executioner, and with as Uttle thought of
opposing him.
" Then, mademoiselle, I have Httle more to say, except to
claim my reward. That reward is — your hand." He said thia
as if he never even dreamt of the possibility of a refusal.
"Are you mad, monsieur?" She had for sometime antici-
pated this climax, and she felt how utterly powerless she was
•ji the hands of an unscrupulous villain. How unscrupuloua
:-he did not yet know.
A Marriage in Sigh Life. 141
" Nay, mademoiselle, remember ! A man has been poisjoned.
Easy enough to set suspicion, wbich bas already pointed to foul
play, more fully at work. Easy enough to prove a certain secret
marriage, a certain midnight visit to that renowned and not too
highly-respected chemist, Monsieur Blurosset. Easy enough
to produce the order for five thousand francs signed by Made-
moiselle de Cevennes. And should these proofs not carry with
them conviction, I am the fortunate possessor of a wine-glasa
emblazoned with the arms of your house, in which still remains
the sediment of a poison well known to the more distinguished
members of the medical science. I think, mademoiselle, these
few evidences, added to the powerful motive revealed by you*
secret marriage, would be quite sufficient to set every newspaper
in France busy with the details of a murder unprecedented in
the criminal annals of this country. But, mademoiselle, T have
wearied you ; you are pale, exhausted. I have no wish to hurry
you into a rash acceptance of my offer. Think of it, and
to-morrow let me hear your decision. Till then, adieu." He
lose as he spoke.
She bowed her head in assent to his last proposition, and he
left her. •'
Did he know, or did he guess, that there might be another
reason to render her acceptance of his hand possible P Did he
think that even his obscure name might be a shelter to her in
days to come ?
O Valerie, Valerie, for ever haunted by the one beloved crea-
ture gone out of this world never to return ! For ever pursued
by the image of the love which never was — which at its best and
brightest was — but a false di'eam. Most treacherous when most
tender, most cruel when most kind, most completely false when
it most seemed a holy truth. Weej?, Valerie, for the long yeara
to come, whose dismal burden shall for ever be, " Oh, never,
a over morel"
CHAPTEE IX.
A MAKRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.
A MONTH from the time at which this interview took place,
fiveryone worth speaking of in Paris is busy talking of a sin-
gular marriage about to be celebrated in that smaller and upper
circle which forms the apex of the fashionable pyramid. The
niece and heiress of the Marquis de Cevennes is about to marry
a gentleman of whom the Faubourg St. Germain knows very
little. But though the faubourg knows very little, the fau-
bourg has, notwithstanding, a great deal to say ; perhaps all
the more from the very slight foundation it has for its a.sser-
143 The Trail of the Serpent
tiuns. Thus, on Tuesday the faubourg affirms that Monsie>if
Raymond Marolles is a German, and a political refugee. On
Wednesday the faubourg rescinds : he is not a German, he is a
Frenchman, the son of an illegitimate son of Philip Egahte,
and, consequently, nephew to the king, by whose influence the
marriage has been negotiated. The faubourg, in short, has so
many accounts of Monsieur Raymond Marolles, that it is quite
unnecessary for the Marquis de Cevennes to give any account
of him whatever, and he alone, therefore, is silent on the subject.
Monsieur Marolles is a very worthy man — a gentleman, of
course — and his niece is very much attached to him ; beyond
this, the marquis does not condescend to enhghten his numerous
acquaintance. How much more might the faubourg have to
say if it could for one moment imagine the details of a stormy
scene which took place between the uncle and niece at the
chateau in Normandy, when, kneeling before the cross, Valerie
swore that there was so dreadful a reason for this strange mar-
riage, that, did her uncle know it, he would himself kneel at her
feet and implore her to sacrifice herself to save the honour of
her noble house. What might have been suggested to the mind
of the marquis by these dark hints no one knew ; but he ceased
to oppose the marriage of the only scion of one of the highest
famihes in France with a man who could tell nothing of him-
self, except that he had received the education of a gentleman,
and had a will strong enough to conquer fortune.
The rehgious solemnization of the marriage was performed
with great magnificence at the Madeleine. Wealth, rank, and
fashion were equally represented at the dejeuner which suc-
ceeded the ceremonial, and Monsieur Marolles found himself
the centre of a circle of the old nobihty of France. It would
have been very difficult, even for an attentive observer, to dis-
cover one triumphant flash in those light blue eyes, or one
smile playing round the thin hps, by which a stranger might
divine that the brldegi-oom of to-day was the winner of a deep-
laid and villanous scheme. He bore his good fortune, in fact,
with such well-bred indifi'erence, that the faubourg immediately
set him down as a great man, even if not one of the set which
was the seventh heaven in that Parisian paradise. And it
would have been equally di Hi cult for any observer to read the
secret of the pale but beautiful face of the bride. C^ld, serene,
and haughty, she smiled a stereotyped smile upon all, and
showed no more agitalion during the ceremony than she might
have done had she been perscJbating a bride in an acted
charade.
It may be, that the hour when any event, however starthng,
however painful, could move her from this cold serenity, ha(i
for ever passed away. It may be, that having outh^ed all the
A Marriage in HigJi Life. l^S
happinesu of her life, she had almost outlived the faculty of
feeling or of suffering, and must henceforth exist only for the
world — a distinguished actress in the great comedy of fashion-
able Hfe.
She is standing in a window filled with exotics, which form a
great screen of dark green leaves and tropical flowers, through
which the blue spring sky looks in, clear, bright, and cold. She
is talking to an elderly duchess, a languid and rather faded
personage, dressed in ruby velvet, and equally distinguished for
the magnificence of her lace and the artful composition of her
complexion, which is as near an approach to nature as can be
achieved by pearl-powder. " And you leave France in a month,
to take possession of your estates in South America?" she
asks.
" In a month, yes," says Valerie, playing with the large dark
leaf of a magnoha. " I am anxious to see my mother's native
country. I am tu-ed of Paris."
" Keally ? You surprise me !" The languid duchess cannot
conceive the possibHity of any one being tired of a Parisian
existence. She is deep in her thirty-fourth platonic attachment
— the object, a celebrated novelist of the transcendental school ;
and as at this moment she sees him entering the room by a
distant door, she strolls away from the window, carrying her
perfomed complexion through the dehghted crowd.
Perhaps Monsieur Raymond MaroUes, standhig talking to an
old Buonapartist general, whose breast is one constellation of
stars and crosses, had only been waiting for this opportunity,
for he advanced presently with soft step and graceful carriage
towards the ottoman on which his bride had seated herself.
She was trifling with her costly bridal bouquet as the bridegroom
approached her, plucking the perfumed petals one by one, and
scattering them on the ground at her feet in vei*y wantonness.
" Valerie," he said, bending over her, and speaking in tones
which, by reason of the softness of their intonation, might have
been tender, but for the want of some diviner melody from
within the soul of the man ; not having which, they had the
f'llse jingle of a spurious coin.
The spot in wliich the bride was seated was so sheltered by
the flowers and the satin hangings which shrouded the win-
rlow, that it formed a httle alcove, shut out from the crowded
room.
" Valerie !" he repeated ; and finding that she did not answer,
he laid his white ungloved band upon her jewelled wrist.
She started to her feet, drawing herself uj) to her fullest
I'.eight, and shaking off his hand with a gesture which, had he
been the foulest and most loathsome reptile <irawling upon the
144 Tlie Trail of tie Serpent.
earth's wide face, could not have bespoken a more intense abhor-
rence.
" There conld not be abetter time than this," she said, " to say
tvhat I have to say. You may perhaps imagine that to be com-
fielled to speak to you at all is so abhorrent to me, that 1 shall
nse the fewest words I can, and use those words in their very
fullest sense. You are the incarnation of misery and crime.
As such you can perhaps understand how deeply I hate you.
You area villain; and so mean and despicable a villain, that
even in the hour of your siiccess you are a creature to be pitied ;
eince from the very depth of your degradation you lack the
power to know how much you are degraded ! As such I scorn
and loathe you, as we loathe those venemous reptiles which,
from their noxious quahties, defy our power to handle and exter-
minate them."
"And as your husband, madame?" Her bittter words dis-
composed him so httle, that he stooped to pick up a costly flower
which in her passion she had thrown down, and placed it care-
fully in his button-hole. " As jour husband, madame ? The
state of your feehngs towards me in that character is perhaps a
question more to the point."
" You are right," she said, casting all assumption of indiffer-
ence aside, and trembhng with scornful rage. "That is the
question. Your speculation has been a successful one."
" Entirely successful," he repUed, still arranging the flower in
hig coat.
" You have the command of my fortune "
" A fortune which many princes might be proud to possess,"
he interposed, looking at the blossom, not at her. lie may pos-
sibly have been a brave man, but he was not distinguished for
looking in people's faces, and he did not care about meeting her
eyes to-day.
" But if you think the words whose sacred import has been
prostituted by us this day have any meaning for you or me;
if you think there is a lacquey or a gi-oom in this vast city, a
ragged mendicant standing at a church-door whom I would not
sooner cad my husband than the wretch who stands beside me
now, you neither know me nor my sex. My fortune you are
welcome to. Take it, squander it, scatter it to the winds, spend
it to the last farthing on the low vices that are pleasure to such
men as you. But dare to address me with but one word from
jTour false lips, dare to approach me so near as to touch but the
lem of my dress, and that moment I proclaim the story of oiur
marriage from first to last. BeHeve me when I say— and if
you look me in the face you will beheve me— the restraining
influence is very sHght that holds me back from standing now
in the centre of this assembly to proclaim myself a vile and cruel
I
Animal Ilagnetism. 145
murderess, and yon my tempter and accomplic<> Believe me
when I tell you tliat it needs but one look of yoyrg u) provoke
me to blazon tliis hideous secret, and cry its details in the very
market-place. BeUeve this, and rest contented with the wages
of your work."
Exhausted by her passion, she sank into her seat. Eaymond
looked at her with a supercilious sneer. He despised her for
this sudden outbreak of rage and hatred, for he felt how much
his calculating brain and icy temperament made liim her supe-
rior.
" Tou are somewhat hasty, madame, in your conclusions.
"Who said I was discontented with the wages of my work, when
for those wages alone I have played the game in which, as you
say, I am the conqueror ? For the rest, I do not think I am the
man to break my heart for love of any woman breathing, as I
never quite understood what this same weakness of the brain,
which men have chi-istened love, really is ; and even were the
light of dark eyes necessary to my hapitiness, I need scarcely
tell you, madame, that beauty is very indulgent to a man with
such a fortune as I am master of to-day. There is nothing on earth
to prevent our agreeing remarkably well ; and perhaj^s this
marriage, which you speak of so bitterly, may be as happy as
many other union-s, which, were I Asmodeus and you my pupil,
we could look down on to-day through the housetojDS of this
good city of Paris."
I wonder whether Monsieur MaroUes was right ? I wonder
whether this thrice-sacred sacrament, ordained by an Almighty
Power for the glory and the haj^piness of the earth, is ever, by
any chance, profaned and changed into a bitter mockery or a
wicked lie ? AYhether, by any hazard, these holy words were
ever used in any dark hour of this world's history, to join such
people as had been hajjpier far asunder, though they had been
parted in their graves; or whether, indeed, this solemn cere-
monial has not so often united such people, with a chain no time
has power to wear or lengthen, that it has at last, unto some
ill-directed minds, sunk to the level of a pitiful and worn-out
farce?
CHAPTER X.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
Neaki-Y a month has passed since this strange marriage, and
!Monsieur Bhirosset is seated at his little green-covered table,
the lamp-light falling full upon the outspread pack of cards,
over which the blue spectacles bend with the same intent and
K
113 The Trail of the Serpent.
concentrated gize as on tlie night wlieu tlie late of Valeria
hnng on the hps of the professor of chemistry and pasteboar-.u
Every now and then, with Hght and careful fingers, Monsieur
Blurosset changes the position of some card or cards. Some-
times he throws himself back in his chair and thinks deeply.
The expressionless mouth, which betrays no secrets, tells no-
thing of the nature of his thoughts. Sometimes he makes
notes on a long slip of paper ; rows of figures, and problems in
vilgebra, over which he ponders long. By-and-by, for the first
time, he looks up and hstens.
His httle apartment has two doors. One, which leads out on
to the staircase ; a second, which communicates with his bed-
chamber. This door is open a very httle, but enough to show
that there is a feeble light burning within the chamber. It is
in the direction of this door that the blue spectacles are fixed
v.-hen Monsieur Blurosset stispends his calculations in order to
listen; and it is to a sound within this room that he hstens
intently.
That sound is the laboured and heavy breathing of a man.
The room is tenanted.
" Good," says Monsieur Blurosset, presently, " the respiration
is certainly more regular. It is really a most wonderful case."
As he says this, he looks at his watch. " Five minutes past
eleven — time for the dose," he mutters.
He goes to the httle cabinet from which he took the drug he
gave to Valerie, and busies himself with some bottles, from
which he mixes a draught in a small medicine-glass ; he holds
it to the hght, puts it to his hps, and then passes with it into
the next room.
There is a sound as if the person to whom he gave the medi-
cine made some faint resistance, but in a few minutes Monsieur
Blurosset emerges from the room carrying the empty glass.
He reseats himself before the green table, and resumes his
contemplation of the cards. Presently a bell rings. " So late,"
mutters Monsieur Blurosset ; " it is most hkely some one for
ine." He rises, sweeps the cards into one pack, and going over
to the door of his bedi'oom, shuts its softly. When he has done
so, he listens for a moment with his ear close to the woodwork.
There is not a sound of the breathing within.
He has scarcely done so when the bell rings for the second
time. He opens the door communicatmg with the staircase,
and admits a visitor. The visitor is a woman, very plainly
dressed, and thickly veiled.
" Monsieur Blurosset P " hti€ sslJ9, inquiriagly.
"The same, madame. Pn«^ enter, and be good enough to be
eeated." He hands her j- c-hair at a httle distance from the
green table, and as far away as he can place it from "^he door of
Animal Magnetism. 147
the bedchamber : she sits down, and aa be appears to wait for
ber to speak, sbe says, —
" I bave beard of your fame, monsieur, and come "
" Nay, madame," be says, interruiitiug ber, " you can raise
your veil if you will. I perfectly remember you ; I never forget
voices, Mademoiselle de Cevennes."
Tbere is no sbade of impertinence in bis manner as be says
tbis ; be speaks as tbough be were merely stating a simple fact
wbicb it is as well for her to know. He has the air, in all ha
does or says, of a scientific man who has no existence out of the
region of science.
Valerie — for it is indeed sbe— raises her veiL
" Monsieur," sbe says, " you are candid with me, and it will
be the best for me to be frank with you. I am very unhappy — I
have been so for some months past ; and I shall be so until my
dying day. One reason alone has prevented my coming to you
long ere this, to offer you half my fortune for such another drug
as that which you sold to me some time past. You may judge,
then, that reason is a very powerful one, since, though death
alone can give me peace, I yet do not wish to die. Biit I wish to
have at my command a means of certain death. I may never
use it at all : I swear never to use it on anyone but myself!"
All tliis time the blue spectacles have been fixed on her face,
and now Monsieur Blurosset interrupts her—
" And now for such a drug, mademoiselle, you would offer me
a large sum of money ? " he asks.
"I would, monsieur."
" I cannot sell it you," he says, as quietly as though he were
speaking of some unimportant tnfle.
" You cannot ? " she exclaims.
" jSTo, mademoiselle. I am a man absorbed entirely in the
pursuit of science. My life has been so long devoted to science
only, that perhaps I may have come to hold everything beyond
the circle of my Uttle laboratory too lightly. You asked me
some time since for a poison, or at least you were introduced to
me by a pupil of mine, at whose request I sold you a drug. I
had been twenty years studying the properties of that drug. I
may not know them fully yet, but I expect to do so before tbis
year is out. I gave it to you, and, for all I know to the con-
trary, it may in your hands bave done some mischief." Ho
pauses here and looks at her for a moment ; but she has borno
the knowledge of her crime so long, and it has become so much
a jiart of b(.T, that sbe does not fiinch under his scrutiny.
" I pbued a weapon in your bands," be continues, "and I had,
no right to do so. I never thought of this at that time; but I
have thought of it since. For tlic rest , I bave no induecnion^
to sell you the drug you ask for. Money is of little uso to mo.
148 The Trail of tU Serpent.
except in the necessary expenses of tlie chemicals I use. These"
— he points to the cards — " give me enough for those expenses;
beyond those, my wants amount to some few francs a week."
" Then you will not seU me this drug P You are determined P"
she asks.
" Quite determined."
She shrugs her shoulders. " As you please. There is always
some river within reach of the wretched ; and you may depend,
monsieur, that they who cannot support hfe will find a means
of death. I wiU wish you good evening."
She is about to leave the room, when she stops, with her
hand upon the lock of the door, and turns round.
She stands for a few minutes motionless and silent, holding
the handle of the door, and with her other han d upon her heart.
Monsieur Blurosset has the faintest shadow of a look of surprise
in his expressionless countenance.
" I don't know what is the matter with me to-night," she
says, " but something seems to root me to tliis spot. I cannot
leave this room."
•' You are ill, mademoiselle, perhaps. Let me give you some
restorative."
" No, no, I am not ill."
Again she is sUent ; her eyes are fixed, not on the chemist,
but with a strange vacant gaze upon the wall before her. Sud-
denly she asks him, —
" Do you believe in animal magnetism ?"
" Madame, I have spent half my lifetime in trying to answer
that question, and I can only answer it now by halves. Some-
times no; sometimes yes."
" Do you beheve it possible for one soul to be gifted with a
mysterious prescience of the emotions of another soul ? — to be
sad when that is sad, though utterly unconscious of any cause
for sadness ; and to rejoice when that is happy, having no reason
for rejoicing?"
•' I cannot answer your question, madame, because it involves
another. I never yet have discovered what the soul really is.
Animal magnetism, if it ever become a science, will be a material
Bcience, and the soul escapes from all material dissection."
" Do you beheve, then, that by some subtle influence, whose
nature is unknown to us, we may have a strange consciousnesa
of the presence or the approach of some people, conveyed to us
by neither the hearing nor the sight, but rather as if we feli
that they were near ? "
" You {jslieve this possible, madame, or you would not ask the
question."
" Perhaps. I have sometimes thought that I had this con*
•ciousness ; but it related to a person who is dead "
Animal Magnetism. 149
* Yes. madame."
"And — you will think me mad; Heaven knows, I think
iayself so — I feel as if that person were near me to-night."
The chemist rises, and, gomg over to her, feels her pulse. It
is rapid and intermittent. She is evidently violently agitated,
though she is trying wth her utmost power to coutrol kerself.
"But you say that this person is dead?" he asks.
" Yes ; he died some months since."
" You knosv that there are no such things as ghosts ?**
" I am perfectly convinced of that ! "
" And yet — ? " he asks.
" And yet I feel as though the dead were near me to-night.
Tell me — there is no one in this room but ourselves ?"
" No one."
" And that door — it leads "
" Into the room in which I sleep."
" And there is no one there ? " she asks.
" No one. Let me give you a sedative, madame : you are cer-
tainly m."
" No, no, monsieur ; you are very good. I am still weak from
the effects of a long Ubiess. That weakness may be the cause
of my sidy fancies of to-night. To-morrow I leave France, per-
haps for ever."
She leaves liim ; but on the steep dark staircase she pausea
for a moment, and seems irresolute, as if half determined to
return : then she hurries on, and in a minute is in the street.
She takes a circuitous route towards the house in which sha
lives. So plainly dressed, and tliickly veiled, no one stops to
notice her as she walks along.
Her husband, Monsieur Marolles, is engaged at a dinner given
by a distinguished member of the chamber of peers. Decidedly
he has held winning cards in the game of life. And she, for
ever haunted by the past, with weaiy step goes onward to a dwk
and unkuowmraturo.
HAPOLEON THE GEEAT.
CHAPTER I.
THE BOY FROM SLOPPEUTON.
Eight years have passed since the trial of Richard Marwood.
How have those eight years been spent by " Daredevil Dick? "
In a small room a few feet square, in the County Lunatic
Asylum, fourteen miles from the town of Slopperton, with no
human being's- companionship but that of a grumjjy old deaf
keeper, and a boy, his assistant — for eight monotonous years
this man's existence has crept slowly on ; always the same : the
same food, the same hours at which that food must be eaten, the
same rules and regulations for eveiy action of his inactive hfe.
Think of this, and pity the man surnamed " Daredevil Dick,"
and once the maddest and merriest creature in a mad and merry
circle. Think of the daily walk in a great square flagged yard
— the solitary walk, for he is not allowed even the feUowship of
the other lunatics, lest the madness which led him to commit an
awful crime should again break out, and endanger the Uves of
those about him. During eight long years he has counted every
stone in the flooring, every flaw and every crack in each of those
stones. He knows the shape of every shadow that falls uj^on
the whitewashed wall, and can, at all seasons of the year, tell
the hour by the falling of it. He knows that at such a time on
a summer's evening the shadows of the iron bars of the window
will make long black hues across the ground, and mount and
mount, dividing the wall as if it were in panels, till they meet,
and absorbing •'"^^ogether the declining hght, surround and
absorb him too, , ^1 he is once more alone in the darkness. He
knows, too, that at such a time on the grey winter's morning
those same shadows will be the first indications of the comin;^'
light ; that, from the thick gloom of the dead night they will
break out upon the wall, with strips of ghmmering day between.
only enough Hke Hght to show the blackness of the shade. He
has sometimes been mad enough and wretched enough to pray
that these shadows might fall differently, that the very order of
nature might be reversed, to break this bitter and deadly mono-
Tlie Boy from Sloppertofl. 151
tony. He has sometimes prayed that, looking up, he might see
a great fire in the sky, and know that the world v/as at an end
How often he has prayed to die, it would he difficult to say. At
one time it was his oiily prayer ; at one time he did not pray at
all. He has been permitted at intervals to see his mother ; hut
her visits, though he has counted the days, hours, and even
minutes between them, have only left him more despondent than
ever. She brings so much with her into his lonely prison, so
much memory of a joj'ous past, of freedom, of a happy home,
whose happiness he did his best in his wild youth to destroy ;
the memory, too, of that careless youth, its boon companions,
its devoted fiiends. She bring* so much of all this back to him
1 )y the mere fact of her presence, that she leaves behind her the
blackness of a despair far more temble than the most temble
death. She represents to him the outer world ; for she is the
only creature belonging to it \vho ever crosses the threshold of
his prison. The asylum chaplain, the asylum doctor, the keepers
and the officials belonging to the asylum — all these are part and
parcel of this great i^rison-house of stone, brick, and mortar, and
Beem to be about as capable of feeling for him, listening to him,
or understanding him, as the stones, bricks, and mortar them-
selves. Routine is tlie ruler of this great prison ; and if this
wretched insane criminal cannot Uve by mles and regulations,
he miTst die according to them, and be buried by them, and so be
done with, out of the way ; and his little room, No. 35, will be
ready for some one else, as wicked, as dangerous, and as unfor-
tunate as he.
During the earher part of his impiisonment the idea had
pervaded the asylum that as he had been found guilty of
committing one murder, he might, very hkely, find it necessary
to liis pecuhar state of mind to commit more murders, and
vvould probably find it soothing to his feelings to assassinato
anybody who might come in liis way any morning before
breakfast. The watch kept upon him was therefore for some
time very strict. He was rather popular at first in the asylum,
as a distinguished public character; and the keepers, though a
little shy of attending upon him in their proper persons, were
extremely fond of peering in at him through a Utile oval open-
ing in the upper panel of the door of liis cell. They also
brought such visitors as came to improve their minds by going
over the hospital for the insane to have a special and private
view of this maniacal murderer ; and they generally received an
extra donation from the sight-seers thus gratified. Even the
lunatics themselves were interested in the supi^osed assassin.
A gentleman, who claimed to be the Emperor of the German
Ocean and the Chelsea Waterworks, was very a*ixious to see
him, as he had received a despatch from his minister of police
152 The Trail of tie Serpent.
informing him that Richard Marwood haJ red UaJi, and he
particularly wished to confirm this intelligence, or to give the
minister his conge.
Another highly-respectable person, whose case was before
the House of Commons, and who took minutes of it every day
on a slate, with a bit of slate pencil which he wore attached to
his button-hole by a string, and which also sei-ved him as a
toothpick — the slate being inti-usted to a keeper who forwarded
it to the electric telegi-apli, to be laid on the table of the House,
and brought home, washed clean, in half an hour, which was
always done to the minute; — this gentleman also sighed for an
introduction to poor Dick, for Maria Martin had come to him
in a vision all the way from the Red Barn, to tell him that the
prisoner was his first cousin, through the maiTiage of his uncle
with the third daughter of Henry the Eighth's seventh wife ;
and he considered it only natural and proper that such near
relations should become intimately acquainted with each other.
A lady, who pronouniced herself to be the only child of the
Pope of Rome, by a secret udiion with a highly-respectable
youngperson, heiress to a gentleman connected with the muffin
trade somewhere about Drury Lane, fell in love ofi'-hand with
Richard, from description alone ; and begged one of the keepers
to let him know that she had a clue to a subterranean passage,
which led straight from the asylum to a baker's shop in Little
Russell Street, Covent Garden, a distance of some two hundred
and fifty miles, and had been originally constructed by Wilham
the Conqueror for the convenience of his visits to Fair Rosamond
when the weather was bad. The lady begged her messenger to
inform Mr. Marwood that if he liked to unite his fortune with
hers, they could escape by this passage, and set up in the muffin
business — unless, indeed, his Hohness of the triple crown in-
vited them over to the Vatican, which pei-haps, under existing
circumstances, was hardly Hkely.
But though a wonder, which elsewhere would only last nine
days, may in the dreaiy monotony of such a place as this,
endure for more than nine weeks, it must stiU die out at last.
So at lai^ Richard was forgotten by every one except his heart-
broken mother, and the keeper and bny attending upon him.
His pecuhar hallucination being liis fancy that he was the
Emperor Napoleon the First, was, of course, Httle wonder in a
place where every wretched creature fancied himself some one
or something which he was not ; where men and women walked
about in long disjointed dreams, which had no waking but in
death; where once bright and gifted human beings found a
wild and imbecile hapj^iness in crowns of straw, and decorations
uf paper and rags ; which was more sad to see than the worst
tuiserj a consciousness of their state might have brought them.
The Boy from Slopperton. 163
At first, Ricliard had talked wildly of his fancied graatuess,
had called his httle room the rock of St. Helena, and ms keeper,
Sii" Hudson Lowe. Bnt he grew quieter day by day, and at
last never spoke at all, except in answer to a question. And so
on, for eight long years.
In the autumn of the eighth year he fell ill. A strange
illness. Pei-haj^s scarcely to be called an illness. Rather a
dying out of the last light of hope, and an utter abandonment
of himself to desi^air. Yes, that was the name of the disease
under which the high and bold spirit of Daredevil Dick sank
at last. Despair. A curious disease. Not to be cured by
rules and regulations, however salutary those rules might be;
not to be cured even by the Board, which was supposed to be
in a manner omnipotent, and to be able to cure anything in
one sitting; not to be cured certainly by the asylum doctor,
who found Richard's case very ditEcuIt to deal ^vith — more
especially difficult since there was |no positive physical malady
to attack. There was a jihysical malady, because the patient
gi-ew every day weaker, lost appetite, and was compelled to
take to his bed ; but it was the malady of the mind acting on
the body, and the cure of the last could only be effected by the
ciu'e of the first.
So Richard lay upon his narrow Uttle couch, watching the
shadows on the bare wall, and the clouds that passed across the
patch of sky which he could see through the barred window
opposite his bed, through long sunny days, and moonlight
nights, throughout the month of September,
Thus it happened that one dull afternoon, on looking up, he
aaw a dai-ker cloud than usual hurry uy; and in its train
another, darker still; then a black troop of ragged followers;
and then such a shower of rain came down, as he could not
lemember having seen throughout the time of his captivity.
But this heavy shower was only the beginning of three weeks*
rainy weather ; at the end of which time the country round was
flooded in every direction, and Richard heard his keeper tell
another man that the river outside the prison, wliich usually
ran within twenty feet of the wall on one side of the great yard,
was now swollen to such a degree as to wash the stonework of
this wall for a considerable height.
The day Richard heard this he heard another dialogue, which
took place in the passage outside his room. He was lying on
his bed, thinking of the bitterness of his fate, as he had thought
BO many hundred times, through so many hundi-ed days, till he
had become, as it were, the slave of a dreadful habit of his mind,
and was obliged to go over the same ground for ever and ever,
whether he would or no — he was lying thus, when he heard his
keeper say^ —
154 The Trail of the Serpent.
"To think as how the discontented littli' !;fast should take
and go and better hisselt" at such a time as this here, when
there ain't a boy to be had for love or money — which three
shillings a week is all the Board will give — as will come here to
take care of him."
Richard knew himself to be the " him " alluded to. The
doctor had ordered the boy to sit up with him at night during
the latter part of his illness, and it had been something of a
reUef to him, in the blank monotony of his life, to watch this
boy's attempts to keep awake, and his furtive games at marbles
under the bed when he thought Richard was not looking, or to
listen to his snoring when he slept.
" You see, boys as is as bold as brass many ways — as would
run. under 'osses' heads, and like it; as tlunks it fan to run
across the railroad when there's a /^express /iengine a comin',
and as will amuse theirselves for the hour together with
twopen'orth of gunpowder and a lighted candle — still feels
timersome about sittiu' up alone of nights with him," said the
keeper.
" But he's harmless enough, ain't he?" asked the other.
" Harmless ! Lord bless his poor hinnercent 'art ! there ain't
no more harm in him nor a baby. But it's no use a sayin' that,
for there ain't a boy far or near what'll come and help to take
care of him."
A minute or two after this, the keeper came into Richard's
room with the regulation basin of broth — a panacea, as it was
supposed, for all ills, from water on the brain to rheumatism.
As he put the basin down, and was about to go, Richard spoke
to him, —
" The boy is going, then ? "
" Yes, sir." The keeper treated him with great resjiect, for
he had been handsomely feed by Mrs. Marwood on every visit
throughout the eight years of her son's imprisonment. " Yes,
he's a-goin', sir. The place ain't lively enough for liim, if you
please. I'd lively him, if 1 was the Board ! Ain't he had the
run of the passages, and half an hour every night to enjoy his-
self in the yard ! He's a goin' into a doctor's service. He says
it'll be jolly, earring out medicine for other people to take, and
gloating over the thought of 'em a-taking it."
" And you can't get another boy to come here ? "
" Well, you see, sir, the boys about here don't seem to take
kindly to the place. So I've got orders from the Board to put
an advertisement in one of the Slopperton papers ; and I'm
a-goin' to do it this afternoon. So you'll have a change in your
attendance, maybe, sir, before the week's out."
Nothing could better prove the utter dreariness and deso*
lation of Richard's life than that such a thing as the probable
The Boy from S'lopperton. 155
dmvai of a strange boy to wait upon liini seemed an event
of importance. He could not help, tliougli lie despised him-
self for his foUy, speculating upon the possible appeai-ance
of the new boy. Would he be big or httle, stout or thin?
"\^^iat would be the colour of his eyes and hair? AVould Ids
voice be gruif or squeaky ; or would it be that peculiar and
uncertain voice, common to over-grown boys, which is gruff one
minute and sqxieaky the next, and always is in one of these
exti ernes when you most expect it to be in the other ?
But these speculations were of course a part of liis madness ;
for it is not to be supposed that a long course of solitary confine-
ment could produce any dreadful change in the mind of a sane
man ; or surely no human justices or lawgivers would ever
adjudge so tenible a punishment to any creature, human as
themselvas, and no more Uable to error than themselves.
So Richard, lying on his Httle bed through the long rainy
days, awaits the dej^arture of his old attendant and the coming
of a new one ; and in the twihght of the third day he still Ues
looking up at the square grated windoAy, and counting the drops
falling from the eaves — for there is at last some cessation in the
violence of the rain. He knows it is an autumn evening ; but ■
he has not seen the golden red of one fallen leaf, or the subdued ■
colouring of one autumnal flower : he knows it is the end of -
September, because liis keeper has told him so ; and wl-ien his
vfindow is open, he can hear soiaetimes, far away, deadened by
the rainy atmosphere as weU as by the distance, the occasional -
report of some sportsman's gun. He thinks, as he hears this,
of a September many years ago, when he and a scapegrace
companion took a fortnight's shooting in a country where to
brush against a bush, or to tread upon the long grass, was
to send a feathered creature whin'ing up in the clear air. He
remembers the merry pedestrian journey, the roadside inns, the
pretty barmaids, the joint purse ; the blue smoke from two
short meerschaum pipes curUng up to the grey morning sky;
the merry laughter from two haj^py hearts ringing out upon the
chill morning air. He remembers encounters with savage game-
Keepers, of such ferocious principle and tender consciences as
even the administration of a half-crown could not lull to sleep ;
he remembers jovial evenings in the great kitchens of old inns,
where unknown quantities of good old ale were drunk, and comic
songs were sung, with such a chorus, that to join in it was to be
overcome by such fatigue, or to be reduced from wildest mirth
to such a pitch of sudden melancholy, as ultinuitely to lead to
the finishing of the evening in tears, or else under the tal'le.
He remembers all these things, and he wonders — as, being a
madm;\n, it is natural he should — wonders whether it can be
166 The Trait of the Serpent.
Indeed himself, who once was that wittiest, handsomest, most
generous, and best of fellows, baptised long ago in a river
of sparkling hock, moselle, and burgundy, " Daredevil Dick."
But something more than these sad memories comes with the
deepening twilight, for presently Richard hears the door of hia
room unlocked, and liis keeper's voice, saying, —
" There, go ia, and tell the gent you've come. I'm a-comin'
in with his supper and his lamp presently, and then I'll tell you
what you've got to do."
Naturally Ei chard looked round in the direction of the door,
tor he knew this must be the strange boy. Now, his late
juvenile attendant had niambered some fifteen summers ; to say
notliing of the same number of winters, duly chronicled by
chilblains and chapped hands. Richard's eyes therefore looked
towards the open door at about that height from the ground
which a lad of fifteen has commonly attained ; and looking thus,
Richard saw nothing. He therefore lowered his glance, and in
about the neighbourhood of what woidd have been the lowest
button of his last attendant's waistcoat, he beheld the small
pale thin face of a very small and very thin boy.
This small boy was standing rubbing his right little foot
against his left little vrizen leg, and looking intently at Richard.
To say that his tiny face had a great deal of character in it
would not be to say much ; what face he had was aU character.
Determination, concentration, energy, strength of will, and
brightness of intellect, were all written in unmistakable lines
upon that pale pinched face. The boy's features were wonder-
fully regular, and had nothing in common with the ordinary
features of a boy of his age and his class ; the tiny nose was a
perfect aquiline ; the decided mouth might have belonged to a
jjrime mhiister with the blood of the Plantagenets in his veins.
The eyes, of a bluish grey, were small, and a httle too near
together, but the light in them was the light of an intelligence
mai-veUous in one so young.
Richard, though a wild and reckless fellow, had never been
devoid of thought, and in the good days past had dabbled in
many a science, and had adopted and abandoned many a creed.
He was something of a physiognomist, and he read enough in
one glance at this boy's face to awaken both surprise and interest
in liim.
" So," said he, " you are the new boy ! Sit down," h^
pointed to a httle wooden stool near the bed as he spoke. " Sit
down, and make yourself at home."
The boy obeyed, and seated himself finnly by the side of
Richard's pillow ; but the stool was so low, and he was so small,
that Richard had to change his position to look over the edge of
the bed at his new attendant. While Daredevil Dick contem-
The Boy from Slopperton. 167
plated him tlie boy's small grey eyes peered round the four
whitewashed wuUs, and then fixed themselves upon the barred
window with such a look of concentration, that it seemed to
Bi chard as if the Uttle lad must be calculating the thickness
and power of resistance of each iron bar with the accuracy of a
mathematician.
" What's your name, my lad P " asked Eichard. He had been
always beloved by all his inferiors for a manner combining the
stately reserve of a great king with the friendly condescension
of a i^oi^ular prince.
" Slosh, sir," answered the boy, bringing his grey eyes with a
great effort away from the iron bars and back to Richard.
" Slosh ! A curious name. Your surname, I suppose ? "
" Surname and christen name too, sir. Slosh — short for
Sloshy."
" But have yon no surname, thenP"
"No, sir; fondling, sir."
** A foundhng : dear me, and you are called Sloshy ! "Why,
that is the name of the river that runs through Slopperton." _
" Yes, sir, which I was found in the mud of the river, sir,
when I was only three months old, sir."
" Found in the river — were you ? Poor boy — and by -whom P"
" By the gent what adopted me, sir."
"And he is ?" asked Richard.
" A gent connected with the police force, sir ; detective '*
ITiis one word worked a sudden change in Richard's manner.
He raised himself on his elbow, looked intently at the boy, and
asked, eagerly, —
" Tliis detective, what is his name P But no," he muttered,
" I did not even know the name of that man. Stay — tell me,
you know perhaps some of the men in the Slopperton pohce
rbrce besides your adopted father ? "
" I knows every man jack of 'em, sir; and a fine staff they is
— a credit to their country and a happiness to theirselves."
" Do you happen to know amongst them a dumb man P "
ftsked Richard.
" Lor', sir, that's him."
"Who?"
"leather, sir. The gent what found me and adopted mc.
I've got a messHge for you, sir, from father, and I was a-goin' to
give it you, only I thought I'd look about me a little first ; but
stay — Oh, dear, the gentleman's took and fainted. Here," he
said, running to the door and calling out in a shrill voice, " come
and unlock this here place, will yer, and look alive with that
lump ! The gentleman's gone off into a dead faint, and there
ain't 80 much as a drop of water to chuck over his face."
The prisoner had indeed fallen back insensible on the bed.
158 TJie Trail of the Serpent.
For eight long years he had nourished in his heart a gHmmuiTug
though dying hope that he might one day receive some token
of remembrance t'rom the man who had taken a strange part in
the eventful crisis of his life. This ray of light had lately died
out, along with every other ray which had once illuminated his
dreary hfe ; but in the very moment when hope was abandoned,
tlie token once eagerly looked for came upon him so suddenly,
tliat the shock was too much for his shattered mind and feeble
fraTiie.
When Richard recovered from his swoon, he found himself
alone with the boy Irom Slopperton. He was a httle startled
by the position of that young person, who had seated himself
upon the small square deal table by the bedside, commanding
from this elevation a full view of Eichard's face, whereon liis
two small grey eyes were intently fixed, with that same odd look
of concentration with which he had regarded the iron bars.
" Come now," said he, with the consolatory tone of an expe-
rienced sick-nurse ; " come now, we mustn't give way like this,
just because we hears from our friends ; because, you see, if we
does, our friends can't be no good to us whichever way their
intention may be."
" You said you had a message for me," said Richard, in
feeble but anxious tones.
" Well, it ain't a long un, and here it is," answered the
j-^oung gentleman from his extempore pulpit ; and then he con-
tinued, with very much the air of giving out a text — " Keep up
your pecker."
" Keep up what ? " muttered Richard.
" Tour pecker. ' Keep up your pecker,' them's his words ;
and as he never yet vos known to make a dirty dinner off hig
own syllables, it ain't likely as he'll take and eat 'em. He sayg
to me — on his fingers, in course — ' Tell the gent to keep up hia
pecker, and leave all the rest to you ; for you're a pocket edition
of all the sharpness as ever knives was notliing to, or else say
I've brought you up for no good whatsomedever.' "
This was rather a vague speech; so perhaps it is scarcely
strange that Richard did not derive much immediate comfort
from it. But, in spite of himself, he did derive a great deal of
comfort from the presence of this boy, though he almost
despised himself for attaching the least importance to the words
of an urchin of Httle better than eight years of age. Certainly
this urchin of eight had a shrewdness of manner which would
have been almost remarkable in a man of the world of fifty,
and Richard could scarcely help fancying that he must have
graduated in some other hemisphere, and been thrown, small aa
to gize, but full grown as to acuteness, into this ; or it seemed aa
if ^me great strong man had been reduced into the compass ol
The Boy from Slopperton. 159
ft little boy, in order to make Mm sharper, as cooks boil down a
gallon of gravy to a pint in the manufacture of strong soup.
But, however the boy came to bo what he was, there he was,
holding forth from his piilpit, and handing Richard the regula-
tion basin of broth which composed his supper.
" Now, what you've got to do," said he, " is to get well ; for
until you are well, and strong too, there ain't the least jiroba-
bility of your bein' able to change your apartments, if you
should feel so inclined, which perhaps ain't likely."
Richard looked at the diminutive speaker with a wonderment
he could not repress.
" Starin' won't cure you," said his juvenile attendant, with
friendly disrespect, " not if you took the pattern of my face till
you could draw it in the dark. The best thing you can do is to .
eat your supper, and to-morrow we miist try what we can do
for you in the way of port wine; for if you ain't strong and
well afore that ere river outside this ere vail goes down, it's a
chance but vot it'll be a long time afore you sees the outside
of the val m question."
Richard caught hold of the boy's small arm with a grasp
wliich, in spite of his weakness, had a convulsive energy that
nearly toppled his youthful attendant from his elevation.
"You never can think of anything so wild?" he said, in a
tumult of agitation.
" Lor' bless yer 'art, no," said the boy; "we never thinks of
anything vot's wild — our 'abits is business-like ; but vot you've
got to do is to go to sleep, and not to worrit yourself; and as I
siiid before, I say again, when you're well and strong we'll think
about changin' these apartments. We can make excuse that
the look-out was too hvely, or that the colour of the whitewash
was a-Ziinjui-in' our e)"esight."
For the first time for many nights Richard slept well ; and
opening his eyes the next morning, his first anxiety was to con-
vince himself that the arrival of the boy fi-om Slopperton was
not some foolish dream engendered in his disordered brain. No,
there the boy sat : whether he had been to sleep on the table,
or whether he had never taken his eyes off Richard the whole
night, there he was, with those eyes fixed, exactly as they had
been the night before, on the prisoner's face.
" Why, 1 declare we're all the better for our good night's
rest," he said, rubbing his hands, as he contemplated Richard ;
" and we're ready for oiir breakfast as soon as ever we can got
it, which will be soon, judging by our keeper's hobnailed boots
us is H-comin' down the passage with a tray in his hand."
This rather confused statoment was confirmed by a noise in
the stone corridor without, which sounded as if a pair of stout
working men's bluchers were walking in conspany with a basin
and a teasnoon.
160 The Trail of the Serpent
"Hnsli!" said the boy, holding up a -warning forefinger,
"keep it dark!" Eichard did not exactly know what he was
to keep dark ; but as he had, without one eflfort at resistance,
surrendered himself, mentally and physically, to the direction
of his small attendant, he lay perfectly still, and did not utter a
word.
In obedience to this youthful director, he also took his break-
fast, to the last mouthful of the regulation bread, and to the
last spoonful of the regulation coffee — ay, even to the grounds
(which, preponderating in that liquid, formed a species of
stratum at the bottom of the basia, commonly known to the
inmates of the asylum as " the thick ") — for as the boy said,
" grounds is strengthening." Breakfast finished, the asylum
physician came, in the course of his rounds, for his matutinal
vdsit to Eichard's cell. His skill was entirely at a loss to find
any cure for so strange a disease as that which affected the
prisoner. One of the leading features, however, in this young
man's sickness, had been an entire loss of appetite, and almost
an entire inability to sleep. When, therefore, he heard that his
patient had eaten a good supper, slept well all night, and had
just finished the regulation breakfast, he said, —
" Come, come, we are getting better, then — our complaint is
taking a turn. "We are quiet in our mind, too, eh ? Not fret-
ting about Moscow, or making ourselves unhappy about
Waterloo, I hope?"
The asylum doctor was a cheerful easy good-tempered fellow,
•who humoured the fancies of his patients, however wild they
might be ; and though half the kings in the history of England,
and some sovereigns unchronicled in any history whatever were
represented in the establishment, he was never known to forget
the respect due to a monarch, however condescending that
monarch might be. He was, therefore, a general favourite;
and had received more orders of the Bath and the Garter, in
the shape of red tape and scraps of paper, and more title-deeds,
in the way of old curl-papers and bits of newsi^aper, than would
have served as the stock-in-trade of a marine storekeeper, with
the addition of a few bottles and a black doll. He knew that
one characteristic of Eichard's madness was to fancy himself
the chained eagle of the sea-bound rock, and he thought to
humour the patient by humouring the hallucination.
Eichard looked at this gentleman with a thoughtful glance
in his dark eyes.
" I didn't mind Moscow, sir," he said, very gravely ; " the
elements beat me there — and they were stronger than Han-
nibal; but at Waterloo, what broke my heart was — not the
defeat, but the disgra,ce ! " He turned away his head as he
Bpoke, and lay in silence, with his back turned to the good
xiatured physician.
The Boy from Slopperion. 161
" Ko cornpiaints about Sir Hudson Lowe, I hopoP " said tlio
medical man. " They give you everything you want, general ? "
The good doctor, being so much in the habit of humouring
his patients, had their titles always at the tip of his tongue ;
and walked about in a perfect atmosphere ot Piunock's Gold-
smith.
As the general made no reply to his question, the doctor
looked from him to the boy, who had, out of respect to the
medical official, descended from his pulpit, and stood tugging at
a very diminutive lock of hair, with an action which he intended
to represent a bow.
" Does he ask for anything? " asked the doctor.
" Don't he, sir ? " said the boy, answering one question with
another. " He's been doing nothin' for ever so long but askin'
for a drop o' wine. He says he feels a kind of sinkin* that
nothin' but -wine can cure."
"He shall have it, then," said the doctor. "A little port
wine with a touch of U'on in it wotdd help to bring him round
as soon as anything, and be sure you see that he takes it. I've
been giving mm quinine for some time past ; but it has done
so Uttle towards making him stronger, that I sometimes
doubt his having taken it. Has he complained of anything
else?"
" "Well, sir," said the boy, this time looking at his questioner
very intently, and seeming to consider every word before hf-
said it, " there is somethin' which I can make out from what
he says when he talks to hisself — and he does talk to hisself
awful — somethin' which preys upon his mind very much ; but
I don't suppose it's much good mentioning it either." Here
he stopped, hesitating, and looking very earnestly at the doctor.
"Why not, my boy?"
"Because you see, sir, what he hankers after is agen the
rules of the asylum — leastways, the rules the Board makes for
such as him."
" But what is it, my good lad P Tell me what it is he wishes
for?" said the medical man.
" Why, it's a singular wish, I dare say, sir ; but he's alius _a
talkm' a])out the other lun " he hesitated, as if out of deli'
cacy towards Eichard, and substituted the word " boarders "
for that which he had been about to use — " and he says, if he
could only be allowed to mix with 'em now and then he'd be
as happy as a king. But, of course, as I was a-telhn' him when
you come in, sir, that's agen the rules of the establishment, and
in consequence is impossible — 'cause why, these 'ere rules is like
Swedes and Nasturtiums — [the boy from Sloppcrton may nos-
ttiljly have been thinking of the Medes and Persian sj—jm-'
can't be gone agen."
102 Trie tVail of the SerpeM.
"I don't Icnow about that," said the good-natured dodof.
" So, general," he added, turning to Richard, who had shifted
his position, and now lay looking at his visitor rather anxiously,
" so, general, you would Hke to mix with your friends out
there?"
" Indeed I should, sir." Those deep and earnest dark eyes,
with which Richard watched the doctor's face, were scarcely the
eyes of a madman.
" Very well, then," said the medical man, " very well ; we
must see if it can't be managed. But I say, general, 5^ou'll find
the Prince Regent among your fellow-boarders ; and I wouldn't
answer for your not meeting with Lord Oastlereagh, and that
might cause unpleasantness — eh, general?"
"No, no, sir; there's no fear of that. PoUtical differencea
should never "
" Interfere with private friendship. A noble sentiment, general.
Very well, you shall mix with the other boarders to-morrow.
I'll speak to the Board about it this afternoon. This, luckily, is
a Board-day. You'll find George the Fourth a very nice fellow.
He came here because he would take everything of other
people's that he could lay his hands on, and said he was only
taking taxes from his subjects. Good-day. I'll send roiind
some port wine immediately, and you shall have a couple of
glasses a day given you ; so keep up your spirits, general,"
" Well," said the boy from Slopperton, as the doctor closed
the door behind him, " that 'ere medical officer's a regular
brick : and all I can say is to repeat his last words — which
ought to be printed in gold letters a foot high — and those words
is, — * Keep up your spirits, general.' "
CHAPTER II.
MR. AUGUSTUS DAItLEY AND MK. JOSEPH PETEES GO OVS FISHING.
A LONG period of incessant rains had by no means improved
the natural beauties of the Sloshy; nor had it in any manner
enhanced the advantages attending a residence on the banks of
that river. The occu^jants of the houses by the waterside were
in the habit of going to sleep at night with the firm conviction
that the lower portion of their tenement was a comfortable
kitchen, and awakening in the morning were apt to find it a
miniature lake.
Then, again, the river had a knack of dropping in at odd
iii/ies, in a friendly way, when least expected — when Mrs. Jones
was cooking the Sunday's dinner, or wlaile Mrs. Brown was gone
U> maiket; and, as its manner of entering an apartment waa.
Messrs. Darhy and Peter$ go out Fislnng. 163
ftpfler the fashion of a ghost in a melodrama, to r i;,o through thu
floor, the snrDrise occasioned by its appearance was not unal-
lo3'-ed by vexation.
It would intrude, an uninvited guest, at a social tea-party, and
suddenly isolate every visitor on his or her chair as on an island.
There was not a mouse or a black-beetle in any of the kitchens
by the Sloshy whose life was worth the holding, such an enemy
was the swelling water to all domestic peace or comfort.
It is true that to some fresh and adventurous spirits the rising
of the river afforded a kind of eccentric gratification. It gave a
smack of the flavour of Venice to the dull insipidity of Slop-
perton life ; and to an imaginative mind every coal-barge that
went by became a gondola, and only wanted a cavalier, with a
very short doublet, pointed shoes, and a guitar, to make it per-
fection.
Indeed, Miss Jones, milliner and dressmaker, had been heard
to say, that when she saw the water coming up to the parlour-
windows she could hardly believe she was not really in the city
of the winged horses, round the comer out of the square of
St. Mark's, and three doors from the Bridge of Sighs. Miss
Jones was well up in Venetian topography, as she was engaged
in the perusal of a powerful work in penny numbers, detaiUug
the adventures of a celebrated ' Bravo** of that city.
To the ardent minds of the. juvenile denizens of the water-
side the swollen river was a source of pure and unalloyed delight.
To take a tour round one's own back kitchen in a washing-tub,
with a duster for a sail, is perhaps, at the age of six, a more
perfect species of enjoyment than that afforded by any Alpine
glories or Highland scenery through which we may wander in
after-years, when Reason has taught us her cold lesson, that,
however bright the sun may shine on one side of the mountain,
the shadows are awaiting us on the other.
There is a gentleman in a cutaway coat and a white hat,
smoking a very short and black clay pipe, as he loiters on the
bank of the Slosh} . I wonder what he thinks of the river ?
It is eight years since this gentleman was last in Slopperton ;
then he came as a witness m the trial of Richard Marwood ;
then he had a black eye, and was out-at-elbows ; now, his optics
are surrounded with no dark shades which mar their natural
colour — clear bright grey. Now, too, he is, to speak familiarly,
in high feather. His cutaway coat of the newest fashion (for
there is fashion even in cutaways) ; his plaid trousers, painfully
tight at the knees, and admirably adapted to display the de-
velopment of the calf, are still bright -with the greens and blues
of the Macdonald. His hat is not crushed or indented in above
half-a-dozen directions — a sign that it is comparatively new, for
the circle in which he moves cousidera bonneting a friendly
1G4 Tlie Trail of the Serpent
demor.stration, and to knock a man's hat off his head and intfi
the gutter rather a polite attention.
Yes, during the last eight years the prospects of Mr. Augus-
tus Barley — (that is the name of the witness)— have been
decidedly looking up. Eight years ago he was a medical student,
loose on wide London; eating bread-and-cheese and drinking
bottled stout in dissecting-rooms, and chalking up alarming
scores at the caravansary round the corner of Goodge Street —
when the proprietor of th-e caravansary would chalk up. There
were days which that stern man refused to mark with a white
stone. Now, he has a dispensary of his own; a marvellous
place, which would be entirely devoted to scientific pursuits if
dominoes and racing calendars did not in some degree predomi-
nate therein. This dispensary is in a populous neighbourhood on
the Surrey side of the water ; and in the streets and squares—
to say nothing of the court and mews — round this establishment
the name of Augustus Darley is synonymous with everything
which is popular and pleasant. His very presence is said to be
as good as physic. Now, as physic in the abstract, and apart
from its curative quahties, is scarcely a very pleasant thing,
this may be considered rather a doubtful compliment ; but for
all that, it was meant in perfect good faith, and what's more, it
meant a great deal.
When anybody felt ill, he scut for Gus Darley— (he had never
been called Mr. but once in his life, and then by a sheriff's officer,
who, arresting him for the first time, wasn't on familiar terms ;
all Cursitor Street knew him as "Gus, old fellow," and "Darley,
my boy," before long). If the patient was very bad, Gus told
him a good story. If the case seemed a serious one, he sang a
comic song. If the patient felt, in popular parlance, " low,"
Darley would stop to supper ; and if by that time the patient
was not entirely restored, his medical adviser would send him a
ha'porth of Epsom salts, or three-farthings' worth of rhubarb
and magnesia, jocosely labelled " The Mixture." _ It was a
comforting delusion, laboured under by every patient of Gua
Barley's, that the young surgeon prescribed tor him a very
mysterious and peculiar amalgamation of drugs, which, thougn
certain death to any other man, was the only jjreparation in the
whole pharmacopoeia that could possibly keep him alive
There was a saying current in the neighbourhood of the dis-
pensary, to the effect that Gus Darley's description of the Derby
Day was the best Epsom salts ever invented for the cure of man's
diseases ; and he has been known to come home from the races
at ten o'clock at night, and assist at a sick-bed (successfully),
with a wet towel round his head, and a painful conviction that
he was prescribing for two patients at once.
But all this time he is strolling by the swollen Sloshy, with
Me8tr$. Darley and Peters go out FisJiing. 165
his pipe in his moutli and a contemplative face, whicli ever and
anon looks earnestly np the river. Presently lie stops by a
boat-bnilder's yard, and speaks to a man at work.
" Well," he says, " is that boat finished yet?"
" Yes, sir," saj'^s the man, " quite finished, and uncommon well
she looka too ; you might eat your dinner ofi" her ; the paint'a
as di-y aa a bone,"
"How about the false bottom I spoke of?" he asks.
" Oh, that's all right, sir, two feet and a half deep, and
six feet and a half long. I'll tell you what, sir, — no ofi"ence
— but you must catch a precious sight more eels than I
think you will catch, if you mean to fill the bottom of that 'ere
punt."
As the man speaks, he points to where the boat lies high and
dry in the builder's yard. A great awkward fiat-bottomed
punt, big enough to hold half-a-dozen people.
Gus strolls up to look at it. The man follows him.
He Hfts up the bottom of the boat with a great thick loop
of rope. It IS made Hk-e a trap-door, two feet and a half above
the keel.
" Why," said Gus, " a man could lie down in the keel of the
boat, with that main deck over him."
" To be sure he could, sir, and a pretty long un, too ; though
I don't say much for its being a over-comfortable berth. He
might feel himself rather cramped if he was of a restless dispo-
sition."
Gus laughed, and said, — " You're right, he might, certainly,
poor feUow ! Come, now, you're rather a tall chap, I should
Uke to see if you could lie down there comfortably for a minute
or so. We'll talk about some beer when yon come out."
The man looked at Mr. Darley with rather a puzzled glance.
He had heard the legend of the mistletoe bough. He had
helped to build the boat, but for all that there might be a hidden
spring somewhere about it, and Gus's request might conceai
some sinister intent; but no one who had once looked oxet
medical friend in the face ever doubted him ; so the man laughed
and said, —
" Well, you're a rum un, whoever the other is" (people were
rarely very deferential in their manner of addressing Gus
Darley) ; " howsomedever, here's to obhge you." And the man
got into the boat, and lying down, suffered Gua to lower the
false bottom of it over him.
" How do you feel ? " asks Gua. " Can you breathe ? — have
you plenty of air?"
" AH right, sir," says the man through a hole in the plank.
** It's quite a extensive berth, when you've once settled yourself
only it ain't much calculated for active exercise."
iG8 Tlie Trail of the Serpent.
"Do yoa think you could stand it for half at hourP" Qu«
mquires.
" Lor, bless yon, sir ! for half-a-dozen hours, if I was paid
accordia'."
" Should you think half-a-crown enough for twenty minutes ?"
"Well, I don't know, sir ; suppose you made it tlu-ee shillings ? "
"Very good," said Gus; "three shillings it shall be. It's
now half-past twelve;" he looks at his watch as he speaks.
" I'll sit here and smoke a pipe ; and if you he quiet till ten
minutes to one, you'll have earned the three bob."
Gus stejjs into the boat, and seats himself at the prow ; the
man's head lies at the stern.
"Can you see me?" Gus inquires.
" Yes, sir, when I squints."
"Very well, then, you can see I don't make a bolt of it.
Make 3'our mind easy : there's five minutes gone already."
Gus finishes his pipe, looks at his watch again — a quarter to
one. He whistles a scena from an opera, and then jumps out
of the boat and pulls up the false bottom.
" All's right," he says ; " time's up."
The man gets out and stretches his legs and arms, as if to
convince himself that those members are unimpaired.
"Well, was it pretty comfortable?" Gus asks.
" Lor' love you, sir ! regular jolly, with the exception of bein'
rather warm, and makin' a cove precious dry."
Gus gives the man wherewith to assuage this drought, and
says, —
" You may shove the boat down to the water, then. My
friend wiU be here in a minute with the tackle, and we can then
see about making a start."
The boat is launched, and the man amuses himself with
rowing a few yards up the river, while Gus waits for his friend.
In about ten minutes his friend arrives, in the person of Mr.
Joseph Peters, of the pohce force, with a couple of eel-spears
over liis shoulder (which give him somewhat the appearance of
a dry-land Neptune), and a good -sized carpet-bag, which he
carries in his hand.
Gus and he exchange a few remarks in the silent alphabet, in
which Gus is almost as great an adept as the dumb detective,
and they step into the punt.
The boat-buUder's man is sent for a gallon of beer in a stone
bottle, a half-quartern loaf, and a piece of cTieese. These pro-
visions being shipped, Darley and Peters each take an oar, and
they pull away from the bank and strike out into the middle of
the river.
The Emperor lids adieu to Elba. 167
CHAPTER m.
THE EMPEROR BIDS ADEEU TO ELBA.
On this same day, but at a later hour in tbe afternoon, Bicliard
Marwood, better known as the Emperor Napoleon, joined the
Lamates of the county asylum in their daily exercise in the
grounds allotted for that purpose. These grounds consisted of
prim grass-plots, adorned with here and there a bed in which
some dismal shrubs, or a few sickly chrysanthemums held up
their gloomy heads, beaten and shattered by the recent heavy
rains. These grass-plots were surroxinded by stiff straight
gravel-walks ; and the whole was shut in by a high wall, sur-
mounted by a chevaux-de-frise. The iron spikes composing this
adornment had been added of late years ; for, in spite of the
comforts and attractions of l^he estabhshment, some foolish in •
liabitants thereof, languishing for gayer and more dazzling
scenes, had been known to attempt, if not to effect, an escape
from the numerous advantages of their home. I cannot venture
' to say whether or not the vegetable creation may have some
mysterious sympathy with animated nature ; but certainly no
trees, shrubs, flowers, grass, or weeds ever grew like the trees,
shrubs, flowers, grass, and weeds in the grounds of the county
lunatic asylum. From the gaunt elm, which stretched out two
great rugged arms, as if in a wild imprecation, such ae might
come from the hps of some human victim of the worst form of
insanity, to the frivolous chickweed in a corner of a gravel- walk,
which grew as if not a root, or leaf, or fibre but had a different
l<urpose to its feUow, and flew off at its own pecuUar tangent,
with an infantine and kittenish madness, such as might have
afflicted a love-sick miss of seventeen ; from the great melan-
choly mad laurel-bushes that rocked themselves to and fro in
the wind with a restlessness known only to the insane, to the
eccentric dandelions that reared their disordered heads from
amidst the troubled and dishevelled grass — every green thing ia
that great place seemed more or less a victim to that terrible
disease whose influence is of so subtle a nature, that it infects
the very stones of the dark walls which shut in shattered minds
that once were strong and whole, and fallen intellects that once
were bright and lofty.
But as a stranger to this place, looking for the first time at
the groups of men and women lounging slowly up and down
these gravel-walks, perhaps what most startles you, perhaps
even what most distresses you, is, that these wretched people
scarcely seem unhappy .Oh, merciful and wondi-ou swise dispen-
Hation from Him who fits the back to bear the burden ! He so
appoints it. The man, whose doubts or fears, or wild asj^iringg
to the misty far-away, all the world's wisdom could not yester*
168 Tlie Trail of tie Serpent.
day appease, is to-day made happy by a scrap of paper or a
Bhred of ribbon. We wlio, standing in the blessed bgbt, look
in npon this piteous mental darkness, are perhaps most uu*
happy, because we cannot tell how much or how little sorrow thia
death-in-life may shroud. They have passed away from us;
their language is not our language, nor their world our world.
I think some one has asked a strange question — Who can tell
whether their folly may not perhaps be better than our wisdom?
He only, from whose mighty hand comes the music of every
soul, can tell wliich is the discord and wliich the harmony. We
look at them as we look at all else — through the darkened glass
of earth's uncertainty.
No, they do not seem unhappy. Queen Victoria is talking to
Lady Jane Grey about to-day's dinner, and the reprehensible
superabundance of fat in a leg-of-mutton served up thereat.
Chronology never disturbs these good people; nobody thinks
it any disgrace to be an anachronism. Lord Brougham will
divide an unripe apple with Cicero, and William the Conqueror
will walk arm-in-arm with Pius the Ninth, without the least un-
easiness on the score of probabihty ; and when, on one occasion,
a gentleman, who for three years had enjoyed considerable
popularity as Cardinal Wolsey, all of a sudden recovered, and
confessed to being plain John Thomson, the inamates of the
asylum we^e unanimous in feehng and expressing the most
profound contempt for his unhappy state.
To-day, however, Richard is the hero. He is surrounded im-
mediately on his appearance by all the celebrities and a great
many of the non- celebrities of the establishment. The Emperor
of the German Ocean and the Chelsea Waterworks in particular
has so much to say to him, that he does not know how to begin ;
and when he does begin, has to go back and begin again, in a
manner both aifable and bewUdering.
Why did not Eichard join them before, he asks — they are so
very pleasant, they are so very social; why, in goodness-gracious'
name (he opens his eyes very wide as he utters the name of
goodness-gi-acious, and looks back over his shoulder rather as if
he thinks he may have invoked some fiend), why did not
Richard join them P
Richard tells hiTn he was not allowed to do so.
On this, the potentate looks intensely mysterious. He is
rather stout, and wears a head-dress of his own manufacture —
a species of coronet, constructed of a newspaper and a blue-and-
white bird's-eye pocket-handkerchief. He puts his hands to the
rery farthest extent that he can push them into liis trousers-
pockets ; plants himself right before Richard on the gravel-
walk, and says, with a wink of intense significance, "Waa it
theKlian?"
Tlie Emperor bids adieu to Ella. 169
Eichard says, he thinks not.
*' Not the Khan !" he miitters thoughtfully. "You really are
of opinion that it was not the Khan?"
" I really am," Eichard replies.
" Then it Kes between the last Duke of Devonshu-e but six-
teen and Abd-el-Kader : I do hope it wasn't Abd-el-Kader ; I
had a better opinion of Abd-el-Kader — I had indeed."
Richard looks rather puzzled, but says nothing.
"There has evidently," continued his friend, "been some
malignant influence at work to prevent your appearing amongst
us before tliis. You have been a member of this society for,
let me see, three hundi'ed and sixty-three years — be kind enough
to set me right if I make a mis-statement — three hundi-ed and
— did I say seventy-twelve years ? — and you have never yet
joined us ! 'Now, there is something radically wrong here ; to
use the language of the ancients in their religious festivals,
there is ' a screw loose.' You ought to have joined us, you
really ought ! "We are very social ; we are positively buoyant ;
we have a ball every evening. Well, no, perhaps it is not every
evening. My ideas as to time, I am told, are vague; but I
know it is either every ten years, or every other week. I incline
to thinking it must be every other week. On these occasions
we dance. Are you a votary of Terp — what-you-may-call-her,
the lady who had so many unmarried sisters ? Do you incline
to the light fantastic ? " By way of illustration, the Emperor
of the AVaterworks executed a caper, which would have done
honour to an elderly elephant taking his first lesson in the
polka.
There was one advantage in conversing with this gentleman.
If his questions w'ei'e sometimes of rather a difficult and
puzzling nature, he never did anything so under-bred as to
wait for an answer. It now appeared for the first time to strike
lum, that perhaps the laws of exclusiveuess had in some man-
ner been violated, by a person of his distinction having talked
so familiarly to an entire stranger ; he therefore suddenly
skipped a pace or two backwards, leaving a track of small open
graves in the damp gravel made by the impression of his feet,
and said, in a tone of voice so dignified as to be almost freezing—.
" Pray, to whom have I the honour to make these obser-
vations ? "
Richard regretted to say he had not a card about him, but
added — " You may have heard of the Emperor Napoleon ? "
" Buonaparte ? Oh, certainly ; very frequently, very fre-
quently : and you are that worthy person ? Dear me ! this isi
very sad. Not at your charming summer residence at Moscow,
or your pleasant winter retreat on the field of Waterloo : this
u rea.Uy distressing, very."
170 The Trail of the Serpent.
His pity for Eicliard was so intense, that lie was moved to
tears, and picked a dandelion with which to wipe his eyes. ^
" My Chelsea property," he said presently, " is fluctuating —
very. I find a tendency in householders to submit to having
their water cut ofi', rather than pay the rate. Our only plan ia
to empty eveiy cistern half an hour before tea-time. Persevered
in for a week or so, we find that course has a harassing effect, and
they pay. ]3ut all tliis is wearing for the nerves — very."
He shook his head solemnly, rubbed liis eyes very hard with
the dandelion, and then ate that exotic blossom.
" An agreeable tonic," he said ; " known to be conducive to
digestion. My German Ocean I find more profitable, on account
of the sea-bathing."
Richard expressed himself very much interested in the com-
mercial prospects of his distinguished friend; but at this
moment they were interrupted by the approach of a lady, who,
with a peculiar hop, skip, and jump entu-ely her own,_came up
to the Emperor of the Waterworks and took hold of his arm.
She was a gushing thing of some forty-odd summers, and
wore a bonnet, the very purchase of which would have stamped
her as of unsound intellect, vrithout need of any further proof
whatever. To say that it was hke a coal-scuttle was nothing ;
to say that it resembled a coal-scuttle which had sufi'ered from
an aggravated attack of water on the brain, and gone mad,
would be perhaps a little nearer the mark. Imagine such _a
bonnet adorned with a green veil, rather bigger_ than an ordi-
nary table cloth, and three quill pens tastefully inserted in the
direction in which Parisian milliners are wont to place the
plumage of foreign birds — and you may form some idea of the
lady's head-gear. Her robes were short and scanty, but plen-
tifully embellished with a species of trimming, which to an
ordinary mind suggested strips of calico, but which amongst
the inmates passed current as Valenciennes lace. Below these
robes appeared a pair of apple-gi-een boots — boots of a pattern
such as no shoemaker of sound mind ever in his wildest dream?
jould have originated, but which in this establishment were
voted rather recherche than otherwise. This lady was no_ other
than the damsel who had suggested an elopement with Richard
some eight years ago, and who claimed for her distuiguished
connections the Poj^e and the muffin-man.
" Well," slie said to the Emperor of the Waterworks, with a
voice and manner which would have been rather absurdly juve-
nile in a girl of fifteen, — " and where has its precious one been
hiding since dinner P Was it the fat mutton which rendered
the most brilHant of mankind unfit for general society ; or was
it that it ' had a heart for falsehood framed ? ' I hope it wag
the fat mutton.''
The Emperar bids adieu to Elba. 171
" It's precious one " looked from the clianner at his side to
Richard, -witli rather an apologetic shrag.
" The sex is weak," he said, " conqueror of Agincoiii-t — I beg
pardon, Waterloo. The sex is weak : it is a fact estabhshed
alike by medical science and poHtical economy. Poor thing !
she loves me."
The lady, for the first time, became aware of the presence of
Richard. She dropped a very low curtesy, in the performance of
which one of the green boots described a complete ch'cle, and said,
" From Gloucestershire, sir ? " inteiTOgatively.
" The Emj)eror NajDoleon Buonaparte," said the proprietor of
the German Ocean. " My dear, you ought to know him."
" The Emperor Nap-o-le-on Bu-o-na-parte," she said very
slowly, checking off the syllables on her fingers, "and from
Gloucestershu-e .P How gi-atifying ! " All our great men come
from Gloucestershire. It is a well-known fact — from Gloucester-
shire ? Muffins were invented in Gloucestershire by Alfred the
Great. Did you know our dear Alfred ? You are perhaps too
young — a great loss, my dear sir, a great loss ; conglomerated
essence of toothache on the cerebral nerves took him oft' in
fourteen days, three weeks, and one month. We tried every-
thing, from dandelions " — (her eyes wandered as if searching
the grounds for information as to what they had tried) — from
dandehons to chevaux-de-frise — "
She stopped abruptly, staring Richard full in the face, as if
she expected him to say something ; but as he said notliing,
«he became suddenly interested in the contemplation of the
^een boots, looking first at one and then at the other, as if
revolving in her mind the probability of then- wanting mending
Presently she looked up, and said with great solemnity —
" Do you know the muffin-man ? "
Richard shook his head.
" He fives in Drury Lane," she added, looking at him ratheL
etemly, as much as to say, " Come, no nonsense ! you know him
well enough ! "
" No," said Richard, " I don't remember having met him."
" There are seventy-nine of us who know the mulfin-man in
this establishment, sir — seventy-nine ; and do you dare to stand
there and tell me that you "
" I assure you, madam, I have not the honour of hia
acquaintance."
"Not know the muffin-man! — you don't know the muffiu-
man ! Wliy, you contemptible stuck-up jackanapes "
What the lady might have gone onto say, it would be difficult
to gnoss. She was not celebrated for the refinement of hei
vocabulary when much provoked ; but at tliis moment a great
stout man, one of the keepers, camo up, and cried out —
172 TJie Trail of tie Serpent.
" Holloa ! what's all this ! "
"He says he doesn't know the muffin-man!" exclahned the
lady, her veil Hying in the wind like a pennant, her arms
akimbo, and the apjsle-green boots planted in a defiant manner
on the gravel- walk.
" Oh, we know him well enough," said the man, with a wink
at Eichard, " and very slack he bakes his muffins." Having
uttered which piece of information connected with the gentle-
man in question, the keeper strolled off, giving just one steady
look straight into the eyes of the Hvely damsel, which seemed
to have an instantaneous and most soothing effect upon her
nerves.
As all the lunatics allowed to disport themselves for an hour
in the gardens of the establishment were considered to be, iipon
the whole, pretty safe, the keepers were not in the habit of
taking much notice of them. Those officials would congregate
in httle groups here and there, talking among themselves,
and apparently utterly regardless of the unhappy beings over
whom it was their duty to watch. But let Queen Victoria or
the Em.peror Nero, Lady Jane Grey or Lord John Russell,
suffer themselves to be led away by their respective hobbies, or
to ride those animals at too outrageous and dangerous a pace,
and a strong hand woidd be laid upon the rider's shoulder,
accompanied by a recommendation to '* go in-doors," which was
very seldom disregarded.
As Richard was this afternoon permitted to mix with his
fellow-prisoners for the first time, the boy from Slopperton was
ordered to keep an eye upon him ; and a very sharp eye tha
boy kejpt, never for one moment allowing a look, word, or action
of the prisoner to escape him.
The keepers this aftei-noon were assembled near the portico,
before which the gardens extended to the high outer wall. The
ground between the portico and the wall was a little less than
a quarter of a mile in length, and at the bottom was the grand
entrance and the porter's lodge. The gardens suiTOunded the
house on three sides, and on the left side the wall ran parallel
witli the river Sloshy. This river was now so much swollen by
the late heavy rains that the waters washed the wall to the
height of four feet, entirely covering the towing-path, which
lay ordinarily between the wall and the waterside.
Now Richard and the Emperor of the Waterworks, accom-
panied by the gushing charmer in the green boots, being all
three engaged m friendly though rather erratic conversation,
happened to stroll in the direction of the grounds on this side,
and consequently out of sight of the keepers.
The boy from Slopperton was, however, close upon their
heels. This young gentleman had his hands in his pockets.
i%e i^mperor bids adieu to Mhd. 173
And was loitering and lounging along mtli an air wlricli seemed
to sa}', tliat neither man nor woman gave liim any more deliglit
than they had afforded the Danish prince of used-up memory
Perhaps it was in ntter weaidness of Ufe that lie was, as if uncon-
sciously, employed in whisthng the melody of a song, supposed
to relate to a j^assage in the life of a young lady of the name
of Gray, christian name Ahce, whose heart it was another's,
and consequently, by pure logic, never could belong to the
singer.
Kow there may be something infectious in this melody ; for
no sooner had the boy from Slopperton whistled the first few
bars, than some person in the distance outside the walls of the
asylum gardens took up the air and finished it. A trifUug
circumstance this in itself; but it appeared to afford the boy
considerable gratification; and he i:)resently came suddenly
upon Richard in the middle of a very interesting conversation,
and whispered in his ear, or rather at his elbow, " All right,
general ! " Now as Eichard, the Emperor of the "Waterworks,
and the only daughter of the Poj^e all talked at once, and aU
talked of entirely different subjects, their conversation might,
perhaps, have been just a little distracting to a short-hand
reporter ; but as a conversation, it was really charming.
Richard — stiU musing on the wild idea which was known in
the asylum to have possessed his disordered brain ever since
.the day of his trial — was giving his companions an account of
liis escape from Elba.
" I was determined," he said, taking the Emperor of the
Waterworks by the button, " I was detemiined to make one
desperate effort to return to my friends in France "
" Very creditable, to be sure," said the damsel of the green
boots ; " your sentiments did you honour-."
" But to escape from the island was an enterprise of con-
siderable difEculty," continued Richard.
" Of course," said the damsel, " considei-ing the price of
flour. Flour rose a halfpenny in the bushel in the neigh-
bourhood of Drury Lane, which, of course, reduced the size of
muffins "
" And had a depressing effect upon the water-rates," inter-
rupted the gentleman.
"Now," continued Richard, "the island of Elba waa
BuiTounded by a high wall "
" A very convenient arrangement ; of course facilitating the
process of cuttiag off the water from the inhabitants,"
muttered the Emperor of the German Ocean.
The boy Slosh again expressed his feelings with reference to
Alice Gray, alid some one on the other side of the wall coincided
with him.
174 The frail of tlie Serpent.
"And," said Eichard, "on the top of this wall was S
chevaux-de-frise."
"Dear me," exclaimed the Emperor, quite a what-you-may-
call-it. I mean an extraordinary coincidence; we too have a
chevanx-de-thing-a-me, for the purpose, I beheve, of keeping
out the cats. Cats are unpleasant ; especially," he added,
thoughtfully, " especially the Tom-sex — I mean the sterner
sex."
"To surmount this wall was my great difficulty."
" IN'aturally, naturally," said the damsel, " a gi'eat tinder-
taking, considermg the fall in muffins — a dangerous under-
taking."
" There was a boat waiting to receive me on the other side,"
said Eichard, glancing at the wall, which was about a hundred
yards distant from him.
Some person on the other side of the wall had got a good
deal nearer by this time ; and, dear me, how very much excited
he was about Alice Gray.
"But the question," Eichard continued, " was how to climb
the wall," — still looking up at the chevaux-de-frise.
" I should have tried muffijis," said the lady.
"I should have cut off the water," remarked the gentleman.
" I did neither," said Eichard; " I tried a rope."
At this very moment, by some invisible agency, a thickly*
knotted rope was thrown across the chevaux-de-frise, and the
end fell within about four feet of the ground.
" But her heart it is another's, and it never oan be mine."
The gentleman who couldn't succeed in winning the affections
of Miss Gray was evidently close to the wall now.
In a much shorter time than the very greatest master in the
art of stenograjDhy could possibly have reported the occurrence,
Eichard threw the Emperor of the Waterworks half-a-dozeu.
yards from him, with such violence as to cause that gentleman
to trip-up the heels of the only daughter of the Pope, and faU in
a heap upon that lady as on a feather bed; and then, with the
activity of a cat or a sailor, clambered up the rope, and dis-
ajopeared over the chevaux-de-frise.
The gentleman outside was now growing indifferent to the
loss of Miss Gray, for he whistled the melody in a most
triumphant manner, keeping time with the sharp plash of his
oars in the water.
It took the Emperor and his female friend some little time
to recover from the effects of the concussion they had experi-
enced, each from each; and when they had done so, they stood
for a few moments looking at one another in mute amazement.
" The gentleman has left the establishment," at last said tha
lady.
The Mmperor hids adieu to Ella. 17S
'• And a braise ou my elbow," muttered the goutlomaii,
rubbing tlie loculity in question.
" Such a very unpoKte manner of leaving too," said the lady.
" His muffins — I mean his manners — have evidently been very
much neglected."
"He must be a Chelsea householder," said the Emperor.
*' The householders of Chelsea are proverbial for bad manners.
They are in the habit of slamming the door in the face of the
tax-gatherer, with a view to injuring the tip of his nose ; and
I'm sure Lord Chesterfield never ad\nsed his son to do that."
It may be as well here to state that the Emperor of the
Waterworks had in early life been collector of the water-rate in
the neighbourhood of Chelsea ; but having unfortunately given
ais manly intellect to drinking, and bemg further troubled with
a propensity for speculation (some people pronounced the word
without the first letter), which involved the advantageous laying-
out of his sovereign's money for his own benefit, he had first lost
his situation and ultimately his senses.
His lady friend had once kept a baker's shop in the vicinity
of Drui-y Lane, and happening, in an evil hour, at the ripe age
of forty, to place her affections on a young man of nineteen,
the bent of whose genius was muffins, and being slighted by
the youth in question, she had retired into the gin-bottle, and
thence had been passed to the asylum of her native country.
Perhaps the inquiring reader will ask what the juvenile
guardian of Richard is doing all this time ? He has been told
to keep an eye upon him ; and how has he kept his trust ?
He is standing, very coolly, staring at the lady and gentle-
man before him, and is apparently much interested in their
conversation.
" I shall certainl}'- go," said the Emperor of the "Waterworks,
ai\fiX a pause, " and inform the superintendent of this proceed-
ing — the superintendent ought really to know of it."
" Superintendent " was, in the asylum, the polite name given
tiie keepers. But just as the Emperor began to shamble off in
the direction of the front of the house, the boy called Slosh
flew past him and ran on before, and by the time the elderly
gentleman reached the porch, the boy had told the astonished
keepers the whole story of the escaj^e.
The keepers ran down to the gate, ca,lled to the porter to
have it opened, and in a few minutes were in the road in front
of it. They hurried thence to the river-side. There was not
a sign of any human being on the swollen waters, except two
men in a punt close to the opposite shore, who appeared to be
eel-spearing.
"There's no boat nearer than that," said one of the men;
17 G ^e Trail of the Berpenl
he never could have reached that in this time if ho had been
the best swimmer in England."
The men took it for granted that they had been informed of
his escape the moment it occurred.
•'He must have jumped slap into the water," said another;
"perhaps he's about somewhere, contriving to keep his head
under."
"He couldn't do it," said the first man who had spoken;
" it's my opinion the poor chap's drowned. They will try these
escapes, though no one ever succeeded yet."
There was a boat moored at the angle of the asylum wall,
and one of the men sprang into it.
" Show me the place where he jumped over the wall," he
called to the boy, who pointed out the spot at his direction.
The man rowed up to it.
•' Not a sign of him anywhere about here ! " he cried.
" Hadn't you better call to those men ? " asked his comrade ;
" they must have seen him jump."
The man in the boat nodded assent, and rowed across the
river to the two fishermen.
"Holloa!" he said, "have you seen any one get over that
waU?" ^ ^ ^
One of the men, who had just impaled a fine eel, looked up
with a suprised expression, and asked —
" Which wall ? "
"Why the asylum, yonder, straight before you."
" The asylum ! Now, you don't mean to say that that's the
asylum; and I've been taking it for a gentleman's mansion
and grounds all the time," said the angler (who wa,s no other
than' Mr. Augustus Darley), taking his pipe out of his mouth. ^^
" I wish you'd give a straight answer to my question,"
eaid the man ; " have you seen any one jump over that wall ;
yes, or nop "
"Then, no!" said Gus; "if I had, I should have gone over
and picked him up, shouldn't I, stupid ? "
The other fisherman, Mr. Peters, here looked up, and laymg
down his eel-spear, spelt out some words on his fingers.
" Stop a bit," cried Gus to the man, who_ was ro^ving off,
"here's my friend says he heard a splash in the water ten
minutes ago, and thought it was some rubbish shot over the
walk" . ,
" Then he did jump ! Poor chap, I'm afraid he must La
drowned."
" Drowned ?"
" Yes ; don't I tell you one of the lunatics has been trying 'j%
escape o\ er that wall, and must have falle»i into the river ?"
Joy and Happiness for Everylo^y. 177
""Wliy didn't yon say so before, tlien ?" said Gus. ""NYliat's
to be done ? Where are there any di-ags ?"
"AVhy, half a mile oif, worse luck, at a public-hotise down
the river, the ' Jolly Life-boat.' "
" Then I'll tell you what," said Gus, " my friend and I will
row down and fetch the drags, while you chaps keep a look-out
about here."
" You're very good, sir," said the man ; " dragging the river'i
about all we can do now, for it strikes me we've seen the last of
the Emperor Kapoleon. My eyes ! won't there be a row about
it with the Board !"
" Here we go," says Gus; "keep a good heart ; he may turn
up yet;" with which encouraging remarks Messrs. Darley and
Peters struck off at a rate which promised the speedy arrival of
the drags.
■^o"-
CHAPTER lY.
TOT AND HAPPINESS FOB, EVEUVBODY.
WirETHEii the drags reached the county asylum in time to be
of any service is stiU a mystery ; but Mr. Joseph Peters arrived
with the punt at the boat-builder's yard in the dusk of the
autumn evening. He was alone, and he left his boat, hia
tridentH, and other fishing-tackle in the care of the men belong-
ing to the yard, and then putting his hands in his pockets,
trudged off in the direction of Little Gulliver Street.
If ever Mr. Peters had looked triumphant in his life, he
looked triumjjhant this evening : if ever his mouth had been on
one side, it was on one side this evening ; but it was the twist
of a conqueror which distorted that feature.
Eight years, too, have done something for Kuppins. Time
hasn't forgotten Kuppins, though she is a humble individual.
Time has touched up Kuppins ; adding a little bit here, and
taking away a little bit there, and altogether producing some-
thing rather imposing. Kuppins has grown. When that young
lady had attained her tenth year, there was a legend current in
little Gulliver Street and its vicinity, that in consequence of a
fatal predilection for gin-and-bitters evinced by her mother
during the infancy of Kuppins, that diminutive person would
never grow any moi'e : but she gave the lie both to the legend
and the gin-and-bitters by outgrowing her frocks at the ad-
vanced age of seventeen ; and now she was rather a bouncing
young woman than otherwise, and had a pair of such rosy
cheeks as would have done honour to healthier breezes than
those of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy.
'iinie had done something, too, forKuppins's shock of hair.
M
HB The Trail of tie Serpent.
for it was now brurtlied, and combed, and dragged, and tortnre<3
into a state not so very far from smoothness ; and it was fui-ther-
more turned up; an acliievement in the hair-dressing line which
it had taken her some years to effect, and which, wlien effected,
was perhaps a httle calculated to remind the admiring beholdei
of a good sized ball of black cotton with a hair-pin stuck
through it.
Wliat made Kuppins in such a state of excitement on this
particular evening, who shall say ? Certain it is that she was
excited. At the first sound of the cHck of Mr. Peters's latch-
key in the door of No. 5, Little Gulliver Street, Kuppins, with a
]■ jilted candle, flew to open it. How she threw her arms round
Mr. Peters's neck and kissed him — how she left a lump of tallow
in liis hair, and a smell of burning in his whiskers — how, in her
excitement she blew the candle out — and how, by a feat of leger-
de-main, or leger-de-liings, she blew it in again, must have
been seen to be sufficiently appreciated. Her next proceeding
was to drag Mr. Peters upstairs into the indoor Eden, which
bore the very same appearance it had done eight years ago.
One almost expected to find the red baby grown up — but it
wasn't ; and that dreadful attack of the mumps from wliich the
infant had suftered when Mr. Peters first became acquainted
with it did not appear to have abated in the least. Kuppins
thrast the detective into his own particular chair, planted herself
m an opposite seat, put the candlestick on the table, snuffed
1 lie candle, and then, with her eyes opened to the widest extent,
evidently awaited his saying something.
He did say something — in his own way, of course ; the fingers
773nt to work. " I've d " said the fingers.
" ' One it," cried Kuppins, dreadfully excited by this time,
" done it ! you've done it ! Didn't I always say you would ?
Didn't I know you would? Didn't I always dream you would,
three times running, and a house on fire? — that meant the
river; and an army of soldiers — that meant the boat; and
eveiybody in black clothes — meaning joy and happiness. It's
come true; it's all come out. Oh, I'm so haj^py !" In proof of
which Ku]>}tins immediately commenced a series of evolutions
of the limbs and exercises of the human voice, popularly known
in ih» neighbourhood as strong hysterics — so strong, in fact,
that Mr. Peters couldn't have held her still if he had tried.
1 'erhaps that's why he didn't try ; but he looked about in every
direction for sometliing cold to put down her back, and finding
nothing handy but the jioker, he stirred her up with that in the
neighbourhood of the spinal marrow, as if she had been a baA
tire ; whereon she came to.
" And where's the blessed boy P" she asked, presently.
Mr. Pet-srs signified upon his fingers that the bleesed boy was
Soy and Happiness for Everylody 179
Btill at the asylum, and that there he must remain till such timo
as he should be able to leave without raising suspicion.
" And to think," said Kuppins, " that we should have seen
the advertisement for a boy to wait upon poor Mr. Marwood ;
»nd to think that we should have thought of sending our Slosh
'/) take the situation ; and to think that he should have been so
clever in helping you through with it ! Oh my !" As Kuppins
horo evinced a desire for a second edition of the hysterics, Mr.
Peters changed the conversation by looking inquiringly towards
a couple of saucepans on the fire."
"Tripe," said Kuppins, answering the look, "and taters,
ll>ury ones;'' whereon she began to lay the sujiper-table.
K uppins was almost mistress of the house now, for the elderly
pi-oprietress was a sufferer from rheumatism, and kept to her
room, enlivened by the society of a large black cat, and such
gossip as Kuppins collected about the neighbourhood in the
course^ of the day and retailed to her mistress in the evening.
So we leave Mr. Peters smoking his pipe and roasting his legs
at his own hearth, while Kuppins dishes the tripe and onions,
and strij^s the floury potatoes of their russet jackets.
Where all this time is the Emperor Napoleon ?
There are two gentlemen pacing up and down the platform of
the Bhmingham station, waiting for the 10 p.m. London express.
One of them is Mr. Augustus Darley ; the other is a man
wrapped in a greatcoat, who has red hair and whiskers, and
wears a pair of spectacles ; but behind these spectacles there are
dark brown eyes, which scarcely match the red hair, any better
than the pale dark complexion agrees with the very roseate hue
of the whiskers. These two gentlemen have come across the
country from a little station a few miles from Slopperton-on-the-
Sloshy.
"Well, Dick," said Darley, "doesn't this bring back old times,
my boy ?"
The red-haired gentleman, who was smoking a cigar, took it
from his mouth and clasped his companion by the hand, and
said —
" It does, Gus, old fellow; and when I forget the share j'OuVo
had in to-day's work, may I may I go back to that place
and eat out my own heart, as I have done for eight years ! "
There was something so very like a mist behind his spectacles.
and such an ominous thickness in his voice, as the red-haired
gentleman said this, that Gus proposed a glass of brandy before
th') train started.
"Come, Dick, old fellow, you're quite womanish to-night, I
declare. This won't do, you know. I shall have to knock up
«ome of our old pals and make a jolly night of it, when we ge4
180 The Trail of tie Serpent
to London ; thongli it will be to-morrow morning if you go oil
in this way."
" I'll tell yon what it is, Gus," replied the red-haired gentle-
man, "nobody who hadn't gone through what I've gone through
^ould tell what I feel to-night. I think, Gus, I shall end by
being mad in real earnest ; and that my release will do what my
imprisonment even couldn't effect — turn my brain. But I say,
Gus, tell me, teU me the truth ; did any of the old fellows — did
they ever tliink me guilty ?"
" Not one of them, Dick, not one; and I know if one of them
had so much as hinted at such a thought, the others would have
throttled him before he could have said the words. Have another
drop of brandy," he said hastily, thrusting the glass into liis
hand ; " you've no more pluck than a kitten or a woman, Dick."
" I had pluck enough to bear eight years of that," said the
young man, pointing in the direction of Slopperton, " but this
does rather knock me over. My mother, you'll write to her,
Gus — the sight of my hand might upset her, without a word of
warning — you'll write and tell her that I've got a chance of
escaping; and then you'll write and say that I have escaped.
AYe must guard against a shock, Gus ; she has suffered too miich
already on my account."
At this moment the bell rang for the train's starting: the
young men took their seats in a second-class carriage; and away
P2>ed the engine, out through the dingy manufacturing towii,
into the open moonlit country.
Gus and Richard light their cigars, and wrap themselves in
their railway rugs. Gus throws himself back and drops off to
sleep (he can almost smoke in Ms sleep), and in a quarter of an
hour he is dreaming of a fidgety j^atient who doesn't like comic
songs, and who can never see the point of a joke ; but who has
three pretty daiighters, and who pays his bill every Christmaa
without even looking at the items.
But Richard Marwood doesn't go to sleep. Will he ever sleep
again ? WUl his nerves ever regain their tranquillity, after the
intense excitement of the last three or four days? lie looks
back — looks back at that hideous time, and wonders at its hope-
iess siiffering — wonders till he is obliged to wrench his mind
away from the subject, for fear he should go mad. How did he
ever eudure it ? How did he ever Uve tlu-ough it ? He had no
means of suicide ? Pshaw I he might have dashed out his braina
against the wall. He might have resolutely refused food, and
so have starved himself to death. How did he endure it. Eight
years! Eight "centuries ! and every hour a fresh age of anguish I
Looking back now, he knows, what then he did not know, that
at the worst — that in his bitterest desjiair, there was a vague
undefined sometliing, so vague and undefined that he did not
The CJieroJcees iaice an Oath. 181
recognise it for itself — a glimmering ray of hope, by the aid of
which alone he bore the dreadful burden of his days ; and with
clasped hands and bent head he renders up to that God from
whose pity came this distant light a thanksgiving, which per-
haps is not the less sincere and heartfelt for a hundred reckless
words, said long ago, which rise up now in his mind a shum^
and a reproach.
Perhaps it was such a trial as this that Richard Marwood
wanted, to make him a good and earnest man. Something to
awaken dormant energies ; something to arouse the better feel-
ings of a noble soul, to stimulate to action an intellect hitherto
wasted ; something to throw him back upon the God he had
forgotten, and to make him ultimately that which God, ia
creating such a man, meant him to become.
Away flies the engine. Was there ever such an open country?
Was there ever such a moonhght night? Was earth ever so
fair, or the heavens ever so bright, since man's universe was
created? Not for Eichard ! He is free; free to breathe that
blessed air; to walk that glorious earth; free to track to his
doom the murderer of his imcle.
In the dead of the night the exjjress train rattles ''nto tbo
Euston Square station; Richard and Gus spring out, and jump
into a cab. Even smoky London, asleep under the moonlight,
is beautiful in the eyes of Daredevil Dick, as they rattle through
the deserted streets on the way to their destination.
CHAPTER V.
THE CUEROKEES TAKE AN OATH.
TirE cab stops in a nan-ow street in the neighbourhood of Drury
Lane, before the door of a small public-house, which announces
itself, in tarnishsd gilt letters on a dirty board, as " The Chero-
kee, by Jim Stilwn." Jim Stilson is a very distinguished pro-
fessor of the no\»le art of self-defence ; and (in consequence of
a peculiar playf...l knack he has with his dexter fist) is better
known to his fr'mds and the general public as the Left-handed
Smasher.
Of course, at this hour of the night, the respectable hostelry
is wrapped in thai repose which befits the house of a landlord
who puts up his shutt^rg and locks his door as punctually as the
clocks of St. Mary-le- Strand and St. Clement Danes strike
the midnight hour. There is not so much as the faintest glim-
mer of a rushhght in one of the upper windows; but for all
that, Richard and Darley alight, and having dismissed the cab,
Gus looks up and down the street to see that it is clear, puts hia
lii»s to the keyhole of the door of Mr, Stilson's hostelry, ani
182 Tlie Trail of the Serpent.
gives an excellent imitation of the feeble miauw of an invalid
member of the feHne species.
Perhaps the Left-handed Smasher^ is tender-hearted, and
nourishes an affection for distressed grimalkins ; for the door ia
softly opened— just wide enough to admit Richard and his friend.
The person who opens the door is a young lady, who has
apparently being surprised in the act of putting her hair in
curl-papers, as she hurriedly thrusts her brush and comb in
among the biscuits and meat-pies in a corner of the bar. She
is evidently very sleepy, and rather inclined to yawn in Mr.
Augustus iDarley's face ; but as soon as they are safe inside, she
fastens the door and resumes her station behind the bar. Theri
is only one gas-lamp ahght, and it is rather diiScult to believe
that the gentleman seated in the easy-chair before an expiiing
fire in the bar-f)arlour, his noble head covered with a red cotton
bandanna, is neither more nor less than the immortal Left-handed
one ; but he snores loud enough for the whole prize-ring, and
the nervous Hstener is inclined to wish that he had made a point
of clearing his head before he went to sleep.
" Well, Sophia Maria," says Mr. Darley, " are they aU up
there ?" pointing in the direction of a door that leads to the
stairs. . , - ■. i
" Most every one of 'em, sir ; there's no gettmg em to break
up, nohow. Mr. Splitters has been and wrote a drama for the
Victoria Theayter, and they've been a-chaffing of him awful
because there's fifteen murders, and four low-comedy servants
that all say, 'No you don't,' in it. The guv'norhad to go up
just now, and talk to 'em, for they was a throwin' quart pots
at each other, playful." ^
" Then I'll run up, and speak to them for a minute," said Gua.
" Come along, Dick." ^
"How about your friend, sir," remonstrated the Smasher a
Hebe; "he isn't a Cheerful, is he, sir?"
" Oh, I'll answer for him," said Gus. " It's aU right, Sophia
Maria ; bring us a couple of glasses of brandy-and-water hot,
and tell the Smasher to step up, when I ring the bell."
Sophia Maria looked doubtfully from Gus to the slumbering
host, and said —
" He'll wake up savage if I disturb him. He's off for his
first sleep now, and he'll go to bed as soon as the place is clear."
"Never mind, Sophia; wake him up when I ring, and send
Viim upstairs ; he'll find something there to put him in a good
temper. Come, Dick, tumble up. You know the way."
The Cheerful Cherokees made their proximity known by such
a stifling atmosphere of tobacco about the staircase as would
have certainly suffocated anyone not initiated in their mysteries.
Gus opened the door of a back room on the first floor, of a much
The Cherokee take an Oath. igg
larger size than the general appearance of the house would have
promised. This room was full of gentlemen, who, in age, size,
costume, and personal advantages, varied as much as it is possible
for any one roomful of gentlemen to do. Some of them were
pkwing billiarils ; some of them were looldng on, betting on the
players ; or more often upbraiding them for such play as, in the
Cheerful dialect, came under the sweeping denunciation of the
Cherokee adjective "duffing." Some of them were eating a
peculiar compound entitled " Welsh rarebit" — a pleasant pre-
paration, if it had not painfully reminded the casual observer
of mustard-poultices, or yellow soap in a state of solution —
while lively friends knocked the ashes of their pipes into their
plates, abstracted their porter just as they were about to imbibe
that beverage, and in like fascinating manner begmled the festive
hour. One gentleman, a young Cherokee, had had a rarebit,
and had gone to sleep with his head in his plate and his eye-
Drows in his mustard. Some were playing cards ; some were
playing dominoes ; one gentleman was in tears, because the double
six he wished to play had fallen into a neighboiiring spittoon,
and he lacked either the moral coui-age or the physical energy
requisite for picking it up ; but as, with the exception of the
sleepy gentleman, everybody was talking very loud and on an
entirely different subject, the effect was Hvely, not to say dis-
tracting.
" Gentlemen," said Gus, " I have the honour of bringing a
friend, whom I wish to introduce to you."
" All right, Gus !" said the gentleman engaged at dominoes,
" that's the cove I ought to play," aud fixing one half-open eye
on the spotted ivory, he lapsed into a series of imbecile impre-
cations on everybody in general, and the domino in particular.
Kichard took a seat at a little distance from this gentleman,
and at the bottom of the long table — a seat sacred on grand
occasions to the vice-chairman. Some rather noisy lookers-on
at the billiards were a little inclined to resent this, and muttered
something about Dick's red wig and whiskers, in connection
with the popular accompaniments to a boiled round of beef.
*' I say, Darley," cried a gentleman, who held a billiard-cue in
his hand, and had been for some time impotently endeavouring
to smooth his hair with the same. " I say, old fellow, I hope
your friend's committed a murder or two, because then Sphttera
can put him in a new piece."
Sputters, who had for four hours been in a state of abject
misery, from the unmerciful allusions to Ms last chef d'ceuvret
gave a growl from a distant corner of the table, where he wag
siceking consolation in everybody else's glass; and as everybody
drank a different beverage, was not improving his state of miiid
thereby.
184 The Trail of the Serpent.
" My friend never committed a murder in hia life. Splitters,
so ho won't di-amatize on that score ; but lie's been accused of one ;
and He's as innocent as you are, who never murdered any thing in
your life but Lindley Murray and the language of your country."
" Who's been murdering somebody ?" said the domino-player,
passing his left hand through his hair, till his chevelure resem-
bled a turk's-head broom. " Who's murdered ? I wish everybody
was ; and that I could dance my favourite dance upon their
graves. Blow that double-six ; he's the fellow I ought to play."
" Perhaps you'll give us your auburn-haired friend's name, .
Darley," said a gentleman with his mouth full of Welsh rarebit ;
" he doesn't seem too brilliant to live ; he'd better have gone to
the ' Deadly Livelies,' in the other street." The " Deadly
Livelies" was the sobriqtiet of a rival club, which plumed itself
on being a cut above the Oherokees. "Who's dead?" muttered
the domino-player. " I wish everybody was, and that I was con-
tracted with to bury 'em cheap. I should have won the game,"
he added plaintively, " if I could have picked up that double-six."
" I suppose your friend wants to be Vice at our next meeting,"
said the gentleman with the billiard-cue ; who, in default of a
row, always complained that the assembly was too quiet for him.
" It wouldn't be the first time if he were Vice, audit wouldn't
be the first time if you made him Chair," said Gus. " Come,
old fellow, tell them you're come back, and ask them if they're
glad to see you P"
The red-haii'ed gentleman at this sprang to his feet, thre\\ off
the rosy locks and the ferocious wliiskers, and looked round at
the Cherokees -with his hands in his pockets.
" Daredevil Dick !" A shout arose — one brief wild huzza,
such as had not been heard in that room — which, as we know,
was none of the quietest — within the memory of the oldest
Cherokee. Daredevil Dick — escaped— come back — as handsome
as ever — as jolly as ever — as glorious a fellow — as thorough-
going a brick — as noble-hearted a trump as eight years ago,
when he had been the hfe and soul of all of them 1 such shaking
of hands ; everybody shaking hands with him again and again,
and then everybody shaking hands with everybody else; and
the billiard- player wiping liis eyes with liis cue ; and the sleepy
gentleman waking up and rubbing the mustard into his drowsy
optics ; and the domino-player, who, though he execrates all
mankind, wouldn't hurt the tiniest wing of the tiniest fly, even
he makes a miraculous effort, picks up the double-six, and mag-
nanimously presents it to Eichaird.
"Take it— take it, old fellow, and may it make you happy !
If I'd played that domino, I should have won the game." Upon
which he executed two or three steps of a Cherokee dance, and
relapsed into the aforesaid imbecile imprecation .s, Lu aoised
The ClieroJcees taJce an Oath. 185
French and English, on the inhabitants of a world not capable
of appreciating him.
It was a long time before anything lit'? quiet conld be re-
stored ; but when it was, Eichai'd addressed the meeting.
" Gentlemen, before the unfortunate circumstance which has
BO long separated us, you knew me, I believe, well, and I am
proud to think you esteemed and trusted me."
Did they ? Oh, rather. They jingled all the glasses, and
broke three in the enthusiastic protestation of an affirmative.
" I need not allude to the unhappy accusation of which T
have been the victim. You are, I understand, acquainted with
the full particulars of my miserable story, and you render me
happy by tliinking me to be innocent."
By tliinking him to be innocent ? By knowing him to be
innocent ! They are so indignant at the bare thought of any-
body beUeving otherwise, that somebody in the doorway, the
Smasher himself, growls out something about a — forcible adjec-
tive — noise, and the pohce.
" Gentlemen, I have this day regained my Hberty ; thanks to
the exertions of a person to whom I am also indebted for my Hfe,
and thanks also to the assistance of my old friend Gus Darley."
Everybody here insisted on shaking hands over again with
Gus, which was rather a hindrance to the speakei-'s progress;
but at last Richard went on, —
"Now, gentlemen, relying on your friendship" (hear, hear !
and another glass broken), " I am about to appeal to you to
assist me in the future object of my hfe. That object will be to
discover the real murderer of my uncle, Montague Harding. In
what manner, when, or where you may be able to assist me in
this, I cannot at present say, but you ai-e all, gentlemen, men of
talent." (More glasses broken, and a good deal of beer spilt
into everybody's boots.) " You are all men of varied expe-
rience, of inexhaustible knowledge of the world, and of the
Ufe of London. Strange thmgs happen every day of our lives.
Who shall say that some one amongst you may not fall, by some
strange accident, or let me say rather by the handiwork of
Providence, across a clue to this at present entirely unravelled
mystery? Pi-omise me, therefore, gentlemen, to give roe the
benefit of your experience; and whenever that experience throws
you into the haunts of bad men, remember that the man I sock
may, by some remote chance, be amongst them ; and that to
find him is the one object of my Ufe. I cannot give you tJie
faintest index to what he may be, or who he may be. He may
be dead, and beyond the reach of justice — but he may live! and
if he does, Heaven grant that the man who has siiftcrcd the
Btigma of his guilt may track him to liis doom. Geutlt!men|
tell me that your hearts go with me,"
186 The Trail of the Serpeni.
They told him so, not once, hut a dozen times; shaking hands
with mm, and pushing divers Uquors into his hand every time.
But they got over it at last, and the gentleman with the biUiard-
cue rapped their heads with that instrument to tranquillize
them, and then rose as president, and said, — ■
" Eichard Marwood, our hearts go with you, thoroughly and
entirely, and we swear to give you the best powers of our in-
tellects and the utmost strength of our abihties to aid you in your
search. Gentlemen, are you prepared to subscribe to this oath ? "
They were prepared to subscribe to it, and they did subscribe
to it, every one of them — rather noisily, but very heartily.
When they had done so, a gentleman emerges from the
shadow of the doorway, who is no other than the illustrious left-
handed one, who had come upstairs in answer to Barley's sum-
mons, just before Eichard addressed the Clierokees. The
Smasher was not a handsome man. His nose had been broken
a good many times, and that hadn't improved him ; he had a
considerable number of scars about hie face, including almost
every known variety of cut, and they didn't improve him. His
comjilexion, again, bore perhaps too close a resemblance to mot-
tled soap to come within the region of the beautiful ; but he
had a fine and manly expression of countenance, which, in liis
amiable moments, reminded the beholder of a benevolent bulldog.
He came up to Eichard, and took him by the hand. It was
no small ordeal of courage to shake hands with the Left-handed
Smasher, but Daredevil Dick stood it hke a man.
" Mr. Eichard Marwood," said he, "you've been a good friend
to me, ever since you wa" old enough — " he stopped here, and
cast about in his mind for the fitting pursuits of early youth —
'• ever since you was .old enough to give a cove a black eye, or
knock your friend's teeth down his throat with a Hght back-
hander. I've known you down stairs, a-swearin' at the bar-
maid, and holdin' your own agin the whole lot of the Cheerfuls,
when other young gents of your age was a-makin' themselves
bad with sweetstuffs and green apples, and callin' it life. I've
known you helj) that gent yonder," he gave a jerk with his
thumb in the direction of the domino-player, " to wrench off his
own pa's knocker, and send it to him by twopemiy post next
mornin', seventeen and sixpence to pay postage ; but I never
know'd you to do a bad action, or to hit out upon a cove as was
down."
Eichard thanked the Smasher for his good opinion, and they
shook hands again.
" I'U teU you what it is," continued the host, " I'm a man of
few words. If a cove offends me, T give him my left between
his eyes, playful ; if he does it agen, I give him my left agen,
mth a meania', and he don't repeat it. If a gent as I hke aoe»
Mr. Peters loses his Clxie. 187
me prond, I feels gi-ateful, aud ^vllen I has a chance I showa
him my gratitude. Mr. Richard Marwood, I'm your friend to
the last spoonful of my claret ; and let the man as murdered
your uncle keep clear of my leit mawley, if he wants to preservo
kis beauty."
CHAPTER yi.
UK. PETEES BELA.TES HOW HE THOUGHT HE HAl h CLUE, AND
HOW HE LOST IT.
A WEEK after the meeting of the Cherokees Richard Marwood
received his mother, in a small furnished house he had taken in
Spring Gai-dens. Mrs. Marwood, possessed of the entire fortune
of her murdered brother, was a very rich woman. Of her large
income she had, during the eight years of her son's imprison-
ment, spent scarcely anything ; as, encouraged by Mr. Josep\
Peters's mysterious hints and vague promises, she had looked
forward to the deliverance of her beloved and only child. The
hour had come. She held him in her arms again, free.
" No, mother, no," he says, " not free. Free from the prison
walls, but not free from the stain of the false accusation. Not
till the hour when all England declares my innocence shall I be
indeed a free man. "VVhy, look you, mother, I cannot go out of
this room into yonder street without such a disguise as a mur-
derer himself might wear, for fear some Slopperton official
should recognise the features of the lunatic criminal, and send
me back to my cell at the asylum."
" My darling boy," she lays her hands upon his shoulders, and
looks proudly into his handsome face, " my darhug boy, these
people at Slopperton think you dead. See," she touched her
black dress as she spoke, " it is for you I wear this. A painful
deception, Richard, even for such an object. I cannot bear to
think of that river, and of what might have been."
" Dear mother, I have been saved, perhaps, that I may make
Bome atonement for that reckless, wicked past."
" Only reckless, Richard ; never wicked. You had always
the same noble heart, always the same generous soul ; von
were always my dear and only son."
" You reniember what the young man says in the pray,
mother, when he gets into a scrai:)e through neglecting Ida
garden and making love to his master's daughter — ' You shall
be proud of your son yet.' "
" I shall be proud of you, Richard. I am proud of you. We
are rich ; and wealth is power. Justice shah, be done you yet,
my darling boy. Yon have friends "
" Yes, mother, good and true ones. Peters — you brought
biai with you 't "
188 The Trail of the Serpent.
"Yes; I persuaded him to resign his situation. I hava
settled a hundred a year on liim for life — a poor return for
what he has done, Richard ; but it was all I could induce Mm
to accept, and he only agreed to take that on condition that
every moment of his hfe should be devoted to your service."
" Is he in the house now, mother ? "
" Yes, he is below ; I will ring for him."
" Do, mother. I must go over to Darley, and take Mm with
me. You must not think me an inattentive or neglectful son ;
but remember that my life has but one business till that man ia
found."
He wrung her hand, and left her standing at the window
watching his receding figure through, the quiet dusky street.
Her gratitude to Heaven for his restoration is deep and
heartfelt ; but there is a shade of sadness in her face as she
looks out into the twilight after him, and tMnks of the eight
wasted years of his youth, and of his bright manhood now spent
on a chimera ; for she tMnks he wiU never find the murderer
of Ms uncle. How, after eigbt years, without one clue by
which to trace Mm, how can he hope to track the real criminal ?
But Heaven is above us all, Agnes Marwood; and in the
dark and winding paths of life light sometimes comes when and
whence we least expect it.
If you go straight across Blackfriars Bridge, and do not
sufier yourself to be beguiled either by the attractions of that
fasMonable transpontine lounge, the " New Out," or by the
eloquence of the last celebrity at that circular chapel some time
sacred to Rowland HUl — if you are not a man to be led away
by whelks and other piscatorial delicacies, second-hand furni-
ture, birds and bird-cages, or easy shaving, you may iiltimately
reach, at the inland end of the road, a locality known to the
inhabitants of the district of Friar Street. Whether, in any
dark period of our ecclesiastical Mstory, the members of tlio
mother church were ever reduced to the necessity of Hviag in
tMs neighbourhood I am not prepared to say. Bat if ever any
of the magnates of the Catholic faith did hang out in this
direction, it is to be hoped that the odours from the soap-
boiler's round the comer, the rich essences from the tallow
manufactory over the way, the varied perfumes from the esta-
blishment of the gentleman who does a thousand pounds a
week in size, to say nothing of such minor and domestic effluvia
as are represented by an amalgamation of red herrings, damp
corduroy, old boots, onions, washing, a chimney on fire, dead
cats, bad eggs, and an open drain or two — it is to be hoped, I
say, that these conflicting scents did not pen^ade 1 he breezes of
Friar Street so strongly in the good old times as they do in
these our later days of luxury and refinement.
Mr. Peters loses his Clict. 189
Mr. Darley's establish nieut, ordinarily spoken oi" as *he
Burgery 2'«>' excellence, was perhaps one of the most pretencling
features of the street. It asserted itself, in fact, with such a
redundancy of gilt letters and gas burners, that it seemed to
say, " Really now, you must be ill ; or if you're not, you ought
to be." It was not a very large house, this establishment of
Mr. Darley's, but there were at least half-a-dozen beUs on the
doorpost. There was Surgery ; then there was Day and Night
(Gus wanted to have Morning and Afternoon, but somebody
told him it wasn't professional) ; then there was besides sur-
gery, day, and night bells, finother brilliant brass knob, inscribed
" Visitors," and a ditto ditto, whereon was engraved " Shoj)."
Though, as there was only one small back-parlour beyond the
shop into which visitors ever penetrated, and as it was the
custom for all such visitors to walk straight through the afore-
said shop into the aforesaid parlour without availing themselves
of any bell whatever, the brass knobs were looked upon rather
in the light of a conventionality than a convenience.
But Gus said they looked like business, especially when they
were clean, which wasn't always, as a coujJe of American gen-
tlemen, friends of Darley's, were in the habit of squirting
tobacco-juice at them from the other side of the way, in the
dusky twilight ; the man who hit the brass oftenest out of six
times to be the winner, and the loser to stand beer all the
evening — that is to say, until some indefinite time on the
following morning, for Darley's parties seldom broke up very
early ; and to let the visitors out and take the morning milk in
7as often a simultaneous proceeding in the household of our
young surgeon.
If he had been a surgeon only, he would surely have been a
Sir Benjamin Brodie ; for when it is taken into account that he
could play the piano, organ, guitar, and violoncello, without
having learned any of those instruments; that he could wi-ite a
song, and compose the melody to it ; that he could draw horses
and dogs after Herring and Landseer ; make more puns in one
Bentence than any burlesque wiiter Hving ; make love to half-a-
dozen women at once, and be believed by evei'y oue of them ;
Bing a comic song, or teU a funny story ; name the winner of
the Derby safer than any prophet on that side of the water ;
and make his book for the Leger with one hand while he wrote
a prescrijition with the other; the discriminating reader will
allow that there was a good deal of some sort of talent or other
in the composition of Mr. Augustus Darley.
In the twilight of this particular autumn evening he is busily
engaged putting up a heap of little packets labelled " Best
Epsom Salts," while his assistant, a very small youth, of a f;ir
more elderly appearance than his master, lights the gas. The
190 The Trait of the Serpeni.
half-glass door that communicates with the Uttle ba')k parlouJ
is ajar, and Gus is talking to some one within.
" If I go over the water to-night, Bell—" he says.
A feminine voice from within interrupts him — " But you
won't go to-night, Gus ; the last time you went to that hon-id
Smasher's, Mrs. Tompkins's little boy was ill, and they sent
into the London Eoad for Mr. Parker. And you are such a
favourite vdth everybody, dear, that they say if you'd only stay
at home always, you'd have the best practice in the neighbour-
hood."
" But, Bell, how can a fellow stay at home night after night,
and perhaps half his time only sell a penn'orth of salts or a
poor man's plaster .P If they'd be ill," he added, almost
savagely, " I wouldn't mind stopping in ; there's some interest
in that. Or if they'd come and have their teeth drawn ; but
they never will : and I'm sure I sell 'em our Infalhble Anti-
toothache Tincture ; and if that don't make 'em have their
teeth out, nothing wiU."
" Come and have your tea, Gus ; and tell Snix to bring his
basin."
Snix was the boy, who forthwith drew from a cupboard under
the counter the identical basin into which, when a drunken man
was brongiit into the shop, Gus usually bled him, with a double
view of obtaining practice in his art and bringing the patient
back to consciousness.
The feminine occupant of the parlour is a young lady with
dark hair and grey eyes, and something under twenty years of
age. She is Augustus Barley's only sister ; she keeps his
house, and in an emergency she can make up a prescrijition — -
nay, has been known to draw a juvenile patient's first tooth,
and give him his money back after the operation for the pur-
chase of consolatory sweetstuffs.
Perhaps Isabel Darley is just a little what very prim young
ladies, who have never passed the confines of the boarding-
school or the drawing-room, might call " fast." But when it
is taken into consideration that she was left an orphan at an
early age, that she never went to school in her life, and that
she has for a very considerable period been in the habit of
associating with her brother's friends, chiefly members of the
Cherokee Society, it is not so much to be wondered at that she
is a Uttle more mascuHne in her attainments, and " go-ahead "
in her opinions, than some others of her sex.
The parlour is small, as has before been stated. One of the
Cherokees has been known to suggest, when there were several
visitors present and the time arrived for their departure, that
they should be taken out singly with a corkscrew. Other
Cherokees, arriving after the room had been filled with visi<"ors.
Mr. Peters loses fits Clue. 191
had 'been heard to advise that somebody should go in first with
a candle, to ascertain whether vitahty could be sustained in the
atmosphere. Perhaps the accommodation was not extended by
the character of the furniture, which consisted of a cottage
piano, a chair for the purposes of dental surgery, a small
Corinthian column supportmg a basin with a metal plug and
chain useful for like purposes ; also a violoncello in the corner,
a hanging bookshelf — (which was a torture to tall Cherokees,
as one touch from a manly head would tilt down the shelves
and shower the contents of Mr. Parley's hbrary on the head in
question, like a literaiy waterfall) — and a good-sized sofa, with
that unmistakable well, and hard back and arms, which distin-
guish the genus sofa-bedstead. Of course tables, chairs, chin?
ornaments, a plaster-of-Paris bust here and there, caricatures on
the walls, a lamp that wouldn't burn, and a patent arrangement
for the manufacture of toasted cheese, are trifles in the way of
furnitii.re not worth naming. Miss Barley's birds, again, though
they did spill seed and water into the eyes of unoffending
visitors, and drop lumps of dirty sugar sharply down upon the
noses of the same, could not of course be considered a nuisance ;
but certainly the compound surgery and back-parlour in the
mansion of Augustiis Darley was, to say the least, a httle too
full of furniture.
\Vhile Isabel is pouring out the tea, two gentlemen open the
shop door, and the bell attached thereto, wliich should ring but
doesn't, catching in the foremost visitor's foot, nearly precipi-
tates him headlong into the emporium of the disciple of
Esculapius. This foremost visitor is no other than Mr. Peters,
and the tall fig«.re behind him, wrapped in a greatcoat, is Dare-
devil Dick.
" Here I am, Gus ! " he cries out, in his own bold hearty
voice ; " here I am ; found your place at last, in spite of the
fascinations of half the stale shell-fisli in the United Kingdom.
Here I am ; and here's the best fiiend I have in the world, not
even excepting yourself, old fellow."
Gus introduces Richard to his sister Isabel, who has been
taught from her cbildhood to look upon the young man shut up
in a lunatic asylum down at Slopperton as the greatest hero,
next to Napoleon Buonaparte, that ever the world had boasted.
She was a little girl of eleven years old at the time of Dick's
trial, and had never seen her wild brother's wilder companion ;
and she looks up now at the dark handsome face with a glance
of almost reverence in her deep gray eyes. But Bell is by no
means a heroine; and she has a dozen unheroine-like occu-
pations. She has the tea to pour out, and in her nervous
excitement she scalds Richard's fingers, drops the sugar into
the Blop-basin, and pours all the milk into one cup of tea.
192 The Trail of tie Serpent.
What slie would have done without the assistance of Mr.
Peters, it is impossible to say ; for that gentleman showed
himself the very genius of order ; cut thin bread-and-butter
enough for half-a-dozen, which not one of the party touched ;
re-filled the teapot before it was empty ; lit the gas-lamp wliich
hung from the ceiling; shut the door which communicated
with the shop and the other door which led on to the staircase ;
and did all so quietly that nobody knew he was doing anything.
Poor Richard ! In spite of the gratitude and happiness he
feels in his release, there is a gloom upon his brow and an
abstraction in his manner, which he tries in vain to shake off.
A small, round, chubby individual, who might be twelve or
twenty, according to the notions of the person estimating her
age, removed the tea-ti'ay, and in so doing broke a saucer. Gus
looked up. " She always does it," he said, mildly. " We're
getting quite accustomed to the sound. It rather reduces our
stock of china, and we sometimes are obliged to send out to buy
tea-things before we can have any breakfast ; but she's a good
girl, and she doesn't steal the honey, or the jujubes, or the
tartaric acid out of the seidlitz-powders, as the other one did ;
not that I minded that much," he continued; "but she couldn't
read, and she sometimes filled up the papers with arsenic foi
fear of being found out; and that might have been inconvenient,
if we'd ever happened to sell them."
" Now, Gus," said Eichard, as he drew his chair up to the
fireplace and lit his pipe — permission being awarded by Bell,
who lived in one perpetual atmosphere of tobacco- smoke — "now,
Gus, I want Peters to tell you all about this affair; how it was
he thought me innocent; how he hit upon the plan he formed
for saving my neck ; how he tried to cast about and find a clue
to the real murderer ; how he thought he had found a clue, and
how he lost it."
" Shall my sister stop while he tells the story ? " asked Gus.
" She is your sister, Gus," answered Eichard. " She cannot
be so unHke you as not to be a true and pitying friend to me.
Miss Darley," he continued, turning towards her as he spoke,
" you do not think me quite so bad a fellow as the world has
made me out; you would like to see me righted, and my name
freed from the stain of a vile crime?"
"Mr. Marwood," the girl answered, in an earnest voice, "I
have heard your sad story again and again from my brother's
lips. Had you too been my brother, I could not, believe me,
have felt a deeper interest in your fate, or a truer sorrow for
your misfortunes. It needs but to look into your face, or hear
your voice, to know how little you deserve the imputation that
uas been cast upon you."
Richard rises and gives her his hand. No languid and lady*
Mr. Peters loses Jiis Clue. 193
like [uessuro, such as would not brush the down off a butter-
fly's wing, but an honest hearty grasp, that comes straight
from the heai-t.
" And now for Mr. Peters's story," said Gus, " while 7 brew
a jugful of whisky-punch."
"■ You can follow his hands, Gus ? " asks Kichard.
"Every twist and turn of them. He and I had many a
confab about you, old fellow, before we went out fishing," said
Gus, looking up from the pleasing occupation of peeling a
lemon.
" Now for it, then," said Richard ; and Mr. Peters accord-
ingly began.
Perhaps, considering his retiring from the Slopperton police
force a great event, not to say a crisis, in his life, Mr. Peters
had celebrated it by another event ; and, taking the tide of his
affairs at the flood, had availed himself of the water to wash
his hands with. At any rate, the digital alphabet was a great
deal cleaner than when, eight years ago, he si3elt out the two
words, "Not guilty," in the railway carriage.
There was something very strange to a looker-on in llie liltle
party, Gus, Richard, and Bell, all with earnest eyes fixed on the
active fingers of the detective — the silence only broken by some
exclamation at inteiwals from one of the three.
" When first I see this young gent," say the fingers, as
}\x. Peters designates Richard with a jerk of his elliow, "I
vas a-standin' on the other side of the way, a-waitiu' till niy
'. iperior, Jinks, as was as much up to his business as a kitting,"
--(]\Ir. Peters has rather what we may call a fancy style of
r rthograjjhy, and takes the final g off some words to clap it on
t") others, as his taste dictates) — " a-waitin,' I say, till Jinks
c hould want my assistance. AVell, gents all— beggin' the lady's
I arding, as sits up so manias with none of yer faintin' nor
'steriky games, as I a'niost forgot she was a lady — no sooner
Jid I clan eyes upon Mr. Marwood here, a-smokin' his pipe, in
Jiuks's face, and a-answerin' him sharj), and a-behavin' wlKvt
you may call altogether cocky, than I says to mj'selt, ' 'rhe;; '\'e
got the wrong un. My fust words and my last ab.ut i'.m
'ere gent, was, ' They've got the wrong un.' "
Mr. Peters looked round at the attentive party with a glance
of triumph, rubbed his hands by way of a full-stop, and wfnt
on with his manual recital.
"For why?" said the fingers, interrogatively, "for why did
I tliink as this 'ere gent was no good for this *ere murder ; for
why did I think them chaps at Slopperton had got on the wrong
Bcent? Because he was cheeky ? Lor' bless your precious ejo;^,
misa" (by way of gallantry he addresses himself here to Isabel),
**unt a bit of it! When a cove goes and cv.ts another cove'g
N
19i The Trail of the Serpent.
tliroat off-tand, it ain't likely he ain't prepared ti cheek a police'
officer. But when I reckoned up this young gent's face, -whtit
was it I seeP Why, as plain, as I see his nose and his moustr-
chios — and he ain't bad off for neither of them," said the fingert-,
parenthetically — "I see that he hadn't done it. Now, a covo
what's screwed up to face a judge and juiy, maybe can face 'em,
and never change a hne of lus mug ; but tliere isn't a cove an
lives as can stand that first tap of a detective's hand upon his
shoulder as teUs him, plain as words, 'The game is up.' The
best of 'em, and the pliTckiest of 'em, drops under that. If they
keeps the colour in their face — which some of 'em has got the
power to do, and none as never tried it on can guess the pain —
if they can do that 'ere, the perspiration breaks out wet and cold
upon their for'eds, and that blows 'em. But this young gent —
he was took aback, he was surprised, and he was riled, and used
bad language; but his colour never changed, and he wasn't once
knocked over till Jinks, unbusiness-like, told him of his uncle's
murder, when he turned as white as that 'ere 'ed of Bon-er-
part." Mr. Peters, for want of a better comparison, glanced in
the direction of a bust of the victor of Marengo, which, what
with tobacco-smoke and a ferocious pair of burnt cork mousta-
chios, was by no means the whitest object in creation.
" Now, what a detective officer's good at, if he's worth his salt,
is this 'ere : when he sees two here and another two there, he
can put 'em together, though they might be a mile apart to any-
body not up to the trade, and make 'em into four. So, thinks
I, the gent isn't took aback at bein' arrested ; but he is took
aback when he hears as howliis uncle's murdered. Now, if he'd
committed the murder, he'd know of it ; and he might sham
surprise, but he wouldn't be surprised ; and this young gent was
knocked all of a heap as genuine as — " Mr. Peters's ideas still
revert to the bust of Napoleon — " as ever that 'ere foiling cove
was, when he sees his old guard scrunched up smaU at the battle
of Waterloo."
" Heaven knows, Peters," said Richard, taking his pipe out
of his mouth, and looking up from his stooping position over the
fire, "Heaven knows you were right; I did feel my heart turn
cold when I heard of that good man's death."
" Well, that they'd got the wrong un I saw was as clear as
dayhght— -but where was the right un? That was the ques
tion. Whoever committed the murder did it for the money it
that 'ere cabinet : and sold agen they was, whoever they was,
and didn't get the money. Who was in the house ? This youn;,-
gont's mother and the servant. I was nobody in the Gardenfora
force, and I was less than nobody at Slopperton ; so get inl i
tliat house at the Black Mill I couldn't. This young gent wag
walked off to jail and I was sent about my business — my orders
Mr. Peters loses his Ghee. 195
bein' to be back in Gardenford that eveuii*', leavni' Sloppcrton
by the tbree-tliirty train. Well, I was a little cut up about tbia
young gent ; for I seed tliat the case was dead agen bim ; the
money in liis pocket — tbe blood on bis sleeve^a cock-and-a-bull
story of a letter of introduction, and a very evident attempt at
a bolt — only enougb to bang bim, that's all ; and, for all that,
I had a inward con^^^ction that be was as binnercent of the
murder as that 'ere plaster-of-Paris stattur." Mr. Peters goes
regularly to tbe bust for comparisons, by way of saving time
and trouble in casting about for fresh ones.
" But my orders," continued the fingers, " was positive, so I
goes down to the station to start by tbe three-thirty; and as I
walks into tbe station-yard, I hears tbe whistle, and sees tbe
train go. I was too late ; and as the next train didn't start for
near upon tlu-ee hours, I thought I'd take a stroll and 'av a look
at tbe beauties of Slopperton. Well, I strolls on, promiscuous
Uke, till I comes to the side of a jolly dirty-looking river ; and
as by tliis time I feels a little dry, I walks on, lookin' about for
a public ; but ne'er a one do I see, till I almost tumbles into a
dingy httle place, as looked as if it did about balf-a-j^int a-day
reg'lar, when business was brisk. But in I walks, past the bar ;
and straight afore me I sees a door as leads into the parlour.
The passage was jolly dark; and this 'ere door was ajar; and
inside I bears voices. AYell, you see, business is business, and
Pleasure is pleasnre; but when a covd takes a pleasure in bis
usiness, be gets a way of lettin' bis business habits come out
unbeknownst when he's takin' his pleasure : so I listens. Now,
the voice I heerd fust was a man's voice ; and, though the place
was a sort of crib such as nobody but navvies or sucb-like would
be in the habit of going to, this 'ere was the voice of a gentle-
man. I can't say as I ever paid much attention to grammar
myself, though I daresay it's very pleasant and arausin' when
you enter into it ; but, for all that, I'd knocked about in tbe
world long enough to know a gent's way of speakin' from a
aawy's, as well as I know'd one tune on the accordion from
another tune. It was a nice, soft-spoken voice too, and quitft
melodious and pleasant to listen to ; but it was a-sayin' some of
the crudest and hardest words as ever was spoke to a wuinun
vet by any creature with tbe cheek to call bisself a man.
You're not much good, my friend, says I, with your lardy-dardy
ways and your cold-blooded words, whoever you are. Yoii're a
ibin chap, vnih. light hair and wbite hands, I know, though I've
never seen you ; and there's very little in tbe way of -wickedness
that you wouldn't be up to on a push. Now, just as I waa
n-tbiukin' this, be said sometbin' that sent the blood up into my
face as liot as fire — ' I expected a sum of money, and I've been
disappointed of it,' he said; and before the gb"l he was a-talkin'
196 The Trail of ilie Serpent.
to could open her lips, lie caught her up sudden — 'Keveryou
Blind how,' he says, ' never you mind how.'
" He erpected a sum of money, and he'd been disappointed of
it ! So had the man who had murdered this young gent's uncle.
" Not much in this, perhaps. But why was he so frightened
at the thoughts of her asting him how he expected the money,
and how he'd bin disappointed ? There it got fishy. At any
rate, says I to myself, I'U have a look at you, my friend ; so in
I walks, very quiet and quite unbeknownst. He was a-sittin'
with his back to the door, and the young woman he was a-talkin'
to was standin' lookin' out of the winder ; so neither of 'em saw
me. He was buildin' up some cards into a 'ouse, and had got
'em up very high, when I laid my hand upon his shoulder sud-
den. He turned round and looked at me." Mr. Teters here
paused, and looked round at the little group, who sat watching
liis fingers with breathless attention. He had evidently come t»
a point in his narrative.
"Now, what did I see in his face when he looked at me?
Wliy, the very same look that I missed in the face of this young
gent when Jinks took him in the mornin'. The very same look
that I'd seen in a many faces, and never know'd it differ, whether
it came one way or another, always bein' the sMue look at bot-
tom — the look of a man as is guilty of what will hang liim and
thinks that he's found out. But as you can't give looks in as
evidence, this wasn't no good in a practical way_ ; but I says to
myself, if ever there was anything certain in this world since it
was begun, I've come across the right un : so I sits down and
takes up a newspajier. I signified to him that I was dumb, and
lie took it for granted that I was deaf as weU — which was one
of those stupid mistakes your clever chaps sometimes faD into
— so he went on a-talking to the girl.
" Well, it was a old story enough, what him and the giil was
talkin' of; but every word he said made him out a more cold-
blooded villain than the last.
•' Presently he ofiered her some money — four sovereigns. She
served him as he ought to have been served, and threw them
every one slap in his face. One cut him over the eye ; and I
Tfas glad of it. 'You're marked, my man,' thinks I, 'and
Tiotliin' could be handier agen I want you.' He picked up three
of the sovereigns, but for all he coiild do he couldn't find the
fourth. So he had the cut (which was a joUy deep un) plas-
tered up, and he went awa.y. She stared at the riveruncomraon
hard, and then she went away. Now I didn't much like the look
ehe gave the river, so as I had about half an hour to spare before
the train started, I followed her. I think she knew it ; for pre-
Bcntly she turned short off into a little street, and when I turned
into it after her she wasn't to be seen right or left.
Mr. Peters loses Ids Clue. 197
**WeTl, I had but half an hour, so I thought it was no use
chasin' this unfoi-tunate young creature through all the twistmga
and turnings of the back slums of Slopperton ; so after a few-
minutes' consideration, I walked straight to the station. Hang
me if I wasn't too late for the train again. I don't know how it
was but I couldn't keep my mind oiF the young woman, nor
keep myself from wonderin' what she was agoin' to do with her-
self, and what she was agoin' to do -svith that 'ere baby. So 1
walks back agen down by the water, and as I'd a good hour and
a half to spare, I walks a good way, tliinking of the young man,
and the cut on his forehead. It was nigh upon dark bjr this
time, and foggy into the bargain. Maybe I'd gone a mile or
more, when 1 comes up to a barge what lay at anchor quite soli-
tary. It was a collier, and there was a chap on board, sittin' in
the" stern, smokin', and lookin' at the water. There was no one
else in sight but him and me ; and no sooner does he spy ma
comin' along the bank than he sings out,
" ' Hulloa ! Have you met a young woman dc wn that way f '
" His words struck me all of a heap somehow, comin' so near
upon what I was a-thinkin' of myself. I shook my head ; and
he said,
" ' There's been some unfort'nate young girl down here tryin'
to dround her baby. I see the Uttle chap in the water, and
fished him out with my boat-hook. I'd seen the girl hangin'
about here, just as it was a-gettin' dark, and then I heard the
splash when she threw the child in ; but the fog was too thick
for me to see anything ashore by that time.'
" The barge was just alongside the bank, and I stepped or.
board. Not bein' so fortunate as to have a voice, you know, it
comes awkward with strangers, and I was rather put to it to get
on with the young man. And didn't he sing out loud when he
came to understand I was dumb ; he couldn't have spoke in a
higher kc" if I'd been a foiriner.
" He tr'ld me he should take the baby round to the Union ; all
he hop-'u he said, was, that the mother wasn't a-goin' to do ajiy-
thing bad with herself.
" i lioped not too ; but I remembered that look of hers when
she stood at the window staring out at the river, and I didn't
feel very easy in my mind about her.
" I took the poor httlc wet thing up in my arms. The young
man had wrapped it in an old jacket, and it was a-cryin' piteous,
and lookin', on, so scared and miserable.
" Well, it may seem a queer whim, but I'm rather soft-hearted
on the subject of babies, and often had a thought that I should
like to try the power of cultivation in the way of business, and
bring a child up from the very cradle to the police detective hue,
to see whether I ccnidn't m^.ke that 'ere child a ornnnient to the
198 The Trail of tie Serpent.
force. I wasn t a maiTyin' man, and by no mcf^ns litely ever tc
'av a family of my own ; so when I took up that 'ere baby in my
arms, somehow or other the thought came into my 'ed of adoplin'
him, and bringin' of him up. So I rolled him up in my great-
coat, and took him with me to Garden ford."
" And a wonderful boy he is," said Eichard; "we'll educate
him, Peters, and make a gentleman of him."
" Wait a bit," said the fingers very quickly ; " thank yoTi
kindly, sir ; but if the police force of this 'ere country wii-a
robbed of that 'ere boy, it would be robbed of a gem as it
pouldn't afford to lose."
" Go on, Peters ; tell them the rest of your story."
" Well, though I felt in my own mind that by one of those
strange chances which does happen in life, maybe as often as
tbcy happen in story-boeks, I had fallen across the man who had
committed the murder, yet for all that I hadn't evidence enough
to get a hearin'. I got transferred from Gardenford to Slopper-
ton, and every leisure minute I had I tried to come across the
man I'd marked ; but nowhere could I see him, or hear of any
one answering his description. I went to the churches ; for I
thought him capable of anything, even to shammin' pious. I
went to the theayter, and I see a you: cr woman accused of
poisonin' a fam'ly, and proved innocent by a )olice cove as didn't
know his business any more than a fly. I went anywhere and
everywhere, but I never see that man ; and it was gettin' uncom-
Tiion near the trial of this young gent, and nothin' done. How
was he to be saved ? I thought of it by night and thought of
\t by day ; but work it out I couldn't nohow. One day I hears
tif an old friend of the pris'ner's being sup-boned-aed as witue? s
for the crown. This friend I determined to see ; for two 'eds " —
Mr. Peters looked round, as though he defied contradiction —
" shall be better than one."
"And this friend," said Gus, "was your hnmble servant;
who was only too glad to find that poor Dick had one sincere
friend in the world who believed in his innocence, besides my-
eelf"
"Well, Mr, Darley and me," resumed Mr. Peters, "put on?
'eds together, and we came to this conclusion, that if this young
gent was mad when he committed the murder, they couldn't
hang him, but would shut him in a asylum for the rest of his
uat'ral life — which mayn't be pleasant in the habstract, but
which is better than hangin', any day."
" So you determined on proving me mad," said Richard.
" We hadn't such very bad grounds to go upon, perhaps, old
feUow," replied Mr. Darley ; " that brain fever, which we thoughi
Buch a misfortune when it laid you up for three dreary weeks,
stood ITS in good stead ; we had something to go upon, for we knew
Mr. Peters loses Ms Clue. 199
we coTild get you off by no other means. But to get yon off thia
way we wanted your assistance, and we didn't hit npon the plan,
till it was too late to get at you and tell you our scheme ; we
didn't hit upon it till twelve o'clock on the night before your
trial. We tried to see .TOur counsel ; but he had that morning
left the town, and wasn't to return till the trial came on. Peters
hung about the court all the morning, but couldn't see him ; and
nothing was done when the judge and jury took their seats.
You know the rest ; how Peters caught your eye "
" Yes," said Dick, " and how seven letters upon his fingers told
me the whole scheme, and gave me my cue ; those letters formed
these two words, ' Sham mad.' "
''Aud very well you did it at the short notice, Dick," said
Gus ; " upon my word, for the moment I was almost staggered,
and thought, suppose in getting u}? this dodge we are only hit-
ting upon the truth, and the poor fellow really has been di'iven
out of his wits by this frightful accusation ? "
"A scrap of paper," said Mr. Peters, on his active fingers,
" gave the hint to your coimsel — a sharp chap enough, though a
young un."
"I can afford to reward him now for his exertions," said
Richard, " and I must find him for that purpose. But Peters,
for heaven's sake tell us about this young man whom you sus-
pect to be the miirderer. If I go to the end of the world in
search of him, I'll find him, and drag liim and his villany to
light, that my name may be cleared from the foul stain it
wears."
Mr. Peters looked very grave. " You must go a little further
Ihan the end of this world to find him, I'm afraid, sir," said the
fingers. " What do you say to looking for him in the next ? for
*,hat's the station he'd started for when I last saw him ; and
I beUeve that on that Une, nith the exception of now and then
a cock-and-a-bnll-lane ghost, they don't give no retura tickets."
" Dead ? " said Richard. " Dead, and escaped from justice P "
" That's about the size of it, sir," replied Mr. Peters. " Whether
he thought as how something was up, and he was blown, or
whether he was riled past bearin' at findin' no money in that
'ere cabinet, I can't take upon myself to say ; but I found liim
six months after the murder out upon a heath, dead, with a
laudanum-bottle a-lying by his side."
" And did you ever find out who he was ? " asked Gus.
" He was a usher, sir, at a 'cademy for young gents, and a
very pious young man he was too, I've heard ; but for all that
he murdered this young gent's uncle, or my name isn't Peters."'
" Beyond the reach of justice," said Richard; " then the truth
can never be brought to hght, and to the end of my days I nmf»t
bear the stigma of a crime of which I am innocent."
TUi: .DUMB DETECTlVIt.
CHAPTER I.
THE COUNT DE MAROLLES AT HOilE.
The denizetig of Friar Street and sucli localities, being iu tli
habit of waking in the morning to the odour of melted tallow
and boiling soap, and of going to sleep at night with the smell
of burning bones under their noses, can of course have nothing
of an external nature in common with the inhabitants of Park
Lane and its vicinity ; for the gratification of whose olfactory
nerves exotics hve short and unnatural lives, on staircases, in
bou loirs, and in conservatories of rich plate-glass and fairy
architecture, where perfumed waters play in gilded fountains
through the long summer days.
It might be imagined, then, that the common griefs and
vulgar sorrows — such as hopeless love and torturing jealousy,
sickness, or death, or madness, or despair — would be also
banished from the regions of Park Lane, and entirely confined
to the purlieus of Friar Street. Any person with a proper
sense of the fitness of things would of course conclude this to
be the case, and would as soon picture my lady the Duchess of
Mayfair dining on red herrings and potatoes at the absiird hour
of one o'clock p.m., or blackleading her own grate ^\ith her own
alabaster fingers, as weeping over tlie death of her child, or
breaking her heart for her faithless liusband, just like Mrs. Stig-
gins, potato and coal merchant on a small scale, or Mrs. Higgins,
whose sole revenues come from " Manghng done here."
And it does seem hard, oh my brethren, that there should be
any limit to the magic jjower of gold ! It may exclude bad airs,
foul scents, ugly sights, and jarring sounds ; it may sun-ound ita
possessors with beauty, grace, art, luxury, and so-called plea-
sure ; but it cannot shut out death or care ; for to these stern
visitors Mayfair and St. Giles's must alike open their reluctant
doors whenever the di'eaded guests may be pleased to call.
You do not send cards for your morning concerts, or fetea
©bampetres, or thos dausantcs, to Son-ow or Sadness, oh nobja
The Count de Marolles at Home. 201
duchesses and coimtesses ; but have you never seen their faces
m the crowd -when you least looked to meet them ?
Through the foliage and rich blossoms in the conservatory,
and through the white damask curtains of the long French
window, the autumn sunshine comes with subdued light into u
boudoir on the second floor of a large house in Park Lane. The
velvet-pile carpets in this room and the bedchamber and dress-
ing room adjoining, are made in imitation of a mossy ground on
which autumn leaves have fallen; so exquisite, indeed, is the
design, that it is difficult to think that the hglit breeze which
enters at the open window cannot sweep away the fragile leaf,
which seems to flutter in the sun. The walls are of the palest
cream-colour, embellished with enamelled portraits of Louis thfl
Sixteenth, Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and the unfor-
tunate boy jirisoner of the Temple, let into the oval panels ol
the four sides of the room. Everything in this apartment,
though perfect in form and colour, is subdued and simple ; there
are none of the buhl and marqueterie cabinets, the artificial
flowers, ormolu clocks, French prints, and musical boxes which
might adorn the boudoir of an opera-dancer or the wife of a
parvenu. The easy-chairs and luxurious sofas are made of a
polished white wood, and are covered with white damask. On
the marble mantelpiece there are two or three vases of the purest
and most classical forms; and these, with Canovo's bust of
Napoleon, are the only ornaments in the room. Near the firc-
2)lace, in which burns a small fire, there is a table loaded with
books, French, English, and German, the newest publications of
the day ; but tliey are tossed in a great heap, as if they had one
by one been looked at and cast aside unread. By this table there
is a lady seated, whose beautiful face is rendered still more
striking by the simplicity of her black dress.
This lady is Valerie de Lancy, now Countess de Marolles ; for
^lonsieur Marolles has expended some part of his wife's fortune
upon certain estates in the south of France which give him the
title of Count de Marolles.
A lucky man, this Eaymond Marolles. A beautiful wife, p.
title, and an immense fortune are no such poor j^rizes in the
lottery of life. But this Raymond is a man who likes to extend
hj"s possessions ; and in South America he has established hini-
Bclf as a liiinker on a large scale, and he has lately come over to
England with his wife and son, for the purpose of estabhshing
a branch of this bank in London. Of course, a man with hiy
aristocratic connections and enormous fortune is respected and
trusted throughout the continent of South America.
Plight years have taken nothing from the beauty of Valei-io
de ]\larolIes. The dark eyes have the same fire, the proud head
the same haughty grace; but aJoce and in repose the face haa a
202 The Trail of the Serpent.
sliadow of deep and settled sadness that is painful to look upon^
for it is the gloomy sadness of despair. The world in ivLIch
this woman lives, which knows her only as the brilliant, wittj-,
vivacious, and sparkUng Parisian, Uttle dreams that she talk:!
because she dare not think ; that she is restless and vivacious
because she dare not be still ; that she hurries from place to
place in pursuit of pleasure and excitement because only in ex-
citement, and in a hfe which is as false and hollow as the mirth
she assumes, can she fly from the phantom which pursues her.
O shadow that will not be driven away ! O pale and pensivo
ghost, that rises before us in every hour and in every scene, to
mock the noisy and tumultuous revelry which, by the rule c>{
opposites, we call Pleasure ! — which of us is free fi-om your
haunting presence, phantom, whose name is The Past P
Valerie is not alone; a httle boy, between seven and eight
years of age, is standing at her knee, reading aloud to her from
a book of fables.
"A frog beheld an ox " he began. But as he read the
lirst words the door of the boudoir opened, and a gentleman
entered, whose pale fair face, blue eyes, hght eyelashes, and
dark hair and eyebrows proclaimed hiin to be the husband of
Valerie.
" Ah," he said, glancing with a sneer at the boy, who lifted
his dark eyes for a moment, and then dropped them on his book
with an indifference that bespoke little love for the new-comer,
" you are teaching your child, madame. Teacliing him to read ?
Is not that an innovation? The boy has a fine voice, and tho
ear of a maestro. Let him learn the solfeggi, and very Hkely
one of these days he ^411 be as gi'eat a man as "
Valerie looks at him with the old contempt, the old icy cold-
ness in her face. " Do you want anything of me this morning,
monsieur ? " she asked.
" No, madame. Having the entire command of your fortune,
what can I ask ? A smde ? Nay, madame ; you keep your
smiles for your son ; and again, they are so cheap in London,
the smiles of beauty."
" Then, monsieur, since you require nothing at my handa,
may I ask why you insult me with your presence P "
" You teach your son to respect — his father, madame," said
Raymond with a sneer, throwing himself into an easy-cha;r
opposite Valei-ie. " You set the future Count de Marolles a
good example. He will be a model of fihal piety, as you are
of "
" Do not fear, Monsieur de Marolles, but that one day I shall
teach my son to respect his father; fear rather lest I teach 1dm
lo avenge "
" Nay, madame, it is for you to feai* that."
The Count de MaroUes at Some. 203
Daring the wlaule of this brief dialogue, the little boy has held
his mother's hand, looking with his serious eyes anxiously in
fier face. Toung as he is, there is a courage in his glance and
a look of firmness in his determined under-Up that promises
well for the future. Valerie turns from the cynical face of hei
husband, and lays a caressing hand on the boy's dark ringlets.
Do those ringlets remind her of any other dai'k hair? Do any
other eyes look out in the light of those she gazes at now ?
" You were good enough to ask me just now, madame, tlia
purport of my visit; your discrimination naturally suggesting
to you that there is nothing so remarkably attractive in the
society to be found in these apartments, infantine lectures in
words of one syllable included" — he glances towards the boy as
he speaks, and the cruel blue eyes are never so cruel as when
they look that way — "as to induce me to enter them without
some purpose or other."
" Perhaps monsieur will be so good as to be bnef in s^:ating
that purpose ? He may imagine, that being entiraJy devoted to
my son, I do not choose to have his studies, or even his amuse-
ments, interrapted."
" You bring n-p young Count Almaviva like a prince, madame.
It is something to have good blood in one's veins, even on one
side "
If she could have killed him with a look of those bright dark
eyes, he would have fallen dead as he spoke the words that
struck one by one at her broken heart. He knew his power ; he
knew wherein it lay, and how to use it — and he loved to wound
lier; because, though he had won wealth and rank from her, he
had never conquered her, and he felt that even in her despair
she defied him.
" You are irrelevant, monsieur. Pray be so kind as to say
what brought you here, where I would not insult your good
sense by saying you are a welcome visitor."
" Briefly then, madame. Our domestic arrangements do not
please me. We are never known to quarrel, it is true ; but we
are rarely seen to address each other, and we are not often seen
in public together. Very well this in South America, where we
were king and queen of our chcle — here it will not do. To say
the least, it is mysterious. The fashionable world is scandalous.
People draw inferences — monsieur does not love madame, and
he married her for her money ; or, on the other hand, madame
does not love monsieur, but married him because she had some
powerful motive for so doing. This will not do, countess. A
oanker must be respectable, or people may be afraid to trust
iiim. I must be, what I am now called, ' the eminent banker;'
er.d I must be universally trusted."
''That you may the better betray, monsieur; thatisthemotiy*
204 The Trail of the Serpent.
for winning people's confidence, in your code of moral economy,
is it not ? "
" Madame is becoming a logician; her argument by inductiou
does her credit."
" But, your business, monsieur ? "
" AYas to signify my wish, madame, that we should be seen
oftener together in 2:)ublic. The Italian Opera, now, madame,
though you have so great a distaste for it — a distaste wliich, by-
the-bye, you did not possess during the early period of your
life — is a very popular resort. All the world will be there to-
night, to witness the debut of a singer of continental celebrity.
Perhaps you will do me the honour to accompany me there ? "
" I do not take any interest, monsieur "
" In the fortunes of tenor singers. Ah, how completely we
outlive the fooUsh fancies of our youth ! But yon will occupy
the box on the grand tier of her Majesty's Theatre, which I have
taken for the season. It is to your son's — to Cherubino's
iuterest, for you to comply with my request." He glances
towards the boy once more, with a sneer on his thin lips, and
then turns and bows to Yalerie, as he says —
" Au revoir, madame. I shall order the carriage for eight
o'clock."
A horse, which at a sale at Tattersall's had attracted the
attention of all the votaries of the Corner, for the perfection o/
his points and the enormous price which he realized, caracoles
bef()re the door, under the skilful horsemanship of a well-trained
and exquisitely-appointed groom. Another horse, eqiially high-
bred, waits for his rider, the Count de Marolles. The groom
dismounts, and holds the bridle, as the gentleman emerges from
the door and springs into the saddle. A consummate horseman
the Count de Marolles ; a handsome man too, in spite of the
restless and shifting blue eyes and the thin nervous lips. His
dress is joerfect, just keeping pace with the fashioii sufficiently
to denote high ton in the wearer, without outstripping it, so as
to stamp him a parvenu. It has that elegant and studious
grace which, to a casual observer, looks like carelessness, bul
which is in reality the perfection of the highest art of all — the
art of concealing art.
It is onl^^ twelve o'clock, and there are not many people of any
standing in Piccadilly this September morning ; but of the few
gentlemen on horseback who pass Monsieur de Marolles, the
most aristocratic-looking bow to him. He is well known in the
great world as the eminent banker, the owner of a superb house
in Park Lane. He possesses a man cook of Parisian renown,
who wears the cross of the Legion of Honour, given him by the
first Napoleon on the occasion of a dinner at Talleyrand's. He
has estates in South America and in France; a fortune, said to
Mr. Peters sees a Ghost. 203
be boundlessf, and a lovely wife. For the rest, if Ms own
patent of nobility is of rather fresh date, and if, as impertinent
pe(^Dle say, he never had a grandfather, or indeed anything in
the way of a father to speak of, it must be remembered that
great men, siuce the days of mythic history, have been cele-
brated for being bom in rather an accidental manner.
But why a banker ? ^\^ly, possessed of an enormous fortune,
try to extend that fortune by speculation P That question lies
between Raymond de Marolles and his conscience. Perhaps
there are no bounds to the ambition of this man, who entered
Paris eight years ago an obscure adventurer, and who, according
to some cc^nunts, is now a milHonaire.
CHAPTER 11.
MR. PETERS SEES A GHOST.
'■1z.. Peters, pensioned off by Richard's mother with an income
oi a hundred pounds a year, has taken and furnished for himself
a small house in a very small square not far from Mr. Darley's
establishment, and rejoicing in the high-soiuiding address of
Wellington Sqtiare, Waterloo Road. Having done this, he feels
that he has nothing more to do in life than to retire uj^on his
laurels, and enjoy the otium cum dlgnitate wliich he has earned
80 well.
Of course Mr. Peters, as a single man, cannot by any possi-
bihty do for himself; and as — having started an establishment
of his own — he is no longer in a position to be taken in and
done for, the best tiling he can do is to send for Kuppins ;
accordingly he does send for Ku|)pins.
Kuppins is to be cook, housi'kceper, laundress, and parlour-
maid aU in one; and she is to have ten pounds per annum, and
her tea, sugar, and beer — wages only known in Slopperton in
veiy high and aristocratic families where footmen are kept and
no followers or Sundays out allowed.
So Kuppins comes to London, bringing the "fondling" with
her ; and arriving at the Euston Square station at eight o'clock
in the eveiiing, is launched into the dazzlingly bewildering gaiety
of the New Road.
Well, it is not jmved with gold certainly, this marvellous cMy;
and it is, maybe, on the whole, just a little muddy. But oh, the
shops — what emporiums of splendour ! What delightful excite-
ment in being nearly run over every minute ! — to say nothing of
that delicious chance of being knocked down by the crowd which
is collected round a drunken woman expostulating with a police-
man. Of course there must be a general election, Gt a great
fire, or a man hanging, or a mad ox at large, or a murder just
committed In the next street, or something won<ierful going on,
20G The Trail of the Serpent.
or theiv. never could be sucli crowds of excited pedestrians, asid
Huch tearing and rushing, and sraasHng of cabs, carts, omni-
buses, and parcel-delivery vans, all of them driven by charioteers
in the last stage of insanity, and drawn by horses as wild as
that time-honoured steed emjjloyed in the artistic and poetical
punishment of our old friend Mazeppa. Tottenham Court
Road ! What a magnificent promenade ! Occiipied, of course,
by the houses of the nobility ! And is that magnihcent establish-
nent with the iron shutters Buckingham Palace or the Tower
of London ? Kuppins inclines to thinking it must be the Tower
of London, because the iron shutters look so warlike, and are
evidently intended as a means of defence in case of an attack
from the French.
Knppins is told by her escort, Mr. Peters, that this is the
emporium of Messrs. Shoolbred, haberdashers and Hnen-
drapers. She thinks she must be dreaming, and wants to be
pinched and awakened before she jDroceeds any further. It is
rather a trying journey for Mr. Peters ; for Kuj^pins wants to
stop the cab every twenty yards or so, to get out and look at
something in this wonderful Tottenham Court Road.
But the worst of Kuppins, perhajjs, is, that she has almost
an insane desire to see that Tottenham Court whence Totten-
ham Court Road derives its name ; and when told that there is no
such place, and never was — leastways, never as Mr. Peters heard
of — she begins to think London, in spite of all its glories, rather
a take-in. Then, again, Kuppins is very much disappointed at
not passing either Westminster Abbey or the Bank of England,
which she had made up her mind were both silsuated at Charing
Cross ; and it was a little trying for Mr. Peters to be asked
whether every moderate- sized church they passed was St. Paul's
Cathedral, or every little bit of dead wall Newgate. To go over
a liridge, and for it not to be London Bridge, but AVaterloo
Bridge, was in itself a mystery ; but to be told that the Shot
Tower on the Sun-ey side was not the Monument was too be-
wildering for endurance. As to the Victoria Theatre, which
was illuminated to such a degree that the box-entrance seemed
as a pathway to fairyland, Kuppins was so thoroughly assured
in her own mind of its being Drury Lane and nothing else, unless,
perhaps, the Houses of Parliament or Covent Garden — that no
protestations on Mr. Peters's fingers could root out the fallacy.
But the journey came to an end at last ; and Kuppins, safe
with bag and baggage at No. 17, Wellington Square, pai-took
of real London saveloys and real London porter with Mr. Peters
and the " fondling," in an elegant front parlour, furnished with
a briJhantly polished but rather rickety Pembroke table, that
was covered with a Royal Stuart j^laid woollen cloth ; half-a-
dozen cane-seated chaii-s, so new and higlily polished as to b*
Mr. Peters sees a Ghost. 207
apt io adhere to the garments of the person wlio flO little Tinder*
stood their nature or properties as to attempt to iiit ajDon then. ;
a Kidderminster carpet, the pattern of which was of the siza
adapted to the requirements of a town hall, but which looked a
little disproportionate to Mr. Peters's apartment, two patterns
and a quarter stretching the entire length of the room ; and a
mantelpiece ornamented with a looking-glass divided into three
compartments by gilded Corinthian pillars, and further adorned
■\vdth two black velvet kittens, one at each corner, and a parti-
coloured velvet boy on a brown velvet donkey in the centre.
The next morning Mr. Peters announced his intention ol
taking the " fondling" into the city of London, for the purpose
of showing him the outside of St. Paul's, tlie Monument,
Punch and Judy, and other intellectual exhibitions adapted to
his tender years. Kuppins was for starting then and there on a
visit to the pig- faced lady, than wliich magnificent creature she
could not picture any greater wonder in the whole metropolis ;
but Kuppins had to stay at home in her post of housekeeper,
and to inspect and arrange the domestic machinery of No. 17,
Wellington Square. So the " fondling," being magnificently
arrayed in a clean collar and a pair of boots that were too small
for him, took hold of his protector's hand, and they sallied
forth.
If anything, Punch and Judy bore oflF the palm in this young
gentleman's judgment of the miracles of the big village.
It was not so subhme a sight, perhaps, as the outside of St.
Paul's ; but, on the other hand, it was a great deal cleaner ; and
the " fondling" would have hked to have seen Sir Christopher
Wren's masterpiece picked out with a little fresh paint bei'ore
he was called iipon to admire it. The Monument, no doubt,
was very charming in thG abstract; but unless he could have
been perpetually on the top of it, and perjietually within a hair's
breadth of precipitating himself on to the pavement below, it
wasn't very much in his way. But Punch, with his dehghtfuUy
original style of elocution, his overpoweringly comic domestic
passages with Judy, and the dolefully funny dog with a frill
round his neck and an evident dislike for his profession — this,
indeed, was an exhibition to be seen continually, and to be more
r.dmired the more continually seen, as no doubt the "fondling"
v.-ould have said had he been familiar with Dr. Johnson, whic.h,
it is to be hoped, for his own peace of mind, he wasn't.
It is rather a trying day for Mr. Peters, and he is not sorry
V. lien, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, he has taken tha
" fondling" all round the Bank of England — (that young gentlo
man insisting on peering in at the great massive windows, in
the fond hope of seeing the money) — and has shown him tha
broad back of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, and tha
20B The trail of Me Serpent.
Clearing-house, and they are going out of Lombard Street, dfl
their way to an omnibus wiiich will take them home. But just
as they are leaving the street the " fondling" makes a dead stoj),
and constrains Mr. Peters to do the same.
Standing before the glass doors of a handsome building,
which a brass plate announces to be the " Anglo- Spanish-
American Bank," are two horses, and a groom in faultless
buckskins and tops. He is evidently waiting for some one
within the bank, and the " fondhug" vehemently insists upon
waiting too, to see the gentleman get on horseback. The good-
natured detective consents; and they loiter about the pavement
for some time before the glass doors are flung open by a white-
neckclothed clerk, and a gentleman of rather foreign appeai-anco
emerges therefrom.
There is notlaing particularly remarkable in this gentleman.
The fit of his pale lavender gloves is certainly exquisite ; the
style of his dress is a recommendation to his tailor ; but what
there is in his appearance to occasion Mr. Peters's holding on to
a lamp-post it is difficult to say. But Mr. Peters did certainly
chng to the nearest lamp-post, and did certainly turn as white
as the whitest sheet of paper that ever came out of a stationer's
shop. The elegant-looking gentleman, who was no other than
the Count de MaroUes, had better occupation for his bright blue
eyes than the obsei-vation of such small deer as Mr. Peters and
the " fondUng." He mounted his horse, and rode slowly away,
quite unconscious of the emotion his appearance had occasioned
in the breast of the detective. No sooner had he done so, than
Mr. Peters, relinquishing the lamp-post and clutching the aston-
ished " fondling,'" darteei after lum. In a moment he was in
the crowded thoroughfare before Guildhall. An em]->ty cab
passed close to them. He hailed it with frantic gesticuhitions,
and sjjrang in, still holding the " fondling." The Count de
MaroUes had to rein-in his horse for a moment from the pi"ess of
cabs and omnibuses ; and at Mr. Peters's direction the " fond-
hng" pointed him out to the cabman, with the emphatic injunc-
tion to " follow that gent, and not to lose sight of him nohow."
The charioteer gives a nod, cracks his whij), and driv(:s slowly
after the equestrian, who has some difficulty in making his wty
through Cheapside. The detective, whose comj^lexion still wears
a most striking affinity to writing-paper, looks out of the win-
dow, as if he thought the horseman they are following would
melt into thin air, or go down a trap in St. Paul's Churchyard,
The " fondling " follows his protector's eyes with his eyes, then
looks back at Mr. Peters, and evidently does not know what t;j
make of the business. At last liis patron di-aws his head in at
the window, and expresses himself upon his fingers tlics —
" Hq-x can it be him, when he's dead ? "
Mr. Peter* sees a Ghosi. 209
Tliis is beyond the "fondlmg's" comprehension, who evidently
doesn't understand the drift of the query, and as evidently
doesn't altogether like it, for he says,
" Don't ! Come, I say, don't, now."
" How can it be him," continues Mr. Peters, enlarging upon
the question, " when I found him dead myself out upon that
there heath, and took him back to the station, and atterwarJs
see hiin buried, which would have been between four cross roadd
M-ith a stake druv' through him if he'd poisoned himself fifty
years ago ? **
Tills rather obscure speech is no more to the " fondUng's" Uking
than the last, for he cries out more energetically than before,
" I say, now, I tell you I don't Uke it, father. Don't you try
it on now, please. What does it mean ? Who's been dead fifty
years ago, mth a stake druv' through 'em, and four cross roads
on a heath? Who?"
Mr. Peters puts liis head out of the ^vindow, and directing the
attention of the " fondling " to the elegant equestrian they are
ibllo%ving, says, emphatically, upon his fingers,
"Him!"
"Dead, is he?" said the "fondling," clinging very close to
his adopted parent. " Dead! and very well he looks, considerin';
but," he continued, in an awful and anxious whisper, " where's
the stake and the four cross roads as was druv' through him?
Does he wear that 'ere loose coat to hide 'em? "
Mr. Peters didn't answer this inquiry, but seemed to be mmi-
nating, and, if one maybe allowed the expression, thought aloud
ujjon his fingers, as it was his habit to do at times.
" There couldn't be two men so much aHke, surely. That one
I found dead was the one I saw at the public talkiu' to the
young woman ; and if so, this is another one, for that one was
dead as sure as eggs is eggs. When eggs ceases to be eggs,
which," continued Mr. Peters, discoursively, "considerin' they're
felhn' at twenty for a shilling, French, and dangerous, if you're
rot partial to young parboded chickens, is not likely yet awhile,
why, then, that one I found on the heath will come to life again."
The " fondling " was too busy stretching his neck out of the
Viindow of the cab, in his eagerness to keep bis eye upon the
(.!ouut de MaroUes, to pay any attention to Mr. Peters's fingers.
The outside of St. Pauls, and the performance of Punch and
Judy, _wei-« very well in their way, but they were mild dissipa-
tions indeed, comi)ared to the delight of following a ghosii
which had had a stake driven through his phantasmal form and
v/oi'e lavender kid gloves.
■"There was one thang," continued the musing detective,
" which struck me as curious, when I found the body of that
yonng gent. Where was the scar from the Hovering as that
O
210 The Trail of the Serpent.
young womau tlirowed at him ? Why nowheres ! Not a trace
of it to be seen, which I looked for it particular ; and yet that
cut wasn't one to leave a scar that would wear out in six months,
nor yet in six years either. I've had my face scratched myself,
though I'm a single man, and I know what that is to last, and
the awkwardness one has to go through in saying one's been
playing with spiteful kittens, and such-Uke. But what's that
to a cut half a inch deep from the sharp edge of a sovering ?
If I could but get to see his forehead. The cut was just over
his eyebrow, and I could see the mark of it with his hat on."
While Mr. Peters abandons himsolf to such reflections as these,
the cab drives on and follows the Count de MaroUes down Lud-
gate Hill, through Fleet Street and the Strand, Chaiing Cross
and Pall Mall, St. James's Street and Piccadilly, till it comes up
with him at the corner of Park Lane.
"This," says Mr. Peters, "is where the swells hve. Very
hkely he hangs out here ; he's a-ridin' as if he was goin' to stop
presently, so we'll get out." WhereuiDon the " fondling" inter-
pj\}ts to the cabman Mr. Peters's wish to that effect, and they
alight from the vehicle.
The detective's surmise is correct. The Count stops, gets off
his horse, and throws the reins to the groom. It happens at
this very moment that an open can-iage, in which two ladies are
seated, passes on its way to the Grosvenor Gate. One of the ladies
bows to the South- American banker, and as he Ufts his hat in
returning her salute, Mr. Peters, who is looking at nothing par-
ticular, sees very distinctly the scar which is the sole memorial
of that public-house encounter on the banks of the Sloshy.
As Raymond throv/s the reins to the groom he says, " I shall
not ride again to-day, Curtis. Tell Morgan to have the Coun-
tess's carriage at the door at eight for the opera."
Mr. Peters, who doesn't seem to be a person blest with the
faculty of hearing, but who is, to all appearance, busily engageJ
in drawing the attention of the " fondling" to the architectural
beauties of Grosvenor Gate, may nevertheless take due note ol
this remark.
The elegant banker ascends the steps of his house, at the hall-
tloor of which stand gorgeous and obsequious flunkeys, whose
liveries and legs alike fill with admiration the juvenile mind of
the "fondling."
Mr. Peters is very grave for some time, as they walk away ;
but at last, when they have got halfway down Piccadilly, he has
recourse once more to his fingers, and addresses his young
friend thus:
" What did you think of him. Slosh P"
"Which," says the "fondling;" "the cove in the w-l velvet
breeches as opened the door, or the swell ghost P "
Mr. Peters sees a Ghost. 211
"ThesweU.''
" AYell, I tliink he's uncommon handsome, and very easy in
hia manners, all tilings taken into consideration," said that
elderly juvenile with dehberation.
" Oh, you do, do you. Slosh? "
Slosh repeats that he does.
Mr. Peters's gravity increases every moment. " Oh, you do,
do you. Slosh ? " he asks again, and again the boy answers.
At last, to the considerable inconvenience of the passers-by,
the detective makes a dead stop, and says, " I'm glad you think
him han'some. Slosh ; and I'm glad you thinks him easj%
which, all tilings considered, he is, uncommon. In fact, I'm
glad he meets your views as far as personal appearance goes,
because, between you and me, Slosh, that man's your father."
It is the boy's turn to hold on to the lamp-post now. To
have a ghost for a father, and, as Slosh afterwards remarked,
" a ghost as wears polishy boots, and lives in Park Lane, too,"
was enough to take the breath out of any boy, however preter-
naturally elderly and superhumanly sharp his police-office
experiences may have made him. On the whole, the " fond-
ling " bears the shock very well, shakes oif the effect of the
infoi'mation, and is ready for more in a minute.
" I wouldn't have you mention it just now, you know,
Slosh," continues Mr. Peters, "because we don't know what
he may turn out. and whether he may quite answer our jjurpose
in the parental line. There's a little outstanding matter between
me and him that I shall have to look him up for. I may want
j-our help ; and if I do, you'll give it faithful, won't you. Slosh ?"
" Of course I will," said that young gentleman. " Is there
any reward out for him, father?" He always called Mr.
Peters father, and wasn't pi'epared to change his habit i'l
deference to any ghostly phenomenon in the way of a parent
suddenly turning up in Lombard Street. " Is there any rewar 1
out for him ? " he asks, eagerly ; " bankers is good for some-
thing in the levanting line, I know, nowadays."
Tlie detective looked at the boy's sharp thin features with .-i
Bcriitinisiiig glance common to men of his profession.
"Then you'll serve me faithful, if I want you. Slosh? 1
thought perhaps you might let family interests interfere with
business, you know."
" Not a bit of it," said the youthful enthusiast. " I'd han;^
my grandmother for a sovering, and the pride of catching he:-,
if she was a downy one."
" Cliips of old blocks is of the same wocd, and it's only
reasonable there should be a similarity in the grain," mused
^fr. Petez's, as he and the " fondling" rode home in an oniiiibns,
I thouj,'ht J'd make him a genius, but I didn't know tbero
w
212 The Trail of tic Serpent.
was such a nnder-eurrent of liis father. It'll mai.€ him the
glory of his profession. Soft-heartedness has been the ruin of
many a detective as has had the braias to work out a deep-laid
game, but not the heart to carry it through."
CHAPTER III.
THE CHEUOKEES MAUK THEER KAN".
Her Majesty's Theatre is pecuHarly brilliant this evening.
Diamonds and beauty, in tier above tier, look out from the
amber-curtained boxes. The stalls are full, and the pit in
crammed. In fop's alley there is scarcely standing room;
indeed, one gentleman remarks to another, that if Pande-
monium is equally hot and crowded, he will turn Methodist
l^arson in his old age, and give his mind to drinkmg at tea-
meetings.
The gentleman who makes this remark is neither more nor
less than a distinguished member of the " Cheerfuls," tho
domino-player alluded to some chapters back.
He is standing talking to Eicliard ; and to see liim now, with
an opera-glass in his hand, his hair worn in a manner conform-
ing with the usages of society, and only in a modified degree
suggesting that celebrated hero of the Newgate calendar and
modern romance, Mr. John Sheppard, a dress-coat, patent
leather boots, and the regulation white waistcoat, you would
think he had never been tipsy or riotous in his life.
This gentleman is Mr. Percy Cordonner. All the Cherokees
are more or less Uterary, and all the Cherokees have, more or
less, admission to every place of entertainment, from Hef
Majesty's Theatre to the meetings of the members of the
" P.R." But what brings Eichard to the Opera to-night ? and
who is that not very musical-looking little gentleman at his
elbow ?
" Will they all be here ? " asked Dick of Mr. Cordonner.
" Every one of them; unless SpHtters is unable to tear him-
self away from his nightly feast of blood and blue fire at the
Vic. His piece has been performed fourteen times, and it's ray
belief he's been at every representation ; and that he tears his
hair when the actors leave out the gems of the dialogue and
dxo]) their h's. They do drop their h's over the water," he
continues, lapsing into a reverie; "when our compositors are
short of type, they go over and sweep them up."
"You're sure they'll be here, then, Percy ? "
" Every one of them, I tell you. I'm whipper-in. They're
to meet at the oyster shop in the Hay market ; you know tht
place, where there's a pretty girl and fresh Colchesters, don't
The GlieroJceea mark their Man. 213
charge you anytliing extra for the lemon, and jou can squeezd
her hand when she gives you the change. They're sure to come
in here two at a time, and put their mark upon the gentleman
in question. Is he in the house yet, old fellow ? "
Richard turns to the quiet httle man at his elbow, who is oui
old friond LIr. Peters, and asks him a question : he only shakes
his head m reply.
" No, he's not here yet," says Dick ; " let's have a look at
the stage, and see what sort of stuif this Signer Mosquetti is
made of."
"I shall cut liim up, on principle," says Percy; "and the
better he is, the more I shall cut him up, on another principle."
There is a great deal of curiosity about tliis new tenor of
continental celebrity. The opera is the Lucia, and the appear-
ance of Edgardo is looked fonvard to with anxiety. Presenth^
the hero of the square-cut coat and jack-boots enters. He is
a handsome fellow, with a dark southern face, and an easy
insouciant manner. His voice is melody itself; the rich notes
roll out in a Hood of sweetness, without the faintest indication
ot effort. Though Richard pretends to look at the stage, though
jjerhaps he does try to direct his attention that way, his pale
face, his wandering glance, and his restless under-lip, show him
to be greatly agitated. He is waiting for that moment when
the detective shall say to him, " There is the murderer of jonr
imcle. There is the man for whose guilt you have suffered, and
must suff'er, till he is brought to justice." The first act of thi'.
opera seemed endless to Daredevil Dick ; while his philoso-
1)hical friend, Mr. Cordonner, looked on as coolly as he would
lave done at an earthquake, or the end of the world, or any
other trifling event of that nature.
The curtain has fallen upon the first act, when Mr. Peters
lays his hand on Richard's arm and points to a box on the
grand tier,
A gentleman and lady, and a little boy, have just taken their
seats. The gentleman, as becomes him, sits with his back to
f !ie stage and faces the house. He lifts his opera-glass to take
ii leisurely survey of the audience. Percy puts his glass into
liichard's hand, and with a hearty "Courage, old boy!"
watches him as he looks for the first time at his deadliest
I iiemy.
And is that calm, aristocratic, and serene face the face of a
murderer? The shifting blue eyes and the thin arched lips
are not discernible from this distance ; but through the glasa
the general effect of the face is very plainly seen, and there is
no fear that Richard will fail to know its owner again, when-
ever and wherever he may meet him.
^rr. Cordonner, after a deliberate inspection of the personal
21^ The Trail of the Serpent.
attractions of the Count de MaroUes, remarks, -with less respect
than indifference,
" Well, the beggar is by no means bad-looking, but he looks
a determined scoundrel. He'd make a first-rate light-comedy
■villain for a Porte- St.-Martin drama. I can imagine him in
Hessian boots poisoning all his relations, and laaghing at the
police when they come to arrest him."
" Shall you know him again, Percy ? " asks Hichard.
" Among an army of soldiers, every one of them dressed in
the same uniform," replies his friend. " There's something
unmistakable about that pale thin face. I'll go and bring the
other fellows in, that they may all be able to swear to him
when they see him."
In groups of two and three the Cherokees strolled into the
pit, and were conducted by Mr. Cordonner — who, to serve a
friend, could, on a push, be almost active — to the s^jot where
Richard and the detective stood. One after another they took
a long look, through the most powerful glass they could select,
at the tranquil features of Victor de Marolles.
Little did that gentleman dream of this amateur band of
police, formed for the special purpose of the detection of the
crime he was supposed to have committed.
One by one the " Cheerfuls" register the Count's handsome
face upon their memories, and with a hearty shake of the hand
each man declares his willingness to serve Richard whenever
and wherever he may see a chance, however faint or distant, of
so doing.
And all this time the Count is utterly unmoved. Not quite
80 unmoved though, when, in the second act, he recognizes in
the Edgardo — the new tenor, the hero of the night — his old
acquaintance of the Parisian Italian Opera, the chorus-singer
and mimic. Monsieur Paul Moucee. This skilful workman does
not care about meeting with a tool which, once used, were better
thrown aside and for ever done away with. But this Signor
Paolo Mosquetti is neither more nor less than the slovenly, j^etit-
verre-drinking, domino-playing chorus- singer, at a salary of
thirty francs a-week. His genius, which enabled him to sing
an aria in perfect imitation of the fashionable tenor of the day,
has also enabled him, with a little industry, and a little less
wine-drinking and gambling, to become a fashionable tenor
himself, and Milan, Naples, Vienna, and Paris testify to his
triumphs.
And aU this time Valerie de Marolles looks on a stage such
lis that on which, years ago, she so often saw the form she loved.
That faint resemblance, that likeness in his walk, voice, and
raanner, which Moucee has to Gaston de Lancy strikes her very
forcibly. It is no great likeness, except when the mimic 10
Tlie dieroTcees marh tlieir Man. 215
bint on representing the man he resembles ; then, indeed, as
we know, it is remarkable. But at any time it is enough to
strike a bitter pang to this bereaved and remorsefai heart, which
in every dream and every shadow is only too apt to recall that
anforgotten past.
The Cherokees meanwliile express their sentiments pi-etty
freely about Monsieur Raymond de Marolles, and discuss divers
schemes for the bringing of him to justice. Splitters, whose
experiences as a dramatic writer suggested to him every pos-
sible kind of mode but a natural one, proposed that Richard
should wait iipon the Count, when convenient, at the hour of
midnight, disguised as his uncle's ghost, and confound the
villain in the stronghold of his crime — meaning Park Lane.
This sentence was verbatim from a playbill, as well as the
whole verjr available idea; Mr. Splitters's notions of justicfi
being entirely confined to the retributive or poetical, in the
person of a gentleman with a very long speech and two pistols.
" The Smasher's outside," said Percy Cordonner. " He
wants to have a look at our friend as he goes out, that he may
reckon him up. You'd better let him go into the Count's
peepers with his left, Dick, and damage his beauty ; it's the
best chance you'll get."
" No, no ; I tell you, Percy, that man shall stand where I
stood. That man shall drink to the dregs the cup I drank,
when I stood in the criminal dock at Slopperton and saw every
eye turned towards me with execration and horror, and knew
that my innocence was of no avail to sustain me in the good
opinion of one creature who had known me from my vciy
boyhood."
"Except the ' Cheerfula,' " said Percy. "Don't forget the
' Cheerfuls.' "
" "When I do, I shall have forgotten all on this side of the
grave, you may depend, Percy. No ; I have some firm friends,
on earth, and here is one ; " and he laid his hand on the
ehoulder of Mr. Peters, who still stood at liis elbow.
The opera was concluded, and the Count de Marolles and his
lovely wife rose to leave their box. Richard, Percy, Splitters,
two or three more of tlie Cherokees, and Mr. Peters left the pit
at the same time, and contrived to be at the box-entrance before
Raymond's party came out.
At last the Count de Marolles' carriage was called ; and a
it drew up, Raymond descended the steps with his wife on hiis
arm, lier httle boy clinging to her left hand.
" She's a splendid creature," said Percy ; " but there's a spice
of devilry in those glorious dark eyes. I wouldn't be her hus-
band for a trifle, if I happened to offend her."
As the Count and Countess crossed from the doors of the
216 Tlie Trail of the Serpent.
opera-house to their carriage, a drunken man came reeling past^
and before the servants or policemen standing by could inter-
fere, stumoled against Raymond de Marollcs, and in so doing
knocked his hat off. He picked it up immediately, and, mut-
tering some uninteUigible apology, returned it to Raymond,
looking, as he did so, very steadily in the face of M. de Marolles.
The occurrence did not occupy a moment, and the Count was
too finished a gentleman to make any disturbance. This man
was the Smasher.
As the carriage drove off, he joined the group under the
colonnade, perfectly sober by this time.
" I've had a jolly good look at him, Mr. Marwood," he said,
"and I'd swear to him after forty rounds in the ring, which i^
apt sometimes to take a httle of the Ciij^id out of a gent. He'?"
not a bad-looking cove on the whole, and looks game. He'.-s
rather slight built, but he might make that up in science, and
dance a pretty tidy quadrille round the chap he was put un
agin, bein' active and Hssom. I see the cut upon his forehead,
Mr. Peters, as you told me to take notice of," he said, address-
iug the detective. " He didn't get that in a fair stand-up fighl ,
leastways not from an Englishman. When you cross the water
for your antagonist, you don't know what you may get."
" He got it from an Englishwoman, though," said Richard.
" Did he, now ? Ah, that's the worst of the softer sect ; you
see, sir, you never know where they'll have you. They're awful
deficient in science, to be sure; but, Lord bless you, they mak(!
it up with the will," and the Left-handed one rubbed his nose.
He had been married during his early career, and was in the
habit of saying that ten rounds inside the ropes was a trifle
compared with one round in your own back-parlour, when your
missus had got your knowledge-box in chancery against tlio
corner of the mantelpiece, and was marking a dozen different
editions of the ten commandments on your complexion with he?
bunch of fives.
"Come, gentlemen," said the hospitable Smasher, "what do
you say to a Welsh rarebit and a bottle of bitter at my place ?
We're as full as we can hold down stairs, for the Finsbury
Fizzer's trainer has come up from Newmarket ; and his backcvs
is hearin' anecdotes of his doings for the last interesting week.
They talk of dropping down the river on Tuesday for the great
event between him and the Atlantic Alligator, and the excite-
ment's tremenjous ; our barmaid's hands is blistered with work,
ing at the engines. So come round and see the game, gentlemen;
and if you've any loose cash you'd like to put upon the Fizzer
I can get you decent odds, considerin' he's the favourite."
Richard shook his head. He would go home to his mother,
he said ; he wanted to talk to Peters about the day's work. Ha
The Captain., the Chemist., and ilie Lascar. 217
sliook hands heartily with his frieuda, and as they strolled oS
to the Smasher's, walked with them as far as Charing Cross..
and left them at the comer that led into quiet Spring Gardens.
In the club-room of the Cherokees that night the members
renewed the oath they had taken on the night of Eichard'.i
arrival, and formally inaugurated themselves as "Daredevil
Dick's secret pohce."
CHAPTER IV.
IlIE CA-PTAIN, rUE (JHEM.IST, AXD THE LA3CAK.
In the drawing-room of a honse in a small street leading ont
of Regent Street are assembled, the morning after tliis opera-
hoxise recontre, tlu-ee people. It is almost difficult to imagine
three persons more dissimilar than those who compose this little
group. On a sofa near the open window, at which the autumn
breeze comes blowing in over boxes of dusty London flowers,
reclines a gentleman, whose bronzed and bearded face, and the
mihtary style even of the loose morning undress which he wears,
proclaim him to be a soldier. A very handsome face it is, this
soldier's, although darkened not a little by a tropical sun, and a
good ieal shrouded by the thick black moustache and beard
which conceal the expression of the mouth, and detract from the
individuality of the face. He is smoking a long cherry-stemmed
pipe, the bowl of which rests on the floor. A short distance
from the sofa on which he is Ipng, an Indian servant is seated
on the carpet, who watches the bowl of the pipe, ready to re-
plenish it the moment it fails, and every now and then glances
upv/ard to the grave face of the officer with a look of unmistak-
able a.^'ec-lion in his soft black eyes.
Tlie third occupant of the httle drawing-room is a pale, thin,
studious-looking man, who is seated at a cabinet in a corner
away from the window, amongst papers and books, which are
heaped in a chaotic pile on the floor about him. Strange books
■md papers these are. Mathematical charts, inscribed with
ligures such as perhaps neither Newton or Leplace ever dreamed
of. Volumes in old worm-eaten bindings, and written in strango
languages long since dead and forgotten upon this earth ; but
they all seem familiar to this pale student, whose l:)lue spectacles
Ijend over pages of crabbed Arabic as intently as the eyes of a
boarding-school miss who devours the last volume of the last
new novel. Now and then he scratches a few figures, or a sign
in algebra, or a sentence in Ai-abic, on the paper befoi-e him, and
then goes back to the book again, never looking up towards the
•moker or his Hindoo attendant. Presently the soldier, as he
218 The Trail of the Serpent.
relinquishef his pipe to the Indian to be replenished breaks the
silence.
" So the great people of London, as well as of Paris, are
beginning to believe in you, Laurent? " he says.
The student Ufts his head from his work, and turning the blue
ip'jctacles towards the smoker, says in his old unimpassioned
manner—
"How can they do otherwise, when I tell them the truth?
Tliese," he points to the pile of books and papers at his side,
" do not err : they only want to be interpreted rightly. 1 may
have been sometimes mistaken — I have never been deceived."
" You draw nice distinctions, Blurosset."
" Not at all. If I have made mistakes in the course of my
career, it has been from my own ignorance, myownpowerlessnesa
to read these aright ; not from any shortcoming in the things
themselves. I tell you, they do not deceive."
" But will you ever read them aright ? Will you ever fathom
to the very bottom this dark gulf of forgotten science ? "
" Yes, I am on the right road. I only pray to hvc long
enough to reach the end."
"And then ?"
" Then it wiU be within the compass of my own will to live
for ever."
" Pshaw ! The old story — the old delusion. How strange
that the wisest on this earth should have been fooled by it ! "
" JMake sure that it is a delusion, before you say tliey were
fooled by it. Captain."
" Well, my dear Blurosset, Heaven forbid that I should dis-
pute with one so learned as you upon so obscure a subject. I
am more at home holding a fort against the Indians than holding
an argument against Albertus Magnus. You still, however,
persist that this faithful Mujeebez here is in some manner or
other hnked with my destiny ? "
"I do."
" And yet it is very singular ! Wliat can connect two men
whose experiences in every way are so dissimilar ? "
'■ I tell you again that he will be instrumental in confounding
your enemies."
" You know who they are— or rathtT, wlm he is. I have but
one."
" Not two. Captain ? "
"Not two. No, Blurosset. There is Init oi-C on whom I
would wreak a deep and deadly vengeance."
" And for the other ? "
"Pity and forgiveness. Do not speak of that. There are
acme things which even now I am not strong enough to heax
Bpoken of. That is one of them."
The Captain., the Chemist, and the Lascar. 219
" The history of your faithful Mujeebez there ia a singular
one, is it not ? " asks the student, rising frona his books, and
advancing to the window.
"A very singular one. His master, an Englishman, with
whom he came from Calcutta, and to whom he was devotedly
attached '
"I was indeed, sahib," said the Indian, in very good English,
but with a strong foreign accent.
" This master, a rich nabob, was murdered, in the house of
his sister, by his own nephew."
" Very horrible, and very unnatiiral ! "Was the nephew
hung ? "
" No. The jury brought in a verdict of insanity : he was
sent to a madhouse, where no doubt h*t still remains confined
Mujeebez was not present at the trial ; he had escaped by a
miracle with his own life ; for the murderer, coming into the
little room in which he slept, and finding him stirring, gave him
a blow on the head, which placed him for some time in a very
precarious state."
" And did you see the murderer's face, Mujeebez ? " asks
Monsieur Blurosset.
" No, sahib. It was dark, I could see nothing. The blow
stunned me : when I recovered my senses, I was in the hospital,
where I lay for months. The shock had brought on what the
doctors called a nervous fever. For a long time I was utterly
incapable of work ; when I left the hospital I had not a friend
in the world ; but the good lady, the sister of my poor murdered
master, gave me money to return to India, where I was kit-
mutghar for some time to an English colonel, in whose house-
hold I learned the language, and whom I did not leave till I
entered the service of the good Captain."
The " good Captain" laid his hand affectionately on his fol-
lower's white-turbaned head, something with the protecting
gesture with which he might caress a favourite and faithful
" After you had saved my life, Mujeebez," he said.
" I would have died to save it, sahib," answered the Hindoo.
" A kind word sinks deep in the heart of the Indian."
" And there was no doubt of the guilt of this nephew ? " aska
Blurosset.
" I cannot say, sahib. I did not know the English language
then; I could understand nothing told me, except my poor
master's nephew was not hung, but put in a madhouse."
" Did you see him — this nephew ? "
" Yes, sahib, the night before the murder. He came into the
room with my master when he retired to rest. I saw him only
for a minute, for I left the room as they entered."
220 The Trail of tie Serpent.
" Should you know Mm again?" inquired the student.
" Anywhere, sahib. He was a handsome young man, witi
dark hazel eyes and a bright smile. He did not look hke a mur«
derer."
" That is scarcely a sure rule to go by, is it, Laurent ? " asks
the Captain, with a bitter smile.
" I don't know. A black heart will make strange lines in the
handsomest face, which are translatable to the close observer."
" Now," says the officer, rising, and surrendering his pijie to
the hands of his watchful attendant — " now for my morning'a
ride, and you will have the place to yoiirself for your scientitic
visitors, Laurent."
" You will not go where you are Hkely to meet "
" Anyone I know ? ISTo, Blurosset. The loneher the road tha
better I hke it. I miss the deep jungle and the tiger-hunt, eli,
Mujeebez ? — we miss them, do we not ? "
The Hindoo's eyes brightened, as he answered eagerly, " Ye.;,
mdeed, sahib."
Captain Lansdown (that is the name of the officer) is of
French extraction ; he sjDcaks English perfectly, but still with a
sUghtly foreign accent. He has distinguished himself by his
marvellous courage and mihtary genius iu the Punjaub, and is
over in England on leave of absence. It is singular that so
great a friendship should exist between this impetuous, danger-
loving soldier, and the studious French chemist and pseudo-
magician, Laurent Blurosset ; but that a very firm friendship
does exist between them is evident. They live in the same
house ; are both waited upon by Egerton Lansdown's Indian
servant, and are constantly together.
Laurent Blurosset, after becoming the fashion in Paris, is
now the rage in London. But he rarely stirs beyond the thres-
hold of his own door, though his presence is eagerly sought for
in scientific coteries, where opinion is still, however, divided as
to whether he is a charlatan or a great man. The materialists
sneer — the spiritualists believe. His disinterestedness, at any
rate, speaks in favour of his truth. He will receive no money
from any of his numerous visitors. He will serve them, ho
says, if he can, but he wiU not sell the wisdom of the mighty
dead ; for that is something too grand and solemn to be made
a thing of barter. His discoveries in chemistry have made him
Biifficiently rich ; and he can afford to devote himself to science^
in the hope of finding truth for his reward. He asks no better
recompense than the glory of the light he seeks. We leave hiui,
then, to Ids eager and inquisitive visitors, while the Captnia
rides slowly through Oxford Street, on his way to the Edgware
Head, through which he emerges into the country.
The New Milhman in Park Lane. 221
CHAPTER V.
TUa NEW MILKMAX IN PARK LANE.
TuK poot of kitchenmaid in the household of the Couiit da
MaroUes is no unimportant one, and Mrs. Moper is accounted
a person of some consequence in the servants' hall. The Freuch
cloef, who has his private sitting-room, wherein he works
elaborate and scientific culinary combinations, which, when he
condescends to talk EugUsh, he designates "j^lates," has of
course very httle communication with the household. Mi-s.
Moper is his prime minister; he gives his orders to her for
execution, and throws himself back in his easy-chair to think
out a dish, -while his handmaiden collects for liim the vulgar
elements of his noble art. Mrs. Mojjer is a very good cook her-
self; and when she leaves the Count de Marolles she will go
into a family where there is no foreigner kept, and will have
forty pounds per annum and a still-room of her own. She is in
the caterpillar stage now, Mrs. Sarah Moper, and is content to
write herself down kitchenmaid ad interim.
The servants'-hall dinner and the housekeeijer's repast arc
both over; biit the preparations for tlte dinner have not y»t
begun, and Mrs. Mojjer and Liza, the scuUerymaid, snatch
luiif-an-hour's calm before the coming storm, and sit down to
darn stockings, —
" Which," Mrs. Moper says, " my toes is through and my
heels is out, and never can I get the time to set a stitch. For
time there isn't any in this house for a under- servant, which
under-servant I will be no more than one year longer ; or say
my name's not Sarah Moper."
Liza, who is mending a black stocking with Avhite thread (and
a very fanciful effect it has too), evidently has no wish to dis-
pute such a ]>roposition.
" Indeed, Mrs. Moper," she said, " that's the truest word iia
ever you've spoke. It's well for them as takes their wages for
wearin' silk gowns, and oihn' of their hair, and lookin' out of
winder to watch the carriages go in at Grosvenor Gate ; which,
don't tell me as Life Guardsmen would look up imperdent, if
ihey hadn't been looked down to likewise." Eliza gets rather
(obscure here. " This 'ouse, Mrs. M., for upper-sei-vants may be
'eaven, but for unders it's more like the place as is jji'onoimced
like a letter of the alphabet, and isn't to be named by me."
There is no knowing how far this rather revolutionary stylo
f.f conversation might have gone, for at this moment there came
that familiar sound of the cUnk of milk-pails on the pavement
o-bove, and the London cry of milk.
" Tt'a JJiigden with the milk, Liza ; there was a pint of cream
222" The Trail of the Serpent.
wrong in the last bill, Mrs. Mellflower says. Ask him to come
down and correctify it, wiU you, Liza?"
Liza ascends the area steps and parleys with the milkman ;
presently he comes jingling down, with his paUs swinging agaiast
the raiUngs ; he is rather awkward with his paUs, this milkman,
and I'm afraid he must spUl more mUk than he sells, as the
Park Lane pavements testify.
" It isn't Bugden," says Liza, explanatory, as she ushers him
into the kitchen. " Bugden 'as 'urt his leg, a-milkia' a cow wot
kicks when the flies worrits, and 'as sent this young man, as is
rather new to the business, but is anxious to do his best."
The new milkman enters the kitchen as she concludes her
speech, and releasing himself from the pails, expresses his readi-
ness to settle any mistake in the weekly bill.
He is rather a good-looking fellow, this milkman, and he has
a very curly head of flaxen hair, preposterously light eyebrows,
and dark hazel eyes, which form rather a piquant contrast. I
don't suppose Mrs. Moper and Liza think him bad-looking, for
they beg him to sit down, and the scuUcrymaid thrusts the
black stocking, on which she was heretofore engaged, into a
table-drawer, and gives her hair a rapid extemporary smoothing
with the palms of her hands. IMr. Bugden's man seems by no
means disinclined for a little friendly chat : he tells them how
new he is to the business; how he thinks he should scarcely
have chosen cowkeeping for his way of life, if he'd known as
much about it as he does now ; how there's many things in the
milk Ijusiness, such as horses' brains, warm water and treacle,
and such-like, as goes against his conscience ; how he's quite
new to London and London ways, having come up only lately
from the country.
" Whereabouts in the country ? " IMrs. Moper asks.
" Berkshire," the young man repUes.
"Lor'," Mrs. Moper says, "never was anything so remark-
able. Poor Moper come from Berkshire, and knowed every ino!i
of the country, and so I think do I, pretty well ^V^lat part ot
Berkshire, Mr.— Mr. P"
" Volpes," suggested the young man.
" WHiat part of Berksliire, Mr. Volpes ?"
Mr. Volpes looks, strange to say, rather at a loss to answrr
this very natural and simple inquiry. He looks at Mrs. M(.ipi r.
then at Liza, and lastl}' at the pails. The pails seem to assist
his memory, for he says, very distinctly, " Burley Scufiers."
It is Mrs. Moper's tui'n to look puzzled now, and she exclaima
" Burley "
"Scuflfers," replies the young man. "Burley Scullers, market
town, fourteen miles on this side of Reading. The 'Chicories,'
Sir Yorrick Tristram's place, is a mile and a half out of \\\e
The New Milkman in Park Lane. 223
Thetv^*8 no disputing such an accurate and detailed description
as this. Mrs. Moper says it's odd, all the times she's been to
Reading — "which I wish I had as many sovereigns," she mutters
in parenthesis — never did she remember passing through "Burley
ScufFers."
" It's a pretty httle town, too," says the milkman; "there's a
lime-tree avenue just out of the High Street, called Pork-
butchers' Walk, as is crowded with young people of a Simday
evening after church."
Mrs. Moper is quite taken with this description; and says,
the very next time she goes to Eeading to see poor Moper' s old
mother, she will make a point of going to Burley ScufFers during
her stay.
Mr. Yolpes says, he would if he were she, and that she
couldn't employ her leisure time better.
They talk a good deal about Berkshire ; and then Mrs. Mo]wr
relates some very interesting facts relative to the late Mr. Mo] ur,
and her determination, " which upon his dying bed it was his
comfort so to think," never to marry again; at which the miik-
man looks grieved, and says the gentlemen will be very blind
indeed to their own interests if they don't make her change her
mind some day; and somehow or other (I don't suppose servants
often do such things), they get to talking about their master and
thoir mistress. The milkman seems quite interested inthi;;
subject, and, forgettmg in how many houses the innocent liquid
he dispenses may be required, he sits with his elbows on the
kitchen-table, hstening to Mrs. Moper's remarks, and now and
then, when she wanders from her subject, drawing her back to
rt with an adroit question. She didn't know much about the
Count, she said, for the servants was most all of 'em new; they
only brought two people with them from South America, which
was Monsieur St. Mu-otaine, the chef, and the Countess'sFrend:
niaid, Mademoiselle Finette. But she thought Monsieur d.c
MaroUes very 'aughty, and as proud as he was 'igh, andth^t
madame was very unhappy, "though it's hard to know wii 'i
them furriners, j\L-. Volpes, what is what," she continues; "21 d
madame's gloomy ways may be French for hajipiness, for all I
knows."
"He's an Englishman, the Count, isn't he?" asks Mr. Yolpes.
" A Enghshman ! Lor' bless your heart, no. They're bol h
French ; she's of Spanish igstraction, I believe, and they lived
since their marriage mostly in Spanish America. But they
always speaks to each other in French, when they do speak;
which them as waits upon them says isn't often."
" He's very rich, I siippose," says the milkman.
" Uich!" crii's Mrs. ^Io])er, "the monpy as that man has got
tiicy Bay is fabellous ; and he's a regulai business man too, down
224 TJie Trail of the Serpent.
at his bant every day, rides off to the City as pnnctual as the
clock strikes ten. Lor', by the bye, Mr. Yolpes," says Mrs.
Mopor suddenly, "you don't happen to know of a tempory tiger,
do youp"
" A temporary tiger ! " Mr. Volpes looks considerably puzzled.
_ " Why, you see, the Count's tiger, as wasn't higher than the
kitchen table I do beheve, broke his arm the other day. He
was a-hangin' on to the strap behind the cab, a-standiu' upon
nothing, as them boys will, when the vehicle was knocked agen
an omnibus, and his arm bein' wrenched sudden out of the
strap, snapped hke a bit of sealing-wax ; and they've took him
to the hospital, and he's to come back as soon as ever he's well ;
for he's a deal thought on, bein' a'most the smallest tiger at
the "West-end. So, if you happen to know of a boy as would
come temporary, we should be obliged by your sending him
round."
" Did he know of a boy as would come temporary ? " Mr.
Budgen's young man appeared so much impressed by tliis
question, that for a minute or two he was qtute incapable of
answering it. He leaned his elbows on the kitchen table, with
his face buried in his liauds and his fingers twisted in his flaxen
hair, and when he looked up there was, strange to say, a warm
flush over his pale complexion, and something like a triumphant
sparkle in his dark brown eyes.
"Nothing could fall out better," he said; "nothing, nothing!"
" What, the poor lad breaking his arm ?" asked Mrs. Moper,
ia a tone of surprise.
" No, no, not that," said Mr. Budgen's young man, just a
little confused ; " what I mean is, that I know the very boy to
suit you— the very boy, the very boy of all others to undertake
the business. Ah," he continued in a lower voice, " and to go
through with it, too, to the end."
" Why, as to the business," repUed Mrs. Moper, " it ain't
overmuch, hangin' on behind, and lookin' knowm', and givin'
other tigers as good as they bring, when waitin' outside the
Calting or the Antlunium ; wliich tigers as is used to the highest
names in the peerage familiar as their meat and drink, will go
on contemptuous about our fambly, callin' the bank ' the shop,'
and a-askin', tiU they got our lad's blood up (which he had had
his guinea lessons from the May Fail- Mawler, and were better
left alone), when the smash was a-comin', or whether we meant
to give out three-and-sixpence in the pound like a honest house,
or do the shabby thing and clear ourselves by a compensation
with our creditors of fourpence-farthing r Ah," continued ]\[rs.
Mo];)er, gravely, " many's the time that child have coiue home
with his nose as big as the 'ead of a six-week old baby,
and no eyes at all as any one could discover, wliich he'd been
Signor Ilosquetti relates an Adventure. 29.5
that knocked about in a stand-up figHt with a lad three times
his weight and size."
" Then I can send the boy, and you'll get him the sitiiation?"
said Mr. Budgen's young man, who did not seem particularly
interested in the rather elaborate recital of the exploits of the
invalid tiger.
" He can have a character, I suppose ? " inquired the lady.
" Oh, ah, to be siire. Budgen will give him a charactei*."
"You will impress upon the youth," said Mrs. Moper, with
^eat dignity, " that he will not be able to make this his perma-
nence 'ome. The pay ia good, and the meals is reg'lar, but the
situation is tempo ry."
" All right," said Mr. Budgen's assistant ; " he doesn't want a
sitaation for long. I'll bnng him round myself this evening —
good afternoon ; " with which very brief farewell, the flaxen-
haired, dark-eyed milkman strode out of the kitchen.
" Hum ! " muttered the cook, " his manners has not the
London polish : I meant to have ast him to tea."
" Why, I'm blest," exclaimed the scuUerymaid suddenly, "if
he haven't been and gone and left his yoke and pails belaiud
him ! Well, of all the strange milkmen I ever come a-nigh, if
he ain't the strangest ! "
She might have thought him stranger still, perhaps, this
light-haired milkman, had she seen him hail a stray cab in Brook
Street, spring into it, snatch off his flaxen locks, whose hyacin-
thine waves were in the convenient form known by that most
disagreeable of words, a wig ; snatch off also the Lolland blouse
common to the purveyors of milk, and rolling the two into a
bundle, stufi"them into the pocket of his shooting-jacket, before
throwing himself back into the corner of the vehicle, to enjoy a
meditative cigar, as his charioteer drives his best pace in the
direction of that transpontine temple of Esculapius, Mr. Barley's
surgery. Daredevil Dick has made the first move in that fearful
game of chess which is to be played between ixim. and the
Count de MaroUes.
CHAPTER VI.
8XGN0B MOSQUETTI RELATES AN ADVENTITEB.
On the evening which follows the very afternoon during which
Iiichard^ ilarwood made his first and only essay in the milk-
trade, the Count and Countess de Murolles attend a musical
party — I beg pardon, I should, gentle reader, as you know, have
said a soiree viusicale — at the house of a lady of high rank
in Belgrave Square. _ London was almost empty, and this w,\n
one of the last parties of the season ; but it is a goodly and au
P
226 The Trail of the Serpent
imi^ressive siglit to see — even when London is, according to ever^
fashionable authority, a perfect k>ahara — how many splendid
carriages will draw up to the awning my Lady erects over the
pavement before her door, when she announces herself " at
home;" how many gorgeously dressed and lovely women will
descend therefrom, scenting the night air of Belgravia with the
fragrance wafted from their waving tresses and point-d' Alen9on-
bordered handkerchiefs ; lending a perfume to the autumn violets
struggling out a fading existence in Dresden boxes on the draw-
ing-room balconies ; lending the Ught of their diamonds to the
gas-lamps before the door, and the light of their eyes to help out
the aforesaid diamonds ; sweeping the autumn dust and evening
dews with the borders of costly silks, and marvels of Lyons and
Spitalfields, and altogether glorifying the ground over which
they walk.
On this evening one range of windows, at least, in Belgrave
Square is brilliantly illuminated. Lady Londersdon's Musical
Wednesday, the last of the season, has been inaugurated with
eclat by a scena from Signora Scorici, of Her Majesty's Theatre
and the Nobility's Concerts ; and Mr. Argyle Fitz-Bertram, the
great Enghsh basso-baritono, and the handsomest man in Eng-
land, has just shaken the square with the bufio duet from the
Ccnerentola — in which performance he, Argyle, has so entirely
Bwamped that amiable tenor Signor Maretti, that the latter
gentleman has serious thoughts of calhng him out to-morrow
morning ; which idea he would cany into execution if Argyle
Fitz-Bertram were not a crack shot, and a pet pupil of Mr.
Angelo's into the bargain.
But even the great Argyle finds himself — with the exception of
being up to his eyes in a slough of despond, in the way of platonic
flirtation with a fat duchess of fifty — comparatively nowhere.
The star of the evening is the new tenor, Signor Mosquetti,
who has condescended to attend Lady Londersdon's Wed-
nesday. Argyle, who is the best-natured fellow as well as the
most generous, and whose great rich voice wells up from a heart
as sound as his lungs, throws himself back into a low easy-chair
■ — it creaks a Uttle under his weight, by the bye — and allows the
duchess to fiirt with him, while abuzz goes round the room;
Mosquetti is going to sing. Argyle looks lazily out of his half-
closed dark eyes, with that peculiar expression which seems to
Bay — " Sing your best, old fellow ! My g in the bass clef would
crush your laalf-octave or so of falsetto before you knew whera
you were, or your ' Pretty Jane ' either. Sing awaj', my boy !
We'll have ' Scots wha hae ' by-and-by. I've some friends down
in Essex who want to hear it, and the wind's in the right quar-
tt!r for the voice to travel. They won't hear you five doors offi
8Iiig your best."
Sijnor I<lo^:qi;clti relates an Advrnfure. 227
Ju3t as Signer Mosquetti is about to take his place at the
piano, the Count and Countess de Marolles advance through the
crowd about the doorway.
Valerie, beautiful, pale, calm as ever, is received with considei"
able empressement by her hostess. She is the heiress of one of
the most ancient aud aristocratic families in France, and is
moreover the wife of one of the richest men in London, so is
sure of a welcome throughout Belgravia.
"Mosquetti is going to sing," murmurs Lady Londersdou ;
"you were charmed with him in the Lucia, of course? Yoa
have lost Fitz-Bertram's duet. It was charming ; all the chan-
deliers were shaken by his lower notes ; charming, I assure you.
Ile'll sing again after Mosquetti : the Duchess of C. is eprise, as
you see. I believe she is perpetually sending him diamond
rings and studs ; and the Duke, they do say, has refused to be
responsible for her account at Storr's."
Valerie's interest in Mr. Fitz-Bertram'e conduct is not very
intense; she bends her haughty head, just slightly elevating Ik r
arched eyebrows with the faintest indication of well-bred sur-
jrise; but she is interested in Signor Mosquetti, and avail-;
herself of the seat her hostess offers to her near Erard's grand
inano. The song concludes very soon after she is seated ; bui
Mosquetti remains near the piano, talking to an elderly gentle-
man, who is evidently a connoisseur.
" I have never heard but one man, Signor Mosquetti," says
this gentleman, " whose voice resembled yours."
There is nothing very particular in the words, but Valerie's
attention is apparently arrested by them, for she fixes her eyes
intently on Signor Mosquetti, as though awaiting his reply.
" And he, my lord ? " says Mosquetti, interrogatively.
" He, poor fellow, is dead." Now indeed Valei-ie, pale with a
pallor greater than usual, listens as though her whole soul hung
ou the words she heard.
" He is dead," continued the gentleman, " He died young, in
the zenith of his reputation. His name was — let me see — 3.
heard him in Paris last ; his name was "
" De Lancy, perhaps, my lord ? " says Mosquetti.
** It was De Lancy ; yes. He had some most pecuh'ar and at
the same time most beautiful tones in his voice, and you appea?
to me to have the very same."
Mosquetti bowed at the compliment. " It is singular, my
lord," he said ; " but I doubt if those tones are quite natural to
me. I am a little of a mimic, and at one period of my life
I was in the habit of imitating poor De Lancy, whose singing ]
very much admired."
Valerie grasps the delicate fan in hor norvous hand so tigh<l7
ihat tha ftioup of cooitiers and fair ladies, of the time of Iioui»
228 The Trail of the Serpent
Quatorze, dancing nothing particular on a blue cloud, are cmshed
out of all symmetiy as she listens to tliis conversation.
" I was, at the time I knew De Lancy, merely a chorus-singer
at the Italian Opera, Paris."
The Usteners draw nearer, and form quite a circle round Mos-
quetti, whoia the lion of the night ; even Argyle Fitz-Bertram
pricks up his ears, and deserts the Duchess in order to hear this
conversation.
" A low chorus-singer," he mutters to himself. " So help me,
Jupiter, I knew he was a nobody."
"This passion for mimicry," said Mosquetti, "was so great
that I acquired a sort of celebrity throughout the Opera House,
and even beyond its walls. I could imitate De Lancy better,
perhaps, than any one else ; for in height, figure, and general
appearance I was said to resemble him."
" You do," said the gentleman ; " you do very much resemble
the poor fellow."
'' This resemblance one day gave rise to quite an adventure,
which, if I shall not bore you " he glanced round.
There is a general murmur. "Bore us! No! Delighted,
enraptured, charmed above all things ! " Fitz-Bertram is quite
energetic in this omnes business, and says, "No, no ! " — mutter-
ing to himself afterwards, " So help me, Jupiter, I knew the
fellow was a nuisance ! "
" But the adventure ! Pray let us hear it ! " cried eager voices.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was a careless reckless fellow;
quite content to put on a pair of russet boots which half swal-
lowed me, and a green cotton-velvet tunic short in the sleeves
and tight across the chest, and to go on the stage and sing in a
chorus with fifty others, as idle as myself, in other russet boots
and cotton-velvet tunics, which, as you know, is the couit
costume of a chorus- singer from the time of Charlemagne to
the reign of Louis XV. I was quite happy, I say, to lounge
on to the stage, unknown, unnoticed, badly paid and woroo
dressed, provided when the chorus was finished I had my ciga-
rette, dominoes, and my glass of cognac in a thii-d-rate cafe. I
was playing one morning at those eternal dominoes — (and never,
I think," said Mosquetti, parenthetically, "had a poor fellow so
many double-sixes in liis hand) — when I was told a gentleman
wanted to see me. This seemed too good a joke — a gentleman
for me ! It couldn't be a hmb of the law, as I didn't owe a far-
thing — no Parisian tradesman being quite so demented as to
give me credit. It was a gentleman — a very aristocratic-looking
fellow ; handsome — but I didn't like his face ; afiable — and yet
I didn't hke his manner."
-''.h, Yalerie ! you,may well hsten now !
" He wanted mo, he said," continued Mosquetti, "to ^.:r\-h a
Bignor Mosquetti relates an Adventure. 229
fittle wager. Some foolish girl, who had seen De Lancy on tho
stage, and who believed him the ideal hero of romance, and wa«
only in too much danger of throwing her heart and fortune at
his feet, was to be disenchanted by any stratagem that could be
devised. Her parents had intrusted the management of tho
affair to him, a relation of the lady's. Would I assist him?
"Would I represent De Lancy, and play a little scene in the
Bois de Boulogne, to open the eyes of this silly boarding-school
miss — would I, for a consideration ? It was only to act a little
stage play off the stage, and was for a good cause. I con-
sented; and that evening, at half-past ten o'clock, under the
shadow of the winter night and the leafless trees, I "
" Stop, stop ! Signor Mosquetti ! " cry the bystanders.
" Madame ! Madame de Marolles ! "Water ! Smelling-salts i
Your flacon. Lady Emily : she has fainted ! "
No ; she has not fainted ; this is something worse than fai nt-
ing, this convulsive agony, in which the proud form writhes,
while the white and livid lips murmur strange and dreadful
words.
" Murdered, murdered and innocent ! while I, vile dupe, pitil'ul
fool, was only a pupjiet in the hands of a demon ! "
At this very moment Monsieur de Marolles, who has been
summoned from the adjoining apartment, where he has been
discussing a financial measure with some members of the lowoi
House, enters hurriedly.
" Valerie, "V"alerie, what is the matter? " he says, apiaroachiug
liis wife.
She risea — rises with a terrible effort, and looks him full in
^he f^ce.
"I thought, monsieur, that I knew the hideous abyss of yoiir
black soul to its lowest depths. I was wrong ; I no7er kne.v
you till to-night."
Imagine such strong language as this in a Belgra-\aan
drawingroom, and then you can imagine the astonishment Oi
the bystanders.
" Good heavens ! " exclaimed Signor Mosquetti hurriedly.
" "What ? " cried they eagerly.
" That is the very man I have been speaking of."
" That P The Count de Marolles ? "
" The man bending over the lad}-^ who has fainted."
Petrified Belgravians experience a new sensation — 8ur];)riHe—
u:.d rather like it.
Argyle Fitz-Bertram twists his black moustachios reflectively,
and mutters —
" So help me, Jupiter. I knew there'd be a row ! I shavi't
have to sing ' Scots wha hae,' and shall be just in time for that
little supper at the Caf^ de I'Europe."
230 Tlie Trail of tJie Serpent.
CHAPTER VII.
THB GOLDEN SECKET IS TOLD, AND THE GOLDEN BOWL 18
BKOKEN.
The new tiger, or, as he is called in the kitchen, the " temporj
LiCTer," takes his place, on the morning after Lady Londersdon's
Wednesday, behind the Count de Marolles' cab, as that gentle-
man drives into the City.
There is httle augury to be drawn from the pale smooth face
of Raymond de Marolles, though Signor Mosquetti's revelation
lias made his position rather a critical one. Till now he has
ruled Valerie with a high hand ; and though never conquering
the indomitable spirit of the proud Spanish woman, he has at
least forced that spirit to do the will of his. But now, now that
she knows the trick put upon her — now that she kn-^ws that tlie
man she so deeply adored did not betray her, but died the victim
of another's treachery — that the blood in which she has steeped
her soul was the blood of the innocent, — what if now, in her despe-
ration and despair, she dares all, and reveals all ; what then ?
" Why, then," says Raymond de Marolles, cutting his horse
over the ears with a deUcate touch of the whip, which stings
home, though, for all its deUcacy ; " why then, never shall it be
iaid that Raymond Marolles found himself in a dilemma, with-
out finding within himself the power to extricate himself. We
are not conquered yet, and we have seen a good deal of life in
thirty years — and. not a Httle danger. Play your best card,
Valerie ; I've a trump in my own hand to play when the time
comes. Till then, keep dark. I tell you, my good woman, I
have hothouses of my own, and don't want your Covent-Gardeu
exotics at twopence a bunch !"
This last sentence is addressed to a woman, who pleads
earnestly for the purchase of a wretched bunch of violets,
■.vhich she holds up to tempt the man of fashion as she runs by
the wheels of his cab, driving very slowly through the Strand.
" Fresh violets, sir. Do, sir, please. Only twopence, just
t ':vopence, sir, for the love of charity. I've a poor old woman j. i
i.ome, not related to me, sir, but I keep her. She's dying-
it Larving, sir, and dying of old age."
" Bah ! I tell you, my good woman, I'm not Lawrence Stem-?
on a sentimental journey, but a practical man of business. I
don't give macaroons to donkeys, or save mythic old women from
starvation. You'd better keep out of the way of the wheels—
they'll be over your feet presently, and if you suffer from coma
they^ may probably hurt yon," says the philanthropic banker,
in his politest tones.
" Stop, stop !" suddenly exclaims the woman, with an energ;y
that almost startles even Raymond. " It's you, is it — Jim ?
The Golden Secret is Told. 231
No, not Jim ; he's dead and gone, I know ; but yon, jon, the
fine gentleman, the other brother. Stoji, stop, I tell yon, if )-ou
want to know a secret that's in the keeping of one who may die
while I am talking here ! Stop, if you want to know who you
are and what you are ! Stop !"
Ea3'mond does pull up at this last sentence.
"My good woman, do not be so energetic. Every eye in the
Strand is on us ; we shall have a crowd presently. Stay, wait
for me in Essex Street; I'll get out at the corner; that's a
quiet street, and we shall not be observed. Anything you have
to tell me you can tell me there."
The woman obeys him, and draws back to the pavement,
where she keeps pace with the cab.
" A pretty time this for discoveries !" mutters the Count.
" Who I am, and what I am ! It's the secret, I suppose, tlia<,
the twaddhng old maniac in Blind Peter made such a row about.
Vfho I am, and what I am ! Oh, I dare say I shall turn out to
be somebody great, as the hero does in a lady's novel. It's a
{lity I haven't the mark of a coronet behind my ear, or a bloody
hand on my wrist. Who I am, and what I am ! The son of a
journeyman tailor perhaps, or a chemist's apprentice, whose ari.s-
tocratic connections prevented his acknowledging my mother."
He is at the corner of Essex Street by this time, and springs
out of the cab, throwing the reins to the temporary tiger, whoso
sharp face we need scarcely inform the reader discloses the
features of the boy Slosh.
The woman is waiting for him; and after a few momenta'
earnest conversation, Raymond emerges from the street, an.l
orders the boy to drive the cab home immediately : he is not
going to the City, but is going on particular business elsewhere.
whether the "temporary tiger" proves himself worthy cA
the responsible situation he holds, and does drive the cab hom;\
I cannot say ; but I only know that a very small boy, in a
ragged coat a gi-eat deal too large for him, and a battered hi;t
80 slouched over his eyes as quite to conceal his face from tho
casual observer, creeps cautiously, now a few paces behinil,
now a hundred yards on the other side of the way, now disajy-
pcaring in the shadow of a doorway, now reappearing at the
sorner of the street, but never losing sight of the Count ^l.'
Marolles and the purveyor of violets, as they bend their stei-a
in the direction of Seven Dials.
Heaven forbid that we should follow them through all the
turnings and twistings of that odoriferous neighbourhoo.1,
where foul scents, foul sights, and fouler language abound ;
whence May Fair and Belgravia shrink shuddering, as from r. a
ill it is well for them to let alone, and a wrong that he m,y
mend who will : not they who have been bom for better thLiiga
232 The Trail of the Serpent.
than to set disjointed times aright, or play the revolutionist to
the detlii-onement of the legitimate monarchy of Queen Star-
vation and King Fever, to say nothing of the princes of the
blood — Dii-t, Drunkenness, Theft, and Murder. Wlien John
Jones, tired of the monotonous pastime of beating liis wife's
skull vpith a poker, comes to Lambeth and murders an Arch-
bishop of Canterbury for the sake of the spoons, it will be time,
in the eyes of Belgravia, to reform Jolm Jones. In the mean-
while we of the upper ten thousand have Tattersall's and Her
Majesty's Theatre, and John Jones (who, low republican, says
he must have his amusements too) has such little diversions as
wife-murder and cholera to break the monotony of his existence.
The Count and the violet-seller at last come to a pause.
They had walked very quickly through the pestiferous streets,
Raymond holding his aristocratic breath and shutting his
patrician ears to the scents and the sounds around him. They
come to a stand at last, in a dark court, before a tall lopsided
house, with irresolute chimneypots, which looked as if the only
thing that kept them erect was the want of unanimity as to
which way they should fall.
Raymond, when invited by the woman to enter, looks suspi-
ciously at the dingy staircase, as if wondering whether it would
last his time, but at the request of his comjjanion ascends it.
The boy in the large coat and slouched hat is playing marbles
with another boy on the second-floor landing, and has evidently
lived there all his life : and yet I'm puzzled as to who drove
that cab home to the stables at the back of Park Lane. I fear
it was not the " temporary tiger."
The Count de Marolles and his guide pass the youthful
gamester, who has just lost his second halfpenny, and ascend to
the very top of the rickety house, the garrets of which are
afflicted with intermittent ague whenever there is a high wind.
Into one of these garrets the woman conducts Raymond, and
on a bed — or its apology, a thing of shreds and patches, straw
and dii-t, which goes by the name of a bed at this end of the
town^hes the old woman we last saw in Blind Peter.
Eight years, more or less, have not certainly had the effect of
enhancing the charms of this lady ; and there is something in
her face to-day more terrible even than wicked old age or
feminine drunkenness. It is death that lends those Uvid hues
to her complexion, which all the cosmetics from Atkinson's or
the Burlington Arcade, were she minded to use them, would
never serve to conceal. Raymond has not come too soon if he
is to hear any secret from those ghastly lips. It is some time
before the woman, whom she still calls SiUikens, can make the
dying hag understand who this fine gentleman is, and what it
is he wants with her: and even when she does succeed in
The Golden Secret is Told. 233
cia'kiug Ler comprehend all this, the old woman's speech in
very obscure, and calculated to tr\r the patience of a more
amiable man than the Count de Marolles.
" Yes, it v/as a golden secret — a golden secret, eh, my dear ?
It was something to have a marqxiis for a son-in-law, wasn't it,
my dear, eh?" mumbled the dying old hag.
" A marquis for a son-m-law ! What does the jibbering old
idiot mean ? " muttered Raymond, whose reverence for his
grandmother was not one of the strongest points in his com-
position. " A marquis ! I dare say my respected progenitor
keDt a public-house, or something of that sort. A marquis !
The ' Marquis of Granby,' most likely !"
"Yes, a marquis," continued the old woman, "eh, dear!
And he man-ied your mother — married her at the parish
church, one cold dark November morning; and I've got the
c'tificate. Yes," she mumbled, in answer to Raymond's
eager gesture, " I've got it ; but I'm not going to tell you
where ; — no, not till I'm paid. I must be paid for that secret
in gold — yes, in "gold. They say that we don't rest any easier
in our cofELns for the money that's buried -with us; but I should
like to lie up to neck in golden sovereigns new from the Mint,
and not one light one amongst 'em."
"Well," said Raymond, impatiently, "your secret! I'm rich,
and can pay for it. Your secret — qiuck !"
" Well, he hadn't been married to her long before a change
came, in his native country, over the sea yonder," said the old
woman, pointing in the direction of St. Martin's Lane, as if sho
thought the British Channel flowed somewhere behind that
thoroughfare. " A change came, and he got his rights again.
One king was put down and another king was set up, and
'everybody else was massacred in the streets ; it was — a — I
don't know what they call it; but they're always a-doin' it.
So he got his rights, and he was a rich man again, and a great
man ; and then his first thought was to keep his marriage with
my girl a secret. All very well, you know, my girl for a wifo
while he was gi'ing lessons at a shilling a-piece, in Parlez-vous
FroMcais, and all that ; but now he was a marquis, and it was
quite another thing."
Raymond by this time gets quite interested; so does the boy
in the big coat and the slouched hat, who has transferred the
field of his gambling operations in the marble line to th«
landing outside the garret door.
" He wanted the secret kept, and I kept it for gold. I kept
it even from her, j'our mother, my o^vn ill-used girl, for gold;
tshe never knew who he was; she thonght he'd deserted her,
and she took to drinking ; she and I threw you into the rivej
when we were mad drunk, and couldn't stand your squalling.
234 The Trail of the Serpent
She died — don't you ask me how. I told you before not to asli
me how my girl died — I'm mad enough without that question ;
she died, and I kept the secret. For a long time it was gold to
me, and he used to send me money regular to keep it dark ;
but by-and-by the money stopped from coming. I got savage,
but still I kept the secret ; because, you see, it was nothing
when it was told, and there was no one rich enough to pay me
to tell it. I didn't know where to find the marquis ; I only
knew he was somewhere in France."
" France ? " exclaims Raymond.
" Yes ; didn't I tell you France ? He was a French mar-
quis—a refugee they called him when he first made acquaint-
ance with my girl — a teacher of French and mathematics."
" And his name — his name ? " asks Raymond, eagerly.
" His name, woman, if you don't want to drive me mad."
"He called himself Smith, when he was a-teachin', my
dear," said the old woman with a ghastly leer; "what are
you going to pay me for the secret ? "
" Whatever you like, only tell me — tell me before you -"
" Die. Yes, deary; there ain't any time to waste, is there?
I don't want to make a hard bargain. WiU you bury me up
to my neck in gold ? "
" Yes, yes ; speak !" He is almost beside himself, and raises
a threatening hand. The old woman grins.
" I told you before that wasn't the way, deary. Wait a bit.
Sillikens, give me that 'ere old shoe, will you ? Look you
liere ! It's a double sole, and the marriage certificate is between
the two leathers. I've walked on it tliis thirty years and more."
" And the name — the name ? "
" The name of the Marquis was De — de "
" She's dying ! Give me some water ! " cried Raymond.
" De Ce — Ce " the syllables come in fitful gasps. Ray-
mond throws some water over her face.
" De Cevennes, my deary ! — and the golden secret is told."
And the golden bowl is broken I
Lay the ragged sheet over the ghastly face, SUUkens, and kneel
down and pray for help in your utter loneliness ; for the giiilty
being whose soul has gone forth to meet its Maker was your only
companion and stay, however frail that stay might be.
Gio out into the sunshine. Monsieur de MaroUes ; that which
you leave behind in the tottering garret, shaken by an ague-
paroxysm with the fitful autumn wind, is nothing so terrible to
your eyes.
You have accustomed yourself to the face of Death befora
now ; you have met that grim potentate on his own ground,
and done with him what it is your policy t<? do with everythir^
!59i earth — you have made him useful to ran
One Step FurtTier on He Mglt Track. 235
CHAPTER VIIL
ONE STEP FUKTHER ON THE RIGHT TRACK.
Tt is not a very romantic locality to which we must now con-
luct the reader, being neither more nor less than the shop ami
surgery of Mr. Augustus Darley; which temple of the healing
god is scented, this autumn afternoon, with the mingled per-
fumes of Cavendish and bird's-eye tobacco, Turkey rhubarb,
whiskey-punch, otto of roses, and muffins; conflicting odours,
which form, or rather object to form, an amalgamation, each
particular effluvium asserting its individuality.
In the suri^ery Gus is seated, playing the intellectual and
intensely exciting game of dominoes with our acquaintance of
the Cheerful Chci'okee Society, ]\Ir. Percy Cordonner. A small
jug, without either of those earthenware conventionalities, spout
or handle, and with Mr. Cordonner's bandanna stufted into the
top to imprison the subtle essences of the mixture within, stand.s
between the two gentlemen ; while Percy, as a gnest, is accom-
modated with a real tumbler, having only three triangular bits
cliipped out of the edge. Gus imbibes the exciting fluid from a
cracked custard-cup, with paper wafered round it to keep tho
parts from separating, two of which cups are supposed to be
equal (by just measurement) to Mr. P. C.'s tumbler. Before the
small fire kneels the juvenile domestic of the young surgeon,
toasting muflins, and presenting to the two gentlemen a pleasing
study in anatomical perspective and the mysteries of foreshort-
ening; to which, however, they are singularly inattentive,
devoting their entire energies to the pieces of spotted ivory
in their hands, and the consumption, by equitable division, of
the whiskey-punch.
" I say, Gus," said Mr. Cordonner, stopping in the middle of a
gulp of his favourite liquid, at the risk of strangulation, with as
much alarm in his face as his placid features were capable ot
exhibiting — " I say, this isn't the professional tumbler, is it ?"
" Why, of course it is," said his friend. " We have only had
that one since midsummer. The patients don't hke it because
It's cliipi)ed; but I always tell them, that after having gone
through having a tooth out — particularly," he added parenthe-
tically, " as 1 take 'em nut (plenty of lancet, forceps, and key,
for their eighteen-pence) — they needn't grumble about having to
rinse their mouths out of a cracked tumbler."
j\Ir. Cordonner turned pale.
" Do they do that ? " he said, and deliberately shot his last
eip of the dehcious beverage over the head of the kneeling
damsel, with so good an aim that it in a manner grazed her
curl-paj)Ors. "It isn't friendly of you, Gus," he said, with nxild
reproach fulness, " to treat a fellow like this."
236 The Trait of tie Serpent.
" It"e all right, old boy," said Gus, langkmg. " Sarah Jane
washes it, you know. You wash the tumbler and things, dou't
you, Sarah Jane ? "
"Wash 'em?" answered the youthful domestic; "I should
think so, sir, indeed. Why, I wipes 'em round reg'lar with my
apron, and breathes on 'em to make 'em bright."
" Oh, that'll do ! " said Mr. Cordonner, piteously. " Don't
investigate, Gus; you'll only make matters worse. Oh, why,
why did I ask that question ? Why didn't I remember ' it'3
folly to be otherwise? ' That punch was delicious— and now "
He leant his head upon his hand, buried his face in his pocket-
handkerchief, pondered in his heart, and was still.
In the mean time the shop is not empty. Isaljella is standing
behind the counter, very busy with several bottles, a glass
measure, and a pestle and mortar, making up a prescriplion, a
cough mixture, from her brother's Latin. Rather a puzzUng
document, this prescription, to any one but Bell ; for there are
calculations about next year's Derby scribbled on the margin,
and rough sketches of the Smasher, and a more youthful votaiy
of the Smasher's art, surnamed " Whooping William," pen-
silled on the back thereof; but to Bell it seems straightforward
enough. At any rate, she dashes away with the bottles, the
measure, and the pestle and mortar, as if she knew perfectly
well what she was about.
She is not alone in the shop. A gentleman is leaning on the
counter, watching the busy white hands veiy intently, and ap-
parently deeply interested in the progress of the cough-mixture.
This gentleman is her brother's old friend, " Daredevil Dick."
Eichard Mai-wood has been a great deal at the surgery since
the night on which he first set foot in his old haunts ; he has
brought his mother over, and introduced that lady to Miss
Darley. Mrs. Mai-wood was delighted with Isabella's frank
manners and handsome face, and insisted on carrying her back
to dine in Spring Gardens. Quite a sociable Httle dinner they
had too, Richard being — for a man who had been condemned for
a murder, and had escaped from a lunatic asylum — very cheerful
indeed. The young man told Isabella all his adventures, till
that young lady alternately laughed and cried — thereby afford-
ing Richard's fond mother most convincing proof of the goodness
of her heart — and was altogether so very brilliant and amusing,
that when at eleven o'clock Gus came round from a very critical
case (viz., a quarrel of the Cheerfuls as to whether Gustarag
Ponsonby, novehst and satirist, magazine-vniter and poet,
deserved the trouncing he had received in the " Friday Pili«y ")
to take Bell home in a cab, the Httle trio simultaneously declared
that the evening had gone as if by magic ! As if by magic !
Wtat if to two out of those three the evening did really go by
One Stqj FurfTiet- on (lie Hight Track. 237
magic t /here is a certain pink-lejjged little gentleman, with
wings, and a bandage round his eyes, who, some people say, is aj
great a magician in his way as Albertus Magntis or Doctor Di^e,
ar.d who has done as much mischief and worked as much ruin
in his own manner aa all the villanous saltpetre ever dug out of
the bosom of the peaceful, corn-growing, flower-bearing earth.
That gentleman, I have no douljt, presided on the occasion.
Thus the acquaintance of Richard and Isabella had ripen vl
into something very much like friendship; and here he is,
watching her employed in the rather unromantic business o!
making up a cough-mixture for an elderly washerwoman of
mcthodistical persuasions. But it is one of the fancies of the
pink-legged gentleman aforesaid to lend his bandage to his
victims; and there is nothing that John, William, George,
Henry, James, or Alfred can do, in which Jane, EHza, Susan, cr
Sarah will not see a dignity and a chann, or vice vers'l.
i'shaw ! It is not Mokannah who wears the silver veil ; it is v>'e
^vllo are in love with Mokannah who put on the gUttering,
blinding medium; and, looking at that gentleman through tlie
dazzle and the glitter, insist on thinking him a very handsome
man, till some one takes the veil off our eyes, and we straight-
way fall to and abuse poor Mokannah, because he is not what
we chose to fancy him. It is very hard upon poor tobacco-
smoking, beer-imbibing, card-i)laying, latch-key-loving Tom
Jones, that Sophia will insist on elevating him into a god, and
then being angry with him because be is Tom Jones and fond
of bitter ale and bird's-eye. But come what may, the pink-
legged gentleman must have his diversion, and no doubt his eyes
twinkle merrily behind that bandage of his, to see the fools this
wise world of ours is made up of.
" You could trust me, Isabella, then," said Richard ; " you
could trust me, in spite of aU — in spite of my wasted youth and
the bhght upon my name?"
" Do we not all trust you, Mr. Marwood, with our entirs'
hearts ?" answered the young lady, taking shelter under covor
of a very wide generality,
" Not ' Mr. Marwood,' Bell ; it sounds very cold from thu
lips of my old friend's sister. Every one calls me Richard, and
I, without once asking permission, have called you BeU. Cal'
rae Richard, Bell, if you trust me."
She looks him in the face, and is silent for a moment ; hei
heart beats a great deal faster — so fast that her Ups can scarcely
Bhape the words she speaks.
" I do tnist you, Richard ; I believe your heart to be goodnes.-.
£ad truth itself."
"Is it worth having, then, BellP I wouldn't ask you that
q'lestion if I had not a hope now — ay, and not such a iceble oio
238 The Trail of the Serjyent.
either — to see my name cleared from the stain that rests upon it.
If there is any truth in my heart, Isabella, that truth is yours
alone. Can you trust me, as the woman who loves trusts —
through Ufe and till death, under every shadow and through
every cloud?"
I don't know whether essence of peppermint, tincture of
myrrh, and hair-oil, are the proper ingredients in a cough-
mixture; I'ut I Icnow that Isabella poured them into the glass
measure very liberally.
" You do not answer me, Isabella. Ah, you cannot trast the
branded criminal — the escaped lunatic — the man the world calls
a murderer! "
" Not trust yon, Eichard ? " Only four words, and only one
glance from the gray cyos into the brown, and so much told !
So much more than I could tell in a dozen chapters, told in those
four words and that one look !
Gus opens the half-glass door at this very moment. " Are
you coming to tea?" he asks; "here's Sarah Jane up to her
eyes in grease and muffins."
" Yes, Gus, dear old friend," said Eichard, laying his hand on
Darley's shoulder ; " we're coming in to tea immediately,
brother!"
Gus looked at him with a glance of considerable astonish-
ment, shook him heartily by the hand, and gave a long whistle ;
after which he walked up to the counter and examined tiie
cough -mixtui'e.
"Oh!" he said, "I sujopose that's why you've j^ut enough
laudanum into this to poison a small regiment, eh. Bell ? Per-
haps we may as well throw it out of the window ; for if it goes
out of the door I shall be hung for wholesale murder."
They were a very meny party over the httle tea-table ; and
if nobody ate any of the muffins, which Mr. Cordonner called
" embodied indigestions," they laughed a great deal, and talked
still more — so much so, that Percy declared his reasoning
I'aculties to be quite overpowered, and wanted to be distinctly
informed whether it was Eichard who was going to marry Gus,
or Gus about to unite himself to the juvenile domestic, or he
liimself who was to be married against his inclination — which,
seeing he was of a yielding and i^eace-loving disposition, was
not 60 unlikely — or, in sliort, to use his own expressive language,
" what the row was all about ? "
Nobody, however, took the trouble to set Mr. P. C.'s doubts
at rest, and he drank his tea with perfect contentment, but with-
out siigar, and in a dense intellectual fog. " It doesn't matter,'
he murmured; "perhaps Eichard will turn again and be Lord
Mayor of London town, and then my children will read his
ftdventures in a fiturf* Pinnrck, and they may understand i*.
Oine Step furtlier on tlie Bight Track. 239
It's a great thing to Le a child, and to understand thoae
sort of things. When I was six years old I knew who William
Iliifus married, and how many people died in the Plague of
Loudon. I can't say it made me any hajipier or better, but I
dare say it was a great advantage."
At this moment the bell hung at the shoj^-door (a noisy
preventive of petty larceny, giving the alarm if any juvenUe
delinquent had a desire to abstract a bottle of castor-oil, or a
camomile-pill or so, for his peculiar benefit) rang violently, and
our old friend Mr. Peters burst into the shop, and through the
shop into the parlour, in a state of such excitement that his
very fingers seemed out of breath.
"Back again? " cried Eichard, starting up with surprise; for
be it known to the reader that Mr. Peters had only the day
before started for Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy to hunt up evidence
about this man, whose very image lay buried outside that town.
Before the fingers of Mr. Peters, which quite shook with
excitement, could shape an answer to Richard's exclamation ol
t^urprise, a very dignified elderly gentleman, whose appearance
was almost clei'ical, followed the detective into the room, and
bowed politely to the assembled party.
" I will take up.oa myself to be my own sponsor," said that
gentleman. " If, as I believe, I am speaking to Mr. Marwood," he
added, looking at Richard, who bowed affirmatively, " it is to the
interest of both of us — of you, sir, more especially — that we should
become acquainted. I am Dr. Tappenden, of Slopperton."
J^Ir. Cordonner, having politely withdrawn himself from the
group so as not to interfere with any confidential communica-
tion, was here imprudent enough to attemjit to select a book
from the young surgeon's hanging-library, and, in endeavouring
to take down the third volume of Bragelonne, brought down, as
usual, the entire hterary shower-bath on his devoted head, and
Bat quietly snowed up, as it were, in loose leaves of Midi el
Levy's shilling edition, and fragments of illustrations by Tony
Johannot.
' Eichard looked a Uttle puzzled at Dr. Tappendeu's iutro-
duf;tir)n ; but Mr. Peters threw in upon his fingers this jnece oi
iiiforniation, — " He knows him! " and Richard was immediately
interested.
" We are all friends here, I believe ?" said the schoolmaster,
glancing round interrogatively,
" Oh, decidedly, Monsieur d'Artagnan," replied Percy, absently
looking up from one of the loose leaves he had selected for
perusal from those scattered around him.
" Monsieur d'Artagnan! Your friend is pleased to b»
facetious," said the Doctor, with some indignation.
" Oh, pray escu.se him, sir. He is only absent-minded," repliiMj
24:0 The Trail of the Serpent.
Eichard. " My friend Peters informs me that you know tMs
man — tMs singular, this incomprehensible villain, whose Bup-
posed death is so extraordinary.
"He — either the man who died, or this man who is new
occupying a high position in London — was for some years in my
employ ; but in sj^ite of what our worthy friend the detective
says, I am inclined to think that Jabez North, my tutor, did
actually die, and that it was his body which I saw at the police-
station."
" Not a bit of it, sir," said the detective on his rapid fingers,
" not a bit of it ! That death was a do — a do, out and out. It was
too systematic to be anything else, and I was a fool not to see
there was sometliing black at the bottom of it at the time.
People don't go and lay themselves out high and dry upon a
heath, with clean soles to their shoes, on a stormy night, and the
bottle in their hand — not took hold of, neither, but lying loose,
you understand; put there — not clutched as a dying man
clutches what his hand closes ui^on. I say this ain't how people
make away with themselves when they can't stand life any
longer. It was a do — a plant, such as very few but that man
could be capable of; and that man's your tutor, and the death
was meant to put a stop to all susj^icion ; and while you waa
a-sigliin' and a-groanin' over that poor young innocent, Mr.
Jabez North was a-cuttin' a fine figure, and a-captivatiu' a
furrin heiress, with your money, or your banker's money, as had
to bear the loss of them forged cheques."
"But the liteness? " said Dr. Ta^jpenden. "That dead man
was the very image of Jabez North."
"Very hkely, sir. There's mysterious goin's on, and soma
coincidences in this life, as weU as in your story-books that's
lent out at three half- pence a volume, keep 'em three days and
return 'em clean."
" Well," continued the schoolmaster, " the moment I see this
)aan I shall know whether he is indeed the person we want to
lind. If he should be the man who was my usher, I can prove
B circumstance which will go a great way, Mr. Marwood,
towards fixing your uncle's murder upon him."
" And that is ? " asked Richard, eagerly.
But there is no occasion for the reader to know what it is just
yet ; so we will leave the Httle party in the Friar Street surgery
to talk this business over, which they do with such intense
interest that the small hours catch them still talking of the same
subject, and Mr. Percy Oordonner still snowed up in his corner,
reading from the loose leaves the most fascinating olla podrida
of Hterature, wherein the writings of Charles Dickens, George
Sand, Harrison Ainsworth, and Alexandre Dumas are blended
ogether in the mo.st delicious and exciting confur-iuu.
Captain LansJoivn overhear» Converiatton. 241
CHAPTER IX.
CAPTA.IW UlSSDOWS overhears A COXVERSATIOX WHICH APPEARS
TO INTEREST HIM.
Laurent Blhrosset was a sort of rage at the West-end of
Loudou. What did they seek, these weary denizens of the
West-end, but excitement ? Excitement ! No matter how ob-
tained. If Laurent Bhirosset were a magician, so much the
better ; if he had sold himself to the devil, so much the better
again, and so much the more exciting. There was something
almost approacliing to a sensation in making a morning call
upon a gentleman who had possibly entered into a contract with
Sathanas, or put his name on the t)ar;k of a bit of stamped paper
payable at sight to Ijucifer himseit. And then there was the
shghtest chance, the faintest shadow of a probability, of meeting
the proprietor of the gentleman thev called uj>on ; and what
could be more delightful than that f How did he visit Marl-
borough Street — the proprietor P Had he a pass-key to the hall-
door ? or did he leave his card with the servant, hke any other of
the gentlemen his pnpils and allies P Or did he rise through a
trap in the Brussels carpet m the drawingroom ? or slide through
one of the sham Wouvermanne that adorned the walls ? At any
rate, a visit to the mysterious chemist of ]\Iarlborough Street
was about the best thing to do at tliis fag-end of the worn-out
London season ; and Monsieur Laurent Blurosset was considered
a great deal better than the Opera.
It was growing dusk on the evening on which there was so
much excitement in the little surgery in Friar Street, when a
f)lain close carriage stopped at Monsieur Blurosset's door, and a
ady alighted thickly veiled. The graceful but haughty head ia
one we know. It is Valerie, who, in the depth of her misery,
comes to this man, who is in part the author of that miseiy.
She is ushered into a small apartment at the back of the
house, half study, half laboratory, littered with books, manu-
bcripts, crucibles, and mathematical instruments. On a little
table, near a fire that bums low in the grate, are thrown in a
careless heap the well-remembered cards — the cards which eight
years ago foretold the death of the king of spades.
The room is empty when she enters it, and she seats herself in
the depth of the shadow ; for there is no light but the flickering
flame of the low fire.
What does she think of, as she sits in the gloom of that silent
apartment? Who shall say? AVhat forest deep, what lonely
ocean strand, what desert island, is more dismal than the back-
room of a London house, at the window of which looks in a high
Mui.k wall, or a dreary, smoke-dried, weird, vegetable pheuf-
Bienon which nobody on earth but the landlord ever called a tre«3 9
Q
242 The Trail of tie Serpent.
What does she think of in tliis dreary room ? Wliat can she
thiak of? What has she ever thoui^ht for eight years past but
of the man she loved and murdered? And he was innocent!
As long as she had been convinced of his guilt, of his cruel an6
bitter treachery, it had been a sacrifice, that ordeal of the Novem-
ber night. Now it took another colour ; it was a murder — and
glie a pitiful pui")pet in the hands of a master-fiend !
Monsieur Blurosset enters the room, and finds her alone with
these thoughts.
" Madame," he says, " I have perhaps the honour of knowing
you?" He has so many fair visitors that he thinks this one,
^vhose face he cannot see, may be one of his old chents.
" It is eight years since you have seen me, monsieur," sha
replies. " You have most likely forgotten me ? "
"Forgotten you, madame, perhaps, but not your voice. Tliat
13 not to be forgotten."
"lu'ieed, monsieur — and why not?"
" Because, madame, it has a peculiarity of its own, which, as
a physiologist, I cannot mistake. It is the voice of one who has
suffered?"
"Itis!— itis!"
" Of one who has suffered more than it is the common lot of
v^oman to suffer."
'• You are right, monsieur."
" And now, madame, what can I do for you P"
" Nothing, monsieur. Yoii can do nothing for me but that
v.-hich the commonest apothecary in this city who will sell me an
ounce of laudanum can do as well as you."
"Oh, has it come to that again?" he says, with a shade of
Rarcasm in his tone. " I remember, eight years ago "
" I asked you for the means of death. I did not say I wished
1 . die then, at that moment. I did not. I had a purpose in
Lfe. I have still."
As she said these words the fellow-lodger of Blurosset— the
lachan soldier, Captain Lansdown, who had let himself in with
1 is latch-key — crossed the hall, and was arrested at the half-
cpen door of the study by the sound of voices within. I don't
l>aow how to account for conduct so unworthy of an olficer and
h gentleman, but the captain stopped in the shadow of the dark
1 all and Usteued— as if hfe and death were on the words — to the
^ ;>ice of the speaker.
" I have, I say, still a purpose in life — a solemn and a sacred
P^e — to protect the innocent. However guilty I may be, thariic
Heaven I have still the power to protect my son."
" You are married, madame P "
" I am married. You know it as well as I, Monsieur Laurent
'tIaroBsct. The man who first brought tne to your apartment
Captain Lansdown overJiearg a Conversation. 243
must have been, if not your accomplice, at least your colleague.
He revealed to you Ms scheme, no doubt, in order to secure your
assistance in that scheme. I am married to a vUlain — such a
villain as I think Heaven never before looked down upon."
"And you would protect your son, madame, from his
father?';
Captain Lansdown's face sjleams through the shadow as white
as the face of Valerie herself, as she stands looking full at Mon-
sieur Blurosset in the flickering fire-light.
"And you would protect your son from his father, madame?"
repeats the chemist.
■' The man to whom I am at present married is not the father
of my son," says Valerie, in a cold calm voice.
" How, madame ? "
"I was married before," she continued. "The son I so
dearly love is the son of my first husband. My second marriage
has been a man-iage only in name. All your worthy colleague,
Monsieur Raymond MaroUes, stained his hands ia innocent
blood to obtain was a large fortune. He has that, and is con-
tent ; but he shall not hold it long."
" And your purpose in coming to me, madame P "
" Is to accuse you — yes. Monsieur Laurent Blurosset, to
accuse you — as an accomplice in the murder of Gaston da
Lancy."
" An accomplice in a murder ! "
" Yes ; you sold me a poison — yon knew for what that poison
was to be used ; yon were in the plot, the vile and demoniac
plot, that was to steep my soul in guilt. You prophesied the
death of the man I was intended to murder; you put the
thought into my distracted brain — the weapon into my guilty
hand ; and while I suff"er all the tortures which Heaven inflicts
on those who break its laws, are you to go free? No, monsieur,
you shall not go free. Either join with me in accusing this
man, and help me to drag him to justice, or by the Ught in the
eky, by the Hfe-blood of my broken heart — by the life of my
only child, I swear to denounce you! Gaston de Lancy shall
not go unavenged by the woman who loved and murdered him."
The mention of the name of Gaston de Lancy, the man slia
eo dearly and devotedly loved, has a power that nothing else
ou earth has over Valerie, and she breaks into a passionate
torrent of tears.
Laurent Blurosset looks on silently at this burst of ano^uish ;
j)€rhap8 he regards it as a man of science, and can calculate to
a moment how long it will last.
The Indian ofiicer, in the shadow of the doorway, is more
affected than the chemist and philosopher, for he falls on hii
knees by tlie threshold and hides his pale face in his hand?,.
244 The Trail of tlie Serpent.
There ia a silence of perliaps five minutes — a terrible silent.^
it seems, only broken by the heartrending sobs of this despair-
ing woman. At last Laurent Blurosset speaks — speaks in a
tone in which she has never heard him sj^eak before — in a tone
in which, probably, very few have heard him speak — in a tone
so strange to him and his ordinary habit? that it in a manner
transforms him into a new man.
" You say, madame, I was an accomplice of this man's. How
if he did not condescend to make me an accomphce P How, if
this gentleman, who, owing all his success in life to his unas-
sisted villany, has considerable confidence in his own talents,
did not thiak me worthy of the honour of being his accom-
phce?"
" How, monsieur? "
"No, madame; Laurent Blurosset was not a man for the
brilliant Parisian adventurer Raymond ]\Iarolles to enlist as a
colleague. No, Laurent Blurosset was merely a philosopher, a
physiologist, a dreamer, a little bit of a madm:in, and but ajioor
puppet in the hands of the man of the world, the chevaher of
fortune, the imscrupulous and designing Englishman."
"An Englishman?"
" Yes, madame ; that is one of your husband's secrets : he ia
on Englishman. I was not clever enough to be the accomplice
of Monsieur Marolles ; in his opinion I was not too clever to
become his dupe."
"His dupe?"
"Yes, madame, his dupe. His contempt for the man of
science was most supreme : I was a useful automaton — nothing
more. The chemist, the physiologist, the man whose head had
grown gray in the jDursuit of an inductive science — whose nights
and days had been given to the study of the great laws of cause
and effect — was a puppet in the hands of the chevaher of fortune,
and as httle likely to fathom his motives as the wooden doll ia
hkely to guess those of the showman who pulls the strings that
make it dance. So thought Raymond Marolles, the adventurer,
^e fortune-hunter, the thief, the murderer ! "
"What, monsieur, you knew him, then?"
" To the very bottom of his black heart, madame. Science
would indeed have been a lie, wisdom would indeed have been a
chimera, if I could not have read thi-ough the low cunning of
the superficial showy adventurer, as well as I can read the
words written in yonder book chrough the thin veil of a foreign
character. I, his dupe, as he thouglit — the learned fool at
vi'hose labours he laughed, even while he sought to avail himself
of their help — I laughed at him in turn, read every motive ; but
let him laugh on, he on, till the time at wliicli it should be my
pleasure to hft the mask, and say to liim — ' Raymond Marolles,
Captain Lansdotcn overliears a Conversation. 243
charlatan! liar! fool! -dupe! in the battle between Wisdom and
Cunning tbe gray-eyed goddess is the conqueror."
" Wliat, monsieur ? Then you are doubly a murderer. You
knew this man, and yet abetted him in the vilest plot by which
a, wretched woman was ever made to destroy the man she loved
a thousand times better than her worthless self! "
Laurent Blurosset smiled a most impenetrable smile.
" I acted for a purpose, madame. I wished to test the effects
of a new poison. Yours the murder — if there was a murder ;
not mine. You asked me for a weapon; I put it into your
hands ; I did not compel you to use it."
"No, monsieur; but you prompted me. If there is justice
on earth, you shall suffer for that act as well as Monsieur Ma-
roUes ; if not, there is justice in heaven ! God's punishments
are more teiTil)le than those of men, and you have all the more
cause to tremble, you and the wretch whose accomplice you
were — whose willing accompUce, by your own admission, you
were."
" And yourself, madame ? In dragging ns to justice, may
you not yourself suffer ? "
" Suffer ! " She laughs a hollow bitter peal of mocking
laiighter, painful to hear ; very painful to the ears of the listener
in the shadow, whose face is still buried in his hands. " Suffer !
No, Monsieur Blurosset, for me on earth there is no more suffer-
ing. If in hell the wretches doomed to eternal punishment
suffer as I have suffered for the last eight years, as I suffered on
that winter's night when the man I loved died, then, indeed,
God is an avenging Deity. Do yoii think the worst the law can
inflict upon me for that guilty deed is by one thousandth degree
equal to the anguish of my own mind, every day and every hour ?
Do you think I fear disgrace ? Disgrace ! Bah ! What is it P
There never was but one being on earth whose good opinion
I valued, or whose bad opinion I feared. That man I murdered.
You think I fear the world ? The world to me was him ; and
he is dead. If you do not wish to be denounced as the accom-
pHce of a murderess and her accomplice, fi' not let me quit thia
room ; for, by the heaven above me, so surely as I quit this room
aUve I go to deUver you, Raymond MaroUes, and myself into the
hands of justice !"
" And your son, madame — what of him? "
" I have made arrangements f»r his future happiness, mon-
BJcur. He will return to France, and be placed imder the care oi
my uncle."
For a few moments there is silence. Laurent Uhirosset seema
lost in thought. Valerie sits with her bright hollow eyes fixed
on the flickering flame of the low fire. Blurosset iS the first t*")
epcak.
246 The Trail of tie Serpent.
" You say, madame, that if I do not wish to be given np to
justice as the accompUce of a murderer. I shall not suffer you
to leave this room, but sacrifice you to the preservation of my
own safety. Nothing more easy, madame ; I have only to raise
my hand — to wave a handkerchief, medicated in the manner of
those the Borgias and Medicis used of old, before your face ; to
scatter a few grains of powder into that fire at your feet ; to
give you a book to read, a flower to smell; and you do not leave
this room ahve. And this is how I should act, if I were, what
you say I am, the accomplice of a murderer."
" How, monsieur ! — you had no part in the murder of mj
husband ? — you, who gave me the drug which killed him p"
" You jump at conclusions, madame. How do j^ou know that
the drug which I gave you killed Gaston de Lancy P"
*' Oh, for pity's sake, do not juggle with me, Monsieur.
Speak ! What do you mean?"
" Simply this, madame. That the death of your husband on
the evening of the day on which you gave him the drugged wine
may have been— a coincidence."
" Oh, monsieur I in mercy "
" Nay, madame, it was a coincidence. The drug I gave yon
was not a poison. You are guiltless of your husband's death."
" Oh, heaven be praised ! Merciful heaven be praised !" She
falls on her knees, and buries her head in her hands in a wild
burst of tearful thank sgi\ang.
While her face is tliiis hidden, Blurosset takes from a little
cabinet on one side of the fireplace a handiul of a light-coloureJ
powder, which he throws ujdou the exphing cinders iu the grate.
A lurid flame blazes uj), illuminating the room with a strange
unnatural glare.
" Valerie, Countess de Marolles," he says, in a tone of solemn
earnestness, " men say I am a magician — a sorcerer — a disciple
of the angel of darkness ! Nay, some more foohsh than the rest
nave been so blasphemous as to declare that I have power to
raise the dead. Yours is no mind to be fooled by such shallow
lies as these. The dead never rise again m answer to the will
of mortal man. Lift your head, Valerie — not Countess de
Marolles. I no longer call you by that name, which is in itseli
a falsehood. Valerie de Lancy, look yonder !"
He points in the direction of the open door. She rises, looks
towards the threshold, staggers a step forward, utters one long
wild shriek, and falls senseless to the floor.
In all the agonies she has endured, in all the horrors througli
which she has passed, she has never before lost her senses. Tb^
!)suse must indeed be a powerlul one,
ON THE TEACH.
CHAPTER L
FATHER AND SO:^,
rnr^EE days have passed since the interview of Valuria fjilh
Laurent Blurosset, and Raymond de Marolles paces up and
down his study in Park Lane. He is not going to the bank
to-day. The autumn rains beat in against the double windows
of the apartment, which is situated at the back of the house,
looking out upon a small square patch of so-called garden. This
uarden is shut in by a wall, over which a weak-minded and erratic-
)• loking creeper sprawls and straggles ; and there is a Httle green
door in this wall, which communicates with a mews.
A hopelessly wet day. Twelve by the clock, aud not enougi
1 ilue in the gloomy sky to make the smallest article of weariiiLj
apparel — no, not so much as a pair of wristbands for an un-
happy seaman. Well to be the Count de Marolles, and to have
no occasion to extend one's walk beyond the purple-and-crimson
border of that Turkey carpet on such a day as this ! The
London sparrows, transformed for the time being into a species
of water-fowl, flutter dismally about the small swamp of grass-
plot, flanked here and there by a superannuated clump of
withered geraniums which have evidently seen better days.
The span-ows seem to look enviously at the bi-ight blaze reflected
on the double windows of the Count's apartment, and would
like, perhaps, to go in and sit on the hob ; and I dare say they
twitter to each other, in confidence, " A fijoe thing to be the
Count de Marolles, with a fortune which it would take tlie
lifetime of an Old Parr to calculate, and a good fire in wet
weather."
Yet, for all this, Raymond de Marolles does not look the most
enviable object in creation on this particidar rainy morning.
His pale fair face is paler than ever; there are dark circle.i
round the blue eyes, and a neiwous and incessant twitcliing of
the thin lower hp — signs which never were, and never will be,
Uidicationa of a peaceful mind- He haa not seen Valerie sin^a
248 The Trail of the Serpent
the night on which Monsieur Paul Mouc^e, alias Signor Mo8«
quetti, told his story. She has remained secluded in her own
apartm£nts ; and even Raymond de MaroUes has scarce cared
to break upon the sohtude of this woman, in whom grief is so
near akin to desperation.
" What will she do, now she knows all P Will she denounce
me ? If she does, 1 am prepared. If Blurosset, poor scientific
fool, only plays his part faithfully, I am safe. But she will
hardly reveal the truth. For her son's sake she will be silent.
Oh, strange, inexplicable, and m3rsterious chance, that this
fortune for which I have so deeply schemed, for which I have
hazarded so much and worked so hard, should be my own — my
own ! — this woman a mere VTSurper, and I the rightful heir to
the wealth of the De Ceveunes ! What is to be done .P For
the first time in m.y life I am at fault. Should I ily to the
Marquis — tell him I am his son ? — difiicult to prove, now that
old hag is dead; and even if I prove it — as I would move
heaven and earth to do — what if she denounce me to her uncle,
and he refuse to acknowledge the adventurer, the poisoner ? I
could soon sUence her. But unfortunately she has been behind
the scenes, and I fear she would scarcely accept a drop of water
from the hands of her devoted husband. If I had any one to
help me ! But I have no one ; no one that I can trust— no one
in my power. Oh, Laurent Blurosset, for some of your mighty
secrets, so that the very autumn wind blowing in at her window
might seal the lips of my beautiful cousin for ever !"
Pleasant thoughts to be busy with this rainy autumn day ;
but such thoughts are by no means unfamiliar to the heart of
Raymond de Marolles.
It is from a reverie such as this that he is aroused by the
Bound of carriage-wheels, and a loud knocking and ringing at
the hall door. " Too early for morning callers. Who can it be
at such an hour? Some one from the bank, perhaps?" He
paces up and down the room rather anxiously, wondering who
this unexpected visitor might be, when the groom of the
chambers opens the door and announces, " The Marquis de
Ceveunes !"
" So, then," mutters Ra3anond, " she has played her first
eard — she has sent for her uncle. We shall have need of all
our brains to-day. Now then, to meet my father face to face."
As he speaks, the Mai'quia enters.
Face to face — father and son. Sixty years of age — fair and
pale, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and thin Kps. Thirty years of
age — fair and pale, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and thin hps again;
and neither of the two faces to be trusted ; not one look of
truth, not one glance of benevolence, not one noble expression ia
either. Truly father and son — all the world over, father aaid 80u«
Fatlier and Son. 249
" Monsieur le Marquis affords me an miexpected honour and
pleasure," said Kaymond Marolles, as lie advanced to receive
nis visitor.
"Nay, j\Ionsieur de Marolles, scarcely, I should imagine,
unexpected; I come in accordance with the earnest request of
my niece ; though what that most erratic young lady can want
with me in this abominable countiy of your adoption is quitb
beyond my poor comprehension."
Eaymond draws a long breath. " So," he thinks, " he know*
nothing yet. Good! You are slow to play your cards, Valerie.
I will take the initiative; my leading trump shall commence
the game."
" I repeat," said the Marquis, tlirowing himself into the
easy-chair which Raymond had wheeled forward, and warming
his dfhcate white hands before the blazing fire ; " I repeat, thaV
the urgent request of my very lovely but extremely en-atic
niece, that I should cross the Channel in the autumn of a very
stormy year — I am not a good sailor — is quite beyond my com-
prehension." He wears a very magnificent emerald ring, wliicl
is too large for the slender third finger of his left hand, and lie
amuses himself by twisting it round and round, sometimes
stopping to contemplate the effect of it with the plain gold
outside, when it looks Hke a lady's weddmg-i-ing. " It is, I
positively assm-e you," he repeated, looking at the ring, and not
at Raymond, " utterly beyond the hmited powers of my humble
comprehension."
Raymond looks very grave, and takes two or three turns up
and down the room. The hght-blue eyes of the ilarquis follow
him for a turn and a half — find the occupation monotonous, and
go back to the ring and the white hand, always interesting
objects for contemplation. Presently the Count de ]\Iarolles
stops, leans on the easy-chair on the opposite side of the fire-
place to that on which the Marquis is seated, and says, in a
very serious tone of voice —
" Monsieur de Cevennes, I am about to allude to a subject of
80 truly painful and distressing a nature, both for you to hear
and for me to speak of, that I almost fear adverting to it."
The Marquis has been so deeply interested in the ring,
emerald outwards, that he has evidently heard the words of
Raymond without comprehending their meaning ; but he looks
up reflectively for a moment, recalls them, glances over them
afresh as it were, nods, and says —
" Oh, ah ! Distressing nature ; you fear adverting to it— eh !
Pray don't agitate yourself, my good De Marolles. I don't
think it likely you'U agitate me." He leaves the ring for a
minute or two, and looks over the five nails on his left hand,
eridently in search of the pinV est ; finds it on the third finger,
250 The Trail of the Serpent.
and caresses it tenderly, wlule awaiting Eaymond'a very painful
communication.
" You said, Monsieur le Marquis, that you were utterly at a
loss to comprehend my wife's motive in sending for you in this
abrupt manner?"
" Utterly. And I assure you I am a bad sailor — a very bad
sailor. When the weather's rough, I am positively comjielled
to — it is really so absurd," he says, with a light clear laugh — ■
" I am obUged to — to go to the side of the vessel. Both Vindig-
iiified and disagreeable, I give you my word of honour. But
yon were saying "
" I was about to say, monsieur, that it is my deep grief to
iiave to state that the conduct of your niece has been for the
last few months in eveiy way inexplicable — so much so, that I
have Ijeen led to fear "
" What, monsieur?" The Marquis folds liis white hands one
over the other on his knee, leaves off the inspection of their
beauties, and looks full in the face of his niece's husband.
" 1 have been led, with what gi-ief I need scarcely say "
" Oh, no, indeed ; pray reserve the account of your grief—
your grief must have been so very intense. You have been led
to fear "
" 'J 'hat my unhappy wife is out of her mind."
" Precisely. I thought that was to be the climax. My good
Monsieur Raymond, Count de MaroUes — my very worthy Mon-
sieur Raymond MaroUes — my most excellent whoever and
whatever you may be — do you tliink that Rene Theodore
Auguste Philippe Le Grange Martel, Marquis de Cevennes,
is the sort of man to be twisted round your lingers, howevci
clever, unscrupulous, and designing a villain you may be ? "
" Monsiem* le Marquis !"
" I have not the least wish to quarrel with you, my gooJ
friend. Nay, on the contrary, I will freely confess that I am
not without a certain amount of respect for you. You are a
thorough villain. Everything thorough is, in my mind, esti-
mable. Virtue is said to lie in the golden mean — virtue is not
in my way; I therefore do not disjjute the question — but to
me all mediums are contemptible. You are, in your way,
thorough ; and, on the whole, I respect you."
He goes back to the contemplation of his hands and bis
rings, and concentrates all his attention on a cameo head of
Mark Antony, which he wears on his httle finger.
" A villain, Monsieur le Marquis ! "
" And a clever villain, Monsieur de MaroUes — a clever villain!
\7itnes3 your success. But you are not quite clever enough to
hoodwink me — not quite clever enough to hoodwink any die
blest vrith a moderate amount of brains I"
Father and Son. 251
" Monsieur !"
"Because you have one fault. Yes, really," — ^he flicks a
grain of dust out of Mark Antony's eye with, his Uttle finger
— "yes, you have one fault. You are too smooth. Nobody
ever was so estimable as you appear to be — you over-do it. If
you remember," continues the Marquis, addressing him in an
easy, critical, and conversational tone, " the great merit in that
Venetian villain in the tragedy of the worthy but very much
over-rated person, William Shakspeare, is, that he is not
smooth. Othello trusts lago, not because he is smooth, but
because he isn't. ' I know this fellow's of exceeding honesty,'
says the Moor ; as much as to say, ' He's a disagreeable beast,
but I think trastworthy.' You are a very clever fellow. Mon-
sieur Raymond de Marolles, but you would never have got
Desdemona smothered. Othello would have seen through you
—as I did !"
" Monsieur, I will not suffer "
" You will be good enough to allow me to finish what I have
to say. 1 dare say I am prosy, but I shall not detain you long.
I repeat, that though you are a very clever fellow, yon would
never have got the bolster-and-j^illow business accomj^lished,
because Othello would have seen through you as I did. iLy
niece insisted on marrying you. \Vliy ? It was not such a
very difBcult riddle to read, this marriage, apparently so inys-
terious. You, an enterprising person, with a small capital,
plenty of brains, and white hands qmte unfit for rough work,
naturally are on the look-out for some heiress whom you may
entrap into maiTying you."
" Monsieur de Cevennes ! "
" My dear fellow, I am not quarrelling with you. In your
position I should have done the same. That is the very clue b v
which I unravel the mystery. I say to myself, what should 1
have done if fate had been so remarkably shabby as to throve
me into the position of that young man ? Why, naturally 1
should have looked out for some woman foolish enough to be
deceived by that legitimate and old-established sham — so useful
to novelists and the melodramatic theatres — called ' Love.'
Now, my niece is not a fool ; ergo, she was not in love with
you. You had then obtained some species of power over her
What that power was I did not ask ; I do not ask now. Enough
that it was necessary for her, for me, that this marriage should
take place. She swore it on the crucifix. I am a VoltaireaL
myself, but, poor girl, she derived those sort of ideas from her
mother ; so there was nothing for me but to consent to the
marriage, and accept a gentleman of doubtful pedigree."
" Perhaps not so doubtful."
«* J'erhapa not so doubtful ! There is a triumphant curl aboui
252 The Trail of tTie Serpent.
{'•crar upper lip, my dear nephew-in-law. Has papa turned uc
ately?"
" Perliaps, I tMnk I stall soon be able to lay my hand upon
him." He lays a light and delicate hand on the Marquis's
shoulder as he says the words.
" No doubt ; but it' in the meantime you would kindly refrain
from laying it on me, you would obHge — you would really oblige
me. Though why," said the Marqiiis philosophically, address-
ing himself to Llark Antony, as if he would like to avail himself
of that Roman's sagacity, " why we should object to a villain
simply because he is a villain, I can't imagine. We may object
to him if he is coarse, or dirty, or puts his knife in his mouth,
or takes soup twice, or wears ill-made coats, because those things
annoy us; but, object to him because he is a har, or a hypocrite,
or a coward ? Perfectly absurd ! I say, therefore, I consented
to the maniage, asked no unnecessary or ill-bred questions, and
resigned myself to the force of circumstances; and for some
years affairs appeared to go on very smoothly, when suddenly I
am startled by a most alarming letter from my niece. She
implores me to come to England. She is alone, without a
friend, an adviser, and she is determined to reveal all."
" To reveal all !" Raymond cannot repress a start. The
sangfroid of the Marquis had entirely deceived him whose chief
weapon was that very sang froid.
" Yes. What tlien ? You, being aware of this letter having
been written — or, say, guessing that such a letter would be
written — determine 0:1 your course. You will throw over your
wife's evidence by declaring her to be mad. Eh ? This is what
you determine upo;;, isn't it?" It appears so good a joke to the
Marquis, that he laughs and nods at ]\Iark Antony, as if he
would really like that respectable Roman to participate in the fun.
For the first time in his life Raymond IMarolles has found
his match. In the hands of this man he is utterly powerless.
"An excellent idea. Only, as I said before, too obvious — too
transparently obvious. It is the only thing you can do. If I
were looking for a man, and came to a part of the country
where there was but one road, I should of course know that he
must — if he went anywhere — go down that road. So with you,
my dear MaroUes, there was but one resource left you — to dis-
prove the revelations of your wife by declaring them the halluci-
nations of a maniac. I take no credit to myself for seein?
through yon, I assure you. There is no talent whatever i;j
finding out that two and two make four; the genius would b^
the man who made them into five. I do not tliink I have an}>
thing more to say. I have no wish to attack you, my dear
nephew-ia-law. I merely wanted to prove to you that I was
not your dupe. I think you must be by this time sufficiently
FatJier and Son. 253
eonviuced of that fact. If you have any good Madeira in yonr
cellars, I should like a glass or two, and the wing of a chicken,
before I hear what my niece may have to say to me. I made a
very poor breakfast some hours ago at the Lord Warden."
Having expressed himself thus, the Marquis throws himself
back in his easy-chair, yawns once or twice, and polishes Mark
Antony with the corner of his handkerchief; he has evidently
entirely dismissed the subject on which he has been speaking,
and is ready for j^leasant conversation.
At this moment the door is thrown open, and Valerie enters
the room.
It is the fl'rst time Raymond has seen Yalerie since the^ night
of Mosquetti's story, and as his eyes meet hers he starts invd-
luntarily.
What is itP — this change, this transformation, which has
taken eight years off the age of this woman, and restored her
as she was on that night when he first saw her at the Opera
House in Paris. What is it ? So great and marvellous an
alteration, he might almost doubt if this indeed were she. And
yet he can scarcely define the change. It seems a transforma-
tion, not of the face, but of the soul. A new sotil looking out
of the old beauty. A new soul? No, the old sonl, wliich he
thought dead. It is indeed a resurrection of the dead.
She advances to her imcle, who embraces her with a graceful
and drawingroom species of tenderness, about as like real
tenderness as ormolu is like rough Australian gold — as Lawrence
Sterne's sentiment is hke Oliver Goldsmith's pathos.
" My dear uncle ! Tou received my letter, then ?"
"Yes, dear child. And what, in Heaven's name, can you
have to tell me that would not admit of being delayed until the
weather changed ? — and I am such a bad sailor," he repeats
plaintively. " What can you have to tell me ?"
"Nothing yet, my dear uncle" — the bright dark eyes look
with a steady gaze at Raymond as she speaks — " nothing yet ;
the hour has not yet come."
" For mercy's sake, my dear girl," says the Marquis, in a tone
of horror, "don't be melodramatic. If you're going to act a
Porte- St.-Martin drama, in thirteen acts and twenty-six tab-
leaux, I'll go back to Paris. If you've nothing to say to me,
why, in the name of all that's feminine, did you send for me ?"
" When I wi-ote to yon, I told yon that I appealed to you
because I had no other friend upon earth to whom, in the hour
of my anguish, I could turn for help and advice."
" You did, you did. If you had not been my only brother's
only child, I should have waited a change in the wind belbrel
nrossed the Channel — I am such a wretched sailor ! But liib,
isa the religious party asserts, is a long sacrifice — 1 came I"
254 The Trail of the Sefpent.
" Suppose that, since writing that letter, I have found a friend^
an adviser, a guiding hand and a supporting arm, and no longer
need the help of any one on earth besides this new-found friend
to revenge me upon my enemies P"
Ra3'Tnond'8 bewilderment increases every moment. Has she
indeed gone mad, and is this new Hght in her eyes the fire oi
insanity ?
" I am sure, my dear Valerie, if you have met with such a
very delightful person, I am extremely glad to hear it, as it
relieves me from the trouble. It 'u melodramatic certainly, but
excessively convenient. I have remarked, that in melodrama
circumstances generally are convenient. I never alarm myself
when everything is hopelessly wrong, and villany deliciously
triumphant ; for I know that somebody who died in the first act
will come in at the centre doors, and make it all right before tho
curtain falls."
" Since Madame de Marolles will no doubt wish to be alone
with her uncle, I may perhaps be permitted to go into the City
till dinner, when I shall have the honour of meeting Monsieur
le Marquis, I trust."
" Certainly, my good De MaroUes ; your chef, I believe, under-
stands his profession. I shall have great pleasure in dining with
you. Au revoir, mon enfant ; we shall go upon velvet, now we so
thoroughly understand each other." He waves his white left hand
to Raymond, as a graceful dismissal, and turns towards his niece,
" Adieu, madame," says the Coiint, as he passes his wife ;
then, in a lower tone, adds, " I do not ask you to be silent for
my sake or your own; I merely recommend you to remember
that you have a son, and that you will do well not to make me
your enemy. When I strike, I strike home, and my policy has
always been to strike in the weakest place. Do not forget poor
little Cherubino !" He looks at her steadily with his cruel blue
eyes, and then tunis to leave the room.
As he opens the door, he almost knocks down an elderly gentle*
man dressed in a suit of clerical-looking black and a white neck*
cloth, and carrying an unpleasantly damp umbrella under his arm.
" Not yet, Mr. Jabez North," says the gentleman, who is
neither more nor less than that respectable preceptor and guide
to the youthful mind. Dr. Tappenden, of Slopperton — " not
5'et, Mr. North ; I think your clerks in Lombard Street will be
compelled to do without you to-day. You are wanted elsewhere
at present."
Anything but this — anything but this, and he would have
borne it, like — hke himself ! Thank Heaven there is no com-
parison for such as he. He was prepared for all but this. This
early period of his life, which he thought blotted out and for-
gotten — this he is unprepared for; and he falls back with a
FatJier and So7t. 255
phastly face, and wkite lips that refuse to sliape even ot.e excla-
niutiou of horror or surprise.
" What is this ? " murmurs the Marquis. *' North — Jabez —
Jabez North ? Oh, I see, we have come upon the pre-Parisian
formation, and that," he glances towards Dr. Tajipenden, "ia
one of the vestiges."
At last Raymond's tremulous lips consent to form the worda
he struggles to utter.
" You are under some mistake, sir, whoever you may be. My
name is not North, and I have not the honour of your acquaint
anoe. I am a Frenchman ; my name is De Marolles. I am nol
the person you seek."
A gentleman advances from the doorway — (there ia quite a
group of people in the hall) — and says —
" At least, sir, you are the person who presented, eight years
ago, three forged cheques at my bank. I am ready, as well as
two of my clerks, to swear to your identity. We have people
here with a warrant to arrest you for that forgery."
The forgery, not the murder ? — no one knows of that, then —
that, at least, is buried in obhvion.
" There are two or three little tilings out against you, Mr.
North," said the doctor ; " but the forgeiy will serve our purpose
very well for the present. It's the easiest charge to bring home
as yet."
What do they mean? Wliat other charges? Come what
may, he will be finn to the last — to the last he will be himsell'.
After all, it is but death they can threaten him with : and the
best people have to die, as well as the worst.
"Only death, at most!" he mutters. "Courage, Raymond,
and finish the game as a good player should, without throwing
away a trick, even though beaten by better cards."
" I tell you, gentlemen, I know nothing of your forgery, or you
cither. I am a Frenchman, born at Bordeaux, and never in your
'.ery eccentric country before ; and indeed, if this is the sort of
tiling a gentleman is liable to in his own study, I shall certainly,
when I once return to France, never visit your shores again."
" Wlien you do return to France, I think it very unlikely you
will ever revisit England, as you say, sir. If, as you affirm, you
are indeed a Frenchman — (what excellent English you speal:,
monsieur, and what trouble you must have taken to acquire so
perfect an accent!) — you will, of course, have no difficulty ia
I^roving the fact; also that you were not in England eight
vears ago, and consequently were not for some years assistant in
"the academy of this gentleman at Slopperton. All this an
enlightened British jury will have much pleasure in hearing.
We have not, however, come to try you, but to arrest you,
Johnson, call a caik hr the C-Tur*. de Marolles 1 If we are wroiigf,
256 The Trail of the Serpent.
monsieur, yon will have a magnificent case of false imprisoR*
ment, and I congratulate yon on the immense damages which
you will most likely obtain. Thomson, the handcufiB ! I must
trouble you for your wrists, Monsieur de Marolles."
The police officer politely awaits the pleasure of his prisoner,
Raymond pauses for a moment ; thinks deeply, with his head
bent on his breast ; hfts it suddenly with a glitter in his eyes,
and his thin Hps set firm as iron. He has arranged his game.
" As you say, sir, I shall have an excellent case of false impri-
sonment, and my accusers shall pay for their insolence, as well
as for their mistake. In the meantime, I am ready to follow
you ; but, before I do so, I wish to have a moment's conversa-
tion with this gentleman, the uncle of my Avife. You have, I
suppose, no objection to leaving me alone with him for a few
minutes. You can watch outside in the hall; I shall not
attempt to escape. We have, unfortunately, no trap-doors in
this I'oom, and I believe they do not build the houses in Park
Lane mth such conveniences attached to them as sliding panels
or secret staircases."
" Perhaps not, sir," replies the inflexible pohce officer ; *' but
they do, I perceive, buUd them vdth gardens " — he walks to the
window, and looks out — " a wall eight feet high^door leading
into mews. Not by any means such a very inconvenient house,
Monsieur de Marolles. Thomson, one of the sei-vants will be
so good as to show you the way into the garden below these
windows, where you will amuse yourself till this gentleman has
done talking with his uncle."
" One moment — one moment," says the ^Marquis, who, during
the foregoing conversation has been entirely absorbed in the
endeavour to extract a very obstinate speck of dust from Mark
Antony's nostril. " One moment, I beg " — as the officer is
about to withdraw — " why an interview ? Wliy a pohce person
in the garden — if yon call that dreadful stone dungeon with the
roof off a garden? I have nothing to say to this gentleman.
Positively uotliing. AU I ever had to say to him I said ten
minutes ago. We perfectly understand each other. He can
have nothing to say to me, or I to him; and really, I think,
under the circumstances, the very best thing you can do is to
put on that unbecoming iron machineiy — I never saw a thing of
the kind before, and, as a novelty, it is actually quite intei-est-
ing"— (he touches the handcufls that are lying on t^e table with
the extreme tip of his taper third finger, hast' ly withdrawing it
as if he thought they would bite) — " and to take him away
immediately. If he has committed a forgery, you know," he
adds, deprecatingly, " he is not the sort of thing one likes to see
about one. He really is not."
Baymond de Marolles never had, perhaps, too much of thai
'Father and Son. 257
absurd weakness called love for one's fellow-creatures; but if
ever he hated any man with the blackest and bitterest hate of liis
black and bitter heart, so did he hate the mau standing now before
iiim. twisting a ring round and round his delicate finger, and look-
ing as { ntii-ely at his ease as if no point were in discussion oi
more importance than the wet weather and the cold autumn day,
" Stay, Monsieur le Marquis de Cevennes," he said, in a tone
of suppressed passion, " jou are too hasty in your conclusions
You have nothing to say to me. Granted! But I may have
something to say to you — and I have a great deal to say to you,
which must be said ; if not in piivate, then in pubhc — if not by
word cf mouth, I will print it in the pubhc journals, till Paris
and ijcndon shall ring with the sound of it on the lips of other
men. You will scarcely care for this alternative. Monsieur de
C^evennes, when you leam what it is I have to say. Your sang
froid does you credit, monsieur; especially when, just now,
though you could not repress a start of surprise at hearing that
gentleman," he indicates Dr. Tapj^enden with a wave of his
hand, " speak of a certain manufacturing town called Sloj^per-
ton, you so raj^idly regained your composure that only so close
an observer as myself would have perceived your momentary
agitation. You appear entirely to ignore, monsieur, the exist-
ence of a certain aristocratic emigrant's son, who thirty years
ago taught French and mathematics in that very town of Slop-
perton. Nevertheless, there was such a person, and you knew
him — although he was content to teach his native language for
a shilling a lesson, and had at that i:)eriod no cameo or emerald
rings to twist round his fingers."
li the Marquis was ever to be admired in the whole course of
his career, he was to be admired at this moment. He smiled
a gentle and deprecating smile, and said, in liis politest tone —
" Pardon me, he had eighteenpence a lesson — eighteenpence,
I assxu'e you ; and he was often invited to dinner at the houses
where he taught. The women adored him — they are so simple,
poor tlungs. He might have married a manufacturer's daughter,
with an immense fortune, thick ancles, and erratic h's."
" But he did not marry any one so distinguished. Monsieur
de Cevennes, I see you understand me. I do not ask you to
grant me this interview in the name of justice or humanity,
because I do not wish to address you in a language wliich is a
foreign one to me, and which you do not even comprehend ; but
in the name of that young Frenchman of noble family, who
was 80 very weak and foolish, so entirely false to himself and
to bis ovm princi]^les, as to marry a woman because he loved, or
fancied that he loved her, I say to you. Monsieur le Marquis,
»'0u will find it to your interest to hear what I have to reveal."
The Marquis shrugs his bhweiders eb'^htly. " As you ])lease,"
R
258 The Trail of tie Serpent
he says. " Gentlemen, be good enough to remain outside that
door. My dear Valerie, you had better retire to your own
apartments. My poor child, all this must be so extremely
wearisome to you — almost as bad as the third volume of a
fashionable novel. Monsieur de Marolles, I am prepared to hear
what you may have to say — though " — he here addresses himself
generally — " I beg to protest against this affair from first to last
— I repeat, from first to last — it is so intolerably melodramatic."
CHAPTER IL
BAYMOND DE MABOLLES SHOWS HIMSELF BETTEE THAW ALL
BOW STREET.
** And so, Monsieur de Marolles," said the Marquis, as Eaymond
closed the door on the group in the hall, and the two gentlemen
were left entirely alone, " and so you have — by what means I
shall certainly not so far inconvenience myself as to endeavour
to guess — contrived to become informed of some of the antece-
dents of your very humble servant ? "
" Of some of the antecedents — why not say of all the antece-
dents, Monsieur de Cevennes?"
" Just as you like, my dear young friend," replies the Marquis,.
He really seems to get quite affectionate to Raymond, but in a
far-off, patronizing, and superb manner something that of a
gentlemanly MejihistoiDhelcs to a promising Doctor Faustus ; —
"and having possessed yourself of this information, may I ask
what use you intend making of it? In thi& utilitarian age
everything is put to a use, sooner or later. Do you purpose
writing my biography ? It will not be interesting. Not as you
would have to write it to-day. Alas ! we are not so fortunate
as to live under the Regency, and there are not many interesting
biographies nowadays."
" My dear Marquis, I really have no time to listen to what I
have no doubt, amongst your own particular friends, is con-
sidered most brilKant wit ; I have two or three things to say to
you that must be said ; and the sort of people who are now
waiting outside the door ai-e apt to be impatient."
" Ah, you are experienced ; you know their manners and
customs! And they are impatient," murmured the Marquis,
tiioughtfully ; " and they put you in stone places as if you were
coal, and behind bars as if you were zoological ; and then they
hang you. They caU you up at an absurd hour in the morning,
and they take you out into a high place, and drop you down
through a hole as if you were a penny put into a savings box; and
other people get up at an equally absurd hour of the morning,
or stay up aU night, in order to see it done. And yet there are
persons who declare th?* the age of romance has passed away."
Raymond de Marolles heafu Bow Street. 253
"Monsieur de Cevennes, that whicli I have to Bay to yon
relates to your marriage."
" My marriage. Suppose I say that I never was married, my
amiable friend ? "
" I shall then reply, monsieur, that I not only am informed
of all the circumstances of your marriage, but what is more, I
am possessed of a proof of that marriage."
" Supposing there was such a marriage, which I am prepared
to deny, there could only be two proofs — the witnesses and the
certificate."
" The witnesses, monsieur, are dead," said Raymond.
" Then that would reduce the possible proof's to one — the
certificate."
"Nay, monsieur, there might be another evidence of the
marriage."
" And that would be ?"
"The issue of it. You had two sons by that marriage,
monsieur. One of those sons died eight years ago."
"And the other ?" asked the Marquis.
" Stni hves. I shall have something to say about him by-and-
^y-" ....
"It IS a subject in which I take no sort of interest," said the
Marquis, throwing himself back into his chair, and abandonnig
himself once more to Marc Antony. " I may have been married,
or I may not have been man-ied — it is not worth my wliile to
deny that fact to you; because if I confess it to you, I can of
«oui'se deny it the moment I cross the threshold of that door — I
may have sons, or I may not have sons ; in either case, I have
no wish to hear of them, and anything you may have to say
about them is, it appears to me, quite irrelevant to the matter
in hand ; which merely is your going to prison for forgery, or
your not going to prison for forgery. But what I most earnestly
recommend, my very dear young friend, is, that you take the
cab and handcuffs quietly, and go ! That will, at least, put an
end to fuss and discussion ; and oh, what an inexpressible rehef
there is in that ! I always envy Noah, floundering about ip
that big boat of his: no new books; no houses of parliament;
no poor relations ; no Times newspaper ; and no taxes — ' univer-
sal as you were,' as Mr. Carlyle says ; plenty to eat, and every-
thing come to an end; and that foolish Noah must needs send
out the dove, and begin it all over again. Yes, he began it all
over again, that preposterous Noah. Whereby, cab, handcuffs,
fjjrgery, long conversation, and pohce persons outside that door ;
all of which might have been prevented if Noah had kept the
dove indoors, and had been unselfish enough to bore a hole in
the bottom of his boat."
** If you will listen to me. Monsieur le Marquis, and keep yotif
2G0 The Trail of ihe Serpent.
pliilosopWcal reflections for a more convenient season, tliere \nll
be some chance of onr coming to an understanding. Onci of
these twin sons still lives."
"Now, really, that is the old ground again. We are not
getting on "
" StiU lives, I say. Wliatever he is, Monsieur de Cevennes— •
whatever his chequered life may have been, the guilt and th«
misery of that Hfe rest alike on your head."
The Marquis gives the head alluded to an almost imperceptible
jerk, as if he threw this moral burden off, and looks reheved b
the proceeding. " Don't be melodramatic," he remarks, mildly
"this is not the Porte- St.-Martin, and there are no citizens in
the gallery to applaud."
"That guilt and that misery, I say, rest upon your head.
When you man-ied the woman whom you abandoned to starva-
tion and despair, you loved her, I suppose?"
" I dare say I did ; I have no doubt I told her so, poor httlo
thing!"
" And a few months after your marriage you wearied of her,
as you would have done of any other plaything."
" As I should have done of any other plaything. Poor dear
child, she was dreadfully wearisome. Her relations too. Heaven
and earth, what relations ! They were looked upon in the Hght
of human beings at Slopperton : but they were wise to keep out
of Paris, for they'd have been most decidedly put into the Jardin
des Plantes; and, really," said the Marquis, thoughtfully,
" behind bars, and aggravated by fallacious offers of buns from
small children, they would have been rather amusing."
" You were quite content that this unhappy girl should share
yoiir poverty. Monsieur le Marquis; but in the hour of your
good fortune "
"I left her. Decidedly. Look you. Monsieur de MaroUes,
•when I married that young person, whom you insist on dragging
out of her grave — poor girl, she is dead, no doubt, by this time
— in this remarkably melodramatic manner, I was a young
man, without a penny in the world, and with very slight expec-
tations of ever becoming possessed of one. I am figurative, of
course. I believe men of my temperament and complexion are
not very subject to that popular epidemic, called love. But as
much as it was in my power to love any one, I loved this little
factory girl. I used to meet her going backwards and forwards
to her work, as I went backwards and forwards to mine ; and
we became acquainted. She was gentle, innocent, pretty. I
was very young, and, I need scarcely say, extremely stupid;
and I married her. We had not been married six months before
that dreadful Corsican person took it into his head to abdicate,'
and I was summone'I b'ack to France, to make my appearanos
Raymond de Marolles Icats Bow Street. 261
at tlie Tuileries as Marquis de Cevennes. Now, wliat I have to
sa'v is this : if you wish to quarrel with any one, quarrel with
the Corsioau person ; for if he had never signed his abdication
at Fontainebleau (which he did, by the bye, in a most melo-
dramatic manner — I am acquainted with some weak-minded
peo]ile who cannot read the description of that event without
shedding tears), I should never have deserted my poor httle
English wife."
" The Marquis de Cevennes could not, then, ratify the mar-
riage of the obscure teacher of Freuch and mathematics ? "
asked Raymond.
" If the Marquis de Cevennes had been a rich man, he might
have done so ; but the Restoration, which gave me back my
title, and the only chateau (my ancestors had three) which thf
Jacobins had not burned to the ground, did not restore me the
fortune which the Revolution had devoured. I was a poor man.
Only one course was open to me — a rich man-iage. The wealthy
widow of a Buonapartist general beheld and admired your
humble servant, and the doom of my poor little wife was sealed.
For many years I sent money regularly to her old mother — an
awful woman, who knew my secret. She had, therefore, na
occasion to starve. Monsieur de Marolles. And now, may I be
permitted to ask what interest you have in this affair, that you
should insist on recalUng these very disagreeable circumstances
at this particular moment ? "
" There is one question you do not ask. Monsieur le Marquis."
" Indeed ; and what is that ? " asked the Marquis.
" You seem to have very Uttle curiosity about the fate of your
surviving son."
"I seem to have very little curiosity, my young friend ; I hav^
very Httle curiosity. I dare say he is a veiy worthy individual ;
but I have no anxiety whatever about his fate ; for if he at all
resembles his father, there is very little doubt that he has taken
every care of himself. The De Cevennes have always taken
care of themselves ; it is a family trait."
" He has proved himself worthy of that family, then. He
N") as thrown into a river, but he did not sink ; he was put into a
workhouse and brought up as a pauper, but by the force of his
own will and the help of his own brain he extricated himself,
and won his way in the world. He became, what his father was
liefore him, a teacher in a school. He grew tired of that, as hia
father did, and left England for Paris. In Paris, like his father
\»'\'(n-Q him, he married a woman he did not love for the sake of
her fortune. He became master of that fortune, and till this
very day he has surmounted every obstacle and triumphed over
every difficulty. Your only son, Monsieur de Cevennes — the
•on whose mother you deserted — the son whom you abandoned
262 Tlie Trail of the Serpent.
to starve, steal, drown, or hang, to beg in the streets, die in a
gutter, a workhouse, or a prison — has lived through all, to stanu
face to face with you this day, and to tell you that for his o^vn
and for his naother's wrongs, with all the strength of a soul
which those wrongs have steeped in wickedness — he hates yim!"
"■ Don't be violent," said the Marquis, gently. " So, you are
my son P Upon my word I thought all along you were some-
thing of that kind, for you are such a consummate villain."
For the first time in his Ufe Eaymond de MaroUes feels what
it is to be beaten by his own weapons. Against the sancj froid
of the Marquis the torrent of his passionate words dashes, as the
Bea dashes at the foot of a rock, and makes as little impression.
"And what then?" says the Marquis. "Since it appears
you are my son, what then ? "
" You must save me, monsieur," said Eaymond, in a hoarse
voice.
"Save you P But, my worthy friend, how save you? Save
you from the cab and handcuffs P If I go out to those people
and say, ' He is my son ; be so good as to forego the cab and
handcuffs,', they will laugh at me. They are so dreadlTilly
matter-of-fact, that sort of people. What is to be done ? "
" Only this, monsieur. I must make my escape from this
apartment. That window looks into the garden, from the
garden to the mews, through the mews into a retired street, and
thence — — **
_ " Never mind that, if you get there. I reallv doubt the pos-
eibility of your getting there. There is a policeman watching
in that garden."
Eaymond smUes. He is recovering his presence of mind in
the necessity for action. He opens a drawer in the library tabte
and takes out an air-pistol, which looks rather hke some elegant
toy than a deadly weapon.
" I must shoot that man," he says.
"Then I give the alarm. I will not be imj^licated in a
mui-der. Good Heavens ! the Marquis de Cevennes impUcated
in a murder ! Why, it would be talked of in Paris for a month."
"There will be no murder, monsieur. I shall fire at that
man from this window and hit him in the knee. He will fall,
and most hkely faint from the pain, and will not, therefor^
know whether I pass through the garden or not. You will give
the alarm, and tell the men without that I have escaped through
this window and the door in the wail yonder. They will pursue
me in that direction, while I "
"You will do what?"
" Go out at the front door as a gentleman should. I was not
tmprepared for such an event as this. Every room in this house
tas a secret communication with the next room. There is onlj
Tie Left-lianded Smaslier maJces Ids Itarh. 2G3
on<? door in this library, as it seems, and tliey are carefully
watcliing that."
As lie speaks he softly opens the window and fires at the
man in the garden, who falls, only uttering a groan. As
Raymond predicted, he faints with the pain.
With the rapidity of Hghtning he flings the window np
violently, hurls the pistol to the farthest extremity of the garden,
snatches the Marquis's hat from the chau* on which it Hes,
presses one finger on the gilded back of a volume of Gibbon's
Rome, a narrow sHp of the bookcase opens inwards, and reveals
a door leading into the next apartment, which is the dining-
room. This door is made on a pecuHar principle, and, as he
pushes through, it closes behind him.
This is the work of a second ; and as the officers, alarmed by
the sound of the opening of the window, rush into the room, the
Marquis gives the alarm. "He has escaped by the window!"
he said. " He has wounded your assistant, and passed through
that door. He cannot be twenty yards in advance ; you will
easily know him by his having no hat on."
" Stop !" cries the detective ofiicer, " this may be a trap. He
may have got round to the front door. Go and watch, Johnson."
A httlb too late this precaution. As the officers rushed into
the Hbrary, Raymond passed from the dining-room door out of
the open street-door, and jumped into the very cab wluch was
waiting to take him to prison. " Five pounds, if you catch the
Liverpool Express," he said to the cabman.
"Ail right, sir," replied that worthy citizen, with a wink.
" I've druv a many gents hke you, and very good fares they is
too, and a godsend to a hard-working man, what old ladies with
hand-bags and umbrellas grudges eightpence a mile to," mutters
the charioteer, as he gallops down Upper Brook Street and
across Hanover Square, while the gentlemen of the pohce force,
aided by Dr. Tappenden and the obhging Marquis, search the
mews and neighbourhood adjoining. Strange to say, they
cannot obtain any information from the coachman and stable-
boys concerning a gentleman without a hat, who must bare
passed through the mews about three minutes before.
CHAPTER in.
THE LEFT-HANDED SMASHER MAKES HIS MAHK.
" It is a palpable and humiUating proof of the decadence of the
glories of white-clified Albion and her lion-hearted childi'en,"
Baid the sporting correspondent of the Liverpool Bold Speaker
and Threepenny Aristides — a gentleman who, by the bye, was
▼ery clever at naming — for half-a-dozen stamps — the horses
that didn't win; and was, indeed, useful to fancy betters, as
"^M The Trail of the Serpent.
afFording accurate information wliat to avoid; notliing being
better policy than to give the odds against any horse named by
him as a sure winner, or a safe second : for those gallant steeda
were sure to be, whatever the fluctuating fortune of the race,
ignominiously nowhere. "It is," continued the Liverpool B. 8.,
"a sign of the downfalling of the lion and unicorn — over which
Britannia may shed tears and the inhabitants of Liverpool and
its vicinity mourn in sUent despair — that the freedom of England
is no more! We repeat {The Liverpool Aristides here gets
excited, and goes into small capitals) — Bkitain is no longer
FuEE ! Her freedom departed from her on that day on which
the blue-coated British Sbirri of Sir Robert Peel broke simul-
taneously into the liberties of the nation, the mightiest clauses
of Magna Charta, and the Prize Ring, and stopped the opera-
tions of the Lancashu'e Daddy Longlegs and the celebrated
Metropolitan favourite, the Left-handed Smasher, during the
eighty-ninth round, and just as the real interest of the fight
was about to begin. Under these humiliating circumstances,
a meeting has been held by the referees and backers of the men,
and it has been agreed between the latter and the stakeholder to
draw the money. But, that the valiant and admired Smashei
may hava no occasion to complain of the inhospitahty of the
town of Liverpool, the patrons of the fancy have determined on
giving him a dinner, at which his late opponent, our old favourite
and honoured townsman. Daddy Longlegs, will be in the chair,
having a distinguished gentleman of sporting celebrity as his
vice. It is to be hoped that, as some proof that the noble art of
self-defence is not entirely extinct in Liverpool, the friends of
the Eing will muster pretty strong on this occasion. Tickets.
at half-a-goinea, to be obtained at the Gloves Tavern, where the
entertainment wiU take place."
On the very day on which the Count de MaroUes left his
establishment in Park Lane in so very abrupt a manner, the
tributary banquet to the genius of the Eing, in the person of
the Left-handed Smasher, came off in excellent style at the
above-mentioned Gloves Tavern — a small hostelry, next door to
one of the Liverpool minor theatres, and chiefly supported by
the members of the Thespian and pugHistic arts. The dramatic
element, perhaps, rather predominated in the small parlour
behind the bar, where Brandolph of the Burning Brand — after
fighting sixteen terrific broadsword combats, and being left for
dead behind the first grooves seven times in the course of three
acts — would take his Welsh rarebit and his pint of half-and-half
in company with the Lancashire Grinder and the Pottery Pet,
and listen with due solemnity to the discourse of these two
popular characters. The Uttle parlour was so thickly hung with
portraits of theatrical and sporting celebrities, that CEdipua
The Lefi-Jianded Smasher mahes his Marh. 2G"
'V
himself — distinguished as he is for having guessed the dullest of
conund»'uxns — could never have discovered the pattern of the
paper which adorned the walls. Here, Mr. Montmorency, the
celebrated comediaji, smirked — with that mild smirk only known
ill portraits — over the ample shoulders of his very much better
half, at the Pet in fighting attitude. There, Mr. Marmaduke
Montressor, the great tragedian, frowned, in the character of
Richard the Thu-d, at Pyrrhus the First, winnw of the last
Derby. Here, again, Mademoiselle Pasdebasqne pointed her
satin shpper side Ly side with the youthful Challoner of that
day; and opposite Mademoiselle Pasdebasqne, a gentleman in
scarlet, whose name is unknown, tumbled off a burnt-sienna
horse, in excellent condition, and a very high state of varnish,
into a Pnissian-blue ditch, thereby filling the spectator with
apprehension lest he should be, not drowned, but dyed. As to
Brandolph of the Brand, there were so many pictures of him,
in so many different attitudes, and he was always looking so
very hauds'^mtj and doing something so very magnanimous, that
perhaps, upon the whole, it was rather a disappointment to
i. uk from the pictures down to the original of them in the
auigy costume of private Hfe, seated at the shiny Uttle mahogany
table, partaking of refreshment.
The theatrical profession mustered pretty strongly to do
honour to the sister art on this particular occasion. The theatre
next door to the Gloves happened, fortunately, to be closed, on
account of the extensive scale of preparations for a grand dra-
matic and spectacular performance, entitled, "The Sikh Vic-
tories; or, The Tyrant of the Ganges," which was to be brought
out the ensuing Monday, with even more than usual magnifi-
cence. So the votaries of Thespis were free to testify their ad-
miration for the noble science of self-defence, by taking tickets
for the dinner at ten-and-sixpence a-piece, the banquet being, as
Mr. Montressor, the comedian above-mentioned, remarked, with
more energy than elegance, a cheap blow-out, as the dinner would
last the guests who partook of it two days, and the indigestion
attendant thereon would carry them through the rest of the week.
I shall not enter into the details of the pugilistic dinner, but
will introduce the reader into the banquet-hall at rather a late
stage in the proceedings ; in point of fact, just as the festival is
about to break up. It is two o'clock in the morning ; the table
is strewn vsrith the debris of a dessert, in which ^gs, almonda
and raisins, mixed biscuits, grape-stalks, and apple and orange-
peel seem rather to predominate. The table is a very field of
Cressy or Waterloo, as to dead men in the way of empty bottles;
good execution having evidently been done upon Mr. Hemmar'a
well-stocked cellar. From the tumblers and spoons before each
guest, however, it is also evident that the festive throng ha«
2G0 Tlic "trail of the Serp&nl
followed the example of Mr. Sala's renowned hero, and aftei
having tried a " variety of foreign drains," has gone back to
gin-and-water pur et simple. It is rather a peculiar and para-
doxical quality of neat wines that they have, if anything, rather
an untidy eifect on those who drink them : certainly there is a
looseness about the hair, a thickness and indecision in the
speech, and an erratic and irrelevant energy and emphasis in the
gestures of the friends of the Smasher, which is entirely at
variance with our ordinary idea of the word "neat." Yet, wIit
should we quarrel with them on that account ? They are hai ?e
less, and they are happy. It is surely no crime to see two gos-
burners where, to the normal eye, thei-e is only one ; neither is
it criminal to try five distinct times to enunciate the two words,
" shghtest misunderstanding," and to fail ignominionsly every
time. If anything, that must be an amiable feeling which in-
spires a person with a sudden wild and almost j^athetic friend-
ship for a man he never saw before ; such a friendship, in shoit,
as pants to go to the block for him, or to become his surety to >*
loan-office for five pounds. Is it any such terrible offence against
society to begin a speech of a patriotic nature, full of allusions
to John Bull, Queen Victoria, Wooden Walls, and the Prize
Ring, and to burst into tears in the middle thereof? Is there
no benevolence in the wish to see your friend home, on account
of your strong impression that he has taken a Httle too much,
and that he wiU tumble against the railings and impale his chin
upon the spikes ; which, of course, you are in no danger of
doing ? Are these things crimes P No ! We answer boldly,
No ! Then, hurrah for neat wines and free trade ! Open wide
our harbours to the purple grapes that flourish in the vineyards
of sunny Burgundy and Bordeaux; and welcome, thrice welcome,
to the blushing tides which Horace sang so many hundred
years ago, when our beautiful Earth was younger, and maybe
fairer, and held its course, though it is hard to believe it, very
well indeed, without the genius of modern civifization at the helm.
There had been a silver cup, with one of the labours of
Hercules — poor Hercules, how hard they work him in the sport-
ing world ! — embossed thereon, presented to the Smasher, as a
tribute of respect for those British qualities wliich had endeared
him to his admii-ers ; and the Smasher's health had been drunk
with three- times-three, and a little one in ; and then three more
three-times-three, and another littU; one in ; and the Smasher
had returned thanks, and Brandolph of the Brand had proposed
the Daddy Longlegs, and the Daddy Longlegs had made a very
neat speech in the Lancashire dialect, which the gentlemen of
the theatrical profession had pretended to understand, but hacl
not understood; and a literary individual — being, in fact, the
gentleman whose spirited writing we have quoted above, Mr-
The Lefi-hamJed Svmslier jnalces his Marie. 207
Jeffrey Hallam Jones, of the Liverpool Aristides, sporting and
theatrical correspondent, and constant visitor at the Gloves —
had proposed the Ring; and the Smasher had proposed the
Press, for the libei-ties of which, as he said in noble language
afterwards quoted in the Aristides, the gentlemen of the Prize
Ring were prepared to fight as long as they had a bunch of fives
to rattle iipon the knowledge-box of the foe ; and then the Daddy
Longlegs had proposed the Stage, and its greatest glory, Bran-
dolph of the Brand ; and ultimately eveiybody had proposed
everybody else — and Uien, some one suggesting a quiet song,
everybody sang.
Now, as the demand for a song from each member of the
festive band was of so noisy and imperative a nature that a
refusal was not only a moral, but a physical impossibility, it
would be unbecoming to remark that the melody and harmony
of the evening were, at best, fluctuating. Annie Laurie was -
evidently a young lady of an undecided mind, and wandered iu
a pleasing manner from C into D, and from D into E, and then
back again with laudable dexterity to C, for the finish. The
gentleman whose heart was bowed down in the key of G might
nave rendered his performance more effective, had he given hii
statement of that affliction entirely iu one key; and another
gentleman, who sang a comic song of seventeen eight-Hne verses,
with four hues of chorus to every verse, would have done better
if he had confined himself to his original plan of singing super-
humanly flat, instead of varying it, as he occasionally did, by
einging preternaturally sharp. Of course it is an understood
thing, that in a chorus, every singer should choose his own key,
or where is the liberty of the subject ? — so that need not be
alluded to. But all this is over ; and the guests of Mr. Hem-
mar have risen to depart, and have found the act of rising to
depart by no means the trifle they thought it. It is very hard,
of course, in such an atmosphere of tobacco, to find the door;
and that, no doubt, is the reason why so many gentlemen seek
for it in the wrong direction, and buffet insanely with their arms
against the wall, in search of that orifice.
Now, there are two gentlemen in whom Mr. Hemmar's neat
wines have developed a friendship of the warmest description.
Those two gentlemen are none other than the two master-spirits
of the evening, the Left-handed Smasher and Brandolph of the
Brand — who, by the bye, in private life, is known as Augustus
de Clifford. His name is not written thus in the register of hia
baptism. On that mahcious document he is described as
WilHam Watson ; but to his friends and the public he has for
fifteen years been admired and beloved as the great De Clifford,
although often familiarly called Brandolph, in delicate allusion
to hia ifreatest character.
2C8 The Trait of the Serpent
Now, Brandolpli is positively convinced that tlie Smaslier is
not in a fit state to go home alone, and the Smaslier is eqnally
assured that Brandolpli will do himself a mischief unless he ia
watched; so Brandolpli is going to see the Smasher home to his
hotel, which is a considerable distance from the Gloves Tavern ;
and then the Smasher is coming back again to see Brandolph
to his lodgings, which are next door but two to tiie Gloves Tavern.
So, after having liade good night to every one else, in some
instances with tears, and always with an affectionate pathos
verging upon tears, Brandolph flings on his loose overcoat, just
as Manfred might have flung on his cloak prior to making a
morning call upon the witch of the Alps, and the Smasher twists
aiiout five yards of particoloured woollen raiment, which he calls
a comforter, round liis neck, and they sally forth.
A glorious autumn night ; the full moon high in the heavens,
with a tiny star following in her wake like a well-bred tuft-
hunter, and all the other stars keeping their distance, a,s if they
had retired to their own " grounds," as the French say, and
were at variance with their queen on some matter connected
with taxes. A glorious night ; as light as day— nay, almost
lightei- ; for it is a light which will bear looking at, and which
does not dazzle our eyes as the sun does, when we are presump-
tuous enough to elevate our absurdly infinitesimal optics to his
sublimity. Not a speck on the Liverpool pavement, not a dog
asleep on the doorstep, or a dissipated cat sneaking home down
an area, but is as visible as in the broad glare of noon. " Such
a night as this" was almost too much for Lara, and Brandolph of
the Brand grows sentimental.
" You wouldn't tliink," he murmurs, abstractedly, g.azing at
the moon, as he and the Smasher meander arm-in-arm over the
pavement; "you wouldn't think she hadn't an almosphere,
■would you ? A man might build a theatre there, and he might
get his company up in balloons ; but I question if it would pay,
on account of that trivial want— she hasn't got an atmosphere."
"Hasn't she?" said the Sroasher, who certainly, if anything,
had, in the matter of sobriety, the advantage of the tragedian.
" You'll have a black eye though, if you don't steer clear of that
'ere lamp-post you're makin' for. I never did see such a cove," he
added ; " with his //-atmospheres, and his moons, and his b'loons,
one would think he'd never had a glass or two of wine before."
Now, to reach the hotel which the left-handed one honoured
by his presence, it was necessary to pass the quay ; and the
Bight of the water and the slupping reposing in thg^ stillness
under the light of the moon, again awakened all the poetry in
the nature of the romantic Brandolph.
" It is beautiful !" he said, taking his pet position, and waving
hia arm in the orthodox circle, prior to pointing to the scene
The Left-lianded SmasJier malces his Mark. 2G9
before him. " It is peaceful : it is we wlio are the blots upon
the beauty of the earth. Oh, why — why are we false to the
beautiful and heroic, as the author of the Lady of Lyons would
observe ? Why are we false to the true ? Why do we di-ink
too much and see double? Standing amidst the supreme
silences, with breathless creation listening to oiir words, we
look up to the stars that looked down upon the philosopher of
the cave; and we feel that we have retrograded." Here the
eminent tragedian gave a lui'ch, and seated himself with some
violence and precipitation on the kerbstone. "We feel," he
repeated, " that we have retrograded. It is a pity !"
" Now, who's to pick him up ?" inquired the Smasher, looking
round in silent appeal to the lamp-posts about him. " Who's to
pick him up ? I can't ; and if he sleeps here he'll very likely
get cold. Get up, you snivelling fool, can't you ?" he said, wath
some asperity, to the descendant of Thespis, who, after weeping
piteously, was drying his eyes with an announce bill of the
" Tyrant of the Ganges," and by no means improving his per-
sonal appearance with the red and black printer's ink thereof.
How mine host of the Cheerful Cherokee would ever have
extricated his companion from this degraded position, without
the timely intervention of others, is not to be said ; for at this
very moment the Smasher beheld a gentleman alight from a
cab at a Httle distance from where he stood, ask two or three
questions of the cabman, pay and dismiss him, and then walk
on in the direction of some steps that led to the water. This
gentleman wore his hat very much slouched over his face ; he was
wi-apiDcd in a heavy loose coat, that entirely concealed his figure,
aud evidently carried a parcel of some kind iinder his left arm.
" Hi !" said the Smasher, as the pedestrian approached ; " Hi,
j^ou there ! Give us a hand, will you ?"
The gentleman addi-essed as " you there" took not the
slightest notice of this appeal, except, indeed, that he quickened
his pace considerably, and tried to pass the left-handed one.
"No, you don't," said our pugilistic friend; "the cove as
refuses to pick up the man that's down is a blot u]3on the
English character, and the sooner he's scratched out the better;"
wherewith the Smasher squared his fists and placed himself
directly in the path of the gentleman with the slouched hat.
" I tell you what it is, my good fellow," said this individual,
" you may pick up your drunken friend yourself, or you may
wait the advent of the next pohceman, who will do the public a
service by conveying you both to the station-house, where you
may finish the evening in your own higlily-iutellcctual manner.
But perhaps you will be good enough to let me pass, for I'm in
a hurry ! You see that American vessel yonder — she's dropped
down the river to wait for the wind; the breeze is springing up
270 The Trail of the Serpent
as fast as it can, and she may set jsail as it is before I can reacli
her ; BO, if you want to earn a sovereign, come and see if you
can help me in arousing a waterman and getting off to her ?"
" Oh, you are off to America, are you P" said the Smasher,
thoughtfully. " Blow that 'ere wine of Hemmar's ! I ought to
know the cut of your figure-head. I've seen you before — I've
seen you somewheres before, though where that somewheres was,
spiflicate me if I can call to mind ! Come, lend a hand with this
'ere friend o' mine, and I'll lend you a hand with the boatman."
" D — n your friend," said the other, savagely ; " let me pass,
wiU you, you drunken fool ? "
This was quite enough for the Smasher, who was just in that
agreeable frame of mind attendant on the consumption of
strong waters, in which the jaundiced eye is apt to behold an
enemy even in a friend, and the equally prejudiced ear is ready
to hear an insult in the most civil address.
•^ Come on, then," said he; and putting himself in a scientific
attitude, he_ dodged from side to side two or three times, as if
setting to his partner in a C[uadi-ille, and then, with a movement
rapid as hghtning, went in with his left fist, and planted a
species of postman's knock exactly between the eyes of the
stranger, who fell to the ground as an ox falls under the hand
of an accomplished butcher.
It is needless to say that, in falling, his hat fell off, and as he
lay senseless on the pavement, the moonlight on liis face revealed
every feature as distinctly as in the broadest day.
_ The Smasher knelt down by his side, looked at him atten-
tively for a few moments, and then gave a long, low whistle.
" Under the circumstances," he said, " perhaps I couldn't have
done a better tiling than this 'ere I've done promiscuous. He
won't go to America by that vessel at any rate ; so if I tele-
graph to the Cherokees, maybe they will be glad to hear what
he's up to down here. Come along," continued the sobered
Sniasher, hauling up Mi-. De Clifford by the collar, as ruthlessly
as if he had been a sack of coal ; "I think I hear the footsteps
of a Bobby a-coming this way, so we'd better make ourselves
scarce before we're asked any questions."
" If," said the distinguished Brandolph, still shedding teara,
" if the town of Liverijool was conducted after the manner of
the Eepublic of Plato, there wouldn't be any pohcemen. But,
as I said before, we have retrograded. Take care of the posts,"
he added plaintively. " It is marvellous the effect a few glasses
of light wine have upon some people's legs ; while others, on
the contrary " here he slid again to the ground, and thia
time ekided all the Smasher's endeavours to pick him up.
" You had better let me be," he murmured. " It is hard, boft
It is clean and comfortable. Bring me my boots and hot water
What tliei/ find in the Boom. 271
at nine o'clock ; IVe an early rehearsal of ' The Tyrant.' Gro
home qxuetly, my dear friend, and don't take anything more to
drink, for your head is evidently not a strong one. Good night."
" Here's a situation ! " said the Smasher. " I can't dance
attendance on him any more, for I must run round to the tele-
graph oflBce and see if it's open, that I may send Mr. Marwood
word about this night's work. The Count de Marolles is safe
enough for a day or two, anyhow ; for I have set a mark upon
him that he won't rub off just yet, clever as he is."
CHAPTER lY.
WHAT THET FDfD IN THE BOOM IN TTHICH THE MTJRDEK WA*
COMMITTED.
At the time that the arrest of the Count de Marolles ■waa
taking place. Mi*. Joseph Peters was absent from London, being
employed upon some mission of a delicate and secret nature in
the town of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy.
Slopperton is very little changed since the murder at the
Black 5lill set every tongue going upon its nine-days wonder.
There may be a few more tall factory chimneys ; a few more
young factory ladies in cotton jackets and coral necklaces all
the week, and in rustling silks and artificial flowers on Sunday ;
the new town — that dingy hanger-on of the old town — may
have spread a Httle farther out towards the bright and breezy
country ; and the railway passenger may perhaps see a larger
veil of black smoke hanging in the atmosphere as he approaches
the Slopperton station than he saw eight years ago.
• Mr. Peters, being no longer a householder in the town, takes
up his abode at a hostelry, and, strange to say, selects the little
river-side public-house in which he overheard that conversation
between the usher and the country girl, the particulars of which
are already known to tbe reader.
He is peculiar in his choice of an hotel, for " The Bargeman's
Delight " certainly does not offer many attractions to any one
not a bargeman. It is hard indeed to guess what the particular
delight of the bargeman may be, which the members of that
iriiild find provided for them in the watei'side tavern alluded to.
The bargeman's delight is evidently not cleanliness, or he would
j^o elsewhere in search of that virtue; neither can the bargeman
i/ffect civiUty in his entertainers, for the host and that one sU])>
hbod young person who is barmaid, barman, ostler, cook,
chambermaid, and waiter all in one, are notoriously sulky Irs
their conversation with their patrons, and have an aggrieved
end injured bearing very unpleasant to the sen.sitlve customer.
But if, on the other hand, the bargeman's delight should hap-
pen to consist in dirt, and danu>, and bad cooking, and worR«
272 The Trail of the Serpent.
attendance, and liqnors on which the small glass brandy-balls
peculiar to the publican float triumphantly, and pertinaciously
refuse to go down to the bottom — if such things as these be the
bargeman's delight, he has them handsomely provided for him
at this establishment.
However this may be, to " The Bargeman's Delight " came
Mr. Peters on the very day of the Coimt's arrest, with a carpet-
bag in one hand and a fishing-rod in the other, and with no lesa
a person than Mr. Augustus Darley for his conijianion. The
customer, by the bye, was generally initiated into the pleasures
of this hostelry by being trijiped up or tripped down on the
threshold, and saluting a species of thin soap of sawdust and
porter, which formed the upper stratum of the floor, with his
olfactory organ. The neophyte of the Eosicrucian mysteries
and of Freemasonry has, I Ij^lieve, something unpleasant done
to him before he can be sa^o.'y trusted with the secrets of the
TemjDle ; why, then, should nut the guest of the Delight have
his initiation ? Mr. Darley, with some dexterity, however,
escaped this danger; and, entering the bar safely, entreated
with the shp-shod and defiant damsel aforesaid.
"Could we have a bed?" Mr. Darley asked; "in point of
fact, two beds P "
The damsel glared at him for a few minutes without giving
any answer at all. Gus repeated the qiiestion.
" We've got two beds," muttered the defiant damsel.
" All right, then," said Gus. " Come in, old fellow," he
added to Mr. Peters, whose legs and bluchers were visible at
the top of the steps, where he patiently awaited the result of
liis companion's entreaty with the priestess of the temple.
" But I don't know whether you can have 'em," said the girl,
with a more injured air than usual. "We ain't in general
?,sked for beds."
"Then why do you put w^ that?" asked Mr. Darley, point-
ing to a board on which, in letters that had once been gilt, was
inscribed this legend, " Good Beds."
" Oil, as for that," said the girl, " that was wrote up before
we took the place, and we had to pay for it in the fixtures, so
of course we wasn't a-goin' to take it down! But I'll ask
master." Whereon she disa,ppeared into the damp and darkness,
as if she had been the genius of that mixture ; and presently
reappeared, saying they could have beds, but that they couldn't
have a private sitting-room because there wasn't one — which
reason they accepted as unanswerable, and furthermore said
they would content themselves with such accommodation as the
bar-pjarlour aflbrded; whereon the slip-shod barmaid relaxed
from her defiant mood, and told them that they would find it
quite cheerful, as there was a nice look-out upon the river."
W7iat iJiej/ find in the Hoom *2T%
Mr. Darloy ordered a bottle of whie — a tremendotis order, rarely
knowu to be igsued in tliat establisluncnt — and fnrtlier remarked
that he should be glad if the landlord -would bring it in, as he
would like five minutes' conversation with him. After having given
this overwhelming order, Gus and ]Mr. Peters entered the parlour.
It was emnty, the parlour; the bargeman was evidently
taking his dehgnt somewhere else that afternoon. There were
the wet marks of the bargeman's porter-pots of the moniino-^
and the dry marks of the bargeman's porter-pots of the day
before, still on the table ; there were the bargeman's broken
tobacco-pipes, and the cards wherewith he had played all-foura
— which cards he had evidently chewed at the comers in aggra-
vation of spirit when his luck deserted him — strewn about in
every direction. There were the muddy marks of the barge-
man's feet on the sandy floor ; there was a subtle effluvium of
mingled corduroy, tobacco, onions, damp leather, and gii,
which wa8_ the perfume of the bargeman himself; but the
bargeman in person was not there.
Mr. Darley walked to the window, and looked out at the river.
A cheerful sight, did you say, slip- shod Hebe ? Is it cheerful
to look at that thick dingy water, remembering how many a
wretched head its current has flowed over ; how many a tired
frame has lain down to find in death the rest Hfe could not yield ;
how many a lost soul has found a road to another world in that
black tide, and gone forth impenitent, from the shore of time to
the ocean of eternity; how often the golden hair has come up
in the fisherman's net ; and how many a Mary, less happy, since
less kinocent than the heroine of Mr. Kingsley's melodious song,
has gone out, never, never to letum! Mr. Darley perhaps thinks
this, for he turns his back to the window, caEs out to the bar-
maid to come and hght a fire, and proceeds to fill man's great
consoler, his pipe.
I very much wonder, gentle readers of the fair sex, that you
have never contrived somehow or other to pick a quarrel with
the manes of good, cloak- spoiling, guinea-finding, chivalrous,
mutineer-encountei-ing, long-suffering, maid-of-honour-adoring
Walter Ealeigh — the importer of the greatest rival woman ever
had in the afiections of man, the tenth Muse, the foui-th Grace,
the uncanonized saint. Tobacco. You are angry with poor Tom,
whom you henpeok so cruelly, Mrs. Jones, because he came
home last night from that httle business dinner at Greenwich
fclightly the worse for the salmon and the cucum.ber — not the
iced punch! — oh, no! he scarcel;^ touched that! You are angry
with your better half, and you wish to give him, as you elegantly
put it, a bit of your mind. ]\Iy good soul, what does Tom care
for you— behind his pipe? _ Do you think he is Hstening to i/o«,
or tninking of you,, as he sits lazily watching with dreamy eye»
gT'-i The Trait of tie Serpent
the blue wreatlis of smoke curling -upwards from tliat lioueai
meerschaum bowl? He is thinking of the girl he knew fourteen
years ago, before ever he fell on his knees in the back parlour,
and ricked his ancle in proposing to you ; he is thinking of a
pic-nic in Epping Forest, where he first met her ; when coats
were worn short- waisted, and Plancus was consul ; when there
was scaffolding at Charing Cross, and stage-coaches between
London and Brighton ; when the wandering minstrel was to be
found at Beulah Spa, and there was no Mr. Robson at the
Olympic. He is looking full in your face, poor Tom! and at-
tending to every word you say — as you think! Ah! my dear
madam, beUeve me, he does not see one feature of your face, or
hear one word of your peroration. He sees lier ; he sees her
standing at the end of a green arcade, with the sunhght flicke*-
ing between the restless leaves upon her bright brown curls, and
making arabesques of light and shade on her innocent white
dress ; he sees the little coquettish glance she flings back at him,
as he stands in an attitude he knows now was, if anything,
spooney, all amongst the debris of the banquet — lobster-salads,
veal-and-ham pies, empty champagne-bottles, strawberry-stalks,
parasols, and bonnets and shawls. He hears the singing of the
Essex birds, the rustling of the forest leaves, her ringing laugh,
the wheels of a carriage, the tinkling of a sheep-bell, the roar of
a blacksmith's forge, and the fall of waters in the distance. All
those sweet rustic sounds, which make a music very different
to the angry tones of your voice, are in his ears; and you,
madam — you, for any impression you can make on him, might
just as well be on the culminating point of Teneriffe, and would
find quite as attentive a hstener in the waste of ocean you might
behold from that eminence !
And who is the fairy that works the spll ? Her eartlily name
is Tobacco, alias Bird's-eye, alias Latakia, alias Cavendish ; and
the magician who raised her first in the British dominions was
Walter Raleigh. Are you not glad now, gentle reader, that the
sailors mutinied, that the dear son was killed in that far land,
and that the mean-spirited Stuart rewarded the noblest and wisest
of his age with a hie in a dungeon and the death of a traitor ?
I don't know whether Augustus Darley thought all this as he
sat over the stmggHng smoke and damp in the parlour of the
" Bargeman's Delight," which smoke and damp the defiant bar-
maid told him would soon develop into a good fire. Ghis was
not a married man; and, again, he and Mr. Peters had very-
particular business on their hands, and had very little time for
sentimental or philosophical reflections.
The landlord of the "Dehght" appeared presently, with what,
he assured his guests, was such a bottle of port as they wouldn't
aften meet -with. There was a degree of obscurity in this com-
Wlia! tTiey find in tie l2oom. 275
tnendation which savoured of the inspired comnmnications of
the priestess of the oracle. jEacida might conquer the Romans,
or the Romans might annihilate ^acida; the bottle of port
might be imapijroachable by its excellence, or so utterly execrable
in quality as to be be>'ond the power of wine-merchant to imi-
tate ; and either way the landlord not forsworn. Gus looked at
the bright side of the question, and requested his host to draw
the cork and bring another glass — " that is," he said, " if you
can spare half an hour or so for a friendly chat."
"Oh, as for that," said the landlord, "I can spare time enough,
it isn't the business as'll keep me movin' ; it's never brisk except
oa wet afternoons, when they comes in with their dirty boots,
and makes more mess than they drinks beer. A 'found drowned'
or a inquest enhvens us up now and then; but Lord, there's
nothing doing nowadays, and even inquests and drownin' seems
a-goin' out."
The landlord was essentially a melancholy and bhghted crea-
ture ; and he seated himself at his own table, wiped away yes-
terday's beer with his own coat-sleeve, and prepared himself to
drink his own port, with a gloomy resignation sublime enough
to have taken a whole band of conspirators to the scaflPold in a
most creditable manner.
"My friend," said Mr. Darley, introducing Mr. Peters by a
wave of his hand, "is a foreigner, and hasn't got hold of our
language yet; he finds it sHppery, and hard to catch, on account of
the construction of it, so you must excuse his not being Hvely."
The landlord nodded, and remarked, in a cheering manner,
that he didn't see what there was for the liveliest cove goin' to
be Hvely about nowada3'S.
After a good deal of desultory conversation, and a description
of several very interesting inquests, Gus asked the landlord
whether he remembered an affair that happened about eight or
nine years ago, or thereabouts — a girl found drowned in the fall
of the year.
" There's always bein' girls found drowned," said the landlord
moodily ; " it's my beUef they Hkes it, especially when they've
long hair. They takes off their bonnets, and they lets down
their back hairs, and they puts a note in their pockets, wrote
large, to say as they hopes as how he'll be sorry, and so on. I
can't remember no girl in particular, eight years ago, at the back
end of the year. I can call to mind a many promiscuous like,
oflF and on, but not to say this was Jane, or that was Sarah."
" Do you remember a quarrel, then, between a man and a girl
in this very room, and the man having his head cut by a sove-
reign she threw at him?"
" We never have no quarrels in this room," rephed the land*
lord« with dignity. "The bargemen sometimes have a few words,
2V@ The Trail of fhe Ser/jenl
and tramples upon each otlier witli tlieir liobnailed boots, and
their iron heels and toes will dance again when their temper's
up; but I don't allow no quarrels here. And yet," he added,
after a few moments' reflection, " there was a sort of a row, /
remember, a many years ago, between a girl as drowned herself
that night down below, and a young gent, in this 'ere room ; he
a-sittin' just as you may be a-sittin' now, and she a-standin'
over by that window, and throwin' four sovereigns at him spite-
ful, one of them a-catchin' him just over the eyebrow, and cut-
tin' of him to the bone — and he a-pickin' 'em up when his
head was bound, and walkin' off with 'em aa if nothin' had
happened."
" Yes; but do you happen to remember," said Gus, "that he
only found three out of the four sovereigns ; and that he was
obliged to give up looking for the last, and go away without it.^ "
The landlord of the " Delight " suddenly lapsed into most
profound meditation; he rubbed his chin, making a rasphig
Tioise as he did so, as if going cautiously over a French roll, first
with one hand and then with the other; he looked with an
earnest gaze into the glass of puce-coloured hquid before him,
took a sijD of that liquid, smacked his lips after the manner of a
^,onnoisseur, and then said that he couldn't at the present
moment call to mind the last circumstance alluded to.
"Shall I tell you," said Gus, "my motive in asking this
question?"
The landlord said he might as well mention it as not.
"Then I will. I want that sovereign. I've a particular
reason, which I don't want to stop to explain just now, foi
wanting that very coin of all others ; and I don't mind giving a
five-pound note to the man that'll put that twenty shillinga
worth of gold into my hand."
"You don't, don't you?" said the landlord, repeating the
operations described above, and looking very hard at Gus all the
time : after wliich he sat starhig silently from Gus to Peters,
and from Peters to the puce-coloured liquid, for some minutes :
at last he said — " It ain't a trap ? "
" There's the note," rephed Mr. Darley; "look at it, and see il
it's a good one. I'll lay it on this table, and when you lay down
that sovereign — that one, mind, and no other^t's yours."
" You think I've got it, then ? " said the landlord, interroga-
tively.
"i know you've got it," said Gus, " unless you've spent it."
" Why, as to that," said the landlord, " when you first called
to mind the circumstance of the girl, and the gent, and the
inquest, and all that, I've a short memory, and couldn't qiiite
recollect that there sovereign ; but now I do remember finding
of that very coin a year and a half afterwards, for the drains
Wliat they find in tlie Room. 277
was biid that year, and the Board of Health camu a-chiyyiug of
ns to take up our floorings, and lime-wash ourselves inside ; and
in taking up the flooring of this room what should we come
across but that very bit of gold ? "
" And you never changed it ? "
" Shall I tell you why I never changed it ? Sovereigns ain't
so plentiful in these parts that I should keep this one to look at.
\Vliat do you say to it's not being a sovereign at all ?"
•' Not a sovereign ? "
" Not ; what do you say to it's being a twopenny-halfpenny
foreign coin, with a lot of rum writin' about it — a coin as they
has the cheek to ofi'er me four-and-sixpence for as old gold, and
as I kep', knowin' it was worth more for a curiosity — eh ? "_
'• Why, all I can say is," said Gus, " that you did very wisely
to keep it ; and here's five or perhaps ten times its value, and
plenty of interest for your money.".
"Wait a bit," muttered the landlord; and disappearing into
the bar, he rummaged in some drawer in the interior of that
sanctum, and presently reappeared with a httle parcel screwed
carefully in newspaper. " Here it is," he said, " and jolly glad
I am to get rid of the useless lumber, as wouldn't buy a loaf of
bread if one was a starving ; and thank you kindly, sir," he
continued, as he pocketed the note. " I should like to sell you
half-a-dozen more of 'em at the same price, that's all."
The coin was East Indian; worth perhaps six or seven
rupees ; in size and touch not at all unlike a sovereign, but
about fifty years old.
" And now," said Gus, " my friend and I will take a stroll ;
you can cook us a steak for five o'clock, and in the meantime
we can amuse ourselves about the town."
"The factories might be interesting to the foreigneering
gent," said the landlord, whose spirits seemed very much im-
proved by the possession of the five-jjound note; "there's a
factory hard by as employs a power of hands, and there's a
wheel as killed a man only last week, and you could see it, I'm
sure, gents, and welcome, by only mentioning my name. I
sers'es the hands as lives round this way, which is a many."
Gus thanked him for his kind offer, and said they would make
ft point of availing themselves of it.
The landlord watched them as they walked along the bank in
the direction of Sloppertou. " I expect," he remarked to him-
eelf, " the hvely one's mad, and the quiet one's his keeper. But
five pounds is five pounds ; and that's neither here nor there."
Instead of seeking both amusement and instruction, as they
might have done from a careful investigation of the factory iu
question, Messrs. Darley and Peters walked at a pretty brisk
r&te, looking neither to the rigbt uor to the left, choosing th^
278 The Trail of the Serpent
most out-of-the-way and unfrequented streets, till they Itft tlia
town of Slopperton and the waters of the Sloshy behind them,
and emerged on to the high road, not so many hundred yai'ds
from the house in which Mr. Montague Harding met his death
— the house of the Black Mill.
It had never been a lively -looking place at best ; but now,
with the association of a hideous murder belonging to it — and
so much a part of it, that, to all who knew the dreadful story,
death, like a black shadow, seemed to brood above the gloomy
pile of building and warn the stranger from the infected spot — ■
it was indeed a melancholy habitation. The shutters of all the
windows but one were closed ; the garden- paths were overgrown
with weeds ; the beds choked up ; the trees had shot forth wild
erratic branches that trailed across the path of the intruder, and
entangling themselves about him, threw him down before he was
aware. The house, however, was not uninhabited — Martha, the
old servant, who had nursed Richard Marwood when a httle
child, had the entire care of it ; and she was further provided
with a comfortable income and a youthful domestic to attend
upon her, the teaching, admonishing, scolding, and patronizing
of whom made the delight of her quiet existence.
The bell which Mr. Darley rang at the gate went clanging
down the walk, as if to be heard in the house were a small part
of its mission, for its sonorous power was calculated to awaken aU
Slopperton in case of fire, flood, or invasion of the foreign foe.
Perhaps Gus thought just a httle — as he stood at the broad
white gate, overgrown now with damp and moss, but once so
trim and bright — of the days when Richard and he had worn
little cloth frocks, aU ornamented with divers meandering
Draids and shining buttons, and had swung to and fro in the
evening sunshine on that very gate.
He remembered Richard throwing him off, and hurting his
nose upon the gravel. They had made mud-pies upon that
very walk ; they had set elaborate and most efficient traps for
birds, and never caught any, in those very shrubberies ; they
had made a swing under the lime-trees yonder, and a fountain
that would never work, but had to be ignominiously su2:)pUed
with jugs of water, and stirred with spoons like a pudding,
before the crystal shower would consent to mount. A thousand
recollections of that childish time came back, and with them
came the thought that the Uttle boy in the braided frock was
now an outcast from society, supjsosed to be dead, and his name
branded as that of a madman and a murderer.
Martha's attendant, a rosy-cheeked country girl, came down
the walk at the sound of the clanging bell, and stared aghast at
the apparition of two gentlemen — one of them so brilliant ip
sostume as our friend Mr. Darley.
WTiat tliey find in ihe Boom, 279
Gus told the yoiitliful domestic that he had a letter for Mrs.
Jones. Martha's surname was Jones ; the Mrs. was an honorary
distinction, as the holy state of matrimony was one of the evils
the worthy woman had escaped. Gus brought a note from
Martha's mistress, which assured him a warm welcome.
" Would the gentlemen have tea ?" Martha said. " Sararanne —
(the youthful domestic's name was Sarah Anne, pronounced,
boti. for euphony and convenience, Sararanne)— Sararanne
should get them anything they would please to like directly."
Poor Martha was quite distressed, on being told that all they
wanted was to look at the room in which the murder waa
committed.
" Was it in the same state as at the time of Mr. Harding's
death P " asked Gus.
It had never been touched, Mrs. Jones assured them, since
that dreadful time. Such was her mistress's wish ; it had been
kept clean and dry; but not a bit of furniture had been moved.
Mrs. Jones was rheumatic, and rarely stirred from her seat of
honour by the fireside ; so Sararanne was sent with a bunch of
keys in her hand to conduct the gentlemen to the room in question.
Now there were two things self-evident in the manne:- of Sarar-
anne; first, that she was pleased at the idea of a possible flirta-
tion with the brilliant Mr. Darley ; secondly, that she didn't at
all hke the ordeal of opening and entering the dreaded room in
question ; so, between her desire to be fascinating and her un-
controllable fear of the encounter before her, she endured a
mental struggle painful to the beholder.
The shutters in the front of the house being, with one excep-
tion, all closed, the hall and staircase were wrapped in a
shadowy gloom, far more alarming to the timid mind than com-
plete darkness. In complete darkness, for instance, the eight-
day clock in the corner would have been a clock, and not an
elderly ghost with a broad white face and a brown greatcoat, as
it seemed to be in the uncertain glimmer which crept through a
distant skylight covered with ivy. Sararanne was evidently
possessed with the idea that Mr. Darley and his friend would
decoy her to the very threshold of the haunted chamber, and
then fly ignominiously, leaving her to brave the perils of it by
herself. Mr. Darley's repeated assurances that it was all right,
and that on the whole it would be advisable to look aHve, as
fife was short and time was long, etcetera, had the efiect at last
of inducing the damsel to ascend the stairs — looking behind her
at every other step — and to conduct the visitors along a passage,
at the end of which she stopped, selected with considerable
celerity a key from the bunch, plunged it into the keyhole of
the door before her, said, " That is the room, gentlemen, if jon
nloase," dropped a curtsey, and turned and fled.
280 The Trail of the Serpent.
The door opened with, a scroop, and Mr. Peters realized at laet
fclie darling wish of his heart, and stood in the very room in
which the murder had been committed. Gus looked round, went
to the window, opened the shutters to the widest extent, and the
afternoon sunshine streamed full into the room, lighting every
crevice, revealing every speck of dust on the moth-eaten damask
bed-curtains — every crack and stain on the worm-eaten flooring.
To see Mr. Darley look round the room, and to see Mr. Peters
look round it, is to see two things as utterly wide apart as it is
possible for one look to be from another. The young surgeon's
eyes wander here and there, fix themselves nowhere, and rest
two or three times upon the same object before they seem to take
in the fuU meaning of that object. The eyes of Mr. Peters, on
the contrary, take the circuit of the apartment with equal pre-
cision and rapidity — go from number one to number two, from
number two to number three; and having given a careful inspec-
tion to every article of furniture in the room, fix at last in a gaze
of concentrated intensity on the tout ensevible of the chamber.
*' Can you make out anything ? " at last asks Mr. Darley.
Mr. Peters nods his head, and in reply to this question drops
«n one knee, and falls to examining the flooring.
" Do you see anything in that P" asks Gus.
■** Yep." replies Mr. Peters on his fingers ; " look at this,"
<xus does look at this. This is the flooring, which is in a very
jotten and dilapidated state, by the- bedside. " Well, what
then P " he asks.
'• What then ? said Mr. Peters, on his fingers, with an ex-
"jression of considerable contempt pervading his features ;
*' what then P You're a very talented young gent, Mr. Darley,
*nd if I wanted a prescription for the bile, which I'm troubled
with sometimes, or a tip for the Derby, which I don't, not being
« sporting man, you're the gent I'd come to ; but for aU that
Tou a.rn't no police-otficer, or you'd never ask that question.
What then? Do you remember as one of the facts so hard
ftgen Mr. Marwood was the blood-stains on his sleeve ? You
«e these here crar-ks and crevices in this here floorin' P Very
^ell, then ; Mr. Mai vood slept in the room under this. He was
Vired, I've heard him say, and he threw himself down on the
oed in his coat. What more natural, then, than that there
should be blood upon his sleeve, and what more easy to guesa
»,han the way it came there P "
■"You think it dropped through, then?" asked Gus.
■" I thinh it dropped through," said Mr. Peters, on his fingers,
with biting irony ; " I know it dropped through. His counsel
•vas a nice un, not to bring this into court," he added, pointing
to the boards on which he knelt. " Jf I'd only seen this jjlac-o
What tJiey Jind tn the Boom. 281
before the trial But I was nobody, and it was like my pre-
cioua impudence to ask to go over the house, of course ! Now
then, for number two."
"And that is P" asked Mr. Darley, who was quite in the
dark as to Mr. Peters'e views ; that functionary being implicitly
beheved in by Richard and his friend, and allowed, therefore, to
be just as mysterious as he pleased.
" Number two's this here," answered the detective. " I wants
to find another or two of them rum Indian coins; for our young
friend Dead-and- Alive, as is here to-day and gone to-morrow,
got that one as he gave the girl from that cabinet, or my name's
not Joseph Peters;" wherewith Mr. Peters, who had been en-
trusted by Mrs. Marwood with the keys of the cabinet in ques-
tion, proceeded to open the doors of it, and to carefully inspect
that old-fashioned piece of fiurniture.
There were a great many drawers, and boxes, and pigeon-holes,
and queer nooks and corners in tliis old cabinet, all smelling
equally of old age, damp, and cedar-wood. Mr. Peters pulled
out drawers and opened boxes, found secret drawers in the in-
side of other drawers, and boxes hid in ambush in other boxes,
all with so little result, beyond the discovery of old papers,
bundles of letters tied with faded red tape, a simpering and
neutral-tinted miniature or two of the fashion of some fifty
years gone by, when a bright blue coat and brass buttons was
the coiTCct thing for a dinner-party, and your man about town
wore a watch in each of his breeches-pockets, and simjiered at
you behind a sliirt-frill wide enough to separate him for evci
from his friends and acquaintance. Besides these things, Mr.
Peters found a Johnson's dictionary, a ready-reckoner, and a
pair of boot-hooks ; but as he found notliing else, Mr. Darley
grew quite tired of watching his jiroceedings, and suggested that
they should adjourn ; for he remarked — " Is it hkely that such
a fellow as this North would leave anything behind him P "
" Wait a bit," said Mr. Peters, with an expressive jerk of his
head. Gus shrugged his shoulders, took out his cigar-case,
hghted a cheroot, and walked to the window, where he leaned
with his elbows on the sill, pufiing blue clouds of tol^acco-smoke
do\vn among the straggling creepers that covered the walls and
climbed round the casement, while the detective resumed his
search among the old bundles of papers. He was nearly aban-
doning it, when, in one of the outer drawers, he took up an
object he had passed over in his first inspection. It was a small
canvas bag, such as is used to hold money, and was anparently
emi)ty; but while pondering on his futile search, Mr. Peteru
twisted this bag in a moment of absence of mind between lag
fingeiw, swinging it backwards and forwards in the air. In so
ioing, he knocked it against the side of the c;ibinct, and, to Hij
2S2 The Trail of the Serpent.
surprise, it emitted a sharp metallic sound. It was not empty,
then, althougli it appeared so. A moment's examination showed
the detective that he had succeeded in obtaining the object of
his search ; the bag had been used for money, and a small coin
had lodged in the seam at one corner of the bottom of it, and
had stuck so firmly as not to be easily shaken out. This, in the
murderer's hurried ransacking of the cabinet, in his bhnd fury at
not finding the sum he expected to obtain, had naturally escaped
him. The piece of money was a small gold coin, only half the value
of the one found by the landlord, but of the same date and style.
Mr. Peters gave his fingers a triumphant snap, which aroused
the attention of Mr. Darley; and, -with a glance expressive of
the pride in his art which is peculiar to your true genius, held
up the little piece of dingy gold.
" By Jove ! " exclaimed the admiring Gus, " you've got it, then !
Egad, Peters, I think you'd make evidence, if there wasn't any."
" Eight years of that young man's life, sir," said the rapid
fingers, " has been sacrificed to the stupidity of them as should
biive pulled him through,"
CHAPTER V.
MR. PETEBS DECIDES ON A STKANGE STEP, AKB AKKESTS THE DEAD.
While Mr. Peters, assisted by Richard's sincere friend, the
young surgeon, made the visit above described, Daredevil Dick
counted the hours in London. It was essential to the success of
his cause, Gus and Peters urged, that he should not show him-
self, or in any way reveal the fact of his existence, till the real
murderer was arrested. Let the truth appear to all the world,
and then time enough for Richard to come forth, with an
unbranded forehead, in the sight of his fellow-men. But when
he heard that Raymond Marolles had given his pursuers th«
sHp, and was off, no one knew where, it was aU that his mother,
his friend Percy Cordonner, Isabella Darley, and the lawyers to
whom he had intrusted his cause, could do, to prevent his start-
ing that instant on the track of the guilty man. It was a
weary day, this day of the failure of the arrest, for aU. Neither
his mother's tender consolation, nor his solicitor's assurances
that all was not yet lost, could moderate the young man's impa-
tience. Neither Isabella's tearful prayers that he would leave
the issue in the hands of Heaven, nor Mr. Cordonner's philo-
sophical recommendation to take it quietly and let the "beggar"
go, could keep him quiet. He felt like a caged Hon, whose
Ignoble bonds kept him from the vile object of his rage. The
day wore out, however, and no tidings came of the fugitive.
Mr. Cordonner insisted on stopping with his friend till three
o'clock in the morning, and at that very late hour set out, with tha
Mr. Peters arrests the Dead. 283
ntention of going down to the Cherokees — it was a Chcei-ftil night,
and they woiild mosthkelybe still assembled — to ascertain, as ho
popularl}-- expressed it, whether anything had " tiirned up" there.
The clock of St. Martin's struck three as he stood %\'ith Richard
at the street-door in Spring Gardens, giving friendly consolation
between the pufFa of his cigar to the agitated young man.
" In the first place, my dear boy," he said, " if you can't catch
the fellow, you can't catch the fellow — that's sound logic and a
mathematical argument ; then why make yourself unhappy
about it ? Why try to square the circle, only because the circle's
round, and can't be squared ? Let it alone. If this fellow tume
up, hang him ! I should glory in seeing him hung, for he's an
out-and-out scoundrel, and I should make a point of witnessing
the performance, if the officials would do the thing at a reason-
able hour, and not execute him in the middle of the night and
swindle the respectable pubUc. If he doesn't turn up, why, let
the matter rest ; marry that little girl in there, Barley's prettj*
sister — who seems, by the bye, to be absurdly fond of you — and
let the question rest. That's my philosophy."
The young man turned away with an impatient sigh ; then,
la}dng his hand on Percy's shoulder, he said, " My dear old
fellow, if everybody in the world were like you. Napoleon would
have died a Corsican lawyer, or a lieutenant in the French army.
Robespierre would have Hved a petty barrister, with a penchant
for getting up in the night to eat jam tarts and a mania for
writing bad poetry. The third state would have gone home quietly
to its farmyards and its merchants' offices ; there would have
oeen no Oath of the Tenis Court, and no Battle of Waterloo."
"And a very good thing, too," said his philosoj^hical friend;
" nobody would have been a loser but Astley's — only think of
that. If there had been no Naj^oleon, what a loss for image
boys, Gomersal the Great, and Astley's. Forgive me, Dick, for
laughing at you. I'll cut down to the Cheerfuls, and see if any-
thing's up. The Smasher's away, or he might have given ua
his advice; the genius of the P.R. might have been of some
service in this affair. Good night !" He gave Richard a lan-
guidly affectionate shake of the hand, and departed.
Now, when Mr. Cordonner said he would cut down to the
Cherokees, let it not be thought by the simple-minded reader
that the expression "cut down," from his lips, conveyed that
degree of velocity which, though perhaps a sufficiently vague
phrase in itself, it is calculated to carry to the ordinary mind.
Percy Cordonner had never been seen by mortal man in a hurry.
He had been known to be too late for a truin, and had beeo
beheld placidly lounging at a few paces from the dep;irting
engine, and mildly but rather reproachfully regarding that
object. The prospects of his entire hfe may have lunged on his
284 The Trail of tie Serpent
going by that particular traiu ; but he would nevei l)C so fak«
to his principles as to make himself aupleasantly warm, or in
any way disturb the delicate organization with which nature had
gifted him. He had been seen at the doors of tho Opera-house
when Jenny Lind was going to appear in the Figlia, and while
those around him were afflicted with a temporary lunacy, and
trampling one another wildly in the mud, lie had been observed
leaning against a couple of fat men as in an easy-chair, and
standing high and dry upon somebody else's boots, breathing
gentlemanly and polyglot execrations upon the siUTOunding
crowd, when, in swaying to and fro, it disturbed or attempted to
disturb his serenity. So, when he said he would cut down to
the Cherokees, he of course meant that he would cut after his
manner ; and he accordingly rolled languidly along the deserted
pavements of the Strand, with something of the insouciant and
purposeless manner that Easselas may have had in a walk
through the arcades of his happy valley. He reached the well-
known tavern at last, however, and stopping under the sign of
the washed-out Indian desperately tomahawking nothing, in the
direction of Covent Garden, with an arm more distinguished for
muscular development than correct drawing, he gave the well-
known signal of the club, and was admitted by the damsel
before described, who apj^eared always to devote the watches of
the night to the process of putting her hair in. papers, that she
might wear that becoming "head" for the admiration of the
jug-and-bottle customers of the following day, and shine in a
frame of very long and very greasy curls that were apt to sweep
the heads off brown stouts, and dip gently into " goes " of
spirits upon the more brilliant company of the evening. This
young lady, popularly known as 'Liza, was well up in the sport-
mg business of the house, read the lAfe during church-time on
Sundays, and was even believed to have communicated with
that Ehadamanthine journal, under the signature of L., in the
answers to correspondents. She was understood to be engaged,
or, as her friends and admirers expressed it, to be " keeping com-
pany " with that luminary of the P.R., the Middlesex Mawler,
whose head-quarters were at the Cherokee.
Mr. Cordonner found three Cheerfuls assembled m the bar, in
a state of intense excitement and soda-water. A telegrajDhic
message had just arrived from the Smasher. It was worthy, in
economy of construction, of the Delphic oracle, and had the ad-
vantage of being easy to understand. It was as follows — "Tell
R. M. he's here: had no orders, so went in with left: he won't
be able to move for a day or two."
Mr. Cordonner was almost surprised, and was thus very nearly
false, for once in his life, to the only art he knew. " This will
De good news in Spring Gardens," he said ; " but Peters won't
J/r. Peters arrests the Dead. 265
be back till to-morrow night. Suppose," he added, musing, " we
were to telegraph to Imn at Sloppei-ton instanter? I know
where he hangs out there. If anybody could find a cab and
take the message it would be doing Marwood an inestimable
sej^ce," added Mr. Cordonner, passing through the bar, and
lazily seating himself on a green-and-gold Cream of the A^alley
cask, with his hat very much on the back of his head, and hia
hands in his pockets. " I'll wi-ite the message."
He scribbled upon a card — " Go across to Liverpool. He's
given us the shp, and is there ;" and handed it politely towards
the three Cheerfuls who were leaning over the pewter coiinter.
Splitters, the dramatic author, clutched tlie document eagerly ;
to his poetic mind it suggested that best gift of inspiration, " a
situation."
" I'll take it," he said ; " what a fine Hne it would make in a
bill ! ' The intercepted telegram,' with a comic railway clerk,
and the villain of the piece cutting the wii-es !"
"Away with yon, SpHtters," said Percy Cordonner. "Don't
let the Strand become verdant beneath your airy tread. Don't
stop to compose a five-act drama as you go, that's a good fel-
low. 'Liza, my dear girl, a pint of your creamiest Edinburgh,
and let it be as mild as the disposition of your humble servant."
Three days after the above conversation, three gentlemen were
assembled at breakfast in a small room in a tavern overlooking
the quay at Liverpool. This triangular party consisted of the
Smasher, in an elegant and simple morning costume, consisting
of tight trousers of Stuart plaid, an orange-coloured necktie, a
blue checked waistcoat, and shirt-sleeves. The Smasher looked
upon a coat as an essentially outdoor garment, and would no
more have invested himself in it to eat his breakfast than he
would have partaken of that refreshment with his hat on, or an
umbrella up. The two other gentlemen were Mr. Darley, and
Ills chief, Mr. Peters, who had a httle document in his pocket
signed by a Lancashire magistrate, on which he set considerable
value. They had come across to Liverpool as dii-ected by the
telegraph, and had there met with the Smasher, who had
received letters for them from London with the details of the
escape, and orders to be on the look-out for Peters and Gus.
Since the arrival of these two, the trio had led a sutEciently idle
and apparently purposeless Ufe. They had engaged an apart-
ment overlooking the quay, in the window of which they were
eeated for the best part of the day, playing the intellectual and.
exciting game of all-fours. There did not seem much in this to
forward the cause of Richard Marwood. It is true that Mr.
Peters was wont to vanish from the room every now and then,
in order to speak to mysterious and grave-looking gentlemen,
*rho commanded respect wherever they went, and before whom
2S6 l^Tie Trail of fhe Serpent.
tile most daring; tliief in Liverpool shrank as before Mr Calcraft
himself. He bald strange conferences with them in corners of
the hostelry in which the trio had taken up their abode ; he
went out with them, and hovered abont the quays and the ship-
ping ; he prowled abont in the dusk of the evening, and meeting
these gentlemen also prowling in the uncertain light, would
sometimes salute them as friends and brothers, at other timea
be entirely unacquainted with them, and now and then inter-
change two or three hurried gestures with them, which the close
observer would have perceived to mean a great deal. Beyond
this, nothing had been done — and, in sjjite of all this, no tidings
could be obtained of the Count de Marolles, except that no
person answering to liis description had left Liverpool either by
land or water. Still, neither Mr. Peters's spirits nor patience
failed him ; and after every interview held upon the stairs or in
the passage, after every excursion •'>o the quays or the streets, he
returned as briskly as on the first doy, and reseated himself at
the little table by the window, at which his colleagues — or rather
his companions, for neither Mr. Darley nor the Smasher were of
the smallest use to liim — played, and took it in turns to ruin
each other from morning till night. The real truth of the
matter was, that, if anything, the detective's so-called assistants
were decidedly in his way; but Augustus Darley, having dis-
tinguished himself in the escape from the asylum, considered
himself an amateur Vidocque ; and the Smasher, from the
moment of puttmg in his left, and unconsciously advancing the
cause of Richard and justice by extinguishing the Count de
Marolles, had panted to write his name, or rather make hia
mark, upon the scroll of fame, by an-esting that gentleman iir
his own proper person, and without any extraneous aid what-
ever. It was rather hard for liim, then, to have to resign the
prospect of such a glorious adventure to a man of Mr. Peters's
inches ; but he was of a calm and amiable disposition, and
would floor his adversary with as much good temper as_ he
would cat his favourite dinner ; so, with a gi'owl of resignation,
he abandoned the reins to the steady hands so used to hold
them, and seated himself down to the consumption of innumer-
able clay pipes and glasses of bitter ale with Gus, who, being
one of the most ancient of the order of the Cherokees, was an
especial favourite with him.
On this third morning, however, there is a decided tone of weari-
ness pervading the minds of both Gus and the Smasher. Three-
handed all-fours, though a delicious and exciting game, will pall
upon the inconstant mind, esj^ecially when your third player is
perpetually summoned from the table to take part in a mys-
terious dialogue with a person or persons unknown, the result
of which he declines to communicate to you. The view fi-oci
Mr. Pciers arresh tie T)ead. 2S7
tlic bow-window of the blue parlour in tlie Wliite Lion, Liver-
pool, is no doubt as animated as it is beautiful ; but Rasselas,
we know, got tired of some very pretty scenery, and there have
been readers so inconstant as to grow weary of Dr. Johnson's
book, and to go down peacefully to their graves unacquainted
with the climax thereof. So it is scarcely perhaps to be won-
dered that the volatile Augustus thirsted for the waterworks o
Blackfriars ; while the Smasher, feeling himself to be blushing
unseen, and wasting his stamina, if not his sweetness, on the
desert air, jjined for the familiar shades of Bow Street and
Yinegar Yard, and the home-sounds of the rumbling and
jingUng of the wagons, and the unpolite language of the drivers
thereof, on market mornings in the adjacent market. Pleasure::;
and palaces are all very well in their way, as the song says ; but
there is just one little spot on earth which, whether it be a garret
in Petticoat Lane or a mansion in Belgrave Square, is apt to be
dearer to us than the best of them ; and the Smasher languishes
for the friendly touch of the ebony handles of the porter-engine,
and the scent of the "Welsh rarebits of his youth. Perhaps I
express myself in a more romantic manner on this subject,
however, than I should do, for the remark of the Left-handed
one, as he pours himself out a cup of tea from the top of the
tea-pot — he despises the spout of that vessel as a modern inno-
vation on ancient simplicity — is as simple as it is energetic. He
merely observes that he is "jolly sick of this lot,"— this lot
meaning Liverpool, the Count de Marolles, the Wliite Lion,
three-handed all-fours, and the detective police-force.
" There was nobody ill in Friar Street when I left," said Gus
mournfully ; " but there had been a ran ujjon Pimperneckel'a
Universal Regenerator Pills : and if that don't make business a
little brisker, nothing will."
" It's my opinion," observed the Smasher doggedly, " that
this 'ere forrin cove has give us the slij) out and out ; and the
Booner we gets back to London the better. I never was much
of a hand at chasing wild geese, and" — he added, with rather a
spiteful glance at the mild countenance of the detective — "I
don't see neither that standin' and makin' signs to parties uu -
beknown at street-comers and stair-heads is the quickest wa >
to catch them sort of birds ; leastways it's not the opinion he 1
by the gents belongin' to the Ring as I've had the honour t
make acquaintance with."
" Suppose " said Mr. Peters, on his fingers.
" Oh !" muttered the Smasher, " blow them fingers of his. I
can't understand 'em — there !" The left-handed Hercules knew
that this was to attack the detective on his tenderest point.
" Blest if I ever knows his p's from his Vs, or his w's from hia
e's, let alone his vowels, and them would puzzle a conjuror."
288 trail of tie Serpent.
Mr. Peters glanced at tlie prizc-figliter more in sorrow than in
anger, and taking out a gi'easy little pocket-book, and a greasier
little pencil, considerably the worse for having been vehtmently
chewed in moments of preoccupation, he wrote upon a leaf of
it thus — " Suppose we catdi him to-day ?"
" Ah, very true," said the Smasher sulkily, after he had exa-
mined the document in two or three different lights before he
came upon its full bearings ; " veiy true, indeed, suppose we
do — and suppose we don't, on the other hand; and I know
which is the hkeUest. Suppose, Mr. Peters, we give up lookin'
for a needle in a bundle of hay, which after a time gets tryin' to
a lively disposition, and go back to our businesses. If you had a
girl as didn't know British from best French a-servin' of yoihr
customers," he continued in an injured tone, " yoiCd be anxious to
get home, and let your forrin counts go to the devil their own ways."
•' Then go," Mr. Peters wrote, in large letters and no capitals.
" Oh, ah ; yes, to be sure," repHed the Smasher, who, I regret
to say, felt painfully, in his absence from domestic pleasures,
the want of somebody to quarrel with ; " No, I thank you ! Go
the very day as you're going to catch him ! Not if I'm in any
manner aware of the cu-cumstance. I'm obhged to you," he
added, with satirical emphasis.
" Come, I say, old boy," interposed Gus, who had been quietly
doing execution upon a plate of devilled kidneys during this
little friendly altercation, " come, I say, no snarling, Smasher
Peters isn't going to contest the belt with you, you know."
" You needn't be a-diggin' at me because I ain't chan-pion,'
said the ornament of the P.R., who was inclined to find a mal-
cious meaning in every word uttered that morning; " you needn't
come any of your sneers because I ain't got the belt any longer."
The Smasher had been Champion of England in his youth,
but had retired upon his laurels for many years, and only
occasionally emerged from private hfe in a public-house to take
a round or two with some old opponent.
" I tell you what it is. Smasher — it's my opinion the air of
Liverpool don't suit your constitution," said Gus. " We've
promised to stand by Peters here, and to go by his word in
everything, for the sake of the man we w^ant to serve; and,
however tiying it may be to our patience doing nothing, which
perhaps is about as much as we can do and make no mistakes,
the first that gets tired and deserts the ship will be no friend to
Richard Marwood."
" I'm a bad lot, Mr. Darley, and that's the truth," said the
mollified Smasher ; " but the fact is, I'm used to a turn with
the glovea every morning before breakfast with the barman,
and when I don't get it, I dare say I ain't the pleasantest
company goin'. I should think they've got gloves in th«
Mr. Peters arrests the Dead. 26&
iiX0hs6: would you mind taking off your coat and having a
turn — friendly like?"
Gus assured tlie Smasher that nothing would please him
better than that tiifliug diversion ; and in five minutes they
hud pushed Mr. Peters and the breakfast-table into a corner,
and were hard at it, Mr. Barley's knowledge of the art being all
required to keep the slightest pace with the scientific movements
of the agile though elderly Smasher.
Mr. Peters did not stay at the breakfast-table long, but after
having drunk a huge bi-eakfast cupful of very ojiaque and sub-
stantial-looking coffee at a draught, just as if it had been half a
pint of beer, he slid quietly out of the room.
" It's my opinion," said the Smasher, as he stood, or rather
lounged, ujion his guard, and warded off the most elaborate
combinations of Mr. Barley's fists with as much ease as he
would have brushed aside so many flies — " it's my opinion that
chap ain't up to his business."
" Isn't he ?" replied Gus, as he threw down the gloves in
despair, after having been half an hour in a violent perspiration,
without having succeeded in so much as rumpling the Smasher's
hair. " Isn't he ?" he said, choosing the inteiTOgative as the
most expressive form of speech. " That man's got head enough
to be prime minister, and cany the House along with every
twist of his fingers."
"He must make his p's and b's a little plainer afore he'll
get a bill through the Commons though," muttered the Left-
handed one, who couldn't quite get over his feelings of injury
against the detective for the utter darkness in which he had
been kept for the last three days as to the other's plarfi.
The Smasher and Mr. Barley passed the morning in that
remarkably intellectual and praisewortbv manner peculiar to
gentlemen who, being thrown out of the3"- usual occupation, are
cast upon their own resources for amusement and employment.
There was the daily paper to be looked at, to begin with ; but
after Gus had glanced at the leading ai-ticle, a rifacimento of
the Times leader of the day before, garnished with some local
allusions, and highly spiced with satirical remarks ainoi'tos to
our spirited contemporary the Liverpool Aristides ; after the
Smasher had looked at the racing fixtures for the coming week,
and made rude observations on the editing of a journal which
failed to describe the coming off of the event between Silver*
^lled Robert and the Chester Crusher — after, I say, the two
gentlemen had each devoured his favourite page, the paper was
an utter failure in the matter of excitement, and the window was
the next best thing. Now to the pecuharly constituted mind of
the Left-handed one, looking out of a window was in itself vorj
Blow work; and unless he was allowed to eject missiles of a
2f)0 The Trail of tie Serpetd.
trifling but annoying character — sucli as Lot ashes out of liis
pipe, the last drop of his pint of beer, the dirty water out of
the saucers belonging to the flower-pots on the window-sill, or
lighted lucifer-matches — ^into the eyes of the unoffending
passers-by, he didn't, to use his own forcible remark, " seem to
866 the fun of it." Harmless old gentlemen with umbrellas,
mUd elderly ladies with hand-baskets and brass-handled green-
■"lilk parasols, and young ladies of from ten to twelve going to
jchool in clean frocks, and on particularly good terms with
themselves, the Smasher looked upon as his pecuUar prey. To
put his head out of the window and make tender and pohte
inquiries about their maternal parents ; to go further still, and
express an earnest wish to be informed of those parents' domes-
tic arrangements, and whether they had been induced to part
with a piece of machinery of some importance in the getting up
of linen ; to insinuate alarming suggestions of mad bulls in the
next street, or a tiger just broke loose from the Zoological
Gardens; *o terrify the youthful scholar by asking him de-
risively xv-^^jther he wouldn't " catch it when he got to school ?
Oh, no, not at all, neither !" and to draw his head away sud-
denly, and altogether disappear fi-om pubHc view ; to act, in
fact, after the manner of an accompUshed clown in a Christmas
pantomime, was the weak deUght of his manly mind : and
when prevented by Mr. Darley's friendly remonstrance from
doing this, the Smasher abandoned the window altogether, and
concentrated all the powers of his intellect on the pursuit of a
lively young bluebottle, which eluded his bandanna at every
turn, and bumped itself violently against the window-panes at
the very moment its pursuer was looking for it up the chimney.
Time and the hour made very long work of this particular
morning, and several glasses of bitter had been called for, and
numerous games of cribbage had been played by the two com-
panions, when Mr. Darley, looking at his watch for not more
than the twenty-second time in the last hour, announced with
some satisfaction that it was half-past two o'clock, and that it
was consequently very near dinner-time.
" Peters is a long time gone," suggested the Smasher.
" Take my word for it," said Gus, " something has turned up ;
he has laid his hand upon De MaroUes at last."
"I don't think it," repUed his ally, obstinately refusing to
believe in Mr. Peters's ertra share of the divine afflatus ; " and
if he did come across him, how's he to detain him, Pd Uke to
know ? He couldn't go in with Ms left," he muttered derisively,
" and spht his head open upon the pavement to keep him quiet
for a day or two."
At this very moment there came a tap at the door, and a
youthful person ia corduroy and a perspiration entered tha
Mr. Peters arresfg the Bead. 201
footn, witli a rery small and very dirty piece of jjaper t-^visted
np into a bad imitation of a three-cornered note.
" Please, yon was to give me sixpence if I run aU the way,"
remarked the youthful Mercury, " an' I 'ave : look at my fore-
head;" and, in proof of his fideUty, the messenger pointed to
the water-drops which chased each other down his open brow
and ran a dead heat to the end of liis nose.
The scrawl ran thus — "The Washington sails at three for
New York: be on the quay and see the passengers embark:
don't notice me unless I notice you. Yours truly "
" It was just give me by a gent in a hurry wot was dumb,
and wrote upon a piece of paper to tell me to run my legs off so
as you should have it quick — thank you kindly, sir, and good
afternoon," said the messenger, all in one breath, as he bowed hia
gratitude for the shilling Gus tossed him as he dismissed him.
" I said so," cried the young surgeon, as the Smasher applied
himself to the note with quite as much, nay, perhaps more
ti-arnestness and solemnity than Chevaher Bunsen might have
assumed when he deciphered a half-erased and illegible inscrip-
tion, in a language which for some two thousand years has been
unknown to mortal man. "I said so; Peters is on the scent,
and this man will be taken yet. Put on your hat. Smasher,
and let's lose no time ; it only wants a quarter to three, and I
wouldn't be out of this for a great deal."
* I shouldn't much relish being out of the fun either," replied
his companion ; " and if it comes to blows, perhaps it's just as
well I haven't had my dinner."
There were a good many people going by the Washington,
and the deck of the small stearcs,v which was to convey them on
board the great ship, where she lay in graceful majesty down
the noble Mersey river, was crowded with every species of lug-
gage it was possible to imagine as appertaining to the widest
varieties of the genus traveller. There was the maiden lady,
with a small income from the three-per-cents, and a determina-
tion of blood to the tip of a sharp nose, going out to join a
inarried brother in New York, and evidently intent u^jon import-
ing a gigantic brass cage, containuig a parrot m the last stage
of bald-headedness — politely called moulting; and a limp and
wandering-minded umbrella — weak in the ribs, aid further
utRicted with a painfully sharp ferrule, which always appeared
where it was not expected, and evidently hankered wildly after
che bystanders' baiikbones — as favourable specimens of the
progress of the fine arts in the mother country. There were
eeveral of those brilUant birds-of-passage popularly known as
" travellers," whose heavy luggage consisted of a carpet-bag and
walking-stick, and whose light ditto was composed of a pocket-
book and a silver peucil-caae of protean construction, which wag
292 The Trait of tie Serpent.
Bometiinea a pen, now and tlien a penknife, and very often a
toothpick. These gentlemen came down to the steamer at the
last moment, inspiring the minds of nervous passengers with
supernatural and convulsive cheerfulness by the hght and airy
way in which they bade adieu to the comrades who had just
looked round to see them start, and who made appointments
with them for Christmas supper-parties, and booked bets with
them for next year's Newmarket fii-st spring — as if such things
as ship-^vreck, peril by sea, heeUng over Boyal Georges, lost Pre-
sidents, with brilliant Irish comedians setting lorth on their
return to the land in which they had been so beloved and
admired, never, never to reach the shore, were things that could
not be. There were rosy-cheeked country lasses, going over to
earn fabulous wages and marry impossibly rich husbands. There
were the old people, who essa;^e<? this long journey on an element
which they knew only by sight, in answer to the kind son's
noble letter, inviting them to come and share the pleasant home
his sturdy arm had won far away in the fertile West. There
were stout L.-ish labourers armed with i:)ickaxe and spade, as
with the best sword wherewith to open the great oyster of the
world in these latter degenerate days. There was the dis-
tinguished American family, -with ever so many handsomely
dressed, spoiled, affectionate childi-en clustering round papa and
mamma, and having their own way, after the manner of trans-
atlantic youth. There were, in short, aU the people who usually
assemble when a good ship sets sail for the land of dear brother
Jonathan ; but the Count de Marolles there was not.
No, decidedly, no Count de MaroUes ! There was a very
quiet-looking Irish labourer, keeping quite aloof from the rest
of his kind, who were sufficiently noisy and more than suffi-
ciently forcible in the idiomatic portions of their conversation.
There was this very quiet Irishman, leaning on his _ spade and
pickaxe, and evidently bent on not going on board till the very
last moment; and there was an elderly gentleman in a black
coat, who looked rather like a Methodist parson, and who held a
very small carpet-bag in his hand ; but there was no Count de
Marolles ; and what's more, there was no Mr. Peters.
This latter drcum stance made Augustus Darley very uneasy ;
but I regret to say that the Smasher wore, if anything, a look
of triumph as the hands of the clocks about the quay pointed
to three o'clock, and no Peters appeared.
" I knowed," he said, with effusion — " I knowed that cove
«^asn't up to his business. I wouldn't mind bettin' the goodwill of
my Uttle crib in London agen sixpen'orth of coppers, that he's a*
standin' at this veiy individual moment of time at a street-corner
a, mile off, makin' signs to one of the Liverpool police-officers."
The gentleman in the black coat standing before them turnc-d
Mr. Fetert arrests the Dead. 293
round on hearing tliis remark, and smiled — smiled very very
faintly ; but he certaioly did smile. The Smasher's blood, which
was something Hke that of Lancaster, and distinguished for ita
tendency to mount, was up in a moment.
" I hope you find my conversation amusin', old gent," he said,
with considerable asperity ; " I came down here on purpose to
put you in spu-its, on account of bein' grieved to see you always
a-lookin' as if you'd just come home from your own funeral, and
the undertaker was a-dunnin' you for the burial-fees."
Gus trod heavily on his companion's foot as a friendly hint to
him not to get up a demonstration ; and addressing the gentle-
man, who appeared in no hurry to resent the Smasher's con-
temptuous animadversions, asked him when he thought the boat
would start.
" Not for five or ten minutes, I dare say," he answered.
•' Look there ; is that a cofiin they're bringing this way P I'm
rather short-sighted ; be good enough to tell me if it is a cofiin? "
The Smasher, who had the glance of an eagle, rephed that it
decidedly was a cofiin ; adding, with a growl, that he knowed
somebody as might be in it, and no harm done to society.
The elderly gentleman took not the shghtest notice of thij
gratuitous piece of information on the part of the left-handed
gladiator ; but suddenly busied himself with his fingers in the
neighbourhood of his Hmp white cravat.
" 'Why, I'm blest," cried the Smasher, " if the old baby ainS,
at Peters's game, a-talkin' to nobody upon his fingers I"
Nay, most distinguished professor of the noble art of self-
defence, is not that assertion a httle premature? Talking on
his fingers, certainly — looking at nobody, certainly ; but for all
that, talking to somebody, and to a somebody who is looking at
him; for, from the other side of the httle crowd, the Irish
labourer fixes his eyes intently on every movement of the grave
elderly gentleman's fingers, as they run through four or five
rapid words ; and Gus Darley, perceiving this look, starts in
amazement, for the eyes of the Irish labourer are the eyes o2
Mr. Peters of the detective poHce.
But neither the Smasher nor Gus is to notice Mr, Peterg
unless Mr. Peters notices them. It is so expressed in the note,
which Mr. Darley has at that very moment in his waistcoat
pocket. So Gus gives his companion a nudge, and directs hig
attention to the smock-frock and the slouched hat in which the
detective has hidden himself, with a hurried injunction to him to
keep quiet. We are human at the best ; ay, even when we are
celeljratcd for our genius in the muscular science, and our well-
known blow of the left-handed postman's knock, or double
auctioneer : and, if the sober truth must be told, the Smasher
was sorry to recognize Mr. Peters in that borrowed garb. H9
294 The Trail of the Serpent
didnt want the dumb detective to arrest the Count de Marullea.
He had never read Coriolanus, neither had he seen the Roman,
Mr. William Macready, in that character ; but, for all that, the
Smasher wanted to go home to the dearpurUeus of Drury Lane,
and say to his astonished admirers, " Alone I did it !" And lo,
here were Mr. Peters and the elderly stranger both entered for
the same event.
While gloomy and vengeful thoughts, therefore, troubled the
manly breast of the Vinegar- Yard gladiator, four men ap-
proached, bearing on their shoulders the coffin which had so
aroused the stranger's attention. They bore it on board ttie
steamer, and a few moments after a gentlemanly and cheerful-
looking man, of about forty, stepped across the narrow platform,
and occupied himself with a crowd of packages, which stood in
a heap, apart from the rest of the luggage on the crowded deck.
Again the elderly stranger's fingers were busy in the region of
his cravat. The superficial observer would have merely thought
him very fidgety about the Ump bit of muslin ; but this time the
fingers of Mr. Peters telegraphed an answer.
" Gentlemen," said the stranger, addressing Mr. Darley and
the Smasher in the most matter-of-fact manner, " you will be
good enough to go on board that steamer with me ? I am work-
ing with Mr. Peters in this afiair. Remember, I am going to
America by that vessel yonder, and you are my friends come
with me to see me oiF. Now, gentlemen."
He has no time to say any more, for the bell rings ; and tne
last stragglers, the people who will enjoy the latest available
moment on terra firma, scramble on board ; amongst them the
Smasher, Gus, and the stranger, who stick very closely together.
The coffin has been placed in the centre of the vessel, on the
top of a pile of chests, and its gloomy black ontliue is sharply
defined against the clear blue autumn sky. Now there is a
general feehng amongst the passengers that the presence of this
coffin is a pecuHar injury to them.
It is unpleasant, certainly. From the very moment of iti
appearance amongst them a change has come over the spirits ol
every one of the travellers. They try to keep away from it, but
they try in vain ; there is a dismal fascination ia the defined
and ghastly shape, which all the rough wrappers that can be
thrown over it will not conceal. They find their eyes wandering
to it, in preference even to watching receding Liverpool, whose
steeples and tall chimneys are dipping down and down into the
blue water, and will soon disappear altogether. They are inter-
ested in it in spite of themselves ; they ask questions of one
anuther; they ask questions of the engineer, and of the steward,
and of tiie captain of the steamer, but can elicit nothing — except
that lying in that coffin, so ?lose to them, and yet eo very very
llr. Peters arrests the Dead. 205
far away from them, there is an American gentleman of some
distinction, who, having died suddenly in England, is being
carried back to New York, to be buried amongst his friends in
that city. The aggrieved passengers for the Washington think
it very hard upon them that the American gentleman of distinc-
tion — they remember that he is a gentleman of distinction, and
modify their tone accordingly — could not have been buried in
England like a reasonable being. The British dominions were
not good enough for him, they supposed. Other passengers,
pushing the question still further, ask whether he couldn't have
been taken home by some other vessel ; nay, whether indeed he
ought not to have had a ship all to himself, instead of harrowing
the feelings and preying upon the spirits of first-class passen-
gers. They look almost spitefully, as they make these remarks*
towards the shrouded coffin, which, to their great aggravation,
is not entirely shrouded by the wrappers about it. One corner
has been left uncovered, revealing the stout rough oak ; for it is
only a temporary coffin, and the gentleman of distinction will be
put into somethLag better befitting his rank when he arrives at
his destination. It is to be observed, and it is observed by
many, that the cheerfal passenger in fashionable mourning, and
with the last greatcoat which the inspiration of Saville Row has
given to the London world thrown over his arm, hovers in a pro-
tecting manner about the coffin, and evinces a fidelity which, but
for his perfectly cheerful countenance and self-possessed manner,
would be really touching, towards the late American gentleman
of distinction, whom he has for his only travelling companion.
Now, though a great many questions had been asked on all
sides, one question especially, namely, whether it — people always
dropped their voices when they pronounced that small pronoun
— whether it would not be put in the hold as soon as they got
on board the Washington, the answer to which question was an
affirmative, and gave considerable satisfaction — except indeed to
one moody old gentleman, who asked, " How about getting any
little thing one happened to want on the journey out of the
hold?" and was very properly snubbed for the suggestion, and
told that passengers had no business to want things out of the
hold on the voyage ; and furthermore insulted by the Hveliest of
the lively travellers, who suggested, in an audible aside, that
perhaps the old gentleman had only one clean shirt, and had put
that at the bottom of his traveUing chest, — now, though, I say,
flo many quo*>tions had been asked, no one had as yet presumed
to address the cheerful-looking gentleman convoying the Ameri-
can of distinction home to his friends, though this very gentle-
man might, after all, be naturally supposed to know more than
anybody else about the subject. He was smoking a cigar, and
though he kept very close to the coffin, he was about the only
298 Tlie Trail of tie Ser-pent.
person on board who did not look at it, but kept liia gaze fixed
on the fading town of Liverpool. The Smasher, Gns, and Mr.
Peters's unknown ally stood very close to this gentleman, while
the detective himself leant over the side of the vessel, near to,
though a httle apart from, the Irish labourers and rosy-cheeked
country girls, who, as steerage passengers, very properly herded
together, an<?. did not attempt to contaminate by their presence
the minds or the garments of those superior beings who were to
occupy state-cabins six feet long by three feet wide, and to have
green peas and new milk from the cow all the way out. Pre-
sently, the elderly gentleman of rather shabby-genteel but clerical
appearance, who had so briefly introduced himself to Gus and
the Smasher, made some remarks about the town of Liverpool
to the cheerful friend of the late distinguished American.
The cheerful friend took liis cigar out of his mouth, smiled,
and said, " Yes ; it's a thriving town, a small London, really —
the metropoHs in miniature."
"You know Liverpool very well?" asked the Smasher's
companion.
" No, not very well ; in point of fact, I know very little of
England at all. My visit has been a brief one."
He is evidently an American from this remark, though there
is very little of brother Jonathan in his manner.
" Your visit has been a brief one ? Indeed. And it has had
a very melancholy termination, I regret to perceive," said the
persevering stranger, on whose every word the Smasher and
Mr. Darley hung respectfully.
"A very melancholy termination," replied the gentleman,
with the sweetest smile. " My poor friend had hoped to return
to the bosom of his family, and dehght them many an evening
rourui the cheerful hearth by the recital of his adventures in,
and impressions of, the mother country. You cannot imagine,"
lie continued, speaking very slowly, and as he spoke, allowing
his eyes to wander from the stranger to the Smasher, and from
the Smasher to Gus, with a glance which, if anything, had tiie
slightest shade of anxiety in it ; " you cannot imagine the
interest we on the other side of the Atlantic take m everything
that occurs in the mother country. We may be great over
there — we may be rich over there — we may be universally beloved
and resj^ected over there, — but I doubt — I really, after all,
doubt," he said sentimentally, " whether we are truly happy.
We sigh for the wings of a dove, or to speak practically, for our
travelling ex]3enses, that we may come over here and be at rest."
" And yet I conclude it was the especial wish of your lata
friend to be buried over there?" asked the stranger.
" It was — his dying wish."
And the melancholy duty of complying with tha- wisb
((
Mr. Peters arrests tlte Dead. 297
devolved on you?" said the stranger, -with a degree of puerile
curiosity and frivolous interest in an affair entirely irrelevant to
the matter in hand which bewildered Gus, and at which th«
Smasher palpably turned up his nose ; muttering to himself at
the same time that the forrin swell would have time to get
to America while they was a-jialaverin' and a-jawin' this 'ere
humbug.
"Yes, it devolved on me," replied the cheerful gentleman,
offering his cigar-case to the three friends, who declined tho
proffered weeds. " We were connections ; his mother's half-
sister married my second cousin — not very nearly connected
certainly, but extremely attached to each other. It will be a
melancholy satisfaction to his j^oor widow to see his ashes
entombed upon his native shore, and the thought of that repays
me threefold for anything I may suffer."
He looked altogether far too airy and charming a creature to
suffer very much; but the stranger bowed gravely, and Gus,
looking towards the prow of the vessel, perceived the earnest
eyes of Mr. Peters attentively fixed on the little group.
As to the Smasher, he was so utterly disgusted with the
stranger's manner of doing business, that he abandoned himself
to his own thoughts and hummed a tune — the tune appertaining
to what is generally called a comic song, being the last passages
in the hfe of a humble and unfortunate member of the working
classes as related by himself.
While talking to the cheerful gentleman on this very melan-
choly subject, the stranger from Liverpool happened to get quit^
close to the coffin, and, with an admirable freedom from prejudice
which astonished the other passengers standing near, rested his
hand carelessly on the stout oaken Hd, just at that corner where
the canvas left it exposed. It was a most speaking proof of the
almost overstrained feeling of devotion possessed by the cheer-
fnl gentleman towards his late friend that this trifling action
seemed to disturb him ; his eyes wandered uneasUy towards the
stranger's black-gloved hand, and at last, when, in absence of
mind, the stranger actually drew the heavy covering completely
over this comer of the coffin, his imeasiness reached a climax,
and dramng the dingy drapery humedly back, he rearranged it
in its old fashion.
" Don't you wish the coHin to be entirely covered?" asked the
stranger quietly.
" Yes — no ; that is," said the cheerful gentleman, with some
embarrassment in his tone, " that is — I — you see there is some-
thing of profanity in a stranger's hand approaching the remaiui
of those we love."
" Suppose, then," said his interlocutor, "we take a turn aboct
the deck ? This neighbourhood must be very painful to yoii,"
298 The Trail of the Serpent.
" On the contrary," replied tlie cheerful gentleman, " you will
think me, I dare say, a very singiilar person, but I prefer remain-
ing by him to the last. The coffin will be put in the hold aa
soon as we gftt on board the Washington ; then my duty will
have been accomplished and my mind will be at rest. You go
to New York with us ? " he asked.
" I shall have that pleasure," replied the stranger.
" And your friend — your sporting friend ?" asked the gentle-
man, with a rather supercihous glance at the many-coloured
raiment and mottled-soap complexion of the Smasher, who was
still singing sotto voce the above-mentioned melody, with his
arms folded on the rail of the bench on which he was seated,
and his chin resting moodily on his coat-sleeves.
"No," replied the stranger; "my friends, I regret to say,
leave me as soon as we get on board."
In a few minutes more they reached the side of the brave
ship, which, from the Liverpool quay, had looked a white-
winged speck not a bit too big for Queen Mab ; but which was,
oh, such a Leviathan of a vessel when you stood just under
her, and had to go up her side by means of a ladder — which
ladder seemed to be subject to shivering fits, and sti-uck terror
into the nervous lady and the bald-headed parrot.
All the passengers, except the cheerful gentleman with the
coffin and the stranger — with Gus and the Smasher and Mr.
Peters loitering in the background — seemed bent on getting
up each before the other, and considerably increased the con-
fusion by evincing this wish in a candid but not concihating
manner, showing a degree of ill-feeUng which was much in-
creased by the passengers that had not got on board looking
daggers at the passengers that had got on board, and seemed
settled quite comfortably high and dry upon the stately deck.
At last, however, every one but the aforesaid group had ascended
the ladder. Some stout sailors were preparing great i-opes
wherewith to haul up the coffin, and the cheerful gentleman
was busily directing them, when the captain of the steamer
said to the stranger from Liverpool, as he loitered at the bottom
of the ladder, with Mr. Peters at his elbow, — " Now then, sir, if
you're for the Washington, quick's the word. We're off as
soon as ever they've got that job over," pointing to the coffin.
The stranger from Liverpool, instead of complying with this
very natural request, whispered a few words into the ear of the
captain, who looked very grave on hearing them, and then,
advancing to the cheerful gentleman, who was very anxious and
very uneasy about the manner in wliich the coffin was to be
ha,uled up the side of the vessel, he laid a heavy hand upon his
shoulder, and said, — " I want the lid of that colfin taken ofif
before those men haul it up."
Mr. Peters arrests the Dead. 299
Such a change came over the face of the cheerful gentleman
as only comes over the face of a man who knows that he is
playing a desperate game, and knows as surely that he has lost
it. "My good sir," he said, "you're mad. Not for the Queen
of England would I see that coffin-lid unscrewed."
" I don't think it will give us so much trouble as that," said
the other quietly. " I very much doubt it's being screwed down
at all. You were greatly alarmed just now, lest the person
within should be smothered. You were terribly frightened
when I drew the heavy canvas over those incisions in the oak,"
he added, pointing to the lid, in the corner of which two or three
cracks were apparent to the close observer.
" Good Heavens ! the man is mad !" cried the gentleman,
whose manner had entirely lost its airiness. " The man is evi-
dently a maniac ! This is too dreadful ! Is the sanctity of
death to be profaned in this manner ? Are we to cross the
Atlantic in the company of a madman ? "
" You are not to cross the Atlantic at all just yet," said the
Liverpool stranger. " The man is not mad, I assure you, but
he is one of the principal members of the Liverpool detective
pohce-force, and is empowered to arrest a person who is sup-
posed to be on board this boat. There is only one place in
which that person can be concealed. Here is my warrant to
arrest Jabez North, alias Raymond MaroUes, alias the Count
de Marolles. I know as certainly as that I myself stand here
that he Hes hidden in that coffin, and I desire that the lid may
be removed. If I am mistaken, it can be immediately replaced,
and I shall be ready to render you my most fervent apologies
for having profaned the repose of the dead. Now, Peters 1 "
The dumb detective went to one end of the coffin, while
his colleague stood at the other. The Liverpool officer was
correct in his supposition. The Ud was only secm'ed by two or
three long stout nails, and gave way in three minutes. The two
detectives lifted it off the coffin — and there, hot, flushed, and
panting, half-suffijcated, with desperation in his wicked blue
eyes, his teeth locked in funous rage at his utter powerlessness
to escape from the grasp of his pursiiers — there, run to earth at
last, lay the accomplished Raymond, Count de Marolles !
They put the handcuffs on him before they lifted him o\it
of the coffin, the Smasher assisting. Years after, when the
Snuisher grew to be an older and graver man, he used to tell to
admiring and awe-stricken customers the story of this arrest.
But it is to be observed that his memory on these occasions was
wont to play him false, for he omitted to mention either the
Liverpool detective or our good friend Mr. Peters as taking any
1)art in the capture ; but described the whole affair as conducted
ly hiuiself alone, with an incalculable number of " I savs," and
800 Tlie Trail of the Serpent.
*' so then I tMnks," and " well, wliat do I do next ?" and othe?
plirases of the same description.
The Count de Marolles, with tumhled hair, and a white face
and blue lips, sitting handcuffed upon the bench of the steamer
between the Liverpool detective and Mr. Peters, steaming back
to Liverpool, was a sight not good to look upon. The cheerful
gentleman sat with the Smasher and Mr. Darley, who had been
told to keep an eye upon him, and who — the Smasher especially
— kept both eyes upon him with a will.
Throughotit the little voyage there were no words spoken but
these from the Liverpool detective, as he first put the fetters on
the white and slender wrists of his prisoner: "Monsieur de
Marolles," he said, " you've tried this little game once before.
This is the second occasion, I understand, on which you've done
a sham die. I'd have you beware of the thhd time. According
to superstitious people, it's generally fatal."
CHAPTEE YL
THE END OF THE DAUK ROAD.
Once more Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy rang with a subject dis-
missed from the pubUc mind eight years ago, and now revived
with a great deal more excitement and discussion than ever.
That subject was, the murder of Mr. Montague Harding. . All
Slopperton made itself into one voice, and spoke but upon one
theme — the pending trial of another man for that very crime of
which Richard Marwood had been found guilty years ago — ■
Bichard, who, according to report, had died in an attempt to
escape from the county asylum.
Very httle was known of the criminal, but a great deal was
conjectured; a great deal more was invented; and ultimately,
most conflicting reports were spread abroad by the citizens of
Slopperton, every one of whom had his particular account of
the seizure of De MaroUes, and every one of whom stood to his
view of the case with a pertinacity and fortitude worthy of a
better cause. Thus, if you went into High Street, entering
that thoroughfare from the Market-place, you would hear how
this De Marolles was a French nobleman, who had crossed tha
Channel in an open boat on the night of the murder, walked
from Dover to Slopperton — (not above two hundred miles by
the shortest cut) — and gone back to Calais in the same manner.
If, staggered by the shght discrepancies of time and place in
this account of the transaction, you -■yursued your inquiries a
little further down the same street, 'you would very likely ba
told that De Marolles was no Frenchman at all, but the son of
a clergyman in the next county, whose unfortunate mother waa
%% that moment on her knees in the throno-room at Bucking*
fhe End of the Dark Boal ^01
nam Palace, soli(utiug his pardon on account of liis Connection
vfiih. the clerical interest. If this storj struck you as more
romantic than probable, you had only to turn the corner into
Little Market Street — (rather a low neighbourhood, and chieflj
inhabited by butchers and the tripe and cow-heel trade) — ana
you might sup full of horrors, the denizens of this locaHty
labouring under the fixed conviction that the prisoner the4
lying in Slopperton gaol was neither more nor less than a dis-
tinguished burglar, long the scourge of the united kingdoms of
Great Britain and Ireland, and guilty of outrages and murders
innumerable.
There were others who confined themselves to animated and
detailed descriptions of the attempted escape and capture of
the accused. These congregated at street- corners, and disputed
and gesticulated in little groups, one man often dropjiing back
from his companions, and taking a wide berth on the pavement,
to give his particular story the benefit of illustrative action.
Some stories told how the prisoner had got half-way to America
concealed in the paddle wheel of a screw steamer ; others gave
an animated account of his having been found hidden in
the corner of the engine-room, where he had lain concealed for
fourteen days withoiit either bite or sup. Others told you he
had been furled up in the foretopsail of an American man-of-
war ; others related how he had made the passage in the main-
top of the same vessel, only descending in the «lead of the night
for his meals, and paying the captain of the sldp a quarter of a
miUion of money for the accommodation. As to the sums of
money he had embezzled in his capacity of banker, they grew
with every hour ; till at last SlopiDcrton turned up its nose at
anything under a billion for the sum total of his plunder.
The assizes were looked forward to with such eager expectation
Bnd interest as never had been felt about any other assizes
v/ithin the memory of hving Slopperton ; and the judges and
oarristers on this circuit were the envy of judges and barristers
on other circuits, who said bitterly, that no such case ever came
across their way, and that it was like Prius Q.C.'s luck to be
Cfjunsel for the prosecution in such a trial ; and that if Nisi,
whom the Count de Marolles had intrusted Avith his defence,
dithi't get him off, he. Nisi, deserved to be hung in lieu of his client.
It seemed a strange and awful instance of retributive justice
that E,ayirL>)nd Marolles, having been taken in his endeavour to
escape in tlie autumn of the year, had to await the spi-ing
assizes of the following year for his trial, and had, therefore, tc
drag out even a longer period in his solitary cell than Richard
Marwood, the innocent victim of circumstantial evidence, had
tone years before.
\Vho shall (iarc to enter this man's cell ? Wlio shall dare to
S02 The Trail of the Serpent.
look into this hardened heart ? Who shall follow the dark ami
tei-rible speculations of this perverted intellect ?
At last the time, so welcome to the free citizens of Sloppertou,
and so very unwelcome to some of the denizens in the gaol, who
preferred awaiting their trial in that retreat to crossing the
briny ocean for an unUmited period as the issue of that trial —
at last, the assize time came round once more. Once more the
tip-top Slopperton hotels were bewilderingly gay with elegant
young barristers and grave grey-headed judges. Once more the
criminal court was one vast sea of human heads, rising wave on
wave to the veiy roof; and once more every eager eye was
turned towards the dock in which stood the elegant and accom-
plished Raymond, Count de Marolles, alias Jabez North, some-
time pauper of the SlojDperton-on-the-Sloshy Union, afterwards
usher in the academy of Dr. Tappenden, charged with the wilful
miirder of Montague Harding, also of Slopperton, eight years
before.
The first point the counsel for the prosecution endeavoured
to prove to the minds of the jury was the identity of Raymond
de Marolles, the Parisian, with Jabez North, the pauper school-
boy. This hinged cliiefly upon his power to disprove the sup-
posed death of Jabez North, m which all Slopperton had liitherto
firmly believed. Dr. Tappenden had stood by his usher's corpse.
How, then, could that usher be aUve and before the Slopperton
jury to-day ? But there were plenty to certify that here he was
•»! the flesh — this very Jabez North, whom so many people re-
membered, and had been in the habit of seeing, eight years ago.
They were ready to identify him, in spite of his dark hair and
eyebrows. On the other hand, there were some who had seen the
body of the suicide, found by Peters the detective, on the heath
outside Slopperton ; and these were as ready to declare that the
afore-mentioned body was the body of Jabez North, the usher to
Dr. Tappenden, and none other. But when a rough-looking man,
with a mangy fur cap in his hand, and two greasy locks of hair
carefully twisted into limp curls on either side of his swarthy
fa,ce, which curls were known to his poetically and figuratively-
disposed friends as Newgate knockers — when this man, who
gave lus name to the jury as Slithery Bill — or, seeing the jury
»lidn"t approve of this cognomen. Bill Withers, if they liked it
better — was called into the witness-box, his evidence, sulkily and
rather despondingly giren, as from one who says, "It may be
my turn next," threw quite a new light upon the subject.
Bill Withers was politely asked if he remembered the summei
of 18 — . Yes; Mr. Withers could remember the summer o^
18 — ; was out of work that summer, and made the marginal
remark that " them as couldn't hve might starve or steal, for all
Slopporton folks cai'cd."
f%! mid of the DarTc Foad. 303
Waa again politely asked if he remembered doing cue par-
ticular job of work tliat summer.
Did remember it — made tbe marginal remark, " and it was a
jolly queer dodge as ever a cove had a hand in."
Was asked to be good enough to state what the particular job
was.
Assented to the request with a polite nod of the head, and
proceeded to smooth his Newgate knockers, and fold his arms
on the ledge of the witness-box prior to stating his case ; then
cleared his throat, and commenced discursively, thus, —
" Yy, it vas as this 'ere — I vas out of work. I does up small
gent's gardens in the spring, and tithes and vceds and rakes and
hoes 'em a bit, back and front, vhen I can get it to do, vich
ain't often ; and bein' out of vork, and old Mother Thingamy,
down Blind Peter, she ses to me, vich she vas a vicked old 'ag,
she ses to me, ' I've got a job for them as asks no questions, and
don't vant to be told no lies ;' by vich remark, and the vay of
her altogether, I knowed she veren't up to no good ; so I sea,
' You looks here, mother ; if it's a job a respectable young man,
vot's out o' vork, and ain't had a bite or sup since the day aforo
yesterday, can do vith a clear conscience, I'll do it— if it ain't,
vy I von't. There !' " Having recorded which heroic declara-
tion, Mr. WilUam Withers wiped his mouth with the back of
his hand, and looked round the court, aa much as to say, " Let
Slopperton be proud of such a citizen."
" ' Don't you go to flurry your tender constitution and do your-
self a unrecoverable injury,' the old cat made reply ; ' it's a job
as the parson of the parish might do, if he'd got a track.' ' A
truck?' I ses; 'is it movin' boxes you're making this 'ere
palaver about ?' ' Never you mind vether it's boxes or vether
it ain't ; vill you do it P' she ses ; ' vill you do it, and put a
Bov^ring in your pocket, and never go for to split, unless you
\ ii it, that precious throat of yours slit some iine evenin' P' "
•'And you consented to do what she required of you? " sug-
gested the counsel.
" Yell, I don't know about that," replied Mr. Withers, " but
I undertook the job. ' So,' ses she, that's the old 'un, she ses,
•you bring a truck down by that there broken buildin' ground
at the back of Blind Peter at ten o'clock to-night, and you keep
yourself quiet till you hears a vliistle ; ven you hears a vhistle,'
Bhe ses, ' bring your truck around agin our front door. This
here's all you've got to do,' she ses, ' besides keepin' your tongue
between your teeth.' ' All right,' I ses, and oflt" I goes to see if
tiiere was any cove as would trust me with a truck agcn the
evenin'. Yell, I finds the cove, vich, seein' I wanted it bad, he
Btood out for a bob and a tanner for the loan of it."
" Perhaps the jury would wif h to be told what sum of money —
304 Tiie Trail of the Serpent.
T conclude it is money — a bob and a tanner represent?" said
fclie counsel.
" They must be a jolly ignorant lot, then, anjrwajj^s," replied
Mr. Withers, with more candour than circumlocution. " Any
infant knows eighteenpence ven it's showed him."
" Oh, a bob and a tanner are eighteenpence ? Very good,"
aaid the counsel, encouragingly ; " pray go on, Mr. Withers."
" Veil, ten o'clock come, and veren't it a precious stormy night,
that's all; and there I was a-vaitiu' a-sittin' on this blessed
truck at the back of BUud Peter, vich vos my directions. At
last the vhistle come, and a precious cautious vhistle it vas too,
as soft as a niteingel vot's payin' its addresses to another
uiteingel; and round I goes to the front, as vos my directions.
There, agen' her door, stands the old 'ag, and agen her stands a
3'oung man in an old ragged pair of trousis an' a shirt. Lookin'
him hard in the face, who does I see but Jim, the old un's
grandson; so I ses, 'Jim !' friendly Uke, but hemakea no reply ;
and then the old un ses, ' Lend this young gent a 'and 'ere, vill
yerp' So in I goes, and there on the bed I sees something rolled
up very careful in a old counterpane. It giv' me a turn hke, and
I didn't much Hke the looks of it; but I ses nothiuk; and then
the young man, Jim, as I thinks, ses, ' Lend us a hand with
this 'ere, vill yer ? ' and it giv'd me another turn like, for
though it's Jim's face, somehow it ain't quite Jim's voice — more
genteel and fine Uke ; but I goes up to the bed, and I takes hold of
von end of vot lays there ; and then I gets turn number three —
for I find my suspicions was correct — it was a dead body 1"
"A dead body?" _
" Yes ; but who's it vos there vos no knowin', it vos wrapped
■up in that manner. But I feels myself turn dreadful vhite, and
I ses, ' If this ere's anythink wrong, I vashes my hands ov it,
and you may do your dirty vork yourself.' I hadn't got the
vords out afore this 'ere young man, as I thought at first vos
Jim, caught me by the throat sudden, and threw me down on
my knee. I ain't a baby ; but, lor', I vos nothink in his grasp,
though his hand vos as vite and as dehket as a young lady's.
'Now, you just look 'ere,' he says; and I looked, as veil as I
'sould, vith my eyes a-startin' out ov of my head in cosekence of
Dein' just upon the choke, ' you see vot this is,' and vith his
left hand he takes a pistol out ov his pocket ; ' you refuse to do
vot ve vant done, or you go for to be noisy or in any vay ill-
conwenient, and it's the last time as ever you'll have the chance
ov so doing. Get up,' he says, as if I vos a dog ; and I gets up,
and I agrees to do vot he vants, for there vae that there devil
in that young man's hye, that I began to think it vos best net
to go agen him."
Here Mi\ Withers paused for refreshment after his exertioa
The JEnd of the Dark Eoad. 805
and blew his nose very deliberately on a handkerchief which,
from its dilapidated condition, resembled a red cotton cabbage-
net. Silence reigned thronghont the crowded court, broken
only by the scratching of the pen with which the counsel for the
defence was taking notes of the evidence, and the fluttering of
the leaves of the reporters' pocket-books, as they threw off page
after page of flimsy paper.
The prisoner at the bar looked straight before him; the
firmly-compressed lips had never once quivered, the golden
fringed eyelashes had never drooped.
"Can you tell me," said the counsel for the prosecution,
" whether you have ever, since that night, seen this young man,
who so closely resembled your old friend, Jim ? "
" Never seen him since, to my knowledge" — there was a flutter
in the crowded court, as if every spectator had simultaneously
drawn a long breath — " till to-day."
"Till to-day?" said the counsel. Thistimeitwasmorethan aflut-
ter, it was a subdued murmur that ran through the listening crowd-
" Be good enough to say if you can see him at this present
moment."
" I can," replied Mr. Withers. " That's him ! or my name
ain't vot I've been led to believe it is." And he pointed with a
dirty but decided finger at the prisoner at the bar.
The prisoner slightly elevated his arched eyebrows snper-
cihously, as if he would say, " Tliis is a pretty sort of witness
to hang a man of my standing."
" Be so good as to continue your story," said the counsel.
" Veil, I does vot he tells me, and I lays the body, vith his
'elp, on the truck. ' Now,' he ses, ' follow this 'ere old voma»
and do everythink vot she tells you, or you'll find it considerablj
vorse for your futivre 'appiness ;' vith vich he slams the door
upon me, the old un, and the truck, and I sees no more of 'im.
Veil, I follows the old un through a lot o' lanes and back slums,
till ve leaves the town behind, and gets right out upon the 'eath ;
and ve crosses over the 'eath, till ve comes to vere it's precious
lonely, yet the hedge of the pathway hke ; and 'ere she tells me
as ve're to leave the Ijody, and 'ere ve shifts it off the truck and
lays it down upon the grass, vich it vas a-rainin' 'eavens 'ard,
and a-thunderin' and a-lightnin' hke von o'clock. ' And now,'
she ses, ' vot you've got to do is to go back from vheres you
come from, and lose no time about it; and take notice,' she ses,
' if ever you s] peaks or jabbers about this 'ere business, it'll be
the end of your jabberin' in this world,' vith vitch she looks at
me like a old vitch as she vos, and points vith her skinny arw
dov\ai the road. So I valks my ch;ilks, Imt I doesn't valk 'em
vf ry far, and presently I sees the old 'ag a-runnin' back tovarda
D
806 The Trail of the Serpent.
the town as fast as ever she could tear. ' Ho ! ' I sea, ' yon Are
a nice lot, you are; but I'll see who's dead, in spite of you.'
*)o I crawls up to vere ve'd left the body, and there it vos sure
<inu^, but all uncovered now, the face a-starin' up at the black
sky, and it vos dressed, as far as I could make out, quite like a
gentleman, all in black, but it vos so jolly dark I couldn't see
the face, vhen all of a sudden, vhile I vos a-kneehn' down and
lookin' at it, there comes von of the longest flashes of hghtnin'
as I ever remember, and in the blue Ught I sees the face plainer
than I could have seen it in the day. I thought I should have
fell down all of a-heap. It vos Jim ! Jim hisself, as I knowed
as well as I ever knowed myself, dead at my feet ! My first
thought vos as how that yonng man as vos so like Jim had
miirdered him ; but there vom't no marks of wiolence novheres
about the body. Now, I hadn't in my own mind any doubts as
how it vos Jim ; but still, I ses to myself, I ses, ' Everythink
seems topsy-turvy Hke this night, so I'U be sure;' so I takes up
his arm, and turns up his coat-sleeve. Now, vy I does this is
this 'ere : there vos a young voman Jim vos uncommon fond ov,
vliich her name vos Bess, though he and many more called her,
for short, Sillikens : and von day vhen me and Jim vos at a
pubhc, ve happened to fall in vith a sailor, vot ve'd both
knowed afore he vent to sea. So he vos a-teUin' of us his
adventures and such-like, and then he said promiscus, ' I'U show
you somethin' pretty ; ' and sure enuff", he sHpped up the sleeve
ov his Garusey, and there, all over his arm, vos all manner ov
sort ov picters done vith gunpowder, such as ankers, and Rule
Britannias, and ships in full sad on the backs of flyin' alli-
gators. So Jim takes quite a fancy to this 'ere, and he ses,
• I vish, Joe (the sailor's name bein' Joe), I vish, Joe, as how
you'd do me my young voman's name and a wreath of roses on
my arm, like that there.' Joe ses, * And sol vill, and velcome.'
And sure enuff, a veek or two artervards, Jim comes to me vith
his arm hke a picter-book, and Bess as large as hfe just above
the elber-joint. So I turns up his coat-sleeve, and vaits for a
flash ov Ughtnin'. I hasn't to vait long, and there I reads,
•B.E.S.S.' 'There am't no doubt now,' I ses, 'this 'ere's Jim,
and there's some willany or other in it, vot I ain't up to.'"
" Very good," said the counsel ; " we may want you again by-
and-by, I think, Mr. Withers; bat for the present you may retire."
The next witness called was Dr. Tappenden, who related the
circumstances of the admission of Jabez North into his house-
hold, the high character he had from the Board of the Slop-
pei-ton Union, and the confidence- reposed in him.
" You placed great trust, then, in this person P " asked the
eounsel for the prosecution.
"The most implicit trust," replied the schoolmaster: "w
The End of tie Baric Eoad. 307
much so, that he was frequently employed by me to collect
subscriptions for a public charity of which I was the treasurer
— the Slopperton Orphan Asylum. I think it only right to
mention this, as on one occasion it was the cause of his calling
upon the unfortunate gentleman who was murdered."
" Indeed ! Will you be so good as to relate the circum-
stance ? "
" I think it was about three days before the murder, when,
one morning, at a Httle before twelve o'clock — that being the
time at which my pupils are dismissed from their studies for an
hour's recreation — I said to him, ' Mr. North, I should hke you
to call upon this Indian gentleman, who is staying with Mrs,
Marwood, and whose wealth is so much talked of "
" Pardon me. You said, ' whose wealth is so much talked
of.' Can y ou swear to having made that remark ?"
" I can."
" Pray continue," said the counsel.
" 'I should hke you,' I said, 'to call upon this Mr. Harding,
and soUcit his aid for the Orphan Asylum; we are sadly in
want of funds. I know, North, your heart is in the work, and
you will plead the cause of the orphans successfully. You have
an hour before dinner; it is some distance to the Black MiU,
but you can walk fast there and back.' He went accordmgly,
and on his return brought a five-pound note, which Mr. Harding
had given him."
Dr. Tappenden proceeded to describe the circumstance of the
death of the httle boy in the usher's apartment, on the very
night of the murder. One of the servants was examined, who
slept on the same floor as North, and who said she had heard
strange noises in his room that night, but had attributed thd
noises to the fact of the usher sitting up to attend upon the
invalid. She was asked what were the noises she had heard.
" I heard some one open the whidow, and shut it a long while
after."
" How long do you imagine the interval to have been between
the opening and shvitting of the window ? " asked the counsel.
" About two hours," she rephed, " as far as I could guess."
The next witness for the prosecution was the old servant,
Martha.
" Can you remember ever having seen the prisoner at the bar?"
The old woman put on her spectacles, and steadfastly regarded
the elegant Monsieur de MaroUes, or Jabez North, as his enemies
insisted on calling him. After a very deliberate inspection of
that gentleman's personal advantages, rather trying to the feel-
ings of the spectators, Mrs. Martha Jones said, rather obscurely —
« He had h^ht hair then."
•*'He had light hair then.' Tou mean, I conclude." said the
BOS The Trail of the Serpent
counsel, " that at tie time of your first seeing the prisoner, his
hair was of a different colour from what it is now. Supposing
that he had dyed his hair, as is not an uncommon practice, can
you swear that you have seen him before to-day ? "
"lean."
" On what occasion?" asked the counsel.
" Three days before the murder of my mistress's poor brother.
I opened the gate for him. He was very civil-spoken, and ad-
mired the garden very much, and asked me if he might look
about it a httle."
" He asked you to allow him to look about the garden P Pray
was this as he went in, or as he went out ? "
" It was when I let him out."
" And how long did he stay with Mr. Harding ?"
" Not more than ten minutes. Mr. Harding was in his bea-
room ; he had a cabinet in his bedroom in which he kept papers
and money, and he used to transact all his business there, and
sometimes would be there till dinner-time."
" Did the prisoner see him in his bedroom?"
" He did. I showed him upstairs myself"
"Was anybody in the bedroom with Mr. Harding when he
saw the prisoner ? "
" Only his coloured servant : he was always with him."
" And when you showed the prisoner out, he asked to be
allowed to look at the garden ? Was he long looking about ?"
" Not more than five minutes. He looked more at the house
than the garden. I noticed him looking at Mr. Harding's win-
dow, which is on the first floor ; he took particular notice of a
very fine creeper that grows under the window."
" Was the window, on the night of the murder, fastened, or
not?"
" It never was fastened. Mr. Harding always slept with his
window a httle way open."
After Martha had been dismissed from the witness-box, the
old servant of Mr. Harding, the Lascar, who had been found
living with a gentleman in London, was duly sworn, prior to
being examined.
He remembered the prisoner at the bar, but made the same re-
mark as Martha had done, about the change in colour of his ha'-,
" You were in the room with your late master when the pri-
soner called upon him P " asked the counsel.
" I was."
" Will you state what i^assed between the prisoner and yotir
master ? "
" It is scarcely in my power to do so. At that time I under-
stood no English. My master was seated at his cabinet, looking
over papers and accounts, I fancy the prisoner asked him foi
The End of tlie Darh Boai. 309
money. He stowed lum papers both printed and written. My
master opened a pocket-book filled with notes, the pocket-book
afterwards found on his nephew, and gave the prisoner a bank
note. The prisoner appeared to make a good impression on my late
master, who talked to him in a very cordial manner. As he was
leaving the room, the prisoner made some remark about me, and
I thought from the tone of his voice, he was asking a question."
" You thought he was asking a question ? "
"Yes. In the Hindostanee language we have no interrogative
form of speech, we depend entirely on the inflexion of the voice ;
our ears ai-e therefore more acute than an Englishman's. I am
certain he asked my master some questions about me."
" And your master ?"
* After repljing to him, turned to me, ajid said, ' 1 am telUng
this gentleman what a faithful fellow you are, Mujeebez, and
how you always sleep in my dressing-room.' "
'* You remember nothing more ? "
" Nothing more."
The Indian's deposition, taken in the hospital at the time of
the trial of Eichard Marwood, was then read over to him. He
certified to the truth of this deposition, and left the witness-box.
The landlord of the Bargeman's Delight, Mr. Darley, and Mr.
Peters (the latter by an interpreter), were examined, and the
stoi-y of the quarrel and the lost Indian coin was ehcited, making
considerable impression on the jury.
There was only one more witness for the crown, and tlois was a
young man, a chemist, who had been an apprentice at the time of
the supposed death of Jabez North, and who had sold to him a
few days before that supposed suicide the materials for a hair-dye.
The counsel for the prosecution then summed up.
It is not for us to follow him through the twistings and wind-
ings of a very complicated mass of evidence ; he had to prove
the identity of Jabez North with the prisoner at the bar, and he
had to prove that Jabez North was the murderer of Mr. Mon-
tague Harding. To the mind of every spectator in that crowded
court he succeeded in j)roving both.
In vain the prisoner's counsel examined and cross-examined
the witnesses.
The witnesses for the defence were few. A Frenchman, who
represented himself as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour,
failed signally in an endeavour to prove an alibi, and considerably
damaged the defence. Other witnesses appeared, who swore to
having known the prisoner in Paris the year of the murder.
They could not say they had seen him during the November of
that year — it might have been earlier, it might have been later.
On being cross-examined, they broke down ignominioiisly, and
•ekuowledged that it mi;iht not have been that year at all. But
810 The Trail of tie Serpent
they had known him in Paris about that period. They had
always beUeved him to be a Frenchman. They had always
understood that his father fell at "Waterloo, in the ranks of the
Old Guard. On cross-examination they all owned to having
heard him at divers periods speak English. He had, in fact,
Bpoken it fluently, yes, even hke an Englishman. On furtlier
cross-examination it also appeared that he did not like beir.;
thought an Enghshman ; that he would insist vehemently
upon his French extraction ; that nobody knew who he was, or
whence he came ; and that all any one did know of him wen
what he himself had chosen to state.
The defence was long and laboured. The prisoner's counsel
did not enter into the question of the murder having been com-
mitted by Jabez North, or not having been committed by Jabez
North. What he endeavoured to show was, that the prisoner
at the bar was not Jabez North ; but that he was a victim to
one of those cases of mistaken identity of which there are so
many on record both in English and foreign criminal archives.
He cited the execution of the Frenchman Joseph Lesuxges, for
the murder of the Courier of Lyons. He spoke of the case of
Elizabeth Canning, in which a crowd of witnesses on either side
persisted in supporting entirely conflicting statements, without
any evident motive whatsoever. He endeavoured to dissect the
evidence of Mr. William Withers; he sneered at that worthy
citizen's wholesale slaughter of the English of her most gracious
Majesty and subjects. He tried to overtlu-ow that gentlemai>
by ten minutes on the wrong side of the SlopjDerton clocks ; he
did his best to damage him by puzzling him as to whether the
truck he spoke of had two legs and one wheel, or two wheels
and one leg : but he tried in vain. Mr. Withers was not to be
damaged; he stood as firm as a rock, and still swore that he
carried the dead body of Jim Lomax out of Bhnd Peter and on
to the heath, and that the man who commanded him so to do
was the prisoner at the bar. Neither was Mr. Augustus Darley
to be damaged ; nor yet the landlord of the Bargeman's
DfeHght, who, in spite of all cross-examination, preserved a
gloomy and resolute attitude, and declared that "that young
man at the bar, which his hair was then hght, had a row with
a young woman in the tap-room, and throwed that there gold
coin to her, which she chucked it back savage." In short, the
defence, though it lasted two hours and a half, was a very lame
one ; and a close observer might have seen one flash from the
blue eyes of the man standing at the bar, which glanced in the
direction of the eloquent Mr. Prius, Q.C., as he uttered the last
words of his peroration, revengeful and murderous enough, brief
though it was, to give to the spectator some idea that the Count
4e MaroUes, innocent and injured victim of circumstantial
The iLud of the Parle lioaS. 81]
evidence as he might be, was not the safest person in the world
to offend.
The judge delivered his charge to the jury, and they retired.
There was breathless impatience in the court for three-quartera
of an hour ; such impatience that the three-quarters eeemed to be
three entire hours, and some of the spectators would have it that
the clock had stopped. Once more the jury took their places.
" Guilty !" A recommendation to mercy ? No ! Mercy was
not for such as he. Not man's mercy . Oh, Heaven be praised
that there is One whose mercy is as far above the mercy of the
t^nderest of earth's creatures as heaven is above that earth.
Who shall say where is the man so wicked he may not hope for
compassion there ?
The judge put on the black cap and delivered the sentence-
* To be hanged by the neck !"
The Coimt de Marolles looked round at the crowd. It was
beginning to disj^erse, when he lifted liis slender ringed white
hand. He was about to speak. The crowd, swaying hither and
thither before, stopped as one man. As one man, nay, as one
surging wave of the ocean, changed, in a breath, to stone. He
smiled a bitter mocking defiant smile.
" Worthy citizens of Slopperton," he said, his clear enuncia-
tion ringing through the building distinct and musical, " I
thank you for the trouble you have taken this day on my
account. I have played a great game, and I have lost a great
stake ; but, remember, I first won that stake, and for eight years
held it and enjoyed it. I have been the husband of one of the
most beautiful and richest women in France. I have been a
millionaire, and one of the wealthiest merchant princes of the
wealthy south. I started from the workhouse of this town ; I
never in my hfe had a friend to help me or a relation to advise
me. To man I owe nothing. To God I owe only this, a will as
indomitable as the stars He made, which have held their course
through all time. Unloved, unaided, unprayed for, unwept ;
motherless, fatherless, sisterless, brotherless, friendless ; I have
taken my own road, and have kept to it ; defying the earth on
which I have lived, and the unknown Powers above my head.
That road has come to an end, and brought me — here ! So be
it ! I suppose, after aU, the unknow^i Powers are strongest '
Gentlemen, I am ready." He bowed and followed the officials
who led him from the dock to a coach waiting for him at thi
entrance to the court. The crowd gathered round him with
Beared faces and eager eyes.
The last Slopperton saw of the Count de Marolles was a pah
handsome face, a sardonic smile, and the deUcate white hand
which rested upon the door of the hackney-coach.
Nex tmoming, very early, men with grave faces congregated
gl2 The Trail of the Serpent
at street-corners, and talked together earnestly. Througli Slop*
perton like wildfire spread the rumour of something, ■which had
only been darkly hinted at the gaoL
The prisoner had destroyed himself !
Later in the afternoon it was known that he had bled himself
to death by means of a lancet not bigger than a pin, which he
had worn for years concealed in a chased gold ring of massive
form and exquisite workmanship.
The gaoler had found him, at sis o'clock on the morning after
his trial, seated, with his bloodless face lying on the Httle table
of his ceU, white, tranquil, and dead.
The agents from an exhibition of wax-works, and several
phrenologists, came to look at and to take casts of his head,
and masks of the handsome and aristocratic face. One of the
phrenologists, who had given an opinion on his cerebral develop-
ment ten years before, when Mr. Jabez North was considered
a model of all Sloppertonian virtues and graces, and who had
been treated with ignominy for that very opinion, was now in
the highest spirits, and introduced the whole story into a seriea
of lectures, which were afterwards very popular. The Count
de Marolles, with very long eyelashes, very small feet, and
patent-leather boots, a faultless Stultsian evening costume, a
white waistcoat, and any number of rings, was much admired
in the Chamber of Horrors at the eminent wax-work exhibition
above mentioned, and was considered well worth the extra six-
pence fot admission. Young ladies fell in love with him, and
vowed that a being — they called him a being — with such dear
blue glass eyes, with beautiful curly eyelashes, and specks of
lovely vermilion in each corner, could never have committed a
hoi-rid murder, but was, no doubt, the innocent victim of that
cruel circumstantial evidence. Mr. Splitters put the Count into
a melodrama in four periods — not acts, but periods: 1. Boy-
hood — the Workhouse. 2. Youth — the School, d. Manhood —
the Palace. 4. Death — the Dimgeon. Tiiis piece was very
popular, and as Mr. Percy Cordonner had prophesied, the Count
was represented as Uving en permanence in Hessian boots with
gold tassels ; and as always appearing, with a spirited disregard
for the unities of time and space, two or three hundred iniles
distant from the spot in which he had appeared five minutes
before, and performing in scene four the very action which his
foes had described as being already done in scene three. But
the transpontine audiences to whom the piece was represented
were not in the habit of asking questions, and as long as you
gave them plenty of Hessian boots and pistol-shots for their
money, yon might snap your fingers at Aristotle's ethics, and
all the Greek dramatists into the bargain. What would they
have cared for the classic school? Would they have given a
FareiCeU to Mngland. 813
thank-yon for "Zaire, vons pleurez !" or "Qu'il moUmt!" No ;
give them enough blue fire and honest British sentiment, with
plenty of chintz waistcoats and top-boots, and you might laugh
Corneille and Voltaire to scorn, and be sure of a long run on
the Surrey side of the water.
So the race was run, and, after all, the cleverest horse was not
the winner. Where was the Countess de Marolles during her
husband's trial P Alas ! Valerie, tliine has been a troubled
youth, but it may be that a brighter fate is yet in store for
thee!
CHAPTER THE LAST.
FAREWELL TO ENGLAJfD.
Scarcely had Slopperton subsided in some degree from the
excitement into which it had been thrown by the trial and
suicide of Eaymond de Marolles, when it was again astir with
news, which was, if anything, more exciting. It is needless to
say that after the trial and condemnation of De Marolles, there
was not a little regretful sympathy felt by the good citizens of
Slopperton for their unfortunate townsman, Richard Marwood,
who, after having been found guilty of a miu'der he had never
committed, had perished, as the story went, in a futile attempt
to escape from the asylum in which he had been confined.
What, then, were the feelings of Slopperton when, about a
month after the suicide of the murderer of Montague Harding,
a paragraph appeared in one of the local papers which stated
positively that llr. Richard Marwood was still ahve, he having
succeeded in escaping from the county asylum ?
This was enough. Here was a hero of romance indeed ; here
was innocence triumphant for once in real life, as on the mimic
scene. Slopperton was wild with one universal desire to
embrace so distinguished a citizen. The local papers of the
following week were full of the subject, and Richard Marwood
was earnestly solicited to appear once more in his native town,
that every inhabitant thereof, from the highest to the lowest,
might be enabled to testify heartfelt syni])athy for his unde-
served misfortunes, and sincere deHght in his happy restoration
to name and fame.
The hero was not long in replying to the friendly petition ot
the inhabitants of his native place. A letter from Richard
appeared in one of the papers, in which he stated that as he was
about to leave England for a considerable period, perhaps for
ever, he should do himself the honour of responding to the
kind wishes of his friends, and once more shake hands with tha
acquaintance of his youth before he left liis native country.
The Sloppertonian Jack-in-the-gceon, assisted by the rather
314 The Trail of the Serpent.
Btalwart damsels in dirtypink gauzeandcrumpled blue-and-yeHow
artificial flowers, bad scarcely ushered in the sweet spring month
of the year, when Slopperton arose simultaneously and hurried as
one man to the railway- station, to welcome the hero of the day
The report has spread — no one ever knows how these reports
arise — that Mr. Eichard Marwood is to arrive this day. Sloppei-
ton must be at hand to bid him welcome to his native town, tn
repair the wrong it has so long done him in holding him up to
universal detestation as the George Barnwell of modern times.
Which train will he come by ? There is a whisper of the
three o'clock express ; and at thi-ee o'clock in the afternoon,
therefore, the station and station-yard are crowded.
The Slopperton station, like most other stations, is built at a
little distance from the town, so that the humble traveller who
arrives by the parliamentary train, with all hirf earthly posses-
sions in a red cotton pocket-handkercliief or a brown-paper
parcel, and to whom such things as cabs are unknown luxuries,
IS often disappointed to find that when he gets to Slopperton
station he is not in Slopperton proper. There is a great Sahara
of building-ground and incomplete brick-and-mortar, very much
to let, to be crossed before the traveller finds himself in Higli
Street, or South Street, or East Street, or any of the populous
neighbourhoods of this magnificent city.
Every disadvantage, however, is generally counterbalanced by
some advantage, and nothing could be more suitable than this
grand Sahara of broken ground and imfinished neighbourhood
for the purposes of a triumphal entry into Slopperton.
There is a great deal of animated conversation going on upon
the platform inside the station. It is a noticeable fact that
everybody present — and there are some hundreds — appears to
have been intimately acquainted with Richard from his very
baljyhood. This one remembers many a game at cricket with
him- on those very fields yonder; another would be a rich man if
he had only a sovereign for eveiy cigar he has smoked in the
society of Mr. Marwood. That old gentleman yonder taught
our hero kis declensions, and always had a difficulty with him
about the ablative case. The elderly female with the dropsica,"
umbrella had nursed him as a baby ; " and the finest baby he
was as ever I saw," she adds enthusiastically. Those two gen-
tlemen who came down to the station in their own brougham
are the kind doctors who earned him through that terrible
brain-fever of his early youth, and whose evidence was of some
service to him at his tnal. Everywhere along the crowded
platform there are friends ; noisy excited gesticulating friends,
who have started a hero on their own account, and who wouldn't
turn aside to-day to get a bow from majesty itself.
Five minutes to three. From the doctor's fifty-guinea chro
Parewell to t^nglanct. 313
nometer, by Benson, to the silver turnip from the wide butf waist-
coat of the farmer, evc-rybody's watch is out, and noliody vnW
beUeve but that his particular time is the right time, and every
other watch, and the station clock into the bargain, ^vTong.
Two minutes to three. Clang goes the great bell. The
station-master clears the line. Here it comes, only a speck of
dull red fire as yd, and a slender column of curUng smoke ; but
the London express for all that. Here it comes, wildly tearing
up the tender green country, rusliing headlong through the
emoky suburbs ; it comes within a few hundi-ed yards of the
station ; and there, amidst a labyrinth of straggling lines and a
chaos of empty carriaijes and disabled engines, it stops delibe-
rately for the ticket-collectors to go their accustomed round.
Good gracious me, how badly those ticket-collectors do their
duty ! — how slow they are ! — what a time the elderly females in
the second class appear to be fumbhng in then- reticules before
they produce the requu-ed document ! — what an age, in short, it
is before the train puffs lazily up to the platform ; and yet, only
two minutes by the station-clock.
"Which is he ? There is a long line of carriages. The eager
eyes look into each. There is a fat dark man with large whiskers
reading the jiaper. Is that Richard ? He may be altered, you
know, they say ; but siu'ely eight years could never have
changed him into that. No! there he is! There is no mistaking
him this time. The handsome dark face, with the thick blaclc
moustache, and the clustering frame of waving raven hair, looks
out of a first-class carriage. In another moment he is ou the
platform, a lady by his side, young and pretty, who bursts into
tears as the crowd press around him, and hides her face on an
elderly lady's shoulder. That elderly lady is his mother. How
eagerly the Sloppertonians gather round him! He does not
speak, but stretches out both his hands, which are nearly shaken
off his wrists before he knows where he is.
Why doesn't he speak ? Is it because he cannot P Is it
because there is a choking sensation in his throat, and his lips
refuse to articulate the words that are trembling upon them P Is
it because he remembers the last time he alighted on tliis very
platform — the time when he wore handcuffs on his wrists anu
walked guarded between two men; that bitter time when tho
crowd held aloof from him, and pointed him out as a murder r
and a villain? There is a mist over his dark eyes as he looks
round at those eager friendly faces, and he is glad to slouch his
hat over his forehead, and to walk quickly through the crowd to 1 1 1 o
carriage waiting for him in the station-yard. He has his motli:'?
on one arm and the young lady on the other ; his old friend (! m
Darley is with him too ; and the four step into the carriage.
Then, how the cheers and the huzzas burst forth, in one great
S16 The trail of the Serpent
hoarse shout ! Thi-ee cheers for Eichard, for liis mother, for his
faithful friend Gus Darley, who assisted him to escape from the
lanatic asylum, for the young lady — but who is the young lady?
Everybody is so anxious to know who the young lady is, that
when Richard introduces her to the doctors, the crowd presses
round, and putting aside ceremony, openly and deliberately
listens. Good Heavens ! the young lady is his wife, the sister of
his friend Mr._ Darley, "who wasn't afraid to trust me," the
crowd heard him say, "when the world was against me, and who
in adversity or prosperity alike was ready to bless me with her
devoted love." Good gracious me .' More cheers for the young
lady. The young lady is Mrs. Marwood. Three cheers for Mrs.
Marwood! Three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Marwood! Three
cheers for the happy pair !
At length the cheering is over — or, at least, over for the
moment. Slopperton is in such an excited state that it is easy
to see it will break out again by-and-by. The coachman gives a
preliminary flourish of his wliip as a signal to his fiery steeds.
Fiery steeds, indeed ! " Nothing so common as a horse shall
carry Eichard Marwood into Slopperton," cry the excited towns-
people. We ourselves wiU draw the carriage — we, the respectable
tradespeople — we, the tag-rag and bob-tail, anybody and every-
body — will make ourselves for the nonce beasts of burden, and
think it no disgrace to draw the triumphal car of this our towns-
man. In vain Richard remonstrates. His handsome face — his
rachant smiles, only rekindle the citizens' enthusiasm. They
tliink of the bright young scapegrace whom they aU knew years
ago. They think of his very faults — which were virtues in the
eyes of the populace. They remember the day he caned a police-
man who had laid violent hands on a helpless Httle boy for
begging in the streets — the night he wrenched off the knocker of
an unpopular magistrate who had been hard upon a poacher.
They recalled a hundred escapades for which those even who
reproved him had admired him; and they gather round the
carriage in which he stands with his hat off, the May sunlight in
liis bright hazel eyes, his dark hair waving in the sirring breeze
around his wide candid brow, and one slender hand stretched out
to restrain, if he can, this temjaest of enthusiasm. Restrain it? —
No ! that is not to be done. You can go and stand upon the shore
and addi'ess yourselves to the waves of the sea ; you can mildly
remonstrate with the wolf as to his intentions with regard to the
innocent lamb ; but you cannot check the enthusiasm of a hearty
British crowd when its feelings are excited in a good cause.
Away the carriage goes ! with the noisy populace about the
wheels. What is this ? — music ? Yes ; two opposition bands.
One is playing "See, the conquering hero comes!" while the
©ther exhausts itself, and gets black in the face, with the exertion
Farewell to England. 317
necessary in doing justice to " Rnle Britannia." At last, how-
ever, the hotel is reached. But the triumph of Eichard is not yet
finished. He must make a speech. He does, ultimately, con-
sent to say a few words in answer to the earnest entreaties of that
clamorous crowd. He tells his friends, in a very few simple sen-
tences, how this hour, of all others, is the hour for which he has
prayed for nearly nine long years ; and how he sees, in the most
trifling circumstances which have aided, however remotely,
in bringing tliis hour to pass, the hand of an all-powerful Provi-
dence. He tells them how he sees in these years of sorrow
through which he has passed a punishment for the careless sins
of his youth, for the unhappiness he has caused his devoted
mother, and for his indifference to the blessings Heaven has
bestowed on him ; how he now prays to be more worthy of the
bright future wliich lies so fair before him ; how he means the
rest of his life to be an earnest and a useful one; and how, to the
last hour of that life, he will retain the memory of their generous
and enthusiastic reception of liim this day. It is doubtful how
much more he might have said ; but just at this point his eyes
became pecuharly affected — perhaps by the dust, perhaps by the
sunshine — and he was forced once more to have recourse to his
hat, wliich he pulled fau-ly over those optics prior to springing
out of the carriage and hurrying into the hotel, amidst the frantic
cheers of the sterner sex, and the audible sobs of the fau-er por-
tion of the community.
His visit was but a flying one. The night train was to take
him across country to Liverpool, whence he was to start the fol-
lowing day for South America. This was kept, however, a pro-
found secret from the crowd, which might else have insisted on
giving him a second ovation. It was not very quickly dispersed,
this enthusiastic throng. It lingered for a long time under the
windows of the hotel. It drank a great deal of bottled ale and
London porter in the bar round the corner by the stable-yard;
and it steadfastly refused to go away until it had had Richard
tmt upon the balcony several times, and had given him a groat
many more tumultuous greetings. When it had quite exhausted
Richard (our hero looking pale from over-excitement) it took
to ]\lr. Darley as vice-hero, and would have carried him round the
town wiUi one of the bands of music, had he not prudently de-
clined that offer. It was so bent on doing somethmg, that at last,
when it did consent to go away, it went into the Market-place
and had a fight — -not from any pugilistic or vindictive feeling,
but from the sunple necessity of finishing the evening somehow.
There is no possibility of sitting down to dinner till after
dark. L;;t at last the shutters are closed and the curtains are
drawn '\>y the obsequious waiters ; the dinner-table is spread
with glittt^ring plate and snowy linen; the landlord liiraself
318 Tlie T)tiil of the Serpent.
brings in the soup and uncorks tlie sherry, and the little party
draws ronnd the social board. Why should we break in upon
that happy group ? With the ^vife he loves, the mother whose
devotion has survived every trial, the friend whose aid has
brought about his restoration to freedom and society, with ample
wealth wherefrom to reward all who have served him ia hia
adversity, what more has Richard to wish for ?
A close carriage conveys the little party to the station; and by
the twelve o'clock train they leave Slopperton, some of them
perhaps never to visit it again.
The next day a much larger party is assembled on board the
Oronoico, a vessel lying off Liverpool, and about to sail for
South America. Richard is there, his wife and mother still by
his side ; and there are several others whom we know grouped
about the deck. Mr. Peters is there. He has come to bid fare-
well to the young man in whose fortunes and misfortunes he
has taken so warm and unfailing an interest. He is a man of
independent property now, thanks to Richard, who thinks the
hundred a-year settled on him a very small reward for his
devotion — but he is very melancholy at parting with the master
he has so loved.
" I think, sir," he says on his fingers, " I shall marry Kuppins,
and give my mind to the education of the ' fondling.' He'll be
a gi-eat man, sir, if he Uves ; for his heart, boy as he is, is all in
his profefssion. Would you believe it, sir, that child bellowed
for three mortal hours because his father committed suicide,
and disappointed the boy of seein' him hung ? That's what I
calls a love of business, and no mistake."
On the other side of the deck there is a little group which
Richard presently joins. A lady and gentleman and a Httle boy
are standing there ; and, at a short distance from them, a grave-
looking man with dark-blue spectacles, and a servant — a Lascar.
There is a pecuUar style about the gentleman, on whose arm
tlie lady leans, that bespeaks him to the most casual observer to
be a military man, in spite of his plain dress and loose great
coat. And the lady on his arm, that dark classic face, is not
one to be easily forgotten. It is Valerie de Cevennes, who leans
on the arm of her first and beloved husband, Gaston de Lancy.
If I have said little of this meeting — of this restoration of the
only man she ever loved, which has been to her as a resurrection
of the dead — it is because there are some joys which, from their
very intensity, are too painful and too sacred for many words.
He was restored to her. She had never murdered him. The
£otion given her by Blurosset was a very powerful opiate, which
ad produced a sleep resembling death in all its outward
Hymptoms. Throiigh the influence of the chemist the report of
tne death was spread abroad. The truth, except to Gaston *•
Farewell to England. 319
moat deToted friends, liad never been revealed. But tho
blow had been too much for him ; and when he was told by
v/liom his death had been attempted, he fell into a fever, whicia
lasted for many months, during wliich period his reason was
'Entirely lost, and from which he was only rescued by the
devotion of the chemist — a devotion on Blurosset's part which,
perhaps, had proceeded as much from love of the science he
studied as of the man he saved. Recovering at last, Gaston
de Lancy found that the glorious voice which had been his
fortune was entirely gone. What was there for him to do ? He
enlisted in the East India Company's service ; rose through the
Sikh campaign with a rapidity which astonished the bravest of
his compeers. There was a romance about his story that made
him a hero in his regiment. He was known to have plenty of
money — to have had no earthly reason for enlisting; but he
told them he would rise, as his father had done before him, in
the wars of the Empire, by merit alone, and he had kept his
word. The French ensign, the heutenant, the captain — in each
"ising grade he had been alike beloved, alike admired, as a
stuning example of reckless courage and mihtary genius.
The arrest of the soi-disant Count de MaroUes had brought
Richard Marwood and Gaston de Lancy into contact. Both
Bufferers from the consummate perfidy of one man, they became
acquainted, and, ere long, friends. Some part of Gaston's story
was told to Richard and his young wife, Isabella ; but it is need-
less to say, that the dark past in which Valerie was concerned
remained a secret in the breast of her husband, of Laurent
Blurosset, and herself. The father clasped his son to his heart,
and opened his arms to receive the wife whom he had pardoned
long ago, and whose years of terrible agony had atoned for the
wildly-attempted crime of her youth.
On Richard and Gaston becoming fast friends, it had been
agreed between them that Richard should join De Lancy and
his wife in South America; where, far from the scenes which
association had made painful to both, they might commence a
new existence. Valerie, once more mistress of that immense
fortune of which De Marolles had so long had the command,
was enabled to bestow it on the husband of her choice. The
bank was cloced in a manner satisfactory to all whose interests
had been connected with it. The cashier, who was no other
than the lively gentleman who had assisted in De Marolles'
attempted escape, was arrested on a charge of embezzlement,
and made to disgorge the money he had abstracted.
The Marquis de Cevennes elevated his delicately-arched
eyebrows on reading an abridged account of the trial of his son,
and his subsequent suicide ; but the elegant Parisian did not go
mto mourning for this unfortunate scion of hia aristocratio
320 The Trail of the Serpent.
house ; and indeed, it Is doubtful if five minutes after h© Lad
thrown aside the journal he had any sensation whatever about
the painful circumstances therein related. He expressed
the same gentlemanly surprise upon being informed of tlie
marriage oi his niece with Captain Lansdown, late of the East
India Company's service, and of her approaching departure
with her husband for her South American estates. He sent
her his blessing and a breakfast-service ; with the portraits of
Louis the WeU-beloved, Madame du Barry, Choiseul, and
D'AiguiUon, painted on the cups, in oval medallions, on a back-
ground of turquoise, packed in a casket of buhl lined with white
velvet ;_ and, I dare say, he 'dismissed his niece and her troubles
from his recollection quite as easUy as he despatched this elegant
present to the railway which was to convey it to its destination.
The bell rings ; the friends of the passengers drop down the
side of the vessel into the Uttle Liverpool steamer. There are
Mr. Peters and Gus Darley waving their hats in the distance,
Farewell, old and faithful friends, farewell; but surely not
for ever. Isabella sinks sobbing on her husband's shoulder.
V»lerie looks with those deed unfathomable eyes out towards
the blue horizon-line that bounds the far-away to which they go.
" There, Gaston, we shall forget "
" Never yotir long sufferings, my Valerie," he murmurs, as he
presses the Uttle hand resting on his arm ; " those shall never be
forgotten."
" And the horror of that dreadful night, Gaston "
" Was the madness of a love which thought itself wronged,
Valerie : we can forgive every wrong which springs from the
depth of such a love."
Spread thy white wings, oh, ship ! The shadows melt away
into that purple distance. I see in that far South two happy
homes ; glistening white-walled villas, half buried in the luxu-
riant verdure of that lovely climate. I hear the voices of the
children in the dark orange-groves, where the scented blossoms
fall into the marble basin of the fountain. I see Richard
reclining in an easy-chair, under the veranda, half liidden by the
traiUng jasmines that shroud it from the evening sunshine,
smoking the long cherry-stemmed pipe which his wife has filled
for him. Gaston paces, with his sharp military step, up and
clown the terrace at their feet, stopping as he passes by to lay
a caressing hand on the dark curls of the son he loves. And
Valerie — she leans against the slender pillar of the porch, round
which the scented yellow roses are twined, and watches, witl-
earnest eyes, the husband of her earliest choice. Oh, happy
shadows ! Few m this woi"k-a-day world so fortunate aa you
who win in your prinr^ of life the fnltilmcnt of li"* 'i^""- dream:
uf your youth!
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