"The Earl of Marmouth sends his regards. He will be unable to join us." Tristram March held a coroneted note in his hands while he made this announcement to the company. There was a faint salvo of regrets, meant for the Violet's ears. Only Miss Milly Mills was heard remarking, sotto voce:
"I'm glad the old bear is chained for once."
"But the grizzly is grand in its den, dear," chided Dorothea Goodbody, a little louder.
"True. We do not fit everywhere," said the Violet, who had overheard them. "Imagine Thoreau in a salon."
"Or Talleyrand in the Walden woods," added Count L'Alienado.
More than one of the company had noted this as the third occasion on which his noble lordship avoided a meeting with the count. Was it that in the reserved Spaniard he had encountered a force which he could not overbear? Or was he jealous of the count's attention to the Violet? Twice at the Ryecroft's hop she had inadvertently answered the slender foreigner and turned her smooth, brown shoulder to the Englishman.
"Well," said Tristram, "the menagerie must perform without its lion."
"How flattering, brother!" cried Rosalie. Harry Arnold was leaning over her chair. "You compare us to wolves and panthers."
"Not unhappily," said the Violet. "Mine host is clever. He will put us all in an apologue like Aesop's. I am curious to see how I shall be transformed."
"The mood is wanting," cried Tristram, while the young ladies seconded the suggestion. "I am savage. I should affront you all with some furious satire."
"Imagine Tristram furious," said Harry.
"A smothered volcano. I have committed to-day the sin against the Holy Ghost. Guess what that is?"
"Success," said the Violet.
"Candor," the count.
"Bachelorhood," Miss Milly Mills.
"Punning," his sister Rosalie.
But Tristram shook his head drearily at each response.
"Well, then, tell us," cried a chorus of impatient voices.
"I have prostituted art to lucre—having disposed of my great design of Ajax's shield—for what purpose, do you think?"
All the guesses were wild again.
"For a bed-spread," said Tristram, and there was a chorus of laughter, amid which the circle broke up into little moving knots, all electrically united, however, so that the talk flew from one part of the room to another.
It was one of Tristram's soirees, which were the events of the season in Lenox. The flavor of art was substituted for that of artificiality, and usually some souvenir, bearing the touch of the host's own fanciful hand, was carried away by each of the guests. The coveted invitation for this night's affair announced "a purple tea," and the furnishings verified the description. Rich muslin shades over the chandeliers (Rosalie's work) purpled all the atmosphere of the parlors. Purple hangings here and there carried out the suggestion, but not too obtrusively, and each of the guests appeared with some purple garment.
Among the ladies these generally verged toward the wine-colored shades, for they were all too young to carry well the full warmth of the Tyrian. Thus the Violet's mantilla, Rosalie's cloud, Harry Arnold's sash, were all steeped to the same dye, now the crimson, now the blue element prevailing in the mixture. Count L'Alienado alone appeared to have evaded the rule until, raising his right hand to smell a rose, he scattered a pencil of purple light from an opalescent stone which none present were learned enough in lapidary science to name.
"Let's have tableau charades!" cried Miss Milly Mills, who flitted from person to person, from subject to subject, like a butterfly, and was accused of a partiality for spruce gum. The suggestion was taken up with approval, and nearly every one present acted out the first word that came to him on the spur of the moment.
Tristram gave what he called a definition of himself in lengthy pantomime which no one could fathom. So he was obliged to explain that meed—eye—ochre—tea, summed up "mediocrity," at which one and all protested. Most of the other attempts were quite as laborious. But when the Violet stepped forward and trilled an upper C, then buzzed like an insect and put her right foot forward, there was a unanimous cry of "Trilby!" and the flatness began to be taken out of the game.
Then the pleasures grew more miscellaneous and Count L'Alienado found himself for a time alone on the outer balcony with Mme. Violet. The sky was starlit above, the shadows lay deep in the garden bushes below, and the diamonds burned amid her braids. They talked of the Persian poets till the light voice of Tristram within interrupted them and a ripple of laughter from the purple interior reached their ears.
"Ah, this is not fair; that our wisest and wittiest should impoverish the company by their absence. Your places are waiting and the bell is tired of tinkling to you."
"We were lost among the stars," replied Count L'Alienado.
Opposite the count sat Harry Arnold; opposite the Violet, Rosalie. Waiters were serving refreshments, and a purple tea was poured into the wine-colored cups. On each table lay a souvenir containing verse or prose by Tristram March, with fantastic decorations in the border. Harry Arnold was just passing the souvenir of their table to Rosalie. It contained a caricature in profile of Tristram himself, and a brief "Autobiography," which Harry read aloud:
"I went to schoolTo Ridicule.He taught me civility,The peacock humility,Depth and subtilityFeste, the fool.
"I went to schoolTo Ridicule.He taught me civility,The peacock humility,Depth and subtilityFeste, the fool.
Meeker and meeker becomes my moodFrom studying Conscious Rectitude;And if my speech be firm and pat,Madam Garrulity taught me that."
Meeker and meeker becomes my moodFrom studying Conscious Rectitude;And if my speech be firm and pat,Madam Garrulity taught me that."
"Oh, I hate sarcasm," burst out Rosalie. "Why won't you be literal, commonplace, something positive, if it's only a woman-hater?"
"An abominable fault, brother Tristram," said Harry, sternly.
"Hideous!" cried the others, drowning poor Rosalie's homily in a flood of irony more heartless than Tristram's own.
Then Rosalie gave him up as incorrigible.
"I wonder if Count L'Alienado's jewel has not a legend attached to it?" said some one.
"It is an alamandine ruby from Siam," began the count.
"Oh, do go on," cried Miss Milly Mills from the rear, who had been listening over her shoulder. "Tell us the story. I'm sure it will be better than Cleverly's last book."
"Oh, if it isn't better than that——"
"But the setting was fresh," said Tristram, who was Cleverly's friend. "He rehangs his gallery well, even if the portraits are familiar."
"This talisman of mine has indeed a story attached to it," said Count L'Alienado at last, "but you may read hundreds better in any book of oriental tales. Its quality, however, is curious. You know that mesmerism has long been known in the east, and that many of the occult feats of the Hindoo magicians are ascribed to that power. It was an Arab caliph who first attributed to this stone the quality of securing immunity to its possessor from the magic trance. As a matter of fact, I have never been hypnotized while I wore it."
"A challenge, Harry," said Tristram.
"You possess the power?" asked the count.
"So I am told," laughed Harry.
"People go to sleep at his bidding," said Tristram. "He is the surest recipe I have seen for insomnia."
"Except the Rev. Dr. Fourthly," whispered Miss Milly Mills, but at this Dorothea Goodbody looked shocked.
"Shall I hypnotize you, Rosalie?" smiled Harry to his sweetheart.
But Rosalie shook her head with a little shudder.
"The count," said the Violet.
"The count! Hypnotize the count!" a chorus echoed.
"Very well," said the Spaniard; "a moment till I invoke the genii of the carbuncle. Now."
"Are you ready?" said Harry, laughing a little awkwardly. He made one or two cabalistic passes with his hands, looking straight into the eyes of the count. They were large burning eyes, the like of which Harry had never met before. Gazing into their depths, he seemed to feel a new spell. They were drawing him, drawing his soul away. Other objects disappeared. Rosalie, Tristram, the Violet—he clutched at them, but they were gone. The count himself grew shadowy. Only his eyes—fixed, haunting, luminous—remained, centering a vast drab vault, which was all that was left of the populous world and its occupants. What could Harry do but surrender his faculties and be absorbed like the rest?
"It is Harry who is hypnotized," cried Tristram. Rosalie fixed her gaze on her lover's face.
"Raise your right hand," said the count. Harry obeyed. His stare was glassy, his lower lip stupidly dropped.
"Do you know this glove?" asked the count, raising a lemon-colored kid.
"I do," came the answer, mechanical, monotonous.
"Try it on."
Harry drew the glove on his right hand, his eyes never leaving those of the count.
"Button it tightly," said the Spaniard. "Do you remember where you wore this glove last?"
"I do."
"Can you see the side door opening from the passageway?"
"I can."
"Do you recognize the youth who is entering?"
"I do."
"Is it Harry Arnold?"
"It is Harry Arnold."
"Does he listen cautiously?"
"He listens cautiously."
"Does he climb the stairs softly?"
"He climbs the stairs softly."
"Does he enter the study?"
The young man's face twitched and convulsed. His eyes started from their sockets. The foam rose to his lips as they worked.
"Harry!"
It was the agonized cry of Rosalie March, throwing herself upon her lover and turning defiantly at Count L'Alienado, whose fierce insistence had amazed the onlookers. The spell seemed to be broken, for Harry sunk from his chair, supported by Rosalie's arms.
"Some wine," cried Tristram, chafing Harry's forehead and gently striving to unclasp his sister's arms. But she clung to her sweetheart with love in her eyes.
Count L'Alienado approached the unconscious man, the crowd parting before him.
"Wake!" he said, "and forget!" Harry's eyes shut naturally and then opened. He drank the wine which Rosalie pressed to his lips. In a few minutes he was erect, eagerly questioning the company.
"Call it a faint," said Count L'Alienado, quietly. "It is better that he should not know."
"But what was it all about?" asked Miss Milly Mills, on tiptoe with curiosity.
"Only an experiment in clairvoyance," answered Count L'Alienado.
Shagarach's office was a hive of industry the next time Emily Barlow called. Walter Riley, installed in Jacob's place, looked smartly clerical, with a pen over one ear, docketing some papers, and Aronson was knitting his brows over a decision in the digest. But the lawyer himself, she thought, did not appear to have profited greatly by his fortnight's vacation. His cheek was worn and his manner betrayed an unusual aberration at times.
He had returned only the evening before. When she entered the parlor to greet him his mother found the padlock chain of the Persian poets torn through their edges, and her son face down on the carpet buried in a volume of Hafiz, with Sadi and Firdusi scattered near. She trembled, but she did not disturb him.
"Our cause progresses," he said, in answer to Emily's query. "Important links have been discovered since we last conferred."
The sweet girl lifted her eyebrows and waited.
"In the first place we shall put Harry Arnold on the stand. I have traced him to the door of the study a moment before the fire was set."
Emily bit her lip just a trifle in disappointment, for her own cherished theory would only be embarrassed by the presence of Harry Arnold there.
"The other points?" she asked.
"You remember the peddler in the green cart, alluded to in Ellen Greeley's letter, who carried messages to some person unknown?"
"Perfectly."
"Three witnesses stand ready to swear that a peddler in a green cart cried his wares through the roads of Woodlawn about the time of the fire and frequently stopped at the house of the Arnolds."
"That connects them legally," said Emily, still more discontented. "How soon do you expect a trial?"
"In less than two weeks. I am sorry you will have to shorten your vacation."
"Oh, it is better over; the suspense is agony."
"The door, Walter," said Shagarach, as she passed out. Pretty soon he went home to his own midday meal. Aronson was called away to look up a title and left the Whistler in charge.
Walter had already caught just a little of his employer's decision of manner, which sat oddly on his rosy face, but was no more, after all, than a laudable aspiration toward manfulness. The lawyer had discovered his skill with the pencil and his mechanical interests, and had set him to work evenings copying the designs in a drawing manual. Meanwhile, his gamesome impulses had quieted a good deal, and it was only when the office was empty, as now, that the old rich whistle was heard. Shagarach and Shagarach's suggestions seemed to consume that whole fund of adolescent energy which formerly had overleaped all bounds in its search for an outlet.
He was just in the middle of a skylark solo, interrupted by bites at the contents of his lunch-box, when a white-bearded old man entered. At first Walter, hearing the limp on the stairs, took it for old Diebold, the pensioner, one of Shagarach's clients. The lunch-box vanished like magic and there was a hasty brushing of crumbs and swallowing of a half-masticated mouthful before he turned the knob.
"Is Mr. Shagarach in?" asked the stranger, glancing around with a senile leer.
"Not now, sir, but I expect him soon," answered Walter. "He's gone to dinner. Won't you be seated while you wait for him?"
"How long?" said the old man, mumbling his words, as if he were toothless, and nodding at the boy over and over again.
"How long before he comes back? Oh, he never stays away long. He'll be here in five minutes, I guess."
The old man sat down feebly in the chair. Such a strange old man, thought Walter. His white beard almost covering his face and reaching down on his bosom, and long white curls coming out from under his hat. He must be almost a hundred, said the boy to himself. Yet his eyes rolled around quickly and his skin wasn't wrinkled at the corners of the eyes, nor did he have those time-scored furrows in the neck that soldiers call saber cuts.
"Buy a pencil," he said to Walter, taking out a bunch from his pocket.
Walter shook his head in some disappointment. It was only a peddler, after all.
"Two for five," persisted the visitor.
Should he show him the door? Mr. Shagarach did not like to be troubled with peddlers, but this one was so very old. Walter hesitated about dismissing him. Besides he had asked for the lawyer. Perhaps he had some business, too.
Just then Shagarach's brisk step was heard in the entry, and the little man came flying across the room to his desk in the inner office.
"That is Mr. Shagarach?" asked the gray-beard, jerking his thumb and leering again.
"Walter," said Shagarach. Walter jumped and was preceding the visitor in when a terrible snarl of rage caused him to turn. The white-bearded old man seemed to have been transformed into a beast, glaring with his wild blue eyes and gritting his great teeth at Shagarach. He raised a bottle in his hand and hurled its contents at the lawyer. But Walter had caught his arm and pulled it down with all the might in his bourgeoning muscles. The liquor hissed where it fell, and several drops spattered on his neck and bosom, causing him to shrink as if touched with a caustic. Still he tore at the old man's face, and covered the mouth of the bottle with his palm so as to intercept the hot shower.
Shagarach had been looking down at some papers when he first heard the sound of the old man's breath forced between his teeth. As quick as thought he reached for the paper-weight and hurled it with all his force. It struck the stranger full in the forehead, cutting a ragged gash with its edge. Then the lawyer sprung from his chair, following up his missile with the quickness of a cat. But just as he reached across Walter's body the boy fell back in his arms with a shriek of pain, the stranger's white beard coming away in his fingers.
"The oaf!" cried Shagarach, but the assailant was gone in a flash.
"Water! Water!" shrieked the office boy, writhing in his arms.
The lawyer glanced around. The wainscoting was charred where the liquor had fallen. The boy's jacket was eaten away in holes. It was vitriol that had been thrown.
"A quart of lime-water at the nearest apothecary's," he shouted to Aronson, who had just come back. "And the first physician you can fetch. Don't lose a second."
Aronson was off like the wind, while Shagarach unbuttoned the boy's vest and tore away the saturated portions of his undergarments that were clinging to his shriveled skin. Already great blisters rose under the action of the acid.
"Will you telephone central 431, Inspector McCausland," he said to the tenant opposite who had been attracted in by the noise. "Ask him to call at once, and state that I have been attacked again."
It was the physician who arrived first, then Aronson. Walter's burns were bathed profusely with the lime-water, and the blisters pricked open by the doctor's needle. After the first agony he bore the pain without a groan. His breast and palm would be scarred for life, but the only wound on the visible parts was a long, pear-shaped corrosion extending along the side of his neck. You may imagine how tenderly Shagarach nursed him and how excitedly Aronson ran to and fro fetching whatever was asked for.
"It is time this should be stopped," said McCausland, entering. But he was not alone. He held a great bloodhound in leash. "It was the same customer, I suppose? Can you give me any article belonging to the man? I picked up this in the doorway."
He held up a white wig.
"The false beard," cried Walter, holding it out from the stretcher on which they were bundling him.
"Better the blood drops," said Shagarach. "Search the stairs. He was wounded."
McCausland rushed out, his hound tugging strongly at the leash.
"Smell, Wolf, smell," they could hear him saying, and then a half-trip and a clatter down the stairs told that the dog had caught the scent and nearly pulled the inspector off his feet.
"I am glad it is no worse, Walter. The doctor will do all that skill can to soothe your pain. You have saved my life twice," said Shagarach, pressing the boy's hands, which were clasped over his bosom, where the lint lay on his burns. Gently the ambulance men carried him down the stairs, with never a cry from his brave lips tightened over the sound.
"I will call to-night, Walter. May you be better then," said the lawyer, giving the driver Mrs. Riley's address. The physician climbed into the spare seat and the wagon drove off with its suffering passenger.
"A cap, a coat button and a false beard," said Shagarach. "And still we grope in the dark. Yet an anatomist will reconstruct a mastodon from a fragment of his tooth!"
"Lost again," said McCausland, re-entering with his bloodhound, which nosed about in corners of the room. The inspector sat down, puffing and looked thoroughly disgusted.
"You lost the trail?"
"Never fear Wolf for that. Lie down, Wolf! No; the hound kept his track through all the cross-scents of the city—something to boast of, that—there was blood dripping here and there, that I knew by his yelping. By the way, you must have struck him hard."
"The paper-weight is heavy," said Shagarach, picking it up from under the desk where it had rolled. As he did so the hound gave a roar and a bound, and stood up to reach it with his forepaws.
"Down, Wolf! Lie down!" cried McCausland, sternly. "There is blood on the edge. That may help us another time."
"Take it," said Shagarach. "But you lost the trail, you said."
"It vanished into the air. Wolf took us to the northern station, running me off my feet all the way—through the waiting-room, up and down the platform twice, inside track gate No. 5, and then—flatted fair and square. You know the random way he runs about when he's lost the scent? Our man had taken a train."
"The western express, 12:59," said Shagarach.
"How did you know?"
"I have had occasion to take the same train at track No. 5 on a visit to Woodlawn. Had he purchased a ticket?"
"No man with a cut on his face, or of our description."
"Then he has a trip ticket and lives there."
"Where?"
"At Woodlawn," said the lawyer. "Near Harry Arnold."
McCausland smiled incredulously.
"Is Woodlawn the only station between here and Albany?" he asked. "However, I telegraphed along the route to have the runaway stopped."
"What time did you send the telegram?" asked Shagarach.
"At 1:19 by the station clock."
"Just a minute too late. The express reaches Woodlawn at 1:18. It is the first station."
"Heigho! Here's a to-do. What about Woodlawn?" asked a cheerful voice. It was Dr. Jonas Silsby, brown as a berry, with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a basketful of botanical specimens under one arm. The casual observer would have taken him for an uncommonly good-looking farmer, bringing some choice greens to market.
"Who's talking of Woodlawn? Just where I came from, and if the fronds of those ferns aren't as fine-cut as petals, then I don't know an oak from a gooseberry bush."
"Dr. Silsby—Inspector McCausland."
The men clasped hands.
"Didn't meet a maniac with a gash in his forehead on the way back, did you?" laughed McCausland.
"Maniac—well, no; but I've rooted out a peeping Tom there, that's been frightening the women."
"How was that?" asked Shagarach.
"It was those ferns did it. Aren't they beauties, though? Feel! Silky! Maidenhair! Rare variety."
"They helped you find the peeping Tom?" said Shagarach, who knew the botanist's tendency to forget.
"Oh, yes," said Dr. Silsby. "I was just about to tell that story. You know the hemlock forest back of the blue hills in Woodlawn—marshy place thereabouts, lots of clay in the soil—some of it on those boots, eh? Well, those ferns came from there. Didn't walk in of themselves, I guess. No, I had to wade for them. Pretty boggy, but not quite up to the Dismal swamp. Well, I was feeling about, pulling up things, when I came on the hut."
"A hut?"
"I call it a hut by courtesy. Begging your pardon, said I, and tumbled in the sides of it. Hadn't any door that I could see—only two loose boards—and was mighty poor carpenter work all over. Just a roof and three sides, the whole thing backed against a pudding-stone ledge that juts out into Hemlock lake."
"Had it an occupant?" asked Shagarach.
"Three squirrels," answered Dr. Silsby, "investigating a can of corn."
"Nothing else?"
"Some old newspapers, a blanket, a stool and a mighty ugly collection of instruments, I tell you, including this article, which I confiscated."
He removed a pistol which lay at the bottom of his basket, handling the specimens as carefully as if they had been wounded kittens.
"Is it loaded?" asked McCausland, taking it in his hand and unhinging the butt. The backs of three cartridges stared out from the cylinder.
"You kept the second bullet, Shagarach, I believe," said McCausland, removing a cartridge. Shagarach rolled out a flattened bullet from a pen box in his drawer.
"Same caliber," said McCausland. "This looks like the pistol that was aimed at you that evening."
"So you know peeping Tom, then?" asked Dr. Silsby.
"Mr. McCausland and I have two of the three bullets that round out his pistol's complement," answered Shagarach, "and the third is lodged in my ceiling at home too deep for the probe to reach."
"I thought the hut had a human atmosphere. There were fresh tracks around, and the station-master spoke to me about a scoundrel that's been frightening the country-folks—frightening them by running away from them, as far as I could see. But you don't suppose he was fern-gathering down in that swamp, do you?"
"Hardly," said McCausland. "Could you take us there now?"
"Now? I've my lecture at Hilo hall—A Study in Ingratitude; or, the Threatened Extinction of the Great Horned Owl."
"It is an important piece of evidence in the Floyd case," said Shagarach, though McCausland still smiled incredulously. "We want the occupant of that hut."
"Robert's case. Command me," said Dr. Silsby. "Sorry Mr. Hutman wasn't at home when I called. I'd have had him here dead or alive."
"Wolf!" said McCausland. The great dog started up, wagging his tail. "Smell." He offered him the revolver butt. The hound barked and smelled his way to the door again, but McCausland pulled him back.
"It is our man," he said, thrusting the paper-weight in his pocket.
"My pathfinder, Aronson," said Shagarach, who sprung to his desk.
"The next train for Woodlawn doesn't leave till 4:03."
"We can go more quickly by team," said McCausland. "I will have one here in ten minutes."
Then he departed with his hound, and Shagarach sent Aronson to announce at Hilo hall that an imperative summons compelled the defender of the great horned owl to neglect for once the cause of that calumniated biped.
"This is where I left the road," cried Dr. Silsby, an hour later. "A good, smart journey lies before us."
"It's uncertain when we'll return," said McCausland to the driver. "Probably not before 6 at the earliest. You'd better drive home. We'll take the train into town."
The driver wheeled his team and drove away, while the party of three—Shagarach, McCausland and Silsby—crossed a bush-skirted meadow with the bloodhound still in leash. But they were not destined to remain long unattended. The curious folk had got wind of their intention to unearth the peeping Tom, and the sight of an officer in buttons emboldened many to follow in their wake. Several men offered to help in the search, and McCausland did not refuse their assistance.
"The more the merrier," he said, whereupon not only men but women trailed behind them.
Among these followers was one young woman, familiar to two of the three leaders of the party.
"Good evening, Miss Wesner," said Shagarach and McCausland almost together, and the great inspector was not above entertaining that somewhat vulgar curiosity many of us feel as to the relationship of any chance couple we meet. For Miss Wesner was attended by an exceedingly attentive young man. Courting? Engaged? Married? The question rises as naturally as a bubble in water. In this case the truth lay midway. What more natural than that she should spend her afternoon off with Hans Heidermann at the picnic park in Woodlawn?
"Now you've left the cheap bombast of the town behind you," said Dr. Silsby, looking at the great trees as if he would embrace them one and all. "Isn't this grand? Isn't this Gothic? Pillars, gloom, fretted roof—don't tell me art's cathedrals are any improvement on nature's."
The bloodhound interrupted his rhapsody.
"We may leave Dr. Silsby behind, if he chooses, as well as the town bombast," said McCausland. "We shall not need his guidance any farther. Wolf has caught the trail again."
Two or three times on the march the inspector had held the glass paper-weight out so that the dog might smell the blood-clot on its edge. His joyful bark and eager straining at the leash announced that he had scented the fugitive.
"Not I," said Dr. Silsby.
Pulled on by the hound, McCausland and his two companions were soon trotting far ahead of the plodding laggards behind them. Their talk had died away. The heart of each was tense. Not a sound broke the mid-forest silence save the harsh screams of purple jays resenting their intrusion, and the snapping of twigs and branches.
"There are the ferns," said Dr. Silsby.
"Are we near?" asked McCausland.
"Within a hundred yards, I should say. This is the hemlock grove."
"Step on the moss. It will deaden our footfalls," said the detective. "Slow, Wolf, slow!"
He reined in the impetuous animal as best he could and his companions crept behind him softly.
"I see it," whispered Shagarach, pointing through the trees. It was nearly 5 o'clock and the light was beginning to slant more dimly through the aisles of the forest. But following his finger, the eye of the detective made out a rude shelter, sharply distinct by the smoothness of its boarded walls from the rough bark surfaces around. It seemed to lean against the steep ledge which Dr. Silsby had described and the roof derived most of its support from the projecting arms of two great trees whose roots spread up into the crevices of the rock. Osiers and strong withes took the place of nails, and the chinks were stopped with moss. No log cabin or camper's shed was ever more roughly joined. It had every appearance of being recent and temporary.
"We must surround it," said McCausland. The loud barking of the hound, re-echoing in the stillness, had betrayed their presence to the occupant. Shagarach and Dr. Silsby stationed themselves each at one side, the former empty-handed, the latter clubbing his stout cane. McCausland waited for the followers to arrive through the woods, but most of them hung back at a safe distance, only three or four of the men coming close to the besiegers.
"Who is inside there?" asked the detective loudly.
The silence succeeding his question was intense and prolonged.
"We have come to take you in the name of the law, and we will take you, living or dead," said the detective.
There was no response but the rustling of the leaves. Song-birds were few in the deep recesses, and these few had been frightened from their nests. A creeping fear entered the hearts of the ring in the background and they edged farther away. For the gloom was gathering swiftly. Only one patch of sky was visible, above the steep ledge, and that lay toward the darkening east.
"I prefer that he should be taken alive, if possible," said Shagarach in a low voice to the detective. The latter gave three strong raps with a bough on the trunk of a mighty tree, then cried again to the secreted fugitive:
"Once more, I will state our errand. We are officers of the law. You are wanted for the murderous attacks you have made on Meyer Shagarach——"
A hoarse snarl of rage burst from within the hut, causing some of the distant spectators to turn in alarm. But it angered the bloodhound, as the spur a proud horse, and with an answering roar he burst loose from his leash and sprung at the hut, forcing a loose plank in with his impetus. Then a sharp tool was seen to descend in the opening—apparently an adze—and the hound's head sunk under the blow. He leaped from side to side in agony, and as he ran back whining to his master the blood dripped into his eyes from a hideous wound that had bared the bone of the skull. McCausland swore furiously and the lingering shadow of a smile vanished from his face. He unwound the rope which he had brought along and secured one circle of a double handcuff to his left wrist.
"We'll march home Siamese fashion or my name is Muggins," said the inspector, between his teeth. Then he began gathering brushwood in a heap before the hut.
"What are you at, man?" cried Dr. Silsby.
"Smoke him out," said McCausland.
"And fire these woods? Are you crazy?" The botanist was greatly excited.
"Confound your woods! Good Wolf! Poor Wolf!" said the inspector, alternately petting the hound, who, amid all his pain, licked his master's hand, and throwing fagots on his pyre.
"But—but—name o' conscience, man," stammered Dr. Silsby. "This is the finest hemlock grove this side of the White mountains."
"We could demolish the walls, I think," said Shagarach, "and capture him with a rush."
"Where are the axes?" asked McCausland.
"Poles will do." There were heavy boughs and light saplings lying about, which would make excellent impromptu crowbars. Without a word Shagarach seized one of these and wedged it into the crack between two of the boards. The roar of rage within told them the occupant was watching.
"Fall to!" said McCausland, scattering his brush-heap with an angry kick. The three men began prying the boards apart. Several of them creaked and gave way, and soon nearly the whole front lay in ruins.
"Surrender!" cried the inspector, pointing his revolver into the cave-like gloom. There was no reply. The three men peered in, then entered. The hut was empty!
Suddenly a shout from the onlookers behind called them back to the breach.
"The roof!" they cried. "He is climbing out by the roof!"
McCausland and Silsby stepped back to see the top of the hut, while Shagarach rushed in once more and reached at the ceiling with his bough.
There on the top of the hut, his body half emerging where the planks had been shoved aside, McCausland for the first time saw the long-missing oaf, and Dr. Silsby his peeping Tom. But Shagarach was groping within, vainly smashing upward in the darkness.
With wonderful strength the fugitive raised himself erect, sprung from the insecure footing of the slippery boards, and began clambering up the ledge.
"After him, Wolf!" cried McCausland, and the bloodhound, nerved by his tones, tore up the ledge in the monster's wake. McCausland and Silsby clambered as best they could on all fours, and presently Shagarach, hearing the outcry, followed them. The crack of the inspector's revolver was heard once, but the fugitive had turned like lightning and hurled his adze. McCausland uttered a sharp cry as the pistol was struck from his hand. The fugitive then stood for a moment on the crest, twenty feet above them, outlined in hideous distinctness against the pale patch of sky. But, espying the hound at his heels, he had given a mad plunge, and the onlookers, who had drawn nearer, heard a heavy splash behind the ledge. The bloodhound paused at the summit.
"After him, Wolf!" urged McCausland, and the dog's plunge was heard, as heavy as the man's.
"It is a pool," said Shagarach, gazing into the black water below him.
"Hemlock lake," answered Dr. Silsby. "The land beyond it is marshy for miles."
"And no boat?" asked McCausland.
"One at the upper end, a mile or so, kept by a farmer."
"Then it all depends upon Wolf," muttered the detective. The water side of the precipice afforded no stair for descent, and the party slowly picked its way down the ledge which it had climbed, and made a circuit, so as to stand on the grassy edge of the pool.
"Wolf!" cried McCausland. The dark heads of man and dog had long vanished from sight. No answer came but the night sighing of the trees that fringed the dark lake. A pale quarter-moon arose in the open sky and lent a translucent gloss to its opaque surface. The swallows twittered high in air, reduced to the size of a bee-swarm. But the lake gave back no tale of the two that had entered it.
"Wolf!" cried McCausland, again and again. He whistled till the woods echoed. He clapped his hands with a hollow reverberation. A plash close by startled the listeners. But it was only a pickerel rising to his food or a bullfrog plunging in. Again the mysterious terror invaded the hearts of the pursuers, and the women clung nearer to the men, clutching their bosoms.
Had man and dog reached the other side in safety, there to continue their terrible race? Had they fought their death struggle in the water, and one or both of them sunk to his doom? Who could tell? The lake guarded its secret.
"It is dark," said Shagarach, but McCausland lingered on the bank, shading his eyes with his right hand. In his left the empty handcuff clanked.
"We have failed," said Dr. Silsby. Then McCausland started with a jerk.
"To-morrow," he said. "To-morrow may tell."
"The way back will be hard to find," said Shagarach.
"Light these," said Dr. Silsby, cutting a pitch-pine bough. It blazed up almost at the touch of a match, and as the others followed his example the forest was strangely illuminated, weird shadows playing about the party. One coming upon them might have taken them for some brigand band en route to their mountains with plunder.
"We'll miss the guidance of the hound going home," said Shagarach, and the women shuddered at the prospect of being lost in the forest at nightfall. It was an unfrequented place. But there were boys present whose holiday ramblings might now be turned to good account.
"Yes, we shall miss Wolf," said McCausland, looking behind him, as if still hoping for a signal from his faithful hound.
"Let us explore the hut," proposed Shagarach, entering.
"And tear it to pieces," cried Dr. Silsby.
Instantly the roof was torn from the rude pile, and its remaining timbers, hardly more than rested on end, almost fell asunder of themselves. A strange heap was revealed by the flickering torches. A stool, a sheet of tin laid over a clam-bake oven, some cans of prepared food, half-empty, an old coat, a blanket and a collection of knives, spikes and other weapons, picked up or stolen, that would have made a formidable array in the belt of a pirate. One of the lads, who had lighted a dry rush for a torch, was about to touch off the newspapers that lay about in great profusion, when McCausland sharply checked him.
"Bundle those up," he said, and the boys obeyed, while the inspector curiously scanned one of them by Dr. Silsby's torch.
"I thought so," he cried in triumph, motioning to Shagarach. "This is dated, like the others, only two days back—a New York paper again. The——" he pointed to the name. "He knew where to look for sensations, you see."
"A vitriol-throwing case?" asked Shagarach.
"Read it for yourself," said the detective.
"At my leisure. We may as well start."
"Has any one a compass?" asked McCausland.
"Nonsense," replied Dr. Silsby. "Do I need a compass with the flora to guide me? There is the fern bed ahead of us, and, by the way, I think I'll gather a few more specimens."
"Not now, doctor," remonstrated Shagarach, and the frightened women echoed him.
"Tut, tut," said the botanist. "Have I slept out o' night in the woods since I was so high to be frightened by a little miscalculation of time? Who asked you to come?" he said to the followers, and the coolness with which he rooted up several ferns actually reassured his timid companions. "I'll take your newspapers to wrap them in," said he to one of the boys, but McCausland interposed.
"Something else, doctor."
"My hands, then," said the botanist, cheerfully. And in fact he guided them out by his trained remembrance of the vegetation he had passed almost as quickly and surely as the hound had led them in by his scent.
It was then Miss Senda Wesner proved to Shagarach that for all her reputation as a chatterbox she could be prudent on occasion. For she selected a moment when Shagarach was bringing up the rear, to slip off the arms of her escort and pluck the lawyer's sleeve.
"Do you know who he was, Mr. Shagarach?" she asked.
"Who?"
"The crazy man, I saw him plainly on the top of the rock. It was the peddler in the green cart that used to come to Prof. Arnold's."
"What will remind me of the summer while you are away, dear?" Robert had said to Emily one morning, little thinking that the sweet girl would treasure the saying for a whole day and end with a pitiful accusation to herself of "selfishness" for leaving him. Could she have consulted her own wish she would have put off the excursion then and there, but a stateroom had already been booked in the Yarmouth, Beulah Ware was looking forward joyfully to the trip and Dr. Eustis' orders had been imperative. So good Mrs. Barlow sensibly stamped her foot at the notion of her daughter's withdrawal and the maternal fiat went forth finally and irrevocably that Emily must go.
But Emily determined that while she was away the bare cell in murderers' row should not wholly lack touches of the midsummer of whose passing glories Robert, their loyal votary, was cruelly denied a glimpse.
And so one day the carpenter came and plotted off a space over a foot wide at the side of the cell, and the florist followed with a load of beautiful long sods rolled up like jelly cake, and little potted plants all in bloom. And the sods were laid down in the trough the carpenter had made, and places scooped out with a trowel for the roots of the plants, and presto, there was a flower bed all along the side that got the sunshine, for Robert's window faced toward the south.
There were twiggy verbenas and fuchsias of tropic coloring, the nappy-leaved rose geranium, less highly rouged than its scarlet-flowered sisters, and blue oxalis along the border, plaintively appealing for notice with its spray of tiny stars. And lest these should not insinuate the odor of the country sufficiently into Robert's senses a pot of sweet basil was suspended from the ceiling to give out fragrance like the live coal in an acolyte's censer. Robert had complained of sleeplessness. What was better for this than a pillow stuffed with prunings of a fir-balsam at night and a sweet-clover cushion by day, when he sat at his table and wrote down his thoughts on "The Parisian Police Theory of Concentration of Crime," or some other such momentous topic.
But the last day, when the finishing touch had been placed on this narrow bower, over which the shadow of the scaffold so imminently hung, while Emily was sprinkling the beds with her watering-jar, Robert had laid aside his pen and was drawing forth sweet music from the violin.
"How divine it will be, Emily," he said. "The ocean sail and the week at beautiful Digby!"
"I wish you were coming, Robert," she answered, sadly.
"We may arrange a voyage in September. That is the month of glory in the provinces."
Robert had never admitted entertaining a doubt as to his acquittal. It must have been the confinement and the ignominy that had worn him down and converted his nights into carnivals of restless thought.
"But I will be with you in imagination," he added, while Emily silently poured the fine spouting streams over thirsty leaf and flower. Poor little green prisoners! They, too, would miss the air and the sunshine and, perhaps, would reproach her, when she returned, with wilted stalks and withering petals.
While she hung her head a far-away voice stole over the high jailyard wall, through the narrow cell window, into the lover's ears. It was a tenor voice, not without reminiscences of bygone sweetness, though worn, and still powerful as if from incessant use. Something in its tones told the listeners that it was no common youth of the city trolling a snatch. For when do such sing, except in derision of song, with grating irony that is ashamed of the feelings to which true song gives expression? We are ashamed of our best impulses and proud of our worst, we cynical city folk! But this was a street singer, a minstrel, musical and sincere. Straining their attention, the lovers caught here and there the import of this ballad. Or was it a ballad repeated by rote? Was it not rather a recitative improvised as the impulse came, both words and music?
He sang of the southward march of armed battalions. Their ranks were full, their banners untattered, and the men shouted watchwords of joy when they beheld the battle-ground before them. A great chieftain stood mounted and motioned them into place with his brandished sword. Grant! Grim Grant! They echoed his name. Then came the thunder of artillery from distant hills, and the lines of the enemy's rifles were seen glistening as they advanced. The defenders did not linger, but rushed forward to meet them and their embrace was the death-lock of Titans. Hurrah, the chivalry of the south give way! It is cavalry Sheridan who routs them! Then the sun stood at its meridian. It was the noon of all glory, for the northern crusaders, doing battle in the just cause. Oh, the chase, the rallies, the heroic stands, and the joyful return, with plunder! But the corpse-strewn field checked their paean. Sire and son lay clasped in death, facing each other. The garb of one was gray, of the other blue. Ambulances issued empty from the hospital tents, and rode back groaning with the wounded. Nurses knelt with water cups at the dying hero's side. And until night closed over, sorrow mingled with joy in that bivouac by the fresh-fought field.
A loud salvo of applause told that the singer was done. Emily could see in her mind's eye the ring at the sidewalk edge, arrested in the course of meaner thoughts or idle vacuity by his heart-moving story. The gift of Homer, in a humble degree, was his; and men to-day are not unlike what they were 3,000 years ago. Robert had long since hushed his violin and stood with bow suspended in air.
"Emily!" he said in a strange tone.
She looked at him and started. He was eying her so eagerly.
"Emily!" he repeated.
The bow dropped from his hand. He reached forward as if he would touch her.
"What is it, Robert?" she asked.
"The water-lily. You are still wearing it?"
"Still wearing it, Robert. I put it on this morning."
Robert uttered a cry.
"It comes back! It comes back!" he said. "The old singing soldier that I met at the park gate. He is blind and wears a brown shade over one eye. His hair is white when he takes off his cap and passes among the crowd. I see him again! I see it all!"
Robert's gaze was far away. He was not looking at Emily, yet he heard her voice.
"When was this all, Robert?"
"That day, the day of the fire. I could not remember before."
She repressed a throb of joy. Was it indeed returning? God was good. He had at last answered her prayers.
"And the water-lily, Robert?"
"Do you not remember, Emily, that I brought you one that evening? It was the first of the season, I told you."
"I do—I do!"
"Search out the old gardener, who lives in the lodge at the west angle of the park. He will remember. 'This is the first of the season,' he said. He will remember the date. He will have kept some memorandum."
"And you talked with him, Robert?"
"We are friends of old. He will remember the incident—our stroll into the glen where the little pond glistens, my noting the one white flower floating among the pads, our poling the flat-bottomed boat from the bank and the courteous speech of presentation he made. 'For your sweetheart,' he said. Oh, it is as plain to me now as the sound of my own voice, Emily. How could I ever have forgotten?"
"It is Providence who sent us the old singing soldier," said Emily. "Let us thank Him for His mercy."
Then Robert ran over detail after detail of that afternoon, when he rambled from the house, burdened with the fresh grief of his uncle's death—seeing little, hearing little, mechanically following a familiar route, all his outer senses muffled, as it were. The great shock of the calamity when he came home late at night had canceled even the feeble impressions that lingered, and not till the voice of the old singing soldier came to his ears once more was the impediment removed.
Now the events rushed upon him, few in number, but clearly, microscopically outlined. The sight of the lily brought up the image of the gardener. He could no longer be suspected of hiding himself after the fire or of secret escape with confederates, or of other conduct that might require concealment and a mask of affected forgetfulness.
"The last link of his chain is broken," said Emily, joyfully, meaning, no doubt, the great inspector's. This happy turn of affairs reconciled her more than anything else to her vacation trip, and it was a gladsome farewell the sweethearts took that day.
On her way through the city she heard again the chant of the old singing soldier and a gush of gratitude impelled her to follow him. He was indeed blind and wore the brown shade as Robert had described. A little girl clung to his coat and guided him when he walked, and the cap he held out bore the initials of the Grand Army and was ribboned with silver cord. The bystanders stared at the sweet-faced lady who laid a bill in the maiden's hand and hurried off without waiting for her "Thank you," hurried off to acquaint Shagarach of the glad, good news.
It was not until she reached the upper flight of the office stairs that she remembered that it was Shagarach's suggestion that she wear a pond-lily now and then so as to start if possible the clogged wheels of her lover's recollection, as we shake a stopped watch to make it go.
There was a similar case, too, in "The Diseases of Memory."
"But it was heaven," she said, "that brought us the old singing soldier."
"Tristram!"
The artist started at his sister's voice. He had been lounging over the steamer's side watching a full-rigged ship in the offing. Its majestic sails glistened as white as snow, but the heaving motion from bow to stern was apparent even at that distance. For the sea was all hills and hollows, and the Yarmouth herself lay darkened under the shadow of a cloud.
"Let me break in on your reverie. This is my brother—Miss Barlow—Miss Ware."
"We shall have a storm," said Tristram, after the formalities.
"Oh, I hope not," cried all three ladies. They had become acquainted while watching the patent log on the saloon-deck stern, which Beulah Ware, who knew almost everything, had explained for Rosalie's information.
"It was due when we started," said Tristram.
"And you never told me," cried Rosalie.
"You would have postponed the trip, my dear."
"Make everything tight," came the cheery voice of the captain. "Get your wraps on, ladies. It's going to pour in a hurry."
"Do let us remain outside," cried Beulah. "I've nothing on that will spoil, under a waterproof."
The others assented, and Tristram and Beulah disappeared for a few moments, returning with mackintoshes and rubber cloaks.
"There, you look like fisher folk," said Tristram, when the ladies had pulled the cowls of their glazed garments over their heads.
"And romantic for the first time, I suppose," said Rosalie. "Tristram is a great stickler for barbarism, you know."
"Esthetically," said Tristram.
"He has positive ideas."
"Of negative value."
The rain had begun to spatter the deck beneath them and the cool wind was working its own will with their garments. They were almost alone on the quarter-deck. An officer eyed them loftily.
"That is the first mate," said Tristram.
"How can you tell?" asked Rosalie.
"Because he is so far off. The captain is always approachable. The first mate is rather distant, the second mate more so. The third mate is rarely visible to the naked eye."
"Hear that bell," cried Emily.
A ding-dong clangor resounded through the ship.
"Supper! All hands to supper!" piped the steward. "Early supper! Captain's orders! Early supper!"
"Hang the captain's orders!" said Tristram. "This is better than supper."
But the foamy crest of a great wave that was level with the bow was caught just then by the wind and hurled up in their faces. The ladies sputtered, drenched with the spray, and the water seethed at their feet. Of course they shrieked and there was nothing for it but to descend and repair to their staterooms to prepare for the supper.
The dishes were clattering and dancing like marionettes. Capt. Keen had acted wisely in ordering an early supper. If the sea increased it would soon be impossible to eat at all.
"Isn't this superb?" cried the enthusiast again, as the vessel perceptibly rose under them, but she fell so suddenly that he probably bit his tongue. At least for a moment his eloquence abated.
"Now to go above again," he said when at last the tipping of the dishes made satisfactory eating no longer possible. "What a rare quality portability is! The portable arts—music and poetry; the portable instruments—fiddles, flutes, etc.; the portable eatables (excuse the unhappy jingle)—oranges, bananas, biscuits."
Suiting the word to the action, he laid in a liberal supply himself and pressed as much more on each of the ladies. He was not so unpractical as he seemed, our friend Tristram, with all his badinage and transparent sophistries.
"But you are not seriously going out on deck?" cried his sister in some alarm, when he made for the stairs.
"And surely you are not going to remain in?" answered Tristram in feigned astonishment. "Lose this glorious sea picture? Atmosphere, nature's own murk; canvas, infinity; music furnished by old Boreas himself, master of Beethoven and Rubinstein; accompaniments, night, sleet, danger and the lightning."
"I fear we are philistines," said Beulah Ware; "we prefer painted storms and the mimic thunders of the symphony."
"Accompaniment, dry dresses," added Rosalie. Whereupon Tristram gallantly saw the ladies housed in his sister's cabin and left them, lunching on his portable eatables, but not a little anxious while he himself climbed up to his perch on the quarter-deck. The sea tumbled over the steamer when she cut her way into a billow, but Tristram had drawn on thick boots and felt prepared to rough it.
"Better lash yourself down," cried the captain warningly. The artist's answer was lost in the tempest.
There was little sleep for the passengers on the Yarmouth that night. Stewards and matrons passed about reassuring them. The boat was seaworthy; everything was locked in; they could lie on their pillows with an absolute certainty of rising on the morrow with the Nova Scotia shore in view. Only they wouldn't. They dared not. And as Rosalie looked as timid as any one, her new acquaintances conspired to remain with her in her stateroom, all three sharing the two cots and getting what naps they could.
They had run out of talk and were almost drowsing when the great crash came. Have you felt your heart jump when a pistol-shot smites the silence? No crack of land ordnance could inspire the fear that resounding bump did in the breasts of the apprehensive girls.
"A rock!" was the thought of each, but they only expressed their terror in an inarticulate shriek. Then the whimpering of women and the cries of men were heard in the saloon.
"We are sinking!" cried some one, and the girls rushed out. A hundred white-clad forms darted to and fro like gnats in a swarm, or clung together, wringing their hands in misery. Some of the men fought to unbar the doors. But they were bolted from the outside. The whole cabin was penned in there to drown. Then each one felt for his dearest.
"Tristram!" moaned Rosalie, knocking at his stateroom door. "Tristram!" But there came no answer. "He is out on the deck! He is swept away and drowned!" she cried, with truer tears than the imagined sorrows of Desdemona had ever drawn from her eyes. But Tristram was safe in the pilot's box, where Capt. Keen was signaling the engineer to reverse his engines; and the engineer, shut in amid the deafening clangor of his machinery, ignorant of what had happened but trained to his duty, obeyed promptly his bell and forced the great vessel back.
The headlights of the Yarmouth had been doused out long before, and there was no lantern that could live in that surge, even if it were possible to hang a second one aloft From time to time the captain had ordered a rocket sent up, to warn approaching vessels, for the air was densely opaque. Only out of the gloom before them, just before the shock came, Tristram could see a long row of lights, feeble and flickering. His imagination constructed the broadside of a steamship about them and once it seemed that he really did catch a vague, shadowy outline. But the reality became certain to another sense. Before the Yarmouth's engines were reversed and her bow disengaged itself, a wail of terror reached him out of the night, and a tearing as of parted timbers. Then hoarse shouts were heard from the emptiness soaring high above the wind.
"We stove in her side," said the captain. Then a signal rocket, hissing into the quenching rain, told him of his fellow's distress. The Yarmouth still receded. The double row of lights was withdrawn into the gloom. But the wailing increased and from the covered cabin below rose the responsive clamor of the passengers.
"Say that we have struck a vessel," telephoned the captain to the steward. After several repetitions the message was understood and it quieted the half-clad throng a little. But anxiety was legible on every face.
Twice more the signal of distress went up and the captain answered it, though helpless to assist. Then the air was blank.
"Head her east," said the captain to the pilot. He knew by the lights that the other vessel was pointed to the larboard when she crossed his bow. He could not back forever or heave to in that sea. He must circumnavigate the vessel or the vortex if she were sunk. So he nosed his prow oceanward into the teeth of the wind. Under these circumstances the headway of his boat was slow.
"Ahoy!"
Was it a voice from the darkness? A huge wave rose over them like a cliff and hurled itself against the strong glass of the pilot's window. In a moment they were soused and the wind blowing in upon them told them that their brittle sheath was shattered. But the electric globes still cast their white gleams over the foredeck and revealed a dark object that was not there before.
"A boat!" cried Tristram.
"Save them!" shouted Capt. Keen, rushing down the steps, with the artist at his heels. It was indeed a lifeboat, which had been carried on the crest of a billow clear over the Yarmouth's gunwale and left high, if not dry. Only five forms could be seen—three of them stirring, the other two motionless. All were men.
"Climb!" shouted Keen, seizing one of the limp bodies in his arms. Tristram caught up the other and staggered back in the direction of the light, the three wrecked men following and grappling at them in their bewilderment. Another wave like the last and they were lost, all seven. But these great surges come in rhythmic intervals. Rescuers and rescued reached the pilot house in safety.
"Who are you, shipmates?" asked the captain, pouring brandy down the mouths of the unconscious men. The others answered in German.
"The Hamburg liner, Osric," translated Tristram. "She broke her rudder and was driven off her course by the gale."
"Heaven save us from meeting any more such driftwood," said the pilot unsteadily with a hiccough.
"Were any other boats out?" asked Capt. Keen. Tristram interpreted question and answer.
"Two others, but they were swamped. All on board are lost."
A thrill went through the strong men. Usage does not render sailors callous to the perils of the sea. Death under the ocean is still the most awe-inspiring of fates—the doom of the irrecoverable body, of the skeleton lying on the bottom, like a coral freak.
"Mostly immigrants from Germany and Sweden," answered the spokesman to the next question. All five were common sailors. They had waited their turn and the captain had ordered them into the lifeboat when it came. He himself had stood by his sinking ship to the end.
In a lull of the breaking seas, Tristram and Capt. Keen picked their way down into the cabin. The captain's appearance was a signal for a cheer. He addressed the passengers briefly, outlined the terrible event and assured them that, as lightning never strikes twice in the same spot, they might turn in and count on a clear voyage oceanward for the rest of the night. He could not control the weather or promise them sleep. But he felt so safe himself that he had just come down to retire for his own spell of slumber.
This little lie was one of those which the recording angel will blot away with tears. The old salt would no more have slept that night than he would have taken a dose of poison. Even for the few minutes he was below he had been as uneasy within as a young mother when she sees her baby in the arms of some one whose carelessness she has good reason to dread. The pilot was in liquor, and Capt. Keen, making a quick tour aft so that every one might get a view of him and a cheery word, together with a brazen repetition of his salutary invention, simply turned into the cook's room forward and swung himself out by its skylight-hatch. Meanwhile Tristram elbowed his way through the crowd to Rosalie. His reappearance soothed her, but she was still hysterical, and the good offices of the other two ladies were found seasonable during the night.