THE PEOPLE vs. JOHN DOE WATERS. Before Chief Justice LYNCH.
The hurried statement of the messenger was corroborated in the streets that night. It was certain that McSnagley was killed. Smith’s Pocket, excited but skeptical, had seen the body, had put its fingers in the bullethole, and was satisfied. Smith’s Pocket, albeit hoarse with shouting and excitement, still discussed details with infinite relish in bar-rooms and saloons, and in the main street in clamorous knots that in front of the jail where the prisoner was confined seemed to swell into a mob. Smith’s Pocket, bearded, blue-shirted, and belligerent, crowding about this locality, from time to time uttered appeals to justice that swelled on the night wind, not unfrequently coupling these invocations with the name of that eminent jurist—Lynch.
Let not the simple reader suppose that the mere taking off of a fellow mortal had created this uproar. The tenure of life in Smith’s Pocket was vain and uncertain at the best, and as such philosophically accepted, and the blowing out of a brief candle here and there seldom left a permanent shadow with the survivors. In such instances, too, the victims had received their quietus from the hands of brother townsmen, socially, as it were, in broad day, in the open streets, and under other mitigating circumstances. Thus, when Judge Starbottle of Virginia and “French Pete” exchanged shots with each other across the plaza until their revolvers were exhausted, and the luckless Pete received a bullet through the lungs, half the town witnessed it, and were struck with the gallant and chivalrous bearing of these gentlemen, and to this day point with feelings of pride and admiration to the bulletholes in the door of the National Hotel, as they explain how narrow was the escape of the women in the parlor. But here was a man murdered at night, in a lonely place, and by a stranger—a man unknown to the saloons of Smith’s Pocket—a wretch who could not plead the excitement of monte or the delirium of whiskey as an excuse. No wonder that Smith’s Pocket surged with virtuous indignation beneath the windows of his prison, and clamored for his blood.
And as the crowd thickened and swayed to and fro, the story of his crime grew exaggerated by hurried and frequent repetition. Half a dozen speakers volunteered to give the details with an added horror to every sentence. How one of Morpher’s children had been missing for a week or more. How the schoolmaster and the parson were taking a walk that evening, and coming to Smith’s Pocket heard a faint voice from its depths which they recognized as belonging to the missing child. How they had succeeded in dragging him out and gathered from his infant lips the story of his incarceration by the murderer, Waters, and his enforced labors in the mine. How they were interrupted by the appearance of Waters, followed by a highly colored and epithet-illustrated account of the interview and quarrel. How Waters struck the schoolmaster, who returned the blow with a pick. How Waters thereupon drew a derringer and fired, missing the schoolmaster, but killing McSnagley behind him. How it was believed that Waters was one of Joaquin’s gang, that he had killed Smith, etc., etc. At each pause the crowd pushed and panted, stealthily creeping around the doors and windows of the jail like some strange beast of prey, until the climax was reached, and a hush fell, and two men were silently dispatched for a rope, and a critical examination was made of the limbs of a pine-tree in the vicinity.
The man to whom these incidents had the most terrible significance might have seemed the least concerned as he sat that night but a few feet removed from the eager crowd without, his hands lightly clasped together between his knees, and the expression on his face of one whose thoughts were far away. A candle stuck in a tin sconce on the wall flickered as the night wind blew freshly through a broken pane of the window. Its uncertain light revealed a low room whose cloth ceiling was stained and ragged, and from whose boarded walls the torn paper hung in strips; a lumber-room partitioned from the front office, which was occupied by a justice of the peace. If this temporary dungeon had an appearance of insecurity, there was some compensation in the spectacle of an armed sentinel who sat upon a straw mattress in the doorway, and another who patrolled the narrow hall which led to the street. That the prisoner was not placed in one of the cells in the floor below may have been owing to the fact that the law recognized his detention as only temporary, and while providing the two guards as a preventive against the egress of crime within, discreetly removed all unnecessary and provoking obstacles to the ingress of justice from without.
Since the prisoner’s arrest he had refused to answer any interrogatories. Since he had been placed in confinement he had not moved from his present attitude. The guard, finding all attempts at conversation fruitless, had fallen into a reverie, and regaled himself with pieces of straw plucked from the mattress. A mouse ran across the floor. The silence contrasted strangely with the hum of voices in the street.
The candle-light, falling across the prisoner’s forehead, showed the features which Smith’s Pocket knew and recognized as Waters, the strange prospector. Had M’liss or Aristides seen him then they would have missed that sinister expression which was part of their fearful remembrance. The hard, grim outlines of his mouth were relaxed, the broad shoulders were bent and contracted, the quick, searching eyes were fixed on vacancy. The strong man—physically strong only—was breaking up. The fist that might have felled an ox could do nothing more than separate its idle fingers with childishness of power and purpose. An hour longer in this condition, and the gallows would have claimed a figure scarcely less limp and impotent than that it was destined to ultimately reject.
He had been trying to collect his thoughts. Would they hang him? No, they must try him first, legally, and he could prove—he could prove—But what could he prove? For whenever he attempted to consider the uncertain chances of his escape, he found his thoughts straying wide of the question. It was of no use for him to clasp his fingers or knit his brows. Why did the recollection of a school-fellow, long since forgotten, blot out all the fierce and feverish memories of the night and the terrible certainty of the future? Why did the strips of paper hanging from the wall recall to him the pattern of a kite he had flown forty years ago. In a moment like this, when all his energies were required and all his cunning and tact would be called into service, could he think of nothing better than trying to match the torn paper on the wall, or to count the cracks in the floor? And an oath rose to his lips, but from very feebleness died away without expression.
Why had he ever come to Smith’s Pocket? If he had not been guided by that hell-cat, this would not have happened. What if he were to tellallhe knew? What if he should accuseher? But would they be willing to give up the bird they had already caught? Yet he again found himself cursing his own treachery and cowardice, and this time an exclamation burst from his lips and attracted the attention of the guard.
“Hello, there! easy, old fellow; thar ain’t any good in that,” said the sentinel, looking up. “It’s a bad fix you’re in,sure, but rarin’ and pitchin’ won’t help things. ’T ain’t no use cussin’—leastways, ’t ain’t that kind o’ swearing that gets a chap out o’ here”, he added, with a conscientious reservation. “Now, ef I was in your place, I’d kinder reflect on my sins, and make my peace with God Almighty, for I tell you the looks o’ them people outside ain’t pleasant. You’re in the hands of the law, and the law will protect you as far as it can,—as far as two men can stand agin a hundred; sabe? That’s what’s the matter; and it’s as well that you knowed that now as any time.”
But the prisoner had relapsed into his old attitude, and was surveying the jailor with the same abstracted air as before. That individual resumed his seat on the mattress, and now lent his ear to a colloquy which seemed to be progressing at the foot of the stairs. Presently he was bailed by his brother turnkey from below.
“Oh, Bill,” said fidus Achates from the passage, with the usual Californian prefatory ejaculation.
“Well?”
“Here’s M’liss! Says she wants to come up. Shall I let her in?”
The subject of inquiry, however, settled the question of admission by darting past the guard below in this moment of preoccupation, and bounded up the stairs like a young fawn. The guards laughed.
“Now, then, my infant phenomenon,” said the one called Bill, as M’liss stood panting before him, “wot ’s up? and nextly, wot’s in that bottle?”
M’liss whisked the bottle which she held in her hand smartly under her apron, and said curtly, “Where’s him that killed the parson?”
“Yonder,” replied the man, indicating the abstracted figure with his hand. “Wot doyouwant with him? None o’ your tricks here, now,” he added threateningly.
“I want to see him!”
“Well, look! make the most of your time, andhistoo, for the matter of that; but mind, now, no nonsense, M’liss, he won’t stand it!” repeated the guard with an emphasis in the caution.
M’liss crossed the room, until opposite the prisoner. “Are you the chap that killed the parson?” she said, addressing the motionless figure.
Something in the tone of her voice startled the prisoner from the reverie. He raised his head and glanced quickly, and with his old sinister expression, at the child.
“What’s that to you?” he asked, with the grim lines setting about his mouth again, and the old harshness of his voice.
“Didn’t I tell you he wouldn’t stand any of your nonsense, M’liss?” said the guard testily.
M’liss only repeated her question.
“And what if I did kill him?” said the prisoner savagely; “what’s that to you, you young hell-cat? Guard!—damnation!—what do you let her come here for? Do you hear? Guard!” he screamed, rising in a transport of passion, “take her away! fling her downstairs! What the h—ll is she doing here?”
“If you was the man that killed McSnagley,” said M’liss, without heeding the interruption, “I’ve brought you something;” and she drew the bottle from under her apron and extended it to Waters, adding, “It’s brandy—Cognac—A1.”
“Take it away, and take yourself with it,” returned Waters, without abating his angry accents. “Take it away! do you hear?”
“Well, that’s what I call ongrateful, dog-gone my skin if it ain’t,” said the guard, who had been evidently struck with M’liss’s generosity. “Pass the licker this way, my beauty, and I’ll keep it till he changes his mind. He’s naturally a little flustered just now, but he’ll come round after you go.”
But M’liss didn’t accede to this change in the disposition of the gift, and was evidently taken aback by her reception and the refusal of the proffered comfort.
“Come, hand the bottle here!” repeated the guard. “It’s agin rules to bring the pris’ner anything, anyway, and it’s confiscated to the law. It’s agin the rules, too, to ask a pris’ner any question that’ll criminate him, and on the whole you’d better go, M’liss,” added the guard, to whom the appearance of the bottle had been the means of provoking a spasm of discipline.
But M’liss refused to make over the coveted treasure. Bill arose half jestingly and endeavored to get possession of the bottle. A struggle ensued, good-naturedly on the part of the guard, but characterized on the part of M’liss by that half-savage passion which any thwarted whim or instinct was sure to provoke in her nature. At last with a curse she freed herself from his grasp, and seizing the bottle by the neck aimed it with the full strength of her little arm fairly at his head. But he was quick enough to avert that important object, if not quick enough to save his shoulder from receiving the strength of the blow, which shattered the thin glass and poured the fiery contents of the bottle over his shirt and breast, saturating his clothes, and diffusing a sharp alcoholic odor through the room.
A forced laugh broke from his lips, as he sank back on the mattress, not without an underlying sense of awe at this savage girl who stood panting before him, and from whom he had just escaped a blow which might have been fatal. “It’s a pity to waste so much good licker,” he added, with affected carelessness, narrowly watching each movement of the young pythoness, whose rage was not yet abated.
“Come, M’liss,” he said at last, “we’ll say quits. You’ve lost your brandy, and I’ve got some of the pieces of yonder bottle sticking in my shoulder yet. I suppose brandy is good for bruises, though. Hand me the light!”
M’liss reached the candle from the sconce and held it by the guard as he turned back the collar of his shirt to lay bare his shoulder. “So,” he muttered, “black and blue; no bones broken, though no fault of yours, eh? my young cherub, if it wasn’t. There—why, what are you looking at in that way, M’liss, are you crazy?—Hell’s furies, don’t hold the light so near! What are you doing; Hell—ho, there! Help!”
Too late, for in an instant he was a sheet of living flame. When or how the candle had touched his garments, saturated with the inflammable fluid, Waters, the only inactive spectator in the room, could never afterward tell. He only knew that the combustion was instantaneous and complete, and before the cry had died from his lips, not only the guard, but the straw mattress on which he had been sitting, and the loose strips of paper hanging from the walls, and the torn cloth ceiling above were in flames.
“Help! Help! Fire! Fire!”
With a superhuman effort, M’liss dragged the prisoner past the blazing mattress, through the doorway into the passage, and drew the door, which opened outwardly, against him. The unhappy guard, still blazing like a funeral pyre, after wildly beating the air with his arms for a few seconds, dashed at the broken window, which gave way with his weight, and precipitated him, still flaming, into the yard below. A column of smoke and a licking tongue of flame leaped from the open window at the same moment, and the cry of fire was reechoed from a hundred voices in the street. But scarcely had M’liss closed the open door against Waters, when the guard from the doorway mounted the stairs in time to see a flaming figure leap from the window. The room was filled with smoke and fire. With an instinct of genius, M’liss, pointing to the open window, shouted hoarsely in his ear:—
“Waters has escaped!”
A cry of fury from the guard was echoed from the stairs, even now crowded by the excited mob, who feared the devastating element might still cheat them of their intended victim. In another moment the house was emptied, and the front street deserted, as the people rushed to the rear of the jail—climbing fences and stumbling over ditches in pursuit of the imagined runaway. M’liss seized the hat and coat of the luckless “Bill,” and dragging the prisoner from his place of concealment hurriedly equipped him, and hastened through the blinding smoke of the staircase boldly on the heels of the retiring crowd. Once in the friendly darkness of the street, it was easy to mingle with the pushing throng until an alley crossing at right angles enabled them to leave the main thoroughfare. A few moments’ rapid flight, and the outskirts of the town were reached, the tall pines opened their abysmal aisles to the fugitives, and M’liss paused with her companion. Until daybreak, at least, here they were safe!
From the time they had quitted the burning room to that moment, Waters had passed into his listless, abstracted condition, so helpless and feeble that he retained the grasp of M’liss’s hand more through some instinctive prompting rather than the dictates of reason. M’liss had found it necessary to almost drag him from the main street and the hurrying crowd, which seemed to exercise a strange fascination over his bewildered senses. And now he sat down passively beside her, and seemed to submit to the guidance of her superior nature.
“You’re safe enough now till daylight,” said M’liss, when she had recovered her breath, “but you must make the best time you can through these woods to-night, keeping the wind to your back, until you come to the Wingdam road. There! do you hear?” said M’liss, a little vexed at her companion’s apathy.
Waters released the hand of M’liss, and commenced mechanically to button his coat around his chest with fumbling, purposeless fingers. He then passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear his confused and bewildered brain; all this, however, to no better result than to apparently root his feet to the soil and to intensify the stupefaction which seemed to be creeping over him.
“Be quick, now! You’ve no time to lose! Keep straight on through the woods until you see the stars again before you, and you’re on the other side of the ridge. What are you waiting for?” And M’liss stamped her little foot impatiently.
An idea which had been struggling for expression at last seemed to dawn in his eyes. Something like a simpering blush crept over his face as he fumbled in his pocket. At last, drawing forth a twenty-dollar piece, he bashfully offered it to M’liss. In a twinkling the extended arm was stricken up, and the bright coin flew high in the air, and disappeared in the darkness.
“Keep your money! I don’t want it. Don’t do that again!” said M’liss, highly excited, “or I’ll—I’ll—bite you!”
Her wicked little white teeth flashed ominously as she said it.
“Get off while you can. Look!” she added, pointing to a column of flame shooting up above the straggling mass of buildings in the village, “the jail is burning; and if that goes, the block will go with it. Before morning these woods will be filled with people. Save yourself while you can!”
Waters turned and moved away in the darkness. “Keep straight on, and don’t waste a moment,” urged the child, as the man seemed still disposed to linger. “Trot now!” and in another moment he seemed to melt into the forest depths.
M’liss threw her apron around her head, and coiled herself up at the root of a tree in something of her old fashion. She had prophesied truly of the probable extent of the fire. The fresh wind, whirling the sparks over the little settlement, had already fanned the single flame into the broad sheet which now glowed fiercely, defining the main street along its entire length. The breeze which fanned her cheek bore the crash of falling timbers and the shouts of terrified and anxious men. There were no engines in Smith’s Pocket, and the contest was unequal. Nothing but a change of wind could save the doomed settlement.
The red glow lit up the dark cheek of M’liss and kindled a savage light in her black eyes. Relieved by the background of the sombre woods, she might have been a red-handed Nemesis looking over the city of Vengeance. As the long tongues of flame licked the broad colonnade of the National Hotel, and shot a wreathing pillar of fire and smoke high into the air, M’liss extended her tiny fist and shook it at the burning building with an inspiration that at the moment seemed to transfigure her.
So the night wore away until the first red bars of morning light gleamed beyond the hill, and seemed to emulate the dying embers of the devastated settlement. M’liss for the first time began to think of the home she had quitted the night before, and looked with some anxiety in the direction of “Mountain Ranch.” Its white walls and little orchard were untouched, and looked peacefully over the blackened and deserted village. M’liss rose, and, stretching her cramped limbs, walked briskly toward the town. She had proceeded but a short distance when she heard the sound of cautious and hesitating footsteps behind her, and, facing quickly about, encountered the figure of Waters.
“Are you drunk?” said M’liss passionately, “or what do you mean by this nonsense?”
The man approached her with a strange smile on his face, rubbing his hands together, and shivering as with cold. When he had reached her side he attempted to take her hand. M’liss shrank away from him with an expression of disgust.
“What are you doing here again?” she demanded.
“I want to go with you. It’s dark in there,” he said, motioning to the wood he had just quitted, “and I don’t like to be alone. You’ll let me be with you, won’t you? I won’t be any trouble;” and a feeble smile flickered on his lips.
M’liss darted a quick look into his face. The grim outlines of his mouth were relaxed, and his lips moved again impotently. But his eyes were bright and open,—bright with a look that was new to M’liss—that imparted a strange softness and melancholy to his features,—the incipient gleam of insanity!
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER—EXPLANATORY
If I remember rightly, in one of the admirable tragedies of Tsien Tsiang at a certain culminating point of interest an innocent person is about to be sacrificed. The knife is raised and the victim meekly awaits the stroke. At this moment the author of the play appears on the stage, and, delivering an excellent philosophical dissertation on the merits of the “situation,” shows that by the purest principles of art the sacrifice is necessary, but at the same time offers to the audience the privilege of changing the denouement. Such, however, is the nice aesthetic sense of a Chinese auditory, and so universal the desire of bloodshed in the heathen breast, that invariably at each representation of this remarkable tragedy the cause of humanity gives way to the principles of art.
I offer this precedent as an excuse for digressing at a moment when I have burned down a small settlement, dispatched a fellow being, and left my heroine alone in the company of an escaped convict who has just developed insanity as a new social quality. My object in thus digressing is to confer with the reader in regard to the evolution of this story,—a familiarity not without precedent, as I might prove from most of the old Greek comedies, whoseparabasispermits the poet to mingle freely with thedramatis personae, to address the audience and descant at length in regard to himself, his play, and his own merits.
The fact is that, during the progress of this story, I have received many suggestions from intimate friends in regard to its incidents and construction. I have also been in the receipt of correspondence from distant readers, one letter of which I recall signed by an “Honest Miner,” who advises me to “do the right thing by M’liss,” or intimates somewhat obscurely that he will “bust my crust for me,” which, though complimentary in its abstract expression of interest, and implying a taste for euphonism, evinces an innate coarseness which I fear may blunt his perceptions of delicate shades and Greek outlines.
Again, the practical nature of Californians and their familiarity with scenes and incidents which would be novel to other people have occasioned me great uneasiness. In the course of the last three chapters of M’liss I have received some twenty or thirty communications from different parts of the State corroborating incidents of my story, which I solemnly assure the reader is purely fictitious. Some one has lately sent me a copy of an interior paper containing an old obituary of Smith of Smith’s Pocket. Another correspondent writes to me that he was acquainted with the schoolmaster in the fall of ’49, and that they “grubbed together.” The editors of the serial in which this story appears assure me that they have received an advertisement from the landlord of the “National Hotel” contingent upon an editorial notice of its having been at one time the abode of M’liss; while an aunt of the heroine, alluding in excellent terms to the reformed character of her niece M’liss, clenches her sincerity by requesting the loan of twenty dollars to buy clothes for the desolate orphan.
Under these circumstances I have hesitated to go on. What were the bodiless creatures of my fancy—the pale phantoms of thought, evoked in the solitude of my chamber, and sometimes even midst the hum of busy streets—have suddenly grown into flesh and blood, living people, protected by the laws of society, and having their legal right to actions for slander in any court. Worse than that, I have sometimes thought with terror of the new responsibility which might attach to my development of their characters. What if I were obliged to support and protect these Frankenstein monsters? What if the original of the principal villain of my story should feel impelled through aesthetic principles of art to work out in real life the supposititious denouement I have sketched for him?
I have therefore concluded to lay aside my pen for this week, leaving the catastrophe impending, and await the suggestion of my correspondents. I do so the more cheerfully as it enables the editors of this weekly to publish twenty-seven more columns of Miss Braddon’s “Outcasts of Society” and the remainder of the “Duke’s Motto,”—two works which in the quiet simplicity of their home-like pictures and household incidents are attended with none of the difficulties which beset my unhappy story.
CLEANING UP
As the master, wan-eyed and unrefreshed by slumber, strayed the next morning among the blackened ruins of the fire, he was conscious of having undergone some strange revulsion of sentiment. What he remembered of the last evening’s events, though feverish and indistinct as a dream, and though, like a dream, without coherency or connected outline, had nevertheless seriously impressed him. How frivolous and trifling his past life and its pursuits looked through the lightning vista opened to his eyes by the flash of Waters’s pistol! “Suppose I had been killed,” ruminated the master, “what then? A paragraph in the ‘Banner,’ headed ‘Fatal Affray,’ and my name added to the already swollen list of victims to lawless violence and crime! Humph! A pretty scrape, truly!” And the master ground his teeth with vexation.
Let not the reader judge him too hastily. In the best regulated mind, thankfulness for deliverance from danger is apt to be mingled with some doubts as to the necessity of the trial.
In this frame of mind the last person he would have cared to meet was Clytie. That young woman’s evil genius, however, led her to pass the burnt district that morning. Perhaps she had anticipated the meeting. At all events, he had proceeded but a few steps before he was confronted by the identical round hat and cherry colored ribbons. But in his present humor the cheerful color somehow reminded him of the fire and of a ruddy stain over McSnagley’s heart, and invested the innocent Clytie with a figurative significance. Now Clytie’s reveries at that moment were pleasant, if the brightness of her eyes and the freshened color on her cheeks were any sign, and, as she had not seen the master since then, she naturally expected to take up the thread of romance where it had been dropped. But it required all her feminine tact to conceal her embarrassment at his formal greeting and constrained manner.
“He is bashful,” reasoned Clytie to herself.
“This girl is a tremendous fool,” growled the master inwardly.
An awkward pause ensued. Finally, Clytieloquitur:—
“M’liss has been missing since the fire!”
“Missing?” echoed the master in his natural tone.
Clytie bit her lip with vexation. “Yes, she’s always running away. She’ll be back again. But you look interested. Do you know,” she continued with exceeding archness, “I sometimes think, Mr. Gray, if M’liss were a little older”—
“Well?”
“Well, putting this and that together, you know!”
“Well?”
“People will talk, you know,” continued Clytie, with that excessive fondness weak people exhibit in enveloping in mystery the commonest affairs of life.
“People are d——d fools!” roared the master.
The correct Clytie was a little shocked. Perhaps underneath it was a secret admiration of the transgressor. Force even of this cheap quality goes a good way with some natures.
“That is,” continued the master, with an increase of dignity in inverse proportion to the lapse he had made, “people are apt to be mistaken, Miss Morpher, and without meaning it, to do infinite injustice to their fellow mortals. But I see I am detaining you. I will try and find Melissa. I wish you good-morning.” And Don Whiskerandos stalked solemnly away.
Clytie turned red and white by turns, and her eyes filled with tears. This denouement to her dreams was utterly unexpected. While a girl of stronger character and active intelligence would have employed the time in digesting plans of future retaliation and revenge, Clytie’s dull brain and placid nature were utterly perplexed and shaken.
“Dear me!” said Clytie to herself, as she started home, “if he don’t love me, why don’t he say so?”
The master, or Mr. Gray, as we may now call him as he draws near the close of his professional career, took the old trail through the forest, which led to M’liss’s former hiding-place. He walked on briskly, revolving in his mind the feasibility of leaving Smith’s Pocket. The late disaster, which would affect the prosperity of the settlement for some time to come, offered an excuse to him to give up his situation. On searching his pockets he found his present capital to amount to ten dollars. This increased by forty dollars, due him from the trustees, would make fifty dollars; deduct thirty dollars for liabilities, and he would have twenty dollars left to begin the world anew. Youth and hope added an indefinite number of ciphers to the right hand of these figures, and in this sanguine mood our young Alnaschar walked on until he had reached the old pine throne in the bank of the forest. M’liss was not there. He sat down on the trunk of the tree, and for a few moments gave himself up to the associations it suggested. What would become of M’liss after he was gone? But he quickly dropped the subject as one too visionary and sentimental for his then fiercely practical consideration, and, to prevent the recurrence of such distracting fancies, began to retrace his steps toward the settlement. At the edge of the woods, at a point where the trail forked toward the old site of Smith’s Pocket, he saw M’liss coming toward him. Her ordinary pace on such occasions was a kind of Indian trot; to his surprise she was walking slowly, with her apron thrown over her head,—an indication of meditation with M’liss and the usual way in which she excluded the outer world in studying her lessons. When she was within a few feet of him he called her by name. She started as she recognized him. There was a shade of seriousness in her dark eyes, and the hand that took his was listless and totally unlike her old frank, energetic grasp.
“You look worried, M’liss,” said Mr. Gray soothingly, as the old sentimental feeling crept over his heart. “What’s the matter now?”
M’liss replied by seating herself on the bank beside the road, and pointed to a place by her side. Mr. Gray took the proffered seat. M’liss then, fixing her eyes on some distant part of the view, remained for some moments in silence. Then, without turning her head or moving her eyes, she asked:—
“What’s that they call a girl that has money left her?”
“An heiress, M’liss?”
“Yes, an heiress.”
“Well?” said Mr. Gray.
“Well,” said M’liss, without moving her eyes, “I’m one,—I’m a heiress!”
“What’s that, M’liss?” said Mr. Gray laughingly.
M’liss was silent again. Suddenly turning her eyes full upon him, she said:—
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Gray, beginning to be impressed by the child’s manner. “Listen, then.”
In short quick sentences, M’liss began. How Aristides had several times hinted of the concealed riches of Smith’s Pocket. How he had last night repeated the story to her of a strange discovery he had made. How she remembered to have heard her father often swear that there was money “in that hole,” if he only had means to work it. How, partly impressed by this statement and partly from curiosity and pity for the prisoner, she had visited him in confinement. An account of her interview, the origin of the fire, her flight with Waters. (Questionsby Mr. Gray: What was your object in assisting this man to escape?Ans. They were going to kill him.Ques. Hadn’t he killed McSnagley.Ans. Yes, but McSnagley ought to have been killed long ago.) How she had taken leave of him that morning. How he had come back again “silly.” How she had dragged him on toward the Wingdam road, and how he had told her that all the hidden wealth of Smith’s Pocket had belonged to her father. How she had found out, from some questions, that he had known her father. But how all his other answers were “silly.”
“And where is he now?” asked Mr. Gray.
“Gone,” said M’liss. “I left him at the edge of the wood to go back and get some provisions, and when I returned he was gone. If he had any senses left, he’s miles away by this time. When he was off I went back to Smith’s Pocket. I found the hidden opening and saw the gold.”
Mr. Gray looked at her curiously. He had, in his more intimate knowledge of her character, noticed the unconcern with which she spoke of the circumstances of her father’s death and the total lack of any sentiment of filial regard. The idea that this man whom she had aided in escaping had ever done her injury had not apparently entered her mind, nor did Mr. Gray think it necessary to hint the deeper suspicion he had gathered from Dr. Duchesne that Waters had murdered her father. If the story of the concealed treasures of Smith’s Pocket were exaggerated he could easily satisfy himself on that point. M’liss met his suggestion to return to the Pocket with alacrity, and the two started away in that direction.
It was late in the afternoon when Mr. Gray returned. His heightened color and eager inquiry for Dr. Duchesne provoked the usual hope from the people that he met “that it was nothing serious.” No, nothing was the matter, the master answered with a slight laugh, but would they send the doctor to his schoolhouse when he returned? “That young chap’s worse than he thinks,” was one sympathizing suggestion; “this kind of life’s too rough for his sort.”
To while away the interim, Mr. Gray stopped on his way to the schoolhouse at the stage office as the Wingdam stage drew up and disgorged its passengers. He was listlessly watching the passengers as they descended when a soft voice from the window addressed him, “May I trouble you for your arm as I get down?” Mr. Gray looked up. It was a singular request, as the driver was at that moment standing by the door, apparently for that purpose. But the request came from a handsome woman, and with a bow the young man stepped to the door. The lady laid her hand lightly on his arm, sprang from the stage with a dexterity that showed the service to have been merely ceremonious, thanked him with an elaboration of acknowledgment which seemed equally gratuitous, and disappeared in the office.
“That’s what I call a dead set,” said the driver, drawing a long breath, as he turned to Mr. Gray, who stood in some embarrassment. “Do you know her?”
“No,” said Mr. Gray laughingly, “do you?”
“Nary time! But take care of yourself, young man; she’s after you, sure!”
But Mr. Gray was continuing his walk to the schoolhouse, unmindful of the caution. For the momentary glimpse he had caught of this woman’s face, she appeared to be about thirty. Her dress, though tasteful and elegant, in the present condition of California society afforded no criterion of her social status. But the figure of Dr. Duchesne waiting for him at the schoolhouse door just then usurped the place of all others, and she dropped out of his mind.
“Now then,” said the doctor, as the young man grasped his hand, “you want me to tell you why your eyes are bloodshot, why your cheeks burn, and your hand is dry and hot?”
“Not exactly! Perhaps you’ll understand the symptoms better when you’ve heard my story. Sit down here and listen.”
The doctor took the proffered seat on top of a desk, and Mr. Gray, after assuring himself that they were entirely alone, related the circumstances he had gathered from M’liss that morning.
“You see, doctor, how unjust were your surmises in regard to this girl,” continued Mr. Gray. “But let that pass now. At the conclusion of her story, I offered to go with her to this Ali Baba cave. It was no easy job finding the concealed entrance, but I found it at last, and ample corroboration of every item of this wild story. The pocket is rich with the most valuable ore. It has evidently been worked for some time since the discovery was made, but there is still a fortune in its walls, and several thousand dollars of ore sacked up in its galleries. Look at that!” continued Mr. Gray, as he drew an oblong mass of quartz and metal from his pocket. “Think of a secret of this kind having been intrusted for three weeks to a penniless orphan girl of twelve and an eccentric schoolboy of ten, and undivulged except when a proper occasion offered.”
Dr. Duchesne smiled. “And Waters is really clear?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Gray.
“And M’liss assisted him to escape?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you are an innocent one! And you see nothing in this but an act of thoughtless generosity? No assisting of an old accomplice to escape?”
“I see nothing but truth in her statement,” returned Mr. Gray stoutly. “If there has been any wrong committed, I believe her to be innocent of its knowledge.”
“Well, I’m glad at least the money goes to her and not to him. But how are you to establish her right to this property?”
“That was my object in conferring with you. At present the claim is abandoned. I have taken up the ground in my own name (for her), and this afternoon I posted up the usual notice.”
“Go on. You are not so much of a fool, after all.”
“Thank you! This will hold until a better claim is established. Now, if Smith had discovered this lead, and was, as the lawyers say, ‘seized and possessed’ of it at the time of his death, M’liss, of course, as next of kin, inherits it.”
“But how can this be proved? It is the general belief that Smith committed suicide through extreme poverty and destitution.”
Mr. Gray drew a letter from his pocket.
“You remember the memorandum I showed you, which came into my possession. Here it is; it is dated the day of his death.”
Dr. Duchesne took it and read:—
“July 17th. Five hours in drift—dipping west. Took out 20 oz.—cleaned up 40 oz.—Mem. Saw M. S.”
“This evidently refers to actual labor in the mine at the time,” said Dr. Duchesne. “But is it legally sufficient to support a claim of this magnitude? That is the only question now. You say this paper was the leaf of an old memorandum, torn off and used for a letter by M’liss; do you know where the orignal book can be found?”
“Aristides has it, or knows where it is,” answered Mr. Gray.
“Find it by all means. And get legal advice before you do anything. Go this very evening to Judge Plunkett and state your case to him. The promise of a handsome contingent fee won’t hurt M’liss’s prospects any. Remember, our ideas of abstract justice and the letter of the law in this case may be entirely different. Take Judge Plunkett your proofs; that is,” said the Doctor, stopping and eying his friend keenly, “if you have no fears for M’liss if this matter should be thoroughly ventilated.”
Mr. Gray did not falter.
“I go at once,” said he gayly, “if only to prove the child’s claim to a good name if we fail in getting her property.”
The two men left the schoolhouse together. As they reached the main street, the doctor paused:—
“You are still determined?”
“I am,” responded the young man.
“Good-night, and God speed you, then,” and the doctor left him.
The fire had been particularly severe on the legal fraternity in the settlement, and Judge Plunkett’s office, together with those of his learned brethren, had been consumed with the courthouse on the previous night. The judge’s house was on the outskirts of the village, and thither Mr. Gray proceeded. The judge was at home, but engaged at that moment. Mr. Gray would wait, and was ushered into a small room evidently used as a kitchen, but just then littered with law books, bundles of papers, and blanks that had been hastily rescued from the burning building. The sideboard groaned with the weight of several volumes of New York Reports, that seemed to impart a dusty flavor to the adjoining victual. Mr. Gray picked up a volume of supreme court decisions from the coal-scuttle, and was deep in an interesting case, when the door of the adjoining room opened and Judge Plunkett appeared.
He was an oily man of about fifty, with spectacles. He was glad to see the schoolmaster. He hoped he was not suffering from the excitement of the previous evening. For his part, the spectacle of sober citizens rising in a body to vindicate the insulted majesty of the laws of society, and of man, had always something sublime in it. And the murderer had really got away after all. And it was a narrow escape the schoolmaster had, too, at Smith’s Pocket.
Mr. Gray took advantage of the digression to state his business. He briefly recounted the circumstances of the discovery of the hidden wealth of Smith’s Pocket, and exhibited the memorandum he had shown the doctor. When he had concluded, Judge Plunkett looked at him over his spectacles, and rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
“You apprehend,” said the judge eagerly, “that you will have no difficulty in procuring this book from which the leaf was originally torn?”
“None,” replied Mr. Gray.
“Then, sir, I should give as my professional opinion that the case was already won.”
Mr. Gray shook the hand of the little man with great fervor, and thanked him for his belief. “And so this property will go entirely to M’liss?” he asked again.
“Well—ah—no—not exactly,” said Judge Plunkett, with some caution. “She will benefit by it undoubtedly—undoubtedly,” and he rubbed his hands again.
“Why not M’liss alone? There are no other claimants!” said Mr. Gray.
“I beg your pardon—you mistake,” said Judge Plunkett, with a smile. “You surely would not leave out the widow and mother?”
“Why, M’liss is an orphan,” said Mr. Gray in utter bewilderment.
“A sad mistake, sir,—a painful though natural mistake. Mr. Smith, though separated from his wife, was never divorced. A very affecting history—the old story, you know—an injured and loving woman deserted by her natural protector, but disdaining to avail herself of our legal aid. By a singular coincidence that I should have told you, I am anticipating you in this very case. Your services, however, I feel will be invaluable. Your concern for her amiable and interesting daughter Narcissa—ah, no, Melissa—will, of course, make you with us. You have never seen Mrs. Smith? A fine-looking, noble woman, sir,—though still disconsolate,—still thinking of the departed one. By another singular coincidence that I should have told you, she is here now. You shall see her, sir. Pray, let me introduce you;” and still rubbing his hands, Judge Plunkett led the way to the adjoining room.
Mr. Gray followed him mechanically. A handsome woman rose from the sofa as they entered. It was the woman he assisted to alight from the Wingdam stage.