Chapter 6

CHAPTER XXII

"Samson Agonistes"

As Revere and Barry walked down the hill the soul of the younger man was filled with light-hearted joy. He talked gayly to the old sailor, who had speedily joined him; and although the monologue—since Barry had said nothing—could not have been called a conversation, Richard did not heed his silence.

It was but a short distance from the house to the ship, but in the brief time required for the passage Barry lived over his life, or that part of it at least which was of moment. As life is compassed in instants to the drowning, so in these seconds through his mental vision swept the past. He saw again the admiral as he had seen him in the prime of manhood; he recalled once more the blue-eyed, sunny little baby he had held so tenderly in his unfamiliar arms; who, in the society of the two men, had grown to be a woman whom he loved. The days and years of happy companionship, of humble and faithful service on the one hand, of kind and generous recognition on the other, passed before him with incredible swiftness.

The thought moved him to a sudden tenderness. As his eyes fell upon the gay, debonair figure walking so carelessly by his side, he hesitated. For a moment his determination wavered. Revere did not look or act like a scoundrel, perhaps; but with equal swiftness came the terrible evidence of those papers, those damning papers in the locker! The ship, the maiden! The one was to be sold, the other betrayed. Under God, that should never be! And he had kissed her. He was bound to another. And she loved him and had wept before him. This trifler was breaking her heart.

Every laugh that rang in his ears in his changed mood added intensity to his malign purpose. He was no murderer, though. He believed himself a chosen instrument in God's hand to effect a mighty purpose,—salvation to those he loved.

Alas! humanity is never so hopelessly blind as when it does wrong, believing that God sanctions it for some longed-for end.

The two men stopped as they reached the ship.

"It's just here, sir," said the old sailor, hoarsely. "I've been examinin' her all mornin'. The supports is rottin' away. I think a touch'll send her down. Would you mind goin' in there an' takin' a look?"

He pointed toward a place on the keel enclosed between two rows of weather-worn timbers, which supported, or helped to support, the body of the ship. It was the place where, the night before, he and Emily had pledged their hearts to each other and solemnly plighted their troth. Revere recognized the spot, of course, with a thrill of recollection; but of course he made no mention of the fact. Barry knew it, however, and for that reason he had chosen it. The choice was part of his revenge. Where Revere had loved—or trifled—there he should die!

"Looks bad, doesn't it?" Revere said, walking into thecul-de-sacso carefully prepared for him, and stooping down and laying his finger on the mouldering keel.

Barry promptly followed him and stood between the outermost stanchions, barring the exit. The unconscious Revere was completely enclosed. The keel on the rotting ways was in front of him, on either side the close rows of supports, overhead the mighty floor of the ship, back of him the huge form of Captain Barry. He suspected nothing, however,—how should he?—until he turned to go back after his brief examination, when he was greatly surprised to find the way blocked.

His situation beneath the ship was such that he could not even stand upright, but was forced to remain in a crouching position of great disadvantage before the sailor. The old man stood with his arms extended from stanchion to stanchion, a perfect tower of strength and determination. It was useless for Revere, even if he had realized at that moment what was about to happen, to attempt to move him by force. In his weakened state he could do nothing. Even at his best he was no match for the huge old giant barring his way.

The old man's face was engorged with blood, his jaw was set rigidly, and a little fleck of foam hung upon his nether lip. There was such a glare of demoniac rage in his eyes, such an expression of mortal bitterness and malevolent antipathy in his grim and forbidding countenance, that the heart of the young man, though he was as brave a sailor as ever trod a deck, sank within him. He was fairly appalled by this display of sinister and unsuspected passion.

"My God, man!" cried Revere. "What's the matter? Stand aside!"

"No, sir, you can't pass me. I'll never stand aside. Say a prayer, for, as there's a ship above you an' a God that favors no traitors, your hour is come."

His usually rough voice, harsher than ever on account of his emotion, was shaking with passion.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to kill you where you stand, where you kissed her last night, you traitor, you dog, you that disgraces your uniform, you that sells my ship, mine! You that robs the old admiral of life, that betrays Miss Emily, that breaks her heart! You thought to play with that child. But I know you! I found your orders. I read 'em, curse you! To sell the ship,—God! my ship, that I've lived on, that I've loved, for twenty-five years! I read your letters writ by that woman you're goin' to marry! I saw you kiss Miss Emily, I saw her go from you cryin'! Tears for you, damn you! You've got to die, an' I'll die with you! You'll have the company of a better man to hell, where you belong!"

The old man's voice rose almost to a scream as he recounted the ideas which had goaded him to this madness. The torrential sentences of the grim indictment fairly burst from his lips with ever-increasing force and fury. Revere heard him in a daze of surprise, at first scarcely comprehending the man's meaning; yet, after all, his words explained many things. As soon as the lieutenant found voice he protested.

"Barry, I swear to you——"

"Silence! It's too late to swear!"

Revere was brave; he fain would not die without a struggle for his life. Indeed, he had not divined the manner of his death; but before he could spring forward, Barry, as if he understood what he was about to do, said, ruthlessly,—

"Stand where you are! If you move, I'll kick you to death like a dog!"

He could easily have done it, as the advantage of position was with him. Rather anything than that, thought Revere, shuddering at the brutality of it. A prisoner, he could do nothing. The man was mad. If he chose to carry out his purpose, whatever it might be, the young man was helpless.

"Very well, Barry," he said, instantly accepting the situation, and summoning all his resolution to meet the inevitable, though his cheeks and lips were white, "you saved my life once, you may take it back now. I wish I could die standing, but if I cannot, why kneeling is as good a way as any for a man to meet his Maker. You tell me to say a prayer. Here it is. May God have mercy on your soul and on my soul, and may He keep the child. That's all."

Not moving from his position, the old man began kicking at the stanchions. The one on the right was defective, and gave way and fell at the first blow. A shiver seemed to run through the ship; Richard, for the first time, divined what was about to happen. He looked forward and aft. The effective supports were all gone; some rotten ones remained, outwardly intact, but bound to go under almost any pressure; the few sound ones left had been carefully sawed almost through. Why had he not noticed it? The whole ship, therefore, practically rested on a single stout stanchion toward which Barry had already turned. It was a splendid piece of timber, and Barry had put it in himself a year before. When that came down, the ship would crash into ruins and bury them beneath it.

As the prop upon the right had fallen, the hope leaped into his mind that he might get away through the gap; but Barry reached down and grasped him by the collar with one hand the instant the way was open, and held him firmly while he turned his attention to the other stanchion. It was hopeless for Revere to attempt anything.

Strange as it may seem, there was a certain admiration for the sailor in Revere's mind, even in that frightful moment. He realized that the attack upon him was not inspired by any petty cause. Given the belief of the sailor, it was natural; he respected him for his desire to stop what he believed to be base treachery; and Revere could have loved him for his willingness to sacrifice himself to prevent what he conceived to be a crime against the life of the admiral, the happiness of Emily, and the existence of the ship.

"Barry," said Revere, calmly,—he was quite master of himself now,—as the old man struck the last sound support a heavy blow with his foot, "I must tell you, not because I am afraid to die, or because I fear you, but to acquit myself of evil purpose in your mind, that my engagement with that other woman is broken; that not an hour ago, in my mother's presence, the admiral promised to give me his granddaughter to be my wife."

"The ship?" cried Barry, hoarsely, as he felt his vengeance slipping away from him, the cause itself being taken.

"I offered to buy it myself and leave it standing until it fell."

Men do not often lie in the very presence of death, and truth spoke in the younger man's voice,—truth so clear that it pierced the tortured soul of the jealous, mad, broken sailor. But, like many another man convinced against his will, he refused to accept these statements. It was a device, a cunning attempt to stay his hand and gain a life. He would not heed.

"I don't believe you, damn you!" he said, kicking furiously at the stanchion.

The last blow loosened it. Under the tremendous pressure from above, the stick began slowly, very slowly, to slide on its wooden shoe. Its motion was scarcely perceptible, yet it moved. Barry released his hold on it, took a single backward step, and Revere rose to his feet. Barry instantly grappled him with both hands. Revere was as a child in that iron grasp. He did not struggle. He would preserve his dignity in the face of death, and to attempt to escape would have been futile, anyway. The two faces confronted one another, the sailor's convulsed with anguish and rage, the officer's pale, but smiling a little; both equally determined.

Forward and aft the rotten or sawed supports were giving way in quick succession. Above them the ship was trembling and shivering from stem to stern. A strange creaking was heard. A moaning cry, swelling into a deep groan of anguish that had a sound of despair unspeakable in it. The death-song of the ship! It was coming down on the ways! Moving toward the water at last!

Fascinated, Revere turned his face upward and watched the shivering frame above his head, murmuring, as he did so, Emily's name. The huge bulk seemed to rise in the air for a second. To his distorted vision it appeared to sway back and forth, up and down, yet it had scarcely begun to move.

Ah! was it upon them?

It all happened in a few seconds. In another it would be over. Revere closed his eyes.

At that instant a scream fraught with terrible agony broke upon the ears of the two men.

"The ship is falling!" cried Emily's voice, high-pitched, shrill with mortal terror. "Richard! What are you doing? Oh, God! Captain Barry, save him!"

"Would that she might have been spared this!" flashed into Revere's mind. He would have called to her had not something happened instantly.

The voice awakened the dormant reason in the old man's being. She loved this boy; perhaps he had told the truth.

"Save him! save him!"

The words rang in his ears. He had never disobeyed a command of hers. He would not now. Too late! There was a terrible grating sound; the last stanchion was grinding in its wooden shoe; it was sliding faster! In another moment the ship would be upon them! He had turned his head as the first cry had met his ear, and had seen in one swift glance Emily and another woman not a hundred feet away. Emily was bending forward, her hands outstretched, struggling. She would have run to them under the ship had not the other woman held her firmly, protectingly. Both girls were white as death.

Barry seized Revere by the collar and threw him violently far from him. The young man pitched downward and fell headlong on the grass in the direction of the two women. The ground sloped abruptly away toward the water on that side of the ship. In that same instant the sailor threw up two great arms and caught the impending ship. He took the place of the quivering, buckling, sliding oaken timber. For a second he stood there in mighty majesty, a pillar of strength and resolution, a tower of flesh and blood, sustaining a ship-of-the-line, a human stanchion, magnificent in the frenzied, awful expression of a power superhuman. Rigid, unbreakable, indomitable, he shored up the ship,—Atlas holding the world!

"Go!" he gasped.

Revere, who had risen instantly, stepped toward him as if to assist him.

"Go! Can't hold——"

It had come. Angry at the momentary check, the ship fell upon the man as an avalanche falls upon the mountain. Beneath it the mighty knees were bowing, the stubborn back bending, the great arms trembling.

Revere sprang backward and slipped far down the slope.

As he fell he caught sight of burning eyes from a face white as the sea-froth, of lips set and bloodless, of jaws clinched, of sweat standing upon a bronzed forehead—picture impressed upon his soul forever!

There was a mighty roaring, detonating crash and all was over.

Crushed were the mighty arms, beaten down the massive shoulders, broken the iron knees. The life of the man went out in the fall, and the blood of his heart rippled along the blocks of the keel. With a concussion like the discharge of a battery, the mighty war-monster collapsed into a shapeless mass of timber, burying beneath it the man who had loved it best. The ship that had been his own was nothing but a heap of ruins above his still heart.

A cloud of dust rose and hung over the wreck in the quiet air.

War was to have been the trade of that ship-of-the-line. Blood should have run upon her white decks, death she should have dealt out and received, great battles should have made her famous, heroic men should have written her name eternally on the red pages of her country's history. Now it was finished; and yet, in the ending at least, there had been a slight fulfilment of her destiny—to kill.

No struggle could have been more superb than the quiet one just over; no effort more magnificent, no conflict more terrible, than that between the man and the ship. No ship had ever claimed a nobler victim than Barry, after all, and no fate could have been more fitting than that which had come to man and ship together in the end.

The old war-vessel had lived through the still ages of peace, had survived the long period of decay, had endured the disintegrating assaults of time, only to accomplish her manifest purpose of destruction as she fell.

And the hand that had loved her was the hand that had laid her low!

With dreadful feelings in their hearts, the three stood looking at the ruins of the ship.

"Barry! Captain Barry!" screamed Emily, wildly. "Where is he?"

"There!" gasped Revere, hoarsely.

"And is there no hope?"

"None. He is gone forever. My God, wasn't it terrible? He held up the ship!"

"Grandfather!" cried the girl, distraught. "Let us run to him."

The old man still sat on the porch, staring at what had been the object of his gaze for so many years. There was a peaceful, yet sorrowful, look upon his face. He had seen the ship fall; he realized that his hour had come. He was fronting death and he knew it, yet he was as calm as he had been when he had fronted death many times years before. They gathered about him, understanding, helpless.

"Ay," he said, "the cruise is over. Where's Barry?"

"Under the ship, sir."

"And a good end! Strike the flag. I've lost my last command."

Instantly Revere ran to the foot of the staff and silently cast off the halliards. As the little blue flag of a rear-admiral, with its white stars, came floating gracefully, reluctantly, down from the masthead where it had flown so long, the veteran slowly and painfully rose to his feet. With his right hand he lifted the sword of theConstitution, with his old vigor and his old grace he bared the blade and brought it up before him in graceful salute, while the flag fell into Revere's arms.

"Come aboard, sir," he said, softly, as if to an Eternal Captain.

He stood erect a moment and then sank gently back into the chair. For the first time in his life he forgot the weapon in his hand. The sword fell clattering at his feet. The emblem of power, authority, and rank, all now slipping from him, lay neglected where it fell. A smile quivered upon his lips, but otherwise he sat still and quiet, looking out into the future. A few seconds. The light faded from his eyes, the life left his heart. The ship had fallen, the flag was down. It was the end.

The old man had entered the last haven, dropped anchor in the final harbor. The little breeze which lifted his white hairs so tenderly had wafted his soul into another country, a better—that is, an heavenly!

With a low cry, Emily threw herself on her knees before him.

Down on Ship House Point a light, a flame, burst out amid the torn and shattered timbers. In a few moments the ruins of the now unheeded ship were blazing furiously. Barry had cunningly planned it so that the ship, after it had buried him, should be his funeral pyre.

Fitting it might have been, thought Revere in his heart, as he looked at the flames roaring up from the ship, if the body of the admiral, like that of the Vikings of old, might have been laid upon its burning timbers.

L'Envoi.

When he was buried, his country, recognizing his merit and remembering his services again, sent its best to honor him in death. Admiral Farragut, with a brilliant staff, was there. He was of the navy of the present, Revere represented the navy of the future, and both stood together at the grave of the navy of the past.

They buried him on the high hill overlooking Ship House Point. Down on the Point, at the admiral's feet as it were, and just where the ship had stood, Revere erected a huge block of rough granite which bore this inscription:

John Barry,Chief Boatswain's Mate of theUnited States Ship-of-the-LineSusquehanna,Who perished in the fall of that ship, September 20th, 1865."Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay downhis life for his friends."

In the lofty character of his motives, in the atonement of his self-sacrifice, in the greatness of his end, his purpose of destruction was forgotten.

When his naval duties permitted, Emily and Richard often came back to the old white house on the hill in the summer, and to Charles Stewart Revere, John Barry Revere, little Emily Revere, and Richard Revere, Junior, it was the most fascinating spot on earth. They stand with their father by the huge Celtic cross which marks the admiral's resting-place, and hear again the story of the sword of theConstitution, destined one day to be drawn against the country in which it had been made. Or—and this they like even better—they sit with their mother (lovelier in Richard's eyes with every passing year) beneath the shadow of the mighty rock on the Point, while she tells them stories of old John Barry, and how at the last he held up the ship.

Part II

VERACIOUS TALESOFVARIOUS SORTS

"When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,Men will believe, because they love the lie;But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,Must have some solemn proof to pass her down."Churchill

"When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,Men will believe, because they love the lie;But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,Must have some solemn proof to pass her down."

"When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,

Men will believe, because they love the lie;

But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,

Must have some solemn proof to pass her down."

Churchill

"'Tis strange—but true, for truth is always strange,Stranger than fiction."Byron

"'Tis strange—but true, for truth is always strange,Stranger than fiction."

"'Tis strange—but true, for truth is always strange,

Stranger than fiction."

Byron

"Variety's the very spice of life."Cowper

"Variety's the very spice of life."

Cowper

Coups de Théâtre

"The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,Which God and Nature do with actors fill."Thomas Heywood

"The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,Which God and Nature do with actors fill."

"The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,

Which God and Nature do with actors fill."

Thomas Heywood

A VAUDEVILLE TURN

COMEDY

"My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on,Judge not the play before the play is done:The plot has many changes: every daySpeaks a new scene: the last act crowns the play."Francis Quarles

"My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on,Judge not the play before the play is done:The plot has many changes: every daySpeaks a new scene: the last act crowns the play."

"My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on,

Judge not the play before the play is done:

The plot has many changes: every day

Speaks a new scene: the last act crowns the play."

Francis Quarles

The most popular theatre in America, according to the advertisements, where nothing was played but the "continuous," was packed from parquet to top gallery with a perspiring crowd of pleasure-seekers one hot August night. The papers had said—viathe society columns, of course—that everybody was out of town for the summer, and incidentally, therefore, that all the ordinary places of amusement were closed, exceptLes Variétés. However, the city was not quite deserted; for, of the anchored ninety-nine hundredths of the population, all who could do so, apparently in despair of other amusement, and attracted by the popular prices, had crowded into "the home of refined vaudeville," as it was called on the programme. The house was fluttering with fans; most of the spectators and actors felt as though they were slowly deliquescing in perspiration, but, on the whole, the audience seemed to be enjoying it.

The usualmélange—how natural and appropriate it seems to use French words when treating of the vaudeville!—of entertainments entirely suited even to a Mrs. Boffin, become a world-wide type of matronly modesty and virtue—had been provided by the high-minded and scrutinizing management. Ladies in short skirts capered nimbly over the stage to the "lascivious pleasing" of the banjo; gentlemen with one leg rode marvellously endowed bicycles in impossible ways; tumblers frisked and frolicked about without the slightest regard either for temperature or gravitation; happy tramps,—at least the announcements said they were happy,—whose airy, carefully tattered garments were in entire consonance with the heated atmosphere, delivered themselves of speeches full of rare old humor and fairly bristling with Bœotian witticisms. There were men singers and women singers, musical cranks, freak piano-players, monologue artists, burlesquers, and then a little play,—at least they said it was a play.

So with these multifarious stirrers-up-of-varied-emotions the evening drew toward its close. Finally, just before the biograph went through its eye-shattering, soul-distressing performance, the little boy who walked solemnly across the stage before each turn with such a queer, self-important strut that the regular patrons—those who came early and brought their luncheon—felt disappointed when he took a vacation, set out upon the racks, provided on either side of the proscenium arch for the purpose, a tablet bearing the name "Mademoiselle Hélène."

When the curtain rose thereafter the stage was set for a woodland. The lights were turned thrillingly low, so that the expectant audience were scarcely aware how the tiny little body, whom they saw standing in the full blaze of the calcium-light ray suddenly flashed upon her from the mysterious apparatus in the balcony, had reached the centre of the stage.

The little miss was apparently not more than six years old. She had short white stockings on her plump little pink legs, and her dainty feet were covered with black ankle ties. She wore fluffy little pink and white skirts like a ballet-dancer, and with her little bare arms she blew graceful kisses to the audience as she bounded before it. With her sweet blue eyes, her golden hair, she made a beautiful picture, as she pirouetted around the stage on the tips of her ten little toes, kicking up her little legs, bending her back, wriggling her skirts in imitation of older and more sophisticated performers,—to put it mildly,—which would have been more amusing if it had not been a little pitiful.

So little, so cool, so sweet, so fresh, so innocent she seemed, that in the hot theatre on that hot night no wonder a great, rapturous "oh-h-h!" of delight and approbation burst from feminine lips—and masculine ones, too, if the truth be told. As the little maid in perfect silence continued her dance, exclamations of admiration rose from the audience, and when she finished her first turn and stopped panting, bowing, hand-kissing, the theatre rang with hand-clapping. Though some of the fathers and mothers in the audience, with thoughts of their own little folk, murmured under breaths, "What a pity! She ought to be at home in bed!" the witchery of her movements and the charm of her face were as strong upon them as they were upon the others; more so—they had children of their own.

As she stopped and stood alone on the large stage after her finalpas, bowing again and again and throwing more kisses in that sweetly infantile way, there was a commotion among the people enjoying "standing room only" in the passage-way at the back of the parquet. A tall, broad-shouldered man forced himself through the crowd, in spite of angry remonstrances and rude resistance, and ran down the aisle. His pale face was working with emotion, his eyes shining.

"Nellie!" he cried as he ran, in a voice that vibrated above the applause in the theatre. "Don't you know me? Nellie! Nellie!" he continued, stretching out his arms toward the little girl.

The noise of clapping hands died away as if by magic, as they heard the cry, full of love and longing. The man stopped in full view of the great audience. The little girl, hearing the cry, with one hand still in the air where the kisses had stopped half blown away, looked at the man over the footlights, half-dazed, apparently, by the situation.

"Papa! Papa!" she cried, suddenly awakening to life and bounding toward him. "Papa, take me home!" Every soul in the hushed theatre heard the words in the sweet treble of childhood.

"Papa! Papa!" she cried, "take me home!"

"Where's your mother, baby?" asked the man, apparently oblivious of everything but the little lass.

"She's dead, papa," answered the child, brushing her little hand across her eyes. "I'm so glad you've found me. Oh, take me away!"

"I will! I will!" said the man, desperately, forcing his way toward the stage.

Two of the ushers and an officer had hurried down the aisle and seized him by the arms. The piano-player rose from his neglected instrument and caught him also.

"Let me go!" roared the man, shoving them aside with superhuman strength, apparently. "She's my daughter, I tell you! I will have her!"

The lights on the stage were suddenly turned up. A hard-featured man came forward and grasped the child by the arm.

"What's all this row?" he cried; "I'm the manager of Mademoiselle Hélène. Her mother left the child with me. She gets good food and clothes and is well taken care of. What more does she want?"

"I want my papa! Oh, I want you!" cried the little girl.

"And you shall have me, dear."

"No," said the man on the stage, roughly, "she shall not!"

"Gentlemen," cried the other man, turning about and facing the audience. "Friends, there is my little daughter. Her mother ran away from me, left me. I haven't seen Nellie for two years. I just happened in here to-night and recognized her, and——"

"Give him his daughter," broke out a burly man in the third row of the parquet, rising in his seat as he spoke and shaking his fist at the man on the stage, "or——"

The house was in a perfect uproar now. The women in tears, the men screaming with flushed, excited faces.

"Let him have her!"

"Give her up!"

"Let the child go with her father!"

"Shame! Shame!"

"Mob him!"

"Lynch the wretch!"

The man on the stage fairly quailed before this outburst of popular passion; the ushers and officer had released the other man, but before he could take a step the local manager appeared on the stage in the midst of the confusion. Lifting his hand to the crowd, he finally succeeded in stilling the tumult.

"I have heard it all!" he cried, as soon as he could command attention. "This theatre don't want to part father and daughter. Give the child to the man. And get out of here!" he added, turning fiercely and shaking his fist at the hard-featured man on the stage.

The latter let go the child's arm and shrank back in the wings, followed by the jeers of the crowd. Then the local manager took the little girl in his arms, stepped over the footlights, and handed her to the man who had claimed her.

He lifted her up, kissed her, and pressed her tenderly to his breast. She clasped her little arms around his neck and dropped her head on his shoulder with a low cry of content.

"Thank you, sir!" said the man to the manager; "thank you all, ladies and gentlemen! Oh, I have got her back again!"

He turned with his precious burden and walked rapidly down the aisle, passed out of the door, and disappeared in the night.

The house rang with cheers. Men and women stood up and clapped and applauded and yelled like mad. When a semblance of order was restored, the local manager dismissed the audience. As he said, none of the performers were in condition to go on further after the little tragedy they had witnessed, which had ended so happily, after all. Nor was the audience in a mood for any more vaudeville after the bit of real life in which they had participated.

"How did it go off, Bill?" asked the brown-haired man of the local manager in the office half an hour later.

"Fine!" said the manager. "It was the greatest act I ever saw. You did splendidly, old man. I congratulate you."

"It has only one disadvantage," remarked the hard-featured man: "you can only do it once in each town. It's only good for one-night stands."

"And didn't Nellie do it well?" returned the other.

"She did that," replied the local manager; "she couldn't have done it better! It almost made me weep myself."

"That child's a born actress," said the hard-featured man; "she'll be a treasure some day, sure."

"She's a treasure now," replied the local manager. "What a pity we couldn't do it over to-night!"

"Do you know, men," said the brown-haired man, "I feel real guilty somehow. Seems like such a fraud——"

"Nonsense, Bill!" interrupted the manager, yet with a note of sympathy in his tone.

"Rot!" commented hard features, not the least comprehending.

"Where is she now?" asked the other, shaking his head dubiously, still uncertain and unconvinced.

"Her father and mother took her home right after the performance, and I hope she is fast asleep in her bed by this time, like a good little girl," continued the manager. "Here's your check, Bill. Be on hand Monday night when we open at X——"

THE LAST TRIBUTE TO HIS GENIUS

TRAGEDY

"I have heardThat guilty creatures sitting at a play,Have, by the very cunning of the scene,Been struck so to the soul that presentlyThey have proclaim'd their malefactions;For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ."Shakespeare

"I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play,

Have, by the very cunning of the scene,

Been struck so to the soul that presently

They have proclaim'd their malefactions;

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ."

Shakespeare

The crime had been one of peculiar atrociousness. While the little old man who kept the quaint curiosity-shop down on Linden Street seemed to have few or no friends, he was blessed with a great many acquaintances, especially among the people of the better class, for whom it was quite a fad to visit the dingy, shabby little store, with its assortment of bric-a-brac, mouldy books, articles of virtu, and antiques, genuine or spurious, valuable or worthless, all heaped about in promiscuous confusion.

Indeed, the "Major" was not the least curious object in the collection. Few people knew that the title represented gallant and youthful soldiering in Rebellion days before he shrivelled and dried up in the musty little shop. When, therefore, he was found dead among his raffle of goods, about half after seven on a summer evening, with his brains brutally beaten out by a hammer, which lay by his side, the greatest excitement was manifested everywhere. That a man should be murdered in a store on one of the main thoroughfares of the city at that hour and in that way; that the murderer should make his escape by the front door, which was left open, were in themselves sufficiently remarkable facts to engage widespread attention.

Rewards were offered by the city government; the metropolitan police force, supplemented by the best detectives that could be imported, who were paid by private subscription, worked upon the case in vain. No clew presented itself, nothing whatever was discovered. The contents of the shop were finally sold at auction and the store was closed. The estate, which was surprisingly small, contrary to the general opinion,—which, in fact, consisted merely of the proceeds of the sale of the goods,—was administered in the interests of some distant connections, and the whole affair after a short time was practically forgotten. Yet somewhere on the earth a man wandered with the guilt of murder heavy on his soul.

When it was announced in the advertisements that Sir Henry Irving, the great English actor, was to playThe Bellson Thursday night, society—and those not within the charmed circle who could scrape together the unusual price demanded by the elaborate nature of Sir Henry's staging—anticipated a great intellectual treat. To see the character of Matthias interpreted by such a master of the tragic art could hardly be called entertaining, of course, yet anything which takes us out of the humdrum routine of every-day life and quickens the blood that beats with such commonplace sluggishness ordinarily is most desirable. It is easy, therefore, to understand the avidity with which the opportunity for paying the unusual price for being shocked and terrified was welcomed.

The play, with its damnable iteration of chiming sleigh-bells and its awful portrayal of the struggles of a crime-stained human soul against diabolic memories, proceeded with that wonderful smoothness and effectiveness for which Sir Henry's productions were famous. After the short intermission at the close of the second act, the audience, most of whom were familiar with the story, settled themselves with delicious thrills of foreboding anticipation to witness the dreadful and harrowing dénouement in which the murderer's dream—that the crime of years is at last exposed and the brand of guilt is fixed upon his honored brow—is exhibited on the stage in all its terrific realism.

The house, including the stage, was totally dark. A weird, ghastly beam of light thrown from the wings fell fitfully upon the face of Sir Henry,—no, of Matthias himself. The great actor's identity was lost, merged, forgotten in the character he portrayed. Not another thing could be perceived in the theatre. The gaze of every man and woman and child in that vast assemblage was concentrated upon that beautiful, mobile, terrible face. The silence with which the audience listened to that piercing, shuddering voice out of the darkness was oppressive. Could one's attention have been distracted from that stage he might have caught the quickening intake of deep breaths, or here and there marked the low, quivering sighs with which nervous people, under the influence of that terrible portrayal of the agony of remorse and apprehension at detected murder, trembled, watched, and waited.

Yet there was nothing actually to be seen in the opera-house but the face of the actor, or sometimes a white, ghastly hand and a dim, dark suggestion of a body writhing in mortal torture, so keen as almost to pass belief, in atour de forceof unwilling confession. The detachment was perfect, the illusion was complete; there before them was a soul in judgment.

As the man was forced, under the influence of a higher power than his own, to describe the murder, the base violation of hospitality, the blow of the axe that killed a guest, by which fifteen years before he had laid the foundation of his fortune; as he was constrained to act again before his judges in hypnotic trance the awful happenings of the tragedy of that Christmas Eve, of which none had suspected him; and when, on being released from the spell, his confession was read to him by the court, and the realization came to him that the fabric of respectability which he had carefully created upon the shifting sand of murder had crashed into nothing,—who, that has seen it, or heard it, will ever forget the fearful anguish and despair of that wrecked soul?

As Matthias fell prostrate at the feet of the judges, moaning in utter desolation and abandonment, the appalling stillness was suddenly broken, and this time the sound came not from the stage. Out of the darkness of the auditorium a thin, high voice, fraught with a note of torture more real and intense, if possible, than that which the marvellous skill of the actor had produced, was hurled into the great vault of the theatre.

"No, no," it cried; "you are wrong. It was a hammer!"

The surprise of the audience for the moment held them still, while the voice shrieked out in the darkness,—

"It is enough! I'll confess. Guilty, oh, my God, guilty! It was I! The murder—light, for God's sake, light!"

A woman screamed suddenly. People rose to their feet. One of those strange, swaying movements which bespeak a panic ran through the crowd. Matthias on the stage rose instantly, faced about, and walked toward the dark footlights, a genuine horror in his soul this time, for no human voice that he had ever heard had carried such mortal pain as that which had just spoken. The theatre was filled with a babel of voices. Confused shouts and cries came from all sides.

"Lights, lights!"

"What is it?"

"Go on with the performance!"

At that instant the lights were turned up. There, in the middle aisle, a few rows from the orchestra rail, a tall, thin man, his haggard face white with emotion, his eyes staring, his teeth clinched 'neath bloodless lips, stood swaying unsteadily to and fro. His hands uplifted as if to ward off a blow, he stood utterly oblivious of everything but Matthias. From the chair beside him a woman with a face scarcely less white, in which were mingled incredulity, surprise, and horror, reached her arms up to him as if to save him.

"I can't stand it any longer!" cried the man, staring up at Matthias. "You've done it. I'll confess all! It has torn me to pieces!" he screamed, clutching at his throat. "The Major—I beat him to death with his hammer, like you did, for his money. I took it from his person. I knew it was there. I was his friend, his only friend. My God! There was no place to burn his body. He's always at my feet. He's staring at me now by you on the stage!"

Sir Henry shrank away involuntarily as the man went on.

"Pity, pity!" he wailed, staggering, stumbling forward, falling upon his knees nearer to Sir Henry. "Mercy!" he whispered at last, yet with such distinctness that they heard him in every corner of the theatre.

He knelt with his hands outstretched toward the stage, waiting for reprieve, sentence, condemnation,—God knows what.

The audience stared likewise with suspended hearts from the great but mimic figure of murder on one side of the footlights to the greater and real figure of murder upon the other. As they gazed the man wavered forward again, sank lower, his hands fell, but before he collapsed completely, an officer of the law, the first to recover his wits in the presence of the catastrophe, ran down the aisle and pounced upon him. Grasping his shoulder, he cried,—

"You're my prisoner. I arrest you!"

"Too late," whispered the man; "I'm—going—going—to plead—in another—court."

He pitched forward and fell on his face—dead. And a woman, dry-eyed with horror, old love surviving honor, respect, righteousness, knelt by his side, took his head in her arms, and strove to kiss away from his brow the mark of Cain.

So the mystery of the Major's murder was solved at last, and Sir Henry, as he thought it over in his chamber that night, realized that he had received the greatest tribute that mortal man could pay to his acting. His art had been so perfect—he had appeared the incarnation of terror, remorse, and retribution—that to that struggling soul he had been as the voice of conscience,—nay, as the very voice of God. For the man had actually given way, broken down, and confessed a secret crime under the mighty spell of his acting, and, as the criminal in the play, had died in the confession!

Out of the West

"The sun sets fair in that Western land,Romance rides over the plains;There hearts are gay at the close of day,—Man's duty's done, God reigns."Warren Giles

"The sun sets fair in that Western land,Romance rides over the plains;There hearts are gay at the close of day,—Man's duty's done, God reigns."

"The sun sets fair in that Western land,

Romance rides over the plains;

There hearts are gay at the close of day,—

Man's duty's done, God reigns."

Warren Giles

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