The Dynamiter....................................................................................................................................................1

GENTLEMEN, In the volume now in your hands, the authors have touched upon that ugly devil of crime,

with which it is your glory to have contended. It were a waste of ink to do so in a serious spirit. Let us

dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and

where reason and humanity can still relish the temptation. Horror, in this case, is due to Mr. Parnell: he sits

before posterity silent, Mr. Forster's appeal echoing down the ages. Horror is due to ourselves, in that we

have so long coquetted with political crime; not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to

consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like the schoolboy with the penny tale,

applauding what was specious. When it touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false to the

imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less cruel and no less ugly under sounding names; and

But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our defenders. Whoever be in the right in this

great and confused war of politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the bully, dishonour both

parties in this inhuman contest; your side, your part, is at least pure of doubt. Yours is the side of the child,

of the breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust. If our society were the mere kingdom of the devil

(as indeed it wears some of his colours) it yet embraces many precious elements and many innocent persons

whom it is a glory to defend. Courage and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little

recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their commemoration in an historical act. History,

which will represent Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and Gordon setting forth upon

his tragic enterprise, will not forget Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr. Cox

IT is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this volume, and yet be unacquainted with its

predecessor: the first series of NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS. The loss is yours and mine; or to be more exact,

my publishers'. But if you are thus unlucky, the least I can do is to pass you a hint. When you shall find a

reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street,

Soho, you must be prepared to recognise, under his features, no less a person than Prince Florizel of

Bohemia, formerly one of the magnates of Europe, now dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in

IN the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more precise, on the broad northern pavement of

Leicester Square, two young men of five or sixandtwenty met after years of separation. The first, who

was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best fashion, hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby

'I am indeed Paul Somerset,' returned the other, 'or what remains of him after a welldeserved experience of

poverty and law. But in you, Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said, without hyperbole,

'All,' replied Challoner, 'is not gold that glitters. But we are here in an ill posture for confidences, and

interrupt the movement of these ladies. Let us, if you please, find a more private corner.'

'If you will allow me to guide you,' replied Somerset, 'I will offer you the best cigar in London.'

And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a brisk pace to the door of a quiet

establishment in Rupert Street, Soho. The entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic Highlanders of

wood which have almost risen to the standing of antiquities; and across the windowglass, which sheltered

the usual display of pipes, tobacco, and cigars, there ran the gilded legend: 'Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T.

Godall.' The interior of the shop was small, but commodious and ornate; the salesman grave, smiling, and

urbane; and the two young men, each puffing a select regalia, had soon taken their places on a sofa of

'I am now,' said Somerset, 'a barrister; but Providence and the attorneys have hitherto denied me the

opportunity to shine. A select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my afternoons, as Mr.

Godall could testify, have been generally passed in this divan; and my mornings, I have taken the precaution

to abbreviate by not rising before twelve. At this rate, my little patrimony was very rapidly, and I am proud to

remember, most agreeably expended. Since then a gentleman, who has really nothing else to recommend him

beyond the fact of being my maternal uncle, deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if you

behold me once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in my favourite quarter, you will readily

'I should not have supposed so,' replied Challoner. 'But doubtless I met you on the way to your tailors.'

'It is a visit that I purpose to delay,' returned Somerset, with a smile. 'My fortune has definite limits. It

'That is certainly odd,' said Challoner; 'yes, certainly the coincidence is strange. I am myself reduced to the

'Such is the fact. I am, dear boy, on my last legs,' said Challoner. 'Besides the clothes in which you see me, I

have scarcely a decent trouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I would this instant set about some sort of

work or commerce. With a hundred pounds for capital, a man should push his way.'

'It may be,' returned Somerset; 'but what to do with mine is more than I can fancy. Mr. Godall,' he added,

addressing the salesman, 'you are a man who knows the world: what can a young fellow of reasonable

'It depends,' replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot. 'The power of money is an article of faith in

which I profess myself a sceptic. A hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a year; with

somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night; and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five

minutes on the Stock Exchange. If you are of that stamp of man that rises, a penny would be as useful; if you

belong to those that fall, a penny would be no more useless. When I was myself thrown unexpectedly upon

the world, it was my fortune to possess an art: I knew a good cigar. Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?'

'The answer is worthy of a sage,' returned Mr. Godall. 'And you, sir,' he continued, turning to Challoner, 'as

'How many persons are there in London,' returned the salesman, 'who have twoandthirty teeth? Believe

me, young gentleman, there are more still who play a fair hand at whist. Whist, sir, is wide as the world; 'tis

an accomplishment like breathing. I once knew a youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor

of England; the design was certainly ambitious; but I find it less excessive than that of the man who aspires to

'Dear me,' said Challoner, 'I am afraid I shall have to fall to be a working man.'

'Fall to be a working man?' echoed Mr. Godall. 'Suppose a rural dean to be unfrocked, does he fall to be a

major? suppose a captain were cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge? The ignorance of your middle

class surprises me. Outside itself, it thinks the world to lie quite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common

degradation; but to the eye of the observer, all ranks are seen to stand in ordered hierarchies, and each

adorned with its particular aptitudes and knowledge. By the defects of your education you are more

disqualified to be a working man than to be the ruler of an empire. The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learned

arts those which alone are safe from the competition of insurgent laymen are those which give his title to

Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young fellow made his appearance, and rather

bashfully requested some tobacco. He was younger than the others; and, in a somewhat meaningless and

altogether English way, he was a handsome lad. When he had been served, and had lighted his pipe and taken

his place upon the sofa, he recalled himself to Challoner by the name of Desborough.

'Desborough, to be sure,' cried Challoner. 'Well, Desborough, and what do you do?'

'Well, no,' replied Desborough, rather sulkily. 'The fact is that I am waiting for something to turn up.'

'All in the same boat!' cried Somerset. 'And have you, too, one hundred pounds?'

'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit one fact, and one fact only: that I am futile,

that he is futile, and that we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered law, smattered

letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial astrology;

and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's end, as impotent as any baby. I have a prodigious

contempt for my maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle to deny it, I should simply resolve into my

elements like an unstable mixture. I begin to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the

bottom were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man of the world is a great feature of this age; he is

possessed of an extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at home; he has seen life in

all its phases; and it is impossible but that this great habit of existence should bear fruit. I count myself a man

of the world, accomplished, CAPAPIE. So do you, Challoner. And you, Mr. Desborough?'

'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world, without a trade to cover us, but planted at the

strategic centre of the universe (for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in the midst of the chief mass

of people, and within earshot of the most continuous chink of money on the surface of the globe. Sir, as

'I take,' said Mr. Godall solemnly, 'the best paper in the world, the STANDARD.'

'Good,' resumed Somerset. 'I now hold it in my hand, the voice of the world, a telephone repeating all men's

wants. I open it, and where my eye first falls well, no, not Morrison's Pills but here, sure enough, and but

a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a

want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude: "TWO HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD. The above

reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed

yesterday in the neighbourhood of the Green Park. He was over six feet in height, with shoulders

disproportionately broad, close shaved, with black moustaches, and wearing a sealskin greatcoat." There,

'Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?' inquired Challoner.

'Do I propose it? No, sir,' cried Somerset. 'It is reason, destiny, the plain face of the world, that commands

and imposes it. Here all our merits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers of conversation, vast stores

of unconnected knowledge, all that we are and have builds up the character of the complete detective. It is, in

'The proposition is perhaps excessive,' replied Challoner; 'for hitherto I own I have regarded it as of all dirty,

'To defend society?' asked Somerset; 'to stake one's life for others? to deracinate occult and powerful evil? I

appeal to Mr. Godall. He, at least, as a philosophic lookeron at life, will spit upon such philistine opinions.

He knows that the policeman, as he is called upon continually to face greater odds, and that both worse

equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence a more noble hero than the soldier. Do you, by any

chance, deceive yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect, from the best army ever

marshalled, and on the most momentous battle field, the conduct of a common constable at Peckham Rye?'

'Nor shall we. These are the hands; but here here, sir, is the head,' cried Somerset. 'Enough; it is decreed.

'Suppose that we agreed,' retorted Challoner, 'you have no plan, no knowledge; you know not where to seek

'Challoner!' cried Somerset, 'is it possible that you hold the doctrine of Free Will? And are you devoid of any

tincture of philosophy, that you should harp on such exploded fallacies? Chance, the blind Madonna of the

Pagan, rules this terrestrial bustle; and in Chance I place my sole reliance. Chance has brought us three

together; when we next separate and go forth our several ways, Chance will continually drag before our

careless eyes a thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but to the countless mysteries by which we

live surrounded. Then comes the part of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred. This clue,

which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as a cat, he leaps upon it, makes it his, follows it

'Just so,' said Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you should recognise these virtues in yourself. But in the

meanwhile, dear boy, I own myself incapable of joining. I was neither born nor bred as a detective, but as a

placable and very thirsty gentleman; and, for my part, I begin to weary for a drink. As for clues and

adventures, the only adventure that is ever likely to occur to me will be an adventure with a bailiff.'

'Now there is the fallacy,' cried Somerset. 'There I catch the secret of your futility in life. The world teems

and bubbles with adventure; it besieges you along the street: hands waving out of windows, swindlers coming

up and swearing they knew you when you were abroad, affable and doubtful people of all sorts and

conditions begging and truckling for your notice. But not you: you turn away, you walk your seedy mill

round, you must go the dullest way. Now here, I beg of you, the next adventure that offers itself, embrace it

in with both your arms; whatever it looks, grimy or romantic, grasp it. I will do the like; the devil is in it, but

at least we shall have fun; and each in turn we shall narrate the story of our fortunes to my philosophic friend

of the divan, the great Godall, now hearing me with inward joy. Come, is it a bargain? Will you, indeed, both

promise to welcome every chance that offers, to plunge boldly into every opening, and, keeping the eye wary

and the head composed, to study and piece together all that happens? Come, promise: let me open to you the

'It is not much in my way,' said Challoner, 'but, since you make a point of it, amen.'

'O faithless ones!' cried Somerset. 'But at least I have your promises; and Godall, I perceive, is transported

'I promise myself at least much pleasure from your various narratives,' said the salesman, with the customary

'And now, gentlemen,' concluded Somerset, 'let us separate. I hasten to put myself in fortune's way. Hark

how, in this quiet corner, London roars like the noise of battle; four million destinies are here concentred; and

in the strong panoply of one hundred pounds, payable to the bearer, I am about to plunge into that web.'

MR. EDWARD CHALLONER had set up lodgings in the suburb of Putney, where he enjoyed a parlour and

bedroom and the sincere esteem of the people of the house. To this remote home he found himself, at a very

early hour in the morning of the next day, condemned to set forth on foot. He was a young man of a portly

habit; no lover of the exercises of the body; bland, sedentary, patient of delay, a prop of omnibuses. In

happier days he would have chartered a cab; but these luxuries were now denied him; and with what courage

It was then the height of the season and the summer; the weather was serene and cloudless; and as he paced

under the blinded houses and along the vacant streets, the chill of the dawn had fled, and some of the warmth

and all the brightness of the July day already shone upon the city. He walked at first in a profound

abstraction, bitterly reviewing and repenting his performances at whist; but as he advanced into the labyrinth

of the southwest, his ear was gradually mastered by the silence. Street after street looked down upon his

solitary figure, house after house echoed upon his passage with a ghostly jar, shop after shop displayed its

shuttered front and its commercial legend; and meanwhile he steered his course, under day's effulgent dome

'Here,' he reflected, 'if I were like my scatterbrained companion, here were indeed the scene where I might

look for an adventure. Here, in broad day, the streets are secret as in the blackest night of January, and in the

midst of some four million sleepers, solitary as the woods of Yucatan. If I but raise my voice I could summon

up the number of an army, and yet the grave is not more silent than this city of sleep.'

He was still following these quaint and serious musings when he came into a street of more mingled

ingredients than was common in the quarter. Here, on the one hand, framed in walls and the green tops of

trees, were several of those discreet, BIJOU residences on which propriety is apt to look askance. Here, too,

were many of the brickfronted barracks of the poor; a plaster cow, perhaps, serving as ensign to a dairy, or a

ticket announcing the business of the mangler. Before one such house, that stood a little separate among

walled gardens, a cat was playing with a straw, and Challoner paused a moment, looking on this sleek and

solitary creature, who seemed an emblem of the neighbouring peace. With the cessation of the sound of his

own steps the silence fell dead; the house stood smokeless: the blinds down, the whole machinery of life

arrested; and it seemed to Challoner that he should hear the breathing of the sleepers.

As he so stood, he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation from within. This was followed by a

monstrous hissing and simmering as from a kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the same time from

every chink of door and window spirted an illsmelling vapour. The cat disappeared with a cry. Within the

lodginghouse feet pounded on the stairs; the door flew back, emitting clouds of smoke; and two men and an

elegantly dressed young lady tumbled forth into the street and fled without a word. The hissing had already

ceased, the smoke was melting in the air, the whole event had come and gone as in a dream, and still

Challoner was rooted to the spot. At last his reason and his fear awoke together, and with the most unwonted

Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had resumed his sober gait and begun to piece together,

out of the confused report of his senses, some theory of the occurrence. But the occasion of the sounds and

stench that had so suddenly assailed him, and the strange conjunction of fugitives whom he had seen to issue

from the house, were mysteries beyond his plummet. With an obscure awe he considered them in his mind,

continuing, meanwhile, to thread the web of streets, and once more alone in morning sunshine.

In his first retreat he had entirely wandered; and now, steering vaguely west, it was his luck to light upon an

unpretending street, which presently widened so as to admit a strip of gardens in the midst. Here was quite a

stir of birds; even at that hour, the shadow of the leaves was grateful; instead of the burnt atmosphere of

cities, there was something brisk and rural in the air; and Challoner paced forward, his eyes upon the

pavement and his mind running upon distant scenes, till he was recalled, upon a sudden, by a wall that

blocked his further progress. This street, whose name I have forgotten, is no thoroughfare.

He was not the first who had wandered there that morning; for as he raised his eyes with an agreeable

deliberation, they alighted on the figure of a girl, in whom he was struck to recognise the third of the

incongruous fugitives. She had run there, seemingly, blindfold; the wall had checked her career: and being

entirely wearied, she had sunk upon the ground beside the garden railings, soiling her dress among the

summer dust. Each saw the other in the same instant of time; and she, with one wild look, sprang to her feet

Challoner was doubly startled to meet once more the heroine of his adventure, and to observe the fear with

which she shunned him. Pity and alarm, in nearly equal forces, contested the possession of his mind; and yet,

in spite of both, he saw himself condemned to follow in the lady's wake. He did so gingerly, as fearing to

increase her terrors; but, tread as lightly as he might, his footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty street. Their

sound appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for scarce had he begun to follow ere she paused. A

second time she addressed herself to flight; and a second time she paused. Then she turned about, and with

doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance of timidity, drew near to the young man. He on his side

continued to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness. At length, when they were but some

steps apart, he saw her eyes brim over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.

The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation. He was the spirit of fine courtesy, and would have

blushed to fail in his devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse from amorous

adventures. He looked east and west; but the houses that looked down upon this interview remained

inexorably shut; and he saw himself, though in the full glare of the day's eye, cut off from any human

intervention. His looks returned at last upon the suppliant. He remarked with irritation that she was charming

both in face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady undeniable; the picture of distress and

'Madam,' he said, 'I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion; and if I have appeared to follow you, the fault

is in this street, which has deceived us both.' An unmistakable relief appeared upon the lady's face. 'I might

have guessed it!' she exclaimed. 'Thank you a thousand times! But at this hour, in this appalling silence, and

among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors oh, lost in them!' she cried, her face blanching at the

words. 'I beg you to lend me your arm,' she added with the loveliest, suppliant inflection. 'I dare not go alone;

my nerve is gone I had a shock, oh, what a shock! I beg of you to be my escort.'

'She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her sobs; and the next, with feverish hurry, began to

lead him in the direction of the city. One thing was plain, among so much that was obscure: it was plain her

fears were genuine. Still, as she went, she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a

person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers. To Challoner her terror was at once repugnant and

infectious; it gained and mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and longed for release.

'Madam,' he said at last, 'I am, of course, charmed to be of use to any lady; but I confess I was bound in a

The blood of Challoner ran cold. He might have thought the lady mad; but his memory was charged with

more perilous stuff; and in view of the detonation, the smoke and the flight of the illassorted trio, his mind

was lost among mysteries. So they continued to thread the maze of streets in silence, with the speed of a

guilty flight, and both thrilling with incommunicable terrors. In time, however, and above all by their quick

pace of walking, the pair began to rise to firmer spirits; the lady ceased to peer about the corners; and

Challoner, emboldened by the resonant tread and distant figure of a constable, returned to the charge with

'I thought,' said he, in the tone of conversation, 'that I had indistinctly perceived you leaving a villa in the

'Oh!' she said, 'you need not fear to wound me by the truth. You saw me flee from a common lodginghouse,

and my companions were not gentlemen. In such a case, the best of compliments is to be frank.'

'I thought,' resumed Challoner, encouraged as much as he was surprised by the spirit of her reply, 'to have

perceived, besides, a certain odour. A noise, too I do not know to what I should compare it '

'Silence!' she cried. 'You do not know the danger you invoke. Wait, only wait; and as soon as we have left

those streets, and got beyond the reach of listeners, all shall be explained. Meanwhile, avoid the topic. What a

sight is this sleeping city!' she exclaimed; and then, with a most thrilling voice, '"Dear God," she quoted, "the

'I am more than that,' she answered, with a sigh. 'I am a girl condemned to thoughts beyond her age; and so

untoward is my fate, that this walk upon the arm of a stranger is like an interlude of peace.'

They had come by this time to the neighbourhood of the Victoria Station and here, at a street corner, the

young lady paused, withdrew her arm from Challoner's, and looked up and down as though in pain or

indecision. Then, with a lovely change of countenance, and laying her gloved hand upon his arm

'What you already think of me,' she said, 'I tremble to conceive; yet I must here condemn myself still further.

Here I must leave you, and here I beseech you to wait for my return. Do not attempt to follow me or spy upon

my actions. Suspend yet awhile your judgment of a girl as innocent as your own sister; and do not, above all,

desert me. Stranger as you are, I have none else to look to. You see me in sorrow and great fear; you are a

gentleman, courteous and kind: and when I beg for a few minutes' patience, I make sure beforehand you will

Challoner grudgingly promised; and the young lady, with a grateful eyeshot, vanished round the corner. But

the force of her appeal had been a little blunted; for the young man was not only destitute of sisters, but of

any female relative nearer than a greataunt in Wales. Now he was alone, besides, the spell that he had

hitherto obeyed began to weaken; he considered his behaviour with a sneer; and plucking up the spirit of

revolt, he started in pursuit. The reader, if he has ever plied the fascinating trade of the noctambulist, will not

be unaware that, in the neighbourhood of the great railway centres, certain early taverns inaugurate the

business of the day. It was into one of these that Challoner, coming round the corner of the block, beheld his

charming companion disappear. To say he was surprised were inexact, for he had long since left that

sentiment behind him. Acute disgust and disappointment seized upon his soul; and with silent oaths, he

damned this commonplace enchantress. She had scarce been gone a second, ere the swingdoors reopened,

and she appeared again in company with a young man of mean and slouching attire. For some five or six

exchanges they conversed together with an animated air; then the fellow shouldered again into the tap; and

the young lady, with something swifter than a walk, retraced her steps towards Challoner. He saw her

coming, a miracle of grace; her ankle, as she hurried, flashing from her dress; her movements eloquent of

speed and youth; and though he still entertained some thoughts of flight, they grew miserably fainter as the

distance lessened. Against mere beauty he was proof: it was her unmistakable gentility that now robbed him

of the courage of his cowardice. With a proved adventuress he had acted strictly on his right; with one who,

in spite of all, he could not quite deny to be a lady, he found himself disarmed. At the very corner from

whence he had spied upon her interview, she came upon him, still transfixed, and 'Ah!' she cried, with a

The sharpness of the attack somewhat restored the Squire of Dames to the possession of himself.

'Madam,' he returned, with a fair show of stoutness, 'I do not think that hitherto you can complain of any lack

of generosity; I have suffered myself to be led over a considerable portion of the metropolis; and if I now

request you to discharge me of my office of protector, you have friends at hand who will be glad of the

'It is well,' she said. 'Go! go, and may God help me! You have seen me me, an innocent girl! fleeing from a

dire catastrophe and haunted by sinister men; and neither pity, curiosity, nor honour move you to await my

explanation or to help in my distress. Go!' she repeated. 'I am lost indeed.' And with a passionate gesture she

Challoner observed her retreat and disappear, an almost intolerable sense of guilt contending with the

profound sense that he was being gulled. She was no sooner gone than the first of these feelings took the

upper hand; he felt, if he had done her less than justice, that his conduct was a perfect model of the

ungracious; the cultured tone of her voice, her choice of language, and the elegant decorum of her

movements, cried out aloud against a harsh construction; and between penitence and curiosity he began

slowly to follow in her wake. At the corner he had her once more full in view. Her speed was failing like a

stricken bird's. Even as he looked, she threw her arm out gropingly, and fell and leaned against the wall. At

the spectacle, Challoner's fortitude gave way. In a few strides he overtook her and, for the first time removing

his hat, assured her in the most moving terms of his entire respect and firm desire to help her. He spoke at

first unheeded; but gradually it appeared that she began to comprehend his words; she moved a little, and

drew herself upright; and finally, as with a sudden movement of forgiveness, turned on the young man a

countenance in which reproach and gratitude were mingled. 'Ah, madam,' he cried, 'use me as you will!' And

once more, but now with a great air of deference, he offered her the conduct of his arm. She took it with a

sigh that struck him to the heart; and they began once more to trace the deserted streets. But now her steps, as

though exhausted by emotion, began to linger on the way; she leaned the more heavily upon his arm; and he,

like the parent bird, stooped fondly above his drooping convoy. Her physical distress was not accompanied

by any failing of her spirits; and hearing her strike so soon into a playful and charming vein of talk, Challoner

could not sufficiently admire the elasticity of his companion's nature. 'Let me forget,' she had said, 'for one

half hour, let me forget;' and sure enough, with the very word, her sorrows appeared to be forgotten. Before

every house she paused, invented a name for the proprietor, and sketched his character: here lived the old

general whom she was to marry on the fifth of the next month, there was the mansion of the rich widow who

had set her heart on Challoner; and though she still hung wearily on the young man's arm, her laughter

sounded low and pleasant in his ears. 'Ah,' she sighed, by way of commentary, 'in such a life as mine I must

When they arrived, in this leisurely manner, at the head of Grosvenor Place, the gates of the park were

opening and the bedraggled company of nightwalkers were being at last admitted into that paradise of

lawns. Challoner and his companion followed the movement, and walked for awhile in silence in that

tatterdemalion crowd; but as one after another, weary with the night's patrolling of the city pavement, sank

upon the benches or wandered into separate paths, the vast extent of the park had soon utterly swallowed up

the last of these intruders; and the pair proceeded on their way alone in the grateful quiet of the morning.

Presently they came in sight of a bench, standing very open on a mound of turf. The young lady looked about

'Here,' she said, 'here at last we are secure from listeners. Here, then, you shall learn and judge my history. I

could not bear that we should part, and that you should still suppose your kindness squandered upon one who

Thereupon she sat down upon the bench, and motioning Challoner to take a place immediately beside her,

began in the following words, and with the greatest appearance of enjoyment, to narrate the story of her life.

MY father was a native of England, son of a cadet of a great, ancient, but untitled family; and by some event,

fault or misfortune, he was driven to flee from the land of his birth and to lay aside the name of his ancestors.

He sought the States; and instead of lingering in effeminate cities, pushed at once into the far West with an

exploring party of frontiersmen. He was no ordinary traveller; for he was not only brave and impetuous by

character, but learned in many sciences, and above all in botany, which he particularly loved. Thus it fell that,

before many months, Fremont himself, the nominal leader of the troop, courted and bowed to his opinion.

They had pushed, as I have said, into the still unknown regions of the West. For some time they followed the

track of Mormon caravans, guiding themselves in that vast and melancholy desert by the skeletons of men

and animals. Then they inclined their route a little to the north, and, losing even these dire memorials, came

I have often heard my father dwell upon the features of that ride: rock, cliff, and barren moor alternated; the

streams were very far between; and neither beast nor bird disturbed the solitude. On the fortieth day they had

already run so short of food that it was judged advisable to call a halt and scatter upon all sides to hunt. A

great fire was built, that its smoke might serve to rally them; and each man of the party mounted and struck

My father rode for many hours with a steep range of cliffs upon the one hand, very black and horrible; and

upon the other an unwatered vale dotted with boulders like the site of some subverted city. At length he found

the slot of a great animal, and from the clawmarks and the hair among the brush, judged that he was on the

track of a cinnamon bear of most unusual size. He quickened the pace of his steed, and still following the

quarry, came at last to the division of two watersheds. On the far side the country was exceeding intricate and

difficult, heaped with boulders, and dotted here and there with a few pines, which seemed to indicate the

neighbourhood of water. Here, then, he picketed his horse, and relying on his trusty rifle, advanced alone into

Presently, in the great silence that reigned, he was aware of the sound of running water to his right; and

leaning in that direction, was rewarded by a scene of natural wonder and human pathos strangely intermixed.

The stream ran at the bottom of a narrow and winding passage, whose walllike sides of rock were

sometimes for miles together unscalable by man. The water, when the stream was swelled with rains, must

have filled it from side to side; the sun's rays only plumbed it in the hour of noon; the wind, in that narrow

and damp funnel, blew tempestuously. And yet, in the bottom of this den, immediately below my father's

eyes as he leaned over the margin of the cliff, a party of some half a hundred men, women, and children lay

scattered uneasily among the rocks. They lay some upon their backs, some prone, and not one stirring; their

upturned faces seemed all of an extraordinary paleness and emaciation; and from time to time, above the

While he thus looked, an old man got staggering to his feet, unwound his blanket, and laid it, with great

gentleness, on a young girl who sat hard by propped against a rock. The girl did not seem to be conscious of

the act; and the old man, after having looked upon her with the most engaging pity, returned to his former bed

and lay down again uncovered on the turf. But the scene had not passed without observation even in that

starving camp. From the very outskirts of the party, a man with a white beard and seemingly of venerable

years, rose upon his knees, and came crawling stealthily among the sleepers towards the girl; and judge of my

father's indignation, when he beheld this cowardly miscreant strip from her both the coverings and return

with them to his original position. Here he lay down for a while below his spoils, and, as my father imagined,

feigned to be asleep; but presently he had raised himself again upon one elbow, looked with sharp scrutiny at

his companions, and then swiftly carried his hand into his bosom and thence to his mouth. By the movement

of his jaws he must be eating; in that camp of famine he had reserved a store of nourishment; and while his

companions lay in the stupor of approaching death, secretly restored his powers.

My father was so incensed at what he saw that he raised his rifle; and but for an accident, he has often

declared, he would have shot the fellow dead upon the spot. How different would then have been my history!

But it was not to be: even as he raised the barrel, his eye lighted on the bear, as it crawled along a ledge some

way below him; and ceding to the hunters instinct, it was at the brute, not at the man, that he discharged his

piece. The bear leaped and fell into a pool of the river; the canyon reechoed the report; and in a moment the

camp was afoot. With cries that were scarce human, stumbling, falling and throwing each other down, these

starving people rushed upon the quarry; and before my father, climbing down by the ledge, had time to reach

the level of the stream, many were already satisfying their hunger on the raw flesh, and a fire was being built

His arrival was for some time unremarked. He stood in the midst of these tottering and clayfaced

marionettes; he was surrounded by their cries; but their whole soul was fixed on the dead carcass; even those

who were too weak to move, lay, halfturned over, with their eyes riveted upon the bear; and my father,

seeing himself stand as though invisible in the thick of this dreary hubbub, was seized with a desire to weep.

A touch upon the arm restrained him. Turning about, he found himself face to face with the old man he had

so nearly killed; and yet, at the second glance, recognised him for no old man at all, but one in the full

strength of his years, and of a strong, speaking, and intellectual countenance stigmatised by weariness and

famine. He beckoned my father near the cliff, and there, in the most private whisper, begged for brandy. My

father looked at him with scorn: 'You remind me,' he said, 'of a neglected duty. Here is my flask; it contains

enough, I trust, to revive the women of your party; and I will begin with her whom I saw you robbing of her

blankets.' And with that, not heeding his appeals, my father turned his back upon the egoist.

The girl still lay reclined against the rock; she lay too far sunk in the first stage of death to have observed the

bustle round her couch; but when my father had raised her head, put the flask to her lips, and forced or aided

her to swallow some drops of the restorative, she opened her languid eyes and smiled upon him faintly. Never

was there a smile of a more touching sweetness; never were eyes more deeply violet, more honestly eloquent

of the soul! I speak with knowledge, for these were the same eyes that smiled upon me in the cradle. From

her who was to be his wife, my father, still jealously watched and followed by the man with the grey beard,

carried his attentions to all the women of the party, and gave the last drainings of his flask to those among the

'Not one drop,' replied my father; 'and if you find yourself in want, let me counsel you to put your hand into

'Ah!' cried the other, 'you misjudge me. You think me one who clings to life for selfish and commonplace

considerations. But let me tell you, that were all this caravan to perish, the world would but be lightened of a

weight. These are but human insects, pullulating, thick as Mayflies, in the slums of European cities, whom I

myself have plucked from degradation and misery, from the dungheap and ginpalace door. And you

'Oh!' cried the man, with a strange smile, 'a Mormon missionary if you will! I value not the title. Were I no

more than that, I could have died without a murmur. But with my life as a physician is bound up the

knowledge of great secrets and the future of man. This it was, when we missed the caravan, tried for a short

cut and wandered to this desolate ravine, that ate into my soul, and, in five days, has changed my beard from

'And you are a physician,' mused my father, looking on his face, 'bound by oath to succour man in his

'Sir,' returned the Mormon, 'my name is Grierson: you will hear that name again; and you will then

understand that my duty was not to this caravan of paupers, but to mankind at large.'

My father turned to the remainder of the party, who were now sufficiently revived to hear; told them that he

would set off at once to bring help from his own party; 'and,' he added, 'if you be again reduced to such

extremities, look round you, and you will see the earth strewn with assistance. Here, for instance, growing on

the under side of fissures in this cliff, you will perceive a yellow moss. Trust me, it is both edible and

'Not I alone,' returned my father, lowering his voice; 'for see where these have been scraped away. Am I

My father's comrades, he found, when he returned to the signalfire, had made a good day's hunting. They

were thus the more easily persuaded to extend assistance to the Mormon caravan; and the next day beheld

both parties on the march for the frontiers of Utah. The distance to be traversed was not great; but the nature

of the country, and the difficulty of procuring food, extended the time to nearly three weeks; and my father

had thus ample leisure to know and appreciate the girl whom he had succoured. I will call my mother Lucy.

Her family name I am not at liberty to mention; it is one you would know well. By what series of undeserved

calamities this innocent flower of maidenhood, lovely, refined by education, ennobled by the finest taste, was

thus cast among the horrors of a Mormon caravan, I must not stay to tell you. Let it suffice, that even in these

untoward circumstances, she found a heart worthy of her own. The ardour of attachment which united my

father and mother was perhaps partly due to the strange manner of their meeting; it knew, at least, no bounds

either divine or human; my father, for her sake, determined to renounce his ambitions and abjure his faith;

and a week had not yet passed upon the march before he had resigned from his party, accepted the Mormon

doctrine, and received the promise of my mother's hand on the arrival of the party at Salt Lake.

The marriage took place, and I was its only offspring. My father prospered exceedingly in his affairs,

remained faithful to my mother; and though you may wonder to hear it, I believe there were few happier

homes in any country than that in which I saw the light and grew to girlhood. We were, indeed, and in spite

of all our wealth, avoided as heretics and halfbelievers by the more precise and pious of the faithful: Young

himself, that formidable tyrant, was known to look askance upon my father's riches; but of this I had no

guess. I dwelt, indeed, under the Mormon system, with perfect innocence and faith. Some of our friends had

many wives; but such was the custom; and why should it surprise me more than marriage itself? From time to

time one of our rich acquaintances would disappear, his family be broken up, his wives and houses shared

among the elders of the Church, and his memory only recalled with bated breath and dreadful headshakings.

When I had been very still, and my presence perhaps was forgotten, some such topic would arise among my

elders by the evening fire; I would see them draw the closer together and look behind them with scared eyes;

and I might gather from their whisperings how some one, rich, honoured, healthy, and in the prime of his

days, some one, perhaps, who had taken me on his knees a week before, had in one hour been spirited from

home and family, and vanished like an image from a mirror, leaving not a print behind. It was terrible,

indeed; but so was death, the universal law. And even if the talk should wax still bolder, full of ominous

silences and nods, and I should hear named in a whisper the Destroying Angels, how was a child to

understand these mysteries? I heard of a Destroying Angel as some more happy child might hear in England

of a bishop or a rural dean, with vague respect and without the wish for further information. Life anywhere,

in society as in nature, rests upon dread foundations; I beheld safe roads, a garden blooming in the desert,

pious people crowding to worship; I was aware of my parents' tenderness and all the harmless luxuries of my

existence; and why should I pry beneath this honest seeming surface for the mysteries on which it stood?

We dwelt originally in the city; but at an early date we moved to a beautiful house in a green dingle, musical

with splashing water, and surrounded on almost every side by twenty miles of poisonous and rocky desert.

The city was thirty miles away; there was but one road, which went no further than my father's door; the rest

were bridletracks impassable in winter; and we thus dwelt in a solitude inconceivable to the European. Our

only neighbour was Dr. Grierson. To my young eyes, after the hairoiled, chin bearded elders of the city,

and the illfavoured and mentally stunted women of their harems, there was something agreeable in the

correct manner, the fine bearing, the thin white hair and beard, and the piercing looks of the old doctor. Yet,

though he was almost our only visitor, I never wholly overcame a sense of fear in his presence; and this

disquietude was rather fed by the awful solitude in which he lived and the obscurity that hung about his

occupations. His house was but a mile or two from ours, but very differently placed. It stood overlooking the

road on the summit of a steep slope, and planted close against a range of overhanging bluffs. Nature, you

would say, had here desired to imitate the works of man; for the slope was even, like the glacis of a fort, and

the cliffs of a constant height, like the ramparts of a city. Not even spring could change one feature of that

desolate scene; and the windows looked down across a plain, snowy with alkali, to ranges of cold stone

sierras on the north. Twice or thrice I remember passing within view of this forbidding residence; and seeing

it always shuttered, smokeless, and deserted, I remarked to my parents that some day it would certainly be

'Ah, no,' said my father, 'never robbed;' and I observed a strange conviction in his tone.

At last, and not long before the blow fell on my unhappy family, I chanced to see the doctor's house in a new

light. My father was ill; my mother confined to his bedside; and I was suffered to go, under the charge of our

driver, to the lonely house some twenty miles away, where our packages were left for us. The horse cast a

shoe; night overtook us halfway home; and it was well on for three in the morning when the driver and I,

alone in a light waggon, came to that part of the road which ran below the doctor's house. The moon swam

clear; the cliffs and mountains in this strong light lay utterly deserted; but the house, from its station on the

top of the long slope and close under the bluff, not only shone abroad from every window like a place of

festival, but from the great chimney at the west end poured forth a coil of smoke so thick and so voluminous,

that it hung for miles along the windless night air, and its shadow lay far abroad in the moonlight upon the

glittering alkali. As we continued to draw near, besides, a regular and panting throb began to divide the

silence. First it seemed to me like the beating of a heart; and next it put into my mind the thought of some

giant, smothered under mountains and still, with incalculable effort, fetching breath. I had heard of the

railway, though I had not seen it, and I turned to ask the driver if this resembled it. But some look in his eye,

some pallor, whether of fear or moonlight on his face, caused the words to die upon my lips. We continued,

therefore, to advance in silence, till we were close below the lighted house; when suddenly, without one

premonitory rustle, there burst forth a report of such a bigness that it shook the earth and set the echoes of the

mountains thundering from cliff to cliff. A pillar of amber flame leaped from the chimneytop and fell in

multitudes of sparks; and at the same time the lights in the windows turned for one instant ruby red and then

expired. The driver had checked his horse instinctively, and the echoes were still rumbling farther off among

the mountains, when there broke from the now darkened interior a series of yells whether of man or woman

it was impossible to guess the door flew open, and there ran forth into the moonlight, at the top of the long

slope, a figure clad in white, which began to dance and leap and throw itself down, and roll as if in agony,

before the house. I could no more restrain my cries; the driver laid his lash about the horse's flank, and we

fled up the rough track at the peril of our lives; and did not draw rein till, turning the corner of the mountain,

we beheld my father's ranch and deep, green groves and gardens, sleeping in the tranquil light.

This was the one adventure of my life, until my father had climbed to the very topmost point of material

prosperity, and I myself had reached the age of seventeen. I was still innocent and merry like a child; tended

my garden or ran upon the hills in glad simplicity; gave not a thought to coquetry or to material cares; and if

my eye rested on my own image in a mirror or some sylvan spring, it was to seek and recognise the features

of my parents. But the fears which had long pressed on others were now to be laid on my youth. I had thrown

myself, one sultry, cloudy afternoon, on a divan; the windows stood open on the verandah, where my mother

sat with her embroidery; and when my father joined her from the garden, their conversation, clearly audible

'Yes,' continued my father, 'I have received today a list of all that I possess; of all, I say; of what I have lent

privately to men whose lips are sealed with terror; of what I have buried with my own hand on the bare

mountain, when there was not a bird in heaven. Does the air, then, carry secrets? Are the hills of glass? Do

the stones we tread upon preserve the footprint to betray us? Oh, Lucy, Lucy, that we should have come to

'But this,' returned my mother, 'is no very new or very threatening event. You are accused of some

concealment. You will pay more taxes in the future, and be mulcted in a fine. It is disquieting, indeed, to find

our acts so spied upon, and the most private known. But is this new? Have we not long feared and suspected

'Ay, and our shadows!' cried my father. 'But all this is nothing. Here is the letter that accompanied the list.'

'I see,' she said at last; and then, with the tone of one reading: '"From a believer so largely blessed by

Providence with this world's goods,"' she continued, '"the Church awaits in confidence some signal mark of

'These are the words,' replied my father. 'Lucy, you remember Priestley? Two days before he disappeared, he

carried me to the summit of an isolated butte; we could see around us for ten miles; sure, if in any quarter of

this land a man were safe from spies, it were in such a station; but it was in the very aguefit of terror that he

told me, and that I heard, his story. He had received a letter such as this; and he submitted to my approval an

answer, in which he offered to resign a third of his possessions. I conjured him, as he valued life, to raise his

offering; and, before we parted, he had doubled the amount. Well, two days later he was gone gone from

the chief street of the city in the hour of noon and gone for ever. O God!' cried my father, 'by what art do

they thus spirit out of life the solid body? What death do they command that leaves no traces? that this

material structure, these strong arms, this skeleton that can resist the grave for centuries, should be thus reft in

a moment from the world of sense? A horror dwells in that thought more awful than mere death.'

'Dismiss the thought,' replied my father. 'He now knows all that I can teach, and will do naught to save me.

His power, besides, is small, his own danger not improbably more imminent than mine; for he, too, lives

apart; he leaves his wives neglected and unwatched; he is openly cited for an unbeliever; and unless he buys

security at a more awful price but no; I will not believe it: I have no love for him, but I will not believe it.'

'Believe what?' asked my mother; and then, with a change of note, 'But oh, what matters it?' she cried.

'It is in vain,' returned my father. 'I should but involve you in my fate. To leave this land is hopeless: we are

'We can but die then,' replied my mother. 'Let us at least die together. Let not Asenath and myself survive

My father was unable to resist her tender violence; and though I could see he nourished not one spark of

hope, he consented to desert his whole estate, beyond some hundreds of dollars that he had by him at the

moment, and to flee that night, which promised to be dark and cloudy. As soon as the servants were asleep,

he was to load two mules with provisions; two others were to carry my mother and myself; and, striking

through the mountains by an unfrequented trail, we were to make a fair stroke for liberty and life. As soon as

they had thus decided, I showed myself at the window, and, owning that I had heard all, assured them that

they could rely on my prudence and devotion. I had no fear, indeed, but to show myself unworthy of my

birth; I held my life in my hand without alarm; and when my father, weeping upon my neck, had blessed

Heaven for the courage of his child, it was with a sentiment of pride and some of the joy that warriors take in

Before midnight, under an obscure and starless heaven, we had left far behind us the plantations of the valley,

and were mounting a certain canyon in the hills, narrow, encumbered with great rocks, and echoing with the

roar of a tumultuous torrent. Cascade after cascade thundered and hung up its flag of whiteness in the night,

or fanned our faces with the wet wind of its descent. The trail was breakneck, and led to famineguarded

deserts; it had been long since deserted for more practicable routes; and it was now a part of the world untrod

from year to year by human footing. Judge of our dismay, when turning suddenly an angle of the cliffs, we

found a bright bonfire blazing by itself under an impending rock; and on the face of the rock, drawn very

rudely with charred wood, the great Open Eye which is the emblem of the Mormon faith. We looked upon

each other in the firelight; my mother broke into a passion of tears; but not a word was said. The mules were

turned about; and leaving that great eye to guard the lonely canyon, we retraced our steps in silence. Day had

What answer my father sent I was not told; but two days later, a little before sundown, I saw a plain,

honestlooking man ride slowly up the road in a great pother of dust. He was clad in homespun, with a broad

straw hat; wore a patriarchal beard; and had an air of a simple rustic farmer, that was, in my eyes, very

reassuring. He was, indeed, a very honest man and pious Mormon; with no liking for his errand, though

neither he nor any one in Utah dared to disobey; and it was with every mark of diffidence that he had had

himself announced as Mr. Aspinwall, and entered the room where our unhappy family was gathered. My

mother and me, he awkwardly enough dismissed; and as soon as he was alone with my father laid before him

a blank signature of President Young's, and offered him a choice of services: either to set out as a missionary

to the tribes about the White Sea, or to join the next day, with a party of Destroying Angels, in the massacre

of sixty German immigrants. The last, of course, my father could not entertain, and the first he regarded as a

pretext: even if he could consent to leave his wife defenceless, and to collect fresh victims for the tyranny

under which he was himself oppressed, he felt sure he would never be suffered to return. He refused both;

and Aspinwall, he said, betrayed sincere emotion, part religious, at the spectacle of such disobedience, but

part human, in pity for my father and his family. He besought him to reconsider his decision; and at length,

finding he could not prevail, gave him till the moon rose to settle his affairs, and say farewell to wife and

I dare not dwell upon the hours that followed: they fled all too fast; and presently the moon outtopped the

eastern range, and my father and Mr. Aspinwall set forth, side by side, on their nocturnal journey. My

mother, though still bearing an heroic countenance, had hastened to shut herself in her apartment,

thenceforward solitary; and I, alone in the dark house, and consumed by grief and apprehension, made haste

to saddle my Indian pony, to ride up to the corner of the mountain, and to enjoy one farewell sight of my

departing father. The two men had set forth at a deliberate pace; nor was I long behind them, when I reached

the point of view. I was the more amazed to see no moving creature in the landscape. The moon, as the

saying is, shone bright as day; and nowhere, under the whole arch of night, was there a growing tree, a bush,

a farm, a patch of tillage, or any evidence of man, but one. From the corner where I stood, a rugged bastion of

the line of bluffs concealed the doctor's house; and across the top of that projection the soft night wind carried

and unwound about the hills a coil of sable smoke. What fuel could produce a vapour so sluggish to dissipate

in that dry air, or what furnace pour it forth so copiously, I was unable to conceive; but I knew well enough

that it came from the doctor's chimney; I saw well enough that my father had already disappeared; and in

despite of reason, I connected in my mind the loss of that dear protector with the ribbon of foul smoke that

Days passed, and still my mother and I waited in vain for news; a week went by, a second followed, but we

heard no word of the father and husband. As smoke dissipates, as the image glides from the mirror, so in the

ten or twenty minutes that I had spent in getting my horse and following upon his trail, had that strong and

brave man vanished out of life. Hope, if any hope we had, fled with every hour; the worst was now certain for

my father, the worst was to be dreaded for his defenceless family. Without weakness, with a desperate calm

at which I marvel when I look back upon it, the widow and the orphan awaited the event. On the last day of

the third week we rose in the morning to find ourselves alone in the house, alone, so far as we searched, on

the estate; all our attendants, with one accord, had fled: and as we knew them to be gratefully devoted, we

drew the darkest intimations from their flight. The day passed, indeed, without event; but in the fall of the

evening we were called at last into the verandah by the approaching clink of horse's hoofs.

The doctor, mounted on an Indian pony, rode into the garden, dismounted, and saluted us. He seemed much

more bent, and his hair more silvery than ever; but his demeanour was composed, serious, and not unkind.

'Madam,' said he, 'I am come upon a weighty errand; and I would have you recognise it as an effect of

kindness in the President, that he should send as his ambassador your only neighbour and your husband's

'Sir,' said my mother, 'I have but one concern, one thought. You know well what it is. Speak: my husband?'

'Madam,' returned the doctor, taking a chair on the verandah, 'if you were a silly child, my position would

now be painfully embarrassing. You are, on the other hand, a woman of great intelligence and fortitude: you

have, by my forethought, been allowed three weeks to draw your own conclusions and to accept the

My mother was as pale as death, and trembled like a reed; I gave her my hand, and she kept it in the folds of

her dress and wrung it till I could have cried aloud. 'Then, sir,' said she at last, 'you speak to deaf ears. If this

be indeed so, what have I to do with errands? What do I ask of Heaven but to die?'

'Come,' said the doctor, 'command yourself. I bid you dismiss all thoughts of your late husband, and bring a

'You know?' broke out the poor woman. 'Then it was you who did the deed! I tear off the mask, and with

dread and loathing see you as you are you, whom the poor fugitive beholds in nightmares, and awakes

'Well, madam, and what then?' returned the doctor. 'Have not my fate and yours been similar? Are we not

both immured in this strong prison of Utah? Have you not tried to flee, and did not the Open Eye confront

you in the canyon? Who can escape the watch of that unsleeping eye of Utah? Not I, at least. Horrible tasks

have, indeed, been laid upon me; and the most ungrateful was the last; but had I refused my offices, would

that have spared your husband? You know well it would not. I, too, had perished along with him; nor would I

have been able to alleviate his last moments, nor could I today have stood between his family and the hand

'Young lady,' answered the doctor, 'I both could and did; and you will live to thank me for that baseness. You

have a spirit, Asenath, that it pleases me to recognise. But we waste time. Mr. Fonblanque's estate reverts, as

you doubtless imagine, to the Church; but some part of it has been reserved for him who is to marry the

family; and that person, I should perhaps tell you without more delay, is no other than myself.'

At this odious proposal my mother and I cried out aloud, and clung together like lost souls.

'It is as I supposed,' resumed the doctor, with the same measured utterance. 'You recoil from this

arrangement. Do you expect me to convince you? You know very well that I have never held the Mormon

view of women. Absorbed in the most arduous studies, I have left the slatterns whom they call my wives to

scratch and quarrel among themselves; of me, they have had nothing but my purse; such was not the union I

desired, even if I had the leisure to pursue it. No: you need not, madam, and my old friend' and here the

doctor rose and bowed with something of gallantry 'you need not apprehend my importunities. On the

contrary, I am rejoiced to read in you a Roman spirit; and if I am obliged to bid you follow me at once, and

that in the name, not of my wish, but of my orders, I hope it will be found that we are of a common mind.'

So, bidding us dress for the road, he took a lamp (for the night had now fallen) and set off to the stable to

'Not that, at least,' replied my mother, shuddering. 'So far we can trust him. I seem to read among his words a

certain tragic promise. Asenath, if I leave you, if I die, you will not forget your miserable parents?'

Thereupon we fell to crosspurposes: I beseeching her to explain her words; she putting me by, and

continuing to recommend the doctor for a friend. 'The doctor!' I cried at last; 'the man who killed my father?'

'Nay,' said she, 'let us be just. I do believe before, Heaven, he played the friendliest part. And he alone,

At this the doctor returned, leading our two horses; and when we were all in the saddle, he bade me ride on

before, as he had matter to discuss with Mrs. Fonblanque. They came at a foot's pace, eagerly conversing in a

whisper; and presently after the moon rose and showed them looking eagerly in each other's faces as they

went, my mother laying her hand upon the doctor's arm, and the doctor himself, against his usual custom,

At the foot of the track which ascended the talus of the mountain to his door, the doctor overtook me at a trot.

'Here,' he said, 'we shall dismount; and as your mother prefers to be alone, you and I shall walk together to

'I give you my word,' he said, and helped me to alight. 'We leave the horses here,' he added. 'There are no

The track mounted gradually, keeping the house in view. The windows were once more bright; the chimney

once more vomited smoke; but the most absolute silence reigned, and, but for the figure of my mother very

slowly following in our wake, I felt convinced there was no human soul within a range of miles. At the

thought, I looked upon the doctor, gravely walking by my side, with his bowed shoulders and white hair, and

then once more at his house, lit up and pouring smoke like some industrious factory. And then my curiosity

broke forth. 'In Heaven's name,' I cried, 'what do you make in this inhuman desert?'

'This is not the first time,' said he, 'that you have seen my furnaces alight. One morning, in the small hours, I

saw you driving past; a delicate experiment miscarried; and I cannot acquit myself of having startled either

'What!' cried I, beholding again in fancy the antics of the figure, 'could that be you?'

'It was I,' he replied; 'but do not fancy that I was mad. I was in agony. I had been scalded cruelly.'

We were now near the house, which, unlike the ordinary houses of the country, was built of hewn stone and

very solid. Stone, too, was its foundation, stone its background. Not a blade of grass sprouted among the

broken mineral about the walls, not a flower adorned the windows. Over the door, by way of sole adornment,

the Mormon Eye was rudely sculptured; I had been brought up to view that emblem from my childhood; but

since the night of our escape, it had acquired a new significance, and set me shrinking. The smoke rolled

voluminously from the chimney top, its edges ruddy with the fire; and from the far corner of the building,

The doctor opened the door and paused upon the threshold. 'You ask me what I make here,' he observed.

'Child,' he replied, 'look at me: am I not old and broken? Of us two, which is the stronger, the young maiden

I bowed, and passing by him, entered a vestibule or kitchen, lit by a good fire and a shaded readinglamp. It

was furnished only with a dresser, a rude table, and some wooden benches; and on one of these the doctor

motioned me to take a seat; and passing by another door into the interior of the house, he left me to myself.

Presently I heard the jar of iron from the far end of the building; and this was followed by the same throbbing

noise that had startled me in the valley, but now so near at hand as to be menacing by loudness, and even to

shake the house with every recurrence of the stroke. I had scarce time to master my alarm when the doctor

returned, and almost in the same moment my mother appeared upon the threshold. But how am I to describe

to you the peace and ravishment of that face? Years seemed to have passed over her head during that brief

ride, and left her younger and fairer; her eyes shone, her smile went to my heart; she seemed no more a

woman but the angel of ecstatic tenderness. I ran to her in a kind of terror; but she shrank a little back and

laid her finger on her lips, with something arch and yet unearthly. To the doctor, on the contrary, she reached

out her hand as to a friend and helper; and so strange was the scene that I forgot to be offended.

'Lucy,' said the doctor, 'all is prepared. Will you go alone, or shall your daughter follow us?'

'Let Asenath come,' she answered, 'dear Asenath! At this hour, when I am purified of fear and sorrow, and

already survive myself and my affections, it is for your sake, and not for mine, that I desire her presence.

Were she shut out, dear friend, it is to be feared she might misjudge your kindness.'

But my mother, with her radiant smile, said only 'Hush!' as though I were a child again, and tossing in some

feverfit; and the doctor bade me be silent and trouble her no more. 'You have made a choice,' he continued,

addressing my mother, 'that has often strangely tempted me. The two extremes: all, or else nothing; never, or

this very hour upon the clock these have been my incongruous desires. But to accept the middle term, to be

content with a halfgift, to flicker awhile and to burn out never for an hour, never since I was born, has

satisfied the appetite of my ambition.' He looked upon my mother fixedly, much of admiration and some

touch of envy in his eyes; then, with a profound sigh, he led the way into the inner room.

It was very long. From end to end it was lit up by many lamps, which by the changeful colour of their light,

and by the incessant snapping sounds with which they burned, I have since divined to be electric. At the

extreme end an open door gave us a glimpse into what must have been a leanto shed beside the chimney;

and this, in strong contrast to the room, was painted with a red reverberation as from furnace doors. The

walls were lined with books and glazed cases, the tables crowded with the implements of chemical research;

great glass accumulators glittered in the light; and through a hole in the gable near the shed door, a heavy

drivingbelt entered the apartment and ran overhead upon steel pulleys, with clumsy activity and many

ghostly and fluttering sounds. In one corner I perceived a chair resting upon crystal feet, and curiously

'Asenath,' said my mother, 'in this sad end of my life I have found one helper. Look upon him: it is Doctor

She sate upon the chair, and took in her hands the globes that terminated the arms.

'Am I right?' she asked, and looked upon the doctor with such a radiancy of face that I trembled for her

reason. Once more the doctor bowed, but this time leaning hard against the wall. He must have touched a

spring. The least shock agitated my mother where she sat; the least passing jar appeared to cross her features;

and she sank back in the chair like one resigned to weariness. I was at her knees that moment; but her hands

fell loosely in my grasp; her face, still beatified with the same touching smile, sank forward on her bosom:

I do not know how long may have elapsed before, raising for a moment my tearful face, I met the doctor's

eyes. They rested upon mine with such a depth of scrutiny, pity, and interest, that even from the freshness of

'Enough,' he said, 'to lamentation. Your mother went to death as to a bridal, dying where her husband died. It

I followed him, like a person in a dream; he made me sit by the fire, he gave me wine to drink; and then,

'You are now, my child, alone in the world, and under the immediate watch of Brigham Young. It would be

your lot, in ordinary circumstances, to become the fiftieth bride of some ignoble elder, or by particular

fortune, as fortune is counted in this land, to find favour in the eyes of the President himself. Such a fate for a

girl like you were worse than death; better to die as your mother died than to sink daily deeper in the mire of

this pit of woman's degradation. But is escape conceivable? Your father tried; and you beheld yourself with

what security his jailers acted, and how a dumb drawing on a rock was counted a sufficient sentry over the

avenues of freedom. Where your father failed, will you be wiser or more fortunate? or are you, too, helpless

I had followed his words with changing emotion, but now I believed I understood.

'I see,' I cried; 'you judge me rightly. I must follow where my parents led; and oh! I am not only willing, I am

'No,' replied the doctor, 'not death for you. The flawed vessel we may break, but not the perfect. No, your

mother cherished a different hope, and so do I. I see,' he cried, 'the girl develop to the completed woman, the

plan reach fulfilment, the promise ay, outdone! I could not bear to arrest so lively, so comely a process. It

was your mother's thought,' he added, with a change of tone, 'that I should marry you myself.' I fear I must

have shown a perfect horror of aversion from this fate, for he made haste to quiet me. 'Reassure yourself,

Asenath,' he resumed. 'Old as I am, I have not forgotten the tumultuous fancies of youth. I have passed my

days, indeed, in laboratories; but in all my vigils I have not forgotten the tune of a young pulse. Age asks with

timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking fortune by the beard, demands joy like a right. These

things I have not forgotten; none, rather, has more keenly felt, none more jealously considered them; I have

but postponed them to their day. See, then: you stand without support; the only friend left to you, this old

investigator, old in cunning, young in sympathy. Answer me but one question: Are you free from the

entanglement of what the world calls love? Do you still command your heart and purposes? or are you fallen

I answered him in broken words; my heart, I think I must have told him, lay with my dead parents.

'It is enough,' he said. 'It has been my fate to be called on often, too often, for those services of which we

spoke to night; none in Utah could carry them so well to a conclusion; hence there has fallen into my hands

a certain share of influence which I now lay at your service, partly for the sake of my dead friends, your

parents; partly for the interest I bear you in your own right. I shall send you to England, to the great city of

London, there to await the bridegroom I have selected. He shall be a son of mine, a young man suitable in age

and not grossly deficient in that quality of beauty that your years demand. Since your heart is free, you may

well pledge me the sole promise that I ask in return for much expense and still more danger: to await the

I sat awhile stunned. The doctor's marriages, I remembered to have heard, had been unfruitful; and this added

perplexity to my distress. But I was alone, as he had said, alone in that dark land; the thought of escape, of

any equal marriage, was already enough to revive in me some dawn of hope; and in what words I know not, I

He seemed more moved by my consent than I could reasonably have looked for. 'You shall see,' he cried;

'you shall judge for yourself.' And hurrying to the next room he returned with a small portrait somewhat

coarsely done in oils. It showed a man in the dress of nearly forty years before, young indeed, but still

recognisable to be the doctor. 'Do you like it?' he asked. 'That is myself when I was young. My my boy will

be like that, like but nobler; with such health as angels might condescend to envy; and a man of mind,

Asenath, of commanding mind. That should be a man, I think; that should be one among ten thousand. A man

like that one to combine the passions of youth with the restraint, the force, the dignity of age one to fill all

the parts and faculties, one to be man's epitome say, will that not satisfy the needs of an ambitious girl?

Say, is not that enough?' And as he held the picture close before my eyes, his hands shook.

I told him briefly I would ask no better, for I was transpierced with this display of fatherly emotion; but even

as I said the words, the most insolent revolt surged through my arteries. I held him in horror, him, his portrait,

and his son; and had there been any choice but death or a Mormon marriage, I declare before Heaven I had

'It is well,' he replied, 'and I had rightly counted on your spirit. Eat, then, for you have far to go.' So saying, he

set meat before me; and while I was endeavouring to obey, he left the room and returned with an armful of

coarse raiment. 'There,' said he, 'is your disguise. I leave you to your toilet.'

The clothes had probably belonged to a somewhat lubberly boy of fifteen; and they hung about me like a

sack, and cruelly hampered my movements. But what filled me with uncontrollable shudderings, was the

problem of their origin and the fate of the lad to whom they had belonged. I had scarcely effected the

exchange when the doctor returned, opened a back window, helped me out into the narrow space between the

house and the overhanging bluffs, and showed me a ladder of iron footholds mortised in the rock. 'Mount,' he

said, 'swiftly. When you are at the summit, walk, so far as you are able, in the shadow of the smoke. The

smoke will bring you, sooner or later, to a canyon; follow that down, and you will find a man with two

horses. Him you will implicitly obey. And remember, silence! That machinery, which I now put in motion for

The ascent was easy. Arrived at the top of the cliff, I saw before me on the other side a vast and gradual

declivity of stone, lying bare to the moon and the surrounding mountains. Nowhere was any vantage or

concealment; and knowing how these deserts were beset with spies, I made haste to veil my movements

under the blowing trail of smoke. Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind, and I had no more

substantial curtain than its moonthrown shadow; sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would

walk in it, no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog. But, one way or another, the smoke of

that illomened furnace protected the first steps of my escape, and led me unobserved to the canyon.

There, sure enough, I found a taciturn and sombre man beside a pair of saddlehorses; and thenceforward, all

night long, we wandered in silence by the most occult and dangerous paths among the mountains. A little

before the dayspring we took refuge in a wet and gusty cavern at the bottom of a gorge; lay there all day

concealed; and the next night, before the glow had faded out of the west, resumed our wanderings. About

noon we stopped again, in a lawn upon a little river, where was a screen of bushes; and here my guide,

handing me a bundle from his pack, bade me change my dress once more. The bundle contained clothing of

my own, taken from our house, with such necessaries as a comb and soap. I made my toilet by the mirror of a

quiet pool; and as I was so doing, and smiling with some complacency to see myself restored to my own

image, the mountains rang with a scream of far more than human piercingness; and while I still stood

astonished, there sprang up and swiftly increased a storm of the most awful and earthrending sounds. Shall I

own to you, that I fell upon my face and shrieked? And yet this was but the overland train winding among the

near mountains: the very means of my salvation: the strong wings that were to carry me from Utah!

When I was dressed, the guide gave me a bag, which contained, he said, both money and papers; and telling

me that I was already over the borders in the territory of Wyoming, bade me follow the stream until I reached

the railway station, half a mile below. 'Here,' he added, 'is your ticket as far as Council Bluffs. The East

express will pass in a few hours.' With that, he took both horses, and, without further words or any salutation,

Three hours afterwards, I was seated on the end platform of the train as it swept eastward through the gorges

and thundered in tunnels of the mountain. The change of scene, the sense of escape, the still throbbing terror

of pursuit above all, the astounding magic of my new conveyance, kept me from any logical or melancholy

thought. I had gone to the doctor's house two nights before prepared to die, prepared for worse than death;

what had passed, terrible although it was, looked almost bright compared to my anticipations; and it was not

till I had slept a full night in the flying palace car, that I awoke to the sense of my irreparable loss and to some

reasonable alarm about the future. In this mood, I examined the contents of the bag. It was well supplied with

gold; it contained tickets and complete directions for my journey as far as Liverpool, and a long letter from

the doctor, supplying me with a fictitious name and story, recommending the most guarded silence, and

bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son. All then had been arranged beforehand: he had counted

upon my consent, and what was tenfold worse, upon my mother's voluntary death. My horror of my only

friend, my aversion for this son who was to marry me, my revolt against the whole current and conditions of

my life, were now complete. I was sitting stupefied by my distress and helplessness, when, to my joy, a very

pleasant lady offered me her conversation. I clutched at the relief; and I was soon glibly telling her the story

in the doctor's letter: how I was a Miss Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I

had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my instructions, and, as the lady still continued

to ply me with questions, began to embroider on my own account. This soon carried one of my inexperience

beyond her depth; and I had already remarked a shadow on the lady's face, when a gentleman drew near and

'Miss Gould, I believe?' said he; and then, excusing himself to the lady by the authority of my guardian, drew

me to the fore platform of the Pullman car. 'Miss Gould,' he said in my ear, 'is it possible that you suppose

yourself in safety? Let me completely undeceive you. One more such indiscretion and you return to Utah.

And, in the meanwhile, if this woman should again address you, you are to reply with these words: "Madam,

I do not like you, and I will be obliged if you will suffer me to choose my own associates."'

Alas, I had to do as I was bid; this lady, to whom I already felt myself drawn with the strongest cords of

sympathy, I dismissed with insult; and thenceforward, through all that day, I sat in silence, gazing on the bare

plains and swallowing my tears. Let that suffice: it was the pattern of my journey. Whether on the train, at the

hotels, or on board the ocean steamer, I never exchanged a friendly word with any fellowtraveller but I was

certain to be interrupted. In every place, on every side, the most unlikely persons, man or woman, rich or

poor, became protectors to forward me upon my journey, or spies to observe and regulate my conduct. Thus I

crossed the States, thus passed the ocean, the Mormon Eye still following my movements; and when at length

a cab had set me down before that London lodginghouse from which you saw me flee this morning, I had

The landlady, like every one else through all that journey, was expecting my arrival. A fire was lighted in my

room, which looked upon the garden; there were books on the table, clothes in the drawers; and there (I had

almost said with contentment, and certainly with resignation) I saw month follow month over my head. At

times my landlady took me for a walk or an excursion, but she would never suffer me to leave the house

alone; and I, seeing that she also lived under the shadow of that widespread Mormon terror, felt too much pity

to resist. To the child born on Mormon soil, as to the man who accepts the engagements of a secret order, no

escape is possible; so I had clearly read, and I was thankful even for this respite. Meanwhile, I tried honestly

to prepare my mind for my approaching nuptials. The day drew near when my bridegroom was to visit me,

and gratitude and fear alike obliged me to consent. A son of Doctor Grierson's, be he what he pleased, must

still be young, and it was even probable he should be handsome; on more than that, I felt I dared not reckon;

and in moulding my mind towards consent I dwelt the more carefully on these physical attractions which I

felt I might expect, and averted my eyes from moral or intellectual considerations. We have a great power

upon our spirits; and as time passed I worked myself into a frame of acquiescence, nay, and I began to grow

impatient for the hour. At night sleep forsook me; I sat all day by the fire, absorbed in dreams, conjuring up

the features of my husband, and anticipating in fancy the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. In the

dead level and solitude of my existence, this was the one eastern window and the one door of hope. At last, I

had so cultivated and prepared my will, that I began to be besieged with fears upon the other side. How if it

was I that did not please? How if this unseen lover should turn from me with disaffection? And now I spent

hours before the glass, studying and judging my attractions, and was never weary of changing my dress or

When the day came I was long about my toilet; but at last, with a sort of hopeful desperation, I had to own

that I could do no more, and must now stand or fall by nature. My occupation ended, I fell a prey to the most

sickening impatience, mingled with alarms; giving ear to the swelling rumour of the streets, and at each

change of sound or silence, starting, shrinking, and colouring to the brow. Love is not to be prepared, I know,

without some knowledge of the object; and yet, when the cab at last rattled to the door and I heard my visitor

mount the stairs, such was the tumult of hopes in my poor bosom that love itself might have been proud to

own their parentage. The door opened, and it was Doctor Grierson that appeared. I believe I must have

When I came to myself he was standing over me, counting my pulse. 'I have startled you,' he said. 'A

difficulty unforeseen the impossibility of obtaining a certain drug in its full purity has forced me to resort

to London unprepared. I regret that I should have shown myself once more without those poor attractions

which are much, perhaps, to you, but to me are no more considerable than rain that falls into the sea. Youth is

but a state, as passing as that syncope from which you are but just awakened, and, if there be truth in science,

as easy to recall; for I find, Asenath, that I must now take you for my confidant. Since my first years, I have

devoted every hour and act of life to one ambitious task; and the time of my success is at hand. In these new

countries, where I was so long content to stay, I collected indispensable ingredients; I have fortified myself

on every side from the possibility of error; what was a dream now takes the substance of reality; and when I

offered you a son of mine I did so in a figure. That son that husband, Asenath, is myself not as you now

behold me, but restored to the first energy of youth. You think me mad? It is the customary attitude of

ignorance. I will not argue; I will leave facts to speak. When you behold me purified, invigorated, renewed,

restamped in the original image when you recognise in me (what I shall be) the first perfect expression of

the powers of mankind I shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your passing and natural incredulity.

To what can you aspire fame, riches, power, the charm of youth, the dearbought wisdom of age that I

shall not be able to afford you in perfection? Do not deceive yourself. I already excel you in every human gift

but one: when that gift also has been restored to me you will recognise your master.'

Hereupon, consulting his watch, he told me he must now leave me to myself; and bidding me consult reason,

and not girlish fancies, he withdrew. I had not the courage to move; the night fell and found me still where he

had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my hands, my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions.

Late in the evening he returned, carrying a candle, and, with a certain irritable tremor, bade me rise and sup.

'Is it possible,' he added, 'that I have been deceived in your courage? A cowardly girl is no fit mate for me.'

I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears besought him to release me from this

engagement, assuring him that my cowardice was abject, and that in every point of intellect and character I

'Why, certainly,' he replied. 'I know you better than yourself; and I am well enough acquainted with human

nature to understand this scene. It is addressed to me,' he added with a smile, 'in my character of the still

untransformed. But do not alarm yourself about the future. Let me but attain my end, and not you only,

Thereupon he obliged me to rise and eat; sat down with me to table; helped and entertained me with the

attentions of a fashionable host; and it was not till a late hour, that, bidding me courteously goodnight, he

In all this talk of an elixir and the restoration of his youth, I scarce knew from which hypothesis I should the

more eagerly recoil. If his hopes reposed on any base of fact, if indeed, by some abhorrent miracle, he should

discard his age, death were my only refuge from that most unnatural, that most ungodly union. If, on the other

hand, these dreams were merely lunatic, the madness of a life waxed suddenly acute, my pity would become

a load almost as heavy to bear as my revolt against the marriage. So passed the night, in alternations of

rebellion and despair, of hate and pity; and with the next morning I was only to comprehend more fully my

enslaved position. For though he appeared with a very tranquil countenance, he had no sooner observed the

marks of grief upon my brow than an answering darkness gathered on his own. 'Asenath.' he said, 'you owe

me much already; with one finger I still hold you suspended over death; my life is full of labour and anxiety;

and I choose,' said he, with a remarkable accent of command, 'that you shall greet me with a pleasant face.'

He never needed to repeat the recommendation; from that day forward I was always ready to receive him

with apparent cheerfulness; and he rewarded me with a good deal of his company, and almost more than I

could bear of his confidence. He had set up a laboratory in the back part of the house, where he toiled day and

night at his elixir, and he would come thence to visit me in my parlour: now with passing humours of

discouragement; now, and far more often, radiant with hope. It was impossible to see so much of him, and not

to recognise that the sands of his life were running low; and yet all the time he would be laying out vast fields

of future, and planning, with all the confidence of youth, the most unbounded schemes of pleasure and

ambition. How I replied I know not; but I found a voice and words to answer, even while I wept and raged to

A week ago the doctor entered my room with the marks of great exhilaration contending with pitiful bodily

weakness. 'Asenath,' said he, 'I have now obtained the last ingredient. In one week from now the perilous

moment of the last projection will draw nigh. You have once before assisted, although unconsciously, at the

failure of a similar experiment. It was the elixir which so terribly exploded one night when you were passing

my house; and it is idle to deny that the conduct of so delicate a process, among the million jars and

trepidations of so great a city, presents a certain element of danger. From this point of view, I cannot but

regret the perfect stillness of my house among the deserts; but, on the other hand, I have succeeded in proving

that the singularly unstable equilibrium of the elixir, at the moment of projection, is due rather to the impurity

than to the nature of the ingredients; and as all are now of an equal and exquisite nicety, I have little fear for

the result. In a week then from today, my dear Asenath, this period of trial will be ended.' And he smiled

I smiled back with my lips, but at my heart there raged the blackest and most unbridled terror. What if he

failed? And oh, tenfold worse! what if he succeeded? What detested and unnatural changeling would appear

before me to claim my hand? And could there, I asked myself with a dreadful sinking, be any truth in his

boasts of an assured victory over my reluctance? I knew him, indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a

sign. Suppose, then, this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return to me, hideously restored, like a

vampire in a legend; and suppose that, by some devilish fascination . . . My head turned; all former fears

My mind was instantly made up. The doctor's presence in London was justified by the affairs of the Mormon

polity. Often, in our conversation, he would gloat over the details of that great organisation, which he feared

even while yet he wielded it; and would remind me, that even in the humming labyrinth of London, we were

still visible to that unsleeping eye in Utah. His visitors, indeed, who were of every sort, from the missionary

to the destroying angel, and seemed to belong to every rank of life, had, up to that moment, filled me with

unmixed repulsion and alarm. I knew that if my secret were to reach the ear of any leader my fate were sealed

beyond redemption; and yet in my present pass of horror and despair, it was to these very men that I turned

for help. I waylaid upon the stair one of the Mormon missionaries, a man of a low class, but not inaccessible

to pity; told him I scarce remember what elaborate fable to explain my application; and by his intermediacy

entered into correspondence with my father's family. They recognised my claim for help, and on this very day

Last night I sat up fully dressed, awaiting the result of the doctor's labours, and prepared against the worst.

The nights at this season and in this northern latitude are short; and I had soon the company of the returning

daylight. The silence in and around the house was only broken by the movements of the doctor in the

laboratory; to these I listened, watch in hand, awaiting the hour of my escape, and yet consumed by anxiety

about the strange experiment that was going forward overhead. Indeed, now that I was conscious of some

protection for myself, my sympathies had turned more directly to the doctor's side; I caught myself even

praying for his success; and when some hours ago a low, peculiar cry reached my ears from the laboratory, I

could no longer control my impatience, but mounted the stairs and opened the door.

The doctor was standing in the middle of the room; in his hand a large, roundbellied, crystal flask, some

three parts full of a bright ambercoloured liquid; on his face a rapture of gratitude and joy unspeakable. As

he saw me he raised the flask at arm's length. 'Victory!' he cried. 'Victory, Asenath!' And then whether the

flask escaped his trembling fingers, or whether the explosion were spontaneous, I cannot tell enough that we

were thrown, I against the doorpost, the doctor into the corner of the room; enough that we were shaken to

the soul by the same explosion that must have startled you upon the street; and that, in the brief space of an

indistinguishable instant, there remained nothing of the labours of the doctor's lifetime but a few shards of

broken crystal and those voluminous and illsmelling vapours that pursued me in my flight.

WHAT with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her voice, Challoner had thrilled to every

incident with genuine emotion. His fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively character, applauded both

the matter and the style; but the more judicial functions of his mind refused assent. It was an excellent story;

and it might be true, but he believed it was not. Miss Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless possible for

a lady to wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to tell her so? His spirits for some time had been

sinking, but they now fell to zero; and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a troubled and

averted countenance, and could find no form of words to thank her for her narrative. His mind, indeed, was

empty of everything beyond a dull longing for escape. From this pause, which grew the more embarrassing

with every second, he was roused by the sudden laughter of the lady. His vanity was alarmed; he turned and

faced her; their eyes met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank merriment as put him instantly at

'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with excellent spirit.'

'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter. But from this access she more speedily

recovered. 'This is all very well,' said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a most distressing

situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I shall find it difficult indeed to free myself.'

'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should be delighted, I am sure. But our position

is most unusual; and circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control, deprive me of the power

the pleasure Unless, indeed,' he added, somewhat brightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to

She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and he saw with wonder that, for the first time

since the moment of their meeting, every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.

'Do so,' she said, 'and weigh my words well you kill me as certainly as with a knife.'

'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light of the perils that surround me; but who are

you to judge? My family share my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw yourself by what an

emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen to supply me with the funds for my escape. I admit that you

are brave and clever and have impressed me most favourably; but how are you to prefer your opinion before

that of my uncle, an exminister of state, a man with the ear of the Queen, and of a long political experience?

If I am mad, is he? And you must allow me, besides, a special claim upon your help. Strange as you may

think my story, you know that much of it is true; and if you who heard the explosion and saw the Mormon at

'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling singly on that fact.

'I begin to interest you,' she cried. 'But, frankly, you are condemned to help me. If the service I had to ask of

you were serious, were suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more. But what is it? To take a

pleasure trip (for which, if you will suffer me, I propose to pay) and to carry from one lady to another a sum

She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had not yet found time to make the count, tore

open the cover and spread upon her knees a considerable number of Bank of England notes. It took some

time to make the reckoning, for the notes were of every degree of value; but at last, and counting a few loose

sovereigns, she made out the sum to be a little under 710 pounds sterling. The sight of so much money

'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a perfect stranger?'

'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you as a stranger.'

'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession. Although of a very good family through

my mother, indeed, a lineal descendant of the patriot Bruce I dare not conceal from you that my affairs are

deeply, very deeply involved. I am in debt; my pockets are practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that

state when a considerable sum of money would prove to many men an irresistible temptation.'

'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you have removed my last hesitation? Take

He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.

'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket; and to relieve our position of any shadow of

embarrassment, tell me by what name I am to address my knighterrant, for I find myself reduced to the

Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had come lightly to the young man's aid; but

upon what pretext could he refuse so generous a trust? Upon none he saw, that was not unpardonably

wounding; and the bright eyes and the high spirits of his companion had already made a breach in the rampart

of Challoner's caution. The whole thing, he reasoned, might be a mere mystification, which it were the height

of solemn folly to resent. On the other hand, the explosion, the interview at the publichouse, and the very

money in his hands, seemed to prove beyond denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,

could he desert her? There was a choice of risks: the risk of behaving with extraordinary incivility and

unhandsomeness to a lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand. The story seemed false; but then the

money was undeniable. The whole circumstances were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming,

and had the speech and manners of society. While he still hung in the wind, a recollection returned upon his

mind with some of the dignity of prophecy. Had he not promised Somerset to break with the traditions of the

commonplace, and to accept the first adventure offered? Well, here was the adventure.

'Mr. Challoner,' she replied, 'you have come very generously to my aid when all was against me. Though I am

myself a very humble person, my family commands great interest; and I do not think you will repent this

'I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,' she added, her eyes dwelling on him with a judicial admiration, 'a

consulship in some great town or capital or else But we waste time; let us set about the work of my

She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart; and once more laying by all serious thoughts,

she entertained him, as they crossed the park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind. Near the Marble Arch they

found a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to the terminus at Euston Square; and here, in the hotel, they

sat down to an excellent breakfast. The young lady's first step was to call for writing materials and write,

upon one corner of the table, a hasty note; still, as she did so, glancing with smiles at her companion. 'Here,'

said she, 'here is the letter which will introduce you to my cousin.' She began to fold the paper. 'My cousin,

although I have never seen her, has the character of a very charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that

I know nothing, but at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father; so have you kinder

than all kinder than I can bear to think of.' She said this with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed

the envelope. 'Ah!' she cried, 'I have shut my letter! It is not quite courteous; and yet, as between friends, it is

perhaps better so. I introduce you, after all, into a family secret; and though you and I are already old

comrades, you are still unknown to my uncle. You go then to this address, Richard Street, Glasgow; go,

please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter with your own hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that

is the name by which she is to pass. When we next meet, you will tell me what you think of her,' she added,

'You do not know,' replied the young lady, with a sigh. 'By thebye, I had forgotten it is very childish, and

I am almost ashamed to mention it but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to make yourself a

little ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way suits you. We had agreed upon a watchword. You will have

to address an earl's daughter in these words: "NIGGER, NIGGER, NEVER DIE;" but reassure yourself,' she

added, laughing, 'for the fair patrician will at once finish the quotation. Come now, say your lesson.'

Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter. 'Excellent,' said she, 'it will be the most humorous scene.' And she

'I will not tell you till the last moment,' said she; 'for I perceive you are growing too imperious.'

Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform, bought him the GRAPHIC, the

ATHENAEUM, and a paper cutter, and stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded. Then she put

her head into the carriage. 'BLACK FACE AND SHINING EYE!' she whispered, and instantly leaped down

upon the platform, with a thrill of gay and musical laughter. As the train steamed out of the great arch of

Challoner's position was too unusual to be long welcome to his mind. He found himself projected the whole

length of England, on a mission beset with obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet, by the trust he had

accepted, irrevocably bound to persevere. How easy it appeared, in the retrospect, to have refused the whole

proposal, returned the money, and gone forth again upon his own affairs, a free and happy man! And it was

now impossible: the enchantress who had held him with her eye had now disappeared, taking his honour in

pledge; and as she had failed to leave him an address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat. To

use the paperknife, or even to read the periodicals with which she had presented him, was to renew the

bitterness of his remorse; and as he was alone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at the landscape

in impotent repentance, and long before he was landed on the platform of St. Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest

As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have preferred to dine and to remove the stains of

travel; but the words of the young lady, and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no delay. In the late,

luminous, and lamp starred dusk of the summer evening, he accordingly set forward with brisk steps.

The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in the character of a row of small suburban villas on

a hillside; but the extension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded it with miles of streets.

From the top of the hill a range of very tall buildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the

population and variegated by dryingpoles from every second window, overplumbed the villas and their little

gardens like a sea board cliff. But still, under the grime of years of city smoke, these antiquated cottages,

with their venetian blinds and rural porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholy savour of the past.

The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted. From hard by, indeed, the sound of a thousand

footfalls filled the ear; but in Richard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of human habitation. The

appearance of the neighbourhood weighed heavily on the mind of the young man; once more, as in the streets

of London, he was impressed with the sense of city deserts; and as he approached the number indicated, and

The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous note; and it was some time before it ceased to

sound from the rear quarters of the building. Following upon this an inner door was stealthily opened, and

careful and catlike steps drew near along the hall. Challoner, supposing he was to be instantly admitted,

produced his letter, and, as well as he was able, prepared a smiling face. To his indescribable surprise,

however, the footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and with the like stealthiness, withdrew once more, and

died away in the interior of the house. A second time the young man rang violently at the bell; a second time,

to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet footing moved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and

again the fainthearted garrison only drew near to retreat. The cup of the visitor's endurance was now full to

overflowing; and, committing the whole family of Fonblanque to every mood and shade of condemnation, he

turned upon his heel and redescended the steps. Perhaps the mover in the house was watching from a

window, and plucked up courage at the sight of this desistance; or perhaps, where he lurked trembling in the

back parts of the villa, reason in its own right had conquered his alarms. Challoner, at least, had scarce set

foot upon the pavement when he was arrested by the sound of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed

another, rattling in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the door opened; and there appeared upon

the threshold a man of a very stalwart figure in his shirt sleeves. He was a person neither of great manly

beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man, in ordinary moods, to attract the eyes of the observer;

but as he now stood in the doorway, he was marked so legibly with the extreme passion of terror that

Challoner stood wonderstruck. For a fraction of a minute they gazed upon each other in silence; and then

the man of the house, with ashen lips and gasping voice, inquired the business of his visitor. Challoner

replied, in tones from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he was the bearer of a letter to a certain

Miss Fonblanque. At this name, as at a talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter; and

no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the door was closed behind him and his retreat cut

It was already long past eight at night; and though the late twilight of the north still lingered in the streets, in

the passage it was already groping dark. The man led Challoner directly to a parlour looking on the garden to

the back. Here he had apparently been supping; for by the light of a tallow dip the table was seen to be

covered with a napkin, and set out with a quart of bottled ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese. The room, on

the other hand, was furnished with faded solidity, and the walls were lined with scholarly and costly volumes

in glazed cases. The house must have been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man of the shirt

sleeves and the mean supper. As for the earl's daughter, the earl and the visionary consulships in foreign

cities, they had long ago begun to fade in Challoner's imagination. Like Doctor Grierson and the Mormon

angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of dreams. Not an illusion remained to the knighterrant; not a

The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised anxiety, and began once more to press him for

'I am here,' said Challoner, 'simply to do a service between two ladies; and I must ask you, without further

delay, to summon Miss Fonblanque, into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the letter that I bear.'

A growing wonder began to mingle on the man's face with the lines of solicitude. 'I am Miss Fonblanque,' he

said; and then, perceiving the effect of this communication, 'Good God!' he cried, 'what are you staring at? I

Seeing the speaker wore a chinbeard of considerable length, and the remainder of his face was blue with

shaving, Challoner could only suppose himself the subject of a jest. He was no longer under the spell of the

young lady's presence; and with men, and above all with his inferiors, he was capable of some display of

'Sir,' said he, pretty roundly, 'I have put myself to great inconvenience for persons of whom I know too little,

and I begin to be weary of the business. Either you shall immediately summon Miss Fonblanque, or I leave

'This is horrible!' exclaimed the man. 'I declare before Heaven I am the person meant, but how shall I

convince you? It must have been Clara, I perceive, that sent you on this errand a madwoman, who jests

with the most deadly interests; and here we are incapable, perhaps, of an agreement, and Heaven knows what

He spoke with a really startling earnestness; and at the same time there flashed upon the mind of Challoner

the ridiculous jingle which was to serve as password. 'This may, perhaps, assist you,' he said, and then, with

A light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man with the chinbeard. '"Black face and

'Well,' said Challoner, though still with some reluctance, 'I suppose I must regard you as the proper recipient;

and though I may justly complain of the spirit in which I have been treated, I am only too glad to be done

The man leaped upon it like a beast, and with hands that trembled in a manner painful to behold, tore it open

and unfolded the letter. As he read, terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch of nightmare. He struck one

hand upon his brow, while with the other, as if unconsciously, he crumpled the paper to a ball. 'My gracious

powers!' he cried; and then, dashing to the window, which stood open on the garden, he clapped forth his

head and shoulders, and whistled long and shrill. Challoner fell back into a corner, and resolutely grasping his

staff, prepared for the most desperate events; but the thoughts of the man with the chin beard were far

removed from violence. Turning again into the room, and once more beholding his visitor, whom he appeared

to have forgotten, he fairly danced with trepidation. 'Impossible!' he cried. 'Oh, quite impossible! O Lord, I

have lost my head.' And then, once more striking his hand upon his brow, 'The money!' he exclaimed. 'Give

'My good friend,' replied Challoner, 'this is a very painful exhibition; and until I see you reasonably master of

'You are quite right,' said the man. 'I am of a very nervous habit; a long course of the dumb ague has

undermined my constitution. But I know you have money; it may be still the saving of me; and oh, dear

young gentleman, in pity's name be expeditious!' Challoner, sincerely uneasy as he was, could scarce refrain

from laughter; but he was himself in a hurry to be gone, and without more delay produced the money. 'You

will find the sum, I trust, correct,' he observed 'and let me ask you to give me a receipt.'

But the man heeded him not. He seized the money, and disregarding the sovereigns that rolled loose upon the

'Receipt?' repeated the man, a little wildly. 'A receipt? Immediately! Await me here.'

Challoner, in reply, begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary time, as he was himself desirous of catching

'Ah, by God, and so am I!' exclaimed the man with the chin beard; and with that he was gone out of the

room, and had rattled upstairs, four at a time, to the upper story of the villa.

'This is certainly a most amazing business,' thought Challoner; 'certainly a most disquieting affair; and I

cannot conceal from myself that I have become mixed up with either lunatics or malefactors. I may truly

thank my stars that I am so nearly and so creditably done with it.' Thus thinking, and perhaps remembering

the episode of the whistle, he turned to the open window. The garden was still faintly clear; he could

distinguish the stairs and terraces with which the small domain had been adorned by former owners, and the

blackened bushes and dead trees that had once afforded shelter to the country birds; beyond these he saw the

strong retaining wall, some thirty feet in height, which enclosed the garden to the back; and again above that,

the pile of dingy buildings rearing its frontage high into the night. A peculiar object lying stretched upon the

lawn for some time baffled his eyesight; but at length he had made it out to be a long ladder, or series of

ladders bound into one; and he was still wondering of what service so great an instrument could be in such a

scant enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one running violently down the stairs.

This was followed by the sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that again, by rapid and

Challoner sprang into the passage. He ran from room to room, upstairs and downstairs; and in that old dingy

and wormeaten house, he found himself alone. Only in one apartment, looking to the front, were there any

traces of the late inhabitant: a bed that had been recently slept in and not made, a chest of drawers disordered

by a hasty search, and on the floor a roll of crumpled paper. This he picked up. The light in this upper story

looking to the front was considerably brighter than in the parlour; and he was able to make out that the paper

bore the mark of the hotel at Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the following lines in a very

'DEAR M'GUIRE, It is certain your retreat is known. We have just had another failure, clockwork thirty

hours too soon, with the usual humiliating result. Zero is quite disheartened. We are all scattered, and I could

find no one but the SOLEMN ASS who brings you this and the money. I would love to see your meeting.

Challoner was stricken to the heart. He perceived by what facility, by what unmanly fear of ridicule, he had

been brought down to be the gull of this intriguer; and his wrath flowed forth in almost equal measure against

himself, against the woman, and against Somerset, whose idle counsels had impelled him to embark on that

adventure. At the same time a great and troubled curiosity, and a certain chill of fear, possessed his spirit. The

conduct of the man with the chin beard, the terms of the letter, and the explosion of the early morning, fitted

together like parts in some obscure and mischievous imbroglio. Evil was certainly afoot; evil, secrecy, terror,

and falsehood were the conditions and the passions of the people among whom he had begun to move, like a

blind puppet; and he who began as a puppet, his experience told him, was often doomed to perish as a victim.

From the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the letter in his hand, he was awakened by the

clatter of the bell. He glanced from the window; and, conceive his horror and surprise when he beheld,

clustered on the steps, in the front garden and on the pavement of the street, a formidable posse of police! He

started to the full possession of his powers and courage. Escape, and escape at any cost, was the one idea that

possessed him. Swiftly and silently he redescended the creaking stairs; he was already in the passage when a

second and more imperious summons from the door awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor had the bell

ceased to jangle before he had bestridden the windowsill of the parlour and was lowering himself into the

garden. His coat was hooked upon the iron flowerbasket; for a moment he hung dependent heels and head

below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth, and followed by several pots, he dropped upon the sod.

Once more the bell was rung, and now with furious and repeated peals. The desperate Challoner turned his

eyes on every side. They fell upon the ladder, and he ran to it, and with strenuous but unavailing effort sought

to raise it from the ground. Suddenly the weight, which was thus resisting his whole strength, began to

lighten in his hands; the ladder, like a thing of life, reared its bulk from off the sod; and Challoner, leaping

back with a cry of almost superstitious terror, beheld the whole structure mount, foot by foot, against the face

of the retaining wall. At the same time, two heads were dimly visible above the parapet, and he was hailed by

a guarded whistle. Something in its modulation recalled, like an echo, the whistle of the man with the chin

Had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those very miscreants whose messenger and

gull he had become? Was this, indeed, a means of safety, or but the starting point of further complication

and disaster? He paused not to reflect. Scarce was the ladder reared to its full length than he had sprung

already on the rounds; hand over hand, swift as an ape, he scaled the tottering stairway. Strong arms received,

embraced, and helped him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth; and with the spasm of his alarm

yet unsubsided, found himself in the company of two rough looking men, in the paved back yard of one of

the tall houses that crowned the summit of the hill. Meanwhile, from below, the note of the bell had been

'Are you all out?' asked one of his companions; and, as soon as he had babbled an answer in the affirmative,

the rope was cut from the top round, and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden, where it fell and

broke with clattering reverberations. Its fall was hailed with many broken cries; for the whole of Richard

Street was now in high emotion, the people crowding to the windows or clambering on the garden walls. The

same man who had already addressed Challoner seized him by the arm; whisked him through the basement of

the house and across the street upon the other side; and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realise

his situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low and dark compartment.

'Bedad,' observed his guide, 'there was no time to lose. Is M'Guire gone, or was it you that whistled?

The guide now struck a light. 'Ah,' said he, 'this will never do. You dare not go upon the streets in such a

With that the man was gone, and Challoner, his attention thus rudely awakened, began ruefully to consider

the havoc that had been worked in his attire. His hat was gone; his trousers were cruelly ripped; and the best

part of one tail of his very elegant frockcoat had been left hanging from the iron crockets of the window. He

had scarce had time to measure these disasters when his host reentered the apartment and proceeded,

without a word, to envelop the refined and urbane Challoner in a long ulster of the cheapest material, and of a

pattern so gross and vulgar that his spirit sickened at the sight. This calumnious disguise was crowned and

completed by a soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and several sizes too small. At another moment Challoner

would simply have refused to issue forth upon the world thus travestied; but the desire to escape from

Glasgow was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed upon his mind. With one haggard glance at the

spotted tails of his new coat, he inquired what was to pay for this accoutrement. The man assured him that the

whole expense was easily met from funds in his possession, and begged him, instead of wasting time, to

The young man was not loath to take the hint. True to his usual courtesy, he thanked the speaker and

complimented him upon his taste in greatcoats; and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these remarks and

the manner of their delivery, he hurried forth into the lamplit city. The last train was gone ere, after many

deviations, he had reached the terminus. Attired as he was he dared not present himself at any reputable inn;

and he felt keenly that the unassuming dignity of his demeanour would serve to attract attention, perhaps

mirth and possibly suspicion, in any humbler hostelry. He was thus condemned to pass the solemn and

uneventful hours of a whole night in pacing the streets of Glasgow; supperless; a figure of fun for all

beholders; waiting the dawn, with hope indeed, but with unconquerable shrinkings; and above all things,

filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of his conduct. It may be conceived with what curses

he assailed the memory of the fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang in his ears all night with

damning mockery and iteration; and when he could spare a thought from this chief artificer of his confusion,

it was to expend his wrath on Somerset and the career of the amateur detective. With the coming of day, he

found in a shy milk shop the means to appease his hunger. There were still many hours to wait before the

departure of the South express; these he passed wandering with indescribable fatigue in the obscurer

bystreets of the city; and at length slipped quietly into the station and took his place in the darkest corner of

a thirdclass carriage. Here, all day long, he jolted on the bare boards, distressed by heat and continually

reawakened from uneasy slumbers. By the half return ticket in his purse, he was entitled to make the journey

on the easy cushions and with the ample space of the firstclass; but alas! in his absurd attire, he durst not,

for decency, commingle with his equals; and this small annoyance, coming last in such a series of disasters,

That night, when, in his Putney lodging, he reviewed the expense, anxiety, and weariness of his adventure;

when he beheld the ruins of his last good trousers and his last presentable coat; and above all, when his eye

by any chance alighted on the Tyrolese hat or the degrading ulster, his heart would overflow with bitterness,

and it was only by a serious call on his philosophy that he maintained the dignity of his demeanour.

MR. PAUL SOMERSET was a young gentleman of a lively and fiery imagination, with very small capacity

for action. He was one who lived exclusively in dreams and in the future: the creature of his own theories,

and an actor in his own romances. From the cigar divan he proceeded to parade the streets, still heated with

the fire of his eloquence, and scouting upon every side for the offer of some fortunate adventure. In the

continual stream of passersby, on the sealed fronts of houses, on the posters that covered the hoardings, and

in every lineament and throb of the great city, he saw a mysterious and hopeful hieroglyph. But although the

elements of adventure were streaming by him as thick as drops of water in the Thames, it was in vain that,

now with a beseeching, now with something of a braggadocio air, he courted and provoked the notice of the

passengers; in vain that, putting fortune to the touch, he even thrust himself into the way and came into direct

collision with those of the more promising demeanour. Persons brimful of secrets, persons pining for

affection, persons perishing for lack of help or counsel, he was sure he could perceive on every side; but by

some contrariety of fortune, each passed upon his way without remarking the young gentleman, and went

farther (surely to fare worse!) in quest of the confidant, the friend, or the adviser. To thousands he must have

A light dinner, eaten to the accompaniment of his impetuous aspirations, broke in upon the series of his

attempts on fortune; and when he returned to the task, the lamps were already lighted, and the nocturnal

crowd was dense upon the pavement. Before a certain restaurant, whose name will readily occur to any

student of our Babylon, people were already packed so closely that passage had grown difficult; and

Somerset, standing in the kennel, watched, with a hope that was beginning to grow somewhat weary, the

faces and the manners of the crowd. Suddenly he was startled by a gentle touch upon the shoulder, and facing

about, he was aware of a very plain and elegant brougham, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, and driven by

a man in sober livery. There were no arms upon the panel; the window was open, but the interior was

obscure; the driver yawned behind his palm; and the young man was already beginning to suppose himself

the dupe of his own fancy, when a hand, no larger than a child's and smoothly gloved in white, appeared in a

corner of the window and privily beckoned him to approach. He did so, and looked in. The carriage was

occupied by a single small and very dainty figure, swathed head and shoulders in impenetrable folds of white

'It must be,' thought the young man with an almost unbearable thrill, 'it must be that duchess at last!' Yet,

although the moment was one to which he had long looked forward, it was with a certain share of alarm that

he opened the door, and, mounting into the brougham, took his seat beside the lady of the lace. Whether or no

she had touched a spring, or given some other signal, the young man had hardly closed the door before the

carriage, with considerable swiftness, and with a very luxurious and easy movement on its springs, turned and

Somerset, as I have written, was not unprepared; it had long been his particular pleasure to rehearse his

conduct in the most unlikely situations; and this, among others, of the patrician ravisher, was one he had

familiarly studied. Strange as it may seem, however, he could find no apposite remark; and as the lady, on her

side, vouchsafed no further sign, they continued to drive in silence through the streets. Except for alternate

flashes from the passing lamps, the carriage was plunged in obscurity; and beyond the fact that the fittings

were luxurious, and that the lady was singularly small and slender in person, and, all but one gloved hand,

still swathed in her costly veil, the young man could decipher no detail of an inspiring nature. The suspense

began to grow unbearable. Twice he cleared his throat, and twice the whole resources of the language failed

him. In similar scenes, when he had forecast them on the theatre of fancy, his presence of mind had always

been complete, his eloquence remarkable; and at this disparity between the rehearsal and the performance, he

began to be seized with a panic of apprehension. Here, on the very threshold of adventure, suppose him

ignominiously to fail; suppose that after ten, twenty, or sixty seconds of still uninterrupted silence, the lady

should touch the checkstring and re deposit him, weighed and found wanting, on the common street!

Thousands of persons of no mind at all, he reasoned, would be found more equal to the part; could, that very

instant, by some decisive step, prove the lady's choice to have been well inspired, and put a stop to this

His eye, at this point, lighted on the hand. It was better to fall by desperate councils than to continue as he

was; and with one tremulous swoop he pounced on the gloved fingers and drew them to himself. One overt

step, it had appeared to him, would dissolve the spell of his embarrassment; in act, he found it otherwise: he

found himself no less incapable of speech or further progress; and with the lady's hand in his, sat helpless.

But worse was in store. A peculiar quivering began to agitate the form of his companion; the hand that lay

unresistingly in Somerset's trembled as with ague; and presently there broke forth, in the shadow of the

carriage, the bubbling and musical sound of laughter, resisted but triumphant. The young man dropped his

prize; had it been possible, he would have bounded from the carriage. The lady, meanwhile, lying back upon

the cushions, passed on from trill to trill of the most heartfelt, highpitched, clear and fairysounding

'You must not be offended,' she said at last, catching an opportunity between two paroxysms. 'If you have

been mistaken in the warmth of your attentions, the fault is solely mine; it does not flow from your

presumption, but from my eccentric manner of recruiting friends; and, believe me, I am the last person in the

world to think the worse of a young man for showing spirit. As for tonight, it is my intention to entertain

you to a little supper; and if I shall continue to be as much pleased with your manners as I was taken with

Somerset sought in vain to find some form of answer, but his discomfiture had been too recent and complete.

'Come,' returned the lady, 'we must have no display of temper; that is for me the one disqualifying fault; and

as I perceive we are drawing near our destination, I shall ask you to descend and offer me your arm.'

Indeed, at that very moment the carriage drew up before a stately and severe mansion in a spacious square;

and Somerset, who was possessed of an excellent temper, with the best grace in the world assisted the lady to

alight. The door was opened by an old woman of a grim appearance, who ushered the pair into a

diningroom somewhat dimly lighted, but already laid for supper, and occupied by a prodigious company of

large and valuable cats. Here, as soon as they were alone, the lady divested herself of the lace in which she

was enfolded; and Somerset was relieved to find, that although still bearing the traces of great beauty, and

still distinguished by the fire and colour of her eye, her hair was of a silvery whiteness and her face lined with

'And now, MON PREUX,' said the old lady, nodding at him with a quaint gaiety, 'you perceive that I am no

longer in my first youth. You will soon find that I am all the better company for that.'

As she spoke, the maid reentered the apartment with a light but tasteful supper. They sat down, accordingly,

to table, the cats with savage pantomime surrounding the old lady's chair; and what with the excellence of the

meal and the gaiety of his entertainer, Somerset was soon completely at his ease. When they had well eaten

and drunk, the old lady leaned back in her chair, and taking a cat upon her lap, subjected her guest to a

'I fear, madam,' said Somerset, 'that my manners have not risen to the height of your preconceived opinion.'

'My dear young man,' she replied, 'you were never more mistaken in your life. I find you charming, and you

may very well have lighted on a fairy godmother. I am not one of those who are given to change their

opinions, and short of substantial demerit, those who have once gained my favour continue to enjoy it; but I

have a singular swiftness of decision, read my fellow men and women with a glance, and have acted

throughout life on first impressions. Yours, as I tell you, has been favourable; and if, as I suppose, you are a

young fellow of somewhat idle habits, I think it not improbable that we may strike a bargain.'

'Ah, madam,' returned Somerset, 'you have divined my situation. I am a man of birth, parts, and breeding;

excellent company, or at least so I find myself; but by a peculiar iniquity of fate, destitute alike of trade or

money. I was, indeed, this evening upon the quest of an adventure, resolved to close with any offer of

interest, emolument, or pleasure; and your summons, which I profess I am still at some loss to understand,

jumped naturally with the inclination of my mind. Call it, if you will, impudence; I am here, at least, prepared

for any proposition you can find it in your heart to make, and resolutely determined to accept.'

'You express yourself very well,' replied the old lady, 'and are certainly a droll and curious young man. I

should not care to affirm that you were sane, for I have never found any one entirely so besides myself; but at

least the nature of your madness entertains me, and I will reward you with some description of my character

Thereupon the old lady, still fondling the cat upon her lap, proceeded to narrate the following particulars.

I WAS the eldest daughter of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe, who held a valuable living in the diocese of

Bath and Wells. Our family, a very large one, was noted for a sprightly and incisive wit, and came of a good

old stock where beauty was an heirloom. In Christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient. From

my earliest years I saw and deplored the defects of those relatives whose age and position should have

enabled them to conquer my esteem; and while I was yet a child, my father married a second wife, in whom

(strange to say) the Fanshawe failings were exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree.

Whatever may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern daughter; but it was in vain that, with

the most touching patience, I submitted to my stepmother's demands; and from the hour she entered my

father's house, I may say that I met with nothing but injustice and ingratitude.

I stood not alone, however, in the sweetness of my disposition; for one other of the family besides myself was

free from any violence of character. Before I had reached the age of sixteen, this cousin, John by name, had

conceived for me a sincere but silent passion; and although the poor lad was too timid to hint at the nature of

his feelings, I had soon divined and begun to share them. For some days I pondered on the odd situation

created for me by the bashfulness of my admirer; and at length, perceiving that he began, in his distress,

rather to avoid than seek my company, I determined to take the matter into my own hands. Finding him alone

in a retired part of the rectory garden, I told him that I had divined his amiable secret, that I knew with what

disfavour our union was sure to be regarded; and that, under the circumstances, I was prepared to flee with

him at once. Poor John was literally paralysed with joy; such was the force of his emotions, that he could find

no words in which to thank me; and that I, seeing him thus helpless, was obliged to arrange, myself, the

details of our flight, and of the stolen marriage which was immediately to crown it. John had been at that time

projecting a visit to the metropolis. In this I bade him persevere, and promised on the following day to join

True, on my side, to every detail of our arrangement, I arose, on the day in question, before the servants,

packed a few necessaries in a bag, took with me the little money I possessed, and bade farewell for ever to the

rectory. I walked with good spirits to a town some thirty miles from home, and was set down the next

morning in this great city of London. As I walked from the coachoffice to the hotel, I could not help

exulting in the pleasant change that had befallen me; beholding, meanwhile, with innocent delight, the traffic

of the streets, and depicting, in all the colours of fancy, the reception that awaited me from John. But alas!

when I inquired for Mr. Fanshawe, the porter assured me there was no such gentleman among the guests. By

what channel our secret had leaked out, or what pressure had been brought to bear on the too facile John, I

could never fathom. Enough that my family had triumphed; that I found myself alone in London, tender in

years, smarting under the most sensible mortification, and by every sentiment of pride and self respect

I rose under the blow, and found lodgings in the neighbourhood of Euston Road, where, for the first time in

my life, I tasted the joys of independence. Three days afterwards, an advertisement in the TIMES directed me

to the office of a solicitor whom I knew to be in my father's confidence. There I was given the promise of a

very moderate allowance, and a distinct intimation that I must never look to be received at home. I could not

but resent so cruel a desertion, and I told the lawyer it was a meeting I desired as little as themselves. He

smiled at my courageous spirit, paid me the first quarter of my income, and gave me the remainder of my

personal effects, which had been sent to me, under his care, in a couple of rather ponderous boxes. With these

I returned in triumph to my lodgings, more content with my position than I should have thought possible a

All went well for several months; and, indeed, it was my own fault alone that ended this pleasant and

secluded episode of life. I have, I must confess, the fatal trick of spoiling my inferiors. My landlady, to whom

I had as usual been overkind, impertinently called me in fault for some particular too small to mention; and I,

annoyed that I had allowed her the freedom upon which she thus presumed, ordered her to leave my presence.

She stood a moment dumb, and then, recalling her selfpossession, 'Your bill,' said she, 'shall be ready this

evening, and tomorrow, madam, you shall leave my house. See,' she added, 'that you are able to pay what

you owe me; for if I do not receive the uttermost farthing, no box of yours shall pass my threshold.'

I was confounded at her audacity, but as a whole quarter's income was due to me, not otherwise affected by

the threat. That afternoon, as I left the solicitor's door, carrying in one hand, and done up in a paper parcel,

the whole amount of my fortune, there befell me one of those decisive incidents that sometimes shape a life.

The lawyer's office was situate in a street that opened at the upper end upon the Strand, and was closed at the

lower, at the time of which I speak, by a row of iron railings looking on the Thames. Down this street, then, I

beheld my stepmother advancing to meet me, and doubtless bound to the very house I had just left. She was

attended by a maid whose face was new to me, but her own was too clearly printed on my memory; and the

sight of it, even from a distance, filled me with generous indignation. Flight was impossible. There was

nothing left but to retreat against the railing, and with my back turned to the street, pretend to be admiring the

I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the turbulence of my emotions, when a voice at my

elbow addressed me with a trivial question. It was the maid whom my stepmother, with characteristic

hardness, had left to await her on the street, while she transacted her business with the family solicitor. The

girl did not know who I was; the opportunity too golden to be lost; and I was soon hearing the latest news of

my father's rectory and parish. It did not surprise me to find that she detested her employers; and yet the

terms in which she spoke of them were hard to bear, hard to let pass unchallenged. I heard them, however,

without dissent, for my selfcommand is wonderful; and we might have parted as we met, had she not

proceeded, in an evil hour, to criticise the rector's missing daughter, and with the most shocking perversions,

to narrate the story of her flight. My nature is so essentially generous that I can never pause to reason. I flung

up my hand sharply, by way, as well as I remember, of indignant protest; and, in the act, the packet slipped

from my fingers, glanced between the railings, and fell and sunk in the river. I stood a moment petrified, and

then, struck by the drollery of the incident, gave way to peals of laughter. I was still laughing when my

stepmother reappeared, and the maid, who doubtless considered me insane, ran off to join her; nor had I yet

recovered my gravity when I presented myself before the lawyer to solicit a fresh advance. His answer made

me serious enough, for it was a flat refusal; and it was not until I had besought him even with tears, that he

consented to lend me ten pounds from his own pocket. 'I am a poor man,' said he, 'and you must look for

The landlady met me at the door. 'Here, madam,' said she, with a curtsey insolently low, 'here is my bill.

'You shall be paid, madam,' said I, 'in the morning, in the proper course.' And I took the paper with a very

I had no sooner looked at it than I perceived myself to be lost. I had been short of money and had allowed my

debt to mount; and it had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve pounds thirteen and

fourpence halfpenny. All evening I sat by the fire considering my situation. I could not pay the bill; my

landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either baggage or money, how was I to find

another lodging? For three months, unless I could invent some remedy, I was condemned to be without a roof

and without a penny. It can surprise no one that I decided on immediate flight; but even here I was confronted

by a difficulty, for I had no sooner packed my boxes than I found I was not strong enough to move, far less to

In this strait I did not hesitate a moment, but throwing on a shawl and bonnet, and covering my face with a

thick veil, I betook myself to that great bazaar of dangerous and smiling chances, the pavement of the city. It

was already late at night, and the weather being wet and windy, there were few abroad besides policemen.

These, on my present mission, I had wit enough to know for enemies; and wherever I perceived their moving

lanterns, I made haste to turn aside and choose another thoroughfare. A few miserable women still walked the

pavement; here and there were young fellows returning drunk, or ruffians of the lowest class lurking in the

mouths of alleys; but of any one to whom I might appeal in my distress, I began almost to despair.

At last, at the corner of a street, I ran into the arms of one who was evidently a gentleman, and who, in all his

appointments, from his furred greatcoat to the fine cigar which he was smoking, comfortably breathed of

wealth. Much as my face has changed from its original beauty, I still retain (or so I tell myself) some traces of

the youthful lightness of my figure. Even veiled as I then was, I could perceive the gentleman was struck by

'Sir,' said I, with a quickly beating heart, 'sir, are you one in whom a lady can confide?'

'Why, my dear,' said he, removing his cigar, 'that depends on circumstances. If you will raise your veil '

'Sir,' I interrupted, 'let there be no mistake. I ask you, as a gentleman, to serve me, but I offer no reward.'

'That is frank,' said he; 'but hardly tempting. And what, may I inquire, is the nature of the service?'

But I knew well enough it was not my interest to tell him on so short an interview. 'If you will accompany

He looked at me awhile with hesitating eyes; and then, tossing away his cigar, which was not yet a quarter

smoked, 'Here goes!' said he, and with perfect politeness offered me his arm. I was wise enough to take it; to

prolong our walk as far as possible, by more than one excursion from the shortest line; and to beguile the way

with that sort of conversation which should prove to him indubitably from what station in society I sprang.

By the time we reached the door of my lodging, I felt sure I had confirmed his interest, and might venture,

before I turned the passkey, to beseech him to moderate his voice and to tread softly. He promised to obey

me: and I admitted him into the passage and thence into my sittingroom, which was fortunately next the

'And now,' said he, when with trembling fingers I had lighted a candle, 'what is the meaning of all this?'

'I wish you,' said I, speaking with great difficulty, 'to help me out with these boxes and I wish nobody to

I turned back my veil without a word, and looked at him with every appearance of resolve that I could

summon up. For some time he gazed into my face, still holding up the candle. 'Well,' said he at last, 'and

I knew that I had gained my point; and it was with a tremor in my voice that I replied. 'I had thought we

might carry them between us to the corner of Euston Road,' said I, 'where, even at this late hour, we may still

'Very good,' was his reply; and he immediately hoisted the heavier of my trunks upon his shoulder, and taking

one handle of the second, signed to me to help him at the other end. In this order we made good our retreat

from the house, and without the least adventure, drew pretty near to the corner of Euston Road. Before a

house, where there was a light still burning, my companion paused. 'Let us here,' said he, 'set down our boxes,

while we go forward to the end of the street in quest of a cab. By doing so, we can still keep an eye upon their

safety, and we avoid the very extraordinary figure we should otherwise present a young man, a young lady,

and a mass of baggage, standing castaway at midnight on the streets of London.' So it was done, and the

event proved him to be wise; for long before there was any word of a cab, a policeman appeared upon the

scene, turned upon us the full glare of his lantern, and hung suspiciously behind us in a doorway.

'There seem to be no cabs about, policeman,' said my champion, with affected cheerfulness. But the

constable's answer was ungracious; and as for the offer of a cigar, with which this rebuff was most unwisely

followed up, he refused it pointblank, and without the least civility. The young gentleman looked at me with

a warning grimace, and there we continued to stand, on the edge of the pavement, in the beating rain, and

At last, and after a delay that seemed interminable, a four wheeler appeared lumbering along in the mud,

and was instantly hailed by my companion. 'Just pull up here, will you?' he cried. 'We have some baggage up

And now came the hitch of our adventure; for when the policeman, still closely following us, beheld my two

boxes lying in the rain, he arose from mere suspicion to a kind of certitude of something evil. The light in the

house had been extinguished; the whole frontage of the street was dark; there was nothing to explain the

presence of these unguarded trunks; and no two innocent people were ever, I believe, detected in such

'Where have these things come from?' asked the policeman, flashing his light full into my champion's face.

'Why, from that house, of course,' replied the young gentleman, hastily shouldering a trunk.

The policeman whistled and turned to look at the dark windows; he then took a step towards the door, as

though to knock, a course which had infallibly proved our ruin; but seeing us already hurrying down the

street under our double burthen, thought better or worse of it, and followed in our wake.

Thus it befell that, when the boxes had been stowed, and I had already entered the cab, my deliverer called

out in clear tones the address of the house in which we are now seated. The policeman, I could see, was

staggered. This neighbourhood, so retired, so aristocratic, was far from what he had expected. For all that, he

took the number of the cab, and spoke for a few seconds and with a decided manner in the cabman's ear.

'I can very well imagine,' replied my champion; 'and I can assure you that you are now condemned to go

where I have said; for, should we attempt to change our destination by the way, the jarvey will drive us

straight to a policeoffice. Let me compliment you on your nerves,' he added. 'I have had, I believe, the most

But my nerves, which he so much misjudged, were in so strange a disarray that speech was now become

impossible; and we made the drive thenceforward in unbroken silence. When we arrived before the door of

our destination, the young gentleman alighted, opened it with a passkey like one who was at home, bade the

driver carry the trunks into the hall, and dismissed him with a handsome fee. He then led me into this dining

room, looking nearly as you behold it, but with certain marks of bachelor occupancy, and hastened to pour

out a glass of wine, which he insisted on my drinking. As soon as I could find my voice, 'In God's name,' I

He told me I was in his house, where I was very welcome, and had no more urgent business than to rest

myself and recover my spirits. As he spoke he offered me another glass of wine, of which, indeed, I stood in

great want, for I was faint, and inclined to be hysterical. Then he sat down beside the fire, lit another cigar,

'And now,' said he, 'that you have somewhat restored yourself, will you be kind enough to tell me in what sort

of crime I have become a partner? Are you murderer, smuggler, thief, or only the harmless and domestic

I had been already shocked by his lighting a cigar without permission, for I had not forgotten the one he

threw away on our first meeting; and now, at these explicit insults, I resolved at once to reconquer his esteem.

The judgment of the world I have consistently despised, but I had already begun to set a certain value on the

good opinion of my entertainer. Beginning with a note of pathos, but soon brightening into my habitual

vivacity and humour, I rapidly narrated the circumstances of my birth, my flight, and subsequent misfortunes.

He heard me to an end in silence, gravely smoking. 'Miss Fanshawe,' said he, when I had done, 'you are a

very comical and most enchanting creature; and I can see nothing for it but that I should return tomorrow

'You strangely misinterpret my confidence,' was my reply; 'and if you had at all appreciated my character,

'Your landlady will doubtless not be so particular,' he returned; 'nor do I at all despair of persuading even

your unconquerable self. I desire you to examine me with critical indulgence. My name is Henry Luxmore,

Lord Southwark's second son. I possess nine thousand a year, the house in which we are now sitting, and

seven others in the best neighbourhoods in town. I do not believe I am repulsive to the eye, and as for my

character, you have seen me under trial. I think you simply the most original of created beings; I need not tell

you what you know very well, that you are ravishingly pretty; and I have nothing more to add, except that,

'Sir,' said I, 'I am prepared to be misjudged; but while I continue to accept your hospitality that fact alone

'Pardon me,' said he: 'I offer you marriage.' And leaning back in his chair he replaced his cigar between his

I own I was confounded by an offer, not only so unprepared, but couched in terms so singular. But he knew

very well how to obtain his purposes, for he was not only handsome in person, but his very coolness had a

charm; and to make a long story short, a fortnight later I became the wife of the Honourable Henry Luxmore.

For nearly twenty years I now led a life of almost perfect quiet. My Henry had his weaknesses; I was twice

driven to flee from his roof, but not for long; for though he was easily overexcited, his nature was placable

below the surface, and with all his faults, I loved him tenderly. At last he was taken from me; and such is the

power of self deception, and so strange are the whims of the dying, he actually assured me, with his latest

There was but one pledge of the marriage, my daughter Clara. She had, indeed, inherited a shadow of her

father's failing; but in all things else, unless my partial eyes deceived me, she derived her qualities from me,

and might be called my moral image. On my side, whatever else I may have done amiss, as a mother I was

above reproach. Here, then, was surely every promise for the future; here, at last, was a relation in which I

might hope to taste repose. But it was not to be. You will hardly credit me when I inform you that she ran

away from home; yet such was the case. Some whim about oppressed nationalities Ireland, Poland, and the

like has turned her brain; and if you should anywhere encounter a young lady (I must say, of remarkable

attractions) answering to the name of Luxmore, Lake, or Fonblanque (for I am told she uses these

indifferently, as well as many others), tell her, from me, that I forgive her cruelty, and though I will never

more behold her face, I am at any time prepared to make her a liberal allowance.

On the death of Mr. Luxmore, I sought oblivion in the details of business. I believe I have mentioned that

seven mansions, besides this, formed part of Mr. Luxmore's property: I have found them seven white

elephants. The greed of tenants, the dishonesty of solicitors, and the incapacity that sits upon the bench, have

combined together to make these houses the burthen of my life. I had no sooner, indeed, begun to look into

these matters for myself, than I discovered so many injustices and met with so much studied incivility, that I

was plunged into a long series of lawsuits, some of which are pending to this day. You must have heard my

name already; I am the Mrs. Luxmore of the Law Reports: a strange destiny, indeed, for one born with an

almost cowardly desire for peace! But I am of the stamp of those who, when they have once begun a task,

will rather die than leave their duty unfulfilled. I have met with every obstacle: insolence and ingratitude

from my own lawyers; in my adversaries, that fault of obstinacy which is to me perhaps the most distasteful

in the calendar; from the bench, civility indeed always, I must allow, civility but never a spark of

independence, never that knowledge of the law and love of justice which we have a right to look for in a

judge, the most august of human officers. And still, against all these odds, I have undissuadably persevered.

It was after the loss of one of my innumerable cases (a subject on which I will not dwell) that it occurred to

me to make a melancholy pilgrimage to my various houses. Four were at that time tenantless and closed, like

pillars of salt, commemorating the corruption of the age and the decline of private virtue. Three were

occupied by persons who had wearied me by every conceivable unjust demand and legal subterfuge

persons whom, at that very hour, I was moving heaven and earth to turn into the street. This was perhaps the

sadder spectacle of the two; and my heart grew hot within me to behold them occupying, in my very teeth,

and with an insolent ostentation, these handsome structures which were as much mine as the flesh upon my

One more house remained for me to visit, that in which we now are. I had let it (for at that period I lodged in

a hotel, the life that I have always preferred) to a Colonel Geraldine, a gentleman attached to Prince Florizel

of Bohemia, whom you must certainly have heard of; and I had supposed, from the character and position of

my tenant, that here, at least, I was safe against annoyance. What was my surprise to find this house also

shuttered and apparently deserted! I will not deny that I was offended; I conceived that a house, like a yacht,

was better to be kept in commission; and I promised myself to bring the matter before my solicitor the

following morning. Meanwhile the sight recalled my fancy naturally to the past; and yielding to the tender

influence of sentiment, I sat down opposite the door upon the garden parapet. It was August, and a sultry

afternoon, but that spot is sheltered, as you may observe by daylight, under the branches of a spreading

chestnut; the square, too, was deserted; there was a sound of distant music in the air; and all combined to

plunge me into that most agreeable of states, which is neither happiness nor sorrow, but shares the poignancy

From this I was recalled by the arrival of a large van, very handsomely appointed, drawn by valuable horses,

mounted by several men of an appearance more than decent, and bearing on its panels, instead of a trader's

name, a coatofarms too modest to be deciphered from where I sat. It drew up before my house, the door of

which was immediately opened by one of the men. His companions I counted seven of them in all

proceeded, with disciplined activity, to take from the van and carry into the house a variety of hampers,

bottle baskets, and boxes, such as are designed for plate and napery. The windows of the diningroom were

thrown widely open, as though to air it; and I saw some of those within laying the table for a meal. Plainly, I

concluded, my tenant was about to return; and while still determined to submit to no aggression on my rights,

I was gratified by the number and discipline of his attendants, and the quiet profusion that appeared to reign

in his establishment. I was still so thinking when, to my extreme surprise, the windows and shutters of the

diningroom were once more closed; the men began to reappear from the interior and resume their stations

on the van; the last closed the door behind his exit; the van drove away; and the house was once more left to

itself, looking blindly on the square with shuttered windows, as though the whole affair had been a vision.

It was no vision, however; for, as I rose to my feet, and thus brought my eyes a little nearer to the level of the

fanlight over the door, I saw that, though the day had still some hours to run, the hall lamps had been lighted

and left burning. Plainly, then, guests were expected, and were not expected before night. For whom, I asked

myself with indignation, were such secret preparations likely to be made? Although no prude, I am a woman

of decided views upon morality; if my house, to which my husband had brought me, was to serve in the

character of a PETITE MAISON, I saw myself forced, however unwillingly, into a new course of litigation;

and, determined to return and know the worst, I hastened to my hotel for dinner.

I was at my post by ten. The night was clear and quiet; the moon rode very high and put the lamps to shame;

and the shadow below the chestnut was black as ink. Here, then, I ensconced myself on the low parapet, with

my back against the railings, face to face with the moonlit front of my old home, and ruminating gently on

the past. Time fled; eleven struck on all the city clocks; and presently after I was aware of the approach of a

gentleman of stately and agreeable demeanour. He was smoking as he walked; his light paletot, which was

open, did not conceal his evening clothes; and he bore himself with a serious grace that immediately

awakened my attention. Before the door of this house he took a pass key from his pocket, quietly admitted

He was scarcely gone when I observed another and a much younger man approaching hastily from the

opposite side of the square. Considering the season of the year and the genial mildness of the night, he was

somewhat closely muffled up; and as he came, for all his hurry, he kept looking nervously behind him.

Arrived before my door, he halted and set one foot upon the step, as though about to enter; then, with a

sudden change, he turned and began to hurry away; halted a second time, as if in painful indecision; and

lastly, with a violent gesture, wheeled about, returned straight to the door, and rapped upon the knocker. He

My curiosity was now broad awake. I made myself as small as I could in the very densest of the shadow, and

waited for the sequel. Nor had I long to wait. From the same side of the square a second young man made his

appearance, walking slowly and softly, and like the first, muffled to the nose. Before the house he paused,

looked all about him with a swift and comprehensive glance; and seeing the square lie empty in the moon and

lamplight, leaned far across the area railings and appeared to listen to what was passing in the house. From

the diningroom there came the report of a champagne cork, and following upon that, the sound of rich and

manly laughter. The listener took heart of grace, produced a key, unlocked the area gate, shut it noiselessly

behind him, and descended the stair. Just when his head had reached the level of the pavement, he turned half

round and once more raked the square with a suspicious eyeshot. The mufflings had fallen lower round his

neck; the moon shone full upon him; and I was startled to observe the pallor and passionate agitation of his

I could remain no longer passive. Persuaded that something deadly was afoot, I crossed the roadway and

drew near the area railings. There was no one below; the man must therefore have entered the house, with

what purpose I dreaded to imagine. I have at no part of my career lacked courage; and now, finding the area

gate was merely laid to, I pushed it gently open and descended the stairs. The kitchen door of the house, like

the area gate, was closed but not fastened. It flashed upon me that the criminal was thus preparing his escape;

and the thought, as it confirmed the worst of my suspicions, lent me new resolve. I entered the house; and

From the diningroom above I could hear the pleasant tones of a voice in easy conversation. On the ground

floor all was not only profoundly silent, but the darkness seemed to weigh upon my eyes. Here, then, I stood

for some time, having thrust myself uncalled into the utmost peril, and being destitute of any power to help or

interfere. Nor will I deny that fear had begun already to assail me, when I became aware, all at once and as

though by some immediate but silent incandescence, of a certain glimmering of light upon the passage floor.

Towards this I groped my way with infinite precaution; and having come at length as far as the angle of the

corridor, beheld the door of the butler's pantry standing just ajar and a narrow thread of brightness falling

from the chink. Creeping still closer, I put my eye to the aperture. The man sat within upon a chair, listening,

I could see, with the most rapt attention. On a table before him he had laid a watch, a pair of steel revolvers,

and a bull'seye lantern. For one second many contradictory theories and projects whirled together in my

head; the next, I had slammed the door and turned the key upon the malefactor. Surprised at my own

decision, I stood and panted, leaning on the wall. From within the pantry not a sound was to be heard; the

man, whatever he was, had accepted his fate without a struggle, and now, as I hugged myself to fancy, sat

frozen with terror and looking for the worst to follow. I promised myself that he should not be disappointed;

The situation, as I groped my way to the first floor, appealed to me suddenly by my strong sense of humour.

Here was I, the owner of the house, burglariously present in its walls; and there, in the diningroom, were

two gentlemen, unknown to me, seated complacently at supper, and only saved by my promptitude from

some surprising or deadly interruption. It were strange if I could not manage to extract the matter of

Behind this diningroom, there is a small apartment intended for a library. It was to this that I cautiously

groped my way; and you will see how fortune had exactly served me. The weather, I have said, was sultry; in

order to ventilate the diningroom and yet preserve the uninhabited appearance of the mansion to the front,

the window of the library had been widely opened, and the door of communication between the two

Wax tapers, set in silver candlesticks, shed their chastened brightness on the damask of the tablecloth and the

remains of a cold collation of the rarest delicacy. The two gentlemen had finished supper, and were now

trifling with cigars and maraschino; while in a silver spirit lamp, coffee of the most captivating fragrance was

preparing in the fashion of the East. The elder of the two, he who had first arrived, was placed directly facing

me; the other was set on his left hand. Both, like the man in the butler's pantry, seemed to be intently

listening; and on the face of the second I thought I could perceive the marks of fear. Oddly enough, however,

'I assure you,' said the elder gentleman, 'I not only heard the slamming of a door, but the sound of very

'Your highness was certainly deceived,' replied the other. 'I am endowed with the acutest hearing, and I can

swear that not a mouse has rustled.' Yet the pallor and contraction of his features were in total discord with

His highness (whom, of course, I readily divined to be Prince Florizel) looked at his companion for the least

fraction of a second; and though nothing shook the easy quiet of his attitude, I could see that he was far from

being duped. 'It is well,' said he; 'let us dismiss the topic. And now, sir, that I have very freely explained the

sentiments by which I am directed, let me ask you, according to your promise, to imitate my frankness.'

'Ay, your highness, and with unlookedfor sympathy,' returned the young man. 'I know not how to tell the

change that has befallen me. You have, I must suppose, a charm, to which even your enemies are subject.' He

looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and visibly blanched. 'So late!' he cried. 'Your highness God knows I

The prince glanced once more at his companion, and then very deliberately shook the ash from his cigar.

'That is a strange remark,' said he; 'and A PROPOS DE BOTTES, I never continue a cigar when once the ash

is fallen; the spell breaks, the soul of the flavour flies away, and there remains but the dead body of tobacco;

and I make it a rule to throw away that husk and choose another.' He suited the action to the words.

'Do not trifle with my appeal,' resumed the young man, in tones that trembled with emotion. 'It is made at the

price of my honour and to the peril of my life. Go go now! lose not a moment; and if you have any

kindness for a young man, miserably deceived indeed, but not devoid of better sentiments, look not behind

'Sir,' said the prince, 'I am here upon your honour; assure you upon mine that I shall continue to rely upon that

safeguard. The coffee is ready; I must again trouble you, I fear.' And with a courteous movement of the hand,

The unhappy young man rose from his seat. 'I appeal to you,' he cried, 'by every holy sentiment, in mercy to

'Sir,' replied the prince, 'I am not readily accessible to fear; and if there is one defect to which I must plead

guilty, it is that of a curious disposition. You go the wrong way about to make me leave this house, in which I

play the part of your entertainer; and, suffer me to add, young man, if any peril threaten us, it was of your

'Alas, you do not know to what you condemn me,' cried the other. 'But I at least will have no hand in it.' With

these words he carried his hand to his pocket, hastily swallowed the contents of a phial, and, with the very

act, reeled back and fell across his chair upon the floor. The prince left his place and came and stood above

him, where he lay convulsed upon the carpet. 'Poor moth!' I heard his highness murmur. 'Alas, poor moth!

must we again inquire which is the more fatal weakness or wickedness? And can a sympathy with ideas,

By this time I had pushed the door open and walked into the room. 'Your highness,' said I, 'this is no time for

moralising; with a little promptness we may save this creature's life; and as for the other, he need cause you

The prince had turned about upon my entrance, and regarded me certainly with no alarm, but with a

profundity of wonder which almost robbed me of my selfpossession. 'My dear madam,' he cried at last, 'and

I was already on the floor beside the dying man. I had, of course, no idea with what drug he had attempted his

life, and I was forced to try him with a variety of antidotes. Here were both oil and vinegar, for the prince had

done the young man the honour of compounding for him one of his celebrated salads; and of each of these I

administered from a quarter to half a pint, with no apparent efficacy. I next plied him with the hot coffee, of

'And possibly the mustard?' asked his highness, as he offered me the contents of the various saltcellars

'Ah,' cried I, 'the thought is excellent! Mix me about half a pint of mustard, drinkably dilute.'

Whether it was the salt or the mustard, or the mere combination of so many subversive agents, as soon as the

'And yet, madam,' returned the prince, 'your mercy may be cruelty disguised. Where the honour is lost, it is,

'If you had led a life as changeable as mine, your highness,' I replied, 'you would hold a very different

opinion. For my part, and after whatever extremity of misfortune or disgrace, I should still count tomorrow

'You speak as a lady, madam,' said the prince; 'and for such you speak the truth. But to men there is permitted

such a field of license, and the good behaviour asked of them is at once so easy and so little, that to fail in that

is to fall beyond the reach of pardon. But will you suffer me to repeat a question, put to you at first, I am

afraid, with some defect of courtesy; and to ask you once more, who you are and how I have the honour of

But at that moment the timepiece on the mantelshelf began to strike the hour of twelve; and the young man,

raising himself upon one elbow, with an expression of despair and horror that I have never seen excelled,

cried lamentably, 'Midnight! oh, just God!' We stood frozen to our places, while the tingling hammer of the

timepiece measured the remaining strokes; nor had we yet stirred, so tragic had been the tones of the young

man, when the various bells of London began in turn to declare the hour. The timepiece was inaudible

beyond the walls of the chamber where we stood; but the second pulsation of Big Ben had scarcely throbbed

into the night, before a sharp detonation rang about the house. The prince sprang for the door by which I had

'The man below,' said I, 'has two revolvers. Would you confront him at such odds?'

'And yet, madam,' said he, 'we cannot continue to remain in ignorance of what has passed.'

'No!' cried I. 'And who proposes it? I am as curious as yourself, but let us rather send for the police; or, if

'Nay, madam,' he replied, smiling, 'for so brave a lady, you surprise me. Would you have me, then, send

'You are perfectly right,' said I, 'and I was entirely wrong. Go, in God's name, and I will hold the candle!'

Together, therefore, we descended to the lower story, he carrying the poker, I the light; and together we

approached and opened the door of the butler's pantry. In some sort, I believe, I was prepared for the

spectacle that met our eyes; I was prepared, that is, to find the villain dead, but the rude details of such a

violent suicide I was unable to endure. The prince, unshaken by horror as he had remained unshaken by

There we found our patient, still, indeed, deadly pale, but vastly recovered and already seated on a chair. He

'Alas!' cried the young man, 'and it should be I! What do I do, thus lingering on the stage I have disgraced,

while he, my sure comrade, blameworthy indeed for much, but yet the soul of fidelity, has judged and slain

himself for an involuntary fault? Ah, sir,' said he, 'and you too, madam, without whose cruel help I should be

now beyond the reach of my accusing conscience, you behold in me the victim equally of my own faults and

virtues. I was born a hater of injustice; from my most tender years my blood boiled against heaven when I

beheld the sick, and against men when I witnessed the sorrows of the poor; the pauper's crust stuck in my

throat when I sat down to eat my dainties, and the cripple child has set me weeping. What was there in that

but what was noble? and yet observe to what a fall these thoughts have led me! Year after year this passion

for the lost besieged me closer. What hope was there in kings? what hope in these wellfeathered classes that

now roll in money? I had observed the course of history; I knew the burgess, our ruler of today, to be base,

cowardly, and dull; I saw him, in every age, combine to pull down that which was immediately above and to

prey upon those that were below; his dulness, I knew, would ultimately bring about his ruin; I knew his days

were numbered, and yet how was I to wait? how was I to let the poor child shiver in the rain? The better days,

indeed, were coming, but the child would die before that. Alas, your highness, in surely no ungenerous

impatience I enrolled myself among the enemies of this unjust and doomed society; in surely no unnatural

desire to keep the fires of my philanthropy alight, I bound myself by an irrevocable oath.

'That oath is all my history. To give freedom to posterity I had forsworn my own. I must attend upon every

signal; and soon my father complained of my irregular hours and turned me from his house. I was engaged in

betrothal to an honest girl; from her also I had to part, for she was too shrewd to credit my inventions and too

innocent to be entrusted with the truth. Behold me, then, alone with conspirators! Alas! as the years went on,

my illusions left me. Surrounded as I was by the fervent disciples and apologists of revolution, I beheld them

daily advance in confidence and desperation; I beheld myself, upon the other hand, and with an almost equal

regularity, decline in faith. I had sacrificed all to further that cause in which I still believed; and daily I began

to grow in doubts if we were advancing it indeed. Horrible was the society with which we warred, but our

'I will not dwell upon my sufferings; I will not pause to tell you how, when I beheld young men still free and

happy, married, fathers of children, cheerfully toiling at their work, my heart reproached me with the

greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice. I will not describe to you how, worn by poverty, poor lodging,

scanty food, and an unquiet conscience, my health began to fail, and in the long nights, as I wandered bedless

in the rainy streets, the most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the tortures of my mind. These things

are not personal to me; they are common to all unfortunates in my position. An oath, so light a thing to swear,

so grave a thing to break: an oath, taken in the heat of youth, repented with what sobbings of the heart, but yet

in vain repented, as the years go on: an oath, that was once the very utterance of the truth of God, but that

falls to be the symbol of a meaningless and empty slavery; such is the yoke that many young men joyfully

'It is not that I was patient. I have begged to be released; but I knew too much, and I was still refused. I have

fled; ay, and for the time successfully. I reached Paris. I found a lodging in the Rue St. Jacques, almost

opposite the Val de Grace. My room was mean and bare, but the sun looked into it towards evening; it

commanded a peep of a green garden; a bird hung by a neighbour's window and made the morning beautiful;

and I, who was sick, might lie in bed and rest myself: I, who was in full revolt against the principles that I had

served, was now no longer at the beck of the council, and was no longer charged with shameful and revolting

tasks. Oh! what an interval of peace was that! I still dream, at times, that I can hear the note of my

'My money was running out, and it became necessary that I should find employment. Scarcely had I been

three days upon the search, ere I thought that I was being followed. I made certain of the features of the man,

which were quite strange to me, and turned into a small cafe, where I whiled away an hour, pretending to read

the papers, but inwardly convulsed with terror. When I came forth again into the street, it was quite empty,

and I breathed again; but alas, I had not turned three corners, when I once more observed the human hound

pursuing me. Not an hour was to be lost; timely submission might yet preserve a life which otherwise was

forfeit and dishonoured; and I fled, with what speed you may conceive, to the Paris agency of the society I

'My submission was accepted. I took up once more the hated burthen of that life; once more I was at the call

of men whom I despised and hated, while yet I envied and admired them. They at least were wholehearted in

the things they purposed; but I, who had once been such as they, had fallen from the brightness of my faith,

and now laboured, like a hireling, for the wages of a loathed existence. Ay, sir, to that I was condemned; I

'The last charge that was laid upon me was the one which has tonight so tragically ended. Boldly telling who

I was, I was to request from your highness, on behalf of my society, a private audience, where it was

designed to murder you. If one thing remained to me of my old convictions, it was the hate of kings; and

when this task was offered me, I took it gladly. Alas, sir, you triumphed. As we supped, you gained upon my

heart. Your character, your talents, your designs for our unhappy country, all had been misrepresented. I

began to forget you were a prince; I began, all too feelingly, to remember that you were a man. As I saw the

hour approach, I suffered agonies untold; and when, at last, we heard the slamming of the door which

announced in my unwilling ears the arrival of the partner of my crime, you will bear me out with what

instancy I besought you to depart. You would not, alas! and what could I? Kill you, I could not; my heart

revolted, my hand turned back from such a deed. Yet it was impossible that I should suffer you to stay; for

when the hour struck and my companion came, true to his appointment, and he, at least, true to our design, I

could neither suffer you to be killed nor yet him to be arrested. From such a tragic passage, death, and death

'But you, madam,' continued the young man, addressing himself more directly to myself, 'were doubtless born

to save the prince and to confound our purposes. My life you have prolonged; and by turning the key on my

companion, you have made me the author of his death. He heard the hour strike; he was impotent to help; and

thinking himself forfeit to honour, thinking that I should fall alone upon his highness and perish for lack of

'You are right,' said Prince Florizel: 'it was in no ungenerous spirit that you brought these burthens on

yourself; and when I see you so nobly to blame, so tragically punished, I stand like one reproved. For is it not

strange, madam, that you and I, by practising accepted and inconsiderable virtues, and commonplace but still

unpardonable faults, should stand here, in the sight of God, with what we call clean hands and quiet

consciences; while this poor youth, for an error that I could almost envy him, should be sunk beyond the

'Sir,' resumed the prince, turning to the young man, 'I cannot help you; my help would but unchain the

'And, sir,' said I, 'as this house belongs to me, I will ask you to have the kindness to remove the body. You

'And you, dear madam,' said the prince, 'you, to whom I owe my life, how can I serve you?'

'Your highness,' I said, 'to be very plain, this is my favourite house, being not only a valuable property, but

endeared to me by various associations. I have endless troubles with tenants of the ordinary class: and at first

applauded my good fortune when I found one of the station of your Master of the Horse. I now begin to think

otherwise: dangers set a siege about great personages; and I do not wish my tenement to share these risks.

'I must tell you, madam,' replied his highness, 'that Colonel Geraldine is but a cloak for myself; and I should

'Your highness,' said I, 'I have conceived a sincere admiration for your character; but on the subject of house

property, I cannot allow the interference of my feelings. I will, however, to prove to you that there is nothing

personal in my request, here solemnly engage my word that I will never put another tenant in this house.'

Thereupon we all three withdrew. The young man, still reeling in his walk, departed by himself to seek the

assistance of his fellowconspirators; and the prince, with the most attentive gallantry, lent me his escort to

the door of my hotel. The next day, the lease was cancelled; nor from that hour to this, though sometimes

AS soon as the old lady had finished her relation, Somerset made haste to offer her his compliments.

'Madam,' said he, 'your story is not only entertaining but instructive; and you have told it with infinite

vivacity. I was much affected towards the end, as I held at one time very liberal opinions, and should

certainly have joined a secret society if I had been able to find one. But the whole tale came home to me; and

I was the better able to feel for you in your various perplexities, as I am myself of somewhat hasty temper.'

'I do not understand you,' said Mrs. Luxmore, with some marks of irritation. 'You must have strangely

Somerset, alarmed by the old lady's change of tone and manner, hurried to recant.

'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'you certainly misconstrue my remark. As a man of somewhat fiery humour,

my conscience repeatedly pricked me when I heard what you had suffered at the hands of persons similarly

'Oh, very well indeed,' replied the old lady; 'and a very proper spirit. I regret that I have met with it so rarely.'

'But in all this,' resumed the young man, 'I perceive nothing that concerns myself.'

'I am about to come to that,' she returned. 'And you have already before you, in the pledge I gave Prince

Florizel, one of the elements of the affair. I am a woman of the nomadic sort, and when I have no case before

the courts I make it a habit to visit continental spas: not that I have ever been ill; but then I am no longer

young, and I am always happy in a crowd. Well, to come more shortly to the point, I am now on the wing for

Evian; this incubus of a house, which I must leave behind and dare not let, hangs heavily upon my hands; and

I propose to rid myself of that concern, and do you a very good turn into the bargain, by lending you the

mansion, with all its fittings, as it stands. The idea was sudden; it appealed to me as humorous: and I am sure

it will cause my relatives, if they should ever hear of it, the keenest possible chagrin. Here, then, is the key;

and when you return at two tomorrow afternoon, you will find neither me nor my cats to disturb you in your

So saying, the old lady arose, as if to dismiss her visitor; but Somerset, looking somewhat blankly on the key,

'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'this is a most unusual proposal. You know nothing of me, beyond the fact that

I displayed both impudence and timidity. I may be the worst kind of scoundrel; I may sell your furniture '

'You may blow up the house with gunpowder, for what I care!' cried Mrs. Luxmore. 'It is in vain to reason.

Such is the force of my character that, when I have one idea clearly in my head, I do not care two straws for

any side consideration. It amuses me to do it, and let that suffice. On your side, you may do what you please

let apartments, or keep a private hotel; on mine, I promise you a full month's warning before I return, and I

The young man was about to renew his protest, when he observed a sudden and significant change in the old

'Madam,' said Somerset, with the extreme fervour of asseveration, 'madam, I accept. I beg you to understand

'Ah well,' returned Mrs. Luxmore, 'if I am mistaken, let it pass. And now, since all is comfortably settled, I

Thereupon, as if to leave him no room for repentance, she hurried Somerset out of the front door, and left him

The next day, about the hour appointed, the young man found his way to the square, which I will here call

Golden Square, though that was not its name. What to expect, he knew not; for a man may live in dreams,

and yet be unprepared for their realisation. It was already with a certain pang of surprise that he beheld the

mansion, standing in the eye of day, a solid among solids. The key, upon trial, readily opened the front door;

he entered that great house, a privileged burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion, rapidly reviewed

the empty chambers. Cats, servant, old lady, the very marks of habitation, like writing on a slate, had been in

these few hours obliterated. He wandered from floor to floor, and found the house of great extent; the kitchen

offices commodious and well appointed; the rooms many and large; and the drawingroom, in particular, an

apartment of princely size and tasteful decoration. Although the day without was warm, genial, and sunny,

with a ruffling wind from the quarter of Torquay, a chill, as it were, of suspended animation inhabited the

house. Dust and shadows met the eye; and but for the ominous procession of the echoes, and the rumour of

the wind among the garden trees, the ear of the young man was stretched in vain.

Behind the diningroom, that pleasant library, referred to by the old lady in her tale, looked upon the flat

roofs and netted cupolas of the kitchen quarters; and on a second visit, this room appeared to greet him with a

smiling countenance. He might as well, he thought, avoid the expense of lodging: the library, fitted with an

iron bedstead which he had remarked, in one of the upper chambers, would serve his purpose for the night;

while in the diningroom, which was large, airy, and lightsome, looking on the square and garden, he might

very agreeably pass his days, cook his meals, and study to bring himself to some proficiency in that art of

painting which he had recently determined to adopt. It did not take him long to make the change: he had soon

returned to the mansion with his modest kit; and the cabman who brought him was readily induced, by the

young man's pleasant manner and a small gratuity, to assist him in the installation of the iron bed. By six in

the evening, when Somerset went forth to dine, he was able to look back upon the mansion with a sense of

pride and property. Foursquare it stood, of an imposing frontage, and flanked on either side by family

hatchments. His eye, from where he stood whistling in the key, with his back to the garden railings, reposed

on every feature of reality; and yet his own possession seemed as flimsy as a dream.

In the course of a few days, the genteel inhabitants of the square began to remark the customs of their

neighbour. The sight of a young gentleman discussing a clay pipe, about four o'clock of the afternoon, in the

drawingroom balcony of so discreet a mansion; and perhaps still more, his periodical excursion to a decent

tavern in the neighbourhood, and his unabashed return, nursing the full tankard: had presently raised to a high

pitch the interest and indignation of the liveried servants of the square. The disfavour of some of these

gentlemen at first proceeded to the length of insult; but Somerset knew how to be affable with any class of

men; and a few rude words merrily accepted, and a few glasses amicably shared, gained for him the right of

The young man had embraced the art of Raphael, partly from a notion of its ease, partly from an inborn

distrust of offices. He scorned to bear the yoke of any regular schooling; and proceeded to turn one half of the

diningroom into a studio for the reproduction of still life. There he amassed a variety of objects,

indiscriminately chosen from the kitchen, the drawingroom, and the back garden; and there spent his days in

smiling assiduity. Meantime, the great bulk of empty building overhead lay, like a load, upon his

imagination. To hold so great a stake and to do nothing, argued some defect of energy; and he at length

determined to act upon the hint given by Mrs. Luxmore herself, and to stick, with wafers, in the window of

the diningroom, a small handbill announcing furnished lodgings. At halfpast six of a fine July morning, he

affixed the bill, and went forth into the square to study the result. It seemed, to his eye, promising and

unpretentious; and he returned to the drawing room balcony, to consider, over a studious pipe, the knotty

Thereupon he somewhat relaxed in his devotion to the art of painting. Indeed, from that time forth, he would

spend the best part of the day in the front balcony, like the attentive angler poring on his float; and the better

to support the tedium, he would frequently console himself with his clay pipe. On several occasions,

passersby appeared to be arrested by the ticket, and on several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very

doorstep by the carriageful; but it appeared there was something repulsive in the appearance of the house; for

with one accord, they would cast but one look upward, and hastily resume their onward progress or direct the

driver to proceed. Somerset had thus the mortification of actually meeting the eye of a large number of

lodgingseekers; and though he hastened to withdraw his pipe, and to compose his features to an air of

invitation, he was never rewarded by so much as an inquiry. 'Can there,' he thought, 'be anything repellent in

myself?' But a candid examination in one of the pierglasses of the drawingroom led him to dismiss the

Something, however, was amiss. His vast and accurate calculations on the flyleaves of books, or on the

backs of playbills, appeared to have been an idle sacrifice of time. By these, he had variously computed the

weekly takings of the house, from sums as modest as fiveandtwenty shillings, up to the more majestic

figure of a hundred pounds; and yet, in despite of the very elements of arithmetic, here he was making

This incongruity impressed him deeply and occupied his thoughtful leisure on the balcony; and at last it

seemed to him that he had detected the error of his method. 'This,' he reflected, 'is an age of generous display:

the age of the sandwichman, of Griffiths, of Pears' legendary soap, and of Eno's fruit salt, which, by sheer

brass and notoriety, and the most disgusting pictures I ever remember to have seen, has overlaid that

comforter of my childhood, Lamplough's pyretic saline. Lamplough was genteel, Eno was omnipresent;

Lamplough was trite, Eno original and abominably vulgar; and here have I, a man of some pretensions to

knowledge of the world, contented myself with half a sheet of notepaper, a few cold words which do not

directly address the imagination, and the adornment (if adornment it may be called) of four red wafers! Am I,

then, to sink with Lamplough, or to soar with Eno? Am I to adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming

in a duke? or to take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the tradesman and the poet?'

Pursuant upon these meditations, he procured several sheets of the very largest size of drawingpaper; and

laying forth his paints, proceeded to compose an ensign that might attract the eye, and at the same time, in his

own phrase, directly address the imagination of the passenger. Something taking in the way of colour, a good,

savoury choice of words, and a realistic design setting forth the life a lodger might expect to lead within the

walls of that palace of delight: these, he perceived, must be the elements of his advertisement. It was possible,

upon the one hand, to depict the sober pleasures of domestic life, the evening fire, blondheaded urchins and

the hissing urn; but on the other, it was possible (and he almost felt as if it were more suited to his muse) to

set forth the charms of an existence somewhat wider in its range or, boldly say, the paradise of the

Mohammedan. So long did the artist waver between these two views, that, before he arrived at a conclusion,

he had finally conceived and completed both designs. With the proverbially tender heart of the parent, he

found himself unable to sacrifice either of these offsprings of his art; and decided to expose them on alternate

days. 'In this way,' he thought, 'I shall address myself indifferently to all classes of the world.'

The tossing of a penny decided the only remaining point; and the more imaginative canvas received the

suffrages of fortune, and appeared first in the window of the mansion. It was of a high fancy, the legend

eloquently writ, the scheme of colour taking and bold; and but for the imperfection of the artist's drawing, it

might have been taken for a model of its kind. As it was, however, when viewed from his favourite point

against the garden railings, and with some touch of distance, it caused a pleasurable rising of the artist's heart.

'I have thrown away,' he ejaculated, 'an invaluable motive; and this shall be the subject of my first academy

The fate of neither of these works was equal to its merit. A crowd would certainly, from time to time, collect

before the arearailings; but they came to jeer and not to speculate; and those who pushed their inquiries

further, were too plainly animated by the spirit of derision. The racier of the two cartoons displayed, indeed,

no symptom of attractive merit; and though it had a certain share of that success called scandalous, failed

utterly of its effect. On the day, however, of the second appearance of the companion work, a real inquirer did

This was a gentlemanly man, with some marks of recent merriment, and his voice under inadequate control.

'I beg your pardon,' said he, 'but what is the meaning of your extraordinary bill?'

'I beg yours,' returned Somerset hotly. 'Its meaning is sufficiently explicit.' And being now, from dire

experience, fearful of ridicule, he was preparing to close the door, when the gentleman thrust his cane into the

'Not so fast, I beg of you,' said he. 'If you really let apartments, here is a possible tenant at your door; and

nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see the accommodation and to learn your terms.'

His heart joyously beating, Somerset admitted the visitor, showed him over the various apartments, and, with

some return of his persuasive eloquence, expounded their attractions. The gentleman was particularly pleased

'This,' he said, 'would suit me very well. What, may I ask, would be your terms a week, for this floor and the

The gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement. 'You seem to be strangely elastic in your

demands,' said he. 'What if I were to proceed on your own principle of division, and offer twentyfive?'

'Done!' cried Somerset; and then, overcome by a sudden embarrassment, 'You see,' he added apologetically,

'Really?' said the stranger, looking at him all the while with growing wonder. 'Without extras, then?'

'Service?' cried Somerset. 'Do you mean that you expect me to empty your slops?'

The gentleman regarded him with a very friendly interest. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'if you take my advice,

you will give up this business.' And thereupon he resumed his hat and took himself away.

This smarting disappointment produced a strong effect on the artist of the cartoons; and he began with shame

to eat up his rosier illusions. First one and then the other of his great works was condemned, withdrawn from

exhibition, and relegated, as a mere wallpicture, to the decoration of the diningroom. Their place was taken

by a replica of the original wafered announcement, to which, in particularly large letters, he had added the

pithy rubric: 'NO SERVICE.' Meanwhile he had fallen into something as nearly bordering on low spirits as

was consistent with his disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the laughable turn of his

late interview, and the judicial blindness of the public to the merit of the twin cartoons.

Perhaps a week had passed before he was again startled by the note of the knocker. A gentleman of a

somewhat foreign and somewhat military air, yet closely shaven and wearing a soft hat, desired in the politest

terms to visit the apartments. He had (he explained) a friend, a gentleman in tender health, desirous of a

sedate and solitary life, apart from interruptions and the noises of the common lodginghouse. 'The unusual

clause,' he continued, 'in your announcement, particularly struck me. "This," I said, "is the place for Mr.

Jones." You are yourself, sir, a professional gentleman?' concluded the visitor, looking keenly in Somerset's

'And these,' observed the other, taking a side glance through the open door of the diningroom, which they

were then passing, 'these are some of your works. Very remarkable.' And he again and still more sharply

Somerset, unable to suppress a blush, made the more haste to lead his visitor upstairs and to display the

'Excellent,' observed the stranger, as he looked from one of the back windows. 'Is that a mews behind, sir?

Very good. Well, sir: see here. My friend will take your drawingroom floor; he will sleep in the back

drawingroom; his nurse, an excellent Irish widow, will attend on all his wants and occupy a garret; he will

pay you the round sum of ten dollars a week; and you, on your part, will engage to receive no other lodger? I

'Agreed,' said the other; 'and to spare you trouble, my friend will bring some men with him to make the

changes. You will find him a retiring inmate, sir; receives but few, and rarely leaves the house, except at

'Since I have been in this house,' returned Somerset, 'I have myself, unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone

An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset sat down to compute in English money

the value of the figure named. The result of this investigation filled him with amazement and disgust; but it

was now too late; nothing remained but to endure; and he awaited the arrival of his tenant, still trying, by

various arithmetical expedients, to obtain a more favourable quotation for the dollar. With the approach of

dusk, however, his impatience drove him once more to the front balcony. The night fell, mild and airless; the

lamps shone around the central darkness of the garden; and through the tall grove of trees that intervened,

many warmly illuminated windows on the farther side of the square, told their tale of white napery, choice

wine, and genial hospitality. The stars were already thickening overhead, when the young man's eyes alighted

on a procession of three fourwheelers, coasting round the garden railing and bound for the Superfluous

Mansion. They were laden with formidable boxes; moved in a military order, one following another; and, by

the extreme slowness of their advance, inspired Somerset with the most serious ideas of his tenant's malady.

By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the pavement; and from the two first, there

had alighted the military gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters. These proceeded instantly

to take possession of the house; with their own hands, and firmly rejecting Somerset's assistance, they carried

in the various crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and transferred to the back drawingroom

the bed in which the tenant was to sleep; and it was not until the bustle of arrival had subsided, and the

arrangements were complete, that there descended, from the third of the three vehicles, a gentleman of great

stature and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder of a woman in a widow's dress, and himself covered by a

Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into the back drawingroom; the other men

departed; silence redescended on the house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before halfpast ten, and,

with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent publichouse in the neighbourhood, Somerset might have

Day followed day; and still the young man had never come by speech or sight of his mysterious lodger. The

doors of the drawingroom flat were never open; and although Somerset could hear him moving to and fro,

the tall man had never quitted the privacy of his apartments. Visitors, indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk,

sometimes at intempestuous hours of night or morning; men, for the most part; some meanly attired, some

decently; some loud, some cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset, displeasing. A certain air of fear and

secrecy was common to them all; they were all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military

gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at all; and as for the doctor who attended the

sick man, his manners were not suggestive of a university career. The nurse, again, was scarcely a desirable

housefellow. Since her arrival, the fall of whisky in the young man's private bottle was much accelerated;

and though never communicative, she was at times unpleasantly familiar. When asked about the patient's

health, she would dolorously shake her head, and declare that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful condition.

Yet somehow Somerset had early begun to entertain the notion that his complaint was other than bodily. The

illlooking birds that gathered to the house, the strange noises that sounded from the drawingroom in the

dead hours of night, the careless attendance and intemperate habits of the nurse, the entire absence of

correspondence, the entire seclusion of Mr. Jones himself, whose face, up to that hour, he could not have

sworn to in a court of justice all weighed unpleasantly upon the young man's mind. A sense of something

evil, irregular and underhand, haunted and depressed him; and this uneasy sentiment was the more firmly

rooted in his mind, when, in the fulness of time, he had an opportunity of observing the features of his tenant.

It fell in this way. The young landlord was awakened about four in the morning by a noise in the hall.

Leaping to his feet, and opening the door of the library, he saw the tall man, candle in hand, in earnest

conversation with the gentleman who had taken the rooms. The faces of both were strongly illuminated; and

in that of his tenant, Somerset could perceive none of the marks of disease, but every sign of health, energy,

and resolution. While he was still looking, the visitor took his departure; and the invalid, having carefully

That night upon his pillow, Somerset began to kindle once more into the hot fit of the detective fever; and the

next morning resumed the practice of his art with careless hand and an abstracted mind. The day was destined

to be fertile in surprises; nor had he long been seated at the easel ere the first of these occurred. A cab laden

with baggage drew up before the door; and Mrs. Luxmore in person rapidly mounted the steps and began to

'My dear fellow,' she said, with the utmost gaiety, 'here I come dropping from the moon. I am delighted to

find you faithful; and I have no doubt you will be equally pleased to be restored to liberty.'

Somerset could find no words, whether of protest or welcome; and the spirited old lady pushed briskly by

him and paused on the threshold of the diningroom. The sight that met her eyes was one well calculated to

inspire astonishment. The mantelpiece was arrayed with saucepans and empty bottles; on the fire some chops

were frying; the floor was littered from end to end with books, clothes, walkingcanes and the materials of

the painter's craft; but what far outstripped the other wonders of the place was the corner which had been

arranged for the study of stilllife. This formed a sort of rockery; conspicuous upon which, according to the

principles of the art of composition, a cabbage was relieved against a copper kettle, and both contrasted with

'My gracious goodness!' cried the lady of the house; and then, turning in wrath on the young man, 'From what

rank in life are you sprung?' she demanded. 'You have the exterior of a gentleman; but from the astonishing

evidences before me, I should say you can only be a greengrocer's man. Pray, gather up your vegetables, and

'That was under a misapprehension,' returned the old lady. 'I now give you warning to leave at once.'

'Madam,' said the young man, 'I wish I could; and indeed, as far as I am concerned, it might be done. But

The old lady sat down upon a chair. 'You have a lodger? you?' she cried. 'And pray, how did you get him?'

'By advertisement,' replied the young man. 'O madam, I have not lived unobservantly. I adopted' his eyes

Her eyes had followed his; for the first time in Somerset's experience, she produced a double eyeglass; and

as soon as the full merit of the works had flashed upon her, she gave way to peal after peal of her trilling and

'Oh, I think you are perfectly delicious!' she cried. 'I do hope you had them in the window. M'Pherson,' she

continued, crying to her maid, who had been all this time grimly waiting in the hall, 'I lunch with Mr.

In this gay humour she continued throughout the luncheon; presented Somerset with a couple of dozen of

wine, which she made M'Pherson bring up from the cellar 'as a present, my dear,' she said, with another

burst of tearful merriment, 'for your charming pictures, which you must be sure to leave me when you go;'

and finally, protesting that she dared not spoil the absurdest houseful of madmen in the whole of London,

She was no sooner gone, than Somerset encountered in the corridor the Irish nurse; sober, to all appearance,

and yet a prey to singularly strong emotion. It was made to appear, from her account, that Mr. Jones had

already suffered acutely in his health from Mrs. Luxmore's visit, and that nothing short of a full explanation

could allay the invalid's uneasiness. Somerset, somewhat staring, told what he thought fit of the affair.

'My good woman,' said the young man, 'I have no idea what you can be driving at. Suppose the lady were my

friend's wife, suppose she were my fairy godmother, suppose she were the Queen of Portugal; and how

Somerset, on his part, returned to the diningroom, and with a very thoughtful brow and ruminating many

theories, disposed of the remainder of the bottle. It was port; and port is a wine, sole among its equals and

superiors, that can in some degree support the competition of tobacco. Sipping, smoking, and theorising,

Somerset moved on from suspicion to suspicion, from resolve to resolve, still growing braver and rosier as

the bottle ebbed. He was a sceptic, none prouder of the name; he had no horror at command, whether for

crimes or vices, but beheld and embraced the world, with an immoral approbation, the frequent consequence

of youth and health. At the same time, he felt convinced that he dwelt under the same roof with secret

malefactors; and the unregenerate instinct of the chase impelled him to severity. The bottle had run low; the

summer sun had finally withdrawn; and at the same moment, night and the pangs of hunger recalled him from

He went forth, and dined in the Criterion: a dinner in consonance, not so much with his purse, as with the

admirable wine he had discussed. What with one thing and another, it was long past midnight when he

returned home. A cab was at the door; and entering the hall, Somerset found himself face to face with one of

the most regular of the few who visited Mr. Jones: a man of powerful figure, strong lineaments, and a

chinbeard in the American fashion. This person was carrying on one shoulder a black portmanteau,

seemingly of considerable weight. That he should find a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night,

recalled some odd stories to the young man's memory; he had heard of lodgers who thus gradually drained

away, not only their own effects, but the very furniture and fittings of the house that sheltered them; and now,

in a mood between pleasantry and suspicion, and aping the manner of a drunkard, he roughly bumped against

the man with the chinbeard and knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor. With a face struck

suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chinbeard called lamentably on the name of his maker, and fell

in a mere heap on the mat at the foot of the stairs. At the same time, though only for a single instant, the

heads of the sick lodger and the Irish nurse popped out like rabbits over the banisters of the first floor; and on

The sight of this incredible emotion turned Somerset to stone, and he continued speechless, while the man

gathered himself together, and, with the help of the handrail and audibly thanking God, scrambled once more

'What in Heaven's name ails you?' gasped the young man as soon as he could find words and utterance.

Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man with the chinbeard; who then, somewhat

restored, began to confound himself in apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness, the result, he

said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having taken leave with a hand that still sweated and trembled, he

Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep. What, he asked himself, had been the contents of the black

portmanteau? Stolen goods? the carcase of one murdered? or and at the thought he sat upright in bed an

infernal machine? He took a solemn vow that he would set these doubts at rest; and with the next morning,

installed himself beside the diningroom window, vigilant with eye; and ear, to await and profit by the

The hours went heavily by. Within the house there was no circumstance of novelty; unless it might be that the

nurse more frequently made little journeys round the corner of the square, and before afternoon was

somewhat loose of speech and gait. A little after six, however, there came round the corner of the gardens a

very handsome and elegantly dressed young woman, who paused a little way off, and for some time, and with

frequent sighs, contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion. It was not the first time that she had thus

stood afar and looked upon it, like our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had already

had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage, and had already been the butt of a chance arrow

from her eye. He hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little nearer to the window to

enjoy the sight. What was his surprise, however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted

the steps and tapped discreetly at the door! He made haste to get before the Irish nurse, who was not

improbably asleep, and had the satisfaction to receive this gracious visitor in person.

She inquired for Mr. Jones; and then, without transition, asked the young man if he were the person of the

house (and at the words, he thought he could perceive her to be smiling), 'because,' she added, 'if you are, I

should like to see some of the other rooms.' Somerset told her he was under an engagement to receive no

other lodgers; but she assured him that would be no matter, as these were friends of Mr. Jones's. 'And,' she

continued, moving suddenly to the diningroom door, 'let us begin here.' Somerset was too late to prevent her

entering, and perhaps he lacked the courage to essay. 'Ah!' she cried, 'how changed it is!'

'Madam,' cried the young man, 'since your entrance, it is I who have the right to say so.'

She received this inane compliment with a demure and conscious droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering

her dress among the mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the wonders of the two

apartments. She gazed upon the cartoons with sparkling eyes, and a heightened colour, and in a somewhat

breathless voice, expressed a high opinion of their merits. She praised the effective disposition of the rockery,

and in the bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to defend the entry, she fairly broke forth in

admiration. 'How simple and manly!' she cried: 'none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is so detestable in

a man!' Hard upon this, telling him, before he had time to reply, that she very well knew her way, and would

trouble him no further, she took her leave with an engaging smile, and ascended the staircase alone.

For more than an hour the young lady remained closeted with Mr. Jones; and at the end of that time, the night

being now come completely, they left the house in company. This was the first time since the arrival of his

lodger, that Somerset had found himself alone with the Irish widow; and without the loss of any more time

than was required by decency, he stepped to the foot of the stairs and hailed her by her name. She came

instantly, wreathed in weak smiles and with a nodding head; and when the young man politely offered to

introduce her to the treasures of his art, she swore that nothing could afford her greater pleasure, for, though

she had never crossed the threshold, she had frequently observed his beautiful pictures through the door. On

entering the diningroom, the sight of a bottle and two glasses prepared her to be a gentle critic; and as soon

as the pictures had been viewed and praised, she was easily persuaded to join the painter in a single glass.

'Here,' she said, 'are my respects; and a pleasure it is, in this horrible house, to see a gentleman like yourself,

so affable and free, and a very nice painter, I am sure.' One glass so agreeably prefaced, was sure to lead to

the acceptance of a second; at the third, Somerset was free to cease from the affectation of keeping her

company; and as for the fourth, she asked it of her own accord. 'For indeed,' said she, 'what with all these

clocks and chemicals, without a drop of the creature life would be impossible entirely. And you seen yourself

that even M'Guire was glad to beg for it. And even himself, when he is downhearted with all these cruel

disappointments, though as temperate a man as any child, will be sometimes crying for a glass of it. And I'll

thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.' Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed

dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband. Then she declared she heard 'the master' calling

her, rose to her feet, made but one lurch of it into the stilllife rockery, and with her head upon the lobster,

Somerset mounted at once to the first story, and opened the door of the drawingroom, which was brilliantly

lit by several lamps. It was a great apartment; looking on the square with three tall windows, and joined by a

pair of ample foldingdoors to the next room; elegant in proportion, papered in seagreen, furnished in velvet

of a delicate blue, and adorned with a majestic mantelpiece of variously tinted marbles. Such was the room

that Somerset remembered; that which he now beheld was changed in almost every feature: the furniture

covered with a figured chintz; the walls hung with a rhubarbcoloured paper, and diversified by the curtained

recesses for no less than seven windows. It seemed to himself that he must have entered, without observing

the transition, into the adjoining house. Presently from these more specious changes, his eye condescended to

the many curious objects with which the floor was littered. Here were the locks of dismounted pistols; clocks

and clockwork in every stage of demolition, some still busily ticking, some reduced to their dainty elements;

a great company of carboys, jars and bottles; a carpenter's bench and a laboratorytable.

The back drawingroom, to which Somerset proceeded, had likewise undergone a change. It was transformed

to the exact appearance of a common lodginghouse bedroom; a bed with green curtains occupied one

corner; and the window was blocked by the regulation table and mirror. The door of a small closet here

attracted the young man's attention; and striking a vesta, he opened it and entered. On a table several wigs

and beards were lying spread; about the walls hung an incongruous display of suits and overcoats; and

conspicuous among the last the young man observed a large overall of the most costly sealskin. In a flash his

mind reverted to the advertisement in the STANDARD newspaper. The great height of his lodger, the

disproportionate breadth of his shoulders, and the strange particulars of his instalment, all pointed to the same

The vesta had now burned to his fingers; and taking the coat upon his arm, Somerset hastily returned to the

lighted drawingroom. There, with a mixture of fear and admiration, he pored upon its goodly proportions

and the regularity and softness of the pile. The sight of a large pierglass put another fancy in his head. He

donned the furcoat; and standing before the mirror in an attitude suggestive of a Russian prince, he thrust

his hands into the ample pockets. There his fingers encountered a folded journal. He drew it out, and

recognised the type and paper of the STANDARD; and at the same instant, his eyes alighted on the offer of

two hundred pounds. Plainly then, his lodger, now no longer mysterious, had laid aside his coat on the very

He was thus standing, the telltale coat upon his back, the incriminating paper in his hand, when the door

opened and the tall lodger, with a firm but somewhat pallid face, stepped into the room and closed the door

again behind him. For some time, the two looked upon each other in perfect silence; then Mr. Jones moved

forward to the table, took a seat, and still without once changing the direction of his eyes, addressed the

'You are right,' he said. 'It is for me the blood money is offered. And now what will you do?'

It was a question to which Somerset was far from being able to reply. Taken as he was at unawares,

masquerading in the man's own coat, and surrounded by a whole arsenal of diabolical explosives, the keeper

'Yes,' resumed the other, 'I am he. I am that man, whom with impotent hate and fear, they still hunt from den

to den, from disguise to disguise. Yes, my landlord, you have it in your power, if you be poor, to lay the basis

of your fortune; if you be unknown, to capture honour at one snatch. You have hocussed an innocent widow;

and I find you here in my apartment, for whose use I pay you in stamped money, searching my wardrobe, and

your hand shame, sir! your hand in my very pocket. You can now complete the cycle of your

ignominious acts, by what will be at once the simplest, the safest, and the most remunerative.' The speaker

paused as if to emphasise his words; and then, with a great change of tone and manner, thus resumed: 'And

yet, sir, when I look upon your face, I feel certain that I cannot be deceived: certain that in spite of all, I have

the honour and pleasure of speaking to a gentleman. Take off my coat, sir which but cumbers you. Divest

yourself of this confusion: that which is but thought upon, thank God, need be no burthen to the conscience;

we have all harboured guilty thoughts: and if it flashed into your mind to sell my flesh and blood, my anguish

in the dock, and the sweat of my death agony it was a thought, dear sir, you were as incapable of acting on,

as I of any further question of your honour.' At these words, the speaker, with a very open, smiling

It was not in the young man's nature to refuse forgiveness or dissect generosity. He instantly, and almost

'And now,' resumed the lodger, 'now that I hold in mine your loyal hand, I lay by my apprehensions, I dismiss

suspicion, I go further by an effort of will, I banish the memory of what is past. How you came here, I care

not: enough that you are here as my guest. Sit ye down; and let us, with your good permission, improve

So speaking, he produced glasses and a bottle: and the pair pledged each other in silence.

'Confess,' observed the smiling host, 'you were surprised at the appearance of the room.'

'I was indeed,' said Somerset; 'nor can I imagine the purpose of these changes.'

'These,' replied the conspirator, 'are the devices by which I continue to exist. Conceive me now, accused

before one of your unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the singular variety of their

reports! One will have visited me in this drawingroom as it originally stood; a second finds it as it is

tonight; and tomorrow or next day, all may have been changed. If you love romance (as artists do), few

lives are more romantic than that of the obscure individual now addressing you. Obscure yet famous. Mine is

an anonymous, infernal glory. By infamous means, I work towards my bright purpose. I found the liberty and

peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future smiles upon that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the

existence of a hunted brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell's dexterities.'

Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before him, and listened to his heated rhapsody,

with indescribable bewilderment. He looked him in the face with curious particularity; saw there the marks of

'Sir,' he said 'for I know not whether I should still address you as Mr. Jones '

'Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland, by all or any of these you may address

me,' said the plotter; 'for all I have at some time borne. Yet that which I most prize, that which is most feared,

hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found in your directories; it is not a name current in postoffices or

banks; and, indeed, like the celebrated clan M'Gregor, I may justly describe myself as being nameless by day.

But,' he continued, rising to his feet, 'by night, and among my desperate followers, I am the redoubted Zero.'

Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed surprise and gratification. 'I am to

understand,' he continued, 'that, under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?'

'I do,' he said. 'In this dark period of time, a star the star of dynamite has risen for the oppressed; and

among those who practise its use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such incredible difficulties and

disappointments, few have been more assiduous, and not many ' He paused, and a shade of embarrassment

'I can imagine,' observed Somerset, 'that, from the sweeping consequences looked for, the career is not devoid

of interest. You have, besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide and seek. But it would still

seem to me I speak as a layman that nothing could be simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal machine

'You speak, indeed,' returned the plotter, with some evidence of warmth, 'you speak, indeed, most ignorantly.

Do you make nothing, then, of such a peril as we share this moment? Do you think it nothing to occupy a

house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a word, literally tottering to its fall?'

'And when you speak of ease,' pursued Zero, 'in this age of scientific studies, you fill me with surprise. Are

you not aware that chemicals are proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as capricious as the very

devil? Do you see upon my brow these furrows of anxiety? Do you observe the silver threads that mingle

with my hair? Clockwork, clockwork has stamped them on my brow chemicals have sprinkled them upon

my locks! No, Mr. Somerset,' he resumed, after a moment's pause, his voice still quivering with sensibility,

'you must not suppose the dynamiter's life to be all gold. On the contrary, you cannot picture to yourself the

bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like mine. I have toiled (let us say) for months,

up early and down late; my bag is ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried with white face to deposit

the instrument of ruin; we await the fall of England, the massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and

execration; and lo! a snap like that of a child's pistol, an offensive smell, and the entire loss of so much time

and plant! If,' he concluded, musingly, 'we had been merely able to recover the lost bags, I believe with but a

touch or two, I could have remedied the peccant engine. But what with the loss of plant and the almost

insuperable scientific difficulties of the task, our friends in France are almost ready to desert the chosen

medium. They propose, instead, to break up the drainage system of cities and sweep off whole populations

with the devastating typhoid pestilence: a tempting and a scientific project: a process, indiscriminate indeed,

but of idyllical simplicity. I recognise its elegance; but, sir, I have something of the poet in my nature;

something, possibly, of the tribune. And, for my small part, I shall remain devoted to that more emphatic,

more striking, and (if you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb. Yes,' he cried, with unshaken

'Two things I remark,' said Somerset. 'The first somewhat staggers me. Have you, then in all this course of

'Pardon me,' said Zero. 'I have had one success. You behold in me the author of the outrage of Red Lion

'But if I remember right,' objected Somerset, 'the thing was a FIASCO. A scavenger's barrow and some

'You will pardon me again,' returned Zero with positive asperity: 'a child was injured.'

'And that fitly brings me to my second point,' said Somerset. 'For I observed you to employ the word

"indiscriminate." Now, surely, a scavenger's barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the very acme

'Did I employ the word?' asked Zero. 'Well, I will not defend it. But for efficiency, you touch on graver

matters; and before entering upon so vast a subject, permit me once more to fill our glasses. Disputation is

Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a stalwart grog; and Zero, leaning back with an air of

'The indiscriminate?' he began. 'War, my dear sir, is indiscriminate. War spares not the child; it spares not the

barrow of the harmless scavenger. No more,' he concluded, beaming, 'no more do I. Whatever may strike

fear, whatever may confound or paralyse the activities of the guilty nation, barrow or child, imperial

Parliament or excursion steamer, is welcome to my simple plans. You are not,' he inquired, with a shade of

'You are then,' replied Zero, 'in a position to grasp my argument. We agree that humanity is the object, the

glorious triumph of humanity; and being pledged to labour for that end, and face to face with the banded

opposition of kings, parliaments, churches, and the members of the force, who am I who are we, dear sir

to affect a nicety about the tools employed? You might, perhaps, expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister

Gladstone, the rigid Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error. Our appeal is to the

body of the people; it is these that we would touch and interest. Now, sir, have you observed the English

'From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,' returned the conspirator politely. 'A type apart; a

very charming figure; and thoroughly adapted to our ends. The neat cap, the clean print, the comely person,

the engaging manner; her position between classes, parents in one, employers in another; the probability that

she will have at least one sweetheart, whose feelings we shall address: yes, I have a leaning call it, if

you will, a weakness for the housemaid. Not that I would be understood to despise the nurse. For the child

is a very interesting feature: I have long since marked out the child as the sensitive point in society.' He

wagged his head, with a wise, pensive smile. 'And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of our trade, let

me now narrate to you a little incident of an explosive bomb, that fell out some weeks ago under my own

I DINED by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a private chamber at St. James's Hall. You

have seen the man: it was M'Guire, the most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself expert in our

contrivances. Hence the necessity of our meeting; for I need not remind you what enormous issues depend

upon the nice adjustment of the engine. I set our little petard for half an hour, the scene of action being hard

by; and the better to avert miscarriage, employed a device, a recent invention of my own, by which the

opening of the Gladstone bag in which the bomb was carried, should instantly determine the explosion.

M'Guire was somewhat dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him: and pointed out, with excellent,

clear good sense, that should he be arrested, it would probably involve him in the fall of our opponents. But I

was not to be moved, made a strong appeal to his patriotism, gave him a good glass of whisky, and

Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square: a spot, I think, admirably chosen; not only

for the sake of the dramatist, still very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English race, in spite of his

disgusting political opinions; but from the fact that the seats in the immediate neighbourhood are often

thronged by children, errandboys, unfortunate young ladies of the poorer class and infirm old men all

classes making a direct appeal to public pity, and therefore suitable with our designs. As M'Guire drew near

his heart was inflamed by the most noble sentiment of triumph. Never had he seen the garden so crowded;

children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal;

an old, sick pensioner sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a stick with which he walked (for he

was disabled by wounds) reclining on his knee. Guilty England would thus be stabbed in the most delicate

quarters; the moment had, indeed, been well selected; and M'Guire, with a radiant provision of the event,

drew merrily nearer. Suddenly his eye alighted on the burly form of a policeman, standing hard by the effigy

in an attitude of watch. My bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and there, at different

points of the enclosure, other men stood or loitered, affecting an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the

shrubs, feigning to talk, feigning to be weary and to rest upon the benches. M'Guire was no child in these

A chief difficulty with which we have to deal, is a certain nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps;

as the hour of some design draws near, these chickensouled conspirators appear to suffer some revulsion of

intent; and frequently despatch to the authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, but vague anonymous

warnings. But for this purely accidental circumstance, England had long ago been an historical expression.

On the receipt of such a letter, the Government lay a trap for their adversaries, and surround the threatened

spot with hirelings. My blood sometimes boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those who sell

themselves for money in such a cause. True, thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a

very comfortable stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts me quite beyond the reach of any

peddling, mercenary thoughts; M'Guire, again, ere he joined our ranks, was on the brink of starving, and now,

thank God! receives a decent income. That is as it should be; the patriot must not be diverted from his task by

any base consideration; and the distinction between our position and that of the police is too obvious to be

Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged; the Government had craftily filled the place

with minions; even the pensioner was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our emissary, without other

aid or protection than the simple apparatus in his bag, found himself confronted by force; brutal force; that

strong hand which was a character of the ages of oppression. Should he venture to deposit the machine, it was

almost certain that he would be observed and arrested; a cry would arise; and there was just a fear that the

police might not be present in sufficient force, to protect him from the savagery of the mob. The scheme must

be delayed. He stood with his bag on his arm, pretending to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there

flashed into his mind a thought to appal the bravest. The machine was set; at the appointed hour, it must

Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot. There he was, friendless and helpless; a man in the

very flower of life, for he is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him; and now condemned, in

one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by dynamite! The square, he said, went round him like a

thaumatrope; he saw the Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled against the railing. It is

'I feel better now,' cried poor M'Guire: and with uneven steps, for the pavement of the square seemed to lurch

and reel under his footing, he fled from the scene of this disaster. Fled? Alas, from what was he fleeing? Did

he not carry that from which he fled along with him? and had he the wings of the eagle, had he the swiftness

of the ocean winds, could he have been rapt into the uttermost quarters of the earth, how should he escape the

ruin that he carried? We have heard of living men who have been fettered to the dead; the grievance, soberly

considered, is no more than sentimental; the case is but a fleabite to that of him who should be linked, like

A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his liver: suppose it were the hour already. He

stopped as though he had been shot, and plucked his watch out. There was a howling in his ears, as loud as a

winter tempest; his sight was now obscured as if by a cloud, now, as by a lightning flash, would show him the

very dust upon the street. But so brief were these intervals of vision, and so violently did the watch vibrate in

his hands, that it was impossible to distinguish the numbers on the dial. He covered his eyes for a few

seconds; and in that space, it seemed to him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety. When he looked again,

the watchplate had grown legible: he had twenty minutes. Twenty minutes, and no plan!

Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a little girl of about six drawing near to him,

and as she came, kicking in front of her, as children will, a piece of wood. She sang, too; and something in

her accent recalling him to the past, produced a sudden clearness in his mind. Here was a Godsent

The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it. She had looked first at the bag, like a true

child; but most unfortunately, before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes fell directly on M'Guire; and

no sooner had she seen the poor gentleman's face, than she screamed out and leaped backward, as though she

had seen the devil. Almost at the same moment a woman appeared upon the threshold of a neighbouring

shop, and called upon the child in anger. 'Come here, colleen,' she said, 'and don't be plaguing the poor old

gentleman!' With that she reentered the house, and the child followed her, sobbing aloud.

With the loss of this hope M'Guire's reason swooned within him. When next he awoke to consciousness, he

was standing before St. Martin'sintheFields, wavering like a drunken man; the passersby regarding him

with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image of the terror and horror that dwelt within his own.

'I am afraid you are very ill, sir,' observed a woman, stopping and gazing hard in his face. 'Can I do anything

'Ill?' said M'Guire. 'O God!' And then, recovering some shadow of his selfcommand, 'Chronic, madam,' said

he: 'a long course of the dumb ague. But since you are so compassionate an errand that I lack the strength to

carry out,' he gasped 'this bag to Portman Square. Oh, compassionate woman, as you hope to be saved, as

you are a mother, in the name of your babes that wait to welcome you at home, oh, take this bag to Portman

Square! I have a mother, too,' he added, with a broken voice. 'Number 19, Portman Square.'

I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice; for the woman was plainly taken with a

certain fear of him. 'Poor gentleman!' said she. 'If I were you, I would go home.' And she left him standing

'Home!' thought M'Guire, 'what a derision!' What home was there for him, the victim of philanthropy? He

thought of his old mother, of his happy youth; of the hideous, rending pang of the explosion; of the

possibility that he might not be killed, that he might be cruelly mangled, crippled for life, condemned to

lifelong pains, blinded perhaps, and almost surely deafened. Ah, you spoke lightly of the dynamiter's peril;

but even waiving death, have you realised what it is for a fine, brave young man of forty, to be smitten

suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the music of life, and from the voice of friendship, and love? How

little do we realise the sufferings of others! Even your brutal Government, in the heyday of its lust for cruelty,

though it scruples not to hound the patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman, and to

erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so horrible a doom: not, I am well aware, from virtue, not

from philanthropy, but with the fear before it of the withering scorn of the good.

But I wander from M'Guire. From this dread glance into the past and future, his thoughts returned at a bound

upon the present. How had he wandered there? and how long oh, heavens! how long had he been about it?

He pulled out his watch; and found that but three minutes had elapsed. It seemed too bright a thing to be

believed. He glanced at the church clock; and sure enough, it marked an hour four minutes faster than the

Of all that he endured, M'Guire declares that pang was the most desolate. Till then, he had had one friend,

one counsellor, in whom he plenarily trusted; by whose advertisement, he numbered the minutes that

remained to him of life; on whose sure testimony, he could tell when the time was come to risk the last

adventure, to cast the bag away from him, and take to flight. And now in what was he to place reliance? His

watch was slow; it might be losing time; if so, in what degree? What limit could he set to its derangement?

and how much was it possible for a watch to lose in thirty minutes? Five? ten? fifteen? It might be so;

already, it seemed years since he had left St. James's Hall on this so promising enterprise; at any moment,

In the face of this new distress, the wild disorder of his pulses settled down; and a broken weariness

succeeded, as though he had lived for centuries and for centuries been dead. The buildings and the people in

the street became incredibly small, and faraway, and bright; London sounded in his ears stilly, like a

whisper; and the rattle of the cab that nearly charged him down, was like a sound from Africa. Meanwhile, he

was conscious of a strange abstraction from himself; and heard and felt his footfalls on the ground, as those

of a very old, small, debile and tragically fortuned man, whom he sincerely pitied.

As he was thus moving forward past the National Gallery, in a medium, it seemed, of greater rarity and quiet

than ordinary air, there slipped into his mind the recollection of a certain entry in Whitcomb Street hard by,

where he might perhaps lay down his tragic cargo unremarked. Thither, then, he bent his steps, seeming, as

he went, to float above the pavement; and there, in the mouth of the entry, he found a man in a sleeved

waistcoat, gravely chewing a straw. He passed him by, and twice patrolled the entry, scouting for the barest

Another hope was gone. M'Guire reissued from the entry, still followed by the wondering eyes of the man in

the sleeved waistcoat. He once more consulted his watch: there were but fourteen minutes left to him. At that,

it seemed as if a sudden, genial heat were spread about his brain; for a second or two, he saw the world as red

as blood; and thereafter entered into a complete possession of himself, with an incredible cheerfulness of

spirits, prompting him to sing and chuckle as he walked. And yet this mirth seemed to belong to things

external; and within, like a black and leadenheavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his soul.

he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the passengers stared upon him on the street. And still

the warmth seemed to increase and to become more genial. What was life? he considered, and what he,

M'Guire? What even Erin, our green Erin? All seemed so incalculably little that he smiled as he looked down

upon it. He would have given years, had he possessed them, for a glass of spirits; but time failed, and he must

At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom cab; jumped in; bade the fellow drive him

to a part of the Embankment, which he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in motion, concealed the bag as

completely as he could under the vantage of the apron, and once more drew out his watch. So he rode for five

interminable minutes, his heart in his mouth at every jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing to

wake the attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and willing, if possible, to leave him time to

At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed; the cab was stopped; and he alighted

with how glad a heart! He thrust his hand into his pocket. All was now over; he had saved his life; nor that

alone, but he had engineered a striking act of dynamite; for what could be more pictorial, what more

effective, than the explosion of a hansom cab, as it sped rapidly along the streets of London. He felt in one

pocket; then in another. The most crushing seizure of despair descended on his soul; and struck into abject

'Lost my money,' said M'Guire, in tones so faint and strange that they surprised his hearing.

M'Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that black continent at arm's length, withered

'This is not mine,' said he. 'Your last fare must have left it. You had better take it to the station.'

'Well, then, I'll tell you what,' exclaimed M'Guire; 'you take it for your fare!'

'Oh, I dessay,' replied the driver. 'Anything else? What's IN your bag? Open it, and let me see.'

'No, no,' returned M'Guire. 'Oh no, not that. It's a surprise; it's prepared expressly: a surprise for honest

'No, you don't,' said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming very close to the unhappy patriot. 'You're

It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M'Guire spied the stout figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of

Rupert Street, drawing near along the Embankment. The man was not unknown to him; he had bought of his

wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of liberality; and such was now the nearness of his peril, that even at

'Thank God!' he cried. 'Here comes a friend of mine. I'll borrow.' And he dashed to meet the tradesman. 'Sir,'

said he, 'Mr. Godall, I have dealt with you you doubtless know my face calamities for which I cannot

blame myself have overwhelmed me. Oh, sir, for the love of innocence, for the sake of the bonds of

'I do not recognise your face,' replied Mr. Godall; 'but I remember the cut of your beard, which I have the

misfortune to dislike. Here, sir, is a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you, on the single condition

M'Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman, calling out to him to keep the change;

bounded down the steps, flung the bag far forth into the river, and fell headlong after it. He was plucked from

a watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of Mr. Godall. Even as he was being hoisted dripping to the shore,

a dull and choked explosion shook the solid masonry of the Embankment, and far out in the river a

SOMERSET in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words. He had, in the meanwhile, applied himself

assiduously to the flagon; the plotter began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover on his seat; and

with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man rose unsteadily to his feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third

'Dear me,' observed Zero, 'I find you very temperate. But I will not be oppressive. Suffice it that we are now

So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest ceremonies, and some necessary guidance,

Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which Somerset remained in utter darkness; but the next

morning when, at a blow, he started broad awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect hurricane of horror and

wonder. That he should have suffered himself to be led into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as his

abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a

situation that might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand. That was perhaps a palliation; but it was no excuse.

For so wholesale a capitulation of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse indeed was

As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a rupture. Zero hailed him with the warmth of

'Come in,' he cried, 'dear Mr. Somerset! Come in, sit down, and, without ceremony, join me at my morning

'Sir,' said Somerset, 'you must permit me first to disengage my honour. Last night, I was surprised into a

certain appearance of complicity; but once for all, let me inform you that I regard you and your machinations

with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no stone unturned to crush your vile conspiracy.'

'My dear fellow,' replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, 'I am well accustomed to these human

weaknesses. Disgust? I have felt it myself; it speedily wears off. I think none the worse, I think the more of

you, for this engaging frankness. And in the meanwhile, what are you to do? You find yourself, if I interpret

rightly, in very much the same situation as Charles the Second (possibly the least degraded of your British

sovereigns) when he was taken into the confidence of the thief. To denounce me, is out of the question; and

what else can you attempt? No, dear Mr. Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself condemned,

under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming and intellectual companion who delighted me last

'Ah!' cried the plotter, 'but there I fail to follow you. You may, if you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as

I suppose, you recoil from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too intelligent to leave these

lodgings, in which I please myself exceedingly, and from which you lack the power to drive me. No, no, dear

'I repeat,' cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own weakness, 'I repeat that I give you warning. I

'A week's warning?' said the imperturbable conspirator. 'Very well: we will talk of it a week from now. That

is arranged; and in the meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold. Do, dear Mr. Somerset, since you

find yourself condemned, for a week at least, to the society of a very interesting character, display some of

that open favour, some of that interest in life's obscurer sides, which stamp the character of the true artist.

Hang me, if you will, to morrow; but today show yourself divested of the scruples of the burgess, and sit

'Certainly,' replied Zero; 'and I respect them! Would you be outdone in such a contest? will you alone be

partial? and in this nineteenth century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to differ on a point of

politics? Come, sir: all your hard words have left me smiling; judge then, which of us is the philosopher!'

Somerset was a young man of a very tolerant disposition and by nature easily amenable to sophistry. He

threw up his hands with a gesture of despair, and took the seat to which the conspirator invited him. The meal

was excellent; the host not only affable, but primed with curious information. He seemed, indeed, like one

who had too long endured the torture of silence, to exult in the most wholesale disclosures. The interest of

what he had to tell was great; his character, besides, developed step by step; and Somerset, as the time fled,

not only outgrew some of the discomfort of his false position, but began to regard the conspirator with a

familiarity that verged upon contempt. In any circumstances, he had a singular inability to leave the society in

which he found himself; company, even if distasteful, held him captive like a limed sparrow; and on this

occasion, he suffered hour to follow hour, was easily persuaded to sit down once more to table, and did not

even attempt to withdraw till, on the approach of evening, Zero, with many apologies, dismissed his guest.

His fellow conspirators, the dynamiter handsomely explained, as they were unacquainted with the sterling

As soon as he was alone, Somerset fell back upon the humour of the morning. He raged at the thought of his

facility; he paced the diningroom, forming the sternest resolutions for the future; he wrung the hand which

had been dishonoured by the touch of an assassin; and among all these whirling thoughts, there flashed in

from time to time, and ever with a chill of fear, the thought of the confounded ingredients with which the

house was stored. A powder magazine seemed a secure smokingroom alongside of the Superfluous

He sought refuge in flight, in locomotion, in the flowing bowl. As long as the bars were open, he travelled

from one to another, seeking light, safety, and the companionship of human faces; when these resources

failed him, he fell back on the belated bakedpotato man; and at length, still pacing the streets, he was

goaded to fraternise with the police. Alas, with what a sense of guilt he conversed with these guardians of the

law; how gladly had he wept upon their ample bosoms; and how the secret fluttered to his lips and was still

denied an exit! Fatigue began at last to triumph over remorse; and about the hour of the first milkman, he

returned to the door of the mansion; looked at it with a horrid expectation, as though it should have burst that

instant into flames; drew out his key, and when his foot already rested on the steps, once more lost heart and

It was on the stroke of noon when he awoke. Dismally searching in his pockets, he found himself reduced to

halfa crown; and when he had paid the price of his distasteful couch, saw himself obliged to return to the

Superfluous Mansion. He sneaked into the hall and stole on tiptoe to the cupboard where he kept his money.

Yet half a minute, he told himself, and he would be free for days from his obseding lodger, and might decide

at leisure on the course he should pursue. But fate had otherwise designed: there came a tap at the door and

'Have I caught you?' he cried, with innocent gaiety. 'Dear fellow, I was growing quite impatient.' And on the

speaker's somewhat stolid face, there came a glow of genuine affection. 'I am so long unused to have a

friend,' he continued, 'that I begin to be afraid I may prove jealous.' And he wrung the hand of his landlord.

Somerset was, of all men, least fit to deal with such a greeting. To reject these kind advances was beyond his

strength. That he could not return cordiality for cordiality, was already almost more than he could carry. That

inequality between kind sentiments which, to generous characters, will always seem to be a sort of guilt,

'That is all right,' cried Zero 'that is as it should be say no more! I had a vague alarm; I feared you had

deserted me; but I now own that fear to have been unworthy, and apologise. To doubt of your forgiveness

were to repeat my sin. Come, then; dinner waits; join me again and tell me your adventures of the night.'

Kindness still sealed the lips of Somerset; and he suffered himself once more to be set down to table with his

innocent and criminal acquaintance. Once more, the plotter plunged up to the neck in damaging disclosures:

now it would be the name and biography of an individual, now the address of some important centre, that

rose, as if by accident, upon his lips; and each word was like another turn of the thumbscrew to his unhappy

guest. Finally, the course of Zero's bland monologue led him to the young lady of two days ago: that young

lady, who had flashed on Somerset for so brief a while but with so conquering a charm; and whose engaging

grace, communicative eyes, and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt, remained imprinted on his memory.

'You saw her?' said Zero. 'Beautiful, is she not? She, too, is one of ours: a true enthusiast: nervous, perhaps,

in presence of the chemicals; but in matters of intrigue, the very soul of skill and daring. Lake, Fonblanque,

de Marly, Valdevia, such are some of the names that she employs; her true name but there, perhaps, I go

too far. Suffice it, that it is to her I owe my present lodging, and, dear Somerset, the pleasure of your

acquaintance. It appears she knew the house. You see dear fellow, I make no concealment: all that you can

'For God's sake,' cried the wretched Somerset, 'hold your tongue! You cannot imagine how you torture me!'

'There are times,' he said, 'when I begin to fancy that you do not like me. Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack

of cordiality? I am depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail' he gloomily nodded

'from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I fall, dear boy, into contempt. These are grave thoughts, and

you may judge my need of your delightful company. Innocent prattler, you relieve the weight of my

concerns. And yet . . . and yet . . .' The speaker pushed away his plate, and rose from table. 'Follow me,' said

he, 'follow me. My mood is on; I must have air, I must behold the plain of battle.'

So saying, he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion, and thence, by ladder and trap, to a certain

leaded platform, sheltered at one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the actual summit of the

roof. On both sides, it bordered, without parapet or rail, on the incline of slates; and, northward above all,

commanded an extensive view of housetops, and rising through the smoke, the distant spires of churches.

'Here,' cried Zero, 'you behold this field of city, rich, crowded, laughing with the spoil of continents; but

soon, how soon, to be laid low! Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you shall perhaps be

startled by the detonation of the judgment gun not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon, but

deepmouthed and unctuously solemn. Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the flames break forth. Ay,' he

cried, stretching forth his hand, 'ay, that will be a day of retribution. Then shall the pallid constable flee side

by side with the detected thief. Blaze!' he cried, 'blaze, derided city! Fall, flatulent monarchy, fall like

With these words his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly

precipitated into space. Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pockethandkerchief, he was dragged from the edge of

downfall by one arm; helped, or rather carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic landing.

Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at length, seizing Somerset's hand in both of his,

'This seals it,' said he. 'Ours is a life and death connection. You have plucked me from the jaws of death; and

if I were before attracted by your character, judge now of the ardour of my gratitude and love! But I perceive

I am still greatly shaken. Lend me, I beseech you, lend me your arm as far as my apartment.'

A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his customary selfpossession; and he was standing,

glass in hand and genially convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection of the unfortunate young

'Good heavens, dear Somerset,' he cried, 'what ails you? Let me offer you a touch of spirits.'

'Let me be,' he said. 'I am lost; you have caught me in the toils. Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in

the most reckless manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect innocence. And now what

am I? Are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible you

can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms? To think,' he cried, 'that a young man, guilty of

no fault on earth but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned imbroglio!' And placing his

'My God,' said Zero, 'is this possible? And I so filled with tenderness and interest! Can it be, dear Somerset,

that you are under the empire of these outworn scruples? or that you judge a patriot by the morality of the

'Mr. Jones,' said Somerset, 'it is in vain to argue. I boast myself a total disbeliever, not only in revealed

religion, but in the data, method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics. Well! what matters it? what signifies

a form of words? I regard you as a reptile, whom I would rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel. You

would blow up others? Well then, understand: I want, with every circumstance of infamy and agony, to blow

'Somerset, Somerset!' said Zero, turning very pale, 'this is wrong; this is very wrong. You pain, you wound

'Give me a match!' cried Somerset wildly. 'Let me set fire to this incomparable monster! Let me perish with

'For God's sake,' cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, 'for God's sake command yourself! We stand

upon the brink; death yawns around us; a man a stranger in this foreign land one whom you have called

'Silence!' cried Somerset, 'you are no friend, no friend of mine. I look on you with loathing, like a toad: my

flesh creeps with physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.'

Zero burst into tears. 'Alas!' he sobbed, 'this snaps the last link that bound me to humanity. My friend disowns

Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of front. The next moment, with a despairing

gesture, he fled from the room and from the house. The first dash of his escape carried him hard upon

halfway to the next police office: but presently began to droop; and before he reached the house of lawful

intervention, he fell once more among doubtful counsels. Was he an agnostic? had he a right to act? Away

with such nonsense, and let Zero perish! ran his thoughts. And then again: had he not promised, had he not

shaken hands and broken bread? and that with open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit

honour? But honour? what was honour? A figment, which, in the hot pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside.

Ay, but crime? A figment, too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded. All day, he wandered in the parks,

a prey to whirling thoughts; all night, patrolled the city; and at the peep of day he sat down by the wayside in

the neighbourhood of Peckham and bitterly wept. His gods had fallen. He who had chosen the broad, daylit,

unencumbered paths of universal scepticism, found himself still the bondslave of honour. He who had

accepted life from a point of view as lofty as the predatory eagle's, though with no design to prey; he who had

clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial competition, and of crime; he who was

prepared to help the escaping murderer or to embrace the impenitent thief, found, to the overthrow of all his

logic, that he objected to the use of dynamite. The dawn crept among the sleeping villas and over the

smokeless fields of city; and still the unfortunate sceptic sobbed over his fall from consistency.

At length, he rose and took the rising sun to witness. 'There is no question as to fact,' he cried; 'right and

wrong are but figments and the shadow of a word; but for all that, there are certain things that I cannot do,

and there are certain others that I will not stand.' Thereupon he decided to return to make one last effort of

persuasion, and, if he could not prevail on Zero to desist from his infernal trade, throw delicacy to the winds,

give the plotter an hour's start, and denounce him to the police. Fast as he went, being winged by this

resolution, it was already well on in the morning when he came in sight of the Superfluous Mansion. Tripping

down the steps, was the young lady of the various aliases; and he was surprised to see upon her countenance

'Madam,' he began, yielding to impulse and with no clear knowledge of what he was to add.

But at the sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of fear or horror; started back; lowered her

Here then, we step aside a moment from following the fortunes of Somerset, and proceed to relate the strange

MR. HARRY DESBOROUGH lodged in the fine and grave old quarter of Bloomsbury, roared about on

every side by the high tides of London, but itself rejoicing in romantic silences and city peace. It was in

Queen Square that he had pitched his tent, next door to the Children's Hospital, on your left hand as you go

north: Queen Square, sacred to humane and liberal arts, whence homes were made beautiful, where the poor

were taught, where the sparrows were plentiful and loud, and where groups of patient little ones would hover

all day long before the hospital, if by chance they might kiss their hand or speak a word to their sick brother

at the window. Desborough's room was on the first floor and fronted to the square; but he enjoyed besides, a

right by which he often profited, to sit and smoke upon a terrace at the back, which looked down upon a fine

forest of back gardens, and was in turn commanded by the windows of an empty room.

On the afternoon of a warm day, Desborough sauntered forth upon this terrace, somewhat out of hope and

heart, for he had been now some weeks on the vain quest of situations, and prepared for melancholy and

tobacco. Here, at least, he told himself that he would be alone; for, like most youths, who are neither rich, nor

witty, nor successful, he rather shunned than courted the society of other men. Even as he expressed the

thought, his eye alighted on the window of the room that looked upon the terrace; and to his surprise and

annoyance, he beheld it curtained with a silken hanging. It was like his luck, he thought; his privacy was

gone, he could no longer brood and sigh unwatched, he could no longer suffer his discouragement to find a

vent in words or soothe himself with sentimental whistling; and in the irritation of the moment, he struck his

pipe upon the rail with unnecessary force. It was an old, sweet, seasoned briarroot, glossy and dark with

long employment, and justly dear to his fancy. What, then, was his chagrin, when the head snapped from the

stem, leaped airily in space, and fell and disappeared among the lilacs of the garden?

He threw himself savagely into the garden chair, pulled out the storypaper which he had brought with him

to read, tore off a fragment of the last sheet, which contains only the answers to correspondents, and set

himself to roll a cigarette. He was no master of the art; again and again, the paper broke between his fingers

and the tobacco showered upon the ground; and he was already on the point of angry resignation, when the

window swung slowly inward, the silken curtain was thrust aside, and a lady, somewhat strangely attired,

'Senorito,' said she, and there was a rich thrill in her voice, like an organ note, 'Senorito, you are in

With the words, she took the paper and tobacco from his unresisting hands; and with a facility that, in

Desborough's eyes, seemed magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette. He took it, still seated, still without

a word; staring with all his eyes upon that apparition. Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was

that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so rare in our more northern climates; her eyes

were large, starry, and visited by changing lights; her hair was partly covered by a lace mantilla, through

which her arms, bare to the shoulder, gleamed white; her figure, full and soft in all the womanly contours,

was yet alive and active, light with excess of life, and slender by grace of some divine proportion.

'You do not like my cigarrito, Senor?' she asked. 'Yet it is better made than yours.' At that she laughed, and

her laughter trilled in his ear like music; but the next moment her face fell. 'I see,' she cried. 'It is my manner

that repels you. I am too constrained, too cold. I am not,' she added, with a more engaging air, 'I am not the

'In my own dear land,' she pursued, 'things are differently ordered. There, I must own, a girl is bound by

many and rigorous restrictions; little is permitted her; she learns to be distant, she learns to appear forbidding.

But here, in free England oh, glorious liberty!' she cried, and threw up her arms with a gesture of inimitable

grace 'here there are no fetters; here the woman may dare to be herself entirely, and the men, the chivalrous

men is it not written on the very shield of your nation, HONI SOIT? Ah, it is hard for me to learn, hard for

me to dare to be myself. You must not judge me yet awhile; I shall end by conquering this stiffness, I shall

'Perfectly oh, perfectly!' said Harry, with a fervency of conviction worthy of a graver subject.

'Ah, then,' she said, 'I shall soon learn; English blood ran in my father's veins; and I have had the advantage of

some training in your expressive tongue. If I speak already without accent, with my thorough English

'I am,' interrupted the lady, 'the Senorita Teresa Valdevia. The evening air grows chill. Adios, Senorito.' And

He stood transfixed, the cigarette still unlighted in his hand. His thoughts had soared above tobacco, and still

recalled and beautified the image of his new acquaintance. Her voice reechoed in his memory; her eyes, of

which he could not tell the colour, haunted his soul. The clouds had risen at her coming, and he beheld a

newcreated world. What she was, he could not fancy, but he adored her. Her age, he durst not estimate;

fearing to find her older than himself, and thinking sacrilege to couple that fair favour with the thought of

mortal changes. As for her character, beauty to the young is always good. So the poor lad lingered late upon

the terrace, stealing timid glances at the curtained window, sighing to the gold laburnums, rapt into the

country of romance; and when at length he entered and sat down to dine, on cold boiled mutton and a pint of

Next day when he returned to the terrace, the window was a little ajar, and he enjoyed a view of the lady's

shoulder, as she sat patiently sewing and all unconscious of his presence. On the next, he had scarce appeared

when the window opened, and the Senorita tripped forth into the sunlight, in a morning disorder, delicately

neat, and yet somehow foreign, tropical, and strange. In one hand she held a packet.

'Will you try,' she said, 'some of my father's tobacco from dear Cuba? There, as I suppose you know, all

smoke, ladies as well as gentlemen. So you need not fear to annoy me. The fragrance will remind me of

home. My home, Senor, was by the sea.' And as she uttered these few words, Desborough, for the first time in

his life, realised the poetry of the great deep. 'Awake or asleep, I dream of it: dear home, dear Cuba!'

'But some day,' said Desborough, with an inward pang, 'some day you will return?'

'Are you then resident for life in England?' he inquired, with a strange lightening of spirit.

'You ask too much, for you ask more than I know,' she answered sadly; and then, resuming her gaiety of

'Senorita,' said he, shyly abashed by some shadow of coquetry in her manner, 'whatever comes to me you

I mean,' he concluded, deeply flushing, 'that I have no doubt the tobacco is delightful.'

'Ah, Senor,' she said, with almost mournful gravity, 'you seemed so simple and good, and already you are

trying to pay compliments and besides,' she added, brightening, with a quick upward glance, into a smile,

'you do it so badly! English gentlemen, I used to hear, could be fast friends, respectful, honest friends; could

be companions, comforters, if the need arose, or champions, and yet never encroach. Do not seek to please

me by copying the graces of my countrymen. Be yourself: the frank, kindly, honest English gentleman that I

Harry, much bewildered, and far from clear as to the manners of the Cuban gentlemen, strenuously

'Your national seriousness of bearing best becomes you, Senor,' said the lady. 'See!' marking a line with her

dainty, slippered foot, 'thus far it shall be common ground; there, at my windowsill, begins the scientific

frontier. If you choose, you may drive me to my forts; but if, on the other hand, we are to be real English

friends, I may join you here when I am not too sad; or, when I am yet more graciously inclined, you may

draw your chair beside the window and teach me English customs, while I work. You will find me an apt

scholar, for my heart is in the task.' She laid her hand lightly upon Harry's arm, and looked into his eyes. 'Do

you know,' said she, 'I am emboldened to believe that I have already caught something of your English

aplomb? Do you not perceive a change, Senor? Slight, perhaps, but still a change? Is my deportment not more

open, more free, more like that of the dear "British Miss" than when you saw me first?' She gave a radiant

smile; withdrew her hand from Harry's arm; and before the young man could formulate in words the eloquent

emotions that ran riot through his brain with an 'Adios, Senor: goodnight, my English friend,' she

The next day Harry consumed an ounce of tobacco in vain upon the neutral terrace; neither sight nor sound

rewarded him, and the dinnerhour summoned him at length from the scene of disappointment. On the next it

rained; but nothing, neither business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present hardship, could

now divert the young man from the service of his lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he

took his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of damp and discomfort to the eye, but

glowing inwardly with tender and delightful ardours. Presently the window opened, and the fair Cuban, with

'Come here,' she said, 'here, beside my window. The small verandah gives a belt of shelter.' And she

As he sat down, visibly aglow with shyness and delight, a certain bulkiness in his pocket reminded him that

'I have taken the liberty,' said he, 'of bringing you a little book. I thought of you, when I observed it on the

stall, because I saw it was in Spanish. The man assured me it was by one of the best authors, and quite

proper.' As he spoke, he placed the little volume in her hand. Her eyes fell as she turned the pages, and a flush

rose and died again upon her cheeks, as deep as it was fleeting. 'You are angry,' he cried in agony. 'I have

'No, Senor, it is not that,' returned the lady. 'I ' and a flood of colour once more mounted to her brow 'I am

confused and ashamed because I have deceived you. Spanish,' she began, and paused 'Spanish is, of course,

my native tongue,' she resumed, as though suddenly taking courage; 'and this should certainly put the highest

value on your thoughtful present; but alas, sir, of what use is it to me? And how shall I confess to you the

As Harry's eyes met hers in undisguised amazement, the fair Cuban seemed to shrink before his gaze. 'Read?'

She pushed the window still more widely open with a large and noble gesture. 'Enter, Senor,' said she. 'The

time has come to which I have long looked forward, not without alarm; when I must either fear to lose your

It was with a sentiment bordering on devotion, that Harry passed the window. A semibarbarous delight in

form and colour had presided over the studied disorder of the room in which he found himself. It was filled

with dainty stuffs, furs and rugs and scarves of brilliant hues, and set with elegant and curious triflesfans on

the mantelshelf, an antique lamp upon a bracket, and on the table a silver mounted bowl of cocoanut about

half full of unset jewels. The fair Cuban, herself a gem of colour and the fit masterpiece for that rich frame,

motioned Harry to a seat, and sinking herself into another, thus began her history.

I AM not what I seem. My father drew his descent, on the one hand, from grandees of Spain, and on the

other, through the maternal line, from the patriot Bruce. My mother, too, was the descendant of a line of

kings; but, alas! these kings were African. She was fair as the day: fairer than I, for I inherited a darker strain

of blood from the veins of my European father; her mind was noble, her manners queenly and accomplished;

and seeing her more than the equal of her neighbours, and surrounded by the most considerate affection and

respect, I grew up to adore her, and when the time came, received her last sigh upon my lips, still ignorant

that she was a slave, and alas! my father's mistress. Her death, which befell me in my sixteenth year, was the

first sorrow I had known: it left our home bereaved of its attractions, cast a shade of melancholy on my youth,

and wrought in my father a tragic and durable change. Months went by; with the elasticity of my years, I

regained some of the simple mirth that had before distinguished me; the plantation smiled with fresh crops;

the negroes on the estate had already forgotten my mother and transferred their simple obedience to myself;

but still the cloud only darkened on the brows of Senor Valdevia. His absences from home had been frequent

even in the old days, for he did business in precious gems in the city of Havana; they now became almost

continuous; and when he returned, it was but for the night and with the manner of a man crushed down by

The place where I was born and passed my days was an isle set in the Caribbean Sea, some halfhour's

rowing from the coasts of Cuba. It was steep, rugged, and, except for my father's family and plantation,

uninhabited and left to nature. The house, a low building surrounded by spacious verandahs, stood upon a rise

of ground and looked across the sea to Cuba. The breezes blew about it gratefully, fanned us as we lay

swinging in our silken hammocks, and tossed the boughs and flowers of the magnolia. Behind and to the left,

the quarter of the negroes and the waving fields of the plantation covered an eighth part of the surface of the

isle. On the right and closely bordering on the garden, lay a vast and deadly swamp, densely covered with

wood, breathing fever, dotted with profound sloughs, and inhabited by poisonous oysters, maneating crabs,

snakes, alligators, and sickly fishes. Into the recesses of that jungle, none could penetrate but those of African

descent; an invisible, unconquerable foe lay there in wait for the European; and the air was death.

One morning (from which I must date the beginning of my ruinous misfortune) I left my room a little after

day, for in that warm climate all are early risers, and found not a servant to attend upon my wants. I made the

circuit of the house, still calling: and my surprise had almost changed into alarm, when coming at last into a

large verandahed court, I found it thronged with negroes. Even then, even when I was amongst them, not one

turned or paid the least regard to my arrival. They had eyes and ears for but one person: a woman, richly and

tastefully attired; of elegant carriage, and a musical speech; not so much old in years, as worn and marred by

selfindulgence: her face, which was still attractive, stamped with the most cruel passions, her eye burning

with the greed of evil. It was not from her appearance, I believe, but from some emanation of her soul, that I

recoiled in a kind of fainting terror; as we hear of plants that blight and snakes that fascinate, the woman

shocked and daunted me. But I was of a brave nature; trod the weakness down; and forcing my way through

the slaves, who fell back before me in embarrassment, as though in the presence of rival mistresses, I asked,

A slave girl, to whom I had been kind, whispered in my ear to have a care, for that was Madam Mendizabal;

In the meanwhile the woman, applying a pair of glasses to her eyes, studied me with insolent particularity

'Young woman,' said she, at last, 'I have had a great experience in refractory servants, and take a pride in

breaking them. You really tempt me; and if I had not other affairs, and these of more importance, on my

'Is it possible that you do not know your position?' she returned, with a hateful laugh. 'How comical!

Positively, I must buy her. Accomplishments, I suppose?' she added, turning to the servants.

Several assured her that the young mistress had been brought up like any lady, for so it seemed in their

'She would do very well for my place of business in Havana,' said the Senora Mendizabal, once more

studying me through her glasses; 'and I should take a pleasure,' she pursued, more directly addressing myself,

'in bringing you acquainted with a whip.' And she smiled at me with a savoury lust of cruelty upon her face.

At this, I found expression. Calling by name upon the servants, I bade them turn this woman from the house,

fetch her to the boat, and set her back upon the mainland. But with one voice, they protested that they durst

not obey, coming close about me, pleading and beseeching me to be more wise; and, when I insisted, rising

higher in passion and speaking of this foul intruder in the terms she had deserved, they fell back from me as

from one who had blasphemed. A superstitious reverence plainly encircled the stranger; I could read it in

their changed demeanour, and in the paleness that prevailed upon the natural colour of their faces; and their

fear perhaps reacted on myself. I looked again at Madam Mendizabal. She stood perfectly composed,

watching my face through her glasses with a smile of scorn; and at the sight of her assured superiority to all

my threats, a cry broke from my lips, a cry of rage, fear, and despair, and I fled from the verandah and the

I ran I knew not where, but it was towards the beach. As I went, my head whirled; so strange, so sudden, were

these events and insults. Who was she? what, in Heaven's name, the power she wielded over my obedient

negroes? Why had she addressed me as a slave? why spoken of my father's sale? To all these tumultuary

questions I could find no answer; and in the turmoil of my mind, nothing was plain except the hateful leering

I was still running, mad with fear and anger, when I saw my father coming to meet me from the

landingplace; and with a cry that I thought would have killed me, leaped into his arms and broke into a

passion of sobs and tears upon his bosom. He made me sit down below a tall palmetto that grew not far off;

comforted me, but with some abstraction in his voice; and as soon as I regained the least command upon my

feelings, asked me, not without harshness, what this grief betokened. I was surprised by his tone into a still

greater measure of composure; and in firm tones, though still interrupted by sobs, I told him there was a

stranger in the island, at which I thought he started and turned pale; that the servants would not obey me; that

the stranger's name was Madam Mendizabal, and, at that, he seemed to me both troubled and relieved; that

she had insulted me, treated me as a slave (and here my father's brow began to darken), threatened to buy me

at a sale, and questioned my own servants before my face; and that, at last, finding myself quite helpless and

exposed to these intolerable liberties, I had fled from the house in terror, indignation, and amazement.

'Teresa,' said my father, with singular gravity of voice, 'I must make today a call upon your courage; much

must be told you, there is much that you must do to help me; and my daughter must prove herself a woman

by her spirit. As for this Mendizabal, what shall I say? or how am I to tell you what she is? Twenty years ago,

she was the loveliest of slaves; today she is what you see her prematurely old, disgraced by the practice of

every vice and every nefarious industry, but free, rich, married, they say, to some reputable man, whom may

Heaven assist! and exercising among her ancient mates, the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its

reason is mysterious. Horrible rites, it is supposed, cement her empire: the rites of Hoodoo. Be that as it may,

I would have you dismiss the thought of this incomparable witch; it is not from her that danger threatens us;

'Father!' I cried. 'Fall? Was there any truth, then, in her words? Am I O father, tell me plain; I can bear

'I will tell you,' he replied, with merciful bluntness. 'Your mother was a slave; it was my design, so soon as I

had saved a competence, to sail to the free land of Britain, where the law would suffer me to marry her: a

design too long procrastinated; for death, at the last moment, intervened. You will now understand the

I cried out aloud, in pity for my parents; and in seeking to console the survivor, I forgot myself.

'It matters not,' resumed my father. 'What I have left undone can never be repaired, and I must bear the

penalty of my remorse. But, Teresa, with so cutting a reminder of the evils of delay, I set myself at once to do

'Your mother's illness,' he resumed, 'had engaged too great a portion of my time; my business in the city had

lain too long at the mercy of ignorant underlings; my head, my taste, my unequalled knowledge of the more

precious stones, that art by which I can distinguish, even on the darkest night, a sapphire from a ruby, and tell

at a glance in what quarter of the earth a gem was disinterred all these had been too long absent from the

'What matters that?' I cried. 'What matters poverty, if we be left together with our love and sacred memories?'

'You do not comprehend,' he said gloomily. 'Slave, as you are, young alas! scarce more than child!

accomplished, beautiful with the most touching beauty, innocent as an angel all these qualities that should

disarm the very wolves and crocodiles, are, in the eyes of those to whom I stand indebted, commodities to

buy and sell. You are a chattel; a marketable thing; and worth heavens, that I should say such words!

worth money. Do you begin to see? If I were to give you freedom, I should defraud my creditors; the

manumission would be certainly annulled; you would be still a slave, and I a criminal.'

I caught his hand in mine, kissed it, and moaned in pity for myself, in sympathy for my father.

'How I have toiled,' he continued, 'how I have dared and striven to repair my losses, Heaven has beheld and

will remember. Its blessing was denied to my endeavours, or, as I please myself by thinking, but delayed to

descend upon my daughter's head. At length, all hope was at an end; I was ruined beyond retrieve; a heavy

debt fell due upon the morrow, which I could not meet; I should be declared a bankrupt, and my goods, my

lands, my jewels that I so much loved, my slaves whom I have spoiled and rendered happy, and oh! tenfold

worse, you, my beloved daughter, would be sold and pass into the hands of ignorant and greedy traffickers.

Too long, I saw, had I accepted and profited by this great crime of slavery; but was my daughter, my innocent

unsullied daughter, was SHE to pay the price? I cried out no! I took Heaven to witness my temptation; I

caught up this bag and fled. Close upon my track are the pursuers; perhaps to night, perhaps tomorrow,

they will land upon this isle, sacred to the memory of the dear soul that bore you, to consign your father to an

ignominious prison, and yourself to slavery and dishonour. We have not many hours before us. Off the north

coast of our isle, by strange good fortune, an English yacht has for some days been hovering. It belongs to Sir

George Greville, whom I slightly know, to whom ere now I have rendered unusual services, and who will not

refuse to help in our escape. Or if he did, if his gratitude were in default, I have the power to force him. For

what does it mean, my child what means this Englishman, who hangs for years upon the shores of Cuba,

'So he declares,' returned my father; 'but the strange gift I have received from nature, easily transpierced the

fable. He brought me diamonds only, which I bought, at first, in innocence; at a second glance, I started; for

of these stones, my child, some had first seen the day in Africa, some in Brazil; while others, from their

peculiar water and rude workmanship, I divined to be the spoil of ancient temples. Thus put upon the scent, I

made inquiries. Oh, he is cunning, but I was cunninger than he. He visited, I found, the shop of every jeweller

in town; to one he came with rubies, to one with emeralds, to one with precious beryl; to all, with this same

story of the mine. But in what mine, what rich epitome of the earth's surface, were there conjoined the rubies

of Ispahan, the pearls of Coromandel, and the diamonds of Golconda? No, child, that man, for all his yacht

and title, that man must fear and must obey me. Tonight, then, as soon as it is dark, we must take our way

through the swamp by the path which I shall presently show you; thence, across the highlands of the isle, a

track is blazed, which shall conduct us to the haven on the north; and close by the yacht is riding. Should my

pursuers come before the hour at which I look to see them, they will still arrive too late; a trusty man attends

on the mainland; as soon as they appear, we shall behold, if it be dark, the redness of a fire, if it be day, a

pillar of smoke, on the opposing headland; and thus warned, we shall have time to put the swamp between

ourselves and danger. Meantime, I would conceal this bag; I would, before all things, be seen to arrive at the

house with empty hands; a blabbing slave might else undo us. For see!' he added; and holding up the bag,

which he had already shown me, he poured into my lap a shower of unmounted jewels, brighter than flowers,

of every size and colour, and catching, as they fell, upon a million dainty facets, the ardour of the sun.

'Even in your ignorant eyes,' pursued my father, 'they command respect. Yet what are they but pebbles,

passive to the tool, cold as death? Ingrate!' he cried. 'Each one of these miracles of nature's patience,

conceived out of the dust in centuries of microscopical activity, each one is, for you and me, a year of life,

liberty, and mutual affection. How, then, should I cherish them! and why do I delay to place them beyond

He rose to his feet, and led me to the borders of the great jungle, where they overhung, in a wall of poisonous

and dusky foliage, the declivity of the hill on which my father's house stood planted. For some while he

skirted, with attentive eyes, the margin of the thicket. Then, seeming to recognise some mark, for his

countenance became immediately lightened of a load of thought, he paused and addressed me. 'Here,' said he,

'is the entrance of the secret path that I have mentioned, and here you shall await me. I but pass some

hundreds of yards into the swamp to bury my poor treasure; as soon as that is safe, I will return.' It was in

vain that I sought to dissuade him, urging the dangers of the place; in vain that I begged to be allowed to

follow, pleading the black blood that I now knew to circulate in my veins: to all my appeals he turned a deaf

ear, and, bending back a portion of the screen of bushes, disappeared into the pestilential silence of the

At the end of a full hour, the bushes were once more thrust aside; and my father stepped from out the thicket,

and paused and almost staggered in the first shock of the blinding sunlight. His face was of a singular dusky

'I am tired,' he replied; 'the air in that jungle stifles one; my eyes, besides, have grown accustomed to its

gloom, and the strong sunshine pierces them like knives. A moment, Teresa, give me but a moment. All shall

yet be well. I have buried the hoard under a cypress, immediately beyond the bayou, on the lefthand margin

of the path; beautiful, bright things, they now lie whelmed in slime; you shall find them there, if needful. But

come, let us to the house; it is time to eat against our journey of the night: to eat and then to sleep, my poor

Teresa: then to sleep.' And he looked upon me out of bloodshot eyes, shaking his head as if in pity.

We went hurriedly, for he kept murmuring that he had been gone too long, and that the servants might

suspect; passed through the airy stretch of the verandah; and came at length into the grateful twilight of the

shuttered house. The meal was spread; the house servants, already informed by the boatmen of the master's

return, were all back at their posts, and terrified, as I could see, to face me. My father still murmuring of haste

with weary and feverish pertinacity, I hurried at once to take my place at table; but I had no sooner left his

arm than he paused and thrust forth both his hands with a strange gesture of groping. 'How is this?' he cried,

in a sharp, unhuman voice. 'Am I blind?' I ran to him and tried to lead him to the table; but he resisted and

stood stiffly where he was, opening and shutting his jaws, as if in a painful effort after breath. Then suddenly

he raised both hands to his temples, cried out, 'My head, my head!' and reeled and fell against the wall.

I knew too well what it must be. I turned and begged the servants to relieve him. But they, with one accord,

denied the possibility of hope; the master had gone into the swamp, they said, the master must die; all help

was idle. Why should I dwell upon his sufferings? I had him carried to a bed, and watched beside him. He lay

still, and at times ground his teeth, and talked at times unintelligibly, only that one word of hurry, hurry,

coming distinctly to my ears, and telling me that, even in the last struggle with the powers of death, his mind

was still tortured by his daughter's peril. The sun had gone down, the darkness had fallen, when I perceived

that I was alone on this unhappy earth. What thought had I of flight, of safety, of the impending dangers of

my situation? Beside the body of my last friend, I had forgotten all except the natural pangs of my

The sun was some four hours above the eastern line, when I was recalled to a knowledge of the things of

earth, by the entrance of the slavegirl to whom I have already referred. The poor soul was indeed devotedly

attached to me; and it was with streaming tears that she broke to me the import of her coming. With the first

light of dawn a boat had reached our landingplace, and set on shore upon our isle (till now so fortunate) a

party of officers bearing a warrant to arrest my father's person, and a man of a gross body and low manners,

who declared the island, the plantation, and all its human chattels, to be now his own. 'I think,' said my

slavegirl, 'he must be a politician or some very powerful sorcerer; for Madam Mendizabal had no sooner

'Fool,' said I, 'it was the officers she feared; and at any rate why does that beldam still dare to pollute the

island with her presence? And O Cora,' I exclaimed, remembering my grief, 'what matter all these troubles to

'Mistress,' said she, 'I must remind you of two things. Never speak as you do now of Madam Mendizabal; or

never to a person of colour; for she is the most powerful woman in this world, and her real name even, if one

durst pronounce it, were a spell to raise the dead. And whatever you do, speak no more of her to your

unhappy Cora; for though it is possible she may be afraid of the police (and indeed I think that I have heard

she is in hiding), and though I know that you will laugh and not believe, yet it is true, and proved, and known

that she hears every word that people utter in this whole vast world; and your poor Cora is already deep

enough in her black books. She looks at me, mistress, till my blood turns ice. That is the first I had to say; and

now for the second: do, pray, for Heaven's sake, bear in mind that you are no longer the poor Senor's

daughter. He is gone, dear gentleman; and now you are no more than a common slavegirl like myself. The

man to whom you belong calls for you; oh, my dear mistress, go at once! With your youth and beauty, you

For a moment I looked on the creature with the indignation you may conceive; the next, it was gone: she did

but speak after her kind, as the bird sings or cattle bellow. 'Go,' said I. 'Go, Cora. I thank you for your kind

intentions. Leave me alone one moment with my dead father; and tell this man that I will come at once.'

She went: and I, turning to the bed of death, addressed to those deaf ears the last appeal and defence of my

beleaguered innocence. 'Father,' I said, 'it was your last thought, even in the pangs of dissolution, that your

daughter should escape disgrace. Here, at your side, I swear to you that purpose shall be carried out; by what

means, I know not; by crime, if need be; and Heaven forgive both you and me and our oppressors, and

Heaven help my helplessness!' Thereupon I felt strengthened as by long repose; stepped to the mirror, ay,

even in that chamber of the dead; hastily arranged my hair, refreshed my tearworn eyes, breathed a dumb

farewell to the originator of my days and sorrows; and composing my features to a smile, went forth to meet

He was in a great, hot bustle, reviewing that house, once ours, to which he had but now succeeded; a

corpulent, sanguine man of middle age, sensual, vulgar, humorous, and, if I judged rightly, not illdisposed

by nature. But the sparkle that came into his eye as he observed me enter, warned me to expect the worst.

'Is this your late mistress?' he inquired of the slaves; and when he had learnt it was so, instantly dismissed

them. 'Now, my dear,' said he, 'I am a plain man: none of your damned Spaniards, but a true blue,

'Come,' said he, 'this is better than I had expected; and if you choose to be dutiful in the station to which it has

pleased God to call you, you will find me a very kind old fellow. I like your looks,' he added, calling me by

my name, which he scandalously mispronounced. 'Is your hair all your own?' he then inquired with a certain

sharpness, and coming up to me, as though I were a horse, he grossly satisfied his doubts. I was all one flame

from head to foot, but I contained my righteous anger and submitted. 'That is very well,' he continued,

chucking me good humouredly under the chin. 'You will have no cause to regret coming to old Caulder, eh?

But that is by the way. What is more to the point is this: your late master was a most dishonest rogue, and

levanted with some valuable property that belonged of rights to me. Now, considering your relation to him, I

regard you as the likeliest person to know what has become of it; and I warn you, before you answer, that my

whole future kindness will depend upon your honesty. I am an honest man myself, and expect the same in my

'Hush?' he repeated. 'And why hush? I am on my own place, I would have you to know, and surrounded by

'I wish you had kept them,' I answered, solemnly enough, although my heart at that same moment leaped with

exultation. 'Master, I must not conceal from you the truth. The servants on this estate are in a dangerous

'Why,' he cried, 'I never saw a milderlooking lot of niggers in my life.' But for all that he turned somewhat

'Did they tell you,' I continued, 'that Madam Mendizabal is on the island? that, since her coming, they obey

none but her? that if, this morning, they have received you with even decent civility, it was only by her orders

'Madam Jezebel?' said he. 'Well, she is a dangerous devil; the police are after her, besides, for a whole series

of murders; but after all, what then? To be sure, she has a great influence with you coloured folk. But what in

'The jewels,' I replied. 'Ah, sir, had you seen that treasure, sapphire and emerald and opal, and the golden

topaz, and rubies red as the sunset of what incalculable worth, of what unequalled beauty to the eye! had

you seen it, as I have, and alas! as SHE has you would understand and tremble at your danger.'

'She has seen them!' he cried, and I could see by his face, that my audacity was justified by its success.

I caught his hand in mine. 'My master,' said I, 'I am now yours; it is my duty, it should be my pleasure, to

defend your interests and life. Hear my advice, then; and, I conjure you, be guided by my prudence. Follow

me privily; let none see where we are going; I will lead you to the place where the treasure has been buried;

that once disinterred, let us make straight for the boat, escape to the mainland, and not return to this

What free man in a free land would have credited so sudden a devotion? But this oppressor, through the very

arts and sophistries he had abused, to quiet the rebellion of his conscience and to convince himself that

slavery was natural, fell like a child into the trap I laid for him. He praised and thanked me; told me I had all

the qualities he valued in a servant; and when he had questioned me further as to the nature and value of the

treasure, and I had once more artfully inflamed his greed, bade me without delay proceed to carry out my

From a shed in the garden, I took a pick and shovel; and thence, by devious paths among the magnolias, led

my master to the entrance of the swamp. I walked first, carrying, as I was now in duty bound, the tools, and

glancing continually behind me, lest we should be spied upon and followed. When we were come as far as

the beginning of the path, it flashed into my mind I had forgotten meat; and leaving Mr. Caulder in the

shadow of a tree, I returned alone to the house for a basket of provisions. Were they for him? I asked myself.

And a voice within me answered, No. While we were face to face, while I still saw before my eyes the man to

whom I belonged as the hand belongs to the body, my indignation held me bravely up. But now that I was

alone, I conceived a sickness at myself and my designs that I could scarce endure; I longed to throw myself at

his feet, avow my intended treachery, and warn him from that pestilential swamp, to which I was decoying

him to die; but my vow to my dead father, my duty to my innocent youth, prevailed upon these scruples; and

though my face was pale and must have reflected the horror that oppressed my spirits, it was with a firm step

that I returned to the borders of the swamp, and with smiling lips that I bade him rise and follow me.

The path on which we now entered was cut, like a tunnel, through the living jungle. On either hand and

overhead, the mass of foliage was continuously joined; the day sparingly filtered through the depth of

superimpending wood; and the air was hot like steam, and heady with vegetable odours, and lay like a load

upon the lungs and brain. Underfoot, a great depth of mould received our silent footprints; on each side,

mimosas, as tall as a man, shrank from my passing skirts with a continuous hissing rustle; and but for these

sentient vegetables, all in that den of pestilence was motionless and noiseless.

We had gone but a little way in, when Mr. Caulder was seized with sudden nausea, and must sit down a

moment on the path. My heart yearned, as I beheld him; and I seriously begged the doomed mortal to return

upon his steps. What were a few jewels in the scales with life? I asked. But no, he said; that witch Madam

Jezebel would find them out; he was an honest man, and would not stand to be defrauded, and so forth,

panting the while, like a sick dog. Presently he got to his feet again, protesting he had conquered his

uneasiness; but as we again began to go forward, I saw in his changed countenance, the first approaches of

'Master,' said I, 'you look pale, deathly pale; your pallor fills me with dread. Your eyes are bloodshot; they are

'Wench,' he cried, 'look before you; look at your steps. I declare to Heaven, if you annoy me once again by

A little after, I observed a worm upon the ground, and told, in a whisper, that its touch was death. Presently a

great green serpent, vivid as the grass in spring, wound rapidly across the path; and once again I paused and

looked back at my companion, with a horror in my eyes. 'The coffin snake,' said I, 'the snake that dogs its

But he was not to be dissuaded. 'I am an old traveller,' said he. 'This is a foul jungle indeed; but we shall soon

Thereupon he laughed again and again, but not very heartily; and then, perceiving that the path began to

widen and grow higher, 'There!' said he. 'What did I tell you? We are past the worst.'

Indeed, we had now come to the bayou, which was in that place very narrow and bridged across by a fallen

trunk; but on either hand we could see it broaden out, under a cavern of great arms of trees and hanging

creepers: sluggish, putrid, of a horrible and sickly stench, floated on by the flat heads of alligators, and its

'If we fall from that unsteady bridge,' said I, 'see, where the caiman lies ready to devour us! If, by the least

divergence from the path, we should be snared in a morass, see, where those myriads of scarlet vermin scour

the border of the thicket! Once helpless, how they would swarm together to the assault! What could man do

against a thousand of such mailed assailants? And what a death were that, to perish alive under their claws.'

Again I looked upon him, half relenting; and at that he raised the stick that was in his hand and cruelly struck

me on the face. 'Lead on!' he cried again. 'Must I be all day, catching my death in this vile slough, and all for

I took the blow in silence, I took it smiling; but the blood welled back upon my heart. Something, I know not

what, fell at that moment with a dull plunge in the waters of the lagoon, and I told myself it was my pity that

On the farther side, to which we now hastily scrambled, the wood was not so dense, the web of creepers not

so solidly convolved. It was possible, here and there, to mark a patch of somewhat brighter daylight, or to

distinguish, through the lighter web of parasites, the proportions of some soaring tree. The cypress on the left

stood very visibly forth, upon the edge of such a clearing; the path in that place widened broadly; and there

was a patch of open ground, beset with horrible antheaps, thick with their artificers. I laid down the tools

and basket by the cypress root, where they were instantly blackened over with the crawling ants; and looked

once more in the face of my unconscious victim. Mosquitoes and foul flies wove so close a veil between us

that his features were obscured; and the sound of their flight was like the turning of a mighty wheel.

'Here,' I said, 'is the spot. I cannot dig, for I have not learned to use such instruments; but, for your own sake,

He had sunk once more upon the ground, panting like a fish; and I saw rising in his face the same dusky flush

that had mantled on my father's. 'I feel ill,' he gasped, 'horribly ill; the swamp turns around me; the drone of

I gave him a glass, and he drank greedily. 'It is for you to think,' said I, 'if you should further persevere. The

I told him vaguely; and in the sweltering heat and closeness, and dim twilight of the jungle, he began to wield

the pickaxe, swinging it overhead with the vigour of a healthy man. At first, there broke forth upon him a

strong sweat, that made his face to shine, and in which the greedy insects settled thickly.

'To sweat in such a place,' said I. 'O master, is this wise? Fever is drunk in through open pores.'

'What do you mean?' he screamed, pausing with the pick buried in the soil. 'Do you seek to drive me mad?

'That is all I want,' said I: 'I only wish you to be swift.' And then, my mind flitting to my father's deathbed, I

began to murmur, scarce above my breath, the same vain repetition of words, 'Hurry, hurry, hurry.'

Presently, to my surprise, the treasureseeker took them up; and while he still wielded the pick, but now with

staggering and uncertain blows, repeated to himself, as it were the burthen of a song, 'Hurry, hurry, hurry;'

and then again, 'There is no time to lose; the marsh has an ill name, ill name;' and then back to 'Hurry, hurry,

hurry,' with a dreadful, mechanical, hurried, and yet wearied utterance, as a sick man rolls upon his pillow.

The sweat had disappeared; he was now dry, but all that I could see of him, of the same dull brick red.

Presently his pick unearthed the bag of jewels; but he did not observe it, and continued hewing at the soil.

'Master,' said I, 'there is the treasure.' He seemed to waken from a dream. 'Where?' he cried; and then, seeing

it before his eyes, 'Can this be possible?' he added. 'I must be lightheaded. Girl,' he cried suddenly, with the

same screaming tone of voice that I had once before observed, 'what is wrong? is this swamp accursed?'

'It is a grave,' I answered. 'You will not go out alive; and as for me, my life is in God's hands.'

He fell upon the ground like a man struck by a blow, but whether from the effect of my words, or from

sudden seizure of the malady, I cannot tell. Pretty soon, he raised his head. 'You have brought me here to die,'

'To save my honour,' I replied. 'Bear me out that I have warned you. Greed of these pebbles, and not I, has

He took out his revolver and handed it to me. 'You see,' he said, 'I could have killed you even yet. But I am

dying, as you say; nothing could save me; and my bill is long enough already. Dear me, dear me,' he said,

looking in my face with a curious, puzzled, and pathetic look, like a dull child at school, 'if there be a

At that, I broke into a passion of weeping, crawled at his feet, kissed his hands, begged his forgiveness, put

the pistol back into his grasp and besought him to avenge his death; for indeed, if with my life I could have

bought back his, I had not balanced at the cost. But he was determined, the poor soul, that I should yet more

'I have nothing to forgive,' said he. 'Dear heaven, what a thing is an old fool! I thought, upon my word, you

He was seized, at the same time, with a dreadful, swimming dizziness, clung to me like a child, and called

upon the name of some woman. Presently this spasm, which I watched with choking tears, lessened and died

away; and he came again to the full possession of his mind. 'I must write my will,' he said. 'Get out my

pocketbook.' I did so, and he wrote hurriedly on one page with a pencil. 'Do not let my son know,' he said;

'he is a cruel dog, is my son Philip; do not let him know how you have paid me out;' and then all of a sudden,

'God,' he cried, 'I am blind,' and clapped both hands before his eyes; and then again, and in a groaning

whisper, 'Don't leave me to the crabs!' I swore I would be true to him so long as a pulse stirred; and I

redeemed my promise. I sat there and watched him, as I had watched my father, but with what different, with

what appalling thoughts! Through the long afternoon, he gradually sank. All that while, I fought an uphill

battle to shield him from the swarms of ants and the clouds of mosquitoes: the prisoner of my crime. The

night fell, the roar of insects instantly redoubled in the dark arcades of the swamp; and still I was not sure that

he had breathed his last. At length, the flesh of his hand, which I yet held in mine, grew chill between my

I took his pocketbook and the revolver, being resolved rather to die than to be captured, and laden besides

with the basket and the bag of gems, set forward towards the north. The swamp, at that hour of the night, was

filled with a continuous din: animals and insects of all kinds, and all inimical to life, contributing their parts.

Yet in the midst of this turmoil of sound, I walked as though my eyes were bandaged, beholding nothing. The

soil sank under my foot, with a horrid, slippery consistence, as though I were walking among toads; the touch

of the thick wall of foliage, by which alone I guided myself, affrighted me like the touch of serpents; the

darkness checked my breathing like a gag; indeed, I have never suffered such extremes of fear as during that

nocturnal walk, nor have I ever known a more sensible relief than when I found the path beginning to mount

and to grow firmer under foot, and saw, although still some way in front of me, the silver brightness of the

Presently, I had crossed the last of the jungle, and come forth amongst noble and lofty woods, clean rock, the

clean, dry dust, the aromatic smell of mountain plants that had been baked all day in sunlight, and the

expressive silence of the night. My negro blood had carried me unhurt across that reeking and pestiferous

morass; by mere good fortune, I had escaped the crawling and stinging vermin with which it was alive; and I

had now before me the easier portion of my enterprise, to cross the isle and to make good my arrival at the

haven and my acceptance on the English yacht. It was impossible by night to follow such a track as my father

had described; and I was casting about for any landmark, and, in my ignorance, vainly consulting the

disposition of the stars, when there fell upon my ear, from somewhere far in front, the sound of many voices

I scarce knew upon what grounds I acted; but I shaped my steps in the direction of that sound; and in a

quarter of an hour's walking, came unperceived to the margin of an open glade. It was lighted by the strong

moon and by the flames of a fire. In the midst, there stood a little low and rude building, surmounted by a

cross: a chapel, as I then remembered to have heard, long since desecrated and given over to the rites of

Hoodoo. Hard by the steps of entrance was a black mass, continually agitated and stirring to and fro as if with

inarticulate life; and this I presently perceived to be a heap of cocks, hares, dogs, and other birds and animals,

still struggling, but helplessly tethered and cruelly tossed one upon another. Both the fire and the chapel were

surrounded by a ring of kneeling Africans, both men and women. Now they would raise their palms

halfclosed to heaven, with a peculiar, passionate gesture of supplication; now they would bow their heads

and spread their hands before them on the ground. As the double movement passed and repassed along the

line, the heads kept rising and falling, like waves upon the sea; and still, as if in time to these gesticulations,

the hurried chant continued. I stood spellbound, knowing that my life depended by a hair, knowing that I had

Presently, the door of the chapel opened, and there came forth a tall negro, entirely nude, and bearing in his

hand the sacrificial knife. He was followed by an apparition still more strange and shocking: Madam

Mendizabal, naked also, and carrying in both hands and raised to the level of her face, an open basket of

wicker. It was filled with coiling snakes; and these, as she stood there with the uplifted basket, shot through

the osier grating and curled about her arms. At the sight of this, the fervour of the crowd seemed to swell

suddenly higher; and the chant rose in pitch and grew more irregular in time and accent. Then, at a sign from

the tall negro, where he stood, motionless and smiling, in the moon and firelight, the singing died away, and

there began the second stage of this barbarous and bloody celebration. From different parts of the ring, one

after another, man or woman, ran forth into the midst; ducked, with that same gesture of the thrownup hand,

before the priestess and her snakes; and with various adjurations, uttered aloud the blackest wishes of the

heart. Death and disease were the favours usually invoked: the death or the disease of enemies or rivals; some

calling down these plagues upon the nearest of their own blood, and one, to whom I swear I had been never

less than kind, invoking them upon myself. At each petition, the tall negro, still smiling, picked up some bird

or animal from the heaving mass upon his left, slew it with the knife, and tossed its body on the ground. At

length, it seemed, it reached the turn of the highpriestess. She set down the basket on the steps, moved into

the centre of the ring, grovelled in the dust before the reptiles, and still grovelling lifted up her voice, between

speech and singing, and with so great, with so insane a fervour of excitement, as struck a sort of horror

'Power,' she began, 'whose name we do not utter; power that is neither good nor evil, but below them both;

stronger than good, greater than evil all my life long I have adored and served thee. Who has shed blood

upon thine altars? whose voice is broken with the singing of thy praises? whose limbs are faint before their

age with leaping in thy revels? Who has slain the child of her body? I,' she cried, 'I, Metamnbogu! By my

own name, I name myself. I tear away the veil. I would be served or perish. Hear me, slime of the fat swamp,

blackness of the thunder, venom of the serpent's udder hear or slay me! I would have two things, O

shapeless one, O horror of emptiness two things, or die! The blood of my whitefaced husband; oh! give

me that; he is the enemy of Hoodoo; give me his blood! And yet another, O racer of the blind winds, O

germinator in the ruins of the dead, O root of life, root of corruption! I grow old, I grow hideous; I am known,

I am hunted for my life: let thy servant then lay by this outworn body; let thy chief priestess turn again to the

blossom of her days, and be a girl once more, and the desired of all men, even as in the past! And, O lord and

master, as I here ask a marvel not yet wrought since we were torn from the old land, have I not prepared the

Even as she uttered the words, there was a great rumour of joy through all the circle of worshippers; it rose,

and fell, and rose again; and swelled at last into rapture, when the tall negro, who had stepped an instant into

the chapel, reappeared before the door, carrying in his arms the body of the slavegirl, Cora. I know not if I

saw what followed. When next my mind awoke to a clear knowledge, Cora was laid upon the steps before the

serpents; the negro with the knife stood over her; the knife rose; and at this I screamed out in my great horror,

A stillness fell upon the mob of cannibals. A moment more, and they must have thrown off this stupor, and I

infallibly have perished. But Heaven had designed to save me. The silence of these wretched men was not yet

broken, when there arose, in the empty night, a sound louder than the roar of any European tempest, swifter

to travel than the wings of any Eastern wind. Blackness engulfed the world; blackness, stabbed across from

every side by intricate and blinding lightning. Almost in the same second, at one world swallowing stride,

the heart of the tornado reached the clearing. I heard an agonising crash, and the light of my reason was

When I recovered consciousness, the day was come. I was unhurt; the trees close about me had not lost a

bough; and I might have thought at first that the tornado was a feature in a dream. It was otherwise indeed;

for when I looked abroad, I perceived I had escaped destruction by a hand'sbreadth. Right through the

forest, which here covered hill and dale, the storm had ploughed a lane of ruin. On either hand, the trees

waved uninjured in the air of the morning; but in the forthright course of its advance, the hurricane had left no

trophy standing. Everything, in that line, tree, man, or animal, the desecrated chapel and the votaries of

Hoodoo, had been subverted and destroyed in that brief spasm of anger of the powers of air. Everything, but a

yard or two beyond the line of its passage, humble flower, lofty tree, and the poor vulnerable maid who now

knelt to pay her gratitude to heaven, awoke unharmed in the crystal purity and peace of the new day.

To move by the path of the tornado was a thing impossible to man, so wildly were the wrecks of the tall

forest piled together by that fugitive convulsion. I crossed it indeed; with such labour and patience, with so

many dangerous slips and falls, as left me, at the further side, bankrupt alike of strength and courage. There I

sat down awhile to recruit my forces; and as I ate (how should I bless the kindliness of Heaven!) my eye,

flitting to and fro in the colonnade of the great trees, alighted on a trunk that had been blazed. Yes, by the

directing hand of Providence, I had been conducted to the very track I was to follow. With what a light heart I

now set forth, and walking with how glad a step, traversed the uplands of the isle!

It was hard upon the hour of noon, when I came, all tattered and wayworn, to the summit of a steep descent,

and looked below me on the sea. About all the coast, the surf, roused by the tornado of the night, beat with a

particular fury and made a fringe of snow. Close at my feet, I saw a haven, set in precipitous and

palmcrowned bluffs of rock. Just outside, a ship was heaving on the surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily

painted, so elegant and pointdevice in every feature, that my heart was seized with admiration. The English

colours blew from her masthead; and from my high station, I caught glimpses of her snowy planking, as she

rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture. There, then, was my ship

of refuge; and of all my difficulties only one remained: to get on board of her.

Half an hour later, I issued at last out of the woods on the margin of a cove, into whose jaws the tossing and

blue billows entered, and along whose shores they broke with a surprising loudness. A wooded promontory

hid the yacht; and I had walked some distance round the beach, in what appeared to be a virgin solitude,

when my eye fell on a boat, drawn into a natural harbour, where it rocked in safety, but deserted. I looked

about for those who should have manned her; and presently, in the immediate entrance of the wood, spied the

red embers of a fire, and, stretched around in various attitudes, a party of slumbering mariners. To these I

drew near: most were black, a few white; but all were dressed with the conspicuous decency of yachtsmen;

and one, from his peaked cap and glittering buttons, I rightly divined to be an officer. Him, then, I touched

upon the shoulder. He started up; the sharpness of his movement woke the rest; and they all stared upon me in

I thought they all seemed disconcerted at this; and the officer, with something of sharpness, asked me who I

was. Now I had determined to conceal my name until I met Sir George; and the first name that rose to my lips

was that of the Senora Mendizabal. At the word, there went a shock about the little party of seamen; the

negroes stared at me with indescribable eagerness, the whites themselves with something of a scared surprise;

and instantly the spirit of mischief prompted me to add, 'And if the name is new to your ears, call me

I had never seen an effect so wonderful. The negroes threw their hands into the air, with the same gesture I

remarked the night before about the Hoodoo campfire; first one, and then another, ran forward and kneeled

down and kissed the skirts of my torn dress; and when the white officer broke out swearing and calling to

know if they were mad, the coloured seamen took him by the shoulders, dragged him on one side till they

were out of hearing, and surrounded him with open mouths and extravagant pantomime. The officer seemed

to struggle hard; he laughed aloud, and I saw him make gestures of dissent and protest; but in the end,

whether overcome by reason or simply weary of resistance, he gave in approached me civilly enough, but

with something of a sneering manner underneath and touching his cap, 'My lady,' said he, 'if that is what

My reception on board the NEMOROSA (for so the yacht was named) partook of the same mingled nature.

We were scarcely within hail of that great and elegant fabric, where she lay rolling gunwale under and

churning the blue sea to snow, before the bulwarks were lined with the heads of a great crowd of seamen,

black, white, and yellow; and these and the few who manned the boat began exchanging shouts in some

LINGUA FRANCA incomprehensible to me. All eyes were directed on the passenger; and once more I saw

the negroes toss up their hands to heaven, but now as if with passionate wonder and delight.

At the head of the gangway, I was received by another officer, a gentlemanly man with blond and bushy

'I know it,' returned the other officer, who had brought me from the shore. 'But what the devil can we do?

I followed his direction; and as my eye lighted upon each, the poor ignorant Africans ducked, and bowed, and

threw their hands into the air, as though in the presence of a creature half divine. Apparently the officer with

the whiskers had instantly come round to the opinion of his subaltern; for he now addressed me with every

'Sir George is at the island, my lady,' said he: 'for which, with your ladyship's permission, I shall immediately

Under this new name, then, and so captivated by surprise that I could neither think nor speak, I was ushered

into a spacious and airy cabin, hung about with weapons and surrounded by divans. The steward asked for

my commands; but I was by this time so wearied, bewildered, and disturbed, that I could only wave him to

leave me to myself, and sink upon a pile of cushions. Presently, by the changed motion of the ship, I knew

her to be under way; my thoughts, so far from clarifying, grew the more distracted and confused; dreams

began to mingle and confound them; and at length, by insensible transition, I sank into a dreamless slumber.

When I awoke, the day and night had passed, and it was once more morning. The world on which I reopened

my eyes swam strangely up and down; the jewels in the bag that lay beside me chinked together ceaselessly;

the clock and the barometer wagged to and fro like pendulums; and overhead, seamen were singing out at

their work, and coils of rope clattering and thumping on the deck. Yet it was long before I had divined that I

was at sea; long before I had recalled, one after another, the tragical, mysterious, and inexplicable events that

When I had done so, I thrust the jewels, which I was surprised to find had been respected, into the bosom of

my dress; and seeing a silver bell hard by upon a table, rang it loudly. The steward instantly appeared; I asked

for food; and he proceeded to lay the table, regarding me the while with a disquieting and pertinacious

scrutiny. To relieve myself of my embarrassment, I asked him, with as fair a show of ease as I could muster,

'Madam,' said he, 'I know not who you are, nor what mad fancy has induced you to usurp a name and an

appalling destiny that are not yours. I warn you from the soul. No sooner arrived at the island '

At this moment he was interrupted by the whiskered officer, who had entered unperceived behind him, and

now laid a hand upon his shoulder. The sudden pallor, the deadly and sick fear, that was imprinted on the

'Yes, Mr. Kentish,' said the steward. 'For God's sake, Mr. Kentish!' And vanished, with a white face, from the

Thereupon the officer bade me sit down, and began to help me, and join in the meal. 'I fill your ladyship's

He laughed heartily. 'Your ladyship is so much changed,' said he, 'that I no longer expect any one thing more

Immediately after, a white seaman entered the cabin, saluted both Mr. Kentish and myself, and informed the

officer there was a sail in sight, which was bound to pass us very close, and that Mr. Harland was in doubt

'Better not, I think,' said Mr. Kentish. 'My compliments to Mr. Harland; and if she seem a lively boat, give

her the stars and stripes; but if she be dull, and we can easily outsail her, show John Dutchman. That is

always another word for incivility at sea; so we can disregard a hail or a flag of distress, without attracting

As soon as the sailor had gone on deck, I turned to the officer in wonder. 'Mr. Kentish, if that be your name,'

'Your ladyship refers to the JOLLY ROGER?' he inquired, with perfect gravity; and immediately after, went

into peals of laughter. 'Pardon me,' said he; 'but here for the first time I recognise your ladyship's

impetuosity.' Nor, try as I pleased, could I extract from him any explanation of this mystery, but only oily and

While we were thus occupied, the movement of the NEMOROSA gradually became less violent; its speed at

the same time diminished; and presently after, with a sullen plunge, the anchor was discharged into the sea.

Kentish immediately rose, offered his arm, and conducted me on deck; where I found we were lying in a

roadstead among many low and rocky islets, hovered about by an innumerable cloud of seafowl.

Immediately under our board, a somewhat larger isle was green with trees, set with a few low buildings and

approached by a pier of very crazy workmanship; and a little inshore of us, a smaller vessel lay at anchor.

I had scarce time to glance to the four quarters, ere a boat was lowered. I was handed in, Kentish took place

beside me, and we pulled briskly to the pier. A crowd of villainous, armed loiterers, both black and white,

looked on upon our landing; and again the word passed about among the negroes, and again I was received

with prostrations and the same gesture of the flungup hand. By this, what with the appearance of these men,

and the lawless, seagirt spot in which I found myself, my courage began a little to decline, and clinging to

'Nay, madam,' he returned, 'YOU know.' And leading me smartly through the crowd, which continued to

follow at a considerable distance, and at which he still kept looking back, I thought, with apprehension, he

brought me to a low house that stood alone in an encumbered yard, opened the door, and begged me to enter.

'Madam,' returned Mr. Kentish, looking suddenly as black as thunder, 'to drop all fence, I know neither who

nor what you are; beyond the fact that you are not the person whose name you have assumed. But be what

you please, spy, ghost, devil, or most illjudging jester, if you do not immediately enter that house, I will cut

you to the earth.' And even as he spoke, he threw an uneasy glance behind him at the following crowd of

I did not wait to be twice threatened; I obeyed at once, and with a palpitating heart; and the next moment, the

door was locked from the outside and the key withdrawn. The interior was long, low, and quite unfurnished,

but filled, almost from end to end, with sugarcane, tarbarrels, old tarry rope, and other incongruous and

highly inflammable material; and not only was the door locked, but the solitary window barred with iron.

I was by this time so exceedingly bewildered and afraid, that I would have given years of my life to be once

more the slave of Mr. Caulder. I still stood, with my hands clasped, the image of despair, looking about me

on the lumber of the room or raising my eyes to heaven; when there appeared outside the window bars, the

face of a very black negro, who signed to me imperiously to draw near. I did so, and he instantly, and with

every mark of fervour, addressed me a long speech in some unknown and barbarous tongue.

'Not?' he said in Spanish. 'Great, great, are the powers of Hoodoo! Her very mind is changed! But, O chief

priestess, why have you suffered yourself to be shut into this cage? why did you not call your slaves at once

to your defence? Do you not see that all has been prepared to murder you? at a spark, this flimsy house will

go in flames; and alas! who shall then be the chief priestess? and what shall be the profit of the miracle?'

'Heavens!' cried I, 'can I not see Sir George? I must, I must, come by speech of him. Oh, bring me to Sir

George!' And, my terror fairly mastering my courage, I fell upon my knees and began to pray to all the saints.

'Lordy!' cried the negro, 'here they come!' And his black head was instantly withdrawn from the window.

'Why, so we all say, Sir George,' replied the voice of Mr. Kentish. 'But put yourself in our place. The niggers

were near two to one. And upon my word, if you'll excuse me, sir, considering the notion they have taken in

their heads, I regard it as precious fortunate for all of us that the mistake occurred.'

'This is no question of fortune, sir,' returned Sir George. 'It is a question of my orders, and you may take my

word for it, Kentish, either Harland, or yourself, or Parker or, by George, all three of you! shall swing for

Immediately after, the key turned in the lock; and there appeared upon the threshold a gentleman, between

forty and fifty, with a very open countenance, and of a stout and personable figure.

I told him all my story in one rush of words. He heard me, from the first, with an amazement you can scarcely

picture, but when I came to the death of the Senora Mendizabal in the tornado, he fairly leaped into the air.

'My dear child,' he cried, clasping me in his arms, 'excuse a man who might be your father! This is the best

news I ever had since I was born; for that hag of a mulatto was no less a person than my wife.' He sat down

upon a tarbarrel, as if unmanned by joy. 'Dear me,' said he, 'I declare this tempts me to believe in

'I had not ventured to propose it,' I exclaimed, unable to restrain my mirth; 'I only seek to be conveyed to

'Well,' returned Sir George, 'frankly I owe you something for this exhilarating news; besides, your father was

of use to me. Now, I have made a small competence in business a jewel mine, a sort of naval agency, et

caetera, and I am on the point of breaking up my company, and retiring to my place in Devonshire to pass a

plain old age, unmarried. One good turn deserves another: if you swear to hold your tongue about this island,

these little bonfire arrangements, and the whole episode of my unfortunate marriage, why, I'll carry you home

'One thing more,' said he. 'My late wife was some sort of a sorceress among the blacks; and they are all

persuaded she has come alive again in your agreeable person. Now, you will have the goodness to keep up

that fancy, if you please; and to swear to them, on the authority of Hoodoo or whatever his name may be, that

'I swear it,' said I, 'by my father's memory; and that is a vow that I will never break.'

'I have considerably better hold on you than any oath,' returned Sir George, with a chuckle; 'for you are not

only an escaped slave, but have, by your own account, a considerable amount of stolen property.'

I was struck dumb; I saw it was too true; in a glance, I recognised that these jewels were no longer mine; with

similar quickness, I decided they should be restored, ay, if it cost me the liberty that I had just regained.

Forgetful of all else, forgetful of Sir George, who sat and watched me with a smile, I drew out Mr. Caulder's

pocketbook and turned to the page on which the dying man had scrawled his testament. How shall I

describe the agony of happiness and remorse with which I read it! for my victim had not only set me free, but

My plain tale draws towards a close. Sir George and I, in my character of his rejuvenated wife, displayed

ourselves arm inarm among the negroes, and were cheered and followed to the place of embarkation.

There, Sir George, turning about, made a speech to his old companions, in which he thanked and bade them

farewell with a very manly spirit; and towards the end of which he fell on some expressions which I still

remember. 'If any of you gentry lose your money,' he said, 'take care you do not come to me; for in the first

place, I shall do my best to have you murdered; and if that fails, I hand you over to the law. Blackmail won't

do for me. I'll rather risk all upon a cast, than be pulled to pieces by degrees. I'll rather be found out and hang,

than give a doit to one manjack of you.' That same night we got under way and crossed to the port of New

Orleans, whence, as a sacred trust, I sent the pocketbook to Mr. Caulder's son. In a week's time, the men

were all paid off; new hands were shipped; and the NEMOROSA weighed her anchor for Old England.

A more delightful voyage it were hard to fancy. Sir George, of course, was not a conscientious man; but he

had an unaffected gaiety of character that naturally endeared him to the young; and it was interesting to hear

him lay out his projects for the future, when he should be returned to Parliament, and place at the service of

the nation his experience of marine affairs. I asked him, if his notion of piracy upon a private yacht were not

original. But he told me, no. 'A yacht, Miss Valdevia,' he observed, 'is a chartered nuisance. Who smuggles?

Who robs the salmon rivers of the West of Scotland? Who cruelly beats the keepers if they dare to intervene?

The crews and the proprietors of yachts. All I have done is to extend the line a trifle, and if you ask me for

In short, we were the best of friends, and lived like father and daughter; though I still withheld from him, of

We were still some days' sail from England, when Sir George obtained, from an outwardbound ship, a

packet of newspapers; and from that fatal hour my misfortunes recommenced. He sat, the same evening, in

the cabin, reading the news, and making savoury comments on the decline of England and the poor condition

'Hullo!' said he, 'this is bad; this is deuced bad, Miss Valdevia. You would not listen to sound sense, you

'You are prettily paid for it, at least,' says he; 'and much as I regret it, I, for one, am done with you. This

'Yes, by George!' replied the baronet; 'but it's not a slave, Miss Valdevia, it's a thief that he demands. He has

quietly destroyed the will; and now accuses you of robbing your father's bankrupt estate of jewels to the value

I was so much overcome by indignation at this hateful charge and concern for my unhappy fate that the genial

'Do not be cast down,' said he. 'Of course, I wash my hands of you myself. A man in my position baronet,

old family, and all that cannot possibly be too particular about the company he keeps. But I am a deuced

goodhumoured old boy, let me tell you, when not ruffled; and I will do the best I can to put you right. I will

lend you a trifle of ready money, give you the address of an excellent lawyer in London, and find a way to set

He was in every particular as good as his word. Four days later, the NEMOROSA sounded her way, under

the cloak of a dark night, into a certain haven of the coast of England; and a boat, rowing with muffled oars,

set me ashore upon the beach within a stone's throw of a railway station. Thither, guided by Sir George's

directions, I groped a devious way; and finding a bench upon the platform, sat me down, wrapped in a man's

fur greatcoat, to await the coming of the day. It was still dark when a light was struck behind one of the

windows of the building; nor had the east begun to kindle to the warmer colours of the dawn, before a porter

carrying a lantern, issued from the door and found himself face to face with the unfortunate Teresa. He

looked all about him; in the grey twilight of the dawn, the haven was seen to lie deserted, and the yacht had

In such manner, like a ghost or a new creation, was Teresa with her bag of jewels landed on the shores of

England; in this silent fashion, without history or name, she took her place among the millions of a new

Since then, I have lived by the expedients of my lawyer, lying concealed in quiet lodgings, dogged by the

THE effect of this tale on the mind of Harry Desborough was instant and convincing. The Fair Cuban had

been already the loveliest, she now became, in his eyes, the most romantic, the most innocent, and the most

unhappy of her sex. He was bereft of words to utter what he felt: what pity, what admiration, what youthful

envy of a career so vivid and adventurous. 'O madam!' he began; and finding no language adequate to that

apostrophe, caught up her hand and wrung it in his own. 'Count upon me,' he added, with bewildered fervour;

and getting somehow or other out of the apartment and from the circle of that radiant sorceress, he found

himself in the strange outofdoors, beholding dull houses, wondering at dull passersby, a fallen angel. She

had smiled upon him as he left, and with how significant, how beautiful a smile! The memory lingered in his

heart; and when he found his way to a certain restaurant where music was performed, flutes (as it were of

Paradise) accompanied his meal. The strings went to the melody of that parting smile; they paraphrased and

glossed it in the sense that he desired; and for the first time in his plain and somewhat dreary life, he

The next day, and the next, his meditations moved to that delectable air. Now he saw her, and was favoured;

now saw her not at all; now saw her and was put by. The fall of her foot upon the stair entranced him; the

books that he sought out and read were books on Cuba, and spoke of her indirectly; nay, and in the very

landlady's parlour, he found one that told of precisely such a hurricane, and, down to the smallest detail,

confirmed (had confirmation been required) the truth of her recital. Presently he began to fall into that

prettiest mood of a young love, in which the lover scorns himself for his presumption. Who was he, the dull

one, the commonplace unemployed, the man without adventure, the impure, the untruthful, to aspire to such a

creature made of fire and air, and hallowed and adorned by such incomparable passages of life? What should

he do, to be more worthy? by what devotion, call down the notice of these eyes to so terrene a being as

He betook himself, thereupon, to the rural privacy of the square, where, being a lad of a kind heart, he had

made himself a circle of acquaintances among its shy frequenters, the halfdomestic cats and the visitors that

hung before the windows of the Children's Hospital. There he walked, considering the depth of his demerit

and the height of the adored one's superexcellence; now lighting upon earth to say a pleasant word to the

brother of some infant invalid; now, with a great heave of breath, remembering the queen of women, and the

What was he to do? Teresa, he had observed, was in the habit of leaving the house towards afternoon: she

might, perchance, run danger from some Cuban emissary, when the presence of a friend might turn the

balance in her favour: how, then, if he should follow her? To offer his company would seem like an intrusion;

to dog her openly were a manifest impertinence; he saw himself reduced to a more stealthy part, which,

though in some ways distasteful to his mind, he did not doubt that he could practise with the skill of a

The next day he proceeded to put his plan in action. At the corner of Tottenham Court Road, however, the

Senorita suddenly turned back, and met him face to face, with every mark of pleasure and surprise.

'Ah, Senor, I am sometimes fortunate!' she cried. 'I was looking for a messenger;' and with the sweetest of

smiles, she despatched him to the East End of London, to an address which he was unable to find. This was a

bitter pill to the knighterrant; but when he returned at night, worn out with fruitless wandering and dismayed

by his FIASCO, the lady received him with a friendly gaiety, protesting that all was for the best, since she

Next day he resumed his labours, glowing with pity and courage, and determined to protect Teresa with his

life. But a painful shock awaited him. In the narrow and silent Hanway Street, she turned suddenly about and

addressed him with a manner and a light in her eyes that were new to the young man's experience.

'Do I understand that you follow me, Senor?' she cried. 'Are these the manners of the English gentleman?'

Harry confounded himself in the most abject apologies and prayers to be forgiven, vowed to offend no more,

and was at length dismissed, crestfallen and heavy of heart. The check was final; he gave up that road to

service; and began once more to hang about the square or on the terrace, filled with remorse and love,

admirable and idiotic, a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men. In these idle hours, while he was

courting fortune for a sight of the beloved, it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners and

appearance of such as came about the house. One person alone was the occasional visitor of the young lady: a

man of considerable stature, and distinguished only by the doubtful ornament of a chinbeard in the style of

an American deacon. Something in his appearance grated upon Harry; this distaste grew upon him in the

course of days; and when at length he mustered courage to inquire of the Fair Cuban who this was, he was yet

'That gentleman,' said she, a smile struggling to her face, 'that gentleman, I will not attempt to conceal from

you, desires my hand in marriage, and presses me with the most respectful ardour. Alas, what am I to say? I,

Harry feared to say more; a horrid pang of jealousy transfixed him; and he had scarce the strength of mind to

take his leave with decency. In the solitude of his own chamber, he gave way to every manifestation of

despair. He passionately adored the Senorita; but it was not only the thought of her possible union with

another that distressed his soul, it was the indefeasible conviction that her suitor was unworthy. To a duke, a

bishop, a victorious general, or any man adorned with obvious qualities, he had resigned her with a sort of

bitter joy; he saw himself follow the wedding party from a great way off; he saw himself return to the poor

house, then robbed of its jewel; and while he could have wept for his despair, he felt he could support it

nobly. But this affair looked otherwise. The man was patently no gentleman; he had a startled, skulking,

guilty bearing; his nails were black, his eyes evasive; his love perhaps was a pretext; he was perhaps, under

Harry swore that he would satisfy these doubts; and the next evening, about the hour of the usual visit, he

posted himself at a spot whence his eye commanded the three issues of the square.

Presently after, a fourwheeler rumbled to the door, and the man with the chinbeard alighted, paid off the

cabman, and was seen by Harry to enter the house with a brown box hoisted on his back. Half an hour later,

he came forth again without the box, and struck eastward at a rapid walk; and Desborough, with the same

skill and caution that he had displayed in following Teresa, proceeded to dog the steps of her admirer. The

man began to loiter, studying with apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist; twice he

returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as though he had suddenly conquered a moment's

hesitation, once more set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of Lincoln's Inn. At length, in a

deserted bystreet, he turned; and coming up to Harry with a countenance which seemed to have become

older and whiter, inquired with some severity of speech if he had not had the pleasure of seeing the

'You have, sir,' said Harry, somewhat abashed, but with a good show of stoutness; 'and I will not deny that I

was following you on purpose. Doubtless,' he added, for he supposed that all men's minds must still be

At these words, the man with the chinbeard was seized with a palsied tremor. He seemed, for some seconds,

to seek the utterance which his fear denied him; and then whipping sharply about, he took to his heels at the

Harry was at first so taken aback that he neglected to pursue; and by the time he had recovered his wits, his

best expedition was only rewarded by a glimpse of the man with the chinbeard mounting into a hansom,

Puzzled and dismayed by this unusual behaviour, Harry returned to the house in Queen Square, and ventured

for the first time to knock at the fair Cuban's door. She bade him enter, and he found her kneeling with rather

'Senorita,' he broke out, 'I doubt whether that man's character is what he wishes you to believe. His manner,

when he found, and indeed when I admitted that I was following him, was not the manner of an honest man.'

'Oh!' she cried, throwing up her hands as in desperation, 'Don Quixote, Don Quixote, have you again been

tilting against windmills?' And then, with a laugh, 'Poor soul!' she added, 'how you must have terrified him!

For know that the Cuban authorities are here, and your poor Teresa may soon be hunted down. Even yon

humble clerk from my solicitor's office may find himself at any moment the quarry of armed spies.'

'A humble clerk!' cried Harry, 'why, you told me yourself that he wished to marry you!'

'I thought you English like what you call a joke,' replied the lady calmly. 'As a matter of fact, he is my

lawyer's clerk, and has been here tonight charged with disastrous news. I am in sore straits, Senor Harry.

At this most welcome word, the young man's heart exulted; and in the hope, pride, and selfesteem that

kindled with the very thought of service, he forgot to dwell upon the lady's jest. 'Can you ask?' he cried.

With signs of an emotion that was certainly unfeigned, the fair Cuban laid her hand upon the box. 'This box,'

she said, 'contains my jewels, papers, and clothes; all, in a word, that still connects me with Cuba and my

dreadful past. They must now be smuggled out of England; or, by the opinion of my lawyer, I am lost beyond

remedy. Tomorrow, on board the Irish packet, a sure hand awaits the box: the problem still unsolved, is to

find some one to carry it as far as Holyhead, to see it placed on board the steamer, and instantly return to

town. Will you be he? Will you leave tomorrow by the first train, punctually obey orders, bear still in mind

that you are surrounded by Cuban spies; and without so much as a look behind you, or a single movement to

betray your interest, leave the box where you have put it and come straight on shore? Will you do this, and so

'No more do I,' replied the Cuban. 'It is not necessary that we should, so long as we obey the lawyer's orders.'

'Senorita,' returned Harry gravely, 'I think this, of course, a very little thing to do for you, when I would

willingly do all. But suffer me to say one word. If London is unsafe for your treasures, it cannot long be safe

for you; and indeed, if I at all fathom the plan of your solicitor, I fear I may find you already fled on my

return. I am not considered clever, and can only speak out plainly what is in my heart: that I love you, and

that I cannot bear to lose all knowledge of you. I hope no more than to be your servant; I ask no more than

'You shall,' she said, after a pause. 'I promise you, you shall.' But though she spoke with earnestness, the

marks of great embarrassment and a strong conflict of emotions appeared upon her face.

'I do not know,' said he, 'you may be gone before my return, and we may not meet again for long. And so I

wished you to know this: That since the day you gave me the cigarette, you have never once, not once, been

absent from my mind; and if it will in any way serve you, you may crumple me up like that piece of paper,

'Go!' she said. 'Go now at once. My brain is in a whirl. I scarce know what we are talking. Go; and

Once back in his own room a fearful joy possessed the young man's mind; and as he recalled her face struck

suddenly white and the broken utterance of her last words, his heart at once exulted and misgave him. Love

had indeed looked upon him with a tragic mask; and yet what mattered, since at least it was love since at

least she was commoved at their division? He got to bed with these particoloured thoughts; passed from one

dream to another all night long, the white face of Teresa still haunting him, wrung with unspoken thoughts;

and in the grey of the dawn, leaped suddenly out of bed, in a kind of horror. It was already time for him to

rise. He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for him the night before; and went down

to the room of his idol for the box. The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the furniture all

pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a

tortured mind. There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with these words: 'Harry, I hope to be

He sat down to wait, laying his watch before him on the table. She had called him Harry: that should be

enough, he thought, to fill the day with sunshine; and yet somehow the sight of that disordered room still

poisoned his enjoyment. The door of the bedchamber stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his

eyes as from a sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in. He was still pondering what

this should mean, still trying to convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his watch

summoned him to set forth without delay. He was before all things a man of his word; ran round to

Southampton Row to fetch a cab; and taking the box on the front seat, drove off towards the terminus.

The streets were scarcely awake; there was little to amuse the eye; and the young man's attention centred on

the dumb companion of his drive. A card was nailed upon one side, bearing the superscription: 'Miss Doolan,

passenger to Dublin. Glass. With care.' He thought with a sentimental shock that the fair idol of his heart was

perhaps driven to adopt the name of Doolan; and as he still studied the card, he was aware of a deadly, black

depression settling steadily upon his spirits. It was in vain for him to contend against the tide; in vain that he

shook himself or tried to whistle: the sense of some impending blow was not to be averted. He looked out; in

the long, empty streets, the cab pursued its way without a trace of any follower. He gave ear; and over and

above the jolting of the wheels upon the road, he was conscious of a certain regular and quiet sound that

seemed to issue from the box. He put his ear to the cover; at one moment, he seemed to perceive a delicate

ticking: the next, the sound was gone, nor could his closest hearkening recapture it. He laughed at himself;

but still the gloom continued; and it was with more than the common relief of an arrival, that he leaped from

Probably enough on purpose, Teresa had named an hour some thirty minutes earlier than needful; and when

Harry had given the box into the charge of a porter, who sat it on a truck, he proceeded briskly to pace the

platform. Presently the bookstall opened; and the young man was looking at the books when he was seized by

the arm. He turned, and, though she was closely veiled, at once recognised the Fair Cuban.

He hurried to obey, marvelling at these changes, but not daring to trouble her with questions; and when the

cab had been brought round, and the box mounted on the front, she passed a little way off upon the pavement

'Now,' said she, still in those mechanical and hushed tones that had at first affected him, 'you must go on to

Holyhead alone; go on board the steamer; and if you see a man in tartan trousers and a pink scarf, say to him

that all has been put off: if not,' she added, with a sobbing sigh, 'it does not matter. So, goodbye.'

'Teresa,' said Harry, 'get into your cab, and I will go along with you. You are in some distress, perhaps some

She looked at him for a moment through her veil; took his hand suddenly and sharply, but more as if in fear

'Home, quickly,' she answered; 'double fare!' And as soon as they had both mounted to their places, the

Teresa leaned back in a corner. The whole way Harry could perceive her tears to flow under her veil; but she

vouchsafed no explanation. At the door of the house in Queen Square, both alighted; and the cabman lowered

the box, which Harry, glad to display his strength, received upon his shoulders.

'I will do no such thing,' said Harry cheerfully; and having paid the fare, he followed Teresa through the door

which she had opened with her key. The landlady and maid were gone upon their morning errands; the house

was empty and still; and as the rattling of the cab died away down Gloucester Street, and Harry continued to

ascend the stair with his burthen, he heard close against his shoulders the same faint and muffled ticking as

before. The lady, still preceding him, opened the door of her room, and helped him to lower the box tenderly

'You will not go away?' she cried, with a sudden break in her voice and beating her hands together in the very

agony of impatience. 'O Harry, Harry, go away! Oh, go, and leave me to the fate that I deserve!'

'No fate,' she resumed. 'I do not know what I am saying. But I wish to be alone. You may come back this

evening, Harry; come again when you like; but leave me now, only leave me now!' And then suddenly, 'I

'No,' replied Harry, 'you have no errand. You are in grief or danger. Lift your veil and tell me what it is.'

'Then,' she said, with a sudden composure, 'you leave but one course open to me.' And raising the veil, she

showed him a countenance from which every trace of colour had fled, eyes marred with weeping, and a brow

on which resolve had conquered fear. 'Harry,' she began, 'I am not what I seem.'

'O Harry, Harry,' she cried, 'how you shame me! But this is the God's truth. I am a dangerous and wicked girl.

My name is Clara Luxmore. I was never nearer Cuba than Penzance. From first to last I have cheated and

played with you. And what I am I dare not even name to you in words. Indeed, until today, until the

sleepless watches of last night, I never grasped the depth and foulness of my guilt.'

The young man looked upon her aghast. Then a generous current poured along his veins. 'That is all one,' he

'Is it possible,' she exclaimed, 'that I have schemed in vain? And will nothing drive you from this house of

'Death!' she cried: 'death! In that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless

'Ah!' she continued wildly, 'will you flee now? At any moment you may hear the click that sounds the ruin of

this building. I was sure M'Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero; he confirmed my fears;

I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a victim to my own contrivances. I knew then I loved you Harry, will

Harry remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon the box: at last he turned to her.

With fearful curiosity, he drew near and bent above the box; in that still chamber, the ticking was distinctly

'What matters it,' she cried, seizing him by the arm. 'If you may still be saved, what matter questions?'

'God in heaven!' cried Harry. 'And the Children's Hospital! At whatever cost, this damned contrivance must

'It cannot,' she gasped. 'The power of man cannot avert the blow. But you, Harry you, my beloved you

And then from the box that lay so quietly in the corner, a sudden catch was audible, like the catch of a clock

before it strikes the hour. For one second the two stared at each other with lifted brows and stony eyes. Then

Harry, throwing one arm over his face, with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered against the

A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes blinked against the coming horror; and still

clinging together like drowning people, they fell to the floor. Then followed a prolonged and strident hissing

as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench seized them by the throat; the room was filled with dense and

Presently these began a little to disperse: and when at length they drew themselves, all limp and shaken, to a

sitting posture, the first object that greeted their vision was the box reposing uninjured in its corner, but still

'Oh, poor Zero!' cried the girl, with a strange sobbing laugh. 'Alas, poor Zero! This will break his heart!'

SOMERSET ran straight upstairs; the door of the drawingroom, contrary to all custom, was unlocked; and

bursting in, the young man found Zero seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular dejection. Close beside him

stood an untasted grog, the mark of strong preoccupation. The room besides was in confusion: boxes had

been tumbled to and fro; the floor was strewn with keys and other implements; and in the midst of this

'I have come,' cried Somerset, 'to make an end of this. Either you will instantly abandon all your schemes, or

'Ah!' replied Zero, slowly shaking his head. 'You are too late, dear fellow! I am already at the end of all my

hopes, and fallen to be a laughingstock and mockery. My reading,' he added, with a gentle despondency of

manner, 'has not been much among romances; yet I recall from one a phrase that depicts my present state

'My last batch,' returned the plotter wearily, 'like all the others, is a hollow mockery and a fraud. In vain do I

combine the elements; in vain adjust the springs; and I have now arrived at such a pitch of disconsideration

that (except yourself, dear fellow) I do not know a soul that I can face. My subordinates themselves have

turned upon me. What language have I heard today, what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of

expression! She came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she returned, returned to

announce to me this crushing blow; and, Somerset, she was very inhumane. Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a

bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well, well! Denounce me, if you will; you but

denounce the dead. I am extinct. It is strange how, at this supreme crisis of my life, I should be haunted by

quotations from works of an inexact and even fanciful description; but here,' he added, 'is another: "Othello's

occupation's gone." Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after

'I cannot describe how you relieve me,' returned Somerset, sitting down on one of several boxes that had been

drawn out into the middle of the floor. 'I had conceived a sort of maudlin toleration for your character; I have

a great distaste, besides, for anything in the nature of a duty; and upon both grounds, your news delights me.

'Yes,' replied Zero, with the same slow weariness of manner, 'I have set several of them going.'

'Machines!' returned the plotter bitterly. 'Machines indeed! I blush to be their author. Alas!' he said, burying

'Madman!' cried Somerset, shaking him by the arm. 'What am I to understand? Have you, indeed, set these

'"Hoist with his own petard?"' returned the plotter musingly. 'One more quotation: strange! But indeed my

brain is struck with numbness. Yes, dear boy, I have, as you say, put my contrivance in motion. The one on

'Half an hour! ' echoed Somerset, dancing with trepidation. 'Merciful Heavens, in half an hour?'

'Dear fellow, why so much excitement?' inquired Zero. 'My dynamite is not more dangerous than toffy; had I

an only child, I would give it him to play with. You see this brick?' he continued, lifting a cake of the infernal

compound from the laboratorytable. 'At a touch it should explode, and that with such unconquerable energy

as should bestrew the square with ruins. Well now, behold! I dash it on the floor.'

Somerset sprang forward, and with the strength of the very ecstasy of terror, wrested the brick from his

possession. 'Heavens!' he cried, wiping his brow; and then with more care than ever mother handled her

firstborn withal, gingerly transported the explosive to the far end of the apartment: the plotter, his arms once

'It was entirely harmless,' he sighed. 'They describe it as burning like tobacco.'

'In the name of fortune,' cried Somerset, 'what have I done to you, or what have you done to yourself, that you

should persist in this insane behaviour? If not for your own sake, then for mine, let us depart from this

doomed house, where I profess I have not the heart to leave you; and then, if you will take my advice, and if

your determination be sincere, you will instantly quit this city, where no further occupation can detain you.'

'Such, dear fellow, was my own design,' replied the plotter. 'I have, as you observe, no further business here;

and once I have packed a little bag, I shall ask you to share a frugal meal, to go with me as far as to the

station, and see the last of a brokenhearted man. And yet,' he added, looking on the boxes with a lingering

regret, 'I should have liked to make quite certain. I cannot but suspect my underlings of some

mismanagement; it may be fond, but yet I cherish that idea: it may be the weakness of a man of science, but

yet,' he cried, rising into some energy, 'I will never, I cannot if I try, believe that my poor dynamite has had

'Five minutes!' said Somerset, glancing with horror at the timepiece. 'If you do not instantly buckle to your

'A few necessaries,' returned Zero, 'only a few necessaries, dear Somerset, and you behold me ready.'

He passed into the bedroom, and after an interval which seemed to draw out into eternity for his unfortunate

companion, he returned, bearing in his hand an open Gladstone bag. His movements were still horribly

deliberate, and his eyes lingered gloatingly on his dear boxes, as he moved to and fro about the

drawingroom, gathering a few small trifles. Last of all, he lifted one of the squares of dynamite.

'Put that down!' cried Somerset. 'If what you say be true, you have no call to load yourself with that ungodly

'Merely a curiosity, dear boy,' he said persuasively, and slipped the brick into his bag; 'merely a memento of

the past ah, happy past, bright past! You will not take a touch of spirits? no? I find you very abstemious.

'Well, then,' said Zero, 'I am ready; I would I could say, willing; but thus to leave the scene of my sublime

Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged him downstairs; the halldoor shut with

a clang on the deserted mansion; and still towing his laggardly companion, the young man sped across the

square in the Oxford Street direction. They had not yet passed the corner of the garden, when they were

arrested by a dull thud of an extraordinary amplitude of sound, accompanied and followed by a shattering

FRACAS. Somerset turned in time to see the mansion rend in twain, vomit forth flames and smoke, and

instantly collapse into its cellars. At the same moment, he was thrown violently to the ground. His first glance

was towards Zero. The plotter had but reeled against the garden rail; he stood there, the Gladstone bag

clasped tight upon his heart, his whole face radiant with relief and gratitude; and the young man heard him

The consternation of the populace was indescribable; the whole of Golden Square was alive with men,

women, and children, running wildly to and fro, and like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out of the house

doors. And under favour of this confusion, Somerset dragged away the lingering plotter.

'It was grand,' he continued to murmur: 'it was indescribably grand. Ah, green Erin, green Erin, what a day of

Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the footway, he consulted the dial of his

'Good God!' he cried, 'how mortifying! seven minutes too early! The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the

clockwork, fickle clockwork, has once more betrayed me. Alas, can there be no success unmixed with

'Incomparable ass!' said Somerset, 'what have you done? Blown up the house of an unoffending old lady, and

the whole earthly property of the only person who is fool enough to befriend you!'

'You do not understand these matters,' replied Zero, with an air of great dignity. 'This will shake England to

the heart. Gladstone, the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of revenge. And now that my

'Heavens, you remind me!' ejaculated Somerset. 'That brick in your bag must be instantly disposed of. But

'A torpedo,' cried Zero, brightening, 'a torpedo in the Thames! Superb, dear fellow! I recognise in you the

'True!' returned Somerset. 'It cannot so be done; and there is no help but you must carry it away with you.

'Nay, nay, dear boy,' protested Zero. 'There is now no call for me to leave. My character is now reinstated; my

fame brightens; this is the best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations that await the author of

'My young friend,' returned the other, 'I give you your choice. I will either see you safe on board a train or

'I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,' returned Somerset, with something bordering

on rage. 'For on one point my mind is settled: either I see you packed off to America, brick and all, or else

'You have perhaps neglected one point,' returned the unoffended Zero: 'for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail

'Now, see here,' interrupted Somerset. 'You are ignorant of anything but science, which I can never regard as

being truly knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my hand

'Good God in heaven, Somerset,' cried Zero, turning deadly white and stopping in his walk, 'great God in

heaven, what words are these? Oh, not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used! The brutal mob, the

Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity. 'This is very interesting,' said he. 'You recoil from

'And to be blown up by dynamite,' inquired the young man, 'doubtless strikes you as a form of euthanasia?'

'Pardon me,' returned Zero: 'I own, and since I have braved it daily in my professional career, I own it even

'It is assassination,' said the plotter calmly, but with eyebrows a little lifted, as in wonder at the question.

'Shake hands with me,' cried Somerset. 'Thank God, I have now no illfeeling left; and though you cannot

conceive how I burn to see you on the gallows, I can quite contentedly assist at your departure.'

'I do not very clearly take your meaning,' said Zero, 'but I am sure you mean kindly. As to my departure, there

is another point to be considered. I have neglected to supply myself with funds; my little all has perished in

what history will love to relate under the name of the Golden Square Atrocity; and without what is coarsely if

vigorously called stamps, you must be well aware it is impossible for me to pass the ocean.'

'For me,' said Somerset, 'you have now ceased to be a man. You have no more claim upon me than a door

scraper; but the touching confusion of your mind disarms me from extremities. Until today, I always

thought stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and when I look upon your idiot face, laughter rises

within me like a deadly sickness, and the tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as blood. What should this

portend? I begin to doubt; I am losing faith in scepticism. Is it possible,' he cried, in a kind of horror of

himself 'is it conceivable that I believe in right and wrong? Already I have found myself, with incredulous

surprise, to be the victim of a prejudice of personal honour. And must this change proceed? Have you robbed

me of my youth? Must I fall, at my time of life, into the Common Banker? But why should I address that

head of wood? Let this suffice. I dare not let you stay among women and children; I lack the courage to

denounce you, if by any means I may avoid it; you have no money: well then, take mine, and go; and if ever I

'Under the circumstances,' replied Zero, 'I scarce see my way to refuse your offer. Your expressions may

pain, they cannot surprise me; I am aware our point of view requires a little training, a little moral hygiene, if

I may so express it; and one of the points that has always charmed me in your character is this delightful

frankness. As for the small advance, it shall be remitted you from Philadelphia.'

'Dear fellow, you do not understand,' returned the plotter. 'I shall now be received with fresh confidence by

my superiors; and my experiments will be no longer hampered by pitiful conditions of the purse.'

'What I am now about, sir, is a crime,' replied Somerset; 'and were you to roll in wealth like Vanderbilt, I

should scorn to be reimbursed of money I had so scandalously misapplied. Take it, and keep it. By George,

With these words, Somerset hailed a passing hansom; and the pair were driven rapidly to the railway

'And now,' said Somerset, 'I have bought back my honour with every penny I possess. And I thank God,

though there is nothing before me but starvation, I am free from all entanglement with Mr. Zero

'Well,' said the plotter, as he returned, ticket in hand, 'your attitude is so strange and painful, that I scarce

'As a man, no,' replied Somerset; 'but I have no objection to shake hands with you, as I might with a

'This is a very cold parting,' sighed the dynamiter; and still followed by Somerset, he began to descend the

platform. This was now bustling with passengers; the train for Liverpool was just about to start, another had

but recently arrived; and the double tide made movement difficult. As the pair reached the neighbourhood of

the bookstall, however, they came into an open space; and here the attention of the plotter was attracted by a

STANDARD broadside bearing the words: 'Second Edition: Explosion in Golden Square.' His eye lighted;

groping in his pocket for the necessary coin, he sprang forward his bag knocked sharply on the corner of

the stall and instantly, with a formidable report, the dynamite exploded. When the smoke cleared away the

stall was seen much shattered, and the stall keeper running forth in terror from the ruins; but of the Irish

In the first scramble of the alarm, Somerset made good his escape, and came out upon the Euston Road, his

head spinning, his body sick with hunger, and his pockets destitute of coin. Yet as he continued to walk the

pavements, he wondered to find in his heart a sort of peaceful exultation, a great content, a sense, as it were,

of divine presence and the kindliness of fate; and he was able to tell himself that even if the worst befell, he

Late in the afternoon, he found himself at the door of Mr. Godall's shop; and being quite unmanned by his

long fast, and scarce considering what he did, he opened the glass door and entered.

'Ha!' said Mr. Godall, 'Mr. Somerset! Well, have you met with an adventure? Have you the promised story?

Sit down, if you please; suffer me to choose you a cigar of my own special brand; and reward me with a

'Indeed!' said Mr. Godall. 'But now I come to look at you more closely, I perceive that you are changed. My

ON a certain day of lashing rain in the December of last year, and between the hours of nine and ten in the

morning, Mr. Edward Challoner pioneered himself under an umbrella to the door of the Cigar Divan in

Rupert Street. It was a place he had visited but once before: the memory of what had followed on that visit

and the fear of Somerset having prevented his return. Even now, he looked in before he entered; but the shop

The young man behind the counter was so intently writing in a penny versionbook, that he paid no heed to

Challoner's arrival. On a second glance, it seemed to the latter that he recognised him.

And though this was the very man he had been so sedulously careful to avoid, his unexplained position at the

'"Or opulent rotunda strike the sky,"' said the shopman to himself, in the tone of one considering a verse. 'I

suppose it would be too much to say "orotunda," and yet how noble it were! "Or opulent orotunda strike the

sky." But that is the bitterness of arts; you see a good effect, and some nonsense about sense continually

'What? Challoner!' cried the shopman. 'I am delighted to see you. One moment, till I finish the octave of my

sonnet: only the octave.' And with a friendly waggle of the hand, he once more buried himself in the

commerce of the Muses. 'I say,' he said presently, looking up, 'you seem in wonderful preservation: how

'I have made a small inheritance from a great aunt in Wales,' replied Challoner modestly.

'Ah,' said Somerset, 'I very much doubt the legitimacy of inheritance. The State, in my view, should collar it.

I am now going through a stage of socialism and poetry,' he added apologetically, as one who spoke of a

'And are you really the person of the establishment?' inquired Challoner, deftly evading the word 'shop.'

'A vendor, sir, a vendor,' returned the other, pocketing his poesy. 'I help old Happy and Glorious. Can I offer

'Nonsense, my dear fellow,' cried the shopman. 'We are very proud of the business; and the old man, let me

inform you, besides being the most egregious of created beings from the point of view of ethics, is literally

sprung from the loins of kings. "DE GODALL JE SUIS LE FERVENT." There is only one Godall. By the

way,' he added, as Challoner lit his cigar, 'how did you get on with the detective trade?'

'Ah, well, I did,' returned Somerset, 'and made the most incomparable mess of it: lost all my money and fairly

covered myself with odium and ridicule. There is more in that business, Challoner, than meets the eye; there

is more, in fact, in all businesses. You must believe in them, or get up the belief that you believe. Hence,' he

added, 'the recognised inferiority of the plumber, for no one could believe in plumbing.'

Challoner's eye, which had been somewhat restless since the trade of the detective had been named, now

rested for a moment on the columns of the morning paper, where it lay spread upon the counter.

Challoner read as follows: 'MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN STEPNEY. An inquest was held yesterday on the

body of Patrick M'Guire, described as a carpenter. Doctor Dovering stated that he had for some time treated

the deceased as a dispensary patient, for sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and nervous depression. There was no

cause of death to be found. He would say the deceased had sunk. Deceased was not a temperate man, which

doubtless accelerated death. Deceased complained of dumb ague, but witness had never been able to detect

any positive disease. He did not know that he had any family. He regarded him as a person of unsound

intellect, who believed himself a member and the victim of some secret society. If he were to hazard an

'And the doctor would be right,' cried Somerset; 'and my dear Challoner, I am so relieved to hear of his

demise, that I will Well, after all,' he added, 'poor devil, he was well served.'

The door at this moment opened, and Desborough appeared upon the threshold. He was wrapped in a long

waterproof, imperfectly supplied with buttons; his boots were full of water, his hat greasy with service; and

yet he wore the air of one exceeding well content with life. He was hailed by the two others with

'No,' returned Harry. 'Oh yes, by the way, I did though: twice, and got caught out both times. But I thought I

'That's the worst of it,' Desborough admitted. 'We are deadly hard up. But the Pri Mr. Godall is going to do

'She was a Miss Luxmore,' returned Harry. 'You fellows will be sure to like her, for she is much cleverer than

And just then the door opened, and Mrs. Desborough entered. Somerset cried out aloud to recognise the

young lady of the Superfluous Mansion, and Challoner fell back a step and dropped his cigar as he beheld the

'I think I have met the gentleman,' said Mrs. Desborough sweetly; 'but I cannot imagine where it was.'

'Oh no,' cried Somerset fervently: 'I have no notion I cannot conceive where it could have been. Indeed,'

he continued, growing in emphasis, 'I think it highly probable that it's a mistake.'

'These are both friends of yours, Harry?' said the lady. 'Delighted, I am sure. I do not remember to have met

Challoner was very red in the face, perhaps from having groped after his cigar. 'I do not remember to have

'Are you the lady that has an appointment with old ' began Somerset, and paused blushing. 'Because if so,'

And the shopman raised a curtain, opened a door, and passed into a small pavilion which had been added to

the back of the house. On the roof, the rain resounded musically. The walls were lined with maps and prints

and a few works of reference. Upon a table was a largescale map of Egypt and the Soudan, and another of

Tonkin, on which, by the aid of coloured pins, the progress of the different wars was being followed day by

day. A light, refreshing odour of the most delicate tobacco hung upon the air; and a fire, not of foul coal, but

of clearflaming resinous billets, chattered upon silver dogs. In this elegant and plain apartment, Mr. Godall

sat in a morning muse, placidly gazing at the fire and hearkening to the rain upon the roof.

'Ha, my dear Mr. Somerset,' said he, 'and have you since last night adopted any fresh political principle?'

'You have seen her, I believe?' returned Mr. Godall; and on Somerset's replying in the affirmative, 'You will

excuse me, my dear sir,' he resumed, 'if I offer you a hint. I think it not improbable this lady may desire

entirely to forget the past. From one gentleman to another, no more words are necessary.'

A moment after, he had received Mrs. Desborough with that grave and touching urbanity that so well became

'I am pleased, madam, to welcome you to my poor house,' he said; 'and shall be still more so, if what were

else a barren courtesy and a pleasure personal to myself, shall prove to be of serious benefit to you and Mr.

'Your Highness,' replied Clara, 'I must begin with thanks; it is like what I have heard of you, that you should

thus take up the case of the unfortunate; and as for my Harry, he is worthy of all that you can do.' She paused.

'But for yourself?' suggested Mr. Godall 'it was thus you were about to continue, I believe.'

'I am not here to be a judge of men,' replied the Prince; 'still less of women. I am now a private person like

yourself and many million others; but I am one who still fights upon the side of quiet. Now, madam, you

know better than I, and God better than you, what you have done to mankind in the past; I pause not to

inquire; it is with the future I concern myself, it is for the future I demand security. I would not willingly put

arms into the hands of a disloyal combatant; and I dare not restore to wealth one of the levyers of a private

and a barbarous war. I speak with some severity, and yet I pick my terms. I tell myself continually that you

are a woman; and a voice continually reminds me of the children whose lives and limbs you have

endangered. A woman,' he repeated solemnly 'and children. Possibly, madam, when you are yourself a

mother, you will feel the bite of that antithesis: possibly when you kneel at night beside a cradle, a fear will

fall upon you, heavier than any shame; and when your child lies in the pain and danger of disease, you shall

'You look at the fault,' she said, 'and not at the excuse. Has your own heart never leaped within you at some

'I was born of woman,' said the Prince; 'I came forth from my mother's agony, helpless as a wren, like other

nurselings. This, which you forgot, I have still faithfully remembered. Is it not one of your English poets, that

looked abroad upon the earth and saw vast circumvallations, innumerable troops manoeuvring, warships at

sea and a great dust of battles on shore; and casting anxiously about for what should be the cause of so many

and painful preparations, spied at last, in the centre of all, a mother and her babe? These, madam, are my

politics; and the verses, which are by Mr. Coventry Patmore, I have caused to be translated into the Bohemian

tongue. Yes, these are my politics: to change what we can, to better what we can; but still to bear in mind that

man is but a devil weakly fettered by some generous beliefs and impositions, and for no word however nobly

sounding, and no cause however just and pious, to relax the stricture of these bonds.'

'I fear, madam,' resumed the Prince, 'that I but weary you. My views are formal like myself; and like myself,

'It is a good answer,' returned the Prince; 'and you name a good influence, but one that need not be

'I will not play at pride with such a man as you,' she answered. 'What do you ask of me? not protestations, I

am sure. What shall I say? I have done much that I cannot defend and that I would not do again. Can I say

more? Yes: I can say this: I never abused myself with the muddleheaded fairy tales of politics. I was at least

prepared to meet reprisals. While I was levying war myself or levying murder, if you choose the plainer

term I never accused my adversaries of assassination. I never felt or feigned a righteous horror, when a

price was put upon my life by those whom I attacked. I never called the policeman a hireling. I may have

'Enough, madam,' returned the Prince: 'more than enough! Your words are most reviving to my spirits; for in

this age, when even the assassin is a sentimentalist, there is no virtue greater in my eyes than intellectual

clarity. Suffer me, then, to ask you to retire; for by the signal of that bell, I perceive my old friend, your

And as Mrs. Desborough returned to the Divan, the Prince, opening a door upon the other side, admitted Mrs.

'Madam and my very good friend,' said he, 'is my face so much changed that you no longer recognise Prince

'To be sure!' she cried, looking at him through her glasses. 'I have always regarded your Highness as a perfect

man; and in your altered circumstances, of which I have already heard with deep regret, I will beg you to

'I have found it so,' returned the Prince, 'with every class of my acquaintance. But, madam, I pray you to be

'In that case,' said Mrs. Luxmore, 'you may save yourself the trouble of speaking, for I have fully made up my

mind to have nothing to do with her. I will not hear one word in her defence; but as I value nothing so

particularly as the virtue of justice, I think it my duty to explain to you the grounds of my complaint. She

deserted me, her natural protector; for years, she has consorted with the most disreputable persons; and to fill

the cup of her offence, she has recently married. I refuse to see her, or the being to whom she has linked

herself. One hundred and twenty pounds a year, I have always offered her: I offer it again. It is what I had

'Very well, madam,' said the Prince; 'and be that so! But to touch upon another matter: what was the income

'My father?' asked the spirited old lady. 'I believe he had seven hundred pounds in the year.'

'Of four,' was the reply. 'We were four daughters; and painful as the admission is to make, a more detestable

'Not more than five,' returned the old lady; 'but where on earth are you conducting me?'

'To an allowance of one thousand pounds a year,' replied Florizel, smiling. 'For I must not suffer you to take

your father for a rule. He was poor, you are rich. He had many calls upon his poverty: there are none upon

your wealth. And indeed, madam, if you will let me touch this matter with a needle, there is but one point in

common to your two positions: that each had a daughter more remarkable for liveliness than duty.'

'I have been entrapped into this house,' said the old lady, getting to her feet. 'But it shall not avail. Not all the

'Ah, madam,' interrupted Florizel, 'before what is referred to as my fall, you had not used such language! And

since you so much object to the simple industry by which I live, let me give you a friendly hint. If you will

not consent to support your daughter, I shall be constrained to place that lady behind my counter, where I

doubt not she would prove a great attraction; and your soninlaw shall have a livery and run the errands.

With such young blood my business might be doubled, and I might be bound in common gratitude to place

'Your Highness,' said the old lady, 'I have been very rude, and you are very cunning. I suppose the minx is on

'Let us rather observe them unperceived,' said the Prince; and so saying he rose and quietly drew back the

Mrs. Desborough sat with her back to them on a chair; Somerset and Harry were hanging on her words with

extraordinary interest; Challoner, alleging some affair, had long ago withdrawn from the detested

'At that moment,' Mrs. Desborough was saying, 'Mr Gladstone detected the features of his cowardly assailant.

'That is Mr. Somerset!' interrupted the spirited old lady, in the highest note of her register. 'Mr. Somerset,

'Madam,' said the Prince, 'let it be mine to give the explanation; and in the meanwhile, welcome your

'Well, Clara, how do you do?' said Mrs. Luxmore. 'It appears I am to give you an allowance. So much the

better for you. As for Mr. Somerset, I am very ready to have an explanation; for the whole affair, though

costly, was eminently humorous. And at any rate,' she added, nodding to Paul, 'he is a young gentleman for

'I have ordered a collation,' said the Prince. 'Mr. Somerset, as these are all your friends, I propose, if you