Our informant laughed and said, "Well, that is the shortest way, but there isn't much water and there is plenty of sand and not many folks or much trail."

"How much sand?" I asked, and when he replied, "Well, I guess there is thirty miles of it getting over Dirty Devil," I said right then we wouldn't go. He then asked why we didn't try going up through Marysvale, then up Salida Canyon to Castledale, and out that way. He said we might have a chance that way. We certainly would not the shortest way, and as this latter was the way we had in our minds to go, we told him so and he seemed quite relieved.

"It is just sure poison the other way," he said, "unless you go horseback and keep going." We leave our friend still talking about Green River and start on for Marysvale.

I think we must have left the Dixie Country when we came over into the Sevier River Valley from Parowan and Paragonah. Although I am not sure that there is any definite dividing line, we do feel a difference. The people here on the Sevier are newer comers; the houses are built differently, and as we get closer to Marysvale on the railroad there seems to be more talk of new irrigation systems, litigation and general cussedness, which to my mind is a sign of business progress not in evidence below and not needed here.

Another cold dusty day's drive brought us to Marysvale, between mountains with patches of snow, and we tie up and make a raid on the postoffice.




Chapter VII

Along the Rio Grande Western Railroad


We drove into Marysvale on the morning of June 15, but did not see the town until we were directly over it, so to speak. It lays just under a bluff and we were literally on top of it before we could see it. We had expected to find a much larger place, as it is the terminal of the Rio Grande Western Railroad, but it is a rather dilapidated looking town of only three hundred population, set down in a basin. The location is ideal. Swiss mountains with snow caps to the north and east, a swift little river on the edge of the town, and high tablelands to the south protect it from the winds. It could be made a charming place and may be some day, but it held nothing of interest for us except the postoffice, and so after getting our mail and some provisions we started for Salina, which we understand is about seventy-five miles north of here on the railroad.

The trail took us across the river and over the Sevier Range of mountains into Poverty Flat, which we reached at 2 P. M. The pull over the Sevier Range was short, but steep. It was only thirteen miles, but the first eight seemed to be straight up. If the road had not been very good, it would have been impossible for us to have made it even with three horses, but having reached the top we had a magnificent view, and we enjoyed looking down at the town and river and over the mountains, while the horses were getting their lungs into working order again, before dropping down to Poverty Flat.

At a ranch we obtained permission to put our horses in the corral and give them a good feed of alfalfa, and, as they had done a day's work, we decided to stay here until the next day. We got a bit of family history and some local traditions from the man at the ranch. His name I have forgotten, but that is immaterial. He did not belong to the Race Suicide Club. He had ten children; two were married. He and his family live in the town of Monroe near here in the winter, and the children go to school. They come out here and farm in the summer. We understood Monroe was called "Monkeytown," and it seems that both the town and the mesa were nicknamed by an Irishman years ago, who probably was quite a wit, and the names still stick. Two or three different parties had tried to make a living on the mesa and had been starved out, so he called it "Poverty Flat." He evidently was a man who had ideas of his own, and, believing most of the folks in town to be only imitators, he conceived a great dislike for them, and when he went away from home, which he did quite frequently, if any one asked where he was from he would say, "From Monkeytown." So, while it is "Monroe" on the map, it is still "Monkeytown" to the surrounding country.

The next morning we drove past Elsenor and on to Monroe, which we found to be quite a good-sized town with telephone and electric light, and it seemed quite up to date for a town away from the railroad. From Monroe we went on ten miles farther to Richfield, a town of two thousand population, on the railroad, where we mailed some letters, leaving at 3:30 P. M. for Salina. We made twenty-five miles this day and passed through three Mormon towns, all seeming prosperous, and the country well irrigated. Just north of Richfield we saw a new irrigation ditch which, when completed, will take care of about a thousand acres. The Sevier Valley here reminded us of Southern California, but the orange trees were lacking. The day was fine, but the snow still lay in patches on the mountains and the air had a chill in it.

We camped at night on the desert side of the valley, and just as we were about to turn in the wind came up, the sky was overcast, and it began to rain. So we put down our wagon cover and made the bed inside, but just as we got inside, much to our disgust, the moon came out and it was all over. We were inside, so we stayed, but did not sleep as well as usual.

Friday morning, the seventeenth, we drove the twelve miles into Salina, over a very dusty road. That short sentence seems an easy way over twelve miles of horrible road, but it could not be helped. It was the only road, and we had begun to find that in this country the roads were all dusty that were travelled much, and those that were not travelled much were practically impassable, because they were not roads at all -- just trails. This seemed to be the dryest year in the history of this country and the farther along we went the more complaints we heard. We had not seen any rain since starting and, except for the false alarm of the night before, we were to travel a good many miles more before getting rained on.

Reaching Salina, where we expected to leave the railroad and go east to Green River, we made a few purchases in the provision line and then inquired as to the trail over into Castle Valley. We were surprised when told we couldn't get up Salina Canyon into the valley, and that if we were going to Green River we would have to go north about a hundred miles, and that while it probably was one hundred and fifty miles farther that way, we could make it easily enough, but with our outfit we couldn't possibly make the canyon trail because it was washed out. As this was not the first time we had been told we would have to depart from our straight line and go around, we decided not to be easily discouraged, and so began to look about for some one who knew absolutely the condition of the trail.

We were not long in finding a young fellow who had come over a few days before, and he walked out and took a look at our outfit. He looked quite a while at the wide tires and the wagon top and finally said, "I believe I could make it with my team, but I would advise you fellows not to try it."

I said, "Do you mean that your team could take that wagon over, or do you mean they could take your wagon?"

"I mean I could drive them over with that wagon, but they are used to the mountains and rocks, and I don't think that team can do it."

"All right," I said, "over we go. I think this team is as good as yours, and if you can do it, I can."

So we started, but I had occasion several times to think he was right before we got there, as you will see, but I had begun to believe in those horses and in my ability to drive them anywhere with that big wagon, except up a tree.




Chapter VIII

Salina Canyon


Leaving town we drove about three miles to the mouth of Salina Canyon, and put in about two and a half hours at noon so that the horses might be in good shape for the climb. It was sixty miles, we were told, to the town of Emery in Castle Valley, thirty miles of which was up grade and very rocky. We had a sack of oats and a bale of hay, and expected to make it in two days and a half.

There had been twenty miles of railroad built up this canyon, but it had been all washed out and hung up among the scenery, before ever a train was run over it; and that seemed to be the condition of the trail also as we got higher up. All the afternoon we drove three horses, and the trail kept getting worse. Finally we found a piece of railroad grade we could drive on, and later drove through a railroad tunnel. The water in places had washed trees and boulders weighing a ton up on to the tracks, where it had not washed the grade away entirely. I can laugh now, but I evidently did not laugh then as I read the following extract from my diary:

"This is the most dangerous canyon yet, and driving a spike team on the edge of perdition, with a road full of boulders as big as a bushel basket, is not restful."

We made only about six miles this first afternoon in the canyon, when darkness overtook us, and after getting through the tunnel we found a level spot and camped.

The next morning, June 18, was perfect, and our camp at the mouth of the tunnel, in a circular basin, was so interesting we did not get started until seven-thirty. Right at the start we had a long climb that taxed the strength and patience of the horses, as well as our own. In some places we could not drive spike, so Kate and Bess had to do their best alone. The trail twisted and doubled, went straight up and straight down, and so near the edge of the canyon there wasn't six inches between the outside wheels and nothing. It was in such places that it was dangerous to drive three horses and awfully hard getting up with two. Between watching the road and the horses it was a sleight-of-hand performance not to have smashed the water barrel on the inside next the rocks, but I bumped the rocks only once, and then did no damage.

About ten o'clock we worked down into the bed of the stream, and driving up through the water and over the rocks we met two teams. The drivers apparently didn't know whether they would be able to go any farther or not and were off on foot looking over the country, leaving the teams in the care of the women, right in midstream. We drove alongside and asked how the trail was above, and one woman said it was impassable, but that they had gotten that far and it seemed to be getting worse. We told them if it was impassable above they could get down very easily, and as people do not seem to want to talk much when they think they may be doing something foolish, I avoided smiling and drove on up stream, just as a colt of theirs jumped off the bank about ten feet high, and fell into the creek behind us. Fortunately its legs were not broken. It seemed under the impression that our outfit was the one it belonged to, so it floundered up stream after us, but, soon discovering its mistake, turned back.

When we stopped for lunch a lone horseman pulled up and inquired if we had seen the Johnson outfit. We concluded that was as good an excuse as any for his stopping and we let him have some tobacco, which was evidently what he was looking for instead of the Johnson outfit. He was a sheep herder, so we let him pass without much notice, as we still had some of the cowpunchers' antipathy for any one who herds sheep, although many years had passed since we had "punched."

Starting on again after lunch, the first three miles were worse than any we had been over. Doc went ahead with Dixie and would wait for me at an extra hard pull and put her on. Bob went ahead and mended the road. Often I nearly fell out of the wagon at the bottom of a chuck hole on a down grade, and by 4 P. M. we had done everything but break the wagon to bits. At this time, however, we were encouraged by finding that the canyon had widened out somewhat, which indicated we were getting to the top. The trail got better in spots and then worse.

Reaching an open spot with some grass, we camped, not knowing how far we had come or how much farther it was to the top. We made a guess it was twelve miles and that about three more would take us to the top. Climbing up the side of the canyon to a big rock, and looking down over our camp and horses, we overlooked all their shortcomings and gave them credit for keeping their heads and feet under the most trying circumstances, and were quite enthusiastic over their ability as mountain climbers, and their willingness to attempt any task we put them at. We sat here until the moon came up and gazed long at the valley and mountains without much, if any, conversation, and then climbed slowly down and turned in.

The next morning, Sunday, the nineteenth, we started late and took things easy. We stopped to watch some sheep men separating a bunch of sheep. It was an interesting performance and quite a riddle to us for a few minutes until we learned what they were doing; then it was easy enough to follow the performance. It seems that the man who owned the sheep had sold a certain number of yearling ewes to one man, who was there to take and pay for them, and a certain number of two-year-old wethers to another man. Now the manner of separating and counting was as ingenious as it was exact, as the reader will readily see from the following explanation and diagram:



A few hundred yards of fence crossing at right angles, with the flock of sheep in corner "A," is how the game started. They were all driven through "B," a chute just wide enough for the sheep to pass in single file. Two men worked the chute, and when a yearling ewe entered, one man would drop a gate behind her and the other man would open a gate (1) in front of her, and she would walk into "D." Then the gateman closed the gate and made a pencil mark on it; the tally man tallied one ewe on his sheet, and the chute was open for the balance of the flock of rams, ewes, and lambs. But when a two-year-old wether got in the chute, down would come the gate behind him, gate 2 would open, and he would walk out into "E," and the gateman would make a pencil mark on this gate and the tally man would tally one two-year-old wether on his sheet. So the performance went on until the required number of yearling ewes were in corner "D," the two-year-old wethers in corner "E," and what was left of the flock was over in "C." The tally sheet checked up with the pencil score on each gate, and settlement having been made, the man with his yearling ewes went up the trail; the man with the two-year-old wethers went down to the railroad, and the flock went back up into the mountains, and all that was left was a few hundred yards of wire mesh fence and a chute with closed gates, which had helped to accomplish in an hour what would have been impossible otherwise.

We were told by the sheepmen that it was about five miles to the top, which we finally reached about 11:30 A. M. In the thirty miles from Salina to the top we have not seen a sign of any habitation, which accounts for the condition of the trail. If any one lived up here who had to drive in and haul out provisions, he would have to make a road.

We have been just two days making this thirty-mile ascent and as it is said to be thirty miles from here to Emery, our plan to make Emery in two and a half days from Salina is knocked into bits, but we feel very well satisfied to have got up whole, and are actually hilarious as we apply the brakes on a fairly good trail and start to slide down into Castle Valley.




Chapter IX

Castle Valley


Our first camp in this strange valley was made Sunday noon, June 19, just as we had started to Emery from the top of the Divide. We found a beautiful little grove of trees, mostly cottonwood, willows, and quaking asp, which was filled with wild roses. The roses were everywhere and we called it Rosedale Camp. We spent three hours here and then drove about ten miles farther down into the valley, following a small alkali stream, and camped some fifteen or seventeen miles from Emery.

We met no one on the road, but just as we made camp a man came along from Emery with a team and buggy, looking for a ranch house he said was on a branch trail somewhere back of us. While he was evidently lost he said he had lunch and horse feed, and if he didn't find it in the morning he would back track to Emery. I asked him why he started alone, and he said he had been there once before and thought he could find it, but that evidently it was farther than he had thought it was. I guess he was a wool man and was buying from the sheepmen, although he did not say so and we did not ask. It is surprising how much you guess in this country and how few questions you ask. In making camp we found we had only enough water in our barrels for camp use, so I took the horses over to the alkali stream to drink.

We had by this time got down into the valley proper, which was really a mesa surrounded by mountains, and about as weird-looking a place as could be imagined. The mountains were sheer cliffs on the valley side, and in the sunset their shapes and colors were fantastic. As I rode over to the stream I began to think of fairy tales about hobgoblins and giants, but was rudely brought out of my dreams by arriving unexpectedly at the arroyo, where it was about two hundred yards wide, with walls as perpendicular as those of a house, and about fifty to seventy-five feet deep. The stream -- well, it appeared along the middle of the sandy bottom in spots and I despaired of getting a horse down there or of getting enough water for three horses, even if I could find a place to get down, as from where I stood the stream looked about the size of a lead pencil and the little spots of water held about a panful each.

It is surprising, however, what you really can do if you have to, and I knew instinctively that I was going to find a way to get those horses down that perpendicular wall, and water them somehow. I dismounted and started along the edge looking for a way down, and found it, over the roots of an old cottonwood tree and into a wash, where I slid Kate down, and then scooped out a hole in the miniature stream from which, when it filled, she drank. Then I got her to climb up and slid another down after much persuasion, and so later the third, but was careful not to let them drink too much, as the water was pretty strong.

By the time I got back to camp it was nearly dark and Doc and Bob were waiting supper for me. We find our fireless cooker and kerosene stove to be real luxuries in this sort of a country. We really live high (comparatively speaking); our appetites are always good and Bob rarely gets up anything that doesn't taste fine. Just now our larder contains honey, beans, bread, eggs, oatmeal, tea, bacon, prunes, seeded raisins, and crackers.

We turned in early as usual and were up before it was really light. Doc missed getting a shot at a gray wolf right near camp. He said he took it for a boulder at first and so paid no attention to it; when too late, he saw it take shape and steal away.

We left camp at six-thirty. The trail was on the west side of the valley and right under the mountains, which gave us a good opportunity to study them. The scenery was really weird. The mountains took the shape of castles, not imaginary castles, but real ones. A painter could not paint anything more natural, and they were all different. Each castle stood guard over its particular part of the valley, and all day and for several days we had a never-ending source of entertainment in this sort of scenery. It was on such an immense scale and combined with the magic colors of the desert country, that we were continually gazing at it and not at the desert underfoot, and so missed a good many chances to shoot coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions that were invariably dropping out of sight into a gulley or behind the brush, about the time our attention was called to them.

One particularly exciting incident happened before we were really started this morning. In crossing a wash the wagon had to make a detour, but Bob on Dixie rode straight across, and after topping a rise of ground he got off and sat down on a rock to wait for us to catch up. As we came over the rise I saw Dixie, but could not see Bob on account of the brush. She was browsing on the bushes. Just beyond her I saw a mountain lion, right out in the open, quietly stealing down toward her, evidently not seeing Bob and thinking there might be a colt there it could kill.

The speed with which I threw on the brake and called to Doc to get his Winchester sort of flustrated Doc and also flustrated the lion. It started off on a trot at right angles down the mesa as Doc pulled out his 30-30 and got ready for action. His first shot just grazed its back at about three hundred yards, and then the fun began. Bob jumped into view to see what had happened; the lion started for Colorado. Not in any reasonable manner, however. It seemed to be shot out of a gun, and Doc swung his Winchester and pumped three more shots after it. All of them seemed to be in the general direction the lion was going, but they only served to make him swerve and run faster, if that were possible.

When at last he had disappeared from sight in the dim distance, -- he actually ran out of sight on bare ground, -- and the smoke had blown away, Bob called out, "What was it?"

Doc said, "Didn't you see it?"

"Well," said Bob, "I am not sure whether I did or not."

I called over to Bob and said, "I saw it start anyway, and what you saw must have been what I saw start."

"Gosh all hemlock!" -- or something like that -- I think Doc remarked; "I never saw anything with four legs run as fast before," -- and I am sure he never did, nor any one else.

I could not help laughing, although Doc seemed quite chagrined to think he had not killed the lion. I admitted he had missed the first shot, but after that no bullet could have caught up to the beast, no matter how well aimed.

After this episode nothing especially interesting happened, and we soon reached Emery, not quite three days from Salina. We must have made about thirty miles yesterday afternoon and this morning, so we feel quite satisfied that we did not go a hundred miles to get around that canyon, although I guess we were more lucky than wise.

The little Mormon settlement called Emery is scattered all over the mesa, and has plenty of water to irrigate from five to eight hundred acres, which is enough to support the town. We stopped at the hotel for dinner, just to see what it was like, and, while we had plenty to eat, we seemed to create quite a stir. We were the only guests, and unexpected at that, so the two girls who had been left in charge while the old folks were on a trip to some railroad town, were quite a bit flustered. We stayed here until four-thirty in the afternoon, walking about and looking the natives over, and incidentally waiting for the postmaster to show up. In these little, out-of-the-way places the postoffice is liable to be run by somebody who appears for duty only when the mail comes in or goes out, unless he is sent for.

I put in part of the time trying to make a horse trade in the street in front of the store. I didn't want to trade horses, but I made the other fellow think he had come very near trading me a bay mare, about Dixie's size, for Kate, and so I got a line on what I could buy her for; but Doc thought her a trifle too small, so when the postman arrived we disagreed on price, and parted.

After calling for our mail we started on. We had driven only about five miles when we came to some grass, which we never pass without taking toll of, and as it was about camping time anyway we turned the horses loose to graze while we made camp.

Tuesday, June 21, was quite a day. In the first place, we met a big gray wolf about one hour from camp and I shot him through the flanks with Doc's 30-30, but missed him with two more shots before he dropped into a ravine. He was bleeding so badly that he did not go far, but as we were in a hurry and he was working up toward the mountains we concluded to let him die in peace, and so did not follow him far, although his trail was painfully plain.

Next we came to a field of white poppies. From a gray wolf's bloody trail to white poppies does not seem odd in this desert country, although now that I am writing it the change seems rather startling. The California poppy we admired greatly, but this immense field of white ones seemed, if anything, more beautiful.

In two or three miles more we came to the top of a hill overlooking the town of Ferron. Here we had a splendid view of the mountains to the west, with a Moorish castle looking down on us, gray buttes below us, and in the distance the town of Ferron with its bright green alfalfa field, Carolina poplars, and cottonwood trees. This was such a grand color scheme that I took a picture of it, forgetting that color does not show in a photograph and that immense distances are beyond duplication by the ordinary lens, at least, and so got a very unsatisfactory picture.

Passing through Ferron we made camp by an irrigation ditch, under a cottonwood tree, and did some laundry work, which was put to dry while we ate lunch, after which we drove on into Castledale, stopping at Jim Jeff's Camp House, making twenty miles for the day. Here we decided to stay a day and rest the horses, so after feeding them all we turned Bess and Kate into his pasture, keeping Dixie up so we could take better care of her neck, which was quite sore.

Castledale we found to be the largest town in Castle Valley. There is Emery on Muddy Creek, Ferron on Ferron Creek, and Castledale on Cottonwood Creek, and beyond is a town called Huntington on Huntington Creek. These creeks or brooks are all supposed to flow into the Cottonwood farther down, but each little town takes most of the water into its irrigation ditches as the water leaves the mountains, and so very little of it ever gets far on its way to the valley below, except in freshet times. Any one expecting to find water in these creeks below the towns is usually a tenderfoot, and needs a water barrel, and some good advice. We did not have the advice, but we had the water barrel and so far have not suffered for good water.

Our camp was in Jim Jeff's yard. He had a house for the accommodation of freighters, but we preferred the ground. However, we did make away with a great many of his eggs and some green stuff from the garden.

We put in the next day, Wednesday, cleaning up, writing, and making a few purchases. I remembered that this was the day my sister was to have been married, and here I was, fifty miles from the railroad in a desert town, unable to telephone or telegraph, and I had expected to be able to send her a message. Doc and I were walking down the road to the store, when on the side porch of a house I saw the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's long distance sign nailed to a post.

"Hold on," I said, "there is a familiar look to that sign; just you go on and I will follow it up and see whether it is going to do me any good or not."

So into the house I went. Here I found a girl who was running all the telephone business for the town and surrounding country. She said the line ran to some town on the railroad, the name of which I didn't catch, but that didn't interest me. What I wanted to know was if I could talk to the station agent at this town, and when I found I could, I said, "Well, you just call him up quick. I want to say something to him real sudden." In about an hour I got that message off to my sister, which shows how suddenly things happen in that country.

When I came out of the house I found Doc had made the necessary purchases at the store and was patiently waiting on the porch. We had left Bob at Jeff's place, cleaning up, and so went back and helped.

Our day here was not especially interesting. The town has about five to six hundred people scattered about over quite a large area. During the afternoon, however, things began to liven up. Young fellows from a few miles out began riding in to Jeff's and putting up their horses and changing clothes. It seemed such a funny performance that I asked Jeff what was up. "Just a dance," he said, and walked off huffy-like. I couldn't see why that should bother him, but I found out afterward that he was too much of a dyed-in-the-wool old Mormon to appreciate the beneficial results to the young folks of indulging in a free-for-all dance.

He had lived here thirty-one years and had ten children. Incidentally, I might say one wife. We did not see anywhere any evidence of polygamy and I guess that it is a dead issue. His house, one of the best in town, was brick, and had running water in it. He had all kinds of fowl around the yard, including peacocks and hens. Five miles east toward Green River he had a ranch of several thousand acres; so on the whole he was quite a substantial citizen, and was able to give us some good advice about our trail between here and Green River.

Just as a sample of some of the instructions we had been getting from the natives en route, it may be interesting to give Jim Jeff's instructions as to how we were to reach Green River. They were something like this, but not verbatim: "It is about sixty miles over there and not a house on the trail, and on account of the dry weather (it hasn't rained here in three months) probably all the water holes are dry except Huntington Creek, which is alkali. Don't drink any yourself and don't let your horses drink much. I guess, to be on the safe side, you better plan not to find any water, so fill both your barrels and be careful to get through on that, because, although there may be water the horses can drink thirty miles from here, you may not find it as it is off the trail, and if you depend on it and miss it you will be awfully dry before you get to Green River."

Then he drew us a diagram of the trail, told us where the bad places were, wished us good luck, and said good-bye. We turned in for an early start in the morning. That start was so early we met the young folks coming home from the dance.

It was Thursday morning, the twenty-third of June, that we filled our barrels and started on our sixty-mile stretch to Green River. We crossed Castle Valley to the east, climbed up on the mesa after crossing Huntington Creek, and made about fourteen miles before we stopped for lunch. From one of the benches we had a splendid view of the whole of Castle Valley and could see sixty miles south, and forty miles north, from this point. We picked out the pass over the mountains to the south where we came into the valley, by the snow-capped mountain above it, and could see the range of mountains distinctly forty miles north, and our row of castles to the southwest. To the southeast lay some barren-looking peaks called "Robbers' Roost," where Bassett and his gang held forth for so long. It was a hard but fascinating country, but Bob brought me to earth as I stood admiring the scene by saying, "Some society and a little water would change this for the better a whole lot, wouldn't it?" I didn't say anything, but thought the water would certainly help, but as for the society I preferred the prospect without habitations, which would take away the charm of it for me.

Starting on over a rolling country at about four thousand feet elevation we met, fortunately, around 3:30 P. M., two men in a buggy, driving one horse and leading another. They told us it was about fifteen miles to the water hole, that there was still a barrel of water there, that we could find it by watching the trail after we had gone about fifteen miles, and that we would see where they had turned out of the trail, if we looked sharp, They told us the water was not where they had turned out, as they had missed the place, but that it was a quarter of a mile farther on, as they had afterward discovered. They told us also when we came to the forks of the trail to take the right fork; that was all, but it was enough.

It would seem like a difficult problem to tell when you have gone fifteen miles in such a country, but we could calculate that about as easily as we could tell the time of day by the sun. Having lost my watch in the early part of the trip I had discovered I didn't need it anyway, and was saved the trouble of winding it every night. In calling off the time to Doc and Bob I found that I agreed with their watches almost exactly, although once I missed it by fifteen minutes; but I am not sure I was not right even then.

So it was on the trail. We knew how many hours we had been traveling and could tell to almost a certainty how many miles we were making per hour, and thus had no difficulty in telling how far we had gone.

When we had climbed to the top of another rise Doc said, "Well, it is four o'clock and we are fifteen miles from water. We will make about five miles more to-day, and then we can water the horses to-morrow morning at that water hole, about 10 A. M., and just let them do without water for breakfast." That sounded about right to me, but I wasn't sure about the 10 A. M. schedule. I thought we could make ten miles before 10 A. M., but we carried this programme out almost to the letter. We drove on for about five miles and camped for the night, having made about twenty-two miles of the sixty that day.

The next day, Friday, the twenty-fourth, was a long, hard day. The horses all did well, but it was up hill and down over rocks and through heavy sand, and several times we had to use all the horses at once. About nine-thirty Doc rode Dixie on ahead, looking for the place where the buggy had turned out, and when we saw him waiting for us by the side of the trail we knew he had found the water; in fact, he had gone right to it with the directions we had received, but without those tell-tale wheel tracks a quarter of a mile from the water, I do not believe we would have found it.

The water was down in a miniature canyon, in a bowl-shaped rock, where stock could not get to it, or the sun's rays reach it for any length of time, and this rock bowl held, when full, probably twenty barrels of water. The little stream had long ago gone dry, but here out of sight were still a few barrels of water left. It took us quite a while to get the horses down over the rocks close to the water, and it was a case of bucket brigade to get it out to them. When we had them back at the wagon again I noticed that it was ten o'clock; so we did find the water before ten, but I didn't think there was enough difference in time to call Doc's attention to it.

After lunch, about 4 P. M., we passed a wash that looked wet to me and I asked Doc if he wouldn't explore it, while the horses rested in the shade of a cottonwood tree. He came back presently with the information that there was good water about "half a quarter" above, so we unhitched and all went up, and found water running in the bed of the stream for about four feet in one place and about ten feet in another. It was just a case of one of those underground, bottom-side-up streams having a leak in the top, and the water had come up through. The find made us feel safe on the water question. We still had water in our barrels; had found water twice for the horses, and just where Jeff had told us we might find it; and felt quite "sot up" over it.

We camped at night in the dry bed of a stream, the bottom of which was covered with a white alkali deposit, that looked like snow and was nearly one-half inch thick. We concluded this must be Soda Creek and that we had made only twenty miles during the day, so that we were still about eighteen miles from Green River.

This is certainly a hard, rough country, a succession of canyons and mountains, with a variety of colors in the sand and rocks. We have not met a soul or seen a living thing, save some cattle this evening in the creek bed. Not a thing lives here, it would seem, but a coyote, now and then a skylark, and a few lizards and horned toads. There is plenty of grass evidently earlier in the season, but the cattle are now mostly moved out on account of lack of water. Those we saw this evening were probably overlooked, or else have a few alkali holes still available somewhere near. It is surprising how strong water the cattle can stand when they are used to it, but if it doesn't rain soon in this country even the birds will have to leave.

We were up the next morning at four-thirty and were under way at six, reaching Green River at 11 A. M., over a variety of roads and through the most desolate stretch of country I have ever seen. The sandy desert was cheerful in comparison. When we came down from among the bare clay buttes the trail ran along a little stream and we began to see signs of life, -- a coyote first, then a queer bird, trying to find water enough to swim in. It was some species of the duck family, but we could not find a name for it. It looked like a cross between a mud hen and a duck, was gray in color and had a short bill. It had probably come up from Green River and was lost.

As we crossed the railroad track coming into Green River we passed a big sign board on which was printed:

"FOR SALE 7,000 acres of the best fruit land in the world by a Dam Site."

After we had spent two days and a half in that town we concluded the printer had probably by mistake used the word of when he should have used not.

We found the river was not fordable here, but that there was a ferry which would take us across if we wanted to go to-day; to-morrow it would stop running. So we took the last chance and crossed, camping on the other side on a bare bench about two hundred yards from the river. There is one store and a corral here, and the place is called Elgin. Obtaining permission to turn our horses into the corral we were free to go over the railroad bridge to Green River, get our mail, inspect the town, and buy a few provisions.

Our trip through Castle Valley was over, and we were once more in a railroad town, so we decided to stay a couple of days and give the horses the rest of which they were much in need.




Chapter X

Green River to Grand Junction


Sunday, June 26, we stayed in camp; that is, the horses did, but we explored Green River and the surrounding country, took a bath in the river, did our laundry work, and tried to catch some fish, but didn't get a bite.

On one of our rambles we crossed the river and went about a mile south to a ranch house which we found deserted; the fruit trees were all dead and the alfalfa had been overflowed and killed out in places. It was an ideal place for a house here on the river bank with big cottonwood trees all around, giving plenty of shade. The house was made of cottonwood logs; in fact, almost all the ranch houses in this country are made of logs; near the river they are of cottonwood, and near the mountains of cedar or pine logs. We noticed a great number of dead orchards which were being cut out.

At noon we went uptown to a restaurant for our dinner. It is not much of a town, and most of it is new. They seem to be trying to raise fruit here, but apparently with poor success. The successful people evidently are the ones who can sell the land. The roads are very dusty and the land seems burned up. They have had no rain here in months, and we go back to our wagon feeling that it is the dryest looking country we have ever seen, and that there must be something wrong with the people. With a river flowing right by the town there should be better use made of it, but probably they do not know how. The people are not Mormons; they are newcomers and hence what might be called "tenderfeet." They will learn, and some day Green River will be a beautiful little city, but to-day it lies bare and dusty and new, baking in the sun.

Monday, Doc and I went on an exploring trip down the river and Bob stayed about the camp. We climbed up on top of a bare, ragged mountain to see what we could of the country and the river, but with not much success. The river runs through a canyon and can not be seen, and the country is much the same south of us, -- hard, ragged desert buttes. This is evidently the beginning of the formation which later, at the Grand Canyon, is so wonderful a sight. Just below here is where the Green and the Grand Rivers come together, forming the Colorado, and from there on, I imagine, the canyon grows in depth and desolation, until near Williams it is twelve miles wide and over a mile deep.

Returning from this trip on foot we look over the horses very carefully to see what improvement they have made in the two days they have had to rest. We find they have had all they could eat and drink, and Bess seems to be in her usual good condition. Doc says she is the most wonderful horse to work and keep it up without wearing out he ever saw. She has so far been in harness every working day, against Kate and Dixie in turn, and does not seem to be as tired or sore as either of them. Dixie's neck is still in bad shape and Kate, while apparently looking good, is really "dead on her feet," to use a slang phrase. She has never had a chance to recuperate from that setback she had in the Mojave Desert when she went blind and bled at the nose, and so in looking them over Doc says, "Well, Kate will never get to Grand Junction." He had said before that she would not get to Green River, but she was here, and apparently in pretty good shape, so I could afford to laugh and tell Doc that Kate would go as far as either of the others.

It is a hundred and twenty miles from here to Grand Junction and this is the twenty-seventh of June. When I left home I made arrangements to have Mr. Bradley and his son Norman, of Rockford, Illinois, and my son, Norman, join us at Grand Junction, Colorado, on July fourth, and go with us through Colorado. It had seemed a little foolish, sitting comfortably at home in Chicago, to say, "I will meet you at Grand Junction on July fourth." There had been a good many times since when I had thought it better to send word to them that we could not reach Grand Junction at the time I had promised, but as we seemed somehow, in spite of the many difficulties, to keep up to schedule, I had refrained from changing the date. Now that we were within one hundred and twenty miles of there, with six days in which to make it, I felt so confident that we would have no trouble in getting through a day or two ahead of time, that I sent them a telegram that we would be at Grand Junction and ready to leave July fourth. When we returned to our wagon after sending the telegram it looked like rain; in fact, we were so sure it would rain that we put down the wagon sheet and slept in the wagon. That night was the second time we had slept in the wagon since starting, six weeks before, from Los Angeles.

When we awoke the next morning we found it had rained some during the night and was still cold and cloudy. We were quite elated and as we had not had any experience with rain since leaving Los Angeles, we started off very joyously, thinking the dust would be laid and water would be plenty, but we were hardly under way before we discovered our mistake. The roads were sticky, the country was nothing but bare clay hills, and it was hard on the horses. As they were in better condition on account of their rest, we made twenty-five miles and thought we had done wonders, although we did not get into camp until late because, just before we reached the place we had picked out to camp, we stuck in the bottom of a wash and had to unload most of our stuff, including our water barrels. This was the first time I had been stalled and I was quite chagrined to think I had got into a place I could not pull out of. Doc said there had to be a first time, and that we couldn't expect to go through without getting stuck a few times, but I got some experience here and never did it again. The boys thought I was too much "sot up" over my driving and, I think, enjoyed seeing me stuck, even if it did make us all do some hard work for a short time and delayed us half an hour in getting into camp. This is the way it happened:

We had come to a wash, down which the water was rushing over the rocks, and the trail dropped nearly straight into it. Bob rode Dixie down and then rode up stream looking for a way out on the other side. A hundred yards above and around a bend the trail led up and out, and without thinking to walk up on my side and take a look at it myself, as soon as I saw Bob's head coming up around the bend, I dropped right down into the stream and drove up over the boulders and, when too late, found I didn't dare to stop on account of the sand, and brought the team around at a hard angle to climb almost straight up a slippery bank. They were winded and, with wet hoofs, had just managed to pull the wagon up out of the sand and water when they both lost their feet, but hung on until I put on the brake and let them get up and recover their breath.

I knew they could not start the wagon again alone on that grade so I told Bob I thought if we put Dixie on ahead, the three of them could do it, but they didn't. Dixie with her sore neck refused to pull after she had tried it once, and so, admitting I was stuck and needed help, we all went at it and lightened up the load. We carried it up the hill, and then with Doc and Bob pushing, we got the wagon up and were soon in camp at a water-tank.

The place was called Crescent; at least, a sign board on the railroad near the tank had "Crescent" on it, but the sign and tank were all there was to the place. We had a good place to camp here, getting a supply of good water from the tank, and a couple of trees near by gave us a place to tie the horses, as there was no grazing near and we did not want them to stray off. We had some hay so we thought they were better off tied up with that to eat.

It still looked like rain so we slept in the wagon again. When we woke up it was raining hard. "At last we are being rained on proper," Bob said, and when I looked out I could hardly believe my eyes -- everything was soaked. The horses were standing up to their knees in a miniature lake; the harness under the wagon was wet; and the rain was coming in the end of the wagon on the Doctor's head.

I put on my boots and rubber coat and got out and rescued the horses from their predicament, moved the wagon around so the rain would not beat into the front, and we stayed inside all the morning. We had a cold breakfast, except for our oatmeal, which came hot out of the fireless cooker, but at noon we got dinner in the wagon over our kerosene stove, the heat from which dried us out, and at 2 P. M., the rain having stopped, we started on.

The roads were very heavy and slippery and the little gullies we had to cross were washed out, and we had great times getting over them. One place we had to build a bridge, which we were able to do out of railroad ties that had floated down from the track in a gully near at hand. A mile or two farther on we came to a wash we could not cross except by cutting down the bank, but we had nothing save an axe to do it with.

We had needed a shovel badly all the afternoon, but here we must have one. We could see the station of Thompson about two miles beyond and, concluding there must be a shovel there, I crossed the wash on Dixie, and made a run for it to Thompson so as to get there and back before dark. Fortunately there was a shovel to be had. There were two in town and I got back with one in time for us to get across the wash and into Thompson by 7 P. M. Here we bought hay, bacon, and the shovel I had borrowed, and drove on to the top of a hill where we camped and prepared our supper by lantern light.

We were tired out, but had only six miles to show for the day, half of which had been spent in the wagon during the rain, and the balance mostly in digging and in building a bridge. It had been cloudy and cold, and to-night we got out our overcoats to keep ourselves warm. Two days of the six were gone and only thirty-one of the one hundred and twenty miles were covered. It didn't look as though we would have much time to spare, but we expected better conditions from here on, now the rain was over, and felt we could easily reach Grand Junction some time on the third of July.

The next morning, June thirtieth, we were late in starting, having been up late, for us, the night before, and it was eight-thirty before we broke camp. The same clay ridges and washes were in store for us, however. The trail was bad enough at best, running at right angles to the clay ridges, but the rain had done the rest and, as no team had been over the trail since then, we were in for a hard day's work with axe and shovel. That shovel was worth everything to us to-day.

By way of variety we saw several coyotes and had our first breakdown. Again Doc tried to console me by asking, "You didn't expect to get through without a breakdown, did you?" But while I expected it some time, it surprised me when it came, and also made me mad at myself, as it was simply carelessness. I had been dropping down into washouts all the morning and pulling out again without any trouble, after the boys with the axe and shovel had made it possible. In fact, I was so used to making the hard ones that I slid carelessly down into a little one, let the brake loose just a fraction of a second too quick, hit the opposite bank, and the front wheels rolled out from under the wagon, and I walked out behind the horses and left Doc sitting on the seat alone. The reach or coupling pole had snapped about eighteen inches behind the front axle. An investigation showed we had pole enough left and if we had a brace, and a three-quarter-inch bit, we could soon make repairs. While our tool box contained almost everything else we had needed heretofore, from horseshoe nails up, we did not have a brace and bit, and we sat looking at the wreck and trying to devise ways of getting the proper-sized holes made in the reach. Doc suggested making a fire and heating a bolt and burning a hole, but there was no wood and our kerosene stove would not answer for that sort of a job.

We could see in the distance a section house on the railroad and Bob thought the section men would surely have a brace and bit, and so, to save time, the boys volunteered to unload the wagon, pull out the reach, and have lunch ready by the time I had ridden over there and back. We could return the tools as we drove by.

I had a good long horseback ride in a very short time, but I didn't get what I went after. Two Japs were all I found at the section house and they had a few crowbars and shovels, but nothing else. I asked how far it was to the next place where I could get a brace and bit and was told it was twenty miles to Cisco, but the foreman would bring one next week. I knew we could make those holes easier than by riding twenty miles and back, and quicker than by having the foreman bring us a brace and bit next week, so I thanked them for a drink and hurried back.

I found dinner ready, the wagon unloaded, and the reach ready to be repaired, and better yet, Bob had found a gimlet which we had overlooked before. It was a delicate tool to use in hardwood, but after lunch we managed to get the reach ready for use and were loaded up and off again at 3 P. M. We soon found we had our front stanchions on wrong and had to raise up the wagon and turn them, so that by the time we had this done, and had stopped at the section house for water, it was 4:20 P. M., and we were only ten miles from our morning camp. This was discouraging enough, but from here on the washes were not so frequent and, in between, the roads were good, so we made ten miles more before we camped.

We had made fifty-one miles in three days and there remained only three days in which to make sixty-nine miles, and we began to worry about the kind of roads we would find from here on, but we had met no one who could tell us. We camped near a section house called Whitehouse, but the man there didn't know anything about wagon roads except that we were the first wagon outfit he had seen in some time, so we just hoped for better things and turned in.

"It never rains, but it pours," some one has said, and that evidently was what happened between Whitehouse and Cisco, for we were until 11 A. M. getting there, only six miles. We filled washes, mended a bridge, and were tired enough when we pulled into town. A store and postoffice, the railroad station and corral, was every building there, but it looked large to us and we were able to buy some provisions of the canned order, get a bale of alfalfa, and the storekeeper gave me one-half his supply of oats, which was just a pailful.

Still sixty-three miles to Grand Junction and we are told the trail following the railroad is washed out and in the same condition as the one we have just come over. We are advised to try getting to Grand Junction over what they call the old narrow gauge route, or old grade.

On the theory that it cannot be any worse that way, we cross over the railroad tracks and go north. The road is bad, however, and mostly uphill this afternoon, and by 7 P. M. we figure we have made only eight miles, or fourteen for the day. The horses are tired and discouraged. We camp by a mud hole for water and turn the horses loose to graze. The country is mountainous and of clay formation, and, aside from a little bunch of grass here and there, is bare.

We began to be worried about getting to Grand Junction by the third and concluded we wouldn't try. We had not agreed to be there before the fourth anyway, we said, and so after deciding not to get there before the fourth (which decision was especially funny because we knew we couldn't possibly get there before and perhaps not then), we turned in. We were not a very hilarious party and I think the horses had begun to tire of life as well. They certainly looked dejected.

Saturday, July 2, was much like Friday, only, as some one remarked, "more so." Our shovel was continually in demand. We had one very long hard pull after lunch which finished Kate up entirely, and at 5:30 P. M. we camped near a patch of grass, after making about fourteen miles, as near as we could guess, leaving us forty-one miles still to go. We crossed Cottonwood Creek about nine-thirty this morning and Westwater Creek at 4 P. M., and are probably about six miles from Bitter Creek. Cottonwood and Westwater Creeks both had the sandy side up, and we do not expect any better of Bitter Creek.

Kate is tired out and still I do not want to put Dixie into the collar yet, as her neck is nearly well, and I want it to get entirely well before I put her in to take Kate's place. If Kate can only hold out until we get to Grand Junction, we can rest her there, and Dixie's neck can then probably stand the collar again. Good old Bess, she never complains, but works every day. Luckily she has not been laid up at all as yet and apparently is made of iron. She goes on day after day seemingly just as fresh as when she started.

We have two hours of daylight left, so, as Bob volunteers to make camp and get supper, Doc and I take the rifle and climb up on a mesa, where we find small pine trees and big rocks, and from which we get a beautiful view of Mt. Wagg and Mt. Tomasaki. We have been in sight of Mt. Wagg ever since we left Green River. We sat there for a full half-hour and then returned to camp.

Just as we sat down to eat we saw a camp wagon coming up the trail from the east. The wagon sheet was clean and it was a brand new outfit; we could see that a mile away. The team was fresh, and a man and woman sat on the front seat. Behind was a lead horse, and bringing up the rear a make-believe cowboy and cowgirl. He was carrying a rifle. While they passed us within a hundred yards, they never saw us (apparently), and (apparently) we never saw them. We put them down as a wedding party from Grand Junction -- they looked so new and acted so green.

This was the first camping outfit we have met on our trip since reaching the desert and we are nearly across to the Rocky Mountains now, so evidently they are not very numerous, and as to sociability, -- well, up to date we haven't found any one to be sociable with. If you mind your business, the other fellow minds his, and no questions are asked.

We had about forgotten the camp wagon outfit when, in taking a look about, we noticed their camp fire about two miles west at a water hole we had watered at as we passed. They were still there when we pulled out in the morning.

As I started to hitch up I found Kate was practically "all in," so we were put to it to devise some means to reach Grand Junction by to-morrow, the fourth. We had given up getting there before and we still had forty-one miles to go, but I was bound to be there to-morrow if it took a horse, so we decided to lighten the ship, so to speak, by throwing away everything we did not need. First came the water barrels and platform. The barrels being empty were of no use to us to-day, and by making a forced march we could get to Grand Junction without them, and after that we would not need them. Then we threw overboard samples of ore, rocks, and all extra bolts and spikes; also a bunch of hay we had left, and figured we were about a hundred and fifty pounds the lighter. Then we put Dixie on the pole with Bess, padded up her collar, put a rope on the pole to take the weight off her neck, and leaving Kate to take care of herself as best she might, we started over the last few miles of desert which separated us from Grand Junction and its orchards on the western slope of the Rockies. First we took a picture of the barrels and wrote our names on them.

I did so hate to leave Kate, but I hated worse to miss being at Grand Junction on the fourth, after having only so recently confirmed the statement that we would be there. Besides, the Doctor had telegraphed Mrs. Lancaster, who was on her way home from San Francisco, that he would meet her there and for her to stop off and, as she was quite sick, he was very anxious to be there to meet her.

We had not gone far, however, before I saw that Kate was following us and I figured that if she would stay near the trail, some one would pick her up and care for her, or else she might reach Mack, which we figured could not be more than twenty miles away. We had a few very hard places to cross, but as a rule the grade was down hill and the wagon ran better without the barrels, and we pushed ahead so fast that we made camp within four miles of Mack by twelve-thirty.

While we were eating our lunch we heard Kate nicker, back up the trail, and very shortly she came up. We had lost sight of her long before and when she came up greeted her as a long-lost cousin. We gave her a feed of oats and then got her some water out of a water hole near at hand, and concluded that if she wanted to come so bad we would not discourage her; so when we started up again we thought she would follow us in to Mack where, if necessary, we could leave her. When we got nearly to town she was so far behind that Bob volunteered to wait for her and ride her in, so we left Bob and went on.

Leaving the team in front of the store, we hunted up the man who ran it and bought some hay and oats of him, also some groceries, as we were short. When we came out to the wagon there was Kate, but no Bob. He came shortly afterward, having walked in. He said he sat down by the side of the trail to wait for Kate and he could hear her nickering as she came along, just as though she were crying, and as she came around a bend he got up to catch her, but, although she seemed hardly able to walk, she must have mistaken him for a "holdup man" for she ran by him and he never could catch up with her. So he walked in, much to his disgust and our merriment.

We were now in Colorado, having crossed the State line and left Utah behind. We found Mack a very neat little place, with about a dozen houses, and at the end of a wagon road which led straight down along the railroad track to Grand Junction, with a fence on both sides, and irrigation ditches and ranches along the way for twenty miles. It seemed like another country, sure enough. We had travelled so long in the desert and without a real road that we were surprised when we saw one, and the fences looked strange. Here were real people along the road in buggies and wagons and on horseback. We just looked, and said nothing.

We drove about four miles along this road and then made camp, fifteen or sixteen miles from Grand Junction, feeling quite sure we could get into town about noon the next day. We still had Kate with us and I told Doc we ought to feel pretty good, as we were going to "make it," bringing all the horses through and on schedule time. He didn't say much, but that night as we lay on the tarpaulin trying to sleep and dodging a few rain drops from a thunder shower, I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said, "Nothing at all." About an hour after that he suddenly asked me what I was thinking about. I had supposed he was asleep long ago and was too surprised to answer at first. I had been thinking how much nicer it was camping out in the desert, and how shut in I felt between fences, and how disgusted the horses must feel to be tied to a fence post, and that if I were left to my own inclinations I would turn around and go out into the desert again. I did not want to admit this, however, as it seemed so foolish, so I quickly said, "I asked you the same thing an hour ago; you answer first."

What do you suppose he said?

"That desert has got into my system. I don't feel right; for fifty cents I'd turn around and go back."

I laughed a rather sheepish laugh and said, "Doc, you have answered your own question. Let's try to forget it and go to sleep."




Chapter XI

Grand Junction, Colorado


Monday morning, July fourth, found us on our way into Grand Junction, over good roads, and while we had to go a little slow on Kate's account, we had no special mishap. The country on both sides was taken up by alfalfa and fruit ranches, and one or two small towns we passed through seemed quite busy and prosperous. At Fruita, a little town about ten miles out, we picked up an Indian and gave him a ride almost to town, and, showing the Indian's characteristic, he departed without thinking it worth while to thank us.

We ate our lunch outside of town and as we drove slowly down the main street, just at 1:30 P. M., looking for a place to put up, we were hailed by Mr. Bradley and the boys, who had finished their lunch and were out looking for us. They had arrived in town only an hour before. It certainly was a hilarious meeting and, as they had located a corral, we drove over there and put up the horses, backed our wagon into the middle of the yard, and the race to be at Grand Junction on July fourth was won, with 944 miles to our credit.

Just to feel at home we all repaired to the St. Regis Hotel to clean up. This took some time, but when we finally got our store clothes on we realized it was the fourth of July, hence, a holiday, and no mail to be had and no stores open; so we took in the town and the newspaper bulletins of the Jeffries-Johnson prize-fight, and also told the boys how we had made and enjoyed the trip. The Doctor received a telegram stating that Mrs. Lancaster would not arrive until the next evening.

That night we tried to lay out a plan for our trip to Denver. The boys, Norman Bradley and Norman Harris, both wanted to ride horseback, so we had to have an extra horse. Instead of three there would be six in the party, so we must get our tent, which we had sent on from Daggett, California, as we could not expect to sleep on the ground in the mountains, and could not all sleep in the wagon. So we planned it out that night after a fashion, although the Doctor was uncertain as to just what condition his wife was in and, therefore, thought he might have to go home with her.

This put quite a damper on the party, but we had decided to stay in town a day or two longer to rest our horses and make our purchases, and we hoped that Mrs. Lancaster would be well enough so the Doctor could finish his trip with us.

We were up early the next day, shopping and getting ready for a new start. The horses were shod and inquiry made for another one. The question as to which route to take was discussed with various people and we finally decided to go up the Gunnison River and over Marshall Pass, instead of up the Grand River, through Glenwood Springs, and over Tennessee Pass. It is a longer and harder route up the Gunnison and I suppose we chose it on that account and also because we had never been over that way by train.

In the afternoon while calling on Mr. Adams of the Delta County National Bank, he asked me suddenly what hotel we were stopping at, and when I said the St. Regis, he said, "Perhaps you had better go over and get your things; it is on fire." Notwithstanding his quiet way of breaking the news to me I made a hasty exit and found, as I reached the door of the hotel, that our whole party had arrived at the same time from different directions. We found our rooms and had our luggage out in short order, although, not having our keys, we had to break in the doors. The fire, fortunately, did not do as much damage as the water, but the guests were homeless, so to speak, and we immediately sought out new quarters at the Navarre Hotel, and the excitement was over.

I had not yet been able to find the horse I wanted. I had, however, decided to let the boys ride Kate and Dixie. This would be easy work for the horses. Dixie's neck would get a chance to heal, and Kate ought to be able to carry one of the boys and keep up with the wagon, if she was not asked to do any fast traveling. Bess could pull her share over the mountains, I was quite sure, with any horse, even a fresh one, although she needed more rest than the two days she was getting. Still, we expected our work would not be so hard from now on, as we would have real roads and would rest oftener.

I located a big brown gelding that afternoon that was being worked double on a transfer wagon. He was a tough one, I could see, but he had so many faults I was advised not to take him. He would balk and kick under certain conditions, and under others he would run away. He was afraid of a gun and of automobiles, and was about as unsafe a horse as one could pick out to take up in the mountains on a trip of this kind; but I liked his looks and could not find another that I thought could do the work, and so, after some reflection, I bought him.

I knew that if he took a notion to run that we would probably be wanting to go in that direction anyway, and if he got going too fast, Bess and the brake could slow him up. If he refused to pull, I could probably talk him out of it, and as a tired horse soon gets to be a good horse, I was pretty sure that I could make a tired horse out of him very shortly and, therefore, a good one. We would need him only while our party was large anyway, and when the boys left I expected to sell him, so we added him to our list as a liability, and the boys having learned of his tricks, called him "Cyclone."

We had nearly finished our preparations by evening and were quite anxious to hear the Doctor's report after Mrs. Lancaster arrived. He seemed quite worried after he had met her and brought her up to the hotel. We could not get him to say much that night, but the next morning he told us he would have to go home with her, as he felt she was too sick to go farther alone, and, although Bob offered to go with her, the Doctor felt she needed a doctor's care. So our party was broken up, Bob deciding to go with the Doctor, and thus my two partners of the desert were leaving.

I hated to have them go, but I could not ask the Doctor to stay under the circumstances. Bob had made the trip on the spur of the moment, so to speak, but Doc and I had planned to go through together. We had followed many a trail before, sometimes on foot, often on horseback, and again by wagon or boat, but always he was there at the end and we would shake hands at parting and agree, when the frost came again, to do it over. But we knew we would not make this trip over again and he was not going through. I knew how he must feel, so tried to be cheerful and talk about something else.

It was a very quiet party, therefore, which sat down to dinner together. Mr. Bradley, the two boys, and I were to leave immediately afterward. The Doctor and Mrs. Lancaster and Bob were going to stay over and take the train the next morning. At one-thirty we had our new team, Bess and Cyclone, hitched to the wagon. Norman Bradley was to ride Kate, and Norman Harris was to have Dixie for his saddle horse. Immediately afterward, having said good-bye to my old camping partners and Mrs. Lancaster, we pulled out for Delta, Colorado.

Mr. Adams had given me letters of introduction to various people along the route, so that I did not have that lonesome feeling in starting on this second lap of the journey into the mountains that I did starting on the first lap into the desert.




Chapter XII

The Mountains


We leave Grand Junction a new party, but with the same outfit, except a new horse. We arrange our work practically the same way as before, Mr. Bradley, or "Brad" as he is dubbed for convenience, doing the cooking, Norman (Bradley) and Norman (Harris), dubbed "Pete" for identification purposes, doing the packing, dishwashing, and scouting. The horses fell to my lot as usual, as well as the driving, in which Brad sometimes took a hand.

Our first objective point was Delta, about forty-five miles up the Gunnison River, along which the Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge runs. Our road, however, was several miles away from the river and railroad, and through a deserted country. We did not leave Grand Junction until the afternoon of July sixth, and we drove about sixteen miles before making camp, just beyond Kannah Creek, beside an irrigation ditch. Our new horse Cyclone was a bit fast and flighty, but so far not harmful, and we took special pains to see that he did not break loose and go back home. The boys had to try out their small calibre rifles on the prairie dogs and doves near camp. They had better success hitting doves than dogs, so we had some doves for breakfast.

Our first night out we slept on the ground, although as there were only four of us we could have slept in the wagon, which we did afterward to be sure not to be rained on and also to avoid rocks, which were usually too numerous for comfort, and it was too much of a task to clear a large enough space for sleeping quarters.

The next morning we had everything working smoothly. Brad was an old camper and good cook and had no trouble in holding up his end, so that we were off at seven o'clock. At least we started to start, but Cyclone, when the wagon did not start easy on account of a big boulder under the wheel, decided to go backward. I got into an argument with him at once, but concluded it policy to agree with him, so we went backward. He soon tired of that way of going and we resumed our onward way.

Our road had about five miles of rocks and two bad hills, but we stayed right side up. By 2 P. M. we had come about twenty-five miles and, having reached the Gunnison River, we decided to stop for the day. We had been without water since morning, and our route had been a dry and dusty one, so we hailed the river and grass with delight.

The boys went fishing while Brad and I sewed a flap on the wagon sheet. They came back with a sucker and a bullhead, or rather they brought back only two fish, one sucker and one bullhead, both caught by Norman.

This camp with running water, shade, and grass was the best we had had since starting from California. I expect now that we are getting close to the mountains we will have plenty of wood and water and some very beautiful places to camp.

We were troubled some with mosquitoes for the first time, so got out our mosquito netting. We did not have much need for it afterward except occasionally when camping by a stream in the woods.

Next morning, Friday, July eight, we drove into Delta. This is quite a prosperous town and the country immediately surrounding it is well irrigated, and the farmers along the river look as though they were all doing well. We spent the best part of the day here. We had tires set on two wheels and besides making a few purchases, we lightened our load by sending home the tent and cots we had taken on again at Grand Junction; also a box of clothes.

We intended to get our lunch at the hotel, but when we went over there about noontime the proprietor, a woman, was evidently quite alarmed for the safety of her guests and told us she was sorry, but we could not register. We probably did look like desperate characters and so, being refused admittance to the hotel, we went on down the street and found a lunch counter where we got what we wanted. The boys were quite elated to think that we had been refused admittance to the hotel because we looked so much like desperadoes, but Brad and I concluded the woman was a tenderfoot and her real reason for being fussed was that we had no coats.

Our wagon was not to be ready until later, so we had time to look the town over, and then came back and helped the blacksmith set the tires. We were all ready at four-thirty, so started for the next place, a town called Hotchkiss, where I had a letter to Mr. Simonds, president of the North Fork Bank, and I expected to interview him regarding the roads.

Leaving Delta we found the roads were good for eight or nine miles, or as far as we went that afternoon. We crossed the Gunnison River again just before we made camp. The river from here up apparently has no banks, but runs through a canyon, with perpendicular walls in places, which several miles farther up is several thousand feet deep. It is called the "Black Canyon of the Gunnison," and while we got several glimpses of the river a few days later, it was nearly a week before we got down to it again.

Our camp near the river was disagreeable on account of mosquitoes and dead cattle, the latter being in evidence near all water holes. The season has been so dry, and the water so scarce, and what there was so bad, that I presume more cattle died this summer than usual.

We left early the next morning and by eleven-fourteen were at Hotchkiss, sixteen miles, and up grade all the way. Here at the north fork of the Gunnison we camped and I saw Mr. Simonds. He told us about the road and I found we would have to travel seventy-five miles before getting down to the river level again. We would go through Crawford and Crystal Creek and up over the Black Mesa and then down again to Sapinero, which was on the river and also the railroad. He thought we could make the trip through O. K., although it was not easy, but when I asked him if there was any easier way he laughed and said, "Not unless you can fly"; and we often wished we could before we got to Sapinero.

We reached Crawford, about fourteen miles from Hotchkiss, at 5 P. M. It lies in a pretty valley and, while it is an old town, the inhabitants were evidently quite prosperous, as they were mostly putting up new houses or adding to the old ones. We stopped just outside the town by a brook, and had a good camp. We had come thirty miles that day and felt we were making good progress.

The next morning we drove twelve miles to Crystal Creek, reaching there at ten-thirty. There was no town here -- just the creek and a ranch house and the remains of a sawmill. The telephone company is putting a line through here and hauling poles down from the mountains. We met some of the teamsters who told us about the road over the Black Mesa, and as we had a good place to camp, we concluded to stay here the balance of the day and rest up the team. We caught enough trout here for supper, the first we had had, but the creek was so small, and the brush so thick, it was nearly impossible to fish at all, although there were plenty of fish. We did not turn in until 9 P. M. on account of the mosquitoes, but by that time it had turned so cold they disappeared, and we were left in peace.

The next morning we got an early start. Our road led straight up onto the mesa, a five-mile climb, and here it was that our new horse showed his poor qualities to advantage, or rather, our old horses showed their good ones. We had climbed about four miles, most of the way nearly straight up, when on a particularly steep turn Cyclone gave up. I couldn't induce him to try again, and not being in a place where I could take any chance of getting backed off the road down the mountain side, I took him out and told Pete to let me have Dixie. The boys thought that if Cyclone couldn't pull the wagon up with Bess's help, poor little Dixie surely couldn't, but they didn't know Dixie and I did, and was not disappointed. She and Bess pulled that wagon up to the top, much to the delight of the boys, who amused themselves by making slighting remarks about Cyclone. We reached the top at ten o'clock and there we put Cyclone back into the harness, and that was the last time we ever had any real trouble with him.

Starting on we had a splendid drive for five miles through the most wonderful of Nature's parks; immense pines, a profusion of flowers of all colors with the Indian Paint Brush scattered here and there among them. One could imagine some landscape gardener had laid out the grounds, except for the immensity of it. Snow-capped mountains in the distance completed the scene, and when we camped at noon we felt we would like to spend several days here. The grass was knee-high in the little parks and our horses had not had such good feed since starting. It certainly was worth climbing up just to be here, and we lingered longer than usual for lunch, and then drove only five miles farther before camping for the night on a little creek that runs down a canyon into the Gunnison River below.

We dished one of our hind wheels again coming down a steep rocky piece of road, and had to take it off and put it on the other side after dishing it back; but we are getting used to little things like this, and bad roads, so take them philosophically. We fished some in this creek where we camped, but, while we saw a few trout, could not induce any to bite. That night we had a fine camp fire and the horses a good rest and good feed.

This is the Gunnison Forest Reserve and we were surprised to find several hundred cattle up here, but later ascertained that the Government allows a certain number to be pastured up here at twenty cents per head a month for cattle, and thirty cents for horses. There are no sheep up here; the cattle men killed them off, and while there was quite a row over it, probably no one will try sheep for a while. They can only pasture them here for three months, July, August, and September. There is no grazing before July and too much snow after September, so it makes a very short season.

We start Tuesday morning for Sapinero which we expect to find a town where we can buy some grain for the horses and make a few other purchases. We were disappointed in this, however. All we found was a hotel and postoffice and two saloons. Couldn't get much of anything, and no feed. On our way down this morning the trail skirted the side of the canyon and we could catch a glimpse now and then of the river, looking like a tiny brook, far down below. We could look across to the mesa on the other side, called "Blue Mesa," and up and down the canyon, so that we had some fine views. The land, however, was bare and rocky and as we got lower down the vegetation assumed more of the character of the desert. When we finally arrived at the river level and left Sapinero, the road followed the river first along the bank, and then back in the hills. The road along the bank would be green and shady, but a hundred yards away behind a hill you could easily imagine you were in the desert.

Finding a good camping spot near the river, we stopped at 3 P. M. for the balance of the day and tried to catch some trout in the river, but with poor success. Norman Bradley caught two, I believe, but for some reason the Gunnison River did not yield us much fish, and we met several fishing parties, all of them complaining about the fishing. As the Gunnison is supposed to be a good trout stream I presume we, as well as the other kickers, were poor fishermen.

The next morning we drove to Iola, fourteen miles, and here on the banks of the Gunnison I found Mr. Stevens and his ranch of a thousand acres. I had a letter to him from Mr. Adams and he let us camp on his land and fish all we wanted to. Right here seems to be the trout fisherman's Mecca and we were supposed to catch rainbow trout galore, but didn't. The boys had more fun with a town of prairie dogs back of camp then they did fishing. As the fish didn't bite, they turned their attention to the dogs and carried on a regular campaign against them, but the casualties were not heavy. We were also entertained by a bull fight right by our wagon, but as the bulls had been dehorned it was not bloody, just exciting and noisy.

Mr. Stevens has a fine ranch here, plenty of water, nice buildings, and all the conveniences. He is one of Colorado's best-known cattle men, being a member of the State Commission. We said good-bye to him the next morning and started for the Cochetopa Pass over the Continental Divide. Mr. Stevens had told us that was about the only way a wagon could get over.

It was twelve miles to Gunnison and the road followed the river closely. It was a beautiful morning and we enjoyed this stretch of road very much. We passed many campers' cabins, all fishermen; also hotels and tents. All the fishermen we interviewed said the fish were not biting, so we felt better. One always feels less dissatisfied with his own failures if other people are likewise unfortunate.

At ten-thirty we reached the town of Gunnison. Here we had a wagon wheel set, one of the horses shod, and bought a few provisions, and on making inquiry were told we would have to cross the Continental Divide via Cochetopa Pass to Salida. We figured this to be seventy-five miles farther than Marshall or Monarch Pass, but were advised not to try Monarch as it was impassable for a wagon. So having had plenty of experience with bad roads we promised to go via Cochetopa, and started out again, leaving Gunnison at 3 P. M. We drove only about six miles when we found a good place to camp and a brook that looked as though there might be trout in it, so we stopped right there.

We were at the "parting of the ways." To go south over Cochetopa was our intention, but Brad thought we were not living up to the record we had made up to date unless we went straight east over Monarch. He thought we would not know whether we had been told the truth or not, unless we tried to get over; and that seventy-five miles looked a long distance out of the way to me, so we were glad of a chance to stop at the "parting of the ways" to consider.

About this time a "schooner" came down the road from the direction of Monarch, and we could not resist the temptation to hail them and inquire if they had come over Monarch Pass, and were delighted to find that they had come over that way from Salida. They had travelled from Oklahoma and were going to Delta, one of the towns we had come through, to take up some fruit land. We could not tell them much about Delta, but they told us all we wanted to know about Monarch Pass. They had come over, and that was enough for us. We could do anything anybody else did, or we thought so. However, I did ask how the trail was and if they thought we could get over. Claudie (as his wife called him) said: "Well, we got over, and I only tipped the old lady and kids over once, but I imagine it is harder getting up from this side." The "old lady," a buxom young woman of about twenty-four, laughed and said they were not hurt any and she thought we could get over if we had come from California without a smashup.

So we settled it right there that we would go over the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass, or break something, and so while the boys fished we got supper. They came back without a fish, but after supper caught three, two rainbow and one brook trout, about half a pound each.

The next morning we started for Sargent, a little town at the foot of Marshall Pass and just south of the trail over Monarch Pass. The roads were good, and, although we were climbing up all day, we made about twenty-four miles and camped one mile from Sargent. On the way the boys tried to catch some fish in a brook, but without success.

We find the deer flies bother the horses a good deal during the day and at night the mosquitoes are a pest, but by 9 P. M. the cold drives them away. We have beautiful warm days, but up here in the mountains the nights are cold.

The next morning, Saturday, the sixteenth of July, we were at Sargent at seven, and following this same brook up we reached the forest ranger's house by ten, seven miles from Sargent and six miles from the top. I went in to interview the ranger and he said we had better rest our team until afternoon before going any farther, as the trail went straight up for six miles from here and the farther up we got the worse it was. We concluded we would keep on going, but take it easy and give the team short pulls and frequent breathing spells. Before going any farther, however, we took everything out of the wagon that we could pack on the saddle horses, and Brad walked ahead and made road, and the boys walked behind and led their horses with the packs. This took out quite a good many pounds and I felt we could get up if Cyclone would stick.

We started on this last lap at about ten-thirty and made about two miles by noon. Then we had to change sides with our hind wheels on account of the slope of the trail, and also soaked them in water to keep them from dishing. With our high covered top and springs under the box, we had to drive very carefully to keep from tipping over. Starting up again I had to humor Cyclone occasionally, but we got up finally at 5 P. M., but I am unable now to tell how.

Brad worked all the afternoon throwing rocks out of the trail and filling up holes, and going ahead around a bend to tell me what condition the trail was in so I could prepare the team for it. Finding no suitable spot or water at the top, which was at an elevation of 11,500 feet, we went on down the other side to a park, about a mile and a half, over a trail that was all a wagon like ours could stand and not go to pieces; in fact, that mile and a half was the worst piece of the whole 2400 miles I drove, and we all went into camp that night at six-thirty tired and sore.

The next day, Sunday, we had a chance to study our surroundings, as we did not move camp until afternoon. We were in a park by the side of a small mountain stream, surrounded by pine and spruce trees, about a thousand feet below the pass and snowdrifts. It was an ideal location for a camp, and in looking about we saw that the surveyors we had met on the other side, near the top, had their camp here, and below us were two tents and a wagon with a team of mules and a saddle horse. On inquiry we found the surveyors were working for the Bell Telephone Company. The other folks were just out on a trip and had expected to go over the Divide, but had got this far and did not dare try the last mile and a half. They were sensible, as there were two ladies in the party, one not very well, and they could not have walked or ridden in the wagon up that trail without danger of heart disease, if nothing else.

Having such a nice brook in front of our door, so to speak, Brad and I had a house-cleaning while the boys went fishing. We also did up the washing, so that our camp was quite a conspicuous object with all the blankets, etc., hanging up around us. I took a picture here of the Continental Divide, showing our camp as well. It was a beautiful spot and we hated to leave it, but as we were not camping, but going somewhere, we started on down toward Salida about 2 P. M.

We passed through a deserted mining camp. There was nothing left to show there had been a camp here except the graveyard, and a few stone fireplaces. The graveyard up there in the mountains, away from all habitation, had a fascination for me, and I had to look it over and soliloquize before proceeding. When we did start on again the trail dropped down fast, although it was fairly good, and we soon passed through Monarch, a typical mining town, and two other small places, and by evening made camp within ten miles of Salida. The weather had been threatening all day, but it did not rain.

We had been following the same stream down all the afternoon and while the road was good "considering where it was," as Brad said, we met several buggies and wagons that had to be hung up on the scenery until we could get past. The stream was on our right hand, and usually when we met any one we had no place to turn out, and the other chap had to climb up the side of the mountain. Brad had a lot of fun with these fellows. They usually seemed helpless when they saw us in the road and Brad would get out and tell them what to do, and half the time would have to lead their horses up into the brush and rocks and lift the buggy over a boulder or two, and then we would go on leaving them to get back into the road the best way they could.

Our camp this evening was alongside the road, near a brook, where there was some grass, and we got eggs from an old man who lived nearby. It looked very much like rain and blew quite hard about bedtime, but it did not rain enough to lay the dust.

The next morning on inquiry we found it was twelve miles to Salida and that we were two miles off in our calculations, but as the road was good and down grade we didn't mind that. We reached town at ten-thirty, "provisioned" up, bought two hats for the boys in place of the old "strawstacks" they were wearing, and, after getting feed and mailing our letters and postal cards, we pulled out for Denver. We decided to go via Nathrop and Fairplay and through South Park, instead of via Colorado Springs, and so started up the Arkansas River, past the smelters, going about four miles before stopping for lunch.

In the afternoon we drove about eight miles farther through a heavy shower, but over a fine road, although up a heavy grade, and camped on a mesa near a spring out in the open. We prepared for another shower that night, but didn't get it. We passed numerous ranches along the road, well irrigated, where they raise grass, alfalfa and oats, and some cattle. We also passed a camping party from Ponca Springs, Oklahoma, a man and his wife and three girls. The woman had tuberculosis, I think. They had intended going over the Divide into the dry country on the other side, but had not been able to get over, and were going back. I did not inquire how near the top they had been before giving it up -- probably about where we had camped the day we crossed.

The next morning it was quite cold, but warmed up later in the day. We drove on up the river, past Nathrop, and then at a brick school house, as directed, we left the main road and the Arkansas Valley to drive over the mountains into the Platte River Valley. The road was a good one, but for ten miles it was a stiff pull and we met no one. After we had climbed about a mile we got a good view of Buena Vista and the Arkansas Valley. The scenery was rough and the country dry. As we neared the top we had some more fine views, but aside from a few birds the country seemed deserted. We found a good spring at noon and while here the boys shot a few doves. We have doves and young rabbits occasionally to eat, as we have had fish, but not so often that we get tired of them.

After lunch we drove on over the Divide and down to a siding of the railroad near a brook, through a thunder shower, mixed with hail, that scared Cyclone into fits. He had evidently not been used to thunder showers and up here in the mountains, if you are not struck, you very often think you are, and when a bolt would seem to strike right at us, he would jump and kick, while the other horses did not seem to mind anything but the wetting.

The boys left their horses and brought their saddles inside to keep dry, and when we got down we found Kate and Dixie had loitered behind at a patch of grass, so Norman went back and brought them down. We figure we are about thirty miles from Salida and the same distance from Fairplay.

Wednesday morning, July 19, we have a fine road down hill past the salt works, and over by Buffalo Springs. We drive through another shower and camp about sixteen miles from our starting point. The boys had quite a time shooting prairie dogs as they rode along this morning. They can shoot from the saddle and many a dog never reached his hole.

This afternoon we just miss another heavy shower by driving into a rancher's hay barn. There were showers all around. This is a low valley with salt marshes and some alkali. The south branch of the Platte starts above here.

Going up a mountain grade we had a chance to see how near being a good horse Cyclone was. We were close to the railroad track (Colorado Central), the grade was very heavy, and there were three engines pulling the train, and he "stood for it," passing within fifty feet. He has quit balking; we shoot out of the wagon; he doesn't mind autos; and now a triple-header within fifty feet of him doesn't cause him to climb a tree, so we consider him a good horse from now on. He certainly is a powerful brute and, if he had been properly handled when he was broke, would have been a very valuable horse.

We camped at what might be called the Four Corners. We had come up from Salida on the south; the left-hand road was the old freight road west to Leadville; the north fork led to Denver; and the east fork to Hartzel. We found a party of fishermen from Cripple Creek camped here. The boys fished a short time and then, as it looked like rain, we made things tight for the night. Some of the fishing party were old freighters who had been over the road between Denver and Leadville many times before the railroad was put through, and they told us about the road to Denver. We will soon be in South Park.

It is mostly a hay country through here and they are not going to have as much of a crop as usual. This is July twentieth, and the showers they usually have around July first are just beginning now. It would seem that they are trying to make up for lost time, but by the looks of the hay crop it is evidently too late.

Pete saw a coyote about fifty feet from camp just at dark, but it was so foggy there was no use trying to get a shot at him, as a run of a few feet would take him out of sight.

The next morning we drove to Fairplay and in spite of the rain the roads are fine. They are apparently made of crushed granite and are the finest roads imaginable. Autoists would enjoy driving a car over them, if they could but get in here. We went on to Como and camped three miles beyond, making about twenty-three miles to-day. This doesn't seem so far considering the good roads, but the grades were always with us and we were either going up or down, at neither of which we could make very fast time.

We all took a turn at the prairie dogs to-day and I guess if we claimed a bounty on each one, we would have made enough to pay for our ammunition, as we certainly killed a lot of them. The ranchers were glad to have us try to kill them, but evidently were surprised that we did, because ordinarily one gets tired shooting before he actually kills one that he can go and pick up.

All along here the elevation is about ten thousand feet. The mosquitoes did not bother us so much as the deer flies did the horses during the middle of the day. Sometimes we all had to get out and actually drive them away with switches, and, although we had nets over the horses' faces, they could not shake them fast enough to do any good.

The next morning we drove over the Divide out of South Park through Webster, and camped within two miles of Grant and about seventy miles from Denver. Coming over the pass the deer flies nearly drove Cyclone crazy, and we all had to fight them until we got up on top and into a breeze. From that point down there did not seem to be any, and we were exceedingly glad of it.

Our camp we called "Good Luck Camp" because when we had unhitched we found a horseshoe under the wagon. It was rusty and full of nails, so we hung it on behind. Here we had shade, grass for the horses, and a fine brook from which we expected to catch some fish, so we stayed all the afternoon and night, but caught only a few trout. The boys improved their marksmanship by shooting at swinging stones and all sorts of moving objects they had swinging from strings, and made some remarkable shots.

The next morning we started late and drove down nearly to Bailey and camped on the north branch of the Platte. The roads were fine and we began to see signs of civilization, summer cottages, parasols, "boiled shirts," etc. We saw an occasional robin, but the magpies, ravens, and dickey birds we seem to have left behind.

This afternoon we expect to stop at Bailey for some provisions and horse feed, and then make camp as near Denver as possible, so as to be sure to reach there by Monday night. Bailey is at the foot of a mountain by the same name, and we pulled in there about 2 P. M. After stopping only a few minutes, we left the river and started up over Bailey's Mountain, going, as it seemed on paper, across lots to Denver, but in reality across mountains. We found no water; all the streams were dried up. We passed a number of summer "shacks," all vacant, and met no one for miles. Evidently the lack of water has kept the people out this summer.

We camped for the night near a vacant summer house, that had a spring in a log house by the road. It was getting late and we had been looking for water, and probably would have missed this place but for a lone horseman who came along and told us about it. He said he had driven this road many times and this was the dryest time of all, and we had no reason to doubt his word. Every little mountain stream we had passed since leaving Bailey was dry as a bone. We made twenty-seven miles to-day with a late start, and some long climbs, so we think we are pretty sure to reach Denver Monday night. We were busy until bedtime with the horses and supper, besides shooting a few rabbits and doves.

The last thing we did was to take one of our hind wheels off, block up the wagon, dish the wheel and take it down to a water hole we had found, tie a rope to it and throw it in to soak all night.

We left in the morning, Sunday, at eight-thirty, drove through Shaffer's Crossing, on over another pass and down to Conover, about ten miles. Here we found an old-fashioned well with two buckets, in the middle of the road in front of a country hotel, where we watered the horses. The office of the hotel contained a store and long distance telephone exchange. The people here asked us a number of questions regarding the rainfall back in the mountains. Every one is talking about the drought. There has been no rain on this side of the range and very little snow last Winter.

Leaving here we pass a number of empty houses, large roomy affairs, formerly used as hostelries when the road was used by freighters from Denver to Leadville. It is thirty-two miles, they tell us, to Denver, and we drove on about three miles farther before stopping for lunch.

We made what we call a dry camp near a ranch house. We stopped our wagon under a big tree beside the road. There was a splendid breeze, but no water in sight. The boys took a pail and went over to the house for water, but were gone so long we began to worry about them. When they finally returned they said the well at the ranch was dry, and they had gone about half a mile to a spring where the family had to go since the brook went dry.

All the vehicles we have met so far to-day are three autos and two teams. The other road along the North Platte, which we left at Bailey, has the water, and the summer resorts, they tell us.

We are still twenty-five miles from Denver, and starting late we plan to drive to Morrison, but are told we can save two miles and get a good camping place by going down on a creek and leaving Morrison to the north. This we did and got into camp at seven-thirty, just three and a half hours after leaving our noon camp.

This three-and-a-half-hour drive was very interesting; in fact, probably as picturesque a drive as we had anywhere. We began going down grade rapidly and finally the road, which was especially good, turned abruptly down into a canyon and turned and twisted among the trees and bushes in a marvellous manner. We sent the boys on ahead to warn any one coming up to pick out a place to pass, as in spots we could see only a few yards ahead. The walls of the canyon towered up nearly perpendicular on each side and, although the sun was still three hours high, it was twilight where we were.

At last we arrived at the mouth of the canyon, or the gateway into the mountains, and before us lay one-half of the world, so it seemed, stretching away as level as a floor and as far as we could see. It was really not so flat as it seemed, but coming out of the mountains where we had been for weeks, it seemed absolutely level. Stretches of green here and patches of grain there, the soil red, and the sun, dropping behind the mountains back of us, reflected on the glass and roofs of Denver, which lay about twenty miles away. I unconsciously pulled up the team, and we all feasted our eyes on the scene. It seemed like an enchanted land, more like a mirage, and we made several more stops before we were reminded to hurry up and get to a place to camp before dark.

Our last camp on the mountain trail was a very comfortable one. We found water and grazing here, and a camp wagon from New Mexico, a man and his wife and daughter. From New Mexico, but where to they apparently didn't know; they were just "on the way."

We had reached Denver Monday morning, half a day before we expected, and ahead of schedule, and as Brad did not have to leave for home before the twenty-eighth, and it was only the twenty-fifth, he said he would stay over and clean up with us, and start home the next day. We got into town about ten o'clock, put our outfit up at Craig's Sales Stable, and went around the corner to the New Western Hotel. We cleaned up first, put on our "store clothes," and then got our mail.

I dropped into E. H. Rollins & Sons' banking house for some currency, and saw Mr. Reynolds. He started to talk business to me and I thought he was speaking a different language. I didn't seem to understand much of what he was talking about, so got away as soon as I could. Didn't feel just right in an office anyway, although he was very kind and offered to do anything for me I wished, but try as hard as I might I couldn't think of anything I wanted.

Going back to the hotel I seemed to keep repeating to myself, "Funny you don't want a thing; not even a cigar." (I hadn't been able to smoke coming over the mountains on account of the altitude.) Finally passing a cigar store I stopped and thought I would try a cigar anyway, and see if that wasn't what I wanted, and as I lighted it and stepped out on the street, I knew it was. This also reminded me of the fact that we were on level ground. The mountains had been passed.




Chapter XIII

The Plains of Colorado


Tuesday, July 26. Denver did not hold many attractions for us, so we decided not to stay here very long, perhaps a couple of days. After we had seen Mr. Bradley off for home and laid in a supply of groceries and feed, I examined the horses carefully to see if they were doing as well as they should, and was surprised to find that Kate was so lame she could hardly walk. I had intended to sell Cyclone here, as we could get along very well with three horses, now that Mr. Bradley had left and there were only three of us. Besides, Pete was planning to leave us when we got to North Platte.

Finding Kate helpless, I concluded to get a fresh horse, and, not wishing to part with any of my old standbys, I traded Cyclone even up for a dun mare to go with Bess. This mare we called Sally. Craig, the man I traded with, said he would rest Cyclone up and get him in good shape and use him for his buggy horse. I asked him if he did not want to hitch him up and try him, but he was an old horse trader and said he guessed not; if we had driven him across Colorado he was satisfied he was broke and gentle enough for his use. I could see the boys' eyes snap and was afraid they might laugh outright, but they managed to keep sober. I kept a string on my trade, however, by saying that I would try the mare by driving her out of town, and if she didn't suit me I would come back for Cyclone. This being settled, I looked the horses over again and concluded that they would be better out on the road than in a barn. They were not eating well and the flies in the barn worried them, so I told the boys we would pull out right away.

Hitching up Bess and our new mare Sally, Pete saddled up Dixie and, leading Kate, we started out. Kate was so lame she could hardly walk and Craig said, "You better leave that mare behind; I will give you twenty-five dollars for her and take a chance on curing her." I was tempted to accept his offer as she seemed hopelessly lame, but somehow I couldn't bear to leave her behind so long as she could follow, and as I remembered how we had given her up once before, and she had followed us all day crying, I didn't have the heart to sell her; so I drove out of the yard and she hobbled after us.

Safely out of the yard, Norman rolled over in the wagon and looking around to see what had happened to him I found he was convulsed with laughter.

"What is the matter?" I said. "Sit up and tell me quick."

And between breaths he was able to say in a rather disjointed manner, "He's going to feed and rest Cyclone up and drive him to a buggy. My! but I would give a dollar to be there when he does it. The first auto will put him through a street car and over a telephone pole. Say, Mister, how could you do it?" And he was off again in another convulsion.

By this time Pete had ridden Dixie alongside and with a smile asked, "What sort of a buggy horse do you suppose Craig will have when he gets Cyclone rested up?"

I could not help but join in the laugh and wished Brad were there to join in also.

We really were in no position to crow over the trade until we knew the sort of horse we had. Just then we passed a man driving a team and he stopped and said, "Did you get that mare of Craig?" On being told that we had, he said, "Well, she is O.K. I know the mare and the man who owned her first, and she is a good honest mare and has no bad tricks." And he was right. We found her a satisfactory addition to our motive power and just as safe and as good a puller as any we had, but she was slow and kept me busy at times to keep her up to Bess.

Well, we were on the road again, with only a day's stop at Denver, and, after getting over our hilarity and finding we had a good horse, we began to feel a bit lonesome. Brad had always been the life of the party and would have enjoyed our horse trade immensely, but in lieu of being able to talk it over, Norman was already planning to write him all about it.

We soon had another horse trade under way, however, which was quite a ludicrous affair. It came about in this way. We were headed for Hudson and that night we camped near the South Platte River, six miles from Denver, at the State Fish Hatchery. It was late when we pulled in there and when Norman, who was to be the cook, came to look for his stove he couldn't find it. Some one had stolen it out of the wagon at Denver.

While the boys were getting supper under difficulties, I made the acquaintance of two urchins and, as they lived near and had a woodpile, I got them to bring us some wood. Later I met their father and we got to talking horse. He said he had a cowpony that he had bought of a "puncher" who was through there with a bunch of cattle, and he was trying to make a farm horse of him. He had only a little patch of land and light work, so I thought it would be a good place for Kate and suggested he trade me the saddle pony for her. Incidentally he could pay me twenty-five dollars "to boot." We finally compromised on fifteen dollars and were to look the animals over in daylight before making the transfer.

Next morning, just as I was hitching up, he came over and said he would take the mare, and asked me if the pony suited me. He told me he had him fairly well broken to drive and thought I would have no trouble working him if necessary, but that he had been a saddle pony so long he did not take to harness willingly. "We won't worry about that," I said, "I just want him for the boys to ride and I want Kate to have good care. I'll hitch him up and make him work if I need him. First, however, I'll have Pete go over and ride him." So calling Pete, I said, "Get your saddle and bridle and go over and catch that pony and ride him over here. If you like him, we will trade."

The man and I waited for some time for him to come back. Finally when he did come he was on foot, and said he couldn't catch the pony. So we all went over and the man caught him. I thought the pony was a bit "wild eyed," but said nothing. It took two of us to put the saddle and bridle on and then, just as Pete started to get on, I had a "hunch" and took the bridle away from him and said, "I'll ride him myself first." I threw the bridle over his head and put my foot in the stirrup, but something I had learned years before prevented me from getting on. I looked that pony in the face again and was sure I was right, but just to prove it I put my foot in the stirrup again, took hold of the pommel of the saddle, then put my weight on his back. That was enough. He broke loose and did a stunt of high and lofty bucking that would do credit to any bronco I had ever busted, with myself the centre of operations, and when I could take my eyes off of him long enough to look about I could see that both the boys were laughing, and when the pony finally started jumping stiff-legged toward his owner, with his head down and bawling, they rolled over in the grass and just kicked. The man ran for his life and got behind a tree; the pony, running into a barbed wire fence, stopped, and the circus was over.

Picking up my hat that had come off in my jumping about to keep out of the pony's way, I said, "If you will take off that saddle and bridle we will be going." And looking back as we drove away we saw the man standing where we had left him, still looking at the pony. He had never ridden a horse in his life probably and was as surprised as any one at his antics.

We drove to Barr Lake and about four miles beyond for lunch. The country was flat, the roads sandy, and we were tangled up a bit as to direction, but finally arrived at Hudson about 6:30 P. M., and putting the horses in the livery barn went to the hotel. It looked very much like rain and here I thought we would rest a while.

The next morning, Thursday, the twenty-eighth, we remained in Hudson. Norman had a stove made so he could do better work in the cooking line. It was not much of a stove as stoves go, but for our purpose it was fine. It was a flat piece of sheet iron with holes punched in it, attached to six legs.

I made some inquiry regarding the roads and found they were quite sandy along the railroad, but that if we were not afraid to cross the open range we would have better traveling. The open range didn't scare us any. We had no fear of getting lost and decided at once to go over the range to Fort Morgan. Our instructions were to go directly east to the "D" ranch and then northeast to Fort Morgan, getting directions from the "D" ranch. We got to Fort Morgan O. K., but without any further directions.

Starting at 1 P. M. we were soon out on the range, driving over a rolling country without a tree in sight, but plenty of good grazing, and passed bunches of cattle now and then. Pete saw a badger he wanted to shoot and, as he sat on the seat with me, he reached back for a rifle, picked up a 22-calibre with short cartridges in it, and instead of shooting the badger, shot Bess in the neck.

Pete was more surprised than Bess was. He seemed unable to move afterward. Bess merely looked around and seemed to think a horse fly had stung her. She still carries the bullet in her neck and seems none the worse for it, but if Pete had picked up the other gun and the same thing had happened, we would have lost a horse right there. Pete learned something about guns right then that may be of value to him.

Shortly after this it began to rain, and it certainly was needed. We drove on through the rain until we got near a ranch house where we could get water. Here they had a windmill and were trying dry farming. The rancher said it was dry all right and this was the first rain in months.

The next morning it was still threatening rain when I got up, and a couple of range horses were trying to get into the wagon. I drove them away, but as it was wet and soggy I let the boys sleep, so that it was eight-thirty before we started that morning. We had fortunately picked up some dry wood in town the day before, which we kept in the wagon, and so had no trouble in making a fire.

Starting off we found a fairly good trail which we could have used to advantage, except for our wide-tread wagon and wide tires. We are just beginning to find almost all the vehicles in this part of the country are standard tread, and so plan to have our wagon cut down at the first opportunity. We made about twelve miles by noon and camped on the open range for lunch.

Most of the country we had just driven through was being fenced, but like most newly settled communities in the West, the first settlers seemed to have become discouraged or dried out, and had left. We found hardly any one on the claims. We saw a good many cattle and the buffalo grass was still fairly good grazing, and the rain of last night will help. It was so cloudy and cool that we wore our coats or sweaters all the morning. We saw plenty of dogs and hawks, but no game.

We planned to drive to Wiggins this afternoon, which we made a guess should be fifteen miles away, but did not get more than nine miles before the threatening weather made us decide on an early camp to get ready for a rain we were sure was coming. We had been driving across country with no particular road and at a deserted ranch, where we could get water, we camped. We tied down our wagon top and used our wagon sheet for a lean-to kitchen, and got supper while the rain, which had begun while we were getting ready, came down in torrents. It rained nearly all night, but the ground was so dry it soaked up the water like a sponge.

We had no more than unhitched the team when two kittens, veritable skeletons, came into camp from the ranch house, and we were glad to take them in out of the wet and feed them. Camp seemed more cheerful with those kittens about. How they had managed to live we couldn't tell, but decided to take them along with us and leave them at the first house.

The next morning, Saturday, the thirtieth, while hitching up the horses, a man came along on a pony, and riding up to our wagon began to talk about the rain, and what a blessing it was to the country, etc. He had just got fairly launched on the subject when he saw the kittens, and about that time they "sensed him," and he got off his pony and said, "Well, I didn't forget you, but I was afraid you might be dead." It seems he was the owner of the claim we were on, and these were his kittens. He had gone to town to get some work and was coming out to see how things were, and had brought a bottle of milk in his pocket for the kittens, in case they were still there and able to drink it.

We visited with him for a while and then pulled out for Corona, or Wiggins P. O., on the railroad, where we bought some oats for the horses and oatmeal for ourselves, and then went on and made camp alongside the railroad, about fifteen miles from Fort Morgan. Here Kate kicked Dixie on the left hind leg, at the stifle-joint, cutting quite a gash with the cork on her shoe, so that I sewed it up. Dixie was so lame that we had to lead her. This delayed us so that we did not get into Fort Morgan until 6:30 P. M. We ate our supper at a restaurant and then drove out about a mile and camped.

Fort Morgan is quite a prosperous little town of twenty-five hundred population, and our camp that night was within sight and sound of the lights and noises of a lively country town, made by the usual Saturday night crowd. We began to feel cramped again. To camp between fences near a railroad and a town gave me the feeling I imagine one must have on moving from a big country home into a stuffy city flat.

Sunday, July 31. The rain we had two days ago was quite general over this part of the country and, now that it is over, the weather is hot and muggy. The roads are also sticky, and with a lame horse we do not make very good progress. To begin with, we found after going about three miles that we had forgotten our stove, so Pete rode Kate back after it. Kate is picking up fast, but we had not intended working her yet; still she deserved the six-mile extra ride for kicking Dixie. After recovering our stove, we drove about a mile beyond Brush, which was ten miles from Fort Morgan, for lunch, and then drove on to Snyder, about five miles farther, on the South Platte River, and made camp about 3 P. M. in a grove of cottonwood trees and turned the horses loose to graze while we made a very comfortable camp.

The town of Snyder (six houses) was just across a long bridge on the other side of the river and, as the water was not very good, we took pails and went over and got a good supply from the town pump; also purchased some eggs. The boys took a bath in the river while I laundried the clothes. This was a specially good camping place as we had plenty of wood and water, besides grass for the horses, and they enjoyed the afternoon rest. We started our oatmeal and prunes cooking in the fireless cooker as usual, and then turned in.

The next day we continued on down the valley through Hill Rose and on toward Sterling. Ranchers looked prosperous, although the season had been dry. Wheat and oats seemed to be the biggest part of the crop, but beets were raised quite extensively, and some alfalfa, but it looked poor.

Toward evening we were stopped by a woman who said her mare was cast in a ditch and, as her husband was away, she and the children had been trying for hours to get her up, but couldn't, -- and would we be good enough to take one of our horses and pull her out? We stopped, of course, and Norman Bradley and I walked over and had no difficulty in rolling the animal over; and the mare ran off, followed by her colt, none the worse for her experience.

When we got back to the wagon it was 6:30 P. M., so we decided to camp right there. After we had our supper and were cleaning up by lantern light, the woman's husband, who had evidently just got home, came over to thank us for getting his mare up, and by way of further showing his appreciation, offered to give us a three-legged dog. We did want a dog, but wanted a whole one, so declined his generous offer with thanks. Just as we turned in, it began to rain again. The drought seems to be broken and, while the rain does not improve the roads, it is such a blessing to the country we are pleased also.

After getting already to start the next morning, we dressed up, that is, we got out our "store clothes," and our good shoes, and made ourselves as presentable as possible, for we had heard that Sterling was quite a good-sized town. We planned to go to the hotel for dinner and stay and see the sights, as we had heard they had a street fair or circus. We were disappointed in the town and the circus didn't interest us, but we had dinner at the hotel, which was the best in town, and even the dinner disappointed us. We could get up a much better one ourselves.

The only satisfaction we got out of the hotel was permission to go into the dining-room without our coats. We remembered our last experience at Delta, Colorado, just at the western end of the State, where the landlady refused to let us into the hotel, and concluded clothes did have something to do with our treatment here to-day.

Going over to the barn where we had left our horses, I found a rancher with his wagon broken down, and he said he was twenty miles from home; so I just got out our box of tools, bolts, washers, etc., and fixed him up in short order. He wanted to pay me for the job, but I told him I wasn't a blacksmith; I was just a farmer, and being a farmer himself, he knew we were not allowed by law to collect money for work of that kind. He wasn't long in seeing the point and, after telling me he was convinced I had never belonged to any union and probably never would, invited me to go home with him and stay a few days and rest up my team. Being in a hurry, I had to decline.

I am just beginning to realize that I am never so much in a hurry as when I am on a vacation. I always plan just a little more than can be done during vacation time, and then usually do it all, which necessitates one grand rush. Some time I am going to do as everybody else does, and take it easy during my vacation and not be in any hurry. Then I will not only have just as much fun, but come back to work all rested up.

When we left Sterling at 4 P. M. the horses seemed in good spirits, but the next morning Bess seemed tired out and Dixie seemed to have lost her appetite. We were still leading Dixie on account of her lameness, also Kate, and were driving Sally and Bess. We drove through Iliff and eight miles to Proctor, then three miles toward Crook, when we stopped for lunch.

It had been a fine cool morning with a nice breeze. The valley had flattened out so that we could see for miles on each side. The high rolling land in the distance on either side looked very much like a desert and, while not a desert exactly, it really was of little value. We heard that a new irrigation ditch was to be put through here from the South Platte, by Canfield & Company, that would irrigate ten thousand acres. Just the flood waters were to be used, taken out between October and April, and a charge of thirty dollars per acre was to be made, plus interest. I presume this water was to be stored in a reservoir. Practically all the land on which any good crops are raised between here and Denver we found was irrigated. The balance, on account of the dry season, did not raise much of anything.

In the afternoon we drove through Crook and camped about four miles east of there and about three miles west of Red Lion. Just before making camp we met a party of horse traders who tried to work off something on us in exchange for Sally, but as she was about the only workable horse we had left, we knew better than to let her go, and after an amusing half-hour we let them go without making any trade. Bess seemed about "all in," for the first time, and Dixie was not much better, although not so lame.

The next morning, Thursday, August 4, Bess seemed so weak that we put her behind with Dixie, and drove Sally and Kate, the first time Kate had been in harness for a month. We drove by Red Lion, which we found to be a sign on the railroad track, and on to Sedgwick, about thirteen miles. Here Bess hung back so much that after lunch, this side of Sedgwick, we put her in the harness again and to lighten the load the boys rode Kate and Dixie, and I put the stay chain back on Sally, so she pulled practically all the load. We then got along very well and by 4:30 P. M. drove to Ovid, eight miles, and camped on Lodge Pole Creek, making twenty-one miles, which we thought was doing wonders with a tired lot of horses. We had a very good camp here on Lodge Pole Creek, but it rained hard all night and the next morning.

We should have stayed there, as the roads were frightfully muddy, but as we were only about seven and a half miles from Julesburg, we concluded the sooner we got there the better. About 11:30 A. M., during a lull in the storm, I hitched up and we started, thinking the horses would be better traveling in the direction of a barn, than standing there shivering in the cold rain. Sally, with the stay chain shortened up, pulled the wagon into Julesburg by 2:15 P. M., the boys riding inside, as it rained all the time, and Kate and Dixie walking behind. Reaching town we found a good barn, and, after taking care of the horses, we repaired to a restaurant for lunch.

In the afternoon I had the blacksmith pull the shoes off of Kate and Bess so they could rest up their feet while they were resting themselves. This blacksmith, by the way, was quite a wonder in his line and, when I learned of his ability, I got him to promise to cut my wagon down the next day, which he did. He took the axles down (they were steel), took four inches out of the middle of each, welded them together again, and no one would know they had ever been touched. He cut the wooden parts down, changed the brake, and we were ready to start with a standard tread wagon, which we did the following Sunday afternoon, after two days' stop, which rested the horses, and the change in the tread made it very much easier pulling.

Julesburg was not so large or so tough a town as I had expected to find. It had quite a bad reputation some years ago, but, as with all our frontier towns, time has remedied that.

Leaving Julesburg Sunday afternoon, the roads were not very good as it had been raining more or less for several days. The wagon, however, ran so much easier that we were soon five miles from town on the south side of the river, and finding a good place to camp, with feed and water (water in this country usually means an irrigation ditch), we decided to go no farther. It was Sunday and we should not have started except we wanted to get out of town. Two days in Julesburg made us anxious to leave, so at this first good camp site we stopped.

Here we did some laundry work, took a bath, and cleaned up generally. Talking with the farmers we find many who want to sell out. They have had a very bad year. Even the irrigation or wet farmers seem to be in bad shape, as water failed, dams went out, etc. I told them they were no worse off than other people we had interviewed in the West and, if they moved out, I would advise their going east, as it certainly was dry west of here, where we had been, and everybody was complaining. I think this sort of talk was good for them. It didn't help except in their minds. People are always more apt to feel better if they know other people are worse off.

Moving on the next morning we passed Big Spring and about 4 P. M. reached Brule. We were now, Monday, August 8, in Nebraska, and had left Colorado, through which we had been traveling since the evening of July 2. We had passed over all kinds of country in this State, from the desert, over the Rocky Mountains, to the plains, and had navigated the prairie schooner over all kinds of roads, so that now we felt we were over the worst end of the trip from the point of traveling, but so far as scenery was concerned, and good camping places, we didn't expect much from here on.

We had given up our kerosene stove at Denver and from here on wood for fires was scarce. In fact, it had been ever since we left the stove behind, and we were obliged to pick up wood along the road. Next time we will know better than to part with a good stove, but I cannot say that we missed any meals because we did not have it.




Chapter XIV

Our Party Grows Smaller


Before getting to Brule we had crossed over to the north side of the river, and arriving in town and a storm coming up, we drove into a barn and went to the hotel for supper. We had come just fifteen miles and had let the horses walk practically all the way. The storm soon blew over, but we did not go on, preferring to let the roads dry up some, so slept in the wagon in the barn.

Here we met a man by the name of Hoover, who was going to Hershey, near North Platte. He was hauling household goods. He had been working for some contractors on an irrigation job and was going home. Finding the roads so muddy he wanted to unload his big stove and send it on by freight, but we made a little fun of his doing so because he had a fresh strong team, and I told him, as he was going our way, if he got stuck we would pull him out. This allusion to his team needing any help rather fussed him, and he said he guessed if we were going on in the mud he could.

He had a wide-tired wagon also, which is about the worst thing to handle in the mud, outside of an auto without chains, so we had our troubles together. While his team was fresh and very good walkers we travelled together and managed to keep up with him, much to his surprise, without pushing our team very much. Starting out, we drove down the valley on the north side of the river, or rather river bed; there is not much water in the river this time of year. What would ordinarily be there is in the irrigating ditches. The day was fine, and outside of an occasional bad spot in the road we made fairly good progress.

At noon we camped about twelve miles from Brule, going to the river to water the horses. Near us was another party of campers; a large family and three poor horses. We had lost track of Hoover. He started ahead of us and evidently didn't know a good camping place when he saw it, or else decided not to stop at all. Toward evening we overhauled him and we went into camp together.

After getting our camp into shape we invited Hoover to eat with us, which he seemed glad to do, but insisted on paying for his share of the grub. He seemed quite interested in our fireless cooker and camp outfit, but couldn't understand why he had not left us behind during the day. I could have told him, but I didn't. I noticed he did not have a brake on his wagon, so that going down hill he had to go slow, while I let our team trot down, holding the wagon with the brake. In this way I made up all I lost on the level and up grades, and didn't worry the horses either.

The next morning, Wednesday, August 10, we drove on through Paxton and Sutherland, and camped about ten miles from North Platte. We had been making from twenty to twenty-five miles a day. When we reached Sutherland Mr. Hoover left us, following a different road, eight miles to his farm near Hershey. When we made camp, which was by the side of an irrigation ditch as usual, the wind blew so hard we had to take the cover off the wagon to keep it from being blown over.

As soon as the blow was over, the boys got supper while I measured out the oats and fed the horses. As usual, they crowded about the wagon, but Bess laid down before I got her nosebag ready, which was so unusual that I remarked to the boys that she must have a touch of colic. She would not eat and I was quite worried about her, but we had supper and the boys turned in, leaving me sitting on the wagon tongue with the lantern between my feet watching Bess. I had put a blanket on her to keep her warm, as the night was chilly.

We had nothing in our commissary that would relieve colic, so picking up the lantern I started down the road to a farm house I had seen in the distance, when we were making camp. It was a long way to the house, or it seemed so in the dark, and when I got there I couldn't make out whether any one was at home or not; at least I could not wake up any one but the dog, so came back to camp.

My impression was that we were going to lose a horse. Colic is not always fatal, but I felt that not having anything to give her to relieve the condition, the chances were she might die.

As I came near enough to the wagon to see it, the white canvas top made it look twice as large as in the daylight, and Bess was standing up between me and the wagon, throwing a shadow on the canvas that startled me. She was eating grass and was apparently much better.

While walking about and adjusting her blanket I was astonished to find a little colt. It was dead, but, as I buried it, I could not help smiling at my diagnosis of the case, and wondering what the boys would say in the morning when I told them. Just then Norman called out from the wagon, "What are you doing over there anyway?"

Not thinking what I was saying, I replied, "Burying Bess's colic."

The next morning, Thursday, August 11, we drove slowly into North Platte, and put our horses in a barn and went to a hotel to clean up. Pete was to leave us and go home on the train, so we did some rapid work in getting everything arranged. The two Normans had ridden horseback across Colorado, about five hundred miles, had done the cooking and packing since leaving Denver, and now that one was leaving, our party was to be cut down to two, Norman Bradley and myself. I am not sure but we were wishing we might board the train also with Pete, but no one mentioned it, and as the train pulled out we felt rather lonesome. We two walked back up town and, while Norman was buying some groceries, I stopped in at the bank to get a check cashed.

The last time I had been in North Platte was twenty years ago, when traveling for N. W. Harris & Co., buying bonds. At that time I had met a young man by the name of McNamara who was working in one of the banks here, and as I had to spend Sunday in town, he came around to the hotel and invited me to go and call on a young lady with him.

I may not get this story right as to details, but the facts I have not forgotten, and when I found that the president of the bank in which I went to get my check cashed was Mr. McNamara, I was immediately reminded of the Sunday, many years ago, when this same Mr. McNamara, then quite a young man, and I had gone to call on a young lady by the name of Cody. He had evidently called there many times before, but at this time there was another young man calling also, who had ridden up on a bronco, and when this young man left, wishing to make the right sort of impression on Miss Cody, who by the way was a daughter of Wm. Cody, or "Buffalo Bill," he allowed his horse to rear up and fall over on him, breaking his leg. Of course, he made an impression right there, and was taken into the house and cared for, and we left. I had often wondered since how it came out, viz., which had made the more favorable impression, and now that I had met Mr. McNamara again I said, "Well, whom did Miss Cody marry?" And he replied laughingly, "The fellow who broke his leg, of course; it always ends that way." So after many years my mind was finally set at rest regarding a matter into which I had often thought to inquire.

I had a short visit with Mr. McNamara and the folks in the bank, and then gave up the afternoon to getting things ready to start in the morning.

The next morning we left town at 10 A. M., crossed to the south side of the river and drove until 1 P. M. The roads were good and the country looked better on this side of the valley; the hills were close to us on the south, and to the north the valley was very wide, as the north fork of the Platte comes down and joins the south fork just below here. Shortly after noon we met a party moving into northern Nebraska. They had come up from Kansas. They had twelve horses and two wagons, and had just camped in a schoolhouse yard.

The odd thing about this country was that there were hardly any fences; each schoolhouse, however, stood in the middle of an acre of ground, with a fence all around, which made a good place to camp. There was usually a pump, a wood shed, and grass. What more could a party want? They could turn their horses loose to graze and be happy, especially as it was vacation time, and no scholars or teacher to interfere.

This party told us they had been having quite a time with their horses and colts, as on this main road they had met so many autos, and inquired if we had had much trouble that way. Needless to say we didn't and hadn't. Our animals were all broken to everything, including going without eating when necessary. The only special comment these folks had to make regarding our trip, when we told them how far we had come, was that our horses didn't look it.

We were tempted to stop and camp with them, but as it was early we concluded not to lose half a day, and so went on. A shower that blew up shortly after we left came near soaking us before we could get the sheet down. It rained so much that it made the roads muddy, and by night we had made only eighteen miles.

We had reached the National Soldiers' Cemetery, and on inquiring if there was any objection to our camping there, were made to feel at home by Mr. Ingle, the superintendent. He showed us a good place to camp, offered to let us cook on his stove if we wanted to, and suggested we put our horses in his pasture. We did not need to use his stove as we had dry wood, but had to hurry to get our supper and make things tight for the night, as it soon began to rain again and kept it up all night. I guess we were tired, because I remember we turned in early, and when I woke the next morning I found the lantern still burning. I had gone to sleep so quickly that I forgot to blow it out, and slept soundly all night with it lighted and hanging right over my head.

The next day, August thirteenth, was fine and clear, and we decided not to start on until the roads had dried up some, and so visited with Mr. Ingle for a few hours. He showed us the cemetery where all the old soldiers who were killed in the Indian fights were buried, and told us about this country when he first came through here as a young man in the army. Then they were having more or less trouble with the Indians. Now the Indians are all gone and he is an old man, looking after the graves of those who died or were killed at that time. There is just one Indian buried here, Spotted Horse, a staunch friend of the whites.

Norman was quite interested in the process of moving the bodies of some of the soldiers that had been placed in the wrong locations, and busied himself helping the men move them while Mr. Ingle talked to me about the days when this country still belonged to the Indians.

He had a desk in his office, made of cedar. It had been made by hand many years ago out of cedar cut from the hill back of the cemetery. Sawed out by hand and fastened with wooden pins, it was nevertheless a fine piece of furniture. His office was full of Government records of soldiers and correspondence, and would be a good place for any one to pick up old army tales, which could be written up under the trees beside the graves, with no one to disturb.

This cemetery, miles away from any town, surrounded by a brick wall and filled with trees shading every corner, seemed a very appropriate place for those old Indian fighters to rest, and we were glad we had had the opportunity of seeing it, and talking with the superintendent, who knew so much about the men who were buried there.

Mr. Ingle wanted us to spend Sunday with him and, if time had permitted, we should have liked to do so, but with our usual haste we left at twelve o'clock, after selling our old saddle to one of his men for seven dollars. We got our pay by cashing a check from Mr. Ingle, less seven dollars, and as it was a Government pension check we took no risk. As he wanted a dollar more I cashed his personal check on the First National Bank of North Platte. I just mention this to illustrate how checks are used as currency in this country and no questions asked. Later I stopped at a country store and offered ten dollars in payment for some small article and was told they could not change it unless I would take small checks. They had cashed so many they were out of currency. We managed to scrape up the change and went on.

Later, passing through a small town, I went into the railroad station to send a telegram, for which the charges were sixty cents, and handed the ticket agent the ten dollars. He said he would have to go over town and get it changed if I did not have anything smaller. Just then I thought of the check for one dollar that Mr. Ingle had given me, and so I said, "I have a check for one dollar, if that will go." He snapped me up with "Why didn't you say so before?" and handed out forty cents, waiting until I had produced the check and endorsed it, when he put it in the cash drawer, hardly looking at it. I left, wondering how easy it might be to put bogus checks through, if even the railroad company took them that easy. Well, we didn't have to try to pass any bogus checks, but it did seem that the people were a bit careless.

Leaving the cemetery we drove to Brady Island, where we crossed to the north side of the river on a bridge that seemed a mile long, but in only one small channel was there any water running. We drove on a few miles over sandy roads and then camped, about eleven miles from Gothenburg. The next morning, we drove through Gothenburg, not expecting to go far, but looking for a good camping place, which we didn't find. It was a sandy, muddy road to Gothenburg, and then we drove six miles to Willow Island and five more to Cozad, and found no good camp site. Then we thought we might come to a creek about two miles farther on, but after driving three miles and not finding one, we camped alongside of the road, making about twenty-five or twenty-six miles for the day.

We met several prairie schooners to-day. One party of young men, going to Sutherland, stopped us to ask about the roads west and where to cross the river. Just before starting up one of them asked me where we were from, and when I told him California, he seemed speechless for a minute, but finally came to and, as we started up, asked me this question, which I didn't get a chance to answer -- and perhaps he did not expect me to -- viz., "Say, stranger, where are you going to, or don't you know?"

Some way that question seemed to strike me as especially funny, and the more I thought about it the funnier it seemed, until I found myself laughing heartily. Norman didn't hear his question, and when I told him what I was laughing at, he said, "I suppose that fellow thought we had started out and didn't know enough to stop," which remark set me to laughing again and, when I could answer, I said, "Well, I think he was perfectly justified in asking the question. After this if any one asks us where we are from we will tell them from North Platte, and if they ask us where we are going we can tell them Kearney. This will be enough for them to know and will save conversation and may keep us out of the lunatic asylum."

We had shot a young rabbit, which we had for breakfast, and Norman kept the foot for luck. The next day was foggy and, as we drove along slowly, Norman shot two jack rabbits with the rifle, making a double, so to speak. He saw only one of the jacks, and as he shot it the other jumped into sight and ran away, but didn't get far when Norman's second shot knocked him over. This we considered an omen of good luck, as well as marksmanship.

Later we pulled an automobile out of a mud hole with Sally, after having some fun with the men who were trying to start it. I charged them two dollars for doing it, which amused Norman greatly. We divided the money, two silver dollars, and drove on.

Next, Norman spied a quail sitting on a nest close to the road, on a perfectly bare patch of ground. How a quail had the nerve to make a nest in such an exposed place was more than we could tell. Mr. Roosevelt would probably say that we didn't see it in any such place. To be sure, however, we stopped, walked over to her, and she ran away, which proved that she was alive; and we counted sixteen eggs, which proved that she was setting on them. There wasn't anything as big as a match to hide it, and the public road was not more than ten feet away.

Without molesting the nest we drove on about half a mile to Buffalo Creek and made our noon camp. Here there was plenty of grass, and we stayed until 4 P. M., and then drove on six miles to Lexington, where we stayed all night. Our horses are doing fairly well, except Sally. She is lazy and needs to be prodded most of the time.

Leaving Lexington at seven-thirty the next morning we had fair roads, with the exception of a mud hole now and then, until we reached Overton. The country is sparsely settled, flat, and uninteresting. At Overton we were stopped by a fellow who said he wanted to buy a horse, and I offered to sell him Sally, and after dickering on the price for a while he said he would give me a saddle horse for her. He brought out the saddle horse which looked like a good one, but I didn't want to trade horses; I wanted to sell one. Having spent an hour doing a lot of talking to the edification of most of the population in the little town, we drove on without selling Sally. Norman thought we should have traded, just to be doing something, as the going was monotonous and a new horse would give us something new to play with; but I concluded we were better off without a horse we would have to watch, tie up at night, and possibly find harder work disposing of than Sally.

During the afternoon we drove through Simmons and Elm Creek, over some dirt roads that were fine. It looked like rain, but a strong wind came up and we concluded it would blow the rain away, so we were in no hurry to get our supper over. We had camped about eleven miles from Kearney, turned our horses loose, and were just washing up the dishes after supper by lantern light, when a hard thunder shower came up, and by the time we had got things under cover it was raining hard. Before turning in for the night I concluded, as there was a field of alfalfa near by that was not fenced, that I had best get the horses up for fear they might stray into it during the night and get foundered. So putting on my rubber coat and boots, I went out and hunted them up and, with the aid of the lightning flashes, brought them up and tied them to the wagon, and then we turned in and listened to the rain on our canvas cover for about a minute, and the next minute (so it seemed) it was morning, and the rain was over.

As we turned out that morning the country looked as if it had been literally soaked; water stood in the fields, and the dirt roads that were so fine the night before were seas of mud. It was still cloudy, but we concluded, if we delayed starting, the sun would soon come out and dry things up a bit and make it easier going. By eleven o'clock it was still cloudy and we decided not to wait any longer, so hitched up and drove very slowly through the mud the eleven miles to Kearney, where we arrived at about 3 P. M., having stopped near the midway sign for lunch. This sign, supposed to be half-way across the continent, says:

"1,733 miles to Frisco, Boston 1,733."

We wanted to change the sign so it would read

"1,600 miles to Los Angeles, and 800 miles to Chicago"

but knew no one would see any sense in putting up such a sign. There did seem some sense in putting up this midway sign, although I told Norman it seemed as though we should have come to it sooner. It seemed too far east considering the time we had been on the road, -- now three months, -- as it appeared as though we had gone more than half way to the Atlantic Ocean. Norman, however, thought if we had been going west instead of east we would have expected to find the sign farther east; at least we would have about the same feelings regarding the distance, hardships of travel, etc., whichever way we were headed.

This reminded me of the old story of the Catholic priest, who was riding a mule into town over a very muddy road, and meeting one of his flock he said: "Good-morning, Pat, is it very bad going this morning?" "Yes, Your Reverence," said Pat, "and it is just as bad coming." And I believe they were both right.

Here at Kearney we decided to stay three or four days and rest up the team and see if we could not get away from the rain. We seem to have been traveling in it most of the time since leaving Denver and conclude, if we stay here a few days, it may get ahead of us.

The first thing we did after putting our horses up in the livery barn was to get our mail. Here I found a note from Mr. Adair, Cashier of the City National Bank, asking me to call at once on a very important matter. I concluded he probably had something to sell and had heard somewhere that I was liable to come through his town, so I put the note in my pocket and we went to the Midway Hotel and cleaned up, planning to see Mr. Adair the next day.

The next morning, Thursday, August 18, was still cloudy. After looking around town to see if it had improved much since I was there last, about fifteen years ago, I went around to the livery and looked the horses over and told the proprietor, Mr. E. C. Duncan, I wanted him to sell Sally for me, if he could, during the next day or two. Then recalling the request of Mr. Adair to call and see him on an important matter, I went around to the bank. Here I found them very much exercised about me. They said my father had wired them that I was traveling across country with a wagon, and was due at Kearney about this time, -- and would they hunt me up at once, spare no expense, and deliver to me the very important message he had sent me in their care? I asked impatiently for the message, feeling something very unusual had happened. Perhaps some one was sick or dead, and when they told me that they had given the message to one of their men with instructions to phone up and down the line and, as soon as he had located me, to start in his auto with the message and deliver it to me as soon as possible, I was quite worried. Just then a messenger came in and reported that I had not gone through town, and if I wasn't at any of the hotels, they were going to take the road back toward North Platte and see if they could find me. When informed that I was in the bank he started out to find the man in the auto and get the telegram, and when told it would be an hour before he could be back, I inquired about the trains for Chicago and found one left at twelve o'clock. It was just 10:30. I would have time to get ready to leave town and be back at the bank to get the telegram by the time the messenger could return, if I hurried.

I returned at once to the hotel. Norman was somewhere about town and I knew I could find him before train time, so I packed up my belongings and his, paid the hotel bill, went to see Mr. Duncan, and told him to take care of my horses and wagon, sell Sally, and, if I didn't ever come back, I would write him what to do with them. Thus I got back to the bank just as the man drove up in his auto and brought in the telegram. I opened it rather hurriedly and, glancing at its contents, heaved a sigh of relief. No one was dead; no one was seriously sick; just a case of important business which needed my attention. I was almost inclined to be provoked because no one was dead. I had fully expected something as bad from all the fuss, and here I was ready to leave in thirty minutes for Chicago just on account of business matters, when I had forgotten I ever had any business.

By this time my momentum had carried me out into the street, and running across Norman I said, "Come on, kid, we are going to catch that twelve o'clock train for Chicago."

"Why, what's wrong?" he said, very much surprised.

"Everything and nothing," I said. "Just come along or we will miss the train. I have got everything fixed and if I knew when I was coming back I would let you stay here until then, but I can't tell, so you had better come along."

We caught the train and discussed it afterward and concluded business had no place in an overland trip. Norman left me the next morning at Davis Junction to go home to Rockford, and I came on to Chicago, arriving Friday, August 19.

Whether this is the end of the trip or not, I cannot say, but my impression is that as soon as I can get the business attended to, I will return to Kearney and take up the trail where I left off, and finish it if I have to go alone. In the meantime the horses are having a much needed rest and the prairie schooner is left at anchor without a soul on board. Let us hope her journey is not over.




Chapter XV

Alone in a Prairie Schooner


Kearney is about eight hundred miles from Chicago, and with fair wind and weather I started on the trip alone. No, not exactly alone either. There were five of us, including the dog, as we left Kearney at 3 P. M., Saturday, September 3. Sally had been disposed of, but Kate, Dixie, and Bess were in good condition, having had two weeks' rest, and I had brought Cress to keep me company and watch the wagon. She did the latter vigilantly, but was a very poor conversationalist. How I managed to get back to Kearney in two weeks, and why I came alone, is really not so important as the fact that I got back, and did start alone; the why-for is merely incidental.

My aim was to get over that eight hundred miles as quickly as possible and not hurt the horses. It looked easy, and as the horses were rested, I thought I could make at least twenty-five miles per day, which ought to land me at the farm at Williams Bay, Wisconsin, October 4 or 5. There were, however, a good many things I had not counted on, which, while they added to the difficulties, did not expedite my journey.

My first stop was at Gibbon, fourteen miles out of Kearney, where I put up at Bill Smith's livery, got supper at a restaurant, and slept in the wagon. It rained nearly all night, which didn't make the going any better. Bill Smith was quite a horseman in his day, and had owned, according to his story, Smuggler, Acton, and one or two more famous race horses.

The next morning, Sunday, it was foggy, and I did not pull out till nine-thirty, leaving Smith still talking about race horses. I drove through Shelton and on about five miles farther, where I got my dinner alongside of the road, and, as it had dried up and the sun came out, I hung all the blankets out on the wagon to air, as I found things a bit musty from the two weeks' lay-over at Kearney, on account of having been put away damp.

Putting everything away again I drove on through Wood River, which is fourteen miles from Gibbon. I should have stopped there as a storm was coming up, but as it was only 4 P. M. and the roads were getting better, I kept on for about two miles, thinking I would find a better camping place and get settled before it rained, but I lost out. Of a sudden it turned loose, and, before I could get the wagon sheet down, it was raining hard and the wind was blowing a gale. I turned into a farm yard and got behind a barn to keep from being turned over, and from this shelter I managed to get the sheet down, don my rubber coat and boots, and help the farmer get his barns closed up. He allowed me to bring my horses in out of the storm.

Here I spent another night sleeping and eating in the wagon during the rain, and had only made sixteen miles, which was not up to my schedule of twenty-five, and muddy roads in sight.

The next day, starting at 10 A. M. in the rain, I managed to reach Grand Island, sixteen miles, by 4:30 P. M., where I stopped for the night, and filled my grub box with eggs, bacon, oatmeal, etc. The country about here looks fine, splendid crops, and land selling at one hundred dollars per acre. The horses have only been walking thus far, but they are walking fast; to-morrow, if possible, we will start to drive in earnest, and I hope to make at least thirty miles, or at least reach Central City, which is twenty-four miles.

Leaving Grand Island the roads were better, and I got to Chapman, twelve miles, by ten-thirty; reached Central City at 2:30 P. M. and kept on to Clark, eleven miles more, making thirty-five miles for the day, which was the farthest we had ever driven in one day. Chapman is a small place, but Central City is a fine little town and looked very clean and prosperous. Clark is just a little hamlet.

The roads to-day were fine, except a mile or two of sand. The country through which I passed was as fine a farming section as I had seen anywhere. Incidentally I saw a few yellow blackbirds among a flock of crow blackbirds, the first I had seen anywhere, except at Delevan Lake, Wisconsin, several years ago.

It is thirty-one miles from my camp here to-night to Columbus and I am going to try to drive that far to-morrow with Kate and Dixie. Bess shows signs of a sore neck and so I decide to take her out of harness for to-morrow and lead her.

Wednesday, September 7, starting at 7:15 A. M., I reached Duncan, twenty-three miles, at twelve-thirty. Starting on again at two-thirty I reached Columbus at 5 P. M., making from thirty to thirty-two miles for the day, which made up for the first three or four days of slow travel. The country all along here looks prosperous. I drove across Crystal Creek between Duncan and the town of Crystal Creek, and over the Loup River, just at the town of Columbus. As I turn in, it looks like rain again. It certainly is not ideal camping weather.

The following morning, after the usual rain during the night, I was late in getting started. Before leaving Columbus a bright thought had come to me. It was to telegraph to an old chum of mine by the name of Lewis, who was living in Omaha, to come out to Fremont and ride into Omaha with me.

After getting this telegram off, I started on toward Fremont. There was a cold north wind blowing, and what few people I met driving had on overcoats, and were wrapped up in lap robes. I got as far as Schuyler for dinner. This was only eighteen miles for the morning, but far enough considering the roads which were bad again, on account of the rain. I tried here to connect up with Lewis over the phone, but couldn't. Then I drove on to Rodger, eight miles farther, where I managed to talk to Lewis over the phone. He says he will meet me to-morrow night at the Ono Hotel at Fremont, at 6 P. M. It seemed good to hear a familiar voice and I shall be truly glad to have some company. Cress manages to relieve me of any care for the wagon when I leave it temporarily, as she will not allow any one to look into it. It is seventy-five miles from Rodger to Omaha and I have made twenty-six miles to-day, in spite of bad roads, so feel encouraged.

I went over to a hotel for supper and when it was called, the men (about twenty) filed into the dining-room, dropped into the chairs, ate everything in sight, never said a word and, when through, got up and filed out in the same way. It was a queer performance, but the meal was not so bad. It consisted of scrambled eggs, cold meat, fried potatoes, coffee, bread and butter, beans, preserves, and cake, and water in beer bottles -- all for twenty-five cents. It wasn't as clean as my kitchen, but I get tired eating alone, so like to drop into a hotel occasionally and try some one else's cooking and see different kinds of human nature.

The next day I drove twenty-five miles to Fremont, passing through Ames on the way. Ames was once quite a town. A sugar beet refinery was located here; also large feeding barns for sheep, but the sugar beet refinery, and sheep barns, are out of commission and the people have moved away and the town site is for sale, including all the barns and empty houses. Question: What is a town site and houses worth if there are no people in the town to occupy the houses, or any excuse for getting them to move in? I found one family of women folks who hadn't money enough to move, as they explained when I stopped to water the horses, so I made a donation and moved on.

From here into Fremont the road was very good, so that I arrived at 4 P. M. I had seen a great many posters on the fences and telegraph poles as I drove along and there seemed to be something familiar about the picture. On closer examination I was surprised to find it was my friend Lewis' picture. He was running for the State Legislature. Passing a livery stable in town I was hailed by the proprietor who asked me if my name was Harris.

Quite astonished I pulled up and said, "Yes, who are you?"

He laughingly replied, "I'm only the livery man, but I was told by Mr. Lewis to have you put up here and he would be back shortly."

"Well, I like his nerve," I said.

"Most people do," said he.

"I believe you," I replied, and came down.

Mr. Lewis soon appeared and we had a chance to talk over old times while driving into Omaha the next day, Saturday. Sunday I spent with him and his family. He has a country place of about ten or fifteen acres, and while their house was large enough, I insisted on his sleeping in the wagon with me, much to the disgust, I think, of Mrs. Lewis, who thought I should be glad of a good bed. They have a very interesting family and I enjoyed my Sunday with them very much.

Monday, Lewis offered to go with me across the river and through Council Bluffs to Weston as guide. I had come all the way to Omaha without a guide and without getting lost or off the trail, but I accepted his offer gladly. Much to his disgust and my amusement he got lost in the Bluffs, and we had to make several inquiries regarding the road and did not reach Weston until after dark, and just in time for him to catch a train back to Omaha.

Having "roasted" him considerably for getting lost, I concluded I had had fun enough at his expense to call it even, but he evidently thought differently, for he wrote up my trip for the Omaha World-Herald, including several pictures, and then sent me a copy with the remark, "Now will you be good?" -- and I had to admit he had got ahead. If he wasn't a good guide, he was a good scribe. All over that section of Iowa, where the World-Herald was taken, the farmers came out with a copy of the paper and stopped me and wanted to ask me questions, and look me and the outfit over. I was thankful when I got out of its territory.

The State of Iowa is familiar to the traveling public that travel in trains, and it is considered one of the best farming States in the Union. Admitting the many advantages possessed by the State, for me it presented few attractions. It rained every other day on an average while I was driving across it; when it did not rain every other day, it rained two days in succession.

Passing from Council Bluffs through Weston, I followed what is called the "River to River Road" as far as Newton, Iowa. This is a road the citizens of Iowa are very proud of, and it runs across the State to Davenport. While it is kept up as well as possible, it is nothing but a dirt road after all, and rain does not help it any, as I discovered on entering the State, and was never able to forget, as it was one struggle with rain and mud all the way.

I imagine if a profile map of this cross section of the State were made, it would look like a lot of old-fashioned beehives set closely together, or a lot of eggs packed closely in sawdust, with the big ends sticking out about one-third of the way. Driving through such a country one is either going up, or going down, most of the time, and what might have been an easy pull up, and a slide down, resolved itself into a desperate struggle to get up, and a pull going down, on account of the mud. This was, of course, such a drag on the horses that I sometimes despaired of getting through with them anywhere near as soon as I had planned, but there were many amusing incidents en route which helped break the monotony.

Near Guthrie Center I met a very large red-faced woman in the road. She seemed much excited and out of breath. Stopping me she said her husband was stuck in the mud at the foot of the hill, -- and would I pull him out? -- she couldn't. I hurried on to the bottom of the hill much excited myself, only to find a wagon stuck in the mud, and the man, an old soldier, bewailing his luck. I pulled up short and laughingly said, "I thought you were stuck in the mud, but I see it is your wagon." I saw he was not in any mood to be laughed at, so I got down, and without saying any more took Bess out and asked him to unhitch his poorest horse, and I would pull him out.

He seemed quite disgusted and said, "Why don't you take your team and put them on ahead of mine? You can't pull her out with one horse."

Still, to make a long story short, I did, and he apologized for his team and said they could have pulled the wagon out if they had been fresh, but they had pulled that load all the way from Guthrie Center. As I was putting Bess back to the wagon I could not help saying, "Yes, I am sure if your team had been fresh they could have pulled you out, but it is a long way to Guthrie Center, and this mare has only pulled her share from Los Angeles, California, and is quite fresh, you see."

Climbing up into the wagon and reaching over for the lines I could not help but smile at the old man. He took his hat off and walking up alongside of the wagon, as I released the brake, he said, "Good Lord, stranger, I might have known you didn't belong in these parts, or you wouldn't have put yourself out to help me. I have been here an hour and a half, and lots of passers, and no one but you offered to help. I wish you good luck and lots of it." I promised Bess an extra feed of oats that night on the old man's account, and I hope he never gets stuck again where his wife can't pull him out.

I had expected to reach Des Moines, Sunday, the eighteenth, and meet Mr. Lingle, who had offered to come out and spend a few days of his vacation with me in the schooner. As I was behind my schedule and had no way of telling when I would reach town, I telephoned into Des Moines and got my friend, Mr. Hippee, to bring Mr. Lingle out in his auto to meet me.

This arrangement resulted in my meeting Mr. Polk and Mr. Hippee, together with Mr. Lingle, in their auto just east of Adel at 11 A. M., Monday morning, the nineteenth. I was just twenty-four hours behind my schedule, but in view of the weather, and the going, I was much farther along than I had expected to be.

After a few words of greeting the auto went back, and Mr. Lingle and I continued on into Des Moines, which we reached at 6 P. M. Here we deserted the wagon for the hotel and spent a very enjoyable evening with friends.

From here on we had two days without rain, and, with fairly good roads, we drove through Colfax, Newton, Kellogg, Grinnell, Brooklyn, and to Victor before it began again. From Victor into Ladora it rained hard and continued raining all night and all the next day. We had made very good progress, however, averaging about thirty miles per day for four days and not driving very hard either. Mr. Lingle would ride the lead horse several miles each day and, just as I was beginning to get used to good roads, and he to a prairie schooner, it had to begin raining again and Mr. Lingle had to return to "store clothes" and the city. He left me at Ladora, where I remained all day, while the rain played havoc with the roads.

Leaving here and going on through Marengo I arrived at Cedar Rapids, Monday, September 26, having driven through three towns of the Amana Colony along Bear Creek and the Iowa River, and through another rain storm or two. By way of diversion I stopped long enough in Cedar Rapids to call on some friends, who had compassion enough on me to take me out for dinner.

I had another amusing experience at Marion, just after leaving Cedar Rapids. I had left my wagon at the livery stable that night and concluded to stay at the hotel. I was sorry afterward, but I concluded to add this to my experience and stayed. The hotel was evidently full. Court must have been in session by the conversation I overheard at the table and in the office afterward. Wishing to retire, I had to hunt up the landlady and find where I was to sleep. It seemed to be quite a problem, but I was finally ushered into a closet off the main hall, that contained two cots, a small table with a lamp on it, and nothing else -- not even a chair. I was told to leave the door open for fresh air, and not to blow out the light as another man would occupy the second cot.

My first thought was to go back to the schooner, but I had never slept in a closet before and I might never get another chance; besides, I wondered who else would be fool enough to sleep there, so I said nothing and turned in. Before I went to sleep the other man came in. He turned out to be a Dago junk dealer. We got quite well acquainted. At least, I did with him. He told me where he lived, and all about his business and family, and when he finally thought to ask me a question, it was this: "What are you peddling?" He had blown out the lamp and turned in, so he could not see the contortions I went through before I could answer. When I thought it was safe to talk, I told him I was not peddling anything, just taking some horses to Chicago. This seemed to satisfy him and we let it go at that.

The next morning we left the stable about the same time. Starting out in his express wagon, with a poor decrepit old horse hauling some old iron, he took off his hat, and wished me good luck. I found him very human; in fact, I think I should have liked that Dago. He seemed very much like a white man. He didn't grumble about sleeping in the closet, or about the weather, so I followed his example the best I could and have simply remembered that I made his acquaintance there.

Leaving Marion I drove through Springville, Martelle, and Brockton; then to Anamosa and from there to Amber. At Amber I bought a black-and-tan foxhound of a Mr. Weiss. I had Cress for a watch dog, but things were so quiet about the wagon that I wanted a dog that would make a noise, and also chase rabbits along the road, so as to make a bit of a diversion. This dog's name was Joe, and from here to Williams Bay he and Cress made it very interesting for all the rabbits that came in their way.

We now made quite a presentable appearance and Joe lent quite the necessary touch to the outfit. A prairie schooner should have some sort of a hound following it. Cress had ridden in the wagon and I had overlooked the necessity of having a thin hound-like dog, trotting along behind, to complete the outfit. Now, however, we were strictly in style.

We go on through Monmouth and Maquoketa, and I made my last camp in Iowa about two miles from Preston Junction, after passing through the only real good piece of timber since leaving Denver. Just before going into camp the road followed a long ridge from which I had a fine view of the surrounding country, which is still rolling.

Getting an early breakfast, and catching up the horses, I was soon on my way to Sabula, which I reached at 2:30 P. M. The valley of the Mississippi looked good to me that morning as I drove down into it from the hills and, as I drove the wagon onto a barge, to be ferried over to Savanna from Sabula, I felt that I was nearly home.

Mr. Bradley, who had kept track of my progress, met me here at Savanna and stayed with the schooner, taking his old place in the galley until we got to Pecatonica. The weather in Illinois does not seem much better than in Iowa, but it did not rain Saturday or Sunday, and in these two days we drove through Mt. Carroll, Lanark, Shannon, and Freeport.

Monday morning at Pecatonica Mr. Bradley took the train for Rockford and I drove in alone. When I reached Rockford it was raining hard and it was still raining when I left for Beloit, Wisconsin, the next morning.

I had spent the night with Mr. Bradley and his family, and we planned for him to come up to Beloit in the afternoon, on the train, and drive with me over to the farm. It is only fifty miles from here to the end of my journey, so I started out cheerfully through the rain and mud.

At Beloit, I met Bradley as planned, and we found a splendid place for a camp that night in the woods, about seven miles east of town. While we got supper the dogs put in the time running rabbits around a patch of brush just back of us, and it was quite a temptation to leave supper and go and shoot one, but we put it off until afterward, and then it was dark, and too late.

We had a typical camp here, and when we had turned the horses loose for the night and got everything in shape, we lighted our pipes and spent the evening discussing the trip. It was our last camp. To-morrow, if nothing unforeseen happened, we would reach our destination and the trip would be over.

It had been an especially interesting as well as enjoyable one to all concerned. The Doctor and Bob had enjoyed the desert end very much; Mr. Bradley the trip over the mountains; and to the boys (the two Normans), who had made the trip from Grand Junction to Nebraska, it was a new as well as novel experience. The total distance travelled had been 2,492 miles. Deducting the two weeks' lay-off at Kearney, the trip had been made in four months and four days, or an average of twenty miles per day, which, considering we had the same horses all the way, we thought was creditable.

I was reminded again of how near I had come to my schedule when Bradley said, "To-morrow will be October fifth." When I left Kearney I had planned to be at the farm by the fifth of October, and here I was almost certain to do it, in spite of all the setbacks I had encountered, in the way of rain and roads. This was only another instance of our good fortune during the whole trip. We had somehow managed to be at given places when we planned to be. We were very fortunate in not breaking down or getting lost, and in always having enough to eat and drink.

The one thing which seemed to stand out more prominently than any other, however, as we discussed it that night, was the fact that no one had been sick. In spite of all the bad water, and the canned stuff, which might have made some one of us sick, we had got through it all, including the intense heat, without any one being laid up. This I attributed largely to the fact that we had the advice of a doctor who did not want to be bothered with sick folks on the trip. At home we might not have taken his advice, but on this trip we did take it, and were not sick, and the Doctor wasn't bothered. It was probably very late when we finally turned in, but this is not surprising under the circumstances.

The next day we drove the remaining twenty miles, arriving at the farm at 4 P. M., and the thing was done. The horses were turned loose, our luggage put away, and the overland trip of 1910 was a thing of the past.

*    *    *    *    *

No more camp fires, and no more camping in the open places, with the trail ahead. The city calls, and even here, before I get into my store clothes, a gentleman is awaiting me with a request to take the first train for New York. So quickly am I whisked from the gipsy life I have been leading, to the whirlpool of a big city, that I am fairly dazed, and I hardly recover before I find myself getting off a train in the Grand Central Station, New York. Yes, it is surely over. The Castle is built -- even to the moat, and the draw-bridge is up. We cannot go back.

<eob>

The Tale Of Kiddie Katydid

By

Arthur Scott Bailey



I

A Great Secret


Whoever Katy was, and whatever she might have done, nobody in Pleasant Valley knew anything about her except Kiddie Katydid and his numerous and noisy family.

To be sure, many of the wild folk -- and the people in the farmhouse, too -- remembered hearing her name mentioned the year before.

But they had quite forgotten about her, until August came and Kiddie Katydid and his relations brought her to their minds once more.

Each night the Katydids' rasping chant was repeated again and again: Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did! But since in any crowd there are always a few that want to be different from the rest, now and then some member of Kiddie's clan insisted that Katy didn't -- somewhat in this fashion: Katy did, Katy did; she did, she didn't!

However, there were always so many others to drown any such puzzling statement with their shrill clamor that Katy really did do it (whatever it was!) that nobody paid much attention to those few who didn't quite agree.

On warm, dry, midsummer nights the Katydids all made a terrific racket. But there wasn't one of them that outdid Kiddie. He always had the best time when he was making the most noise. And since he liked to station himself in a tree near Farmer Green's house, his uproar often rose plainly above that of the other Katydids.

Lying in bed in his little room under the eaves, Johnnie Green sometimes wished that Kiddie would keep quiet long enough to let him go to sleep in peace.

To be sure, the balmy breezes wafted many other night sounds through Johnnie's open window. From near-by came Chirpy Cricket's cheerful piping. And in the distant swamp the musical Frog family held a singing party every evening. Johnnie Green liked to hear them. But he objected strongly to the weird hooting and horrid laughter of Solomon Owl, who left the hemlock woods after dark to hunt for field mice.

As for Kiddie Katydid, he paid little attention to any other of the night cries. No matter what anybody else said, he solemnly hurled back at him that neverending refrain, Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did!

You would have thought, if you had heard Kiddie, that somebody had disputed his statement. But such was not the case at all. Since no one except the Katydids knew anything about the mysterious Katy, nobody was able to say truthfully that she didn't do it. In fact, the whole affair was a great secret, so far as outsiders were concerned. And one night Johnnie Green even thrust his head out of the window and cried impatiently:

"All right! All right! I admit that Katy did it. And now do please keep still!"

Of course, his plea failed to silence Kiddie Katydid. But it relieved Johnnie Green's mind and made him feel better, anyhow.

Kiddie told his own people about Johnnie's outburst. And they all agreed that it was a rude thing to do.

"Doesn't he know," they asked, "that the night belongs to us?"



II

The Warning


It must not be supposed that all of Kiddie Katydid's family made the same neverending din at night. Actually it was only the gentlemen that so amused themselves. No doubt the ladies, too, knew the secret about the mysterious Katy -- and what she did.

But for some reason they never, never mentioned the matter. Even when they gossiped among themselves, as they sometimes did, they never touched upon that subject.

Furthermore, in the daytime Kiddie and his fellows were as quiet as they could be. Having waked the echoes all night long, they were content, when morning came, to rest silently among the trees and shrubs. And a very good reason did they have, too, for such a habit. During the day there were altogether too many birds flying about, to please the Katydids. And Kiddie often remarked in a joking way that the only birds he cared about were those that didn't care about him!

Of course, there were a few birds that prowled about Pleasant Valley after dark. Mr. Nighthawk was one of that crew of nightly wanderers. And whenever the word was passed around that he had been seen in the neighborhood, Kiddie Katydid tried to lower his solemn chant, because he knew that Mr. Nighthawk was usually in search of something to eat.

Now, when Kiddie Katydid felt hungry he drove away his gnawing pangs by browsing upon leaves and tender twigs. But Mr. Nighthawk had no taste for such fodder.

He had an appetite for insects. And between dusk and dawn a good many of Kiddie Katydid's neighbors of one kind or another found their way into Mr. Nighthawk's tummy.

So you see it was no wonder that Kiddie was not eager to attract the attention of that night rover. Some of the more timid of Kiddie's companions even begged him, at times, to hush. They said he was making such a noise that Mr. Nighthawk would be sure to hear it, even if he were a quarter of a mile away.

But Kiddie Katydid usually laughed at those faint-hearted ones; and often he shrilled his Katy did, Katy did, more loudly than before, just to show them that he was not afraid.

"A person has to take a few chances," he remarked one day. "If we were all afraid to make a sound it would be pretty hard on Katy, for then she would have nobody to take her part. And what would people think of her?"

Evidently Kiddie's reason was a good one, because a number of his cousins spoke up at once and said that they agreed with him perfectly.

But their sisters all exclaimed that sooner or later Mr. Nighthawk would hear them; and then there would certainly be trouble.

Strangely enough, the words were scarcely out of their mouths before they heard a loud call that struck them cold with fear.

Peent! Peent! The cry came out of the air above them without the least warning. And everybody -- including Kiddie Katydid -- knew that Mr. Nighthawk had come.



III

Mr. Nighthawk


Following his cry with two or three quick beats of his wings, Mr. Nighthawk dropped swiftly down among the trees in Farmer Green's dooryard.

He fell so fast that Kiddie Katydid, watching from his hiding-place in one of the maples, couldn't help hoping that the sky-coaster would be unable to stop himself in time to escape being dashed upon the ground.

But Mr. Nighthawk was very skillful at that sport. Just at the right moment he turned quickly, while the air rushed through his wing-feathers with a roaring sound. And then he mounted upward again.

Meanwhile Kiddie Katydid kept very still among the leaves, with his wings folded over his back. Only his two long, thread-like feelers would wave backwards and forwards, although he tried to keep them still. He was so nearly the color of the green of the tree-top that he trusted Mr. Nighthawk wouldn't be able to spy him.

But he was soon disappointed. For Mr. Nighthawk suddenly cried, "Ha!" and alighted on a neighboring limb.

"There you are!" he said. "You needn't think I don't see you!"

"Why, good evening!" Kiddie Katydid answered, since he was discovered -- and there was no use denying it. "It's a great surprise -- meeting you so unexpectedly. If you'd only sent word that you were coming I'd have made different arrangements."

"I've no doubt you would have!" Mr. Nighthawk sneered. "But I like to take people unawares.... I've heard about you," he added. "They say that you're a great jumper -- the spriest jumper in all Pleasant Valley."

"Well, I can jump fairly well," Kiddie Katydid admitted. "But I don't pride myself on my jumping. It's something that has always run in my family, you know. All of us Katydids can leap quite a distance without any trouble."

"So I understand!" Mr. Nighthawk replied. "And I'll tell you some news that ought to please you: I've come here to-night for the special purpose of seeing you jump!"

Kiddie Katydid almost jumped out of his skin when he heard what Mr. Nighthawk said. And it wouldn't have been anything remarkable for him if he had. He had already squirmed out of his skin six times that summer -- though not from fear, of course. Casting his skin was almost a habit with Kiddie. All his family were like that.

Though he was not nearly so old as Mr. Nighthawk, Kiddie Katydid had learned a thing or two during his brief lifetime. And though he would have liked very much to jump -- and jump out of Mr. Nighthawk's sight, too -- he had no wish to hide himself inside that feathered scoundrel. So he clung all the tighter to his perch and replied that he didn't believe he cared to do any jumping that night.

Now, Mr. Nighthawk had a certain odd trick of talking through his nose. Whether that was because the late hours he kept, even on dark nights, gave him a cold in his head, nobody seemed to know. Anyhow, he began teasing Kiddie Katydid to jump for him -- and he talked through his nose more than ever. Yes! although Mr. Nighthawk tried his best to speak pleasantly, he only succeeded in making Kiddie Katydid want to laugh at him, for all Kiddie was so uneasy.



IV

A Whining Caller


"I certainly hope you aren't going to disappoint me?" Mr. Nighthawk whined, as he looked hungrily at Kiddie Katydid. "Please, please jump for me -- just once!" he begged. "Here I've come all the way across the meadow on purpose to see what a fine jumper you are! And I shall feel very unhappy if you don't perform for me."

But Kiddie Katydid refused to budge.

"I hadn't intended to do any leaping to-night," he told Mr. Nighthawk. "And if I jumped for you, it would only upset my plans."

"I know -- I know," said Mr. Nighthawk, nodding his head. "But I thought that just to oblige a friend you wouldn't object to jumping from this tree into that one." And he pointed to the nearest maple, the branches of which all but touched the tree-top in which they were sitting. But Kiddie Katydid's mind was made up.

"No jumping for me to-night!" he piped in a shrill voice.

All this time Mr. Nighthawk was growing hungrier than ever. And one might well wonder why he didn't make one quick spring at Kiddie Katydid and swallow him. But that was not Mr. Nighthawk's way of dining.

"Well," he said at last, "though you refuse to jump for me, won't you kindly call some other member of your family and ask him to oblige me?"

"I don't know where my relations are just now," replied Kiddie Katydid. "Some of them were here a while ago; but they went away." And that was quite true! At that peent -- that first warning cry -- of Mr. Nighthawk's, they had all vanished as if by magic, among the leaves.

"What about that Katy you're always talking about?" Mr. Nighthawk then inquired. "Don't you suppose you could find her and persuade her to do a little jumping for me -- just to show me how it's done?"

"I'm sorry -- " Kiddie said somewhat stiffly, "I'm sorry; but I must absolutely refuse to do such a thing. Now that you've mentioned her, I'll simply say Katy did. And beyond that I cannot discuss her with you."

"She did what?" Mr. Nighthawk wanted to know -- through his nose.

But Kiddie Katydid declined to answer that question. He merely hugged his wings closer to his green body, and shot a sly glance at Mr. Nighthawk, as if to say, "Ah! That's for you to find out! But I shan't tell you!"

Mr. Nighthawk looked rather foolish. He had always supposed that any one who spent a good part of every night saying the same thing over and over and over again must be quite dull-witted. But now he began to think that perhaps Kiddie Katydid was brighter than the field people generally believed him to be. And when Kiddie suddenly asked him a question, he was sure of his mistake.

"Did you know," said Kiddie, "that Solomon Owl often visits these farm buildings?"

"Why, no! I wasn't aware of that," Mr. Nighthawk replied with a quick, nervous look behind him. "What brings him here?"

"Chickens!" Kiddie Katydid explained. "Solomon Owl is very fond of chickens. But they do say that he's not above eating a nighthawk when he happens to stumble upon one."



V

Solomon Owl's Cry


For a few moments Mr. Nighthawk fidgeted about on his branch of the maple tree. What Kiddie Katydid said to him about Solomon Owl frightened him. And he almost wished he hadn't come to Farmer Green's dooryard that night.

But the more he thought about the matter, the less he was inclined to believe that there was really any danger. And soon he peered at Kiddie Katydid through the darkness and said:

"You almost fooled me. But I know now what you were trying to do. You were trying to scare me away from here!"

"Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did!"

"You needn't say that!" Mr. Nighthawk exclaimed. "Katy has nothing to do with my case. She hasn't even mentioned Solomon Owl's name."

"You don't understand," Kiddie told him. "I'm speaking of an entirely different matter."

And then Mr. Nighthawk had another idea. He chased the frown away from his face and smiled very pleasantly.

"I'm sorry that you don't feel like jumping for me," he observed. "But I'd be just as glad to see you fly! I remember being told that you fly almost as well as you jump."

"Oh, I can't begin to fly as well as you can," Kiddie Katydid told Mr. Nighthawk. "I only wish I knew how to coast down out of the sky the way you do, without being dashed upon the ground.... How do you manage to stop so suddenly?"

"Pooh! That's nothing!" Mr. Nighthawk said. "It's easy, once you know how."

In spite of his way of belittling his flying feats, Mr. Nighthawk was secretly very proud of his skill at sky-coasting. And when Kiddie Katydid asked him if he wouldn't kindly give an exhibition of the art of fancy flying, Mr. Nighthawk couldn't help feeling pleased.

He wanted to display his skill. But there was just one thing that troubled him. He was afraid that if he climbed up into the sky, before he dropped down again Kiddie Katydid would have vanished. And that didn't suit Mr. Nighthawk's plans.

"Will you promise to stay right where you are until I come back?" he asked.

Now, Kiddie Katydid had intended to hide himself as soon as Mr. Nighthawk should leave him. But there was nothing he could do now except to agree to Mr. Nighthawk's proposal.

"I'll promise," said Kiddie, "if you'll promise me that you'll surely return. Otherwise I might have to stay here for a month, perhaps, waiting for you."

"Oh! I'll come back in a minute or two," Mr. Nighthawk laughed, as he looked hungrily at Kiddie. "Don't you worry about my not coming back to talk with you!"

Then he began climbing upwards into the sky. And he had gone about as high as he wished to, when all at once a rolling Whoo-whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo, to-whoo-ah startled him. It was Solomon Owl's weird call. And it drove every thought except one out of Mr. Nighthawk's head. That one idea -- to escape -- filled his mind completely. And he turned and hurried away from Farmer Green's place as fast as he could go; for Mr. Nighthawk feared that Solomon Owl would arrive there at any moment.

As for Kiddie Katydid, when he heard Solomon's cry he knew at once that he was rid of Mr. Nighthawk. And Kiddie's Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did rang out again and again in the night. All his friends and cousins crept out of their hiding-places and joined in the chorus. And everybody enjoyed a good laugh over Mr. Nighthawk's visit -- and his sudden departure.

Perhaps Kiddie may be forgiven for boasting the least bit, as his companions crowded around him.

"I knew better than to jump for Mr. Nighthawk!" he cried. "I happened to know that he always wants to catch his food on the wing. And if I had jumped, or tried to fly away, he would have snatched me right out of the air as quick as lightning."



VI

Freddie Firefly's Discovery


That secret about Katy, and what she did, was not the only one that Kiddie hid from the field people. He had another -- something about himself -- that nobody ever suspected, until Freddie Firefly stumbled upon it one night.

Probably Freddie would never have learned this second secret had he not been trying to find out about the first one. Over in the meadow he had heard Kiddie Katydid shrilling his well-worn ditty, Katy did; she did, she did! And he had danced his way into Farmer Green's dooryard because he wanted to have a talk with Kiddie and ask him some questions about that unknown lady.

Like all others who tried to pry into the mystery, Freddie Firefly had no luck at all. For Kiddie Katydid made no reply to his inquiries. Kiddie merely smiled in a most annoying fashion and kept on repeating the refrain.

"Doesn't your voice ever get tired, singing those silly words over and over again all night long?" Freddie Firefly finally asked.

"Oh! no, indeed!" said Kiddie Katydid. "On the contrary it rests my voice to do this." And he solemnly shrilled the chorus more rapidly than ever.

"There's something queer about that cry of yours!" Freddie Firefly suddenly exclaimed. "I'm watching you closely; but I can't see that your mouth moves the least bit."

Again Kiddie Katydid smiled. He saw that Freddie Firefly was puzzled.

"Why do you keep moving your wings when you say Katy did?" Freddie Firefly asked him at last.

But Kiddie refused to answer that question -- a fact which at once made Freddie suspicious. He moved nearer Kiddie Katydid and flashed his light upon him every time Kiddie repeated his odd statement about Katy. And soon Freddie Firefly grew much excited. He actually danced up and down, he was so astonished.

"I've found you out!" he cried in a loud voice. "It's no wonder your voice doesn't get tired from that song! For you don't really sing it at all! You make that queer sound by rubbing your wing covers together!"

Kiddie Katydid abruptly ceased his shrilling. He looked most uncomfortable. And it was not surprising. He had not supposed that Freddie Firefly -- or anybody else -- would be shrewd enough to discover that secret. It was a family secret -- one that had been closely guarded by the Katydids since the beginning of time, almost. And here he had gone and let Freddie Firefly find it out!

"I'm right about that and you can't deny it!" cried Freddie Firefly boldly. "You may as well admit that what I say is true," he added.

"I certainly won't dispute you," Kiddie Katydid replied. "I have too good manners to do anything so rude as that."

"I don't care about your manners," Freddie answered. "I dare say they're good enough, although some people think it's rather rude of you to make so much noise when a good many others are trying to sleep."

"I should like to know who objects to my music?" Kiddie Katydid exclaimed hotly. "If Farmer Green has been talking to you, I should like to state that he had better be careful. Anyone who drives a clattering mowing-machine around, when a lot of us are trying to get our rest in the daytime, ought not to complain about a little music on a pleasant night like this."



VII

Freddie Wants To Tell


As soon as Kiddie Katydid mentioned the word music, Freddie Firefly began to dance and shout.

"There!" he cried. "You've just the same as told me that I was right. If you sang your Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did, you would call it singing. But since you make that ditty by rubbing your wing covers together, it is music. And you just referred to it as such!"

Well, Kiddie Katydid couldn't say a single word. Freddie Firefly was right. They both knew it. And the secret was hopelessly "out." In fact, it was a secret no longer -- unless Kiddie Katydid could persuade Freddie Firefly to keep the news to himself.

"You won't say anything about this little matter, I hope," Kiddie began.

"Won't I?" said Freddie Firefly. "Why, I just couldn't help telling people what I've learned! It's the biggest bit of news that I've known since I've lived in Pleasant Valley. And I must get word of it to old Mr. Crow somehow."

"Why Mr. Crow?" Kiddie Katydid inquired anxiously. He knew that the old gentleman was a great gossip. "You might as well put this in a newspaper as tell Mr. Crow about it."

"Ah! That's just the point!" cried Freddie. "Mr. Crow is a newspaper. Perhaps you didn't know it; but every Saturday he flies over Blue Mountain to the pond where Brownie Beaver lives and tells Brownie all the news of the past week."

"Then for pity's sake, don't let him hear of this!" Kiddie begged.

But nothing could have stopped Freddie Firefly.

"You're too modest," he said. "It's a shame to be able to make music the way you do and not let the neighbors know it. Why, the first thing you know you'll be one of the most famous people in this whole valley."

"But I don't want to be!" Kiddie Katydid cried. "I'm not like you. You go dancing about every night, flashing your light so everyone can see you. But I stay among the trees and shrubs. And I even wear a green suit -- which matches the color of the leaves -- so people won't notice me. Of course," Kiddie added, "I don't mind if the public hears my music. But I don't care to be seen, as a rule. And I don't like callers a bit!"

"You don't, eh?" remarked Freddie Firefly. "Then it's time for me to be moving along. For I never stay where I'm not welcome." And he flitted away, feeling somewhat peevish -- and all the more determined to get the news of the discovered secret to Mr. Crow at the earliest possible moment.

How he was going to do that he didn't quite know.

There was little chance of his seeing Mr. Crow, for the old gentleman only waked up at the time Freddie Firefly was ready to go to bed -- about dawn.

He was pondering over his difficulty, which bothered him not a little, when a terrific croaking from the direction of the swamp reached his ears. It was the final chorus of the Frog family's nightly singing party. And it promptly put an idea into Freddie Firefly's head.

"I'll hurry right over there and speak to Mr. Frog, the well-known tailor," he said to himself. "He knows old Mr. Crow. He sees him almost every day. And he'll be glad to give the old gentleman a message."



VIII

Spreading The News


When Freddie Firefly reached the swamp he found that the singing party had already broken up. But luckily, Mr. Frog the tailor was the last one to leave. He was still poised on the bank of the sluggish stream, ready to plunge into the water and swim away, when Freddie Firefly dropped down upon a cat-tail and called him by name, flashing his light frantically so that Mr. Frog would be sure to notice him.

"Wait a moment!" cried Freddie. "I've something to say to you!"

"Out with it, then!" said Mr. Frog. "My time is valuable, you know. I ought to be back in my shop this moment; for I promised Paddy Muskrat I'd make him a policeman's uniform by to-morrow morning. And I haven't begun it yet."

"Why not?" asked Freddie, forgetting -- for the moment -- his own errand.

"He wants brass buttons," explained the tailor. "And I couldn't get any until to-night."

"But couldn't you go ahead without them?" Freddie Firefly inquired.

"Certainly not!" replied Mr. Frog. "I see you don't know much about making a policeman's suit. You start by laying the buttons in a row on the ground; and then you sew the cloth onto them.... That's my own invention -- that method," he added with an air of pride. "And now, what was it you wanted to say to me?"

"I don't believe there's any use of my telling you, after all," Freddie Firefly replied. "You're going to be so busy that you won't have time to do an errand for me. I wanted you to give Mr. Crow a message."

"Yes -- I'll be altogether too rushed to bother with it," said Mr. Frog. "I expect to be on the jump all night -- and most of to-morrow, too."

"This message," Freddie Firefly went on, "was something about Kiddie Katydid. I found out his secret to-night. And I thought Mr. Crow ought to know about it."

Now, Mr. Frog was all ready to leap into the water. But when Freddie said that, the tailor promptly changed his mind.

"Kiddie Katydid's secret!" he repeated in a tone of amazement. "You don't mean to say you've discovered what it was that Katy did?"

"Never mind!" said Freddie. "I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Frog. I know you're too busy to bother your head with such things."

"Tut, tut, young man!" Mr. Frog cried. "I see you have something important to tell me. And since that is the case, I'll manage somehow to deliver your message to Mr. Crow, even if I have to disappoint a customer. Always oblige a friend! That's my motto!" said Mr. Frog.

"Very well, then!" Freddie Firefly replied. "I'll say what I was going to; but it doesn't concern that Katy person you just mentioned."

"Oh, it doesn't," the tailor echoed. "Then I don't know that I care to listen to you, after all. I thought you were going to explain about that mysterious lady that Kiddie's always singing about." He was sadly disappointed. And once more he turned toward the creek.



IX

Mr. Frog Is Pleased


"Kiddie Katydid doesn't sing!" Freddie Firefly told Mr. Frog hurriedly.

And Mr. Frog was so surprised that he almost sat right down in the mud.

"What do you mean?" he cried. "You must be crazy! For there isn't a single person in all Pleasant Valley that hasn't heard Kiddie Katydid singing his tiresome song on a fine midsummer night."

"That -- " replied Freddie Firefly -- "that is just where you're mistaken, Mr. Frog. And that's where everybody else is mistaken, too. To-night I was lucky enough to learn that Kiddie Katydid has been fooling us all this time."

"You don't say so!" said Mr. Frog. "Then who is it that sings that everlasting chorus?"

"Nobody!"

"Nonsense!" Mr. Frog scoffed. "I can be fooled once, maybe. But I'm not to be fooled twice. And you needn't think for a moment that you can make me believe any such thing."

"I don't care whether you believe it or not," Freddie Firefly declared. "All I ask you to do is to tell the story to Mr. Crow."

"He won't believe it, either," the tailor retorted.

"Perhaps he will when he hears the rest of the message," Freddie answered. "I was just going to explain that Kiddie Katydid has a trick of rubbing his wing covers together to make that Katy did sound."

"For the land's sake!" cried Mr. Frog, as he leaped into the water, convinced at last of the truth of Freddie Firefly's claim. "I must hurry home at once, for dawn's already breaking. And Mr. Crow may come sailing over my place at any moment." He landed with a splash in the creek and started to swim rapidly away. But after a few strokes he paused and turned around. "You might almost say that Kiddie Katydid is a fiddler, mightn't you?" he called.

"Something like that!" Freddie Firefly agreed a bit doubtfully.

"I'll tell Mr. Crow that, anyhow," said the tailor. "It will make the story more interesting, at least. And so far as I can see, it can't do any harm."

And then he hastened away, leaving Freddie Firefly to get home as best he could in the gray of the early morning.

"You may as well put out your light!" Mr. Frog shouted back, as he disappeared among the reeds. But he didn't wait to see whether Freddie took his advice. He was too much excited over the strange news. And as he swam easily along with practiced strokes he kept talking to himself.

"I'm a pretty clever chap, I am!" he chuckled. "I've discovered a great secret this night. And old Mr. Crow will be glad to hear all about it. Perhaps he'll want me to help him with his newspaper after this.

"And for all I know I'll have so much to do that I won't be able to make any more clothes for my customers."

He hadn't swum far before he had entirely forgotten that it was really Freddie Firefly who had discovered the secret and told it to him.

No doubt if anybody had reminded Mr. Frog of that fact he would have been very indignant.



X

A Pair Of Rascals


Mr. Frog reached home just as the sun peeped over the hills. He slipped hastily out of the water, sprang up the bank of the creek, and in three jumps landed on the roof of his tailor's shop. There he squatted, while his queer, bulging eyes scanned the sky in every direction. He was watching for Mr. Crow, and all but bursting with the news that he had for the old gentleman.

Mr. Frog had not sat there long before he heard a hoarse Caw, caw! in the distance.

"There he is!" cried the tailor aloud. "There's the old boy! He'll be in sight in a moment."

And sure enough! soon Mr. Crow flapped out of the woods and came sailing over the meadows.

Thereupon Mr. Frog set up a great croaking. And to his delight his elderly friend heard him calling and dropped down at once.

"I've some news for you," Mr. Frog announced, as soon as the old black scamp alighted near him.

"It'll have to keep," Mr. Crow replied. "I'm on my way to the cornfield. I haven't had my breakfast yet. And a person of my age has to eat his meals regularly."

The sprightly tailor looked slightly disappointed.

"I don't know whether the news will keep or not," he replied slyly. "It's very important. And I may have to tell it to someone else first if you don't care to hear it now."

"What's your news about?" Mr. Crow asked him gruffly. "I suppose you've made another suit for somebody. And you remember I told you I couldn't put that news in my newspaper any more unless you paid me something. It's advertising. And nobody gets free advertising."

"This news is something entirely different from anything you've ever heard," Mr. Frog insisted. "It's about Kiddie Katydid. He's a --  -- "

"Wait till I come back from the cornfield!" Mr. Crow pleaded.

"I can't! I simply must tell it now!" Mr. Frog cried.

"Very well! But please talk fast; for I'm terribly hungry."

"Kiddie Katydid is a fiddler," Mr. Frog announced. "He fiddles every night. And that's the way he makes that ditty of his -- Katy did, Katy --  -- "

"Don't!" Mr. Crow begged. "Please don't! It's bad enough to have to hear that silly chorus every time I happen to wake up during the night -- bad enough, I say, without being obliged to listen to it in broad daylight."

"Very well!" the tailor yielded. "But he fiddles it, all the same. And when you tell my tale to Brownie Beaver I guess he'll be surprised."

"I shan't tell him," Mr. Crow declared, thereby astonishing Mr. Frog.

"Why not?" the tailor demanded.

"We've had a slight disagreement," said Mr. Crow with a hoarse laugh. "I'm not his newspaper any longer."

"Well, there's nothing to prevent your telling this story to other people, is there? And you certainly will be willing to mention me at the same time, won't you?" Mr. Frog inquired with an anxious pucker between his strange eyes.

"Where do you come in, pray tell?" Mr. Crow inquired coldly.

"Why, I discovered the secret!"

"Perhaps you did -- and perhaps you didn't," Mr. Crow observed. Being very, very old, he was very, very wise. And he had long since learned that Mr. Frog was a somewhat slippery person. "If I spread any such news as this about Pleasant Valley I shall do it in my own way," he remarked. And thereupon the old gentleman rose quickly and disappeared in the direction of the cornfield, without so much as a "Thank you!"

Mr. Frog gazed after him mournfully.

"If that isn't just my luck!" he lamented. "I ought to have kept the secret till after the old boy had his breakfast. Then perhaps he'd have been better natured."



XI

A Change In The Weather


Well, the day was not half gone before all the wild creatures in Pleasant Valley had heard all about Kiddie Katydid and his fiddling. At least twenty-seven people came to Mr. Frog at different times and told him the news. And he was furious.

"Old Mr. Crow has deceived me!" he complained. "I found out this secret myself. And now that black rascal's taking all the credit for it."

"Mr. Crow has suggested that Kiddie Katydid be invited to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra," Long Bill Wren informed Mr. Frog. "They have no fiddlers, you know. And Kiddie will be a great help to them. Mr. Crow has appointed a committee to call on Kiddie to-night and ask him to come to the next concert."

That was the last straw, so far as Mr. Frog was concerned.

"Mr. Crow might at least have put me on the committee," he spluttered. "But he has left me out in the cold."

"Why, it's not cold to-day!" Long Bill exclaimed. "Quite warm -- I call it!"

"It'll be good and cold by night," said Mr. Frog. "I look for a sudden change in the weather. Nobody ought to venture out to-night without his heaviest overcoat on."

After flinging that remark over his shoulder, Mr. Frog flung himself inside his tailor's shop and slammed the door behind him. And then, sitting down cross-legged upon his table, he began to think, wrinkling his low brow until you might have supposed he would need to smooth it out again with one of his flat-irons.

At last the tailor suddenly quit thinking and smiled very widely from ear to ear. And carefully selecting some soft, warm, green cloth he began to fashion a small garment, which was tiny enough to fit -- well, to fit a person as little as Kiddie Katydid.

Being a spry worker, Mr. Frog finished his task by nightfall. And then, taking his handiwork with him, he left his shop -- after locking the door behind him -- and hid himself beneath a shelving rock on the bank of the creek.

He was in a very happy mood; for his ideas about the weather had proved to be good. It was already turning cold.

"If it wasn't midsummer I should think we were going to have a frost!" Mr. Frog exclaimed, buttoning the long coat which he had donned before going out of doors. "I wish they'd hurry up!" he added mysteriously. He kept a close watch upon his shop door. It was evident that he expected callers.

Not long afterward a crowd began to gather in front of Mr. Frog's door. "Back Soon" said the sign upon it. And the thinly clad, shivering knot of field folk sat themselves down unhappily and waited for the tailor to appear. Every one of them wanted a warm new overcoat, for each expected to be out late that night.

Meanwhile Mr. Frog watched them -- and giggled as loud as he dared. It was Mr. Crow's committee that thronged about his door -- the people who were expecting to call upon Kiddie Katydid that very night to invite him to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra.



XII

A Present For Kiddie


Mr. Frog had a delightful time listening to the remarks of his callers, who had no idea that he was so near at hand. And as the weather grew colder, they began to shiver and their voices began to shake. And by the time it was almost dark all the waiting company were quite discouraged.

"I'll never be able to stay out to-night!" Chirpy Cricket declared. "I'm so cold now that I can scarcely move."

And it was the same with everybody else. Even Freddie Firefly complained that his light didn't warm him in the least. And he said he would have to go home at once.

"Mr. Crow will be very angry with us to-morrow when he learns we haven't called on Kiddie Katydid," somebody remarked. And a hush fell upon the company. But Chirpy Cricket had a happy thought, which made them all feel better.

"Kiddie Katydid won't stay out of doors on a night like this!" he suddenly exclaimed. "He'll find some snug place to creep into. And we wouldn't be able to find him in Farmer Green's dooryard even if we tried to."

"That's so!" Chirpy's companions shouted.

"Then there's no need of our freezing here any longer, waiting for that wretched tailor, Mr. Frog!" said Freddie Firefly.

And somehow, Mr. Frog did not smile quite so widely over that speech.

Nevertheless, he was pleased, on the whole. And not waiting to watch the shivering party leave the neighborhood, he set off at once toward Farmer Green's house, making first for the river, which ran near the farm buildings, because Mr. Frog did not like to travel by land.

Because the air was cool, the water felt all the warmer. And by the time Mr. Frog had reached his journey's end he was almost overheated. Besides, as he noticed, it was not so cold in Farmer Green's dooryard as it had been by the creek.

He stopped, for a few moments, to cool himself in the watering-trough. And then he hopped briskly on to the front yard.

To his great delight he had scarcely reached the clump of maple trees when right above him he heard Kiddie Katydid's famous refrain.

"Good evening!" Mr. Frog called. "I've brought a little present for you, all the way from the creek."

"How-dy do!" said Kiddie Katydid. "It's a cool night, isn't it?"

"You won't mind the weather when you put this on," Mr. Frog replied, holding up the small garment he had made that afternoon.

"What's that?" Kiddie Katydid asked.

"An overcoat, fashioned expressly for you by the finest tailor in Pleasant Valley!" said Mr. Frog very proudly.

"You're exceedingly kind, I'm sure," said Kiddie. And he was about to jump down and slip into the coat when he noticed that Mr. Frog had an extremely wide mouth.... Suppose, after slipping into the coat, he should find himself slipping down the tailor's throat?

"Just hang the coat on a twig and I'll get into it a little later," Kiddie Katydid suggested.

"I see!" Mr. Frog cried. "That's your way of accepting a gift. And I wouldn't dream of quarreling with you about that. So I'll hang the coat right here and go back to the watering-trough to wet my feet. While I'm gone you can try the coat on, and tell me how you like it when I come back."

"I hope it's a green one!" said Kiddie Katydid somewhat anxiously. "For if it isn't green, I couldn't wear it, you know. I always wear green. It's my favorite color."

"Ah! Trust me not to make a mistake!" Mr. Frog chuckled happily. And then he withdrew. But he could not help pausing for a moment, to look back and watch, while Kiddie sprang down from his tree and took his new coat from the twig on which the tailor had hung it.



XIII

Kiddie Katydid Is Shy


"Now -- " said Mr. Frog, when he had returned from the watering-trough -- "now tell me, how do you like the overcoat I made for you?"

And Kiddie Katydid, safe in his tree once more, and snugly buttoned in Mr. Frog's gift, replied that it was the finest garment he had ever owned in all his life.

"Good!" said Mr. Frog. "And I dare say you've had many overcoats in your time, too."

Kiddie Katydid did not correct Mr. Frog's mistake. To tell the truth, he had never before had an overcoat on his back.

"I've come here to-night to deliver an important message to you," Mr. Frog went on. "And thinking the weather might be cooler than you liked, I made you that fine coat so you could stay out here in your tree and listen to what I have to tell you.... I hear -- " he said -- "I hear that you're a musician."

"Yes!" said Kiddie Katydid -- for he knew well enough that Freddie Firefly could not have kept the secret.

"I hear that you're a fiddler," Mr. Frog added.

"Why, no! I've never played the fiddle!" Kiddie Katydid exclaimed. "I don't know how to do that."

"Well, how do you know that you can't, if you've never tried?" Mr. Frog retorted. "If you can play Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did, by rubbing your wing covers together, there's no knowing what you could do with a real fiddle and bow."

"That's true," Kiddie admitted. "I never thought of that."

"Well," said Mr. Frog, who appeared greatly pleased with himself, "anyhow, I want you to join our singing society. Perhaps you've heard me and my friends over in the swamp. Almost every night we have a singing party there. And if you'll only agree to fiddle for us, while we sing, I venture to say that we'll have Farmer Green getting up out of his bed to listen to us."

Naturally, the invitation pleased Kiddie Katydid. But for all that, he shook his head slowly.

"I'm afraid I'm too shy," he told Mr. Frog. "I like to stay hidden among the leaves, where people can't see me."

"That'll be all right!" Mr. Frog assured him. "You can hide in some bush near-by, where we can't look at you."

But still Kiddie Katydid wouldn't accept the invitation. Although Mr. Frog teased and teased, all he would say was that he would think the matter over.

"Promise me this, at least -- " Mr. Frog finally said -- "promise me that you won't agree to make music for anybody else! Now that people know you're musical, they'll be asking you to play in an orchestra, or a band, or a fife-and-drum corps, or something. But I've invited you first, and if you oblige anybody it ought to be me -- especially after I've given you that beautiful warm overcoat." The tailor looked upwards into the tree so beseechingly that Kiddie Katydid hadn't the heart to refuse his request.

"I'll promise that," he said.

"Hurrah!" cried Mr. Frog, opening his mouth so widely that Kiddie Katydid couldn't help shuddering at the sight.

And then Mr. Frog leaped into the air three times. And each time that he leaped, he struck his heels together three times, just to show how happy he was.

Then, with a hearty "Good night!" he turned away and went skipping off.

And Kiddie Katydid, making his curious music in the top of the maple tree, kept thinking that the tailor was one of the oddest chaps he had ever seen.

He did wish, too, that Mr. Frog had a smaller mouth.



XIV

Kiddie Keeps His Promise


Old Mr. Crow flew into a terrible rage when he found, the next morning, that his committee had not called on Kiddie Katydid during the night. And when Chirpy Cricket told him that the weather was too cold for anybody to stay out late, Mr. Crow said "Nonsense! What about Mr. Frog?"

That was a hard question to answer. And Chirpy Cricket was so afraid of angry Mr. Crow that he promptly hid himself among the roots of a clump of grass.

Now, the fact that Mr. Frog had been away from his shop the night before set Mr. Crow to worrying.

"That slippery tailor has been up to some mischief," Mr. Crow declared. "And if he has played a trick on me I'll never hear the last of it."

The old gentleman was so disturbed that he quite lost his appetite during the rest of the day. And he moped and groaned about, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. One thing that made him especially uneasy was the fact that when he called on Mr. Frog he found the tailor in a gayer mood than he had ever known him to be in.

Mr. Frog bounded about his shop like a rubber ball. And the worst of it was, he would sing, although Mr. Crow begged him, with tears in his eyes, to stop.

"What's the matter?" Mr. Frog asked him. "Don't you like my voice? Or is it the songs I sing? I've a new one that I'd like to sing for you. It's about one of the Katydid family; and I'm sure you'll enjoy hearing it."

But Mr. Crow wouldn't stay there any longer. With a loud squawk of rage he scurried away. He was sure, then, that Mr. Frog had tricked him.

That night Mr. Crow's committee called on Kiddie Katydid. It was a fine, warm, moonlight night. And as they drew near Farmer Green's place they could hear Kiddie's shrill music, even while they were still a quarter of a mile away.

"He plays better than ever," said Freddie Firefly. "I wish Mr. Crow could hear him." And they hurried on, believing that everything was going to turn out all right, in the end.

"Mr. Crow will be sorry, to-morrow, that he scolded us," said Chirpy Cricket.

But the committee met with a sad disappointment. When they invited Kiddie Katydid to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra he told them that he couldn't.

"Why not?" Freddie Firefly asked.

"I've promised somebody that I wouldn't," Kiddie said.

And though they pressed him for an explanation, he wouldn't give them any. He wouldn't say another word.

It was a downcast company that left Farmer Green's front yard. And they quarreled among themselves, too, before they parted. For there wasn't one of them that was willing to tell Mr. Crow that Kiddie had declined his invitation.

But they finally hit upon a plan that suited everybody. They agreed to get Mr. Crow's cousin, Jasper Jay, to break the news gently to the old gentleman.

It turned out that Jasper was delighted to undertake the task. He hoped that Mr. Crow would fly into a passion when he heard the sad tale. And Jasper was not disappointed. For old Mr. Crow was furious.

"It's the work of that sly rascal, Mr. Frog!" he squalled. "He must have called on Kiddie Katydid and hoodwinked him somehow.... I'd like to know what he said."

But Mr. Crow never found that out. So Kiddie Katydid had another secret, which was known only to himself and Mr. Frog.

And Mr. Frog wouldn't tell anybody, because he preferred to tease Mr. Crow.

And Kiddie Katydid wouldn't tell anybody, because he liked secrets. So when people tried to pry into the affair, he just folded his wings tightly over himself -- and said nothing.



XV

Benjamin Bat's Plan


Of course, Kiddie Katydid was not always to be found in his favorite nook among the trees in Farmer Green's front yard. Quite often he went skipping about from tree to tree or from bush to bush, sometimes flying and sometimes leaping. It really made little difference to him which mode of travel he used. And he never stopped to think how lucky he was to be able to move so spryly with the help of either his legs or his wings. He took his good fortune as a matter of course.

There was Mr. Frog! He was a famous jumper; but he couldn't fly. And there was Mr. Nighthawk! He was a skillful flier; but he couldn't jump.

Such thoughts, however, never entered Kiddie Katydid's head. He went cheerfully about his business -- which was eating, principally -- and jumped or flew as the mood seized him. Indeed, if it hadn't been for that queer fellow, Benjamin Bat, probably Kiddie never would have realized just what he could -- or couldn't -- do.

Since Benjamin was another night-prowler like himself, Kiddie Katydid saw him often. It seemed to Kiddie that he could scarcely ever gaze at the full moon without catching sight of Benjamin Bat's dusky shape flitting jerkily across the great, round, yellow disk.

When Benjamin was astir in the neighborhood, Kiddie Katydid lay low -- or high -- in his favorite tree-top. At least, he kept very still until the night was nearly gone, to give Benjamin Bat plenty of time to satisfy his hunger. For Kiddie found Benjamin Bat a much more agreeable companion when he had eaten his fill. Early in the evening, soon after he had waked up, Benjamin was positively ferocious. But the more he ate, the pleasanter he grew. And by the time faint streaks of light began to show in the east he could smile and crack a joke as easily as anybody else.

Well, late one night -- or early one morning -- Kiddie Katydid and Benjamin Bat were enjoying a chat in the tree-tops, when Benjamin put a new idea into Kiddie's head.

"We ought to have some sports right here in Farmer Green's yard," he suggested. "You're such a fine jumper that you could try your skill against Mr. Frog. And you're such a fine flier that you and Freddie Firefly ought to have a race.... I'd suggest -- " he added -- "I'd suggest that the sports take place after dark, almost any evening."

But Kiddie Katydid spoke up quickly and said that he wouldn't care to join in the fun until the night was almost gone. He said he was sure he could jump and fly better at that time. And that was quite true, because he knew that if Mr. Bat swallowed him early in the evening he wouldn't be able to take any part in the sports.

"Very well, then!" Benjamin Bat replied. "But it will be the worst possible time for me."

"What do you mean?" Kiddie Katydid inquired. "Do you expect to enter any of the contests?"

"Oh, yes!" said Benjamin. "I'm going to hang by my heels from the limb of a tree. And since I'm never so heavy early in the evening, before I've had a chance to eat much, I'd prefer to have the sports begin soon after dark."

But Kiddie Katydid said that there was no doubt Benjamin Bat would win in the sport of hanging head downward by his heels. And he told Benjamin not to worry.



XVI

A Noisy Crowd


When the night of the races and other sports finally came, a great crowd began to gather about Farmer Green's place soon after dark. Although Benjamin Bat had told people that the fun wasn't going to begin until almost morning, they were all so excited that they couldn't wait for the night to pass.

They lingered around the dooryard and talked so loudly that they actually disturbed the household. Farmer Green was even tempted to get up and shut his window, he found it so hard to go to sleep.

The noisiest of all the gathering was Mr. Frog, the tailor, who lived over by the creek.

He had a great deal to say about everything; and it soon became plain to everyone that he was trying to manage the whole affair.

Mr. Frog objected to every arrangement that Benjamin Bat had made. When he learned that he was expected to enter a jumping contest with Kiddie Katydid he exclaimed that he and Kiddie were such good friends that he hated the thought of trying to beat Kiddie at jumping.

"Kiddie might feel bad," said Mr. Frog. "People might laugh at him because I won."

"Don't you worry about me!" Kiddie Katydid called out.

"Where are you?" asked Mr. Frog, looking all around. "I can hear you, but I can't see you."

But Kiddie Katydid refused to show himself.

He preferred, for the time being, to remain safely hidden among the leaves, where he could listen to what people said -- and talk to them when he wanted to.

"Wouldn't you prefer some other sort of contest?" Mr. Frog then asked him. "Now, there's swimming! We could swim in the watering-trough, or the duck pond. And if I beat you, you could stick your head under water, so you wouldn't hear what people said. Don't you think that's a good idea?"

"Goodness, no!" cried Kiddie. "I'd drown myself in no time."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Frog. "I never thought of that."

And then everybody laughed so loudly at him that he hurried off to the watering-trough to dive under water, and stay there until he was sure that his remarks had been forgotten.

Meanwhile Benjamin Bat was worrying. He couldn't find anybody who was willing to try the sport of hanging head downward by his heels. He asked Kiddie Katydid; and Kiddie declined flatly to do any such thing.

Now, since Benjamin had not yet dined, he was very short-tempered. And he grew angry at once.

"What's the matter?" he sneered. "Don't you know how to do an easy trick like that? If I could see you -- " he declared, peering among the maple leaves -- "if I could see you I'd show you how it feels to hang beneath a limb."

Kiddie Katydid said no word in reply. He knew well enough what Benjamin Bat meant. Benjamin wanted to eat him! And he wished that Benjamin would go away and get a good meal somewhere before he came back again.



XVII

Kitty Did!


As the hours sped by and the moon at last crossed the sky and dropped out of sight, Kiddie Katydid saw that there was going to be trouble.

He was worried about Benjamin Bat. Early in the evening Benjamin had begun to abuse Mr. Frog. And he was so busy doing that that he wouldn't take the time to go away and snatch even a bite to eat.

Naturally, Benjamin's temper grew worse as the night lengthened. And Kiddie Katydid had to admit to himself that he would be most unwise if he did any jumping or flying just then. For Benjamin Bat was in so fierce a humor that he was ready to snap at anybody who was smaller than he was. All the tiny flying folk gave him a wide berth. And it began to look as if he were going to spoil the night's fun.

But all the while Mr. Frog never once lost his temper. Even when Benjamin Bat called him a long-legged, flat-headed, paddle-footed meddler, Mr. Frog only smiled and turned a few somersaults backward.

"What's the matter with you?" Benjamin Bat asked him at last. "Can't you speak?"

"Certainly! Certainly!" Mr. Frog said then. "I've been trying to think of some way to prevent so much quarreling. It hardly seems fair to Kiddie Katydid -- this uproar right in his dooryard. And since you are the one that's making the greatest disturbance, I'd suggest that you go away and leave us to enjoy the rest of the night in peace."

"I'll do nothing of the kind!" Benjamin Bat screamed. "This is my party. I thought of it in the first place. And I'm going to stay here until dawn."

"Very well! Then the rest of us will leave at once," Mr. Frog told him. And calling good-by to all his friends, Mr. Frog flopped himself briskly away.

The smaller folk, too, vanished as if by magic. Though Benjamin Bat watched sharply, he didn't even see Freddie Firefly when he slipped away.

"That's strange!" thought Benjamin. "He must have put out his light, to fool me. But I don't care, because Kiddie Katydid is hidden somewhere in this tree. And I'm going to find him -- for I'm terribly hungry."

So Benjamin began flying in and out among the maple branches. Nobody but he could have twisted and turned in such a helter-skelter fashion. It made Kiddie Katydid almost dizzy just to watch him. But Kiddie didn't take his eyes off Benjamin, because he intended to jump -- and jump fast and far -- in case Benjamin should spy him.

Now, although the Bat family was able to see in the dark as well as Farmer Green's cat could, Benjamin failed to find Kiddie Katydid anywhere. Crouching motionless upon a leaf, and dressed all in green, Kiddie Katydid was almost invisible. But if he had moved the least bit, Benjamin Bat would have found him out.

Looking only for a tiny green figure among the green leaves, Benjamin Bat paid no attention to the grayish branches of the tree. He was really strangely careless. Quite unsuspected by him, while he was wrangling with Mr. Frog, the cat had crept out of the woodshed and stolen softly into that very tree, where she lay motionless along a limb. She had come out upon an early morning hunt for birds.

She was a fierce old cat. There was nothing, almost, that she wasn't ready and willing to fight. Even old dog Spot had learned to shun her. And now she waited patiently until Benjamin Bat should come within reach of her quick paws.

That stupid, blundering fellow bumped squarely into her at last. And how he escaped is still a mystery. The old cat always claimed that when she found Benjamin wasn't a bird she was so surprised that she let him go. And as for Benjamin himself, he never would discuss his adventure with anybody. Kiddie Katydid was the only other one who saw what happened. But he was so frightened at the time that he only knew that Benjamin Bat tore away toward the swamp as if a thousand cats were following him. And people do say that for some time afterward, Kiddie Katydid shrilled a slightly different ditty. It was Kitty did, Kitty did; she did, she did!

But when Mr. Frog mentioned that news, with a laugh, to Benjamin Bat, over in the swamp, Benjamin only said, "Stuff and nonsense!"

Yet he looked most uncomfortable.



XVIII

The Two Grasshoppers


Kiddie Katydid had a neighbor who was a good deal like him. Indeed, a careless person had to look sharply to discover much difference between them. But there was a difference. There was, especially, a certain way in which one could always tell them apart. One had only to take the trouble to look at their horns -- or feelers. For Kiddie Katydid had horns as long -- or longer -- than he was. But his neighbor, who was known as Leaper the Locust, wore his horns quite short.

Although they saw each other often, Kiddie and this neighbor of his were not on the best of terms. The trouble was simply this: they couldn't agree on the question of horns. Whenever they met they were sure to have a most unpleasant dispute before they parted.

Really, their quarrels were as bad as those that Jimmy Rabbit and Frisky Squirrel once had over the matter of tails. And many of the field folk said it was a shame that the Grasshoppers' trouble couldn't be settled somehow.

Strange as it may seem, that remark always made Leaper the Locust terribly angry. And it enraged Kiddie Katydid as did nothing else.

The difficulty was that the field people -- as well as Farmer Green's whole family -- had fallen into the lazy habit of calling those two by the same name. They spoke of Kiddie Katydid as "the Long-horned Grasshopper," while they termed his neighbor "the Short-horned Grasshopper."

"It's bad enough to look somewhat like Leaper the Locust, without being tagged with the name of Grasshopper, along with him," Kiddie Katydid spluttered.

"Honestly, I'm tempted to move away from this neighborhood," Leaper the Locust began to tell everyone he met. "If that chap would only trim his horns to the proper length I wouldn't mind it so much. But he's actually proud of them. He's always waving them over his head, so people will notice them."

They both declared -- Kiddie Katydid and Leaper the Locust -- that they couldn't abide the name "Grasshopper." And they took pains to warn people in the neighborhood that they wouldn't answer to that name, no matter how loudly anyone might shout it at them.

After that a few of their neighbors took great delight in crying "Grasshopper! Grasshopper!" whenever one of the two happened to be within hearing. But no matter which of them it might be -- whether Leaper the Locust or Kiddie Katydid -- he pretended not to hear, and went right on eating.

But at last something happened that made both those jumpy gentlemen change their minds. From not wanting to be called Grasshoppers, they decided suddenly that they liked the name. And each claimed that the other had no right to it.

This odd state of affairs arose when they learned that a stranger had come into the valley bearing a message marked "For Mr. Grasshopper."

"That's for me!" Kiddie Katydid cried, as soon as he heard the news.

"You're mistaken!" Leaper the Locust snapped. "The message is clearly intended for me. And I shan't let anybody else open it."



XIX

A Quarrel


Kiddie Katydid and Leaper the Locust quarreled so loudly that they soon drew a crowd around them.

"That message for 'Mr. Grasshopper' is certainly meant for me," Kiddie insisted. "You know yourself how you have objected to being called by the name of 'Grasshopper.' Why, only last night you refused to stop when Freddie Firefly shouted it after you."

"And you -- " cried Leaper the Locust -- "you paid no attention when Chirpy Cricket went up to you just as the moon rose this evening and said, 'How-dy do, Mr. Grasshopper!' right in your ear. You have no right to open the message. And I promise you that I shall make trouble for you if you don't mind your own affairs."

"Well, well -- what's all this row about, anyhow?" asked a strange voice. It was a newcomer in Pleasant Valley who had just spoken. He elbowed his way briskly through the throng until he reached the center of it, where Kiddie and Leaper the Locust faced each other angrily. People noticed that the stranger looked as if he had travelled a long distance. And he had a mail-pouch slung over his back. Furthermore, he was enough like Kiddie and Leaper to be a cousin of either one of them.

A person couldn't see his horns, on account of the hat that he wore.

When this traveller asked about the dispute, everybody hastened to explain the quarrel to him.

He listened carefully, and when he had heard the whole story he said:

"This message -- do you know where it is? Do you know who has it now?"

"No!" Leaper the Locust cried, while Kiddie Katydid echoed the word.

"Ah! I thought not!" said the stranger, "I thought not, because I have it in this mail-bag. And now I must confess that I'm puzzled myself; for I don't know which one it's intended for." And he pulled off his hat and began fanning himself with it.

It was perfectly plain to everyone that he was sadly perplexed.

Then Leaper the Locust gave a great shout.

"You're a Short-horn!" he exclaimed. "It can't be that you would have a message for a person with horns like his!" He pointed a scornful finger at poor Kiddie Katydid.

One glance at the stranger's head -- now that he had removed his hat -- told everybody that Leaper the Locust was not mistaken.

The stranger's horns were short. There was no denying that fact.

"I believe you must be the Mr. Grasshopper I'm looking for," said the stranger.

Then he put his hand inside his mail-pouch and pulled out a letter.

Leaper the Locust made a sudden jump for the message. But he was so eager that he sprang too far. He sailed far over the stranger's head and landed some distance away.

"Hullo! He doesn't want it!" said the stranger. "It must be for you!" And he shoved the message into Kiddie Katydid's willing hands.

Almost immediately Leaper the Locust jumped back again.

But of course he was too late.



XX

The Stranger's Message


Leaper the Locust was a rude fellow. He actually tried to snatch the message out of Kiddie Katydid's hands. But the stranger promptly bowled him over and told him sternly to be off.

Leaper did not dare disobey. So he hurried away. But after a few moments he came sailing back again and hung on the outskirts of the crowd, to see what was going on.

He soon discovered that there was some difficulty. Kiddie Katydid had torn open the message; and now he turned it over and over, wondering what it said -- for to tell the truth, he couldn't read a single word.

"Ah!" the stranger remarked presently. "I see what your trouble is. You haven't your spectacles on!"

He was a polite person -- that stranger. He knew better than to suggest that a body didn't know his letters!

"Let me help you!" he continued. And taking the message from Kiddie Katydid, he held it upside down and began reciting in a sing-song voice:

Dear Mr. Grasshopper, in Pleasant Valley --  -- 

Though you do not know me, I am a distant cousin of yours; and I am now on my way to your neighborhood, with my family. Not being acquainted in your part of the country, I am sending you this message with the hope that you will be ready to welcome us when we arrive. Please see that there's a plenty to eat!

"That's odd!" Kiddie Katydid exclaimed, after the stranger had finished. "Won't you please read that once more? I want to be sure that I understand it."

Thereupon the travel-worn messenger repeated the contents of the letter. And this time he held it with the back towards him, so that he couldn't see the writing at all. Like Kiddie Katydid, he didn't know how to read a word. But luckily he had learned the message by heart before starting on his journey.

"What's my cousin's name?" Kiddie Katydid asked him abruptly. "Hasn't he signed the message?"

"I'm afraid he forgot to do that," the stranger muttered. "No doubt he wants to surprise you," he added, as he handed the letter back to Kiddie.

"This cousin of mine -- is he a Long-horn or a Short-horn?" Kiddie Katydid inquired.

At that question the stranger shifted uneasily from one foot to another. And since he had six feet, he looked for a moment as if he were engaged in a queer sort of dance.

"I should say -- " he said at last -- "I should say his horns were about medium."

Kiddie Katydid stared at the fellow very hard.

"I believe you know more than you're willing to tell!" he suddenly cried. And then he quickly shoved the letter inside the stranger's mail-pouch. "That's not for me, after all!" he declared. "Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the person that sent this letter is a Short-horn, the same as you. And I want nothing to do with him!"

"Where's that other fellow that was clamoring for the message?" the stranger asked. And spying Leaper the Locust on the edge of the crowd, he sprang upon him, collared him, and explained that there had been a mistake.

"The message is for you," he announced.

"But I don't want it now!" Leaper the Locust shouted. "I've heard it twice already; and I don't like it in the least!"



XXI

Leaper The Locust Is Worried


Kiddie Katydid looked on happily while Leaper the Locust struggled to free himself from the clutches of the messenger. But Leaper was no match for the stranger. In the end he had to accept the message as his own.

"Now," said the stranger, "your cousin and his family will reach here by to-morrow at the latest. So you'd better be making arrangements to welcome him.

"Remember! Have plenty of food ready! I'll warn you now that if your cousin's family have to go hungry they'll be pretty angry with you."

"I don't believe I need to worry," Leaper the Locust remarked carelessly. "If they don't like what I have they can go without, for all I care."

Though the stranger said nothing in reply to that, he glared at Leaper in a threatening fashion which haunted him all the rest of the night.

"I wish I had never heard of this horrid message!" he exclaimed at last. "I wish I had never laid claim to it. It's going to cause me trouble, I know!"

The more he worried over the visit of his unknown cousin, the more Leaper the Locust wished he were safely rid of the whole affair.

"I know what I'll do!" he cried at last. "I'll disguise myself. I'll make my horns so long that people will think I'm somebody else."

So he set to work. And biting off some slender grasses, he bound them to his stubby horns with threads from a spider's web which he found in the pasture.

Then he looked at himself in a pool.

"I'm a Long-horn now!" he exclaimed. And he was greatly pleased at the sight of himself -- he who had once scoffed at Kiddie Katydid's horns and advised him to have them trimmed.

Meanwhile the strange messenger had disappeared. It was said that he had gone to meet the other travellers and guide them to their cousin, Leaper the Locust.

And there was great excitement throughout Pleasant Valley. A good many of the field people stopped at Farmer Green's dooryard and told Kiddie Katydid that they thought he had made a mistake.

"You might have had the honor of receiving the guests," they said.

"No, thank you!" he replied to all such remarks. "I'm willing enough to let Leaper the Locust do the honors. And unless I'm much mistaken, he's trembling in his shoes this very moment."

Then the field people would shake their heads and say that they didn't understand. Wasn't everybody glad to have company once in a while? And wouldn't it be a pleasure to talk with strangers who came from some far-off place, and ask them how the crops were where they lived, and what the weather was?

But Kiddie Katydid only said mysteriously, "Wait a bit! And if you want strangers to talk to, there'll soon be plenty of them in this neighborhood, if I'm not mistaken."

Well, Kiddie's neighbors couldn't imagine what he meant. They made a good many guesses. But there was always somebody to point out some flaw and upset every calculation. So at last everybody stopped guessing and admitted that he had no idea as to what Kiddie Katydid had in mind. It was just another one of his secrets. And people might as well wait patiently to see what happened. Even Solomon Owl agreed to that. "Time will tell!" he said with a wise nod of his head.



XXII

The Short-Horns Arrive


In at least one respect, the short-horned messenger had told the truth. Before twenty-four hours had gone by, the fellow returned to Farmer Green's dooryard; and with him came a great, fat person who belonged without question to the Locust family.

Nobody could call his horns long. Nor could anyone call them medium. They were short; and no one in his right mind would deny it.

"Where's that fellow you call Leaper?" the messenger asked Chirpy Cricket. "Here's his cousin! And the rest of the family will be dropping down here in just a few minutes."

Chirpy Cricket replied that he hadn't seen Leaper the Locust since the night before.

"That's strange!" the messenger remarked, turning to his fat companion. "He was to be here to welcome you."

"Ah! I see him now! He's right here in this tree!" exclaimed the fat one. And he half-jumped, half-flew into Kiddie Katydid's favorite tree.

"You're wrong!" said Kiddie Katydid. "I'm a Long-horn -- and you can't claim to be a cousin of mine."

"My mistake! My mistake!" said the fat gentleman hastily. And he left even more suddenly than he had come.

"I hope your friend Leaper hasn't given us the slip," he remarked to the messenger as he joined him again.

"Never fear! If he fails us we'll find him and punish him as he deserves," said the messenger with a savage frown.

And Kiddie Katydid, looking down from his tree-top, was gladder than ever that he had escaped this terrible trouble that had come to Leaper the Locust.

Soon a patter, patter, patter made itself heard among the leaves.

"My goodness! Can that be rain?" Freddie Firefly exclaimed. "The moon is shining. And I don't see a cloud in the sky."

Even as he spoke the strange sound grew louder.

"Can it be hailing?" Freddie asked Kiddie Katydid anxiously.

"Oh, no!" Kiddie told him. "What you hear is nothing but Leaper the Locust's cousin's family. They're just beginning to arrive."

Freddie Firefly could scarcely believe his own ears.

"Why, there must be dozens of them!" he cried.

"More than that!" Kiddie Katydid replied.

"Hundreds, then!"

"Still more!" Kiddie Katydid said.

"Well, thousands, then!" cried Freddie Firefly. "You don't mean to say there are more of 'em than that?"

"There are tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands," Kiddie Katydid declared solemnly. "They'll eat everything they can find. And we shall be lucky if they leave enough for the rest of us to live on, after they pass on."

"How did you learn all this?" Freddie Firefly wanted to know.

"That's another of my secrets," said Kiddie Katydid.

So Freddie Firefly went off to hunt for Leaper the Locust. He knew now why Leaper had struggled to escape from that mysterious messenger with the curious message. And Freddie intended to ask Leaper a good many questions about his cousins.

But he couldn't find Leaper anywhere. He searched for him high and low, and far and wide. But nobody knew where Leaper was.

"There are lots of Short-horns everywhere to-night," Benjamin Bat told him. "I claim any one of them is just as good as another." And Benjamin grinned horribly.

Freddie Firefly shuddered. It seemed to him that he had never passed such a dreadful night before.

But Benjamin Bat was having the time of his life. He said that he hoped the Short-horns would like Pleasant Valley so well that they would decide to stay right there for the rest of their days. But, strange to say, Benjamin made things as unpleasant as possible for the newcomers. He ate as many of them as he could, remarking that from such a horde a few would scarcely be missed.



XXIII

The Best Of Friends


In spite of his lengthened horns, Leaper the Locust hardly dared show himself while his cousins remained in the neighborhood.

But when he did venture out, not one of the hungry horde paid the slightest heed to him. They just ate and ate and ate. And Pleasant Valley soon began to take on a brown, withered look, as if fall had already come.

Kiddie Katydid soon saw that he would have to move, if Leaper's cousins lingered there much longer. And he didn't like the thought of quitting his home.

"I wouldn't mind going, if I could take Farmer Green's dooryard with me," he remarked to a long-horned gentleman who stopped to talk with him one evening. "But of course," Kiddie added with a smile, "that's out of the question."

"I quite agree with you," said the other. "In fact, I'm ready to agree to almost anything you say."

"These Short-horns are a terrible lot!" Kiddie Katydid observed.

"They are, indeed!" exclaimed the polite stranger. "I wish they'd finish their visit here and leave us in peace."

"I never want to see another Short-horn as long as I live," Kiddie Katydid declared.

"Nor I!" echoed the strange gentleman.

And Kiddie Katydid couldn't help thinking what a pleasant person the long-horned stranger was and how gentle were his manners.

"I'd like to know your name!" he cried. "It's a long time since I have met anybody so agreeable as you are."

The stranger drew nearer and lowered his voice.

"Don't you know me?" he asked.

Kiddie Katydid stared at him for a moment.

"No!" he said at length. "To be sure, you do have a familiar look, in a way. But I must say I don't recognize you."

Then the stranger spoke in a whisper:

"They used to call me 'Leaper the Locust'!"

"Go 'way!" cried Kiddie Katydid. "He was nothing but a Short-horned Grasshopper. And anyone can see with half an eye that your horns are fully as long as my own."

"They're not real horns," said the other sadly. "That is, they're real only a part of the way."

And looking more closely, Kiddie Katydid saw that what he said was true. It was, indeed, Leaper the Locust. And he was greatly changed in more ways than one.

He had lost his old, quarrelsome air; and he had become very meek and mild.

"Don't tell my cousins what I've done!" he begged Kiddie Katydid. "I don't want them to know who I am."

Kiddie assured the poor fellow that he would not betray him. He was sorry for Leaper the Locust.

"You'll be glad when your relations move on, won't you?" he said. "Then you can take those bits of grass off your horns and be yourself again."

Leaper's answer almost took Kiddie Katydid's breath away, for it was a most surprising statement.

"I'm never going to be a Short-horn again!" he declared. "I shall wear my horns long to the end of my days."

He kept his word, too. And so earnestly did he try to be like Kiddie Katydid in every way that he even attempted Kiddie's well known Katy did melody. But he never really succeeded at that. Anyone with an ear for music could tell the difference at once.

Luckily the grasshopper horde soon swept on to new fields. And a few warm rains, with sunshine sandwiched in between showers, soon turned the countryside green again. It was really Pleasant Valley once more. And on fine autumn nights Kiddie Katydid's shrill music could be heard more than ever near the farmhouse.

Leaper the Locust never could hear enough of it. He was always begging Kiddie to repeat the odd ditty about the mysterious Katy -- hoping, perhaps, that sometime he might learn more about her.

But Kiddie Katydid guarded his secret too well.

<eob>

Little Greta Of Denmark

By

Bernadine Bailey



Chapter I

A Search Begins


Greta opened very sleepy eyes and stretched a long, long stretch. Every single morning, before she got out of bed, she put her arms above her head and stretched as far as she could reach. Greta wanted to grow tall, and she thought that maybe if she pulled her arms 'way up and her feet 'way down, she would grow tall more quickly. Greta had been named after the most famous queen of Denmark, and so she wanted to be tall and graceful, just as that queen had been.

In about two minutes she jumped out of bed and started to dress. If she dressed very fast, she would have time to run out to the barn and see the kittens before breakfast. The kittens were only a week old, and Greta loved them every bit as much as their own mother did. Greta lived on a very large farm, and on the farm was a very large barn. In fact, the barn was about three times as large as the house Greta lived in. The barn was built of red brick and it formed three sides of a square. The house itself made the other side of the square. It was also built of brick, but it was painted white.

The horses were kept in one part of the barn, the cows in another part, and the pigs in still another part. Then there was one large section where the hay was kept. When the kittens were born, Greta made a nice soft bed of straw for them in the farthest corner of the barn, where the pigs and cows and horses could not possibly reach them. Every morning she ran out to see the kittens to be sure that they were all right. She picked up each of the four soft, furry little animals and gave it a special hug before she went off to school. And when she came home from school she played with the kittens until it was time for dinner.

Of course Chouse didn't like this one little bit. Chouse was the wire-haired terrier, and he had always been Greta's special pet. In the summer he played with her every minute of the day. But things were very different now, since the kittens had come. Greta didn't pay much attention to Chouse. The kittens took every minute of her time. Just the same, Chouse was waiting for her this morning outside her bedroom door. Breakfast would be ready in five minutes, so Greta ran quickly, with Chouse barking at her heels. All out of breath, she reached the farthest corner of the barn, where the kittens had their bed of straw.

Then Greta stopped very still. She rubbed her eyes. Surely this was just a bad dream. The soft bed of straw was empty. No one would have taken her kittens, and none of the horses or cows or pigs could reach them. Where in the world could they be? She began to look all over that end of the barn, poking about the straw that covered the floor. There wasn't a sign of the soft balls of fur. Two large tears rolled down Greta's face. Just then she heard her brother Hans calling.

"Greta, where are you? Breakfast is all ready and we are waiting for you."

There was such a big lump in the little girl's throat that she could hardly answer. Finally she said, "Here I am, Hans, but my kittens are gone."

"Gone? What do you mean?" Hans had found her by now and he put his arm around her shoulder. "Don't cry, Greta. We'll find them all right. Come on to breakfast now."

"I don't think I can eat anything, Hans. I wish I didn't have to go to school today. I want to look for my kittens."

"I'll help you look for them as soon as we get home from school. Come on, now. Mother and Father are waiting."

So Greta wiped the tears from her face and went into the house with Hans. She sat down at the table, but the lump just wouldn't go out of her throat, and she could hardly swallow.

"Remember, Greta, there are only two more days of school, and then you will have all summer to play with the kittens." Hans tried his best to cheer up his little sister. Hans was fifteen years old, so of course he couldn't possibly be upset over a little thing like the loss of four small kittens.

"Maybe Chouse has hidden your kittens, Greta," suggested her father. "Day before yesterday I saw him chasing the baby pigs. I punished him for that, but he didn't seem to learn, for yesterday he was chasing the baby chickens and he killed two of them. Now you know we can't have that sort of thing going on. I think we had better send Chouse away to some other farm."

Greta could hardly believe her ears. "You don't really mean that you would send Chouse away?"

"Yes, I mean just that, Greta. We can't have a dog that is destructive. And if he has hurt your kittens, I don't think you would want to keep him, either."

Greta didn't say a word, but a choking feeling came into her throat.

"Finish your breakfast, Greta, or you will be late for school," reminded her mother.

Greta went to school in the village, a mile away. When the weather was good, she rode her bicycle. But whether she walked or rode, Chouse always went with her to the door of the school. And he was always waiting for her when school was out in the afternoon.

Greta didn't know her lessons very well that day. Her mind was on Chouse and the kittens. She couldn't bear the thought of losing her playmate, and yet, if he had hurt the kittens, maybe he ought to be sent away. Suddenly she heard the teacher call her name.

"Greta, what was the Union of Kalmar?"

Greta's thoughts were far away from Danish history, and it was hard to bring them back. Everyone in the room was looking at her. Slowly she rose to her feet.

"The Union of Kalmar took place in 1397, when Norway and Sweden came under the rule of Denmark." Gradually it was coming back to her.

"And who was the ruler of Denmark then?" asked the teacher. "You should know that, Greta, better than anyone else in the class."

Greta's cheeks flushed a bright pink. How could she have forgotten?

"Queen Margrete brought about the Union of Kalmar," explained Greta. "That is why she was the greatest queen Denmark has ever had." The other children smiled when Greta said this. They all knew that her name was really Margrete and that she had been named for this famous queen of long ago.

Greta thought it was the longest day of her life, but school was finally over. Chouse was waiting for her at the door when she came out of the building. He was such a faithful little playmate, how could she bear to send him away? Well, maybe she wouldn't have to.

She got on her bicycle and rode home just as fast as her legs could pedal. Before she went into the house she looked again in the barn to see if the kittens had, in some wonderful way, come back to their bed of straw. But the bed was still empty.

Hans helped her search every part of the large barn -- where the horses were kept, where the cows were kept, where the pigs were kept, and where the hay was kept. They took sticks and poked around in the hay. At last the children decided that the kittens simply were not in the barn at all.

"Let's go look in the chicken house, Greta," suggested Hans.

So they looked all through the chicken house just as carefully as they had looked in the barn. But still there was no sign of the dear little kittens.

"Oh, Hans, what am I going to do?" Greta was crying now as if her heart would break. "Do you think that Chouse has taken them away some place?"

"No, I don't think so, Greta. But maybe one of the Nisser has carried them off."

"Oh, Hans, why would a Nisse take my darling kittens?"

"Well, if you do something to make a Nisse angry at you, he is bound to punish you in some way."

The Nisser are the little fairy folk, or brownies, that live in every home in Denmark. If you are kind to them, they will do something nice for you; but if you hurt them or make them angry, they will punish you.

When Greta went to bed that night she pulled the warm feather cover tightly around her shoulders. She wasn't exactly afraid of the Nisser, but she felt much better when she was all covered up. It was late in June, but the nights were quite cool. Greta was glad that her mother had left the feather cover on her bed. It was a large, thick cover, but it was light and warm, for it was filled with duck feathers.

Soon Greta fell asleep, and all night long she dreamed that a little Nisse was sitting on the foot of her bed, saying, "Greta, do you really want your kittens back again?"




Chapter II

The Search Continues


Greta was up earlier than ever the next morning. Maybe the Nisser had decided not to punish her after all. Maybe the mysterious little creatures would bring her kittens back. So Greta dashed out to the barn to look. But the bed of straw was still empty.

All day long there was sadness in her heart. The other children at school were very gay, for this was the last day of school. There was much singing and there were many games. There was more singing and games and laughter than there were lessons. But Greta was not gay. She kept thinking of her lost kittens, and every now and then there was the awful fear that she might lose Chouse, too.

She hurried home from school even faster than the day before. Chouse had to run, run, run to keep up with her bicycle. He barked and barked, as if he wanted to say, "Greta, don't go so fast." But Greta kept right on going. Nothing could stop her. She rode right up to the barn door and ran inside. Maybe the kittens had come back. But no, the bed of straw was empty.

Then Greta remembered that she had not looked in the garden. Maybe the kittens were out there playing, and the Nisser hadn't taken them at all. Joyously she ran across the courtyard, with Chouse close at her heels. Chouse thought his little mistress was going to play with him again, as she used to do, so he ran on ahead of her and hid under a peony bush. He lay there without making a sound, waiting for Greta to find him. But Greta paid no attention to the little wire-haired terrier.

She walked slowly up and down the garden paths, looking carefully to the right and left. Then she began to look under the rose bushes and the peony bushes and the big clumps of iris. After a while Chouse came out from his hiding place and followed his young mistress all around the garden. It was no use trying to get her to play with him.

It took a long time for Greta to search the entire garden. Every home in Denmark has a flower garden, and this was one of the largest and prettiest for miles around. Greta looked under every inch of the thick hedge that surrounded the garden. She looked all through the bed of marigolds and the bed of poppies and the bed of tulips. By this time Chouse seemed to know that she was searching for something and he tried to help her. He began poking into all the flower beds himself. While they were in the midst of their search, old Peter, the gardener, came along and stopped to watch them.

"Chouse, you naughty dog, get out of the flower beds!" Old Peter was angry. He had worked very hard all spring to make the garden beautiful. For many hours he had raked and hoed and watered the flower beds. And now, in ten minutes, this naughty Chouse had undone all his work.

"Oh, Peter, I've lost my kittens and Chouse is helping me look for them. Please don't scold him." If Peter complained about Chouse, then her pet surely would be sent away, thought Greta.

"Lost your kittens, Greta? Well, now, that's too bad. Maybe I can help you find them."

So old Peter took his hoe and he started poking among the flower beds, too. He poked and he poked, but not a kitten did he find. Greta got down on her hands and knees and looked and looked, but not a kitten did she find. And Chouse poked and scratched and dug up the earth, but not a kitten did he find. The kittens just weren't there.

Every evening, between nine and ten o'clock, the family gathered in the living room for coffee. This was an old, old custom in Denmark, where the people like coffee better than any other drink. Greta was usually in bed by nine o'clock, but since there was no school the next day, her mother let her stay up with the rest of the family. Instead of coffee, Greta had a bowl of strawberries and cream. They were large, sweet berries, fresh from the strawberry patch on the farm. June was the strawberry month in Denmark. They seemed to grow everywhere, and everyone ate them, three or four times a day.

Greta said hardly a word all evening. She was afraid to ask her father what he was going to do with Chouse. Maybe he would forget the whole matter if nothing were said about it. And she didn't mention the kittens, for that would bring up the subject of Chouse.

Greta's mother noticed that the little girl was unusually quiet.

"Greta, how would you like to have Anna come and visit you this summer?" her mother asked.

"Oh, Mother, that would be wonderful." Greta's face was one big smile. Anna was her cousin, and she lived in Copenhagen. Four years ago she had spent the summer on the farm with Greta and Hans, and the three children had had fun together all summer long.

"You can write her in the morning and invite her to visit you."

Greta ran across the room to her mother and gave her a big hug. "Oh, Mother, you are so sweet!"

Greta's mother smiled. She understood little girls. She knew that Greta had been sad, and she wanted to make her happy.

"I guess Anna is quite a big girl by now, Greta. Let's see. She must be thirteen years old."

"Do you suppose she will act like a young lady? Or will she want to play with me?"

"Her mother says she is quite a tomboy, so I'm sure she will want to play with you."

"Shall I ask her to bring her bicycle?" After her family and her dog and her kittens, Greta liked her bicycle better than anything else in the world. She knew that she wouldn't want to leave her bicycle at home if she went away for the summer. So surely Anna would like to bring hers along.

"She doesn't need to bring her bicycle, Greta," said Hans. "She can use mine."

"Yes, I think that will be best, Greta," said her mother.

"And I'll let her use my new boat, too," added the boy.

"Why, Hans, you won't let me use your boat."

"But you are only ten, and Anna is thirteen," argued Hans.

"Even if I am only ten, I can paddle a boat."

"Time for bed now, Greta," reminded her mother. She didn't want the day to end in a quarrel.

"I'll get up early, Mother, and write Anna the very first thing."

Greta kissed her mother and father good night and started to bed. Her own little room was just across the hall from the living room. The dining room, the living room, and three of the bedrooms were on the second floor of the house. On the first floor there was the kitchen, the maids' rooms, and the large office for Greta's father. Greta liked her little room, and she especially liked the balcony that was just outside her room. It was a small balcony looking out over the courtyard. It was fun to play on this balcony and to pretend that she was an actress bowing to a large crowd of people.

Just as she was ready to jump into bed, Greta heard a scratching sound on her door. It was Chouse, who felt very much neglected because Greta had forgotten to pat him good night. This was the first time she had forgotten it, but Chouse hadn't forgotten. So there he was.

Greta hugged him tight. "Oh, Chouse, I can't let Father send you away. Whatever would I do without you? Even if you did hide my kittens, I don't want to lose you. And you will be a good dog, won't you?"

Chouse barked once, which meant "Yes," and Greta hugged him again, just for luck.




Chapter III

A Ride Down The River


Greta read her letter over carefully to see if all the words were spelled right. This is what she had written to Anna:

"Dear Anna:

I would like to have you come and visit me this summer. I know we can have lots of fun. Hans says you may use his bicycle and also his boat. That is a real honor, for he won't let me use his boat. He says I am too small.

I had four darling little kittens, but now they are gone and I can't find them anywhere. Do you suppose a Nisse took them away?

Chouse, my dog, has been very naughty and Father says he may have to send him away. I hope he won't, because I like to play with Chouse.

Come as soon as you can. Mother and Father and Hans all send their love. So do I.

Your cousin Greta."

She addressed the envelope, writing "Copenhagen" in very large letters. Just as she was going out of the door, her mother called to her.

"When you are in the village, Greta, please stop at the bakery and bring back some bread. I told Marie to bake an extra loaf today, but she forgot it. And we have company coming tonight."

"All right, Mother. I won't forget."

As Greta rode into the village she thought of all the things that she and Anna could do that summer. She didn't have to pay much attention to cars coming down the gravel road, for there were many more bicycles than automobiles. Chouse ran right along beside her bicycle, but once in a while, when he saw a rabbit, he would suddenly dart away into the field. In a short time he would come tearing back and soon catch up with Greta.

The fields were especially beautiful right now. The hay was yellow and almost ready to cut. Greta could see for several miles in every direction, for the land was flat and there were not many trees. In this part of Denmark the trees do not grow very large because of the wind that blows all the time, summer and winter. This wind from the North Sea never seems to stop blowing, and it blows so hard that the trees all lean to one side, away from the wind. There are scarcely any branches on the side that the wind comes from.

The farmers are thankful for this wind from the sea, because it keeps their windmills turning. And from the windmills they get electric power to light their houses.

Greta mailed her letter and started back home. She didn't stop to visit with any of her friends in the village, because she was eager to get home and look for her kittens again. She hadn't given up the hope of finding them, though she really didn't know where to look. When more than halfway home, she suddenly remembered the loaf of bread.

"Come, Chouse. We must go back to the village." Chouse had run to the side of the road, looking for rabbits again.

From away down the road, Greta could see the sign of the bakery. Shaped like a large pretzel, it hung 'way out in front of the store. Every bakery had a sign like this, and many of the other shops had their own special signs. Each barber shop had a large metal plate hanging out in front. The plate was cut in a deep curve on one side, where it was supposed to fit around a man's neck when he had his hair cut. Of course barbers didn't use plates like this any more, but these signs were still used to mark a barber shop.

When Greta got home, Hans was just getting ready to start out in his new boat.

"Want to come along, Greta?"

"Sure I do. Where are you going?"

"Oh, just down the river." The little river which ran in front of the house and wound around through the fields seemed like the nicest part of the farm to Hans and Greta. They fished in the river in the summer and skated on it in the winter. Hans was proud of his new boat, which was a birthday present from his father. Although he never let Greta go out in it alone, he often asked her to go with him.

"Wait just a minute, Hans. I must take this bread in the house and then I'll go with you."

Chouse was already in the boat when Greta came out. The minute that Hans started toward the boat, Chouse always jumped in ahead of him. He never sat still in it long. He would dash back and forth from the front to the back, and every now and then he tried to jump out, when he saw a rabbit running across the field.

"Are you going to let me paddle, Hans?" asked Greta.

"Maybe I will, after while."

Greta had to be content with this sort of a promise. She was very happy just to be out in this beautiful new boat. By the time they had gone around the first bend of the river, Greta began to think of her kittens again.

"Hans, do you think that a Nisse really did take my kittens away?"

"Well, of course, I don't know, Greta. But it looks like it."

"I thought you didn't believe in the Nisser, Hans."

"Why, one has to believe in the Nisser. There is just no other way to explain some of the things that happen."

"Do you remember the time my doll disappeared and I couldn't find her for months and months?"

"Sure I do. And then all of a sudden she appeared again."

"And you know, Hans, how I had looked simply everywhere for that doll."

"Yes. And then you found her under the bed in your room. That is why I say that you have to believe in the Nisser. There is no other way to explain things like that."

While they were talking, Chouse had been running back and forth in the boat. Suddenly he put his front feet up on the side and started barking. He barked and barked and wagged his tail. He was trying so hard to tell them something.

"I guess Chouse sees a rabbit. He wants to get out of the boat."

"Let's let him out, Hans, and see what he does."

Hans quickly turned the boat and paddled over to the shore. Chouse jumped out before the boat had even touched the bank. In fact, he almost fell into the river, he was in such a hurry to get out. Then he ran across the field and was soon out of sight, swallowed up in the field of hay.

"Hans, please let me paddle now."

"Wait until we get around the next bend in the river."

Hans's boat was still so new that he liked to paddle it himself.

"Well, all right." Greta was disappointed, but she had to be content.

Hans pushed the boat away from the shore and paddled down the middle of the river. The river was quite straight here. Greta thought that the next bend was very far away indeed. And it seemed that Hans was purposely going just as slowly as he could. Oh, why did he want to tease her this way? Greta hoped that her father would get her a boat when she was fifteen years old. But that was a long time off -- five whole years.

"I wonder where Chouse has gone, Hans."

"Oh, he's chasing rabbits all over the field."

Just then they heard Chouse bark, but it was a very faint bark, as if he were far away. The children looked and looked, but they couldn't see him anywhere. He barked again, and this time it sounded a little bit louder, but he was still out of sight. As Greta and Hans went on down the river, the barking got louder and louder.

"Oh, Hans, I see Chouse," cried Greta in great excitement.

"Where is he, Greta?"

"He's way down there in front of us, right down by the water near that group of trees. Hurry, Hans. Let's see why he is barking."

Hans pushed the boat forward with strong, swift strokes. He knew exactly how to handle his boat, and in no time at all they had reached the group of trees that was growing by the edge of the water.

"Oh, Hans, the kittens! There are the kittens!" Greta stood right up in the boat. "Hurry, Hans. One of the kittens is in the river."

"You'd better sit down, Greta, or you'll be in the river yourself."

With one strong stroke of his paddle, Hans drove the boat against the grassy bank. Both children jumped out and ran over to Chouse and the kittens. One kitten was lying on the grass, but it looked more like a rat than a kitten. Its soft fur was soaking wet. Chouse was working hard to pull the other kitten out of the river. Finally he got it up on the bank just as Hans rushed up to help with the rescue.

"Oh, Hans, the poor little things are almost drowned." Greta picked up the two mewing kittens and held them close to her, trying to make them dry and warm and comfortable.

"It certainly is lucky that we came along when we did," said Hans. "Or rather, it's lucky that Chouse was hunting rabbits along here."

"But where are the other two kittens, Hans?"

Hans didn't answer right away. He walked along the shore for a little distance, stopping now and then to look carefully in the water. At one place he got down on his knees and looked. Then he walked back quickly to Greta.

"I'm afraid we shall never find them, Greta. Come on. Let's go home so that we can get these kittens really dry and warm. We must give them some warm milk, for I know they are hungry."

All the way home Greta was very quiet. She took off her sweater and wrapped it around the kittens, holding them in her lap. Suddenly she looked up at Hans with a smile.

"Hans, this certainly proves that Chouse didn't try to do away with the kittens, for he was the one who rescued them. Surely Father won't send him away now."

"I don't know, Greta. I saw Chouse chasing the chickens again yesterday."

"Did Father see him?" asked Greta with a worried look.

Hans was in a teasing mood and he didn't answer Greta right away. Finally he said, with an annoying smile on his face, "I think I'd better not tell you, Greta."




Chapter IV

Excitement In The Forest


"Oh, Father, I'm afraid to go any higher." Greta clung to her father's arm in terror. This was the first time she had climbed up the lookout tower in the forest, and even now she was only halfway up. It seemed such a fearfully long way to the top.

"I just can't go on," the little girl pleaded.

"Why, Greta, for months you've begged to climb up here."

"But I didn't know it was so high."

"You won't be scared if you don't look down at the ground. Just hold tightly to my hand and you will be all right. Remember, Greta, a girl who is named after a queen must not be afraid of anything."

"All right, Father, I'll go on."

In no time at all they reached the very top of the tower, which stood in the middle of the forest.

"Why, Father, I can see all of Denmark from here."

Her father laughed. "Not quite all of it, Greta. But you can see all of our farm and a good many other farms, too. By the way, Greta, just how large is Denmark?"

"I thought school was over for the summer," laughed Greta. "But I'll tell you anyway. Denmark covers exactly 16,574 square miles. Besides that, Denmark owns Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Any more questions, teacher?"

"Not right away. I'll try to think up a really hard one next time."

Greta's father began looking closely at the forest. He was very proud of the rows and rows of sturdy evergreens that covered a hundred acres of his farm. Each year a certain number of trees was cut. Some of them were sold, and some of them were used for fuel. But always, every year, new trees were planted to take the place of those that were cut.

Greta was gazing off into the distance, but suddenly her attention was caught by Chouse, who was running along the road that led to the tower. If only her father didn't see him, thought Greta. Not a word had been said about Chouse for the last two days, and Greta hoped that the whole matter had been forgotten.

When Chouse reached the foot of the tower he began barking loudly. He had never climbed the tower and he wasn't as brave as Greta, for he didn't even try. He just kept on barking and barking and barking. Greta called to him, but he paid no attention. He merely barked more loudly than before. Of course her father heard him.

"What's that dog up to now, Greta? I guess you'll have to go down and see what he wants. Are you afraid to go down the tower alone?"

"No, of course I'm not afraid." Greta was glad of the chance to show how brave she really was.

But when she got down and patted him, Chouse still kept on barking. Something was the matter, but Greta couldn't imagine what it was. Soon her father came down, and Greta could see that he was annoyed. Chouse rushed up to him and barked, trying so hard to tell him something. The dog dashed down the road a short distance and then ran back, barking furiously all the time.

"I guess we shall have to follow, Greta."

When Chouse saw that they were following, he stopped barking and was quite content. Once in a while he would run on ahead in a great hurry. Then he would run back to Greta and her father and bark again.

"There must be something wrong in the forest," said Greta's father. "I have never seen Chouse so upset."

"You were just up in the tower, Father. If there had been a fire, you would surely have seen it."

"Maybe not, because I was watching the men cutting the trees, trying to decide how many we should cut this year. I hadn't looked over the rest of the forest yet."

A forest fire is a dreadful thing in this part of the country, where the wind from the North Sea blows all day long. It can blow a fire in front of it until all the trees are gone. That is why the forests are always watched so carefully.

Suddenly Chouse darted off the main road into a narrow path. Greta and her father followed right at his heels, for they knew that the dog was leading them somewhere. This was his only way of telling them something that he thought they should know. Soon he turned off to still another path. Never for a moment did he hesitate. Chouse knew exactly where he was going.

When they came to the very edge of the forest, Chouse dashed around and jumped up and down in great excitement. At last they had reached the place to which he had been leading them. And no wonder that Chouse was so excited, for right in front of them, just a few feet from the line of trees, there was a fire!

"Oh, Father, will the whole forest burn down?" asked Greta, as she watched the flames which crackled through the pile of twigs and underbrush.

"No, Greta. Thanks to Chouse, we got here in time. But if the wind should change suddenly, the whole forest could very easily burn down."

"How did such a fire ever get started?"

"I told old Peter to clear out some of the twigs and underbrush," explained her father, "but I also told him that he must never go away when these piles were burning. He must stay with them every minute."

"I wonder where he is now?"

"I don't know. But he should be right here, watching this fire."

"If the wind did change, how would he put out the fire?"

"By throwing earth on it, Greta."

While they were talking, Chouse was standing near by, wagging his tail and looking very proud of himself.

"Chouse, you are the best dog in the whole wide world," said the happy little girl. "First you rescued my kittens and now you have saved the whole forest from burning. We couldn't possibly send Chouse away. Could we, Father?"

Her father didn't answer right away. Finally he said, "By the way, Greta, have you named the kittens yet?"

"No, I haven't. I've been trying to think of some very special sort of names, but I just can't think of any."

"Maybe Anna can help you find the right names," her father suggested.

"Of course she can. But I wonder when Anna is coming? I haven't heard from her yet."

"Why don't you run home and see if you got a letter this morning? I must stay here and watch this fire until old Peter comes."

"All right, Father."

It didn't take Greta long to get home. Even Chouse could hardly keep up with her. She hadn't been away from her kittens for this long a time since the day Chouse had rescued them. You would never know now that they had been almost drowned. Their fur was just as soft and fluffy as it had ever been.

"Oh, there you are, Greta. I've been looking everywhere for you." Her mother greeted her at the door of the house. "Here is a letter for you from Anna."

Greta read the letter eagerly.

"Dear Greta:

Thank you for your nice invitation. I shall be very happy to come. Can you meet me at the train at Holstebro? I shall arrive next Monday at half past two.

Lovingly yours, Anna"

"Another letter came this morning, Greta, and I have a real surprise for you."

"Oh, Mother, what is it?" Greta's eyes were already dancing with happiness.

"We are invited to Vosborg for dinner next week."

"You mean the beautiful castle up on the hill," asked Greta, "the one that I have always wanted to visit?"

"Yes, dear, that very castle."

"But I thought that Mr. Christianson didn't live there any more?"

"He has been away for many years, but now he has come back to live in Vosborg."

"And you mean that I can go, and Hans, and Anna, too?"

"Yes, Greta."

"Oh, Mother!" Greta threw her arms around her mother's neck. "I must tell Hans right away." And off she dashed, with Chouse at her heels.




Chapter V

The Storks


"Greta, I didn't know that you had storks on your farm," said Anna.

"Of course we do," said Greta. "Every farm has a nest of storks."

Hans and Greta had been showing Anna the garden and the river and all the animals on the farm. Greta herself had almost forgotten about the storks, because she was so used to them. And anyway, they weren't animals you could play with, like the kittens and the dog.

"They bring us good luck," explained Hans. "Every farmer puts up an old wheel, or something else that is round, so the storks can build their nest on it. Sometimes he puts it on the roof of the barn and sometimes on the house."

"Don't you have storks at home, Anna?" asked Greta.

"Goodness, no! I don't think there's a stork in all Copenhagen, except maybe in the zoo." Anna couldn't take her eyes from the large round nest on the roof of the barn. "Do they stay here all the year round?" she asked.

"It's too cold for them here in the winter. When cold weather comes, they all fly south. Father says that some of them go as far as Africa. But early in the spring they always come back."

"Does the same family of storks come back every year?" asked Anna.

"We think it's the same family," answered Greta, "but we're never really sure, for you can't ever get very near the storks."

While the children had been talking, one of the storks was standing on one leg on the edge of the nest.

"That's the papa stork that you see now," explained Hans. "He's away most of the day, gathering food, but every now and then he comes back to the nest to rest. He always stands on one leg, just like that, when he rests."

"The mama stork has to stay on the nest all the time until the eggs hatch," said Greta. "Sometimes she stands up for a little while, but she never flies away."

"I wonder how many eggs there are." Anna was more interested in the storks than in anything else on the farm.

"Only four this year," said Hans. "I climbed up on the roof yesterday to find out. Some years there are five, and sometimes only three."

"My, but you are brave, Hans!" Anna looked at Hans in admiration. "That roof is terribly steep. I know I'd be afraid to climb it."

"But you are only a girl, Anna," teased Hans.

"Just the same, I can climb as well as a boy. I'll show you." And before Hans could argue, Anna ran over to the house and climbed up the tree to Greta's balcony.

"I'll take it all back, Anna. You really can climb." Hans hadn't expected this cousin from the city to be such a tomboy. He would have to find some other way to tease her.

"When will the baby storks hatch out, Greta?" Anna couldn't get her mind off this fascinating subject.

"In another week or two, I expect."

"If the Nisser don't take the eggs first," said Hans.

"Oh, Hans, you don't really think they would?" Greta was upset at the very thought.

"You know how the kittens disappeared, Greta. The same thing might happen to the baby storks." Hans told Anna about the lost kittens and how only two of them were found. "Greta and I decided that the Nisser took them," he finished.

"Why, Hans, how very silly!" said Anna. "Of course the Nisser wouldn't do a thing like that. In fact, I don't believe there is such a thing as a Nisse anyway."

Greta didn't know whether to be shocked or not. There were times when she herself had her doubts about the Nisser, but right now she felt sure that they were the ones who had carried off the kittens.

"The Nisser don't play pranks all the time, Anna. They do lots of nice things for us, too. Do you see that castle on the hill over there, with the trees all around it?"

Greta pointed to Vosborg Castle, about a mile away. "Let me tell you what the Nisser did there one winter. There was snow five feet deep and it lasted for more than a week. No one could get outdoors at all. The cows were in the barn, where they had plenty of food, but there were six new calves in a shed out in the field. Everyone was afraid that they would starve to death, but no one could get out and feed them. When the snow finally melted and the men went out to see the calves, they found them fat and healthy! The Nisser had taken care of them and fed them during the snowstorm."

"So you see there really are Nisser," said Hans.

Anna wasn't at all convinced, but she didn't know how to argue against proof like this. Finally she asked, "When did this happen, Hans?"

"Oh, a long time ago. A hundred years ago, I guess."

"Then no one can really prove it," argued Anna. "It's just a story that has been told over and over again, like a fairy tale." Anna believed in the things she could see, not in the things that people imagined they saw.

"We're going to this castle for dinner on Wednesday evening," said Hans. "Then you can ask Mr. Christianson himself. He will certainly know whether or not this really happened."

"We're going to a real castle for dinner?" asked Anna. "That will be lots of fun. Do you know how many rooms there are in the castle?"

"At least fifty," answered Hans. "Greta and I have never been in Vosborg, for Mr. Christianson has been living in England for a long time. But now he has come back here to live."

While they were talking about the castle, Greta's mother called to Anna. "Wouldn't you like to write your mother, Anna, and tell her that you arrived safely?"

"Oh, yes, Tante [Aunt] Agnes. And I'll tell her that we are going to a real castle for dinner." Anna ran into the house in great excitement.

"Hans, I wonder why Anna doesn't believe in the Nisser," said Greta. "You believe in them, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Greta." Hans was quiet and thoughtful for a minute, and then a merry twinkle came into his eyes. "Before Anna goes back to Copenhagen, she will believe in the Nisser, too."

"What do you mean, Hans?" Greta knew that her brother had some kind of mischief in mind.

"I mean just that. She will believe in the Nisser just as strongly as you and I believe in them."

"I don't see how you're going to convince her, Hans."

"I'm not going to convince her, Greta. The Nisser themselves will do that." Greta begged and begged, but Hans would not explain. "Just wait and you'll find out, Greta." And Hans started off toward his boat, whistling to Chouse to come along.




Chapter VI

Dinner At Vosborg Castle


"The carriage should be here any minute now." Greta ran to the window again to look down the road.

"The carriage!" said Anna in surprise. "Are we going to Vosborg in a carriage, Greta?"

"Yes. Mr. Christianson is sending his carriage for us. He doesn't like automobiles, so he still keeps the old coach that has belonged to the castle for a hundred years."

"There it is now, Greta," said Hans, who was just as eager to visit the castle as Greta and Anna were.

Soon they were all on their way to Vosborg. Although it stood on a hill, you could hardly see the castle itself, because of the trees all around it. After a short ride they reached the castle's outer wall and drove through the wide entrance, with its high tower that formed an archway. There was a long stretch of level ground inside the wall, before one came to the stone bridge over the moat. The moat was a wide, deep ditch filled with water, which ran all the way around the castle. In the olden days it was an important protection, for enemies could not cross it and thus could not reach the castle buildings. Inside the moat there was a rampart, or a high ridge of earth, which was also a protection to the castle. Then there was still another wall before one finally reached the castle itself.

"There has been a castle on this spot for hundreds of years," Greta's mother told the children as they rode along in the old coach. "This building is only four hundred years old, so you see that it is rather new! The castle that stood here before was destroyed in 1532."

"Mother, tell Anna about the Englishman who built the tower of Vosborg Castle," urged Hans.

"All right, Hans," said his mother. "A long, long time ago, when the first castle was being built, the owner decided that he wanted a tower on his castle that would be finer than that of any other castle in Denmark. He hunted the country over, but he couldn't find anyone who could build such a grand tower. Finally he heard of a man in England who could do this. So he sent for this man and told him to build a tower on Vosborg that would be the finest in the land. The Englishman solemnly promised that he would do so.

"It took him three full years to build the tower, for he was determined to make it the finest in all Denmark. And it was. When it was done he went to the owner of Vosborg and asked if he were satisfied. The owner was well pleased, and he paid the builder a large sum of money. Long before this, however, he had decided that he would test the builder and the honesty of his work. So after the Englishman had left the castle and was walking down the road, a servant from Vosborg came running after him, shouting, 'The tower is leaning.'

"This was to be the test of his work. If he turned around to look at the tower, the owner of the castle would know that the builder was not sure of his own work. If there were even the smallest doubt in his mind, he would be certain to look around at once. But the English builder was very sure that his work was well done. Not once did he look back. Not for a minute did he pause in his journey. But as he walked on, he said to the servant from Vosborg, 'The tower does not lean. Tell your master that I have done my work well; he did not spend his money in vain. He has the finest tower in all Denmark. But also tell him that one day Vosborg will be destroyed by a man in a blue coat.'

"The servant told his master. Fear and astonishment ran through the castle like a flame. Who was the mysterious man in the blue coat who would one day destroy the castle? No one knew. No one could even guess. The owner of Vosborg was well liked by all the people. Surely no one would do him harm. The years went by and the castle remained unharmed. Gradually everyone forgot about the prophecy of the English builder. The man in the blue coat was no longer feared.

"Then one year there was a dreadful storm on the ocean. Never before had the people seen such an angry sea. The waves dashed and pounded against the shore as they had never done before. The water rose like a wall and spread over the land for many miles. No one had ever seen a storm like this one. The water pounded against the outer wall of Vosborg. It crumbled and fell. Within a few hours the ocean had rushed in and washed away the rampart around the castle. There was then just one wall left as a protection against the angry sea. It wasn't enough. On the second day of the storm the waves became even more fierce and violent. Finally, that wall crumbled and the whole castle of Vosborg was knocked down by the force of the waves.

"Thus the prophecy, told many years before, had at last come true. The English builder had spoken truly. Vosborg was, as he had predicted, destroyed by a man in a blue coat -- the ocean."

"But I thought the ocean was several miles away," said Anna in surprise.

"It is now, Anna, but in those days it was very near. Every few hundred years the shore line changes, due to the rising or falling of the land. So Vosborg is now a mile or more from the ocean."

By this time they had reached the courtyard of the castle. The paving stones that covered the ground had long ago been worn to a smooth, polished roundness. On three sides of the courtyard there were low, white buildings. One of these contained the servants' quarters and the kitchens. Another contained the huge library of the castle. The third was made up of the stables. On the fourth side of the courtyard stood the imposing, four-story building that made up the main part of the castle. In the center of the courtyard there was a lovely, round pool.

"Oh, Greta, it's beautiful," said the delighted Anna, as she looked all around her.

Dinner was served in the Knights' Hall, a long, stately room on the second floor. Tall candles lighted the banquet table and threw flickering shadows in the far corners of the room and against the high ceiling. The walls were covered with brilliant paintings of the knights and ladies who had lived at Vosborg in olden days. Now and then, as the candlelight caught the gleam of a bright red waistcoat or the silken beauty of a lady's satin gown, Greta turned suddenly to look at the portraits. Once she thought that one of the great ladies of long ago was smiling at her. But when she looked again, the lovely face showed only the calm, quiet beauty of a painting. Had she really smiled? Greta could not be sure.

After dinner Mr. Christianson showed them the room that King Frederick had used when he visited Vosborg Castle many years ago.

"This room used to be the chapel," explained Mr. Christianson, "but it had to be changed for a very amusing reason. The owner of the castle used to put his turkeys to roost in the chapel and even left them there on Sunday. When the minister began to preach, all the turkeys babbled in answer. Of course the whole church service was upset and the minister couldn't go on. He refused to preach at Vosborg any more. When the king heard what had happened, he said that there would be no more chapel services at this castle. So the chapel was changed into a bedroom. Many years later a tiny chapel was built outside the castle wall. It is a lovely, quiet place of worship. The inside walls are lined with moss, and the outer walls are covered with thatch. It is really a little temple in the woods."

"Could we see it, Mr. Christianson?" asked Anna, as they were going back to the drawing-room.

"I'm afraid it's too dark out there now. But I should be delighted to show it to you if you care to come again, during the daytime."

"Oh, I'd love to. Thank you so -- Oh, what's that noise?" Anna looked at Greta, whose face had turned white. She, too, had heard a most unusual sound.

"I didn't hear any noise," said Mr. Christianson.

"It sounded like heavy wooden wheels," said Greta, who looked quite scared.

"It couldn't be that, Greta," said Hans. "No one has come into the courtyard."

"But I heard them inside the castle," insisted Greta.

"Oh, of course. I had forgotten." Then Mr. Christianson explained. "A long time ago, when this castle was first built, the entrance to the courtyard was in the center of this building, instead of at the side, as it is now. In fact, this drawing-room was built where the entrance used to be. Up to the very day of his death, the old coachman never approved of this change. So every evening, about this time, he drives his coach and four over the old road and through the old entrance. He has to come right through this room and that is why you always hear him."

The two girls looked at Mr. Christianson in wonder.

"You mean his ghost drives through here every evening?" asked Greta.

"Yes, Greta."

"But I didn't think there were any real ghosts," said Anna.

"I don't know, my dear. No one has ever seen him, but you yourself heard the rumble of the wooden wheels of the coach just now."

"I certainly heard something," admitted Anna.

"What else could it be?" asked Hans, who was delighted to hear Anna admit even this much.

On the way home from Vosborg, Anna was very quiet. Finally she just had to ask, "Tante Agnes, do you think that was the old coach that we heard tonight?"

Her aunt smiled. "I don't know, Anna. I think you had better go to Vosborg again in the daytime. Then you can find out for yourself whether or not it has any ghosts."




Chapter VII

A Day At The Shore


"Why don't you have a windmill on your farm, Uncle Frederick?" asked Anna. "Every one of these farms has a big windmill."

Anna and her uncle and Greta were driving through the country on their way to the shore. Greta's father had to make a business trip to a small town on the coast, and he was taking the girls with him. Chouse was comfortably curled up on the back seat.

"We don't need a windmill, Anna, because we have the river."

"But how can the river take the place of a windmill?" asked Anna.

"Greta, haven't you shown Anna the dam in the river?" asked her father. "This dam causes the water to fall from a great height. The force of the water, as it falls on a large machine, provides the power that is turned into electricity. These other farms get their electric power from the windmills. As the great arms are turned by the wind, they provide power that is changed, by the machinery, into electricity."

Anna had lived in Copenhagen all her life, and everything about the country was new to her. She liked to watch the men cutting the hay and piling it up on the large wagons. On some of the farms the women were also working in the fields. This was the busiest time of year on the farm, and everyone had to help. Children hoed the long rows of cabbages and potatoes and beets.

Every time they drove through a village, Greta and Anna played a game to see who could be first to find the oldest house. Each house had a name painted in large letters over the door or near it. This wasn't the name of the family; it was the name of the house itself. The year when the house was built was usually there, too. So each girl tried to be the first one to find the oldest house. Greta usually found it before Anna, because Anna saw so many other things that interested her.

"What are those funny little mirrors in front of the windows, Greta?" Anna pointed to the two small projecting mirrors fastened by an iron frame to the window of a small brick house.

"Oh, the people put those there so that they can sit beside the window and see who is coming down the street," explained Greta. "There is one mirror facing up the street and one facing down the street. With these mirrors they can sit in the house and still see everything that goes on."

"But they have so many plants and flowers in the windows that I don't see how they can see anything outdoors."

Every home, whether in a village or on a farm, had a large flower garden. And in every home, large or small, there were many plants in the windows, where they could get the sunshine. All Denmark looked like a large garden, for there were roses, poppies, peonies, iris, pansies, or other brilliant flowers wherever one looked.

"Look, Greta, at the two little patches of green grass in the middle of that field of hay. Why in the world did the farmer skip those spots?"

"I'll tell you why, Anna," said her uncle. "You will notice that those little green patches are always on small hills. They are the graves of Vikings."

"But I thought that the Vikings lived more than a thousand years ago," interrupted Anna.

"Yes, they did. They were a strong, bold race who lived in what is now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They roamed the sea and conquered many other lands. Some of them even went to America, long before the time of Columbus. It is against the law for anyone to disturb a Viking grave. You will see many of these little mounds on the farms in this part of the country. The farmers never plant anything on these graves. They carefully plow all around them."

"We must be quite near the ocean now, for there's a lighthouse," said Greta. "It would be fun to climb to the top of it. May we, Father?"

"Yes, if you want to."

It didn't take Greta and Anna long to climb the narrow, winding stairs. From the top of the lighthouse they could see for many miles over the ocean and over the land. Heavy waves beat upon the beach, and even as they looked, the sand hills kept shifting, for the wind from the North Sea was very strong. Not far away was the harbor, and in its quiet waters some of the fishermen had fastened their sailboats. Near by they had hung up their nets to dry. Each net was carefully spread over a rope that was fastened to stakes in the ground. Other fishing boats, with sails full spread, were far out at sea.

"Anna, do you see those people way down the beach? I wonder what they are looking for." Greta pointed to two women who were evidently searching for something along the shore.

"I haven't any idea. Shall we go help them with their search? Look, Greta. Your father is motioning to us to come down. I think Chouse wants us, too."

Greta's father had to go on to the next village, but he told the girls that they could stay here until he came back.

"Chouse will take good care of you while I'm gone," he said, "that is, if he doesn't run off and get into some kind of mischief himself."

Greta and Anna were curious about the women they had seen down the beach, so they decided to join them. With Chouse jumping and barking at their heels, they ran along the water's edge. The tide was coming in, and every now and then a large wave almost caught them. As they went farther from the harbor, they found more and more sand dunes: gently rolling hills with long blades of grass poking up here and there through the sand. Along this part of the beach there were many summer cottages, with fences around them to keep the sand from covering them completely.

"Have you lost something?" asked Anna as they came near the two women. "We'll be glad to help you look for it."

"No, we haven't lost anything," answered one of the women. "We thought we might find some amber along the beach."

"Amber?" asked Greta in surprise. "I didn't know it was found here."

"Oh, certainly. We have often found some very fine pieces of amber on this very beach."

"Is amber a stone?" asked Greta. "Of course I know what it looks like, but what is it made of?"

"It has taken thousands of years to form the lovely clear yellow material that we call amber," explained the second woman. "It was once the sticky, yellowish fluid given off by the pine trees. As time went by, those trees were buried under the ground or under the water. The sticky fluid gradually became hard as stone. It is those stone-like pieces that we sometimes dig up along the beach of the North Sea."

"They are very valuable, aren't they?" asked Anna.

"Yes, some of them are. Those that are perfectly clear and have no flaws always bring a good price."

"We'll help you look," said Greta.

The two girls began to search for the little yellow lumps that lay hidden in the sand. At first it was fun, but after a while they got tired. They were just about to quit, when one of the women called out happily, "Here is a beautiful, large piece. It must weigh a pound."

The others rushed up to look at it. Amber is very light, so it took a large piece indeed to weigh a pound. After this they began searching with fresh interest. Suddenly Greta found what she thought was a beautiful piece of amber. But when she showed it to the two women they said it was much too heavy for amber.

Greta got down on her knees and began poking among the stones and shells. Every now and then she dug into the sand and poked and looked and dug some more. While the girls were busy in this absorbing work, Chouse ran up and down the beach. No one paid any attention to him. Once in a while he ran up to Greta to see if she would play with him. But she just pushed him away. "Run away, Chouse. I'm too busy to play now."

When Chouse got tired of playing by himself, he lay down on the sand near Greta, watching her every minute. Suddenly he noticed something wriggling along the sand not far away. He sat up and looked. Soon the wriggling stopped. But Chouse kept on watching this strange object. Then he got up and walked nearer to it, walking ever so quietly and carefully. He simply must see what this strange creature was. Greta wasn't paying any attention to Chouse or to the strange object near by. She was too busy looking for amber. Chouse stood without moving, watching the now motionless creature.

"Oh, Greta, I think I've found a real piece of amber!" Anna ran across the beach in great excitement. When she was ten feet from Greta she stopped in terror. "Greta!" she screamed. "Look out! Run!"

Greta stood up and looked around, too startled to run. What had happened? Then she saw. Not two feet away lay a green snake, coiled and ready to strike. Greta knew at once that this was the most poisonous snake in all Denmark. Her father had often warned her about it. But she simply couldn't run. She was so frightened that she had lost the power to move. Greta knew that in less than a minute the snake would strike her. She knew that she must get away. But she couldn't.

At that very instant Chouse sprang forward. He had been watching this crawling green creature for many minutes. Now was the time for him to act. And he did act. He seized the snake by the neck and quickly carried it off to a high sand dune. In less than two minutes the snake was dead.

Greta sank down on the sand and Anna rushed up to her. "Oh, Greta, are you all right?"

"Yes, Anna, I'm all right. But I was so frightened that I couldn't move."

Chouse came back to Greta and she took him in her lap. "After this, Chouse, I think you will have to go with us wherever we go. I am quite sure that Father won't send you away."




Chapter VIII

A Second Visit To Vosborg


"Are you coming with us, Hans?"

"Where are you going, Greta?"

"Oh, didn't you know? Mr. Christianson has invited Anna and me to visit Vosborg. He wants to show us the whole castle. I'm sure he would be glad to have you come, too."

"Thank you, Greta, but I think I'll go fishing today. Old Peter says they are biting. Come along, Chouse." Hans started toward the river. Chouse had run ahead and was already waiting in the boat.

"Shall we go on our bicycles, Greta?" asked Anna, who never walked any place if she could take her bicycle.

"No, let's walk. It's only a mile; besides, it's way too steep a hill to climb on a bicycle."

The girls walked happily down the road, never once looking back. If they had looked back, they would have seen something very strange. Hans had started down the river, but he suddenly stopped the boat when he reached the first bend. He paddled over near the shore and drew the boat up on the bank. Then he cautiously hid behind a large tree trunk. The strange thing was that he didn't take his fishing pole out of the boat. He stood behind the tree for quite a little while, watching Greta and Anna as they hurried along to Vosborg.

When the girls were out of sight, Hans called to the dog. "Come, Chouse. It's time for us to go now." They got into the boat again and Hans paddled slowly and quietly. But Greta and Anna had reached the turn in the road, so they could not possibly see which way Hans was going.

In the field outside the castle wall, two storks were walking around on their long, slender legs. The girls stopped to watch them.

"Oh, Greta, I wish we could get up close to them." Anna ran forward. She thought the storks couldn't possibly see her. But when she was still twenty feet away they lifted their large wings and rose in the air. Soon they had gone over the tops of the trees and high into the sky. Anna watched them until they were out of sight.

"What would you like to see first?" asked Mr. Christianson, when he greeted his two young visitors at the door.

Both girls spoke at the same time. "The little chapel," said Anna. "The library," said Greta.

They visited the chapel first, and then came back to the castle by way of a lovely, shaded path which ran by the side of the moat.

"Hans Christian Andersen used to walk along here, when he visited Vosborg," said Mr. Christianson. "He thought up many of his fairy tales as he strolled along under these trees. In the library there is a volume of his stories that I want to show you. Andersen gave this book to my grandfather, and in the front he has written a little verse about Vosborg."

"Do you suppose we might climb up in the tower?" asked Anna, after they had gone all through the garden and had come back into the inner courtyard. Anna was very fond of climbing.

"Of course you may." Mr. Christianson took them up narrow stairs that kept going up and up and up. Finally they reached the top. From here they could see the ocean in the distance.

"This is almost as high as the tower in our forest," said Greta.

"In olden times this tower was very useful," explained Mr. Christianson. "From here one could see an enemy when he was still miles away."

"Denmark doesn't have any enemies now, does it?" asked Anna.

"No, Denmark is one of the most peaceful countries in the world. It is almost eighty years since we have been at war with any other nation."

After a while they went down to the library. Mr. Christianson led the girls past rows and rows of books, placed on shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling. When they came to the farthest corner of the room he stopped and reached for the book of Andersen's Fairy Tales without even looking.

"You see, I know just where it is." Then a worried look came on his face. "Why, I can't understand this," he said. "This book was here last night, for I showed it to some friends. And now it is gone."

"Maybe someone has borrowed it," suggested Greta.

"That is impossible, for I keep the library locked, and none of the servants has the key."

"Maybe you put it back in the wrong place," suggested Anna.

"I'm afraid that is impossible, too. You see I keep this book in a very special place because I prize it more than any other book that I own. I am always careful to put it back in this same spot."

"We'll help you look for it," offered Greta. So the three began searching one shelf of books after another.

"I suppose Hans would say that one of the Nisser had taken it," said Anna jokingly, when they had gone about halfway through the shelves of books.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if one had taken it," answered Greta quite seriously.

They kept on looking for almost an hour. By this time Mr. Christianson was really worried. He finally called in all the servants and asked if any of them had been in the library that day. None of them had. The disappearance of the book had become a real mystery.

"I should hate to lose this book more than any other book in the library."

"Let's look once more on the shelf where it's supposed to be," said Anna.

Mr. Christianson laughed. "But we looked there very carefully when we first came in."

Anna wanted to look there again, so she ran down the long room to the special shelf.

"Here it is!" she shouted. "Right here on the shelf where it is always kept."

The others rushed up at once. "Well, this is strange," said Mr. Christianson. "It wasn't here an hour ago, and no one has been in this part of the room since then."

"Except maybe a Nisse," said Greta.

In the front of the book Hans Christian Andersen had written a beautiful poem about Vosborg. It was no wonder that Mr. Christianson treasured this book, for Andersen is the most famous writer of all Denmark. Children all over the world love his fairy tales.

"It's getting late, Greta, and I think we should -- " began Anna and then stopped. A long, low moan cut through the stillness of the room. It seemed to come from quite near.

"What -- what was that?" asked Greta.

"Oh, I suppose that was Lady Margaret," explained Mr. Christianson. "About a hundred years ago she was kept a prisoner in this room for many years, and every now and then we hear her moaning."

"Did you ever see her?" asked Anna.

"Well, no, I never did. But whenever we hear that low moan from this room we know it is Lady Margaret."

"Doesn't it frighten you?" asked Greta.

"Oh, no. We are quite used to it."

"This is really a haunted castle, isn't it?" asked Anna.

"Every castle in Denmark has at least one ghost, Anna."

All the way home the girls talked about the ghost of Lady Margaret. Anna was beginning to think that maybe there really were such things as ghosts and Nisser. When they reached the house, Hans was just getting out of his boat.

"Did you get any fish, Hans?" called Anna.

"No luck today, Anna."

"Are you sure you were trying to catch fish?" asked Greta, in her most teasing manner.

"What do you mean by that, Greta?"

"I thought maybe you had decided to go after books instead."

Anna looked at Hans. Could he have been playing a joke on them at Vosborg? Was it Hans who had taken the book and then put it back? But how could he have gotten into the library? And anyway, she and Greta had both seen him start down the river in the opposite direction.

Just then Greta's mother called from the door. "Anna, you have a letter from your mother."

"It's too bad you didn't take Chouse with you today, Greta," said Hans, when Anna had gone into the house.

"Why? What happened?"

"He was naughtier than he's ever been before. He chased the young turkeys all over the place and injured three or four of them."

"Did Father see him?"

"Yes. He came along just as Chouse caught one of the turkeys and he was terribly angry. You know how proud Father is of those turkeys."

"Oh, Hans, what am I going to do?" sobbed Greta. "We can't seem to break Chouse of his awful habit of chasing things. And yet I can't bear to part with him."

Just then Anna came running out of the house. "Greta, I have the grandest news. Mother wants you to come to Copenhagen with me when I go home."

For a moment Greta forgot her worries about Chouse. "Oh, Anna, that will be wonderful. Let's ask Mother if I may go."




Chapter IX

Chouse Seeks The Spotlight


It was soon decided that Greta would go back to Copenhagen with Anna. At dinner that evening the girls talked about nothing else, for Greta had never been in Copenhagen before.

"While you are away, Greta, I'll look around and find a new home for Chouse," her father announced suddenly.

At last it had come -- this terrible thing that she had been dreading.

"But I thought that Chouse had been a very good dog lately." For the moment Greta had forgotten Hans's report about the turkeys.

"I had hoped he would learn to behave better," said her father, "but today he injured several of the young turkeys, and I just can't have it, Greta. So we must find another home for him. I know how you love Chouse, and I hate to do this, but I don't see any other way out."

"Why can't Chouse come to Copenhagen with us?" asked Anna, hoping that maybe this would solve the problem, at least for a while.

"Do you think your mother would want him?"

"Oh, yes, I'm sure it would be all right with Mother," said Anna. "We don't have any chickens or turkeys, so Chouse couldn't very well get into mischief at my house."

Greta's father hesitated a minute or two before he answered, while Greta watched him anxiously. "All right, Anna, Chouse may go to Copenhagen with you and Greta."

Greta sank back in her chair with a deep sigh. By the time she came home from Copenhagen, the whole matter would probably be forgotten. At any rate, the evil day had been postponed.

When the day came for Greta and Anna to leave for Copenhagen, the whole family went to the train with them.

Hans gave Chouse a goodbye pat on the head. "Take good care of my little sister, Chouse," he said.

"And you take good care of the kittens, Hans," warned Greta.

Soon all the goodbyes were said and the two girls were on the train.

"I wish we could get seats by the window," said Greta. They walked up and down the aisle, which was on one side of the train, but there wasn't a single empty seat beside a window. Each car was divided into a dozen sections, like little rooms, with two long seats facing each other. There was space for four people on each seat, or eight people in each section. The girls sat down in a section where there were only three people. At the very next station, two of them got off, and then there was a vacant seat beside the window. Greta and Anna decided to take turns at sitting there.

"What time will it be when we reach Copenhagen, Anna?"

"After seven o'clock. You see we have to cross the peninsula of Jutland and then the island of Zealand before we come to Copenhagen."

"I have never seen a really large city before, Anna."

"You will love Copenhagen, Greta. It has such beautiful parks and shops and castles and, oh, everything!"

"Oh, look, Anna, here we are at Lemvig already. Do you know the story about Lemvig?"

"No; what is it?"

"A long, long time ago, when Denmark was at war with Sweden, the Swedish soldiers had been ordered to march upon Lemvig and take the town. You can see that almost the whole town is down in the valley; there are just a few houses on the hills. The soldiers couldn't see the town at all, so they asked a farmer where it was. He pointed to the houses on the hill on the other side of the valley. Then the Swedish soldiers rode very fast, keeping their eyes on these houses on the distant hill. They didn't see the valley at all and they rode so fast that they all fell down the hill and into the river. So Lemvig wasn't captured after all."

As the train started again and left Lemvig, Anna leaned out the window. "Oh, it's too late now," she said sadly.

"Too late for what?" asked Greta.

"I wanted to get an ice-cream bar, but the train started just as the boy with the ice-cream bars came up to our window."

"We'll surely get one at the next town, Anna."

As soon as the train stopped again, Anna let down the window and they each bought an ice-cream bar and also one for Chouse. He had been standing on Greta's lap, with his front feet on the window sill, watching with great interest as they passed fields of yellow hay, forests of evergreens, pastures with large herds of cows, and great fields of cabbage and beets.

When they had finally ridden clear across Jutland, which forms the main part of Denmark, and then across the island of Funen, which is connected with the mainland by a large bridge, they came to a wide stretch of water called the Great Belt.

"Get your suitcase, Anna," said Greta. "We will have to get off the train and take a boat here."

Anna laughed, but she didn't make a move to get her suitcase down from the rack overhead.

"The whole train takes the boat, Greta. We don't have to get off at all."

"The whole train? But how can it?"

"Just look out the window and you'll see for yourself."

The railroad tracks ran to the very edge of the water, where a large ferry boat was waiting for the train. It had tracks on it, too, and the train ran right on to the boat. Greta could hardly believe her eyes. To think that one could ride on a train and a boat at the same time! It took about two hours to cross the water, and then they were on the island of Zealand. The boat went right up to the railroad tracks and the train was soon on land again and speeding on its way.

"Everything here looks so different," remarked Greta, as she looked out the window. "There are so many more trees, and it isn't so flat as it is at home."

Before long they reached the large railroad station in Copenhagen, where Anna's mother was waiting for them.

"Your father will be here very soon, Anna, and then we are all going to Tivoli for dinner."

"Is Tivoli a restaurant?" asked Greta.

"No, Tivoli is one of the most famous parks in all the world," explained Anna. "It's right in the center of Copenhagen. In fact, it's right next to this station. Oh, I wish Father would hurry."

When Greta first saw Tivoli she thought she was in fairyland. Surely it couldn't be real. The gay beds of flowers and the tinkling fountains and the colored lights among the trees all seemed to be part of a magic world. Besides all this beauty, Tivoli had many restaurants and theatres and places for concerts and games and other amusements.

They had dinner in one of the outdoor restaurants, and Greta was so interested in watching the people as they passed by that she could hardly eat. After dinner they started to walk through the park and let Greta decide for herself what she would most enjoy. When they had gone only a little way they came to a large open stage, where a play was being given. They all stopped to watch it for a few minutes, and Greta wouldn't leave the spot. To her it was the most fascinating thing in Tivoli.

Suddenly she noticed that something had gone wrong on the stage. The actors seemed confused and they hesitated over their lines. What could be the matter? Then, to her horror, she saw Chouse run across the stage and jump up on one of the actors. He was a young lad who looked something like Hans. Chouse soon saw his mistake and began wandering around the large stage as if he were lost. The audience laughed. They knew that this wasn't part of the play, and it seemed very funny to them.

The minute that Greta saw Chouse she started toward the stage. Going around to the back, where the audience could not see her, she whistled and called to her dog. Chouse was glad to hear his name. Happily he ran off the stage at once and the play went on.

"I think we had better go home now," said Anna's father, when Greta came back with the dog, "before Chouse gets into any more mischief."

Greta's heart sank. They had barely gotten into Copenhagen -- in fact, they hadn't even reached Anna's home yet -- and Chouse had already gotten into mischief. What in the world was she going to do with him?




Chapter X

A Day Of Happy Surprises


"Anna, please don't walk so fast," begged Greta. The two girls were walking down Langelinie, the beautiful parkway along the ocean. Greta was much shorter than Anna and she could not walk nearly so fast. Then, too, she liked to stop and watch the boats coming into the harbor. The name Copenhagen means "merchants' harbor," and this city has one of the finest harbors in Europe. All kinds of ships, from tiny sailboats to large ocean liners, come here from all parts of the world.

When they had gone a little farther, Greta wanted to sit down and rest.

"Can't you walk just a tiny bit more, Greta? On the other side of this little bay there is someone I want you to meet."

"Who, Anna?"

"She is called 'Den Lille Havfrue,'" said Anna.

"'Den Lille Havfrue,'" repeated Greta. "'The Little Ocean Lady.' I still don't understand, Anna. Who can this be?"

"Just keep on walking, and I'll show you," answered Anna in her most mysterious manner.

In a few minutes the girls had gone around the bay.

"Oh, Anna, how beautiful she is!" said the delighted Greta. Sitting on a rock at the edge of the water was the statue of a lovely mermaid -- "the little ocean lady."

"She looks like a real live person," went on Greta, "except for her fish's tail instead of feet. Is there really such a person as a mermaid, Anna?"

"I'm not sure, Greta, whether there is or not. But if there really is a Nisse, then maybe there are mermaids, too. This Little Mermaid is the most beautiful statue in Copenhagen. Some people think it is the loveliest one in all Europe."

"How large is Copenhagen, Anna?"

"It has about a million people. That's a third of the whole population of Denmark."

After a short walk the girls came to a large fountain, the largest that Greta had ever seen. At the top of the fountain there was a statue of four oxen, hitched to a plow and driven by a woman.

"This is called the Gefion Fountain, and it shows how the island of Zealand was made," explained Anna. "There is an old, old story that says that Denmark was given permission to take as much of Sweden as one could plow around in a day. So the ruler of Denmark changed her four sons into oxen and with them she plowed out the island on which Copenhagen stands. This statue shows how she had to whip them and urge them on in order to plow out this large island before night came."

"Oh, I wish we had brought Chouse along," said Greta. "He would love to play in this fountain."

"Chouse likes to play in lots of places where he shouldn't. I think it's a good thing that we left him home. He was very naughty at Tivoli the other night."

"He didn't mean to be naughty, Anna. Don't you think we can take him with us sometime?"

"Maybe; sometime," said Anna.

As the girls walked along they stopped now and then to look in the shop windows. Whenever Greta saw a window full of beautiful silverware or china she wanted to stop and buy a gift for her mother. This china, decorated with figures in a soft blue color, was called Royal Copenhagen Porcelain, and it was famous all over the world. The silverware was designed by a Danish artist named Georg Jensen, and it was also very famous.

"You will have lots of time to buy a gift for your mother, Greta. Don't stop now. I hope you aren't tired, for we have a hard climb ahead of us."

"A climb? Why, there isn't a hill in all Copenhagen."

"Do you see that church with the dome-shaped roof that's all green and shiny? Well, that's what we are going to climb."

"Oh, Anna, how can we? Why, it's taller than any of the other buildings in Copenhagen." Greta looked around her at the four- and five-story buildings. The shiny green dome of the church rose far above them.

"It is usually called the Marble Church," explained Anna, "because it is built of marble. Its real name is Frederick's Church, because it was built by King Frederick the Fifth."

"That shiny green dome isn't made of marble, is it?" asked Greta.

"Oh, no," laughed Anna. "The church cost a great deal to build, and when they had gotten as far as the dome, there was no money left. So all the housewives in Copenhagen gave their copper kettles to be melted up and used to make the dome of the church."

Inside the church it was cool and quiet. The girls started up the stairs and climbed for quite a while without saying a word. Greta began to think that they would never reach the top.

"Is it much farther, Anna?"

"This is the easy part of the climb, Greta. Don't give up yet."

They kept on climbing. The stairs wound round and round, and as the girls went higher and higher the stairs became more and more narrow. Finally they came to the place where the stairs were so narrow and so steep that a rope had been hung from the top to help those who climbed. It was like climbing the side of a mountain.

"Now we've come to the hard part," said Anna. "Take hold of this rope and don't let go."

"Anna, do you think we ought to go any higher?" Greta was frightened but she didn't want to admit it.

"Why, of course. There is no point in climbing this far and then stopping. You aren't afraid, are you, Greta?"

"I guess not."

"Don't look down at all, and then you'll be all right," advised Anna.

All of a sudden Greta remembered what her father had told her when she was climbing the tower in the forest. "A girl who is named after a queen must not be afraid of anything." After all, what was there to be afraid of? The stairs were narrow and steep, but she would hold tightly to the rope and she would be quite safe.

When Greta was about ten steps from the top, she did glance down and saw a handkerchief lying on the step below her. Very carefully she backed down one step, holding to the rope with her left hand and clutching her purse with her right. As she took her left hand off the rope to pick up the handkerchief, she started to lose her balance. In terror she grabbed at the rope. She didn't fall, but the handkerchief fell six or seven steps below her.

Anna had reached the top and called down to Greta. "What's the matter, Greta? You mustn't stop now, when you are almost at the top."

"Did you drop your handkerchief, Anna? There is one here on the stairs."

Anna felt in all her pockets. "No, I didn't drop mine, Greta."

Greta backed down the steps slowly and carefully. This time she would not let go of the rope at all. She laid her purse on the step above while she picked up the tiny handkerchief and put it in her pocket. In a short time she had reached the top of the stairs, where Anna was waiting for her. Greta showed her the dainty little handkerchief, with its wide border of lace.

"Look, Greta. It has an 'I' embroidered in one corner."

"I wonder whose it is, Anna."

As the girls walked out on the platform on top of the dome, they almost ran into two beautifully dressed ladies. Greta made her prettiest curtsy.

"Perhaps this handkerchief is yours," she said, holding it out to them.

"Why, yes, it is," said the taller of the two ladies. "Thank you very much, my dear." She and her companion then started down the narrow stairway.

"I'm sure I have seen that lady before, but I can't remember where," said Anna, when they had gone. "Come over here, Greta. I want to show you the King's palace."

Just a block away from the Marble Church was Amalienborg, the palace of the King. The palace consisted of four beautiful buildings, built around a large open square. Day and night, a tall guard in uniform marched slowly back and forth in front of the palace. King Christian is probably the best loved king in all Europe, and no one would ever want to harm him. Nevertheless, the guard is always there.

"That is the famous Round Tower over there," explained Anna. "Some day we will climb up in it. The building with all the dragons on the roof is the Stock Exchange." Anna went on to point out other interesting buildings. Greta was most interested in the harbor and the hundreds of boats, which seemed to be everywhere in the city. Little arms of the sea come right into the heart of Copenhagen, so there really are boats and bridges wherever one looks.

Finally the girls started home. After a long bus ride, they walked the few remaining blocks to Anna's home.

"Anna, why does that building have so many little porches? Do they all belong to one house?" Greta pointed to a long brick building that had fully a hundred porches.

"That's a new apartment building, Greta. More than a hundred families live there, and each family has its own little sun porch. Notice how each porch is built up solid on one side, but the other side and the top are open. In that way, every porch gets lots of sunshine, but the neighbors can't possibly see in it."

"They look more like bird cages than porches," said Greta.

"Oh, Greta," exclaimed Anna suddenly. "I believe that was the Princess."

"Who, Anna?"

"Why, the lady whose handkerchief you found. Let's hurry home and ask Mother. I'm sure she will know."

Greta told Anna's mother about the finding of the handkerchief, and Anna described the two ladies.

"Do you suppose it could have been Princess Ingrid, Mother?"

"I think it must have been, Anna. And the other lady was her sister Louise. You know that Princess Ingrid, the wife of our Crown Prince, is a Swedish princess by birth. Today's newspaper says that Princess Louise has come from Sweden to visit her sister Ingrid. Here is their picture. Does it look like the two whom you saw?"

Both girls looked at the paper eagerly. "Yes, it was Princess Ingrid and Princess Louise," said Greta. "Oh, I must write Hans about this. He has never even seen a Princess. And now I have seen two of them and even talked to one."




Chapter XI

The Best Surprise Of All


"Now it's our turn to show you some castles, Greta," said Anna, as she and her mother and Greta got in the car. Anna's mother had promised to take the girls on an all-day trip to northern Zealand. This part of Denmark is as full of castles as a plum-cake is full of plums.

After driving about twenty-five miles along the shore, they came to Kronborg Castle, in the town of Elsinore.

"This is the most famous castle in Denmark," said Anna's mother.

"Why?" asked Greta.

"Haven't you ever read 'Hamlet,' Greta?" asked Anna in surprise. "Kronborg Castle is where Hamlet lived. Only Shakespeare called it Elsinore, which is the name of the town instead of the castle."

As she walked across the old drawbridge and entered the outer yard of the castle, Greta thought that Kronborg was the loveliest castle she had ever seen. It was much larger and much more wonderful than Vosborg. When they came to the drawbridge across the second moat, Anna pointed out the high battlement where the ghost of the murdered king once walked.

"Does he still walk there, Anna?" asked Greta.

"Maybe he does, Greta. All we really know about him is what Shakespeare tells us in his play."

When they crossed the last bridge and passed through the last gateway into the inner courtyard of Kronborg, Greta stopped in surprise. "Oh, Anna, it's so large and so beautiful." Then, just to show that she wasn't really afraid of climbing, she asked, "Tante Elsie, do you suppose we could climb to the top of one of the towers?"

"Yes, I think so."

From the little balcony on the tower they looked out over the ocean.

"Is that an island across the water?" asked Greta.

"Oh, no, Greta. That is Sweden, only three miles away. In the olden days, Kronborg was a fortress that guarded the entrance to the Baltic Sea. All the ships that came from the North Sea into the Kattegat and then into the Baltic had to pass this point of land, and every ship that went by here had to pay money to Denmark. Up here in this very tower there were guards who watched all the ships to see that every one stopped and paid for the privilege of going past this point. In those days, Kronborg was the most important castle in Denmark."

"Don't they have to pay this money now?"

"No. About a hundred years ago Denmark stopped asking for this payment. Ships that are going to the Baltic Sea can now go through the Kiel Canal in Germany, instead of going all the way around Denmark," explained Anna's mother.

As they walked down the narrow, winding stairs, Anna suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Mother, we forgot to tell Greta why Kronborg is still an important castle."

"Maybe she already knows."

"No, I don't. Please tell me, Anna."

"According to an old, old story, Holger the Dane sleeps in the dungeon that is deep below this tower. If Denmark is ever in trouble of any kind, he will awake and come to her rescue."

"I've heard of Holger the Dane, of course," said Greta, "but I thought he was just an imaginary person."

"He's no more imaginary than a Nisse," said Anna, with a twinkle in her eye.

Greta hated to leave Kronborg, but when Anna told her that they were going to see even finer castles than this one, she was willing to go. After driving about fifteen miles, they turned off the main road and drove down a long avenue of beech trees. At the end of this avenue there was a large white building, with a four-cornered tower rising from the center.

"This is Fredensborg Palace, where the King and Queen live in the autumn," said Anna. "The King comes here for the hunting season."

"Can we go inside this palace?" asked Greta. "I would love to see the Queen's own room."

"Of course you would, little Margrete," said Tante Elsie. "We will ask the guide to show us the Queen's apartments."

It seemed to Greta that the guide took them through miles and miles of rooms. Even then, he showed them only a part of the two hundred and seventy rooms. The palace was much larger than it looked from the front, for it was very long.

"Surely this isn't the Queen's room," said Greta, as she stood in the doorway of the large, sunny bedroom.

"Why not, Greta?" asked Anna in surprise.

"Why, I thought it would be a very grand room, with furniture of gold."

Tante Elsie laughed. "Oh, Greta, you forget that the King and Queen of Denmark are people of simple tastes. This is a beautiful room, and it shows that the Queen likes lovely things. But it also shows that she does not spend money just to make a grand display."

"Perhaps the young lady would like to see the ballroom," said the guide. "I think she will find that it is all that she imagined and really fit for a queen."

He led them through several drawing-rooms and then into the ballroom. It was a large, square room, with windows clear up to the ceiling. The walls and ceiling were light blue, so that it seemed as if the room were open to the sky.

"This is what I always thought a royal palace would be like," said Greta in deep contentment.

"The ceiling of this room is eighty-one feet high," explained the guide. "It forms the tower in the middle of the palace."

Greta didn't want to leave this lovely room. She was fascinated by the pictures painted on the walls, the gorgeous hangings at the windows, and the large groups of glass candlesticks that hung from the ceiling and sparkled like icicles as the sun shone on them.

"Do you want to see the Queen's crown?" asked Anna, as they reluctantly left the beautiful ballroom.

"The Queen's crown?" said Greta. "The Queen is in Copenhagen now; surely her crown wouldn't be here at Fredensborg."

"She has a crown here, too. It is really lovelier than the one she wears at court," said Anna.

When they came to the garden behind the palace, Greta saw what Anna meant. In the middle of the sloping green lawn there was a huge bed of pansies, arranged in the shape of a crown. In the lower part of the crown the pansies were all purple, and in the upper part they were all gold.

"You are right, Anna. This is prettier than any crown of real gold."

"Come, girls. We must be on our way now," said Anna's mother. "We have a long ride ahead of us."

"Are we going to see another castle?" asked Greta.

"Yes, the finest one of all."

After a short drive through a large forest of beech trees, they came to Frederiksborg Castle. It was built on three small islands in the center of a lake. The castle itself was so large that it covered the islands completely and seemed to rise up out of the water itself. When King Frederick built the first castle here, nearly four hundred years ago, he purposely chose these islands in the center of a lake because they were the safest place for a castle. Enemies could not easily reach it here. When this old, old castle was destroyed by fire, a much finer one was built on the islands.

As they crossed the bridge to the main part of the castle, Greta saw two women entering the main doorway.

"Look, Anna," she said in great excitement. "Isn't that Princess Ingrid and Princess Louise going into the castle right this minute?"

When Anna looked, the women had disappeared. Greta was now more eager than ever to visit the castle. Maybe she would see her beloved Princess Ingrid again. Would the Princess remember the little girl who had found her handkerchief on the stairs of the Marble Church? Greta wondered. She was anxious to go inside, but Anna stopped in the courtyard to listen to the chimes on the castle tower. Every hour of the day the ringing chimes played a different tune.

"Let's see the Knights' Hall first," suggested Anna, when they went inside.

Greta wanted to say, "Let's follow Princess Ingrid," but she didn't know which way the Princess had gone. So she followed Anna without a word. The Knights' Hall was the largest room Greta had ever seen. The walls were covered with hangings whose colored threads were woven in such a way as to show scenes from Danish history. Greta thought she would like to study history if she could learn it from pictures like these instead of from textbooks. While she was looking at one of the hangings in a far corner of the room, Anna grabbed her arm.

"There they go, Greta. Don't you want to follow them?"

Then Greta remembered that Princess Ingrid was here in the castle. How could she have forgotten? She and Anna and Tante Elsie left the Knights' Hall and entered the long series of drawing-rooms that filled one wing of Frederiksborg. Greta scarcely looked at the paintings that hung on every wall. She wanted to see a real live princess, not a painted lady in a golden frame. They walked slowly through room after room, but not a glimpse of the Princess did they get.

"I guess Princess Ingrid and her sister have left the castle," said Greta, in an unhappy tone. She was ready now to leave it herself, for it held no further interest for her.

"Now for the most wonderful room of all," said Anna, after they had gone through all the drawing-rooms. She almost had to drag Greta to the chapel, which formed an important part of the castle itself. When the royal family lived at Frederiksborg, services were held here every Sunday. This chapel was really as large as a church. As they came in, the organist was playing softly, and Greta sat down to listen to the music, while Anna and her mother went to look at the paintings which were on exhibition in the balcony of the chapel.

Afterwards, Greta never remembered exactly how it happened. She must have closed her eyes for a minute in order to enjoy the music completely. The first thing she remembered was a soft voice saying, "Are you all alone here, my dear?"

When Greta had opened her eyes and recognized the speaker she jumped to her feet. "Why, it's the little girl who found my handkerchief the other day. How very nice to see you again. When we saw you here asleep, we thought you had gotten lost in this great castle."

Greta explained that her aunt and her cousin were up in the balcony. Then her eyes shone like stars and her heart almost skipped a beat as the lovely Princess Ingrid took a rosebud from the bouquet which she carried and held it out to Greta. "Perhaps you would like to wear this little flower," she said in her gentle way. Then, with another smile, she and the Princess Louise went out of the chapel.

Greta stood like one in a dream. Now she knew how the knights of olden times felt when they had been honored by the King. She, little Margrete, had a flower from the hands of the Crown Princess of Denmark. All her life long she would remember this moment.




Chapter XII

Chouse Is Homesick


"Chouse, will you promise to be a really good dog if we take you with us?"

Chouse answered Greta by barking three times, which meant, "Yes, I will."

Chouse had not been allowed to go with the girls since the evening at Tivoli. Greta didn't want to send home any more bad reports about him. Even now, she was almost afraid to open her father's letters, for each day she expected him to write that he had found a new home for Chouse. Sometimes Greta wished that her visit in Copenhagen could go on forever. Then she would never have to part with her pet.

"We'll climb up in the Round Tower first of all," said Anna, as she and Greta and Chouse started off gaily for a day's wandering. "Then you can look over the city and decide what you want to see next."

As they walked through the winding streets of the business district of Copenhagen, Anna told Greta the story of the famous Round Tower.

"It was built more than three hundred years ago by King Christian the Fourth," she explained. "He wanted to do something that would make the people remember him always, so he built this high tower as an observatory, where scientists could study the stars."

The Round Tower stood in the very heart of the city. At the time it was built it was the tallest building in Copenhagen, but now the Marble Church rose high above it.

Just before they reached the tower, Anna surprised Greta by saying, "This Tower is over a hundred feet high, but you won't have to climb a single step to reach the top."

"But how do we get to the top?"

"You'll see in just a minute, Greta."

"Come, Chouse," called Greta, as the girls reached the door of the Round Tower. The dog had started down the street ahead of them. He seemed to be looking for something, but he ran back quickly when his little mistress called.

Once inside the tower, the children started up a sloping walk that went up and up and up. At the same time it went round and round and round, like a corkscrew. Every little while Chouse dashed on ahead and then came running back, barking joyously.

"This is the funniest tower I have ever seen," said Greta. "Does this walk go to the very top?"

"Yes," answered Anna. "They say that a long time ago, when Peter the Great, the Czar of Russia, visited Denmark he rode up here on horseback, and at another time the Empress Catherine drove her coach and four up to the very top of the Round Tower."

Greta stopped a moment to look at the winding, sloping walk. "I guess one really could drive a coach up here. It seems to be wide enough."

From the platform on the top of the tower, the girls could look out over the city and the harbor. Wherever they looked, they saw towers and spires -- on the Parliament Building, on the Stock Exchange, on the castles, on the churches. Some of them were gilded and they gleamed brightly in the sunshine. Some of them were shiny green, like the dome of the Marble Church.

"What is that building whose tower has a crown at the top?" asked Greta.

"That is Christiansborg Castle, where the Parliament meets," explained Anna. "Would you like to visit it?"

"Yes. Let's go there next, if it isn't too far away," said Greta.

As they walked to Christiansborg, Anna told Greta a funny story about the Round Tower.

"Once upon a time a Norwegian was visiting Copenhagen. The people he visited were eager to show him all the wonderful and beautiful things in the city. The Norwegians are very proud of their own country, you know, and they like to boast about it. When they came to the Round Tower, the Danish people said, 'I'm sure you haven't anything like the Round Tower in Norway.' The Norwegian looked at it a minute and then answered, 'No, but if we had, it would be bigger and rounder.'"

Greta laughed. "But it couldn't be rounder, could it, Anna?"

"No, of course not. If a thing is round, it's round; you can't make it more or less round."

When they came to the entrance of Christiansborg, the guard told them that dogs were not allowed inside the castle.

"What will we do with him, Greta?" asked Anna.

"He will have to wait here at the door for us," said Greta. Turning to the dog she spoke to him very sternly, "Chouse, you must be a good dog and stay right here until Anna and I come out."

Chouse barked twice, as if to say, "All right," and then he lay down on the floor beside the guard.

"There has been a castle on this spot for eight hundred years," said Anna, as they walked through the long hall.

"But this castle looks quite new."

"Oh, there have been three or four castles here. When one burned down, they built another one. This one is about forty years old. It was really built as a home for the King, but he has never lived here. He likes Amalienborg better."

"I think I would, too," said Greta. "These rooms are so large and the ceilings are so high that it wouldn't seem like a home at all."

In one part of the castle there were two large halls, where the Parliament meets. One hall was for the House of Commons and the other was for the Upper House. Parliament did not meet during the summer, so Greta and Anna were allowed to visit both these stately halls. Greta thought they had seen everything in Christiansborg, when Anna suddenly announced, "We're going downstairs now, Greta. The most interesting part of Christiansborg is under the ground."

They went down a narrow stairway and carefully made their way through a dark, underground passage. Soon they came to a scattered heap of stones that marked the outlines of an old, old castle.

"This is the very first castle that was built here," explained Anna. "It was built by Bishop Absalon in 1167, when Copenhagen was just a little fishing village. Here is the old well that has been used for hundreds of years," she said as they walked on farther, "and here is a part of the Blue Tower where Princess Leonora Christina was kept a prisoner for many years."

"Oh, how could they keep anyone in such a terrible dungeon?" asked Greta, who shivered at the thought of spending even an hour in this gloomy place. "Let's go upstairs, Anna."

"All right," agreed Anna. "I wonder how Chouse and the guard have been getting along."

The guard looked extremely worried when the girls appeared. Chouse was nowhere in sight.

"I turned my back for just a minute," he said, "but when I turned around again your little dog was gone. He must have run outside, for you can see that he isn't here in the entrance hall."

Greta was so upset that she couldn't say a word.

"Come on, Greta. We shall have to go and hunt for him," said the practical Anna. "You go in one direction and I'll go in the other, and we'll meet here at Christiansborg in one hour."

There wasn't anything for Greta to do but to start looking. There was no use in telling Anna that she didn't know one street from another. There was no use in saying that she didn't have the faintest idea of where to look. Anna had already started in the other direction and Greta heard her calling, every now and then, "Here, Chouse. Come, Chouse."

So Greta started off bravely by herself. Christiansborg was built on a small island, so she crossed the Marble Bridge to the mainland and began walking slowly along the street by the side of the water. The shore was lined with fishing boats and on the sidewalk there were hundreds of little stands where the women were selling fresh fish which they took right out of the boats. Now and then Greta stopped to ask one of them if she had seen a little black and white dog. Not a one of them had seen him.

Greta decided that Chouse had not come along this street, so she walked back to the bridge and started down another street. Soon she came into a large open square filled with fruit and vegetable stands. The housewives of Copenhagen came here every morning during the summer to get the finest of fresh foods. Greta went from one stand to another, asking if they had seen her dog. Surely someone had seen him. Finally she came to the very last stand, where a pretty girl was selling flowers. By this time tears had filled Greta's eyes and there was such a lump in her throat that she could hardly speak.

"Why, yes," said the pretty girl. "I did see a little black and white dog not very long ago, but I don't know which way he went from here."

Greta smiled happily at this news. At last she was on the right trail. She left the market and took one of the narrow, winding streets that led through the main business district. Every little while she called, "Here, Chouse. Come, Chouse." But no little dog came in answer to her call. Maybe she had taken the wrong street after all.

Half blinded with tears she started across one of the large open squares. When part way across she saw Chouse trotting down the street ahead of her. Greta started to run and almost bumped into a bicycle. She was not used to city streets, crowded with bicycles and automobiles. By the time she had crossed the square, Chouse had disappeared.

Greta was tired and hungry, but she didn't stop to think about that. She was very much afraid that she couldn't find her way back to Christiansborg, but she didn't dare to think about that. Chouse was somewhere on the street in front of her, and she must find him. So the little girl kept on walking. The street had many curves, like all the older streets in Copenhagen. In some places the sidewalk was so narrow that Greta had to step out in the street to pass the people who stood looking in the shop windows.

Suddenly a terrible fear came over Greta. What if she never found Chouse? But she simply must find him -- and keep him. She knew now just how dear he was to her. As she walked along, the tears which filled her eyes spilled over on her cheeks. She had never been in this part of the city before, and now she was lost just as completely as Chouse was. Oh, if only she could find him, nothing else would matter. In some way she would get back to Christiansborg and Anna. In some way she would persuade her father not to send Chouse away. She looked at her watch. Goodness, she had already been walking an hour and a half! Anna would be worried about her. But Greta felt that she must keep on looking for her dog. She knew now that she was on the right street, at least.

Suddenly Greta came into a large open square that seemed familiar. She stopped a minute to look around. Maybe she wasn't really lost, after all. What was that large building over to the left? Then the tears stopped and her face broke into a happy smile. Why, it was the railroad station, where she had first come into Copenhagen. She lost all her fears about being lost, but a great wave of homesickness came over the little girl. Without quite knowing why, she crossed the busy square and went into the station.

She would sit down in the station and rest a little bit before going on with her search. Just as she found a seat on one of the long benches a familiar little black and white figure caught her eye. Tired as she was, Greta ran down the long station. Everyone turned to watch the excited little girl who was running so desperately. At last she reached him, and it really was her beloved Chouse.

He jumped up at her and barked joyously. "Oh, Chouse, why did you run away?" Greta took him in her arms and hugged him close. Then all of a sudden she understood why he had gone away. Right in front of her was the gate to the very train that she would take back home. Chouse was homesick, too. That was why he had come straight to the railroad station.

"Everything is all right, Chouse. We will be going home soon," said Greta, as a single happy tear fell on his black and white fur.




Chapter XIII

"Goodbye"


That evening at dinner the two girls told all about their adventures.

"How did you finally get back to Christiansborg, Greta?" asked her aunt.

"I asked a policeman to show me the way, and he was kind enough to go all the way back there with me. I don't think I could ever have found it by myself."

"Oh, Greta, I almost forgot," said her aunt. "Here is a letter that came for you today."

It was a letter from Hans, and Greta opened it eagerly.

"Dear Greta:

I have some very good news for you. Father has decided that you may keep Chouse after all. He found that it was the rabbits, and not Chouse, who had been killing the chickens. Every time we saw Chouse running after chickens he was really trying to get the rabbits.

We all miss you, Greta, and I think the kittens miss you as much as we do. They are getting so fat that you won't know them unless you come home pretty soon. Give Chouse three pats for me.

Your loving brother, Hans."

Greta showed the letter to Anna, saying, "I think it's time for me to go home, Anna. The kittens need me, and you can see that Chouse is very homesick."

"I'm afraid that Chouse isn't the only one who is homesick," teased Tante Elsie. "But we do understand, Greta. We want you to stay as long as you can, but if you should be at home with your pets, then you do what you think is best."

"Thank you, Tante Elsie. You have all been so wonderful to me and you have given me such a very good time. I shall never forget it."

Greta decided that she would go home the next day, so her uncle sent a telegram to her father. Anna helped her to pack, while Chouse stood by and watched.

"Of course it is really Chouse who is homesick, Anna," insisted Greta. "I could stay away all summer."

"Certainly you could," agreed Anna. "But I expect the kittens really do need you to look after them."

When Anna and Tante Elsie put Greta on the train the next day she was very brave. She had never before been on the train by herself, but she was not going to let anyone know that she was just a wee bit frightened. After all, Chouse was with her, and this time he would not get away from her. He seemed just as happy as she was to be going back home.

Greta kissed Anna and Tante Elsie goodbye. "This has been such a lovely summer," she said. "I hope Anna can come to visit me again next summer."

"And we want you to come back to Copenhagen next year," said Anna.

Greta waved to them until she could no longer see their handkerchiefs waving to her in answer. Then she leaned back in her seat, with Chouse on her lap.

"Chouse, this has been the grandest summer we have ever had," said Greta, giving her pet a loving hug. Then she took a withered rosebud from her purse and looked at it dreamily. "And I know that I am the happiest girl in all Denmark."

<eob>

The Lion Of Saint Mark: A Story Of Venice In The Fourteenth Century

By

G. A. Henty



Chapter 1: Venice.


"I suppose you never have such nights as these in that misty island of yours, Francisco?"

"Yes, we have," the other said stoutly. "I have seen just as bright nights on the Thames. I have stood down by Paul's Stairs and watched the reflection of the moon on the water, and the lights of the houses on the bridge, and the passing boats, just as we are doing now.

"But," he added honestly, "I must confess that we do not have such still, bright nights very often, while with you they are the rule, though sometimes even here a mist rises up and dims the water, just as it does with us."

"But I have heard you say that the stars are not so bright as we have them here."

"No, I do not think they are, Matteo. I do not remember now, but I do know, when I first came here, I was struck with the brightness of the stars, so I suppose there must have been a difference."

"But you like this better than England? You are glad that your father came out here?"

Francis Hammond did not answer at once.

"I am glad he came out," he said after a pause, "because I have seen many things I should never have seen if I had stayed at home, and I have learned to speak your tongue. But I do not know that I like it better than home. Things are different, you see. There was more fun at home. My father had two or three apprentices, whom I used to play with when the shop was closed, and there were often what you would call tumults, but which were not serious. Sometimes there would be a fight between the apprentices of one ward and another. A shout would be raised of 'Clubs!' and all the 'prentices would catch up their sticks and pour out of the shops, and then there would be a fight till the city guard turned out and separated them. Then there used to be the shooting at the butts, and the shows, and the Mayday revels, and all sorts of things. The people were more merry than you are here, and much more free. You see, the barons, who are the same to us that your great families are to you, had no influence in the city. You are a nation of traders, and so are we; but in London the traders have the power, and are absolute masters inside their own walls, caring nothing for the barons, and not much for the king. If anyone did wrong he got an open and fair trial. There was no fear of secret accusations. Everyone thought and said as he pleased. There was no Lion's Mouth, and no Council of Ten."

"Hush! hush! Francisco," the other said, grasping his arm. "Do not say a word against the council. There is no saying who may be listening."

And he looked nervously round to see if anyone was within earshot.

"There it is, you see," his companion said. "So long as we have a safe conscience, in London we are frightened at nothing, whereas here no one can say with certainty that he may not, before tomorrow morning, be lying in the dungeons of St. Mark, without the slightest idea in the world as to what his crime has been."

"There, there, Francisco," Matteo said uneasily. "Do talk about other things. Your notions may do very well in England, but are not safe to discuss here. Of course there are plenty here who would gladly see a change in some matters, but one cannot have everything; and, after all, when one has so much to be proud of, one need not grumble because everything is not just as one would like."

"Yes, you have much to be proud of," Francis Hammond agreed. "It is marvellous that the people of these scattered islets should be masters of the sea, that their alliance should be coveted by every power in Europe, that they should be the greatest trading community in the world. If I were not English I should like to be Venetian."

The speakers were standing at the edge of the water in front of the Palace of St. Mark. In the piazza behind them a throng of people were walking to and fro, gossiping over the latest news from Constantinople, the last rumour as to the doings of the hated rival of Venice, Genoa, or the purport of the letter which had, as everyone knew, been brought by the Bishop of Treviso from the pope to the seignory.

The moon was shining brightly overhead, and glittering in the waters of the lagoon, which were broken into innumerable little wavelets by the continual crossing and recrossing of the gondolas dotting its surface. There was a constant arrival and departure of boats from the steps, fifty yards to the right of the spot where the speakers were standing; but where they had stationed themselves, about halfway between the landing steps and the canal running down by the side of the ducal palace, there were but few people about.

Francis Hammond was a lad between fifteen and sixteen years old. His father was a merchant of London. He was a man of great enterprise and energy, and had four years before determined to leave his junior partner in charge of the business in London, and to come out himself for a time to Venice, so as to buy the Eastern stuffs in which he dealt at the headquarters of the trade, instead of paying such prices as the agents of the Venetian traders might demand in London.

He had succeeded beyond his expectations. In Venice there were constantly bargains to be purchased from ships returning laden with the spoils of some captured Genoese merchantman, or taken in the sack of some Eastern seaport. The prices, too, asked by the traders with the towns of Syria or the Black Sea, were but a fraction of those charged when these goods arrived in London. It was true that occasionally some of his cargoes were lost on the homeward voyage, captured either by the Genoese or the Moorish pirates; but even allowing for this, the profits of the trade were excellent.

The English merchant occupied a good position in Venice. The promptness of his payments, and the integrity of his dealings, made him generally respected; and the fact that he was engaged in trade was no drawback to his social position, in a city in which, of all others, trade was considered honourable, and where members of even the most aristocratic families were, with scarcely an exception, engaged in commerce. There were many foreign merchants settled in Venice, for from the first the republic had encouraged strangers to take up their residence there, and had granted them several privileges and advantages.

Between Venice and England there had always been good feeling. Although jealous of foreigners, England had granted the Venetians liberty to trade in London, Southampton, and some other towns as far back as the year 1304; and their relations had always been cordial, as there were no grounds for jealousy or rivalry between the two peoples; whereas the interference of France, Germany, Austria, and Hungary in the affairs of Italy, had frequently caused uneasiness to Venice, and had on several occasions embroiled her with one or other of the three last named powers. France had as yet taken a very minor part in the continual wars which were waged between the rival cities of Italy, and during the Crusades there had been a close alliance between her and Venice, the troops of the two nations fighting together at the siege of Constantinople, and causing the temporary overthrow of the Greek Empire of the East.

The rise of Venice had been rapid, and she owed her advancement to a combination of circumstances. In the first place, her insular position rendered her almost impervious to attack, and she had therefore no occasion to keep on foot any army, and was able to throw all her strength on to the sea, where Genoa was her only formidable rival. In the second place, her mercantile spirit, and her extensive trade with the East, brought in a steady influx of wealth, and her gold enabled her to purchase allies, to maintain lengthy struggles without faltering, and to emerge unscathed from wars which exhausted the resources, and crippled the powers, of her rivals.

The third source of her success lay in the spirit of her population. Like Rome in her early days, she was never cast down by reverses. Misfortune only nerved her to further exertions, and after each defeat she rose stronger than before. But the cause which, more than all, contributed to give to Venice her ascendancy among the cities of Italy, was her form of government. Democratic at first, as among all communities, it had gradually assumed the character of a close oligarchy, and although nominally ruled by a council containing a large number of members, her destinies were actually in the hands of the Doge, elected for life, and the Council of Ten, chosen from the great body of the council. Thus she had from the first been free from those factions which were the bane of Genoa and Florence. Some of the great families had from time to time come more prominently to the front than others, but none had attained predominant political power, and beyond a few street tumults of slight importance, Venice had not suffered from the popular tumults and uprisings which played so prominent a part in the history of her rivals.

Thus, undisturbed by discord at home, Venice had been able to give all her attention and all her care to her interests abroad, and her affairs, conducted as they were by her wisest citizens, with a single eye to the benefit of the state, had been distinguished by a rare sagacity. Her object had been single and uniform, to protect her own interests, and to prevent any one city on the mainland attaining such a preponderance as would render her a dangerous neighbour. Hence she was always ready to ally herself with the weaker against the stronger, and to aid with money and men any state struggling against an ambitious neighbour. Acting on this principle she by turns assisted Padua against Verona, and Verona against Padua, or either of them when threatened by the growing power of Milan, and at the end of a war she generally came out with an increased territory, and added importance.

It is probable that no community was ever governed, for hundreds of years, with such uniform wisdom and sagacity as was Venice; but the advantage was not without drawbacks. The vigilance of the Council of Ten in repressing plots, not unfrequently set on foot by the enemies of the republic, resulted in the adoption of a hateful system of espionage. The city was pervaded with spies, and even secret denunciations were attended to, and the slightest expression of discontent against the ruling authorities was severely punished. On the other hand, comparatively slight attention was paid to private crime. Assassinations were of frequent occurrence, and unless the victim happened to be very powerfully connected, no notice was taken when a man was found to be missing from his usual place, and his corpse was discovered floating in the lagoon. Consequently crimes of this kind were, in the great majority of cases, committed with impunity, and even when traced, the authors, if possessed of powerful protectors, seldom suffered any greater punishment than temporary banishment.

After standing for some time on the Piazzetta, the two lads turned and, entering the square of Saint Mark, mingled with the crowd. It was a motley one. Nobles in silks and satins jostled with fishermen of the lagoons. Natives of all the coasts and islands which owned the sway of Venice, Greeks from Constantinople, Tartar merchants from the Crimea, Tyrians, and inhabitants of the islands of the Aegean, were present in considerable numbers; while among the crowd, vendors of fruit and flowers from the mainland, and of fresh water or cooling drinks, sold their wares. The English lad's companion -- Matteo Giustiniani -- belonged to one of the leading families of Venice, and was able to name to Francis most of the nobles and persons of importance whom they passed.

"There is Pisani," he said. "Of course you know him. What a jolly, good-tempered looking fellow he is! The sailors would do anything for him, and they say he will have command of the next fleet that puts to sea. I wish I was going with him. There is sure to be a fierce fight when he comes across the Genoese. His father was one of our greatest admirals.

"That noble just behind him is Fiofio Dandolo. What a grand family they have been, what a number of great men they have given to the republic! I should like to have seen the grand old Doge who stormed the walls of Constantinople, and divided the Eastern empire among the crusading barons. He was a hero indeed.

"No; I don't know who that young noble in the green velvet cap and plum coloured dress is. O yes, I do, though; it is Ruggiero Mocenigo; he has been away for the last two years at Constantinople; he was banished for having killed Polo Morosini -- he declared it was in fair fight, but no one believed him. They had quarrelled a few days before over some question of the precedence of their families, and Morosini was found dead at the top of the steps close to the church of Saint Paolo. Some people heard a cry and ran up just as Mocenigo leapt into his gondola, but as it rowed off their shouts called the attention of one of the city guard boats which happened to be passing, and it was stopped. As his sword was still wet with blood, he could not deny that he was the author of the deed, but, as I said, he declared it was in fair fight. The Morosinis asserted that Polo's sword was undrawn, but the Mocenigo family brought forward a man, who swore that he was one of the first to arrive, and pick up the sword and place it in its scabbard to prevent its being lost. No doubt he lied; but as Mocenigo's influence in the council was greater than that of the Morosini, the story was accepted. However, the public feeling was so strong that they could not do less than sentence Ruggiero to two years' banishment. I suppose that has just expired, and he has returned from Constantinople. He had a bad reputation before this affair took place, but as his connections are so powerful, I suppose he will be received as if nothing had happened. There are plenty of others as bad as he is."

"It's a scandalous thing," Francis Hammond said indignantly, "that, just because they have got powerful connections, men should be allowed to do, almost with impunity, things for which an ordinary man would be hung. There ought to be one law for the rich as well as the poor."

"So there is as far as the state is concerned," his companion replied. "A noble who plots against the state is as certain of a place in the lowest dungeons as a fisherman who has done the same; but in other respects there is naturally some difference."

"Why naturally?" Francis retorted. "You belong to a powerful family, Giustiniani, and my father is only a trader, but I don't see that naturally you have any more right to get me stabbed in the back, than I have to get you put out of the way."

"Naturally perhaps not," Matteo laughed; "but you see it has become a second nature to us here in Venice. But seriously I admit that the present state of things has grown to be a scandal, and that the doings of some of our class ought to be put down with a strong hand."

"Well, I shall say goodnight now," the English boy said. "My father doesn't like my being out after ten. He keeps up his English habits of shutting up early, and has not learned to turn night into day as you do here in Venice."

"The bell has just tolled the hour, Francis," his father said as he entered.

"I didn't think it was quite so late, father; the Piazza is crowded. I really do not think there is one person in Venice who goes to bed so early as we do. It is so pleasant in the moonlight after the heat of the day."

"That is true enough, Francis, but men are meant to sleep at night and to work in the day. I think our fathers carried this too far when they rang the curfew at eight; but ten is quite late enough for any honest man to be about in the streets, and the hours of the early morning are just as pleasant and far more healthy than those of the evening, especially in a place like this where the mists rise from the water, to say nothing of the chance of meeting a band of wild gallants on their way homewards heated with wine, or of getting a stab in the back from some midnight assassin. However, I do not blame Venice for enjoying herself while she can. She will have more serious matters to attend to soon."

"But she is at peace with every one at present, father. I thought when she signed the treaty with Austria after a year's fighting, she was going to have rest for a time."

"That was only the beginning of the trouble, Francis, and the council knew it well; that was why they made such terms with Austria as they did. They knew that Austria was only acting in accord with Hungary, and Padua, and Genoa. The others were not ready to begin, so Austria came on her own account to get what booty and plunder she could. But the storm is gathering, and will burst before long. But do not let us stand talking here any longer. It is high time for you to be in bed."

But though Francis retired to his room, it was more than an hour before he got into bed. His window looked down upon one of the canals running into the Grand Canal. Gondolas lighted by lanterns, or by torches held by servitors, passed constantly backwards and forwards beneath his window, and by leaning out he could see the passing lights of those on the Grand Canal. Snatches of song and laughter came up to him, and sometimes the note of a musical instrument. The air was soft and balmy, and he felt no inclination for sleep.

Francis thought over what his father had said of the probability of war, as he sat at his window, and wished that he were a couple of years older and could take part in the struggle. The Venetian fleet had performed such marvels of valour, that, in the days when military service was almost the sole avenue to distinction and fortune, the desire to take part in a naval expedition, which promised unusual opportunities of gaining credit and renown, was the most natural thing possible for a boy of spirit.

Francis was a well built lad of nearly sixteen. He had, until he left London when about twelve years old, taken his full share in the rough sports which formed so good a training for the youths of England, and in which the citizens of London were in no way behind the rest of the kingdom. He had practised shooting with a light bow and arrows, in company with boys of his own age, in the fields outside the city walls; had engaged in many a rough tussle with light clubs and quarterstaffs; and his whole time -- except for an hour or two daily which he had, as the son of a well to do citizen, spent in learning to read and write -- had been occupied in games and exercises of one kind or other.

Since his arrival in Venice he had not altogether discontinued his former habits. At his earnest solicitation, his father had permitted him to attend the School of Arms, where the sons of patricians and well-to-do merchants learned the use of sword and dagger, to hurl the javelin, and wield the mace and battleaxe; and was, besides, a frequenter of some of the schools where old soldiers gave private lessons in arms to such as could afford it; and the skill and strength of the English lad excited no slight envy among the young Venetian nobles. Often, too, he would go out to one of the sandy islets, and there setting up a mark, practise with the bow. His muscles too, had gained strength and hardness by rowing. It was his constant habit of an evening, when well away from the crowded canals in the gondola, with Giuseppi, the son and assistant of his father's gondolier, to take an oar, for he had thoroughly mastered the difficult accomplishment of rowing well in a gondola; but he only did this when far out from the city, or when the darkness of evening would prevent his figure from being recognized by any of his acquaintances, for no Venetian of good family would demean himself by handling an oar. Francis, however, accustomed to row upon the Thames, could see no reason why he should not do the same in a gondola, and in time he and his companion could send the boat dancing over the water, at a rate which enabled them to overtake and distance most pair-oared boats.

After breakfast next morning he went down to the steps, where Beppo and Giuseppi, in their black cloth suits with red sashes round their waists, were waiting with the gondola in which Mr. Hammond was going out to Malamocco, to examine a cargo which had the day before arrived from Azoph. Giuseppi jumped ashore.

"I have heard of just the gondola to suit you, Messer Francisco, and you can get her a bargain."

"What is she like, Giuseppi?"

"She belongs to a man out at Lido. She was built for the race two years ago, but her owner fell sick and was unable to start. He has not got strong again, and wants to sell his boat, which is far too light for ordinary work. They say she is almost like an eggshell, and you and I will be able to send her along grandly. She cost four ducats, but he will sell her for two."

"That is capital, Giuseppi. This gondola is all well enough for my father, but she is very heavy. This evening we will row over to Lido and look at her."

A few minutes later Mr. Hammond came down. Beppo and his son took off their jackets, and in their snow white shirts and black trousers, set off by the red scarf and a red ribbon round their broad hats, took their places on the bow and stern. Mr. Hammond sat down on the cushions in the middle of the boat, and with an easy, noiseless motion the gondola glided away from the stairs. Francis, with a little sigh, turned away and strolled off for a couple of hours' work with the preceptor, with whom he had continued his studies since he came to Venice.

This work consisted chiefly of learning various languages, for in those days there was little else to learn. Latin was almost universally spoken by educated men in southern Europe, and Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen were able to converse in this common medium. French Francis understood, for it was the language in use in the court and among the upper classes in England. Italian he picked up naturally during his residence, and spoke it with the facility of a native. He could now converse freely in Latin, and had some knowledge of German. At the same school were many lads of good Venetian families, and it was here that he had first made the acquaintance of Matteo Giustiniani, who was now his most intimate friend.

Matteo, like all the young nobles of Venice, was anxious to excel in military exercises, but he had none of the ardour for really hard work which distinguished his friend. He admired the latter's strength and activity, but could not bring himself to imitate him, in the exercises by which that strength was attained, and had often remonstrated with him upon his fondness for rowing.

"It is not seemly, Francisco, for a gentleman to be labouring like a common gondolier. These men are paid for doing it; but what pleasure there can be in standing up working that oar, till you are drenched with perspiration, I cannot understand. I don't mind getting hot in the School of Arms, because one cannot learn to use the sword and dagger without it, but that's quite another thing from tugging at an oar."

"But I like it, Matteo; and see how strong it has made my muscles, not of the arm only, but the leg and back. You often say you envy me my strength, but you might be just as strong if you chose to work as I do. Besides, it is delightful, when you are accustomed to it, to feel the gondola flying away under your stroke."

"I prefer feeling it fly away under some one else's stroke, Francisco. That is pleasant enough, I grant; but the very thought of working as you do throws me into a perspiration. I should like to be as strong as you are, but to work as a gondolier is too high a price to pay for it."

That evening, Francis crossed the lagoon in the gondola with Giuseppi, to inspect the boat he had heard of. It was just what he wanted. In appearance it differed in no way from an ordinary gondola, but it was a mere shell. The timbers and planking were extremely light, and the weight of the boat was little more than a third of that of other craft. She had been built like a working gondola, instead of in the form of those mostly used for racing, because her owner had intended, after the race was over, to plank her inside and strengthen her for everyday work. But the race had never come off, and the boat lay just as she had come from the hands of her builder, except that she had been painted black, like other gondolas, to prevent her planks from opening. When her owner had determined to part with her he had given her a fresh coat of paint, and had put her in the water, that her seams might close up.

"I don't like parting with her," the young fisherman to whom she belonged said. "I tried her once or twice, and she went like the wind, but I got fever in my bones and I am unlikely to race again, and the times are hard, and I must part with her."

Francis and Giuseppi gave her a trial, and were delighted with the speed and ease with which she flew through the water. On their return Francis at once paid the price asked for her. His father made him a handsome allowance, in order that he might be able to mix, without discomfort, with the lads of good family whom he met at his preceptor's and at the schools of arms. But Francis did not care for strolling in the Piazza, or sitting for hours sipping liquors. Still less did he care for dress or finery. Consequently he had always plenty of money to indulge in his own special fancies.

As soon as the bargain was completed, Giuseppi took his place in the old gondola, while Francis took the oar in his new acquisition, and found to his satisfaction that with scarcely an effort he could dart ahead of his companion and leave him far behind. By nightfall the two gondolas were fastened, side by side, behind the gaily painted posts which, in almost all Venetian houses, are driven into the canal close to the steps, and behind which the gondolas belonging to the house lie safe from injury by passing craft.

"I have bought another gondola, father," Francis said the next morning. "She is a very light, fast craft, and I got her cheap."

"I don't see what you wanted another gondola for, Francis. I do not use mine very much, and you are always welcome to take it when I do not want it."

"Yes, father, but you often use it in the evening, and that is just the time when one wants to go out. You very often only take Beppo with you, when you do not go on business, and I often want a boat that I could take with Giuseppi. Besides, your gondola is a very solid one, and I like passing people."

"Young people always want to go fast," Mr. Hammond said. "Why, I can't make out. However, Francis, I am not sorry that you have got a boat of your own, for it has happened several times lately, that when in the evening I have gone down intending to row round to the Piazzetta, I have found the boat gone, and have had to walk. Now I shall be able to rely on finding Beppo asleep in the boat at the steps. In future, since you have a boat of your own, I shall not be so particular as to your being in at ten. I do not so much mind your being out on the water, only you must promise me that you will not be in the streets after that hour. There are frequent broils as the evening gets on, not to mention the danger of cutthroats in unfrequented lanes; but if you will promise me that you will never be about the streets after half past nine, I will give you leave to stay out on the water till a later hour; but when you come in late be careful always to close and bar the door, and do not make more noise than you can help in coming up to your room."

Francis was much pleased with this concession, for the obligation to return at ten o'clock, just when the temperature was most delightful and the Grand Canal at its gayest, had been very irksome to him. As to the prohibition against being in the streets of Venice after half past nine, he felt that no hardship whatever, as he found no amusement in strolling in the crowded Piazza.



Chapter 2: A Conspiracy.


"Who are those ladies, Matteo?" Francis asked his friend one evening, as the latter, who was sitting with him in his gondola, while Giuseppi rowed them along the Grand Canal, half rose and saluted two girls in a passing gondola.

"They are distant cousins of mine, Maria and Giulia Polani. They only returned a short time since from Corfu. Their father is one of the richest merchants of our city. He has for the last three years been living in Corfu, which is the headquarters of his trade. The family is an old one, and has given doges to Venice. They are two of our richest heiresses, for they have no brothers. Their mother died soon after the birth of Giulia."

"They both look very young," Francis said.

"Maria is about sixteen, her sister two years younger. There will be no lack of suitors for their hands, for although the family is not politically powerful, as it used to be, their wealth would cause them to be gladly received in our very first families."

"Who was the middle-aged lady sitting between them?"

"She is only their duenna," Matteo said carelessly. "She has been with them since they were children, and their father places great confidence in her. And he had need to, for Maria will ere long be receiving bouquets and perfumed notes from many a young gallant."

"I can quite fancy that," Francis said, "for she is very pretty as well as very rich, and, as far as I have observed, the two things do not go very often together. However, no doubt by this time her father has pretty well arranged in his mind whom she is to marry."

"I expect so," agreed Matteo.

"That is the worst of being born of good family. You have got to marry some one of your father's choice, not your own, and that choice is determined simply by the desire to add to the political influence of the family, to strengthen distant ties, or to obtain powerful connections. I suppose it is the same everywhere, Matteo, but I do think that a man or woman ought to have some voice in a matter of such importance to them."

"I think so, too, at the present time," Matteo laughed; "but I don't suppose that I shall be of that opinion when I have a family of sons and daughters to marry.

"This gondola of yours must be a fast one indeed, Francisco, for with only one rower she keeps up with almost all the pair oared boats, and your boy is not exerting himself to the utmost, either."

"She can fly along, I can tell you, Matteo. You shall come out in her some evening when Giuseppi and I both take oars. I have had her ten days now, and we have not come across anything that can hold her for a moment."

"It is always useful," Matteo said, "to have a fast boat. It is invaluable in case you have been getting into a scrape, and have one of the boats of the city watch in chase of you."

"I hope I sha'n't want it for any purpose of that sort," Francis answered, laughing. "I do not think I am likely to give cause to the city watch to chase me."

"I don't think you are, Francisco, but there is never any saying."

"At any rate it is always useful to be able to go fast if necessary, and if we did want to get away, I do not think there are many pair-oared gondolas afloat that would overtake us, though a good four oar might do so. Giuseppi and I are so accustomed to each other's stroke now, that though in a heavy boat we might not be a match for two men, in a light craft like this, where weight does not count for so much, we would not mind entering her for a race against the two best gondoliers on the canals, in an ordinary boat."

A few evenings later, Francis was returning homewards at about half past ten, when, in passing along a quiet canal, the boat was hailed from the shore.

"Shall we take him, Messer Francisco?" Giuseppi asked in a low voice; for more than once they had late in the evening taken a fare.

Francis rowed, like Giuseppi, in his shirt, and in the darkness they were often taken for a pair-oared gondola on the lookout for a fare. Francis had sometimes accepted the offer, because it was an amusement to see where the passenger wished to go -- to guess whether he was a lover hastening to keep an appointment, a gambler on a visit to some quiet locality, where high play went on unknown to the authorities, or simply one who had by some error missed his own gondola, and was anxious to return home. It made no difference to him which way he rowed. It was always possible that some adventure was to be met with, and the fare paid was a not unwelcome addition to Giuseppi's funds.

"Yes, we may as well take him," he replied to Giuseppi's question.

"You are in no hurry to get to bed, I suppose?" the man who had hailed them said as the boat drew up against the wall of the canal.

"It does not make much difference to us, if we are well paid, to keep awake," Giuseppi said.

Upon such occasions he was always the spokesman.

"You know San Nicolo?"

"Yes, I know it," Giuseppi said; "but it is a long row -- six miles, if it's a foot."

"You will have to wait there for an hour or two, but I will give you half a ducat for your night's work."

"What do you say, partner?" Giuseppi asked Francis.

"We may as well go," the lad replied after a moment's pause.

The row was certainly a long one, but the night was delightful, and the half ducat was a prize for Giuseppi; but what influenced Francis principally in accepting was curiosity. San Nicolo was a little sandy islet lying quite on the outside of the group of islands. It was inhabited only by a few fishermen; and Francis wondered that a man, evidently by his voice and manner of address belonging to the upper class, should want to go to such a place as this at this hour of the night. Certainly no ordinary motives could actuate him.

As the stranger took his place in the boat, Francis saw by the light of the stars that he was masked; but there was nothing very unusual in this, as masks were not unfrequently worn at night by young gallants, when engaged on any frolic in which they wished their identity to be unrecognized. Still it added to the interest of the trip; and dipping his oar in the water he set out at a slow, steady stroke well within his power. He adopted this partly in view of the length of the row before them, partly because the idea struck him that it might be as well that their passenger should not suspect that the boat was other than an ordinary gondola. The passenger, however, was well satisfied with the speed, for they passed two or three other gondolas before issuing from the narrow canals, and starting across the broad stretch of the lagoon.

Not a word was spoken until the gondola neared its destination. Then the passenger said:

"You row well. If you like the job I may employ you again."

"We are always ready to earn money," Francis said, speaking in a gruff voice quite unlike his own.

"Very well. I will let you know, as we return, what night I shall want you again. I suppose you can keep your mouths shut on occasion, and can go without gossiping to your fellows as to any job on which you are employed?"

"We can do that," Francis said. "It's no matter to us where our customers want to go, if they are willing to pay for it; and as to gossiping, there is a saying, 'A silver gag is the best for keeping the mouth closed.'"

A few minutes later the bow of the gondola ran up on the sandy shore of San Nicolo. The stranger made his way forward and leapt out, and with the words, "It may be two hours before I am back," walked rapidly away.

"Why, Messer Francisco," Giuseppi said when their passenger was well out of hearing, "what on earth possessed you to accept a fare to such a place as this? Of course, for myself, I am glad enough to earn half a ducat, which will buy me a new jacket with silver buttons for the next festa; but to make such a journey as this was too much, and it will be very late before we are back. If the padrone knew it he would be very angry."

"I didn't do it to enable you to earn half a ducat, Giuseppi, although I am glad enough you should do so; but I did it because it seemed to promise the chance of an adventure. There must be something in this. A noble -- for I have no doubt he is one -- would never be coming out to San Nicolo, at this time of night, without some very strong motive. There can be no rich heiress whom he might want to carry off living here, so that can't be what he has come for. I think there must be some secret meeting, for as we came across the lagoon I saw one or two beats in the distance heading in this direction. Anyhow, I mean to try and find out what it all means."

"You had better not, sir," Giuseppi said earnestly. "If there is any plot on foot we had best not get mixed up in it. No one is too high or too low to escape the vengeance of the council, if found plotting against the state; and before now gondolas, staved in and empty, have been found drifting on the lagoons, and the men who rowed them have never been heard of again. Once in the dungeons of Saint Mark it would be of no use to plead that you had entered into the affair simply for the amusement. The fact that you were not a regular boatman would make the matter all the worse, and the maxim that 'dead men tell no tales' is largely acted upon in Venice.

"I think, sir, the best plan will be to row straight back, and leave our fare to find his way home as best he may."

"I mean to find something out about it if I can, Giuseppi. A state secret may be dangerous, but it may be valuable. Anyhow, there can be no great risk in it. On the water I think we can show our heels to anyone who chases us; and once in Venice, we are absolutely safe, for no one would suspect a gondola of Mr. Hammond, the English merchant, of having any connection with a hired craft with its two gondoliers."

"That is true enough, sir; but I don't like it for all that. However, if you have made up your mind to it, there is nothing more to be said."

"Very well. You stay here, and I will go and look round. You had better get the gondola afloat, and be ready to start at the instant, so that, if I should have to run for it, I can jump on board and be off in a moment."

Francis made his way quietly up to the little group of huts inhabited by the fishermen, but in none of them could he see any signs of life -- no lights were visible, nor could he hear the murmur of voices. There were, he knew, other buildings scattered about on the island; but he had only the light of the stars to guide him, and, not knowing anything of the exact position of the houses, he thought it better to return to the boat.

"I can find no signs of them, Giuseppi."

"All the better, Messer Francisco. There are some sorts of game, which it is well for the safety of the hunter not to discover. I was very glad, I can tell you, when I heard your whistle, and made out your figure returning at a walk. Now you are back I will take an hour's nap, and I should advise you to do the same."

But Francis had no thought of sleep, and sat down at his end of the gondola, wondering over the adventure, and considering whether or not it would be worth while to follow it up another night. That it was a plot of some sort he had little doubt. There were always in Venice two parties, equally anxious perhaps for the prosperity of the republic, but differing widely as to the means by which that prosperity would be best achieved, and as to the alliances which would, in the long run, prove most beneficial to her. There were also needy and desperate men ready enough to take bribes from any who might offer them, and to intrigue in the interest of Padua or Ferrara, Verona, Milan, or Genoa -- whichever might for the time be their paymasters.

Francis was English, but he had been long enough in Venice to feel a pride in the island city, and to be almost as keenly interested in her fortunes as were his companions and friends; and a certain sense of duty, mingled with his natural love of adventure, decided him to follow up the chance which had befallen him, and to endeavour to ascertain the nature of the plot which was, he had little doubt, being hatched at San Nicolo.

In a very few minutes the regular breathing of Giuseppi, who had curled himself up in the bottom of the boat, showed that he had gone to sleep; and he did not stir until, an hour and a half after the return of Francis, the latter heard the fall of footsteps approaching the gondola.

"Wake up, Giuseppi, here comes our fare!"

Francis stood up and stretched himself as the stranger came alongside, as if he too had been fast asleep.

"Take me back to the spot where I hailed you," the fare said briefly, as he stepped into the boat and threw himself back on the cushions, and without a word the lads dipped their oars in the water and the gondola glided away towards Venice.

Just as they reached the mouth of the Grand Canal, and were about to turn into it, a six-oared gondola shot out from under the point, and a voice called out:

"Stop, in the name of the republic, and give an account of yourselves!"

"Row on," the passenger exclaimed, starting up. "Ten ducats if you can set me safely on shore."

Had the lads been real gondoliers, it is probable that even this tempting offer would not have induced them to disregard the order from the galley, for they would have run no slight risk in so doing. But Francis had no desire to be caught, and perhaps imprisoned for a considerable time, until he was able to convince the council that his share of the night's work had been merely the result of a boyish freak. With two strokes of his oar, therefore, he swept the boat's head round, thereby throwing their pursuers directly astern of them; then he and Giuseppi threw their whole weight into the stroke, and the boat danced over the water at a pace very different to that at which it had hitherto proceeded.

But, fast as they went, the galley travelled somewhat faster, the rowers doing their utmost in obedience to the angry orders of their officer; and had the race been continued on a broad stretch of water, it would sooner or later have overhauled the gondola. But Francis was perfectly aware of this, and edged the boat away towards the end of the Piazzetta, and then, shooting her head round, dashed at full speed along the canal by the side of the ducal palace, the galley being at the time some forty yards behind.

"The first to the right," Francis said, and with scarce a pause in their speed, they turned off at right angles up the first canal they came to. Again and again they turned and twisted, regardless of the direction in which the canals took them, their only object being to gain on their pursuers, who lost considerably at each turn, being obliged always to check their speed, before arriving at each angle, to allow the boat to go round.

In ten minutes she was far behind, and they then abated their speed, and turned the boat's head in the direction in which they wished to go.

"By San Paolo," the stranger said, "that was well done! You are masters of your craft, and sent your boat along at a pace which must have astonished those fellows in that lumbering galley. I had no reason to fear them, but I do not care to be interfered with and questioned by these jacks-in-office of the republic."

A few minutes later they reached the place where he embarked, and as he got out he handed the money he had promised to Giuseppi.

"Next Thursday night," he said, "at half past ten."

"It seems a dangerous sort of service, signor," Giuseppi said hesitatingly. "It is no joke to disobey the officers of the republic, and next time we may not be so fortunate."

"It's worth taking a little risk when you are well paid," the other said, turning away, "and it is not likely we shall run against one of the state galleys another night."

"Home, now, Giuseppi," Francis said, "we can talk about it tomorrow. It's the best night's work you ever did in your life, and as I have had a grand excitement we are both contented."

During the next few days Francis debated seriously with himself whether to follow up the adventure; but he finally decided on doing so, feeling convinced that there could be no real danger, even were the boat seized by one of the state galleys; as his story, that he had gone into the matter simply to discover whether any plot was intended against the republic, would finally be believed, as it would be beyond the bounds of probability that a lad of his age could himself have been concerned in such a conspiracy. As to Giuseppi, he offered no remonstrance when Francis told him that he intended to go out to San Nicolo on the following Thursday, for the ten ducats he had received were a sum larger than he could have saved in a couple of years' steady work, and were indeed quite a fortune in his eyes. Another such a sum, and he would be able, when the time came, to buy a gondola of his own, to marry, and set up housekeeping in grand style. As for the danger, if Francis was willing to run it he could do the same; for after all, a few months' imprisonment was the worst that could befall him for his share in the business.

Before the day came Matteo Giustiniani told Francis a piece of news which interested him.

"You remember my cousin Maria Polani, whom we met the other evening on the Grand Canal?"

"Of course I do, Matteo. What of her?"

"Well, what do you think? Ruggiero Mocenigo, whom I pointed out to you on the Piazza -- the man who had been banished for two years -- has asked for her hand in marriage."

"He is not going to have it, I hope," Francis said indignantly. "It would be a shame, indeed, to give her to such a man as that."

"That is just what her father thought, Francisco, and he refused Ruggiero pretty curtly, and told him, I believe, he would rather see her in her grave than married to him; and I hear there was a regular scene, and Ruggiero went away swearing Polani should regret his refusal."

"I suppose your cousin does not care much about his threats," Francis said.

"I don't suppose he cares much about them," Matteo replied; "but Ruggiero is very powerfully connected, and may do him damage, not to speak of the chance of his hiring a bravo to stab him on the first opportunity. I know my father advised Polani to be very cautious where he went at night for a time. This fellow, Ruggiero, is a dangerous enemy. If he were to get Polani stabbed, it would be next to impossible to prove that it was his doing, however strong the suspicion might be; for mere suspicion goes for nothing against a man with his influence and connections. He has two near relations on the council, and if he were to burn down Polani's mansion, and to carry off Maria, the chances are against his being punished, if he did but keep out of the way for a few months."

As in England powerful barons were in the habit of waging private wars with each other, and the carrying off a bride by force was no very rare event, this state of things did not appear, to Francis, as outrageous as it would do to an English lad of the present day, but he shook his head.

"Of course one understands, Matteo, that everywhere powerful nobles do things which would be regarded as crimes if done by others; but, elsewhere, people can fortify their houses, and call out and arm their retainers, and stand on their guard. But that here, in a city like this, private feuds should be carried on, and men stabbed when unconscious of danger, seems to me detestable."

"Of course it isn't right," Matteo said carelessly, "but I don't know how you are going to put a stop to it; and after all, our quarrels here only involve a life or two, while in other countries nobles go to war with each other, and hundreds of lives, of people who have nothing to do with the quarrel, may be sacrificed."

This was a light in which Francis had hardly looked upon the matter before, and he was obliged to own that even private assassination, detestable as it was, yet caused much less suffering than feudal war. Still, he was not disposed entirely to give in to his friend's opinion.

"That is true, Matteo; but at the same time, in a war it is fair fighting, while a stab in the back is a cowardly business."

"It is not always fair fighting," Matteo replied. "You hear of castles being surprised, and the people massacred without a chance of resistance; of villages being burned, and the people butchered unresistingly. I don't think there is so much more fairness one way than the other. Polani knows he will have to be careful, and if he likes he can hire bravos to put Ruggiero out of the way, just as Ruggiero can do to remove him. There's a good deal to be said for both sides of the question."

Francis felt this was so, and that although he had an abhorrence of the Venetian method of settling quarrels, he saw that as far as the public were concerned, it was really preferable to the feudal method, of both parties calling out their retainers and going to war with each other, especially as assassinations played no inconsiderable part in the feudal struggles of the time.

On the Thursday night the gondola was in waiting at the agreed spot. Francis had thought it probable that the stranger might this time ask some questions as to where they lived and their usual place of plying for hire, and would endeavour to find out as much as he could about them, as they could not but suspect that he was engaged in some very unusual enterprise. He had therefore warned Giuseppi to be very careful in his replies. He knew that it was not necessary to say more, for Giuseppi had plenty of shrewdness, and would, he was sure, invent some plausible story without the least difficulty, possessing, as he did, plenty of the easy mendacity so general among the lower classes of the races inhabiting countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Their fare came down to the gondola a few minutes after the clock had tolled the half hour.

"I see you are punctual," he said, "which is more than most of you men are."

Francis was rowing the bow oar, and therefore stood with his back to the passenger, and was not likely to be addressed by him, as he would naturally turn to Giuseppi, who stood close behind him. As Francis had expected, as soon as they were out on the lagoon the passenger turned to his companion and began to question him.

"I cannot see your faces," he said; "but by your figures you are both young, are you not?"

"I am but twenty-two," Giuseppi said, "and my brother is a year younger."

"And what are your names?"

"Giovanni and Beppo Morani."

"And is this boat your own?"

"It is, signor. Our father died three years ago, leaving us his boat."

"And where do you usually ply?"

"Anywhere, signor, just as the fancy seizes us. Sometimes one place is good, sometimes another."

"And where do you live?"

"We don't live anywhere, signor. When night comes, and business is over, we tie up the boat to a post, wrap ourselves up, and go to sleep at the bottom. It costs nothing, and we are just as comfortable there as we should be on straw in a room."

"Then you must be saving money."

"Yes; we are laying money by. Some day, I suppose, we shall marry, and our wives must have homes. Besides, sometimes we are lazy and don't work. One must have some pleasure, you know."

"Would you like to enter service?"

"No, signor. We prefer being our own masters; to take a fare or leave it as we please."

"Your boat is a very fast one. You went at a tremendous rate when the galley was after us the other night."

"The boat is like others," Giuseppi said carelessly; "but most men can row fast when the alternative is ten ducats one way or a prison the other."

"Then there would be no place where I could always find you in the daytime if I wanted you?"

"No, signor; there would be no saying where we might be. We have sometimes regular customers, and it would not pay us to disappoint them, even if you paid us five times the ordinary fare. But we could always meet you at night anywhere, when you choose to appoint."

"But how can I appoint," the passenger said irritably, "if I don't know where to find you?"

Giuseppi was silent for a stroke or two.

"If your excellency would write in figures, half past ten or eleven, or whatever time we should meet you, just at the base of the column of the palace -- the corner one on the Piazzetta -- we should be sure to be there sometime or other during the day, and would look for it."

"You can read and write, then?" the passenger asked.

"I cannot do that, signor," Giuseppi said, "but I can make out figures. That is necessary to us, as how else could we keep time with our customers? We can read the sundials, as everyone else can; but as to reading and writing, that is not for poor lads like us."

The stranger was satisfied. Certainly every one could read the sundials; and the gondoliers would, as they said, understand his figures if he wrote them.

"Very well," he said. "It is probable I shall generally know, each time I discharge you, when I shall want you again; but should there be any change, I will make the figures on the base of the column at the corner of the Piazzetta, and that will mean the hour at which you are to meet me that night at the usual place."

Nothing more was said, until the gondola arrived at the same spot at which it had landed the passenger on the previous occasion.

"I shall be back in about the same time as before," the fare said when he alighted.

As he strode away into the darkness, Francis followed him. He was shoeless, for at that time the lower class seldom wore any protection to the feet, unless when going a journey over rough ground. Among the gondoliers shoes were unknown; and Francis himself generally took his off, for coolness and comfort, when out for the evening in his boat.

He kept some distance behind the man he was following, for as there were no hedges or inclosures, he could make out his figure against the sky at a considerable distance. As Francis had expected, he did not make towards the village, but kept along the island at a short distance from the edge of the water.

Presently Francis heard the dip of oars, and a gondola ran up on the sands halfway between himself and the man he was following. He threw himself down on the ground. Two men alighted, and went in the same direction as the one who had gone ahead.

Francis made a detour, so as to avoid being noticed by the gondoliers, and then again followed. After keeping more than a quarter of a mile near the water, the two figures ahead struck inshore. Francis followed them, and in a few minutes they stopped at a black mass, rising above the sand. He heard them knock, and then a low murmur, as if they were answering some question from within. Then they entered, and a door closed.

He moved up to the building. It was a hut of some size, but had a deserted appearance. It stood between two ridges of low sand hills, and the sand had drifted till it was halfway up the walls. There was no garden or inclosure round it, and any passerby would have concluded that it was uninhabited. The shutters were closed, and no gleam of light showed from within.

After stepping carefully round it, Francis took his post round the angle close to the door, and waited. Presently he heard footsteps approaching -- three knocks were given on the door, and a voice within asked, "Who is there?"

The reply was, "One who is in distress."

The question came, "What ails you?"

And the answer, "All is wrong within."

Then there was a sound of bars being withdrawn, and the door opened and closed again.

There were four other arrivals. The same questions were asked and answered each time. Then some minutes elapsed without any fresh comers, and Francis thought that the number was probably complete. He lay down on the sand, and with his dagger began to make a hole through the wood, which was old and rotten, and gave him no difficulty in piercing it.

He applied his eye to the orifice, and saw that there were some twelve men seated round a table. Of those facing him he knew three or four by sight; all were men of good family. Two of them belonged to the council, but not to the inner Council of Ten. One, sitting at the top of the table, was speaking; but although Francis applied his ear to the hole he had made, he could hear but a confused murmur, and could not catch the words. He now rose cautiously, scooped up the sand so as to cover the hole in the wall, and swept a little down over the spot where he had been lying, although he had no doubt that the breeze, which would spring up before morning, would soon drift the light shifting sand over it, and obliterate the mark of his recumbent figure. Then he went round to the other side of the hut and bored another hole, so as to obtain a view of the faces of those whose backs had before been towards him.

One of these was Ruggiero Mocenigo. Another was a stranger to Francis, and some difference in the fashion of his garments indicated that he was not a Venetian, but, Francis thought, a Hungarian. The other three were not nobles. One of them Francis recognized, as being a man of much influence among the fishermen and sailors. The other two were unknown to him.

As upwards of an hour had been spent in making the two holes and taking observations, Francis thought it better now to make his way back to his boat, especially as it was evident that he would gain nothing by remaining longer. Therefore, after taking the same precautions as before, to conceal all signs of his presence, he made his way across the sands back to his gondola.

"Heaven be praised, you are back again!" Giuseppi said, when he heard his low whistle, as he came down to the boat. "I have been in a fever ever since I lost sight of you. Have you succeeded?"

"I have found out that there is certainly a plot of some sort being got up, and I know some of those concerned in it, but I could hear nothing that went on. Still, I have succeeded better than I expected, and I am well satisfied with the night's work."

"I hope you won't come again, Messer Francisco. In the first place, you may not always have the fortune to get away unseen. In the next place, it is a dangerous matter to have to do with conspiracies, whichever side you are on. The way to live long in Venice is to make no enemies."

"Yes, I know that, Giuseppi, and I haven't decided yet what to do in the matter."

A quarter of an hour later, their fare returned to the boat. This time they took a long detour, and, entering Venice by one of the many canals, reached the landing place without adventure. The stranger handed Giuseppi a ducat.

"I do not know when I shall want you again; but I will mark the hour, as agreed, on the pillar. Do not fail to go there every afternoon; and even if you don't see it, you might as well come round here at half past ten of a night. I may want you suddenly."

Before going to sleep that night, Francis thought the matter over seriously, and finally concluded that he would have no more to do with it. No doubt, by crossing over to San Nicolo in the daytime, he might be able to loosen a plank at the back of the hut, or to cut so large an opening that he could hear, as well as see, what was going on within; but supposing he discovered that a plot was on hand in favour of the enemies of Venice, such as Padua or Hungary, what was he to do next? At the best, if he denounced it, and the officers of the republic surrounded the hut when the conspirators were gathered there, arrested them, and found upon them, or in their houses, proofs sufficient to condemn them, his own position would not be enviable. He would gain, indeed, the gratitude of the republic; but as for rewards, he had no need of them. On the other hand, he would draw upon himself the enmity of some eight or ten important families, and all their connections and followers, and his life would be placed in imminent danger. They would be all the more bitter against him, inasmuch as the discovery would not have been made by accident, but by an act of deliberate prying into matters which concerned him in no way, he not being a citizen of the republic.

So far his action in the matter had been a mere boyish freak; and now that he saw it was likely to become an affair of grave importance, involving the lives of many persons, he determined to have nothing further to do with it.



Chapter 3: On The Grand Canal.


Giuseppi, next morning, heard the announcement of the determination of Francis, to interfere no further in the matter of the conspiracy at San Nicolo, with immense satisfaction. For the last few nights he had scarcely slept, and whenever he dozed off, dreamed either of being tortured in dungeons, or of being murdered in his gondola; and no money could make up for the constant terrors which assailed him. In his waking moments he was more anxious for his employer than for himself, for it was upon him that the vengeance of the conspirators would fall, rather than upon a young gondolier, who was only obeying the orders of his master.

It was, then, with unbounded relief that he heard Francis had decided to go no more out to San Nicolo.

During the next few days Francis went more frequently than usual to the Piazza of Saint Mark, and had no difficulty in recognizing there the various persons he had seen in the hut, and in ascertaining their names and families. One of the citizens he had failed to recognize was a large contractor in the salt works on the mainland. The other was the largest importer of beasts for the supply of meat to the markets of the city.

Francis was well satisfied with the knowledge he had gained. It might never be of any use to him, but it might, on the other hand, be of importance when least expected.

As a matter of precaution he drew up an exact account of the proceedings of the two nights on the lagoons, giving an account of the meeting, and the names of the persons present, and placed it in a drawer in his room. He told Giuseppi what he had done.

"I do not think there is the least chance of our ever being recognized, Giuseppi. There was not enough light for the man to have made out our features. Still there is nothing like taking precautions, and if -- I don't think it is likely, mind -- but if anything should ever happen to me -- if I should be missing, for example, and not return by the following morning -- you take that paper out of my drawer and drop it into the Lion's Mouth. Then, if you are questioned, tell the whole story."

"But they will never believe me, Messer Francisco," Giuseppi said in alarm.

"They will believe you, because it will be a confirmation of my story; but I don't think that there is the least chance of our ever hearing anything further about it."

"Why not denounce them at once without putting your name to it," Giuseppi said. "Then they could pounce upon them over there, and find out all about it for themselves?"

"I have thought about it, Giuseppi, but there is something treacherous in secret denunciations. These men have done me no harm, and as a foreigner their political schemes do not greatly concern me. I should not like to think I had sent twelve men to the dungeons and perhaps to death."

"I think it's a pity you ever went there at all, Messer Francisco."

"Well, perhaps it is, Giuseppi; but I never thought it would turn out a serious affair like this. However, I do wish I hadn't gone now; not that I think it really matters, or that we shall ever hear anything more of it. We may, perhaps, some day see the result of this conspiracy, that is, if its objects are such as I guess them to be; namely, to form a party opposed to war with Hungary, Padua, or Genoa."

For some days after this Francis abstained from late excursions in the gondola. It was improbable that he or Giuseppi would be recognized did their late passenger meet them. Still, it was possible that they might be so; and when he went out he sat quietly among the cushions while Giuseppi rowed, as it would be a pair-oared gondola the stranger would be looking for. He was sure that the conspirator would feel uneasy when the boat did not come to the rendezvous, especially when they found that, on three successive days, figures were marked as had been arranged on the column at the corner of the Piazzetta.

Giuseppi learned indeed, a week later, that inquiries had been made among the gondoliers for a boat rowed by two brothers, Giovanni and Beppo; and the inquirer, who was dressed as a retainer of a noble family, had offered five ducats reward for information concerning it. No such names, however, were down upon the register of gondoliers licensed to ply for hire. Giuseppi learned that the search had been conducted quietly but vigorously, and that several young gondoliers who rowed together had been seen and questioned.

The general opinion, among the boatmen, was that some lady must have been carried off, and that her friends were seeking for a clue as to the spot to which she had been taken.

One evening Francis had been strolling on the Piazza with Matteo, and had remained out later than he had done since the night of his last visit to San Nicolo. He took his seat in the gondola, and when Giuseppi asked him if he would go home, said he would first take a turn or two on the Grand Canal as the night was close and sultry.

There was no moon now, and most of the gondolas carried torches. Giuseppi was paddling quietly, when a pair-oared gondola shot past them, and by the light of the torch it carried, Francis recognized the ladies sitting in it to be Maria and Giulia Polani with their duenna; two armed retainers sat behind them. They were, Francis supposed, returning from spending the evening at the house of some of their friends. There were but few boats now passing along the canal.

Polani's gondola was a considerable distance ahead, when Francis heard a sudden shout of, "Mind where you are going!"

Then there was a crash of two gondolas striking each other, followed by an outburst of shouts and cries of alarm, with, Francis thought, the clash of swords.

"Row, Giuseppi!" he exclaimed, leaping from his seat and catching up the other oar; and with swift and powerful strokes the two lads drove the gondola towards the scene of what was either an accident, or an attempt at crime.

They had no doubt which it was when they arrived at the spot. A four-oared gondola lay alongside that of the Polanis, and the gondoliers with their oars, and the two retainers with their swords, had offered a stout resistance to an armed party who were trying to board her from the other craft, but their resistance was well nigh over by the time Francis brought his gondola alongside.

One of the retainers had fallen with a sword thrust through his body, and a gondolier had been knocked overboard by a blow from an oar. The two girls were standing up screaming, and the surviving retainer was being borne backwards by three or four armed men, who were slashing furiously at him.

"Quick, ladies, jump into my boat!" Francis exclaimed as he came alongside, and, leaning over, he dragged them one after the other into his boat, just as their last defender fell.

With a fierce oath the leader of the assailants was about to spring into the gondola, when Francis, snatching up his oar, smote him with all his strength on the head as he was in the act of springing, and he fell with a heavy splash into the water between the boats.

A shout of alarm and rage rose from his followers, but the gondolas were now separated, and in another moment that of Francis was flying along the canal at the top of its speed.

"Calm yourselves, ladies," Francis said. "There is no fear of pursuit. They will stop to pick up the man I knocked into the canal, and by the time they get him on board we shall be out of their reach."

"What will become of the signora?" the eldest girl asked, when they recovered a little from their agitation.

"No harm will befall her, you may be sure," Francis said. "It was evidently an attempt to carry you off, and now that you have escaped they will care nothing for your duenna. She seemed to have lost her head altogether, for as I lifted you into the boat she clung so fast to your garments that I fancy a portion of them were left in her grasp."

"Do you know where to take us? I see you are going in the right direction?" the girl asked.

"To the Palazzo Polani," Francis said. "I have the honour of being a friend of your cousin, Matteo Giustiniani, and being with him one day when you passed in your gondola, he named you to me."

"A friend of Matteo!" the girl repeated in surprise. "Pardon me, signor, I thought you were two passing gondoliers. It was so dark that I could not recognize you; and, you see, it is so unusual to see a gentleman rowing."

"I am English, signora, and we are fond of strong exercise, and so after nightfall, when it cannot shock my friends, I often take an oar myself."

"I thank you, sir, with all my heart, for my sister and myself, for the service you have rendered us. I can hardly understand what has passed, even now it seems like a dream. We were going quietly along home, when a large dark gondola dashed out from one of the side canals, and nearly ran us down. Our gondolier shouted to warn them, but they ran alongside, and then some men jumped on board, and there was a terrible fight, and every moment I expected that the gondola would have been upset. Beppo was knocked overboard, and I saw old Nicolini fall; and then, just as it seemed all over, you appeared suddenly by our side, and dragged us on board this boat before I had time to think."

"I am afraid I was rather rough, signora, but there was no time to stand on ceremony. Here is the palazzo."

The boat was brought up by the side of the steps. Francis leapt ashore and rang the bell, and then assisted the girls to land. In a minute the door was thrown open, and two servitors with torches appeared. There was an exclamation of astonishment as they saw the young ladies alone with a strange attendant.

"I will do myself the honour of calling tomorrow to inquire if you are any the worse for your adventure, signora."

"No, indeed," the eldest girl said. "You must come up with us and see our father. We must tell him what has happened; and he will be angry indeed, did we suffer our rescuer to depart without his having an opportunity of thanking him."

Francis bowed and followed the girls upstairs. They entered a large, very handsomely furnished apartment where a tall man was sitting reading.

"Why, girls," he exclaimed as he rose, "what has happened? you look strangely excited. Where is your duenna? and who is this young gentleman who accompanies you?"

"We have been attacked, father, on our way home," both the girls exclaimed.

"Attacked?" Signor Polani repeated. "Who has dared to venture on such an outrage?"

"We don't know, father," Maria said. "It was a four-oared gondola that ran suddenly into us. We thought it was an accident till a number of men, with their swords drawn, leaped on board. Then Nicolini and Francia drew their swords and tried to defend us, and Beppo and Jacopo both fought bravely too with their oars; but Beppo was knocked overboard, and I am afraid Nicolini and Francia are killed, and in another moment they would have got at us, when this young gentleman came alongside in his gondola, and dragged us on board, for we were too bewildered and frightened to do anything. One of them -- he seemed the leader of the party -- tried to jump on board, but our protector struck him a terrible blow with his oar, and he fell into the water, and then the gondola made off, and, so far as we could see, they did not chase us."

"It is a scandalous outrage, and I will demand justice at the hands of the council.

"Young sir, you have laid me under an obligation I shall never forget. You have saved my daughter from the worst calamity that could befall her. Who is it to whom I am thus indebted?"

"My name is Francis Hammond. My father is an English merchant who has, for the last four years, established himself here."

"I know him well by repute," Polani said. "I trust I shall know more of him in the future.

"But where is your duenna, girls?"

"She remained behind in the gondola, father; she seemed too frightened to move."

"The lady seemed to have lost her head altogether," Francis said. "As I was lifting your daughters into my gondola, in a very hasty and unceremonious way -- for the resistance of your servitors was all but overcome, and there was no time to be lost -- she held so tightly to their robes that they were rent in her hands."

Signor Polani struck a gong.

"Let a gondola be manned instantly," he said, "and let six of you take arms and go in search of our boat. Let another man at once summon a leech, for some of those on board are, I fear, grievously wounded, if not killed."

But there was no occasion to carry out the order concerning the boat, for before it was ready to start the missing gondola arrived at the steps, rowed by the remaining gondolier. The duenna was lifted out sobbing hysterically, and the bodies of the two retainers were then landed. One was dead; the other expired a few minutes after being brought ashore.

"You did not observe anything particular about the gondola, Maria, or you, Giulia?"

"No, father, I saw no mark or escutcheon upon it, though they might have been there without my noticing them. I was too frightened to see anything; it came so suddenly upon us."

"It was, as far as I noticed, a plain black gondola," Francis said. "The men concerned in the affair were all dressed in dark clothes, without any distinguishing badges."

"How was it you came to interfere in the fray, young gentleman? Few of our people would have done so, holding it to be a dangerous thing, for a man to mix himself up in a quarrel in which he had no concern."

"I should probably have mixed myself up in it, in any case, when I heard the cry of women," Francis replied; "but, in truth, I recognized the signoras as their gondola passed mine, and knew them to be cousins of my friend Matteo Giustiniani. Therefore when I heard the outcry ahead, I naturally hastened up to do what I could in the matter."

"And well you did it," Polani said heartily. "I trust that the man you felled into the water is he who is the author of this outrage. I do not think I need seek far for him. My suspicions point very strongly in one direction, and tomorrow I will lay the matter before the council and demand reparation."

"And now, signor, if you will permit me I will take my leave," Francis said. "The hour is late, and the signoras will require rest after their fright and emotion."

"I will see you tomorrow, sir. I shall do myself the honour of calling early upon your father, to thank him for the great service you have rendered me."

Signor Polani accompanied Francis to the steps, while two servants held torches while he took his seat in the gondola, and remained standing there until the barque had shot away beyond the circle of light.

"We seem fated to have adventures, Giuseppi."

"We do indeed, Messer Francisco, and this is more to my liking than the last. We arrived just at the nick of time; another half minute and those young ladies would have been carried off. That was a rare blow you dealt their leader. I fancy he never came up again, and that that is why we got away without being chased."

"I am of that opinion myself, Giuseppi."

"If that is the case we shall not have heard the last of it, Messer Francisco. Only someone of a powerful family would venture upon so bold a deed, as to try to carry off ladies of birth on the Grand Canal, and you may find that this adventure has created for you enemies not to be despised."

"I can't help it if it has," Francis said carelessly. "On the other hand, it will gain for me an influential friend in Signor Polani, who is not only one of the richest merchants of Venice, but closely related to a number of the best families of the city."

"His influence will not protect you against the point of a dagger," Giuseppi said. "Your share in this business cannot but become public, and I think that it would be wise to give up our evening excursions at present."

"I don't agree with you, Giuseppi. We don't go about with torches burning, so no one who meets us is likely to recognize us. One gondola in the dark is pretty much like another, and however many enemies I had, I should not be afraid of traversing the canals."

The next morning, at breakfast time, Francis related to his father his adventure of the previous evening.

"It is a mistake, my son, to mix yourself up in broils which do not concern you; but in the present instance it may be that your adventure will turn out to be advantageous to your prospects. Signor Polani is one of the most illustrious merchants of Venice. His name is known everywhere in the East, and there is not a port in the Levant where his galleys do not trade. The friendship of such a man cannot but be most useful to me.

"Upon the other hand, you will probably make some enemies by your interference with the plans of some unscrupulous young noble, and Venice is not a healthy city for those who have powerful enemies; still I think that the advantages will more than balance the risk.

"However, Francis, you must curb your spirit of adventure. You are not the son of a baron or count, and the winning of honour and glory by deeds of arms neither befits you, nor would be of advantage to you in any way. A trader of the city of London should be distinguished for his probity and his attention to business; and methinks that, ere long, it will be well to send you home to take your place in the counting house under the eye of my partner, John Pearson.

"Hitherto I have not checked your love for arms, or your intercourse with youths of far higher rank than your own; but I have been for some time doubting the wisdom of my course in bringing you out here with me, and have regretted that I did not leave you in good hands at home. The events of last night show that the time is fast approaching when you can no longer be considered a boy, and it will be better for you to turn at once into the groove in which you are to travel, than to continue a mode of life which will unfit you for the career of a city trader."

Francis knew too well his duty towards his father to make any reply, but his heart sank at the prospect of settling down in the establishment in London. His life there had not been an unpleasant one, but he knew that he should find it terribly dull, after the freedom and liberty he had enjoyed in Venice. He had never, however, even to himself, indulged the idea that any other career, save that of his father, could be his; and had regarded it as a matter of course that, some day, he would take his place in the shop in Cheapside.

Now that it was suddenly presented to him as something which would shortly take place, a feeling of repugnance towards the life came over him. Not that he dreamt for a moment of trying to induce his father to allow him to seek some other calling. He had been always taught to consider the position of a trader of good standing, of the city of London, as one of the most desirable possible. The line between the noble and the citizen was so strongly marked that no one thought of overstepping it. The citizens of London were as proud of their position and as tenacious of their rights as were the nobles themselves. They were ready enough to take up arms to defend their privileges and to resist oppression, whether it came from king or noble; but few indeed, even of the wilder spirits of the city, ever thought of taking to arms as a profession.

It was true that honour and rank were to be gained, by those who rode in the train of great nobles to the wars, but the nobles drew their following from their own estates, and not from among the dwellers in the cities; and, although the bodies of men-at-arms and archers, furnished by the city to the king in his wars, always did their duty stoutly in the field, they had no opportunity of distinguishing themselves singly. The deeds which attracted attention, and led to honour and rank, were performed by the esquires and candidates for the rank of knighthood, who rode behind the barons into the thick of the French chivalry.

Therefore Francis Hammond had never thought of taking to the profession of arms in his own country; though, when the news arrived in Venice of desperate fighting at sea with the Genoese, he had thought, to himself, that the most glorious thing in life must be to command a well-manned galley, as she advanced to the encounter of an enemy superior in numbers. He had never dreamed that such an aspiration could ever be satisfied -- it was merely one of the fancies in which lads so often indulge.

Still, the thought that he was soon to return and take his place in the shop in Chepe was exceedingly unpleasant to him.

Soon after breakfast the bell at the water gate rang loudly, and a minute later the servant entered with the news that Signor Polani was below, and begged an interview. Mr. Hammond at once went down to the steps to receive his visitor, whom he saluted with all ceremony, and conducted upstairs.

"I am known to you by name, no doubt, Signor Hammond, as you are to me," the Venetian said, when the first formal greetings were over. "I am not a man of ceremony, nor, I judge, are you; but even if I were, the present is not an occasion for it. Your son has doubtless told you of the inestimable service, which he rendered to me last night, by saving my daughters, or rather my eldest daughter -- for it was doubtless she whom the villains sought -- from being borne off by one of the worst and most disreputable of the many bad and disreputable young men of this city."

"I am indeed glad, Signor Polani, that my son was able to be of service to you. I have somewhat blamed myself that I have let him have his own way so much, and permitted him to give himself up to exercises of arms, more befitting the son of a warlike noble than of a peaceful trader; but the quickness and boldness, which the mastery of arms gives, was yesterday of service, and I no longer regret the time he has spent, since it has enabled him to be of aid to the daughters of Signor Polani."

"A mastery of arms is always useful, whether a man be a peace-loving citizen, or one who would carve his way to fame by means of his weapons. We merchants of the Mediterranean might give up our trade, if we were not prepared to defend our ships against the corsairs of Barbary, and the pirates who haunt every inlet and islet of the Levant now, as they have ever done since the days of Rome. Besides, it is the duty of every citizen to defend his native city when attacked. And lastly, there are the private enemies, that every man who rises but in the smallest degree above his fellows is sure to create for himself.

"Moreover, a training in arms, as you say, gives readiness and quickness, it enables the mind to remain calm and steadfast amidst dangers of all sorts, and, methinks, it adds not a little to a man's dignity and self respect to know that he is equal, man to man, to any with whom he may come in contact. Here in Venice we are all soldiers and sailors, and your son will make no worse merchant, but rather the better, for being able to wield sword and dagger.

"Even now," he said with a smile, "he has proved the advantage of his training; for, though I say it not boastfully, Nicholas Polani has it in his power to be of some use to his friends, and foremost among them he will henceforward count your brave son, and, if you will permit him, yourself.

"But you will, I trust, excuse my paying you but a short visit this morning, for I am on my way to lay a complaint before the council. I have already been round to several of my friends, and Phillipo Giustiniani and some six others, nearest related to me, will go with me, being all aggrieved at this outrage to a family nearly connected. I crave you to permit me to take your son with me, in order that he may be at hand, if called upon, to say what he knows of the affair."

"Assuredly it is his duty to go with you if you desire it; although I own I am not sorry that he could see, as he tells me, no badge or cognizance which would enable him to say aught which can lead to the identification of those who would have abducted your daughter. It is but too well known a fact that it is dangerous to make enemies in Venice, for even the most powerful protection does not avail against the stab of a dagger."

"That is true enough," the merchant said. "The frequency of assassinations is a disgrace to our city; nor will it ever be put down until some men of high rank are executed, and the seignory show that they are as jealous of the lives of private citizens, as they are of the honour and well being of the republic."

Francis gladly threw aside his books when he was told that Signor Polani desired him to accompany him, and was soon seated by the side of the merchant in his gondola.

"How old are you, my friend?" the merchant asked him, as the boat threaded the mazes of the canals.

"I am just sixteen, signor."

"No more!" the merchant said in surprise. "I had taken you for well-nigh two years older. I have but just come from the Palazzo Giustiniani, and my young kinsman, Matteo, tells me that in the School of Arms there are none of our young nobles who are your match with rapier or battleaxe."

"I fear, sir," Francis said modestly, "that I have given up more time to the study of arms than befits the son of a sober trader."

"Not at all," the Venetian replied. "We traders have to defend our rights and our liberties, our goods and our ships, just as much as the nobles have to defend their privileges and their castles. Here in Venice there are no such distinctions of rank as there are elsewhere. Certain families, distinguished among the rest by their long standing, wealth, influence, or the services they have rendered to the state, are of senatorial rank, and constitute our nobility; but there are no titles among us. We are all citizens of the republic, with our rights and privileges, which cannot be infringed even by the most powerful; and the poorest citizen has an equal right to make himself as proficient in the arms, which he may be called upon to wield in defence of the state, as the Doge himself. In your country also, I believe, all men are obliged to learn the use of arms, to practise shooting at the butts, and to make themselves efficient, if called upon to take part in the wars of the country. And I have heard that at the jousts, the champions of the city of London have ere now held their own against those of the court."

"They have done so," Francis said; "and yet, I know not why, it is considered unseemly for the sons of well-to-do citizens to be too fond of military exercises."

"The idea is a foolish one," the Venetian said hotly. "I myself have, a score of times, defended my ships against corsairs and pirates, Genoese, and other enemies. I have fought against the Greeks, and been forced to busy myself in more than one serious fray in the streets of Constantinople, Alexandria, and other ports, and have served in the galleys of the state. All men who live by trade must be in favour of peace; but they must also be prepared to defend their goods, and the better able they are to do it, the more the honour to them.

"But here we are at the Piazzetta."

A group of nobles were standing near the landing place, and Signor Polani at once went up to them, and introduced Francis to them as the gentleman who had done his daughter and their kinswoman such good service. Francis was warmly thanked and congratulated by them all.

"Will you wait near the entrance?" Signor Polani said. "I see that my young cousin, Matteo, has accompanied his father, and you will, no doubt, find enough to say to each other while we are with the council."

The gentlemen entered the palace, and Matteo, who had remained respectfully at a short distance from the seniors, at once joined his friend.

"Well, Francis, I congratulate you heartily, though I feel quite jealous of you. It was splendid to think of your dashing up in your gondola, and carrying off my pretty cousins from the clutches of that villain, Ruggiero Mocenigo, just as he was about to lay his hands on them."

"Are you sure it was Ruggiero, Matteo?"

"Oh, there can't be any doubt about it. You know, he had asked for Maria's hand, and when Polani refused him, had gone off muttering threats. You know what his character is. He is capable of any evil action; besides, they say that he has dissipated his patrimony, in gaming and other extravagances at Constantinople, and is deep in the hands of the Jews. If he could have succeeded in carrying off Maria it would more than have mended his fortunes, for she and her sister are acknowledged to be the richest heiresses in Venice. Oh, there is not a shadow of doubt that it's he.

"You won't hear me saying anything against your love of prowling about in that gondola of yours, since it has brought you such a piece of good fortune -- for it is a piece of good fortune, Francis, to have rendered such a service to Polani, to say nothing of all the rest of us who are connected with his family. I can tell you that there are scores of young men of good birth in Venice, who would give their right hand to have done what you did."

"I should have considered myself fortunate to have been of service to any girls threatened by violence, though they had only been fishermen's daughters," Francis said; "but I am specially pleased because they are relatives of yours, Matteo."

"To say nothing to their being two of the prettiest girls in Venice," Matteo added slyly.

"That counts for something too, no doubt," Francis said laughing, "though I didn't think of it.

"I wonder," he went on gravely, "whether that was Ruggiero whom I struck down, and whether he came up again to the surface. He has very powerful connections, you know, Matteo; and if I have gained friends, I shall also have gained enemies by the night's work."

"That is so," Matteo agreed. "For your sake, I own that I hope that Ruggiero is at present at the bottom of the canal. He was certainly no credit to his friends; and although they would of course have stood by him, I do not think they will feel, at heart, in any way displeased to know that he will trouble them no longer. But if his men got him out again, I should say you had best be careful, for Ruggiero is about the last man in Venice I should care to have as an enemy. However, we won't look at the unpleasant side of the matter, and will hope that his career has been brought to a close."

"I don't know which way to hope," Francis said gravely. "He will certainly be a dangerous enemy if he is alive; and yet the thought of having killed a man troubles me much."

"It would not trouble me at all if I were in your place," Matteo said. "If you had not killed him, you may be very sure that he would have killed you, and that the deed would have caused him no compunction whatever. It was a fair fight, just as if it had been a hostile galley in mid-sea; and I don't see why the thought of having rid Venice of one of her worst citizens need trouble you in any way."

"You see I have been brought up with rather different ideas to yours, Matteo. My father, as a trader, is adverse to fighting of all kinds -- save, of course, in defence of one's country; and although he has not blamed me in any way for the part I took, I can see that he is much disquieted, and indeed speaks of sending me back to England at once."

"Oh, I hope not!" Matteo said earnestly. "Hitherto you and I have been great friends, Francis, but we shall be more in future. All Polani's friends will regard you as one of themselves; and I was even thinking, on my way here, that perhaps you and I might enter the service of the state together, and get appointed to a war galley in a few years."

"My father's hair would stand up at the thought, Matteo; though, for myself, I should like nothing so well. However, that could never have been. Still I am sorry, indeed, at the thought of leaving Venice. I have been very happy here, and I have made friends, and there is always something to do or talk about; and the life in London would be so dull in comparison. But here comes one of the ushers from the palace."

The official came up to them, and asked if either of them was Messer Francisco Hammond, and, finding that he had come to the right person, requested Francis to follow him.



Chapter 4: Carried Off.


It was with a feeling of considerable discomfort, and some awe, that Francis Hammond followed his conductor to the chamber of the Council. It was a large and stately apartment. The decorations were magnificent, and large pictures, representing events in the wars of Venice, hung round the walls. The ceiling was also superbly painted. The cornices were heavily gilded. Curtains of worked tapestry hung by the windows, and fell behind him as he entered the door.

At a table of horseshoe shape eleven councillors, clad in the long scarlet robes, trimmed with ermine, which were the distinguishing dress of Venetian senators, were seated -- the doge himself acting as president. On their heads they wore black velvet caps, flat at the top, and in shape somewhat resembling the flat Scotch bonnet. Signor Polani and his companions were seated in chairs, facing the table.

When Francis entered the gondolier was giving evidence as to the attack upon his boat. Several questions were asked him when he had finished, and he was then told to retire. The usher then brought Francis forward.

"This is Messer Francisco Hammond," he said.

"Tell your story your own way," the doge said.

Francis related the story of the attack on the gondola, and the escape of the ladies in his boat.

"How came you, a foreigner and a youth, to interfere in a fray of this kind?" one of the councillors asked.

"I did not stop to think of my being a stranger, or a youth," Francis replied quietly. "I heard the screams of women in distress, and felt naturally bound to render them what aid I could."

"Did you know who the ladies were?"

"I knew them only by sight. My friend Matteo Giustiniani had pointed them out to me, on one occasion, as being the daughters of Signor Polani, and connections of his. When their gondola had passed mine, a few minutes previously, I recognized their faces by the light of the torches in their boat."

"Were the torches burning brightly?" another of the council asked; "because it may be that this attack was not intended against them, but against some others."

"The light was bright enough for me to recognize their faces at a glance," Francis said, "and also the yellow and white sashes of their gondoliers."

"Did you see any badge or cognizance, either on the gondola or on the persons of the assailants?"

"I did not," Francis said. "They certainly wore none. One of the torches in the Polani gondola had been extinguished in the fray, but the other was still burning, and, had the gondoliers worn coloured sashes or other distinguishing marks, I should have noticed them."

"Should you recognize, were you to see them again, any of the assailants?"

"I should not," Francis said. "They were all masked."

"You say you struck down the one who appeared to be their leader with an oar, as he was about to leap into your boat. How was it the oar was in your hand instead of that of your gondolier?"

"I was myself rowing," Francis said. "In London, rowing is an amusement of which boys of all classes are fond, and since I have been out here with my father I have learned to row a gondola; and sometimes, when I am out of an evening, I take an oar as well as my gondolier, enjoying the exercise and the speed at which the boat goes along. I was not rowing when the signora's boat passed me, but upon hearing the screams, I stood up and took the second oar, to arrive as quickly as possible at the spot. That was how it was that I had it in my hand, when the man was about to leap into the boat."

"Then there is nothing at all, so far as you know, to direct your suspicion against anyone as the author of this attack?"

"There was nothing," Francis said, "either in the gondola itself, or in the attire or persons of those concerned in the fray, which could give me the slightest clue as to their identity."

"At any rate, young gentleman," the doge said, "you appear to have behaved with a promptness, presence of mind, and courage -- for it needs courage to interfere in a fray of this sort -- beyond your years; and, in the name of the republic, I thank you for having prevented the commission of a grievous crime. You will please to remain here for the present. It may be that, when the person accused of this crime appears before us, you may be able to recognize his figure."

It was with mixed feelings that Francis heard, a minute or two later, the usher announce that Signor Ruggiero Mocenigo was without, awaiting the pleasure of their excellencies.

"Let him enter," the doge said.

The curtains fell back, and Ruggiero Mocenigo entered with a haughty air. He bowed to the council, and stood as if expecting to be questioned.

"You are charged, Ruggiero Mocenigo," the doge said, "with being concerned in an attempt to carry off the daughters of Signor Polani, and of taking part in the killing of three servitors of that gentleman."

"On what grounds am I accused?" Ruggiero said haughtily.

"On the ground that you are a rejected suitor for the elder lady's hand, and that you had uttered threats against her father, who, so far as he knows, has no other enemies."

"This seems somewhat scanty ground for an accusation of such gravity," Ruggiero said sneeringly. "If every suitor who grumbles, when his offer is refused, is to be held responsible for every accident which may take place in the lady's family, methinks that the time of this reverend and illustrious council will be largely occupied."

"You will remember," the doge said sternly, "that your previous conduct gives good ground for suspicion against you. You have already been banished from the state for two years for assassination, and such reports as reached us of your conduct in Constantinople, during your exile, were the reverse of satisfactory. Had it not been so, the prayers of your friends, that your term of banishment might be shortened, would doubtless have produced their effect."

"At any rate," Ruggiero said, "I can, with little difficulty, prove that I had no hand in any attempt upon Signor Polani's daughters last night, seeing that I had friends spending the evening with me, and that we indulged in play until three o'clock this morning -- an hour at which, I should imagine, the Signoras Polani would scarcely be abroad."

"At what time did your friends assemble?"

"At nine o'clock," Ruggiero said. "We met by agreement in the Piazza, somewhat before that hour, and proceeded together on foot to my house."

"Who were your companions?"

Ruggiero gave the names of six young men, all connections of his family, and summonses were immediately sent for them to attend before the council.

"In the meantime, Messer Francisco Hammond, you can tell us whether you recognize in the accused one of the assailants last night."

"I cannot recognize him, your excellency," Francis said; "but I can say certainly that he was not the leader of the party, whom I struck with my oar. The blow fell on the temple, and assuredly there would be marks of such a blow remaining today."

As Francis was speaking, Ruggiero looked at him with a cold piercing glance, which expressed the reverse of gratitude for the evidence which he was giving in his favour, and something like a chill ran through him as he resumed his seat behind Signor Polani and his friends.

There was silence for a quarter of an hour. Occasionally the members of the council spoke in low tones to each other, but no word was spoken aloud, until the appearance of the first of the young men who had been summoned. One after another they gave their evidence, and all were unanimous in declaring that they had spent the evening with Ruggiero Mocenigo, and that he did not leave the room, from the moment of his arrival there soon after nine o'clock, until they left him at two in the morning.

"You have heard my witnesses," Ruggiero said, when the last had given his testimony; "and I now ask your excellencies, whether it is right that a gentleman, of good family, should be exposed to a villainous accusation of this kind, on the barest grounds of suspicion?"

"You have heard the evidence which has been given, Signor Polani," the doge said. "Do you withdraw your accusation against Signor Mocenigo?"

"I acknowledge, your excellency," Signor Polani said, rising, "that Ruggiero Mocenigo has proved that he took no personal part in the affair, but I will submit to you that this in no way proves that he is not the author of the attempt. He would know that my first suspicion would fall upon him, and would, therefore, naturally leave the matter to be carried out by others, and would take precautions to enable him to prove, as he has done, that he was not present. I still maintain that the circumstances of the case, his threats to me, and the fact that my daughter will naturally inherit a portion of what wealth I might possess, and that, as I know and can prove, Ruggiero Mocenigo has been lately reduced to borrowing money of the Jews, all point to his being the author of this attempt, which would at once satisfy his anger against me, for having declined the honour of his alliance, and repair his damaged fortunes."

There were a few words of whispered consultation between the councillors, and the doge then said:

"All present will now retire while the council deliberates. Our decision will be made known to the parties concerned, in due time."

On leaving the palace, Signor Polani and his friends walked together across the Piazza, discussing the turn of events.

"He will escape," Polani said. "He has two near relations on the council, and however strong our suspicions may be, there is really no proof against him. I fear that he will go free. I feel as certain as ever that he is the contriver of the attempt; but the precautions he has taken seem to render it impossible to bring the crime home to him. However, it is no use talking about it any more, at present.

"You will, I hope, accompany me home, Signor Francisco, and allow me to present you formally to my daughters. They were too much agitated, last night, to be able to thank you fully for the service you had rendered them.

"Matteo, do you come with us."

Three days passed, and no decision of the council had been announced, when, early in the morning, one of the state messengers brought an order that Francis should be in readiness, at nine o'clock, to accompany him. At that hour a gondola drew up at the steps. It was a covered gondola, with hangings, which prevented any from seeing who were within. Francis took his seat by the side of the official, and the gondola started at once.

"It looks very much as if I was being taken as a prisoner," Francis said to himself. "However, that can hardly be, for even if Ruggiero convinced the council that he was wholly innocent of this affair, no blame could fall on me, for I neither accused nor identified him. However, it is certainly towards the prisons we are going."

The boat, indeed, was passing the Piazzetta without stopping, and turned down the canal behind, to the prisons in rear of the palace. They stopped at the water gate, close to the Bridge of Sighs, and Francis and his conductor entered. They proceeded along two or three passages, until they came to a door where an official was standing. A word was spoken, and they passed in.

The chamber they entered was bare and vaulted, and contained no furniture whatever, but at one end was a low stone slab, upon which something was lying covered with a cloak. Four of the members of the council were standing in a group, talking, when Francis entered. Signor Polani, with two of his friends, stood apart at one side of the chamber. Ruggiero Mocenigo also, with two of his companions, stood on the other side.

Francis thought that the demeanour of Ruggiero was somewhat altered from that which he had assumed at the previous investigation, and that he looked sullen and anxious.

"We have sent for you, Francisco Hammond, in order that you may, if you can, identify a body which was found last night, floating in the Grand Canal."

One of the officials stepped forward and removed the cloak, showing on the stone slab the body of a young man. On the left temple there was an extensive bruise, and the skin was broken.

"Do you recognize that body?"

"I do not recognize the face," Francis said, "and do not know that I ever saw it before."

"The wound upon the temple which you see, is it such as, you would suppose, would be caused by the blow you struck an unknown person, while he was engaged in attacking the gondola of Signor Polani?"

"I cannot say whether it is such a wound as would be caused by a blow with an oar," Francis said; "but it is certainly, as nearly as possible, on the spot where I struck the man, just as he was leaping, sword in hand, into my gondola."

"You stated, at your examination the other day, that it was on the left temple you struck the blow."

"I did so. I said at once that Signor Ruggiero Mocenigo could not have been the man who led the assailants, because had he been so he would assuredly have borne a mark from the blow on the left temple."

"Look at the clothes. Do you see anything there which could lead you to identify him with your assailant?"

"My assailant was dressed in dark clothes, as this one was. There was but one distinguishing mark that I noticed, and this is wanting here. The light of the torch fell upon the handle of a dagger in his girdle. I saw it but for a moment, but I caught the gleam of gems. It was only a passing impression, but I could swear that he carried a small gold or yellow metal-handled dagger, and I believe that it was set with gems, but to this I should not like to swear."

"Produce the dagger found upon the dead man," one of the council said to an official.

And the officer produced a small dagger with a fine steel blade and gold handle, thickly encrusted with gems.

"Is this the dagger?" the senator asked Francis.

"I cannot say that it is the dagger," Francis replied; "but it closely resembles it, if it is not the same."

"You have no doubt, I suppose, seeing that wound on the temple, the dagger found in the girdle, and the fact that the body has evidently only been a few days in the water, that this is the man whom you struck down in the fray on the canal?"

"No, signor, I have no doubt whatever that it is the same person."

"That will do," the council said. "You can retire; and we thank you, in the name of justice, for the evidence you have given."

Francis was led back to the gondola, and conveyed to his father's house. An hour later Signor Polani arrived.

"The matter is finished," he said, "I cannot say satisfactorily to me, for the punishment is wholly inadequate to the offence, but at any rate he has not got off altogether unpunished. After you left, we passed from the prison into the palace, and then the whole council assembled, as before, in the council chamber. I may tell you that the body which was found was that of a cousin and intimate of Ruggiero Mocenigo. The two have been constantly together since the return of the latter from Constantinople. It was found, by inquiry at the house of the young man's father, that he left home on the evening upon which the attack was committed, saying that he was going to the mainland, and might not be expected to return for some days.

"The council took it for granted, from the wound in his head, and the fact that a leech has testified that the body had probably been in the water about three days, that he was the man that was stunned by your blow, and drowned in the canal. Ruggiero urged that the discovery in no way affected him; and that his cousin had, no doubt, attempted to carry off my daughter on his own account. There was eventually a division among the council on this point, but Maria was sent for, and on being questioned, testified that the young man had never spoken to her, and that, indeed, she did not know him even by sight; and the majority thereupon came to the conclusion that he could only have been acting as an instrument of Ruggiero's.

"We were not in the apartment while the deliberation was going on, but when we returned the president announced that, although there was no absolute proof of Ruggiero's complicity in the affair, yet that, considering his application for my daughter's hand, his threats on my refusal to his request, his previous character, and his intimacy with his cousin, the council had no doubt that the attempt had been made at his instigation, and therefore sentenced him to banishment from Venice and the islands for three years."

"I should be better pleased if they had sent him back to Constantinople, or one of the islands of the Levant," Mr. Hammond said. "If he is allowed to take up his abode on the mainland, he may be only two or three miles away, which, in the case of a man of his description, is much too near to be pleasant for those who have incurred his enmity."

"That is true," Signor Polani agreed, "and I myself, and my friends, are indignant that he should not have been banished to a distance, where he at least would have been powerless for fresh mischief. On the other hand, his friends will doubtless consider that he has been hardly treated. However, as far as my daughters are concerned, I will take good care that he shall have no opportunity of repeating his attempt; for I have ordered them, on no account whatever, to be absent from the palazzo after the shades of evening begin to fall, unless I myself am with them; and I shall increase the number of armed retainers in the house, by bringing some of my men on shore from a ship which arrived last night in port. I cannot believe that even Ruggiero would have the insolence to attempt to carry them off from the house by force; but when one has to deal with a man like this, one cannot take too great precautions."

"I have already ordered my son, on no account, to be out after nightfall in the streets. In his gondola I do not mind, for unless the gondoliers wear badges, it is impossible to tell one boat from another after dark. Besides, as he tells me, his boat is so fast that he has no fear whatever of being overtaken, even if recognized and chased. But I shall not feel comfortable so long as he is here, and shall send him back to England on the very first occasion that offers."

"I trust that no such occasion may occur just yet, Signor Hammond. I should be sorry, indeed, for your son to be separated so soon from us. We must talk the matter over together, and perhaps between us we may hit on some plan by which, while he may be out of the reach of the peril he has incurred on behalf of my family, he may yet be neither wasting his time, nor altogether separated from us."

For the next fortnight Francis spent most of his time at the Palazzo Polani. The merchant was evidently sincere in his invitation to him to make his house his home; and if a day passed without the lad paying a visit, would chide him gently for deserting them. He himself was frequently present in the balcony, where the four young people -- for Matteo Giustiniani was generally of the party -- sat and chatted together, the gouvernante sitting austerely by, with at times a strong expression of disapproval on her countenance at their laughter and merriment, although -- as her charges' father approved of the intimacy of the girls with their young cousin and this English lad -- she could offer no open objections. In the afternoon, the party generally went for a long row in a four-oared gondola, always returning home upon the approach of evening.

To Francis this time was delightful. He had had no sister of his own; and although he had made the acquaintance of a number of lads in Venice, and had accompanied his father to formal entertainments at the houses of his friends, he had never before been intimate in any of their families. The gaiety and high spirits of the two girls, when they were in the house, amused and pleased him, especially as it was in contrast to the somewhat stiff and dignified demeanour which they assumed when passing through the frequented canals in the gondola.

"I do not like that woman Castaldi," Francis said one evening as, after leaving the palazzo, Giuseppi rowed them towards the Palazzo Giustiniani, where Matteo was to be landed.

"Gouvernantes are not popular, as a class, with young men," Matteo laughed.

"But seriously, Matteo, I don't like her; and I am quite sure that, for some reason or other, she does not like me. I have seen her watching me, as a cat would watch a mouse she is going to spring on."

"Perhaps she has not forgiven you, Francisco, for saving her two charges, and leaving her to the mercy of their assailants."

"I don't know, Matteo. Her conduct appeared to me, at the time, to be very strange. Of course, she might have been paralysed with fright, but it was certainly curious the way she clung to their dresses, and tried to prevent them from leaving the boat."

"You don't really think, Francis, that she wanted them to be captured?"

"I don't know whether I should be justified in saying as much as that, Matteo, and I certainly should not say so to anyone else, but I can't help thinking that such was the case. I don't like her face, and I don't like the woman. She strikes me as being deceitful. She certainly did try to prevent my carrying the girls off and, had not their dresses given way in her hands, she would have done so. Anyhow, it strikes me that Ruggiero must have had some accomplice in the house. How else could he have known of the exact time at which they would be passing along the Grand Canal? For, that the gondola was in waiting to dash out and surprise them, there is no doubt.

"I was asking Signora Giulia, the other day, how it was they were so late, for she says that her father never liked their being out after dusk in Venice, though at Corfu he did not care how late they were upon the water. She replied that she did not quite know how it happened. Her sister had said, some time before, that she thought it was time to be going, but the gouvernante -- who was generally very particular -- had said that there was no occasion to hurry, as their father knew where they were, and would not be uneasy. She thought the woman must have mistaken the time, and did not know how late it was.

"Of course, this proves nothing. Still I own that, putting all the things together, I have my suspicions."

"It is certainly curious, Francisco, though I can hardly believe it possible that the woman could be treacherous. She has been for some years in the service of the family, and my cousin has every confidence in her."

"That may be, Matteo; but Ruggiero may have promised so highly that he may have persuaded her to aid him. He could have afforded to be generous, if he had been successful."

"There is another thing, by the bye, Francisco, which did not strike me at the time; but now you speak of it, may be another link in the chain. I was laughing at Maria about their screaming, and saying what a noise the three of them must have made, and she said, 'Oh, no! there were only two of us -- Giulia and I screamed for aid at the top of our voices; but the signora was as quiet and brave as possible, and did not utter a sound.'"

"That doesn't agree, Matteo, with her being so frightened as to hold the girls tightly, and almost prevent their escape, or with the row she made, sobbing and crying, when she came back. Of course there is not enough to go upon; and I could hardly venture to speak of it to Signor Polani, or to accuse a woman, in whom he has perfect confidence, of such frightful treachery on such vague grounds of suspicion. Still I do suspect her; and I hope, when I go away from Venice, you will, as far as you can, keep an eye upon her."

"I do not know how to do that," Matteo said, laughing; "but I will tell my cousins that we don't like her, and advise them, in future, not on any account to stay out after dusk, even if she gives them permission to do so; and if I learn anything more to justify our suspicions, I will tell my cousin what you and I think, though it won't be a pleasant thing to do. However, Ruggiero is gone now, and I hope we sha'n't hear anything more about him."

"I hope not, Matteo; but I am sure he is not the man to give up the plan he has once formed easily, any more than he is to forgive an injury.

"However, here we are at your steps. We will talk the other matter over another time. Anyhow, I am glad I have told you what I thought, for it has been worrying me. Now that I find you don't think my ideas about her are altogether absurd, I will keep my eyes more open than ever in future. I am convinced she is a bad one, and I only hope we may be able to prove it."

"You have made me very uncomfortable, Francisco," Matteo said as he stepped ashore; "but we will talk about it again tomorrow."

"We shall meet at your cousin's in the evening. Before that time, we had better both think over whether we ought to tell anyone our suspicions, and we can hold a council in the gondola on the way back."

Francis did think the matter over that night. He felt that the fact told him by Giulia, that the gouvernante had herself been the means of their staying out later than usual on the evening of the attack, added great weight to the vague suspicions he had previously entertained; and he determined to let the matter rest no longer, but that the next day he would speak to Signor Polani, even at the risk of offending him by his suspicions of a person who had been, for some years, in his confidence. Accordingly, he went in the morning to the palazzo, but found that Signor Polani was absent, and would not be in until two or three o'clock in the afternoon. He did not see the girls, who, he knew, were going out to spend the day with some friends.

At three o'clock he returned, and found that Polani had just come in.

"Why, Francisco," the merchant said when he entered, "have you forgotten that my daughters will be out all day?"

"No, signor, I have not forgotten that, but I wish to speak to you. I dare say you will laugh at me, but I hope you will not think me meddlesome, or impertinent, for touching upon a subject which concerns you nearly."

"I am sure you will not be meddlesome or impertinent, Francisco," Signor Polani said reassuringly, for he saw that the lad was nervous and anxious. "Tell me what you have to say, and I can promise you beforehand that, whether I agree with you or not in what you may have to say, I shall be in no way vexed, for I shall know you have said it with the best intentions."

"What I have to say, sir, concerns the Signora Castaldi, your daughters' gouvernante. I know, sir, that you repose implicit confidence in her; and your judgment, formed after years of intimate knowledge, is hardly likely to be shaken by what I have to tell you. I spoke to Matteo about it, and, as he is somewhat of my opinion, I have decided that it is, at least, my duty to tell you all the circumstances, and you can then form your own conclusions."

Francis then related the facts known to him. First, that the assailants of the gondola must have had accurate information as to the hour at which they would come along; secondly, that it was at the gouvernante's suggestion that the return had been delayed much later than usual; lastly, that when the attack took place, the gouvernante did not raise her voice to cry for assistance, and that she had, at the last moment, so firmly seized their dresses, that it was only by tearing the girls from her grasp that he had been enabled to get them into the boat.

"There may be nothing in all this," he said when he had concluded. "But at least, sir, I thought that it was right you should know it; and you will believe me, that it is only anxiety as to the safety of your daughters that has led me to speak to you."

"Of that I am quite sure," Signor Polani said cordially, "and you were perfectly right in speaking to me. I own, however, that I do not for a moment think that the circumstances are more than mere coincidences. Signora Castaldi has been with me for upwards of ten years. She has instructed and trained my daughters entirely to my satisfaction. I do not say that she is everything that one could wish, but, then, no one is perfect, and I have every confidence in her fidelity and trustworthiness. I own that the chain you have put together is a strong one, and had she but lately entered my service, and were she a person of whom I knew but little, I should attach great weight to the facts, although taken in themselves they do not amount to much. Doubtless she saw that my daughters were enjoying themselves in the society of my friends, and in her kindness of heart erred, as she certainly did err, in allowing them to stay longer than she should have done.

"Then, as to her not crying out when attacked, women behave differently in cases of danger. Some scream loudly, others are silent, as if paralysed by fear. This would seem to have been her case. Doubtless she instinctively grasped the girls for their protection, and in her fright did not even perceive that a boat had come alongside, or know that you were a friend trying to save them. That someone informed their assailants of the whereabouts of my daughters, and the time they were coming home, is clear; but they might have been seen going to the house, and a swift gondola have been placed on the watch. Had this boat started as soon as they took their seat in the gondola on their return, and hastened, by the narrow canals, to the spot where their accomplices were waiting, they could have warned them in ample time of the approach of the gondola with my daughters.

"I have, as you may believe, thought the matter deeply over, for it was evident to me that the news of my daughters' coming must have reached their assailants beforehand. I was most unwilling to suspect treachery on the part of any of my household, and came to the conclusion that the warning was given in the way I have suggested.

"At the same time, Francisco, I thank you deeply for having mentioned to me the suspicions you have formed, and although I think that you are wholly mistaken, I certainly shall not neglect the warning, but shall watch very closely the conduct of my daughters' gouvernante, and shall take every precaution to put it out of her power to play me false, even while I cannot, for a moment, believe she would be so base and treacherous as to attempt to do so."

"In that case, signor, I shall feel that my mission has not been unsuccessful, however mistaken I may be, and I trust sincerely that I am wholly wrong. I thank you much for the kind way in which you have heard me express suspicions of a person in your confidence."

The gravity with which the merchant had heard Francis' story vanished immediately he left the room, and a smile came over his face.

"Boys are boys all the world over," he said to himself, "and though my young friend has almost the stature of a man, as well as the quickness and courage of one, and has plenty of sense in other matters, he has at once the prejudices and the romantic ideas of a boy. Had Signora Castaldi been young and pretty, no idea that she was treacherous would have ever entered his mind; but what young fellow yet ever liked a gouvernante, who sits by and works at her tambour frame, with a disapproving expression on her face, while he is laughing and talking with a girl of his own age. I should have felt the same when I was a boy. Still, to picture the poor signora as a traitoress, in the pay of that villain Mocenigo, is too absurd. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my gravity when he was unfolding his story. But he is an excellent lad, nevertheless. A true, honest, brave lad, with a little of the bluffness that they say all his nation possess, but with a heart of gold, unless I am greatly mistaken."

At seven o'clock, Francis was just getting into his gondola to go round again to Signor Polani's, when another gondola came along the canal at the top of its speed, and he recognized at once the badge of the Giustiniani. It stopped suddenly as it came abreast of his own boat, and Matteo, in a state of the highest excitement, jumped from his own boat into that of Francis.

"What is the matter, Matteo? What has happened?"

"I have terrible news, Francisco. My cousins have both disappeared."

"Disappeared!" Francis repeated in astonishment "How have they disappeared?"

"Their father has just been round to see mine. He is half mad with grief and anger. You know they had gone to spend the day at the Persanis?"

"Yes, yes," Francis exclaimed; "but do go on, Matteo. Tell me all about it, quickly."

"Well, it seems that Polani, for some reason or other, thought he would go and fetch them himself, and at five o'clock he arrived there in his gondola, only to find that they had left two hours before. You were right, Francisco, it was that beldam Castaldi. She went with them there in the morning, and left them there, and was to have come in the gondola for them at six. At three o'clock she arrived, saying that their father had met with a serious accident, having fallen down the steps of one of the bridges and broken his leg, and that he had sent her to fetch them at once.

"Of course, they left with her instantly. Polani questioned the lackeys, who had aided them to embark. They said that the gondola was not one of his boats, but was apparently a hired gondola, with a closed cabin. The girls had stopped in surprise as they came down the steps, and Maria said, 'Why, this is not our gondola!'

"Castaldi replied, 'No, no; our own gondolas had both gone off to find and bring a leech, and as your father was urgently wanting you, I hailed the first passing boat. Make haste, dears, your father is longing for you.'

"So they got on board at once, and the gondola rowed swiftly away. That is all I know about it, except that the story was a lie, that their father never sent for them, and that up to a quarter of an hour ago they had not reached home."



Chapter 5: Finding A Clue.


"This is awful, Matteo," Francis said, when his friend had finished his story. "What is to be done?"

"That is just the thing, Francisco. What is to be done? My cousin has been already to the city magistrates, to tell them what has taken place, and to request their aid in discovering where the girls have been carried to. I believe that he is going to put up a proclamation, announcing that he will give a thousand ducats to whomsoever will bring information which will enable him to recover the girls. That will set every gondolier on the canals on the alert, and some of them must surely have noticed a closed gondola rowed by two men, for at this time of year very few gondolas have their covers on. It seems to be terrible not to be able to do anything, so I came straight off to tell you."

"You had better send your gondola home, Matteo. It may be wanted. We will paddle out to the lagoon and talk it over. Surely there must be something to be done, if we could but think of it.

"This is terrible, indeed, Matteo," he repeated, after they had sat without speaking for some minutes. "One feels quite helpless and bewildered. To think that only yesterday evening we were laughing and chatting with them, and that now they are lost, and in the power of that villain Mocenigo, who you may be sure is at the bottom of it.

"By the way," he said suddenly, "do you know where he has taken up his abode?"

"I heard that he was at Botonda, near Chioggia, a week ago, but whether he is there still I have not the least idea."

"It seems to me that the thing to do is to find him, and keep him in sight. He will probably have them hidden away somewhere, and will not go near them for some time, for he will know that he will be suspected, and perhaps watched."

"But why should he not force Maria to marry him at once?" Matteo said. "You see, when he has once made her his wife he will be safe, for my cousin would be driven then to make terms with him for her sake."

"He may try that," Francis said; "but he must know that Maria has plenty of spirit, and may refuse to marry him, threaten her as he will. He may think that, after she has been kept confined for some time, and finds that there is no hope of escape, except by consenting to be his wife, she may give way. But in any case, it seems to me that the thing to be done is to find Ruggiero, and to watch his movements."

"I have no doubt my cousin has already taken steps in that direction," Matteo said, "and I feel sure that, in this case, he will receive the support of every influential man in Venice, outside the Mocenigo family and their connections. The carrying off of ladies, in broad daylight, will be regarded as a personal injury in every family. The last attempt was different. I do not say it was not bad enough, but it is not like decoying girls from home by a false message. No one could feel safe, if such a deed as this were not severely punished."

"Let us go back again, Matteo. It is no use our thinking of anything until we know what has really been done, and you are sure to be able to learn, at home, what steps have been taken."

On reaching home Matteo learned that Polani, accompanied by two members of the council, had already started in one of the swiftest of the state galleys for the mainland. A council had been hastily summoned, and, upon hearing Polani's narrative, had dispatched two of their number, with an official of the republic, to Botonda. If Ruggiero was found to be still there, he was to be kept a prisoner in the house in which he was staying, under the strictest watch. If he had left, orders were to be sent, to every town in the Venetian dominions on the mainland, for his arrest when discovered, and in that case he was to be sent a prisoner, strongly guarded, to Venice.

Other galleys had been simultaneously dispatched to the various ports, ordering a strict search of every boat arriving or leaving, and directing a minute investigation to be made as to the occupants of every boat that had arrived during the evening or night. The fact that a thousand ducats were offered, for information which would lead to the recovery of the girls, was also to be published far and wide.

The news of the abduction had spread, and the greatest indignation was excited in the city. The sailors from the port of Malamocco came over in great numbers. They regarded this outrage on the family of the great merchant as almost a personal insult. Stones were thrown at the windows of the Palazzo Mocenigo, and an attack would have been made upon it, had not the authorities sent down strong guards to protect it. Persons belonging to that house, and the families connected with it, were assaulted in the streets, and all Venice was in an uproar.

"There is one comfort," Giuseppi said, when he heard from Francis what had taken place. "Just at present, Mocenigo will have enough to think about his own affairs without troubling about you. I have been in a tremble ever since that day, and have dreamed bad dreams every night."

"You are more nervous for me than I am for myself, Giuseppi; but I have been careful too, for although Ruggiero himself was away his friends are here, and active, too, as you see by this successful attempt. But I think that at present they are likely to let matters sleep. Public opinion is greatly excited over the affair, and as, if I were found with a stab in my back, it would, after what has passed, be put down to them, I think they will leave me alone."

"I do hope, father," Francis said at breakfast the next morning, "that there may be no opportunity of sending me back to England, until something is heard of the Polanis."

"I have somewhat changed my mind, Francis, as to that matter. After what Signor Polani said the other day, I feel that it would be foolish for me to adhere to that plan. With his immense trade and business connections he can do almost anything for you, and such an introduction into business is so vastly better than your entering my shop in the city, that it is best, in every way, that you should stay here for the present. Of course, for the time he will be able to think of nothing but his missing daughters; but at any rate, you can remain here until he has leisure to pursue the subject, and to state, further than he did the other day, what he proposes for you. My own business is a good one for a London trader, but it is nothing by the side of the transactions of the merchant princes at Venice, among the very first of whom Signor Polani is reckoned."

Francis was greatly pleased at his father's words. He had, ever since Polani had spoken to him, been pondering the matter in his mind. He knew that to enter business under his protection would be one of the best openings that even Venice could afford; but his father was slow to change his plans, and Francis greatly feared that he would adhere to his original plan.

"I was hoping, father, that you would think favourably of what Signor Polani said, although, of course, I kept silence, knowing that you would do what was best for me. And now I would ask you if you will, until this matter is cleared up, excuse me from my tasks. I should learn nothing did I continue at them, for my mind would be ever running upon Signor Polani's daughters, and I should be altogether too restless to apply myself. It seems to me, too, that I might, as I row here and there in my gondola, obtain some clue as to their place of concealment."

"I do not see how you could do that, Francis, when so many others, far better qualified than yourself, will be on the lookout. Still, as I agree with you that you are not likely to apply your mind diligently to your tasks, and as, indeed, you will shortly be giving them up altogether, I grant your request."

Polani returned in the evening to Venice. Ruggiero Mocenigo had been found. He professed great indignation at the accusation brought against him, of being concerned in the abduction of the ladies, and protested furiously when he heard that, until they were found, he was to consider himself a prisoner. Signor Polani considered that his indignation was feigned, but he had no doubt as to the reality of his anger at finding that he was to be confined to his house under a guard.

Immediately after his return, Polani sent his gondola for Francis. He was pacing up and down the room when the lad arrived.

"Your suspicions have turned out correct, as you see, Francis. Would to Heaven I had acted upon them at once, and then this would not have happened. It seemed to me altogether absurd, when you spoke to me, that the woman I have for years treated as a friend should thus betray me. And yet your warning made me uneasy, so much so that I set off myself to fetch them home at five o'clock, only to find that I was too late. I scarcely know why I have sent for you, Francis, except that as I have found, to my cost, that you were more clear sighted in this matter than I, I want to know what you think now, and whether any plan offering even a chance of success has occurred to you. That they have been carried off by the friends of Mocenigo I have no doubt whatever."

"I fear, signor," Francis said, "that there is little hope of my thinking of anything that has not already occurred to you. It seems to me hardly likely that they can be in the city, although, of course, they may be confined in the house of Mocenigo's agents. Still, they would be sure that you would offer large rewards for their discovery, and would be more likely to take them right away. Besides, I should think that it was Mocenigo's intention to join them, wherever they may be, as soon as he learned that they were in the hands of his accomplices. Your fortunate discovery that they had gone, so soon after they had been carried off, and your going straight to him armed with the order of the council, probably upset his calculations, for it is likely enough that his agents had not arrived at the house, and that he learned from you, for the first time, that his plans had succeeded. Had you arrived two or three hours later, you might have found him gone."

"That is what I calculated, Francisco. His agents had but four hours' start of me. They would, no doubt, carry the girls to the place of concealment chosen, and would then bear the news to him; whereas I, going direct in one of the state gondolas, might reach him before they did, and I feel assured that I did so.

"It was nigh midnight when I arrived, but he was still up, and I doubt not awaiting the arrival of the villains he had employed. My first step was to set a watch round the house, with the order to arrest any who might come and inquire for him. No one, however, came.

"The news, indeed, of the sudden arrival of a state galley, at that hour, had caused some excitement in the place, and his agents might well have heard of it upon their arrival. I agree with you in thinking they are not in the town, but this makes the search all the more difficult. The question is, what ought we to do next?"

"The reward that you have offered will certainly bring you news, signor, if any, save those absolutely concerned, have observed anything suspicious; but I should send to all the fishing villages, on the islets and on the mainland, to publish the news of the reward you have offered. Beyond that, I do not see that anything can be done; and I, too, have thought of nothing else since Matteo brought me the news of their being carried off. It will be of no use, that I can see, going among the fishermen and questioning them, because, with such a reward in view, it is certain that anyone who has anything to tell will come, of his own accord, to do so."

"I know that is the case already, Francisco. The authorities have been busy all day with the matter, and a score of reports as to closed gondolas being seen have reached them; but so far nothing has come of it. Many of these gondolas have been traced to their destinations, but in no case was there anything to justify suspicion. Happily, as long as Mocenigo is in confinement, I feel that no actual harm will happen to the girls; but the villain is as crafty as a fox, and may elude the vigilance of the officer in charge of him. I am going to the council, presently, to urge that he should be brought here as a prisoner; but from what I hear there is little chance of the request being complied with. His friends are already declaiming on the injustice of a man being treated as a criminal, when there is no shadow of proof forthcoming against him; and the disturbances last night have angered many who have no great friendship for him, but who are indignant at the attack of the populace upon the house of a noble. So you see that there is but faint chance that they would bring him hither a prisoner."

"I think, sir, that were I in your case, I should put some trusty men to watch round the house where he is confined; so that in case he should escape the vigilance of his guards they might seize upon him. Everything depends, as you say, upon his being kept in durance."

"I will do so, Francisco, at once. I will send to two of my officers at the port, and tell them to pick out a dozen men on whom they can rely, to proceed to Botonda, and to watch closely everyone who enters or leaves the house, without at the same time making themselves conspicuous. At any rate, they will be handy there in case Mocenigo's friends attempt to rescue him by force, which might be done with success, for the house he occupies stands at a short distance out of the town, and the official in charge of Mocenigo has only eight men with him.

"Yes, your advice is excellent, and I will follow it at once. Should any other idea occur to you, pray let me know it immediately. You saved my daughters once, and although I know there is no reason why it should be so, still, I feel a sort of belief that you may, somehow, be instrumental in their again being brought back to me."

"I will do my best, sir, you may depend upon it," Francis said earnestly. "Were they my own sisters, I could not feel more strongly interested in their behalf."

Francis spent the next week almost entirely in his gondola. Starting soon after daybreak with Giuseppi, he would row across to the villages on the mainland, and make inquiries of all sorts there; or would visit the little groups of fishermen's huts, built here and there on posts among the shallows. He would scan every house as he passed it, with the vague hope that a face might appear at the window, or a hand be waved for assistance. But, during all that time, he had found nothing which seemed to offer the slightest clue, nor were the inquiries set on foot by Signor Polani more successful. Every piece of information which seemed to bear, in the slightest degree, upon the affair was investigated, but in no case was it found of the slightest utility.

One evening he was returning late, tired by the long day's work, and discouraged with his utter want of success, when, just as he had passed under the Ponto Maggiore, the lights on the bridge fell on the faces of the sitters in a gondola coming the other way. They were a man and a woman. The latter was closely veiled. But the night was close and oppressive, and, just at the moment when Francis' eyes fell upon her, she lifted her veil for air. Francis recognized her instantly. For a moment he stopped rowing, and then dipped his oar in as before. Directly the other gondola passed through the bridge behind him, and his own had got beyond the circle of light, he swept it suddenly round.

Giuseppi gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Giuseppi, we have luck at last. Did you notice that gondola we met just now? The woman sitting in it is Castaldi, the woman who betrayed the signoras."

"What shall we do, Messer Francisco?" Giuseppi, who had become almost as interested in the search as his master, asked. "There was only a single gondolier and one other man. If we take them by surprise we can master them."

"That will not do, Giuseppi. The woman would refuse to speak, and though they could force her to do so in the dungeons, the girls would be sure to be removed the moment it was known she was captured. We must follow them, and see where they go to. Let us get well behind them, so that we can just make them out in the distance. If they have a suspicion that they are being followed, they will land her at the first steps and slip away from us."

"They are landing now, signor," Giuseppi exclaimed directly afterwards. "Shall we push on and overtake them on shore?"

"It is too late, Giuseppi. They are a hundred and fifty yards away, and would have mixed in the crowd, and be lost, long before we should get ashore and follow them. Row on fast, but not over towards that side. If the gondola moves off, we will make straight for the steps and try to follow them, though our chance of hitting upon them in the narrow lanes and turnings is slight indeed.

"But if, as I hope, the gondola stops at the steps, most likely they will return to it in time. So we will row in to the bank a hundred yards farther up the canal and wait."

The persons who had been seen in the gondola had disappeared when they came abreast of it, and the gondolier had seated himself in the boat, with the evident intention of waiting. Francis steered his gondola at a distance of a few yards from it as he shot past, but did not abate his speed, and continued to row till they were three or four hundred yards farther up the canal. Then he turned the gondola, and paddled noiselessly back until he could see the outline of the boat he was watching.

An hour elapsed before any movement was visible. Then Francis heard the sound of footsteps, and could just make out the figures of persons descending the steps and entering the gondola. Then the boat moved out into the middle of the canal, where a few boats were still passing to and fro. Francis kept his gondola close by the bank, so as to be in the deep shade of the houses. The boat they were following again passed under the Ponto Maggiore, and for some distance followed the line of the Grand Canal.

"Keep your eye upon it, Giuseppi. It is sure to turn off one way or the other soon, and if it is too far ahead of us when it does so, then it may give us the slip altogether."

But the gondola continued its course the whole length of the canal, and then straight on until, nearly opposite Saint Mark's, it passed close to a larger gondola, with four rowers, coming slowly in the other direction; and it seemed to Francis that the two boats paused when opposite each other, and that a few words were exchanged.

Then the boat they were watching turned out straight into the lagoon. It was rather lighter here than in the canal, bordered on each side by houses, and Francis did not turn the head of his gondola for a minute or two.

"It will be very difficult to keep them in sight out here without their making us out," Giuseppi said.

"Yes, and it is likely enough that they are only going out there in order that they may be quite sure that they are not followed, before striking off to the place they want to go to. They may possibly have made us out, and guess that we are tracking them. They would be sure to keep their eyes and ears open."

"I can only just make them out now, Messer Francisco, and as we shall have the buildings behind us, they will not be able to see us as well as we can see them. I think we can go now."

"We will risk it, at any rate, Giuseppi. I have lost sight of them already, and it will never do to let them give us the slip."

They dipped their oars in the water, and the gondola darted out from the shore. They had not gone fifty strokes when they heard the sound of oars close at hand.

"To the right, Giuseppi, hard!" Francis cried as he glanced over his shoulder.

A sweep with both oars brought the gondola's head, in a moment, almost at right angles to the course that she had been pursuing; and the next sent her dancing on a new line, just as a four-oared gondola swept down upon them, missing their stern by only three or four feet. Had they been less quick in turning, the iron prow would have cut right through their light boat.

Giuseppi burst into a torrent of vituperation at the carelessness of the gondoliers who had so nearly run into them, but Francis silenced him at once.

"Row, Giuseppi. It was done on purpose. It is the gondola the other spoke to."

Their assailant was turning also, and in a few seconds was in pursuit. Francis understood it now. The gondola they had been following had noticed them, and had informed their friends, waiting off Saint Mark's, of the fact. Intent upon watching the receding boat, he had paid no further attention to the four-oared craft, which had made a turn, and lay waiting in readiness to run them down, should they follow in the track of the other boat.

Francis soon saw that the craft behind them was a fast one, and rowed by men who were first-rate gondoliers. Fast as his own boat was flying through the water, the other gained upon them steadily. He was heading now for the entrance to the Grand Canal, for their pursuer, in the wider sweep he had made in turning, was nearer to the Piazza than they were, and cut off their flight in that direction.

"Keep cool, Giuseppi," he said. "They will be up to us in a minute or two. When their bow is within a yard or two of us, and I say, 'Now!' sweep her head straight round towards the lagoon. We can turn quicker than they can. Then let them gain upon us, and we will then turn again."

The gondola in pursuit came up hand over hand. Francis kept looking over his shoulder, and when he saw its bow gliding up within a few feet of her stern he exclaimed "Now!" and, with a sudden turn, the gondola again swept out seaward.

Their pursuer rushed on for a length or two before she could sweep round, while a volley of imprecations and threats burst from three men who were standing up in her with drawn swords. Francis and Giuseppi were now rowing less strongly, and gaining breath for their next effort. When the gondola again came up to them they swept round to the left, and as their pursuers followed they headed for the Grand Canal.

"Make for the steps of Santa Maria church. We will jump out there and trust to our feet."

The two lads put out all their strength now. They were some three boats' lengths ahead before their pursuers were fairly on their track. They were now rowing for life, for they knew that they could hardly succeed in doubling again, and that the gondola behind them was so well handled, that they could not gain on it at the turnings were they to venture into the narrow channels. It was a question of speed alone, and so hard did they row that the gondola in pursuit gained but slowly on them, and they were still two lengths ahead when they dashed up to the steps of the church.

Simultaneously they sprang on shore, leaped up the steps, and dashed off at the top of their speed, hearing, as they did so, a crash as the gondola ran into their light craft. There was a moment's delay, as the men had to step across their boat to gain the shore, and they were fifty yards ahead before they heard the sound of their pursuers' feet on the stone steps; but they were lightly clad and shoeless, and carried nothing to impede their movements, and they had therefore little fear of being overtaken.

After racing on at the top of their speed for a few minutes, they stopped and listened. The sound of their pursuers' footsteps died away in the distance; and, after taking a few turns to put them off their track, they pursued their way at a more leisurely pace.

"They have smashed the gondola," Giuseppi said with a sob, for he was very proud of the light craft.

"Never mind the gondola," Francis said cheerfully. "If they had smashed a hundred it would not matter."

"But the woman has got away and we have learned nothing," Giuseppi said, surprised at his master's cheerfulness.

"I think we have learned something, Giuseppi. I think we have learned everything. I have no doubt the girls are confined in that hut on San Nicolo. I wonder I never thought of it before; but I made so sure that they would be taken somewhere close to where Mocenigo was staying, that it never occurred to me that they might hide them out there. I ought to have known that that was just the thing they would do, for while the search would be keen among the islets near the land, and the villages there, no one would think of looking for them on the seaward islands.

"I have no doubt they are there now. That woman came ashore to report to his friends, and that four-oared boat which has chased us was in waiting off Saint Mark's, to attack any boat that might be following them.

"We will go to Signor Polani at once and tell him what has happened. I suppose it is about one o'clock now, but I have not noticed the hour. It was past eleven before we first met the gondola, and we must have been a good deal more than an hour lying there waiting for them."

A quarter of an hour's walking took them to the palazzo of Polani. They rang twice at the bell at the land entrance, before a face appeared at the little window of the door, and asked who was there.

"I wish to see Signor Polani at once," Francis said.

"The signor retired to rest an hour ago," the man said.

"Never mind that," Francis replied. "I am Francis Hammond, and I have important news to give him."

As soon as the servitor recognized Francis' voice, he unbarred the door.

"Have you news of the ladies?" he asked eagerly.

"I have news which will, I hope, lead to something," Francis replied.

A moment later the voice of Polani himself, who, although he had retired to his room, had not yet gone to sleep, was heard at the top of the grand stairs, inquiring who it was who had come so late; for although men had been arriving all day, with reports from the various islands and villages, he thought that no one would come at this hour unless his news were important.

Francis at once answered:

"It is I, Signor Polani, Francis Hammond. I have news which I think may be of importance, although I may be mistaken. Still, it is certainly news that may lead to something."

The merchant hurried down.

"What is it, Francisco? What have you learned?"

"I have seen the woman Castaldi, and have followed her. I do not know for certain where she was going, for we have been chased by a large gondola, and have narrowly escaped with our lives. Still, I have a clue to their whereabouts."

Francis then related the events of the evening.

"But why did you not run into the boat and give the alarm at once, Francisco? Any gondolas passing would have given their assistance, when you declared who she was, for the affair is the talk of the city. If that woman were in our power we should soon find means to make her speak."

"Yes, signor; but the moment she was known to be in your power, you may be sure that they would remove your daughters from the place where they have been hiding them. I thought, therefore, the best plan would be to track them. No doubt we should have succeeded in doing so, had it not been for the attack upon us by another gondola."

"You are right, no doubt, Francisco. Still, it is unfortunate, for I do not see that we are now any nearer than we were before, except that we know that this woman is in the habit of coming into the city."

"I think we are nearer, sir, for I had an adventure some time ago that may afford a clue to their hiding place."

He then told the merchant how he had, one evening, taken a man out to San Nicolo, and had discovered that a hut in that island was used as a meeting place by various persons, among whom was Ruggiero Mocenigo.

"I might have thought of the place before, signor; but, in fact, it never entered my mind. From the first, we considered it so certain that the men who carried off your daughters would take them to some hiding place where Mocenigo could speedily join them, that San Nicolo never entered my mind. I own that it was very stupid, for it seems now to me that the natural thing for them to do, would be to take them in the very opposite direction to that in which the search for them would be made."

The story had been frequently interrupted by exclamations of surprise by Polani. At its conclusion, he laid his hand on Francis' shoulder.

"My dear boy," he said, "How can I thank you! You seem to me to be born to be the preserver of my daughters. I cannot doubt that your suspicion is correct, and that they are confined in this hut at San Nicolo. How fortunate that you did not denounce this conspiracy -- for conspiracy no doubt it is -- that you discovered, for, had you done so, some other place would have been selected for the girls' prison."

"I would not be too sanguine, sir. The girls may not be in this hut, still we may come on some clue there which may lead us to them. If not, we will search the islands on that side as closely as we have done those on the mainland."

"Now, shall I send for the gondoliers and set out at once? There are ten or twelve men in the house, and it is hardly likely that they will place a guard over them of anything like this strength, as of course they will be anxious to avoid observation by the islanders."

"I do not think I would do anything tonight, sir," Francis said. "The gondola that chased us will be on the alert. They cannot, of course, suspect in the slightest that we have any clue to the hiding place of your daughters. Still, they might think that, if we were really pursuing the other gondola, and had recognized the woman Castaldi, we might bring the news to you, and that a stir might be made. They may therefore be watching to see if anything comes of it; and if they saw a bustle and gondolas setting out taking the direction of the island, they might set off and get there first, for it is a very fast craft, and remove your daughters before we reach the hut.

"I should say wait till morning. They may be watching your house now, and if, in an hour or two, they see all is quiet, they will no doubt retire with the belief that all danger is at an end. Then, in the morning, I would embark the men in two or three gondolas, but I would not start from your own steps, for no doubt your house is watched. Let the men go out singly, and embark at a distance from here, and not at the same place. Once out upon the lagoon, they should row quietly towards San Nicolo, keeping a considerable distance apart, the men lying down in the bottom as the boats approach the island, so that if anyone is on watch he will have no suspicion.

"As I am the only one that knows the position of the hut, I will be with you in the first gondola. We will not land near the hut, but pass by, and land at the other end of the island. The other gondolas will slowly follow us, and land at the same spot. Then three or four men can go along by the sea face, with orders to watch any boats hauled up upon the shore there, and stop any party making down towards them. The rest of us will walk straight to the hut, and, as it lies among sand hills, I hope we shall be able to get quite close to it before our approach is discovered."

"An excellent plan, Francisco, though I am so impatient that the night will seem endless to me; but certainly your plan is the best. Even if the house is watched, and you were seen to enter, if all remains perfectly quiet they will naturally suppose that the news you brought was not considered of sufficient importance to lead to any action. You will, of course, remain here till morning?"

"I cannot do that, sir, though I will return the first thing. There is, lying on my table, a paper with the particulars and names of the persons I saw meet in this hut, and a request to my father that, if I do not return in the morning, he will at once lay this before the council. I place it there every day when I go out, in order that, if I should be seized and carried off by Mocenigo's people, I should have some means of forcing them to let me go.

"Although I know absolutely nothing of the nature of the conspiracy, they will not know how much I am aware of, or what particulars I may have given in the document; and as I could name to them those present, and among them is the envoy of the King of Hungary, now in the city, they would hardly dare harm me, when they knew that if they did so this affair would be brought before the council."

"It was an excellent precaution, Francisco. Why, you are as prudent and thoughtful as you are courageous!"

"It was not likely to be of much use, sir," Francis said modestly. "I was very much more likely to get a stab in the back than to be carried off. Still, it was just possible that Mocenigo might himself like to see his vengeance carried out, and it was therefore worth my while guarding against it. But, as you see, it will be necessary for me to be back sometime before morning."

"At any rate, Francisco, you had better wait here until morning breaks. Your room is not likely to be entered for some hours after that; so while I am preparing for our expedition, you can go out and make your way to the Grand Canal, hail an early gondola, and be put down at your own steps, when, as you have told me, you can enter the house without disturbing anyone. Then you can remove that paper, and return here in the gondola. We will start at seven. There will be plenty of boats about by that time, and the lagoon will be dotted by the fishermen's craft, so that our gondolas will attract no attention."

"Perhaps that will be the best plan, signor; and, indeed, I should not be sorry for a few hours' sleep, for Giuseppi and I have been in our boat since a very early hour in the morning, and were pretty well tired out before this last adventure began."



Chapter 6: The Hut On San Nicolo.


At seven o'clock all was in readiness for a start. Signor Polani set out alone in his gondola, and picked up Francis, and four men, at a secluded spot some distance from the house. A messenger had been sent, two hours before, to the captain of one of the merchant ships lying in the port. He at once put ten men into a large boat, and rowed down to within half a mile of the island. Here a grapnel was thrown overboard, most of the men lay down in the bottom, and the captain, according to his instructions, kept a sharp lookout to see that no boat left San Nicolo -- his instructions being to overhaul any boat coming out, and to see that no one was concealed on board it.

There he remained until Polani's gondola rowed past him. After it had gone a few hundred yards, the grapnel was got up, the men took to their oars and followed the gondola, keeping so far behind that it would not seem there was any connection between them.

Francis made for the narrow channel which separated San Nicolo from the next island, and then directed the gondola to be run ashore, where a low sand hill, close by, hid them from the sight of anyone on the lookout. A few minutes later the ship's boat arrived.

Francis now led the way direct for the hut, accompanied by Polani and six men, while four sailors advanced, at a distance of a hundred yards on either flank, to cut off anyone making for the water.

"We may as well go fast," he said, "for we can scarcely get there without being seen by a lookout, should there be one on the sand hills, and the distance is so short that there will be no possibility of their carrying your daughters off, before we get there."

"The faster the better," the merchant said. "This suspense is terrible."

Accordingly, the party started at a brisk run. Francis kept his eyes on the spot where he believed the hut lay.

"I see no one anywhere near there," he said, as they came over one of the sand ridges. "Had there been anyone on the watch I think we should see him now."

On they ran, until, passing over one of the sand hills, Francis came to a standstill. The hut lay in the hollow below them.

"There is the house, signor. Now we shall soon know."

They dashed down the short slope, and gathered round the door.

"Within there, open!" the merchant shouted, hammering with the hilt of his sword on the door.

All was silent within.

"Break it down!" he said; and two of the sailors, who had brought axes with them, began to hew away at the door.

A few blows, and it suddenly opened, and two men dressed as fishermen appeared in the doorway.

"What means this attack upon the house of quiet people?" they demanded.

"Bind them securely," Polani said, as he rushed in, followed closely by Francis, while those who followed seized the men.

Polani paused as he crossed the threshold, with a cry of disappointment -- the hut was empty. Francis was almost equally disappointed.

"If they are not here, they are near by," Francis said to Polani. "Do not give up hope. I am convinced they are not far off; and if we search we may find a clue. Better keep your men outside. We can search more thoroughly by ourselves."

The merchant told his men, who had seized and were binding the two occupants of the hut, to remain outside. The inside of the hut differed in no way from the ordinary dwelling of fishermen, except that a large table stood in the middle of it, and there were some benches against the walls. Some oars stood in one corner, and some nets were piled close to them. A fire burned in the open hearth, and a pot hung over it, and two others stood on the hearth.

"Let us see what they have got here," Francis said, while the merchant leaned against the table with an air of profound depression, paying no attention to what he was doing.

"A soup," Francis said, lifting the lid from the pot over the fire, "and, by the smell, a good one."

Then he lifted the other pots simmering among the burning brands.

"A ragout of kid and a boiled fish. Signor Polani, this is no fisherman's meal. Either these men expect visitors of a much higher degree than themselves, or your daughters are somewhere close.

"Oh! there is a door."

"It can lead nowhere," Polani said. "The sand is piled up to the roof on that side of the house."

"It is," Francis agreed; "but there may be a lower room there, completely covered with the sand. At any rate, we will see."

He pushed against the door, but it did not give in the slightest.

"It may be the sand," he said. "It may be bolts."

He went to the outside door, and called in the sailors with the hatchets.

"Break open that door," he said.

"There is a space behind," he exclaimed, as the first blow was given. "It is hollow, I swear. It would be a different sound altogether if sand was piled up against it."

A dozen blows and the fastenings gave, and, sword in hand, the merchant and Francis rushed through.

Both gave a shout of delight. They were in a room built out at the back of the hut. It was richly furnished, and hangings of Eastern stuffs covered the walls. A burning lamp hung from the ceiling. Two men stood irresolute with drawn swords, having apparently turned round just as the door gave way; for as it did so, two figures struggled to their feet from a couch behind them, for some shawls had been wrapped round their heads, and with a cry of delight rushed forward to meet their rescuers. Seated at the end of the couch, with bowed down head, was another female figure.

"Maria -- Giulia!" the merchant exclaimed, as, dropping his sword, he clasped his daughters in his arms.

Francis, followed by the two sailors with hatchets, advanced towards the men.

"Drop your swords and surrender," he said. "Resistance is useless. There are a dozen men outside."

The men threw their swords down on the ground.

"Lead them outside, and bind them securely," Francis said.

For the next minute or two, few words were spoken. The girls sobbed with delight on their father's breast, while he himself was too moved to do more than murmur words of love and thankfulness. Francis went quietly out and spoke to the captain, who went in to the inner room, touched the sitting figure on the shoulder, and, taking her by the arm, led her outside.

"Come in, Francis," Polani called a minute later.

"My dears, it is not me you must thank for your rescue. It is your English friend here who has again restored you to me. It is to him we owe our happiness, and that you, my child, are saved from the dreadful fate of being forced to be the wife of that villain Mocenigo.

"Embrace him, my dears, as a brother, for he has done more than a brother for you. And now tell me all that has happened since I last saw you."

"You know, father, the message that was brought us, that you had been hurt and wanted us home?"

"Yes, my dears, that I learned soon afterwards. I went at five o'clock to fetch you home, and found that you had gone, and why."

"Well, father, directly we had taken our seats in the cabin of the gondola, our gouvernante closed the doors, and soon afterwards she slid to the two shutters before the windows. We cried out in surprise at finding ourselves in the dark, but she bade us be quiet, in a tone quite different to any in which she had ever spoken to us before. We were both frightened, and tried to push back the shutters and open the door, but they were fastened firmly. I suppose there was some spring which held them. Then we screamed; but I could feel that the inside was all thickly padded. I suppose our voices could not be heard outside. I thought so, because once I thought I heard the gondoliers singing, but it was so faint that I could not be sure. Then the air seemed stiflingly close, and I fainted; and when I came to myself one of the windows was open, and Giulia said she had promised we would not scream, but I think we were beyond the canals then, for I could see nothing but the sky as we passed along. When I was better the windows were almost shut again, so that we could not see out, though a little air could get in; then the gondola went on for a long time.

"At last it stopped, and she said we must be blindfolded. We said we would not submit to it, and she told us unless we let her do it, the men would do it. So we submitted, and she wrapped shawls closely over our heads. Then we were helped ashore, and walked some distance. At last the shawls were taken off our heads, and we found ourselves here, and here we have been ever since."

"You have not been ill treated in any way, my children?" the merchant asked anxiously.

"Not at all, father. Until today, nobody has been into this room besides ourselves and that woman. The door was generally left a little open for air, for you see there are no windows here. She used to go into the next room and come back with our food. We could see men moving about in there, but they were very quiet, and all spoke in low tones.

"You may think how we upbraided our gouvernante for her treachery, and threatened her with your anger. She told us we should never be found, and that I might as well make up my mind to marry Ruggiero Mocenigo, for if I did not consent quietly, means would be found to compel me to do so. I said I would die first, but she used to laugh a cruel laugh, and say he would soon be here with the priest, and that it mattered not whether I said yes or no. The ceremony would be performed, and then Ruggiero would sail away with me to the East, and I should be glad enough then to make peace between him and you. But he never came. I think she became anxious, for she went away twice for three or four hours, and locked us in here when she went.

"That, father, is all we know about it. Where are we?"

"You are at San Nicolo."

"On the island!" Maria exclaimed in surprise. "She told us we were on the mainland. And now, how did you find us?"

"I will tell you as we go home, Maria."

"Yes, that will be better, father. Giulia and I long for a breath of fresh air, and the sight of the blue sky."

"Giulia has not had so much to frighten her as you have," her father said.

"Yes, I have, father; for she said I was to go across the seas with Maria, and that Ruggiero would soon find a husband for me among his friends. I told her she was a wicked woman, over and over again, and we told her that we were sure you would forgive, and even reward her, if she would take us back again to you. When she was away, we thought we would try to make our escape behind, and we made a little hole in the boards; but the sand came pouring in, and we found we were underground, though how we got there we didn't know, for we had not come down any steps. So we had to give up the idea of escape."

"You are partly underground," her father said, "for, as you will see when you get out, the sand has drifted up at the back of the hut to the roof, and has altogether hidden this part of the hut; so that we did not know that there was more than one room, and I should never have thought of breaking into that door, had it not been for Francisco. And now come along, my dears. Let us wait here no longer."

The sailors and servitors broke into a cheer as the girls came out of the hut.

"Shall we put a torch to this place?" Francis asked Polani.

"No, Francisco. It must be searched thoroughly first.

"Captain Lontano, do you order four of your men to remain here, until some of the officials of the state arrive. If anyone comes before that, they must seize them and detain them as prisoners. The state will investigate the matter to the bottom."

Now that they were in the open air, the merchant could see that the close confinement and anxiety had told greatly upon his daughters. Both were pale and hollow eyed, and looked as if they had suffered a long illness. Seeing how shaken they were, he ordered one of the retainers to go to the gondola, and tell the men to row it round to the nearest point to the hut. The party then walked along down to the shore.

In a few minutes the gondola arrived. Polani, his two daughters, and Francis took their places in it. The four men, bound hand and foot, were laid in the bottom of the ship's boat; the gouvernante was made to take her place there also, and the sailors were told to follow closely behind the gondola, which was rowed at a very slow pace.

On the way, Polani told his daughters of the manner in which Francis had discovered the place of concealment.

"Had it not been for him, my dears, we should certainly not have found you, and that villain would have carried out his plans, sooner or later. He would either have given his guards the slip, or, when no evidence was forthcoming against him, they would have been removed. He would then have gone outside the jurisdiction of the republic, obtained a ship with a crew of desperadoes, sailed round to the seaward side of San Nicolo, and carried you off. Nothing could have saved you, and your resistance would, as that woman told you, have been futile."

"We shall be grateful to you all our lives, Francisco," Maria said. "We shall pray for you always, night and morning.

"Shall we not, Giulia?"

"Yes, indeed," the young girl said simply. "We shall love him all our lives."

"Answer for yourself, Giulia," Maria said with a laugh, her spirits returning in the bright sunshine and fresh air. "When Francisco asks for my love, it will be quite soon enough to say what I think about it."

"I should never have courage enough to do that, signora. I know what you would say too well."

"What should I say?" Maria asked.

"You would say I was an impudent boy."

Maria laughed.

"I cannot think of you as a boy any longer, Francisco," she said more gravely. "I have, perhaps, regarded you as a boy till now, though you did save us so bravely before; but you see you are only my own age, and a girl always looks upon a boy of her own age as ever so much younger than she is herself. Besides, too, you have none of the airs of being a man, which some of my cousins have; and never pay compliments or say pretty things, but seem altogether like a younger brother. But I shall think you a boy no more. I know you better now."

"But I am a boy," Francis said, "and I don't want to be thought anything else. In England we keep young longer than they do here, and a boy of my age would not think of speaking to his elders, unless he was first addressed.

"What are you going to do with your prisoners, signor?"

"I shall take them direct to my house, and then go and report the recovery of my daughters, and their capture. Officials will at once be sent, with a gondola, to take them off to the prison. There can be no question now as to the part Mocenigo has played in this business, and no doubt he will be brought here a prisoner at once. Even his nearest connections will not dare to defend conduct so outrageous, especially when public indignation has been so excited.

"You do not know, girls, what a stir has been caused in the city on your account. If it had not been for the citizen guard, I believe the Mocenigo Palace would have been burned down; and Ruggiero's connections have scarcely dared to show their faces in the streets, since you have been missing. You see, every father of a family felt personally grieved, for if the nobles were permitted, with impunity, to carry off the daughters of citizens, who could feel safe?

"When this is all over I shall take you, for a time, back to our home in Corfu. It is not good for girls to be the subject of public talk and attention."

"I shall be very glad, father," Giulia said. "I love our home at Corfu, with its gardens and flowers, far better than the palazzo here. The air is always soft and balmy, while here it is so hot sometimes by day, and so damp and foggy in the evening. I shall be glad to go back again."

"And you, Maria?"

"I shall be very happy there, father, but I like Venice best."

"You are getting to an age to enjoy gaiety, Maria; and it is natural you should do so. However, it will not be necessary for you to be long absent. In a city like Venice there are always fresh subjects for talk, and the most exciting piece of scandal is but a three days' wonder. A few weeks at Corfu will restore your nerves, which cannot but have been shaken by what you have gone through, and you will come back here more disposed than ever to appreciate the gaieties of Venice."

"As long as it is for only a few weeks, father, I shall not care; for you know I am very fond, too, of our beautiful home there. Still, I do like Venice."

They had now reached the steps of the Palazzo Polani. They had not proceeded by way of the Grand Canal, as the merchant was anxious that his daughters should reach their home unrecognized, as, had they been noticed, it would have given rise to no little excitement, and they had had more than enough of this, and needed quiet and repose. Besides, until the prisoners were in the safe custody of the officials of the state, it was in every way desirable that the events of the morning should remain unknown.

Their return home created quite a tumult of joy in the house. The preparations that had been made had been kept a profound secret, as the merchant could not be sure but that some other member of his household was in the pay of Mocenigo. Thus, until the girls alighted at the steps, none in the house were aware that any clue had been obtained as to their hiding place. The women ran down with cries of joy. The men would have shouted and cheered, had not Polani held up his hand.

"The signoras have had more than enough excitement," he said. "They are grateful to you for your goodwill and affection, but for the present they need quiet. They may have more to go through today. I pray you that no word, as to their return, be said outside the house. I would not that the news were whispered in the city, till the seignory decide what is to be done in the matter."

As soon as the girls had gone upstairs to their rooms, the ship's boat came alongside, and the prisoners were carried into the house, glances of indignation and anger being cast at the gouvernante, who had, as soon as she was placed on board the boat, closely veiled herself; and some of the women broke out into threats and imprecations.

"Captain Lontano, the servants will show you a room where your men can guard the prisoners. You had better remain with them yourself. Let no one, except your own men, enter the room."

Giuseppi was on the steps, and Francis stepped up to him and eagerly asked, "What news of the gondola?"

"I found her, stove in and full of water, behind the piles close to the steps. Someone must have pushed her there, to be out of the way of the traffic. She has several holes in her bottom, besides being stove in at the gunwale where the other boat struck her. They must have thrust the ends of their oars through her planks, out of sheer spite, when they found that we had escaped them. Father and I have towed her round to your steps, but I doubt whether she is worth repairing."

"Well, we can't help it, Giuseppi. She has done her work; and if every two ducats I lay out were to bring in as good a harvest, I should have no reason to complain."

Having seen the prisoners safely placed, the merchant returned.

"I think, Francisco, you must go with me. They will be sure to want to question you."

"I shall have to say what were my reasons for thinking your daughters were hid in that hut, signor," Francis said as the gondola rowed towards Saint Mark's; "and I can only do that by telling of that secret meeting. I do not want to denounce a number of people, besides Ruggiero. I have no evidence against them, and do not know what they were plotting, nor have I any wish to create for myself more enemies. It is quite enough to have incurred the enmity of all the connections of the house of Mocenigo."

"That is true enough, Francisco, but I do not see how it is to be avoided. Unfortunately, you did recognize others besides Ruggiero."

"Quite so, signor, and I am not going to tell a lie about it, whatever the consequences may be. Still, I wish I could get out of it."

"I wish you could, Francis, but I do not see any escape for it, especially as you say you did not recognize Ruggiero as the passenger you carried."

"No, signor, I did not. It might have been he, but I cannot say. He was wrapped in a cloak, and I did not see his features."

"It is a pity, Francisco, for had you known him, the statement that, moved by curiosity, you followed him and saw him into that hut, would have been sufficient without your entering into the other matter. Most of my countrymen would not hesitate about telling a lie, to avoid mixing themselves up further in such a matter, for the dangers of making enemies are thoroughly appreciated here; but you are perfectly right, and I like your steady love of the truth, whatever the consequences to yourself; but certainly as soon as the matter is concluded, it will be better for you to quit Venice for a time."

"Are you going to the council direct, signor?"

"No. I am going first to the magistrates, to tell them that I have in my hands five persons, who have been engaged in carrying off my daughters, and beg them to send at once to take them into their custody. Then I shall go before the council, and demand justice upon Mocenigo, against whom we have now conclusive evidence. You will not be wanted at the magistracy. My own evidence, that I found them keeping guard over my daughters, will be quite sufficient for the present, and after that the girls' evidence will be sufficient to convict them, without your name appearing in the affair at all.

"I will try whether I cannot keep your name from appearing before the council also. Yes, I think I might do that; and as a first step, I give you my promise not to name you, unless I find it absolutely necessary. You may as well remain here in the gondola until I return."

It was upwards of an hour before Signor Polani came back to the boat.

"I have succeeded," he said, "in keeping your name out of it. I first of all told my daughters' story, and then said that, having obtained information that Ruggiero, before he was banished from Venice, was in the habit of going sometimes at night to a hut on San Nicolo, I proceeded thither, and found my daughters concealed in the hut whose position had been described to me. Of course, they inquired where I had obtained the information; but I replied that, as they knew, I had offered a large reward which would lead to my daughters' discovery, and that this reward had attracted one in the secret of Mocenigo, but that, for the man's own safety, I had been compelled to promise that I would not divulge his name.

"Some of the council were inclined to insist, but others pointed out that, for the ends of justice, it mattered in no way how I obtained the information. I had, at any rate, gone to the island and found my daughters there; and their evidence, if it was in accordance with what I had stated, was amply sufficient to bring the guilt of the abduction of my daughters home to Ruggiero, against whom other circumstances had already excited suspicion. A galley has already started for the mainland, with orders to bring him back a prisoner, and the girls are to appear to give evidence tomorrow. The woman, Castaldi, is to be interrogated by the council this afternoon, and I have no doubt she will make a full confession, seeing that my daughters' evidence is, in itself, sufficient to prove her guilt, and that it can be proved, from other sources, that it was she who inveigled them away by a false message from me."

"I am glad indeed, signor, that I am not to be called, and that this affair of the conspiracy is not to be brought up. I would, with your permission, now return home. Giuseppi took a message to my father from me, the first thing, explaining my absence; and I told him, when we left your house, to go at once to tell him that your daughters had been recovered, and that I should return before long. Still, he will want to hear from me as to the events of the night."

"Will you also tell him, Francisco, that I will call upon him this afternoon. I have much to say to him."

"I am glad Signor Polani is coming," Mr. Hammond said, when his son gave him the message. "I am quite resolved that you shall quit Venice at once. I do not wish to blame you for what you have done, which, indeed, is likely to have a favourable effect upon your fortunes; but that, at your age, you have mixed yourself up in adventures of this kind, taken part in the affairs of great houses, and drawn upon yourself the enmity of one of the most powerful families of Venice, is altogether strange and improper for a lad of your years, and belonging to the family of a quiet trader. I have been thinking about it all this morning, and am quite resolved that the sooner you are out of Venice the better. If I saw any way of sending you off before nightfall I would do so.

"Signor Polani has, you say, so far concealed from the council the fact that you have been mixed up in this business; but there is no saying how soon it may come out. You know that Venice swarms with spies, and these are likely, before many hours, to learn the fact of your midnight arrival at Polani's house; and as no orders were given for the preparation of this expedition to the island before that time, it will not need much penetration to conclude that you were the bearer of the news that led to the discovery of the maidens. Besides which, you accompanied the expedition, and acted as its guide to the hut. Part of this they will learn from the servants of the house, part of it they may get out from the sailors, who, over their wine cups, are not given to reticence. The council may not have pressed Polani on this point, but, take my word for it, some of them, at least, will endeavour to get to the bottom of it, especially Mocenigo's connections, who will naturally be alarmed at the thought that there is somewhere a traitor among their own ranks.

"The affair has become very serious, Francis, and far beyond the compass of a boyish scrape, and no time must be lost in getting you out of Venice. I have no doubt Polani will see the matter in the same light, for he knows the ways of his countrymen even better than I do."

The interview between the two traders was a long one. At its conclusion Francis was sent for.

"Francis," his father said, "Signor Polani has had the kindness to make me offers of a most generous nature."

"Not at all, Messer Hammond," the Venetian interrupted. "Let there be no mistake upon that score. Your son has rendered me services impossible for me ever to repay adequately. He has laid me under an obligation greater than I can ever discharge. At the same time, fortunately, I am in a position to be able to further his interests in life.

"I have proposed, Francisco, that you shall enter my house at once. You will, of course, for some years learn the business, but you will do so in the position which a son of mine would occupy, and when you come of age, you will take your place as a partner with me.

"Your father will return to England. He informs me that he is now longing to return to his own country, and has for some time been thinking of doing so. I have proposed to him that he shall act as my agent there. Hitherto I have not traded direct with England; in future I shall do so largely. Your father has explained to me somewhat of his transactions, and I see there is good profit to be made on trade with London, by a merchant who has the advantage of the advice and assistance of one, like your father, thoroughly conversant in the trade. Thus, I hope that the arrangement will be largely to our mutual advantage. As to yourself, you will probably be reluctant to establish yourself for life in this country; but there is no reason why, in time, when your father wishes to retire from business, you should not establish yourself in London, in charge of the English branch of our house."

"I am most grateful to you for your offer, signor, which is vastly beyond anything that my ambition could ever have aspired to. I can only say that I will try my best to do justice to your kindness to me."

"I have no fear as to that, Francisco," the merchant said. "You have shown so much thoughtfulness, in this business, that I shall have no fear of entrusting even weighty affairs of business in your hands; and you must remember always that I shall still consider myself your debtor. I thoroughly agree with your father's views as to the necessity for your leaving Venice, as soon as possible. In a few months this matter will have blown over, the angry feelings excited will calm down, and you will then be able to come and go in safety; but at present you were best out of the town, and I have, therefore, arranged with your father that you shall embark tonight on board the Bonito, which sails tomorrow. You will have much to say to your father now, but I hope you will find time to come round, and say goodbye to my daughters, this evening."

"Your adventures, Francis," Mr. Hammond said when the merchant had left them, "have turned out fortunate, indeed. You have an opening now beyond anything we could have hoped for. Signor Polani has expressed himself most warmly. He told me that I need concern myself no further with your future, for that would now be his affair. The arrangement that he has made with me, will enable me to hold my head as high as any in the City, for it will give me almost a monopoly of the Venetian trade; and although he said that he had long been thinking of entering into trade direct with England, there is no doubt that it is his feeling towards you, which has influenced him now in the matter.

"My business here has more than answered my expectations, in one respect, but has fallen short in another. I have bought cheaply, and the business should have been a very profitable one; but my partner in London is either not acting fairly by me, or he is mismanaging matters altogether. This offer, then, of Signor Polani is in every respect acceptable. I shall give up my own business and start anew, and selling, as I shall, on commission, shall run no risk, while the profits will be far larger than I could myself make, for Polani will carry it on on a great scale.

"As for you, you will soon learn the ways of trade, and will be able to come home and join me, and eventually succeed me in the business.

"No fairer prospect could well open to a young man, and if you show yourself as keen in business, as you have been energetic in the pursuits you have adopted, assuredly a great future is open to you, and you may look to be one of the greatest merchants in the city of London. I know not yet what offers Polani may make you here, but I hope that you will not settle in Venice permanently, but will always remember that you are an Englishman, and the son of a London citizen, and that you will never lose your love for your native land.

"And yet, do not hurry home for my sake. Your two brothers will soon have finished their schooling, and will, of course, be apprenticed to me as soon as I return; and if, as I hope, they turn out steady and industrious; they will, by the time they come to man's estate, be of great assistance to me in the business.

"And now, you will be wanting to say goodbye to your friends. Be careful this last evening, for it is just when you are thinking most of other matters, that sudden misfortune is likely to come upon you."

Delighted with his good fortune -- rather because it opened up a life of activity, instead of the confinement to business that he had dreaded, than for the pecuniary advantages it offered -- Francis ran downstairs and, leaping into his father's gondola, told Beppo to take him to the Palazzo Giustiniani. On the way he told Beppo and his son that the next day he was leaving Venice, and was going to enter the service of Signor Polani.

Giuseppi ceased rowing, and, throwing himself down at the bottom of the gondola, began to sob violently, with the abandonment to his emotions common to his race. Then he suddenly sat up.

"If you are going, I will go too, Messer Francisco. You will want a servant who will be faithful to you. I will ask the padrone to let me go with you.

"You will let me go, will you not, father? I cannot leave our young master, and should pine away, were I obliged to stop here to work a gondola; while he may be wanting my help, for Messer Francisco is sure to get into adventures and dangers. Has he not done it here in Venice? and is he not sure to do it at sea, where there are Genoese and pirates, and perils of all kinds?

"You will take me with you, will you not, Messer Francisco? You will never be so hard hearted as to go away and leave me behind?"

"I shall be very glad to have you with me, Giuseppi, if your father will give you leave to go. I am quite sure that Signor Polani will make no objection. In the first place, he would do it to oblige me, and in the second, I know that it is his intention to do something to your advantage. He has spoken to me about it several times, for you had your share of the danger when we first rescued his daughters, and again when we were chased by that four-oared gondola. He has been too busy with the search for his daughters to give the matter his attention, but I know that he is conscious of his obligation to you, and that he intends to reward you largely. Therefore, I am sure that he will offer no objection to your accompanying me.

"What do you say, Beppo?"

"I do not like to stand in the way of the lad's wishes, Messer Francisco; but, you see, he is of an age now to be very useful to me. If Giuseppi leaves me, I shall have to hire another hand for the gondola, or to take a partner."

"Well, we will talk it over presently," Francis said. "Here we are at the steps of the palazzo, and here comes Matteo himself. It is lucky I was not five minutes later, or I should have missed him."



Chapter 7: On Board A Trader.


"Have you heard the news, Francisco? My cousins are rescued! I have been out this morning and have only just heard it, and I was on the point of starting to tell you."

"Your news is old, Matteo. I knew it hours ago."

"And I hear," Matteo went on, "that Polani found them in a hut on San Nicolo. My father cannot think how he came to hear of their hiding place. He says Polani would not say how he learned the news. My father supposes he heard it from some member of Ruggiero's household."

Francis hesitated for a moment. He had at first been on the point of telling Matteo of the share he had had in the recovery of the girls; but he thought that although his friend could be trusted not to repeat the news wilfully, he might accidentally say something which would lead to the fact being known, and that as Polani had strongly enjoined the necessity of keeping the secret, and had himself declined to mention, even to the council, the source from which he obtained his information, he would look upon him as a babbler, and unworthy of trust, did he find that Matteo had been let into the secret.

"It does not much matter who it is Polani learned the news from. The great point is, he has found his daughters safe from all injury, and I hear has brought back with him the woman who betrayed them. It is fortunate indeed that he took such prompt measures with Ruggiero, and thus prevented his escaping from the mainland, and making off with the girls, as of course he intended to do."

"My father tells me," Matteo said, "that a state gondola has already been dispatched to bring Ruggiero a prisoner here, and that even his powerful connections will not save him from severe punishment, for public indignation is so great at the attempt, that his friends will not venture to plead on his behalf."

"And now I have my bit of news to tell you, Matteo. Signor Polani has most generously offered me a position in his house, and I am to sail tomorrow in one of his ships for the East."

"I congratulate you, Francisco, for I know, from what you have often said, that you would like this much better than going back to England. But it seems very sudden. You did not know anything about it yesterday, and now you are going to start at once. Why, when can it have been settled? Polani has been absent since daybreak, engaged in this matter of the girls, and has been occupied ever since with the council."

"I have seen him since he returned," Francis replied; "and though it was only absolutely settled this morning, he has had several interviews with my father on the subject. I believe he and my father thought that it was better to get me away as soon as possible, as Ruggiero's friends may put down the disgrace which has befallen him to my interference in his first attempt to carry off the girls."

"Well, I think you are a lucky fellow anyhow, Francisco, and I hope that I may be soon doing something also. I shall speak to my father about it, and ask him to get Polani to let me take some voyages in his vessels, so that I may be fit to become an officer in one of the state galleys, as soon as I am of age. Where are you going now?"

"I am going round to the School of Arms, to say goodbye to our comrades. After that I am going to Signor Polani's to pay my respects to the signoras. Then I shall be at home with my father till it is time to go on board. He will have left here before I return from my voyage, as he is going to wind up his affairs at once and return to England."

"Well, I will accompany you to the school and to my cousin's," Matteo said. "I shall miss you terribly here, and shall certainly do all I can to follow your example, and get afloat. You may have all sorts of adventures, for we shall certainly be at war with Genoa before many weeks are over, and you will have to keep a sharp lookout for their war galleys. Polani's ships are prizes worth taking, and you may have the chance of seeing the inside of a Genoese prison before you return."

After a visit to the School of Arms, the two friends were rowed to Signor Polani's. The merchant himself was out, but they were at once shown up to the room where the girls were sitting.

"My dear cousins," Matteo said as he entered, "I am delighted to see you back safe and well. All Venice is talking of your return. You are the heroines of the day. You do not know what an excitement there has been over your adventure."

"The sooner people get to talk about something else the better, Matteo," Maria said, "for we shall have to be prisoners all day till something else occupies their attention. We have not the least desire to be pointed at, whenever we go out, as the maidens who were carried away. If the Venetians were so interested in us, they had much better have set about discovering where we were hidden away before."

"But everyone did try, I can assure you, Maria. Every place has been ransacked, high and low. Every gondolier has been questioned and cross questioned as to his doings on that day. Every fishing village has been visited. Never was such a search, I do believe. But who could have thought of your being hidden away all the time at San Nicolo! As for me, I have spent most of my time in a gondola, going out and staring up at every house I passed, in hopes of seeing a handkerchief waved from a casement. And so has Francisco; he has been just as busy in the search as anyone, I can assure you."

"Francisco is different," Maria said, not observing the signs Francis was making for her to be silent. "Francisco has got eyes in his head, and a brain in his skull, which is more, it seems, than any of the Venetians have; and had he not brought father to our hiding place, there we should have remained until Ruggiero Mocenigo came and carried us away."

"Francisco brought your father the news!" Matteo exclaimed in astonishment. "Why, was it he who found you out, after all?"

"Did you not know that, Matteo? Of course it was Francisco! As I told you, he has got brains; and if it had not been for him, we should certainly never have been rescued. Giulia and I owe him everything -- don't we, Giulia?"

"Forgive me for not telling you, Matteo," Francis said to his astonished friend; "but Signor Polani, and my father, both impressed upon me so strongly that I should keep silent as to my share in the business, that I thought it better not even to mention it to you at present. It was purely the result of an accident."

"It was nothing of the sort," Maria said. "It was the result of your keeping your eyes open and knowing how to put two and two together. I did not know, Francisco, that it was a secret. We have not seen our father since we have returned, and I suppose he thought we should see nobody until he saw us again, and so did not tell us that we were not to mention your name in the affair; but we will be careful in future."

"But how was it, Francisco?" Matteo asked. "Now I know so much as this, I suppose I can be told the rest. I can understand well enough why it was to be kept a secret, and why my cousin is anxious to get you out of Venice at once."

Francis related the manner in which he first became acquainted with the existence of the hut on the island, and the fact of its being frequented by Ruggiero Mocenigo; and how, on catching sight of the gouvernante in a gondola, and seeing her make out across the lagoons, the idea struck him that the girls were confined in the hut.

"It is all very simple, you see, Matteo," he concluded.

"I will never say anything against learning to row a gondola in future," Matteo said, "for it seems to lead to all sorts of adventures; and unless you could have rowed well, you would never have got back to tell the story. But it is certain that it is a good thing you are leaving Venice for a time, for Ruggiero's friends may find out the share you had in it from some of my cousin's servants. You may be sure that they will do their best to discover how he came to be informed of the hiding place, and he is quite right to send you off at once."

"What! are you going away, Francisco?" the two girls exclaimed together.

"I am sailing tomorrow in one of your father's ships, signoras."

"And you are not coming back again?" Maria exclaimed.

"I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before very long, signora. I am entering your father's service for good, and shall be backwards and forwards to Venice as the ship comes and goes. My father is returning to England, and Signor Polani has most kindly requested me to make my home with him whenever I am in port."

"That is better," Maria said. "We should have a pretty quarrel with papa if he had let you go away altogether, after what you have done for us -- 

"Shouldn't we, Giulia?"

But Giulia had walked away to the window, and did not seem to hear the question.

"That will be very pleasant," Maria went on; "for you will be back every two or three months, and I shall take good care that papa does not send the ship off in a hurry again. It will be almost as good as having a brother; and I look upon you almost as a brother now, Francisco -- and a very good brother, too. I don't think that man will molest us any more. If I thought there was any chance of it, I should ask papa to keep you for a time, because I should feel confident that you would manage to protect us somehow."

"I do not think there is the slightest chance of more trouble from him," Francis said. "He is sure of a long term of imprisonment for carrying you off."

"That is the least they can do to him, I should think," Maria said indignantly. "I certainly shall not feel comfortable while he is at large."

After half an hour's talk Francis and his friend took their leave.

"You certainly were born with a silver spoon in your mouth," Matteo said as they took their seats in the gondola, "and my cousin does well to get you out of Venice at once, for I can tell you there are scores of young fellows who would feel jealous at your position with my cousins."

"Nonsense!" Francis said, colouring. "How can you talk so absurdly, Matteo? I am only a boy, and it will be years before I could think of marriage. Besides, your cousins are said to be the richest heiresses in Venice; and it is not because I have been able to be of some slight service to them, that I should venture to think of either of them in that way."

"We shall see," Matteo laughed. "Maria is a little too old for you, I grant, but Giulia will do very well; and as you have already come, as Maria says, to be looked upon by them as a brother and protector, there is no saying as to how she may regard you in another two or three years."

"The thing is absurd, Matteo," Francis said impatiently. "Do not talk such nonsense any more."

Matteo lay back in his seat and whistled.

"I will say no more about it at present, Francisco," he said, after a pause; "but I must own that I should be well content to stand as high in the good graces of my pretty cousins as you do."

The next morning Francis spent some time with his father talking over future arrangements.

"I have no doubt that I shall see you sometimes, Francis; for Polani will be sure to give you an opportunity of making a trip to England, from time to time, in one of his ships trading thither. Unless anything unexpected happens, your future appears assured. Polani tells me he shall always regard you in the light of a son; and I have no fear of your doing anything to cause him to forfeit his good opinion of you. Do not be over adventurous, for even in a merchant ship there are many perils to be met with. Pirates swarm in the Mediterranean, in spite of the efforts of Venice to suppress them; and when war is going on, both Venice and Genoa send out numbers of ships whose doings savour strongly of piracy. Remember that the first duty of the captain of a merchant ship is to save his vessel and cargo, and that he should not think of fighting unless he sees no other method of escape open to him.

"It is possible that, after a time, I may send one of your brothers out here, but that will depend upon what I find of their disposition when I get home; for it will be worse than useless to send a lad of a headstrong disposition out to the care of one but a few years older than himself. But this we can talk about when you come over to England, and we see what position you are occupying here.

"I fear that Venice is about to enter upon a period of great difficulty and danger. There can be little doubt that Genoa, Padua, and Hungary are leagued against her; and powerful as she is, and great as are her resources, they will be taxed to the utmost to carry her through the dangers that threaten her. However, I have faith in her future, and believe that she will weather the storm, as she has done many that have preceded it.

"Venice has the rare virtue of endurance -- the greatest dangers, the most disastrous defeats, fail to shake her courage, and only arouse her to greater efforts. In this respect she is in the greatest contrast to her rival, Genoa, who always loses heart the moment the tide turns against her. No doubt this is due, in no slight extent, to her oligarchic form of government. The people see the nobles, who rule them, calm and self possessed, however great the danger, and remain confident and tranquil; while in Genoa each misfortune is the signal for a struggle between contending factions. The occasion is seized to throw blame and contumely upon those in power, and the people give way to alternate outbursts of rage and depression.

"I do not say there are no faults in the government of Venice, but taking her altogether there is no government in Europe to compare with it. During the last three hundred years, the history of every other city in Italy, I may say of every other nation in Europe, is one long record of intestine struggle and bloodshed, while in Venice there has not been a single popular tumult worthy of the name. It is to the strength, the firmness, and the moderation of her government that Venice owes her advancement, the respect in which she is held among nations, as much as to the commercial industry of her people.

"She alone among nations could for years have withstood the interdict of the pope, or the misfortunes that have sometimes befallen her. She alone has never felt the foot of the invader, or bent her neck beneath a foreign yoke to preserve her existence. Here, save only in matters of government, all opinions are free, strangers of all nationalities are welcome. It is a grand city and a grand people, Francis, and though I shall be glad to return to England I cannot but feel regret at leaving it.

"And now, my boy, it is time to be going off to your ship. Polani said she would sail at ten o'clock. It is now nine, and it will take you half an hour to get there. I am glad to hear that Giuseppi is going with you. The lad is faithful and attached to you, and may be of service. Your trunk has already been sent on board, so let us be going."

On arriving at the ship, which was lying in the port of Malamocco, they found that she was just ready for sailing. The last bales of goods were being hoisted on board, and the sailors were preparing to loosen the sails.

The Bonito was a large vessel, built for stowage rather than speed. She carried two masts with large square sails, and before the wind would probably proceed at a fair rate; but the art of sailing close hauled was then unknown, and in the event of the wind being unfavourable she would be forced either to anchor or to depend upon her oars, of which she rowed fifteen on either side. As they mounted on to the deck they were greeted by Polani himself.

"I have come off to see the last of your son, Messer Hammond, and to make sure that my orders for his comfort have been carried out.

"Captain Corpadio, this is the young gentleman of whom I have spoken to you, and who is to be treated in all respects as if he were my son. You will instruct him in all matters connected with the navigation of the ship, as well as in the mercantile portion of the business, the best methods of buying and selling, the prices of goods, and the methods of payment.

"This is your cabin, Francisco."

He opened the door of a roomy cabin in the poop of the ship. It was fitted up with every luxury.

"Thank you very much indeed, Signor Polani," Francis said. "The only fault is that it is too comfortable. I would as lief have roughed it as other aspirants have to do."

"There was no occasion, Francisco. When there is rough work to be done, you will, I have no doubt, do it; but as you are going to be a trader, and not a sailor, there is no occasion that you should do so more than is necessary. You will learn to command a ship just as well as if you began by dipping your hands in tar. And it is well that you should learn to do this, for unless a man can sail a vessel himself, he is not well qualified to judge of the merits of men he appoints to be captains; but you must remember that you are going as a representative of my house, and must, therefore, travel in accordance with that condition.

"You will be sorry to hear that bad news has just been received from the mainland. The state galley sent to fetch Ruggiero Mocenigo has arrived with the news that, on the previous night, a strong party of men who are believed to have come from Padua, fell upon the guard and carried off Ruggiero. My sailors came up and fought stoutly, but they were overpowered, and several of them were killed; so Ruggiero is again at large.

"This is a great disappointment to me. Though the villain is not likely to show his face in the Venetian territory again, I shall be anxious until Maria is safely married, and shall lose no time in choosing a husband for her. Unless I am mistaken, her liking is turned in the direction of Rufino, brother of your friend Matteo Giustiniani, and as I like none better among the suitors for her hand, methinks that by the time you return you will find that they are betrothed.

"And now I hear the sailors are heaving the anchor, and therefore, Messer Hammond, it is time we took to our boats."

There was a parting embrace between Francis and his father. Then the merchants descended into their gondolas, and lay waiting alongside until the anchor was up, the great sails shaken out, and the Bonito began to move slowly through the water towards the entrance of the port. Then, with a final wave of the hand, the gondolas rowed off and Francis turned to look at his surroundings. The first object that met his eye was Giuseppi, who was standing near him waving his cap to his father.

"Well, Giuseppi, what do you think of this?"

"I don't know what to think yet, Messer Francisco. It all seems so big and solid one does not feel as if one was on the water. It's more like living in a house. It does not seem as if anything could move her."

"You will find the waves can move her about when we get fairly to sea, Giuseppi, and the time will come when you will think our fast gondola was a steady craft in comparison. How long have you been on board?"

"I came off three hours ago, signor, with the boat that brought the furniture for your cabin. I have been putting that to rights since. A supply of the best wine has been sent off, and extra stores of all sorts, so you need not be afraid of being starved on the voyage."

"I wish he hadn't sent so much," Francis said. "It makes one feel like a milksop. Whose cabin is it I have got?"

"I believe that it is the cabin usually used by the supercargo, who is in charge of the goods and does the trading, but the men say the captain of this ship has been a great many years in Polani's employment, and often sails without a supercargo, being able to manage the trading perfectly well by himself. But the usual cabin is only half the size of yours, and two have been thrown into one to make it light and airy."

"And where do you sleep, Giuseppi?"

"I am going to sleep in the passage outside your door, Messer Francisco."

"Oh, but I sha'n't like that!" Francis said. "You ought to have a better place than that."

Giuseppi laughed.

"Why, Messer Francisco, considering that half my time I slept in the gondola, and the other half on some straw in our kitchen, I shall do capitally. Of course I could sleep in the fo'castle with the crew if I liked, but I should find it hot and stifling there. I chose the place myself, and asked the captain if I could sleep there, and he has given me leave."

In an hour the Bonito had passed through the Malamocco Channel, and was out on the broad sea. The wind was very light, and but just sufficient to keep the great sails bellied out. The sailors were all at work, coiling down ropes, washing the decks, and making everything clean and tidy.

"This is a good start, Messer Hammond," the captain said, coming up to him. "If this wind holds, we shall be able to make our course round the southern point of Greece, and then on to Candia, which is our first port. I always like a light breeze when I first go out of port, it gives time for everyone to get at home and have things shipshape before we begin to get lively."

"She does not look as if she would ever get lively," Francis said, looking at the heavy vessel.

"She is lively enough in a storm, I can tell you," the captain said, laughing. "When she once begins to roll she does it in earnest, but she is a fine sea boat, and I have no fear of gales. I wish I could say as much of pirates. However, she has always been fortunate, and as we carry a stout crew she could give a good account of herself against any of the small piratical vessels that swarm among the islands, although, of course, if she fell in with two or three of them together it would be awkward."

"How many men do you carry altogether, captain?"

"Just seventy. You see she rows thirty oars, and in case of need we put two men to each oar, and though she doesn't look fast she can get along at a fine rate when the oars are double banked. We have shown them our heels many a time. Our orders are strict. We are never to fight if we can get away by running."

"But I suppose you have to fight sometimes?" Francis asked.

"Yes, I have been in some tough fights several times, though not in the Bonito, which was only built last year. Once in the Lion we were attacked by three pirates. We were at anchor in a bay, and the wind was blowing on the shore, when they suddenly came round the headland, so there was no chance of running, and we had to fight it out. We fought for five hours before they sheered off, pretty well crippled, and one of them in flames, for we carried Greek fire.

"Three or four times they nearly got a footing on deck, but we managed to beat them off somehow. We lost a third of our crew. I don't think there was a man escaped without a wound. I was laid up for three months, after I got home, with a slash on the shoulder, which pretty nigh took off my left arm. However, we saved the ship and the cargo, which was a valuable one, and Messer Polani saw that no one was the worse for his share in the business. There's no more liberal-hearted man in the trade than he is, and whatever may be the scarcity of hands in the port, there is never any difficulty in getting a good crew together for his vessels.

"Of course there are the roughs with the smooths. Some years ago I was in prison for six months, with all my crew, in Azoff. It was the work of those rascally Genoese, who are always doing us a bad turn when they have the chance, even when we are at peace with them. They set the mind of the native khan -- that is the prince of the country -- against us by some lying stories that we had been engaged in smuggling goods in at another port. And suddenly, in the middle of the night, in marched his soldiers on board my ship, and two other Venetian craft lying in the harbour, and took possession of them, and shut us all up in prison. There we were till Messer Polani got news, and sent out another ship to pay the fine demanded. That was no joke, I can tell you, for the prison was so hot and crowded, and the food so bad, that we got fever, and pretty near half of us died before our ransom came. Then at Constantinople the Genoese stirred the people up against us once or twice, and all the sailors ashore had to fight for their lives. Those Genoese are always doing us mischief."

"But I suppose you do them mischief sometimes, captain. I imagine it isn't all one side."

"Of course, we pay them out when we get a chance," the captain replied. "It isn't likely we are going to stand being always put upon, and not take our chance when it comes. We only want fair trade and no favour, while those rascals want it all to themselves. They know they have no chance with us when it comes to fair trading."

"You know, captain, that the Genoese say just the same things about the Venetians, that the Venetians do about them. So I expect that there are faults on both sides."

The captain laughed.

"I suppose each want to have matters their own way, Messer Hammond, but I don't consider the Genoese have any right to come interfering with us, to the eastward of Italy. They have got France and Spain to trade with, and all the western parts of Italy. Why don't they keep there? Besides, I look upon them as landsmen. Why, we can always lick them at sea in a fair fight."

"Generally, captain. I admit you generally thrash them. Still, you know they have sometimes got the better of you, even when the force was equal."

The captain grunted. He could not deny the fact.

"Sometimes our captains don't do their duty," he said. "They put a lot of young patricians in command of the galleys, men that don't know one end of a ship from the other, and then, of course, we get the worst of it. But I maintain that, properly fought, a Venetian ship is always more than a match for a Genoese."

"I think she generally is, captain, and I hope it will always prove so in the future. You see, though I am English, I have lived long enough in Venice to feel like a Venetian."

"I have never been to England," the captain said, "though a good many Venetian ships go there every year. They tell me it's an island, like Venice, only a deal bigger than any we have got in the Mediterranean. Those who have been there say the sea is mighty stormy, and that, sailing up from Spain, you get tremendous tempests sometimes, with the waves ever so much bigger than we have here, and longer and more regular, but not so trying to the ships as the short sharp gales of these seas."

"I believe that is so, captain, though I don't know anything about it myself. It is some years since I came out, and our voyage was a very calm one."

Three days of quiet sailing, and the Bonito rounded the headlands of the Morea, and shaped her course to Candia. The voyage was a very pleasant one to Francis. Each day the captain brought out the list of cargo, and instructed him in the prices of each description of goods, told him of the various descriptions of merchandise which they would be likely to purchase at the different ports at which they were to touch, and the prices which they would probably have to pay for them. A certain time, too, was devoted each day to the examination of the charts of the various ports and islands, the captain pointing out the marks which were to be observed on entering and leaving the harbours, the best places for anchorage, and the points where shelter could be obtained should high winds come on.

After losing sight of the Morea the weather changed, clouds banked up rapidly in the southwest, and the captain ordered the great sails to be furled.

"We are going to have a serious gale," he said to Francis, "which is unusual at this period of the year. I have thought, for the last two days, we were going to have a change, but I hoped to have reached Candia before the gale burst upon us. I fear that this will drive us off our course."

By evening it was blowing hard, and the sea got up rapidly. The ship speedily justified the remarks of the captain on her power of rolling, and the oars, at which the men had been labouring since the sails were furled, were laid in.

"It is impossible to keep our course," the captain said, "and we must run up among the islands, and anchor under the lee of one of them. I should recommend you to get into your bed as soon as possible. You have not learned to keep your legs in a storm. I see that lad of yours is very ill already, but as you show no signs of suffering thus far, you will probably escape."

It was some time, however, before Francis went below. The scene was novel to him, and he was astonished at the sight of the waves, and at the manner in which they tossed the great ship about, as if she were an eggshell. But when it became quite dark, and he could see nothing but the white crests of the waves and the foam that flew high in the air every time the bluff bows of the ship plunged down into a hollow, he took the captain's advice and retired to his cabin.

He was on deck again early. A gray mist overhung the water. The sea was of a leaden colour, crested with white heads. The waves were far higher than they had been on the previous evening, and as they came racing along behind the Bonito each crest seemed as if it would rise over her stern and overwhelm her. But this apprehension was soon dispelled, as he saw how lightly the vessel rose each time. Although showing but a very small breadth of sail, she was running along at a great rate, leaving a white streak of foam behind her. The captain was standing near the helm, and Francis made his way to him.

"Well, captain, and how are you getting on, and where are we?" he asked, cheerfully.

"We are getting on well enough, Messer Francisco, as you can see for yourself. The Bonito is as good a sea boat as ever floated, and would not care for the wind were it twice as strong as it is. It is not the storm I am thinking about, but the islands. If we were down in the Mediterranean I could turn into my cot and sleep soundly; but here it is another matter. We are somewhere up among the islands, but where, no man can say. The wind has shifted a bit two or three times during the night, and, as we are obliged to run straight before it, there is no calculating to within a few miles where we are. I have tried to edge out to the westward as much as I could, but with this wind blowing and the height of the ship out of water, we sag away to leeward so fast that nothing is gained by it.

"According to my calculation, we cannot be very far from the west coast of Mitylene. If the clouds would but lift, and give us a look round for two minutes, we should know all about it, as I know the outline of every island in the Aegean; and as over on this side you are always in sight of two or three of them, I should know all about it if I could get a view of the land. Now, for aught we know, we may be running straight down upon some rocky coast."

The idea was not a pleasant one, and Francis strained his eyes, gazing through the mist.

"What should we do if we saw land, captain?" he asked presently.

"Get out the oars, row her head round, and try to work either to the right or left, whichever point of land seemed easiest to weather. Of course, if it was the mainland we were being driven on there would be no use, and we should try and row into the teeth of the gale, so as to keep her off land as long as possible, in the hope of the wind dropping. When we got into shallow water we should drop our anchors, and still keep on rowing to lessen the strain upon them. If they gave, there would be an end to the Bonito. But if, as I think, we are driving towards Mitylene, there is a safe harbour on this side of the island, and I shall certainly run into it. It is well sheltered and landlocked."

Two more hours passed, and then there was a startling transformation. The clouds broke suddenly and cleared off, as if by magic, and the sun streamed brightly out. The wind was blowing as strong as ever, but the change in the hue of sky and sea would at once have raised the spirits of the tired crew, had not a long line of land been seen stretching ahead of them at a distance of four or five miles.

"Just as I thought," the captain exclaimed as he saw it. "That is Mitylene, sure enough, and the entrance to the harbour I spoke of lies away there on that beam."

The oars were at once got out, the sail braced up a little, and the Bonito made for the point indicated by the captain, who himself took the helm.

Another half hour and they were close to land. Francis could see no sign of a port, but in a few minutes the Bonito rounded the end of a low island, and a passage opened before her. She passed through this and found herself in still water, in a harbour large enough to hold the fleet of Venice. The anchor was speedily let drop.

"It seems almost bewildering," Francis said, "the hush and quiet here after the turmoil of the storm outside. To whom does Mitylene belong?"

"The Genoese have a trading station and a castle at the other side of the island, but it belongs to Constantinople. The other side of the island is rich and fertile, but this, as you see, is mountainous and barren. The people have not a very good reputation, and if we had been wrecked we should have been plundered, if not murdered.

"You see those two vessels lying close to the shore, near the village? They are pirates when they get a chance, you may be quite sure. In fact, these islands swarm with them. Venice does all she can to keep them down, but the Genoese, and the Hungarians, and the rest of them, keep her so busy that she has no time to take the matter properly in hand, and make a clean sweep of them."



Chapter 8: An Attack By Pirates.


A boat was lowered, and the captain went ashore with a strong crew, all armed to the teeth. Francis accompanied him. The natives were sullen in their manner, but expressed a willingness to trade, and to exchange hides and wine for cloth.

"We may as well do a little barter," the captain said, as they rowed back towards the ship. "The port is not often visited, and the road across the island is hilly and rough, so they ought to be willing to sell their goods cheaply."

"They did not seem pleased to see us, nevertheless," Francis said.

"No; you see the Genoese have got a footing in the island, and of course they represent us to the natives as being robbers, who would take their island if we got the chance. All round these coasts and islands the people are partisans either of Venice or Genoa. They care very little for Constantinople, although they form part of the empire. Constantinople taxes them heavily, and is too weak to afford them protection. Of course they are Greeks, but the Greeks of the islands have very little in common, beyond their language, with the Greeks of Constantinople. They see, too, that the Turks are increasing in power, and they know that, if they are to be saved from falling into the hands of the Moslem, it is Venice or Genoa who will protect them, and not Constantinople, who will have enough to do to defend herself.

"As to themselves, they would naturally prefer Venice, because Venice is a far better mistress than Genoa; but of course, when the Genoese get a footing, they spread lies as to our tyranny and greed, and so it comes that the people of the islands are divided in their wishes, and that while we are gladly received in some of them, we are regarded with hate and suspicion in others."

Trade at once began, and continued until evening.

"How long do you expect to stay here, captain?" Francis asked.

"That must depend upon the wind. It may go down tomorrow, it may continue to blow strong for days, and it is no use our attempting to work down to Candia until it changes its direction. I should hope, however, that in a day or two we may be off. We are doing little more than wasting our time here."

A strong watch was placed on deck at nightfall.

"Why, surely, captain, there is no fear of an attack! War has not yet been proclaimed with Genoa, although there is little doubt it will be so in a few weeks, or perhaps a few days."

"There is never a real peace between Venice and Genoa in these seas," the captain said, "and as war is now imminent, one cannot be too watchful. State galleys would not be attacked, but merchant vessels are different. Who is to inquire about a merchant ship! Why, if we were attacked and plundered here, who would be any the wiser? We should either have our throats cut, or be sent to rot in the dungeons of Genoa. And not till there was an exchange of prisoners, perhaps years hence, would any in Venice know what had befallen us. When weeks passed, and no news came to Venice of our having reached Candia, it would be supposed that we had been lost in the storm.

"Signor Polani would run his pen through the name of the Bonito, and put her down as a total loss, and there would be an end of it, till those of us who were alive, when the prison doors were opened, made their way back to Venice. No, no, Messer Francisco. In these eastern waters one must always act as if the republic were at war. Why, did not Antonio Doria, in a time of profound peace, attack and seize eight Venetian ships laden with goods, killing two of the merchants on board, and putting the ships at a ransom? As to single vessels missing, and never heard of, their number is innumerable.

"It is all put down to pirates; but trust me, the Genoese are often at the bottom of it. They are robbers, the Genoese. In fair trade we can always beat them, and they know it, and so they are always seeking a pretext for a quarrel with us."

Francis smiled quietly at the bigoted hatred which the captain bore the Genoese, but thought it useless to argue with him. The next morning he came up on deck soon after daybreak.

"I see one of those vessels has taken her departure," he said, as he glanced towards the spot where they had been lying.

"So she has," the captain said. "I had not noticed that before. I wonder what that fellow has gone for? No good, you may be sure. Why, it is blowing hard outside still, as you may see by the rate those light clouds travel. He would never have put to sea without having a motive, and he must have had a strong crew on board, to row out in the teeth of the gale far enough to make off the land. That fellow is up to mischief of some sort."

A few minutes later the captain ordered a boat to be lowered, and rowed out to the rocky islet at the mouth of the harbour, and landing, climbed up the rocks and looked out to sea. In half an hour he returned to the ship.

"It is no use," he said to Francis. "The wind is blowing straight into the passage, and we could not row the Bonito out against it. It was different with that craft that went out yesterday evening, for I have no doubt she started as soon as it became dark. She was low in the water, and would not hold the wind; besides, no doubt they lowered the masts, and with a strong crew might well have swept her out. But with the Bonito, with her high sides and heavy tonnage, it could not be done."

"What do you think she went out for, captain?"

"It is likely enough that she may have gone to one of the other islands, and may return with a dozen other craft, pirates like herself. The news that a Venetian merchant ship, without consorts, is weather bound here, would bring them upon us like bees.

"It is a dangerous thing, this sailing alone. I have talked it over several times with the master. Other merchants generally send their ships in companies of eight or ten, and they are then strong enough to beat off any attack of pirates. Messer Polani always sends his vessels out singly. What he says is this: 'A single ship always travels faster than a convoy, because these must go at the rate of the slowest among them. Then the captain is free to go where he will, without consulting others, according as he gets news where trade is to be done, and when he gets there he can drive his own bargains without the competition of other ships.

"So you see there are advantages both ways. The padrone's ships run greater risks, but, if they get through them safely, they bring home much larger profits than do those of others. As a rule, I prefer sailing singly; but just at the present time I should be well pleased to see half a dozen consorts lying alongside."

Three times during the day the captain paid a visit to the rocky island. On his return for the last time before nightfall he said to Francis:

"The wind is certainly falling. I hope that tomorrow morning we shall be able to get out of this trap. I am convinced that there is danger."

"You see nothing else, do you, captain, beyond the departure of that craft, to make you think that there is danger?"

"Yes, I have seen two things," the captain said. "In the first place, the demeanour of the people has changed. They do not seem more unfriendly than they were before, but as I moved about the place today, it seemed to me that there was a suppressed excitement -- people gathered together and talked earnestly, and separated if any of our crew happened to go near them; even laughed when they thought that none of us were looking, and looked serious and sullen if we turned round. I am convinced that they are expecting something to happen.

"I have another reason for suspecting it. I have kept a sharp watch on that high hill behind the village; they tell me there is nothing at the top except some curious stones, that look as if they had once been trees, so there is nothing they can want to go up for. Several times today I have made out the figures of men climbing that hill. When they got to the top they stood for some time as if they were looking out over the sea, and then came down again without doing anything. Now, men do not climb such a hill as that merely for exercise. They went up because they expected to see something, and that something could only be a fleet of pirate boats from the other islands. I would give a year's pay if we could get out of this place this evening, but it cannot be done, and we must wait till tomorrow morning. I will try then, even though I risk being driven on the rocks. However, if they do come tonight they will not catch us asleep."

Orders were issued that the whole crew were to remain in readiness for attack, and that those whose watch was below were to sleep with their arms beside them. The lower ports were all closed, a strong watch was kept on deck, and it was certain that, whatever happened, the Bonito would not be taken by surprise.

Being assured by the captain that it was not probable that any attack would be made before morning, as the pirates, not knowing their exact position, would wait until the first gleam of daylight enabled them to make out where she was lying, and to advance in order against her, Francis lay down on his couch, leaving orders that, if asleep, he was to be called two hours before daybreak. He slept but little, however, getting up frequently and going out to ascertain if any sounds indicated the presence of an enemy.

Upon one of these occasions he found that the person leaning next to him against the bulwark, and gazing towards the mouth of the harbour, was Giuseppi.

"Have you been here long, Giuseppi?"

"Since you were out last, Messer Francisco. I thought I would wait a bit, and listen."

"And have you heard anything?"

"I have heard sounds several times."

"What sort of sounds, Giuseppi?"

"Such a sound as is made when the sails and yards are lowered. I have heard it over and over again when out at night on the lagoons near the port. There is no mistake in the creaking of the blocks as the halyards run through them. I am sure, that since I have been here several vessels have brought up inside the mouth of the harbour. Some of the sailors have heard the same noises, so there cannot be any mistake about it. If the captain likes, I will take a small boat and row out, and find out all about them."

"I will ask the captain, Giuseppi."

The captain, however, said that there would be no use in this being done.

"Whether there are few or whether there are many of them, we must wait till morning before we go out. There will be no working out that channel in the dark, even if we were unopposed."

"But they must have managed to come in," Francis said.

"No doubt some of their comrades in the other barque, or people from the village, show a light out there to guide them in. Besides, the wind is favourable to them and against us. No, young sir, there is nothing to do but to wait. In the morning, if there are but few of them, we will try to break through and gain the sea. If there are many we will fight here, as then all hands will be available for the combat, while if we were rowing, half of them would be occupied with the oars. If your lad were to go as he proposes he might fall into the hands of the enemy, and as the information he could gather would be in any case of no use, it is best he should remain where he is."

The hours seemed long until the first tinge of daylight appeared in the sky. All hands were on deck now, for the news that vessels had been arriving in the port had convinced all that danger really threatened them. It was not until half an hour later that they were able to make out some dark objects, lying in under the shadow of the islet across the mouth of the harbour.

"There they are, Messer Francisco," the captain said. "Ten of them, as far as I can make out; but there may be more, for likely enough some of them are lying side by side. There may, too, be some round a corner, where we cannot see them. Another half hour we shall know all about it."

Francis was half surprised that the captain did not order the oars to be put out and lashed in that position, for it was a recognized plan for preventing a ship from being boarded by an enemy, who could thus only approach her at the lofty poop and forecastle.

"Are you not going to get out the oars to keep them off?"

"No, Messer Francisco. In the first place, our sides are so high out of water that the pirates will have a difficulty in boarding us in any case. In the second place, if we get the oars out and they row full at them, sooner or later they will break them off; and it is all important that we should be able to row. I have been thinking the matter over, and my idea is, as soon as they advance, to get three or four oars at work on either side, so as to move her gradually through the water towards the harbour mouth. The rowers will be charged to let their oars swing alongside whenever any of their craft dash at them. We shall want every oar, as well as our sails, to get away when we are once outside. I do not think we have much chance of finally beating them off if we stop and fight here. But if we can do so for a time, and can manage to creep out of the harbour, all may be well."

When daylight fairly broke they were able to make out their enemy. The vessels were of all sizes, from long, low craft, carrying great sails and long banks of oars, down to boats of a few tons burden. All seemed crowded with men.

"None of them are anything like as high out of the water as the Bonito," the captain said, "and they will find it very difficult to climb up our sides. Still the odds against us are serious, but we shall give them a warmer reception than they expect. They will hardly calculate either on our being so strong handed, or so well prepared for them."

Everything was indeed ready for the combat. Two or three barrels of the compound known as Greek fire had been brought up from the hold, and the cooks had heated cauldrons full of pitch. Thirty men with bows and arrows were on the poop, and the rest, with spears, axes, and swords, stood along the bulwarks.

"We may as well get as near the entrance as we can before the fight begins," the captain said. "Get up the anchor, and as soon as it is aboard, get out four oars on each side."

The anchor had already been hove short, and was soon in its place. Then the oars dipped into the water, and slowly the Bonito moved towards the mouth of the harbour. Scarcely had the oars touched the water, than a bustle was perceived on board the piratical ships. Oars were put out, and in two or three minutes the pirates were under way, advancing at a rapid pace towards the Bonito.

The crew made no reply to the shouts and yells of the pirates, but, in accordance with the orders of the captain, remained in a stooping position, so that the figure of the captain, as he hauled up the flag with the lion of Venice to the masthead, was alone visible to the pirates. As these approached volleys of arrows were shot at the Bonito, but not a shot replied until they were within fifty yards of the ship.

Then the captain gave the word. The archers sprang to their feet, and from their eminence poured their arrows thick and fast on to the crowded decks of the pirates. The captain gave the word to the rowers, and they relinquished their oars, which swung in by the side of the vessel.

A moment later two of the largest craft of the pirates dashed alongside. The instant they did so they were saluted with showers of boiling pitch, while pots full of Greek fire were thrown down upon them. Those who tried to climb up the side of the Bonito were speared with lances or cut down with battleaxes.

The combat was of short duration. Many of those on whom the boiling pitch had fallen jumped overboard in their agony, while others did the same to escape the Greek fire, which they in vain endeavoured to extinguish. The fire quickly spread to the woodwork, and in five minutes after the beginning of the fight, the two craft dropped astern from the Bonito, with the flames already rising fiercely from them.

In the meantime the other vessels had not been idle, and a storm of missiles was poured upon the Bonito. The fate which befell their comrades, however, showed them how formidable was the vessel they had regarded as an easy prey, and when the first assailants of the Bonito dropped astern, none of the others cared to take their places.

"Man the oars again!" the captain ordered, and the Bonito again moved forward, her crew stooping behind the bulwarks, while the archers only rose from time to time to discharge their shafts.

"The thing I am most afraid of," the captain said to Francis, who was standing beside him, "is, that they will ram us with their prows. The Bonito is strongly built, but the chances are that they would knock a hole in her."

"I should think, captain, that if we were to get up some of those bales of cloth, and fasten ropes to them, we might lower them over the side and so break the shock."

"It is worth trying, anyhow," the captain said.

And a score of the sailors were at once sent down to fetch up the bales. Ropes were fastened round these, and they were laid along by the bulwarks in readiness for being lowered instantly. Ten bales were placed on each side, and three men told off to each bale.

By this time they were halfway to the mouth of the harbour, and the preparations were completed just in time, for the small boats suddenly drew aside, and two of the largest of the pirates' craft, each rowed by twenty-four oars, dashed at her, one on each side. The captain shouted the order, and the men all sprang to their feet. It was seen at once that the vessels would both strike about midships. Three bales on either side were raised to the bulwarks, and lowered down with the ropes until close to the water's edge and closely touching each other. Francis sprang on to the bulwark and superintended the operations on one side, while the captain did the same on the other.

"A few feet more astern, lads. That is right. Now, keep the bales touching. You are just in the line."

An instant later the Bonito reeled from the shock of two tremendous blows. The bows of the pirates were stove in, but the thick bales enabled the Bonito to withstand the shock, although her sides creaked, the seams started, and the water flowed in freely. But of this the crew thought little. They were occupied in hurling darts, arrows, and combustibles into the pirates as these backed off, in an already sinking condition.

"Now I think we can go," the captain said, and ordered the whole of the oars to be manned.

They were speedily got out, and the Bonito made her way out through the mouth of the harbour. The pirates, in their lighter boats, rowed round and round her, shooting clouds of arrows, but not venturing to come to close quarters, after the fate which had befallen the four largest vessels of their fleet.

As soon as they were clear of the islet the sails were hoisted. The wind had fallen much during the night, and had worked round to the east, and under sails and oars the Bonito left the island, none of the pirates venturing to follow in pursuit. The oars were soon laid in, and the men, with mallets and chisels, set to work to caulk the seams through which the water was making its way. The casualties were now inquired into, and it was found that six men had been shot dead, and that nine-and-twenty had received wounds more or less severe from the arrows of the pirates.

Francis had been twice wounded while superintending the placing of the bales. One arrow had gone through his right leg, another had struck him in the side and glanced off a rib.

"This won't do, Messer Francisco," the captain said as he assisted Giuseppi to bandage the wounds. "Signor Polani placed you on board to learn something of seamanship and commerce, not to make yourself a target for the arrows of pirates. However, we have to thank you for the saving of the Bonito, for assuredly she would have been stove in, had not the happy thought of hanging those bales overboard struck you. It would be of no use against war galleys, whose beaks are often below the waterline, but against craft like these pirates it acts splendidly, and there is no doubt that you saved the ship from destruction, and us from death, for after the burning of the two first vessels that attacked us, you may be sure they would have shown but little mercy. I can't think how you came to think of it."

"Why, I have read in books, captain, of defenders of walls hanging over trusses of straw, to break the blows of battering rams and machines of the besiegers. Directly you said they were going to ram us it struck me we might do the same, and then I thought that bales of cloth, similar to those you got up on deck to trade with the islanders would be just the thing."

"It was a close shave," the captain said. "I was leaning over, and saw the whole side of the ship bend beneath the blow, and expected to hear the ribs crack beneath me. Fortunately the Bonito was stronger built than her assailants, and their bows crumpled in before her side gave; but my heart was in my mouth for a time, I can tell you."

"So was mine, captain. I hardly felt these two arrows strike me. They must have been shot from one of the other boats. Then I could not help laughing to see the way in which the men at the oars tumbled backwards at the moment when their vessel struck us. It was as if an invisible giant had swept them all off their seats together."

The wind continued favourable until they arrived at Candia, where the captain reported, to the commander of a Venetian war galley lying in the port, the attack that had been made upon him; and the galley at once started for the scene of the action, to destroy any pirates she might find there or among the neighbouring islands, or in the various inlets and bays of the mainland.

Having delivered their letters and landed a portion of their cargo for the use of Polani's agents in the islands, the Bonito proceeded to Cyprus. For some weeks she cruised along the coast of Syria, trading in the various Turkish ports, for Venice, although she had shared in some of the crusades, was now, as she had often been before, on friendly terms with the Turks. Her interests all lay in that direction. She carried on a large trade with them; and in the days when she lay under the interdict of the pope, and all Europe stood aloof from her, she drew her stores of provisions from the Moslem ports, and was thus enabled successfully to resist the pressure which she suffered from the interdict. She foresaw, too, the growing power of the Turks, and perceived that in the future they would triumph over the degenerate Greek empire at Constantinople. She had spent her blood and treasure freely in maintaining that empire; but the weakness and profligacy of its emperors, the intestine quarrels and disturbances which were forever going on, and the ingratitude with which she had always treated Venice, had completely alienated the Venetians from her. Genoa had, indeed, for many years exercised a far more preponderating influence at Constantinople than Venice had done.

Having completed the tour of the Syrian ports, the Bonito sailed north, with the intention of passing the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, and proceeding to Azoph.

When she reached the little island of Tenedos, a few miles from the entrance to the strait, she heard news which compelled the captain to alter his intentions. A revolution had broken out in Constantinople, aided by the Genoese of Pera. The cruel tyrant Calojohannes the 5th had been deposed, and his heir Andronicus, whom he had deprived of sight and thrown into a dungeon, released and placed on the throne.

As a reward for the services she had rendered him, Andronicus issued a decree conferring Tenedos upon Genoa. The news had just arrived when the Bonito entered the port, and the town was in a ferment. There were two or three Venetian warships in the harbour; but the Venetian admiral, being without orders from home as to what part to take in such an emergency, remained neutral. The matter was, however, an important one, for the possession of Tenedos gave its owners the command of the Dardanelles, and a fleet lying there could effectually block the passage.

The people thronged up to the governor's house with shouts of "Down with Genoa!" The governor, being unsupported by any Greek or Genoese troops, bowed to the popular will, and declared that he did not recognize the revolution that had taken place in Constantinople, and refused to submit to the decree of Andronicus. Donato Trono, a Venetian merchant resident in the island, and other Venetians, harangued the people, and pointed out to them that alone they could not hope to resist the united forces of Greece and Genoa, and that their only hope of safety lay in placing themselves under the protection of Venice. The people, seeing the justice of the arguments of the Venetians, and preferring the Venetian rule to that of Genoa, agreed to the proposal. The banner of St. Mark was raised amid great enthusiasm, and the island declared subject to Venice.

A Genoese galley in port immediately set sail, and quickly carried the news to Constantinople, where the emperor at once threw the whole of the Venetian residents into prison. As soon as the news of this reached Tenedos the captain of the Bonito held a consultation with Francis.

"It is evident, Messer Francisco, that we cannot proceed upon our northward voyage. We should be captured and held at Constantinople; and, even did we succeed in passing at night, we should fall into the hands of the Genoese -- who are far stronger in the Black Sea than we are -- for if Venice accepts the offer of the people of this place, and takes possession of the island, Genoa is sure to declare war.

"I think, then, that we had better make our way back to Venice with what cargo we have on board, and there get fresh orders from the padrone. We have not done badly so far, and it is better to make sure of what we have got than to risk its loss, for at any day we may fall in with the Genoese fleet sailing hither."

Francis quite agreed with the captain's opinion, and the Bonito sailed for the south. They touched, on their way, at several islands, and the news that an early outbreak of hostilities between Genoa and Venice was probable -- in which case there would be an almost complete cessation of trade -- produced so strong a desire, on the part of the islanders, to lay in a store of goods, that the captain was able to dispose of the rest of his cargo on good terms, and to fill up his ship with the produce of the islands.

Thus the Bonito was deep in the water when she re-entered the port of Venice after an absence of about three months. As soon as the anchor was dropped the captain, accompanied by Francis, hired a gondola, and rowed into the city to give an account to Signor Polani of the success of his voyage, and to lay before him a list of the cargo with which the Bonito was laden. The merchant received them with great cordiality, and embraced Francis with the affection of a father.

"Do you go at once into the salon, Francisco. You will find my daughters expecting you there, for the news came an hour ago that the Bonito was entering port. Of course, we heard from the letters from Candia of your adventures with the pirates, and the gallant way in which the Bonito defeated them.

"You will find, captain, that I have ordered an extra month's pay to be given to all on board.

"The captain did full justice, Francisco, in his account of the matter, to your quickness in suggesting a method by which the effort of the ramming of the enemy was neutralized, and for the courage you showed in carrying out your idea; but we will talk of that afterwards. He and I have business to transact which will occupy us for some time, so the sooner you go the better."

Francis at once took himself off and joined the girls, who received him with the heartiest greeting.

"We were glad indeed, Francis," Maria said, "when our father told us that the Bonito was signalled as entering the port. No letters have come for some time, and we feared that you must have entered the Dardanelles, and reached Constantinople, before the news arrived there of that affair at Tenedos, in which case you would no doubt have been seized and thrown into the dungeons."

"We were at Tenedos when the affair took place," Francis said, "and have had no opportunity since of sending a letter by any ship likely to be here before us. The outbreak made us alter our plans, for, of course, it would not have been safe to have sailed farther when the emperor was so enraged against Venice. I need hardly tell you I was not sorry when we turned our faces again towards Venice. I have enjoyed the voyage very much, and have had plenty to occupy me. Still, three months at a time is long enough, and I was beginning to long for a sight of Venice."

"For a sight of Venice and -- " Maria repeated, holding up her finger reprovingly.

"And of you both," Francis said smiling. "I did not think it necessary to put that in, because you must know that you are Venice to me."

"That is much better," Maria said approvingly. "I think you have improved since you have been away. Do you not think so, Giulia?"

"I don't think that sort of nonsense is an improvement," Giulia said gravely. "Any of the young Venetian gallants can say that sort of thing. We do not want flattery from Francisco."

"You should say you do not want it, Giulia," Maria said, laughing. "I like it, I own, even from Francisco. It may not mean anything, but it is pleasant nevertheless; besides, one likes to think that there is just a little truth in it, not much, perhaps, but just a little in what Francisco said, for instance. Of course we are not all Venice to him. Still, just as we are pleased to see him, he is pleased to see us; and why shouldn't he say so in a pretty way? It's all very well for you to set up as being above flattery, Giulia, but you are young yet. I have no doubt you will like it when you get as old as I am."

Giulia shook her head decidedly.

"I always think," she said, "when I hear a man saying flattering things to a girl, that it is the least complimentary thing he can do, for it is treating her as if he considers that she is a fool, otherwise he would never say such outrageous nonsense to her."

"There, Francisco," Maria laughed, "you are fairly warned now. Beware how you venture to pay any compliment to Giulia in future.

"It would be a dull world if every one were to think as you do, Giulia, and to say exactly as they meant. Fancy a young man saying to you: 'I think you are a nice sort of girl, no prettier than the rest, but good tempered and pleasant, and to be desired because your father is rich!' A nice sort of way that would be to be made love to!"

"There is no occasion for them to say anything at all," Giulia said indignantly. "We don't go about saying to them, 'I think you are good looking, and well mannered, and witty;' or, 'I like you because they say you are a brave soldier and a good swordsman.' Why should they say such things to us? I suppose we can tell if anyone likes us without all that nonsense."

"Perhaps so," the elder girl assented; "and yet I maintain it's pleasant, and at any rate it's the custom, and as it's the custom, we must put up with it.

"What do you say, Francisco?"

"I don't know anything about it," Francis said. "Certainly some of the compliments I have heard paid were barefaced falsehoods, and I have wondered how men could make them, and how women could even affect to believe in them; but, on the other hand, I suppose that when people are in love, they really do think the person they are in love with is prettier and more charming, or braver and more handsome, than anyone else in the world, and that though it may be flattery, it is really true in the opinion of the person who utters it."

"And now let us leave the matter alone for the present, Francisco. We are dying to hear all about your adventures, and especially that fight with the pirates. The captain, in his letter, merely said that you were attacked and beat the pirates off, and that you would have been sunk if it hadn't been that, at your suggestion, they lowered bales of cloth over to break the shock; and that so many men were killed and so many wounded; and that you were hit twice by arrows, but the wounds were healing. That's all he said, for papa read that portion of his letter out to us. Now we want a full and particular account of the affair."

Francis gave a full account of the fight, and then related the other incidents of the voyage.

"We know many of the ports you touched at," Maria said when he had finished, "for when we were little girls, papa took us sometimes for voyages in his ships, when the times were peaceful and there was no danger. Now let us order a gondola, and go for a row. Papa is sure to be occupied for ever so long with your captain."



Chapter 9: The Capture Of The Lido.


Signor Polani told Francis, that evening, that he was much pleased with the report that the captain had given of his eagerness to acquire information both in mercantile and nautical matters, and of the manner in which he had kept the ship's books, and the entries of the sales, and purchases of goods.

"Many young fellows at your age, Francis, when there was no compulsion for them to have taken these matters into their charge, would have thought only of amusement and gaiety when they were in port, and I am glad to see that you have a real interest in them. Whatever the line in life a young man takes up, he will never excel in it unless he goes into it with all his heart, and I am very glad to see that you have thrown yourself so heartily into your new profession. The Bonito made a most satisfactory voyage, far more so than I anticipated, when I found that she would not be able to carry out the programme I had laid down for her; but the rise in the prices in the latter part of your voyage have more than made up for the loss of the trade in the Black Sea; and you have done as much in the three months you were absent, as I should have expected had you been, as I anticipated, six months away.

"You will be some little time before you start again, as I wish to see how matters are going before I send the Bonito out upon another adventure. At present nothing is settled here. That there will be war with Genoa before long is certain, but we would rather postpone it as long as possible, and the senate has not yet arrived at the decision to accept the offer of Tenedos. Negotiations are going on with Genoa and Constantinople, but I have little hope that anything will come of them.

"It is getting late in the season now, and the war will hardly break out until next spring; but I have no doubt the struggle will then begin, and preparations are going on with all speed in the dockyards. We are endeavouring to obtain allies, but the combination is so strong against Venice that we are meeting with little success, and Ferrara is really the only friend on whom we can rely, and she is not in a position to aid us materially, in such a struggle as this will be.

"I am glad to tell you that the affair in which you were concerned, before you sailed, has now completely dropped. Nothing has been heard of Mocenigo since he made his escape.

"A decree of banishment was passed against him, but where he is we know not. That wretched woman was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, but upon my petition she will be released at the end of six months, on her promise that she will not again set foot in the territory of the republic. As Mocenigo has not been brought to trial, there will be no further official inquiry into the matter, and I have not been further questioned as to the source from which I obtained my information as to the girls' hiding place. Your share in the matter is therefore altogether unsuspected, and I do not think that there is any further danger to you from Mocenigo's partisans."

"I should be glad enough to remain in Venice a fortnight or so, sir," Francis said. "But if, at the end of that time, you have any vessel going out, I shall prefer to go in her. Now that my studies are over, I shall very soon get tired of doing nothing. Perhaps in a few years I may care more for the gaieties of Venice, but certainly at present I have no interest in them, and would rather be at sea. Matteo tells me that you have promised he shall make a few voyages in your ships, and that you have told him he shall go in one of them shortly. If so, it would be very pleasant to us both if we can sail together."

"I will arrange it so, Francisco. It would be for the benefit of my cousin -- who is a good lad, but harebrained, and without ballast -- for you to go with him. I should indeed have proposed it, but the vessel in which I have decided he shall sail will be ready for sea in another ten days or so, and I thought that you would prefer a longer stay in Venice before you again set sail. If, however, it is your wish to be off again so soon, I will arrange for you both to sail together.

"This time you will go officially as my supercargo, since you now understand the duties. The captain of the vessel in which you will sail is a good sailor and a brave man, but he has no aptitude for trade, and I must have sent a supercargo with him. Your decision to go relieves me of this, for which I am not sorry, for men who are at once good supercargos, and honest men, are difficult to get."

The fortnight passed rapidly, and Francis enjoyed his stay at the merchant's greatly, but he was not sorry when, at the end of ten days, Polani told him that the lading of the vessel would begin the next day, and that he had best go on board early and see the cargo shipped, so that he might check off the bales and casks as they were sent on board, and see where each description of goods was stowed away.

"I think, papa, it is too bad of you, sending Francisco away so soon," Maria said, when at their evening meal she learned the news of his early departure.

"It is his own doing," her father said. "It is he who wants to go, not I who send him. I consider that it is entirely your fault."

"Our fault!" the two girls repeated in surprise.

"Certainly. If you had made Venice sufficiently pleasant to him, he would not wish to leave. I am too busy to see about such things, and I left it to you to entertain him. As he is in such a hurry to get away again, it is evident that you have not succeeded in doing so."

"Indeed, Signor Polani, your daughters have been everything that is kind, but I have no taste for assemblies and entertainments. I feel out of place there, amid all the gaily dressed nobles and ladies, and no sooner do I get there, than I begin to wonder how anyone can prefer the heated rooms, and clatter of tongues, to the quiet pleasure of a walk backwards and forwards on the deck of a good ship. Besides, I want to learn my profession, and there is so much to learn in it that I feel I have no time to lose."

"I am right glad to see your eagerness in that direction, Francisco, and I did but jest with my daughters. You have not yet asked me what is the destination of the Lido, for that is the name of your new vessel. This time you are going quite in a new direction. In the spring we are certain to have war with Genoa, and as Parma and Hungary will probably both take side against us, we may find ourselves cut off from the mainland, and, in case of a disaster happening to our fleet, in sore straits for food. I am, therefore, going to gather into my warehouses as much grain as they will hold. This will both be a benefit to the state, and will bring me good profit, for the price of wheat will be high in the city if we are leaguered on the land side.

"The Lido will go down to Sicily, and fill up there with corn. You will have to use care before entering port, for with war now certain, both parties will begin to snap up prizes when they get the chance. So you must keep a sharp lookout for Genoese galleys. If you find the coast is too closely watched, you will go to the Moorish ports. We are friends with them at present, though doubtless, as soon as Genoa and ourselves get to blows, they will be resuming their piratical work. Thus you will, this time, take in a much smaller amount of cargo, as you will have to pay for the most part in gold."

It mattered little to Francis where he voyaged; but Matteo, who had been greatly delighted at the thought of sailing with his friend, was much disappointed when he heard that they were only going to fetch grain from Sicily.

"Why, it is nothing to call a voyage," he said in tones of disgust, when Francis told him the destination of the Lido. "I had hoped we were going to make a long voyage, and touch at all sorts of places, just as you did last time."

"I do not see that it matters much, Matteo; and we shall learn navigation just as well from one course as another. The voyage will not be a long one, unless we meet with unfavourable winds; but there's no saying what may happen, and you may meet with adventure, even on a voyage to Sicily and back."

The trip down to Sicily was quickly made. Francis had worked hard on his first voyage, and was now able to make daily calculations as to the run made, the course steered, and the position of the ship, and found that these tallied closely with those of the captain. Matteo and he shared a large and handsome cabin, and the time passed pleasantly as the vessel ran down the coast of Italy. Once out of the Adriatic a sharp lookout was kept, but the coast of Sicily was made without seeing any sails of a suspicious character.

The lads were struck with surprise and admiration when, on coming on deck in the morning, they saw the great cone of Etna lying ahead of them. Neither of them had ever seen a mountain of any size, and their interest in the scene was heightened by a slight wreath of smoke, which curled up from the summit of the hill.

"It is well worth a voyage, if it were only to see that mountain," Francis said. "What an immense height it is, and how regular in its shape!"

"And yet," Matteo said, "those who have journeyed from Italy into France tell me that there are mountains there beside which Etna is as nothing. These mountains are a continuation of the range of hills which we can see from Venice. Their tops are always covered with snow, and cannot be ascended by man; whereas it is easy, they say, to reach the top of Etna."

"Yes, that looks easy enough," Francis agreed. "It seems such a regular slope, that one could almost ride up; but I dare say, when you are close you would find all sorts of difficult places."

"I should like to try," Matteo said. "What a grand view there would be from the top!

"Is the port we are going to try first, captain, anywhere near the foot of the mountain?"

"No, I am going round the southern part of the island. On this side the ground is less fertile, and we should have difficulty in obtaining a cargo. But even were we to put into a port on this side, you would not be able to climb Mount Etna.

"Sicily has been an unfortunate country. Its great natural wealth has rendered it an object of desire, to all its neighbours. It was the battleground of the Romans and Carthaginians. Pisa, Genoa, and Naples have all contended for its possession; and the Moors frequently make descents upon its coasts. It has seldom enjoyed a peaceful and settled government. The consequence is that general lawlessness prevails in the districts remote from the towns; while in the forests that clothe the side of Mount Etna, there are numerous hordes of bandits who set the authorities at defiance, levy blackmail throughout the surrounding villages, and carry off wealthy inhabitants, and put them to ransom. No one in his senses would think of ascending that mountain, unless he had something like an army with him."

"I should like to try it, all the same," Matteo asserted. "If there are woods all over it, it is not likely one would happen to meet with any of these people. I should like, above all things, to get to the top of that hill."

"It would be harder work than you think, young sir," the captain said. "You have no idea from this distance what the height is, or what a long journey it is to ascend to the top. I have been told that it is a hundred and twenty miles round its foot."

"I don't think you would like it, Matteo, if you were to try it," Francis said laughing. "You know you are as lazy as you can be, and hate exerting yourself. I am sure that, before you got a quarter the distance up that mountain, you would have only one wish, and that would be to be at the bottom again."

"I don't know," Matteo said. "I hate exerting myself uselessly -- wasting my strength, as you do, in rowing at an oar, or anything of that sort; but to do anything great, I would not mind exertion, and would go on until I dropped."

"That is all very well, Matteo; but to do anything great, you have got to do small things first. You could never wield a sword for five minutes unless you had practised with it; and you will never succeed in accomplishing any feats requiring great strength and endurance, if you do not practise your muscles on every occasion. You used to grumble at the height when you came up to my room in the old house, and I suppose Etna is something like two hundred times as high."

"That does sound a serious undertaking," Matteo said, laughing; "and I am afraid that I shall never see the view from the top of Etna. Certainly I shall not, if it will be necessary beforehand to be always exercising my muscles by running up the stairs of high houses."

The next day they were off Girgenti, the port at which they hoped to obtain a cargo. They steered in until they encountered a fishing boat, and learned from those on board that there was no Genoese vessel in port, nor, as far as the men knew, any state galleys anywhere in the neighbourhood. Obtaining this news, they sailed boldly into the port and dropped anchor.

Francis, who had received before starting a list of houses with whom Signor Polani was in the habit of doing business, at once rowed ashore, Matteo and Giuseppi accompanying him. His business arrangements were soon completed. The harvest had been a good one, and there was an abundance of corn to be had at a cheap rate. In half an hour he arranged for as large a quantity as the Lido would carry.

The work of loading soon commenced, and in four days the ship was full up to the hatches. Francis went on shore to settle the various accounts, and was just making the last payment when Matteo ran into the office.

"Four Genoese galleys are entering the bay!"

Francis ran out, and saw four Genoese galleys rowing in.

"It is too late to escape. Even were we empty we could not get away; but laden as the Lido is, they could row three feet to her one."

"What shall we do, Francisco?"

Francis stood for half a minute thinking.

"You had better stay here, Matteo. I will row out to the ship, and send most of the men on shore. If they seize the ship, they may not take those on board prisoners; but if they do, there is no reason why they should take us all."

"You had better come on shore too, Francisco, and leave the captain in charge. You can do no good by staying there; and Polani would be more concerned at your capture than he would at the loss of a dozen ships. If you could do any good, it would be different; but as it is, it would be foolish to risk capture."

"I will see," Francis said. "At any rate, do you stop here."

Jumping into a boat, he rowed towards the Lido, which was lying but a cable's length from the shore. As he neared her, he shouted to the men to lower the boats.

"Captain," he said, "I do not know whether there is any danger of being captured by the Genoese. But it is useless to run any unnecessary risk. Therefore send all the crew but three or four men on shore. If the Genoese board us, we have our papers as peaceful traders buying wheat; but if, in spite of that, they capture us, we must take our chance."

"Surely you are not thinking of stopping, Messer Francisco. The padrone would be terribly vexed if you were taken. He specially ordered me, before we started, to see that no unnecessary risk was run, and to prevent you from thrusting yourself into danger. Therefore, as captain of the ship, I must insist that you go on shore."

"I think I ought to stay here," Francis said.

"I do not think so," the captain said firmly, "and I will not suffer it. I have to answer for your safety to the padrone; and if you do not go by yourself, I shall order the men to put you into one of the boats by force. I mean no disrespect; but I know my duty, and that is to prevent you from falling into the hands of the Genoese."

"I will not oblige you to use force, captain," Francis said, smiling, "and will do as you wish me."

In five minutes the men were all -- save four, whom the captain had selected -- in the boat, and rowing towards shore. Matteo was awaiting them when they landed.

"That is right, Francisco. I was half afraid you would stay on board. I know how obstinate you are whenever you take a thing into your head."

"The captain was more obstinate still, Matteo, and said that unless I came away he would send me on shore by force; but I don't like deserting the ship."

"That is nonsense, Francisco. If the Genoese take her, they take her, and your remaining on board could not do any good. What are you going to do now?"

"We will at once leave the place with the men, Matteo, and retire into the country behind. It is not likely the Genoese would land and seize us here, but they might do so, or the inhabitants, to please Genoa, might seize us and send us on board. At any rate, we shall be safer in the country."

The men had, by the captain's orders, brought their arms ashore on leaving the ship. This was the suggestion of Francis, who said that, were they unarmed, the people might seize them and hand them over to the Genoese. At the head of this party, which was about fifty strong, Francis marched up through the little town and out into the country. He had really but little fear, either that the Genoese would arrest them on shore, or that the people would interfere with them, for they would not care to risk the anger of Venice by interfering in such a matter. He thought it probable, however, that if his men remained in the town, broils would arise between them and any of the Genoese sailors who might land.

As soon as the Genoese galleys came up to the head of the bay, a boat was lowered and rowed to the Lido, at whose masthead the Venetian flag was flying. An officer, followed by six men, climbed up on to the deck.

"Are you the captain of this ship?" the officer asked as the captain approached him.

"I am," the captain said.

"What ship is it?"

"It is the Lido, the property of Messer Polani, a merchant of Venice, and laden with a cargo of wheat."

"Then you are my prisoner," the Genoese said. "I seize this vessel as lawful prize."

"There is peace between the republics," the captain said. "I protest against the seizure of this ship, as an act of piracy."

"We have news that several of our ships have been seized by the Venetians," the officer said; "and we therefore capture this vessel in reprisal. Where are your crew?"

"There are only four on board," the captain said. "We have filled up our cargo, and were going to sail tomorrow, and therefore the rest of the crew were allowed to go on shore; and I do not think it is likely that they will return now," for one of the Genoese sailors had hauled down the flag of Venice, and had replaced it with that of Genoa.

The Genoese officer briefly examined the vessel.

"Whom have you here on board with you?" he asked, struck with the furniture and fittings of Francis' cabin.

"This is the cabin of Matteo Giustiniani, a young noble of Venice, who is making his first voyage, in order to fit himself for entering the service of the state: and of Francisco Hammond, who stands high in the affections of my patron."

The Genoese uttered an angry exclamation. The name of Polani was well known in Genoa as one of the chief merchants of Venice and as belonging to a ducal house, while the family of Giustiniani was even more illustrious; and had these passengers fallen into his hands, a ransom might have been obtained greatly exceeding the value of the Lido and her cargo. Leaving four of his men on board he went off to the galley of the officer commanding the fleet, and presently returned with a large boat full of sailors.

"You and your men can go ashore," he said to the captain. "The admiral does not deem you worth the trouble of carrying to Genoa; but be quick, or you will have to swim to shore."

As the Lido's boats had all gone ashore, the captain hailed a fishing boat which was passing, and with the four sailors was rowed to shore, well content that he had escaped the dungeons of Genoa. He rightly imagined that he and his men were released solely on account of the paucity of their numbers. Had the whole crew been captured, they would have been carried to Genoa; but the admiral did not care to bring in five prisoners only, and preferred taking the ship alone.

Francis, with his party, followed the line of the coast, ascending the hills which rose steeply from the edge of the sea at a short distance from the town. He had brought with him from the town a supply of food sufficient for four or five days, and encamped in a little wood near the edge of the cliff. From this they had a view of the port, and could watch the doings of the Genoese galleys. Fires were lit and meat cooked over them; and just as the meal was prepared the captain and the four sailors joined them, amid a hearty cheer from the crew.

"I have made my protest," the captain said as he took his seat by the side of Francis, "and the padrone can make a complaint before the council if he thinks fit to do so; but there is small chance that he will ever recover the Lido, or the value of her cargo."

"I don't like losing the ship," Francis said. "Of course, it is only a stroke of bad fortune, and we could neither fly nor defend ourselves. Still one hates arriving home with the story that one has lost the ship."

"Yes," the captain agreed. "Messer Polani is a just man, yet no one cares to employ men who are unlucky; and the worst of it is that the last ship I commanded was wrecked. Many men would not have employed me again, although it wasn't my fault. But after this second affair, in a few months' time, I shall get the name of being an unlucky man, and no one in his senses would employ a man who is always losing his ships."

"Do you think that there is any chance of our recapturing it, captain?"

"Not the least in the world," the captain replied. "Even supposing that we could get on board, and overpower the Genoese without being heard, and get her out of the port without being seen, we should not get away. Laden as she is with grain, she will sail very slowly, and the Genoese would overtake her in a few hours; and I needn't tell you that then there would be very little mercy shown to any on board."

"That is true enough," Francis said. "Still, I do not like the idea of losing the Lido."

After the meal was over Francis rose, and asked Matteo to accompany him on a stroll along the cliffs, Giuseppi as usual following them. They walked along until they rounded the head of the bay, and were able to look along the coast for some distance. It was steep and rocky, and worn into a number of slight indentations. In one of these rose a ledge of rocks at a very short distance from the shore.

"How much further are we going, Francis?" Matteo said when they had walked a couple of miles.

"About a quarter of a mile, Matteo. I want to examine that ledge of rocks we saw from the first point."

"What on earth do you want to look at them for, Francis? You certainly are the most curious fellow I ever met. You scoffed at me when I said I should like to go up Mount Etna, and now here you are, dragging me along this cliff, just to look at some rocks of no possible interest to any one."

"That is the point to be inquired into, Matteo. I think it's possible they may prove very interesting."

Matteo shrugged his shoulders, as he often did when he felt too lazy to combat the eccentric ideas of his English friend.

"There we are," Francis said at last, standing on the edge of the cliff and looking down. "Nothing could be better."

"I am glad you think so, Francisco," Matteo said, seating himself on the grass. "I hope you intend to stay some little time to admire them, for I own that I should like a rest before I go back."

Francis stood looking at the rocks. The bay was a shallow one, and was but five or six hundred yards from point to point, the rocks rising nearly in a line between the points, and showing for about two hundred yards above water, and at about the same distance from the cliffs behind them.

"What height do you think those rocks are above the water, Giuseppi?"

"It is difficult to judge, signor, we are so high above them; but I should think in the middle they must be ten or twelve feet."

"I should think it likely they were more than double that, Giuseppi; but we shall see better when we get down to the bottom. I daresay we shall find a place where we can clamber down somewhere."

"My dear Francisco," Matteo said earnestly, "is anything the matter with you? I begin to have doubts of your sanity. What on earth do these rocks matter to you, one way or the other? or what can you care whether they are thirty inches or thirty feet above the water?

"They do not differ from other rocks, as far as I can see. They are very rugged and very rough, and would be very awkward if they lay out at sea instead of in this little bay, where they are in nobody's way. Is it not enough that you have tramped two miles to have a look at them, which means four miles, as we have got to return somehow? And now you talk about climbing down that break-neck cliff to have a look at them close!"

But Francis paid no attention to Matteo's words. He was gazing down into the clear smooth water, which was so transparent that every stone and pebble at the bottom could be seen.

"The water looks extremely shallow, Giuseppi. What do you think?"

"It seems to me, signor, that there is not a foot of water between the rocks and the shore."

"It does look so, Giuseppi; but it is possible that the transparency of the water deceives us, and that there may be ten or twelve feet of water there. However, that is what we must go down and find out. Now the first thing is to look about, and find some point at which we can get down to the beach."

"Well, I will lie down and take a nap till you come back," Matteo said in a tone of resignation. "I have no interest either in these rocks or in the water; and as far as I can protest, I do so against the whole proceeding, which to me savours of madness."

"Don't you understand, you silly fellow, what I am thinking about?" Francis said impatiently.

"Not in the smallest degree, Francisco; but do not trouble to tell me -- it makes no matter. You have some idea in your head. Carry it out by all means; only don't ask me to cut my hands, tear my clothes, and put myself into a perspiration by climbing down that cliff."

"My idea is this, Matteo. There is no chance of carrying off the Lido by speed from the Genoese; but if we could get her out of the bay we might bring her round here and lay her behind those rocks, and the Genoese would pass by without dreaming she was there. Half a mile out those rocks would look as if they form part of the cliff, and none would suspect there was a passage behind them."

"That is something like an idea!" Matteo said, jumping to his feet. "Why did you not tell me of it before? You have quite alarmed me. Seriously, I began to think that you had become a little mad, and was wondering whether I had not better go back and fetch the captain and some of his men to look after you.

"Now let us look at your rocks again. Why, man, there is not water enough to float a boat between them and the shore, much less the Lido, which draws nine foot of water now she is loaded."

"I don't know, Matteo. Looking down on water from a height is very deceiving. If it is clear and transparent, there is nothing to enable you to judge its depth. At any rate it is worth trying. Before we go down, we will cut some long stiff rods with which we can measure the depth. But we have first to find a place where we can get down to the water."

After a quarter of an hour's search, they found a point where the descent seemed practicable. A little stream had worn a deep fissure in the face of the rock. Shrubs and bushes had grown up in the crevices and afforded a hold for the hands, and there appeared no great difficulty in getting down. Before starting they cut three stiff slender rods twelve feet in length. They then set to work to make the descent. It was by no means difficult, and in a few minutes they stood by the edge of the water.

"It is a great advantage, the path being so easy," Francis said, "for in case they did discover the ship we could land and climb to the top before they had time to come to shore, and once there we could keep the whole force in those galleys at bay. Now for the main point, the depth of the water."

Matteo shook his head.

"It is useless to take the trouble to undress, Francis," he said, as the latter threw off his jacket. "Giuseppi can wade out to the rocks without wetting his knees."

"Giuseppi can try if he likes," Francis said, "but I will wager he will not get far."

Giuseppi, as convinced as Matteo of the shallowness of the water, stepped into it, but was surprised to find that, before he had gone many paces, the water was up to his waist.

"Well, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it," Matteo said when he returned, "but I think he must have got into a deep hole among the rocks. However, we shall soon see," and he too began to undress.

In a few minutes the three lads were swimming out towards the rocks which, as Francis had anticipated, rose from twenty to thirty feet above the level of the sea. The water deepened fast, and for the last thirty or forty yards, they were unable to touch the bottom, even when thrusting down their rods to the fullest depth. They then tried the depth in the passages at the end of the rocks, and found that there was ample water for the Lido. When they ascertained this to their satisfaction they swam back to the shore.

"I shall believe you in future, Francis, even if you assert that the moon is made of cheese. I could have taken an oath that there was not a foot of water between those rocks and the shore."

"I hardly ventured to hope that it was as deep as it is," Francis said, "but I know how deceiving clear water is, when you look down upon it from a height. However, that point is settled."

"But they would see our masts above the rocks, Francisco. They are sure to keep a sharp lookout as they go along."

"We must take the masts out of her," Francis said. "I don't know how it is to be done, but the captain will know, and if that can't be managed we must cut them down. There is no difficulty about that.

"Now we will make our way back again, it will be dark in a couple of hours' time. Everything depends upon whether they have towed the Lido out and anchored her among their galleys. If they have, I fear the scheme is impracticable, but if they let her remain where she is lying, we might get her out without being noticed, for there is no moon."

As they began to ascend the cliff, Francis stopped suddenly.

"We should never be able to find this place in the dark," he said.

"Giuseppi, you must stay here. Do you collect a quantity of dried sticks, and lay them in readiness at that point opposite the ledge. We will show a light as we come along, that is if we succeed in getting the Lido out, and directly you see it set fire to the sticks. The fire will be a guide to us as to the position of the rocks."

"Perhaps I had better take the sticks off to the ledge, Messer Francisco, and light my fire on the rock at the end. The water is deep a few yards out, as we found, so you could sail close to the fire and then round behind the rocks without danger."

"That will be the best way, Giuseppi; but how will you get the sticks off without wetting them?"

"I will make a bundle three or four times as big as I want," Giuseppi said, "and then half of them will be dry. I can put my clothes on them and the tinder. I will answer for the fire, but I would rather have been with you in your adventure."

"There will be no danger there, Giuseppi, so you need not be anxious about us. It has to be done quietly and secretly, and there will be no fighting. These Genoese are too strong to think of that; and if we are discovered in the attempt, or as we make off, we shall take to our boats again and row straight on shore.

"Keep a sharp lookout for us, we will hoist two lights, one above the other, to prevent your mistaking any fishing boat which may be coming along for us.

"Now, Matteo, for a climb. We have no time to lose."

The two lads climbed to the top of the cliff, and then started at a brisk pace along the top, and in half an hour reached the wood.

"We were beginning to wonder what had become of you," the captain said as they joined him.

"We have been settling how to carry off the Lido," Francis said, "and have arranged everything."

The captain laughed.

"If we could fly with her through the air, you might get her away, but I see no other way. I have been thinking it over since you left. With luck we might get her safely out of the bay, but the galleys row four feet to our one, and as they would be sure to send some one way, and some the other, along the coast; they would pick us up again in two or three hours after daylight."

"Nevertheless we have settled it, captain. We have found a place where we can hide her, and the Genoese might search the coast for a month without finding her."

"If that be so it is possible," the captain said eagerly, "and you may be sure you will not find us backward in doing our best."

Francis described the nature and position of the rock which would afford a shelter, and the means by which they had ascertained that there was plenty of water for the Lido behind it.

"It seems plausible," the captain said when he had concluded, "and I am quite ready to make the attempt, if, in your opinion, it can be done. You are Messer Polani's representative, and for my own sake as well as his, I would do anything which promises a chance of recapturing the ship. Besides, as you say, there is little danger in it, for we can take to the boats and make for the shore if discovered.

"The Lido is still lying where we anchored her. They can have no fear of a recapture, for they would know that they could overtake us easily enough. I daresay they intend to sail tomorrow morning, and did not think it worth the trouble to get up the anchor and tow her out to where they are lying."

The details of the expedition were now discussed and arranged, and the men told off to their various duties, and at eleven o'clock at night, when all in the town were fast asleep, the party quitted the bivouac and marched down again to the port.



Chapter 10: Recaptured.


No one was astir in the streets as the band marched through, and they reached the port without encountering a single person. A small boat was chosen, and in this the captain, Francis, Matteo, and two of the strongest and most powerful of the sailors embarked. It was thought unlikely that, lying, as the Lido did, within a couple of hundred yards of the Genoese galleys, any very vigilant watch would be kept, and not more than two sailors would probably be on deck.

The dark mass of the ship could just be made out from the shore, and when all was ready the two sailors with their oars pushed her off with all their strength, and then stood perfectly quiet.

The impetus was sufficient. The boat moved so slowly through the water, indeed, before they reached the ship, that Francis thought it would be necessary for the men to row a stroke or two; but the boat still moved on, until at last it touched the side of the ship. All had removed their boots before starting, and they now clambered up the sides without making the slightest noise.

Once on deck they stood perfectly quiet, listening. Presently they heard a murmur of voices on the other side of the vessel. Very quietly they crept towards the sound, and at length made out two figures leaning over the bulwarks, talking.

Each man's work had been settled, and there was no confusion. One of the sailors and Francis stole towards one of the men, while the other and Matteo approached the second. The captain stood with his sword bared, in readiness to cut down any other man who might be on deck.

The Genoese did not look round. Francis gave the word, "Now," and in a moment the two sailors seized them from behind with a grasp of iron, while the lads at the same moment passed bandages tightly round their mouths, and before the Genoese were quite aware of what had happened, they were lying, bound hand and foot, gagged upon the deck.

The party now made a search, but found no one else about. They then secured and fastened down the hatch of the forecastle by coiling ropes upon it, quietly opened the door leading to the poop cabins, and entering, seized and bound two officers sleeping there without the slightest noise or resistance.

Then they took a light from the cabin and showed it towards the shore. At the signal the sailors, who had already taken their places in the boats, at once rowed out to the vessel. When all were on board, the boats were fastened alongside, in case it should be necessary to abandon the ship again.

The cable was then cut. One of the sailors had already ascended the shrouds, and poured oil over the blocks through which the halyards ran, so that the sails should ascend noiselessly. The wind was very light, scarcely enough to belly out the sails, but it was fortunately in the right direction, and the Lido began to steal through the water.

Not a word had been spoken since they first started, but Francis now whispered to the captain, "I think I can make out the Genoese ships."

"So can I," the captain said, "but they cannot see us. They are against the skyline, while we are in the shadow of the shore. So far all is perfectly safe, and if this breath of wind will but carry us far enough out to be able to use our oars without their hearing us, we shall certainly get away."

The progress of the Lido was so slow, that it was nearly an hour before the captain said that he thought they were now fairly round the point of the bay, and could use their oars.

"We had better tow," he said; "the sweeps make a noise that can be heard miles away on a calm night like this, whereas, if they are careful, men in a boat can row almost noiselessly."

Ten of the men accordingly took their places in one of the large boats in which they had come on board, and a rope being passed down to them they began rowing at the head of the ship.

"We may as well lower the sails," the captain said, "they are doing no good now. Indeed I think it is a current rather than the wind that has helped us so far."

"I will put two lanterns over the side," Francis said. "We may have gone farther than we think, and it would never do to pass our hiding place."

The men in the boat rowed vigorously, but it was slow work towing the deeply-laden vessel. At last, however, a light burst suddenly up from the shore.

"There is Giuseppi," Francis exclaimed. "We are further out than we thought we were. He must be fully a mile and a half away."

The men in the boat were told to row direct for the light, and some of the sweeps were got out and helped the vessel through the water. As they drew near, they could make out Giuseppi throwing fresh wood on the fire.

"You can steer within ten yards of where he is standing, captain, and directly you are abreast of him, put your helm hard to port. You had better get the sweeps in now, the less way she has on her the better."

"All well?" Giuseppi hailed, as they came within fifty yards of it.

"All well, Giuseppi! There has been no fighting, so you have lost nothing. Put all your wood on the fire, we want as much light as we can to get in."

The flames shot up high, and the captain had no difficulty in rounding the corner of the rocks, and bringing up his vessel behind them. A kedge was dropped, and the men in the boat rowed to the end of the rocks, and brought off Giuseppi.

"I was beginning to be anxious," the lad said, as he joined them on deck, "and when I first saw your signal I took you for a fishing boat. You were so far off that the two lights looked like one, but by dint of gazing I made them out at last, and then lit the fire."

"Now, captain," Francis said, "we have a good deal to do before morning, for I take it it will be no easy matter to get out the masts."

"There would be no difficulty in getting the masts out," the captain answered. "I have only to knock out the wedges, and loosen the stays, and get up a tripod made of three spars to lift them out; but I don't see how they are to be got in again."

"How is that, captain? I should have thought it no more difficult to get a mast in than to take it out."

"Nor would it be so, under ordinary circumstances," the captain replied; "but you see, our hold is full of grain, and as the mast comes out, the hole it leaves will fill up, and there will be no getting it down again to step it on the keel without discharging the cargo."

"Yes, I see that, captain. Then you think we had better cut down the masts; but in that case how are we to raise them?"

"We will cut them off about six feet above the deck, Messer Francisco; then when we want to set sail again, we have only to rear the masts up by the side of the stumps, and lash them securely. Of course they will be six feet shorter than before, but that is of little consequence."

"Then so let it be," Francis said, "the sooner we begin the better."

Just at this moment there was a violent knocking against the hatch of the forecastle.

"I had forgotten all about the sailors," the captain said, laughing. "I suppose the men who were to relieve the watch have woke up, and finding they could not get out, have aroused their comrades."

"Shall we leave them there, or take them out and bind them?" Matteo asked.

"We had better have them up," the captain said. "I don't suppose there are more than twenty of them, and it would be best to bind them, and put them down in the hold with the corn, otherwise they may manage to break out when we are not expecting it, and might give us some trouble."

Accordingly, the sailors gathered round the hatch. The ropes were then removed, and the hatch taken off.

"What fooling are you up to?" one of the Genoese exclaimed, angrily, as they rushed up on deck. "You have nearly stifled us down below putting on the hatch and fastening it."

He stopped abruptly as, on gaining the deck, he saw a crowd of armed figures round him, for a lantern had been placed so as to throw a light upon the spot.

"You are prisoners," the captain said. "It is useless to attempt resistance."

"Help, help, treachery!" one of the Genoese shouted at the top of his voice.

"It is useless for you to shout," the captain said, "you are miles away from your fleet. Now, do you surrender, or are we to attack you?"

Taken by surprise, and unarmed, the Genoese who had gained the deck sullenly replied that they surrendered. They were bound and led away, and the others ordered to come up on deck. There were found to be four-and-twenty in all, and these were soon laid side by side on the grain in the hold, the hatch being left off to give them air. The masts were then cut through, and were with some trouble lowered to the deck.

"There is nothing more to be done now," the captain said, "and I think we can all safely turn in till morning."

He then ordered the under officer to place two men on watch on the rocks, and two men on deck, two men to stand as sentinels over the prisoners, and the rest to lie down. He directed that he should be roused at the earliest streak of daylight.

The lads were soon fast asleep, and could hardly believe that the night was over, when Giuseppi awakened them with the news that day was breaking. They were soon on deck, and found that the crew were already astir. The sentinels on the rock were at once ordered to lie down, so that they could command a view of the sea, without exposing themselves to sight. The boats were drawn up alongside, and everything put in readiness for instant debarkation, and then the party waited for the appearance of the Genoese galleys.

"They will be along in less than an hour," the captain said. "It is light enough now for the watch to have discovered that the Lido is missing, and it will not be many minutes before they are under way. They will calculate that we can have but five or six hours' start at the utmost, and that three hours' rowing will bring them up to us."

"I have no fear whatever of their discovering us as they go along," Francis said. "The only fear is that, after rowing for three or four hours and seeing no sign of us, they will guess that we are hidden somewhere under the cliffs, and will come back along the shore, searching every bay."

"There is a chance of that," the captain agreed, "but I should think only a chance. When the party who come this way find they do not overtake us, they will suppose that we have sailed to the west, and that on their return they will find us in the hands of their comrades; and when these also come back empty handed they will conclude that we have sailed straight out to sea. Of course they may have sent a galley southward also, but will conclude that that has somehow missed us when it returns without news. I hardly think that the idea, that we may be hidden so close to them, will enter their minds, and the only fear I entertain is that some peasant may happen to come to the edge of the cliff and see us lying here, and may take the news back to Girgenti."

"Yes, there is certainly a danger of that," Francis said. "I think, captain, it would be the best plan to land twenty men at once. Giuseppi will show them the way up the cliff, and then they must take their station, at short distances apart, along the edge of the cliff, from point to point of this little bay, with orders to seize any one who may approach and bring him down here. They must, of course, be told to lie down, as a line of sentries along the top of the cliff might attract the attention of somebody on the galleys, and lead to a search."

"Yes, I think that will be a wise precaution," the captain agreed.

"Thomaso, do you take twenty men and post them as you hear Messer Francisco say. Tell them to lie in the bushes and keep out of sight, and on no account to show themselves, unless someone comes along sufficiently near to look over the edge of the cliff."

"Giuseppi," Francis said, "do you act as guide to the party. You will have plenty of time to get to the top and to return before the galleys come along."

A quarter of an hour later the captain, with Matteo and Francis, landed on the ledge, and took the place of the sentries, and in twenty minutes a simultaneous exclamation burst from them, as a Genoese galley was seen rowing rapidly along.

"They have sent only one galley," Francis said. "Of course, they would know that it was sufficiently strong to overpower us without difficulty. I suppose one has gone west, and the others have put out to sea in different directions. That certainly was the best course they could have adopted, and it is very lucky that we did not attempt to escape seaward, for they would assuredly have had us. I suppose, captain, you intend to sail tonight."

"Certainly," the captain replied. "We will get everything in readiness for hoisting the masts as soon as the galley has passed us on its way back. There is no fear of their coming along again later on, for the men will have had an eight hours' row of it; the first part, at any rate, at full speed. Besides, they will not know, until all the galleys return, that we have not been found, so I think it will be quite safe to get up the masts as soon as they have passed. Then directly it is dark we will man our oars and row to the southwest. We shall be far away before morning, even if they look further for us, which they are hardly likely to do."

"How about the prisoners, captain?"

"We have no choice but to take them with us, Messer Francisco. I am sure I do not want to be bothered with them, but we cannot land them before we leave, or they would carry the news to Girgenti in an hour, and we should be caught the first thing in the morning."

It was late in the afternoon before the galley was seen returning, rowing slowly and heavily.

"I expect," the captain said, "they kept up the racing pace at which they started for some four hours. By that time they must have been completely worn out, and no doubt they anchored and waited for some hours for the men to feed and rest themselves, for from the hurry with which they started you may be sure that they did not wait to break their fast.

"I would give a month's pay to be in that harbour this evening. What tempers they must be in when they find, after all their toil, that we have slipped through their fingers, How they will talk the matter over, and discuss which way we went. How the men in each ship will say that the others cannot have used their eyes or exerted themselves, else we must have been overtaken. Messer Francisco, I am indebted to you, not only for having saved the ship, but for giving me a joke, which I shall laugh over whenever I think of it. It will be a grand story to tell over the wine cups, how we cheated a whole Genoese fleet, and carried off the Lido from under their noses. What a tale it will be to relate to a Genoese, when we meet in some port after the war is over; it will be enough to make him dance with rage.

"Now, lads," he went on, turning to the men, "stand to your tackle. The moment that galley gets out of sight round the point, up with the mast."

Ten minutes later the masts were up, stout ropes were lashed round them and the stumps, and wedges driven in to tighten the cords to the utmost. The rigging was of the simplest description, and before dark everything was in readiness for hoisting the sails.

"I don't think they can make us out now," the captain said.

"I don't think they could," Francis agreed; "but we had better wait another quarter of an hour. It would be absurd to run any risk after everything has turned out so well; but the men can get into the boats and tow us out through the channel, then we can hoist the boats on board, and by that time it should be nearly dark enough."

"I think there will be a breeze presently," the captain said, "and from the right direction. However, the men won't mind working hard for a bit. They have had an easy time for the last two days."

The oars were all manned, and the men set to work with hearty goodwill. They were delighted at their escape from the island, for they might have been there some time before they got a passage back; and still more pleased at having tricked the Genoese; and the Lido, heavy laden as she was, moved at a steady pace through the water, under the impulsion of the oars.

For an hour they rowed parallel with the shore, as, had they made out to sea, they might possibly have been seen by one of the galleys, returning late from the search for them. At the end of that time the captain turned her head from shore. As soon as they got well out from under the shelter of the land the breeze made itself felt, and the sails were hoisted.

For a time the men kept on rowing, but the breeze increased rapidly, and the captain ordered the oars to be laid in. A double allowance of wine was served out, and an hour or two spent in song and hilarity; then the watch below was sent down, and Francis and Matteo turned into their cots.

In the morning the breeze was blowing strong. The sails had been taken off the mainmast, but that on the foremast was dragging the Lido through the water at a good rate of speed, and before night they were off Cape Spartivento. The wind held till next morning, when they were abreast of the Gulf of Taranto. Then came a long spell of calms or baffling winds, and it was a fortnight before the campaniles of Venice were seen rising apparently from the water.

"I have been anxious about you," Signor Polani said when Francis arrived. "One of our galleys brought the report that a Genoese fleet was cruising on the coast of Sicily, and as, although war had not yet been openly declared, both parties were making prizes, I was afraid that they might have snapped you up."

"They did snap us up," Francis said smiling. "They caught us in the port of Girgenti, and the standard of Genoa waved over the Lido."

"But how can that be," Polani said, "when you have returned in her? For she was signalled as approaching the port hours ago. You could hardly have persuaded the Genoese by fair words to release a prize that they had once taken.

"Eh, captain?"

"No, that is not the Genoese way, nor ours either," the captain said. "We did better than that, signor. We recaptured her, and carried her off from under their noses."

"You are joking," Polani said, "for they signalled the Lido as returning laden, and a laden ship could never get away from state galleys, however long her start. A fat pig might as soon try to escape from a hunting dog."

"That is so, Messer Polani, and we did not trust to our speed. We tricked them famously, sir. At least, when I say we did, Messer Francisco here did, for the credit is due solely to him. If it had not been for this young gentleman, I and the crew would now have been camping out in the forests of Sicily, without the slightest prospect of being able to make our way home, and the Lido would now be moored in the port of Genoa."

"That is so, Cousin Polani," Matteo said. "It is to Francisco that we owe our escape, and you owe the safety of the Lido and her cargo."

"It was just a happy idea that occurred to me," Francis said, "as it would assuredly have occurred to Captain Pesoro, if he had been with us, or to anyone else, and after I had first suggested it the captain carried out all the arrangements."

"Not at all, Messer Francisco," the captain said obstinately. "I had no part or hand in the business, beyond doing what you suggested, and you would have got the Lido off just as well if I hadn't been there."

"Well, I will judge for myself when I hear," Polani said. "But, as it must be an interesting story, my daughters would like to hear it also. So, come into the next room and tell the tale, and I will order up a flagon of Cyprus wine to moisten your throats."

"First of all," the captain began, after the girls had greeted Francis, and all had taken their seats, "I must tell how the Lido was captured."

And he then related how the Genoese fleet had suddenly appeared before them, and how, seeing the impossibility of escape, he had sent all on shore with the exception of four sailors, and how he had, with them, been released and sent on shore.

"That's the Genoese all over," Polani said. "If they could have sent forty prisoners home they would have done so; but the fact that there were only five on board, when they took the vessel, would seem to them to detract from the credit of the capture."

The captain then told how, fearing that the people of Girgenti might give them all up to the Genoese, or that fights might ensue among the Genoese sailors who landed, he had marched the crew away out of the town.

"Now, captain," Matteo broke in, "I will tell the next bit, because I was with Francis when he found a hiding place."

He then related how Francis had seen the ledge of rocks in the distance, and had dragged him along the cliff two miles to observe them more closely; and how he had come to the conclusion that his companion had lost his senses. Then he described the exact position, and the clearness of the water, and how he had been convinced that there was not depth to float a rowboat inside the rocks; and how they had gone down, swum out, fathomed the water, and then returned to the wood.

The captain then took up the tale again, and completed it to the end.

"There is no doubt you were right, captain," Polani said, "and that it is entirely Francisco's quickness of observation, readiness of plan, and determination to see if his ideas could be carried into effect, which saved the Lido. That he possessed these qualities is not new to me, for I have already greatly benefited by them. If he had not been born a peaceful trader, he would have made a great captain some day; but the qualities which would distinguish a man in war are also useful in peace, and I think it fully as honourable to be a successful merchant, as a successful soldier.

"Henceforth, Francisco, I shall no longer consider you as in leading strings, and shall feel that I can confide important business to you, young as you are."

The next voyage that Francis made was to Jaffa, and this was accomplished without adventure. On his return, he found that Venice was in a state of excitement -- war had at last been declared, and every effort was being made to fit out a fleet which could cope with that of Genoa.

The command was entrusted to Vettore Pisani, who was invested in the church of Saint Mark with the supreme command of the fleet by the doge himself, who handed to the admiral the great banner of Venice, with the words:

"You are destined by God to defend with your valour this republic, and to retaliate upon those who have dared to insult her and to rob her of that security which she owes to the virtue of her ancestors. Wherefore, we confide to you this victorious and great standard, which it will be your duty to restore to us unsullied and triumphant."

Carlo Zeno, a noble, who had gained a high reputation in various capacities, was appointed commissioner and captain general of Negropont. The three first divisions of those inscribed in the register, as liable to serve in the navy, were called out, and on the 24th of April Pisani sailed from Venice with fourteen war galleys.

Pisani enjoyed the highest popularity among the people of Venice. His manner was that of a bluff hearty sailor. He was always ready to share in the hardships of his men, and to set them an example of good temper and cheerfulness, as well as of bravery. He was quick tempered, and when in a passion cared nothing whom he struck.

When governor of Candia, he had got into a serious scrape, by striking Pietro Cornaro, an officer of the republic, from whom he happened to differ on some point of routine. He was a relative of the Doge Andrea Contarini, and had been employed not only as an officer in the navy, but as a military engineer and as a diplomatist, and in each capacity had shown equal talent.

He was connected with the Polani family, and was at their house several times before he sailed. Here he heard from his kinsman an account of the manner in which Francisco had saved the Bonito from being rammed by the pirates, and how he had succeeded in getting the Lido out of the hands of the Genoese; and he was so much pleased that he offered to take him with him in his galley, but Polani advised Francis not to accept the offer.

"It is quite true," he said, "that most of our noble families are, like myself, engaged in commerce; and that one day they are trading as merchants and the next fighting under the state; but at present, if you take my advice, you will stick to the peaceful side of the profession; especially as, being an Englishman, you are in no way called upon to serve the state. In another five or six years, if we are then at war, it will be different. I have frequently offered galleys for the service of the state, and you can then take the command of one, and will, I have no doubt, distinguish yourself; but were you to enter now, you might remain in the service of the state for some years, and would be losing your time as a merchant.

"There are countries in which, when a man once takes up the profession of arms, he remains a soldier all his life, and may not only achieve honour but wealth and wide possessions. It is not so in Venice. Here we are all citizens as well as all soldiers if need be. We fight for the state while a war lasts, and then return to our peaceful avocations. Even my kinsman, Pisani, may be admiral of the fleet today, and a week hence may be a private citizen. Therefore, my lad, I think it would be very foolish of you to give up commerce at present to take military service."

"I quite agree with you, signor," Francis said, although, in truth, for a moment he had felt a strong mind to accept the offer of Pisani. "I am just beginning to learn a little of trade, and desire nothing better than to be a successful merchant; though I confess that I should like to take part in such a glorious sea fight as that which is likely to take place soon."

"Yes, and perhaps be killed in the first engagement, Francis, for neither skill nor bravery avail against a bolt from a Genoese crossbow. No, my lad, be content with trade, especially since you have seen already that even the life of a trader has plenty of incident and excitement. What with storms, what with pirates, what with the enemies of the state and the treachery of the native peoples with whom we trade, there is no lack of adventure in the life of a Venetian merchant."

Francis felt that this was true, and that he had in the past six months had fully his share in adventures. His stay on shore this time extended over a month, and it was not until three weeks after Pisani sailed that he again set out.

The notice was a short one. Polani had been sent for to attend the council early in the morning, and on his return he said to Francis:

"You must go down to the port at once, Francis. News has been received from Pisani that he has sailed almost into the port of Genoa, without finding the fleet of Fieschi. The Genoese have been in a terrible state of panic. The Lord of Fiesole, who is our ally, is menacing the city by land; the Stella Company of Condottieri, which is in our pay, is also marching against them; and the news that Pisani was close at hand seems to have frightened them out of their senses. Their first step, as usual, has been to depose their doge and choose another.

"However, that is not the point. Pisani has written asking that some ships with provisions and stores shall be sent out to him. They are to go through the Straits of Messina and up the coast of Italy until he meets them. His force is far too small for him to think of making an attack upon Genoa. He will wait in the neighbourhood of the city for a short time in hopes of Fieschi's fleet returning. If it does not do so he will come down the coast searching for it, and as he does not wish to put in port, he desires the stores mentioned to be sent out to him.

"I have placed the Bonito at their service, and have promised that she shall be ready to sail tomorrow morning, if they will send the stores on board today. Three other merchants placed ships at their disposal, but these may not sail for a day or two. They are particularly anxious that the Bonito shall start at once, as, in addition to provisions, she will carry a store of javelins, arrows, and other missiles of which there was not a sufficiency in the arsenal when Pisani sailed.

"You will have a strong party on board, as speed is required, and the oars must be kept going until you join the fleet. Therefore I shall place the crew of the Lido on board as well as the Bonito's own complement, and this will bring the number up to a hundred men. The captain has had an accident, and will not be able to go in charge, therefore the Lido's captain will command. This time I shall appoint you specifically second in command, as well as my representative. Now get off on board as quickly as you can, for there is enough to keep you at work, till tomorrow morning, to get everything in readiness for a start. You had best run in and say goodbye to my daughters, as it may be that you will not find time to return before sailing. You can send your boy ashore for what things you require. Matteo will accompany you."

A few minutes later, Francis was on his way to the port, leaving Giuseppi to charter a gondola and follow with his trunks. As Polani had said, he was occupied without intermission until the time for sailing next morning. The barges of the state kept coming alongside with stores and provisions from the arsenal; while other boats brought out the ship's stores; and Francis had to take a note of all that came on board.

The captain superintended the setting up of the rigging, and the getting of the ship into working order; while the under officers saw to the hoisting in and storing of the cargo. Gangs of men were at work tarring the sides of the ship, for she had only two days before returned from a trip to Spain; and a number of sailors were unloading the cargo from one hatchway, while her fresh freight was being taken in at the other.

It seemed well nigh impossible that she could be ready to sail at the hour named, but everyone worked with a will, and by daybreak things were almost in order. Polani himself came down to the port as soon as it was light, and expressed satisfaction at the work which had been done; and half an hour afterwards the anchor was weighed.

Just as the sails had been hoisted, Matteo arrived.

"You are only just in time, Matteo," Polani said. "Why did you not come off yesterday and help?"

"I was out," Matteo said, "when your message came, and only returned just in time to go to the entertainment at the ducal palace. I knew I could be of no use on board while they were only getting in the cargo."

"You will never be of any use on board, Matteo, if you go to entertainments when there's work to be done. You could have taken the marks on the bales as they came on board, just as well as another. I suppose you thought that the dirt and dust wouldn't suit a fine gentleman like you! Another time, unless you come on board when sent for, and make yourself as useful as you can, while the ship is fitting out and loading, you will not sail in her. One part of the duty is just as important as the other, and seamanship does not consist solely in strolling up and down the deck, and watching a vessel sail for her destination."

Matteo was abashed at the reproach, but soon recovered his usual spirits after Polani had left, when the vessel was under way.

"My cousin was rather in a sharp mood this morning," he said with a laugh to Francis; "but really I did not think I could be of any good, and the entertainment was a grand one. Everyone was there, and I should have been very sorry to have missed it."

"Everyone to his taste, Matteo. For my part, I would very much rather have been at work here all night watching the cargo got in and checking it off, than have been standing about doing nothing in the palace."

"Doing nothing!" Matteo repeated indignantly. "Why, I was talking to someone the whole time I was there."

"Talking about what, Matteo?"

"The heat, and the music, and the costumes, and the last bit of scandal at the Piazza."

"I don't call that talk. I call it chatter. And now, Matteo, I shall leave you to your own devices, for I am going to turn in and get a sleep for a few hours."

"You look as if you wanted it," Matteo said; "but I think that you stand in even more need of a wash. You are grimy with dust. It is just as well that my cousin Giulia did not come on board with her father this morning, for the sight of your face would have given her quite a shock, and would have dissipated any illusions she may have had that you were a good-looking fellow."

Francis went off to his cabin with a laugh, and took Matteo's advice as to the wash before he turned in. In a few minutes he was asleep, and did not wake until Giuseppi came to say that the midday meal was just ready.

The Bonito made a rapid voyage. The winds were light, and for the most part favourable, and the twenty-four oars were kept going night and day, the men relieving each other every two hours, so that they had six hours' rest between the spells of rowing.

When they rounded the southern point of Italy a sharp lookout was kept for the fleet of Fieschi, but they passed through the straits without catching sight of a single vessel carrying the Genoese flag. The most vigilant watch was now kept for Pisani's galleys, and they always anchored at the close of day, lest they should pass him in the dark.

Occasionally they overhauled a fishing boat, and endeavoured to obtain news of the two squadrons; but beyond the fact that Fieschi had been seen steering north some days before, and that no signs had been seen of Pisani's returning fleet, they could learn nothing.



Chapter 11: The Battle Of Antium.


"We are running very far north," the captain said on the 29th of May. "We are near Antium now, and are getting into what we may call Genoese waters. If anything has occurred to prevent Pisani carrying out his intention of sailing back along this coast, or if he has passed us on the way up, our position would be a hazardous one, for as soon as he has rowed away the Genoese galleys will be on the move again, and even if we do not fall in with Fieschi, we may be snapped up by one of their cruisers."

"It is rather risky, captain," Francis agreed; "but our orders are distinct. We were to sail north till we met Pisani, and we must do so till we are within sight of the walls of Genoa. If we then see he is not lying off the port, we shall put about and make our way back again."

"Yes, if they give us the chance, Messer Francisco; but long before we are sufficiently near to Genoa to make out whether Pisani is lying off the port, they will see us from the hills, and will send off a galley to bring us in. However, we must take our chance, and if we get into a scrape I shall look to you confidently to get us out again."

"I should advise you not to count on that," Francis said, laughing. "It is not always one gets such a lucky combination of circumstances as we did at Girgenti."

At last, they obtained news from a fishing boat that Fieschi's fleet had passed, going northward, on the previous day, and was now lying in the bay of Antium. As Antium lay but a few miles north, they held a consultation as to the best method to pursue. If they sailed on there was a risk of capture; but that risk did not appear to be very great. The Genoese admiral would not expect to find a Venetian merchant ship so near to Genoa, and they might be able to pass without being interfered with. On the other hand, news might possibly have come of the departure of store ships from Venice for Pisani's fleet, and in that case a strict lookout would certainly be kept, and it would be necessary to keep so far to sea as to be out of sight of the Genoese; but in that case there would be a risk of their missing Pisani's fleet on the way down.

"I think," the captain said, after a long debate, "that we had better anchor here close under the shore tonight. If I am not mistaken, we shall have a gale in the morning. I do not like the look of the sky. Tomorrow we shall see how the weather is, and can then come to a decision."

By morning, as the captain had predicted, the wind was blowing strongly, and a heavy sea was running, and it was agreed to keep along under the lee of the shore until they could obtain a view of the Bay of Antium, and see if the fleet of Fieschi was still there. If so, they would tack and run back some distance, and make straight out to sea, so as to pass along four or five miles from the shore, as it would be unlikely in the extreme that the Genoese admiral would send a galley out to overhaul a passing ship in such weather.

They sailed along till they neared the slight depression known as the Bay of Antium, and then bore farther out to sea. Suddenly a fleet was seen running down the coast at some distance away.

"'Bout ship," the captain cried. "The Genoese have been cruising further north, and are coming down the coast. In such weather as this, the Bonito ought to be able to get away from them."

"It may be Pisani's fleet," Francis said, as the ship was put round.

"It is possible," the captain agreed; "but we cannot run the risk of stopping until we make inquiries."

"No, captain; but, at least, if we run a mile or so out to sea, we should be able to see round the point, and discover whether Fieschi's galleys are there."

The captain assented. The vessel's head was turned from the land. In ten minutes there was a joyous shout on board the Bonito, for the Genoese fleet was seen lying in the bay. The distant fleet must then form that of Pisani.

"See!" Francis exclaimed. "The Genoese have just caught sight of them, and are hoisting sail. They are either going to meet them or to run away. Our vessels are the most numerous; but no, there is not much difference. Pisani has fourteen ships, but some must be lagging behind, or have been lost. How many do you make them out to be, captain?"

"I think there are only nine," the captain answered, "and that is just the number of the Genoese."

"Then Fieschi will fight, if he is not a coward," Matteo said; "but, in that case, why are they making out to sea?"

"Fieschi may not care to be attacked at anchor," the captain replied. "That would give all the advantage to us. Besides, if they were beaten there would be but little chance of any of them escaping. No, he is right to make out to sea, but blowing as it is, it will be next to impossible for him to fight there. Two vessels could hardly get alongside to board in such a sea as this. I expect Fieschi thinks that we shall never attack him in such a storm; but Pisani would fight if it were a hurricane."

It did indeed seem almost impossible to fight in such a sea. The Bonito was rolling, gunwale under. Her sail had been reduced to its smallest proportions, and yet, when the squalls struck her she was laid completely over on her side. But the rival admirals were too anxious to fight to be deterred by the difficulty, and both were bent upon bringing on an action at once.

"I would give anything to be on board one of our galleys," Matteo said. "It is horrible standing here doing nothing, when such a fight as this is going to begin."

"Cannot we edge down towards them, captain?" Francis asked. "I do not mean that we should take part in the fight, for we have but a hundred men, and the galleys must each carry at least three times as many. Still, we might be near enough to see something, and perhaps to give succour to any disabled ship that drops out of the fight."

"I will do so if you like, Messer Francisco," the captain said. "If you will take the responsibility. But if our side gets the worst of it, you must remember that the Bonito may be captured."

"I don't think there's much chance of Pisani being beaten by an enemy no stronger than himself," Francis said; "and even if they should be victorious, the Genoese will certainly have enough on their hands, with repairing damages and securing prisoners, to think of setting off in chase of a ship like ours."

"That is true enough," the captain agreed, for he was indeed as anxious as Francis and Matteo to witness the struggle.

The vessels on both sides were under canvas, for it was impossible to row in such a sea. As soon as they approached each other, both fleets broke up, and the vessels each singling an opponent out, the combat began. It was a singular one, and differed widely from ordinary sea fights of the time, in which the combatants always tried to grapple with their enemies and carry them by boarding. This was almost impossible now, for it seemed that the vessels would be dashed in pieces like eggshells were they to strike each other. Clouds of missiles were poured from one to the other. The archers plied their bows. Great machines hurled javelins and big stones, and the crash of the blows of the latter, against the sides of the ships, sounded even above the noise of the wind and waves, and the shouting of the combatants. As for the cannon with which all the galleys were armed, they were far too cumbrous and unmanageable to be worked in such weather. Sometimes one vessel, lifted on the crest of a wave while its opponent lay in a hollow, swept its decks with terrible effect; while a few seconds later the advantage was on the other side.

For a long time, neither party seemed to gain any advantage. Great numbers were killed on both sides, but victory did not incline either way, until the mast of one of the Venetian galleys was struck by a heavy stone and went over the side. She at once fell out of the line of the battle, her opponent keeping close to her, pouring in volumes of missiles, while the sea, taking her on the broad side, washed numbers of her crew overboard. Her opponent, seeing that she was altogether helpless, left her to be taken possession of afterwards, and made for Pisani's galley, which was distinguished by its flag at the masthead, and was maintaining a desperate conflict with the galley of Fieschi.

The admiral's ship was now swept with missiles from both sides, and when his adversaries saw that his crew was greatly weakened, they prepared to close, in spite of the state of the sea. If Pisani himself could be captured, there would remain but seven Venetian ships to the nine Genoese, and victory was certain.

The captain of the Bonito had lashed together some heavy spars and thrown them overboard, having fastened a strong rope to them, and was riding head to the waves by means of this sea anchor, at a distance of about half a mile from the conflict. A cry of grief and rage had arisen when the crew saw that one of their galleys was disabled, and their excitement became intense when they saw the unequal struggle which Pisani was maintaining.

"They are preparing to board, captain," Francis said. "We must go to the admiral's aid. If his ship is captured, the battle is lost."

"I am ready, Messer Francisco, if you authorize me."

"Certainly I do," Francis said. "The loss or capture of the Bonito is as nothing in comparison to the importance of saving Pisani."

The captain gave the order for the hawser to be cut, and the sail hoisted. A cheer broke from the crew as they saw what was to be done. Their arms had been served out at the beginning of the contest, and they now seized them, and gathered in readiness to take part in the fight.

The two Genoese galleys had thrown their grapnels and made fast, one on each side of Pisani's galley. The bulwarks were stove in and splintered as the vessels rolled, and the rigging of the three ships became entangled. The Genoese sprang on to the deck of Pisani's galley, with shouts of triumph, but they were met by the admiral himself, wielding a mighty battleaxe, and the survivors of his crew.

The combat was still raging when the Bonito sailed swiftly up. Her sails were lowered as she came alongside, and she was lashed to one of the galleys. But this manoeuvre was not performed without loss. As she approached, with the Venetian flag flying at her masthead, the Genoese archers on the poop of the galley, who had hitherto been pouring their missiles among Pisani's men, turned round and opened fire upon this new foe. Their arrows did far more execution here than they had done among the armour clad soldiers of the state. The captain fell dead with an arrow which struck him full in the throat, and ten or twelve of the sailors fell on the deck beside him.

"Pour in one volley," Francis shouted; "then throw down your bows, and take to your axes and follow me."

The instant the vessel was lashed, Francis sprang on to the deck of the galley. Matteo was by his side, Giuseppi just behind, and the whole crew followed. Climbing first upon the poop, they fell upon the archers, who, after a short struggle, were cut down; then, descending again to the waist of the galley, they leaped on to the deck of Pisani's ship, and fell upon the rear of the Genoese.

These were taken completely by surprise. Absorbed in the struggle in which they were engaged, they had noticed neither the approach of the Bonito, nor the struggle on board their own galley, and supposed that another of the Venetian warships had come up to the assistance of their admiral.

Taken then by surprise, and finding themselves thus between two bands of foes, they fought irresolutely, and the crew of the Bonito, with their heavy axes, cut down numbers of them, and fighting their way through the mass, joined the diminished force of Pisani.

The admiral shouted the battle cry of "Saint Mark!" His followers, who had begun to give way to despair, rallied at the arrival of this unlooked-for reinforcement, and the whole fell upon the Genoese with fury. The latter fought stoutly and steadily now, animated by the voice and example of Fieschi himself; but their assurance of victory was gone, and they were gradually beaten back to the deck of their admiral's ship. Here they made desperate efforts to cut the lashings and free the vessel; but the yards had got interlocked and the rigging entangled, and the Venetians sprang on to the deck of the ship, and renewed the conflict there.

For some time the struggle was doubtful. The Genoese had still the advantage in numbers, but they were disheartened at the success, which they had deemed certain, having been so suddenly and unexpectedly snatched from their grasp.

The presence of Pisani, in itself, doubled the strength of the Venetians. He was the most popular of their commanders, and each strove to imitate the example which he set them.

After ten minutes' hard fighting, the result was no longer doubtful. Many of the Genoese ran below. Others threw down their arms, and their admiral, at last, seeing further resistance was hopeless, lowered his sword and surrendered.

No sooner had resistance ceased than Pisani turned to Francis, who had been fighting by his side:

"I thank you, in the name of myself and the republic," he said. "Where you have sprung from, or how you came here, I know not. You seemed to me to have fallen from heaven to our assistance, just at the moment when all was lost. Who are you? I seem to know your face, though I cannot recall where I have seen it."

"I am Francis Hammond, Messer Pisani. I had the honour of seeing you at the house of my patron, Signor Polani, and you were good enough to offer to take me with you to sea."

"Oh, I remember now!" Pisani said. "But how came you here?"

"I came in the Bonito, one of Polani's ships. She is lying outside the farther of the Venetian galleys. We bring from Venice some of the stores for which you sent. We were lying off, watching the battle, until we saw that you were sore beset and in need of help, and could then no longer remain inactive. Our captain was killed by an arrow as we ranged up alongside of the galley, and I am now in command. This is my friend, Matteo Giustiniani, a volunteer on board the Bonito."

"I remember you, Master Matteo," Pisani said, as he shook him by the hand. "I have seen you often at your father's house. I shall have to give him a good account of you, for I saw you fighting bravely.

"But we will talk more of this afterwards. We must set to work to separate the galleys, or we shall have them grinding each other to pieces. Then we must hasten to the assistance of our friends."

The Genoese prisoners were all fastened below, and the Venetians then set to work to cut the lashings and free the rigging of the ships. Francis kept only twenty men on board the Bonito. The remainder were distributed between the two captured Genoese galleys, and the admiral turned his attention to the battle.

But it was already almost over. The sight of the Venetian flag, at the mastheads of the admiral's ship and the other galley, struck dismay into the Genoese. Five of their ships immediately hoisted all canvas and made off, while the other two, surrounded by the Venetian galleys, hauled down their flags.

The battle had been a sanguinary one, and but eight hundred men were found alive on board the four galleys captured. The fight is known in history as the battle of Porto d'Anzo. The struggle had lasted nearly the whole day, and it was growing dark when the Venetian fleet, with their prizes, anchored under shelter of the land.

All night long the work of attending upon the wounded went on, and it was daybreak before the wearied crews lay down for repose. In the afternoon, Pisani hoisted a signal for the captains of the galleys to come on board; and in their presence he formally thanked Francis, in the name of the republic, for the aid he had afforded him at the most critical moment. Had it not been for that aid, he acknowledged that he and his crew must have succumbed, and the victory would assuredly have fallen to the Genoese.

After the meeting was over he took Francis into his cabin, and again offered him a post in his own ship.

"Were your merit properly rewarded," he said, "I would appoint you at once to the command of a galley; but to do so would do you no service, for it would excite against you the jealousy of all the young nobles in the fleet. Besides, you are so young, that although the council at home cannot but acknowledge the vastness of the service you have rendered, they might make your age an excuse for refusing to confirm the appointment; but if you like to come as my third officer, I can promise you that you shall have rapid promotion, and speedily be in command of a galley. We Venetians have no prejudice against foreigners. They hold very high commands, and, indeed, our armies in the field are frequently commanded by foreign captains."

Francis thanked the admiral heartily for his offer, but said that his father's wishes, and his own, led him to adopt the life of a merchant, and that, under the patronage of Messer Polani, his prospects were so good that he would not exchange them, even for a command under the state of Venice.

"You are quite right, lad," the admiral said. "All governments are ungrateful, and republics most of all. Where all are supposed to be equal, there is ever envy and jealousy against one who rises above the rest. The multitude is fickle and easily led; and the first change of fortune, however slight, is seized upon by enemies as a cause of complaint, and the popular hero of today may be an exile tomorrow. Like enough I shall see the inside of a Venetian prison some day."

"Impossible, signor!" Francis exclaimed. "The people would tear to pieces anyone who ventured to malign you."

"Just at present, my lad; just at present. But I know my countrymen. They are not as light hearted and fickle as those of Genoa; but they are easily led, and will shout 'Abasso!' as easily as 'Viva!' Time will show. I was within an ace of being defeated today; and you may not be close at hand to come to my rescue next time. And now to business.

"Tomorrow morning I will set the crews to get out your stores, and distribute them as required, and will place four hundred prisoners in your hold, and you shall carry them to Venice with my despatches announcing the victory. The other four hundred Genoese I shall send, in the galley that was dismasted yesterday, to Candia, to be imprisoned there. I shall send prize crews home in the galleys we have captured; and as soon as they are refitted and manned, and rejoin me, I shall sail in search of Doria and his fleet. I shall first cruise up the Adriatic, in case he may have gone that way to threaten Venice, and I can the more easily receive such reinforcements as may have been prepared for me."

The following day was spent in unloading the vessel. This was accomplished by nightfall. The prisoners were then put on board. Francis at once ordered sail to be set, and the Bonito was started on her homeward voyage.

As soon as the Bonito was signalled in sight, Signor Polani went down to the port to meet her, to ascertain where she had fallen in with the fleet, for there was great anxiety in Venice, as no news had been received from Pisani for more than ten days. The vessel had just passed through the entrance between the islands, when the gondola, with her owner, was seen approaching. Francis went to the gangway to receive him.

"Why, what has happened, Francisco?" Polani asked, as the boat neared the side of the ship. "Half your bulwark is carried away, and the whole side of the ship is scraped and scored. She looks as if she had been rubbing against a rock."

"Not quite so bad as that, Messer Polani. She has been grinding against a Genoese galley."

"Against a Genoese galley!" the merchant repeated in surprise, stopping in his passage up the rope ladder, which had been lowered for him. "Why, how is that? But never mind that now. First tell me what is the news from the fleet?"

"There is great news," Francis replied. "The admiral fell in with Fieschi off Antium. There were nine ships on each side, and the battle took place in a storm. We were victorious, and captured four of the Genoese galleys, with Fieschi himself and eight hundred prisoners. The rest fled. Fieschi is now in my cabin, and four hundred prisoners in the hold."

"This is indeed great news," the merchant said, "and will be an immense relief to Venice. We were getting very anxious, for had Pisani been defeated, there was nothing to prevent the Genoese ravaging our coasts, and even assailing Venice itself. But where is the captain?"

"I regret to say, sir, that he has been killed, as well as twenty-seven of the sailors, and many of the others are more or less severely wounded. I am the bearer of despatches from the admiral to the council."

"Then get into my gondola, and come along at once," Polani said. "I deeply regret the death of the captain and sailors. You shall tell me all about it as we come along. We must not delay a moment in carrying this great news ashore. Have you got the despatches?"

"Yes, signor. I put them into my doublet when I saw you approaching, thinking that you would probably wish me to take them on shore at once."

"And now tell me all about the battle," the merchant said as soon as they had taken their seats in the gondola. "You say there were nine ships on either side. Pisani sailed away with fourteen. Has he lost the remainder?"

"They came up next day," Francis replied. "The fleet was in a port north of Antium when the news came that Fieschi's fleet was there. Five of the galleys had been dismantled, and were under repair, and Pisani would not wait for them to be got into fighting order, as he was afraid lest Fieschi might weigh anchor and escape if he delayed an hour. He learned that the Genoese had nine ships with him, and as he had himself this number ready for sea, he sailed at once.

"The weather was stormy, and the sea very high, when he appeared within sight of Antium. Fieschi sailed boldly out to meet him. The battle lasted all day, for it was next to impossible to board; but in the end, as I say, four Genoese galleys surrendered and the rest fled. It was a terrible sight; for it seemed at every moment as if the waves would hurl the vessels against each other, and so break them into fragments; but in no case did such an accident happen."

"Why, you speak as if you saw it, Francisco! Had you joined the admiral before the battle took place?"

"No, signor. We arrived near Antium on the evening before the fight, and heard of Fieschi's presence there. Therefore we anchored south of the promontory. In the morning we put out, intending to sail well out to sea and so pass the Genoese, who were not likely, in such weather, to put out to question a sail passing in the distance; but as we made off from land we saw Pisani's fleet approaching. Then, as Fieschi put to sea and we saw that the battle was imminent, there was nothing for us to do but to lie to, and wait for the battle to be over, before we delivered our stores, having little doubt that Pisani would be victorious."

"Then had the battle gone the other way," the merchant said, "the Bonito at the present moment would probably be lying a prize in the harbour of Genoa!"

"We did not lose sight of the probability of that, signor, but thought that, if the Genoese should gain a victory, they would be too busy with their prizes and prisoners, if not too crippled, to pursue us, and we reckoned that in such weather the Bonito would be able to sail quite as fast as any of the Genoese."

"And now, tell me about your affairs, Francisco. Where was it you fell in with the Genoese galley, and by what miracle did you get off?"

"It was in the battle, sir. One of the Venetian galleys had dropped out of the fight disabled, and its opponent went to the assistance of their admiral's ship, which was engaged with Pisani. They attempted to board him on both sides, and, seeing that he was in great peril, and that if his ship was taken the battle would be as bad as lost, we thought that you yourself would approve of our going to his assistance. This we did, and engaged one of their galleys; and, as her crew were occupied with the admiral, we took them by surprise, and created such a diversion that he succeeded, with what assistance we could give him, in capturing both his opponents."

"That was done well indeed," Polani said warmly. "It was a risky matter, indeed, for you, with sailors unprotected by armour, to enter into a combat with the iron-clad soldiers of Genoa.

"And so the captain and twenty-seven of the men were killed! You must have had some brisk fighting!"

"The captain, and many of the men, were shot by the Genoese archers as we ranged up alongside their vessel. The others were killed in hand-to-hand fighting."

"And my cousin Matteo, what has become of him?" Polani asked suddenly. "I trust he is not among the killed!"

"He is unharmed," Francis replied. "He fought gallantly, and the admiral, the next day, offered to take him on board his own ship, many of the volunteers serving on board having been killed. Matteo, of course, accepted the offer."

"He would have done better to have stayed on board my ship for another two years," Polani said, "and learned his business. He would have made a far better sailor than he can ever become on board a state galley; but I never expected him to stick to it. He has no earnestness of purpose, and is too particular about his dress to care about the rough life of a real seaman."

"He has plenty of courage, sir, and I have always found him a staunch friend."

"No doubt he has courage," the merchant said. "He comes of good blood and could hardly be a coward. I think he is a good-hearted lad, too, and will, I have no doubt, make a brave commander of a galley; but more than that Matteo is never likely to become."

"Your daughters are well, I hope?" Francis asked.

"Quite well; but you will not find them at home -- they sailed three days ago, in the Lido, for Corfu. They are going to stay for a time at my villa there. That affair of last year shook them both, and I thought it better that they should go away for a change -- the hot months here are trying, and often unhealthy. I will go over myself next week to be with them."

They were now approaching the Piazzetta, and Polani shouted out, to various acquaintances he met in passing gondolas, the news that Pisani had gained a great victory, and had captured the Genoese admiral with four of his galleys. The gondolas at once changed their course, and accompanied them, to gather further details of the fight. The news was shouted to other passing boats, and by the time they reached the steps of the Piazzetta, a throng was round them.

Those on shore shouted out the news, and it spread rapidly from mouth to mouth. The shopkeepers left their stores, and the loungers on the Piazzetta ran up, and it was with difficulty that Polani and Francis could make their way, through the shouting and excited crowd, to the entrance of the ducal palace.

Polani at once led Francis to the doge, to whom he gave an account of the action. Messengers were immediately despatched to some of the members of the council, for it was to them that the despatches had to be delivered. As soon as a sufficient number to transact the business had arrived at the palace, the doge himself led Francis to the council chamber.

"Is the news that we heard, shouted in the streets as we came thither, true, your highness?" one of the councillors asked as they entered. "That our fleet has gained a victory over the Genoese?"

"I am happy to say that it is quite true; but this young gentleman is the bearer of despatches from the admiral, and these will doubtless give us all particulars."

"Admiral Pisani has chosen a strange messenger for so important a despatch," one of the party hostile to the admiral said. "It is usual to send despatches of this kind by a trusted officer, and I do not think it respectful, either to the council or the republic, to send home the news of a victory by a lad like this."

"The admiral apparently chose this young gentleman because, owing to the death of his captain, he was in command of the ship which Messer Polani placed at the service of the republic, and which was present at the fight. The admiral intended, as I hear, to set out at once in search of the fleet of Doria, and doubtless did not wish to weaken himself by despatching a state galley with the news. But perhaps he may explain the matter in his despatches."

Several other councillors had by this time arrived, and the despatches were opened. The admiral's account of the engagement was brief, for he was fonder of the sword than the pen. He stated that, having obtained news that Fieschi's fleet was at anchor under the promontory of Antium, he sailed thither with nine ships, these being all that were at the moment fit to take to sea; that Fieschi had sailed out to meet him, and that an engagement had taken place in the storm, which prevented the ships from pursuing their usual tactics, and compelled them to fight with missiles at a distance. The despatch then went on:

"We fought all day, and the upshot of it was, we captured four of their galleys, the admiral himself, and eight hundred prisoners. Fortunately it is unnecessary for me to give your seignory the details of the fighting, as these can be furnished you by Messer Francisco Hammond, who will hand you these despatches. He was a witness of the action on the Bonito, which had that morning arrived at Antium with some of the stores you despatched me. I have selected this young gentleman as the bearer of these despatches, because it is to him I entirely owe it that I am not at the present moment a prisoner in Genoa, and to him the republic owes that we yesterday won a victory.

"I was attacked by Fieschi and by another galley, and, in spite of the weather, they cast grapnels on to my ship and boarded me. I had already lost half of my crew by their missiles, and things were going very badly with us, when the Bonito came up to our assistance, and grappled with one of the galleys. Her captain was killed, but Messer Hammond -- of whom Polani has so high an opinion that he had appointed him second in command -- led his men to my rescue. They boarded the galley and slew those who remained on board, and then, crossing on to my ship, fell upon the rear of the Genoese who were pressing us backwards. His sailors, undefended as they were by armour, fought like demons with their axes, and, led by Messer Hammond, cut their way through the enemy and joined me.

"This reinforcement gave fresh strength and spirit to my men, who had a minute before thought that all was lost. Together we fell upon the Genoese, before they could recover from their surprise, beat them back into their admiral's ship, and following them there forced them to surrender. Messer Hammond fought by my side, and although but a lad in years, he showed himself a sturdy man-at-arms, and behaved with a coolness and bravery beyond praise. I hereby recommend him to your gracious consideration, for assuredly to him it is due that it is I, and not Fieschi, who is writing to announce a victory."

A murmur of surprise from the councillors greeted the reading of this portion of the letter. When it was concluded, the doge was the first to speak.

"You have indeed deserved well of the republic, Messer Hammond, for we know that Admiral Pisani is not one to give undue praise, or to exaggerate in aught.

"This is news to me, signors, as well as to you, for in his narrative to me of the events of the fight, he passed over his own share in it, though Messer Polani, who accompanied him, did say that his ship had taken some part in the fight, and that the captain and twenty-seven men had been killed.

"Now, young sir, as the admiral has referred us to you for a detailed narrative of the battle, we will thank you to tell us all you witnessed, omitting no detail of the occurrences."

Francis accordingly gave a full account of the action, and gave great praise to his crew for the valour with which they had fought against the heavy armed Genoese. When he had concluded the doge said:

"We thank you for your narrative, Messer Hammond, as well as for the great service you have rendered the state. Will you now leave us, as we have much to debate on regarding this and other matters, and to arrange for the reinforcements for which, I see by his letter, the admiral asks.

"Will you ask Messer Polani to remain in attendance for a while, as we wish to consult with him as to ships and other matters? As to yourself, we shall ask you to come before us again shortly."

After Francis had left, the council first voted that five ducats should be given to every man of the crew of the Bonito, and that the widows of those who had been slain should be provided for, at the expense of the state. They deferred the question as to the honours which should be conferred upon Francis, until they had consulted Polani.

State barges were at once sent off to bring in the prisoners from the ship, and preparations made for their accommodation, for Venice always treated prisoners taken in war with the greatest kindness, an example which Genoa was very far from following.

Then Polani was sent for, and the question of stores and ships gone into. Orders were issued for redoubled activity in the arsenal, and it was arranged that several ships, belonging to Polani and others, should be at once purchased for the service of the state.

Then they asked him for his opinion as to the reward which should be given to Francis. Upon the merchant expressing his ignorance of any special service his young friend had rendered, the passage from Pisani's letter relating to him was read out.

"The lad is as modest as he is brave," the merchant said, "for although, of course, he told me that the ship had taken some part in the fight, and had done what it could to assist the admiral, in which service the captain and twenty-seven men had lost their lives, I had no idea of the real nature of the encounter. I feel very proud of the service he has rendered the state, for he has rendered me as a private individual no less important service, and I regard him as my adopted son, and my future partner in my business. Such being the case, signors, he needs no gift of money from the state."

"He has not, of course, being still a minor, taken up his papers of naturalization as a citizen?" the doge said.

"No, your highness, nor is it his intention to do so. I spoke to him on the subject once, and he said that, although he regarded Venice with affection, and would at all times do everything in his power for the state, he could not renounce his birthplace, as an Englishman, by taking an oath of allegiance to another state, and that probably he should after a time return to his native country. I pointed out to him that, although foreigners were given every facility for trade in Venice, it would be a grievous disadvantage to him in the islands, and especially with countries such as Egypt, the Turks, and the Eastern empire, with whom we had treaties; as, unless he were a Venetian, he would be unable to trade with them.

"He fully saw the force of my argument, but persisted in his determination. If you ask my opinion, therefore, signors, and you do not think the honour too great, I would suggest that the highest and most acceptable honour that could be bestowed upon him, would be that which you have at various times conferred upon foreign personages of distinction, namely, to grant him the freedom of Venice, and inscribe his name upon the list of her citizens, without requiring of him the renunciation of his own country, or the taking the oath of allegiance."

"The honour is assuredly a great and exceptional one," the doge said, "but so is the service that he has rendered. He has converted what would have been a defeat into a victory, and has saved Venice from a grave peril.

"Will you retire for a few minutes, signor, and we will then announce to you the result of our deliberations on the matter."



Chapter 12: In Mocenigo's Power.


It was fully an hour before Polani was recalled to the council chamber. He saw at once, by the flushed and angry faces of some of the council, that the debate had been a hot one. At this he was not surprised, for he knew that the friends and connections of Ruggiero Mocenigo would vehemently oppose the suggestion he had made.

The doge announced the decision.

"The council thank you for your suggestion, Signor Polani, and have resolved, by a majority, to confer upon Messer Francisco Hammond the high honour of placing his name upon the list of the citizens of Venice, without requiring from him the oaths of allegiance to the state. As such an honour has never before been conferred, save upon personages of the highest rank, it will be a proof of the gratitude which Venice feels towards one who has done her such distinguished service. The decree to that effect will be published tomorrow."

The merchant retired, highly gratified. The honour was a great and signal one, and the material advantages considerable. The fact that Francis was a foreigner had been the sole obstacle which had presented itself to him, in associating him with his business, for it would prevent Francis from trading personally with any of the countries in which Venetian citizens enjoyed special advantages.

Francis was immensely gratified, when he heard from the merchant of the honour to be conferred upon him. It was of all others the reward he would have selected, had a free choice been given him, but it was so great and unusual an honour, that he could indeed scarcely credit it when the merchant told him the result of his interviews with the council. The difficulty which his being a foreigner would throw in the way of his career as a merchant in Eastern waters, had been frequently in his mind, and would, he foresaw, greatly lessen his usefulness, but that he should be able to obtain naturalization, without renouncing his allegiance to England, he had never even hoped.

"It is a very high honour, doubtless," Polani said, "but no whit higher than you deserve. Besides, after all, it costs Venice nothing, and money is scarce at present. At any rate, I can congratulate myself as well as you, for I foresaw many difficulties in our way. Although the ships carrying the Venetian flag could enter the ports of all countries trading with us, you would personally be liable to arrest, at any time, on being denounced as not being a native of Venice, which you assuredly would be by my rivals in trade."

The next day a bulletin was published, giving the substance of Pisani's despatch, and announcing that, in token of the gratitude of the republic for the great service he had rendered, Messer Hammond would be at once granted the freedom of Venice, and his name inserted on the list of her citizens.

During these two days the delight of Venice at the news of the victory had been extreme. The houses had been decorated with flags, and the bells of all the churches had peeled out joyously. Crowds assembled round the Polani Palace, and insisted upon Francis making his appearance, when they greeted him with tremendous shouts of applause. Upon the evening of the second day he said to Polani:

"Have you any ship fit for sea, signor, because if so, I pray you to send me away, no matter where. I cannot stand this. Since the decree was published, this morning, I have not had a moment's peace, and it is too absurd, when I did no more than any sailor on board the ship. If it went on, I should very soon be heartily sorry I ever interfered on behalf of the admiral."

The merchant smiled.

"I have half promised to take you with me to the reception at the Persanis' this evening, and have had a dozen requests of a similar nature for every night this week and next."

"Then, if you have no ship ready, signor, I will charter a fishing boat, engage a couple of men, and go off for a fortnight. By the end of that time something fresh will have happened."

"I can send you off, if you really wish it, Francisco, the first thing tomorrow morning. I am despatching a small craft with a message to my agent in Corfu, and with letters for my daughters. They will be delighted to see you, and indeed, I shall be glad to know that you are with them, until I can wind up several affairs which I have in hand, and join them myself. She is fast, and you should be at Corfu in eight-and-forty hours after sailing."

Francis gladly embraced the offer, and started the next morning. The vessel was a small one, designed either to sail or row. Her crew consisted of twenty men, who rowed sixteen sweeps when the wind was light or unfavourable. She was an open boat, except that she was decked at each end, a small cabin being formed aft for the captain, and any passengers there might be on board, while the crew stowed themselves in the little forecastle.

When the boat was halfway across, a sail was seen approaching, and the captain recognized her as one of Polani's vessels.

"In that case," Francis said, "we may as well direct our course so as to pass them within hailing distance. When you approach them, hoist the Polani flag, and signal to them to lay to."

This was done, and the two craft brought up within thirty yards of each other. The captain appeared at the side of the vessel, and doffed his cap when he recognized Francis.

"Have you any news from the East?" the latter asked.

"But little, signor. A few Genoese pirates are among the islands, and are reported to have made some captures, but I have seen none. There is nothing new from Constantinople. No fresh attempt has been made by the emperor to recapture Tenedos."

"Did you touch at Corfu on your way back?"

"I left there yesterday, signor. A strange craft has been reported as having been seen on the coast. She carries no flag, but from her appearance she is judged to be a Moor."

"But we are at peace with the Moors," Francis said, "and it is years since they ventured on any depredations, excepting on their own waters."

"That is so, signor, and I only tell you what was the report at Corfu. She appeared to be a swift craft, rowing a great many oars. Her movements certainly seem mysterious, as she has several times appeared off the coast. Two vessels which sailed from Cyprus, and were to have touched at Corfu, had not arrived there when I left, and they say that several others are overdue. I do not say that has anything to do with the strange galley, but it is the general opinion in Corfu that it has something to do with it, and I am the bearer of letters from the governor to the seignory, praying that two or three war ships may at once be sent down to the island."

"It looks strange, certainly," Francis said; "but I cannot believe that any Moorish pirates would be so daring as to come up into Venetian waters."

"I should not have thought so either, signor; but it may be that, knowing there is war between Venice and Genoa, and that the state galleys of the republics, instead of being scattered over the seas, are now collected in fleets, and thinking only of fighting each other, they might consider it a good opportunity for picking prizes."

"It is a good opportunity, certainly," Francis said; "but they would know that Venice would, sooner or later, reckon with them; and would demand a four-fold indemnity for any losses her merchants may have suffered.

"However, I will not detain you longer. Will you tell Signor Polani that you met us, and that we were making good progress, and hoped to reach Corfu some time tomorrow?"

"This is a curious thing about this galley," the captain of the boat said to Francis, as the men again dipped their oars into the water, and the boat once more proceeded on the way.

"It is much more likely to be a Genoese pirate than a Moor," Francis said. "They may have purposely altered their rig a little, in order to deceive vessels who may sight them. It is very many years since any Moorish craft have been bold enough to commit acts of piracy on this side of Sicily. However, we must hope that we shall not fall in with her, and if we see anything answering to her description we will give it a wide berth. Besides, it is hardly likely they would interfere with so small a craft as ours, for they would be sure we should be carrying no cargo of any great value."

"Twenty Christian slaves would fetch money among the Moors," the captain said. "Let us hope we shall see nothing of them; for we should have no chance of resistance against such a craft, and she would go two feet to our one."

The next morning Francis was aroused by a hurried summons from the captain. Half awake, and wondering what could be the cause of the call, for the boat lay motionless on the water, he hurried out from the little cabin. Day had just broken, the sky was aglow with ruddy light in the east.

"Look there, signor!" the captain said, pointing to the south. "The watch made them out a quarter of an hour since, but, thinking nothing of it, they did not call me. What do you think of that?"

Two vessels were lying in close proximity to each other, at a distance of about two miles from the boat. One of them was a large trader, the other was a long galley rigged quite differently to those of either Venice or Genoa.

"That is the craft they were speaking of," the captain said. "There is no mistaking her. She may be an Egyptian or a Moor, but certainly she comes from the African coast."

"Or is got up in African fashion," Francis said. "She may be, as we agreed yesterday, a Genoese masquerading in that fashion, in order to be able to approach our traders without their suspicions being aroused. She looks as if she has made a captive of that vessel. I imagine she must have come up to her late yesterday evening, and has been at work all night stripping her. I hope she is too busy to attend to us."

The sail had been lowered the instant the captain caught sight of the vessels, for there was scarcely enough wind to fill it, and the men were now rowing steadily.

"I do not think she could have taken much of her cargo out. She is very deep in the water."

"Very deep," Francis agreed. "She seems to me to be deeper than she did three minutes ago."

"She is a great deal deeper than when we first caught sight of her," one of the sailors said. "She stood much higher in the water than the galley did, and now, if anything, the galley stands highest."

"See!" the captain exclaimed suddenly, "the galley is rowing her oars on the port bow, and bringing her head round. She has noticed us, and is going to chase us! We have seen too much.

"Row, men -- it is for life! If they overtake us it is a question between death, and slavery among the Moors."

A sudden exclamation from one of the men caused the captain to glance round again at the galley. She was alone now on the water -- the trader had sunk!

"Do you take the helm, signor," the captain said. "All hands will help at the oars."

Some of the oars were double banked, and beneath the strength of the twenty men, the boat moved fast through the water. The galley was now rowing all her oars, and in full pursuit. For a quarter of an hour not a word was spoken. Every man on board was doing his utmost. Francis had glanced backwards several times, and at the end of a quarter of an hour, he could see that the distance between the boat and her pursuer had distinctly lessened.

"Is she gaining on us?" the captain asked, for the cabin in the stern hid the galley from the sight of the oarsmen.

"She is gaining," Francis said quietly, "but not rapidly. Row steadily, my lads, and do not despair. When they find how slowly they gain, they may give up the chase and think us not worth the trouble.

"Jacopo," he said to an old sailor who was rowing in the bow, and who already was getting exhausted from the exertion, "do you lay in your oar and come aft. I will take your place."

At the end of an hour the galley was little more than a quarter of a mile away.

"We had better stop," the captain said. "We have no chance of getting away, and the longer the chase the more furious they will be. What do you think, signor?"

"I agree with you," Francis replied. "We have done all that we could. There is no use in rowing longer."

The oars fell motionless in the water, and a few minutes later the long galley came rushing up by their side.

"A fine row you have given us, you dogs!" a man shouted angrily as she came alongside. "If you haven't something on board that will pay us for the chase we have had, it will be the worse for you. What boat is that?"

"It is the Naxos, and belongs to Messer Polani of Venice. We are bound to Corfu, and bear letters from the padrone to his agent there. We have no cargo on board."

"The letters, perhaps, may be worth more than any cargo such a boat would carry. So come on board, and let us see what the excellent Polani says to his agent. Now, make haste all of you, or it will be the worse for you."

It was useless hesitating. The captain, Francis, and the crew stepped on board the galley.

"Just look round her," the captain said to one of his sailors. "If there is anything worth taking, take it, and then knock a hole in her bottom with your axe."

Francis, as he stepped on board the galley, looked round at the crew. They were not Genoese, as he had expected, but a mixture of ruffians from all the ports in the Mediterranean, as he saw at once by their costumes. Some were Greeks from the islands, some Smyrniots, Moors, and Spaniards; but the Moors predominated, nearly half the crew belonging to that race.

Then he looked at the captain, who was eagerly perusing the documents the captain had handed him. As his eye fell upon him, Francis started, for he recognized at once the man whose designs he had twice thwarted, Ruggiero Mocenigo, and felt that he was in deadly peril.

After reading the merchant's communication to his agent, Ruggiero opened the letter addressed to Maria. He had read but a few lines when he suddenly looked up, and then, with an expression of savage pleasure in his face, stepped up to Francis.

"So, Messer Hammond, the good Polani sends you to stay for a while with his daughters! Truly, when I set out in chase this morning of that wretched rowboat, I little deemed that she carried a prize that I valued more than a loaded caravel! It is to you I owe it that I am an exile, instead of being the honoured son-in-law of the wealthy Polani. It was your accursed interference that brought all my misfortunes upon me; but thank Heaven my vengeance has come at last!

"Take them all below," he said, turning to his men. "Put the heaviest irons you have got on this fellow, and fasten them with staples into the deck.

"You thought I was going to hang you, or throw you overboard," he went on, turning to Francis. "Do not flatter yourself that your death will be so easy a one -- you shall suffer a thousand torments before you die!"

Francis had not spoken a word since Ruggiero first turned to him, but had stood with a tranquil and almost contemptuous expression upon his face; but every nerve and muscle of his body were strained, and in readiness to spring into action. He had expected that Ruggiero would at once attack him, and was determined to leap upon him, and to sell his life as dearly as possible.

The sailors seized Francis and his companions, and thrust them down into the hold, which was already crowded with upwards of a hundred captives. He was chained with heavy manacles. In obedience to Ruggiero's orders, staples were driven through the links of his chain deep into the deck, so that he was forced to remain in a sitting or lying posture. The captain of the Naxos came and sat beside him.

"Who is this pirate captain, Messer Francisco, who thus knows and has an enmity against you? By his speech he is surely a Venetian. And yet, how comes a Venetian in command of a pirate?"

"That man is Ruggiero Mocenigo -- the same who twice attempted to carry off Messer Polani's daughters. The second time he succeeded, and would have been tried for the offence by the state had he not, aided by a band of Paduans, escaped from the keeping of his guard."

"Of course I heard of it, signor. I was away at sea at the time, but I heard how you came up at the moment when the padrone's gondoliers had been overcome, and rescued his daughters. And this is that villain Mocenigo, a disgrace to his name and family!"

"Remember the name, captain, and tell it to each of your men, so that if they ever escape from this slavery, into which, no doubt, he intends to sell you, they may tell it in Venice that Ruggiero Mocenigo is a pirate, and an ally of the Moors. As for me, there is, I think, but small chance of escape; but at any rate, if you ever reach Venice, you will be able to tell the padrone how it was that we never arrived at Corfu, and how I fell into the hands of his old enemy. Still, I do not despair that I may carry the message myself. There is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and Mocenigo may have cause, yet, to regret that he did not make an end of me as soon as he got me into his hands."

"It may be so," the captain said, "and indeed I cannot think that so brave a young gentleman is destined to die, miserably, at the hands of such a scoundrel as this man has shown himself to be. As for death, did it come but speedily and sharply, I would far sooner die than live a Moorish slave. Santa Maria, how they will wonder at home, when the days go on, and the Naxos does not return, and how at last they will give up all hope, thinking that she has gone down in a sudden squall, and never dreaming that we are sold as slaves to the Moors by a countryman!"

"Keep up your heart, captain. Be sure that when the war with Genoa is over, Venice will take the matter in hand. As you know, a vessel has already carried tidings thither of the depredation of a Moorish cruiser, and she will take vengeance on the Moors, and may even force them to liberate the captives they have taken; and besides, you may be sure that the padrone, when he hears of the Moorish galley, and finds we never reached Corfu although the weather continued fine, will guess that we have fallen into her hands, and will never rest till he finds where we have been taken, and will ransom those who survive at whatever price they may put upon them."

"He will do his best, I know. He is a good master to serve. But once a prisoner among the Moors, the hope of one's ever being heard of again is slight. Sometimes, of course, men have been ransomed; but most, as I have heard, can never be found by their friends, however ready they may be to pay any ransom that might be asked. It just depends whether they are sold to a Moor living in a seaport or not. If they are, there would be no great difficulty in hearing of them, but if they are sold into the interior, no inquiries are ever likely to discover them."

"You must hope for the best," Francis said. "Chances of escape may occur, and I have heard that Christian captives, who have been released, say that the Moors are for the most part kind masters."

"I have heard so, too," the captain said; "and anyhow, I would rather be a Moorish slave than lie in a Genoese dungeon. The Genoese are not like us. When we take prisoners we treat them fairly and honourably, while they treat their prisoners worse than dogs. I wish I could do something for you, Messer Francisco. Your case is a deal worse than ours.

"Listen, they are quarrelling up on deck!"

There was indeed a sound of men in hot dispute, a trampling of feet, a clash of steel, and the sound of bodies falling.

"It is not possible that one of our cruisers can have come up, and is boarding the pirate," the captain said, "for no sail was in sight when we were brought here. I looked round the last thing before I left the deck. What can they be fighting about?"

"Likely enough, as to their course. They have probably, from what we heard, taken and sunk several ships, and some may be in favour of returning to dispose of their booty, while others may be for cruising longer. I only hope that scoundrel Ruggiero is among those we heard fall. They are quiet now, and one party or the other has evidently got the best of it. There, they are taking to the oars again."

Several days passed. Sometimes the oars were heard going, but generally the galley was under sail. The sailors brought down food and water, morning and evening, but paid no other attention to the captives. Francis discussed, with some of the other prisoners, the chances of making a sudden rush on to the deck, and overpowering the crew; but all their arms had been taken from them, and the galley, they calculated, contained fully a hundred and fifty men. They noticed, too, when the sailors brought down the food, a party armed and in readiness were assembled round the hatchway.

At all other times the hatchway was nearly closed, being only left sufficiently open to allow a certain amount of air to pass down into the hold, and by the steady tramp of steps, up and down, they knew that two sentries were also on guard above. Most of the prisoners were so overcome with the misfortune which had befallen them, and the prospect of a life in hopeless slavery, that they had no spirit to attempt any enterprise whatever, and there was nothing to do but to wait the termination of the voyage.

At the end of six days there was a bustle on deck, and the chain of the anchor was heard to run out. Two or three hours afterwards the hatchway was taken off. When the rest had ascended, two men came below with hammers, and drew the staples which fastened Francis to the deck.

On going up, he was at first so blinded with the glare of the sunshine -- after six days in almost total darkness -- that he could scarce see where he was. The ship was lying at anchor in a bay. The shores were low, and a group of houses stood abreast of where the ship was anchored. By their appearance Francis saw at once that he was on the coast of Africa, or of some island near it.

The prisoners were ordered to descend into the boats which lay alongside, some sailors taking their places with them. Ruggiero was not at first to be seen, but just as Francis was preparing to take his place in the boat, he came out from the cabin. One of his arms was in a sling, and his head bandaged.

"Take special care of that prisoner," he said to the men. "Do not take off his chains, and place a sentinel at the door of the place of his confinement. I would rather lose my share of all the spoil we have taken, than he should escape me!"

The shackles had been removed from the rest of the captives, and on landing they were driven into some huts which stood a little apart from the village. Francis was thrust into a small chamber with five or six companions. The next morning the other prisoners were called out, and Francis was left alone by himself all day. On their return in the evening, they told him that all the prisoners had been employed in assisting to get out the cargo, with which the vessel was crammed, and in carrying it to a large storehouse in the village.

"They must have taken a rich booty, indeed," said one of the prisoners, who had already told Francis that he was the captain of the vessel they had seen founder. "I could tell pretty well what all the bales contain, by the manner of packing, and I should say that there were the pick of the cargoes of a dozen ships there. All of us here belong to three ships, except those taken with you; but from the talk of the sailors, I heard that they had already sent off two batches of captives, by another ship which was cruising in company of them. I also learned that the quarrel, which took place just after you were captured, arose from the fact that the captain wished a party to land, to carry off two women from somewhere in the island of Corfu; but the crew insisted on first returning with the booty, urging, that if surprised by a Venetian galley, they might lose all the result of their toil. This was the opinion of the majority, although a few sided with the captain, being induced to do so by the fact that he offered to give up all his share of the booty, if they would do so.

"The captain lost his temper and drew his sword, but he and his party were quickly overpowered. He has kept to his cabin ever since, suffering, they say, more from rage than from his wounds. However, it seems that as soon as we and the cargo have been sold, they are to start for Corfu to carry out the enterprise. We are on an island not very far from Tunis, and a fast-rowing boat started early this morning to the merchants with whom they deal, for it seems that a certain amount of secrecy is observed, in order that if any complaints are made by Venice, the Moorish authorities may disclaim all knowledge of the matter."

Two days later the prisoners captured were again led out, their guards telling them that the merchants who had been expected had arrived. Giuseppi, who had hitherto borne up bravely, was in an agony of grief at being separated from Francis. He threw himself upon the ground, wept, tore his hair, and besought the guards to let him share his master's fate, whatever that might be. He declared that he would kill himself were they separated; and the guards would have been obliged to use force, had not Francis begged Giuseppi not to struggle against fate, but to go quietly, promising again and again that, if he himself regained his freedom, he would not rest until Giuseppi was also set at liberty. At last the lad yielded, and suffered himself to be led away, in a heartbroken state, by the guards.

None of the captives returned to the hut, and Francis now turned his whole thoughts to freeing himself from his chains. He had already revolved in his mind every possible mode of escape. He had tried the strong iron bars of the window, but found that they were so rigidly fixed and embedded in the stonework, that there was no hope of escape in this way; and even could he have got through the window, the weight of his shackles would have crippled him.

He was fastened with two chains, each about two feet six inches long, going from the wrist of the right hand to the left ankle, and from the left hand to the right ankle. Thus he was unable to stand quite upright, and anything like rapid movement was almost impossible. The bottom of the window came within four feet of the ground, and it was only by standing on one leg, and lifting the other as high as he could, that he was able to grasp one of the bars to try its strength.

The news he had heard from his fellow prisoner almost maddened him, and he thought far less of his own fate, than of that of the girls, who would be living in their quiet country retreat in ignorance of danger, until suddenly seized by Mocenigo and his band of pirates.

He had, on the first day, tried whether it was possible to draw his hand through the iron band round his wrist, but had concluded it could not be done, for it was riveted so tightly as to press upon the flesh. Therefore there was no hope of freeing himself in that manner. The only possible means, then, would be to cut through the rivet or chain, and for this a tool would be required.

Suddenly an idea struck him. The guard who brought in his food was a Sicilian, and was evidently of a talkative disposition, for he had several times entered into conversation with the captives. In addition to a long knife, he carried a small stiletto in his girdle, and Francis thought that, if he could obtain this, he might possibly free himself. Accordingly, at the hour when he expected his guard to enter, Francis placed himself at his window, with his face against the bars. When he heard the guard come in, and, as usual, close the door behind him, he turned round and said:

"Who is that damsel there? She is very beautiful, and she passes here frequently. There she is, just going among those trees."

The guard moved to the window and looked out.

"Do you see her just going round that corner there? Ah! She is gone."

The guard was pressing his face against the bars, to look in the direction indicated, and Francis, who was already standing on his left leg, with the right raised so as to give freedom to the hand next to the man, had no difficulty in drawing the stiletto from its sheath, and slipping it into his trousers.

"You were just too late," he said, "but no doubt you often see her."

"I don't see any beautiful damsels about in this wretched place," the man replied. "I suppose she is the daughter of the head man in the village. They say he has some good-looking ones, but he takes pretty good care that they are not about when we are here. I suppose she thought she wouldn't be seen along that path. I will keep a good lookout for her in future."

"Don't frighten her away," Francis said, laughing. "She is the one pleasant thing I have in the day to look at."

After some more talk the man retired, and Francis examined his prize. It was a thin blade of fine steel, and he at once hid it in the earth which formed the floor of the hut.

An hour later the guard opened the door suddenly. It was now dusk, and Francis was sitting quietly in a corner.

"Bring a light, Thomaso," the guard shouted to his comrade outside. "It is getting dark in here."

The other brought a torch, and they carefully examined the floor of the cell.

"What is it that you are searching for?" Francis asked.

"I have dropped my dagger somewhere," the man replied. "I can't think how it fell out."

"When did you see it last?"

"Not since dinner time. I know I had it then. I thought possibly I might have dropped it here, and a dagger is not the sort of plaything one cares about giving to prisoners."

"Chained as I am," Francis said, "a dagger would not be a formidable weapon in my hands."

"No," the man agreed. "It would be useless to you, unless you wanted to stick it into your own ribs."

"I should have to sit down to be able to do even that."

"That is so, lad. It is not for me to question what the captain says, I just do as I am told. But I own it does seem hard, keeping a young fellow like you chained up as if you were a wild beast. If he had got Pisani or Zeno as a prisoner, and wanted to make doubly sure that they would not escape, it would be all well enough, but for a lad like you, with one man always at the door, and the window barred so that a lion couldn't break through, I do think it hard to keep you chained like this; and the worst of it is, we are going to have to stop here to look after you till the captain gets back, and that may be three weeks or a month, who knows!"

"Why don't you keep your mouth shut, Philippo?" the other man growled. "It's always talk, talk with you. We are chosen because the captain can rely upon us."

"He can rely upon anyone," Philippo retorted, "who knows that he will get his throat cut if he fails in his duty."

"Well, come along," the other said, "I don't want to be staying here all night. Your dagger isn't here, that's certain, and as I am off guard at present, I want to be going."

As soon as he was left alone, Francis unearthed the dagger, feeling sure that no fresh visit would be made him that evening. As he had hoped, his first attempt showed him that the iron of the rivet was soft, and the keen dagger at once notched off a small piece of the burred end. Again and again he tried, and each time a small piece of metal flew off. After each cut he examined the edge of the dagger, but it was well tempered, and seemed entirely unaffected.

He now felt certain that, with patience, he should be able to cut off the projecting edges of the rivets, and so be able to free his hands. He, therefore, now examined the fastenings at the ankles. These were more heavy, and on trying them, the iron of the rivet appeared to be much harder than that which kept the manacles together. It was, however, now too dark to see what he was doing, and concealing the dagger again, he lay down with a lighter heart than he had from the moment of his capture.

Even if he found that the lower fastenings of the chain defied all his efforts, he could cut the rivets at the wrists, and so free one end of each chain. He could then tie the chains round his legs, and their weight would not be sufficient to prevent his walking.



Chapter 13: The Pirates' Raid.


As soon as it was daylight next morning, Francis was up and at work. His experiments of the evening before were at once confirmed. Three or four hours' work would enable him to free his wrists, but he could make no impression on the rivets at his ankles. After a few trials he gave this up as hopeless, for he was afraid, if he continued, he would blunt the edge of the dagger.

For an hour he sat still, thinking, and at last an idea occurred to him. Iron could be ground by rubbing it upon stone, and if he could not cut off the burr of the rivet with the dagger, he might perhaps be able to wear it down, by rubbing it with a stone.

He at once turned to the walls of his cell. These were not built of the unbaked clay so largely used for houses of the poorer class in Northern Egypt, but had evidently been constructed either as a prison, or more probably as a strong room where some merchant kept valuable goods. It was therefore constructed of blocks of hard stone.

It seemed to Francis that this was sandstone, and to test its quality, he sat down in the corner where the guard had, the night before, placed his supply of food and water. First he moistened a portion of the wall, then he took up a link of his chain, and rubbed for some time against it. At last, to his satisfaction, a bright patch showed that the stone was capable of wearing away iron. But in vain did he try to twist his legs so as to rub the rivet against the wall, and he gave up the attempt as impossible.

It was clear, then, that he must have a bit of the stone to rub with. He at once began to dig with the dagger in the earth at the foot of the wall, to see if he could find any such pieces. For a long time he came across no chips, even of the smallest size. As he worked, he was most careful to stamp down the earth which he had moved, scattering over it the sand, of which there was an abundance in the corners of the room, to obliterate all traces of his work.

When breakfast time approached he ceased for a while, but after the meal had been taken, he recommenced the task. He met with little success till he reached the door, but here he was more fortunate. A short distance below the surface were a number of pieces of stone of various sizes, which, he had no doubt, had been cut from the blocks to allow for the fixing of the lintel and doorpost. He chose half a dozen pieces of the handiest sizes, each having a flat surface. Then replacing the earth carefully, he took one of the pieces in his hand, and moistening it with water, set to work.

He made little progress. Still the stone did wear the iron, and he felt sure that, by perseverance, he should succeed in wearing off the burrs. All day he worked without intermission, holding a rag wrapped round the stone to deaden the sound. He worked till his fingers ached so that he could no longer hold it, then rested for an hour or two, and resumed his work. When his guard brought his dinner he asked him when the galley was to sail again.

"It was to have gone today," the man said, "but the captain has been laid up with fever. He has a leech from Tunis attending him, and, weak as he is, he is so bent on going that he would have had himself carried on board the ship, had not the leech said that, in that case, he would not answer for his life, as in the state his blood is in, his wounds would assuredly mortify did he not remain perfectly quiet. So he has agreed to delay for three days."

Francis was unable to work with the stone at night, for in the stillness the sound might be heard; but for some hours he hacked away with the dagger at the rivets on his manacles. The next morning he was at work as soon as the chirrup of the cicadas began, as these, he knew, would completely deaden any sound he might make. By nighttime the rivet ends on the irons round his ankles were worn so thin, that he felt sure that another hour's work would bring them level with the iron, and before he went to sleep the rivets on the wrist were in the same condition.

He learned from his guard, next morning, that the captain was better, that he was to be taken on board in the cool of the evening, and that the vessel would start as soon as the breeze sprang up in the morning. In the afternoon his two guards entered, and bade him follow them. He was conducted to the principal house in the village, and into a room where Ruggiero Mocenigo was lying on a couch.

"I have sent for you," Ruggiero said, "to tell you that I have not forgotten you. My vengeance has been delayed from no fault of mine, but it will be all the sweeter when it comes. I am going to fetch Polani's daughters. I have heard that, since you thrust yourself between me and them, you have been a familiar in the house, that Polani treats you as a member of the family, and that you are in high favour with his daughters. I have kept myself informed of what happened in Venice, and I have noted each of these things down in the account of what I owe you. I am going to fetch Polani's daughters here, and to make Maria my wife, and then I will show her how I treat those who cross my path. It will be a lesson to her, as well as for you. You shall wish yourself dead a thousand times before death comes to you."

"I always knew that you were a villain, Ruggiero Mocenigo," Francis said quietly, "although I hardly thought that a man who had once the honour of being a noble of Venice, would sink to become a pirate and renegade. You may carry Maria Polani off, but you will never succeed through her in obtaining a portion of her father's fortune, for I know that, the first moment her hands are free, she will stab herself to the heart, rather than remain in the power of such a wretch."

Ruggiero snatched up a dagger from a table by his couch as Francis was speaking, but dropped it again.

"Fool," he said. "Am I not going to carry off the two girls? and do you not see that it will tame Maria's spirit effectually, when she knows that if she lays hands on herself, she will but shift the honour of being my wife from herself to her sister?"

As the laugh of anticipated triumph rang in Francis's ears, the latter, in his fury, made a spring forward to throw himself upon the villain, but he had forgotten his chains, and fell headlong on to the floor.

"Guards," Ruggiero shouted, "take this fellow away, and I charge you watch over him securely, and remember that your lives shall answer for his escape."

"There is no need for threats, signor," Philippo said. "You can rely on our vigilance, though, as far as I see, if he had but a child to watch him he would be safe in that cell of his, fettered as he is."

Ruggiero waved his hand impatiently, and the two men withdrew with their prisoner.

"If it were not that I have not touched my share of the booty of our last trip," Philippo said as they left the house, "I would not serve him another day. As it is, as soon as the galley returns, and we get our shares of the money, and of the sum he has promised if this expedition of his is successful, I will be off. I have had enough of this. It is bad enough to be consorting with Moors, without being abused and threatened as if one was a dog."

As soon as he was alone again, Francis set to work, and by the afternoon the ends of the four rivets were worn down level with the iron, and it needed but a pressure to make the rings spring open. Then he waited for the evening before freeing himself, as by some chance he might again be visited, and even if free before nightfall he could not leave the house.

Philippo was later than usual in bringing him his meal, and Francis heard angry words passing between him and his comrade, because he had not returned to relieve him sooner.

"Is everything ready for the start?" Francis asked the man as he entered.

"Yes, the crew are all on board. The boat is to be on shore for the captain at nine o'clock, and as there is a little breeze blowing, I expect they will get up sail and start at once."

After a few minutes' talk the man left, and Francis waited until it became almost dark, then he inserted the dagger between the irons at the point of junction. At the first wrench they flew apart, and his left hand was free. A few minutes' more work and the chains lay on the ground.

Taking them up, he rattled them together loudly. In a minute he heard the guard outside move and come to the door, then the key was inserted in the lock and the door opened.

"What on earth are you doing now?" Philippo asked as he entered.

Francis was standing close to the door, so that as his guard entered he had his back to him, and before the question was finished he sprang upon him, throwing him headlong to the ground with the shock, and before the astonished man could speak he was kneeling upon him, with the point of the dagger at his throat.

"If you make a sound, or utter a cry," he exclaimed, "I will drive this dagger into your throat."

Philippo could feel the point of the dagger against his skin, and remained perfectly quiet.

"I do not want to kill you, Philippo. You have not been harsh to me, and I would spare your life if I could. Hold your hands back above your head, and put your wrists together that I may fasten them. Then I will let you get up."

Philippo held up his hands as requested, and Francis bound them tightly together with a strip of twisted cloth. He then allowed him to rise.

"Now, Philippo, I must gag you. Then I will fasten your hands to a bar well above your head, so that you can't get at the rope with your teeth. I will leave you here till your comrade comes in the morning."

"I would rather that you killed me at once, signor," the man said. "Thomaso will be furious at your having made your escape, for he will certainly come in for a share of the fury of the captain. There are three or four of the crew remaining behind, and no doubt they will keep me locked up till the ship returns, and in that case the captain will be as good as his word. You had better kill me at once."

"But what am I to do, Philippo? I must ensure my own safety. If you will suggest any way by which I can do that, I will."

"I would swear any oath you like, signor, that I will not give the alarm. I will make straight across the island, and get hold of a boat there, so as to be well away before your escape is known in the morning."

"Well, look here, Philippo. I believe you are sincere, and you shall take the oath you hold most sacred."

"You can accompany me, signor, if you will. Keep my hands tied till we are on the other side of the island, and stab me if I give the alarm."

"I will not do that, Philippo. I will trust you altogether; but first take the oath you spoke of."

Philippo swore a terrible oath, that he would abstain from giving the alarm, and would cross the island and make straight for the mainland. Francis at once cut the bonds.

"You will lose your share of the plunder, Philippo, and you will have to keep out of the way to avoid the captain's rage. Therefore I advise you, when you get to Tunis, to embark in the first ship that sails. If you come to Venice, ask for me, and I will make up to you for your loss of booty, and put you in the way of leading an honest life again. But before going, you must first change clothes with me. You can sell mine at Tunis for enough to buy you a dozen suits like yours; but you must divide with me what money you now have in your possession, for I cannot start penniless."

"I thank you for your kindness," the man said. "You had it in your power, with a thrust of the dagger, to make yourself safe, and you abstained. Even were it not for my oath, I should be a treacherous dog, indeed, were I to betray you. I do not know what your plans are, signor, but I pray you to follow my example, and get away from this place before daylight. The people here will all aid in the search for you, and as the island is not large, you will assuredly be discovered. It has for many years been a rendezvous of pirates, a place to which they bring their booty to sell to the traders who come over from the mainland."

"Thank you for your advice, Philippo, and be assured I shall be off the island before daybreak, but I have some work to do first, and cannot therefore accompany you."

"May all the saints bless you, signor, and aid you to get safe away! Assuredly, if I live, I will ere long present myself to you at Venice -- not for the money which you so generously promised me, but that I may, with your aid, earn an honest living among Christians."

By this time the exchange of clothes was effected, the six ducats in Philippo's purse -- the result of a little private plundering on one of the captured vessels -- divided; and then they left the prison room, and Philippo locked the door after them.

"Is there any chance of Thomaso returning speedily?" Francis asked. "Because, if so, he might notice your absence, and so give the alarm before the ship sets sail, in which case we should have the whole crew on our tracks."

"I do not think that he will. He will be likely to be drinking in the wine shop for an hour or two before he returns. But I tell you what I will do, signor. I will resume my place here on guard until he has returned. He will relieve me at midnight, and in the darkness will not notice the change of clothes. There will still be plenty of time for me to cross the island, and get out of sight in the boat, before the alarm is given, which will not be until six o'clock, when I ought to relieve him again. As you say, if the alarm were to be given before the vessel sails, they might start at once to cut us off before we reach the mainland, for they would make sure that we should try to escape in that direction."

"That will be the best plan, Philippo; and now goodbye."

Francis walked down to the shore. There were no boats lying there of a size he could launch unaided, but presently he heard the sound of oars, and a small fishing boat rowed by two men approached.

"Look here, lads," he said. "I want to be put on board the ship. I ought to have been on board three hours ago, but took too much wine, and lay down for an hour or two and overslept myself. Do you think you can row quietly up alongside so that I can slip on board unnoticed? If so I will give you a ducat for your trouble."

"We can do that," the fishermen said. "We have just come from the ship now, and have sold them our catch of today. There were half a dozen other boats lying beside her, bargaining for their fish. Besides they are taking on board firewood and other stores that have been left till the last moment. So jump in and we will soon get you there."

In a few minutes they approached the side of the ship.

"I see you have got half a dozen fish left in your boat now," Francis said.

"They are of no account," one of the men said. "They are good enough for our eating, but not such as they buy on board a ship where money is plentiful. You are heartily welcome to them if you have a fancy for them."

"Thank you," Francis said. "I will take two or three of them, if you can spare them. I want to play a trick with a comrade."

As the fishermen said, there were several boats lying near the vessel, and the men were leaning over the sides bargaining for fish. Handing the fishermen their promised reward, Francis sprang up the ladder to the deck. He was unnoticed, for other men had gone down into the boats for fish.

Mingling with the sailors, he gradually made his way to the hatchway leading into the hold, descended the ladder, and stowed himself away among a quantity of casks, some filled with wine and some with water, at the farther end of the hold; and as he lay there devoutly thanked God that his enterprise had been so far successful.

Men came down from time to time with lanterns, to stow away the lately-arrived stores, but none came near the place where Francis was hidden. The time seemed long before he heard the clank of the capstan, and knew the vessel was being hove up to her anchors. Then, after a while, he heard the creaking of cordage, and much trampling of feet on the deck above, and knew that she was under way. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could, in his cramped position, and went off to sleep.

When he woke in the morning, the light was streaming down the hatch, which was only closed in rough weather, as it was necessary frequently to go down into it for water and stores. Francis had brought the fish with him as a means of subsistence during the voyage, in case he should be unable to obtain provisions, but for this there was no occasion, as there was an abundance of fruit hanging from the beams, while piles of bread were stowed in a partition at one end of the hold. During the day, however, he did not venture to move, and was heartily glad when it again became dark, and he could venture to get out and stretch himself. He appropriated a loaf and some bunches of grapes, took a long drink from a pail placed under the tap of a water butt, and made his way back to his corner. After a hearty meal he went out again for another drink, and then turned in to sleep.

So passed six days. By the rush of water against the outside planks, he could always judge whether the vessel was making brisk way or whether she was lying becalmed. Once or twice, after nightfall, he ventured up on deck, feeling certain that in the darkness there was no fear of his being detected. From conversation he overheard on the seventh evening, he learned that Corfu had been sighted that day. For some hours the vessel's sails had been lowered, and she had remained motionless; but she was now again making for the land, and in the course of another two hours a landing was to be made.

The boats had all been got in readiness, and the men were to muster fully armed. Although, as they understood, the carrying off of two girls was their special object, it was intended that they should gather as much plunder as could be obtained. The island was rich, for many wealthy Venetians had residences there. Therefore, with the exception of a few men left on board to take care of the galley, the whole were to land. A picked boat's crew were to accompany the captain, who was now completely convalescent. The rest were to divide in bands and scatter over the country, pillaging as they went, and setting fire to the houses. It was considered that such consternation would be caused that nothing like resistance could be offered for some time, and by daybreak all hands were to gather at the landing place.

How far this spot was from the town, Francis had no means of learning. There was a store of spare arms in the hold, and Francis, furnishing himself with a sword and large dagger, waited until he heard a great movement overhead, and then went upon deck and joined a gang of men employed in lowering one of the boats. The boat was a large one, rowing sixteen oars and carrying some twenty men seated in the stern. Here Francis took his place with the others. The boat pushed off and waited until four others were launched and filled. Then the order was given, and the boats rowed in a body towards the shore. The men landed and formed under their respective officers, one man remaining in each boat to keep it afloat.

Francis leaped ashore, and while the men were forming up, found no difficulty in slipping away unnoticed. As he did not know where the path was, and was afraid of making a noise, he lay down among the rocks until he heard the word of command to start given. Then he cautiously crept out, and, keeping far enough in the rear to be unseen, followed the sound of their footsteps. By the short time which had elapsed between the landing and the start, he had no doubt they were guided by some persons perfectly acquainted with the locality, probably by some natives of the island among the mixed crew.

Francis had, during his voyage, thought over the course he should pursue on landing; and saw that, ignorant as he was of the country, his only hope was in obtaining a guide who would conduct him to Polani's villa before the arrival of Mocenigo and his band. The fact that the crew were divided into five parties, which were to proceed in different directions, and that he did not know which of them was commanded by the captain, added to the difficulty. Had they kept together he might, after seeing the direction in which they were going, make a detour and get ahead of them. But he might now follow a party going in an entirely wrong direction, and before he could obtain a guide, Mocenigo's band might have gone so far that they could not be overtaken before they reached the villa.

There was nothing to do but to get ahead of all the parties, in the hope of coming upon a habitation before going far. As soon, therefore, as the last band had disappeared, he started at a run. The country was open, with few walls or fences; therefore on leaving the road he was able to run rapidly forwards, and in a few minutes knew that he must be ahead of the pirates. Then he again changed his course so as to strike the road he had left.

After running for about a mile he saw a light ahead of him, and soon arrived at a cottage. He knocked at the door, and then entered. The occupants of the room -- a man and woman, a lad, and several children -- rose to their feet at the sudden entrance of the stranger.

"Good people," Francis said. "I have just landed from a ship, and am the bearer of important messages to the Signoras Polani. I have lost my way, and it is necessary that I should go on without a moment's delay. Can you tell me how far the villa of Polani is distant?"

"It is about three miles from here," the man said.

"I will give a ducat to your son if he will run on with me at once."

The man looked doubtful. The apparel and general appearance of Francis were not prepossessing. He had been six days a prisoner in the hold without means of washing.

"See," he said, producing a ducat, "here is the money. I will give it you at once if you will order your son to go with me, and to hurry at the top of his speed."

"It's a bargain," the man said.

"Here, Rufo! start at once with the signor."

"Come along, signor," the boy said; and without another word to the parents Francis followed him out, and both set off at a run along the road.

Francis had said nothing about pirates to the peasants, for he knew that, did he do so, such alarm would be caused that they would think of nothing but flight, and he should not be able to obtain a guide. It was improbable that they would be molested. The pirates were bent upon pillaging the villas of the wealthy, and would not risk the raising of an alarm by entering cottages where there was no chance of plunder.

After proceeding a few hundred yards, the lad struck off by a byroad at right angles to that which they had been following, and by the direction he took Francis felt that he must at first have gone far out of his way, and that the party going direct to the villa must have had a considerable start. Still, he reckoned that as he was running at the rate of three feet to every one they would march, he might hope to arrive at the house well before them.

Not a word was spoken as they ran along. The lad was wondering, in his mind, as to what could be the urgent business that could necessitate its being carried at such speed; while Francis felt that every breath was needed for the work he had to do. Only once or twice he spoke, to ask how much further it was to their destination.

The last answer was cheering:

"A few hundred paces farther."

"There are the lights, signor. They have not gone to bed. This is the door."

Francis knocked with the pommel of his sword, keeping up a loud continuous knocking. A minute or two passed, and then a face appeared at the window above.

"Who is it that knocks so loudly at this time of night?"

"It is Francisco Hammond. Open instantly. Danger threatens the signoras. Quick, for your life!"

The servant recognized the voice, and ran down without hesitation and unbarred the fastening; but for a moment he thought he must have been mistaken, as Francis ran into the lighted hall.

"Where are the ladies?" he asked. "Lead me to them instantly."

But as he spoke a door standing by was opened, and Signor Polani himself, with the two girls, appeared. They had been on the point of retiring to rest when the knocking began, and the merchant, with his drawn sword, was standing at the door, when he recognized Francis' voice.

They were about to utter an exclamation of pleasure at seeing him, and of astonishment, not only at his sudden arrival, but at his appearance, when Francis burst out:

"There is no time for a word. You must fly instantly. Ruggiero Mocenigo is close at my heels with a band of twenty pirates."

The girls uttered a cry of alarm, and the merchant exclaimed:

"Can we not defend the house, Francisco? I have eight men here, and we can hold it till assistance comes."

"Ruggiero has a hundred," Francis said, "and all can be brought up in a short time -- you must fly. For God's sake, do not delay, signor. They may be here at any moment."

"Come, girls," Polani said.

"And you, too," he went on, turning to the servants, whom the knocking had caused to assemble. "Do you follow us. Resistance would only cost you your lives.

"Here, Maria, take my hand.

"Francisco, do you see to Giulia.

"Close the door after the last of you, and bolt it. It will give us a few minutes, before they break in and discover that we have all gone.

"Which way are the scoundrels coming?"

Francis pointed in the direction from which he had come, and the whole party started at a fast pace in the other direction. They had not been gone five minutes, when a loud and sudden knocking broke on the silence of the night.

"It was a close thing, indeed, Francisco," the merchant said, as they ran along close to each other. "At present I feel as if I was in a dream; but you shall tell us all presently."

They were, by this time, outside the grounds of the villa, and some of the servants, who knew the country, now took the lead. In a few minutes the merchant slackened his pace.

"We are out of danger now," he said. "They will not know in which direction to search for us; and if they scatter in pursuit we could make very short work of any that might come up with us."

"I do not know that you are out of danger," Francis said. "A hundred men landed. Mocenigo, with twenty, took the line to your house, but the rest have scattered over the country in smaller bands, bent on murder and pillage. Therefore, we had best keep on as fast as we can, until well beyond the circle they are likely to sweep -- that is, unless the ladies are tired."

"Tired!" Maria repeated. "Why, Giulia and I go for long walks every day, and could run for an hour, if necessary."

"Then come on, my dears," the merchant said. "I am burning to know what this all means; and I am sure you are equally curious; but nothing can be said till you are in safety."

Accordingly, the party again broke into a run. A few minutes later one of the servants, looking back, exclaimed:

"They have fired the house, signor. There are flames issuing from one of the lower windows."

"I expected that," the merchant said, without looking back. "That scoundrel would, in any case, light it in his fury at finding that we have escaped; but he has probably done so, now, in hopes that the light will enable him to discover us. It is well that we are so far ahead, for the blaze will light up the country for a long way round."

"There is a wood a little way ahead, signor," the servant said. "Once through that we shall be hidden from sight, however great the light."

Arrived at the wood, they again broke into a walk. A few hundred yards beyond the wood was some rising ground, from which they could see far over the country.

"Let us stop here," the merchant said. "We are safe now. We have placed two miles between ourselves and those villains."

The villa was now a mass of flames. Exclamations of fury broke from the men servants, while the women cried with anger at the sight of the destruction.

"Do not concern yourselves," the merchant said. "The house can be rebuilt, and I will see that none of you are the poorer for the loss of your belongings.

"Now, girls, let us sit down here and hear from Francisco how it is that he has once again been your saviour."

"Before I begin, signor, tell me whether there are any ships of war in the port, and how far that is distant from us?"

"It is not above six miles on the other side of the island. That is to say, we have been going towards it since we left the villa.

"See," he broke off, "there are flames rising in three or four directions. The rest of those villains are at their work."

"But are there any war galleys in the port?" Francis interrupted.

"Yes. Three ships were sent here, on the report that a Moorish pirate had been cruising in these waters, and that several vessels were missing. When the story first came I did not credit it. The captain of the ship who brought the news told me he had met you about halfway across, and had told you about the supposed pirate. A vessel arrived four days later, and brought letters from my agent, but he said no word about your boat having arrived.

"Then I became uneasy; and when later news came, and still no word of you, I felt sure that something must have befallen you; that possibly the report was true, and that you had fallen into the hands of the pirates. So I at once started, in one of the galleys which the council were despatching in answer to the request of the governor here."

"In that case, signor, there is not a moment to lose. The governor should be informed that the pirate is lying on the opposite coast, and that his crew have landed, and are burning and pillaging. If orders are issued at once, the galleys could get round before morning, and so cut off the retreat of these miscreants."

"You are quite right," Polani said, rising at once. "We will go on without a moment's delay! The girls can follow slowly under the escort of the servants."

"Oh, papa," Maria exclaimed, "you are not going to take Francisco away till we have heard his story! Can you not send forward the servants with a message to the governor?"

"No, my dear. The governor will have gone to bed, and the servants might not be able to obtain admittance to him. I must go myself. It is for your sakes, as well as for my own. We shall never feel a moment's safety, as long as this villain is at large. Francisco's story will keep till tomorrow.

"As to your gratitude and mine, that needs no telling. He cannot but know what we are feeling, at the thought of the almost miraculous escape you have had from falling into the hands of your persecutor.

"Now come along, Francisco.

"One of you men who knows the road had better come with us. Do the rest of you all keep together.

"Two miles further, girls, as you know, is a villa of Carlo Maffene. If you feel tired, you had best stop and ask for shelter there. There is no fear that the pirates will extend their ravages so far. They will keep on the side of the island where they landed, so as to be able to return with their booty before daybreak to the ship."



Chapter 14: The End Of The Persecutor.


Signor Polani was so well known, that upon his arrival at the governor's house the domestics, upon being aroused, did not hesitate to awaken the governor at once. The latter, as soon as he heard that the pirates had landed and were devastating the other side of the island, and that their ship was lying close in to the coast under the charge of a few sailors only, at once despatched a messenger to the commander of the galleys; ordering them to arouse the crews and make ready to put out to sea instantly. He added that he, himself, should follow his messenger on board in a few minutes, and should accompany them. He then issued orders that the bell should toll to summon the inhabitants to arms; and directed an officer to take the command, and to start with them at once across the island, and to fall upon the pirates while engaged in their work of pillage. They were to take a party with them with litters to carry Polani's daughters to the town, and an apartment was to be assigned to them in his palace, until his return.

While he was issuing this order, refreshments had been placed upon the table, and he pressed Polani and his companions to partake of these before starting.

Francis needed no second invitation. He had been too excited, at the news he had heard on board the ship, to think of eating; and he now remembered that it was a good many hours since he had taken his last meal. He was but a few minutes, however, in satisfying his hunger. By the time he had finished, the governor had seen that his orders had been carried out.

Two hundred armed citizens had already mustered in companies, and were now on the point of setting out, burning with indignation at what they had heard of the depredations which the pirates had committed. After seeing his preparations complete the governor, accompanied by Polani and Francis, made his way down to the port, and was rowed out to the galleys.

Here he found all on the alert. The sails were ready for hoisting, and the men were seated at the benches, ready to aid with oars the light wind which was blowing. The governor now informed the commander of the vessels the reason of the sudden orders for sailing. The news was passed to the captains of the other two vessels, and in a very few minutes the anchors were weighed, and the vessels started on their way.

Francis was closely questioned as to the spot at which the pirate vessel was lying, but could only reply that, beyond the fact that it was some four miles from Polani's villa, he had no idea of the locality.

"But can you not describe to us the nature of the coast?" the commander said.

"That I cannot," Francis replied; "for I was hidden away in the hold of the vessel, and did not come on deck until after it was dark, at which time the land abreast of us was only a dark mass."

"Signor Polani has informed me," the governor said, "that, although your attire does not betoken it, you are a dear friend of his; but he has not yet informed me how it comes that you were upon this pirate ship."

"He has been telling me as we came along," Polani replied; "and a strange story it is. He was on his voyage hither in the Naxos, which, as you doubtless remember, was a little craft of mine, which should have arrived here a month since. As we supposed, it was captured by the pirates, the leader of whom is Ruggiero Mocenigo, who, as of course you know, made his escape from the custody of the officers of the state, they being overpowered by a party of Paduans. The sentence of banishment for life has been passed against him, and, until I heard from my friend here that he was captain of the pirate which has been seen off this island, I knew not what had become of him.

"Those on board the Naxos were taken prisoners, and confined in the pirate's hold, which they found already filled with captives taken from other ships. The pirate at once sailed for Africa, where all the prisoners were sold as slaves to the Moors, my friend here alone excepted, Mocenigo having an old feud with him, and a design to keep him in his hands. Learning that a raid was intended upon Corfu, with the special design of carrying off my daughters, whom Mocenigo had twice previously tried to abduct, Francisco managed to get on board the vessel, and conceal himself in her hold, in order that he might frustrate the design. He managed, in the dark, to mingle with the landing party; and then, separating from them, made his way on ahead, and fortunately was able to obtain a guide to my house, which he reached five minutes only before the arrival of the pirates there."

"Admirable, indeed! And we are all vastly indebted to him, for had it not been for him, we should not have known of the doings of these scoundrels until too late to cut off their retreat; and, once away in their ship again, they might long have preyed upon our commerce, before one of our cruisers happened to fall in with them.

"As for Ruggiero Mocenigo, he is a disgrace to the name of a Venetian; and it is sad to think that one of our most noble families should have to bear the brand of being connected with a man so base and villainous. However, I trust that his power of ill doing has come to an end.

"Is the vessel a fast one, signor?"

"I cannot say whether she sails fast," Francis replied; "but she certainly rows fast."

"I trust that we shall catch her before she gets under way," the commander of the galleys said. "Our vessels are not made for rowing, although we get out oars to help them along in calm weather."

"What course do you propose to take?" the merchant asked.

"When we approach the spot where she is likely to be lying, I shall order the captains of the other two ships to lie off the coast, a couple of miles distant and as far from each other, so that they can cut her off as she makes out to sea. We will follow the coast line, keeping in as close as the water will permit, and in this way we shall most likely come upon her. If we should miss her, I shall at the first dawn of morning join the others in the offing, and keep watch till she appears from under the shadow of the land."

It was now three o'clock in the morning, and an hour later the three vessels parted company, and the galley with the governor and commander of the squadron rowed for the shore. When they came close to the land, the captain ordered the oars to be laid in.

"The breeze is very light," he said; "but it is favourable, and will enable us to creep along the shore. If we continue rowing, those in charge of the ship may hear us coming, and may cut their cables, get up sail, and make out from the land without our seeing them. On a still night, like this, the sound of the sweeps can be heard a very long distance."

Quietly the vessel made her way along the shore. Over the land, the sky was red with the reflection of numerous fires, but this only made the darkness more intense under its shadow, and the lead was kept going in order to prevent them from sailing into shallow water. By the captain's orders strict silence was observed on board the ship, and every eye was strained ahead on the lookout for the pirate vessel.

Presently, all became aware of a confused noise, apparently coming from the land, but at some distance ahead. As they got further on, distant shouts and cries were heard.

"I fancy," the governor said to the captain, "the band from the town have met the pirates, and the latter are retreating to their ship."

"Then the ship can't be far off," the captain said. "Daylight is beginning to break in the east, and we shall soon be able to make her out against the sky -- that is, if she is still lying at anchor."

On getting round the next point, the vessel was distinctly visible. The shouting on the shore was now plainly heard, and there could be no doubt that a desperate fight was going on there. It seemed to be close to the water's edge.

"There is a boat rowing off to the ship," one of the sailors said.

"Then get out your oars again. She is not more than half a mile away, and she can hardly get under way before we reach her. Besides, judging from the sound of the fight, the pirates must have lost a good many men, and will not be able to man all the oars even if they gain their ship."

The men sat down to their oars with alacrity. Every sailor on board felt it almost as a personal insult, that pirates should dare to enter the Venetian waters and carry on their depredations there. The glare of the burning houses, too, had fired their indignation to the utmost, and all were eager for the fight.

Three boats were now seen rowing towards the ship.

"Stretch to your oars, men," the captain said. "We must be alongside them, if we can, before they can take to their sweeps."

The pirates had now seen them; and Francis, standing at the bow eagerly watching the vessel, could hear orders shouted to the boats. These pulled rapidly alongside, and he could see the men clambering up in the greatest haste. There was a din of voices. Some men tried to get up the sails, others got out oars, and the utmost confusion evidently prevailed. In obedience to the shouts of the officers, the sails were lowered again, and all betook themselves to the oars; but scarce a stroke had been pulled before the Venetian galley ran up alongside. Grapnels were thrown, and the crew, seizing their weapons, sprang on to the deck of the pirate.

The crew of the latter knew that they had no mercy to expect, and although weakened by the loss of nearly a third of their number in the fighting on shore, sprang from their benches, and rushed to oppose their assailants, with the desperation of despair. They were led by Ruggiero Mocenigo, who, furious at the failure of his schemes, and preferring death to the shame of being carried to Venice as a pirate and a traitor, rushed upon the Venetians with a fury which, at first, carried all before it. Supported by his Moors and renegades he drove back the boarders, and almost succeeded in clearing the deck of his vessel.

He himself engaged hand-to-hand with the commander of the Venetian galley, and at the third thrust ran him through the throat; but the Venetians, although they had yielded to the first onslaught, again poured over the bulwarks of the galley. Polani, burning to punish the man who had so repeatedly tried to injure him, accompanied them, Francis keeping close beside him.

"Ruggiero Mocenigo, traitor and villain, your time has come!"

Ruggiero started at hearing his name thus proclaimed, for on board his own ship he was simply known as the captain; but in the dim light he recognized Polani, and at once crossed swords with him.

"Be not so sure, Polani. Perhaps it is your time that has come."

The two engaged with fury. Polani was still strong and vigorous. His opponent had the advantage of youth and activity. But Polani's weight and strength told, and he was forcing his opponent back, when his foot slipped on the bloodstained deck. He fell forward; and in another moment Ruggiero would have run him through the body; had not the weapon been knocked up by Francis, who, watching every movement of the fight, sprang forward when he saw the merchant slip.

"This time, Ruggiero, my hands are free. How about your vengeance now?"

Ruggiero gave a cry of astonishment, at seeing the lad whom he believed to be lying in chains, five hundred miles away, facing him. For a moment he recoiled, and then with the cry, "I will take it now," sprang forward. But this time he had met an opponent as active and as capable as himself.

For a minute or two they fought on even terms, and then Ruggiero fell suddenly backwards, a crossbow bolt, from one of the Venetians on the poop of the vessel, having struck him full in the forehead.

Without their leader, the spirit of the pirates had fled. They still fought, steadily and desperately, but it was only to sell their lives as dearly as possible; and in five minutes after the fall of Ruggiero the last man was cut down, for no quarter was given to pirates.

Just as the combat concluded, the sound of oars was heard, and the other two galleys came up to the assistance of their consort. They arrived too late to take part in the conflict, but cheered lustily when they heard that the pirate captain, and all his crew, had been killed. Upon learning that the commander of the galley was killed, the captain next in seniority assumed the command.

In a few minutes, the bodies of the pirates were thrown overboard, the wounded were carried below to have their wounds attended to, while the bodies of those who had fallen -- thirteen in number -- were laid together on the deck, for burial on shore.

"Thanks to you, Francisco, that I am not lying there beside them," the merchant said. "I did not know that you were so close at hand, and as I slipped I felt that my end had come."

"You were getting the better of him up to that point," Francis said. "I was close at hand, in readiness to strike in should I see that my aid was wanted, but up to the moment you slipped, I believed that you would have avenged your wrongs yourself."

"It is well that he fell as he did. It would have been dreadful, indeed, had he been carried to Venice, to bring shame and disgrace upon a noble family. Thank God, his power for mischief is at an end! I have had no peace of mind since the day when you first thwarted his attempt to carry off the girls; nor should I have ever had, until I obtained sure tidings that he was dead. The perseverance with which he has followed his resolve, to make my daughter his wife, is almost beyond belief. Had his mind been turned to other matters, he was capable of attaining greatness, for no obstacle would have barred his way.

"It almost seems as if it were a duel between him and you to the death -- his aim to injure me, and yours to defend us. And now it has ended. Maria will breathe more freely when she hears the news, for, gay and light hearted as she is, the dread of that man has weighed heavily upon her."

The governor, who from the poop of the vessel had watched the conflict, now came up, and warmly congratulated Francis upon his bravery.

"I saw you rush forward, just as my friend Polani fell, and engage his assailant. At first I thought you lost, for the villain was counted one of the best swordsmen in Venice, and you are still but a lad; but I saw you did not give way an inch, but held your own against him; and I believe you would have slain him unaided, for you were fighting with greater coolness than he was. Still, I was relieved when I saw him fall, for even then the combat was doubtful, and his men, to do them justice, fought like demons. How comes it that one so young as you should be so skilled with your weapon?"

"This is not the first time that my young friend has done good service to the state," Polani said; "for it was he who led a crew of one of my ships to the aid of Pisani, when his galley was boarded by the Genoese, at the battle of Antium."

"Is this he?" the governor said, in surprise. "I heard, of course, by the account of those who came from Venice a month since, how Pisani was aided, when hard pressed, by the crew of one of your ships, headed by a young Englishman, upon whom the state had conferred the rights of citizenship as a recognition of his services; but I did not dream that the Englishman was but a lad.

"What is your age, young sir?"

"I am just eighteen," Francis replied. "Our people are all fond of strong exercise, and thus it was that I became more skilled, perhaps, than many of my age, in the use of arms."

At nine o'clock the squadron arrived in the port, bringing with them the captured galley. As soon as they were seen approaching, the church bells rang, flags were hung out from the houses, and the whole population assembled at the quay to welcome the victors and to hear the news.

"Do you go on at once, directly we land, Francisco, and set the girls' minds at ease. I must come on with the governor, and he is sure to be detained, and will have much to say before he can make his way through the crowd."

Francis was, on his arrival at the governor's, recognized by the domestics, and at once shown into the room where the girls were awaiting him. The fact that the pirate galley had been captured was already known to them, the news having been brought some hours before, by a horseman, from the other side of the island.

"Where is our father?" Maria exclaimed, as Francis entered alone.

"He is well, and sent me on to relieve your minds."

"Saint Mark be praised!" Maria said. "We have been sorely anxious about you both. A messenger, who brought the news, said that it could be seen from the shore that there was a desperate fight on board the pirate ship, which was attacked by one galley only. We felt sure that it would be the ship that the governor was in, and we knew you were with him; and our father was so enraged at what had happened, that we felt sure he would take part in the fight."

"He did so," Francis said, "and himself engaged hand-to-hand with Mocenigo, and would probably have killed him, had not his foot slipped on the deck. I was, of course, by his side, and occupied the villain until a cross bolt pierced his brain. So there is an end to all your trouble with him."

"Is he really dead?" Maria said. "Oh, Francisco, how thankful I am! He seemed so determined, that I began to think he was sure some day to succeed in carrying me off. Not that I would ever have become his wife, for I had vowed to kill myself before that came about. I should have thought he might have known that he could never have forced me to be his wife."

"I told him the same thing," Francis said, "and he replied that he was not afraid of that, for that he should have your sister in his power also, and that he should warn you that, if you laid hands on yourself, he should make her his wife instead of you."

The girls both gave an exclamation of horror.

"I never thought of that," Maria said; "but he would indeed have disarmed me with such a threat. It would have been horrible for me to have been the wife of such a man; but I think I could have borne it rather than have consigned Giulia to such a fate.

"Oh, here is father!"

"I have got away sooner than I expected," Polani said as he entered. "The governor was good enough to beg me to come on at once to you. You have heard all the news, I suppose, and know that our enemy will persecute you no more."

"We have heard, papa, and also that you yourself fought with him, which was very wrong and very rash of you."

"And did he tell you that had it not been for him I should not be here alive now, girls?"

"No, father. He said that when you slipped he occupied Ruggiero's attention until the cross bolt struck him."

"That is what he did, my dear; but had he not occupied his attention I should have been a dead man. The thrust was aimed at me as I fell, and would have pierced me had he not sprung forward and turned it aside, and then engaged in single combat with Mocenigo, who, with all his faults, was brave and a skillful swordsman; and yet, as the governor himself said, probably Francisco would have slain him, even had not the combat ended as it did.

"And now we must have his story in full. I have not heard much about it yet, and you have heard nothing; and I want to know how he managed to get out of the hands of that man, when he had once fallen into them."

"That is what we want to know, too, father. We know what a sharp watch was kept upon us, and I am sure they must have been much more severe with him."

"They were certainly more severe," Francis said smiling, "for my right hand was chained to my left ankle, and the left hand to to my right ankle -- not tightly, you know, but the chain was so short that I could not stand upright. But, on the other hand, I do not think my guards were as vigilant as yours. However, I will tell you the whole story."

The girls listened with rapt attention to the story of the capture, the escape, and of his hiding in the hold of the pirate in order to be able to give them a warning in time.

"Your escape was fortunate, indeed," the merchant said when he had finished. "Fortunate both for you and for us, for I have no doubt that Mocenigo had intended to put you to a lingering death, on his return. As for the girls, nothing could have saved them from the fate he designed for them, save the method which you took of arriving here before him."

"What are we to do for him, father?" Maria exclaimed. "We are not tired of thanking him, but he hates being thanked. If he would only get into some terrible scrape, Giulia and I would set out to rescue him at once; but you see he gets out of his scrapes before we hear of them. It is quite disheartening not to be able to do anything."

Francis laughed merrily.

"It is terrible, is it not, signora? But if I manage to get into any scrape, and have time to summon you to my assistance, be sure I will do so. But, you see, one cannot get into a scrape when one chooses, and I must be content, while I am away, in knowing that I have the good wishes of you and your sister."

"Do not trouble yourself, Maria," her father said. "Some day an opportunity may come for our paying our debts, and in the meantime Francis is content that we should be his debtors."

"And now, what are you going to do, papa?"

"I shall sail with you for Venice tomorrow. The governor will be sending one of the galleys with the news of the capture of the pirate, and doubtless he will give us all a passage in her. I shall order steps to be taken at once for rebuilding the villa, and will get it completed by the spring, before which time you will be off my hands, young lady; and I shall not be altogether sorry, for you have been a very troublesome child lately."

"It has not been my fault," Maria pouted.

"Not at all, my dear. It has been your misfortune, and I am not blaming you at all."

"But the trouble is now over, father!"

"So much the better for Rufino," the merchant said. "It will be good news to him that you are freed from the persecution of Ruggiero. And now, I must leave you, for I have arranged to ride over with the governor to the other side of the island. He has to investigate the damage which took place last evening. I hear that upwards of a score of villas were sacked and destroyed, and that many persons were killed; and while he is doing that I shall see what has to be done at our place. I don't know whether the walls are standing, or whether it will have to be entirely rebuilt, and I must arrange with some builder to to go over from here with me, and take my instructions as to what must be done."

On the following day the party set sail for Venice, where they arrived without adventure. Preparations were at once begun for the marriage of Maria with Rufino Giustiniani, and six weeks later the wedding ceremony took place. Francis did not go to sea until this was over, for when he spoke of a fresh voyage, a short time after their return, Maria declared that she would not be married unless he remained to be present.

"You have got me out of all my scrapes hitherto, Francisco, and you must see me safely through this."

As Signor Polani also declared that it was not to be thought of, that Francis should leave until after the marriage, he was obliged to remain for it. He was glad, however, when it was over, for he found the time on shore more tedious than usual. The girls were taken up with the preparations for the ceremony, and visitors were constantly coming and going, and the house was not like itself.

But even when the marriage was over, he was forced to remain some time longer in Venice. The Genoese fleets were keeping the sea, and Pisani had not, since the battle of Antium, succeeded in coming up with them. The consequence was that commerce was at a standstill, for the risk of capture was so great that the merchants ceased to send their ships to sea.

"The profit would not repay us for the risk, Francisco," the merchant said one day when they were talking over it. "If only one cargo in ten fell into their hands the profit off the other nine would be swept away; but as I see that you are longing to be afloat again, you can, if you like, join one of the state galleys which start next week to reinforce Pisani's fleet.

"The last time Pisani wrote to me he said how glad he should be to have you with him; and after your service at Antium, I have no doubt whatever that I could procure for you a post as second in command in one of the ships. What do you say?"

"I should certainly like it, signor, greatly; but, as you said before, it would be a mere waste of time for me to take service with the state, when I am determined upon the vocation of a merchant."

"I did say that, Francis, and meant it at the time; but at present trade is, as you see, at a standstill, so you would not be losing time, and, in the next place, it is always an advantage, even to a trader, to stand well with the state. Here in Venice all the great merchants are of noble family, and trade is no bar to occupying the highest offices of the state. Many of our doges have been merchants; while merchants are often soldiers, diplomatists, or governors, as the state requires their services.

"You have already, you see, obtained considerable benefit by the action at Antium. I do not say that you would derive any direct benefit, even were you to distinguish yourself again as highly as on that occasion. Still, it is always well to gain the consideration of your fellows, and to be popular with the people. Therefore, if you would like to take service with the state until this affair is decided with Genoa, and the seas are again open to our ships, I think it will be advantageous to you rather than not."

"Then, with your permission I will certainly do so, signor," Francis said. "Of course I should prefer to go as an officer on board one of the ships; but if not, I will go as a volunteer."

"You need not fear about that, Francis. With my influence, and that of the Giustiniani, and the repute you have gained for yourself, you may be sure of an appointment. Rufino would have commanded one of the ships had it not been for his marriage."

Rufino Giustiniani had indeed been most warm in his expressions of gratitude to Francis, to whom the whole family had shown the greatest attention, giving him many presents as a proof of their goodwill and gratitude.

"I am quite jealous of your English friend," Rufino had said one day to Maria. "I do believe, Maria, that you care for him more than you do for me. It is lucky for me that he is not two or three years older."

Maria laughed.

"I do care for him dearly; and if he had been, as you say, older and had fallen in love with me, I can't say how it would have been. You must acknowledge, it would be very hard to say no to a man who keeps on saving you from frightful peril; but then, you see, a girl can't fall in love with a man who does not fall in love with her.

"Francisco is so different from us Venetians. He always says just what he thinks, and never pays anyone even the least bit of a compliment. How can you fall in love with a man like that? Of course you can love him like a brother -- and I do love Francisco as if he were my brother -- but I don't think we should have got further than that, if he had been ever so old."

"And does Francis never pay you compliments, Giulia?"

"Never!" Giulia said decidedly. "It would be hateful of him if he did."

"But Maria doesn't object to compliments, Giulia. She looks for them as if they were her daily bread -- 

"Don't you, Maria -- 

"You will have to learn to put up with them soon, Giulia, for you will be out in society now, and the young men will crowd round your chair, just as they have done round that of this little flirt, your sister."

"I shall have to put up with it, I suppose," Giulia said quietly, "just as one puts up with other annoyances. But I should certainly never get to care for anyone who thinks so little of me, as to believe that I could be pleased by being addressed in such terms."

"From which I gather," Giustiniani said, smiling, "that this English lad's bluntness of speech pleases you more than it does Maria?"

"It pleases Maria, too," Giulia said, "though she may choose to say that it doesn't. And I don't think it quite right to discuss him at all, when we all owe him as much as we do."

Giustiniani glanced at Maria and gave a little significant nod.

"I do not think Giulia regards Francisco in quite the brotherly way that you do, Maria," he whispered presently to her.

"Perhaps not," Maria answered. "You see, she had not fallen in love with you before she met him. But I do not know. Giulia seldom speaks of him when we are alone, and if she did, you don't suppose I should tell you my sister's secrets, sir?"

The day after his conversation with Francis, Polani handed him his nomination as second in command of the Pluto, which he had obtained that morning from the seignory.

"You will be glad to hear that it is in this ship that Matteo also sails," for Matteo had come home for his brother's wedding.

"I am very glad of that," Francis said. "I wish that poor Giuseppi was also here to go with me. I shall miss him terribly. He was a most faithful and devoted follower."

"I have already sent orders, to my agent in Tunis, to spare no pains in discovering to whom the crew of the Naxos were sold. It is unfortunate that so many other captives were sold at the same time, as it will make it so much more difficult to trace our men. Those purchasing are not likely to know more than their first names, and may not even take the trouble to find out those, but may give them the first appellation that comes to hand. Therefore he has to find out who are now the masters of the whole of the captives sold at the same time, and then to pursue his investigations until he discovers the identity of the men he is looking for. Once he has found this, I will promise you there will be no delay. I have ordered him to make the best bargain in each case he can, but that at any rate he is to buy every one of them, whatever it may cost.

"I have sent him the personal descriptions of each man of the boat's crew, as given to me by their friends and relatives here, as this will be an assistance in his search. If, for instance, he hears of a Christian slave named Giuseppi living with a master some hundreds of miles in the interior, the fact that this man is middle aged will show at once that he was not the Giuseppi, age 20, of whom he is in search. I have particularly impressed upon him, in my letter, that we were especially anxious for the rescue of the captain, and the young man Giuseppi, so I hope that by the time you return from the voyage, I may have received some news of them."

Matteo was greatly pleased when he heard that he was going to sail under Francis.

"I would rather that we had both been volunteers," Francis said. "It seems absurd my being appointed second officer, while you as yet have no official position."

"I am not in the least bit in the world jealous, Francisco. With the exception of taking part in the fight at Antium, I have had no experience whatever, while you have been going through all sorts of adventures for the last two years, and always have come out of them marvellously well."

An hour after Matteo left him, a retainer of the family brought Francis a letter from Signor Giustiniani, inviting him to come to his house that evening, as many of Matteo's comrades on board the Pluto would be present. On Francis going to the palace he found assembled, not only the young men who would be Matteo's comrades as volunteers, but also the captain and other officers of the ship; and to them Signor Giustiniani personally presented Francis, while Rufino and Matteo did all they could to ensure the heartiest welcome for him, by telling everyone how greatly they were indebted to him, and how gallantly he had behaved on several occasions.

Many of the young men he already knew as Matteo's friends, and by them he was received with the greatest cordiality; but his reception by the captain, and one or two of the other officers, was much more cool. The captain, whose name was Carlo Bottini, was a distant connection of the Mocenigo family, and was therefore already prejudiced against Francis. The coolness of the other officers was due to the fact that Francis, a foreigner and several years junior to themselves, had been placed in command over their heads.



Chapter 15: The Battle Of Pola.


The squadron, consisting of four galleys, sailed for Cyprus; where Pisani had just endeavoured, without success, to expel the Genoese from Famagosta. It was towards the end of August that they effected a junction with his fleet. Pisani received Francis with great warmth, and, in the presence of many officers, remarked that he was glad to see that the republic was, at last, appointing men for their merits, and not, as heretofore, allowing family connection and influence to be the chief passport to their favour.

For two months the fleet sailed among the islands of the Levant, and along the shores of Greece, Istria, and Dalmatia; hoping to find the Genoese fleet, but altogether without success. In November, when they were on the coast of Istria, winter set in with extraordinary severity, and the frost was intense. Pisani wrote to his government asking permission to bring the fleet into Venice until the spring. The seignory, however, refused his request, for they feared that, were it known that their fleet had come into port for the winter, the Genoese would take advantage of its absence to seize upon some of the islands belonging to Venice, and to induce the inhabitants of the cities of Istria and Dalmatia, always ready for revolt, to declare against her.

The first indications of the winter were more than verified. The cold was altogether extraordinary; and out of the nineteen galleys of Pisani, only six were fit to take the sea, with their full complement of men, when the spring of 1379 began. Many of the vessels had been disabled by storms. Numbers of the men had died, more had been sent home invalided, and it was only by transferring the men from the other vessels to the six in the best condition, that the crews of the latter were made up to their full strength.

As soon as the terrible frost broke, Pisani received a reinforcement of twelve ships from Venice, these being, for the most part, built and equipped at the cost of his personal friends, Polani having contributed two of the number. With the eighteen sail, Pisani put to sea to prosecute a fresh search for the Genoese admiral, Doria, and his fleet.

The Pluto was one of the six vessels which remained in good condition at the end of the winter, thanks, in no small degree, to the energy and care which Francis had bestowed in looking after the welfare of the crew. In the most bitter weather, he had himself landed with the boats, to see that firewood was cut and brought off in abundance, not only for the officers' cabins, but to warm that portion of the ship inhabited by the men. Knowing that Polani would not grudge any sum which might be required, he obtained from his agents ample supplies of warm clothing and bedding for the men, occupying himself incessantly for their welfare, while the captain and other officers passed their time in their warm and comfortable cabins. Francis induced Matteo, and several of his comrades, to brave the weather as he did, and to exert themselves for the benefit of the men; and the consequence was, that while but few of the other ships retained enough men to raise their sails in case of emergency, the strength of the crew of the Pluto was scarcely impaired at the termination of the winter.

The admiral, on paying a visit of inspection to the ship, was greatly struck with the contrast which the appearance of the crew afforded to that of the other galleys, and warmly complimented the commander on the condition of his men. The captain received the praise as if it was entirely due to himself, and said not a single word of the share which Francis had had in bringing it about. Matteo was most indignant at this injustice towards his friend, and managed that, through a relative serving in the admiral's own ship, a true report of the case should come to Pisani's ears.

Francis was in no way troubled at the captain's appropriation of the praise due to himself. There had not, from the time he sailed, been any cordiality between Francis and the other officers. These had been selected for the position solely from family influence, and none of them were acquainted with the working of a ship.

In those days, not only in Venice but in other countries, naval battles were fought by soldiers rather than sailors. Nobles and knights, with their retainers, embarked on board a ship for the purpose of fighting, and of fighting only, the management of the vessel being carried on entirely by sailors under their own officers. Thus, neither the commander of the force on board the galley, nor any of his officers, with the exception of Francis, knew anything whatever about the management of the ship, nor were capable of giving orders to the crew. Among the latter were some who had sailed with Francis in his first two voyages, and these gave so excellent a report of him to the rest, that they were from the first ready to obey his orders as promptly as those of their own sub-officer.

Francis concerned himself but little with the ill will that was shown him by the officers. He knew that it arose from jealousy, not only of the promotion he, a foreigner and a junior in years, had received over them, but of the fact that he had already received the thanks of the republic for the services he had rendered, and stood high in the favour of the admiral, who never lost an opportunity of showing the interest he had in him. Had the hostility shown itself in any offensive degree Francis would at once have resented it; but Matteo, and some of those on board, who had been his comrades in the fencing rooms, had given such reports of his powers with his weapons, that even those most opposed to him thought it prudent to observe a demeanour of outward politeness towards him.

For three months the search for the Genoese fleet was ineffectual. A trip had been made along the coast of Apulia, and the fleet had returned to Pola with a large convoy of merchant ships loaded with grain, when on the 7th of May Doria appeared off the port, with twenty-five sail.

But Pisani was now by no means anxious to fight. Zeno was away with a portion of the fleet, and although he had received reinforcements, he numbered but twenty-one vessels, and a number of his men were laid up with sickness. The admiral, however, was not free to follow out the dictates of his own opinions. The Venetians had a mischievous habit, which was afterwards adopted by the French republic, of fettering their commanders by sea and land by appointing civilian commissioners, or, as they were termed in Venice, proveditors, who had power to overrule the nominal commander. When, therefore, Pisani assembled a council of war, and informed them of his reasons for wishing to remain on the defensive until the return of Zeno, he was overruled by the proveditors, who not only announced themselves unanimously in favour of battle, but sneered at Pisani's prudence as being the result of cowardice. Pisani in his indignation drew his sword, and would have attacked the proveditors on the spot, had he not been restrained by his captains.

However, the council decided upon instant battle, and Pisani was forced, by the rules of the service, at once to carry their decision into effect. Ascending the poop of his galley, he addressed in a loud voice the crews of the ships gathered around him.

"Remember, my brethren, that those who will now face you, are the same whom you vanquished with so much glory on the Roman shore. Do not let the name of Luciano Doria terrify you. It is not the names of commanders that will decide the conflict, but Venetian hearts and Venetian hands. Let him that loves Saint Mark follow me."

The men received the address with a shout, and as soon as the commanders had regained their galleys, the fleet moved out to attack the enemy. The fight was a furious one, each vessel singling out an opponent and engaging her hand to hand.

Carlo Bottini was killed early in the fight, and Francis succeeded to the command. His galley had grappled with one of the largest of the Genoese vessels, and a desperate conflict went on. Sometimes the Venetians gained a footing on the deck of the Genoese, sometimes they were driven back, and the Genoese in turn poured on board, but no decisive advantage was gained on either side after an hour's fighting. The Genoese crew was numerically much stronger than that of the Pluto, and although Francis, with Matteo and his comrades, headed their men and cheered them on, they could make no impression on the ranks of the enemy.

Suddenly, the Genoese threw off the grapnels that attached the two ships, and hoisting their sails, sheered off. Francis looked round to see the cause of this sudden manoeuvre, and perceived for the first time that the Genoese vessels were all in flight, with the Venetians pressing closely upon them. Sails were at once hoisted, and the Pluto joined in the chase.

But the flight was a feigned one, and it was only designed to throw the Venetian rank into confusion. After sailing for two miles, the Genoese suddenly turned, and fell upon their pursuers as they came up in straggling order.

The result was decisive. Many of the Venetian ships were captured before the rest came up to take part in the battle. Others were hemmed in by numerous foes. Pisani, after fighting until he saw that all was lost, made the signal for the ships to withdraw from the conflict, and he himself, with six galleys, succeeded in fighting his way through the enemy's fleet, and gained a refuge in the port of Parenzo.

All the rest were taken. From seven to eight hundred Venetians perished in the fight, two thousand four hundred were taken prisoners, twelve commanders were killed, and five captured. The Genoese losses were also severe, and Doria himself was among the slain, having been killed by a spear thrust by Donato Zeno, commander of one of the galleys, almost at the moment of victory.

The Pluto had defended herself, for a long time, against the attacks of three of the Genoese galleys, and had repeatedly endeavoured to force her way out of the throng, but the Genoese held her fast with their grapnels, and at last the greater part of her crew were driven down below, and Francis, seeing the uselessness of further resistance, ordered the little group, who were now completely pent in by the Genoese, to lower their weapons. All were more or less severely wounded, and were bleeding from sword cuts and thrusts.

"This is an evil day for Venice," Matteo said, as, having been deprived of their weapons, the prisoners were thrust below. "I heard the Genoese say that only six of our galleys have escaped, all the rest have been taken. We were the last ship to surrender, that's a comfort anyhow."

"Now, Matteo, before you do anything else, let me bind up your wounds. You are bleeding in two or three places."

"And you are bleeding from something like a dozen, Francisco, so you had better let me play the doctor first."

"The captain is always served last, so do as you are told, and strip off your doublet.

"Now, gentlemen," he said, turning to the other officers, "let each of us do what we can to dress the wounds of others. We can expect no care from the Genoese leeches, who will have their hands full, for a long time to come, with their own men. There are some among us who will soon bleed to death, unless their wounds are staunched. Let us, therefore, take the most serious cases first, and so on in rotation until all have been attended to."

It was fortunate for them that in the hold, in which they were confined, there were some casks of water; for, for hours the Genoese paid no attention whatever to their prisoners, and the wounded were beginning to suffer agonies of thirst, when the barrels were fortunately discovered. The head of one was knocked in, and some shallow tubs, used for serving the water to the crew, filled, and the men knelt down and drank by turns from these. Many were too enfeebled by their wounds to rise, and their thirst was assuaged by dipping articles of clothing into the water, and letting the fluid from these run into their mouths.

It was not until next morning that the prisoners were ordered to come on deck. Many had died during the night. Others were too weak to obey the summons. The names of the rest were taken, and not a little surprise was expressed, by the Genoese officers, at the extreme youth of the officer in command of the Pluto.

"I was only the second in command," Francis said in answer to their questions. "Carlo Bottini was in command of the ship, but he was killed at the commencement of the fight."

"But how is it that one so young came to be second? You must belong to some great family to have been thus pushed forward above men so much your senior.

"It was a wise choice nevertheless," the commander of one of the galleys which had been engaged with the Pluto said, "for it is but justice to own that no ship was better handled, or fought, in the Venetian fleet. They were engaged with us first, and for over an hour they fought us on fair terms, yielding no foot of ground, although we had far more men than they carried. I noticed this youth fighting always in the front line with the Venetians, and marvelled at the strength and dexterity with which he used his weapons, and afterwards, when there were three of us around him, he fought like a boar surrounded by hounds. I am sure he is a brave youth, and well worthy the position he held, to whatsoever he owed it."

"I belong to no noble family of Venice," Francis said. "My name is Francis Hammond, and my parents are English."

"You are not a mercenary, I trust?" the Genoese captain asked earnestly.

"I am not," Francis replied. "I am a citizen of Venice, and my name is inscribed in her books, as my comrades will vouch."

"Right glad am I that it is so," the Genoese said, "for Pietro Doria, who is now, by the death of his brother, in chief command, has ordered that every mercenary found among the prisoners shall today be slain."

"It is a brutal order," Francis said fearlessly, "whosoever may have given it! A mercenary taken in fair fight has as much right to be held for ransom or fair exchange as any other prisoner; and if your admiral thus breaks the laws of war, there is not a free lance, from one end of Italy to the other, but will take it up as a personal quarrel."

The Genoese frowned at the boldness with which Francis spoke, but at heart agreed in the sentiments he expressed; for among the Genoese officers, generally, there was a feeling that this brutal execution in cold blood was an impolitic, as well as a disgraceful deed.

The officers were now placed in the fore hold of the ship, the crew being confined in the after hold. Soon afterwards, they knew by the motion of the vessel that sail had been put on her.

"So we are on our way to a Genoese prison, Francisco," Matteo said. "We had a narrow escape of it before, but this time I suppose it is our fate."

"There is certainly no hope of rescue, Matteo. It is too early, as yet, to say whether there is any hope of escape. The prospect looked darker when I was in the hands of Ruggiero, but I managed to get away. Then I was alone and closely guarded, now we have in the ship well nigh two hundred friends; prisoners like ourselves, it is true, but still to be counted on. Then, too, the Genoese are no doubt so elated with their triumph, that they are hardly likely to keep a very vigilant guard over us. Altogether, I should say that the chances are in our favour. Were I sure that the Pluto is sailing alone, I should be very confident that we might retake her, but probably the fifteen captured ships are sailing in company, and would at once come to the aid of their comrades here, directly they saw any signs of a conflict going on, and we could hardly hope to recapture the ship without making some noise over it."

"I should think not," Matteo agreed.

"Then again, Matteo, even if we find it impossible to get at the crew, and with them to recapture the ship, some chance may occur by which you and I may manage to make our escape."

"If you say so, Francisco, I at once believe it. You got us all out of the scrape down at Girgenti. You got Polani's daughters out of a worse scrape when they were captives on San Nicolo; and got yourself out of the worst scrape of all when you escaped from the grip of Ruggiero Mocenigo. Therefore, when you say that there is a fair chance of escape out of this business, I look upon it as almost as good as done."

"It is a long way from that, Matteo," Francis laughed. "Still, I hope we may manage it somehow. I have the greatest horror of a Genoese prison, for it is notorious that they treat their prisoners of war shamefully, and I certainly do not mean to enter one, if there is the slightest chance of avoiding it. But for today, Matteo, I shall not even begin to think about it. In the first place, my head aches with the various thumps it has had; in the second, I feel weak from loss of blood; and in the third, my wounds smart most amazingly."

"So do mine," Matteo agreed. "In addition, I am hungry, for the bread they gave us this morning was not fit for dogs, although I had to eat it, as it was that or nothing."

"And now, Matteo, I shall try to get a few hours' sleep. I did not close my eyes last night, from the pain of my wounds, but I think I might manage to drop off now."

The motion of the vessel aided the effect of the bodily weakness that Francis was feeling, and in spite of the pain of his wounds he soon went off into a sound sleep. Once or twice he woke, but hearing no voices or movement, he supposed his companions were all asleep, and again went off, until a stream of light coming in from the opening of the hatchway thoroughly roused him. Matteo, who was lying by his side, also woke and stretched himself, and there was a general movement among the ten young men who were their comrades in misfortune.

"Here is your breakfast," a voice from above the hatchway said, and a basket containing bread and a bucket of water was lowered by ropes.

"Breakfast!" Matteo said. "Why, it is not two hours since we breakfasted last."

"I suspect it is twenty-two, Matteo. We have had a very long sleep, and I feel all the better of it. Now, let us divide the liberal breakfast our captors have given us; fortunately there is just enough light coming down from those scuttles to enable us to do so fairly."

There was a general laugh, from his comrades, at the cheerful way in which Francis spoke. Only one of them had been an officer on the Pluto. The rest were, like Matteo, volunteers of good families. There was a good deal of light-hearted jesting over their meal. When it was over, Francis said:

"Now let us hold a council of war."

"You are better off than Pisani was, anyhow," one of the young men said, "for you are not hampered with proveditors, and anything that your captaincy may suggest will, you may be sure, receive our assent."

"I am your captain no longer," Francis replied. "We are all prisoners now, and equal, and each one has a free voice and a free vote."

"Then I give my voice and vote at once, Francisco," Matteo said, "to the proposal that you remain our captain, and that we obey you, as cheerfully and willingly as we should if you were on the poop of the Pluto, instead of being in the hold. In the first place, at Carlo's death you became our captain by right, so long as we remain together; and in the second place you have more experience than all of us put together, and a very much better head than most of us, myself included.

"Therefore, comrades, I vote that Messer Francisco Hammond be still regarded as our captain, and obeyed as such."

There was a general chorus of assent, for the energy which Francis had displayed throughout the trying winter, and the manner in which he had led the crew during the desperate fighting, had won for him the regard and the respect of them all.

"Very well, then," Francis said. "If you wish it so I will remain your leader, but we will nevertheless hold our council of war. The question which I shall first present to your consideration is, which is the best way to set about retaking the Pluto?"

There was a burst of laughter among the young men. The matter of fact way in which Francis proposed, what seemed to them an impossibility, amused them immensely.

"I am quite in earnest," Francis went on, when the laughter had subsided. "If it is possibly to be done, I mean to retake the Pluto, and I have very little doubt that it is possible, if we set about it in the right way. In the first place, we may take it as absolutely certain that we very considerably outnumber the Genoese on board. They must have suffered in the battle almost as much as we did, and have had nearly as many killed and wounded. In the second place, if Doria intends to profit by his victory, he must have retained a fair amount of fighting men on board each of his galleys, and, weakened as his force was by the losses of the action, he can spare but a comparatively small force on board each of the fifteen captured galleys. I should think it probable that there are not more than fifty men in charge of the Pluto, and we number fully three times that force. The mere fact that they let down our food to us by ropes, instead of bringing it down, showed a consciousness of weakness."

"What you say is quite true," Paolo Parucchi, the other officer of the Pluto, said; "but they are fifty well-armed men, and we are a hundred and fifty without arms, and shut down in the hold, to which must be added the fact that we are cut off from our men, and our men from us. They are, as it were, without a head to plan, while we are without arms to strike."

A murmur of approval was heard among some of the young men.

"I do not suppose that there are no difficulties in our way," Francis said quietly; "or that we have only, next time the hatch is opened, to say to those above, 'Gentlemen of Genoa, we are more numerous than you are, and we therefore request you to change places with us immediately.' All I have asserted, so far, is that we are sufficiently strong to retake the ship, if we get the opportunity. What we have now to settle, is how that opportunity is to come about.

"To begin with, has anyone a dagger or knife which has escaped the eye of our searchers?"

No one replied.

"I was afraid that nothing had escaped the vigilance of those who appropriated our belongings. As, however, we have no weapons or tools, the next thing is to see what there is, in the hold, which can be turned to account. It is fortunate we are on board the Pluto, instead of being transferred to another ship, as we already know all about her. There are some iron bolts driven in along a beam at the farther end. They have been used, I suppose, at some time or other for hanging the carcasses of animals from. Let us see whether there is any chance of getting some of them out."

The iron pegs, however, were so firmly driven into the beam, that all their efforts failed to move them in the slightest.

"We will give that up for the present," Francis said, "and look round for something more available."

But with the exception of the water casks, the closest search failed to find anything in the hold.

"I do not know whether the iron hoops of a cask would be of any use," Matteo said.

"Certainly they would be of use, if we get them off, Matteo."

"There is no difficulty about that," one of the others said, examining the casks closely. "This is an empty one, and the hoops seem quite loose."

In a few minutes, four iron hoops were taken off the cask.

"After all," Matteo said, "they cannot be of much use. The iron is rust eaten, and they would break in our hands before going into any one."

"They would certainly be useless as daggers, Matteo, but I think that with care they will act as saws. Break off a length of about a foot.

"Now straighten it, and tear a piece off your doublet and wrap it round and round one end, so that you can hold it. Now just try it on the edge of a beam."

"It certainly cuts," Matteo announced after a trial, "but not very fast."

"So that it cuts at all, we may be very well content," Francis said cheerfully. "We have got a week, at least, to work in; and if the wind is not favourable, we may have a month. Let us therefore break the hoops up into pieces of the right length. We must use them carefully, for we may expect to have many breakages."

"What next, captain?"

"Our object will, of course, be to cut through into the main hold, which separates us from the crew. There we shall probably find plenty of weapons. But to use our saws, we must first find a hole in the bulkhead. First of all, then, let there be a strict search made for a knothole, or any other hole through the bulkhead."

It was too dark for eyes to be of much use, but hands were run all over the bulkhead. But no hole, however small, was discovered.

"It is clear, then," Francis said, "that the first thing to do is to cut out some of those iron bolts. Pick out those that are nearest to the lower side of the beam, say three of them. There are twelve of us. That will give four to each bolt, and we can relieve each other every few minutes. Remember, it is patience that is required, and not strength."

The work was at once begun. The young men had, by this time, fully entered into the spirit of the attempt. The quiet and businesslike way, in which their leader set about it, convinced them that he at least had a firm belief that the work was possible; and there was a hope, even if but a remote one, of avoiding the dreaded dungeons of Genoa.

The work was slow, and two or three of the strips of iron were at first broken, by the too great eagerness of their holders; but when it was found that, by using them lightly, the edges gradually cut their way into the wood, the work went on regularly. The Pluto had been hurriedly constructed, and any timbers that were available in the emergency were utilized. Consequently much soft wood, that at other times would never have been found in the state dockyards, was put into her. The beam at which they were working was of soft timber, and a fine dust fell steadily, as the rough iron was sawed backward and forward upon it.

Two cuts were made under each bolt, wide at the base and converging towards it. The saws were kept going the whole day, and although the progress was slow, it was fast enough to encourage them; and just as the light, that came through the scuttle, faded away; three of the young men hung their weight upon one of the bolts, and the wood beneath it, already almost severed, gave; and a suppressed cry of satisfaction announced that one bolt was free.

The pieces of iron were two feet long, and were intended for some other purpose, but had been driven in when, on loading the ship, some strong pegs on which to hang carcasses were required. They were driven about three inches into the beam, and could have been cut out with an ordinary saw in two or three minutes.

"Try the others," Francis said. "As many of you get hold of them as can put your hands on."

The effort was made, and the other two bolts were got out. They had been roughly sharpened at the end, and were fully an inch across.

"They do not make bad weapons," Matteo said.

"It is not as weapons that we want them, Matteo. They will be more useful to us than any weapons, except, indeed, a good axe. We shall want at least three more. Therefore, I propose that we continue our work at once. We will divide into watches now. It will be twelve hours before we get our allowance of bread again, therefore that will give three hours' work, and nine hours' sleep to each. They will be just setting the first watch on deck, and, as we shall hear them changed, it will give us a good idea how the time is passing."

"I am ready to work all night, myself," Matteo said. "At first I had not much faith in what we were doing; but now that we have got three of these irons out, I am ready to go on working until I drop."

"You will find, Matteo, that your arms will ache, so that you cannot hold them up, before the end of the three hours. Sawing like that, with your arms above your head, is most fatiguing; and even the short spells of work we have been having made my arms ache. However, each must do as much as he can in his three hours; and as we are working in the dark, we must work slowly and carefully, or we shall break our tools."

"Fortunately, we can get more hoops off now if we want them," Matteo said. "With these irons we can wrench them off the sound casks, if necessary."

"Yes; I did not think of that, Matteo. You see we are already getting a stock of tools. Another thing is, with the point of the irons we have got off, we can wrench the wood out as fast as we saw it, and the saws will not work so stiffly as they did before. But we must not do that till the morning, for any sound like the breaking of wood might be heard by the watch, when everything is quiet."

Although all worked their best, they made but slight progress in the dark, and each worker was forced to take frequent rests, for the fatigue of working with their arms above their heads was excessive. As soon, however, as the light began to steal down, and the movement above head told them that the crew were at work washing the decks, the points of the irons were used to wrench away the wood between the saw cuts; and the work then proceeded briskly, as they relieved each other every few minutes.

At last, to their intense satisfaction, three more irons were got out.

"If anyone had told me," one of the party said, "that a man's arms could hurt as much as mine do, from working a few hours, I should have disbelieved him."

There was a chorus of assent, for none were accustomed to hard manual labour, and the pain in their arms was excessive.

"Let us have half an hour's rest, Francis, before you issue your next orders. I shall want that, at least, before I feel that I have any power in my arms at all."

"We will have an hour's rest, Matteo, if you like. Before that time they will be sending us down our food, and after we have breakfasted we can set to work again."

"Breakfast!" one of the young men groaned. "I cannot call that black bread and water breakfast. When I think of the breakfasts I have eaten, when I think of the dishes I have refused to eat, because they were not cooked to perfection, I groan over my folly in those days, and my enormous stupidity in ever volunteering to come to sea."

"I should recommend you all," Francis said, "to spend the next hour in rubbing and squeezing the muscles of your neighbours' arms and shoulders. It is the best way for taking out stiffness, and Giuseppi used to give me relief that way, when I was stiff with fencing."

The idea was adopted; and while the rest were at work in the manner he suggested, Francis, taking one of the irons, went to the bulkhead. One by one he tried the planks, from the floor boards to the beams above.

"Well, captain, what is your report?" Matteo asked as he joined the rest.

"My report is a most favourable one," Francis said. "By great good luck, the planks are nailed from the other side against the beams both above and below."

"What difference does that make, Francisco?"

"All the difference in the world. Had they been nailed on this side, there would have been nothing for it but to carry out our original plan -- that is, to make holes through the planks with these irons, large enough for the saws to go through, and then to saw the wood out from hole to hole. As it is, I believe that with five minutes' work we could wrench a plank away. We have only to push the points of the irons up, between the beams and the planks, and use them as levers. The nails will be strong, indeed, if those irons, with two of us at each, would not wrench them out."

The young men all leapt to their feet, pains and aches quite forgotten in the excitement of this unexpected news, and six of them seized hold of the irons.

"Gently!" Francis said. "You must remember, there may be people going down there at present, getting up stores. Before we venture to disturb a plank, we must make the hole sufficiently large for us to spy through. This will be a very easy affair, in comparison with making a hole large enough for a saw to go through. Still, you will find it will take some time. However, we had better wait, as we agreed, till we have had our food."



Chapter 16: The Recapture Of The Pluto.


As soon as the hatch had been removed, and the bread and water lowered down, and they heard heavy weights again laid on the hatch, two of the party took one of the irons and began to bore a hole, while the others proceeded to eat their food. Several times, the workers had to be relieved. The iron penetrated comparatively easily for a short distance, but beyond that the difficulty greatly increased; and it was fully four hours before one of the workers, applying his eye to the hole, said that he could see a gleam of light through.

In another quarter of an hour, the orifice was sufficiently enlarged to enable a view to be obtained of the central hold. It was comparatively light there, for the hatch was off, and they could see two men at work, opening a cask for some stores that were required.

"We must wait till it gets dark now," Francis said. "I do not think that we shall make much noise, for the nails will be likely to draw quietly; but we had better choose the time between nightfall and the hour for the crew to turn in, as there will be a trampling of feet on deck, and talking and singing, which would prevent any slight noise we might make, being heard."

"The difficulty will be to force the ends of the iron down, between the beams and the planks, so as to give us a purchase," Matteo said.

"I think we shall be able to manage that," Francis replied. "The beams are put in in the rough, and if we hunt carefully, I think we shall find a plank where we can get the irons in far enough, between it and the beam, to give us a hold."

After a careful examination, they fixed upon a plank to operate upon, and, leaving one of the irons there, so that they could find it in the dark, they lay down to sleep, or sat talking until it was dark. Before this, a glance, through the peephole, showed them that the hatch had been placed over the hatchway of the next hold, so that there was little fear of anyone coming down, unless something special was required.

"Now I think we can begin," Francis said, at last. "Do you, Paolo Parucchi, take one of the irons, I will take another, Matteo a third. We cannot possibly work more than three at the foot of a plank, though perhaps, when we have fixed them and put on the strain, two or three more hands may get at the irons; but first we will try with three, and, unless the nails have got a wonderfully firm hold, we shall certainly be able to draw them."

It took some time to fix the irons, to the best advantage, between the planks and the beam.

"Are you both ready?" Francis asked at last. "Then pull."

As Francis had anticipated, the levers did their work, and the nails yielded a little.

"It has sprung half an inch," Francis said, feeling. "Now you keep your irons as they are, while I thrust mine down farther. I have got a fresh hold. Do you shift yours."

Again the effort was made, and this time the nails drew fully two inches. Another effort, and the plank was completely free at the lower end.

"Now do you push against it as hard as you can," Francis said, "while I get my iron in between it and the beam above."

The upper nails yielded even more easily than those below.

"No farther," Francis said, when they had fairly started them, "or the plank will be falling with a crash. We must push from the bottom now, until it gives sufficiently far for you to get an iron down each side, to prevent its closing again."

"Now," he said, "push the irons higher up. That is right. Now I will loosen a bit farther at the top, and then you will be able to get your hands in at the bottom to steady it, and prevent its falling when the nails are quite drawn."

Another effort, and the plank was free, and, being drawn in, was laid down. The delight of those who were standing in the dark, and could only judge how matters were going on from Francis's low spoken orders, was extreme.

"Can we get through?"

"No," Francis replied. "It will be necessary to remove another plank first, but perhaps one of the slighter among you might manage to squeeze through, and hold the plank at the back. We shall be able to work with more freedom, if we know that there is no danger of its falling."

In a few minutes, the second plank was laid beside the first.

"What is to be done next?" Matteo asked.

"We must establish a communication with the sailors. I will take a working party of four. Paolo Parucchi, with four others, will relieve me. You, Matteo, will with the rest take the last spell. When we have entered the next compartment, we will put up the planks again, and press the nails in tightly enough to prevent their falling. Should, by some chance, anyone descend into the hold while we are working, we shall be hidden from their view. At the other end there are a number of sacks piled up, and we shall be working behind them."

Francis, and the men he had chosen, made their way to the pile of arms they had observed through their peephole, moving with great precaution, so as to avoid falling over anything. Here, with some trouble, they succeeded in finding a dagger among the heap, and they then felt their way on, until they reached the pile of sacks. These were packed to within a foot of the deck beams, and there was but just room for them to crawl in at the top.

"Whatever you do, do not bump against the beams," Francis said. "Any noise of that sort, from below, would at once excite attention. Now do you be quiet, while I find a spot to begin upon."

Commencing at a junction of two planks, Francis began, with the dagger, to cut a hole of some three or four inches across, but tapering rapidly as it went in. After waiting for some ten minutes, he touched the man lying next to him, placed his hand on the hole he had begun, and then moved aside to allow him to continue the work.

In an hour a hole was made in a two inch plank, and this was soon enlarged until it was an inch in diameter. Lying along the side of the bulkhead, so as to get his ear to the hole, Francis listened, but could hear no sound within. Then he put his mouth to the orifice and asked:

"Are you all asleep there?"

Then he listened again. Some of the men were speaking, and asking each other who it was that had suddenly spoken. No one replied; and some of them gave vent to angry threats, against whoever it might be who had just disturbed them from going off to sleep.

Directly the voices ceased again, Francis said:

"Let us have silence in there. Where is Rinaldo, the boatswain?"

"I am here," a voice replied; "but who is speaking? It sounds like the voice of Messer Hammond."

"It is my voice, Rinaldo. We have worked through from the hold at the other end of the ship, having removed some of the planks of the bulkhead. Now it is for you to do the same. We will pass you some daggers through, when we have made this hole a bit larger. You must choose one of the planks in the corner, as this will be less likely to be observed."

"They will not observe us, Messer Hammond. They never come down here at all, but pass our food down in buckets."

"Nevertheless, begin at the plank next to the side," Francis said. "Possibly someone may come down before you have finished. You will have to remove two planks to get through. I will pass a javelin through. You can set to work with it, and bore holes through the plank close to the floor; and then, with the dagger, cut away the wood between them. When you have done them, set to at the top, close to the beams, and cut the two planks through there. There are sacks of grain piled up against them on this side, so that there is no fear of your being observed from here. The work must be carried on perfectly noiselessly, the men relieving each other every few minutes.

"When the planks are cut through, replace them in their former positions, and wedge some small pieces of wood in, so that there shall be no chance of their falling. You ought to finish the work by tomorrow. When you have done it, take no farther step until you get orders from me. It would not do to rise now, for we may be surrounded by other ships, and if we overpowered the crew, we should at once be attacked and recaptured by them. You will, therefore, remain quiet until you have orders, whether it be one day or ten. All the arms they have taken from us are lying piled here, and when the time comes, we shall have no difficulty in overpowering the Genoese, and shall, I hope, bring the Pluto safely to anchor in the port of Venice before long."

There was a murmur of delight among the sailors, pent up in their close quarters. Francis listened a moment, and heard one of the men say:

"What did I tell you? Didn't I tell you that Messer Hammond got us all out of a scrape before, when our ship was captured by the Genoese, and that I would be bound he would do the same again, if he had but the shadow of a chance."

"You did, Pietro, and you have turned out right. That is the sort of fellow to have for a captain. He is not like one of those dainty young nobles, who don't know one rope's end from another, and who turn up their noses at the thought of dirtying their hands. See how he looked after us through the winter. I wish we could give a cheer for him, but that would never do. But when we are out of this, I will give him the loudest shout I ever gave yet.

"Now then, Rinaldo, let us set to work without a moment's delay. There's a chance we aren't going to rot in the dungeons of Genoa, after all."

Convinced that the work would be carried on in accordance with his orders, Francis withdrew his ear from the hole, and, crawling over the sacks again, made his way to the pile of arms, felt about until he found two javelins, and taking these back, passed them one after the other through the hole.

"We have done our share now," he said to his comrades. "Paolo and his party will find it a comparatively easy task to enlarge the hole sufficiently to pass the daggers through."

The party returned to the other end of the hold, removed the planks, and joined their friends. The next watch had arranged to lie down close to the planks, so that they could be aroused without waking the others.

They were soon on their feet. Francis explained to Parucchi the progress they had made, and the orders that had been given to the sailors as to what they were to do.

"When the hole is large enough, pass these five daggers in to the crew, and then come back again. I will guide you to the spot, and on my return will pick out half a dozen more daggers, in case we want them for further work."

When daylight made its way into the hold, Matteo and his watch woke, and were astonished to find that all their comrades were quietly asleep, and that they had not been awakened. Matteo could not restrain his curiosity, but woke Francis:

"Has anything gone wrong, Francis? It is daylight, and Parucchi's party, as well as yours, are all asleep, while we have not been roused!"

"Everything is going on well, Matteo, and we did not wake you, because there was nothing for you to do. We have already passed in knives and javelins to the sailors, and they are at work cutting through two planks in their bulkhead; after which we shall be able to meet in the next hold, arm ourselves, and fall upon the Genoese when the opportunity offers."

"That is excellent indeed, Francis; but I wish you had let us do our share of the work."

"It did not take us more than two hours, Matteo, to make a hole big enough to pass the javelins through, and I should say Parucchi's party enlarged it sufficiently to hand in the daggers in another hour; so you see, it would have been useless to have aroused you, and the less movement we make after they get quiet at night, the better."

"And how long will the sailors be cutting it through, do you think?"

"I should say they would be ready by this time, Matteo, but certainly they will be finished some time today."

"Then we shall soon be free!" Matteo exclaimed joyfully.

"That will depend, Matteo. We must wait till there is a good opportunity, so that we can recapture the ship without an alarm being given to the other vessels, which are no doubt sailing in company with us. And now, if you have nothing to say, I will go off to sleep again, for there is time for another hour or two. I feel as if I had not quite finished my night's rest, and the days pass so slowly here that it is as well for us to sleep when we feel the least inclination.

"By the way, Matteo, put something into that peephole we made. It is possible that they might see the light through it, and come to examine what it is. It is better to run no risk."

That day the captives were far more restless than they had been since they were taken prisoners. At first there had been a feeling of depression, too great to admit even of conversation with each other. The defeat of their fleet, the danger that threatened Venice, and the prospect of imprisonment in the gloomy dungeons of Genoa, combined to depress them on the first day of their imprisonment. On the second, their success in getting out the bolts had cheered them, and they had something to look forward to and talk about; but still, few of them thought that there was any real prospect of their obtaining their freedom. Now, however, that success seemed to lie ready to hand; now that they could, that very evening, remove the sacks, effect a junction with their crew, arm themselves with the weapons lying in sight, and rush up and overpower the Genoese; it seemed hard to remain longer in confinement. Several of them urged Francis to make the attempt that night, but he refused.

"You reckon only on the foe you see," he said. "The danger lies not from them, but from the foes we cannot see. We must wait for an opportunity."

"But no opportunity may occur," one of them urged.

"That is quite possible," Francis agreed; "but should no special opportunity occur, we shall be none the worse for having waited, for it will always be as open to us to make the attempt as it is tonight. It might succeed -- possibly we could overpower the guard on deck before they could give the alarm -- but the risk is too great to be run, until we are certain that no other way is open to us. In the daylight the hatch is open; but even could we free our comrades, and unite for a rush, unobserved -- which we could hardly hope to do -- we should find the whole of the Genoese on deck, and could not possibly overpower them before they had time to give the alarm to other vessels. At night, when we can unite, we cannot gain the deck, for the hatch is not only closed, but would almost certainly be fastened, so that men should not get down to pilfer among the stores."

"But if we cannot attack in the daytime, Messer Hammond, without giving the alarm; and cannot attack at all at night, what are we to do?"

"That is the next point to be seen to," Francis replied. "We must cut, either from this hold or from the other, a way up to the deck above. It may take us some days to do this, but that matters little. We have plenty of time for the work before reaching Genoa. The difficulty is not in the work itself, but in doing it unobserved."

"That is difficult, indeed," Matteo said, "seeing that the Genoese sailors are quartered in the forecastle above the forehold, while the officers will be in the cabins in the poop over us."

"That is so, Matteo, and for that reason, it is clear that it is we, not the sailors, who must cut through the planks above. There are no divisions in the forecastle, and it will be, therefore, absolutely impossible to cut through into it, without being perceived long before a hole is made of a sufficient size to enable us to get out. Here we may succeed better, for fortunately we know the exact plan of the cabins above us, and can choose a spot where we should not be likely to be noticed."

"That is so," Matteo agreed, "and as they will not have as many officers as we had -- that is, including the volunteers -- some of the cabins will not be occupied. Perhaps, by listening to the footsteps above, we might find out which are vacant."

"I thought of that, Matteo, but I doubt whether it would be well to rely upon that. Many on board ship wear soft shoes, which make but little noise, and it would be fatal to us were we to make a mistake. After thinking it over, I have decided that we had best try to cut a way up into the captain's cabin."

"But that is sure to be occupied, Messer Hammond," Parucchi said.

"Yes, it will be certainly be occupied; but it affords a good opportunity of success. As you know, Parucchi, Carlo Bottini had been a long time at Constantinople and the Eastern ports, and had a somewhat luxurious taste. Do you not remember that, against the stern windows, he had caused to be erected a low wide seat running across the cabin? This he called a divan, and spent no small proportion of his time lolling upon it. If I am right, its height was from ten inches to a foot above the deck, and it was fully four feet wide. It would therefore be quite possible to cut through the two planks at the back, without its being observed by anyone in the cabin."

There was a chorus of assent.

"Of course we must work most cautiously," Francis went on. "The wood must be cut out with clean cuts with the daggers. There must be no sawing or scraping. The beams are two feet apart, and we must cut through two planks close to them. In that way there will be no nails to remove. Of course, we shall not cut quite through until the time arrives for us to make the attempt, but just leave enough to hold the planks together. Half an hour's work will get through that, for if we were to cut through it at once, not only would there be risk of the hole being discovered by anyone sweeping the cabin, but we should be obliged to remain absolutely silent, or we should be heard immediately."

"We can begin at once, can we not?" Matteo asked. "Anything is better than sitting quietly here."

"Certainly, Matteo, if you wish. Two can work at once, one on each line. Choose the two sharpest edged of the daggers, and be sure to cut clean, and not to make a scraping noise or to try to break out pieces of wood. The work must be done in absolute quiet. Indeed, however careful you are, it is possible that some slight sound may be heard above, but, if noticed, it will probably be taken for the rats."

Matteo and another of the young men at once fell to work; but it was not until the evening of the following day that cuts were made as deep as was considered prudent. The depth of wood remaining was tested by thrusting the point of a dagger through, and it was decided that little more than a quarter of an inch remained.

Upon the following day the ship anchored, and remained for two days in some port. Provisions were brought on board and carried down into the hold, and the prisoners had no doubt that they were in harbour on the coast of either Sicily, or the south of Italy. They had not set sail many hours, when the motion of the ship told them that the wind was getting up, and by night the vessel was rolling heavily, the noise made by the dashing of the water against her planks being so great, that those below could scarcely hear each other speak. Their spirits had risen with the increase of the motion, for the opportunity for which they had been waiting was now at hand. In a gale the vessels would keep well apart from each other, to prevent the danger of a collision, and any outcry would be drowned by the noise of the wind and water.

Each night Francis had paid a visit to the sailors forward, to enjoin patience until he should give them the order for making the attempt. They had long since cut through the planks, which were only retained in their place by the pressure of the sacks behind them. He had bade them be in readiness on the first occasion on which rough weather might set in, and knew that they would now be expecting the signal.

As soon, then, as it became dark, and the hatch over the middle hold was closed; the planks were removed, and Francis and his party set to work shifting the sacks, in the corner where the sailors had cut the planks. Each sack was taken up, and placed against the pile further on, without the slightest noise, until at last all were removed that stood in the way of the planks being taken down. These were carried out into the hold.

Francis entered the gap. The sailors had already been informed that the occasion had come, and that they were to remain perfectly quiet until bidden to move.

"All is prepared," he said as he entered. "Rinaldo, do you see that the men come out one by one. As each comes out a weapon will be placed in his hands, and he will be then led to the starboard side of the hold, which is free from encumbrance, and will there stand until he receives orders to move further. Remember that not the slightest noise must be made, for if any stumbled and fell, and the noise were heard above, it might be thought that some of the stores had shifted from their places, and men would be sent below to secure them. The alarm would be given, and a light or other signal shown the other ships, before we could overpower all resistance. After the men are all ranged up as I have directed, they will have to remain there for some little time, while we complete our arrangements."

As soon as the sailors were all armed, and ready for action, Francis entered the after hold, where Matteo and another had been engaged in cutting the planks quite through. They had just completed the task when he reached them, and had quietly removed the two pieces of plank. Francis had already given his orders to his companions, and each knew the order in which they were to ascend.

A dim light streamed down from the hole. Two of his comrades lifted Francis so that his head was above the level of the hole, and he was enabled to see into the cabin. So far as he could tell, it was untenanted, but it was possible that the commander might be on the divan above him. This was not, however, likely, as in the gale that was now blowing he would probably be on deck, directing the working of the ship.

Francis now gave the signal, and the others raised him still further, until he was able to get his weight upon the deck above, and he then crawled along underneath the divan, and lay there quiet until Parucchi and Matteo had both reached the deck. Then he gave the word, and all three rolled out and leaped to their feet, with their daggers in their hands, in readiness to fall upon the captain should he be on the divan.

As they had hoped and expected, the cabin was untenanted. The other volunteers now joined them, the last giving the word to Rinaldo, who soon passed up, followed by the crew, until the cabin was as full as it could contain. There were now assembled some fifty men, closely packed together.

"That is ample," Francis said, "as they will be unarmed and unprepared. We can issue out singly until the alarm is given, and then those that remain must rush out in a body. Simply knock them down with the hilts of your swords. There is no occasion to shed blood, unless in the case of armed resistance; but remember they will have their knives in their girdles, and do not let anyone take you by surprise."

Opening the door, Francis walked along a passage, and then through an outer door into the waist of the ship. The wind was blowing fiercely, but the gale was not so violent as it had appeared to them when confined below. The night was dark, but after a week's confinement below, his eyes were able easily to make out almost every object on deck. There were but few sailors in the waist. The officers would be on the poop, and such of the crew as were not required on duty in the forecastle. Man after man joined him, until some thirty were gathered near the bulwarks. An officer on the poop caught sight of them by the light of the lantern, which was suspended there as a signal to the other vessels.

"What are all you men doing down there?" he challenged. "There is no occasion for you to keep on deck until you are summoned."

"Do you move forward with the men here, Parucchi. Knock down the fellows on deck, and rush into the forecastle and overpower them there, before they can get up their arms. I will summon the rest in a body, and we will overpower the officers."

He ran back to the cabin door, and bade the men follow him. As they poured out there was a scuffle on the deck forward, and the officer shouted out again:

"What is going on there? What does all this mean?"

Francis sprang up the ladder to the poop, followed by his men, and before the officer standing there understood the meaning of this sudden rush of men, or had time to draw his sword, he was knocked down. The captain and three other officers, who were standing by the helm, drew their swords and rushed forward, thinking there was a mutiny among their crew; but Francis shouted out:

"Throw down your weapons, all of you. We have retaken the ship, and resistance is useless, and will only cost you your lives."

The officers stood stupefied with astonishment; and then, seeing that fully twenty armed men were opposed to them, they threw down their swords. Francis ordered four of the sailors to conduct them to the captain's cabin, and remain in guard over them; then with the rest he hurried forward to assist Parucchi's party.

But the work was already done. The Genoese, taken completely by surprise, had at once surrendered, as the armed party rushed in the forecastle, and the ship was already theirs. As soon as the prisoners were secured, the after hatch was thrown off, and those whose turn to crawl up through the hole had not yet arrived came up on deck.

"Rinaldo," Francis said, as soon as the crew had fallen into their places, "send a man aloft, and let him suddenly knock out the light in the lantern."

"But we can lower it down, captain, from the deck."

"Of course we can, Rinaldo, but I don't want it lowered down, I want it put suddenly out."

Rinaldo at once sent a man up, and a minute later the light suddenly disappeared.

"If we were seen to lower it down," Francis said to Matteo, "the suspicions of those who noticed it would be at once aroused, for the only motive for doing so would be concealment; whereas now, if it is missed, it will be supposed that the wind has blown it out. Now we have only to lower our sails, and we can drop unobserved out of the fleet."

"There are sixteen lights, I have just been counting them," Matteo said.

"These are probably the fourteen galleys captured with us, and two galleys as guards, in case, on their way, they should fall in with any of our ships.

"Parucchi, will you at once muster the men, and see that all are armed and in readiness for fighting?

"Matteo, do you and some of your friends assist the lieutenant."

In a few minutes, Parucchi reported that the men were all ready for action.

"Rinaldo, brail up the sails, so that we may drop into the rear of the squadron. Watch the lights of the vessels behind, and steer so that they shall pass us as widely as possible."

This was the order the men were expecting to receive, but they were surprised when, just as the last light was abreast of them, Francis gave the order for the brails to be loosed again.

"Signor Parucchi, do you tell off fifty men. I am going to lay the ship alongside that vessel, and recapture her. They will not see us until we are close on board, and will suppose it is an accident when we run alongside. No doubt they, like the Pluto, have only a complement of fifty men, and we shall overpower them before they are prepared to offer any resistance.

"No doubt they have prisoners below. Immediately we have recaptured her, I shall return on board with the rest, leaving you with your fifty men in charge of her. As soon as you have secured the Genoese, free any prisoners there may be in the hold. I shall keep close to you, and you can hear me, and tell me how many there are."

The Pluto was now edged away, till she was close to the other ship. The crew, exulting in having turned the tables on the Genoese, and at the prospect of recovering another of the lost galleys, clustered in the waist, grasping their arms. The ship was not perceived until she was within her own length of the other. Then there was a sudden hail:

"Where are you coming to? Keep away, or you will be into us. Why don't you show your light?"

Francis shouted back some indistinct answer. Rinaldo pushed down the helm, and a minute later the Pluto ran alongside the other vessel. Half a dozen hands, told off for the work, sprang into her rigging, and lashed the vessels together; while Francis, followed by the crew, climbed the bulwarks and sprang on to the deck of the enemy.

Scarce a blow was struck. The Genoese, astonished at this sudden apparition of armed men on their deck, and being entirely unarmed and unprepared, either ran down below or shouted they surrendered, and in two minutes the Venetians were masters of the vessel.

"Back to the Pluto," Francis shouted. "The vessels will tear their sides out!"

Almost as suddenly as they had invaded the decks of the galley, the Venetians regained their own vessel, leaving the lieutenant with his fifty men on board the prize. The lashings were cut, the Pluto's helm put up, and she sheered away from her prize. Her bulwarks were broken and splintered where she had ground against the other vessel in the sea, and Rinaldo soon reported that some of the seams had opened, and the water was coming in.

"Set the carpenter and some of the hands to work, to caulk the seams as well as they can from the inside, and set a gang to work at the pumps at once. It is unfortunate that it is blowing so hard. If the wind had gone down instead of rising, we would have recaptured the whole fleet, one by one."

The Pluto was kept within a short distance of the captured vessel, and Parucchi presently shouted out that he had freed two hundred prisoners.

"Arm them at once!" Francis shouted back. "Extinguish your light, and board the vessel whose light you see on your starboard bow. I will take the one to port. When you have captured her, lower the sails of both vessels. I will do the same. You will keep a little head sail set, so as to keep them before the wind; but do not show more than you can help. I wish the rest of the fleet to outrun us, as soon as possible."

The Pluto sheered off from the prize, and directed her course towards the vessel nearest to her, which she captured as easily as she had done the preceding. But this time, not only were her bulwarks stove in, but the chain plates were carried away; and the mainmast, no longer supported by its shrouds, fell over the side with a crash.

This vessel had but a hundred prisoners on board. They were wild with astonishment and delight, when they found that their vessel had been recaptured. Francis told them to keep by him through the night, as possibly he might need their assistance.

For some hours the gale increased. The Pluto lay head to it, her mast serving as a floating anchor. As soon as the lights of the Genoese squadron disappeared in the distance, Francis hoisted a lantern on his mainmast, as a signal to the other vessels to keep near him.

As soon as day broke, the galley they had last recaptured was seen, half a mile away, while the two others could be made out some six miles to leeward. The gale died out soon after daybreak, and Francis at once set his crew to work to get the mast on board, and to ship it by its stump.

It was a difficult undertaking, for the vessel was rolling heavily. It was first got alongside, two ropes were passed over it, and it was parbuckled on board. Shears were made of two spars, and the end was placed against the stump, which projected six feet above the deck. By the aid of the shears, it was hoisted erect and lashed to the stump, wedges were driven in to tighten the lashings, and it was then firmly stayed; and by the afternoon it was in readiness for sail to be hoisted again.

By this time Parucchi, with the vessel he had captured, was alongside. The Lion of Saint Mark was hoisted to the mainmast of the Pluto, and three similar banners were run up by the other vessels, the crews shouting and cheering with wild enthusiasm.



Chapter 17: An Ungrateful Republic.


"It is glorious, Francis," Matteo said, "to think that we should have recaptured four of our ships!"

"It is very good, as far as it goes," Francis replied, "but it might have been a great deal better. If it hadn't been for the storm, we might have picked them all up one by one. Each vessel we took, the stronger we became, and I had calculated upon our capturing the greater number. But in such a sea, I don't think we could possibly capture more than we did."

"I should think not," Matteo said. "I had never dreamt of doing more than recovering the Pluto, and when you first talked about that, it seemed almost like madness. I don't think one of us had the slightest belief in the possibility of the thing, when you first proposed it."

"I thought it was to be managed somehow," Francis said. "It would have been a shame, indeed, if a hundred and fifty men were to be kept prisoners for a fortnight, or three weeks, by a third of their number."

"Well, certainly no one would have thought of making the attempt, if you had not proposed it, Francis. I believe, even if you were to propose our sailing north, and capturing Genoa, there is not a man on board but would follow you willingly, with the firm conviction that you would succeed."

"In that case, Matteo," Francis said, laughing, "it is very lucky for you that I am not at all out of my mind. Signal now to Parucchi to lower his boats, and come on board with our men. We may fall in yet with another Genoese squadron, and may as well have our full complement on board, especially as Parucchi has found two hundred men already on board the vessel we captured."

Parucchi and his men soon transferred themselves to the Pluto, and the four vessels hoisted their sails, and made for the south. They had learned, from their captives, that the squadron had already passed through the Straits of Messina, and that it was at Messina they had stopped and taken in provision two days before. Indeed, when, late in the afternoon, the sky cleared and the sun shone out, they saw the mountains of Calabria on their left.

Learning, from the captives, that no Genoese vessels had been seen in the straits as they passed through, Francis did not hesitate to order the course to be shaped for the straits, instead of sailing round Sicily, as he would have done had there been any chance of falling in with a hostile squadron, in passing between the islands and the mainland.

"I should like to have seen the face of the commander of the Genoese squadron this morning," Matteo said, "when he discovered that four of his vessels were missing. He can hardly have supposed that they were lost, for although the wind was strong, it blew nearly dead aft, and there was nothing of a gale to endanger well-handled ships. I almost wonder that he did not send back the two fully manned galleys he had with him, to search for us."

"Perhaps he did," Francis said; "but he would have been a hundred miles further north by daybreak, and it would have taken him a couple of days to get back to where we were lying."

No hostile sail was seen during the voyage back to Venice. Francis remained in command of the little squadron, for the captains, and many of the superior officers, had been transferred to the galley of the officer in command of the squadron, and Francis happened to be the only second officer on board any of the four ships.

Great care was observed when they approached Venice, as, for aught they knew, Doria's squadron might be blockading the port. The Genoese fleet, however, was still cruising on the coast of Dalmatia, capturing port after port of the Venetian possessions there.

The four vessels passed through the channel of the Lido with their colours flying. When first observed from the watchtower of Venice, they were supposed to form part of the squadron of Zeno, but as soon as they cast anchor, and the news spread that they were four of Pisani's galleys, which had been recaptured from the Genoese, the delight of the population was immense.

The ships were speedily surrounded by a fleet of boats, containing relatives and friends of those taken prisoners at the battle of Polo, and the decks were crowded with persons inquiring after their friends, or embracing with delight those whom they had, an hour before, believed to be either dead or immured in the dungeons of Genoa.

One of the first to appear was Polani, who had early received the news by a swift boat from one of his ships in the port, that the Pluto was one of the vessels entering the harbour.

"What miracle is this, Francis?" he asked, as he warmly embraced his young friend.

"Not a miracle at all, Messer Polani. The Genoese fancied that a guard of fifty men was amply sufficient to keep a hundred and fifty Venetians captives, and we taught them their mistake."

"It wasn't we," Matteo put in, as he shook hands with his kinsman. "We had no more idea of escaping than we had of flying. The whole thing was entirely the work of Francisco here."

"I might have been sure the Genoese would not keep you long, Francisco," Polani said; "and the girls and I might have spared ourselves the pain of fretting for you. But how did it all come about?"

"If you will take me to the Piazza in your gondola, I will tell you all about on the way," Francis replied. "For, absurd as it seems, I am the senior officer of the squadron, and must, I suppose, report to the council what has happened."

"Take me, too, kinsman," Matteo said. "I know Francisco so well that I am quite sure that, of himself, he will never tell the facts of this affair, and will simply say that we broke out, avoiding all mention of his share in it, and how it was that under his orders we recaptured the other ships."

"I think that a very good plan, Matteo; so do you come with us, and you shall tell me all about it, instead of my hearing it from Francis, and I will take care the council know the truth of the matter."

"The admiral got safely back, I hope?" Francis asked. "We saw that his galley, with five others, broke through the Genoese fleet and got safely away, but of course, we knew not whether the brave admiral was himself hurt."

"He arrived here safely," Polani replied; "but knowing the Venetians as you do, you will be scarcely surprised to hear that he has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment, for losing the battle."

"But that is shameful," Francis exclaimed indignantly. "I heard from our captain, who was present at the council, that Pisani was opposed to fighting, and that he was only overruled by the proveditors. It is shameful. I will go on shore and make my report, and then I will come back to you, for I swear that not another blow will I strike on behalf of the republic, as long as Pisani is in prison."

"It is a bad business, my lad," Polani said; "but you know that Pisani, popular as he is with the people, has few friends among the nobles. They are jealous of his fame and popularity, and, to say the truth, he has often irritated them, by his bluntness and his disregard for their opinion and rank. Consequently, they seized upon his defeat as an occasion for accusing him, and it was even a question in the council of taking his life, and he may be considered fortunate in getting off with the sentence of six months' imprisonment.

"I do not think he will have to remain very long in confinement. We may expect the Genoese fleet here in a few days, for the Paduan army is already moving, as we heard last night. No doubt it is going to cooperate with the fleet. Once the danger presses, the populace will demand Pisani's release. There have already been demonstrations, and shouts of 'Viva Pisani!' have been raised in the Piazza.

"At any rate, Francis, let me advise you, most strongly, not to suffer any expression of your feelings concerning him to escape you before the council. I need scarcely say it would do no good to the admiral, and would set the whole of his enemies against you. It is no affair of yours, if the governors of Venice behave ungratefully to one who deserves well at their hands, and you have made more than enough enemies by mingling in my affairs, without drawing upon yourself more foes, by your championship of Pisani."

"I will, of course, follow your counsel," Francis said; "but I will certainly serve the state no more, until Pisani is freed."

Several of the councillors were already assembled, on hearing the strange news that four of the ships, which had been captured by the Genoese, had entered port. Francis, on announcing his errand, was at once shown in to them. Polani accompanied him, explaining his presence to the council by saying:

"I have ventured, signors, to accompany my young friend here, in order that I may give you a much further detail of the affair in which he has been engaged, than you are likely to hear from his own lips. I have just come on shore from his ship, the Pluto, and have heard the story from my kinsman, Matteo Giustiniani."

"We have surely seen this young gentleman before, Messer Polani," one of the council said.

"You have, signor," Polani replied. "You may remember that he greatly distinguished himself at the fight of Antium, was sent home by the admiral with his despatches, and had the honour of receiving, from you, the thanks of the republic and the gift of citizenship."

"I remember now," the councillor said; and a murmur of assent from the others showed that they also recalled the circumstance. "Is he again the bearer of despatches, from the officer in command of the little squadron which, as it seems, has just, by some miracle, entered the port? And how is it that the officer did not present himself in person before us?"

"The officer has presented himself," Polani said. "Messer Hammond is in command of the four ships which have just arrived. Not only is he in command by virtue of senior rank, but it is to him that their recapture from the Genoese is entirely due."

There was a murmur of incredulity from the circle of councillors, but Polani went on quietly.

"It may seem well nigh impossible to you, signors, but what I say is strictly true. If Messer Hammond will first relate to you the broad facts of the recapture of the ships, I will furnish you with such details as he may omit."

Francis then briefly related the events which had led to the capture of the four galleys. He explained that by the death of the captain he, as second officer, succeeded to the command of the Pluto, and that afterwards being captured by the Genoese, Signor Parucchi, the sole other surviving officer, and ten gentlemen belonging to noble families and serving as volunteers on board the Pluto, were confined in one hold of that ship on her voyage as a prize to Genoa, the crew being shut up in the other; that by working at night they had effected a junction with the crew, and choosing a stormy night, when any noise that might be made would not be heard on board the ship, they made their way up to the deck above, through a hole they had cut in the planks, and overpowered the Genoese almost without resistance; that they had then, in the darkness, ran alongside another of the ships and captured her with equal ease; and Parucchi, with a portion of the crew of the Pluto, and the Venetian prisoners on board that ship, had retaken a third; while the Pluto had captured a fourth.

"It may seem to you, signors," Francis concluded, "that we might, in the same way, have recaptured the rest of our ships, and it was a bitter disappointment to me that we failed to do so; but the storm was so high, and the sea so rough, that it was only with the greatest danger and difficulty that ships could lie alongside each other. The bulwarks of all four vessels were greatly damaged, and the Pluto lost her foremast while alongside the last ship we captured, and as the storm was increasing, rather than abating, we were, to our great chagrin, obliged to let the rest escape, since in striving for more we might have lost, not only our lives, but the vessels we had taken."

"This is indeed a most notable achievement, Messer Hammond, and the restoration of four ships and their crews, at the present moment, is of great importance to the republic, threatened as she is with invasion by land and sea.

"Now, Messer Polani, if you will give us the full details of which you spoke, we shall be glad."

Polani then related to the council the full story of the means by which the crew of the Pluto had gained their liberty, showing how the recapture was entirely due to the initiative of Francis, and to the ingenuity with which he overcame all difficulties. He ended by saying:

"My kinsman, Matteo, said that should you doubt whether this account is not tinged by his friendship and partiality for Messer Hammond, Signor Parucchi, and all the gentlemen who were confined with them in the hold, can substantiate the account that he has given. He said that Parucchi's evidence would be all the more valuable, since he and the other officers were in the first place much prejudiced against Messer Hammond, deeming it an indignity that one so young, and a foreigner by birth, should be appointed to the command over the heads of others, Venetian born, of good family, and his seniors in age. The circumstances which I have related to you have, however, completely altered his opinion, and he is as enthusiastic, with respect to Messer Hammond's conduct, as are my kinsman and all on board the ship."

"I remember now," one of the council said, "that we had a letter from the admiral in the spring, and that, when describing how terribly the crews had been diminished and weakened by the severity of the winter, he said that the sole exception was the Pluto, whose crew was kept up to their full strength, and in excellent health, owing entirely to the care and attention that Messer Hammond, the officer second in command, had bestowed upon them."

"Thanks, Messer Polani," the president of the council said, "for the light you have thrown on this matter.

"Messer Hammond, it is difficult to overestimate the services that you have rendered to the state. We shall, at an early day, decide in what manner most fitly to reward them, and in the meantime you will remain in command of the squadron you have brought in."

Francis returned thanks for the promise of the president, but expressed his desire to resign the command of the squadron at once.

"I am in business," he said, "with Messer Polani, and although, for a short time, I abandoned commerce in order to sail under Admiral Pisani, I now, from various reasons, desire, as soon as my successor is appointed, to return to my work with Signor Polani.

"I desire to recommend warmly to your excellencies Signor Parucchi, who is, except myself, the sole remaining officer of the Pluto. He seconded me most admirably in our enterprise, and himself commanded at the recapture of one of the ships. The gentlemen volunteers also worked with the greatest energy and spirit. Matteo Giustiniani has been acting as third officer, and to him also the thanks of the republic are due."

On leaving the ship, Messer Polani had despatched a boat, to carry to his house the news that Francis had returned; and when they came back from the palace they found Giulia anxiously expecting them, and a few minutes later Matteo arrived with his brother Rufino, and Maria. The latter was far more effusive in her greeting of Francis than Giulia had been.

"Matteo has been telling us all about it, Francis, and that he, and everyone else, owed their escape from the dungeons of Genoa entirely to your cleverness."

"Not so much to his cleverness, Maria," Matteo corrected, "although he is wonderful in inventing things, but to his energy, determination, and steadfastness. There was not one of us but regarded a visit to the dungeons of Genoa as a foregone conclusion, and when Francis spoke of our recapturing the Pluto, as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world, it was as much as we could do not to laugh in his face. However, he set about it as quietly and calmly as if he were carrying on the regular work of a ship. We gradually caught some of his spirit, and when we began to see that there was a method in his madness, did our best to carry out his orders."

"It is wonderful," Maria said; "and do you know, Francisco, that when we first knew you, after you had rescued us from the attack on the canal, I absolutely thought that, though you were brave and straightforward and honourable, yet that by the side of our own people of your age, you were rather stupid, and ever since then I have been learning how mistaken I was."

Francis laughed.

"I think your estimate of me was correct enough," he said. "You see people are often stupid one way, and sharp another. Matteo will tell you I was far behind most of those in the seminary in learning lessons, and certainly when it came to talking, and bandying jokes, I had no chance at all. I suppose that every lady I have ever spoken to, when I have been with you at entertainments, has thought me exceptionally stupid; and I am sure I am, in most things, only I suppose I have got a fair share of common sense, and a habit of thinking for myself. There was no cleverness at all in anything that Matteo is telling you of.

"It was just the same here as it was when I was in that cell near Tunis. I wanted to get out. I supposed there must be some way out, if I could but discover it, and so I sat down to think how it was to be done; and of course, after trying in my mind every possible scheme, I hit upon the right one. There certainly was nothing clever in that."

"But I have heard nothing about it yet," Giulia said; "and everyone else seems to know how it was done."

"Matteo, do you tell Giulia," Maria ordered. "I have lots of questions to ask Francis."

"By the way, Francis," Messer Polani said, "you will be glad to hear that I have succeeded in getting home your man Giuseppi. He returned two days ago, and I have no doubt is somewhere below waiting to see you."

"I will go and see him at once," Francis said, hurrying away. "I am indeed glad to know that you have rescued him."

Maria laughed, as the door closed behind Francis.

"There, Rufino," she said, turning to him, "you pretend sometimes to be jealous of Francisco Hammond; and there, you see, just when I have said I have lots of questions to ask him, and five minutes after my arrival here to greet him, he races away without a word, directly he hears that his man Giuseppi has returned."

"And he is quite right, Maria," Matteo said indignantly. "Giuseppi would give his life for Francisco, and the two have been together every day for the last six or seven years. I don't doubt the faithful fellow is crying with joy now. Francisco is quite right, not to keep him waiting for a minute."

"Perhaps I cried for joy, too, Master Matteo," Maria said.

"I believe I did see tears in your eyes, Maria; but I put them down to my own account. You would naturally be delighted to know that your brother-in-law was safe and sound, to say nothing of the fact that the family would be spared the expense of sending a thousand ducats or so to ransom him."

"A thousand ducats, Matteo! A thousand soldi would more nearly represent your value, if the Genoese did but know it. But why don't you tell Giulia your adventures, as I ordered you?"

"Because Giulia would very much rather hear them from Francisco's lips, and I have no doubt he will be equally glad to tell her himself, though certainly he is a bad hand at recounting his own doings. However, he shall have the pleasure of telling her of it, and I can fill up the details for her, afterwards."

Two days later, a decree was published by the council stating that, in consideration of the very great service rendered to the state by Francisco Hammond, a citizen of Venice, in recapturing four galleys from the Genoese, the council decreed the settlement upon him, for life, of a pension of three hundred ducats a year.

"You will not want it, Francisco," Messer Polani said, as he brought in the news, "for I intend, at the end of these troubles, to take you as a partner in my business. I told your father that I should do so; and you have not only proved yourself earnest in business, quick at learning, and full of resources, but you have vastly added to the debt of gratitude which first caused me to make the proposition, by again saving my daughters from falling into the hands of their enemy. I told your father that I should regard you in the light of a son, and I do so regard you, and as a son of whom I have every reason to be proud.

"I need no thanks, my lad. I am still, and shall always remain, your debtor. You have very much more than fulfilled my expectations, and I shall be glad to place some of the burden of my business upon your shoulders.

"There is another matter, which I have long had in my mind, but of which I will not speak just at present.

"Thus, then, the three hundred ducats, which you will receive each year from the state, may not be needed by you. Still, you are to be congratulated upon the grant, because being the recipient of a pension, for distinguished services, will add to your weight and influence in the city. And so long as you do not need it -- and no man can say what may occur, in the course of years, to hinder the trade of Venice -- you can bestow the sum annually upon the poor of the city, and thus increase your popularity."

"I shall be happy to do that, signor," Francis said, "although it seems to me that popularity is of little value in Venice. It has not saved the man whom, a short time since, the people hailed as their father, from unmerited disgrace and imprisonment."

"It has not, Francisco, but it has saved his life. You may take my word for it, that the proposal, absolutely made in the council, for the execution of Pisani, would have been voted had it not been for fear of the people; and it may be that you will yet see, that the voice of the people will bring Pisani from his prison, long before the expiration of his term of imprisonment. Popularity is not to be despised, for it is a great power. That power may be abused, as when one, having gained the ear of the people, leads them astray for his own base ends, and uses the popularity he has gained to attack, and hurl from power, men less eloquent and less gifted in the arts of cajoling the people, but more worthy than himself. But, used rightly, the power of swaying and influencing the people is a great one, and especially valuable in a city like Venice, where private enmities and private feuds are carried to so great an extent. Already your name is in every mouth. Your rescue of Pisani, when sorely beset by the enemy, has been the theme of talk in every house; and this feat, which retrieves, to some extent, the misfortune of Pola, will make your name a household word in Venice."

Immediately after the battle of Pola, the Venetians had entered into negotiations with Hungary, to endeavour to detach that power from the league against them. But the demands of King Louis were too extravagant to be accepted. He demanded the cession of Trieste, the recognition of the suzerainty of his crown on the part of the present doge, and all his successors, an annual tribute of one hundred thousand ducats, and half a million of ready money. This demand was so excessive that, even in their distress, the Venetians refused to accept it, and hastened on their preparations for a struggle for life or death.

Fortunately, the Genoese continued for three months, after their success at Pola, to capture the outlying possessions of Venice, instead of striking at the capital. Towards the end of July, seventeen Genoese vessels appeared off Pelestrina, burned a merchant ship lying there, and spent the day in reconnoitring positions, and in taking soundings of the shallows and canals off Brondolo. They then sailed away for Dalmatia. In less than a week six galleys again hove in sight; and Admiral Giustiniani, who was in supreme command of the forces, issued out from the Lido, with an equal number of ships, to give them battle.

On his way, however, a black object was seen in the water. As they neared it, this was seen to be the head of a swimmer. He was soon picked up, and was found to be a Venetian citizen, named Savadia, who had been captured by the enemy, but had managed to escape, and was swimming towards land to warn his countrymen that the whole Genoese fleet, of forty-seven sail, under Pietro Doria, was close at hand; and that the six ships in the offing were simply a decoy, to tempt the Venetians to come out and give battle.

Giustiniani at once returned to port, and scarcely had he done so, than the whole Genoese fleet made its appearance. They approached the passage of the Lido; but the respite that had been afforded them had enabled the Venetians to make their preparations, and the Genoese found, to their disappointment, that the channels of the Lido and Malamocco were completely closed up with sunken vessels, palisades, and chains; and they sailed away to seek another entry through which they could strike at Venice.

Had the same precautions, that had proved so effective at the Lido and Malamocco passages, been taken at all the other channels; Venice could have defied all the efforts of Doria's fleet.

The city is situated on a group of small islands, rising in the midst of a shallow basin twenty-five miles long and five wide, and separated from the sea by a long sandbank, formed by the sediment brought down by the rivers Piave and Adige. Through this sandbank the sea had pierced several channels. Treporti, the northern of these channels, contained water only for the smallest craft. The next opening was known as the port of Lido, and separated the island of San Nicolo from Malamocco. Five miles farther on is the passage of Malamocco, between that island and Pelestrina. Southwest of Pelestrina lay Brondolo, behind which stood Chioggia, twenty miles distant from Venice. The southern point of Brondolo was only separated by a small channel -- called the Canal of Lombardy -- from the mainland.

Unfortunately, at Brondolo the channel had not been closed. All preparations had been made for doing so, but the work had been postponed until the last moment, in order that trading vessels might enter and leave the harbour, the Chioggians believing that there was sure to be sufficient warning, of the approach of an enemy, to enable them to close the entrance in time. The sudden appearance of Doria's fleet before Brondolo upset all these calculations, and the Genoese easily carried the position. Little Chioggia, the portion of the town separated from the rest by the Canal of Santa Caterina, was captured without difficulty; but the bridge across the canal was strongly defended by bastions and redoubts, and here Pietro Emo made a brave stand, with his garrison of three thousand five hundred men.

The enemy at once erected his batteries, and, on the 12th of August, the Genoese opened fire. The Venetians replied stoutly, and for three days a heavy cannonade was kept up on both sides. Reinforcements had reached the garrison from Venice, and, hour by hour, swift boats brought the news to the city of the progress of the fight.

So far, all seemed going on well. The Genoese had suffered heavily, and made no impression upon the batteries at the head of the bridge. The days passed in Venice in a state of restless disquietude. It was hoped and believed that Chioggia could successfully defend itself; but if it fell, the consequence would be terrible.

Already the Hungarians had overrun the Venetian possessions on the mainland, the Lord of Padua was in the field with his army, and communication was cut with Ferrara, their sole ally. Should Chioggia fall, the Genoese fleet would enter the lagoons, and would sail, by the great channel through the flats, from Chioggia to Venice; and their light galleys could overrun the whole of the lagoons, and cut off all communication with the mainland, and starvation would rapidly stare the city in the face.

Polani made all preparations for the worst. Many of his valuables were hidden away, in recesses beneath the floors. Others were taken on board one of his ships in the port, and this was held in readiness to convey Giulia and Maria, whose husband had willingly accepted Polani's offer, to endeavour to carry her off by sea with Giulia, in case the Genoese should enter the city.

The merchant made an excursion to Chioggia, with Francis, to see for himself how things were going, and returned somewhat reassured. Francis spent much of his time at the port visiting Polani's ships, talking to the sailors, and expressing to them his opinion, that the Genoese and Paduans would never have dared to lay siege to Chioggia, had they not known that Pisani was no longer in command of the Venetian forces.

"I regard the present state of affairs," he said, over and over again, "as a judgment upon the city, for its base ingratitude to the brave admiral, and I am convinced that things will never come right, until we have him again in command of our fleet.

"Giustiniani is no doubt an able man; but what has he ever done in comparison to what Pisani has accomplished? Why should we place our only hope of safety in the hands of an untried man? I warrant, if Pisani was out and about, you would see Venice as active as a swarm of bees, pouring out against our aggressors. What is being done now? Preparations are being made; but of what kind? Ships are sunk in the channel; but what will be the use of this if Chioggia falls? The canals to that place will be blocked, but that will not prevent the Genoese from passing, in their light boats, from island to island, until they enter Venice itself.

"Do you think all these ships would be lying idly here, if Pisani were in command? Talk to your comrades, talk to the sailors in the port, talk to those on shore when you land, and urge, everywhere, that the cry should be raised for Pisani's release, and restoration to command."



Chapter 18: The Release Of Pisani.


On the morning of the 17th, the party were sitting at breakfast, when Giulia suddenly sprang to her feet.

"Listen!" she exclaimed.

Her father and Francis looked at her in surprise, but instinctively listened for whatever sound she could have heard. Then a deep, solemn sound boomed through the air.

"It is the bell of the Campanile tolling," the merchant exclaimed. "It is the signal for all citizens to take up arms. Some terrible news has arrived."

Hastily putting on his armour, the merchant started to Saint Mark's, accompanied by Francis, who put on a steel cap, which he preferred to the heavy helmet, and a breastplate. A crowd of citizens were pursuing the same direction. The numbers thickened as they approached the Piazza, which they found on their arrival to be already thronged with people, who were densely packed in front of the palace, awaiting an explanation of the summons.

There was a look of deep anxiety on every face, for all felt that the news must be bad, indeed, which could have necessitated such a call. Presently the doge, accompanied by the council, appeared in the balcony. A complete silence fell upon the multitude, the bell ceased tolling, and not the slightest sound disturbed the stillness. One of the councillors stepped to the front, for the doge, Contarini, was now seventy-two years old, and his voice could hardly have been heard over so wide an area.

"Citizens of the republic, gather, I pray you, all your fortitude and constancy, to hear the news which I have to tell. It is bad news; but there is no reason for repining, still less for despair. If Venice has but confidence in herself, such as she has throughout her history shown, when danger seemed imminent, be assured that we shall weather this storm, as we have done all that have preceded it. Chioggia has fallen!"

An exclamation of pain and grief went up from the crowd. The speaker held up his hand for silence.

"Chioggia, contrary to our hopes and expectations, has fallen; but we are proud to say, it has fallen from no lack of bravery on the part of its defenders. As you know, for six days the brave podesta, Emo, and his troops have repulsed every attack; but yesterday an unforeseen accident occurred. While our soldiers were holding their own, as usual, a Genoese fire ship exploded in the canal behind them. The idea, unfortunately, seized the troops that the bridge was on fire. The Genoese shouted 'The bridge is in flames!' and pressed onward, and our soldiers fell back, in some confusion, towards the bridge. Here Emo, with four brave companions, made a noble stand, and for a time checked the advance of the foe; but he was driven back. There was no time to destroy the communication behind him. The enemy pressed on, and, mingled with our retreating soldiers, entered the town. And so Chioggia was taken. Our loss in killed is said to be eight hundred and sixty men; while the rest of the garrison -- four thousand in number -- were taken prisoners."

A loud cry of anguish burst from the crowd. Numbers of those present had relatives and friends among the garrison of Chioggia; and to all, the news of this terrible disaster was a profound blow. Venice was open now to invasion. In a few hours, the enemy might appear in her canals.

The council and the nobles endeavoured to dispel the feeling of despair. While some harangued the people from the balconies, others went down and mingled with the crowd, assuring them that all was not yet lost, that already messengers had been despatched to Doria, and the Lord of Padua, asking for terms of peace; and even should these be refused, Venice might yet defend herself until Zeno arrived, with his fleet, to their rescue. The doge himself received deputations of the citizens, and, by his calmness and serenity, did much to allay the first feeling of terror and dismay; and in a few hours the city recovered its wonted aspect of tranquillity.

The next morning the answer to the overtures was received. The Lord of Padua, who was doubtless beginning to feel some misgiving as to the final issue of the struggle, declared that he himself was not unwilling to treat upon certain terms, but that the decision must rest in the hands of his colleague. Doria, believing that Venice was now in his grasp, rejected the idea of terms with scorn.

"By God's faith, my lords of Venice," he cried, "ye shall have no peace from the Lord of Padua, nor from our commune of Genoa, until I have put a bit in the mouths of the horses of your evangelist of Saint Mark. When they have been bridled you shall then, in sooth, have a good peace; and this is our purpose and that of our commune!

"As for these captives, my brethren," he said, pointing to some Genoese prisoners of rank, whom the Venetians had sent with their embassy, in hopes of conciliating the Genoese, "take them back. I want them not; for in a few days I am coming to release, from your prisons, them and the rest."

As soon as the message was received, the bell summoned the popular assembly together, and, in the name of the doge, Pietro Mocenigo described to them the terrible nature of the peril that threatened them, told them that, after the insolent reply of Doria, there was now no hope save in their own exertions, and invited all to rally round the national standard, for the protection of their hearths and homes. The reply of the assembly was unanimous; and shouts were raised:

"Let us arm ourselves! Let us equip and man what galleys are in the arsenal! Let us sally out to the combat! It is better to die in the defence of our country, than to perish here from want."

A universal conscription was at once ordered, new taxes were imposed, and the salaries of the magistrates and civil functionaries suspended. All business came to a standstill, and property fell to a fourth of its former value. The imposts were not found adequate to produce the sums required, and a new loan, at five per cent, was decreed. All subscribed to the utmost of their ability, raising the enormous sum of 6,294,040 lire. A new captain general was elected, and the government nominated Taddeo Giustiniani to the post.

The fortification of the city, with earthworks, was commenced. Lines of defence were drawn from Lido to San Spirito, and two wooden towers constructed at the former point, to guard the pass of San Nicolo. Events succeeded each other with the greatest rapidity, and all these matters were settled within thirty-six hours of the fall of Chioggia. In all respects the people, at first, yielded implicit obedience to the order of the council. They enrolled themselves for service. They subscribed to the loan. They laboured at the outworks. But from the moment the appointment of Taddeo Giustiniani was announced, they grew sullen. It was not that they objected to the new captain general, who was a popular nobleman, but every man felt that something more than this was required, in such an emergency, and that the best man that Venice could produce should be at the helm.

The sailors of the port were the first to move in the matter, and shouts for Vettore Pisani were heard in the streets. Others took up the cry, and soon a large multitude assembled in the Piazza, and with menacing shouts, demanded that Pisani should be freed and appointed. So serious did the tumult become, that the council were summoned in haste. Pisani -- so popular with the lower class that they called him their father -- was viewed with corresponding dislike and distrust by the nobles, who were at once jealous of his fame and superiority, and were alarmed at a popularity which could have made him, had he chosen it, the master of the state.

It was not, therefore, until after some hours of stormy debate, that they decided to give in to the wishes of the crowd, which was continually growing larger and more threatening; and it was late in the evening before the senators deputed by the council, followed by the exulting populace, hurried to the prison to apprise Pisani that he was free, and that the doge and senate were expecting him. Pisani heard the message without emotion, and placidly replied that he should prefer to pass the night where he was in reflection, and would wait on the seignory in the morning.

At daybreak on Friday, the 19th of August, the senatorial delegates and the people, accompanied by the other officers who had been involved in the disgrace of Pisani, and who had now been freed, reappeared at the gates of the prison. These were immediately opened, and Pisani appeared, with his usual expression of cheerfulness and good humour on his face. He was at once lifted on to the shoulders of some sailors, and borne in triumph to the palace, amid the deafening cheers of the populace. On the staircase he was met by the doge and senators, who saluted him cordially. Mass was heard in the chapel, and Pisani and the council then set to business, and were for some time closeted together.

The crowd waited outside the building, continuing to shout, and when Pisani issued out from the palace, he was seized and carried in triumph to his house in San Fantino. As he was passing the Campanile of Saint Mark, his old pilot, Marino Corbaro, a remarkably able seaman, but a perpetual grumbler against those in authority, met him, and elbowing his way through the crowd, drew close to him, loudly shouting at the same time:

"Now is the time, admiral, for revenging yourself, by seizing the dictatorship of this city. Behold, all are at your service. All are willing, at this very instant, to proclaim you prince, if you choose."

The loyalty of Pisani's nature was so affronted by this offer, that, in a fury of rage, he leaned forward and struck Corbaro a heavy blow with his fist, and then raising his voice shouted to those about him:

"Let none who wish me well say, 'Viva Pisani!' but, 'Viva San Marco!'"

And the populace then shouted, "Viva San Marco and our Father Pisani!"

No sooner had Pisani reached his house than the news was bruited about, that the admiral had been merely appointed governor of Lido, and that Giustiniani remained in command of the navy. The people were furious; and a deputation of 600 waited upon Pisani and said:

"We are yours. Command us as you will."

Pisani told them that it was for the republic, and not for him, to command their services. The deputation then went to the council, and declared, in the name of fifty thousand Venetians, that not a man would embark on the galleys until Pisani received his command, as captain general of all the forces of the republic, by land and sea. The Council of Ten, finding it impossible to resist the popular demand, and terrified at the idea of the tumult that a refusal would arouse, at last agreed to their request.

Fortunately for the republic, the four days which elapsed between the fall of Chioggia, and the appointment of Pisani to the supreme command, had not been utilized by the enemy. Carrara and Doria had always been at variance as to their plans of operations, and, as usual, they differed now. The Lord of Padua urged the necessity for following up their success by an instant attack upon Venice, while Doria insisted upon carrying out his original plan, and trusting as much to starvation as to military operations. He, however, gradually pushed forward two outposts, at Poreja and Malamocco, and on the latter island, at a distance of three miles from Venice, he erected a battery, many of whose shot fell at San Spirito.

Francis had borne his share in the events which had led to the installation of Pisani in the supreme command. He had at first instigated the sailors of Polani to raise a cry in the streets for the restoration of the admiral, and had gone about with two or three of his friends, mingling with knots of persons, and urging that the only hope of the republic lay in the energy and talent of Pisani. Even Matteo had joined him, although Taddeo Giustiniani was his own uncle. But, as the lad said, "what matters it about relationship now? What will become of relationship, if the Genoese and Paduans land here, raze the city to the ground, and scatter us over the face of the earth? No. When it comes to a question of ordinary command, of course I should go with my family; but when Venice is in danger, and only one man can save her, I should vote for him, whoever the other may be."

Polani had also exerted the great influence he possessed among the commercial classes, and had aided the efforts of Francis, by giving leave to the sailors of all his ships in port to go on shore. A few hours after Pisani's release the merchant, accompanied by Francis, called upon him.

"Welcome, my friends," he said heartily.

"Well, you see, Messer Hammond, that I was a true prophet, and that I have had my share of the dungeon. However, we need not talk of that now. I am up to my eyes in business."

"I have no doubt of that, admiral," Polani said. "I have called to offer every ship I have in the harbour, for the defence of the city. I myself will continue to pay their crews, as at present. Use the vessels as you like. Make fire ships of them if you will. I can afford the loss."

"Thanks, my friend," the admiral said. "We shall find a use for them, never fear.

"As for you, Messer Hammond, even in my prison I heard of your gallant feat, in recapturing the Pluto and three other ships from the Genoese, and thus retrieving, to some extent, the losses of Pola. I hope to wipe off the rest of the score before long. I shall find a command for you, in a day or two. Age and rank go for nothing now. I am going to put the best men in the best position.

"I have just appointed that old rascal, Corbaro, vice admiral of the Lido. He is a grumbling old scoundrel, and would have had me get up a revolution today, for which I had to knock him down; but he is one of the best sailors Venice ever turned out, and just the man for the place."

"I would rather act as a general aide-de-camp to you, admiral, than have a separate command, if you will allow me," Francis said. "I am still too young to command, and should be thwarted by rivalry and jealousies. I would, therefore, far rather act under your immediate orders, if you will allow me."

"So be it, then, lad. Come to me tomorrow, and I have no doubt I shall have plenty for you to do. At present, I cannot say what course I may adopt, for in truth, I don't know what position I shall hold. The people do not seem content with my having only the government of Lido; but for myself, I care nothing whether I hold that command, or that of captain general. It is all one to me, so that I can serve the republic. And Giustiniani is an able man, and will no doubt do his business well.

"You do not think so, young man?" he broke off, when Francis shook his head.

"I do not, indeed, sir. He has erected two wooden towers at the mouth of the Lido, which the first stone from a Genoese ballista would knock to splinters; and has put up a fence to San Spirito, which a Genoese soldier in full armour could jump over."

"Well, we shall see, Messer Hammond," the admiral said, smiling. "I fear you have one bad quality among your many good ones, and that is that you are a partisan. But go along now. I have no more time to spare to you."

No sooner had Pisani obtained the supreme command, than he set to work in earnest to provide for the safety of the city, the reorganization of the navy, and the conversion of the new levies into soldiers and sailors. The hulls of forty galleys, which were lying in the arsenals, were taken in hand, and two-thirds of them were equipped and ready for sea in three days.

The population was full of ardour and enthusiasm, and crowded to the offices to register their names for service. The women brought their jewels, to be melted down into money; and all vied with each other in zeal.

Pisani's first task, after seeing the galleys put in hand, was to examine the defences Giustiniani had erected. He at once pronounced the two wooden towers -- of which Francis had spoken so disrespectfully -- to be utterly useless, and ordered two tall towers, of solid masonry, to be erected in their stead.

Giustiniani was indignant at this condemnation of his work; and he and his friends so worked upon the minds of those who were to carry out the work, that they laid down their tools, and refused to embark upon such useless operations. The news was brought to Pisani by one of his friends, and, starting in his gondola, he was soon upon the spot.

He wasted no time in remonstrating with the workmen on their conduct, but, seizing a trowel, lifted a heavy stone into its place, shouting:

"Let him who loves Saint Mark follow my example!"

The success of the appeal was instantaneous. The workmen grasped their tools. A host of volunteers seized the stones and carried them to their places. When they were exhausted, fresh workmen took their places, and in the incredibly short time of four days, the two castles were finished.

The workmen were next set to level the paling and earthwork, from Lido to San Spirito, and in the course of a fortnight the lofty and massive stone walls were erected. By this time, something like a fleet was at Pisani's disposal. In spite of the conduct of Taddeo Giustiniani, Pisani, with his usual magnanimity, gave him the command of three large ships, mounting the heaviest guns in the arsenal. The light boats were under the command of Giovanni Barberigo. Federigo Cornaro was stationed with a force of galleys at San Spirito. Nicholo Gallieano was charged with the defence of the Lazaretto, San Clemente, Santa Elena, and the neighbourhood; while on the strand between Lido and Malamocco, behind the main wall, were the mercenaries, eight thousand strong, under Jacopo Cavalli. Heavy booms were placed across all the canals by which it was likely that the enemy's fleet might advance.

Francis found his office, under the energetic admiral, no sinecure. He was kept constantly moving from one point to the other, to see that all was going on well, and to report the progress made. The work never ceased, night or day, and for the first week neither Francis, nor his commander, ever went to bed, contenting themselves with such chance sleep as they could snatch.

Having wasted eight precious days, the enemy, on the 24th of August, advanced to the attack. A Genoese force, under Doria's brother, landed upon San Nicolo; while the Paduans attacked San Spirito and Santa Marta. They found the besieged in readiness. Directly the alarm was given, the Venetians flocked to the threatened points, and repulsed the enemy with slaughter.

The latter then attempted to make a junction of their forces, but Cornaro with his galleys occupied the canal, drove back the boats in which they intended to cross, and defeated the attempt. Doria had felt certain that the movement, which was attempted under cover of night, would succeed, and his disappointment was extreme.

The Lord of Padua was so disgusted that he withdrew his troops to the mainland. Doria remained before Venice until the early part of October, but without making another attack. Indeed, the defences had long before become so formidable, that attack was well-nigh hopeless. At the end of that time he destroyed all his works and fell back upon Chioggia, and determined to wait there until Venice was starved into surrender.

The suffering in the city was intense. It was cut off from all access to the mainland behind, but occasionally a ship, laden with provisions from Egypt or Syria, managed to evade the Genoese galleys. These precarious supplies, however, availed but little for the wants of the starving city, eked out though they were by the exertions of the sailors, who occasionally sailed across the lagoon, landed on the mainland, and cut off the supplies sent from Padua and elsewhere to the Genoese camp.

The price of provisions was so enormous, that the bulk of the people were famishing, and even in the houses of the wealthy the pressure was great. The nobility, however, did their utmost for their starving countrymen, and the words of Pietro Mocenigo, speaking in the name of the doge to the popular assembly, were literally carried into effect.

"Let all," he said, "who are pressed by hunger, go to the dwellings of the patricians. There you will find friends and brothers, who will divide with you their last crust."

So desperate, indeed, did the position become, that a motion was made by some members of the council for emigrating from the lagoons, and founding a new home in Candia or Negropont; but this proposal was at once negatived, and the Venetians declared that, sooner than abandon their city, they would bury themselves under her ruins.

So October and November passed. Carlo Zeno had not yet arrived, but by some letters which had been captured with a convoy of provisions, it was learned that he had been achieving the most triumphant success, had swept the seas from Genoa to Constantinople, had captured a Genoese galleon valued at three hundred thousand ducats, and was at Candia.

This intelligence revived the hopes of Venice, and on the 16th of November Luigi Moroceni was despatched to order him, in the name of the government, peremptorily to hasten to the rescue of Venice. Almost at the same time, Giovanni Barberigo, with his light craft, surprised and captured three of the enemy's vessels, killing many of the sailors, and taking a hundred and fifty prisoners. The success was not in itself important, but it raised the hopes of the Venetians, as being the first time they had taken the offensive. Pisani himself had endeavoured to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, but had each time been sharply repulsed, losing ten boats and thirty men upon one occasion, when the doge's nephew, Antonio Gradenigo, was also killed by the enemy; but in spite of this, he advised government to make a great effort to recover Chioggia.

He admitted that the chances of failure were great. Still, he maintained that success was possible, and it was better that the Venetians should die fighting than by hunger.

As the result of his expeditions, he had found that Doria had at least thirty thousand men, fifty great ships, and from seven to eight hundred light craft. Moreover his troops were in high spirits, well fed, and well cared for, and should therefore be, man to man, more than a match for the starving soldiers of Venice. Nevertheless, there was a possibility of success, as Zeno would doubtless arrive by the time the siege had fairly commenced.

After much debate, the council determined that the undertaking should be attempted. To stir the people to the utmost exertion, the senate, on the 1st of December, published a decree that the thirty plebeians, who should most liberally meet the urgent necessities of the state by the proffer of their persons or estates, should, after peace was made, be raised to the rank of nobility, and summoned to the great council; that thirty-five thousand ducats of gold should be distributed annually among those who were not elected, and their heirs, forever; that any foreign merchant, who should display peculiar zeal for the cause of the republic, should be admitted to the full privileges of citizenship; and that, on the other hand, such Venetians as might endeavour to elude a participation in the common burdens, and hardships, should be held by so doing to have forfeited all their civil rights.

Seventy-five candidates came forward. Some offered money, some personal service or the service of their sons and relatives; some presented galleys and offered to pay their crews. Immense efforts were made, and by the 21st of December sixty ships, four hundred boats of all sizes, and thirty-four war galleys were equipped. The doge, although just seventy-three years old, signified his wish to assume the supreme command of the expedition, Pisani acting as his lieutenant and admiral.

During the long weeks the siege continued, Francis saw little of the Polanis, his duties keeping him constantly near Pisani, with whom he took such meals as the time would afford, sleeping in his house, in readiness for instant service. Maria had returned to her father's house, for her husband was in command of the outpost nearest to the enemy, and was therefore constantly away from home. Maria's spirits were higher than ever. She made light of the hardships in the way of food, bantered Francis when he came on his business engagements, and affected to treat him with extreme respect, as the trusted lieutenant of Pisani. Giulia, too, kept up her spirits, and no one would have thought, listening to the lively talk of the two girls with their father and Francis, that Venice was besieged by an overwhelming force, and reduced to the direst straits by hunger.

The greater part of Polani's ships were now in the service of the state. Those which remained, were constantly engaged in running across to the Dalmatian coast, and bringing in cargoes of provisions through the cordon of the Genoese galleys.

The light gondola which, after being repaired, had been lying for two years under cover in Messer Polani's yard, had again been made useful. Giuseppi had returned to his old work, and he and another powerful oarsman made the light boat fly through the water, as Francis carried the orders of the admiral to the various posts. He had also been in it upon several of the reconnoitring expeditions, in the canals leading to Chioggia, and although hotly chased he had, on each occasion, left his pursuers behind. The evening before the expedition was to start Pisani said to him:

"I think you have brought me more news, with that fast little craft of yours, than I have been able to obtain even at the cost of some hard fighting, and a good many lives. I wish that you would make an excursion for me tonight, and find out, if you can, whether the enemy have moved their position since the last time I reconnoitred them. I particularly wish to learn if they have strong forces near the outlets of the channels of Chioggia, and Brondolo, and the Canal of Lombardy. You know my plans, and with such a host of recruits as I shall have with me, it is all important that there should be no failure at first. Veterans can stand defeat, but a reverse is fatal to young troops. Heaven knows, they will have enough to bear, with wet, cold, exposure, and hunger, and success will be necessary to keep up their spirits. Do not push your adventure too far. Run no risk if you can help it. I would not, for much, that harm befell you."

Francis at once accepted the commission, and left the admiral in order to make his preparations.

"Giuseppi," he said, as he took his place in the boat, "I want you to find for me, for service tonight, a gondolier who is a native of Chioggia, and who knows every foot of the country round, and every winding of the canals. He must be intelligent and brave, for the risk will be no slight one."

"I think I know such a man, Messer Francisco; but if he happens to be away, there will be no difficulty in finding another, for there are many fishermen here who escaped before the Genoese captured Chioggia."

"When will you see him?"

"As soon as you have landed me at Messer Polani's."

"Go and fetch him, Giuseppi; and if you can find one or two old fishermen of Chioggia, bring them also with you. I want to gain as much information as possible regarding the country."

"Is it true that the fleet starts tomorrow, Francisco?" Maria asked as he entered. "Everyone says so."

"It is quite true. There will be no further change. The orders have been all issued, and you may rely upon it that we are going to sea."

"And when will you return?"

"That's another matter altogether," Francis laughed. "It may be a week, it may be three months."

"But I thought we were going to fight the Genoese galleys. It does not seem to me that a week is wanted to do that. A day to go to Chioggia, a day to fight, and a day to return. What can you want more than that for?"

"I do not think that we are going to fight the Genoese galleys," Francis answered. "Certainly we shall not do so if we can help it. They are vastly stronger than we are; but I do not know that we need fear them for all that."

"What do you mean, Francisco? You do not mean to fight -- they are vastly stronger than you are -- and yet you do not fear them. You are not given to speak in riddles; but you have puzzled me this time."

"Well, I will explain myself a little," Francis said; "but you must remember that it is a secret, and not to be whispered to anyone."

"That is right," Maria said. "I love a secret, especially a state secret.

"Giulia, come and sit quite close, so that he can whisper it into our ears, and even the walls shall not hear it.

"Now, sir, explain yourself!"

"I will explain it without telling you," Francis said. "Have you not gone to see African lions, who were very much stronger and fiercer than yourself, and yet you did not fear them?"

"Because they have been in cages," Maria said. "But what has that to do with it?"

"It explains the whole matter," Francis said. "We do not mean to fight the Genoese fleet, if we can help it; but we are going to try to put them in a cage, and then we shall not be afraid of them."

"Do not trifle with us, sir," Maria said sternly. "How can you put Genoese galleys in a cage?"

"We cannot put them in a cage, but we can cage them up," Francis said. "Pisani's intention is, if possible, to close all the entrances to the canals round Chioggia. Thus, not only will the Genoese galleys be unable to sally out to attack us, but the whole of the Genoese army will be cooped up, and we shall then do to them what they have been doing to us, namely, starve them out!"

"Capital, capital!" Maria said, clapping her hands. "Your Pisani is a grand man, Francisco. And if he can do this for us, there is nothing which we would not do to show our gratitude. But you won't find it easy; besides, in the game of starving out, are we likely to win? The contest will not be even, for they start on it full men and strong, while our people are half starved already."

"I do not regard success as certain," Francis replied; "and Pisani himself acknowledges the chances are very great against us. Still, it is possible; and as nothing else seems possible, we are going to attempt it."

Polani looked grave, when he heard of the mission which Francis was going to undertake. Giulia's bright colour fled at once, and Maria said angrily:

"You have no right to be always running into danger, Francisco. You are not a Venetian, and there is no reason why you should be always running risks greater than those which most Venetians are likely to encounter. You ought to think of us who care for you, if you don't choose to think of yourself."

"I did not volunteer for the service," Francis said. "I was asked by the admiral to undertake it, and even had I wished it, I could hardly have refused. The admiral selected me, not from any merit on my part, but because he knows that my boat is one of the fastest on the lagoons, and that I can easily run away from any of the Genoese rowboats. He particularly ordered me to run no unnecessary risks."

"That is all very well," Maria said; "but you know very well that you will run risks, and put yourself in the way of danger, if there is a chance of doing so.

"You should tell him not to go, father!"

"I cannot do that, Maria; for the service he has undertaken is a very important one to Venice. Everything depends upon the success of Pisani's attempt, and undertaken, as it is, against great odds, it is of the utmost importance that there should be no mistake as to the position of the enemy. Whether Francis was wise or not, in accepting Pisani's offer that he should act as his aide-de-camp, may be doubted; but now that he has undertaken it, he must carry out his orders, especially as it is now too late to make other arrangements, did he draw back.

"If you will come into my room, Francisco, I will give you a chart of the passages around Chioggia. You can study that, and you will then the better understand the information you may receive, from the men you are expecting."

Half an hour later Giuseppi arrived with the gondolier he had spoken of, and two old fishermen, and from their explanations, and a study of the map, Francis gained an exact idea of the localities. From his previous expeditions he had learned where the Genoese were generally posted, and something of the strength of the forces at the various points.

In truth, they kept but a careless watch. Feeling convinced that the Venetians possessed no forces capable of attacking him, and that their surrender must now be a matter of a few days only, Doria took no precautions. His troops were all quartered in the houses of Chioggia, his galleys moored alongside its quays, and the utmost he did was to post small bodies of men, with rowboats, at the entrances to the passages from the sea, and up the lagoons, to give warning of any sudden attempt on the part of Barberigo, with his light flotilla, to make a dash at the galleys, and endeavour to burn them.

Having obtained all the information he could from the old fishermen, Francis dismissed them.

"It is evident," he said to Giuseppi, "that we can hardly hope to succeed in passing the boats at the entrance to the canal seaward, or by going up the lagoon. The only plan that I can see is for us to land on the island of Pelestrina, which is held by us, to carry the boat across it, and to embark in the Malamocco channel. In this way, we should be within their cordon of boats, and can row fearlessly either out to the entrances, or to Chioggia itself. We are not likely to be detected, and if we are, we must make a race of it to Pelestrina."

The gondolier agreed that the scheme was practicable, and Francis ordered Giuseppi and him to remove the burdens, and every bit of wood that could be dispensed with from the gondola, so as to facilitate its transport.



Chapter 19: The Siege Of Chioggia.


Late in the afternoon, Francis embarked in his gondola, and in an hour and a half landed at Pelestrina. He was well known, to those posted there, as the bearer of Pisani's orders, and as soon as it became dark, Rufino Giustiniani, who was in command, ordered a dozen men to carry the light gondola across the island to the Malamocco channel. While this was being done, Francis went to Rufino's tent, and informed him of what was going on in Venice, and that the whole fleet would set sail on the morrow.

"We heard rumours, from the men who brought our rations, that it was to be so," Rufino said; "but we have heard the same story a dozen times. So, now, it is really true! But what can the admiral be thinking of! Sure he can't intend to attack Doria with this newly-manned fleet and rabble army. He could not hope for victory against such odds!"

"The admiral's intentions are kept a profound secret," Francis said, "and are only known to the doge and the Council of Ten."

"And to yourself," Rufino said laughing.

"The admiral is good enough to honour me with his fullest confidence," Francis said; "and in this matter, it is so important that the nature of the design should be kept wholly secret, that I cannot tell it even to you!"

"You are quite right, Francisco; nor do I wish to know it, though I would wager that Maria, and her pretty sister, have some inkling of what is going on."

Francis laughed.

"The signoras are good enough to treat me as a brother," he said, "and I will not affirm that they have not obtained some slight information."

"I will warrant they have!" Rufino said. "When my wife has made up her mind to get to the bottom of a matter, she will tease and coax till she succeeds.

"Ah, here is Matteo! he has been out posting the sentries for the night."

The two friends had not indulged in a talk for some weeks, though they had occasionally met when Francis paid one of his flying visits to the island.

"I have just seen your boat being carried along," Matteo said, as he entered the tent. "I could not think what it was till I got close; but of course, when I saw Giuseppi, I knew all about it. What are you going to do -- scout among the Genoese?"

"I am going to find out as much as I can," Francis said.

"It's a capital idea your bringing the boat across the island," Matteo said. "You are always full of good ideas, Francis. I can't make it out. They never seem to occur to me, and at the present time, especially, the only ideas that come into my mind are as to the comfortable meals I will eat, when this business is over. I never thought I cared much for eating before, but since I have had nothing but bread -- and not enough of that -- and an occasional fish, I have discovered that I am really fond of good living. My bones ache perpetually with lying on the bare ground, and if I escape from this, without being a cripple for life from rheumatism, I shall consider myself lucky, indeed. You are a fortunate fellow, Francisco; spending your time in the admiral's comfortable palace, or flying about in a smooth-rowing gondola!"

"That is one side of the question certainly," Francis said, laughing; "but there is a good deal of hard work, too, in the way of writing."

"I should not like that," Matteo said. "Still, I think you have the best of it. If the Genoese would come sometimes, and try and drive us off the island, there would be some excitement. But, except when the admiral wishes a reconnaissance, or Barberigo's galleys come down and stir them up, there is really nothing doing here."

"That ought to suit you exactly, Matteo, for never but once did I hear you say you wanted to do anything."

"When was that?" Rufino asked, laughing.

"Matteo conceived a violent desire to climb Mount Etna," Francis said, "and it needed all my arguments to prevent his leaving the ship at Girgenti, while she was loading, and starting to make the ascent."

"He would have repented before he had gone a quarter of the way up," Rufino said.

"I might have repented," Matteo replied stoutly, "but I would have done it, if I had begun. You don't know me yet, Rufino. I have a large store of energy, only at present I have had no opportunity of showing what I am made of.

"And now, how do you intend to proceed, Francisco? Have you any plan?"

"None at all," Francis replied. "I simply want to assure myself that the galleys are all in their usual places, and that the Genoese are making no special preparations against our coming."

"I have seen no unusual stir," Rufino said. "Their ships, as far as one can see their masts, seem all in their usual position. I fancy that, since Barberigo carried off two of them, they have put booms across the channels to prevent sudden attacks. I saw a lot of rowboats busy about something, but I could not make out exactly what they were doing; but still, I fancy they were constructing a boom. Their galleys keep a sharp lookout at night, and you certainly would not have succeeded in passing them, had you not hit upon this plan of carrying your boat over.

"Your greatest danger will be at first. When once you have fairly entered the inner canals, you are not likely to be suspected of being an enemy. They will take you for Chioggian fishermen late. We often make out their returning boats near the town. No doubt Doria is fond of fresh fish. Otherwise you would be detected, for the Genoese boats are, of course, quite different to ours, and even in the dark they would make out that you belonged to the lagoons.

"Ah, here is supper! It is not often that I should have anything to offer you, but one of my men managed to catch three or four fish today, and sold them to me at about their weight in silver. However, I have some good wine from my own cellars, and a man who has good wine, fish, and bread can do royally, whatever this grumbling brother of mine may say."

Half an hour later, a soldier brought the news that the gondola was in the water, and Francis bade adieu to his friends, and started at once.

"Row slowly and quietly," he said, as he took his seat. "Do not let your oars make the slightest splash in the water, until we are well across to the opposite shore. They may have a guard boat lying in the channel."

The light craft made her way noiselessly across the water. Once or twice they heard the sound of oars, as some Genoese galley passed up or down, but none came near enough to perceive them, and they crossed the main channel, and entered one of the numerous passages practicable only for boats of very light draught, without being once hailed. A broad shallow tract of water was now crossed, passable only by craft drawing but a few inches of water; then again they were in a deeper channel, and the lights of Chioggia rose but a short distance ahead.

They paused and listened, now, for they were nearing the ship channel, and here the enemy would, if anywhere, be on the alert. Coming across the water they could hear the sound of voices, and the dull noise made by the movement of men in a boat.

"Those are the galleys watching the boom, I expect," Francis said.

"Now, Philippo, we can move on. I suppose there is plenty of water, across the flats, for us to get into the channel without going near the boom."

"Plenty for us, signor; but if the boom goes right across the channel, heavy rowboats would not be able to pass. There are few shallower places in the lagoons than just about here. It may be that in one or two places even we might touch, but if we do, the bottom is firm enough for us to get out and float the boat over."

But they did not touch any shoal sufficiently shallow to necessitate this. Several times Francis could feel, by the dragging pace, that she was touching the oozy bottom; but each time she passed over without coming to a standstill. At last Philippo said:

"We are in the deep channel now, signor. The boom is right astern of us. The town is only a few hundred yards ahead."

"Then we shall be passing the Genoese galleys, directly," Francis said. "Row slowly as we go, and splash sometimes with the oars. If we go quickly and noiselessly past, they might possibly suspect something, but if we row without an attempt at concealment, they will take us for a fisherman's boat."

Soon the dark mass of Genoese ships, with their forests of masts, rose before them. There were lights in the cabins, and a buzz of talking, laughing, and singing among the crews on board.

"What luck today?" a sailor asked them as they rowed past, twenty or thirty yards from the side of one of the ships.

"Very poor," Giuseppi replied. "I think your ships, and the boats lying about, and the firing, have frightened the fish away from this end of the lagoons."

It was half a mile before they passed the last of the crowd of vessels.

"Would you like me to land here, signor?" Philippo said. "There would be no danger in my doing so. I can make my way, through the streets, to the house of some of my relatives, and find out from them whether there are any fresh movements among the Genoese. I will not enter any house; for aught I know there are soldiers quartered everywhere; but I am sure not to go many yards before I run against someone I know."

"I think it will be a very good plan, Philippo. We will lie under the bank here, and wait your return."

It was not more than twenty minutes before the gondolier was back.

"I have spoken to three men I know, signor. They are agreed that there are no movements among the enemy, and no one seems to have an idea that the Venetians are about to put to sea. Of course, I was cautious not to let drop a word on the subject, and only said we had managed to get through the enemy's cordon to learn the latest news, and I expected to earn a ducat or two by my night's work."

"That is excellent," Francis said. "Now, we will row out to the sea mouths of the channels, to assure ourselves that no ships are lying on guard there, for some are going in or out every day to cruise along the coast. A few may have taken up their station there, without attracting notice among the townspeople."

The opening of the passage known as the Canal of Lombardy was first visited. To gain this, they had to retrace their steps for some distance, and to row through the town of Chioggia, passing several boats and galleys, but without attracting notice. They found the mouth of the canal entirely unguarded, and then returned and rowed out to the mouth of the Brondolo passage. Some blazing fires on the shore showed that there were parties of soldiers here, but no ships were lying anywhere in the channel.

After some consultation they determined that, as no watch seemed to be kept, it would be shorter to row on outside the islands, and to enter by the third passage to be examined, that between Pelestrina and Brondolo. Here, however, the Genoese were more on the alert, as the Pelestrina shore was held by the Venetians. Scarcely had they entered the channel, when a large rowboat shot out from the shadow of the shore and hailed them.

"Stop rowing in that boat! Who are you that are entering so late?"

"Fishermen," Philippo shouted back, but without stopping rowing.

"Stop!" shouted the officer, "till we examine you! It is forbidden to enter the channel after dark."

But the gondoliers rowed steadily on, until ahead of the boat coming out. This fell into their wake, and its angry officer shouted threats against the fugitives, and exhorted his men to row their hardest.

"There are two more boats ahead, signor. They are lying on their oars to cut us off. One is a good deal further out than the other, and I don't think we shall gain Pelestrina."

"Then make for the Brondolo shore till we have passed them," Francis said.

The boat whirled off her course, and made towards the shore. The Genoese galleys ahead at once made towards them; but in spite of the numerous oars they pulled, the craft could not keep up with the racing gondola, and it crossed ahead of them. In another five minutes' rowing, the three galleys were well astern, and the gondola again made out from the shore, her head pointing obliquely towards Pelestrina. The galleys were now fifty yards behind, and although their crews rowed their hardest, the gondola gradually gained upon them, and crossing their bows made over towards Pelestrina.

"We are out of the channel now," Philippo said, "and there will not be water enough for them to follow us much further."

A minute or two later a sudden shout proclaimed that the nearest of their pursuers had touched the ground.

"We can take it easy now," Giuseppi said, "and I am not sorry, for we could not have rowed harder if we had been racing."

A few minutes later, the light craft touched the mud a few yards distant from the shore.

"Is that you, Francisco?" a voice, which Francis recognized as Matteo's, asked.

"All right, Matteo!" he replied. "No one hurt this time."

"I have been on the lookout for you the last hour. I have got a body of my men here, in case you were chased. We heard the shouting and guessed it was you."

"If you have got some men there, Matteo, there is a chance for you to take a prize. A galley rowing twelve or fourteen oars is in the mud, a few hundred yards out. She was chasing us, and ran aground when at full speed, and I imagine they will have some trouble in getting her off. I suppose she draws a couple of feet of water. There! Don't you hear the hubbub they are making?"

"I hear them," Matteo said.

"Come along, lads. The night is cold, and I don't suppose the water is any warmer, but a skirmish will heat our blood."

Matteo, followed by a company of some forty men, at once entered the water, and made in the direction of the sounds. Five minutes later, Francis heard shouts and a clashing of weapons suddenly break out. It lasted but a short time. Matteo and his band soon returned with the prisoners.

"What! Have you waited, Francisco? I thought you would be on the other side of the island by this time."

"I was in no particular hurry, Matteo; and besides, I want my boat; and although two men can lift her easily enough, she would be a heavy weight to carry so far."

"You shall have a dozen, Francisco. It is owing to you we have taken these prisoners, and that I have had my first bit of excitement since I came out here.

"Sergeant, here are a couple of ducats. When you have given the prisoners into safe custody, spend the money in wine for the company.

"The water is bitterly cold, I can tell you, Francisco; but otherwise I am warm enough, for one's feet stick to the mud, and it seems, each step, as if one had fifty pounds of lead on one's shoes. But come along to my brother's tent at once. Your feet must be cold, too, though the water was only a few inches deep where you got out of your boat. A glass of hot wine will do us both good; and it will be an hour before your boat is in the water again. Indeed, I don't see the use of your starting before daybreak."

"Nor do I, Matteo; but I must go, nevertheless. Pisani knows how long it will take me to get to Chioggia and return. He will allow an hour or two for me to reconnoitre, and will then be expecting me back. As it is, I shall be two hours after the time when he will be expecting me, for he knows nothing about the boat being carried across this island, and will make no allowance for that. Moreover, Polani and his daughters will be anxious about me."

"Oh, you flatter yourself they will be lying awake for you," Matteo said, laughing. "Thinking over your dangers! Well, there's nothing like having a good idea of one's self."

Francis joined in the laugh.

"It does sound rather conceited, Matteo; but I know they will be anxious. They took up the idea it was a dangerous service I was going on, and I have no doubt they fidgeted over it. Women are always fancying things, you know."

"I don't know anyone who fidgets about me," Matteo said; "but then, you see, I am not a rescuer of damsels in distress, nor have I received the thanks of the republic for gallant actions."

"Well, you ought to have done," Francis replied. "You had just as much to do with that fight on board Pisani's galley as I had, only it happened I was in command.

"Oh, there is your brother's tent! I see there is a light burning, so I suppose he has not gone to bed yet."

"All the better," Matteo said. "We shall get our hot wine all the quicker. My teeth are chattering so, I hardly dare speak for fear of biting my tongue."

Francis was warmly welcomed by Rufino Giustiniani.

"I need hardly ask you if you have succeeded in reconnoitring their positions, for I know you would not come back before morning had you not carried out your orders.

"Why, Matteo, what have you been doing -- wading in the mud, apparently? Why, you are wet up to the waist."

"We have captured an officer, and fourteen men, Rufino. They will be here in a few minutes. Their boat got stuck fast while it was chasing Francisco; so we waded out and took them. They made some resistance, but beyond a few slashes, and two or three thumps from their oars, no harm was done."

"That is right, Matteo. I am glad you have had a skirmish with them at last. Now go in and change your things. I shall have you on my hands with rheumatism."

"I will do that at once, and I hope you will have some hot spiced wine ready, by the time I have changed, for I am nearly frozen."

The embers of a fire, outside the tent, were soon stirred together, and in a few minutes the wine was prepared. In the meantime, Francis had been telling Rufino the incidents of his trip. In half an hour, the message came that the gondola was again in the water, and Francis was soon on his way back to the city.

"I was beginning to be anxious about you," was Pisani's greeting, as, upon being informed of his return, he sprang from the couch, on which he had thrown himself for an hour's sleep, and hurried downstairs. "I reckoned that you might have been back an hour before this, and began to think that you must have got into some scrape. Well, what have you discovered?"

"The Genoese have no idea that you are going to put to sea. Their ships and galleys are, as usual, moored off the quays of Chioggia. The entrance to the Canal of Lombardy, and the Brondolo passage, are both quite open, and there appear to be no troops anywhere near; but between Pelestrina and Brondolo they have rowboats watching the entrance, but no craft of any size. There are a few troops there, but, so far as I could judge by the number of fires, not more than two hundred men or so."

"Your news is excellent, Francisco. I will not ask you more, now. It is three o'clock already, and at five I must be up and doing; so get off to bed as soon as you can. You can give me the details in the morning."

The gondola was still waiting at the steps, and in a few minutes Francis arrived at the Palazzo Polani. A servant was sleeping on a bench in the hall. He started up as Francis entered.

"I have orders to let my master know, as soon as you return, signor."

"You can tell him, at the same time, that I have returned without hurt, and pray him not to disturb himself, as I can tell him what has taken place in the morning."

Polani, however, at once came to Francis' room.

"Thank Heaven you have returned safe to us, my boy!" he said. "I have just knocked at the girls' doors, to tell them of your return, and, by the quickness with which they answered, I am sure that they, like myself, have had no sleep. Have you succeeded in your mission?"

"Perfectly, signor. I have been to Chioggia itself, and to the entrances of the three passages, and have discovered that none of them are guarded by any force that could resist us."

"But how did you manage to pass through their galleys?"

"I landed on this side of Pelestrina, and had the gondola carried across, and launched in the channel inside their cordon; and it was not until we entered the last passage -- that by Brondolo -- that we were noticed. Then there was a sharp chase for a bit, but we outstripped them, and got safely across to Pelestrina. One of the galleys, in the excitement of the chase, ran fast into the mud; and Matteo, with some of his men, waded out and captured the officer and crew. So there is every prospect of our succeeding tomorrow."

"All that is good," Polani said; "but to me, just at present, I own that the principal thing is that you have got safely back. Now I will not keep you from your bed, for I suppose that you will not be able to lie late in the morning."

Francis certainly did not intend to do so, but the sun was high before he woke. He hurriedly dressed, and went downstairs.

"I have seen the admiral," Polani said as he entered, "and told him that you were sound asleep, and I did not intend to wake you, for that you were looking worn and knocked up. He said: 'Quite right! The lad is so willing and active, that I forget sometimes that he is not an old sea dog like myself, accustomed to sleep with one eye open, and to go without sleep altogether for days if necessary.' So you need not hurry over your breakfast. The girls are dying to hear your adventures."

As he took his breakfast, Francis gave the girls an account of his expedition.

"And so, you saw Rufino!" Maria said. "Did he inquire after me? You told him, I hope, that I was fading away rapidly from grief at his absence."

"I did not venture upon so flagrant an untruth as that," Francis replied.

"Is he very uncomfortable?"

"Not very, signora. He has a good tent, some excellent wine, an allowance of bread, which might be larger, and occasionally fish. As he has also the gift of excellent spirits, I do not think he is greatly to be pitied -- except, of course, for his absence from you."

"That, of course," Maria said. "When he does come here, he always tells me a moving tale of his privations, in hopes of exciting pity; but, unfortunately, I cannot help laughing at his tales of hardship. But we were really anxious about you last night, Francisco, and very thankful when we heard you had returned.

"Weren't we, Giulia?"

Giulia nodded.

"Giulia hasn't much to say when you are here, Francisco, but she can chatter about you fast enough when we are alone."

"How can you say so, Maria?" Giulia said reproachfully.

"Well, my dear, there is no harm in that. For aught he knows, you may be saying the most unkind things about him, all the time."

"I am sure he knows that I should not do that," Giulia said indignantly.

"By the way, do you know, Francisco, that all Venice is in a state of excitement! A proclamation has been issued by the doge, this morning, that all should be in their galleys and at their posts at noon, under pain of death. So everyone knows that something is about to be done, at last."

"Then it is time for me to be off," Francis said, rising hastily, "for it is ten o'clock already."

"Take your time, my lad," the merchant said. "There is no hurry, for Pisani told me, privately, that they should not sail until after dark."

It was not, indeed, until nearly eight o'clock in the evening, that the expedition started. At the hour of vespers, the doge, Pisani, and the other leaders of the expedition, attended mass in the church of Saint Mark, and then proceeded to their galleys, where all was now in readiness.

Pisani led the first division, which consisted of fourteen galleys. The doge, assisted by Cavalli, commanded in the centre; and Corbaro brought up the rear, with ten large ships. The night was beautifully bright and calm, a light and favourable breeze was blowing, and all Venice assembled to see the departure of the fleet.

Just after it passed through the passage of the Lido, a thick mist came on. Pisani stamped up and down the deck impatiently.

"If this goes on, it will ruin us," he said. "Instead of arriving in proper order at the mouth of the passages, and occupying them before the Genoese wake up to a sense of their danger, we shall get there one by one, they will take the alarm, and we shall have their whole fleet to deal with. It will be simply ruin to our scheme."

Fortunately, however, the fog speedily lifted. The vessels closed up together, and, in two hours after starting, arrived off the entrances to the channels. Pisani anchored until daylight appeared, and nearly five thousand men were then landed on the Brondolo's shore, easily driving back the small detachment placed there. But the alarm was soon given, and the Genoese poured out in such overwhelming force that the Venetians were driven in disorder to their boats, leaving behind them six hundred killed, drowned, or prisoners.

But Pisani had not supposed that he would be able to hold his position in front of the whole Genoese force, and he had succeeded in his main object. While the fighting had been going on on shore, a party of sailors had managed to moor a great ship, laden with stones, across the channel. As soon as the Genoese had driven the Venetians to their boats, they took possession of this vessel, and, finding that she was aground, they set her on fire, thus unconsciously aiding Pisani's object, for when she had burned to the water's edge she sank.

Barberigo, with his light galleys, now arrived upon the spot, and emptied their loads of stone into the passage around the wreck. The Genoese kept up a heavy fire with their artillery, many of the galleys were sunk, and numbers of the Venetians drowned, or killed by the shot.

Nevertheless, they worked on unflinchingly. As soon as the pile of stones had risen sufficiently for the men to stand upon them, waist deep, they took their places upon it, and packed in order the stones that their comrades handed them, and fixed heavy chains binding the whole together.

The work was terribly severe. The cold was bitter. The men were badly fed, and most of them altogether unaccustomed to hardships. In addition to the fire from the enemy's guns, they were exposed to a rain of arrows, and at the end of two days and nights they were utterly worn out and exhausted, and protested that they could do no more. Pisani, who had himself laboured among them in the thickest of the danger, strove to keep up their spirits by pointing out the importance of their work, and requested the doge to swear on his sword that, old as he was, he would never return to Venice unless Chioggia was conquered.

The doge took the oath, and for the moment the murmuring ceased; and, on the night of the 24th, the channel of Chioggia was entirely choked from shore to shore. On that day, Corbaro succeeded in sinking two hulks in the passage of Brondolo. Doria, who had hitherto believed that the Venetians would attempt nothing serious, now perceived for the first time the object of Pisani, and despatched fourteen great galleys to crush Corbaro, who had with him but four vessels. Pisani at once sailed to his assistance, with ten more ships, and the passage was now so narrow that the Genoese did not venture to attack, and Corbaro completed the operation of blocking up the Brondolo passage. The next day the Canal of Lombardy was similarly blocked; and thus, on the fourth day after leaving Venice, Pisani had accomplished his object, and had shut out the Genoese galleys from the sea.

But the work had been terrible, and the losses great. The soldiers were on half rations. The cold was piercing. They were engaged night and day with the enemy, and were continually wet through, and the labour was tremendous.

A fort had already been begun on the southern shore of the port of Brondolo, facing the convent, which Doria had transformed into a citadel. The new work was christened the Lova, and the heaviest guns in the Venetian arsenal were planted there. One of these, named the Trevisan, discharged stones of a hundred and ninety-five pounds in weight, and the Victory was little smaller. But the science of artillery was then in its youth, and these guns could only be discharged once in twenty-four hours.

But, on the 29th, the Venetians could do no more, and officers, soldiers, and sailors united in the demand that they should return to Venice. Even Pisani felt that the enterprise was beyond him, and that his men, exhausted by cold, hunger, and their incessant exertions, could no longer resist the overwhelming odds brought against him. Still, he maintained a brave front, and once again his cheery words, and unfeigned good temper, and the example set them by the aged doge, had their effect; but the soldiers required a pledge that, if Zeno should not be signalled in sight by New Year's Day, he would raise the siege. If Pisani and the doge would pledge themselves to this, the people agreed to maintain the struggle for the intervening forty-eight hours.

The pledge was given, and the fight continued. Thus, the fate of Venice hung in the balance. If Zeno arrived, not only would she be saved, but she had it in her power to inflict upon Genoa a terrible blow. Should Zeno still tarry, not only would the siege be raised, and the Genoese be at liberty to remove the dams which the Venetians had placed, at such a cost of suffering and blood; but there would be nothing left for Venice but to accept the terms, however onerous, her triumphant foes might dictate, terms which would certainly strip her of all her possessions, and probably involve even her independence.

Never, from her first foundation, had Venice been in such terrible risk. Her very existence trembled in the balance. The 30th passed as the days preceding it. There was but little fighting, for the Genoese knew how terrible were the straits to which Venice was reduced, and learned, from the prisoners they had taken, that in a few days, at the outside, the army besieging them would cease to exist.

At daybreak, on the 31st, men ascended the masts of the ships, and gazed over the sea, in hopes of making out the long-expected sails. But the sea was bare. It was terrible to see the faces of the Venetians, gaunt with famine, broken down by cold and fatigue. Even the most enduring began to despair.

Men spoke no more of Zeno. He had been away for months. Was it likely that he would come just at this moment? They talked rather of their homes. The next day they would return. If they must die, they would die with those they loved, in Venice. They should not mind that. And so the day went on, and as they lay down at night, hungry and cold, they thanked God that it was their last day. Whatever might come would be better than this.

Men were at the mastheads again, before daylight, on the 1st of January. Then, as the first streak of dawn broke, the cry went from masthead to masthead:

"There are ships out at sea!"

The cry was heard on shore. Pisani jumped into a boat with Francis, rowed out to his ship, and climbed the mast.

"Yes, there are ships!" he said. And then, after a pause: "Fifteen of them! Who are they? God grant it be Zeno!"

This was the question everyone on ship and on shore was asking himself, for it was known that the Genoese, too, were expecting reinforcements.

"The wind is scarce strong enough to move them through the water," Pisani said. "Let some light boats go off to reconnoitre. Let us know the best or the worst. If it be Zeno, Venice is saved! If it be the Genoese, I, and those who agree with me that it is better to die fighting, than to perish of hunger, will go out and attack them."

In a few minutes, several fast galleys started for the fleet, which was still so far away that the vessels could scarcely be made out, still less their rig and nationality. It would be some time before the boats would return with the news, and Pisani went ashore, and, with the doge, moved among the men, exhorting them to be steadfast, above all things not to give way to panic, should the newcomers prove to be enemies.

"If all is done in order," he said, "they cannot interfere with our retreat to Venice. They do not know how weak we are, and will not venture to attack so large a fleet. Therefore, when the signal is made that they are Genoese, we will fall back in good order to our boats, and take to our ships, and then either return to Venice, or sail out and give battle, as it may be decided."

The boats, before starting, had been told to hoist white flags should the galleys be Venetian, but to show no signal if they were Genoese. The boats were watched, from the mastheads, until they became specks in the distance. An hour afterwards, the lookout signalled to those on shore that they were returning.

"Go off again, Francisco. I must remain here to keep up the men's hearts, if the news be bad. Take your stand on the poop of my ship, and the moment the lookouts can say, with certainty, whether the boats carry a white flag or not, hoist the Lion of Saint Mark to the masthead, if it be Zeno. If not, run up a blue flag!"



Chapter 20: The Triumph Of Venice.


Francis rowed off to the ship, got the flags in readiness for hoisting, and stood with the lines in his hand.

"Can you make them out, yet?" he hailed the men at the mastheads.

"They are mere specks yet, signor," the man at the foremast said.

The other did not reply at once, but presently he shouted down:

"Far as they are away, signor, I am almost sure that one or two of them, at least, have something white flying."

There was a murmur of joy from the men on the deck, for Jacopo Zippo was famous for his keenness of sight.

"Silence, men!" Francis said. "Do not let a man shout, or wave his cap, till we are absolutely certain. Remember the agony with which those on shore are watching us, and the awful disappointment it would be, were their hopes raised only to be crushed, afterwards."

Another ten minutes, and Jacopo slid rapidly down by the stays, and stood on the deck with bared head.

"God be praised, signor! I have no longer a doubt. I can tell you, for certain, that white flags are flying from these boats."

"God be praised!" Francis replied.

"Now, up with the Lion!"

The flag was bent to the halyards and Francis hoisted it. As it rose above the bulwark, Pisani, who was standing on a hillock of sand, shouted out at the top of his voice:

"It is Zeno's fleet!"

A shout of joy broke from the troops. Cheer after cheer rent the air, from ship and shore, and then the wildest excitement reigned. Some fell on their knees, to thank God for the rescue thus sent when all seemed lost. Others stood with clasped hands, and streaming eyes, looking towards heaven. Some danced and shouted. Some wept with joy. Men fell on to each other's necks, and embraced. Some threw up their caps. All were wild with joy, and pent-up excitement.

Zeno, who, in ignorance of the terrible straits to which his countrymen were reduced, was making with his fleet direct to Venice, was intercepted by one of the galleys, and at once bore up for Brondolo, and presently dropped anchor near the shore. As he did so, a boat was lowered, and he rowed to the strand, where the Venetians crowded down to greet him. With difficulty, he made his way through the shouting multitude to the spot, a little distance away, where the doge was awaiting him.

Zeno was of medium height, square shouldered and broad chested. His head was manly and handsome, his nose aquiline, his eyes large, dark, and piercingly bright, and shaded by strongly-marked eyebrows. His air was grave and thoughtful, and in strong contrast to that of the merry and buoyant Pisani. His temper was more equable, but his character was as impulsive as that of the admiral. He was now forty-five years of age -- ten years the junior of Pisani. Zeno was intended for the church, and was presented by the pope with the reversion of a rich prebendal stall at Patras. On his way to Padua, to complete his studies at the university, he was attacked by robbers, who left him for dead. He recovered, however, and went to Padua. He became an accomplished scholar; but was so fond of gambling that he lost every penny, and was obliged to escape from his creditors by flight. For five years he wandered over Italy, taking part in all sorts of adventures, and then suddenly returned to Venice, and was persuaded by his friends to proceed to Patras, where his stall was now vacant.

When he arrived there, he found the city besieged by the Turks. In spite of his clerical dignity, he placed himself in the front rank of its defenders, and distinguished himself by extreme bravery. He was desperately wounded, and was again believed to be dead. He was even placed in his coffin; but just as it was being nailed down, he showed signs of returning life. He did not stay long at Patras, but travelled in Germany, France, and England.

Soon after he returned to Patras he fought a duel, and thereby forfeited his stall. He now renounced the clerical profession, and married a wealthy heiress. She died shortly afterwards, and he married the daughter of the Admiral Marco Giustiniani.

He now entered upon political life, and soon showed brilliant talents. He was then appointed to the military command of the district of Treviso, which the Paduans were then invading. Here he very greatly distinguished himself, and in numberless engagements was always successful, so that he became known as Zeno the Unconquered.

When Pisani was appointed captain general, in April, 1378, he was appointed governor of Negropont, and soon afterwards received a separate naval command. He had been lost sight of for many months, prior to his appearance so opportunely before Brondolo, and he now confirmed to the doge the news that had been received shortly before. He had captured nearly seventy Genoese vessels, of various sizes, had cruised for some time in sight of Genoa, struck a heavy blow at her commerce, and prevented the despatch of the reinforcements promised to Doria. Among the vessels taken was one which was carrying three hundred thousand ducats from Genoa.

He reported himself ready with his men to take up the brunt of the siege forthwith, and selecting Brondolo as the most dangerous position, at once landed his crews. The stores on board ship were also brought ashore, and proved ample for the present necessities of the army.

In a few days, he sailed with his galleys and recaptured Loredo, driving out the Paduan garrison there. This conquest was all important to Venice, for it opened their communication with Ferrara, and vast stores of provisions were at once sent by their ally to Venice, and the pressure of starvation immediately ceased.

The siege of Brondolo was now pushed on, and on the 22nd of January the great bombard, the Victory, so battered the wall opposite to it that it fell suddenly, crushing beneath its ruins the Genoese commander, Doria.

The change which three weeks had made in the appearance of the Venetian forces was marvellous. Ample food, firing, and shelter had restored their wasted frames, and assurance of victory had taken the place of the courage of despair. A month of toil, hardship, and fighting had converted a mob of recruits into disciplined soldiers, and Zeno and Pisani seemed to have filled all with their own energy and courage. Zeno, indeed, was so rash and fearless that he had innumerable escapes from death.

One evening after dusk his own vessel, having been accidentally torn from its anchorage near the Lova Fort by the force of the wind and currents, was driven across the passage against the enemy's forts, whence showers of missiles were poured into it. One arrow pierced his throat. Dragging it out, he continued to issue his orders for getting the galley off the shore -- bade a seaman swim with a line to the moorings, and angrily rebuked those who, believing destruction to be inevitable, entreated him to strike his flag. The sailor reached the moorings, and, with a line he had taken, made fast a strong rope to it, and the vessel was then hauled off into a place of safety. As Zeno hurried along the deck, superintending the operation, he tumbled down an open hatchway, and fell on his back, almost unconscious. In a few moments he would have been suffocated by the blood from the wound in his throat, but with a final effort he managed to roll over on to his face, the wound was thus permitted to bleed freely, and he soon recovered.

On the 28th of February, he was appointed general in chief of the land forces, and the next day drove the Genoese from all their positions on the islands of Brondolo and Little Chioggia, and on the following morning established his headquarters under the ramparts of Chioggia, and directed a destructive fire upon the citadel. As the Genoese fell back across the bridge over the Canal of Santa Caterina, the structure gave way under their weight, and great numbers were drowned. The retreat of the Genoese was indeed so hurried and confused, and they left behind them an immense quantity of arms, accoutrements, and war material, so much so that suits of mail were selling for a few shillings in the Venetian camp.

So completely were the Genoese disheartened, by the change in their position, that many thought that the Venetians could at once have taken Chioggia by assault; but the leaders were determined to risk no failure, and knew that the enemy must yield to hunger. They therefore contented themselves with a rigorous blockade, cutting off all the supplies which the Lord of Padua endeavoured to throw into the city. The Venetians, however, allowed the besieged to send away their women and children, who were taken to Venice and kindly treated there.

The army of Venice had now been vastly increased, by the arrival of the Star Company of Milan, and the Condottieri commanded by Sir John Hawkwood. The dikes, erected across the channels with so much labour, were removed, and the fleet took their part in the siege.

On the 14th of May there was joy in Chioggia, similar to that which the Venetians had felt at the sight of Zeno's fleet, for on that morning the squadron, which Genoa had sent to their assistance under the command of Matteo Maruffo, appeared in sight. This admiral had wasted much valuable time on the way, but had fallen in with and captured, after a most gallant resistance, five Venetian galleys under Giustiniani, who had been despatched to Apulia to fetch grain.

The Genoese fleet drew up in order of battle, and challenged Pisani to come out to engage them. But, impetuous as was the disposition of the admiral, and greatly as he longed to avenge his defeat at Pola, he refused to stir. He knew that Chioggia must, ere long, fall, and he would not risk all the advantages gained, by so many months of toil and effort, upon the hazard of a battle. Day after day Maruffo repeated his challenge, accompanied by such insolent taunts that the blood of the Venetian sailors was so stirred that Pisani could no longer restrain them. After obtaining leave from the doge to go out and give battle, he sailed into the roadstead on the 25th. The two fleets drew up in line of battle, facing each other. Just as the combat was about to commence a strange panic seized the Genoese, and, without exchanging a blow or firing a shot, they fled hastily. Pisani pursued them for some miles, and then returned to his old station.

The grief and despair of the garrison of Chioggia, at the sight of the retreat of their fleet, was in proportion to the joy with which they had hailed its approach. Their supply of fresh water was all but exhausted. Their rations had become so scanty that, from sheer weakness, they were unable, after the first week in June, to work their guns.

Genoa, in despair at the position of her troops, laboured unceasingly to relieve them. Emissaries were sent to tamper with the free companies, and succeeded so far that these would have marched away, had they not been appeased by the promise of a three days' sack of Chioggia, and a month's extra pay at the end of the war. Attempts were made to assassinate Zeno, but these also failed. The Genoese then induced the pope to intercede on their behalf; but the council remembered that when Venice was at the edge of destruction, on the 31st of December, no power had come forward to save her, and refused now to be robbed of the well-earned triumph.

On the 15th of July, Maruffo, who had received reinforcements again made his appearance; but Pisani this time refused to be tempted out. On the 21st a deputation was sent out from Chioggia to ask for terms, and though, on being told that an unconditional surrender alone would be accepted, they returned to the city, yet the following day the Genoese flag was hauled down from the battlements.

On the 24th the doge, accompanied by Pisani and Zeno, made his formal entry into Chioggia. The booty was enormous; and the companies received the promised bounty, and were allowed to pillage for three days. So large was the plunder collected, in this time, by the adventurers, that the share of one of them amounted to five hundred ducats. The republic, however, did not come off altogether without spoil -- they obtained nineteen seaworthy galleys, four thousand four hundred and forty prisoners, and a vast amount of valuable stores, the salt alone being computed as worth ninety thousand crowns.

Not even when the triumphant fleet returned, after the conquest of Constantinople, was Venice so wild with delight, as when the doge, accompanied by Pisani and Zeno, entered the city in triumph after the capture of Chioggia. From the danger, more imminent than any that had threatened Venice from her first foundation, they had emerged with a success which would cripple the strength, and lower the pride of Genoa for years. Each citizen felt that he had some share in the triumph, for each had taken his share in the sufferings, the sacrifices, and the efforts of the struggle. There had been no unmanly giving way to despair, no pitiful entreaty for aid in their peril. Venice had relied upon herself, and had come out triumphant.

From every house hung flags and banners, every balcony was hung with tapestry and drapery. The Grand Canal was closely packed with gondolas, which, for once, disregarded the sumptuary law that enforced black as their only hue, and shone in a mass of colour. Gaily dressed ladies sat beneath canopies of silk and velvet; flags floated from every boat, and the rowers were dressed in the bright liveries of their employers. The church bells rang out with a deafening clang, and from roof and balcony, from wharf and river, rang out a mighty shout of welcome and triumph from the crowded mass, as the great state gondola, bearing the doge and the two commanders, made its way, slowly and with difficulty, along the centre of the canal.

Francis was on board one of the gondolas that followed in the wake of that of the doge, and as soon as the grand service in Saint Mark's was over, he slipped off and made his way back to the Palazzo Polani. The merchant and Giulia had both been present at the ceremony, and had just returned when he arrived.

"I guessed you would be off at once, Francisco, directly the ceremony was over. I own that I, myself, would have stayed for a time to see the grand doings in the Piazza, but this child would not hear of our doing so. She said it would be a shame, indeed, if you should arrive home and find no one to greet you."

"So it would have been," Giulia said. "I am sure I should not have liked, when I have been away, even on a visit of pleasure to Corfu, to return and find the house empty; and after the terrible dangers and hardships you have gone through, Francisco, it would have been unkind, indeed, had we not been here. You still look thin and worn."

"I think that is fancy on your part, Giulia. To my eyes he looks as stout as ever I saw him. But certainly he looked as lean and famished as a wolf, when I paid that visit to the camp the day before Zeno's arrival. His clothes hung loose about him, his cheeks were hollow, and his eyes sunken. He would have been a sight for men to stare at, had not every one else been in an equally bad case.

"Well, I thank God there is an end of it, now! Genoa will be glad to make peace on any terms, and the sea will once more be open to our ships. So now, Francisco, you have done with fighting, and will be able to turn your attention to the humbler occupation of a merchant."

"That will I right gladly," Francis said. "I used to think, once, I should like to be a man-at-arms; but I have seen enough of it, and hope I never will draw my sword again, unless it be in conflict with some Moorish rover. I have had many letters from my father, chiding me for mingling in frays in which I have no concern, and shall be able to gladden his heart, by writing to assure him that I have done with fighting."

"It has done you no harm, Francisco, or rather it has done you much good. It has given you the citizenship of Venice, in itself no slight advantage to you as a trader here. It has given you three hundred ducats a year, which, as a mark of honour, is not to be despised. It has won for you a name throughout the republic, and has given you a fame and popularity such as few, if any, citizens of Venice ever attained at your age. Lastly, it has made a man of you. It has given you confidence and self possession. You have acquired the habit of commanding men. You have been placed in positions which have called for the exercise of rare judgment, prudence, and courage; and you have come well through it all. It is but four years since your father left you a lad in my keeping. Now you are a man, whom the highest noble in Venice might be proud of calling his son. You have no reason to regret, therefore, that you have, for a year, taken up soldiering instead of trading, especially as our business was all stopped by the war, and you must have passed your time in inactivity."

In the evening, when the merchant and Francis were alone together, the former said:

"I told you last autumn, Francis, when I informed you that, henceforth, you would enter into my house as a partner in the business, when we again recommenced trade, that I had something else in my mind, but the time to speak of it had not then arrived. I think it has now come. Tell me, my boy, frankly, if there is anything that you would wish to ask of me."

Francis was silent for a moment; then he said:

"You have done so much, Signor Polani. You have heaped kindness upon me, altogether beyond anything I could have hoped for, that, even did I wish for more, I could not ask it."

"Then there is something more you would like, Francisco. Remember that I have told you that I regard you as a son, and therefore I wish you to speak to me, as frankly as if I was really your father."

"I fear, signor, that you will think me audacious, but since you thus urge upon me to speak all that is in my mind, I cannot but tell you the truth. I love your daughter, Giulia, and have done so ever since the first day that my eyes fell on her. It has seemed to me too much, even to hope, that she can ever be mine, and I have been careful in letting no word expressive of my feelings pass my lips. It still seems, to me, beyond the bounds of possibility that I could successfully aspire to the hand of the daughter of one of the noblest families in Venice."

"I am glad you have spoken frankly, dear lad," the merchant said. "Ever since you rescued my daughters from the hands of Mocenigo, it has been on my mind that someday, perhaps, you would be my son-in-law, as well as my son by adoption. I have watched with approval that, as Giulia grew from a child into a young woman, her liking for you seemed to ripen into affection. This afternoon I have spoken to her, and she has acknowledged that she would obey my commands, to regard you as her future husband, with gladness.

"I could not, however, offer my daughter's hand to one who might reject it, or who, if he accepted it, would only do so because he considered the match to be a desirable one, from a business point of view. Now that you have told me you love her, all difficulties are at an end. I am not one of those fathers who would force a marriage upon their daughters, regardless of their feelings. I gave to Maria free choice among her various suitors, and so I would give it to Giulia. Her choice is in accordance with my own secret hopes, and I therefore, freely and gladly, bestow her upon you. You must promise only that you do not carry her away altogether to England, so long as I live. You can, if you like, pay long visits with her from time to time to your native country, but make Venice your headquarters.

"I need say nothing to you about her dowry. I intended that, as my partner, you should take a fourth share of the profits of the business; but as Giulia's husband, I shall now propose that you have a third. This will give you an income equal to that of all but the wealthiest of the nobles of Venice. At my death, my fortune will be divided between my girls."

Francis expressed, in a few words, his joy and gratitude at the merchant's offer. Giulia had inspired him, four years before, with a boyish love, and it had steadily increased until he felt that, however great his success in life as Messer Polani's partner, his happiness would be incomplete unless shared by Giulia. Polani cut short his words by saying:

"My dear boy, I am as pleased that this should be so as you are. I now feel that I have, indeed, gained a son and secured the happiness of my daughter. Go in to her now. You will find her in the embroidery room. I told her that I should speak to you this evening, and she is doubtless in a tremble as to the result, for she told me frankly that, although she loved you, she feared you only regarded her with the affection of a brother, and she implored me, above all, not to give you a hint of her feelings towards you, until I was convinced that you really loved her."

Two months later, the marriage of Francis Hammond and Giulia Polani took place. There were great festivities, and the merchant spent a considerable sum in giving a feast, on the occasion, to all the poor of Venice. Maria told Francis, in confidence, that she had always made up her mind that he would marry Giulia.

"The child was silly enough to fall in love with you from the first, Francisco, and I was sure that you, in your dull English fashion, cared for her. My father confided to me, long since, that he hoped it would come about."

Francis Hammond lived for many years with his wife in Venice, paying occasional visits to England. He was joined, soon after his marriage, by his brother, who, after serving for some years in the business, entered it as a partner, when Messer Polani's increasing years rendered it necessary for him to retire from an active participation in it.

Some months after his marriage, Francis was saddened by the death of Admiral Pisani, who never recovered from the fatigue and hardships he suffered during the siege of Chioggia. He had, with the fleet, recovered most of the places that the Genoese had captured, and after chasing a Genoese fleet to Zara, had a partial engagement with them there. In this, Corbaro, now holding the commission of admiral of the squadron, was killed, and Pisani himself wounded. He was already suffering from fever; and the loss of Corbaro, and the check that the fleet had suffered, increased his malady, and he expired three days later.

Venice made peace with Genoa, but the grudge which she bore to Padua was not wiped out until some years later, when, in 1404, that city was besieged by the Venetians, and forced by famine to surrender in the autumn of the following year; after which Zeno, having been proved to have kept up secret communications with the Lord of Padua, was deprived of his honours and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. Thus, in turn, the two great Venetian commanders suffered disgrace and imprisonment.

As she had been patient and steadfast in her time of distress, Venice was clement in her hour of triumph, and granted far more favourable terms to Padua than that city deserved.

At the death of Messer Polani, Francis returned with his wife and family to England, and established himself in London, where he at once took rank as one of the leading merchants. His fortune, however, was so large, that he had no occasion to continue in commerce, and he did so only to afford him a certain amount of occupation. His brother carried on the business in Venice, and became one of the leading citizens there, in partnership with Matteo Giustiniani. Every two or three years Francis made a voyage with his wife to Venice and spent some months there, and to the end of his life never broke off his close connection with the City of the Waters.

<eob>

Santa Claus's Partner

By

Thomas Nelson Page



Vignette "Guess who it is?" she cried. Livingstone had to dodge for his life. Half a dozen young bodies flung themselves upon him. He took the shopkeeper aside and had a little talk with him. The little form snuggled against him closer and closer. And James with sparkling eyes rolled back the folding doors. Standing in the Christmas evening light in a long avenue under swaying boughs. CHAPTER I Berryman Livingstone was a successful man, a very successful man, and as he sat in his cushioned chair in his inner private office (in the best office-building in the city) on a particularly snowy evening in December, he looked it every inch. It spoke in every line of his clean-cut, self-contained face, with its straight, thin nose, closely drawn mouth, strong chin and clear gray eyes; in every movement of his erect, trim, well-groomed figure; in every detail of his faultless attire; in every tone of his assured, assertive, incisive speech. As some one said of him, he always looked as if he had just been ironed.

He used to be spoken of as "a man of parts;" now he was spoken of as "a man of wealth-a capitalist."

Not that he was as successful as he intended to be; but the way was all clear and shining before him now. It was now simply a matter of time. He could no more help going on to further heights of success than his "gilt-edged" securities, stored in thick parcels in his safe-deposit boxes, could help bearing interest.

He contemplated the situation this snowy evening with a deep serenity that brought a transient gleam of light to his somewhat cold face.

He knew he was successful by the silent envy with which his acquaintances regarded him; by the respect with which he was treated and his opinion was received at the different Boards, of which he was now an influential member, by men who fifteen years ago hardly knew of his existence. He knew it by the numbers of invitations to the most fashionable houses which crowded his library table; by the familiar and jovial air with which presidents and magnates of big corporations, who could on a moment's notice change from warmth-temperate warmth-to ice, greeted him; and by the cajoling speeches with which fashionable mammas with unmarried daughters of a certain or uncertain age rallied him about his big, empty house on a fashionable street, and his handsome dinners, where only one thing was wanting-the thing they had in mind.

Berryman Livingstone had, however, much better proof of success than the mere plaudits of the world. Many men had these who had no real foundation for their display. For instance, "Meteor" Broome the broker, had just taken the big house on the corner above him, and had filled his stable with high-stepping, high-priced horses-much talked of in the public prints-and his wife wore jewels as handsome as Mrs. Parke-Rhode's who owned the house and twenty more like it. Colonel Keightly was one of the largest dealers on 'Change this year and was advertised in all the papers as having made a cool million and a half in a single venture out West. Van Diver was always spoken of as the "Grain King," "Mining King," or some other kind of Royalty, because of his infallible success, and Midan touch.

But though these and many more like them were said to have made in a year or two more than Livingstone with all his pains had been able to accumulate in a score of years of earnest toil and assiduous devotion to business; were now invited to the same big houses that Livingstone visited, and were greeted by almost as flattering speeches as Livingstone received, Livingstone knew of discussions as to these men at Boards other than the "festal board," and of "stiffer" notes that had been sent them than those stiff and sealed missives which were left at their front doors by liveried footmen.

Livingstone, however, though he "kept out of the papers," having a rooted and growing prejudice against this form of vulgarity, could at any time, on five minutes' notice, establish the solidity of his foundation by simply unlocking his safe-deposit boxes. His foundation was as solid as gold.

On the mahogany table-desk before him lay now a couple of books: one a long, ledger-like folio in the russet covering sacred to the binding of that particular kind of work which a summer-hearted Writer of books years ago inscribed as "a book of great interest;" the other, a smaller volume, a memorandum book, more richly attired than its sober companion, in Russia leather.

For an hour or two Mr. Livingstone, with closely-drawn, thin lips, and eager eyes, had sat in his seat, silent, immersed, absorbed, and compared the two volumes, from time to time making memoranda in the smaller book, whilst his clerks had sat on their high stools in the large office outside looking impatiently at the white-faced clock on the wall as it slowly marked the passing time, or gazing enviously and grumblingly out of the windows at the dark, hurrying crowds below making their way homeward through the falling snow.

The young men could not have stood it but for the imperturbable patience and sweet temper of the oldest man in the office, a quiet-faced, middle-aged man, who, in a low, cheery, pleasant voice, restrained their impatience and soothed their ruffled spirits.

Even this, however, was only partially successful.

"Go in there, Mr. Clark, and tell him we want to go home," urged fretfully one youth, a tentative dandy, with a sharp nose and blunt chin, who had been diligently arranging his vivid necktie for more than a half-hour at a little mirror on the wall.

"Oh! He'll be out directly now," replied the older man, looking up from the account-book before him.

"You've been saying that for three hours!" complained the other.

"Well, see if it doesn't come true this time," said the older clerk, kindly. "He'll make it up to you."

This view of the case did not seem to appeal very strongly to the young man; he simply grunted.

"I'm going to give him notice. I'll not be put upon this way-" bristled a yet younger clerk, stepping down from his high stool in a corner and squaring his shoulders with martial manifestations.

This unexpected interposition appeared to be the outlet the older grumbler wanted.

"Yes, you will!" he sneered with disdain, turning his eyes on his junior derisively. He could at least bully Sipkins.

For response, the youngster walked with a firm tread straight up to the door of the private office; put out his hand so quickly that the other's eyes opened wide; then turned so suddenly as to catch his derider's look of wonder; stuck out his tongue in triumph at the success of his ruse, and walked on to the window.

"He'll be through directly, see if he is not," reiterated the senior clerk with kindly intonation. "Don't make a noise, there's a good fellow;" and once more John Clark, the dean of the office, guilefully buried himself in his columns.

"He must be writing his love-letters. Go in there, Hartley, and help him out. You're an adept at that," hazarded the youngster at the window to the dapper youth at the mirror.

There was a subdued explosion from all the others but Clark, after which, as if relieved by this escape of steam, the young men quieted down, and once more applied themselves to looking moodily out of the windows, whilst the older clerk gave a secret peep at his watch, and then, after another glance at the closed door of the private office, went back once more to his work.

Meantime, within his closed sanctum Livingstone still sat with intent gaze, poring over the page of figures before him. The expression on his face was one of profound satisfaction. He had at last reached the acme of his ambition-that is, of his later ambition. (He had once had other aims.) He had arrived at the point towards which he had been straining for the last eight-ten-fifteen years-he did not try to remember just how long-it had been a good while. He had at length accumulated, "on the most conservative estimate" (he framed the phrase in his mind, following the habit of his Boards)-he had no need to look now at the page before him: the seven figures that formed the balance, as he thought of them, suddenly appeared before him in facsimile. He had been gazing at them so steadily that now even when he shut his eyes he could see them clearly. It gave him a little glow about his heart;-it was quite convenient: he could always see them.

It was a great sum. He had attained his ambition.

Last year when he balanced his books at the close of the year, he had been worth only-a sum expressed in six figures, even when he put his securities at their full value. Now it could only be written in seven figures, "on the most conservative estimate."

Yes, he had reached the top. He could walk up the street now and look any man in the face, or turn his back on him, just as he chose. The thought pleased him.

Years ago, a friend-an old friend of his youth, Harry Trelane, had asked him to come down to the country to visit him and meet his children and see the peach trees bloom. He had pleaded business, and his friend had asked him gravely why he kept on working so hard when he was already so well off. He wanted to be rich, he had replied.

"But you are already rich-you must be worth half a million? and you are a single man, with no children to leave it to."

"Yes, but I mean to be worth double that."

"Why?"

"Oh!-so that I can tell any man I choose to go to the d -- l," he had said half jestingly, being rather put to it by his friend's earnestness. His friend had laughed too, he remembered, but not heartily.

"Well, that is not much of a satisfaction after all," he had said; "the real satisfaction is in helping him the other way;"-and this Livingstone remembered he had said very earnestly.

Livingstone now had reached this point of his aspiration-he could tell any man he chose "to go to the devil."

His content over this reflection was shadowed only by a momentary recollection that Henry Trelane was since dead. He regretted that his friend could not know of his success.

Another friend suddenly floated into his memory. Catherine Trelane was his college-mate's sister. Once she had been all the world to Livingstone, and he had found out afterwards that she had cared for him too, and would have married him had he spoken at one time. But he had not known this at first, and when he began to grow he could not bring himself to it. He could not afford to burden himself with a family that might interfere with his success. Then later, when he had succeeded and was well off and had asked Catherine Trelane to be his wife, she had declined. She said Livingstone had not offered her himself, but his fortune. It had stung Livingstone deeply, and he had awakened, but too late, to find for a while that he had really loved her. She was well off too, having been left a comfortable sum by a relative.

However, Livingstone was glad now, as he reflected on it, that it had turned out so. Catherine Trelane's refusal had really been the incentive which had spurred him on to greater success. It was to revenge himself that he had plunged deeper into business than ever, and he had bought his fine house to show that he could afford to live in style. He had intended then to marry; but he had not had time to do so; he had always been too busy.

Catherine Trelane, at least, was not dead. He had not heard of her in a long time; she had married, he knew, a man named-Shepherd, he believed, and he had heard that her husband was dead.

He would see that she knew he was worth-the page of figures suddenly flashed in before his eyes like a magic-lantern slide. Yes, he was worth all that! and he could now marry whom and when he pleased.

CHAPTER II Livingstone closed his books. He had put everything in such shape that Clark, his confidential clerk, would not have the least trouble this year in transferring everything and starting the new books that would now be necessary.

Last year Clark had been at his house a good many nights writing up these private books; but that was because Clark had been in a sort of muddle last winter,-his wife was sick, or one of his dozen children had met with an accident,-or something,-Livingstone vaguely remembered.

This year there would be no such trouble. Livingstone was pleased at the thought; for Clark was a good fellow, and a capable bookkeeper, even though he was a trifle slow.

Livingstone felt that he had, in a way, a high regard for Clark. He was attentive to his duties, beyond words. He was a gentleman, too,-of a first-rate family-a man of principle. How he could ever have been content to remain a simple clerk all these years, Livingstone could not understand. It gave him a certain contempt for him. That came, he reflected, of a man's marrying indiscreetly and having a houseful of children on his back.

Clark would be pleased at the showing on the books. He was always delighted when the balances showed a marked increase.

Livingstone was glad now that he had not only paid the old clerk extra for his night-work last year, but had given him fifty dollars additional, partly because of the trouble in his family, and partly because Livingstone had been unusually irritated when Clark got the two accounts confused.

Livingstone prided himself on his manner to his employees. He prided himself on being a gentleman, and it was a mark of a gentleman always to treat subordinates with civility. He knew men in the city who were absolute bears to their employees; but they were blackguards.

He, perhaps, ought to have discharged Clark without a word; that would have been "business;" but really he ought not to have spoken to him as he did. Clark undoubtedly acted with dignity. Livingstone had had to apologize to him and ask him to remain, and had made the amend (to himself) by giving him fifty dollars extra for the ten nights' work. He could only justify the act now by reflecting that Clark had more than once suggested investments which had turned out most fortunately.

Livingstone determined to give Clark this year a hundred dollars-no, fifty-he must not spoil him, and it really was not "business."

The thought of his liberality brought to Livingstone's mind the donations that he always made at the close of the year. He might as well send off the cheques now.

He took from a locked drawer his private cheque-book and turned the stubs thoughtfully. He had had that cheque-book for a good many years. He used to give away a tenth of his income. His father before him used to do that. He remembered, with a smile, how large the sums used to seem to him. He turned back the stubs only to see how small a tenth used to be. He no longer gave a tenth or a twentieth or even a-he had no difficulty in deciding the exact percentage he gave; for whenever he thought now of the sum he was worth, the figures themselves, in clean-cut lines, popped before his eyes. It was very curious. He could actually see them in his own handwriting. He rubbed his eyes, and the figures disappeared.

Well, he gave a good deal, anyhow-a good deal more than most men, he reflected. He looked at the later stubs and was gratified to find how large the amounts were,-they showed how rich he was,-and what a diversified list of charities he contributed to: hospitals, seminaries, asylums, churches, soup-kitchens, training schools of one kind or another. The stubs all bore the names of those through whom he contributed-they were mostly fashionable women of his acquaintance, who either for diversion or from real charity were interested in these institutions.

Mrs. Wright's name appeared oftenest. Mrs. Wright was a woman of fortune and very prominent, he reflected, but she was really kind; she was just a crank, and, somehow, she appeared really to believe in him. Her husband, Livingstone did not like: a cold, selfish man, who cared for nothing but money-making and his own family.

There was one name down on the book for a small amount which Livingstone could not recall.-Oh yes, he was an assistant preacher at Livingstone's church: the donation was for a Christmas-tree in a Children's Hospital, or something of the kind. This was one of Mrs. Wright's charities too. Livingstone remembered the note the preacher had written him afterwards-it had rather jarred on him, it was so grateful. He hated "gush," he said to himself; he did not want to be bothered with details of yarn-gloves, flannel petticoats, and toys. He took out his pencil and wrote Mrs. Wright's name on the stub. That also should be charged to Mrs. Wright. He carried in his mind the total amount of the contributions, and as he came to the end a half-frown rested on his brow as he thought of having to give to all these objects again.

That was the trouble with charities,-they were as regular as coupons. Confound Mrs. Wright! Why did she not let him alone! However, she was an important woman-the leader in the best set in the city. Livingstone sat forward and began to fill out his cheques. Certain cheques he always filled out himself. He could not bear to let even Clark know what he gave to certain objects.

The thought of how commendable this was crossed his face and lit it up like a glint of transient sunshine. It vanished suddenly as he began to calculate, leaving the place where it had rested colder than before. He really could not spend as much this year as last-why, there was-for pictures, so much; charities, so much, etc. It would quite cut into the amount he had already decided to lay by. He must draw in somewhere: he was worth only-the line of figures slipped in before his eyes with its lantern-slide coldness.

He reflected. He must cut down on his charities. He could not reduce the sum for the General Hospital Fund; he had been giving to that a number of years.-Nor that for the asylum; Mrs. Wright was the president of that board, and had told him she counted on him.-Hang Mrs. Wright! It was positive blackmail!-Nor the pew-rent; that was respectable-nor the Associated Charities; every one gave to that. He must cut out the smaller charities.

So he left off the Children's Hospital Christmas-tree Fund, and the soup-kitchen, and a few insignificant things like them into which he had been worried by Mrs. Wright and other troublesome women. The only regret he had was that taken together these sums did not amount to a great deal. To bring the saving up he came near cutting out the hospital. However, he decided not to do so. Mrs. Wright believed in him. He would leave out one of the pictures he had intended to buy; he would deny himself, and not cut out the big charity. This would save him the trouble of refusing Mrs. Wright and would also save him a good deal more money.

Once more, at the thought of his self-denial, that ray of wintry sunshine passed across Livingstone's cold face and gave it a look of distinction-almost like that of a marble statue.

Again he relapsed into reflection. His eyes were resting on the pane outside of which the fine snow was filling the chilly afternoon air in flurries and scurries that rose and fell and seemed to be blowing every way at once. But Livingstone's eyes were not on the snow. It had been so long since Livingstone had given a thought to the weather, except as it might affect the net earnings of railways in which he was interested, that he never knew what the weather was, and so far as he was concerned there need not have been any weather. Spring was to him but the season when certain work could be done which in time would yield a crop of dividends; and Autumn was but the time when crops would be moved and stocks sent up or down.

So, though Livingstone's eyes rested on the pane, outside of which the flurrying snow was driving that meant so much to so many people, and his face was thoughtful-very thoughtful-he was not thinking of the snow, he was calculating profits.

CHAPTER III A noise in the outer office recalled Livingstone from his reverie. He aroused himself, almost with a start, and glanced at the gilt clock just above the stock-indicator. He had been so absorbed that he had quite forgotten that he had told the clerks to wait for him. He had had no idea that he had been at work so long. He reflected, however, that he had been writing charity-cheques: the clerks ought to appreciate the fact.

He touched a button, and the next second there was a gentle tap on the door, and Clark appeared. He was just the person to give just such a tap: a refined-looking, middle-aged, middle-sized man, with a face rather pale and a little worn; a high, calm forehead, above which the grizzled hair was almost gone; mild, blue eyes which beamed through black-rimmed glasses; a pleasant mouth which a drooping, colorless moustache only partly concealed, and a well-formed but slightly retreating chin. His figure was inclined to be stout, and his shoulders were slightly bent. He walked softly, and as he spoke his voice was gentle and pleasing. There was no assertion in it, but it was perfectly self-respecting. The eyes and voice redeemed the face from being commonplace.

"Oh!-Mr. Clark, I did not know I should have been so long about my work. I was so engaged getting my book straight for you, and writing-a few cheques for my annual contributions to hospitals, etc.,-that the time slipped by-"

The tone was unusually conciliatory for Livingstone; but he still retained it in addressing Clark. It was partly a remnant of his old time relation to Mr. Clark when he, yet a young man, first knew him, and partly a recognition of Clark's position as a man of good birth who had been unfortunate, and had a large family to support.

"Oh! that's all right, Mr. Livingstone," said the clerk, pleasantly.

He gathered up the letters on the desk and was unconsciously pressing them into exact order.

"Shall I have these mailed or sent by a messenger?"

"Mail them, of course," said Livingstone. "And Clark, I want you to-"

"I thought possibly that, as to-morrow is-" began the clerk in explanation, but stopped as Livingstone continued speaking without noticing the interruption.

-"I have been going over my matters," pursued Livingstone, "and they are in excellent shape-better this year than ever before-"

The clerk's face brightened.

"That's very good," said he, heartily. "I knew they were."

-"Yes, very good, indeed," said Livingstone condescendingly, pausing to dwell for a second on the sight of the line of pallid figures which suddenly flashed before his eyes. "And I have got everything straight for you this year; and I want you to come up to my house this evening and go over the books with me quietly, so that I can show you-"

"This evening?" The clerk's countenance fell and the words were as near an exclamation as he ever indulged in.

"Yes-, this evening. I shall be at home this evening and to-morrow evening-Why not this evening?" demanded Livingstone almost sharply.

"Why, only-that it's-. However,-" The speaker broke off. "I'll be there, sir. About eight-thirty, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Livingstone, curtly.

He was miffed, offended, aggrieved. He had intended to do a kind thing by this man, and he had met with a rebuff.

"I expect to pay you," he said, coldly.

The next second he knew he had made an error. A shocked expression came involuntarily over the other's face.

"Oh! it was not that!-It was-" He paused, reflected half a second. "I'll be there," he added, and, turning quickly, withdrew, leaving Livingstone feeling very blank and then, somewhat angry. He was angry with himself for making such a blunder, and then angrier with the clerk for leading him into it.

"That is the way with such people!" he reflected. "What is the use of being considerate and generous? No one appreciates it!"

The more he thought of it, the warmer he became. "Had he not taken Clark up ten-fifteen years ago, when he had not a cent in the world, and now he was getting fifteen hundred dollars a year-yes, sixteen hundred, and almost owned his house; and he had made every cent for him!"

At length, Livingstone's sense of injury became so strong, he could stand it no longer. He determined to have a talk with Clark.

He opened the door and walked into the outer office. One of the younger clerks was just buttoning up his overcoat. Livingstone detected a scowl on his face. The sight did not improve Livingstone's temper. He would have liked to discharge the boy on the spot. How often had he ever called on them to wait? He knew men who required their clerks to wait always until they themselves left the office, no matter what the hour was. He himself would not do this; he regarded it as selfish. But now when it had happened by accident, this was the return he received!

He contented himself with asking somewhat sharply where Mr. Clark was.

"Believe he's gone to the telephone," said the clerk, sulkily. He picked up his hat and said good-night hurriedly. He was evidently glad to get off.

Livingstone returned to his own room; but left the door ajar so that he could see Clark when he returned. When, however, a few moments afterwards Clark appeared Livingstone had cooled down. Why should he expect gratitude? He did not pay Clark for gratitude, but for work, and this the clerk did faithfully. It was an ungrateful world, anyhow.

At that moment there was a light knock at the outer door, and, on Clark's bidding, some one entered.

Livingstone, from where he sat, could see the door reflected in a mirror that hung in his office.

The visitor was a little girl. She was clad in a red jacket, and on her head was a red cap, from under which her hair pushed in a profusion of ringlets. Her cheeks were like apples, and her whole face was glowing from the frosty air. It was just her head that Livingstone saw first, as she poked it in and peeped around. Then, as Mr. Clark sat with his back to the door and she saw that no one else was present, the visitor inserted her whole body and, closing the door softly, with her eyes dancing and her little mouth puckered up in a mischievous way, she came on tiptoe across the floor, stealing towards Clark until she was within a few feet of him, when with a sudden little rush she threw her arms about his head and clapped her hands quickly over his eyes:

"Guess who it is?" she cried. "Guess who it is?" she cried.

Livingstone could hear them through the open door.

"Blue Beard," hazarded Mr. Clark.

"No-o!"

"Queen Victoria?"

"No-o-o!"

"Mary, Queen of Scots?-I know it's a queen."

"No. Now you are not guessing-It isn't any queen, at all."

"Yes, I am-Oh! I know-Santa Claus."

"No; but somebody 'at knows about him."

"Mr. L-m-m-"

Livingstone was not sure that he caught the name.

"No!!" in a very emphatic voice and with a sudden stiffening and a vehement shake of the head.

Livingstone knew now whose name it was.

"Now, if you guess right this time, you'll get a reward."

"What reward?"

"Why,-Santa Claus will bring you a whole lot of nice-"

"I don't believe that;-he will be too busy with some other folks I know, who-"

"No, he won't-I know he's going to bring you-Oh!" She suddenly took one hand from Clark's eyes and clapped it over her mouth-but next second replaced it.-"And besides, I'll give you a whole lot of kisses."

"Oh! yes, I know-the Princess with the Golden Locks, Santa Claus's Partner-the sweetest little kitten in the world, and her name is-Kitty Clark."

"Umhm-m!" And on a sudden, the arms were transferred from about the forehead to the neck and the little girl, with her sunny head canted to one side, was making good her promise of reward. Livingstone could hear the kisses.

The next second they moved out of the line of reflection in Livingstone's mirror. But he could still catch fragments of what they said. Clark spoke too low to be heard; but now and then, Livingstone could catch the little girl's words. Indeed, he could not help hearing her.

"Oh! papa!" she exclaimed in a tone of disappointment, replying to something her father had told her.

"But papa you must come-You promised!"

Again her father talked to her low and soothingly.

"But papa-I'm so disappointed-I've saved all my money just to have you go with me. And mamma-I'll go and ask him to let you come."

Her father evidently did not approve of this, and the next moment he led the child to the door, still talking to her soothingly, and Livingstone heard him kiss her and tell her to wait for him below.

Livingstone let himself out of his side-door. He did not want to meet Clark just then. He was not in a comfortable frame of mind. He had a little headache.

As he turned into the street, he passed the little girl he had seen up-stairs. She was wiping her little, smeared face with her handkerchief, and had evidently been crying. Livingstone, as he passed, caught her eye, and she gave him such a look of hate that it stung him to the quick.

"The little serpent!" thought he. "Here he was supporting her family, and she looking as if she could tear him to pieces! It showed how ungrateful this sort of people were."

CHAPTER IV Livingstone walked up town. It would, he felt, do his head good. He needed exercise. He had been working rather too hard of late. However, he was worth-yes, all that!-Out in the snow the sum was before him in cold facsimile.

He had not gone far before he wished he had ridden. The street was thronged with people: some streaming along; others stopping in front of the big shop-windows, blocking the way and forcing such as were in a hurry to get off the sidewalk. The shop-windows were all brilliantly dressed and lighted. Every conception of fertile brains was there to arrest the attention and delight the imagination. And the interest of the throngs outside and in testified the shopkeepers' success.

Here Santa Claus, the last survivor of the old benefactors, who has outlasted whole hierarchies of outworn myths and, yet firm in the devotion of the heart of childhood, snaps his fingers alike at arid science and blighting stupidity, was driving his reindeer, his teeming sleigh filled with wonders from every region: dolls that walked and talked and sang, fit for princesses; sleds fine enough for princes; drums and trumpets and swords for young heroes; horses that looked as though they were alive and would spring next moment from their rockers; bats and balls that almost started of themselves from their places; little uniforms, and frocks; skates; tennis-racquets; baby caps and rattles; tiny engines and coaches; railway trains; animals that ran about; steamships; books; pictures-everything to delight the soul of childhood and gratify the affection of age.

There Kris Kringle, Santa Claus's other self, with snowy beard, and fur coat hoary with the frost of Arctic travel from the land of unfailing snow and unfailing toys, stood beside his tree glittering with crystal and shining with the fruits of every industry and every clime.

These were but a part of the dazzling display that was ever repeated over and over and filled the windows for squares and squares. Science and Art appeared to have combined to pay tribute to childhood. The very street seemed to have blossomed with Christmas.

But Livingstone saw nothing of it. He was filled with anger that his way should be blocked. The crowds were gay and cheery. Strangers in sheer good-will clapped each other on the shoulder and exchanged views, confidences and good wishes. The truck-drivers, usually so surly, drew out of each others' way and shouted words of cheer after their smiling fellows.

The soul of Christmas was abroad on the air.

Livingstone did not even recall what day it was. All he saw was a crowd of fools that impeded his progress. He tried the middle of the street; but the carriages and delivery-wagons were so thick, that he turned off, growling, and took a less frequented thoroughfare, a back street of mean houses and small shops where a poorer class of people dwelt and dealt.

Here, however, he was perhaps even more incommoded than he had been before. This street was, if anything, more crowded than the other and with a more noisy and hilarious throng. Here, instead of fine shops, there were small ones; but their windows were every bit as attractive to the crowds on the street as those Livingstone had left. People of a much poorer class surged in and out of the doors; small gamins, some in ragged overcoats, more in none, gabbled with and shouldered each other boisterously at the windows and pressed their red noses to the frosty panes, to see through the blurred patches made by their warm breath the wondrous marvels within. The little pastry-shops and corner-groceries vied with the toy-shops and confectionaries, and were packed with a population that hummed like bees, the busy murmur broken every now and then by jests and calls and laughter, as the customers squeezed in empty-handed, or slipped out with carefully-wrapped parcels hugged close to their cheery bosoms or carried in their arms with careful pride.

Livingstone finally was compelled to get off the sidewalk again and take to the street. Here, at least, there were no fine carriages to block his way.

As he began to approach a hill, he was aware of yells of warning ahead of him, and, with shouts of merriment, a swarm of sleds began to shoot by him, some with dark objects lying flat on their little stomachs, kicking their heels high in the air; others with small single or double or triple headed monsters seated upright and all screaming at the top of their merry voices. All were unmindful of the falling snow and nipping air, their blood hot with the ineffable fire of youth that flames in the warm heart of childhood, glows in that of youth, and cools only with the cooling brain and chilling pulse.

Before Livingstone could press back into the almost solid mass on the sidewalk he had come near being run down a score of times. He felt that it was an outrage. He fairly flamed with indignation. He, a large taxpayer, a generous contributor to asylums and police funds, a supporter of hospitals,-that he should be almost killed!

He looked around for a policeman-

Livingstone had to dodge for his life. "Whoop! Look out! Get out the way!" Swish! Swish! Swish! they shot by. Livingstone had to dodge for his life. Of course, no policeman was in sight!

Livingstone pushed his way on to the top of the ascent, and a square further on he found an officer inspecting silently a group of noisy urchins squabbling over the division of two sticks of painted candy. His back was towards the hill from which were coming the shouts of the sliding miscreants.

Livingstone accosted him:

"That sliding, back there, must be stopped. It is a nuisance," he asserted.-It was dangerous, he declared; he himself had almost been struck by one or more of those sleds and if it had run him down it might have killed him.

The officer, after a long look at him, turned silently and walked slowly in the direction of the hill. He moved so deliberately and with such evident reluctance that Livingstone's blood boiled. He hurried after him.

"Here," he said, as he overtook him, "I am going to see that you stop that sliding and enforce the law, or I shall report you for failure to perform your duty. I see your number-268."

"All right, sir. You can do as you please about that," said the officer, rather surlily, but politely.

Livingstone walked close after him to the hilltop. The officer spoke a few words in a quiet tone to the boys who were at the summit, and instantly every sled stopped. Not so the tongues. Babel broke loose. Some went off in silence; others crowded about the officer, expostulating, cajoling, grumbling. It was "the first snow;" they "always slid on that hill;" "it did not hurt anybody;" "nobody cared," etc.

"This gentleman has complained, and you must stop," said the officer.

They all turned on Livingstone with sudden hate.

"Arr-oh-h!" they snarled in concert. "We ain't a-hurtin' him! What's he got to do wid us anyhow!"

One more apt archer than the rest, shouted, "He ain't no gentleman-a gentleman don't never interfere wid poor little boys what ain't a-done him no harm!"

But they stopped, and the more timid or impatient stole off to find new and less inconveniently guarded inclines.

Livingstone passed on. He did not know that the moment he left and the officer turned his back, the whole hillside swarmed again into life and fun and joy. He did not know this; but he bore off with him a new thorn which even his feeling of civic virtue could not keep from rankling. His head ached, and he grew crosser and crosser with every step.

He had never seen so many beggars. It was insufferable. For this evening, at least, every one was giving-except Livingstone. Want was stretching out its withered hand even to Poverty and found it filled. But Livingstone took no part in it. The chilly and threadbare street-venders of shoe-strings, pencils and cheap flowers, who to-night were offering in their place tin toys, mistletoe and holly-boughs, he pushed roughly out of his way; he snapped angrily at beggars who had the temerity to accost him.

"Confound them! They ought to be run in by the police!"

A red-faced, collarless man fell into the same gait with him, and in a cajoling tone began to mutter something of his distress.

"Be off. Go to the Associated Charities," snarled Livingstone, conscious of the biting sarcasm of his speech.

"Go where, sir?"

"Go to the devil!"

The man stopped in his tracks.

A ragged, meagre boy slid in through the crowd just ahead of Livingstone, to a woman who was toiling along with a large bundle. Holding out a pinched hand, he offered to carry the parcel for her. The woman hesitated.

-"For five cents," he pleaded.

She was about to yield, for the bundle was heavy. But the boy was just in front of Livingstone and in his eagerness brushed against him. Livingstone gave him a shove which sent him spinning away across the sidewalk; the stream of passers-by swept in between them, and the boy lost his job and the woman his service.

The man of success passed on.

CHAPTER V If Livingstone had been in a huff when he left his office, by the time he reached his home he was in a rage.

As he let himself in with his latch-key his expression for a moment softened. The scene before him was one which might well have mellowed a man just out of the snowy street. A spacious and handsome house, both richly and artistically furnished, lay before him. Rich furniture, costly rugs, fine pictures and rare books, gave evidence not only of his wealth but of his taste. He was not a mere business machine, a mere money-maker. He knew men who were. He despised them. He was a man of taste and culture, a gentleman of refinement. He spent his money like a gentleman, to surround himself with objects of art and to give himself and his friends pleasure. Connoisseurs came to look at his fine collection and to revel in his rare editions. Dealers had told him his collection was worth double what it had cost him. He had frowned at the suggestion; but it was satisfactory to know it.

As Livingstone entered his library and found a bright fire burning; his favorite arm-chair drawn up to his especial table; his favorite books lying within easy reach, he felt a momentary glow.

He stretched himself out before the fire in his deep lounging-chair with a feeling of relief. The next moment, however, he was sensible of his fatigue, and was conscious that he had quite a headache. What a fool he had been to walk up through the snow! And those people had worried him!

His head throbbed. He had been working too hard of late. He would go and see his doctor next day and talk it over with him. He could now take his advice and stop working for a while; he was worth-Confound those figures! Why could not he think of them without their popping in before his eyes that way!

There was a footfall on the heavily carpeted floor behind him, so soft that it could scarcely be said to have made a sound, but Livingstone caught it. He spoke without turning his head.

"James!"

"Yes, sir. Have you dined, sir?"

"Dined? No, of course not! Where was I to dine?"

"I thought perhaps you had dined at the club. I will have dinner directly, sir," said the butler quietly.

"Dine at the club! Why should I dine at the club? Haven't I my own house to dine in?" demanded Livingstone.

"Yes, sir. We had dinner ready, only-as you were so late we thought perhaps you were dining at the club. You had not said anything about dining out."

Livingstone glanced at the clock. It was half-past eight. He had had no idea it was so late. He had forgotten how late it was when he left his office, and the walk through the snow had been slow. He was hopelessly in the wrong.

Just then there was a scurry in the hall outside and the squeak of childish voices. James coughed and turned quickly towards the door.

Livingstone wanted an outlet.

"What is that?" he asked, sharply.

James cleared his throat nervously. The squeak came again-this time almost a squeal.

"Whose children are those?" demanded Livingstone.

"Ahem! I thinks they's the laundress's, sir. They just came around this evening-"

Livingstone cut him short.

"Well! I-!" He was never nearer an outbreak, but he controlled himself.

"Go down and send them and her off immediately; and you-" He paused, closed his lips firmly, and changed his speech. "I wish some dinner," he said coldly.

"Yes, sir."

James had reached the door when he turned.

"Shall you be dining at home to-morrow, sir?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes, of course," said Livingstone, shortly. "And I don't want to see any one to-night, no matter who comes. I am tired." He had forgotten Clark.

"Yes, sir."

The butler withdrew noiselessly, and Livingstone sank back in his chair. But before the butler was out of hearing Livingstone recalled him.

"I don't want any dinner."

"Can have it for you directly, sir," said James, persuasively.

"I say I don't want any."

James came a little closer and gave his master a quick glance.

"Are you feeling bad, sir?" he asked.

"No, I only want to be let alone. I shall go out presently to the club."

This time James withdrew entirely.

What happened when James passed through the door which separated his domain from his master's was not precisely what Livingstone had commanded. What the tall butler did was to gather up in his arms two very plump little tots who at sight of him came running to him with squeals of joy, flinging themselves on him, and choking him with their chubby arms, to the imminent imperiling of his immaculate linen.

Taking them both up together, James bore them off quietly to some remote region where he filled their little mouths full of delightful candy which kept their little jaws working tremendously and their blue eyes opening and shutting in unison, whilst he told them of the dreadful unnamed things that would befall them if they ventured again through that door. He impressed on them the calamity it would be to lose the privilege of holding the evergreens whilst they were being put up in the hall, and the danger of Santa Claus passing by that night without filling their stockings.

The picture he drew of two little stockings hanging limp and empty at the fireplace while Santa Claus went by with bulging sleigh was harrowing.

At mention of it, the tots both looked down at their stockings and were so overcome that they almost stopped working their jaws, so that when they began again they were harder to work than ever. To this James added the terror of their failing to see next day the great plum-pudding suddenly burst into flame in his hands. At this, he threw up both hands and opened them so wide that the little ones had to look first at one of his hands and then at the other to make sure that he was not actually holding the dancing flames now.

When they had promised faithfully and with deep awe, crossing their little hearts with smudgy fingers, the butler entrusted them to some one to see to the due performance of their good intention, and he himself sought the cook, who, next to himself, was Livingstone's oldest servant. She was at the moment, with plump arms akimbo on her stout waist, laying down the law of marriage to a group of merry servants as they sorted Christmas wreaths.

"Wait till you've known a man twenty years before you marry him, and then you'll never marry him," she said. The point of her advice being that she was past forty and had never married.

The butler beckoned her out and confided to her his anxiety.

"He is not well," he said gloomily. "I have not see him this a-way in ten years. He is not well."

The cook's cheery countenance changed.

"But you say he have had no dinner." Her excessive grammar was a reassurance. She turned alertly towards her range.

"But he won't have dinner."

"What!" The stiffness went out of her form in visible detachments. "Then he air sick!"

She made one attempt to help matters. "Can't I make him something nice? Very nice?-And light?" She brightened at the hope.

"No, nothink. He will not hear to it."

"Then you must have the doctor." She spoke decisively.

To this the butler made no reply, at least in words. He stood wrapt in deep abstraction, his face filled with perplexity and gloom, and as the cook watched him anxiously her face too took on gradually the same expression.

"I has not see him like this before, not in ten year-not in twelve year. Not since he got that letter from that young lady what-." He stopped and looked at the cook.-"He was hactually hirascible!"

"He must be got to bed, poor dear!" said the cook, sympathetically. "And you must get the doctor, and I'll make some good rich broth to have it handy.-And just when we were a-goin' to dress the house and have it so beautiful!"

She turned away, her round face full of woe.

"Ah! Well!-" The butler tried to find some sentence that might be comforting; but before he could secure one that suited, the door bell rang, and he went to answer it.

CHAPTER VI It was Mr. Clark, who as soon as the door was opened stepped within and taking off his hat began to shake the snow from it, even while he greeted James and wished him a merry Christmas.

James liked Mr. Clark. He did not rate him very highly in the matter of intelligence; but he recognized him as a gentleman, and appreciated his kindly courtesy to himself. He knew it came from a good heart.

Many a man who drove up to the door in a carriage, James relieved of his coat and showed into the drawing-room in silence; but the downcast eyes were averted to conceal inconvenient thoughts and the expressionless face was a mask to hide views which the caller might not have cared to discover. Mr. Clark, however, always treated James with consideration, and James reciprocated the feeling and returned the treatment.

Mr. Clark was giving James his hat when the butler took in that he had come to see Mr. Livingstone.

"Mr. Livingstone begs to be excused this evening, sir," he said.

"Yes." Mr. Clark laid a package on a chair and proceeded to unbutton his overcoat.

"He says he regrets he cannot see any one," explained the servant.

"Yes. That's all right. I know." He caught the lapels of the coat preparatory to taking it off.

"No, sir. He cannot see anybody at all this evening," insisted James, confident in being within his authority.

"Why, he told me to come and bring his books! I suppose he meant-!"

"No, sir. He is not very well this evening."

Mr. Clark's hands dropped to his side.

"Not well! Why, he left the office only an hour or two ago."

"Yes, sir; but he walked up, and seemed very tired when he arrived. He did not eat anything, and-the doctor is coming to see him."

Mr. Clark's face expressed the deepest concern.

"He has been working too hard," he said, shaking his head. "He ought to have let me go over those accounts. With all he has to carry!"

"Yes, sir, that's it," said James, heartily.

"Well, don't you think I'd better go up and see him?" asked the old clerk, solicitously. "I might be able to suggest something?"

"No, sir. He said quite positive he would not see anybody." James looked the clerk full in the face. "I was afraid something might 'ave 'appened down in the-ah-?"

Mr. Clark's face lit up with a kindly light.

"No, indeed. It's nothing like that, James. We never had so good a year. You can make your mind easy about that."

"Thank you, sir," said the servant. "We'll have the doctor drop in to see him, and I hope he'll be all right in the morning. Snowy night, sir."

"I hope so," said Mr. Clark, not intending to convey his views as to the weather. "You'll let me know if I am wanted-if I can do anything. I will come around first thing in the morning to see how he is. I hope he'll be all right. Good-night. A merry Christmas to you."

"Good-night, sir. Thankee, sir; the same to you, sir. I'm going to wait up to see how he is. Good-night, sir."

And James shut the door softly behind the visitor, feeling a sense of comfort not wholly accounted for by the information as to the successful year. Mr. Clark, somehow, always reassured him. The butler could understand the springs that moved that kindly spirit.

What Mr. Clark thought as he tramped back through the snow need not be fully detailed. But at least, one thing was certain, he never thought of himself.

If he recalled that a mortgage would be due on his house just one week from that day, and that the doctors' bills had been unusually heavy that year, it was not on his own account that he was anxious. Indeed, he never considered himself; there were too many others to think of. One thought was that he was glad his friend had such a good servant as James to look after him. Another was pity that Livingstone had never known the joy that was awaiting himself when at the end of that mile of snow he should peep into the little cosy back room (for the front room was mysteriously closed this evening), where a sweet-faced, frail-looking woman would be lying on a lounge with a half-dozen little curly heads bobbing about her. He knew what a scream of delight would greet him as he poked his head in; and out in the darkness and cold John Clark smiled and smacked his lips as he thought of the kisses and squeezes, and renewed kisses that would be his lot as he told how he would be with them all the evening.

Yes, he was undoubtedly sorry for Livingstone, a poor lonely man in that great house; and he determined that he would not say much about his being ill. Women did not always exactly understand some men, and when he left home, Mrs. Clark had expressed some very strong views as to Livingstone which had pained Clark. She had even spoken of him as selfish and miserly. He would just say now that Livingstone on his arrival had sent him straight back home.

No, Mr. Clark never thought of himself, and this made him richer than Mr. Livingstone.

When Mr. Clark reached home his expectation was more than realized. From the way in which he noiselessly opened the front door and then stole along the little passage to the back room, from which the sound of many voices was coming as though it were a mimic Babel, you might have thought he was a thief.

And when he opened the door softly and, with dancing eyes, poked his head into the room, you might have thought he was Santa Claus himself. There was one second of dead silence as a half-dozen pair of eyes stretched wide and a half-dozen mouths opened with a gasp, and then, with a shout which would have put to the blush a tribe of wild Indians, a half-dozen young bodies flung themselves upon him with screams and shrieks of delight. John Clark's neck must have been of iron to withstand such hugs and tugs as it was given.

Half a dozen young bodies flung themselves upon him. The next instant he was drawn bodily into the room and pushed down forcibly into a chair, whilst the whole half-dozen piled upon him with demands to be told how he had managed to get off and come back. No one but Clark could have understood them or answered them, but somehow, as his arms seemed able to gather in the whole lot of struggling, squeezing, wriggling, shoving little bodies, so his ears seemed to catch all the questions and his mind to answer each in turn and all together.

"'How did I come?'-Ran every step of the way.-'Why did I come back?'-Well! that's a question for a man with eight children who will sit up and keep Santa Claus out of the house unless their father comes home and puts them to bed and holds their eyelids down to keep them from peeping and scaring Santa Claus away!

-"'What did Mr. Livingstone say?'-Well, what do you suppose a man would say Christmas Eve to another man who has eight wide-awake children who will sit up in front of the biggest fire-place in the house until midnight Christmas Eve so that Santa Claus can't come down the only chimney big enough to hold his presents? He would say, 'John Clark, I have no children of my own, but you have eight, and if you don't go home this minute and see that those children are in bed and fast asleep and snoring,-yes, snoring, mind,-by ten o'clock, I'll never, and Santa Claus will never-!'

-"'Did I see anything of Santa Claus?' Well, if I were to tell you-what I saw this night, why,-you'd never believe me. There's a sleigh so big coming in a little while to this town, and this street, and this house, that it holds presents enough for-.

"'When will it be here?' Well, from the sleigh-bells that I heard I should say-. My goodness, gracious! If it isn't almost ten o'clock, and if that sleigh should get here whilst there's a single eye open in this house, I don't know what Santa Claus might do!"

And, with a strength that one might have thought quite astonishing, John Clark rose somehow from under the mass of little heads, and, with his arms still around them, still talking, still cajoling, still entertaining and still caressing, he managed to bear the whole curly, chattering flock to the door where, with renewed kisses and squeezes and questions, they were all finally induced to release their hold and run squeaking and frisking off upstairs to bed.

Then, as he closed the door, Clark turned and looked at the only other occupant of the room, a lady whose pale face would have told her story even had she not remained outstretched on a lounge during the preceding scene.

If, however, Mrs. Clark's face was pale, her eyes were brilliant, and the look that she and her husband exchanged told that even invalidism and narrow means have alleviations, so full was the glance they gave of confidence and joy.

Yet, as absolute as was their confidence, Mr. Clark did not now tell his wife the truth. He gave her in a few words the reason of his return. Mr. Livingstone was feeling unwell, he said. He had not remembered it was Christmas Eve, he added; and, turning quickly and opening the door into the front room he guilefully dived at once into the matter of the Christmas-tree which was standing there waiting to be dressed.

Whether or not Mr. Clark deceived Mrs. Clark might be a matter of question. Mr. Clark was not good at deception. Mrs. Clark was better at it; but then, to-night was a night of peace and good-will, and since her husband had returned she was willing to forgive even Livingstone.

CHAPTER VII Livingstone, at this moment, was not feeling as wealthy as the row of figures in clean-cut lines that were now beginning to be almost constantly before his eyes might have seemed to warrant. He was sitting sunk deep in his cushioned arm-chair. The tweaks in his forehead that had annoyed him earlier in the evening had changed to twinges, and the twinges had now given place to a dull, steady ache. And every thought of his wealth brought that picture of seven staring figures before his eyes, whilst, in place of the glow which they had brought at first, he now at every recollection of them had a cold thrill of apprehension lest they might appear.

James's inquiry, "Shall you be dining at home to-morrow?" had recurred to him and now disturbed him. It was a simple question; nothing remarkable in it. It now came to him that to-morrow was Christmas Day, and he had forgotten it. This was remarkable. He had never forgotten it before, but this year he had been working so hard and had been so engrossed he had not thought of it. Even this reflection brought the spectral figures back sharply outlined before his eyes. They stayed longer now. He must think of something else.

He thought of Christmas. This was the first Christmas he had ever been at home by himself. A Christmas dinner alone! Who had ever heard of such a thing! He must go out to dinner, of course. He glanced over at his table where James always put his mail. Everything was in perfect order: the book he had read the night before; the evening paper and the last financial quotation were all there; but not a letter. James must have forgot them.

He turned to rise and ring the bell and glanced across the room towards it. What a dark room it was! What miserable gas!

He turned up the light at his hand. It did not help perceptibly. He sank back. What selfish dogs people were, he reflected. Of all the hosts of people he knew,-people who had entertained him and whom he had entertained,-not one had thought to invite him to the Christmas dinner. A dozen families at whose houses he had often been entertained flashed across his mind. Why, years ago he used to have a half-dozen invitations to Christmas dinner, and now he had not one! Even Mrs. Wright, to whom he had just sent a contribution for-Hello! that lantern-slide again! It would not do to think of figures.-Even she had not thought of him.

There must be some reason? he pondered. Yes, Christmas dinners were always family reunions-that was the reason he was left out and forgotten;-yes, forgotten. A list of the people who he knew would have such reunions came to him; almost every one of his acquaintances had a family;-even Clark had a family and would have a Christmas dinner.

At the thought, a pang almost of envy of Clark smote him.

Suddenly his own house seemed to grow vast and empty and lonely; he felt perfectly desolate,-abandoned-alone-ill! He glanced around at his pictures. They were cold, staring, stony, dead! The reflection of the cross lights made them look ghastly.

As he gazed at them the figures they had cost shot before his eyes. My God! he could not stand this! He sprang to his feet. Even the pain of getting up was a relief. He stared around him. Dead silence and stony faces were all about him. The capacious room seemed a vast, empty cavern, and as he stood he saw stretching before him his whole future life spent in this house, as lonely, silent, and desolate as this. It was unbearable.

He walked through to his drawing-room. The furniture was sheeted, the room colder and lonelier a thousand-fold than the other;-on into the dining-room;-the bare table in the dim light looked like ice; the sideboard with its silver and glass, bore sheets of ice. "Pshaw!" He turned up the lights. He would take a drink of brandy and go to bed.

He took a decanter, poured out a drink and drained it off. His hand trembled, but the stimulant helped him a little. It enabled him to collect his ideas and think. But his thoughts still ran on Christmas and his loneliness.

Why should not he give a Christmas dinner and invite his friends? Yes, that was what he would do. Whom should he ask? His mind began to run over the list. Every one he knew had his own house; and as to friends-why, he didn't have any friends! He had only acquaintances. He stopped suddenly, appalled by the fact. He had not a friend in the world! Why was it? In answer to the thought the seven figures flashed into sight. He put his hand to his eyes to shut them out. He knew now why. He had been too busy to make friends. He had given his youth and his middle manhood to accumulate-those seven figures again!-And he had given up his friendships. He was now almost aged.

He walked into his drawing-room and turned up the light-all the lights to look at himself in a big mirror. He did look at himself and he was confounded. He was not only no longer young-he was prepared for this-but he was old. He would not have dreamed he could be so old. He was gray and wrinkled.

As he faced himself his blood seemed suddenly to chill. He was conscious of a sensible ebb as if the tide about his heart had suddenly sunk lower. Perhaps, it was the cooling of the atmosphere as the fire in his library died out,-or was it his blood?

He went back into his library not ten minutes, but ten years older than when he left it.

He sank into his chair and insensibly began to scan his life. He had just seen himself as he was; he now saw himself as he had been long ago, and saw how he had become what he was. The whole past lay before him like a slanting pathway.

He followed it back to where it began-in an old home far off in the country.

He was a very little boy. All about was the bustle and stir of preparation for Christmas. Cheer was in every face, for it was in every heart. Boxes were coming from the city by every conveyance. The store-room and closets were centres of unspeakable interest, shrouded in delightful mystery. The kitchen was lighted by the roaring fire and steaming from the numberless good things preparing for the next day's feast. Friends were arriving from the distant railway and were greeted with universal delight. The very rigor of the weather was deemed a part of the Christmas joy, for it was known that Santa Claus with his jingling sleigh came the better through the deeper snow. Everything gave the little boy joy, particularly going with his father and mother to bear good things to poor people who lived in smaller houses. They were always giving; but Christmas was the season for a more general and generous distribution. He recalled across forty years his father and mother putting the presents into his hands to bestow, and his father's words, "My boy, learn the pleasure of giving."

The rest was all blaze and light and glow, and his father and mother moving about like shining spirits amid it all.

Then he was a schoolboy, measuring the lagging time by the coming Christmas; counting the weeks, the days, the hours in an ecstasy of impatience until he should be free from the drudgery of books and the slavery of classes, and should be able to start for home with the friends who had leave to go with him. How slowly the time crept by, and how he told the other boys of the joys that would await them! And when it had really gone, and they were free! how delicious it used to be!

As the scene appeared before him Livingstone could almost feel again the thrill that set him quivering with delight; the boundless joy that filled his veins as with an elixir.

The arrival at the station drifted before him and the pride of his introduction of the servants whose faces shone with pleasure; the drive home through the snow, which used somehow to be warming, not chilling, in those days; and then, through the growing dusk, the first sight of the home-light, set, he knew, by the mother in her window as a beacon shining from the home and mother's heart. Then the last, toilsome climb up the home-hill and the outpouring of welcome amid cheers and shouts and laughter.

Oh, the joy of that time! And through all the festivity was felt, like a sort of pervading warmth, the fact that that day Christ came into the world and brought peace and good will and cheer to every one.

The boy Livingstone saw was now installed regularly as the bearer of Christmas presents and good things to the poor, and the pleasure he took then in his office flashed across Livingstone's mind like a sudden light. It lit up the faces of many whom Livingstone had not thought of for years. They were all beaming on him now with a kindliness to which he had long been a stranger; that kindliness which belongs only to our memory of our youth.

Was it possible that he could ever have had so many friends! The man in the chair put his hand to his eyes to try and hold the beautiful vision, but it faded away, shut out from view by another.

CHAPTER VIII The vision that came next was of a college student. The Christmas holidays were come again. They were still as much the event of the year as when he was a schoolboy. Once more he was on his way home accompanied by friends whom he had brought to help him enjoy the holidays, his enjoyment doubled by their enjoyment. Once more, as he touched the soil of his own neighborhood, from a companion he became a host. Once more with his friends he reached his old home and was received with that greeting which he never met with elsewhere. He saw his father and mother standing on the wide portico before the others with outstretched arms, affection and pride beaming in their faces. He witnessed their cordial greeting of his friends. "Our son's friends are our friends," he heard them say.

Henry Trelane said afterwards, "Why, Livingstone, you have told me of your home and your horses, but never told me of your father and mother. Do you know that they are the best in the world?" Somehow, it had seemed to open his eyes, and the manner in which his friends had hung on his father's words had increased his own respect for him. One of them had said, "Livingstone, I like you, but I love your father." The phrase, he remembered, had not altogether pleased him, and yet it had not altogether displeased him either. But Henry Trelane was very near to him in those days. Not only was he the soul of honor and high-mindedness, with a mind that reflected truth as an unruffled lake reflects the sky, but he was the brother of Catherine Trelane, who then stood to Livingstone for Truth itself.

It was during a Christmas-holiday visit to her brother that Livingstone had first met Catherine Trelane; as he now saw himself meet her. He had come on her suddenly in a long avenue. Her arms were full of holly-boughs; her face was rosy from a victorious tramp through the snow, rosier at the hoped-for, unexpected, chance meeting with her brother's guest; a sprig of mistletoe was stuck daringly in her hood, guarded by her mischievous, laughing eyes. She looked like a dryad fresh from the winter woods. For years after that Livingstone had never thought of Christmas without being conscious of a certain radiance that vision shed upon the time.

The next day in the holly-dressed church she seemed a saint wrapt in divine adoration.

Another shift of the scene; another Christmas.

Reverses had come. His father, through kindness and generosity, had become involved beyond his means, and, rather than endure the least shadow of reproach, gave up everything he possessed to save his name and shield a friend. Livingstone himself had been called away from college.

He remembered the sensation of it all. He recalled the picture of his father as he stood calm and unmoved amid the wreck of his fortune and faced unflinchingly the hard, dark future. It was an inspiring picture: the picture of a gentleman, far past the age when men can start afresh and achieve success, despoiled by another and stripped of all he had in the world, yet standing upright and tranquil; a just man walking in his integrity; a brave man facing the world; firm as an immovable rock; serene as an unblemished morning.

Livingstone had never taken in before how fine it was. He had at one time even felt aggrieved by his father's act; now he was suddenly conscious of a thrill of pride in him.

If he were only living! He himself was now worth-! Suddenly that lantern-slide shot before his eyes and shut out the noble figure standing there.

Livingstone's mind reverted to his own career.

He was a young man in business; living in a cupboard; his salary a bare pittance; yet he was rich; he had hope and youth; family and friends. Heavens! how rich he was then! It made the man in the chair poor now to feel how rich he had been then and had not known it. He looked back at himself with a kind of envy, strange to him, which gave him a pain.

He saw himself again at Christmas. He was back at the little home which his father had taken when he lost the old place. He saw himself unpacking his old trunk, taking out from it the little things he had brought as presents, with more pride than he had ever felt before, for he had earned them himself. Each one represented sacrifice, thought, affection. He could see again his father's face lit up with pride and his mother's radiant with delight in his achievement. His mother was handing him her little presents,-the gloves she had knit for him herself with so much joy; the shaving-case she had herself embroidered; the cup and saucer from the old tea-service that had belonged to his great-grandfather and great-grandmother and which had been given his mother and father when they were married. He glanced up as she laid the delicate piece of Sèvres before him, and caught her smile-That smile! Was there ever another like it? It held in it-everything.

Suddenly Livingstone felt something moving on his cheek. He put his hand up to his face and when he took it down his fingers were wet.

With his mother's face, another face came to him, radiant with the beauty of youth. Catherine Trelane, since that meeting in the long avenue, had grown more and more to him, until all other motives and aims had been merged in one radiant hope.

With his love he had grown timid; he scarcely dared look into her eyes; yet now he braved the world for her; bore for her all the privations and hardships of life in its first struggle. Indeed, for her, privation was no hardship. He was poor in purse, but rich in hope. Love lit up his life and touched the dull routine of his work with the light of enchantment. If she made him timid before her, she made him bold towards the rest of the world. 'T was for her that he had had the courage to take that plunge into the boiling sea of life in an unknown city, and it was for her that he had had strength to keep above water, where so many had gone down.

He had faced all for her and had conquered all for her. He recalled the long struggle, the painful, patient waiting, the stern self-denial. He had deliberately chosen between pleasure and success,-between the present and the future. He had denied himself to achieve his fortune, and he had succeeded.

At first, it had been for her; then Success had become dear to him for itself, had ever grown larger and dearer as he advanced, until now-A thrill of pride ran through him, which changed into a shiver as it brought those accursed, staring, ghastly figures straight before his eyes.

He had great trouble to drive the figures away. It was only when he thought fixedly of Catherine Trelane as she used to be that they disappeared. She was a vision then to banish all else. He had a picture of her somewhere among his papers. He had not seen it for years, but no picture could do her justice: as rich as was her coloring, as beautiful as were her eyes, her mouth, her riante face, her slim, willowy, girlish figure and fine carriage, it was not these that came to him when he thought of her; it was rather the spirit of which these were but the golden shell: it was the smile, the music, the sunshine, the radiance which came to him and warmed his blood and set his pulses throbbing across all those years. He would get the picture and look at it.

But memory swept him on.

He had got in the tide of success and the current had borne him away. First it had been the necessity to succeed; then ambition; then opportunity to do better and better always taking firmer hold of him and bearing him further and further until the pressure of business, change of ambition and, at last, of ideals swept him beyond sight of all he had known or cared for.

He could almost see the process of the metamorphosis. Year after year he had waited and worked and Catherine Trelane had waited; then had come a time when he did not wish her to wait longer. His ideals had changed. Success had come to mean but one thing for him: gold; he no longer strove for honors but for riches. He abandoned the thought of glory and of power, of which he had once dreamed. Now he wanted gold. Beauty would fade, culture prove futile; but gold was king, and all he saw bowed before it. Why marry a poor girl when another had wealth?

He found a girl as handsome as Catherine Trelane. It was not a chapter in his history in which he took much pride. Just when he thought he had succeeded, her father had interposed and she had yielded easily. She had married a fool with ten times Livingstone's wealth. It was a blow to Livingstone, but he had recovered, and after that he had a new incentive in life; he would be richer than her father or her husband.

He had become so and had bought his house partly to testify to the fact. Then he had gone back to Catherine Trelane. She had come unexpectedly into property. He had not dared quite to face her, but had written to her, asking her to marry him. He had her reply somewhere now; it had cut deeper than she ever knew or would know. She wrote that the time had been when she might have married him even had he asked her by letter, but it was too late now. The man she might have loved was dead. He had gone to see her then, but had found what she said was true. She was more beautiful than when he had last seen her-so beautiful that the charm of her maturity had almost eclipsed in his mind the memory of her girlish loveliness. But she was inexorable. He had not blamed her, he had only cursed himself, and had plunged once more into the boiling current of the struggle for wealth. And he had won-yes, won!

With a shock those figures slipped before his eyes and would not go away. Even when he shut his eyes and rubbed them the ghastly line was there.

He turned and gazed down the long room. It was as empty as a desert. He listened to see if he could hear any sound, even hoping to hear some sound from his servants. All was as silent as a tomb.

He rubbed his eyes, with a groan that was almost a curse. The figures were still there.

He suddenly rose to his feet and gave himself a shake. He determined to go to his club; he would find company there,-perhaps not the best, but it would be better than this awful loneliness and deadly silence.

He went through the hall softly, almost stealthily; put on his hat and coat; let himself quietly out of the door and stepped forth into the night.

It had stopped snowing and the stars looked down from a clearing sky. The moon just above the housetops was sailing along a burnished track. The vehicles went slowly by with a muffled sound broken only by the creaking of the wheels in the frosty night. From the cross streets, sounded in the distance the jangle of sleigh-bells.

CHAPTER IX Livingstone plodded along through the snow, relieved to find that the effort made him forget himself and banished those wretched figures. He traversed the intervening streets and before he was conscious of it was standing in the hall of the brilliantly lighted club. The lights dazzled him, and he was only half sensible of the score of servants that surrounded him with vague, half-proffers of aid in removing his overcoat.

Without taking off his coat, Livingstone walked on into the large assembly-room to see who might be there. It was as empty as a church. The lights were all turned on full and the fires burned brightly in the big hearths; but there was not a soul in the room, usually so crowded at this hour.

Livingstone turned and crossed the marble-paved hall to another spacious suite of rooms. Not a soul was there. The rooms were swept and garnished, the silence and loneliness seeming only intensified by the brilliant light and empty magnificence.

Livingstone felt like a man in a dream from which he could not awake. He turned and made his way back to the outer door. As he did so he caught sight of a single figure at the far end of one of the big rooms. It looked like Wright,-the husband of Mrs. Wright to whom Livingstone had sent his charity-subscription a few hours before. He had on his overcoat and must have just come in. He was standing by the great fire-place rubbing his hands with satisfaction. As Livingstone turned away, he thought he heard his name called, but he dashed out into the night. He could not stand Wright just then.

He plunged back through the snow and once more let himself in at his own door. It was lonelier within than before. The hall was ghastly. The big rooms, bigger than they had ever seemed, were like a desert. It was intolerable: He would go to bed.

He slowly climbed the stairs. The great clock on the landing stared at him as he passed and in deep tones tolled the hour-of ten. It was impossible! Livingstone knew it must have been hours since he left his office. To him it seemed months, years;-but his own watch marked the same hour.

As he entered his bedroom, two pictures hanging on the wall caught his eye. They were portraits of a gentleman and a lady. Any one would have known at a glance that they were Livingstone's father and mother. They had hung there since Livingstone built his house, but he had not thought of them in years. Perhaps, that was why they were still there.

They were early works of one who had since become a master. Livingstone remembered the day his father had given the order to the young artist.

"Why do you do that?" some one had asked. "He perhaps has parts, but he is a young man and wholly unknown."

"That is the very reason I do it," had said his father. "Those who are known need no assistance. Help young men, for thereby some have helped angels unawares."

It had come true. The unknown artist had become famous, and these early portraits were now worth-no, not those figures which suddenly gleamed before Livingstone's eyes!-

Livingstone remembered the letter that the artist had written his father, tendering him aid when he learned of his father's reverses-he had said he owed his life to him-and his father's reply, that he needed no aid, and it was sufficient recompense to know that one he had helped remembered a friend.

Livingstone walked up and scanned the portrait nearest him. He had not really looked at it in years. He had had no idea how fine it was. How well it portrayed him! There was the same calm forehead, noble in its breadth; the same deep, serene, blue eyes;-the artist had caught their kindly expression;-the same gentle mouth with its pleasant humor lurking at the corners;-the artist had almost put upon the canvas the mobile play of the lips;-the same finely cut chin with its well marked cleft. It was the very man.

Livingstone had had no idea how handsome a man his father was. He remembered Henry Trelane saying he wished he were an artist to paint his father, but that only Van Dyck could have made him as distinguished as he was.

He turned to the portrait of his mother. It was a beautiful face and a gracious. He remembered that every one except his father had said it was a fine portrait, but his father had said it was, "only a fine picture; no portrait of her could be fine."

Moved by the recollection, Livingstone opened a drawer and took from a box the daguerreotype of a boy. He held it in his hand and looked first at it and then at the portraits on the wall. Yes, it was distinctly like both. He remembered it used to be said that he was like his father; but his father had always said he was like his mother. He could now see the resemblance. There were, even in the round, unformed, boyish face, the same wide open eyes; the same expression of the mouth, as though a smile were close at hand; the same smooth, placid brow. His chin was a little bolder than his father's. Livingstone was pleased to note it.

He determined to have his portrait painted by the best painter he could find. He would not consider the cost. Why should he? He was worth-at the thought the seven gleaming figures flashed out clear between his eyes and the portrait in his hand.

Livingstone turned suddenly and faced himself in the full length mirror at his side. The light caught him exactly and he stood and looked himself full in the face. What he saw horrified him. He felt his heart sink and saw the pallor settle deeper over his face. His hair was almost white. He was wrinkled. His eyes were small and sharp and cold. His mouth was drawn and hard. His cheeks were seamed and set like flint. He was a hard, wan, ugly old man; and as he gazed, unexpectedly in the mirror before his eyes, flashed those cursed figures.

With almost a cry Livingstone turned and looked at the portraits on the wall. He half feared the sharp figures would appear branded across those faces. But no, thank God! the figures had disappeared. The two faces beamed down on him sweet and serene and comforting as heaven.

Under an impulse of relief Livingstone flung himself face downward on the bed and slipped to his knees. The position and the association it brought fetched to his lips words which he used to utter in that presence long years ago.

It had been long since Livingstone had prayed. He attended church, but if he had any heart it had not been there. Now this prayer came instinctively. It was simple and childish enough: the words that he had been taught at his mother's knee. He hardly knew he had said them; yet they soothed him and gave him comfort; and from some far-off time came the saying, "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter-" and he went on repeating the words.

Another verse drifted into his mind: "And he took a child and set him in the midst of them, and said, * * * Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

The events of the evening rose up before Livingstone-the little girl in her red jacket, with her tear-stained face, darting a look of hate at him; the rosy-cheeked boys shouting with glee on the hillside, stopped in the midst of their fun, and changing suddenly to yell their cries of hate at him; the shivering beggar asking for work,-for but five cents, which he had withheld from him.

Livingstone shuddered. Had he done these things? Could it be possible? Into his memory came from somewhere afar off: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

There flashed through his mind the thought, might he not retrieve himself? Was it too late? Could he not do something for some one?-perhaps, for some little ones?

It was like a flash of light and Livingstone was conscious of a thrill of joy at the idea, but it faded out leaving him in blanker darkness than before. He did not know a single child.-He knew in a vague, impersonal way a number of children whom he had had a momentary glimpse of occasionally at the fashionable houses which he visited; but he knew them only as he would have known handsomely dressed dolls in show windows. He had never thought of them as children, but only as a part of the personal belongings of his acquaintances-much as he thought of their bric-à-brac or their poodles. They were not like the children he had once known. He had never seen them romp and play or heard them laugh or shout.

He was sunk in deep darkness.

In his gloom he glanced up. His father's serene face was beaming down on him. A speech he had heard his father make long, long ago, came back to him: "Always be kind to children. Grown people may forget kindness, but children will remember it. They forgive, but never forget either a kindness or an injury."

Another speech of his father's came floating to Livingstone across the years: "If you have made an enemy of a child, make him your friend if it takes a year! A child's enmity is never incurred except by injustice or meanness."

Livingstone could not but think of Clark's little girl. Might she not help him? She would know children. But would she help him?

If she were like Clark, he reasoned, she would be kind-hearted. Besides, he remembered to have heard his father say that children did not bear malice: that was a growth of older minds. It was strange for Livingstone to find himself recurring to his father for knowledge of human nature-his father whom he had always considered the most ignorant of men as to knowledge of the world.

He sprang to his feet and looked at his watch. Perhaps, it was not yet too late to see the little girl to-night if he hurried? Clark lived not very far off, in a little side street, and they would sit up late Christmas Eve.

As he turned to the mirror it was with trepidation, his last glance at it had been so dreadful; but he was relieved to find a pleasanter expression on his face. He almost saw a slight resemblance to his father.

The next moment he hurried from the room; stole down the stair; slipped on his overcoat, and hastily let himself out of the door.

CHAPTER X It was quite clear out now and the moon was riding high in a cloudless heaven. The jingle of sleigh-bells had increased and just as Livingstone turned the corner a sleigh dashed past him. He heard the merry voices of young people, and amid the voices the ringing laughter of a young girl, clear as a silver bell.

Livingstone stopped short in his tracks and listened. He had not heard anything so musical in years-he had not heard a young girl's laughter in years-he had not had time to think of such things. It brought back across the snow-covered fields-across the snow-covered years-a Christmas of long ago when he had heard a young girl's musical laughter like a silvery chime, and, standing there in the snow-covered street, for one moment Livingstone was young again-no longer a gray-haired man in the city; but a young man in the country, somewhere under great arching boughs; face to face with one who was also young;-and, looking out from a hood that surrounded it like a halo, a girlish face flashed on him: cheeks like roses, brilliant with the frosty air; roguish eyes, now dancing, now melting; a laughing mouth from which came such rippling music that there was no simile for it in all the realm of silvery sound, the enchanting music of the joy of youth.

With a cry, Livingstone sprang forward with outstretched, eager hands to catch the vision; but his arms enclosed only vacancy and he stood alone in the empty street.

A large sleigh came by and Livingstone hailed it. It was a livery vehicle and the driver having just put down at their homes a party of pleasure-seekers was on his way back to his stable. He agreed with Livingstone to take him to his destination and wait for him, and Livingstone, giving him a number, sprang in and ordered him to drive rapidly.

The sleigh stopped in front of a little house, in a narrow street filled with little houses, and Livingstone getting out mounted the small flight of steps. Inside, pandemonium seemed to have broken loose somewhere up-stairs, such running and shouting and shrieks of joyous laughter Livingstone heard. Then, as he could not find the bell, Livingstone knocked.

At the sound the noise suddenly ceased, but the next moment it burst forth again louder than before. This time the shouts came rolling down the stairs and towards the door, with a scamper of little feet and shrieks of childish delight. They were interrupted and restrained by a quiet, kindly voice which Livingstone recognized as Clark's. The father was trying to keep the children back.

It might be Santa Claus himself, Livingstone heard him urge, and if they did not go back to bed immediately, or into the back room,-or even if they peeped, Santa Claus might jump into his sleigh and drive away and leave nobody at the door but a grocer's boy with a parcel. This direful threat had its effect. The gleeful squeals were hushed down into subdued and half-awed murmurs and after a little a single footstep came along the passage and the front door was opened cautiously.

At sight of Livingstone, Clark started, and by the light of the lamp the caller could see his face pale a little. He asked Livingstone in with a voice that almost faltered. Leaving Livingstone in the little passage for a moment Clark entered the first room-the front room-and Livingstone could hear him sending the occupants into a rear room. He heard the communicating door close softly. Every sound was suddenly hushed. It was like the sudden hush of birds when a hawk appears. Livingstone thought of it and a pang shot through him. Then the door was opened and Clark somewhat stiffly invited Livingstone in.

The room was a small front parlor.

The furniture was old and worn, but it was not mean. A few old pieces gave the room, small as it was, almost an air of distinction. Several old prints hung on the walls, a couple of portraits in pink crayon, such as St. Mimin used to paint, and a few photographs in frames, most of them of children,-but among them one of Livingstone himself.

All this Livingstone took in as he entered. The room was in a state of confusion, and a lounge on one side, with its pillows still bearing the imprint of an occupant, showed that the house held an invalid. In one corner a Christmas-tree, half dressed, explained the litter. It was not a very large tree; certainly it was not very richly dressed. The things that hung on it were very simple. Many of them evidently were of home-manufacture-knots of ribbon, little garments, second-hand books, even home-made toys.

A small pile of similar articles lay on the floor, where they had been placed ready for service and had been left by the tree-dressers on their hasty departure.

Clark's eye followed instinctively that of the visitor.

"My wife has been dressing a tree for the children," he said simply.

He faced Livingstone and offered him a chair. He stiffened as he did so. He was evidently prepared for the worst.

Livingstone sat down. It was an awkward moment. Livingstone broke the ice.

"Mr. Clark, I have come to ask you a favor-a great favor-"

Clark's eyes opened wide and his lips even parted slightly in his astonishment.

"-I want you to lend me your little girl-the little girl I saw in the office this afternoon."

Clark's expression was so puzzled that Livingstone thought he had not understood him.

"'The Princess with the Golden Locks,'" he explained.

"Mr. Livingstone!-I-I don't understand." He looked dazed.

Livingstone broke out suddenly: "Clark, I have been a brute, a cursed brute!"

"Oh! Mr. Liv-!"

With a gesture of sharp dissent Livingstone cut him short.

"It is no use to deny it, Clark,-I have-I have!-I have been a brute for years and I have just awakened to the fact!" He spoke in bitter, impatient accusation. "I have been a brute for years and I have just realized it."

The face of the other had softened.

"Oh, no, Mr. Livingstone, not that. You have always been just-and-just;" he protested kindly. "You have always-"

-"Been a brute," insisted Livingstone, "a blind, cursed, selfish, thoughtless-"

"You are not well, Mr. Livingstone," urged Clark, looking greatly disturbed. "Your servant, James, said you were not well this evening when I called. I wanted to go in to see you, but he would not permit me. He said that you had given positive orders that you would not see-"

"I was not well," assented Livingstone. "I was suffering from blindness. But I am better, Clark, better. I can see now-a little."

He controlled himself and spoke quietly. "I want you to lend me your little girl for-" He broke off suddenly. "How many children have you, Clark?" he asked, gently.

"Eight," said the old clerk. "But I haven't one I could spare, Mr. Livingstone."

"Only for a little while, Clark?" urged the other; "only for a little while.-Wait, and let me tell you what I want with her and why I want her, and you will-For a little while?" he pleaded.

He started and told his story and Clark sat and listened, at first with a set face, then with a wondering face, and then with a face deeply moved, as Livingstone, under his warming sympathy, opened his heart to him as a dying man might to his last confessor.

"-And now will you lend her to me, Clark, for just a little while to-night and to-morrow?" he pleaded in conclusion.

Clark rose to his feet. "I will see what I can do with her, Mr. Livingstone," he said, gravely. "She is not very friendly to you, I am sorry to say-I don't know why."

Livingstone thought he knew.

"Of course, you would not want me to compel her to go with you?"

"Of course not," said Livingstone.

CHAPTER XI The father went out by the door that opened into the passage, and the next moment Livingstone could hear him in deep conference in the adjoining room; at first with his wife, and then with the little girl herself.

The door did not fit very closely and the partition was thin, so that Livingstone could not help hearing what was said, and even when he could shut out the words he could not help knowing from the tones what was going on.

The mother was readily won over, but when the little girl was consulted she flatly refused. Her father undertook to coax her.

To Livingstone's surprise the argument he used was not that Livingstone was rich, but that he was so poor and lonely; not well off and happy like him, with a house full of little children to love him and make him happy and give him a merry Christmas.

The point of view was new to Livingstone-at least, it was recent; but he recognized its force and listened hopefully. The child's reply dashed his hopes.

"But, papa, I hate him so-I just hate him!" she declared, earnestly. "I'm glad he hasn't any little children to love him. When he wouldn't let you come home to us this evening, I just prayed so hard to God not to let him have any home and not to let him have any Christmas-not ever!"

The eager little voice had risen in the child's earnestness and it pierced through the door and struck Livingstone like an arrow. There came back to him that sentence, "Whoso offendeth one of these little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck-."

Livingstone fairly shivered, but he had able defenders.

"Oh, Kitty!" exclaimed both her father and mother, aghast at the child's bitterness.

They next tried the argument that Livingstone had been so kind to the father. He had "given him last year fifty dollars besides his salary."

Livingstone was not surprised that this argument did not prove as availing with the child as the parents appeared to expect.-Fifty dollars! He hated himself for it. He felt that he would give fifty thousand to drop that millstone from his neck.

They next tried the argument that Livingstone wanted to have a Christmas-tree for poor children and needed her help. He wanted her to go with him to a toy-shop. He did not know what to get and wished her to tell him. He had his sleigh to take her.

This seemed to strike one of the other members of the family, for suddenly a boy's eager voice burst in:

"I'll go with him. I'll go with him in a sleigh. I'll go to the toy-shop. Maybe, he'll give me a sled. Papa, mamma, please let me go."

This offer, however, did not appear to meet all the requisites of the occasion and Master Tom was speedily suppressed by his parents. Perhaps, however, his offer had some effect on Kitty, for she finally assented and said she would go, and Livingstone could hear the parents getting her ready. He felt like a reprieved prisoner.

After a few moments Mr. Clark brought the little girl in, cloaked and hooded and ready to go.

When Livingstone faced the two blue eyes that were fastened on him in calm, and, by no means, wholly approving inspection, he felt like a deep-dyed culprit. Had he known of this ordeal in advance he could not have faced it, but as it was he must now carry it through.

What he did was, perhaps, the best that any one could have done. After the cool, little handshake she vouchsafed him, Livingstone, finding that he could not stand the scrutiny of those quiet, unblenching eyes, threw himself on the child's mercy.

"Kitty," he said earnestly, "I did you this evening a great wrong, and your father a great wrong, and I have come here to ask you to forgive me.-I have been working so hard that I did not know it was Christmas, and I interfered with your father's Christmas-and with your Christmas; for I had no little girls to tell me how near Christmas was. And now I want to get up a Christmas for some poor children, and I don't know how to do it, so I have come to ask you to help me. I want you to play Santa Claus for me, and we will find the toys, and then we will find the children. I have a great big sleigh, and we will go off to a toy-shop, and presently I will bring you back home again."

He had made his speech much longer than he had intended, because he saw that the child's mind was working; the cumulative weight of the sleigh-ride, the opportunity to play a part and to act as Santa Claus for other children, was telling on her.

When he ended, Kitty reflected a moment and then said quietly, "All right."

Her tone was not very enthusiastic, but it was assent and Livingstone felt as though he had just been redeemed.

The next moment the child turned to the door.

Livingstone rose and followed her. He was amused at his feeling of helplessness and dependence. She was suddenly the leader and without her he felt lost.

She stepped into the sleigh and he followed her.

"Where shall we go first?" she asked.

This was a poser for Livingstone. All the shops of which he knew anything were closed long ago.

"Why, I think I will let you select the place," he began, simply seeking for time.

"What do you want to get?" she asked calmly, gazing up at him.

Livingstone had never thought for a second that there would be any difficulty about this. He was hopelessly in the dark. Stocks, "common" or "preferred," bonds and debentures, floated through his mind. Even horses or pictures he would have had a clear opinion on, but in this field he was lost. He had never known, or cared to know, what children liked.

Suddenly a whole new realm seemed to open before him, but it was shrouded in darkness. And that little figure at his side with large, sober, searching eyes fixed calmly on him was quietly demanding his knowledge and waiting for his answer. He had passed hundreds of windows crowded with Christmas presents that very evening and had never looked at one. He had passed as between blank walls. What would he not have given now for but the least memory of one glance!

But the eyes were waiting and he must answer.

"Why-ah-you know,-ah-toys!"

It was an inspiration and Livingstone shook himself with self-approval.

"Yes-ah-TOYS! you know?" he repeated.

He glowed with satisfaction over his escape.

The announcement, however, did not appear to astonish his companion as much as he felt it should have done. She did not even take her eyes from his face.

"How many children are there?"

"Why-twenty." Livingston caught at a number, as a sinking man catches at a twig.

As she accepted this, Livingstone was conscious of elation. He felt as though he were playing a game and had escaped the ignominy of a wrong answer: he had caught a bough and it held him.

"How old are they?"

Livingstone gasped. The little ogress! Was she just trifling with him? Could it be possible that she saw through him? As he looked down at her the eyes fastened on him were as calm as a dove's eyes.

"Why-ah-. How many brothers and sisters have you?" he asked.

He wished to create a diversion and gain time. She answered promptly.

"Seven: four sisters and three brothers. John, he's my oldest brother; Tom, he's next-he's eight. Billy is the baby."

This contribution of family history was a relief, and Livingstone was just trying to think of something else to say, when she demanded again,

"What are the ages of your children?"

"I have no children," said Livingstone, thinking how clever he was to be so ready with an answer.

"I know.-But I mean the children you want the toys for?"

Livingstone felt for his handkerchief. The perspiration was beginning to come on his brow.

"Why,-ah-the same ages as your brothers and sisters-about," he said desperately, feeling that he was at the end of his resources and would be discovered by the next question.

"We will go to Brown's," said the child quietly, and, dropping her eyes, she settled herself back in the furs as though the problem were definitely solved.

CHAPTER XII Livingstone glanced at the little figure beside him, hoping she would indicate where "Brown's" was, but she did not. Every one must know "Brown's."

The only "Brown" Livingstone knew was the great banker, and a grim smile flickered on his cheek at the thought of the toys in which that Brown dealt. He shifted the responsibility to the driver.

"Driver, go to Brown's. You know where it is?"

"Well, no, sir, I don't believe I do. Which Brown do you mean, sir?"

"Why-ah-the toy-man's, of course."

The driver stopped his horses and reflected. He shook his head slowly. Livingstone, however, was now equal to the emergency. Besides, there was nothing else to do. He turned to his companion.

"Where is it?" he began boldly, but as he saw the look of surprise in the little girl's face he added, "I mean-exactly?"

"Why, right across from the grocer's with the parrot and the little white woolly dog."

She spoke with astonishment that any one should not know so important a personage. And Livingstone, too, was suddenly conscious of the importance of this information. Clearly he had neglected certain valuable branches of knowledge.

Happily, the driver came to his rescue.

"Where is that, Miss?" he asked.

"You go to the right and keep going to the right all the way," she said definitely.

Livingstone was in despair; but the driver appeared to understand now.

"You tell me when I go wrong," he said, and drove on.

He must have children at home, thought Livingstone to himself as the sleigh after a number of turns drew up in front of one of the very windows Livingstone had passed that evening on the back street. He felt as though he would like to reward the driver. It was the first time Livingstone had thought of a driver in many years.

Just as they drove up the door of the shop was being closed, and the little girl gave an exclamation of disappointment.

"Oh, we are too late!" she cried.

Livingstone felt his heart jump into his throat. He sprang to the door and rapped. There was no answer. The light was evidently being turned off inside. Livingstone rapped again more impatiently. Another light was turned down. Livingstone was desperate. His loud knocking produced no impression, and he could have bought out the whole square!

Suddenly a little figure pushed against him as Kitty slipped before him, and putting her mouth to the crack of the door, called, "Oh! Mr. Brown, please let me in. It's me, Kitty Clark, Mr. Clark's little girl."

Instantly the light within was turned up. A step came towards the door, the bolts were drawn back and half the door was opened.

Livingstone was prepared to see the shopkeeper confounded when he should discover who his caller was. On the contrary, the man was in nowise embarrassed by his appearance. Indeed, he paid no attention whatever to Livingstone. It was to Kitty that he addressed himself, ignoring Livingstone's presence utterly.

"Why, Kitty, what are you doing out at this time of night? Aren't you afraid Santa Claus will come while you are away, and not bring you anything? You know what they say he does if he don't find everybody asleep in bed?"

Kitty nodded, and leaning forward on her toes, dropped her voice to a mysterious whisper:

"I know who Santa Claus is." The whisper ended with a little chuckle of delight at her astuteness. "I found it out last Christmas."

"Kitty, you didn't! You must have been mistaken?" said the shopkeeper with a grin on his kindly countenance. "Who is he?"

"Mr.-Brown, and Mr. and Mrs.-Clark," said Kitty slowly and impressively, as though she were adding up figures and the result would speak for itself. She took in the shop with a wave of her little hand and a sweep of her eyes.

"I'm playing Santa Claus myself, to-night," she said, tossing her hooded head, her eyes kindling at the thought. The next look around was one of business.

"This is Mr. Livingstone, papa's employer." She indicated that gentleman.

Mr. Brown held out his plump and not wholly immaculate hand.

"How d'ye do, sir? I think I've heard of you?"

He turned back to Kitty.

"Who for?" he asked.

"For him," Kitty nodded. "He's got a whole lot of little children-not his own children-other people's children-that he's going to give Christmas presents to, and I've come to help him. What have you got left, Mr. Santa Claus?"

She stood on tiptoe and peered over the shelves.

"Well, not a great deal, Miss Wide-awake," said the shopkeeper dropping into her manner and mood. "You see there's lots of children around this year as don't keep wide-awake all night, and Santa Claus has had to look after 'em quite considerable. I can't tell you how many sleighs full of things he's taken away from this here very shop. He didn't leave nothing but them things you see and the very expensive things in the cases. He said they were too high-priced for him."

He actually gave Livingstone a wink, and Livingstone actually felt flattered by it.

The reply recalled Kitty to her business. She turned to Mr. Livingstone.

"How much money have you got to spend?" she asked.

"Umhm-I don't know," said Livingstone.

"As much as a dollar?"

"Yes."

"More?"

"Yes."

"How much more?"

"As much as you want. Suppose you pick out the things you like and then we can see about the price," he suggested.

"Some things cost a heap."

She was looking at a doll on whose skirt was pinned a little scrap of card-board marked, "25c."

"Yes, they do," assented Livingstone. "But they are worth it," he thought. "I tell you what!-Suppose you look around and see just what you like, and I'll go off here and talk with Mr. Brown so as not to disturb you."

He was learning and the lesson was already bringing him pleasure.

He took the shopkeeper aside and had a little talk with him. He took the shopkeeper aside and had a little talk with him, learning from him all he could of Clark's family and circumstances. It was an amazement to him. He had never known what a burden Clark had carried. The shopkeeper spoke of him with great affection and with great respect.

"He is the best man in the world," he said.

He treated Livingstone with familiarity, but he spoke of Clark with respect.

"He ought to be on the Avenue," he asserted; "and if everybody had their rights some would be where Mr. Clark is and Mr. Clark would be in their place."

Livingstone was not prepared just then to gainsay this.

He explained to Mr. Brown his wishes. He wanted to get many things, but did not know how to keep the child from suspecting his plan. The shopkeeper gave him a suggestion. Close association and sympathy with children had given Brown knowledge.

CHAPTER XIII They returned to Kitty. She was busy figuring on a little piece of paper, moistening her little stub of a pencil, every other second, with her tongue. Her little red mouth showed streaks of black. She was evidently in some trouble.

Livingstone drew near.

"How are you coming on?" he asked.

She looked up with a face full of perplexity.

"Oh! I've spent nearly the whole dollar and I haven't but nine presents yet. We must get something cheaper.-But they were so pretty!" she lamented, her eyes glancing longingly towards the articles she had selected.

"Let's see. Maybe, you have made a mistake," said Livingstone. He took the bit of paper and she handed him the pencil.

"I'm not very good at making figures," she observed.

"I'm not either," said Livingstone, glancing at the paper. "I'll tell you what let's do," he said. "Let's get Mr. Brown to open all his cases and boxes, and let's look at everything and just see what we would select if we could have our choice?"

The little girl's eyes opened wide.

"You mean, let's make pretense that we are real sure-enough Santa Claus and just pick out everything we want to give everybody, and pretend that we could get it and give it to them?"

Livingstone nodded.

"Yes."

That was just what he ought to have meant, he knew.

The inquiry in Kitty's big eyes became light. She sprang to her feet and with a little squeak of delight marched to the middle of the shop and taking her stand began to sweep the shelves with her dancing eyes.

Livingstone gave a nod to the shopkeeper and he drew back the curtains that protected the cases where the finer and more expensive goods were kept and began to open the boxes.

Kitty approached on tiptoe and watched him with breathless silence as though she were in a dream which a word might break.

Then when she had seen everything she turned back to Livingstone.

"Well!" she said slowly.

"Well, what do you say?" He too was beginning to feel a spell.

"Well, if I were a real, sure-'nough Santa Claus, I'd just get-everything in those cases." The spread of her little arms took it all in.

"And what would you do with it?" asked Livingstone in the same low tone, fearful of breaking the reverie in which she stood wrapped.

He had never before in all his life been taken into partnership by a little girl, and deep down beneath his breast-pocket was a kindling glow which was warming him through and through.

"I'd carry that doll-to Jean, and that-to Sue, and that-to Mollie, and that-to Dee, and those skates to Johnny, and-that sled to Tom, and-that woolly lamb to little Billy, 'cause he loves squshy things.-And then-I'd take all the rest in my sleigh and I'd go to the hospital where the poor little children haven't got any good papas and mammas like me to give them anything, and where Santa Claus can't ever go, and I'd put something by the side of every bed-of every one, and, maybe, they'd think at first it was only a dream; but when they waked up wide they'd find Santa Claus had been there, sure enough!"

In her energy she was gesticulating with earnest hands that seemed to take each present and bear it to its destination, and she concluded with a little nod to Livingstone that seemed to recognize him as in sympathy with her, and to say, "Wouldn't we if we only could?"

It seemed to Livingstone as though a casing of ice in which he had been enclosed had suddenly broken and he were bathed in warmth.

The millstone round his neck had suddenly dropped and he shot upward into the light.

The child was leading him into a new and vernal world. He wanted to take her in his arms and press her to his heart. The difference between the glance she now gave him and that she had shot at him at the door of his office that evening came to him and decided him. It was worth it all.

"Yes. Is there anything else you wish?" he asked, hoping that there might be, for she had not mentioned herself.

"Yes, but it's not anything Santa Claus can give," she said calmly; "I have asked God for it."

"What?" asked Livingstone.

"Something to make mamma well: to help papa pay for the house. He says it's that 'at keeps her ill, and she says if she were well he could pay for it: and I just pray to God for it every day."

Livingstone caught his breath quickly as if from a sudden pain. The long years of Clark's faithful service flashed before him. He shivered at the thought of his own meanness. He was afraid those great eyes might see into his heart. He almost shrivelled at the thought.

"Well, let's take a sleigh-ride and see if any other shops are open. Then we can return."

He spoke a few words aside to Mr. Brown. The shopkeeper's eyes opened wide.

"But you say you haven't money enough with you, and I don't know you?"

Livingstone smiled.

"Why, man, I am worth-" He stopped short as a faint trace of seven figures appeared vaguely before his eyes. "I am worth enough to buy all this square and not feel it," he said, quickly correcting himself.

"That may be all so, but I don't know you," persisted the shopkeeper. "Do you know anybody in this part of the town?"

"Well, I know Mr. Clark. He would vouch for me, but-."

The shopkeeper turned to the child.

"Kitty, you know this gentleman, you say?"

"Yes. Oh, he's all right," said Kitty decisively. "He's my papa's employer and he gave him fifty dollars last Christmas, 'cause my papa told me so."

This munificent gift did not appear to impress Mr. Brown very much, any more than it did Livingstone, who felt himself flush.

"Business is business, you know?" said the shopkeeper,-an aphorism on which Livingstone had often acted, but had never had cited against him.

The shopkeeper was evidently considering.

Livingstone was half angry and half embarrassed. He felt as he had not done in twenty years. The shopkeeper was weighing him in his scales as he might have done a pound of merchandise, and Livingstone could not tell what he would decide. There was Kitty, however, her eyes still filled with light. He could not disappoint her. She, too, felt that he was being weighed and suddenly came to his rescue.

"He's an awful kind man," she said earnestly. "He hasn't got any little children of his own, and he's going to give things to little poor children. He always does that, I guess," she added.

"Well, no, I don't," said Livingstone, looking at the shopkeeper frankly; "but I wish I had, and I'll pay you."

"All right. She knows you and that will do," said Mr. Brown.

Kitty, with the light of an explorer in her eyes, was making new discoveries on the shelves, and the two men walked to the back of the shop where the shopkeeper wrote a list of names. Then Livingstone and Kitty got into the sleigh and drove for a half-hour or so.

On their return Mr. Brown was ready.

His shop looked as though it had been struck by a whirlwind. The floor and counters were covered with boxes and bundles, and he and Livingstone packed the big sleigh as full as it would hold, leaving only one seat deep in the furs amid the heaped up parcels. Then suddenly from somewhere Mr. Brown produced a great, shaggy cape with a hood, and Livingstone threw it around Kitty and getting in lifted her into the little nest between the furs.

Kitty's eyes were dancing and her breath was coming quickly with excitement.

It was a supreme moment.

"Where are we going, Mr. Livingstone?" she whispered. She was afraid to speak aloud lest she might break the spell and awake.

"Just where you like."

"To the Children's Hospital," she panted.

"To the Children's Hospital, driver," repeated Livingstone.

Kitty gave another gasp.

"We'll play you're Santa Claus," she said, in a voice of low delight.

"No. Play you are Santa Claus's partner," said Livingstone.

"And you?"

"You are not to say anything about me."

CHAPTER XIV The little form snuggled against him closer and closer. Livingstone had not had such a drive in years. The little form snuggled against him closer and closer and the warm half sentences of childish prattle, as the little girl's imagination wove its fancies, came to him from amid the furs and made him feel as though he had left the earth and were driving in a new world. It was like a dream. Had youth come back? Was it possible?

The sleigh stopped in front of a great long building.

"You have to ring at the side door at night," said the driver. He appeared to know a good deal about the hospital.

Livingstone sprang out and rang the bell and then stepped back.

"When they open the door, you are to do all the talking," he said to Kitty as he lifted her down.

"Who shall I say rang?" she asked.

"Santa Claus's partner."

"But you-?"

"No. You are not to mention my name. Remember!"

Before the child could reply the door opened a little way and a porter looked out.

"Who's there?" he called to the sleigh, rather overlooking the little figure in the snow.

"Santa Claus's partner," said Kitty.

"What do you want?" He peered out at the sleigh. He was evidently sleepy and a little puzzled. "We don't take in anything at this hour except patients." He looked as if he were about to shut the door when a woman's voice was heard within speaking to him and the next moment the door was opened wide and he gave way as a matronly figure came forward and stood in the archway.

"Who is it?" she asked in a very pleasant voice, looking down at the little figure in the snow before her.

"Santa Claus's partner," said Kitty, gazing up at her.

"What do you want, dear?" The voice was even pleasanter.

"To leave some presents for the children."

"What children?"

"All the good children-all the sick children, I mean-all the children," said Kitty.

The matron turned and spoke to the porter, showing to Livingstone, as she did so, a glimpse of a finely cut profile and a comely figure silhouetted against the light within. The bolts were drawn from the gate of the driveway and the doors rolled back.

"Come in," said the matron, and the little figure enveloped in the shaggy cape and hood walked in under the big arch followed by the sleigh, whilst Livingstone withdrew a short distance into the shadow.

It was some time before the doors opened again and Kitty reappeared, but Livingstone did not mind it. It was cold too, but neither did he mind that. He was warm. As he walked up and down in the empty street before the long building his heart was warmed with a glow which had not been there for many and many a long year. He was not alone. Once more the memory of other Christmases passed through his mind in long processional, but now not stamped with irretrievable opportunity, to mock him with vain regret for lost happiness; only tinged with a sadness for lost friends who came trooping about him; yet lightened by his resolve to begin from now on and strive as best he might to retrieve his wasted life, and whilst he bore his punishment do what he could to make atonement for his past.

Just then across the town the clocks began to sound the midnight hour, and as they ceased, from somewhere far-away church bells mellowed by the distance began to chime the old Christmas hymn:-

"While shepherds watched their flocks by night, All seated on the ground, The angel of the Lord came down, And glory shone around." Livingstone stood still to listen, in a half-dream.

Suddenly before him in the snow stood a little figure muffled in a shaggy cape with hood half thrown back. The childish face was uplifted in the moonlight. With lips half parted she too was listening, and for a moment Livingstone could hardly take in that she was real. She seemed-!

Could she be-?

"The angel of the Lord came down,"-chimed the mellow bells.

The chiming died out.

"Christ is born," said the child. "You heard the bells?"

"Yes," said Livingstone humbly.

"It's all done," she said; "and I prayed so hard that not one of them stirred, and now when they wake they'll think it was real Santa Claus. They say he always comes at twelve and I counted the clocks.-I wonder if he went home?" She was speaking now to herself; but Livingstone answered.

"I'm sure of it," he said.

"The angel of the Lord came down," still chimed in his ears.

Suddenly a little warm hand was slipped into his confidingly.

"I think we'd better go home now." The voice was full of deep content.

Livingstone's hand closed on hers and as he said "Yes," he was conscious of a pang at the thought of giving her up.

He lifted her to put her in the sleigh. As he did so the little arms were put about his neck and warm little lips kissed him. Livingstone pressed her to his breast convulsively and climbed into the sleigh without putting her down.

Neither spoke and when the sleigh stopped in front of Mr. Clark's door the child was still in Livingstone's arms, her head resting on his shoulder, the golden curls falling over his sleeve. Even when he transferred her to her father's arms she did not wake. She only sighed with sweet content and as Livingstone bent over and kissed her softly, muttered a few words about "Santa Claus's partner."

A half-hour later, Livingstone, after another interview with Mr. Brown who was awaiting him patiently, drove back again to Mr. Clark's door with another sleighful of packages which were all duly transferred to the small room where stood the little Christmas-tree.

The handshake Livingstone gave John Clark as he came down the steps of the little house was the warmest he had given any man in twenty years. It was so warm that it seemed to send the blood tingling through Livingstone's heart and warm it anew.

CHAPTER XV Livingstone drove home through silent streets, but they were not silent for him. In his ears a chime was still ringing and it bore him far across the snow-filled streets and the snow-filled years to a land of warmth and light. The glow was still about his heart and the tingle which the pressure of Kitty Clark's arms about his neck, and John Clark's clasp of his hand had started still kept it warm.

At his door Livingstone dismissed his driver and as he cheerily wished him a merry Christmas the man's cheery reply showed that Livingstone had already found the secret of good cheer.

"The same to you, your honor; the same to you, sir," said the driver heartily, as he buttoned up his pocket with a pat of satisfaction. "We've had a good time to-night, sir, haven't we? And I wish you many more like it, sir. And when Christmas comes along next time I hope you'll remember me, for I'll remember you; I've had a little child in that 'ere same horspital. God took her to Himself twelve years ago. They're good to 'em there, rich and poor all alike;-and 't isn't every night I can drive 'Santa Claus's partner.'"

Livingstone stood and watched the sleigh till it drove out of sight. Even after it had disappeared around a corner, he still listened to the bells. It seemed to him he had a friend in it.

Livingstone let himself in noiselessly at his door, but the softness with which he turned the key this time was to keep from disturbing his servants, not to keep them from seeing him.

He stopped stock still on the threshold. The whole house seemed transformed. The hall was a bower of holly and mistletoe, and the library, as Livingstone entered it, with its bright fire roaring in the hearth and its festoons and wreaths, seemed once more a charming home: a bower where cheer might yet make its abode.

As quietly, however, as Livingstone had entered, his butler had heard him.

As Livingstone turned to take in all the beauty of the room, James was standing before him. His face showed some concern, and his voice, as he spoke, had a little tremor in it.

"When we found you had gone out, sir, we were afraid you might be sick, and the cook has got something hot for you?"

Livingstone glanced about to find a phrase with which to thank him for the trouble they had taken; but the butler spared him the pains.

"We thought we would try to make the house look a little cheery, sir. Hope you don't mind, sir?"

"Mind!" said Livingstone, "I am delighted; and I thank you very much. Mind? I should think not!"

The tone of his voice and the light in his eye showed that there was a change in him and it acted like a tonic on the butler. The light came into his eyes too. He drew a breath of deep relief as though a mountain of care had rolled off him, and he came a step nearer his master, who had flung himself into a chair and picked up a cigar.

The next minute Livingstone plunged into the subject on his mind. It was a plan which made the butler's eyes first open wide and then sparkle with pleasure.

The difficulty with Livingstone, however, was that the next day was a holiday and he did not know whether what he wanted could be got.

The butler came to his rescue. It was no difficulty to James. Such an emergency only quickened his powers. He knew places where whatever was wanted could be got, holiday or no holiday, and, "If Mr. Livingstone would only allow him-?"

"Allow you!" said Livingstone, "I give you carte blanche, only have everything ready by five o'clock.-Ask the cook to send up whatever she has; I'm hungry, and we'll talk it over whilst I'm taking supper."

"Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir;" and James withdrew with a step as light as air.

"Extraordinary servant!" thought Livingstone. "Wonder I never took it in before!"

Ten minutes later Livingstone was seated at the table with an appetite like a schoolboy's.

It was the happiest meal Livingstone had eaten in many a long day; for, all alone as he was, he was not alone. Thought-of-others sat at the board and a cheery companion it is.

"Tell the laundress to be sure and bring her children around to-morrow, and be sure you make them have a good time," he said to James, as he rose from the table. James bowed.

"Yes, sir."

"And ascertain where policeman, No. 268, is to be found to-morrow. I want to send a contribution to make a good slide for some boys on his beat."

James bowed again, his eyes somewhat wider than before.

As Livingstone mounted the stair, though he was sensible of fatigue it was the fatigue of the body, so delicious to those who have known that of the mind. And he felt pity as well as loathing for the poor, worn creature who had climbed the same stair a few hours before.

As he entered his room the warmth and home feeling had come back there also. The portraits of his father and mother first caught his eye. Some one had put a wreath around each and they seemed to beam on him with a pleased and tender smile. They opened afresh the flood-gates of memory for him, but the memories were sweet and tender.

He glanced at a mirror almost with trembling. The last time he had looked at himself he had seen only that old, haggard face with the ghostly figures branded across the brow. Thank God! they were gone now, and he could even see in his face some faint resemblance to the portraits on the wall.

He went to bed and slept as he had not slept for months, perhaps for years-not dreamlessly, but the dreams were pleasant.-Now and then lines of vague figures appeared to him, but a little girl with a smiling face came and played bo-peep with him over them, and presently sprang up and threw her arms about his neck and made him take her in a sleigh to a wonderful shop where they could get marvellous presents; among them Youth, and Friendship, and Happiness. The door was just being shut as they arrived, but when he called his father's name it was opened wide-and his father and mother greeted him-and led him smiling into places where he had played as a child.-And Catherine Trelane in a shaggy coat and hood pulled the presents from a forest of Christmas-trees and gave them to Santa Claus's partner to give to others. And suddenly his father, with his old tender smile, picked the little girl up in his arms and she changed into a wonderful child that shone so that it dazzled Livingstone and-he waked to find the bright sun shining in through the window and falling on his face.

He sprang from bed with a cry almost of joy so bright was the day; and as he looked out of the window on the sparkling snow outside it seemed a new world.

CHAPTER XVI All the morning Livingstone "rushed" as he had never "rushed" in the wildest excitement of "the street." He had to find a banker and a lawyer and a policeman. But he found them all. He had to get presents to Sipkins and Hartly and the other clerks; but he managed to do it.

His servants, too, had caught the contagion, and more than once big wagons driven by smiling, cheery-faced men drove up to the door and unloaded their contents. And when the evening fell and a great sleigh with six seats and four horses, and every seat packed full, drove up and emptied its shouting occupants out at Livingstone's door everything was ready.

It was Livingstone himself who met the guests at the door, and the driver, in his shaggy coat, must have been an old friend from the smiling way in which he nodded and waved his fur-gloved hands to him, as he helped Mrs. Clark out tenderly and took Kitty into his arms.

When Kitty was informed that this was Santa Claus's Partner's party, and that she was to be the hostess, she was at first a little shy, partly, perhaps, on account of the strangeness of being in such a big, fine house, and partly on account of the solemn presence of James, until the latter had relieved her in ways of which that austere person seemed to have the secret where children were concerned. Finally she was induced to take the children over the house, and the laughter which soon came floating back from distant rooms showed that the ice was broken.

Only two rooms, the library and the dining-room, were closed, and they were not closed very long.

Just as it grew dark Kitty was told to marshal her eager forces and James with sparkling eyes rolled back the folding doors.

And James with sparkling eyes rolled back the folding doors. The children had never seen anything before in all their lives like that which greeted their eyes. The library was a bower of evergreen and radiance. In the centre was a great tree of crystal and stars which reflected the light of a myriad twinkling candles. It had undoubtedly come from fairy-land, if the place was not fairy-land itself, on the border of which they stood amazed.

Kitty was asked by Mr. Livingstone to lead the other children in, and as she approached the tree she found facing her a large envelope addressed to,

Santa Claus's Partner, Miss Kitty Clark. This she was told to open and in it was a letter from Santa Claus himself.

It stated that the night before, as the writer was engaged in looking after presents for some poor children, he saw a little girl in a shop engaged in the same work, and when he reached a certain hospital he found that she had been there, too, before him, and now as he had to go to another part of the world to keep ahead of the sun, he hoped that she would still act for him and look after his business here. The letter was signed,

Your partner, Santa Claus. The postscript suggested that a few of the articles he had left on the tree for her were marked with names, but that others were unmarked, so that her friends might choose what they preferred, and he had left his pack at the foot of the tree as a grab-bag.

This letter broke the spell and next moment every one was shouting and rollicking as though they lived there.

In all the throng there was no one so delighted as Mr. Clark. Livingstone had had no idea how clever he was. He was the soul of the entertainment. It was he who discovered first the packages for each little one; he who, without appearing to do so, guided them in their march around the tree, so that all might find just the presents that suited them. He seemed to Livingstone's quickened eye to divine just what each child liked and wished. He appeared to know all that Livingstone desired to know.

At length, he alone of all the guests had received no present. The others had their little arms packed so full that Livingstone had to step forward to the tree to help a small tot bear away his toppling load.

The next moment Kitty discovered a large envelope lying at the foot of the tree. It was addressed,

John Clark, Esq., Father of Santa Claus's Partner. It was strange that Kitty should have overlooked it before.

With a spring she seized it and handed it to her father with a little shout of joy, for she had not been able to keep from showing disappointment that he had received nothing.

Clark smiled at her pleasure, for he knew that the kisses which she had given him from time to time had been to make amends to him, and not, as others thought, from joy over her own presents.

Clark knew well the hand-writing, and even as he opened the envelope he glanced around to catch Livingstone's eye and thank him. Livingstone, however, had suddenly disappeared; so Clark read the letter.

It was very brief. It said that Livingstone had never known until the night before how much he owed him; that he was not sure even now that he knew the full extent of his indebtedness, but at least he had come to recognize that he owed much of his business success to Mr. Clark's wisdom and fidelity; and he asked as a personal favor to him that Clark would accept the enclosed as a token of his gratitude, and would consider favorably his proposal.

Opening an enclosed envelope, Clark found two papers. One was a full release of the mortgage on Clark's house (Livingstone had spent the morning in securing it), the other was a Memorandum of "Articles of Partnership" between Berryman Livingstone and John Clark, beginning from that very day,-indeed, from the day before,-all ready, signed by Livingstone and wanting only Mr. Clark's signature to make it complete.

Mr. Clark, with his face quite white and looking almost awed, turned and walked into the next room where he found Livingstone standing alone. The old clerk was still holding the papers clutched in his hand and was walking as if in a dream.

"Mr. Livingstone," he began, "I can never-I am overwhelmed!-Your letter-your gifts-" But Livingstone interrupted him. His face was not white but red.

"Nonsense!" he said, as he turned and put his hand on the other's shoulder. "Clark, I am not giving you anything. I am paying.-I mean, I owe you everything, and what I don't owe you, I owe Kitty. Last night you lent me-" He stopped, caught himself, and began again.

"It was more than even you knew, Clark," he said, looking the other kindly in the eyes, "and I'll owe you a debt of gratitude all my life. All I ask is, that you will forget the past and help me in the future and sometimes lend me Kitty. I never knew until now how good it was to have a partner."

Just then he became conscious that someone else was near him. Kitty, with wide-open, happy eyes, was standing beside them looking up inquiringly in their faces. The child seemed to know that something important had happened, for she put up her arms, and pulling her father down to her kissed him, and then turning quickly she caught Livingstone and, drawing him down, kissed him too.

"I love you," she said, in a whisper.

Livingstone caught her in his arms.

"Let's go and have a game of blind-man's buff. I am beginning to feel young again," he said, and linking his arm in Clark's, he dragged him back to the others, where, in a few minutes they were all of one age, and a very riot of fun seemed to have broken loose.

Matters had just reached this delightful point, and Livingstone was down on his hands and knees trying with futile dexterity to avoid the clutch of a pair of little arms that apparently were pursuing him with infallible instinct into an inextricable trap, when he became conscious of a presence he had not observed before. Some one not there before was standing in the doorway.

Livingstone sprang to his feet and faced Mrs. Wright.

He felt very red and foolish as he caught her eyes and found them smiling at him. The idea of being discovered in so ridiculous a situation and posture by the most fashionable and elegant woman of his acquaintance! But Mrs. Wright waved to him to go on with his game and the next moment the little arms had clutched him, and, tearing off her bandage, Kitty, with dancing eyes, declared him "caught."

"Well, this is my final triumph over Will," exclaimed Mrs. Wright, advancing into the room, as Livingstone, drawing the little girl along with him, approached her. And she began to tell Livingstone how they had particularly wanted him to dine with them that day as an old friend of his had promised to come to them, but they had supposed, of course, that he had been overrun with invitations for the day and, as they had not seen him of late, thought that he had probably gone out of town, until her husband saw him at the club the night before where he had gone to find some poor lone bachelor who might have no other invitation.

"You know Will has always been very fond of you," she said; "and he says you have been working too hard of late and have not been looking well. When I didn't get my usual contributions from you this Christmas I didn't know what to make of it, but I think that on my round this morning I have found out the reason?"

Livingstone knew the reason, but he did not tell her. The knowing smile that lit her face, however, mystified him and he flushed a little under her searching eyes.

"Will was sure he saw you in the club last night," she persisted, "and he tried to catch you, but you ran off; and now I have come for you and will take no refusal."

Livingstone expressed his regret that he could not come. A wave of his hand towards the curly heads and beaming faces clustered before them and towards the long table gleaming in the dining-room beyond explained his reason.

"I am having a Christmas dinner myself," he said.

"Then you will come in after they go?" insisted Mrs. Wright, and as Livingstone knew they were going early he assented.

"Who are your friends?" she asked. "What a pleasant-looking man, and what lovely children! That little girl,-I thought it was Cupid when she had the bandage on her eyes and now I am sure of it."

"Let me present them to you," said Livingstone, and he presented Mr. Clark as his partner and Kitty as Santa Claus's partner.

"I did not know you had a partner?" she asked.

"It is my Christmas gift from Santa Claus," he said. "One of them; I have many."

CHAPTER XVII When Livingstone walked into Mrs. Wright's drawing-room that evening he had never had such a greeting, and he had never been in such spirits. His own Christmas dinner had been the success of his life. He could still see those happy faces about his board, and hear those joyous voices echoing through his house.

The day seemed to have been one long dream of delight. From the moment when he had turned to go after the little child to ask her to show him the way to help others, he had walked in a new land; lived in a new world; breathed a new air; been warmed by a new sun.

Wright himself met him with a cordiality so new to Livingstone and yet so natural and unforced that Livingstone wondered whether he could have been living in a dream all these years or whether he was in a dream to-night.

Among the guests he suddenly came on one who made him think to-night must be the dream.

Mrs. Wright, with glowing eyes, presented him to a lady dressed in black, as "an old friend, she believed:" a fair, sweet-looking woman with soft eyes and a calm mouth.

The name Mrs. Wright mentioned was "Mrs. Shepherd," but as Livingstone looked the face was that of Catherine Trelane.

The evening was a fitting ending to a happy day-the first Livingstone had had in many a year. Even Mrs. Shepherd's failure to give him the opportunity he sought to talk with her could not wholly mar it.

Later, Livingstone heard Mrs. Wright begin to tell some one of his act of the night before, in buying up a toy-shop for the children at the hospital.

"I always believed in him," she asserted warmly.

Livingstone caught his name and, turning to Mrs. Wright, with some embarrassment and much warmth, declared that she was mistaken, that he had not done it.

Mrs. Wright laughed incredulously.

"I suspected it this morning when I first heard of it; but now I have the indisputable proof."

She held up a note.

"'I think I've heard of you before,'" she laughed, with a capital imitation of Mr. Brown's manner.

"I still deny it," insisted Livingstone, blushing, and as Mrs. Wright still affirmed her belief, he told her the story of Santa Claus's partner.

Insensibly, as he told it, the other voices hushed down.

He told it well; for his heart was full of the little girl who had led him from the frozen land back to the land of light.

As he ended, from another room somewhere up-stairs, came a child's clear voice singing,

God west you, mer-wy gentle-men, Let nossing you dismay; For Jesus Chwist our Sa-wiour Was born this ve-wy day. Livingstone looked at Mrs. Shepherd.

She was standing under the long evergreen festoons just where they met and formed a sort of verdant archway. Two of the children of the house, attracted by Livingstone's story, had come and pressed against her as they listened with interested faces, and she had put her arms about them and drawn their curly heads close to her side. A spray of holly with scarlet berries was at her throat and one of the children had mischievously stuck a sprig of mistletoe in her hair. Her face was turned aside, her eyes were downcast, the long, dark lashes drooping against her cheek, and on her face rested a divine compassion; and as Livingstone gazed on her he saw the same gracious figure and fine profile that he had seen the night before outlined against the light in the archway of the gate of the Children's Hospital. It was the reflective face of one who has felt; but when she raised her eyes they were the eyes of Catherine Trelane. And suddenly, as Livingstone looked into them, they had softened, and she seemed to be standing, as she had stood so long ago, in the Christmas evening light in a long avenue under swaying boughs, in the heart of the land of his youth.

Standing in the Christmas evening light in a long avenue under swaying boughs. While still, somewhere above, the child's voice carolled,

-Let nossing you dismay; For Jesus Christ our Sa-wiour Was born this ve-wy day.

<eob>

Kidnapping In The Pacific

By

William Henry Giles Kingston



Chapter One.

"You want a yarn.  You shall have one," said a young friend of mine, a midshipman, who had just returned from a four years' cruise in the Pacific.  "I am not a good hand at describing what I have seen, but I can narrate better the adventures of others which they have told me: -- "

We had visited a good many islands in the Pacific, engaged in settling the disputes of the natives or trying to settle them, punishing evil doers, supporting the consuls and missionaries, surveying occasionally hitherto unknown harbours, and endeavouring to make the British flag respected among the dark-skinned inhabitants of those regions.

I with another midshipman and a boat's crew had landed on a beautiful island of the Western Pacific to bring off a cargo of cocoa-nuts and breadfruit with which the natives had promised to supply us.  Two of our men had straggled off against orders into the interior.  While waiting for them we saw the signal made for our return.  Unwilling to leave them behind, we ourselves unwisely started off to look for them.  The natives gave us to understand that they were a little way ahead, so we pushed on hoping to come up with them and bring them with us.

A considerable time longer than we expected was thus occupied, and when having at length overtaken them we got back to the beach, we found that a strong breeze had set in, and that so heavy a surf was breaking on the shore that it would be extremely dangerous passing through it.  Still the signal was flying and the order must be obeyed.

We shoved off, but had not pulled many strokes before a succession of tremendous rollers came roaring in, turning the boat right over and sending her back almost stove to pieces on the beach.  Had it not been for the natives who swam to our rescue, we should probably have lost our lives.

Wet through, and half-drowned, we were dragged on shore.  It would have been madness to have again made an effort to get off.  All we could do, therefore, was to haul our sorely battered boat out of the reach of the surf and to collect the portion of our cargo washed up on the sands.

Although it was tolerably hot we felt that we should be more comfortable than we were if we could shift our wet clothes.  The garments worn by the natives could assist us but little, seeing that most of them wore only somewhat narrow waist clothes.  They made us understand, however, that not far off we should find the house of a white man, who would perhaps afford us accommodation.  Why he had not yet hitherto made his appearance we could not tell, but we determined to visit him and claim his hospitality.  Led by the natives, we proceeded some distance along the beach when we came in sight of a hut, larger and more substantially built than the other habitations around.  Just inside a porch at the entrance of the hut, an old white man, dressed in shirt and trousers, with a broad-brimmed straw hat on his head, was seated in a roughly made easy-chair with his feet resting on the trellis-work before him.  A large wooden pipe was in his mouth, from which he was smoking lustily. He seemed scarcely to notice our approach, and when we addressed him he enquired in a gruff voice where we came from and what we wanted.  We told him what had happened, and asked him if he could give us shelter, and lend us some garments while our clothes were drying.

"As to that, young gentlemen, you shall have a shirt and a pair of duck trousers apiece, and such food as there may happen to be in my store-house," he answered, seeing by our uniforms who we were.  "Your men shall be looked after also."

We were soon seated round his cooking stove inside the house, rigged out in the garments he had provided while our own clothes were hung up to dry.  A native girl attended us, obeying with alacrity the old man's commands.  We supposed her to be his daughter, and spoke of her as such.

"No, you are wrong in that, I have no child," he observed.  "She is my wife.  That," pointing to a thick stick which rested on a stool near him, "served as my marriage lines, it makes her as sharp and attentive as I can wish, and keeps her in good order."

I had suspected from the appearance of the old fellow that he was a ruffian; I had now no doubt that he was a thorough one; and I felt sure that had he dared he would not have scrupled to hand us over to the natives should they by chance demand our lives.  A man-of-war in the offing, though she might be driven away for a few days, afforded us perfect security with such a character.

At first he was not disposed to be communicative; he kept beating about the bush to ascertain apparently whether we knew anything about him, and had come to call him to account for any misdeeds of which he might have been conscious.  When he discovered that we were not even aware that a white man resided on the island, he opened out more freely.  I was curious to know something about him, and, concealing the opinion I had formed of his character, tried to induce him to talk of himself; that he was an old sailor I could see at a glance.

"You were long at sea, I suppose," I observed.

"First and last pretty nigh sixty years," he answered.

"I was a small boy when I first ran off from home, and I never lived on shore many weeks together from that time up to within a few years ago. I have served on board every sort of craft afloat, and have seen a good many curious sights, as you may suppose."

I resolved not to interrupt him, unless he should get a hitch in his yarn with which a question might help him through, so I let him run on, and, once having begun, he seemed nothing loth to allow his tongue full play.  Probably he had not had auditors who could understand him for many a long day.

"The first craft I shipped aboard was bound for the coast of Africa.  In those days not a few vessels belonging to Liverpool were engaged in one way or another in the slave trade, either in supplying the slavers with goods, and stores, and provisions, or in actually running cargoes of blacks, which though the most profitable was a dangerous business to engage in.

"I understood that we were to bring back gold dust and ivory, but instead of that we began to load with negroes, and soon had pretty nigh three hundred stowed away below hatches.  We had hoisted the Spanish flag, and had a Spanish captain, and fresh papers, for it was, I fancy, a hanging matter for an Englishman to command a slaver, though a few years back it had been all lawful and shipshape, but things change, you see, and what seems right one day is wrong the other.  We had to keep a bright look out for English cruisers, who were on the coast to put a stop to the business.

"I heard some curious yarns of the way the slaves are taken.  Some powerful tribes make it a regular business, and attack their weaker neighbours for no other purpose than to capture them, and then to sell them to the slave dealers.  They generally steal on a village at night, surround and set fire to it, and seize all the inhabitants who rush from their huts to escape the flames.  Parties go out to pick up others wandering in the woods, or travelling from one place to another.  The inhabitants of the West Coast of Africa must have an uncomfortable life of it, I suspect.  With our living cargo on board we made sail for South America.

"Before we were many leagues from the shore, an English man-of-war hove in sight.  Should we be taken we should not only lose the vessel and our expected profits, but it would go hard with the English part of the crew.  All knew that, and were ready to do anything to escape.  We made all sail, but for a wonder the British man-of-war was a fast craft, and soon began to overhaul us.  Our skipper, and most of the officers and crew, swore fearfully at the stranger, and some declared that sooner than be taken they would blow our vessel, with all the niggers on board, as well as the English cruiser, into the air.

"I observed the captain and officers talking together, and there was a fierce determination in their looks which showed they meant what they said.  I had no fancy to be blown into the air, and was considering what I could do to save myself.

"As the cruiser drew near I saw some of our men go below, and presently up they came with a black fellow.  They led him aft and lowered him overboard.

"`Don't be frightened, all you have to do is to swim to yonder ship, and she will pick you up,' said the mate.

"I don't fancy the negro understood him, still blacks are as fond of life as other people, and I saw him striking out boldly for the ship. He was seen.  The ship hove-to, a boat was lowered, and he was picked up.  Our people laughed at the success of the plan, for we had increased our distance from the enemy.

"Evening was coming on.  The great thing was to keep ahead of her till darkness would allow us to alter our course without being perceived.

"In a short time, as soon as we saw that the boat was hoisted up, another negro was hove overboard.  He was a strong swimmer, and struck out boldly.  He, too, was seen on board the man-of-war, and by another cruiser of the deep also, a huge shark.  The monster made towards him, he swam bravely on for his life, but it was of no avail.  Before long he disappeared, and I fancied I could hear the shriek he uttered, even at the distance he already was from us.

"We should have sacrificed half our cargo rather than be taken as long as there appeared any probability of the man-of-war heaving-to to pick up the unfortunate wretches, but the breeze falling light, we had an advantage over the heavier vessel, and darkness coming on, we at length lost sight of her.  We immediately altered our course, knowing that she would do her best to fall in with us in the morning.  We escaped her, however, although we lost fifty or sixty blacks on the passage; that was a matter of no consequence, considering that we landed the greater portion and made a large profit by the venture.  Our success was so satisfactory that it was not long before we were again back on the coast, and as our craft was a remarkably fast one we managed again to escape the British cruisers.

"We made altogether eight or ten trips, now and then we narrowly escaped capture, but we were too clever for our enemy, and they were not up to our various dodges.

"I had by this time become well accustomed to the work, and, though at first it had gone somewhat against me to see the blacks dying by scores during the middle passage, yet now I saw them hove overboard with as little compunction as if they had been so many sheep.

"We had a precious rough crew, about as villainous a set of cut-throats as well could be collected together.  It does not do for tender-hearted fellows to sail aboard a slaver.

"I had meantime grown into a big stout lad, and could hold my own against any of them.

"How it was I don't know, but I should not have liked at that time to have done the things that some of them did.  We had a black cook aboard, whether or not sitting before a hot fire had softened his heart, I cannot tell, but he was not as bad as the rest; he had consequently a hard life of it amongst them.  One day he was detected by the mate carrying a mess below to some of the sick blacks, they were people of his own tribe, and I suspect relations.  The mate swore that he intended to raise a mutiny among them, it may be to let them loose to murder us all.  Poor Sambo declared that he had no thoughts of doing anything of the sort, but that the people were ill, and that he hoped what he gave them would do them good and save their lives.  He was a sensible fellow, and must have known that from where we were, about mid-channel, they could never have found their way back again to the coast of Africa, and that if they had murdered the crew they themselves must also have perished.  The captain and mate would not hear his excuses, and began belabouring him with thick cudgels till they had nearly knocked the breath out of his body.  I felt very indignant, for black though he was I had a liking for the man, and determined to speak out.

"`I tell you what, Ringdon, if you don't belay your jaw-tackles you will be treated in the same way!' exclaimed the captain, turning on me.

"`Sambo had no bad intentions, I will answer for that,' I cried out. `If any of us were sick and dying we should expect one of our countrymen, if he had the means, to help us, and I don't see that Sambo intended to do more than that.'  Sambo gave me a glance, as much as to say if I have the chance I'll render you a service some day; and, bobbing his head, as the mate made another blow at him, escaped forward. The two then turned on me, and I thought were going to try their cudgels on my head.  I stood up boldly and faced them.

"`Now,' I asked, `what have you got to say to me?'

"`Look out for squalls, Master Boas, that's all,' growled the mate.

"`You will some day wish that you had kept your opinions to yourself,' said the captain, but neither he nor the mate ventured to strike me.  I turned round and walked forward, leaving the two talking together.  I was sure by the glances they cast at me that they meant mischief, so I determined to be on my guard.

"Several days passed away, and things went on much as usual.  Sambo got many a kick and cuff from the captain and mate when he could not help coming near them, but he kept out of their way as much as he could within the caboose, and cooked our meals without uttering a complaint.

"I had heard say that the pitcher which often goes to the well gets broken at last, and I could not help fancying, notwithstanding our long run of success, that such would be the fate of the slaver.

"Perhaps the owners thought the same, for we had received orders to proceed round the Cape to the East Coast of Africa, where the Portuguese slave dealers had agreed to supply us with a cargo -- that coast at the time being less watched by the English cruisers.

"We were some way off the Cape, on our passage eastward, when, while it was blowing hard and a pretty heavy sea was running, I fell from aloft. I had been a good swimmer from my boyhood, and when I came to the surface I struck out for my life, expecting to see the schooner heave to and lower a boat to pick me up.  Instead of her doing so, what was my horror and dismay to observe that she was standing away from me.  I caught sight of the captain and mate on the poop, and by the looks they cast at me I felt sure that they intended to leave me to my fate.  I shouted loudly to them, asking if they were going to allow a fellow-creature to perish.  Again and again I cried out, doing my utmost to keep my head above the foaming seas.

"A number of huge albatrosses had been following the vessel, sweeping round and round her, now soaring upwards, now plunging down into the waters to pick up anything which had fallen overboard.  You may fancy my dismay when I found that instead of chasing the vessel as before, they were gathering round my head.  Every moment I expected to see them darting down towards me, and I knew that a blow from one of their sharp beaks would have easily pierced my skull and struck me lifeless in a moment.  Nearer and nearer they drew.  I could distinguish their keen eyes watching me, and had I remained quiet for a moment I felt convinced that they would have dashed at me.  I continued, therefore, striking out with my feet and beating the water with my hands, which I lifted up as often as they came near to keep them at bay.  Still I knew full well that the struggle must soon cease, for I could not possibly much longer exert myself as I was then doing.  I had had very little enjoyment in life, but yet I had no wish to go out of it; my hopes of escape, however, were small indeed; the only chance I could see was that the crew, indignant that one of their number should be left to perish, would insist on the captain heaving-to, and would lower a boat to come to my rescue.

"Further and further the vessel sailed away from me.  I was beginning at last to think that I should be left to perish, when a hail reached my ears, and I saw about midway between myself and the vessel, a black head rising above the foaming seas.  I shouted in return, and redoubled my efforts to keep the albatrosses at a distance, while I struck out to meet my friend, whom I recognised as Sambo the black cook.  I found that he was towing after him a spar, which, though it had impeded his progress, would support us both.  I was soon up to him.

"`Neber fear, Boas, my son!' he cried out as he assisted me on the spar, `we better here dan in slave ship.'  I could not see that exactly, though I thanked him for risking his life to save mine.  `Risk not so great as you tink,' he answered, `I make out big ship, she steering dis way when I was aloft, and she soon come and pick us up.'

"I hoped that he was right, but still it was very likely that we should not be seen; if so he would lose his life as I should mine.  I told him I was very sorry that he should do that.

"`Neber fear, Boas,' he answered.  `Nothing bery sweet in life for me. You saved my head from de blows of the captain and mate, I save your life or die wid you.'

"We could not talk much however.  On his way he had picked up a couple of pieces of wood, and armed with these we were able to drive the albatrosses off.  They are cowardly birds, and when they found that we were living men and not pieces of offal, they left us alone and flew after the schooner.

"The time went slowly by, but at last I could distinguish the sail of a ship rising above the horizon.  She was standing towards us; of that I felt certain, so did Sambo.  This enabled us to keep up our spirits.  We watched her narrowly, her topsails, then her courses appeared, at length her hull itself came in sight, and we made out that she was a frigate, probably English.  I was inclined to curse my fate, for one of the things I dreaded most was having to serve on board a man-of-war.  Once or twice I felt almost inclined to let go, but Sambo laughed at my fears.

"`Can't be worse off dan on board slaver, and you better live, and den when we have a chance we may run from de ship.'

"His arguments prevailed, and once when it seemed to me she was altering her course, I began to fear that after all we might not be seen. However, as it was, she stood directly for us, and passed within a half a cable's length of where we floated on the spar.  We shouted together, she immediately hove-to, and a boat being lowered we were picked up and taken on board.  She was an English frigate bound out to the East Indies.  We had not thought of agreeing to any story, and therefore when we were questioned as to the character of the craft ahead of us, we had nothing to do but to tell the truth.  I could not help hoping that the schooner would be overtaken, when we should be amply revenged, but before we could get up with her night came on.  The next morning she was nowhere to be seen.

"I had heard enough about men-of-war to make me expect pretty rough treatment.  Things, I must own, were not so bad as I thought.  I had no choice but to enter as one of her crew.  Sambo did the same, and was rated as cook's mate.  He seemed much happier than before, and told me it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him in his life.  When we got out to Bombay, the first place we touched at, I asked him about running from the ship.  `Don't be a fool, Boas,' he answered; `you stay where you are; you only fall from de frying-pan into de fire if you attempt to run.'

"I still, however, thought that I would try it some day, but so sharp a look-out was kept whenever we were in port, that I gave it up as hopeless.

"Four years passed away.  We had a few brushes with the Chinese and some boat service in looking after pirates, and at length the frigate was ordered home.  I had had a taste of the lash more than once for getting drunk, and had been put in irons for insubordination, and had no mind to join another man-of-war if I could help it.

"As soon as the frigate was paid off, after I had had a spree on shore, I determined to make my way to Liverpool and ship on board another trader.  I tried to persuade Sambo to accompany me.  `No, no, Boas, I know when I well off; I serve my time, den bear up for Greenwich, get pension and live like a gentlemen to the end of my days.  You knock about de world, get kicked and cuffed and die like a dog.'

"I felt very angry and parted from him, though I could not help thinking that perhaps he was right.

"Well, after that I served on board several merchantmen, now sailing to the West Indies, now to the East, once in a fruit vessel to the Azores, and two or three times up the Mediterranean.  I was wrecked more than once, and another time the ship I was on board was burnt, and I and three or four others of the crew escaped in one of the boats.  I could not help thinking sometimes of what Sambo had said to me, but it was too late now, and as I had not saved a farthing and had no pension to fall back on, I was obliged to continue at sea.

"I had found my way once more back to Liverpool, when the crimps, who had got hold of me, shipped me on board a vessel while I was drunk, and I was hoisted up the side not knowing where I was nor where I was going to till next day, when the pilot having left us, we were standing down the Irish Channel.  I then found that I was on board a large armed brig, the `Seagull,' bound out round Cape Horn to trade along the coast of Chili and Peru.

"I had sailed with a good many hard-fisted skippers and rough shipmates, but the captain and mates and crew of the `Seagull' beat them all.  The mates had ropes' ends in their hands from morning to night, and to have marling-spikes hove at our heads was nothing uncommon.  I had been at sea, however, too long not to know how to hold my own.  My fists were always ready, and I kept my sheath-knife pretty sharp as a sign to the others that I would have no tricks played with me.  But the boys among us did have a cruel life of it; one of them jumped overboard and drowned himself, and so would another, but the captain had him triced up and gave him two dozen, and swore he should have three the next time he made the attempt.


"We had a long passage.  I have a notion that the skipper was no great navigator.  I have seen tall large-whiskered fellows like him who could talk big on shore prove but sorry seamen after all.

"After trying for a couple of weeks to get round Cape Horn we were driven back, and being short of water, the captain, by the advice of the second mate, who had been there before, determined to run through the Straits of Magellan.  We had been two days without a drop of water on board when we managed to get into a harbour in Terra del Fuego.  We lost no time in going on shore in search of water to pour down our thirsty throats.  Scarcely had we landed than we caught sight of a party of the strangest-looking black fellows I ever set eyes on.  Talk of savages, they were indeed savages by their looks and manners -- hideous looking little chaps with long black hair and scarcely a stitch of clothing on their bodies.  We had muskets in our hands, the use of which they, I suppose, knew, for they behaved in a friendly manner, and when we made them understand that we wanted water, they took us to a pool into which a stream fell coming down from the mountain, where we could fill our casks and roll them back to the boats.  As soon as we caught sight of it we rushed forward, and dipping down our heads drank till we were nigh ready to burst.  I thought that I had never tasted such water before. Had the savages been inclined they might have taken the opportunity of knocking us on the head, but they didn't.  After we had loaded the boat, some of us walked on with them to their village, which was not far off. I cannot say much for their style of building.  Their huts were just a number of sticks run into the ground, and tied at the top in the shape of a sugar-loaf -- branches were interwoven between the sticks, and the whole was covered with dry grass.  A few bundles of grass scattered about on the ground was their only furniture.  These people, as far as you could see the colour of their skin through the dirt, were of a dark, coppery brown.  The women were as dark and ill-looking as the men, but they were strong little creatures, and, as well as we could judge, did all the work.

"The men had bows and arrows and spears and slings.  They had among them a number of little fox-like looking dogs, savage, surly brutes, which barked and yelped as we came near them.  They were almost as ugly as their masters, but ugly as they were, they were clever creatures, for we saw them assist to catch fish in a curious fashion.  A number of the little brutes swam out to a distance, and then, forming a circle, turned towards the shore, splashing the water and yelping as they came on. They were driving before them a whole shoal of fish towards the net which the Fuegeans had spread at the mouth of, a creek.  As soon as the fish got into shallow water, where they were kept by the dogs, the savages rushed in with their spears, and stuck them through, or shot them with their arrows.  In this way, by the help of the dogs, a number were caught.  The dogs also are used to catch birds.  This they do while the birds are sleeping, and so noiselessly do they spring upon them, that they can carry off one after the other without disturbing the rest, when they bring them to their masters.  Useful as they are, the dogs get hardly treated, being constantly cuffed and beaten, and never getting even a mouthful of food thrown to them.  They know, however, how to forage for themselves, and will take to the water and catch fish or pounce down upon birds whenever they are hungry.

"Savage as these people are, they can build canoes for themselves, sometimes of birch bark, and sometimes they hollow out the trunks of trees by fire.  They make them in different parts, which they sew together with thongs of raw hide, so that when they wish to shift their quarters, they can carry their canoes overland.

"They have got some stones in their country which give out sparks, and they use a dry fungus as tinder, so that they can quickly make a fire.

"As to cooking, their only notion is to make a fire, heat some stones, and put their food in among them.

"They are about the dirtiest people I ever fell in with; and all the time we were among them we never saw any of them washing themselves.

"In summer, when they can get fish and seals, which they catch with their spears, they have plenty of food.  In winter, they are often on short commons.  We heard it said that when it has been blowing too hard for them to go on the water, and they can catch neither fish nor seals, they are given to eat their old women, who they say can be of no further use, instead of killing their dogs, which they know will be of service to them when the summer again comes round.

"While we were on their coast, a whale was stranded near the mouth of the harbour.  The news spread, and canoes were seen coming from all directions.  In a short time the canoes gathered round the body of the monster, and the little coppery-coloured chaps were soon hard at work cutting off the blubber with their shell knives.  The water was shallow between where the whale lay and the shore, and when one of the little fellows had cut off a large piece of blubber, he made a hole in the middle, through which he put his head, and thus brought his cargo to land, generally munching a piece of the raw fat on his way.

"The most curious things we saw were masses of stuff growing on the beech trees, of a red colour, something like mushrooms.  Though this stuff has no taste, the people were very fond of it, and, for my part, I preferred it to raw whale-blubber.

"Having replenished our stock of water and wood, we made our way westward, sailing only during the day, and keeping the lead going.  We were glad, however, to get clear of those high rocky shores, and the snow-storms which frequently came down on us.  We kept away from the land for some time, and made it again not far from the town of Callao on the coast of Peru.

"The captain's manner didn't improve during the passage.  Half his time he was drunk, and he was never on deck but that he was cursing and swearing at the crew, rope-ending every one who came within his reach. I could not help wishing that I had followed Sambo's advice and stuck to the navy; though there was flogging enough at times when men would get drunk, still there was something like justice.  A man had only to be sober and keep a quiet tongue in his head, and he need have no fear of the cat.  On board the `Seagull,' a man had reason to think himself fortunate if he escaped without a cracked skull.  It was easy to tell what the fate of the brig would be, and I resolved to run from her on the first opportunity.

"Though we made the land in the forenoon, we were still at a considerable distance from it when the sun went down.  We, therefore, after standing on for some time, hove-to, hoping to enter the harbour of Callao the next day.  When morning broke we could see the snow-capped tops of the Cordilleras rising up in the far distance, but still the lower land appeared a long way off.

"We had to wait till the sea breeze set in, and it was nearly nightfall before we came to an anchor off Callao.

"It is the chief port of Peru, a short distance from Lima, the capital. As the captain expected to get rid of a good part of his cargo, I knew that the brig would remain some time.  I, however, didn't wish to lose a moment in getting free of her.  As soon as the anchor was dropped, I watched my opportunity for a run.  I intended, if possible, to escape in a shore boat, when there would be less chance of being traced.  That night, however, only the Custom House and health boats came off to us. I had to wait, therefore, the whole of the next day.  I could not help fancying that the first mate suspected my intention, and was watching me.  I showed myself, therefore, more active and attentive to the work I had to do than usual.

"A number of boats during the day came off to us with fresh provisions, especially all sorts of fruits.  To throw the mate off his guard, while I saw that he was looking towards me, I bought some fruit; at the same time I tried to make the Chilian understand that if he would come again in the evening I would buy more of him.  I then began eating some of the fruit and carried the rest below.  After this the mate seemed to take no more pains to keep an eye on me.

"My friend returned just before sunset.  I told him to hand me up some of the fruit, and paid him for it, letting him understand that if he would wait a little, and I liked what he had brought, I would take some more.  It rapidly grew dark, and I returned on deck with a melon under my arm, which I pretended was rotten, and intended to have changed. Seeing the boat still alongside, holding the melon I slipped down into her, and was followed by the owner, who had been trying to sell more fruit on deck.  Sitting by him, I began to talk in my fashion, and when no one was looking slipped a dollar into his hand and pointed to the shore.  He at once nodded to show that he understood me.  We waited, and I pretended to be bargaining about the melon while it grew darker and darker, and then when no one was looking over the side, lay down among the fruit baskets, pulling some of them over me.  My friend continued to remain alongside, and I daresay if anyone had enquired for me, he would have handed me back, but as good luck would have it, I was not missed, and at last, he and his men shoved off and began to paddle towards the shore.  Even then I did not feel safe, for I feared that the mate might miss me and send a boat to overhaul all the shore boats which had visited the brig, and I knew if I fell into the captain's hands, he would clap me into irons and keep me there till we were at sea again.

"After we got some distance, the Peruvian crew began to pull faster.  At length we reached the shore.  The master, when we landed, shook my hand, to show that he intended to be my friend, and led me away to his house, which was at some distance from the shore.  I made him understand that I did not wish to go back to the ship.  He replied that it would be safer for me at once to go into the interior, where the captain would not think of looking for me.  I saw the sense of this, and after I had had some supper we set out.  I gave my friend another dollar, which pleased him mightily, and I told him by signs that I was ready to work in his garden, or anything of that sort on shore, not that I at any time had a fancy for digging.

"We travelled for some hours on muleback, till we reached a farm on the side of a mountain.  I found that it belonged to my friend's brother. After matters had been explained to him he received me very kindly, and I was soon at home in his house.  I helped him about the place as I had promised, and had a tolerably easy life of it; for though I worked twice as hard as anyone else, that was not much, seeing that the Spaniards are not addicted to over-tire themselves.  My host had a daughter, though I cannot say much for her beauty, for she had a dark skin, and was short and fat, but she took a fancy to me, and so thinking I could not do better, I offered to splice her.  Her father, who was glad to get me to assist him, and wished to keep me, consented.

"Accordingly, we were married in the church they went to.  The priest asked me if I was a Catholic, and I said I was ready to be anything he liked, on which he replied he would soon make me one.  There was a grand festival, and a number of priests and people collected, and they took me in among them and made the sign of the cross upon me, and so I was turned into a Catholic.  I suppose that I was a very good one, for I used to attend church with my wife and go to confession to the priest, though as I told him all my sins in English, not a word of which he understood, he could not have been much the wiser; but that, I suppose, didn't matter, as he absolved me notwithstanding.  I was thus looked upon with great respect by our neighbours, and got on very well with my wife."

Chapter Two.

"I had been a good many months in the place when my father-in-law, thinking I was securely moored, began to give me more and more work, which I didn't like.  However, I lived on pretty contentedly, but still I had a wish for a sniff of the sea air, and to feel myself once more on the moving ocean; not, to be sure, that I had not felt the ground move under me, for we had had two or three earthquakes, when not a few houses had been thrown down, and the ground tumbled and tossed, and here and there opened, as if ready to swallow us up.

"I took French leave of my wife, for I was afraid she would stop me; but when I reached Callao I sent word to her by her uncle that I hoped to be back soon, after I had collected no end of dollars to buy her a new dress, and keep the pot boiling.

"I hadn't made up my mind what to do when I saw a whaler in the harbour. I thought if she was likely to remain in the Pacific for some time, and she wanted hands, I would make a trip in her, on condition that I was to be landed at Callao before she returned home.

"She was an American, only out a few months, and having lost several hands, the captain was very glad to get me.  I hadn't been long on board before I began to wish myself back with my wife.  It was much harder work than I expected, especially when we got into the southern ocean among the icebergs.  Those spermaceti whales, too, are savage monsters, and will often turn on a boat and try to capsize her.

"I was pretty well nigh losing my life on one of those occasions as several of my shipmates did theirs.  We had chased a big bottle-nose right up to an iceberg, and had stuck two harpoons into his back when he sounded.  He was making for the berg, we thought, and if he got under it we should have to cut the lines, and lose him and the harpoons. Presently the lines slackened, we hauled in upon them, when suddenly up he came not half a cable's length from us, blowing away with all his might.  We dashed on, when round he turned, and with open mouth came towards us.

"`Back all,' was the cry, but before we could get out of his way he struck the bow of the boat with his nose, sending it up in the air, and jerking several of us overboard.  The next moment with his huge jaws he made a grab at the boat.  Seizing a stretcher I sprang as far as I could out of his way, and struck out for my life.  The shrieks of my shipmates and the cracking of the ribs and timbers of the boat sounded in my ears, but I had enough to do to take care of myself, even to turn my head for a moment.  I swam on as fast as I could.  Fortunately for me, the accident had been seen from the ship, and another boat was coming to our assistance.  It's a wonder the savage whale didn't attack her, but probably he had had enough of it, while the harpoons in his back must have troubled him not a little.  I was soon picked up, and two others were found floating, but the rest of the boat's crew had either sunk or been crunched to death between the whale's jaws.  He had been watched from the ship, which made sail in the direction he had taken.  In the evening a spout was seen in the distance, the boat shoved off, and before nightfall we had the very whale which had attacked us in the morning, fast alongside with tackles hooked on, and the blanket pieces, as we called the blubber, being hoisted on board.

"That trying-out is curious work to those who have never seen it.  Along the decks were the huge tripods, with fires blazing under them, and the crew standing round begrimed with smoke and oil, putting in the blubber, while others, as soon as the oil was extracted, were filling the casks and stowing them below.  All night long the work went on, and there was no stopping till the huge monster had been stripped of his warm coat, and we had bailed the oil out of its big head, which had meantime been made fast to the stern.

"`Dollars are pleasant things to pick up, but I must find some pleasanter way for gathering them than this,' I said to myself. However, for more than two years I hadn't a chance of returning to Callao.  When at last the whaler put in there and landed me, I found that an earthquake had occurred, and the ground opened and swallowed up my father-in-law, and my wife with all her family.  My wife's uncle, however, had escaped, and he received me very kindly, and more so that, as I had made a good voyage in the whaler, my pockets were full of dollars.  They, however, went at last.

"One day I was thinking what I should do next, when he told me that several vessels were fitting out in the harbour, to make a cruise among the islands of the Pacific, just to pick up some labourers for the mines.  `It's pretty hard work up in the mountains there, and most of our native Peruvians who used to work in them have died out,' he observed.  `There's a merchant in our city who is going to make a grand speculation, and as Englishmen have shares in most of the mines, of course he is assisted with English capital, which our country could not supply.  Now if you like to ship on board one of these vessels, you will find the pay good, the voyage short, and but little risk.'

"I thought to myself that I could not do better.  I had served too long on board a slaver to think much of the work proposed.  There was no difference that I could see between a black skin and a brown skin, and as I had assisted to carry some thousands of black men across to the east coast of America, I did not scruple to undertake to carry as many brown men as could be picked up to the west coast.  To be sure, the natives of those bright and sunny islands, unaccustomed to work, might not find it very pleasant to be carried away to labour high up among the rocks and snows of the Andes, but that was no business of mine.

"I accordingly shipped on board one of several vessels fitted out by the enterprising merchant I spoke of.  The `Andorinha' carried thirty hands besides the captain and mate, and we had four guns and plenty of small arms.  Our orders were to proceed direct to the nearest islands, and to carry off as many of the inhabitants as we could get on board, but we were to try stratagem first, and by every means in our power induce them to, visit the ship.  As soon as we had collected as many as we were likely to entice on board, we were to put them below and shut down the hatches, and sail away with them.

"The plan was simple, and I thought it would succeed.  Should they object to make the voyage and attempt to regain their liberty, we had our arms, and were to use them, but we were advised not to kill more people than we could help, as each was likely to fetch fifty or sixty dollars on shore.

"Before sailing, the merchant who had fitted out our vessel came on board with several friends, and the crew being called on deck, he addressed the captain and us, telling us that we were about to engage in an enterprise likely to prove of great value to Peru, but all was to be done by fair and honourable means.  That we were to visit various islands, and to engage the industrious inhabitants to come and labour in our beautiful country for good wages, where they would also have the benefit of being instructed in the Christian faith and become good Catholics, to the great advantage of their souls.  We were to treat them kindly and gently, and to give them the best of everything, so that they would not fail, by their gratitude, to show how highly they valued the service we should render them.

"I could not help grinning when I heard this, knowing the way that matters were really to be managed.  The speech was made just to hoodwink the authorities, and for the benefit of the merchant's friends, who, if they were not to profit by the adventure, might have found some fault with the way in which it was really to be carried on.

"The `Andorinha' was a large vessel, and we calculated that we could stow away five or six hundred people on board her.

"Seven other vessels being fitted out, we sailed together in company, our first destination being Easter Island, which lies in latitude 27 degrees South and 109 degrees West, some distance from the coast of Chili.

"Light winds detained us, but at length we made the island, which is high and rocky and about thirty-six miles in circumference.  The inhabitants, of the same race as the rest of the Eastern Pacific, and somewhat less savage than most of them, were living in villages, at peace among themselves.

"As soon as our fleet came to an anchor, the boats were lowered and manned, and a strong party of us landed.  The inhabitants, not liking our appearance, hid themselves in their houses.  We immediately marched to the nearest village, which we surrounded, and entering house after house, dragged off the people, and sent them, with their hands bound behind their backs, to the boats.  They did not attempt to resist, for as we had firearms and they had none, it would have been of no use.  As soon as the boats were loaded they took them off to the vessel, and then returned for more.  We, meantime, kept watching the village, so that no one could escape.  Having carried off all the inhabitants, men, women, and children -- for even the youngest children were of some use to us -- we proceeded to the next village.  These we treated in the same way, leaving a few old men and women who were not worth carrying off.

"Before evening we had shipped nearly every human being we found on the island.  None escaped us, for they had no mountains to fly to, and no caves or other places where they could hide themselves.  We then collected all the pigs, poultry, and such other provisions as we could find, and sent them on board.

"Before returning to our vessels, we burned down a considerable number of the houses.

"We stowed away all our captives on board two of our larger vessels, which at once returned to land them on the coast of Chili, while we proceeded on our voyage.

"The first land we made was one of the Society Islands, to the north of Tahiti.  We could not venture to that island itself, because the French were there, who might have objected to our carrying off the people.  For the same reason we avoided the Hervey, and other islands to the south, where we knew a number of English missionaries were stationed, and they might have complained of our proceedings, and taken means to put a stop to them.  Here, however, we hoped to make a good haul, and be away before we were discovered.

"The schooner did not bring up, but stood off and on the land under English colours, while a boat was sent on shore to invite the natives on board.  I went in her.  As soon as we landed, I, with another man, who pretended to be the supercargo, proceeded to the house of the principal chief.  It was a large hut, the framework formed of slight poles placed at intervals, bending somewhat inwards, and joined with horizontal poles of the same thickness secured to them, the whole being covered with a neat thatch.  We found the chief reclining at his ease on one of several mats which covered the floor, with his wife and other females of the family seated near him.  He had thrown aside his robe of native cloth, and was dressed only in his maro or girdle round his waist.  We told him that the vessel in the offing was an English trader, and had on board a quantity of goods which were likely to suit him and his people, and we invited him, and as many as he liked to bring with him, to come and inspect them, hinting that the captain was of a generous disposition, and would be glad, at all events, to make them presents to gain their good will.  We were in no hurry, we said, for payment, and would call again for the cocoa-nut oil which he might agree to collect for us.  He seemed mightily pleased with the proposal, and promised to come off the next morning.  We then went to the house of other chiefs and principal people, telling them the same tale.

"In our rambles we saw a curious spectacle.  Having reached another district governed by a different chief, we found him seated on a mat in front of his house, while a number of people were approaching bearing hogs, and fowls, and breadfruit, and other articles of food.  Among them were three young women, whose bodies were swathed in a prodigious quantity of native cloth made out of the paper mulberry tree.  This cloth and the food were being brought as presents to the chief, who had had, we understood, a child just born to him by one of his wives.  How the girls could ever have got the cloth round them was a puzzle to me, but my companion, who had been on these islands and acted as interpreter, explained the matter.  He said that the cloth being made ready, the girl lies down on the ground and rolls herself over and over, till the whole of the cloth is wound round her.  She is then put on her feet, and taking the end over her shoulder, is able to proceed on her way.

"The food having been presented, one of the damsels was led forward, when she lay down before the chief, and began to unroll herself, while one of his attendants gathered up the cloth; and thus she kept turning round and round till the whole of the cloth was unwound, and she remained in her own somewhat scanty garments.  The next girl went through the same process.

"We pretended to be delighted with the cloth, and told the chief that, if he would bring it on board, we would exchange it for all sorts of articles.  The news of the rich cargo the vessel contained spread among the people, and large numbers promised to come off to us the following morning.

"Well content with the way we had managed matters, we returned on board.

"The following day we took care to stand in towards the shore in good time, when a number of canoes full of people were seen coming off to the ship.  As they arrived alongside we invited them on board, taking care that they brought no arms with them.  We had a few things spread out in the hold, and as the people collected on board, the captain asked them to step down below to see them.  When there, the pretended supercargo kept them engaged bargaining for the goods while others were arriving. Having collected all who could be induced to come on board below, the supercargo slipped up by the fore hatchway, saying that he wished to consult the captain about the price of some of the articles.  The vessel, meantime, had been edging off the land.  Our guns were loaded, and we had all armed ourselves in case the natives might make any resistance.  All being ready, we suddenly clapped the hatches down upon our visitors, and had them prisoners.  The people in some of the canoes suspecting that their friends were in danger, attempted to climb up the sides to their assistance.  We had, therefore, to sink the canoes by throwing cold shot into them.  As several other large canoes were approaching which might prove troublesome, we fired our guns at them and knocked them to pieces.  This done, we made all sail, and stood away from the island.  When the natives below found themselves entrapped, they, as may be supposed, created a considerable uproar, shouting and shrieking, and demanding to be set at liberty.  The hatches, however, being fast closed down, they could not force their way out, and as they were without food or water, and the air was pretty close, we knew that they must soon come to their senses, and therefore took no heed of their cries, though it was necessary, of course, to keep watch over them, lest by chance they might make their way out.

"When we had run the land out of sight, the fore hatch was partly lifted, and a few at a time were allowed to come on deck.  They looked greatly astonished when gazing round to find that their native land was not to be seen.  Our interpreter then told them that, if they behaved themselves, things would go well with them; but if not, they must expect rough treatment.  The first which had come up had their hands lashed behind them, and were sent aft; and the rest, as they appeared on deck, were treated in the same manner.  Two or three, from the hot air and the struggles they had made, had lost their lives; but that mattered little, considering the number we had secured.

"Having cleaned and fumigated the hold, they were again sent below, and we stood for another island.

"Of course the people complained of the way they had been treated; some were weeping, others abusing us, while some refused to take the food we offered them.  They were told, however, that if they would not eat they should be flogged, for we were not going to allow them to starve themselves to death.  In time we got them into pretty good order.  As it would not do for them to give way to despair, they were assured that, after working two or three years in the country to which we were taking them, if they were industrious and behaved themselves, and consented to become good Catholics, they would be sent back to their native island much the richer and happier for the trip.  I don't know if they believed us; they might possibly have had doubts about the matter.  These people had had missionaries among them, and most of them were Christians; but the French had sent the missionaries away, and they had become somewhat slack in their religion.  Now, however, in their trouble they began to pray again, and it was curious to hear them singing, and praying, and repeating parts of the Bible which they had learned by heart.  Our interpreter said it made him somewhat uncomfortable; but the captain laughed at him, and told him that he must not let such notions trouble him, and that at best they were only heretics, and would now have the chance of becoming real Christians.

"We touched at several other islands in the neighbourhood, from which canoes full of natives came off towards us to learn who we were, and what we wanted.  One canoe came alongside with an old chief, who inquired eagerly whether we had a missionary on board, as he was anxiously looking out for one who had promised to come and teach him and his people to be Christians.  The captain wanted the supercargo to pass as the expected missionary, but he declined, saying he could not bring his conscience to do it.  The captain replied that the missionary was sick below, but that if the chief and his followers would come up the side, they should see him in the cabin.

"The savages looked very much surprised when they came on deck, to find themselves pinioned and handed down below.  Two of them before they were secured, attempted to leap overboard.  One was caught and the other was shot, their canoe being sunk alongside that she might not drift on shore and tell tales.  The people in some of the other canoes which came off further on were more wary, and we had to use a great deal of persuasion to induce them to trust us.  At last, we got one canoe full of natives to come near us.  As she approached on the port side, we had two of our boats lowered and manned ready on the starboard side.  When, after having in vain tried to get the people on deck, the boats pulled round, and though the savages shoved off, we were too quick for them.  There was a fierce struggle, two or three men were knocked overboard, but we captured the rest and quickly had them below hatches, while their canoes, as usual, were sent to the bottom.

"We were not always so successful.  Three canoes, one day, were coming off to us, and were nearly up to the schooner, when they took alarm.  As the captain did not wish to lose them, he ordered the guns to be fired, which sank two of them, when the boats which were ready pulled away and picked up most of the people, excepting two or three who had been killed by the shot.  The third canoe escaped, and we knew after this, there was not much chance of getting any more canoes to come off to us from that island.

"From this place we sailed away for several days, till we sighted a large coral island, with a lagoon in the centre, and numerous cocoa-nut trees growing along the shore.  We judged from this that it was inhabited.  We stood close in on the lee side, till we could distinguish some low huts scattered about under the trees, and a considerable number of natives scampering along the shore.  They were a savage-looking people, without a stitch of clothing, except belts round their waists, and bracelets and shells on their arms and legs, their hair, as they ran, streaming in the wind, while they shook their long thin lances at us.  As they had no canoes, we could not get them to come off to the vessel.  It was therefore necessary for us to land and try and catch some of them.  They looked so fierce and determined that we expected they would give us more trouble than the inhabitants of Easter Island had done.  Two boats well armed were, however, sent on shore to make the attempt.  We were to proceed by fair means and to offer them trinkets, knives, and glasses, and handkerchiefs.  If they would not be induced to trust us, we were to surround their village, and catch as many alive as we could.

"As we pulled in for the shore, a party of the savages, led by an old chief, came leaping, shouting, and shrieking, and brandishing their spears towards us.  The chief was a terrible-looking old fellow, taller than any of the rest, with high cheek bones, his hair and beard of long grey hair plaited and twisted together, hanging from his head and around his mouth like so many rats' tails.  His companions imitated his example, and there seemed but little chance of our being able to get hold of any of them by peaceable means.  We had our muskets ready to bring them down should they come too near us.  We held up the trinkets, and handkerchiefs, and looking-glasses to try to make them understand that we wished to be friendly, but it was of no use; they only shrieked the louder and leapt the higher, and told us to be off, as they did not want us or our goods.  However, we remained steady, and they did not venture nearer.

"As our object was to catch them alive, dead savages being of no use to us, we persevered.  Having placed several of the articles on the ground, we quietly retired to a distance, and at last we saw two or three of the younger men approach and take the things up.  They seemed well pleased with them, and showed them to the rest.  On this, we put some more on the ground and again retired, then three of our men putting their muskets on the ground advanced towards the savages, being well covered by the rest of us, and putting out their hands, we presented at the same time several more articles.  By these means we began to gain their confidence.  We then made them understand that all we wanted was a few cocoa-nuts, and that every man who brought one should be amply paid.  In this way after we had waited quietly on the beach, twenty young fellows were persuaded to put themselves within our reach, and to sit down in a circle near the boats.  The old chief all the time kept shouting to them, but they did not appear to heed him.  While one party with loaded muskets advanced towards the rest of the natives, we suddenly set upon the lads who had brought us the cocoa-nuts, knocked them over, had their arms pinioned, and they were carried to the boats before even their astonished countrymen could attempt to come to the rescue.  At last, led by the old chief, the former made a dash at our men who remained, when several were of necessity shot down, the rest taking to flight, and we shoved off well content with having captured twenty stout young fellows, who were likely to prove serviceable labourers at the mines.

"Having at length got a full cargo, we returned to Easter Island, where we landed our captives.  There they were to remain under a strong guard till carried away by smaller vessels and landed on different parts of the coast of Peru.  We meantime sailed for the westward.

"During the trip we occasionally fell in with our former consorts, engaged in the same business, and we found that they had succeeded in capturing a number of natives from different islands much in the same way that we had done.  Some were enticed on board by stratagem, others taken by force.  No one engaged in the business was particular as to what means were employed, provided they could succeed in the enterprise. One vessel had taken a whole cargo off one single island, known as High Island, the crew having landed and surrounded the villages one after another, shooting down all who resisted.

"The wealthy merchant who had fitted out the vessel must have been highly satisfied, as must also the English shareholders who advanced him the money.  Possibly they may or may not have been fully aware of the means employed to ensure success.

"Whether these people, accustomed to an easy and luxurious life on their sunny islands, would ultimately prove useful labourers in the dark mines, and be able to carry loads of ore down the steep, rocky sides of the mountains, I am not prepared to say.  Our business was to catch them -- that of the merchant to sell them; while the overseers of the mines had to see to the rest.  If they died from hard work that was their look out.

"At length we arrived off Niue, or Savage Island, to which Captain Cook gave that name because the inhabitants were then and for many years afterwards fierce and barbarous in the extreme.  Missionaries, both native and English, I had heard say, had gone among them, and the people had all become Christians and civilised.  We could see that a well-made road ran round the island, and at intervals there were white-washed cottages, with gardens full of flowers, and neat churches peeping out among the trees.

"`These people,' the captain observed, `if we could get hold of them, were likely to prove mild and submissive, and of far more value than the savages we had taken from some of the other islands.'  It was necessary, however, to be cautious, or they might have suspected our intentions.

"We hove-to off the island, and the supercargo going on shore inquired for the English missionary.  We found that his residence was on the other side, and we therefore judged that this would be a good place to carry on our operations.  The supercargo, pretending that he was a friend of the missionary, invited as many as were inclined to come off to the vessel, saying that he had a present for the missionary and a few trifles for the chiefs, and that he should also be glad to trade with them for any articles they might produce.

"Meantime the other boats were in readiness with arms stowed away out of sight.  A large number of canoes at once paddled off to us, some containing ten, others four or five natives each.  The people came on board without hesitation, and while the captain kept them amused, showing some cases which he said contained the presents for the missionary and chiefs, bargaining for the few articles they had brought with them, the boats pushed away rapidly for the shore.  A large number of people were collected on the beach, but even when they saw the boats coming, not observing any arms in the hands of the men, they were in no way alarmed.  Their suspicions did not appear to be aroused, even when our men formed on the shore.

"Keeping our weapons as much as possible concealed, we marched a little way inland, then suddenly wheeling, with a loud shout rushed down upon the natives.  They seemed utterly paralysed, and though some few fled, the greater number stared at us as if wondering what we were next going to do.  We did not leave them long in doubt, but pressing round them, tripped them over, bound their arms, and in a short time made sixty or more prisoners.  They offered little or no resistance, and we soon had all we had caught safely in the boat.  As we pulled towards the vessel we saw several canoes making for the shore, but with only two or three people in each, while her guns were playing on a few others which were attempting to escape.  We picked up several men who had jumped overboard, and when we got alongside we found that fully a hundred had been secured.  Altogether we got a hundred and sixty people from that island alone; some were old men, but most of them were young and active. They were all neatly dressed in shirts and trousers, and looked very intelligent indeed; there was not one among them who could not read in his native tongue, and they all said that they were Christians.  Our supercargo told them that so were we, but that we were real ones, while they, having only learned from the missionaries, were heretics.

"As they might have proved troublesome, we clapped them all down below, and kept the hatches on them.

"Wishing to capture more people from the same island, we immediately made sail, and stood along the coast, hoping to entice others on board before the news of what had occurred had spread.  We heard our prisoners talking together, and soon they began knocking at the hatches, and under the deck, and on the sides, shrieking to be let out, and entreating us to put them again on shore.  Two of our men were stationed at the hatchway ready to shoot any who might break out.  Still the people below continued to make so much noise that the captain and mate became enraged, and, with two other men, went below armed with boats' stretchers, and began to lay about them right and left, to bring the people to order.  At last they were quiet, and we hoped that they had learned a lesson they would not forget.  In the evening we heard them, instead of shouting and shrieking to be let out, singing hymns and praying.  Looking down into the hold, there we saw them all kneeling together as if in prayer; then an old man among them got up, and while they sat round him he began to speak to them, and the supercargo, who understood their language, said he was preaching; and when he had finished he stretched out his hands, and prayed to God to bless them. After that they were quiet enough, and during the night gave us no further trouble.

"The next morning at daylight we stood in to another part of the coast. We saw several canoes quietly engaged in fishing, and so we guessed that the alarm had not spread thus far.  We accordingly stood close in, when several canoes came off to us.  The captain, as usual, invited the people on board.  Some of them spoke English, which the captain did not understand, and I was not inclined to answer them.  As they might have been alarmed had they seen armed men at the hatchway, those who had been stationed there were withdrawn.  The new arrivals spoke rather loudly to each other; their voices were heard by their countrymen below, who, making a sudden rush at the fore hatch, forced it off and sprang upon deck.

"The alarm was given immediately; those who had last come, as well as our captives, began to leap overboard.  We all rushed upon them, knocked those we could catch down, and shut close the hatchway.  The captain then ordered us to fire on the people in the water swimming for the shore, while the boats were manned and sent in pursuit of the fugitives. Two or three were hit, some sank, and only a few succeeded in gaining one of the canoes; the rest were all retaken.  In the canoe which escaped was one young man who was shot just as he got into it: his companions, however, managed to paddle off.  Those who had been retaken were well beaten, and forced down below.

"As there was no use remaining longer at Savage Island, we sailed for Samoa.

"We avoided the principal harbours, and kept cruising along the coast, picking up several canoes which came off to us.  Occasionally we went on shore to obtain water and vegetables, always being on our guard lest our business might be suspected, and we ourselves entrapped.  At one place where we landed for this purpose, we found the natives under an old warrior chief preparing to attack a neighbouring tribe.  `This is just the opportunity for us,' observed our supercargo; `if we help the old chief, we may bargain that we are to have all the prisoners.'  The supercargo on this began to talk to the chief about the arms and men we possessed, and to hint that we might possibly be persuaded to assist him in conquering his enemies.  The old chief at once took the bait, and promised us anything we might ask if we would assist him.  The supercargo replied that our captain would be very moderate in his demands, and that we should be content if we might have all the prisoners.  We agreed to come on shore with ten men to help him.  The captain, however, had arranged to send all the boats, which were to keep in the rear of the enemy, and, as soon as the battle began, the crews were to land, and carry off as many warriors as they could lay hands on.

"Early the next morning we landed with our muskets, and found the army drawn up for battle.  The warriors were armed with spears and short clubs, and their hair dressed up in the strangest fashion, and stuck full of feathers.  They were almost naked, with the exception of kilts round their waists.  We kept in the rear, ready to advance when called upon to act, and the warriors marched forward, singing songs and shouting their war-cries.  In a short time they came in front of the enemy, who were seen drawn up in a wood.  Both parties halted and began abusing each other, our friends telling their enemies that they were women, and would soon run away; and warning them that they only came to be killed, if they dared to advance further.  After this style of compliment had been exchanged for some time, they rushed towards each other grinning and making faces, when they once more halted, and began throwing their spears.  We on this advanced, and fired a volley, which threw them into the greatest confusion.  It was evidently totally unexpected, and, before they could recover, our friends rushed in on them, speared some and made others prisoners.  We, meantime, were loading, and, having done so, advanced and fired a second volley.  The enemy, though brave fellows, began to fly, when our friends dashed in among them, and, with our assistance, a large number were captured. Many of those who escaped were seized by the crews of the boats, and at once dragged off.  The victory was complete, and the old chief at once handed over to us all the prisoners he had taken.  This was an advantage to them, for they would otherwise have been killed.

"By this means we collected about forty men, whom we carried at once on board.

"`We may as well have some of our friends,' observed the supercargo, and he accordingly returned on shore to invite the old chief, and as many people as he chose to bring off to visit the ship, and receive some presents which he was told we had prepared for him.  The chief looked highly pleased, and much to the satisfaction of the supercargo, accepted his polite invitation.

"Next morning the chief and several people came alongside.  The chief said he desired to thank us for the service we had rendered him, and to present us with some cocoa-nut oil and rolls of cloth which would be prepared in a day or two if we would wait for them.

"The captain assured him of his friendship, and begged him to accept some presents in return for those he intended to make, and invited him and several of his principal attendants into the cabin to receive them, while his people were asked by the crew to go down forward.  No sooner were our guests below than they were seized and lashed hand and foot before they could give the alarm to those who remained on deck.  All hands then rushed on deck, and quickly knocked down the greater number of those who were collected there; a few uttering loud cries of terror leapt overboard, while those in the canoes, suspecting that something was wrong, shoved off, and began to paddle away towards the shore.  Our shot sent after them caused such alarm that several of the canoes returned, others escaped, two or three were knocked to pieces, and some of the people in them drowned.

"We considered this a good haul, but we had some difficulty in keeping order between the new comers and their enemies whom we had before captured; by going among them, however, with our clubs, and showing them that we would stand no nonsense, we brought them into order.  Again making sail, we continued our course along the coast, here and there capturing canoes, and occasionally landing and carrying off a few people, though we were not again so successful as in the case I have described.

"In one small canoe we found a Portuguese with two Samoaians; the latter we put below hatches, but the captain was afraid of detaining the white man, who declined joining us, and allowed him to make the best of his way to shore.

"We found two of our consorts cruising off this coast, but in a short time the suspicions of the people on shore were aroused, and we therefore left it and proceeded on to visit certain groups of islands lying 8 or 10 degrees south of the equator.  From one of these islands we got nearly a hundred people, and another vessel which followed us captured several more, though most of the natives as soon as a sail hove in sight ran off from the coast.

"By various means, from one island or another, we captured fifty or sixty more, till at length with a full cargo we steered eastward to put them on shore, as before, on Easter Island.

"Some disagreeable news met us here.  We heard that the French authorities at Tahiti were very indignant at our having carried off the natives of islands under their protection, and that they had sent out several cruisers to intercept us.  One of our vessels, the `Mercedes,' had been seized with a hundred and fifty natives on board.  The vessel had been condemned and sold, the captain sentenced to five years' penal servitude, and the supercargo to ten.  Besides her four or five other vessels had been captured and carried into Tahiti, where they were detained.  One, having been taken without any natives, was allowed to return to Callao after she had been compelled to dispose of all her rice and other provisions, so as to make it impossible for her to proceed on her voyage.  Besides this, the French Governor of Tahiti had sent to the Peruvian Government demanding that every native who had been taken from islands under French protection should be delivered up, and heavy damages paid for any who might be missing.  However, as these formed but a very small number of the natives captured, the matter in itself was not of much consequence.  The fear was that not only the French but the English might send out cruisers and interfere in all directions with our proceedings.  The profit, however, and the demand for labour was so great, that in spite of the difficulties to be encountered, the merchant I spoke of resolved to persevere in the undertaking, although it would be necessary to use even greater precautions than before.

"This first voyage will give you an idea of two or three others which I made shortly afterwards, when we collected our passengers much in the same way as before, though we took care only to visit islands the least frequented by European vessels, so that our proceedings might be kept as secret as possible.

"Ill luck, however, at length set against us.  Some of our vessels were wrecked, the natives rose and murdered the crew of one, the French captured several more, and the Peruvian government, compelled to listen to the complaints which were made, interfered, and considerable difficulties were thrown in the way of landing the islanders.  The `Andorinha,' after her long career of success, was driven on a coral reef, when the captain and supercargo and most of the crew perished.  I was washed on shore, more dead than alive.  Fortunately for me, it was near a village of Christian natives, one of whom found me on the beach, and carried me to his hut, and fed and clothed me, and took care of me till I recovered.  He knew the character of the vessel, for we had some time before carried off several natives from that very island, but I told him that I was an Englishman, and compelled by the Spaniards to remain on board.  He replied that it mattered not who I was or what I had been about, that I was suffering and in distress, and that his religion taught him to feed and clothe the hungry and naked, and to do good to his enemies -- that as long as I chose I might remain, and that if I wished to go I might depart in peace.  I was sure he did not believe the account I gave of myself, and I own I did not feel as comfortable as I should have liked.  He and his family had prayers and sang hymns morning and evening; and on Sunday, as well as on other days in the week, they attended a large chapel, where a native missionary preached. The other people in the village did the same.  All this did not suit me, and I determined to get away as soon as I had the chance.  No vessel appearing, however, I told my host that I should like to see other parts of his island, and that I would make a trip through it.  He replied that I might do as I wished, but that as some of the natives were heathens or `devil's men,' as he called them, they might not treat me well.  I answered that I would run the risk of that, and as to their being heathens, that was all the same to me.  It only, indeed, made me the more eager to be among them, as I thought I should have greater liberty than with my psalm-singing friends.  I accordingly walked away with a stick in my hand, for I had no clothes except those on my back. Wherever I went the natives received me kindly, and gave me such food as I wanted.

"After travelling some days, I found myself in a village where there was no church and no school, and the people did not trouble themselves much about clothing.  I guessed by this that they were heathens.  The chief, a young man, invited me to stop with him, and assist him in his battles. I soon showed him that I was a good hand with a musket, and he remarked that before long the time might come when I could use it.  He was just then, however, with some of his friends, going to catch pigeons in the woods.  We had first a grand kava feast, the drink they make from certain roots, which they first chew in their mouths.  Each of the young men had several trained pigeons, which are taught to fly round and round in the air at the end of a long string, and to come back to their masters when called.  Each man had, besides, a small net fixed to the end of a bamboo forty feet in length.  On arriving at the wood a large circle was cleared of bush, and a wall of stones built round it.  Each sportsman had also a small arbour of boughs erected, in which he could sit hidden just outside the wall.  In front of him sat his pigeon on a perch stuck in the ground, while by his side rested his net, ready to be raised in a moment.

"When all was prepared, the decoy birds were let fly as far as the string, forty or fifty feet in length, would allow them, when they circled round and round, and to and fro, over the open ground.  The wild birds, on seeing them, collected from all quarters to learn what they were about.  The sportsmen then drew down their birds, when, as soon as the wild birds came near enough, they raised their nets, and seldom failed to capture one of the wild pigeons.  In an instant the bird was brought down.  Bird after bird was caught in the same manner.  Before commencing the game, stakes were put in, and he who caught the greatest number of pigeons won them.

"We remained nearly a month engaged in this sport, spending the morning in bird-catching, and the evening in feasting.  I tried my hand at it, but though, after a few days' practice, I managed to catch several birds, I did not succeed as well as the young chiefs.  This was more to my interest, for had I beat them, perhaps they might have become jealous of me.

"Altogether, this sort of life suited me much better than that which I led with the Christian natives.  They were a hospitable sort of people, and I had as much liberty as I could wish for.

"Among other curious things I observed while I was among them, was the way they manufactured the cloth with which they make their dresses. They used the bark of the paper mulberry tree.  The young tree is first cut down, and the bark stripped off; it is then steeped in water for a couple of days, when the inner bark is separated from the coarse outer bark.  This is then beaten until it becomes as thin as silver-paper, and much increased in size.  Even then it is scarcely a foot wide; but the edges are overlapped, and stuck together with arrow-root melted in water.  It is then again beaten till all the parts are completely joined.  Pieces are thus made of many yards in length, such as I saw during my first visit to these islands.  They are afterwards dyed of various colours, red, brown, and yellow, and patterns are put on with a sort of stamp.

"Though the heathen natives wore very few clothes generally, they at times dressed up in robes formed of the cloth I have described, which has a very handsome appearance.

"I might tell you a good deal more about these people.  I had made up my mind to remain among them; but people, as you know, don't do always what they intend.  Such was my case in the present instance, as you shall hear.  But pass the grog-bottle.  I must wet my whistle before I move along."

I was almost sick with listening to the account of the atrocities witnessed if not perpetrated by the old ruffian, our host, and was inclined to stop him, but his tongue once set going that was more than I could do, and so on he went again.

Chapter Three.

"One day a brig brought up in the harbour near which I happened to be staying, and the crew came on shore.  She belonged to Sydney, New South Wales, and as they talked to me about that place I was seized with a fancy to go there.  Fearing that the chief would not let me get away, I told him that I was just going on board to pay my countrymen a visit.  I kept below during the remainder of the day, and next morning the brig got under weigh, and stood out of the harbour.  She was the `Tickler,' engaged in the sandal-wood trade, and had still several places to visit to complete her cargo, which she was obliged to pick up here and there, and often had a hard job to get it.  The captain was in no way particular how he managed.  I was on board for some months and saw some curious things done.

"The wood mostly grows on the Western Islands, north and south of the line.  On one occasion we came off a place where the captain understood it was to be procured from the mountains, some way in the interior.  We managed to entice the chief of the district on board by promising him some presents, if he would come and fetch them.  As soon as we had got him, the captain told his people that unless they would bring twelve boats' loads of sandal-wood off he would carry him away as a prisoner. The savages exclaimed that the white men were very cruel and unjust, but the captain did not mind that, as they were only savages, do you see; and as they did not wish to lose their chief, they were obliged to comply.  The captain told him that it he didn't behave himself and hold his tongue, he would double the quantity.  The chief, seeing that the captain was in earnest, ordered his people to go and fetch the wood, when the whole neighbourhood had to turn out and cut it.  In the course of two or three days it was brought on board.

"Having got the wood we sailed away to another place.  These savages are content with curious articles in exchange for their wood.  Instead of money the brig had on board a quantity of small white shells, the teeth of sharks and other animals, as also pigs, cats, and goats.  So eager are they to possess these animals that they would sometimes give a ton of sandal-wood for a goat or cat.  One day a native came on board with a small quantity of sandal-wood when our shells had run short.  The mate offered him some tobacco, which he did not want.  He got angry and said he must have a shell, when the mate without more ado pulled out his revolver: it went off, and the native was shot dead.  The body was thrown overboard, and the sandal-wood remained with us, though the man's friends wanted payment for it.  The captain told the mate he should not have been so careless as to shoot the man, and then thought no more about the matter.

"Our object, however, being to get sandal-wood, the captain cared little as to the means.  The lazy islanders in some places, where it grew abundantly, would not take the trouble of cutting it, so the captain devised a plan for obtaining what he wanted.  We visited for this purpose an island where the natives were friendly with the white men, and enticed a number on board.  When we had got them the captain told them that he would give them their liberty if they would go on shore at a place to which he would take them, and cut as much sandal-wood as he wanted.  Back we sailed to the island where the sandal-wood grew.  We then took them on shore, and landing with a strong party of armed men, guarded them while they cut the wood, which the inhabitants seemed to object to their doing.  They worked well, for they were anxious to go back to their own island.  We had to shoot a few of the inhabitants who came too close to us with their spears and clubs, but they were savage black fellows, and terrible cannibals, and so to my mind there was no great harm in shooting them.

"The wood was cut and carried down by our natives to the boats.  We had now got pretty well as much as the brig would carry, but the captain told them to go back and cut more.  They said they were afraid, lest the black fellows should kill them.  The captain answered that that was their look out, and that if they wanted their liberty the wood must be cut.  When we had got it into the boats we returned to the brig; the captain then ordered the anchor to be hove up, saying that he could not spare time to go back to the island from which the natives had come, and that he had fulfilled his contract by giving them their liberty and leaving them on shore.

"As we sailed out of the harbour, we saw some of them running down to the beach, and waving their hands to us, with the black fellows at their heels.  They were soon overtaken, and one after the other were knocked over by the clubs of the savages, who, to my belief, ate the whole of them; for the inhabitants of that island were well known, as I have said, to be fearful cannibals.

"Now, perhaps some people may think that the captain of the `Tickler' didn't behave quite straightforward in the matter; but that's no business of mine.  What he had to do was to get a shipload of sandal-wood as cheaply as he could, and he did his best to save expense. To be sure, others who came after us might have suffered, because the savages were not very likely to trust them.  We ourselves were nearly cut off on one occasion, when visiting a large island called New Caledonia.  Though we had seen a number of natives gathering on the coast, we pulled in without fear, supposing that their clubs and spears could not reach us, and a volley of small arms would soon put them to flight.  As we pulled on we heard them shouting to us, and shrieking loudly.  They were a jet-black, fine race of fellows.  We could see that some of them had long spears in their hands, but others seemed to be unarmed.  Suddenly, however, down there came upon us a thick shower of stones, wounding two or three of our number, which was immediately followed by a whole flight of spears, when more of us were wounded, while several stuck in the boat.  The order was given to pull round; and glad enough we were to get out of their reach.

"I afterwards heard that the natives of these islands use a sling, not only for throwing stones, which they can send to a great distance, but for casting their spears, which, as we found, far as they were off, came rattling down upon us in a very unpleasant manner.

"One of our men was killed.  When at a safe distance we fired two or three volleys in return, and probably killed some of them; but they quickly got under cover.  We then once more pulled in, thinking that they had taken to flight; but they were up again in an instant, and the whole shore appeared lined with warriors.  We therefore came to the conclusion, that instead of carrying them off as labourers, they were more likely to kill and eat us, should we land on their island.  We pulled away and steered for another place, where we expected to find the natives more peaceably disposed or more easily captured.

"I afterwards heard that several vessels went there, some of which had the crews of their boats murdered on going on shore, while in two or three cases the vessels themselves were attacked, and every one on board put to death.  All I can say is, that whatever people may think of our doings, we were not worse than others.  I heard of several things which will prove this.  Among others, a sandal-wood trader had called at the island of Mare, when three young men swam off to her, wishing to trade on their own account.  They were bargaining with the captain, who offered to give them less than they wanted for their sandal-wood, which they had piled up on shore, ready to embark.  They grew angry, and declared that they would keep their sandal-wood.  On this, without more ado, he drew out his revolver and shot two of them dead on the deck; the other leaped overboard, and the captain ordered the crew to fire at him. He had got some distance, when a shot struck him, and he sank.  The captain then sent a boat on shore, and brought away the sandal-wood. Another captain was on a sandal-wood cruise, when he put in not far from Erromanga, where he found the people at war with another tribe some distance round the coast.  As abundance of sandal-wood grew on the hills in the distance, he tried to persuade them to bring him a supply down to the beach.  They replied that they could not do so then, as they were engaged in war, when he told them that if they would supply him with the wood, he would go and conquer their enemies for them.  The people thought this a fine thing, and agreed to the proposal.  So the vessel went round the coast, to where the opposing tribe resided.  If he had began to fire away at once on them, they would have escaped into the woods, and he probably would not have caught a man.  He therefore pretended to be very friendly, and managed to entice a number on board. When he had got them, his crew set upon them, and killed some on deck, and shot others who had leaped overboard and were trying to make their escape.  One was taken alive, and another desperately wounded.  Having thrown the dead bodies overboard, he sailed back with the living prisoner and the other man, who soon died, to his friends.  By this time they had the sandal-wood ready, so he made over the living and dead prisoners into their hands, and received the sandal-wood in return.  As the people were cannibals, it was easy to guess what they did with their prisoners.

"It cannot be said that we did anything worse than this; but, bless you, I might tell you a hundred other things which either we did or I heard of done by sandal-wood traders in those parts.  I was not over particular, so didn't mind, but I wanted the voyage to be over, that I might get to Sydney, and have a spree on shore.

"We got there at last, and our cargo realised a large profit, as the price was known to be up at the time in the China market, for which it was destined.

"I hadn't been there long, before I found my pockets pretty well cleaned out of cash, and had to think of what I should do next.

"I was sitting one day in a grog shop near the harbour, where I was allowed to run up a score though my last shilling was spent, and I didn't exactly know how I was to pay for it, when somehow or other I lost my senses.  I might have been asleep, or I might have been drunk. When I came to myself, I was in the fore peak of a small vessel, and when I went on deck I found that we were out of sight of land.  It was not the first time that such a thing had happened to me, and so I was not going to make a fuss about it.  I looked round on my new shipmates, who were about as rough a lot as I ever set eyes on; may be I was not very different from them, but we hadn't a looking-glass on board that craft, so, do you see, I was not able to judge.  I asked the name of the craft, where we were bound for, and the object of the voyage.

"My shipmates laughed.

"`Where were you raised: you don't look as green as you would wish to make us fancy,' said one without answering my question.

"`I was raised in a country where they grow bull-dogs, which are more apt to bite than to bark,' I growled out.  `When I ask a question I expect a civil answer.  I was at sea, and crossed the line a dozen times while most of you were still sucking pap, and so you will understand that though I don't exactly know how I came to be aboard this craft, you had better not try to pass off your tricks on me.'

"I thought this would have made them bowse on the slack of their jaw-tackles, but they were banded together, and fancied they could say what they liked to me.  One young fellow only, Bill Harding was his name, I found stood aloof from them, and cried out that it was a shame to attack an old fellow like me, though I might have got hocussed and shipped on board without knowing it.  On that one of them, Jos Noakes they called him, goes up to Bill, and begins blackguarding him.  He stood as cool as a cucumber, with a smile on his good-looking face.  He was the only one among the lot who was not as ugly as sin.

"Says Bill to Jos, `You had better not.  I have floored many a man who could beat you with his little finger, and so, Jos, to my mind, you will get the worst of it.'

"I pulled out my pipe and lighted it, for, d'ye see, there's nothing like a bit of baccy for keeping a man cool, and cool I wanted to be just then.  This showed them more than anything else what I was made of.

"There Bill stood waiting to see what Jos would do, while the rest gathered round edging Jos on.  Jos doubled his fists, getting nearer and nearer to Bill, and at last made a hit at him.  In a moment Bill's arms were unfolded, and he struck out and caught Jos's ugly face a blow which sent him reeling backwards, till he lay kicking like a turtle on his back.

"`Sarve you right, Jos,' cried out several voices, and now most of the crew seemed to side with Bill.

"Jos had had enough of it, and sneaked below to bathe his jaws in water.

"I shook Bill by the hand and thanked him, and we were friends ever afterwards.

"Bill told me that the craft I had so curiously found myself aboard was the `Catfish,' and that she was on a voyage round the islands to pick up sandal-wood, cocoa-nut oil, or pearls, which he told me were to be found among some of the low-lying coral islands to the eastward.

"`I shall like well enough to go after pearls,' I observed; `for I know their value and the price people on shore will give for them.'

"`That made me ship on board the "Catfish,"' said Bill.  `I remember my mother used to wear such things in her hair, and that a small string of them was worth some hundred pounds, and I thought that if I could get a few I should be a rich man, and be able to go back to Old England, for I am pretty well sick of this sort of life, though, mate, as you know, when a man is down in the world it's a hard job to get up again.'

"`Then I suppose, Bill, from what you say, you are a gentleman's son, and you have come out to these parts to make your fortune,' I remarked.

"`Yes, I am well born, and might have been very different from what I am,' he answered with a sigh.  `But I came away to sea because I was a wild scamp, and no one could make anything of me at home.  However, if I can get hold of a few of those pearls, so as to start fair, I intend to turn over a new leaf, and go back to my friends, provided I can do so with a good coat on my back, and not like the ragged beggar I have been of late.  I have got a few articles to trade with, and I shipped on condition that I should do what I liked with them.'

"`I'll help you, my lad, as far as I can,' said I, for I had taken a fancy to Bill, who might have been all he said of himself.  To my notion he was as brave and warm-hearted a fellow as ever stepped.

"I have already described the various ways the sandal-wood traders manage to obtain their cargoes.  Our captain was in no degree more particular than most of them, and played a few odd tricks among the natives to get what he wanted.  On one occasion we got a chief on board, and the captain told him that he must make his people cut a dozen boat-loads of sandal-wood, or we would carry him away as a prisoner to Sydney.  The chief refused, and declared that the wood was not to be got.  On this the captain called two or three of his people on board, and then had him triced up and gave him a dozen, and told him that he should have it every morning if the wood was not forthcoming.  Still the savage held out, and he was heard to tell his people not to bring any.

"Next morning some of his people came off, when, as they brought no wood, preparations were made to give him another dozen.  On seeing this his courage gave way, and he told his people to go back and get the wood.  He got his dozen though, for the captain was a man to keep his word on those sort of matters.

"Two or three boat-loads came off that very evening, and in a couple of days all the captain asked for was supplied.  The chief was then set at liberty, and told to go about his business.

"The captain observed that he was doing his duty to his owners, and getting a cargo in the cheapest way he could; he seemed, indeed, to pride himself on his cleverness.

"As sandal-wood was becoming scarce in most of the islands, we took on board, whenever we had the opportunity, as many casks of cocoa-nut oil as we could collect; but pearls were our chief object, and we continued our voyage till we reached the island I mentioned.

"The natives were said to be friendly to white men, and therefore we had no fear of them.  They had a few pearls already, which the captain took in exchange for some of the beads, cutlery, looking-glasses, and trinkets we had brought to trade with.  He then told the natives that they must go off in their canoes to the reef where the pearl-oysters were to be found, and be quick in bringing him as many as he wanted, threatening them if they were not sharp about it he would carry off their chiefs, cut down their cocoa-nut trees, and leave their wives and children to starve.  This made them all alive, though they grumbled a little, and every evening they returned bringing a fair supply of shells.  They dared not refuse to work, seeing that they had no muskets; and as their island was perfectly flat, they had no place to fly to and hide themselves, so that by landing a few of our men we could, if we had wished, have burned their huts, cut down their trees, and have carried off as many of them as we wanted.

"One day when they had brought fewer shells than usual, the captain sent a party of us on shore, and having caught two of their chiefs, we brought them on board, and kept them in irons, telling them that we should carry them away unless their people would stir themselves.

"Next day a double quantity was brought on board.  The captain seemed mightily pleased.

"`Now, my boys, this shows what you can do,' he said, in the lingo the savages spoke.  `I am going to make a cruise to some other islands not far off, and I shall take your chiefs with me.  If, when I come back, you have not got as many pearls as I want,' and he told them the quantity he should require, `up go your chiefs to our yard-arms.'

"I don't mean that he said this in as many words, but it was what he wished the people to understand.

"The other islands we visited could supply us only with cocoa-nut oil, and though we had a quarrel now and then about it, we generally managed to get what we wanted at the price we chose to give.

"On our return we found the supply of shells the captain had ordered.

"I thought that he would have allowed the chiefs to go on shore, but he was too deep a hand for that.  He had found the plan answer so well that he determined to have some more pearls before sailing, so he pretended that the natives had not brought him enough, and told them that they must go off and collect more.  They grumbled, declaring that they would do no such thing, and demanded their chiefs back.

"`You shall have them,' he answered, `but they shall swing at our yard-arms first,' and he ordered the ropes to be rove to hang them by.

"The chiefs were then brought on deck.  They did not look much like chiefs, half-starved and dirty as they were, for they had been kept below during the voyage for fear of their jumping overboard, and making their escape.  The natives set up a loud yell when they saw them, and made as if they would attack us, and try to rescue them.  On this the captain ordered us to present our muskets, and fire if they approached. Bill was the only person who refused to obey, declaring that it was a shame, and that he would sooner let the natives kill us than shoot one of them.  The captain, hearing this, threatened to trice him up with the chiefs, and to my mind he meant what he said.  The natives, however, thought better of it, and paddled off to try to get more pearls.

"`It's lucky for you, Bill, that the savages played us no tricks; but I'll not forget you, my lad,' exclaimed the captain, shaking his fist at him.

"In a couple of days the natives appeared paddling towards us.  They kept, however, at a distance, and one canoe only with three men in her came alongside, bringing a few pearls.  They said they had got more, but they had resolved to throw them into the sea unless their chiefs were first delivered up to them.

"The captain grinned at this, and replied that they should have one chief, and when the pearls were brought they should have the other.  The natives after talking a long time were obliged to comply.  The chiefs embraced; they might have suspected that the one who remained would run a great chance of swinging at the yardarm, notwithstanding the captain's promise.  At last he told the younger of the two that he might go, thinking, probably, that he was of less consequence than the other.  The poor fellow was lowered into the canoe, and away his countrymen paddled to the shore.

"I thought that the elder man looked well pleased at the escape of his companion, as he squatted down on deck, resting his head on his hands, though he looked up every now and then at the rope hanging from the yardarm, as if he expected to be dangling from it before long.

"The same canoe returned in a couple of hours, bringing a further supply of pearls, while the rest of the natives were seen gathering in the distance.

"Perhaps the captain thought that if he did not deliver up the chief --  driven to desperation, they might attack the vessel, and that though many might have been killed, we should not have got off scathless.  The natives were indeed in great numbers advancing closer and closer.  He therefore told the chief he might go.  The old man rose, and with the help of his countrymen got into the canoe, which immediately paddled away towards the rest, advancing rapidly to meet him.

"The breeze was fair out of the harbour.  Sails were loosed, the anchor tripped.  There was no time to be lost, for some scores of canoes were close up to us.

"`Give the savages a parting volley to teach them that we are not to be insulted with impunity,' cried the captain.

"Several shots were fired at the canoes, and two or three of the savages were hit.  I cannot say whether all fired, but Bill did not.

"The brig had gathered way, and we were distancing the canoes, and though the captain ordered another volley to be fired, the shot fell short of them.

"`We have managed that pretty cleverly,' he observed, as he walked the deck, rubbing his hands.  `I never expected to get so many pearls, and we have not paid dear for them either,' and he chuckled to himself as he turned aft.

"I asked Bill if he had got as many as he had hoped for.

"`No,' he answered.  `The skipper kept too sharp a look-out to allow me to trade honestly as I had intended, and I'd sooner not have got a single one, than obtain them in the vile abominable way he has done.  I wish that I was clear of the craft, and hope that I may never set eyes on him again.'

"I told Bill that he was too particular.

"`No, no,' he exclaimed.  `I am a vile wretch as it is, but I am not sunk so low as to stand by and see such things done without exclaiming against them.'

"We had a quick run to the westward, and the captain was congratulating himself on making a prosperous voyage.  We had still room, however, for some more sandal-wood, and he took it into his head to visit the place where he had given a couple of dozen to a native chief for refusing to bring off sandal-wood.  He was mad, you will allow, to make the attempt. He thought he could catch the chief, and play the trick a second time.

"Bringing up before the place, and telling us to keep our arms ready for use, and to let no native on board, away he went in the boat with six hands well armed.  The natives, instead of running off, came down to the beach quite in a friendly manner, and welcomed him on shore.  He thought, I suppose, that they did not know the brig again, or that the chief had forgotten his flogging.

"We watched him from the deck, and he and two men advanced up the beach towards the very chief himself, who came down to meet him.

"The captain's idea was, I have no doubt, to seize the chief and bring him off.

"In another instant we saw one of the men running, and a party with clubs and spears, who had remained hidden behind some rocks, rushing towards the captain.  Before he could escape, his brains were dashed out, and his companion was struck to the ground.  The other man reached the boat with a spear in his back, and was hauled in just before the savages got up to him.  The boat shoved off and pulled away towards us, a shower of spears following her.  Another man was hit, for we saw an oar dropped.  The remaining three pulled away for their lives.  We, meantime, loosed the sails and got under way; and time it was to do so, for we saw a number of canoes, which had been concealed behind rocks along the shore, darting out towards us.  As soon as the boat was alongside, we hauled up the men, one of whom was pretty near dead by that time, cut the cable, let the boat go adrift -- we had no time to hoist her up -- sheeted home the sails, and stood away from the shore.

"We had a narrow escape of it, for though we kept firing at the advancing canoes, they were almost up to us; and it's my belief the savages would have got on board in spite of all we could have done to resist them, for they seemed resolved to have their revenge.  As it was, another man was hit, and our deck was covered with spears and darts.

"We at last got clear of the land, and the mate, who took command, said he would shape a direct course for Sydney, and have nothing more to do with trading.  We soon, however, began to suspect that he was but a poor navigator, and Bill said he was sure of it.

"Three or four days afterwards a gale sprung up from the westward.  We lost our topmasts, and were driven before it for a week or more.

"Whether or not the mate was a bad navigator, we had no means of proving, for one night he was washed overboard.  Bill, who was the only scholar among us, looked at the log; that had not been written up, nor had our course on the chart been pricked off; so there we were, driving before a heavy gale, and not knowing what island might be in our course to bring us up.  The brig also had sprung a leak, and we had to turn-to at the pumps.  Our provisions and water were running short.  We were in a bad case.  Even had we sighted an island, we should have been afraid to go ashore, for we had played so many tricks at different places, that, after what had happened, we thought that we might be treated in the same way as the captain had been.

"The gale at length came to an end.  Still we had to keep the pumps going.  Our last biscuit was eaten; we had not a drop of water in the casks.  Bill, who had been studying the chart, told us that if we would keep up our spirits he hoped in another day or two to make an island to the southward, where we had not before touched.  That night, however, there came on a dead calm.

"When the sun rose the next morning the sea was like glass, with not a sign of a breeze.

"When men are starving they will eat anything.  We began to stew down our shoes and every bit of leather we could find about the ship.  The lockers were searched for biscuit crumbs, or lumps of grease, or anything eatable, till nothing which could keep body and soul together remained.

"The men knew that Bill and I were friends.  I heard them talking together and casting looks at him.  He was thin enough, poor fellow, by this time; but the rest of us were thinner still, all bones and sinews. Bill and I were on deck together, and I told him to keep by me when I saw the rest of the men coming aft with a glare in their eyes, the meaning of which I well knew.  Telling Bill to keep behind me, I drew my knife, and swore I would kill the first man who advanced.  Jos Noakes came on in front of the rest.  He had not forgotten the knock-over Bill had given him; still I had little hopes of saving my friend, for when men are desperate they will do anything.  Jos was close up to me, and though I might have killed him the rest would have set on me; when just then the sails gave a loud flap, and some of the men, looking round, cried out that there was a fresh breeze coming.

"`My lads,' cried Bill, who, though the moment before he expected nothing but death, was suddenly himself again, `that breeze will take us to the island we were steering for in the course of a few hours.  You may eat me if you like, but I don't think you will find your way there without my help.'

"The men saw the sense of this, and told him he had nothing to fear. While he and I went to the helm, the rest trimmed sails, and we were soon running at a brisk rate through the water.

"Fortunately, some small casks of hams which had got stowed away under the sandal-wood were discovered.  This satisfied our hunger, though it increased our thirst.  The wind, however, brought rain, and we were able to collect enough water to keep us alive.  We thought all would go well, in spite of the leak, which made it still necessary to keep the pumps at work.

"Bill and I had just come on deck at night for our middle watch, when just as he had been telling me that he hoped next morning to make the land, the vessel's keel grated on a coral reef which the look-out had not discovered.  On she drove, and I hoped might be forced over it, but the grating, tearing sound which came from below told me that the sharp points were ripping off her planks, and the rest of the crew, springing on deck, cried out that the water was rushing in on every side.  We clewed up the sails, and got our only boat ready for launching.

"The wind was increasing, and forcing us further and further on the reef.  As we could not tell in what direction to pull, we determined to remain till morning, but before the morning arrived the wind increased, and the sea broke over us.  The mainmast went by the board, and most of the men cried out that if we did not get the boat in the water we should be lost.

"Bill and I had gone forward.  I heard some loud cries.  My shipmates had managed to launch the boat, but the next instant she had been swamped alongside, and they were struggling for their lives in the foaming sea.  We clung on to the wreck.  The sea was making a complete breach over her, and the after part appeared breaking up.  Suddenly she swung round, and seemed to me to be slipping off the rock.  At that moment a sea took me, striking me on the head, knocking the senses out of me; the next I found myself in the foaming waters, and looking up, the moon bursting forth just then, caught sight of Bill making his way up the fore-rigging.  I sung out to him to heave me a rope and haul me on board.  The vessel appeared to have been brought up by a lower part of the reef, and to be sticking there.  Bill heard my voice, and unreefing the fore brace, hove it to me just as a sea washed me back towards the wreck.  I caught hold of it when pretty nigh exhausted, for though I hadn't had much enjoyment in life, I didn't wish to leave it, and so clung on with all my strength, while Bill gradually hauled me up to the fore chains.  From thence I made my way into the top, where he and I sat, expecting, however, every moment that the mast would go and carry us overboard.

"`Are the rest all lost, think you?' asked Bill.

"`No doubt about it,' said I.  `The boat could not have lived a minute in such a sea as there is running.  We are better off even here.'

"`Terrible,' said Bill.  `And you and I are left alone out of the whole lot.'

"`We may thank our stars for that,' said I.  `And I say, Bill, if we hold out till morning, and it comes on calm, maybe we shall find some of the pearls, and after all it won't be so bad a job for us.'

"`Don't talk of the pearls,' he answered, with a groan.  `I wish that I had never been tempted to try to get them.  The captain and the rest have got their deserts, and I would not touch one of them, gained as they were by cruelty and fraud, if they were to be washed up into my hands.'

"`I only wish I could catch sight of some of the boxes with the chance of getting them,' said I.  `And if you were to do so, Bill, I would not trust to your good resolutions.'

"`I don't want to talk about the matter,' answered Bill, gloomily. `What chance have we of getting away from the wreck? we may be miles off from the shore, for what I know.'

"`If the wind goes down, we may build a raft and reach the land, or may be a vessel will pass by and take us off.  If not, and it breezes up again, we shall be in a bad case.'

"Bill groaned again.

"`I am not prepared to die,' he exclaimed.  `I would give anything to get on shore.'

"`You haven't anything to give,' said I.  `So you had better make up your mind to brave it out, just as I mean to do.  I wish that I could get at some liquor, though; that would keep up our spirits better than anything else.'

"Bill groaned again.

"`I don't want to die like a brute with my senses gone,' he answered.

"`As to that, seamen have to go out of the world somehow, and for my part I don't think myself worse than the rest,' I answered; `and with regard to the things done aboard this craft, that was the captain's look out, not mine, nor yours either; so cheer up, Bill, don't be down-hearted.  Daylight will soon return, and then, may be, we shall find ourselves better off than we fancy.'

"You see, I kept up my spirits, and tried to keep up Bill's; but he got worse and worse, and began raving away so curiously, that I thought he would throw himself into the sea and get drowned.

"To prevent this I passed a rope round his body when he didn't see what I was about, and lashed him to the top.

"As the night drew on the wind dropped, and at daybreak my eyes were gladdened by the sight of the land about two miles away, while between us and it were numerous small rocks scattered about, by means of which we might make our way, even if we had to swim for it.  I remembered, however, the sharks, so I determined to build a raft.  Poor Bill could not help me, so I set to work by myself.  I was some time putting one together to carry us both, and then, being very hungry, I thought I would try to get hold of the keg of hams and the cask of water which were stowed forward, and also that I might pick up some of the boxes of pearls.  I got the hams and water, but could not find the pearls.

"I took some of the food up to Bill, but he would only touch the water.

"At last I managed to lower him on to the raft, and, afraid that the weather might again change, shoved off to make our voyage to the land. It was slow work, for I had only a long pole and a paddle.  If Bill had been able to help, we should have got on much faster.  At last we came to a small island.  I thought to myself I'll leave Bill here with some ham and water for food, and go back and have another search for the pearls.  Bill made no objection; I don't think even then he knew where he was.  I got back with less difficulty than I expected.

"The tide had now fallen, and the after part of the vessel was clear of water.  I cannot tell you how I felt when I caught sight of the boxes where I knew the pearls had been stowed in the captain's cabin.  There were a couple of large chests, and in these were several more boxes, with the captain's money, and some other things of value.  I thought to myself, if I turn out everything heavy, these boxes will float and serve to preserve my treasures, even should the raft be capsized.  I accordingly, having prepared them as I proposed, put in the boxes of pearls, and having lashed them securely, lowered them on to the raft, loading it with a number of other articles, which I thought would be useful.  Shoving off, I made the best of my way towards the rock where I had left poor Bill; it was time I did, for the weather was again, I feared, about to change, and heavy rain was falling.  Hoping that he might have revived, I expected to see him looking out for me.

"While making good way through the water, suddenly I found my raft touch ground.  The current striking against it drove it further and further on to the reef.  To prevent it capsizing, I had to stand up and press my pole against the bottom.  There I stood, the rain coming down faster and faster.  I shouted to Bill, hoping that he might hear me, and perhaps be able to wade out to my assistance, but no answer came.  I might easily have got off by casting the chest and the other articles adrift, but I could not bring myself to do that, not knowing where they and their precious contents might be carried to.  At last I thought of mooring the raft, and trying to reach the rock by wading.  I had a large axe which would serve as an anchor.  I made a rope fast to it, and stuck it securely, as I thought, in a cleft of the coral reef.  I then, with the pole in my hand, made my way towards the rock.  Reaching it at last, not without difficulty, I looked about for Bill.  What was my dismay not to see him!  The provisions and water, and the other things I left with him were there, but he was gone.  Whether he had fancied I was going to desert him, and had attempted to swim to the mainland, or in his madness had thrown himself into the sea, I could not tell.  I climbed to the end of the rock nearest to the shore, shouting at the top of my voice, and still hoping to see him, but not a soul appeared on the beach.  I had taken a liking to him, and I felt more unhappy than I had ever felt before, at the thoughts that he was lost.  `It cannot be helped,' I said to myself.  `I'll go back and tow the chests one by one to the rock, and so get the raft afloat, and in time reach the shore.'  At once I went back to the outer end of the rock, and began to wade towards where I had left the raft.  The breeze had got up, and there was some sea on.  It struck me that the water was deeper than at first.  I hadn't made many steps when, looking at the raft, I felt convinced that it was moving.  I tried to hurry on, but found myself floundering in the water almost up to my neck, and had to scramble back to the rock to save my life.  The raft went faster and faster.  I shouted, I shrieked to it to stop; the pearls which would have made my fortune were every instant getting further from my reach.  Then a wave took it and turned it right over, another struck it and dashed it against a rock, and away floated the pieces with the chests in the direction the current was making.

"On getting back to the rock I sat down and cried like a child.  I felt as if I was done for.  At last I got better and began to hope that the chests might be washed on shore, and that I might secure them after all.

"How was I to reach the land? there was the question.  I was a bad swimmer, and if I had been a good one the chances were that I should be picked off by a shark.  My only remaining hope was that the natives might not be cannibals, and that some of them coming off to fish might see me, and carry me to their island.  Still perhaps some days might pass before any one might come out so far.  I knew therefore that I must husband my provisions to make them last me as long as possible. Fortunately the rain had filled some hollows in the rock.  I drank as much as I wanted of that, and bailed the remainder into the cask I had left with Bill.

"The day passed by and no one appeared, and not only that day but several others went by, and I was still on the rock.  I had eaten up all the ham and drunk up nearly every drop of water.  I had no means of striking a light, and if I had there was no fuel except my pole, and I could not live long on the raw shell fish which stuck to the rock.

"My last hour I thought was come.  I lay down expecting to die, and soon dropped off into a sort of stupor.  I was aroused by hearing voices, and looking up I saw a canoe with three brown girls in her, paddling up to the rock.  I just lifted my head and made signs that I was very ill; they understood me, and instead of running away managed together to lift me into their canoe.  One poured water down my throat, and another fed me with yam.  They had been out fishing, and were returning home.  They took me to their father's hut, and fed and nursed me till I recovered. My thoughts were running on the chests with the pearls, but I could hear nothing of them, nor of poor Bill either, nor have I from that day to this."

Chapter Four.

"I was just well, and thinking what I should do, when a South Sea whaler put into a harbour close by for provisions and water.  She wanted hands, and I shipped aboard her.  She was not long out from Sydney, to which port she belonged.

"While I served in her I was again nearly lost.  We were after a big whale which had already been struck when the creature caught the boat I was in with its flukes, stove in the bows, and turned her right over, while I and the rest of the crew were left struggling in the water.  I managed to climb up on the boat's stern, and hailed another boat which was under sail, but so eager were those in her in pursuit of the monster that they did not see for some time what had occurred.  The rest of my mates had sunk before she came up, and I was taken on board so exhausted that I could not have hung on many minutes longer.

"When the cruise was up the whaler returned to Sydney, and I thought that I would stop on shore, and with the money I had saved try what I could do for a living.  My cash was gone, however, before I could well look round; my old friends the crimps got most of it.

"Remembering how I had before been shipped on board a craft without knowing it, I determined that such a trick should not be played me again.  Perhaps the crimps thought I was too old to be worth much and would not let me run up a score.

"I was standing one day on the quay with my hands in my pockets, when the skipper of the last sandal-wood trader I had sailed in came up to me.  He knew me and I knew him, and a bigger villain I never set eyes on; still considering that my last shilling was gone, I could not be particular about my acquaintances.

"`Boas, old ship,' says he.  `You know the South Sea Islands as well as most men.  I want a few fellows like you for a cruise which is sure to be profitable, and you will come back in a short time with your pockets lined with gold, and be able to live at your ease, if you have a mind to do so, like a gentleman.'

"I asked him to tell me what was the object of the voyage.

"`I don't mind telling you the truth.  If you were to ask at the Custom House you would hear we were starting on a voyage after cocoa-nut oil and sea slugs, but there's poor profit in that compared to what we are really after.  We do not call ours a slaving voyage, but our intention is to get as many natives as we can stowed away in our hold, by fair means or foul, and to run them across to Brisbane or some other port in Queensland.  The order we receive from our owner is to visit the different islands, and to persuade as many natives as we can to come and work for the settlers.  They want labourers, and will pay good wages, and the natives are only to be engaged for three years, and to be carried back again at the end of that time if they happen to be alive, and wish it, to their own islands.'

"I told him that was very like the sort of trade I had been engaged in some years before, when we collected natives and carried them to Peru to work in the mines, and how the French didn't approve of our taking the people from their islands, and had captured a number of our vessels. `But,' says I, `as I suppose that there are no mines in Queensland, the Indians will like Australia better than they did Peru, and won't die so fast as they did there.  But what does the Government say to the matter? Maybe they'll call it slaving.'

"`Oh we have got a regular licence from the Queensland Government,' answered the skipper.  `It's all shipshape and lawful, provided we treat the natives kindly, and don't take them unless they wish to go, and make them clearly understand the agreement they enter into.'

"`If that's the case, Captain Squid, I'm your man,' says I.  `I am not over particular; but in my old age I have taken a liking to what is lawful and right.'

"`Very wise too,' says the skipper, giving me a wink.  `You will find all our proceedings perfectly lawful, and we run no risk whatever.  If the natives get harder worked than they like when they reach Queensland, that's no business of ours.'

"To make a long story short, I that evening found myself on board the `Pickle,' schooner of about eighty tons.  She hadn't much room for stowage 'tween decks, but as the passage between Queensland and the islands where she was to get the natives was short, and as I supposed only a few at a time would be taken, I had no scruples on that score. At all events, it could not be anything like the middle passage between Africa and America.

"Next morning we were at sea running to the eastward, after which we stood away northward, towards the islands which extend between the line and New Caledonia.  The people are all blacks, a strong, hardy race, and, as Captain Squid remarked to me, more likely to be caught, and when caught better able to work than the brown-skinned natives to the eastward, such as we used to take away to labour in the mines in South America.

"The first place we came to was the Island of Tanna, one of the southernmost of the New Hebrides.  We knew that missionaries were there trying to turn the people into Christians -- an odd sort of work to my mind for white people to attempt.  It would not do, however, to go near where they were.  We stood in, therefore, to a part of the island where they were not.  Having hove-to, we sent a boat on shore to invite the people to come off with palm oil, telling them that we would pay a high price for it.  The second mate, who went in command of the boat with the interpreter, was ordered to be very cautious lest the natives should attempt to cut him off.

"Having delivered his message, he returned to the schooner.  To our surprise, in a short time three canoes were seen coming off with a dozen natives in them.  They came alongside without fear, and told the interpreter that they were Christians, and friends of the white men. The captain invited them on board, and said that he would not only pay them well for their oil, but would, if they chose, take them to a country where they might soon become rich, and return home again in a short time.  They replied that they had no desire to leave their native island, and wanted to receive payment for their oil.  The captain said they should have it if they would come down below, where he had got a feast ready for them.  An old man of the party advised them to remain on deck till they had received the goods they had bargained for.  Some liquor on this was brought up, and they were asked to take a drop.  The old man again advised them not to touch it, and took hold of his oil-jar as if he was about to lower it into his canoe.  Notwithstanding what the old man said, two or three of them tasted the grog, and then, first one and then another, went down below.  The old man cried out to them, and was about to lower his jar into the canoe, when, at a word from the captain, one of our people seized it, while another caught hold of him. The interpreter at the moment appearing, declared that the oil had been bought, and that he had no business to carry it away.  By this time half the natives were below.  The old man struggled, he was knocked down, and when his companions came to his assistance they were knocked down also. Before they could get up again their arms were pinioned, while those who were below were treated in the same way.  The captain declared that the savages intended to take the vessel, that he did not believe they were Christians, and that in his own defence he was obliged to carry them off.

"`You will understand, my lads,' he said to us, `if any questions are asked when we get to Brisbane that's the answer we must give.'

"The canoes of the savages alongside were sunk, and letting draw the foresail, we stood away along the coast, while the natives were stowed snugly below.  The captain seemed highly pleased with this successful commencement of our voyage.

"A short way further on, as we saw some natives on the shore, the boat was sent in to speak to them.  I went in her.  As we approached the beach, two young men were seen swimming off towing a quantity of cocoa-nuts, which they told the interpreter they wished to barter for any goods we had brought.  They were invited to come into the boat, but were timid, and replied that we might have the cocoa-nuts, but must hand out in return what we had to give.  A few articles were accordingly held up, and they were invited to come and receive them.  Fearing they might escape us, the moment they came alongside they were seized by the hair of their heads, and hauled into the boat.  They cried out, saying that they were sons of a chief, and that, if we would set them free, we might have the cocoa-nuts.  The mate laughed at them, and told them if they would quietly come with us we would pay them handsomely.  As they began to struggle and tried to leap overboard, we had to hold them down.  This being seen from the shore, the people became alarmed, and put on so threatening a manner, that we were afraid of going nearer.  Having no chance of getting more natives, we returned on board with the two young men, leaving their friends raging and threatening us in vain.

"The next place we touched at we were more successful, and got nearly a dozen on board, who seemed well pleased at the thought of seeing the world, and willingly agreed to sign the paper placed before them, though I suspect they knew very little about the meaning of it.  They were deadly enemies of those we had first taken.  The two tribes had been accustomed to fight and eat each other, but, notwithstanding this, we turned the last comers down below to make friends with the others.

"We were standing away from the shore when two or three of the last party happened to hear how the first had been taken, and, becoming alarmed, attempted to leap overboard.  Our men who had handspikes in their hands hit at them to stop them doing this.  The blows, however, being somewhat heavy, two fell dead on the deck, while a third made his escape to the shore.

"It was a bad job, for we had hoped to obtain more labourers from the same place.

"We got several, however, both men and women, from the Island of Vate. Here the captain had an agent, a clever fellow, who, for a musket and tobacco, was ready to do anything.  He persuaded the natives that if they would go on board the schooner, they would be carried to a magnificent country, where, after working for a few moons, they would make their fortunes, and be brought back in safety to their own island.

"The natives are almost as black as ebony, but tall and well-formed, wearing a broad wrapper of matting round their waists, and their hair gathered up into a bunch at the top of the head, and ornamented with feathers; while the women wear a curious tail, which hangs down behind them to the calves of their legs.  The men also wear bands of shells round their necks and arms, and rings in their ears.

"They seemed pretty contented when they came on board.  The captain, by the agent's desire, gave each of them a present to send to their friends on shore.

"`Mind you take good care of them, captain,' said old Sneezer, the name we gave the black agent.  `Be very kind, and bring them back all right.'


"`Ay, ay, never fear,' answered Captain Squid, and he winked at the old fellow.  `We know how to treat people properly aboard here if they behave themselves.'

"You would have supposed by their looks that they were going on a party of pleasure, but they soon changed their note, poor wretches! before long.

"We got a good many people from the Island of Erromanga, where old Sneezer was very useful.  The natives, I had heard say, had murdered some missionary fellows -- Williams, and Harris, and others -- and of course it was but right, the captain observed, that we should punish them, so we need not be in any way particular as to how we got hold of the savages.  Old Sneezer used to go on shore in the boat, and talk to them, and persuade them to come off to us, and in this way we got about thirty or so without much difficulty.  He tried to persuade one fellow he found fishing in his canoe off the leeside of the island, and as he said he did not want to leave home, Sneezer lugged him into the boat, and then sunk his canoe.  He shrieked out, thinking he was going to be killed; but we told him he need not be alarmed, as we were only going to steal him.  Another black fellow we found on the shore alone, but he would not come either, because he had got a wife and family at home, so Sneezer, without more ado, clapped his arms round him, and we hauled him into the boat, telling him that we were only just going to another island near at hand, for a short time, and that he would then have his liberty.

"While pulling along the coast of another island in the boat, three men came off to us in a canoe.  Sneezer told them, as usual, the good luck in store for them.  Two of them believed him, and agreed to come with us; the third jumped overboard.  The mate struck out at him with the boat-hook, hooking him in the cheek, and hauled him on board.  `Now, my lad, come with us,' says he, `whether you like it or no.'  We soon had them on board, and stowed away below.

"We had now a full cargo; indeed, we could not well take in any more. The black with a hole in his cheek, and some others, didn't quite like the treatment they received, and the first, making his way on deck, insisted on being put on shore again.  He was at once knocked back into the hold again; he tried to get up, followed by others, some of whom had their bows and arrows, which they had been allowed to keep, it being supposed that they could do no harm with them.  They began to shoot away, and a general fight took place in the hold, when the captain, thinking the blacks would gain possession of the vessel, ordered us to fire down upon them.  The supercargo, who was, I'll allow, a precious villain, afraid that some of them might be killed, and that he should lose part of his cargo, though otherwise not caring for their lives, told us to shoot them in their legs, but not to kill them.  It was all dark below, so that we could not see in what direction to fire.  Some cotton was therefore fastened to the end of a long stick, and lighted; and when this was held down into the hold, we could take aim.  Three savages were shot, and, being hauled upon deck, were thrown overboard: two who were dead floated quietly away, but the third was alive, and we saw him striking out towards the distant shore; but he soon sank, for either a shark got hold of him or his wound prevented him swimming further.

"After this we hove up the anchor, and making sail shaped a course for Brisbane.  We had to keep a sharp look out after our passengers, and make them fast whenever they came on deck, for fear they should leap overboard and drown themselves.  When in sight of land we had a hard job to keep them quiet, and generally found it more convenient to make them stay below.

"Had the passage been long we should probably have lost a good many of them; but as it was, only three or four died, and we landed the rest in tolerable condition.  The captain said that they had all come on board of their own free will; that if they had changed their minds since, that was no fault of his.  They were soon engaged by the colonists, who wanted labour at any price.  He had no difficulty, in consequence of the favourable report he made, of again getting a licence, and without loss of time we sailed on another cruise.

"We had kept more to the eastward than usual, when it came on to blow very hard, and we had to run before the gale out of our course a considerable distance, the captain being very much vexed at this loss of time.  The gale had somewhat moderated, but it was still blowing hard when we caught sight of a sail which, as we neared her, proved to be a large double canoe, with twenty or more hands on board.  The captain thought she would prove a good prize, as we might sink her and carry off the people, and no one be the wiser.  She consisted of two large canoes, so to speak, some way apart, but united by a strong deck placed upon them.  Through the deck were cut hatches, to enable the people to go below into the canoes, and above the deck was a square house with a platform on the top of it.  As we drew near, intending to run her down old Sneezer advised us to let her pass, as she belonged to Fiji, and as he said the people would give us more trouble than they were worth, as they were savage fellows, and would neither work in their own islands nor in Australia, and would very likely murder their masters.  We accordingly let them go, and away she flew close hauled on a wind, though the supercargo sighed, as he thought of letting so many fine-looking fellows escape us.  The gale ceasing, we hauled up, and stood back for Erromanga.

"Old Sneezer was as useful to us as before.  On his first visit to the shore he persuaded a dozen natives to come off, by telling them that he had plenty of pigs on board for a feast they were about to hold.  Very fat pigs they were, according to his account, and plenty of tobacco, so that they might smoke from morning till night to their hearts' content. We took them off in our own boat not to alarm the rest, by having to sink their canoe.  When they got on deck they asked for the pigs and tobacco.  The only answer they got was finding themselves shoved down below.  They shrieked and cried out till the mate went among them with a thick stick and made them quiet.

"We were not quite so successful at the next haul.  Sneezer got off six fellows as he had the former ones; but they heard the others cry out before we had them secured, and tried to escape.  Three were knocked down in time, but the other three leaped overboard and swam to the shore.  The captain sang out for a couple of muskets; one however was not loaded, and the other would not go off, and the men escaped. Knowing that we should get no more labourers there, we had to make sail and run to another place.  After this we got several quite quietly, and they were induced to put their marks to the paper shown to them, and to believe all that Sneezer said.

"One day we pulled in to the shore a few miles south of Dillon's Bay, where the surf ran too heavily to allow us to land, but Sneezer caught sight of four men on the shore, and hailing them, said he was their friend, and had plenty of tobacco to give them if they would come off for it.  They all swam out to us, when in our eagerness we caught hold of two of them somewhat roughly, perhaps, and hauled them into the boat; the others, taking the alarm, swam back and escaped.

"You see in this trade, as in every other, we have our disappointments.

"We had heard of the skipper of a trading schooner, who somehow or other got on very well with the Erromangians by treating them kindly, I suppose, and paying them what he promised.  So says Sneezer, `I will tell them Captain Tom has got a new vessel, and this is her, and that he wishes to see them.'

"On this Sneezer went on shore, and nearly two dozen natives came off to see their friend Captain Tom.  They were then told that he was in his cabin, when they were easily persuaded to step quietly down below.  As may be supposed, we didn't let them come on deck again.  What they thought about the matter, or what their friends on shore thought about it, I don't know; perhaps the next time Captain Tom touched at that port they might not have been inclined to be so friendly with him as before; it's just possible, indeed, that they might have knocked him on the head without inquiring whether or not he had paid them a visit a short time back, and carried off some of their people.

"The natives we had last got began moaning and groaning, and cursing their folly, because their chief, who was a Christian, had warned them beforehand, and told them that he feared some trick might be played, not liking the looks of the vessel.

"In this way, we managed, as before, to complete our cargo, and to land them all, with the exception of a few who died, at Brisbane.

"We after this made several successful trips, and I should think the colonists must have felt very grateful to us for the free labourers with whom we supplied them.

"There were a dozen vessels or more engaged in the same trade, the supercargoes of which mostly managed matters in the same way we did; if they did not they must have had great difficulty in collecting labourers.

"The `Pickle' had, however, run her course.  After we had got most of our cargo on board we were caught in a heavy gale, and had to batten down the hatches to escape going to the bottom.  Our passengers must have found it tremendously hot, for the gale lasted several days, and all that time we had to keep the hatches on.  When it moderated a little, and we went below to inspect our cargo, we found some had broken their arms and others their legs, tumbling about in the hold, while a dozen more were dead or dying.

"Things were bad enough, but they were to become worse.  The gale came on again, and while we thought we were clear of the land the vessel struck on a coral reef.  The sea beat over it, and we held on to the rigging, but scarcely was she on the other side, where it was tolerably smooth, than we found the water rushing in through a hole which had been knocked in her bottom.  We had just time to get out the boat and jump into her, when down the vessel went, with all those under hatches.

"It is said that a good many of the labourers who leave their native islands never get back again; this accident will account for a hundred or more, and of course the authorities in Queensland were not answerable for it.

"We managed to save our lives, and were picked up by a Sydney vessel.

"Having found the business profitable, I shipped on board another craft engaged to take natives to the Fiji Islands, where labourers were much wanted.

"Having touched at several places, we called at the Kingsmill Islands. Here we got a good many natives in one way or another.

"We were about making sail, when in the evening a black fellow came alongside in his canoe to sell mats and fowls.  We persuaded him, as it was late, to sleep on board.  As the wind was pretty fresh, he willingly agreed.  Next morning he was somewhat surprised to find that the schooner had got under way during the night, and he found himself one of a gang of seventy men and fifteen women, whom we had secured, bound for Fiji.  The supercargo, to quiet him, told him that we were only going across to another island close by, and would land him there.  The others we kept pretty peaceable by similar tricks, though they kept asking somewhat anxiously, when they were to be put on shore.

"At last we reached one of the many islands of the Fiji group.  I had never been there before; but I had heard that the people were terrible cannibals.  So they were till the missionaries persuaded the king and his chiefs, and most of his subjects, to give up the practice.  A considerable number of white men have of late years settled on several of the islands, and have bought land to grow coffee and other things. They find a difficulty in getting the natives of Fiji to work for them, so they have to obtain labourers from other islands, and this was the work our schooner was engaged in.  Our cargo was quickly distributed among the planters, some taking ten, some twenty, or as many as they could get.

"The natives of Fiji are black and fine big fellows.  They wear their hair frizzled out, and big turbans on the top of all; some of them, indeed, wear great wigs over their own hair, for the larger a man's head is, the more important he thinks himself.  This makes them look very tall; indeed, many of the chiefs are very fine men.  They also wear ornaments of all sorts, necklaces, and rings, and beads round their legs and arms, and they stick into their ears huge ornaments, while large brooches hang down over their breasts.  The common people, however, wear very little clothing at all, and many of the chiefs who have turned Christians, dress something after the English fashion, as they fancy; or at all events, cover their bodies with robes of their native cloth.

"I found a number of English and Frenchmen, and people of all countries settled on the islands, and there are a good lot of grog shops, so that they may be said to have made some progress in imitating civilised people.  In some of the wilder parts of the country, however, the natives are still cannibals, and do not scruple to kill and eat any strangers they can catch.  Not long ago they were addicted to that unpleasant custom, so that any strangers wrecked on their coasts were sure to be eaten.  When they could not get strangers they ate each other; sometimes a dozen, and sometimes even twenty slaves, were killed for one great feast.  Altogether from what I heard of the people, I had no fancy to stop and live among them.

"I must say this much for the missionaries, that they have cured them of their worst habit.  At some of the villages I visited, where the missionaries have been long established, the people were as quiet and decent, and well-behaved as any I have been amongst; too much, as I must own, to my taste.

"They are capital swimmers, and seem as much at home in the water as on land.  The women swim as well as the men.  At one village I stopped at, where, though they had given up eating human flesh, they did not pretend to be Christians, I saw a curious sort of game played by the girls.  A stout post was stuck in the water some way from the shore.  On the top of it was laid the trunk of a large cocoa-nut tree, the base resting near the shore, and the tip projecting beyond the post over deep water. The fun was for the girls to run up the inclined tree at full speed, and then to leap off from the point and swim back to shore one after the other, as fast as they could go.  Twenty or thirty girls could play at the game together, and such shouting, and shrieking, and laughing I never heard.

"However, as the vessel I had come in, the `Thisby,' was returning to Australia, I went in her.

"We got a few natives from the Kingsmill Islands, the New Hebrides, and other places, and carried them to Brisbane.

"Our skipper having landed them in good condition without difficulty, got another licence to bring back a further cargo of fifty natives -- for the Government officer didn't think the vessel had room enough to carry more.  Our captain and supercargo, however, had a different notion on the subject.

"We managed to pick them up much as we had done others.  Of course it was the same to the natives whether they went to Queensland or Fiji. Instead of fifty, by the clever management of our supercargo and interpreter, we got altogether a hundred.  The captain said it would never do to return with so many to Brisbane, and hearing that there was still a great demand for labour at the Fijis, we shaped a course for those islands.  The accommodation for our passengers was not altogether such as civilised people would have liked.  We had run up a number of shelves round the hold on which they stowed themselves at night.  They were all stark naked, and they had no mats to lie on, but we could not of course expect these savages to be over particular.

"We had a dead beat to windward for the best part of a month, and by that time our cargo, as may be supposed, hadn't much improved in appearance.

"As ill luck would have it, when we arrived off the port we were bound for, what should we see but a man-of-war at anchor.  As we were short of provisions and water, we were compelled to run in and make the best of it.  Before long the captain of the man-of-war came on board, and not only rated our skipper and supercargo for the condition the blacks were in, but declaring that our papers were irregular, which it must be confessed they were, landed the blacks and took possession of the craft. I and the rest of the crew lost our wages, and had to go on shore again and look out for ourselves.

"I hadn't been there long before a fine brig came in with only a dozen natives.  The owner was on board, and he and the captain had had a quarrel because the latter had refused to receive any passengers who did not come of their own free will, and sign the agreement with a full understanding of the meaning.  The captain, who was, I thought, a fool for his pains, had to give up the command, and two or three of the men who were of his opinion, were landed with him.  I having no such scruples was glad enough to join her as second mate.  Most of her crew were either Sandwich Islanders or Tahitians.  The owner having got another master who was accustomed to the trade, we sailed to the northward to visit a number of islands lying on either side of the line, intending also to cruise about the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands, where we hoped before long to get a full cargo.

"The owner said his vessel would carry three hundred at least, and that number he was determined to obtain.

"I have told you before how the vessels engaged in this trade are accustomed to pick up their cargo.  Our owner was a man for dodges of all sorts, and there was not a device he left untried to obtain men.  At one place he pretended that the brig was a sandal-wood trader, and offered to give double the price which had ever been given before, provided it could be brought on board the next day.  His hope was that a number of natives would go and cut it, and that each man would come back with the result of his labour.  He was not disappointed.  The next morning we had a score of canoes alongside.  He would only let one man at a time come on deck, and as soon as he appeared he was invited below to receive payment.  The first two or three who came received even double what the owner had promised, and were allowed to return to their canoes.  This made all the rest eager to come up, and as soon as they had gone below they were gagged and pinioned, and passed into the hold. By this means we got sixty men, even the very last not suspecting the trick that had been played.  The first three were also enticed on board, supposing that their companions were receiving even more than they had. We towed the canoes out to sea, where we sank them, and continued our voyage.

"When we approached a place where Christian natives were to be found, we hoisted a missionary flag, and the interpreter going on shore told the people that one of their dear missionaries was on board, when a number eagerly came off to visit him, and were somewhat surprised when they found themselves handed down into the hold.

"This dodge answered so well that we tried it several times, generally with the same success.  The owner having heard that a bishop, or a man of that sort, who wears a long gown and preaches, was in the habit of visiting many of the islands, determined to find out where he had most friends, hoping, by a dodge he had thought of, to make a grand haul.  He had had a coat and hat made which he said was just like the bishop's, and another for the interpreter.  Rigged in these they went one day on shore, and began preaching to the natives who collected round in great numbers.  What they said I don't know, it must have been something curious, I fancy; but the savages who had never had a visit from the bishop before, though they had heard of him it seemed, were mightily pleased.  Some wanted to come off at once, but the owner replied that he should be happy to see as many as chose to visit him next morning, and that he had a number of things he should like to give them.

"Pretty nearly a hundred came alongside the next morning in their canoes; the difficulty, however, was to secure them.  At last the interpreter thought of a plan.  He told them that the bishop was sick in his cabin and that he could only see three or four at a time; but that there were praying men in another part of the vessel who would be happy afterwards to talk to them.  By this means, a few at a time being got below, the greater number were secured.  At last the remainder began to grow suspicious, and one of those below shouting out, they made a rush to the side, and leaped overboard.  A few were secured, but several made their escape, when the owner ordered us to fire on them.  Several were hit and sank, but the rest reached the shore, thinking, I have no doubt, that it was an odd way for a bishop to treat them, and vowing that the next time they caught sight of him they would make him sorry for what he had done.

"We played a trick like this at several other places, but, as the bishop was known, the interpreter, rigged as a parson, going on shore, told the people that the bishop was ill on board, but would still be very glad to see them if they would come off and pay him a visit.

"By this and all sorts of other means we at last got a full cargo of between two and three hundred people.

"It seemed to me that we had a pretty large cargo already, but falling in with another vessel belonging to our owner, he took out of her sixty or seventy natives, and sent her to collect more, while we continued our voyage.

"Among the natives we had received on board were three young fellows from the island of Anietium, the most northern of the New Hebrides, which I once before had visited to get a cargo of sandal-wood.  I remembered making friends with one of the natives, a lad, and having given him several articles, of no great value to myself I must own, though they pleased him mightily.  Of the three we had now caught, two were perfect young savages, with their hair frizzled out, and sticking up at the top of their heads in a curious fashion, and big ear-rings in their ears, though with no clothing on, except round their waists.  The other was clad in shirt and trousers.  I saw him looking at me, and presently he put out his hand, and, taking mine, spoke to me in English, and I found that he was the very lad I had before known.  He had been to New Zealand in the meantime, and had become a sort of missionary to his countrymen.  I told him I would do my best to help him while on board. He said he didn't mind labouring, but thought it was his duty to remain at his island to try to make the people Christians.  The owner only laughed at him, but remarked to me that if he had known he spoke English, he would have let him alone, as he might be telling tales to the authorities.

"We were somewhat overcrowded, as may be supposed.  It was bad enough for the savages, but worse for a man who had seen something of civilised life.  I took my friend food, and let him remain on deck during my watch, as he promised me that he would not leap overboard.

"We were delayed by calms, and one day we drifted in close to the island of Poru.  How the blacks knew where we were I don't know, but somehow or other they found out that we were near the shore, and, without a moment's warning, they managed to lift off the hatches, and up they came swarming on deck, with all sorts of things they had got hold of in their hands.  The owner and captain rushed out of the cabin, crying out to the crew to assist them, and drive the savages down below again.  I was at the time at the bowsprit end at some work or other, and my missionary friend was in the bows.  Just as I looked round on hearing the noise, I saw the owner and captain knocked down, and in a moment their heads were almost cut off, and they were hove overboard.  The first mate had come up with his revolver, fighting for his life, and shooting the natives as fast as he could right and left.  By chance he had shot one of the crew who had gone to his assistance, and the next instant he himself was knocked down, and treated as the captain and owner had been.  I had been making my way into the bows to assist them, when my friend Maka seized me by the arm, and dragged me down the fore hatchway.

"`Their blood is up now,' he whispered.  `Stay quiet till they cool down, and I will save your life.'

"I followed his advice, and he stowed me away under a heap of clothes in the foremost bunk.

"The native part of the crew didn't join the blacks, but I can't say that they seemed to me to be doing much to help the owner and white men.

"A strong breeze had sprung up off the land, which I guessed the vessel was fast leaving.  I had been hid away some time, when I felt as if I was suffocating; and unable to bear it longer, I threw off the things above me, and found that the fore peak was filled with smoke.  I at once knew that the vessel was on fire.  I was nearly dropping back, when I felt a hand seize me, though I could see nothing for the smoke, and I heard Maka's voice, saying, `Come on deck, I will save your life.'  He dragged me up, and I sat down for a moment on the heel of the bowsprit. Smoke was coming up through the hatchways, and flames were already bursting out in the after part of the vessel.  The blacks, seized with terror, without stopping to get hold of anything to support themselves, were leaping overboard, and striking out for the far-distant land.  I never before saw such a sight, three hundred of them in the water together.  It seemed to me that they would have very little chance of ever reaching the shore, but their only thought was to get away from the burning ship.

"Maka had an axe in his hand, he put another into mine, and we set to work to cut away whatever would serve to form a raft.  We got hold of several spars and ropes; we had little time to spare, for we expected every moment to have the flames burst out beneath our feet.  We at last got our raft overboard.  Maka had secured some meal and a small keg of water.  We had just time to lash ourselves to the raft, when the flames burst out forward, and the ship was on fire fore and aft.

"By this time we could just distinguish a dark line in the water, which marked where the blacks were making their way towards the land.

"`Poor fellows,' said Maka.  `Very few swim so far.'

"Our case was bad enough, for even with a couple of paddles, which we managed to make while on the raft, out of some spars we had brought for the purpose, we could scarcely hope, with the breeze against us, to reach the shore.  Our water and provisions would not hold out long, and no vessel was likely to come near us.

"It was near evening when the fire broke out.  The sun went down, but the flames of the burning vessel lighted up the ocean around us, and then the full moon rose, and seemed to cheer us up a little.

"Maka talked to me about my soul, for he didn't seem to think that we should have much chance of escaping with our lives; but I begged that he would not put gloomy thoughts into my mind.  He sat and talked on; the truth is, however, I couldn't understand what he was talking about, it was all so new to me.

"Towards morning the vessel burned to the water's edge, and then the sea rushing in, down she went, and we lay floating, with only the light of the moon to cheer us.

"When the sun rose I found that we had drifted still further from the land, which was no longer in sight.

"It is not pleasant to think of the time I spent on that raft.  Several days went by, and we consumed all our meal and water.  I thought I should die, and at last was more dead than alive.  I lay on my back with my eyes shut, and a piece of wood under my head which Maka had put there to prevent the water washing over me, while he sat up by my side singing hymns, and keeping up his spirits in a way I could not have supposed possible.

"While I thus lay I heard him give a shout, and he helped me to sit up. I saw the land which I didn't suppose we were near, and a canoe with four natives close to us.  I suppose they were Christians, for instead of knocking us on the head, they took Maka and me on board, and welcomed him as a friend, giving us food and treating us very kindly in their village, to which they carried us.  We there heard that of all the savages which had been on board the brig, only thirty had reached the shore.  It's a wonder that even they managed to do it, considering the distance.  The rest had been drowned, or picked off by the sharks.

"I had had enough of carrying labourers to work for the planters of Queensland or Fiji -- kidnapping, I fancy you call it; and so I determined to remain where I was.  However, as the customs of the Christian natives didn't quite suit me, I came away here, where I took a wife and settled, and intend to remain for the rest of my days.  I am too old to knock about at sea as I used to do.  Maka went back in a missionary vessel to his native island to labour on, as he told me, and try and make the people Christians.  I hope he will succeed if he wishes it, for he is an honest fellow, I'll say that for him."

The old fellow thus brought his yarn to a close.  I am able to corroborate most of his statements, observed my young friend, for we visited many of the places he speaks of, and from the information we received I am convinced that he in no way overdraws the atrocious practices of many of the sandal-wood traders, or fellows engaged in kidnapping the natives of the Pacific Islands.  The villainous doings of the African slave trade is an old story and known to all, but as far as I can judge they do not surpass those of the kidnappers of the Pacific at the present day.  In the one case the white men merely received slaves captured by their own countrymen, and conveyed them across to the American coast; but in the Pacific we find white men, in some instances, depopulating whole islands, and capturing indiscriminately by fraud or violence, the natives of others, although nominally to labour as free men, yet in reality to be reduced to a condition little superior to real bondage.

After I had heard old Ringdon's narrative, I felt more anxious than ever to get hold of some of these kidnapping gentlemen.  When, three days afterwards, the ship standing in took me and the boat's crew off, and I told the captain what I had heard, he sent to try to induce Ringdon to come on board, and give further information which might help us in capturing some of his former acquaintances, but the old fellow was not to be moved.  Indeed, I suspect that should he have the opportunity, he would be very willing, for a sufficient consideration, to act as agent to any kidnapping skipper who might think fit to employ him.

I might mention several naval officers as well as consuls, missionaries, and respectable merchants at Sydney, Brisbane, and elsewhere, who would acknowledge that the main features of the account I have given are perfectly true, however much they might be inclined to doubt the word in ordinary matters of the old seaman who gave them to me.

It should be clearly understood that old Ringdon's narrative refers to times gone by.  The Governments of Queensland and the Fiji Islands, now annexed to England have passed enactments for the prevention of the atrocious proceedings he describes.  At the same time, as there are numerous lawless white men living on the heathen islands of the Pacific similar in character to Ringdon who would be ready to ill-treat the helpless natives if they should have the opportunity, it is important for the cause of humanity that men-of-war should continually cruise among them to preserve order and to punish delinquents.

<eob>

The Tale Of Snowball Lamb: Slumber-Town Tales

By

Arthur Scott Bailey



I

Black And White


"Hurrah!" Johnnie Green shouted. And he dashed out of the woodshed and ran to the barnyard as fast as he could scamper.

There was a good reason for his high spirits and his haste. His father had just told him he might have a lamb for a pet.

Farmer Green followed Johnnie at a slower pace. When he reached the barnyard fence Johnnie was already on the other side of it, trying to catch a certain black lamb.

Now, Johnnie Green was spry; but this black lamb was sprier. Whenever Johnnie thought he had the lamb the black rascal always managed to slip out of his clutches.

"I'll help you," said Farmer Green. And climbing the fence, he soon had the lively lamb cornered and caught.

Then Johnnie lost no time in taking his new pet in his own arms.

"I'm going to call him --  -- " Johnnie began, as his father let go of the struggling black armful.

But Johnnie Green never finished what he had started to say. The first thing he knew the lamb had squirmed out of his arms and was running up the lane.

Johnnie straightened up and gazed after him in dismay.

"I don't believe I'll call him anything," he murmured, half to himself.

Farmer Green couldn't help laughing. And then, noticing a very disappointed look on Johnnie's face, he said, "Cheer up, Johnnie! That lamb is the youngest one on the farm, but he's too big for a pet. He's a wild one. Let him run with the flock and we'll see if we can't do something to make you feel happy."

Well, Johnnie Green knew that when his father talked like that it was silly to be glum. So he cried, "All right!" And turning his back upon the black lamb, which was by this time almost up to the head of the lane, Johnnie walked back to the woodshed.

The next day, when Farmer Green came home from a drive over the hill, Johnnie shouted "Hurrah!" once more. For lying on a bit of hay in the bottom of the buggy was a white lamb no more than half as big as the lively black scamp that had got away from Johnnie the day before.

Johnnie Green didn't need to ask whose lamb this was. He knew at once that it was his own.

"Where'd you get him?" he demanded.

"At your uncle's!" his father explained.

Johnnie lifted the white lamb out of the buggy and set him down gingerly upon the ground. And the white lamb didn't try to run off. He was only a tiny thing, with a very soft coat and a very pink nose.

"I wonder if he's hungry," said Johnnie Green. "I'll get some corn and see if he wants anything."

"You'll have to feed him milk in a bottle," his father told him. "He isn't weaned yet. Bring him into the woodshed!"

In a little while Johnnie's father had found a baby's bottle, which he filled with warm milk.

Then all Johnnie had to do was to hold the bottle to his new pet's mouth. The lamb did the rest.

"I'm going to call him 'Snowball,'" Johnnie announced. And then he began to laugh.

"Look at his tail!" he shouted. "He'll switch it off if he isn't careful."

For as Snowball drank the milk he jerked his stubby tail up and down at a great rate.

Old dog Spot, who was stretched upon the woodshed threshold, gazed at Snowball with a lofty air.

"That lamb has a queer notion of the way a tail ought to be wagged," he said deep down in his throat. "He ought to wag it from side to side. But I suppose he's too young to know better."



II

A Ride To Town


Much to old dog Spot's disgust Johnnie Green and his new pet lamb soon became great friends. It wasn't long before Snowball, as Johnnie called the white lamb, followed his young master about the yard and even into the farmhouse -- when Mrs. Green wasn't looking.

It was a remark that Johnnie made about Snowball one day which caused old Spot to speak his mind plainly to the Muley Cow. Johnnie Green actually said, in Spot's hearing, "Snowball knows as much as a dog!"

"I never did have any use for sheep," Spot told the Muley Cow. "Everybody knows they're all terribly stupid. So you can imagine how I felt when Johnnie Green spoke like that to his father."

The Muley Cow chewed her cud. She had a far-off look in her eyes, as if she might be thinking about what Spot was saying -- or as if she might not. Anyhow, she did not speak.

"And to think -- " Spot growled -- "to think how I used to take care of Johnnie when he was no more than a baby! Do you suppose this lamb could take care of a baby? Do you suppose he'd pull a baby out of the mill pond? Or fight off a bull? Or kill a snake?"

The Muley Cow turned her calm face upon Spot.

"If you're jealous --  -- " she began.

"Jealous!" Spot barked. "Of course I'm not jealous. But I must say that this Snowball Lamb is very displeasing to me."

"Then why don't you --  -- " the Muley Cow began again.

"I would," Spot interrupted, "I would -- only I'm not a sheep-killer. And I don't intend to become one."

"This boy," said the Muley Cow, "he'll grow tired of that lamb. The other boys will begin to tease him because the lamb follows him about. And that will be too much for Johnnie. . . . I know boys," the Muley Cow declared.

Old dog Spot sighed. "I hope you're not mistaken," he remarked. "Time will tell. Just now anybody can see that Johnnie Green is simply crazy about that silly new pet of his."

It was only a few days later that something happened to cause old dog Spot to lose all hope.

Johnnie Green and his father hitched up the old horse Ebenezer and started for the village. Of course Spot would have followed them, under the wagon, if he had been at the barn when they left. But he wasn't. He was up in the pasture, chasing woodchucks.

Just as old Ebenezer turned the corner at the foot of the hill Johnnie Green happened to look back. And there was Snowball, following a little way behind them!

Of course it would never do to let him run all the way to the village and back. And Farmer Green didn't want to turn around and take Snowball home. So Johnnie Green jumped down and lifted Snowball into the wagon.

So he rode to the village; and then rode home again.

Johnnie Green was greatly pleased by the whole affair. And Snowball was pleased, too. As soon as he reached the farmyard he began talking about his trip to the village.

Everybody listened to Snowball with wonder. That is, everybody wondered except Henrietta Hen. She began talking in a shrill voice about her visit to the county fair. And she said spitefully to Snowball, "You'd better get out of the way before old dog Spot comes back from the pasture!"



III

Mrs. Hen Tells Tales


Old dog Spot came home from the pasture feeling quite pleased with himself. He had caught a fat woodchuck. And that was enough to make him happy.

Spot hadn't crossed the barnyard when Henrietta Hen came fluttering up to him. She was a busybody, always trying to get somebody into trouble. "Snowball went to the village with Johnnie Green and his father!" Henrietta shrieked.

"That's good news," said old dog Spot. "I've been hoping to hear something like that. We're well rid of that Snowball Lamb."

"Oh! But they brought him back with them!" Henrietta Hen explained.

Spot's face fell. "That's a pity," he said.

Henrietta Hen peered into Spot's face. There was something that she couldn't understand.

"Why aren't you angry?" she inquired in her high-pitched voice. "Don't you realize that Snowball tried to follow the wagon to the village? To be sure, they picked him up down at the corner. But I want you to know that he tried to take your place."

At that old Spot let out a howl of rage.

"I'll never go woodchuck hunting again!" he cried. "Things have come to a pretty pass if I can't leave the farmyard for a few hours without having a lamb insult me like that."

Henrietta Hen was pleased.

"I thought you'd want to know what had happened," she remarked. "And now I must add that Snowball has been boasting about his trip. Of course, his journey was nothing, compared with my visit to the county fair last year. But I don't like to hear a lamb telling about his travels. Can't you put a stop to it?"

Old dog Spot shook his head.

"For once," he said slowly, "I can't help wishing I was a sheep-killer."

"Well," said Henrietta, "you know you could try."

"It's not a question of trying," Spot told her. "My family isn't a sheep-killing one. I have to live up to the family name."

"Well," Henrietta Hen declared, "if I were you I'd join another family -- at least for a short time."

But old dog Spot declared that that wouldn't do at all. "We'll have to be patient," he said. "The Muley Cow claims that Johnnie Green will get tired of Snowball sooner or later. It may be that she is right. Let us hope so!"

"Farmer Green ought to turn that great lamb into the pasture," Henrietta Hen spluttered.

That was exactly what Mrs. Green herself thought.

"Your lamb can't come into my kitchen!" she called at that very moment. For Johnnie Green was just then entering the doorway, with Snowball at his heels.

"Thank goodness," Spot barked, "there's one person on this farm who has some sense! If it wasn't for Mrs. Green I'd be tempted to run away."

As Johnnie Green closed the door behind him, leaving Snowball upon the stone step, Snowball gave a plaintive baa-a-a!

"Ugh!" cackled Henrietta Hen. "Did you ever hear such a silly sound in all your life?"



IV

School Begins


After Snowball's trip to the village old dog Spot scarcely stirred from the farmyard. He left the woodchucks to scurry about the pasture as they pleased. For he felt that he ought to keep an eye on Snowball.

The very next time that Snowball started to follow Johnnie Green out of the yard Spot ran up to him and barked at his heels. "Go back!" Spot growled. "Don't you dare leave this yard!"

And then, to Spot's surprise, Johnnie Green picked up a stick and threatened him with it.

"You let my lamb alone!" Johnnie cried. That was bad enough, according to old dog Spot's notion. But when Johnnie shouted, "Get out!" at him, that was worse.

Spot tucked his tail between his legs and slunk away, to hide himself under the woodshed. And there he stayed for the rest of the morning and sulked.

But in the afternoon he began to feel more cheerful. For Spot had heard Mrs. Green remark that school began the next day.

That was good news. At least Spot so thought it.

"This lamb won't get much notice from Johnnie Green after to-day," Spot told Henrietta Hen. "He'll be left here in the yard. And it won't be long now before Mrs. Green tells Farmer Green to put him in the pasture with the flock. She won't have him in everybody's way. She'll get rid of him quickly. You know that when Mrs. Green makes up her mind, things generally happen to suit her."

Henrietta nodded her handsome head.

"Just what I've often told the Rooster!" she exclaimed.

Well, the following morning, as much as an hour after breakfast, Johnnie Green started up the road with some books under his arm and a lunch basket in his hand. It was the first day of school. And somehow Johnnie wasn't feeling very happy. He had dawdled about the house -- so his mother said. It appeared that he was in no hurry to leave home.

Before Johnnie had reached the barn, which stood beside the road, Mrs. Green stepped out of the house and looked at him.

"You'd better get along!" she called after him. "You don't want to be late the first day of school!"

So Johnnie Green fell into a jog trot, which he kept up all the way to the red schoolhouse.

As he came in sight of the little box-like building he saw other youngsters hurrying through the doorway. And then Johnnie ran as fast as he could.

He burst inside the schoolroom just as the school mistress tapped the little bell on her desk, which meant that everybody must stop talking, because school had begun. Johnnie Green hurried to a seat. But before he reached it all the other pupils burst into a shout.

Johnnie looked around. And there, trotting across the floor, was Snowball! He had followed Johnnie all the way from Farmer Green's barn.

It was some time before things were quiet. The teacher had to ring her little bell a good many times, and even rap upon her desk with a ruler, before the boys and girls stopped laughing. And then the teacher turned to Johnnie Green and spoke to him.

"Mary!" she said. "Is this your little lamb?"

The teacher seemed surprised because her pupils began to roar at that. But she made no attempt to silence them. She did not even try to quiet a certain boy called "Red," who made more noise than all the rest together.

Meanwhile Johnnie Green's face looked like a great red apple. And it grew several shades redder when Snowball walked up to his seat and stood close beside him.

"Don't you think -- " said the teacher after a while -- "don't you think, Mary, that you'd better take your little lamb home?"

Johnnie Green did not answer. But he hung his head as he rose and hurried out of the schoolroom, with Snowball following close behind him.

Once outside Johnnie could hear the children still laughing. And he even thought that he could hear the teacher laughing, too.

That very morning Snowball found himself turned into the pasture where Farmer Green's flock of sheep were passing the summer. And it wasn't long before the whole barnyard was filled with the noise of gossiping tongues.

"For once," said Henrietta Hen, "the Muley Cow knew what she was talking about when she said Johnnie Green would grow tired of that white lamb."

As for old dog Spot, he told everybody that he was going up to the pasture to chase woodchucks.

And as for Johnnie Green, he told his mother that he didn't believe he'd go back to school any more.

But she said he should, and that very morning.

And things generally happened the way Mrs. Green intended.



V

The Promised Treat


Snowball wasn't sorry that Johnnie Green had turned him into the pasture. He found the pasture a delightful place. He had plenty of company, for there was a whole flock of sheep with him. And not only did he soon become acquainted with them. He met other folk, such as Billy Woodchuck and Jimmy Rabbit and old Mr. Crow. And though some of the older sheep paid scant heed to so young a lamb as Snowball, Mr. Crow often went out of his way to stop and talk with him.

That was because Mr. Crow loved a bit of gossip. And he was willing to chat with anybody on the chance of picking up some interesting morsel of news.

"We're going to have a treat," Snowball informed old Mr. Crow one day.

The old gentleman cocked his head on one side and looked at Snowball.

"How do you know you are?" he demanded. He was a great one for asking questions.

"The Muley Cow told me," Snowball explained. "Down in the barn she heard Farmer Green tell Johnnie about it."

"Ah, ha!" cried Mr. Crow. "I'll have to keep an eye on things. If there's going to be a treat I must get my share of it. . . . Where's it going to be -- where do you expect to have this treat?"

"Right here in this pasture!"

"That's good!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "I'm glad of that. I can enjoy it, then. I feared it might be in the barn. And I like plenty of room if I'm to enjoy a treat properly."

Snowball began to feel a bit uneasy.

"The Muley Cow didn't say anything about your being invited," he blurted. "In fact she said that this treat was for us sheep only."

"Don't you worry about that!" the old gentleman assured him. "I know well enough that if Farmer Green didn't mention inviting me it was because he forgot it. I know he wouldn't like it if I stayed away."

Snowball began to wish he hadn't mentioned the treat to Mr. Crow. But the secret was out. And when Mr. Crow asked when the treat was going to be Snowball confessed that the Muley Cow had told him the flock would enjoy it that very day.

"Ah!" said Mr. Crow with a smirk. "Then I must stay where I can see what's going on. So I'm going to sit in that tall elm over by the stone wall. When I see the sheep begin to bunch together I'll join you at once. . . . Please bleat three times when the treat is ready, for I might be dozing."

"I will," Snowball promised.

And then Mr. Crow got ready to fly away.

"By the way," he said, pausing, "what's the treat to be?"

"The Muley Cow said she heard Farmer Green tell Johnnie to 'salt the sheep to-day,'" Snowball explained.

To his great surprise old Mr. Crow let out a deafening squawk when he heard that bit of news.

"Then I'll keep as far away from the pasture as I can get!" he cried.



VI

Mr. Crow Explains


Snowball couldn't understand old Mr. Crow's rage. Mr. Crow had invited himself to the treat that Johnnie Green was going to give the flock. But the moment the old gentleman heard that the treat was going to be salt he had squalled at the top of his hoarse voice that he was going to stay as far from the pasture as he could get.

"What's the matter?" Snowball asked Mr. Crow. "Don't you like salt?"

Mr. Crow made a wry face.

"No, I don't!" he spluttered.

"Well, just because you don't happen to care for salt is no reason for your being so angry," Snowball told him.

And then Mr. Crow almost took his breath away.

"I agree with you," he said gruffly! And Mr. Crow was a person who was never known to agree with anybody! So that was an astonishing remark for him to make.

"Then I suppose you'll get over being angry, at once," Snowball ventured.

"I won't!" Mr. Crow thundered. "And take a bit of advice, young fellow: Don't go near the salting party! It will be dangerous," he added darkly.

"Why will it be dangerous?" Snowball inquired.

The old gentleman shook his head and put on a very wise look.

"I don't believe you've ever been at a salting party," he said.

And Snowball confessed that he hadn't.

Whereat Mr. Crow nodded his head up and down several times and looked even wiser than before.

"It's lucky for you, my lad, that you told me about this affair," he declared. "For I'm going to keep you out of a peck of trouble. Don't you go near the party! Keep just as far away from it as you can! When you see Johnnie Green come inside the pasture you scramble over the stone wall and hide!" And now he shook his head.

"It's a pity -- " he sighed -- "a pity you can't fly, or climb a tree."

He was so gloomy that Snowball couldn't help feeling uncomfortable. And all he could manage to say was one word which he had hard work to stammer out. It was "W-w-why?"

"Because it's just a trick!" Mr. Crow explained. "It's a trick to catch you. This trick of salting the sheep is as old as the hills. But I suppose you're so young you never have happened to hear of it. I must say," he added, "I'm surprised that the Muley Cow didn't take the trouble to tell you all about it."

"Maybe she's too young to know about it, too," Snowball suggested.

"Young!" Mr. Crow cried with a short, mirthless laugh. "The Muley Cow's not young. She's the oldest cow on the farm. If the truth must be told, she's so old that Farmer Green wouldn't keep her if it weren't that Johnnie Green thinks she belongs to him. And he'd raise a terrible row if his father sold her."

"Are you too young to explain about this trick that you just warned me against?" Snowball asked. "I'd like to know how there can be any danger in salt. How can anybody be caught with salt?"

"Well, you are a silly!" cried Mr. Crow. "Can't you guess that Johnnie Green is going to put salt on everybody's tail?"



VII

Warning The Flock


Snowball Lamb was puzzled. He didn't understand old Mr. Crow's answer at all.

"What if Johnnie Green should put salt on my tail?" he asked Mr. Crow. "What harm would that do?"

The old gentleman stared at Snowball as if he couldn't quite believe that anybody could be so stupid.

"Haven't you ever heard that that's the way to catch people?" cried Mr. Crow at last. "Why, there isn't a boy in Pleasant Valley who doesn't know that; and many of 'em carry salt about in their pockets all the time, hoping to get a chance some day to put the salt on my tail, and capture me!" Mr. Crow's bright eyes snapped. And his bill snapped, too. For the mere thought of such scheming always made him terribly angry.

And then Snowball said something that made Mr. Crow more impatient than ever.

"I don't care if Johnnie Green does catch me," Snowball declared. "Johnnie wouldn't hurt me. We've always been great friends."

"He wouldn't, eh?" Mr. Crow retorted. "How do you know he wouldn't hurt you?"

"He never has hurt me," Snowball replied.

"Perhaps not! Perhaps not!" Mr. Crow croaked. "But you never can tell. You never can tell what a boy will do. And if you go to the salting party and get into trouble, don't say I didn't warn you!" As the old fellow flew off he looked as if all the cares in the world were weighing him down. Snowball noticed that he flew heavily. It took a great amount of flapping of his broad wings to lift him out of the pasture. And when he was well up in the air he gave a glum caw, caw as he wheeled and sailed away down the wind.

Well, Snowball couldn't help being somewhat disturbed by Mr. Crow's grave actions and his graver remarks. "I wonder," thought Snowball, "if Mr. Crow knows what he's talking about. I'll ask the flock!"

So Snowball ran down the hillside pasture to the place where the flock had gathered to graze. And to his astonishment some of the flock didn't even lift their heads from the grass when he related all that Mr. Crow had said. Those that did pause and listen to Snowball only giggled and went to feeding again. No! there was one that spoke to him. Aunt Nancy Ewe spoke up a bit tartly.

"If you're worried you'd better stay away when Johnnie Green comes to salt us," she told him. "We all expect to have a very pleasant time," she added.

"Have you ever had salt put on your tail?" Snowball asked the old lady.

"Certainly not!" she snapped. And she glared at Snowball so fiercely that he fell back several steps. "Are you trying to insult me?" she cried.

He did not answer. It was plain to him that Aunt Nancy didn't know anything about the trick of putting salt on one's tail. Yes! Mr. Crow must be wiser than she was.

"They'll all get into trouble," Snowball thought. And then he said something that was almost exactly like what Mr. Crow had said to him. "They can't say I didn't warn them!"



VIII

Salting The Sheep


Snowball Lamb stood in the pasture apart from the rest of the flock. Aunt Nancy Ewe had returned to her grazing. And not one of her companions acted as if some dreadful peril hung over him. Nobody would have thought, to look at the flock, that they were about to have salt put on their tails. But Snowball knew that it was so. Far down the valley he could hear old Mr. Crow's warning caw, caw, telling him again to beware of Johnnie Green.

And just then Johnnie squirmed through the pasture bars and pulled a sack after him. Presently he began to call to the sheep. And Snowball watched while they went, one and all, on a dead run towards the bars.

Then Snowball turned and ran the other way, straight for the stone wall. He didn't even look back once, but scrambled over the wall and lost himself in the tangle of berry bushes that grew in a rocky old pasture that hadn't been used for years.

"He's salting them by this time," Snowball muttered to himself. "Johnnie Green is salting the sheep. And I'm glad Mr. Crow warned me, for I shouldn't want salt put on my tail. It must be terrible to be caught that way."

"What's that you're saying?" said a lively voice near-by.

Snowball leaped back; then stood still and stared at a pair of antlers which stuck up from behind a berry bush.

The antlers rose a little higher. And then Snowball saw the face of Nimble Deer beneath them.

"What were you murmuring about salt?" Nimble inquired pleasantly.

"Johnnie Green is salting the sheep over in our pasture," Snowball explained.

"He is, eh?" cried Nimble Deer. "Then why aren't you there with the rest?"

Snowball shook his head.

"It's too dangerous," he said. "I don't want salt put on my tail."

Nimble Deer gave him a queer look.

"It is dangerous, while Johnnie Green is there -- or it would be dangerous if he had a gun," Nimble admitted. "But what's this you say about salt on your tail?"

"Johnnie Green is putting salt on the tail of every sheep in the flock," Snowball declared.

"That's odd," said Nimble. "I'll have to look into this matter -- after Johnnie Green has left the pasture."

Snowball did not follow Nimble as he moved nearer the stone wall. But he stood still and watched. Presently he saw Nimble leap the wall. After that Snowball could no longer see him.

It was some time later when Nimble jumped back over the wall and landed lightly on the ledge that ran alongside it. And Snowball noticed that his face wore a very cheerful look.

"Well?" said Snowball.

"That was as good salt as I ever tasted," Nimble remarked, running his tongue over his lips. "If you hurry you'll be able to get a taste even now."

"I've never eaten any salt," said Snowball.

"Then hurry, by all means!" cried Nimble Deer. "You don't know what you're missing."

"Has Johnnie gone?" Snowball inquired.

"Long ago!"

"I suppose he spilled some of the salt on the ground," said Snowball. "You know he's a very careless boy."

"He spilled heaps of it," Nimble Deer replied. "But the sheep are eating it fast."

Well, Snowball was puzzled. How could the sheep be eating salt if Johnnie Green had caught them? It was more than he could understand. But if Nimble Deer had been with them -- and come back safely -- there couldn't be any great danger.

So Snowball hurried over the stone wall and scampered down to the place near the bars, where the flock still lingered.

As Snowball joined them he saw that they were all busily eating something white that lay in little piles upon the ground.

He tasted of the stuff, carefully. It was delicious. And wasting no more time, he gobbled up all of the salt that he could get.

When it was gone Snowball turned to old Aunt Nancy Ewe.

"May I lick the salt off your tail?" he asked her politely.

She gave him a haughty stare.

"Have you no respect for your elders?" Aunt Nancy asked him severely.

"Pardon me!" said Snowball. "Maybe I'm mistaken, but Mr. Crow told me --  -- "

"Mr. Crow!" Aunt Nancy cried, before Snowball could finish. "So it's Mr. Crow that's been putting queer ideas into your head! I might have known it. After this don't ever listen to him! He's been the means of your almost missing a fine treat -- and one that doesn't come every day in the year."



IX

Circus Tricks


Johnnie Green had been to the circus. And of course he wanted to try a good many tricks that he had learned there. At first he made old dog Spot perform for him. But when he attempted to get Spot to jump through a hoop of fire the old dog refused flatly to play any more.

That was why Johnnie went to the pasture and brought Snowball Lamb back to the farmyard.

"Now, Snowball," said Johnnie Green, "I've been to the circus and seen ever so many kinds of trained animals -- horses and elephants and dogs and monkeys and seals. But I didn't see any trained lamb. If you pay attention and learn what I try to teach you maybe you and I can join the circus next year."

Snowball Lamb answered, "Baa-a-a!"

"All right!" cried Johnnie. "Now you just jump through this wooden hoop!"

But it didn't prove to be as easy as all that. Johnnie Green had to work a long, long time before he succeeded at last in teaching Snowball to obey him. And then, after Snowball jumped through the hoop in as graceful a manner as anybody could have asked for, Johnnie was not quite satisfied.

"You'll have to learn to jump through a paper hoop if we're ever going to be taken along with the circus," he told Snowball.

Again Snowball answered, "Baa-a-a!"

"All right!" said Johnnie. "I'll make some paper hoops. And to-morrow we'll see what you can do."

So back to the pasture went Snowball. And into the woodshed went Johnnie Green. There he stayed all the rest of the afternoon, knocking old barrels apart, chopping and sawing and hammering. He laid newspapers down upon the floor and trimmed them neatly with his mother's shears. He made flour paste in the kitchen. And when milking time came he had four fine hoops all covered with newspaper.

Johnnie wanted to make one more. But his father came along and happened to pick up a barrel stave, remarking that it was just the thing to make a boy jump to his work. So Johnnie decided, for some reason or other, that four hoops would be enough to practice with. Of course when he and Snowball joined the circus they would need dozens of hoops. But there wasn't really any hurry about that.

So he went for a milk pail and trotted off to the barn, where he sat down on his three-legged stool and began milking the Muley Cow.

He couldn't help thinking, as he sat there and sent streams of milk tinkling down upon the bottom of the tin pail, what a fine scheme it would be to build a hoop big enough for the Muley Cow to jump through. It ought to be easy to teach her. For everybody knew that she was a famous jumper. She made more trouble, jumping the fence, than all the rest of Farmer Green's herd.

Johnnie Green got to thinking so intently about the matter that he began to dawdle. And if there was one thing that the Muley Cow didn't like it was to have to stand still while a slow milker puttered at his work. So she suddenly gave her tail a switch and brought the end of it across Johnnie Green's cheek.

It was a stinging smack. And Johnnie Green cried, "Ouch!"

After that he stopped his day-dreaming until milking was over. And then he went back to the woodshed and gazed at the four paper hoops leaning against the woodpile.



X

The Tiger


In the same pasture with Snowball was a black lamb. He was the black lamb that Farmer Green once gave to Johnnie for a pet. But he ran away up the lane the very first time Johnnie tried to hold him in his arms.

After that the black lamb had always stayed with the flock. He was a wild, unruly fellow, bigger and older than Snowball. And he was quite outspoken -- and not always careful of his language.

This black lamb chanced to be near Snowball when Johnnie Green came into the pasture on a certain fine morning. And when Johnnie began calling to Snowball the black lamb said, "Why don't you run the other way? That's what I always do when boys call me."

Snowball made no answer. He stood and looked at Johnnie Green, who was walking towards him with outstretched hand.

"Come on!" cried the black lamb. "I'll run with you."

"No!" said Snowball. "Johnnie may have something good for me to eat. Some salt, maybe!"

"Huh!" said the black lamb. "Don't be stupid! What if he has brought you a little salt? He'll want you to jump through that hoop again for him, the way he did yesterday." Snowball had told the black lamb about the strange proceeding of the afternoon before.

"Well -- " Snowball murmured, as he hesitated, not knowing whether to obey the black lamb or Johnnie Green.

"Well! Are you coming with me?" the black lamb demanded. "I'm not going to stay here where that boy can grab me. I don't intend to spend my time jumping through any old hoop. I'm not quite so silly as to do that."

"I believe I'll let Johnnie catch me," Snowball told him. "Johnnie said something yesterday about our joining the circus. No doubt you've noticed the circus posters on the side of the barn?"

"I have," said the black lamb with something like a sneer. "No doubt you've noticed the picture of the tiger?"

"Yes, I have," Snowball admitted.

"My uncle joined a circus once," said the black lamb.

"Is that so?" cried Snowball. "Tell me -- did he enjoy it?"

"I can't say," the black lamb replied. "He never came back again. They fed him to the tiger -- so I have been told."

And then the black lamb started to run. And suddenly Snowball whisked about and followed him.

Johnnie Green wondered what had come over Snowball. Was this the pet that had once followed him all the way to school?

"I'll keep him tied up in the barn for a few days -- once I catch him," thought Johnnie. If he intended to teach circus tricks to Snowball he certainly didn't want to spend valuable time chasing him all around the pasture.

At last Johnnie Green had Snowball cornered. At last he slipped a rope about Snowball's neck. And then he led his pet towards the bars.

"Baa-a-a!" called the black lamb.

It sounded so much like a jeer that Johnnie turned around and made a face at the black rascal.

In the barnyard Johnnie brought forth a paper-covered hoop. He held it up in front of Snowball. "Jump!" he cried.

But Snowball drew back.

"Baa-a-a!" he bleated. "How do I know that there isn't a tiger behind that thing?"

"Come!" Johnnie urged him. "Jump! Jump!"

Snowball only moved further away.

And then Johnnie Green lowered the paper-covered hoop and stepped forward to grasp Snowball by his fleece.

As Johnnie's hand let the hoop fall Snowball gave a frightened blat. Staring right at him, and grinning horribly, was a tiger pasted upon the side of the barn.

Snowball turned and ran towards the gate.



XI

Cracked Corn


The next time Johnnie Green dragged Snowball into the farmyard he shut the gate carefully behind him.

"We'll never join the circus if you're going to behave like this," Johnnie told Snowball severely. "Now, you pay attention!"

He held up a bare hoop -- not a paper-covered one -- and when he said, "Jump!" Snowball showed that he had not forgotten his lesson of the afternoon before.

"That's better!" cried Johnnie Green. "Jump again!" And when Snowball jumped once more Johnnie was so pleased that he went into the chicken house and came back with a handful of cracked corn. "Here!" he said to Snowball. "There's more like it if you behave yourself."

Snowball munched his corn contentedly.

"The black lamb would like this," he thought. "I'll tell him about this corn the next time I see him. Then maybe he won't be so quick to call me stupid."

Somehow the cracked corn made Snowball forget all about the frightful picture of the tiger that grinned from the side of the barn. And at last Johnnie succeeded in getting Snowball to jump through one of the paper hoops which he had so carefully made the day before.

"There!" Johnnie cried. "You've done it at last!" And he was so delighted that he went once more to the chicken house. And this time he brought back two handfuls of cracked corn.

Unluckily, just as he came out of the chicken house he met his father going in.

"Here!" Farmer Green exclaimed. "What are you doing with my chicken feed?"

"I'm giving a little to Snowball," Johnnie told him.

"Ah!" cried Farmer Green with a sly smile. "Fattening your lamb for market, eh?"

Johnnie's face fell. "No!" he replied. "Of course not! I wouldn't sell Snowball. He's -- he's too valuable."

Farmer Green guffawed.

"He's a circus lamb!" Johnnie cried hotly. "He's learning circus tricks!"

"Well," said his father, "maybe I have some circus hens in here, for all I know. Don't you feed my corn to that lamb!"

"Can your hens jump through paper hoops?" Johnnie asked.

"Can your lamb?" demanded Farmer Green.

"Watch!" said Johnnie then. And, holding up another of the paper-covered hoops, he persuaded Snowball to leap through it neatly.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" cried Farmer Green -- whatever that may mean.

Johnnie Green thought it was a good time to ask a question.

"Mayn't I give him a little corn once in a while?" he begged.

"Oh, I suppose so," said his father. "But if you get him too fat he won't be much of a jumper."

"But jumping ought to keep him thin," Johnnie insisted.

Just then Snowball gave a plaintive bleat: "Baa-a-a-a!"

"There!" Johnnie exclaimed. "He thinks so, too!"



XII

The Accident


Snowball was quick to learn one thing. He soon found that jumping through Johnnie Green's paper-covered hoops brought him plenty of cracked corn.

No longer did Snowball run away from his young master when Johnnie entered the pasture and called to him. Nothing that the rascally black lamb said could persuade Snowball to lead Johnnie Green a chase.

Much to the black lamb's disgust Snowball would start for the bars the moment Johnnie appeared there. "Johnnie wants to give me a treat!" Snowball would exclaim. "There's cracked corn waiting for me!" And off he would go.

Strange as it may seem, Johnnie tired of the circus tricks before Snowball did. It wasn't long before several days would go by without Johnnie's once holding up a hoop for Snowball to jump through. And often Snowball would moon about the farmyard wishing that Johnnie would do that very thing.

"I hope the cracked corn isn't getting low," said Snowball to himself. And he cried, "Ba-a-a-a-a!" But Johnnie Green paid no heed to him. Though Johnnie was at that very moment in the swing he never once looked at Snowball as he roamed mournfully about.

So Snowball crossed the road and strolled up the steep bank opposite the farmhouse. And having nothing better to do he was about to stroll down again when he spied something that made him stop short.

Was that a paper-covered hoop that he saw, right there at the top of the bank? He wondered. It was round. And it was certainly covered with something that looked like paper.

For a moment Snowball thought he would walk around the hoop -- if it was one -- and examine it. He couldn't see anybody holding it up on edge. But there it was, just waiting for somebody to come along and jump through it!

"It's a hoop!" Snowball muttered to himself. "There's no doubt about that." And lowering his head he ran at the hoop -- and jumped.

There was a splitting sound and a crash, both at the same time.

Instead of bursting through a thin paper shell and clearing the hoop neatly Snowball found himself wedged inside something. Though he didn't know it, he had butted the end of a barrel, knocking in its head and plunging headlong inside it.

Meanwhile Johnnie Green had stopped swinging. He looked across the road just in time to see the barrel totter on the edge of the steep bank. Not only totter; but begin to roll down hill!

Out of the barrel stuck two woolly legs, both kicking frantically.

"What in the world --  -- " Johnnie Green exclaimed. He leaped from the swing and ran towards the strange sight. But he was too late to help.

The barrel fast gathered headway. It crossed the road like some live thing, to bring up against the farmhouse with a terrific smash.

Instantly the barrel fell into a dozen pieces as its staves caved in. And out of the wreck rose Snowball. He gave one frightened bleat. And then he tore off towards the pasture as fast as he could run. He didn't even wait to see if Johnnie Green would give him a treat of cracked corn.

As he ran he said to himself, "There may have been a tiger inside that thing. . . . I don't know! . . . I wouldn't join the circus for all the cracked corn in the world!"



XIII

Follow My Leader


There was one game of which Farmer Green's sheep never seemed to tire. They called it "Follow My Leader." And even the oldest members of the flock played it every day. Though they had grand-children -- many of them -- and were quite solemn and sedate, they still continued to run anywhere whenever somebody happened to lead the way.

You wouldn't suppose they could have enjoyed leaving good pasturage to go tearing off to goodness knows where, just because some empty-headed sheep chanced to break into a run.

When Snowball first joined the flock in the pasture he tried to do just as every one else did. So whenever he saw the flock get under way suddenly he hastened to keep up with the rest.

At first Snowball was curious to know why they were all running. But nobody could tell him the reason. And in time he ceased to wonder.

At last he decided, one day, to see if the flock would follow him. He looked about at his neighbors. They were feeding quietly.

"I hope they'll play the game when I start it," Snowball said under his breath.

And then, baaing his loudest, he began to run.

The flock stopped eating instantly. For a moment nobody moved.

"They aren't going to play!" thought Snowball.

But an old ewe suddenly wheeled about and followed him.

That was enough for the others. Out of the corner of his eye Snowball could see them all jump and come crowding after him.

He was headed for the stone wall. Beyond it lay a rough, rocky stretch of waste land, covered by a tangle of raspberry bushes.

"I wonder if they'll follow me over the wall!" Snowball muttered.

He didn't jump the wall. It was too high for that. But he scrambled over it without any trouble, for his little feet found plenty of footholds amid the jutting rocks.

Snowball had already landed on the further side of the wall when thud! thud! thud! other members of the flock came thumping down upon the ledge beside him. He moved aside a little way, because he didn't want to be stepped on.

Then, all at once, a squeaky, frightened voice cried, "What's the matter? Is there an earthquake?"

Though Snowball looked all about he couldn't see the speaker anywhere.

Meanwhile there sounded a patter, patter! patter! which came from hurrying feet in the pasture. And there sounded a click! click! click! which came from scrambling feet climbing over the wall. And there sounded further thuds which came from those same feet as they thundered down upon the ledge.

At last the slowest sheep had joined Snowball. He still searched for the squeaky voice.

"This is queer!" Snowball murmured. "I don't see where that odd voice came from!"

He soon found out. For as he picked his way to the foot of the ledge, to nibble at the grass that grew down below, he saw peering out of a hole in the ground the face of a fat old gentleman whom he had sometimes met in the pasture.

This person's name was Uncle Jerry Chuck. And he looked terribly scared. His teeth were chattering. His nose was twitching.

Somehow Uncle Jerry's fright seized Snowball, too. With a bleat of terror he turned and fled up the ledge, scurried over the wall, and ran back where he had just come from.

Like one sheep the whole flock turned tail and followed Snowball with frantic baas.



XIV

Teasing Uncle Jerry


Farmer Green's flock of sheep had followed Snowball over the stone wall and back into the pasture. And soon every one of them was grazing again as if nothing had happened.

Now, Snowball was greatly pleased. It was the first time he had ever started that game called Follow My Leader. And there wasn't a sheep nor a lamb that hadn't gone chasing after him when he showed them the way.

Snowball saw many merry games ahead of him. "I'll give them some good runs!" he promised himself.

And he did. Before that morning was over he led the flock up to the furthest corner of the pasture in a mad scramble. And before the afternoon was over he took them on a brisk run to the bars.

That made three times for the day.

On each summer's day that followed Snowball played Follow My Leader oftener than he had the day before. So it happened that by the end of a week, when evening came, the older sheep were weary from all the running they had done, all the scrambling over the stone wall. For Snowball's favorite trick was to lead the sheep over the wall and into the tangle of raspberry bushes where Uncle Jerry Chuck lived.

Snowball had soon learned that there was nothing to fear over there. He discovered that it was the noise the flock made when leaping down upon the ledge that alarmed Uncle Jerry Chuck. Drowsing in his underground chamber Uncle Jerry had thought there must be an earthquake. That was why his teeth chattered. That was why his nose twitched, when he peeped out of his doorway.

As soon as Snowball learned all this he took great pains to land upon the ledge as heavily as he could. He liked to hear Uncle Jerry Chuck's teeth chatter; he liked to see Uncle Jerry shiver; he liked the sound of Uncle Jerry's squeaky voice asking what was the matter.

So Snowball enjoyed his days in the pasture -- or in and out of it. In fact he enjoyed them more than anybody else in the flock. For the others began to grow tired of being led helter-skelter in a headlong flight. And the old folks especially became annoyed because Snowball took them so often over the stone wall.

At last the old dame known as "Aunt Nancy," all hung with great folds of thick fleece, spoke her mind plainly to Snowball himself.

"You're making a nuisance of yourself," she told him. "In all my days I never knew another youngster -- a mere lamb! -- to lead the flock. And here you're making us run our legs off every day! When I was your age we children never started a game of Follow My Leader. We followed behind the rest of the flock. We never led."

All this was a great surprise for Snowball. "D-don't you like the game?" he stammered.

"The game's all right," the old lady said. "But nobody cares to play it a dozen times a day. And nobody enjoys having to clamber over the stone wall again and again."

Snowball said nothing for a few minutes. He was thinking.

"When I run, why do you follow me if you don't wish to?" he inquired at last.

"I don't know," the old lady confessed. "Maybe I fell into the habit of following when I was young. Anyhow, I can't help myself now. I just have to go along with the others."

Poor lady!



XV

Uncle Jerry Objects


Snowball really meant to be kind to the elderly dame, Aunt Nancy, who had objected to being led on the wild goose chases in which he delighted.

"I mustn't start another game of Follow My Leader," he said to himself. "Aunt Nancy says she can't help following. And for a person of her years it must be hard work to run."

But Snowball soon learned that he had set himself a hard task. Soon afterward he found himself suddenly running. He hadn't meant to run. Yet there he was, bounding along towards the stone wall as fast as he could jump! And the whole flock was following him, with Aunt Nancy puffing hard among the stragglers, doing her best to keep up.

Over the wall went Snowball. Over the wall went all the rest. Aunt Nancy was the last to leap down upon the ledge where Snowball had stopped. And he could see that she was upset. He edged away from her. But she shouldered her friends aside (she was a huge person!) and walked straight up to him.

"You're a spoiled child," she told Snowball. "Here you've gone and led us over this wall again! And I just told you I didn't want to run anywhere -- over this wall least of all places!"

Snowball felt much ashamed.

"I -- I didn't mean to do it," he faltered. "Something set my feet a-going. I had to go along with them!"

"Is that so?" she cried in dismay. "My goodness! You've been and gone and got the habit of being leader! And you can't stop! . . . I don't know what I'm going to do!" she wailed. "There'll be nothing left of me if this keeps up. I'll be nothing but fleece and bones if I have to run so much."

Somehow her friends didn't seem alarmed. Aunt Nancy was very fat. In fact she was so very, very fat that nobody thought she could waste away. And everybody smiled a little.

But she didn't notice that. And then a squeaky voice piped up:

"Is there an earthquake?"

It was Uncle Jerry Chuck peeping out of his hole, with his teeth chattering so fast that it seemed as if they must all drop out of his mouth.

"There's no earthquake," Aunt Nancy told him. "We just jumped off the wall upon this ledge -- that's all."

"I was sure there was an earthquake," he said. "And the last quake was the worst of all."

There were more smiles then, for Aunt Nancy herself had been the last of the flock to plump down off the wall.

"I wish -- " said Uncle Jerry Chuck -- "I wish, when you folks jump the wall, you'd pick out a different place. You disturb me a dozen times a day. I'm losing lots of sleep on your account. And if I continue to lose my rest I'll be nothing but fur and bones."

Well, Uncle Jerry was fat, too. He looked as if it would do him a world of good to be thinner. But Aunt Nancy felt sorry for him.

"Whoever leads the way over the wall must pick out another spot," she declared, looking straight at Snowball as she spoke. "It's a shame to annoy this gentleman."

Everybody agreed with her good-naturedly. And Snowball said meekly that if he found himself running towards the wall he would try to turn his steps in another direction.

No one said anything more about the matter. For somebody suddenly cried, "Baa! baa!" and scrambled over the wall.

Of course the whole flock followed instantly, leaving Uncle Jerry Chuck to creep out of his hole and watch the last tail of all bob out of sight.

It was Aunt Nancy's.

"They're a queer lot," Uncle Jerry said aloud. He gave a long whistle. "I'm glad I'm not one of 'em," he added.



XVI

Aunt Nancy's Plan


All was quiet once more, after the race from the ledge near Uncle Jerry Chuck's home. The flock was feeding again. And if you hadn't noticed how Aunt Nancy Ewe puffed from her fast running you wouldn't have supposed there had just been a wild scramble over the stone wall and back.

Aunt Nancy was still feeling sorry for Uncle Jerry Chuck, whose rest had been disturbed by the thud of hoofs above his head. "Remember!" she said to Snowball sternly. "Don't go near Uncle Jerry's home again!"

"I won't!" he promised. "That is," he added, "I won't if I can help it. If I find myself running that way I may not be able to stop myself."

Now, that sort of promise wasn't enough for Aunt Nancy.

"You must turn aside!" she told Snowball. "Just make believe that there's a bear beyond the stone wall, instead of Uncle Jerry Chuck! Then -- " she said -- "then you'll turn quickly enough!"

"That's a good idea!" cried Snowball. "If only I don't forget it!"

Aunt Nancy's words never left his mind all the rest of the morning. Just thinking about bears made Snowball frightfully uneasy. Whenever one of the flock happened to stray up behind him Snowball jumped, fearing for a moment that it was a bear.

If anybody said baa in his ear he leaped to one side, expecting the baa to turn into a woof!

He began to wish that Aunt Nancy hadn't told him of her idea.

And all at once, when somebody came up behind him and gave him a nudge, Snowball started to run.

"There's a bear behind me!" he thought.

Of course the rest of the flock thought he was only playing Follow My Leader. So they followed him, every one of them.

Snowball went bounding across the pasture towards the stone wall, headed straight for the spot where Uncle Jerry Chuck had his home. When he was only a few jumps away from the wall he glanced back. He saw then that there was no bear behind him. But he did notice Aunt Nancy Ewe, doing her best to keep up with the rest. And then Snowball remembered what she had said to him. If a bear -- instead of Uncle Jerry Chuck -- lived in the hole at the foot of the ledge!

Well, that thought was enough to make Snowball swerve sharply to his right. And a few moments later he bobbed over the wall a little further up the hillside.

Just beyond the wall grew a tangle of berry bushes. And into the midst of them Snowball jumped. And out of the midst of them, right in front of him, there rose up on his hind legs -- a bear!

Snowball gave a frightened, frantic blat. The next instant he was scrambling back over the wall.

The foremost of the oncoming flock of sheep saw him. They couldn't think what had happened. Anyhow, they couldn't stop. Close behind them pressed the flock, all bunched together and hurrying blindly on.



XVII

A Terrible Mix-Up


There was a terrible mix-up. Some sheep were trying to cross the stone wall in one direction. Some were trying to cross it in the other. And in the midst of the fleecy tangle Snowball struggled in vain. He found himself face to face with Aunt Nancy Ewe, who was so huge that he couldn't budge her. He pushed and shoved until she cried out, "Where are your manners, young man?"

"I -- I don't know," Snowball stammered. "Maybe I left them in the berry bushes, with the bear."

Well, the moment she heard the word bear Aunt Nancy blatted at the top of her lungs. With a mighty heave she turned about on the top of the wall, sweeping Snowball off it as if he were nothing but a fly.

He fell backwards among the raspberry bushes, fully expecting to be eaten by the bear. He shut his eyes and held his breath, and lay with his feet in the air, waiting for the bear to seize him.

"Oh, dear!" he groaned. "I wonder if he'll begin with my head or my tail!"

Just then he felt a terrible nip at the end of his tail.

"He's begun! The bear has begun to eat me!" Snowball thought.

As for the bear, he didn't say a single word. And that seemed odd. Somehow Snowball didn't quite like it because the bear didn't exclaim how nice and tender he was. His tail was still held fast. And that was as much as Snowball knew.

At last he slowly opened his eyes. To his astonishment he saw no bear. In fact he saw nobody at all. For the last of Farmer Green's flock of sheep had vanished. And Snowball noticed, resting on the tip of his tail, a stone. Though he did not know it, the last sheep to leave had kicked it down upon him purely by accident.

Snowball gave a baa of surprise and relief. With a little effort he managed to jerk his tail from under the stone. Then he sprang to his feet. And since there was no knowing where the bear was, Snowball made all haste to get on the other side of the stone wall and join the flock of sheep once more.

When Aunt Nancy saw him she did not act half as pleased as he had expected she would.

"You got us into a pickle, young man!" she greeted him.

"It seems to me," he replied, "that you are the one that made all the trouble. If you hadn't made me jump the wall --  -- "

"If I hadn't made you --  -- " Aunt Nancy interrupted. And turning to her companions she cried, "Did you ever hear anything like that in all your days?"

And everybody said, "No!"

And then somebody asked, "Where's the bear?"

But nobody could answer that question.

The only one that could have answered it was Cuffy Bear himself. And he was way up under the mountain -- and still running.

There wasn't a sheep in the flock that had been more frightened than he.



XVIII

The Swing


As Snowball grew older he began to enjoy a fine, new sport. At least this sport was new to him. All the old rams had enjoyed it for years. But it was not until Snowball's horns began to grow that he became interested in having fun in this way.

The new sport was butting. Snowball was careful not to butt any sheep that were much bigger than he was. For instance, he never even threatened to butt the black lamb, who was some months the older of the two. And Snowball didn't butt Johnnie Green; for Snowball was fond of him.

Snowball didn't feel the same toward other boys. Other boys liked to tease him. A neighbor's boy called "Red" was the biggest tease of them all. He never missed a chance to bother Snowball -- unless Johnnie Green objected.

So it was only to be expected that Snowball should want to butt Red. More than once he had stolen up behind Red and butted him as hard as he could butt.

At first Red only laughed. But as Snowball grew bigger -- and heavier -- Red no longer found anything to laugh at in Snowball's favorite sport. Instead of laughing, Red was more likely to go to rubbing himself where Snowball had struck him.

"You'll have to get rid of this pet of yours!" Red said to Johnnie Green. "That is, you'll have to if you expect me to come to your place any longer."

"I won't get rid of Snowball," Johnnie Green declared. "It serves you right if he butts you. You've teased him too often. I don't blame Snowball at all."

"Send him away, now; or I'll go home," Red threatened.

At that Johnnie Green drove Snowball behind the barn. But he wouldn't stay there. He came trotting back to the farmyard in no time.

"Leave him alone! Don't pay any attention to him and he won't touch you!" Johnnie advised Red.

However, that young man was uneasy. But he said nothing more about the matter. And turning to the swing under the big old apple tree he cried, "Come on, Johnnie! I'll swing you."

Now, Johnnie Green had swung in that swing thousands of times. But it wasn't often anybody was willing to stand and push him until he went up, up, up, high among the leafy branches.

"All right!" he said. "None of your tricks, now!"

Red only grinned. And he began pushing Johnnie. He pushed so hard that for once Johnnie was satisfied. Once he thought the swing seat -- with him on it -- was going to turn completely over.

The whole thing was most strange. It was most unusual. Red was always ready to be swung. Never had he been willing, before, to swing anybody else. So Johnnie decided to enjoy the fun while he could. Back and forth he rode in long sweeps.

Meanwhile Snowball kept edging nearer. He was behind Red. And all the time Red kept a careful eye on him. But of this Johnnie Green saw nothing. For of course his back was turned to Red and to Snowball, too.

There was no doubt that Snowball wanted to take a hand in the sport -- or perhaps it would be better to say take a horn. Anyhow he lowered his head now and then, and shook it. And at last he stamped upon the ground.

"Hang tight, Johnnie!" Red cried. "Here comes the biggest push of all!" And he gave Johnnie a mighty shove.

Then Red waved his tattered hat almost in Snowball's face.

That was a deadly insult. At least so Snowball thought. He gathered his legs beneath him. He shot forward.

Already Johnnie Green had begun his long backward swing.

For a moment you would have thought Red was going to get caught in a tight place. Johnnie Green was almost upon him. Snowball was almost upon him.

And then Red jumped.



XIX

The Wrong Target


"Give me another push like that one!" Johnnie Green shouted from the swing.

Little did he dream that Snowball was rushing towards him from behind, rushing with head lowered in his best butting style.

Of course when the boy Red slipped out of the way there was only one thing that could happen. A moment after Johnnie shouted, Snowball struck the swing seat.

Crash! Bang! Split! A terrible cry from Johnnie Green! And a second or two later a dull thud!

The crash, bang and split came when Snowball's head met the swing seat. The thud followed when Johnnie hit the ground.

Then all was quiet, except for a low moaning from the spot where Johnnie Green lay.

Red had climbed spryly into a wagon which stood near-by. But he soon saw that he needn't have gone to that trouble. For Snowball plainly had no more butts left in him for the time being. He stood still in a dazed fashion and stared dully about him. The heavy oaken swing seat had been no soft mark to hit, sailing swiftly through the air with eighty pounds of boy upon it.

Red had given one great shout. But now he too was very quiet. He jumped out of the wagon and ran to Johnnie Green, and lifted Johnnie's head.

"Are you hurt, Johnnie?" he asked.

But it was almost a minute before Johnnie Green could speak. It was almost as long as that before he could even breathe. He lay there gasping, with his hands clutched across his stomach. His eyes rolled about in the queerest way. If Red hadn't been frightened he would have laughed in Johnnie's face.

At last Johnnie Green spoke.

"Wh-wh-what happened?" he asked in a halting whisper. "Did the ropes break?"

"No!" Red answered. "The ropes held -- though it's a wonder."

"Can't you tell me what happened?" Johnnie begged him. "If it wasn't the ropes, what was it?"

"It was Snowball," said Red. "He butted you."

"I don't believe it," cried Johnnie. "He never butted me in his whole life."

Johnnie Green was sitting up now. And since he didn't seem to be much hurt the boy Red couldn't help grinning.

"Look at that swing seat!" he exclaimed, pointing to the splintered bit of oak board near Johnnie. "You don't think -- do you? -- that I split that thing with my head?"

And then Johnnie Green just had to believe him. And Johnnie began to get angry, too.

"You must have seen Snowball coming," he growled. "Why didn't you warn me?"

Red swallowed a few times as he tried to think of a good answer.

"Well," he replied finally, "I didn't know he was going to butt you, did I? Didn't you just say yourself that he never had butted you?"

To all this Johnnie Green made no answer.

"If you ask me," Red went on more easily, "I should say you were lucky. You were lucky to have that swing seat under you."

Johnnie Green rose slowly to his feet.

"There's something queer about this," he declared.

"That's so," Red agreed. "There is. You'd just asked for another hard push. . . . And you got one -- a harder one than I could have given you. . . . So I don't see what you're complaining about."

And then he pretended that he didn't understand why Johnnie Green tried to hit him.



XX

The Swimming Hole


After the affair at the swing it was as much as a week before Johnnie Green saw anything of his neighbor Red.

It was almost a week before Snowball felt like butting anybody. Even when other sheep bullied him Snowball edged away from them; and once he would have run into them head first.

Somehow he couldn't forget that frightful jolt he had received when he knocked Johnnie Green out of the swing.

At last, however, he tried a gentle butt one day against the soft side of one of his mates. And finding only pleasure, and no pain, in the trick he became once more one of the most active butters in Farmer Green's whole flock.

Now, Johnnie Green had noticed that for a few days Snowball was unusually well behaved. And Snowball's gentleness did not please him. For Johnnie had hoped that sometime Snowball would butt the neighbor's boy Red.

So Johnnie Green began to whistle a merry tune a little later, when he chanced to see Snowball charging the hired man as he crossed the pasture.

Not long after that Johnnie Green went swimming. He found other boys at the swimming hole, which they had made by damming Broad Brook where it cut across the end of the meadow. Among the swimmers was the boy Red. It was the first time Johnnie had seen him since that day when Snowball butted Johnnie.

When Johnnie spied Red in the water he thought for a moment or two that he would find Red's clothes on the bank and tie knots in them. That was a favorite trick of Red's -- tying hard knots in other boys' clothes. Sometimes he even wet the knots, to make them harder to untie.

But Johnnie Green decided that he wouldn't knot Red's clothes. Besides, Red seemed to be keeping a watchful eye on them.

Johnnie slipped out of his own clothes quickly and soon he had dived off a flat rock and joined the boys in the swimming hole.

Red had called "Hullo!" pleasantly enough. And then Johnnie was sure he said something in an undertone to the others. Anyhow they all grinned. And one boy cried, "I didn't expect to see you down here. I thought you'd be swinging. Wouldn't you rather swing than swim?"

Johnnie Green gave a sickly smile.

"Why didn't you bring your lamb with you?" another inquired. "Doesn't he follow you any more?"

But Johnnie Green had ducked down where he couldn't hear and was swimming under water. When he came up everybody yelled at him. That is, everybody yelled except Red. He looked very innocent, as if he didn't know what the joke was.

Well, Johnnie Green had a good swim, anyhow. And the boys soon stopped teasing him. They had several swimming races, with a good deal of splashing mixed in. And there was so much fun that nobody noticed when Red crawled out upon the bank and slipped away behind the drooping willows that overhung the stream.

The boys saw him plainly enough a little while afterward. Fully dressed he stood on the bank and jeered at them. And they knew what that meant. It meant that he had tied plenty of knots in everybody's clothes.

All the boys except Johnnie Green yelled at him.

"We'll fix you when we catch you!" they cried.

As for Johnnie, he said never a word. In fact he didn't even look angry. On the contrary, he smiled. For he saw something that his friends had overlooked.

Some distance behind Red Johnnie saw the willows part. And a white face peered out.

It was Snowball's.



XXI

A Ducking


As he stood there on the great flat rock over the swimming hole Red never guessed that Snowball was behind him. But the swimmers soon noticed Snowball. And they all began to call to Red. They didn't care what they said, so long as they could keep Red so busy answering them that he wouldn't turn around and discover Snowball. They splashed about, and hooted, and on the whole made such an uproar that Red couldn't have heard the Muley Cow had she walked up behind him.

Now, there was nothing that Red enjoyed any more than a wordy battle. Whenever a boy called him a name Red hurled a worse one back at him. It seemed as if he actually took pride in making blood curdling retorts. Certainly he didn't mean to leave, so long as anybody gave him an excuse for a jibe.

Meanwhile Snowball had spied Red. And to Snowball he was a tempting sight. As Snowball drew nearer Red leaned forward with his hands upon his knees and taunted Johnnie Green: "You'd better keep that ole ram-lamb of yours out of my way! If he ever comes near me I'll --  -- "

Nobody ever found out what it was that Red meant to do. His threat stuck fast in his throat. For before he could utter it Snowball lowered his head and dashed at him. He gave Red a butt that lifted him off the rock and sent him sailing through the air with arms and legs waving wildly, to fall with a great splash into the swimming hole, where the water was deepest.

There was a howl of delight. But it did not come from Red. He was somewhere between the surface of the water and the mucky bottom.

Presently he appeared, spluttering and blowing and gasping. For once in his life Red had nothing to say in answer to the jibes and jeers of his mates.

His hat was floating near him. Johnnie Green snatched it up, scooped it full of water and clapped it upon Red's head.

Even then Red didn't say a word.

But when Snowball looked blandly down at the boys from the great flat rock and said, "Baa-a-a!" -- then Red spoke.

He spoke his mind very freely and at some length. And he dared Johnnie to come out upon the bank with him.

Johnnie Green promptly swam towards the bank where Snowball stood.

"Not that side!" cried Red. "The other one!"

But Johnnie remarked mildly that he supposed of course Red meant the side towards home. "You've got all your clothes on," said Johnnie. "You wouldn't want to have to cross the brook, later, and get them wet."

Now, since Red's clothes were as wet as clothes could be, that seemed a very stupid remark. And Red told Johnnie Green -- well, he told him a number of things. And then Red scrambled up the opposite bank from the one where Snowball stood, and started off, leaving a trail of water behind him.

Johnnie Green and his friends forsook the swimming hole and took their clothes out upon the flat rock, which was warm in the sunshine. And there they spent a pleasant time untying the knots that Red had made in them. But first the boys made Johnnie Green drive Snowball away.

"Red will catch it when he gets home," said one of them. "His father told him not to go swimming to-day."

And not one of them said he was sorry.



XXII

A Great Joke


Farmer Green played a great joke on his flock of sheep. At least that was what Snowball thought. Since he was not really one of Farmer Green's flock, but belonged to Johnnie Green, he escaped this joke himself. And that was the reason why he was able to laugh so heartily at all his companions.

The joke was this: Farmer Green and the hired man sheared the sheep. Close clipped as they were, the flock looked very odd. When Snowball caught his first glimpse of the young black ram, after Farmer Green had sheared him and turned him back into the pasture, minus his fleece, Snowball did not know him. Just for a moment Snowball thought the young black ram was a new kind of dog.

"Old dog Spot won't care for this stranger," Snowball thought. He was about to warn the stranger to leave the farm at once, when he saw that he wasn't a dog after all. For Snowball noticed that he ate grass.

"He's a queer creature. And whatever he may be, Spot's sure to dislike him. So I'll advise him to run along, anyhow," Snowball decided.

So Snowball called out, "There's an old dog on this farm that will chase you if he catches you here. You'd better go away before he finds you."

To Snowball's amazement the stranger looked at him boldly and said, "Baa-a-a!" Then, in a flash, Snowball knew that it was the voice of the young black ram, and no other.

"What's happened to you?" Snowball cried, as soon as he could speak.

"Haven't you heard the news?" the black ram asked him. "Didn't you know that Farmer Green and the hired man had begun to shear us?"

"No!" Snowball exclaimed.

"Well, they have," said the black ram. "And Farmer Green paid me the honor of shearing me himself, the first of all."

"The honor!" Snowball repeated. "I don't see why you think it's an honor. Why, you're the queerest looking animal on the farm." And he began to laugh at the black ram, and blat at him.

Now, the black ram was a peppery chap. He promptly lost his temper and stamped his feet and shook his head at Snowball.

"I'll butt you for that!" he bawled.

Once Snowball would have retreated. The black ram had always been both older and bigger than he. But now, though the black ram was still older, he looked smaller. That, of course, was because he had lost his thick fleece. He looked so much smaller that Snowball was no longer afraid of him.

For the first time since he had come to the farm to live Snowball lowered his head at the black ram. And he didn't even wait for the black ram to make the first move. Instead, Snowball charged him.

A moment later they met, head to head, with a shock that knocked Snowball off his feet.

"My goodness!" Snowball exclaimed as he picked himself up. "You're bigger than you look."

"Do you want any more?" the black ram demanded fiercely. "I've done you the honor to knock you down. Is once enough?"

Snowball thought once was even too much. He left the black ram hurriedly and ran down toward the bars.

Some very odd looking creatures were entering the pasture.



XXIII

A Mystery


As Snowball drew near the pasture bars he forgot about the blow on the head that the black ram had given him. The strange sights that greeted his eyes drove all unpleasant things out of his mind.

Snowball knew that the sheep he saw before him must be his old companions. But they were so changed, by shearing, that he couldn't tell who was who.

He stood still and stared at them and grinned.

"What amuses you, young man?" one of them asked him in a tart voice. The speaker was a big old dame. Even with her fleece closely cropped she looked undeniably fat. Yet she was wrinkled, too. And her neck had a scrawny look.

Not until she spoke did Snowball guess that this person was Aunt Nancy Ewe. The moment he heard her voice he knew her. And he couldn't help laughing right in her face.

"Don't be rude, young man!" Aunt Nancy scolded. "Anybody would think you had never seen a sheared flock before."

"I haven't," Snowball answered. "You're all so funny that I can't keep my face straight."

"Well," she said, "you'll have a chance to laugh at yourself a little later. For you'll certainly be sheared too."

Snowball turned sober instantly.

"Oh! Do you think so?" he cried.

"They'll never let you keep that fleece on all summer," Aunt Nancy declared.

She had scarcely finished speaking when Farmer Green came into the pasture. And Snowball was sure that Farmer Green looked directly at him. But before Snowball could make up his mind to run, Johnnie Green came hurrying after his father, and shouting.

"Don't touch Snowball!" he called. "Don't you shear him!"

"Why not?" his father asked him.

"Because," said Johnnie, "I want to shear him myself. He belongs to me."

"Very well!" his father replied. "Now we're here we may as well catch him. And you can begin shearing him. It will probably take you all day, because you've never sheared a sheep before."

"I don't want to shear him now," said Johnnie. "I'm going fishing to-day. I'll do it to-morrow."

Then Farmer Green and Johnnie went away. And they hadn't passed the bars when a great uproar broke out. The whole flock crowded around Snowball. And everybody except him said, "Baa!"

"He laughs best who laughs last," Aunt Nancy remarked to him. "To-morrow we'll laugh best -- at you!"

But Snowball stood his ground and shook his head.

"I'm not going to be sheared," he declared. "I guess you don't know what Johnnie Green's 'to-morrow' means. . . . It means 'never!'"

Snowball really thought he was right about that.

The next morning he found that he had been mistaken. For Johnnie Green came and cornered -- and caught -- him. And amid a chorus of baas Johnnie led Snowball to the barn.

"Let's wait at the bars until Johnnie brings Snowball back!" cried the young black ram, who bad knocked Snowball down the day before. "We want to give him a good welcome when he comes back without his fleece."

"It's useless to wait," said Aunt Nancy. "You know Farmer Green said it would take Johnnie all day to shear him."

Along toward noon the black ram came hurrying to the upper end of the pasture, where most of the sheep were feeding.

"Snowball's here!" he blatted. "And he's sheared, too!"

And just then Aunt Nancy Ewe came puffing and panting to join the others.

"Snowball's back in the pasture!" she gasped. "And he isn't sheared at all!"

Well, nobody knew what to think of that.



XXIV

Half And Half


All the sheep in the pasture hurried down the hillside toward the bars to look at Snowball. And soon dozens of disputes might have been heard: "He is!" "He isn't!" "He's sheared!" "He's not!" About half the flock were sure Johnnie Green had sheared Snowball; while the other half were just as sure that Snowball still wore his fleece.

At last Aunt Nancy Ewe went close to Snowball and walked all the way around him. And when she joined her friends she announced that she had solved the mystery.

"Snowball is sheared on one side only!" she exclaimed.

It was true. And the moment the flock learned what had happened they set up a deafening baaing. "Baa-ha-ha-ha-ha!" they laughed. "Now who's a sight?" they asked Snowball. "Now who looks funny?"

Poor Snowball couldn't say a word. He hung his head. For he was terribly ashamed of his appearance.

"It's not my fault," he wailed at last. "When Johnnie Green had me half sheared that horrid boy Red came along and asked Johnnie to go fishing. And you know Johnnie Green! He can't miss a fishing trip. . . . He said he'd finish shearing me to-morrow."

"Ha!" cried Aunt Nancy Ewe. And she flung at Snowball the very words he had used the day before. "Johnnie Green's 'to-morrow' means 'never!'"

"Oh! I hope not!" cried Snowball. "That would be awful!"

Somehow Snowball managed to get through that first dreadful day. But the following day he gave up all hope; for Johnnie Green never came near him. Nor did he come the next day, nor the next, nor the next.

Little by little the sheep stopped teasing Snowball. Little by little he became used to having one side of him sheared and the other side thick with fleece.

For some time he tried to keep as much out of sight as possible, grazing along the stone wall where he could bury himself in the bushes whenever one of the flock strayed near him. Or if he couldn't hide, he took pains to stand so that only one side of him should show.

It was a long while before his neighbors stopped smiling when they saw him. But finally there were only two in the flock that couldn't seem to forget how ridiculous Snowball looked. These were the young black ram and old Aunt Nancy Ewe. And perhaps they can't be blamed, because Snowball had once openly made fun of them. When they were near him Snowball was very uncomfortable. But with the rest of the flock he felt more at his ease. And sometimes he even went so far as to say that he enjoyed being half sheared.

"On a cool day I find it pleasant to turn my clipped side toward the sun," he would remark. "And if there's a chilly wind I don't have to shiver. I let it blow against my fleecy side; and I never feel it."

In two weeks Snowball was claiming that he preferred to be only half sheared.

Maybe that was true. Maybe he was only trying to make himself think it was. Anyhow, when Johnnie Green came into the pasture one day and called to him Snowball bounded down the grassy slope toward the bars.

And when he came back to the pasture, some time later, he didn't look very different from his companions. One side of him, however, showed a pinkish tinge, because Johnnie Green had just sheared that side very close. And the fleece on his other side had already begun to grow out a bit.

But Snowball didn't mind that. He had a pink nose, always. And he said that pink was his favorite color.

And never again did he laugh at anybody, no matter how queer a person might look.

<eob>

The Mabinogion

By

Lady Charlott



The Lady Of The Fountain.


King Arthur {15} was at Caerlleon upon Usk; and one day he sat in his chamber; and with him were Owain the son of Urien, and Kynon the son of Clydno, and Kai the son of Kyner; and Gwenhwyvar and her hand-maidens at needlework by the window.  And if it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur's palace, there was none.  Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr was there, acting as porter, to welcome guests and strangers, and to receive them with honour, and to inform them of the manners and customs of the Court; and to direct those who came to the Hall or to the presence chamber, and those who came to take up their lodging. {16}

In the centre of the chamber king Arthur sat, upon a seat of green rushes, over which was spread a covering of flame-coloured satin; and a cushion of red satin was under his elbow.

Then Arthur spoke, "If I thought you would not disparage me," said he, "I would sleep while I wait for my repast; and you can entertain one another with relating tales, and can obtain a flagon of mead and some meat from Kai."  And the King went to sleep.  And Kynon the son of Clydno asked Kai for that which Arthur had promised them.  "I too will have the good tale which he promised to me," said Kai.  "Nay," answered Kynon, "fairer will it be for thee to fulfil Arthur's behest in the first place, and then we will tell thee the best tale that we know."  So Kai went to the kitchen and to the mead-cellar, and returned, bearing a flagon of mead, and a golden goblet, and a handful of skewers upon which were broiled collops of meat.  Then they ate the collops and began to drink the mead.  "Now" said Kai, "it is time for you to give me my story."  "Kynon," said Owain, "do thou pay to Kai the tale that is his due."  "Truly," said Kynon, "thou art older, and are a better teller of tales, and hast seen more marvellous things than I; do thou therefore pay Kai his tale."  "Begin thyself," quoth Owain, "with the best that thou knowest."  "I will do so," answered Kynon.

"I was the only son of my mother and father; and I was exceedingly aspiring, and my daring was very great.  I thought there was no enterprise in the world too mighty for me, and after I had achieved all the adventures that were in my own country, {17a} I equipped myself, and set forth to journey through deserts, and distant regions.  And at length it chanced that I came to the fairest valley in the world, wherein were trees of equal growth; and a river ran through the valley, and a path was by the side of the river.  And I followed the path until mid-day, and continued my journey along the remainder of the valley until the evening; and at the extremity of a plain I came to a large and lustrous Castle, at the foot of which was a torrent.  And I approached the Castle, and there I beheld two youths, with yellow curling hair, each with a frontlet of gold upon his head, and clad in a garment of yellow satin; and they had gold clasps upon their insteps.  In the hand of each of them was an ivory bow, strung with the sinews of the stag; and their arrows had their shafts of the bone of the whale, and were winged with peacock's feathers. The shafts also had golden heads.  And they had daggers with blades of gold, and with hilts of the bone of the whale.  And they were shooting their daggers.

"And a little way from them, I saw a man {17b} in the prime of life, with his beard newly shorn, clad in a robe and a mantle of yellow satin; and round the top of his mantle was a band of gold lace.  On his feet were shoes of variegated leather, fastened by two bosses of gold.  When I saw him, I went towards him and saluted him; and such was his courtesy, that he no sooner received my greeting than he returned it. {18a}  And he went with me towards the Castle.  Now there were no dwellers in the Castle, except those who were in one hall.  And there I saw four and twenty damsels, embroidering satin, at a window.  And this I tell thee, Kai, that {18b} the least fair of them was fairer than the fairest maid thou didst ever behold, in the Island of Britain; and the least lovely of them was more lovely than Gwenhwyvar, the wife of Arthur, when she appeared loveliest at the Offering, on the day of the Nativity, or at the feast of Easter. {18c}  They rose up at my coming, and six of them took my horse, and divested me of my armour; and six others took my arms, and washed them in a vessel, until they were perfectly bright.  And the third six spread cloths upon the tables, and prepared meat.  And the fourth six took off my soiled garments, and placed others upon me; namely, an under vest and a doublet of fine linen, and a robe, and a surcoat, and a mantle of yellow satin, and a broad gold band upon the mantle.  And they placed cushions both beneath and around me, with coverings of red linen.  And I sat down.  Now the six maidens who had taken my horse, unharnessed him, as well as if they had been the best Squires in the Island of Britain. Then, behold, they brought bowls of silver wherein was water to wash; and towels of linen, some green and some white; and I washed.  And in a little while the man sat down to the table. {19a}  And I sat next to him, and below me sat all the maidens, except those who waited on us.  And the table was of silver; and the cloths upon the table were of linen.  And no vessel was served upon the table that was not either of gold, or of silver, or of buffalo horn.  And our meat was brought to us.  And verily, Kai, I saw there every sort of meat, and every sort of liquor, that I ever saw elsewhere; but the meat and the liquors were better served there, than I ever saw them in any other place.

"Until the repast was half over, neither the man nor any one of the damsels spoke a single word to me; but when the man perceived that it would be more agreeable to me to converse than to eat any more, he began to enquire of me who I was.  I said I was glad to find that there was some one who would discourse with me, and that it was not considered so great a crime at that Court, for people to hold converse together. 'Chieftain,' said the man, 'we would have talked to thee sooner, but we feared to disturb thee during thy repast.  Now, however, we will discourse.'  Then I told the man who I was, and what was the cause of my journey.  And said that I was seeking whether any one was superior to me, or whether I could gain the mastery over all.  The man looked upon me, and he smiled, and said, 'If I did not fear to distress thee too much, {19b} I would shew thee that which thou seekest.'  Upon this I became anxious and sorrowful; and when the man perceived it, he said, 'If thou wouldst rather that I should shew thee thy disadvantage, than thine advantage, I will do so.  Sleep here to-night, and in the morning, arise early, and take the road upwards through the valley, until thou reachest the wood, through which thou camest hither.  A little way within the wood, thou wilt meet with a road, branching off to the right; by which thou must proceed, until thou comest to a large sheltered glade, with a mound in the centre.  And thou wilt see a black man of great stature, on the top of the mound; he is not smaller in size than two of the men of this world.  He has but one foot, and one eye, in the middle of his forehead.  And he has a club of iron, and it is certain that there are no two men in the world, who would not find their burden in that club.  And he is not a comely man, but on the contrary he is exceedingly ill favoured; and he is the woodward of that wood.  And thou wilt see a thousand wild animals, grazing around him.  Enquire of him the way out of the glade, and he will reply to thee briefly, {20} and will point out the road, by which thou shalt find that which thou art in quest of.'

"And long seemed the night to me.  And the next morning I arose, and equipped myself, and mounted my horse, and proceeded straight through the valley, to the wood, and I followed the crossroad which the man had pointed out to me, till at length I arrived at the glade.  And there was I three times more astonished at the number of wild animals that I beheld, than the man had said I should be.  And the black man was there, sitting upon the top of the mound.  Huge of stature as the man had told me that he was, I found him to exceed by far the description he had given me of him.  As for the iron club, which the man had told me was a burden for two men, I am certain, Kai, that it would be a heavy weight for four warriors to lift.  And this was in the black man's hand.  And he only spoke to me in answer to my questions. {21a}  Then I asked him what power he held over those animals.  'I will shew thee, little man,' said he.  And he took his club in his hand, and with it he struck a stag a great blow, so that he brayed vehemently, and at his braying, the animals came together, as numerous as the stars in the sky, so that it was difficult for me to find room in the glade, to stand among them.  There were serpents, and dragons, and divers sorts of animals.  And he looked at them, and bade them go and feed.  And they bowed their heads, and did him homage, as vassals to their lord.

"Then the black man said to me, 'Seest thou now, little man, what power I hold over these animals?'  Then I enquired of him the way; and he became very rough in his manner to me; however he asked me whither I would go. And when I had told him who I was, and what I sought, he directed me. 'Take,' said he, 'that path that leads towards the head of the glade, and ascend the wooded steep, until thou comest to its summit; and there thou wilt find an open space, like to a large valley, and in the midst of it a tall tree, whose branches are greener than the greenest pine trees.  Under this tree is a fountain, and by the side of the fountain, a marble slab, and on the marble slab a silver bowl, attached by a chain of silver, so that it may not be carried away. {21b}  Take the bowl, and throw a bowlful of water upon the slab, and thou wilt hear a mighty peal of thunder; so that thou wilt think that heaven and earth are trembling with its fury.  With the thunder there will come a shower so severe, that it will be scarcely possible for thee to endure it and live.  And the shower will be of hailstones.  And after the shower, the weather will become fair; but every leaf that was upon the tree will have been carried away by the shower.  Then a flight of birds will come and alight upon the tree; and in thine own country thou didst never hear a strain so sweet, as that which they will sing.  And at the moment thou art most delighted with the song of the birds, thou wilt hear a murmuring and complaining coming towards thee along the valley.  And thou wilt see a knight upon a coal black horse, clothed in black velvet, and with a pennon of black linen upon his lance, and he will ride unto thee to encounter thee, with the utmost speed.  If thou fleest from him he will overtake thee, and if thou abidest there, as sure as thou art a mounted knight, he will leave thee on foot.  And if thou dost not find trouble in that adventure, thou needst not seek it during the rest of thy life.'

"So I journeyed on, until I reached the summit of the steep.  And there I found every thing, as the black man had described it to me.  And I went up to the tree, and beneath it I saw the fountain, and by its side the marble slab; and the silver bowl, fastened by the chain.  Then I took the bowl, and cast a bowlful of water upon the slab; and thereupon behold the thunder came, much more violent than the black man had led me to expect; and after the thunder came the shower; and of a truth I tell thee, Kai, that there is neither man nor beast that could endure that shower and live.  For not one of those hailstones would be stopped either by the flesh, or by the skin, until it had reached the bone.  I turned my horse's flanks towards the shower, and placed the beak of my shield over his head and neck, while I held the upper part of it over my own head. And thus I withstood the shower.  When I looked on the tree, there was not a single leaf upon it, and then the sky became clear; and with that, behold the birds lighted upon the tree, and sang.  And truly, Kai, I never heard any melody equal to that, either before or since.  And when I was most charmed with listening to the birds, lo, a murmuring voice was heard through the valley, approaching me, and saying, 'Oh, Knight, what has brought thee hither?  What evil have I done to thee, that thou shouldest act towards me and my possessions, as thou hast this day?  Dost thou not know that the shower to-day has left in my dominions neither man nor beast alive, that was exposed to it?'  And thereupon, behold a Knight on a black horse appeared, clothed in jet black velvet, and with a tabard of black linen about him.  And we charged each other; and as the onset was furious, it was not long before I was overthrown.  Then the Knight passed the shaft of his lance through the bridle rein of my horse, and rode off with the two horses; leaving me where I was.  And he did not even bestow so much notice upon me, as to imprison me, nor did he despoil me of my arms.  So I returned along the road by which I had come.  And when I reached the glade where the black man was, I confess to thee, Kai, it is a marvel that I did not melt down into a liquid pool, through the shame that I felt at the black man's derision.  And that night I came to the same Castle, where I had spent the night preceding.  And I was more agreeably entertained that night, than I had been the night before; and I was better feasted, and I conversed freely with the inmates of the Castle; and none of them alluded to my expedition to the fountain, neither did I mention it to any.  And I remained there that night.  When I arose on the morrow, I found ready saddled a dark-bay palfrey, with nostrils as red as scarlet.  And after putting on my armour, and leaving there my blessing, I returned to my own Court.  And that horse I still possess, and he is in the stable yonder.  And I declare that I would not part with him for the best palfrey in the Island of Britain.

"Now of a truth, Kai, no man ever before confessed to an adventure so much to his own discredit; and verily it seems strange to me, that neither before nor since have I heard of any person, besides myself, who knew of this adventure, and that the subject of it should exist within King Arthur's dominions, without any other person lighting upon it."

"Now," quoth Owain, "would it not be well to go and endeavour to discover that place?"

"By the hand of my friend," said Kai, "often dost thou utter that with thy tongue, which thou wouldest not make good with thy deeds."

"In very truth," said Gwenhwyvar, "it were better thou wert hanged, Kai, than to use such uncourteous speech towards a man like Owain."

"By the hand of my friend, good Lady," said Kai, "thy praise of Owain is not greater than mine."

With that Arthur awoke, and asked if he had not been sleeping a little.

"Yes, Lord," answered Owain, "thou hast slept awhile."

"Is it time for us to go to meat?"

"It is, Lord," said Owain.

Then the horn for washing was sounded, and the King and all his household sat down to eat.  And when the meal was ended, Owain withdrew to his lodging, and made ready his horse and his arms.

On the morrow, with the dawn of day, he put on his armour, and mounted his charger, and travelled through distant lands, and over desert mountains.  And at length he arrived at the valley which Kynon had described to him; and he was certain that it was the same that he sought. And journeying along the valley, by the side of the river, he followed its course till he came to the plain, and within sight of the Castle. When he approached the Castle, he saw the youths shooting their daggers, in the place where Kynon had seen them; and the yellow man, to whom the Castle belonged, standing hard by.  And no sooner had Owain saluted the yellow man, than he was saluted by him in return.

And he went forward towards the Castle, and there he saw the chamber; and when he had entered the chamber, he beheld the maidens working at satin embroidery, in chairs of gold.  And their beauty, and their comeliness seemed to Owain far greater than Kynon had represented to him.  And they arose to wait upon Owain, as they had done to Kynon.  And the meal which they set before him, gave more satisfaction to Owain than it had done to Kynon.

About the middle of the repast the yellow man asked Owain the object of his journey.  And Owain made it known to him, and said, "I am in quest of the Knight who guards the fountain."  Upon this, the yellow man smiled, and said that he was as loth to point out that adventure to Owain as he had been to Kynon.  However he described the whole to Owain, and they retired to rest.

The next morning Owain found his horse made ready for him by the damsels, and he set forward and came to the glade where the black man was.  And the stature of the black man seemed more wonderful to Owain, than it had done to Kynon, and Owain asked of him his road, and he showed it to him. And Owain followed the road, as Kynon had done, till he came to the green tree; and he beheld the fountain, and the slab beside the fountain with the bowl upon it.  And Owain took the bowl, and threw a bowlful of water upon the slab.  And lo, the thunder was heard, and after the thunder came the shower, much more violent than Kynon had described, and after the shower, the sky became bright.  And when Owain looked at the tree, there was not one leaf upon it.  And immediately the birds came, and settled upon the tree, and sang.  And when their song was most pleasing to Owain, he beheld a Knight coming towards him through the valley, and he prepared to receive him; and encountered him violently.  Having broken both their lances, they drew their swords, and fought blade to blade.  Then Owain struck the Knight a blow through his helmet, head piece and visor, and through the skin, and the flesh, and the bone, until it wounded the very brain.  Then the black Knight felt that he had received a mortal wound, upon which he turned his horse's head, and fled.  And Owain pursued him, and followed close upon him, although he was not near enough to strike him with his sword.  Thereupon Owain descried a vast and resplendent Castle.  And they came to the Castle gate.  And the black Knight was allowed to enter, and the portcullis was let fall upon Owain; and it struck his horse behind the saddle, and cut him in two, and carried away the rowels of the spurs that were upon Owain's heels.  And the portcullis descended to the floor.  And the rowels of the spurs and part of the horse were without, and Owain, with the other part of the horse remained between the two gates, and the inner gate was closed, so that Owain could not go thence; and Owain was in a perplexing situation.  And while he was in this state, he could see through an aperture in the gate, a street facing him, with a row of houses on each side.  And he beheld a maiden, with yellow curling hair, and a frontlet of gold upon her head; and she was clad in a dress of yellow satin, and on her feet were shoes of variegated leather.  And she approached the gate, and desired that it should be opened.  "Heaven knows, Lady," said Owain, "it is no more possible for me to open to thee from hence, than it is for thee to set me free."  "Truly," said the damsel, "it is very sad that thou canst not be released, and every woman ought to succour thee, for I never saw one more faithful in the service of ladies than thou.  As a friend thou art the most sincere, and as a lover the most devoted.  Therefore," quoth she, "whatever is in my power to do for thy release, I will do it.  Take this ring and put it on thy finger, with the stone inside thy hand; and close thy hand upon the stone.  And as long as thou concealest it, it will conceal thee.  When they have consulted together, they will come forth to fetch thee, in order to put thee to death; {27} and they will be much grieved that they cannot find thee.  And I will await thee on the horseblock yonder; and thou wilt be able to see me, though I cannot see thee; therefore come and place thy hand upon my shoulder, that I may know that thou art near me.  And by the way that I go hence, do thou accompany me."

Then she went away from Owain, and he did all that the maiden had told him.  And the people of the Castle came to seek Owain, to put him to death, and when they found nothing but the half of his horse, they were sorely grieved.

And Owain vanished from among them, and went to the maiden, and placed his hand upon her shoulder, whereupon she set off, and Owain followed her, until they came to the door of a large and beautiful chamber, and the maiden opened it, and they went in, and closed the door.  And Owain looked around the chamber, and behold there was not even a single nail in it, that was not painted with gorgeous colours; and there was not a single panel, that had not sundry images {28} in gold portrayed upon it.

The maiden kindled a fire, and took water in a silver bowl, and put a towel of white linen on her shoulder, and gave Owain water to wash.  Then she placed before him a silver table, inlaid with gold; upon which was a cloth of yellow linen; and she brought him food.  And of a truth, Owain never saw any kind of meat that was not there in abundance, but it was better cooked there, than he ever found it in any other place.  Nor did he ever see so excellent a display of meat and drink as there.  And there was not one vessel from which he was served, that was not of gold, or of silver.  And Owain ate and drank, until late in the afternoon, when lo, they heard a mighty clamour in the Castle; and Owain asked the maiden what that outcry was.  "They are administering extreme unction," said she, "to the Nobleman who owns the Castle."  And Owain went to sleep.

The couch which the maiden had prepared for him was meet for Arthur himself; it was of scarlet, and fur, and satin, and sendall, and fine linen.  In the middle of the night they heard a woeful outcry.  "What outcry again is this?" said Owain.  "The Nobleman who owned the Castle is now dead," said the maiden.  And a little after daybreak, they heard an exceeding loud clamour and wailing.  And Owain asked the maiden what was the cause of it.  "They are bearing to the church, the body of the Nobleman who owned the Castle."

And Owain rose up, and clothed himself, and opened a window of the chamber, and looked towards the Castle; and he could see neither the bounds, nor the extent of the hosts that filled the streets.  And they were fully armed; and a vast number of women were with them, both on horseback, and on foot; and all the ecclesiastics in the city, singing. And it seemed to Owain that the sky resounded with the vehemence of their cries, and with the noise of the trumpets, and with the singing of the ecclesiastics. {29a}  In the midst of the throng, he beheld the bier, over which was a veil of white linen; and wax tapers were burning beside, and around it, and none that supported the bier was lower in rank than a powerful {29b} Baron.

Never did Owain see an assemblage so gorgeous with satin, and silk, and sendall.  And following the train, he beheld a lady with yellow hair falling over her shoulders, and stained with blood; and about her a dress of yellow satin, which was torn.  Upon her feet were shoes of variegated leather.  And it was a marvel that the ends of her fingers were not bruised, from the violence with which she smote her hands together.  Truly she would have been the fairest lady Owain ever saw, had she been in her usual guise.  And her cry was louder than the shout of the men, or the clamour of the trumpets. {30}  No sooner had he beheld the lady, than he became inflamed with her love, so that it took entire possession of him.

Then he enquired of the maiden who the lady was.  "Heaven knows," replied the maiden, "she may be said to be the fairest, and the most chaste, and the most liberal, and the wisest, and the most noble of women.  And she is my mistress; and she is called the Countess of the Fountain, the wife of him whom thou didst slay yesterday."  "Verily," said Owain, "she is the woman that I love best."  "Verily," said the maiden, "she shall also love thee not a little."

And with that the maid arose, and kindled a fire, and filled a pot with water, and placed it to warm; and she brought a towel of white linen, and placed it around Owain's neck; and she took a goblet of ivory, and a silver basin, and filled them with warm water, wherewith she washed Owain's head.  Then she opened a wooden casket, and drew forth a razor, whose haft was of ivory, and upon which were two rivets of gold.  And she shaved his beard, and she dried his head, and his throat, with the towel. Then she rose up from before Owain, and brought him to eat.  And truly Owain had never so good a meal, nor was he ever so well served.

When he had finished his repast, the maiden arranged his couch.  "Come here," said she, "and sleep, and I will go and woo for thee."  And Owain went to sleep, and the maiden shut the door of the chamber after her, and went towards the Castle.  When she came there, she found nothing but mourning, and sorrow; and the Countess in her chamber could not bear the sight of any one through grief.  Luned came and saluted her, but the Countess answered her not.  And the maiden bent down towards her, and said, "What aileth thee, that thou answerest no one to-day?"  "Luned," said the Countess, "what change hath befallen thee, that thou hast not come to visit me in my grief?  It was wrong in thee, and I having made thee rich; it was wrong in thee that thou didst not come to see me in my distress.  That was wrong in thee."  "Truly," said Luned, "I thought thy good sense was greater than I find it to be.  Is it well for thee to mourn after that good man, or for anything else, that thou canst not have?"  "I declare to heaven," said the Countess, "that in the whole world there is not a man equal to him."  "Not so," said Luned, "for an ugly man would be as good as, or better than he." {31}  "I declare to heaven," said the Countess, "that were it not repugnant to me to cause to be put to death one whom I have brought up, I would have thee executed, for making such a comparison to me.  As it is, I will banish thee."  "I am glad," said Luned, "that thou hast no other cause to do so, than that I would have been of service to thee when thou didst not know what was to thine advantage.  And henceforth evil betide whichever of us shall make the first advance towards reconciliation to the other; whether I should seek an invitation from thee, or thou of thine own accord shouldest seek to invite me."

With that Luned went forth; and the Countess arose and followed her to the door of the chamber, and began coughing loudly.  And when Luned looked back, the Countess beckoned to her; and she returned to the Countess.  "In truth," said the Countess, "evil is thy disposition; but if thou knowest what is to my advantage, declare it to me."  "I will do so," quoth she.

"Thou knowest that except by warfare and arms it is impossible for thee to preserve thy possessions; delay not, therefore, to seek some one who can defend them."  "And how can I do that?" said the Countess.  "I will tell thee," said Luned, "unless thou canst defend the fountain, thou canst not maintain thy dominions; and no one can defend the fountain, except it be a knight of Arthur's household; and I will go to Arthur's court, and ill betide me, if I return thence without a warrior who can guard the fountain, as well as, or even better than, he who defended it formerly."  "That will be hard to perform," said the Countess.  "Go, however, and make proof of that which thou hast promised."

Luned set out, under the pretence of going to Arthur's court; but she went back to the chamber where she had left Owain; and she tarried there with him as long as it might have taken her to have travelled to the Court of King Arthur.  And at the end of that time, she apparelled herself, and went to visit the Countess.  And the Countess was much rejoiced when she saw her, and enquired what news she brought from the Court.  "I bring thee the best of news," said Luned, "for I have compassed the object of my mission.  When wilt thou, that I should present to thee the chieftain who has come with me hither?"  "Bring him here to visit me to-morrow, at mid-day," said the Countess, "and I will cause the town to be assembled by that time."

And Luned returned home.  And the next day, at noon, Owain arrayed himself in a coat, and a surcoat, and a mantle of yellow satin, upon which was a broad band of gold lace; and on his feet were high shoes of variegated leather, which were fastened by golden clasps, in the form of lions.  And they proceeded to the chamber of the Countess.

Right glad was the Countess of their coming.  And she gazed steadfastly upon Owain, and said, "Luned, this knight has not the look of a traveller."  "What harm is there in that, Lady?" said Luned.  "I am certain," said the Countess, "that no other man than this, chased the soul from the body of my lord."  "So much the better for thee, Lady," said Luned, "for had he not been stronger than thy lord, he could not have deprived him of life.  There is no remedy for that which is past, be it as it may."  "Go back to thine abode," said the Countess, "and I will take counsel."

The next day, the Countess caused all her subjects to assemble, and shewed them that her Earldom was left defenceless, and that it could not be protected but with horse and arms, and military skill.  "Therefore," said she, "this is what I offer for your choice: either let one of you take me, or give your consent for me to take a husband from elsewhere, to defend my dominions."

So they came to the determination, that it was better that she should have permission to marry some one from elsewhere; and thereupon she sent for the Bishops and Archbishops, to celebrate her nuptials with Owain. And the men of the Earldom did Owain homage.

And Owain defended the Fountain with lance and sword.  And this is the manner in which he defended it.  Whensoever a knight came there, he overthrew him, and sold him for his full worth.  And what he thus gained, he divided among his Barons, and his Knights; and no man in the whole world could be more beloved than he was by his subjects.  And it was thus for the space of three years.

It befell that as Gwalchmai went forth one day with King Arthur, he perceived him to be very sad and sorrowful.  And Gwalchmai was much grieved to see Arthur in this state; and he questioned him, saying, "Oh my Lord! what has befallen thee?"  "In sooth, Gwalchmai," said Arthur, "I am grieved concerning Owain, whom I have lost these three years; and I shall certainly die, if the fourth year passes without my seeing him.  Now I am sure, that it is through the tale which Kynon the son of Clydno related, that I have lost Owain."  "There is no need for thee," said Gwalchmai, "to summon to arms thy whole dominions, on that account; for thou thyself, and the men of thy household, will be able to avenge Owain, if he be slain; or to set him free, if he be in prison; and if alive, to bring him back with thee."  And it was settled, according to what Gwalchmai had said.

Then Arthur and the men of his household prepared to go and seek Owain; and their number was three thousand, beside their attendants.  And Kynon the son of Clydno acted as their guide.  And Arthur came to the Castle, where Kynon had been before.  And when he came there the youths were shooting in the same place, and the yellow man was standing hard by.  When the yellow man saw Arthur, he greeted him, and invited him to the Castle. And Arthur accepted his invitation, and they entered the Castle together. And great as was the number of his retinue, their presence was scarcely observed in the Castle, so vast was its extent.  And the maidens rose up to wait on them.  And the service of the maidens appeared to them all to excel any attendance they had ever met with; and even the pages who had charge of the horses, were no worse served, that night, than Arthur himself would have been, in his own Palace.

The next morning, Arthur set out thence, with Kynon for his guide, and came to the place where the black man was.  And the stature of the black man was more surprising to Arthur, than it had been represented to him. And they came to the top of the wooded steep, and traversed the valley, till they reached the green tree; where they saw the fountain, and the bowl and the slab.  And upon that, Kai came to Arthur, and spoke to him. "My Lord," said he, "I know the meaning of all this, and my request is, that thou wilt permit me to throw the water on the slab, and to receive the first advantage that may befall."  And Arthur gave him leave.

Then Kai threw a bowlful of water upon the slab, and immediately there came the thunder, and after the thunder the shower.  And such a thunderstorm they had never known before.  And many of the attendants who were in Arthur's train were killed by the shower.  After the shower had ceased, the sky became clear.  And on looking at the tree, they beheld it completely leafless.  Then the birds descended upon the tree.  And the song of the birds was far sweeter than any strain they had ever heard before.  Then they beheld a Knight, on a coal-black horse, clothed in black satin, coming rapidly towards them.  And Kai met him and encountered him, and it was not long before Kai was overthrown.  And the Knight withdrew. {36}  And Arthur and his host encamped for the night.

And when they arose in the morning, they perceived the signal of combat upon the lance of the Knight; and Kai came to Arthur, and spoke to him. "My Lord," said he, "though I was overthrown yesterday, if it seem good to thee, I would gladly meet the Knight again to-day."  "Thou mayst do so," said Arthur.  And Kai went towards the Knight.  And on the spot he overthrew Kai, {37a} and struck him with the head of his lance in the forehead, so that it broke his helmet and the headpiece, and pierced the skin, and the flesh, the breadth of the spearhead, even to the bone.  And Kai returned to his companions.

After this, all the household of Arthur went forth, one after the other, to combat the Knight, until there was not one that was not overthrown by him, except Arthur and Gwalchmai.  And Arthur armed himself to encounter the Knight.  "Oh, my lord," said Gwalchmai, "permit me to fight with him first."  And Arthur permitted him.  And he went forth to meet the Knight, having over himself and his horse, a satin robe of honour which had been sent him by the daughter of the Earl of Rhangyw, and in this dress he was not known by any of the host.  And they charged each other, and fought all that day until the evening.  And neither of them was able to unhorse the other.

The next day they fought with strong lances; and neither of them could obtain the mastery.

And the third day they fought with exceeding strong lances.  And they were increased with rage, and fought furiously, even until noon.  And they gave each other such a shock, that the girths of their horses were broken, so that they fell over their horses' cruppers to the ground.  And they rose up speedily, and drew their swords, and resumed the combat. {37b}  And the multitude that witnessed the encounter felt assured that they had never before seen two men so valiant, or so powerful.  And had it been midnight, it would have been light from the fire that flashed from their weapons.  And the Knight gave Gwalchmai a blow that turned his helmet from off his face, so that the Knight knew that it was Gwalchmai. Then Owain said, "My lord Gwalchmai, I did not know thee for my cousin, owing to the robe of honour, that enveloped thee; take my sword and my arms."  Said Gwalchmai, "Thou, Owain, art the victor; take thou my sword."  And with that Arthur saw that they were conversing, and advanced towards them.  "My lord Arthur," said Gwalchmai, "here is Owain, who has vanquished me, and will not take my arms."  "My lord," said Owain, "it is he that has vanquished me, and he will not take my sword."  "Give me your swords," said Arthur, "and then neither of you has vanquished the other." Then Owain put his arms around Arthur's neck, and they embraced.  And all the host hurried forward to see Owain, and to embrace him.  And there was nigh being a loss of life, so great was the press.

And they retired that night, and the next day Arthur prepared to depart. "My lord," said Owain, "this is not well of thee.  For I have been absent from thee these three years, {38} and during all that time, up to this very day, I have been preparing a banquet for thee, knowing that thou wouldest come to seek me.  Tarry with me therefore, until thou and thy attendants have recovered the fatigues of the journey, and have been anointed."

And they all proceeded to the Castle of the Countess of the Fountain, and the banquet which had been three years preparing was consumed in three months.  Never had they a more delicious or agreeable banquet.  And Arthur prepared to depart.  Then he sent an embassy to the Countess, to beseech her to permit Owain to go with him, for the space of three months, that he might shew him to the nobles, and the fair dames of the Island of Britain.  And the Countess gave her consent, although it was very painful to her.  So Owain came with Arthur to the Island of Britain. And when he was once more amongst his kindred and friends, he remained three years, instead of three months, with them.

* * * * *

And as Owain one day sat at meat, in the City of Caerlleon upon Usk, behold a damsel entered, upon a bay horse, with a curling mane, and covered with foam; and the bridle, and as much as was seen of the saddle, were of gold.  And the damsel was arrayed in a dress of yellow satin.  And she went up to Owain, and took the ring from off his hand.  "Thus," said she, "shall be treated the deceiver, the traitor, the faithless, the disgraced, and the beardless." {39}  And she turned her horse's head, and departed.

Then his adventure came to Owain's remembrance, and he was sorrowful.  And having finished eating, he went to his own abode, and made preparations that night.  And the next day he arose, but did not go to the Court, but wandered to the distant parts of the earth, and to uncultivated mountains.  And he remained there until all his apparel was worn out, and his body was wasted away, and his hair was grown long.  And he went about with the wild beasts, and fed with them, until they became familiar with him.  But at length he grew so weak, that he could no longer bear them company.  Then he descended from the mountains to the valley, and came to a park, that was the fairest in the world, and belonged to a widowed Countess.

One day the Countess and her maidens went forth to walk by a lake, that was in the middle of the park.  And they saw the form of a man.  And they were terrified.  Nevertheless they went near him, and touched him, and looked at him.  And they saw that there was life in him, though he was exhausted by the heat of the sun.  And the Countess returned to the Castle, and took a flask full of precious ointment, and gave it to one of her maidens.  "Go with this," said she, "and take with thee yonder horse, and clothing, and place them near the man we saw just now.  And anoint him with this balsam, near his heart; and if there is life in him, he will arise, through the efficacy of this balsam.  Then watch what he will do."

And the maiden departed from her, and poured the whole of the balsam upon Owain, and left the horse and the garments hard by, and went a little way off, and hid herself, to watch him.  In a short time she saw him begin to move his arms; and he arose up, and looked at his person, and became ashamed of the unseemliness of his appearance.  Then he perceived the horse and the garments, that were near him.  And he crept forward till he was able to draw the garments to him from off the saddle.  And he clothed himself, and with difficulty mounted the horse.  Then the damsel discovered herself to him, and saluted him.  And he was rejoiced when he saw her, and enquired of her, what land and what territory that was. "Truly," said the maiden, "a widowed Countess owns yonder Castle; at the death of her husband, he left her two Earldoms, but at this day she has but this one dwelling that has not been wrested from her, by a young Earl, who is her neighbour, because she refused to become his wife." "That is pity," said Owain.  And he and the maiden proceeded to the Castle; and he alighted there, and the maiden conducted him to a pleasant chamber, and kindled a fire, and left him.

And the maiden came to the Countess, and gave the flask into her hand. "Ha! maiden," said the Countess, "where is all the balsam?"  "Have I not used it all?" said she.  "Oh, maiden," said the Countess, "I cannot easily forgive thee this; it is sad for me to have wasted seven-score pounds' worth of precious ointment, upon a stranger whom I know not. However, maiden, wait thou upon him, until he is quite recovered."

And the maiden did so, and furnished him with meat and drink, and fire, and lodging, and medicaments, until he was well again.  And in three months he was restored to his former guise, and became even more comely, than he had ever been before.

One day Owain heard a great tumult, and a sound of arms in the Castle, and he enquired of the maiden the cause thereof.  "The Earl," said she, "whom I mentioned to thee, has come before the Castle, with a numerous army, to subdue the Countess."  And Owain enquired of her whether the Countess had a horse and arms, in her possession.  "She has the best in the world," said the maiden.  "Wilt thou go and request the loan of a horse and arms for me," said Owain, "that I may go and look at this army?"  "I will," said the maiden.

And she came to the Countess, and told her what Owain had said.  And the Countess laughed.  "Truly," said she, "I will even give him a horse and arms, for ever; such a horse and such arms, had he never yet, and I am glad that they should be taken by him to-day, lest my enemies should have them against my will to-morrow.  Yet I know not what he would do with them."

The Countess bade them bring out a beautiful black steed, upon which was a beechen saddle, and a suit of armour, for man and horse.  And Owain armed himself, and mounted the horse, and went forth, attended by two pages completely equipped, with horses and arms.  And when they came near to the Earl's army, they could see neither its extent, nor its extremity. And Owain asked the pages in which troop the Earl was.  "In yonder troop," said they, "in which are four yellow standards.  Two of them are before, and two behind him."  "Now," said Owain, "do you return and await me near the portal of the Castle."  So they returned, and Owain pressed forward, until he met the Earl.  And Owain drew him completely out of his saddle, and turned his horse's head towards the Castle, and, though it was with difficulty, he brought the Earl to the portal, where the pages awaited him.  And in they came.  And Owain presented the Earl as a gift to the Countess.  And said to her, "Behold a requittal to thee for thy blessed balsam."

The army encamped around the Castle.  And the Earl restored to the Countess the two Earldoms, he had taken from her, as a ransom for his life; and for his freedom, he gave her the half of his own dominions, and all his gold, and his silver, and his jewels, besides hostages.

And Owain took his departure.  And the Countess and all her subjects besought him to remain, but Owain chose rather to wander through distant lands and deserts.

And as he journeyed, he heard a loud yelling in a wood.  And it was repeated a second and a third time.  And Owain went towards the spot, and behold a huge craggy mound, in the middle of the wood; on the side of which was a grey rock.  And there was a cleft in the rock, and a serpent was within the cleft.  And near the rock, stood a black lion, and every time the lion sought to go thence, the serpent darted towards him to attack him.  And Owain unsheathed his sword, and drew near to the rock; and as the serpent sprung out, he struck him with his sword, and cut him in two.  And he dried his sword, and went on his way, as before.  But behold the lion followed him, and played about him, as though it had been a greyhound, that he had reared.

They proceeded thus throughout the day, until the evening.  And when it was time for Owain to take his rest, he dismounted, and turned his horse loose in a flat and wooded meadow.  And he struck fire, and when the fire was kindled, the lion brought him fuel enough to last for three nights. And the lion disappeared.  And presently the lion returned, bearing a fine large roebuck.  And he threw it down before Owain, who went towards the fire with it.

And Owain took the roebuck, and skinned it, and placed collops of its flesh upon skewers, around the fire.  The rest of the buck he gave to the lion to devour.  While he was doing this, he heard a deep sigh near him, and a second, and a third.  And Owain called out to know whether the sigh he heard proceeded from a mortal; and he received answer, that it did. "Who art thou?" said Owain.  "Truly," said the voice, "I am Luned, the hand-maiden of the Countess of the Fountain."  "And what dost thou here?" said Owain.  "I am imprisoned," said she, "on account of the knight who came from Arthur's Court, and married the Countess.  And he staid a short time with her, but he afterwards departed for the Court of Arthur, and he has not returned since.  And he was the friend I loved best in the world. And two of the pages of the Countess's chamber, traduced him, and called him a deceiver.  And I told them that they two were not a match for him alone.  So they imprisoned me in the stone vault, and said that I should be put to death, unless he came himself, to deliver me, by a certain day; and that is no further off, than the day after to-morrow.  And I have no one to send to seek him for me.  And his name is Owain the son of Urien." "And art thou certain, that if that knight knew all this, he would come to thy rescue?"  "I am most certain of it," said she.

When the collops were cooked, Owain divided them into two parts, between himself and the maiden; and after they had eaten, they talked together until the day dawned.  And the next morning Owain enquired of the damsel, if there was any place where he could get food and entertainment for that night.  "There is, lord," said she; "cross over yonder, and go along the side of the river, and in a short time, thou wilt see a great Castle, in which are many towers.  And the Earl who owns that Castle, is the most hospitable man in the world.  There thou mayest spend the night."

Never did sentinel keep stricter watch over his lord, than the lion that night over Owain.

And Owain accoutred his horse, and passed across by the ford, and came in the sight of the Castle.  And he entered it, and was honourably received. And his horse was well cared for, and plenty of fodder was placed before him.  Then the lion went and laid down in the horse's manger; so that none of the people of the Castle dared to approach him.  The treatment which Owain met with there, was such as he had never known elsewhere, for every one was as sorrowful, as though death had been upon him. {45}  And they went to meat.  And the Earl sat upon one side of Owain; and on the other side his only daughter.  And Owain had never seen any more lovely than she.  Then the lion came and placed himself between Owain's feet, and he fed him with every kind of food, that he took himself.  And he never saw any thing equal to the sadness of the people.

In the middle of the repast, the Earl began to bid Owain welcome.  "Then," said Owain, "behold it is time for thee to be cheerful."  "Heaven knows," said the Earl, "that it is not thy coming that makes us sorrowful, but we have cause enough for sadness and care."  "What is that?" said Owain.  "I have two sons," replied the Earl, "and yesterday they went to the mountains to hunt.  Now there is on the mountain a monster, who kills men and devours them.  And he seized my sons.  And to-morrow is the time he has fixed to be here, and he threatens that he will then slay my sons before my eyes, unless I will deliver into his hands this my daughter. {46a}  He has the form of a man, but in stature he is no less than a giant."

"Truly," said Owain, "that is lamentable.  And which wilt thou do?" "Heaven knows," said the Earl, "it will be better that my sons should be slain, against my will, than I should voluntarily give up my daughter to him to ill-treat and destroy."  Then they talked about other things, and Owain staid there that night.

The next morning, they heard an exceeding great clamour, which was caused by the coming of the giant, with the two youths.  And the Earl was anxious both to protect his Castle, and to release his two sons. {46b} Then Owain put on his armour, and went forth to encounter the giant; and the lion followed him.  And when the giant saw that Owain was armed, he rushed towards him, and attacked him.  And the lion fought with the giant, much more fiercely than Owain did.

"Truly," said the giant, "I should find no difficulty in fighting with thee, were it not for the animal that is with thee."  Upon that Owain took the lion back to the Castle, and shut the gate upon him.  And then he returned to fight the giant, as before.  And the lion roared very loud, for he heard that it went hard with Owain.  And he climbed up, till he reached the top of the Earl's Hall; and thence he got to the top of the Castle, and he sprang down from the walls, and went and joined Owain. And the lion gave the giant a stroke with his paw, which tore him from his shoulder to his hip, and his heart was laid bare.  And the giant fell down dead.  Then Owain restored the two youths to their father.

The Earl besought Owain to remain with him, and he would not, but set forward towards the meadow, where Luned was.  And when he came there, he saw a great fire kindled, and two youths with beautiful curling auburn hair, were leading the maiden to cast her into the fire.  And Owain asked them what charge they had against her.  And they told him of the compact {47} that was between them; as the maiden had done the night before. "And," said they, "Owain has failed her, therefore we are taking her to be burnt."  "Truly," said Owain, "he is a good knight, and if he knew that the maiden was in such peril, I marvel that he came not to her rescue.  But if you will accept me in his stead, I will do battle with you."  "We will," said the youths, "by him who made us."

And they attacked Owain, and he was hard beset by them.  And with that the lion came to Owain's assistance; and they two got the better of the young men.  And they said to him, "Chieftain, it was not agreed that we should fight, save with thyself alone, and it is harder for us to contend with yonder animal, than with thee."  And Owain put the lion in the place where the maiden had been imprisoned, and blocked up the door with stones.  And he went to fight with the young men as before.  But Owain had not his usual strength, {48} and the two youths pressed hard upon him.  And the lion roared incessantly at seeing Owain in trouble.  And he burst through the wall, until he found a way out, and rushed upon the young men, and instantly slew them.  So Luned was saved from being burned.

Then Owain returned with Luned, to the dominions of the Countess of the Fountain.  And when he went thence, he took the Countess with him to Arthur's Court, and she was his wife as long as she lived.

And they took the road that led to the Court of the savage black man.  And Owain fought with him, and the lion did not quit Owain, until he had vanquished him.  And when he reached the Court of the savage black man, he entered the hall: and beheld four and twenty ladies, the fairest that could be seen.  And the garments which they had on, were not worth four and twenty pence.  And they were as sorrowful as death.  And Owain asked them the cause of their sadness.  And they said, "We are the daughters of Earls, and we all came here, with our husbands, whom we dearly loved.  And we were received with honour and rejoicing.  And we were thrown into a state of stupor, and while we were thus, the demon who owns this Castle, slew all our husbands, and took from us our horses, and our raiment, and our gold, and our silver.  And the corpses of our husbands are still in this house, and many others with them.  And this, Chieftain, is the cause of our grief, and we are sorry that thou art come hither, lest harm should befall thee."

And Owain was grieved, when he heard this.  And he went forth from the Castle, and he beheld a Knight approaching him, who saluted him, in a friendly and cheerful manner, as if he had been a brother.  And this was the savage black man.  "In very sooth," said Owain, "it is not to seek thy friendship that I am here."  "In sooth," said he, "thou shalt not find it then."  And with that they charged each other, and fought furiously.  And Owain overcame him, and bound his hands behind his back. Then the black savage besought Owain to spare his life, and spoke thus, "My lord Owain," said he, "it was foretold, that thou shouldst come hither and vanquish me, and thou hast done so.  I was a robber here, and my house was a house of spoil.  But grant me my life, and I will become the keeper of an Hospice, and I will maintain this house as an Hospice for weak and for strong, as long as I live, for the good of thy soul." And Owain accepted the proposal of him, and remained there that night.

And the next day he took the four and twenty ladies, and their horses, and their raiment, and what they possessed of goods, and jewels, and proceeded with them to Arthur's Court.  And if Arthur was rejoiced when he saw him, after he had lost him the first time, his joy was now much greater.  And of those ladies, such as wished to remain in Arthur's Court, remained there; and such as wished to depart, departed.

And thenceforward Owain dwelt at Arthur's Court, greatly beloved as the head of his household, until he went away with his followers; and those were the army of three hundred ravens which Kenverchyn had left him.  And wherever Owain went with these, he was victorious.

And this is the tale of THE LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN.




Peredur The Son Of Evrawc.


Earl Evrawc owned the Earldom of the North.  And he had seven sons.  And Evrawc maintained himself not so much by his own possessions as by attending tournaments, and wars, and combats.  And, as it often befalls those who join in encounters and wars, he was slain, and six of his sons likewise.  Now the name of his seventh son was Peredur, and he was the youngest of them.  And he was not of an age to go to wars and encounters, otherwise he might have been slain as his father and brothers.  His mother was a scheming and thoughtful woman, and she was very solicitous concerning this her only son and his {52} possessions.  So she took counsel with herself to leave the inhabited country, and to flee to the deserts and unfrequented wildernesses.  And she permitted none to bear her company thither but women and boys, and spiritless men, who were both unaccustomed and unequal to war and fighting.  And none dared to bring either horses or arms where her son was, lest he should set his mind upon them.  And the youth went daily to divert himself in the forest, by flinging sticks and staves.  And one day he saw his mother's flock of goats, and near the goats two hinds were standing.  And he marvelled greatly that these two should be without horns, while the others had them.  And he thought they had long run wild and on that account they had lost their horns.  And by activity and swiftness of foot, he drove the hinds and the goats together into the house which there was for the goats at the extremity of the forest.  Then Peredur returned to his mother. "Ah, mother," said he, "a marvellous thing have I seen in the wood; two of thy goats have run wild, and lost their horns; through their having been so long missing in the wood.  And no man had ever more trouble than I had to drive them in."  Then they all arose and went to see.  And when they beheld the hinds, they were greatly astonished.

And one day they saw three knights coming along the horse-road on the borders of the forest.  And the three knights were Gwalchmai the son of Gwyar, and Geneir Gwystyl, and Owain the son of Urien.  And Owain kept on the track of the knight who had divided the apples in Arthur's Court, whom they were in pursuit of.  "Mother," said Peredur, "what are those yonder?"  "They are angels, my son," said she.  "By my faith," said Peredur, "I will go and become an angel with them."  And Peredur went to the road, and met them.  "Tell me, good soul," said Owain, "sawest thou a knight pass this way, either to-day or yesterday?"  "I know not," answered he, "what a knight is."  "Such an one as I am," said Owain.  "If thou wilt tell me what I ask thee, I will tell thee that which thou askest me."  "Gladly will I do so," replied Owain.  "What is this?" demanded Peredur, concerning the saddle.  "It is a saddle," said Owain. Then he asked about all the accoutrements which he saw upon the men, and the horses, and the arms, and what they were for, and how they were used. And Owain shewed him all these things fully, and told him what use was made of them.  "Go forward," said Peredur, "for I saw such an one as thou enquirest for, and I will follow thee."

Then Peredur returned to his mother and her company, and he said to her, "Mother, those were not angels, but honourable knights."  Then his mother swooned away.  And Peredur went to the place where they kept the horses that carried firewood, and that brought meat and drink from the inhabited country to the desert.  And he took a bony piebald horse, which seemed to him the strongest of them.  And he pressed a pack into the form of a saddle, and with twisted twigs he imitated the trappings which he had seen upon the horses.  And when Peredur came again to his mother, the Countess had recovered from her swoon.  "My son," said she, "desirest thou to ride forth?"  "Yes, with thy leave," said he.  "Wait then, that I may counsel thee before thou goest."  "Willingly," he answered, "speak quickly."  "Go forward," then she said, "to the Court of Arthur, where there are the best, and the boldest, and the most bountiful of men.  And wherever thou seest a church, repeat there thy Paternoster unto it.  And if thou see meat and drink, and hast need of them, and none have the kindness or the courtesy to give them to thee, take them thyself.  If thou hear an outcry, proceed towards it, especially if it be the outcry of a woman.  If thou see a fair jewel, possess thyself of it, and give it to another, for thus thou shalt obtain praise.  If thou see a fair woman, pay thy court to her, whether she will or no; for thus thou wilt render thyself a better and more esteemed man than thou wast before."

After this discourse, Peredur mounted the horse, and taking a handful of sharp pointed forks in his hand, he rode forth.  And he journeyed two days and two nights in the woody wildernesses, and in desert places, without food and without drink.  And then he came to a vast wild wood, and far within the wood he saw a fair even glade, and in the glade he saw a tent, and seeming to him to be a church, he repeated his Paternoster to the tent.  And he went towards it, and the door of the tent was open.  And a golden chair was near the door.  And on the chair sat a lovely auburn- haired maiden, with a golden frontlet on her forehead, and sparkling stones in the frontlet, and with a large gold ring on her hand.  And Peredur dismounted, and entered the tent.  And the maiden was glad at his coming, and bade him welcome.  At the entrance of the tent he saw food, and two flasks full of wine, and two loaves of fine wheaten flour, and collops of the flesh of the wild boar.  "My mother told me," said Peredur, "wheresoever I saw meat and drink, to take it."  "Take the meat and welcome, chieftain," said she.  So Peredur took half of the meat and of the liquor himself, and left the rest to the maiden.  And when Peredur had finished eating, he bent upon his knee before the maiden.  "My mother," said he, "told me, wheresoever I saw a fair jewel, to take it." "Do so, my soul," said she.  So Peredur took the ring.  And he mounted his horse, and proceeded on his journey.

After this, behold the knight came, to whom the tent belonged; and he was the Lord of the Glade.  And he saw the track of the horse, and he said to the maiden, "Tell me who has been here since I departed."  "A man," said she, "of wonderful demeanour."  And she described to him what Peredur's appearance and conduct had been.  "Tell me," said he, "did he offer thee any wrong?"  "No," answered the maiden, "by my faith, he harmed me not." "By my faith, I do not believe thee; and until I can meet with him, and revenge the insult he has done me, and wreak my vengeance upon him, thou shalt not remain two nights in the same house."  And the knight arose, and set forth to seek Peredur.

Meanwhile Peredur journeyed on towards Arthur's Court.  And before he reached it, another knight had been there, who gave a ring of thick gold at the door of the gate for holding his horse, and went into the Hall where Arthur and his household, and Gwenhwyvar and her maidens, were assembled.  And the page of the chamber was serving Gwenhwyvar with a golden goblet.  Then the knight dashed the liquor that was therein upon her face, and upon her stomacher, and gave her a violent blow on the face, and said, "If any have the boldness to dispute this goblet with me, and to avenge the insult to Gwenhwyvar, let him follow me to the meadow, and there I will await him."  So the knight took his horse, and rode to the meadow.  And all the household hung down their heads, lest any of them should be requested to go and avenge the insult to Gwenhwyvar.  For it seemed to them, that no one would have ventured on so daring an outrage, unless he possessed such powers, through magic or charms, that none could be able to take vengeance upon him.  Then, behold Peredur entered the Hall, upon the bony piebald horse, with the uncouth trappings upon it; and in this way he traversed the whole length of the Hall. {56} In the centre of the Hall stood Kai.  "Tell me, tall man," said Peredur, "is that Arthur, yonder?"  "What wouldest thou with Arthur?" asked Kai. "My mother told me to go to Arthur, and receive the honour of knighthood."  "By my faith," said he, "thou art all too meanly equipped with horse and with arms."  Thereupon he was perceived by all the household, and they threw sticks at him.  Then, behold, a dwarf came forward.  He had already been a year at Arthur's Court, both he and a female dwarf.  They had craved harbourage of Arthur, and had obtained it; and during the whole year, neither of them had spoken a single word to any one.  When the dwarf beheld Peredur, "Ha ha!" said he, "the welcome of Heaven be unto thee, goodly Peredur, son of Evrawc, the chief of warriors, and flower of knighthood."  "Truly," said Kai, "thou art ill- taught to remain a year mute at Arthur's Court, with choice of society; and now, before the face of Arthur and all his household, to call out, and declare such a man as this the chief of warriors, and the flower of knighthood."  And he gave him such a box on the ear, that he fell senseless to the ground.  Then exclaimed the female dwarf, "Ha ha! goodly Peredur, son of Evrawc; the welcome of Heaven be unto thee, flower of knights, and light of chivalry."  "Of a truth, maiden," said Kai, "thou art ill-bred to remain mute for a year at the Court of Arthur and then to speak as thou dost of such a man as this."  And Kai kicked her with his foot, so that she fell to the ground senseless.  "Tall man," said Peredur, "show me which is Arthur."  "Hold thy peace," said Kai, "and go after the knight who went hence to the meadow, and take from him the goblet, and overthrow him, and possess thyself of his horse and arms, and then thou shalt receive the order of knighthood."  "I will do so, tall man," said Peredur.  So he turned his horse's head towards the meadow. And when he came there, the knight was riding up and down, proud of his strength, and valour, and noble mien.  "Tell me," said the knight, "didst thou see any one coming after me from the Court?"  "The tall man that was there," said he, "desired me to come, and overthrow thee, and to take from thee the goblet, and thy horse and thy armour for myself." "Silence," said the knight; "go back to the Court, and tell Arthur, from me, either to come himself, or to send some other to fight with me; and unless he do so quickly, I will not wait for him."  "By my faith," said Peredur, "choose thou whether it shall be willingly or unwillingly, but I will have the horse, and the arms, and the goblet."  And upon this the knight ran at him furiously, and struck him a violent blow {58} with the shaft of his spear, between the neck and the shoulder.  "Ha ha! lad," said Peredur, "my mother's servants were not used to play with me in this wise; therefore, thus will I play with thee."  And thereupon he struck him with a sharp pointed fork, and it hit him in the eye, and came out at the back of his neck, so that he instantly fell down lifeless.

"Verily," said Owain the son of Urien to Kai, "thou wert ill advised, when thou didst send that madman after the knight, for one of two things must befall him.  He must either be overthrown, or slain.  If he is overthrown by the knight, he will be counted by him to be an honourable person of the Court, and an eternal disgrace will it be to Arthur and his warriors.  And if he is slain, the disgrace will be the same, and moreover, his sin will be upon him; therefore will I go to see what has befallen him."  So Owain went to the meadow, and he found Peredur dragging the man about.  "What art thou doing thus?" said Owain.  "This iron coat," said Peredur, "will never come from off him; not by my efforts, at any rate." {59a}  And Owain unfastened his armour and his clothes.  "Here, my good soul," said he, "is a horse and armour better than thine.  Take them joyfully, and come with me to Arthur, to receive the order of knighthood, for thou dost merit it."  "May I never shew my face again, if I go," said Peredur, "but take thou the goblet to Gwenhwyvar, and tell Arthur, that wherever I am, I will be his vassal, and will do him what profit and service I am able.  And say that I will not come to his Court, until I have encountered the tall man that is there, to avenge the injury he did to the dwarf and dwarfess."  And Owain went back to the Court, and related all these things to Arthur and Gwenhwyvar, and to all the household. {59b}

And Peredur rode forward.  And as he proceeded, behold a knight met him. "Whence comest thou?" said the knight.  "I come from Arthur's Court," said Peredur.  "Art thou one of his men?" asked he.  "Yes, by my faith," he answered.  "A good service, truly, is that of Arthur."  "Wherefore sayest thou so?" said Peredur.  "I will tell thee," said he, "I have always been Arthur's enemy, and all such of his men as I have ever encountered, I have slain."  And without further parlance, they fought, and it was not long before Peredur brought him to the ground, over his horse's crupper.  Then the knight besought his mercy.  "Mercy thou shalt have," said Peredur, "if thou wilt make oath to me, that thou wilt go to Arthur's Court, and tell him that it was I that overthrew thee, for the honour of his service; and say that I will never come to the Court, until I have avenged the insult offered to the dwarf and dwarfess."  The knight pledged him his faith of this, and proceeded to the Court of Arthur, and said as he had promised, and conveyed the threat to Kai.

And Peredur rode forward.  And within that week he encountered sixteen knights, and overthrew them all shamefully.  And they all went to Arthur's Court, taking with them the same message which the first knight had conveyed from Peredur, and the same threat which he had sent to Kai. And thereupon Kai was reproved by Arthur; and Kai was greatly grieved thereat.

And Peredur rode forward.  And he came to a vast and desert wood, on the confines of which was a lake.  And on the other side was a fair castle. And on the border of the lake he saw a venerable hoary-headed man sitting upon a velvet cushion, and having a garment of velvet upon him.  And his attendants were fishing in the lake.  When the hoary-headed man beheld Peredur approaching, he arose, and went towards the castle.  And the old man was lame.  Peredur rode to the palace, and the door was open, and he entered the hall.  And there was the hoary-headed man sitting on a cushion, and a large blazing fire burning before him.  And the household and the company arose to meet Peredur, and disarrayed him.  And the man asked the youth to sit on the cushion; and they sat down, and conversed together.  When it was time, the tables were laid, and they went to meat. And when they had finished their meal, the man enquired of Peredur, if he knew well how to fight with the sword.  "I know not," said Peredur, "but were I to be taught, doubtless I should."  "Whoever can play well with the cudgel and shield, will also be able to fight with a sword."  And the man had two sons; the one had yellow hair, and the other auburn.  "Arise, youth," said he, "and play with the cudgel and the shield."  And so did they.  "Tell me, my soul," said the man, "which of the youths thinkest thou plays best?"  "I think," said Peredur, "that the yellow-haired youth could draw blood from the other, if he chose."  "Arise thou, my life, and take the cudgel and the shield from the hand of the youth with the auburn hair, and draw blood from the yellow-haired youth, if thou canst."  So Peredur arose, and went to play with the yellow-haired youth; and he lifted up his arm, and struck him such a mighty blow, that his brow fell over his eye, and the blood flowed forth.  "Ah, my life," said the man, "come now, and sit down, for thou wilt become the best fighter with the sword of any in this island; and I am thy uncle, thy mother's brother. And with me shalt thou remain a space, in order to learn the manners and customs of different countries, and courtesy, and gentleness, and noble bearing.  Leave, then, the habits and the discourse of thy mother, and I will be thy teacher; and I will raise thee to the rank of knight from this time forward.  And thus do thou.  If thou seest aught to cause thee wonder, ask not the meaning of it; if no one has the courtesy to inform thee, the reproach will not fall upon thee, but upon me that am thy teacher."  And they had abundance of honour and service.  And when it was time, they went to sleep.  At the break of day, Peredur arose, and took his horse, and with his uncle's permission, he rode forth.  And he came to a vast desert wood, and at the further end of the wood was a meadow, and on the other side of the meadow he saw a large castle.  And thitherward Peredur bent his way, and he found the gate open, and he proceeded to the hall.  And he beheld a stately hoary-headed man sitting on one side of the hall, and many pages around him, who arose to receive and to honour Peredur.  And they placed him by the side of the owner of the palace.  Then they discoursed together; and when it was time to eat, they caused Peredur to sit beside the nobleman during the repast.  And when they had eaten and drank as much as they desired, the nobleman asked Peredur, whether he could fight with a sword?  "Were I to receive instruction," said Peredur, "I think I could."  Now, there was on the floor of the hall a huge staple, as large as a warrior could grasp.  "Take yonder sword," said the man to Peredur, "and strike the iron staple."  So Peredur arose, and struck the staple, so that he cut it in two; and the sword broke into two parts also.  "Place the two parts together, and reunite them," and Peredur placed them together, and they became entire as they were before.  And a second time he struck upon the staple, so that both it and the sword broke in two, and as before they reunited.  And the third time he gave a like blow, and placed the broken parts together, and neither the staple nor the sword would unite, as before.  "Youth," said the nobleman, "come now, and sit down, and my blessing be upon thee. Thou fightest best with the sword of any man in the kingdom.  Thou hast arrived at two-thirds of thy strength, and the other third thou hast not yet obtained; and when thou attainest to thy full power, none will be able to contend with thee.  I am thy uncle, thy mother's brother, and I am brother {62} to the man in whose house thou wast last night."  Then Peredur and his uncle discoursed together, and he beheld two youths enter the hall, and proceed up to the chamber, bearing a spear of mighty size, with three streams of blood flowing from the point to the ground.  And when all the company saw this, they began wailing and lamenting.  But for all that, the man did not break off his discourse with Peredur.  And as he did not tell Peredur the meaning of what he saw, he forebore to ask him concerning it.  And when the clamour had a little subsided, behold two maidens entered, with a large salver between them, in which was a man's head, surrounded by a profusion of blood.  And thereupon the company of the court made so great an outcry, that it was irksome to be in the same hall with them.  But at length they were silent.  And when time was that they should sleep, Peredur was brought into a fair chamber.

And the next day, with his uncle's permission, he rode forth.  And he came to a wood, and far within the wood he heard a loud cry, and he saw a beautiful woman with auburn hair, and a horse with a saddle upon it, standing near her, and a corpse by her side.  And as she strove to place the corpse upon the horse, it fell to the ground, and thereupon she made a great lamentation.  "Tell me, sister," said Peredur, "wherefore art thou bewailing?"  "Oh! accursed Peredur, little pity has my ill fortune ever met with from thee."  "Wherefore," said Peredur, "am I accursed?" "Because thou wast the cause of thy mother's death; for when thou didst ride forth against her will, anguish seized upon her heart, so that she died; and therefore art thou accursed.  And the dwarf and the dwarfess that thou sawest at Arthur's Court, were the dwarfs of thy father and mother; and I am thy foster-sister, and this was my wedded husband, and he was slain by the knight that is in the glade in the wood; and do not thou go near him, lest thou shouldest be slain by him likewise."  "My sister, thou dost reproach me wrongfully; through my having so long remained amongst you, I shall scarcely vanquish him; and had I continued longer it would, indeed, be difficult for me to succeed.  Cease, therefore, thy lamenting, for it is of no avail, and I will bury the body, and then I will go in quest of the knight, and see if I can do vengeance upon him."  And when he had buried the body, they went to the place where the knight was, and found him riding proudly along the glade; and he enquired of Peredur whence he came.  "I come from Arthur's Court." "And art thou one of Arthur's men?"  "Yes, by my faith."  "A profitable alliance, truly, is that of Arthur."  And without further parlance, they encountered one another, and immediately Peredur overthrew the knight, and he besought mercy of Peredur.  "Mercy shall thou have," said he, "upon these terms, that thou take this woman in marriage, and do her all the honour and reverence in thy power, seeing thou hast, without cause, slain her wedded husband; and that thou go to Arthur's Court, and shew him that it was I that overthrew thee, to do him honour and service; and that thou tell him that I will never come to his Court again until I have met with the tall man that is there, to take vengeance upon him for his insult to the dwarf and the dwarfess."  And he took the knight's assurance, that he would perform all this.  Then the knight provided the lady with a horse and garments that were suitable for her, and took her with him to Arthur's Court.  And he told Arthur all that had occurred, and gave the defiance to Kai.  And Arthur and all his household reproved Kai, for having driven such a youth as Peredur from his Court.

Said Owain the son of Urien, "This youth will never come into the Court until Kai has gone forth from it."  "By my faith," said Arthur, "I will search all the deserts in the island of Britain, until I find Peredur, and then let him and his adversary do their utmost to each other."

Then Peredur rode forward.  And he came to a desert wood, where he saw not the track either of men or animals, and where there was nothing but bushes and weeds.  And at the upper end of the wood he saw a vast castle, wherein were many strong towers; and when he came near the gate, he found the weeds taller than he had done elsewhere.  And he struck the gate with the shaft of his lance, and thereupon behold a lean auburn-haired youth came to an opening in the battlements.  "Choose thou, chieftain," said he.  "Whether shall I open the gate unto thee, or shall I announce unto those that are chief, that thou art at the gateway?"  "Say that I am here," said Peredur, "and if it is desired that I should enter, I will go in."  And the youth came back, and opened the gate for Peredur.  And when he went into the hall, he beheld eighteen youths, lean and red-headed, of the same height and of the same aspect, and of the same dress, and of the same age as the one who had opened the gate for him.  And they were well skilled in courtesy and in service.  And they disarrayed him.  Then they sat down to discourse.  Thereupon, behold five maidens came from the chamber into the hall.  And Peredur was certain that he had never seen another of so fair an aspect as the chief of the maidens.  And she had an old garment of satin upon her, which had once been handsome, but was then so tattered, that her skin could be seen through it.  And whiter was her skin than the bloom of crystal, and her hair and her two eyebrows were blacker than jet, and on her cheeks were two red spots, redder than whatever is reddest.  And the maiden welcomed Peredur, and put her arms about his neck, and made him sit down beside her.  Not long after this he saw two nuns enter and a flask full of wine was borne by one, and six loaves of white bread by the other.  "Lady," said they, "Heaven is witness, that there is not so much of food and liquor as this left in yonder Convent this night."  Then they went to meat, and Peredur observed that the maiden wished to give more of the food and of the liquor to him than to any of the others.  "My sister," said Peredur, "I will share out the food and the liquor."  "Not so, my soul," said she.  "By my faith, but I will."  So Peredur took the bread, and he gave an equal portion of it to each alike, as well as a cup full of the liquor.  And when it was time for them to sleep, a chamber was prepared for Peredur, and he went to rest.

"Behold, sister," said the youths to the fairest and most exalted of the maidens, "we have counsel for thee."  "What may it be?" she enquired.  "Go to the youth that is in the upper chamber, and offer to become his wife, or the lady of his love, if it seem well to him."  "That were indeed unfitting," said she.  "Hitherto I have not been the lady love of any knight, and to make him such an offer before I am wooed by him, that, truly, can I not do."  "By our confession to Heaven, unless thou actest thus, we will leave thee here to thy enemies, to do as they will with thee."  And through fear of this, the maiden went forth; and shedding tears, she proceeded to the chamber.  And with the noise of the door opening, Peredur awoke; and the maiden was weeping and lamenting.  "Tell me, my sister," said Peredur, "wherefore dost thou weep?"  "I will tell thee, lord," said she, "my father possessed these dominions as their chief, and this palace was his, and with it he held the best earldom in the kingdom; then the son of another earl sought me of my father, and I was not willing to be given unto him, and my father would not give me against my will, either to him or any earl in the world.  And my father had no child except myself.  And after my father's death, these dominions came into my own hands, and then was I less willing to accept him than before.  So he made war upon me, and conquered all my possessions except this one house.  And through the valour of the men whom thou hast seen, who are my foster brothers, and the strength of the house, it can never be taken while food and drink remain.  And now our provisions are exhausted; but as thou hast seen, we have been fed by the nuns, to whom the country is free.  And at length they also are without supply of food or liquor.  And at no later date than to-morrow, the earl will come against this place with all his forces; and if I fall into his power, my fate will be no better than to be given over to the grooms of his horses. Therefore, lord, I am come to offer to place myself in thy hands, that thou mayest succour me, either by taking me hence, or by defending me here, whichever may seem best unto thee."  "Go, my sister," said he, "and sleep; nor will I depart from thee until I do that which thou requirest, or prove whether I can assist thee or not."  The maiden went again to rest; and the next morning she came to Peredur, and saluted him.  "Heaven prosper thee, my soul, and what tidings dost thou bring?"  "None other, than that the earl and all his forces have alighted at the gate, and I never beheld any place so covered with tents, and thronged with knights challenging others to the combat."  "Truly," said Peredur, "let my horse be made ready."  So his horse was accoutred, and he arose, and sallied forth to the meadow.  And there was a knight riding proudly along the meadow, having raised the signal for battle.  And they encountered, and Peredur threw the knight over his horse's crupper to the ground.  And at the close of the day, one of the chief knights came to fight with him, and he overthrew him also, so that he besought his mercy.  "Who art thou?" said Peredur.  "Verily," said he, "I am Master of the Household to the earl."  "And how much of the Countess's possessions is there in thy power?"  "The third part, verily," answered he.  "Then," said Peredur, "restore to her the third of her possessions in full, and all the profit thou hast made by them, and bring meat and drink for a hundred men, with their horses and arms, to her court this night.  And thou shalt remain her captive, unless she wish to take thy life."  And this he did forthwith.  And that night the maiden was right joyful, and they fared plenteously.

And the next day Peredur rode forth to the meadow; and that day he vanquished a multitude of the host.  And at the close of the day, there came a proud and stately knight, and Peredur overthrew him, and he besought his mercy.  "Who art thou?" said Peredur.  "I am Steward of the Palace," said he.  "And how much of the maiden's possessions are under thy control?"  "One third part," answered he.  "Verily," said Peredur, "thou shalt fully restore to the maiden her possessions, and, moreover, thou shalt give her meat and drink for two hundred men, and their horses and their arms.  And for thyself, thou shalt be her captive."  And immediately it was so done.

And the third day Peredur rode forth to the meadow; and he vanquished more that day than on either of the preceding.  And at the close of the day, an earl came to encounter him, and he overthrew him, and he besought his mercy.  "Who art thou?" said Peredur.  "I am the earl," said he.  "I will not conceal it from thee."  "Verily," said Peredur, "thou shalt restore the whole of the maiden's earldom, and shalt give her thine own earldom in addition thereto, and meat and drink for three hundred men, and their horses and arms, and thou thyself shalt remain in her power." And thus it was fulfilled.  And Peredur tarried three weeks in the country, causing tribute and obedience to be paid to the maiden, and the government to be placed in her hands.  "With thy leave," said Peredur, "I will go hence."  "Verily, my brother, desirest thou this?"  "Yes, by my faith; and had it not been for love of thee, I should not have been here thus long."  "My soul," said she, "who art thou?"  "I am Peredur the son of Evrawc from the North; and if ever thou art in trouble or in danger, acquaint me therewith, and if I can, I will protect thee."

So Peredur rode forth.  And far thence there met him a lady, mounted on a horse that was lean, and covered with sweat; and she saluted the youth. "Whence comest thou, my sister?"  Then she told him the cause of her journey.  Now she was the wife of the Lord of the Glade.  "Behold," said he, "I am the knight through whom thou art in trouble, and he shall repent it, who has treated thee thus."  Thereupon, behold a knight rode up, and he enquired of Peredur, if he had seen a knight such as he was seeking.  "Hold thy peace," said Peredur, "I am he whom thou seekest; and by my faith, thou deservest ill of thy household for thy treatment of the maiden, for she is innocent concerning me."  So they encountered, and they were not long in combat ere Peredur overthrew the knight, and he besought his mercy.  "Mercy thou shalt have," said Peredur, "so thou wilt return by the way thou camest, and declare that thou holdest the maiden innocent, and so that thou wilt acknowledge unto her the reverse thou hast sustained at my hands."  And the knight plighted him his faith thereto.

Then Peredur rode forward.  And above him he beheld a castle, and thitherward he went.  And he struck upon the gate with his lance, and then, behold a comely auburn-haired youth opened the gate, and he had the stature of a warrior, and the years of a boy.  And when Peredur came into the hall, there was a tall and stately lady sitting in a chair, and many handmaidens around her; and the lady rejoiced at his coming.  And when it was time, they went to meat.  And after their repast was finished, "It were well for thee, chieftain," said she, "to go elsewhere to sleep." "Wherefore can I not sleep here?" said Peredur.  "Nine sorceresses are here, my soul, of the sorceresses of Gloucester, and their father and their mother are with them; and unless we can make our escape before daybreak, we shall be slain; and already they have conquered and laid waste all the country, except this one dwelling."  "Behold," said Peredur, "I will remain here to-night, and if you are in trouble, I will do you what service I can; but harm shall you not receive from me."  So they went to rest.  And with the break of day, Peredur heard a dreadful outcry.  And he hastily arose, and went forth in his vest and his doublet, with his sword about his neck, and he saw a sorceress overtake one of the watch, who cried out violently.  Peredur attacked the sorceress, and struck her upon the head with his sword, so that he flattened her helmet and her headpiece like a dish upon her head.  "Thy mercy, goodly Peredur, son of Evrawc, and the mercy of Heaven."  "How knowest thou, hag, that I am Peredur?"  "By destiny, and the foreknowledge that I should suffer harm from thee.  And thou shalt take a horse and armour of me; and with me thou shalt go to learn chivalry and the use of thy arms."  Said Peredur, "Thou shalt have mercy, if thou pledge thy faith thou wilt never more injure the dominions of the Countess."  And Peredur took surety of this, and with permission of the Countess, he set forth with the sorceress to the palace of the sorceresses.  And there he remained for three weeks, and then he made choice of a horse and arms, and went his way.

And in the evening he entered a valley, and at the head of the valley he came to a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, and there he spent the night.  And in the morning he arose, and when he went forth, behold a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a hawk had killed a wild fowl in front of the cell.  And the noise of the horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird.  And Peredur stood, and compared the blackness of the raven, and whiteness of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady that best he loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her skin which was whiter than the snow, and to the two red spots upon her cheeks, which were redder than the blood upon the snow appeared to be.

Now Arthur and his household were in search of Peredur.  "Know ye," said Arthur, "who is the knight with the long spear that stands by the brook {72} up yonder?"  "Lord," said one of them, "I will go and learn who he is."  So the youth came to the place where Peredur was, and asked him what he did thus, and who he was.  And from the intensity with which he thought upon the lady whom best he loved, he gave him no answer.  Then the youth thrust at Peredur with his lance, and Peredur turned upon him, and struck him over his horse's crupper to the ground.  And after this, four and twenty youths came to him, and he did not answer one more than another, but gave the same reception to all, bringing them with one single thrust to the ground.  And then came Kai, and spoke to Peredur rudely and angrily; and Peredur took him with his lance under the jaw, and cast him from him with a thrust, so that he broke his arm and his shoulder blade, and he rode over him one and twenty times.  And while he lay thus, stunned with the violence of the pain that he had suffered, his horse returned back at a wild and prancing pace.  And when the household saw the horse come back without his rider, they rode forth in haste to the place where the encounter had been.  And when they first came there, they thought that Kai was slain; but they found that if he had a skilful physician, he yet might live.  And Peredur moved not from his meditation, on seeing the concourse that was around Kai.  And Kai was brought to Arthur's tent, and Arthur caused skilful physicians to come to him.  And Arthur was grieved that Kai had met with this reverse, for he loved him greatly.

"Then," said Gwalchmai, "it is not fitting that any should disturb an honourable knight from his thought unadvisedly; for either he is pondering some damage that he has sustained, or he is thinking of the lady whom best he loves.  And through such ill-advised proceeding, perchance this misadventure has befallen him who last met with him.  And if it seem well to thee, lord, I will go and see if this knight has changed from his thought; and if he has, I will ask him courteously to come and visit thee."  Then Kai was wrath, and he spoke angry and spiteful words.  "Gwalchmai," said he, "I know that thou wilt bring him because he is fatigued.  Little praise and honour, nevertheless, wilt thou have from vanquishing a weary knight, who is tired with fighting. Yet, thus hast thou gained the advantage over many.  And while thy speech and thy soft words last, a coat of thin linen were armour sufficient for thee, and thou wilt not need to break either lance or sword in fighting with the knight in the state he is in."  Then said Gwalchmai to Kai, "Thou mightest use more pleasant words, wert thou so minded; and it behoves thee not upon me to wreak thy wrath and thy displeasure.  Methinks I shall bring the knight hither with me without breaking either my arm or my shoulder."  Then said Arthur to Gwalchmai, "Thou speakest like a wise and a prudent man; go and take enough of armour about thee, and choose thy horse."  And Gwalchmai accoutred himself, and rode forward hastily to the place where Peredur was.

And Peredur was resting on the shaft of his spear, pondering the same thought, and Gwalchmai came to him without any signs of hostility, and said to him, "If I thought that it would be as agreeable to thee as it would be to me, I would converse with thee.  I have also a message from Arthur unto thee, to pray thee to come and visit him.  And two men have been before on this errand."  "That is true," said Peredur, "and uncourteously they came.  They attacked me, and I was annoyed thereat, for it was not pleasing to me to be drawn from the thought that I was in, for I was thinking of the lady whom best I love; and thus was she brought to my mind, -- I was looking upon the snow, and upon the raven, and upon the drops of the blood of the bird that the hawk had killed upon the snow.  And I bethought me that her whiteness was like that of the snow, and that the blackness of her hair and her eyebrows was like that of the raven, and that the two red spots upon her cheeks were like the two drops of blood."  Said Gwalchmai, "This was not an ungentle thought, and I should marvel if it were pleasant to thee to be drawn from it."  "Tell me," said Peredur, "is Kai in Arthur's Court?"  "He is," said he, "and behold he is the knight that fought with thee last; and it would have been better for him had he not come, for his arm and his shoulder blade were broken with the fall which he had from thy spear."  "Verily," said Peredur, "I am not sorry to have thus begun to avenge the insult to the dwarf and dwarfess."  Then Gwalchmai marvelled to hear him speak of the dwarf and the dwarfess; and he approached him, and threw his arms around his neck, and asked him what was his name.  "Peredur the son of Evrawc am I called," said he, "and thou?  Who art thou?"  "I am called Gwalchmai," he replied.  "I am right glad to meet with thee," said Peredur, "for in every country where I have been, I have heard of thy fame for prowess and uprightness, and I solicit thy fellowship."  "Thou shall have it, by my faith, and grant me thine," said he.  "Gladly will I do so," answered Peredur.

So they rode forth together joyfully towards the place where Arthur was; and when Kai saw them coming, he said, "I knew that Gwalchmai needed not to fight the knight.  And it is no wonder that he should gain fame; more can he do by his fair words, than I by the strength of my arm."  And Peredur went with Gwalchmai to his tent, and they took off their armour. And Peredur put on garments like those that Gwalchmai wore; and they went together unto Arthur, and saluted him.  "Behold, lord," said Gwalchmai, "him whom thou hast sought so long."  "Welcome unto thee, chieftain," said Arthur.  "With me thou shalt remain; and had I known thy valour {76} had been such, thou shouldst not have left me as thou didst. Nevertheless, this was predicted of thee by the dwarf and the dwarfess, whom Kai ill treated, and whom thou hast avenged."  And hereupon, behold there came the Queen and her handmaidens, and Peredur saluted them.  And they were rejoiced to see him, and bade him welcome.  And Arthur did him great honour and respect, and they returned towards Caerlleon.

And the first night, Peredur came to Caerlleon, to Arthur's Court, and as he walked in the city after his repast, behold, there met him Angharad Law Eurawc.  "By my faith, sister," said Peredur, "thou art a beauteous and lovely maiden; and were it pleasing to thee, I could love thee above all women."  "I pledge my faith," said she, "that I do not love thee, nor will I ever do so."  "I also pledge my faith," said Peredur, "that I will never speak a word to any Christian again, until thou come to love me above all men."

The next day, Peredur went forth by the high road, along a mountain ridge, and he saw a valley of a circular form, the confines of which were rocky and wooded.  And the flat part of the valley was in meadows, and there were fields betwixt the meadows and the wood.  And in the bosom of the wood he saw large black houses, of uncouth workmanship.  And he dismounted, and led his horse towards the wood.  And a little way within the wood he saw a rocky ledge, along which the road lay.  And upon the ledge was a lion bound by a chain, and sleeping.  And beneath the lion he saw a deep pit, of immense size, full of the bones of men and animals. And Peredur drew his sword, and struck the lion, so that he fell into the mouth of the pit, and hung there by the chain; and with a second blow he struck the chain, and broke it, and the lion fell into the pit, and Peredur led his horse over the rocky ledge, until he came into the valley.  And in the centre of the valley he saw a fair castle, and he went towards it.  And in the meadow by the Castle he beheld a huge grey man sitting, who was larger than any man he had ever before seen.  And two young pages were shooting the hilts of their daggers, of the bone of the sea horse.  And one of the pages had red hair, and the other auburn. And they went before him to the place where the grey man was.  And Peredur saluted him.  And the grey man said, "Disgrace to the beard of my porter."  Then Peredur understood that the porter was the lion.  And the grey man and the pages went together into the Castle, and Peredur accompanied them; and he found it a fair and noble place.  And they proceeded to the hall, and the tables were already laid, and upon them was abundance of food and liquor.  And thereupon he saw an aged woman and a young woman come from the chamber; and they were the most stately women he had ever seen.  Then they washed, and went to meat, and the grey man sat in the upper seat at the head of the table, and the aged woman next to him.  And Peredur and the maiden were placed together; and the two young pages served them.  And the maiden gazed sorrowfully upon Peredur, and Peredur asked the maiden wherefore she was sad.  "For thee, my soul; for, from when I first beheld thee, I have loved thee above all men.  And it pains me to know that so gentle a youth as thou should have such a doom as awaits thee to-morrow.  Sawest thou the numerous black houses in the bosom of the wood.  All these belong to the vassals of the grey man yonder, who is my father.  And they are all giants.  And to-morrow they will rise up against thee, and will slay thee.  And the Round Valley is this valley called."  "Listen, fair maiden, wilt thou contrive that my horse and arms be in the same lodging with me to-night."  "Gladly will I cause it so to be, by Heaven, if I can."

And when it was time for them to sleep rather than to carouse, they went to rest.  And the maiden caused Peredur's horse and arms to be in the same lodging with him.  And the next morning Peredur heard a great tumult of men and horses around the Castle.  And Peredur arose, and armed himself and his horse, and went to the meadow.  Then the aged woman and the maiden came to the grey man, "Lord," said they, "take the word of the youth, that he will never disclose what he has seen in this place, and we will be his sureties that he keep it."  "I will not do so, by my faith," said the grey man.  So Peredur fought with the host; and towards evening, he had slain the one-third of them without receiving any hurt himself. Then said the aged woman, "Behold, many of thy host have been slain by the youth.  Do thou, therefore, grant him mercy."  "I will not grant it, by my faith," said he.  And the aged woman and the fair maiden were upon the battlements of the Castle, looking forth.  And at that juncture, Peredur encountered the yellow-haired youth, and slew him.  "Lord," said the maiden, "grant the young man mercy."  "That will I not do, by Heaven," he replied; and thereupon Peredur attacked the auburn-haired youth, and slew him likewise.  "It were better thou hadst accorded mercy to the youth, before he had slain thy two sons; for now scarcely wilt thou thyself escape from him."  "Go, maiden, and beseech the youth to grant mercy unto us, for we yield ourselves into his hands."  So the maiden came to the place where Peredur was, and besought mercy for her father, and for all such of his vassals as had escaped alive.  "Thou shalt have it, on condition that thy father, and all that are under him, go and render homage to Arthur, and tell him that it was his vassal Peredur that did him this service."  "This will we do willingly, by Heaven."  "And you shall also receive baptism; and I will send to Arthur, and beseech him to bestow this valley upon thee, and upon thy heirs after thee for ever."  Then they went in, and the grey man and the tall woman saluted Peredur.  And the grey man said unto him, "Since I have possessed this valley, I have not seen any Christian depart with his life, save thyself.  And we will go to do homage to Arthur, and to embrace the faith, and be baptized."  Then said Peredur, "To Heaven I render thanks that I have not broken my vow to the lady that best I love, which was, that I would not speak one word unto any Christian."

That night they tarried there.  And the next day, in the morning, the grey man, with his company, set forth to Arthur's Court; and they did homage unto Arthur, and he caused them to be baptized.  And the grey man told Arthur, that it was Peredur that had vanquished them.  And Arthur gave the valley to the grey man and his company, to hold it of him as Peredur had besought.  And with Arthur's permission, the grey man went back to the Round Valley.

Peredur rode forward next day, and he traversed a vast tract of desert, in which no dwellings were.  And at length he came to a habitation, mean and small.  And there he heard that there was a serpent that lay upon a gold ring, and suffered none to inhabit the country for seven miles around.  And Peredur came to the place where he heard the serpent was. And angrily, furiously, and desperately, fought he with the serpent; and at the last he killed it, and took away the ring.  And thus he was for a long time without speaking a word to any Christian.  And therefrom he lost his colour and his aspect, through extreme longing after the Court of Arthur, and the society of the lady whom best he loved, and of his companions.  Then he proceeded forward to Arthur's Court, and on the road there met him Arthur's household, going on a particular errand, with Kai at their head.  And Peredur knew them all, but none of the household recognised him.  "Whence comest thou, chieftain?" said Kai.  And this he asked him twice, and three times, and he answered him not.  And Kai thrust him through the thigh with his lance.  And lest he should be compelled to speak, and to break his vow, he went on without stopping. "Then," said Gwalchmai, "I declare to Heaven, Kai, that thou hast acted ill in committing such an outrage on a youth like this, who cannot speak."  And Gwalchmai returned back to Arthur's Court.  "Lady," said he to Gwenhwyvar, "seest thou how wicked an outrage Kai has committed upon this youth who cannot speak; for Heaven's sake, and for mine, cause him to have medical care before I come back, and I will repay thee the charge."

And before the men returned from their errand, a knight came to the meadow beside Arthur's Palace, to dare some one to the encounter.  And his challenge was accepted; and Peredur fought with him, and overthrew him.  And for a week he overthrew one knight every day.

And one day, Arthur and his household were going to Church, and they beheld a knight who had raised the signal for combat.  "Verily," said Arthur, "by the valour of men, I will not go hence until I have my horse and my arms to overthrow yonder boor."  Then went the attendants to fetch Arthur's horse and arms.  And Peredur met the attendants as they were going back, and he took the horse and arms from them, and proceeded to the meadow; and all those who saw him arise and go to do battle with the knight, went upon the tops of the houses, and the mounds, and the high places, to behold the combat.  And Peredur beckoned with his hand to the knight to commence the fight.  And the knight thrust at him, but he was not thereby moved from where he stood.  And Peredur spurred his horse, and ran at him wrathfully, furiously, fiercely, desperately, and with mighty rage, and he gave him a thrust, deadly-wounding, severe, furious, adroit and strong, under his jaw, and raised him out of his saddle, and cast him a long way from him.  And Peredur went back, and left the horse and the arms with the attendant as before, and he went on foot to the Palace.

Then Peredur went by the name of the Dumb Youth.  And behold, Angharad Law Eurawc met him.  "I declare to Heaven, chieftain," said she, "woeful is it that thou canst not speak; for couldst thou speak, I would love thee best of all men; and, by my faith, although thou canst not, I do love thee above all."  "Heaven reward thee, my sister," said Peredur, "by my faith, I also do love thee."  Thereupon it was known that he was Peredur.  And then he held fellowship with Gwalchmai, and Owain the son of Urien, and all the household, and he remained in Arthur's Court.

Arthur was in Caerlleon upon Usk; and he went to hunt, and Peredur went with him.  And Peredur let loose his dog upon a hart, and the dog killed the hart in a desert place.  And a short space from him he saw signs of a dwelling, and towards the dwelling he went, and he beheld a hall, and at the door of the hall he found bald swarthy youths playing at chess.  And when he entered, he beheld three maidens sitting on a bench, and they were all clothed alike, as became persons of high rank.  And he came, and sat by them upon the bench; and one of the maidens looked steadfastly upon Peredur, and wept.  And Peredur asked her wherefore she was weeping. "Through grief, that I should see so fair a youth as thou art, slain." "Who will slay me?" enquired Peredur.  "If thou art so daring as to remain here to-night, I will tell thee."  "How great soever my danger may be from remaining here, I will listen unto thee."  "This Palace is owned by him who is my father," said the maiden, "and he slays every one who comes hither without his leave."  "What sort of a man is thy father, that he is able to slay every one thus?"

"A man who does violence and wrong unto his neighbours, and who renders justice unto none."  And hereupon he saw the youths arise and clear the chessmen from the board.  And he heard a great tumult; and after the tumult there came in a huge black one-eyed man, and the maidens arose to meet him.  And they disarrayed him, and he went and sat down; and after he had rested and pondered awhile, he looked at Peredur, and asked who the knight was.  "Lord," said one of the maidens, "he is the fairest and gentlest youth that ever thou didst see.  And for the sake of Heaven, and of thine own dignity, have patience with him."  "For thy sake I will have patience, and I will grant him his life this night."  Then Peredur came towards them to the fire, and partook of food and liquor, and entered into discourse with the ladies.  And being elated with the liquor, he said to the black man, "It is a marvel to me, so mighty as thou sayest thou art, who could have put out thine eye?"  "It is one of my habits," said the black man, "that whosoever puts to me the question which thou hast asked, shall not escape with his life, either as a free gift, or for a price."  "Lord," said the maiden, "whatsoever he may say to thee in jest, and through the excitement of liquor, make good that which thou saidest and didst promise me just now."  "I will do so, gladly, for thy sake," said he.  "Willingly will I grant him his life this night."  And that night thus they remained.

And the next day the black man got up, and put on his armour, and said to Peredur, "Arise, man, and suffer death."  And Peredur said unto him, "Do one of two things, black man; if thou wilt fight with me, either throw off thy own armour, or give arms to me, that I may encounter thee."  "Ha! man," said he, "couldst thou fight, if thou hadst arms?  Take, then, what arms thou dost choose."  And thereupon the maiden came to Peredur with such arms as pleased him; and he fought with the black man, and forced him to crave his mercy.  "Black man, thou shalt have mercy, provided thou tell me who thou art, and who put out thine eye."  "Lord, I will tell thee, I lost it in fighting with the Black Serpent of the Carn.  There is a mound, which is called the Mound of Mourning; and on the mound there is a earn, and in the earn there is a serpent, and on the tail of the serpent there is a stone, and the virtues of the stone are such, that whosoever should hold it in one hand, in the other he will have as much gold as he may desire.  And in fighting with this serpent was it that I lost my eye.  And the Black Oppressor am I called.  And for this reason I am called the Black Oppressor, that there is not a single man around me whom I have not oppressed, and justice have I done unto none."  "Tell me" said Peredur, "how far is it hence?"  "The same day that thou settest forth, thou wilt come to the Palace of the Sons of the King of the Tortures."  "Wherefore are they called thus?"  "The Addanc of the Lake slays them once every day.  When thou goest thence, thou wilt come to the Court of the Countess of the Achievements."  "What achievements are there?" asked Peredur.  "Three hundred men there are in her household, and unto every stranger that comes to the Court, the achievements of her household are related.  And this is the manner of it, -- the three hundred men of the household sit next unto the Lady; and that not through disrespect unto the guests, but that they may relate the achievements of the household.  And the day that thou goest thence, thou wilt reach the Mound of Mourning, and round about the mound there are the owners of three hundred tents guarding the serpent."  "Since thou hast, indeed, been an oppressor so long," said Peredur, "I will cause that thou continue so no longer."  So he slew him.

Then the maiden spoke, and began to converse with him.  "If thou wast poor when thou camest here, henceforth thou wilt be rich through the treasure of the black man whom thou hast slain.  Thou seest the many lovely maidens that there are in this Court, thou shalt have her whom thou best likest for the lady of thy love."  "Lady, I came not hither from my country to woo; but match yourselves as it liketh you with the comely youths I see here; and none of your goods do I desire, for I need them not."  Then Peredur rode forward, and he came to the Palace of the Sons of the King of the Tortures; and when he entered the Palace, he saw none but women; and they rose up, and were joyful at his coming; and as they began to discourse with him, he beheld a charger arrive, with a saddle upon it, and a corpse in the saddle.  And one of the women arose, and took the corpse from the saddle, and anointed it in a vessel of warm water, which was below the door, and placed precious balsam upon it; and the man rose up alive, and came to the place where Peredur was, and greeted him, and was joyful to see him.  And two other men came in upon their saddles, and the maiden treated these two in the same manner as she had done the first.  Then Peredur asked the chieftain wherefore it was thus.  And they told him, that there was an Addanc in a cave, which slew them once every day.  And thus they remained that night.

And next morning the youths arose to sally forth, and Peredur besought them, for the sake of the ladies of their love, to permit him to go with them; but they refused him, saying, "If thou shouldst be slain there, thou hast none to bring thee back to life again."  And they rode forward, and Peredur followed after them; and after they had disappeared out of his sight, he came to a mound, whereon sat the fairest lady he had ever beheld.  "I know thy quest," said she, "thou art going to encounter the Addanc, and he will slay thee, and that not by courage, but by craft.  He has a cave, and at the entrance of the cave there is a stone pillar, and he sees every one that enters, and none see him; and from behind the pillar he slays every one with a poisonous dart.  And if thou wouldst pledge me thy faith, to love me above all women, I would give thee a stone, by which thou shouldst see him when thou goest in, and he should not see thee."  "I will, by my troth," said Peredur, "for when first I beheld thee, I loved thee; and where shall I seek thee?"  "When thou seekest me, seek towards India."  And the maiden vanished, after placing the stone in Peredur's hand.

And he came towards a valley, through which ran a river; and the borders of the valley were wooded, and on each side of the river were level meadows.  And on one side of the river he saw a flock of white sheep, and on the other a flock of black sheep.  And whenever one of the white sheep bleated, one of the black sheep would cross over, and become white; and when one of the black sheep bleated, one of the white sheep would cross over, and become black.  And he saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and in full leaf.  And nigh thereto he saw a youth sitting upon a mound, and two greyhounds, white-breasted, and spotted, in leashes, lying by his side.  And certain was he, that he had never seen a youth of so royal a bearing as he.  And in the wood opposite he heard hounds raising a herd of deer.  And Peredur saluted the youth, and the youth greeted him in return.  And there were three roads leading from the mound; two of them were wide roads, and the third was more narrow.  And Peredur enquired where the three roads went.  "One of them goes to my palace," said the youth, "and one of two things I counsel thee to do, either to proceed to my palace, which is before thee, and where thou wilt find my wife, or else to remain here to see the hounds chasing the roused deer from the wood to the plain.  And thou shall see the best greyhounds thou didst ever behold, and the boldest in the chase, kill them by the water beside us; and when it is time to go to meat, my page will come with my horse to meet me, and thou shalt rest in my palace to-night." "Heaven reward thee; but I cannot tarry, for onward must I go."  "The other road leads to the town, which is near here, and wherein food and liquor may be bought; and the road which is narrower than the others goes towards the cave of the Addanc."  "With thy permission, young man, I will go that way."

And Peredur went towards the cave.  And he took the stone in his left hand, and his lance in his right.  And as he went in, he perceived the Addanc, and he pierced him through with his lance, and cut off his head. And as he came from the cave, behold the three companions were at the entrance; and they saluted Peredur, and told him that there was a prediction that he should slay that monster.  And Peredur gave the head to the young men, and they offered him in marriage whichever of the three sisters he might choose, and half their kingdom with her.  "I came not hither to woo," said Peredur, "but if peradventure I took a wife, I should prefer your sister to all others."  And Peredur rode forward, and he heard a noise behind him.  And he looked back, and saw a man upon a red horse, with red armour upon him; and the man rode up by his side, and saluted him, and wished him the favour of Heaven and of man.  And Peredur greeted the youth kindly.  "Lord, I come to make a request unto thee." "What wouldest thou?"  "That thou shouldest take me as thine attendant." "Who then should I take as my attendant, if I did so?"  "I will not conceal from thee what kindred I am of.  Etlym Gleddyv Coch am I called, an Earl from the East Country."  "I marvel that thou shouldest offer to become attendant to a man whose possessions are no greater than thine own; for I have but an earldom like thyself.  But since thou desirest to be my attendant, I will take thee joyfully."

And they went forward to the Court of the Countess, and all they of the Court were glad at their coming; and they were told it was not through disrespect they were placed below the household, but that such was the usage of the Court.  For, whoever should overthrow the three hundred men of her household, would sit next the Countess, and she would love him above all men.  And Peredur having overthrown the three hundred men of her household, sat down beside her, and the Countess said, "I thank Heaven that I have a youth so fair and so valiant as thou, since I have not obtained the man whom best I love."  "Who is he whom best thou lovest?"  "By my faith, Etlym Gleddyv Coch is the man whom I love best, and I have never seen him."  "Of a truth, Etlym is my companion; and behold here he is, and for his sake did I come to joust with thy household.  And he could have done so better than I, had it pleased him. And I do give thee unto him."  "Heaven reward thee, fair youth, and I will take the man whom I love above all others."  And the Countess became Etlym's bride from that moment.

And the next day Peredur set forth towards the Mound of Mourning.  "By thy hand, lord, but I will go with thee," said Etlym.  Then they went forwards till they came in sight of the mound and the tents.  "Go unto yonder men," said Peredur to Etlym, "and desire them to come and do me homage."  So Etlym went unto them, and said unto them thus -- "Come and do homage to my lord."  "Who is thy lord?" said they.  "Peredur with the long lance is my lord," said Etlym.  "Were it permitted to slay a messenger, thou shouldest not go back to thy lord alive, for making unto Kings, and Earls, and Barons, so arrogant a demand as to go and do him homage."  Peredur desired him to go back to them, and to give them their choice, either to do him homage or to do battle with him.  And they chose rather to do battle.  And that day Peredur overthrew the owners of a hundred tents.  And the next day he overthrew the owners of a hundred more; and the third day the remaining hundred took counsel to do homage to Peredur.  And Peredur enquired of them, wherefore they were there.  And they told him they were guarding the serpent until he should die.  "For then should we fight for the stone among ourselves, and whoever should be conqueror among us would have the stone."  "Await here," said Peredur, "and I will go to encounter the serpent."  "Not so, lord," said they, "we will go altogether to encounter the serpent."

"Verily," said Peredur, "that will I not permit; for if the serpent be slain, I shall derive no more fame therefrom than one of you."  Then he went to the place where the serpent was, and slew it, and came back to them, and said, "Reckon up what you have spent since you have been here, and I will repay you to the full."  And he paid to each what he said was his claim.  And he required of them only that they should acknowledge themselves his vassals.  And he said to Etlym, "Go back unto her whom thou lovest best, and I will go forwards, and I will reward thee for having been my attendant."  And he gave Etlym the stone.  "Heaven repay thee and prosper thee," said Etlym.

And Peredur rode thence, and he came to the fairest valley he had ever seen, through which ran a river; and there he beheld many tents of various colours.  And he marvelled still more at the number of water-mills and of wind-mills that he saw.  And there rode up with him a tall auburn-haired man, in a workman's garb, and Peredur enquired of him who he was.  "I am the chief miller," said he, "of all the mills yonder." "Wilt thou give me lodging?" said Peredur.  "I will, gladly," he answered.  And Peredur came to the miller's house, and the miller had a fair and pleasant dwelling.  And Peredur asked money as a loan from the miller, that he might buy meat and liquor for himself, and for the household, and he promised that he would pay him again ere he went thence.  And he enquired of the miller, wherefore such a multitude were there assembled.  Said the miller to Peredur, "One thing is certain; either thou art a man from afar, or thou art beside thyself.  The Empress of Cristinobyl the Great is here; and she will have no one but the man who is most valiant; for riches does she not require.  And it was impossible to bring food for so many thousands as are here, therefore were all these mills constructed."  And that night they took their rest.

And the next day Peredur arose, and he equipped himself and his horse for the tournament.  And among the other tents, he beheld one, which was the fairest he had ever seen.  And he saw a beauteous maiden leaning her head out of a window of the tent, and he had never seen a maiden more lovely than she.  And upon her was a garment of satin.  And he gazed fixedly on the maiden, and began to love her greatly.  And he remained there, gazing upon the maiden from morning until mid-day, and from mid-day until evening; and then the tournament was ended; and he went to his lodging, and drew off his armour.  Then he asked money of the miller as a loan, and the miller's wife was wroth with Peredur; nevertheless, the miller lent him the money.  And the next day he did in like manner as he had done the day before.  And at night he came to his lodging, and took money as a loan from the miller.  And the third day, as he was in the same place, gazing upon the maiden, he felt a hard blow between the neck and the shoulder, from the edge of an axe.  And when he looked behind him, he saw that it was the miller; and the miller said to him, "Do one of two things: either turn thy head from hence, or go to the tournament."  And Peredur smiled on the miller, and went to the tournament; and all that encountered him that day, he overthrew.  And as many as he vanquished, he sent as a gift to the Empress, and their horses and arms he sent as a gift to the wife of the miller, in payment of the borrowed money.  Peredur attended the tournament until all were overthrown, and he sent all the men to the prison of the Empress, and the horses and arms to the wife of the miller, in payment of the borrowed money.  And the Empress sent to the Knight of the Mill, to ask him to come and visit her.  And Peredur went not for the first nor for the second message.  And the third time she sent an hundred knights to bring him against his will, and they went to him, and told him their mission from the Empress.  And Peredur fought well with them, and caused them to be bound like stags, and thrown into the mill dyke.  And the Empress sought advice of a wise man, who was in her counsel; and he said to her, "With thy permission, I will go to him myself."  So he came to Peredur, and saluted him, and besought him, for the sake of the lady of his love, to come and visit the Empress.  And they went, together with the miller.  And Peredur went and sat down in the outer chamber of the tent, and she came and placed herself by his side.  And there was but little discourse between them.  And Peredur took his leave, and went to his lodging.  And the next day he came to visit her, and when he came into the tent, there was no one chamber less decorated than the others.  And they knew not where he would sit.  And Peredur went and sat beside the Empress, and discoursed with her courteously.  And while they were thus, they beheld a black man enter with a goblet full of wine in his hand.  And he dropped upon his knee before the Empress, and besought her to give it to no one who would not fight with him for it.  And she looked upon Peredur.  "Lady," said he, "bestow on me the goblet."  And Peredur drank the wine, and gave the goblet to the miller's wife.  And while they were thus, behold there entered a black man, of larger stature than the other, with a wild beast's claw in his hand, wrought into the form of a goblet, and filled with wine.  And he presented it to the Empress, and besought her to give it to no one but the man who would fight with him.  "Lady," said Peredur, "bestow it on me."  And she gave it to him.  And Peredur drank the wine, and sent the goblet to the wife of the miller.  And while they were thus, behold a rough-looking crisp-haired man, taller than either of the others, came in with a bowl in his hand full of wine; and he bent upon his knee, and gave it into the hands of the Empress, and he besought her to give it to none but him who would fight with him for it; and she gave it to Peredur, and he sent it to the miller's wife.  And that night Peredur returned to his lodging; and the next day he accoutred himself and his horse, and went to the meadow, and slew the three men.  Then Peredur proceeded to the tent, and the Empress said to him, "Goodly Peredur, remember the faith thou didst pledge me when I gave thee the stone, and thou didst kill the Addanc."  "Lady," answered he, "thou sayest truth, I do remember it."  And Peredur was entertained by the Empress fourteen years, as the story relates.

* * * * *

Arthur was at Caerlleon upon Usk, his principal palace; and in the centre of the floor of the hall were four men sitting on a carpet of velvet, Owain the son of Urien, and Gwalchmai the son of Gwyar, and Howel the son of Emyr Llydaw, and Peredur of the long lance.  And thereupon they saw a black curly-headed maiden enter, riding upon a yellow mule, with jagged thongs in her hand, to urge it on; and having a rough and hideous aspect. Blacker were her face and her two hands than the blackest iron covered with pitch; and her hue was not more frightful than her form.  High cheeks had she, and a face lengthened downwards, and a short nose with distended nostrils.  And one eye was of a piercing mottled grey, and the other was as black as jet, deep sunk in her head.  And her teeth were long and yellow, more yellow were they than the flower of the broom.  And her stomach rose from the breast bone, higher than her chin.  And her back was in the shape of a crook, and her legs were large and bony.  And her figure was very thin and spare, except her feet and her legs, which were of huge size.  And she greeted Arthur and all his household, except Peredur.  And to Peredur she spoke harsh and angry words.  "Peredur, I greet thee not, seeing that thou dost not merit it.  Blind was fate in giving thee fame and favour.  When thou wast in the Court of the Lame King, and didst see there the youth bearing the streaming spear, from the points of which were drops of blood flowing in streams, even to the hand of the youth, and many other wonders likewise, thou didst not enquire their meaning nor their cause.  Hadst thou done so, the King would have been restored to health, and his dominions to peace.  Whereas, from henceforth, he will have to endure battles and conflicts, and his knights will perish, and wives will be widowed, and maidens will be left portionless, and all this is because of thee."  Then said she unto Arthur, "May it please thee, lord, my dwelling is far hence, in the stately castle of which thou hast heard, and therein are five hundred and sixty-six knights of the order of Chivalry, and the lady whom best he loves with each; and whoever would acquire fame in arms, and encounters, and conflicts, he will gain it there, if he deserve it.  And whoso would reach the summit of fame and of honour, I know where he may find it. There is a Castle on a lofty mountain, and there is a maiden therein, and she is detained a prisoner there, and whoever shall set her free will attain the summit of the fame of the world."  And thereupon she rode away.

Said Gwalchmai, "By my faith, I will not rest tranquilly until I have proved if I can release the maiden."  And many of Arthur's household joined themselves with him.  Then, likewise said Peredur, "By my faith, I will not rest tranquilly until I know the story and meaning of the lance whereof the black maiden spoke."  And while they were equipping themselves, behold a knight came to the gate.  And he had the size and the strength of a warrior, and was equipped with arms and habiliments. And he went forward, and saluted Arthur and all his household, except Gwalchmai.  And the knight had upon his shoulder a shield, ingrained with gold, with a fesse of azure blue upon it, and his whole armour was of the same hue.  And he said to Gwalchmai, "Thou didst slay my lord, by thy treachery and deceit, and that will I prove upon thee."  Then Gwalchmai rose up.  "Behold," said he, "here is my gage against thee, to maintain either in this place, or wherever else thou wilt, that I am not a traitor or deceiver."  "Before the King whom I obey, will I that my encounter with thee take place," said the knight.  "Willingly," said Gwalchmai, "go forward, and I will follow thee."  So the knight went forth, and Gwalchmai accoutred himself, and there was offered unto him abundance of armour, but he would take none but his own.  And when Gwalchmai and Peredur were equipped, they set forth to follow him, by reason of their fellowship, and of the great friendship that was between them.  And they did not go after him in company together, but each went his own way.

At the dawn of day, Gwalchmai came to a valley, and in the valley he saw a fortress, and within the fortress a vast palace, and lofty towers around it.  And he beheld a knight coming out to hunt from the other side, mounted on a spirited black snorting palfrey, that advanced at a prancing pace, proudly stepping, and nimbly bounding, and sure of foot; and this was the man to whom the palace belonged.  And Gwalchmai saluted him, "Heaven prosper thee, chieftain," said he, "and whence comest thou?" "I come," answered he, "from the Court of Arthur."  "And art thou Arthur's vassal?"  "Yes, by my faith," said Gwalchmai.  "I will give thee good counsel," said the knight.  "I see that thou art tired and weary, go unto my palace, if it may please thee, and tarry there to-night." "Willingly, lord," said he, "and Heaven reward thee."  "Take this ring as a token to the porter, and go forward to yonder tower, and therein thou wilt find my sister."  And Gwalchmai went to the gate, and shewed the ring, and proceeded to the tower.  And on entering, he beheld a large blazing fire, burning without smoke, and with a bright and lofty flame, and a beauteous and stately maiden was sitting on a chair by the fire. And the maiden was glad at his coming, and welcomed him, and advanced to meet him.  And he went and sat beside the maiden, and they took their repast.  And when their repast was over, they discoursed pleasantly together.  And while they were thus, behold there entered a venerable hoary-headed man.  "Ah! base girl," said he, "if thou didst think that it was right for thee to entertain and to sit by yonder man; thou wouldest not do so."  And he withdrew his head, and went forth, "Ha! chieftain," said the maiden, "if thou wilt do as I counsel thee, thou wilt shut the door, lest the man should have a plot against thee."  Upon that Gwalchmai arose, and when he came near unto the door, the man, with sixty others, fully armed, were ascending the tower.  And Gwalchmai defended the door with a chessboard, that none might enter until the man should return from the chase.  And thereupon, behold the earl arrived.  "What is all this?" asked he.  "It is a sad thing," said the hoary-headed man, "the young girl yonder has been sitting and eating with him who slew your father.  He is Gwalchmai the son of Gwyar."  "Hold thy peace, then," said the earl, "I will go in."  And the earl was joyful concerning Gwalchmai.  "Ha! chieftain," said he, "it was wrong of thee to come to my Court, when thou knewest that thou didst slay my father; and though we cannot avenge him, Heaven will avenge him upon thee."  "My soul," said Gwalchmai, "thus it is; I came not here either to acknowledge or to deny having slain thy father; but I am on a message from Arthur, and therefore do I crave the space of a year until I shall return from my embassy, and then, upon my faith, I will come back unto this palace, and do one of two things, either acknowledge it, or deny it."  And the time was granted him willingly; and he remained there that night.  And the next morning he rode forth.  And the story relates nothing further of Gwalchmai respecting this adventure.

And Peredur rode forward.  And he wandered over the whole island, seeking tidings of the black maiden, and he could meet with none.  And he came to an unknown land, in the centre of a valley, watered by a river.  And as he traversed the valley, he beheld a horseman coming towards him, and wearing the garments of a priest, and he besought his blessing.  "Wretched man," said he, "thou meritest no blessing, and thou wouldst not be profited by one, seeing that thou art clad in armour on such a day as this."  "And what day is to-day?" said Peredur.  "To-day is Good Friday," he answered.  "Chide me not, that I knew not this, seeing that it is a year to-day since I journeyed forth from my country."  Then he dismounted, and led his horse in his hand.  And he had not proceeded far along the high road before he came to a cross road, and the cross road traversed a wood.  And on the other side of the wood he saw an unfortified castle, which appeared to be inhabited.  And at the gate of the castle there met him the priest whom he had seen before, and he asked his blessing.  "The blessing of Heaven be unto thee," said he, "it is more fitting to travel in thy present guise, than as thou wast erewhile; and this night thou shalt tarry with me."  So he remained there that night.

And the next day Peredur sought to go forth.  "To-day may no one journey. Thou shalt remain with me to-day and to-morrow, and the day following, and I will direct thee as best I may to the place which thou art seeking."  And the fourth day Peredur sought to go forth, and he entreated the priest to tell him how he should find the Castle of Wonders.  "What I know thereof, I will tell thee," he replied.  "Go over yonder mountain, and on the other side of the mountain thou wilt come to a river, and in the valley wherein the river runs is a King's Palace, wherein the King sojourned during Easter.  And if thou mayest have tidings anywhere of the Castle of Wonders, thou wilt have them there."

Then Peredur rode forward.  And he came to the valley in which was the river, and there met him a number of men going to hunt, and in the midst of them was a man of exalted rank, and Peredur saluted him.  "Choose, chieftain," said the man, "whether thou wilt go with me to the chase, or wilt proceed to my Palace, and I will despatch one of my household to commend thee to my daughter, who is there, and who will entertain thee with food and liquor until I return from hunting; and whatever may be thine errand, such as I can obtain for thee, thou shalt gladly have."  And the King sent a little yellow page with him as an attendant; and when they came to the palace, the lady had arisen, and was about to wash before meat.  Peredur went forward, and she saluted him joyfully, and placed him by her side.  And they took their repast.  And whatsoever Peredur said unto her, she laughed loudly, so that all in the palace could hear.  Then spoke the yellow page to the lady.  "By my faith," said he, "this youth is already thy husband; or if he be not, thy mind and thy thoughts are set upon him."  And the little yellow page went unto the King, and told him that it seemed to him that the youth whom he had met with was his daughter's husband, or if he were not so already, that he would shortly become so, unless he were cautious.  "What is thy counsel in this matter, youth?" said the King.  "My counsel is," he replied, "that thou set strong men upon him, to seize him, until thou hast ascertained the truth respecting this."  So he set strong men upon Peredur, who seized him, and cast him into prison.  And the maiden went before her father, and asked him, wherefore he had caused the youth from Arthur's Court to be imprisoned.  "In truth," he answered, "he shall not be free to-night, nor to-morrow, nor the day following, and he shall not come from where he is."  She replied not to what the king had said, but she went to the youth.  "Is it unpleasant to thee to be here?" said she. "I should not care, if I were not," he replied.  "Thy couch and thy treatment shall be in no wise inferior to that of the King himself, and thou shalt have the best entertainment that the palace affords.  And if it were more pleasing to thee that my couch should be here, that I might discourse with thee, it should be so, cheerfully."  "This can I not refuse," said Peredur.  And he remained in prison that night.  And the maiden provided all that she had promised him.

And the next day Peredur heard a tumult in the town.  "Tell me, fair maiden, what is that tumult?" said Peredur.  "All the King's hosts and his forces have come to the town to-day."  "And what seek they here?" he enquired.  "There is an Earl near this place, who possesses two Earldoms, and is as powerful as a king; and an engagement will take place between them to-day."  "I beseech thee," said Peredur, "to cause a horse and arms to be brought, that I may view the encounter, and I promise to come back to my prison again."  "Gladly," said she, "will I provide thee with horse and arms."  So she gave him a horse and arms, and a bright scarlet robe of honour over his armour, and a yellow shield upon his shoulder.  And he went to the combat; and as many of the Earl's men as encountered him that day, he overthrew; and he returned to his prison.  And the maiden asked tidings of Peredur, and he answered her not a word.  And she went and asked tidings of her father, and enquired who had acquitted himself best of the household.  And he said that he knew not, but that it was a man with a scarlet robe of honour over his armour, and a yellow shield upon his shoulder.  Then she smiled, and returned to where Peredur was, and did him great honour that night.  And for three days did Peredur slay the Earl's men; and before any one could know who he was, he returned to his prison.  And the fourth day Peredur slew the Earl himself.  And the maiden went unto her father, and enquired of him the news.  "I have good news for thee," said the King, "the Earl is slain, and I am the owner of his two Earldoms."  "Knowest thou, lord, who slew him?"  "I do not know," said the King.  "It was the knight with the scarlet robe of honour, and the yellow shield."  "Lord," said she, "I know who that is."  "By Heaven," he exclaimed, "who is he?"  "Lord," she replied, "he is the knight whom thou hast imprisoned."  Then he went unto Peredur, and saluted him, and told him that he would reward the service he had done him, in any way he might desire.  And when they went to meat, Peredur was placed beside the King, and the maiden on the other side of Peredur, "I will give thee," said the King, "my daughter in marriage, and half my kingdom with her, and the two Earldoms as a gift."  "Heaven reward thee, lord," said Peredur, "but I came not here to woo."  "What seekest thou, then, chieftain?"  "I am seeking tidings of the Castle of Wonders."  "Thy enterprise is greater, chieftain, than thou wilt wish to pursue," said the maiden, "nevertheless, tidings shalt thou have of the Castle, and thou shalt have a guide through my father's dominions, and a sufficiency of provisions for thy journey, for thou art, O chieftain, the man whom best I love."  Then she said to him, "Go over yonder mountain, and thou wilt find a Lake, and in the middle of the Lake there is a Castle, and that is the Castle that is called the Castle of Wonders; and we know not what wonders are therein, but thus is it called."

And Peredur proceeded towards the Castle, and the gate of the Castle was open.  And when he came to the hall, the door was open, and he entered. And he beheld a chessboard in the hall, and the chessmen were playing against each other, by themselves.  And the side that he favoured lost the game, {102} and thereupon the others set up a shout, as though they had been living men.  And Peredur was wroth, and took the chessmen in his lap, and cast the chessboard into the lake.  And when he had done thus, behold the black maiden came in, and she said to him, "The welcome of Heaven be not unto thee.  Thou hadst rather do evil than good."  "What complaint hast thou against me, maiden?" said Peredur.  "That thou hast occasioned unto the Empress the loss of her chessboard, which she would not have lost for all her empire.  And the way in which thou mayest recover the chessboard is, to repair to the Castle of Ysbidinongyl, where is a black man, who lays waste the dominions of the Empress; and if thou canst slay him, thou wilt recover the chessboard.  But if thou goest there, thou wilt not return alive."  "Wilt thou direct me thither?" said Peredur.  "I will show thee the way," she replied.  So he went to the Castle of Ysbidinongyl, and he fought with the black man.  And the black man besought mercy of Peredur.  "Mercy will I grant thee," said he, "on condition that thou cause the chessboard to be restored to the place where it was when I entered the hall."  Then the maiden came to him and said, "The malediction of Heaven attend thee for thy work, since thou hast left that monster alive, who lays waste all the possessions of the Empress."  "I granted him his life," said Peredur, "that he might cause the chessboard to be restored."  "The chessboard is not in the place where thou didst find it; go back, therefore, and slay him," answered she.  So Peredur went back, and slew the black man.  And when he returned to the palace, he found the black maiden there.  "Ah! maiden," said Peredur, "where is the Empress?"  "I declare to Heaven that thou wilt not see her now, unless thou dost slay the monster that is in yonder forest." "What monster is there?"  "It is a stag that is as swift as the swiftest bird; and he has one horn in his forehead, as long as the shaft of a spear and as sharp as whatever is sharpest.  And he destroys the branches of the best trees in the forest and he kills every animal that he meets with therein; and those that he does not slay perish of hunger.  And what is worse than that, he comes every night, and drinks up the fish pond, and leaves the fishes exposed, so that for the most part they die before the water returns again."  "Maiden," said Peredur, "wilt thou come and show me this animal?"  "Not so," said the maiden, "for he has not permitted any mortal to enter the forest for above a twelvemonth.  Behold, here is a little dog belonging to the Empress, which will rouse the stag, and will chase him towards thee, and the stag will attack thee."  Then the little dog went as a guide to Peredur, and roused the stag, and brought him towards the place where Peredur was.  And the stag attacked Peredur, and he let him pass by him, and as he did so, he smote off his head with his sword.  And while he was looking at the head of the stag, he saw a lady on horseback coming towards him.  And she took the little dog in the lappet of her cap, and the head and the body of the stag lay before her.  And around the stag's neck was a golden collar.  "Ha! chieftain," said she, "uncourteously hast thou acted in slaying the fairest jewel that was in my dominions."  "I was intreated so to do; and is there any way by which I can obtain thy friendship?"  "There is," she replied.  "Go thou forward unto yonder mountain, and there thou wilt find a grove; and in the grove there is a cromlech, do thou there challenge a man three times to fight, and thou shalt have my friendship."

So Peredur proceeded onward, and came to the side of the grove, and challenged any man to fight.  And a black man arose from beneath the cromlech, mounted upon a bony horse, and both he and his horse were clad in huge rusty armour.  And they fought.  And as often as Peredur cast the black man to the earth, he would jump again into his saddle.  And Peredur dismounted, and drew his sword; and thereupon the black man disappeared with Peredur's horse and his own, so that he could not gain sight of him a second time.  And Peredur went along the mountain, and on the other side of the mountain he beheld a castle in the valley, wherein was a river.  And he went to the castle; and as he entered it, he saw a hall, and the door of the hall was open, and he went in.  And there he saw a lame grey-headed man, sitting on one side of the hall, with Gwalchmai beside him.  And Peredur beheld his horse, which the black man had taken, in the same stall with that of Gwalchmai.  And they were glad concerning Peredur.  And he went and seated himself on the other side of the hoary- headed man.  Then, behold a yellow-haired youth came, and bent upon the knee before Peredur, and besought his friendship.  "Lord," said the youth, "it was I that came in the form of the black maiden to Arthur's Court, and when thou didst throw down the chessboard, and when thou didst slay the black man of Ysbidinongyl, and when thou didst slay the stag, and when thou didst go to fight the black man of the cromlech.  And I came with the bloody head in the salver, and with the lance that streamed with blood from the point to the hand, all along the shaft; and the head was thy cousin's, and he was killed by the sorceresses of Gloucester, who also lamed thine uncle; and I am thy cousin.  And there is a prediction that thou art to avenge these things."  Then Peredur and Gwalchmai took counsel, and sent to Arthur and his household, to beseech them to come against the sorceresses.  And they began to fight with them, and one of the sorceresses slew one of Arthur's men before Peredur's face, and Peredur bade her forbear.  And the sorceress slew a man before Peredur's face a second time, and a second time he forbade her.  And the third time the sorceress slew a man before the face of Peredur, and then Peredur drew his sword, and smote the sorceress on the helmet, and all her head armour was split in two parts.  And she set up a cry, and desired the other sorceresses to flee, and told them that this was Peredur, the man who had learnt Chivalry with them, and by whom they were destined to be slain.  Then Arthur and his household fell upon the sorceresses, and slew the sorceresses of Gloucester every one And thus is it related concerning the Castle of Wonders.




The Dream Of Rhonabwy.


Madawc the son of Maredudd possessed Powys within its boundaries, from Porfoed to Gwauan in the uplands of Arwystli.  And at that time he had a brother, Iorwerth the son of Maredudd, in rank not equal to himself.  And Iorwerth had great sorrow and heaviness because of the honour and power that his brother enjoyed, which he shared not.  And he sought his fellows and his foster-brothers, and took counsel with them what he should do in this matter.  And they resolved to despatch some of their number to go and seek a maintenance for him.  Then Madawc offered him to become Master of the Household and to have horses, and arms, and honour, and to fare like as himself.  But Iorwerth refused this.

And Iorwerth made an inroad into England, slaying the inhabitants, and burning houses, and carrying away prisoners.  And Madawc took counsel with the men of Powys, and they determined to place an hundred men in each of the three Commots of Powys to seek for him.  And thus did they in the plains of Powys from Aber Ceirawc, and in Allictwn Ver, and in Rhyd Wilure, on the Vyrnwy, the three best Commots of Powys.  So he was none the better, he nor his household, in Powys, nor in the plains thereof. {108}  And they spread these men over the plains as far as Nillystwn Trevan.

Now one of the men who was upon this quest was called Rhonabwy.  And Rhonabwy and Kynwrig Vrychgoch, a man of Mawddwy, and Cadwgan Vras, a man of Moelvre in Kynlleith, came together to the house of Heilyn Goch the son of Cadwgan the son of Iddon.  And when they near to the house, they saw an old hall, very black and having an upright gable, whence issued a great smoke; and on entering, they found the floor full of puddles and mounds; and it was difficult to stand thereon, so slippery was it with the mire of cattle.  And where the puddles were a man might go up to his ankles in water and dirt.  And there were boughs of holly spread over the floor whereof the cattle had browsed the sprigs.  When they came to the hall of the house, they beheld cells full of dust, and very gloomy, {109} and on one side an old hag making a fire.  And whenever she felt cold, she cast a lapful of chaff upon the fire, and raised such a smoke, that it was scarcely to be borne, as it rose up the nostrils.  And on the other side was a yellow calf skin on the floor, a main privilege was it to any one who should get upon that hide.

And when they had sat down, they asked the hag where were the people of the house.  And the hag spoke not but muttered.  Thereupon behold the people of the house entered; a ruddy, clownish curly-headed man, with a burthen of fagots on his back, and a pale slender woman, also carrying a bundle under her arm.  And they barely welcomed the men, and kindled a fire with the boughs.  And the woman cooked something and gave them to eat, barley bread, and cheese, and milk and water.

And there arose a storm of wind and rain, so that it was hardly possible to go forth with safety.  And being weary with their journey, they laid themselves down and sought to sleep.  And when they looked at the couch, it seemed to be made but of a little coarse straw full of dust and vermin, with the stems of boughs sticking up therethrough, for the cattle had eaten all the straw that was placed at the head and the foot.  And upon it was stretched an old russet-coloured rug, threadbare and ragged; and a coarse sheet, full of slits was upon the rug, and an ill-stuffed pillow, and a worn-out cover upon the sheet.  And after much suffering from the vermin, and from the discomfort of their couch, a heavy sleep fell on Rhonabwy's companions.  But Rhonabwy, not being able either to sleep or to rest, thought he should suffer less if he went to lie upon the yellow calfskin that was stretched out on the floor.  And there he slept.

As soon as sleep had come upon his eyes, it seemed to him that he was journeying with his companions across the plain of Argyngroeg, and he thought that he went towards Rhyd y Groes on the Severn.  As he journeyed, he heard a mighty noise, the like whereof heard he never before; and looking behind him, he beheld a youth with yellow curling hair, and with his beard newly trimmed, mounted on a chesnut horse, whereof the legs were grey from the top of the forelegs, and from the bend of the hindlegs downwards.  And the rider wore a coat of yellow satin sewn with green silk, and on his thigh was a gold-hilted sword, with a scabbard of new leather of Cordova, belted with the skin of the deer, and clasped with gold.  And over this was a scarf of yellow satin wrought with green silk, the borders whereof were likewise green.  And the green of the caparison of the horse, and of his rider, was as green as the leaves of the fir tree, and the yellow was as yellow as the blossom of the broom.  So fierce was the aspect of the knight, that fear seized upon them, and they began to flee.  And the knight pursued them. And when the horse breathed forth, the men became distant from him, and when he drew in his breath, they were drawn near to him, even to the horse's chest.  And when he had overtaken them, they besought his mercy. "You have it gladly!" said he, "fear nought."  "Ha, chieftain, since thou hast mercy upon me, tell me also who thou art," said Rhonabwy.  "I will not conceal my lineage from thee.  I am Iddawc the son of Mynyo, yet not by my name, but by my nickname am I best known."  "And wilt thou tell us what thy nickname is?"  "I will tell you; it is Iddawc Cordd Prydain." "Ha, chieftain," said Rhonabwy, "why art thou called thus?"  "I will tell thee.  I was one of the messengers between Arthur and Medrawd his nephew, at the battle of Camlan; and I was then a reckless youth, and through my desire for battle, I kindled strife between them, and stirred up wrath, when I was sent by Arthur the Emperor to reason with Medrawd, and to shew him, that he was his foster-father and his uncle, and to seek for peace, lest the sons of the Kings of the Island of Britain, and of the nobles, should be slain.  And whereas Arthur charged me with the fairest sayings he could think of, I uttered unto Medrawd the harshest I could devise. And therefore am I called Iddawc Cordd Prydain, for from this did the battle of Camlan ensue.  And three nights before the end of the battle of Camlan I left them, and went to the Llech Las in North Britain to do penance.  And there I remained doing penance seven years, and after that I gained pardon."

Then lo! they heard a mighty sound which was much louder than that which they had heard before, and when they looked round towards the sound; behold a ruddy youth, without beard or whiskers, {111} noble of mien, and mounted on a stately courser.  And from the shoulders and the front of the knees downwards the horse was bay.  And upon the man was a dress of red satin wrought with yellow silk, and yellow were the borders of his scarf.  And such parts of his apparel and of the trappings of his horse as were yellow, as yellow were they as the blossom of the broom, and such as were red, were as ruddy as the ruddiest blood in the world.

Then behold the horseman overtook them, and he asked of Iddawc a share of the little men that were with him.  "That which is fitting for me to grant I will grant, and thou shalt be a companion to them as I have been."  And the horseman went away.  "Iddawc," enquired Rhonabwy, "who was that horseman?"  "Rhuvawn Pebyr, the son of Prince Deorthach."

And they journeyed over the plain of Argyngroeg as far as the ford of Rhyd y Groes on the Severn.  And for a mile around the ford on both sides of the road, they saw tents and encampments, and there was the clamour of a mighty host.  And they came to the edge of the ford, and there they beheld Arthur sitting on a flat island below the ford, having Bedwini {112} the Bishop on one side of him, and Gwarthegyd the son of Kaw on the other.  And a tall auburn-haired youth stood before him, with his sheathed sword in his hand, and clad in a coat and a cap of jet black satin.  And his face was white as ivory, and his eyebrows black as jet, and such part of his wrist as could be seen between his glove and his sleeve was whiter than the lily, and thicker than a warrior's ankle.

Then came Iddawc and they that were with him, and stood before Arthur, and saluted him.  "Heaven grant thee good," said Arthur.  "And where, Iddawc, didst thou find these little men?"  "I found them, lord, up yonder on the road."  Then the Emperor smiled.  "Lord," said Iddawc, "wherefore dost thou laugh?"  "Iddawc," replied Arthur, "I laugh nor; but it pitieth me that men of such stature as these should have this Island in their keeping, after the men that guarded it of yore."  Then said Iddawc, "Rhonabwy, dost thou see the ring with a stone set in it, that is upon the Emperor's hand?"  "I see it," he answered.  "It is one of the properties of that stone, to enable thee to remember that thou seest here to-night, and hadst thou not seen the stone, thou wouldest never have been able to remember aught thereof."

After this they saw a troop coming towards the ford.  "Iddawc," enquired Rhonabwy, "to whom does yonder troop belong?"  "They are the fellows of Rhuvawn Pebyr the son of Prince Deorthach.  And these men are honourably served with mead and bragget, and are freely beloved by the daughters of the kings of the Island of Britain.  And this they merit, for they were ever in the front and the rear in every peril."  And he saw but one hue upon the men and the horses of this troop, for they were all as red as blood.  And when one of the knights rode forth from the troop, he looked like a pillar of fire glancing athwart the sky.  And this troop encamped above the ford.

Then they beheld another troop coming towards the ford, and these from their horses' chests upwards were whiter than the lily, and below blacker than jet.  And they saw one of these knights go before the rest, and spur his horse into the ford in such a manner that the water dashed over Arthur and the Bishop, and those holding counsel with them, so that they were as wet as if they had been drenched in the river.  And as he turned the head of his horse, the youth who stood before Arthur struck the horse over the nostrils with his sheathed sword, so that had it been with the bare blade it would have been a marvel if the bone had not been wounded as well as the flesh.  And the knight drew his sword half out of the scabbard, and asked of him, "Wherefore didst thou strike my horse? Whether was it in insult or in counsel unto me?"  "Thou dost indeed lack counsel.  What madness caused thee to ride so furiously as to dash the water of the ford over Arthur, and the consecrated Bishop, and their counsellors, so that they were as wet as if they had been dragged out of the river?"  "As counsel then will I take it."  So he turned his horse's head round towards his army.

"Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "who was yonder knight?"  "The most eloquent and the wisest youth that is in this Island; Adaon the son of Taliesin."  "Who was the man that struck his horse?"  "A youth of froward nature; Elphin the son of Gwyddno."

Then spake a tall and stately man, of noble and flowing speech, saying that it was a marvel that so vast a host should be assembled in so narrow a space, and that it was a still greater marvel that those should be there at that time who had promised to be by mid-day in the battle of Badon, fighting with Osla Gyllellvawr.  "Whether thou mayest choose to proceed or not, I will proceed."  "Thou sayest well," said Arthur, "and we will go all together."  "Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "who was the man who spoke so marvellously unto Arthur erewhile?"  "A man who may speak as boldly as he listeth, Caradawc Vreichvras, the son of Llyr Marini, his chief counsellor and his cousin."

Then Iddawc took Rhonabwy behind him on his horse, and that mighty host moved forward, each troop in its order, towards Cevndigoll.  And when they came to the middle of the ford of the Severn, Iddawc turned his horse's head, and Rhonabwy looked along the valley of the Severn.  And he beheld two fair troops coming towards the ford.  One troop there came of brilliant white, whereof every one of the men had a scarf of white satin with jet black borders.  And the knees and the tops of the shoulders of their horses were jet black, though they were of a pure white in every other part.  And their banners were pure white, with black points to them all.

"Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "who are yonder pure white troop?"  "They are the men of Norway, and March the son of Meirchion is their prince.  And he is cousin unto Arthur."  And further on he saw a troop, whereof each man wore garments of jet black, with borders of pure white to every scarf; and the tops of the shoulders and the knees of their horses were pure white.  And their banners were jet black with pure white at the point of each.

"Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "who are the jet black troop yonder?"  "They are the men of Denmark, and Edeyrn the son of Nudd is their prince."

And when they had overtaken the host, Arthur and his army of mighty ones dismounted below Caer Badon, and he perceived that he and Iddawc journeyed the same road as Arthur.  And after they had dismounted he heard a great tumult and confusion amongst the host, and such as were then at the flanks, turned to the centre, and such as had been in the centre moved to the flanks.  And then, behold, he saw a knight coming, clad, both he and his horse, in mail, of which the rings were whiter than the whitest lily, and the rivets redder than the ruddies blood.  And he rode amongst the host.

"Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "will yonder host flee?"  "King Arthur never fled, and if this discourse of thine were heard, thou wert a lost man. But as to the knight whom thou seest yonder, it is Kai.  The fairest horseman is Kai in all Arthur's Court; and the men who are at the front of the army hasten to the rear to see Kai ride, and the men who are in the centre, flee to the side from the shock of his horse. {116a}  And this is the cause of the confusion of the host."

Thereupon they heard a call made for Kadwr, Earl of Cornwall, and behold he arose with the sword of Arthur in his hand.  And the similitude of two serpents was upon the sword in gold.  And when the sword was drawn from its scabbard, it seemed as if two flames of fire burst forth from the jaws of the serpents, and then, so wonderful was the sword, that it was hard for any one to look upon it.  And the host became still, and the tumult ceased, and the Earl returned to the tent.

"Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "who is the man who bore the sword of Arthur?" "Kadwr, the Earl of Cornwall, whose duty is to arm the King on the days of battle and warfare."

And they heard a call made for Eirynwych Amheibyn, Arthur's servant, a red, rough, ill-favoured man, having red whiskers {116b} with bristly hairs.  And behold he came upon a tall red horse, with the mane parted on each side, and he brought with him a large and beautiful sumpter pack. And the huge red youth dismounted before Arthur, and he drew a golden chair out of the pack, and a carpet of diapered satin.  And he spread the carpet before Arthur, and there was an apple of ruddy gold at each corner thereof, and he placed the chair upon the carpet.  And so large was the chair that three armed warriors might have sat therein.  Gwenn was the name of the carpet, and it was one of its properties, that whoever was upon it no one could see him, and he could see every one.  And it would retain no colour but its own.

And Arthur sat within the carpet, and Owain the son of Urien was standing before him.  "Owain," said Arthur, "wilt thou play chess?"  "I will, Lord," said Owain.  And the red youth brought the chess for Arthur and Owain; golden pieces and a board of silver.  And they began to play.

And while they were thus, and when they were best amused with their game, behold they saw a white tent with a red canopy, and the figure of a jet black serpent on the top of the tent, and red glaring venomous eyes in the head of the serpent, and a red flaming tongue.  And there came a young page with yellow curling hair, and blue eyes, and a newly springing beard, wearing a coat and a surcoat of yellow satin, and hose of thin greenish yellow cloth upon his feet, and over his hose shoes of parti- coloured leather, fastened at the insteps with golden clasps.  And he bore a heavy three-edged sword with a golden hilt, in a scabbard of black leather tipped with fine gold.  And he came to the place where the Emperor and Owain were playing at chess.

And the youth saluted Owain.  And Owain marvelled that the youth should salute him and should not have saluted the Emperor Arthur.  And Arthur knew what was in Owain's thought.  And he said to Owain, "Marvel not that the youth salutes thee now, for he saluted me erewhile; and it is unto thee that his errand is."  Then said the youth unto Owain, "Lord, is it with thy leave that the young pages and attendants of the Emperor harass and torment and worry the Ravens?  And if it be not with thy leave, cause the Emperor to forbid them."  "Lord," said Owain, "thou hearest what the youth says; if it seem good to thee, forbid them from my Ravens."  "Play thy game," said he.  Then the youth returned to the tent.

That game did they finish, and another they began, and when they were in the midst of the game, behold, a ruddy young man with auburn curling hair, and large eyes, well grown, and having his beard new shorn, came forth from a bright yellow tent, upon the summit of which was the figure of a bright red lion.  And he was clad in a coat of yellow satin, falling as low as the small of his leg, and embroidered with threads of red silk. And on his feet were hose of fine white buckram, and buskins of black leather were over his hose, whereon were golden clasps.  And in his hand a huge, heavy, three-edged sword, with a scabbard of red-deer hide, tipped with gold.  And he came to the place where Arthur and Owain were playing at chess.  And he saluted him.  And Owain was troubled at his salutation, but Arthur minded it no more than before.  And the youth said unto Owain, "Is it not against thy will that the attendants of the Emperor harass thy Ravens, killing some and worrying others?  If against thy will it be, beseech him to forbid them."  "Lord," said Owain, "forbid thy men if it seem good to thee."  "Play thy game," said the Emperor.  And the youth returned to the tent.

And that game was ended, and another begun.  And as they were beginning the first move of the game, they beheld at a small distance from them a tent speckled yellow, the largest ever seen, and the figure of an eagle of gold upon it, and a precious stone on the eagle's head.  And coming out of the tent, they saw a youth with thick yellow hair upon his head, fair and comely, and a scarf of blue satin upon him, and a brooch of gold in the scarf upon his right shoulder as large as a warrior's middle finger.  And upon his feet were hose of fine Totness, and shoes of parti- coloured leather, clasped with gold, and the youth was of noble bearing, fair of face, with ruddy cheeks and large hawk's eyes.  In the hand of the youth was a mighty lance, speckled yellow, with a newly sharpened head; and upon the lance a banner displayed.

Fiercely angry, and with rapid pace, came the youth to the place where Arthur was playing at chess with Owain.  And they perceived that he was wroth.  And thereupon he saluted Owain, and told him that his Ravens had been killed, the chief part of them, and that such of them as were not slain were so wounded and bruised that not one of them could raise its wings a single fathom above the earth.  "Lord," said Owain, "forbid thy men."  "Play," said he "if it please thee."  Then said Owain to the youth, "Go back, and wherever thou findest the strife at the thickest, there lift up the banner, and let come what pleases Heaven."  So the youth returned back to the place where the strife bore hardest upon the Ravens, and he lifted up the banner; and as he did so they all rose up in the air, wrathful and fierce and high of spirit, clapping their wings in the wind, and shaking off the weariness that was upon them.  And recovering their energy and courage, furiously and with exultation did they, with one sweep, descend upon the heads of the men, who had erewhile caused them anger and pain and damage, and they seized some by the heads and others by the eyes, and some by the ears, and others by the arms, and carried them up into the air; and in the air there was a mighty tumult with the flapping of the wings of the triumphant Ravens, and with their croaking; and there was another mighty tumult with the groaning of the men, that were being torn and wounded, and some of whom were slain.

And Arthur and Owain marvelled at the tumult as they played at chess; and, looking, they perceived a knight upon a dun-coloured horse coming towards them.  And marvellous was the hue of the dun horse.  Bright red was his right shoulder, and from the top of his legs to the centre of his hoof was bright yellow.  Both the knight and his horse were fully equipped with heavy foreign armour.  The clothing of the horse from the front opening upwards was of bright red sendal, and from thence opening downwards was of bright yellow sendal.  A large gold-hilted one-edged sword had the youth upon his thigh, in a scabbard of light blue, and tipped with Spanish laton.  The belt of the sword was of dark green leather with golden slides and a clasp of ivory upon it, and a buckle of jet black upon the clasp.  A helmet of gold was on the head of the knight, set with precious stones of great virtue, and at the top of the helmet was the image of a flame-coloured leopard with two ruby-red stones in its head, so that it was astounding for a warrior, however stout his heart, to look at the face of the leopard, much more at the face of the knight.  He had in his hand a blue-shafted lance, but from the haft to the point it was stained crimson-red, with the blood of the Ravens and their plumage.

The knight came to the place where Arthur and Owain were seated at chess. And they perceived that he was harassed and vexed and weary as he came towards them.  And the youth saluted Arthur, and told him, that the Ravens of Owain were slaying his young men and attendants.  And Arthur looked at Owain and said, "Forbid thy Ravens."  "Lord," answered Owain, "play thy game."  And they played.  And the knight returned back towards the strife, and the Ravens were not forbade any more than before.

And when they had played awhile, they heard a mighty tumult, and a wailing of men, and a croaking of Ravens, as they carried the men in their strength into the air, and, tearing them betwixt them, let them fall piecemeal to the earth.  And during the tumult they saw a knight coming towards them on a light grey horse, and the left foreleg of the horse was jet black to the centre of his hoof.  And the knight and the horse were fully accoutred with huge heavy blue armour.  And a robe of honour of yellow diapered satin was upon the knight, and the borders of the robe were blue.  And the housings of the horse were jet black, with borders of bright yellow.  And on the thigh of the youth was a sword, long, and three-edged, and heavy.  And the scabbard was of red cut leather, and the belt of new red deerskin, having upon it many golden slides and a buckle of the bone of the sea horse, the tongue of which was jet black.  A golden helmet was upon the head of the knight, wherein were set sapphire stones of great virtue.  And at the top of the helmet was the figure of a flame-coloured lion, with a fiery-red tongue, issuing above a foot from his mouth, and with venomous eyes, crimson-red, in his head.  And the knight came, bearing in his hand a thick ashen lance, the head whereof, which had been newly steeped in blood, was overlaid with silver.

And the youth saluted the Emperor: "Lord," said he, "carest thou not for the slaying of thy pages, and thy young men, and the sons of the nobles of the Island of Britain, whereby it will be difficult to defend this Island from henceforward for ever?"  "Owain," said Arthur, "forbid thy Ravens."  "Play this game, Lord," said Owain.

So they finished the game, and began another; and as they were finishing that game, lo, they heard a great tumult and a clamour of armed men, and a croaking of Ravens, and a flapping of wings in the air, as they flung down the armour entire to the ground, and the men and the horses piecemeal.  Then they saw coming a knight on a lofty-headed piebald horse.  And the left shoulder of the horse was of bright red, and its right leg from the chest to the hollow of the hoof was pure white.  And the knight and horse were equipped with arms of speckled yellow, variegated with Spanish laton.  And there was a robe of honour upon him, and upon his horse, divided in two parts, white and black, and the borders of the robe of honour were of golden purple.  And above the robe he wore a sword three-edged and bright, with a golden hilt.  And the belt of the sword was of yellow goldwork, having a clasp upon it of the eyelid of a black sea horse, and a tongue of yellow gold to the clasp.  Upon the head of the knight was a bright helmet of yellow laton, with sparkling stones of crystal in it, and at the crest of the helmet was the figure of a griffin, with a stone of many virtues in its head.  And he had an ashen spear in his hand, with a round shaft, coloured with azure blue.  And the head of the spear was newly stained with blood, and was overlaid with fine silver.

Wrathfully came the knight to the place where Arthur was, and he told him that the Ravens had slain his household and the sons of the chief men of this Island, and he besought him to cause Owain to forbid his Ravens.  And Arthur besought Owain to forbid them.  Then Arthur took the golden chessmen that were upon the board, and crushed them until they became as dust.  Then Owain ordered Gwres the son of Rheged to lower his banner.  So it was lowered, and all was peace.

Then Rhonabwy enquired of Iddawc, who were the first three men that came to Owain, to tell him his Ravens were being slain.  Said Iddawc, "They were men who grieved that Owain should suffer loss, his fellow-chieftains and companions, Selyv the son of Kynan Garwyn of Powys, and Gwgawn Gleddyvrudd, and Gwres the son of Rheged, he who bears the banner in the day of battle and strife."  "Who," said Rhonabwy, "were the last three men who came to Arthur, and told him that the Ravens were slaughtering his men?"  "The best of men," said Iddawc, "and the bravest, and who would grieve exceedingly that Arthur should have damage in aught; Blathaon, the son of Mawrheth, {124a} and Rhuvawn Pebyr the son of Prince Deorthach, and Hyveidd Unllenn."

And with that behold four and twenty knights came from Osla Gyllellvawr, to crave a truce of Arthur for a fortnight and a month.  And Arthur arose and went to take counsel.  And he came to where a tall auburn curly-headed man was a little way off, and there he assembled his counsellors.  Bedwini, {124b} the Bishop, and Gwarthegyd the son of Kaw, and March the son of Meirchawn, and Caradawc Vreichvras, and Gwalchmai the son of Gwyar, and Edeyrn the son of Nudd, and Rhuvawn Pebyr the son of Prince Deorthach, and Rhiogan the son of the King of Ireland, and Gwenwynwyn the son of Nav, Howel the son of Emyr Llydaw, Gwilym the son of Rhwyf Freinc, and Daned the son of Ath, {124c} and Goreu Custennin, and Mabon the son of Modron, and Peredur Paladyr Hir, and Hyveidd {125a} Unllenn, and Twrch the son of Perif, and Nerth the son of Kadarn, and Gobrwy the son of Echel Vorddwyttwll, Gwair the son of Gwestyl, and Gadwy {125b} the son of Geraint, Trystan {125c} the son of Tallwch, Moryen Manawc, Granwen the son of Llyr, and Llacheu the son of Arthur, and Llawvrodedd Varvawc, and Kadwr Earl of Cornwall, Morvran the son of Tegid, and Rhyawd the son of Morgant, and Dyvyr the son of Alun Dyved, Gwrhyr Gwalstawd Ieithoedd, Adaon the son of Taliesin, Llary {125d} the son of Kasnar {125e} Wledig, and Fflewddur Fflam, and Greidawl Galldovydd, Gilbert the son of Kadgyffro, Menw the son of Teirgwaedd, Gwrthmwl Wledig, Cawrdav the son of Caradawc Vreichvras, Gildas the son of Kaw, Kadyriaith the son of Saidi, and many of the men of Norway, and Denmark, and many of the men of Greece, and a crowd of the men of the host came to that counsel.

"Iddawc," said Rhonabwy, "who was the auburn haired man to whom they came just now?"  "Rhun the son of Maelgwn Gwynedd, a man of whose prerogative it is, that he may join in counsel with all." {125f}  "And wherefore did they admit into counsel with men of such dignity as are yonder a stripling so young as Kadyriaith the son of Saidi?"  "Because there is not throughout Britain a man better skilled in counsel than he."

Thereupon, behold, bards came and recited verses before Arthur, and no man understood those verses, but Kadyriaith only, save that they were in Arthur's praise.

And, lo, there came four and twenty asses with their burdens of gold and of silver, and a tired wayworn man with each of them, bringing tribute to Arthur from the Islands of Greece.  Then Kadyriaith the son of Saidi besought that a truce might be granted to Osla Gyllellvawr for the space of a fortnight and a month, and that the asses and the burdens they carried might be given to the bards, to be to them as the reward for their stay and that their verse might be recompensed, during the time of the truce.  And thus it was settled.

"Rhonabwy," said Iddawc, "would it not be wrong to forbid a youth who can give counsel so liberal as this from coming to the councils of his Lord?"

Then Kai arose, and he said, "Whosoever will follow Arthur, let him be with him to-night in Cornwall, and whosoever will not, let him be opposed to Arthur even during the truce."  And through the greatness of the tumult that ensued, Rhonabwy awoke.  And when he awoke he was upon the yellow calfskin, having slept three nights and three days.

And this tale is called The Dream of Rhonabwy.  And this is the reason that no one knows the dream without a book, neither bard nor gifted seer; because of the various colours that were upon the horses, and the many wondrous colours of the arms and of the panoply, and of the precious scarfs, and of the virtue-bearing stones.

<eob>

A Christmas Carol

By

Charles Dickens



Stave One



Marley's Ghost


Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say St. Paul's Churchyard, for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down' handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts' to Scrooge.

Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather; foggy withal; and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.

'A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

'Bah!' said Scrooge. 'Humbug!'

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

'Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'You don't mean that, I am sure?'

'I do,' said Scrooge. 'Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.'

'Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.'

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, 'Bah!' again; and followed it up with 'Humbug!'

'Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew.

'What else can I be,' returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!'

'Uncle!' pleaded the nephew.

'Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, 'keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.'

'Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. 'But you don't keep it.'

'Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. 'Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!'

'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew; 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

'Let me hear another sound from you,' said Scrooge, 'and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder you don't go into Parliament.'

'Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.'

Scrooge said that he would see him --  -- Yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

'But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. 'Why?'

'Why did you get married?' said Scrooge.

'Because I fell in love.'

'Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. 'Good afternoon!'

'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?'

'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

'I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?'

'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge.

'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!'

'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

'And A Happy New Year!'

'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.

'There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge, who overheard him: 'my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.'

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?'

'Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' Scrooge replied. 'He died seven years ago, this very night.'

'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word 'liberality' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.'

'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.

'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation?'

'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, 'I wish I could say they were not.'

'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge.

'Both very busy, sir.'

'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I am very glad to hear it.'

'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?'

'Nothing!' Scrooge replied.

'You wish to be anonymous?'

'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.'

'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'

'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.'

'But you might know it,' observed the gentleman.

'It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. 'It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!'

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol; but, at the first sound of

'God bless you, merry gentleman, May nothing you dismay!'

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

'You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said Scrooge.

'If quite convenient, sir.'

'It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, 'and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound?'

The clerk smiled faintly.

'And yet,' said Scrooge, 'you don't think me ill used when I pay a day's wages for no work.'

Bob Cratchit went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!' said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin. 'But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.'

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no greatcoat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blind man's-buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including -- which is a bold word -- the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years'-dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change -- not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look; with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But, before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.

Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.

After several turns he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest storey of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise deep down below as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

'It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it.'

His colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I know him! Marley's Ghost!' and fell again.

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent: so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before, he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you want with me?'

'Much!' -- Marley's voice; no doubt about it.

'Who are you?'

'Ask me who I was.'

'Who were you, then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. 'You're particular, for a shade.' He was going to say 'to a shade,' but substituted this, as more appropriate.

'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'

'Can you -- can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.

'I can.'

'Do it, then.'

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.

'I don't,' said Scrooge.

'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your own senses?'

'I don't know,' said Scrooge.

'Why do you doubt your senses?'

'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

'You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

'I do,' replied the Ghost.

'You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.

'But I see it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.'

'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you: humbug!'

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

'Mercy!' he said. 'Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?'

'Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me or not?'

'I do,' said Scrooge; 'I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?'

'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!'

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'

'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'

Scrooge trembled more and more.

'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!'

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he could see nothing.

'Jacob!' he said imploringly. 'Old Jacob Marley, tell me more! Speak comfort to me, Jacob!'

'I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. 'It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house -- mark me; -- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!'

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.

'You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.

'Slow!' the Ghost repeated.

'Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time?'

'The whole time,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.'

'You travel fast?' said Scrooge.

'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost.

'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,' said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

'Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!'

'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'

It held up its chain at arm's-length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said, 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?'

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone.'

'I will,' said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!'

'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.'

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

'That is no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. 'I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.'

'You were always a good friend to me,' said Scrooge. 'Thankee!'

'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'by Three Spirits.'

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded in a faltering voice.

'It is.'

'I -- I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.

'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls One.'

'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?' hinted Scrooge.

'Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!'

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head as before. Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went

The apparition walked backward from him; and, at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Humbug!' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotions he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.


Stave Two



The First Of The Three Spirits


When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.

'Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, 'that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!'

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because 'Three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,' and so forth, would have become a mere United States security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.

Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, 'Was it a dream or not?'

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

'Ding, dong!'

'A quarter past,' said Scrooge, counting.

'Ding, dong!'

'Half past,' said Scrooge.

'Ding, dong!'

'A quarter to it.' said Scrooge.

'Ding, dong!'

'The hour itself,' said Scrooge triumphantly, 'and nothing else!'

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure -- like a child; yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprang a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

'Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?' asked Scrooge.

'I am!'

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead of being so close behind him, it were at a distance.

'Who and what are you?' Scrooge demanded.

'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'

'Long Past?' inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature.

'No. Your past.'

Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap, and begged him to be covered.

'What!' exclaimed the Ghost, 'would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?'

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully 'bonneted' the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

'Your welfare!' said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately -- 

'Your reclamation, then. Take heed!'

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

'Rise! and walk with me!'

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose; but, finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication.

'I am a mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, 'and liable to fall.'

'Bear but a touch of my hand there,' said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, 'and you shall be upheld in more than this!'

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

'Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. 'I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!'

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!

'Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. 'And what is that upon your cheek?'

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

'You recollect the way?' inquired the Spirit.

'Remember it!' cried Scrooge with fervour; 'I could walk it blindfold.'

'Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!' observed the Ghost. 'Let us go on.'

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree, until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.

'These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said the Ghost. 'They have no consciousness of us.'

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

'The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. 'A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.'

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle light and not too much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

'Why, it's Ali Baba!' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas-time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,' said Scrooge, 'and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him? And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess?'

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the City, indeed.

'There's the Parrot!' cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. "Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!'

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, 'Poor boy!' and cried again.

'I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff; 'but it's too late now.'

'What is the matter?' asked the Spirit.

'Nothing,' said Scrooge. 'Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that's all.'

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, saying as it did so, 'Let us see another Christmas!'

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her 'dear, dear brother.'

'I have come to bring you home, dear brother!' said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 'To bring you home, home, home!'

'Home, little Fan?' returned the boy.

'Yes!' said the child, brimful of glee. 'Home for good and all. Home for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're to be a man!' said the child, opening her eyes; 'and are never to come back here; but first we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.'

'You are quite a woman, little Fan!' exclaimed the boy.

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but, being too little laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, 'Bring down Master Scrooge's box, there!' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people; at the same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of 'something' to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but, if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep; the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

'Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,' said the Ghost. 'But she had a large heart!'

'So she had,' cried Scrooge. 'You're right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!'

'She died a woman,' said the Ghost, 'and had, as I think, children.'

'One child,' Scrooge returned.

'True,' said the Ghost. 'Your nephew!'

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind, and answered briefly, 'Yes.'

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and re-passed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was Christmas-time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

'Know it!' said Scrooge. 'Was I apprenticed here?'

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement -- 

'Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!'

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice -- 

'Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!'

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

'Dick Wilkins, to be sure!' said Scrooge to the Ghost. 'Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!'

'Yo ho, my boys!' said Fezziwig. 'No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up,' cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say Jack Robinson!'

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters -- one, two, three -- had 'em up in their places -- four, five, six -- barred 'em and pinned 'em -- seven, eight, nine -- and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like racehorses.

'Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility. 'Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!'

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to see upon a winter's night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, any how and every how. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, 'Well done!' and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley.' Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many -- ah! four times -- old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, cork-screw, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place: Fezziwig 'cut' -- cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

'A small matter,' said the Ghost, 'to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.'

'Small!' echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and when he had done so, said:

'Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?'

'It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. 'It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.'

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

'What is the matter?' asked the Ghost.

'Nothing particular,' said Scrooge.

'Something, I think?' the Ghost insisted.

'No,' said Scrooge, 'no. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.'

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

'My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. 'Quick!'

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

'It matters little,' she said softly. 'To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and, if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.'

'What Idol has displaced you?' he rejoined.

'A golden one.'

'This is the even-handed dealing of the world!' he said. 'There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!'

'You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?'

'What then?' he retorted. 'Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.'

She shook her head.

'Am I?'

'Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor, and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made you were another man.'

'I was a boy,' he said impatiently.

'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she returned. 'I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.'

'Have I ever sought release?'

'In words. No. Never.'

'In what, then?'

'In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,' said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; 'tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!'

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, 'You think not.'

'I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered. 'Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl -- you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.'

He was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, she resumed:

'You may -- the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will -- have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!'

She left him, and they parted.

'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?'

'One shadow more!' exclaimed the Ghost.

'No more!' cried Scrooge. 'No more! I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!'

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

A flushed and boisterous group

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that, by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

'Belle,' said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, 'I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.'

'Who was it?'

'Guess!'

'How can I? Tut, don't I know?' she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. 'Mr. Scrooge.'

'Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.'

'Spirit!' said Scrooge in a broken voice, 'remove me from this place.'

'I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,' said the Ghost. 'That they are what they are do not blame me!'

'Remove me!' Scrooge exclaimed, 'I cannot bear it!'

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

'Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!'

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

Laden with Christmas toys and presents

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.


Stave Three




The Second Of The Three Spirits


Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands, and, lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and consequently, when the bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door.

'Come in!' exclaimed the Ghost. 'Come in! and know me better, man!'

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

'I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. 'Look upon me!'

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark-brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard: but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

'You have never seen the like of me before!' exclaimed the Spirit.

'Never,' Scrooge made answer to it.

'Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?' pursued the Phantom.

'I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. 'I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?'

'More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost.

'A tremendous family to provide for,' muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

'Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively, 'conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learned a lesson which is working now. To-night if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.'

'Touch my robe!'

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms.

The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons: furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear heart's content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

For the people who were shovelling away on the house-tops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence: There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good-humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

'Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?' asked Scrooge.

'There is. My own.'

'Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?' asked Scrooge.

'To any kindly given. To a poor one most.'

'Why to a poor one most?' asked Scrooge.

'Because it needs it most.'

'Spirit!' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, 'I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.

'I!' cried the Spirit.

'You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,' said Scrooge; 'wouldn't you?'

'I!' cried the Spirit.

'You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,' said Scrooge. 'And it comes to the same thing.'

'I seek!' exclaimed the Spirit.

'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.

'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen 'Bob' a week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day,) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

'What has ever got your precious father, then?' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'And your brother, Tiny Tim? And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour!'

'Here's Martha, mother!' said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

'Here's Martha, mother!' cried the two young Cratchits. 'Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!'

'Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!' said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

'We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the girl, 'and had to clear away this morning, mother!'

'Well! never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!'

'No, no! There's father coming,' cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. 'Hide, Martha, hide!'

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

'Why, where's our Martha?' cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

'Not coming,' said Mrs. Cratchit.

'Not coming!' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. 'Not coming upon Christmas Day!'

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

'And how did little Tim behave?' asked Mrs. Cratchit when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

'As good as gold,' said Bob, 'and better. Somehow, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.'

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course -- and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose -- a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

'A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!'

Which all the family re-echoed.

'God bless us every one!' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand to his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

'Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, 'tell me if Tiny Tim will live.'

'I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, 'in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.'

'No, no,' said Scrooge. 'Oh no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.'

'If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future none other of my race,' returned the Ghost, 'will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.'

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

'Man,' said the Ghost, 'if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. O God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!'

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name.

'Mr. Scrooge!' said Bob. 'I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!'

'The Founder of the Feast, indeed!' cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. 'I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it.'

'My dear,' said Bob, 'the children! Christmas Day.'

'It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, 'on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!'

'My dear!' was Bob's mild answer. 'Christmas Day.'

'I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said Mrs. Cratchit, 'not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!'

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord 'was much about as tall as Peter'; at which Peter pulled up his collar so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blinds of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in a glow!

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring with a generous hand its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas.

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

'What place is this?' asked Scrooge.

'A place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,' returned the Spirit. 'But they know me. See!'

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and, passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm-birds -- born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But, even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them -- the elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be -- struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea -- on, on -- until being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!

'Ha, ha!' laughed Scrooge's nephew. 'Ha, ha, ha!'

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way -- holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions -- Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

'Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!'

'He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!' cried Scrooge's nephew. 'He believed it, too!'

'More shame for him, Fred!' said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!

'He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.'

'I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. 'At least, you always tell me so.'

'What of that, my dear?' said Scrooge's nephew. 'His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha! -- that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.'

'I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

'Oh, I have!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'I am sorry for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.'

'Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

'Well! I am very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?'

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.

'Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. 'He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!'

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed.

'I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I defy him -- if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying, "Uncle Scrooge, how are you?" If it only put him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.'

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.

After tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes) which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker!

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blind man's-buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's-buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow; though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he took it in his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.

'Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. 'One half-hour, Spirit, only one!'

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what, he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

'I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!'

'What is it?' cried Fred.

'It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge.'

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to 'Is it a bear?' ought to have been 'Yes'; inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

'He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said Fred, 'and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge!"'

'Well! Uncle Scrooge!' they cried.

'A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!'

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and gaol, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing and taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that, while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it until they left a children's Twelfth-Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.

'Are spirits' lives so short?' asked Scrooge.

'My life upon this globe is very brief,' replied the Ghost. 'It ends to-night.'

'To-night!' cried Scrooge.

'To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.'

The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at that moment.

'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, 'but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?'

'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here!'

From the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

'O Man! look here! Look, look down here!' exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.

'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out his hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!'

'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.

'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'

The bell struck Twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him.


Stave Four



The Last Of The Spirits


The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

'I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?' said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

'You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge pursued. 'Is that so, Spirit?'

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague, uncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.

'Ghost of the Future!' he exclaimed, 'I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear your company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?'

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

'Lead on!' said Scrooge. 'Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!'

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the City; for the City rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants, who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals, and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

'No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, 'I don't know much about it either way. I only know he's dead.'

'When did he die?' inquired another.

'Last night, I believe.'

'Why, what was the matter with him?' asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. 'I thought he'd never die.'

'God knows,' said the first, with a yawn.

'What has he done with his money?' asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

'I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, yawning again. 'Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know.'

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

'It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same speaker; 'for, upon my life, I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party, and volunteer?'

'I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. 'But I must be fed if I make one.'

Another laugh.

'Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' said the first speaker, 'for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!'

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.

The phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.

'How are you?' said one.

'How are you?' returned the other.

'Well!' said the first, 'old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?'

'So I am told,' returned the second. 'Cold, isn't it?'

'Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I suppose?'

'No, no. Something else to think of. Good-morning!'

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image, but another man stood in his accustomed corner; and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shop and houses wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a penthouse roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without by a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.

'Let the charwoman alone to be the first!' cried she who had entered first. 'Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!'

'You couldn't have met in a better place,' said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. 'Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! how it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones here as mine. Ha! ha! We're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.'

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth again.

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool, crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

'What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?' said the woman. 'Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did!'

'That's true, indeed!' said the laundress. 'No man more so.'

'Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! Who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?'

'No, indeed!' said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 'We should hope not.'

'Very well then!' cried the woman. 'That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose?'

'No, indeed,' said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

'If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,' pursued the woman, 'why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.'

'It's the truest word that ever was spoke,' said Mrs. Dilber. 'It's a judgment on him.'

'I wish it was a little heavier judgment,' replied the woman: 'and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.'

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found that there was nothing more to come.

'That's your account,' said Joe, 'and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?'


"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains."

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

'I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. 'That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown.'

'And now undo my bundle, Joe,' said the first woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff.

'What do you call this?' said Joe. 'Bed-curtains?'

'Ah!' returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. 'Bed-curtains!'

'You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying there?' said Joe.

'Yes, I do,' replied the woman. 'Why not?'

'You were born to make your fortune,' said Joe, 'and you'll certainly do it.'

'I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you, Joe,' returned the woman coolly. 'Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now.'

'His blankets?' asked Joe.

'Whose else's do you think?' replied the woman. 'He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say.'

'I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?' said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

'Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. 'I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache, but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.'

'What do you call wasting of it?' asked old Joe.

'Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied the woman, with a laugh. 'Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that one.'

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons marketing the corpse itself.

'Ha, ha!' laughed the same woman when old Joe producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. 'This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!'

'Spirit!' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. 'I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now. Merciful heaven, what is this?'

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed -- a bare, uncurtained bed -- on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but he had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command; for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender, and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!

He lay in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearthstone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

'Spirit!' he said, 'this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!'

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.

'I understand you,' Scrooge returned, 'and I would do it if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.'

Again it seemed to look upon him.

'If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death,' said Scrooge, quite agonised, 'show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!'

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room, started at every sound, looked out from the window, glanced at the clock, tried, but in vain, to work with her needle, and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now, a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire, and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.

'Is it good,' she said, 'or bad?' to help him.

'Bad,' he answered.

'We are quite ruined?'

'No. There is hope yet, Caroline.'

'If he relents,' she said, amazed, 'there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.'

'He is past relenting,' said her husband. 'He is dead.'

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

'What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you of last night, said to me when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay -- and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me -- turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.'

'To whom will our debt be transferred?'

'I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!'

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.

'Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said Scrooge; 'or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me.'

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!

'"And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them."'

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.

'The colour hurts my eyes,' she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

'They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. 'It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home for the world. It must be near his time.'

'Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his book. 'But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.'

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

'I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed.'

'And so have I,' cried Peter. 'Often.'

'And so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all.

'But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon her work, 'and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble, no trouble. And there is your father at the door!'

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter -- he had need of it, poor fellow -- came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said, 'Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!'

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

'Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?' said his wife.

'Yes, my dear,' returned Bob. 'I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!' cried Bob. 'My little child!'

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were.

He left the room, and went upstairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked, the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little -- 'just a little down, you know,' said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. 'On which,' said Bob, 'for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. "I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit," he said, "and heartily sorry for your good wife." By-the-bye, how he ever knew that I don't know.'

'Knew what, my dear?'

'Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob.

'Everybody knows that,' said Peter.

'Very well observed, my boy!' cried Bob. 'I hope they do. "Heartily sorry," he said, "for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way," he said, giving me his card, "that's where I live. Pray come to me." Now, it wasn't,' cried Bob, 'for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.'

'I'm sure he's a good soul!' said Mrs. Cratchit.

'You would be sure of it, my dear,' returned Bob, 'if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised -- mark what I say! -- if he got Peter a better situation.'

'Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs. Cratchit.

'And then,' cried one of the girls, 'Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself.'

'Get along with you!' retorted Peter, grinning.

'It's just as likely as not,' said Bob, 'one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim -- shall we -- or this first parting that there was among us?'

'Never, father!' cried they all.

'And I know,' said Bob, 'I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.'

'No, never, father!' they all cried again.

'I am very happy,' said little Bob, 'I am very happy!'

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!

'Spectre,' said Scrooge, 'something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?'

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him, as before -- though at a different time, he thought: indeed there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future -- into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

'This court,' said Scrooge, 'through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come.'

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

'The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. 'Why do you point away?'

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said Scrooge, 'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?'

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!'

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

'Am I that man who lay upon the bed?' he cried upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

'No, Spirit! Oh no, no!'

The finger still was there.

'Spirit!' he cried, tight clutching at its robe, 'hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?'

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

'Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it, 'your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life?'

The kind hand trembled.

'I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!'

In his agony he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.


Stave Five




The End Of It


Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. O Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!'

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

'They are not torn down,' cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, 'They are not torn down, rings and all. They are here -- I am here -- the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!'

His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

'I don't know what to do!' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath, and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. 'I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy, I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!'

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there, perfectly winded.

'There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!' cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. 'There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!'

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

'I don't know what day of the month it is,' said Scrooge. 'I don't know how long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!'

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clash, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sunlight; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

'What's to-day?' cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

'EH?' returned the boy with all his might of wonder.

'What's to-day, my fine fellow?' said Scrooge.

'To-day!' replied the boy. 'Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.'

'It's Christmas Day!' said Scrooge to himself. 'I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!'

'Hallo!' returned the boy.

'Do you know the poulterer's in the next street but one, at the corner?' Scrooge inquired.

'I should hope I did,' replied the lad.

'An intelligent boy!' said Scrooge. 'A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there? -- Not the little prize turkey: the big one?'

'What! the one as big as me?' returned the boy.

'What a delightful boy!' said Scrooge. 'It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!'

'It's hanging there now,' replied the boy.

'Is it?' said Scrooge. 'Go and buy it.'

'Walk-ER!' exclaimed the boy.

'No, no,' said Scrooge. 'I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the directions where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and I'll give you half-a-crown!'

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half as fast.

'I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's,' whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. 'He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!'

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one; but write it he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open the street-door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

'I shall love it as long as I live!' cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. 'I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker! -- Here's the turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!'

It was a turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

'Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,' said Scrooge. 'You must have a cab.'

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied.

He dressed himself 'all in his best,' and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and, walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, 'Good-morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!' And Scrooge said often afterwards that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

He had not gone far when, coming on towards him, he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, 'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe?' It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

'My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands, 'how do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!'

'Mr. Scrooge?'

'Yes,' said Scrooge. 'That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness --  -- ' Here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

'Lord bless me!' cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. 'My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?'

'If you please,' said Scrooge. 'Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?'

'My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him, 'I don't know what to say to such munifi --  -- '

'Don't say anything, please,' retorted Scrooge. 'Come and see me. Will you come and see me?'

'I will!' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.

'Thankee,' said Scrooge. 'I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!'

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash and did it.

'Is your master at home, my dear?' said Scrooge to the girl. 'Nice girl! Very.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Where is he, my love?' said Scrooge.

'He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you upstairs, if you please.'

'Thankee. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. 'I'll go in here, my dear.'

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

'Fred!' said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it on any account.

'Why, bless my soul!' cried Fred, 'who's that?'

"It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?"

'It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?'

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there! If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the tank.

His hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

'Hallo!' growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it. 'What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?'

'I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. 'I am behind my time.'

'You are!' repeated Scrooge. 'Yes, I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.'

'It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from the tank. 'It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.'

'Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge. 'I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,' he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again -- 'and therefore I am about to raise your salary!'

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

'A merry Christmas, Bob!' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. 'A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!'

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer."

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

<eob>

The Golden Spears And Other Fairy Tales

By

Edmund Leamy



The Golden Spears


Once upon a time there lived in a little house under a hill a little old woman and her two children, whose names were Connla and Nora. Right in front of the door of the little house lay a pleasant meadow, and beyond the meadow rose up to the skies a mountain whose top was sharp-pointed like a spear. For more than halfway up it was clad with heather, and when the heather was in bloom it looked like a purple robe falling from the shoulders of the mountain down to its feet. Above the heather it was bare and gray, but when the sun was sinking in the sea, its last rays rested on the bare mountain top and made it gleam like a spear of gold, and so the children always called it the "Golden Spear."

In summer days they gamboled in the meadow, plucking the sweet wild grasses -- and often and often they clambered up the mountain side, knee deep in the heather, searching for frechans and wild honey, and sometimes they found a bird's nest -- but they only peeped into it, they never touched the eggs or allowed their breath to fall upon them, for next to their little mother they loved the mountain, and next to the mountain they loved the wild birds who made the spring and summer weather musical with their songs.

Sometimes the soft white mist would steal through the glen, and creeping up the mountain would cover it with a veil so dense that the children could not see it, and then they would say to each other: "Our mountain is gone away from us." But when the mist would lift and float off into the skies, the children would clap their hands, and say: "Oh, there's our mountain back again."

In the long nights of winter they babbled of the spring and summertime to come, when the birds would once more sing for them, and never a day passed that they didn't fling crumbs outside their door, and on the borders of the wood that stretched away towards the glen.

When the spring days came they awoke with the first light of the morning, and they knew the very minute when the lark would begin to sing, and when the thrush and the blackbird would pour out their liquid notes, and when the robin would make the soft, green, tender leaves tremulous at his song.

It chanced one day that when they were resting in the noontide heat, under the perfumed shade of a hawthorn in bloom, they saw on the edge of the meadow, spread out before them, a speckled thrush cowering in the grass.

"Oh, Connla! Connla! Look at the thrush -- and, look, look up in the sky, there is a hawk!" cried Nora.

Connla looked up, and he saw the hawk with quivering wings, and he knew that in a second it would pounce down on the frightened thrush. He jumped to his feet, fixed a stone in his sling, and before the whir of the stone shooting through the air was silent, the stricken hawk tumbled headlong in the grass.

The thrush, shaking its wings, rose joyously in the air, and perching upon an elm-tree in sight of the children, he sang a song so sweet that they left the hawthorn shade and walked along together until they stood under the branches of the elm; and they listened and listened to the thrush's song, and at last Nora said:

"Oh, Connla! did you ever hear a song so sweet as this?"

"No," said Connla, "and I do believe sweeter music was never heard before."

"Ah," said the thrush, "that's because you never heard the nine little pipers playing. And now, Connla and Nora, you saved my life to-day."

"It was Nora saved it," said Connla, "for she pointed you out to me, and also pointed out the hawk which was about to pounce on you."

"It was Connla saved you," said Nora, "for he slew the hawk with his sling."

"I owe my life to both of you," said the thrush. "You like my song, and you say you have never heard anything so sweet; but wait till you hear the nine little pipers playing."

"And when shall we hear them?" said the children.

"Well," said the thrush, "sit outside your door to-morrow evening, and wait and watch until the shadows have crept up the heather, and then, when the mountain top is gleaming like a golden spear, look at the line where the shadow on the heather meets the sunshine, and you shall see what you shall see."

And having said this, the thrush sang another song sweeter than the first, and then saying "good-by," he flew away into the woods.

The children went home, and all night long they were dreaming of the thrush and the nine little pipers; and when the birds sang in the morning, they got up and went out into the meadow to watch the mountain.

The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, and no shadows lay on the mountain, and all day long they watched and waited, and at last, when the birds were singing their farewell song to the evening star, the children saw the shadows marching from the glen, trooping up the mountain side and dimming the purple of the heather.

And when the mountain top gleamed like a golden spear, they fixed their eyes on the line between the shadow and the sunshine.

"Now," said Connla, "the time has come."

"Oh, look! look!" said Nora, and as she spoke, just above the line of shadow a door opened out, and through its portals came a little piper dressed in green and gold. He stepped down, followed by another and another, until they were nine in all, and then the door slung back again. Down through the heather marched the pipers in single file, and all the time they played a music so sweet that the birds, who had gone to sleep in their nests, came out upon the branches to listen to them, and then they crossed the meadow, and they went on and on until they disappeared in the leafy woods.

While they were passing the children were spellbound, and couldn't speak, but when the music had died away in the woods, they said:

"The thrush is right, that is the sweetest music that was ever heard in all the world."

And when the children went to bed that night the fairy music came to them in their dreams. But when the morning broke, and they looked out upon their mountain and could see no trace of the door above the heather, they asked each other whether they had really seen the little pipers, or only dreamt of them.

That day they went out into the woods, and they sat beside a stream that pattered along beneath the trees, and through the leaves tossing in the breeze the sun flashed down upon the streamlet, and shadow and sunshine danced upon it. As the children watched the water sparkling where the sunlight fell, Nora said:

"Oh, Connla, did you ever see anything so bright and clear and glancing as that?"

"No," said Connla, "I never did."

"That's because you never saw the crystal hall of the fairy of the mountains," said a voice above the heads of the children.

And when they looked up, who should they see perched on a branch but the thrush.

"And where is the crystal hall of the fairy?" said Connla.

"Oh, it is where it always was, and where it always will be," said the thrush. "And you can see it if you like."

"We would like to see it," said the children.

"Well, then," said the thrush, "if you would, all you have to do is to follow the nine little pipers when they come down through the heather, and cross the meadow to-morrow evening."

And the thrush having said this, flew away.

Connla and Nora went home, and that night they fell asleep talking of the thrush and the fairy and the crystal hall.

All the next day they counted the minutes, until they saw the shadows thronging from the glen and scaling the mountain side. And, at last, they saw the door springing open, and the nine little pipers marching down.

They waited until the pipers had crossed the meadow and were about to enter the wood. And then they followed them, the pipers marching on before them and playing all the time. It was not long until they had passed through the wood, and then, what should the children see rising up before them but another mountain, smaller than their own, but, like their own, clad more than half way up with purple heather, and whose top was bare and sharp-pointed, and gleaming like a golden spear.

Up through the heather climbed the pipers, up through the heather the children clambered after them, and the moment the pipers passed the heather a door opened and they marched in, the children following, and the door closed behind them.

Connla and Nora were so dazzled by the light that hit their eyes, when they had crossed the threshold, that they had to shade them with their hands; but, after a moment or two, they became able to bear the splendor, and when they looked around they saw that they were in a noble hall, whose crystal roof was supported by two rows of crystal pillars rising from a crystal floor; and the walls were of crystal, and along the walls were crystal couches, with coverings and cushions of sapphire silk with silver tassels.

Over the crystal floor the little pipers marched; over the crystal floor the children followed, and when a door at the end of the hall was opened to let the pipers pass, a crowd of colors came rushing in, and floor, and ceiling, and stately pillars, and glancing couches, and shining walls, were stained with a thousand dazzling hues.

Out through the door the pipers marched; out through the door the children followed, and when they crossed the threshold they were treading on clouds of amber, of purple, and of gold.

"Oh, Connla," said Nora, "we have walked into the sunset!"

And around and about them everywhere were soft, fleecy clouds, and over their heads was the glowing sky, and the stars were shining through it, as a lady's eyes shine through a veil of gossamer. And the sky and stars seemed so near that Connla thought he could almost touch them with his hand.

When they had gone some distance, the pipers disappeared, and when Connla and Nora came up to the spot where they had seen the last of them, they found themselves at the head of a ladder, all the steps of which were formed of purple and amber clouds that descended to what appeared to be a vast and shining plain, streaked with purple and gold. In the spaces between the streaks of gold and purple they saw soft, milk-white stars. And the children thought that the great plain, so far below them, also belonged to cloudland.

They could not see the little pipers, but up the steps was borne by the cool, sweet air the fairy music; and lured on by it step by step they traveled down the fleecy stairway. When they were little more than halfway down there came mingled with the music a sound almost as sweet -- the sound of waters toying in the still air with pebbles on a shelving beach, and with the sound came the odorous brine of the ocean. And then the children knew that what they thought was a plain in the realms of cloudland was the sleeping sea unstirred by wind or tide, dreaming of the purple clouds and stars of the sunset sky above it.

When Connla and Nora reached the strand they saw the nine little pipers marching out towards the sea, and they wondered where they were going to. And they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw them stepping out upon the level ocean as if they were walking upon the land; and away the nine little pipers marched, treading the golden line cast upon the waters by the setting sun. And as the music became fainter and fainter as the pipers passed into the glowing distance, the children began to wonder what was to become of themselves. Just at that very moment they saw coming towards them from the sinking sun a little white horse, with flowing mane and tail and golden hoofs. On the horse's back was a little man dressed in shining green silk. When the horse galloped on to the strand the little man doffed his hat, and said to the children:

"Would you like to follow the nine little pipers?" The children said, "yes."

"Well, then," said the little man, "come up here behind me; you, Nora, first, and Connla after."

Connla helped up Nora, and then climbed on to the little steed himself; and as soon as they were properly seated the little man said "swish," and away went the steed, galloping over the sea without wetting hair or hoof. But fast as he galloped the nine little pipers were always ahead of him, although they seemed to be going only at a walking pace. When at last he came up rather close to the hindmost of them the nine little pipers disappeared, but the children heard the music playing beneath the waters. The white steed pulled up suddenly, and wouldn't move a step further.

"Now," said the little man to the children, "clasp me tight, Nora, and do you, Connla, cling on to Nora, and both of you shut your eyes."

The children did as they were bidden, and the little man cried:

"Swish! swash!"

And the steed went down and down until at last his feet struck the bottom.

"Now open your eyes," said the little man.

And when the children did so they saw beneath the horse's feet a golden strand, and above their heads the sea like a transparent cloud between them and the sky. And once more they heard the fairy music, and marching on the strand before them were the nine little pipers.

"You must get off now," said the little man, "I can go no farther with you."

The children scrambled down, and the little man cried "swish," and himself and the steed shot up through the sea, and they saw him no more. Then they set out after the nine little pipers, and it wasn't long until they saw rising up from the golden strand and pushing their heads up into the sea above, a mass of dark gray rocks. And as they were gazing at them they saw the rocks opening, and the nine little pipers disappearing through them.

The children hurried on, and when they came up close to the rocks they saw sitting on a flat and polished stone a mermaid combing her golden hair, and singing a strange sweet song that brought the tears to their eyes, and by the mermaid's side was a little sleek brown otter.

When the mermaid saw them she flung her golden tresses back over her snow-white shoulders, and she beckoned the children to her. Her large eyes were full of sadness; but there was a look so tender upon her face that the children moved towards her without any fear.

"Come to me, little one," she said to Nora, "come and kiss me," and in a second her arms were around the child. The mermaid kissed her again and again; as the tears rushed to her eyes, she said:

"Oh, Nora, mavourneen, your breath is as sweet as the wild rose that blooms in the green fields of Erin, and happy are you, my children, who have come so lately from the pleasant land. Oh, Connla! Connla! I get the scent of the dew of the Irish grasses and of the purple heather from your feet. And you both can soon return to Erin of the Streams, but I shall not see it till three hundred years have passed away, for I am Liban the Mermaid, daughter of a line of kings. But I may not keep you here. The Fairy Queen is waiting for you in her snow-white palace and her fragrant bowers. And now kiss me once more, Nora, and kiss me, Connla. May luck and joy go with you, and all gentleness be upon you both."

Then the children said good-by to the mermaid, and the rocks opened for them and they passed through, and soon they found themselves in a meadow starred with flowers, and through the meadow sped a sunlit stream. They followed the stream until it led them into a garden of roses, and beyond the garden, standing on a gentle hill, was a palace white as snow. Before the palace was a crowd of fairy maidens pelting each other with rose-leaves. But when they saw the children they gave over their play, and came trooping towards them.

"Our queen is waiting for you," they said; and then they led the children to the palace door. The children entered, and after passing through a long corridor they found themselves in a crystal hall so like the one they had seen in the mountain of the golden spear that they thought it was the same. But on all the crystal couches fairies, dressed in silken robes of many colors, were sitting, and at the end of the hall, on a crystal throne, was seated the fairy queen, looking lovelier than the evening star. The queen descended from her throne to meet the children, and taking them by the hands, she led them up the shining steps. Then, sitting down, she made them sit beside her, Connla on her right hand and Nora on her left.

Then she ordered the nine little pipers to come before her, and she said to them:

"So far you have done your duty faithfully, and now play one more sweet air and your task is done."

And the little pipers played, and from the couches at the first sound of the music all the fairies rose, and forming partners, they danced over the crystal floor as lightly as the young leaves dancing in the wind.

Listening to the fairy music, and watching the wavy motion of the dancing fairies, the children fell asleep. When they awoke next morning and rose from their silken beds they were no longer children. Nora was a graceful and stately maiden, and Connla a handsome and gallant youth. They looked at each other for a moment in surprise, and then Connla said:

"Oh, Nora, how tall and beautiful you are!"

"Oh, not so tall and handsome as you are, Connla," said Nora, as she flung her white arms round his neck and kissed her brother's lips.

Then they drew back to get a better look of each other, and who should step between them but the fairy queen.

"Oh, Nora, Nora," said she, "I am not as high as your knee, and as for you, Connla, you look as straight and as tall as one of the round towers of Erin."

"And how did we grow so tall in one night?" said Connla.

"In one night!" said the fairy queen. "One night, indeed! Why, you have been fast asleep, the two of you, for the last seven years!"

"And where was the little mother all that time?" said Connla and Nora together.

"Oh, the little mother was all right. She knew where you were; but she is expecting you to-day, and so you must go off to see her, although I would like to keep you -- if I had my way -- all to myself here in the fairyland under the sea. And you will see her to-day; but before you go here is a necklace for you, Nora; it is formed out of the drops of the ocean spray, sparkling in the sunshine. They were caught by my fairy nymphs, for you, as they skimmed the sunlit billows under the shape of sea-birds, and no queen or princess in the world can match their luster with the diamonds won with toil from the caves of earth. As for you, Connla, see here's a helmet of shining gold fit for a king of Erin -- and a king of Erin you will be yet; and here's a spear that will pierce any shield, and here's a shield that no spear can pierce and no sword can cleave as long as you fasten your warrior cloak with this brooch of gold."

And as she spoke she flung round Connla's shoulders a flowing mantle of yellow silk, and pinned it at his neck with a red gold brooch.

"And now, my children, you must go away from me. You, Nora, will be a warrior's bride in Erin of the Streams. And you, Connla, will be king yet over the loveliest province in all the land of Erin; but you will have to fight for your crown, and days of battle are before you. They will not come for a long time after you have left the fairyland under the sea, and until they come lay aside your helmet, shield, and spear, and warrior's cloak and golden brooch. But when the time comes when you will be called to battle, enter not upon it without the golden brooch I give you fastened in your cloak, for if you do harm will come to you. Now, kiss me, children; your little mother is waiting for you at the foot of the golden spear, but do not forget to say good-by to Liban the Mermaid, exiled from the land she loves, and pining in sadness beneath the sea."

Connla and Nora kissed the fairy queen, and Connla, wearing his golden helmet and silken cloak, and carrying his shield and spear, led Nora with him. They passed from the palace through the garden of roses, through the flowery meadow, through the dark gray rocks, until they reached the golden strand; and there, sitting and singing the strange, sweet song, was Liban the Mermaid.

"And so you are going up to Erin," she said, "up through the covering waters. Kiss me, children, once again; and when you are in Erin of the Streams, sometimes think of the exile from Erin beneath the sea."

And the children kissed the mermaid, and with sad hearts, bidding her good-by, they walked along the golden strand. When they had gone what seemed to them a long way, they began to feel weary; and just then they saw coming towards them a little man in a red jacket leading a coal-black steed.

When they met the little man, he said: "Connla, put Nora up on this steed; then jump up before her."

Connla did as he was told, and when both of them were mounted -- 

"Now, Connla," said the little man, "catch the bridle in your hands, and you, Nora, clasp Connla round the waist, and close your eyes."

They did as they were bidden, and then the little man said, "Swash, swish!" and the steed shot up from the strand like a lark from the grass, and pierced the covering sea, and went bounding on over the level waters; and when his hoofs struck the hard ground, Connla and Nora opened their eyes, and they saw that they were galloping towards a shady wood.

On went the steed, and soon he was galloping beneath the branches that almost touched Connla's head. And on they went until they had passed through the wood, and then they saw rising up before them the "Golden Spear."

"Oh, Connla," said Nora, "we are at home at last."

"Yes," said Connla, "but where is the little house under the hill?"

And no little house was there; but in its stead was standing a lime-white mansion.

"What can this mean?" said Nora.

But before Connla could reply, the steed had galloped up to the door of the mansion, and, in the twinkling of an eye, Connla and Nora were standing on the ground outside the door, and the steed had vanished.

Before they could recover from their surprise the little mother came rushing out to them, and flung her arms around their necks, and kissed them both again and again.

"Oh, children! children! You are welcome home to me; for though I knew it was all for the best, my heart was lonely without you."

And Connla and Nora caught up the little mother in their arms, and they carried her into the hall and set her down on the floor.

"Oh, Nora!" said the little mother, "you are a head over me; and as for you, Connla, you look almost as tall as one of the round towers of Erin."

"That's what the fairy queen said, mother," said Nora.

"Blessings on the fairy queen," said the little mother. "Turn round, Connla, till I look at you."

Connla turned round, and the little mother said:

"Oh, Connla, with your golden helmet and your spear, and your glancing shield, and your silken cloak, you look like a king. But take them off, my boy, beautiful as they are. Your little mother would like to see you, her own brave boy, without any fairy finery."

And Connla laid aside his spear and shield, and took off his golden helmet and his silken cloak. Then he caught the little mother and kissed her, and lifted her up until she was as high as his head. And said he:

"Don't you know, little mother, I'd rather have you than all the world."

And that night, when they were sitting down by the fire together, you may be sure that in the whole world no people were half as happy as Nora, Connla, and the little mother.



The House In The Lake


A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut, in the midst of one of the inland lakes of Erin, an old fisherman and his son. The hut was built on stakes driven into the bed of the lake, and was so high above the waters that even when they were stirred into waves by the wind coming down from the mountains they did not reach the threshold of the door. Around, outside the hut, on a level with the floor, was a little wicker-work platform, and under the platform, close to the steps leading up to it from the water, the fisherman's curragh, made of willows, covered with skins, was moored, and it was only by means of the curragh that he and his son, Enda, could leave their lake dwelling.

On many a summer evening Enda lay stretched on the platform, watching the sunset fading from the mountain-tops, and the twilight creeping over the waters of the lake, and it chanced that once when he was so engaged he heard a rustle in a clump of sedge that grew close to one side of the hut. He turned to where the sound came from, and what should he see but an otter swimming towards him, with a little trout in his mouth. When the otter came up to where Enda was lying, he lifted his head and half his body from the water, and flung the trout on the platform, almost at Enda's feet, and then disappeared.

Enda took the little panting trout in his hand; but as he did so he heard, quite close to him, in the lake, a sound like that of water plashing upon water, and he saw the widening circles caused by a trout which had just risen to a fly; and he said to the little trout he held in his hand:

"I won't keep you, poor thing! Perhaps that was a little comrade come to look for you, and so I'll send you back to him."

And saying this, he dropped the little trout into the lake.

Well, when the next evening came, again Enda was lying stretched outside the hut, and once more he heard the rustle in the sedge, and once more the otter came and flung the little trout almost into his hands.

Enda, more surprised than ever, did not know what to do. He saw that it was the same little trout the otter had brought him the night before, and he said:

"Well, I gave you a chance last night. I'll give you another, if only to see what will come of it."

And he dropped the trout into the lake; but no sooner had it touched the waters than it was changed into a beautiful, milk-white swan. And Enda could hardly believe his eyes, as he saw it sailing across the lake, until it was lost in the sedges growing by the shore.

All that night he lay awake, thinking of what he had seen, and as soon as the morning stood on the hill-tops, and cast its shafts of golden light across the lake, Enda rose and got into his curragh.

He rowed all round the shores, beating the sedges with his oar, in pursuit of the swan; but all in vain; he could not catch a glimpse of her white plumage anywhere. Day after day he rowed about the lake in search of her, and every evening he lay outside the hut watching the waters. At long last, one night, when the full moon, rising above the mountains, flooded the whole lake with light, he saw the swan coming swiftly towards him, shining brighter than the moonbeams. The swan came on until it was almost within a boat's length of the hut; and what should Enda hear but the swan speaking to him in his own language:

"Get into your curragh, Enda, and follow me," said she, and, saying this, she turned round and sailed away.

Enda jumped into the curragh, and soon the water, dripping from his oar, was flashing like diamonds in the moonlight. And he rowed after the swan, who glided on before him, until she came to where the shadows of the mountains lay deepest on the lake. Then the swan rested, and when Enda came up to her:

"Enda," said she, "I have brought you where none may hear what I wish to say to you. I am Mave, the daughter of the king of Erin. By the magic arts of my cruel stepmother I was changed into a trout, and cast into this lake a year and a day before the evening when you restored me to the waters the second time. If you had not done so the first night the otter brought me to you I should have been changed into a hooting owl; if you had not done so the second night, I should have been changed into a croaking raven. But, thanks to you, Enda, I am now a snow-white swan, and for one hour on the first night of every full moon the power of speech is and will be given to me as long as I remain a swan. And a swan I must always remain, unless you are willing to break the spell of enchantment that is over me; and you alone can break it."

"I'll do anything I can for you, O princess!" said Enda. "But how can I break the spell?"

"You can do so," said the swan, "only by pouring upon my plumage the perfumed water that fills the golden bowl that is in the inmost room of the palace of the fairy queen, beneath the lake."

"And how can I get that?" said Enda.

"Well," said the swan, "you must dive beneath the lake, and walk along its bed, until you come to where the lake dragon guards the entrance of the fairy queen's dominions."

"I can dive like a fish," said Enda; "but how can I walk beneath the waters?"

"You can do it easily enough," said the swan, "if you get the water-dress of Brian, one of the three sons of Turenn, and his helmet of transparent crystal, by the aid of which he was able to walk under the green salt sea."

"And where shall I find them?"

"They are in the water-palace of Angus of the Boyne," said the swan; "but you should set out at once, for if the spell be not broken before the moon is full again, it cannot be broken for a year and a day."

"I'll set out in the first ray of the morning," said Enda.

"May luck and joy go with you," said the swan. "And now the hours of silence are coming upon me, and I have only time to warn you that dangers you little dream of will lie before you in your quest for the golden cup."

"I am willing to face all dangers for your sake, O princess," said Enda.

"Blessings be upon you, Enda," said the swan, and she sailed away from the shadow out into the light across the lake to the sedgy banks. And Enda saw her no more.

He rowed his curragh home, and he lay on his bed without taking off his clothes. And as the first faint glimmer of the morning came slanting down the mountains, he stepped into his curragh and pulled across the lake, and took the road towards the water-palace of Angus of the Boyne.

When he reached the banks of the glancing river a little woman, dressed in red, was standing there before him.

"You are welcome, Enda," said she. "And glad am I to see the day that brings you here to help the winsome Princess Mave. And now wait a second, and the water-dress and crystal helmet will be ready for you."

And, having said this, the little woman plucked a handful of wild grasses, and she breathed upon them three times and then flung them on the river, and a dozen fairy nymphs came springing up through the water, bearing the water-dress and crystal helmet and a shining spear. And they laid them down upon the bank at Enda's feet, and then disappeared.

"Now, Enda," said the fairy woman, "take these; by the aid of the dress and the helmet you can walk beneath the waters. You will need the spear to enable you to meet the dangers that lie before you. But with that spear, if you only have courage, you can overcome everything and everyone that may attempt to bar your way."

Having said this, she bid good-by to Enda, and stepping off the bank, she floated out upon the river as lightly as a red poppy leaf. And when she came to the middle of the stream she disappeared beneath the waters.

Enda took the helmet, dress, and spear, and it was not long until he came to the sedgy banks where his little boat was waiting for him. As he stepped into the curragh the moon was rising above the mountains. He rowed on until he came to the hut, and having moored the boat to the door, he put on the water-dress and the crystal helmet, and taking the spear in his hand, he leaped over the side of the curragh, and sank down and down until he touched the bottom. Then he walked along without minding where he was going, and the only light he had was the shimmering moonlight, which descended as faintly through the waters as if it came through muffled glass. He had not gone very far when he heard a horrible hissing, and straight before him he saw what he thought were two flaming coals. After a few more steps he found himself face to face with the dragon of the lake, the guardian of the palace of the fairy queen. Before he had time to raise his spear, the dragon had wound its coils around him, and he heard its horrible teeth crunching against the side of his crystal helmet, and he felt the pressure of its coils around his side, and the breath almost left his body; but the dragon, unable to pierce the helmet, unwound his coils, and soon Enda's hands were free, and before the dragon could attempt to seize him again, he drove his spear through one of its fiery eyes, and, writhing with pain, the hissing dragon darted through a cave behind him. Enda, gaining courage from the dragon's flight, marched on until he came to a door of dull brass set in the rocks. He tried to push it in before him, but he might as well have tried to push away the rocks. While he was wondering what he should do, he heard again the fierce hissing of the dragon, and saw the red glare of his fiery eye dimly in the water.

Lifting his spear and hastily turning round to meet the furious monster, Enda accidentally touched the door with the point of the spear, and the door flew open. Enda passed through, and the door closed behind him with a grating sound, and he marched along through a rocky pass which led to a sandy plain.

As he stepped from the pass into the plain the sands began to move, as if they were alive. In a second a thousand hideous serpents, almost the color of the sand, rose hissing up, and with their forked tongues made a horrible, poisonous hedge in front of him. For a second he stood dismayed, but then, leveling his spear, he rushed against the hedge of serpents, and they, shooting poison at him, sank beneath the sand. But the poison did not harm him, because of his water-dress and crystal helmet.

When he had passed over the sandy plain, he had to climb a great steep, jagged rock. When he got to the top of the rock he saw spread out before him a stony waste without a tuft or blade of grass. At some distance in front of him he noticed a large dark object, which he took to be a rock, but on looking at it more closely he saw that it was a huge, misshapen, swollen mass, apparently alive. And it was growing bigger and bigger every moment. Enda stood amazed at the sight, and before he knew where he was the loathsome creature rose from the ground, and sprang upon him before he could use his spear, and, catching him in its horrid grasp, flung him back over the rocks on to the sandy plain. Enda was almost stunned, but the hissing of the serpents rising from the sand around him brought him to himself, and, jumping to his feet, once more he drove them down beneath the surface. He then approached the jagged rock, on the top of which he saw the filthy monster glaring at him with bloodshot eyes. Enda poised his spear and hurled it against his enemy. It entered between the monster's eyes, and from the wound the blood flowed down like a black torrent and dyed the plain, and the shrunken carcass slipped down the front of the rocks and disappeared beneath the sand. Enda once more ascended the rock, and without meeting or seeing anything he passed over the stony waste, and at last he came to a leafy wood. He had not gone far in the wood until he heard the sound of fairy music, and walking on he came upon a mossy glade, and there he found the fairies dancing around their queen. They were so small, and were all so brightly dressed, that they looked like a mass of waving flowers; but when he was seen by them they vanished like a glorious dream, and no one remained before him but the fairy queen. The queen blushed at finding herself alone, but on stamping her little foot three times upon the ground, the frightened fairies all crept back again.

"You are welcome, Enda," said the queen. "My little subjects have been alarmed by your strange dress and crystal helmet. I pray you take them off; you do not need them here."

Enda did as he was bidden, and he laid down his water-dress and helmet on the grass, and the little fairies, seeing him in his proper shape, got over their fright, and, unrestrained by the presence of the queen, they ran tumbling over one another to try and get a good look at the crystal helmet.

"I know what you have come for, Enda," said the queen. "The golden cup you shall have to-morrow; but to-night you must share our feast, so follow me to the palace."

Having said this, the queen beckoned her pages to her, and, attended by them and followed by Enda, she went on through the wood. When they had left it behind them Enda saw on a green hill before him the snow-white palace of the fairy queen.

As the queen approached the steps that led up to the open door, a band of tiny fairies, dressed in rose-colored silk, came out, carrying baskets of flowers, which they flung down on the steps to make a fragrant carpet for her. They were followed by a band of harpers dressed in yellow silken robes, who ranged themselves on each side of the steps and played their sweetest music as the queen ascended.

When the queen, followed by Enda, entered the palace, they passed through a crystal hall that led to a banquet-room. The room was lighted by a single star, large as a battle-shield. It was fixed against the wall above a diamond throne.

The queen seated herself upon the throne, and the pages, advancing towards her, and bending low, as they approached the steps, handed her a golden wand.

The queen waved the wand three times, and a table laden with all kinds of delicacies appeared upon the floor. Then she beckoned Enda to her, and when he stood beside her the fairy table was no higher than his knee.

"I am afraid I must make you smaller, Enda," said the queen, "or you will never be able to seat yourself at my fairy table."

And having said this, she touched Enda with the golden wand, and at once he became as small as her tallest page. Then she struck the steps of her throne, and all the nobles of her court, headed by her bards, took their places at the festive board.

The feast went on right merrily, and when the tiny jeweled drinking-cups were placed upon the table, the queen ordered the harpers to play.

And the little harpers struck the chords, and as Enda listened to the music it seemed to him as if he was being slowly lifted from his seat, and when the music ended the fairies vanished, the shining star went out, and Enda was in perfect darkness.

The air blew keenly in his face, and he knew not where he was. At last he saw a faint gray light, and soon this light grew broader and brighter, and as the shadows fled before it, he could hardly believe his eyes when he found himself in his curragh on the lake, and the moonlight streaming down from the mountain-tops.

For a moment he thought he must have been dreaming; but there in the boat before him were the crystal helmet, and the water-dress, and the gleaming spear, and the golden bowl of perfumed water that was to remove the spell of enchantment from the white swan of the lake, and sailing towards him from the sedgy bank came the snow-white swan; and when she touched the boat, Enda put out his hands and lifted her in, and then over her plumage he poured the perfumed water from the golden bowl, and the Princess Mave in all her maiden beauty stood before him.

"Take your oar, Enda," she said, "and row to the southern bank."

Enda seized his oar, and the curragh sped across the waters swifter than a swallow in its flight. When the boat touched the shore Enda jumped out, and lifted the princess on to the bank.

"Send your boat adrift, Enda," she said; "but first take out your shining spear; the water-dress and the crystal helmet will take care of themselves."

Enda took out the spear, and then pushed the boat from the bank. It sped on towards the hut in the middle of the lake; but before it had reached halfway six nymphs sprang up from the water and seizing the helmet and dress, sank with them beneath the tide, and the boat went on until it pushed its prow against the steps of the little hut, where it remained.

Then Enda and the princess turned towards the south, and it was not long until they came to a deep forest, that was folding up its shadows and spreading out its mossy glades before the glancing footsteps of the morning. They had not gone far through the forest when they heard the music of hounds and the cries of huntsmen, and crashing towards them through the low branches they saw a fierce wild boar. Enda, gently pushing the princess behind him, leveled his spear, and when the boar came close to him he drove it into his throat. The brute fell dead at his feet, and the dogs rushing up began to tear it to pieces. The princess fainted at the sight, and while Enda was endeavoring to restore her, the king of Erin, followed by his huntsmen, appeared, and when the king saw the princess he started in amazement, as he recognized the features of his daughter Mave.

"'I have mourned you as dead, my darling,' said he"

At that moment the princess came to herself, and her father, lifting her tenderly in his arms, kissed her again and again.

"I have mourned you as dead, my darling," said he, "and now you are restored to me more lovely than ever. I would gladly have given up my throne for this. But say who is the champion who has brought you hither, and who has slain the wild boar we have hunted so many years in vain?"

The princess blushed like a rose as she said:

"His name is Enda, father; it is he has brought me back to you."

Then the king embraced Enda and said:

"Forgive me, Enda, for asking any questions about you before you have shared the hospitality of my court. My palace lies beyond the forest, and we shall reach it soon."

Then the king ordered his huntsman to sound the bugle-horn, and all his nobles galloped up in answer to it, and when they saw the Princess Mave they were so dazzled by her beauty that they scarcely gave a thought to the death of the wild boar.

"It is my daughter, Mave, come back to me," said the king.

And all the nobles lowered their lances, and bowed in homage to the lady.

"And there stands the champion who has brought her home," said the king, pointing to Enda.

The nobles looked at Enda, and bowed courteously, but in their hearts they were jealous of the champion, for they saw he was already a favorite of the king's.

Then the pages came up, leading milk-white steeds with golden bridles, and the king, ordering Enda to mount one of them, lifted Mave on to his own, and mounted behind her. The pages, carrying the boar's head on a hollow shield, preceded by the huntsmen sounding their horns, set out towards the palace, and the royal party followed them.

As the procession approached the palace crowds came rushing out to see the trophies of the chase, and through the snow-white door the queen, Mave's cruel stepmother, attended by her maids-of-honor and the royal bards, came forth to greet the king. But when she saw seated before him the Princess Mave, who she thought was at the bottom of the lake under a spell of enchantment, she uttered a loud cry, and fell senseless to the ground.

The king jumped from his horse, and rushing to the queen, lifted her up and carried her in his arms to her apartments, for he had no suspicion of the wickedness of which she had been guilty.

And the court leeches were summoned to attend her, but she died that very night, and it was not until a green mound, worthy of a queen of Erin, had been raised over her grave that the Princess Mave told her father of the wickedness of her stepmother. And when she told him the whole story of how Enda had broken the spell of enchantment, and of the dangers which he had faced for her sake, the king summoned an assembly of all his nobles, and seated on his throne, wearing his golden helmet, the bards upon his right hand and the Druids upon his left, and the nobles in ranks before him with gleaming helmets and flashing spears, he told them the story of the princess, and of the service which Enda had rendered to her.

"And now," said the king, "if the princess is willing to take her deliverer for her husband, I am willing that she shall be his bride; and if you, my subjects, bards and Druids and nobles and chiefs of Erin, have anything to say against this union, speak. But first, Mave," said the king, as he drew the blushing princess to him, "speak, darling, as becomes the daughter of a king -- speak in the presence of the nobles of Erin, and say if it is your wish to become Enda's bride."

The princess flung her white arms around her father's neck, as she murmured:

"Father, it was Enda brought me back to you, and before all the princes and nobles of Erin I am willing to be his bride."

And she buried her head upon the king's breast, and as he stroked her silken hair falling to her feet, the bards struck their golden harps, but the sound of the joyous music could hardly drown the murmurs of the jealous nobles.

When the music ceased the king beckoned Enda to him, and was about to place his hand in Mave's when a Druid, whose white beard almost touched the ground, and who had been a favorite of the dead stepmother, and hated Mave for her sake, stepped forward and said:

"O king of Erin, never yet has the daughter of a king been freely given in marriage to any save a battle champion; and that stripling there has never struck his spear against a warrior's shield."

A murmur of approbation rose from the jealous princes, and Congal, the bravest of them all, stepped out from the ranks, and said:

"The Druid speaks the truth, O king! That stripling has never faced a battle champion yet, and, speaking for all the nobles of your land, I challenge him to fight any one of us; and as he is young and unused to arms, we are willing that the youngest and least experienced amongst us should be set against him."

When Congal had spoken, the nobles, in approval of his words, struck their shields with their swords, and the brazen sound ascended to the skies.

The face of the princess, blushing a moment before like a rose, became as white as a lily; but the color returned to her cheeks when she heard Enda's voice ringing loud and clear.

"It is true, O king!" said he, "that I have never used my spear in battle yet. The Prince Congal has challenged me to meet the youngest and least experienced of the chiefs of Erin. I have risked my life already for your daughter's sake. I would face death a thousand times for the chance of winning her for my bride; but I would scorn to claim her hand if I dared not meet the boldest battle champion of the nobles of Erin, and here before you, O king, and bards, Druids, and nobles, and chiefs of Erin, and here, in the presence of the Lady Mave, I challenge the boldest of them all."

The king's eyes flashed with joy as he listened to the brave words of Enda.

"It is well," said the king; "the contest shall take place to-morrow on the lawn outside our palace gates; but before our assembly dissolves I call on you, nobles and chiefs of Erin, to name your boldest champion."

Loud cries of "Congal! Congal!" answered the king's speech.

"Are you willing, Congal?" asked the king.

"Willing, O king!" answered Congal.

"It is well," said the king. "We shall all meet again to-night in our banquet-hall."

And the king, with the Princess Mave on his arm, attended by his bards and Druids, entered the palace, and the chiefs and nobles went their several ways.

At the feast that night the princess sat beside the king, and Enda beside the princess, and the bards and Druids, nobles and chiefs, took their places in due order. And the bards sang songs of love and battle, and never merrier hours were spent than those which passed away that night in the banquet-hall of Erin's king.

When the feast was over Enda retired to his apartment to spend the night dreaming of the Princess Mave, and Congal went to his quarters; but not to sleep or dream, for the Druid who had provoked the contest came to him bringing his golden wand, and all night long the Druid was weaving spells to charm the shield and spear and helmet of Congal, to make them invulnerable in the battle of the morrow.

But while Enda lay dreaming of the Princess Mave, the little fairy woman who gave him the water-dress, and crystal helmet, and shining spear on the banks of the Boyne, slid into his room, and she placed beside his couch a silver helmet and a silver shield. And she rubbed the helmet, and the shield, and the blue blade and haft of his spear with the juice of the red rowan berries, and she let a drop fall upon his face and hands, and then she slid out as silently as she came.

When the morning broke, Enda sprang from his couch, and he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the silver shield and helmet. At the sight of them he longed for the hour of battle, and he watched with eager gaze the sun climbing the sky; and, after hours of suspense, he heard the trumpet's sound and the clangor of the hollow shields, struck by the hard-pointed spears.

Putting on the helmet, and fastening the shield upon his left arm, and taking the spear in his right hand, he stepped out bravely to the fight. The edge of the lawn before the palace gates was ringed by the princes, nobles, and chiefs of Erin. And the palace walls were thronged by all the beauties of the Court and all the noble ladies of the land. And on his throne, surrounded by his Druids, his brehons, and his bards, was the king of Erin, and at his feet sat the lovely Lady Mave.

As Enda stepped out upon the lawn, he saw Congal advancing from the ranks of the nobles, and the two champions approached each other until they met right in front of the throne.

Then both turned towards the throne, and bowed to the king and the Princess Mave; and then facing each other again, they retired a space, and when their spears were poised, ready for battle, the king gave the signal, which was answered by the clang of stricken shields, and Congal and Enda launched their gleaming spears. They flashed like lightning in the sunlit air, and in a second Congal's had broken against Enda's shield; but Enda's, piercing Congal's helmet, hurled him senseless on the plain.

The nobles and chiefs could hardly realize that in that single second their boldest champion was overthrown; but when they saw him stretched motionless on the grassy sward, from out their ranks six warriors advanced to where the chieftain lay, and sadly they bore him away upon their battle-shields, and Enda remained victor upon the field.

And then the king's voice rang out clear as the sound of a trumpet in the still morning:

"Bards and brehons, princes and nobles, and chiefs of Erin, Enda has proved himself a battle champion, and who amongst you now will dare gainsay his right to claim my daughter for his bride?"

And no answer came.

But when he summoned Enda to his throne, and placed the lady's hand in his, a cheer arose from the great assembly, that proved that jealousy was extinguished in all hearts, and that all believed that Enda was worthy of the winsome bride; and never since that day, although a thousand years have passed, was there in all the world a brighter and gayer wedding than the wedding of Enda and the Princess Mave.



The Enchanted Cave


A long, long time ago, Prince Cuglas, master of the hounds to the high King of Erin, set out from Tara to the chase. As he was leaving the palace the light mists were drifting away from the hill-tops, and the rays of the morning sun were falling aslant on the grinan or sunny bower of the Princess Ailinn. Glancing towards it the prince doffed his plumed and jeweled hunting-cap, and the princess answered his salute by a wave of her little hand, that was as white as a wild rose in the hedges in June, and leaning from her bower, she watched the huntsman until his tossing plumes were hidden by the green waving branches of the woods.

The Princess Ailinn was over head and ears in love with Cuglas, and Cuglas was over head and ears in love with the Princess Ailinn, and he believed that never was summer morning half as bright, or as sweet, or as fair as she. The glimpse which he had just caught of her filled his heart with delight, and almost put all thought of hunting out of his head, when suddenly the tuneful cries of the hounds, answered by a hundred echoes from the groves, broke upon his ear.

The dogs had started a dappled deer that bounded away through the forest. The prince, spurring his gallant steed, pushed on in eager pursuit.

On through the forest sped the deer, through soft, green, secret ways and flowery dells, then out from the forest, up heathery hills, and over long stretches of moorland, and across brown rushing streams, sometimes in view of the hounds, sometimes lost to sight, but always ahead of them.

All day long the chase continued, and at last, when the sun was sinking, the dogs were close upon the panting deer, and the prince believed he was about to secure his game, when the deer suddenly disappeared through the mouth of a cave which opened before him. The dogs followed at his heels, and the prince endeavored to rein in his steed, but the impetuous animal bore him on, and soon was clattering over the stony floor of the cave in perfect darkness. Cuglas could hear ahead of him the cries of the hounds growing fainter and fainter, as they increased the distance between them and him. Then the cries ceased altogether, and the only sound the prince heard was the noise of his horse's hoofs sounding in the hollow cave. Once more he endeavored to check his career, but the reins broke in his hands, and in that instant the prince felt the horse had taken a plunge into a gulf, and was sinking down and down, as a stone cast from the summit of a cliff sinks down to the sea. At last the horse struck the ground again, and the prince was almost thrown out of his saddle, but he succeeded in regaining his seat. Then on through the darkness galloped the steed, and when he came into the light the prince's eyes were for some time unable to bear it. But when he got used to the brightness he saw he was galloping over a grassy plain, and in the distance he perceived the hounds rushing towards a wood faintly visible through a luminous summer haze. The prince galloped on, and as he approached the wood he saw coming towards him a comely champion, wearing a shining brown cloak, fastened by a bright bronze spear-like brooch, and bearing a white hazel wand in one hand, and a single-edged sword with a hilt made from the tooth of a sea-horse in the other; and the prince knew by the dress of the champion, and by his wand and sword, that he was a royal herald. As the herald came close to him the prince's steed stopped of his own accord.

"You are welcome, Cuglas," said the herald, "and I have been sent by the Princess Crede to greet you and to lead you to her court, where you have been so long expected."

"I know not how this may be," said Cuglas.

"How it has come about I shall tell you as we go along," said the herald. "The Princess Crede is the Queen of the Floating Island. And it chanced, once upon a day, when she was visiting her fairy kinsmen, who dwell in one of the pleasant hills that lie near Tara, she saw you with the high king and princes and nobles of Erin following the chase. And seeing you her heart went out to you, and wishing to bring you to her court, she sent one of her nymphs, in the form of a deer, to lure you on through the cave, which is the entrance to this land."

"I am deeply honored by the preference shown me by the princess," said Cuglas, "but I may not tarry in her court; for above in Erin there is the Lady Ailinn, the loveliest of all the ladies who grace the royal palace, and before the princes and chiefs of Erin she has promised to be my bride."

"Of that I know not," said the herald; "but a true champion, like you, cannot, I know, refuse to come with me to the court of the Princess Crede."

As the herald had said these words the prince and he were on the verge of the wood, and they entered upon a mossy pathway that broadened out as they advanced until it was as wide as one of the great roads of Erin. Before they had gone very far the prince heard the tinkling of silver bells in the distance, and almost as soon as he heard them he saw coming up towards him a troop of warriors on coal black steeds. All the warriors wore helmets of shining silver, and cloaks of blue silk. And on the horses' breasts were crescents of silver, on which were hung tiny silver bells, shaking out music with the motion of the horses. As the prince approached the champions they lowered their spears, and dividing in two lines the prince and the herald passed between the ranks, and the champions, forming again, followed on behind the prince.

At last they passed through the wood, and they found themselves on a green plain, speckled with flowers, and they had not gone far when the prince saw coming towards him a hundred champions on snow-white steeds, and around the breast of the steeds were crescents of gold, from which were hanging little golden bells. The warriors all wore golden helmets, and the shafts of their shining spears were of gold, and golden sandals on their feet, and yellow silken mantles fell down over their shoulders. And when the prince came near them they lowered their lances, and then they turned their horses' heads around and marched before him. And it was not long until above the pleasant jingle of the bells the prince heard the measured strains of music, and he saw coming towards him a band of harpers, dressed in green and gold, and when the harpers had saluted the prince they marched in front of the cavalcade, playing all the time, and it was not long until they came to a stream that ran like a blue riband around the foot of a green hill, on the top of which was a sparkling palace; the stream was crossed by a golden bridge, so narrow that the horsemen had to go two-by-two. The herald asked the prince to halt and to allow all the champions to go before him; and the cavalcade ascended the hill, the sunlight brightly glancing on helmet and on lance, and when it reached the palace the horsemen filed around the walls.

When at length the prince and herald crossed the bridge and began to climb the hill, the prince thought he felt the ground moving under them, and on looking back he could see no sign of the golden bridge, and the blue stream had already become as wide as a great river, and was becoming wider every second.

"You are on the floating island now," said the herald, "and before you is the palace of the Princess Crede."

At that moment the queen came out through the palace door, and the prince was so dazzled by her beauty, that only for the golden bracelet he wore upon his right arm, under the sleeve of his silken tunic, he might almost have forgotten the Princess Ailinn. This bracelet was made by the dwarfs who dwell in the heart of the Scandinavian Mountains, and was sent with other costly presents by the King of Scandinavia to the King of Erin, and he gave it to the princess, and it was the virtue of this bracelet, that whoever was wearing it could not forget the person who gave it to him, and it could never be loosened from the arm by any art or magic spell; but if the wearer, even for a single moment, liked anyone better than the person who gave it to him, that very moment the bracelet fell off from the arm and could never again be fastened on. And when the princess promised her hand in marriage to the Prince Cuglas, she closed the bracelet on his arm.

The fairy queen knew nothing about the bracelet, and she hoped that before the prince was long in the floating island he would forget all about the princess.

"You are welcome, Cuglas," said the queen, as she held out her hand, and Cuglas, having thanked her for her welcome, they entered the palace together.

"You must be weary after your long journey," said the queen. "My page will lead you to your apartments, where a bath of the cool blue waters of the lake has been made ready for you, and when you have taken your bath the pages will lead you to the banquet hall, where the feast is spread."

At the feast the prince was seated beside the queen, and she talked to him of all the pleasures that were in store for him in fairyland, where pain, and sickness, and sorrow, and old age, are unknown, and where every rosy hour that flies is brighter than the one that has fled before it. And when the feast was ended the queen opened the dance with the prince, and it was not until the moon was high above the floating island that the prince retired to rest.

He was so tired after his journey and the dancing that he fell into a sound sleep. When he awoke the next morning the sun was shining brightly, and he heard outside the palace the jingle of bells and the music of baying hounds, and his heart was stirred by memories of the many pleasant days on which he had led the chase over the plains and through the green woods of Tara.

He looked out through the window, and he saw all the fairy champions mounted on their steeds ready for the chase, and at their head the fairy queen. And at that moment the pages came to say the queen wished to know if he would join them, and the prince went out and found his steed ready saddled and bridled, and they spent the day hunting in the forest that stretched away for miles behind the palace, and the night in feasting and dancing.

When the prince awoke the following morning he was summoned by the pages to the presence of the queen. The prince found the queen on the lawn outside the palace surrounded by her court.

"We shall go on the lake to-day, Cuglas," said the queen, and taking his arm she led him along the water's edge, all the courtiers following.

"The queen wished to know if he would join them"

When she was close to the water she waved her wand, and in a second a thousand boats, shining like glass, shot up from beneath the lake and set their bows against the bank. The queen and Cuglas stepped into one, and when they were seated two fairy harpers took their places in the prow. All the other boats were soon thronged by fairies, and then the queen waved her wand again, and an awning of purple silk rose over the boat, and silken awnings of various colors over the others, and the royal boat moved off from the bank followed by all the rest, and in every boat sat a harper with a golden harp, and when the queen waved her wand for the third time, the harpers struck the trembling chords, and to the sound of the delightful music the boats glided over the sunlit lake. And on they went until they approached the mouth of a gentle river sliding down between banks clad with trees. Up the river, close to the bank and under the drooping trees, they sailed, and when they came to a bend in the river, from which the lake could be no longer seen, they pushed their prows in against the bank, and the queen and Cuglas, and all the party, left the boats and went on under the trees until they came to a mossy glade.

Then the queen waved her wand, and silken couches were spread under the trees, and she and Cuglas sat on one apart from the others, and the courtiers took their places in proper order.

And the queen waved her wand again, and wind shook the trees above them, and the most luscious fruit that was ever tasted fell down into their hands; and when the feast was over there was dancing in the glades to the music of the harps, and when they were tired dancing they set out for the boats, and the moon was rising above the trees as they sailed away over the lake, and it was not long until they reached the bank below the fairy palace.

Well, between hunting in the forest, and sailing over the lake, and dancing in the greenwood glade and in the banquet hall, the days passed, but all the time the prince was thinking of the Princess Ailinn, and one moonlit night, when he was lying awake on his couch thinking of her, a shadow was suddenly cast on the floor.

The prince looked towards the window, and what should he see sitting on the sill outside but a little woman tapping the pane with a golden bodkin.

The prince jumped from his couch and opened the window, and the little woman floated on the moonbeams into the room and sat down on the floor.

"You are thinking of the Princess Ailinn," said the little woman.

"I never think of anyone else," said the prince.

"I know that," said the little woman, "and it's because of your love for each other, and because her mother was a friend to me in the days gone by, that I have come here to try and help you; but there is not much time for talking, the night advances. At the bank below a boat awaits you. Step into it and it will lead you to the mainland, and when you reach it you will find before you a path that will take you to the green fields of Erin and the plains of Tara. I know you will have to face danger. I know not what kind of danger; but whatever it may be do not draw your sword before you tread upon the mainland, for if you do you shall never reach it, and the boat will come back again to the floating island; and now go and may luck go with you;" and saying this the little woman climbed up the moonbeams and disappeared.

The prince left the palace and descended to the lake, and there before him he saw a glistening boat; he stepped into it, and the boat went on and on beneath the moon, and at last he saw the mainland, and he could trace a winding pathway going away from the shore. The sight filled his heart with joy, but suddenly the milk-white moonshine died away, and looking up to the sky he saw the moon turning fiery red, and the waters of the lake, shining like silver a moment before, took a blood-red hue, and a wind arose that stirred the waters, and they leaped up against the little boat, tossing it from side to side. While Cuglas was wondering at the change, he heard a strange, unearthly noise ahead of him, and a bristling monster, lifting its claws above the water, in a moment was beside the boat and stuck one of his claws in the left arm of the prince, and pierced the flesh to the bone. Maddened by the pain the prince drew his sword and chopped off the monster's claw. The monster disappeared beneath the lake, and, as it did so, the color of the water changed, and the silver moonlight shone down from the sky again, but the boat no longer went on towards the mainland, but sped back towards the floating island, while forth from the island came a fleet of fairy boats to meet it, led by the shallop of the fairy queen. The queen greeted the prince as if she knew not of his attempted flight, and to the music of the harps the fleet returned to the palace.

The next day passed and the night came, and again the prince was lying on the couch, thinking of the Princess Ailinn, and again he saw the shadow on the floor and heard the tapping against the window.

And when he opened it the little woman slid into the room.

"You failed last night," she said, "but I come to give you another chance. To-morrow the queen must set out on a visit to her fairy kinsmen, who dwell in the green hill near the plain of Tara; she cannot take you with her, for if your feet once touched the green grass that grows in the fruitful fields of Erin, she could never bring you back again. And so, when you find she has left the palace, go at once into the banquet hall and look behind the throne, and you will see a small door let down into the ground. Pull this up and descend the steps which you will see. Where they lead to I cannot tell. What dangers may be before you I do not know; but this I know, if you accept anything, no matter what it is, from anyone you may meet on your way, you shall not set foot on the soil of Erin."

And having said this the little woman, rising from the floor, floated out through the window.

The prince returned to his couch, and the next morning, as soon as he heard the queen had left the palace, he hastened to the banquet hall. He discovered the door and descended the steps, and he found himself in a gloomy and lonesome valley. Jagged mountains, black as night, rose on either side, and huge rocks seemed ready to topple down upon him at every step. Through broken clouds a watery moon shed a faint, fitful light, that came and went as the clouds, driven by a moaning wind, passed over the valley.

Cuglas, nothing daunted, pushed on boldly until a bank of cloud shut out completely the struggling moon, and closing over the valley covered it like a pall, leaving him in perfect darkness. At the same moment the moaning wind died away, and with it died away all sound. The darkness and the deathlike silence sent an icy chill to the heart of Cuglas. He held his hand close to his eyes, but he saw it not. He shouted that he might hear the sound of his own voice, but he heard it not. He stamped his foot on the rocky ground, but no sound was returned to him. He rattled his sword in its brazen scabbard, but it gave no answer back to him. His heart grew colder and colder, when suddenly the cloud above him was rent in a dozen places, and lightning flashed through the valley, and the thunder rolled over the echoing mountains. In the lurid glare of the lightning Cuglas saw a hundred ghostly forms sweeping towards him, uttering as they came nearer and nearer shrieks so terrible that the silence of death could more easily be borne. Cuglas turned to escape, but they hemmed him round, and pressed their clammy hands upon his face.

With a yell of horror he drew his sword and slashed about him, and that very moment the forms vanished, the thunder ceased, the dark cloud passed, and the sun shone out as bright as on a summer day, and then Cuglas knew the forms he had seen were those of the wild people of the glen.

With renewed courage he pursued his way through the valley, and after three or four windings it took him out upon a sandy desert. He had no sooner set foot upon the desert than he heard behind him a crashing sound louder than thunder. He looked around, and he saw that the walls of mountain through which he had just passed had fallen into the valley, and filled it up so that he could no longer tell where it had been.

The sun was beating fiercely on the desert, and the sands were almost as hot as burning cinders; and as Cuglas advanced over them his body became dried up, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and when his thirst was at its height a fountain of sparkling water sprang up in the burning plain a few paces in front of him; but when he came up quite close to it and stretched out his parched hands to cool them in the limpid waters, the fountain vanished as suddenly as it appeared. With great pain, and almost choking with heat and thirst, he struggled on, and again the fountain sprang up in front of him and moved before him, almost within his reach. At last he came to the end of the desert, and he saw a green hill up which a pathway climbed; but as he came to the foot of the hill, there, sitting right in his way, was a beautiful fairy holding out towards him a crystal cup, over the rim of which flowed water as clear as crystal. Unable to resist the temptation, the prince seized the cold, bright goblet, and drank the water. When he did so his thirst vanished, but the fairy, and the green hill, and the burning desert disappeared, and he was standing in the forest behind the palace of the fairy queen.

That evening the queen returned, and at the feast she talked as gaily to the prince as if she knew not of his attempt to leave the Floating Island, and the prince spoke as gaily as he could to her, although in his heart there was sadness when he remembered that if he had only dashed away the crystal cup, he would be at that moment in the royal banquet hall of Tara, sitting beside the Princess Ailinn.

And he thought the feast would never end; but it was over at last, and the prince returned to his apartments. And that night, as he lay on his couch, he kept his eyes fixed upon the window; but hours passed, and there was no sign of anyone. At long last, and when he had given up all hope of seeing her, he heard a tapping at the window, and he got up and opened it, and the little woman came in.

"You failed again to-day," said she -- "failed just at the very moment when you were about to step on the green hills of Erin. I can give you only one chance more. It will be your last. The queen will go hunting in the morning. Join the hunt, and when you are separated from the rest of the party in the wood throw your reins upon your horse's neck and he will lead you to the edge of the lake. Then cast this golden bodkin into the lake in the direction of the mainland, and a golden bridge will be thrown across, over which you can pass safely to the fields of Erin; but take care and do not draw your sword, for if you do your steed will bear you back again to the Floating Island, and here you must remain forever." Then handing the bodkin to the prince, and saying good-by, the little woman disappeared.

The next morning the queen and the prince and all the court went out to hunt, and a fleet white deer started out before them, and the royal party pressed after him in pursuit. The prince's steed outstripped the others, and when he was alone the prince flung the reins upon his horse's neck, and before long he came to the edge of the lake.

Then the prince cast the bodkin on to the water, and a golden bridge was thrown across to the mainland, and the horse galloped on to it, and when the prince was more than halfway he saw riding towards him a champion wearing a silver helmet, and carrying on his left arm a silver shield, and holding in his right hand a gleaming sword. As he came nearer he struck his shield with his sword and challenged the prince to battle. The prince's sword almost leaped out of its scabbard at the martial sound, and, like a true knight of Tara, he dashed against his foe, and swinging his sword above his head, with one blow he clove the silver helmet, and the strange warrior reeled from his horse and fell upon the golden bridge. The prince, content with this achievement, spurred his horse to pass the fallen champion, but the horse refused to stir, and the bridge broke in two almost at his feet, and the part of it between him and the mainland disappeared beneath the lake, carrying with it the horse and the body of the champion, and before the prince could recover from his surprise, his steed wheeled round and was galloping back, and when he reached the land he rushed through the forest, and the prince was not able to pull him up until he came to the palace door.

All that night the prince lay awake on his couch with his eyes fixed upon the window, but no shadow fell upon the floor, and there was no tapping at the pane, and with a heavy heart he joined the hunting party in the morning. And day followed day, and his heart was sadder and sadder, and found no pleasure in the joys and delights of fairyland. And when all in the palace were at rest he used to roam through the forest, always thinking of the Princess Ailinn, and hoping against hope that the little woman would come again to him, but at last he began to despair of ever seeing her. It chanced one night he rambled so far that he found himself on the verge of the lake, at the very spot from which the golden bridge had been thrown across the waters, and as he gazed wistfully upon them a boat shot up and came swiftly to the bank, and who should he see sitting in the stern but the little woman.

"Ah, Cuglas, Cuglas," she said, "I gave you three chances, and you failed in all of them."

"I should have borne the pain inflicted by the monster's claw," said Cuglas. "I should have borne the thirst on the sandy desert, and dashed the crystal cup untasted from the fairy's hand; but I could never have faced the nobles and chiefs of Erin if I had refused to meet the challenge of the battle champion on the golden bridge."

"And you would have been no true knight of Erin, and you would not have been worthy of the wee girl who loves you, the bonny Princess Ailinn, if you had refused to meet it," said the little woman; "but for all that you can never return to the fair hills of Erin. But cheer up, Cuglas, there are mossy ways and forest paths and nestling bowers in fairyland. Lonely they are, I know, in your eyes now," said the little woman; "but maybe," she added, with a laugh as musical as the ripple on a streamlet when summer is in the air, "maybe you won't always think them so lonely."

"You think I'll forget Ailinn for the fairy queen," said Cuglas, with a sigh.

"I don't think anything of the kind," said she.

"Then what do you mean?" said the prince.

"Oh, I mean what I mean," said the little woman. "But I can't stop here all night talking to you: and, indeed, it is in your bed you ought to be yourself. So now good-night; and I have no more to say, except that perhaps, if you happen to be here this night week at this very hour, when the moon will be on the waters, you will see --  --  But no matter what you will see," said she; "I must be off."

And before the prince could say another word the boat sped away from the bank, and he was alone. He went back to the palace, and he fell asleep that night only to dream of the Princess Ailinn.

As for the princess, she was pining away in the palace of Tara, the color had fled from her cheeks, and her eyes, which had been once so bright they would have lighted darkness like a star, lost nearly all their luster, and the king's leeches could do nothing for her, and at last they gave up all hope, and the king and queen of Erin and the ladies of the court watched her couch by night and by day sadly waiting for her last hour.

At length one day, when the sun was shining brightly over Tara's plain, and its light, softened by the intervening curtains, was falling in the sick chamber, the royal watchers noticed a sweet change coming over the face of the princess; the bloom of love and youth were flushing on her cheeks, and from her eyes shone out the old, soft, tender light, and they began to hope she was about to be restored to them, when suddenly the room was in darkness as if the night had swept across the sky, and blotted out the sun. Then they heard the sound of fairy music, and over the couch where the princess lay they beheld a gleam of golden light, but only for a moment; and again there was perfect darkness, and the fairy music ceased. Then, as suddenly as it came the darkness vanished, the softened sunlight once more filled the chamber, and rested upon the couch; but the couch was empty, and the royal watchers, looking at each other, said in whispers: "The fairies have carried away the Princess Ailinn to fairyland."

Well, that very day the prince roamed by himself through the forest, counting the hours until the day would fade in the sky and the moon come climbing up, and at last, when it was shining full above the waters, he went down to the verge of the lake, and he looked out over the gleaming surface watching for the vision promised by the little woman. But he could see nothing, and was about to turn away when he heard the faint sound of fairy music. He listened and listened, and the sound came nearer and clearer, and away in the distance, like drops of glistening water breaking the level of the lake, he saw a fleet of fairy boats, and he thought it was the fairy queen sailing in the moonlight. And it was the fairy queen, and soon he was able to recognize the royal shallop leading the others, and as it came close to the bank he saw the little woman sitting in the prow between the little harpers, and at the stern was the fairy queen, and by her side the lady of his heart, the Princess Ailinn. In a second the boat was against the bank, and the princess in his arms. And he kissed her again and again.

"And have you never a kiss for me?" said the little woman, tapping his hand with the little gold bodkin.

"A kiss and a dozen," said Cuglas, as he caught the little fairy up in his arms.

"Oh, fie, Cuglas," said the queen.

"Oh, the princess isn't one bit jealous," said the little woman. "Are you, Ailinn?"

"Indeed I am not," said Ailinn.

"And you should not be," said the fairy queen, "for never lady yet had truer knight than Cuglas. I loved him, and I love him dearly. I lured him here hoping that in the delights of fairyland he might forget you. It was all in vain. I know now that there is one thing no fairy power above or below the stars, or beneath the waters, can ever subdue, and that is love. And here together forever shall you and Cuglas dwell, where old age shall never come upon you, and where pain or sorrow or sickness is unknown."

And Cuglas never returned to the fair hills of Erin, and ages passed away since the morning he followed the hounds into the fatal cave, but his story was remembered by the firesides, and sometimes, even yet, the herdboy watching his cattle in the fields hears the tuneful cry of hounds, and follows it till it leads him to a darksome cave, and as fearfully he listens to the sound becoming fainter and fainter he hears the clatter of hoofs over the stony floor, and to this day the cave bears the name of the prince who entered it never to return.[A]

[Footnote A: Uaimh Bealach Conglais, the cave of the road of Cuglas -- now Baltinglass -- in the County Wicklow.]



The Huntsman's Son


A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut on the borders of a great forest a huntsman and his wife and son. From his earliest years the boy, whose name was Fergus, used to hunt with his father in the forest, and he grew up strong and active, sure and swift-footed as a deer, and as free and fearless as the wind. He was tall and handsome; as supple as a mountain ash, his lips were as red as its berries; his eyes were as blue as the skies in spring; and his hair fell down over his shoulders like a shower of gold. His heart was as light as a bird's, and no bird was fonder of green woods and waving branches. He had lived since his birth in the hut in the forest, and had never wished to leave it, until one winter night a wandering minstrel sought shelter there, and paid for his night's lodging with songs of love and battle. Ever since that night Fergus pined for another life. He no longer found joy in the music of the hounds or in the cries of the huntsmen in forest glades. He yearned for the chance of battle, and the clang of shields, and the fierce shouts of fighting warriors, and he spent all his spare hours practicing on the harp and learning the use of arms, for in those days the bravest warriors were also bards. In this way the spring and summer and autumn passed; and when the winter came again it chanced that on a stormy night, when thunder was rattling through the forest, smiting the huge oaks and hurling them crashing to the earth, Fergus lay awake thinking of his present lot, and wondering what the future might have in store for him. The lightning was playing around the hut, and every now and then a flash brightened up the interior.

After a peal, louder than any which had preceded it, Fergus heard three loud knocks at the door. He called out to his parents that someone was knocking.

"If that is so," said his father, "open at once; this is no night to keep a poor wanderer outside our door."

Fergus did as he was bidden, and as he opened the door a flash of lightning showed him, standing at the threshold, a little wizened old man with a small harp under his arm.

"Come in, and welcome," said Fergus, and the little man stepped into the room.

"It is a wild night, neighbors," said he.

"It is, indeed, a wild night," said the huntsman and his wife, who had got up and dressed themselves; "and sorry we are we have no better shelter or better fare to offer you, but we give you the best we have."

"A king cannot do more than his best," said the little man.

The huntsman's wife lit the fire, and soon the pine logs flashed up into a blaze, and made the hut bright and warm. She then brought forth a peggin of milk and a cake of barley-bread.

"You must be hungry, sir," she said.

"Hungry I am," said he; "but I wouldn't ask for better fare than this if I were in the king's palace."

"Thank you kindly, sir," said she, "and I hope you will eat enough, and that it will do you good."

"And while you are eating your supper," said the huntsman, "I'll make you a bed of fresh rushes."

"Don't put yourself to that trouble," said the little man. "When I have done my supper I'll lie down here by the fire, if it is pleasing to you, and I'll sleep like a top until morning. And now go back to your beds and leave me to myself, and maybe some time when you won't be expecting it I'll do a good turn for your kindness to the poor wayfarer."

"Oh, it's no kindness at all," said the huntsman's wife. "It would be a queer thing if an Irish cabin would not give shelter and welcome in a wild night like this. So good night, now, and we hope you will sleep well."

"Good night," said the little man, "and may you and yours never sup sorrow until your dying day."

The huntsman and his wife and Fergus then went back to their beds, and the little man, having finished his supper, curled himself up by the fire, and was soon fast asleep.

About an hour after a loud clap of thunder awakened Fergus, and before it had died away he heard three knocks at the door. He aroused his parents and told them.

"Get up at once," said his mother, "this is no night to keep a stranger outside our door."

Fergus rose and opened the door, and a flash of lightning showed him a little old woman, with a shuttle in her hand, standing outside.

"Come in, and welcome," said he, and the little old woman stepped into the room.

"Blessings be on them who give welcome to a wanderer on a wild night like this," said the old woman.

"And who wouldn't give welcome on a night like this?" said the huntsman's wife, coming forward with a peggin of milk and a barley cake in her hand, "and sorry we are we have not better fare to offer you."

"Enough is as good as a feast," said the little woman, "and now go back to your beds and leave me to myself."

"Not till I shake down a bed of rushes for you," said the huntsman's wife.

"Don't mind the rushes," said the little woman; "go back to your beds. I'll sleep here by the fire."

"Fergus knew it was the Pooka, the wild horse of the mountains"

The huntsman's wife went to bed, and the little old woman, having eaten her supper, lay down by the fire, and was soon fast asleep.

About an hour later another clap of thunder startled Fergus. Again he heard three knocks at the door. He roused his parents, but he did not wait for orders from them. He opened the door, and a flash of lightning showed him outside the threshold a low-sized, shaggy, wild-looking horse. And Fergus knew it was the Pooka, the wild horse of the mountains. Bold as Fergus was, his heart beat quickly as he saw fire issuing from the Pooka's nostrils. But, banishing fear, he cried out:

"Come in, and welcome."

"Welcome you are," said the huntsman, "and sorry we are that we have not better shelter or fare to offer you."

"I couldn't wish a better welcome," said the Pooka, as he came over near the fire and sat down on his haunches.

"Maybe you would like a little bit of this, Master Pooka," said the huntsman's wife, as she offered him a barley cake.

"I never tasted anything sweeter in my life," said the Pooka, crunching it between his teeth, "and now if you can give me a sup of milk, I'll want for nothing."

The huntsman's wife brought him a peggin of milk. When he had drunk it, "Now," says the Pooka, "go back to your beds, and I'll curl myself up by the fire and sleep like a top till morning."

And soon everybody in the hut was fast asleep.

When the morning came the storm had gone, and the sun was shining through the windows of the hut. At the song of the lark Fergus got up, and no one in the world was ever more surprised than he when he saw no sign of the little old man, or the little old woman, or the wild horse of the mountains. His parents were also surprised, and they all thought that they must have been dreaming until they saw the empty peggins around the fire and some pieces of broken bread; and they did not know what to think of it all.

From that day forward the desire grew stronger in the heart of Fergus for a change of life; and one day he told his parents that he was resolved to seek his fortune. He said he wished to be a soldier, and that he would set out for the king's palace, and try to join the ranks of the Feni.

About a week afterwards he took leave of his parents, and having received their blessing he struck out for the road that led to the palace of the High King of Erin. He arrived there just at the time when the great captain of the Fenian host was recruiting his battalions, which had been thinned in recent battle.

The manly figure of Fergus, his gallant bearing, and handsome face, all told in his favor. But before he could be received into the Fenian ranks he had to prove that he could play the harp like a bard, that he could contend with staff and shield against nine Fenian warriors, that he could run with plaited hair through the tangled forest without loosening a single hair, and that in his course he could jump over trees as high as his head, and stoop under trees as low as his knee, and that he could run so lightly that the rotten twigs should not break under his feet. Fergus proved equal to all the tests, thanks to the wandering minstrel who taught him the use of the harp, to his own brave heart, and to his forest training. He was enrolled in the second battalion of the Feni, and before long he was its bravest and ablest champion.

At that very time it happened that the niece of the High King of Erin was staying with the king and queen in their palace at Tara. The princess was the loveliest lady in all the land. She was as proud as she was beautiful. The princes and chieftains of Erin in vain sought her hand in marriage. From Alba and Spain, and the far-off isles of Greece, kings came to woo her. From the northern lands came vikings in stately galleys with brazen prows, whose oarsmen tore the white foam from the emerald seas as they swept towards the Irish coasts. But the lady had vowed she would wed with no one except a battle champion who could excel in music the chief bard of the High King of Erin; who could outstrip on his steed in the great race of Tara the white steed of the plains; and who could give her as a wedding robe a garment of all the colors of the rainbow, so finely spun that when folded up it would fit in the palm of her small white hand. To fulfill these three conditions was impossible for all her suitors, and it seemed as if the loveliest lady of the land would go unmarried to her grave.

It chanced that once, on a day when the Fenian battalions were engaged in a hurling-match, Fergus beheld the lady watching the match from her sunny bower. He no sooner saw her than he fell over head and ears in love with her, and he thought of her by night, and he thought of her by day, and believing that his love was hopeless, he often wished he had never left his forest-home.

The great fair of Tara was coming on, and all the Feni were busy from morning till night practicing feats of arms and games, in order to take part in the contests to be held during the fair. And Fergus, knowing that the princess would be present, determined to do his best to win the prizes which were to be contended for before the ladies' eyes.

The fair began on the 1st of August, but for a whole week before the five great roads of Erin were thronged with people of all sorts. Princes and warriors on their steeds, battle champions in their chariots, harpers in hundreds, smiths with gleaming spears and shields and harness for battle steeds and chariots; troops of men and boys leading racehorses; jewelers with gold drinking-horns, and brooches, and pins, and earrings, and costly gems of all kinds, and chessboards of silver and gold, and golden and silver chessmen in bags of woven brass; dyers with their many-colored fabrics; bands of jugglers; drovers goading on herds of cattle; shepherds driving their sheep; huntsmen with spoils of the chase; dwellers in the lakes or by the fish-abounding rivers with salmon and speckled trout; and countless numbers of peasants on horseback and on foot, all wending their way to the great meeting-place by the mound, which a thousand years before had been raised over the grave of the great queen. For there the fair was to be held.

On the opening day the High King, attended by the four kings of Erin, set out from the palace, and with them went the queen and the ladies of the court in sparkling chariots. The princess rode in the chariot with the High Queen, under an awning made of the wings of birds, to protect them from the rays of the sun. Following the queen were the court ladies in other chariots, under awnings of purple or of yellow silk. Then came the brehons, the great judges of the land, and the chief bards of the high court of Tara, and the Druids, crowned with oak leaves, and carrying wands of divination in their hands.

When the royal party reached the ground it took its place in inclosures right up against the monumental mound. The High King sat with the four kings of Erin, all wearing their golden helmets, for they wore their diadems in battle only. In an inclosure next the king's sat the queen and the princess and all the ladies of the court. At either side of the royal pavilions were others for the dames and ladies and nobles and chiefs of different degrees, forming part of a circle on the plain, and the stands and benches for the people were so arranged as to complete the circle, and in the round green space within it, so that all might hear and see, the contests were to take place.

At a signal from the king, who was greeted with a thunderous cheer, the heralds rode round the circle, and having struck their sounding shields three times with their swords, they made a solemn proclamation of peace. Then was sung by all the assembled bards, to the accompaniment of their harps, the chant in honor of the mighty dead. When this was ended, again the heralds struck their shields, and the contests began. The first contest was the contest of spear-throwing between the champions of the seven battalions of the Feni. When the seven champions took their places in front of the royal inclosure, everyone, even the proud princess, was struck by the manly beauty and noble bearing of Fergus.

The champions poised their spears, and at a stroke from the heralds upon their shields the seven spears sped flashing through the air. They all struck the ground, shafts up, and it was seen that two were standing side by side in advance of the rest, one belonged to Fergus, the other to the great chief, Oscar. The contest for the prize then lay between Oscar and Fergus, and when they stood in front of the king, holding their spears aloft, every heart was throbbing with excitement. Once more the heralds struck their shields, and, swifter than the lightning's flash, forth went the spears, and when Fergus's spear was seen shivering in the ground a full length ahead of the great chief Oscar's, the air was shaken by a wild cheer that was heard far beyond the plains of Tara. And as Fergus approached the high king to receive the prize the cheers were renewed. But Fergus thought more of the winsome glance of the princess than he did of the prize or the sounding cheers. And Princess Maureen was almost sorry for her vow, for her heart was touched by the beauty of the Fenian champion.

Other contests followed, and the day passed, and the night fell, and while the Fenian warriors were reveling in their camps the heart of Fergus, victor as he was, was sad and low. He escaped from his companions, and stole away to his native forest, for -- 

"When the heart is sick and sorest, There is balsam in the forest --  There is balsam in the forest For its pain."


And as he lay under the spreading branches, watching the stars glancing through the leaves, and listening to the slumb'rous murmur of the waters, a strange peace came over him.

But in the camp which he had left, and in the vast multitude on the plains of Tara, there was stir and revelry, and babbling speculation as to the contest of to-morrow -- the contest which was to decide whether the chief bard of Erin was to hold his own against all comers, or yield the palm. For rumor said that a great Skald had come from the northern lands to compete with the Irish bard.

At last, over the Fenian camp, and over the great plain and the multitude that thronged it, sleep fell, clothing them with a silence as deep as that which dwelt in the forest, where, dreaming of the princess, Fergus lay. He awoke at the first notes of the birds, but though he felt he ought to go back to his companions and be witness of the contest which might determine whether the princess was to be another's bride, his great love and his utter despair of winning her so oppressed him that he lay as motionless as a broken reed. He scarcely heard the music of the birds, and paid no heed to the murmur of the brook rushing by his feet. The crackling of branches near him barely disturbed him, but when a shadow fell across his eyes he looked up gloomily, and saw, or thought he saw, someone standing before him. He started up, and who should he see but the little wizened old man who found shelter in his father's hut on the stormy night.

"This is a nice place for a battle champion to be. This is a nice place for you to be on the day which is to decide who will be the successful suitor of the princess."

"What is it to me," said Fergus, "who is to win her since I cannot?"

"I told you," said the little man, "the night you opened the door for me, that the time might come when I might be able to do a good turn for you and yours. The time has come. Take this harp, and my luck go with you, and in the contest of the bards to-day you'll reap the reward of the kindness you did when you opened your door to the poor old wayfarer in the midnight storm."

The little man handed his harp to Fergus and disappeared as swiftly as the wind that passes through the leaves.

Fergus, concealing the harp under his silken cloak, reached the camp before his comrades had aroused themselves from sleep.

At length the hour arrived when the great contest was to take place.

The king gave the signal, and as the chief bard of Erin was seen ascending the mound in front of the royal inclosures he was greeted with a roar of cheers, but at the first note of his harp silence like that of night fell on the mighty gathering.

As he moved his fingers softly over the strings every heart was hushed, filled with a sense of balmy rest. The lark soaring and singing above his head paused mute and motionless in the still air, and no sound was heard over the spacious plain save the dreamy music. Then the bard struck another key, and a gentle sorrow possessed the hearts of his hearers, and unbidden tears gathered to their eyes. Then, with bolder hand, he swept his fingers across his lyre, and all hearts were moved to joy and pleasant laughter, and eyes that had been dimmed by tears sparkled as brightly as running waters dancing in the sun. When the last notes had died away a cheer arose, loud as the voice of the storm in the glen when the live thunder is reveling on the mountain tops. As soon as the bard had descended the mound the Skald from the northern lands took his place, greeted by cries of welcome from a hundred thousand throats. He touched his harp, and in the perfect silence was heard the strain of the mermaid's song, and through it the pleasant ripple of summer waters on the pebbly beach. Then the theme was changed, and on the air was borne the measured sweep of countless oars and the swish of waters around the prows of contending galleys, and the breezy voices of the sailors and the sea-bird's cry. Then his theme was changed to the mirth and laughter of the banquet-hall, the clang of meeting drinking-horns, and songs of battle. When the last strain ended, from the mighty host a great shout went up, loud as the roar of winter billows breaking in the hollows of the shore; and men knew not whom to declare the victor, the chief bard of Erin or the Skald of the northern lands.

In the height of the debate the cry arose that another competitor had ascended the mound, and there standing in view of all was Fergus, the huntsman's son. All eyes were fastened upon him, but no one looked so eagerly as the princess.

He touched his harp with gentle fingers, and a sound low and soft as a faint summer breeze passing through forest trees stole out, and then was heard the rustle of birds through the branches, and the dreamy murmur of waters lost in deepest woods, and all the fairy echoes whispering when the leaves are motionless in the noonday heat; then followed notes cool and soft as the drip of summer showers on the parched grass, and then the song of the blackbird, sounding as clearly as it sounds in long silent spaces of the evening, and then in one sweet jocund burst the multitudinous voices that hail the breaking of the morn. And the lark, singing and soaring above the minstrel, sank mute and motionless upon his shoulder, and from all the leafy woods the birds came thronging out and formed a fluttering canopy above his head.

When the bard ceased playing no shout arose from the mighty multitude, for the strains of his harp, long after its chords were stilled, held their hearts spellbound.

And when he had passed away from the mound of contest all knew there was no need to declare the victor. And all were glad the comely Fenian champion had maintained the supremacy of the bards of Erin. But there was one heart sad, the heart of the princess; and now she wished more than ever that she had never made her hateful vow.

Other contests went on, but Fergus took no interest in them; and once more he stole away to the forest glade. His heart was sorrowful, for he thought of the great race of the morning, and he knew that he could not hope to compete with the rider of the white steed of the plains. And as he lay beneath the spreading branches during the whole night long his thoughts were not of the victory he had won, but of the princess, who was as far away from him as ever. He passed the night without sleep, and when the morning came he rose and walked aimlessly through the woods.

A deer starting from a thicket reminded him of the happy days of his boyhood, and once more the wish came back to him that he had never left his forest home. As his eyes followed the deer wistfully, suddenly he started in amazement. The deer vanished from view, and in his stead was the wild horse of the mountains.

"I told you I'd do you a good turn," said the Pooka, "for the kindness you and yours did me on that wild winter's night. The day is passing. You have no time to lose. The white steed of the plains is coming to the starting-post. Jump on my back, and remember, 'Faint heart never won fair lady.'"

In half a second Fergus was bestride the Pooka, whose coat of shaggy hair became at once as glossy as silk, and just at the very moment when the king was about to declare there was no steed to compete with the white steed of the plains, the Pooka, with Fergus upon his back, galloped up in front of the royal inclosure. When the people saw the champion a thunderous shout rose up that startled the birds in the skies, and sent them flying to the groves.

And in the ladies' inclosure was a rustle of many-colored scarves waving in the air. At the striking of the shields the contending steeds rushed from the post with the swiftness of a swallow's flight. But before the white steed of the plains had gone halfway round, Fergus and the wild horse of the mountains had passed the winning post, greeted by such cheers as had never before been heard on the plains of Tara.

Fergus heard the cheers, but scarcely heeded them, for his heart went out through his eyes that were fastened on the princess, and a wild hope stirred him that his glance was not ungrateful to the loveliest lady of the land.

And the princess was sad and sorry for her vow, for she believed that it was beyond the power of Fergus to bring her a robe of all the colors of the rainbow, so subtly woven as to fit in the palm of her soft, white hand.

That night also Fergus went to the forest, not too sad, because there was a vague hope in his heart that had never been there before. He lay down under the branches, with his feet towards the rustling waters, and the smiles of the princess gilded his slumbers, as the rays of the rising sun gild the glades of the forest; and when the morning came he was scarcely surprised when before him appeared the little old woman with the shuttle he had welcomed on the winter's night.

"You think you have won her already," said the little woman. "And so you have, too; her heart is all your own, and I'm half inclined to think that my trouble will be thrown away, for if you had never a wedding robe to give her, she'd rather have you this minute than all the kings of Erin, or than all the other princes and kings and chieftains in the whole world. But you and your father and mother were kind to me on a wild winter's night, and I'd never see your mother's son without a wedding robe fit for the greatest princess that ever set nations to battle for her beauty. So go and pluck me a handful of wild forest flowers, and I'll weave out of them a wedding robe with all the colors of the rainbow, and one that will be as sweet and as fragrant as the ripe, red lips of the princess herself."

Fergus, with joyous heart, culled the flowers, and brought them to the little old woman.

In the twinkling of an eye she wove with her little shuttle a wedding robe, with all the colors of the rainbow, as light as the fairy dew, as soft as the hand of the princess, as fragrant as her little red mouth, and so small that it would pass through the eye of a needle.

"Go now, Fergus," said she, "and may luck go with you; but, in the days of your greatness and of the glory which will come to you when you are wedded to the princess, be as kind, and have as open a heart and as open a door for the poor as you had when you were only a poor huntsman's son."

Fergus took the robe and went towards Tara. It was the last day of the fair, and all the contests were over, and the bards were about to chant the farewell strains to the memory of the great queen. But before the chief bard could ascend the mound, Fergus, attended by a troop of Fenian warriors on their steeds, galloped into the inclosure, and rode up in front of the queen's pavilion. Holding up the glancing and many-colored robe, he said:

"O Queen and King of Erin! I claim the princess for my bride. You, O king, have decided that I have won the prize in the contest of the bards; that I have won the prize in the race against the white steed of the plains; it is for the princess to say if the robe which I give her will fit in the hollow of her small white hand."

"Yes," said the king. "You are victor in the contests; let the princess declare if you have fulfilled the last condition."

The princess took the robe from Fergus, closed her fingers over it, so that no vestige of it was seen.

"Yes, O king!" said she, "he has fulfilled the last condition; but before ever he had fulfilled a single one of them, my heart went out to the comely champion of the Feni. I was willing then, I am ready now, to become the bride of the huntsman's son."



The Fairy Tree Of Dooros


Once upon a time the fairies of the west, going home from a hurling-match with the fairies of the lakes, rested in Dooros Wood for three days and three nights. They spent the days feasting and the nights dancing in the light of the moon, and they danced so hard that they wore the shoes off their feet, and for a whole week after the leprechauns, the fairies' shoemakers, were working night and day making new ones, and the rip, rap, tap, tap of their little hammers were heard in all the hedgerows.

The food on which the fairies feasted was little red berries, which were so like those that grow on the rowan tree that if you only looked at them you might mistake one for the other; but the fairy berries grow only in fairyland, and are sweeter than any fruit that grows here in this world, and if an old man, bent and gray, ate one of them, he became young and active and strong again; and if an old woman, withered and wrinkled, ate one of them, she became young and bright and fair; and if a little maiden who was not handsome ate of them, she became lovelier than the flower of beauty.

The fairies guarded the berries as carefully as a miser guards his gold, and whenever they were about to leave fairyland they had to promise in the presence of the king and queen that they would not give a single berry to mortal man, nor allow one to fall upon the earth; for if a single berry fell upon the earth a slender tree of many branches, bearing clusters of berries, would at once spring up, and mortal men might eat of them.

But it chanced that this time they were in Dooros Wood they kept up the feasting and dancing so long, and were so full of joy because of their victory over the lake fairies, that one little, weeny fairy, not much bigger than my finger, lost his head, and dropped a berry in the wood.

When the feast was ended the fairies went back to fairyland, and were at home for more than a week before they knew of the little fellow's fault, and this is how they came to know of it.

A great wedding was about to come off, and the queen of the fairies sent six of her pages to Dooros Wood to catch fifty butterflies with golden spots on their purple wings, and fifty white without speck or spot, and fifty golden, yellow as the cowslip, to make a dress for herself, and a hundred white, without speck or spot, to make dresses for the bride and bridesmaids.

When the pages came near the wood they heard the most wonderful music, and the sky above them became quite dark, as if a cloud had shut out the sun. They looked up, and saw that the cloud was formed of bees, who in a great swarm were flying towards the wood and humming as they flew. Seeing this they were sore afraid until they saw the bees settling on a single tree, and on looking closely at the tree they saw it was covered with fairy berries.

The bees took no notice of the fairies, and so they were no longer afraid, and they hunted the butterflies until they had captured the full number of various colors. Then they returned to fairyland, and they told the queen about the bees and the berries, and the queen told the king.

The king was very angry, and he sent his heralds to the four corners of fairyland to summon all his subjects to his presence that he might find out without delay who was the culprit.

They all came except the little weeny fellow who dropped the berry, and of course everyone said that it was fear that kept him away, and that he must be guilty.

The heralds were at once sent in search of him, and after a while they found him hiding in a cluster of ferns, and brought him before the king.

The poor little fellow was so frightened that at first he could scarcely speak a word, but after a time he told how he never missed the berry until he had returned to fairyland, and that he was afraid to say anything to anyone about it.

The king, who would hear of no excuse, sentenced the little culprit to be banished into the land of giants beyond the mountains, to stay there for ever and a day unless he could find a giant willing to go to Dooros Wood and guard the fairy tree. When the king had pronounced sentence everyone was very sorry, because the little fellow was a favorite with them all. No fairy harper upon his harp, or piper upon his pipe, or fiddler upon his fiddle, could play half so sweetly as he could play upon an ivy leaf; and when they remembered all the pleasant moonlit nights on which they had danced to his music, and thought that they should never hear or dance to it any more, their little hearts were filled with sorrow. The queen was as sad as any of her subjects, but the king's word should be obeyed.

When the time came for the little fellow to set out into exile the queen sent her head page to him with a handful of berries. These the queen said he was to offer to the giants, and say at the same time that the giant who was willing to guard the tree could feast on berries just as sweet from morn till night.

As the little fellow went on his way nearly all the fairies followed him to the borders of the land, and when they saw him go up the mountain towards the land of the giants, they all took off their little red caps and waved them until he was out of sight.

On he went walking all day and night, and when the sun rose on the morrow he was on the top of the mountain, and he could see the land of the giants in the valley stretched far below him. Before beginning his descent he turned round for a last glimpse of fairyland; but he could see nothing, for a thick, dark cloud shut it out from view. He was very sad, and tired, and footsore, and as he struggled down the rough mountain side, he could not help thinking of the soft, green woods and mossy pathways of the pleasant land he had left behind him.

"He was very sad, and tired"

When he awoke the ground was trembling, and a noise that sounded like thunder fell on his ears. He looked up and saw coming towards him a terrible giant, with one eye that burned like a live coal in the middle of his forehead; his mouth stretched from ear to ear, his teeth were long and crooked, the skin of his face was as black as night, and his arms and chest were all covered with black, shaggy hair; round his body was an iron band, and hanging from this by a chain was a great club with iron spikes. With one blow of this club he could break a rock into splinters, and fire could not burn him, and water could not drown him, and weapons could not wound him, and there was no way to kill him but by giving him three blows of his own club. And he was so bad-tempered that the other giants called him Sharvan the Surly. When the giant spied the red cap of the little fairy he gave the shout that sounded like thunder. The poor fairy was shaking from head to foot.

"What brought you here?" said the giant.

"Please, Mr. Giant," said the fairy, "the king of the fairies banished me here, and here I must stay for ever and a day, unless you come and guard the fairy tree in Dooros Wood."

"Unless what?" roared the giant, and he gave the fairy a touch of his foot that sent the little fellow rolling down head over heels.

The poor fairy lay as if he were dead, and then the giant, feeling sorry for what he had done, took him up gently between his finger and thumb.

"Don't be frightened, little man," said he, "and now, tell me all about the tree."

"It is the tree of the fairy berry that grows in the Wood of Dooros," said the fairy, "and I have some of the berries with me."

"Oh, you have, have you?" said the giant. "Let me see them."

The fairy took three berries from the pocket of his little green coat, and gave them to the giant.

The giant looked at them for a second. He then swallowed the three together, and when he had done so, he felt so happy that he began to shout and dance for joy.

"More, you little thief!" said he. "More, you little --  -- what's your name?" said the giant.

"Pinkeen, please, Mr. Giant," said the fairy, as he gave up all the berries.

The giant shouted louder than before, and his shouts were heard by all the other giants, who came running towards him.

When Sharvan saw them coming, he caught up Pinkeen, and put him in his pocket, that they shouldn't see him.

"What were you shouting for?" said the giants.

"Because," said Sharvan, "that rock there fell down on my big toe."

"You did not shout like a man that was hurt," said they.

"What is it to you what way I shouted?" said he.

"You might give a civil answer to a civil question," said they; "but sure you were always Sharvan the Surly;" and they went away.

When the giants were out of sight, Sharvan took Pinkeen out of his wallet.

"Some more berries, you little thief -- I mean little Pinkeen," said he.

"I have not any more," said Pinkeen; "but if you will guard the tree in Dooros Wood you can feast on them from morn till night."

"I'll guard every tree in the wood, if I may do that," said the giant.

"You'll have to guard only one," said Pinkeen.

"How am I to get to it?" said Sharvan.

"You must first come with me towards fairyland," said the fairy.

"Very well," said Sharvan; "let us go." And he took up the fairy and put him into his wallet, and before very long they were on the top of the mountain. Then the giant looked around towards the giants' land; but a black cloud shut it out from view, while the sun was shining on the valley that lay before him, and he could see away in the distance the green woods and shining waters of fairyland.

It was not long until he reached its borders, but when he tried to cross them his feet stuck to the ground and he could not move a step. Sharvan gave three loud shouts that were heard all over fairyland, and made the trees in the woods tremble, as if the wind of a storm was sweeping over them.

"Oh, please, Mr. Giant, let me out," said Pinkeen. Sharvan took out the little fellow, who, as soon as he saw he was on the borders of fairyland ran as fast as his legs could carry him, and before he had gone very far he met all the little fairies who, hearing the shouts of the giant, came trooping out from the ferns to see what was the matter. Pinkeen told them it was the giant who was to guard the tree, shouting because he was stuck fast on the borders, and they need have no fear of him. The fairies were so delighted to have Pinkeen back again, that they took him up on their shoulders and carried him to the king's palace, and all the harpers and pipers and fiddlers marched before him playing the most jocund music that was ever heard. The king and queen were on the lawn in front of the palace when the gay procession came up and halted before them. The queen's eyes glistened with pleasure when she saw the little favorite, and the king was also glad at heart, but he looked very grave as he said:

"Why have you returned, sirrah?"

Then Pinkeen told his majesty that he had brought with him a giant who was willing to guard the fairy tree.

"And who is he and where is he?" asked the king.

"The other giants called him Sharvan the Surly," said Pinkeen, "and he is stuck fast outside the borders of fairyland."

"It is well," said the king, "you are pardoned."

When the fairies heard this they tossed their little red caps in the air, and cheered so loudly that a bee who was clinging to a rose-bud fell senseless to the ground.

Then the king ordered one of his pages to take a handful of berries, and to go to Sharvan and show him the way to Dooros Wood. The page, taking the berries with him, went off to Sharvan, whose roaring nearly frightened the poor little fellow to death. But as soon as the giant tasted the berries he got into good humor, and he asked the page if he could remove the spell of enchantment from him.

"I can," said the page, "and I will if you promise me that you will not try to cross the borders of fairyland."

"I promise that, with all my heart," said the giant. "But hurry on, my little man, for there are pins and needles in my legs."

The page plucked a cowslip, and picking out the five little crimson spots in the cup of it, he flung one to the north, and one to the south, and one to the east, and one to the west, and one up into the sky, and the spell was broken, and the giant's limbs were free. Then Sharvan and the fairy page set off for Dooros Wood, and it was not long until they came within view of the fairy tree. When Sharvan saw the berries glistening in the sun, he gave a shout so loud and strong that the wind of it blew the little fairy back to fairyland. But he had to return to the wood to tell the giant that he was to stay all day at the foot of the tree ready to do battle with anyone who might come to steal the berries, and that during the night he was to sleep amongst the branches.

"All right," said the giant, who could scarcely speak, as his mouth was full of berries.

Well, the fame of the fairy-tree spread far and wide, and every day some adventurer came to try if he could carry away some of the berries; but the giant, true to his word, was always on the watch, and not a single day passed on which he did not fight and slay a daring champion, and the giant never received a wound, for fire could not burn him, nor water drown him, nor weapon wound him.

Now, at this time, when Sharvan was keeping watch and ward over the tree, a cruel king was reigning over the lands that looked towards the rising sun. He had slain the rightful king by foul means, and his subjects, loving their murdered sovereign, hated the usurper; but much as they hated him they feared him more, for he was brave and masterful, and he was armed with a helmet and shield which no weapon made by mortal hands could pierce, and he carried always with him two javelins that never missed their mark, and were so fatal that they were called "the shafts of death." The murdered king had two children -- a boy, whose name was Niall, and a girl, who was called Rosaleen -- that is, little Rose; but no rose that ever bloomed was half as sweet or fresh or fair as she. Cruel as the tyrant king was, he was too afraid of the people to kill the children. He sent the boy adrift on the sea in an open boat, hoping the waves would swallow it; and he got an old witch to cast the spell of deformity over Rosaleen, and under the spell her beauty faded, until at last she became so ugly and wasted that scarcely anyone would speak to her. And, shunned by everyone, she spent her days in the out-houses with the cattle, and every night she cried herself to sleep.

One day, when she was very lonely, a little robin came to pick the crumbs that had fallen about her feet. He appeared so tame that she offered him the bread from her hand, and when he took it she cried with joy at finding that there was one living thing that did not shun her. After this the robin came every day, and he sang so sweetly for her that she almost forgot her loneliness and misery. But once while the robin was with her the tyrant king's daughter, who was very beautiful, passed with her maids of honor, and, seeing Rosaleen, the princess said:

"Oh, there is that horrid ugly thing."

The maids laughed and giggled, and said they had never seen such a fright.

Poor Rosaleen felt as if her heart would break, and when the princess and her maids were out of sight she almost cried her eyes out. When the robin saw her crying he perched on her shoulder and rubbed his little head against her neck and chirruped softly in her ear, and Rosaleen was comforted, for she felt she had at least one friend in the world, although it was only a little robin. But the robin could do more for her than she could dream of. He heard the remark made by the princess, and he saw Rosaleen's tears, and he knew now why she was shunned by everybody, and why she was so unhappy. And that very evening he flew off to Dooros Wood, and called on a cousin of his and told him all about Rosaleen.

"And you want some of the fairy berries, I suppose," said his cousin, Robin of the Wood.

"I do," said Rosaleen's little friend.

"Ah," said Robin of the Wood, "times have changed since you were here last. The tree is guarded now all the day long by a surly giant. He sleeps in the branches during the night, and he breathes upon them and around them every morning, and his breath is poison to bird and bee. There is only one chance open, and if you try that it may cost you your life."

"Then tell me what it is, for I would give a hundred lives for Rosaleen," said her own little robin.

"Well," said Robin of the Wood, "every day a champion comes to battle with the giant, and the giant, before he begins the fight, puts a branch of berries in the iron belt that's around his waist, so that when he feels tired or thirsty he can refresh himself, and there is just a bare chance, while he is fighting, of picking one of the berries from the branch; but if his breath fall on you it is certain death."

"I will take the chance," said Rosaleen's robin.

"Very well," said the other. And the two birds flew through the wood until they came within sight of the fairy tree. The giant was lying stretched at the foot of it, eating the berries; but it was not long until a warrior came, who challenged him to battle. The giant jumped up, and plucking a branch from the tree stuck it in his belt, and swinging his iron club above his head strode towards the warrior, and the fight began. The robin perched on a tree behind the giant, and watched and waited for his chance; but it was a long time coming, for the berries were in front of the giant's belt. At last the giant, with one great blow, struck the warrior down, but as he did so he stumbled and fell upon him, and before he had time to recover himself the little robin darted towards him like a flash and picked off one of the berries, and then, as fast as wings could carry him, he flew towards home, and on his way he passed over a troop of warriors on snow-white steeds. All the horsemen except one wore silver helmets and shining mantles of green silk, fastened by brooches of red gold, but the chief, who rode at the head of the troop, wore a golden helmet, and his mantle was of yellow silk, and he looked by far the noblest of them all. When the robin had left the horsemen far behind him he spied Rosaleen sitting outside the palace gates bemoaning her fate. The robin perched upon her shoulder, and almost before she knew he was there he put the berry between her lips, and the taste was so delicious that Rosaleen ate it at once, and that very moment the witch's withering spell passed away from her, and she became as lovely as the flower of beauty. Just then the warriors on the snow-white steeds came up, and the chief with the mantle of yellow silk and the golden helmet leaped from his horse, and bending his knee before her, said:

"Fairest of all fair maidens, you are surely the daughter of the king of these realms, even though you are without the palace gates, unattended, and wear not royal robes. I am the Prince of the Sunny Valleys."

"Daughter of a king I am," said Rosaleen, "but not of the king who rules these realms."

And saying this she fled, leaving the prince wondering who she could be. The prince then ordered his trumpeters to give notice of his presence outside the palace, and in a few moments the king and all his nobles came out to greet the prince and his warriors, and give them welcome. That night a great feast was spread in the banquet hall, and the Prince of the Sunny Valleys sat by the king, and beside the prince sat the king's beautiful daughter, and then in due order sat the nobles of the court and the warriors who had come with the prince, and on the wall behind each noble and warrior his shield and helmet were suspended, flashing radiance through the room. During the feast the prince spoke most graciously to the lovely lady at his side, but all the time he was thinking of the unknown beauty he had met outside the palace gates, and his heart longed for another glimpse of her. When the feast was ended, and the jeweled drinking-cups had gone merrily around the table, the bards sang, to the accompaniment of harps, the "Courtship of the Lady Eimer," and as they pictured her radiant beauty outshining that of all her maidens, the prince thought that fair as Lady Eimer was there was one still fairer.

When the feast was ended the king asked the prince what brought him into his realms.

"I come," said the prince, "to look for a bride, for it was foretold to me in my own country that here only I should find the lady who is destined to share my throne, and fame reported that in your kingdom are to be found the loveliest maidens in all the world, and I can well believe that," added the prince, "after what I have seen to-day."

When the king's daughter heard this she hung down her head and blushed like a rose, for, of course, she thought the prince was alluding only to herself, as she did not know that he had seen Rosaleen, and she had not heard of the restoration of her beauty.

Before another word could be spoken a great noise and the clang of arms were heard outside the palace. The king and his guests started from their seats and drew their swords, and the bards raised the song of battle; but their voices were stilled and their harps silenced when they saw at the threshold of the banquet hall a battle champion, in whose face they recognized the features of their murdered king.

"'Tis Niall come back to claim his father's throne," said the chief bard. "Long live Niall!"

"Long live Niall!" answered all the others.

The king, white with rage and amazement, turned to the chiefs and nobles of his court, and cried out:

"Is there none loyal enough to drive that intruder from the banquet hall?"

But no one stirred, and no answer was given. Then the king rushed forward alone, but before he could reach the spot where Niall was standing he was seized by a dozen chiefs and at once disarmed.

During this scene the king's daughter had fled frightened; but Rosaleen, attracted by the noise, and hearing her brother's name and the cheers which greeted it, had entered the banquet hall unperceived by anyone. But when her presence was discovered every eye was dazzled with her beauty. Niall looked at her for a second, wondering if the radiant maiden before him could be the little sister he had been separated from for so many years. In another second she was clasped in his arms.

Then the feast was spread again, and Niall told the story of his adventures; and when the Prince of the Sunny Valley asked for the hand of Rosaleen, Niall told his lovely sister to speak for herself. With downcast eyes and smiling lips she said, "yes," and that very day was the gayest and brightest wedding that ever took place, and Rosaleen became the prince's bride.

In her happiness she did not forget the little robin, who was her friend in sorrow. She took him home with her to Sunny Valleys, and every day she fed him with her own hands, and every day he sang for her the sweetest songs that were ever heard in lady's bower.



The Little White Cat


A long, long time ago, in a valley far away, the giant Trencoss lived in a great castle, surrounded by trees that were always green. The castle had a hundred doors, and every door was guarded by a huge, shaggy hound, with tongue of fire and claws of iron, who tore to pieces anyone who went to the castle without the giant's leave. Trencoss had made war on the King of the Torrents, and, having killed the king, and slain his people, and burned his palace, he carried off his only daughter, the Princess Eileen, to the castle in the valley. Here he provided her with beautiful rooms, and appointed a hundred dwarfs, dressed in blue and yellow satin, to wait upon her, and harpers to play sweet music for her, and he gave her diamonds without number, brighter than the sun; but he would not allow her to go outside the castle, and told her if she went one step beyond its doors, the hounds, with tongues of fire and claws of iron, would tear her to pieces. A week after her arrival, war broke out between the giant and the King of the Islands, and before he set out for battle, the giant sent for the princess, and informed her that on his return he would make her his wife. When the princess heard this she began to cry, for she would rather die than marry the giant who had slain her father.

"Crying will only spoil your bright eyes, my little princess," said Trencoss, "and you will have to marry me whether you like it or no."

He then bade her go back to her room, and he ordered the dwarfs to give her everything she asked for while he was away, and the harpers to play the sweetest music for her. When the princess gained her room she cried as if her heart would break. The long day passed slowly, and the night came, but brought no sleep to Eileen, and in the gray light of the morning she rose and opened the window, and looked about in every direction to see if there were any chance of escape. But the window was ever so high above the ground, and below were the hungry and ever watchful hounds. With a heavy heart she was about to close the window when she thought she saw the branches of the tree that was nearest to it moving. She looked again, and she saw a little white cat creeping along one of the branches.

"Mew!" cried the cat.

"Poor little pussy," said the princess. "Come to me, pussy."

"Stand back from the window," said the cat, "and I will."

The princess stepped back, and the little white cat jumped into the room. The princess took the little cat on her lap and stroked him with her hand, and the cat raised up its back and began to purr.

"Where do you come from, and what is your name?" asked the princess.

"No matter where I come from or what's my name," said the cat. "I am a friend of yours, and I come to help you."

"I never wanted help worse," said the princess.

"I know that," said the cat; "and now listen to me. When the giant comes back from battle and asks you to marry him, say to him you will marry him."

"But I will never marry him," said the princess.

"Do what I tell you," said the cat. "When he asks you to marry him, say to him you will if his dwarfs will wind for you three balls from the fairy dew that lies on the bushes on a misty morning as big as these," said the cat, putting his right forefoot into his ear and taking out three balls -- one yellow, one red, and one blue.

"They are very small," said the princess. "They are not much bigger than peas, and the dwarfs will not be long at their work."

"Won't they," said the cat. "It will take them a month and a day to make one, so that it will take three months and three days before the balls are wound; but the giant, like you, will think they can be made in a few days, and so he will readily promise to do what you ask. He will soon find out his mistake, but he will keep his word, and will not press you to marry him until the balls are wound."

"When will the giant come back?" asked Eileen.

"He will return to-morrow afternoon," said the cat.

"Will you stay with me until then?" said the princess. "I am very lonely."

"I cannot stay," said the cat. "I have to go away to my palace on the island on which no man ever placed his foot, and where no man but one shall ever come."

"And where is that island?" asked the princess, "and who is the man?"

"The island is in the far-off seas where vessel never sailed; the man you will see before many days are over; and if all goes well, he will one day slay the giant Trencoss, and free you from his power."

"Ah!" sighed the princess, "that can never be, for no weapon can wound the hundred hounds that guard the castle, and no sword can kill the giant Trencoss."

"There is a sword that will kill him," said the cat; "but I must go now. Remember what you are to say to the giant when he comes home, and every morning watch the tree on which you saw me, and if you see in the branches anyone you like better than yourself," said the cat, winking at the princess, "throw him these three balls and leave the rest to me; but take care not to speak a single word to him, for if you do all will be lost."

"Shall I ever see you again?" asked the princess.

"Time will tell," answered the cat, and, without saying so much as good-by, he jumped through the window on to the tree, and in a second was out of sight.

The morrow afternoon came, and the giant Trencoss returned from battle. Eileen knew of his coming by the furious barking of the hounds, and her heart sank, for she knew that in a few moments she would be summoned to his presence. Indeed, he had hardly entered the castle when he sent for her, and told her to get ready for the wedding. The princess tried to look cheerful, as she answered:

"I will be ready as soon as you wish; but you must first promise me something."

"Ask anything you like, little princess," said Trencoss.

"Well, then," said Eileen, "before I marry you, you must make your dwarfs wind three balls as big as these from the fairy dew that lies on the bushes on a misty morning in summer."

"Is that all?" said Trencoss, laughing. "I shall give the dwarfs orders at once, and by this time to-morrow the balls will be wound, and our wedding can take place in the evening."

"And will you leave me to myself until then?"

"I will," said Trencoss.

"On your honor as a giant?" said Eileen.

"On my honor as a giant," replied Trencoss.

The princess returned to her rooms, and the giant summoned all his dwarfs, and he ordered them to go forth in the dawning of the morn and to gather all the fairy dew lying on the bushes, and to wind three balls -- one yellow, one red, and one blue. The next morning, and the next, and the next, the dwarfs went out into the fields and searched all the hedgerows, but they could gather only as much fairy dew as would make a thread as long as a wee girl's eyelash; and so they had to go out morning after morning, and the giant fumed and threatened, but all to no purpose. He was very angry with the princess, and he was vexed with himself that she was so much cleverer than he was, and, moreover, he saw now that the wedding could not take place as soon as he expected.

When the little white cat went away from the castle he ran as fast as he could up hill and down dale, and never stopped until he came to the Prince of the Silver River. The prince was alone, and very sad and sorrowful he was, for he was thinking of the Princess Eileen, and wondering where she could be.

"Mew," said the cat, as he sprang softly into the room; but the prince did not heed him. "Mew," again said the cat; but again the prince did not heed him. "Mew," said the cat the third time, and he jumped up on the prince's knee.

"Where do you come from, and what do you want?" asked the prince.

"I come from where you would like to be," said the cat.

"And where is that?" said the prince.

"Oh, where is that, indeed! as if I didn't know what you are thinking of, and of whom you are thinking," said the cat; "and it would be far better for you to try and save her."

"I would give my life a thousand times over for her," said the prince.

"For whom?" said the cat, with a wink. "I named no name, your highness," said he.

"You know very well who she is," said the prince, "if you knew what I was thinking of; but do you know where she is?"

"She is in danger," said the cat. "She is in the castle of the giant Trencoss, in the valley beyond the mountains."

"I will set out there at once," said the prince, "and I will challenge the giant to battle, and will slay him."

"Easier said than done," said the cat. "There is no sword made by the hands of man can kill him, and even if you could kill him, his hundred hounds, with tongues of fire and claws of iron, would tear you to pieces."

"Then, what am I to do?" asked the prince.

"Be said by me," said the cat. "Go to the wood that surrounds the giant's castle, and climb the high tree that's nearest to the window that looks towards the sunset, and shake the branches, and you will see what you will see. Then hold out your hat with the silver plumes, and three balls -- one yellow, one red, and one blue -- will be thrown into it. And then come back here as fast as you can; but speak no word, for if you utter a single word the hounds will hear you, and you shall be torn to pieces."

Well, the prince set off at once, and after two days' journey he came to the wood around the castle, and he climbed the tree that was nearest to the window that looked towards the sunset, and he shook the branches. As soon as he did so, the window opened and he saw the Princess Eileen, looking lovelier than ever. He was going to call out her name, but she placed her fingers on her lips, and he remembered what the cat had told him, that he was to speak no word. In silence he held out the hat with the silver plumes, and the princess threw into it the three balls, one after another, and, blowing him a kiss, she shut the window. And well it was she did so, for at that very moment she heard the voice of the giant, who was coming back from hunting.

The prince waited until the giant had entered the castle before he descended the tree. He set off as fast as he could. He went up hill and down dale, and never stopped until he arrived at his own palace, and there waiting for him was the little white cat.

"Have you brought the three balls?" said he.

"I have," said the prince.

"Then follow me," said the cat.

On they went until they left the palace far behind and came to the edge of the sea.

"Now," said the cat, "unravel a thread of the red ball, hold the thread in your right hand, drop the ball into the water, and you shall see what you shall see."

The prince did as he was told, and the ball floated out to sea, unraveling as it went, and it went on until it was out of sight.

"Pull now," said the cat.

The prince pulled, and, as he did, he saw far away something on the sea shining like silver. It came nearer and nearer, and he saw it was a little silver boat. At last it touched the strand.

"Now," said the cat, "step into this boat and it will bear you to the palace on the island on which no man has ever placed his foot -- the island in the unknown seas that were never sailed by vessels made of human hands. In that palace there is a sword with a diamond hilt, and by that sword alone the giant Trencoss can be killed. There also are a hundred cakes, and it is only on eating these the hundred hounds can die. But mind what I say to you: if you eat or drink until you reach the palace of the little cat in the island in the unknown seas, you will forget the Princess Eileen."

"I will forget myself first," said the prince, as he stepped into the silver boat, which floated away so quickly that it was soon out of sight of land.

The day passed and the night fell, and the stars shone down upon the waters, but the boat never stopped. On she went for two whole days and nights, and on the third morning the prince saw an island in the distance, and very glad he was; for he thought it was his journey's end, and he was almost fainting with thirst and hunger. But the day passed and the island was still before him.

At long last, on the following day, he saw by the first light of the morning that he was quite close to it, and that trees laden with fruit of every kind were bending down over the water. The boat sailed round and round the island, going closer and closer every round, until, at last, the drooping branches almost touched it. The sight of the fruit within his reach made the prince hungrier and thirstier than he was before, and forgetting his promise to the little cat -- not to eat anything until he entered the palace in the unknown seas -- he caught one of the branches, and, in a moment, was in the tree eating the delicious fruit. While he was doing so the boat floated out to sea and soon was lost to sight; but the prince, having eaten, forgot all about it, and, worse still, forgot all about the princess in the giant's castle. When he had eaten enough he descended the tree, and, turning his back on the sea, set out straight before him. He had not gone far when he heard the sound of music, and soon after he saw a number of maidens playing on silver harps coming towards him. When they saw him they ceased playing, and cried out:

"Welcome! welcome! Prince of the Silver River, welcome to the island of fruits and flowers. Our king and queen saw you coming over the sea, and they sent us to bring you to the palace."

The prince went with them, and at the palace gates the king and queen and their daughter Kathleen received him, and gave him welcome. He hardly saw the king and queen, for his eyes were fixed on the Princess Kathleen, who looked more beautiful than a flower. He thought he had never seen anyone so lovely, for, of course, he had forgotten all about poor Eileen pining away in her castle prison in the lonely valley. When the king and queen had given welcome to the prince a great feast was spread, and all the lords and ladies of the court sat down to it, and the prince sat between the queen and the Princess Kathleen, and long before the feast was finished he was over head and ears in love with her. When the feast was ended the queen ordered the ballroom to be made ready, and when night fell the dancing began, and was kept up until the morning star, and the prince danced all night with the princess, falling deeper and deeper in love with her every minute. Between dancing by night and feasting by day weeks went by. All the time poor Eileen in the giant's castle was counting the hours, and all this time the dwarfs were winding the balls, and a ball and a half were already wound. At last the prince asked the king and queen for their daughter in marriage, and they were delighted to be able to say yes, and the day was fixed for the wedding. But on the evening before the day on which it was to take place the prince was in his room, getting ready for a dance, when he felt something rubbing against his leg, and, looking down, who should he see but the little white cat. At the sight of him the prince remembered everything, and sad and sorry he was when he thought of Eileen watching and waiting and counting the days until he returned to save her. But he was very fond of the Princess Kathleen, and so he did not know what to do.

"At the sight of him the prince remembered everything"

"You can't do anything to-night," said the cat, for he knew what the prince was thinking of, "but when morning comes go down to the sea, and look not to the right or the left, and let no living thing touch you, for if you do you shall never leave the island. Drop the second ball into the water, as you did the first, and when the boat comes step in at once. Then you may look behind you, and you shall see what you shall see, and you'll know which you love best, the Princess Eileen or the Princess Kathleen, and you can either go or stay."

The prince didn't sleep a wink that night, and at the first glimpse of the morning he stole from the palace. When he reached the sea he threw out the ball, and when it had floated out of sight, he saw the little boat sparkling on the horizon like a newly-risen star. The prince had scarcely passed through the palace doors when he was missed, and the king and queen and the princess, and all the lords and ladies of the court, went in search of him, taking the quickest way to the sea. While the maidens with the silver harps played sweetest music, the princess, whose voice was sweeter than any music, called on the prince by his name, and so moved his heart that he was about to look behind, when he remembered how the cat had told him he should not do so until he was in the boat. Just as it touched the shore the princess put out her hand and almost caught the prince's arm, but he stepped into the boat in time to save himself, and it sped away like a receding wave. A loud scream caused the prince to look round suddenly, and when he did he saw no sign of king or queen, or princess, or lords or ladies, but only big green serpents, with red eyes and tongues, that hissed out fire and poison as they writhed in a hundred horrible coils.

The prince, having escaped from the enchanted island, sailed away for three days and three nights, and every night he hoped the coming morning would show him the island he was in search of. He was faint with hunger and beginning to despair, when on the fourth morning he saw in the distance an island that, in the first rays of the sun, gleamed like fire. On coming closer to it he saw that it was clad with trees, so covered with bright red berries that hardly a leaf was to be seen. Soon the boat was almost within a stone's cast of the island, and it began to sail round and round until it was well under the bending branches. The scent of the berries was so sweet that it sharpened the prince's hunger, and he longed to pluck them; but, remembering what had happened to him on the enchanted island, he was afraid to touch them. But the boat kept on sailing round and round, and at last a great wind rose from the sea and shook the branches, and the bright, sweet berries fell into the boat until it was filled with them, and they fell upon the prince's hands, and he took up some to look at them, and as he looked the desire to eat them grew stronger, and he said to himself it would be no harm to taste one; but when he tasted it the flavor was so delicious he swallowed it, and, of course, at once he forgot all about Eileen, and the boat drifted away from him and left him standing in the water.

He climbed on to the island, and having eaten enough of the berries, he set out to see what might be before him, and it was not long until he heard a great noise, and a huge iron ball knocked down one of the trees in front of him, and before he knew where he was a hundred giants came running after it. When they saw the prince they turned towards him, and one of them caught him up in his hand and held him up that all might see him. The prince was nearly squeezed to death, and seeing this the giant put him on the ground again.

"Who are you, my little man?" asked the giant.

"I am a prince," replied the prince.

"Oh, you are a prince, are you?" said the giant. "And what are you good for?" said he.

The prince did not know, for nobody had asked him that question before.

"I know what he's good for," said an old giantess, with one eye in her forehead and one in her chin. "I know what he's good for. He's good to eat."

When the giants heard this they laughed so loud that the prince was frightened almost to death.

"Why," said one, "he wouldn't make a mouthful."

"Oh, leave him to me," said the giantess, "and I'll fatten him up; and when he is cooked and dressed he will be a nice dainty dish for the king."

The giants, on this, gave the prince into the hands of the old giantess. She took him home with her to the kitchen, and fed him on sugar and spice and all things nice, so that he should be a sweet morsel for the king of the giants when he returned to the island. The poor prince would not eat anything at first, but the giantess held him over the fire until his feet were scorched, and then he said to himself it was better to eat than to be burnt alive.

Well, day after day passed, and the prince grew sadder and sadder, thinking that he would soon be cooked and dressed for the king; but sad as the prince was, he was not half as sad as the Princess Eileen in the giant's castle, watching and waiting for the prince to return and save her.

And the dwarfs had wound two balls, and were winding a third.

At last the prince heard from the old giantess that the king of the giants was to return on the following day, and she said to him:

"As this is the last night you have to live, tell me if you wish for anything, for if you do your wish will be granted."

"I don't wish for anything," said the prince, whose heart was dead within him.

"Well, I'll come back again," said the giantess, and she went away.

The prince sat down in a corner, thinking and thinking, until he heard close to his ear a sound like "purr, purr!" He looked around, and there before him was the little white cat.

"I ought not to come to you," said the cat; "but, indeed, it is not for your sake I come. I come for the sake of the Princess Eileen. Of course, you forgot all about her, and, of course, she is always thinking of you. It's always the way -- 

"'Favored lovers may forget, Slighted lovers never yet.'"


The prince blushed with shame when he heard the name of the princess.

"'Tis you that ought to blush," said the cat; "but listen to me now, and remember, if you don't obey my directions this time you'll never see me again, and you'll never set your eyes on the Princess Eileen. When the old giantess comes back tell her you wish, when the morning comes, to go down to the sea to look at it for the last time. When you reach the sea you will know what to do. But I must go now, as I hear the giantess coming." And the cat jumped out of the window and disappeared.

"Well," said the giantess, when she came in, "is there anything you wish?"

"Is it true I must die to-morrow?" asked the prince.

"It is."

"Then," said he, "I should like to go down to the sea to look at it for the last time."

"You may do that," said the giantess, "if you get up early."

"I'll be up with the lark in the light of the morning," said the prince.

"Very well," said the giantess, and, saying "good night," she went away.

The prince thought the night would never pass, but at last it faded away before the gray light of the dawn, and he sped down to the sea. He threw out the third ball, and before long he saw the little boat coming towards him swifter than the wind. He threw himself into it the moment it touched the shore. Swifter than the wind it bore him out to sea, and before he had time to look behind him the island of the giantess was like a faint red speck in the distance. The day passed and the night fell, and the stars looked down, and the boat sailed on, and just as the sun rose above the sea it pushed its silver prow on the golden strand of an island greener than the leaves in summer. The prince jumped out, and went on and on until he entered a pleasant valley, at the head of which he saw a palace white as snow.

As he approached the central door it opened for him. On entering the hall he passed into several rooms without meeting with anyone; but, when he reached the principal apartment, he found himself in a circular room, in which were a thousand pillars, and every pillar was of marble, and on every pillar save one, which stood in the centre of the room, was a little white cat with black eyes. Ranged round the wall, from one door-jamb to the other, were three rows of precious jewels. The first was a row of brooches of gold and silver, with their pins fixed in the wall and their heads outwards; the second a row of torques of gold and silver; and the third a row of great swords, with hilts of gold and silver. And on many tables was food of all kinds, and drinking horns filled with foaming ale.

While the prince was looking about him the cats kept on jumping from pillar to pillar; but seeing that none of them jumped on to the pillar in the centre of the room, he began to wonder why this was so, when, all of a sudden, and before he could guess how it came about, there right before him on the center pillar was the little white cat.

"Don't you know me?" said he.

"I do," said the prince.

"Ah, but you don't know who I am. This is the palace of the Little White Cat, and I am the King of the Cats. But you must be hungry, and the feast is spread."

Well, when the feast was ended, the King of the Cats called for the sword that would kill the giant Trencoss, and the hundred cakes for the hundred watch-dogs.

The cats brought the sword and the cakes and laid them before the king.

"Now," said the king, "take these; you have no time to lose. To-morrow the dwarfs will wind the last ball, and to-morrow the giant will claim the princess for his bride. So you should go at once; but before you go take this from me to your little girl."

And the king gave him a brooch lovelier than any on the palace walls.

The king and the prince, followed by the cats, went down to the strand, and when the prince stepped into the boat all the cats "mewed" three times for good luck, and the prince waved his hat three times, and the little boat sped over the waters all through the night as brightly and as swiftly as a shooting star. In the first flush of the morning it touched the strand. The prince jumped out and went on and on, up hill and down dale, until he came to the giant's castle. When the hounds saw him they barked furiously, and bounded towards him to tear him to pieces. The prince flung the cakes to them, and as each hound swallowed his cake he fell dead. The prince then struck his shield three times with the sword which he had brought from the palace of the little white cat.

When the giant heard the sound he cried out:

"Who comes to challenge me on my wedding-day?"

The dwarfs went out to see, and, returning, told him it was a prince who challenged him to battle.

The giant, foaming with rage, seized his heaviest iron club, and rushed out to the fight. The fight lasted the whole day, and when the sun went down the giant said:

"We have had enough of fighting for the day. We can begin at sunrise to-morrow."

"Not so," said the prince. "Now or never; win or die."

"Then take this," cried the giant, as he aimed a blow with all his force at the prince's head; but the prince, darting forward like a flash of lightning, drove his sword into the giant's heart, and, with a groan, he fell over the bodies of the poisoned hounds.

When the dwarfs saw the giant dead they began to cry and tear their hair. But the prince told them they had nothing to fear, and he bade them go and tell the Princess Eileen he wished to speak with her. But the princess had watched the battle from her window, and when she saw the giant fall she rushed out to greet the prince, and that very night he and she and all the dwarfs and harpers set out for the Palace of the Silver River, which they reached the next morning, and from that day to this there never has been a gayer wedding than the wedding of the Prince of the Silver River and the Princess Eileen; and though she had diamonds and pearls to spare, the only jewel she wore on her wedding-day was the brooch which the prince had brought her from the Palace of the Little White Cat in the far-off seas.



Princess Finola And The Dwarf


A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut in the midst of a bare, brown, lonely moor an old woman and a young girl. The old woman was withered, sour-tempered, and dumb. The young girl was as sweet and as fresh as an opening rosebud, and her voice was as musical as the whisper of a stream in the woods in the hot days of summer. The little hut, made of branches woven closely together, was shaped like a beehive. In the center of the hut a fire burned night and day from year's end to year's end, though it was never touched or tended by human hand. In the cold days and nights of winter it gave out light and heat that made the hut cozy and warm, but in the summer nights and days it gave out light only. With their heads to the wall of the hut and their feet towards the fire were two sleeping-couches -- one of plain woodwork, in which slept the old woman; the other was Finola's. It was of bog-oak, polished as a looking-glass, and on it were carved flowers and birds of all kinds, that gleamed and shone in the light of the fire. This couch was fit for a princess, and a princess Finola was, though she did not know it herself.

Outside the hut the bare, brown, lonely moor stretched for miles on every side, but towards the east it was bounded by a range of mountains that looked to Finola blue in the daytime, but which put on a hundred changing colors as the sun went down. Nowhere was a house to be seen, nor a tree, nor a flower, nor sign of any living thing. From morning till night, nor hum of bee, nor song of bird, nor voice of man, nor any sound fell on Finola's ear. When the storm was in the air the great waves thundered on the shore beyond the mountains, and the wind shouted in the glens; but when it sped across the moor it lost its voice, and passed as silently as the dead. At first the silence frightened Finola, but she got used to it after a time, and often broke it by talking to herself and singing.

The only other person beside the old woman Finola ever saw was a dumb dwarf who, mounted on a broken-down horse, came once a month to the hut, bringing with him a sack of corn for the old woman and Finola. Although he couldn't speak to her, Finola was always glad to see the dwarf and his old horse, and she used to give them cake made with her own white hands. As for the dwarf he would have died for the little princess, he was so much in love with her, and often and often his heart was heavy and sad as he thought of her pining away in the lonely moor.

It chanced that he came one day, and she did not, as usual, come out to greet him. He made signs to the old woman, but she took up a stick and struck him, and beat his horse and drove him away; but as he was leaving he caught a glimpse of Finola at the door of the hut, and saw that she was crying. This sight made him so very miserable that he could think of nothing else but her sad face that he had always seen so bright, and he allowed the old horse to go on without minding where he was going. Suddenly he heard a voice saying: "It is time for you to come."

The dwarf looked, and right before him, at the foot of a green hill, was a little man not half as big as himself, dressed in a green jacket with brass buttons, and a red cap and tassel.

"It is time for you to come," he said the second time; "but you are welcome, anyhow. Get off your horse and come in with me, that I may touch your lips with the wand of speech, that we may have a talk together."

The dwarf got off his horse and followed the little man through a hole in the side of a green hill. The hole was so small that he had to go on his hands and knees to pass through it, and when he was able to stand he was only the same height as the little fairyman. After walking three or four steps they were in a splendid room, as bright as day. Diamonds sparkled in the roof as stars sparkle in the sky when the night is without a cloud. The roof rested on golden pillars, and between the pillars were silver lamps, but their light was dimmed by that of the diamonds. In the middle of the room was a table, on which were two golden plates and two silver knives and forks, and a brass bell as big as a hazelnut, and beside the table were two little chairs covered with blue silk and satin.

"Take a chair," said the fairy, "and I will ring for the wand of speech."

The dwarf sat down, and the fairyman rang the little brass bell, and in came a little weeny dwarf no bigger than your hand.

"Bring me the wand of speech," said the fairy, and the weeny dwarf bowed three times and walked out backwards, and in a minute he returned, carrying a little black wand with a red berry at the top of it, and, giving it to the fairy, he bowed three times and walked out backwards as he had done before.

The little man waved the rod three times over the dwarf, and struck him once on the right shoulder and once on the left shoulder, and then touched his lips with the red berry, and said: "Speak!"

The dwarf spoke, and he was so rejoiced at hearing the sound of his own voice that he danced about the room.

"Who are you at all, at all?" said he to the fairy.

"Who is yourself?" said the fairy. "But come, before we have any talk let us have something to eat, for I am sure you are hungry."

Then they sat down to table, and the fairy rang the little brass bell twice, and the weeny dwarf brought in two boiled snails in their shells, and when they had eaten the snails he brought in a dormouse, and when they had eaten the dormouse he brought in two wrens, and when they had eaten the wrens he brought in two nuts full of wine, and they became very merry, and the fairyman sang "Cooleen dhas," and the dwarf sang "The little blackbird of the glen."

"Did you ever hear the 'Foggy Dew'?" said the fairy.

"No," said the dwarf.

"Well, then, I'll give it to you; but we must have some more wine."

And the wine was brought, and he sang the "Foggy Dew," and the dwarf said it was the sweetest song he had ever heard, and that the fairyman's voice would coax the birds off the bushes.

"You asked me who I am?" said the fairy.

"I did," said the dwarf.

"And I asked you who is yourself?"

"You did," said the dwarf.

"And who are you, then?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I don't know," said the dwarf, and he blushed like a rose.

"Well, tell me what you know about yourself."

"I remember nothing at all," said the dwarf, "before the day I found myself going along with a crowd of all sorts of people to the great fair of the Liffey. We had to pass by the king's palace on our way, and as we were passing the king sent for a band of jugglers to come and show their tricks before him. I followed the jugglers to look on, and when the play was over the king called me to him, and asked me who I was and where I came from. I was dumb then, and couldn't answer; but even if I could speak I could not tell him what he wanted to know, for I remembered nothing of myself before that day. Then the king asked the jugglers, but they knew nothing about me, and no one knew anything, and then the king said he would take me into his service; and the only work I have to do is to go once a month with a bag of corn to the hut in the lonely moor."

"And there you fell in love with the little princess," said the fairy, winking at the dwarf.

The poor dwarf blushed twice as much as he had done before.

"You need not blush," said the fairy; "it is a good man's case. And now tell me, truly, do you love the princess, and what would you give to free her from the spell of enchantment that is over her?"

"I would give my life," said the dwarf.

"Well, then, listen to me," said the fairy. "The Princess Finola was banished to the lonely moor by the king, your master. He killed her father, who was the rightful king, and would have killed Finola, only he was told by an old sorceress that if he killed her he would die himself on the same day, and she advised him to banish her to the lonely moor, and she said she would fling a spell of enchantment over it, and that until the spell was broken Finola could not leave the moor. And the sorceress also promised that she would send an old woman to watch over the princess by night and by day, so that no harm should come to her; but she told the king that he himself should select a messenger to take food to the hut, and that he should look out for someone who had never seen or heard of the princess, and whom he could trust never to tell anyone anything about her; and that is the reason he selected you."

"Since you know so much," said the dwarf, "can you tell me who I am, and where I came from?"

"You will know that time enough," said the fairy. "I have given you back your speech. It will depend solely on yourself whether you will get back your memory of who and what you were before the day you entered the king's service. But are you really willing to try and break the spell of enchantment and free the princess?"

"I am," said the dwarf.

"Whatever it will cost you?"

"Yes, if it cost me my life," said the dwarf; "but tell me, how can the spell be broken?"

"Oh, it is easy enough to break the spell if you have the weapons," said the fairy.

"And what are they, and where are they?" said the dwarf.

"The spear of the shining haft and the dark blue blade and the silver shield," said the fairy. "They are on the farther bank of the Mystic Lake in the Island of the Western Seas. They are there for the man who is bold enough to seek them. If you are the man who will bring them back to the lonely moor you will only have to strike the shield three times with the haft, and three times with the blade of the spear, and the silence of the moor will be broken for ever, the spell of enchantment will be removed, and the princess will be free."

"I will set out at once," said the dwarf, jumping from his chair.

"And whatever it cost you," said the fairy, "will you pay the price?"

"I will," said the dwarf.

"Well, then, mount your horse, give him his head, and he will take you to the shore opposite the Island of the Mystic Lake. You must cross to the island on his back, and make your way through the water-steeds that swim around the island night and day to guard it; but woe betide you if you attempt to cross without paying the price, for if you do the angry water-steeds will rend you and your horse to pieces. And when you come to the Mystic Lake you must wait until the waters are as red as wine, and then swim your horse across it, and on the farther side you will find the spear and shield; but woe betide you if you attempt to cross the lake before you pay the price, for if you do, the black Cormorants of the Western Seas will pick the flesh from your bones."

"What is the price?" said the dwarf.

"You will know that time enough," said the fairy; "but now go, and good luck go with you."

The dwarf thanked the fairy, and said good-by. He then threw the reins on his horse's neck, and started up the hill, that seemed to grow bigger and bigger as he ascended, and the dwarf soon found that what he took for a hill was a great mountain. After traveling all the day, toiling up by steep crags and heathery passes, he reached the top as the sun was setting in the ocean, and he saw far below him out in the waters the island of the Mystic Lake.

He began his descent to the shore, but long before he reached it the sun had set, and darkness, unpierced by a single star, dropped upon the sea. The old horse, worn out by his long and painful journey, sank beneath him, and the dwarf was so tired that he rolled off his back and fell asleep by his side.

He awoke at the breaking of the morning, and saw that he was almost at the water's edge. He looked out to sea, and saw the island, but nowhere could he see the water-steeds, and he began to fear he must have taken a wrong course in the night, and that the island before him was not the one he was in search of. But even while he was so thinking he heard fierce and angry snortings, and, coming swiftly from the island to the shore, he saw the swimming and prancing steeds. Sometimes their heads and manes only were visible, and sometimes, rearing, they rose half out of the water, and, striking it with their hoofs, churned it into foam, and tossed the white spray to the skies. As they approached nearer and nearer their snortings became more terrible, and their nostrils shot forth clouds of vapor. The dwarf trembled at the sight and sound, and his old horse, quivering in every limb, moaned piteously, as if in pain. On came the steeds, until they almost touched the shore, then rearing, they seemed about to spring on to it. The frightened dwarf turned his head to fly, and as he did so he heard the twang of a golden harp, and right before him who should he see but the little man of the hills, holding a harp in one hand and striking the strings with the other.

"Are you ready to pay the price?" said he, nodding gayly to the dwarf.

As he asked the question, the listening water-steeds snorted more furiously than ever.

"Are you ready to pay the price?" said the little man a second time.

A shower of spray, tossed on shore by the angry steeds, drenched the dwarf to the skin, and sent a cold shiver to his bones, and he was so terrified that he could not answer.

"For the third and last time, are you ready to pay the price?" asked the fairy, as he flung the harp behind him and turned to depart.

When the dwarf saw him going he thought of the little princess in the lonely moor, and his courage came back, and he answered bravely:

"Yes, I am ready."

The water-steeds, hearing his answer, and snorting with rage, struck the shore with their pounding hoofs.

"Back to your waves!" cried the little harper; and as he ran his fingers across his lyre, the frightened steeds drew back into the waters.

"What is the price?" asked the dwarf.

"Your right eye," said the fairy; and before the dwarf could say a word, the fairy scooped out the eye with his finger, and put it into his pocket.

The dwarf suffered most terrible agony; but he resolved to bear it for the sake of the little princess. Then the fairy sat down on a rock at the edge of the sea, and, after striking a few notes, he began to play the "Strains of Slumber."

The sound crept along the waters, and the steeds, so ferocious a moment before, became perfectly still. They had no longer any motion of their own, and they floated on the top of the tide like foam before a breeze.

"Now," said the fairy, as he led the dwarf's horse to the edge of the tide.

The dwarf urged the horse into the water, and once out of his depth, the old horse struck out boldly for the island. The sleeping water-steeds drifted helplessly against him, and in a short time he reached the island safely, and he neighed joyously as his hoofs touched solid ground.

The dwarf rode on and on, until he came to a bridle-path, and following this, it led him up through winding lanes, bordered with golden furze that filled the air with fragrance, and brought him to the summit of the green hills that girdled and looked down on the Mystic Lake. Here the horse stopped of his own accord, and the dwarf's heart beat quickly as his eye rested on the lake, that, clipped round by the ring of hills, seemed in the breezeless and sunlit air -- 

"As still as death. And as bright as life can be."


After gazing at it for a long time, he dismounted, and lay at his ease in the pleasant grass. Hour after hour passed, but no change came over the face of the waters, and when the night fell sleep closed the eyelids of the dwarf.

The song of the lark awoke him in the early morning, and, starting up, he looked at the lake, but its waters were as bright as they had been the day before.

Towards midday he beheld what he thought was a black cloud sailing across the sky from east to west. It seemed to grow larger as it came nearer and nearer, and when it was high above the lake he saw it was a huge bird, the shadow of whose outstretched wings darkened the waters of the lake; and the dwarf knew it was one of the Cormorants of the Western Seas. As it descended slowly, he saw that it held in one of its claws a branch of a tree larger than a full-grown oak, and laden with clusters of ripe red berries. It alighted at some distance from the dwarf, and, after resting for a time, it began to eat the berries and to throw the stones into the lake, and wherever a stone fell a bright red stain appeared in the water. As he looked more closely at the bird the dwarf saw that it had all the signs of old age, and he could not help wondering how it was able to carry such a heavy tree.

Later in the day, two other birds, as large as the first, but younger, came up from the west and settled down beside him. They also ate the berries, and throwing the stones into the lake it was soon as red as wine.

When they had eaten all the berries, the young birds began to pick the decayed feathers off the old bird and to smooth his plumage. As soon as they had completed their task, he rose slowly from the hill and sailed out over the lake, and dropping down on the waters, dived beneath them. In a moment he came to the surface, and shot up into the air with a joyous cry, and flew off to the west in all the vigor of renewed youth, followed by the other birds.

When they had gone so far that they were like specks in the sky, the dwarf mounted his horse and descended towards the lake.

He was almost at the margin, and in another minute would have plunged in, when he heard a fierce screaming in the air, and before he had time to look up, the three birds were hovering over the lake.

The dwarf drew back frightened.

The birds wheeled over his head, and then, swooping down, they flew close to the water, covering it with their wings, and uttering harsh cries.

Then, rising to a great height, they folded their wings and dropped headlong, like three rocks, on the lake, crashing its surface, and scattering a wine-red shower upon the hills.

Then the dwarf remembered what the fairy told him, that if he attempted to swim the lake, without paying the price, the three Cormorants of the Western Seas would pick the flesh off his bones. He knew not what to do, and was about to turn away, when he heard once more the twang of the golden harp, and the little fairy of the hills stood before him.

"Faint heart never won fair lady," said the little harper. "Are you ready to pay the price? The spear and shield are on the opposite bank, and the Princess Finola is crying this moment in the lonely moor."

At the mention of Finola's name the dwarf's heart grew strong.

"Yes," he said; "I am ready -- win or die. What is the price?"

"Your left eye," said the fairy. And as soon as said he scooped out the eye, and put it in his pocket.

The poor blind dwarf almost fainted with pain.

"It's your last trial," said the fairy, "and now do what I tell you. Twist your horse's mane round your right hand, and I will lead him to the water. Plunge in, and fear not. I gave you back your speech. When you reach the opposite bank you will get back your memory, and you will know who and what you are."

Then the fairy led the horse to the margin of the lake.

"In with you now, and good luck go with you," said the fairy.

The dwarf urged the horse. He plunged into the lake, and went down and down until his feet struck the bottom. Then he began to ascend, and as he came near the surface of the water the dwarf thought he saw a glimmering light, and when he rose above the water he saw the bright sun shining and the green hills before him, and he shouted with joy at finding his sight restored.

But he saw more. Instead of the old horse he had ridden into the lake he was bestride a noble steed, and as the steed swam to the bank the dwarf felt a change coming over himself, and an unknown vigor in his limbs.

When the steed touched the shore he galloped up the hillside, and on the top of the hill was a silver shield, bright as the sun, resting against a spear standing upright in the ground.

The dwarf jumped off, and, running towards the shield, he saw himself as in a looking-glass.

He was no longer a dwarf, but a gallant knight. At that moment his memory came back to him, and he knew he was Conal, one of the Knights of the Red Branch, and he remembered now that the spell of dumbness and deformity had been cast upon him by the Witch of the Palace of the Quicken Trees.

Slinging his shield upon his left arm, he plucked the spear from the ground and leaped on to his horse. With a light heart he swam back over the lake, and nowhere could he see the black Cormorants of the Western Seas, but three white swans floating abreast followed him to the bank. When he reached the bank he galloped down to the sea, and crossed to the shore.

Then he flung the reins upon his horse's neck, and swifter than the wind the gallant horse swept on and on, and it was not long until he was bounding over the enchanted moor. Wherever his hoofs struck the ground, grass and flowers sprang up, and great trees with leafy branches rose on every side.

At last the knight reached the little hut. Three times he struck the shield with the haft and three times with the blade of his spear. At the last blow the hut disappeared, and standing before him was the little princess.

"Standing before him was the little princess"

The knight took her in his arms and kissed her; then he lifted her on to the horse, and, leaping up before her, he turned towards the north, to the palace of the Red Branch Knights, and as they rode on beneath the leafy trees from every tree the birds sang out, for the spell of silence over the lonely moor was broken for ever.

<eob>

What Katy Did Next

By

Susan Coolidge



Chapter I.

An Unexpected Guest.


The September sun was glinting cheerfully into a pretty bedroom furnished with blue. It danced on the glossy hair and bright eyes of two girls, who sat together hemming ruffles for a white muslin dress. The half-finished skirt of the dress lay on the bed; and as each crisp ruffle was completed, the girls added it to the snowy heap, which looked like a drift of transparent clouds or a pile of foamy white-of-egg beaten stiff enough to stand alone.

These girls were Clover and Elsie Carr, and it was Clover's first evening dress for which they were hemming ruffles. It was nearly two years since a certain visit made by Johnnie to Inches Mills, of which some of you have read in "Nine Little Goslings;" and more than three since Clover and Katy had returned home from the boarding-school at Hillsover.

Clover was now eighteen. She was a very small Clover still, but it would have been hard to find anywhere a prettier little maiden than she had grown to be. Her skin was so exquisitely fair that her arms and wrists and shoulders, which were round and dimpled like a baby's, seemed cut out of daisies or white rose leaves. Her thick, brown hair waved and coiled gracefully about her head. Her smile was peculiarly sweet; and the eyes, always Clover's chief beauty, had still that pathetic look which made them irresistible to tender-hearted people.

Elsie, who adored Clover, considered her as beautiful as girls in books, and was proud to be permitted to hem ruffles for the dress in which she was to burst upon the world. Though, as for that, not much "bursting" was possible in Burnet, where tea-parties of a middle-aged description, and now and then a mild little dance, represented "gayety" and "society." Girls "came out" very much, as the sun comes out in the morning, -- by slow degrees and gradual approaches, with no particular one moment which could be fixed upon as having been the crisis of the joyful event.

"There," said Elsie, adding another ruffle to the pile on the bed, -- "there's the fifth done. It's going to be ever so pretty, I think. I'm glad you had it all white; it's a great deal nicer."

"Cecy wanted me to have a blue bodice and sash," said Clover, "but I wouldn't. Then she tried to persuade me to get a long spray of pink roses for the skirt."

"I'm so glad you didn't! Cecy was always crazy about pink roses. I only wonder she didn't wear them when she was married!"

Yes; the excellent Cecy, who at thirteen had announced her intention to devote her whole life to teaching Sunday School, visiting the poor, and setting a good example to her more worldly contemporaries, had actually forgotten these fine resolutions, and before she was twenty had become the wife of Sylvester Slack, a young lawyer in a neighboring town! Cecy's wedding and wedding-clothes, and Cecy's house-furnishing had been the great excitement of the preceding year in Burnet; and a fresh excitement had come since in the shape of Cecy's baby, now about two months old, and named "Katherine Clover," after her two friends. This made it natural that Cecy and her affairs should still be of interest in the Carr household; and Johnnie, at the time we write of, was making her a week's visit.

"She was rather wedded to them," went on Clover, pursuing the subject of the pink roses. "She was almost vexed when I wouldn't buy the spray. But it cost lots, and I didn't want it in the least, so I stood firm. Besides, I always said that my first party dress should be plain white. Girls in novels always wear white to their first balls; and fresh flowers are a great deal prettier, any way, than artificial. Katy says she'll give me some violets to wear."

"Oh, will she? That will be lovely!" cried the adoring Elsie. "Violets look just like you, somehow. Oh, Clover, what sort of a dress do you think I shall have when I grow up and go to parties and things? Won't it be awfully interesting when you and I go out to choose it?"

Just then the noise of some one running upstairs quickly made the sisters look up from their work. Footsteps are very significant at times, and these footsteps suggested haste and excitement.

Another moment, the door opened, and Katy dashed in, calling out, "Papa! -- Elsie, Clover, where's papa?"

"He went over the river to see that son of Mr. White's who broke his leg. Why, what's the matter?" asked Clover.

"Is somebody hurt?" inquired Elsie, startled at Katy's agitated looks.

"No, not hurt, but poor Mrs. Ashe is in such trouble."

Mrs. Ashe, it should be explained, was a widow who had come to Burnet some months previously, and had taken a pleasant house not far from the Carrs'. She was a pretty, lady-like woman, with a particularly graceful, appealing manner, and very fond of her one child, a little girl. Katy and papa both took a fancy to her at once; and the families had grown neighborly and intimate in a short time, as people occasionally do when circumstances are favorable.

"I'll tell you all about it in a minute," went on Katy. "But first I must find Alexander, and send him off to meet papa and beg him to hurry home." She went to the head of the stairs as she spoke, and called "Debby! Debby!" Debby answered. Katy gave her direction, and then came back again to the room where the other two were sitting.

"Now," she said, speaking more collectedly, "I must explain as fast as I can, for I have got to go back. You know that Mrs. Ashe's little nephew is here for a visit, don't you?"

"Yes, he came on Saturday."

"Well, he was ailing all day yesterday, and to-day he is worse, and she is afraid it is scarlet-fever. Luckily, Amy was spending the day with the Uphams yesterday, so she scarcely saw the boy at all; and as soon as her mother became alarmed, she sent her out into the garden to play, and hasn't let her come indoors since, so she can't have been exposed to any particular danger yet. I went by the house on my way down street, and there sat the poor little thing all alone in the arbor, with her dolly in her lap, looking so disconsolate. I spoke to her over the fence, and Mrs. Ashe heard my voice, and opened the upstairs window and called to me. She said Amy had never had the fever, and that the very idea of her having it frightened her to death. She is such a delicate child, you know."

"Oh, poor Mrs. Ashe!" cried Clover; "I am so sorry for her! Well, Katy, what did you do?"

"I hope I didn't do wrong, but I offered to bring Amy here. Papa won't object, I am almost sure."

"Why, of course he won't. Well?"

"I am going back now to fetch Amy. Mrs. Ashe is to let Ellen, who hasn't been in the room with the little boy, pack a bagful of clothes and put it out on the steps, and I shall send Alexander for it by and by. You can't think how troubled poor Mrs. Ashe was. She couldn't help crying when she said that Amy was all she had left in the world. And I nearly cried too, I was so sorry for her. She was so relieved when I said that we would take Amy. You know she has a great deal of confidence in papa."

"Yes, and in you too. Where will you put Amy to sleep, Katy?"

"What do you think would be best? In Dorry's room?"

"I think she'd better come in here with you, and I'll go into Dorry's room. She is used to sleeping with her mother, you know, and she would be lonely if she were left to herself."

"Perhaps that will be better, only it is a great bother for you, Clovy dear."

"I don't mind," responded Clover, cheerfully. "I rather like to change about and try a new room once in a while. It's as good as going on a journey -- almost."

She pushed aside the half-finished dress as she spoke, opened a drawer, took out its contents, and began to carry them across the entry to Dorry's room, doing everything with the orderly deliberation that was characteristic of whatever Clover did. Her preparations were almost complete before Katy returned, bringing with her little Amy Ashe.

Amy was a tall child of eight, with a frank, happy face, and long light hair hanging down her back. She looked like the pictures of "Alice in Wonderland;" but just at that moment it was a very woful little Alice indeed that she resembled, for her cheeks were stained with tears and her eyes swollen with recent crying.

"Why, what is the matter?" cried kind little Clover, taking Amy in her arms, and giving her a great hug. "Aren't you glad that you are coming to make us a visit? We are."

"Mamma didn't kiss me for good-by," sobbed the little girl. "She didn't come downstairs at all. She just put her head out of the window and said, 'Good-by; Amy, be very good, and don't make Miss Carr any trouble,' and then she went away. I never went anywhere before without kissing mamma for good-by."

"Mamma was afraid to kiss you for fear she might give you the fever," explained Katy, taking her turn as a comforter. "It wasn't because she forgot. She felt worse about it than you did, I imagine. You know the thing she cares most for is that you shall not be ill as your cousin Walter is. She would rather do anything than have that happen. As soon as he gets well she will kiss you dozens of times, see if she doesn't. Meanwhile, she says in this note that you must write her a little letter every day, and she will hang a basket by a string out of the window, and you and I will go and drop the letters into the basket, and stand by the gate and see her pull it up. That will be funny, won't it? We will play that you are my little girl, and that you have a real mamma and a make-believe mamma."

"Shall I sleep with you?" demanded Amy,

"Yes, in that bed over there."

"It's a pretty bed," pronounced Amy after examining it gravely for a moment. "Will you tell me a story every morning?"

"She was having the measles on the back shelf of the closet, you know."

"If you don't wake me up too early. My stories are always sleepy till seven o'clock. Let us see what Ellen has packed in that bag, and then I'll give you some drawers of your own, and we will put the things away."

The bag was full of neat little frocks and underclothes stuffed hastily in all together. Katy took them out, smoothing the folds, and crimping the tumbled ruffles with her fingers. As she lifted the last skirt, Amy, with a cry of joy, pounced on something that lay beneath it.

"It is Maria Matilda," she said, "I'm glad of that. I thought Ellen would forget her, and the poor child wouldn't know what to do with me and her little sister not coming to see her for so long. She was having the measles on the back shelf of the closet, you know, and nobody would have heard her if she had cried ever so loud."

"What a pretty face she has!" said Katy, taking the doll out of Amy's hands.

"Yes, but not so pretty as Mabel. Miss Upham says that Mabel is the prettiest child she ever saw. Look, Miss Clover," lifting the other doll from the table where she had laid it; "hasn't she got sweet eyes? She's older than Maria Matilda, and she knows a great deal more. She's begun on French verbs!"

"Not really! Which ones?"

"Oh, only 'J'aime, tu aimes, il aime,' you know, -- the same that our class is learning at school. She hasn't tried any but that. Sometimes she says it quite nicely, but sometimes she's very stupid, and I have to scold her." Amy had quite recovered her spirits by this time.

"Are these the only dolls you have?"

"Oh, please don't call them that!" urged Amy. "It hurts their feelings dreadfully. I never let them know that they are dolls. They think that they are real children, only sometimes when they are very bad I use the word for a punishment. I've got several other children. There's old Ragazza. My uncle named her, and she's made of rag, but she has such bad rheumatism that I don't play with her any longer; I just give her medicine. Then there's Effie Deans, she's only got one leg; and Mopsa the Fairy, she's a tiny one made out of china; and Peg of Linkinvaddy, -- but she don't count, for she's all come to pieces."

"What very queer names your children have!" said Elsie, who had come in during the enumeration.

"Yes; Uncle Ned named them. He's a very funny uncle, but he's nice. He's always so much interested in my children."

"There's papa now!" cried Katy; and she ran downstairs to meet him.

"Did I do right?" she asked anxiously after she had told her story.

"Yes, my dear, perfectly right," replied Dr. Carr. "I only hope Amy was taken away in time. I will go round at once to see Mrs. Ashe and the boy; and, Katy, keep away from me when I come back, and keep the others away, till I have changed my coat."

It is odd how soon and how easily human beings accustom themselves to a new condition of things. When sudden illness comes, or sudden sorrow, or a house is burned up, or blown down by a tornado, there are a few hours or days of confusion and bewilderment, and then people gather up their wits and their courage and set to work to repair damages. They clear away ruins, plant, rebuild, very much as ants whose hill has been trodden upon, after running wildly about for a little while, begin all together to reconstruct the tiny cone of sand which is so important in their eyes. In a very short time the changes which at first seem so sad and strange become accustomed and matter-of-course things which no longer surprise us.

It seemed to the Carrs after a few days as if they had always had Amy in the house with them. Papa's daily visit to the sick-room, their avoidance of him till after he had "changed his coat," Amy's lessons and games of play, her dressing and undressing, the walks with the make-believe mamma, the dropping of notes into the little basket, seemed part of a system of things which had been going on for a long, long time, and which everybody would miss should they suddenly stop.

But they by no means suddenly stopped. Little Walter Ashe's case proved to be rather a severe one; and after he had begun to mend, he caught cold somehow and was taken worse again. There were some serious symptoms, and for a few days Dr. Carr did not feel sure how things would turn. He did not speak of his anxiety at home, but kept silence and a cheerful face, as doctors know how to do. Only Katy, who was more intimate with her father than the rest, guessed that things were going gravely at the other house, and she was too well trained to ask questions. The threatening symptoms passed off, however, and little Walter slowly got better; but it was a long convalescence, and Mrs. Ashe grew thin and pale before he began to look rosy. There was no one on whom she could devolve the charge of the child. His mother was dead; his father, an overworked business man, had barely time to run up once a week to see about him; there was no one at his home but a housekeeper, in whom Mrs. Ashe had not full confidence. So the good aunt denied herself the sight of her own child, and devoted her strength and time to Walter; and nearly two months passed, and still little Amy remained at Dr. Carr's.

She was entirely happy there. She had grown very fond of Katy, and was perfectly at home with the others. Phil and Johnnie, who had returned from her visit to Cecy, were by no means too old or too proud to be play-fellows to a child of eight; and with all the older members of the family Amy was a chosen pet. Debby baked turnovers, and twisted cinnamon cakes into all sorts of fantastic shapes to please her; Alexander would let her drive if she happened to sit on the front seat of the carryall; Dr. Carr was seldom so tired that he could not tell her a story, -- and nobody told such nice stories as Dr. Carr, Amy thought; Elsie invented all manner of charming games for the hour before bedtime; Clover made wonderful capes and bonnets for Mabel and Maria Matilda; and Katy -- Katy did all sorts of things.

Katy had a peculiar gift with children which is not easy to define. Some people possess it, and some do not; it cannot be learned, it comes by nature. She was bright and firm and equable all at once. She both amused and influenced them. There was something about her which excited the childish imagination, and always they felt her sympathy. Amy was a tractable child, and intelligent beyond her age, but she was never quite so good with any one as with Katy. She followed her about like a little lover; she lavished upon her certain special words and caresses which she gave to no one else; and would kneel on her lap, patting Katy's shoulders with her soft hand, and cooing up into her face like a happy dove, for a half-hour together. Katy laughed at these demonstrations, but they pleased her very much. She loved to be loved, as all affectionate people do, but most of all to be loved by a child.

At last, the long convalescence ended, Walter was carried away to his father, with every possible precaution against fatigue and exposure, and an army of workpeople was turned into Mrs. Ashe's house. Plaster was scraped and painted, wall-papers torn down, mattresses made over, and clothing burned. At last Dr. Carr pronounced the premises in a sanitary condition, and Mrs. Ashe sent for her little girl to come home again.

Amy was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her mother; but at the last moment she clung to Katy and cried as if her heart would break.

"I want you too," she said. "Oh, if Dr. Carr would only let you come and live with me and mamma, I should be so happy! I shall be so lone-ly!"

"Nonsense!" cried Clover. "Lonely with mamma, and those poor children of yours who have been wondering all these weeks what has become of you! They'll want a great deal of attention at first, I am sure; medicine and new clothes and whippings, -- all manner of things. You remember I promised to make a dress for Effie Deans out of that blue and brown plaid like Johnnie's balmoral. I mean to begin it to-morrow."

"Oh, will you?" -- forgetting her grief -- "that will be lovely. The skirt needn't be very full, you know. Effie doesn't walk much, because of only having one leg. She will be so pleased, for she hasn't had a new dress I don't know when."

Consoled by the prospect of Effie's satisfaction, Amy departed quite cheerfully, and Mrs. Ashe was spared the pain of seeing her only child in tears on the first evening of their reunion. But Amy talked so constantly of Katy, and seemed to love her so much, that it put a plan into her mother's head which led to important results, as the next chapter will show.



Chapter II.

An Invitation.


It is a curious fact, and makes life very interesting, that, generally speaking, none of us have any expectation that things are going to happen till the very moment when they do happen. We wake up some morning with no idea that a great happiness is at hand, and before night it has come, and all the world is changed for us; or we wake bright and cheerful, with never a guess that clouds of sorrow are lowering in our sky, to put all the sunshine out for a while, and before noon all is dark. Nothing whispers of either the joy or the grief. No instinct bids us to delay or to hasten the opening of the letter or telegram, or the lifting of the latch of the door at which stands the messenger of good or ill. And because it may be, and often is, happy tidings that come, and joyful things which happen, each fresh day as it dawns upon us is like an unread story, full of possible interest and adventure, to be made ours as soon as we have cut the pages and begun to read.

Nothing whispered to Katy Carr, as she sat at the window mending a long rent in Johnnie's school coat, and saw Mrs. Ashe come in at the side gate and ring the office bell, that the visit had any special significance for her. Mrs. Ashe often did come to the office to consult Dr. Carr. Amy might not be quite well, Katy thought, or there might be a letter with something about Walter in it, or perhaps matters had gone wrong at the house, where paperers and painters were still at work. So she went calmly on with her darning, drawing the "ravelling," with which her needle was threaded, carefully in and out, and taking nice even stitches without one prophetic thrill or tremor; while, if only she could have looked through the two walls and two doors which separated the room in which she sat from the office, and have heard what Mrs. Ashe was saying, the school coat would have been thrown to the winds, and for all her tall stature and propriety, she would have been skipping with delight and astonishment. For Mrs. Ashe was asking papa to let her do the very thing of all others that she most longed to do; she was asking him to let Katy go with her to Europe!

"I am not very well," she told the Doctor. "I got tired and run down while Walter was ill, and I don't seem to throw it off as I hoped I should. I feel as if a change would do me good. Don't you think so yourself?"

"Yes, I do," Dr. Carr admitted.

"This idea of Europe is not altogether a new one," continued Mrs. Ashe. "I have always meant to go some time, and have put it off, partly because I dreaded going alone, and didn't know anybody whom I exactly wanted to take with me. But if you will let me have Katy, Dr. Carr, it will settle all my difficulties. Amy loves her dearly, and so do I; she is just the companion I need; if I have her with me, I sha'n't be afraid of anything. I do hope you will consent."

"How long do you mean to be away?" asked Dr. Carr, divided between pleasure at these compliments to Katy and dismay at the idea of losing her.

"About a year, I think. My plans are rather vague as yet; but my idea was to spend a few weeks in Scotland and England first, -- I have some cousins in London who will be good to us; and an old friend of mine married a gentleman who lives on the Isle of Wight; perhaps we might go there. Then we could cross over to France and visit Paris and a few other places; and before it gets cold go down to Nice, and from there to Italy. Katy would like to see Italy. Don't you think so?"

"I dare say she would," said Dr. Carr, with a smile. "She would be a queer girl if she didn't."

"There is one reason why I thought Italy would be particularly pleasant this winter for me and for her too," went on Mrs. Ashe; "and that is, because my brother will be there. He is a lieutenant in the navy, you know, and his ship, the 'Natchitoches,' is one of the Mediterranean squadron. They will be in Naples by and by, and if we were there at the same time we should have Ned to go about with; and he would take us to the receptions on the frigate, and all that, which would be a nice chance for Katy. Then toward spring I should like to go to Florence and Venice, and visit the Italian lakes and Switzerland in the early summer. But all this depends on your letting Katy go. If you decide against it, I shall give the whole thing up. But you won't decide against it," -- coaxingly, -- "you will be kinder than that. I will take the best possible care of her, and do all I can to make her happy, if only you will consent to lend her to me; and I shall consider it such a favor. And it is to cost you nothing. You understand, Doctor, she is to be my guest all through. That is a point I want to make clear in the outset; for she goes for my sake, and I cannot take her on any other conditions. Now, Dr. Carr, please, please! I am sure you won't deny me, when I have so set my heart upon having her."

Mrs. Ashe was very pretty and persuasive, but still Dr. Carr hesitated. To send Katy for a year's pleasuring in Europe was a thing that had never occurred to his mind as possible. The cost alone would have prevented; for country doctors with six children are not apt to be rich men, even in the limited and old-fashioned construction of the word "wealth." It seemed equally impossible to let her go at Mrs. Ashe's expense; at the same time, the chance was such a good one, and Mrs. Ashe so much in earnest and so urgent, that it was difficult to refuse point blank. He finally consented to take time for consideration before making his decision.

"I will talk it over with Katy," he said. "The child ought to have a say in the matter; and whatever we decide, you must let me thank you in her name as well as my own for your great kindness in proposing it."

"Doctor, I'm not kind at all, and I don't want to be thanked. My desire to take Katy with me to Europe is purely selfish. I am a lonely person," she went on; "I have no mother or sister, and no cousins of my own age. My brother's profession keeps him at sea; I scarcely ever see him. I have no one but a couple of old aunts, too feeble in health to travel with me or to be counted on in case of any emergency. You see, I am a real case for pity."

Mrs. Ashe spoke gayly, but her brown eyes were dim with tears as she ended her little appeal. Dr. Carr, who was soft-hearted where women were concerned, was touched. Perhaps his face showed it, for Mrs. Ashe added in a more hopeful tone, -- 

"But I won't tease any more. I know you will not refuse me unless you think it right and necessary; and," she continued mischievously, "I have great faith in Katy as an ally. I am pretty sure that she will say that she wants to go."

And indeed Katy's cry of delight when the plan was proposed to her said that sufficiently, without need of further explanation. To go to Europe for a year with Mrs. Ashe and Amy seemed simply too delightful to be true. All the things she had heard about and read about -- cathedrals, pictures, Alpine peaks, famous places, famous people -- came rushing into her mind in a sort of bewildering tide as dazzling as it was overwhelming. Dr. Carr's objections, his reluctance to part with her, melted before the radiance of her satisfaction. He had no idea that Katy would care so much about it. After all, it was a great chance, -- perhaps the only one of the sort that she would ever have. Mrs. Ashe could well afford to give Katy this treat, he knew; and it was quite true what she said, that it was a favor to her as well as to Katy. This train of reasoning led to its natural results. Dr. Carr began to waver in his mind.

But, the first excitement over, Katy's second thoughts were more sober ones. How could papa manage without her for a whole year, she asked herself. He would miss her, she well knew, and might not the charge of the house be too much for Clover? The preserves were almost all made, that was one comfort; but there were the winter clothes to be seen to; Dorry needed new flannels, Elsie's dresses must be altered over for Johnnie, -- there were cucumbers to pickle, the coal to order! A host of housewifely cares began to troop through Katy's mind, and a little pucker came into her forehead, and a worried look across the face which had been so bright a few minutes before. Strange to say, it was that little pucker and the look of worry which decided Dr. Carr.

"She is only twenty-one," he reflected; "hardly out of childhood. I don't want her to settle into an anxious, drudging state and lose her youth with caring for us all. She shall go; though how we are to manage without her I don't see. Little Clover will have to come to the fore, and show what sort of stuff there is in her."

"Little Clover" came gallantly "to the fore" when the first shock of surprise was over, and she had relieved her mind with one long private cry over having to do without Katy for a year. Then she wiped her eyes, and began to revel unselfishly in the idea of her sister's having so great a treat. Anything and everything seemed possible to secure it for her; and she made light of all Katy's many anxieties and apprehensions.

"My dear child, I know a flannel undershirt when I see one, just as well as you do," she declared. "Tucks in Johnnie's dress, forsooth! why, of course. Ripping out a tuck doesn't require any superhuman ingenuity! Give me your scissors, and I'll show you at once. Quince marmalade? Debby can make that. Hers is about as good as yours; and if it wasn't, what should we care, as long as you are ascending Mont Blanc, and hob-nobbing with Michael Angelo and the crowned heads of Europe? I'll make the spiced peaches! I'll order the kindling! And if there ever comes a time when I feel lost and can't manage without advice, I'll go across to Mrs. Hall. Don't worry about us. We shall get on happily and easily; in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if I developed such a turn for housekeeping, that when you come back the family refused to change, and you had just to sit for the rest of your life and twirl your thumbs and watch me do it! Wouldn't that be fine?" and Clover laughed merrily. "So, Katy darling, cast that shadow from your brow, and look as a girl ought to look who's going to Europe. Why, if it were I who were going, I should simply stand on my head every moment of the time!"

"Not a very convenient position for packing," said Katy, smiling.

"Yes, it is, if you just turn your trunk upside down! When I think of all the delightful things you are going to do, I can hardly sit still. I love Mrs. Ashe for inviting you."

"So do I," said Katy, soberly. "It was the kindest thing! I can't think why she did it."

"Well, I can," replied Clover, always ready to defend Katy even against herself. "She did it because she wanted you, and she wanted you because you are the dearest old thing in the world, and the nicest to have about. You needn't say you're not, for you are! Now, Katy, don't waste another thought on such miserable things as pickles and undershirts. We shall get along perfectly well, I do assure you. Just fix your mind instead on the dome of St. Peter's, or try to fancy how you'll feel the first time you step into a gondola or see the Mediterranean. There will be a moment! I feel a forty-horse power of housekeeping developing within me; and what fun it will be to get your letters! We shall fetch out the Encyclopaedia and the big Atlas and the 'History of Modern Europe,' and read all about everything you see and all the places you go to; and it will be as good as a lesson in geography and history and political economy all combined, only a great deal more interesting! We shall stick out all over with knowledge before you come back; and this makes it a plain duty to go, if it were only for our sakes." With these zealous promises, Katy was forced to be content. Indeed, contentment was not difficult with such a prospect of delight before her. When once her little anxieties had been laid aside, the idea of the coming journey grew in pleasantness every moment. Night after night she and papa and the children pored over maps and made out schemes for travel and sight-seeing, every one of which was likely to be discarded as soon as the real journey began. But they didn't know that, and it made no real difference. Such schemes are the preliminary joys of travel, and it doesn't signify that they come to nothing after they have served their purpose.

Katy learned a great deal while thus talking over what she was to see and do. She read every scrap she could lay her hand on which related to Rome or Florence or Venice or London. The driest details had a charm for her now that she was likely to see the real places. She went about with scraps of paper in her pocket, on which were written such things as these: "Forum. When built? By whom built? More than one?" "What does Cenacola mean?" "Cecilia Metella. Who was she?" "Find out about Saint Catherine of Siena." "Who was Beatrice Cenci?" How she wished that she had studied harder and more carefully before this wonderful chance came to her. People always wish this when they are starting for Europe; and they wish it more and more after they get there, and realize of what value exact ideas and information and a fuller knowledge of the foreign languages are to all travellers; how they add to the charm of everything seen, and enhance the ease of everything done.

All Burnet took an interest in Katy's plans, and almost everybody had some sort of advice or help, or some little gift to offer. Old Mrs. Worrett, who, though fatter than ever, still retained the power of locomotion, drove in from Conic Section in her roomy carryall with the present of a rather obsolete copy of "Murray's Guide," in faded red covers, which her father had used in his youth, and which she was sure Katy would find convenient; also a bottle of Brown's Jamaica Ginger, in case of sea-sickness. Debby's sister-in-law brought a bundle of dried chamomile for the same purpose. Some one had told her it was the "handiest thing in the world to take along with you on them steamboats." Cecy sent a wonderful old-gold and scarlet contrivance to hang on the wall of the stateroom. There were pockets for watches, and pockets for medicines, and pockets for handkerchief and hairpins, -- in short, there were pockets for everything; besides a pincushion with "Bon Voyage" in rows of shining pins, a bottle of eau-de-cologne, a cake of soap, and a hammer and tacks to nail the whole up with. Mrs. Hall's gift was a warm and very pretty woollen wrapper of dark blue flannel, with a pair of soft knitted slippers to match. Old Mr. Worrett sent a note of advice, recommending Katy to take a quinine pill every day that she was away, never to stay out late, because the dews "over there" were said to be unwholesome, and on no account to drink a drop of water which had not been boiled.

From Cousin Helen came a delightful travelling-bag, light and strong at once, and fitted up with all manner of nice little conveniences. Miss Inches sent a "History of Europe" in five fat volumes, which was so heavy that it had to be left at home. In fact, a good many of Katy's presents had to be left at home, including a bronze paper-weight in the shape of a griffin, a large pair of brass screw candlesticks, and an ormolu inkstand with a pen-rest attached, which weighed at least a pound and a half. These Katy laid aside to enjoy after her return. Mrs. Ashe and Cousin Helen had both warned her of the inconvenient consequences of weight in baggage; and by their advice she had limited herself to a single trunk of moderate size, besides a little flat valise for use in her stateroom.

Clover's gift was a set of blank books for notes, journals, etc. In one of these, Katy made out a list of "Things I must see," "Things I must do," "Things I would like to see," "Things I would like to do." Another she devoted to various good shopping addresses which had been given her; for though she did not expect to do any shopping herself, she thought Mrs. Ashe might find them useful. Katy's ideas were still so simple and unworldly, and her experience of life so small, that it had not occurred to her how very tantalizing it might be to stand in front of shop windows full of delightful things and not be able to buy any of them. She was accordingly overpowered with surprise, gratitude, and the sense of sudden wealth, when about a week before the start her father gave her three little thin strips of paper, which he told her were circular notes, and worth a hundred dollars apiece. He also gave her five English sovereigns.

"Those are for immediate use," he said. "Put the notes away carefully, and don't lose them. You had better have them cashed one at a time as you require them. Mrs. Ashe will explain how. You will need a gown or so before you come back, and you'll want to buy some photographs and so on, and there will be fees -- "

"But, papa," protested Katy, opening wide her candid eyes, "I didn't expect you to give me any money, and I'm afraid you are giving me too much. Do you think you can afford it? Really and truly, I don't want to buy things. I shall see everything, you know, and that's enough."

Her father only laughed.

"You'll be wiser and greedier before the year is out, my dear," he replied. "Three hundred dollars won't go far, as you'll find. But it's all I can spare, and I trust you to keep within it, and not come home with any long bills for me to pay."

"Papa! I should think not!" cried Katy, with unsophisticated horror.

One very interesting thing was to happen before they sailed, the thought of which helped both Katy and Clover through the last hard days, when the preparations were nearly complete, and the family had leisure to feel dull and out of spirits. Katy was to make Rose Red a visit.

Rose had by no means been idle during the three years and a half which had elapsed since they all parted at Hillsover, and during which the girls had not seen her. In fact, she had made more out of the time than any of the rest of them, for she had been engaged for eighteen months, had been married, and was now keeping house near Boston with a little Rose of her own, who, she wrote to Clover, was a perfect angel, and more delicious than words could say! Mrs. Ashe had taken passage in the "Spartacus," sailing from Boston; and it was arranged that Katy should spend the last two days before sailing, with Rose, while Mrs. Ashe and Amy visited an old aunt in Hingham. To see Rose in her own home, and Rose's husband, and Rose's baby, was only next in interest to seeing Europe. None of the changes in her lot seemed to have changed her particularly, to judge by the letter she sent in reply to Katy's announcing her plans, which letter ran as follows: -- 

"LONGWOOD, September 20.

"My dearest child, -- Your note made me dance with delight. I stood on my head waving my heels wildly to the breeze till Deniston thought I must be taken suddenly mad; but when I explained he did the same. It is too enchanting, the whole of it. I put it at the head of all the nice things that ever happened, except my baby. Write the moment you get this by what train you expect to reach Boston, and when you roll into the station you will behold two forms, one tall and stalwart, the other short and fatsome, waiting for you. They will be those of Deniston and myself. Deniston is not beautiful, but he is good, and he is prepared to adore you. The baby is both good and beautiful, and you will adore her. I am neither; but you know all about me, and I always did adore you and always shall. I am going out this moment to the butcher's to order a calf fatted for your special behoof; and he shall be slain and made into cutlets the moment I hear from you. My funny little house, which is quite a dear little house too, assumes a new interest in my eyes from the fact that you so soon are to see it. It is somewhat queer, as you might know my house would be; but I think you will like it.

"I saw Silvery Mary the other day and told her you were coming. She is the same mouse as ever. I shall ask her and some of the other girls to come out to lunch on one of your days. Good-by, with a hundred and fifty kisses to Clovy and the rest.

"Your loving

"Rose Red."

"She never signs herself Browne, I observe," said Clover, as she finished the letter.

"Oh, Rose Red Browne would sound too funny. Rose Red she must stay till the end of the chapter; no other name could suit her half so well, and I can't imagine her being called anything else. What fun it will be to see her and little Rose!"

"And Deniston Browne," put in Clover.

"Somehow I find it rather hard to take in the fact that there is a Deniston Browne," observed Katy.

"It will be easier after you have seen him, perhaps."

The last day came, as last days will. Katy's trunk, most carefully and exactly packed by the united efforts of the family, stood in the hall, locked and strapped, not to be opened again till the party reached London. This fact gave it a certain awful interest in the eyes of Phil and Johnnie, and even Elsie gazed upon it with respect. The little valise was also ready; and Dorry, the neat-handed, had painted a red star on both ends of both it and the trunk, that they might be easily picked from among a heap of luggage. He now proceeded to prepare and paste on two square cards, labelled respectively, "Hold" and "State-room." Mrs. Hall had told them that this was the correct thing to do.

Mrs. Ashe had been full of business likewise in putting her house to rights for a family who had rented it for the time of her absence, and Katy and Clover had taken a good many hours from their own preparations to help her. All was done at last; and one bright morning in October, Katy stood on the wharf with her family about her, and a lump in her throat which made it difficult to speak to any of them. She stood so very still and said so very little, that a bystander not acquainted with the circumstances might have dubbed her "unfeeling;" while the fact was that she was feeling too much!

The first bell rang. Katy kissed everybody quietly and went on board with her father. Her parting from him, hardest of all, took place in the midst of a crowd of people; then he had to leave her, and as the wheels began to revolve she went out on the side deck to have a last glimpse of the home faces. There they were: Elsie crying tumultuously, with her head on papa's coat-sleeve; John laughing, or trying to laugh, with big tears running down her cheeks the while; and brave little Clover waving her handkerchief encouragingly, but with a very sober look on her face. Katy's heart went out to the little group with a sudden passion of regret and yearning. Why had she said she would go? What was all Europe in comparison with what she was leaving? Life was so short, how could she take a whole year out of it to spend away from the people she loved best? If it had been left to her to choose, I think she would have flown back to the shore then and there, and given up the journey, I also think she would have been heartily sorry a little later, had she done so.

But it was not left for her to choose. Already the throb of the engines was growing more regular and the distance widening between the great boat and the wharf. Gradually the dear faces faded into distance; and after watching till the flutter of Clover's handkerchief became an undistinguishable speck, Katy went to the cabin with a heavy heart. But there were Mrs. Ashe and Amy, inclined to be homesick also, and in need of cheering; and Katy, as she tried to brighten them, gradually grew bright herself, and recovered her hopeful spirits. Burnet pulled less strongly as it got farther away, and Europe beckoned more brilliantly now that they were fairly embarked on their journey. The sun shone, the lake was a beautiful, dazzling blue, and Katy said to herself, "After all, a year is not very long, and how happy I am going to be!"



Chapter III.

Rose And Rosebud.


Thirty-six hours later the Albany train, running smoothly across the green levels beyond the Mill Dam, brought the travellers to Boston.

Katy looked eagerly from the window for her first glimpse of the city of which she had heard so much. "Dear little Boston! How nice it is to see it again!" she heard a lady behind her say; but why it should be called "little Boston" she could not imagine. Seen from the train, it looked large, imposing, and very picturesque, after flat Burnet with its one bank down to the edge of the lake. She studied the towers, steeples, and red roofs crowding each other up the slopes of the Tri-Mountain, and the big State House dome crowning all, and made up her mind that she liked the looks of it better than any other city she had ever seen.

The train slackened its speed, ran for a few moments between rows of tall, shabby brick walls, and with a long, final screech of its whistle came to halt in the station-house. Every one made a simultaneous rush for the door; and Katy and Mrs. Ashe, waiting to collect their books and bags, found themselves wedged into their seats and unable to get out. It was a confusing moment, and not comfortable; such moments never are.

But the discomfort brightened into a sense of relief as, looking out of the window, Katy caught sight of a face exactly opposite, which had evidently caught sight of her, -- a fresh, pretty face, with light, waving hair, pink cheeks all a-dimple, and eyes which shone with laughter and welcome. It was Rose herself, not a bit changed during the years since they parted. A tall young man stood beside her, who must, of course, be her husband, Deniston Browne.

"There is Rose Red," cried Katy to Mrs. Ashe. "Oh, doesn't she look dear and natural? Do wait and let me introduce you. I want you to know her."

But the train had come in a little behind time, and Mrs. Ashe was afraid of missing the Hingham boat; so she only took a hasty peep from the window at Rose, pronounced her to be charming-looking, kissed Katy hurriedly, reminded her that they must be on the steamer punctually at twelve o'clock the following Saturday, and was gone, with Amy beside her; so that Katy, following last of all the slow-moving line of passengers, stepped all alone down from the platform into the arms of Rose Red.

"You darling!" was Rose's first greeting. "I began to think you meant to spend the night in the car, you were so long in getting out. Well, how perfectly lovely this is! Deniston, here is Katy; Katy, this is my husband."

Rose looked about fifteen as she spoke, and so absurdly young to have a "husband," that Katy could not help laughing as she shook hands with "Deniston;" and his own eyes twinkled with fun and evident recognition of the same joke. He was a tall young man, with a pleasant, "steady" face, and seemed to be infinitely amused, in a quiet way, with everything which his wife said and did.

"Let us make haste and get out of this hole," went on Rose. "I can scarcely see for the smoke. Deniston, dear, please find the cab, and have Katy's luggage put on it. I am wild to get her home, and exhibit baby before she chews up her new sash or does something else that is dreadful, to spoil her looks. I left her sitting in state, Katy, with all her best clothes on, waiting to be made known to you."

"My large trunk is to go straight to the steamer," explained Katy, as she gave her checks to Mr. Browne. "I only want the little one taken out to Longwood, please."

"Now, this is cosey," remarked Rose, when they were seated in the cab with Katy's bag at their feet. "Deniston, my love, I wish you were going out with us. There's a nice little bench here all ready and vacant, which is just suited to a man of your inches. You won't? Well, come in the early train, then. Don't forget. -- Now, isn't he just as nice as I told you he was?" she demanded, the moment the cab began to move.

"He looks very nice indeed, as far as I can judge in three minutes and a quarter."

"My dear, it ought not to take anybody of ordinary discernment a minute and a quarter to perceive that he is simply the dearest fellow that ever lived," said Rose. "I discovered it three seconds after I first beheld him, and was desperately in love with him before he had fairly finished his first bow after introduction."

"And was he equally prompt?" asked Katy.

"He says so," replied Rose, with a pretty blush. "But then, you know, he could hardly say less after such a frank confession on my part. It is no more than decent of him to make believe, even if it is not true. Now, Katy, look at Boston, and see if you don't love it!"

The cab had now turned into Boylston Street; and on the right hand lay the Common, green as summer after the autumn rains, with the elm arches leafy still. Long, slant beams of afternoon sun were filtering through the boughs and falling across the turf and the paths, where people were walking and sitting, and children and babies playing together. It was a delightful scene; and Katy received an impression of space and cheer and air and freshness, which ever after was associated with her recollection of Boston.

Rose was quite satisfied with her raptures as they drove through Charles Street, between the Common and the Public Garden, all ablaze with autumn flowers, and down the length of Beacon Street with the blue bay shining between the handsome houses on the water side. Every vestibule and bay-window was gay with potted plants and flower-boxes; and a concourse of happy-looking people, on foot, on horseback, and in carriages, was surging to and fro like an equal, prosperous tide, while the sunlight glorified all.

"'Boston shows a soft Venetian side,'" quoted Katy, after a while. "I know now what Mr. Lowell meant when he wrote that. I don't believe there is a more beautiful place in the world."

"Why, of course there isn't," retorted Rose, who was a most devoted little Bostonian, in spite of the fact that she had lived in Washington nearly all her life. "I've not seen much beside, to be sure, but that is no matter; I know it is true. It is the dream of my life to come into the city to live. I don't care what part I live in, -- West End, South End, North End; it's all one to me, so long as it is Boston!"

"But don't you like Longwood?" asked Katy, looking out admiringly at the pretty places set amid vines and shrubberies, which they were now passing. "It looks so very pretty and pleasant."

"Yes, it's well enough for any one who has a taste for natural beauties," replied Rose. "I haven't; I never had. There is nothing I hate so much as Nature! I'm a born cockney. I'd rather live in one room over Jordan and Marsh's, and see the world wag past, than be the owner of the most romantic villa that ever was built, I don't care where it may be situated."

The cab now turned in at a gate and followed a curving drive bordered with trees to a pretty stone house with a porch embowered with Virginia creepers, before which it stopped.

"Here we are!" cried Rose, springing out. "Now, Katy, you mustn't even take time to sit down before I show you the dearest baby that ever was sent to this sinful earth. Here, let me take your bag; come straight upstairs, and I will exhibit her to you."

They ran up accordingly, and Rose took Katy into a large sunny nursery, where, tied with pink ribbon into a little basket-chair and watched over by a pretty young nurse, sat a dear, fat, fair baby, so exactly like Rose in miniature that no one could possibly have mistaken the relationship. The baby began to laugh and coo as soon as it caught sight of its gay little mother, and exhibited just such another dimple as hers, in the middle of a pink cheek. Katy was enchanted.

"Oh, you darling!" she said. "Would she come to me, do you think, Rose?"

"Why, of course she shall," replied Rose, picking up the baby as if she had been a pillow, and stuffing her into Katy's arms head first. "Now, just look at her, and tell me if ever you saw anything so enchanting in the whole course of your life before? Isn't she big? Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she good? Just see her little hands and her hair! She never cries except when it is clearly her duty to cry. See her turn her head to look at me! Oh, you angel!" And seizing the long-suffering baby, she smothered it with kisses. "I never, never, never did see anything so sweet. Smell her, Katy! Doesn't she smell like heaven?"

Little Rose was indeed a delicious baby, all dimples and good-humor and violet-powder, with a skin as soft as a lily's leaf, and a happy capacity for allowing herself to be petted and cuddled without remonstrance. Katy wanted to hold her all the time; but this Rose would by no means permit; in fact, I may as well say at once that the two girls spent a great part of their time during the visit in fighting for the possession of the baby, who looked on at the struggle, and smiled on the victor, whichever it happened to be, with all the philosophic composure of Helen of Troy. She was so soft and sunny and equable, that it was no more trouble to care for and amuse her than if she had been a bird or a kitten; and, as Rose remarked, it was "ten times better fun."

"I was never allowed as much doll as I wanted in my infancy," she said. "I suppose I tore them to pieces too soon; and they couldn't give me tin ones to play with, as they did wash-bowls when I broke the china ones."

"Were you such a very bad child?" asked Katy.

"Oh, utterly depraved, I believe. You wouldn't think so now, would you? I recollect some dreadful occasions at school. Once I had my head pinned up in my apron because I would make faces at the other scholars, and they laughed; but I promptly bit a bay-window through the apron, and ran my tongue out of it till they laughed worse than ever. The teacher used to send me home with notes fastened to my pinafore with things like this written in them: 'Little Frisk has been more troublesome than usual to-day. She has pinched all the younger children, and bent the bonnets of all the older ones. We hope to see an amendment soon, or we do not know what we shall do.'"

"Why did they call you Little Frisk?" inquired Katy, after she had recovered from the laugh which Rose's reminiscences called forth.

"It was a term of endearment, I suppose; but somehow my family never seemed to enjoy it as they ought. I cannot understand," she went on reflectively, "why I had not sense enough to suppress those awful little notes. It would have been so easy to lose them on the way home, but somehow it never occurred to me. Little Rose will be wiser than that; won't you, my angel? She will tear up the horrid notes -- mammy will show her how!"

All the time that Katy was washing her face and brushing the dust of the railway from her dress, Rose sat by with the little Rose in her lap, entertaining her thus. When she was ready, the droll little mamma tucked her baby under her arm and led the way downstairs to a large square parlor with a bay-window, through which the westering sun was shining. It was a pretty room, and had a flavor about it "just like Rose," Katy declared. No one else would have hung the pictures or looped back the curtains in exactly that way, or have hit upon the happy device of filling the grate with a great bunch of marigolds, pale brown, golden, and orange, to simulate the fire, which would have been quite too warm on so mild an evening. Morris papers and chintzes and "artistic" shades of color were in their infancy at that date; but Rose's taste was in advance of her time, and with a foreshadowing of the coming "reaction," she had chosen a "greenery, yallery" paper for her walls, against which hung various articles which looked a great deal queerer then than they would to-day. There was a mandolin, picked up at some Eastern sale, a warming-pan in shining brass from her mother's attic, two old samplers worked in faded silks, and a quantity of gayly tinted Japanese fans and embroideries. She had also begged from an old aunt at Beverly Farms a couple of droll little armchairs in white painted wood, with covers of antique needle-work. One had "Chit" embroidered on the middle of its cushion; the other, "Chat." These stood suggestively at the corners of the hearth.

"Now, Katy," said Rose, seating herself in "Chit," "pull up 'Chat' and let us begin."

So they did begin, and went on, interrupted only by Baby Rose's coos and splutters, till the dusk fell, till appetizing smells floated through from the rear of the house, and the click of a latch-key announced Mr. Browne, come home just in time for dinner.

The two days' visit went only too quickly. There is nothing more fascinating to a girl than the menage of a young couple of her own age. It is a sort of playing at real life without the cares and the sense of responsibility that real life is sure to bring. Rose was an adventurous housekeeper. She was still new to the position, she found it very entertaining, and she delighted in experiments of all sorts. If they turned out well, it was good fun; if not, that was funnier still! Her husband, for all his serious manner, had a real boy's love of a lark, and he aided and abetted her in all sorts of whimsical devices. They owned a dog who was only less dear than the baby, a cat only less dear than the dog, a parrot whose education required constant supervision, and a hutch of ring-doves whose melancholy little "whuddering" coos were the delight of Rose the less. The house seemed astir with young life all over. The only elderly thing in it was the cook, who had the reputation of a dreadful temper; only, unfortunately, Rose made her laugh so much that she never found time to be cross.

Katy felt quite an old, experienced person amid all this movement and liveliness and cheer. It seemed to her that nobody in the world could possibly be having such a good time as Rose; but Rose did not take the same view of the situation.

"It's all very well now," she said, "while the warm weather lasts; but in winter Longwood is simply grewsome. The wind never stops blowing day nor night. It howls and it roars and it screams, till I feel as if every nerve in my body were on the point of snapping in two. And the snow, ugh! And the wind, ugh! And burglars! Every night of our lives they come, -- or I think they come, -- and I lie awake and hear them sharpening their tools and forcing the locks and murdering the cook and kidnapping Baby, till I long to die, and have done with them forever! Oh, Nature is the most unpleasant thing!"

"Burglars are not Nature," objected Katy.

"What are they, then? Art? High Art? Well, whatever they are, I do not like them. Oh, if ever the happy day comes when Deniston consents to move into town, I never wish to set my eyes on the country again as long as I live, unless -- well, yes, I should like to come out just once more in the horse-cars and kick that elm-tree by the fence! The number of times that I have lain awake at night listening to its creaking!"

"You might kick it without waiting to have a house in town."

"Oh, I shouldn't dare as long as we are living here! You never know what Nature may do. She has ways of her own of getting even with people," remarked her friend, solemnly.

No time must be lost in showing Boston to Katy, Rose said. So the morning after her arrival she was taken in bright and early to see the sights. There were not quite so many sights to be seen then as there are today. The Art Museum had not got much above its foundations; the new Trinity Church was still in the future; but the big organ and the bronze statue of Beethoven were in their glory, and every day at high noon a small straggling audience wandered into Music Hall to hear the instrument played. To this extempore concert Katy was taken, and to Faneuil Hall and the Athenaeum, to Doll and Richards's, where was an exhibition of pictures, to the Granary Graveyard, and the Old South. Then the girls did a little shopping; and by that time they were quite tired enough to make the idea of luncheon agreeable, so they took the path across the Common to the Joy Street Mall.

Katy was charmed by all she had seen. The delightful nearness of so many interesting things surprised her. She perceived what is one of Boston's chief charms, -- that the Common and its surrounding streets make a natural centre and rallying-point for the whole city; as the heart is the centre of the body and keeps up a quick correspondence and regulates the life of all its extremities. The stately old houses on Beacon Street, with their rounded fronts, deep window-casements, and here and there a mauve or a lilac pane set in the sashes, took her fancy greatly; and so did the State House, whose situation made it sufficiently imposing, even before the gilding of the dome.

Up the steep steps of the Joy Street Mall they went, to the house on Mt. Vernon Street which the Reddings had taken on their return from Washington nearly three years before. Rose had previously shown Katy the site of the old family house on Summer Street, where she was born, now given over wholly to warehouses and shops. Their present residence was one of those wide old-fashioned brick houses on the crest of the hill, whose upper windows command the view across to the Boston Highlands; in the rear was a spacious yard, almost large enough to be called a garden, walled in with ivies and grapevines, under which were long beds full of roses and chrysanthemums and marigolds and mignonette.

Rose carried a latch-key in her pocket, which she said had been one of her wedding-gifts; with this she unlocked the front door and let Katy into a roomy white-painted hall.

"We will go straight through to the back steps," she said. "Mamma is sure to be sitting there; she always sits there till the first frost; she says it makes her think of the country. How different people are! I don't want to think of the country, but I'm never allowed to forget it for a moment. Mamma is so fond of those steps and the garden."

There, to be sure, Mrs. Redding was found sitting in a wicker-work chair under the shade of the grapevines, with a big basket of mending at her side. It looked so homely and country-like to find a person thus occupied in the middle of a busy city, that Katy's heart warmed to her at once.

Mrs. Redding was a fair little woman, scarcely taller than Rose and very much like her. She gave Katy a kind welcome.

"You do not seem like a stranger," she said, "Rose has told us so much about you and your sister. Sylvia will be very disappointed not to see you. She went off to make some visits when we broke up in the country, and is not to be home for three weeks yet."

Katy was disappointed, too, for she had heard a great deal about Sylvia and had wished very much to meet her. She was shown her picture, from which she gathered that she did not look in the least like Rose; for though equally fair, her fairness was of the tall aquiline type, quite different from Rose's dimpled prettiness. In fact, Rose resembled her mother, and Sylvia her father; they were only alike in little peculiarities of voice and manner, of which a portrait did not enable Katy to judge.

The two girls had a cosey little luncheon with Mrs. Redding, after which Rose carried Katy off to see the house and everything in it which was in any way connected with her own personal history, -- the room where she used to sleep, the high-chair in which she sat as a baby and which was presently to be made over to little Rose, the sofa where Deniston offered himself, and the exact spot on the carpet on which she had stood while they were being married! Last of all, -- 

"Now you shall see the best and dearest thing in the whole house," she said, opening the door of a room in the second story. --  "Grandmamma, here is my friend Katy Carr, whom you have so often heard me tell about."

It was a large pleasant room, with a little wood-fire blazing in a grate, by which, in an arm-chair full of cushions, with a Solitaire-board on a little table beside her, sat a sweet old lady. This was Rose's father's mother. She was nearly eighty; but she was beautiful still, and her manner had a gracious old-fashioned courtesy which was full of charm. She had been thrown from a carriage the year before, and had never since been able to come downstairs or to mingle in the family life.

"They come to me instead," she told Katy. "There is no lack of pleasant company," she added; "every one is very good to me. I have a reader for two hours a day, and I read to myself a little, and play Patience and Solitaire, and never lack entertainment."

There was something restful in the sight of such a lovely specimen of old age. Katy realized, as she looked at her, what a loss it had been to her own life that she had never known either of her grandparents. She sat and gazed at old Mrs. Redding with a mixture of regret and fascination. She longed to hold her hand, and kiss her, and play with her beautiful silvery hair, as Rose did. Rose was evidently the old lady's peculiar darling. They were on the most intimate terms; and Rose dimpled and twinkled, and made saucy speeches, and told all her little adventures and the baby's achievements, and made jests, and talked nonsense as freely as to a person of her own age. It was a delightful relation.

"Grandmamma has taken a fancy to you, I can see," she told Katy, as they drove back to Longwood. "She always wants to know my friends; and she has her own opinions about them, I can tell you."

"Do you really think she liked me?" said Katy, warmly. "I am so glad if she did, for I loved her. I never saw a really beautiful old person before."

"Oh, there's nobody like her," rejoined Rose. "I can't imagine what it would be not to have her." Her merry little face was quite sad and serious as she spoke. "I wish she were not so old," she added with a sigh. "If we could only put her back twenty years! Then, perhaps, she would live as long as I do."

But, alas! there is no putting back the hands on the dial of time, no matter how much we may desire it.

The second day of Katy's visit was devoted to the luncheon-party of which Rose had written in her letter, and which was meant to be a reunion or "side chapter" of the S.S.U.C. Rose had asked every old Hillsover girl who was within reach. There was Mary Silver, of course, and Esther Dearborn, both of whom lived in Boston; and by good luck Alice Gibbons happened to be making Esther a visit, and Ellen Gray came in from Waltham, where her father had recently been settled over a parish, so that all together they made six of the original nine of the society; and Quaker Row itself never heard a merrier confusion of tongues than resounded through Rose's pretty parlor for the first hour after the arrival of the guests.

There was everybody to ask after, and everything to tell. The girls all seemed wonderfully unchanged to Katy, but they professed to find her very grown up and dignified.

"I wonder if I am," she said. "Clover never told me so. But perhaps she has grown dignified too."

"Nonsense!" cried Rose; "Clover could no more be dignified than my baby could. Mary Silver, give me that child this moment! I never saw such a greedy thing as you are; you have kept her to yourself at least a quarter of an hour, and it isn't fair."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mary, laughing and covering her mouth with her hand exactly in her old, shy, half-frightened way.

"We only need Mrs. Nipson to make our little party complete," went on Rose, "or dear Miss Jane! What has become of Miss Jane, by the way? Do any of you know?"

"Oh, she is still teaching at Hillsover and waiting for her missionary. He has never come back. Berry Searles says that when he goes out to walk he always walks away from the United States, for fear of diminishing the distance between them."

"What a shame!" said Katy, though she could not help laughing. "Miss Jane was really quite nice, -- no, not nice exactly, but she had good things about her."

"Had she!" remarked Rose, satirically. "I never observed them. It required eyes like yours, real 'double million magnifying-glasses of h'extra power,' to find them out. She was all teeth and talons as far as I was concerned; but I think she really did have a softish spot in her old heart for you, Katy, and it's the only good thing I ever knew about her."

"What has become of Lilly Page?" asked Ellen.

"She's in Europe with her mother. I dare say you'll meet, Katy, and what a pleasure that will be! And have you heard about Bella? she's teaching school in the Indian Territory. Just fancy that scrap teaching school!"

"Isn't it dangerous?" asked Mary Silver.

"Dangerous? How? To her scholars, do you mean? Oh, the Indians! Well, her scalp will be easy to identify if she has adhered to her favorite pomatum; that's one comfort," put in naughty Rose.

It was a merry luncheon indeed, as little Rose seemed to think, for she laughed and cooed incessantly. The girls were enchanted with her, and voted her by acclamation an honorary member of the S.S.U.C. Her health was drunk in Apollinaris water with all the honors, and Rose returned thanks in a droll speech. The friends told each other their histories for the past three years; but it was curious how little, on the whole, most of them had to tell. Though, perhaps, that was because they did not tell all; for Alice Gibbons confided to Katy in a whisper that she strongly suspected Esther of being engaged, and at the same moment Ellen Gray was convulsing Rose by the intelligence that a theological student from Andover was "very attentive" to Mary Silver.

"My dear, I don't believe it," Rose said, "not even a theological student would dare! and if he did, I am quite sure Mary would consider it most improper. You must be mistaken, Ellen."

"No, I'm not mistaken; for the theological student is my second cousin, and his sister told me all about it. They are not engaged exactly, but she hasn't said no; so he hopes she will say yes."

"Oh, she'll never say no; but then she will never say yes, either. He would better take silence as consent! Well, I never did think I should live to see Silvery Mary married. I should as soon have expected to find the Thirty-nine Articles engaged in a flirtation. She's a dear old thing, though, and as good as gold; and I shall consider your second cousin a lucky man if he persuades her."

"I wonder where we shall all be when you come back, Katy," said Esther Dearborn as they parted at the gate. "A year is a long time; all sorts of things may happen in a year."

These words rang in Katy's ears as she fell asleep that night. "All sorts of things may happen in a year," she thought, "and they may not be all happy things, either." Almost she wished that the journey to Europe had never been thought of!

But when she waked the next morning to the brightest of October suns shining out of a clear blue sky, her misgivings fled. There could not have been a more beautiful day for their start.

She and Rose went early into town, for old Mrs. Bedding had made Katy promise to come for a few minutes to say good-by. They found her sitting by the fire as usual, though her windows were open to admit the sun-warmed air. A little basket of grapes stood on the table beside her, with a nosegay of tea-roses on top. These were from Rose's mother, for Katy to take on board the steamer; and there was something else, a small parcel twisted up in thin white paper.

"It is my good-by gift," said the dear old lady. "Don't open it now. Keep it till you are well out at sea, and get some little thing with it as a keepsake from me."

Grateful and wondering, Katy put the little parcel in her pocket. With kisses and good wishes she parted from these new made friends, and she and Rose drove to the steamer, stopping for Mr. Browne by the way. They were a little late, so there was not much time for farewells after they arrived; but Rose snatched a moment for a private interview with the stewardess, unnoticed by Katy, who was busy with Mrs. Ashe and Amy.

The bell rang, and the great steam-vessel slowly backed into the stream. Then her head was turned to sea, and down the bay she went, leaving Rose and her husband still waving their handkerchiefs on the pier. Katy watched them to the last, and when she could no longer distinguish them, felt that her final link with home was broken.

It was not till she had settled her things in the little cabin which was to be her home for the next ten days, had put her bonnet and dress for safe keeping in the upper berth, nailed up her red and yellow bag, and donned the woollen gown, ulster, and soft felt hat which were to do service during the voyage, that she found time to examine the mysterious parcel.

Behold, it was a large, beautiful gold-piece, twenty dollars!

"What a darling old lady!" said Katy; and she gave the gold-piece a kiss. "How did she come to think of such a thing? I wonder if there is anything in Europe good enough to buy with it?"



Chapter IV.

On The "Spartacus."


The ulster and the felt hat soon came off again, for a head wind lay waiting in the offing, and the "Spartacus" began to pitch and toss in a manner which made all her unseasoned passengers glad to betake themselves to their berths. Mrs. Ashe and Amy were among the earliest victims of sea-sickness; and Katy, after helping them to settle in their staterooms, found herself too dizzy and ill to sit up a moment longer, and thankfully resorted to her own.

As the night came on, the wind grew stronger and the motion worse. The "Spartacus" had the reputation of being a dreadful "roller," and seemed bound to justify it on this particular voyage. Down, down, down the great hull would slide till Katy would hold her breath with fear lest it might never right itself again; then slowly, slowly the turn would be made, and up, up, up it would go, till the cant on the other side was equally alarming. On the whole, Katy preferred to have her own side of the ship, the downward one; for it was less difficult to keep herself in the berth, from which she was in continual danger of being thrown. The night seemed endless, for she was too frightened to sleep except in broken snatches; and when day dawned, and she looked through the little round pane of glass in the port-hole, only gray sky and gray weltering waves and flying spray and rain met her view.

"Oh, dear, why do people ever go to sea, unless they must?" she thought feebly to herself. She wanted to get up and see how Mrs. Ashe had lived through the night, but the attempt to move made her so miserably ill that she was glad to sink again on her pillows.

The stewardess looked in with offers of tea and toast, the very idea of which was simply dreadful, and pronounced the other lady "'orridly ill, worse than you are, Miss," and the little girl "takin' on dreadful in the h'upper berth." Of this fact Katy soon had audible proof; for as her dizzy senses rallied a little, she could hear Amy in the opposite stateroom crying and sobbing pitifully. She seemed to be angry as well as sick, for she was scolding her poor mother in the most vehement fashion.

"I hate being at sea," Katy heard her say. "I won't stay in this nasty old ship. Mamma! Mamma! do you hear me? I won't stay in this ship! It wasn't a bit kind of you to bring me to such a horrid place. It was very unkind; it was cru-el. I want to go back, mamma. Tell the captain to take me back to the land. Mamma, why don't you speak to me? Oh, I am so sick and so very un-happy. Don't you wish you were dead? I do!"

And then came another storm of sobs, but never a sound from Mrs. Ashe, who, Katy suspected, was too ill to speak. She felt very sorry for poor little Amy, raging there in her high berth like some imprisoned creature, but she was powerless to help her. She could only resign herself to her own discomforts, and try to believe that somehow, sometime, this state of things must mend, -- either they should all get to land or all go to the bottom and be drowned, and at that moment she didn't care very much which it turned out to be.

The gale increased as the day wore on, and the vessel pitched dreadfully. Twice Katy was thrown out of her berth on the floor; then the stewardess came and fixed a sort of movable side to the berth, which held her in, but made her feel like a child fastened into a railed crib. At intervals she could still hear Amy crying and scolding her mother, and conjectured that they were having a dreadful time of it in the other stateroom. It was all like a bad dream. "And they call this travelling for pleasure!" thought poor Katy.

One droll thing happened in the course of the second night, -- at least it seemed droll afterward; at the time Katy was too uncomfortable to enjoy it. Amid the rush of the wind, the creaking of the ship's timbers, and the shrill buzz of the screw, she heard a sound of queer little footsteps in the entry outside of her open door, hopping and leaping together in an odd irregular way, like a regiment of mice or toy soldiers. Nearer and nearer they came; and Katy opening her eyes saw a procession of boots and shoes of all sizes and shapes, which had evidently been left on the floors or at the doors of various staterooms, and which in obedience to the lurchings of the vessel had collected in the cabin. They now seemed to be acting in concert with one another, and really looked alive as they bumped and trotted side by side, and two by two, in at the door and up close to her bedside. There they remained for several moments executing what looked like a dance; then the leading shoe turned on its heel as if giving a signal to the others, and they all hopped slowly again into the passage-way and disappeared. It was exactly like one of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tales, Katy wrote to Clover afterward. She heard them going down the cabin; but how it ended, or whether the owners of the boots and shoes ever got their own particular pairs again, she never knew.

Toward morning the gale abated, the sea became smoother, and she dropped asleep. When she woke the sun was struggling through the clouds, and she felt better.

The stewardess opened the port-hole to freshen the air, and helped her to wash her face and smooth her tangled hair; then she produced a little basin of gruel and a triangular bit of toast, and Katy found that her appetite was come again and she could eat.

"And 'ere's a letter, ma'am, which has come for you by post this morning," said the nice old stewardess, producing an envelope from her pocket, and eying her patient with great satisfaction.

"By post!" cried Katy, in amazement; "why, how can that be?" Then catching sight of Rose's handwriting on the envelope, she understood, and smiled at her own simplicity.

The stewardess beamed at her as she opened it, then saying again, "Yes, 'm, by post, m'm," withdrew, and left Katy to enjoy the little surprise.

The letter was not long, but it was very like its writer. Rose drew a picture of what Katy would probably be doing at the time it reached her, -- a picture so near the truth that Katy felt as if Rose must have the spirit of prophecy, especially as she kindly illustrated the situation with a series of pen-and-ink drawings, in which Katy was depicted as prone in her berth, refusing with horror to go to dinner, looking longingly backward toward the quarter where the United States was supposed to be, and fishing out of her port-hole with a crooked pin in hopes of grappling the submarine cable and sending a message to her family to come out at once and take her home. It ended with this short "poem," over which Katy laughed till Mrs. Ashe called feebly across the entry to ask what was the matter?

"Break, break, break And mis-behave, O sea, And I wish that my tongue could utter The hatred I feel for thee!

"Oh, well for the fisherman's child On the sandy beach at his play; Oh, well for all sensible folk Who are safe at home to-day!

"But this horrible ship keeps on, And is never a moment still, And I yearn for the touch of the nice dry land, Where I needn't feel so ill!

"Break! break! break! There is no good left in me; For the dinner I ate on the shore so late Has vanished into the sea!"

Laughter is very restorative after the forlornity of sea-sickness; and Katy was so stimulated by her letter that she managed to struggle into her dressing-gown and slippers and across the entry to Mrs. Ashe's stateroom. Amy had fallen asleep at last and must not be waked up, so their interview was conducted in whispers. Mrs. Ashe had by no means got to the tea-and-toast stage yet, and was feeling miserable enough.

"I have had the most dreadful time with Amy," she said. "All day yesterday, when she wasn't sick she was raging at me from the upper berth, and I too ill to say a word in reply. I never knew her so naughty! And it seemed very neglectful not to come to see after you, poor dear child! but really I couldn't raise my head."

"Neither could I, and I felt just as guilty not to be taking care of you," said Katy. "Well, the worst is over with all of us, I hope. The vessel doesn't pitch half so much now, and the stewardess says we shall feel a great deal better as soon as we get on deck. She is coming presently to help me up; and when Amy wakes, won't you let her be dressed, and I will take care of her while Mrs. Barrett attends to you."

"I don't think I can be dressed," sighed poor Mrs. Ashe. "I feel as if I should just lie here till we get to Liverpool."

"Oh no, h'indeed, mum, -- no, you won't," put in Mrs. Barrett, who at that moment appeared, gruel-cup in hand. "I don't never let my ladies lie in their berths a moment longer than there is need of. I h'always gets them on deck as soon as possible to get the h'air. It's the best medicine you can 'ave, ma'am, the fresh h'air; h'indeed it h'is."

Stewardesses are all-powerful on board ship, and Mrs. Barrett was so persuasive as well as positive that it was not possible to resist her. She got Katy into her dress and wraps, and seated her on deck in a chair with a great rug wrapped about her feet, with very little effort on Katy's part. Then she dived down the companion-way again, and in the course of an hour appeared escorting a big burly steward, who carried poor little pale Amy in his arms as easily as though she had been a kitten. Amy gave a scream of joy at the sight of Katy, and cuddled down in her lap under the warm rug with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

"I thought I was never going to see you again," she said, with a little squeeze. "Oh, Miss Katy, it has been so horrid! I never thought that going to Europe meant such dreadful things as this!"

"This is only the beginning; we shall get across the sea in a few days, and then we shall find out what going to Europe really means. But what made you behave so, Amy, and cry and scold poor mamma when she was sick? I could hear you all the way across the entry."

"Could you? Then why didn't you come to me?"

"I wanted to; but I was sick too, so sick that I couldn't move. But why were you so naughty? -- you didn't tell me."

"I didn't mean to be naughty, but I couldn't help crying. You would have cried too, and so would Johnnie, if you had been cooped up in a dreadful old berth at the top of the wall that you couldn't get out of, and hadn't had anything to eat, and nobody to bring you any water when you wanted some. And mamma wouldn't answer when I called to her."

"She couldn't answer; she was too ill," explained Katy. "Well, my pet, it was pretty hard for you. I hope we sha'n't have any more such days. The sea is a great deal smoother now."

"Mabel looks quite pale; she was sick, too," said Amy, regarding the doll in her arms with an anxious air. "I hope the fresh h'air will do her good."

"Is she going to have any fresh hair?" asked Katy, wilfully misunderstanding.

"That was what that woman called it, -- the fat one who made me come up here. But I'm glad she did, for I feel heaps better already; only I keep thinking of poor little Maria Matilda shut up in the trunk in that dark place, and wondering if she's sick. There's nobody to explain to her down there."

"They say that you don't feel the motion half so much in the bottom of the ship," said Katy. "Perhaps she hasn't noticed it at all. Dear me, how good something smells! I wish they would bring us something to eat."

A good many passengers had come up by this time; and Robert, the deck steward, was going about, tray in hand, taking orders for lunch. Amy and Katy both felt suddenly ravenous; and when Mrs. Ashe awhile later was helped up the stairs, she was amazed to find them eating cold beef and roasted potatoes, with the finest appetites in the world. "They had served out their apprenticeships," the kindly old captain told them, "and were made free of the nautical guild from that time on." So it proved; for after these two bad days none of the party were sick again during the voyage.

Amy had a clamorous appetite for stories as well as for cold beef; and to appease this craving, Katy started a sort of ocean serial, called "The History of Violet and Emma," which she meant to make last till they got to Liverpool, but which in reality lasted much longer. It might with equal propriety have been called "The Adventures of two little Girls who didn't have any Adventures," for nothing in particular happened to either Violet or Emma during the whole course of their long-drawn-out history. Amy, however, found them perfectly enchanting, and was never weary of hearing how they went to school and came home again, how they got into scrapes and got out of them, how they made good resolutions and broke them, about their Christmas presents and birthday treats, and what they said and how they felt. The first instalment of this un-exciting romance was given that first afternoon on deck; and after that, Amy claimed a new chapter daily, and it was a chief ingredient of her pleasure during the voyage.

On the third morning Katy woke and dressed so early, that she gained the deck before the sailors had finished their scrubbing and holystoning. She took refuge within the companion-way, and sat down on the top step of the ladder, to wait till the deck was dry enough to venture upon it. There the Captain found her and drew near for a talk.

Captain Bryce was exactly the kind of sea-captain that is found in story-books, but not always in real life. He was stout and grizzled and brown and kind. He had a bluff weather-beaten face, lit up with a pair of shrewd blue eyes which twinkled when he was pleased; and his manner, though it was full of the habit of command, was quiet and pleasant. He was a Martinet on board his ship. Not a sailor under him would have dared dispute his orders for a moment; but he was very popular with them, notwithstanding; they liked him as much as they feared him, for they knew him to be their best friend if it came to sickness or trouble with any of them.

Katy and he grew quite intimate during their long morning talk. The Captain liked girls. He had one of his own, about Katy's age, and was fond of talking about her. Lucy was his mainstay at home, he told Katy. Her mother had been "weakly" now this long time back, and Bess and Nanny were but children yet, so Lucy had to take command and keep things ship-shape when he was away.

"She'll be on the lookout when the steamer comes in," said the Captain. "There's a signal we've arranged which means 'All's well,' and when we get up the river a little way I always look to see if it's flying. It's a bit of a towel hung from a particular window; and when I see it I say to myself, 'Thank God! another voyage safely done and no harm come of it.' It's a sad kind of work for a man to go off for a twenty-four days' cruise leaving a sick wife on shore behind him. If it wasn't that I have Lucy to look after things, I should have thrown up my command long ago."

"Indeed, I am glad you have Lucy; she must be a great comfort to you," said Katy, sympathetically; for the Captain's hearty voice trembled a little as he spoke. She made him tell her the color of Lucy's hair and eyes, and exactly how tall she was, and what she had studied, and what sort of books she liked. She seemed such a very nice girl, and Katy thought she should like to know her.

The deck had dried fast in the fresh sea-wind, and the Captain had just arranged Katy in her chair, and was wrapping the rug about her feet in a fatherly way, when Mrs. Barrett, all smiles, appeared from below.

"Oh, 'ere you h'are, Miss. I couldn't think what 'ad come to you so early; and you're looking ever so well again, I'm pleased to see; and 'ere's a bundle just arrived, Miss, by the Parcels Delivery."

"What!" cried simple Katy. Then she laughed at her own foolishness, and took the "bundle," which was directed in Rose's unmistakable hand.

It contained a pretty little green-bound copy of Emerson's Poems, with Katy's name and "To be read at sea," written on the flyleaf. Somehow the little gift seemed to bridge the long misty distance which stretched between the vessel's stern and Boston Bay, and to bring home and friends a great deal nearer. With a half-happy, half-tearful pleasure Katy recognized the fact that distance counts for little if people love one another, and that hearts have a telegraph of their own whose messages are as sure and swift as any of those sent over the material lines which link continent to continent and shore with shore.

Later in the morning, Katy, going down to her stateroom for something, came across a pallid, exhausted-looking lady, who lay stretched on one of the long sofas in the cabin, with a baby in her arms and a little girl sitting at her feet, quite still, with a pair of small hands folded in her lap. The little girl did not seem to be more than four years old. She had two pig-tails of thick flaxen hair hanging over her shoulders, and at Katy's approach raised a pair of solemn blue eyes, which had so much appeal in them, though she said nothing, that Katy stopped at once.

"Can I do anything for you?" she asked. "I am afraid you have been very ill."

At the sound of her voice the lady on the sofa opened her eyes. She tried to speak, but to Katy's dismay began to cry instead; and when the words came they were strangled with sobs.

"You are so kin-d to ask," she said. "If you would give my little girl something to eat! She has had nothing since yesterday, and I have been so ill; and no-nobody has c-ome near us!"

"Oh!" cried Katy, with horror, "nothing to eat since yesterday! How did it happen?"

"Everybody has been sick on our side the ship," explained the poor lady, "and I suppose the stewardess thought, as I had a maid with me, that I needed her less than the others. But my maid has been sick, too; and oh, so selfish! She wouldn't even take the baby into the berth with her; and I have had all I could do to manage with him, when I couldn't lift up my head. Little Gretchen has had to go without anything; and she has been so good and patient!"

Katy lost no time, but ran for Mrs. Barrett, whose indignation knew no bounds when she heard how the helpless party had been neglected.

"It's a new person that stewardess h'is, ma'am," she explained, "and most h'inefficient! I told the Captain when she come aboard that I didn't 'ave much opinion of her, and now he'll see how it h'is. I'm h'ashamed that such a thing should 'appen on the 'Spartacus,' ma'am, -- I h'am, h'indeed. H'it never would 'ave ben so h'under h'Eliza, ma'am, -- she's the one that went h'off and got herself married the trip before last, when this person came to take her place."

All the time that she talked Mrs. Barrett was busy in making Mrs. Ware -- for that, it seemed, was the sick lady's name -- more comfortable; and Katy was feeding Gretchen out of a big bowl full of bread and milk which one of the stewards had brought. The little uncomplaining thing was evidently half starved, but with the mouthfuls the pink began to steal back into her cheeks and lips, and the dark circles lessened under the blue eyes. By the time the bottom of the bowl was reached she could smile, but still she said not a word except a whispered Danke schon. Her mother explained that she had been born in Germany, and always till now had been cared for by a German nurse, so that she knew that language better than English.

Katy was feeding Gretchen out of a big bowl full of bread and milk.

Gretchen was a great amusement to Katy and Amy during the rest of the voyage. They kept her on deck with them a great deal, and she was perfectly content with them and very good, though always solemn and quiet. Pleasant people turned up among the passengers, as always happens on an ocean steamship, and others not so pleasant, perhaps, who were rather curious and interesting to watch.

Katy grew to feel as if she knew a great deal about her fellow travellers as time went on. There was the young girl going out to join her parents under the care of a severe governess, whom everybody on board rather pitied. There was the other girl on her way to study art, who was travelling quite alone, and seemed to have nobody to meet her or to go to except a fellow student of her own age, already in Paris, but who seemed quite unconscious of her lonely position and competent to grapple with anything or anybody. There was the queer old gentleman who had "crossed" eleven times before, and had advice and experience to spare for any one who would listen to them; and the other gentleman, not so old but even more queer, who had "frozen his stomach," eight years before, by indulging, on a hot summer's day, in sixteen successive ice-creams, alternated with ten glasses of equally cold soda-water, and who related this exciting experience in turn to everybody on board. There was the bad little boy, whose parents were powerless to oppose him, and who carried terror to the hearts of all beholders whenever he appeared; and the pretty widow who filled the role of reigning belle; and the other widow, not quite so pretty or so much a belle, who had a good deal to say, in a voice made discreetly low, about what a pity it was that dear Mrs. So-and-so should do this or that, and "Doesn't it strike you as very unfortunate that she should not consider" the other thing? A great sea-going steamer is a little world in itself, and gives one a glimpse of all sorts and conditions of people and characters.

On the whole, there was no one on the "Spartacus" whom Katy liked so well as sedate little Gretchen except the dear old Captain, with whom she was a prime favorite. He gave Mrs. Ashe and herself the seats next to him at table, looked after their comfort in every possible way, and each night at dinner sent Katy one of the apple-dumplings made specially for him by the cook, who had gone many voyages with the Captain and knew his fancies. Katy did not care particularly for the dumpling, but she valued it as a mark of regard, and always ate it when she could.

Meanwhile, every morning brought a fresh surprise from that dear, painstaking Rose, who had evidently worked hard and thought harder in contriving pleasures for Katy's first voyage at sea. Mrs. Barrett was enlisted in the plot, there could be no doubt of that, and enjoyed the joke as much as any one, as she presented herself each day with the invariable formula, "A letter for you, ma'am," or "A bundle, Miss, come by the Parcels Delivery." On the fourth morning it was a photograph of Baby Rose, in a little flat morocco case. The fifth brought a wonderful epistle, full of startling pieces of news, none of them true. On the sixth appeared a long narrow box containing a fountain pen. Then came Mr. Howells's "A Foregone Conclusion," which Katy had never seen; then a box of quinine pills; then a sachet for her trunk; then another burlesque poem; last of all, a cake of delicious violet soap, "to wash the sea-smell from her hands," the label said. It grew to be one of the little excitements of ship life to watch for the arrival of these daily gifts; and "What did the mail bring for you this time, Miss Carr?" was a question frequently asked. Each arrival Katy thought must be the final one; but Rose's forethought had gone so far even as to provide an extra parcel in case the voyage was a day longer than usual, and "Miss Carr's mail" continued to come in till the very last morning.

Katy never forgot the thrill that went through her when, after so many days of sea, her eyes first caught sight of the dim line of the Irish coast. An exciting and interesting day followed as, after stopping at Queenstown to leave the mails, they sped northeastward between shores which grew more distinct and beautiful with every hour, -- on one side Ireland, on the other the bold mountain lines of the Welsh coast. It was late afternoon when they entered the Mersey, and dusk had fallen before the Captain got out his glass to look for the white fluttering speck in his own window which meant so much to him. Long he studied before he made quite sure that it was there. At last he shut the glass with a satisfied air.

"It's all right," he said to Katy, who stood near, almost as much interested as he. "Lucy never forgets, bless her! Well, there's another voyage over and done with, thank God, and my Mary is where she was. It's a load taken from my mind."

The moon had risen and was shining softly on the river as the crowded tender landed the passengers from the "Spartacus" at the Liverpool docks.

"We shall meet again in London or in Paris," said one to another, and cards and addresses were exchanged. Then after a brief delay at the Custom House they separated, each to his own particular destination; and, as a general thing, none of them ever saw any of the others again. It is often thus with those who have been fellow voyagers at sea; and it is always a surprise and perplexity to inexperienced travellers that it can be so, and that those who have been so much to each other for ten days can melt away into space and disappear as though the brief intimacy had never existed.

"Four-wheeler or hansom, ma'am?" said a porter to Mrs. Ashe.

"Which, Katy?"

"Oh, let us have a hansom! I never saw one, and they look so nice in 'Punch.'"

So a hansom cab was called, the two ladies got in, Amy cuddled down between them, the folding-doors were shut over their knees like a lap-robe, and away they drove up the solidly paved streets to the hotel where they were to pass the night. It was too late to see or do anything but enjoy the sense of being on firm land once more.

"How lovely it will be to sleep in a bed that doesn't tip or roll from side to side!" said Mrs. Ashe.

"Yes, and that is wide enough and long enough and soft enough to be comfortable!" replied Katy. "I feel as if I could sleep for a fortnight to make up for the bad nights at sea."

Everything seemed delightful to her, -- the space for undressing, the great tub of fresh water which stood beside the English-looking washstand with its ample basin and ewer, the chintz-curtained bed, the coolness, the silence, -- and she closed her eyes with the pleasant thought in her mind, "It is really England and we are really here!"



Chapter V.

Storybook England.


"Oh, is it raining?" was Katy's first question next morning, when the maid came to call her. The pretty room, with its gayly flowered chintz, and china, and its brass bedstead, did not look half so bright as when lit with gas the night before; and a dim gray light struggled in at the window, which in America would certainly have meant bad weather coming or already come.

"Oh no, h'indeed, ma'am, it's a very fine day, -- not bright, ma'am, but very dry," was the answer.

Katy couldn't imagine what the maid meant, when she peeped between the curtains and saw a thick dull mist lying over everything, and the pavements opposite her window shining with wet. Afterwards, when she understood better the peculiarities of the English climate, she too learned to call days not absolutely rainy "fine," and to be grateful for them; but on that first morning her sensations were of bewildered surprise, almost vexation.

Mrs. Ashe and Amy were waiting in the coffee-room when she went in search of them.

"What shall we have for breakfast," asked Mrs. Ashe, -- "our first meal in England? Katy, you order it."

"Let's have all the things we have read about in books and don't have at home," said Katy, eagerly. But when she came to look over the bill of fare there didn't seem to be many such things. Soles and muffins she finally decided upon, and, as an after-thought, gooseberry jam.

"Muffins sound so very good in Dickens, you know," she explained to Mrs. Ashe; "and I never saw a sole."

The soles when they came proved to be nice little pan-fish, not unlike what in New England are called "scup." All the party took kindly to them; but the muffins were a great disappointment, tough and tasteless, with a flavor about them as of scorched flannel.

"How queer and disagreeable they are!" said Katy. "I feel as if I were eating rounds cut from an old ironing-blanket and buttered! Dear me! what did Dickens mean by making such a fuss about them, I wonder? And I don't care for gooseberry jam, either; it isn't half as good as the jams we have at home. Books are very deceptive."

"I am afraid they are. We must make up our minds to find a great many things not quite so nice as they sound when we read about them," replied Mrs. Ashe.

Mabel was breakfasting with them, of course, and was heard to remark at this juncture that she didn't like muffins, either, and would a great deal rather have waffles; whereupon Amy reproved her, and explained that nobody in England knew what waffles were, they were such a stupid nation, and that Mabel must learn to eat whatever was given her and not find fault with it!

After this moral lesson it was found to be dangerously near train-time; and they all hurried to the railroad station, which, fortunately, was close by. There was rather a scramble and confusion for a few moments; for Katy, who had undertaken to buy the tickets, was puzzled by the unaccustomed coinage; and Mrs. Ashe, whose part was to see after the luggage, found herself perplexed and worried by the absence of checks, and by no means disposed to accept the porter's statement, that if she'd only bear in mind that the trunks were in the second van from the engine, and get out to see that they were safe once or twice during the journey, and call for them as soon as they reached London, she'd have no trouble, -- "please remember the porter, ma'am!" However all was happily settled at last; and without any serious inconveniences they found themselves established in a first-class carriage, and presently after running smoothly at full speed across the rich English midlands toward London and the eastern coast.

The extreme greenness of the October landscape was what struck them first, and the wonderfully orderly and trim aspect of the country, with no ragged, stump-dotted fields or reaches of wild untended woods. Late in October as it was, the hedgerows and meadows were still almost summer-like in color, though the trees were leafless. The delightful-looking old manor-houses and farm-houses, of which they had glimpses now and again, were a constant pleasure to Katy, with their mullioned windows, twisted chimney-stacks, porches of quaint build, and thick-growing ivy. She contrasted them with the uncompromising ugliness of farm-houses which she remembered at home, and wondered whether it could be that at the end of another thousand years or so, America would have picturesque buildings like these to show in addition to her picturesque scenery.

Suddenly into the midst of these reflections there glanced a picture so vivid that it almost took away her breath, as the train steamed past a pack of hounds in full cry, followed by a galloping throng of scarlet-coated huntsmen. One horse and rider were in the air, going over a wall. Another was just rising to the leap. A string of others, headed by a lady, were tearing across a meadow bounded by a little brook, and beyond that streamed the hounds following the invisible fox. It was like one of Muybridge's instantaneous photographs of "The Horse in Motion," for the moment that it lasted; and Katy put it away in her memory, distinct and brilliant, as she might a real picture.

Their destination in London was Batt's Hotel in Dover Street. The old gentleman on the "Spartacus," who had "crossed" so many times, had furnished Mrs. Ashe with a number of addresses of hotels and lodging-houses, from among which Katy had chosen Batt's for the reason that it was mentioned in Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage." "It was the place," she explained, "where Godfrey Percy didn't stay when Lord Oldborough sent him the letter." It seemed an odd enough reason for going anywhere that a person in a novel didn't stay there. But Mrs. Ashe knew nothing of London, and had no preference of her own; so she was perfectly willing to give Katy hers, and Batt's was decided upon.

"It is just like a dream or a story," said Katy, as they drove away from the London station in a four-wheeler. "It is really ourselves, and this is really London! Can you imagine it?"

She looked out. Nothing met her eyes but dingy weather, muddy streets, long rows of ordinary brick or stone houses. It might very well have been New York or Boston on a foggy day, yet to her eyes all things had a subtle difference which made them unlike similar objects at home.

"Wimpole Street!" she cried suddenly, as she caught sight of the name on the corner; "that is the street where Maria Crawford in Mansfield Park, you know, 'opened one of the best houses' after she married Mr. Rushworth. Think of seeing Wimpole Street! What fun!" She looked eagerly out after the "best houses," but the whole street looked uninteresting and old-fashioned; the best house to be seen was not of a kind, Katy thought, to reconcile an ambitious young woman to a dull husband. Katy had to remind herself that Miss Austen wrote her novels nearly a century ago, that London was a "growing" place, and that things were probably much changed since that day.

More "fun" awaited them when they arrived at Batt's, and exactly such a landlady sailed forth to welcome them as they had often met with in books, -- an old landlady, smiling and rubicund, with a towering lace cap on her head, a flowered silk gown, a gold chain, and a pair of fat mittened hands demurely crossed over a black brocade apron. She alone would have been worth crossing the ocean to see, they all declared. Their telegram had been received, and rooms were ready, with a bright, smoky fire of soft coals; the dinner-table was set, and a nice, formal, white-cravated old waiter, who seemed to have stepped out of the same book with the landlady, was waiting to serve it. Everything was dingy and old-fashioned, but very clean and comfortable; and Katy concluded that on the whole Godfrey Percy would have done wisely to go to Batt's, and could have fared no better at the other hotel where he did stay.

The first of Katy's "London sights" came to her next morning before she was out of her bedroom. She heard a bell ring and a queer squeaking little voice utter a speech of which she could not make out a single word. Then came a laugh and a shout, as if several boys were amused at something or other; and altogether her curiosity was roused, so that she finished dressing as fast as she could, and ran to the drawing-room window which commanded a view of the street. Quite a little crowd was collected under the window, and in their midst was a queer box raised high on poles, with little red curtains tied back on either side to form a miniature stage, on which puppets were moving and vociferating. Katy knew in a moment that she was seeing her first Punch and Judy!

The box and the crowd began to move away. Katy in despair ran to Wilkins, the old waiter who was setting the breakfast-table.

"Oh, please stop that man!" she said. "I want to see him."

"What man is it, Miss?" said Wilkins.

When he reached the window and realized what Katy meant, his sense of propriety seemed to receive a severe shock. He even ventured on remonstrance.

"H'I wouldn't, Miss, h'if h'I was you. Them Punches are a low lot, Miss; they h'ought to be put down, really they h'ought. Gentlefolks, h'as a general thing, pays no h'attention to them."

But Katy didn't care what "gentlefolks" did or did not do, and insisted upon having Punch called back. So Wilkins was forced to swallow his remonstrances and his dignity, and go in pursuit of the objectionable object. Amy came rushing out, with her hair flying and Mabel in her arms; and she and Katy had a real treat of Punch and Judy, with all the well-known scenes, and perhaps a few new ones thrown in for their especial behoof; for the showman seemed to be inspired by the rapturous enjoyment of his little audience of three at the first-floor windows. Punch beat Judy and stole the baby, and Judy banged Punch in return, and the constable came in and Punch outwitted him, and the hangman and the devil made their appearance duly; and it was all perfectly satisfactory, and "just exactly what she hoped it would be, and it quite made up for the muffins," Katy declared.

Then, when Punch had gone away, the question arose as to what they should choose, out of the many delightful things in London, for their first morning.

Like ninety-nine Americans out of a hundred, they decided on Westminster Abbey; and indeed there is nothing in England better worth seeing, or more impressive, in its dim, rich antiquity, to eyes fresh from the world which still calls itself "new." So to the Abbey they went, and lingered there till Mrs. Ashe declared herself to be absolutely dropping with fatigue.

"If you don't take me home and give me something to eat," she said, "I shall drop down on one of these pedestals and stay there and be exhibited forever after as an 'h'effigy' of somebody belonging to ancient English history."

So Katy tore herself away from Henry the Seventh and the Poets' Corner, and tore Amy away from a quaint little tomb shaped like a cradle, with the marble image of a baby in it, which had greatly taken her fancy. She could only be consoled by the promise that she should soon come again and stay as long as she liked. She reminded Katy of this promise the very next morning.

"Mamma has waked up with rather a bad headache, and she thinks she will lie still and not come to breakfast," she reported. "And she sends her love, and says will you please have a cab and go where you like; and if I won't be a trouble, she would be glad if you would take me with you. And I won't be a trouble, Miss Katy, and I know where I wish you would go."

"Where is that!"

"To see that cunning little baby again that we saw yesterday. I want to show her to Mabel, -- she didn't go with us, you know, and I don't like to have her mind not improved; and, darling Miss Katy, mayn't I buy some flowers and put them on the Baby? She's so dusty and so old that I don't believe anybody has put any flowers for her for ever so long."

Katy found this idea rather pretty, and willingly stopped at Covent Garden, where they bought a bunch of late roses for eighteen pence, which entirely satisfied Amy. With them in her hand, and Mabel in her arms, she led the way through the dim aisles of the Abbey, through grates and doors and up and down steps; the guide following, but not at all needed, for Amy seemed to have a perfectly clear recollection of every turn and winding. When the chapel was reached, she laid the roses on the tomb with gentle fingers, and a pitiful, reverent look in her gray eyes. Then she lifted Mabel up to kiss the odd little baby effigy above the marble quilt; whereupon the guide seemed altogether surprised out of his composure, and remarked to Katy, -- 

"Little Miss is an h'American, as is plain to see; no h'English child would be likely to think of doing such a thing."

"Do not English children take any interest in the tombs of the Abbey?" asked Katy.

"Oh yes, m'm, -- h'interest; but they don't take no special notice of one tomb above h'another."

Katy could scarcely keep from laughing, especially as she heard Amy, who had been listening to the conversation, give an audible sniff, and inform Mabel that she was glad she was not an English child, who didn't notice things and liked grown-up graves as much as she did dear little cunning ones like this!

Later in the day, when Mrs. Ashe was better, they all drove together to the quaint old keep which has been the scene of so many tragedies, and is known as the Tower of London. Here they were shown various rooms and chapels and prisons; and among the rest the apartments where Queen Elizabeth, when a friendless young Princess, was shut up for many months by her sister, Queen Mary. Katy had read somewhere, and now told Amy, the pretty legend of the four little children who lived with their parents in the Tower, and used to play with the royal captive; and how one little boy brought her a key which he had picked up on the ground, and said, "Now you can go out when you will, lady;" and how the Lords of the Council, getting wind of it, sent for the children to question them, and frightened them and their friends almost to death, and forbade them to go near the Princess again.

A story about children always brings the past much nearer to a child, and Amy's imagination was so excited by this tale, that when they got to the darksome closet which is said to have been the prison of Sir Walter Raleigh, she marched out of it with a pale and wrathful face.

"If this is English history, I never mean to learn any more of it, and neither shall Mabel," she declared.

But it is not possible for Amy or any one else not to learn a great deal of history simply by going about London. So many places are associated with people or events, and seeing the places makes one care so much more for the people or the events, that one insensibly questions and wonders. Katy, who had "browsed" all through her childhood in a good old-fashioned library, had her memory stuffed with all manner of little scraps of information and literary allusions, which now came into use. It was like owning the disjointed bits of a puzzle, and suddenly discovering that properly put together they make a pattern. Mrs. Ashe, who had never been much of a reader, considered her young friend a prodigy of intelligence; but Katy herself realized how inadequate and inexact her knowledge was, and how many bits were missing from the pattern of her puzzle. She wished with all her heart, as every one wishes under such circumstances, that she had studied harder and more wisely while the chance was in her power. On a journey you cannot read to advantage. Remember that, dear girls, who are looking forward to travelling some day, and be industrious in time.

October is not a favorable month in which to see England. Water, water is everywhere; you breathe it, you absorb it; it wets your clothes and it dampens your spirits. Mrs. Ashe's friends advised her not to think of Scotland at that time of the year. One by one their little intended excursions were given up. A single day and night in Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon; a short visit to the Isle of Wight, where, in a country-place which seemed provokingly pretty as far as they could see it for the rain, lived that friend of Mrs. Ashe who had married an Englishman and in so doing had, as Katy privately thought, "renounced the sun;" a peep at Stonehenge from under the shelter of an umbrella, and an hour or two in Salisbury Cathedral, -- was all that they accomplished, except a brief halt at Winchester, that Katy might have the privilege of seeing the grave of her beloved Miss Austen. Katy had come abroad with a terribly long list of graves to visit, Mrs. Ashe declared. They laid a few rain-washed flowers upon the tomb, and listened with edification to the verger, who inquired, -- 

"Whatever was it, ma'am, that lady did which brings so many h'Americans to h'ask about her? Our h'English people don't seem to take the same h'interest."

"She wrote such delightful stories," explained Katy; but the old verger shook his head.

"I think h'it must be some other party, Miss, you've confused with this here. It stands to reason, Miss, that we'd have heard of 'em h'over 'ere in England sooner than you would h'over there in h'America, if the books 'ad been h'anything so h'extraordinary."

The night after their return to London they were dining for the second time with the cousins of whom Mrs. Ashe had spoken to Dr. Carr; and as it happened Katy sat next to a quaint elderly American, who had lived for twenty years in London and knew it much better than most Londoners do. This gentleman, Mr. Allen Beach, had a hobby for antiquities, old books especially, and passed half his time at the British Museum, and the other half in sales rooms and the old shops in Wardour Street.

Katy was lamenting over the bad weather which stood in the way of their plans.

"It is so vexatious," she said. "Mrs. Ashe meant to go to York and Lincoln and all the cathedral towns and to Scotland; and we have had to give it all up because of the rains. We shall go away having seen hardly anything."

"You can see London."

"We have, -- that is, we have seen the things that everybody sees."

"But there are so many things that people in general do not see. How much longer are you to stay, Miss Carr?"

"A week, I believe."

"Why don't you make out a list of old buildings which are connected with famous people in history, and visit them in turn? I did that the second year after I came. I gave up three months to it, and it was most interesting. I unearthed all manner of curious stories and traditions."

"Or," cried Katy, struck with a sudden bright thought, "why mightn't I put into the list some of the places I know about in books, -- novels as well as history, -- and the places where the people who wrote the books lived?"

"You might do that, and it wouldn't be a bad idea, either," said Mr. Beach, pleased with her enthusiasm. "I will get a pencil after dinner and help you with your list if you will allow me."

Mr. Beach was better than his word. He not only suggested places and traced a plan of sight-seeing, but on two different mornings he went with them himself; and his intelligent knowledge of London added very much to the interest of the excursions. Under his guidance the little party of four -- for Mabel was never left out; it was such a chance for her to improve her mind, Amy declared -- visited the Charter-House, where Thackeray went to school, and the Home of the Poor Brothers connected with it, in which Colonel Newcome answered "Adsum" to the roll-call of the angels. They took a look at the small house in Curzon Street, which is supposed to have been in Thackeray's mind when he described the residence of Becky Sharpe; and the other house in Russell Square which is unmistakably that where George Osborne courted Amelia Sedley. They went to service in the delightful old church of St. Mary in the Temple, and thought of Ivanhoe and Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca the Jewess. From there Mr. Beach took them to Lamb's Court, where Pendennis and George Warrington dwelt in chambers together; and to Brick Court, where Oliver Goldsmith passed so much of his life, and the little rooms in which Charles and Mary Lamb spent so many sadly happy years. On another day they drove to Whitefriars, for the sake of Lord Glenvarloch and the old privilege of Sanctuary in the "Fortunes of Nigel;" and took a peep at Bethnal Green, where the Blind Beggar and his "Pretty Bessee" lived, and at the old Prison of the Marshalsea, made interesting by its associations with "Little Dorrit." They also went to see Milton's house and St. Giles Church, in which he is buried; and stood a long time before St. James Palace, trying to make out which could have been Miss Burney's windows when she was dresser to Queen Charlotte of bitter memory. And they saw Paternoster Row and No. 5 Cheyne Walk, sacred forevermore to the memory of Thomas Carlyle, and Whitehall, where Queen Elizabeth lay in state and King Charles was beheaded, and the state rooms of Holland House; and by great good luck had a glimpse of George Eliot getting out of a cab. She stood for a moment while she gave her fare to the cabman, and Katy looked as one who might not look again, and carried away a distinct picture of the unbeautiful, interesting, remarkable face.

With all this to see and to do, the last week sped all too swiftly, and the last day came before they were at all ready to leave what Katy called "Story-book England." Mrs. Ashe had decided to cross by Newhaven and Dieppe, because some one had told her of the beautiful old town of Rouen, and it seemed easy and convenient to take it on the way to Paris. Just landed from the long voyage across the Atlantic, the little passage of the Channel seemed nothing to our travellers, and they made ready for their night on the Dieppe steamer with the philosophy which is born of ignorance. They were speedily undeceived!

The English Channel has a character of its own, which distinguishes it from other seas and straits. It seems made fractious and difficult by Nature, and set as on purpose to be barrier between two nations who are too unlike to easily understand each other, and are the safer neighbors for this wholesome difficulty of communication between them. The "chop" was worse than usual on the night when our travellers crossed; the steamer had to fight her way inch by inch. And oh, such a little steamer! and oh, such a long night!



Chapter VI.

Across The Channel.


Dawn had given place to day, and day was well advanced toward noon, before the stout little steamer gained her port. It was hours after the usual time for arrival; the train for Paris must long since have started, and Katy felt dejected and forlorn as, making her way out of the terrible ladies'-cabin, she crept on deck for her first glimpse of France.

The sun was struggling through the fog with a watery smile, and his faint beams shone on a confusion of stone piers, higher than the vessel's deck, intersected with canal-like waterways, through whose intricate windings the steamer was slowly threading her course to the landing-place. Looking up, Katy could see crowds of people assembled to watch the boat come in, -- workmen, peasants, women, children, soldiers, custom-house officers, moving to and fro, -- and all this crowd were talking all at once and all were talking French!

I don't know why this should have startled her as it did. She knew, of course, that people of different countries were liable to be found speaking their own languages; but somehow the spectacle of the chattering multitude, all seeming so perfectly at ease with their preterits and subjunctives and never once having to refer to Ollendorf or a dictionary, filled her with a sense of dismayed surprise.

"Good gracious!" she said to herself, "even the babies understand it!" She racked her brains to recall what she had once known of French, but very little seemed to have survived the horrors of the night!

"Oh dear! what is the word for trunk-key?" she asked herself. "They will all begin to ask questions, and I shall not have a word to say; and Mrs. Ashe will be even worse off, I know." She saw the red-trousered custom-house officers pounce upon the passengers as they landed one by one, and she felt her heart sink within her.

But after all, when the time came it did not prove so very bad. Katy's pleasant looks and courteous manner stood her in good stead. She did not trust herself to say much; but the officials seemed to understand without saying. They bowed and gestured, whisked the keys in and out, and in a surprisingly short time all was pronounced right, the baggage had "passed," and it and its owners were free to proceed to the railway-station, which fortunately was close at hand.

Inquiry revealed the fact that no train for Paris left till four in the afternoon.

"I am rather glad," declared poor Mrs. Ashe, "for I feel too used up to move. I will lie here on this sofa; and, Katy dear, please see if there is an eating-place, and get some breakfast for yourself and Amy, and send me a cup of tea."

"I don't like to leave you alone," Katy was beginning; but at that moment a nice old woman who seemed to be in charge of the waiting-room appeared, and with a flood of French which none of them could follow, but which was evidently sympathetic in its nature, flew at Mrs. Ashe and began to make her comfortable. From a cupboard in the wall she produced a pillow, from another cupboard a blanket; in a trice she had one under Mrs. Ashe's head and the other wrapped round her feet.

"Pauvre madame," she said, "si pâle! si souffrante! Il faut avoir quelque chose à boire et à manger tout de suite." She trotted across the room and into the restaurant which opened out of it, while Mrs. Ashe smiled at Katy and said, "You see you can leave me quite safely; I am to be taken care of." And Katy and Amy passed through the same door into the buffet, and sat down at a little table.

It was a particularly pleasant-looking place to breakfast in. There were many windows with bright polished panes and very clean short muslin curtains, and on the window-sills stood rows of thrifty potted plants in full bloom, -- marigolds, balsams, nasturtiums, and many colored geraniums. Two birds in cages were singing loudly; the floor was waxed to a glass-like polish; nothing could have been whiter than the marble of the tables except the napkins laid over them. And such a good breakfast as was presently brought to them, -- delicious coffee in bowl-like cups, crisp rolls and rusks, an omelette with a delicate flavor of fine herbs, stewed chicken, little pats of freshly churned butter without salt, shaped like shells and tasting like solidified cream, and a pot of some sort of nice preserve. Amy made great delighted eyes at Katy, and remarking, "I think France is heaps nicer than that old England," began to eat with a will; and Katy herself felt that if this railroad meal was a specimen of what they had to expect in the future, they had indeed come to a land of plenty.

Fortified with the satisfactory breakfast, she felt equal to a walk; and after they had made sure that Mrs. Ashe had all she needed, she and Amy (and Mabel) set off by themselves to see the sights of Dieppe. I don't know that travellers generally have considered Dieppe an interesting place, but Katy found it so. There was a really old church and some quaint buildings of the style of two centuries back, and even the more modern streets had a novel look to her unaccustomed eyes. At first they only ventured a timid turn or two, marking each corner, and going back now and then to reassure themselves by a look at the station; but after a while, growing bolder, Katy ventured to ask a question or two in French, and was surprised and charmed to find herself understood. After that she grew adventurous, and, no longer fearful of being lost, led Amy straight down a long street lined with shops, almost all of which were for the sale of articles in ivory.

Ivory wares are one of the chief industries of Dieppe. There were cases full, windows full, counters full, of the most exquisite combs and brushes, some with elaborate monograms in silver and colors, others plain; there were boxes and caskets of every size and shape, ornaments, fans, parasol handles, looking-glasses, frames for pictures large and small, napkin-rings.

Katy was particularly smitten with a paper-knife in the form of an angel with long slender wings raised over its head and meeting to form a point. Its price was twenty francs, and she was strongly tempted to buy it for Clover or Rose Red. But she said to herself sensibly, "This is the first shop I have been into and the first thing I have really wanted to buy, and very likely as we go on I shall see things I like better and want more, so it would be foolish to do it. No, I won't." And she resolutely turned her back on the ivory angel, and walked away.

The next turn brought them to a gay-looking little market-place, where old women in white caps were sitting on the ground beside baskets and panniers full of apples, pears, and various queer and curly vegetables, none of which Katy recognized as familiar; fish of all shapes and colors were flapping in shallow tubs of sea-water; there were piles of stockings, muffetees, and comforters in vivid blue and red worsted, and coarse pottery glazed in bright patterns. The faces of the women were brown and wrinkled; there were no pretty ones among them, but their black eyes were full of life and quickness, and their fingers one and all clicked with knitting-needles, as their tongues flew equally fast in the chatter and the chaffer, which went on without stop or stay, though customers did not seem to be many and sales were few.

Returning to the station they found that Mrs. Ashe had been asleep during their absence, and seemed so much better that it was with greatly amended spirits that they took their places in the late afternoon train which was to set them down at Rouen. Katy said they were like the Wise Men of the East, "following a star," in their choice of a hotel; for, having no better advice, they had decided upon one of those thus distinguished in Baedeker's Guide-book.

The star did not betray their confidence; for the Hôtel de la Cloche, to which it led them, proved to be quaint and old, and very pleasant of aspect. The lofty chambers, with their dimly frescoed ceilings, and beds curtained with faded patch, might to all appearances have been furnished about the time when "Columbus crossed the ocean blue;" but everything was clean, and had an air of old-time respectability. The dining-room, which was evidently of more modern build, opened into a square courtyard where oleanders and lemon trees in boxes stood round the basin of a little fountain, whose tinkle and plash blended agreeably with the rattle of the knives and forks. In one corner of the room was a raised and railed platform, where behind a desk sat the mistress of the house, busy with her account-books, but keeping an eye the while on all that went forward.

Mrs. Ashe walked past this personage without taking any notice of her, as Americans are wont to do under such circumstances; but presently the observant Katy noticed that every one else, as they went in or out of the room, addressed a bow or a civil remark to this lady. She quite blushed at the recollection afterward, as she made ready for bed.

"How rude we must have seemed!" she thought. "I am afraid the people here think that Americans have awful manners, everybody is so polite. They said 'Bon soir' and 'Merci' and 'Voulez-vous avoir la bonté,' to the waiters even! Well, there is one thing, -- I am going to reform. To-morrow I will be as polite as anybody. They will think that I am miraculously improved by one night on French soil; but, never mind! I am going to do it."

She kept her resolution, and astonished Mrs. Ashe next morning, by bowing to the dame on the platform in the most winning manner, and saying, "Bon jour, madame," as they went by.

"But, Katy, who is that person? Why do you speak to her?"

"Don't you see that they all do? She is the landlady, I think; at all events, everybody bows to her. And just notice how prettily these ladies at the next table speak to the waiter. They do not order him to do things as we do at home. I noticed it last night, and I liked it so much that I made a resolution to get up and be as polite as the French themselves this morning."

So all the time that they went about the sumptuous old city, rich in carvings and sculptures and traditions, while they were looking at the Cathedral and the wonderful church of St. Ouen, and the Palace of Justice, and the "Place of the Maid," where poor Jeanne d'Arc was burned and her ashes scattered to the winds, Katy remembered her manners, and smiled and bowed, and used courteous prefixes in a soft pleasant voice; and as Mrs. Ashe and Amy fell in with her example more or less, I think the guides and coachmen and the old women who showed them over the buildings felt that the air of France was very civilizing indeed, and that these strangers from savage countries over the sea were in a fair way to be as well bred as if they had been born in a more favored part of the world!

Paris looked very modern after the peculiar quaint richness and air of the Middle Ages which distinguish Rouen. Rooms had been engaged for Mrs. Ashe's party in a pension near the Arc d'Etoile, and there they drove immediately on arriving. The rooms were not in the pension itself, but in a house close by, -- a sitting-room with six mirrors, three clocks, and a pinched little grate about a foot wide, a dining-room just large enough for a table and four chairs, and two bedrooms. A maid called Amandine had been detailed to take charge of these rooms and serve their meals.

Dampness, as Katy afterward wrote to Clover, was the first impression they received of "gay Paris." The tiny fire in the tiny grate had only just been lighted, and the walls and the sheets and even the blankets felt chilly and moist to the touch. They spent their first evening in hanging the bedclothes round the grate and piling on fuel; they even set the mattresses up on edge to warm and dry! It was not very enlivening, it must be confessed. Amy had taken a cold, Mrs. Ashe looked worried, and Katy thought of Burnet and the safety and comfort of home with a throb of longing.

The days that ensued were not brilliant enough to remove this impression. The November fogs seemed to have followed them across the Channel, and Paris remained enveloped in a wet blanket which dimmed and hid its usually brilliant features. Going about in cabs with the windows drawn up, and now and then making a rush through the drip into shops, was not exactly delightful, but it seemed pretty much all that they could do. It was worse for Amy, whose cold kept her indoors and denied her even the relaxation of the cab. Mrs. Ashe had engaged a well-recommended elderly English maid to come every morning and take care of Amy while they were out; and with this respectable functionary, whose ideas were of a rigidly British type and who did not speak a word of any language but her own, poor Amy was compelled to spend most of her time. Her only consolation was in persuading this serene attendant to take a part in the French lessons which she made a daily point of giving to Mabel out of her own little phrase-book.

"Wilkins is getting on, I think," she told Katy one night. "She says 'Biscuit glacé' quite nicely now. But I never will let her look at the book, though she always wants to; for if once she saw how the words are spelled, she would never in the world pronounce them right again. They look so very different, you know."

Katy looked at Amy's pale little face and eager eyes with a real heartache. Her rapture when at the end of the long dull afternoons her mother returned to her was touching. Paris was very triste to poor Amy, with all her happy facility for amusing herself; and Katy felt that the sooner they got away from it the better it would be. So, in spite of the delight which her brief glimpses at the Louvre gave her, and the fun it was to go about with Mrs. Ashe and see her buy pretty things, and the real satisfaction she took in the one perfectly made walking-suit to which she had treated herself, she was glad when the final day came, when the belated dressmakers and artistes in jackets and wraps had sent home their last wares, and the trunks were packed. It had been rather the fault of circumstances than of Paris; but Katy had not learned to love the beautiful capital as most Americans do, and did not feel at all as if she wanted that her "reward of virtue" should be to go there when she died! There must be more interesting places for live people, and ghosts too, to be found on the map of Europe, she was sure.

Next morning as they drove slowly down the Champs Elysées, and looked back for a last glimpse of the famous Arch, a bright object met their eyes, moving vaguely against the mist. It was the gay red wagon of the Bon Marché, carrying bundles home to the dwellers of some up-town street.

Katy burst out laughing. "It is an emblem of Paris," she said, -- "of our Paris, I mean. It has been all Bon Marché and fog!"

"Miss Katy," interrupted Amy, "do you like Europe? For my part, I was never so disgusted with any place in my life!"

"Poor little bird, her views of 'Europe' are rather dark just now, and no wonder," said her mother. "Never mind, darling, you shall have something pleasanter by and by if I can find it for you."

"Burnet is a great deal pleasanter than Paris," pronounced Amy, decidedly. "It doesn't keep always raining there, and I can take walks, and I understand everything that people say."

All that day they sped southward, and with every hour came a change in the aspect of their surroundings. Now they made brief stops in large busy towns which seemed humming with industry. Now they whirled through grape countries with miles of vineyards, where the brown leaves still hung on the vines. Then again came glimpses of old Roman ruins, amphitheatres, viaducts, fragments of wall or arch; or a sudden chill betokened their approach to mountains, where snowy peaks could be seen on the far horizon. And when the long night ended and day roused them from broken slumbers, behold, the world was made over! Autumn had vanished, and the summer, which they thought fled for good, had taken his place. Green woods waved about them, fresh leaves were blowing in the wind, roses and hollyhocks beckoned from white-walled gardens; and before they had done with exclaiming and rejoicing, the Mediterranean shot into view, intensely blue, with white fringes of foam, white sails blowing across, white gulls flying above it, and over all a sky of the same exquisite blue, whose clouds were white as the drifting sails on the water below, and they were at Marseilles.

It was like a glimpse of Paradise to eyes fresh from autumnal grays and glooms, as they sped along the lovely coast, every curve and turn showing new combinations of sea and shore, olive-crowned cliff and shining mountain-peak. With every mile the blue became bluer, the wind softer, the feathery verdure more dense and summer-like. Hyères and Cannes and Antibes were passed, and then, as they rounded a long point, came the view of a sunshiny city lying on a sunlit shore; the train slackened its speed, and they knew that their journey's end was come and they were in Nice.

The place seemed to laugh with gayety as they drove down the Promenade des Anglais and past the English garden, where the band was playing beneath the acacias and palm-trees. On one side was a line of bright-windowed hotels and pensions, with balconies and striped awnings; on the other, the long reach of yellow sand-beach, where ladies were grouped on shawls and rugs, and children ran up and down in the sun, while beyond stretched the waveless sea. The December sun felt as warm as on a late June day at home, and had the same soft caressing touch. The pavements were thronged with groups of leisurely-looking people, all wearing an unmistakable holiday aspect; pretty girls in correct Parisian costumes walked demurely beside their mothers, with cavaliers in attendance; and among these young men appeared now and again the well-known uniform of the United States Navy.

"I wonder," said Mrs. Ashe, struck by a sudden thought, "if by any chance our squadron is here." She asked the question the moment they entered the hotel; and the porter, who prided himself on understanding "zose Eenglesh," replied, -- 

"Mais oui, Madame, ze Americaine fleet it is here; zat is, not here, but at Villefranche, just a leetle four mile away, -- it is ze same zing exactly."

"Katy, do you hear that?" cried Mrs. Ashe. "The frigates are here, and the 'Natchitoches' among them of course; and we shall have Ned to go about with us everywhere. It is a real piece of good luck for us. Ladies are at such a loss in a place like this with nobody to escort them. I am perfectly delighted."

"So am I," said Katy. "I never saw a frigate, and I always wanted to see one. Do you suppose they will let us go on board of them?"

"Why, of course they will." Then to the porter, "Give me a sheet of paper and an envelope, please. -- I must let Ned know that I am here at once."

Mrs. Ashe wrote her note and despatched it before they went upstairs to take off their bonnets. She seemed to have a half-hope that some bird of the air might carry the news of her arrival to her brother, for she kept running to the window as if in expectation of seeing him. She was too restless to lie down or sleep, and after she and Katy had lunched, proposed that they should go out on the beach for a while.

"Perhaps we may come across Ned," she remarked.

They did not come across Ned, but there was no lack of other delightful objects to engage their attention. The sands were smooth and hard as a floor. Soft pink lights were beginning to tinge the western sky. To the north shone the peaks of the maritime Alps, and the same rosy glow caught them here and there, and warmed their grays and whites into color.

"I wonder what that can be?" said Katy, indicating the rocky point which bounded the beach to the east, where stood a picturesque building of stone, with massive towers and steep pitches of roof. "It looks half like a house and half like a castle, but it is quite fascinating, I think. Do you suppose that people live there?"

"We might ask," suggested Mrs. Ashe.

Just then they came to a shallow river spanned by a bridge, beside whose pebbly bed stood a number of women who seemed to be washing clothes by the simple and primitive process of laying them in the water on top of the stones, and pounding them with a flat wooden paddle till they were white. Katy privately thought that the clothes stood a poor chance of lasting through these cleansing operations; but she did not say so, and made the inquiry which Mrs. Ashe had suggested, in her best French.

"Celle-là?" answered the old woman whom she had addressed. "Mais c'est la Pension Suisse."

"A pension; why, that means a boarding-house," cried Katy. "What fun it must be to board there!"

"Well, why shouldn't we board there!" said her friend. "You know we meant to look for rooms as soon as we were rested and had found out a little about the place. Let us walk on and see what the Pension Suisse is like. If the inside is as pleasant as the outside, we could not do better, I should think."

"Oh, I do hope all the rooms are not already taken," said Katy, who had fallen in love at first sight with the Pension Suisse. She felt quite oppressed with anxiety as they rang the bell.

The Pension Suisse proved to be quite as charming inside as out. The thick stone walls made deep sills and embrasures for the casement windows, which were furnished with red cushions to serve as seats and lounging-places. Every window seemed to command a view, for those which did not look toward the sea looked toward the mountains. The house was by no means full, either. Several sets of rooms were to be had; and Katy felt as if she had walked straight into the pages of a romance When Mrs. Ashe engaged for a month a delightful suite of three, a sitting-room and two sleeping-chambers, in a round tower, with a balcony overhanging the water, and a side window, from which a flight of steps led down into a little walled garden, nestled in among the masonry, where tall laurestinus and lemon trees grew, and orange and brown wallflowers made the air sweet. Her contentment knew no bounds.

"I am so glad that I came," she told Mrs. Ashe. "I never confessed it to you before; but sometimes. -- when we were sick at sea, you know, and when it would rain all the time, and after Amy caught that cold in Paris -- I have almost wished, just for a minute or two at a time, that we hadn't. But now I wouldn't not have come for the world! This is perfectly delicious. I am glad, glad, glad we are here, and we are going to have a lovely time, I know."

They were passing out of the rooms into the hall as she said these words, and two ladies who were walking up a cross passage turned their heads at the sound of her voice. To her great surprise Katy recognized Mrs. Page and Lilly.

"Why, Cousin Olivia, is it you?" she cried, springing forward with the cordiality one naturally feels in seeing a familiar face in a foreign land.

Mrs. Page seemed rather puzzled than cordial. She put up her eyeglass and did not seem to quite make out who Katy was.

"It is Katy Carr, mamma," explained Lilly. "Well, Katy, this is a surprise! Who would have thought of meeting you in Nice!"

There was a decided absence of rapture in Lilly's manner. She was prettier than ever, as Katy saw in a moment, and beautifully dressed in soft brown velvet, which exactly suited her complexion and her pale-colored wavy hair.

"Katy Carr! why, so it is," admitted Mrs. Page. "It is a surprise indeed. We had no idea that you were abroad. What has brought you so far from Tunket, -- Burnet, I mean? Who are you with?"

"With my friend Mrs. Ashe," explained Katy, rather chilled by this cool reception.

"Let me introduce you. Mrs. Ashe, these are my cousins Mrs. Page and Miss Page. Amy, -- why where is Amy?"

Amy had walked back to the door of the garden staircase, and was standing there looking down upon the flowers.

Cousin Olivia bowed rather distantly. Her quick eye took in the details of Mrs. Ashe's travelling-dress and Katy's dark blue ulster.

"Some countrified friend from that dreadful Western town where they live," she said to herself. "How foolish of Philip Carr to try to send his girls to Europe! He can't afford it, I know." Her voice was rather rigid as she inquired, -- 

"And what brings you here? -- to this house, I mean?"

"Oh, we are coming to-morrow to stay; we have taken rooms for a month," explained Katy. "What a delicious-looking old place it is."

"Have you?" said Lilly, in a voice which did not express any particular pleasure. "Why, we are staying here too."



Chapter VII.

The Pension Suisse.


"What do you suppose can have brought Katy Carr to Europe?" inquired Lilly, as she stood in the window watching the three figures walk slowly down the sands. "She is the last person I expected to turn up here. I supposed she was stuck in that horrid place -- what is the name of it? -- where they live, for the rest of her life."

"I confess I am surprised at meeting her myself," rejoined Mrs. Page. "I had no idea that her father could afford so expensive a journey."

"And who is this woman that she has got along with her?"

"I have no idea, I'm sure. Some Western friend, I suppose."

"Dear me, I wish they were going to some other house than this," said Lilly, discontentedly. "If they were at the Rivoir, for instance, or one of those places at the far end of the beach, we shouldn't need to see anything of them, or even know that they were in town! It's a real nuisance to have people spring upon you this way, people you don't want to meet; and when they happen to be relations it is all the worse. Katy will be hanging on us all the time, I'm afraid."

"Oh, my dear, there is no fear of that. A little repression on our part will prevent her from being any trouble, I'm quite certain. But we must treat her politely, you know, Lilly; her father is my cousin."

"That's the saddest part of it! Well, there's one thing, I shall not take her with me every time we go to the frigates," said Lilly, decisively. "I am not going to inflict a country cousin on Lieutenant Worthington, and spoil all my own fun beside. So I give you fair warning, mamma, and you must manage it somehow."

"Certainly, dear, I will. It would be a great pity to have your visit to Nice spoiled in any way, with the squadron here too, and that pleasant Mr. Worthington so very attentive."

Unconscious of these plans for her suppression, Katy walked back to the hotel in a mood of pensive pleasure. Europe at last promised to be as delightful as it had seemed when she only knew it from maps and books, and Nice so far appeared to her the most charming place in the world.

Somebody was waiting for them at the Hotel des Anglais, -- a tall, bronzed, good-looking somebody in uniform, with pleasant brown eyes beaming from beneath a gold-banded cap; at the sight of whom Amy rushed forward with her long locks flying, and Mrs. Ashe uttered an exclamation of pleasure. It was Ned Worthington, Mrs. Ashe's only brother, whom she had not met for two years and a half; and you can easily imagine how glad she was to see him.

"You got my note then?" she said after the first eager greetings were over and she had introduced him to Katy.

"Note? No. Did you write me a note?"

"Yes; to Villefranche."

"To the ship? I shan't get that till tomorrow. No; finding out that you were here is just a bit of good fortune. I came over to call on some friends who are staying down the beach a little way, and dropping in to look over the list of arrivals, as I generally do, I saw your names; and the porter not being able to say which way you had gone, I waited for you to come in."

"We have been looking at such a delightful old place, the Pension Suisse, and have taken rooms."

"The Pension Suisse, eh? Why, that was where I was going to call. I know some people who are staying there. It seems a pleasant house; I'm glad you are going there, Polly. It's first-rate luck that the ships happen to be here just now. I can see you every day."

"But, Ned, surely you are not leaving me so soon? Surely you will stay and dine with us?" urged his sister, as he took up his cap.

"I wish I could, but I can't to-night, Polly. You see I had engaged to take some ladies out to drive, and they will expect me. I had no idea that you would be here, or I should have kept myself free," apologetically. "Tomorrow I will come over early, and be at your service for whatever you like to do."

"That's right, dear boy. We shall expect you." Then, the moment he was gone, "Now, Katy, isn't he nice?"

"Very nice, I should think," said Katy, who had watched the brief interview with interest. "I like his face so much, and how fond he is of you!"

"Dear fellow! so he is. I am seven years older than he, but we have always been intimate. Brothers and sisters are not always intimate, you know, -- or perhaps you don't know, for all of yours are."

"Yes, indeed," said Katy, with a happy smile. "There is nobody like Clover and Elsie, except perhaps Johnnie and Dorry and Phil," she added with a laugh.

The remove to the Pension Suisse was made early the next morning. Mrs. Page and Lilly did not appear to welcome them. Katy rather rejoiced in their absence, for she wanted the chance to get into order without interruptions.

There was something comfortable in the thought that they were to stay a whole month in these new quarters; for so long a time, it seemed worth while to make them pretty and homelike. So, while Mrs. Ashe unpacked her own belongings and Amy's, Katy, who had a natural turn for arranging rooms, took possession of the little parlor, pulled the furniture into new positions, laid out portfolios and work-cases and their few books, pinned various photographs which they had bought in Oxford and London on the walls, and tied back the curtains to admit the sunshine. Then she paid a visit to the little garden, and came back with a long branch of laurestinus, which she trained across the mantelpiece, and a bunch of wallflowers for their one little vase. The maid, by her orders, laid a fire of wood and pine cones ready for lighting; and when all was done she called Mrs. Ashe to pronounce upon the effect.

"It is lovely," she said, sinking into a great velvet arm-chair which Katy had drawn close to the seaward window. "I haven't seen anything so pleasant since we left home. You are a witch, Katy, and the comfort of my life. I am so glad I brought you! Now, pray go and unpack your own things, and make yourself look nice for the second breakfast. We have been a shabby set enough since we arrived. I saw those cousins of yours looking askance at our old travelling-dresses yesterday. Let us try to make a more respectable impression to-day."

So they went down to breakfast, Mrs. Ashe in one of her new Paris gowns, Katy in a pretty dress of olive serge, and Amy all smiles and ruffled pinafore, walking hand in hand with her uncle Ned, who had just arrived and whose great ally she was; and Mrs. Page and Lilly, who were already seated at table, had much ado to conceal their somewhat unflattering surprise at the conjunction. For one moment Lilly's eyes opened into a wide stare of incredulous astonishment; then she remembered herself, nodded as pleasantly as she could to Mrs. Ashe and Katy, and favored Lieutenant Worthington with a pretty blushing smile as he went by, while she murmured, -- 

"Mamma, do you see that? What does it mean?"

"Why, Ned, do you know those people?" asked Mrs. Ashe at the same moment.

"Do you know them!"

"Yes; we met yesterday. They are connections of my friend Miss Carr."

"Really? There is not the least family likeness between them." And Mr. Worthington's eyes travelled deliberately from Lilly's delicate, golden prettiness to Katy, who, truth to say, did not shine by the contrast.

"She has a nice, sensible sort of face," he thought, "and she looks like a lady, but for beauty there is no comparison between the two." Then he turned to listen to his sister as she replied, -- 

"No, indeed, not the least; no two girls could be less like." Mrs. Ashe had made the same comparison, but with quite a different result. Katy's face was grown dear to her, and she had not taken the smallest fancy to Lilly Page.

Her relationship to the young naval officer, however, made a wonderful difference in the attitude of Mrs. Page and Lilly toward the party. Katy became a person to be cultivated rather than repressed, and thenceforward there was no lack of cordiality on their part.

"I want to come in and have a good talk," said Lilly, slipping her arm through Katy's as they left the dining-room. "Mayn't I come now while mamma is calling on Mrs. Ashe?" This arrangement brought her to the side of Lieutenant Worthington, and she walked between him and Katy down the hall and into the little drawing-room.

"Oh, how perfectly charming! You have been fixing up ever since you came, haven't you? It looks like home. I wish we had a salon, but mamma thought it wasn't worth while, as we were only to be here such a little time. What a delicious balcony over the water, too! May I go out on it? Oh, Mr. Worthington, do see this!"

She pushed open the half-closed window and stepped out as she spoke. Mr. Worthington, after hesitating a moment, followed. Katy paused uncertain. There was hardly room for three in the balcony, yet she did not quite like to leave them. But Lilly had turned her back, and was talking in a low tone; it was nothing more in reality than the lightest chit-chat, but it had the air of being something confidential; so Katy, after waiting a little while, retreated to the sofa, and took up her work, joining now and then in the conversation which Mrs. Ashe was keeping up with Cousin Olivia. She did not mind Lilly's ill-breeding, nor was she surprised at it. Mrs. Ashe was less tolerant.

"Isn't it rather damp out there, Ned?" she called to her brother; "you had better throw my shawl round Miss Page's shoulders."

"Oh, it isn't a bit damp," said Lilly, recalled to herself by this broad hint. "Thank you so much for thinking of it, Mrs. Ashe, but I am just coming in." She seated herself beside Katy, and began to question her rather languidly.

"When did you leave home, and how were they all when you came away?"

"All well, thank you. We sailed from Boston on the 14th of October; and before that I spent two days with Rose Red, -- you remember her? She is married now, and has the dearest little home and such a darling baby."

"Yes, I heard of her marriage. It didn't seem much of a match for Mr. Redding's daughter to make, did it? I never supposed she would be satisfied with anything less than a member of Congress or a Secretary of Legation."

"Rose isn't particularly ambitious, I think, and she seems perfectly happy," replied Katy, flushing.

"Oh, you needn't fire up in her defence; you and Clover always did adore Rose Red, I know, but I never could see what there was about her that was so wonderfully fascinating. She never had the least style, and she was always just as rude to me as she could be."

"You were not intimate at school, but I am sure Rose was never rude," said Katy, with spirit.

"Well, we won't fight about her at this late day. Tell me where you have been, and where you are going, and how long you are to stay in Europe."

Katy, glad to change the subject, complied, and the conversation diverged into comparison of plans and experiences. Lilly had been in Europe nearly a year, and had seen "almost everything," as she phrased it. She and her mother had spent the previous winter in Italy, had taken a run into Russia, "done" Switzerland and the Tyrol thoroughly, and France and Germany, and were soon going into Spain, and from there to Paris, to shop in preparation for their return home in the spring.

"Of course we shall want quantities of things," she said. "No one will believe that we have been abroad unless we bring home a lot of clothes. The lingerie and all that is ordered already; but the dresses must be made at the last moment, and we shall have a horrid time of it, I suppose. Worth has promised to make me two walking-suits and two ball-dresses, but he's very bad about keeping his word. Did you do much when you were in Paris, Katy?"

"We went to the Louvre three times, and to Versailles and St. Cloud," said Katy, wilfully misunderstanding her.

"Oh, I didn't mean that kind of stupid thing; I meant gowns. What did you buy?"

"One tailor-made suit of dark blue cloth."

"My! what moderation!"

Shopping played a large part in Lilly's reminiscences. She recollected places, not from their situation or beauty or historical associations, or because of the works of art which they contained, but as the places where she bought this or that.

"Oh, that dear Piazza di Spagna!" she would say; "that was where I found my rococo necklace, the loveliest thing you ever saw, Katy." Or, "Prague -- oh yes, mother got the most enchanting old silver chatelaine there, with all kinds of things hanging to it, -- needlecases and watches and scent-bottles, all solid, and so beautifully chased." Or again, "Berlin was horrid, we thought; but the amber is better and cheaper than anywhere else, -- great strings of beads, of the largest size and that beautiful pale yellow, for a hundred francs. You must get yourself one, Katy."

Poor Lilly! Europe to her was all "things." She had collected trunks full of objects to carry home, but of the other collections which do not go into trunks, she had little or none. Her mind was as empty, her heart as untouched as ever; the beauty and the glory and the pathos of art and history and Nature had been poured out in vain before her closed and indifferent eyes.

Life soon dropped into a peaceful routine at the Pension Suisse, which was at the same time restful and stimulating. Katy's first act in the morning, as soon as she opened her eyes, was to hurry to the window in hopes of getting a glimpse of Corsica. She had discovered that this elusive island could almost always be seen from Nice at the dawning, but that as soon as the sun was fairly up, it vanished to appear no more for the rest of the day. There was something fascinating to her imagination in the hovering mountain outline between sea and sky. She felt as if she were under an engagement to be there to meet it, and she rarely missed the appointment. Then, after Corsica had pulled the bright mists over its face and melted from view, she would hurry with her dressing, and as soon as was practicable set to work to make the salon look bright before the coffee and rolls should appear, a little after eight o'clock. Mrs. Ashe always found the fire lit, the little meal cosily set out beside it, and Katy's happy untroubled face to welcome her when she emerged from her room; and the cheer of these morning repasts made a good beginning for the day.

Then came walking and a French lesson, and a long sitting on the beach, while Katy worked at her home letters and Amy raced up and down in the sun; and then toward noon Lieutenant Ned generally appeared, and some scheme of pleasure was set on foot. Mrs. Ashe ignored his evident penchant for Lilly Page, and claimed his time and attentions as hers by right. Young Worthington was a good deal "taken" with the pretty Lilly; still, he had an old-time devotion for his sister and the habit of doing what she desired, and he yielded to her behests with no audible objections. He made a fourth in the carriage while they drove over the lovely hills which encircle Nice toward the north, to Cimiers and the Val de St. André, or down the coast toward Ventimiglia. He went with them to Monte-Carlo and Mentone, and was their escort again and again when they visited the great war-ships as they lay at anchor in a bay which in its translucent blue was like an enormous sapphire.

Mrs. Page and her daughter were included in these parties more than once; but there was something in Mrs. Ashe's cool appropriation of her brother which was infinitely vexatious to Lilly, who before her arrival had rather looked upon Lieutenant Worthington as her own especial property.

"I wish that Mrs. Ashe had stayed at home," she told her mother. "She quite spoils everything. Mr. Worthington isn't half so nice as he was before she came. I do believe she has a plan for making him fall in love with Katy; but there she makes a miss of it, for he doesn't seem to care anything about her."

"Katy is a nice girl enough," pronounced her mother, "but not of the sort to attract a gay young man, I should fancy. I don't believe she is thinking of any such thing. You needn't be afraid, Lilly."

"I'm not afraid," said Lilly, with a pout; "only it's so provoking."

Mrs. Page was quite right. Katy was not thinking of any such thing. She liked Ned Worthington's frank manners; she owned, quite honestly, that she thought him handsome, and she particularly admired the sort of deferential affection which he showed to Mrs. Ashe, and his nice ways with Amy. For herself, she was aware that he scarcely noticed her except as politeness demanded that he should be civil to his sister's friend; but the knowledge did not trouble her particularly. Her head was full of interesting things, plans, ideas. She was not accustomed to being made the object of admiration, and experienced none of the vexations of a neglected belle. If Lieutenant Worthington happened to talk to her, she responded frankly and freely; if he did not, she occupied herself with something else; in either case she was quite unembarrassed both in feeling and manner, and had none of the awkwardness which comes from disappointed vanity and baffled expectations, and the need for concealing them.

Toward the close of December the officers of the flag-ship gave a ball, which was the great event of the season to the gay world of Nice. Americans were naturally in the ascendant on an American frigate; and of all the American girls present, Lilly Page was unquestionably the prettiest. Exquisitely dressed in white lace, with bands of turquoises on her neck and arms and in her hair, she had more partners than she knew what to do with, more bouquets than she could well carry, and compliments enough to turn any girl's head. Thrown off her guard by her triumphs, she indulged a little vindictive feeling which had been growing in her mind of late on account of what she chose to consider certain derelictions of duty on the part of Lieutenant Worthington, and treated him to a taste of neglect. She was engaged three deep when he asked her to dance; she did not hear when he invited her to walk; she turned a cold shoulder when he tried to talk, and seemed absorbed by the other cavaliers, naval and otherwise, who crowded about her.

Piqued and surprised, Ned Worthington turned to Katy. She did not dance, saying frankly that she did not know how and was too tall; and she was rather simply dressed in a pearl-gray silk, which had been her best gown the winter before in Burnet, with a bunch of red roses in the white lace of the tucker, and another in her hand, both the gifts of little Amy; but she looked pleasant and serene, and there was something about her which somehow soothed his disturbed mind, as he offered her his arm for a walk on the decks.

For a while they said little, and Katy was quite content to pace up and down in silence, enjoying the really beautiful scene, -- the moonlight on the Bay, the deep wavering reflections of the dark hulls and slender spars, the fairy effect of the colored lamps and lanterns, and the brilliant moving maze of the dancers.

"Do you care for this sort of thing?" he suddenly asked.

"What sort of thing do you mean?"

"Oh, all this jigging and waltzing and amusement."

"I don't know how to 'jig,' but it's delightful to look on," she answered merrily. "I never saw anything so pretty in my life."

The happy tone of her voice and the unruffled face which she turned upon him quieted his irritation.

"I really believe you mean it," he said; "and yet, if you won't think me rude to say so, most girls would consider the thing dull enough if they were only getting out of it what you are, -- if they were not dancing, I mean, and nobody in particular was trying to entertain them."

"But everything is being done to entertain me," cried Katy. "I can't imagine what makes you think that it could seem dull. I am in it all, don't you see, -- I have my share -- . Oh, I am stupid, I can't make you understand."

"Yes, you do. I understand perfectly, I think; only it is such a different point of view from what girls in general would take." (By girls he meant Lilly!) "Please do not think me uncivil."

"You are not uncivil at all; but don't let us talk any more about me. Look at the lights between the shadows of the masts on the water. How they quiver! I never saw anything so beautiful, I think. And how warm it is! I can't believe that we are in December and that it is nearly Christmas."

"How is Polly going to celebrate her Christmas? Have you decided?"

"Amy is to have a Christmas-tree for her dolls, and two other dolls are coming. We went out this morning to buy things for it, -- tiny little toys and candles fit for Lilliput. And that reminds me, do you suppose one can get any Christmas greens here?"

"Why not? The place seems full of green."

"That's just it; the summer look makes it unnatural. But I should like some to dress the parlor with if they could be had."

"I'll see what I can find, and send you a load."

I don't know why this very simple little talk should have made an impression on Lieutenant Worthington's mind, but somehow he did not forget it.

"'Don't let us talk any more about me,'" he said to himself that night when alone in his cabin. "I wonder how long it would be before the other one did anything to divert the talk from herself. Some time, I fancy." He smiled rather grimly as he unbuckled his sword-belt. It is unlucky for a girl when she starts a train of reflection like this. Lilly's little attempt to pique her admirer had somehow missed its mark.

The next afternoon Katy in her favorite place on the beach was at work on the long weekly letter which she never failed to send home to Burnet. She held her portfolio in her lap, and her pen ran rapidly over the paper, as rapidly almost as her tongue would have run could her correspondents have been brought nearer.


"Nice, December 22.

"Dear Papa and everybody, -- Amy and I are sitting on my old purple cloak, which is spread over the sand just where it was spread the last time I wrote you. We are playing the following game: I am a fairy and she is a little girl. Another fairy -- not sitting on the cloak at present -- has enchanted the little girl, and I am telling her various ways by which she can work out her deliverance. At present the task is to find twenty-four dull red pebbles of the same color, failing to do which she is to be changed into an owl. When we began to play, I was the wicked fairy; but Amy objected to that because I am 'so nice,' so we changed the characters. I wish you could see the glee in her pretty gray eyes over this infantile game, into which she has thrown herself so thoroughly that she half believes in it. 'But I needn't really be changed into an owl! 'she says, with a good deal of anxiety in her voice.

"To think that you are shivering in the first snow-storm, or sending the children out with their sleds and india-rubbers to slide! How I wish instead that you were sharing the purple cloak with Amy and me, and could sit all this warm balmy afternoon close to the surf-line which fringes this bluest of blue seas! There is plenty of room for you all. Not many people come down to this end of the beach, and if you were very good we would let you play.

"Our life here goes on as delightfully as ever. Nice is very full of people, and there seem to be some pleasant ones among them. Here at the Pension Suisse we do not see a great many Americans. The fellow-boarders are principally Germans and Austrians with a sprinkling of French. (Amy has found her twenty-four red pebbles, so she is let off from being an owl. She is now engaged in throwing them one by one into the sea. Each must hit the water under penalty of her being turned into a Muscovy duck. She doesn't know exactly what a Muscovy duck is, which makes her all the more particular about her shots.) But, as I was saying, our little suite in the round tower is so on one side of the rest of the Pension that it is as good as having a house of our own. The salon is very bright and sunny; we have two sofas and a square table and a round table and a sort of what-not and two easy-chairs and two uneasy chairs and a lamp of our own and a clock. There is also a sofa-pillow. There's richness for you! We have pinned up all our photographs on the walls, including Papa's and Clovy's and that bad one of Phil and Johnnie making faces at each other, and three lovely red and yellow Japanese pictures on muslin which Rose Red put in my trunk the last thing, for a spot of color. There are some autumn leaves too; and we always have flowers and in the mornings and evenings a fire.

"Amy is now finding fifty snow-white pebbles, which when found are to be interred in one common grave among the shingle. If she fails to do this, she is to be changed to an electrical eel. The chief difficulty is that she loses her heart to particular pebbles. 'I can't bury you,' I hear her saying.

"To return, -- we have jolly little breakfasts together in the salon. They consist of coffee and rolls, and are served by a droll, snappish little garçon with no teeth, and an Italian-French patois which is very hard to understand when he sputters. He told me the other day that he had been a garçon for forty-six years, which seemed rather a long boyhood.

"The company, as we meet them at table, are rather entertaining. Cousin Olivia and Lilly are on their best behavior to me because I am travelling with Mrs. Ashe, and Mrs. Ashe is Lieutenant Worthington's sister, and Lieutenant Worthington is Lilly's admirer, and they like him very much. In fact, Lilly has intimated confidentially that she is all but engaged to him; but I am not sure about it, or if that was what she meant; and I fear, if it proves true, that dear Polly will not like it at all. She is quite unmanageable, and snubs Lilly continually in a polite way, which makes me fidgety for fear Lilly will be offended, but she never seems to notice it. Cousin Olivia looks very handsome and gorgeous. She quite takes the color out of the little Russian Countess who sits next to her, and who is as dowdy and meek as if she came from Akron or Binghampton, or any other place where countesses are unknown. Then there are two charming, well-bred young Austrians. The one who sits nearest to me is a 'Candidat' for a Doctorate of Laws, and speaks eight languages well. He has only studied English for the past six weeks, but has made wonderful progress. I wish my French were half as good as his English is already.

"There is a very gossiping young woman on the story beneath ours, whom I meet sometimes in the garden, and from her I hear all manner of romantic tales about people in the house. One little French girl is dying of consumption and a broken heart, because of a quarrel with her lover, who is a courier; and the padrona, who is young and pretty, and has only been married a few months to our elderly landlord, has a story also. I forget some of the details; but there was a stern parent and an admirer, and a cup of cold poison, and now she says she wishes she were dying of consumption like poor Alphonsine. For all that, she looks quite fat and rosy, and I often see her in her best gown with a great deal of Roman scarf and mosaic jewelry, stationed in the doorway, 'making the Pension look attractive to the passers-by.' So she has a sense of duty, though she is unhappy.

"Amy has buried all her pebbles, and says she is tired of playing fairy. She is now sitting with her head on my shoulder, and professedly studying her French verb for to-morrow, but in reality, I am sorry to say, she is conversing with me about be-headings, -- a subject which, since her visit to the Tower, has exercised a horrible fascination over her mind. 'Do people die right away?' she asks. 'Don't they feel one minute, and doesn't it feel awfully?' There is a good deal of blood, she supposes, because there was so much straw laid about the block in the picture of Lady Jane Gray's execution, which enlivened our walls in Paris. On the whole, I am rather glad that a fat little white dog has come waddling down the beach and taken off her attention.

"Speaking of Paris seems to renew the sense of fog which we had there. Oh, how enchanting sunshine is after weeks of gloom! I shall never forget how the Mediterranean looked when we saw it first, -- all blue, and such a lovely color. There ought, according to Morse's Atlas, to have been a big red letter T on the water about where we were, but I didn't see any. Perhaps they letter it so far out from shore that only people in boats notice it.

"Now the dusk is fading, and the odd chill which hides under these warm afternoons begins to be felt. Amy has received a message written on a mysterious white pebble to the effect -- "

Katy was interrupted at this point by a crunching step on the gravel behind her.

"Good afternoon," said a voice. "Polly has sent me to fetch you and Amy in. She says it is growing cool."

"We were just coming," said Katy, beginning to put away her papers.

Ned Worthington sat down on the cloak beside her. The distance was now steel gray against the sky; then came a stripe of violet, and then a broad sheet of the vivid iridescent blue which one sees on the necks of peacocks, which again melted into the long line of flashing surf.

"See that gull," he said, "how it drops plumb into the sea, as if bound to go through to China!"

"Mrs. Hawthorne calls skylarks 'little raptures,'" replied Katy. "Sea-gulls seem to me like grown-up raptures."

"Are you going?" said Lieutenant Worthington in a tone of surprise, as she rose.

"Didn't you say that Polly wanted us to come in?"

"Why, yes; but it seems too good to leave, doesn't it? Oh, by the way, Miss Carr, I came across a man to-day and ordered your greens. They will be sent on Christmas Eve. Is that right?"

"Quite right, and we are ever so much obliged to you." She turned for a last look at the sea, and, unseen by Ned Worthington, formed her lips into a "good-night." Katy had made great friends with the Mediterranean.

The promised "greens" appeared on the afternoon before Christmas Day, in the shape of an enormous fagot of laurel and laurestinus and holly and box; orange and lemon boughs with ripe fruit hanging from them, thick ivy tendrils whole yards long, arbutus, pepper tree, and great branches of acacia, covered with feathery yellow bloom. The man apologized for bringing so little. The gentleman had ordered two francs worth, he said, but this was all he could carry; he would fetch some more if the young lady wished! But Katy, exclaiming with delight over her wealth, wished no more; so the man departed, and the three friends proceeded to turn the little salon into a fairy bower. Every photograph and picture was wreathed in ivy, long garlands hung on either side the windows, and the chimney-piece and door-frames became clustering banks of leaf and blossom. A great box of flowers had come with the greens, and bowls of fresh roses and heliotrope and carnations were set everywhere; violets and primroses, gold-hearted brown auriculas, spikes of veronica, all the zones and all the seasons, combining to make the Christmas-tide sweet, and to turn winter topsy-turvy in the little parlor.

Mabel and Mary Matilda, with their two doll visitors, sat gravely round the table, in the laps of their little mistresses; and Katy, putting on an apron and an improvised cap, and speaking Irish very fast, served them with a repast of rolls and cocoa, raspberry jam, and delicious little almond cakes. The fun waxed fast and furious; and Lieutenant Worthington, coming in with his hands full of parcels for the Christmas-tree, was just in time to hear Katy remark in a strong County Kerry brogue, -- 

"Och, thin indade, Miss Amy, and it's no more cake you'll be getting out of me the night. That's four pieces you've ate, and it's little slape your poor mother'll git with you a tossin' and tumblin' forenenst her all night long because of your big appetite."

"Oh, Miss Katy, talk Irish some more!" cried the delighted children.

"Is it Irish you'd be afther having me talk, when it's me own langwidge, and sorrow a bit of another do I know?" demanded Katy. Then she caught sight of the new arrival and stopped short with a blush and a laugh.

"Come in, Mr. Worthington," she said; "we're at supper, as you see, and I am acting as waitress."

"Oh, Uncle Ned, please go away," pleaded Amy, "or Katy will be polite, and not talk Irish any more."

"Indade, and the less ye say about politeness the betther, when ye're afther ordering the jantleman out of the room in that fashion!" said the waitress. Then she pulled off her cap and untied her apron.

"Now for the Christmas-tree," she said.

It was a very little tree, but it bore some remarkable fruits; for in addition to the "tiny toys and candles fit for Lilliput," various parcels were found to have been hastily added at the last moment for various people. The "Natchitoches" had lately come from the Levant, and delightful Oriental confections now appeared for Amy and Mrs. Ashe; Turkish slippers, all gold embroidery; towels, with richly decorated ends in silks and tinsel; -- all the pretty superfluities which the East holds out to charm gold from the pockets of her Western visitors. A pretty little dagger in agate and silver fell to Katy's share out of what Lieutenant Worthington called his "loot;" and beside, a most beautiful specimen of the inlaid work for which Nice is famous, -- a looking-glass, with a stand and little doors to close it in, -- which was a present from Mrs. Ashe. It was quite unlike a Christmas Eve at home, but altogether delightful; and as Katy sat next morning on the sand, after the service in the English church, to finish her home letter, and felt the sun warm on her cheek, and the perfumed air blow past as softly as in June, she had to remind herself that Christmas is not necessarily synonymous with snow and winter, but means the great central heat and warmth, the advent of Him who came to lighten the whole earth.

A few days after this pleasant Christmas they left Nice. All of them felt a reluctance to move, and Amy loudly bewailed the necessity.

"If I could stay here till it is time to go home, I shouldn't be homesick at all," she declared.

"But what a pity it would be not to see Italy!" said her mother. "Think of Naples and Rome and Venice."

"I don't want to think about them. It makes me feel as if I was studying a great long geography lesson, and it tires me so to learn it."

"Amy, dear, you're not well."

"Yes, I am, -- quite well; only I don't want to go away from Nice."

"You only have to learn a little bit at a time of your geography lesson, you know," suggested Katy; "and it's a great deal nicer way to study it than out of a book." But though she spoke cheerfully she was conscious that she shared Amy's reluctance.

"It's all laziness," she told herself. "Nice has been so pleasant that it has spoiled me."

It was a consolation and made going easier that they were to drive over the famous Cornice Road as far as San Remo, instead of going to Genoa by rail as most travellers now-a-days do. They departed from the Pension Suisse early on an exquisite morning, fair and balmy as June, but with a little zest and sparkle of coolness in the air which made it additionally delightful. The Mediterranean was of the deepest violet-blue; a sort of bloom of color seemed to lie upon it. The sky was like an arch of turquoise; every cape and headland shone jewel-like in the golden sunshine. The carriage, as it followed the windings of the road cut shelf-like on the cliffs, seemed poised between earth and heaven; the sea below, the mountain summits above, with a fairy world of verdure between. The journey was like a dream of enchantment and rapidly changing surprises; and when it ended in a quaint hostelry at San Remo, with palm-trees feathering the Bordighera Point and Corsica, for once seen by day, lying in bold, clear outlines against the sunset, Katy had to admit to herself that Nice, much as she loved it, was not the only, not even the most beautiful place in Europe. Already she felt her horizon growing, her convictions changing; and who should say what lay beyond?

The next day brought them to Genoa, to a hotel once the stately palace of an archbishop, where they were lodged, all three together, in an enormous room, so high and broad and long that their three little curtained beds set behind a screen of carved wood made no impression on the space. There were not less than four sofas and double that number of arm-chairs in the room, besides a couple of monumental wardrobes; but, as Katy remarked, several grand pianos could still have been moved in without anybody's feeling crowded. On one side of them lay the port of Genoa, filled with craft from all parts of the world, and flying the flags of a dozen different nations. From the other they caught glimpses of the magnificent old city, rising in tier over tier of churches and palaces and gardens; while nearer still were narrow streets, which glittered with gold filigree and the shops of jewel-workers. And while they went in and out and gazed and wondered, Lilly Page, at the Pension Suisse, was saying, -- 

"I am so glad that Katy and that Mrs. Ashe are gone. Nothing has been so pleasant since they came. Lieutenant Worthington is dreadfully stiff and stupid, and seems quite different from what he used to be. But now that we have got rid of them it will all come right again."

"I really don't think that Katy was to blame," said Mrs. Page. "She never seemed to me to be making any effort to attract him."

"Oh, Katy is sly," responded Lilly, vindictively. "She never seems to do anything, but somehow she always gets her own way. I suppose she thought I didn't see her keeping him down there on the beach the other day when he was coming in to call on us, but I did. It was just out of spite, and because she wanted to vex me; I know it was."

"Well, dear, she's gone now, and you won't be worried with her again," said her mother, soothingly. "Don't pout so, Lilly, and wrinkle up your forehead. It's very unbecoming."

"Yes, she's gone," snapped Lilly; "and as she's bound for the East, and we for the West, we are not likely to meet again, for which I am devoutly thankful."



Chapter VIII.

On The Track Of Ulysses.


"We are going to follow the track of Ulysses," said Katy, with her eyes fixed on the little travelling-map in her guide-book. "Do you realize that, Polly dear? He and his companions sailed these very seas before us, and we shall see the sights they saw, -- Circe's Cape and the Isles of the Sirens, and Polyphemus himself, perhaps, who knows?"

The "Marco Polo" had just cast off her moorings, and was slowly steaming out of the crowded port of Genoa into the heart of a still rosy sunset. The water was perfectly smooth; no motion could be felt but the engine's throb. The trembling foam of the long wake showed glancing points of phosphorescence here and there, while low on the eastern sky a great silver planet burned like a signal lamp.

"Polyphemus was a horrible giant. I read about him once, and I don't want to see him," observed Amy, from her safe protected perch in her mother's lap.

"He may not be so bad now as he was in those old times. Some missionary may have come across him and converted him. If he were good, you wouldn't mind his being big, would you?" suggested Katy.

"N-o," replied Amy, doubtfully; "but it would take a great lot of missionaries to make him good, I should think. One all alone would be afraid to speak to him. We shan't really see him, shall we?"

"I don't believe we shall; and if we stuff cotton in our ears and look the other way, we need not hear the sirens sing," said Katy, who was in the highest spirits. -- "And oh, Polly dear, there is one delightful thing I forgot to tell you about. The captain says he shall stay in Leghorn all day to-morrow taking on freight, and we shall have plenty of time to run up to Pisa and see the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and everything else. Now, that is something Ulysses didn't do! I am so glad I didn't die of measles when I was little, as Rose Red used to say." She gave her book a toss into the air as she spoke, and caught it again as it fell, very much as the Katy Carr of twelve years ago might have done.

"What a child you are!" said Mrs. Ashe, approvingly; "you never seem out of sorts or tired of things."

"Out of sorts? I should think not! And pray why should I be, Polly dear?"

Katy had taken to calling her friend "Polly dear" of late, -- a trick picked up half unconsciously from Lieutenant Ned. Mrs. Ashe liked it; it was sisterly and intimate, she said, and made her feel nearer Katy's age.

"Does the tower really lean?" questioned Amy, -- "far over, I mean, so that we can see it?"

"We shall know to-morrow," replied Katy. "If it doesn't, I shall lose all my confidence in human nature."

Katy's confidence in human nature was not doomed to be impaired. There stood the famous tower, when they reached the Place del Duomo in Pisa, next morning, looking all aslant, exactly as it does in the pictures and the alabaster models, and seeming as if in another moment it must topple over, from its own weight, upon their heads. Mrs. Ashe declared that it was so unnatural that it made her flesh creep; and when she was coaxed up the winding staircase to the top, she turned so giddy that they were all thankful to get her safely down to firm ground again. She turned her back upon the tower, as they crossed the grassy space to the majestic old Cathedral, saying that if she thought about it any more, she should become a disbeliever in the attraction of gravitation, which she had always been told all respectable people must believe in.

The guide showed them the lamp swinging by a long slender chain, before which Galileo is said to have sat and pondered while he worked out his theory of the pendulum. This lamp seemed a sort of own cousin to the attraction of gravitation, and they gazed upon it with respect. Then they went to the Baptistery to see Niccolo Pisano's magnificent pulpit of creamy marble, a mass of sculpture supported on the backs of lions, and the equally lovely font, and to admire the extraordinary sound which their guide evoked from a mysterious echo, with which he seemed to be on intimate terms, for he made it say whatever he would and almost "answer back."

It was in coming out of the Baptistery that they met with an adventure which Amy could never quite forget. Pisa is the mendicant city of Italy, and her streets are infested with a band of religious beggars who call themselves the Brethren of the Order of Mercy. They wear loose black gowns, sandals laced over their bare feet, and black cambric masks with holes, through which their eyes glare awfully; and they carry tin cups for the reception of offerings, which they thrust into the faces of all strangers visiting the city, whom they look upon as their lawful prey.

As our party emerged from the Baptistery, two of these Brethren espied them, and like great human bats came swooping down upon them with long strides, their black garments flying in the wind, their eyes rolling strangely behind their masks, and brandishing their alms-cups, which had "Pour les Pauvres" lettered upon them, and gave forth a clapping sound like a watchman's rattle. There was something terrible in their appearance and the rushing speed of their movements. Amy screamed and ran behind her mother, who visibly shrank. Katy stood her ground; but the bat-winged fiends in Doré's illustrations to Dante occurred to her, and her fingers trembled as she dropped some money in the cups.

Even mendicant friars are human. Katy ceased to tremble as she observed that one of them, as he retreated, walked backward for some distance in order to gaze longer at Mrs. Ashe, whose cheeks were flushed with bright pink and who was looking particularly handsome. She began to laugh instead, and Mrs. Ashe laughed too; but Amy could not get over the impression of having been attacked by demons, and often afterward recurred with a shudder to the time when those awful black things flew at her and she hid behind mamma. The ghastly pictures of the Triumph of Death, which were presently exhibited to them on the walls of the Campo Santo, did not tend to reassure her, and it was with quite a pale, scared little face that she walked toward the hotel where they were to lunch, and she held fast to Katy's hand.

Their way led them through a narrow street inhabited by the poorer classes, -- a dusty street with high shabby buildings on either side and wide doorways giving glimpses of interior courtyards, where empty hogsheads and barrels and rusty caldrons lay, and great wooden trays of macaroni were spread out in the sun to dry. Some of the macaroni was gray, some white, some yellow; none of it looked at all desirable to eat, as it lay exposed to the dust, with long lines of ill-washed clothes flapping above on wires stretched from one house to another. As is usual in poor streets, there were swarms of children; and the appearance of little Amy with her long bright hair falling over her shoulders and Mabel clasped in her arms created a great sensation. The children in the street shouted and exclaimed, and other children within the houses heard the sounds and came trooping out, while mothers and older sisters peeped from the doorways. The very air seemed full of eager faces and little brown and curly heads bobbing up and down with excitement, and black eyes all fixed upon big beautiful Mabel, who with her thick wig of flaxen hair, her blue velvet dress and jacket, feathered hat, and little muff, seemed to them like some strange small marvel from another world. They could not decide whether she was a living child or a make-believe one, and they dared not come near enough to find out; so they clustered at a little distance, pointed with their fingers, and whispered and giggled, while Amy, much pleased with the admiration shown for her darling, lifted Mabel up to view.

At last one droll little girl with a white cap on her round head seemed to make up her mind, and darting indoors returned with her doll, -- a poor little image of wood, its only garment a coarse shirt of red cotton. This she held out for Amy to see. Amy smiled for the first time since her encounter with the bat-like friars; and Katy, taking Mabel from her, made signs that the two dolls should kiss each other. But though the little Italian screamed with laughter at the idea of a bacio between two dolls, she would by no means allow it, and hid her treasure behind her back, blushing and giggling, and saying something very fast which none of them understood, while she waved two fingers at them with a curious gesture.

"I do believe she is afraid Mabel will cast the evil eye on her doll," said Katy at last, with a sudden understanding as to what this pantomime meant.

"Why, you silly thing!" cried the outraged Amy; "do you suppose for one moment that my child could hurt your dirty old dolly? You ought to be glad to have her noticed at all by anybody that's clean."

The sound of the foreign tongue completed the discomfiture of the little Italian. With a shriek she fled, and all the other children after her; pausing at a distance to look back at the alarming creatures who didn't speak the familiar language. Katy, wishing to leave a pleasant impression, made Mabel kiss her waxen fingers toward them. This sent the children off into another fit of laughter and chatter, and they followed our friends for quite a distance as they proceeded on their way to the hotel.

All that night, over a sea as smooth as glass, the "Marco Polo" slipped along the coasts past which the ships of Ulysses sailed in those old legendary days which wear so charmed a light to our modern eyes. Katy roused at three in the morning, and looking from her cabin window had a glimpse of an island, which her map showed her must be Elba, where that war-eagle Napoleon was chained for a while. Then she fell asleep again, and when she roused in full daylight the steamer was off the coast of Ostia and nearing the mouth of the Tiber. Dreamy mountain-shapes rose beyond the far-away Campagna, and every curve and indentation of the coast bore a name which recalled some interesting thing.

About eleven a dim-drawn bubble appeared on the horizon, which the captain assured them was the dome of St. Peter's, nearly thirty miles distant. This was one of the "moments" which Clover had been fond of speculating about; and Katy, contrasting the real with the imaginary moment, could not help smiling. Neither she nor Clover had ever supposed that her first glimpse of the great dome was to be so little impressive.

On and on they went till the air-hung bubble disappeared; and Amy, grown very tired of scenery with which she had no associations, and grown-up raptures which she did not comprehend, squeezed herself into the end of the long wooden settee on which Katy sat, and began to beg for another story concerning Violet and Emma.

"Just a little tiny chapter, you know, Miss Katy, about what they did on New Year's Day or something. It's so dull to keep sailing and sailing all day and have nothing to do, and it's ever so long since you told me anything about them, really and truly it is!"

Now, Violet and Emma, if the truth is to be told, had grown to be the bane of Katy's existence. She had rung the changes on their uneventful adventures, and racked her brains to invent more and more details, till her imagination felt like a dry sponge from which every possible drop of moisture had been squeezed. Amy was insatiable. Her interest in the tale never flagged; and when her exhausted friend explained that she really could not think of another word to say on the subject, she would turn the tables by asking, "Then, Miss Katy, mayn't I tell you a chapter?" whereupon she would proceed somewhat in this fashion: -- 

"It was the day before Christmas -- no, we won't have it the day before Christmas; it shall be three days before Thanksgiving. Violet and Emma got up in the morning, and -- well, they didn't do anything in particular that day. They just had their breakfasts and dinners, and played and studied a little, and went to bed early, you know, and the next morning  -- well, there didn't much happen that day, either; they just had their breakfasts and dinners, and played."

Listening to Amy's stories was so much worse than telling them to her, that Katy in self-defence was driven to recommence her narrations, but she had grown to hate Violet and Emma with a deadly hatred. So when Amy made this appeal on the steamer's deck, a sudden resolution took possession of her, and she decided to put an end to these dreadful children once for all.

"Yes, Amy," she said, "I will tell you one more story about Violet and Emma; but this is positively the last."

So Amy cuddled close to her friend, and listened with rapt attention as Katy told how on a certain day just before the New Year, Violet and Emma started by themselves in a little sleigh drawn by a pony, to carry to a poor woman who lived in a lonely house high up on a mountain slope a basket containing a turkey, a mould of cranberry jelly, a bunch of celery, and a mince-pie.

"They were so pleased at having all these nice things to take to poor widow Simpson and in thinking how glad she would be to see them," proceeded the naughty Katy, "that they never noticed how black the sky was getting to be, or how the wind howled through the bare boughs of the trees. They had to go slowly, for the road was up hill all the way, and it was hard work for the poor pony. But he was a stout little fellow, and tugged away up the slippery track, and Violet and Emma talked and laughed, and never thought what was going to happen. Just half-way up the mountain there was a rocky cliff which overhung the road, and on this cliff grew an enormous hemlock tree. The branches were loaded with snow, which made them much heavier than usual. Just as the sleigh passed slowly underneath the cliff, a violent blast of wind blew up from the ravine, struck the hemlock and tore it out of the ground, roots and all. It fell directly across the sleigh, and Violet and Emma and the pony and the basket with the turkey and the other things in it were all crushed as flat as pancakes!"

"Well," said Amy, as Katy stopped, "go on! what happened then?"

"Nothing happened then," replied Katy, in a tone of awful solemnity; "nothing could happen! Violet and Emma were dead, the pony was dead, the things in the basket were broken all to little bits, and a great snowstorm began and covered them up, and no one knew where they were or what had become of them till the snow melted in the spring."

With a loud shriek Amy jumped up from the bench.

"No! no! no!" she cried; "they aren't dead! I won't let them be dead!" Then she burst into tears, ran down the stairs, locked herself into her mother's stateroom, and did not appear again for several hours.

Katy laughed heartily at first over this outburst, but presently she began to repent and to think that she had treated her pet unkindly. She went down and knocked at the stateroom door; but Amy would not answer. She called her softly through the key-hole, and coaxed and pleaded, but it was all in vain. Amy remained invisible till late in the afternoon; and when she finally crept up again to the deck, her eyes were red with crying, and her little face as pale and miserable as if she had been attending the funeral of her dearest friend.

Katy's heart smote her.

"Come here, my darling," she said, holding out her hand; "come and sit in my lap and forgive me. Violet and Emma shall not be dead. They shall go on living, since you care so much for them, and I will tell stories about them to the end of the chapter."

"No," said Amy, shaking her head mournfully; "you can't. They're dead, and they won't come to life again ever. It's all over, and I'm so so-o-rry."

All Katy's apologies and efforts to resuscitate the story were useless. Violet and Emma were dead to Amy's imagination, and she could not make herself believe in them any more.

She was too woe-begone to care for the fables of Circe and her swine which Katy told as they rounded the magnificent Cape Circello, and the isles where the sirens used to sing appealed to her in vain. The sun set, the stars came out; and under the beams of their countless lamps and the beckonings of a slender new moon, the "Marco Polo" sailed into the Bay of Naples, past Vesuvius, whose dusky curl of smoke could be seen outlined against the luminous sky, and brought her passengers to their landing-place.

They woke next morning to a summer atmosphere full of yellow sunshine and true July warmth. Flower-vendors stood on every corner, and pursued each newcomer with their fragrant wares. Katy could not stop exclaiming over the cheapness of the flowers, which were thrust in at the carriage windows as they drove slowly up and down the streets. They were tied into flat nosegays, whose centre was a white camellia, encircled with concentric rows of pink tea rosebuds, ring after ring, till the whole was the size of an ordinary milk-pan; all to be had for the sum of ten cents! But after they had bought two or three of these enormous bouquets, and had discovered that not a single rose boasted an inch of stem, and that all were pierced with long wires through their very hearts, she ceased to care for them.

"I would rather have one Souvenir or General Jacqueminot, with a long stem and plenty of leaves, than a dozen of these stiff platters of bouquets," Katy told Mrs. Ashe. But when they drove beyond the city gates, and the coachman came to anchor beneath walls overhung with the same roses, and she found that she might stand on the seat and pull down as many branches of the lovely flowers as she desired, and gather wallflowers for herself out of the clefts in the masonry, she was entirely satisfied.

"This is the Italy of my dreams," she said.

With all its beauty there was an underlying sense of danger about Naples, which interfered with their enjoyment of it. Evil smells came in at the windows, or confronted them as they went about the city. There seemed something deadly in the air. Whispered reports met their ears of cases of fever, which the landlords of the hotels were doing their best to hush up. An American gentleman was said to be lying very ill at one house. A lady had died the week before at another. Mrs. Ashe grew nervous.

"We will just take a rapid look at a few of the principal things," she told Katy, "and then get away as fast as we can. Amy is so on my mind that I have no peace of my life. I keep feeling her pulse and imagining that she does not look right; and though I know it is all my fancy, I am impatient to be off. You won't mind, will you, Katy?"

After that everything they did was done in a hurry. Katy felt as if she were being driven about by a cyclone, as they rushed from one sight to another, filling up all the chinks between with shopping, which was irresistible where everything was so pretty and so wonderfully cheap. She herself purchased a tortoise-shell fan and chain for Rose Red, and had her monogram carved upon it; a coral locket for Elsie; some studs for Dorry; and for her father a small, beautiful vase of bronze, copied from one of the Pompeian antiques.

"How charming it is to have money to spend in such a place as this!" she said to herself with a sigh of satisfaction as she surveyed these delightful buyings. "I only wish I could get ten times as many things and take them to ten times as many people. Papa was so wise about it. I can't think how it is that he always knows beforehand exactly how people are going to feel, and what they will want!"

Mrs. Ashe also bought a great many things for herself and Amy, and to take home as presents; and it was all very pleasant and satisfactory except for that subtle sense of danger from which they could not escape and which made them glad to go. "See Naples and die," says the old adage; and the saying has proved sadly true in the case of many an American traveller.

Beside the talk of fever there was also a good deal of gossip about brigands going about, as is generally the case in Naples and its vicinity. Something was said to have happened to a party on one of the heights above Sorrento; and though nobody knew exactly what the something was, or was willing to vouch for the story, Mrs. Ashe and Katy felt a good deal of trepidation as they entered the carriage which was to take them to the neighborhood where the mysterious "something" had occurred.

The drive between Castellamare and Sorrento is in reality as safe as that between Boston and Brookline; but as our party did not know this fact till afterward, it did them no good. It is also one of the most beautiful drives in the world, following the windings of the exquisite coast mile after mile, in long links of perfectly made road, carved on the face of sharp cliffs, with groves of oranges and lemons and olive orchards above, and the Bay of Naples beneath, stretching away like a solid sheet of lapis-lazuli, and gemmed with islands of the most picturesque form.

It is a pity that so much beauty should have been wasted on Mrs. Ashe and Katy, but they were too frightened to half enjoy it. Their carriage was driven by a shaggy young savage, who looked quite wild enough to be a bandit himself. He cracked his whip loudly as they rolled along, and every now and then gave a long shrill whistle. Mrs. Ashe was sure that these were signals to his band, who were lurking somewhere on the olive-hung hillsides. She thought she detected him once or twice making signs to certain questionable-looking characters as they passed; and she fancied that the people they met gazed at them with an air of commiseration, as upon victims who were being carried to execution. Her fears affected Katy; so, though they talked and laughed, and made jokes to amuse Amy, who must not be scared or led to suppose that anything was amiss, and to the outward view seemed a very merry party, they were privately quaking in their shoes all the way, and enjoying a deal of highly superfluous misery. And after all they reached Sorrento in perfect safety; and the driver, who looked so dangerous, turned out to be a respectable young man enough, with a wife and family to support, who considered a plateful of macaroni and a glass of sour red wine as the height of luxury, and was grateful for a small gratuity of thirty cents or so, which would enable him to purchase these dainties. Mrs. Ashe had a very bad headache next day, to pay for her fright; but she and Katy agreed that they had been very foolish, and resolved to pay no more attention to unaccredited rumors or allow them to spoil their enjoyment, which was a sensible resolution to make.

Their hotel was perched directly over the sea. From the balcony of their sitting-room they looked down a sheer cliff some sixty feet high, into the water; their bedrooms opened on a garden of roses, with an orange grove beyond. Not far from them was the great gorge which cuts the little town of Sorrento almost in two, and whose seaward end makes the harbor of the place. Katy was never tired of peering down into this strange and beautiful cleft, whose sides, two hundred feet in depth, are hung with vines and trailing growths of all sorts, and seem all a-tremble with the fairy fronds of maiden-hair ferns growing out of every chink and crevice. She and Amy took walks along the coast toward Massa, to look off at the lovely island shapes in the bay, and admire the great clumps of cactus and Spanish bayonet which grew by the roadside; and they always came back loaded with orange-flowers, which could be picked as freely as apple-blossoms from New England orchards in the spring. The oranges themselves at that time of the year were very sour, but they answered as well for a romantic date, "From an orange grove," as if they had been the sweetest in the world.

They made two different excursions to Pompeii, which is within easy distance of Sorrento. They scrambled on donkeys over the hills, and had glimpses of the far-away Calabrian shore, of the natural arch, and the temples of Pestum shining in the sun many miles distant. On Katy's birthday, which fell toward the end of January, Mrs. Ashe let her have her choice of a treat; and she elected to go to the Island of Capri, which none of them had seen. It turned out a perfect day, with sea and wind exactly right for the sail, and to allow of getting into the famous "Blue Grotto," which can only be entered under particular conditions of tide and weather. And they climbed the great cliff-rise at the island's end, and saw the ruins of the villa built by the wicked emperor Tiberius, and the awful place known as his "Leap," down which, it is said, he made his victims throw themselves; and they lunched at a hotel which bore his name, and just at sunset pushed off again for the row home over the charmed sea. This return voyage was almost the pleasantest thing of all the day. The water was smooth, the moon at its full. It was larger and more brilliant than American moons are, and seemed to possess an actual warmth and color. The boatmen timed their oar-strokes to the cadence of Neapolitan barcaroles and folk-songs, full of rhythmic movement, which seemed caught from the pulsing tides. And when at last the bow grated on the sands of the Sorrento landing-place, Katy drew a long, regretful breath, and declared that this was her best birthday-gift of all, better than Amy's flowers, or the pretty tortoise-shell locket that Mrs. Ashe had given her, better even than the letter from home, which, timed by happy accident, had arrived by the morning's post to make a bright opening for the day.

All pleasant things must come to an ending.

"Katy," said Mrs. Ashe, one afternoon in early February, "I heard some ladies talking just now in the salon, and they said that Rome is filling up very fast. The Carnival begins in less than two weeks, and everybody wants to be there then. If we don't make haste, we shall not be able to get any rooms."

"Oh dear!" said Katy, "it is very trying not to be able to be in two places at once. I want to see Rome dreadfully, and yet I cannot bear to leave Sorrento. We have been very happy here, haven't we?"

So they took up their wandering staves again, and departed for Rome, like the Apostle, "not knowing what should befall them there."



Chapter IX.

A Roman Holiday.


"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Ashe, as she folded her letters and laid them aside, "I wish those Pages would go away from Nice, or else that the frigates were not there."

"Why! what's the matter?" asked Katy, looking up from the many-leaved journal from Clover over which she was poring.

"Nothing is the matter except that those everlasting people haven't gone to Spain yet, as they said they would, and Ned seems to keep on seeing them," replied Mrs. Ashe, petulantly.

"But, dear Polly, what difference does it make? And they never did promise you to go on any particular time, did they?"

"N-o, they didn't; but I wish they would, all the same. Not that Ned is such a goose as really to care anything for that foolish Lilly!" Then she gave a little laugh at her own inconsistency, and added, "But I oughtn't to abuse her when she is your cousin."

"Don't mention it," said Katy, cheerfully. "But, really, I don't see why poor Lilly need worry you so, Polly dear."

The room in which this conversation took place was on the very topmost floor of the Hotel del Hondo in Rome. It was large and many-windowed; and though there was a little bed in one corner half hidden behind a calico screen, with a bureau and washing-stand, and a sort of stout mahogany hat-tree on which Katy's dresses and jackets were hanging, the remaining space, with a sofa and easy-chairs grouped round a fire, and a round table furnished with books and a lamp, was ample enough to make a good substitute for the private sitting-room which Mrs. Ashe had not been able to procure on account of the near approach of the Carnival and the consequent crowding of strangers to Rome. In fact, she was assured that under the circumstances she was lucky in finding rooms as good as these; and she made the most of the assurance as a consolation for the somewhat unsatisfactory food and service of the hotel, and the four long flights of stairs which must be passed every time they needed to reach the dining-room or the street door.

The party had been in Rome only four days, but already they had seen a host of interesting things. They had stood in the strange sunken space with its marble floor and broken columns, which is all that is left of the great Roman Forum. They had visited the Coliseum, at that period still overhung with ivy garlands and trailing greeneries, and not, as now, scraped clean and bare and "tidied" out of much of its picturesqueness. They had seen the Baths of Caracalla and the Temple of Janus and St. Peter's and the Vatican marbles, and had driven out on the Campagna and to the Pamphili-Doria Villa to gather purple and red anemones, and to the English cemetery to see the grave of Keats. They had also peeped into certain shops, and attended a reception at the American Minister's, -- in short, like most unwarned travellers, they had done about twice as much as prudence and experience would have permitted, had those worthies been consulted.

All the romance of Katy's nature responded to the fascination of the ancient city, -- the capital of the world, as it may truly be called. The shortest drive or walk brought them face to face with innumerable and unexpected delights. Now it was a wonderful fountain, with plunging horses and colossal nymphs and Tritons, holding cups and horns from which showers of white foam rose high in air to fall like rushing rain into an immense marble basin. Now it was an arched doorway with traceries as fine as lace, -- sole-remaining fragment of a heathen temple, flung and stranded as it were by the waves of time on the squalid shore of the present. Now it was a shrine at the meeting of three streets, where a dim lamp burned beneath the effigy of the Madonna, with always a fresh rose beside it in a vase, and at its foot a peasant woman kneeling in red bodice and blue petticoat, with a lace-trimmed towel folded over her hair. Or again it would be a sunlit terrace lifted high on a hillside, and crowded with carriages full of beautifully dressed people, while below all Rome seemed spread out like a panorama, dim, mighty, majestic, and bounded by the blue wavy line of the Campagna and the Alban hills. Or perhaps it might be a wonderful double flight of steps with massive balustrades and pillars with urns, on which sat a crowd of figures in strange costumes and attitudes, who all looked as though they had stepped out of pictures, but who were in reality models waiting for artists to come by and engage them. No matter what it was, -- a bit of oddly tinted masonry with a tuft of brown and orange wallflowers hanging upon it, or a vegetable stall where endive and chiccory and curly lettuces were arranged in wreaths with tiny orange gourds and scarlet peppers for points of color, -- it was all Rome, and, by virtue of that word, different from any other place, -- more suggestive, more interesting, ten times more mysterious than any other could possibly be, so Katy thought.

This fact consoled her for everything and anything, -- for the fleas, the dirt, for the queer things they had to eat and the still queerer odors they were forced to smell! Nothing seemed of any particular consequence except the deep sense of enjoyment, and the newly discovered world of thought and sensation of which she had become suddenly conscious.

The only drawback to her happiness, as the days went on, was that little Amy did not seem quite well or like herself. She had taken a cold on the journey from Naples, and though it did not seem serious, that, or something, made her look pale and thin. Her mother said she was growing fast, but the explanation did not quite account for the wistful look in the child's eyes and the tired feeling of which she continually complained. Mrs. Ashe, with vague uneasiness, began to talk of cutting short their Roman stay and getting Amy off to the more bracing air of Florence. But meanwhile there was the Carnival close at hand, which they must by no means lose; and the feeling that their opportunity might be a brief one made her and Katy all the more anxious to make the very most of their time. So they filled the days full with sights to see and things to do, and came and went; sometimes taking Amy with them, but more often leaving her at the hotel under the care of a kind German chambermaid, who spoke pretty good English and to whom Amy had taken a fancy.

"The marble things are so cold, and the old broken things make me so sorry," she explained; "and I hate beggars because they are dirty, and the stairs make my back ache; and I'd a great deal rather stay with Maria and go up on the roof, if you don't mind, mamma."

This roof, which Amy had chosen as a playplace, covered the whole of the great hotel, and had been turned into a sort of upper-air garden by the simple process of gravelling it all over, placing trellises of ivy here and there, and setting tubs of oranges and oleanders and boxes of gay geraniums and stock-gillyflowers on the balustrades. A tame fawn was tethered there. Amy adopted him as a playmate; and what with his company and that of the flowers, the times when her mother and Katy were absent from her passed not unhappily.

Katy always repaired to the roof as soon as they came in from their long mornings and afternoons of sight-seeing. Years afterward, she would remember with contrition how pathetically glad Amy always was to see her. She would put her little head on Katy's breast and hold her tight for many minutes without saying a word. When she did speak it was always about the house and the garden that she talked. She never asked any questions as to where Katy had been, or what she had done; it seemed to tire her to think about it.

"I should be very lonely sometimes if it were not for my dear little fawn," she told Katy once. "He is so sweet that I don't miss you and mamma very much while I have him to play with. I call him Florio, -- don't you think that is a pretty name? I like to stay with him a great deal better than to go about with you to those nasty-smelling old churches, with fleas hopping all over them!"

So Amy was left in peace with her fawn, and the others made haste to see all they could before the time came to go to Florence.

Amy was left in peace with her fawn.

Katy realized one of the "moments" for which she had come to Europe when she stood for the first time on the balcony overhanging the Corso, which Mrs. Ashe had hired in company with some acquaintances made at the hotel, and looked down at the ebb and surge of the just-begun Carnival. The narrow street seemed humming with people of all sorts and conditions. Some were masked; some were not. There were ladies and gentlemen in fashionable clothes, peasants in the gayest costumes, surprised-looking tourists in tall hats and linen dusters, harlequins, clowns, devils, nuns, dominoes of every color, -- red, white, blue, black; while above, the balconies bloomed like a rose-garden with pretty faces framed in lace veils or picturesque hats. Flowers were everywhere, wreathed along the house-fronts, tied to the horses' ears, in ladies' hands and gentlemen's button-holes, while venders went up and down the street bearing great trays of violets and carnations and camellias for sale. The air was full of cries and laughter, and the shrill calls of merchants advertising their wares, -- candy, fruit, birds, lanterns, and confetti, the latter being merely lumps of lime, large or small, with a pea or a bean embedded in each lump to give it weight. Boxes full of this unpleasant confection were suspended in front of each balcony, with tin scoops to use in ladling it out and flinging it about. Everybody wore or carried a wire mask as protection against this white, incessant shower; and before long the air became full of a fine dust which hung above the Corso like a mist, and filled the eyes and noses and clothes of all present with irritating particles.

Pasquino's Car was passing underneath just as Katy and Mrs. Ashe arrived, -- a gorgeous affair, hung with silken draperies, and bearing as symbol an enormous egg, in which the Carnival was supposed to be in act of incubation. A huge wagon followed in its wake, on which was a house some sixteen feet square, whose sole occupant was a gentleman attended by five servants, who kept him supplied with confetti, which he showered liberally on the heads of the crowd. Then came a car in the shape of a steamboat, with a smoke-pipe and sails, over which flew the Union Jack, and which was manned with a party wearing the dress of British tars. The next wagon bore a company of jolly maskers equipped with many-colored bladders, which they banged and rattled as they went along. Following this was a troupe of beautiful circus horses, cream-colored with scarlet trappings, or sorrel with blue, ridden by ladies in pale green velvet laced with silver, or blue velvet and gold. Another car bore a bird-cage which was an exact imitation of St. Peter's, within which perched a lonely old parrot. This device evidently had a political signification, for it was alternately hissed and applauded as it went along. The whole scene was like a brilliant, rapidly shifting dream; and Katy, as she stood with lips apart and eyes wide open with wonderment and pleasure, forgot whether she was in the body or not, -- forgot everything except what was passing before her gaze.

She was roused by a stinging shower of lime-dust. An Englishman in the next balcony had take courteous advantage of her preoccupation, and had flung a scoopful of confetti in her undefended face! It is generally Anglo-Saxons of the less refined class, English or Americans, who do these things at Carnival times. The national love of a rough joke comes to the surface, encouraged by the license of the moment, and all the grace and prettiness of the festival vanish. Katy laughed, and dusted herself as well as she could, and took refuge behind her mask; while a nimble American boy of the party changed places with her, and thenceforward made that particular Englishman his special target, plying such a lively and adroit shovel as to make Katy's assailant rue the hour when he evoked this national reprisal. His powdered head and rather clumsy efforts to retaliate excited shouts of laughter from the adjoining balconies. The young American, fresh from tennis and college athletics, darted about and dodged with an agility impossible to his heavily built foe; and each effective shot and parry on his side was greeted with little cries of applause and the clapping of hands on the part of those who were watching the contest.

Exactly opposite them was a balcony hung with white silk, in which sat a lady who seemed to be of some distinction; for every now and then an officer in brilliant uniform, or some official covered with orders and stars, would be shown in by her servants, bow before her with the utmost deference, and after a little conversation retire, kissing her gloved hand as he went. The lady was a beautiful person, with lustrous black eyes and dark hair, over which a lace mantilla was fastened with diamond stars. She wore pale blue with white flowers, and altogether, as Katy afterward wrote to Clover, reminded her exactly of one of those beautiful princesses whom they used to play about in their childhood and quarrel over, because every one of them wanted to be the Princess and nobody else.

"I wonder who she is," said Mrs. Ashe in a low tone. "She might be almost anybody from her looks. She keeps glancing across to us, Katy. Do you know, I think she has taken a fancy to you."

Perhaps the lady had; for just then she turned her head and said a word to one of her footmen, who immediately placed something in her hand. It was a little shining bonbonniere, and rising she threw it straight at Katy. Alas! it struck the edge of the balcony and fell into the street below, where it was picked up by a ragged little peasant girl in a red jacket, who raised a pair of astonished eyes to the heavens, as if sure that the gift must have fallen straight from thence. Katy bent forward to watch its fate, and went through a little pantomime of regret and despair for the benefit of the opposite lady, who only laughed, and taking another from her servant flung with better aim, so that it fell exactly at Katy's feet. This was a gilded box in the shape of a mandolin, with sugar-plums tucked cunningly away inside. Katy kissed both her hands in acknowledgment for the pretty toy, and tossed back a bunch of roses which she happened to be wearing in her dress. After that it seemed the chief amusement of the fair unknown to throw bonbons at Katy. Some went straight and some did not; but before the afternoon ended, Katy had quite a lapful of confections and trifles, -- roses, sugared almonds, a satin casket, a silvered box in the shape of a horseshoe, a tiny cage with orange blossoms for birds on the perches, a minute gondola with a marron glacée by way of passenger, and, prettiest of all, a little ivory harp strung with enamelled violets instead of wires. For all these favors she had nothing better to offer, in return, than a few long-tailed bonbons with gay streamers of ribbon. These the lady opposite caught very cleverly, rarely missing one, and kissing her hand in thanks each time.

"Isn't she exquisite?" demanded Katy, her eyes shining with excitement. "Did you ever see any one so lovely in your life, Polly dear? I never did. There, now! she is buying those birds to set them free, I do believe."

It was indeed so. A vender of larks had, by the aid of a long staff, thrust a cage full of wretched little prisoners up into the balcony; and "Katy's lady," as Mrs. Ashe called her, was paying for the whole. As they watched she opened the cage door, and with the sweetest look on her face encouraged the birds to fly away. The poor little creatures cowered and hesitated, not knowing at first what use to make of their new liberty; but at last one, the boldest of the company, hopped to the door and with a glad, exultant chirp flew straight upward. Then the others, taking courage from his example, followed, and all were lost to view in the twinkling of an eye.

"Oh, you angel!" cried Katy, leaning over the edge of the balcony and kissing both hands impulsively, "I never saw any one so sweet as you are in my life. Polly dear, I think carnivals are the most perfectly bewitching things in the world. How glad I am that this lasts a week, and that we can come every day. Won't Amy be delighted with these bonbons! I do hope my lady will be here tomorrow."

How little she dreamed that she was never to enter that balcony again! How little can any of us see what lies before us till it comes so near that we cannot help seeing it, or shut our eyes, or turn away!

The next morning, almost as soon as it was light, Mrs. Ashe tapped at Katy's door. She was in her dressing-gown, and her eyes looked large and frightened.

"Amy is ill," she cried. "She has been hot and feverish all night, and she says that her head aches dreadfully. What shall I do, Katy? We ought to have a doctor at once, and I don't know the name even of any doctor here."

Katy sat up in bed, and for one bewildered moment did not speak. Her brain felt in a whirl of confusion; but presently it cleared, and she saw what to do.

"I will write a note to Mrs. Sands," she said. Mrs. Sands was the wife of the American Minister, and one of the few acquaintances they had made since they came to Rome. "You remember how nice she was the other day, and how we liked her; and she has lived here so long that of course she must know all about the doctors. Don't you think that is the best thing to do!"

"The very best," said Mrs. Ashe, looking relieved. "I wonder I did not think of it myself, but I am so confused that I can't think. Write the note at once, please, dear Katy. I will ring your bell for you, and then I must hurry back to Amy."

Katy made haste with the note. The answer came promptly in half an hour, and by ten o'clock the physician recommended appeared. Dr. Hilary was a dark little Italian to all appearance; but his mother had been a Scotch-woman, and he spoke English very well, -- a great comfort to poor Mrs. Ashe, who knew not a word of Italian and not a great deal of French. He felt Amy's pulse for a long time, and tested her temperature; but he gave no positive opinion, only left a prescription, and said that he would call later in the day and should then be able to judge more clearly what the attack was likely to prove.

Katy augured ill from this reserve. There was no talk of going to the Carnival that afternoon; no one had any heart for it. Instead, Katy spent the time in trying to recollect all she had ever heard about the care of sick people, -- what was to be done first and what next, -- and in searching the shops for a feather pillow, which luxury Amy was imperiously demanding. The pillows of Roman hotels are, as a general thing, stuffed with wool, and very hard.

"I won't have this horrid pillow any longer," poor Amy was screaming. "It's got bricks in it. It hurts the back of my neck. Take it away, mamma, and give me a nice soft American pillow. I won't have this a minute longer. Don't you hear me, mamma! Take it away!"

So, while Mrs. Ashe pacified Amy to the best of her ability, Katy hurried out in quest of the desired pillow. It proved almost an unattainable luxury; but at last, after a long search, she secured an air-cushion, a down cushion about twelve inches square, and one old feather pillow which had come from some auction, and had apparently lain for years in the corner of the shop. When this was encased in a fresh cover of Canton flannel, it did very well, and stilled Amy's complaints a little; but all night she grew worse, and when Dr. Hilary came next day, he was forced to utter plainly the dreaded words "Roman fever." Amy was in for an attack, -- a light one he hoped it might be, -- but they had better know the truth and make ready for it.

Mrs. Ashe was utterly overwhelmed by this verdict, and for the first bewildered moments did not know which way to turn. Katy, happily, kept a steadier head. She had the advantage of a little preparation of thought, and had decided beforehand what it would be necessary to do "in case." Oh, that fateful "in case"! The doctor and she consulted together, and the result was that Katy sought out the padrona of the establishment, and without hinting at the nature of Amy's attack, secured some rooms just vacated, which were at the end of a corridor, and a little removed from the rooms of other people. There was a large room with corner windows, a smaller one opening from it, and another, still smaller, close by, which would serve as a storeroom or might do for the use of a nurse.

These rooms, without much consultation with Mrs. Ashe, -- who seemed stunned and sat with her eyes fixed on Amy, just answering, "Certainly, dear, anything you say," when applied to, -- Katy had arranged according to her own ideas of comfort and hygienic necessity, as learned from Miss Nightingale's excellent little book on nursing. From the larger room she had the carpet, curtains, and nearly all the furniture taken away, the floor scrubbed with hot soapsuds, and the bed pulled out from the wall to allow of a free circulation of air all round it. The smaller one she made as comfortable as possible for the use of Mrs. Ashe, choosing for it the softest sofa and the best mattresses that were obtainable; for she knew that her friend's strength was likely to be severely tried if Amy's illness proved serious. When all was ready, Amy, well wrapped in her coverings, was carried down the entry and laid in the fresh bed with the soft pillows about her; and Katy, as she went to and fro, conveying clothes and books and filling drawers, felt that they were perhaps making arrangements for a long, hard trial of faith and spirits.

By the next day the necessity of a nurse became apparent, and in the afternoon Katy started out in a little hired carriage in search of one. She had a list of names, and went first to the English nurses; but finding them all engaged, she ordered the coachman to drive to a convent where there was hope that a nursing sister might be procured.

Their route lay across the Corso. So utterly had the Carnival with all its gay follies vanished from her mind, that she was for a moment astonished at finding herself entangled in a motley crowd, so dense that the coachman was obliged to rein in his horses and stand still for some time.

There were the same masks and dominos, the same picturesque peasant costumes which had struck her as so gay and pretty only three days before. The same jests and merry laughter filled the air, but somehow it all seemed out of tune. The sense of cold, lonely fear that had taken possession of her killed all capacity for merriment; the apprehension and solicitude of which her heart was full made the gay chattering and squeaking of the crowd sound harsh and unfeeling. The bright colors affronted her dejection; she did not want to see them. She lay back in the carriage, trying to be patient under the detention, and half shut her eyes.

A shower of lime dust aroused her. It came from a party of burly figures in white cotton dominos, whose carriage had been stayed by the crowd close to her own. She signified by gestures that she had no confetti and no protection, that she "was not playing," in fact; but her appeal made no difference. The maskers kept on shovelling lime all over her hair and person and the carriage, and never tired of the sport till an opportune break in the procession enabled their vehicle to move on.

Katy was shaking their largesse from her dress and parasol as well as she could, when an odd gibbering sound close to her ear, and the laughter of the crowd attracted her attention to the back of the carriage. A masker attired as a scarlet devil had climbed into the hood, and was now perched close behind her. She shook her head at him; but he only shook his in return, and chattered and grimaced, and bent over till his fiery mask almost grazed her shoulder. There was no hope but in good humor, as she speedily realized; and recollecting that in her shopping-bag one or two of the Carnival bonbons still remained, she took these out and offered them in the hope of propitiating him. The fiend bit one to insure that it was made of sugar and not lime, while the crowd laughed more than ever; then, seeming satisfied, he made Katy a little speech in rapid Italian, of which she did not comprehend a word, kissed her hand, jumped down from the carriage and disappeared in the crowd to her great relief.

Presently after that the driver spied an opening, of which he took advantage. They were across the Corso now, the roar and rush of the Carnival dying into silence as they drove rapidly on; and Katy, as she finished wiping away the last of the lime dust, wiped some tears from her cheeks as well.

"How hateful it all was!" she said to herself. Then she remembered a sentence read somewhere, "How heavily roll the wheels of other people's joys when your heart is sorrowful!" and she realized that it is true.

The convent was propitious, and promised to send a sister next morning, with the proviso that every second day she was to come back to sleep and rest. Katy was too thankful for any aid to make objections, and drove home with visions of saintly nuns with pure pale faces full of peace and resignation, such as she had read of in books, floating before her eyes.

Sister Ambrogia, when she appeared next day, did not exactly realize these imaginations. She was a plump little person, with rosy cheeks, a pair of demure black eyes, and a very obstinate mouth and chin. It soon appeared that natural inclination combined with the rules of her convent made her theory of a nurse's duties a very limited one.

If Mrs. Ashe wished her to go down to the office with an order, she was told: "We sisters care for the sick; we are not allowed to converse with porters and hotel people."

If Katy suggested that on the way home she should leave a prescription at the chemist's, it was: "We sisters are for nursing only; we do not visit shops." And when she was asked if she could make beef tea, she replied calmly but decisively, "We sisters are not cooks."

In fact, all that Sister Ambrogia seemed able or willing to do, beyond the bathing of Amy's face and brushing her hair, which she accomplished handily, was to sit by the bedside telling her rosary, or plying a little ebony shuttle in the manufacture of a long strip of tatting. Even this amount of usefulness was interfered with by the fact that Amy, who by this time was in a semi-delirious condition, had taken an aversion to her at the first glance, and was not willing to be left with her for a single moment.

"I won't stay here alone with Sister Embroidery," she would cry, if her mother and Katy went into the next room for a moment's rest or a private consultation; "I hate Sister Embroidery! Come back, mamma, come back this moment! She's making faces at me, and chattering just like an old parrot, and I don't understand a word she says. Take Sister Embroidery away, mamma, I tell you! Don't you hear me? Come back, I say!"

The little voice would be raised to a shrill scream; and Mrs. Ashe and Katy, hurrying back, would find Amy sitting up on her pillow with wet, scarlet-flushed cheeks and eyes bright with fever, ready to throw herself out of bed; while, calm as Mabel, whose curly head lay on the pillow beside her little mistress, Sister Ambrogia, unaware of the intricacies of the English language, was placidly telling her beads and muttering prayers to herself. Some of these prayers, I do not doubt, related to Amy's recovery if not to her conversion, and were well meant; but they were rather irritating under the circumstances!



Chapter X.

Clear Shining After Rain.


When the first shock is over and the inevitable realized and accepted, those who tend a long illness are apt to fall into a routine of life which helps to make the days seem short. The apparatus of nursing is got together. Every day the same things need to be done at the same hours and in the same way. Each little appliance is kept at hand; and sad and tired as the watchers may be, the very monotony and regularity of their proceedings give a certain stay for their thoughts to rest upon.

But there was little of this monotony to help Mrs. Ashe and Katy through with Amy's illness. Small chance was there for regularity or exact system; for something unexpected was always turning up, and needful things were often lacking. The most ordinary comforts of the sick-room, or what are considered so in America, were hard to come by, and much of Katy's time was spent in devising substitutes to take their places.

Was ice needed? A pailful of dirty snow would be brought in, full of straws, sticks, and other refuse, which had apparently been scraped from the surface of the street after a frosty night. Not a particle of it could be put into milk or water; all that could be done was to make the pail serve the purpose of a refrigerator, and set bowls and tumblers in it to chill.

Was a feeding-cup wanted? It came of a cumbrous and antiquated pattern, which the infant Hercules may have enjoyed, but which the modern Amy abominated and rejected. Such a thing as a glass tube could not be found in all Rome. Bed-rests were unknown. Katy searched in vain for an India-rubber hot-water bag.

But the greatest trial of all was the beef tea. It was Amy's sole food, and almost her only medicine; for Dr. Hilary believed in leaving Nature pretty much to herself in cases of fever. The kitchen of the hotel sent up, under that name, a mixture of grease and hot water, which could not be given to Amy at all. In vain Katy remonstrated and explained the process. In vain did she go to the kitchen herself to translate a carefully written recipe to the cook, and to slip a shining five-franc piece in his hand, which it was hoped would quicken his energies and soften his heart. In vain did she order private supplies of the best of beef from a separate market. The cooks stole the beef and ignored the recipe; and day after day the same bottle-full of greasy liquid came upstairs, which Amy would not touch, and which would have done her no good had she swallowed it all. At last, driven to desperation, Katy procured a couple of stout bottles, and every morning slowly and carefully cut up two pounds of meat into small pieces, sealed the bottle with her own seal ring, and sent it down to be boiled for a specified time. This answered better, for the thieving cook dared not tamper with her seal; but it was a long and toilsome process, and consumed more time than she well knew how to spare, -- for there were continual errands to be done which no one could attend to but herself, and the interminable flights of stairs taxed her strength painfully, and seemed to grow longer and harder every day.

At last a good Samaritan turned up in the shape of an American lady with a house of her own, who, hearing of their plight from Mrs. Sands, undertook to send each day a supply of strong, perfectly made beef tea, from her own kitchen, for Amy's use. It was an inexpressible relief, and the lightening of this one particular care made all the rest seem easier of endurance.

Another great relief came, when, after some delay, Dr. Hilary succeeded in getting an English nurse to take the places of the unsatisfactory Sister Ambrogia and her substitute, Sister Agatha, whom Amy in her half-comprehending condition persisted in calling "Sister Nutmeg Grater." Mrs. Swift was a tall, wiry, angular person, who seemed made of equal parts of iron and whalebone. She was never tired; she could lift anybody, do anything; and for sleep she seemed to have a sort of antipathy, preferring to sit in an easy-chair and drop off into little dozes, whenever it was convenient, to going regularly to bed for a night's rest.

Amy took to her from the first, and the new nurse managed her beautifully. No one else could soothe her half so well during the delirious period, when the little shrill voice seemed never to be still, and went on all day and all night in alternate raving or screaming or, what was saddest of all to hear, low pitiful moans. There was no shutting in these sounds. People moved out of the rooms below and on either side, because they could get no sleep; and till the arrival of Nurse Swift, there was no rest for poor Mrs. Ashe, who could not keep away from her darling for a moment while that mournful wailing sounded in her ears.

Somehow the long, dry Englishwoman seemed to have a mesmeric effect on Amy, who was never quite so violent after she arrived. Katy was more thankful for this than can well be told; for her great underlying dread -- a dread she dared not whisper plainly even to herself -- was that "Polly dear" might break down before Amy was better, and then what should they do?

She took every care that was possible of her friend. She made her eat; she made her lie down. She forced daily doses of quinine and port-wine down her throat, and saved her every possible step. But no one, however affectionate and willing, could do much to lift the crushing burden of care, which was changing Mrs. Ashe's rosy fairness to wan pallor and laying such dark shadows under the pretty gray eyes. She had taken small thought of looks since Amy's illness. All the little touches which had made her toilette becoming, all the crimps and fluffs, had disappeared; yet somehow never had she seemed to Katy half so lovely as now in the plain black gown which she wore all day long, with her hair tucked into a knot behind her ears. Her real beauty of feature and outline seemed only enhanced by the rigid plainness of her attire, and the charm of true expression grew in her face. Never had Katy admired and loved her friend so well as during those days of fatigue and wearing suspense, or realized so strongly the worth of her sweetness of temper, her unselfishness and power of devoting herself to other people.

"Polly bears it wonderfully," she wrote her father; "she was all broken down for the first day or two, but now her courage and patience are surprising. When I think how precious Amy is to her and how lonely her life would be if she were to die, I can hardly keep the tears out of my eyes. But Polly does not cry. She is quiet and brave and almost cheerful all the time, keeping herself busy with what needs to be done; she never complains, and she looks -- oh, so pretty! I think I never knew how much she had in her before."

All this time no word had come from Lieutenant Worthington. His sister had written him as soon as Amy was taken ill, and had twice telegraphed since, but no answer had been received, and this strange silence added to the sense of lonely isolation and distance from home and help which those who encounter illness in a foreign land have to bear.

So first one week and then another wore themselves away somehow. The fever did not break on the fourteenth day, as had been hoped, and must run for another period, the doctor said; but its force was lessened, and he considered that a favorable sign. Amy was quieter now and did not rave so constantly, but she was very weak. All her pretty hair had been shorn away, which made her little face look tiny and sharp. Mabel's golden wig was sacrificed at the same time. Amy had insisted upon it, and they dared not cross her.

"She has got a fever, too, and it's a great deal badder than mine is," she protested. "Her cheeks are as hot as fire. She ought to have ice on her head, and how can she when her bang is so thick? Cut it all off, every bit, and then I will let you cut mine."

"You had better give ze child her way," said Dr. Hilary. "She's in no state to be fretted with triffles [trifles, the doctor meant], and in ze end it will be well; for ze fever infection might harbor in zat doll's head as well as elsewhere, and I should have to disinfect it, which would be bad for ze skin of her."

"She isn't a doll," cried Amy, overhearing him; "she's my child, and you sha'n't call her names." She hugged Mabel tight in her arms, and glared at Dr. Hilary defiantly.

So Katy with pitiful fingers slashed away at Mabel's blond wig till her head was as bare as a billiard-ball; and Amy, quite content, patted her child while her own locks were being cut, and murmured, "Perhaps your hair will all come out in little round curls, darling, as Johnnie Carr's did;" then she fell into one of the quietest sleeps she had yet had.

It was the day after this that Katy, coming in from a round of errands, found Mrs. Ashe standing erect and pale, with a frightened look in her eyes, and her back against Amy's door, as if defending it from somebody. Confronting her was Madame Frulini, the padrona of the hotel. Madame's cheeks were red, and her eyes bright and fierce; she was evidently in a rage about something, and was pouring out a torrent of excited Italian, with now and then a French or English word slipped in by way of punctuation, and all so rapidly that only a trained ear could have followed or grasped her meaning.

"What is the matter?" asked Katy, in amazement.

"Oh, Katy, I am so glad you have come," cried poor Mrs. Ashe. "I can hardly understand a word that this horrible woman says, but I think she wants to turn us out of the hotel, and that we shall take Amy to some other place. It would be the death of her, -- I know it would. I never, never will go, unless the doctor says it is safe. I oughtn't to, -- I couldn't; she can't make me, can she, Katy?"

"Madame," said Katy, -- and there was a flash in her eyes before which the landlady rather shrank, -- "what is all this? Why do you come to trouble madame while her child is so ill?"

Then came another torrent of explanation which didn't explain; but Katy gathered enough of the meaning to make out that Mrs. Ashe was quite correct in her guess, and that Madame Frulini was requesting, nay, insisting, that they should remove Amy from the hotel at once. There were plenty of apartments to be had now that the Carnival was over, she said, -- her own cousin had rooms close by, -- it could easily be arranged, and people were going away from the Del Mondo every day because there was fever in the house. Such a thing could not be, it should not be, -- the landlady's voice rose to a shriek, "the child must go!"

"You are a cruel woman," said Katy, indignantly, when she had grasped the meaning of the outburst. "It is wicked, it is cowardly, to come thus and attack a poor lady under your roof who has so much already to bear. It is her only child who is lying in there, -- her only one, do you understand, madame? -- and she is a widow. What you ask might kill the child. I shall not permit you or any of your people to enter that door till the doctor comes, and then I shall tell him how you have behaved, and we shall see what he will say." As she spoke she turned the key of Amy's door, took it out and put it in her pocket, then faced the padrona steadily, looking her straight in the eyes.

"Mademoiselle," stormed the landlady, "I give you my word, four people have left this house already because of the noises made by little miss. More will go. I shall lose my winter's profit, -- all of it, -- all; it will be said there is fever at the Del Mondo, -- no one will hereafter come to me. There are lodgings plenty, comfortable, -- oh, so comfortable! I will not have my season ruined by a sickness; no, I will not!"

Madame Frulini's voice was again rising to a scream.

"Be silent!" said Katy, sternly; "you will frighten the child. I am sorry that you should lose any customers, madame, but the fever is here and we are here, and here we must stay till it is safe to go. The child shall not be moved till the doctor gives permission. Money is not the only thing in the world! Mrs. Ashe will pay anything that is fair to make up your losses to you, but you must leave this room now, and not return till Dr. Hilary is here."

Where Katy found French for all these long coherent speeches, she could never afterward imagine. She tried to explain it by saying that excitement inspired her for the moment, but that as soon as the moment was over the inspiration died away and left her as speechless and confused as ever. Clover said it made her think of the miracle of Balaam; and Katy merrily rejoined that it might be so, and that no donkey in any age of the world could possibly have been more grateful than was she for the sudden gift of speech.

"But it is not the money, -- it is my prestige," declared the landlady.

"Thank Heaven! here is the doctor now," cried Mrs. Ashe.

The doctor had in fact been standing in the doorway for several moments before they noticed him, and had overheard part of the colloquy with Madame Frulini. With him was some one else, at the sight of whom Mrs. Ashe gave a great sob of relief. It was her brother, at last.

When Italian meets Italian, then comes the tug of expletive. It did not seem to take one second for Dr. Hilary to whirl the padrona out into the entry, where they could be heard going at each other like two furious cats. Hiss, roll, sputter, recrimination, objurgation! In five minutes Madame Frulini was, metaphorically speaking, on her knees, and the doctor standing over her with drawn sword, making her take back every word she had said and every threat she had uttered.

"Prestige of thy miserable hotel!" he thundered; "where will that be when I go and tell the English and Americans -- all of whom I know, every one! -- how thou hast served a countrywoman of theirs in thy house? Dost thou think thy prestige will help thee much when Dr. Hilary has fixed a black mark on thy door! I tell thee no; not a stranger shalt thou have next year to eat so much as a plate of macaroni under thy base roof! I will advertise thy behavior in all the foreign papers, -- in Figaro, in Galignani, in the Swiss Times, and the English one which is read by all the nobility, and the Heraldo of New York, which all Americans peruse -- "

"Oh, doctor -- pardon me -- I regret what I said -- I am afflicted -- "

"I will post thee in the railroad stations," continued the doctor, implacably; "I will bid my patients to write letters to all their friends, warning them against thy flea-ridden Del Mondo; I will apprise the steamboat companies at Genoa and Naples. Thou shalt see what comes of it, -- truly, thou shalt see."

Having thus reduced Madame Frulini to powder, the doctor now condescended to take breath and listen to her appeals for mercy; and presently he brought her in with her mouth full of protestations and apologies, and assurances that the ladies had mistaken her meaning, she had only spoken for the good of all; nothing was further from her intention than that they should be disturbed or offended in any way, and she and all her household were at the service of "the little sick angel of God." After which the doctor dismissed her with an air of contemptuous tolerance, and laid his hand on the door of Amy's room. Behold, it was locked!

"Oh, I forgot," cried Katy, laughing; and she pulled the key out of her pocket.

"You are a hee-roine, mademoiselle," said Dr. Hilary. "I watched you as you faced that tigress, and your eyes were like a swordsman's as he regards his enemy's rapier."

"Oh, she was so brave, and such a help!" said Mrs. Ashe, kissing her impulsively. "You can't think how she has stood by me all through, Ned, or what a comfort she has been."

"Yes, I can," said Ned Worthington, with a warm, grateful look at Katy. "I can believe anything good of Miss Carr."

"But where have you been all this time?" said Katy, who felt this flood of compliment to be embarrassing; "we have so wondered at not hearing from you."

"I have been off on a ten-days' leave to Corsica for moufflon-shooting," replied Mr. Worthington. "I only got Polly's telegrams and letters day before yesterday, and I came away as soon as I could get my leave extended. It was a most unlucky absence. I shall always regret it."

"Oh, it is all right now that you have come," his sister said, leaning her head on his arm with a look of relief and rest which was good to see. "Everything will go better now, I am sure."

"Katy Carr has behaved like a perfect angel," she told her brother when they were alone.

"She is a trump of a girl. I came in time for part of that scene with the landlady, and upon my word she was glorious! I didn't suppose she could look so handsome."

"Have the Pages left Nice yet?" asked his sister, rather irrelevantly.

"No, -- at least they were there on Thursday, but I think that they were to start to-day."

Mr. Worthington answered carelessly, but his face darkened as he spoke. There had been a little scene in Nice which he could not forget. He was sitting in the English garden with Lilly and her mother when his sister's telegrams were brought to him; and he had read them aloud, partly as an explanation for the immediate departure which they made necessary and which broke up an excursion just arranged with the ladies for the afternoon. It is not pleasant to have plans interfered with; and as neither Mrs. Page nor her daughter cared personally for little Amy, it is not strange that disappointment at the interruption of their pleasure should have been the first impulse with them. Still, this did not excuse Lilly's unstudied exclamation of "Oh, bother!" and though she speedily repented it as an indiscretion, and was properly sympathetic, and "hoped the poor little thing would soon be better," Amy's uncle could not forget the jarring impression. It completed a process of disenchantment which had long been going on; and as hearts are sometimes caught at the rebound, Mrs. Ashe was not so far astray when she built certain little dim sisterly hopes on his evident admiration for Katy's courage and this sudden awakening to a sense of her good looks.

But no space was left for sentiment or match-making while still Amy's fate hung in the balance, and all three of them found plenty to do during the next fortnight. The fever did not turn on the twenty-first day, and another weary week of suspense set in, each day bringing a decrease of the dangerous symptoms, but each day as well marking a lessening in the childish strength which had been so long and severely tested. Amy was quite conscious now, and lay quietly, sleeping a great deal and speaking seldom. There was not much to do but to wait and hope; but the flame of hope burned low at times, as the little life flickered in its socket, and seemed likely to go out like a wind-blown torch.

Now and then Lieutenant Worthington would persuade his sister to go with him for a few minutes' drive or walk in the fresh air, from which she had so long been debarred, and once or twice he prevailed on Katy to do the same; but neither of them could bear to be away long from Amy's bedside.

Intimacy grows fast when people are thus united by a common anxiety, sharing the same hopes and fears day after day, speaking and thinking of the same thing. The gay young officer at Nice, who had counted so little in Katy's world, seemed to have disappeared, and the gentle, considerate, tender-hearted fellow who now filled his place was quite a different person in her eyes. Katy began to count on Ned Worthington as a friend who could be trusted for help and sympathy and comprehension, and appealed to and relied upon in all emergencies. She was quite at ease with him now, and asked him to do this and that, to come and help her, or to absent himself, as freely as if he had been Dorry or Phil.

He, on his part, found this easy intimacy charming. In the reaction of his temporary glamour for the pretty Lilly, Katy's very difference from her was an added attraction. This difference consisted, as much as anything else, in the fact that she was so truly in earnest in what she said and did. Had Lilly been in Katy's place, she would probably have been helpful to Mrs. Ashe and kind to Amy so far as in her lay; but the thought of self would have tinctured all that she did and said, and the need of keeping to what was tasteful and becoming would have influenced her in every emergency, and never have been absent from her mind.

Katy, on the contrary, absorbed in the needs of the moment, gave little heed to how she looked or what any one was thinking about her. Her habit of neatness made her take time for the one thorough daily dressing, -- the brushing of hair and freshening of clothes, which were customary with her; but, this tax paid to personal comfort, she gave little further heed to appearances. She wore an old gray gown, day in and day out, which Lilly would not have put on for half an hour without a large bribe, so unbecoming was it; but somehow Lieutenant Worthington grew to like the gray gown as a part of Katy herself. And if by chance he brought a rose in to cheer the dim stillness of the sick-room, and she tucked it into her buttonhole, immediately it was as though she were decked for conquest. Pretty dresses are very pretty on pretty people, -- they certainly play an important part in this queer little world of ours; but depend upon it, dear girls, no woman ever has established so distinct and clear a claim on the regard of her lover as when he has ceased to notice or analyze what she wears, and just accepts it unquestioningly, whatever it is, as a bit of the dear human life which has grown or is growing to be the best and most delightful thing in the world to him.

The gray gown played its part during the long anxious night when they all sat watching breathlessly to see which way the tide would turn with dear little Amy. The doctor came at midnight, and went away to come again at dawn. Mrs. Swift sat grim and watchful beside the pillow of her charge, rising now and then to feel pulse and skin, or to put a spoonful of something between Amy's lips. The doors and windows stood open to admit the air. In the outer room all was hushed. A dim Roman lamp, fed with olive oil, burned in one corner behind a screen. Mrs. Ashe lay on the sofa with her eyes closed, bearing the strain of suspense in absolute silence. Her brother sat beside her, holding in his one of the hot hands whose nervous twitches alone told of the surgings of hope and fear within. Katy was resting in a big chair near by, her wistful eyes fixed on Amy's little figure seen in the dim distance, her ears alert for every sound from the sick-room.

So they watched and waited. Now and then Ned Worthington or Katy would rise softly, steal on tiptoe to the bedside, and come back to whisper to Mrs. Ashe that Amy had stirred or that she seemed to be asleep. It was one of the nights which do not come often in a lifetime, and which people never forget. The darkness seems full of meaning; the hush, of sound. God is beyond, holding the sunrise in his right hand, holding the sun of our earthly hopes as well, -- will it dawn in sorrow or in joy? We dare not ask, we can only wait.

A faint stir of wind and a little broadening of the light roused Katy from a trance of half-understood thoughts. She crept once more into Amy's room. Mrs. Swift laid a warning finger on her lips; Amy was sleeping, she said with a gesture. Katy whispered the news to the still figure on the sofa, then she went noiselessly out of the room. The great hotel was fast asleep; not a sound stirred the profound silence of the dark halls. A longing for fresh air led her to the roof.

There was the dawn just tingeing the east. The sky, even thus early, wore the deep mysterious blue of Italy. A fresh tramontana was blowing, and made Katy glad to draw her shawl about her.

Far away in the distance rose the Alban Hills above the dim Campagna, with the more lofty Sabines beyond, and Soracte, clear cut against the sky like a wave frozen in the moment of breaking. Below lay the ancient city, with its strange mingling of the old and the new, of past things embedded in the present; or is it the present thinly veiling the rich and mighty past, -- who shall say?

Faint rumblings of wheels and here and there a curl of smoke showed that Rome was waking up. The light insensibly grew upon the darkness. A pink flush lit up the horizon. Florio stirred in his lair, stretched his dappled limbs, and as the first sun-ray glinted on the roof, raised himself, crossed the gravelled tiles with soundless feet, and ran his soft nose into Katy's hand. She fondled him for Amy's sake as she stood bent over the flower-boxes, inhaling the scent of the mignonette and gilly-flowers, with her eyes fixed on the distance; but her heart was at home with the sleepers there, and a rush of strong desire stirred her. Would this dreary time come to an end presently, and should they be set at liberty to go their ways with no heavy sorrow to press them down, to be care-free and happy again in their own land?

A footstep startled her. Ned Worthington was coming over the roof on tiptoe as if fearful of disturbing somebody. His face looked resolute and excited.

"I wanted to tell you," he said in a hushed voice, "that the doctor is here, and he says Amy has no fever, and with care may be considered out of danger."

"Thank God!" cried Katy, bursting into tears. The long fatigue, the fears kept in check so resolutely, the sleepless night just passed, had their revenge now, and she cried and cried as if she could never stop, but with all the time such joy and gratitude in her heart! She was conscious that Ned had his arm round her and was holding both her hands tight; but they were so one in the emotion of the moment that it did not seem strange.

"How sweet the sun looks!" she said presently, releasing herself, with a happy smile flashing through her tears; "it hasn't seemed really bright for ever so long. How silly I was to cry! Where is dear Polly? I must go down to her at once. Oh, what does she say?"



Chapter XI.

Next.


Lieut. Worthington's leave had nearly expired. He must rejoin his ship; but he waited till the last possible moment in order to help his sister through the move to Albano, where it had been decided that Amy should go for a few days of hill air before undertaking the longer journey to Florence.

It was a perfect morning in late March when the pale little invalid was carried in her uncle's strong arms, and placed in the carriage which was to take them to the old town on the mountain slopes which they had seen shining from far away for so many weeks past. Spring had come in her fairest shape to Italy. The Campagna had lost its brown and tawny hues and taken on a tinge of fresher color. The olive orchards were budding thickly. Almond boughs extended their dazzling shapes across the blue sky. Arums and acanthus and ivy filled every hollow, roses nodded from over every gate, while a carpet of violets and cyclamen and primroses stretched over the fields and freighted every wandering wind with fragrance.

When once the Campagna with its long line of aqueducts, arches, and hoary tombs was left behind, and the carriage slowly began to mount the gradual rises of the hill, Amy revived. With every breath of the fresher air her eyes seemed to brighten and her voice to grow stronger. She held Mabel up to look at the view; and the sound of her laugh, faint and feeble as it was, was like music to her mother's ears.

Amy wore a droll little silk-lined cap on her head, over which a downy growth of pale-brown fuzz was gradually thickening. Already it showed a tendency to form into tiny rings, which to Amy, who had always hankered for curls, was an extreme satisfaction. Strange to say, the same thing exactly had happened to Mabel; her hair had grown out into soft little round curls also! Uncle Ned and Katy had ransacked Rome for this baby-wig, which filled and realized all Amy's hopes for her child. On the same excursion they had bought the materials for the pretty spring suit which Mabel wore, for it had been deemed necessary to sacrifice most of her wardrobe as a concession to possible fever-germs. Amy admired the pearl-colored dress and hat, the fringed jacket and little lace-trimmed parasol so much, that she was quite consoled for the loss of the blue velvet costume and ermine muff which had been the pride of her heart ever since they left Paris, and whose destruction they had scarcely dared to confess to her.

So up, up, up, they climbed till the gateway of the old town was passed, and the carriage stopped before a quaint building once the residence of the Bishop of Albano, but now known as the Hôtel de la Poste. Here they alighted, and were shown up a wide and lofty staircase to their rooms, which were on the sunny side of the house, and looked across a walled garden, where roses and lemon trees grew beside old fountains guarded by sculptured lions and heathen divinities with broken noses and a scant supply of fingers and toes, to the Campagna, purple with distance and stretching miles and miles away to where Rome sat on her seven hills, lifting high the Dome of St. Peter's into the illumined air.

Nurse Swift said that Amy must go to bed at once, and have a long rest. But Amy nearly wept at the proposal, and declared that she was not a bit tired and couldn't sleep if she went to bed ever so much. The change of air had done her good already, and she looked more like herself than for many weeks past. They compromised their dispute on a sofa, where Amy, well wrapped up, was laid, and where, in spite of her protestations, she presently fell asleep, leaving the others free to examine and arrange their new quarters.

Such enormous rooms as they were! It was quite a journey to go from one side of them to another. The floors were of stone, with squares of carpet laid down over them, which looked absurdly small for the great spaces they were supposed to cover. The beds and tables were of the usual size, but they seemed almost like doll furniture because the chambers were so big. A quaint old paper, with an enormous pattern of banyan trees and pagodas, covered the walls, and every now and then betrayed by an oblong of regular cracks the existence of a hidden door, papered to look exactly like the rest of the wall.

These mysterious doors made Katy nervous, and she never rested till she had opened every one of them and explored the places they led to. One gave access to a queer little bathroom. Another led, through a narrow dark passage, to a sort of balcony or loggia overhanging the garden. A third ended in a dusty closet with an artful chink in it from which you could peep into what had been the Bishop's drawing-room but which was now turned into the dining-room of the hotel. It seemed made for purposes of espial; and Katy had visions of a long line of reverend prelates with their ears glued to the chink, overhearing what was being said about them in the apartment beyond.

The most surprising of all she did not discover till she was going to bed on the second night after their arrival, when she thought she knew all about the mysterious doors and what they led to. A little unexplained draught of wind made her candle flicker, and betrayed the existence of still another door so cunningly hid in the wall pattern that she had failed to notice it. She had quite a creepy feeling as she drew her dressing-gown about her, took a light, and entered the narrow passage into which it opened. It was not a long passage, and ended presently in a tiny oratory. There was a little marble altar, with a kneeling-step and candlesticks and a great crucifix above. Ends of wax candles still remained in the candlesticks, and bunches of dusty paper flowers filled the vases which stood on either side of them. A faded silk cushion lay on the step. Doubtless the Bishop had often knelt there. Katy felt as if she were the first person to enter the place since he went away. Her common-sense told her that in a hotel bedroom constantly occupied by strangers for years past, some one must have discovered the door and found the little oratory before her; but common-sense is sometimes less satisfactory than romance. Katy liked to think that she was the first, and to "make believe" that no one else knew about it; so she did so, and invented legends about the place which Amy considered better than any fairy story.

Before he left them Lieutenant Worthington had a talk with his sister in the garden. She rather forced this talk upon him, for various things were lying at her heart about which she longed for explanation; but he yielded so easily to her wiles that it was evident he was not averse to the idea.

"Come, Polly, don't beat about the bush any longer," he said at last, amused and a little irritated at her half-hints and little feminine finesses. "I know what you want to ask; and as there's no use making a secret of it, I will take my turn in asking. Have I any chance, do you think?"

"Any chance? -- about Katy, do you mean? Oh, Ned, you make me so happy."

"Yes; about her, of course."

"I don't see why you should say 'of course,'" remarked his sister, with the perversity of her sex, "when it's only five or six weeks ago that I was lying awake at night for fear you were being gobbled up by that Lilly Page."

"There was a little risk of it," replied her brother, seriously. "She's awfully pretty and she dances beautifully, and the other fellows were all wild about her, and -- well, you know yourself how such things go. I can't see now what it was that I fancied so much about her, I don't suppose I could have told exactly at the time; but I can tell without the smallest trouble what it is in -- the other."

"In Katy? I should think so," cried Mrs. Ashe, emphatically; "the two are no more to be compared than -- than -- well, bread and syllabub! You can live on one, and you can't live on the other."

"Come, now, Miss Page isn't so bad as that. She is a nice girl enough, and a pretty girl too, -- prettier than Katy; I'm not so far gone that I can't see that. But we won't talk about her, she's not in the present question at all; very likely she'd have had nothing to say to me in any case. I was only one out of a dozen, and she never gave me reason to suppose that she cared more for me than the rest. Let us talk about this friend of yours; have I any chance at all, do you think, Polly?"

"Ned, you are the dearest boy! I would rather have Katy for a sister than any one else I know. She's so nice all through, -- so true and sweet and satisfactory."

"She is all that and more; she's a woman to tie to for life, to be perfectly sure of always. She would make a splendid wife for any man. I'm not half good enough for her; but the question is, -- and you haven't answered it yet, Polly, -- what's my chance?"

"I don't know," said his sister, slowly.

"Then I must ask herself, and I shall do so to-day."

"I don't know," repeated Mrs. Ashe. "'She is a woman, therefore to be won:' and I don't think there is any one ahead of you; that is the best hope I have to offer, Ned. Katy never talks of such things; and though she's so frank, I can't guess whether or not she ever thinks about them. She likes you, however, I am sure of that. But, Ned, it will not be wise to say anything to her yet."

"Not say anything? Why not?"

"No. Recollect that it is only a little while since she looked upon you as the admirer of another girl, and a girl she doesn't like very much, though they are cousins. You must give her time to get over that impression. Wait awhile; that's my advice, Ned."

"I'll wait any time if only she will say yes in the end. But it's hard to go away without a word of hope, and it's more like a man to speak out, it seems to me."

"It's too soon," persisted his sister. "You don't want her to think you a fickle fellow, falling in love with a fresh girl every time you go into port, and falling out again when the ship sails. Sailors have a bad reputation for that sort of thing. No woman cares to win a man like that."

"Great Scott! I should think not! Do you mean to say that is the way my conduct appears to her, Polly?"

"No, I don't mean just that; but wait, dear Ned, I am sure it is better."

Fortified by this sage counsel, Lieutenant Worthington went away next morning, without saying anything to Katy in words, though perhaps eyes and tones may have been less discreet. He made them promise that some one should send a letter every day about Amy; and as Mrs. Ashe frequently devolved the writing of these bulletins upon Katy, and the replies came in the shape of long letters, she found herself conducting a pretty regular correspondence without quite intending it. Ned Worthington wrote particularly nice letters. He had the knack, more often found in women than men, of giving a picture with a few graphic touches, and indicating what was droll or what was characteristic with a single happy phrase. His letters grew to be one of Katy's pleasures; and sometimes, as Mrs. Ashe watched the color deepen in her cheeks while she read, her heart would bound hopefully within her. But she was a wise woman in her way, and she wanted Katy for a sister very much; so she never said a word or looked a look to startle or surprise her, but left the thing to work itself out, which is the best course always in love affairs.

Little Amy's improvement at Albano was something remarkable. Mrs. Swift watched over her like a lynx. Her vigilance never relaxed. Amy was made to eat and sleep and walk and rest with the regularity of a machine; and this exact system, combined with the good air, worked like a charm. The little one gained hour by hour. They could absolutely see her growing fat, her mother declared. Fevers, when they do not kill, operate sometimes as spring bonfires do in gardens, burning up all the refuse and leaving the soil free for the growth of fairer things; and Amy promised in time to be only the better and stronger for her hard experience.

She had gained so much before the time came to start for Florence, that they scarcely dreaded the journey; but it proved worse than their expectations. They had not been able to secure a carriage to themselves, and were obliged to share their compartment with two English ladies, and three Roman Catholic priests, one old, the others young. The older priest seemed to be a person of some consequence; for quite a number of people came to see him off, and knelt for his blessing devoutly as the train moved away. The younger ones Katy guessed to be seminary students under his charge. Her chief amusement through the long dusty journey was in watching the terrible time that one of these young men was having with his own hat. It was a large three-cornered black affair, with sharp angles and excessively stiff; and a perpetual struggle seemed to be going on between it and its owner, who was evidently unhappy when it was on his head and still more unhappy when it was anywhere else. If he perched it on his knees it was sure to slide away from him and fall with a thump on the floor, whereupon he would pick it up, blushing furiously as he did so. Then he would lay it on the seat when the train stopped at a station, and jump out with an air of relief; but he invariably forgot, and sat down upon it when he returned, and sprang up with a look of horror at the loud crackle it made; after which he would tuck it into the baggage-rack overhead, from which it would presently descend, generally into the lap of one of the staid English ladies, who would hand it back to him with an air of deep offence, remarking to her companion, -- 

"I never knew anything like it. Fancy! that makes four times that hat has fallen on me. The young man is a feedgit! He's the most feegitty creature I ever saw in my life."

The young seminariat did not understand a word she said; but the tone needed no interpreter, and set him to blushing more painfully than ever. Altogether, the hat was never off his mind for a moment. Katy could see that he was thinking about it, even when he was thumbing his Breviary and making believe to read.

At last the train, steaming down the valley of the Arno, revealed fair Florence sitting among olive-clad hills, with Giotto's beautiful Bell-tower, and the great, many-colored, soft-hued Cathedral, and the square tower of the old Palace, and the quaint bridges over the river, looking exactly as they do in the photographs; and Katy would have felt delighted, in spite of dust and fatigue, had not Amy looked so worn out and exhausted. They were seriously troubled about her, and for the moment could think of nothing else. Happily the fatigue did no permanent harm, and a day or two of rest made her all right again. By good fortune, a nice little apartment in the modern quarter of the city had been vacated by its winter occupants the very day of their arrival, and Mrs. Ashe secured it for a month, with all its conveniences and advantages, including a maid named Maria, who had been servant to the just departed tenants.

Maria was a very tall woman, at least six feet two, and had a splendid contralto voice, which she occasionally exercised while busy over her pots and pans. It was so remarkable to hear these grand arias and recitatives proceeding from a kitchen some eight feet square, that Katy was at great pains to satisfy her curiosity about it. By aid of the dictionary and much persistent questioning, she made out that Maria in her youth had received a partial training for the opera; but in the end it was decided that she was too big and heavy for the stage, and the poor "giantess," as Amy named her, had been forced to abandon her career, and gradually had sunk to the position of a maid-of-all-work. Katy suspected that heaviness of mind as well as of body must have stood in her way; for Maria, though a good-natured giantess, was by no means quick of intelligence.

"I do think that the manner in which people over here can make homes for themselves at five minutes' notice is perfectly delightful," cried Katy, at the end of their first day's housekeeping. "I wish we could do the same in America. How cosy it looks here already!"

It was indeed cosy. Their new domain consisted of a parlor in a corner, furnished in bright yellow brocade, with windows to south and west; a nice little dining-room; three bedrooms, with dimity-curtained beds; a square entrance hall, lighted at night by a tall slender brass lamp whose double wicks were fed with olive oil; and the aforesaid tiny kitchen, behind which was a sleeping cubby, quite too small to be a good fit for the giantess. The rooms were full of conveniences, -- easy-chairs, sofas, plenty of bureaus and dressing-tables, and corner fireplaces like Franklin stoves, in which odd little fires burned on cool days, made of pine cones, cakes of pressed sawdust exactly like Boston brown bread cut into slices, and a few sticks of wood thriftily adjusted, for fuel is worth its weight in gold in Florence. Katy's was the smallest of the bedrooms, but she liked it best of all for the reason that its one big window opened on an iron balcony over which grew a Banksia rose-vine with a stem as thick as her wrist. It was covered just now with masses of tiny white blossoms, whose fragrance was inexpressibly delicious and made every breath drawn in their neighborhood a delight. The sun streamed in on all sides of the little apartment, which filled a narrowing angle at the union of three streets; and from one window and another, glimpses could be caught of the distant heights about the city, -- San Miniato in one direction, Bellosguardo in another, and for the third the long olive-hung ascent of Fiesole, crowned by its gray cathedral towers.

It was astonishing how easily everything fell into train about the little establishment. Every morning at six the English baker left two small sweet brown loaves and a dozen rolls at the door. Then followed the dairyman with a supply of tiny leaf-shaped pats of freshly churned butter, a big flask of milk, and two small bottles of thick cream, with a twist of vine leaf in each by way of a cork. Next came a contadino with a flask of red Chianti wine, a film of oil floating on top to keep it sweet. People in Florence must drink wine, whether they like it or not, because the lime-impregnated water is unsafe for use without some admixture.

Dinner came from a trattoria, in a tin box, with a pan of coals inside to keep it warm, which box was carried on a man's head. It was furnished at a fixed price per day, -- a soup, two dishes of meat, two vegetables, and a sweet dish; and the supply was so generous as always to leave something toward next day's luncheon. Salad, fruit, and fresh eggs Maria bought for them in the old market. From the confectioners came loaves of pane santo, a sort of light cake made with arrowroot instead of flour; and sometimes, by way of treat, a square of pan forte da Siena, compounded of honey, almonds, and chocolate, -- a mixture as pernicious as it is delicious, and which might take a medal anywhere for the sure production of nightmares.

Amy soon learned to know the shops from which these delicacies came. She had her favorites, too, among the strolling merchants who sold oranges and those little sweet native figs, dried in the sun without sugar, which are among the specialties of Florence. They, in their turn, learned to know her and to watch for the appearance of her little capped head and Mabel's blond wig at the window, lingering about till she came, and advertising their wares with musical modulations, so appealing that Amy was always running to Katy, who acted as housekeeper, to beg her to please buy this or that, "because it is my old man, and he wants me to so much."

"But, chicken, we have plenty of figs for to-day."

"No matter; get some more, please do. I'll eat them all; really, I will."

And Amy was as good as her word. Her convalescent appetite was something prodigious.

There was another branch of shopping in which they all took equal delight. The beauty and the cheapness of the Florence flowers are a continual surprise to a stranger. Every morning after breakfast an old man came creaking up the two long flights of stairs which led to Mrs. Ashe's apartment, tapped at the door, and as soon as it opened, inserted a shabby elbow and a large flat basket full of flowers. Such flowers! Great masses of scarlet and cream-colored tulips, and white and gold narcissus, knots of roses of all shades, carnations, heavy-headed trails of wistaria, wild hyacinths, violets, deep crimson and orange ranunculus, giglios, or wild irises, -- the Florence emblem, so deeply purple as to be almost black, -- anemones, spring-beauties, faintly tinted wood-blooms tied in large loose nosegays, ivy, fruit blossoms, -- everything that can be thought of that is fair and sweet. These enticing wares the old man would tip out on the table. Mrs. Ashe and Katy would select what they wanted, and then the process of bargaining would begin, without which no sale is complete in Italy. The old man would name an enormous price, five times as much as he hoped to get. Katy would offer a very small one, considerably less than she expected to give. The old man would dance with dismay, wring his hands, assure them that he should die of hunger and all his family with him if he took less than the price named; he would then come down half a franc in his demand. So it would go on for five minutes, ten, sometimes for a quarter of an hour, the old man's price gradually descending, and Katy's terms very slowly going up, a cent or two at a time. Next the giantess would mingle with the fray. She would bounce out of her kitchen, berate the flower-vender, snatch up his flowers, declare that they smelt badly, fling them down again, pouring out all the while a voluble tirade of reproaches and revilings, and looking so enormous in her excitement that Katy wondered that the old man dared to answer her at all. Finally, there would be a sudden lull. The old man would shrug his shoulders, and remarking that he and his wife and his aged grandmother must go without bread that day since it was the Signora's will, take the money offered and depart, leaving such a mass of flowers behind him that Katy would begin to think that they had paid an unfair price for them and to feel a little rueful, till she observed that the old man was absolutely dancing downstairs with rapture over the good bargain he had made, and that Maria was black with indignation over the extravagance of her ladies!

"The Americani are a nation of spend-thrifts," she would mutter to herself, as she quickened the charcoal in her droll little range by fanning it with a palm-leaf fan; "they squander money like water. Well, all the better for us Italians!" with a shrug of her shoulders.

"But, Maria, it was only sixteen cents that we paid, and look at those flowers! There are at least half a bushel of them."

"Sixteen cents for garbage like that! The Signorina would better let me make her bargains for her. Già! Già! No Italian lady would have paid more than eleven sous for such useless roba. It is evident that the Signorina's countrymen eat gold when at home, they think so little of casting it away!"

Altogether, what with the comfort and quiet of this little home, the numberless delightful things that there were to do and to see, and Viessieux's great library, from which they could draw books at will to make the doing and seeing more intelligible, the month at Florence passed only too quickly, and was one of the times to which they afterward looked back with most pleasure. Amy grew steadily stronger, and the freedom from anxiety about her after their long strain of apprehension was restful and healing beyond expression to both mind and body.

Their very last excursion of all, and one of the pleasantest, was to the old amphitheatre at Fiesole; and it was while they sat there in the soft glow of the late afternoon, tying into bunches the violets which they had gathered from under walls whose foundations antedate Rome itself, that a cheery call sounded from above, and an unexpected surprise descended upon them in the shape of Lieutenant Worthington, who having secured another fifteen days' furlough, had come to take his sister on to Venice.

"I didn't write you that I had applied for leave," he explained, "because there seemed so little chance of my getting off again so soon; but as luck had it, Carruthers, whose turn it was, sprained his ankle and was laid up, and the Commodore let us exchange. I made all the capital I could out of Amy's fever; but upon my word, I felt like a humbug when I came upon her and Mrs. Swift in the Cascine just now, as I was hunting for you. How she has picked up! I should never have known her for the same child."

"Yes, she seems perfectly well again, and as strong as before she had the fever, though that dear old Goody Swift is just as careful of her as ever. She would not let us bring her here this afternoon, for fear we should stay out till the dew fell. Ned, it is perfectly delightful that you were able to come. It makes going to Venice seem quite a different thing, doesn't it, Katy?"

"I don't want it to seem quite different, because going to Venice was always one of my dreams," replied Katy, with a little laugh.

"I hope at least it doesn't make it seem less pleasant," said Mr. Worthington, as his sister stopped to pick a violet.

"No, indeed, I am glad," said Katy; "we shall all be seeing it for the first time, too, shall we not? I think you said you had never been there." She spoke simply and frankly, but she was conscious of an odd shyness.

"I simply couldn't stand it any longer," Ned Worthington confided to his sister when they were alone. "My head is so full of her that I can't attend to my work, and it came to me all of a sudden that this might be my last chance. You'll be getting north before long, you know, to Switzerland and so on, where I cannot follow you. So I made a clean breast of it to the Commodore; and the good old fellow, who has a soft spot in his heart for a love-story, behaved like a brick, and made it all straight for me to come away."

Mrs. Ashe did not join in these commendations of the Commodore; her attention was fixed on another part of her brother's discourse.

"Then you won't be able to come to me again? I sha'n't see you again after this!" she exclaimed. "Dear me! I never realized that before. What shall I do without you?"

"You will have Miss Carr. She is a host in herself," suggested Ned Worthington. His sister shook her head.

"Katy is a jewel," she remarked presently; "but somehow one wants a man to call upon. I shall feel lost without you, Ned."

The month's housekeeping wound up that night with a "thick tea" in honor of Lieutenant Worthington's arrival, which taxed all the resources of the little establishment. Maria was sent out hastily to buy pan forte da Siena and vino d'Asti, and fresh eggs for an omelette, and chickens' breasts smothered in cream from the restaurant, and artichokes for a salad, and flowers to garnish all; and the guest ate and praised and admired; and Amy and Mabel sat on his knee and explained everything to him, and they were all very happy together. Their merriment was so infectious that it extended to the poor giantess, who had been very pensive all day at the prospect of losing her good place, and who now raised her voice in the grand aria from "Orfeo," and made the kitchen ring with the passionate demand "Che farò senza Eurydice?" The splendid notes, full of fire and lamentation, rang out across the saucepans as effectively as if they had been footlights; and Katy, rising softly, opened the kitchen door a little way that they might not lose a sound.

The next day brought them to Venice. It was a "moment," indeed, as Katy seated herself for the first time in a gondola, and looked from beneath its black hood at the palace walls on the Grand Canal, past which they were gliding. Some were creamy white and black, some orange-tawny, others of a dull delicious ruddy color, half pink, half red; but all, in build and ornament, were unlike palaces elsewhere. High on the prow before her stood the gondolier, his form defined in dark outline against the sky, as he swayed and bent to his long oar, raising his head now and again to give a wild musical cry, as warning to other approaching gondolas. It was all like a dream. Ned Worthington sat beside her, looking more at the changes in her expressive face than at the palaces. Venice was as new to him as to Katy; but she was a new feature in his life also, and even more interesting than Venice. They seemed to float on pleasures for the next ten days. Their arrival had been happily timed to coincide with a great popular festival which for nearly a week kept Venice in a state of continual brilliant gala. All the days were spent on the water, only landing now and then to look at some famous building or picture, or to eat ices in the Piazza with the lovely façade of St. Mark's before them. Dining or sleeping seemed a sheer waste of time! The evenings were spent on the water too; for every night, immediately after sunset, a beautiful drifting pageant started from the front of the Doge's Palace to make the tour of the Grand Canal, and our friends always took a part in it. In its centre went a barge hung with embroideries and filled with orange trees and musicians. This was surrounded by a great convoy of skiffs and gondolas bearing colored lanterns and pennons and gay awnings, and managed by gondoliers in picturesque uniforms. All these floated and shifted and swept on together with a sort of rhythmic undulation as if keeping time to the music, while across their path dazzling showers and arches of colored fire poured from the palace fronts and the hotels. Every movement of the fairy flotilla was repeated in the illuminated water, every torch-tip and scarlet lantern and flake of green or rosy fire; above all the bright full moon looked down as if surprised. It was magically beautiful in effect. Katy felt as if her previous sober ideas about life and things had melted away. For the moment the world was turned topsy-turvy. There was nothing hard or real or sordid left in it; it was just a fairy tale, and she was in the middle of it as she had longed to be in her childhood. She was the Princess, encircled by delights, as when she and Clover and Elsie played in "Paradise," -- only, this was better; and, dear me! who was this Prince who seemed to belong to the story and to grow more important to it every day?

Fairy tales must come to ending. Katy's last chapter closed with a sudden turn-over of the leaf when, toward the end of this happy fortnight, Mrs. Ashe came into her room with the face of one who has unpleasant news to communicate.

"Katy," she began, "should you be awfully disappointed, should you consider me a perfect wretch, if I went home now instead of in the autumn?"

Katy was too much astonished to reply.

"I am grown such a coward, I am so knocked up and weakened by what I suffered in Rome, that I find I cannot face the idea of going on to Germany and Switzerland alone, without Ned to take care of me. You are a perfect angel, dear, and I know that you would do all you could to make it easy for me, but I am such a fool that I do not dare. I think my nerves must have given way," she continued half tearfully; "but the very idea of shifting for myself for five months longer makes me so miserably homesick that I cannot endure it. I dare say I shall repent afterward, and I tell myself now how silly it is; but it's no use, -- I shall never know another easy moment till I have Amy safe again in America and under your father's care."

"I find," she continued after another little pause, "that we can go down with Ned to Genoa and take a steamer there which will carry us straight to New York without any stops. I hate to disappoint you dreadfully, Katy, but I have almost decided to do it. Shall you mind very much? Can you ever forgive me?" She was fairly crying now.

Katy had to swallow hard before she could answer, the sense of disappointment was so sharp; and with all her efforts there was almost a sob in her voice as she said, -- 

"Why yes, indeed, dear Polly, there is nothing to forgive. You are perfectly right to go home if you feel so." Then with another swallow she added: "You have given me the loveliest six months' treat that ever was, and I should be a greedy girl indeed if I found fault because it is cut off a little sooner than we expected."

"You are so dear and good not to be vexed," said her friend, embracing her. "It makes me feel doubly sorry about disappointing you. Indeed I wouldn't if I could help it, but I simply can't. I must go home. Perhaps we'll come back some day when Amy is grown up, or safely married to somebody who will take good care of her!"

This distant prospect was but a poor consolation for the immediate disappointment. The more Katy thought about it the sorrier did she feel. It was not only losing the chance -- very likely the only one she would ever have -- of seeing Switzerland and Germany; it was all sorts of other little things besides. They must go home in a strange ship with a captain they did not know, instead of in the "Spartacus," as they had planned; and they should land in New York, where no one would be waiting for them, and not have the fun of sailing into Boston Bay and seeing Rose on the wharf, where she had promised to be. Furthermore, they must pass the hot summer in Burnet instead of in the cool Alpine valleys; and Polly's house was let till October. She and Amy would have to shift for themselves elsewhere. Perhaps they would not be in Burnet at all. Oh dear, what a pity it was! what a dreadful pity!

Then, the first shock of surprise and discomfiture over, other ideas asserted themselves; and as she realized that in three weeks more, or four at the longest, she was to see papa and Clover and all her dear people at home, she began to feel so very glad that she could hardly wait for the time to come. After all, there was nothing in Europe quite so good as that.

"No, I'm not sorry," she told herself; "I am glad. Poor Polly! it's no wonder she feels nervous after all she has gone through. I hope I wasn't cross to her! And it will be very nice to have Lieutenant Worthington to take care of us as far as Genoa."

The next three days were full of work. There was no more floating in gondolas, except in the way of business. All the shopping which they had put off must be done, and the trunks packed for the voyage. Every one recollected last errands and commissions; there was continual coming and going and confusion, and Amy, wild with excitement, popping up every other moment in the midst of it all, to demand of everybody if they were not glad that they were going back to America.

Katy had never yet bought her gift from old Mrs. Redding. She had waited, thinking continually that she should see something more tempting still in the next place they went to; but now, with the sense that there were to be no more "next places," she resolved to wait no longer, and with a hundred francs in her pocket, set forth to choose something from among the many tempting things for sale in the Piazza. A bracelet of old Roman coins had caught her fancy one day in a bric-à-brac shop, and she walked straight toward it, only pausing by the way to buy a pale blue iridescent pitcher at Salviate's for Cecy Slack, and see it carefully rolled in seaweed and soft paper.

The price of the bracelet was a little more than she expected, and quite a long process of bargaining was necessary to reduce it to the sum she had to spend. She had just succeeded and was counting out the money when Mrs. Ashe and her brother appeared, having spied her from the opposite side of the Piazza, where they were choosing last photographs at Naga's. Katy showed her purchase and explained that it was a present; "for of course I should never walk out in cold blood and buy a bracelet for myself," she said with a laugh.

"This is a fascinating little shop," said Mrs. Ashe. "I wonder what is the price of that queer old chatelaine with the bottles hanging from it."

The price was high; but Mrs. Ashe was now tolerably conversant with shopping Italian, which consists chiefly of a few words repeated many times over, and it lowered rapidly under the influence of her troppo's and è molto caro's, accompanied with telling little shrugs and looks of surprise. In the end she bought it for less than two thirds of what had been originally asked for it. As she put the parcel in her pocket, her brother said, -- 

"If you have done your shopping now, Polly, can't you come out for a last row?"

"Katy may, but I can't," replied Mrs. Ashe. "The man promised to bring me gloves at six o'clock, and I must be there to pay for them. Take her down to the Lido, Ned. It's an exquisite evening for the water, and the sunset promises to be delicious. You can take the time, can't you, Katy?"

Katy could.

Mrs. Ashe turned to leave them, but suddenly stopped short.

"Katy, look! Isn't that a picture!"

The "picture" was Amy, who had come to the Piazza with Mrs. Swift, to feed the doves of St. Mark's, which was one of her favorite amusements. These pretty birds are the pets of all Venice, and so accustomed to being fondled and made much of by strangers, that they are perfectly tame. Amy, when her mother caught sight of her, was sitting on the marble pavement, with one on her shoulder, two perched on the edge of her lap, which was full of crumbs, and a flight of others circling round her head. She was looking up and calling them in soft tones. The sunlight caught the little downy curls on her head and made them glitter. The flying doves lit on the pavement, and crowded round her, their pearl and gray and rose-tinted and white feathers, their scarlet feet and gold-ringed eyes, making a shifting confusion of colors, as they hopped and fluttered and cooed about the little maid, unstartled even by her clear laughter. Close by stood Nurse Swift, observant and grimly pleased.

The mother looked on with happy tears in her eyes. "Oh, Katy, think what she was a few weeks ago and look at her now! Can I ever be thankful enough?"

She squeezed Katy's hand convulsively and walked away, turning her head now and then for another glance at Amy and the doves; while Ned and Katy silently crossed to the landing and got into a gondola. It was the perfection of a Venice evening, with silver waves lapsing and lulling under a rose and opal sky; and the sense that it was their last row on those enchanted waters made every moment seem doubly precious.

I cannot tell you exactly what it was that Ned Worthington said to Katy during that row, or why it took so long to say it that they did not get in till after the sun was set, and the stars had come out to peep at their bright, glinting faces, reflected in the Grand Canal. In fact, no one can tell; for no one overheard, except Giacomo, the brown yellow-jacketed gondolier, and as he did not understand a word of English he could not repeat the conversation. Venetian boatmen, however, know pretty well what it means when a gentleman and lady, both young, find so much to say in low tones to each other under the gondola hood, and are so long about giving the order to return; and Giacomo, deeply sympathetic, rowed as softly and made himself as imperceptible as he could, -- a display of tact which merited the big silver piece with which Lieutenant Worthington "crossed his palm" on landing.

Mrs. Ashe had begun to look for them long before they appeared, but I think she was neither surprised nor sorry that they were so late. Katy kissed her hastily and went away at once, -- "to pack," she said, -- and Ned was equally undemonstrative; but they looked so happy, both of them, that "Polly dear" was quite satisfied and asked no questions.

Five days later the parting came, when the "Florio" steamer put into the port of Genoa for passengers. It was not an easy good-by to say. Mrs. Ashe and Amy both cried, and Mabel was said to be in deep affliction also. But there were alleviations. The squadron was coming home in the autumn, and the officers would have leave to see their friends, and of course Lieutenant Worthington must come to Burnet -- to visit his sister. Five months would soon go, he declared; but for all the cheerful assurance, his face was rueful enough as he held Katy's hand in a long tight clasp while the little boat waited to take him ashore.

After that it was just a waiting to be got through with till they sighted Sandy Hook and the Neversinks, -- a waiting varied with peeps at Marseilles and Gibraltar and the sight of a whale or two and one distant iceberg. The weather was fair all the way, and the ocean smooth. Amy was never weary of lamenting her own stupidity in not having taken Maria Matilda out of confinement before they left Venice.

"That child has hardly been out of the trunk since we started," she said. "She hasn't seen anything except a little bit of Nice. I shall really be ashamed when the other children ask her about it. I think I shall play that she was left at boarding-school and didn't come to Europe at all! Don't you think that would be the best way, mamma?"

"You might play that she was left in the States-prison for having done something naughty," suggested Katy; but Amy scouted this idea.

"She never does naughty things," she said, "because she never does anything at all. She's just stupid, poor child! It's not her fault."

The thirty-six hours between New York and Burnet seemed longer than all the rest of the journey put together, Katy thought. But they ended at last, as the "Lake Queen" swung to her moorings at the familiar wharf, where Dr. Carr stood surrounded with all his boys and girls just as they had stood the previous October, only that now there were no clouds on anybody's face, and Johnnie was skipping up and down for joy instead of grief. It was a long moment while the plank was being lowered from the gangway; but the moment it was in place, Katy darted across, first ashore of all the passengers, and was in her father's arms.

Mrs. Ashe and Amy spent two or three days with them, while looking up temporary quarters elsewhere; and so long as they stayed all seemed a happy confusion of talking and embracing and exclaiming, and distributing of gifts. After they went away things fell into their customary train, and a certain flatness became apparent. Everything had happened that could happen. The long-talked-of European journey was over. Here was Katy at home again, months sooner than they expected; yet she looked remarkably cheerful and content! Clover could not understand it; she was likewise puzzled to account for one or two private conversations between Katy and papa in which she had not been invited to take part, and the occasional arrival of a letter from "foreign parts" about whose contents nothing was said.

"It seems a dreadful pity that you had to come so soon," she said one day when they were alone in their bedroom. "It's delightful to have you, of course; but we had braced ourselves to do without you till October, and there are such lots of delightful things that you could have been doing and seeing at this moment."

"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Katy, but not at all as if she were particularly disappointed.

"Katy Carr, I don't understand you," persisted Clover. "Why don't you feel worse about it? Here you have lost five months of the most splendid time you ever had, and you don't seem to mind it a bit! Why, if I were in your place my heart would be perfectly broken. And you needn't have come, either; that's the worst of it. It was just a whim of Polly's. Papa says Amy might have stayed as well as not. Why aren't you sorrier, Katy?"

"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps because I had so much as it was, -- enough to last all my life, I think, though I should like to go again. You can't imagine what beautiful pictures are put away in my memory."

"I don't see that you had so awfully much," said the aggravated Clover; "you were there only a little more than six months, -- for I don't count the sea, -- and ever so much of that time was taken up with nursing Amy. You can't have any pleasant pictures of that part of it."

"Yes, I have, some."

"Well, I should really like to know what. There you were in a dark room, frightened to death and tired to death, with only Mrs. Ashe and the old nurse to keep you company -- Oh, yes, that brother was there part of the time; I forgot him -- "

Clover stopped short in sudden amazement. Katy was standing with her back toward her, smoothing her hair, but her face was reflected in the glass. At Clover's words a sudden deep flush had mounted in Katy's cheeks. Deeper and deeper it burned as she became conscious of Clover's astonished gaze, till even the back of her neck was pink. Then, as if she could not bear it any longer, she put the brush down, turned, and fled out of the room; while Clover, looking after her, exclaimed in a tone of sudden comical dismay, -- 

"What does it mean? Oh, dear me! is that what Katy is going to do next?"

<eob>

Klondike Nuggets And How Two Boys Secured Them

By

E. S. Ellis



Chapter I.

The Gold-Hunters.


Jeff Graham was an Argonaut who crossed the plains in 1849, while he was yet in his teens, and settling in California, made it his permanent home. When he left Independence, Mo., with the train, his parents and one sister were his companions, but all of them were buried on the prairie, and their loss robbed him of the desire ever to return to the East. Hostile Indians, storm, cold, heat, privation, and suffering were the causes of their taking off, as they have been of hundreds who undertook the long journey to the Pacific coast in quest of gold.

Jeff spent several years in the diggings, and after varying fortune, made a strike, which yielded him sufficient to make him comfortable for the rest of his days. He never married, and the income from his investments was all and, indeed, more than he needed to secure him against want.

He was now past threescore, grizzled, somewhat stoop-shouldered, but robust, rugged, strong, and, in his way, happy. His dress varied slightly with the changes of the seasons, consisting of an old slouch hat, a red shirt, coarse trousers tucked in the tops of his heavy boots, and a black neckerchief with dangling ends. He had never been addicted to drink, and his only indulgence was his brierwood pipe, which was his almost inseparable companion. His trousers were secured at the waist by a strong leathern belt, and when he wore a coat in cold weather he generally had a revolver at his hip, but the weapon had not been discharged in years.

There were two members of that overland train whom Jeff never forgot. They were young children, Roswell and Edith Palmer, who lost both of their parents within five years after reaching the coast. Jeff proved the friend in need, and no father could have been kinder to the orphans, who were ten and twelve years younger than he.

Roswell Palmer was now married, with a son named for himself, while his sister, Mrs. Mansley, had been a widow a long time, and she, too, had an only son, Frank, who was a few months older than his cousin. The boys had received a good common-school education, but their parents were too poor to send them to college. Jeff would have offered to help but for his prejudice against all colleges. The small wages which the lads received as clerks in a leading dry-goods house were needed by their parents, and the youths, active, lusty, and ambitious, had settled down to the career of merchants, with the hoped-for reward a long, long way in the future.

One evening late in March, 1897, Jeff opened the door of Mr. Palmer's modest home, near the northern suburb of San Francisco, and with his pipe between his lips, sat down in the chair to which he was always welcome. In truth, the chair was considered his, and no one would have thought of occupying it when he was present. As he slowly puffed his pipe he swayed gently backward and forward, his slouch hat on the floor beside him, and his long, straggling hair dangling about his shoulders, while his heavy beard came almost to his eyes.

It was so late that the wife had long since cleared away the dishes from the table, and sat at one side of the room sewing by the lamp. The husband was reading a paper, but laid it aside when Jeff entered, always glad to talk with their quaint visitor, to whom he and his family were bound by warm ties of gratitude.

Jeff smoked a minute or two in silence, after greeting his friends, and the humping of his massive shoulders showed that he was laughing, though he gave forth no sound.

"What pleases you, Jeff?" asked Mr. Palmer, smiling in sympathy, while the wife looked at their caller in mild surprise.

"I've heerd it said that a burned child dreads the fire, but I don't b'lieve it. After he's burnt he goes back agin and gits burnt over. Why is it, after them explorers that are trying to find the North Pole no sooner git home and thawed out than they're crazy to go back agin! Look at Peary. You'd think he had enough, but he's at it once more, and will keep at it after he finds the pole -- that is, if he ever does find it. Nansen, too, he'll be like a fish out of water till he's climbing the icebergs agin."

And once more the huge shoulders bobbed up and down. His friends knew this was meant to serve as an introduction to something else that was on Jeff's mind, and they smilingly waited for it to come.

"It's over forty years since I roughed it in the diggings, starving, fighting Injins, and getting tough," continued the old minor musingly. "After I struck it purty fair I quit; but I never told you how many times the longing has come over me so strong that it was all I could do to stick at home and not make a fool of myself."

"But that was in your younger days," replied his friend; "you have had nothing of the kind for a good while."

Jeff took his pipe from the network of beard that enclosed his lips, and turned his bright, gray eyes upon the husband and wife who were looking curiously at him. They knew by the movement of the beard at the corners of the invisible mouth that he was smiling.

"There's the joke. It's come over me so strong inside the last week, that I've made up my mind to start out on a hunt for gold. What do you think of that, eh?"

And restoring his pipe to his lips, he leaned back and rocked his chair with more vigor than before, while he looked fixedly into the faces of his friends.

"Jeff, you can't be in earnest; you are past threescore -- "

"Sixty-four last month," he interrupted; "let's git it right."

"And you are in no need of money; besides it is a hard matter to find any place in California where it is worth your while -- "

"But it ain't Californy," he broke in again; "it's the Klondike country. No use of talking," he added with warmth, "there's richer deposits in Alaska and that part of the world than was ever found hereabouts. I've got a friend, Tim McCabe, at Juneau; he's been through the Klondike country, and writes me there's no mistake about it; he wants me to join him. I'm going to do it, and your boy Roswell and his cousin Frank are to go with me. Oh, it's all settled," said Jeff airily; "the only question is how soon you can git him ready. A day oughter be enough."

The husband and wife looked at each other in astonishment. They had not dreamed of anything like this; but if the truth were told, Mr. Palmer had been so wrought up by the wonderful stories that were continually coming from Alaska and British Columbia, that he was seriously thinking of joining the northward-bound procession.

Startling as was the announcement of Jeff Graham, a discussion of the scheme brought out more than one fact to recommend it. The youths were in perfect health, strong and athletic. Jeff volunteered to provide all the funds needed, and his early experience in mining and his love for the boys made him an invaluable guide and companion despite his years. He had turned over in his mind every phase of the question, and met each objection the affectionate mother brought forward, alarmed as she was at the thought of having her boy go so many miles from under her care.

"It will be necessary to talk with Roswell about it," said the father, after the conversation had lasted a considerable while.

"No, it won't; I've talked with him, and he's as crazy as me to go."

"But what will Frank's mother say?"

"She's said what she's got to say; had a talk with her last night, and it's all fixed. I've sent word to Tim that I'll be at Juneau by next steamer, and have two of the likeliest younkers with me on the coast; then we'll head for the Upper Yukon, and bime-by hire a ship to bring back all the gold we'll scoop in."

"It seems to me that we have nothing to do in the premises, Jeff."

"Nothing 'cept to git the youngster ready."



Chapter II.

At Juneau.


Now it is a serious undertaking for any one to make a journey to the gold regions at the headwaters of the Yukon, as every one will admit who has been there. All know of the starvation which threatened the people of Dawson City during the winter of 1897-98, when the whole country was stirred with sympathy, and our Government made use of reindeer to take food to the suffering miners.

No dangers of that kind confronted Roswell Palmer and Frank Mansley, but their parents could not contemplate the undertaking without anxiety. The mothers held more than one consultation, and there was a time when both were inclined to object to the boys going at all. The dread of that desolate, icy region in the far Northwest grew upon them, until it is safe to say that if the departure had been postponed for only a few days Mrs. Mansley and Mrs. Palmer would never have given their consent. But Mr. Palmer laughed at their fears, and assured them there was no cause for alarm. He spoke so cheeringly that they caught his hopefulness, but neither noticed the lump he swallowed, nor with what difficulty he kept back the tears when the hour for parting came. He was fully as anxious as they, but he knew how to dissemble, and would not have confessed his real emotions for the world.

After all, it was Jeff Graham who deserved the credit for the willingness of the parents to see their sons venture upon the long and dangerous journey. To him the trip was much the same as a visit to Los Angeles or the Yosemite Valley. His self-confidence never faltered. He was sure it would be only a pleasant outing, with the certainty of a big reward at the end of it. The sly fellow dwelt on the pale complexion and debilitated appearance of the lads. He even said that a cough which he heard Frank try to suppress (in swallowing some fruit, a bit of it went the "wrong way" -- it was nothing more) indicated the insidious approach of consumption. Jeff was the only one who was able to see any paleness in the countenance of the young athletes, or suspect them of being otherwise than fine specimens of youthful health and vigor; but since he was as solemn as a judge when making his declaration, the father and mother of the one and the mother of the other could not feel quite certain there were not grounds for his fears.

And so it being settled that the boys were to go to the Klondike gold fields under the care of the grim old Argonaut, it only remained to complete the preparations in the short time at their disposal.

Had the mothers been free to carry out their wishes, their sons would have been loaded down with baggage upon leaving San Francisco. There are so many things which seem indispensable, when an affectionate mother is considering the comfort of her only son, that she is sure to overwhelm him. At first the mothers insisted upon each being furnished with a large trunk, which would have to be crowded to bursting to contain what was needed, but Jeff put his foot down.

"Nothin' of the kind. Didn't I tell you that we'll git all that's needed at Juneau or Dyea or some point on the road? You've forgot that."

"But, Jeff, there are some articles which they must take with them."

The old miner lit his pipe, sat down in the rocking-chair at the Palmer home, where the mothers had met while the boys and Mr. Palmer were down-town making a few forgotten purchases. The old fellow chuckled a little and then became serious.

"In the fust place, not a trunk!" and he shook his head decisively.

"Do you expect them to take what they want in their pockets?"

"Umph! it would be the sensiblest thing they could do, but we can't be bothered with any trunks, that would be sure to be lost in the first shuffle. Each of us will have a good, big, strong carpet-bag, and nothing more. You can cram them as full as you choose, but what you can't git in has got to be left at home."

There could be no mistake as to Jeff's earnestness, and neither mother attempted to gainsay his words.

"Now," said he, "jest lay out on the floor what you have in your mind that the youngsters need, and I'll tell you what they do need."

"You mustn't forget," observed Mrs. Palmer, as she started to comply, "that the boys are now down-town buying some things which they positively cannot get along without."

"As, for instance, what?"

"Well, tooth-brushes, soap, combs, courtplaster, handkerchiefs, buttons, thread, quinine, and pain-killer."

"Is that all?" asked Jeff so quizzically that both ladies laughed.

"You have forgotten," added Mrs. Mansley, "the shirts, underclothing, socks, and shoes."

"They are here," replied Mrs. Palmer, stepping briskly into the next room and returning with her arms full.

"I've got to lay down the law," observed Jeff, just as Mr. Palmer and the two boys came in, glowing with excitement. "Here are the young men, and they look as if they had bought out half the town. Dump everything on the floor, and let's sort 'em out."

When the pile was complete the miner gravely remarked:

"Nothing less than a freight-car will answer for all that stuff, and I don't b'lieve we can charter one through to Dawson. In the first place, I s'pose the tooth-brushes will have to go, though I never found any use for such things, and I can crack a bull hickory-nut with my teeth. The same may be obsarved of the soap and combs, while a roll of court plaster don't take up much room. We'll be likely to need thread, buttons, and some patches for our clothes, though I've got a supply in my carpetbag. The quinine and pain-killer they may take if you can find a corner to squeeze 'em in. As to the underclothing, extra shirts, it depends whether there is room for 'em; but the boys mustn't think of taking their dress suits along, 'cause I'm not going to. There ain't any room for violins, pianos, or music-boxes, and the only clothing and shoes that can go with this party is what we wear on our bodies and feet."

"Suppose the shoes wear out?" asked Mrs. Mansley in dismay.

"Then we'll go barefoot. Now, see here, we shan't be away more than three months. A pair of well-made shoes will last longer than that, and the same is true about our clothes, though we have the means of mending them, if modesty calls for it, which ain't likely to be the case in the diggings. Caps, coats, vests, trousers, and shoes are to sarve from the day we start till we come back. If one of the boys casts a shoe and loses it, we'll find some way of getting him another. What's this?" suddenly asked Jeff, picking up a small volume from the floor and opening it.

He looked at the fly-leaf, on which was written: "To my dear boy Roswell, from his affectionate mother. Read a portion every day, and be guided in your thoughts, words, and deeds by its blessed precepts. Then it shall always be well with thee."

There were two of the small Bibles, the other being similarly inscribed with the name of Frank Mansley. The boys and their parents were standing around the seated miner, and no one spoke. He looked at each precious volume in turn, and then reverently laid them among the pile of indispensables.

"That's the mother of it," he said, as if speaking with himself; "it's a good many years since my poor old mother done the same thing for me when I started for Californy, and I've got the book among my things yet, though I don't read it as often as I should. Them go if we have to leave everything else behind."

When the task was completed, every one acknowledged the excellent judgment displayed by Jeff Graham. The three were arrayed in strong, thick, warm clothing, and, in addition, each carried a heavy overcoat on his arm. In the valises were crowded underclothing, shirts, handkerchiefs, and the articles that have been already specified. It was wonderful how skilfully the mothers did the packing. When it looked as if every inch of space was filled, they found a crevice into which another bottle of standard medicine, an extra bit of soap, more thread and needles and conveniences of which no other person would think were forced without adding to the difficulty of locking the valises.

Nothing remaining to be done, on the following day the boys kissed their tearful mothers good-by, and warmly shook hands with Mr. Palmer, who brokenly murmured, "God bless you! be good boys!" as he saw them off on the steamer bound for Seattle, and thence to Juneau, where they safely arrived one day early in April, 1897.

In making such a voyage, many people are necessarily thrown together in more or less close companionship, with the result of forming numerous acquaintances and sometimes lasting friendships. Following the advice of Jeff, the cousins had little to say about their plans, though they became interested in more than one passenger, and often speculated between themselves as to the likelihood of certain ones meeting success or failure in the gold regions.

There were three sturdy lumbermen all the way from Maine. A curious fact about them was that, although they were not related at all, the name of each was Brown. They were light-hearted and the life of the large party. One Brown had a good tenor voice, and often sang popular ballads with taste and great acceptability. Another played the violin with considerable skill, and sometimes indulged in jig tunes, to which his friends, and occasionally others, danced an accompaniment.

"They'll succeed," was the verdict of Roswell, "for they are strong, healthy, and will toil like beavers."

"And what of the two men smoking their pipes just beyond the fiddler?" asked Frank.

"I had a talk with them the other day; one has been a miner in Australia, and the other spent two years in the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa. Meeting for the first time in San Francisco, they formed a partnership; they, too, are rugged and must understand their business."

"No doubt of it. Do you remember that stoop-shouldered old man whose room is next to ours?"

"The one who has such dreadful coughing spells in the night?"

"Yes; he is far gone with consumption, and yet he won't believe there's anything the matter with him. He is worse than when he came on board: but he says it is only a slight cold which will soon pass off, and he is just as hopeful as you or I of taking a lot of nuggets home with him."

"He never will see the other side of Chilkoot Pass."

"I doubt whether he will ever see this side."

Thus the boys speculated, sometimes amused and sometimes saddened by what they saw. There was a big San Francisco policeman, who said he had cracked heads so long that he thought he knew how to crack some golden nuggets; a correspondent of a prominent New York newspaper, whose situation was enviable, since his salary and expenses were guaranteed, and he was free to gather gold when the opportunity offered; a voluble insurance agent, who made a nuisance of himself by his solicitations, in season and out; a massive football-player, who had no companion, and did not wish any, since he was sure he could buck the line, make a touchdown, and kick a goal; a gray-haired head of a family, who, having lost his all, had set out to gather another fortune along the Klondike. He walked briskly, threw back his shoulders, and tried hard to appear young and vigorous, but the chances were strongly against him. There were a number of bright clerks; a clergyman, pleasant and genial with all; gamblers, with pallid faces and hair and mustaches dyed an intense black, who expected to win the gold for which others dug; young and middle-aged men, some with their brave wives, serene and calmly prepared to bear their full share of privation and toil; and adventurers, ready to go anywhere for the sake of adventure itself. In truth, it was a motley assemblage, which to the boys was like a continually shifting panorama of hope, ambition, honesty, dishonor, pluck, and human enterprise and daring, that was ever present throughout the thousand miles of salt water that stretches from Seattle to Juneau.

Juneau, the metropolis of Alaska, was founded in 1880, and named in honor of Joseph Juneau, the discoverer of gold on Douglas Island, two miles distant. There is located the Treadwell quartz-mill, the largest in the world. The city nestles at the base of a precipitous mountain, thirty-three hundred feet high, has several thousand inhabitants, with its wooden houses regularly laid out, good wharves, water works, electric lights, banks, hotels, newspapers, schools, and churches.

"Here's where we get our outfit," said Jeff, as they hurried over the plank to the landing. "But where can Tim be?"

He paused abruptly as soon as he was clear of the crowd, and looked around for the one who was the cause of his coming to this out-of-the-way corner of the world. He was still gazing when a man, dressed much the same as himself, but short, stockily built, and with the reddest hair and whiskers the boys had ever seen, his round face aglow with pleasure stepped hastily forward from the group of spectators and extended his hand.

"Ah, Jiff, it does me good to see your handsome silf; and how have ye been, and how do ye expect to continue to be?"

Tim McCabe was an Irishman who, when overtaken by misfortune in San Francisco, found Jeff Graham the good Samaritan, and he could never show sufficient gratitude therefor. It was only one of the many kindly deeds the old miner was always performing, but he did not meet in every case with such honest thankfulness.

Jeff clasped his hand warmly, and then looked at the smiling boys, to whom he introduced his friend, and who shook their hands. He eyed them closely, and, with the quizzical expression natural to many of his people, said:

"And these are the laddies ye wrote me about? Ye said they were likely broths of boys; but, Jiff, ye didn't do them justice -- they desarved more."

"Tim is always full of blarney," explained Jeff, who, it was evident, was fond of the merry Irishman; "so you mustn't mind him and his ways."

Roswell and Frank were attracted by Jeff's friend. He was one of those persons who, despite their homeliness of face and feature, win us by their genial nature and honest, outspoken ways. No one ever saw a finer set of big, white teeth, nor a broader smile, which scarcely ever was absent from the Irishman's countenance. He shook hands with each lad in turn, giving a warm pressure and expressing his pleasure at meeting them. "I'm glad to greet ye, me friends," he said, as the whole party moved out of the way of the hurrying, bustling swarm who were rushing back and forth, each intent on his own business; "not only on your own account, but on account of me friend Jiff."

"I do not quite understand you," said Roswell with a smile.

"Well, you see, I've met Jiff before, and formed a rather fair opinion of him; but whin a gintleman like mesilf is engaged on some important business, them as are to be favored with me confidence must have their credentials."

"And you accept our presence with him as proof that he is what he should be?"

Tim gravely inclined his head.

"Do ye think I would admit Jiff as a partner if it was otherwise? Not I."

"But," interposed Frank, "how is it with us? You never saw us before."

"One look at them faces is enough," was the prompt reply; "ye carry a certificate wid ye that no one can dispoot."

"And I should like to know," said Jeff, with assumed indignation, "what credential you have to present to us, young man."

"Mine is the same as the young gintlemen," answered Tim, removing his thick fur cap and displaying his whole wealth of fiery red hair; "obsarve me countenance."

His face became grave for the first time, while all the rest laughed.

"I'm satisfied and hungry," said Jeff; "take us where we can get something to eat."

"I knew by that token that I had forgot something, and it's me breakfast and dinner. In honor of yer coming, I've engaged the best quarters at the leading hotel. Come wid me."

It was but a short distance up the street to a frame hotel, which was kept by a corpulent German who had been in the country for a couple of years. The men registered, during which Tim remarked to the landlord, who seemed never to be without his long-stemmed meerschaum pipe between his lips:

"This gintleman isn't the burglar that ye would think from his looks. He belongs to a good family, or ye wouldn't obsarve him in my company. The young gintlemen are two princes that are travelling in cog. In consideration of all of them having delicate appetites like mesilf, not forgetting the honor of their company, ye will be glad to make a reduction in your exorbitant rates, Baron Fritz, I am sure."

The phlegmatic German smiled, and in a guttural voice announced that his terms were three dollars a day, including rooms and meals, which, when all the circumstances are considered, was not extravagant. The party carried their luggage to their rooms, where they prepared themselves for the meal, which was satisfactory in every respect and better than they expected.

It came out during the conversation that Tim McCabe had not a dollar to his name, and he spoke the truth when he said that he had not eaten a mouthful that day. It would have gone hard for him but for the arrival of Jeff Graham, though there is such a lively demand for labor in Juneau that he must have soon found means to provide himself with food.

As for Jeff, he was glad in his heart that his old friend was in such sore straits, inasmuch as it gave him the pleasure of providing for him. Tim had taken out some five hundred dollars, but a companion whom he fully trusted robbed him of it, and the small amount left barely kept the Irishman afloat until the arrival of the old miner.

Jeff Graham showed prudence in bringing a plentiful supply of funds with him, and since he expected to take back a hundredfold more than he brought, he could well afford to do so. Stowed away in his safe inside pocket was fully two thousand dollars, and inasmuch as gold is the "coin of the realm" in California, as well as in Alaska, the funds were in shining eagles and half eagles -- rather bulky of themselves, but not uncomfortably so.

The experience of McCabe and Jeff prevented any mistake in providing their outfit. They had good, warm flannels, thick woollen garments, strong shoes, and rubber boots. Those who press their mining operations during the long and severe winter generally use the water boot of seal and walrus, which costs from two dollars to five dollars a pair, with trousers made from Siberian fawn-skins and the skin of the marmot and ground squirrel, with the outer garment of marmot-skin. Blankets and robes, of course, are indispensable. The best are of wolf-skin, and Jeff paid one hundred dollars apiece for those furnished to himself and each of his companions.

The matter of provisions was of the first importance. A man needs a goodly supply of nourishing food to sustain him through the trying journey from Juneau to Dawson City, the following being considered necessary for an able-bodied person: Twenty pounds of flour, twelve of bacon, twelve of beans, four of butter, five of vegetables, five of sugar, three of coffee, five of corn-meal, one pound of tea, four cans of condensed milk, one and one half pounds of salt, with a little pepper and mustard.

Because of the weight and bulk, Jeff omitted from this list the tea, the condensed milk and butter, and while the supply in other respects was the same, respectively, for himself and McCabe, that of the boys was cut down about one third; for besides the food, the party were compelled to take with them a frying-pan, a water-kettle, a Yukon stove, a bean-pot, a drinking-cup, knives and forks, and a large and small frying-pan.

Since they would find a good raft necessary, axes, hatchets, hunting-knives, nails, one hundred and fifty feet of rope, and two Juneau sleds were purchased. To these were added snow-shoes, a strong duck-tent, fishing-tackle, snow-glasses to protect themselves against snow-blindness, rubber blankets, mosquito-netting, tobacco, and a few minor articles.

The start from Juneau to the gold fields should not be made before the beginning of April. Our friends had struck that date, but the headlong rush did not begin until some time later. One of the principal routes is from Seattle to St. Michael, on the western coast of Alaska, and then up that mighty river whose mouth is near, for nearly two thousand more miles to Dawson City. The river is open during the summer -- sometimes barely four months -- and our friends took the shorter route to Juneau on the southern coast, from which it is about a thousand miles to Dawson. While this route is much shorter, it is a hundred times more difficult and dangerous than by the Yukon.

From Juneau there are four different routes to the headwaters of the Yukon, all crossing by separate paths the range of mountains along the coast. They are the Dyea or Chilkoot Pass, the Chilkat, Moore's or White Pass, and Takon. At this writing the Chilkoot is the favorite, because it is better known than the others, but the facilities for passing through this entrance or doorway to the new El Dorado are certain to be greatly increased at an early day.

It was learned on inquiry that another day would have to be spent in the town before the little steamer would leave for Dyea. While Tim and Jeff stayed at the hotel, talking over old times and laying plans for the future, the boys strolled through the streets, which were knee-deep with mud.

The curio shops on Front and Seward streets were interesting, and from the upper end of the latter street they saw a path leading to the Auk village, whose people claim to own the flats at the mouth of Gold Creek. On the high ground across the stream is a cemetery containing a number of curious totemic carvings, hung with offerings to departed spirits. It would cost a white man his life to disturb any of them.

It was early in the afternoon that the cousins were strolling aimlessly about and had turned to retrace their steps to the hotel, when Frank touched the arm of his companion and said, in a low voice:

"Roswell, do you know that a strange man has been following us for the past hour?"

"No; where is he?"

"On the other side of the street and a little way behind us. Don't look around just now. I don't fancy his appearance."

A minute later, Roswell managed to gain a good view.

"I don't like his looks as well as he seems to like ours. Shall we wait for him and ask him his business?"

"No need of that, for he is walking so fast, he will soon be up with us. Here he comes, as if in a great hurry."

A few minutes later the boys were overtaken by the suspicious stranger.



Chapter III.

Up The Lynn Canal.


Roswell and Frank were standing in front of one of the curio stores, studying the interesting exhibits, among which was a pan of Klondike gold, but they kept watch of the stranger, who slouched up to them and halted at the side of Frank.

"I say, pards," he said in the gruff, wheedling tones of the professional tramp, "can't you do something for a chap that's down on his luck?"

As the lads turned to face him they saw an unclean, tousled man, very tall, with stooping shoulders, protruding black eyes, spiky hair, and a generally repellent appearance.

"What's the trouble?" asked Frank, looking into the face that had not been shaven for several days.

"Had the worst sort of luck; got back from Klondike two days ago with thirty thousand dollars, and robbed of every cent. I'm dead broke."

"You seem to have had enough to buy whiskey," remarked Roswell, who had had a whiff of his breath, and placed no faith in his story. The man looked angrily at them, but restrained himself, in hopes of receiving help.

"There's where you're mistaken, my friends; I haven't had anything to eat for two days, and when a stranger offered me a swallow of whiskey to keep up my strength, I took it, as a medicine. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have flunked right in the street -- sure as you live. What are you doing, if I may ask, in Juneau?"

"We are listening to you just now, but we are on our way to the gold fields," replied Roswell.

"Not alone?"

"We are going with two men, one of whom has been there before."

"That's more sensible. Let me give you a little advice -- "

"We really do not feel the need of it," interposed Roswell, who liked the man less each minute. "You must excuse us, as we wish to join them at the hotel. Good-day."

"See here," said the fellow angrily, as he laid his hand on the arm of Frank; "ain't you going to stake me a bit?"

The lad shook off his grasp.

"Even if we wished to do so, we could not, for our friend at the hotel has all the funds that belong to our party. Perhaps if you go there, and he believes the story, Mr. Graham may do something for you, but Tim McCabe has not the means with which to help anybody."

At mention of the Irishman's name the fellow showed some agitation. Then, seeing that he was about to lose the expected aid, he uttered a savage expression and exclaimed:

"I don't believe a word you say."

"It is no concern of ours whether you believe it or not," replied Roswell, as he and Frank started down the street toward their hotel. The fellow was amazed at the defiance of the lads, and stood staring at them and muttering angrily to himself. Could he have carried out his promptings, he would have robbed both, but was restrained by several reasons.

In the first place, Juneau, despite the influx of miners, is a law-abiding city, and the man's arrest and punishment would have followed speedily. Moreover, it would not have been an altogether "sure thing" for him to attack the youths. They were exceptionally tall, active and strong, and would have given him trouble without appeal to the firearms which they carried.

They looked round and smiled, but he did not follow them. When they reached the hotel they related the incident.

"Would ye oblige me with a description of the spalpeen?" said Tim McCabe, after they had finished. Roswell did as requested.

"Be the powers, it's him!" exclaimed Tim. "I 'spected it when ye told the yarn which I've heerd he has been telling round town."

"Whom do you mean?" asked Frank.

"Hardman, Ike Hardman himsilf."

"Who is he?"

"Didn't I tell ye he was the one that robbed me of my money? Sure I did, what is the matter wid ye?"

"You told us about being robbed," said Jeff, "but didn't mention the name of the man who did it."

"I want to inthrodooce mesilf to him!" exclaimed Tim, flushed with indignation; "axscoose me for a bit."

He strode to the door with the intention of hunting up and chastising the rogue, but, with his hand on the knob, checked himself. For a moment he debated with himself, and then, as his broad face lit up with his natural good humor, he came back to his chair, paraphrasing Uncle Toby:

"The world's big enough for the likes of him and me, though he does crowd a bit. Let him git all the good out of the theft he can, say I."

Dyea is at the head of navigation, and is the timber line, being a hundred miles to the northwest of Juneau. It is at the upper fork of what is termed Lynn Canal, the most extensive fiord on the coast. It is, in truth, a continuation of Chatham Strait, the north and south passage being several hundred miles in extent, the whole forming the trough of a glacier which disappeared ages ago.

On the day following the incident described our friends boarded the little, untidy steam launch bound for Dyea. There were fifty passengers beside themselves, double the number it was intended to carry, the destination of all being the gold fields. The weather was keen and biting, and the accommodations on the boat poor. They pushed here and there, surveying with natural interest the bleak scenery along shore, the mountains white with snow, and foretelling the more terrible regions that lay beyond. Hundreds of miles remained to be traversed before they could expect to gather the yellow particles, but neither of the sturdy lads felt any abatement of courage.

"Well, look at that!" suddenly exclaimed Roswell, catching the arm of his companion as they were making their way toward the front of the boat.

Frank turned in the direction indicated, and his astonishment was as great as his companion's. Tim McCabe and the shabby scamp, Ike Hardman, were sitting near each other on a bench, and smoking their pipes like two affectionate brothers. No one would have suspected there had ever been a ripple between them.

Catching the eye of the amazed boys, Tim winked and threw up his chin as an invitation for them to approach. Frank shook his head, and he and Roswell went back to where Jeff was smoking his pipe. They had hardly time to tell their story when the Irishman joined them.

"I obsarved by the exprission on your faces that ye were a bit surprised," he said, addressing the youths.

"Is that fellow the Hardman you told us about?" asked Roswell.

"The same at your sarvice."

"And the man who robbed you of your money?"

Tim flung one of his muscular legs over the other, and with a twinkle of the eyes said:

"Hardman has made it all right; the matter is fixed atween oursilves."

"Then he give you back your money?" was the inquiring remark of Jeff.

"Not precisely that, though he said he would do the same if he only had it with him, but he run up agin a game at Juneau and was cleaned out. Whin he told me that I was a bit sorry for him. He further obsarved that it was his intintion if he won to stake me agin and add something extra for interest on what he borrowed of me. That spakes well for Hardman, so we shook hands over it," was the hearty conclusion of Tim.

The boys were too astonished to speak. Jeff Graham's shoulders shook, and he looked sideways at his friend with a quizzical expression, unable to do justice to his feelings. As for Tim, his red face was the picture of bland innocence, but he was not through. Astounding as were the statements he had just made, he had a still more astounding one to submit.



Chapter IV.

The Avalanche.


It was late in the day that the little steamer arrived at Dyea, which was found to be a village with one log store, a number of movable tents, and without any wharf, the beach being so flat that at high water the tide reaches a half mile or more inland. To guard against losing any of their supplies, Tim McCabe told his friends that it would be necessary to unload them themselves.

"From this p'int," said he, "we must hoe our own row; under hiven we must depind on oursilves. Hardman, lind a hand there, and step lively."

To the astonishment of the youths, the man took hold and wrought with right good will. Jeff looked at Tim queerly as he pointed out the different articles, he himself, as may be said, overlooking the job; but the conclusion was that the Irishman had promised him a small amount for his help. When, however, the task was finished Tim came to the group, and while Hardman, with shamefaced expression, remained in the background, he said with that simplicity which any one would find hard to resist:

"You see poor Hardman is in bad luck; he hain't any outfit, and wants to go to the gold fields, but will have to git some one to stake him. Obsarving the same, I made bowld to remark that it would give me frind Jiff the highest plisure to do it for him, not forgetting to obsarve that I knew his company would be agreeable to the byes, and he will be of great hilp to the same."

"Well, I'm blessed!" exclaimed the old miner, removing his hat and mopping his forehead with his big red handkerchief. Then he turned half way round and looked steadily at the fellow, who was standing with his head down.

"Poor dog! let him come along, but if he makes any trouble, I'll hold you responsible, Tim."

"And I'll be happy to take charge of the same 'sponsibility, and if he don't toe the mark, it's mesilf that will make him. Do you hear that, Ike?" he roared, turning fiercely toward the fellow, who started, and meekly replied that he heard, though it was impossible for anything to reach him except the last thunderous demand.

"It isn't for us to say anything," remarked Roswell aside to his chum, "but that means trouble for us all."

"It surely does; we must be on our guard against him."

The outfits were piled on a sandspit about a mile below the trading posts of Healy and Wilson. In the foreground were the ranch and store owned by them, and beyond towered the coast mountains, their tops gleaming in the sunshine with enormous masses of snow, while hundreds of miles still beyond stretched the immense Yukon country, toward which the eyes of the civilized world are turned at the present time.

One of the strange facts connected with Alaska and the adjoining region is that in May the sun rises at 3 o'clock and sets at 9, while in June it rises at 1.30 and sets at 10.30. Thus the summer day is twenty hours long, and it has a diffuse twilight. The change from winter to summer is rapid, winter setting in in September, and in the Klondike region zero weather lasts from November to May, though at times the weather moderates early in March, but does not become settled until May. The Yukon generally freezes shut in the latter part of October, and breaks up about the middle of May, when the western route to the gold fields by the river becomes practicable.

The hour was so late when our friends had finished carrying their outfit beyond reach of the high tide, which rises twenty feet at Dyea, that they lodged and took their meals at the ranch trading post. By arrangement, an early breakfast was eaten the next morning, and the goods were loaded upon the two Yukon sleds with which they were provided. These were seven feet long, sixteen inches wide, and were shod with steel. Other gold-seekers were stopping, like themselves, at the ranch, but they lagged so much that when the men and boys headed northward they were alone.

Jeff Graham and Ike Hardman passed the rope attached to one of the sleds over their shoulders, the elder in advance, and led off. Tim took the lead, with the boys behind him, with the second sled, following the trail left by their friends. The deep snow was packed so hard that no use was made of the snow-shoes which Jeff had provided.

From Dyea the trail led for five miles over the ice, when they reached the mouth of the cañon. This is two miles long with an average width of fifty feet. The sleds were dragged over the strong ice, but later in the season, when it breaks up, travellers are obliged to follow the trail to the east of the cañon.

The party were so unaccustomed to this kind of labor that they found it exhausting. Curiously enough, Jeff bore the fatigue better than any. His iron muscles were the last to yield, and he was the first to resume the journey. He chaffed the others, and offered to let them mount his sled while he pulled them.

Beyond the cañon is a strip of woods three miles in length, which bears the name of Pleasant Camp, though it has not the first claim to the name. It does not contain the ruins of even a cabin or shanty -- nothing, in fact, but trees, through which the wintry winds sough and howl dismally. There the party halted, ate lunch, rested for an hour, and then set out with the determination to make the next camping ground before night.

The ascent now became gradual, and before the day was spent they arrived at Sheep Camp, on the edge of the timber. This is the last spot where wood for fuel can be obtained until the other side of Chilkoot Pass is reached. The tent was pitched on top of the snow, the poles and pins being shoved down into it. Jeff took it upon himself to cut what fuel was needed, gathering at the same time a liberal quantity of hemlock brush, upon which to spread their blankets for beds.

Since it was necessary to use the stove, and it must rest on the snow, a simple arrangement provided against trouble from the melting of the latter. Three poles, eight feet in length, were laid parallel on the snow and the stove placed upon them. Although a hole was soon dissolved beneath, the length of the supports kept the stove upright.

The experience which Jeff and Tim had had made them both excellent cooks, which was a fortunate thing for the boys, since they would have made sorry work in preparing a meal; but the art of the Irishman deserved the many compliments it received. With the aid of baking powder he prepared a goodly number of light, flaky biscuit, and by exposing some of the butter to the warmth of the stove, it was gradually changed from its stone-like hardness to a consistency that permitted it to be cut with a knife and spread upon the hot bread. The coffee was amber, clear, and fragrant, and with the condensed milk and sugar would have reflected credit upon the chef of any establishment. In addition, there were fried bacon and canned corn.

Until this time the boys had never believed they could eat bacon, but nothing could have had a more delicious flavor to them. It was not alone because of their vigorous appetites, but partly on account of the bitterly cold weather. There is a good deal of animal heat evolved in the digestion of fat bacon, and it is therefore among the favorite articles of food in the Arctic regions.

Probably there isn't a boy in the country who would not revolt at the thought of eating a tallow candle, and yet if he was exposed to the rigors of Greenland and the far north, he would soon look upon it as one of the greatest delicacies of the table.

The hemlock branches were now spread on top of the snow at the side of the tent, a large square of canvas was placed over them, upon which the blankets and robes were put, the whole forming a springy, comfortable bed.

Roswell and Frank were sure that in all their lives they were never so tired. Leaving the three men to talk and smoke, they stretched out on their blankets, wrapping themselves in them, and almost immediately sank into deep, dreamless slumber.

The sleep had lasted perhaps a couple of hours, when, without any apparent cause, Frank Mansley awoke in the full possession of his senses. Lying motionless, he listened to the soft breathing of his cousin beside him, while the regular respiration of the men left no doubt of their condition. Everything around was in blank, impenetrable darkness and all profoundly still.

"It's strange that I should awake like this," he thought, slightly shifting his position. "I'm tired, and was so drowsy that I felt as if I could sleep a week, but I was never wider awake than I am this minute -- "

Amid the all-pervading silence he was sensible of a low, solemn murmur, like that of the distant ocean. At first it seemed to be the "voice of silence" itself, but it steadily increased in volume until its roar became overpowering. Startled and frightened, he lay still, wondering what it could mean, or whether his senses were deceiving him. Then he suddenly remembered the vast masses of ice and snow which towered above them all through the day. He recalled the stories he had read of the glaciers and avalanches, and how Tim McCabe had referred to them as sometimes overtaking travellers in this part of the world.

He knew what it meant, and, leaping from his couch, he shouted:

"Wake up! Quick! An avalanche is upon us!"



Chapter V.

Through Chilkoot Pass.


As Frank Mansley's words rang through the tent they were followed by the awful roar of the descending avalanche, and all awoke on the instant. But no one could do anything to save himself. They could only cower and pray to Heaven to protect them.

Something struck the side of the tent, like the plunge of a mountain torrent, yet it was not that, nor was it the snow. Tim McCabe knew its nature, and catching his breath, he called:

"It's the wind of the avalanche! That won't hurt ye!"

The wonder was that it did not blow the canvas like a feather from its path; but the tent held its position, and the appalling rush and roar ceased with more suddenness than it had begun. The throbbing air became still.

Jeff Graham, who had not spoken, struck a match, and holding it above his head, peered around the interior of the tent, which he observed had sagged a good deal from the impact of the avalanche's breath, though the stakes held their places in the snow. He saw Frank Mansley standing pale with affright, while Roswell, sitting on the edge of his couch, was equally startled. Ike Hardman had covered his face with his blanket, like a child, who thus seeks to escape an impending danger. Incredible as it may seem, Tim McCabe was filling his pipe in the gloom, preparatory to a smoke.

"Be aisy," was his comment, as he struck a match and held it above the bowl; "we're as safe as if in 'Frisco, and a little safer, for it's whin ye are there ye are liable to have an airthquake tumble the buildings about yer hid."

"Wasn't that an avalanche?" asked the amazed Frank.

"It was that, but it didn't hit us. If we had put up the tint a little beyant and further to the right, we'd've been mashed flat."

He spoke the truth. The enormous mass of snow, weighing thousands of tons, had toppled over and slid down the mountain-side with a roar like Niagara, but stopped short, just before reaching the tent. Some of the feathery particles sailed forward and struck the canvas, the greatest effect being produced by the wind, but the monster was palsied before he could reach forward and seize his victims.

When the situation became clear, every one uttered expressions of gratitude, but the boys were not relieved of all fear. What had taken place might occur again.

"Not a bit of it," was Tim's reassuring reply. "I've obsarved the things before, and we shan't be bothered agin to-night. Take me advice and go to sleep, which the same is what I shall do mesilf as soon as I finishes me smoke."

The shock, however, had been too great for all to compose their nerves at once. Jeff was the first to succumb, having faith in the assurance of his friend, and Ike Hardman soon followed him in the land of dreams. Frank and Roswell lay for a long time talking in low tones, but finally drowsiness overcame them, and with the pungent odor of Tim's pipe in their nostrils they sank into slumber, which was not broken until Jeff called to them that breakfast was waiting.

The melted snow furnished what water they needed to drink and in which to lave their faces and hands. Then, before eating, they hurried outside the tent to survey the snowy mountain that had come so near swallowing them up. They were filled with amazement when they looked upon the vast pile, amid which were observed many chunks and masses of ice, several that must have weighed hundreds of pounds, lying on the snow within a few yards of the tent. Had one of these been precipitated against the shelter, it would have crushed the inmates, like the charge from the most enormous of our seacoast guns. It was a providential escape, indeed, for our friends, and it was no wonder that they continued to discuss it and to express their gratitude to Heaven, that had mercifully shielded them while they slept.

Standing at Sheep Camp, they saw the summit towering thirty-five hundred feet in front, though Chilkoot Pass, which they were to follow, is five hundred feet lower. The task of climbing to the summit of this pass is of the most trying nature conceivable, and many gold-seekers have turned back in despair. Terrific weather is often encountered, and men have been held in camp for weeks, during which the crest of the mountains was hidden by clouds and tempests, and the whirling snow and sleet were so blinding that they hardly ventured to peep out from their tent. The weather was such as has baffled the most intrepid of explorers for centuries in their search for the North Pole.

Our friends were unusually fortunate in being favored with good weather, there being hardly any wind stirring, while, more wonderful than all, the sun shone from an unclouded sky, in a section where the clear days average less than seventy degrees in the course of the entire year.

No one who has ever climbed Chilkoot Pass will forget it. Some, alas! who have made the attempt never succeeded in reaching the other side, but perished in the frightful region; while many more have become disheartened by the perils and difficulties and turned back when on the threshold of the modern El Dorado. At the foot of the pass our friends met two men, bending low with the packs strapped to their shoulders, and plodding wearily southward. Tim called to them to know what the trouble was, and received a glum answer, accompanied by an oath that they had had enough of such a country, and if they ever lived to reach New York, they would shoot any man who pronounced the word "Klondike" in their presence.

It is a curious fact regarding this famous pass that the snow with which it is choked is what makes it possible for travel. The snow sometimes lies to the depth of fifty or sixty feet, and from February, through May, and often June, its smooth surface allows one to walk over it without trouble. Should it be fine and yielding, the snow-shoes come into play, but when the crust is hard, no better support could be asked. The trouble lies in the steep incline, which becomes more decided the higher one climbs.

Underneath this enormous mass rush violent torrents of water, which, hollowing out passages for themselves, leave the snow white arches far above, over which one walks upon a natural bridge. Later in the season, when the effects of the warm weather are felt, these arches begin to tumble in, and the incautious traveller who misses his footing and drops into one of the huge crevices is lost.

As has been said, the steepness increases as one approaches the top, the last five hundred feet being like the roof of a house. Bending forward under their loads, our friends often found their noses within a few inches of the snow, while masses of rock protruding in many places added to the difficulties of travel. The combined strength of the party was required to get a single sled to the top. While one was left behind, they joined in pushing and pulling the other, with frequent pauses for rest, until, after hours of the hardest work conceivable, they succeeded in reaching the summit. Then, resting again, they began their descent for the other sled. It was fortunate that the crust of the snow removed the need of using the long snow-shoes, whose make suggests the bats used in playing tennis, for the men were the only ones who knew how to handle the awkward contrivances, which would have proved a sore perplexity for Roswell and Frank.

Under some circumstances it becomes a question which is the harder, to descend or ascend a steep hill. Despite the utmost care, the whole five stumbled several times. Roswell felt the chills run through him, and he held his breath in dismay when he saw himself sliding toward the edge of a ravine, over which if he fell he would have been dashed to death on the instant. While desperately trying to check himself, he shouted for help, but it looked equally fatal for any one to venture near him, since the slope was so abrupt that he could not check himself.

Jeff Graham was carrying the coil of rope which he had loosened from the first sled, and, seeing the peril of his young friend, he flung the end toward him with the skill of a Mexican or cowboy in throwing the rita, or lasso. The youth was slipping downward on his face, with his terrified countenance turned appealingly to his friends, while he tried, by jamming his toes and clutching at the surface, to check himself, and Frank was on the point of going to his help when the end of the rope struck his shoulder and he seized it with both hands. The next minute he was drawn back to safety.

"I'm surprised wid ye," remarked Tim McCabe, when the panting youth stood among them again. "I thought ye were too tired to indulge in any such foolin'. Whin ye want to slide down hill, make use of the slid instead of your stummick."

"I don't think I'll want to do any more sliding down hill in this part of the world," replied the frightened, but grateful youth.

Once more they bent to their work, and pulling themselves together, succeeded at last in reaching the summit with the second sled, the whole party utterly used up. Even Jeff Graham sat down on one of the loads, panting and too tired to speak. When he found voice, he said:

"What fools we are! And yet if I went back to 'Frisco, I'd start agin for the Klondike the next day; so I reckon we'll keep on."

No one responded, for they were so wearied that talking itself was labor.

Looking to the southwest, they could see the blue shimmer of the Pacific, where the Gulf of Alaska rolls its white surges against the dismal shores. Far in the distance a faint line against the sky showed where a steamer was probably ploughing its way to St. Michael's, with hundreds of gold-seekers on board, the van of the army that is pushing toward the Klondike from the West, the South, and the East, until it would seem that even that immense region must overflow with the innumerable multitudes, drawn thither by the most resistless magnet that can make men brave peril, suffering, and death.

Turning in the opposite direction, they saw the mountain slope melting away in the great valley of the Yukon, with the trail leading through a narrow, rocky gap, and with naked granite rocks rising steeply to the partly snow-clad mountains. The party had been fortunate in completing the ascent in less than a day, when it often requires twice as long. The first half mile of the descent was steep, when the slope becomes more gradual. The glare of the snow compelled all to use their glasses, and seven miles from the summit they reached the edge of timber, where camp was made.

Freed from all fear of descending avalanches, with plenty of food and wood for fuel, the exhausted gold-hunters lay down on their blankets, resting upon more hemlock boughs, and enjoyed the most refreshing sleep since leaving the steamer at Juneau. It was not until considerably after daylight that Jeff awoke and started a new fire, with which to prepare their breakfast, and when that was ready the boys were roused from slumber.

They were now within three miles of Lake Lindeman, a body of water five miles in length, and the journey was speedily made. It was on the shore of this lake that the party expected to build a raft or boat with which to make the long, rough voyage to the Yukon, but, to their pleased surprise, they found an old Indian, with a broad scow, anxious to transport them and their luggage to the foot of the lake. He had already secured three men and their outfits, but was able to carry the new arrivals, and Jeff was not long in making a bargain with him.



Chapter VI.

A Significant Discovery.


Game is so scarce in the valley of the Upper Yukon and in the Klondike country that many gold-seekers take no firearms at all with them. Years ago the Indians showed occasional hostility toward the missions and trading-posts, but nothing now is to be feared from them. They are often hired to help carry loads through the passes, and with that aptitude for imitating the white man, they have speedily learned to charge high prices for their labor.

Before leaving Juneau, Jeff Graham presented each of his little party with an excellent revolver, quoting the remark which a cowboy once made to a tenderfoot:

"You may not want the weapon often, but when you do you'll want it mighty bad."

Jeff took with him his own pistol which he had carried for years, besides which he was provided with a fine Winchester rifle. He knew he was not likely to find any use for it in shooting game, but he grimly observed that if a pistol should prove handy, the larger weapon was apt to prove much more so.

The Indian who engaged to take them to the foot of Lake Lindeman was old, but wiry and tough, and understood his business. He could speak a few words of English, which were enough for his purposes. He raised a small soiled sail of canvas on the scow, and with the help of a long pole kept the heavily laden craft moving. Although the lake was open thus early in the season, the shores were lined with ice, much of it extending into the water for a number of rods. Huge cakes sometimes bumped against the scow, but they caused no damage, and did not interfere with its progress.

The three men who had first engaged the boat looked as if they had come a long distance. Our friends had no recollection of having seen them on the steamer from Seattle or on the steam launch that connects Juneau with Dyea at the head of Lynn Canal. Where they came from, therefore, was a mystery, the probability being that they had been loitering about Dyea for a long time, waiting for the season to advance sufficiently to allow them to start for the Yukon. They seemed reserved to the point of sullenness, keeping by themselves and showing so much antipathy to any approach that they were let alone.

But just before the foot of the lake, nearly six miles distant, was reached, Frank Mansley made an interesting discovery. The most ill-favored of the trio was an acquaintance of Ike Hardman. No one else noticed the significant fact, and it was partly through accident that the truth came to the lad.

The two men acted as if strangers, not exchanging a word on the passage, and seemingly feeling no interest in each other. All of Frank's friends were near the bow of the boat, looking to where they were soon to touch shore. Two of the strangers were standing just back of and near them, while Hardman was in the middle of the boat, apparently watching the old Indian as he plied his paddle with untiring vigor.

The third stranger was at the stern, seated on the gunwale, smoking a clay pipe and seemingly taking no note of anything about him. When Ike Hardman sauntered among the piles of luggage to the rear, Frank was impelled by an impulse for which he could not account to watch him. He had no well-defined suspicion, and least of all did he suspect what proved to be the truth.

Hardman halted a few paces from the man sitting on the edge of the boat, and, so far as appearances went, did not pay any attention to him. A quick, furtive glance to the front put the lad on his guard, and he, too, turned his face toward land, but his position was such that he could look sideways at the two, while not seeming to do so.

Suddenly Hardman, with his back partly toward the youth, made a sign with his hands, the meaning of which Frank could not catch, because the signal was not fully seen, but the fellow sitting down nodded his head, and taking his pipe from between his lips, said something in so guarded a voice that only the ears for which the words were intended could understand them.

This brief interchange ought to have been enough, but Hardman did not appear to think so. He stepped somewhat closer, and he, too, spoke, still gesticulating with one of his hands. The man addressed was impatient. He nodded again in a jerky fashion, and made answer with less caution, as a consequence of which the eavesdropper caught the words, "Yes, yes, to-night; I understand."

Hardman was satisfied, and came back to the front of the boat, which was now approaching the shore. His friend smoked a few minutes until the scow bumped against the projection of ice, and, the old Indian leaping lightly out, carried the heavy stone anchor as far as the rope would permit. This held the boat in place, and the unloading began. The Indian offered to help for an extravagant price, but his offer was refused, and the respective parties busied themselves with their own work.

The discovery made by Frank Mansley caused him considerable uneasiness. The dislike which he felt toward Hardman the first time he saw him had never abated, and it was the same with his cousin. Young as they were, they felt that a great mistake was made when Hardman was allowed to join the party, and they wondered that Jeff permitted it, but, as has been shown, they were too discreet to object.

That Hardman, on his part, detested the youths was apparent, though he tried to conceal the feeling when he feared it might attract the attention of others. He had little to say to them or they to him. Frank decided to tell his chum of the discovery he had made, and they would consult as to whether they should take Jeff and Tim into their confidence.

Meanwhile, the trio gathered their loads upon their backs and started northward without so much as calling good-by to those whom they left behind, and who were not sorry to part company with them.

The gold-hunters had had a little lift on their journey, but it was not worth considering, in view of what remained before them. A mile advance with sleds and their packs took them to the head of Lake Bennet, where it may be said the navigation of the Yukon really begins. The lake is about twenty-eight miles long, contains a number of islands, and in going to the foot one passes from Alaska into British Columbia. Along its shores were scores of miners, busily engaged in building boats with which to make the rest of the journey. Sad to say, owing to their impatience and lack of skill, some of the boats were so flimsy and ill-constructed that they were certain to go to pieces in the fierce rapids below, and add their owners to the long list of victims whose bodies strew the pathway from Chilkoot to the Upper Yukon.

Here, too, it became necessary for our friends to build a craft, and since it was comparatively early in the day, Jeff and Tim, each with an axe over his shoulder, went into the wood, already partly cut down, Hardman accompanying them, in order to bear his turn. The boys remained behind to guard the property, though their neighbors were so occupied with their own affairs that they gave them little heed. Frank took the opportunity to tell his companion what he had observed on the boat while crossing the lake.

"Hardman has joined our company for some evil purpose," said Roswell, "and the other man is his partner in the plot."

"But they are gone, and we may not see them again."

"One of them, at least, has an understanding with Hardman, and will keep him within hailing distance."

"We will say nothing to Jeff or Tim until to-morrow; I fear that we shall learn something to-night."

The boy was right in his supposition.



Chapter VII.

The Plotters.


All day long the two axes swung vigorously. Both Jeff and Tim were expert woodmen, and they felled pine after pine. Hardman pleaded that he was unaccustomed to such work; but Jeff grimly told him he could never have a better chance to learn to cut down trees, and compelled him to take his turn. The work was continued until dark, which, it will be remembered, comes much later in the far North than in our latitude.

The distance between the scene of their work and the point where the outfits and goods were piled was so slight that there was really no need of the boys remaining on guard. Feeling that they were favored too much, they sauntered to the wood and asked the privilege of taking a hand in felling the trees. It was granted; but they made such sorry work, finding it almost impossible to sink the blade twice in the same spot, that they yielded the implements to those who understood the business so much better.

The snow was deep, and the camp was much the same as the one made before entering Chilkoot Pass. All were tired, and lay down after the evening meal, glad of the opportunity for a few hours' sleep.

In accordance with their agreement, the boys said nothing to either of their friends about what Frank had observed on the boat. It was understood between them that they were to feign sleep, but to keep watch of Hardman during the night as long as they could remain awake. Ordinarily it is a difficult if not impossible task for one to fight off the insidious approach of slumber, but Frank Mansley had wrought himself into such a state of anxiety that he was sure he could command his senses until well toward morning.

He and Roswell lay under the same blanket, with their backs to each other, while the others were by themselves, the interior of the tent barely permitting the arrangement. Had any one stealthily entered fifteen minutes after they had lain down, he would have declared that all were asleep, though such was not the fact.

Despite his nervousness, Frank was beginning to feel drowsy when he was startled and set on edge by a sound that penetrated the profound silence. It resembled the whistle of a bird from the timber, soft, clear, and tremulous. Almost in the same instant he heard one of the men rise stealthily from his couch. It was easy to determine, from the direction of the slight rustle, that it was Hardman.

Frank thrust his elbow into the back of his comrade as a warning for him to be alert; but there was no response. Roswell had been asleep for an hour. It was too dark to perceive anything within the tent, though all was clear outside; but the lad's senses were in that tense condition that he heard the man lift the flap of the tent and move softly over the snow on the outside. With the same silence, Frank flung back the blanket that enveloped him and stepped out on the packed snow of the interior. Pausing but a moment, he crept through the opening. In that cold region men sleep in their clothing, so he had nothing to fear from exposure.

The night was brilliantly clear, the sky studded with stars, and not a breath of air stirring. He remained a brief while in a crouching posture, while he peered in different directions. Before him stretched the lake, its shores crusted with snow and ice, with the cold water shining in the star-gleam. Still stooping low and looking intently about him, he saw something move between the tent and the water. A second glance revealed Hardman, who was standing alone and looking about him, as if he expected the approach of some person. Impatient at the delay, he repeated the signal that had aroused the attention of Frank a few minutes before.

The tremulous note had scarcely pierced the air when a shadowy form emerged from the wood and walked the short distance that took him to the waiting Hardman. The two were so far off that it was impossible to identify him; but the lad was as certain it was the man who had exchanged the words and signs with Hardman as if the noonday sun were shining.

Frank Mansley would have given anything he had to be able to steal near enough to overhear what passed between them, but that was clearly impossible. To move from his place by the tent was certain to bring instant detection. Now and then he could catch the faint murmur of their voices, but not once was he able to distinguish a syllable that was uttered.

The interview lasted but a short time. Whatever understanding was reached between the plotters must have been simple, else it would not have been effected so soon. Suddenly the stranger moved off over the snow in the direction of the wood and disappeared among the trees. At the same moment Hardman moved silently toward the tent. Frank was on the alert, and when the man entered he was lying on his couch, his blanket over him, and his chilled body against the warm form of his comrade, who recoiled slightly with a shiver, though he did not awake.

The fear of Frank Mansley had been that the two men were plotting some scheme for the robbery of Jeff, though it would seem that they would prefer to wait until he had made a strike in the gold district. What the youth had seen convinced him that the latter plan would be followed, or at least attempted, and he had hardly reached that conclusion when he fell asleep.

"You're a pretty fellow to stand guard," he remarked to his cousin the next morning, after the men had gone to the wood again.

"I didn't try to stand guard," replied Roswell with a laugh; "I was lying down all the time."

"Why didn't you keep awake?"

"Because I fell asleep, and you would have done the same if you hadn't kept awake."

"Probably I should -- most people do; but what do you think of it, Roswell?"

"First tell me something to think of."

His cousin told all that he had seen the night before.

"There can't be any doubt that Hardman and one, if not all three of those fellows, are plotting mischief. It might have been one of the others who signalled to and met him. I think we ought to tell Jeff."

"We'll do so before night. It isn't likely Hardman suspects anything, and you will have no trouble in finding the chance."

"You think it best that I should tell Jeff?"

"By all means, since you will tell what you saw. Such things are best first-hand; but neither of us will say anything to Tim."

"Why not?"

"Jeff is the leader of this expedition. Tim is so soft-hearted that likely enough he would try to convince Hardman of his wrongdoing, and so put him on his guard. Let Jeff tell him if he chooses."

"I hope he will drive Hardman out of our party; my impression of him is that he would not only rob but kill for the sake of gold."

Roswell looked grave. The same thought had been in his mind, but he disliked to give expression to it. He hoped his cousin was wrong, but could not feel certain that he was.

"Frank, make an excuse for calling Jeff here; he ought to know of this at once."

Looking toward the timber, they saw that their friend had just given up his axe to Hardman, who was swinging it a short distance from where Tim McCabe was lustily doing the same. Frank called to him, and when the old miner looked around, he beckoned for him to approach. Jeff slouched forward, wondering why the boys had summoned him from his work. He was quickly told. He listened, silent, but deeply interested, until the story was finished. Then, without any excitement, he said, "Don't let Tim know anything of this, younkers;" and, with a strange gleam in his keen gray eyes, the old man added, "I've got a Winchester and a revolver, and I keep 'em both loaded, and I've plenty of ammunition. I think I'll have use for 'em purty soon."



Chapter VIII.

On Lake Bennet.


The men wrought steadily in felling trees, and by the close of the second day had enough timber for their raft. It would have been much preferable could they have constructed a good, stout boat; but it was not feasible, though Jeff and Tim would have built it had they possessed the necessary planking and boards. They had provided themselves with oakum, pitch, and other material; but the labor of sawing out the right kind of stuff would have taken weeks. The Irishman had learned from his late experience; as a result of which a double-decker, as it may be termed, was planned. This consisted first of a substantial framework of buoyant pine logs, securely nailed together, while upon that was reared another some two feet in height. This upper framework was intended to bear their outfits, over which were fastened rubber cloths. The Alaskan lakes are often swept by terrific tempests, the waves sometimes dashing entirely over the rafts and boats, and wetting everything that is not well protected. The upper deck serves also partially to protect the men.

The boys spent a portion of the days in fishing. There was a notable moderation in the weather, the snow and ice rapidly melting. Sitting or standing on the bank, they cast out their lines, baited with bits of meat, and met with pleasing success. Plump, luscious white-fish, grayling, and lake trout were landed in such numbers that little or no other solid food was eaten during their halt at the head of Lake Bennet.

Work was pushed so vigorously that on the third day the goods were carefully piled on the upper deck, secured in place, and with their long poles they pushed out from the shore on the voyage of twenty-eight miles to the foot of the sheet of water. They were provided with a sturdy mast reared near the middle of the craft, but they did not erect a sail, for the reason that the strong wind which was blowing was almost directly from the north, and would have checked their progress.

The unwieldy structure was pushed along the eastern side, where the poles were serviceable at all times. Each took his turn at the work, the boys with the others, and the progress, if slow, was sure.

The first twelve miles of Lake Bennet are quite shallow, with a width barely exceeding a half mile. Fifteen miles down occurs the junction with the southwest arm, and the point had hardly come into sight when Tim said:

"Now look out for trouble, for here's where we'll catch it sure."

All understood what he meant, for a wind was blowing down the arm with such fierceness that it looked as if everything would be swept off the raft. The prospect was so threatening that they ran inshore while yet at a safe distance, and waited for the gale to subside.

"Is it likely to last long?" asked Roswell, when they had secured shelter.

"That depinds how far off the end of the same may be," was the unsatisfactory reply. "I've knowed men to be held here for days, but I have hopes that we may get off in the coorse of two or three weeks."

The boys as well as Jeff could not believe that Tim was in earnest, for his lightest words were often spoken with the gravest expression of face; but their former experience taught them to be prepared for almost any whim in the weather. They recalled those dismal days and nights earlier on their journey, when they were storm-stayed, and they were depressed at the thought that something of the nature might again overtake them. When the boys proposed to put up the tent, the Irishman said:

"It is early in the day; bide awhile before going to that trouble."

This remark convinced them that he was more hopeful of a release than would be implied from his words; so they wrapped their heavy coats closer and hoped for the best. The men lit their pipes, while the boys huddled close together and had little to say. Unexpectedly there came such a lull in the gale early in the afternoon that the voyage, to the delight of all, was resumed.

Ike Hardman was in more genial spirits than at any time since he joined the company. He showed an eagerness to help, declining to yield the pole when Jeff offered to relieve him, and ventured now and then upon some jest with Roswell and Frank. Their distrust, however, was not lessened, and they were too honest to affect a liking that it was impossible to feel. They had little to say to him, and noticing the fact, he finally let them alone. Whatever misgiving Jeff may have felt was skilfully concealed, and the fellow could have felt no suspicion that his secret was suspected by any member of the company.

The wind blew so strongly that there was some misgiving; but observing that it came from the right quarter, the sail was hoisted, and as the canvas bellied outward, the raft caught the impulse and began moving through the water at a rate that sent the ripples flying over the square ends of the logs at the front. All sat down on the upper framework, with the exception of Jeff, who stood, pole in hand, at the bow, ready to guide the structure should it sheer in the wrong direction.

The conformation of the shore and a slight change of wind carried the raft farther out on the lake. Observing that it was getting slightly askew, Jeff pushed the long pole downward until his hand almost touched the surface of the water. While holding it there the other end bobbed up, having failed to touch ground.

"No use," he said, facing his friends, who were watching him, "the bottom may be half a mile below."

"That looks as if we're over our hids," said Tim; "by which token, if this steamer blows up we've got to swim for our lives, and I never larned to swim a stroke."

The boys looked at him wonderingly.

"How is it you did not learn?" asked Roswell.

"I've tried hundreds of times. I kept in the water till me toes begun to have webs between 'em, but at the first stroke me hid went down and me heels up. I can swim in that style," he added gravely, "but find the same slightly inconvanient owing to the necissity of braithing now and thin. I tried fur a long time to braithe through me toes, but niver made much of a succiss of it."

"And I learned to swim in one day," remarked Frank; "strange that you should have so much trouble."

"Undoubtedly that's because yer hid is so light, while me own brains weigh me down; it's aisy to understand that."

"If we should have any mishap, Tim," said Frank, "you must remember to hold fast to a piece of wood to help you float -- a small bit is enough."

"I have a bitter plan than that."

"What is it?"

"Niver have anything to do wid the water."

"That would be certain safety if you could carry it out; but you can't help it all times -- such, for instance, as the present."

"And I'm thinking we shall have plinty of the same before we raich Dawson."

"After we get to the foot of this lake, what comes next, Tim?"

"Caribou Crossing, which we pass through to Lake Tagish, which isn't quite as big as is this one. I'm thinking," he added thoughtfully, watching the rising anger of the waves, "that bime-by, whin we come near land, we'll be going that fast that we'll skim over the snow like a sled to the nixt lake."

Roswell pointed to the shore on their right, indicating a stake which rose upright from the ground and stood close to the water.

"What is the meaning of that?" he asked.

"That," replied Tim, "marks the grave of some poor chap that died on his way to the Klondike. Do ye obsarve that cairn of stones a bit beyont?"

Each saw it.

"That marks anither grave; and ye may call to mind that we obsarved more of the same along Lake Lindeman."

Such was the fact, though this was the first reference to them.

"And we shall hardly be out of sight of some of the same all the way to the Klondike; and I'm thinking," was his truthful remark, "that hundreds more will lay their bones down in these parts and niver see their loved ones again."

It was a sad thought. In a few years improved routes, railway-tracks, and houses for food and lodging will rob the Klondike region of its terrors, but until then death must exact a heavy toll from the gold-seekers crowding northward, without regard to season or the simplest laws of prudence.

Roswell was standing on the upper deck, near a corner, when he exclaimed excitedly:

"Oh, look there! Isn't it dreadful?"

He was pointing out on the lake, and, following the direction of his hand, all saw the answer to his question.



Chapter IX.

Into British Territory.


All hurried to the side of Roswell, who was pointing to a place a short distance from the raft.

It was the body of a man that they saw, floating face upward. His clothing was good, and the white features, partly hidden by a black beard, must have been pleasing in life. The feet and hands, dangling at the sides, were so low in the water that only when stirred by the waves did they show, but the face rose and fell, sometimes above, and never more than a few inches below, so that it was in view all the time.

The group silently viewed the scene. The body drifted nearer and nearer and faintly touched the edge of the raft, as the wind carried it past. Then it continued dipping, and gradually floated away in the gathering gloom.

"We ought to give it burial," said Frank to Jeff, who shook his head.

"What's the use? We might tow it ashore, dig up a foot of the frozen earth, and set a wooden cross or heap of stones to mark the grave, but the lake is as good a burial-place as it could have."

"I wonder who he could have been," said Roswell thoughtfully. "Some man, no doubt, who has come from his home in the States, thousands of miles away, and started to search for gold. He may have left wife and children behind, who will look longingly for his coming, but will never see his face again."

"The world is full of such sad things," observed Tim McCabe, impressed, like all, with the melancholy incident, and then he expressed the thought that was in the mind of each: "There be five of us: will we all see home again?"

There was no reply. Hardman had not spoken, and, as if the occasion was too oppressive, he sauntered to another part of the raft, while the rest gradually separated, each grave and saddened by what he had witnessed.

It is well for us to turn aside from the hurly-burly of life and reflect upon the solemn fact of the inevitable end that awaits us all.

But the long afternoon was drawing to a close, and the question to be considered was whether the raft should be allowed to drift or land, or they should continue forward, despite a certain degree of danger during the darkness. All were eager to improve the time, and Jeff, as the head of the expedition, said they would keep at it at least for a while longer.

"As far as I can tell," he said, "there's no danger of running into anything that'll wreck us, and we must use our sail while we can. Besides," he added, after testing it, "the water is so deep that we can't reach bottom, and there isn't much chance to help ourselves."

The wind which swept over the raft had risen almost to a gale, and brought with it a few scurrying flakes of snow. There was a perceptible fall in the temperature, and the chilly, penetrating air caused all to shiver, despite their thick clothing.

Finally night closed in, and the raft was still drifting, the wind carrying it four or five miles an hour. The night was so short that the hope was general that the straightforward progress would continue until sunrise, though Tim, who was better acquainted with the region, expressed the belief that a storm of several days' duration had set in.

Since there was nothing to do, the men and boys disposed of themselves as comfortably as possible on the lee side of the raft, beyond reach of the waves, though the spray now and then dashed against their rubber blankets which each had wrapped about his shoulders and body. After a time Jeff took his station at the bow, though an almost imperceptible change of wind caused the structure to drift partly sideways.

Roswell and Frank, who were seated back to back and in an easy attitude, had sunk into a doze, when both were startled by a bump which swung them partly over. They straightened up and looked around in the gloom, wondering what it meant.

"We've struck shore," called Jeff, who was the only one on watch. "The voyage is over for the time."

There was hurrying to and fro, as all perceived that he had spoken the truth. The corner of the raft had impinged against some ice that was piled on the beach. The gloom was too deep for any one to see more than a few rods, so that Tim, who had traversed the sheet of water before, was unable to guess where they were.

"Provided we've come over a straight coorse," said the Irishman, "we can't be far from the fut of the lake."

"We'll know in the morning, which can't be far off," replied Jeff; "we'll make ourselves as comfortable as we can until then."

Despite the wind, they managed to light several matches and examine their watches. To their surprise, the night was nearly gone, and it was decided not to attempt to put up their tent until daylight. Accordingly, they huddled together and spent the remaining hour of gloom in anything but comfort.

At the earliest streakings of light all were astir. Springing from the ground, Tim McCabe hurriedly walked a short way to the northward. The others had risen to their feet and were watching him. As the gray light rapidly overspread the scene, they saw the lake, still tossing with whitecaps, stretching to the south and west, with the shore faintly visible. On the east, north, south, and west towered the snow-capped mountains, with Mount Lotne and other peaks piercing the very clouds. The sun was still hidden, with the air damp, cold, and penetrating.

Tim McCabe was seen to stand motionless for some minutes, when he slowly turned about on his heels and attentively studied the landmarks. Then he suddenly flung his cap high in air, and, catching it as it came down, began dancing a jig with furious vigor. He acted as if he had bidden good-by to his senses.

"Whoop! hurrah!" he shouted, as he replaced his cap and hurried to his friends. "We're at the fut of the lake!"

Such was the fact. A steamer guided by pilot and compass could not have come more directly to the termination of the sheet of water. Tim had cause for rejoicing, and all congratulated themselves upon their good fortune.

"There's only one bad thing about the same," he added more seriously.

"What's that?" asked Jeff.

"We're no longer in the United States."

"That's the fact," said Hardman, "we're in British Columbia."

After all, this was a small matter. Inasmuch as the signs indicated a severe storm, it was decided to stay where they were until its chief fury was spent. The snow was shovelled aside to allow them to reach the frozen earth, into which the stakes were securely driven, and the tent set up, with the stove in position.

Beyond Chilkoot Pass plenty of timber is to be found, consisting of pine, spruce, cottonwood, and birch. Thus far not the first sign of game had been seen. The whole country, after leaving Dyea, is mountainous.

Most of the goods were left on the raft, where they were protected by the rubber sheathing and the secure manner in which they were packed and bound.

Three dreary days of waiting followed, and the hours became so monotonous at times, especially after the hard, active toil that had preceded them, that in some respects it was the most trying period of the memorable journey of our friends from Dyea to Dawson City. The men found consolation in their pipes, which frequently made the air within the tent intolerable to the youngsters. Like most smokers, however, the men never suspected the annoyance they caused, and the boys were too considerate to hint anything of the kind. When their young limbs yearned for exercise, they bolted out of doors, in the face of the driving sleet and fine snow which cut the face like bird-shot. Locking arms, they wrestled and rolled and tumbled in the snow, washed each other's faces, flung the snow about -- for it was too dry to admit of being wrought into balls -- and when tired out, they came back panting and with red cheeks, showing that their lungs had been filled with the life-giving ozone.

It was necessary now and then to cut fuel from the adjacent wood, and this was done by Tim and Jeff. The boys asked to be allowed to try their hand, but they were too unskilful in wielding an axe, and their request was denied. Now and then the howling gale drove the smoke back into the tent, where it was almost as bad as the odor from the pipes.

The four slept at intervals through the day and most of the long night; but now and then the men laid aside their pipes, the stove "drew," and the atmosphere within was agreeable. The only books in the company were the two pocket Bibles furnished by the mothers of Roswell and Frank. Neither boy forgot his promise to read the volume whenever suitable opportunity presented. Seeing Frank reclining on his blanket, with his little Bible in hand, Jeff asked him to read it aloud, and the boy gladly complied. It was a striking sight, as the men inclined their heads and reverently listened to the impressive words from the Book of Life. There was no jesting or badinage, for that chord which the Creator has placed in every human heart was touched, and responded with sweet music. Many an hour was thus passed -- let us hope with profit to every one of the little party.

Finally the longed-for lull in the storm came, and the voyage was renewed. The trip through Caribou Crossing was made without mishap, the distance being about four miles, when they entered Marsh Lake, often known as Mud Lake, though no apparent cause exists for the title. No difficulty was experienced in making their way for the twenty-four miles of its length, at the end of which they debouched into Lynx River, where twenty-seven more miles were passed without incident or trouble worth recording.



Chapter X.

At White Horse Rapids.


"We're doing well," observed Tim McCabe, when the raft with its load and party of gold-seekers reached the end of Lynx River, "but be the same token, we're drawing nigh the worst part of the voyage, and we'll be lucky if we git through the same without mishap."

"What have we ahead?" asked Jeff.

"Miles Cañon; it's a little more than half a mile long, and if this raft isn't as strong as it should be it'll be torn to pieces."

Fortunately Jeff had given attention from the first to the stability of the structure, upon which everything depended. He was continually examining it from stem to stern, and where there was a suspicion of the necessity, he drove nails and strengthened the craft in every way possible.

The sail was used whenever possible; but since they were really among the network of lakes which form the headwaters of the Yukon, the current carried them steadily toward their destination, and there were hours when they scarcely lifted their hands except to keep the raft in proper position by means of the poles. The weather grew steadily milder, for summer was approaching. The snow and ice rapidly melted, and now and then, when the sun shone, the thick clothing felt uncomfortable during the middle of the day. Our friends were in advance of the great multitude that were pushing toward the Klondike from the south, from Canada and to St. Michael's, whence they would start on the two-thousand-mile climb of the Yukon, as soon as it shook off its icy bounds.

It was impossible that the party should not view with solicitude their entrance into Miles Cañon, though Tim assured his friends that much more dangerous rapids would remain to be passed. The cañon is five-eighths of a mile long, with an angry and swift current. Although the raft was tossed about like a cockleshell, it went through without injury, and none of the goods were displaced or harmed.

Following this came the severest kind of work. For three miles it seemed as if the river could be no worse, and the raft must be wrenched asunder. The current was not only very swift, but the channel was filled with rocks. Each man grasped one of the strong poles with which the craft was provided, and wrought with might and main to steer clear of the treacherous masses of stone which thrust up their heads everywhere. There were many narrow escapes, and despite the utmost they could do, the raft struck repeatedly. Sometimes it was a bump and sheer to one side so suddenly that the party were almost knocked off their feet. Once, owing to unintentional contrary work the raft banged against the head of a rock and stood still. While the men were desperately plying their poles the current slewed the craft around, and the voyage was resumed.

"Look out!" shouted Jeff; "there's another rock right ahead!"

Unfortunately it was just below the surface, and there were so many ripples and eddies in the current that neither Tim nor Hardman was sure of its exact location, but taking their cue from the leader, they pushed with all their strength to clear the obstruction.

They failed, and the flinty head swept directly under the logs and gouged its course for the entire length of the craft. All felt the jar, and those who could look beneath the upper deck saw the lower timbers rise from the impact, which was so severe that when the raft at last swung free it was barely moving, but, like a wounded horse, it shook itself clear, and the next moment was plunging forward as impetuously as ever. The fears of the party were intensified by sight of wreckage along the banks, proving that more than one of their predecessors had come to grief in trying to make the passage.

While all were on edge with the danger, however, they found themselves at the end of the perilous passage and floating in comparatively smooth water again. Men and boys drew sighs of relief, the former mopping their perspiring brows and looking their mutual congratulations.

"The fun is only just begun," said Tim McCabe; "we had matters purty lively fur a time, but they'll soon be a good deal livelier."

"What is next due?" asked Frank.

"I belave," said Tim, "that some folks spake of death as riding on a pale horse, don't they?"

"Yes."

"That must be the raison they call the nixt plisure thramp White Horse Cañon, or White Horse Rapids."

"Where are they?"

"But a little way ahid; many men have been drowned in thrying to sail through the same; and him as doesn't know how to swim in a whirlpool hasn't ony business to thry it."

"What, then, do you mean to do?"

"Thry it," was the imperturbable response.

Such talk was not calculated to cheer the listeners, but knowing the Irishman as they did, they received his statement with less seriousness than they should have done, for he had by no means overrated the peril in their front. Jeff made another examination of the raft while he had the opportunity, and strengthened it in every possible way. He was pleased that it stood the test so well, though it had been severely wrenched, and when it crawled over the sunken rock it had narrowly missed being torn asunder. The fastenings of the goods were examined and everything prepared, so far as it could be done, for the crucial trial at hand.

The party were seated in various positions about the raft, looking anxiously ahead, when Tim pointed a little way in advance, with the question:

"Do ye all obsarve that?"

He indicated a high bank of sand on the right which had been cut out by the erosion of the violent current. Near by some philanthropist had put up a sign, "Keep a Good Look Out."

"You have larned what other people think of the same," he added; "there's been more than twinty men drowned in there."

"Because they could not swim?" asked Frank.

"'Cause the best swimmer in the world can't swim in there; you and mesilf, boys, will soon be on the same futting, for the raison that we won't have any futting at all."

"How long is the cañon?"

"Not quite half a mile. Miles Cañon, that we've just passed through, is like a duck-pond alongside the rapids in front of us."

"Can a boat go through?"

"The thing has been done, but only about one in fifty that starts into them rapids ever raiches the outlet, excipt in bits the size of yer hand."

Frank and Roswell looked at each other in consternation. Was it possible that Jeff would allow the criminal recklessness Tim contemplated? Where the chances were so overwhelmingly against success, it was throwing away their lives to trust themselves to the fearful rapids that had already caused so many deaths.

"If you want to try," said Roswell, excitedly, "you may do so, but neither Frank nor I will. Put us ashore!"

He addressed himself to Jeff, who was seated on the edge of the upper deck, calmly smoking his pipe. He did not look around nor seem to hear the appeal.

"Never mind," interposed Frank; "if they are willing, we are not the ones to back out. I know of no law that prevents a man making a fool of himself."

"Very well," replied his cousin, more composedly, "I am ready."



Chapter XI.

On The Yukon.


Jeff Graham looked inquiringly at Tim McCabe, who nodded his head by way of reply. At the same time he said something to Hardman, and all three rose to their feet. Then the poles were plied with an effect that speedily drove the raft against the bank, where Tim sprang ashore and secured it. Brave and reckless as was the fellow, he had no intention of trying to take the boat through the exceedingly dangerous White Horse Rapids, but he could not refuse the chance for a little amusement at the expense of his young friends.

In truth, no one should ever attempt to take a boat through White Horse Rapids. The best course, perhaps, is to let it drift down the rapids, guided by a rope one hundred and fifty feet in length. If it passes through without material injury, the craft is still at command below. Another plan is to portage. At this writing there are roller-ways on the western side, over which the boats can be rolled with a windlass to help pull them to the top of the hill. In lining a craft, it must be done on the right-hand side. Three miles farther down comes the Box Cañon, one hundred yards in length and fifty feet wide, with a chute of terrific velocity. Repeated attempts have been made by reckless miners to take a boat through, but it is much the same as trying to shoot the rapids below Niagara, and the place has well earned its title of "The Miners' Grave." Still, the feat has been performed in safety.

Progress was so effectually barred at White Horse that our friends gave up their raft as of no further use. It was certain to be shattered, and where there was so much timber it was comparatively easy to build another, with which to make the remaining two hundred and twenty miles, particularly as there was no need of constructing a double-decker, for the rough voyaging was at an end.

The goods were, therefore, packed upon the Yukon sleds, and then the raft set adrift. It was never seen again, though an occasional stray log afterward observed bobbing in the current below the rapids may have formed a part of the structure that had served the travellers so well. There was enough snow for the sleds, but the work was exhausting, and was not completed until late in the afternoon, when the tent was set up and camp made.

By the close of the following day the raft was finished. It contained enough pine lumber to float a much heavier load than formed its burden, but, as we have stated, it lacked the double deck, since the necessity for one no longer existed.

The raft was no more than fairly completed when a storm that had been threatening broke upon the party. Since it was expected, and there was no saying how long it would last, the tent was set up and secured in place. Considerable fuel had been gathered, and every preparation was made for a prolonged stay, though it need not be said that each one hoped it would prove otherwise. In a country where for four-fifths of the days the sun does not show itself, such weather must be expected, and, on the whole, our friends counted themselves fortunate that they had been able to make such good progress.

The tent was hardly in position, and all within, huddling around the stove, in which Tim had just started a fire, when they were startled by a hail:

"Halloa, the house!"

The four hurried outside, where a striking sight met them. Eight men, each with a heavy pack strapped over his shoulders, and bending over with his load, thickly clad, but with their faces, so far as they could be seen through the wrappings, wet and red, had halted in front of the tent, which they scrutinized with wonder.

"Are you going to begin digging here?" called one of the men, whose eyes, nose, and mouth were all that was visible behind his muffler.

"Not while the storm lasts," replied Tim. "If we had room, we'd ask ye to come inside and enj'y yoursilves till the weather clears. At any rate, we'll be glad to give ye something warm to ate and drink."

"Oh, that's it!" exclaimed another of the men. "You're afraid of the storm, are you?"

"We're not much afraid, but we ain't in love with the same. Won't ye come in -- that is, one or two at a time?"

"Thanks for your invitation, but we haven't the time to spare. We're afeared they'll get all the gold in the Klondike country if we don't hurry. You're foolish to loiter along the road like this."

"We're willing to lose a bit of the goold for sake of the comfort. If ye are bound to go on, we wish ye good luck."

"The same to yourselves," the plucky and hopeful miners called as they plodded forward.

For two dreary days the party was storm-stayed in camp.

"Here," said Jeff Graham, when making ready to resume their voyage, "we leave our Yukon sleds."

"Shall we not need them on our return?" asked Roswell.

"We should if we returned by this route, but I wouldn't work my way against these streams and through the passes again for all the gold in the Klondike country. We shall take the steamer down the Yukon to St. Michael's, and so on to Seattle."

"That is a long voyage," suggested Hardman.

"Yes, four thousand miles; but it will be easy enough for us when we are on a steamer."

"The Yukon is closed for eight months or more each year."

"We don't intend to go down it when it's closed, for I didn't bring skates along, and I don't know how to skate, anyway."

"You do not expect to stay long in the Klondike country?" was the inquiring remark of Hardman, who showed little interest in the intentions of their leader.

"That depends; we shall come back in two months, or six, or a year, according as to how rich we strike it."

"S'pose you don't strike it at all."

Jeff shrugged his shoulders.

"We'll make a good try for it. If we slip up altogether, these folks I have brought with me won't be any worse off than before; but I don't intend to slip up -- that ain't what I came into this part of the world for."

"No, I reckon few people come for that," was the comment of Hardman, who seemed to be in a cheerful mood again.

Nothing could have offered a stronger contrast to their previous rough experience than that which now came to them. Fourteen miles down the river brought them to Lake Labarge, where they had nothing to do but to sit down and float with the current, using the poles occasionally to keep the raft in the best position. Thirty-one miles brought them to Lewis River, down which they passed to the Hootalinqua; then to the Big Salmon, and forty-five miles farther to the Little Salmon, the current running five miles an hour, and much swifter in the narrow cañon-like passages. Then beyond the Little Salmon the craft and its hopeful passengers floated smoothly with the current for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, when the boys were startled to see four giant buttes of stone towering above the water, which rushed violently among them.

"What place is that?" asked Frank, who with his cousin surveyed the immense towers with deep interest.

"Five-Finger Rapids," was the reply.

"They look dangerous."

"So they be, unless ye happens to know which two to pass between; now, which would ye selict as a guess?"

Roswell and Frank studied them awhile, and the latter answered:

"It doesn't seem to me that it makes much difference which one you take."

"Ah, but it makes a mighty difference. We should have big trouble if we neglicted to folly the right side of the river."

Jeff and Hardman were already working the raft in that direction, and Tim now gave his aid. It looked perilous, but, knowing the right course, the craft made the passage without any mishap. All settled down to enjoy the smooth sailing that was before them once more. Tim and Jeff lit their pipes, Hardman sat apart, while the boys were together near the front of the raft. The weather was clearer than it had been for several days, and much more moderate. May was well advanced, and the short, hot summer was at hand. If all went well, they would reach the gold country at the right season, and as they neared the goal the spirits of all rose, and a longing to get forward manifested itself in many ways. They waited until night had fairly come before they went ashore and encamped, and they were off again at daybreak, despite the uncannily early hour at which it comes in that part of the world.

Six miles down the Lewis River took them to the Rink Rapids, through which they passed without difficulty. Just beyond are the ruins of Fort Selkirk, where the Pelly and Lewis rivers unite. Tim McCabe studied the mouth of the Pelly, as it poured into the Lewis, and soon as the point was fairly passed, he turned to his friends, his round face aglow.

"I offer me congratulations," he said, doffing his cap and bowing low.

"On what?" asked Frank Mansley.

"The stream over which ye are now floating takes the name of the Yukon, and doesn't give up the same till it tumbles into the Pacific siveral miles to the west of us."

"Several miles!" repeated Frank; "it must be three thousand."

"Something like that, I belave. The worst part of our journey is behind us."

"How far are we from Juneau?"

"To be exact, which I loikes to be, it is five hundred and tin miles."



Chapter XII.

At Dawson City.


Naturally the route over which the little party of gold-seekers were journeying steadily improved. The Yukon, like many other great rivers of the world, comes into being a lusty, vigorous infant, the junction of the Lewis and Pelly making it a stream of considerable proportions from the moment it takes its name.

Other gold-hunters were seen from time to time, and there were pleasant exchanges and greetings with most of them. It was the custom of Jeff Graham to keep going so long as daylight lasted, when the raft was worked into shore and an encampment made. For a time the old miner kept his Winchester within immediate reach, hoping to gain sight of some deer or wild game, but as day after day and night after night passed without the first glimpse of anything of the kind, he gave up in disgust.

"It's the most villainous country on the face of the earth," he said, as he lit his pipe at the evening fire. "If it wasn't for the gold that we know is here, no decent man would stay over night in it. Frank, tell me something about the confounded country."

"Me!" replied the boy, with a laugh. "I don't know half as much as you and Tim."

"Yes, you do. Tim don't know anything more than the best way to travel through the mountains and across the lakes."

The Irishman took his pipe from between his lips to offer protest against this slur, but changed his mind, and resumed smoking, though his eyes twinkled.

"A man that takes a lot of gold out of the ground and then lets a thief steal it isn't fit to go alone."

"Which is why I've provided mesilf with a chap that knows it all," said Tim, not the least offended, though Hardman scowled, for the remark was a pointed reflection upon him; but he held his peace.

"What about the Injins here?" pursued Jeff, addressing the boys; "they're different from ours in Californy."

Frank had no wish to air his knowledge, but he replied:

"I have read that the natives belong to the red and yellow races -- that is, the Indian and Mongolian. There are two stocks of Indians -- the Thlinkets and the Tenneh. There are only a few Thlinkets, and they live along the coast. That old Indian who ferried us over Lake Lindeman is a Tenneh, as are the natives of the interior. You may not think they are much like our Indians, but they belong to the Chippewayan family, the same as the Apaches, who have caused so much trouble in Mexico and Arizona."

"That has been my 'pinion," said Tim, who now heard the fact for the first time; "and the raison why the Alaska redskins ain't as bad as the Apaches is 'cause the weather is so cold it freezes up all the diviltry in them."

"Roswell," continued Jeff, who was proud to show off the learning of his young friends, "why do they call the Eskimos that name?"

"The name, which means those who eat raw flesh, was given to them by the Indians. They call themselves Aleuts, or Innuits. The Innuits are the same as the Eskimos of Greenland and the Arctic regions, while the Aleuts belong to Alaska, the long, narrow peninsula which extends southwesterly from the mainland and the Aleutian Islands, that look like a continuation of the peninsula. As for the climate, temperature, and size of Alaska, you and Tim know as much as we do," said Roswell, who disliked as much as his cousin to seem to display his knowledge.

"Why not be modest," gravely asked Tim, "and say that ye knows almost as much as Mr. McCabe, leaving Mr. Graham out of the quistion, be the token that he knows nothing at all, and I'm afeard will niver larn?"

"As you please," replied Roswell; "you and Jeff may settle that between you."

"And ther's nothing to sittle, as me mither used to obsarve whin she looked into the impty coffee-pot; Jiff won't pretind that he knows anything of this country so long as he is in the prisence of mesilf."

"Very true," gravely replied the old miner; "but if I do scoop in any gold, I think I'll know 'nough to shoot any man that tries to steal it."

As he spoke he darted a glance at Hardman, who was sitting a little back from the fire, also smoking, but glum and silent. The boys wondered why Jeff should make these pointed references, when he had never hinted anything of the kind before, but the old miner had a purpose in mind. While not seeming to pay any special attention to Hardman, he had studied him closely for the past few days, and felt little doubt that he was planning mischief. The words, therefore, that Jeff uttered were meant as a warning to the rogue of what he might expect if he attempted any crooked work.

No further reference was made to the unpleasant subject, although Jeff and Tim chaffed each other for a long time, even after the boys had wrapped themselves in their blankets and lain down to sleep. No watch was set, as would have been the case had they been journeying through a wild part of their own country, for there was nothing to be feared from wild animals or Indians. The only being whom Jeff and the boys distrusted was a member of their own company, and they did not believe he would do anything wrong until after the party had secured something worth the risk on his part.

Deprived of many of the comforts of home and a mother's care, it did not take the boys long, under the tutelage of the older ones, to attend to their own wants. Roswell and Frank soon learned how to sew on a button and do the mending which their garments occasionally required. They washed their clothing and kept themselves in better form than do many men when placed in a similar situation.

With the weather growing more summery and hardly a bit of ice in the river, the raft glided down the Upper Yukon. Ninety-eight miles from the head of the Yukon, the craft passed the mouth of the Milk River, and in this case the party saw the appropriateness of the name, for its water has a perceptible whitish color.

A goodly distance remained to be passed, for it was ten miles to Stewart River, and twenty-five more to Fort Ogilvie, where they spent the night. They were now nearing their journey's end, and all showed a peculiar agitation, such as is natural when we feel ourselves close upon the solution of a problem that has baffled us for a long time.

One form of this emotion was the impatience to get forward faster than before. There was nothing of the feeling when leaving Seattle or Juneau or Dyea, nor did they experience it to any degree while toiling through the hundreds of miles from lake to lake and down the upper waters of the streams which help to form the Yukon.

Roswell and Frank were grateful for one blessed fact -- they were stronger and in more rugged health than ever in their lives. When making their way through the passes and helping to drag the sleds, they felt more than once like giving up and turning back, though neither would have confessed it; but now they were hopeful, buoyant, and eager. They had sent the last letter which they expected to write home for a long time upon leaving Dyea, where they bade good-by to civilization.

The afternoon was young when the raft drifted into a portion of the Yukon which expanded into a width of two miles, where it was joined by another large stream. On the eastern shore loomed a straggling town of considerable proportions.

"Tim," said Frank, suspecting the truth, "what place is that?"

"Frinds," replied Tim, vainly trying to conceal his agitation, "that town is Dawson City, and the river flowing into ours is the Klondike. Ye have raiched the goold counthry, which, being the same, I rispictfully asks ye all to jine mesilf in letting out a hurrah which will make the town trimble and the payple open their eyes so wide that they won't git them shet agin for a wake to come. Are ye riddy? Altogither!"

And the cheers were given with a will.



Chapter XIII.

On The Edge Of The Gold-Fields.


The little party of gold-seekers had every cause to congratulate themselves, for after a journey of nearly two thousand miles from Seattle, through wild passes, dangerous rapids and cañons, over precipitous mountains, amid storm and tempests, with their lives many a time in peril, half frozen and exhausted by the most wearisome toil, they had arrived at Dawson City, in the midst of the wonderful gold district of the Northwest, all without mishap and in better condition than when they left home.

The boys, in roughing it, had breathed the invigorating ozone and gained in rugged health and strength. Youth and buoyant spirits were on their side, and their muscles, which would have become flabby in the unwholesome atmosphere of a store, were hardened, and their endurance and capacity for trying work immeasurably increased. There are thousands of men to-day enjoying life, without an ache or pain, who owe their splendid condition to the campaigning they underwent in the war for the Union. If that terrific struggle swept multitudes into their graves, it brought the balm of strength and health to many more, who otherwise would not have lived out half their days.

The trying experience of Jeff Graham in his youth and early manhood did this service for him. It was not strange, therefore, that he with his iron muscles bore the strain better than any of his companions. He seemed to be tireless, and his sturdy strength often put others to shame. He had never sapped his constitution by dissipation; and it may be said that the severe hardships of that journey from Dyea through Chilkoot Pass and the wild regions about the Upper Yukon confirmed that which already existed within his splendid make-up. As for Roswell Palmer and Frank Mansley, their excellent home training, not denying credit to the grim old miner for his wise counsel, had held them free from the bad habits which too often make boys effeminate and weak and old before their time. Gifted by nature with the best of constitutions, they had strengthened rather than undermined them. Neither had known an hour's illness throughout the long, laborious journey, and they were in the best condition possible for the great task that now confronted them.

As for Tim McCabe and Ike Hardman, their weakness lay in yielding to the temptation to drink. No such temptation appeared on the road, and their enforced temperance had the best effect. Tim was less disposed to drink than the other, but, sad to say, he indulged at times. Hardman's ideal was to obtain the means for doing nothing and minister to his base appetites.

It was in 1887 that Dr. George M. Dawson, the leader of an exploring expedition sent by the Canadian Government into the Yukon district, made a report confirming the presence of gold in vast quantities throughout that section. The principal mining camp established there was named in his honor. It faces on one of the banks of the Yukon River, along which it extends for about a mile. It has a sawmill, stores, and churches of the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Roman Catholic denominations. Being the headquarters of the Canadian Northwest mounted police, it is one of the best-governed towns on the American continent. At the time of our friends' arrival its population was about four thousand, but the rush will swell it in an incredibly short while to ten, twenty, and possibly fifty times that number, for beyond question it is the centre of the most marvellous gold district that the world has ever known.

Copper, silver, and coal are found in large quantities, but no one gives them a thought when so much of the vastly more attractive yellow metal is within reach. It is singular that while the existence of gold was incontestably known for many years, little or no excitement was produced until 1896 and 1897, when the whole civilized world was turned almost topsy-turvy by the bewildering reports. During the first three months of the latter year more than four million dollars were taken from a space of forty square miles, where a few placer claims were worked. What harvest will be during the next few years no man dare attempt to guess. How suggestive the fact that on one stream so much of the metal has been found that it was given the name "Too Much Gold Creek!"

Inasmuch as our friends are now on the ground, a few more facts are proper, in order to understand the task that confronted them. Dawson City, it will be remembered, is in British territory, and all the great discoveries of gold have been made to the east of that town. Doubtless gold will be gathered in Alaska itself, but the probabilities are that the richest deposits are upon Canadian soil.

The mining claims begin within two and a half miles of Dawson City, on the Klondike, and follow both sides of that stream into the interior, taking in its tributaries like Hunker's Creek, Gold Bottom, Last Chance, Bear Creek, Bould's Bonanza, and El Dorado. Of these the richest are El Dorado, Gold Bottom, Hunker, and the oddly named Too Much Gold Creek. The last is the farthest from Dawson City, and the least known; but there can be no question that numerous other streams, at present unvisited, are equally rich, and will be speedily developed.

Just now placer mining is the only method employed. According to the mining laws of the Northwest, the words "mine," "placer mine," and "diggings" mean the same thing, and refer to any natural stratum or bed of earth, gravel, or cement mined for gold or other precious mineral. There is very little quartz mining, or crushing of rocks, as is practised in many sections of California. This requires expensive machinery, and little necessity for it seems to exist in the Klondike. In placer mining the pay dirt is washed by the simplest methods, such as were practised in California during the pioneer days.

Everything was hurry and bustle at Dawson City on that day, late in May, when our friends arrived. It was a noticeable fact that the date of their arrival was exactly two months after the boys kissed their parents good-by in San Francisco.

Tim McCabe had gathered much practical knowledge during his experience in this region, while Jeff had not forgotten what he passed through "in the days of '49," to which wisdom he had added, as opportunity presented, while on the way to the Klondike. When the party had eaten together at the principal hotel and the men had lit their pipes in a group by themselves, a surprise came. The old miner smoked a minute or two in silence, and then turned to Hardman, who was sitting a little apart, moody and reserved.

"Ike," said he, "I've stood by you all the way from Juneau, hain't I?"

The fellow looked wonderingly at him, as did the others, none suspecting what was coming.

"In course," was the gruff reply of Hardman; "we all stood by one another, fur if we hadn't we wouldn't stood at all."

"You've got to Dawson City without it costing you a penny, haven't you?"

"There hain't been much chance to spend money since we left Dyea," replied Hardman with a grin.

Jeff was nettled by this dodging of the issue; but he kept his temper.

"And if there had been you hadn't a dollar to spend onless you kept back some of that which you stole from Tim."

"I don't see the use of your harping on that affair," said Hardman angrily. "I've owned up, and am going to make it all right with Tim. It's none of your business, anyway, and I don't want to hear any more of it."

"Well, what I'm getting at is this: if it hadn't been for me you'd never got to this place. You're here, and now you must look out for yourself; I won't have you an hour longer in the party; we part; get away as soon as you can!"

Hardman looked savagely at the old miner, as if suspecting he had not heard aright. But a moment's reflection convinced him there was no mistake. With a muttered imprecation he rose to his feet and left. But it was by no means the last of him.



Chapter XIV.

Prospecting.


After the departure of Hardman, Jeff explained to Tim why he had driven him from their company. He told what Frank had seen when crossing Lake Lindeman, and how the fellow afterward, when he thought all were asleep within the tent, went out to meet his confederate.

"I didn't want to turn him loose on the road," added Jeff, "though I had half a mind to tell him to hunt up his friends and join them. But he now has the same chance as the rest of us, and must look out for himself."

"Begorra, but ye are right, Jiff," was the hearty response of the Irishman. "I'm beginning to suspict that he didn't intind to give back that money he borrered -- that is, if he should iver lay hands on the same."

Jeff looked pityingly at his friend; but reading in the expression of his face that he was jesting, he made no response. Instead, he spoke impressively:

"You never would have lost that money if you hadn't been in liquor."

"That's the fact, Jiff; but how did ye find it out?"

"My own common sense told me. You've been looking 'round the last hour for a chance to indulge agin."

"I'll admit," was the frank response, "that a dim idea of the kind has been flickerin' through me brain; but I cast the timptation indignantly behind me. Do you know why?"

"No."

"Nobody offered to pay for the drinks, and I haven't a cint to pay for any mesilf."

"And you won't get a cent from me; you must earn it by taking out gold. If you succeed it'll be yours, and you can do as you please with it."

Tim removed his cap and scratched his head.

"I've gone a good many wakes without it, and I feel so much better that I'm thinking of keeping up the good work."

"I hope you will, and prove yourself a man of sense. But we have no time to waste; we oughter be on our way now."

The sentiment suited all, and was followed without delay. Amid the crush and hustle it was impossible to hire a horse, mule, donkey, or boat. Everything had been engaged long before, and there were hundreds of disappointed applicants who, like our friends, were obliged to make the tramp eastward on foot, carrying their utensils with them, and leaving behind all that was not necessary in the work of placer mining.

During the brief stay at Dawson City the four attentively studied such maps as they could secure, and gathered all information from the many who were qualified and willing to give it. As a consequence, when they started up the Klondike, they had a well-defined idea of their destination.

The first stream which flows into the river from the southward is the Bonanza, some twenty-five miles long. This itself has numerous small tributaries emptying into it; but hearing that all claims had been located, and not believing it possible that any valuable ones had been overlooked, they pushed on to Twelve Mile Creek, also flowing from the south. There the same facts confronted them, and camping on the road when necessary, our friends finally reached Too Much Gold Creek, thirty-five miles from Dawson.

Gold-hunters were all around them, and frequently the men and boys tramped for miles in the company of men whom they had never seen before; but such a life levels social distinctions, and they were soon upon as friendly terms as if they had come from Seattle in company.

At the mouth of Too Much Gold Creek they encountered two grizzly miners, each mounted on a mule that was so covered with additional luggage that little besides his head, ears, and forefeet was visible. They intended to cross the Klondike and prospect on the other side. Jeff asked whether there was no gold along the creek which they had just descended.

"It's full of it," was the reply of the elder; "but we're too late; all the claims have been taken up."

"Did you go to the headwaters?"

"No; we didn't want to waste the time, when all the claims are gone; there are other places as good as that, and we'll strike one; so good-by, friends."

Laughing and in high spirits, the two miners struck their boot heels against the ribs of their mules and were off. It may be worth recording that both of them struck it rich within the following week, and a month later started for home rich men.

"It ain't likely," said Jeff, "that there are many claims left along this river; but there must be some. Anyhow, we'll try it; I'm sure there are places among those mountains that nobody has visited."

To the east and south towered a spur of the Rocky Mountains. It would take hundreds of men a long time thoroughly to explore their recesses, and it was the intention of the leader to push in among them. The region resembled that to which he had been accustomed in California, and he would feel more at home there.

So the wearisome tramp was resumed and continued, with occasional rests, until late at night. Other parties were continually encountered, and all had the same story to tell of there not being a foot of desirable land that was not pre-empted. Some of these people were returning, but most of them pressed on, hopeful of striking some spot that was awaiting them.

Encamping under the shelter of a rock, the journey was resumed early the next morning, and, some twenty miles from the Klondike, a turn was made eastward among the mountains, which stretch far beyond the farthest range of vision. They were following a small stream that showed no signs of having been visited, and by noon had reached a point where they seemed as much alone as if in the depths of Africa.

"I guess we may as well try it here," said Jeff, and he began to unload his pack, in which he was promptly imitated by his companions. They quickly finished, and sat down for a long rest.

It had been a steady climb almost from the first. But for their previous severe training the boys would have succumbed, but they stood it well. The stream which flowed in front of them was little more than a brook, that seemed to be made by the melting snows above. It was clear and cold, and they drank deeply from it. Rocks and bowlders were above, below, in front, and at the rear.

When their utensils and equipage were laid in a pile, Jeff went off in one direction, Tim in another, while the boys plunged deeper into the mountains, all engaged in prospecting as best they could. Inasmuch as the boys had never had any experience in that sort of work, their only chance of success was through accident.

They followed up the stream, as nearly as they could judge, for about an eighth of a mile, still among the huge rocks, when they sat down to rest.

"We may as well go back," cried Roswell, "for Jeff and Tim are the only ones who know when they have come upon signs of gold; we may have passed a half-dozen places where it can be taken out by the bushel -- "

Frank touched his cousin's arm and indicated by a nod of his head a pile of rocks a few rods away and a short distance above them. Looking thither, they saw the head and shoulders of a man intently studying them. When he found he was observed he lowered his head and disappeared.

"Do you know him?" asked Frank, in an undertone.

"No; I never saw him before."

"Yes, you have. He crossed Lake Lindeman with us. He's the one that signalled to Hardman and afterward met him at night outside of our tent."



Chapter XV.

A Find.


It was an unpleasant discovery to the boys that after parting company with the ill-favored man who was known to be a friend and comrade of the rogue Ike Hardman, and after travelling hundreds of miles to this lonely spot, they should meet the fellow again. Doubtless he was engaged on the same errand as themselves, and the presumption was that sooner or later he would be joined by Hardman.

"I don't know that there is any danger," said Roswell; "but it would be more comfortable to know they were not going to be our neighbors."

"Let's follow up the man and question him," said Frank, starting to climb the rocks behind which the other's face had vanished. It took only a few minutes to reach the spot; but when they did so, and looked around, nothing was seen of him.

"He evidently doesn't wish to make our acquaintance," said Frank.

"I hope he will continue to feel that way; we must tell Jeff and Tim about this. Let's hurry back to camp."

They now started to descend the stream, which they had followed from the point where they left their luggage. By using the brook as their guide, they were in no danger of losing their way.

About half the distance was passed when they came to a point where the walking looked better on the other side. The stream was so narrow that Frank, who was in the lead, easily leaped across. Roswell started to follow, but tripped and fell on his hands and knees, one foot splashing in the water, which was only a few inches in depth and as clear as crystal.

"Are you hurt?" asked Frank, pausing and looking around at him.

"Not a bit. I don't know what made me so awkward."

"Halloa! what's that?"

At first Frank thought it was a small fish holding itself stationary in the brook; but that could not be, and he stooped down to see more clearly. With an exclamation, he dashed his hand into the water and drew out a rough, irregular nugget nearly two inches in diameter each way. It was bright yellow in color, and so heavy that there could be no doubt of its nature.

"It's gold!" he exclaimed in a half-frightened undertone, as he passed it to Roswell, who was as much excited as he. He "hefted" it and held it up to the light.

"No mistake, it is. I wonder what it is worth."

"Several hundred dollars at least. I'll bet there are lots more about here."

They straightway began a vigorous search up and down stream, confident of finding other similar nuggets, but none was discovered, and finally they reached the place where their baggage had been left, and where Tim and Jeff were awaiting them.

"Look!" called the delighted Frank, holding up the nugget. "See what we found!"

"Begorra, but I shouldn't wonder if that's worth something," remarked Tim, catching the contagion. Jeff merely smiled and reached out his hand without any appearance of excitement.

"Let me have a look at it."

He never used glasses, nor did he bring any acid with which to test such yellow metals as they might find, for he needed neither. He had been trained too well in his early manhood.

The instant he noted its great weight he was convinced of the truth. But, without speaking for a minute or two, he turned the nugget over, held it up to the light, and then put it between his big, sound teeth as if it were a hickory-nut which he wished to crack. He looked at the abrasion made by his teeth, tossed the nugget several feet in the air, and, catching it in his palm as it descended, said:

"That's pure gold. Haven't you any more?"

"No," replied Frank; "we searched, but couldn't find any."

Jeff moved his hand up and down and closed one eye, as if that would help him to estimate the weight more exactly.

"I should say that it is worth from six to eight hundred dollars; you younkers have made purty good wages for to-day. I hope," he added quizzically, "you'll be able to keep it up."

"And how have you made out?" asked Roswell.

"Tim says he didn't come onto anything that looks like pay dirt; but I struck a spot that gives me hope. We'll locate here for a while."

Of course it was impossible for the party to bring any material with them from which to construct a dwelling. The regulation miner's cabin is twelve by fourteen feet, with walls six or seven feet high, and gables two feet higher. It consists of a single room, with the roof heavily earthed and the worst sort of ventilation, owing to the small windows and the necessity of keeping warm in a climate that sometimes drops to fifty or sixty degrees below zero. The miners keep close within the cabins during the terrible winter weather, or, if it permits, they sink a shaft to bed-rock and then tunnel in different directions. The ground never thaws below a depth of two feet, so there is no need of shoring to prevent its caving. The pay dirt is brought up by means of a small windlass and thrown into a heap, where it remains until spring, when it is washed out.

Since the season was well advanced, the men and boys prepared themselves to wash the pay dirt whenever found. But, first of all, it was necessary to establish a home for themselves while they remained in the region. They had a single axe and a few utensils besides the shovels, pans, and articles required in their work. While Tim was prospecting, he gave more attention to searching for a site for a home than for gold, and was fortunate enough to find a place among the rocks, which was fitted up quite comfortably. The stone furnished three and a part of four walls necessary, and they cut branches, which were spread over the top and covered with dirt for the roof. Owing to the moderate weather and the trouble from smoke, the fire was kindled on the outside when required for cooking purposes. The Yukon stove, because of its weight, was left at Dawson City, whither one of them expected to go when it became necessary to replenish their stores. Although the nights were still cold, the weather was comparatively comfortable. Before long it would become oppressive during the middle of the day.

As Jeff figured it out, they had enough food, tobacco, and supplies to last for a couple of weeks, or possibly longer. If they struck a claim which they wished to stake out, it would be necessary for one of them to go to Dawson City to register it, the process being quite simple.

The prospector is forbidden to exceed five hundred feet up and down a stream, following the course of the valley, but the width may run from base to base of the mountains. Thus a miner's claim is one of the few things that is often broader than it is long. Should the stream have no other claims located upon it, the one thus made is known as "the discovery claim," and the stakes used are marked 0. This claim is the starting-point, the next one up and the next down the stream being marked No. 1, and there can be only two such on any stream.

Next, four stakes must be driven in place, each being marked with the owner's initials and the letters "M. L.," meaning "mining location," after which it must be bounded with cross or end lines, and within the ensuing sixty days the claim has to be filed with the government's recorder at Dawson City. Should a claim be staked before the discovery of gold, the prospector has sixty days in which to find the metal. If he fails to do so in the time mentioned, his claim lapses, since it is absolutely essential that he shall find gold in order to hold it permanently.



Chapter XVI.

The Claim.


Not the least interesting feature of the stay of our friends in the gold region was their dwelling during those memorable days. The rocks came so nearly together that an irregular open space was left, which averaged a width of twenty feet with a depth slightly less. Thus three sides and the floor were composed of solid stone. When the roof, as described, was put in place, the dwelling had the appearance of a cavern fully open at the front. There the canvas composing the tent was stretched, and so arranged that the dwelling, as it may be called, was completed. It was inclosed on all sides, with the door composed of the flaps of the tent, which could be lowered at night, so that the inmates were effectually protected against the weather, though had there been any prowling wild animals or intruding white men near, they would have had little difficulty in forcing an entrance. It has been explained how all trouble from the smoke of a fire was avoided.

One of the peculiarities of this primitive house was its interior arrangement. There were so many projecting points on the walls that they were utilized as pegs upon which to hang the extra garments. A ledge a couple of feet above the floor served as a couch, upon which the boys spread their blankets, while the men laid theirs on the floor itself. The mining and cooking utensils were neatly arranged against the rear wall, where were piled the small canvas bags intended to contain the gold dust and nuggets that were to be gathered.

Jeff expressed the truth when he said:

"This will sarve us well while the weather is moderate; but if we should be here when the thermometer goes down to fifty or sixty degrees below zero, we'd turn into icicles before we could say Jack Robinson."

Hardly pausing to place their house in order, the party set out to investigate the find which Jeff hoped he had made.

Going up the stream for a short distance, they turned off into a narrow valley, which never would have attracted the attention of the boys.

The old miner stood for some minutes attentively studying his surroundings, and then, instead of beginning to dig, as his companions expected him to do, he said with an expression of disgust:

"Boys, I've made a mistake; there's no gold here."

"How can you tell until you search?" asked the astonished Roswell.

"It ain't what I thought it was; you don't find the stuff in places like this. There's no use of wasting time; come on."

Wondering at his action, the three, smiling but silent, trailed after him. Climbing over some intervening bowlders, they shortly emerged into a place altogether different from any they had yet seen. It was a valley two or three hundred feet in width, with the sides gently sloping. There was no snow on the ground, and here and there a few green blades of grass could be seen sprouting from the fertile soil. Through the middle of this valley meandered a stream eight or ten feet in width, but shallow, and so clear that the bottom could be plainly seen while yet some distance away. The valley itself soon curved out of sight above, and it was impossible, therefore, to guess its extent in that direction. Below it terminated, not far from where they stood, the rocks coming together so as to form a small cañon, through which the creek rushed with a velocity that reminded them of the dangerous ones they had passed on their way from Chilkoot Pass.

"Wait here a bit," said Jeff, as he started toward the stream. The others obeyed, watching his actions with interest.

He strode to the creek, along which he walked a few rods, his head bent as he carefully scrutinized all that passed under his eye. Suddenly he stopped and stared as if he had found that for which he was looking. Then stooping down, he leaned as far out as he could, gathered a handful of the gravelly soil, and put it in the washer which he had taken with him. This was repeated several times. Then he dipped the pan so as nearly to fill it with water, after which he whirled it round several times with a speed that caused some of the water to fly out. That part of his work completed, he set down the pan which served as a washer, and walked rapidly back toward his friends.

"Another disappointment," remarked Frank; "it isn't as easy to find gold as we thought."

"I don't know about that," said Tim McCabe. "Jiff looks to me as if he has hit on something worth while. How is it, Jiff?" he called as the old miner drew near.

"That's our claim," he replied; "we'll stake it out, and then I'm going to Dawson to file it."

"Are you sure there is gold here?" asked Roswell, in some excitement.

"Yes, I hit it this time. We mustn't lose any days in staking it out, or somebody else will get ahead of us."

The assurance of Jeff imparted confidence to the rest. The stakes were cut and driven, according to the rule already stated, and then Jeff breathed more freely.

"We've got sixty days to find the stuff," he said, "and nobody daren't say a word to us. All the same, I'm going to Dawson to file the claim and make things dead sure."

"When will you go?"

"Now, right off. I want to bring back some things with me, and I'll be gone two or three days, but I won't lose no time."

Jeff was one of those men who do not require long to make up their minds, and whom, having reached a decision, nothing can turn aside from its execution. Ten minutes later he was hurrying toward Dawson City, forty miles or more distant.

Inasmuch as Tim McCabe had practical knowledge of placer mining, the three decided to improve the time while Jeff was absent in taking out some of the gold which he assured them was there.

As has been explained, this form of mining is of the crudest and cheapest nature. In winter, after sinking a shaft to bed-rock, tunnels are run in different directions, and the frozen dirt piled up until warm weather permits its washing out. The distance to bed-rock varies from four to twenty feet. The gold is found in dust, grains, and nuggets, the last varying from the size of a hickory-nut or larger to small grains of pure gold.

It quite often occurs that the bed-rock is seamy, with many small depressions. It is supposed that when the débris containing the original gold swept over this bed-rock, the great weight of the metal caused it to fall and lodge in the crevices, where it has lain for ages. Certain it is that the richest finds have been made in such places.

Having fixed upon the spot where the work should begin, Tim McCabe and the boys set to work to clear off the coarse gravel and stone from a patch of ground. At the end of several hours they had completed enough to begin operations. Tim dropped a few handfuls of the finer gravel or sand into his pan, which was a broad, shallow dish of sheet iron. Then water was dipped into the pan until it was full, when he whirled it swiftly about and up and down. This allowed the gold, on account of its greater specific gravity, to fall to the bottom, while the sand itself was floated off by the agitation. Tim had learned the knack of dipping the pan sideways, so as gradually to get rid of the worthless stuff, while the heavy yellow particles remained below.

The boys stood attentively watching the operation, which was carried on with such skill that by and by nothing was left in the bottom but the yellow and black particles. The latter were pulverized magnetic iron ore, which almost always accompanies the gold. Frank's and Roswell's eyes sparkled as they saw so much of the yellow particles, even though it looked almost as fine as the black sand.

"How will you separate them?" asked Frank.

"Now ye'll obsarve the use that that cask is to be put to," replied Tim, "if ye'll oblige me by filling the same with water."

This was done, when Tim flung about a pound of mercury into the cask, after which he dumped into it the black and yellow sand. As soon as the gold came in contact with the mercury it formed an amalgam.

"This will do to start things," said Tim. "When we have enough to make it pay, we'll squaze it through a buckskin bag."

"What is the result?"

"Nearly all the mercury will ooze through the bag, and we can use the same agin in the cask. The impure goold will be placed on a shovel and held over a hot fire till the mercury has gone off in vapor, and only the pure goold is lift, or rather there's just a wee bit of the mercury still hanging 'bout the goold; but we'll make a big improvement whin Jiff comes back. The filing of this claim ain't the only thing that takes him to Dawson City."

"What do you think of the deposit here?"

"I b'lave it's one of the richest finds in the Kloondike counthry, and if it turns out as it promises, we shall go home and live like gintlemen the rist of our lives."



Chapter XVII.

A Golden Harvest.


Tim McCabe and the boys wrought steadily through the rest of the day and the following two days. Inasmuch as the summer sun in the Klondike region does not thaw the soil to a greater depth than two feet, it was necessary to pile wood upon the earth and set it afire. As this gradually dissolved the frozen ground, the refuse dirt was cleared away, so as to reach paying earth or gravel. The results for a time were disappointing. The gold-hunters secured a good deal of yellow grains or dust, and ordinarily would have been satisfied, but naturally they were greedy for more.

There came times of discouragement, when the boys began to doubt the truth of the wonderful stories that had reached them from the Klondike region, or they thought that if perchance the reports were true, they themselves and their friends had not hit upon a productive spot. Tim, when appealed to, had little to say, but it was of a hopeful nature. It would have been unnatural had he not been absorbed in the work in hand.

That there was gold was undeniable, for the evidence was continually before them, but the question was whether it was to be found in paying quantities upon their claim. At the close of the second day all they had gathered was not worth ten dollars.

But the harvest rewarded them on the third day. Tim was working hard and silently, when he suddenly leaped to his feet, flung down his pick, and hurling his cap in the air, began dancing a jig and singing an Irish ditty. The boys looked at him in amazement, wondering whether he had bidden good-by to his senses.

"Do ye obsarve that beauty?" he asked, stopping short and holding up a yellow nugget as large as the one the boys had taken from the brook several days before. Roswell and Frank hurried up to him and examined the prize. There could be no doubt that it was virgin gold and worth several hundred dollars.

Twenty minutes later it was Roswell's turn to hurrah, for he came upon one almost as large. And he did hurrah, too, and his friends joined in with a vigor that could not be criticised. Congratulating one another, the three paused but a few minutes to inspect the finds, when they were digging harder than ever.

"I think it is my turn," remarked Frank; "you fellows are becoming so proud, that if I don't find -- by George, I have found it!"

Incredible as it seemed, it was true, and Frank's prize was larger than any of the others. Instantly they were at work again, glowing with hope and delight. No more nuggets were taken out that day, but the gravel revealed greater richness than at any time before.

Jeff Graham put in an appearance while they were eating supper, and, to the surprise of all, he was riding a tough little burro, which he had bought at Dawson for five hundred dollars. His eyes sparkled when he learned what had been done during his absence, but he quietly remarked, "I knowed it," and having turned his animal loose, after unloading him, he asked for the particulars.

Although it was quite cold, the four remained seated on the bowlders outside of their primitive dwelling, the men smoking their pipes and discussing the wonderful success they had had, and the still greater that was fairly within their grasp.

"We're not so much alone as I thought," remarked Jeff, "for there are fifty miners to the east and north, and some of them ain't far from where we've staked out our claim, and more are coming."

"They can't interfere with us?" was the inquiring remark of Roswell.

"Not much. As a rule, folks don't file their claims till they've struck onto a spot where the yaller stuff shows; but I've done both, 'cause I was sartin that we'd hit it rich. If anybody tried to jump our claim, the first thing I'd do would be to shoot him; then I'd turn him over to the mounted police that are looking after things all through this country."

"Ye mane that ye'd turn over what was lift of his remains," suggested Tim gravely.

"It would amount to that. Things are in better shape here than they was in the old times in Californy, where a man had to fight for what he had, and then he wasn't always able to keep it."

"What do you intend to do with the burro?" asked Frank.

"Let him run loose till we need him. He brought a purty good load of such things as we want, and I'm hoping he'll have another kind of load to take back," was the significant reply of the old miner.

This was the nearest Jeff came to particulars. His natural reserve as to what he had done and concerning his plans for the future prevented any further enlightenment. The fact that they had neighbors at no great distance was both pleasing and displeasing. Despite the assurance of their leader, there was some misgiving that when the richness of the find became known an attempt would be made to rob them. Gold will incite many men to commit any crime, and with the vast recesses of the Rocky Mountain spur behind them, the criminals might be ready to take desperate chances.

It was hardly light the next morning when the party were at it again. The pan or hand method of washing the gold is so slow and laborious that with the help and superintendence of Jeff a "rocker" was set up. This was a box about three feet long and two wide, made in two parts. The upper part was shallow, with a strong sheet-iron bottom perforated with quarter-inch holes. In the middle of the other part of the box was an inclined shelf, which sloped downward for six or eight inches at the lower end. Over this was placed a piece of heavy woollen blanket, the whole being mounted upon two rockers, like those of an ordinary child's cradle. These were rested on two strong blocks of wood to permit of their being rocked readily.

This device was placed beside the running stream. As the pay dirt was shovelled into the upper shallow box, one of the party rocked it with one hand while with the other he ladled water. The fine particles with the gold fell through the holes upon the blanket, which held the gold, while the sand and other matter glided over it to the bottom of the box, which was so inclined that what passed through was washed down and finally out of the box. Thin slats were fixed across the bottom of the box, with mercury behind them, to catch such particles of gold as escaped the blanket.

The stuff dug up by our friends was so nuggety that many lumps remained in the upper box, where they were detained by their weight, while the lighter stuff passed through, and the smaller lumps were held by a deeper slat at the further end of the bottom of the box. When the blanket became surcharged with wealth it was removed and rinsed in a barrel of water, the particles amalgamating with the mercury in the bottom of the barrel.

Sluicing requires plenty of running water with considerable fall, and is two or three times as rapid as the method just described, but since it was not adopted by our friends, a description need not be given.

At the end of a week Jeff, with the help of his companions, made a careful estimate of the nuggets and sand which they had gathered and stowed away in the cavern where they slept and took their meals. As nearly as they could figure it out the gold which they had collected was worth not quite one hundred thousand dollars -- very fair wages, it will be conceded, for six days' work by two men and two boys. On Sunday they conscientiously abstained from labor, though it can hardly be said that their thoughts were elsewhere.

Since one hundred thousand dollars in gold weighs in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds, it will be seen that the party had already accumulated a good load to be distributed among themselves. It may have been that the expectation of this result caused Jeff to bring the burro back, for with his help it would not be hard to carry double the amount, especially as everything else would be left behind.

To the surprise of his friends, Jeff announced that it was necessary for him to make another visit to Dawson City. It was important business that called him thither, but he gave no hint of its nature. He hoped to be back within two or three days, and he departed on foot, leaving the animal to recuperate, and, as he grimly added, "make himself strong enough to carry a good load to town."

Jeff left early in the morning. The afternoon was about half gone, when Tim with an expression of anxious concern announced that he had just remembered something which required him to go to Dawson without an hour's delay.

"It's queer that I didn't think of the same while Jiff was here," he said, "so that he might have enj'yed the plisure of me society, but it won't be hard for me to find him after I git there. Ye byes wont be scared of being lift to yersilves fur a few days?" he asked with so much earnestness that they hastened to assure him he need have no misgivings on that point.

"We shall keep hard at it while you are away, but since Jeff is also absent we shall be lonely."

"Luk fur me very soon. I'll advise Jiff to make ye an extra allowance for yer wurruk while him and me is doing nothing."

Two hours after the departure of McCabe, Frank, who was working the rocker while his chum was shovelling in the dirt, suddenly stopped, with expanding eyes.

"I have just thought what Tim's business is at Dawson."

"What is it?"

"It is his longing for drink. He has gone on a spree, taking one of his nuggets with him to pay the cost. Jeff will be sure to run across him, and then there will be music."



Chapter XVIII.

A Startling Discovery.


The weather was mild, for the short, oppressive Northwest summer was rapidly approaching. During the middle of the day the sun was hot, and the boys perspired freely. By and by would come the billions of mosquitoes to render life unbearable. Those pests often kill bears and wolves by blinding them, and the man who does not wear some protection is driven frantic, unable to eat, sleep, or live, except in smothering smoke. Jeff had said that he meant to complete the work, if possible, and start down the Yukon before that time of torment arrived.

For two days the boys wrought incessantly. They had learned how to wash and purify the gold in the crude way taught them by the old miner, and the rich reward for their labor continued. Jeff had brought back on his previous visit to Dawson City an abundant supply of strong canvas bags, in which the gold was placed, with the tops securely tied. These were regularly deposited in the cavern where the party made their home, until a row of them lined one side of the place. It was a striking proof of the wonderful richness of their find, that one of these bags was filled wholly with nuggets, which must have been worth fifteen or twenty thousand dollars.

Early on the afternoon of the third day another thought struck Frank Mansley, and he ceased shovelling gravel into the rocker for his companion.

"What is it now?" asked Roswell with a smile.

"Don't you remember that on the first day we arrived here, while we were prospecting up the little stream, we saw that friend of Ike Hardman?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, we never told Jeff about it."

"I declare!" exclaimed Roswell. "How came we to forget it?"

"This gold drove it out of our minds. I never thought of it until this minute. I tell you, Roswell, I believe something has gone wrong."

And Frank sat down, removed his cap, and wiped his moist forehead with his handkerchief.

"What could have gone wrong?" asked the other lad, who, despite his jauntiness, shared in a degree the anxiety of his friend.

"All the gold we have gathered is in the cavern. I believe Hardman and those fellows are in the neighborhood and mean to steal it."

"It's a pity we didn't think of this before," said Roswell, laying down his shovel. "Let's go back to the cavern and keep watch till Jeff comes back."

Inspired by their new dread, they hastily gathered up what gold had been washed out, stowed it into another canvas bag, and then Frank slung it half filled over his shoulder and started for the cavern, something more than an eighth of a mile away.

They walked fast and in silence, for the thought in the mind of both was the same. From the first the most imprudent carelessness had been shown, and they could not understand how Jeff ever allowed the valuable store to remain unguarded. It is true, as has already been stated, that the section, despite the rush of lawless characters that have flocked thither, is one of the best governed in the world, and no officers could be more watchful and effective than the mounted police of the Northwest; but the course of our friends had much the appearance of a man leaving his pocketbook in the middle of the street and expecting to find it again the next day.

A bitter reflection of the boys was that this never would have been the case had they told Jeff of the presence of the suspicious individual in the neighborhood. If anything went amiss, they felt that the blame must rest with them If matters were found right, they would not leave the cavern until one or both of their friends returned.

When half the distance was passed, Roswell, who was in the load, broke into a lope, with Frank instantly doing the same. A minute later they had to slacken their pace because of the need to climb some bowlders and make their way through an avenue between massive rocks, but the instant it was possible they were trotting again.

It had been the custom for the gold-seekers to take a lunch with them to the diggings. This saved time, and their real meal was eaten in the evening after their return home.

The moment Roswell caught sight of the round, irregular opening which served as the door of their dwelling, he anxiously scanned it and the pile of wood and embers on the outside, where the fire was kindled for cooking purposes. The fact that he saw nothing amiss gave him hope, but did not remove the singular distrust that had brought both in such haste from the diggings.

He ran faster, while Frank, discommoded by the heavy, bouncing bag over his shoulder, stumbled, and his hat fell off. With an impatient exclamation he caught it up, recovered himself, and was off again.

As he looked ahead he saw Roswell duck his head and plunge through the opening.

"Is everything right?" shouted Frank, whose dread intensified with each passing second.

Before he could reach the door out came his cousin, as if fired by a catapult. His eyes were staring and his face as white as death.

"Right!" he gasped; "we have been robbed! All the gold is gone!"

And overcome by the shock the poor fellow collapsed and sank to the ground as weak as a kitten. Frank let the bag fall and straightened up.

"No; it cannot be," he said in a husky voice.

"Look for yourself," replied Roswell, swallowing a lump in his throat and turning his eyes pitifully toward his comrade.

A strange fear held Frank motionless for several seconds. Despite the startling declaration of his cousin, a faint hope thrilled him that he was mistaken, and yet he dared not peer into the interior through dread of finding he was not.

Reflecting, however, upon the childish part he was playing, he pulled himself together, and with the deliberation of Jeff Graham himself bent his head and passed through the door.

Enough sunlight penetrated the cavern to reveal the whole interior in the faint illumination. When they left that morning the row of canvas bags was neatly arranged along the farther wall, where they stood like so many corpulent little brownies.

Every one had vanished.

Frank Mansley stared for a moment in silence. Then he stepped forward and called in a strong, firm voice:

"Come, Roswell, quick!"

The other roused himself and hastily advanced.

"Take your revolver," said Frank, as he shoved his own into his hip-pocket, and begun strapping Jeff's cartridge belt around his waist. As Roswell obeyed, his cousin took the Winchester from where it leaned in one corner.

"Now for those thieves, and we don't come back till we find them."



Chapter XIX.

The Trail Into The Mountains.


On the outside of the cavern the boys halted. After the shock both were comparatively calm. Their faces were pale, and they compressed their lips with resolution. Some time during the preceding few hours thieves had entered their home and carried away one hundred thousand dollars in gold dust and nuggets, and the youths were determined to regain the property, no matter what danger had to be confronted.

But the common sense of the boys told them the surest way to defeat their resolve was to rush off blindly, with not one chance in a thousand of taking the right course.

"Roswell, that gold weighs so much that no one and no two men could carry it off, unless they made several journeys."

"Or there were more of them; they would hardly dare return after one visit."

"Why not? Hardman (for I know he is at the bottom of the business) and the other rogue have been watching us for several days. They knew that when we left here in the morning we would not come back till night, and they had all the time they needed and much more."

"But if there were only two, they would have to keep doubling their journey, and I don't believe they would do that. Perhaps they used the donkey."

"Let's find out."

The burro was accustomed to graze over an area several acres in extent and enclosed by walls of rocks. Since the first-mentioned brook ran alongside, the indolent creature could be counted upon to remain where the pasture was succulent and abundant. The place was not far off, and the boys hurried thither.

A few minutes later the suggestive fact became apparent -- the donkey was gone.

"And he helped take the gold!" was the exclamation of Frank. "They loaded part of it on his back and carried the rest. I don't believe they are far off."

It was certain the thieves had not gone in the direction of the diggings, and it was improbable that they would attempt to reach Dawson City, at least, for an indefinite time, for they must have known that Jeff Graham and Tim McCabe had gone thither, and that there they were likely to be seen and recognized. At any rate, it would be hard for them to get away through the town for a considerable period, during which the grim old miner would make things warm for them.

The conclusion of the boys, therefore, after briefly debating the problem, was that the men had turned into the mountains. These stretched away for many miles, and contained hundreds of places where they would be safe from pursuit by a regiment of men.

"But if they took the burro," said Roswell, "as it seems certain they did, they must have followed some kind of a path along which we can pursue them."

"Provided we can find it."

They were too much stirred to remain idle. Frank led the way to the corner of the enclosure which was bisected by the brook. There the moistened ground was so spongy that it would disclose any footprint. The marks made by the hoofs of the burro were everywhere, and while examining what seemed to be the freshest, Roswell uttered an exclamation.

"What is it?" asked his cousin, hurrying to his side.

"Do you see that?" asked the other in turn, pointing to the ground.

There were the distinct impressions of a pair of heavy shoes. The burro had been loaded at the brook, or his new masters had allowed him to drink before starting into the mountains.

The boys took several minutes to study the impressions, which appeared in a number of places. The inspection brought an interesting truth to light. One set of imprints was large, and the right shoe or boot had a broken patch on the sole, which showed when the ground was more yielding than usual. The others were noticeably smaller, and the toes pointed almost straight forward, like those of an American Indian. A minute examination of the soil failed to bring any other peculiarity to light. The conclusion, therefore, was that only two men were concerned in the robbery.

The problem now assumed a phase which demanded brain work, and the youths met it with a skill that did them credit. The question was:

"If the burro was loaded with the gold at this point, or if he was brought hither, which amounts to the same thing, where did he and the thieves leave the enclosure?"

Neither of the boys had ever felt enough interest in the animal to make an inspection of his pasturage ground, and therefore knew nothing about it, but scrutinizing the boundaries, they fixed upon two gaps or openings on the farther side, both leading deeper into the mountains, one of which they believed had been used.

"Let's try the nearest," said Roswell, leading the way across the comparatively level space.

There the ground was higher, fairly dry and gravelly. A close scrutiny failed to reveal any signs of disturbance, and forced them to conclude that some other outlet had been taken. They made haste to the second.

This was drier and more gravelly than the other. While the soil seemed to have been disturbed, they could not make sure whether or not it was by the hoofs of an animal, but Frank caught sight of something on a projecting point of a rock, just in front. Stepping forward, he plucked it off, and held it up in the light. It consisted of a dozen dark, coarse hairs.

"That's where the burro scraped against the rock," he said. "We are on their path."

In their eagerness they would have kept beside each other had not the passage been so narrow. Often they came to places where one would have declared it impossible for a mule or donkey to make his way, but there could be no question that the property of Jeff Graham had done it. Frequently he slipped, and must have come near falling, but he managed to keep forward with his precious load.

Less than two hundred yards distant the pursuers came to a depression of the soil where it was damp, and the footprints of the donkey and the two men were as distinct as if made in putty. There could be no question that the boys were on the trail of the despoilers.

As they advanced, Frank, who was in advance; frequently turned his head and spoke in guarded tones over his shoulder to his cousin.

"They are pushing into the mountains," said he, "but there's no saying how far they are ahead of us."

"No; if they made the start early in the morning, it would give them a big advantage."

"I believe that is what they did, knowing there was no danger of our returning until night."

"That knowledge may have made them slow. Anyhow, they are not travelling as fast as we, and we must overtake them before long."

A few minutes later Frank asked:

"Do you believe they have thought of being followed?"

"They must know there is danger of it. They will fight to keep that gold, and if they get the first sight of us will shoot."

"They may have revolvers, but I don't believe either has a rifle. We will keep a lookout that we don't run into them before we know it and give them the advantage."

This dread handicapped the boys to some extent. The trail was not distinctly marked, often winding and precipitous, and compelling them to halt and examine the ground and consult as to their course.

While thus engaged, they awoke to the fact that they had gone astray and were not following the trail at all.



Chapter XX.

A Sound From Out The Stillness.


The error occurred in this way: The trail that the boys had been assiduously following was so faintly marked that the wonder was they did not go astray sooner. In many places, there was little choice as to the route, because it was so broken and crossed that one was as distinct as the other. Nevertheless, Frank pressed on with scarcely any hesitation, until he again reached a depression where the soft ground failed to show the slightest impression of shoe or hoof.

"My gracious!" he exclaimed, stopping short and looking at his companion; "how far can we have gone wrong?"

"We can find out only by returning," replied Roswell, wheeling about and leading the way back.

They walked more hurriedly than before, as a person naturally does who feels that time is precious, and he has wasted a good deal of it.

The search might have been continued for a long time but for a surprising and unexpected aid that came to them. They had halted at one of the broken places, in doubt whither to turn, and searching for some sign to guide them, when Roswell called out:

"That beats anything I ever saw!"

As he spoke, he stooped and picked up something from the ground. Inspecting it for a moment, he held it up for Frank to see. It was a large nugget of pure gold.

"These mountains must be full of the metal," said Frank, "when we find it lying loose like that."

"Not so fast," remarked his companion, who had taken the nugget again, and was turning it over and examining it minutely. "Do you remember that?"

On one of the faces of the gold something had been scratched with the point of a knife. While the work was inartistic, it was easy to make out the letters "F. M."

"I think I remember that," said Frank; "it is one of the nuggets I found yesterday, and marked it with my initials. Those folks must have dropped it."

There could be no doubt of it. What amazing carelessness for a couple of men to drop a chunk of gold worth several hundred dollars and not miss it!

It must have been that the mouth of the canvas bag containing the nuggets had become opened in some way to the extent of allowing a single one to fall out.

"I wonder how many more have been lost," mused Frank, as he put the specimen in his pocket.

At any rate, it served to show the right course to follow, and the boys pressed on, looking more for nuggets than for their enemies. The mishap must have been discovered by the men in time to prevent its repetition, for nothing of the kind again met the eyes of the youths, who once more gave their attention to hunting for the lawless men that had despoiled them of so much property.

The trail steadily ascended, so broken and rough that it was a source of constant wonderment how the burro was able to keep his feet. He must have had some experience in mountain climbing before, in order to play the chamois so well.

The boys fancied they could feel the change of temperature on account of the increased elevation. They knew they were a good many feet above the starting-point, though at no time were they able to obtain a satisfactory view of the country they were leaving behind. They seemed to be continually passing in and out among the rocks and bowlders, which circumscribed their field of vision. Considerable pine and hemlock grew on all sides, but as yet they encountered no snow. There was plenty of it farther up and beyond, and it would not take them long to reach the region where eternal winter reigned.

A short way along the new course, and they paused before another break; but although the ground was dry and hard, it was easy to follow the course of the burro, whose hoofs told the story; and though nothing served to indicate that the men were still with him, the fact of the three being in company might be set down as self-evident.

It would not be dark until nearly 10 o'clock, so the pursuers still had a goodly number of hours before them.

A peculiar fact annoyed the boys more than would be supposed. The trail was continually winding in and out, its turns so numerous that rarely or never were they able to see more than a few rods in advance. In places the winding was incessant. The uncertainty as to how far they were behind the donkey and the men made the lads fear that at each turn as they approached it, they would come upon the party, who, perhaps, might be expecting them, and would thus take them unprepared. The dread of something like this often checked the boys and seriously retarded their progress.

"We may as well understand one thing," said Frank, as they halted again; "you have heard Jeff tell about getting the drop on a man, Roswell?"

"Yes; everybody knows what that means."

"Well, neither Mr. Hardman, nor his friend, nor both of them will ever get the drop on us."

The flashing eyes and determined expression left no doubt of the lad's earnestness.

"Is that because you carry a Winchester and they have only their revolvers?"

"It would make no difference if both of them had rifles."

Roswell was thoughtful.

"It is very well, Frank, to be brave, but there's nothing gained by butting your head against a stone wall. Suppose, now, that, in passing the next bend in this path, you should see Hardman waiting for you with his gun aimed, and he should call out to you to surrender, what would you do?"

"Let fly at him as quickly as I could raise my gun to a level."

"And he would shoot before you could do that."

"I'll take the chances," was the rash response.

"I hope you will not have to take any chances like that -- "

They were talking as usual in low tones, and no one more than a few feet away could have caught the murmur of their voices, but while Roswell was uttering his words, and before he could complete his sentence, the two heard a sound, so faint that neither could guess its nature.

As nearly as they were able to judge, it was as if some person, in walking, had struck his foot against an obstruction. It came from a point in front, and apparently just beyond the first bend in the trail, over which they were making their way.

"We are nearer to them than we suspected," whispered Roswell.

"And they don't know it, or they wouldn't have betrayed themselves in that manner."

"It isn't safe to take that for granted."

Roswell, after the last change in their course, was at the front. Frank now quietly moved beyond him, Winchester in hand, and ready for whatever might come. Confident they were close upon the men they sought, he was glad of the misstep that had warned them of the fact.

There certainly could be no excuse now for Hardman and his companion securing the advantage over the boys, when one of them held his Winchester half raised to his shoulder and ready to fire.

Within a couple of paces of the turn in the trail the two were almost lifted off their feet by a sound that burst from the stillness, startling enough to frighten the strongest man. It was the braying of the burro, not fifty feet distant.



Chapter XXI.

A Turning Of The Tables.


The boys were in no doubt as to the author of this startling break in the mountain stillness. It was their own burro that had given out the unearthly roar, and they were confident of being close upon the trail of the two men who were making off with the gold. But a moment later, round the corner in front of them, the donkey's head came into view, his long ears flapping, as if training themselves for the fight with mosquitoes that would soon come. The animal was walking slowly, but the astonishing fact immediately appeared that he was not only without any load on his back, but was unaccompanied by either Hardman or his confederate.

Suspecting, however, they were close behind him, the boys held their places, the foremost still on the alert for the criminals. The burro came forward until within a rod, when he seemed to become aware for the first time of the presence of the youths in his path. He halted, twiddled his rabbit-like ears, looked at the two, and then opened his mouth. The flexible lips fluttered and vibrated with a second tremendous bray, which rolled back and forth among the mountains, the wheezing addendum more penetrating than the first part of the outburst.

As the animal showed a disposition to continue his advance, the boys stepped aside and he came slowly forward, as if in doubt whether he was doing a prudent thing; but he kept on, and, passing both, continued down the trail, evidently anxious to return to his pasturage.

"What does it mean?" asked Roswell.

"I have no idea, unless -- "

"What?"

"They can't make any further use of the burro, and have allowed him to go home."

"But they can't carry away all the gold."

"Then they are burying it. Let's hurry on, or we shall be too late."

Lowering his Winchester, Frank led the way up the trail, slackening his pace as he reached the bend, and partly raising his weapon again.

Rocks and bowlders were all around, but the trail still showed, and the donkey could have travelled indefinitely forward, so far as the boys could see. Nowhere was anything detected of the two men.

"They may have turned the burro loose a half mile off," said Frank, chagrined and disappointed beyond expression.

His companion warned him to be careful, as he began pushing forward at a reckless rate, as if fearful that the men would get away after all.

Just beyond the point where the burro had appeared the path forked, each course being equally distinct. The boys scrutinized the ground, but could not decide from what direction the animal had come. Had they possessed the patience, they might have settled the question by kneeling down and making their scrutiny more minute; but Frank could not wait.

"I'll take the right," he said, "while you follow the left. If you discover either of them, shoot and shout for me."

It may be doubted whether this was wise counsel, and Roswell did not feel himself bound by it, but he acted at once upon the suggestion. His weapon was in his grasp as he hurried over the path, and the cousins were quickly lost to each other.

The inspiring incentive to both boys was the dread that they were too late to recover the gold that had been stolen. Since its weight was too great for a couple of men to carry, the natural presumption was that they had buried or would bury it in some secure place, and return when it was safe to take it away.

Because of this, Roswell Palmer sharply scrutinized every part of his field of vision as it opened before him. There were numerous breaks in the path which permitted him to look over a space of several rods, and again he could not see six feet from him.

Reaching an earthy part of the trail, he leaned over and studied it. There was no sign of a hoof or footprint.

"The burro did not come this far," was his conclusion; "I am wasting time by wandering from Frank."

He was in doubt whether to turn or to advance farther. He had paused among the bowlders, where little was visible, and, convinced of his mistake, he shoved his weapon back in his pocket, so as to give him the freer use of his hands, and turned back over the trail along which he had just come.

He had not taken a dozen steps when he was checked by the most startling summons that could come to him. It was a gruff "Hands up, younker!"

It will be recalled that Roswell was less headstrong than his cousin, as he now demonstrated by his prompt obedience to the command, which came from an immense rock at the side of the path, partly behind him.

Having elevated his hands, the youth turned to look at his master. One glance at the countenance was sufficient. He was the individual whom Frank had seen secretly talking with Hardman on the boat that carried them from the head to the foot of Lake Lindeman, and whom both had seen on the day of their arrival in this neighborhood.

Roswell Palmer now displayed a quickness of wit that would have done credit to an older head. His revolver he had placed in a pocket on the side of him that was turned away from the man, and it will be remembered that the lad had placed it there before receiving the peremptory summons to surrender. In the hope that his captor was not aware that he carried any firearms, Roswell kept that part of his body farthest from him.

The man was standing at the side of the rock with a similar weapon in his grasp, and showed that he was elated over the clever manner in which he had gotten the best of the youth. His own weapon was not pointed at him, but held so that it could be raised and used on the instant.

"What do you mean by treating me thus when I am walking peaceably through the mountains, offering harm to no one?" asked Roswell with an injured air.

"What are you doing here anyway?" demanded the other, whose unpleasant face indicated that he did not fully grasp the situation.

"My friend and I set out to look for some men that have stolen our gold. Have you seen them?"

This sounded as if the boy had no suspicion of the fellow before him, and taking his cue therefrom, he said:

"No; I don't know anything about it. Did they jump your claim?"

"We had the gold among the rocks where we live, but when we came home to-day, we found that some persons had been there and taken it all."

Something seemed to strike the man as very amusing. He broke into laughter.

"You can put down your hands, my son, if you're getting tired."

"You won't shoot?" asked Roswell in pretended alarm.

"Not much," replied the other, with a laugh; "I haven't a charge in my weapon nor a single cartridge with me; but all the same, I'll keep an eye on you."

"Not doubting your word, I have to inform you that my pistol is loaded, and I now shall take charge of you."

As he spoke, Roswell produced his weapon, and the other was at his mercy.



Chapter XXII.

A Lion In The Path.


To put it mildly, the man was astonished. Not dreaming the boy was armed, he had been foolish enough to announce that he had brought him to terms by the display of a useless weapon. He stared in amazement at Roswell, and then elevated both hands. The boy laughed.

"You needn't do that; I am not afraid of you. If you will lead me to the spot where you and Hardman hid our gold, I will set you free."

"I don't know anything about your gold," whimpered the fellow, who now proved himself a coward. "I was only joking with you."

"You and he took it. I shall hold you a prisoner until my friend comes up, and then turn you over to the mounted police."

"All right; if it is a square deal, follow me."

He turned and darted behind the rock. The youth made after him, but when he came in sight of the fugitive again he was fifty feet distant, and running like a deer. Perhaps Roswell might have winged him, but he did not try to do so. He felt a natural repugnance to doing a thing of that nature, and the fact was self-evident that it would do no good. The man would sturdily insist that he knew nothing of the missing gold, and there could be no actual proof that he did. Had he been held a prisoner he might have been forced to terms, but it was too late now to think of that, and the youth stood motionless and saw him disappear among the rocks.

"I wonder how Frank has made out," was his thought. "He can't have done worse than I."

Meanwhile, young Mansley had no idle time on his hands. He had hurried up the fork of the trail, after parting with his companion, until he had passed about the same distance. The two paths, although diverging, did not do so to the extent the boys thought, and thus it came about that they were considerably nearer each other than they supposed.

It need not be said that Frank was on the alert. Suspecting he was in the vicinity of the men for whom they were searching, he paid no attention to the ground, but glanced keenly to the right and left, and even behind him. He was thus engaged when something moved beside a craggy mass of rocks a little way ahead and slightly to the right of the path he was following. A second look showed the object to be a man, and though his back was toward the lad, his dress and general appearance left little doubt that he was Hardman.

His attitude was that of listening. His shoulders were thrown slightly forward, and he gave a quick flirt of his head, which brought his profile for the moment into view. This removed all doubt as to his identity. It was Ike Hardman.

Frank's first thought was that he was standing near the spot where the gold had been secreted, and was looking around to make sure no one saw him, but it may have been he heard something of the movements of his confederate that had escaped Roswell Palmer.

Afraid of being detected, Frank crouched behind the nearest bowlder, but was a second too late. Hardman had observed him, and was off like a flash. To Frank's amazement, when he looked for him he was gone.

Determined not to lose him, the youth ran forward as fast as the nature of the ground would permit. Reaching the spot where he had first discovered the man, he glanced at the surroundings, but could see nothing to indicate that the gold had been hidden anywhere near, though the probabilities pointed to such being the fact, for it must have been in that vicinity that the burro was turned free.

But the boy felt the necessity of bringing the man himself to terms, and with scarcely a halt he hurried over the bowlders and around the rocks in what he believed to be the right direction, though he had no certain knowledge that such was the fact.

He was still clambering forward, panting, impatient, and angry, when a figure suddenly came to view a little way in advance. Frank abruptly stopped and brought his gun to a level, but before he could aim he perceived to his amazement that it was his cousin Roswell standing motionless and looking with wonderment around him. A moment later the two came together and hastily exchanged experiences.

"We have made a mess of it," was the disgusted comment of Frank, "for we had them both and let them get away."

"All the same we must be near the spot where the gold was hidden, and I believe we can find it by searching."

"We may, but the chances are a hundred to one against it. How strange that those two men carried no firearms!"

It has been shown that the Klondike country is not one of dangerous weapons, because it is well governed, and the necessity, therefore, does not exist for men to go about armed. Many of them unquestionably carry pistols, but larger weapons are few, and the majority have neither, for they only serve as incumbrances. Strange, therefore, as it may seem, Hardman and his companion had but a single revolver between them, and the man who carried that spoke the truth when he said all its chambers were empty and he was without the means of loading it.

The great oversight of the two was that when they entered the cavern and took away the gold, they left the Winchester and revolvers. This may have been due to their eagerness to carry off every ounce of gold, but the commonest prudence would have suggested that they "spike" the weapons, so as to prevent their being used against them.

A brief consultation caused the boys to decide to return to the cavern and await the return of their friends. Then the whole party could take up the search, though it seemed almost hopeless.

Disheartened, they started down the trail, Frank in advance and both silent, for their thoughts were too depressing for expression. Suddenly the leader stopped and raised his hand for his companion to do the same. The cause was apparent, for at that moment, in rounding a bend in the path, they saw Ike Hardman in front, moving stealthily in the same direction with themselves, but the rogue was watchful and caught sight of them at the same moment. As before, he was off like an arrow, the winding trail allowing him to pass from sight in the twinkling of an eye, as may be said.

Before they could take up the pursuit a great commotion broke out below them, and wondering what it could mean, the boys stopped to listen. It immediately became apparent that the fugitive had come in collision with some one approaching from the other direction over the trail, and that same person was gifted with a vigorous voice of which he was making free use.

"Ah, but ye are the spalpeen I've been looking fur! This is the way ye sittle up fur the money ye tuk from me! Mister Hardman, do your bist, for that's what I'm going to do. Do ye hear me?"

"It's Tim!" exclaimed Roswell; "let's hurry to his help!"

But Frank caught his arm.

"It's the other fellow who needs help, and Tim will take it as unkind for us to interfere, but we can look on."

And they hurried forward.



Chapter XXIII.

A General Settlement Of Accounts.


Quick as were the boys in hurrying to the point where they heard the indignant Tim, they did not reach it until the affray was over. Wholly subdued, Ike Hardman begged for mercy at the hands of his conqueror, and promised to do anything desired if he received consideration.

It is a well-known fact that the wrath of a good-natured person is more to be feared than his who is of less equable temperament. The boys had never seen Tim McCabe in so dangerous a mood. He and Jeff Graham had returned to the cavern shortly after the departure of the cousins in pursuit of the thieves, and it did not take them long to understand what had occurred. They set out over the same trail, along which they readily discovered the footprints of all the parties. Tim, in his angry impatience, outsped his more stolid companion, and by good fortune came upon Hardman while in headlong flight down the mountain path.

The latter tried for a time to make it appear that he knew nothing of the abstraction of the gold from the cavern, but Tim would have none of it, and gave him the choice of conducting them to the place where it was concealed or of undergoing "capital punishment." Like the poltroon that he was, Hardman insisted that his companion, Victor Herzog, was the real wrongdoer, but he offered to do what was demanded, only imploring that he should not be harmed for his evil acts.

Tim extended his hand and took the Winchester from Frank Mansley. He knew it was loaded, and he said to his prisoner:

"Lead on, and if ye think it will pay ye to try to git away or play any of yer tricks, why try it, that's all!"

The threat was sufficient to banish all hope from Hardman, who led them along the trail a short way, then turned on to the pile of rocks beside which Frank had seen him standing a short time before.

"There it is!" he said, with an apprehensive glance at his captor.

"Where?" thundered Tim; "I don't see it!"

No digging had been done by the criminals, but a bowlder had been rolled aside, the canvas bags dropped into the opening, and the stone replaced, as he quickly demonstrated.

"Count 'em, Roswell," said Tim.

Both boys leaned over, and moving the heavy sacks about so as not to miss one, announced that all were there.

"And now I s'pose I may go," whined Hardman.

"Not a bit of it. I won't make a target of ye fer this gun, but ye shall remain me prisoner till I turn ye over to the police."

Thereupon Hardman begged so piteously that the boys interceded and asked that he be allowed to go, but Tim sternly bade them hold their peace. The bowlder having been replaced, while he glanced around to fix the locality in his memory, he ordered the captive to precede him down the trail, reminding him at the same time that the first attempt on his part to escape would be followed by the instant discharge of the gun.

Thus, as the long afternoon drew to a close the strange procession wound its way down the mountain, the prisoner in front, his captors directly behind, with Frank and Roswell bringing up the rear. The boys talked in whispers, but said nothing to their friend, who was in such a stern mood that they shrank from speaking to him.

They speculated as to the fate of Herzog, the other criminal, who seemed to have effected his escape, but recalled that Jeff Graham was likely to be met somewhere along the path, and it might be that this had occurred with disastrous results to the evil fellow, for it will be remembered that the old miner was one of the few who always carried their revolvers with them.

The expectation of the boys was not disappointed. When about half way down the trail they came upon Jeff, who had his man secure, thanks to the good fortune which gave him an advantage of which he instantly availed himself.

Roswell and Frank thought that when Jeff learned that all the stolen gold had been recovered he would be willing to release the prisoners, but such intention was as far from him as from Tim McCabe. While he had no desire for revenge, he felt it would be wrong to set the evil-doers free, and he knew that they would receive the punishment they had well earned as soon as placed within the power of the law.

It was beginning to grow dark when the party reached their cabin. Just before reaching it they crossed the pasturage ground of the burro, who was seen quietly browsing, as if he had not taken any part and felt no interest in the proceedings of the afternoon.

Halting in front of the opening, Jeff said to Tim:

"You have the gun and know it's a repeater."

The Irishman nodded his head.

"Keep guard over these fellows till I come back; it won't be long."

"I'll do the same -- on that ye may depind."

The massive figure swung off in the gloom. He gave no intimation of whither he was going, and no one could guess, except that he promised shortly to return.

A few minutes after his departure, both Hardman and Herzog renewed their pleadings for mercy -- for at least they suspected the cause of the old miner's departure -- but Tim checked them so promptly that they held their peace.

At his suggestion, the boys started a fire and began preparing supper. They had hardly completed the task when Jeff Graham reappeared and he brought two companions with him. Though they were on foot, they were members of the mounted police, whose horses were but a short distance away. In the discharge of their duties, they were on a tour among the diggings to learn whether there was any call for their services. Jeff had seen them during the afternoon, and knew where to look for them.

There was no nonsense about those sturdy fellows. They made their living by compelling obedience to the laws of their country, and were always prepared to do their duty. At the suggestion of Jeff, they questioned the men, who admitted their guilt, supplementing the confession with another appeal for clemency. Without deigning a reply, the officers slipped handcuffs upon them, and declining the invitation to remain to supper, departed with their prisoners, whom they delivered to the authorities at Dawson City on the following day. Since they had admitted their guilt, our friends were not required to appear as witnesses, and the case may be closed by the statement that Hardman and Herzog received the full punishment which they deserved.

When the evening meal was finished, the men and boys remained outside in the cool, clear air, the former smoking their pipes, and all discussing the stirring events of the day. The boys confessed their neglect in failing to make known the presence of Herzog in the neighborhood, because the fact was driven from their minds by their excitement over the discovery of gold.

"Had we done as we ought," said Frank, "it isn't likely this would have happened."

"You are right," replied Jeff, "for we should have been more watchful."

"And wasn't it oursilves that was careless, anyway, in laying so much wilth where any one could git at the same?" asked Tim.

"Yes," admitted the old miner, "but things are different here from what they was in the early days in Californy, and you can see that these two men are the only ones that would steal our stuff."

"At prisint they saam to be the only ones, but we can't be sure that ithers wouldn't have tried to do the same."

"Well, boys," was the surprising announcement of Jeff Graham, "to-morrow we leave this place for good and take the next steamer down the Yukon for home; our hunt for gold is done!"



Chapter XXIV.

Conclusion.


There was little sleep that night in the cavern home of the gold-seekers. The fact that the whole crop of the precious stuff was the better part of a mile away in the mountains, even though apparently safe, caused every one to feel uneasy. In addition was the announcement of Jeff Graham, the leader, that their work in the Klondike region was ended. In keeping with his habit of making known only that which was necessary, he gave no explanation, and his friends were left to speculate and surmise among themselves. All, however, suspected the truth.

At early dawn Tim McCabe and the boys started up the trail, leading the burro. The old miner remained behind, saying that he expected company and his help was not needed in recovering the pilfered gold. The anxiety of the men and boys did not lessen until they reached the well-remembered spot and found the canvas bags intact. They were carefully loaded upon the strong back of the animal, secured in place, and the homeward journey begun. Frank and Roswell walked at the rear, to make sure none of the gold was lost. In due time they reached their primitive home, with all their wealth in hand.

To their surprise, Jeff was absent. The recent experience of the three confirmed them in their resolution not to leave the nuggets and dust unguarded for a single hour. While some were at work in the diggings, one at least would be at the cavern on the watch against dishonest visitors. It was agreed that Tim and Roswell should go to the little valley to resume work, while Frank with the Winchester and smaller weapon acted as sentinel.

As the two were on the point of setting out, Jeff Graham appeared with two well-dressed gentlemen, both in middle life. They were talking earnestly, and halted just beyond earshot to complete what they had to say. Then, without waiting to be introduced to Jeff's friends, they bade him good-day, and hurried down the path to where their horses were waiting, and lost no time in returning to Dawson City.

"Get ready to foller," was the curt command of Jeff; and within the following hour the whole party, including the donkey, were on the road. They were compelled to spend one of the short nights in camp, but reached Dawson City without the slightest molestation from any one or the loss of a dollar's worth of gold. As Jeff had announced his intention, they brought away only their auriferous harvest and such clothing as was on their bodies. At the hotel he held another long interview with the two gentlemen who had called on him at the diggings; and the first steamer down the Yukon, which was now fairly open, bore among its hundreds of passengers Jeff Graham, Tim McCabe, Roswell Palmer, and Frank Mansley. The combined gold of the fortunate passengers on that trip must have amounted to nearly a million dollars.

Some weeks later Jeff and Tim were seated alone in one of the rooms at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. They had met by appointment to close up the business which had taken them into the Klondike region.

"You know, Tim," said the old miner, "that this whole thing was my own."

Tim nodded his head.

"I was aware of the same before ye mentioned it. Ye paid all our ixpenses like a gintleman, and we're entitled to fair wages for hilping and no more."

The generous disavowal of all claim to a share in the rich find touched Jeff, who hastened to say:

"Some folks might think that way, but I don't. It was a speculation on my part. It didn't cost much to get us to the Klondike, and so that don't count. I have delivered to the mint all the gold we brought back, and have been paid one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for it. You know what was done by the two men that visited us at the diggings?"

"The byes and mesilf had the idea that they bought out your claim."

"That's it. I was anxious to get out of the country before the summer fairly set in and the mosquitoes ate us up alive. From the way the dirt panned out, we should have been millionaires in a few weeks, but we had enough. There ain't many men as know when they have enough," was the philosophical observation of Jeff. "I do, so I sold my claim for a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. As I figure out, that makes the total three hundred thousand dollars, which, divided among us four, gives each seventy-five thousand dollars. How does that strike you, Tim?"

"It almost knocks me off my chair, if you mean it."

"The boys being under age, I have turned over their shares to their parents; and do you know," added Jeff, with an expression of disgust, "they both fixed things so as to go to college? You wouldn't believe it, but it's the fact. Howsumever, it's their business, and I ain't saying anything. Say, Tim, you hain't any idea of going to college?" asked Jeff, looking across at his friend with a startled expression.

"I won't unless ye will go wid me. How does that strike ye?"

Jeff's shoulders bobbed up and down with silent laughter, and immediately he became serious again.

"As soon as you sign this paper, Tim, I shall give you a certified check for seventy-five thousand dollars on the Bank of Californy. Are you ready to sign?"

"I'll sign me own death warrant for that trifle," replied Tim, his rosy face aglow, as he caught up the pen.

"Read it first."

His friend read:

"I, Timothy McCabe, hereby pledge my sacred honor not to taste a drop of malt or spirituous liquor, even on the advice of a physician who may declare it necessary to save my life, from the date of the signing of this pledge until the Fourth of July, one thousand nine hundred and seven."

As Tim gathered the meaning of the words on the paper, his eyes expanded; he puckered his lips and emitted a low whistle.

"Do ye mind," he said, looking across the table with his old quizzical expression, "the remark that the governor of North Carliny made to the governor of South Carliny?"

Jeff gravely inclined his head.

"I've heerd of it."

"What do ye s'pose he would have said if the time between drinks was ten years?"

"I've never thought, and don't care."

"He would have died long before the time was up."

"When you left the boys in the diggings you came to Dawson City to spend the worth of that nugget for whiskey. I happened to meet you in time and made you go back with me. You'd been off on sprees a half dozen other times, if I hadn't kept an eye on you. Drink is the enemy that will down you if you don't stop at once. If you'll stay sober for ten years, I'll take the chances after that. Are you going to sign?"

Tim's eyes were fixed on the paper which he held in his hand. He mused loud enough for the listening Jeff to catch every word:

"To sign that means no more headaches and bad health, but a clear brain and a strong body; no more hours of gloom, no weakness of the limbs and pricks of the conscience; no more breaking the heart of me good old mother in Ireland, but the bringing of sunshine and joy to her in her last days; it means the signing away of me slavery, and the clasping to me heart of the swate boon of liberty; it means the making of mesilf into a man!"

With a firm hand he wrote his name at the bottom of the paper, and flinging down the pen, said:

"With God's help, that pledge shall be kept."

"Amen," reverently responded Jeff; "there's your check for seventy-five thousand dollars."

<eob>

Benjamin Of Ohio: A Story Of The Settlement Of Marietta

By

James Otis



Benjamin's Story


It seems a very long while since I promised to tell you of what I did after coming into this Ohio country, and yet even now I cannot well begin the tale without telling something about the Ohio Company, which was formed, as you know, by General Rufus Putnam.

Twice I have begun the story, and twice I have stopped, understanding that you would not be able to make out why we did this or that, unless you first knew how it chanced that we came to make our homes here.

When you and I, while we were both in Massachusetts, talked about my journeying into this country, I may have spoken in such a way as to give you the idea that I believed it would be possible for me to do much toward the making of a new town.

In fact, I did really then believe that my services would be of great value to those men who expected to build a village here on the Muskingum River; but, although only two years have passed, I already understand that a boy of my age is not of much worth in such an enterprise, more particularly when men like Parson Cutler and General Putnam are at the head of affairs.

Do you remember how old I am? Well, there is here in this town of Marietta a fellow by the name of Jeremy Salter, who has become quite a friend of mine, and the other day he asked my age.

I told him that I was born in December of the year of the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the election of General Washington to be commander in chief of the armies, and the battle of Bunker Hill, yet, if you will believe me, the dolt was not able to fix the date.

However, my age has nothing to do with our coming from Mattapoisett into Ohio, and now let me try to make it plain how it happened that we of Massachusetts could come so far away and take up land simply because of having bought shares in the Ohio Company.



The Ohio Company


This is the story as I have heard it from General Putnam himself. It seems that when our war for independence came to an end, the government did not have money enough with which to pay the soldiers for their services, or, as Parson Cutler says, the country was much the same as bankrupt; General Washington himself declared that a wagonload of Continental money would be hardly sufficient to purchase a wagonload of provisions.

Now of course these soldiers must have their wages, and some men in the Congress proposed that the government sell land in the western country in order to raise enough money.

While this matter was being talked about, Congress ordered that a survey be made of the western lands, and Rufus Putnam himself received an appointment as one of the surveyors; but, not being able to attend to the work personally, he induced an old comrade, by the name of Benjamin Tupper, to take his place.

When Master Tupper came back to the eastern colonies, after having been over the land, he told General Putnam what a great, grand country it was; and it is said that the two old comrades sat up all night talking over plans for buying land enough to form a colony, and that by daybreak they had decided to call a meeting of the citizens of Massachusetts and the near-by states, to be held at the Bunch of Grapes tavern in Boston, early in the month of March, 1786. This meeting was held, and a company was organized, to be known as the Ohio Associates.

The government had decided to use this land, as I have said, to pay off the soldiers, and this company, formed by General Putnam, employed Parson Manasseh Cutler and Master Winthrop Sargent to make a bargain with Congress. These two men offered to buy one million, five hundred thousand acres of land at one dollar an acre, paying down five hundred thousand dollars when the contract was signed, with the debts due the soldiers reckoned as so much ready money.

Those who had banded themselves together could not raise the remaining million dollars, and the result was that the government cut down the agreement so that our Ohio Company had at its disposal a little more than a million acres of land, instead of a million and a half.



Rufus Putnam


You surely remember what General Putnam has done for his country, or, I should say, what he did, even before he came to Ohio. In 1757, when only nineteen years old, he enlisted as a common soldier in the Provincial army, -- for there was then war between England and France, -- and served faithfully four years, until the surrender of Montreal, when the army was disbanded. Then he went to his home in New Braintree and worked at the trade of millwright; but he soon discovered that his education was not sufficient to enable him to continue the business to the best advantage, therefore he devoted every moment of his spare time to the study of mathematics.

Seven or eight years afterward, when it was believed the British government would give to those soldiers who had served in the French war certain lands somewhere in the wild western country, Rufus Putnam was selected as one of a party to find out where it would be well for the people to settle.

No sooner had the battle of Lexington been fought than Rufus Putnam was among the first to enlist; and it shows that he gained a good military reputation, for he was made lieutenant colonel of the first regiment raised in Massachusetts.



Colonel Putnam, The Engineer


Because of his knowledge of mathematics he was chosen by the leaders of the American army to lay out the line of defenses round about Boston, and did more than a full share in forcing the British to evacuate that city, because of the skill with which he established the fortifications on Dorchester Heights.

Later he was sent to New York, where he took charge of the defenses on Long Island at Fort Lee, and King's Bridge; and during the year when our people made their formal declaration of independence, Rufus Putnam was appointed engineer, with the rank of colonel and pay at sixty dollars a month.

The next year Colonel Putnam went back to Massachusetts, where he raised and took command of a regiment which he afterward led in the battle of Stillwater and again at Saratoga, covering himself with glory, so I have heard Parson Cutler say.

After the surprise at Stony Point, Colonel Putnam was appointed to the command of a regiment in General Wayne's brigade, continuing to serve with credit to himself, and to the best interests of his country, until 1783, when Congress promoted him to the rank of brigadier general; he remained in the service of the people, filling one position or another, until this Ohio Company was formed, as I have told you.

Another matter which you should bear in mind while thinking of us so far away, is that when Parson Cutler made the trade with the government for land in the Ohio country, he induced the Congress to set aside two entire townships, of thirty-six square miles each, for the support of a university, and in each of the other townships one square mile to be used solely for the support of schools and churches. Therefore, even before any man had begun the building of a home here on the Muskingum River, schools and churches were provided for, which is more, I believe, than can be said regarding most new settlements.



The First Emigrants


You remember all the talk and excitement in Massachusetts at this time, when so much was being told regarding the beauties of the Ohio country, and you know how eager I was to set out with that first party which left Danvers under the leadership of Major Haffield White on the first day of December, in the year 1787.

As you also know, these men were to halt somewhere on the Youghiogheny River to build boats, in order to continue the journey by water, and a second party, under the command of General Putnam himself, was to leave Hartford in Connecticut shortly afterward, to join those from Massachusetts.

This second company was really led by Colonel Ebenezer Sproat because General Putnam was forced to go to New York on some business of his own, and did not succeed in overtaking the people until they had come to Swatara Creek in Pennsylvania.



Building A Fleet


Major Haffield White's party arrived at Sumrill's Ferry, after a long and tedious journey over the old Military Road, on the twenty-third day of January, in the year 1788, and immediately began building boats.

On the fourteenth of February, General Putnam's party, by which I mean those who set out from Hartford, joined those who were already at the ferry, and the two companies landed here on the bank of the Muskingum River the seventh day of April, in the year 1788.

All this is an old and familiar story; but it is well for me to remind you of it, so that you can the better understand how I, who had believed and hoped I was coming into a new country to do my full share in building up a town, found everything, as one might say, ready to hand.

Instead of cutting through the wilderness in order to build houses, we found the land so far cleared that we might get about the home making at once, and during the time the work was being carried on, the people lived in the fort, which General Putnam calls Campus Martius. It is situated near Fort Harmar, a fortification standing on the west bank of the Muskingum River near its mouth, and not far from this town of Marietta. It was built in 1785, and Colonel Josiah Harmar is now in command.



Campus Martius


What do I mean by Campus Martius, when I claim to be living in the town of Marietta? When General Putnam and his company arrived here, the first thing they did was to build a fort for the protection, not only of themselves, but of those who might come after; concerning this fort I will tell you later, but first you may be, and probably are, as curious as I was regarding the name.

I asked General Putnam, and he told me it was named after a certain lot of land in the city of Rome, which was used for popular assemblies and military exercises. However, the town itself is called Marietta, after Marie Antoinette of France, who was so brutally killed by her subjects during the Reign of Terror.

Perhaps it would be better if I begin this story by telling you how we got here, for the journey was not only long, but tiresome, and made at the cost of much labor. But yet it seems best to set down all within my knowledge concerning those men who first came out, meaning the party which left Danvers in Massachusetts, and that which started from Hartford in Connecticut.

All that I know about Major White's company during the march is that they came over what is called the old Military Road, across Pennsylvania, until they arrived at the Youghiogheny River, which they crossed, and then went into winter quarters at Sumrill's Ferry.

There they set about building a flatboat, which they called the Mayflower, making her forty-six feet long and twelve feet wide, with a roof deck and a sharp bow, to be propelled by either sails or oars; they built also a smaller flatboat and several canoes.



The Arrival Of General Putnam


It was while they were building this fleet that General Putnam's party joined them, and on the first day of April the new Mayflower, together with the smaller craft, began the voyage down the Ohio, arriving opposite Fort Harmar on the seventh day of April. There were forty-eight men on board the vessels: four surveyors with twenty-two others to attend them, six boat builders, four carpenters, one blacksmith, and eleven so-called common hands.

I myself have heard General Putnam say that when his company arrived at Swatara Creek it was frozen over, but not sufficiently hard to bear the weight of the wagon, and they spent one entire day cutting a passage through the ice. Then, later, he says so great was the quantity of snow as to block up the roads, and when they got as far as Cooper's, at the foot of the Tuscarora mountains, they found old snow twelve inches deep. Nothing save pack horses had passed over it, therefore it was necessary to build sleds and harness the animals one before the other, with the men marching in front to break out the roads, and thus they continued until arriving at the Youghiogheny, as I have already said.

As you know, our town of Marietta is on the Muskingum River at its mouth where it empties into the Ohio, and I am sending you such a drawing as I have been able to make, so that you may know just where we are located.



The Work Of The First Emigrants


Most likely General Putnam decided upon this particular place in which to build a town because Fort Harmar, erected here in the year 1785, would afford a very timely place of refuge in case the Indians made an attack upon our people before they were in condition to defend themselves.

Fort Harmar is on the lower bank of the river, while our town of Marietta is on the opposite side, or what might be called the upper point of land between the Muskingum and the Ohio.

Allen, who is a son of Captain Jonathan Devoll, and came with the first party from Danvers, told me that as soon as our people landed they set about making huts of boards which had been brought with them from Sumrill's Ferry, and at the same time put up a canvas tent for the use of General Putnam, wherein he could transact the business of the new colony, and in such shelters they lived until the fort had been completed.

The surveyors immediately began laying out the town lots and the farms for those people who had bought shares in the company, and many laws or regulations were made by General Putnam and his friends, which were nailed to the trunk of a large tree on the river bank where all might see them.

The place was then, and is now, as beautiful a spot as one could well imagine. There are fish in the rivers in abundance, and game of every kind to be found in greatest plenty. Just fancy herds of buffaloes and deer roaming through the forest and over the plains, while wild turkeys are found in such numbers as would do your heart good, especially after a good plump one has been cooked on a spit in front of a roaring fire.

There was very little hunting done for sport, however, so Allen Devoll told me. Those people who went out in search of game did so only that they might provide themselves and their companions with food; for the work on every hand was abundant.



Clearing The Land


Enormous trees in the forest were to be girdled and thus killed that they might the more easily be hewn down, and the soil had to be prepared for planting. That these newcomers were not idle may be understood when I tell you that, during the first spring they were here, one hundred and thirty acres of corn were planted.

Of course there were no cleared fields, such as one might see about Mattapoisett. The seed was put in among stumps, where only the underbrush had been cleared away; therefore a plow could not be run to make a straight furrow.

The greater portion of the work was done with hoes and spades; and already I have had disagreeable experience in that kind of labor, which causes one's back to ache woefully and blisters the hands even of those who are accustomed to such toil.

And now after all this, which is what you might call the beginning of my story, I will tell you of our leaving home, and of that long, wearisome journey across the mountains, when we forded creeks and, if you please, might be said to have walked from one side of the state of Pennsylvania to the other.

I have sometimes regretted that I was not with the company led by Major White, or under the leadership of Colonel Sproat, so that I could say that I was one of the first to step foot in this Ohio country with the idea of making a home; but those voyagers were only men who could perform such work as boat building or surveying, and boys were neither wanted nor allowed.



How Our Company Was Formed


First you should know that Captain Jonathan Devoll was a member of the company that came here under the leadership of Major White, setting out from Danvers. He had left his family behind in Providence, and because of that fact perhaps, I was given an opportunity to come.

Having neither father nor mother, and being dependent upon those who were willing to provide me with work whereby I might gain a livelihood, there was no one to push forward my claim to become one of the emigrants, save only Mistress Devoll herself, who needed some one to aid her in caring for the children during the journey, for she is not a very strong woman.

Master John Rouse had bought a share in the company and was making ready to start with his family, when he received word that he should bring with him all Captain Devoll's family. Then there was Captain Haskell in our town of Mattapoisett, an old sailor who owned a large covered wagon and two horses.

Master Rouse had only one team of horses; therefore he proposed to Captain Haskell that they join forces, and surely it was a good trade for Master Rouse, since he had a large family to take with him, while the old captain was alone in the world.

Because of the labor involved in driving four horses during so long a time as would be required for the journey, it was decided that young Ben Cushing should be hired as driver, and thus the party was made up, until Mistress Devoll so kindly interfered in my behalf, claiming that she had a right to take with her at least one more lad.



Making Ready For The Journey


I wish I could describe to you the excitement under which we all labored while making ready for the long journey!

Do you remember the Rouse family? First there is Michael, twenty-two years old; then Bathsheba, who is nineteen or thereabouts; and Elizabeth, two years younger. Cynthia is two years younger than Elizabeth; Ruth is only eleven years old; Stephen, six, and the twins, Robert and Barker, only four.

Now if Mistress Devoll had not needed my services, I should have found ample opportunity of earning my way across to the Ohio country by taking care of the Rouse children.

The most important matter was the preparing of the wagon, where the women would sleep during such nights as we failed to find lodgings in taverns or farmhouses, and it was with infinite care that Master Rouse and Captain Haskell almost rebuilt this cart, which was what I believe is generally called a Conestoga wagon, although why it should be given such a name I do not understand, unless it may have been made in some town by the name of Conestoga.

With so many in the company, you can fancy that it was a difficult matter to decide just what should be taken and what left behind, for it was of the utmost importance that the baggage be reduced to the smallest possible amount, and in order that it might be packed with the greatest economy, boxes were made to fit exactly into the bottom of the wagon, so that no space would be left unoccupied. On top of these were stowed the beds and bedding, while cooking utensils hung around on the inside, where we might get at them handily at mealtime, for, as it proved, very many days we were forced to do our cooking by the roadside, with such fireplaces as could be built up with rocks which we lads gathered.

Two trunks were placed at one end of the wagon, where they served as a barrier to prevent the twins from falling out when they played on the bedding, and upon the axles were hung buckets and such tools as might be needed during the journey, thus giving the outfit a decidedly comical, but perhaps homelike, appearance.

We took with us only a small amount of grain for the horses, trusting to buy all that might be needed until we had journeyed as far as Carlisle in Pennsylvania. After that there would be less chance of coming upon farms where such things could be purchased, and then the animals would be forced to subsist only on grass.



Concerning Myself


My part of the outfit consisted of the clothes I wore, for I am ashamed to say that I did not own a second coat which would have been presentable in any company. Therefore I did not allow myself to be troubled when the women complained long and bitterly because they had so little with which to work or make themselves comfortable, and for the only time in my life it did seem as if my poverty was really a blessing.

I lived in a perfect fever of excitement during the three weeks we were making ready for the voyage, and on the evening before the eventful day I was so wrought up in my mind that to sleep was an impossibility. From the time I laid myself down on my bed in Master Rouse's stable, until the sun rose, I did not close my eyes in slumber; then I acted as if I had never seen a horse or harness before, for when Ben Cushing called on me to aid him in putting the animals to the pole, my hands trembled so that I could not fasten a buckle, let alone arrange the straps to his liking.

Ben is a careful driver and one who ever looks after the welfare of his beasts. To him a strap too long or too short, a buckle out of place or liable to break, is almost the same as a sin.

I need not have allowed myself to be worked up to such an extent, however, for the first part of our journey was nothing more nor less than pleasure. Half a dozen young girls, on horseback, set off with us, expecting to ride as far as the Long Plain, which is six miles out from Mattapoisett, and the entire population, as it appeared to me, had turned out to see us get under way with that long Conestoga wagon covered with canvas, on the sides of which had been painted, "To the Ohio Country."



Setting Out


What a cheering and shaking of hands, and what a showering of good wishes upon us took place in that Mattapoisett street!

If we could have had Parson Cutler with us to give what you might call an official sanction to the start, as was done when Major White's party set off from Danvers, then I would have been more content. Surely, however, there was no need for me to make complaint, because never before had I witnessed such a scene of excitement as when Ben Cushing gathered up the reins, and the townspeople stood around the heavy wagon until Mistress Rouse cried out in alarm lest some of them be run over. The twins, insisting on going the first mile or more afoot, ran here and there until it seemed to me at times that they were under the very feet of the horses during three minutes of every four.

It was really a relief, when we had drawn out of the town so far that the more excited ones could no longer call out to say once more "good-by" or "God bless you." I ought not to have been so impatient, for many a long day was to pass before I again saw faces on which I could read expressions of good will and friendliness toward me.

This first portion of our journey was quite like a merrymaking. The young women rode either side the wagon; the Rouse girls walked, or sat beside their mother in the big cart, as pleased them best, and the twins, soon tiring of striving to entangle themselves with the horses' legs, were ready to come in under the shelter of the canvas.

We drove only six miles, and indeed this was quite a journey for the first day, because the animals were not accustomed to traveling together and gave Ben Cushing no little trouble. Besides, our departure had been delayed so long, owing to the townspeople, that it was nearly noon before we had left Mattapoisett behind us, and the day was nearly done when we had come to the Long Plain, and there stopped at the home of Mistress Devoll's cousin.



Mistress Devoll's Outfit


We had but one wagon for all our party from the time we left Mattapoisett until coming to Providence. Mistress Devoll and Mistress Rouse are sisters and were much together at Mattapoisett after Captain Devoll set off for the Ohio country. It was while the captain's wife was in our village that she made me the offer to pay my passage to the Muskingum River by looking after her belongings.

Mistress Devoll expected to join Master Rouse's company at her home in Providence, where she was to have ready a wagon in which would be all her household goods that could be transported over the mountains. She was to have a team of four horses, and her brother, Isaac Barker, was to act as driver, while I played the part of helper.

Therefore on leaving Mattapoisett I ran ahead or behind Master Rouse's wagon, or clambered up by the side of Ben Cushing when the seat next to him was not occupied, for he was a good friend of mine and could be counted on to give me a hint now and then, if I overstepped my bounds.

The stay at the Long Plain overnight was what you might call a friendly visit for all the members of the company save Ben Cushing and me; but we two were not lonely, for we laid ourselves down to sleep in the wagon, after having had a bountiful meal at the home of Mistress Devoll's cousin, and it is safe to say that during the first night after starting for the Ohio country we slept more comfortably, if not more soundly, than on any other during the journey.

We were up at break of day, however, for the horses were to be groomed and fed, and Master Rouse had decided that we must travel as far as Providence before nightfall.

The young women who had come out from Mattapoisett with us, went back some time late in the evening after Cushing and I were asleep, and when breakfast had been eaten we set off once more, just as the sun was rising. It seemed as if this was really the beginning of the journey, for we were alone, plodding over the dusty road which, to look into the future, seemed as if it would have no end.



At Providence


An hour after sunset we halted in front of Mistress Devoll's house. The horses were unhitched and taken to a stable, where Ben and I were speedily joined by Isaac Barker, whom we had seen more than once in Mattapoisett, and we three, while caring for the animals, discussed at great length the undertaking which lay all before us.

A rare hand at making sport was Isaac Barker, and many a time after leaving Providence it did seem to me that but for his quips and jokes we might have given up in despair at trying to gain this country, for the way was hard over the best of the roads we found, and there were many moments, after we got into Pennsylvania, when all the members of the company were forced to lay hold of ropes tied to the tops of the carts to prevent them from oversetting. Then it was that Isaac's nonsense really served to hearten us.

You can well fancy that when we were once among the mountains the way was exceedingly hard to travel, and again and again I have laid my shoulder against the hind end of one of the wagons, straining every muscle to help the horses on, while every other man and boy was doing the same, and doing it to the utmost of his power.

We lost no time in leaving Providence next morning. Mistress Devoll's wagon was packed and ready, and after eating a breakfast which had been prepared by some of the neighbors, we set off, I walking with the men either ahead or behind the teams, for there was not sufficient room in both wagons for all our company to ride. There are five of the Devoll children: Sally, twelve years old; Henry, two years younger; Charles, aged eight; Barker, five; and Francis, a baby not much more than a year old.

Isaac Barker cracked jokes as he swung the whip over the backs of the horses; the Rouse girls sang until they were hoarse; the smaller children screamed with delight because we were finally on our way to the wilderness; and everything went on as if we were still simply bent upon pleasure during this third day of the journey.




On The Road To Blooming Grove


Now it is not in my mind to set down an account of every day's journey while we were in what you might call civilized country, for we simply drove the horses as far as we could each day, with due care to a resting place at night, passing through Farmington, Litchfield, and Ballsbridge, to the Hudson River.

Of course it was necessary to cross the water, and to do this, Master Rouse and Captain Haskell hired two large boats into which we could stow the wagons as well as the horses. By the aid of both sails and oars the clumsy craft were navigated from Fishkill to Newburgh, where we took to the road again, traveling ten miles to a village called Blooming Grove. There we stopped at a tavern kept by a man named Goldsmith.

There is no particular reason why I should have remembered that man's name so long, had it not been that seeing me rubbing the legs of Mistress Devoll's horses, on that evening, he took me kindly by the ear and said that I was a likely looking lad such as he stood in need of to help him about the tavern, proposing, if I would remain with him, to give me my board and clothes during the first year, allowing me to attend school meanwhile, at the same time promising that when such term of service had expired he would make another bargain, which should include a certain sum of money as wages.



Plans For The Future


Perhaps it might have been better for me had I accepted the good man's offer, and yet there was in my mind such a desire to go out into that Ohio country where even the poorest lad, if he was willing to work to the best of his ability, could make a home for himself, that I could not bring myself to think of remaining at the tavern doing chores for this farmer or that, and getting no farther ahead in the world.

All of which I told him, and when I had come to an end of my talk, he replied that he could not blame me for holding to the choice I had made, and said he hoped it might be possible for me to do all that was in my mind. At the same time he assured me that if I found this part of the country different from what I had fancied, and was ready to come back into civilization, where I might have the comforts of home, I should present myself to him.

Although I have not advanced so far in the world as I had hoped might have been possible, I have not fallen in the race of life. I am no worse off than when I landed here at Marietta, and have laid up for myself some few dollars, in addition to the knowledge that I am of service in the settlement; therefore I cannot regret the choice I made at Blooming Grove.

After leaving that village we journeyed over good roads through the towns of Chester and Warwick, finally crossing the state line into New Jersey, and coming to the town of Newton.

We had neither adventure nor mishap during this portion of our travels, for the roads were good, the horses inclined to move at a reasonably rapid pace, and those who would have walked from choice found themselves speedily distanced. More than once were Master Rouse, Captain Haskell, and I so far behind the wagons that the drivers believed it necessary to halt in order that we might join the company.

From Newton we went past Sussex Court House, or the Log Jail as it is called, through the towns of Hope and Oxford, to the village of Easton, which is situated at the forks of the Delaware River.



On The Water Once More


Here we were forced to take to the water once more, in order that we might cross over into the state of Pennsylvania, and because there was but one flatboat to be hired at this place, no little time was spent in making the passage.

It was near nightfall when we were safely landed on the Pennsylvania shore, and then came the question as to where we might spend the night.

The ferryman had told Captain Haskell that five miles down the road was a farm owned by an old German who was disposed to care for travelers who were well-behaved and willing to pay a certain small sum for the service he rendered. We therefore hastened our pace, moving as rapidly as possible, until, half an hour after the sun had set, we came to a farm, the buildings of which would have delighted the eyes of any man who had a care for such things.

Surely no one could have been more hospitable than were the old German and his wife, to say nothing of the four sons and three daughters, all of whom made us welcome and insisted that we come into their kitchen to eat supper with them, rather than make any attempt at providing our own meals, as we had been doing nearly all the time since leaving Mattapoisett.



Feasting On Honey


How Ben Cushing and I did eat that night! The owner of the farm had given especial attention to the raising of bees and had a large store of honey on hand. The farmer's wife and daughters baked such cakes of buckwheat as I never before tasted, and these, plentifully covered with the golden honey, made up a meal which still lingers in my memory.

We passed the night there, all the company except Ben Cushing, Isaac Barker, and me, sleeping on the floor of the kitchen and living room, where beds had been spread for their comfort.

Captain Haskell showed how a sailor could take advantage of every inch of space, for when the women claimed that there was not room in which to make up beds for all and dispose of their clothing properly during the hours of the night, the captain turned down the chairs so that the backs of them would serve as heads for the beds, thus making pillows, and pointed out that the spaces underneath could be filled with the clothing where it might be found readily in the morning.

Ben, Isaac, and I found snug resting places for ourselves in the sweet-smelling hay on the mow, and slept, I dare say, quite as soundly and sweetly as did those who were sheltered in the house.

When morning came, that is to say, when there was the first evidence of the dawning of a new day, we three set about making ready the horses for the journey, and were no sooner come to an end of our labors than we were summoned by one of the girls to the kitchen, where, the beds having been removed from the floor, a table was spread most bountifully.



Among The Moravians


The next day of our journey was most entertaining, at least so it seemed to me, for we came to the town of Bethlehem, which is settled almost entirely by those ardent Christian men and women who are known as Moravians and who have already sent out missionaries among the Indians, doing no small amount of good.

Those Moravian people were exceedingly hospitable, urging us to partake of food in their houses, insisting on feeding our horses, and allowing us to wander wheresoever we would.

Indeed there was much to be seen in their town, for at one of the houses was a pet bear which was most amusing, and the smaller children, as well as Ben Cushing and I, spent more than an hour watching the little fellow's clumsy, and at the same time comical, antics. There were also a number of pet deer wandering about the streets, and when we had fed them with clover, to our heart's content, we were delighted at seeing a large throng of little girls coming from school, dressed in what was to me a most singular fashion, although not unbecoming.

They all wore short gowns with gayly-colored petticoats, which came an inch or two below the frock itself, and had small, white linen caps which caused them to look much like old ladies. Prim and demure they were while marching in an orderly manner through the streets, and yet I saw more than one cast a sidelong glance toward our company of children, with a twinkle in their eyes as token that, were they so permitted, they could show us that they had in their natures quite as much love for fun as any other boy or girl.



The Rope Ferry


We stayed longer in Bethlehem than we were warranted in doing, when one takes into consideration the length of the journey before us; but it was all so entertaining, so peaceful, and there was such an air of friendliness among the people, that I was sorry when we drove out of the town, hoping to find lodgings for the night at the house of a German, eight miles beyond.

And so we journeyed on without adventure until we came to the Lehigh River, and there I saw what I dare say no fellow in Massachusetts has laid eyes upon. It was called a rope ferry, by means of which we were to cross the river.

Ben Cushing claims that there is nothing wonderful about this ferry, for it consists simply of a rope stretched from one bank of the river to the other; to this, attached by a noose, or, in other words, a hawser which will readily slip, the ferryboat is made fast in such a manner that the stern is lower downstream than the bow, and the current catching this, forces the boat along.

Perhaps I haven't made this very plain to you, but it is operated on the principle of force applied to what might be called an inclined plane; therefore, since the craft cannot be shoved downstream by the current, it must be urged toward the opposite shore.

At all events to me it was a great curiosity, whether Ben Cushing thought it so or not, and I studied the general arrangement so carefully that if we should need anything of the kind in this country, I am quite certain I could build one.



The Way Through Pennsylvania


Now our way lay through Allentown and Kutztown to Reading; the roads over which we traveled were so good, and the horses so willing, that every member of our company enjoyed himself to the utmost.

Cynthia Rouse and Sally Devoll visited back and forth from wagon to wagon during each day, their favorite seat being with the driver, where they could see what was going on and sing to their heart's content.

We were treated kindly by the people, who sold us bread and butter, milk or meat, and now and then we came to a store or tavern where we could lay in additional supplies of provisions, but, as a rule, thus far we had found it possible to buy from farmers all that we might need.

At night, when we were stopping at a farmhouse, and after the small children had been put to bed, the older girls would set about preparing provisions for the next day, perhaps borrowing cooking utensils, for our own were few in number and fitted rather for use on a rough fireplace out of doors than in a well-ordered kitchen.

It had become the rule that Isaac Barker, Ben Cushing, and I were to sleep in the wagons during the night to guard against the possibility of evil-disposed persons. Up to this time, however, we had had no trouble of the kind; but Captain Haskell insisted that we remain constantly on our guard, claiming that the day might come when we would fall in with people not so friendly as those who had thus far cheered us on our way.



The Shame Of The Girls


On the day when we went into Reading, Cynthia Rouse and Sally Devoll were on the front seat of Isaac's wagon, and as they rode along the girls saw two old German women swingling, or as they called it, "scutchelling" flax.

The old ladies presented a most comical appearance, and the girls laughed loudly, never thinking for a moment that they were being rude; but when the flax swinglers looked up angrily and saw the legend on our wagon cover, one of them shouted to the girls that if they were going into the Ohio country, the day would soon come when they also would be swingling flax, if they did their duty.

As may be supposed, this caused the girls no little shame, for being thus reproved by their elders was not pleasant, more particularly when they knew they had been guilty of rudeness.

This town of Reading was the most considerable place we had seen since leaving Massachusetts, and Master Rouse decided that we should remain there at least one day because of the number of shops where we could buy such articles as were needed, or otherwise put ourselves in readiness for the rougher journey which we knew lay before us.



Meeting With Parson Cutler


It was owing to this decision that we got late and trustworthy news concerning the land where we counted on making our homes, for there we met Parson Cutler himself.

I despair of making you understand how surprised and delighted we were at meeting the parson midway in our journey.

We all knew that during the summer he had set out in his sulky intending to drive from Ipswich to Marietta; but since we did not leave until October, we supposed, if indeed we gave very much heed to the matter, that Master Cutler must have returned long ere this.

The parson appeared quite as well pleased to see us as we were to see him, and straightway commended Master Rouse and Captain Haskell upon their spirit in thus going out into the Ohio country, where he assured them they would find such farming lands as had never been seen in Massachusetts. In addition to this, he set Mistress Devoll's mind at rest regarding her husband and spent no little time explaining to her what the captain had done in the way of building the Mayflower and the other boats which carried the first settlers down the river.



Ohio Cornfields


Among other things, he told us of the enormous fields of corn which had been planted, described to us the cabins our people had built, which were little more than low huts covered in with walnut bark, and declared that the houses and the corn seemed to grow at the same time, although the corn speedily overshadowed the small dwellings, for it grew so tall that one had to stand on tiptoes to break off an ear, while in Massachusetts it was often necessary for a farmer to stoop.

"One could as easily be lost in a cornfield on a cloudy day as in a cedar swamp," Parson Cutler said, and then went on to tell how much like a forest were these fields, where the green grain grew above one's head with leaves so huge as to shut out all rays of light from one furrow to another.

He rather dampened the ardor of some of the women when he said that the surveyors were forced to do their work under the protection of a guard of armed men, for fear of prowling Indians, and the children looked at each other in alarm as he told of one of the settlers who had been bitten, when asleep, by a copperhead snake.



The Governor And Judges


We heard also from Parson Cutler that General Arthur St. Clair had been appointed governor of the Ohio district. He was a citizen of Pennsylvania, had been a distinguished officer in the Revolutionary army, and president of Congress, in addition to which he stood high in the confidence of Washington. Samuel H. Parsons of Connecticut, and James M. Varnum of Massachusetts, both of whom were directors in the Ohio Company, and John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey had been made judges, with Winthrop Sargent of New Hampshire as secretary of the territory.

The judges arrived at Marietta in June, and on the 9th of July, Governor St. Clair joined them. He was escorted by a detachment of troops under Major Doughty, who had gone up to Pittsburgh from Fort Harmar some days before to meet him, and was received with military honors and a salute.

One of the soldiers afterward told me that when the governor landed he was greeted with thirteen rounds from a fieldpiece. When he approached the garrison, the music played a salute, the troops paraded and presented their arms, and he was also welcomed by a clap of thunder and a heavy shower of rain as he entered the fort. It seemed to this soldier a very pleasant way of receiving the governor of a new territory.

As might have been expected, Parson Cutler was enthusiastic in his praise of our town of Marietta, and he read to us that which General Washington himself had written, which was this: -- 

"No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, property, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community."

There was little need for Parson Cutler to try to strengthen us in the determination to continue the journey, for none of our party were weak-kneed; but it pleased us much to know that such a man as General Washington could praise so heartily those who had begun the building of Marietta.



The Name Of The Town


And now, lest I forget it, and since it is brought to my mind by what Parson Cutler said to us, let me tell you that this town came very near being named Adelphia. It was the Parson's idea, and he said much to us concerning it, complaining, as I thought, because it had been called Marietta. The meaning of Adelphia is "brethren," so he said, and he claimed that by having constantly before them the idea that they were to dwell there as brethren, the people might be more inclined to act as such.

Later, when he had gone, I heard Master Rouse and Captain Haskell discussing the matter, and both allowed that the good parson was really irritated because his suggestion had been cast aside, for one could readily see that Master Cutler had set his mind stoutly upon the name Adelphia. In my opinion, however, Marietta is much better.

Among other things, Parson Cutler told us that game was so plentiful even close about Marietta, that we need have no fear of ever being hungry. He said that in the course of a walk one morning up the Muskingum bottom he saw four deer, and there were ripe grapes hanging in profusion all around him. In addition to that, he found clam beds on the shores, and, what was not quite so pleasant, killed a rattlesnake that lay coiled up in his path.

I don't claim to be timorous under ordinary circumstances, and am ready to stand my chances against Indians or bears; but when it comes to snakes, I must say that there is a bit of cowardice in me, for a fellow can't guard himself against such enemies, and it seems to me that they, with the savages, make up the disagreeable features in all the pictures that were drawn for us of our new home.



Campus Martius


Now listen to this description which Parson Cutler gave us of Campus Martius, and I have since come to know that he did not set forth its characteristics any too strongly.

It is a kind of house, or castle, if you please, instead of a regular fort, made in the form of a hollow square, of which the sides measure one hundred and eighty feet, and is surrounded by a heavy line of palisades, -- meaning a high log fence, -- as protection against, the Indians.

This building contains seventy-two rooms, each eighteen feet square or more, and General Putnam had told the Parson that in case of necessity nine hundred people could live within its walls.

Surely it seems like a city of itself, when one attempts to go from end to end inside the broad passages, and sees the doors leading to rooms in which an entire family might contrive to live with more or less comfort.

Parson Cutler was twenty-nine days driving from Ipswich to Marietta in his sulky, so he told us; but do not understand that such a journey may always be made in so short a time. He took advantage of the best season of the year in which to make the trip, and returned before the snow came; consequently, and because of traveling without very much baggage, and with a stout horse to draw his light sulky, he could make many more miles in a day than could such wagons as ours.



Independence Day


He told us of the Fourth of July celebration, which was held in Marietta on that first Independence Day after the settlers arrived there. They set about making a feast, and verily it must have been one. There were venison barbecues, -- meaning deer roasted whole, -- buffalo steaks broiled over the glowing coals, bear meat cooked in every manner that could be devised with the few cooking implements our people possessed, small pigs roasted whole, and, as the greatest delicacy of all, an enormous pike, more than six feet long, said to be the largest ever caught in the Ohio River.

The feast was kept up until twelve o'clock at night, and then the tired merrymakers went to their cabins and slept until late in the forenoon, as the parson said, in such a tone as if he believed they were wasting their time by thus remaining in bed after the sun had risen.

Then came, according to Parson Cutler's story, at a later date, the opening of the first court in the territory, and it must have been a wondrous spectacle. The sheriff, who, as you know, is Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, holding a drawn sword in his hand, marched with a military escort, ahead of the governor, the judges, the secretary, and others, to Campus Martius, where the court was held.

There are Indians in plenty about Marietta, and Parson Cutler said that when these savages saw Colonel Sproat, who as you know is an unusually tall man, they at once gave him the name of Hetuck, or Big Buckeye, which was the same as if they had called him one of the huge trees of the forest.



Master Devoll's House


Nor was the growth of our town of Marietta the only thing concerning which the good man told us, for he gladdened Mistress Devoll's heart by describing to her the house her husband was building, which was to be forty feet long by eighteen feet wide, and the height of two stories.

Best of all, there was to be a brick chimney, perhaps more than one, as soon as a kiln had been made and the bricks burned. It was to be by far the largest building, with the exception of Campus Martius, in the town.



The Indian Mounds


Parson Cutler told us during that night, when we sat around him at Reading, about queer-shaped mounds of earth in various forms, which had evidently been thrown up many hundred years before, perhaps by the Indians, perhaps by some race of people regarding whom we know nothing; but certain it is there were very many about Marietta. In fact, Campus Martius was built on one of these mounds.

These embankments, as they might really be called, are of various shapes, some like serpents, many, many hundred feet long and I can't say how many feet high, and of such huge proportions that they may be seen from a long distance. There is one, we were told, shaped something after the fashion of an elephant; others are formed in circles, and still others appear to have been made for fortifications.

When we went to bed that night Ben Cushing and I talked until well past midnight concerning what these things might have been, and he announced that it was his intention to dig beneath them, believing there he would find much in the way of treasure; but when he saw the enormous embankments, he soon realized that neither one man nor twenty could make much headway digging beneath them.

I heard General Putnam say it was his belief these mounds had something to do with the religious ceremonies of those who had built them; that they had a certain significance in the worship of the Great Spirit; but as for there being treasure beneath them, he laughed at the idea.

If I should set down all Parson Cutler told us on that night concerning the country to which we were going, I might never get further in my story, for the good man talked long and fast, describing so many things of interest, such as the trapping of turkeys, the hunting of bears, and the different methods of killing deer, that my hair would be gray before I could write it all out fairly.

Therefore, instead of attempting to repeat his stories, I will go on with my tale of how we journeyed from Massachusetts into the Ohio country.



At Harrisburg


It was near the close of October when we arrived at the Susquehanna River, at a settlement called Harrisburg, and a very slovenly looking town it was, as I thought, for those who built it, only two years before, had thus far not taken the trouble to uproot the stumps of trees which still stood in the roadways and gave the entire place a wild, neglected appearance.

I was told that the settlement had formerly been called Louisburg, and the only reason I can think of for the change of name is that there can be found a ferry in charge of a man named Harris, and before any houses were built near by it was known as Harris's Ferry.

We remained at this place all night, the women and children going into a log tavern to sleep, while we men and boys made our beds in the wagons, or on the hay in the stable, as best pleased us.

Because of not caring to spend so much money as would be necessary to buy a supper for all our company, only the women and small children partook of the tavern fare, the older girls, the men, and we boys eating our meals in the tavern yard, after having cooked them in the tavern kitchen.

The next day's journey was only thirteen miles, and then we arrived at Carlisle, which was a military station during our war for independence, and where were yet to be found barracks made of bricks, like regular houses. There were two or three shops, and a number of good dwellings, better than one would expect to find even in a town that had been settled so long.

Because we had not been fed overabundantly since leaving that farmhouse where we feasted on buckwheat cakes, Master Rouse decided that we should all have dinner at the tavern, and a bountiful meal it was, although not quite so satisfactory to me as I could have wished, because of the fact that just then Isaac Barker took it into his head to play what he considered a funny trick.



Isaac Barker's Sport


When a huge platter of meat was being brought on the table, and we were all looking at it with most pleasant anticipations, for it appeared to have been cooked to a turn, Isaac seized the dish in both hands, ran out of the room as if intending to eat it all himself, and the older girls followed him, racing around and around the building with shouts of mirth, while the tavern keeper and his wife looked on in amazement, until Isaac tired of running.

Then he replaced the meat on the table; but by this time it had grown cold, and instead of having hot venison steak, we were forced to eat lukewarm meat, and it is not needed that I should say anything concerning the disagreeable flavor of deer flesh when it has been kept too long from the fire.

There are times when one really wearies of Isaac's sport, and, as Ben Cushing said when we drove away from Carlisle, a little fun now and then is relished by the saddest of men; but when one keeps it up from morning until night, and again from night until morning, it grows wearisome.



Uncle Daniel Carter


When we left Carlisle it was to journey to a settlement called Big Springs, where, much to our surprise and delight, we came upon Uncle Daniel Carter with his three yoke of oxen hitched to a Conestoga wagon, and having as a load all Uncle Daniel's household goods as well as his family.

Uncle Daniel was an old acquaintance of ours, for he lived but a few miles from Mattapoisett and had started for Ohio some two weeks before we left home.

There had been no expectation in our minds that we should meet him on the journey, for it was believed that, moving as slowly as he must with his ox team, he, if not his wife, would grow weary of attempting to gain the Ohio country, and turn off at some inviting-looking point long before having arrived thus far in Pennsylvania.

But the old man was not made of such stuff; he had set out to join Rufus Putnam's company at Marietta, and declared that he would continue on if it took a year to make the trip.

What a meeting that was with the old man and his family! It was like coming upon Mattapoisett suddenly. I had never before realized how much affection one may unwittingly have for his neighbors, until we saw Uncle Daniel outside the log hut where he had stopped for the night, watching us with an odd expression on his face as if doubting whether we should recognize him.



Uncle Daniel Joins Our Company


Mistress Carter insisted that she and her two daughters prepare the evening meal for all our company, and it seemed much as if we were doing her the greatest favor, when we consented joyfully to share what we had every reason to believe was a goodly portion of Uncle Daniel's scanty store of food.

When the meal was ended, Isaac and Ben Cushing built a lively fire outside the hut, for the night was chilly, and with the children wrapped in their warmest garments, all of us sat, or stretched out at full length, around the cheering blaze, listening to Uncle Daniel's story of his journey, or telling him of that which had happened to us since we left home.

Before we crawled into the wagons that night it was decided, and without any controversy, that Uncle Daniel should join our company, the only question being as to whether the horses would not travel so much faster than his oxen that we could not well keep together.

The old man put an end to any speculation of that kind, however, by declaring that when night came we should find him not far behind us, and he laid plans for the journey of future days, by saying that we were to give no heed whatsoever to him in the morning; he would feed his cattle and be off, most-like before break of day.

"I'll be on hand when it's time for supper, an' don't make any mistake about that part of it," he said cheerily. "I'm willin' to agree that my creeters can't walk as fast as your horses; but they can keep it up a good while longer, an' you'll find it's the slow an' steady that comes out ahead in the long run. So look for your Uncle Daniel before sunset, an' if he fails to show up, then you can set it down as a fact that his wagon has gone to smash, or the oxen have turned tail for Massachusetts."



Hard Traveling


Next morning Ben Cushing would have it that we had come upon bad luck in meeting Uncle Daniel, for at daybreak the rain came down in torrents, and speedily the roads, which were none of the best even in dry weather, became like quagmires. Before we were well on our way the wheels of the heavy wagons sank deep in the mud; the women were forced to remain under the covers or withstand the pelting of the rain, and we men, who walked alongside in order to help the horses with their loads, were speedily drenched to the skin.

Mistress Devoll would have insisted that we turn back and remain at the log shanty until the rain ceased; but both Captain Haskell and Master Rouse put an end to any such proposition by saying that now had come the season when we might rightly expect storms, and if we were to delay our journey save at such times as the weather was fair, winter would overtake us among the mountains where we might find it impossible either to go ahead or to retreat.

Therefore we plodded on, and instead of overtaking Uncle Daniel, as Ben Cushing had predicted we should, before noon, we saw nothing of him until night came. Then there was no bad luck in having a cheery blaze in the fireplace of a log tavern, and every arrangement possible made for our comfort, to all of which the old man had attended before looking after his own comfort.



Mud And Water


It seemed to me as if the rain fell incessantly, and you can fancy what the roads were after eight and forty hours had elapsed.

In Massachusetts we would have said that they were impassable at the best, and now they had been converted into veritable swamps by the downpour of water, or filled in places with blocks of sandstone over which the wagons could not cross save we all put our shoulders to the hinder part helping the horses along, unless we stopped to clear away the obstacles.

Again the ascents were so steep that the horses from both wagons must be hitched to one in order to get it up the hill, and when we came to the other side it was necessary to put locked chains on the wheels, and, in addition, fasten large logs or tree tops to the back of the vehicles that they might drag behind and thus prevent us from going ahead too swiftly.

And all this was done in a heavy downpour of rain, when the women and girls must of necessity remain under cover, except at such times as it was absolutely necessary for them to alight in order to lessen the load.

As if to add to our discomfort, two of the animals began to show signs of faltering, and Ben Cushing told me confidentially one night when we were halted in the foothills, with no shelter save the body of the wagon, and doing our utmost to keep a fire burning amid the rain, that it was his belief we should not succeed in gaining the river before the poor beasts were entirely worn out.

The way lay over a succession of sharp rises and yet sharper descents, with the road in places falling off so much to one side that we were obliged to fasten ropes to the tops of the wagons, and all of us men lay hold, to prevent them from oversetting.

Such work as this might be necessary more than once in half a mile, we all the while wading knee-deep in the mire, and at times finding it difficult to raise our feet because of the mud.



A Storm Of Snow


Then came the time when the rain changed to snow, and you can well fancy that if the road was well-nigh impassable before, it was soon in such a condition that one might say it would be impossible to go farther.

Even the children were forced to get out and walk again and again, and I have seen Mistress Devoll and Mistress Rouse stop many a time to pick up their shoes which had been pulled from their feet by the clinging mud.

Fancy such traveling while the snow came down like feathers, weighting every branch of the trees and every bush until they stood far out over the narrow roadway, shedding their frosty burdens upon the passer-by!

It seemed to me that I could see the horses grow weaker with each mile we advanced, and when night came, after we had traveled no more than six or eight miles at the expense of the most severe labor, it was as much as we could do to keep them on their feet until the harness was removed.

This was the time when Uncle Daniel had the advantage of us, for his oxen plowed their way through the mire, giving apparently no more heed to the weight of the wagon than if it had been a child's toy cart, and again and again did the old man unyoke the patient beasts in order to bring them back, at times more than half a mile over a hard road, to help one or the other of our wagons out of the mud, when, but for his assistance, they might have stayed there until the crack of doom, so deeply were the wheels embedded.

I can look back upon many days we spent while journeying from Massachusetts to the Ohio country with the greatest pleasure; but never do I think of the time passed among the foothills, when the weather was so bitter and the way so hard, without real mental distress, for that journey, during at least eight days, was more like some horrible nightmare than a reality.



Across The Mountains


If I were to make any attempt at describing our passage across the Blue Mountains, the Middle and the Tuscarora Mountains, it would simply be to repeat what I have already set down. Never once did we find a bit of the road where there was easy traveling, and it seemed to me that either the rain or the snow fell incessantly, until, wearied to the verge of exhaustion by day, we were forced to remain half frozen and wet to the skin from night until morning.

The women and children, if we camped at night where there were no houses in which to take shelter, slept in the wagons, while the men and boys made shift as best they might beneath the carts, getting such warmth as could be had under the few blankets at their disposal and the fires built close by, which were not of much avail because we could find no dry fuel with which to feed them.

Then came a day which I remember more vividly than any other of all that long journey, when we descended the last of the Tuscarora Range, and came to a fruitful valley, which we afterward learned was called Ahwick, where was a small settlement, while here and there, when we were on the higher land, could be seen farms which one might almost say were ready for planting, despite the snow that yet lay deep among the hills.

Master Rouse's wagon was leading the way and Uncle Daniel with his plodding oxen brought up the rear. It was Saturday night; we expected to remain at least two days, at the first place where we might sleep in comfort, and it was necessary we find housing for all, which might not be possible at the small log tavern we had heard would be found on the road a short distance away.



A Friendly Dunkard


Therefore our party came to a halt at the first promising-looking house, and Master Rouse set about learning what we might expect in the way of entertainment.

The farm was owned by a German named Christian Hiples, who was of that religious persuasion known as Dunkard, and a right friendly gentleman he proved to be.

It really appeared to give him pain because he could not take all our company in and give us the comforts of home; but it seemed to me that he was doing even more than his share when he agreed that Master Rouse and the members of his party should remain there, while the others of us continued on to the tavern.

I regretted sorely that it was not my good fortune to be one of Master Hiples's guests, for I had heard much concerning these people who call themselves Dunkards, during our traveling through the state, and was most eager to see them at home.

Captain Haskell had told me that the Dunkards were Baptists who had been driven from Germany early in the eighteenth century, when they took refuge in Pennsylvania. So far as I could find out, their religion consists in condemning warfare, and setting their faces against suits at law. They have a peculiar belief regarding baptism, which Captain Haskell said has to do with triple immersion. They wash each others' feet before the Lord's Supper, and give to all members of their faith what is called the kiss of charity. It is in their eyes almost the same as a sin to dress other than plainly and cleanly, and from what I saw of Master Hiples's house during the short time we halted in front of it, I came to believe that cleanliness of home and its surroundings is one of the articles of their belief, for I had not seen so pleasing a place since we came out of Massachusetts.

When Master Rouse's family were thus comfortably housed, Mistress Devoll's team, with Uncle Daniel's oxen plodding patiently behind, continued on to a log tavern a short distance away, and the contrast between this place and that where Master Rouse's people were staying was so great that for the first time since leaving Mattapoisett, I was nearly homesick.



Master Hiples's Kindness


We had comfortable quarters, if one judges comfort by being sheltered from the rain and having sufficient heat; but it was far from pleasant at the inn, and as soon as the horses had been properly cared for, I, despite the fact that my legs were weary with long traveling, ran back down the road to gaze with envy on Master Rouse and his family.

The old German was a kindly-faced man, with a long, white beard extending to his waist, and a voice as mild and gentle as any woman's. He had five or six grown daughters, and when I got back to the farm these young women were doing all they might for the comfort of the guests, without hope or expectation of being paid for the labor.

There was, just outside the house, a huge brick oven in the open air, and these young women, aided by their father, were already heating it as if for a cooking bee. Sally Devoll told me it was their intention to bake a large quantity of bread to be given to us when we set off once more on our journey.

Therefore I came to have a friendly liking for these Dunkards, and before we left Ahwick Valley I was fully persuaded they were what might truthfully be called the salt of the earth.

A Surly Landlord


When I got back to the log tavern there was considerable going on in the way of excitement. The landlord, who had but one eye, having lost the other, so we heard, during a fight when he was a younger man, was anything but gentle in manners, and his appearance was such that one felt as if the lightest word would provoke harsh treatment.

Now it so chanced that the racks in his stable had been built by nailing slats up and down at the end of the stalls, and into the places thus formed the hay was thrown from the loft.

Isaac Barker and Ben Cushing were both very careful to see that their teams were well fed, and more particularly was it necessary now since we had with us two horses that were ailing.

When the animals were put into the stalls, after having been groomed and their coats dried, Isaac found that while the innkeeper intended to charge us for a certain amount of hay, the slats at the end of the stalls were placed so closely together that the poor beasts could not get a single wisp, struggle as they might.

Without delay he went to the landlord and told him that some different arrangement must be made in regard to the racks, if our company was expected to pay for hay.

The innkeeper declared that he would conduct his tavern as best pleased him; the hayracks had been built by him, and built to suit him, therefore they would remain as they were. If our horses and oxen were stabled there, then would we pay so much money for each head on account of hay, whether they got it or not, the surly man claiming it was no fault of his if the animals were unable to get what was before them.

You can well fancy that Isaac's temper was aroused by this injustice, and straightway he told the man what he thought of such dealing, claiming that unless the landlord himself was willing to remedy matters at once, he would take the affair into his own hands.



Isaac Flogs The Landlord


The landlord threatened, so Uncle Daniel said, to punish severely whoever dared to damage his property, and I arrived just at the time when Isaac, with a heavy ax, was breaking out every other slat in the racks, thereby giving the beasts ample opportunity to feed, the innkeeper meanwhile standing outside as if it was his purpose to lay hands on Isaac the moment he left the stable.

As we afterwards learned, the man had been considered, in his younger days, a skillful fighter, and most likely believed there were few who could stand against him, so he had no doubt about his ability to punish Isaac.

I had never heard that Isaac was noted for skill with his fists, and believed he was likely to suffer severely, if the landlord should attack him. I therefore entreated Uncle Daniel to stand by with me in order to lend assistance, for I was not minded that one of our company come to grief at that place.

Uncle Daniel grimly said that Isaac Barker could take care of himself, and that he was not fond of interfering, unless it was absolutely necessary in order to save life.

Therefore, instead of appearing concerned, Uncle Daniel quietly took up his station near the door of the stable, where he stood whittling a bit of pine stick, while the innkeeper raged furiously, and Isaac continued to break out the slats until he had completed the task.

Then he came out of the last stall where he had been working, threw the ax on the floor without very much regard as to how it might fall, and began in a businesslike way to roll up his sleeves, keeping an eye meanwhile on the movements of the landlord.

The two came together while I was waiting to see how they might begin the battle, and in a twinkling, as it seemed to me, both were rolling here and there about the stable floor, but in such a manner that one with half an eye could see Isaac was by no means getting the worst of it.



A Much Needed Lesson


As a matter of fact he flogged that miserly innkeeper severely, never letting up until the fellow cried that he had had enough; then Isaac said that he counted to be back that way in the spring, and if the slats in the hayracks had been replaced, he would give him another flogging compared with which this one would seem like child's play.

I confess that I was frightened even after Isaac had acquitted himself in such a manly fashion, for I believed the landlord would contrive in some way to make the remainder of our party suffer for what had been done; but, strange as it may seem, he was as mild as one could desire, and instead of moving about in a surly fashion, finding fault with everything, as he had done when we first arrived, the fellow seemed striving earnestly to do all he might for our welfare, whereupon Uncle Daniel grimly observed that "all he needed in order to make him a decent kind of a man was a sound flogging every morning."

I would not recommend this method of insuring good treatment from landlords in general; but I must say I was sorry Isaac had not been sufficiently provoked some time before, that he might have tried the same treatment upon some of those innkeepers who had been so surly to us. In fact we met more than one so-called landlord during our journey across the state of Pennsylvania, by the side of whom one of Uncle Daniel's oxen would have appeared gentlemanly.

On Sunday, all of us, even including Isaac Barker, went to meeting with Master Hiples's family, and not only were repaid by hearing a goodly discourse, but received an invitation to take supper with the good Dunkard's family.



A Time Of Rest


The meal was an enjoyable one, although I fear, as I told Ben Cushing, that he and I came very near disgracing, not only ourselves, but all our companions, by eating more than was seemly.

It was the most pleasant Sunday we had spent since leaving Mattapoisett, and a day that seemed more fitting for goodly thoughts than any other I could remember. As Uncle Daniel said when we stretched ourselves out to sleep on the floor of the stable, the two rooms in the tavern having been given up to the women and children, it had been a very profitable time.

Monday also was a profitable day, for then Master Hiples's daughters worked with a will, making bread in such quantities that one might have thought they counted on provisioning an army, and all our women folks did what they could to assist, while we boys and men cut and lugged fuel, so that we might not draw too heavily upon the old German's store of wood.

That night, when it was known we were to set off next day, Master Hiples laid out a large supply of vegetables for all our company, and this was a gift, in addition to the bread, since he refused to take payment therefor, asking only as much in the way of money as would suffice to pay for the grain and the hay eaten by Master Rouse's horses.

Thanks to this friendly German, we were well supplied with food when we left Ahwick Valley, Tuesday morning, and flattered ourselves with the belief that the greater portion of the hardships were passed, for the ailing horses seemed to be much improved, and traveled with no little spirit, thus causing us to believe they were rapidly recovering from their sickness.

During three days we journeyed over roads that were far from good, save by comparison with those we found while crossing the mountains, and then we came to the town of Bedford. We had in the meanwhile crossed Sideling Hill, and forded some of the main branches of the Juniata, not without considerable difficulty and the assistance of Uncle Daniel's oxen, for the fords were deep, and in some cases the bed of the river so soft that had a wagon remained still ever so short a time, it would surely have been mired.



Pack Trains


During the last three days we had seen evidences that in this wild country there was being carried on business of various kinds, for after leaving Ahwick Valley we met here and there on the road long lines of pack horses, loaded with furs and ginsing, a root somewhat like a potato, except that it has branches or roots shooting out from the upper part, and is sent by our merchants to China, where it is considered very valuable as a medicine. There were other pack horses loaded with salt, or bales of dry goods and groceries, which were being carried to the traders of Pittsburgh.

These pack trains, as Uncle Daniel called them, were very interesting. The foremost horse wore bells, and it was he, rather than the driver, who had charge of the beasts, and who did the guiding, for he went on as intelligently as could a human being, the remainder of the train, usually nine or ten horses, following him obediently.

Because there were no roads across the state of Pennsylvania from Carlisle to Pittsburgh over which heavily loaded wagons could pass, we were told that all the traffic was carried on by pack horses, and it was considered that one man could care for no more than ten animals.

One night, when we were told by the landlord of a small tavern about these pack trains, Uncle Daniel said that we had best put aside from our minds all thought of buying anything at Pittsburgh, for if all the goods were carried there on horseback, then the charges must be so heavy that ordinary people could not afford to pay that which the merchants would demand.



A Night Adventure


On the day of leaving Bedford we had our most disagreeable adventure. About four miles beyond that town the road divided, one trail leading directly to Pittsburgh, and the other to Sumrill's Ferry on the Youghiogheny River, which last was the path we must take, because it was the place where the Mayflower had been built, and there we proposed to take boat for Marietta in order to avoid the wearisome traveling on foot.

The women and children had been walking for some time, owing to the miry road, and on coming to this place they decided to remain there awhile in order to rest. It so chanced that Isaac Barker took it into his head to loiter with them, leaving Captain Haskell to drive his team.

Master Rouse also stayed behind, for no reason that any one could give; thus we went on without them, never doubting but that within an hour they would overtake us, for according to the rate we had been traveling, those who were on foot could speedily come up with our jaded horses who were having all they could do to pull the wagons.

Uncle Daniel had on this day, as during the last two or three days, outstripped us with his slowly moving oxen, because they continued on steadily, being so strong that the wagon, which was loaded as heavily as either of ours, was not mired.

The hours passed, and we still remained in advance, with no sign of the coming of the women and children, yet nothing strange was thought of it at the time, and when I spoke of the matter to Ben Cushing as if it might be serious, he laughed at me, declaring that a foot passenger could make his way without difficulty.

About half an hour before sunset we came to a small log hut which was called an inn by the man who owned it. It had but one room, which served alike as kitchen, barroom and a place in which to sleep; but there was shelter for the tired beasts in the stable, and a huge fireplace wherein we might pile fuel to our heart's content. We were therefore not disposed to find fault.

We toasted ourselves well before the fire, wondering meanwhile how soon we might be able to satisfy our hunger; for we could not have supper until the women came to cook it, this inn being only a housing place.



Fears About The Women And Children


One hour passed, and even Captain Haskell began to show signs of anxiety. Another sixty minutes went by without bringing our companions; but after a third hour, Captain Haskell declared that some misadventure must have befallen them, and set off over the road we had just traveled, refusing to allow any of us to accompany him.

It was nearly midnight before the captain and the other members of our party arrived. The poor children could hardly drag one foot after the other, and the women looked as if nothing save the fear of remaining in the open air during the hours of darkness had forced them to continue the journey.

While Ben Cushing and I were cooking supper, for the girls and the women were far too weary to do any work at the time, we learned that the party had halted at the dividing of the ways much longer than they realized, and it was nearly nightfall before the journey was continued.

Then, when the sun had set, it was impossible for them to make their way along the faintly outlined road, save by clutching the bushes on either side, and even then they strayed again and again into the thicket, until, what with this additional traveling and the exertion of plowing their way through the mire, all save Isaac Barker were plunged into a most gloomy, disagreeable frame of mind.

Mistress Devoll declared that but for him who made sport when the difficulties were the worst, and sang loudly when the others of the company were too thoroughly exhausted even to speak, they could not have continued.

One can well fancy how welcome to them was the fire in the log tavern. The smaller children stretched themselves out at full length on the puncheon floor in front of the blaze, while their mothers and sisters gave no heed to anything save the delicious sensation of being able to rest, enjoying to the utmost, I dare say, the feeling of security which came to them on arriving at that inn.



Descending The Mountains


Despite the fact that none of our company had had sufficient sleep, we continued our journey as soon after daybreak as we could, and it was during this day that our hearts were cheered by what might seem to some people a foolish thing.

On either side of the road could be seen the little green leaves and bright scarlet berries of the partridge vine, or checkerberry plant, such as we all had seen each year roundabout Mattapoisett, and it had such a homelike appearance that it was as if we had suddenly come upon a friend. The small children loitered behind the wagons to pick the tiny red berries, while the girls chewed the aromatic leaves, and more than one of the men followed their example, for it was like being in Massachusetts again after a long disagreeable dream.

The log inn at which we had slept the night previous was evidently built on what is generally called the "height of the land," for now we were descending the Allegheny Mountains, cheered by the fact that the streams of water from the springs ran with us along our road, telling that we had come to where the greater portion of the remainder of the journey would be on descending ground. These streams were to accompany us on our way now, instead of running in the opposite direction as during all the time we had been among the foothills.



At The Foot Of The Hills


When we had come to the base of the mountains we found ourselves on a broad, level range, which was called "The Glades." Captain Haskell said it had very much the appearance of a prairie. If this be true, which I have no reason to doubt, then I have no desire to see a prairie; for The Glades was a most forlorn place, being but sparsely dotted with trees and covered with a coarse grass, at which even the oxen turned up their noses.

Then, having slept in the open two nights, we came to Laurel Ridge, which bounds the western side of The Glades, and must have been so named because of the laurel which grows in such profusion on the rocky cliffs.

Now we were forced to climb once more over a road quite as rough as any we had come upon, and again all the women and the children were forced to walk, much to their discomfort, for on this ridge the snow had fallen in large quantities. Every one was soon wet to the knees, and plodding through the snow and mud rendered walking quite as difficult as any we had yet experienced.

On this day the women and children, remembering what had occurred just after we left Bedford, went on ahead of the wagons. When the afternoon was about half spent they came upon a stream of water at the western foot of the ridge, which was far too deep for them to ford, therefore they were obliged to wait until we came up.

Luckily for them, however, there was a small log house near by the road in which dwelt a motherly-looking Irish woman, and with her our people visited, much to their pleasure and comfort, until we arrived.

Because of the difficulties in the way, the wagons did not come to the stream until nearly nightfall; but then the passage was quickly made, and we hurried on two miles farther, to where was an inn, said to be as good as any other to be found between Sumrill's Ferry and Carlisle.



Nearing The End Of The Journey


Next day we crossed Chestnut Ridge, the last of the hills, and so named because of the wondrous growth of chestnut trees which just then were yielding up their fruit to the nipping frost. Our children and girls filled their pockets with the nuts, while more than once all three of the wagons were halted that we might lay in a store of what would, on a pinch, serve as food.

We had climbed mountain after mountain, crossed ridge after ridge, until it seemed as if all the earth was a succession of ascents and descents; we had waded knee-deep through mire or snow, and literally fought our way along all that weary distance from Mattapoisett to the Youghiogheny River, until we had come to Sumrill's Ferry, where it was believed we could make arrangements for a more comfortable continuation of the long journey.

Well it was that we arrived at this time, which was near the last of November, with winter close at hand, for the two horses which had been ailing now seemingly grew worse, and during the eight and forty hours before our arrival at the ferry, they were hardly more than able to keep their feet, let alone doing any portion of the pulling.

I believe that a few days more of traveling would have killed them, and indeed they were hardly more than dead beasts when we took them out of the harness at the ferry, congratulating ourselves upon having come thus far on our journey without mishap.



At Sumrill's Ferry


Here we learned of those people who went out from Danvers and Hartford. We saw where they built the Mayflower, and, in fact, we lodged at the very inn where some of them had lived while making ready for the journey down the river.

Sumrill's Ferry is not a large settlement, but a thriving one. Here were boat builders, ready to make any kind of craft needed.

To hear them talk of what they believed must have been our experiences during the journey, one would have said they looked upon us as more than foolish to have ventured so much in order to make a settlement in the wild Ohio country.

Before we had been at this settlement an hour, Uncle Daniel came upon Benjamin Slocomb and his family, who had left Danvers nearly four weeks before we started from Mattapoisett. Master Slocomb had waited at the ferry nine days until a boat could be finished in a manner to please him, and was on the point of setting off when Uncle Daniel saw him.



Parting With Uncle Daniel


Master Slocomb's craft was not so well loaded but that he could, without inconvenience, take on board Uncle Daniel's wagon with all its belongings, except the oxen, so he urged the old man to finish the journey with him, the two having been friends for many a long year. The result was that Uncle Daniel parted company with us before nightfall, leaving his oxen to our care, but taking everything else he owned.

"I'll have a farm picked out for you folks, an' made ready to plow," the old man cried cheerily, as Master Slocomb's clumsy craft was poled out into the current. All our company stood on the river's bank watching the departure, and really sorry to part with our fellow traveler, who had always shown himself willing to lend a hand when it was needed, without regard to the labor.

We called after him until he was beyond earshot, Isaac Barker cracking jokes as usual, and then we set about making arrangements for our own journey down the river.



Our Flatboat


There were several boats already built and for sale, and Master Rouse and Captain Haskell decided upon one which was not yet finished, so far as the accommodations for passengers were concerned, since it had no roof. It was by far the best craft, to my thinking, of all we saw there.

It was about forty feet long and twelve feet wide, of ample size and depth to carry all our wagons, as well as our people, to say nothing of as much space as would be required in which to house not only our horses, but Uncle Daniel's oxen.

It was not our purpose to take the beasts in the boat at that time, but rather to send them across the land to a settlement called Buffalo, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek, fifty-three miles from the ferry, whereas the distance was considerably more than a hundred miles by the waterway.

This was to be done not simply because we wanted to avoid the labor of caring for them, but because the Youghiogheny River was so shallow at that season of the year that a boat drawing more than eighteen or twenty inches of water could not float upon it.

The craft which Captain Haskell and Master Rouse had bought would draw, perhaps, seventeen inches with all our belongings, save the horses and oxen, on board, therefore we would send them across the country in charge of Michael Rouse, Isaac Barker, and Ben Cushing, counting to take them up when we came to Buffalo Creek, for there the river was deeper, the current swifter, and we should have no difficulty in carrying them.

A great time we had of it, packing our goods into the boat in a way to economize every inch of space, and when this had been done, and we learned how much of the craft could be given over to our own use, we set about making arrangements for comfort, first by covering the stern of the boat with mud to the depth of ten or twelve inches, and then building around it a fireplace of stone, where the cooking could be done without danger of setting fire to the timbers.



The Cattle Are Sent Away


With blankets and sheets we made a covering for the after part of our ark, so that the women and children would be kept dry in case of a storm.

When all this had been done, and we had bought as much in the way of provisions as could be purchased at a reasonable price, Isaac, Michael, and Ben set off with the beasts.

It gave me a homesick feeling to see them march away; we had been together so long and had gone through so many hardships.

Within half an hour after the horses and oxen, with their drivers, had disappeared, we pushed off from the shore, and very strange did it seem to be carried along by the current, instead of fighting one's way through mud.

I said to myself that now it was the same as coming to the end of our journey, for we had simply to sit still and let the river do the work.

This, however, I soon understood was a mistake, for although we were not forced to trudge through mud and snow, there was ample work for men and boys in holding the clumsy craft out from the shore where she was like to go aground, or again, in leaping overboard and actually lifting her off some shoal on which she had grounded, as it seemed to me, in a very spirit of perverseness.

It is true that we were forced to work quite as hard in navigating the boat as when we plodded over the miry road, and yet there was this advantage, we were able to eat our meals at regular times.

What with rowing and poling, and now and then leaping waist deep into the water to shove her from the shoals, we contrived, after a considerable time, to get as far as the Monongahela River, where the water was deeper and the current swifter, permitting us to get some rest now and then, and for the first time since leaving Mattapoisett did this journey begin to seem pleasing.

It was Sunday evening when we arrived at Pittsburgh, making our clumsy craft fast to a stake on the shore at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, with the Ohio in full view.



At Pittsburgh


The town of Pittsburgh, the largest we had seen since coming into the state of Pennsylvania, appeared to me a most prosperous settlement. There was the fort called Pitt, and half a dozen shops, in addition to the houses which I was told sheltered about five hundred people. Therefore you can understand that it was indeed a place of considerable consequence.

It was not so late in the day but that Master Rouse and Captain Haskell went up into the town, after our boat had been made fast to the stake as I have said, in order to attend to some business, for on the frontier one does not observe so religiously the Sabbath as at home, and travelers who must continue their journey with as little delay as possible, are allowed to make necessary purchases even on Sunday.

When the two men went on shore there was nothing said as to how soon they might come back; but we supposed both would return as soon as their business was done.

Therefore the girls at once set about cooking supper; but when the meal was ready our gentlemen were not returned, and we waited for them until the corn cake was nearly cold, while the fish which we had caught during the day were much the worse for having remained from the fire so long.

About nine o'clock Mistress Rouse and Mistress Devoll decided that the younger children must be fed, in order that they might be put to bed at a reasonable hour, and therefore we ate the meal without waiting longer.

Well it was that we did so, if we counted on satisfying our hunger that day, for two hours later the men were yet absent, and then Mistress Devoll told me we should make our preparations for the night.

Now you know that this was no small task. The beds and bedding were stowed in the wagons during the day, and when night came, all must be taken out and spread upon the bottom of the boat for the women and children, while the boys -- and of course I was numbered among them -- slept in one of the wagons.

On this night, however, because Captain Haskell and Master Rouse had not returned, Mistress Rouse believed that I should make my bed at the end of the boat near the fireplace, where I could stand guard, or, in other words, where I might be ready to do whatsoever would be needed during the hours of darkness.



Too Much Water


I congratulated myself not a little that I was to sleep upon a very comfortable sack of feathers, which had thus far served Captain Haskell. Without giving very much heed to the fact that the men yet remained in town when there was every reason why they should have come back to the boat, I laid myself down, and was speedily lost in slumber, for the work during the day had been severe, and I was needing rest sorely.

I may have slept two or three hours, certainly as long as that, when suddenly I was awakened by a sense of discomfort, and, turning over, was brought to my feet very quickly by discovering that the water had come in even over the top of my bed.

I cried out, not from fear, but rather from surprise, and on the instant the women, as well as the older girls, being awakened, started aft to learn what might be the matter, when they plunged nearly to their knees in water.

Straightway the outcry was great, for they, as well as I, believed that the boat was sinking beneath us.

Strangely enough, the women seemed to consider that I was able to play the part of a man at such a time, and Mistress Devoll asked in a tone of fear what ought to be done.

During an instant I stood undecided, hardly having my wits about me, and then, still believing the clumsy craft was going to the bottom, I urged that we get on shore as speedily as possible.



Escape Of The Women And Children


Fortunately for us the boat had been moored with a short hawser, in such a manner that when Captain Haskell and Master Rouse left us they could readily leap from the gunwale to the land, and after the women were gathered on the shoreward side of the boat, instead of being obliged to jump, I found that they might readily step over the rail without wetting their feet in water, although they sank above the tops of their shoes in mud.

Once they had what might be called a firm footing, I passed the younger children over, and while doing so the twins made a great outcry, whereupon Mistress Devoll and Mistress Rouse commanded them to remain quiet.

Our cries and shouts awakened a man who proved to be of great assistance. His house stood on the shore near where our boat was moored, and he came to the door quickly, calling out to know what was the matter, whereupon I told him our boat was sinking and that some half-drowned women and children were shivering on the shore.

All of us were soaked to the skin, for we had floundered about in the water when first awakened, and the man cried out that we should remain where we were until he could light a lantern and come to our assistance, which he did in a very short space of time.

Then, without waiting to learn what might be happening to the boat, he insisted that all should go to his house, which was hardly more than a hundred paces away, and once there he built a big fire in the fireplace, after which he proposed that we older boys go with him to look after the craft, while the women and children dried their clothing.



Repairing Damages


When we came to the boat again it was seen that there would have been no danger of her sinking, even though we remained aboard all night. It seems that the river had fallen after we made fast to the shore, and the landward side of the boat rested on the river bank as the waters receded, thus allowing the outer portion of the craft to settle in the stream until the water ran through the seams in the planking about the gunwale, for they were badly calked, having been hurriedly finished by the builders at Sumrill's Ferry while we were putting our goods on board.

There was no possibility of our shoving the huge boat into deeper water, therefore the kindly stranger awakened some of his neighbors, who, with such small aid as I could give, set about taking out the bedding and the clothing which had been wetted completely, carrying the stuff up to the house that it might be dried, and this work served to keep us busy until sunrise, when Master Rouse and Captain Haskell came down to the shore.

They had been busy with some people who intended to go to Marietta, and were so eager to make certain business arrangements that it seemed best to sleep at the tavern, rather than return at a late hour to the flatboat, and one can readily imagine their surprise at finding us with a good third of our cargo on shore.

The kind man who had labored nearly all night in our behalf lived alone in a large log hut, and insisted on preparing breakfast for all our company, not even allowing the girls to do their share of the work, thereby showing himself to be a skillful cook as well as a friendly neighbor.

When Master Rouse would have paid him for his labor, as well as for the food which he had provided, the man refused to take a penny, claiming that he had done only as he would be done by, and therefore I still have a kind feeling in my heart for Pittsburgh.

Master Rouse, Captain Haskell, and I soon had the water bailed out of the flatboat and the bedding, now dried, on board; before the afternoon was more than half spent, we were ready to set out on the last stage of our long journey.



Our Pilot


We had, however, a new member of the company, an old trapper and hunter by the name of Bruce. Our gentlemen had met him at the tavern, and learned that he was familiar with the river, knowing all the shoals, or at least claiming that he did, and I have no reason to doubt his statement in view of what occurred before we arrived at Marietta.

He had intended to travel in his canoe, which was neither more nor less than a dugout, by which I mean the trunk of a tree hollowed out to make a shell-like craft which would carry a very heavy load. It required delicate handling because of its liability to overset in case any of the cargo was suddenly shifted. In fact, the old hunter laughingly said that if he shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other the canoe would heel.

He had with him flour, half a dozen or more sides of bacon, a number of beaver traps, his camp kettle and equipage, not to speak of his rifle, blankets, and ammunition sufficient to last him during the winter season, while he was in the wilderness far from any other human being.

His canoe was lashed alongside the flatboat and he stood at the huge steering oar which swung from the stern, or rather from that end of the craft which we chose to call the stern, for, it being square at both ends, we might as well have called one the bow as the other.



A Change Of Weather


It was about three o'clock when we started. The sky was overcast, and there were signs of rain in the south, while the wind shifted here and there until almost any one might have proved himself a weather prophet by predicting a storm.

Within an hour of sunset the wind swung around to the northwest and blew fiercely across the bend of the river where we then were, kicking up such a sea as to send the crests of the waves over the side of the boat, threatening to sink, if not overset, the unwieldy craft.

We men and boys worked at the oars to the best of our ability, striving to force the clumsy vessel toward the Pennsylvania shore, for the opposite bank, or what was called the Indian side, was said to be infested with savages who, even though they were supposed to be at peace with white people, robbed flatboats and killed travelers at every favorable opportunity.

Master Bruce's huge canoe pounded and thumped against the side of the boat until it seemed certain she would stave in the planks, and finally, regardless of the fact that all his property was on board, the old hunter cut her adrift.

Then, while we rode more easily, the danger was lessened but little, for the wind increased in force, and the waves grew higher, until all of us boys were forced to work at bailing in order to keep the water from rising so high as to soak our goods.

I had not realized that there was any actual danger until I heard the old hunter say to Captain Haskell that we must take our chances of being attacked by the Indians, because it was impossible to force the flatboat over to the Pennsylvania shore, therefore we ought to make harbor wherever we could.



Noisy Fear


Up to this time the women and the girls had remained reasonably quiet, apparently too much frightened to make any sound; but overhearing what Master Bruce said regarding the necessity of our taking shelter on the Indian shore, they set up a great outcry.

Captain Haskell and Master Rouse, although they were needed at the oars, could do no less than go amidships where the shrieking ones were gathered, and literally force them to hold their peace, for it was most distracting to hear the noise while we had as much as we could do to work the craft.

The old hunter showed that he knew much regarding the handling of such a boat as we were then aboard; for in a short time, by skillful pulling at the plank that served as rudder, aided by those of us who tugged at the oars, she was brought under a high bluff, on the Indian side of the river, and there made fast by a hawser to trees growing near the water's edge.

We were no sooner moored than Mistress Devoll sprang over the side of the boat to the land, declaring that while the storm raged as it did then she would not trust herself on board even though the Indians might be near, and her example was speedily followed by the other women and girls.

It seemed to me a foolhardy act to go on shore when we knew there was danger the Indians might make an attack, yet Master Rouse and Captain Haskell held their peace, allowing the women to do as they pleased, while the old hunter set about putting up a shelter for them by means of four poles, with blankets stretched across after the fashion of a tent.

There the women made beds for themselves and the children, rather than go back to the boat, even though to my mind it was safely secured and could not come to any harm.

Master Bruce was not content with having done this. Just before having landed we saw a thin thread of smoke rising from the trees half a mile distant, and he set off as soon as the makeshift tent had been put up, running the chances of coming upon the savages, in order to discover who our neighbors might be.



A Real Feast


Now it so happened, fortunately for us, that the smoke had come from the camp of white men, and of them Bruce begged, or bought, half of a fat deer, broiling enough steaks on the coals to satisfy the hunger of the younger members of the party, while he roasted a goodly portion, hunter-fashion, on a hickory skewer stuck up in the earth in front of the fire.

The girls made coffee and corn bread, and we feasted that night.

Captain Haskell and I went on board the boat to sleep, and I was not sorry we did so, for before morning another storm came up, and when we looked out from beneath the wagon covers, after sunrise, snow covered the ground to the depth of two inches.

The sun was shining brightly; the wind had died away until there was not sufficient air stirring to lift a feather, and nothing prevented us from continuing the journey without delay, which we did, the girls broiling venison steaks in our fireplace at the stern of the boat while we sailed along.

Master Bruce told us we might take no little credit to ourselves, for we most likely were the first white people to venture on the Indian shore and remain there all night, since Pittsburgh had become a town.



Finding The Canoe


It surprised me not a little because the old hunter failed to mourn the loss of his canoe, for on board was all his equipment for the winter's work, and, having lost it, he must go back to Pittsburgh to replenish his stores and procure another craft.

However, it is folly for one to worry and fret over that which cannot be avoided. Master Bruce might have made himself miserable bewailing the loss of his goods and nothing would have been changed.

Near noon we saw the craft on the Pennsylvania side of the river, where it had been blown by the wind, lying there comfortably ashore, as if waiting for us to take it in tow.

It was a difficult matter to pull our craft around to get hold of the canoe; but we finally did so, and would have worked more than one day rather than allow the old hunter to meet with a loss.

When it was made fast alongside once more, and we were drifting with the current, Master Bruce went on board to learn what portion of his goods had been lost during the storm, and to his surprise found that only one of the traps was missing, although the flour was more or less wet.

Why the canoe was not overset by the wind, unstable as it was, I could not understand until Master Bruce explained that the weight of the flour and the traps, resting on the bottom of the boat, must have served as ballast to hold it steady, and again, most-like, it went ashore within a short time after having been cut adrift.

I supposed we had quite a journey before us from Pittsburgh to Buffalo Creek, and therefore was surprised when at sunset I asked Master Bruce concerning the distance, and he told me that within an hour we would arrive at the place where we were to take on the cattle and horses, for it was Master Rouse's intent to carry with us Uncle Daniel's oxen, if the old man had not succeeded in loading them on his friend's craft.



Buffalo Creek


It was not yet nine o'clock when we came within sight of the few twinkling lights in the settlement of Buffalo, and I could hear Isaac Barker's boisterous laugh while we were yet half a mile away, therefore I knew he was indulging in his quips and jokes.

It must have been that he was on the lookout for us, for before the flatboat was made fast to the shore, he, with Michael Rouse and Ben Cushing, was calling out words of welcome, and asking how the journey had progressed. As soon as they were on board, our craft having been made fast, we learned without surprise that the two ailing horses had died during the march.

A few moments later, as I was about to overhaul the bedding in order to make it ready for the children, whose time for going to sleep had already passed, Mistress Rouse said to me that she had no intention of remaining on board the boat during the night.

The fear that another storm might come up, or that we might be half-swamped as at Pittsburgh, caused the good woman to shrink from spending the night on the boat when it was possible to sleep ashore. Isaac was therefore urged to find some shelter, which he speedily did by proposing that they take possession of a log hut which stood on a point of land near the mouth of Buffalo Creek, where he, with Michael and Ben, had slept the night before.

The building had been abandoned, as it seemed, or else its owner was making a long journey, perhaps on a hunting trip, and would not complain if we made free with his property, it being the custom on the frontier for travelers to take advantage of such shelter as they might find unoccupied.



The March Across The Country


I counted on hearing from Ben Cushing and Isaac Barker entertaining stories that night, concerning the march across the country, but much to my disappointment they had nothing of interest to tell.

Forced to accommodate their pace to the slowly moving oxen, they trudged along hour after hour, starting well before daylight and continuing as long as it was possible to see at night, in order to cover the greatest possible distance, with nothing whatsoever to break the monotony of the march.

We were up long before the sun next morning, for now it was necessary to take the live stock on board our flatboat. We were forced to embark Uncle Daniel's oxen, he having passed Buffalo some time before Isaac and Ben arrived there, and when we had all the beasts on board we were packed like herring in a box, each in his own special place and with very little opportunity to move about.

However, we were nearly at our journey's end; the current of the river ran swiftly as compared with the stream at Pittsburgh, and there was no longer reason to fear that the Indians might do any harm, even if there had been cause before.

In exactly four days from the time of leaving Pittsburgh, we arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum. It was well we had come to an end of our journey so soon, for ice was already beginning to form in the river, and before daylight the Muskingum was frozen quite solidly.

Within an hour after we had moored the flatboat to the bank, Master Devoll came on board.

Although I have not said that this march of ours was attended with danger, and in fact it was not, yet there were many chances that one or another of us, if not all, might have fallen by the wayside, owing either to the roughness of the way, or the fatigue caused by such incessant labor with insufficient lodging, to say nothing of the poor food owing to the fact that we had not the necessary vessels in which to prepare it.



At Marietta


Before we had really made the flatboat fast, Mistress Devoll and Mistress Rouse were almost at their wits' ends with fear, for in the woods and on the sides of the hill back of Fort Harmar could be seen hundreds upon hundreds of camp fires, and one of those idlers who are ever to be found at the riverside of a settlement, told us there were no less than three hundred savages encamped there, having come to make a treaty with our people on the 9th of January.

Master Devoll laughed at his wife's fears, claiming that the savages were as peaceful as lambs, although at the time I doubted very much whether he believed his own words.

However, the women and children did not remain aboard our flatboat, for Master Devoll took them to the Mayflower, which was moored near by, where were better accommodations for sleeping, and in our craft only Ben Cushing and I were left on guard.

We two lads spent a full hour that evening, congratulating ourselves upon having finished the journey and questioning as to what we would do now we were come into this Ohio country.

We had been more than eight weeks on the road, advancing all the time, one day after another, except the eight and forty hours which were spent with Master Hiples in that village where live the Dunkards, and, save for the death of the two horses, we had come through with no greater mishap than the loss of a two-quart tin measure and a blanket belonging to Mistress Rouse. This was doing remarkably well, when you consider that never one of the party, not even the men, had undertaken such a journey before.

In the morning we found the Muskingum River frozen from shore to shore, and until spring came the stream was never so free of ice that we could have propelled our boat, therefore we arrived, as one might say, just in the nick of time, for a delay of four and twenty hours would have found us frozen in at some point above the town, from which it would have been necessary to continue on foot.



Plans For The Future


Uncle Daniel was on the river bank to meet us next morning, before we put the animals ashore, and then, very much to my disappointment, he announced that it was not his intention to remain long in Marietta.

It appears that he, with several others, had decided to go thirteen miles down the Ohio River, where they had already staked out a town, and there build for themselves a settlement which should be wholly made up of those who had been neighbors in Massachusetts. However, he was forced to remain with us at Marietta during the winter.

Master Devoll took his family from the Mayflower at an early hour next morning and moved their belongings to Campus Martius, where he hoped to remain until his house was finished, and there did Mistress Devoll bid me come, saying I should find a home with them until it was possible to settle upon plans for the future, while Master Devoll told me that if I wanted to work at fair wages as a farm hand, he would give me employment as soon as spring had come.

It may be that I was a simple for not accepting the offer which was made in all kindness of heart, and yet I had a desire to become something more than an ordinary laborer, so, thanking him heartily for his generosity, I went out into the world on my own account, having as partner Ben Cushing.

We two young fellows had no idea of what it might be possible for us to do. This new country was all so different from what we had seen in Massachusetts; the ways of the people would be different now they had come so far from home, and we were without means of gaining a livelihood, save for our willingness to work and the strength of our bodies.



Inspecting The Town Of Marietta


However, penniless and undecided though we were, there was no intention on our part to force matters, and after the flatboat had been unloaded, we set about looking the town over, eager to see what had been done in so short a time, and speculating as to what we might do at some future day.

I am free to confess that the fortification with the high-sounding name of Campus Martius was pleasing to look upon. It was an imposing building, not such a one as you would expect to find in a wild country, and it lent to its surroundings a certain sense of security, because one could readily understand that it was built in a manner to defy the attacks of the savages.

Outside the palisade, extending in either direction along the river bank were ten log cabins, very few of which were occupied by their owners, for those who had built them had not as yet brought their families to Marietta. The streets were laid out in regular order, but like those we saw in Harrisburg, they were still filled with the stumps of trees, and the only signs of highways were the tiny paths looking much like sheep tracks as they wound in and out among the trees, avoiding the wet places, and leading where the way was most easy to travel.

No one gave any heed to us, and we wandered here and there looking into this house or criticizing another which was but half finished, until we came to where we could see Fort Harmar with the Indian encampment behind it. Then we decided upon the next day's entertainment, for Ben Cushing insisted that since this was our first chance to see a savage, we should spend at least a few hours there.

While it promised a novelty, I was by no means easy in mind regarding an inspection of the red men. Nevertheless I kept all these fears to myself, hoping Ben might give over his excursion when we learned that the ice was not strong enough to bear us up.

Unfortunately, however, it was possible to gain Fort Harmar, for the night was very cold, and ice formed of a thickness to render traveling on the river safe, therefore I was forced to agree to his proposition again.



A Temporary Home


Before we could inspect these Indian visitors, it was necessary we should make some provision for food and shelter, for neither of us wanted to present himself to Mistress Rouse or Mistress Devoll as a beggar, therefore we set about providing for ourselves a temporary home.

I have no doubt but that we would have been allowed to take possession of any of the log houses which were not occupied; but that would have been much like begging a shelter, therefore we proposed to Master Devoll that we occupy the flatboat during the time that it remained fast in the ice.

It proved to be a happy idea. He told us that it was his intention to allow the boat to remain where it was until spring, since he could do no different because of the ice, and then it could be used by those who proposed to make a settlement fourteen miles farther down the Ohio. He also said that we were at liberty to use it as we saw fit during the entire winter, providing, of course, that we did no damage to the craft; but at the same time advising that, instead of trying to keep house by ourselves, we live either with his family or Master Rouse's.

He said we should find plenty of game in the woods, and proposed that we borrow his gun whenever we were in need of meat, promising to supply us with ammunition; but this last we agreed to only with the understanding that he keep a strict account of what was used, so that when we had earned sufficient money with which to cancel the debt, we might pay him.

At this he laughed, declaring that we were indeed high and mighty for lads who yet had their way to make through the world; but at the same time clapping us heartily on the shoulders as he vowed he liked our spirit and had no doubt but that we should succeed in making our way, for there must be ample opportunity for willing lads to earn fair wages when spring had come.



Buying Land


Another thing Master Devoll did for which both Ben and I have good reason to bless him. He insisted that we make a bargain with Colonel Putnam for one of the eight-acre lots, agreeing to pay for it within a year's time, and inasmuch as the price fixed upon for those who had come to settle was the same as that made by the government, meaning one dollar an acre, it surely seemed as if we could contrive within a twelve-month to earn that much money in addition to supporting ourselves.

Without loss of time we went to the small building which Colonel Putnam called the "Land Office," and there made application for one of the lots as Master Devoll had advised. On the instant after Colonel Putnam spoke, we understood that Master Devoll had not contented himself simply with giving advice, but had been to the land office before us, stating who we were and what were our intentions, therefore Colonel Putnam not only was ready to receive us, but had much to say which sounded to my ears like unwon praise.

"It is such lads as you that we want here in Marietta," he said heartily. "Your records are good, so far as I have learned, and it pleases me to set aside an eight-acre lot for you. Decide upon any one of those which have not already been taken, and I will enter it in your names."

Then he put before us a plan of the town of Marietta, whereon each piece of land was marked out, and we, instead of going out to look for ourselves that we might decide which was the most valuable or desirable, said to him that he should put our names down on whatever lot he saw fit, whereupon he laughingly did so, and we afterward learned that we had been, perhaps, wise in leaving to him the selection.

That night after we had become landowners, as you might say, we slept on board the flatboat with no covering save such a shelter as could be made with branches of trees, and because we were not disposed to ask either Mistress Rouse or Mistress Devoll to lend us blankets, we made a lively blaze in the fireplace, laying ourselves down with our feet toward it.

The night was cold indeed and we suffered not a little before morning; but, as Ben said, it was better to be a trifle chilly than to feel ourselves beholden to any one, even for that with which we covered ourselves.

I insisted that our first duty should be to get together a supply of fuel, and indeed there was no scarcity about. The trees grew so near the water's edge that we could hew them into four-foot lengths, and almost toss them into the flatboat.

It was my proposition that we fill the craft entirely with fuel before doing anything else, but Ben was so set upon seeing the Indian encampment, that he refused to do more than cut enough to last during one night, and when I asked him what he intended to do about breakfast, he quietly announced that he would rather go hungry one day, than miss the chance of seeing those savages with whom we might, at some time in the near future, find ourselves fighting for our lives.

I also was eager to see the Indians; but not to such an extent that I would cross over to Fort Harmar with an empty stomach. I therefore told him that I should first make it my duty to go into the woods in search of game.



Visiting The Savages


He, however, was so insistent that we finally agreed that the forenoon should be spent in looking at the savages, and after that he was to go with me hunting.

It was odd, when we had come to Fort Harmar, to see so many of the brown-skinned people dressed in fanciful garb, as if taking part in some comical festival; but there was about them so much which was disagreeable, that I could not really enjoy the visit.

I fancied that more than one of them looked in an unfriendly manner at us, as if taking offense because of our curiosity, and I was willing to postpone any further acquaintance with them until we were somewhat familiar with their habits and customs.

Ben was not so eager as he had been, and when noon came was ready to accompany me on a hunting trip, as had been agreed upon.

I wish I had the time to tell you all we did during that first afternoon, for indeed it was most interesting.

Roaming through a dirty Indian encampment was not for a single moment to be compared with the pleasure of making one's way among the huge trees, where game was so abundant that a fellow might pick and choose.

Before we had gone half a mile from the fortification, we came upon pigeons and rabbits in what seemed countless numbers, and more than once did we get a glimpse of wild turkeys; but as yet we were not sufficiently versed in hunting to be able to kill them.

Within two hours we had enough meat for the coming week, and, hastening back to our flatboat home, were able before sunset to cut so much wood that Ben declared we might live like gentlemen of leisure during the next few days.

"If we are to make for ourselves names of worth in this country, there must be no idleness," I said half laughingly. "You and I have decided that we will strike out for ourselves, therefore it stands us in hand to earn money, and that without loss of time."

"We will begin bright and early to-morrow morning," Ben replied cheerily. "You shall go one way and I another, each seeking to find some way by which we can earn an honest dollar, and each seeing to it that whatever business is engaged upon, shall be for two, because, as I understand it, you and I are to work in one yoke while we remain here in this town of Marietta."



Captain Haskell's Advice


We did not do exactly as Ben proposed when another day had come, and it was none other than Captain Haskell who prevented us from carrying out our plans.

We met the captain just as we were coming out from beneath our shelter, he having strolled that way in order to learn how we might be getting on. Seeing that we were blue and shivering with the cold as we strove to kindle a fire in the stern of the flatboat, he said to us that it would be a good idea if we made of the craft a comfortable home during the winter months.

Then he showed us how, with a little labor, we could build in the stern of the flatboat a shelter which would be quite as good as any hut on shore, save that we might be lodged in one of the best rooms in Campus Martius, and advised that we set about the work before striving to find employment. At the same time he assured us there was no doubt whatsoever in his mind but that two lads who were willing to work, and who would work, might make for themselves a home and a name.

Having given this advice, he turned squarely about, never waiting to see whether we might be willing to follow it, and walked rapidly toward the fortification.

We pondered over his suggestion no longer than it might take a man to count twenty, and then began to discuss how we had best begin the work, in the meanwhile warming up what remained of the roasted pigeons we had cooked for supper.



A New Friend


While we were thus engaged, the lad Jeremy Salter, of whom I have already spoken, came down to the shore, curious to see who might be remaining on board a flatboat when there was shelter to be had in the town, and without waiting for an invitation, joined us at breakfast, eating considerably more than his share. He told us exactly how we ought to set about making the shelter, and what it might be possible for us to do in the way of gaining employment.

At first it nettled me that this boy should presume to advise us, for he was considerably younger than I; but before he had done with his suggestions, both Ben and I saw that they were not without merit.

He was the son of one of the Salters who had come out from Danvers, and considered himself an old resident of the country because of having been here two months or more. It appeared that he was not very eager to gain employment for himself, claiming that his father was one of those who expected to go farther down the river in the spring to make there another settlement.

However, I must say in his favor that he took hold with us heartily, borrowing two axes, and advising which trees might be felled the easiest, performing himself a due share of the labor, with the result that before two days had passed, thanks to his assistance and advice, we had as good a hut built over the fireplace in the stern of the flatboat as one could desire.



Fishing Through The Ice


Then Jeremy Salter told us how we might lay in a store of provisions without spending powder and ball. His scheme was to go a short distance from the point, and there fish through the ice.

He not only gave this advice but went so far as to provide us with fishing tackle, and seemed to enjoy himself hugely while aiding in laying up a store of food.

It was no labor, but rather sport, to catch fish in this fashion. We caught them as fast as it was possible to haul in the lines, until when night came and we had made a sort of sled with branches of trees, we had as much of a load as we cared to drag over the ice.

By this time they were all frozen, therefore we stacked them up like fuel in the bow of the flatboat, and I dare say that had we lived on fish alone, we had in the ten hours' fishing enough food for a month.

During all this time that we were building our hut and fishing, Ben Cushing was eager to pay another visit to the Indian encampment; but Jeremy declared that the savages were not in the most friendly mood, even though they had come to make a treaty, and his father had told him plainly that he must not venture near the lodges, lest harm might come.

Such talk as this served to take away Ben's desire to see the wild savages in their own camps, and I was glad because of it, for instead of spending half a day when time was precious, we, with Jeremy's aid, set about laying up a greater store of fuel, until the flatboat had a full cargo of wood and fish, therefore we need not fear hunger or cold during the winter.



The Sabbath In Marietta


I was glad indeed when the Sabbath came, for I had worked hard and the time of rest was what all of us, including Jeremy, who was living with us rather than in Campus Martius with his parents, most needed.

The greater number of the people assembled in one of the rooms of Campus Martius during the forenoon, where prayers were read and some of the older men talked to us in serious fashion.

The words at that time took even more hold on me than those which I had heard from Parson Cutler's lips at home, for we were indeed needing the protection of God, since there were none of this world who could aid if the savages attacked us suddenly. I believe that both Ben and I came away from that meeting better in heart and with better resolutions for the future, than we had ever had before.

Bright and early on Monday morning Captain Haskell made us another visit and commented favorably upon the shelter we had built, at the same time that he looked curiously at our stack of fish.

"I see no reason why you lads should not sell me half a dozen of these," he said, picking out some of the finest, and Ben Cushing replied promptly that he might have all he wanted for the carrying away.

The captain refused any such offer, saying that he would buy them, otherwise he would go without, and declaring that if we wished, we might sell to the people inside the fortification no small amount of fish during the winter season, for there were plenty who did not feel disposed to spend their time on the river while the weather was so cold.



A Regular Business


He gave us a shilling for as many as he could carry, and bade us follow him to Campus Martius, where within an hour we took orders for as many as we had in the flatboat, at prices much the same as that paid by the captain, and straightway without our seeking it, there came to us a means of earning money sufficient to provide ourselves with ammunition for hunting.

You would not have the patience to read all I could write about our work during that winter.

There was never man nor woman in Campus Martius who could come out and beckon us, but that we were ready to furnish him or her with as much fish as was wanted, until we had gathered in no less than seven dollars and three shillings, by working in a way which was much like sport. Of this amount we spent a little more than one half to purchase a store of powder and lead, for it was our intention to add the business of hunting to that of fishing.

Thanks to Jeremy Salter, we borrowed from a kind man who had come out with Colonel Sproat two muskets, with the understanding that if at any time before spring we were ready to pay twelve dollars for each, they might become our property.

From this time on we fished when the weather was too stormy for successful hunting, and roamed the woods during pleasant days, coming back to our flatboat home each night literally laden with game or fish; and although any man in Marietta could have done the same, we had no difficulty in selling it all.

Of the ceremony of making the treaty with the Indians we saw nothing, and for the very good reason that we could not afford to spend the time.



A Visit From The Savages


Just then it seemed as if every man in the settlement was eager to know what might be going on around Fort Harmar, and therefore the demands upon us hunters increased to such an extent that we could hardly supply the food which was desired.

In addition to the fact that we were unable to be present during the treaty making, save at the price of losing the chance to earn considerable money, Ben Cushing had lost all desire to see the savages at close quarters.

One afternoon just before sunset, when we had come in from fishing, two Delaware braves came over to our flatboat and made themselves very much at home, without any invitation. In fact, they carried matters with a high hand, as if having the right to do as they pleased, and when Ben made a stout protest against their eating the food intended for our own supper, one of them behaved in such a threatening manner that for a moment I thoroughly believed he was about to strike the lad down, therefore I hastily caught up one of the axes, believing I should be called upon to fight for my life.

When the Indians had eaten until it was impossible to eat more, they having literally forced us to cook for them, the two stalked away, and from that time forth Ben never said anything regarding a desire to visit the encampment.

We hunted or fished during every moment of daylight while the treaty making was going on, and when it had come to an end we had so many dollars in our possession as satisfied us fully for having failed to witness the ceremony.



Building A Home


It was at this time, when we were so prosperous, that Jeremy Salter declared we ought to set aside a certain day in each week for the work of building a house for ourselves on the eight-acre lot, which we now knew could be paid for at any time, since we had more than sufficient money in our possession.

Thus, thanks to Jeremy, we set about building our home, working whenever the demand for game or fish was light, or when it stormed so furiously that we could not well go on the river or in the woods. When spring came and the snow had disappeared, we had as solidly built a cabin as could be found anywhere in Marietta outside Campus Martius.

Thus far we had accomplished a portion of our purpose. The people had come to understand that if we promised to provide them with a certain kind of game or fish, the promise would be kept to the letter. I am saying this not to praise myself, but simply to show we were making a name for ourselves as lads who told the truth, and kept strictly to their bargain.

As I looked at the matter, this was of greatest value to us. We had set about gaining a good reputation, and verily we had begun aright, though only in small matters. It remained to show whether we were of such stuff as settlers in a wild country should be made.

Before the first day of March we had paid for our eight-acre lot, had built a cabin of two rooms, in which was stored as much frozen game and fish as would keep sweet until warm weather came, and, in addition, had nineteen dollars which we could call our own.



A Great Project


One day, when the rain came down in torrents, and we were not inclined either to fish or hunt, Captain Haskell came to make a friendly call, and, in no spirit of curiosity, but rather because of the interest which he had evidently taken in us, asked how we were progressing.

Without hesitation I told him exactly how we stood in the world, whereupon he praised us highly, and then proposed a scheme which fairly caused me to hold my breath in amazement, for it did not seem possible we could venture so far as his plan led.

His idea was that we build a water mill by buying from himself and Master Rouse the flatboat in which we were still living and by putting alongside of it a second one, the two to be fastened side by side in such a manner that a water wheel could be worked between them, and the double craft anchored in the current, where sufficient power could be had to drive the mill.

As to the stones for grinding and such small pieces of machinery as we might need, he figured that we could buy them either in Pittsburgh or from some craft which came up the river, and when I asked him how far he thought our store of money would go in such a project, he laughingly replied that Uncle Daniel and he would lend us a sufficient amount to pay for all we might need, and take from us in return three-quarters of the entire earnings until the debt, with interest, had been canceled.

When Ben Cushing asked if he believed we should find business enough to warrant the undertaking, he replied: -- 

"There are about two hundred people here now and twice as many coming from Massachusetts during the summer. Now, since there is no mill here and all the corn must be ground by hand, I am asking whether you do not believe that by harvest time a single mill such as Uncle Daniel and I propose you shall build, will be kept running during every hour of daylight?"



The Two Millers


We discussed the matter earnestly, as you may well suppose, and Uncle Daniel, coming aboard before we had finished the conversation, did his share of arguing. Before nightfall it was settled that on the following morning we should begin work on a second flatboat, and also repair the old craft in which we had come down from Sumrill's Ferry.

And all this we did, working with a hearty will far into each night, because it was possible to see before us a way of getting on in the world faster than we had ever dared to dream, and you may be sure we wasted no minute of daylight.

We had expected to cultivate our eight acres, and, in fact, when spring came we did put in a crop of corn; but the making of the mill and providing ourselves with food occupied so much of our time that we could not well afford to spend many hours as farmers, more particularly since both Uncle Daniel and Captain Haskell insisted that as soon as the mill was in working order we could earn double or treble as much as it would be possible to get from the ground.

And it all came about as these two good friends of ours predicted. The mill was a success from the first day we were ready to turn the wheel, and has continued so until now, when we are in sorest trouble.



The Savages On The Warpath


From the time of our coming into this Ohio country, Marietta had steadily increased in size, the people coming, as it seemed to me, from every part of the eastern colonies, and just when Ben and I were congratulating each other that our lines had been cast in peaceful, pleasant places, even though we were settled in the wilderness, the Indians began their bloody work which we now fear may result in wiping out this settlement.

The treaty which had been made by the savages just after we arrived was kept only by the white men. Hardly more than two weeks ago news came that Captain King had been killed at that settlement to which Uncle Daniel went in the spring, while four others were slain in the forest, and one taken prisoner.

The savages are in arms against us. We have been forced to come into Campus Martius for safety; work of all kinds has been abandoned; our mill is moored far up the Muskingum River, where we have a faint hope it may escape destruction.

Although it may be that within the next four and twenty hours both Ben and I will have fallen beneath the tomahawk, yet must I bear witness that God has been good to us indeed. He has permitted two lads so to make their way in the world with nothing save their own hands as stock in trade, that now, as I have good reason for believing, we are counted among the responsible citizens of the town.

And of this it seems to me I had good proof no longer ago than yesterday, when I heard General Putnam say while he and some other of the men were discussing the possibilities of an Indian war: -- 

"If evidence were needed that it is well for young, willing workers to come into the wilderness, then I would point out to you that lad who journeyed with Mistress Devoll, and who, with his comrade, has laid up more than a fair share of this world's goods by unceasing work and unswerving honesty. He has done no more than many another might have done; but it has pleased me to watch the lad, and when I think of him it is always as our cheery-faced, upright miller, Benjamin of Ohio."

<eob>

Mary Liddiard

By

William Henry Giles Kingston



Chapter One.

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

These words were ascending from the lips of a number of dark skinned girls assembled round a fair haired English lady in a building thickly thatched with the leaves of the sugar cane, beneath the shade of a grove of tall cocoanut trees, in one of the many far off beautiful islands of the wide Pacific.  The building, erected by the natives after their own fashion, was the school-house of a missionary station lately established by Mr Liddiard, and the lady was his devoted wife.  It stood upon a platform of coral-stone, raised about two feet from the ground, while the roof projected a considerable distance beyond the walls, and was supported by stout posts formed of the bread-fruit tree, tightly bound to the rafters by ropes of sinnet.

After the conclusion of the hymn of praise -- a sound unwonted in that long benighted region, whose groves had hitherto echoed only with the shouts and wild laughter of the savage heathens, as they performed their barbarous rites, and the shrieks and groans of their victims -- the pupils grouped themselves round Mrs Liddiard on the mats with which the floor was spread.

They were of various ages; some were children, others full grown young women.  All kept their eyes fixed on her attentively, as if anxious to understand every word she said.  Some were clothed in light cotton dresses, their black hair neatly braided and ornamented with a few sweet scented wild flowers, while others were habited in garments of native cloth, formed from the paper mulberry tree.

By the side of Mrs Liddiard sat, on low stools, two young girls, whose light complexions contrasted with that of their dark skinned sisters. Though she spoke in the native language, the two English girls understood her perfectly, and appeared to be as attentive as their companions, and anxious to set a good example to the rest.  One of them, with black hair, called little Maud, who seemed to be about eleven years old, had a grave expression of countenance; the other, Mrs Liddiard's daughter Mary, was very like her mother, with light hair and blue eyes, full of animation and intelligence.

On one side of the house the ground sloped away down to a beach seen between the Pandanus and cocoanut trees, of fine white sand fringing a calm lagoon of the deepest blue, beyond which appeared a long line of foaming breakers, ever dashing against a coral reef, which extended parallel with the coast as far as the eye could reach.  On the other side rose the steep sides of a range of rocky and picturesque mountains, clothed to their summits with the richest and densest foliage, numberless creepers climbing up the trees, and hanging from branch to branch, while here and there, amid openings of the forest, several sparkling cascades came rushing down from the far off heights, now falling in sheets of glittering foam, now dashing from ledge to ledge, and at length making their way into the lagoon.

Near the girls' school-house was a building of considerably larger dimensions, and of much greater height, with numerous windows and a porch.  It was the mission chapel erected by the native Christians.  At a short distance from it was Mr Liddiard's residence, a neat cottage with a broad verandah in front, partaking more of the European style than any of the other edifices.

Under the shade of the trees were numerous huts, inhabited by the converts, who had left their former homes and gathered round their pastor.  Among them was a hut somewhat larger than the rest, which had been built by the zealous native teacher Nanari, who had come from a distant island to bring the glad tidings of salvation to the people; and undaunted by the opposition of the heathens, had long laboured alone, until the arrival of Mr Liddiard, under whom he now acted as catechist and assistant.

Notwithstanding the unceasing exertions and prayers of Nanari, aided by his faithful wife, and of Mr and Mrs Liddiard, comparatively few of the natives had as yet been gathered into Christ's fold.  The greater part of the island was inhabited by fierce heathens, who still carried on frequent wars against each other; and angry with their countrymen for having abandoned the faith of their forefathers, constantly threatened them and the missionaries with destruction.

In spite of the dangers which surrounded him, Mr Liddiard continued dauntlessly to labour to win souls to Christ, knowing well in whom he trusted; and that although it might not be allowed to him while on earth to see the fruit of his toils, yet that a rich harvest would some day be reaped.

The missionary's life was not an idle one.  When not engaged in preaching the gospel or in giving instruction to his converts, he was compelled to work with his hands to obtain his daily food, and he and Nanari, with the young men who had become Christians, were engaged in the taro grounds or in their gardens, attending to the cultivation of the bread-fruit tree, yams, casavas, sweet potatoes, and other vegetables.  He had also built his own house, and manufactured his furniture, and had every day some manual work to perform besides being engaged in studying the language and translating the Bible and other works, for the instruction of the natives.  Thus, from morning till night, he and his wife were actively employed.  Although Mary and little Maud could now give them some assistance in household matters, the young girls themselves required instruction, which also occupied a portion of their time.  Maud was not their own child, though they had educated her, for she was friendless and destitute, and they loved her as a daughter.

To return to the school-house I have described.  I should say that I was the Mary I have mentioned, the missionary's daughter.  I will tell more about little Maud by-and-by.  We used to act as assistant teachers to my mother.  As soon as the address she had given was over we went among the girls to answer any questions they might put to us, or to help in their tasks.

"Malay," said a girl at the further end of the room, near whom I had seated myself (`Malay' was the name the natives always called me).  "I wish to know if your God always sees you."

"Yes, indeed, He does," I answered.  "He sees and knows everything I think and say and do."

"Then I would rather not lotu," she said.  "Because I don't think that the gods of my people know what they do, or what they think or say, and I am very sure that I shall wish to do many things which might displease them.  Not long ago I laughed and jeered at them, and I am sure that they did not find me out."

The term "lotu," I should explain, is used by the natives to signify changing their religion, or becoming Christians.

"But our God, Jehovah, is above all gods.  He made the world and all the human race, and He therefore knows everything that you and all heathen people do and say and think.  The darkness is no darkness with Him, and the day and night to Him are both alike," I answered.  "But come to mother, Lisele, and she will explain the matter to you more clearly than I can do."

Lisele was the daughter of a heathen chief, who was very well disposed towards the Christians; and although he would not lotu himself, he allowed Lisele, who was very intelligent, and possessed an inquiring mind, to attend the school.  She was about two years older than I was, and I think any one who had seen her dressed in her costume of native cloth of the finest texture, with a wreath of white flowers in her raven hair, would have thought her very pretty.  She was as yet imperfectly instructed in Christian truth, and possessed of high spirits and an independent will -- a mere child of nature.  It was evidently necessary to treat her with the greatest caution to prevent her running away from us and rejoining her former heathen associates.

Lisele, taking my hand, came and sat down at my mother's feet, and I then put the question that she had asked me.  "Yes, indeed, Lisele," said my mother.  "Jehovah not only sees all you do, and hears all you say, but knows every thought which is passing through your mind, and if you think anything that is wrong, and utter even a careless word, He is grieved at it.  He is so pure and holy that even the bright heavens are not clean in His sight; and were He to treat us as we deserve, when we indulged for a moment in an evil thought, or departed in the slightest degree from the truth, He might justly punish us; but He is merciful, kind, and long-suffering, and thus He allows sinners to continue in life, to give them an opportunity of repenting and turning to Him."

"Then there would be no use for my father and all the chiefs and people whom I know to lotu, for they have done over and over again all sorts of things which you have told me Jehovah hates," remarked Lisele.

"My dear Lisele," said my mother, taking her hand, "Jehovah has said in His holy Book, that He will receive all who turn from their sins and come to Him in the way He has appointed, through faith in His dear Son; and He also tells us that the blood of Jesus His Son `cleanseth from all sin.'  Likewise He says, `Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.'  Believe this blessed promise yourself, Lisele, and tell your father that though Jehovah knows all the murders he has committed, and every crime he has been guilty of, if he will but turn from them and trust to the perfect sacrifice which Christ offered up on Calvary when He was punished, by dying that cruel death on the cross instead of us, then all will be forgiven and blotted out of God's remembrance.  `The blood of Jesus Christ,' I repeat, `cleanseth from all sin.'"

The Indian girl stood with her eyes open, gazing at my mother, and lost with astonishment at what she had heard.

"But surely we must do something to gain this great favour from God.  We must labour and toil for Him.  We must pay Him all we have in recompense for the bad things we have done, that have offended Him so much," she exclaimed.

"No! we poor weak creatures have nothing to do.  We could do nothing to make amends for the ill we have done, to blot out our sins; and all the wealth we possess could not recompense God, for all things are His.  But the debt has been paid for us by Jesus, he became our surety, and when we go to Him, and trust to Him, and pray to Him, as He is now seated at the right hand of God, He acts the part of our advocate, and pleads for us with God, urging that He Himself paid the debt, and, therefore, that we have nothing to pay and nothing to do.  God in His mercy has promised a free and full pardon to all who trust to Him.  `Pardon for sin is the gift of God,' and the King who makes the present requires nothing in return but gratitude and love and obedience."

"I think I understand," said Lisele.  "If my father was to conquer another tribe who had offended him, and, instead of putting them to death, was to pardon them all, and to give them a country rich in bread-fruit trees and taro grounds, they would be bound to love and serve Him, and give Him the best produce of their lands."

"Exactly," said my mother.  "But Jehovah does not require the fruits of the earth, for `all things are His.'  What He wants is the willing obedience of His creatures.  He wishes them to obey His laws, to be kind, and merciful, and courteous, and pitiful, to all their fellows, not returning evil for evil, but good for evil, and endeavouring to make known His name and His power and goodness to all those who do not know it.  That we may know His will, when Jesus Christ came into the world to die for man, He set us the example we are to follow.  Then as our hearts are prone to evil, and Satan is ever going about seeking to mislead us, He has sent His Holy Spirit to instruct our minds, to support us and help us to withstand the deceits of Satan."

"Then I think it must be Satan who makes my people fight with each other, and do all sorts of things that you tell me God's Book says are so wrong," exclaimed Lisele.  "I must try and persuade my father to worship Jehovah, and then, perhaps, the Holy Spirit you tell me of will prevent him from spending his life in fighting and killing people.  It has always seemed to me a very bad thing to do, and that it would be much better if people would live together in peace, and dance and sing and amuse themselves without the constant fear of being attacked by their enemies and killed."

"Undoubtedly, my dear girl, if anyone turns to Jehovah, trusting to Jesus Christ, and seeks the aid of the Holy Spirit whom He has promised to send, he will be enabled to do His will.  God cannot lie.  Everything He has promised He will fulfil," answered my mother.  "I pray that you will be enabled to explain this matter to the chief, your father."

"Yes! yes! that I will," cried Lisele.  "Till this moment I did not understand it.  I thought that it must be a very difficult thing to serve Jehovah, and that those who had done anything to offend Him were to toil and work to the end of their days, and even then have very little chance of being received into favour."

"Satan tries to persuade man that such is the case, that he may turn his eyes away from the all-sufficient atonement made by Christ on Calvary, and prevent him from trusting to that, and that alone," said my mother. "Satan hates the atonement, because it is that which destroys his power, and he cares nothing when people try to be good, and try to please God, trusting to themselves, provided they have no faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, in the all-cleansing power of His blood," observed my mother.  "If you will reflect, my dear girl, on the fact that God made us and gives us all the blessings we enjoy, and that consequently we owe Him everything, you will see that nothing we do can make amends to Him for the sins we have committed, because if we were to devote every moment of our lives to His service we should only be doing our duty.  Then again, a sin which has been committed cannot be undone; so it is written against us in the great book prepared for the day of judgment.  God is so pure and holy that even the heavens are not clean in His sight, and He is so just that He cannot forgive sin; we only mock Him when we ask Him to forgive us our sins, if we plead our own merits, because, as I have shown you, we cannot possibly have any merits to plead -- all our merits are but as filthy rags, they cannot cover up our vileness and sinfulness.  But then Jehovah is all merciful as well as just, and He has, therefore, formed that blessed plan of salvation, the gospel plan, just suited to our wants, by which we can take advantage of the all perfect merits of Jesus Christ, and make them our own -- our vileness being covered up by His righteousness, our nakedness clothed with His pure and spotless robes, so that Jehovah does not see our sins; they are put away as far as the east is from the west; they are blotted out of the great book of remembrance.  This is done immediately the sinner trusts in the Saviour.  It is not to be done.  All the work was done on Calvary, when Jesus cried, `It is finished!'  All that God requires is that the sinner should take advantage of that work finished by Jesus, by trusting to Him alone, thus becoming completely qualified for heaven.  May God, the Holy Spirit, enable you to understand this truth."

The Indian girl sat down, and for some time appeared lost in thought; then starting up with the impetuous manner which her ardent disposition made her assume, she asked, in her native tongue, "Then if I believe that Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of Jehovah, left the glories of heaven, and became man, and suffered a fearful death on the cross, His precious blood being then shed, and that He suffered this punishment instead of me, and that God's justice is thereby satisfied, am I no longer to fear punishment?  Does God no more look at my sins?  Am I received into His favour?  Oh then how grateful ought I to be to God, how much ought I to love Jehovah's kind Son, how ought I to try to serve and obey and please Him!"

"Yes, indeed, Lisele, if you thus trust in Christ, if you believe that His blood was shed for you, that you are sprinkled with it, you may be assured that God has taken you into favour, that He has blotted out all your sins, and that when you leave this world you will be received into that glorious heaven which He has prepared for all those who love Him."

"Oh, I am sure what you tell me is true," exclaimed the Indian girl, clasping her hands, while a look of joy irradiated her countenance.  "I long to know more of that kind and merciful Jesus, and love Him and serve Him.  I must go and tell my father all you have said, and get him to come and hear himself about Jehovah.  Your religion is just what we want in this country, for nothing else will prevent the people from fighting and murdering each other, which cannot be pleasing to a good God, though our priests tell us that our gods delight in war and in the human sacrifices offered to them, and encourage our warriors to kill and burn their prisoners."

"Our religion is not only suited to the inhabitants of these islands, but to people of all countries, and at all times," said my mother.  "It is the only true religion, because it is the only one which God has given to man, and He has sent us the Bible that we may learn what His will is, and He pours out the Holy Spirit that we may understand and be enabled to perform it.  And the time will come when `all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him,'" (Psalm 72 verse 11.)

All the other girls had returned to their homes.  Lisele remained, eager to gain more information about the wonderful things she had heard.  What a happy thing it would be if boys and girls in Britain were as anxious to obtain spiritual knowledge as was the young savage girl in that Pacific island!



Chapter Two.

Our little Christian settlement was truly an oasis in the wilderness. We were closely beset by heathens, and frequently we could see them assembling on the hill side, performing their savage dances, or threatening our destruction with fierce gestures -- shaking their clubs and spears, and shrieking and hooting wildly.

Most of the converts settled round us belonged to the tribe of Masaugu, Lisele's father; for although he himself still remained a heathen, he did not oppose those of his people who wished to lotu, or become Christians.

Among them was Lisele's aunt, the sister of her mother, with whom she resided, and through her influence Lisele had first been induced to attend the school.

On the day I have spoken of, when it was time for Lisele to return to her aunt's house, she invited me to accompany her, which my mother gave me permission to do.  She wanted me to assist her in persuading her aunt to allow her to return to her father.

"I have been so long accustomed to speak falsehoods, that if I tell her that I wish to go she will not believe my object," said Lisele. "Besides, she will not think it possible that so fierce a warrior as my father will consent to lotu; but I heard your mother say the other day, that with Jehovah nothing is impossible, and therefore I believe that if I pray that my father's heart may be changed, he will, notwithstanding his fierceness, become a Christian."

"I am very sure that Jehovah will hear your prayers," I remarked, "if you offer them up according to His own appointed way, through Jesus Christ; but still He will take His own good time to bring about what you desire.  My father often says we must not expect to have our prayers answered exactly in the way we wish.  God knows what is best, and oftentimes He does not accomplish that which we desire; and though we cannot comprehend His reasons, still it is our duty to pray on in faith, without ceasing.  Jehovah, too, often allows those He loves to suffer; and though they may complain that the sufferings are very hard to bear, He will assuredly lift them up and support them, for He has said, `My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" (2 Corinthians 12 verse 9). This conversation lasted till we reached the house of Abela, Lisele's aunt.

Abela was a woman of about forty, her face, though not handsome, and with a serious expression, was mild and pleasing.  She was dressed in an ample petticoat, made from the fibres of the hibiscus, while over her shoulders she wore a tippet somewhat resembling a small poncho, which completely shrouded the upper part of her form.  Having finished the labours of the day (for although of high rank, she was compelled, like others, to work for her support), she was seated on a mat, with a book open on her knees, from which she was endeavouring to read.  Not having long been a convert, she had as yet made but little progress in her studies.  She affectionately welcomed her niece and me as we took our seats near her.  Lisele then eagerly poured forth what she had been hearing, so rapidly, that I could scarcely follow her.

"It is all true," said Abela, when her niece at length ceased speaking. "I praise Jehovah that you know it."

When, however, Lisele told her of her wish to go back to her father, Abela hesitated.  "He will not understand you, my child," she exclaimed, "and perhaps will not allow you to return to people whom he may think so foolish."

"Oh, but I'll pray for him," answered Lisele.  "I'll ask Jehovah to help me, and I know He will hear me, so I shall not have to trust to my own strength."

Abela remained silent for some time, and I saw that she was engaged in prayer.

"You shall go, my child," she said at length.  "Jehovah will take care of you, and may He prosper your undertaking."

Delighted at having obtained this permission, Lisele returned to spend the evening with us, for my father wished to have an opportunity of speaking to her.  He warned her of the opposition she must expect to meet with from her people, and of the dangers she would have to encounter, especially as he knew that she had been sought in marriage by a young heathen chief, who might wish to detain her.

"But now I know the truth.  I will never consent to marry one who is a heathen," she answered.  "And I do not intend to remain.  I will only try to persuade my father to visit you, and then I will return."

Lisele set off the next day, accompanied by two Christian people of her tribe, who promised to protect her from the heathens, and aid her return should it be opposed, even although they might risk their lives in so doing.  We were very sorry to lose her, as we feared that efforts would be made to prevent her returning among us.

Maud could not restrain her tears.  "I know too well how cruelly these heathens can act," she said.  "They will not hesitate to carry her off to some distant island, whence she cannot possibly escape; or, if she offends them by what she says, they may even kill her."  Dear Maud had indeed had bitter experience of the barbarities often committed by the savage islanders.

My father had for some years been a missionary in another part of the Pacific, when it was settled that he should occupy the Station where we now were.  I was too young at the time to remember much about what occurred, so I can describe only what I have heard.  As there was then no missionary vessel to convey us, we embarked on board a whaler, the Christian captain of which undertook to carry us to our destination.  He was, however, unable to make a direct passage, as he had in the prosecution of his business first to visit several other places, still, as no other means of getting where we wished to go were likely to occur, my father was glad to embrace the opportunity thus offered.  We had been for some time at sea when a fearful storm arose, which compelled us to run before it under bare poles, and carried us a long way out of our course.  The vessel received also considerable damage, losing one of her masts and several spars.  At length a beautiful island appeared in sight, covered thickly with trees, and directly ahead was seen a commodious harbour.  The captain therefore ran into it and came to an anchor, that the damages which the vessel had received might be repaired.  He soon found that it was inhabited by numerous savages, who pushed off in their canoes to visit the strange ship.  He, however, had so long been acquainted with the treacherous character of the natives of most of the Pacific islands, that he would allow no one to come on board, and he had also boarding-nettings triced up to guard against any sudden attack they might venture to make.  We had on board a Sandwich islander, who managed to make himself understood by the natives. Through his means our good captain let them know that he wished to cut down some trees, and that he was ready to pay for permission to do so. The captain then inquired for their chief, and said that if he would come off and receive part of the payment, the remainder would be given after the spars had been brought on board, and as a proof of his good intentions, he sent the chief a present of an axe and a piece of cloth. This had the desired effect; and in a short time an old warrior came alongside in his canoe, and announced himself as the chief of the district.  The Sandwich islander then explained what the captain wished, and certain articles which had been agreed on were given to him, he undertaking, while the trees were being cut down and carried off, to keep his people at a distance to prevent the possibility of any dispute arising.

As soon as the chief and his followers had returned to the shore, two boats' crews, well armed, put off, and while one party were engaged in felling the trees, the other remained drawn up to guard against any attack which the natives might treacherously venture to make.  The spars having been brought on board, the old chief returned for the promised remainder of the payment.  He seemed highly pleased with the transaction.

"I see that you are wise and just people," he observed.  "If all whites who come to our shores acted in the same way, we would be their friends; but it has not been always so, and after they have ill-treated and cheated us, we have been tempted to take advantage of their folly and carelessness to revenge ourselves."

This remark induced the captain, through the interpreter, to make inquiries as to what the chief alluded to.  At length he learned that some time before a vessel, with white people on board, had come into the harbour to obtain sandal wood; that after the natives had supplied a large quantity, sufficient to fill her, the captain had refused the promised payment; but, in spite of this, that the crew were allowed to go on shore and wander about in small parties, when some of them had quarrelled with the natives and ill-treated them.  In consequence the sailors had been set upon, and killed every man of them.  A party of warriors then put off for the ship, and pretending they had come to trade, clambered up her sides before the part of the crew who had remained on board had heard of the massacre, or suspected their intentions.  The savages thus taking them at a disadvantage, put every person to death, with the exception of a woman and child, who were saved by the intervention of the old chief.  The vessel, it appeared, by some accident, caught fire, and had been utterly destroyed.

The captain, on hearing this, made eager inquiries about the poor woman and the child.  The former, however, had, he found soon afterwards, died, leaving the little girl in possession of the chief.

Instead of threatening the old chief with the vengeance of his people, as some might have done, he spoke to him gently, saying that he himself had not come there as a judge, or to take vengeance for injuries which other white men might have received, but that we wished to know whether he would be ready to give up the little girl he had under his care.  The old man seemed very much struck by this style of address, and confessed that the child was still living with him, but that he was very fond of her, and that when she grew up he hoped that she might become the wife of one of his sons.

This of course made the captain still more anxious to recover her, and he used every argument he could think of to induce the old man to give her up.  He told him that, unaccustomed to the mode of life of his people, she would probably die, as her mother had done, and that if he really loved her, he would be anxious for her safety, and that though he had paid him liberally for the trees, he would give him twice the amount of goods if he would, without delay, bring the little girl on board. This last argument seemed to weigh greatly with the chief, and he said he would think about it, and returned on shore, leaving us in doubt, however, what he would do.

Our anxiety about the poor girl was, as may be supposed, very great. The men, on hearing of the matter, came aft, and each one said that he would be ready to contribute some article to induce the chief to give her up.  Some even proposed, that should he refuse, to land and compel him to do so by force of arms.  The captain thanked them for their zeal, but told them that that was not the way he conceived Christian men should act.

I well remember that evening, when we were assembled to worship God as usual, in the cabin, how my father lifted up his voice in prayer, that the heart of the chief might be moved to restore the little Christian damsel to those who would bring her "up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and that she might be saved from the fearful fate the old man intended for her.  God never fails to listen to the prayers of believers.

The next morning, as we anxiously turned our eyes towards the shore, the chief's canoe was seen coming off.

"Our prayer has been answered," exclaimed my father, who was watching it through a spy-glass.  "There is a child by his side."

The sailors sprang into the rigging, and every one on board eagerly watched the approach of the canoe.  It was soon alongside, and the little girl we had been looking for was handed up on deck, followed by the old chief.  She was dressed in a clean white frock, and her hair was neatly braided, and ornamented with flowers and feathers; but she looked thin and ill, and sadly scared.  When my mother approached the gangway she flew towards her, and threw herself into her arms, as if she was sure that she should find in her a loving friend.

"Mamma! mamma!" she exclaimed; but she could utter no other words; and had it not been for those sounds we should have supposed that she had lost the power of speech.  My mother could not restrain her tears, as she held the forlorn little creature to her heart.

Such was the way in which we met with little Maud.

Nothing would induce her to leave my mother while the old chief remained on board; and although he and his people might have treated her kindly, they certainly had not won her love.

Having received the promised reward, to which the captain added a few other articles, the chief prepared to take his departure, evidently very well satisfied with the transaction.  The captain, however, warned him, that should he venture to attack another vessel he would not escape a severe punishment; but that if he would promise to behave well towards white people in future, they would come and trade with him, and bring him a greater blessing than he could at present comprehend.  The captain said this, because he hoped that some day he might be able to convey a missionary to the place, that he might spread the blessings of the gospel among the heathen inhabitants.

After the ship was refitted we put to sea, but she was some time engaged in catching whales, so that our voyage was a very long one.  The little girl who had been rescued from the savages was utterly unable to explain anything that had happened to her.

Weeks passed away, and not a word did she utter, and my father and mother began to fear that the hardships she had gone through had deprived her of her senses.  For a long time she could not be induced to leave my mother's side, and seemed to mistrust every one else.  If separated from her, even for a few moments, she would run back again, and seizing her gown, glance up with an imploring look, as if begging to be protected from some imaginary danger -- she would not even trust herself with me, and seemed to fancy that I might hurt her.  Possibly she might have been ill-treated by the native children, and was unable to distinguish the difference.  Gentle and careful treatment, however, had its due effect on her, and her fears were gradually allayed.

At length one day she, of her own accord, took my hand, and looking into my face said, "Girl not hurt poor Maud."  These were the first words we had heard her utter.  Until then also we were ignorant of her name.

Putting my arms round her neck I kissed her, and answered, "No indeed I will not hurt you, but I will treat you as a dear sister, and love you very very much."

A faint smile passed over her countenance, as if she comprehended my answer.  After that she would remain contentedly with me -- still her mind, for some time longer, continued apparently in the same state as at first.  My father and mother, however, felt sure that her senses would ultimately be restored.  They were not mistaken; but even when she had begun to speak, she made no allusion to the circumstances of the massacre, or her life among the natives, and we forbore to ask her any questions.

When at last we landed here, her alarm at seeing the natives was very great, and my father was afraid that it would cause her mind to relapse into its former state.  By doing all we could to re-assure and cheer her, no ill effects occurred.  When once we were settled, and she had got accustomed to the scenery, and the appearance of the people, her improvement was more rapid.  In course of time her mind and bodily health were perfectly restored.  On seeing me at my lessons, she showed a strong wish to join me, and though she had forgotten even her letters, if she had ever known them, she made rapid progress, so that she was soon able to read fluently, when she eagerly perused every book my father would allow her to have from his library.  Even then, however, she could give no account of her former life, and we knew no more of little Maud than at first.  My father and mother treated her as they would a daughter, while I looked upon her and loved her as a younger sister.

We had now been upwards of three years at the Station.  My father had laboured on in faith, as a missionary in all regions must be prepared to do, for as yet only the comparatively small body of Christians as I have mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of heathenism, while the larger number of the population appeared even more hostile to the new faith than at first.  Still my father would often say, when he felt himself inclined to despond, "Let us recollect the value of one immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as nothing." Such was the state of things at the mission station when my history commences.



Chapter Three.

The vast Pacific -- in one of the islands of which the events I am describing occurred -- presents a wide and hopeful field for missionary enterprise.  It is scattered over with numberless islands -- in most cases so clustered together as to form separate groups -- some rising in lofty mountains out of the sea, surrounded by coral reefs, beautiful and picturesque in the extreme, while others are elevated but a few feet above the ocean, generally having palm trees growing on them.  These latter are known more particularly as coral and lagoon islands.  The islands of the character I have last mentioned have been produced by the gradual sinking of the land beneath the ocean, when on its reaching a certain depth, countless millions of coral insects have built their habitations on it, and have continued building till they reached the surface -- the new islands consequently keeping the forms of the submerged lands which serve as their foundations.  The lagoon islands have been formed by the insects building round the edge of some submerged crater. As the land sank the creatures have continued to build upwards, and thus a ring of coral rock has arisen in the ocean -- sometimes complete, at others with a break or opening in it.  In other instances the coral insects have built near the shore, and as the land has sunk they have continued to build upwards, but in consequence of requiring the pure salt water, have not advanced towards the land, which, however, still sinking, a wide space of water has appeared between it and the structure raised by them.  This is the cause of the numerous encircling reefs which are found around so many of the islands of the Pacific -- affording harbours within them, and sheltering the shore from the fury of the waves.

Many of the islands are also of volcanic origin; some contain active volcanoes, and while the land in some instances has sunk, in others it has risen, and is broken into the most curious and fantastic shapes, bringing up also with it the coral rocks which were formed on it while it lay beneath the sea.

Most of these islands are clothed with a varied and rich vegetation. The climate of those at a distance from the equator is generally healthy, but that of others near the line, especially to the westward, is unhealthy in the extreme, so that even the natives of other islands of the same ocean cannot live on them throughout the year.

The eastern groups are inhabited by a brown skinned and generally handsome race, often not darker than Spaniards, and supposed to be descended from a common stock, as in general appearance and language there is a great resemblance.

The groups of the large islands to the westward on either side of the equator are peopled by a black and savage race, in many respects resembling the negroes of Africa, and sunk even still lower in barbarism.  Such are the inhabitants of the Fijis, New Caledonia, and New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and others to the northward of them.

When Captain Cook sailed over the Pacific, and till many years afterwards, the people of these beautiful islands were sunk in the grossest idolatry and barbarism.

Towards the end of the last century, when the Christian Churches awoke to their responsibilities for making known the glad tidings of salvation to their heathen fellow-creatures -- societies were formed to send missionaries to various parts of the world.  A band of twenty-nine missionaries, some of them unhappily untried, were sent out by the London Missionary Society in 1796, to the Pacific islands.  They made slow progress, but at length, in 1815, idolatry was overthrown at Tahiti, and the gospel firmly established in that island.

Two years afterwards, the Rev. J. Williams and the Rev. W. Ellis, two of the most distinguished missionaries who have laboured among the islands of the Pacific, arrived at Tahiti.  The former took up his abode at Raiatea, one of the Society islands, and afterwards going alone to the island of Rarotonga, though not bred a shipwright, built there, with his own hands, aided only by the natives, a vessel of about seventy tons burden.  Having rigged her with sails of matting, he and a native crew returned to Raiatea, and thence he proceeded to Samoa with a large party of missionaries, for the purpose of leaving them at different islands on the way.  He sailed in her afterwards over many thousand miles of ocean, visiting missionary stations -- the little craft truly performing her duty as the "Messenger of Peace."

She was the first of many missionary vessels which have since been sent out by different societies to the Pacific.  Some have been lost, but their places have been supplied by others; indeed it is only by means of such vessels that the now numerous missionary stations scattered throughout that wide ocean, can be properly maintained.

How well might some of the beautiful yachts which float idly on the waters of the Solent, be employed, if their owners, influenced by the love of immortal souls, would hoist the banner of peace at their mast-heads, and go forth to those distant islands, to sail here and there visiting the isolated stations, or conveying fresh missionaries to the numberless groups still in heathen darkness.

I cannot help saying this when I recollect how often, for long months, and even for years together, we were left without a visit from any European Christian, and how eagerly we watched the approach of each sail which appeared in the horizon, hoping that she might bring us news of distant friends, or necessaries of which we stood greatly in need, or still more, that a brother might be on board who might afford counsel and encouragement in the difficulties by which we were surrounded.  My dear father often felt the want of the assistance I have spoken of.  My mother was indeed a helpmate meet for him, and was a source of comfort and consolation; but especially when the heathens threatened our lives and those of the native converts, oh, how thankful he would have been for the advice and support of an experienced Christian friend.

My mother had for some time been a sufferer from illness, and though she still continued her usual duties, we watched her form grow thinner, and her cheek paler, day by day.  My father, strange as it may seem, did not appear to remark the change, but Maud and I, when we were together, could not help speaking about it.  Still, as my mother did not complain, we could only hope that, should her anxiety about the condition of the mission decrease by its prospects becoming more promising, her health would improve.

We did all we could to lessen her cares by assisting her in her household duties.  Maud and I learned to cook, and we also cleaned and swept out the house and kept it in order, with the help of a native girl, who, though not very expert, was willing to learn and to follow the example we set her.

We were anxiously expecting the return of Lisele, and Maud and I paid frequent visits to Abela, to inquire whether she had received any message from her niece.  She shook her head sorrowfully, saying she was afraid that Masaugu was too much wedded to his heathen practices to be induced to abandon them by any arguments Lisele could use, and that he was far more likely to prevent her from returning.  This made us very sad, for we had had hopes that Lisele had really become a Christian, and would remain faithful to the truth.

Abela guessed by our looks what was passing in our minds, and she added, "though the chief's heart is very hard, I have been praying that it may be changed, and I know that with Jehovah nothing is impossible."

While we were still seated in the hut, a native arrived whom we knew, from his scanty dress and his wild savage look, to be still a heathen. He brought a message to Abela from her niece, saying that she hoped shortly to return to the settlement, as her father had consented to pay the English missionary a visit.

"I shall rejoice to see her again," said Abela to the native.  "And has she spoken to you, my friend, of the true religion?"

"Yes, she has told me that we cannot see the great Jehovah who made the world and all things in it, but that He sees us and knows everything we think of, say, and do; and that He hates all sin, but that He loves the sinner, and wishes all human beings to come and live with Him for ever and ever in the beautiful place He has prepared for them," was the prompt and unexpected answer.

"But has she told you that you are a sinner, and that your sins must be wiped away before you are fit to go to that pure and beautiful heaven she spoke of?  Has she told you how you can become fit for heaven, and has she pointed out to you the only way you can go there?" asked Abela.

"Yes, she told me that many things I thought right are very wrong in the sight of Jehovah, and that I cannot undo what I have once done, and that the only way by which those things can be blotted out, is by believing that Jehovah's dear Son came down upon earth and was punished by a cruel death instead of me, and that if I believe this, and trust to Him, I shall be received into that glorious place above the blue sky, which He has prepared for all who love Him," answered the native.

"But do you believe this?" asked Abela.  "Do you believe that Jehovah is satisfied that another was punished instead of you, and that He therefore has set you free?"

"I did not understand it, but it seemed very good," answered the native. "I should like to remain and learn more about the matter."

"Oh yes, do remain," exclaimed Abela.  "Go not back to worship again the blocks of stone in which our countrymen put their trust.  The English missionary will explain matters more clearly to you than I can."

I assured Nasile -- for such the native told us was his name -- that my father would gladly explain the truth to him, and leaving him in conversation with Abela, we hastened homewards with the satisfactory intelligence.

In a short time we saw a party coming across the hill.  At first their appearance caused some consternation, it being supposed that they were heathens intending to attack the village.  As they drew nearer, however, Masaugu was distinguished at their head, accompanied by Lisele.  The chief was a tall fine man, with ample folds of native cloth round his waist and over his shoulders.  My father hastened out to meet him, and welcome him to the Station, and Maud and I followed.  As soon as Lisele saw us she ran forward and threw her arms round me, and then embraced Maud, calling us her dear sisters, and telling us how rejoiced she was to come back.

"I was afraid at first that my father would not listen to me," she said. "But I prayed and prayed, and at length, to my joy, he said that he would go and hear more of the strange things I had told him of."

My father at first intended to conduct the chief into the chapel; but though he was willing to go, several of his followers were afraid of entering it, believing that some incantations would be used, and that they might be compelled to lotu against their will.  The whole party therefore seated themselves in a shady place outside.  Here my father addressed the chief; and he hoped that while speaking to him, what he said might be attended to and understood by many of his followers.  Not saying a word about the false gods he worshipped, my father told him of the greatness and power and love and mercy of Jehovah, and explained to him the simple plan of salvation which He has offered to sinful man.

The chief appeared much interested.  "I understand," he answered, "that the white man's God is greater and more powerful than my gods, and I am resolved soon to worship Him, as I am sure He can do more for me than they can; but I have some enemies who have offended me, and I am about to set out on an expedition to punish them, and when I have obtained the victory, I will return and do as I have promised."

"Oh! my friend," exclaimed my father, "I should have told you of Satan, who is allowed -- we know not why -- to go about the world to deceive men, and he it is who has made you resolve to do this.  Jehovah does not allow you to say that you will serve Him by-and-by.  He requires you and all men to obey Him at once.  Satan, on the contrary, ever strives to persuade people to put off serving Jehovah till by-and-by, that he may get them altogether into his own power before they can do so.  Thus it is that he deceives men and destroys their souls in all parts of the world, and thus he has done at all times.  Jehovah has told us that He will not allow us to punish our enemies, but that we are to love them and do good to them.  Oh! let me warn and entreat you not to go on the expedition you propose."

The chief was silent for some time.  Lisele and Abela, who had arrived, united with my father in entreating him to remain and hear more of the truth.

"What you say may be very right and good for those who profess to follow Jehovah," he answered at length, "but I have not yet abandoned my gods, and they will, I am sure, help me to gain the victory.  What I say is wise, is it not?" he added, turning to his heathen attendants.  Of course they all applauded him, and greatly to my fathers grief, he arose to take his departure.

"Remember, oh chief, that I have warned you," said my father.  "We cannot pray that you may gain the victory, because Jehovah will give it as He thinks fit; but we will pray that your heart may be changed, and that you may still worship Him whom you now reject."

"Alas! how many act as this poor heathen is doing," said my father, after Masaugu and his companions had gone away.  "They believe in God, and yet, blinded by Satan, fancy in their folly that they can safely put off the time to begin serving and obeying Him."



Chapter Four.

We rejoiced to find that Lisele was allowed to remain with her aunt at the settlement.  She had tried, even before her return to the settlement, to persuade her father to abandon his intentions of going to war.  The tribe he intended to attack inhabited an island some leagues away to the south, and as we stood on the shore we could see its blue outline rising out of the ocean.  Lisele had reminded her father that he had professed to wish us well, and that by going away he would leave us exposed to the attacks of other heathen tribes, who would now venture without hesitation through his territory, to attack us.  He replied that they would not dare to do so, as he had threatened them with punishment on his return should they molest them.

"Alas!" said Lisele, who told us this when we went to see her at her aunt's house.  "Suppose he is defeated, what protection shall we then have from our enemies?"

"We must trust in Jehovah, my child," said Abela.  "Or, if he thinks fit to allow us to be afflicted, we must submit without murmur to His will. We know that we can but suffer here for a short season, and that He has prepared a glorious and happy home for those who love Jesus, and obey His commandments down on earth.  Oh yes! since I have known the truth, I have learned to understand that this world is a place of trial, and that we must not look for peace and happiness and rest while we are in it. God indeed made the world beautiful, and intended it to be happy, but Satan persuaded man to sin, and sin has caused man to depart from God, and brought all the disorder and misery and suffering which we see around us.  Faith in Jesus Christ can alone remedy all these evils, and I am sure that they will exist till all the world learns to love and obey Him."

These remarks of Abela will show that she had made great advances in Christian knowledge, and was well able to instruct her young niece.

Lisele came back with us to the school, which my mother, although weak and suffering still, insisted on superintending.  I think that she herself was not aware how ill she really was.

We used to go down every morning to the sea to bathe in a little sheltered cove, almost surrounded by high rocks, where there was no danger of a visit from a shark.  Here my father had built a small hut in which Maud and I might dress.  The native girls dispensed with any such accommodation, and while we were content to swim about in the bay, they would boldly strike out a long distance from the land.  Even when the wind blew strong on the shore, and the surf came rolling in, they would dash through it, now diving under a huge breaker, now rising to its foaming summit, and playing about as securely as if they were on the dry land.

Two mornings after the chief had paid us a visit we went down as usual to bathe, when we saw a large fleet of canoes, propelled by paddles, gliding over the smooth water of the lagoon towards the passage which communicated with the open sea.  On first seeing them we were about to hurry home, fearing that they might be enemies, but Lisele quieted our alarm, by telling us that they were her father's fleet, starting on his proposed expedition.  They were curious looking vessels.  Each consisted of two long narrow canoes placed side by side, but at some distance from each other, and united by strong beams, on which a platform or stage was erected, thus making one vessel.  The rowers sat with long paddles on either side, while on the deck stood the warriors in their war-paint and feathers, and flourishing their lances and whirling their clubs, inciting each other to the deeds of valour, or rather of cruelty, which they intended to perform.  Instead of a mast in the centre, there was a triangle with the ends fixed on either side, on which the mat-formed sail extended on a long yard ready to be hoisted.

As they glided by the sound of the wild shouts and shrieks they uttered reached our ears.

"May my poor father be protected," said Lisele to me, as we watched them.  "Once I should have thought what we see very fine, and should have sung and clapped my hands with joy.  Now that I know how wicked it is to go and fight and kill other human beings, I feel inclined to weep with sorrow."

"We must pray for your father, Lisele," I said, "that God will turn his heart and make him see the crime of warfare."

"Yes, yes; that is my comfort," she answered.

When the canoes reached the outlet from the lagoon the sails were hoisted, and at a rapid rate they glided away over the ocean, while Lisele, Maud, and I, knelt down on the sand and prayed, not that God would give the victory to the chief, but that He would turn his heart and make him to know the truth.

As we were leaving the beach we saw another canoe coming round a headland through the lagoon, which she had entered by a further off passage.  Had the strange canoe been a little sooner she would have encountered the fleet, and very likely have been stopped and compelled to accompany the war party.  Her appearance caused us some anxiety.  If she had heathens on board, they might land and rob us, or cause us even more serious annoyance.  We continued to watch her, as we knew that we should have plenty of time to escape and give warning at the village before she could come to shore.  At length we discovered a flag flying from the end of her yard, and great was my joy to see that on it was worked a dove with the olive branch of peace -- I consequently hoped that a missionary might be on board coming to visit us.  We waited therefore for the arrival of the canoe.  We could distinguish, however, as she drew near, only natives on her deck.  They all were in the dress adopted by Christian converts -- in shirts and trousers.

The canoe soon ran up on the beach, when a native stepped on shore with a letter in his hand.  He told me that he had been sent by Mr Hilton, a missionary stationed on an island about fifty miles off.  Mr Hilton was very ill, and entreated my father to come and see him; for, believing that he should not recover, he was anxious to commit his motherless children to his charge.  We accordingly conducted the messenger up to the house.

The letter caused my father much grief and perplexity.  He sorrowed to hear of his friend's illness, and felt anxious to go to him, and yet he was unwilling to leave my mother and us for so long a time, when the settlement might possibly be annoyed by heathens.  Still he knew that he could with confidence leave the instruction of the people to Nanari, who would also protect my mother and us to the best of his power.  He sent for Nanari, and spoke to him on the subject.

"God helping me, I will do all that man can do," answered Nanari.  "And nothing shall tempt me to quit the post you have committed to my charge."

My mother, feeling for our poor friend and for the young ones who might soon be deprived of his protection, sacrificing her own wishes, urged my father to go as he was requested.  As there was no time to be lost if he would see his friend alive, bidding us a tender, and it seemed to me a peculiarly solemn farewell, he went on board the canoe, which immediately set sail on her return.  We accompanied him to the beach, and watched the vessel till she was lost to sight in the distance.

On our return home we found my mother suffering greatly.  The agitation of parting from my father had been more than she could bear.  Oh, how I longed to recall him!  Little could he have known her dangerous state. My father had a knowledge of medicine, and he might have applied remedies of which we were ignorant.  Good Abela came up on hearing how ill my mother was, though she could afford us but little assistance. Suddenly, as I gazed at my mother, a fearful conviction came upon me that she was dying.  She knew herself that such was the case.  I cannot even now bear to dwell upon the sad scene, for sad indeed it was to us, though my mother's heart was lifted up with joy and hope.

"God's will be done, my children," she said, taking Maud's and my hand in hers.  "He will care for and protect you though troubles arise which may seem overwhelming."

Abela and Nanari assured her that they would devote themselves to our service, yet the absence of my father must have been a sore trial to her.

During that night she breathed her last, and I was left motherless; so, indeed, was dear Maud, to whom she had been truly a mother.

Then quickly followed the funeral.  All the Christians of the settlement stood round the grave, in a beautiful spot which had been set apart for the purpose, at a short distance from the chapel, when Nanari offered up a prayer that God's Holy Spirit would influence the hearts of all present, and enable them to possess the same hope of a joyous resurrection as that in which my mother died, he then addressed the people, urging them to put faith in God's goodness and wisdom, and telling them that though troubles might come, not therefore to suppose that He had forgotten to be gracious, but to go on praying and trusting in Him, till He might think fit to call them out of this world, to be with Him in glory and happiness unspeakable.

Maud and I spent that sad evening with our hands clasped together, often weeping but seldom speaking.  My heart bled for my poor father, as I thought of his grief and anguish, when, on his return he would find that my mother had been taken from him.

"Still," said Maud, looking up in my face, "he will know that she is in joy surpassing human understanding, and we cannot tell from what trials and sufferings she may thus have escaped."

With the last thought I was greatly comforted.

As we stood together in the verandah that evening, gazing up into the sky and thinking of the glories now revealed to my mother, we saw a bright star with a long tail of light, such as we had never before beheld.  I knew at once from its appearance that it was a comet.  Many of the natives had seen it too, and we heard their voices uttering exclamations of surprise and terror.  Soon afterwards we saw Lisele approaching.  She hesitated, as if unwilling to intrude on our grief, but I called to her, and she came up to us.  I told her what I knew about comets, and begged her to try and calm the alarm of her people, and to assure them that it was but a luminous mass, and that it betokened neither good nor evil to the inhabitants of this world, though Jehovah directed its course, as He orders everything else in the universe.

"Ah, but the heathens will not think so," she exclaimed, "and we know not what effect it may have upon their minds.  Perhaps they will think it is sent through the incantations of the Christians, and will come in consequence and attack us."

I scarcely thought this possible, but Lisele was positive that it would have a bad effect.  She went, however, to tell the Christian natives what I had said, and to assure them that the comet would do them no harm.

Oh, how sad was that night and the next morning, when we looked on the bed on which my mother had slept, and knew that we should never again see her dear face there, so calm and beautiful.  We had, however, our duties to perform, and we set about them as we knew she would have desired.

While we were thus engaged Nanari appeared to learn if there was anything he could do for us, saying that the people would bring us all the food we might require, and begging that we would not be anxious on that score.  He then told us that a vessel was off the coast, and by going to the front of the house we saw her.  We hoped that she might have friends on board coming to visit our Station, or that where my father and Mr Hilton were, as we knew how gladly she would be welcomed there.

As we watched her, we saw at length, to our disappointment, from the course she was steering, that she was not coming to our Station, but was apparently about to enter a harbour further down the coast.

"I would that I could warn those on board of the character of the natives where she is going," said Nanari, when he saw this.  "Unless they are on their guard I fear that they may be treated as others have been."

We had only one small canoe at the Station, but Nanari said that if we would write a message he would induce two of the Christian natives to carry it off.  I accordingly hastily wrote a note, warning the captain of the vessel against any treachery which might be intended, and with much satisfaction saw the canoe paddle off towards her.  The breeze, however, was strong, and it seemed doubtful whether the canoe would reach the stranger before she came to an anchor.



Chapter Five.

We could scarcely hope that my father would have had time to return, yet we anxiously looked for his arrival.  The canoe with the two natives had been unable to reach the vessel, and information was brought to Lisele that they had been seized and killed by the heathens, who had gone out in chase of them.  A bright light was also seen at night in the direction of the harbour in which the vessel was supposed to have anchored; and the next day the dreadful rumour reached us that Nanari's worst apprehensions had been realised, that she had been surprised by the treacherous natives, and that every person on board had been put to death.  At first we could not believe so fearful a story, but Lisele assured us that she had no doubt of its truth.

"Is it not possible that some may have escaped?"  I exclaimed, when Lisele gave me the account.  "Have all the people on board the beautiful vessel, sailing by so proudly the other day, been killed?  Should any have escaped could we not take means to let them know that there are Christian friends here who would welcome them?  If my father was at home I am sure he would make all effort to rescue the unhappy people."

Lisele replied that although the tribe who had committed the deed were at present at peace with her people, that even should any white man have escaped it would be difficult to get them out of the heathens' hands, but that she would try what could be done.  "There is a young chief among them who is more inclined than the rest of the people to be friendly with my father," she observed.  "Although he is a brave warrior, he is neither fierce nor cruel; and if, by chance, any of the white men have fallen into his power he may possibly have spared their lives.  I will try to send a message to him and ask him to protect them, and to give them up to your father.  Yet I fear there is very little probability of any having escaped."

Lisele's answer gave me very little hope that any had escaped the massacre; but I was sure that she would take every means to ascertain the truth.  Nanari, when he heard the account, was willing to go himself, but both Abela and Lisele entreated him not to make the attempt -- urging that the heathens were so enraged at him for having caused so many people to lotu, that they would be certain, should he venture among them, to put him to death.

He at length was persuaded to abandon his design, and Lisele undertook to send a young relative, who, although a heathen, was attached to her, and would do whatever she desired.  Being still a boy he had not accompanied her father, but he was more likely to succeed than anybody she could think of.  In the course of the day Tofa, the lad of whom Lisele spoke, made his appearance.  He was a fine intelligent-looking youth, and I could not help hoping that through the means of his cousin he might be brought to know the truth.  He seemed proud of the mission given to him, though he was well aware of the danger he incurred.

"Tell Mafoa that if he really regards me as he professes, he will act according to my wishes, and treat the white men as friends," said Lisele.  Mafoa was the young chief of whom she had spoken, and who, I had no doubt, from this remark, entertained hopes of making her his wife.

Recollecting that should any seamen have escaped, they would have a difficulty in understanding young Tofa, I wrote a short note which I hoped would prove of more service than the last I had sent, mentioning the missionary station, and saying that we and the Christian natives would gladly afford them all the assistance in our power.  Several other messages having been given to Tofa, he set off on his expedition; and we kneeling down, offered up a prayer for his success.

Notwithstanding our anxiety, with the assistance of Lisele and Abela, we held school as usual, while Nanari conducted the service in the chapel, and instructed the young men and boys, as was his custom.  The night was as calm as the preceding one.  The comet could be seen winding its solitary course through the heavens, appearing even brighter than before.  After Maud and I had gazed at it for some time we retired to our beds.  I heard her sobbing, giving way at length to the sorrow she had restrained in my presence -- not that she could have felt my mother's loss more than I did, but I was older, and had endeavoured, though the strife was a hard one, to command my feelings.  At length I heard her sobs cease, and I in time forgot my sorrow in sleep.

We were both suddenly awakened by a fearful noise.  We started up -- all was dark.  There came the sound of the wind howling in the trees and falling timber, and the roaring of the sea, as it dashed upon the reef with tremendous force, and rocks crashing down from the mountain heights.  A hurricane was raging.  We sat up trembling with alarm.  My first thought was for my dear father, should he now be at sea returning to us.  Then other dreadful sounds, like thunder breaking overhead. Something else terrific besides the hurricane was occurring, it seemed to us, yet we dared not leave the house for fear of being blown away by the wind.  After some time we assisted each other to dress, as well as we could, in the dark, for we expected every moment that the roof would be carried off, or the house itself blown down.  We remembered several hurricanes, but this appeared more violent than any that had before occurred.  We had been protected during former ones, and we knew that the same power would take care of us now.  I had proposed lighting the lamp, when Maud observed, should the house be blown down, it might set the thatch on fire, and the whole village would be burnt.

"Let us remain in darkness, for remember God sees us as if it was light, she said.  Darkness is no darkness with Him -- the day and night to Him are both alike."

I agreed with Maud, and together we knelt down side by side to pray for protection.  Although the tempest continued to rage without, our house, built by my father's hands, stood firm.  It was, like his own faith, well knit and bound together.  He had not forgotten, when erecting it, that such hurricanes were likely to occur, and he had accordingly prepared for them.

So should we go through life, not trembling with the fear of misfortunes, but ready to encounter them should they overtake us.

Hour after hour seemed to pass by as we thus knelt and prayed.  Every now and then we could not help starting up, as a more fearful crash than usual sounded in our ears.  Still the wished-for daylight did not appear.  The truth was, that since the commencement of the storm but a short time only had elapsed, though in our desolation and solitude it had appeared very long.

At length we heard a knocking at the door.  I made my way, followed by Maud, to open it, when two figures appeared, and I heard the voices of Nanari and Lisele.  During the moment the door was open I observed a bright glare in the sky above the waving and bending trees, but it was only for a moment, as immediately they were inside they closed the door behind them.

"Are you safe, are you uninjured?" they exclaimed.  "We could not bear to leave you all alone, and, trusting to Jehovah's protection, we ventured up here, hoping to comfort you."

We thanked them for coming, and I led the way into our sitting-room. "What dreadful event is occurring in addition to the hurricane?"  I asked.  "Can the forest be on fire?"

"The mountain has burst forth, and is sending up stones and ashes into the air, while hot streams of lava are flowing down its sides," answered Nanari.  "Not one but many forests may be burned, but we are in the hands of Jehovah, and should not fear, my daughter."

I inquired whether he thought that the ashes or streams of lava might reach as far as the settlement, he believed that, shut in as we were, by a separate range of hills, that the lava at all events would not run down towards us; though, with regard to the ashes and stones, how far they might be carried, he could not say, and again he added the same consolation he had before offered.

Poor Lisele was in much affliction.  Her father might probably be at sea -- as I feared mine was -- and exposed to the dreadful tempest, and she could not hope that he, having set forth against the warnings of his Christian friends, would be under the protection of Jehovah.  "Alas! alas!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands, should he be driven out over the ocean and lost, he will not have known the good and merciful God who would -- had he listened to the advice given him -- have received him as a son, and taken him to dwell with Him for ever in the glorious country you have told me of beyond the skies.

"We have prayed for your father, and may continue to pray for him, my child," said Nanari.  "And Jehovah may still find a way to preserve him from the danger in which he is placed."  Thus conversing, and often kneeling down to pray, we passed the hours of darkness.

As dawn approached, the hurricane began to abate; and by the time the sun rose out of the eastern ocean, it had entirely ceased.  As we opened the door and gazed forth we had reason to be more than ever thankful that we had escaped destruction.  Several tall trees, a short distance from the house, lay torn up by the roots, and huge boughs strewed the ground in every direction.  The chapel and school-house had escaped injury; but Nanari, who went out to ascertain whether any of the people had suffered, came back with a sad report.  Several of the cottages had been blown down, two people had been killed, and many more injured.

Leaving Maud and Lisele to attend to the house, I accompanied Nanari to visit the sufferers.  While receiving instruction as a missionary he had been taught the simple methods to be pursued under such circumstances. Abela, I was thankful to find, had escaped, and she assisted us in bathing and binding up the wounds and setting the limbs of those who had been hurt.  There was sorrow for those who had been killed, but it was not such sorrow as the heathen would have shown who have no hope.

"Jehovah is merciful, and has called our brothers to a better and happier land than this," exclaimed those who stood around, preparing to carry the dead to their graves.

We were not aware of it at the time -- but we learned afterwards -- that on that very night a band of savage heathens were on their way to attack the settlement with the intention of killing Nanari, and carrying off Lisele and us as prisoners.  How dreadful would have been our fate had they succeeded, and, unwarned as we were, we should have been taken by surprise without the possibility of escaping.

The volcano continued raging during the day, but the natives, accustomed to see its fires burst forth from time to time, were less alarmed at it than they were at the appearance of the comet.  As I watched it, I conceived the hope that a stream of lava, flowing down between us and the more hostile heathen tribes, might prevent them from approaching to attack us.



Chapter Six.

The hurricane had caused sad damage to the cocoanut groves and plantations in our little settlement, and we had no doubt that it, in addition to the eruption of the volcano, had produced still more destructive effects throughout the island, but I own that my thoughts were far more occupied with my anxiety about my father.  In vain we watched for the return of his canoe.  No sail appeared in the blue ocean in the direction of the island to which he had gone.  Lisele too was overwhelmed with grief at the non-appearance of her father; her only hope was that he had conquered his enemies and remained in possession of their country.  Still he would, she thought, before this, have despatched a canoe to announce his victory.

Two days passed away, and we began to look for the return of young Tofa; but on the third day, when he did not come, fears for his safety were added to our other troubles.  The chief, indeed, the only refuge from our sorrows, was prayer; how great was the comfort that brought to our hearts none but those who have experienced it can tell.

We continued to attend to our usual duties.  Though the younger girls and boys assembled for school, the older people were too much agitated and alarmed to attend to their studies; they were also chiefly employed during the day in repairing the damages caused by the storm.

In the evening, however, they all assembled in the chapel for public prayer.  Nanari was addressing them, when the noise of feet was heard without, and directly afterwards Tofa appeared, followed by a young white man.  The latter took off his hat when he saw how we were engaged, and stood reverentially at the door for a moment, as if unwilling to interrupt us, though evidently in a state of great agitation.

Tofa, however, influenced by no such feelings, exclaimed loudly, "Fly! fly! and hide yourselves.  Your enemies are approaching, and will be here anon.  Mafoa tried to prevent them, but he could not prevail."

"My friends!" exclaimed Nanari, "the warning has been sent that you all may seek for safety.  For myself, I will remain with the aged and wounded people, who cannot fly; but you, my daughters," turning to Maud and me, "who have been committed to my charge, I must see that you are placed in a secure hiding-place, where the heathens cannot find you."

"We will place ourselves under your guidance," I answered, "but you must also take care that this stranger does not again fall into the hands of the heathens," I added, turning to the young man who was standing at the door, and who appeared to be above the rank of a common sailor.  "Tell me," I asked, "are you the only person who has escaped from the vessel, which we heard was burned the other day along the coast?"

"I fear that such is the case, and why my life was spared I cannot tell you," he answered.  "I jumped overboard, and was swimming towards the shore, when I was taken up by a canoe, in which was a young chief, who made signs that he would protect me, and faithfully kept his word.  I should have remained with him had I not received a note sent, I presume, by you."

This was said in a hurried tone, while Nanari was arranging a plan for our safety.

I told the stranger of the warning we had just received from Tofa of the threatened attack by the heathens, supposing that he might not have understood what the lad might have said to him.

While some of our friends ran off to the huts to obtain provisions, Abela and Lisele taking our hands, told us that we must set off at once to the mountains, till the fury of the heathens had ceased.  Three or four of our other friends also prepared to accompany us.

"But what will this stranger do?"  I asked.  "Surely if the heathens find him when no longer under the protection of Mafoa, they will put him to death."

"He is under my care," exclaimed Tofa.  "I promised Mafoa that I would protect him, and I will show them that I am clever enough to hide him away even although the whole tribe come to look for him."

I explained this to the young stranger, and advised him to put himself under Tofa's guidance.  Nanari having commended us to the care of Jehovah, we and our friends, not stopping even to obtain anything at the house, hurried off towards the mountains, while Tofa led the stranger by a more direct way up a precipice, which was too steep for us to climb. As we were quitting the chapel, turning my eyes seaward for a moment, I caught sight of several sails dotting the ocean in the far distance.  I pointed them out to Lisele.

"They may be my father's canoes," she exclaimed, "and he might arrive in time to protect us."

"Alas! even should they be Masaugu's fleet, they may be too late for that," said Abela.  "We must not delay on such a chance; perhaps, too, they may prove more deadly foes than those from whom we fly.  Let us hasten on, and we may be able to learn what they are when our charge is in safety."

Thus urged, Lisele no longer hesitated.  Night was coming on, but provided we could make our way, the darkness would assist us in eluding our savage foes should they pursue us.  The path towards the mountains, at all times difficult, was rendered doubly so by the number of fallen trees across it, thrown down by the hurricane.  Sometimes we had to climb over the trunks, at others to creep under the branches.

"The heathens will be less able to discover our tracks," observed Lisele, "than if the path had been open."

"Ah yes! my child," said Abela, "all is ordered for the best."

Now we went on and on, now clambering over wild rocks, now proceeding along a narrow valley, now climbing its steep sides till we reached a height whence we could look back upon our settlement.  "Hark!" said Lisele, "what cries are those?"  We listened; the Indian girl's quick ear had detected sounds which neither Maud nor I had till then perceived.

"Alas! alas!" she exclaimed, "they are the shouts of the savage heathens as they rush in among those we have left behind, and rage at finding that we have escaped them."

That she was right in her conjecture we had too soon painful evidence. Several bright lights appeared, and presently fierce flames burst forth from amid the trees.  The savages had set the houses on fire to revenge themselves on the inhabitants who had for the present escaped their fury.  Our friends, not stopping to watch the progress of the flames, hurried us on.  Proceeding along a narrow ridge, we once more descended down a ravine thickly covered with trees.  The natives knew their way, but so dense was the foliage that to my eyes all appeared dark around. We could hear the roar of a torrent close to us.  Now they led us along slippery rocks, tightly holding our hands; now we found ourselves ascending, now descending, steep precipices.  At length they stopped, and drawing aside the thick foliage, Abela led us into a small cavern, the front of which appeared to be completely concealed by underwood and numberless creepers with which it was entwined.  A portion of the provisions, and some water which had been brought, were placed by our sides.

"Here, my daughters, you will remain safe till the heathens, having searched for you in vain, take their departure," said Abela.  "I know this spot well, for before Masaugu's father conquered the territory he now holds, I and my family dwelt in the neighbourhood.  I discovered it as a girl when rambling about the mountains with my brothers, who are dead, and no one else is acquainted with it.  We ourselves propose to find concealment in different directions, for should the heathens search for us, some may thus have a better prospect of escaping, and the faith of Jehovah will still remain in the land."

Abela and her companions, having carefully allowed the shrubs to regain their natural position, left Maud and me alone, and we soon lost the sound of their footsteps.  The cavern was perfectly dry, and sufficient air found its way through the boughs to prevent the atmosphere from feeling close.  Some mats had also been left for us, on which we could recline; but, as may be supposed, the fearful events that had occurred, and the grief and anxiety which weighed on our hearts, prevented us for many hours from sleeping.  No sound except that of the ceaseless roar and splash of the neighbouring waterfall, reached our ears.  While we sat, shrouded in darkness, it was difficult to avoid giving way to despondency.  We did not, I need scarcely say, forget to pray, while we had cause to be thankful at having received sufficient warning to escape from the cruel fate which would have overtaken us had we been at the settlement.

At last we slept, and the light of day was making its way through the dense foliage when we awoke.  Our cavern, we now found, was even smaller than we had supposed.  There was no room to walk about; indeed, it afforded us just space sufficient to lie down at full length.  As we peered out between the bushes, we could see the opposite sides of the ravine rising up in a perpendicular precipice directly before us.  This gave us an assurance that there was little probability of our being discovered by the savages, even though they might search diligently for us through the mountains.  Our friends had left us an ample supply of provisions so that if necessary we might remain many days there without fear of starvation.  But what was to be our future lot it was impossible to say.

"It is a great comfort to know that God will decide it for us," said Maud, putting her arms round my neck.  "He knows what is best, and He will find a way of escape for those who trust Him, out of all difficulties.  See," she added, "I have brought His word to comfort us," and she produced a small Bible from her pocket, which she had thoughtfully put there when leaving the chapel.

What consolation did that book give us!  We read and prayed, and then read again in a low voice, and strange as it may seem to some, the time did not appear to drag heavily along; but calmness came ever our minds --  our hearts were at peace, we no longer feared what man could do to us.

We had been reading together, when suddenly we both started.  A wild cry readied our ears; it was echoed by others in different directions, some coming up the ravine, others sounding, it seemed, overhead.  I felt Maud tremble as she clung to me.

"Can those cries come from the heathens, who have discovered our footsteps?" she whispered.  "If so, we are lost."

"Not lost, dear Maud," I answered.  "They can but take our lives, and I trust that though they may be near they will not find us.  Our friends felt sure of our safety in this concealment, so let us not despair, but it will be prudent not to speak."

We remained silent, clinging to each other.  Again the wild shrieks and cries echoed around us, some of the voices appeared to be quite close. We sat listening anxiously -- now the sounds appeared to proceed from a greater distance.  Yes, we trusted that the savages were at length passing by us, their shrieks grew fainter and fainter, and ultimately altogether ceased.

We had been again preserved from a threatened danger.  We could scarcely believe that it was over when darkness once more crept up the ravine.



Chapter Seven.

Two more days passed away, and none of our friends had come near us.  We began to fear that they had been seized by the heathens.  Should such be the case, what must be our fate!

"We will wait where we are till our provisions are exhausted, and then we must make our way down to the sea-shore, and perhaps we may be seen by some passing ship and taken off," said Maud.  "Anything will be better than trusting ourselves to the savage heathens."

I agreed with her that this was the only plan we could follow, that, indeed, was almost a hopeless one.

"But suppose papa has been detained longer than he expected with Mr Hilton, and returns to the settlement.  If so, we may see him and reach his canoe," said Maud.  She always called my father papa.

This idea of Maud's gave me new hope, and then I thought how sad must be our meeting when I should have to tell him of our mother's death.

Our chief want in our cavern was water; but Maud managed, by creeping under the bushes, where she was sure she could not be seen, to reach a pool filled by the never ceasing spray from the cascade.  I entreated her, however, not to go out often, for I was afraid of her foot slipping, or, notwithstanding her assertion, that some native passing over the mountain above us might catch a glimpse of her.  She agreed, therefore, to wait till just after dawn, when no one was likely to be at so great a distance from any habitation.  She went out one morning to fill the gourd, which held our store of water, and when she came back she told me that she had seen a person looking down towards her from a point a long way up above the top of the waterfall.

"I did not stop to look a second time," she said, "but, crouching down, crept back, in the hopes that he might not have discovered me."

This circumstance caused us great alarm; still we hoped that even had any one seen her, he might not be able to discover the entrance to our cavern.

"Perhaps the person I saw may have been Tofa, or the young Englishman," exclaimed Maud, as if the thought had suddenly struck her.  "They would naturally come to look for us, especially should they know that any of our friends had been discovered by the heathens, and they might assist us greatly."

"I trust that our friends have escaped," I said.  "Though it seems strange that they should be so long in returning to us, and as Tofa and the young Englishman are strangers, I would rather trust myself to those whose fidelity has been well tried."

"Oh, but I am sure that the Englishman would defend us with his life," said Maud.  "I was struck by the good expression of his countenance, and the way he behaved during the few moments we saw him.  I do trust that he has escaped, and I long to know who he is, for I am sure that he is not a common sailor."

In this I agreed with Maud: indeed, had I not known that it is imprudent to trust strangers, I should have been very thankful to obtain his assistance.  Although he might be the person Maud had soon, we knew that it would be very unwise to venture out of our concealment.

"Still I should like to try and look out through the brushwood, and then should we see him approaching, and be sure that it is him, we might make ourselves known," said Maud.

As Maud was sure that she could do as she proposed without being discovered, I did not forbid her, though I felt that it might be wiser to remain as closely concealed as we had been hitherto.  Still no one approached.

"After all, I may have been mistaken," said Maud, coming back and sitting down by my side.

We were employed as usual in reading, when the sound of voices at a distance reached our ears, coming apparently up the ravine.  "Can they be the savages returning to look for us," whispered Maud.

"I think that their voices would sound very differently to those we hear," I answered.  "They would be wildly shrieking and shouting, unless they intended to attack an enemy unprepared for them.  Still, as the persons may possibly be strangers, we will keep concealed."

We remained seated on the ground, hoping that should enemies be approaching, they would pass by without discovering us.  The footsteps grew nearer.  We could hear them climbing up the precipice to the ledge on which the cavern opened.  Maud, notwithstanding her usual courage, trembled violently.

The boughs were drawn aside, when several natives appeared in front of us.  A second glance showed us that they were entirely clothed according to the custom of the converts, and then, to our joy, we saw that Abela was among them.  We sprang up and threw ourselves into her arms.

"My children," she said, "we have left you long; but we have had many difficulties to encounter, and, alas! disasters have overtaken our friends.  But come, we have no time to lose, we will tell you more as we go along."

We were thankful to find that besides Abela, those who had accompanied us to our hiding-place had likewise escaped.  Our friends having taken the baskets, and the remainder of our provisions, we set off down the ravine, which led, as we supposed, towards the sea-shore.  I immediately inquired of Abela if she had heard of my father.

"Alas! no, my child," she answered, "Our good pastor's canoe has not returned; we have anxiously kept watch for him, and he could scarcely have reached the shore without having been observed."  I then inquired for Nanari, who might, I hoped, have escaped.  "He died faithfully at his post with those whom he would not desert," she answered.  "He was entreated by the sick and wounded to fly, but would not, and then, alas! the savage people rushed in and slew him."

She then told me that Lisele was safe, although she had run great risk of being captured by the heathens.  The fleet we had seen was the remnant of that with which Masaugu had set sail.  Though at first victorious in his expedition, he had been attacked by overwhelming numbers of his enemies, and, with the loss of a large portion of his warriors, and many of his canoes, had with difficulty reached the island.  On his arrival he found a large party of the heathens, who had heard that he intended to lotu, arrayed against him, and once more he had to put to sea.  He had, however, reached the end of the island where we now were.  There Lisele had joined him, and, at her earnest entreaties, he had left a canoe to convoy us away.  Abela told us also that Tofa and the young Englishman had been communicated with, and she hoped that they would be found already on board the canoe.

"Oh then we will proceed at once to Mr Hilton's station," I exclaimed. "What joy it will be if we find that my father has not yet quitted it."

"Such are Masaugu's intentions," said Abela.  "He has seen the folly of his conduct in going to attack his enemies when so earnestly warned by your father, and now he wishes to remain with the Christian missionary, that he may receive instruction in the truths he before despised."

The news we thus received caused us many conflicting feeling's.  We deeply grieved for the loss of the faithful Nanari, while my anxiety about my father was still unrelieved.  Yet we rejoiced that Masaugu, through the severe lesson he had received, should have been induced to seek for Christian instruction.

Our path down the ravine was extremely difficult, and often dangerous, and we could make but slow progress.  Abela, however, hurried on as fast as we could venture to proceed, for she feared that the heathens, knowing that many of the Christians had escaped, would be searching for us, and that although they might not dare to follow Masaugu's fleet, they would not hesitate to attack the single canoe, with only a small party on board.  At length we caught sight of the blue ocean, but the sparkling white lines of foam I saw dancing over it, made me fear that the canoe would have a hard buffet with the waves.

We were already not far from the beach, when we saw two persons running towards us -- they were Tofa and the young Englishman.  "Hasten," they exclaimed; "a large band of our enemies are coming along the shore, and we have been in dread that you would be cut off."  The latter, who of course spoke in English, took Maud and me by the hands to assist us, and helped along by him we soon reached the boat.  The crew stood ready with poles to urge on the canoe into deep water.  We were speedily on board, and launching forth; the wind being favourable, a large triangular mat sail was set, and we glided away from the beach.

Scarcely had we got beyond the reach of their spears, than the savages arrived at the spot we had left.  Several were hurled at us, but happily no one was hit, and the next shower, which the vindictive savages darted from their hands, fell short of our canoe.

Abela and every Christian with her knelt down on the deck and offered up an earnest prayer -- in which we joined -- that the hearts of our foes might be changed, and that they would ere long be brought to know the truth. The savages continued shrieking and shouting at us till we had got outside the reef.  Happily no canoe was near, or they would undoubtedly have followed us.

We could see Masaugu's fleet in the far distance; but as our canoe was smaller than any of his we could not hope to overtake him.  I was thankful, however, to find that he was steering towards Mr Hilton's station, where we hoped in time to arrive.  The sea was, as I had feared, very rough, and though our canoe was strong and buoyant, she was tossed much about, and had it not been for the assistance of the young Englishman and Tofa, we should have had great difficulty in clinging to the deck.  In the centre was a small house or cabin, generally used by the chief or owner of the canoe, and this we found was to be devoted to our use at night as a sleeping place.  Still, as I surveyed the curiously-constructed and apparently weak vessel, I could not help feeling that a voyage on board her of the length we were about to attempt, must be attended with much danger.  Happily we could say at sea as on shore, "We will trust ourselves to the care of One all-powerful to save."

As I now had a better opportunity of observing the young stranger more particularly than before, I felt more convinced than at first that he was a person of education.  His manner towards Maud and me especially, was retiring and reserved, and he seemed unwilling to intrude himself upon us.  After some time, however, he came and sat near us, and thanked me for the note I had written, which, as he supposed, had not only been the means of obtaining his freedom, but of his life being preserved.

"I wrote merely on the possibility of any European having escaped the massacre which I understood had taken place," I answered.  "I can therefore claim no thanks from you."

"I am not the less grateful," he answered.  "I had so fully expected to be killed, that I feel like one risen from the dead."

"I trust that you have risen to newness of life," I ventured to say, for I am sure it was a remark my father would have made, and I felt anxious to be assured that the young man was under religious impressions.  It was an opportunity indeed I dare not let pass by.

"Yes, Miss Liddiard, I do feel that," he exclaimed.  "And with what horror do I reflect what would have been my doom had I died with my companions.  I knew the truth when I was a boy, for I had been brought up by a pious father and mother, but I became careless and wild, and neglected all their precepts and warnings.  I went on from bad to worse, and at length, believing that if I could get out to the Pacific -- of which I had read -- I could enjoy unfettered liberty and licence, I shipped on board a vessel bound out, round Cape Horn.  Having knocked about in the way I proposed for some time, though, as may be supposed, I did not find the life among rough seamen and fierce savages as agreeable as I had expected, I at length reached Sydney in New South Wales.  I there joined the sandal wood trader, which has been so fearfully destroyed.

"Just before going on board I met an old friend of my father's, a missionary, whom I had known at home.  He spoke to me seriously, and warned me against joining the vessel, knowing as he did, the lawless character of her crew.  He offered to obtain my discharge if I would come and live with him.  His words made a deep impression on my heart, although I was too self-willed to follow his advice.  During the voyage, while we were sailing from island to island, those words often and often recurred to my mind.  I in vain attempted to drive them from me.  When I saw my companions being put to death -- expecting to meet the same fate --  how earnestly I wished that I had followed my friend's counsels.  I could only utter, `Lord be merciful to me a sinner,' and entreated God to protect me.  When I found myself so unexpectedly preserved, I remembered the prayer I had uttered, and resolved to give myself to the service of God in any way He might open out for me.  You now know my brief history, Miss Liddiard.  I felt bound to give it you, but I am unwilling to trouble you with more than I have already told you about myself.  My name is Charles Norton."

"You can have no difficulty in finding opportunities of serving God, Mr Norton," I exclaimed.  "When we see thousands and tens of thousands of human beings scattered about this broad Pacific ignorant of Him, and given over to abominable heathen practices, all requiring to be fed with the bread of life.  Why should you not prepare yourself to go forth as a missionary among them?"

"I feel that I am too unworthy and sinful to undertake so serious an office," he said humbly.

"No human being could be qualified to go forth as a missionary of the gospel trusting alone to his own merits, and no one would be found to undertake the office were all influenced by the opinion you express," I observed.  "All must feel their unworthiness and we must take God at His word, and believe that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, and then go forth and declare what great things He has done for us.  I repeat what I have heard my father say: -- We must not trust to our feelings, but we must believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently serve Him, not only of those who have all along done so."

"You have given me new life and hope," exclaimed the young man. "Henceforth, if my life is spared, after having prepared myself for the task, I will devote it to making known the gospel to the poor heathens of these regions."



Chapter Eight.

Although the sea was rough the canoe had made good progress towards our destination when night came on.  The wind had been increasing, and I saw the natives looking anxiously at the sky, which had become overcast. The darkness was intense, and we had no compass in the canoe by which to direct our course.  The native boatmen, however, continued steering on, trusting to the wind, which had remained steadily blowing from one quarter.  Still, as the waves rose, and our frail canoe pitched and tossed about, it seemed to me that she would be unable to accomplish the passage.

Abela was sitting by us.  "Alas," she exclaimed, "we have escaped the fury of our enemies only, I fear, to perish in the waves."

"Nay, nay, Abela," said Maud.  "God, who has protected us heretofore, can protect us still.  He will find a way for us to escape if it is His will that we should do so."

"Ah, you are right," answered Abela, "and I am weak and faithless to doubt His love."

Still I must confess that it required much strong faith not to feel nervous and alarmed while we saw the dark foaming seas rising up around us, and apparently every moment about to overwhelm our little vessel. The crew had lessened the sail, but yet it seemed scarcely capable of withstanding the furious blasts which struck it.  Maud and I, with Abela and the other women, sat close together in the little hut on deck.  I observed that Mr Norton and Tofa had come nearer us as if to try and prevent us from being washed away should a sea break on board, which it appeared too probable would occur.  The canoe was excessively buoyant, or she could not have escaped being overwhelmed.  Onward she continued to fly over the tumbling waters, and we at length, becoming accustomed to the movement of the vessel, began to hope that she would reach the shore in safety, and already the crew were looking out in the expectation of seeing it ahead.

All our hopes were to be disappointed.  A furious blast struck the sail, and before it could be lowered it was torn away, with the spars which supported it, and we were left helpless on the wild ocean.  To attempt to use the paddles in such a sea was useless.  The helmsman had turned the head of the canoe away from the wind, and all that now could be done was to fly before it.  The gale increased.  On we went, expecting every moment that the seas would overwhelm us.

We could sit quiet and pray, but I felt much for our poor heathen crew, who had no such consolation.  Abela had called young Tofa to her side, and was endeavouring to explain to him the glorious truths of the faith she held, he seemed greatly struck by her calm resignation.

"Formerly you would have shrieked out, and trembled with fear," he observed.  "Now you seem as brave as the boldest of our warriors."

"I am brave, because I know in whom I trust," answered Abela.  "I have the support of the Holy Spirit sent by Jehovah.  Though I am by myself still very weak, my soul is at peace, and I know if I am taken away from this world that I shall go to a better and more glorious land, where I shall live with my Saviour, who has redeemed me, and bought me with the price of His most precious blood."

"Oh, how I wish I could go with you to that glorious land," said the lad.  "But I am not fit; I could not be received there, if Jehovah is the pure and holy Being you say He is."

"You will be fit to go the moment you accept the offers Jesus makes you, and you are sure to be received there," answered Abela, and once more she explained to him the simple plan of salvation.  "You see, my son, that you have nothing to do; but all has been done for you, to satisfy God's justice.  You are bought by the blood of Jesus.  God makes you a free gift of salvation.  If He required anything in return it would not be a free gift.  If you had anything to pay it would show that the purchase was not completed by Christ.  Now God says that the purchase was completed on Calvary, and He tells us that eternal salvation is a free gift; we, therefore, offend God when we want to pay anything to Him in return, and we dishonour the purchase made by Christ when we fancy that it is insufficient.  Still, after you have become the servant of Christ, if life is spared you, you will desire to obey Him, and please Him, and do His will by every means in your power.  This will show that you have a living faith, and that you are really, as you profess to be, His disciple."

"Oh, I am sure what you say is true," exclaimed Tofa.  "Although I cannot yet understand it all I believe in Jesus, I trust to Him, I will never never again worship the foolish idols I have till now trusted in. You must tell me all you have said over and over again, for I wish to know all I can about Jesus, that should the canoe be overwhelmed by the sea, I may be ready to go and dwell with Him."

The young Englishman occasionally spoke to us.  He was not ignorant of gospel truth, but, alas, he had long sinned against light and knowledge, and rejected what he knew in his heart to be true.  His merciful preservation had been the means of changing that heart, he was really born again, and now the knowledge he possessed seemed to come back to him.  Notwithstanding the fearful danger in which we were placed, his manner was calm and composed.  He did not speak to us as many a brave worldly man would have done, urging us to keep up our spirits, expressing a hope that the storm would soon abate, and that we should be able to return to the land; he observed only, "we must trust in God's merciful protection; let us remember that we are in His hands."

Maud and I responded to what he said.

"Those days I spent in solitude in the mountains have, indeed, been precious days to me, Miss Liddiard," he continued.  "I felt like the prodigal son, who had returned to his father, and the bright gleam of His smile seemed to rest on me.  My only regret was, that I had not His word to apply to, but many precious verses which I had learned as a child came back to me, and afforded me comfort and consolation, and then I could pray as I had never prayed before."

I told him that we had been employed in the same way, and that happily having a Bible we could turn to the sacred page, and draw comfort from the ever flowing fountain.

Thus the hours of darkness passed away.  The canoe, from the lightness of her construction, rode easily over the seas, driving, as she now was, directly before the gale, and we were not pitched and tumbled about as we had been when the wind was on her side, and we were attempting to steer for the island.  When morning dawned the foaming waters were around us on every side, and we could just distinguish in the far distance, almost astern, the dim outline of the island which we had hoped to reach.  Had the weather been moderate the canoe men might have attempted to make their way towards it, but that, was now impossible, and we continued to drive on, leaving it further and further behind. Where we were going we could not tell.  The natives knew of no islands in that direction, and I heard them reminding each other of several canoes which had been blown off the land and had not again been heard of.

We asked Mr Norton his opinion.  He had, he said, during the last day he was on board examined a chart, and he could afford us but little hope that we should reach any shore where we might obtain a new mast and sail and be able to return the way we had come.  "There are islands a long way off; but as the inhabitants, I fear, are savage in the extreme, it would be dangerous to land amongst them," he added.  "Still, though we speak of the dangers we may have to encounter, let us continue, trusting firmly that God is watching over us, and though we cannot yet see the way by which He intends to save us -- if such is His good will -- He has nevertheless got it ready, while we on our part are bound to make every exertion to preserve our lives.  As we may not for a considerable time reach land, I must therefore, in the first place, strongly urge the people to place themselves on an allowance of food and water.  We should use as little as will suffice to sustain life, that we may the longer be able to hold out."

I explained what the young Englishman said to Abela; and she and Tofa spoke to their countrymen, and persuaded them to do as he advised.  The wind had somewhat abated, but as it was still too strong to permit of our making head against it, we continued to drive on as before.  We read the Bible, and prayed several times during the day, and occasionally some of the heathen crew came, and, kneeling down near us, listened while I read.

Abela, although she had not begun her studies till about two years before this, read very fairly, but she was especially powerful in prayer, and her whole heart and soul seemed lifted up as she poured forth her petitions -- seldom failing to exclaim, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner."

The hours passed on, and we felt that an all-powerful hand was protecting our frail bark from the fury of the seas.  When the water washed into the canoe beneath the platform, it was quickly bailed out again, and everything was so firmly secured, that in spite of the tossing and tumbling of the vessel she held as tightly together as at first.

Another day and another and another passed by, and still the strong wind prevented us from attempting to return.  Many of the heathen crew appeared to have resigned themselves to their fate, and had it not been for the influence Abela exerted over them -- supported as she was by the young Englishman and Tofa -- I believe that they would quickly have consumed all the provisions, and have then laid down to die.

We were already feeling the ill effects of the small amount of food we could venture to eat.  The sun too, burst forth, and its burning rays striking down upon us; we now, in addition to hunger, began to feel the fearful sufferings of thirst.  What must it be should a calm come on! And although the crew might then use their paddles with effect, their strength would be gone, and very many days must pass before we could regain the island from which we had been driven.

Often and often I thought of my poor father.  I persuaded myself that he had certainly remained with Mr Hilton, and that had we arrived in safety we should have had the happiness of seeing him.  Now should he return to the settlement, what would be his feelings to find it desolate, and to suppose, as he must, that we had shared the fate of the other inhabitants.

Our condition was also becoming, humanly speaking, fearful in the extreme.  As I looked at Maud's pale countenance I feared that she could not long endure such suffering.  I was not aware that I looked equally ill.  The young Englishman treated us with the most gentle and constant attention; he even insisted on our taking a portion of his scanty allowance of food and water, and when we refused to deprive him of it I am sure that he took means to add it unseen to our shares.  At length the gale ceased, the canoe no longer tumbled about, and the heat of the sun's rays -- as they shone upon the glass-like surface of the ocean on which we floated -- was intense in the extreme.  Abela urged the crew to get out their paddles, but they answered, as I had expected, "we cannot live to reach the island, and when our food and water are exhausted, we will lie down and die.  There is nothing else for us to do."



Chapter Nine.

The canoe still floated motionless on the calm ocean, which shone like a sheet of burnished gold.  Maud and I lay in each other's arms, expecting thus to die.  Still we could whisper together, and talk of the glories of that heaven we hoped soon to reach.  Abela sat like a mother watching over us, but she too was sinking.  Of the heathen crew several appeared to be dying, if they were not already dead; but others, who had listened to the Word of Life, gathered round us that they might hear the instruction which Abela, as long as she had the power of speech, afforded them.  Young Tofa bore up bravely, and Mr Norton struggled wonderfully with his sufferings.  He occasionally rose to his feet and gazed around, as if he still hoped help would come ere it was too late. Another day I felt sure must terminate the existence of most of those on board.

I closed my eyes, feeling a faintness coming over me, when I was aroused by Mr Norton's voice.  I saw him standing up, with his arms outstretched, and his dim eye lighted up.

"A sail! a sail!" he exclaimed.  "She is bringing up the breeze -- she is standing this way."

This announcement gave me a strength I did not believe that I possessed -- I raised Maud in my arms.  "We shall be saved, dearest; our prayers have been heard," I whispered.  She opened her eyes, and seemed to comprehend me.

"We must make a signal, or the vessel may pass us," said Mr Norton. "Can you direct the natives to assist me?  The broken spars, if lashed together, will answer for a flagstaff."

I explained what the young Englishman required, and Tofa and a few others, although scarcely able to lift themselves from the deck, secured the spars, and fastened them together as he desired.  A piece of matting answered for a flag, and the flagstaff was held up on the deck.

How eagerly we watched the distant sail.

"She looks like a whaler, and if so, a bright look-out is certain to be kept on board," observed Mr Norton.

On she came.  Unless our small flag was observed, as the deck of the canoe rose but a few feet above the water, should she pass only a mile or two on either side she might sail away without noticing us.  We did not forget to pray that we might be seen.  She came nearer and nearer. At length, to our joy, we saw a flag run up to her mast-head as an answer to our signal.

We were seen.  Still the breeze was light, and the ship seemed to be a long time coming up to us.

Every moment was of consequence.  I dreaded lest aid should come too late for dear Maud, while several others appeared unable to last much longer.

How often do we mistrust God's mercy.  The vessel came close to us, and heaving-to, a boat was lowered.

"She is a whaler," exclaimed Mr Norton.  "Water, water -- bring water with you," he shouted; but his voice was faint and hollow, he pointed to his lips.

The sign was understood, for the boat put back, and a cask was lowered into it.  In another minute, with sturdy strokes, the boat's crew dashed alongside.  We heard the sound of English voices.

"You seem in a sad plight, my lad," said the officer of the boat.  "We thought you were all savages.  Are there any more of you on board?"

Mr Norton pointed to where Maud and I lay.  The cask of water was lifted on deck, and the officer approached us with a cup.  I begged him to give Maud some.  He poured a few drops down her throat.

"Come, young lady, you must take some now," he said.

How delicious was that draught -- it almost instantly revived me.  I gave Maud some more, and then offered the cup to Abela.  Those of the crew who could move crawled towards the cask.  The young seaman poured it out from the cask into their hands, that they might obtain it sooner.  I remember thinking it a fearful waste that any of the precious liquid should be spilled.  Not till all the rest had received some water would Mr Norton take the cup which the mate offered him.

"Now, young ladies, the sooner we get you on board, where our captain and his good wife will look after you, the better," exclaimed the mate, as he offered to carry us to the boat.  I begged that Abela might be brought with us.  He lifted me up in his arms as if I had been a feather, and others followed, with Maud and Abela.  Mr Norton had scarcely strength to reach the boat.  I explained that Tofa was a chief's son, and that having rendered us great service, I begged that he might be treated with attention.

In a few minutes we were on board the "True Love," and in Captain Hudson's cabin, under the care of his kind motherly wife.  She almost shed tears as she saw us; Maud especially excited her sympathy.

"Poor dear child, she could not have lasted another hour, and she now will require all the care we can bestow on her.  And we must look after you too," she added, addressing me.  "I wonder you have held out so well.  You must tell me all about it by-and-by.  You are too weak to talk now.  I cannot get a word out of any one else -- not even from the young Englishman.  He fainted on reaching the deck, and my husband is attending to him; but you need not be alarmed, he will come round in time."

I inquired for Abela.

"The native woman is in one of the mate's cabins.  I will go and attend to her directly, and all the rest who are alive are safe on board; but five or six of the poor Indians were dead, I am told, before they could be lifted from the deck of the canoe."

I grieved much to hear this, for I had entertained hopes that all when brought under Christian instruction would have accepted the truth; but God's ways are inscrutable -- we only know that they are just and right.

Soon after Mrs Hudson had placed me in bed, I sank into a state of almost insensibility, and was conscious only that I was attended by a kind hand.  I could neither speak nor think, and knew not to what place the ship was carrying us.  My first inquiry on coming to myself, when I saw Mrs Hudson standing over me, was for dear Maud.  My heart leaped with joy when I heard her voice saying, "I am here Mary -- I am so very very glad to hear you speaking again."  I found that she was lying on a sofa outside my cabin, to which Mrs Hudson said she had entreated to be brought, that she might be near me.  Abela, I found was also recovering, and Mr Norton was well, and devoted himself to the care of the sufferers, some of whom were still in a precarious state.

"He is trying to learn their language, and the young prince is never weary in giving him instruction," said Mrs Hudson.

"They call Tofa the young prince, because the rest of his people pay him so much respect," observed Maud.

I was truly thankful to hear this of Mr Norton.  I should have trembled for him, lest after getting safely on board the ship had he shown that he had forgotten his good resolutions.

"That young Englishman is a very superior person indeed," observed Mrs Hudson.  "He has made inquiries about you and your sister every hour in the day, and I really believe had you been taken from us it would have broken his heart; he looked so anxious when I told him how ill you were. He constantly also speaks to our crew, and reads the Bible to them, and prays with them in the forecastle.  They seem very well pleased to hear him, and though my husband has prayers every Sunday, he cannot go among them and talk to them in the familiar way this young man does.  He tells me, though I am sure he is a gentleman born by his manners, that he has served before the mast, and therefore knows their habits and ways, and that there is nothing like being on an equality with people to win their hearts."

"Yes, that is what a missionary must be if he follows the example of his Master," I said.  "Jesus made Himself equal to the poorest, and of no reputation, that He might gain souls to Himself."

"Ah yes, my dear young lady, if all ministers of the gospel as well as missionaries acted thus, His blessed religion would make more progress in the world than it now does."

In addition to my other causes of gratitude I thanked God that we had been taken on board a ship commanded by a believing captain, with a kind excellent wife.  Through His mercy we were greatly indebted to Mrs Hudson's constant and affectionate care for our recovery.



Chapter Ten.

We had been many days on board, and Maud and I were able to enjoy the fresh air on deck, where Captain Hudson warmly congratulated us, in his fatherly manner, on our recovery; arranging cushions on which we could recline -- for we were still too weak to sit up -- and kindly doing all he could for us.  How glad we were again to see Abela and her companions, and to comfort them in their sorrow, for they believed that they should never again see their native land.

Young Tofa, however, was perfectly content.  "I shall learn more about the religion of Jehovah, and that will be my support wherever I am," he observed.

Mr Norton came up and spoke to us so gently, and yet with unmistakable earnestness in his mariner.  "Oh Miss Liddiard," he said, "I am now more than ever sure that our merciful Father in heaven hears the prayers of the greatest of sinners who have returned to Him.  I have never ceased beseeching Him that you might be restored to health, and that while you may enjoy happiness yourself, you may prove a blessing to many of our fellow-creatures."

"I do indeed hope that I may be of use to some," I answered.  "I desire no greater happiness than to be employed in God's service."

"Such will, I believe, be the occupation of the blessed throughout eternity, although He has not revealed to His creatures the way in which they are to be employed.  That surpasses human comprehension," he observed.

A few days after this we came in sight of a high and picturesque island, even more beautiful than the one we had left.

"My dear young lady," said Captain Hudson, "I should be very sorry to part with you, and would gladly have carried you with me to old England, but the poor natives are, I am sure, anxious to be put on shore, and as an English missionary resides on yonder island, and all the inhabitants are Christians, I thought it best to go there to land those who desire to land.  Will you and your sister remain with us?  The ship's time in these seas will soon be up, and when we get to England our house shall be your home.  We have no children of our own, and my wife and I will do our best to act the part of the parents you have lost."

My heart swelled with gratitude to the kind captain and his wife.  I could scarcely speak.  I had often thought of England, and how delightful it would be to see it, but I had resolved to devote myself, as my dear father and mother had done, in endeavouring to make known the gospel among the heathen islanders.  I knew their language and customs, and felt that I was suited for the task.  I was sure also that Maud would not consent to leave me; still, I did not wish to bias her should she desire to accept Captain and Mrs Hudson's offer.  My eyes filled with tears as I took the captain's hand, and expressed my gratitude for his generous proposal.  I told him the object on which my heart was set, and had it not been for that, how thankful I should have been to accept his offer.  I then explained that Maud was not my sister, and gave him her history, adding, that she would indeed be fortunate to have such kind protectors as I was sure he and Mrs Hudson would prove.

"I will ask her," said the captain.  "But I should like to have had you both."

I waited anxiously to hear what Maud would say, earnestly praying meantime that she would be directed aright.  I had closed my eyes, when I felt Maud's arms round me.  "I cannot, no I cannot leave you, dear Mary, where you go I will go," she whispered.  "If you had said yes to the good captain I would gladly have accompanied you.  If you remain out here I will remain also."

As we neared the harbour a canoe, manned by natives in white jackets and trousers and straw hats, came off.  One of them, in good English, announced himself as a pilot, and under his charge the "True Love" was safely conducted into a secure and beautiful harbour, where her anchor was dropped.  Neat white-washed houses lined the shore; beyond them rose several buildings of good size, the largest of which was a stone church with tower and belfry.  Plantations extended on every side as far as the eye could reach.  Everything wore an aspect of peace and contentment. How different from that of the heathen island we had left!  Yet a short time before the numerous dark skinned natives, well clothed and in their right minds, were naked heathen savages, such as those among whom we had dwelt, and often despaired would ever be brought to know the truths of the gospel.

The boat was lowered, and Maud and I, with Mr Norton, Abela, and Tofa, were seated in her, accompanied by Captain and Mrs Hudson, on our way to the house of Mr Arnold, the missionary of which they had before spoken, and to whom, they had told us, they were well-known.  On landing we proceeded along a well made clean road, at the further end of which, some way from the shore, stood Mr Arnold's house.  How neat and beautiful it looked, with its garden full of flowering shrubs, and a broad verandah in front!

Mr Arnold came out to meet us, followed by his wife.  A few words from Captain Hudson served to explain who we were.

"Indeed you are welcome, most welcome," he exclaimed, taking our hands. "We have enough and to spare, and there is work for all of you if, as I trust, you are willing to labour in the Lord's vineyard."

We were soon seated around the missionary's hospitable board, for Captain Hudson's ship was well-known, and Mrs Arnold had been preparing for the guests she was sure would come before they left the Pacific. She was an interesting looking lady, but there was an expression of sadness in her countenance, which at once struck me.  Our host and hostess had, of course, many questions to ask, and we gave them an account of the dreadful events which had occurred to us.  Captain Hudson told them of his wish to carry us on with him to England.

"We only desire to have willing labourers," observed Mr Arnold, "and they having counted the cost must decide for themselves.  They have some experience what it is; and you, Mr Norton, do you intend to return home?" he asked.

"My desire is, the Lord helping me, to prepare myself for a missionary among the heathen islanders of these seas," he answered.  "I have counted the cost, and with God's grace I hope not to turn back."

Mr Arnold warmly pressed his hand.  "We will pray that His grace will ever continue with you," he said.  I felt an infinite satisfaction at hearing this.

While the gentlemen went out to walk we remained with Mrs Arnold, who gave us much interesting information about their island, and her account raised my hopes that our own poor savages, as I called them, might some day enjoy the same inestimable blessings, and that smiling villages and churches and schools might appear throughout the island.

On Mr Arnold's return I saw that he was greatly agitated, and cast an eager inquiring glance at Maud.  He advanced towards her, but seemingly restrained himself, and taking his wife by the hand, led her from the room.

During their absence Captain Hudson, sitting down by Maud, to my great surprise said, "Do you think, my dear, that the poor lady you supposed was your mother was really so?"

Maud started, then seemed lost in thought.  "She was very, very kind to me, and I used to call her `mamma,' because I had no other mamma then, but I have a faint idea that there was some one else whom I loved still better, and who had given me to her, saying, that we should meet again."

"Then I think there is no doubt it," exclaimed Captain Hudson.  "Suppose you were to find your real father and mother, could you bear the joy of meeting them?" he asked.

Maud trembled all over, and I now began to suspect the truth.  In a few minutes Mr and Mrs Arnold re-entered the room.  I was surprised at the wonderful command which Mr Arnold had over himself.  He placed his wife on a sofa, and then led Maud up to her.

"It may be that we are in error," he said, "but God's goodness is great, and such as this dear girl is might have been our child."

Mrs Arnold gazed at Maud's features for a few moments, then hastily took off her tippet.  On her neck was a well-known mark which assured her that her hopes were realised.  She drew her to her bosom and sobbed aloud.

We truly grieved to part with good Captain and Mrs Hudson, but we were to meet ere long again.  Our heathen crew were soon distributed among the inhabitants, and all of them earnestly desired to be instructed in the truth.  Tofa made rapid progress in his studies under Mr Arnold, and expressed his ardent wish to return as a missionary to his native land.  Mrs Norton laboured devotedly as a catechist, and rendered the greatest service to Mr Arnold in his work, while Maud and I assisted Mrs Arnold in the girls' school, as we had been accustomed to do under my dear mother, while Abela was of great use among the older women.

Two years passed by, when it was announced that the "True Love" was once more entering the harbour.  We hastened down to the landing-place to meet our kind old friend.  We saw the boat coming with the captain and his wife and a gentleman with them.  Captain Hudson assisted him to land.  He gazed anxiously at us as we approached, then tottered towards me with arms outstretched.

My joy was full.  He was my dear father.  He had supposed we had all perished, till Captain Hudson, a short time before, had put in to visit Mr Hilton's station.  His former faith had supported him through all his afflictions, and now, how full was his heart with gratitude at having me restored to him.  I saw by his thin and wasted figure and pale countenance how much he required a daughter's care.  He brought glorious intelligence from our island.

Masaugu had become a devoted Christian, and having made peace with his former foes, had, accompanied by Lisele, returned home, many of his people having also cast aside their idols.

I have not hitherto said that a short time before Mr Norton had asked me to become his wife.  My father, hearing of his character from Mr Arnold, gave his full consent.  Captain Hudson was bound in the direction of our island.  With my devoted husband and father, accompanied by Abela and Tofa and several of our formerly heathen crew, we embarked on board the "True Love."

I could not have borne parting with Maud had I not known that she was left with loving parents, who would amply supply my place as my husband supplied hers in my heart.

I need not say how joyfully we were welcomed by Lisele and her Christian husband, the young chief.  We had, notwithstanding, many difficulties to encounter.  The heathens offered all the opposition in their power, but at length they were conquered, -- not by force of arms, but by the power of gospel truth, and ere my dear father was laid beside my mother's grave, he had the happiness of seeing the once heathen inhabitants of our island, as also of many others in the Pacific, cast aside their idols and become faithful worshippers of Jehovah, trusting to the all-cleansing of the blood of the Lamb slain on Calvary for sinners.

<eob>

When Sarah Saved The Day

By

Elsie Singmaster



Chapter I

Uncle Daniel's Offer


Sarah Wenner, who was fifteen years old, but who did not look more than twelve, hesitated in the doorway between the kitchen and the best room, a great tray of tumblers and cups in her hands.

"Those knives and forks we keep always in here, Aunt Mena. We do not use them for every day."

Her aunt, Mena Illick, lifted the knives from the drawer where she had laid them. One could see from her snapping black eyes that she did not enjoy being directed by Sarah. But order was order, and no one ever justly accused a Pennsylvania German housewife of not putting things where they belonged. She laid the knives on the table for Sarah to put away.

The kitchen seemed strangely lonely and empty that evening, in spite of the number of persons who were there.

Besides little Sarah, who was the head of the Wenner household, now that the father was dead and the oldest son had gone away, and her Aunt Mena, who had driven thither for the funeral that afternoon, there was an uncle, Daniel Swartz, and his wife Eliza, who was just then wringing out the tea-towels from a pan of scalding suds, and the Swartzes' hired man, Jacob Kalb, short and stout, with a smooth-shaven face and tiny black eyes.

Daniel Swartz sat beside the wide table, the hired man by his side. On chairs against the wall, sitting now upright, now leaning against each other when sleep overpowered them, were the Wenner twins, Louisa Ellen and Ellen Louisa, whose combination of excessive slenderness and appearance of good health could be due only to constant activity. In their waking moments they looked not unlike eager little grasshoppers, ready for a spring.

The last member of the party lay peacefully sleeping on the deep settle before the fireplace. His wide blue eyes were closed, his chubby arms thrown above his head. Worn with the excitement of the day, too young to realize that the cheerful, merry father whom they had carried away that afternoon would never return, he slept on, the only one entirely at ease.

Daniel Swartz rose every few minutes to cover him more thoroughly. Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena watched Uncle Daniel, the eyes of the twins rested with scornful disfavor upon Jacob Kalb, and Sarah watched them all. Her tired eyes widened with apprehension when she saw her uncle bend over Albert as if he were his own, and she bit her lips when she saw Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena whispering together. Returning with the empty tray, she moved swiftly across the kitchen to where the twins were sitting.

At that moment they were awake and engaged in their favorite pastime of teasing Jacob Kalb.

Jacob had an intense desire to be considered English, and in an unfortunate moment had translated his name, not realizing how much worse its English equivalent, "Calf," would sound to English ears than the uncomprehended German "Kalb." It was the twins' older brother, William, who had now been away from home so long that they had almost forgotten him, who had heard Jacob telling his new name to some strangers.

"Ach, no, I cannot speak German very good. I am not German. My name is Jacob Calf."

He saw in their faces that he had made a mistake, but it was too late to retract. Besides, William Wenner, whom he hated, and who had been to the Normal School, had heard, and as long as Jacob lived the name would cling to him. Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen, accustomed to shout it at him from a safe vantage-ground on their own side of the fence, called it softly now when the older people were talking, "Jacob Calf! Jacob Calf!"

Then, suddenly, each twin found her arm clutched as though in a vise.

"Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen, be still. Not a word! Not a word!"

"But -- " began the twins together. Sarah had always aided and abetted them. It was Sarah who had invented such brilliant rhymes as,

Jacob Calf, You make me laugh.

Sarah's nonsense had amused the father and delighted the children for many weary months. Why had she suddenly become so strange and solemn? To the twins death had as yet no very terrible meaning, and they knew nothing of care and responsibility. Each jerked her arm irritably away from Sarah's hand. Why didn't she tell the aunts and uncle to go home and let them go to bed? And why was Jacob Kalb there in the kitchen? Why -- But the twins were too drowsy to worry very long. Leaning comfortably against each other, they fell asleep once more.

Sarah continued her journey across the room to gather up a pile of plates. She sympathized thoroughly with the twins in their hatred for the hired man. He had no business there. If the uncle and aunts wished to discuss their plans, they should do it alone, and not in the presence of this outsider. But he knew all Uncle Daniel's affairs, and was now too important a person to be teased.

Sarah put the plates into the corner-cupboard, arranging them in their accustomed places along the back. She had seen Aunt Eliza's and Aunt Mena's eyes glitter as they washed them.

"It ain't one of them even a little bit cracked," said Aunt 'Liza. "They should have gone all along to pop and not to Ellie Wenner."

"And the homespun shall come to me," said Aunt Mena.

Sarah had been ready with a sharp reply, but had checked it on her lips. "Pop" and Aunt Mena, indeed! She thought of their well-stocked houses. Her mother had had few enough of the family treasures.

She stopped for a moment to wipe her eyes before she went back to the kitchen, standing by the window and looking out over the dark fields. There was no lingering sunset glow to brighten the sky, but Sarah's eyes seemed to pierce the gloom, as though she would follow the sun to that distant country where her brother had vanished.

Two hundred years before, their ancestors had come from the Fatherland, and ever since, adventurous souls had insisted upon leaving this safe haven to penetrate still farther into the enchanted West. Whole families had gone; in Ohio were towns and counties whose people bore the familiar Pennsylvania German names, Yeager, Miller, Wagner, Swartz, Schwenk, Gaumer. Dozens of young men had gone to California in '49. Some had returned, some were never heard of again. Fifty years later, the rumor of gold drew young men away once more, this time into the bitter cold of the far Northwest.

William's indulgent father had let him go almost without a word of objection. He knew what wanderlust was. And for some reason William had seemed suddenly to become unhappy. The farm was small, too small to support them all; there were four younger children, and William, to his father's and mother's secret delight, had declined his Uncle Daniel's offer of adoption. They had let him take his choice between the straitened, simple life at home and the prospect of ease and wealth at Uncle Daniel's.

Uncle Daniel had never forgiven them or him. William's success at the Normal School, where, with great sacrifice, he was sent, irritated him; William's election as a township school director made him furious.

It is safe to say that Daniel Swartz and Jacob Kalb were the only persons in Upper Shamrock township who did not like William. Even Miss Miflin, the pretty school-teacher, went riding with him in his buggy, and all the farmers and the farmers' wives were fond of him.

"His learning doesn't spoil him," said Mrs. Ebert, who lived on the next farm. "He is just so nice and common as when he went away."

And then he had gone away again, not to the Normal School, but to Alaska. Sarah remembered dimly how he and his father had pored over the old atlas after the twins had been put, protesting, to bed, and the mother had sat with Albert in her arms, and, when the men were not watching her, with a sad, frightened look in her eyes. Sarah could understand both her brother's eagerness and her mother's sadness. Little did any of them foresee what the next few years were to bring. The little mother went first, with messages for William on her last breath, and now the dear, cheerful father. Surely, if William could have guessed, he would never have gone so far away.

But for two years they had had no word. At first there had been frequent letters. When he reached Seattle, it had been too late for him to go north, and he waited for spring. Then it was difficult to get passage, and there was another delay. After that the letters grew fewer and fewer, and finally ceased.

Meanwhile, a strange shadow had crept over William's name and William's memory. Pretty Miss Miflin asked no more about him, Uncle Daniel came and spoke sharply to Sarah's father and mother and then they talked about him in whispers when they thought Sarah did not hear. Once she caught an unguarded sentence: -- 

"I have written again. If he does not answer, he is dishonest or -- "

"No!" her mother had answered sharply. "No! William will come home, and then he will tell us!"

But William had neither come nor written. So far as they knew he had not heard of his mother's death, and there was no telling whether the announcement of his father's death would reach him. Perhaps he, too, might be -- 

But that thought Sarah would not admit for the fragment of a second to her burdened mind. She wiped away her tears once more, and then she almost succeeded in smiling. The black clouds in the west were parting. Here and there a star peeped through. She knew a few of them by name. There was Venus, -- Sarah, whose English was none of the best, would have called it "Wenus," -- her father had loved it. Often he had watched it from this window. Perhaps William saw it, too, in that mysterious night in which he lived. Ah, what tales there would be to tell when William came home!

Her father's death had meant the giving up of all Sarah's dreams and hopes. Three years before, they had driven one day to a neighboring town. Drives were not frequent in that busy household. Sarah remembered yet how fine Dan and Bill had looked in their newly blackened harness, and how proud she had felt, sitting with her father on the front seat.

They had seen many wonderful things: a paint-mill, a low, long building, covered, inside and out, with thick layers of red powder; and the ore mines, great holes in the yellow soil, where the ore needed only to be dug out from the surface; and they had stopped to watch a cast at a blast-furnace. But most wonderful of all was the "Normal." Sarah had seen the slender tower of the main building against the sky.

"What is then that?" she had asked.

"That is the Normal, where William went to school."

"Ach, yes, of course!" cried Sarah.

All the delightful things in the world were connected with William. Her father looked down at the sparkling eyes in the eager little face. He had had little education himself, but he knew its value.

"Would you like, then, to come here to school?"

Sarah's face grew a deep crimson. She looked at the trees, the wide lawns, the young people at play in the tennis-courts.

"I? To school? Here?"

"Of course. Wouldn't you like to be such a teacher like Miss Miflin?"

Sarah's face grew almost white. It was as though he had said, "Would you like to be President of the United States?"

"I! Like Miss Miflin! Ach, pop, do you surely mean it? But I am too dumb."

Her father laughed.

"No, you are not dumb. If you are good, and if you study, you dare come here."

Ah, but how could one study with a sick mother, and then a sick father and a baby to look after, and twins like Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen to bring up, and -- 

Sarah went slowly back to the kitchen. It was like going into church, all was so still and solemn. Albert and the twins slept, Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena had taken their places on the opposite side of the table from Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb.

"Come, come," cried Uncle Daniel impatiently. He did not like black-eyed little Sarah. She looked too much like her father, whom his sister had married against his will. "We must get this fixed up. Sit down, once."

Sarah sat down on the nearest seat, which was the lower end of the settle on which Albert lay. She wiped her hot face on her gingham apron, then laid her hand on Albert's stubby little shoes, as though she needed something to hold to.

"Don't," commanded Uncle Daniel. "You wake him up if you don't look a little out."

Sarah's eyes flashed. As though she would wake him, her own baby, whom she had tended for three years! She wanted to tell them to go, to leave her alone with her children. But again she was wisely silent. She did not know yet what it was that her uncle meant to "fix up."

Swartz pulled his chair a little closer to the table. He looked uncomfortable in his black suit and his stiff collar. Occasionally he slipped his finger behind it and pulled it away from his throat, as though it were too tight. It seemed as if his remarks were for the benefit of Sarah alone, even though he did not look at her, for Aunt Mena and Aunt 'Liza and the hired man helped him out with an occasional word as if they knew beforehand what he meant to say.

He, too, had his dreams. One was to see a son in his house; another was to see the Wenner farm once more united to his own as it had been in his father's lifetime. Then he would have the old border on the creek. There was also talk of the strange, new "electricity cars" running along the creek. That would double the value of the farm.

But he said nothing of this in his speech to Sarah.

"A couple of years back," he began, "I made an offer to Wenner. I said to him, 'I will take William and bring him up right, and then he can have the farm when I am no longer here.' That is what I said to your pop. But he wouldn't have it. He had to send William instead to school."

"Then what did he get for his schooling?" asked Jacob Kalb.

"I never had no schooling," said Uncle Daniel. "And you see where I am. Nobody needs schooling but preachers and teachers."

"I don't believe in schooling," said Aunt Eliza.

"Nor I," said Aunt Mena.

Sarah's eyes continued to flash, but she said nothing. She knew that they were expressing their scorn for her father's judgment, but she was too tired to answer. If they would only go home! She saw her uncle look at little Albert. He need not think she would give him up. Sarah almost laughed at the idea. Then she heard that her uncle had begun to speak again.

"Well, now I have another offer to make. Mena will take Ellie and Weezy. I will take Albert. He shall be Albert Swartz from now on. And Sarah can come also to us to help to work."

"You will have to be a good little girl and work right," admonished Aunt 'Liza.

"And you will have a good home," put in Jacob Kalb. "You and the zwillings (twins)." There were times when Jacob's English vocabulary was not equal to the demands upon it.

Sarah's pale cheeks grew a little whiter. But Uncle Daniel had said it was an offer. An offer could be declined.

"But we are all going to stay here together like always," she said. "I and Albert and the twins."

She saw their anger in their faces.

"What!" said Aunt Eliza.

"Such dumb talk!" cried Uncle Daniel.

"Are you then out of your mind?" asked Aunt Mena.

Jacob Kalb alone said nothing. But Sarah saw him smile. He planned to live in the Wenner farmhouse.

"Will you plough?" demanded Uncle Daniel.

"Or plant the seeds?" asked Aunt 'Liza.

"Or harvest?" said Aunt Mena.

Sarah spoke quietly. "I have it all planned. Ebert will farm like always for the half."

"The half!" repeated Uncle Daniel. "Should we then give this good money to Ebert? The half! I will farm."

"Well, then," said Sarah. "But you must pay the half to us because we must live."

"Pay the half to you!" exclaimed Aunt Mena.

"It is our farm," replied Sarah. "It was my mom's and my pop's farm. It isn't yours."

"Well, it will be mine," said Uncle Daniel. "What would such children make with such a farm?"

"I am not a child," answered Sarah firmly. "For three years already I managed the farm while my pop was sick. And it is William's farm so much as ours. And when William comes home -- "

"William will never come home," said Uncle Daniel.

Sarah got up from the old settle.

"William will come home!" she cried. "It don't make nothing out if you do give us homes. If you take the farm, it will be stealing."

"Ei yi!" reproved Aunt Mena shortly. "That is no word for little girls!"

"A whipping would be good for her," offered Jacob Kalb.

"You haven't any right here, Jacob C-calf," cried Sarah.

Jacob's little eyes narrowed. "It is no way for little girls to talk when their brothers steal school-board money, and go off and their pops have to pay it," he said.

For a moment there was silence, then a reproving murmur from Aunt Mena.

"It isn't true!" cried Sarah. "It isn't true!" Suddenly she remembered her father's sadness, her mother's tears.

She burst into wild crying. "Ach, I wish you would go away and leave me with my children! I will get good along, if you will only let me be. Albert should be this long time in his bed. I wish you would go home."

She bent to lift the sleeping child. But her uncle pushed her aside.

"Albert is coming home with me," he said, as he lifted him up. "Jacob, put Weezy and Ellie in the carriage with Aunt Mena."

Sarah tried to keep her hold of the little boy. But she struggled in vain. Jacob Kalb picked up one of the twins.

"Ellen Louisa!" called Sarah.

Ellen Louisa struggled into wakefulness.

"Let me down, Jacob Calf; let me down!" She began to cry. "Ja-cob Calf, you m-make m-me l-laugh; let me down!"

But Ellen Louisa was borne shrieking from the room.

"Louisa Ellen!" called Sarah.

But Louisa Ellen found herself closely held by Aunt 'Liza and Aunt Mena, and she, too, was led forth.

"You are thieves!" cried Sarah wildly.

"Be still," commanded Uncle Daniel. "Will you wake him up?"

Then he, too, went toward the door. Aunt 'Liza put in her round face. They did not mean to be cruel. But little Sarah must be taught to know her place.

"Come, Sarah."

"I am going to stay here," said Sarah. She stood in the middle of the room, a wild, pathetic little figure.

"Come on," commanded Uncle Daniel.

"I am going to stay here," said Sarah.

At that moment Jacob Kalb returned. The poor twins had, despite their rage, fallen immediately asleep in Aunt Mena's carriage.

"Let her stay," he advised. "She will get pretty soon tired of it when she is afraid in the middle of the night."

"Ach, no!" cried Aunt Eliza. "She can't stay here."

But Uncle Daniel decided to take Jacob's advice.

"Come on, 'Lizie," he said.

For a moment after they had gone, Sarah stared about her. Afraid! Here in her own house with all the dear, familiar things of every day! There was nothing to be afraid of. She stood with blinking eyes, trying to remember what they had said about William; but her mind was a blank. She knew only one thing, -- if she did not go upstairs, she should fall asleep where she stood.

She barred the doors and was about to put out the light, when she saw, above the mantel-shelf, the one firearm which the Wenners possessed, -- an old shot-gun, which William had broken years ago, shooting crows. Still half asleep, she lifted it down, and put out the light. Then, dragging it by the muzzle in a position which would have been extremely dangerous had the poor old thing been loaded or capable of shooting, she took her candle and went upstairs.


Chapter II

The Rebels Take To Arms


When Sarah woke at six o'clock the next morning, the faint gray of the winter sunrise was in the sky. She opened her eyes drowsily, trying to account for the heavy depression which seemed to weigh her down. Then, when her outstretched arms found no sturdy little figure beside her, and a glance across the room showed the smooth, unopened trundle-bed, she remembered suddenly all that had happened on that sad yesterday. Her father was gone, and Albert and the twins, and there was no telling how long she would be allowed to stay in the farmhouse. She realized how impossible it would be for a little girl -- in the gray dawn Sarah felt very small and young -- to hold out long against so determined a man as Daniel Swartz. She turned her face deeper into the pillow.

Then, suddenly, a soft sound recalled her to herself. It was the whinnying of Dan and Bill, calling for their breakfast, already long overdue. And the cows must be fed and milked, and the chickens must have their warm mash. Sarah was upon her feet in an instant. She was not quite alone so long as these helpless creatures depended upon her.

An hour later, she drove out of the yard on her way to the creamery. With activity, ambition had returned; she began even to hope that her uncle might be persuaded to let her stay. The sun had risen clear and bright, and all the cheerfulness of Sarah's disposition responded to it.

She wondered, as she drove along the frozen roads, whether it would not be possible to add a third cow to her dairy. And she could keep more chickens. Her father had taught her how to look after them, -- their hens always laid better than Aunt Eliza's. And if the chickens did well, and if Ebert would put out the crops for her, -- poor Sarah meant to go ahead just as though her uncle had not said that he would farm, -- and if the children were allowed to come back, and then if William came home -- She knew in the bottom of her heart that they were air castles, but she found them pleasant abiding-places.

The men, waiting in line at the creamery, called to her kindly, all but Jacob Kalb, whose wagon was third from the delivery door.

Henry Ebert was at that moment chirruping to his horse to move into place before the platform.

"Sarah!" he called. "Wait once. I move a little piece back, and you can come in first."

Jacob Kalb approved of no such chivalrous impulses.

"Those that come first should have first place," he growled. "I can't wait all day."

But the men only laughed. None of them liked Jacob Kalb.

Sarah swung Dan into line before the door. A week before, she would have called out, -- 

"Jacob Calf, He likes to blaff,"

"blaff" being the Pennsylvania German word for bark, but now she sternly checked her poetic fancies. Sarah had made up her mind to be very wise and politic. But she could not repress a smile of satisfaction over her brilliant combination of Pennsylvania German and English.

Jacob saw the smile and watched her, scowling. It irritated him to see her there, businesslike and cheerful, and it did not give him any pleasure to hear a neighbor call to her that he would stop for her milk-can the next morning. Sarah shouted back her thanks.

Ebert consented willingly to put out the crops. He had a great admiration for smart little Sarah.

"Next week I begin to plough," he promised.

Then Sarah slapped the reins on Dan's back and was off. There was plenty to do at home: the house to put in order, several hens to set, and some baking to be done. As she drew near the farm, she became apprehensive. Suppose her Uncle Daniel should have taken possession while she was away! She had locked the door, but the fastenings of the windows were not very secure. And to whom, in such a case, should she go? Not to any of the farmers round about: they were poor and had many children.

She could not take Uncle Daniel's charity, -- she knew that, no matter how hard she worked, he would still consider it charity, -- and she could not live with Aunt Mena, who had the twins. She thought vaguely of going with her trouble to Miss Miflin. But Miss Miflin had no home.

There was no sign of any alien presence as she drove up the lane. The cat sat comfortably on the doorstep, a sure sign that there were no strangers about. Sarah stopped thankfully to pat him before she fitted the key into the lock.

"You poor Tommy, where would you go if Sarah went away?"

Still talking to the cat, she pushed open the door. Then she stood still, as though she were turned to stone.

Within, all was confusion. She did not see that it was the sort of confusion which could be created in a few minutes and as quickly straightened out. Immediately in front of the door the old settle had been turned over on its stately back, and the chairs were piled high on the table in a sort of barricade.

Sarah's first thought was of thieves. Then she realized that she was looking straight into the barrel of a shot-gun.

It made no difference that it was the same broken gun which she had carried upstairs with her the night before, and that she knew it would not shoot. She was terrified at first beyond the power of speech. She leaned, weak and faint, against the door-post, and presently demanded who was there.

Two voices answered her.

"Hands up!"

Then Sarah rushed forward.

"Ellen Louisa!" she cried. "Louisa Ellen!"

The twins had been carried to Aunt Mena's and put to bed without waking. Then Aunt Mena had sat down before the kitchen fire to explain to her husband why she had brought them home.

"Daniel, he says I shall take them. He takes the farm, and he will pay me each week a dollar for Ellie and Weezy. He has to, or I will not keep them. And I get my share of pop's and mom's things what Ellie had, too. They won't do these children no good. But I will not manage Ellie and Weezy like him. He is too cross. I will first tame them. But he is not cross to Albert. Now these twins shall do for a few days what they want. They dare go to school this year and next yet, then they must stop."

In the morning Aunt Mena began her process of taming, which would undoubtedly have proved successful with persons more amenable than the twins. In the first place, she let them sleep as long as they liked. When Ellen Louisa woke, she saw by the century-old clock, ticking on the high chest of drawers, that it was seven o'clock. She nudged Louisa Ellen, who scrambled out of bed.

"We must hurry or we will be late to -- " At that moment Louisa Ellen, instead of rolling out of a low trundle-bed, fell with a loud thump, from the high four-poster. She realized that they were not at home. Then upon them both dawned the recollection of the night before, and the weary days before that.

"P-pop, he wouldn't like it that we were here," said Louisa Ellen. "He said we should stay always by Sarah."

Ellen Louisa did not answer, but began to put on her shoes and stockings with lightning speed. The twins never wasted many words.

As soon as Aunt Mena heard them stirring about, she came to the foot of the steps.

"Wee-zy," she called. "El-lie! Breakfast."

"Our names -- " began Ellen Louisa shrilly; then she was stopped by Louisa Ellen's hand on her mouth.

"Don't make her mad over us," advised Louisa Ellen. "She might pen us up."

"We will go to school," said Ellen Louisa. "Then we will go home to dinner. Pop wouldn't like it if we weren't in school."

But Aunt Mena did not approve.

"In a couple of days you shall go again in the school. But you are not going any more in the Spring Grove School. It is not any more your district."

"N-not to Miss Miflin!" gasped Ellen Louisa.

"No, you are no more in Miss Miflin's district."

"B-but -- " Ellen Louisa felt her braid of black hair sharply tweaked. Louisa Ellen was a shade thinner than Ellen Louisa and a trifle quicker witted.

"You didn't have to tell Aunt Mena right out that we were going home," she said, when they had finished their breakfast. "Now come on."

The coast was, at that moment, perfectly clear. Aunt Mena was in the cellar getting the cream ready to churn, and Aunt Mena's husband was in a distant field, ploughing. The twins seized caps and shawls and fled. Ellen Louisa made for the high road.

"What have you for!" cried Louisa Ellen. "That way she will look for us. We go this way to the Spring Grove road. Come on."

Ten minutes later, when Aunt Mena came to the door, they were not in sight. Aunt Mena was not much troubled. She did not know that Sarah had been allowed to stay in the farmhouse.

"Pooh! they will go to Daniel, and he will fetch them home, or I will fetch them home. It is all one."

And Aunt Mena went back to her work.

The twins had a ride in a farmer's cart, which brought them to the foot of the lane. Realizing that they were too late for school, they decided to go home until the afternoon session. Then Sarah would write a note of explanation to Miss Miflin. To the twins Sarah's notes were as all-powerful as Aladdin's lamp. To Miss Miflin they were sources of both mirth and grief. She laughed because they were so irresistibly funny, and then she almost cried because they reminded her of plans and hopes once dear to her heart, which had been ended forever by misunderstanding and resentment.

"Dear Teacher," Sarah wrote. "Please excuse the zwillings" (there were times in the stress of hasty composition when English words eluded Sarah's grasp as they eluded Jacob Kalb's) "for being late. They cannot come now so early like always, while they must help a little in the morning.

Their father, SARAH WENNER."

Sarah considered that the signature was a happy combination of the respect due to fathers and the sign of her stewardship of his affairs.

Sometimes Miss Miflin started to go to see little Sarah, who had been the best and brightest pupil she had ever had, but she never got quite to the house. She blamed herself for William's going away, and she thought that they too might blame her. So she turned back.

The twins had not been at all alarmed by the closed house. Sarah always drove to the creamery. They did not realize that Albert had been taken away, and supposed that he had gone with her, since they were not there to look after him. Prying open the cellar door, which was fastened by a loose bar that could be moved from the outside, they were soon in the house. They were wild with delight over their escape.

"Let us get ready for Aunt Mena if she comes," proposed Louisa Ellen. "Let us built such a fort."

It was "such a fort" which had frightened Sarah. Now the twins flung themselves upon her. They had run off, they had come home, they were not going to school till afternoon, they -- But where was Albert?

"He is by Uncle Daniel," answered Sarah slowly.

"Then we will fetch him." The twins made a dash for the door. But Sarah held them back.

"No," she said. "Uncle Daniel will keep Albert by him. And perhaps Aunt Mena will fetch you again, and perhaps Uncle Daniel will take the farm away from us, and perhaps we cannot be any more together."

The twins were amazed and bewildered. Sarah's solemnity worried them more than the catalogue of evils.

"What shall we do?" they asked.

"You can learn your lessons and say them to me. And you can sew your patchwork and be quiet and smart."

All the rest of the morning, and all the afternoon, there was quiet such as the farmhouse had never known when a twin was within it and awake. Dinner was eaten almost in silence, and then Sarah, locking the door behind her, and with many long glances over the fields and road, went out to feed the stock.

She fancied that she saw a little face pressed to the kitchen window of the Swartz farmhouse, far away across the brown fields, but she could not be sure. Albert was so little, he had learned to be fond of Uncle Daniel, who was constantly giving him presents of candy and peanuts; it would be easy enough, Sarah thought, for them to keep him there.

It was almost supper time, and the early dusk was falling, when the twins were ready to recite their lessons. It is safe to say that never, even in Pennsylvania Germandom, was there a class like this which Sarah held. Fortunately the twins were good arithmeticians, for Sarah could not have corrected their mistakes; she had been too long away from school for that. The twins never guessed that, when she insisted upon a careful explanation of each simple process, she was learning from them.

They had not heard as yet Miss Miflin's careful pronunciation of the words of the spelling lesson; so when Sarah said "walley" or "saw," they answered at once "v-a-l-l-e-y" or "t-h-a-w," never dreaming that Sarah's speech embodied all the mistakes which Miss Miflin tried to correct.

When it came to the geography lesson, Sarah shone. The twins had not had the advantage of hearing their father and William speculate about strange and distant lands; they had a certain amount of book-knowledge, but no imagination to enliven it.

"How wide is the Amazon River at its mouth?" asked Sarah.

"Two hundred miles," answered the twins glibly.

"How wide is that?"

Louisa Ellen responded. To her a river was a line on a map. She would make this river wide enough even to suit Sarah.

"About as wide as the coal-bucket," answered Louisa Ellen.

At that moment, before Sarah had time to explain to Louisa Ellen the phenomenal dullness of her mind, the latch of the door was lifted softly and allowed to drop.

"It is Aunt Mena," said the twins together.

Sarah motioned them to the settle.

"Sit there till I tell you to get up," she commanded. "I will go up to the window and look down."

The twins held each other's hands in fright. Was Jacob Kalb coming again to carry them out?

"Aunt Mena couldn't fetch us alone," said Ellen Louisa.

Then they started up in fright, realizing that Sarah was falling downstairs. She righted herself immediately, at the bottom, and rushed past them to fling wide the door.

A tiny little figure stood without.

"I sought I would come once home," said Albert. "So I runned off."

Speech suddenly became impossible, as Albert found himself almost smothered under a multitude of caresses. When they let him go, he drew a sticky package from his blouse.

"I brought some candy along for you," he said; whereupon he was almost smothered again.

Never had the old farmhouse known more happiness than filled it that night. Never was waffle-batter so light or appetites so good. Then, what games! Sarah was a teacher, book in hand, -- that was her favorite. Then they were children lost in the woods, and Sarah was a bear, -- that was the twins'.

No one but Sarah realized how strange it was that they should be playing there so contentedly. It seemed to her that a vast space of time divided this day from yesterday. It seemed almost as though her father had come back, or as though William might come in upon them. Little Sarah almost listened for his step.

Then, like a warning to dream no more, there came first an imperative lifting of the latch, then a loud knock on the door.

"What do you want?" asked Sarah.

"Albert is to come right aways home." That was Jacob Kalb.

"The twins are to come right out." That was Aunt Mena. For the first time in thirty years Aunt Mena's butter had failed to "get," and she was angry and impatient. She had forgotten her gentle intention to "tame" the twins. "Come right aways out, or you will get a good whipping."

The twins looked critically at the strong wall between them and the enemy. It seemed a time when the dictates of wisdom might yield to those of personal satisfaction.

"We won't," said Louisa Ellen.

"Jacob Calf!" called Ellen Louisa.

"Go upstairs and take Albert," commanded Sarah. Then she turned to the door. "You can't have my children."

"I give you a last chance," said Aunt Mena. "I don't care for the dollar a week. Shall the twins have a good home, or shall they not have a good home?"

"You cannot have my children," said Sarah again, her heart pounding like a trip-hammer.

"Well, then," called Aunt Mena furiously, as she went away.

Jacob Kalb lingered. If Mena Illick refused to take the twins, Swartz might be compelled to leave them all there. Then Jacob could not have the house.

"You ought to be srashed!" he shouted to Sarah. "You are a bad girl. You put Albert out here."

Then Jacob began to pound on the door.

It was five minutes later when Sarah came upstairs. Her face was white and her hands shook. Yet she was laughing.

"Why don't you tell him if he don't go away you will shoot him with the gun?" demanded Louisa Ellen.

Sarah laughed hysterically.

"That was just what I did tell him," she said.


Chapter III

Uncle Daniel Steals A March


Stammering, frightened, shouting something to Aunt Mena which she did not understand, Jacob Kalb fled from the Wenner farmhouse across the fields toward the Swartzes'. He burst into the kitchen, where Aunt 'Liza was putting the supper on the table, like a wild man.

Aunt 'Liza was still explaining to her angry husband how Albert got away.

"He was here, and then he wasn't here," she said almost tearfully. "And nobody was here to go after him, and I didn't know what to do, and -- and I believe perhaps she came after him."

Aunt 'Liza was willing to lay the blame of Albert's escape almost anywhere but where it belonged, on herself. Then she was frightened by the look of rage in Uncle Daniel's face.

"Did you see her here after Albert?"

"No, no, I didn't see her here after him. But I thought -- "

"Thinking is now no good," answered Uncle Daniel. Then he got upon his feet. "There, they're coming. I can hear them."

Before he reached the door Jacob Kalb burst in.

"Sh -- she will -- she will sh-shoot me!" he cried wildly. "She was going for to fetch the shot-gun to shoot me!"

Aunt 'Liza threw herself against the door, shutting it almost in Aunt Mena's face.

"Where are you shot, Jacob?" she demanded.

"I am not yet shot," answered Jacob. "But I will be shot. I -- " He felt suddenly his master's grip on his arm. "Ow! What is the matter?"

"Where is Albert?" asked Uncle Daniel. "She has no gun to shoot with. What are you talking about? Where is Albert, I say?"

"She wouldn't give him to me," gasped Jacob. "They yelled at me, the zwillings yelled at me. They wouldn't give him to me. She is after me with a gun. She -- " There was suddenly a loud pounding at the door. "I tell you she is after me. She -- "

Uncle Daniel strode to the door, and flung it wide. He, at least, was not afraid of being shot.

"What do you mean?" he shouted. Then he saw that it was Aunt Mena who stood without.

"I mean that if Ellie and Weezy don't come along home with me to-night, they are not to come at all," said Aunt Mena hotly. "I cannot be running the whole time over the country for them."

"Ellie and Weezy," repeated her brother. "Are they not by you?"

"No, they ran early this morning off already."

"And Albert ran off," said Aunt 'Liza. "I could not help it. I went a little while on the garret, and when I came back, he was gone. I cannot help it. I -- Where are you then going, Daniel?"

Uncle Daniel cast a scornful glance at the two women who could not keep three children, one a mere baby, from running away, and at the fright-stricken Jacob; then, regardless of the hot supper, about which he was usually so particular, he stalked out.

"Put Albert's high chair to the table," he had ordered briefly.

In fifteen minutes he was back. Aunt 'Liza had not learned much tact in all her twenty years of wedded life, or she would not have begun to question him before he was inside the door.

"Where is then Albert?" she asked.

Swartz did not deign to answer. With a heavy frown, he sat down at the table and began to eat.

"Didn't she give him to you?" demanded Aunt Mena, aghast.

"Be still," said Uncle Daniel shortly.

"Did she get after you with the gun?" asked Jacob Kalb. He had just finished giving the women an account of his adventure. He said that he saw the gun-barrel when he looked in the keyhole.

"Then she didn't come out after you?" said Aunt Mena.

"No, but she was coming," insisted Jacob. "I am going to have the law on her, that is what I am going to do. I will have her put in jail. I will have her -- "

"Be quiet," said Uncle Daniel to him, also.

Aunt Mena rose to go.

"I don't come again after Ellie and Weezy, remember," she said. "If you fetch them over, perhaps I will take them back. Just tame Sarah a little -- " She forgot that her own efforts at taming had not been very successful. "And then put somebody in the house, so she cannot get back. That will settle it."

"Be quiet," said Uncle Daniel again.

"I will have the law on her," muttered Jacob Kalb. Every few minutes he rubbed his leg, as though he were feeling for a gunshot wound.

It was ten minutes before Uncle Daniel laid down his knife and fork and pushed back his plate. Either reflection or the good supper had soothed him. The angry flush was dying out of his face.

"Well, what are you going to do?" asked Aunt 'Liza.

"I have it fixed," he answered complacently.

"Are you going to put her out of the house?" asked Aunt 'Liza.

"Are you going to have the law on her?" asked Jacob Kalb.

"Yes," answered Uncle Daniel. "I am going to put her out of the house, and I am going to have the law on her. I am going to do both of those things. I am going to be the guardian of her and of Ellie and Weezy and Albert."

"Guardian?" repeated Aunt Eliza.

"Yes, guardian. Those children must have a guardian, and I am the one to be it. But I must have papers. You cannot be a guardian unless you have the papers from the court. I will go to-morrow to town and get papers. Everything shall be fixed right."

Aunt Eliza was alarmed.

"But it will cost money!" she cried.

"Nothing of the kind," answered Uncle Daniel. "It is a kindness I do these children. Shall I pay for it, yet?"

"And then Sarah will have to come here?"

"Sarah will have to do what I say she shall do," answered Uncle Daniel. "And Albert and Ellie and Weezy. Everybody will have to do what I say they shall do."

Jacob Kalb gazed at him with admiration and delight. Daniel Swartz always found some way of accomplishing what he wished. It was true that he had not succeeded in adopting William Wenner. But he had succeeded in punishing William, only Jacob knew how well.

If it had not been for that knowledge, Jacob Kalb would not have been looking forward with such delight to living in the Wenner house, instead of walking back and forth each night and morning to the house of his wife's father, three miles away, where he lived now.

He rose to go home, not at all certain that Sarah was not waiting for him outside the door with her shot-gun.

"In the morning you are to go early into town with me," said Uncle Daniel. "At six o'clock we will start."

"You ought to bring a little hat for Albert," said Aunt 'Liza when the door was closed.

"No, sir," answered her husband. "I bring him perhaps a little candy or peanuts, but no more. Not till he is here to stay. I brought William sometimes presents, suits, I brought him, and a little cap, and shoes, and once such a little velocipede, and what did I get? No, sir. When Albert is here to stay, then I get him some things."

When supper was over, he sat down before the fire. He seemed to be brooding over William's ingratitude.

"Shoes, I bought him, and candy. And what did I get for it?"

Accompanied by Jacob Kalb, he reached the county seat long before the earliest lawyer was astir. It did not occur to him that there was a difference in lawyers or lawyers' prices. He had heard of Alexander Weaver, so he went to him.

"This is a fine way," he said to Jacob Kalb, when they had waited for half an hour. "I'd like to know how my work would get done if I fooled round this way in the early morning; that is what I would like to know. If he don't soon come, I go."

Then the door of Mr. Weaver's private office opened, and Mr. Weaver himself invited them in. He was a dear-eyed, middle-aged man, so busy that he often offended his clients by his curtness. He gave Daniel and Jacob chairs where he could watch their faces. He imagined from their appearance that they had come about some country quarrel. And country fees were hard to collect.

Uncle Daniel began slowly to state his cause.

"My brother-in-law, he is dead," he announced.

"Yes?" The lawyer crossed his knees nervously.

"And my sister, she is dead."

"Yes?"

"And it is nobody to look after their things."

"Any children?"

"Yes."

"Minors?" asked the lawyer.

"No, children."

"Well, I mean any under age, under twenty-one?"

"Yes, it is a couple. Sarah -- " Uncle Daniel counted them off on his fingers. The lawyer's abrupt speech startled him, and he was afraid he might forget.

"How old?"

"She is fifteen, but she is little. She could not run a farm."

"But she thinks she can do everything," put in Jacob Kalb. "She got after me with a gun."

The lawyer smiled. He did not take kindly to Jacob Kalb, and it was amusing to think of a fifteen-year-old girl "getting after" him with a gun.

"Any others?"

"Yes, it is a couple of twins, Weezy and Ellie."

"How old?"

"About ten. But they are -- "

"Any others?"

"Albert. He is four. He -- "

"And you want to be appointed guardian of these minor children of your sister?"

"Yes, sir." Uncle Daniel blinked. He could not understand the phenomenal quickness of this man's mind. For the next few minutes he continued to blink rapidly.

"Your name? Your occupation? The value of the property of these minors?" Question followed question so fast that Uncle Daniel could hardly think.

"You will have to sign a bond for the amount of the property, you know. Your application will be sent to the Orphans' Court. Come back in a month. The retaining fee will be twenty-five dollars."

Then Uncle Daniel got his breath.

"Twenty-five dollars! Twenty-five dollars for what?"

"For making application to the Orphans' Court. Wasn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"Y-yes, b-but twenty-five dollars for writing out a couple of papers! Twenty -- "

The lawyer swung round to his desk. Daniel realized suddenly that the lawyer did not care whether he got the case or not. He became all the more anxious to have this remarkable man continue it. Sarah might in some way make trouble.

"All right," he stammered. "We will come in a month back again. We -- "

The lawyer flung him a crumb of comfort.

"You will be reimbursed, of course, from the estate," he said; and Uncle Daniel's face brightened.

He did not realize that in thus putting himself into the hands of the law, he would place over his own actions a guardian to whom he should some day have to give an account of his stewardship. In Uncle Daniel's mind, he was to be, after the month was up, supreme arbiter of the fates of the Wenners, -- Sarah and Albert and the twins alike, and of their property. He meant to be honest. Even though he did take the farm, he would support them, Sarah and Albert at his own home, and the twins at Aunt Mena's. Only, if Sarah did not behave, she would have to go out to work.

There was triumph in every motion of Uncle Daniel's broad, heavy shoulders, as he went down the steps. He had began to think that education was a good thing for lawyers, also. It must be pleasant to get twenty-five dollars for writing a few words.

At a store at the corner, he bought five cents' worth of peanuts and a small bag of candy. Then they started home, drawing rein first at the Ebert farm. Ebert appeared in response to a loud hulloa. He wondered why Swartz was stopping at his gate.

"When will you begin to plough for the little one?" Uncle Daniel asked pleasantly.

"To-morrow morning."

"Well, you needn't plough at all," said Uncle Daniel. "I am to be guardian, and I will plough."

When they reached the lane which led to the Wenner house, they saw Albert and the twins playing in the yard. Swartz pulled in the horse with a jerk, then he jumped down with the little bags in his hand.

"Tell 'Lizie that Albert will be home for supper," he said.

This time he did not stride up to the door and demand Albert. Instead he stole down the lane to the back of the house. He did not mean to take any actively offensive measures till the end of the month.

Sarah was not able to tell afterwards how Albert got away. She had kept the children close beside her all the morning, and it was not until afternoon that she yielded to their pleadings to be allowed to go out of doors to play. Then she sat down at the window with some sewing in her hands, in order that she might watch them.

She had not moved until the sudden hissing of steam warned her that the water in the kettle was boiling over. It had not taken her a minute to move it to the back part of the stove, but in that instant Albert was gone. She could see them crossing the fields, Albert in his uncle's arms. The twins ran frantically behind them, and Sarah hurried to the door.

"He coaxed him away with candy," wailed Louisa Ellen when they ran back. "But Albert said he was coming home for supper."

That night there were no games. The doors were barred early, the supper eaten silently. Then Sarah got pen and paper and sat down beside the lamp. She would make a last appeal to William. Perhaps, though all the other letters had failed, this might reach him, and reaching him, might touch his heart.

It would have taken Sarah all night and all the next day to say all that was in her mind. But the task of composition was difficult and the letter was short. It read: -- 

Dear Brother, -- My Uncle Daniel is after us. He fetched Albert again. Jacob Kalb wants to live here. The twins will not stay by Aunt Mena. I am doing the best I can. I wish you would come home. Uncle Daniel will not have it that the twins and Albert live in their right home. We are well and hope you are the same.

Resp. yours, SARAH WENNER.

P.S. I chased Jacob Kalb off with the gun, but I fear me that perhaps he will come again.

It was not a neat production, Sarah realized that. She tried to wipe off a teardrop which fell upon it, and made a tremendous blot. And William had always been so particular about the way she wrote. It did not occur to her that, to the heart of an affectionate brother, the pathetic blot would be more eloquent than pages of pleading.

She addressed the letter to Seattle, then, waking the twins, who had gone to sleep on the settle, she sent them to bed.

Ah, that old settle, how many times it had held them! What would Uncle Daniel have done with that? He and Aunt Mena had settles of their own. Would he have left it there for Jacob Calf? And the dear, battered furniture, the high chair which had held them all, from William down to Albert, -- would he have sold them? It would be like killing a live creature to break up that home. Sarah gave up her own dreams cheerfully. She thought no more of the "Normal." If they could only stay together, she would ask no more of fate.


Chapter IV

There Is Company To Supper


Miss Miflin wondered day after day why the Wenner twins did not come to school. She knew that their father had died, -- that would account for three or four days, but why had they not come back after the funeral?

It was true that their absence made Miss Miflin's life much easier. They were not only very active themselves, but they were able to incite the best-behaved of schools to mischief. When Miss Miflin heard confusion behind her as she put a problem on the board, she needed only to call out, "Ellen Louisa!" and then "Louisa Ellen!" and the noise ceased.

When they were approached in private, the twins were as shy as rabbits. They stood twisting their aprons and looking at each other as though Miss Miflin were an ogress. There seemed to be in them the same strange quality that Miss Miflin had discovered in William and Sarah, -- a certain standing on guard. It had prevented Miss Miflin from writing to William to try to straighten out the miserable tangle which they had made of their friendship; it made her think of Sarah as a rather reserved young woman, instead of a lonely little girl. It made her hesitate even to offer her sympathy now that Sarah's father was dead. She was not a Pennsylvania German, and it seemed to her that they did not thoroughly trust her.

She was always prepared for the unexpected in the twins' behavior; but when, one morning late in March, they appeared at the school-door carrying an old shot-gun, the same which had done such deadly execution upon the frightened Jacob Kalb, she said aloud, "Well, what next!" Then she went down the aisle to speak to them.

"I am glad to see you back, Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen." She had long since discovered that any attempt to abbreviate the names of the twins was not received with favor.

"Yes, ma'am," the twins answered politely. They could not have told why they were so mischievous; it was a Topsy-like obsession which they could not control. They both blindly adored Miss Miflin.

"And why do you come to school armed as though you were going to war?"

The twins giggled. The idea of going to war pleased them.

"So nobody shall carry us off," answered Louisa Ellen.

"Is anybody likely to carry you off?" asked Miss Miflin, smiling. She had seen at once that the gun was useless as a weapon.

"Yes, ma'am," answered Ellen Louisa.

Miss Miflin smiled again. It was time to begin school, and she supposed it was all one of the twins' tricks.

"Put the gun in the corner and go to your seats," she said.

An hour later Miss Miflin heard a stir in the back of the room.

"Ellen -- " she began. Then she followed the children's gaze toward the window.

Sarah Wenner stood there, looking in, as though she only meant to assure herself of the twins' presence. But what a changed, wild-eyed Sarah! Miss Miflin dropped chalk and ruler and went to the door.

"Sarah!" she called.

Sarah came hurriedly from the other side of the schoolhouse.

"I didn't mean anything," she explained. "I wanted just to see if Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen were in school, that was all."

She did not say that the twins had added another frightened hour to those which had made her face so white. They had slipped away while she went to the barn.

"Didn't you want them to come to school?" asked Miss Miflin.

"Ach, yes!" cried Sarah. "I want them to go every day in the school."

Belief and the sight of Miss Miflin were already patting some color into her cheeks.

"Are you well, Sarah?" asked Miss Miflin.

"Ach, yes!" answered Sarah. "But now I must go home. You must excuse me while I disturbed the school for you. Here is lunch for Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen, then they need not come all the way home for dinner. Will you -- will you watch them, so they do not go off to play at recess? Just give it to them if they are not good. I will then walk a piece way along to meet them when they come home from school."

Sarah was gone before Miss Miflin could ask any more questions. She saw her look back as she tramped along the muddy road, then she vanished behind a hedge of alders. Miss Miflin was puzzled and disturbed.

It was almost an hour before Sarah reached the Eberts' door. She was inexpressibly tired, and the roads were deep with mud. She had not been sleeping well at night. Uncle Daniel had made no farther move, but she felt that the delay was only a truce. She had seen nothing of Albert, though it had been several weeks since his uncle had carried him away. They were guarding him well.

Ebert had not come to plough, and Sarah was worried. She had looked for him day after day, and now she feared that he was sick.

She could get no answer when she knocked at the door. The house was closed, yet in the field near by the earth had been turned up that morning. Why did they not answer? She could not know that Mrs. Ebert watched her from an upper window, with tears in her eyes.

"I wasn't going to tell her that you wouldn't plough for her," she said to her husband at noon.

"Well, I guess I am not going to plough and then let Swartz have the benefit," answered Ebert.

Troubled and anxious, Sarah went on toward home. As she turned to go up the lane she saw a man at work in the north field. Ah, Ebert had begun! Then her flying feet halted. The horses were Uncle Daniel's grays, the man was Jacob Kalb. Sarah cried out as though she had been struck.

Then she saw that the fence was down. It was not a worm-fence, which could be put up again in a little while, but a stout "post and rail." The posts had been taken out. The two fields formed together a great slope which ran from the Wenners' garden to the edge of the Swartzes' yard.

Sarah gathered her shawl a little closer about her and ran on.

"Get out, Jacob Kalb!" she called.

For a minute Jacob looked as though he meant to run. He had protested against coming to plough so near the house, for fear that Sarah might "do him something." Now he saw that Sarah did not carry a gun. He mocked her rudely.

"Get out, Sarah Wenner!"

"I tell you, you shall go away, Jacob Kalb," she shouted. "This is not your land."

Jacob laughed. "You will have to go pretty soon away," he said.

Sarah could eat no dinner, but sat at the window watching. Already the boundary between the two farms was fast disappearing. How would they be able ever to find it again? What would her mother and father have said? What would William say when he came home?

When he came home. It was growing to be if he came home in Sarah's mind. Anxiety was doing its work.

She remembered things which she had heard as a child and forgotten, -- her mother's sharp criticism of Daniel Swartz's meanness, her father's good-natured laughter. She did not know how easily that same dear, thoughtless father might have made it impossible for his brother-in-law to interfere with them. He might easily have provided another guardian for his children. He had meant to, -- that much must be said for him, -- but he was a procrastinator, and at the end there had been no time.

Sarah could not go now to meet the twins when they came from school; she did not dare to leave the house. Jacob Kalb might take possession while she was away.

The afternoon passed slowly. Toward evening, there was a late flurry of snow. And the twins did not come. Sarah ran part way down the lane, -- they were not yet in sight, -- then she went to the barn to milk, her ears straining to hear any unfriendly sound. It soothed and comforted her to be with the friendly beasts which she loved. Both "Mooley" and "Curly" had been born on the place, they were part of the living fibre of the homestead.

It was fortunate that the twins called to Sarah before they ran up to the door of the barn, for another shock was more than Sarah could have borne at that moment. The twins' voices trembled with some exciting news.

"She came along home with us," said Louisa Ellen.

"She carried the gun for us," said Ellen Louisa.

"She is waiting at the front door."

"Who is waiting at the front door?" asked Sarah. Then she added fearfully, "Aunt Mena?"

"No, teacher."

"Teacher!" repeated Sarah. "Wh-what did she come for? Have you then not been smart?"

"For to see us," said Louisa Ellen impatiently. "She is coming for company. She -- "

Sarah had crossed the lane, a milk-pail in either hand.

"Come," she called, in a voice which was meant to be a whisper, but which Miss Miflin, waiting on the broad doorstep, heard clearly. "Hurry yourselves, and fix a little up. Perhaps -- " Sarah could scarcely speak for excitement. "Perhaps she will stay for supper."

A moment later, she opened the front door. Her black hair was brushed back a little more closely to her head, her face shone, the great white apron which she had hastily put on over her gingham one was much longer than her dress, and from the back her gray-stockinged ankles could be seen outlined against it in pathetic thinness.

"Come in, teacher," she begged shyly. "Come once into the room [parlor] and I will hurry make a fire."

"Oh no," said Miss Miflin. "I'll come back to the kitchen with you. I didn't come to be company. I came to bring the twins home, and the gun."

"The gun!" repeated Sarah. "Did they then take the gun along? Come in. It doesn't look here so good like always. I -- I didn't work this afternoon so very much. I -- " And Sarah ushered Miss Miflin into the immaculate kitchen.

Miss Miflin breathed a sigh of relief. The chill of the house had struck into her heart. Could William have lived here? Then she saw the glow of the fire, the bright rag carpet, the blooming geraniums in the window. This looked like William. Miss Miflin put out her hand and drew Ellen Louisa, in a clean white apron, to her side. She, too, was William's.

"I wonder whether you would let me stay for supper?" she asked.

The glow in Sarah's face answered her.

"If it is you good enough," answered Sarah humbly.

"Good enough!" laughed Miss Miflin. She pulled off her over-shoes and slipped out of her coat. She had no home of her own, and had been boarding at a country hotel for three years. "But you children don't stay here alone at night!"

"Yes," said Sarah.

"But aren't you afraid?"

"Ach, no! Nobody would do us anything," stammered Sarah. She could not tell this stranger any of their troubles.

"But haven't you a little brother?" Miss Miflin looked round the kitchen.

"Yes, ma'am," answered Sarah. She suddenly put out her hand, and laid it on Louisa Ellen's shoulder, and Louisa Ellen closed her lips as though she had meant to speak, but had changed her mind. "Yes, Albert. He is now by my uncle."

"And don't any of your uncle's people come to stay with you at night?"

"Ach, no!" answered Sarah. Suddenly she felt her voice give way. There was something in Miss Miflin's brown, astonished eyes which made her feel that she might cry. But that would never do. "T-take a ch-chair. I-I guess you had to laugh at how the twins learned their lessons. I taught them while they were at home."

"They learned them well," replied Miss Miflin. "Now I am going to help get supper."

The twins could scarcely believe their eyes. It was as though a fairy had come to the farmhouse, a dear, capable fairy, who could dry dishes and cut bread, and magically change tired, care-worn Sarah into the gay, cheerful Sarah of old. It was almost nine o'clock when Ellen Louisa turned from the window, against which she had been flattening her nose.

"It's snowing again," she announced.

Miss Miflin looked up in dismay. She had forgotten how fast the time was passing. Sarah never knew that, summoned by her stories and her love, it seemed to Miss Miflin that William was there with them.

"I shall have to go at once," she cried. "I had no idea it was so late."

Sarah clasped her hands together.

"You are welcome to stay here," she said. "If it is you good enough, you are welcome to stay here!"

Miss Miflin crossed the room to look out of the window.

"I guess I'll have to. Then I can take the twins with me to school in the morning and they won't need the gun. And why do they want to run away, where some one might pick them up? And who wants to pick them up?"

It was a second before Sarah answered. Suppose she should tell Miss Miflin about Uncle Daniel, and about Jacob Kalb, and all her anxieties and fears? But, no, it would never do. It made her ashamed to think of Uncle Daniel. She did not believe William would like her to tell. She frowned again at Louisa Ellen.

"Ach, they are a little wild," she explained. "They like their school, but they are a little wild."

By this time Miss Miflin had a delighted and sleepy twin on each side of her on the settle.

"But they are not going to be wild any more," she said.

Sarah was asleep that night almost before her head touched the pillow. It seemed to her that peace had descended upon her heart, and hopes for a better day.

It was midnight when she suddenly awoke. Miss Miflin was standing beside the bed.

"Sarah! Sarah, dear, wake up. Your uncle is here and wants you."

Sarah tried to open her drowsy eyes.

"He can't have them," she said, bewildered. "Tell him he must go away."

"But listen, Sarah. He says Albert is sick and they want you."

Sarah sat up at once.

"He is waiting for you at the door. Come, I'll help you with your clothes. Don't come back to-night. I'll get breakfast for the twins. No, Sarah, the other shoe. No, you must put on all your warm clothes. There! Now, I'll come downstairs with you."

Sarah was too dazed with fright and sleep to speak. Miss Miflin was shocked at the anguish in her face. She put out her arms, and for one blessed moment Sarah felt the close pressure of sympathy and love.

"There, Sarah, dear! I'll look after the twins and the house, and to-morrow you must tell me everything, Sarah."

Miss Miflin opened the door, and told Uncle Daniel who she was, and Sarah went out. With confidence which touched even Uncle Daniel himself, she put her hand in his.

"Come, let us hurry," she whispered.


Chapter V

The Blow Falls


Sarah never forgot the wet, cold walk across the fields. The stars were out, and there was promise of a clear day, but the melted snow made the soil wet and muddy, and the air was damp. Uncle Daniel strode on, without remembering to moderate his long steps, and Sarah almost ran by his side.

She was wide awake now, the cool air on her face banished all drowsiness of body, and Albert's danger roused every faculty of her mind.

"How long was he sick already?" she asked.

"Since this morning. But he has been for a couple of days not so good."

"Where is he sick?"

"He won't eat nothing, and -- and he don't know us. He -- he -- " Uncle Daniel's voice shook. He had had a hard day. He was desperately frightened about Albert, and Aunt 'Liza had not made him more comfortable by insisting that it was a punishment for wanting his sister's farm.

"He will know me," answered Sarah with conviction. Then she began to run up the lane toward the house. She could see a light in an upstairs room, and Aunt Eliza's face was already peering anxiously out of the kitchen door.

"Albert is worse," she called. "He is talking all the time."

Sarah pushed past her into the kitchen. She had not been in the house since she was a little girl, -- so entirely apart had been the lives of the two families, -- but she knew the way to the stairway door. One after another the natural ills of childhood came to her mind. Albert and the twins had had chickenpox and measles and whooping-cough and mumps, and she had nursed them all. She thought of the dreaded scarlet fever and diphtheria. But there was none in the neighborhood.

She hurried up the stairway, as there floated down a tiny, querulous voice, -- 

"I want my Sarah! I want my Sarah!"

Albert lay deep in the great feather-bed, his cheeks a flaming crimson, his arms tossing restlessly. Even when Sarah bent over him, he did not know her, but kept on with his restless crying. She put her hand on his hot forehead, she opened the collar of his night-gown.

When Aunt Eliza and Uncle Daniel came into the room, she turned upon them a look of such anguish that Aunt 'Liza began to cry, and Uncle Daniel sat down weakly in a chair.

"Is it the smallpox?" asked Aunt 'Liza fearfully.

Sarah did not answer. She looked at Albert once more. Long before, when her mother was living, the twins had found the Christmas candy, and had eaten it all in a day. Then the twins had had a sorry time. They had looked just like this.

"What did you give Albert to eat?" she demanded.

"Ach! bread and meat and potatoes and pie, like always, and -- "

"And what?" insisted Sarah.

"And a few crullers."

"And what yet?"

"And a little candy."

"How much candy?"

"Ach, such a little bag full."

"And what yet?"

"A few peanuts," answered Uncle Daniel doggedly.

"Get me warm water and mustard," commanded Sarah.

"C-can you make him well, Sarah?" faltered Aunt 'Liza. But she did not stop to hear the answer. At that moment she did not even feel the humiliation of having to obey fifteen-year-old Sarah.

In less than an hour, a watcher might have seen the lights in the Swartz farmhouse go out, one by one. Albert was asleep long before that, the flush faded from his cheek, the fever gone, a faint smile upon the little face on Sarah's arm. It would have been hard to tell which slept more soundly, doctor or patient.

In the next room Daniel Swartz lay wide awake. These weeks of Albert's stay with them had not been easy. It was not entirely pie and cake and candy which had made Albert sick; it was a disease which no heroic measures could cure, homesickness, and Uncle Daniel knew it.

"I never saw such a young one," he said angrily. "I was never so very for my brothers and sisters when I was little."

"Will you let him go home?" asked Aunt 'Liza timidly. The last weeks had worn more heavily upon her than upon her husband, since she had to watch all day long that white, woe-begone little face.

"Let him go home!" repeated Swartz. "When I am to be guardian to-morrow! I guess not. To-morrow Sarah has to come here. That will cure him."

It was long after daybreak when Sarah woke. Albert slept quietly beside her, and it was not likely that he would wake for several hours. She dressed hurriedly and went downstairs.

There she found Aunt Liza washing dishes and Uncle Daniel moving impatiently about, dressed in his best clothes.

"I didn't go yet to town, because I want to talk to you a little, Sarah," he began. "Sit down once and Aunt 'Lizie will give you your breakfast."

"But I must go home," objected Sarah. "Albert will be all right, only he must not have anything to eat yet awhile, only milk to drink. And he mustn't have candy, or he will get just so sick for you again. He is too little to have so much candy."

"But you stay here now and take care of him," invited Uncle Daniel pleasantly. Now that he had everything in his hands he was prepared to be thoroughly amiable.

"I can come back," replied Sarah. His good humor frightened her, and she moved a little closer to the door. "But first I must go and milk. It is already late to milk."

"Jacob Kalb's wife went down this long time to milk," put in Aunt 'Liza.

"Jacob Kalb's wife!" repeated Sarah.

"Yes."

"Well, I'll go down and she can go home," said Sarah. "I -- I don't need Jacob Kalb's wife to help. Then I can come back to see Albert."

She remembered afterwards that Aunt 'Liza had begun to speak, and that she had been sharply checked by Uncle Daniel. But she did not wait to hear. Jacob Kalb's wife was only a shade less disagreeable than Jacob himself. She could not bear to think of her touching her milk-pans or going into the spring-house or kitchen. She ran as swiftly as she could down across the fields.

When she reached the kitchen door, she was faint with exhaustion. At first everything was black before her. Then she saw Jacob Kalb's wife standing by the stove. She was a large, fair-haired woman, with strong, bare arms. She had just lifted a pie from the oven and stood with it still in her hands, looking at little Sarah.

"I -- I -- you needn't bake for me," said Sarah when she could get her breath. "I am much obliged that you did the milking, but you need not bake for me."

"I am baking for myself," answered Mrs. Kalb stolidly.

"Well, you needn't bake here," cried Sarah.

Suddenly there came a rush of comprehension. It seemed for an instant as though she could neither breathe nor think. Her uncle had made Albert sick, he had sent for her to cure him, and then he had sent this woman down here to take possession. She moved a step closer.

"Go out of my kitchen," she commanded thickly. "This is my kitchen, it isn't yours. These are my things, they are not yours. They are not my uncle's. He had no right to send you here. You could be arrested for it. It is stealing. Get out of my kitchen."

Suddenly everything seemed to grow black once more, and Sarah reeled. The woman came toward her.

"Are you sick? You better sit down once. It isn't my fault that I have to live here. If I don't live here, somebody else will. Let me take off your shawl for you."

"Ach, no!" cried little Sarah. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

"I guess I won't do you anything if I touch you," answered the woman, the kindness in her voice changing to irritation. "Well, what in the world -- "

Sarah had gone, leaving the door open behind her. Mrs. Kalb watched her run down the lane, stopping occasionally to gasp for breath.

"Let her go and talk to Swartz," muttered Mrs. Kalb to herself. Then she went back to her work.

Sarah did not turn to go across the fields to the Swartz house, but went on out to the high-road. There she stood, looking about her, bewildered.

The blow had fallen at last. She had expected it hourly, but she had not foreseen such heartache as this. She had no home, and the children had no home, and William, if he came back, would have no home. The children might grow accustomed to life at Aunt Mena's and Uncle Daniel's, -- she knew nothing then of Albert's homesickness, -- but it would not be home. They would grow away from one another, they would not be like the children of one family.

She could not cry, she was too wretched for tears, she could only stand there in the road in the sunshine, trying to decide where she should go. Then suddenly there came to her the touch of Miss Miflin's arms and the sound of Miss Miflin's voice.

"To-morrow, you must tell me everything."

She did not stop to listen to another voice, which told her that Miss Miflin was a stranger who could not really care, and who could not help. She started away, not running now, -- she was too tired for that, -- but walking as fast as she could, toward the Spring Grove Schoolhouse.

Recess had just begun, and the children, all but the twins, who had been granted the treasured privilege of cleaning the blackboards, were in the playground. They looked up curiously as Sarah went by. The Wenners had always been clannish. Even the twins were happier playing by themselves than with the other children.

Miss Miflin was shocked at the sight of Sarah's face. She had not worried about her, because the woman who had come to milk had said that Albert was better, and that Sarah was still asleep. She had made up her mind to go back to the Wenners' that night. Perhaps if there were a grown person in the house Sarah would rest, and thus lose some of the weariness which showed so plainly in her eyes.

Now in addition to the weariness, there was distress such as Miss Miflin had never seen on the face of a young person. She went down the aisle to meet her.

"Well, Sarah," she began. Then she put out both her arms. "Why, you poor little girl! What is the matter?"

"Jacob Kalb is living in our house," said Sarah hoarsely. "We have no home any more. The twins must go to Aunt Mena, and Albert to Uncle Daniel. We have no home any more. He took it away from us. It is not right."

Miss Miflin helped Sarah to her own chair. Then she took the county paper from her desk.

"Sarah, I saw something about you and the children in the paper last week. Don't you know your uncle is to be your guardian?"

"Guardian?" repeated Sarah.

"Yes, here it is. 'Daniel Swartz, of Spring Grove township, has applied to be appointed guardian of Sarah, Ellen Louisa, Louisa Ellen, and Albert Wenner, minor children of Henry Wenner, deceased.' Oh, Sarah, that means you will have to do as he says!"

"We would have to do as he says whether he was guardian or not," said Sarah dully. "He wants to take the farm. He has already taken the fence down. It is nothing to be done." Then she burst into tears. "If they would only give me a chance once! If they would let me try, I could show them what I could do. I know how the crops should be, and Ebert would work for the half, now like always. It would be just like when my pop was alive. Or if Uncle Daniel would farm and give us the half, like Ebert, so we could get along. Then we could stay together. But now we have nothing. If William comes home, he won't have any place to go. He won't -- "

"Listen a minute, Sarah!" said Miss Miflin. Then she did not go on at once, but turned over the paper with hands which trembled.

"Who makes him guardian?" asked Sarah.

"The judge," replied Miss Miflin absently.

"If I only could -- "

"Wait a minute," said Miss Miflin again. "It may not have been decided yet. Perhaps if we went in, they would let us talk. Perhaps -- "

Her hand went out suddenly to the bell-rope.

"There is a train in half an hour. We shall have to hurry. Come, children, get your caps and shawls. There will be no more school till to-morrow."

Sarah looked at her dully. She had no idea of what Miss Miflin meant to do. The children vanished with whoops of delight over the unexpected holiday.

"Now, Sarah, we are going to town."

"To town! To the county seat?"

"Yes."

"But -- but I have no money!"

"Well, I have."

"But I -- I cannot leave the twins!"

"They are to come too."

"In these clothes?" Sarah had never been to the county seat but once, and then she had worn her best.

"Yes. There isn't time to get any others."

While Miss Miflin spoke, she locked the door of the schoolhouse, and took Sarah's arm in hers. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked anxious and worried. She was perfectly aware that it was probably a fruitless errand upon which she was starting. Before they could get to the county seat, the appointment might be made. And even if they did get there in time, she was not sure whether anything could be done. If they failed, it might not only make it harder for the children, but she might lose her school. Daniel Swartz was a man of influence and a school-director, and he could easily prevent her re-election if he tried.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the dictates of reason and common sense, Miss Miflin had an inward conviction that she was right. She knew vaguely that there had been some trouble between the Swartz and Wenner families, and that Henry Wenner would never have chosen his brother-in-law to be guardian of his children. Surely that would have some weight with the judge!

If Sarah could only be led to talk, if she could make the judge believe that she was able to run the farm and look after the children, he might, as Sarah had said, be willing to "let her try." And deep in Miss Miflin's heart was the remembrance of Sarah's anguished cry, "If William comes home, he won't have any place to go."

If William came home! Miss Miflin sighed for some of the childish affection which followed thoughtless, wandering William. Suppose that he should come home, ill, penniless, where would he go? Miss Miflin drew Sarah's hand a little closer within her arm.

"Cheer up, Sarah," she said. "We'll win."

Even the station agent, accustomed to provincial costumes, looked at them curiously as they got on the train. Miss Miflin wore her school suit and hat, -- no one could have found fault with them upon the grounds of suitability or becomingness. But Sarah and the twins, in their striped shawls and sunbonnets, were very unlike what one would have expected Miss Miflin's companions to be.

There was no doubt that they were her companions, however, for she asked the conductor to reverse a seat, and with Sarah beside her, and the eager, restless twins opposite, she was as oblivious of the interested stares of the passengers as though she were in her own class-room at Spring Grove. The twins were wild with delight at the journey. Here was another adventure, more exciting than running away from Aunt Mena, or carrying a gun to school.

Meanwhile, with an hour's start, and behind Betty, the fast little mare, Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb were just finishing the twelve-mile journey to the county seat.


Chapter VI

The Orphans' Court


The curious eyes which watched Miss Miflin and the children on the train were multiplied tenfold when they found themselves on the streets of the county seat. Miss Miflin was pretty enough to attract attention anywhere, but she had never before been so frankly stared at. She was well aware that the children in their striped shawls and little sunbonnets and gray home-knit stockings looked strange in a town where for twenty years little girls had been wearing coats and hats.

"Is it a show?" she heard one impertinent boy ask another.

"See here, once," a man exclaimed. "That's the way the little girls looked when I was a boy."

Miss Miflin was the only member of her party who was at all disturbed by the interested residents of the county seat. The tired look was gone from Sarah's face, her eyes sparkled; for a few minutes, in her delight over the strange sights, she forgot her anxiety and fear. Here were the wonderful "electricity cars," which frightened the twins nearly out of their wits.

"Where are then the horses?" they demanded together. "What makes it go? Will it come after us?"

The twins held each other tightly by the hand, their desire to run ahead and their fear of becoming separated from Miss Miflin making their gait very uncertain. Once she and Sarah almost stumbled over them, when they stopped short to contemplate the wonders of the tall Powers Building, in course of erection on the other side of the street.

Miss Miflin was not sorry when the gray walls of the court house appeared before them. She would be glad to get her charges safely within doors.

The twins, however, had stopped again. They had loosened their grasp on each other, and were standing with clasped hands and rapturous gaze.

"What is it?" asked Miss Miflin. Then she followed their glance to a little peanut and candy stand near by.

"Peanuts!" said Louisa Ellen rapturously.

"Candy!" said Ellen Louisa.

There was a shocked "Ach, aren't you ashamed!" from Sarah, and a laugh from Miss Miflin.

"Wait till we go home," she said.

Then, together, she and Sarah pushed open the heavy door of the court house.

They found themselves in a great, empty hall, with many doors on each side. The twins, after a moment's silent contemplation, tried to puzzle out the signs above the doors. "Clerk of the Court" was easy. "District Attorney" and "Prothonotary" were harder.

"Are we going to one of those places?" whispered Louisa Ellen. They had never been to a circus, but they were feeling the same pleasant thrills that a small boy would feel at sight of the closed tents.

"I don't know," answered Miss Miflin, more to herself than to them. "We must see some one."

"Could I go and ask?" inquired Sarah.

"No," answered Miss Miflin. "Are you afraid to wait here a minute with the twins, while I see what I can do?"

At that moment a door at the upper end of the hall opened, and a tall gentleman came toward them. At sight of them his step slackened, and he looked at them curiously. He, too, remembered the little Pennsylvania German schoolhouse to which he had gone as a small boy. He did not wait for Miss Miflin to speak to him.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked courteously.

Miss Miflin looked up into the kindly face.

"Why, yes. But it would take a few minutes to explain, and I don't like to keep you."

"Oh, I shall be glad to help. Only -- " The gentleman looked back over his shoulder. The door of the prothonotary's office had opened. In a moment two or three idle young clerks would be in the hall, curious to see the girl whose voice they heard. He opened the nearest door, and stepped back for Miss Miflin and the twins to enter. "Come in here," he said.

The little room into which they went was stiffly furnished in the fashion of fifty years ago, as an ante-room to the judge's private office. It was not often used; the horsehair-covered chairs, set neatly against the wall, and the dark heavy velvet curtains were unworn. To the twins it was a marvelously beautiful place. Miss Miflin and Sarah saw nothing but the kindly face which invited them to tell their story.

"These children are orphans," Miss Miflin began. "Their father was Henry Wenner of Spring Grove township, who died about a month ago. He had been an invalid for some years, and Sarah, the oldest girl, managed the farm."

"Ebert ploughed for me and farmed for the half," explained Sarah. She had taken her sunbonnet off, and her bright eyes looked first at the stranger, then at Miss Miflin. "He would help me yet. I could get good along, if they would only leave me be."

"The father made no will, and no provision for the children, but it was his wish that they stay together."

"And mom said always so too," added Sarah.

"Are there any relatives?" asked the stranger.

"Yes, their mother's brother, Daniel Swartz. He lives on the next farm. But there was never any friendship between the two families while these children's parents lived. Now he has made application to be appointed guardian, and it doesn't seem necessary or right that he should be. He -- "

"You see it is this way," said Sarah. "He wanted always the farm. It was once all my gran'pop's farm. He wanted my pop and mom should move away and sell it to him once. Now he won't have it that we keep it like my pop said we should. The twins shall live by Aunt Mena, and Albert and I shall live by him, and we won't have no home any more, and -- "

Miss Miflin laid a hand on Sarah's knee.

"We didn't mean to trouble you with all this," she said gently. "I just wanted to know what we should do, to whom we should go. I thought that if Daniel Swartz hadn't been made guardian yet, perhaps there was some way of stopping it, and you could tell us to what official we should apply."

"There would have to be a hearing before the judge, and their uncle would have to be notified, so that he could defend himself," answered the gentleman slowly. He looked down once more at Sarah and the twins. "They are pretty young to be looking after themselves," he said.

"I am fifteen years old," said Sarah. "And if they would take the farm and only leave me raise chickens I can get along."

The stranger's eyes met Miss Miflin's.

"She is a very capable little girl," said Miss Miflin.

Then the twins, who had marveled at the "electricity cars" and the tall buildings, were still further astonished. The gentleman got up and crossed the room, and took down a little horn which was hanging against the wall. Then he began to talk. The twins' mouths opened involuntarily.

"Is this the clerk's office? Can you get Weaver and his client -- " He turned to Sarah. "What did you say the uncle's name is? Swartz? Oh yes -- Can you get Weaver and Swartz here for a hearing this afternoon? They're in the court-house now? Oh, very well. Yes, right away."

Then the stranger hung up the little horn once more. He smiled at Miss Miflin and the children.

"Would you mind coming to tell the judge what you have told me?" he said.

"Will it be in the court-room?" asked Miss Miflin. She grew more and more poignantly conscious of the strangeness of her errand. But this stranger was evidently accustomed to court business and he seemed encouraging.

"Oh no. The sessions of the Orphans' Court are held in the judge's office. This way." And he opened a door leading into the next room.

Miss Miflin felt Sarah's tight grasp on her arm, and the twins came close behind. This room was much larger than the one they were leaving. There was no carpet on the floor, and no attempt at elegant furniture. At one end was a plain, businesslike desk, and the twenty or thirty chairs which stood about the room were straight and uncushioned.

To Miss Miflin's distress, almost every chair was occupied. The stranger frowned a little when he saw the audience. It took a very short time for the news of an interesting case to spread through the court-house.

But Miss Miflin's surprise was nothing to be compared to the surprise of two of the occupants of the wooden chairs. Daniel Swartz's eyes widened, and Jacob Kalb nudged him visibly.

"It is Sarah and the zwillings," he cried. "Sarah and the zwillings!"

Uncle Daniel had had a moment of severe fright. The lawyer had told him that they had only to go to the court-house to get the papers. But his fright passed.

"Pooh, what do I care?" he said. "I have my lawyer, and I paid him twenty-five dollars already. I am not afraid of no zwillings. Nor yet no school-teacher," he added under his breath. In Uncle Daniel's mind, the days of Miss Miflin in the Spring Grove School were numbered.

But the surprises were not yet over. The tall gentleman found places for Miss Miflin and the children near the desk at the front of the room. Sarah looked up at him with a mixture of gratitude and alarm.

"Couldn't you stay by us?" she whispered.

The stranger laughed.

"I'm not going away," he answered. Then to the amazement of Miss Miflin and Sarah and the consternation of Daniel Swartz, he took his place behind the desk.

"They were already by the judge!" said Uncle Daniel. "It is not fair, it -- "

"I'd advise you to be quiet," said Mr. Weaver curtly.

Sarah seized Miss Miflin's arm.

"Was it -- was -- it him?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Miss Miflin. "It was."

She saw the judge smiling at their surprise, and she felt suddenly that it was all less of a wild-goose chase than she had feared.

It was comforting, also, that there was about this hearing none of the formality of a court trial. The judge wore no gown, there was no prisoners' dock, no loud-voiced crier; it was more like the office of a country squire. Miss Miflin whispered to the twins to take off their sunbonnets, and not to speak unless the judge spoke to them.

The clerk of the court read Daniel Swartz's application, and then Mr. Weaver rose. He had not anticipated any objections, and he was not in a good humor. He felt that he was wasting his time over an unimportant case. He said briefly that the children had no natural guardian, except their uncle Daniel Swartz, an upright, prosperous man, who was willing to take from his own important business the time necessary to look after their affairs.

"He is a school-director, a member of the Reformed Church in good standing, and a prosperous farmer. Could a more suitable person be found? The oldest of the children is fourteen -- "

"I am fifteen," said Sarah.

The men in the court-room smiled, and the lawyer went on as though he had not heard.

"It will be years before she is of age. How can such a child possibly look after a farm and bring up three children? They do not want a guardian; few children would, after having been allowed to run loose for years. But in their own interest, and in the interest especially of these younger children, I ask that Daniel Swartz be made their guardian."

Daniel Swartz looked about complacently, as if challenging those near him to prove that the lawyer's statements were untrue.

"To-morrow she loses her school," he said to Jacob Kalb.

Then he saw that the judge was speaking to Miss Miflin.

"What is your name?"

"Helen Miflin."

"You are a school-teacher?"

"I teach in the Spring Grove Schoolhouse."

"What interest have you in this case?"

The judge saw that the flush on Miss Miflin's cheek deepened, but he thought it was only a flush of embarrassment.

"I am fond of these children, and I do not believe the appointment of Mr. Swartz as guardian is necessary or right."

"Why?"

"Because for years the families have not been friendly, and Mr. Wenner would never have chosen Mr. Swartz as the guardian of his children, and because the children do not like him."

"Like me!" exclaimed Daniel Swartz to the lawyer. "What dumb talk! It makes nothing out if they like me or not."

"You will have to be quiet," answered Mr. Weaver. "It makes a good deal of difference in the appointment of a guardian."

"Sarah Wenner," said the judge.

"Yes, sir," answered Sarah.

"Why don't you want to live with your uncle, and have him look after your affairs?"

"Because my mom said we should stay always together. It is not right that children have no home of their own. And my pop was for three years sick, and Ebert helped us, and we got good along. He worked for the half. And I can raise chickens. And the twins are always good for me, and Albert is always good for me, and Uncle Daniel, he knows I can get along. Albert is already by him, and he gave him candy till he was sick and I had to go to cure him. He don't know how to bring up children, and Aunt 'Lizie don't know. He -- he is always after us. And he came for me in the night to go to Albert, and when I went back in the morning Jacob Kalb was living there already, and baking pies, and -- "

At thought of the morning, the tears came into Sarah's eyes, and her voice choked. "If he would only l-leave me be."

"That will do," said the judge kindly. He thought that he had never seen the court-house clerks so quiet. "And you," he said to the twins, "aren't you willing to be good little girls, and do as Uncle Daniel wants you to?"

The twins looked up at the judge, then round the room. They were frightened and puzzled. They thought this kindly gentleman was on their side, but he had made Sarah cry, and now he wanted them to obey Uncle Daniel. Then Louisa Ellen put out her hand and nudged Ellen Louisa.

The eyes of the judge and the clerks followed theirs. Uncle Daniel was smiling at them graciously, -- he who usually frowned so crossly. And as Uncle Daniel smiled, he put his hand into his pocket and drew out two shining dollars.

To the court-room Uncle Daniel's purpose was evident. The court-room held its breath. Louisa Ellen's hand tightened on Ellen Louisa's.

"Uncle Daniel is going to give us a dollar!" she said, in tones of such wonder and amazement that the court-room rocked with mirth.

"Order!" said the judge, after a long minute.

Then Mr. Weaver knew -- though Uncle Daniel did not as yet -- that his cause was lost. Uncle Daniel put the money back into his pocket, shamefacedly. This would be another score to settle with the twins when this foolish court business was over. Then he heard that the judge was speaking.

"Whom would you like to have for your guardian, children?"

Sarah looked up at Miss Miflin. To her the word guardian meant unpleasant oversight, interference. Must they have a guardian at all? But Miss Miflin did not seem troubled in the least. What she said was unpremeditated; she did not realize until after the words were out that the lawyer's sharp eyes and the judge's kindly eyes were watching her so closely, nor could she foresee that her face would become a flaming crimson.

"I don't see why they need a guardian at all," she said. "They have an older brother."

"Oh," said the judge. "Why, then, was the application made?"

At that moment Jacob Kalb had come finally to the conclusion that he had been silent long enough.

"He went three years ago already to Alaska," he said. "He will never come home."

"Oh, he will!" cried little Sarah.

"And if he does come home," went on Jacob Kalb coolly, "what will he have to say about the school-board money that he took along with him to Alaska?"

"Oh, for shame!" cried Miss Miflin.

"Yes," answered Jacob. "Stealing is a shame."

"He did not steal!" Miss Miflin's voice shook. She knew they were watching her curiously; she heard the door open to admit another inquisitive clerk, who she saw dimly was tall and broad of shoulder, but she did not care if the whole world were there to hear. "His father paid the money, and he has never had any chance to defend himself."

"Stealing is stealing," said Jacob Kalb doggedly.


Chapter VII

"And Now We Will Go Home"


On the day upon which she took possession of the Wenner homestead, Mrs. Jacob Kalb was destined to have more than one shock. She let two pies burn while she thought of little Sarah, who looked so ill, and who had started away so wildly. She was just about to put on her shawl and go up to the Swartz house, to ask whether Sarah was there, when the door opened again.

This time it was not pushed open by Sarah's gentle hand, but was flung back, as though the master of the house were about to enter.

Thinking it was her husband, Mrs. Kalb did not turn at once.

"Well, did you get back?" she asked.

Then, with her arms uplifted to the hook where her shawl hung, she looked round over her shoulder.

A tall young man stood, not on the step, where tramps and agents belonged, but in the kitchen itself, his hand on Mrs. Kalb's freshly scrubbed table.

"Get out of my kitchen," she commanded. She was afraid of no tramps, but there was something in the clear gaze of this young man which frightened her. But he was clean and sober, and he looked like some one whom she knew. "What do you want?" she asked in a more friendly tone.

"Who are you?" asked the stranger.

"I am Mrs. Jacob Kalb, and this is my house."

"Where -- " said the young man, and Mrs. Kalb never told the story afterwards without crying -- "where is my mother?"

"Your mother!" she repeated. She stared at him with open mouth. Then she said slowly, "It is William Wenner that you look like."

"But where," said the young man again, "is my mother? And my father?"

Mrs. Kalb's shawl dropped slowly to the ground.

"Don't you know?"

"I don't know anything," said the young man. "I have been away for three years. I have had no letters for two years, until last week. Then I found one in Seattle. I -- " He drew Sarah's poor, little, incoherent letter from his pocket. "I couldn't make out what my little sister meant. She says nothing about my mother or my father."

Mrs. Kalb was after all a very different person from her husband. She came round to where the young man was standing and made him sit down, and put a kind hand on his shoulder, while she told him.

"And you came now just in time," she sobbed. "The little ones shall go to Uncle Daniel and Aunt Mena, and he will take the farm. The fences are down already, and he is to be guardian. He went this morning to town to get the papers. He and Jacob went. He said we were to live here. But I wouldn't 'a' come, only somebody would have to live here, and -- "

The young man was upon his feet.

"Where is my little sister?"

"By Aunt 'Liza. And Albert is there, and Ellie and Weezy are at school." Then she followed him to the door. "I won't be here any more when you come back. And I will have everything cleaned up, and I will leave some pies."

If she had doubted his identity, she would have been convinced by the quick turn which he made beyond the lilac-bushes, in order to take the shortest cut across the fields. She saw him stop for an instant to stare at the long, unbroken slope, which stretched clear to Uncle Daniel's door, then he hurried on.

Aunt Eliza was frightened almost out of her wits. He did not speak to her or greet her, except to say, "Where is my little sister?"

"William!" screamed Aunt 'Liza. "Ach, William, did you come home?"

"Where is my little sister?" He had always been fond of Aunt Eliza, and she had always been kind to him. But now there was no room in his heart for anything but grief and resentment and anxiety.

"She is -- ach, I don't know where she is. She went this long time home. But Jacob Kalb lives now at your house. Ellie and Weezy are at school, perhaps she went to them. She is very for the teacher. Perhaps -- Here is your little brother, William. Here is Albert. He is -- he is -- " And Aunt 'Liza burst into tears.

William stooped to kiss him, his lips trembling.

"Where is my uncle?"

"He is gone to -- town, William. Ach, sit down once!"

"No," said William curtly. "I'll come back after a while for Albert."

And he was gone, his straight young shoulders bent.

He had suffered hardship and disappointment, but nothing had torn his heart like this. They must have written, they could not have been so cruel as to have forgotten him. It was a common thing for letters to be lost.

He read Sarah's letter once more as he strode along. She said that Uncle Daniel was after them, and that she had chased Jacob Kalb off with a gun. He knew Uncle Daniel's stern determination to have his own way, he knew how he coveted the farm, he knew Jacob's meanness. After that he ran until he came to the schoolhouse door. That, he found, was closed.

He rapped heavily; there was no answer. Then he looked in the window. The room was empty. As he was turning away in despair, he heard some one calling him.

"The school is closed. It won't be open till to-morrow. Miss Miflin went away."

It was the woman who lived in the next house. She had been a schoolmate of his when he was a little boy.

"Miss Miflin?" he repeated slowly. "Is she here yet? Don't you know me, Sallie?"

"No," answered the woman. "I -- Why, William!" She had both his hands in hers, and could only stare at him speechlessly. "Why, William! What am I so glad to -- " Then she, too, began to cry. "I can't help it, William. I am so sorry for you. I -- "

"Do you know anything about my little sister?" asked William. "They said she had come over here."

"Yes, and she was crying, and she talked to teacher, and they went away, and Ellie and Weezy. They went to town. It was something about a guardian. I heard them talking. But I don't believe they could catch the nine o'clock train. Perhaps they are yet at the station. It is another train at eleven." She finished her sentence in a loud shriek as William, after glancing at his watch, ran down the road. "Come soon to see us, William."

She watched him until he vanished at the turn of the road, then she ran out to the field to tell her husband.

*       *       *       *       *

Sarah had often pictured to herself what she would do when William came home. Sometimes she seemed to see him coming up the lane, and herself flying down to meet him. Sometimes he opened the door and came into the kitchen and surprised her. Sometimes she imagined that she would cry; at other times, after she had been reading, for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, "Thaddeus of Warsaw," the one novel which the Wenners possessed, she was sure that she should faint. But in all her imaginings, she never dreamed that she should not know him.

She, too, saw the tall, broad-shouldered young man come into the court-room; she even looked absently straight into his eyes, with her frightened stare. Then she looked away.

"Stealing," Jacob Kalb was saying, "is stealing."

The judge bent forward and spoke to Jacob Kalb. William's character was, after all, not the court's affair. If he had been absent so long in Alaska, where the chances were one to fifty against his life, he was entirely negligible so far as the guardianship of these children was concerned. But the sudden vigor and vindictiveness of Jacob's charge angered the judge. He did not like the man's looks, and he did like Miss Miflin and the quaint little Pennsylvania German girls. He had seen Miss Miflin blush when she mentioned the absent brother.

"Do you mean that this older brother stole?" he asked plainly.

"He took school-board money, and didn't pay it back."

Miss Miflin leaned forward.

"He was treasurer of the school-board," she said. "All his accounts were straight, but his uncle, who succeeded him, claimed that forty dollars in cash was missing. His father paid it, and he has never had a chance to explain. He does not even know that his father and mother are dead. If he could -- I am sure he would be here. And his uncle told people that he had stolen."

Her cheeks blazed, her hands clasped and unclasped. Sarah watched her dumbly.

"And you think he is still alive?" asked the judge kindly.

"I don't know," she said, with quivering lips.

"Do you think," began the judge again, after a long pause. Then he got no further. Little Sarah had risen from her chair. Her shawl had slipped from her shoulders, she looked with burning eyes across the room. The judge thought that she was going to fall, but she walked steadily across the open space between him and the wide-eyed clerks, toward the door.

"Sarah!" called Miss Miflin gently.

But Sarah did not stop. It was the judge who saw the stranger first, and who guessed the truth. Like a bird to its nest, she went, and a strong arm gathered her straight against the stranger's heart. Sarah did not speak, she only hid her eyes against the stranger's side.

The judge meant to look back at Miss Miflin, and then he meant to dismiss the court at once and banish all these impertinent young clerks, and then he wanted to talk to William. But his gaze stopped with Daniel Swartz.

Daniel's embarrassment at having been caught trying to bribe the twins had changed to a more poignant emotion. He looked frightened. The stranger's eyes were upon him, also.

"I am William Wenner," said the young man. "I have just come home. I did not know that my father and mother were dead, or that my little sister was in -- in -- such trouble. I wish that Jacob Kalb would say again what he said."

Jacob Kalb lifted a determined face.

"I said that when you went away you didn't pay back all the school-board money, and your pop had to pay it, and you weren't fit to be guardian of Sarah and Albert and the zwillings, -- that is what I said."

He did not heed the frantic nudging of his master. He saw the Wenner house, which he had so long coveted, slipping from his grasp.

"Uncle Daniel -- " It was a moment before Uncle Daniel looked up. "Is this true?"

"Well," began Uncle Daniel, in confusion. "It was this way -- "

"Is it true?" asked William again.

Now it was Jacob Kalb who nudged and Uncle Daniel who paid no heed. He would take advantage of any means to advance on the path which he had set out for himself, he could even deceive himself into believing that he had done his best for the children, he could cheat and slander the absent, but here in the court-house, in the presence of the judge, he could not lie.

"No," he answered. He looked like an old man.

"Why did you accuse this young man falsely?" asked the judge.

Uncle Daniel got upon his feet.

"I think I will go home," he said. "William can be guardian if he wants to."

"No," said the judge. "You will not go home. You will answer my question. Did this young man owe the school-board forty dollars?"

"Yes."

"Did he pay it to the school-board?"

"No."

"I have your receipt," said William. "And Jacob Kalb was present when it was paid."

"It ain't so," muttered Jacob Kalb.

Then Uncle Daniel's rage broke forth.

"He did give me forty dollars," he shouted. "But he owed it to me before he owed it to the school-board, for all the things I bought him already. A couple of suits and hats and candy and such a little velocipede and peanuts, and I took him in the Fair; and then he wasn't thankful. He wouldn't be adopted. He -- "

"So he paid you the forty dollars?"

"Yes. But it was mine." Then Uncle Daniel read in the faces of those about him the first frank estimate of his character which it had ever been his misfortune to see.

"I think I will go home," he said again.

"Not yet," replied the judge grimly. He looked at William. "Do you want to prosecute this gentleman?"

"No," answered William.

The judge saw that his lips were trembling.

"The court is adjourned," he said.

Then he changed his mind about lingering to talk to William. He opened the door into the ante-room, and shook hands with them all.

"Make yourselves at home, and stay as long as you like. I'm coming out to Spring Grove to see you. And if you ever need a friend, I'll do my best to help you. And if -- " he looked smilingly at William and Miss Miflin, then he concluded that this was not a time for joking. "God bless you," he said, and was gone.

It was not until then that Sarah felt the arm round her loosen its hold.

"He has Albert yet," she said. "I am afraid he will do him something."

Whereupon the arm tightened its grasp once more, and William had only one hand to hold out to the amazed and delighted twins.

"Albert is all right," he said. "And you're not to worry about anything, ever."

"And if it hadn't been for teacher -- " began Sarah.

"I know," said William. "And now we will go home."

"Home!" The word was like a burst of song. And only a few hours before she had thought they would have no home. She took a twin by either hand. "Come!"

But the twins drew back.

"We are going to walk by William," they said together.

"All right," consented Sarah.

She and Miss Miflin led the way down the broad steps, and William and the twins came behind. They gazed at him rapturously, realizing that he was as wonderful as their vague remembrance pictured him.

"He is going," said Louisa Ellen, when he drew his hand away, "to buy us candy!"

Fortunately it was to Sarah that he handed the bag, and it was with Sarah that the twins were anxious to sit when they got into the train. It was a little trying that she would let them have only two chocolate drops apiece until they got home.

She looked back once at William and Miss Miflin, who were not talking to each other, but who smiled at her. There was something in their faces which made her heart beat.

"I wonder -- " she said softly to herself; then she did not finish the sentence.

"Oh, I am going to cook such a supper!" she said to the approving twins. "First I will fetch Albert and then I will cook."

But Albert did not need to be fetched. When they opened the kitchen door, he ran to meet them.

"Aunt 'Liza fetched me home," he cried, "I am never going away."

There was the gentle closing of a door, and a rustle of skirts, but Sarah did not hear. Then she sniffed the air.

"I smell baked things," she said. Before she finished, the twins were opening the pantry door.

"Look here once!" cried Louisa Ellen.

"Aunt 'Liza's crullers!" said Sarah. "And Aunt Mena's chocolate cake, five layers, and bread and pies, and it is chicken cooking on the stove, and I will make waffles yet, and -- "

William caught her by the shoulders as she hurried from cupboard to stove.

"Here, youngster, not so fast!" This was William, indeed, with all William's dear, teasing, familiar ways! He looked at Miss Miflin, and his voice shook. "She is just like my mother. She -- " But he could not go on. Instead he stooped and kissed Sarah.

It was not until after supper that there was time to talk; and then there was so much to be said, that they sat at first silently, except the twins, who, seated on the settle with Albert between them, were telling a fantastic tale of the day's adventures. Sarah could hardly speak for happiness. It seemed best to be quiet, and think, and try to realize that they were all safe and happy once more.

When William took Miss Miflin home, Sarah put Albert and the twins to bed, and told them all a story; then she went downstairs to wait until William came back. Even then she must be busy. She took up the sewing which she had laid down the day Albert was taken away. It was finished by the time that William opened the door.

He drew a chair up beside hers.

"Sarah," he said, "if a fairy came and told you that you might have anything in the world you wanted, what would you choose?"

"I don't want anything but to stay here," said Sarah.

"Not if she said you might go to school?"

"To school?" gasped Sarah. "Ach, but I am going to stay here and keep the house, so that when you come home again -- "

Sarah was sure that William would not stay in Spring Grove.

"Come home?" repeated William. "But I am going to stay home. I am going to stay here and farm, and the trolley is coming almost to the door, and -- "

The slender tower of the main building of the "Normal" came back into Sarah's field of vision.

"Ach!" she cried. "Perhaps I could go to the school, and ride on the trolley back and forth, and keep house yet, and -- "

William laughed.

"You shall go on the trolley back and forth, all right, little Dutchman," he said. "But you shall not keep house, yet."

"But who will keep house? It is always so many things to do!"

"What would you think of teacher for a housekeeper?"

"Teacher!" cried Sarah. "Miss Miflin?"

"Yes."

"Would teacher stay here with us?"

"She says so," answered William gravely.

<eob>

Defending The Island: A Story Of Bar Harbor In 1758

By

James Otis



Chapter I

The Island


In the year of grace 1758 there were two families living on that island which we of to-day call Mount Desert; but Champlain named Mons Deserts, because its thirteen high, rugged mountains could be seen from the seaward a distance of twenty leagues, making it the first landmark of the coast for seamen.

It is said, by those gentlemen who write down historical facts for us young people to study, that the "savages were much attached to the island; for in the mountains they hunted bears, wildcats, raccoons, foxes, and fowls; in the marshes and natural meadows, beaver, otter and musquash; and in the waters they took fin and shellfish."

Now in the proper kind of a story there should be nothing which savors of school-book study, and yet, before telling how the children of these two families defended the island in 1758, it seems much as if the reader would have a better idea of all that was done, if he or she knew just a few facts concerning those who lived on Mount Desert before Stephen Pemberton and Silas Harding took there their wives and children to build for themselves homes.

It is said, by those who busy themselves with finding out about such things, that in the year 1605 Champlain stopped at the island and named it; but not until four years later did any white people visit the place. Then two Jesuit missionaries, who had been living at Port Royal, under the protection of Monsieur Biencourt, went to Mount Desert with the hope of converting the Indians to Christianity.

How long these good men lived there, no one seems to know; but it is certain that they went back to Port Royal quite soon, because, in the year 1613, a Frenchman, by the name of La Suassaye, the agent of Madame de Guercheville, a very rich and religious lady, visited Port Royal, and persuaded the missionaries to return to Mount Desert, in company with several French colonists.

An Englishman by the name of Argall, who had come across the ocean to drive away the French people from North America, in order to take possession of the country in the name of his king, found the settlers while they were yet living in tents, not having had time to build houses. He robbed them of all their goods, afterward sending them adrift in an open boat, to make certain they wouldn't encroach on the land to which he believed they had no claim.

The French people, after suffering severely, contrived to gain the mainland, however, and before many months had passed returned to Mount Desert, where they formed a settlement, which did not survive the encroachments of the Indians, as is known from the fact that when, in 1704, the great Indian fighter from Massachusetts, Major Benjamin Church, rendezvoused at Mount Desert, before attacking the Baron de Castine on Penobscot Bay, he found no person living there.

In 1746 Stephen Pemberton and Silas Harding, with their wives, who were sisters, and their children, emigrated from England to Acadia, in Nova Scotia, hoping there to make better homes for themselves and their little ones than could be had in their native land. Then came the quarrels between the French and English, until Acadia was not a very pleasant land in which to live, and these two settlers determined to find an abiding-place where they might not be literally overrun by the soldiers of two armies.

Therefore it was that they built a small vessel, in which they could carry all their household belongings, including two cows, three or four pigs, and a flock of chickens, and started on a voyage that did not come to an end until they were arrived at the island of Mount Desert, near the mouth of what is now known as Duck Brook, within a short distance of the present town of Bar Harbor.

There the men built two small houses of logs, enclosed by a palisade, which is a high fence formed by driving stakes into the ground, for protection against the Indians, whom they had every reason to fear.

Here the two families lived in peace and comparative comfort until the year 1758, and then there were children in plenty.

Stephen Pemberton had in his family Mark, who was fifteen years old; Luke, two years younger; Mary, aged eleven and John, a stout lad of eight years.

Silas Harding's children were Susan, who was fourteen years old; Mary, four years younger, and James, who had lived seven years on Mount Desert without having seen ten white people, save those belonging to his own and Uncle Stephen Pemberton's family.

Now after so many words which have not been strung together in a very entertaining fashion, it is time to begin the story of what was done by these children, with, as a matter of course, some assistance from their mothers.

Each summer, just before the work of harvesting should be begun, the two men went out in the boat which had brought them from Acadia, to catch fish enough for the winter's supply, and on this year they set off early in September, with never a thought that any danger might menace their dear ones after so many years of peace and comparative prosperity.

The children had work in plenty to keep them from idleness during the week of ten days their fathers might be absent, and no sooner had the little vessel sailed out of the harbor than they set about their several tasks in order that all the labor might be performed by the time the fishermen returned.

Mark and Luke were engaged in setting up the flakes, or framework, on which the fish were to be dried, and this labor was performed near the shore of the harbor quite beyond sight of the homesteads with the high palisade, which last hid from view all save the roofs of the buildings.

The Future Hopes, which was the name of the small vessel belonging to the settlers, had left her moorings when the first gray light of the coming day could be seen stealing over the waters, and while she was yet close in-shore the two lads set about building the flakes, counting on completing the task within three days, and to that end working so industriously as to give little or no heed to what might be passing around them.

Therefore it was that they failed to see a canoe, in which were five Indians, come swiftly up from the southward, past what is now known as Pulpit Rock, and sail straight for the island at the mouth of the harbor, which the people of to-day call Bar Island.

Here the frail craft was hidden from view of the boys, and when half an hour or more had gone by, another canoe, this one carrying six men, executed the same maneuver.

Five minutes later a third craft appeared, but just as she came in view past the rock, Luke stood erect to drive in one of the stakes, and, therefore, saw the strangers as they were evidently trying to steal by without being seen.

More than once since Luke could remember had Mount Desert been visited by red men of the Abenakis tribe; but the visitors had always approached boldly, like friends, and this skulking from rock to island seemed much like a show of enmity.

Certain it is that the lad was alarmed, but he understood, from what his father had said many times, that it was not wise to let the Indians know of his fear, and, continuing at the labor, he said, in a low tone, to Mark:

"Don't raise your head, nor look around. A canoe filled with Abenakis has sneaked in behind the harbor island; can it be mischief is intended?"

"They may be after rock-cod, and count on coming ashore later," Mark replied, continuing his work in such a fashion that he could look seaward without seeming to do so.

At this moment the occupants of the last canoe were moving around the point of the island, as if to gain a position where a full view of the buildings might be had, for there could be no possibility the visitors were engaged in fishing, of any other such peaceful pursuit.

"There's trouble of some kind, and it's for us to find out what," Mark said, in a whisper. "There must have been other canoes than the one you saw, for I have already counted eleven men on the island, and they could not all have come in a single boat."

The boys had had no experience, fortunately for them, in Indian warfare, but they had heard enough from their parents to be fully alive to the possibilities, and after a few moments, during which time fear had held them speechless, Mark said, in a low tone, although there was no chance the enemy could have heard him:

"We must get over to the house without seeming to be running away. You start first, and when you go through the gate, call out that mother wants to see me."

Luke obeyed leisurely, although his heart was beating so loudly and heavily that it seemed as if it could be heard a long distance away, and, arriving at the palisade, he summoned his brother, as had been proposed.

Then it was that Mark was at liberty to leave his work, and he answered the summons more quickly, perhaps, than ever before in his life.

Mistress Pemberton was busily engaged inside the house, and the other two children were in a small garden directly in the rear of the building, therefore the boys were able to impart the disagreeable tidings without alarming those who could be of little or no assistance.

"Indians skulking on the harbor island!" the good woman exclaimed, when Mark had hurriedly told his story and her face paled as the lads had never seen it before.

"And they have chanced to come on the very day our father went fishing!" Luke cried.

"It wasn't chance that brought them, my son. Unless coming for some evil purpose, they would have landed boldly, as they have done so many times. It must be that the painted wretches have been watching to learn when your father and uncle left the island! Ask your aunt and Susan to come over her; the other children need not be told until it is no longer possible to hold them in ignorance of what may be done."

Luke ran swiftly to the house, which stood hardly more than fifty feet away, and in a twinkling Mistress Harding and her daughter Susan were where they could hear what, to settlers in their situation, was the worst possible news.

Women who did their share in conquering the wilderness were not cowardly, even though they might turn pale with apprehension when the first note of danger was sounded, and there two, knowing it was useless to expect aid from the outside, lost no time in planning a defence.

The palisade was weak in many places; more than one of the timbers had decayed and fallen, for while the Indians from the near-by mainland were friendly disposed, there seemed to be no good reason why time and labor should be expended upon a means of defence which might never be needed, and at this moment both the women bethought themselves of such fact.

"There may be time in which to strengthen the fence," Mistress Harding suggested, and Mark, who considered himself as well-nigh being a man grown, took the part of leader by saying, stoutly:

"In can be done, aunt. Luke and I will get the timbers, and the other children shall drag them out of the woods, coming into the enclosure near the spring where the Indians cannot see them."

"But surely we can do something to help the work along," his mother said, quickly.

"So you shall. We must know what the Indians are about, and you two can take one of the small boys down near the shore. Stay there as if bent on pleasuring, and, without seeming to do so, keep a sharp watch on the harbor island. I will look after the rest."

Boys who lived on the frontier in 1758 were accustomed to doing the work of men, and very seldom was one found to be a coward.

Now that danger in its most frightful form menaced, Mark Pemberton understood that he must stand in the place of his father and uncle. And there was no disposition on his part to shirk the responsibility. He knew full well that there was no hope the fishermen would return for at least a full week, therefore he must work unaided, save as the women and other children might be able to help him.

The axes were near at hand; Mary Pemberton and Ellen Harding were summoned from the garden, and the two younger boys sent with their mothers to the shore.

As the five young people went into the thicket, which had been left standing in the rear of the dwellings that it might serve to break the force of the north winds in the winter, the younger girls learned of the painted peril on the harbor island, and Mark explained his plan of defence, so far as he had formed one.

The two boys set about their task feverishly, knowing that every moment was precious, for no one could say when the attack might be made; the only matter certain in the minds of all was that the Indians had come bent on mischief, otherwise there would have been no skulking on the island.

The palisade, as originally built, stood six feet above the surface of the land, and the posts were driven a good four feet into the ground, therefore large timbers were necessary, and perhaps Mark was the only member of the party who realized that when the work of driving the logs in place was begun, the enemy would have a very good idea of what was being done.

The skulkers on the island must, as a matter of course, know that they were discovered, and their purpose suspected, otherwise the defences would not be in process of strengthening when the boys should have been making ready for the curing of such fish as the fishermen might bring in.

Then was the moment when, possibly, the attack would be made, and all preparations for resistance concluded before the first blow was struck on the palisade.

"There will be a moon to-night," Susan Harding said, quietly, and Mark knew she was thinking of what might be expected after the sun had set, therefore he replied, to encourage her:

"Ay, Sue, the painted villains can't come across without showing themselves for some time before gaining the beach, and Luke and I should be able to warm their hides a bit."

"I can shoot as well as you."

"So you can, Sue and the worst part of it is that you must do your share of the work."

"Will you watch on the shore for them to-night?"

"I think so. Luke and I can be there, while the rest of you are inside."

"I shall go with you," and the girl spoke as if demanding a part in some scheme of pleasure.

"Perhaps you can; we'll see what the plan shall be when night comes. The fence may not be in shape then, and I'm hoping the Indians will hold off for a darker night. That's about the only chance we've got to save ourselves from being killed, or carried prisoners to Canada."

"If they had landed on this island, they might have crept up without our suspecting anything," Susan suggested, and Mark literally trembled with fear, for thought came to his mind that possibly another body of savages was on Mount Desert, counting on coming up through the thicket when the attack was begun.

However, as he said to himself a moment later, after struggling manfully against this new fear which assailed him, that was a matter which could not be guarded against, other than as the general defences were strengthened, and it stood him in hand to think of work rather than all which might happen.

"Remember, I'm to take my place with you and Luke," Susan insisted, and the lad, knowing she could be depended upon to use a musket nearly as well as himself, replied:

"So you shall, Sue; I promise to call on you as I would on Luke. Here is the first timber," he added, as he struck the finishing blows to the sharpened end of the log. "Drag it inside to the weakest place in the fence, and take good care that you don't go where any one on the harbor island can see you."

Aided by Mary and Ellen, the stout-hearted girl set about the task of carrying the heavy log, since that would be the quickest method of getting it into place, and the boys plied their axes yet more vigorously in order to have another timber in readiness when the carriers returned.

"Take nothing smaller than six inches through the butt, and we'll drive the tapering end into the ground," Mark cried, cheerily, as he selected a second tree, and Luke had but just finished hewing his log when the girls came for another load.

"I ran down to talk with mother and aunt," Susan said, speaking with difficulty because of her heavy breathing. "They have seen only one Indian, who lies behind the big rock keeping watch, and he is Sewattis, who came here for potatoes last winter."

"And we gave him all he could carry away!" Mark exclaimed bitterly. "Now he has come to try and murder us because we have ever been his good friends."

"Is there any war on the mainland?" Susan asked.

"The captain of the last fishing-vessel father boarded told him that an attack had been made by the French and Indians on the fort at St. George last month, so I suppose England and France are still fighting. If the two kings could be in our places just now, I reckon there'd be an end of the war before nightfall."

"It isn't three months since Master Peabody and his wife were killed on Arrowsick Island, and the six children carried into Canada," Luke suggested, grimly, and Mark cried, peremptorily:

"Don't be digging up every horrible thing you can remember, for it won't improve our courage, and we're like to need all we've got between now and sunset. Here's another timber, Sue. Before you come back again, get some idea of how many we're needing to put the fence in shape."

Luke would have talked of the murders which had been reported to the settlers of the island by the fishermen, who were spoken from time to time; but Mark bade him keep at his chopping, and in silence the two worked until Susan, after an unusually long absence, returned.

"There are seventeen logs missing," she reported, "and two more which are decayed so badly that they should be replaced. I walked slowly around the fence, and tried every one, to make certain it stood firm."

"We should be able to cut that number and get them in place before the afternoon is very old," Mark replied, as he swung his axe yet more vigorously. "Did you go down to the shore?"

"Yes, and everything there is as it was before. Your mother thinks it is a wicked waste of time for both to stay on guard, when it would be possible for them to do so much toward helping in getting out the timbers."

"The moment will soon come when she can lend a hand, but just now she is doing more good by staying where she is, for while those two are idle the Indians will not suspect that we are strengthening our defences. The other boys might help in dragging the logs down, Sue, for we've got five or six ready."

"Mary and I, with Ellen to steady them through the bushes, can soon catch up with you, and the boys would be more bother than good," Susan replied, as she raised one end of a heavy timber.

During the next hour the five young people worked as industriously as their elders could have done, and then Susan announced that her mother was intending to make ready the noonday meal, for it was in the highest degree necessary that those who were laboring so energetically, and who would be called upon, perhaps, to spend the night in watching, should have an ample supply of food.

The boys ate dinner as they worked, Ellen bringing it out to them, and, while Mistress Harding cooked for both families, Mistress Pemberton remained on guard.

During all that time very little had been learned regarding the savages. Now and then a painted face had been seen momentarily from behind one of the rocks on the harbor island; but nothing more, and the defenders of the stockade had no means of knowing when the attack might be expected.

It was about two hours past noon when the boys had cut the necessary number of timbers, and now was come the time when the enemy would get an inkling that the settlers were making ready to defend themselves.

"You can't help us very much, Sue, when we are driving the posts into place," Mark said. "Leave Ellen here, while you overhaul our muskets. See to it that each one is loaded, and where we can get at it readily. After that has been done, you had best stand by the gateway to give the work if any move is made by the villains."

Then the boys began the task of setting the timbers in place, fearing each instant to hear the word that the savages were crossing over from the small island.

When the third timber had been driven in place, Mark said, grimly, as he raised another stick to fit it into the palisade:

"If they come now, we shall be in a bad scrape; but in case they are foolish enough to wait until after dark, I reckon we can give a good account of ourselves."

In order to drive the logs sufficiently deep into the earth, to prevent the possibility of their being pulled out by the foe, it was necessary  for one of the boys to stand on an up-ended cask, and while in suck position a view of the tiny island at the mouth of the harbor could readily be had.

It was Mark who swung the heavy wooden maul, or mallet, and he strove to keep his eyes fixed upon that point of land behind which he knew the Indians lurked.

To his great relief, no change was apparent in the position of the enemy, although those in hiding must have known what was being done, and the boys worked unmolested.

After she had make ready the muskets for immediate use, Susan stationed herself at the gateway of the palisade, with a weapon leaning against the logs on the inside, watching intently, and after half an hour had passed Mark called to her:

"There's little chance now that they'll begin the mischief before dark, if the noise of our pounding hasn't started them. Mother and aunt may come back here and do some more cooking, for once the Abenakis begin work we shall need to have all hands on duty. You can keep an eye on the island from where you are."

This change was welcomed by the women, who came up from the shore quickly, stopping at the palisade to see how the lads were getting along, when Mistress Pemberton said to Mark:

"I have been thinking that we had better gather in one of the buildings which can be barricaded on the inside, instead of trying to occupy both."

"It's a good idea, mother dear, and while you're making the changes, see to it that we have plenty of water in the house."

"What about the cows?"

"We can't take the chances of going after them, for no one can say that there are not more Indians hidden in the woods. If the beasts come home, we'll have a mess of milk to help out on the supplies."

Now it was that every member of the two families was actively engaged, while Susan stood guard at the gateway.

The Harding house was stripped of everything which could be readily moved, and the rude furniture served admirably as a barricade for the windows and one door of the Pemberton dwelling.

The sun had not set when Mark had put the palisade into the best condition possible with the materials at his command, and then, after cautioning Susan to keep her eyes open very wide, the two boys began making loopholes in the house which was to shelter both families. This last was being done, as Mark explained to his mother, that they might have a final place of refuge in case the Indians succeeded in scaling the palisade.


Chapter II

The First Assault


Not until the shadows of night were beginning to lengthen was Susan relieved from guard duty, and then the gate had been closed and barred by Mark, who said to his cousin:

"There is little chance an attack will be made until after night has come, when they count on finding us asleep, mayhap, although it would be queer people who could close their eyes in rest while a crowd of men was waiting for a good opportunity to kill them."

"Why am I to go off duty?" Susan asked. "Surely it can do us no harm to stand guard, and even though the savages do not make any move, we should act as if believing they might do so at any moment."

"You are right, Sue, and I warrant you won't have many idle minutes. Your mother and mine want all the children together while they pray for the good God to help us, and surely He is the only one to whom we can appeal now."

The girl made no further parley, but marched directly toward the Pemberton house, stopping very suddenly, however, as a low sound, not unlike the call of a human being, was heard from the woods in the rear of the dwellings.

"There are the cows, Mark, and surely they must be brought inside the enclosure if for no other reason than that we may need the milk before those murderers -- "

Susan did not finish the sentence, for the thought had come that it was not unlikely those who were skulking on the harbor island might succeed in their purpose, as they had done so many times before when setting forth to capture and to murder.

"I'll go after the beasts, and you shall stand here to keep watch over the harbor, for I am not minded to take the chances of being surprised, ever though we have good reason to believe no mischief will be attempted until late in the night."

To this Susan would not agree. She insisted that, having been charged with the care of the cows during so many years, they would follow her more readily than any other, and it might be possible something would happen to frighten them.

Mark, who feared there were Indians hidden in the thicket, would have prevented her from venturing out of the stockade; but she put an end to the controversy by slipping through the gate immediately he had opened it, and the lad could do no less than remain on guard while she was absent.

The animals followed the girl contentedly when she appeared before them, even though they were not accustomed to being brought within the enclosure during the warm season, and as they filed through the gate Mark felt decidedly more comfortable in mind, for now, in case they were able to hold the Indians in check, there was no possibility of a lack of food if the siege should be prolonged.

With the cows in the shed that served as stable during the winter months, where was a plentiful supply of hay which had been made during the summer, the children went into the house, which seemed strangely changed by the addition of Mistress Harding's belongings and preparations already made for defence.

Nearly all the rude furniture was piled against the two windows and one of the doors, and the beds had been spread on the floor where they would best be screened from any stray bullets. A supply of fuel was stacked up near the fireplace, to the end that it might be possible to prepare food without necessity of going out of doors, and, as Mark had suggested, every available vessel was filled with water.

When the three children, who had been doing such valiant work in strengthening the defences, entered the building, they found the women and smaller children gathered close beside each other as if such near companionship lessened the danger, and Mark said, gently:

"It is not well that we stay indoors many minutes, mother dear, for much remains to be done before night has fully come."

Then it was, and without delay, that Mistress Pemberton knelt amid the frightened brood, pouring forth her supplications for strength and guidance in this their time of peril, and the children listened to the petition as they had never done before. It was as if the prayer had a different meaning than ever before, for unless it should be answered then was the time of suffering or of death come very near.

Even the youngest children understood that this was the only appeal for help which could be made, and never a question was asked or a word spoken when Mark, Luke, and Susan, rising to their feet immediately the petition had been brought to a close went out-of-doors muskets in hand.

When they were in the open air once more Mark proposed that they make such platforms behind the palisade as was practical with the limited amount of material at hand, in order that, in event of an attack, it would be possible to use their weapons with good effect to prevent the enemy from scaling the barricade.

Two up-ended casks formed as many stations, while at other points the wash-benches, tubs, horses for wood-sawing, and household utensils were piled up or pushed unto position at such height as would afford a view of the harbor island and the intervening space.

When this work had been completed the children had eight improvised platforms whereon they could stand while defending the stockade, and the night was fully come.

As Susan had said, the moon was in the third quarter, therefore it would be impossible for the Indians to paddle across the waters of the harbor without exposing themselves to the view of the island defenders.

It was a portion of Mark's plan that a guard should be stationed on the shore, in full sight of those who might approach, and, in event of an advance, the battle would be begun while the enemy was in the canoes.

This much he explained to his companions, as they stood by the gate ready to face the more immediate danger to the end that their loved ones might the better be protected, and he added, in conclusion:

"After all we've seen it would be foolish to pretend we do not know why the Abenakis have come, therefore when they put out from the island, I shall hail them once, warning all hands to stay where they are until the sun has risen, after which we will open fire, trying to do the greatest possible amount of execution in order to show what may be expected. I've got four of five charges of ammunition, and if the rest of you have as much we shall be able to make quite a showing."

At that moment the noise of someone moving across the enclosure startled the children; but an instant later they saw that Mistress Harding was going toward the shed to milk the cows.

"Now come on," Mark said, opening the gate after learning the cause of his momentary alarm, and the children went boldly forth to do battle -- two boys and a girl who counted on defending the island against fifteen or twenty savages.

It was not to e supposed that the Indians, seeing the sentinels, would come directly across from the island; but might be expected to dart swiftly toward one or the other headlands, and therefore it was that Mark divided his small force, sending Luke to patrol the northern point, while he paced to and fro on the southern side of the harbor where it was more reasonable to suppose a landing would be attempted. Susan was to walk back and forth on the shore between the two lads.

Once this division of forces had been made, the children began their vigil, on the alert for any suspicious noises either behind or in front of them, for there was yet a possibility that a force of Indians was already secreted near the stockade.

No sooner had he begun to pace his beat than Mark realized to what danger the occupants of the dwelling were exposed in case the savages had already landed on Mount Desert, for the gate of the palisade was unlocked and unguarded, and then Susan was sent back to warn her mother and aunt that the entrance must be secured.

When she returned to the shore it was with the report that the gate was barred on the inside, and Mary Pemberton standing close beside it in case the sentinels outside should be forced to beat a hasty retreat.

Now indeed had the lad done all within his power to protect those whom he considered were entrusted to his charge, and it only remained to keep careful watch for the first show of mischief.

And this came in a manner wholly unexpected, although it seemed to the young leader as if he had taken into consideration every method which might be adopted by the savages.

During three hours or more the children had paced to and fro on the shore, each making certain meanwhile that the other two were on the alert, and then Mark saw a canoe put off from the harbor island, heading toward Pulpit Rock, as if to gain the shelter of that headland before coming to land.

Uttering a low cry to attract the attention of his companions, he would have hurried on to the point in order to fire at least one shot before the Indians could disembark; but at that moment an exclamation from Luke caused him to gaze across the harbor, when he saw a second canoe setting out toward the northward.

A moment later a third craft was paddled straight across the water, in the direction of Susan's post of duty.

It seemed certain that the Abenakis understood how small and weak was the force opposed to them, and therefore, counted on bringing their bloody work to a speedy conclusion regardless of their ordinary methods of warfare.

A landing would be made at three different places simultaneously, and the young defenders must perforce give all their attention to one party, leaving the others to do as they pleased, or, by attempting to guard every point, place themselves in the greatest possible danger.

"Make ready to run for the house when I give the word," Mark cried to his companions. "Come this way, Sue, and Luke, do the best you can at peppering the canoe in front of us!"

Susan speedily joined her cousin on the southerly side of the harbor, while Luke stood his ground, but with the disagreeable knowledge that in a few moments the savages would probably be creeping up behind him.

Now Mark understood that he could not afford to spend many moments on this portion of the defence. It was necessary the three should be inside the stockade before those who were landing at either point of the harbor could come up within range, and he said to Susan:

"We must get in our work quickly, for I reckon these villains in front of us will take good care to move so slowly as to keep at a safe distance until the others are ready for work."

For reply the girl raised her musket on the crutch-like rest which was used in those days, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

It was possible to see the bullet as it struck the moonlit water, hardly more than three paces in advance of the canoe, with its freight of painted terrors, and instantly the Indians ceased paddling, thus proving that they had no intention of coming within range until their comrades from the other craft were in position to prosecute their murderous work.

"There is little sense in our staying here," Mark said, bitterly. "Those scoundrels don't intend to give us any show at them, and we are foolish if we remain. Yonder canoe put off boldly only to keep us occupied until the others could make a landing."

"Are we to go back?" Susan asked, striving to prevent a tremor of fear from  being perceptible in her voice.

"Ay, it is high time. You start on ahead, and I'll call Luke."

"I shall walk by your side," the girl said, stoutly. "We will share the danger equally, as you promised."

"You are a good girl, Sue; just the kind that will do a full half of the work of defending the island," and Mark kissed her on the cheek more tenderly than he had ever done before, as one would who was whispering a final good-bye.

"Close in, Luke; we must get back to the house; there's no show of our being able to do anything here," Mark cried to his brother, as he set the example by leading Susan in the direction of the stockade.

The canoe came forward more swiftly as the little party of children retreated; but it could be seen that its occupants did not count on approaching within range, and Mark hastened his brother's movements by shouting:

"Run for it, lad! We must be in position behind the fence when the brutes first come within view!"

Then the three went toward the place of refuge at full speed, and behind the gate, having been warned by the report of her cousin's musket, Mary Pemberton stood ready to let down the heavy bar when the little party was near at hand.

The retreat had been begun none too soon, as was seen when the children came within the enclosure, for while Mark was replacing the bar which locked the gate, his mother, standing on one of the improvised platforms, discharged a musket.

"What have you seen?" the lad cried, as, the gate having been fastened, he ran toward that portion of the stockade where was his mother.

"An Indian came out just beyond the dead tree, over there."

"Did you hit him?"

"I'm afraid not, Mark; I never could send a bullet straight, and am now blaming myself for not having practiced more often after your father insisted that the time might come when I would need to handle a musket deftly."

By this time Mark stood by his mother's side, peering cautiously out over the top of the palisade, which was not a simple matter, since he took the risk of presenting the enemy with a target.

He could see nothing suspicious, and was yet peering eagerly around, when the report of a musket rang out on the other side of the stockade.

It was Susan who fired the shot. At the same moment Mark clambered up beside his mother, the girl had taken her station on one of the casks at a point overlooking the thicket, and the result showed that she had arrived there none too soon.

"Did you see an Indian?" Luke asked, as he mounted one of the wash-benches near the gate.

"Ay, and hit him, too!" Susan replied, grimly, as she turned to recharge her weapon; but Mistress Harding took the empty musket from her hands, as she said:

"Your aunt and I cannot shoot as well as you children; but we may, at least, be of service in loading the guns."

From this moment there was little delay in making the assault. Contrary to their custom, the Abenakis pressed forward immediately after the first shot was fired, doubtless hoping to gain an advantage while the defenders were reloading the weapons, and each of the three children fired two shots as rapidly as the muskets could be handed to them.

Three times had a piercing scream followed the report of the weapon, thus telling that an equal number of bullets had hit the targets, and then the savages became more cautious.

Until this moment the Indians had not fired a shot; but now the bullets began to whistle over the heads of those who were exposed to view, as the Abenakis, themselves screened by the bushes, began the real attack.

"Be careful of yourselves!" Mark cried, forgetting to set his companions an example. "Keep down behind the posts as much as possible; we can count on their staying under cover  while doing so much shooting!" Then, turning to his mother, he added, "There is no reason why all the children should be out-of-doors, where a stray bullet may find them. Why not order them into the house?"

This Mistress Pemberton did, and when the younger members of the company were in comparative safety, Mark looked anxiously around at his army of two.

Luke was crouching behind the palisade, where a wide crevice between two of the posts afforded him a view of the outside without his being obliged to expose himself, and Susan was leaning against the timbers, only partially sheltered, as she appeared to be tying something around her arm.

"What are you doing, Sue?" Mark cried, in alarm.

"Standing guard here; but just now I can't see anything that looks like an Indian."

"What is the matter with your arm?"

"It's only a scratch," the girl replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It bleeds a little, and I've wrapped a piece of my gown around it."

"You're wounded!" Mark cried, and he made as if to jump down from the platform, when Susan said, sharply:

"Stay where you are! Even though I was hurt badly, which I'm not, you have no right to leave the fence unguarded."

Mark stepped back with a certain sense of shame that it had been necessary for Susan to remind him of his duty, and then Mistress Harding went to her daughter's side.

"It is a slight wound on the left arm," the good woman said, after insisting on an examination of the injury. "I will take her to the house while I tie it up properly, and Ellen may stand here in her place."

"But Ellen can't use a musket as well as I, and we're needed here," Susan cried, more concerned lest she be forced to leave her station at the palisade than on account of the wound.

Mistress Harding might have insisted on her daughter's going into the building if at that moment the assault had not been renewed, and during the next ten minutes the defenders were actively employed.

The Indians, profiting by the teachings and example of the Frenchmen, whose allies they were, had divided the force, a portion remaining hidden in the thicket to fire at the children, while the remainder made a rush for the gate, as if believing it might be forced open.

Now it was that the defenders were obliged to move quickly, and it was impossible for them to remain under cover all the while.

"Pour all the fire into those fellows who are coming up with the log!" Mark cried, as half a dozen Abenakis, carrying a heavy tree-trunk, to be used as a battering-ram, made ready to advance at full speed.

This command was obeyed with such good effect that three of the savages fell, and their fellows, dropping the timber, ran to cover with the greatest possible haste.

At the same moment the children fired, the Indians in hiding discharged their weapons, detonations being echoed and reechoed from mountain to mountain, until it sounded as if a severe engagement was in progress.

"Any one hurt?" Mark cried, and Susan and Luke replied cheerily in the negative.

One of the three Indians wounded while advancing with the tree-trunk succeeded in crawling off to the shelter of the underbrush; but the other two remained where they had fallen.

When, two or three minutes later, an Abenakis darted out from his place of concealment, Mark raised his weapon quickly; but Susan cried, warningly:

"Don't fire! It can do us no harm if they take away the wounded, and it's possible they'll go back to the harbor island, if the injured can be carried off!"

"I'm beginning to think it is you who should be in command here," Mark said, half to himself, as he lowered his weapon. "You've got more sound sense than Luke and I together." Then, raising his voice, he cried, loudly, "Listen, ye Abenakis, whom our fathers have fed when you were hungry, and sheltered when you were cold, but who would murder us now! Take away your wounded, if you are minded to go back to the harbor island, and no one shall harm you while so doing. The white men of Mount Desert have never broken faith with you, nor will we, their children."

Then was done that which proves how much stranger than fiction is truth. The Abenakis, although they had come there to kill or make prisoners the wives and children of those men who had ever been their friends, did not question the faith of the lad when he announced that they might bear off the wounded in safety, but boldly advanced within short range to the aid of their fellows.

"Why do you seek to kill us, who have never done you harm?" Mark cried, when four of the band stood in full view while lifting the wounded from the ground. "Do Indians kill their friends? Do they speak soft words only while the men of the family are at home, being too cowardly to make an attack until the fathers have gone away?"

There was no reply to this speech until the Indians were hidden once more by the bushes, and then a voice cried:

"Give us the cow and two boys. Then we will go away, telling the Frenchmen that all have been killed."

"You shall not have the smallest chicken inside this stockade!" Mark cried, angrily. "And I promise that there shall be few left to report to the cowardly Frenchmen, if you remain here very long. You shall be shot down like dogs, and from this out our squaws will not interfere to let you carry off those who have been crippled!"

While speaking, Mark had unconsciously raised himself to his full height, instead of being partially sheltered by remaining in a crouching position, as during the short fight, and the reply to his words came in the form of bullets, one of which grazed his cheek, raising a red ridge, as if he had been scored by a whip-lash.

Susan and Luke both fired in the direction from which had been seen the flash of the muskets, but no one could say if the missiles thus sent at random took effect.

Five minutes later, while the watchers still gazed through the crevices of the palisade, believing the enemy to be near at hand, a canoe was seen putting off from the shore, directly in front of the dwellings, and, after such delay as was necessary, in order to enable them to reach the other craft, all three divisions of the attacking force were headed for the harbor island.

The first assault had been made, and successfully resisted. It now remained to be seen whether the Abenakis were willing to accept this as defeat, of if new tactics were to be tried.

"They've gone!" Susan cried, joyfully. "We've beaten them!"

"Yes child," her mother said, despondently, "and if they had not been sent by Frenchmen, we might believe the worst was over."

"Do you think they'll come back, Mark?" the girl cried, as she leaped down from her post of duty.

"Ay, that I do, Susan, and for the very reason aunt has given. If we could only know what the next move would be! I have heard father say that once upon a time the English drove away from Mount Desert French settlers, and now those who are stirring the Indians up to this kind of business are trying to make things even. We can count on having peace during the rest of the night, I believe, and the sooner you go into the house, were that wound of yours can be looked after, the better I shall be pleased."

Indeed, there was no good reason why all the defenders, save one to stand guard behind the palisade, should not get such repose as might be had under the circumstances.

A sentinel, on one of the hastily constructed platforms, could keep the harbor island well in view, therefore the savages would not be able to leave it secretly, and Mark proposed that he remain on duty for a certain time, while the others slept.

"You shall have my place in a couple of hours, Luke." the lad said to his brother.

"And when do I take my turn?" Susan asked, showing that she was determined to do a full share in the defence, regardless of her wound.

"You may stand guard when it is time for Luke to lie down," Mark replied, intending that she should not be awakened if he could prevent it.


Chapter III

A Day Of Suspense


While Mark stood on guard, able to see the entire broad expanse of water, thanks to the light of the moon, he knew that so long as a careful watch was kept the Abenakis could not leave the harbor island secretly; but he also realized that if the clouds should gather, or a fog settle down over the waters, then, of a verity, would they be at the mercy of a foe from whom no mercy could be expected.

The fact that they had been able to resist the first assault did not give him encouragement for the future. The Indians had advanced foolishly, understanding that the white people knew full well what they were about, and after this first repulse it was reasonable to suppose the murderous scoundrels would bring all their cunning into play when the next attack was made.

There were six muskets in the stockade, and ammunition sufficient to last during an ordinary siege, provided none was wasted, yet but three persons -- Susan, Luke, and himself -- could be depended upon to man the walls. The others would have served faithfully, of that there was no question; but none of them were so expert with a musket as to be counted on for any great execution.

Although the lad would not have admitted as much to either of his companions, the fear in his heart that the enemy might succeed in accomplishing his purpose was very great.

"We can count on it that at the next attack they will succeed in getting inside the palisade," he said, unconsciously giving words to his thoughts, and he started almost in alarm as a familiar voice behind him asked, reproachfully:

"If you lose heart, how can the rest of us be expected to show courage?"

"What are you doing out here, Sue?" he asked, in turn, not minded to answer her question, if it could be avoided.

"I've come to take Luke's place. He is sleeping so soundly that it is a pity to awaken him, and the pain in my arm keeps my eyes open very wide."

"But I haven't been here two hours yet."

"Nearly half that time has passed since you came on duty, and there is no reason why you should remain awake when it's impossible for me to sleep. I can keep a sharp watch."

"So you can, Sue; but it is my place to take the biggest end, and I don't fancy the idea of letting a woman do my work."

"If I could go to sleep it would be different; but since I can't, I shall stay here, therefore you might as well take advantage of the opportunity."

Mark made no move toward leaving the platform, from which he could have a full view of the harbor, and, seeing that he was not disposed to act upon her suggestion, Susan clambered up beside him.

"Now tell me what you meant by saying that the next time they come the Indians will get inside the fence?"

"There's no sense in talking about that. I didn't count on speaking aloud."

"You did, however, and now it will be treating me no more than fairly if you tell me exactly what is in your mind."

Mark had no desire to discuss the situation just then, when it looked very dark to him, and, in order to avoid answering the question, he proposed to take advantage of Susan's proposition.

"Since you are determined to stay here, I may as well get what sleep I can. Call Luke when you are tired," He said, and before she could detain him he had slipped down from the improvised platform, walking rapidly toward the dwelling.

The girl could do guard duty as well as either of her cousins, and was eager to perform a full share of the labor devolving upon those who were striving to hold the savages in check. Perhaps she magnified the pain of her wound in order to be allowed to take Mark's place, and, if such was the case, the defence would be in no wise weakened through her.

Until the first faint light of a new day could be seen did Susan Harding stand on the narrow platform, watching eagerly for any signs of life from the harbor island, and unable to change her position, save by taking two or three paces to the right or left. Even then she would have remained on duty longer, but that Mark came hurriedly out of the house crying, angrily:

"It was not fair for you to stay on watch all night, Sue! You the same as promised to call Luke when you were tired."

"I didn't really agree, and I'm not tired yet. There's no need of your coming up here, for now that it is daylight, Ellen can be trusted to keep a lookout over the island."

"When she has eaten her breakfast I will let her take my place," Mark replied, as he literally forced the girl to descend, and a few moments later all the occupants of the stockade were astir.

The cows were milked, but kept within the enclosure, the young boys feeding and watering them. The hens were allowed to stray here or there at will, and, save for the sentinels on the palisade, one might have thought that the scene presented there represented perfect peace and happiness.

When the morning meal had been prepared, Ellen Harding took Mark's station on the stockade, being enjoined by him to keep her eyes fixed constantly on the harbor island, without heeding what might be happening around her, as the little company gathered in the Pemberton house, where thanks were given for their preservation during the night.

While breakfast was in progress no reference was made to the danger which menaced; it seemed as if the women feared to alarm the younger children, and the three to whom the defence of the island had been committed were not desirous of starting a conversation which might lead up to the possibilities of the future.

Susan was forced to submit to a second treatment of her wound, as soon as the meal had had come to an end, and Mistress Harding peremptorily insisted on her going to bed, since she had not closed her eyes in slumber during the night just passed.

Mistress Pemberton set about melting lead for bullets, the store of missiles being smaller than that of powder, and Mark and Luke went out to make a more thorough examination of the palisade.

"It isn't very likely that the Abenakis will make any move during this day," the elder lad said, "and while Ellen is standing watch it would be wicked to lose any chance of making our position yet more secure."

Luke was ready to act upon his brother's suggestion, but appeared to have no desire for conversation, and Mark did not urge him to talk, for the same reason that had caused him to hold his peace during the breakfast hour.

There was much that had been overlooked during the hurry and excitement of the previous day, which could be done to strengthen the palisade, as, for example, driving stakes at the foot of such posts as were not standing firmly, and securing the tops of others with braces on the inside.

In order to do a portion of this work, it was necessary the lads should go into the thicket for material; but while Ellen remained on watch to give the alarm, in case she saw any signs of life on the harbor island, they did not hesitate to leave the stockade.

It was while they were chopping down small trees in the rear of the dwellings, that the flock of fourteen sheep came in sight, and these Mark decided to drive into the enclosure.

It would be a serious blow to the settlers if these wool-growers should be killed by the enemy, for it might be a difficult task to replace them, and without the fleeces each summer the children would be destitute of materials for clothing.

By catching the leader of the flock, and dragging him along by the horns, the lads had little trouble in getting the animals within the stockade, and Mark announced his success by saying, in a tone of mild triumph:

"The family is all behind one fence now, and unless the Abenakis get inside, they can't do us a great deal of harm."

"But the sheep will pull heavily on our store of hay," Luke suggested, and his brother replied, cheerily:

"They can pick up a good bit around the place, and it won't do any very great harm to let them go hungry now and then. It's better than taking good chances of losing the whole drove."

There was no further discussion as to the advisability of bringing the sheep into the stockade, for at that moment a cry from Ellen caused both the boys to run, with all speed, to her side.

"Look! Look! A vessel! It must be that fishermen are coming here, and now the Indians will be driven away!"

To their great surprise and delight, the boys saw a small schooner, coming as if from the mainland on the northward, heading directly for the harbor island.

"We're saved, God be thanked!" Mark cried, in a tone so loud as to be heard by the inmates of the house, all of whom came swiftly toward him to learn the cause of the fervent exclamation.

"What is it, my son?" Mistress Pemberton asked, sharply, and Luke shouted, as he pointed seaward:

"A fishing-vessel, mother, and those on board must soon know that the Indians are besieging us!"

"But she appears to be going directly to the harbor island! The crew should be warned, lest the Abenakis make an attack upon them!"

This possibility had not entered Mark's mind; but while his mother was yet speaking he darted out of the stockade, running with all speed to the shore, waving his arms and shouting, to attract the attention of the newcomers.

He was followed by the two families, including Susan, who had been awakened by the joyful cries, and the little party ran swiftly along the beach until they were come to the nearest point of the island, which was the small bluff, or incline, on the westernmost end.

Here it was possible to have in view the schooner's deck, and that their signals had been seen seemed positive, although no attention was taken of them.

"Had you not better pull out in the small boat?" Mistress Pemberton asked of Mark, when the strangers failed to pay any heed to the gestures of warning. "It would be dreadful if the men went on shore and were murdered!"

There seemed to be no reason why the lads should not visit the vessel, and, in fact, such an idea had entered Mark's mind before his mother spoke, but yet he hesitated to act upon her suggestion, although it would have been impossible for him to explain why he remained idle.

"The schooner carries a big crew for a fisherman," Susan said, thoughtfully. "There must be as many as twenty-five or thirty on her deck."

"She's no fisherman!" Mark cried, becoming perplexed as he observed the truth of what Susan had said. "So many people never could work on a craft of that size."

"But what else can she be?" Luke asked, curiously, "I don't know as it makes much difference to us, though, so long as she carries a crew of white people. Why don't we pull out to her, Mark? Look, she's coming to anchor, and if her crew lands without knowing of the Abenakis, they will all be killed!"

"There are the Indians!" Susan cried, as three canoes, filled with savages, were seen putting out from the shore.

"They are going to make an attack on the vessel, and we can do nothing to help the poor people!" Mistress Pemberton cried, in an agony of grief, while an expression of terror overspread Mark's face as he began to have an inkling of the true situation.

"Can't you boys do something to aid the men?" Mistress Harding asked, and Mark replied:

"It isn't likely they're needing any help. Those on the vessel outnumber the Abenakis three to one, and I'm afraid they won't have any trouble in taking care of themselves."

No one save Susan gave any particular heed to Mark's words, but watched with feverish interest as the canoes approached the vessel, and then, when the Indians clambered aboard without any attempt being made to prevent them, the expression of the face of the spectators changed from that of sympathy to perplexity.

"The Abenakis seem to know the fishermen," Mistress Pemberton said to herself, and Mark replied, bitterly:

"Ay, mother, that they do, and now, instead of being called upon to defend ourselves against Indians only, we shall have that crowd of Frenchmen against us!"

"God forbid that white people could attack women and children!" Mistress Harding cried fervently, and Mark added:

"He hasn't forbidden it so far, aunt. Don't you remember what father and uncle heard from those aboard of the last vessel they spoke with? They were told that when Master Peabody and his wife were murdered, there were ten French soldiers with the Indians."

"Can it be that they have come to aid the savages against us?" and Mistress Harding's face grew pale.

"Ay, that is the way the French king fights us in this country, and if we are murdered it will be because his agents have decided upon it in revenge for that which was done here so many years ago to the missionaries!"

And now while the little party of besieged stands on the shore facing this new and unexpected peril, suppose we set down that which Mr. Williamson wrote in his "History of Maine."

"A communication was received at Boston in August, 1758, from Brigadier-General Monkton, stationed in Nova Scotia, which stated that a body of Frenchmen, in conjunction with the Indians of the rivers St. John, Penobscot, and probably Passamaquoddy, were meditating an attempt upon the fort at St. Georges, and the destruction of all the settlements on the coast."

"Immediately Governor Pownal collected such a military force as was at command, and embarked with them on board the King George, and the sloop Massachusetts. Arriving, he threw these auxiliaries with some warlike stores into the fort at a most fortunate juncture; for within thirty-six hours after the departure the fort was actually assailed by a body of four hundred French and Indians."

"But so well prepared was the garrison to receive them, that they were unable to make the least impression. Nor did any representations of their numbers, nor any threats, communicated to the fort by a captive woman, whom they purposely permitted to escape hither, occasion the least alarm. Hence, the besiegers gave vent to their resentiments and rage by killing the neighboring cattle, about sixty of which they shot or butchered."

It was well for the little families who were so sorely beset that they remained in ignorance of what the French assisted by the Indians of several tribes, were trying to do, otherwise their despair would have been even greater than it was as they watched the reception of the Abenakis by those on board the schooner.

It will never be known whether this attack on Mount Desert was made in revenge for what had been done by Argall to the French missionaries; but certain it was that all the settlements on the coast, large or small, had been marked for destruction under the guise of legitimate warfare.

During five minutes or more, while the besieged watched the movements on the deck of the schooner until there was no longer any question but that the number of their enemies had been largely increased, not a word was spoken, and then Mistress Harding broke the painful stillness by exclaiming:

"There is nothing left us to do but submit! With French soldiers at hand, it is not probable the savages will be allowed to murder their prisoners, and to surrender the island is better than being killed!"

"The French have never done anything toward preventing the Indians from working their will on the helpless captives. Do you remember the story father tells of Falmouth, when these same Frenchmen pledged their words of honor that no blood should be spilled, and yet many of those who surrendered were murdered in cold blood?"

"But what other can we do save give ourselves up?" Mistress Harding cried, helplessly, and Susan stepped proudly by the side of Mark, as he replied, stoutly:

"We can fight to the last, and die with muskets in our hands, instead of going willingly to meet the scalping-knife or the tomahawk. It may be that those on the mainland will learn what is being done here, and come to our relief."

"Do not put faith in such a possibility, my son. It is better to face the worst than build on hopes which must be dashed," and Mistress Pemberton laid her hand on Mark's shoulder as if in pride because of the courage he displayed. "We will do battle against these people, white and red, and when our best has been done, the end will be no worse than if we submitted tamely."

"That's the way to put it!" Mark cried, kissing his mother's hand. "We had planned to defend ourselves against the savages, and now let us see what shall be done since they have had such a large reinforcement. Certain it is that we must not stand here, for they may have muskets aboard the schooner which will carry a ball farther than ours."

Mistress Pemberton led the way back to the stockade, and there, in the open air near the gateway where a close watch might be kept over both the island and the vessel, she commended the little party to the care of Him who watches over even the sparrow's fall.

It was to the distressed company as if the entire situation had been suddenly changed; as if their means of defence were totally inadequate, leaving them to the mercy of the French and Indians, who were making the attack simply because the King of England and the King of France had sundry differences of opinion, which might be settled by spilling the blood of innocent people.

Susan, who had been the most courageous, seemed to have grown timorous when she asked, while she and Mark were where the words could not be overheard:

"What shall we do? Is there any hope we can hold back such a force as is being arrayed against us?"

"It doesn't seem possible, Sue, and yet we must fight to the last, rather than give over our mothers and you girls to what we know will follow if we show the white feather."

"I am not afraid of your ever doing anything of that kind, Mark," and the girl laid her hand on his shoulder with a loving gesture. "You will always be brave and true; but what I am asking is whether we may do anything which, as yet, has not been tried."

"I exhausted all my ideas in arranging for a defence against the Abenakis, and now we must stand up like images, fighting until we are destroyed. Anything is better than tame surrender, when we know by the terrible experiences of others what will follow."

"In that I am of your mind, Mark, dear; but I am asking if there isn't something else, which, as yet, we have neglected, that can be done. Our mothers depend on you, as do I, which is only natural, since you are the eldest, and should of right take your father's place."

"It is just that, Sue dear, which causes me to be afraid of my own ideas. If I make a mistake, it may be fatal to you all, for you will follow my advice."

"That is true, Mark, and yet you should not be timid because of it, for you are best fitted to act the part of leader, and we know full well you will only do that which seems safest."

"Are you agreed that we cannot surrender?" and Mark asked the question in an angry tone, as if expecting she would refuse to view the situation in the same light he did.

"Of course I am. Could I say otherwise after all the stories we have heard from the mainland?"

"Then we must fight?"

"Of course, and to the last. I would rather see mother and the children killed by musket-balls, than to have them fall unharmed into the hands of those who await us there," and she motioned toward the harbor island. "How long can we hold the stockade against such a force?"

"Four and twenty hours, it may be, and a much shorter time if you, or Luke, or I should be killed early in the fight."

"And we will hope that our fathers do not come back until all is over."

"Ay, Sue dear, that is what we must hope, unless we would have them come in time to meet their death. Two more men on the stockade would not greatly prolong the struggle, and I fail to see how they, without other aid, could help us very much."

"If it should be, Mark dear, that I am wounded again, will you see to it that the Indians do not take me prisoner?"

"Ay, Sue, though the moment will be a terrible one when I turn my musket against you; but it shall be done."

"And if you are left until the last you will see that the children are not taken alive?"

"If I am left, Sue dear, it shall be as the last of our families on the island, for I believe death is more pleasant than can be life in the hands of such as those who are counting soon to hold us in their power."

Then the two children kissed each other as if in a last farewell, and Mark, trying to assume a careless air, said, with a feeble attempt at a smile:

"Since you were the last to awaken, it is no more than fair you should be among the first on duty. You, Luke, and I will stand guard alone until the attack is made, as we can count it will be this night, and then our mothers must charge the muskets. Remember, Sue dear, that I haven't yet despaired of holding the whole wicked crew in check. It doesn't seem possible that God would withhold His hand while we are being beaten."

"And yet it has been that many people in this country, whose cause was as just as ours, have been overcome by the same merciless foe who await us."

"Ay, Sue, and since we can only take what comes as stoutly as decent English people should, we'll seem to be brave, however timorous our hearts may become when the last moment is at hand."

Then these two children, striving to fill the places of their parents, began that vigil which both believed would be ended with their death.

Mark made the announcement to his mother and aunt, after the gate had been shut and closely barred, that they and the children should remain in the dwelling until the moment came when they could be of assistance in loading the weapons, and in the meanwhile the task of guarding the stockade would devolve upon his brother, cousin, and himself.

"We are not so much worse off than before, except that many more will come against us," he said, as the women and children went toward the Pemberton house. "We shall fight until the last, and, if God is kind, it may be we can hold the villains in check four and twenty hours, if no more. Get what rest you can, and remember that tears are of no avail when bullets are needed."


Chapter IV.

An Attack


When the women and smaller children were inside the dwelling, Mark said to his companions:

"It is better to have something in the way of work on hand than remain idle, and it has come into my mind that we might improve our condition if we raised the top of the stockade so that we could stand on the platforms without being seen by those outside."

"How would you set about it?" Luke asked, with mild curiosity.

"A heavy timber might be made fast to the top of the palisade, and, by making loopholes between the upper ends of the logs, we would be hidden from view, and at the same time be able to keep watch."

"Do you count that we should go after logs, taking the chances that the enemy will make a landing right away?"

"I intend to go alone, while you and Susan stand guard. Shout if you see a single boat putting off from the harbor island, and then I can get inside the enclosure before the enemy will be able to paddle over here."

Mark did not wait to learn if his companions had any criticism to make on his proposition, but set off in search of the axe without delay, and the others had no choice but to mount guard.

When the lad went through the gate he directed that it be barred behind him, lest there might be Indians in the thicket, and a few moments later it was possible to hear the sound of his sturdy blows as he felled the trees.

In less than half an hour he returned with a heavy log that had been squared on one side, and, after having been given admittance, he laid this on the posts above the platform on which Susan was stationed. By chopping either side of the uprights, close to the top, he made V-shaped apertures of sufficient size to admit of a musket-barrel being thrust through, thus forming five or six loopholes for the sentinel.

Therefore it was one could remain on the platform without being exposed to view of the enemy directly in front, and such shelter would be of great value to the defenders while the attacking party was a short distance away.

By means of wooden pins Mark secured the log in place, although not very firmly, and the three children who were to defend the stockade believed their position had been decidedly strengthened by such a device.

Another hour was spent in felling trees, fitting the timbers, and putting them in place. Then Mark occupied himself with making a careful examination of every portion of the palisade, after which, he said, with a long-drawn sigh:

"I can think of nothing else that is likely to improve the defences, and it only remains to wait until the enemy is ready to begin operations. What has been done aboard the schooner?"

"Many of the men have gone ashore on the harbor island," Luke replied. "The sails are furled, and everything snugged down as if for a long stay."

"Have you seen the Abenakis?"

"Two or three of them yet remain aboard the schooner; but the larger number are on shore."

Then Mark clambered up on one of the platforms, straining his eyes to learn what the strangers were doing with the hope of being able to make some guess as to when another attack would be made; but in this last he was unsuccessful. The men were lounging on the vessel, or ashore, as if their only purpose was to pass the time pleasantly, and utterly heedless as to whether they were seen by those inside the stockade.

"Whoever is in command of the Frenchmen will direct the next assault," Mark said, sufficiently loud to be heard by his companions at their several posts of duty. "It is known that we count on defending ourselves, and we may expect to see the entire force before us within the coming ten or twelve hours."

"What about the powder?" Luke asked.

"We have none too much; but enough, I believe, if we are careful in making every shot count, to last us during two assaults. After that, if we're alive, there'll be a short allowance."

"A boat is putting off from the schooner, and heading this way," Susan announced, and the boys gave no further heed as to speculations regarding the future, for it seemed as if the enemy was about to begin operations.

In a very short time, however, it could be understood that there was no danger of an immediate attack, for the craft coming shoreward from the vessel was a canoe in which were but three men.

The sentinels were unable to understand the meaning of this movement. It did not seem probable the enemy counted on boldly reconnoitering the island, nor was it reasonable to suppose any attack was to be made with so small a force, and Mark said, in perplexity:

"I can't make out why they are coming; but we'll be ready for whatever turn affairs may take."

"Shall we fire on them if they get too near?" Susan asked.

"Unless they claim to be friends, which isn't likely, we'll treat them exactly as we would the Abenakis, if they were bold enough to land in broad day," Mark replied, and, as assurance of his intentions, he made certain his musket was ready for immediate use.

The strangers paddled directly toward the spot where were kept the boats of the settlers, beached the canoe, and straightway approached the stockade, as friends might have done.

The three children on guard watched the newcomers curiously, until they were within fifty or sixty paces of the gate, and then Mark hailed:

"It will be safer to halt where you are until we understand the reason for this visit," he cried, showing himself above the palisade, with musket in hand.

"Are you in command of the stockade?" one of the visitors asked, as all three came to a full stop.

"Ay, for the time being."

"How many have you in garrison?" one of the newcomers asked, as he advanced a single pace, to show that he was authorized to act as spokesman for his party.

"That is for you to find out," Mark replied, with a smile. "You must take us for simples, if it is in your mind that we will give all the information demanded."

"I did not ask to gain information, for we know exactly the number of women and children here. I desired that you yourself should state it in order to the better understand how entirely you are at our mercy," The man said, and his manner of speech told that he was French.

"I do not need to repeat it, having seen your force, and knowing my own full well."

"Then you can understand that when I offer good quarter if you surrender without resistance, it should do away with any necessity for a conflict."

"Are you ready to give the same quarter your people promised at Falmouth, when the defenceless prisoners were murdered by you Frenchmen?" Mark cried, angrily.

"I give you my word of honor as a soldier, than no one shall be harmed if you surrender this place immediately," the officer replied, sharply.

"If I have heard rightly, the Baron de Castine gave the same pledge at Falmouth, and afterward excused himself by saying that he could not restrain the Indian allies," Mark said, stoutly. "Since then it is difficult to believe that French officers have any too much honor; otherwise, perhaps, they would not fight side by side with savages."

"Do you refuse to surrender?" the visitor asked, angrily.

"Ay, that I do, and all here are of the same mind with me. It is better to die fighting than be put to the torture by your allies, whom, mayhap, you could not restrain."

"My force is so large that you will be crushed in a twinkling, and, if you resist, no mercy may be expected. I have come in the effort to save your lives."

"Why should it be necessary?" Mark asked. "What have we done that you strive to take possession of our homes?"

"That is not a question to be discussed," the officer replied, impatiently. "It is my intention to clear this island of settlers, and I hope at such time to aid you."

"It is a brave piece of business to wait until our fathers have gone away, and then come here to fight women and children!" Susan cried, sharply. "Are all French officers so valiant?"

It was impossible for the visitor to see the speaker; but he knew from the voice that the words were uttered by a girl, and his face reddened, as he bit his lip to hold back a retort.

"I offer you good quarter, and to that pledge my word, if you submit at once," he said, after a brief pause. "In case you are so foolish as to dream of holding out against us, much loss of blood must ensue."

"That is bound to come," Mark replied, gravely. "We are resolved to hold this stockade as long as there is one left alive to fire a musket, and when you succeed in the noble work of murdering women and children, there will be none left alive for the savages, your very good friends, to torture."

"And that is your last word?" the officer asked, half-turning on his heel.

"The last," Mark replied.

The Frenchman stood irresolutely while one might have counted ten, and then, wheeling about, he marched toward the shore, looking back from time to time as if believing the young defenders might repent of having given such an answer.

"We have shut off all chance of making a bargain with them," Luke said, half to himself, and Susan replied, stoutly:

"It would have shamed me had Mark treated with them! Why should they offer us quarter? We have done nothing to warrant their making an attack upon us, and it is well they should hear the truth -- that it is nothing less than murder. People don't make war in such a fashion as this!"

Mark gave no heed to what his companions were saying. His eyes were fixed on the canoe, in which the three men had embarked, and it was in his mind that when they regained the schooner there would be a decided change in the position of affairs.

And in this he was not mistaken; within half an hour the boats belonging to the schooner, and the canoes of the Indians, were engaged in transporting the men to the shore of Mount Desert, half a mile or more north of the stockade.

"There's one satisfaction to be had in arousing the Frenchman's temper," Mark said, grimly, when the work of disembarkation was well under way. "We won't need to expect a night attack, and hang around in suspense waiting for it, because the assault is to be begun some time before sunset. We had best get out our supply of ammunition, and warn the others that they will soon be needed."

It was Susan who went to summon her mother and aunt, and when she returned, carrying a heavy burden of powder and bullets, it was to report:

"The children are to be kept in the house, under charge of Ellen. The others will be here in a minute or two."

"They can't come any too soon," Luke said, nervously. "The Frenchmen are already marching along the shore, with the Abenakis trailing on behind."

Susan was at her post of duty in a twinkling, and, looking out through the rough loopholes, she saw no less than twenty white men, ten of whom were armed with muskets, and the others carrying pikes, the head of which glittered in the sun, marching in soldierly array down the beach. In their rear slouched nine Indians, and it was safe to assume that the remainder of the red-skinned party had been disabled during the first assault.

It was a positive relief to Mark when he saw that the enemy was intending to march directly upon the stockade, most likely counting on carrying the place by the first assault. If the force had been divided, so that a portion might attack from the rear at the same time the others were in front, the task of holding them in check would have been well-nigh hopeless.

Even as it was, with everything in the children's favor, it did not seem possible they could defend themselves against such a force; but Mark said, as if believing the chances for success were very good:

"Remember that we can't afford to waste any bullets. If each of us could hit the target three times in succession, I warrant you those valiant Frenchmen would be eager to gain the shelter of their vessel. Both of you can strike four squirrels out of five at fifty paces, and surely you should be able to do as well when the mark is so much larger and moving slowly. Don't shoot until you are certain of hitting your man, and we'll soon see those fellow's backs."

Mistress Pemberton and Mistress Harding had come to do their share in the one-sided battle. Both the women looked pale and distressed, as was but natural under the desperate circumstances; but a single glance at their faces would have told that they believed the only course to be a stout resistance, even though it should cost the lives of all.

At the shore, directly in front of the stockade, the Indians forced a halt of the white men, by seemingly insisting that some other method of procedure be adopted, and during two or three minutes it appeared as if they would carry their point.

Mark drew a long breath of relief, however, when the officer who had demanded the surrender pushed his way past the savages with a threatening gesture, as he ordered the men forward again.

"They are coming straight on in a body," he said, in a low tone. "When you are certain of hitting the mark, shoot, and have the second musket where it can be got at quickly. If we could get in six fair shots at the start, it would be a big advantage."

Each of the children on the platforms had two muskets loaded, and the women stood ready to take every weapon as soon as it was empty. The ammunition, divided into three portions, was near the sharpshooters, and nothing remained to be done save take part in the life or death struggle so near at hand.

Steadily the French marched toward the stockade, evidently intending to begin the attack near the gate, and it was Susan who fired the first shot.

As the report of her musket rang out, one of the foremost men plunged forward to the ground, and five seconds later Mark brought another of the enemy down.

Luke fired, but failed of doing execution. He seized the second musket hurriedly, however, and crippled his foe, thus doing half as much as Mark had required.

"Three down in four shots isn't so bad!" the leader cried, encouragingly, and the words were hardly more than spoken before both he and Susan fired the second time, each of the bullets finding its billet.

Now it was that the Frenchmen halted without the word of command, and opened fire.

During three or four minutes it was as if a perfect hail-storm of lead raged around the stockade, but the stout logs afforded good protection. Never a missile found its way inside, and the spirits of the besieged rose rapidly.

Acting under Mark's orders, neither Susan nor Luke had attempted to make reply to the furious shooting, lest a bullet accidentally come through one of the loopholes, and when, because their weapons were empty, the soldiers ceased the aimless firing, the children's muskets had been recharged.

"If we can do as well as we did before, those fellows will soon show their backs!" Mark cried, cheerily, himself setting the example by wounding the officer.

Now the bullets came thick and fast during a full minute, and then the foremost of the assailants began to fall back, carrying the officer with them, and an instant later the entire party was in full and disorderly retreat.

Three children had actually beaten back twenty white men and nine Indians, without having received a scratch!

Not until the faint-hearted men were at the water's edge, beyond range of those in the stockade, was a halt made, and then it appeared as if they were holding a council of war.

The officer was laid in one of the boats, and the soldiers gathered around him, the able-bodied gesticulating furiously, and the wounded seated on the sand attending to their injuries. None had been killed outright, but the majority of those who had been hit would not be likely to take part in another attack, unless it was delayed for a considerable time.

It seemed as if the white men gave but little attention to what the Indians said during this council, for the savages were shouldered aside with scant ceremony, and after a few moments all the Abenakis, for none had been wounded, stalked gravely southward, where they were soon lost to view amid the bushes.

"We're going to have trouble from those fellows, and it won't be long coming," Mark said, as he leaped down from the platform, and ran toward that portion of the stockade immediately in the rear of the dwellings. "Keep a sharp watch over the Frenchmen, and let me know what they are doing!"

Then he began putting up a platform at that point where he could overlook the thicket, which last had been allowed to grow dangerously near the buildings, and had hardly mounted for the purpose of making a hasty survey, when a bullet imbedded itself in one of the posts against which he leaned.

"What is the matter?" Susan cried.

"The Abenakis have sneaked around here, where they can shoot while remaining under cover. Let mother come to load my muskets!"

The report of Mark's weapon followed the words, and from the thicket two or three muskets were discharged, thus showing that the entire force of Indians was lurking amid the underbrush.

Susan came running toward her cousin, carrying a weapon in each hand, and the latter asked, sharply:

"Why have you left your post? The Abenakis won't kick up much of a row until after dark."

"There is nothing to be done at the other side," Susan replied, as she set about dragging two or three lobster-pots toward the palisade. "The Frenchmen are paddling back to the schooner, not leaving one behind, and Luke is watching to see when they leave the vessel again."

Another bullet from the Thicket whistled uncomfortably near Mark's head, and he understood that the most dangerous portion of the attack was now to be met, for it was impossible to see a single foe. The swaying of the branches or the tiny curls of smoke, were the only tokens of an enemy, save when a weapon was discharged.

"Keep down under cover!" Mark cried, when Susan would have mounted the collection of lobster-pots. "They are shooting close, and if you should be disabled we would be in even worse trouble than we are now."

"But you are showing them a target."

"Some one must be here to hold them back."

"Then I have the same right as you," and the courageous girl clambered up on the shaky platform until it was possible for her to look over the palisade.

It was a most dangerous position, and, fearing lest she should be killed, Mark left his station to chop away the ends of the posts to make loopholes.

"Now you can have a view of the woods without showing yourself," he said, and would have gone back to his previous position, exposed though it was, but that she stopped him by asking:

"Will you do the same at your end of the fence as you have here?"

"There isn't so much need for me to keep under cover."

"There is ten times more reason why you should be careful than for me to skulk behind the posts. Unless you hew the timbers at your station as you have these, I shall change places with you."

Mistress Pemberton added her commands to Susan's entreaties, with the result that Mark was forced to protect himself so far as possible, but while he chopped at the  posts half a dozen bullets struck close around the axe, showing that the Indians were on the alert.

When half an hour had passed neither Mark nor Susan had seen one of their enemies. Several times they fired at the places where the branches were waving as if some person was walking beneath them; but no cry of pain was heard to tell that the bullet had taken effect.

During this time Luke had reported more than once that the Frenchmen yet remained on board their vessel, and when the sun was sinking behind the hills Mark said to his cousin:

"We're wasting too much powder and lead, Sue. I don't believe one of our bullets has gone home, and we have sent far too many at random. The Frenchmen are not beaten yet, and we must have plenty of ammunition when they come again."

"What, then, are we to do?"

"I will stay here, keeping guard lest the Abenakis attempt to scale the fence. You and our mothers shall attend to the household duties, holding yourselves in readiness to come whenever I shout."

"But there is nothing for me to do in the house."

"Then take advantage of the opportunity to get a  little rest, for it is certain that we shall have our hands full during all this night. Get supper, if nothing more, and then bring me something to drink."

"I'll do that first, and then look after myself," Susan said, as she went toward the house, and a moment later Mark heard from her a cry of distress.

"What's the matter?" he shouted, wildly, fearing, for the instant, that some of the savages had gained entrance to the dwelling despite his careful watch.

"The water! The water!" Susan cried, mournfully, and then came a hum of voices raised high in excitement and fear, amid which the sentinel could distinguish no words.

"Come here, Susan!" Mark shouted, peremptorily, and as the girl appeared he demanded, "Now tell me what has gone wrong?"

"The children have spilled all the water we took into the house, and there's not a drop to be had!"

"But they couldn't have carried the spring away," Mark replied, with a laugh, able to make merry even amid the terrible surroundings, so great was his relief at learning that nothing more serious had caused the cry which startled him.

"The sheep have gathered there, until the entire place is a mass of filthy mud."

"Well, well, don't let that distress you so sorely. We'll soon be able to clear it out, for I reckon these beggarly Abenakis won't keep me busy more than twelve hours."

"But if the Frenchmen should come in the meantime?"

"We'll take our chances of that, and get along without water a little while."


Chapter V.

Fire


Mark was disposed to make light of that which distressed Susan, and thus did he make his first mistake in the defence.

To his mind there was nothing very serious in the loss of the water which had been carried into the dwelling, because the spring was within the stockade, and however much mischief the sheep had done, it would be the work of but few moments to put everything in proper order once more.

The chief thought in his mind was regarding the possible trouble which the Abenakis might make while hidden in the thicket back of the palisade, and, after this, the fear that the ablest of his assistants might become disabled because of her wound, which had not received the attention such an injury required.

Therefore it was he said to Susan speaking almost sharply to the end that she might feel forced to obey without argument:

"The first thing for you to look after is that wound. Have your mother dress it once more while you can be spared from the palisade." Then, seeing that she hesitated, he added, "It is necessary for the safety of all that you look after yourself, because if you were disabled, we would be in most serious plight, you being the best marksman among us."

Susan hesitated no longer; but went toward the house, even though she did not believe it necessary to give very much attention to her arm, which was not so badly injured but that she could use it with comparative ease.

When she had disappeared within the dwelling, Mark, watching through the loophole for a target, cried to his brother:

"How is everything over your way, Luke?"

"There has been no change. The Frenchmen are sticking close to their vessel."

"I reckon it would be safe for you to come here a few minutes. I'll send Mary to take your place."

The lad obeyed promptly, and, after cautioning him not to expose himself to the aim of the enemy, although it was essential he keep close lookout over the thicket, Mark went toward the spring.

The damage done by the sheep was greater than he had supposed. The earth in the immediate vicinity had been ploughed up by the feet of the animals until the spring was nearly choked, and Mark realized that a full hour's work would be required to repair the mischief.

"We can't spend much time at it while the Abenakis are in the woods," he said to himself. "Later in the might, perhaps, I shall have a chance to do the job."

Then he went to where Mary was taking Luke's place as sentinel near the gate, instructing her to raise an alarm immediately she saw any movement on the part of the Frenchmen.

"Keep your eyes open wide," he said, "and, while watching the schooner, give some attention to what may be going on close at hand. I don't believe the Indians will come out of the thicket to show themselves where no shelter can be found. But, at the same time, it is possible. Remember that all our lives might pay the forfeit of your carelessness."

"You can trust me as you do Susan, although I can't shoot so well; but my eyes are as good as hers."

"True for you, sister mine, and between now and morning I'm counting on your doing a full share of standing guard."

Then Mark ascended the platform for one look at the vessel, which remained at her moorings with but few men showing on deck, after which he went into the dwelling, where his mother was preparing supper.

Susan's arm was being rebandaged, after having been bound up with simples which had been gathered in the woods against just such an emergency, and the smaller children were huddled in one corner like frightened sheep.

"I have left Luke in my place," the lad said, in reply to his mother's question. "The Abenakis are taking good care to keep out of sight, and it is only a waste of ammunition to fire at a waving bush or curl of smoke. I'll get something to eat, now that I'm here, and then go on duty again."

Susan declared she would stand watch near the gate, in order that Mary might take care of the children, and to that end ate supper with Mark, after which the two went out to their weary, dangerous vigil once more, with the disheartening knowledge that there was no probability of receiving aid from any quarter.

"We won't talk about it, Sue," Mark said, when his cousin bewailed the fact that even though a fishing-vessel should pass near at hand, her crew would not come ashore when it was seen that the Future Hopes had left her anchorage. "We can't afford to look on the dark side of affairs, lest we grow faint-hearted, for you know that, once our courage is gone, we are the same as beaten."

Susan did not reply, as she might have done with truth, that they were then very nearly in that deplorable condition; but shut her teeth tightly as if to prevent the escape of a single word, while she walked rapidly toward the gate to take her station as sentinel.

Mary begged to stand guard an hour or two longer; but Susan insisted that she was needed in the house, and reluctantly the girl descended from the platform.

Then Mark relieved Luke from duty, instructing him to first get his supper, and then, if the Indians remained inactive, to set about cleaning out the spring.

By this time the night had fully come, and Mark noted with apprehension that clouds were gathering in the sky. While the moon shone brightly it was as easy to guard against surprise as at noonday; but once that light was obscured, the enemy might creep up at a dozen places on the palisade without being detected.

"Two hours of blackness, and we are done for," Mark said to himself, with a sigh, and then, remembering what he had told Susan, he added, "We've got to take whatever comes, and the only manly way is to make the best of it. In case it is very dark to-night, Mary and Ellen must both stand watch with the rest of us."

The report of a musket interrupted his train of gloomy thoughts, and involuntarily he ducked his head when a bullet came singing over the fence so near that he felt the "wind" of it.

"You can't tempt me to shoot till I see something to fire at," he said, grimly, watching through the loophole at the underbrush which was merged by the shadows into one single mass of gloom, amid which not even a movement among the branches could be distinguished.

Two more shots, which caused him to wonder why the Abenakis were growing so active, and then he caught a glimpse of a faint spark in the thicket, which at first sight appeared to him like the glow from an Indian's pipe.

He had raised his musket, intending to fire at the bright spot, when it suddenly increased in size, and, while he stood speculating as to what it could be, a long tongue of flame leaped upward from branch to branch.

No need for speculation now, nor was it well that he stand very much longer on guard, for the terrible truth was all to plain.

The Abenakis had fired the woods, counting on burning the palisade, and thus giving them free entrance for the bloody business upon which they had come.

His first thought was to run for water, and then, even before he could make a movement toward the spring, came the realization that it was impossible to effect anything by such a course.

He would not be able to throw water upon the fire in the thicket, even though he exposed himself to full view over the top of the palisade, and this was probably exactly what the Indians hoped he might do.

"It begins to look as if we had about come to an end of the defence, and that nothing remains but to sell our lives as dearly as possible," he said, gloomily, to himself. "Everything around here is as dry as it well can be, and once the fire gains headway, even the houses must go."

Mark descended doggedly from the platform, and as he did so Susan cried, from her post of duty near the gate:

"What is on fire?"

"The Abenakis have started a blaze in the woods."

"Will the fence burn, think you?"

"Ay, when the fire is well under way."

"Can't we do anything toward putting out the blaze?"

"Nothing, unless we want the Indians to shoot us down before we can fire a shot."

"Then what is to be done?" and in her distress Susan leaped down from the platform to approach her cousin.

"Better stay where you are!" the lad cried, warningly. "I don't suppose it will make any great difference to us, and yet we should know if the Frenchmen come ashore after seeing the fire."

The girl returned immediately to her station, and even though he was at a considerable distance from her, Mark could hear the choking sob which escaped her lips.

"Keep up a stout heart, Sue; we can make a last stand inside the house."

"Ay, Mark; but it will be the last!"

The lad made no reply; he stood at some distance from the palisade as if trying to decide upon a course of action, and while he thus remained irresolute his mother came from the house.

There was no need that she ask for information; the blaze was so bright by this time that it must have been seen by those on the vessel, and Mistress Pemberton inquired in a low tone, but with no tremor in her voice:

"Are the logs dry?"

"Ay, mother; but it will be some time before the flames can eat in very deeply. We've got fifteen or twenty minutes yet."

"What is to be done?"

"We'll take refuge in the house, and shoot down as many as possible before the fire drives us out."

"If there is nothing more before us, why not come inside now? The Indians can climb up on the posts on either side and shoot you down while you stand here in the light."

"The Frenchmen are coming ashore!" Susan cried. "One boat-load has pushed off already!"

"We are going into the house," Mark said, hesitatingly, as if, even now, when prudence demanded that they should seek shelter as soon as possible, he was questioning whether he might effect something by remaining in the open.

"But if we don't stand guard the Indians will soon be over the fence," the girl cried, nervously.

"Ay, and if you stand there in the glow of the fire they can creep up under cover of the shadows to one side or the other, and shoot you down. We've done all we can here, Sue, and the remainder of our fight must be made from the house."

The report of a musket from the southern side of the stockade, and the humming of a bullet close beside Susan's head, gave emphasis to the lad's words, causing the sentinel to obey without further parley.

Once inside the dwelling, with the door strongly barred, the older members of the little party strove to appear unconcerned, each hoping to cheer the other, and at no time since the island was besieged did they display more courage than now, when there seemed no ray of hope remaining.

Through the crevices of the logs and the window-shutters could be seen the glow of the flames, which were increasing each instant, fanned as they were by short, furious gusts of wind which came from the gathering clouds.

"We must get under the roof, where I made the loopholes," Mark said to Susan and Luke. "There's no question but that the Indians will make a try at coming over the stockade before the fire has destroyed it, else they have changed their natures completely, and we won't give them full swing, even though we are cooped up here like rats in a trap."

"The boys want water," Ellen, who had been attending to the younger children, said, at this moment, and the elders of the party looked at each other in dismay.

The new danger which confronted them had driven, for the time being, everything else from their minds; but now all realized that, even though they might not be permitted to remain long in that frail refuge, they would suffer severely from thirst before the end came.

"Get into the loft, one on each side, and shoot with good aim if you see a painted face over the fence!" Mark cried, as he took up one of the buckets and went swiftly toward the door.

"You must not go out!" his mother said, as she barred the way. "It is certain by this time that the Abenakis are where they can have a view of the enclosure, and you will be shot down. Better that the children should suffer from thirst."

"We will all soon be needing something to drink, for it's bound to be hot inside here when the palisade catches fire. One bucketful of water will save us a good deal of suffering, and I'm bound to take the chances."

Then, before his mother could prevent him, Mark opened the door, running at full speed to the spring, which was not more than twenty feet distant.

That the Abenakis were on the alert could be told when half a dozen shots were fired in rapid succession; but, fortunately for the defenders of the island, not a bullet took effect, owing to Mark's rapid movements.

To those who were watching him in agonizing suspense from the house, it seemed as if the lad no more than wheeled about when he gained the spring, and then came toward the building in a zigzag course, well calculated to confuse the most skilful marksman.

He reentered the house with a bucket two-thirds full of muddy water, and, while barring the door, once more said, in a tone of triumph:

"I reckoned it might be done if a fellow used his legs well. That stuff doesn't look fit to drink; but after the mud has settled a bit it will be better than nothing. I am to blame for not cleaning the spring out when I first knew that the children had wasted the supply."

"You have nothing with which to reproach yourself, Mark," his aunt said as she laid her hand affectionately on his shoulder. "You have taken the place of both your father and uncle, and there is not a man grown who could have done more, or better, work."

The lad's face flushed with pleasure at this praise, but he affected to give no heed to the words as he clambered into the loft, musket in hand, calling out when he was on the timbers above:

"Give us the ammunition up here, and we'll load our own guns until the enemy comes too fast."

Mistress Pemberton handed him only a portion of the powder and bullets, after which she stood on the top of a table ready to take the empty weapons when the sharpshooters required her services.

Mark was the first to discharge his musket, and a cry of pain followed the report, telling that the ammunition had not been wasted.

"What did you see?" his mother asked, anxiously.

"An Indian's head over the top of the fence near the gate. There's one villain the less to trouble us!"

At this moment Susan and Luke both fired, the reports coming so near together as to sound like one, and the girl cried, triumphantly:

"I've hit another! What did you do, Luke?"

"I don't know; he went backward at the flash, like a loon; but it seems as if I must have struck him, for I had a fair aim."

Mistress Pemberton now had work to perform, for those in the loft soon learned that it would be impossible to recharge the weapons and at the same time keep close watch on what might be happening outside.

Seven shots had been fired from the dwelling, three of which were known to have found their targets, when a heavy pounding at the gate told of additional danger.

"What is it?" Mistress Harding cried, and Mark replied, quietly, as if it was of no especial consequence:

"The Frenchmen have come, and are battering down the gate."

"How long will it take them to do it?" Susan asked, her voice quivering despite all efforts to render it steady.

"It will be a good half-hour's job, with what timber they can pick up near at hand. If they should cut down a stout tree, the work might be done in half that time. Keep your eyes on the top of the fence, for if one fellow gets inside he might succeed in pulling out the bars before we could stop him."

Twice more the children fired, and then it was as if the Abenakis had tired of a game at which they were rapidly being worsted without an opportunity to inflict any injury.

"They've made up their minds to wait till the gate is down," Mark said, grimly. "We must have all the muskets ready when the rush comes, and shoot with good aim, for it will be our last fair chance."

All this while the flames had been increasing in volume, and the heat inside the dwelling, filled with the smoke of burning powder as it was, seemed stifling.

The younger children had drank of the muddy water eagerly, giving no heed to its disagreeable appearance, and the older members of the little company were already suffering with thirst; but never one of them ventured to claim a portion of the scanty supply.

"The fence is on fire," Mark said as he left his station at the front of the loft to survey the scene in the rear. "The wind is getting up in great shape, and coming from the east, otherwise these housed would be on fire by this time."

"There goes the upper part of the gate!" Luke cried. "Two or three more fair blows, and the whole will be down!"

Mark came back to where he could overlook the scene of what he believed would be the final struggle, and the three children crouched, muskets in hand, ready to empty the six weapons before the enemy could approach the house sufficiently near to find shelter under its walls.

The two women were standing on a table, where they could reach the weapons when they were empty. In one corner of the room, seated on a bed which was laid on the floor behind the barricade of the door, were the other children, some crying for water, and others weeping with fear.

The powder smoke hung heavily in the small apartment, which was illumined by the glow of the flames, now not more than thirty feet distant, and the heat was almost overpowering.

The bucket in which Mark had brought the muddy water from the spring, was empty, and the throats of the three children in the loft were literally parched with a thirst that could not be allayed.

They were beset by danger on every hand, and the supreme moment seemed very near, for once the gate was demolished, however desperately they might fight, the end was come.

"We are not to leave here alive," Susan whispered softly in Mark's ear, and he replied, pressing her hand:

"That part of it sha'n't be forgotten, Sue dear."

A cry from Luke; the crashing and splintering of wood; a shock which could be felt by the refugees as the heavy timbers fell inward, and the passage was open to the foe.

"Take good aim!" Mark shouted. "Shoot at the foremost, and work quickly!"

While one might have counted ten the enemy hung back as if fearing that a party of women and children might have planned an ambush, and then with a yell of triumph, the opening in the palisade was filled with armed men.

The defenders in the loft fired at almost the same instant; then, delaying only sufficiently long to fling back the empty weapons and take up those that were loaded, three more reports rang out.

The Frenchmen halted irresolutely for an instant, as four of their number fell to the ground, and had the children been able to fire one more volley immediately, it is quite certain the entire party would have beaten a retreat even at the moment of victory.

As the men, recovering courage, dashed forward, a heavy peal of thunder seemed to shake the very earth, and on the moment rain fell in torrents, coming as suddenly and in such volume as if having been poured from some immense reservoir.

The enemy recoiled as if confronted by an overwhelming force, and as they wavered the children in the loft discharged three muskets, each bullet seemingly taking effect.

Then, suddenly, it was as if a black mantel had been dropped over the terrible scene. A certain portion of the enormous downpour of water was converted into clouds of steam by the flames, which were literally beaten down, and those who had struggled so bravely to defend the island could distinguish nothing.

"What is the matter?" Ellen cried in alarm at thus being suddenly plunged into profound darkness, and the younger children screamed with terror.

A deafening peal of thunder seemingly came in answer to the question followed a second later by a vivid, blinding flash of lightning which illumined the interior of the loft through the few crevices between the logs, until the defenders could see each other's faces gleaming ghastly pale.

The water trickling through the roof restored them to their senses somewhat, and Mark said, speaking as if with an effort:

"The storm has been gathering since afternoon. Now, while we are cooped up here in the darkness, the enemy can work his will!"

Again the crashing of thunder drowned all other sounds; once more the jagged rifts of unearthly fire, breaking though the clouds, illumined the scene, and Susan cried, as if unable to believe her own statement:

"The men are running away! They are running away!"

Mark and Luke sprang to her side, waiting for another flash of lightning, and when it came, preceded by crashing thunder which caused the house of logs to tremble, the enclosure was deserted.

"It's true that some of them have gone; perhaps all," Mark announced; "but the whole crew will come back when the storm is over, and there will be nothing save our muskets to prevent them from marching in at their pleasure."

"Let us give thanks for the mercies which have already been bestowed upon us," Mistress Pemberton said, devoutly. "The fire is extinguished, and we need no longer fear being burned to death."

"That might not be the worst that will befall us," Mark thought, recalling to mind the fate of those settlers of Maine who had been put to death by torture.

Because of the fury of the tempest, it seemed as if its force must be quickly spent, and the besieged waited in painful suspense, fearing that the downpour of water would speedily cease; but the moments went by amid the flashing of lightning and crashing of thunder, without any abatement of the tempest, save as the wind lulled for a few seconds to come in yet more spiteful gusts.

When half an hour had passed, Mistress Pemberton insisted that the three children should come down from the loft in order that they might all be together during this respite from the cruel foe, and when they were in the room below, freed from the fear of immediate death, thanks were given to Him who "ruleth the tempest" for this new lease of life, brief though it might prove to be.


Chapter VI.

The Wreck


Hope once more sprang up in the hearts of those who had been so sorely tried, when the storm continued with greal fury. The electrical portion of the tempest appeared to have passed away, leaving the raging wind and pelting rain to guard the settlers who of a verity had descended into the very valley of the shadow of death.

When it was understood that that which was at first supposed to be a summer gale had developed into a furious northeast storm, giving no token of subsiding, Mark said as he rose to his feet:

"When the rain first came it seemed as if my throat was parched dry with thirst, and now that water is to be had in abundance, all hands of us appear to have forgotten that we wanted a drink."

"We might catch some of the water that is finding its way through the roof," Mistress Pemberton said as if such a possibility had never occurred to her before.

"We can do better than that, mother dear. I'll go to the spring for a full bucket, and when it has been strained we shall have what will be an improvement on rainwater."

"But possibly some of the enemy may be lurking outside," Mistress Harding said, becoming timorous once more, now that the imminent danger had passed.

"Whoever has been out in the storm all this while will be harmless, aunt, for his musket would be filled with something other than powder," Mark replied with a laugh, and then he unbarred the door, surprised to find that it was only with difficulty he could make headway against the furious blasts.

So powerful was the wind that it became necessary for Susan and Luke to unite their strength in order to close the door while Mark was absent, and when he returned with a brimming bucket of discolored water, the three had no little difficulty in putting the bars into place again.

"It is the fiercest storm I ever saw!" Mark exclaimed as he dashed the rain-drops from his face. "We'll pray that the Future Hopes is in a snug harbor, otherwise she will have to scud, for I don't believe they could heave her to."

"Do you think there is any probability your father and uncle may be out in this tempest?" Mistress Pemberton asked, more anxious now for the safety of the absent ones then she previously had been concerning herself.

"They are too good sailors, mother dear, to take many chances, and we had fair warning of this storm. If we hadn't been in such sore straits, there's no question but that we would have been prepared for it. I noticed the clouds gathering, but at the time thought only that it would be our misfortune, since we could not keep watch of the Indians. Close-reefed, and with plenty of sea-room, the Future Hopes will ride out this gale without doing more harm to herself than the straining of a seam, perhaps."

"The Frenchmen could not have had time to get their vessel under way," Mistress Pemberton said as if thinking aloud, and Mark sprang to his feet in excitement.

"Of course they couldn't, and it is well for them if they didn't succeed in getting on board, for the craft never had been built that can ride at anchor to the eastward of the brook while the wind is so heavy. It would have been impossible to get under way, for she'd be on the rocks before her nose could be brought around into the wind!"

"Do you suppose they are yet on the island?"

"I think, unless all hands are good sailors, that they'd try to get on board, and that could have been done because the sea wouldn't grow heavy in an instant."

Further speculation as to the fate of their foes was checked very suddenly by what sounded like the groaning of a human being in deepest distress, coming from one corner of the room in which they were seated.

Instinctively the inmates of the dwelling clutched each other, for it was impossible to see anything in that profound darkness, and during many seconds no one spoke.

Then the dismal sound could be heard once more, and Mark, forcing himself to beat down the fear which assailed him, said, with an effort:

"Can you find one of the candles, mother? Some one here must be dying. Where are the children?"

"Johnny and Jimmie are with me," Ellen said, and Mary added:

"I'm here with Luke."

"No one could have got inside without our knowing it," Mistress Pemberton said, as she groped around for the scanty store of candles, which were reserved for use on especial occasions.

Mark did not reply until his mother succeeded, after many fruitless efforts, in striking a spark from the steel and flint on the tinder, and as the feeble flame of the candle flickered and flared in the wind which made its way through the crevices, the lad began to tear away the barricade of household goods which had been thrown up to screen the window.

"It is useless to search there," Mistress Pemberton said, quickly, as if a sudden thought had come to her. "One of those whom you wounded is lying outside, and we hear his moans because he is close beside the building."

Mark was at the door in an instant, forgetting that he was hastening to the succor of one who, a short hour previous, was bent on killing him, and Susan seized the lad by the arm, as she said in a tone of caution:

"It may be some trick to get you outside. Be careful what you do; we have heard that the Indians often make use of such means to get a victim in their clutches."

"I'll warrant there is no Indian living who could stay out in this storm an hour or more, and then be able to do very much mischief," Mark replied as he unfastened the bar, waiting only long enough for Luke and Susan to get hold of the door, lest it should be torn from its hinges by the wind, before he darted out into the blackness.

A moment later it was possible to hear his voice, as if he spoke to someone, and then all was still, save for the raging of the tempest, until he cried from the outside:

"Open the door, youngsters. I've got a Frenchman here, who must be very near death!"

Then, as Luke and Susan gave him admittance, he came staggering into the room with an apparently lifeless body in his arms, while Mistress Pemberton shielded the candle as best she might, lest the wind extinguish the feeble flame.

Mark laid his burden on the bed, heeding not the fact that the water was running from every angle of the stranger's garments.

Like Mark, the two women forgot that a bitter enemy was before them; but with gentle care set about ministering to his wants, if, indeed he would have any more in this world.

Now all the occupants of the dwelling were too much engrossed with the work of saving the life which had so nearly been taken by one of their number to be able to tell whether the storm was yet raging, or if the morning had come.

In a very short time it was learned that the man lived, although how he survived after being exposed to the fury of the tempest so long, could not be understood. He had an ugly-looking wound in the thigh, and another in the left breast; but Mistress Pemberton gave it as her opinion that he was not mortally hurt.

"With good nursing, I doubt not but that he will live," she said, as she dressed the wounds to the best of her ability. "But if he does, what shall we do with him?"

"There is no need to answer that question now, mother dear," Mark said, gently. "We'll try to pull him through, even if we have already done our best to kill him, and then he'll know what it is to have coals of fire heaped on his head; that is," he added, after a brief pause, "if his comrades allow us to live long enough to do the job."

A fire was built, tea of herbs made and administered to the sufferer, and before morning came it was possible for him to speak.

He was sufficiently acquainted with the English language to make them understand him, and his first words were expressive of surprise.

"Save when you attack us without cause, we have no desire for your death," Mistress Pemberton replied. "Now you are no longer a soldier, striving to do us grievous injury, but a suffering fellow creature, and so long as it is in our power we will do whatsoever we may toward giving you aid."

The wounded man turned his face away, as if ashamed to look the good woman in the face, and after a time Mark questioned him as to how the chanced to be so near the house.

From his story, told little by little because of the difficulty experienced in talking, the facts were soon known.

He had been among the first to burst through the gate, and was not wounded until when the last shot was fired. Then instinct prompted him to gain a shelter under the wall of the building, where it would not be possible for those on the inside to see him, immediately after which he lost consciousness. During a long while he remained as if dead, and it is probable that the deluge of rain served to revive him after a time; but he was ignorant of having made any outcry. He remembered of realizing that he was alone, exposed to the storm, and the next knowledge was that the women were striving to nurse him back to life.

It was morning before the inmates of the dwelling gave much heed to anything save the wounded soldier, and then Mark, after cautioning the remainder of the family to stay inside the dwelling unless they heard his cry for help, ventured out into the tempest, which continued with but little decrease of violence.

The sun had not yet risen, and it the gray light of early dawn it was not possible to distinguish objects at any great distance. He had, in the immediate vicinity of the stockade, however, good proof of the violence with which the storm raged.

A portion of the palisade itself had been overthrown, leaving an opening through which the entire force of the enemy might have marched shoulder to shoulder. Trees were uprooted; the small boat, which had been drawn beyond reach of the tide, was now within ten feet of the battered gate, having been carried there by the wind.

That the buildings within the stockade remained un-injured was due, doubtless, to the thicket in the rear which served to shield them from the full fury of the elements.

Turn where he might, the same scene of devastation met his gaze, and he understood that if any of the Frenchmen remained on the island they would be powerless to depart, for their vessel could not have outlived the night.

The wind was yet so violent that only with difficulty could he make his way from one point to another, and the rain beat upon his face until it became necessary to shield his eyes in order to see anything twenty paces distant; but he struggled against the elements, making his way along the shore toward the place where the Frenchmen's schooner had been moored.

The vessel no longer remained at her anchorage, nor did he expect to see her there; but he was not quite prepared for that which met his gaze when he was where a view of the most northerly point of the harbor island could be had.

Between where he stood and the opposite shore was the hull of the schooner, keel uppermost, tossing on the short waves, now completely submerged, and again rising high in the air until the greater portion of the planking could be seen. Clinging to this restless wreck were six or eight human beings, and on the beach at his feet lay the bodies of two men who had been beaten down to death during the conflict of the elements.

After watching for several moments the plunging, rolling remnant of what had been a seagoing vessel, fitted to withstand almost any buffeting of wave or wind, Mark became convinced that the wreck was moored in some fashion, and then it was possible to guess very nearly how the disaster had occurred.

It seemed probable that when the first of the Frenchmen gained the schooner's deck, after the fury of the tempest had forced them to retreat from the stockade, the wild tossing of the craft as the waves were beginning to rise induced them to let go every anchor on board, under the belief that she could be held at moorings until the storm had subsided sufficiently to admit of her clawing away from the shore.

When the tempest was at its height, and after the attacking party had succeeded in getting on board, the little craft must have been literally blown down, until the water, rushing into the open hatches, had caused her to completely upset.

The wounded, and all others who were in the cabin, must have been drowned offhand, and that some of those who tried to save themselves by clinging to the hulk had suffered a like fate could be told by the lifeless bodies at Mark's feet.

Aid had come to the defenders of the island on the wings of the tempest; and at the very time when it seemed as if all hope of succor was vain, the enemy had been overcome by "Him who holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand."

As he gazed at the struggling wretches on the bottom of the wreck, some of whom waved their hands feebly, as if nearly exhausted and imploring him to help them, Mark forgot that but a few hours previous these same men had been thirsting for his blood, and thought only that they were in sore need of his assistance.

He ran with all speed to the stockade, shouting as he approached, and when the women and children hastened outside, believing him to be in distress, he hurriedly told of what he had seen.

"Of all those who made the attack, I am satisfied that only the men on the hulk remain alive. It is for us to help them if we can. There should be enough of us here to drag our boat to the water, and Luke and I will see what can be done in the way of life-saving."

Sorely beset though they had been, no one thought at that moment of the suffering which had been endured because of these men who were now so near death; but all, even the youngest children, laid hold of the boat to launch her.

It was no slight task to drag the craft, small though she was, over the sand to the water's edge; but the task was finally accomplished, and then many moments were spent trying to find the oars, which had been blown out of the boat during such time as the tempest forced her upon the shore.

A full half-hour must have elapsed from the moment Mark discovered the wreck until he and his brother were ready to set off on their mission of mercy, and then it was an open question as to whether they would succeed in the battle against the boisterous waves.

The members of both families stood near the water's edge, regardless of the furious storm which was raging, as they watched with anxious eyes the efforts of the lads. They had set out to save lives; but very many times did it seem as if their own must of a certainty be sacrificed.

Fortunately they were partially sheltered from the wind by the harbor island, otherwise the task could never have been accomplished, and not until both the lads were well-nigh exhausted did they arrive at the plunging hulk.

Now it was that the most dangerous portion of the work must be performed. Only at imminent risk of swamping the small boat could she be taken sufficiently near the wreck to permit of a rescue, and then it was necessary to handle her with the utmost skill, otherwise she would have been stove to kindling against the side of the hulk.

When the boat came close at hand, all the Frenchmen gathered at one point, as if counting on leaping aboard at the same moment, and Mark shouted, peremptorily:

"You'll swamp us if more than one comes at a time. Lay back there you fellows who are the strongest, and help the weakest first!"

Then they quarreled among themselves, each insisting that he was in the greatest need of help, and Mark, finally becoming impatient, cried, sternly:

"If you can't come aboard like decent people, we'll leave the whole boiling of you to get along as may be possible."

"There is not one of us who can cling to this wreck half an hour longer," a man cried, piteously. "Already five have been washed away and drowned."

"Two of you take hold and send aboard that fellow who is lying across the keel. He seems to be in the worst shape. Stand back!" the lad added, as four men made ready to seize the small boat at the first opportunity. "If you come in other order than I give the word, I'll leave all hands."

By dint of scolding, pulling the boat forward or back as the waves threatened, and otherwise handling his small craft in a sailorly fashion, Mark succeeded in getting four of the men aboard, leaving three to be rescued later.

The boat would carry no more of a load than she then had, while the storm was so furious, and the lads pulled shoreward, aided greatly, when going in this direction, by the wind.

The members of both families gathered on the beach near about where a landing would be made, and when the shipwrecked men had been set ashore they were helped toward the stockade by the women and children, for the Frenchmen were so nearly exhausted that it was impossible to walk unaided.

Then Mark and Luke started on the second journey, battling quite as desperately as before, and the day was fully half-spent when they brought the last of the survivors ashore.

It was not until the seven Frenchmen were being cared for in the apartment of the Pemberton house where the wounded soldier lay, that the lad began to realize the possible danger. These eight men, after having recovered, might easily take possession of the stockade, and Mark was inclined to believe that people who were willing to make war on women and children, could not be trusted to play a manly part even toward those who had saved them from death.

"What shall we do with them all?" Susan asked, as she came out of the house, which had much the appearance of a hospital, to where Mark stood studying the matter seriously.

"It has just come into my mind that we might herd them in your father's house. The greater portion of the things have been taken from there, and we can arrange it to bar the doors and shutters on the outside."

"Are you counting on holding them as prisoners?" Susan asked, in surprise.

"That is the only way we may be certain of a crew like that. After all that has happened, I wouldn't believe in any promises that might be made, and they shall be guarded like so many wildcats."

"Every one of whom appears to be grateful."

"Ay, I suppose they are now, before having recovered; but it may be a different matter, once they're in good shape."

"Do you believe there can be any on the harbor island?"

"I'm satisfied there are no others alive out of all the crew of French and Indians. Luke and I counted on burying the bodies which have been washed ashore, and while we are at that work you had better gather up all the muskets and ammunition, hiding the lot in the stable until we have the men secured."

Then, calling his brother, Mark set off toward the beach to perform the last rites over those who had lost their lives while trying to commit murder most foul, and, that having been done, the two lads began transforming the Harding house into a prison, which last was done by fastening all the shutters and one of the doors on the outside. The other door was to be barred in such a manner that it could be readily opened by those who were charged with the care of the Frenchmen.

These tasks were not completed until nightfall, and then Mark told the rescued party exactly what it was his purpose to do, explaining that he was not ready to believe in any protestations they might make.

"You must be held prisoners until our fathers return, and it is to be remembered that if we find one of you attempting to leave the building, which will be given over to your use, we shall shoot him down without the slightest feeling of pity or remorse."

The men swore most solemnly that they would obey every command which might be given by those who had saved them from death, and Mark, armed with a loaded musket, lost no time in escorting them to the Harding house.

It was his intention to have them closely guarded during every hour of the day and night, and to such end Luke was stationed at the front of the building, where, through a crevice which had been made between the logs by Mark, he could keep his charges in view.

Mistress Pemberton would not consent to having the wounded man removed with the others. He was given a bed in one corner of the room, after the furniture piled up as a barricade had been put in place, and Mary and Ellen were instructed to watch him, not with the idea that he might try to escape, but because his condition was such, owing to the wounds and subsequent exposure, that the most careful nursing and attention was needed.

The storm subsided at sunset; the clouds disappeared, and the first night after the besieged were turned jailers was as calm and peaceful as if the harmony of nature had never been disturbed by the clash of arms.

Luke remained on duty until about ten o'clock in the evening, when Susan took his place, and shortly after midnight Mark took his turn at guarding the prisoners.

The Frenchmen had shown no signs of a disposition to do other than as they were commanded; but Mark would not put faith in them, and kept his watch as if knowing they had already formed a plan for capturing those who succored them.

The lad paced to and fro in front of the dwelling, looking in upon the men every five minutes, until a new day had come, and then as he gazed across the waters watching for the sun to rise, he saw the dingy canvas of the Future Hopes, glistening like silver in the early light.

The fresh breeze was bearing the little vessel swiftly on, and before any inmate of the Pemberton house was astir, she swung to her anchor close inside the harbor, while the two men listened to the story which Mark had to tell.

The fishermen had not been able to gain a shelter when the storm burst upon them, therefore the Future Hopes scudded before the wind during the four and twenty hours, which explained why she had arrived so much sooner than had been expected.

It would be a labor of love to follow the fortunes of these two families who, in 1758, defended the Island of Mount Desert so bravely against the combined attacks of French and Indians; but historians make no further mention of them, after setting forth in the fewest possible words their deeds, therefore this tale must perforce come to an end.

We do know, however, from the records of Pemaquid, that Masters Pemberton and Harding carried to the fort eight Frenchmen as prisoners, and that the authorities of Massachusetts took them in charge several weeks later.

It is also known that in 1769 one Mark Pemberton, with his wife Susan, settled on Penobscot Bay near where the town of Camden now stands, and it is reasonable to infer that this man was the same who, aided by Susan Harding, so bravely defended the island.

<eob>

The Enchanted Castle

By

Edith Nesbit



There were three of them Jerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen. Of course, Jerry's name was Gerald, and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think; and Jimmy's name was James; and Kathleen was never called by her name at all, but Cathy, or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were pleased with her, and Scratch Cat when they were not pleased. And they were at school in a little town in the West of England the boys at one school, of course, and the girl at another, because the sensible habit of having boys and girls at the same school is not yet as common as I hope it will be some day. They used to see each other on Saturdays and Sundays at the house of a kind maiden lady; but it was one of those houses where it is impossible to play. You know the kind of house, don't you? There is a sort of a something about that kind of house that makes you hardly able even to talk to each other when you are left alone, and playing seems unnatural and affected. So they looked forward to the holidays, when they should all go home and be together all day long, in a house where playing was natural and conversation possible, and where the Hampshire forests and fields were full of interesting things to do and see. Their Cousin Betty was to be there too, and there were plans. Betty's school broke up before theirs, and so she got to the Hampshire home first, and the moment she got there she began to have measles, so that my three couldn't go home at all. You may imagine their feelings. The thought of seven weeks at Miss Hervey's was not to be borne, and all three wrote home and said so. This astonished their parents very much, because they had always thought it was so nice for the children to have dear Miss Hervey's to go to. However, they were "jolly decent about it , as Jerry said, and after a lot of letters and telegrams, it was arranged that the boys should go and stay at Kathleen's school, where there were now no girls left and no mistresses except the French one.

"It'll be better than being at Miss Hervey's," said Kathleen, when the boys came round to ask Mademoiselle when it would be convenient for them to come; "and, besides, our school's not half so ugly as yours. We do have tablecloths on the tables and curtains at the windows, and yours is all deal boards, and desks, and inkiness."

When they had gone to pack their boxes Kathleen made all the rooms as pretty as she could with flowers in jam jars marigolds chiefly, because there was nothing much else in the back garden. There were geraniums in the front garden, and calceolarias and lobelias; of course, the children were not allowed to pick these.

"We ought to have some sort of play to keep us going through the holidays," said Kathleen, when tea was over, and she had unpacked and arranged the boys clothes in the painted chests of drawers, feeling very grown-up and careful as she neatly laid the different sorts of clothes in tidy little heaps in the drawers. "Suppose we write a book."

"You couldn't," said Jimmy.

"I didn't mean me, of course," said Kathleen, a little injured; "I meant us."

"Too much fag," said Gerald briefly.

"If we wrote a book," Kathleen persisted, "about what the insides of schools really are like, people would read it and say how clever we were."

"More likely expel us," said Gerald. "No; we'll have an out-of-doors game bandits, or something like that. It wouldn't be bad if we could get a cave and keep stores in it, and have our meals there."

"There aren't any caves," said Jimmy, who was fond of contradicting everyone. "And, besides, your precious Mamselle won't let us go out alone, as likely as not."

"Oh, we'll see about that," said Gerald. "I'll go and talk to her like a father."

"Like that?" Kathleen pointed the thumb of scorn at him, and he looked in the glass.

"To brush his hair and his clothes and to wash his face and hands was to our hero but the work of a moment," said Gerald, and went to suit the action to the word.

It was a very sleek boy, brown and thin and interesting-looking, that knocked at the door of the parlour where Mademoiselle sat reading a yellow-covered book and wishing vain wishes. Gerald could always make himself look interesting at a moment's notice, a very useful accomplishment in dealing with strange grown-ups. It was done by opening his grey eyes rather wide, allowing the corners of his mouth to droop, and assuming a gentle, pleading expression, resembling that of the late little Lord Fauntleroy who must, by the way, be quite old now, and an awful prig.

"Entrez!" said Mademoiselle, in shrill French accents. So he entered.

"Eh bien?" she said rather impatiently.

"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Gerald, in whose mouth, it seemed, butter would not have melted.

"But no," she said, somewhat softened. "What is it that you desire?"

"I thought I ought to come and say how do you do," said Gerald, "because of you being the lady of the house."

He held out the newly-washed hand, still damp and red. She took it.

"You are a very polite little boy," she said.

"Not at all," said Gerald, more polite than ever. "I am so sorry for you. It must be dreadful to have us to look after in the holidays."

"But not at all," said Mademoiselle in her turn. "I am sure you will be very good childrens."

Gerald's look assured her that he and the others would be as near angels as children could be without ceasing to be human."We'll try," he said earnestly.

"Can one do anything for you?" asked the French governess kindly.

"Oh, no, thank you," said Gerald. "We don't want to give you any trouble at all. And I was thinking it would be less trouble for you if we were to go out into the woods all day tomorrow and take our dinner with us something cold, you know so as not to be a trouble to the cook."

"You are very considerate," said Mademoiselle coldly. Then Gerald's eyes smiled; they had a trick of doing this when his lips were quite serious. Mademoiselle caught the twinkle, and she laughed and Gerald laughed too.

"Little deceiver!" she said. "Why not say at once you want to be free of surveillance, how you say overwatching without pretending it is me you wish to please?"

"You have to be careful with grown-ups, " said Gerald, "but it isn't all pretence either. We don't want to trouble you and we don't want you to "

"To trouble you. Eh bien! Your parents, they permit these days at woods?"

"Oh, yes," said Gerald truthfully.

"Then I will not be more a dragon than the parents. I will forewarn the cook. Are you content?"

"Rather!" said Gerald. "Mademoiselle, you are a dear."

"A deer?" she repeated "a stag?"

"No, a a cherie," said Gerald "a regular A1 cherie. And you sha'n't repent it. Is there anything we can do for you wind your wool, or find your spectacles, or ?"

"He thinks me a grandmother!" said Mademoiselle, laughing more than ever. "Go then, and be not more naughty than you must."

"Well, what luck?" the others asked.

"It's all right," said Gerald indifferently. "I told you it would be. The ingenuous youth won the regard of the foreign governess, who in her youth had been the beauty of her humble village."

"I don't believe she ever was. She's too stern," said Kathleen.

"Ah!" said Gerald, "that's only because you don't know how to manage her. She wasn't stern with me."

"I say," what a humbug you are though, aren't you?" said Jimmy.

"No, I'm a dip what's-its-name? Something like an ambassador. Dipsoplomatist that's what I am. Anyhow, we've got our day, and if we don't find a cave in it my name's not Jack Robinson."

Mademoiselle, less stern than Kathleen had ever seen her, presided at supper, which was bread and treacle spread several hours before, and now harder and drier than any other food you can think of. Gerald was very polite in handing her butter and cheese, and pressing her to taste the bread and treacle.

"Bah! it is like sand in the mouth of a dryness! Is it possible this pleases you?"

"No," said Gerald, "it is not possible, but it is not polite for boys to make remarks about their food!"

She laughed, but there was no more dried bread and treacle for supper after that.

"How do you do it?" Kathleen whispered admiringly as they said good night.

"Oh, it's quite easy when you've once got a grownup to see what you're after. You'll see, I shall drive her with a rein of darning cotton after this."

Next morning Gerald got up early and gathered a little bunch of pink carnations from a plant which he found hidden among the marigolds. He tied it up with black cotton and laid it on Mademoiselle's plate. She smiled and looked quite handsome as she stuck the flowers in her belt.

"Do you think it's quite decent," Jimmy asked later "sort of bribing people to let you do as you like with flowers and things and passing them the salt?"

"It's not that," said Kathleen suddenly. "I know what Gerald means, only I never think of the things in time myself. You see, if you want grown-ups to be nice to you the least you can do is to be nice to them and think of little things to please them. I never think of any myself. Jerry does; that's why all the old ladies like him. It's not bribery. It's a sort of honesty like paying for things."

"Well, anyway," said Jimmy, putting away the moral question, "we've got a ripping day for the woods."

They had.

The wide High Street, even at the busy morning hour almost as quiet as a dream-street, lay bathed in sunshine; the leaves shone fresh from last night's rain, but the road was dry, and in the sunshine the very dust of it sparkled like diamonds. The beautiful old houses, standing stout and strong, looked as though they were basking in the sunshine and enjoying it.

"But are there any woods?" asked Kathleen as they passed the market-place.

"It doesn't much matter about woods," said Gerald dreamily, "we're sure to find something. One of the chaps told me his father said when he was a boy there used to be a little cave under the bank in a lane near the Salisbury Road; but he said there was an enchanted castle there too, so perhaps the cave isn't true either." "If we were to get horns," said Kathleen, "and to blow them very hard all the way, we might find a magic castle."

"If you've got the money to throw away on horns..." said Jimmy contemptuously.

"Well, I have, as it happens, so there!" said Kathleen. And the horns were bought in a tiny shop with a bulging window full of a tangle of toys and sweets and cucumbers and sour apples.

And the quiet square at the end of the town where the church is, and the houses of the most respectable people, echoed to the sound of horns blown long and loud. But none of the houses turned into enchanted castles. Away they went along the Salisbury Road, which was very hot and dusty, so they agreed to drink one of the bottles of ginger-beer.

"We might as well carry the ginger-beer inside us as inside the bottle," said Jimmy, "and we can hide the bottle and call for it as we come back.

Presently they came to a place where the road, as Gerald said, went two ways at once.

"That looks like adventures," said Kathleen; and they took the right-hand road, and the next time they took a turning it was a left-hand one, "so as to be quite fair," Jimmy said, and then a right-hand one and then a left, and so on, till they were completely lost.

"Completely," said Kathleen; "how jolly!"

And now trees arched overhead, and the banks of the road were high and bushy. The adventurers had long since ceased to blow their horns. It was too tiring to go on doing that, when there was no one to be annoyed by it.

"Oh, kriky!" observed Jimmy suddenly, "let's sit down a bit and have some of our dinner. We might call it lunch, you know," he added persuasively.

So they sat down in the hedge and ate the ripe red gooseberries that were to have been their dessert.

And as they sat and rested and wished that their boots did not feel so full of feet, Gerald leaned back against the bushes, and the bushes gave way so that he almost fell over backward. Something had yielded to the pressure of his back, and there was the sound of something heavy that fell.

"Oh, Jimminy!" he remarked, recovering himself suddenly; "there's something hollow in there the stone I was leaning against simply went!"

"I wish it was a cave," said Jimmy; "but of course it isn't."

"If we blow the horns perhaps it will be," said Kathleen, and hastily blew her own.

Gerald reached his hand through the bushes. "I can't feel anything but air," he said; "it's just a hole full of emptiness. The other two pulled back the bushes. There certainly was a hole in the bank. "I'm going to go in," observed Gerald.

"Oh, don't!" said his sister. "I wish you wouldn't. Suppose there were snakes!"

"Not likely," said Gerald, but he leaned forward and struck a match. "It is a cave!" he cried, and put his knee on the mossy stone he had been sitting on, scrambled over it, and disappeared.

A breathless pause followed.

"You all right?" asked Jimmy.

"Yes; come on. You'd better come feet first there's a bit of a drop."

"I'll go next," said Kathleen, and went feet first, as advised. The feet waved wildly in the air.

"Look out!" said Gerald in the dark; "you'll have my eye out. Put your feet down, girl, not up. It's no use trying to fly here there's no room."

He helped her by pulling her feet forcibly down and then lifting her under the arms. She felt rustling dry leaves under her boots, and stood ready to receive Jimmy, who came in head first, like one diving into an unknown sea.

"It is a cave," said Kathleen.

"The young explorers," explained Gerald, blocking up the hole of entrance with his shoulders, "dazzled at first by the darkness of the cave, could see nothing."

"Darkness doesn't dazzle," said Jimmy.

"I wish we'd got a candle," said Kathleen.

"Yes, it does," Gerald contradicted "could see nothing. But their dauntless leader, whose eyes had grown used to the dark while the clumsy forms of the others were bunging up the entrance, had made a discovery.

"Oh, what!" Both the others were used to Gerald's way of telling a story while he acted it, but they did sometimes wish that he didn't talk quite so long and so like a book in moments of excitement.

"He did not reveal the dread secret to his faithful followers till one and all had given him their word of honour to be calm."

"We'll be calm all right," said Jimmy impatiently."Well, then," said Gerald, ceasing suddenly to be a book and becoming a boy, "there's a light over there look behind you!"

They looked. And there was. A faint greyness on the brown walls of the cave, and a brighter greyness cut off sharply by a dark line, showed that round a turning or angle of the cave there was daylight.

"Attention!" said Gerald; at least, that was what he meant, though what he said was "Shun!" as becomes the son of a soldier. The others mechanically obeyed.

"You will remain at attention till I give the word "Slow march!' on which you will advance cautiously in open order, following your hero leader, taking care not to tread on the dead and wounded."

"I wish you wouldn't!" said Kathleen.

"There aren't any," said Jimmy, feeling for her hand in the dark; "he only means, take care not to tumble over stones and things"

Here he found her hand, and she screamed.

"It's only me," said Jimmy. "I thought you'd like me to hold it. But you're just like a girl."

Their eyes had now begun to get accustomed to the darkness, and all could see that they were in a rough stone cave, that went straight on for about three or four yards and then turned sharply to the right.

"Death or victory!" remarked Gerald. "Now, then Slow march!"

He advanced carefully, picking his way among the loose earth and stones that were the floor of the cave.

"A sail, a sail!" he cried, as he turned the corner.

"How splendid!" Kathleen drew a long breath as she came out into the sunshine.

"I don't see any sail," said Jimmy, following.

The narrow passage ended in a round arch all fringed with ferns and creepers. They passed through the arch into a deep, narrow gully whose banks were of stones, moss-covered; and in the crannies grew more ferns and long grasses. Trees growing on the top of the bank arched across, and the sunlight came through in changing patches of brightness, turning the gully to a roofed corridor of goldy-green. The path, which was of greeny-grey flagstones where heaps of leaves had drifted, sloped steeply down, and at the end of it was another round arch, quite dark inside, above which rose rocks and grass and bushes.

"It's like the outside of a railway tunnel," said James.

"It's the entrance to the enchanted castle," said Kathleen. "Let's blow the horns."

"Dry up!" said Gerald. "The bold Captain, reproving the silly chatter of his subordinates ,"

"I like that!" said Jimmy, indignant.

"I thought you would," resumed Gerald "of his subordinates, bade them advance with caution and in silence, because after all there might be somebody about, and the other arch might be an ice-house or something dangerous.

"What?" asked Kathleen anxiously.

"Bears, perhaps," said Gerald briefly.

"There aren't any bears without bars in England, anyway," said Jimmy. "They call bears bars in America," he added absently.

"Quick march!" was Gerald's only reply.

And they marched. Under the drifted damp leaves the path was firm and stony to their shuffling feet. At the dark arch they stopped.

"There are steps down," said Jimmy.

"It is an ice-house," said Gerald.

"Don't let's," said Kathleen.

"Our hero," said Gerald, "who nothing could dismay, raised the faltering hopes of his abject minions by saying that he was jolly well going on, and they could do as they liked about it."

"If you call names," said Jimmy, "you can go on by yourself. He added, "So there!"

"It's part of the game, silly," explained Gerald kindly. "You can be Captain tomorrow, so you'd better hold your jaw now, and begin to think about what names you'll call us when it's your turn."

Very slowly and carefully they went down the steps. A vaulted stone arched over their heads. Gerald struck a match when the last step was found to have no edge, and to be, in fact, the beginning of a passage, turning to the left.

"This," said Jimmy, "will take us back into the road."

"Or under it," said Gerald. "We've come down eleven steps."

They went on, following their leader, who went very slowly for fear, as he explained, of steps. The passage was very dark.

"I don't half like it!" whispered Jimmy.

Then came a glimmer of daylight that grew and grew, and presently ended in another arch that looked out over a scene so like a picture out of a book about Italy that everyone's breath was taken away, and they simply walked forward silent and staring. A short avenue of cypresses led, widening as it went, to a marble terrace that lay broad and white in the sunlight. The children, blinking, leaned their arms on the broad, flat balustrade and gazed. Immediately below them was a lake just like a lake in "The Beauties of Italy" a lake with swans and an island and weeping willows; beyond it were green slopes dotted with groves of trees, and amid the trees gleamed the white limbs of statues. Against a little hill to the left was a round white building with pillars, and to the right a waterfall came tumbling down among mossy stones to splash into the lake. Steps fed from the terrace to the water, and other steps to the green lawns beside it. Away across the grassy slopes deer were feeding, and in the distance where the groves of trees thickened into what looked almost a forest were enormous shapes of grey stone, like nothing that the children had ever seen before.

"That chap at school ," said Gerald.

"It is an enchanted castle," said Kathleen.

"I don't see any castle," said Jimmy.

"What do you call that, then?" Gerald pointed to where, beyond a belt of lime-trees, white towers and turrets broke the blue of the sky.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone about," said Kathleen, "and yet it's all so tidy. I believe it is magic"

"Magic mowing machines," Jimmy suggested.

"If we were in a book it would be an enchanted castle certain to be," said Kathleen.

"It is an enchanted castle," said Gerald in hollow tones.

"But there aren't any" Jimmy was quite positive.

"How do you know? Do you think there's nothing in the world but what you've seen?" His scorn was crushing.

"I think magic went out when people began to have steam-engines," Jimmy insisted, "and newspapers, and telephones and wireless telegraphing."

"Wireless is rather like magic when you come to think of it," said Gerald.

"Oh, that sort!" Jimmy's contempt was deep.

"Perhaps there's given up being magic because people didn't believe in it any more," said Kathleen.

"Well, don't let's spoil the show with any silly old not believing," said Gerald with decision. "I'm going to believe in magic as hard as I can. This is an enchanted garden, and that's an enchanted castle, and I'm jolly well going to explore."

The dauntless knight then led the way, leaving his ignorant squires to follow or not, just as they jolly well chose. He rolled off the balustrade and strode firmly down towards the lawn, his boots making, as they went, a clatter full of determination. The others followed. There never was such a garden out of a picture or a fairy-tale. They passed quite close by the deer, who only raised their pretty heads to look, and did not seem startled at all. And after a long stretch of turf they passed under the heaped-up heavy masses of lime-trees and came into a rose-garden, bordered with thick, close-cut yew hedges, and lying red and pink and green and white in the sun, like a giant's many-coloured, highly-scented pocket-handkerchief.

"I know we shall meet a gardener in a minute, and he'll ask what we re doing here. And then what will you say?" Kathleen asked with her nose in a rose.

"I shall say we have lost our way, and it will be quite true," said Gerald.

But they did not meet a gardener or anybody else, and the feeling of magic got thicker and thicker, till they were almost afraid of the sound of their feet in the great silent place. Beyond the rose garden was a yew hedge with an arch cut in it, and it was the beginning of a maze like the one in Hampton Court.

"Now," said Gerald, "you mark my words. In the middle of this maze we shall find the secret enchantment. Draw your swords, my merry men all, and hark forward tallyho in the utmost silence. Which they did. It was very hot in the maze, between the close yew hedges, and the way to the maze's heart was hidden well. Again and again they found themselves at the black yew arch that opened on the rose garden, and they were all glad that they had brought large, clean pocket-handkerchiefs with them. It was when they found themselves there for the fourth time that Jimmy suddenly cried, "Oh, I wish ' and then stopped short very suddenly. "Oh!" he added in quite a different voice, "where's the dinner?" And then in a stricken silence they all remembered that the basket with the dinner had been left at the entrance of the cave. Their thoughts dwelt fondly on the slices of cold mutton, the six tomatoes, the bread and butter, the screwed-up paper of salt, the apple turnovers, and the little thick glass that one drank the ginger-beer out of.

"Let's go back," said Jimmy, "now this minute, and get our things and have our dinner."

"Let's have one more try at the maze. I hate giving things up," said Gerald.

"I am so hungry!" said Jimmy.

"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Gerald bitterly.

"I wasn't before."

"Then you can't be now. You don't get hungry all in a minute. What's that?"

That was a gleam of red that lay at the foot of the yew-hedge a thin little line, that you would hardly have noticed unless you had been staring in a fixed and angry way at the roots of the hedge.

It was a thread of cotton. Gerald picked it up. One end of it was tied to a thimble with holes in it, and the other -- 

"There is no other end," said Gerald, with firm triumph. "It's a clew that's what it is. What price cold mutton now? I've always felt something magic would happen some day, and now it has."

"I expect the gardener put it there," said Jimmy.

"With a Princess's silver thimble on it? Look! there's a crown on the thimble."

There was.

"Come," said Gerald in low, urgent tones, "if you are adventurers be adventurers; and anyhow, I expect someone has gone along the road and bagged the mutton hours ago."

He walked forward, winding the red thread round his fingers as he went. And it was a clew, and it led them right into the middle of the maze. And in the very middle of the maze they came upon the wonder.

The red clew led them up two stone steps to a round grass plot. There was a sun-dial in the middle, and all round against the yew hedge a low, wide marble seat. The red clew ran straight across the grass and by the sun-dial, and ended in a small brown hand with jewelled rings on every finger. The hand was, naturally, attached to an arm, and that had many bracelets on it, sparkling with red and blue and green stones. The arm wore a sleeve of pink and gold brocaded silk, faded a little here and there but still extremely imposing, and the sleeve was part of a dress, which was worn by a lady who lay on the stone seat asleep in the sun. The rosy gold dress fell open over an embroidered petticoat of a soft green colour. There was old yellow lace the colour of scalded cream, and a thin white veil spangled with silver stars covered the face.

"It's the enchanted Princess," said Gerald, now really impressed. "I told you so."

"It's the Sleeping Beauty," said Kathleen. "It is look how old-fashioned her clothes are, like the pictures of Marie Antoinette's ladies in the history book. She has slept for a hundred years. Oh, Gerald, you're the eldest; you must be the Prince, and we never knew it."

"She isn't really a Princess," said Jimmy. But the others laughed at him, partly because his saying things like that was enough to spoil any game, and partly because they really were not at all sure that it was not a Princess who lay there as still as the sunshine. Every stage of the adventure the cave, the wonderful gardens, the maze, the clew, had deepened the feeling of magic, till now Kathleen and Gerald were almost completely bewitched.

"Lift the veil up," Jerry, said Kathleen in a whisper, "if she isn't beautiful we shall know she can't be the Princess.

"Lift it yourself," said Gerald.

"I expect you're forbidden to touch the figures," said Jimmy.

"It's not wax, silly," said his brother.

"No," said his sister, "wax wouldn't be much good in this sun. And, besides, you can see her breathing. It's the Princess right enough." She very gently lifted the edge of the veil and turned it back. The Princess's face was small and white between long plaits of black hair. Her nose was straight and her brows finely traced. There were a few freckles on cheekbones and nose.

"No wonder," whispered Kathleen, "sleeping all these years in all this sun! Her mouth was not a rosebud. But all the same "Isn't she lovely!" Kathleen murmured. "Not so dusty," Gerald was understood to reply. "Now, Jerry," said Kathleen firmly, "you're the eldest."

"Of course I am," said Gerald uneasily.

"Well, you've got to wake the Princess."

"She's not a Princess," said Jimmy, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers; "she's only a little girl dressed up."

"But she's in long dresses," urged Kathleen.

"Yes, but look what a little way down her frock her feet come. She wouldn't be any taller than Jerry if she was to stand up."

"Now then," urged Kathleen. "Jerry, don't be silly. You've got to do it."

"Do what?" asked Gerald, kicking his left boot with his right.

"Why, kiss her awake, of course."

"Not me!" was Gerald's unhesitating rejoinder.

"Well, someone's got to."

"She'd go for me as likely as not the minute she woke up," said Gerald anxiously.

"I'd do it like a shot," said Kathleen, "but I don't suppose it ud make any difference me kissing her."

She did it; and it didn't. The Princess still lay in deep slumber.

"Then you must, Jimmy. I dare say you'll do. Jump back quickly before she can hit you."

"She won't hit him, he's such a little chap," said Gerald.

"Little yourself!" said Jimmy. "I don't mind kissing her. I'm not a coward, like Some People. Only if I do, I'm going to be the dauntless leader for the rest of the day."

"No, look here hold on!" cried Gerald, "perhaps I'd better " But, in the meantime, Jimmy had planted a loud, cheerful-sounding kiss on the Princess's pale cheek, and now the three stood breathless, awaiting the result.

And the result was that the Princess opened large, dark eyes, stretched out her arms, yawned a little, covering her mouth with a small brown hand, and said, quite plainly and distinctly, and without any room at all for mistake:

"Then the hundred years are over? How the yew hedges have grown! Which of you is my Prince that aroused me from my deep sleep of so many long years?"

"I did," said Jimmy fearlessly, for she did not look as though she were going to slap anyone.

"My noble preserver!" said the Princess, and held out her hand. Jimmy shook it vigorously.

"But I say," said he, "you aren't really a Princess, are you?"

"Of course I am," she answered; "who else could I be? Look at my crown!" She pulled aside the spangled veil, and showed beneath it a coronet of what even Jimmy could not help seeing to be diamonds.

"But " said Jimmy.

"Why," she said, opening her eyes very wide, "you must have known about my being here, or you'd never have come. How did you get past the dragons?"

Gerald ignored the question. "I say," he said, "do you really believe in magic, and all that?"

"I ought to," she said, "if anybody does. Look, here's the place where I pricked my finger with the spindle." She showed a little scar on her wrist.

"Then this really is an enchanted castle?"

"Of course it is," said the Princess. "How stupid you are!" She stood up, and her pink brocaded dress lay in bright waves about her feet.

"I said her dress would be too long," said Jimmy.

"It was the right length when I went to sleep," said the Princess; "it must have grown in the hundred years."

"I don't believe you're a Princess at all," said Jimmy; "at least "

"Don't bother about believing it, if you don't like," said the Princess. "It doesn't so much matter what you believe as what I am. She turned to the others.

"Let's go back to the castle," she said, "and I'll show you all my lovely jewels and things. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Yes, said Gerald with very plain hesitation. "But "

"But what?" The Princess's tone was impatient.

"But we're most awfully hungry." "Oh, so am I!" cried the Princess.

"We've had nothing to eat since breakfast."

"And it's three now," said the Princess, looking at the sun-dial. "Why, you've had nothing to eat for hours and hours and hours. But think of me! I haven't had anything to eat for a hundred years." Come along to the castle.

"The mice will have eaten everything," said Jimmy sadly. He saw now that she really was a Princess.

"Not they," cried the Princess joyously. "You forget everything's enchanted here. Time simply stood still for a hundred years. Come along, and one of you must carry my train, or I shan't be able to move now it's grown such a frightful length."

When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will believe their stories, and so they don't tell them to any one except me. And they tell me, because they know that I can believe anything.

When Jimmy had awakened the Sleeping Princess, and she had invited the three children to go with her to her palace and get something to eat, they all knew quite surely that they had come into a place of magic happenings. And they walked in a slow procession along the grass towards the castle. The Princess went first, and Kathleen carried her shining train; then came Jimmy, and Gerald came last. They were all quite sure that they had walked right into the middle of a fairy-tale, and they were the more ready to believe it because they were so tired and hungry. They were, in fact, so hungry and tired that they hardly noticed where they were going, or observed the beauties of the formal gardens through which the pink-silk Princess was leading them. They were in a sort of dream, from which they only partially awakened to find themselves in a big hail, with suits of armour and old flags round the walls, the skins of beasts on the floor, and heavy oak tables and benches ranged along it.

The Princess entered, slow and stately, but once inside she twitched her sheeny train out of Jimmy's hand and turned to the three.

"You just wait here a minute," she said, "and mind you don't talk while I'm away. This castle is crammed with magic, and I don't know what will happen if you talk." And with that, picking up the thick goldy-pink folds under her arms, she ran out, as Jimmy said afterwards, "most unprincesslike," showing as she ran black stockings and black strap shoes.

Jimmy wanted very much to say that he didn't believe anything would happen, only he was afraid something would happen if he did, so he merely made a face and put out his tongue. The others pretended not to see this, which was much more crushing than anything they could have said. So they sat in silence, and Gerald ground the heel of his boot upon the marble floor. Then the Princess came back, very slowly and kicking her long skirts in front of her at every step. She could not hold them up now because of the tray she carried.

It was not a silver tray, as you might have expected, but an oblong tin one. She set it down noisily on the end of the long table and breathed a sigh of relief..

"Oh! it was heavy," she said. I don't know what fairy feast the children's fancy had been busy with. Anyhow, this was nothing like it. The heavy tray held a loaf of bread, a lump of cheese, and a brown jug of water. The rest of its heaviness was just plates and mugs and knives.

"Come along," said the Princess hospitably. "I couldn't find anything but bread and cheese but it doesn't matter, because everything's magic here, and unless you have some dreadful secret fault the bread and cheese will turn into anything you like. What would you like?" she asked Kathleen.

"Roast chicken," said Kathleen, without hesitation.

The pinky Princess cut a slice of bread and laid it on a dish.

"There you are," she said, "roast chicken. Shall I carve it, or will you?"

"You, please," said Kathleen, and received a piece of dry bread on a plate.

"Green peas?" asked the Princess, cut a piece of cheese and laid it beside the bread.

Kathleen began to eat the bread, cutting it up with knife and fork as you would eat chicken. It was no use owning that she didn't see any chicken and peas, or anything but cheese and dry bread, because that would be owning that she had some dreadful secret fault.

"If I have, it is a secret, even from me," she told herself.

The others asked for roast beef and cabbage and got it, she supposed, though to her it only looked like dry bread and Dutch cheese.

"I do wonder what my dreadful secret fault is," she thought, as the Princess remarked that, as for her, she could fancy a slice of roast peacock. "This one, she added, lifting a second mouthful of dry bread on her fork, "is quite delicious."

"It's a game, isn't it?" asked Jimmy suddenly.

"What's a game?" asked the Princess, frowning.

"Pretending it's beef the bread and cheese, I mean."

"A game? But it is beef. Look at it," said the Princess, opening her eyes very wide.

"Yes, of course," said Jimmy feebly. "I was only joking."

Bread and cheese is not perhaps so good as roast beef or chicken or peacock (I'm not sure about the peacock. I never tasted peacock, did you?); but bread and cheese is, at any rate, very much better than nothing when you have gone on having nothing since breakfast (gooseberries and ginger-beer hardly count) and it is long past your proper dinner-time. Everyone ate and drank and felt much better.

"Now," said the Princess, brushing the bread crumbs off her green silk lap, "if you're sure you won't have any more meat you can come and see my treasures. Sure you won't take the least bit more chicken? No? Then follow me."

She got up and they followed her down the long hall to the end where the great stone stairs ran up at each side and joined in a broad flight leading to the gallery above. Under the stairs was a hanging of tapestry.

"Beneath this arras," said the Princess, "is the door leading to my private apartments." She held the tapestry up with both hands, for it was heavy, and showed a little door that had been hidden by it.

"The key," she said, "hangs above."

And so it did, on a large rusty nail.

"Put it in," said the Princess, "and turn it." Gerald did so, and the great key creaked and grated in the lock.

"Now push," she said; "push hard, all of you. They pushed hard, all of them. The door gave way, and they fell over each other into the dark space beyond.

The Princess dropped the curtain and came after them, closing the door behind her.

"Look out!" she said; "look out!" there are two steps down.

"Thank you," said Gerald, rubbing his knee at the bottom of the steps. "We found that out for ourselves." "I'm sorry," said the Princess, "but you can't have hurt yourselves much. Go straight on. There aren't any more steps."

They went straight on in the dark.

"When you come to the door just turn the handle and go in. Then stand still till I find the matches. I know where they are."

"Did they have matches a hundred years ago?" asked Jimmy.

"I meant the tinder-box," said the Princess quickly. "We always called it the matches. Don't you? Here, let me go first."

She did, and when they had reached the door she was waiting for them with a candle in her hand. She thrust it on Gerald.

"Hold it steady," she said, and undid the shutters of a long window, so that first a yellow streak and then a blazing great oblong of light flashed at them and the room was full of sunshine.

"It makes the candle look quite silly," said Jimmy. "So it does, said the Princess, and blew out the candle. Then she took the key from the outside of the door, put it in the inside keyhole, and turned it.

The room they were in was small and high. Its domed ceiling was of deep blue with gold stars painted on it. The walls were of wood, panelled and carved, and there was no furniture in it whatever.

"This," said the Princess, "is my treasure chamber." "But where, asked Kathleen politely, "are the treasures?"

"Don't you see them?" asked the Princess.

"No, we don't," said Jimmy bluntly. "You don't come that bread-and-cheese game with me not twice over, you don't!"

"If you really don't see them," said the Princess, "I suppose I shall have to say the charm. Shut your eyes, please. And give me your word of honour you won't look till I tell you, and that you'll never tell anyone what you've seen."

Their words of honour were something that the children would rather not have given just then, but they gave them all the same, and shut their eyes tight.

"Wiggadil yougadoo begadee leegadeeve nowgadow?" said the Princess rapidly; and they heard the swish of her silk train moving across the room. Then there was a creaking, rustling noise.

"She's locking us in!" cried Jimmy.

"Your word of honour," gasped Gerald.

"Oh, do be quick!" moaned Kathleen.

"You may look," said the voice of the Princess. And they looked. The room was not the same room, yet yes, the starry-vaulted blue ceiling was there, and below it half a dozen feet of the dark panelling, but below that the walls of the room blazed and sparkled with white and blue and red and green and gold and silver. Shelves ran round the room, and on them were gold cups and silver dishes, and platters and goblets set with gems, ornaments of gold and silver, tiaras of diamonds, necklaces of rubies, strings of emeralds and pearls, all set out in unimaginable splendour against a background of faded blue velvet. It was like the Crown jewels that you see when your kind uncle takes you to the Tower, only there seemed to be far more jewels than you or anyone else has ever seen together at the Tower or anywhere else.

The three children remained breathless, open-mouthed, staring at the sparkling splendours all about them, while the Princess stood, her arm stretched out in a gesture of command, and a proud smile on her lips.

"My word!" said Gerald, in a low whisper. But no one spoke out loud. They waited as if spellbound for the Princess to speak.

She spoke.

"What price bread-and-cheese games now?" she asked triumphantly. "Can I do magic, or can't I?"

"You can; oh, you can!" said Kathleen.

"May we may we touch?" asked Gerald.

"All that's mine is yours," said the Princess, with a generous wave of her brown hand, and added quickly, "Only, of course, you mustn't take anything away with you."

"We're not thieves!" said Jimmy. The others were already turning over the wonderful things on the blue velvet shelves.

"Perhaps not," said the Princess, "but you're a very unbelieving little boy. You think I can't see inside you, but I can. I know what you've been thinking."

"What?" asked Jimmy.

"Oh, you know well enough," said the Princess. "You're thinking about the bread and cheese that I changed into beef, and about your secret fault. I say, let's all dress up and you be princes and princesses too."

"To crown our hero," said Gerald, lifting a gold crown with a cross on the top, "was the work of a moment." He put the crown on his head, and added a collar of SS and a zone of sparkling emeralds, which would not quite meet round his middle. He turned from fixing it by an ingenious adaptation of his belt to find the others already decked with diadems, necklaces, and rings.

"How splendid you look!" said the Princess, "and how I wish your clothes were prettier. What ugly clothes people wear nowadays! A hundred years ago "

Kathleen stood quite still with a diamond bracelet raised in her hand.

"I say," she said. "The King and Queen?"

"What King and Queen?" asked the Princess.

"Your father and mother," your sorrowing parents, said Kathleen. "They'll have waked up by now. Won't they be wanting to see you, after a hundred years, you know?"

"Oh ah yes," said the Princess slowly. "I embraced my rejoicing parents when I got the bread and cheese. They re having their dinner. They won't expect me yet. Here," she added, hastily putting a ruby bracelet on Kathleen's arm, "see how splendid that is!"

Kathleen would have been quite content to go on all day trying on different jewels and looking at herself in the little silver-framed mirror that the Princess took from one of the shelves, but the boys were soon weary of this amusement.

"Look here," said Gerald, "if you're sure your father and mother won't want you, let's go out and have a jolly good game of something. You could play besieged castles awfully well in that maze unless you can do any more magic tricks."

"You forget," said the Princess, "I'm grown up. I don't play games. And I don't like to do too much magic at a time, it's so tiring. Besides, it'll take us ever so long to put all these things back in their proper places."

It did. The children would have laid the jewels just anywhere; but the Princess showed them that every necklace, or ring, or bracelet had its own home on the velvet a slight hollowing in the shelf beneath, so that each stone fitted into its own little nest.

As Kathleen was fitting the last shining ornament into its proper place, she saw that part of the shelf near it held, not bright jewels, but rings and brooches and chains, as well as queer things that she did not know the names of, and all were of dull metal and odd shapes.

"What's all this rubbish?" she asked.

"Rubbish, indeed!" said the Princess. "Why those are all magic things! This bracelet anyone who wears it has got to speak the truth. This chain makes you as strong as ten men; if you wear this spur your horse will go a mile a minute; or if you're walking it's the same as seven-league boots."

"What does this brooch do?" asked Kathleen, reaching out her hand. The princess caught her by the wrist.

"You mustn't touch," she said; "if anyone but me touches them all the magic goes out at once and never comes back. That brooch will give you any wish you like."

"And this ring?" Jimmy pointed.

"Oh, that makes you invisible."

"What's this?" asked Gerald, showing a curious buckle.

"Oh, that undoes the effect of all the other charms."

"Do you mean really?" Jimmy asked. "You're not just kidding?"

"Kidding indeed!" repeated the Princess scornfully. "I should have thought I'd shown you enough magic to prevent you speaking to a Princess like that!"

"I say," said Gerald, visibly excited. "You might show us how some of the things act. Couldn't you give us each a wish?"

The Princess did not at once answer. And the minds of the three played with granted wishes brilliant yet thoroughly reasonable the kind of wish that never seems to occur to people in fairy-tales when they suddenly get a chance to have their three wishes granted.

"No," said the Princess suddenly, "no; I can't give wishes to you, it only gives me wishes. But I'll let you see the ring make me invisible. Only you must shut your eyes while I do it."

They shut them.

"Count fifty," said the Princess, "and then you may look. And then you must shut them again, and count fifty, and I'll reappear."

Gerald counted, aloud. Through the counting one could hear a creaking, rustling sound.

"Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!" said Gerald, and they opened their eyes.

They were alone in the room. The jewels had vanished and so had the Princess.

"She's gone out by the door, of course," said Jimmy, but the door was locked.

"That is magic," said Kathleen breathlessly. "Maskelyne and Devant can do that trick, said Jimmy. "And I want my tea."

"Your tea!" Gerald's tone was full of contempt. "The lovely Princess, he went on, "reappeared as soon as our hero had finished counting fifty. One, two, three, four ,"

Gerald and Kathleen had both closed their eyes. But somehow Jimmy hadn't. He didn't mean to cheat, he just forgot. And as Gerald's count reached twenty he saw a panel under the window open slowly.

"Her," he said to himself. "I knew it was a trick!" and at once shut his eyes, like an honourable little boy.

On the word "fifty" six eyes opened. And the panel was closed and there was no Princess.

"She hasn't pulled it off this time," said Gerald. "Perhaps you'd better count again," said Kathleen. "I believe there's a cupboard under the window," said Jimmy, "and she's hidden in it. Secret panel, you know."

"You looked! That's cheating," said the voice of the Princess so close to his ear that he quite jumped.

"I didn't cheat."

"Where on earth What ever ," said all three together. For still there was no Princess to be seen.

"Come back visible, Princess dear," said Kathleen. "Shall we shut our eyes and count again?"

"Don't be silly!" said the voice of the Princess, and it sounded very cross.

"We're not silly," said Jimmy, and his voice was cross too. "Why can't you come back and have done with it? You know you're only hiding."

"Don't!" said Kathleen gently. "She is invisible, you know."

"So should I be if I got into the cupboard," said Jimmy.

"Oh yes," said the sneering tone of the Princess, "you think yourselves very clever, I dare say. But I don't mind. We'll play that you can't see me, if you like."

"Well, but we can't," said Gerald. "It's no use getting in a wax. If you're hiding, as Jimmy says, you'd better come out. If you've really turned invisible, you'd better make yourself visible again."

"Do you really mean," asked a voice quite changed, but still the Princess's, "that you can't see me?"

"Can't you see we can't?" asked Jimmy rather unreasonably.

The sun was blazing in at the window; the eight-sided room was very hot, and everyone was getting cross.

"You can't see me?" There was the sound of a sob in the voice of the invisible Princess.

"No, I tell you," said Jimmy, "and I want my tea and "

What he was saying was broken off short, as one might break a stick of sealing wax. And then in the golden afternoon a really quite horrid thing happened: Jimmy suddenly leaned backwards, then forwards, his eyes opened wide and his mouth too. Backward and forward he went, very quickly and abruptly, then stood still.

"Oh, he's in a fit! Oh, Jimmy, dear Jimmy!" cried Kathleen, hurrying to him. "What is it, dear, what is it?"

"It's not a fit," gasped Jimmy angrily. "She shook me."

"Yes, said the voice of the Princess, "and I'll shake him again if he keeps on saying he can't see me."

"You'd better shake me," said Gerald angrily. "I'm nearer your own size."

And instantly she did. But not for long. The moment Gerald felt hands on his shoulders he put up his own and caught those other hands by the wrists. And there he was, holding wrists that he couldn't see. It was a dreadful sensation. An invisible kick made him wince, but he held tight to the wrists.

"Cathy," he cried, "come and hold her legs; she's kicking me."

"Where?" cried Kathleen, anxious to help. "I don't see any legs."

"This is her hands I've got," cried Gerald. "She is invisible right enough. Get hold of this hand, and then you can feel your way down to her legs."

Kathleen did so. I wish I could make you understand how very, very uncomfortable and frightening it is to feel, in broad daylight, hands and arms that you can't see.

"I won't have you hold my legs," said the invisible Princess, struggling violently.

"What are you so cross about?" Gerald was quite calm. "You said you'd be invisible and you are."

"I'm not."

"You are really. Look in the glass."

"I'm not; I can't be."

"Look in the glass," Gerald repeated, quite unmoved.

"Let go, then," she said.

Gerald did, and the moment he had done so he found it impossible to believe that he really had been holding invisible hands.

"You're just pretending not to see me," said the Princess anxiously, "aren't you? Do say you are. You've had your joke with me. Don't keep it up. I don't like it."

"On our sacred word of honour," said Gerald, "you're still invisible.

There was a silence. Then, "Come," said the Princess. "I'll let you out, and you can go. I'm tired of playing with you."

They followed her voice to the door, and through it, and along the little passage into the hall. No one said anything. Everyone felt very uncomfortable.

"Let's get out of this," whispered Jimmy as they got to the end of the hall.

But the voice of the Princess said: "Come out this way; it's quicker. I think you're perfectly hateful. I'm sorry I ever played with you. Mother always told me not to play with strange children."

A door abruptly opened, though no hand was seen to touch it. "Come through, can't you!" said the voice of the Princess.

It was a little ante-room, with long, narrow mirrors between its long, narrow windows.

"Good-bye, said Gerald. "Thanks for giving us such a jolly time. Let's part friends, he added, holding out his hand.

An unseen hand was slowly put in his, which closed on it, vice-like.

"Now," he said, "you've jolly well got to look in the glass and own that we're not liars."

He led the invisible Princess to. one of the mirrors, and held her in front of it by the shoulders.

"Now," he said, "you just look for yourself." There was a silence, and then a cry of despair rang through the room.

"Oh oh oh! I am invisible. Whatever shall I do?"

"Take the ring off," said Kathleen, suddenly practical.

Another silence.

"I can't!" cried the Princess. "It won't come off. But it can't be the ring; rings don't make you invisible."

"You said this one did," said Kathleen, "and it has."

"But it can't," said the Princess. "I was only playing at magic. I just hid in the secret cupboard it was only a game. Oh, whatever shall I do?"

"A game?" said Gerald slowly; "but you can do magic the invisible jewels, and you made them come visible."

"Oh, it's only a secret spring and the panelling slides up. Oh, what am I to do?"

Kathleen moved towards the voice and gropingly got her arms round a pink-silk waist that she couldn't see. Invisible arms clasped her, a hot invisible cheek was laid against hers, and warm invisible tears lay wet between the two faces.

"Don't cry, dear," said Kathleen; "let me go and tell the King and Queen."

"The ?"

"Your royal father and mother."

"Oh, don't mock me!" said the poor Princess. "You know that was only a game, too, like ,"

"Like the bread and cheese," said Jimmy triumphantly. "I knew that was!"

"But your dress and being asleep in the maze, and ,"

"Oh, I dressed up for fun, because everyone's away at the fair, and I put the clew just to make it all more real. I was playing at Fair Rosamond first, and then I heard you talking in the maze, and I thought what fun; and now I'm invisible, and I shall never come right again, never I know I shan't! It serves me right for lying, but I didn't really think you'd believe it not more than half, that is," she added hastily, trying to be truthful.

"But if you're not the Princess, who are you?" asked Kathleen, still embracing the unseen.

"I'm my aunt lives here," said the invisible Princess. "She may be home any time. Oh, what shall I do?"

"Perhaps she knows some charm "

"Oh, nonsense!" said the voice sharply; "she doesn't believe in charms. She would be so vexed. Oh, I daren't let her see me like this!" she added wildly.

"And all of you here, too. She'd be so dreadfully cross."

The beautiful magic castle that the children had believed in now felt as though it were tumbling about their ears. All that was left was the invisibleness of the Princess. But that, you will own, was a good deal.

"I just said it, moaned the voice, "and it came true. I wish I'd never played at magic I wish I'd never played at anything at all."

"Oh, don't say that," Gerald said kindly. "Let's go out into the garden, near the lake, where it's cool, and we'll hold a solemn council. You'll like that, won't you?"

"Oh!" cried Kathleen suddenly, "the buckle; that makes magic come undone!"

"It doesn't really," murmured the voice that seemed to speak without lips. "I only just said that."

"You only 'just said' about the ring," said Gerald. "Anyhow, let's try."

"Not you me," said the voice. "You go down to the Temple of Flora, by the lake. I'll go back to the jewel-room by myself. Aunt might see you."

"She won't see you," said Jimmy.

"Don't rub it in," said Gerald. "Where is the Temple of Flora?"

"That's the way," the voice said; "down those steps and along the winding path through the shrubbery. You can't miss it. It's white marble, with a statue goddess inside."

The three children went down to the white marble Temple of Flora that stood close against the side of the little hill, and sat down in its shadowy inside. It had arches all round except against the hill behind the statue, and it was cool and restful.

They had not been there five minutes before the feet of a runner sounded loud on the gravel. A shadow, very black and distinct, fell on the white marble floor.

"Your shadow's not invisible, anyhow," said Jimmy.

"Oh, bother my shadow!" the voice of the Princess replied. "We left the key inside the door, and it's shut itself with the wind, and it's a spring lock!"

There was a heartfelt pause.

Then Gerald said, in his most business-like manner: "Sit down, Princess, and we'll have a thorough good palaver about it."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy, "if we was to wake up and find it was dreams."

"No such luck," said the voice.

"Well," said Gerald, "first of all, what's your name, and if you're not a Princess, who are you?"

"I'm I'm," said a voice broken with sobs, "I'm the housekeeper's niece at the castle and my name's Mabel Prowse."

"That's exactly what I thought," said Jimmy, without a shadow of truth, because how could he? The others were silent. It was a moment full of agitation and confused ideas.

"Well, anyhow," said Gerald, "you belong here."

"Yes," said the voice, and it came from the floor, as though its owner had flung herself down in the madness of despair. "Oh yes, I belong here right enough, but what's the use of belonging anywhere if you're invisible?"

Those of my readers who have gone about much with an invisible companion will not need to be told how awkward the whole business is. For one thing, however much you may have been convinced that your companion is invisible, you will, I feel sure, have found yourself every now and then saying, "This must be a dream!" or "I know I shall wake up in half a sec!" And this was the case with Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy as they sat in the white marble Temple of Flora, looking out through its arches at the sunshiny park and listening to the voice of the enchanted Princess, who really was not a Princess at all, but just the housekeeper's niece, Mabel Prowse; though, as Jimmy said, "she was enchanted, right enough."

"It's no use talking," she said again and again, and the voice came from an empty-looking space between two pillars; "I never believed anything would happen, and now it has."

"Well," said Gerald kindly, "can we do anything for you? Because, if not, I think we ought to be going."

"Yes," said Jimmy; "I do want my tea!"

"Tea!" said the unseen Mabel scornfully. "Do you mean to say you'd go off to your teas and leave me after getting me into this mess?"

"Well, of all the unfair Princesses I ever met!" Gerald began. But Kathleen interrupted

"Oh, don't rag her," she said. "Think how horrid it must be to be invisible!"

"I don't think," said the hidden Mabel, "that my aunt likes me very much as it is. She wouldn't let me go to the fair because I'd forgotten to put back some old trumpery shoe that Queen Elizabeth wore I got it out from the glass case to try it on."

"Did it fit?" asked Kathleen, with interest

"Not it much too small," said Mabel. "I don't believe it ever fitted anyone."

"I do want my tea!" said Jimmy

"I do really think perhaps we ought to go," said Gerald. "You see, it isn't as if we could do anything for you."

"You'll have to tell your aunt," said Kathleen kindly

"No, no, no!" moaned Mabel invisibly; "take me with you. I'll leave her a note to say I've run away to sea."

"Girls don't run away to sea.""

They might," said the stone floor between the pillars, "as stowaways, if nobody wanted a cabin boy cabin girl, I mean."

"I'm sure you oughtn't," said Kathleen firmly.

"Well, what am I to do?"

"Really," said Gerald, "I don't know what the girl can do. Let her come home with us and have "

"Tea oh, yes," said Jimmy, jumping up.

"And have a good council."

"After tea," said Jimmy

"But her aunt'lI find she's gone."

"So she would if I stayed."

"Oh, come on," said Jimmy.

"But the aunt'll think something's happened to her."

"So it has."

"And she'll tell the police, and they'll look everywhere for me."

"They'll never find you," said Gerald. "Talk of impenetrable disguises!"

"I'm sure," said Mabel, "aunt would much rather never see me again than see me like this. She'd never get over it; it might kill her she has spasms as it is. I'll write to her, and we'll put it in the big letter-box at the gate as we go out. Has anyone got a bit of pencil and a scrap of paper?"

Gerald had a note-book, with leaves of the shiny kind which you have to write on, not with a blacklead pencil, but with an ivory thing with a point of real lead. And it won't write on any other paper except the kind that is in the book, and this is often very annoying when you are in a hurry. Then was seen the strange spectacle of a little ivory stick, with a leaden point, standing up at an odd, impossible-looking slant, and moving along all by itself as ordinary pencils do when you are writing with them

"May we look over?" asked Kathleen.

There was no answer. The pencil went on writing.

"Mayn't we look over?" Kathleen said again."

Of course you may!" said the voice near the paper. "I nodded, didn't I? Oh, I forgot, my nodding's invisible too."T

he pencil was forming round, clear letters on the page torn out of the note-book. This is what it wrote:

"DEAR AUNT, I am afraid you will not see me again for some time. A lady in a motor-car has adopted me, and we are going straight to the coast and then in a ship. It is useless to try to follow me. Farewell, and may you be happy. I hope you enjoyed the fair

Mabel."

"But that's all lies," said Jimmy bluntly.

"No, it isn't; it's fancy," said Mabel. "If I said I've become invisible, she'd think that was a lie, anyhow.""

Oh, come along," said Jimmy; "you can quarrel just as well walking."

Gerald folded up the note as a lady in India had taught him to do years before, and Mabel led them by another and very much nearer way out of the park. And the walk home was a great deal shorter, too, than the walk out had been.

The sky had clouded over while they were in the Temple of Flora, and the first spots of rain fell as they got back to the house, very late indeed for tea.

Mademoiselle was looking out of the window, and came herself to open the door

"But it is that you are in lateness, in lateness!" she cried. "You have had a misfortune no? All goes well?"

"We are very sorry indeed," said Gerald. "It took us longer to get home than we expected. I do hope you haven't been anxious. I have been thinking about you most of the way home."

"Go, then," said the French lady, smiling; "you shall have them in the same time the tea and the supper."

Which they did.

"How could you say you were thinking about her all the time?" said a voice just by Gerald's ear, when Mademoiselle had left them alone with the bread and butter and milk and baked apples. "It was just as much a lie as me being adopted by a motor lady."

"No, it wasn't," said Gerald, through bread and butter. "I was thinking about whether she'd be in a wax or not. So there!"

There were only three plates, but Jimmy let Mabel have his, and shared with Kathleen. It was rather horrid to see the bread and butter waving about in the air, and bite after bite disappearing from it apparently by no human agency; and the spoon rising with apple in it and returning to the plate empty. Even the tip of the spoon disappeared as long as it was in Mabel's unseen mouth; so that at times it looked as though its bowl had been broken off

Everyone was very hungry, and more bread and butter had to be fetched. Cook grumbled when the plate was filled for the third time.

"I tell you what," said Jimmy; "I did want my tea."

"I tell you what," said Gerald; "it'll be jolly difficult to give Mabel any breakfast. Mademoiselle will be here then. She'd have a fit if she saw bits of forks with bacon on them vanishing, and then the forks coming back out of vanishment, and the bacon lost for ever."

"We shall have to buy things to eat and feed our poor captive in secret," said Kathleen.

"Our money won't last long," said Jimmy, in gloom. "Have you got any money?"

He turned to where a mug of milk was suspended in the air without visible means of support.

"I've not got much money," was the reply from near the milk, "but I've got heaps of ideas."

"We must talk about everything in the morning," said Kathleen. "We must just say good night to Mademoiselle, and then you shall sleep in my bed, Mabel. I'll lend you one of my nightgowns."

"I'll get my own tomorrow," said Mabel cheerfully.

"You'll go back to get things?"

"Why not? Nobody can see me. I think I begin to see all sorts of amusing things coming along. It's not half bad being invisible."

It was extremely odd, Kathleen thought, to see the Princess's clothes coming out of nothing. First the gauzy veil appeared hanging in the air. Then the sparkling coronet suddenly showed on the top of the chest of drawers. Then a sleeve of the pinky gown showed, then another, and then the whole gown lay on the floor in a glistening ring as the unseen legs of Mabel stepped out of it. For each article of clothing became visible as Mabel took it off. The nightgown, lifted from the bed, disappeared a bit at a time.

"Get into bed," said Kathleen, rather nervously.

The bed creaked and a hollow appeared in the pillow. Kathleen put out the gas and got into bed; all this magic had been rather upsetting, and she was just the least bit frightened, but in the dark she found it was not so bad. Mabel's arms went round her neck the moment she got into bed, and the two little girls kissed in the kind darkness, where the visible and the invisible could meet on equal terms.

"Good night," said Mabel. "You're a darling, Cathy; you've been most awfully good to me, and I shan't forget it. I didn't like to say so before the boys, because I know boys think you're a muff if you're grateful. But I am. Good night."

Kathleen lay awake for some time. She was just getting sleepy when she remembered that the maid who would call them in the morning would see those wonderful Princess clothes.

"I'll have to get up and hide them," she said. "What a bother!"

And as she lay thinking what a bother it was she happened to fall asleep, and when she woke again it was bright morning, and Eliza was standing in front of the chair where Mabel's clothes lay, gazing at the pink Princess-frock that lay on the top of her heap and saying, "Law!"

"Oh, don't touch, please!" Kathleen leaped out of bed as Eliza was reaching out her hand.

"Where on earth did you get hold of that?"

"We're going to use it for acting," said Kathleen, on the desperate inspiration of the moment. "It's lent me for that."

"You might show me, miss," suggested Eliza.

"Oh, please not!" said Kathleen, standing in front of the chair in her nightgown. "You shall see us act when we are dressed up. There! And you won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Not if you're a good little girl," said Eliza. "But you be sure to let me see when you do dress up. But where"

Here a bell rang and Eliza had to go, for it was the postman, and she particularly wanted to see him.

"And now," said Kathleen, pulling on her first stocking, "we shall have to do the acting. Everything seems very difficult."

"Acting isn't," said Mabel; and an unsupported stocking waved in the air and quickly vanished. "I shall love it.,"

"You forget," said Kathleen gently, "invisible actresses can't take part in plays unless they're magic ones."

"Oh," cried a voice from under a petticoat that hung in the air, "I've got such an idea!"

"Tell it us after breakfast," said Kathleen, as the water in the basin began to splash about and to drip from nowhere back into itself. "And oh! I do wish you hadn't written such whoppers to your aunt. I'm sure we oughtn't to tell lies for anything."

"What's the use of telling the truth if nobody believes you?" came from among the splashes

"I don't know," said Kathleen, "but I'm sure we ought to tell the truth."

"You can, if you like," said a voice from the folds of a towel that waved lonely in front of the wash-hand stand

"All right. We will, then, first thing after brek your brek, I mean. You'll have to wait up here till we can collar something and bring it up to you. Mind you dodge Eliza when she comes to make the bed."

The invisible Mabel found this a fairly amusing game; she further enlivened it by twitching out the corners of tucked-up sheets and blankets when Eliza wasn't looking.

"Drat the clothes!" said Eliza; "anyone ud think the things was bewitched."

She looked about for the wonderful Princess clothes she had glimpsed earlier in the morning. But Kathleen had hidden them in a perfectly safe place under the mattress, which she knew Eliza never turned.

Eliza hastily brushed up from the floor those bits of fluff which come from goodness knows where in the best regulated houses. Mabel, very hungry and exasperated at the long absence of the others at their breakfast, could not forbear to whisper suddenly in Eliza's ear:

"Always sweep under the mats."

The maid started and turned pale. "I must be going silly," she murmured; "though it's just what mother always used to say. Hope I ain't going dotty, like Aunt Emily. Wonderful what you can fancy, ain't it?"

She took up the hearth-rug all the same, swept under it, and under the fender. So thorough was she, and so pale, that Kathleen, entering with a chunk of bread raided by Gerald from the pantry window, exclaimed:

"Not done yet. I say, Eliza, you do look ill! What's the matter?"

"I thought I'd give the room a good turn-out," said Eliza, still very pale.

"Nothing's happened to upset you?" Kathleen asked. She had her own private fears.

"Nothing only my fancy, miss," said Eliza. "I always was fanciful from a child dreaming of the pearly gates and them little angels with nothing on only their heads and wings so cheap to dress, I always think, compared with children."

When she was got rid of, Mabel ate the bread and drank water from the tooth-mug.

"I'm afraid it tastes of cherry tooth-paste rather," said Kathleen apologetically.

"It doesn't matter," a voice replied from the tilted mug; "it's more interesting than water. I should think red wine in ballads was rather like this."

"We've got leave for the day again," said Kathleen, when the last bit of bread had vanished, "and Gerald feels like I do about lies, So we're going to tell your aunt where you really are."

"She won't believe you."

"That doesn't matter, if we speak the truth," said Kathleen primly.

"I expect you'll be sorry for it," said Mabel; "but come on and, I say, do be careful not to shut me in the door as you go out. You nearly did just now."

In the blazing sunlight that flooded the High Street four shadows to three children seemed dangerously noticeable. A butcher's boy looked far too earnestly at the extra shadow, and his big, liver-coloured lurcher snuffed at the legs of that shadow's mistress and whined uncomfortably.

"Get behind me," said Kathleen; "then our two shadows will look like one."

But Mabel's shadow, very visible, fell on Kathleen's back, and the ostler of the Davenant Arms looked up to see what big bird had cast that big shadow.

A woman driving a cart with chickens and ducks in it called out: "Halloa, missy, ain't you blacked yer back, neither! What you been leaning up against?"

Everyone was glad when they got out of the town.

Speaking the truth to Mabel's aunt did not turn out at all as anyone even Mabel expected. The aunt was discovered reading a pink novelette at the window of the housekeeper's room, which, framed in clematis and green creepers, looked out on a nice little courtyard to which Mabel led the party.

"Excuse me," said Gerald, "but I believe you've lost your niece?"

"Not lost, my boy," said the aunt, who was spare and tall, with a drab fringe and a very genteel voice.

"We could tell you something about her," said Gerald.

"Now," replied the aunt, in a warning voice, "no complaints, please. My niece has gone, and I am sure no one thinks less than I do of her little pranks. If she's played any tricks on you it's only her lighthearted way. Go away, children, I'm busy."

"Did you get her note?" asked Kathleen.

The aunt showed rather more interest than before, but she still kept her finger in the novelette.

"Oh," she said, "so you witnessed her departure? Did she seem glad to go?"

"Quite," said Gerald truthfully.

"Then I can only be glad that she is provided for," said the aunt. "I dare say you were surprised. These romantic adventures do occur in our family. Lord Yalding selected me out of eleven applicants for the post of housekeeper here. I've not the slightest doubt the child was changed at birth and her rich relatives have claimed her."

"But aren't you going to do anything tell the police, or"

"Shish!" said Mabel.

"I won't shish," said Jimmy. "Your Mabel's invisible that's all it is. She's just beside me now."

"I detest untruthfulness," said the aunt severely, "in all its forms. Will you kindly take that little boy away? I am quite satisfied about Mabel."

"Well," said Gerald, "you are an aunt and no mistake! But what will Mabel's father and mother say?"

"Mabel's father and mother are dead," said the aunt calmly, and a little sob sounded close to Gerald's ear.

"All right," he said, "we'll be off. But don't you go saying we didn't tell you the truth, that's all."

"You have told me nothing," said the aunt, "none of you, except that little boy, who has told me a silly falsehood."

"We meant well," said Gerald gently. "You don't mind our having come through the grounds, do you? we're very careful not to touch anything."

"No visitors are allowed," said the aunt, glancing down at her novel rather impatiently.

"Ah! but you wouldn't count us visitors," said Gerald in his best manner. "We re friends of Mabel's. Our father's Colonel of the th."

"Indeed!" said the aunt.

"And our aunt's Lady Sandling, so you can be sure we wouldn't hurt anything on the estate."

"I'm sure you wouldn't hurt a fly," said the aunt absently. "Good-bye. Be good children."

And on this they got away quickly.

"Why," said Gerald, when they were outside the little court, "your aunt's as mad as a hatter. Fancy not caring what becomes of you, and fancy believing that rot about the motor lady!"

"I knew she'd believe it when I wrote it," said Mabel modestly. "She's not mad, only she's always reading novelettes, I read the books in the big library. Oh, it's such a jolly room such a queer smell, like boots, and old leather books sort of powdery at the edges. I'll take you there some day. Now your consciences are all right about my aunt, I'll tell you my great idea. Let's get down to the Temple of Flora. I'm glad you got aunt's permission for the grounds. It would be so awkward for you to have to be always dodging behind bushes when one of the gardeners came along."

"Yes," said Gerald modestly, "I thought of that."

The day was as bright as yesterday had been, and from the white marble temple the Italian-looking landscape looked more than ever like a steel engraving coloured by hand, or an oleographic imitation of one of Turner's pictures.

When the three children were comfortably settled on the steps that led up to the white statue, the voice of the fourth child said sadly: "I'm not ungrateful, hut I'm rather hungry. And you can't be always taking things for me through your larder window. If you like, I'll go back and live in the castle. It's supposed to be haunted. I suppose I could haunt it as well as anyone else. I am a sort of ghost now, you know. I will if you like."

"Oh no," said Kathleen kindly; "you must stay with us.

"But about food. I'm not ungrateful, really I'm not, but breakfast is breakfast, and bread's only bread."

"If you could get the ring off, you could go back."

"Yes," said Mabel's voice, "but you see, I can't. I tried again last night in bed, and again this morning. And it's like stealing, taking things out of your larder even if it's only bread."

"Yes, it is," said Gerald, who had carried out this bold enterprise.

"Well, now, what we must do is to earn some money."

Jimmy remarked that this was all very well. But Gerald and Kathleen listened attentively.

"What I mean to say," the voice went on, "I'm really sure is all for the best, me being invisible. We shall have adventures you see if we don t."

"Adventures," said the bold buccaneer, "are not always profitable." It was Gerald who murmured this.

"This one will be, anyhow, you see. Only you mustn't all go. Look here, if Jerry could make himself look common "

"That ought to be easy," said Jimmy. And Kathleen told him not to be so jolly disagreeable.

"I'm not," said Jimmy, "only "

"Only he has an inside feeling that this Mabel of yours is going to get us into trouble," put in Gerald. "Like La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and he does not want to be found in future ages alone and palely loitering in the middle of sedge and things."

"I won't get you into trouble, indeed I won t," said the voice. "Why, we're a band of brothers for life, after the way you stood by me yesterday. What I mean is Gerald can go to the fair and do conjuring."

"He doesn't know any," said Kathleen.

"I should do it really," said Mabel, "but Jerry could look like doing it move things without touching them and all that. But it wouldn't do for all three of you to go. The more there are of children the younger they look, I think, and the more people wonder what they re doing all alone by themselves."

"The accomplished conjurer deemed these the words of wisdom," said Gerald; and answered the dismal "Well, but what about us? of his brother and sister by suggesting that they should mingle unsuspected with the crowd. "But don't let on that you know me," he said; "and try to look as if you belonged to some of the grown-ups at the fair. If you don't, as likely as not you'll have the kind policemen taking the little lost children by the hand and leading them home to their stricken relations French governess, I mean."

"Let's go now," said the voice that they never could get quite used to hearing, coming out of different parts of the air as Mabel moved from one place to another. So they went.

The fair was held on a waste bit of land, about half a mile from the castle gates. When they got near enough to hear the steam-organ of the merry-go-round, Gerald suggested that as he had ninepence he should go ahead and get something to eat, the amount spent to be paid back out of any money they might make by conjuring. The others waited in the shadows of a deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon, though long after they had begun to say what a long time he had been gone. He brought some Barcelona nuts, red-streaked apples, small sweet yellow pears, pale pasty gingerbread, a whole quarter of a pound of peppermint bulls-eyes, and two bottles of ginger-beer.

"It's what they call an investment," he said, when Kathleen said something about extravagance. "We shall all need special nourishing to keep our strength up, especially the bold conjurer."

They ate and drank. It was a very beautiful meal, and the far-off music of the steam-organ added the last touch of festivity to the scene. The boys were never tired of seeing Mabel eat, or rather of seeing the strange, magic-looking vanishment of food which was all that showed of Mabel's eating. They were entranced by the spectacle, and pressed on her more than her just share of the feast, just for the pleasure of seeing it disappear.

"My aunt!" said Gerald, again and again; "that ought to knock 'em!"

It did.

Jimmy and Kathleen had the start of the others, and when they got to the fair they mingled with the crowd, and were as unsuspected as possible.

They stood near a large lady who was watching the Coconut shies, and presently saw a strange figure with its hands in its pockets strolling across the trampled yellowy grass among the bits of drifting paper and the sticks and straws that always litter the ground of an English fair. It was Gerald, but at first they hardly knew him. He had taken off his tie, and round his head, arranged like a turban, was the crimson school-scarf that had supported his white flannels. The tie, one supposed, had taken on the duties of the handkerchief. And his face and hands were a bright black, like very nicely polished stoves!

Everyone turned to look at him.

"He's just like a conjurer!" whispered Jimmy. "I don't suppose it'll ever come off, do you?"

They followed him at a distance, and when he went close to the door of a small tent, against whose door-post a long-faced melancholy woman was lounging, they stopped and tried to look as though they belonged to a farmer who strove to send up a number by banging with a big mallet on a wooden block.

Gerald went up to the woman.

"Taken much?" he asked, and was told, but not harshly, to go away with his impudence.

"I'm in business myself," said Gerald, "I'm a conjurer, from India."

"Not you!" said the woman; "you ain't no conjurer. Why, the backs of yer ears is all white."

"Are they?" said Gerald. "How clever of you to see that!" He rubbed them with his hands. "That better?"

"That's all right. What's your little game?"

"Conjuring, really and truly," said Gerald. "There's smaller boys than me put on to it in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling me about my ears. If you like to run the show for me I'll go shares. Let me have your tent to perform in, and you do the patter at the door.

"Lor love you! I can't do no patter. And you're getting at me. Let's see you do a bit of conjuring, since you're so clever an all."

"Right you are," said Gerald firmly. "You see this apple? Well, I'll make it move slowly through the air, and then when I say "Go!" it'll vanish."

"Yes into your mouth! Get away with your nonsense."

"You're too clever to be so unbelieving," said Gerald. "Look here!"

He held out one of the little apples, and the woman saw it move slowly and unsupported along the air.

"Now go!" cried Gerald, to the apple, and it went. "How's that?" he asked, in tones of triumph.

The woman was glowing with excitement, and her eyes shone. "The best I ever see!" she whispered. "I'm on, mate, if you know any more tricks like that."

"Heaps," said Gerald confidently; "hold out your hand." The woman held it out; and from nowhere, as it seemed, the apple appeared and was laid on her hand. The apple was rather damp.

She looked at it a moment, and then whispered:

"Come on! there's to be no one in it but just us two. But not in the tent. You take a pitch here, 'longside the tent. It's worth twice the money in the open air."

"But people won't pay if they can see it all for nothing."

"Not for the first turn, but they will after you see. And you'll have to do the patter."

"Will you lend me your shawl?" Gerald asked. She unpinned it it was a red and black plaid and he spread it on the ground as he had seen Indian conjurers do, and seated himself cross-legged behind it.

"I mustn't have anyone behind me, that's all," he said; and the woman hastily screened off a little enclosure for him by hanging old sacks to two of the guy-ropes of the tent. "Now I'm ready, he said. The woman got a drum from the inside of the tent and beat it. Quite soon a little crowd had collected.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Gerald, "I come from India, and I can do a conjuring entertainment the like of which you've never seen. When I see two shillings on the shawl I'll begin."

"I dare say you will!" said a bystander; and there were several short, disagreeable laughs.

"Of course," said Gerald, "if you can't afford two shillings between you" there were about thirty people in the crowd by now "I say no more."

Two or three pennies fell on the shawl, then a few more then the fall of copper ceased.

"Ninepence," said Gerald. "Well, I've got a generous nature. You'll get such a ninepennyworth as you've never had before. I don't wish to deceive you I have an accomplice, but my accomplice is invisible."

The crowd snorted.

"By the aid of that accomplice," Gerald went on, "I will read any letter that any of you may have in your pocket. If one of you will just step over the rope and stand beside me, my invisible accomplice will read that letter over his shoulder."

A man stepped forward, a ruddy-faced, horsy-looking person. He pulled a letter from his pocket and stood plain in the sight of all, in a place where everyone saw that no one could see over his shoulder.

"Now!" said Gerald. There was a moment's pause. Then from quite the other side of the enclosure came a faint, faraway, sing-song voice. It said:

"SIR Yours of the fifteenth duly to hand. With regard to the mortgage on your land, we regret our inability "

"Stow it!" cried the man, turning threateningly on Gerald.

He stepped out of the enclosure explaining that there was nothing of that sort in his letter; but nobody believed him, and a buzz of interested chatter began in the crowd, ceasing abruptly when Gerald began to speak.

"Now," said he, laying the nine pennies down on the shawl, "you keep your eyes on those pennies, and one by one you'll see them disappear."

And of course they did. Then one by one they were laid down again by the invisible hand of Mabel. The crowd clapped loudly. "Bravo!" "That's something like!" "Show us another!" cried the people in the front rank. And those behind pushed forward.

"Now," said Gerald, "you've seen what I can do, but I don't do any more till I see five shillings on this carpet."

And in two minutes seven-and-threepence lay there and Gerald did a little more conjuring.

When the people in front didn't want to give any more money, Gerald asked them to stand back and let the others have a look in. I wish I had time to tell you of all the tricks he did the grass round his enclosure was absolutely trampled off by the feet of the people who thronged to look at him. There is really hardly any limit to the wonders you can do if you have an invisible accomplice. All sorts of things were made to move about, apparently by themselves, and even to vanish into the folds of Mabel's clothing. The woman stood by, looking more and more pleasant as she saw the money come tumbling in, and beating her shabby drum every time Gerald stopped conjuring.

The news of the conjurer had spread all over the fair. The crowd was frantic with admiration. The man who ran the coconut shies begged Gerald to throw in his lot with him; the owner of the rifle gallery offered him free board and lodging and go shares; and a brisk, broad lady, in stiff black silk and a violet bonnet, tried to engage him for the forthcoming Bazaar for Reformed Bandsmen.

And all this time the others mingled with the crowd quite unobserved, for who could have eyes for anyone but Gerald? It was getting quite late, long past tea-time, and Gerald, who was getting very tired indeed, and was quite satisfied with his share of the money, was racking his brains for a way to get out of it.

"How are we to hook it?" he murmured, as Mabel made his cap disappear from his head by the simple process of taking it off and putting it in her pocket.

"They'll never let us get away. I didn't think of that before."

"Let me think!" whispered Mabel; and next moment she said, close to his ear: "Divide the money, and give her something for the shawl. Put the money on it and say. . ." She told him what to say.

Gerald's pitch was in the shade of the tent; otherwise, of course, everyone would have seen the shadow of the invisible Mabel as she moved about making things vanish.

Gerald told the woman to divide the money, which she did honestly enough.

"Now," he said, while the impatient crowd pressed closer and closer, "I'll give you five bob for your shawl.

"Seven-and-six," said the woman mechanically.

"Righto!" said Gerald, putting his heavy share of the money in his trouser pocket.

"This shawl will now disappear," he said, picking it up. He handed it to Mabel, who put it on; and, of course, it disappeared. A roar of applause went up from the audience.

"Now," he said, "I come to the last trick of all. I shall take three steps backwards and vanish. He took three steps backwards, Mabel wrapped the invisible shawl round him, and he did not vanish. The shawl, being invisible, did not conceal him in the least.

"Yah!" cried a boy's voice in the crowd. "Look at "im! "E knows "e can't do it."

"I wish I could put you in my pocket," said Mabel. The crowd was crowding closer. At any moment they might touch Mabel, and then anything might happen simply anything. Gerald took hold of his hair with both hands, as his way was when he was anxious or discouraged. Mabel, in invisibility, wrung her hands, as people are said to do in books that is, she clasped them and squeezed very tight.

"Oh!" she whispered suddenly, "it's loose. I can get it off."

"Not "

"Yes the ring."

"Come on, young master. Give us summat for our money," a farm labourer shouted.

"I will," said Gerald. "This time I really will vanish. Slip round into the tent," he whispered to Mabel.

"Push the ring under the canvas. Then slip out at the back and join the others. When I see you with them I'll disappear. Go slow, and I'll catch you up."

"It's me," said a pale and obvious Mabel in the ear of Kathleen. "He's got the ring; come on, before the crowd begins to scatter."

As they went out of the gate they heard a roar of surprise and annoyance rise from the crowd, and knew that this time Gerald really had disappeared.

They had gone a mile before they heard footsteps on the road, and looked back. No one was to be seen.

Next moment Gerald's voice spoke out of clear, empty-looking space.

"Halloa!" it said gloomily.

"How horrid!" cried Mabel; "you did make me jump! Take the ring off; it makes me feel quite creepy, you being nothing but a voice."

"So did you us," said Jimmy.

"Don't take it off yet," said Kathleen, who was really rather thoughtful for her age, "because you're still blackleaded, I suppose, and you might be recognized, and eloped with by gypsies, so that you should go on doing conjuring for ever and ever."

"I should take it off," said Jimmy; "it's no use going about invisible, and people seeing us with Mabel and saying we've eloped with her."

"Yes," said Mabel impatiently, "that would be simply silly. And, besides, I want my ring."

"It's not yours any more than ours, anyhow," said Jimmy.

"Yes, it is," said Mabel.

"Oh, stow it!" said the weary voice of Gerald beside her. "What's the use of jawing?"

"I want the ring," said Mabel, rather mulishly.

"Want" the words came out of the still evening air "want must be your master. You can't have the ring. I can't get it off!"

The difficulty was not only that Gerald had got the ring on and couldn't get it off, and was therefore invisible, but that Mabel, who had been invisible and therefore possible to be smuggled into the house, was now plain to be seen and impossible for smuggling purposes.

The children would have not only to account for the apparent absence of one of themselves, but for the obvious presence of a perfect stranger.

"I can't go back to aunt. I can't and I won't," said Mabel firmly, "not if I was visible twenty times over."

"She'd smell a rat if you did," Gerald owned "about the motor-car, I mean, and the adopting lady. And what we're to say to Mademoiselle about you !" He tugged at the ring.

"Suppose you told the truth," said Mabel meaningly.

"She wouldn't believe it," said Cathy; "or, if she did, she'd go stark, staring, raving mad."

"No," said Gerald's voice, "we daren't tell her. But she's really rather decent. Let's ask her to let you stay the night because it's too late for you to get home."

"That's all right," said Jimmy, "but what about you?"

"I shall go to bed," said Gerald, "with a bad headache. Oh, that's not a lie! I've got one right enough. It's the sun, I think. I know blacklead attracts the concentration of the sun."

"More likely the pears and the gingerbread," said Jimmy unkindly. "Well, let's get along. I wish it was me was invisible. I'd do something different from going to bed with a silly headache, I know that."

"What would you do?" asked the voice of Gerald just behind him.

"Do keep in one place, you silly cuckoo!" said Jimmy. "You make me feel all jumpy. He had indeed jumped rather violently. "Here, walk between Cathy and me.

"What would you do?" repeated Gerald, from that apparently unoccupied position.

"I'd be a burglar," said Jimmy.

Cathy and Mabel in one breath reminded him how wrong burgling was, and Jimmy replied:

"Well, then a detective."

"There's got to be something to detect before you can begin detectiving," said Mabel.

"Detectives don't always detect things," said Jimmy, very truly. "If I couldn't be any other kind I'd be a baffled detective. You could be one all right, and have no end of larks just the same. Why don't you do it?"

"It's exactly what I am going to do," said Gerald. "We'll go round by the police-station and see what they've got in the way of crimes."

They did, and read the notices on the board outside. Two dogs had been lost, a purse, and a portfolio of papers "of no value to any but the owner." Also Houghton Grange had been broken into and a quantity of silver plate stolen. "Twenty pounds reward offered for any information that may lead to the recovery of the missing property."

"That burglary's my lay," said Gerald; "I'll detect that. Here comes Johnson," he added; "he's going off duty. Ask him about it. The fell detective, being invisible, was unable to pump the constable, but the young brother of our hero made the inquiries in quite a creditable manner. Be creditable, Jimmy."

Jimmy hailed the constable.

"Halloa, Johnson!" he said.

And Johnson replied: "Halloa, young shaver!"

"Shaver yourself!" said Jimmy, but without malice.

"What are you doing this time of night?" the constable asked jocosely. "All the dicky birds is gone to their little nesteses."

"We've been to the fair," said Kathleen. "There was a conjurer there. I wish you could have seen him."

"Heard about him," said Johnson; "all fake, you know. The quickness of the 'and deceives the hi."

Such is fame. Gerald, standing in the shadow, jingled the loose money in his pocket to console himself.

"What's that?" the policeman asked quickly.

"Our money jingling," said Jimmy, with perfect truth.

"It's well to be some people," Johnson remarked; "wish I'd got my pockets full to jingle with."

"Well, why haven't you?" asked Mabel. "Why don't you get that twenty pounds reward?"

"I'll tell you why I don't. Because in this "ere realm of liberty, and Britannia ruling the waves, you ain't allowed to arrest a chap on suspicion, even if you know puffickly well who done the job."

"What a shame!" said Jimmy warmly. "And who do you think did it?"

"I don't think I know." Johnson's voice was ponderous as his boots. "It's a man what's known to the police on account of a heap o crimes he's done, but we never can't bring it "ome to "im, nor yet get sufficient evidence to convict."

"Well, said Jimmy, "when I've left school I'll come to you and be apprenticed, and be a detective. Just now I think we'd better get home and detect our supper. Good night!"

They watched the policeman's broad form disappear through the swing door of the police-station; and as it settled itself into quiet again the voice of Gerald was heard complaining bitterly.

"You've no more brains than a halfpenny bun," he said; "no details about how and when the silver was taken."

"But he told us he knew," Jimmy urged.

"Yes, that's all you've got out of him. A silly policeman's silly idea. Go home and detect your precious supper! It's all you're fit for."

"What'll you do about supper?" Mabel asked.

"Buns!" said Gerald, "halfpenny buns. They'll make me think of my dear little brother and sister. Perhaps you've got enough sense to buy buns? I can't go into a shop in this state."

"Don't you be so disagreeable," said Mabel with spirit.

"We did our best. If I were Cathy you should whistle for your nasty buns."

"If you were Cathy the gallant young detective would have left home long ago. Better the cabin of a tramp steamer than the best family mansion that's got a brawling sister in it," said Gerald. "You are a bit of an outsider at present, my gentle maiden. Jimmy and Cathy know well enough when their bold leader is chaffing and when he isn't.

"Not when we can't see your face we don't," said Cathy, in tones of relief. "I really thought you were in a flaring wax, and so did Jimmy, didn't you?"

"Oh, rot!" said Gerald. "Come on! This way to the bun shop."

They went, And it was while Cathy and Jimmy were in the shop and the others were gazing through the glass at the jam tarts and Swiss rolls and Victoria sandwiches and Bath buns under the spread yellow muslin in the window, that Gerald discoursed in Mabel's ear of the plans and hopes of one entering on a detective career.

"I shall keep my eyes open tonight, I can tell you," he began. "I shall keep my eyes skinned, and no jolly error. The invisible detective may not only find out about the purse and the silver, but detect some crime that isn't even done yet. And I shall hang about until I see some suspicious-looking characters leave the town, and follow them furtively and catch them red-handed, with their hands full of priceless jewels, and hand them over."

"Oh!" cried Mabel, so sharply and suddenly that Gerald was roused from his dream to express sympathy.

"Pain?" he said quite kindly. "It's the apples they were rather hard."

"Oh, it's not that," said Mabel very earnestly. "Oh, how awful! I never thought of that before."

"Never thought of what?" Gerald asked impatiently.

"The window."

"What window?"

"The panelled-room window. At home, you know at the castle. That settles it I must go home. We left it open and the shutters as well, and all the jewels and things there. Auntie'll never go in; she never does. That settles it; I must go home now this minute."

Here the others issued from the shop, bun-bearing, and the situation was hastily explained to them.

"So you see I must go," Mabel ended.

And Kathleen agreed that she must.

But Jimmy said he didn't see what good it would do. "Because the key's inside the door, anyhow."

"She will be cross," said Mabel sadly. "She'll have to get the gardeners to get a ladder and "

"Hooray!" said Gerald. "Here's me! Nobler and more secret than gardeners or ladders was the invisible Jerry. I'll climb in at the window it's all ivy, I know I could and shut the window and the shutters all sereno, put the key back on the nail, and slip out unperceived the back way, threading my way through the maze of unconscious retainers. There'll be plenty of time. I don't suppose burglars begin their fell work until the night is far advanced."

"Won't you be afraid?" Mabel asked. "Will it be safe suppose you were caught?"

"As houses. I can't be," Gerald answered, and wondered that the question came from Mabel and not from Kathleen, who was usually inclined to fuss a little annoyingly about the danger and folly of adventures.

But all Kathleen said was, "Well, good-bye; we'll come and see you tomorrow, Mabel. The floral temple at half-past ten. I hope you won't get into an awful row about the motor-car lady."

"Let's detect our supper now," said Jimmy.

"All right," said Gerald a little bitterly. It is hard to enter on an adventure like this and to find the sympathetic interest of years suddenly cut off at the meter, as it were. Gerald felt that he ought, at a time like this, to have been the centre of interest. And he wasn't. They could actually talk about supper. Well, let them. He didn't care! He spoke with sharp sternness: "Leave the pantry window undone for me to get in by when I've done my detecting. Come on, Mabel." He caught her hand. "Bags I the buns, though," he added, by a happy afterthought, and snatching the bag, pressed it on Mabel, and the sound of four boots echoed on the pavement of the High Street as the outlines of the running Mabel grew small with distance.

Mademoiselle was in the drawing-room. She was sitting by the window in the waning light reading letters.

"Ah, vous voici!" she said unintelligibly. "You are again late; and my little Gerald, where is he?"

This was an awful moment. Jimmy's detective scheme had not included any answer to this inevitable question. The silence was unbroken till Jimmy spoke.

"He said he was going to bed because he had a headache." And this, of course, was true.

"This poor Gerald!" said Mademoiselle. "Is it that I should mount him some supper?"

"He never eats anything when he's got one of his headaches," Kathleen said. And this also was the truth.

Jimmy and Kathleen Went to bed, wholly untroubled by anxiety about their brother, and Mademoiselle pulled out the bundle of letters and read them amid the ruins of the simple supper.

"It is ripping being out late like this," said Gerald through the soft summer dusk.

"Yes," said Mabel, a solitary-looking figure plodding along the high-road. "I do hope auntie won't be very furious."

"Have another bun," suggested Gerald kindly, and a sociable munching followed.

It was the aunt herself who opened to a very pale and trembling Mabel the door which is appointed for the entrances and exits of the domestic staff at Yalding Towers. She looked over Mabel's head first, as if she expected to see someone taller. Then a very small voice said:

"Aunt!"

The aunt started back, then made a step towards Mabel.

"You naughty, naughty girl!" she cried angrily; "how could you give me such a fright? I've a good mind to keep you in bed for a week for this, miss. Oh, Mabel, thank Heaven you're safe!" And with that the aunt's arms went round Mabel and Mabel's round the aunt in such a hug as they had never met in before.

"But you didn't seem to care a bit this morning," said Mabel, when she had realized that her aunt really had been anxious, really was glad to have her safe home again.

"How do you know?"

"I was there listening. Don't be angry, auntie."

"I feel as if I could never be angry with you again, now I've got you safe," said the aunt surprisingly.

"But how was it?" Mabel asked.

"My dear," said the aunt impressively, "I've been in a sort of trance. I think I must be going to be ill. I've always been fond of you, but I didn't want to spoil you. But yesterday, about half-past three, I was talking about you to Mr. Lewson, at the fair, and quite suddenly I felt as if you didn't matter at all. And I felt the same when I got your letter and when those children came. And today in the middle of tea I suddenly woke up and realized that you were gone. It was awful. I think I must be going to be ill. Oh, Mabel, why did you do it?"

"It was a joke," said Mabel feebly. And then the two went in and the door was shut.

"That's most uncommon odd," said Gerald, outside; "looks like more magic to me. I don't feel as if we d got to the bottom of this yet, by any manner of means. There's more about this castle than meets the eye."

There certainly was. For this castle happened to be but it would not be fair to Gerald to tell you more about it than he knew on that night when he went alone and invisible through the shadowy great grounds of it to look for the open window of the panelled room. He knew that night no more than I have told you; but as he went along the dewy lawns and through the groups of shrubs and trees, where pools lay like giant looking-glasses reflecting the quiet stars, and the white limbs of statues gleamed against a background of shadow, he began to feel well, not excited, not surprised, not anxious, but different.

The incident of the invisible Princess had surprised, the incident of the conjuring had excited, and the sudden decision to be a detective had brought its own anxieties; but all these happenings, though wonderful and unusual, had seemed to be, after all, inside the circle of possible things wonderful as the chemical experiments are where two liquids poured together make fire, surprising as legerdemain, thrilling as a juggler's display, but nothing more. Only now a new feeling came to him as he walked through those gardens; by day those gardens were like dreams, at night they were like visions. He could not see his feet as he walked, but he saw the movement of the dewy grass-blades that his feet displaced. And he had that extraordinary feeling so difficult to describe, and yet so real and so unforgettable the feeling that he was in another world, that had covered up and hidden the old world as a carpet covers a floor. The floor was there all right, underneath, but what he walked on was the carpet that covered it and that carpet was drenched in magic, as the turf was drenched in dew.

The feeling was very wonderful; perhaps you will feel it some day. There are still some places in the world where it can be felt, but they grow fewer every year.

The enchantment of the garden held him.

"I'll not go in yet," he told himself; "it's too early. And perhaps I shall never be here at night again. I suppose it is the night that makes everything look so different."

Something white moved under a weeping willow; white hands parted the long, rustling leaves. A white figure came out, a creature with horns and goat's legs and the head and arms of a boy. And Gerald was not afraid. That was the most wonderful thing of all, though he would never have owned it. The white thing stretched its limbs, rolled on the grass, righted itself and frisked away across the lawn. Still something white gleamed under the willow; three steps nearer and Gerald saw that it was the pedestal of a statue empty.

"They come alive," he said; and another white shape came out of the Temple of Flora and disappeared in the laurels. "The statues come alive."

There was a crunching of the little stones in the gravel of the drive. Something enormously long and darkly grey came crawling towards him, slowly, heavily. The moon came out just in time to show its shape. It was one of those great lizards that you see at the Crystal Palace, made in stone, of the same awful size which they were millions of years ago when they were masters of the world, before Man was.

"It can't see me," said Gerald. "I am not afraid. It's come to life, too."

As it writhed past him he reached out a hand and touched the side of its gigantic tail. It was of stone. It had not "come alive" as he had fancied, but was alive in its stone. It turned, however, at the touch; but Gerald also had turned, and was running with all his speed towards the house. Because at that stony touch Fear had come into the garden and almost caught him. It was Fear that he ran from, and not the moving stone beast.

He stood panting under the fifth window; when he had climbed to the window-ledge by the twisted ivy that clung to the wall, he looked back over the grey slope there was a splashing at the fish-pool that had mirrored the stars the shape of the great stone beast was wallowing in the shallows among the lily-pads.

Once inside the room, Gerald turned for another look. The fish-pond lay still and dark, reflecting the moon. Through a gap in the drooping willow the moonlight fell on a statue that stood calm and motionless on its pedestal. Everything was in its place now in the garden. Nothing moved or stirred.

"How extraordinarily rum!" said Gerald. "I shouldn't have thought you could go to sleep walking through a garden and dream like that."

He shut the window, lit a match, and closed the shutters. Another match showed him the door. He turned the key, went out, locked the door again, hung the key on its usual nail, and crept to the end of the passage. Here he waited, safe in his invisibility, till the dazzle of the matches should have gone from his eyes, and he be once more able to find his way by the moonlight that fell in bright patches on the floor through the barred, unshuttered windows of the hall.

"Wonder where the kitchen is," said Gerald. He had quite forgotten that he was a detective. He was only anxious to get home and tell the others about that extraordinarily odd dream that he had had in the gardens. "I suppose it doesn't matter what doors I open. I'm invisible all right still, I suppose? Yes; can't see my hand before my face." He held up a hand for the purpose. "Here goes!"

He opened many doors, wandered into long rooms with furniture dressed in brown holland covers that looked white in that strange light, rooms with chandeliers hanging in big bags from the high ceilings, rooms whose walls were alive with pictures, rooms whose walls were deadened with rows on rows of old books, state bedrooms in whose great plumed four-posters Queen Elizabeth had no doubt slept. (That Queen, by the way, must have been very little at home, for she seems to have slept in every old house in England.) But he could not find the kitchen. At last a door opened on stone steps that went up there was a narrow stone passage steps that went down a door with a light under it. It was, somehow, difficult to put out one's hand to that door and open it.

"Nonsense!" Gerald told himself, "don't be an ass! Are you invisible, or aren't you?"

Then he opened the door, and someone inside said something in a sudden rough growl.

Gerald stood back, flattened against the wall, as a man sprang to the doorway and flashed a lantern into the passage.

"All right," said the man, with almost a sob of relief. "It was only the door swung open, it's that heavy that's all."

"Blow the door!" said another growling voice; "blessed if I didn't think it was a fair cop that time."

They closed the door again. Gerald did not mind. In fact, he rather preferred that it should be so. He didn't like the look of those men. There was an air of threat about them. In their presence even invisibility seemed too thin a disguise. And Gerald had seen as much as he wanted to see. He had seen that he had been right about the gang. By wonderful luck beginner's luck, a card-player would have told him he had discovered a burglary on the very first night of his detective career. The men were taking silver out of two great chests, wrapping it in rags, and packing it in baize sacks. The door of the room was of iron six inches thick. It was, in fact, the strong-room, and these men had picked the lock. The tools they had done it with lay on the floor, on a neat cloth roll, such as wood-carvers keep their chisels in.

"Hurry up!" Gerald heard. "You needn't take all night over it."

The silver rattled slightly. "You're a rattling of them trays like bloomin' castanets," said the gruffest voice. Gerald turned and went away, very carefully and very quickly. And it is a most curious thing that, though he couldn't find the way to the servants wing when he had nothing else to think of, yet now, with his mind full, so to speak, of silver forks and silver cups, and the question of who might be coming after him down those twisting passages, he went straight as an arrow to the door that led from the hall to the place he wanted to get to.

As he went the happenings took words in his mind.

"The fortunate detective," he told himself, "having succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, himself left the spot in search of assistance."

But what assistance? There were, no doubt, men in the house, also the aunt; but he could not warn them.

He was too hopelessly invisible to carry any weight with strangers. The assistance of Mabel would not be of much value. The police? Before they could be got and the getting of them presented difficulties the burglars would have cleared away with their sacks of silver.

Gerald stopped and thought hard; he held his head with both hands to do it. You know the way the same as you sometimes do for simple equations or the dates of the battles of the Civil War.

Then with pencil, note-book, a window-ledge, and all the cleverness he could find at the moment, he wrote: "You know the room where the silver is. Burglars are burgling it, the thick door is picked. Send a man for police. I will follow the burglars if they get away ere police arrive on the spot."

He hesitated a moment, and ended "From a Friend this is not a sell."

This letter, tied tightly round a stone by means of a shoelace, thundered through the window of the room where Mabel and her aunt, in the ardour of reunion, were enjoying a supper of unusual charm stewed plums, cream, sponge-cakes, custard in cups, and cold bread-and-butter pudding.

Gerald, in hungry invisibility, looked wistfully at the supper before he threw the stone. He waited till the shrieks had died away, saw the stone picked up, the warning letter read.

"Nonsense!" said the aunt, growing calmer. "How wicked! Of course it's a hoax."

"Oh! do send for the police, like he says," wailed Mabel.

"Like who says?" snapped the aunt.

"Whoever it is," Mabel moaned.

"Send for the police at once," said Gerald, outside, in the manliest voice he could find. "You'll only blame yourself if you don t. I can't do any more for you."

"I I'll set the dogs on you!" cried the aunt.

"Oh, auntie, don't!" Mabel was dancing with agitation. "It's true I know it's true. Do do wake Bates!"

"I don't believe a word of it," said the aunt. No more did Bates when, owing to Mabel's persistent worryings, he was awakened. But when he had seen the paper, and had to choose whether he'd go to the strong-room and see that there really wasn't anything to believe or go for the police on his bicycle, he chose the latter course.

When the police arrived the strong-room door stood ajar, and the silver, or as much of it as the three men could carry, was gone.

Gerald's note-book and pencil came into play again later on that night. It was five in the morning before he crept into bed, tired out and cold as a stone.

"Master Gerald!" it was Eliza's voice in his ears "it's seven o clock and another fine day, and there's been another burglary My cats alive!" she screamed, as she drew up the blind and turned towards the bed; "look at his bed, all crocked with black, and him not there!" "Oh, Jiminy!" It was a scream this time. Kathleen came running from her room; Jimmy sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes.

"Whatever is it?" Kathleen cried.

"I dunno when I 'ad such a turn. Eliza sat down heavily on a box as she spoke. "First thing his bed all empty and black as the chimley back, and him not in it, and then when I looks again he is in it all the time. I must be going silly. I thought as much when I heard them haunting angel voices yesterday morning. But I'll tell Mamselle of you, my lad, with your tricks, you may rely on that. Blacking yourself all over and crocking up your clean sheets and pillow-cases. It's going back of beyond, this is."

"Look here," said Gerald slowly; "I'm going to tell you something."

Eliza simply snorted, and that was rude of her; but then, she had had a shock and had not got over it.

"Can you keep a secret?" asked Gerald, very earnest through the grey of his partly rubbed-off blacklead.

"Yes," said Eliza.

"Then keep it and I'll give you two bob."

"But what was you going to tell me?"

"That. About the two bob and the secret. And you keep your mouth shut."

"I didn't ought to take it," said Eliza, holding out her hand eagerly. "Now you get up, and mind you wash all the corners, Master Gerald."

"Oh, I'm so glad you're safe," said Kathleen, when Eliza had gone.

"You didn't seem to care much last night," said Gerald coldly.

"I can't think how I let you go. I didn't care last night. But when I woke this morning and remembered!"

"There, that'll do it'll come off on you," said Gerald through the reckless hugging of his sister.

"How did you get visible?" Jimmy asked.

"It just happened when she called me the ring came off."

"Tell us all about everything," said Kathleen. "Not yet, said Gerald mysteriously.

"Where's the ring?" Jimmy asked after breakfast. "I want to have a try now."

"I I forgot it," said Gerald; "I expect it's in the bed somewhere.

But it wasn't. Eliza had made the bed.

"I'll swear there ain't no ring there," she said. "I should "a seen it if there had'a been."

"Search and research proving vain," said Gerald, when every corner of the bedroom had been turned out and the ring had not been found, "the noble detective hero of our tale remarked that he would have other fish to fry in half a jiff, and if the rest of you want to hear about last night..."

"Let's keep it till we get to Mabel," said Kathleen heroically.

"The assignation was ten-thirty, wasn't it? Why shouldn't Gerald gas as we go along? I don't suppose anything very much happened, anyhow." This, of course, was Jimmy.

"That shows," remarked Gerald sweetly, "how much you know. The melancholy Mabel will await the tryst without success, as far as this one is concerned." 'Fish, fish, other fish other fish I fry!'" he warbled to the tune of 'Cherry Ripe' , till Kathleen could have pinched him.

Jimmy turned coldly away, remarking, "When you've quite done."

But Gerald went on singing

"Where the lips of Johnson smile,

There's the land of Cherry Isle.

Other fish, other fish, Fish I fry.

Stately Johnson, come and buy!"

"How can you," asked Kathleen, "be so aggravating?"

"I don't know," said Gerald, returning to prose.

"Want of sleep or intoxication of success, I mean. Come where no one can hear us.

'Oh, come to some island where no one can hear,

And beware of the keyhole that's glued to an ear,'"

he whispered, opened the door suddenly, and there, sure enough, was Eliza, stooping without. She flicked feebly at the wainscot with a duster, but concealment was vain.

"You know what listeners never hear," said Jimmy severely.

"I didn't, then so there!" said Eliza, whose listening ears were crimson. So they passed out, and up the High Street, to sit on the churchyard wall and dangle their legs. And all the way Gerald's lips were shut into a thin, obstinate line.

"Now," said Kathleen. "Oh, Jerry, don't be a goat! I'm simply dying to hear what happened."

"That's better," said Gerald, and he told his story. As he told it some of the white mystery and magic of the moonlit gardens got into his voice and his words, so that when he told of the statues that came alive, and the great beast that was alive through all its stone, Kathleen thrilled responsive, clutching his arm, and even Jimmy ceased to kick the wall with his boot heels, and listened open-mouthed.

Then came the thrilling tale of the burglars, and the warning letter flung into the peaceful company of Mabel, her aunt, and the bread-and-butter pudding. Gerald told the story with the greatest enjoyment and such fullness of detail that the church clock chimed half-past eleven as he said, "Having done all that human agency could do, and further help being despaired of, our gallant young detective Hullo, there's Mabel!"

There was. The tail-board of a cart shed her almost at their feet.

"I couldn't wait any longer," she explained, "when you didn't come. And I got a lift. Has anything more happened?" The burglars had gone when Bates got to the strong-room.

"You don't mean to say all that wheeze is real?" Jimmy asked.

"Of course it's real," said Kathleen. "Go on, Jerry. He's just got to where he threw the stone into your bread-and-butter pudding, Mabel. Go on.

Mabel climbed on to the wall. "You've got visible again quicker than I did," she said.

Gerald nodded and resumed:

"Our story must be told in as few words as possible, owing to the fish-frying taking place at twelve, and it's past the half-hour now. Having left his missive to do its warning work, Gerald de Sherlock Holmes sped back, wrapped in invisibility, to the spot where by the light of their dark-lanterns the burglars were still still burgling with the utmost punctuality and despatch. I didn't see any sense in running into danger, so I just waited outside the passage where the steps are you know?"

Mabel nodded.

"Presently they came out, very cautiously, of course, and looked about them. They didn't see me so deeming themselves unobserved they passed in silent Indian file along the passage one of the sacks of silver grazed my front part and out into the night."

"But which way?"

"Through the little looking-glass room where you looked at yourself when you were invisible. The hero followed swiftly on his invisible tennis-shoes. The three miscreants instantly sought the shelter of the groves and passed stealthily among the rhododendrons and across the park, and his voice dropped and he looked straight before him at the pinky convolvulus netting a heap of stones beyond the white dust of the road "the stone things that come alive, they kept looking out from between bushes and under trees and I saw them all right, but they didn't see me. They saw the burglars though, right enough; but the burglars couldn't see them. Rum, wasn't it?"

"The stone things?" Mabel had to have them explained to her.

"I never saw them come alive," she said, "and I've been in the gardens in the evening as often as often.

"I saw them," said Gerald stiffly.

"I know, I know," Mabel hastened to put herself right with him; "what I mean to say is I shouldn't wonder if they re only visible when you're invisible the liveness of them, I mean, not the stoniness."

Gerald understood, and I'm sure I hope you do.

"I shouldn't wonder if you're right," he said. "The castle garden's enchanted right enough; but what I should like to know is how and why. I say, come on, I've got to catch Johnson before twelve. We'll walk as far as the market and then we'll have to run for it."

"But go on with the adventure," said Mabel. "You can talk as we go." "Oh, do it is so awfully thrilling!"

This pleased Gerald, of course.

"Well, I just followed, you know, like in a dream, and they got out the cavy way you know, where we got in and I jolly well thought I d lost them; I had to wait till they'd moved off down the road so that they shouldn't hear me rattling the stones, and I had to tear to catch them up. I took my shoes off I expect my stockings are done for. And I followed and followed and followed and they went through the place where the poor people live, and right down to the river. And

I say, we must run for it."

So the story stopped and the running began.

They caught Johnson in his own back-yard washing at a bench against his own back-door.

"Look here, Johnson," Gerald said, "what'll you give me if I put you up to winning that fifty pounds reward?"

"Halves," said Johnson promptly, "and a clout 'long-side your head if you was coming any of your nonsense over me."

"It's not nonsense," said Gerald very impressively. "If you'll let us in I'll tell you all about it. And when you've caught the burglars and got the swag back you just give me a quid for luck. I won't ask for more."

"Come along in, then," said Johnson, "if the young ladies'll excuse the towel. But I bet you do want something more off of me. Else why not claim the reward yourself?"

"Great is the wisdom of Johnson he speaks winged words." The children were all in the cottage now, and the door was shut. "I want you never to let on who told you. Let them think it was your own unaided pluck and far-sightedness."

"Sit you down," said Johnson, "and if you're kidding you'd best send the little gells home afore I begin on you."

"I am not kidding," replied Gerald loftily, "never less. And anyone but a policeman would see why I don't want anyone to know it was me. I found it out at dead of night, in a place where I wasn't supposed to be; and there'd be a beastly row if they found out at home about me being out nearly all night. Now do you see, my bright-eyed daisy?"

Johnson was now too interested, as Jimmy said afterwards, to mind what silly names he was called. He said he did see and asked to see more.

"Well, don't you ask any questions, then. I'll tell you all it's good for you to know. Last night about eleven I was at Yalding Towers. No it doesn't matter how I got there or what I got there for and there was a window open and I got in, and there was a light. And it was in the strong-room, and there were three men, putting silver in a bag."

"Was it you give the warning, and they sent for the police?" Johnson was leaning eagerly forward, a hand on each knee.

"Yes, that was me. You can let them think it was you, if you like. You were off duty, weren't you?"

"I was," said Johnson, "in the arms of Murphy "

"Well, the police didn't come quick enough. But I was there a lonely detective. And I followed them."

"You did?"

"And I saw them hide the booty and I know the other stuff from Houghton's Court's in the same place, and I heard them arrange about when to take it away."

"Come and show me where," said Johnson, jumping up so quickly that his Windsor arm-chair fell over backwards, with a crack, on the red-brick floor.

"Not so," said Gerald calmly; "if you go near the spot before the appointed time you'll find the silver, but you'll never catch the thieves."

"You're right there." The policeman picked up his chair and sat down in it again. "Well?"

"Well, there's to be a motor to meet them in the lane beyond the boat-house by Sadler's Rents at one o clock tonight. They'll get the things out at half-past twelve and take them along in a boat. So now's your chance to fill your pockets with chink and cover yourself with honour and glory."

"So help me!" Johnson was pensive and doubtful still "So help me! you couldn't have made all this up out of your head."

"Oh yes, I could. But I didn't. Now look here. It's the chance of your lifetime, Johnson! A quid for me, and a still tongue for you, and the job's done. Do you agree?"

"Oh, I agree right enough," said Johnson. "I agree. But if you're coming any of your larks "

"Can't you see he isn't?" Kathleen put in impatiently. "He's not a liar we none of us are."

"If you're not on, say so," said Gerald, "and I'll find another policeman with more sense."

"I could split about you being out all night," said Johnson.

"But you wouldn't be so ungentlemanly," said Mabel brightly. "Don't you be so unbelieving, when we're trying to do you a good turn."

"If I were you," Gerald advised, "I'd go to the place where the silver is, with two other men. You could make a nice little ambush in the wood-yard it's close there. And I'd have two or three more men up trees in the lane to wait for the motor-car."

"You ought to have been in the force, you ought," said Johnson admiringly; "but s'pose it was a hoax!"

"Well, then you'd have made an ass of yourself I don't suppose it ud be the first time," said Jimmy.

"Are you on?" said Gerald in haste. "Hold your jaw, Jimmy, you idiot!"

"Yes," said Johnson.

"Then when you're on duty you go down to the wood-yard, and the place where you see me blow my nose is the place. The sacks are tied with string to the posts under the water. You just stalk by in your dignified beauty and make a note of the spot. That's where glory waits you, and when Fame elates you and you're a sergeant, please remember me."

Johnson said he was blessed. He said it more than once, and then remarked that he was on, and added that he must be off that instant minute.

Johnson's cottage lies just out of the town beyond the blacksmith's forge and the children had come to it through the wood. They went back the same way, and then down through the town, and through its narrow, unsavoury streets to the towing-path by the timber yard. Here they ran along the trunks of the big trees, peeped into the saw-pit, and the men were away at dinner and this was a favourite play place of every boy within miles made themselves a see-saw with a fresh cut, sweet-smelling pine plank and an elm-root.

"What a ripping place!" said Mabel, breathless on the seesaw's end. "I believe I like this better than pretending games or even magic."

"So do I," said Jimmy. "Jerry, don't keep sniffing so you'll have no nose left."

"I can't help it," Gerald answered; "I daren't use my hankey for fear Johnson's on the lookout somewhere unseen. I wish I'd thought of some other signal." Sniff! "No, nor I shouldn't want to now if I hadn't got not to. That's what's so rum. The moment I got down here and remembered what I'd said about the signal I began to have a cold and Thank goodness! here he is."

The children, with a fine air of unconcern, abandoned the see-saw. "Follow my leader!" Gerald cried, and ran along a barked oak trunk, the others following. In and out and round about ran the file of children, over heaps of logs, under the jutting ends of piled planks, and just as the policeman's heavy boots trod the towing-path Gerald halted at the end of a little landing-stage of rotten boards, with a rickety handrail, cried "Pax!" and blew his nose with loud fervour.

"Morning," he said immediately.

"Morning," said Johnson. "Got a cold, ain't you?"

"Ah! I shouldn't have a cold if I'd got boots like yours," returned Gerald admiringly. "Look at them. Anyone ud know your fairy footstep a mile off. How do you ever get near enough to anyone to arrest them?" He skipped off the landing-stage, whispered as he passed Johnson, "Courage, promptitude, and dispatch. That's the place," and was off again, the active leader of an active procession.

"We've brought a friend home to dinner," said Kathleen, when Eliza opened the door. "Where's Mademoiselle?"

"Gone to see Yalding Towers. Today's show day, you know. An just you hurry over your dinners. It's my afternoon out, and my gentleman friend don't like it if he's kept waiting."

"All right, we'll eat like lightning," Gerald promised. "Set another place, there's an angel."

They kept their word. The dinner it was minced veal and potatoes and rice-pudding, perhaps the dullest food in the world was over in a quarter of an hour.

"And now," said Mabel, when Eliza and a jug of hot water had disappeared up the stairs together, "where's the ring? I ought to put it back."

"I haven't had a turn yet," said Jimmy. "When we find it Cathy and I ought to have turns same as you and Gerald did."

"When you find it ?" Mabel's pale face turned paler between her dark locks.

"I'm very sorry we're all very sorry," began Kathleen, and then the story of the losing had to be told.

"You couldn't have looked properly," Mabel protested. "It can't have vanished."

"You don't know what it can do no more do we. It's no use getting your quills up, fair lady. Perhaps vanishing itself is just what it does do. You see, it came off my hand in the bed. We looked everywhere."

"Would you mind if I looked?" Mabel's eyes implored her little hostess. "You see, if it's lost it's my fault. It's almost the same as stealing. That Johnson would say it was just the same. I know he would."

"Let's all look again," said Cathy, jumping up. "We were rather in a hurry this morning."

So they looked, and they looked. In the bed, under the bed, under the carpet, under the furniture. They shook the curtains, they explored the corners, and found dust and flue, but no ring. They looked, and they looked. Everywhere they looked. Jimmy even looked fixedly at the ceiling, as though he thought the ring might have bounced up there and stuck. But it hadn't.

"Then," said Mabel at last, "your housemaid must have stolen it. That's all. I shall tell her I think so."

And she would have done it too, but at that moment the front door banged and they knew that Eliza had gone forth in all the glory of her best things to meet her "gentleman friend" .

"It's no use," Mabel was almost in tears; "look here will you leave me alone? Perhaps you others looking distracts me. And I'll go over every inch of the room by myself."

"Respecting the emotion of their guest, the kindly charcoal-burners withdrew," said Gerald. And they closed the door softly from the outside on Mabel and her search.

They waited for hers of course politeness demanded it, and besides, they had to stay at home to let Mademoiselle in; though it was a dazzling day, and Jimmy had just remembered that Gerald's pockets were full of the money earned at the fair, and that nothing had yet been bought with that money, except a few buns in which he had had no share. And of course they waited impatiently.

It seemed about an hour, and was really quite ten minutes, before they heard the bedroom door open and Mabel's feet on the stairs.

"She hasn't found it," Gerald said.

"How do you know?" Jimmy asked.

"The way she walks," said Gerald. You can, in fact, almost always tell whether the thing has been found that people have gone to look for by the sound of their feet as they return. Mabel's feet said "No go" as plain as they could speak. And her face confirmed the cheerless news.

A sudden and violent knocking at the back door prevented anyone from having to be polite about how sorry they were, or fanciful about being sure the ring would turn up soon.

All the servants except Eliza were away on their holidays, so the children went together to open the door, because, as Gerald said, if it was the baker they could buy a cake from him and eat it for dessert. "That kind of dinner sort of needs dessert," he said.

But it was not the baker, When they opened the

door they saw in the paved court where the pump is, and the dust-bin, and the water-butt, a young man, with his hat very much on one side, his mouth open under his fair bristly mustache, and his eyes as nearly round as human eyes can be. He wore a suit of a bright mustard colour, a blue necktie, and a goldish watch-chain across his waistcoat. His body was thrown back and his right arm stretched out towards the door, and his expression was that of a person who is being dragged somewhere against his will. He looked so strange that Kathleen tried to shut the door in his face, murmuring, "Escaped insane." But the door would not close. There was something in the way.

"Leave go of me!" said the young man.

"Ho yus! I'll leave go of you!" It was the voice of Eliza but no Eliza could be seen.

"Who's got hold of you?" asked Kathleen.

"She has, miss," replied the unhappy stranger.

"Who's she?" asked Kathleen, to gain time, as she afterwards explained, for she now knew well enough that what was keeping the door open was Eliza's unseen foot.

"My fyongsay, miss. At least it sounds like her voice, and it feels like her bones, but something's come over me, miss, an I can't see her."

"That's what he keeps on saying," said Eliza's voice. "E's my gentleman friend; is 'e gone dotty, or is it me?"

"Both, I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy.

"Now," said Eliza, "you call yourself a man; you look me in the face and say you can't see me."

"Well I can't," said the wretched gentleman friend.

"If I'd stolen a ring," said Gerald, looking at the sky, "I should go indoors and be quiet, not stand at the back door and make an exhibition of myself."

"Not much exhibition about her," whispered Jimmy; "good old ring!"

"I haven't stolen anything," said the gentleman friend. "Here, you leave me be. It's my eyes has gone wrong. Leave go of me, d'ye hear?"

Suddenly his hand dropped and he staggered back against the water-butt. Eliza had "left go" of him. She pushed past the children, shoving them aside with her invisible elbows. Gerald caught her by the arm with one hand, felt for her ear with the other, and whispered, "You stand still and don't say a word. If you do well, what's to stop me from sending for the police?"

Eliza did not know what there was to stop him. So she did as she was told, and stood invisible and silent, save for a sort of blowing, snorting noise peculiar to her when she was out of breath.

The mustard-coloured young man had recovered his balance, and stood looking at the children with eyes, if possible, rounder than before.

"What is it?" he gasped feebly. "What's up? What's it all about?"

"If you don't know, I'm afraid we can't tell you," said Gerald politely.

"Have I been talking very strange-like?" he asked, taking off his hat and passing his hand over his forehead.

"Very," said Mabel.

"I hope I haven't said anything that wasn't good manners," he said anxiously.

"Not at all," said Kathleen. "You only said your fiancee had hold of your hand, and that you couldn't see her."

"No more I can."

"No more can we," said Mabel.

"But I couldn't have dreamed it, and then come along here making a penny show of myself like this, could I?"

"You know best," said Gerald courteously.

"But," the mustard-coloured victim almost screamed, "do you mean to tell me..."

"I don't mean to tell you anything," said Gerald quite truly, "but I'll give you a bit of advice. You go home and lie down a bit and put a wet rag on your head. You'll be all right tomorrow."

"But I haven't "

"I should," said Mabel; "the sun's very hot, you know."

"I feel all right now," he said, "but well, I can only say I'm sorry, that's all I can say. I've never been taken like this before, miss. I'm not subject to it don't you think that. But I could have sworn Eliza Ain't she gone out to meet me?"

"Eliza's in-doors," said Mabel. "She can't come out to meet anybody today."

"You won't tell her about me carrying on this way, will you, miss? It might set her against me if she thought I was liable to fits, which I never was from a child."

"We won't tell Eliza anything about you."

"And you'll overlook the liberty?"

"Of course. We know you couldn't help it," said Kathleen. "You go home and lie down. I'm sure you must need it. Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, I'm sure, miss," he said dreamily. "All the same I can feel the print of her finger-bones on my hand while I'm saying it. And you won't let it get round to my boss my employer I mean? Fits of all sorts are against a man in any trade."

"No, no, no, it's all right good-bye," said everyone. And a silence fell as he went slowly round the water-butt and the green yard-gate shut behind him. The silence was broken by Eliza.

"Give me up!" she said. "Give me up to break my heart in a prison cell!"

There was a sudden splash, and a round wet drop lay on the doorstep.

"Thunder shower," said Jimmy; but it was a tear from Eliza.

"Give me up," she went on, "give me up" splash "but don't let me be took here in the town where I'm known and respected" splash. "I'll walk ten miles to be took by a strange police not Johnson as keeps company with my own cousin" splash. "But I do thank you for one thing. You didn't tell Elf as I'd stolen the ring. And I didn't splash I only sort of borrowed it, it being my day out, and my gentleman friend such a toff, like you can see for yourselves."

The children had watched, spellbound, the interesting tears that became visible as they rolled off the invisible nose of the miserable Eliza. Now Gerald roused himself, and spoke.

"It's no use your talking," he said. "We can't see you!"

"That's what he said," said Eliza's voice, "but "

"You can't see yourself," Gerald went on. "Where's your hand?"

Eliza, no doubt, tried to see it, and of course failed; for instantly, with a shriek that might have brought the police if there had been any about, she went into a violent fit of hysterics. The children did what they could, everything that they had read of in books as suitable to such occasions, but it is extremely difficult to do the right thing with an invisible housemaid in strong hysterics and her best clothes. That was why the best hat was found, later on, to be completely ruined, and why the best blue dress was never quite itself again. And as they were burning bits of the feather dusting-brush as nearly under Eliza's nose as they could guess, a sudden spurt of flame and a horrible smell, as the flame died between the quick hands of Gerald, showed but too plainly that Eliza's feather boa had tried to help.

It did help. Eliza "came to" with a deep sob and said, "Don't burn me real ostrich stole; I'm better now."

They helped her up and she sat down on the bottom step, and the children explained to her very carefully and quite kindly that she really was invisible, and that if you steal or even borrow rings you can never be sure what will happen to you.

"But 'ave I got to go on stopping like this," she moaned, when they had fetched the little mahogany looking-glass from its nail over the kitchen sink, and convinced her that she was really invisible, "for ever and ever? An we was to a bin married come Easter. No one won't marry a gell as 'e can't see. It ain't likely."

"No, not for ever and ever," said Mabel kindly, "but you've got to go through with it like measles. I expect you'll be all right tomorrow."

"Tonight, I think," said Gerald.

"We'll help you all we can, and not tell anyone," said Kathleen.

"Not even the police," said Jimmy.

"Now let's get Mademoiselle's tea ready," said Gerald.

"And ours," said Jimmy.

"No," said Gerald, "we'll have our tea out. We'll have a picnic and we'll take Eliza. I'll go out and get the cakes." "I sha'n't eat no cake, Master Jerry," said Eliza's voice, "so don't you think it. You'd see it going down inside my chest. It wouldn't he what I should call nice of me to have cake showing through me in the open air. Oh, it's a dreadful judgment just for a borrow!"

They reassured her, set the tea, deputed Kathleen to let in Mademoiselle who came home tired and a little sad, it seemed waited for her and Gerald and the cakes, and started off for Yalding Towers.

"Picnic parties aren't allowed," said Mabel.

"Ours will be," said Gerald briefly. "Now, Eliza, you catch on to Kathleen's arm and I'll walk behind to conceal your shadow. My aunt! take your hat off; it makes your shadow look like I don't know what. People will think we're the county lunatic asylum turned loose."

It was then that the hat, becoming visible in Kathleen's hand, showed how little of the sprinkled water had gone where it was meant to go on Eliza's face.

"Me best 'at," said Eliza, and there was a silence with sniffs in it.

"Look here," said Mabel, "you cheer up. Just you think this is all a dream. It's just the kind of thing you might dream if your conscience bad got pains in it about the ring."

"But will I wake up again?"

"Oh yes, you'll wake up again. Now we're going to bandage your eyes and take you through a very small door, and don't you resist, or we'll bring a policeman into the dream like a shot."

I have not time to describe Eliza's entrance into the cave. She went head first: the girls propelled and the boys received her. If Gerald had not thought of tying her hands someone would certainly have been scratched. As it was Mabel's hand was scraped between the cold rock and a passionate boot-heel. Nor will I tell you all that she said as they led her along the fern-bordered gully and through the arch into the wonderland of Italian scenery. She had but little language left when they removed her bandage under a weeping willow where a statue of Diana, bow in hand, stood poised on one toe a most unsuitable attitude for archery, I have always thought.

"Now," said Gerald, "it's all over nothing but niceness now and cake and things."

"It's time we did have our tea," said Jimmy. And it was.

Eliza, once convinced that her chest, though invisible, was not transparent, and that her companions could not by looking through it count how many buns she had eaten, made an excellent meal. So did the others. If you want really to enjoy your tea, have minced veal and potatoes and rice-pudding for dinner, with several hours of excitement to follow, and take your tea late.

The soft, cool green and grey of the garden were changing the green grew golden, the shadows black, and the lake where the swans were mirrored upside down, under the Temple of Phoebus, was bathed in rosy light from the little fluffy clouds that lay opposite the Sunset.

"It is pretty," said Eliza, "just like a picture-postcard, ain't it? the tuppenny kind."

"I ought to be getting home," said Mabel.

"I can't go home like this. I'd stay and be a savage and live in that white hut if it had any walls and doors," said Eliza.

"She means the Temple of Dionysus," said Mabel, pointing to it.

The sun set suddenly behind the line of black fir-trees on the top of the slope, and the white temple, that had been pink, turned grey.

"It would be a very nice place to live in even as it is," said Kathleen.

"Draughty," said Eliza, "and law, what a lot of steps to clean! What they make houses for without no walls to 'em? Who'd live in," She broke off, stared, and added: "What's that?"

"What?"

"That white thing coming down the steps. Why, it's a young man in statooary."

"The statues do come alive here, after sunset," said Gerald in very matter-of-fact tones.

"I see they do." Eliza did not seem at all surprised or alarmed. "There's another of 'em. Look at them little wings to his feet like pigeons."

"I expect that's Mercury," said Gerald.

"It's 'Hermes' under the statue that's got wings on its feet, said Mabel, "but "

"1 don't see any statues," said Jimmy. "What are you punching me for?"

"Don't you see?" Gerald whispered; but he need not have been so troubled, for all Eliza's attention was with her wandering eyes that followed hither and thither the quick movements of unseen statues. "Don't you see? The statues come alive when the sun goes down and you can't see them unless you're invisible

and I if you do see them you're not frightened unless you touch them."

"Let's get her to touch one and see," said Jimmy.

"E's lep into the water," said Eliza in a rapt voice. "My, can't he swim neither! And the one with the pigeons wings is flying all over the lake having larks with 'im. I do call that pretty. It's like cupids as you see on wedding-cakes. And here's another of 'em, a little chap with long ears and a baby deer galloping alongside! An look at the lady with the biby, throwing it up and catching it like as if it was a ball. I wonder she ain't afraid. But it's pretty to see 'em."

The broad park lay stretched before the children in growing greyness and a stillness that deepened. Amid the thickening shadows they could see the statues gleam white and motionless. But Eliza saw other things. She watched in silence presently, and they watched silently, and the evening fell like a veil that grew heavier and blacker. And it was night. And the moon came up above the trees.

"Oh," cried Eliza suddenly, "here's the dear little boy with the deer he's coming right for me, bless his heart!"

Next moment she was screaming, and her screams grew fainter and there was the sound of swift boots on gravel.

"Come on!" cried Gerald; "she touched it, and then she was frightened, Just like I was. Run! she'll send everyone in the town mad if she gets there like that. Just a voice and boots! Run! Run!

They ran. But Eliza had the start of them. Also when she ran on the grass they could not hear her footsteps and had to wait for the sound of leather on far-away gravel. Also she was driven by fear, and fear drives fast.

She went, it seemed, the nearest way, invisibly through the waxing moonlight, seeing she only knew what amid the glades and groves.

"I'll stop here; see you tomorrow," gasped Mabel, as the loud pursuers followed Eliza's clatter across the terrace. "She's gone through the stable yard."

"The back way," Gerald panted as they turned the corner of their own street, and he and Jimmy swung in past the water-butt.

An unseen but agitated presence seemed to be fumbling with the locked back-door. The church clock struck the half-hour.

"Half-past nine," Gerald had just breath to say. "Pull at the ring. Perhaps it'll come off now."

He spoke to the bare doorstep. But it was Eliza, dishevelled, breathless, her hair coming down, her collar crooked, her dress twisted and disordered, who suddenly held out a hand a hand that they could see; and in the hand, plainly visible in the moonlight, the dark circle of the magic ring.

"Alf a mo!" said Eliza's gentleman friend next morning. He was waiting for her when she opened the door with pail and hearthstone in her hand. "Sorry you couldn't come out yesterday."

"So'm I." Eliza swept the wet flannel along the top step. "What did you do?"

"I 'ad a bit of a headache," said the gentleman friend. "I laid down most of the afternoon. What were you up to?"

"Oh, nothing pertickler," said Eliza.

"Then it was all a dream, she said, when he was gone; "but it'll be a lesson to me not to meddle with anybody's old ring again in a hurry."

"So they didn't tell 'er about me behaving like I did," said he as he went "sun, I suppose like our Army in India. I hope I ain't going to be liable to it, that's all!"

Johnson was the hero of the hour. It was he who had tracked the burglars, laid his plans, and recovered the lost silver. He had not thrown the stone public opinion decided that Mabel and her aunt must have been mistaken in supposing that there was a stone at all. But he did not deny the warning letter. It was Gerald who went out after breakfast to buy the newspaper, and who read aloud to the others the two columns of fiction which were the Liddlesby Observer's report of the facts. As he read every mouth opened wider and wider, and when he ceased with "this gifted fellow-townsman with detective instincts which out-rival those of Messrs. Lecoq and Holmes, and whose promotion is now assured," there was quite a blank silence.

"Well," said Jimmy, breaking it, "he doesn't stick it on neither, does he?"

"I feel," said Kathleen, "as if it was our fault as if it was us had told all these whoppers; because if it hadn't been for you they couldn't have, Jerry. How could he say all that?"

"Well," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "you know, after all, the chap had to say something. I'm glad I " He stopped abruptly.

"You're glad you what?"

"No matter," said he, with an air of putting away affairs of state. "Now, what are we going to do today? The faithful Mabel approaches; she will want her ring. And you and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. Mademoiselle hasn't had any attention paid to her for more days than our hero likes to confess."

"I wish you wouldn't always call yourself 'our hero', said Jimmy; "you aren't mine, anyhow."

"You're both of you mine," said Kathleen hastily.

"Good little girl." Gerald smiled annoyingly. "Keep baby brother in a good temper till Nursie comes back."

"You're not going out without us?" Kathleen asked in haste.

"I haste away,

'Tis market day,"

sang Gerald,

"And in the market there

Buy roses for my fair.

If you want to come too, get your boots on, and look slippy about it."

"I don't want to come," said Jimmy, and sniffed.

Kathleen turned a despairing look on Gerald.

"Oh, James, James," said Gerald sadly, "how difficult you make it for me to forget that you're my little brother! If ever I treat you like one of the other chaps, and rot you like I should Turner or Moberley or any of my pals well, this is what comes of it."

"You don't call them your baby brothers," said Jimmy, and truly.

"No; and I'll take precious good care I don't call you it again. Come on, my hero and heroine. The devoted Mesrour is your salaaming slave."

The three met Mabel opportunely at the corner of the square where every Friday the stalls and the awnings and the green umbrellas were pitched, and poultry, pork, pottery, vegetables, drapery, sweets, toys, tools, mirrors, and all sorts of other interesting merchandise were spread out on trestle tables, piled on carts whose horses were stabled and whose shafts were held in place by piled wooden cases, or laid out, as in the case of crockery and hardware, on the bare flag-stones of the market-place.

The sun was shining with great goodwill, and, as Mabel remarked, "all Nature looked smiling and gay." There were a few bunches of flowers among the vegetables, and the children hesitated, balanced in choice.

"Mignonette is sweet," said Mabel.

"Roses are roses," said Kathleen.

"Carnations are tuppence," said Jimmy; and Gerald, sniffing among the bunches of tightly-tied tea-roses, agreed that this settled it.

So the carnations were bought, a bunch of yellow ones, like sulphur, a bunch of white ones like clotted cream, and a bunch of red ones like the cheeks of the doll that Kathleen never played with. They took the carnations home, and Kathleen's green hair-ribbon came in beautifully for tying them up, which was hastily done on the doorstep.

Then discreetly Gerald knocked at the door of the drawing-room, where Mademoiselle seemed to sit all day.

"Entrez!" came her voice; and Gerald entered. She was not reading, as usual, but bent over a sketch-book; on the table was an open colour-box of un-English appearance, and a box of that slate-coloured liquid so familiar alike to the greatest artist in watercolours and to the humblest child with a sixpenny paintbox.

"With all of our loves," said Gerald, laying the flowers down suddenly before her.

"But it is that you are a dear child. For this it must that I embrace you no?" And before Gerald could explain that he was too old, she kissed him with little quick French pecks on the two cheeks.

"Are you painting?" he asked hurriedly, to hide his annoyance at being treated like a baby.

"I achieve a sketch of yesterday," she answered; and before he had time to wonder what yesterday would look like in a picture she showed him a beautiful and exact sketch of Yalding Towers.

"Oh, I say ripping!" was the critic's comment. "I say, mayn't the others come and see?" The others came, including Mabel, who stood awkwardly behind the rest, and looked over Jimmy's shoulder.

"I say, you are clever," said Gerald respectfully.

"To what good to have the talent, when one must pass one's life at teaching the infants?" said Mademoiselle.

"It must be fairly beastly," Gerald owned.

"You, too, see the design?" Mademoiselle asked Mabel, adding: "A friend from the town, yes?"

"How do you do?" said Mabel politely. "No, I'm not from the town. I live at Yalding Towers."

The name seemed to impress Mademoiselle very much. Gerald anxiously hoped in his own mind that she was not a snob.

"Yalding Towers," she repeated, "but this is very extraordinary. Is it possible that you are then of the family of Lord Yalding?"

"He hasn't any family," said Mabel; "he's not married."

"I would say are you how you say? cousin sister niece?"

"No," said Mabel, flushing hotly, "I'm nothing grand at all. I'm Lord Yalding's housekeeper's niece."

"But you know Lord Yalding, is it not?"

"No," said Mabel, "I've never seen him."

"He comes then never to his chateau?"

"Not since I've lived there. But he's coming next week."

"Why lives he not there?" Mademoiselle asked.

"Auntie says he's too poor," said Mabel, and proceeded to tell the tale as she had heard it in the housekeeper's room: how Lord Yalding's uncle had left all the money he could leave away from Lord Yalding to Lord Yalding's second cousin, and poor Lord Yalding had only just enough to keep the old place in repair, and to live very quietly indeed somewhere else, but not enough to keep the house open or to live there; and how he couldn't sell the house because it was "in tale .

"What is it then in tail?" asked Mademoiselle.

"In a tale that the lawyers write out," said Mabel, proud of her knowledge and flattered by the deep interest of the French governess; "and when once they've put your house in one of their tales you can't sell it or give it away, but you have to leave it to your son, even if you don't want to."

"But how his uncle could he be so cruel to leave him the chateau and no money?" Mademoiselle asked; and Kathleen and Jimmy stood amazed at the sudden keenness of her interest in what seemed to them the dullest story.

"Oh, I can tell you that too," said Mabel. "Lord Yalding wanted to marry a lady his uncle didn't want him to, a barmaid or a ballet lady or something, and he wouldn't give her up, and his uncle said, 'Well then,' and left everything to the cousin."

"And you say he is not married."

"No the lady went into a convent; I expect she's bricked-up alive by now."

"Bricked ?"

"In a wall, you know,: said Mabel, pointing explainingly at the pink and gilt roses of the wall-paper, "shut up to kill them. That's what they do to you in convents."

"Not at all," said Mademoiselle; "in convents are very kind good women; there is but one thing in convents that is detestable the locks on the doors. Sometimes people cannot get out, especially when they are very young and their relations have placed them there for their welfare and happiness. But brick how you say it? enwalling ladies to kill them. No it does itself never. And this lord he did not then seek his lady?"

"Oh, yes he sought her right enough," Mabel assured her; "but there are millions of convents, you know, and he had no idea where to look, and they sent back his letters from the post-office, and "

"Ciel!" cried Mademoiselle, "but it seems that one knows all in the housekeeper's saloon."

"Pretty well all," said Mabel simply.

"And you think he will find her? No?"

"Oh, he'll find her all right," said Mabel, "when he's old and broken down, you know and dying; and then a gentle Sister of Charity will soothe his pillow, and just when he's dying she'll reveal herself and say: 'My own lost love!' and his face will light up with a wonderful joy and he'll expire with her beloved name on his parched lips."

Mademoiselle's was the silence of sheer astonishment. "You do the prophecy, it appears?" she said at last. "Oh no," said Mabel; "I got that out of a book. I can tell you lots more fatal love-stories any time you like."

The French governess gave a little jump, as though she had suddenly remembered something.

"It is nearly dinner-time," she said. "Your friend Mabelle, yes will be your convivial, and in her honour we will make a little feast. My beautiful flowers put them to the water, Kathleen. I run to buy the cakes. Wash the hands, all, and be ready when I return."

Smiling and nodding to the children, she left them, and ran up the stairs.

"Just as if she was young," said Kathleen.

"She is young," said Mabel. "Heaps of ladies have offers of marriage when they re no younger than her. I've seen lots of weddings too, with much older brides. And why didn't you tell me she was so beautiful?"

"Is she?" asked Kathleen.

"Of course she is; and what a darling to think of cakes for me, and calling me a convivial!"

"Look here," said Gerald, "I call this jolly decent of her. You know, governesses never have more than the meanest pittance, just enough to sustain life, and here she is spending her little all on us. Supposing we just don't go out today, but play with her instead. I expect she's most awfully bored really."

"Would she really like it?" Kathleen wondered. "Aunt Emily says grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us.

"They little know," Gerald answered, "how often we do it to please them."

"We've got to do that dressing-up with the Princess clothes anyhow we said we would," said Kathleen. "Let's treat her to that."

"Rather near tea-time," urged Jimmy, "so that there'll be a fortunate interruption and the play won't go on for ever."

"I suppose all the things are safe?" Mabel asked.

"Quite. I told you where I put them. Come on, Jimmy; let's help lay the table. We'll get Eliza to put out the best china."

They went.

"It was lucky," said Gerald, struck by a sudden thought, "that the burglars didn't go for the diamonds in the treasure-chamber."

"They couldn't," said Mabel almost in a whisper; "they didn't know about them. I don't believe anybody knows about them, except me and you, and you're sworn to secrecy. This, you will remember, had been done almost at the beginning. I know aunt doesn't know. I just found out the spring by accident. Lord Yalding's kept the secret well."

"I wish I'd got a secret like that to keep," said Gerald. "If the burglars do know," said Mabel, "it'll all come out at the trial. Lawyers make you tell everything you know at trials, and a lot of lies besides."

"There won't be any trial," said Gerald, kicking the leg of the piano thoughtfully.

"No trial?"

"It said in the paper," Gerald went on slowly, "'The miscreants must have received warning from a confederate, for the admirable preparations to arrest them as they returned for their ill-gotten plunder were unavailing. But the police have a clew.'"

"What a pity!" said Mabel.

"You needn't worry they haven't got any old clew," said Gerald, still attentive to the piano leg.

"I didn't mean the clew; I meant the confederate."

"It's a pity you think he's a pity, because he was me," said Gerald, standing up and leaving the piano leg alone. He looked straight before him, as the boy on the burning deck may have looked.

"I couldn't help it," he said. "I know you'll think I'm a criminal, but I couldn't do it. I don't know how detectives can. I went over a prison once, with father; and after I'd given the tip to Johnson I remembered that, and I just couldn't. I know I'm a beast, and not worthy to be a British citizen."

"I think it was rather nice of you," said Mabel kindly. "How did you warn them?"

"I just shoved a paper under the man's door the one that I knew where he lived to tell him to lie low."

"Oh! do tell me what did you put on it exactly?" Mabel warmed to this new interest. "It said: 'The police know all except your names. Be virtuous and you are safe. But if there's any more burgling I shall split and you may rely on that from a friend.' I know it was wrong, but I couldn't help it. Don't tell the others. They wouldn't understand why I did it. I don't understand it myself."

"I do, said Mabel: it's because you've got a kind and noble heart."

"Kind fiddlestick, my good child!" said Gerald, suddenly losing the burning boy expression and becoming in a flash entirely himself. "Cut along and wash your hands; you're as black as ink."

"So are you," said Mabel, "and I'm not. It's dye with me. Auntie was dyeing a blouse this morning. It told you how in Home Drivel and she's as black as ink too, and the blouse is all streaky. Pity the ring won't make just parts of you invisible the dirt, for instance."

"Perhaps," Gerald said unexpectedly, "it won't make even all of you invisible again."

"Why not? You haven't been doing anything to it have you?" Mabel sharply asked.

"No; but didn't you notice you were invisible twenty-one hours; I was fourteen hours invisible, and Eliza only seven that's seven less each time. And now we've come to "

"How frightfully good you are at sums!" said Mabel, awe-struck.

"You see, it's got seven hours less each time, and seven from seven is nought; it's got to be something different this time. And then afterwards it can't be minus seven, because I don't see how unless it made you more visible thicker, you know."

"Don't!" said Mabel; "you make my head go round."

"And there's another odd thing," Gerald went on; "when you're invisible your relations don't love you. Look at your aunt, and Cathy never turning a hair at me going burgling. We haven't got to the bottom of that ring yet. Crikey! here's Mademoiselle with the cakes. Run, bold bandits wash for your lives!"

They ran

It was not cakes only; it was plums and grapes and jam tarts and soda-water and raspberry vinegar, and chocolates in pretty boxes and pure, thick, rich cream in brown jugs, also a big bunch of roses. Mademoiselle was strangely merry for a governess. She served out the cakes and tarts with a liberal hand, made wreaths of the flowers for all their heads she was not eating much herself drank the health of Mabel, as the guest of the day, in the beautiful pink drink that comes from mixing raspberry vinegar and soda-water, and actually persuaded Jimmy to wear his wreath, on the ground that the Greek gods as well as the goddesses always wore wreaths at a feast.

There never was such a feast provided by any French governess since French governesses began. There were jokes and stories and laughter. Jimmy showed all those tricks with forks and corks and matches and apples which are so deservedly popular. Mademoiselle told them stories of her own schooldays when she was "a quite little girl with two tight tresses so", and when they could not understand the tresses, called for paper and pencil and drew the loveliest little picture of herself when she was a child with two short fat pig-tails sticking out from her head like knitting-needles from a ball of dark worsted. Then she drew pictures of everything they asked for, till Mabel pulled Gerald's jacket and whispered: "The acting!"

"Draw us the front of a theatre," said Gerald tactfully "a French theatre."

"They are the same thing as the English theatres," Mademoiselle told him.

"Do you like acting the theatre, I mean?"

"But yes I love it."

"All right," said Gerald briefly. "We'll act a play for you now this afternoon if you like."

"Eliza will be washing up," Cathy whispered, "and she was promised to see it."

"Or this evening," said Gerald "and please, Mademoiselle, may Eliza come in and look on?"

"But certainly," said Mademoiselle; "amuse yourselves well, my children."

"But it's you," said Mabel suddenly, "that we want to amuse. Because we love you very much don't we, all of you?"

"Yes," the chorus came unhesitatingly. Though the others would never have thought of saying such a thing on their own account. Yet, as Mabel said it, they found to their surprise that it was true.

"Tiens!" said Mademoiselle, "you love the old French governess? Impossible," and she spoke rather indistinctly.

"You're not old," said Mabel; "at least not so very, she added brightly, and you're as lovely as a Princess."

"Go then, flatteress!" said Mademoiselle, laughing; and Mabel went. The others were already half-way up the stairs.

Mademoiselle sat in the drawing-room as usual, and it was a good thing that she was not engaged in serious study, for it seemed that the door opened and shut almost ceaselessly all throughout the afternoon. Might they have the embroidered antimacassars and the sofa cushions? Might they have the clothes-line out of the washhouse? Eliza said they mightn't, but might they? Might they have the sheepskin hearth-rugs? Might they have tea in the garden, because they had almost got the stage ready in the dining-room, and Eliza wanted to set tea? Could Mademoiselle lend them any coloured clothes scarves or dressing-gowns, or anything bright? Yes, Mademoiselle could, and did silk things, surprisingly lovely for a governess to have.

Had Mademoiselle any rouge? They had always heard that French ladies No. Mademoiselle hadn't and to judge by the colour of her face, Mademoiselle didn't need it. Did Mademoiselle think the chemist sold rouge or had she any false hair to spare? At this challenge Mademoiselle's pale fingers pulled out a dozen hairpins, and down came the loveliest blue-black hair, hanging to her knees in straight, heavy lines.

"No, you terrible infants," she cried. "I have not the false hair, nor the rouge. And my teeth you want them also, without doubt?"

She showed them in a laugh.

"I said you were a Princess," said Mabel, "and now I know. You're Rapunzel. Do always wear your hair like that! May we have the peacock fans, please, off the mantelpiece, and the things that loop back the curtains, and all the handkerchiefs you've got?"

Mademoiselle denied them nothing. They had the fans and the handkerchiefs and some large sheets of expensive drawing-paper out of the school cupboard, and Mademoiselle's best sable paint-brush and her paint-box.

"Who would have thought," murmured Gerald, pensively sucking the brush and gazing at the paper mask he had just painted, "that she was such a brick in disguise? I wonder why crimson lake always tastes just like Liebig's Extract."

Everything was pleasant that day somehow. There are some days like that, you know, when everything goes well from the very beginning; all the things you want are in their places, nobody misunderstands you, and all that you do turns out admirably. How different from those other days which we all know too well, when your shoe-lace breaks, your comb is mislaid, your brush spins on its back on the floor and lands under the bed where you can't get at it you drop the soap, your buttons come off, an eyelash gets into your eye, you have used your last clean handkerchief, your collar is frayed at the edge and cuts your neck, and at the very last moment your suspender breaks, and there is no string. On such a day as this you are naturally late for breakfast, and everyone thinks you did it on purpose. And the day goes on and on, getting worse and worse you mislay your exercise-book, you drop your arithmetic in the mud, your pencil breaks, and when you open your knife to sharpen the pencil you split your nail. On such a day you jam your thumb in doors, and muddle the messages you are sent on by grown-ups. You upset your tea, and your bread-and-butter won't hold together for a moment. And when at last you get to bed usually in disgrace it is no comfort at all to you to know that not a single bit of it is your own fault.

This day was not one of those days, as you will have noticed. Even the tea in the garden there was a bricked bit by a rockery that made a steady floor for the tea-table was most delightful, though the thoughts of four out of the five were busy with the coming play, and the fifth had thoughts of her own that had had nothing to do with tea or acting.

Then there was an interval of slamming doors, interesting silences, feet that flew up and down stairs.

It was still good daylight when the dinner-bell rang the signal had been agreed upon at tea-time, and carefully explained to Eliza. Mademoiselle laid down her book and passed out of the sunset-yellowed hail into the faint yellow gaslight of the dining-room. The giggling Eliza held the door open before her, and followed her in. The shutters had been closed streaks of daylight showed above and below them. The green-and-black tablecloths of the school dining-tables were supported on the clothes-line from the backyard. The line sagged in a graceful curve, but it answered its purpose of supporting the curtains which concealed that part of the room which was the stage.

Rows of chairs had been placed across the other end of the room all the chairs in the house, as it seemed and Mademoiselle started violently when she saw that fully half a dozen of these chairs were occupied. And by the queerest people, too an old woman with a poke bonnet tied under her chin with a red handkerchief, a lady in a large straw hat wreathed in flowers and the oddest hands that stuck out over the chair in front of her, several men with strange, clumsy figures, and all with hats on.

"But," whispered Mademoiselle, through the chinks of the tablecloths, "you have then invited other friends? You should have asked me, my children."

Laughter and something like a "hurrah" answered her from behind the folds of the curtaining tablecloths.

"All right, Mademoiselle Rapunzel," cried Mabel; "turn the gas up. It's only part of the entertainment."

Eliza, still giggling, pushed through the lines of chairs, knocking off the hat of one of the visitors as she did so, and turned up the three incandescent burners.

Mademoiselle looked at the figure seated nearest to her, stooped to look more closely, half laughed, quite screamed, and sat down suddenly.

"Oh!" she cried, "they are not alive!"

Eliza, with a much louder scream, had found out the same thing and announced it differently. "They ain't got no insides," said she. The seven members of the audience seated among the wilderness of chairs had, indeed, no insides to speak of. Their bodies were bolsters and rolled-up blankets, their spines were broom-handles, and their arm and leg bones were hockey sticks and umbrellas. Their shoulders were the wooden crosspieces that Mademoiselle used for keeping her jackets in shape; their hands were gloves stuffed out with handkerchiefs; and their faces were the paper masks painted in the afternoon by the untutored brush of Gerald, tied on to the round heads made of the ends of stuffed bolster-cases. The faces were really rather dreadful. Gerald had done his best, but even after his best had been done you would hardly have known they were faces, some of them, if they hadn't been in the positions which faces usually occupy, between the collar and the hat. Their eyebrows were furious with lamp-black frowns their eyes the size, and almost the shape, of five-shilling pieces, and on their lips and cheeks had been spent much crimson lake and nearly the whole of a half-pan of vermilion.

"You have made yourself an auditors, yes? Bravo!" cried Mademoiselle, recovering herself and beginning to clap. And to the sound of that clapping the curtain went up or, rather, apart. A voice said, in a breathless, choked way, "Beauty and the Beast," and the stage was revealed.

It was a real stage too the dining-tables pushed close together and covered with pink-and-white counterpanes. It was a little unsteady and creaky to walk on, but very imposing to look at. The scene was simple, but convincing. A big sheet of cardboard, bent square, with slits cut in it and a candle behind, represented, quite transparently, the domestic hearth; a round hat-tin of Eliza s, supported on a stool with a night-light under it, could not have been mistaken, save by wilful malice, for anything but a copper. A waste-paper basket with two or three school dusters and an overcoat in it, and a pair of blue pyjamas over the back of a chair, put the finishing touch to the scene. It did not need the announcement from the wings, "The laundry at Beauty's home." It was so plainly a laundry and nothing else.

In the wings: "They look just like a real audience, don't they?" whispered Mabel. "Go on, Jimmy don't forget the Merchant has to be pompous and use long words."

Jimmy, enlarged by pillows under Gerald's best overcoat which had been intentionally bought with a view to his probable growth during the two years which it was intended to last him, a Turkish towel turban on his head and an open umbrella over it, opened the first act in a simple and swift soliloquy:

"I am the most unlucky merchant that ever was. I was once the richest merchant in Bagdad, but I lost all my ships, and now I live in a poor house that is all to bits; you can see how the rain comes through the roof, and my daughters take in washing. And ,"

The pause might have seemed long, but Gerald rustled in, elegant in Mademoiselle's pink dressing-gown and the character of the eldest daughter.

"A nice drying day," he minced. "Pa dear, put the umbrella the other way up. It'll save us going out in the rain to fetch water. Come on, sisters, dear father's got us a new wash-tub. Here's luxury!"

Round the umbrella, now held the wrong way up, the three sisters knelt and washed imaginary linen. Kathleen wore a violet skirt of Eliza s, a blue blouse of her own, and a cap of knotted handkerchiefs. A white nightdress girt with a white apron and two red carnations in Mabel's black hair left no doubt as to which of the three was Beauty.

The scene went very well. The final dance with waving towels was all that there is of charming, Mademoiselle said; and Eliza was so much amused that, as she said, she got quite a nasty stitch along of laughing so hearty.

You know pretty well what Beauty and the Beast would be like acted by four children who had spent the afternoon in arranging their costumes and so had left no time for rehearsing what they had to say. Yet it delighted them, and it charmed their audience. And what more can any play do, even Shakespeare's? Mabel, in her Princess clothes, was a resplendent Beauty; and Gerald a Beast who wore the drawing-room hearthrugs with an air of indescribable distinction. If Jimmy was not a talkative merchant, he made it up with a stoutness practically unlimited, and Kathleen surprised and delighted even herself by the quickness with which she changed from one to the other of the minor characters fairies, servants, and messengers. It was at the end of the second act that Mabel, whose costume, having reached the height of elegance, could not be bettered and therefore did not need to be changed, said to Gerald, sweltering under the weighty magnificence of his beast-skin:

"I say, you might let us have the ring back."

"I'm going to," said Gerald, who had quite forgotten it. "I'll give it you in the next scene. Only don't lose it, or go putting it on. You might go out all together and never be seen again, or you might get seven times as visible as anyone else, so that all the rest of us would look like shadows beside you, you'd be so thick, or ,"

"Ready!" said Kathleen, bustling in, once more a wicked sister.

Gerald managed to get his hand into his pocket under his hearthrug, and when he rolled his eyes in agonies of sentiment, and said, "Farewell, dear Beauty! Return quickly, for if you remain long absent from your faithful beast he will assuredly perish," he pressed a ring into her hand and added: "This is a magic ring that will give you anything you wish. When you desire to return to your own disinterested beast, put on the ring and utter your wish. Instantly you will be by my side."

Beauty-Mabel took the ring, and it was the ring.

The curtains closed to warm applause from two pairs of hands.

The next scene went splendidly. The sisters were almost too natural in their disagreeableness, and Beauty's annoyance when they splashed her Princess's dress with real soap and water was considered a miracle of good acting. Even the merchant rose to something more than mere pillows, and the curtain fell on his pathetic assurance that in the absence of his dear Beauty he was wasting away to a shadow. And again two pairs of hands applauded.

"Here, Mabel, catch hold," Gerald appealed from under the weight of a towel-horse, the tea-urn, the tea-tray, and the green baize apron of the boot boy, which together with four red geraniums from the landing, the pampas-grass from the drawing-room fireplace, and the india-rubber plants from the drawing-room window were to represent the fountains and garden of the last act. The applause had died away.

"I wish," said Mabel, taking on herself the weight of the tea-urn, "I wish those creatures we made were alive. We should get something like applause then."

"I'm jolly glad they aren't, said Gerald, arranging the baize and the towel-horse. "Brutes! It makes me feel quite silly when I catch their paper eyes."

The curtains were drawn back. There lay the hearthrug-coated beast, in flat abandonment among the tropic beauties of the garden, the pampas-grass shrubbery, the india-rubber plant bushes, the geranium-trees and the urn fountain. Beauty was ready to make her great entry in all the thrilling splendour of despair. And then suddenly it all happened.

Mademoiselle began it: she applauded the garden scene with hurried little clappings of her quick French hands. Eliza's fat red palms followed heavily, and then someone else was clapping, six or seven people, and their clapping made a dull padded sound. Nine faces instead of two were turned towards the stage, and seven out of the nine were painted, pointed paper faces. And every hand and every face was alive. The applause grew louder as Mabel glided forward, and as she paused and looked at the audience her unstudied pose of horror and amazement drew forth applause louder still; but it was not loud enough to drown the shrieks of Mademoiselle and Eliza as they rushed from the room, knocking chairs over and crushing each other in the doorway. Two distant doors banged, Mademoiselle's door and Eliza's door.

"Curtain! curtain! quick!" cried Beauty-Mabel, in a voice that wasn't Mabel's or the Beauty's. "Jerry those things have come alive. Oh, whatever shall we do?"

Gerald in his hearthrugs leaped to his feet. Again that flat padded applause marked the swish of cloths on clothes-line as Jimmy and Kathleen drew the curtains.

"What's up?" they asked as they drew.

"You've done it this time!" said Gerald to the pink, perspiring Mabel. "Oh, bother these strings!"

"Can't you burst them? I've done it?" retorted Mabel. "I like that!"

"More than I do," said Gerald.

"Oh, it's all right," said Mabel. "Come on. We must go and pull the things to pieces then they can't go on being alive."

"It's your fault, anyhow," said Gerald with every possible absence of gallantry. "Don't you see? It's turned into a wishing ring. I knew something different was going to happen. Get my knife out of my pocket this string's in a knot. Jimmy, Cathy, those Ugly-Wuglies have come alive because Mabel wished it. Cut out and pull them to pieces."

Jimmy and Cathy peeped through the curtain and recoiled with white faces and staring eyes. "Not me!" was the brief rejoinder of Jimmy. Cathy said, "Not much!" And she meant it, anyone could see that.

And now, as Gerald, almost free of the hearthrugs, broke his thumb-nail on the stiffest blade of his knife, a thick rustling and a sharp, heavy stumping sounded beyond the curtain.

"They're going out!" screamed Kathleen "walking out on their umbrella and broomstick legs. You can't stop them, Jerry, they re too awful!"

"Everybody in the town'll be insane by tomorrow night if we don't stop them," cried Gerald. "Here, give me the ring I'll unwish them."

He caught the ring from the unresisting Mabel, cried, "I wish the Uglies weren't alive," and tore through the door. He saw, in fancy, Mabel's wish undone, and the empty hall strewed with limp bolsters, hats, umbrellas, coats and gloves, prone abject properties from which the brief life had gone out for ever. But the hall was crowded with live things, strange things all horribly short as broom sticks and umbrellas are short. A limp hand gesticulated. A pointed white face with red cheeks looked up at him, and wide red lips said something, he could not tell what. The voice reminded him of the old beggar down by the bridge who had no roof to his mouth. These creatures had no roofs to their mouths, of course they had no "Aa 00 re o me me oo a oo ho el?" said the voice again. And it had said it four times before Gerald could collect himself sufficiently to understand that this horror alive, and most likely quite uncontrollable was saying, with a dreadful calm, polite persistence: "Can you recommend me to a good hotel?"

"Can you recommend me to a good hotel?" The speaker had no inside to his head. Gerald had the best of reasons for knowing it. The speaker's coat had no shoulders inside it only the cross-bar that a jacket is slung on by careful ladies. The hand raised in interrogation was not a hand at all; it was a glove lumpily stuffed with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the arm attached to it was only Kathleen's school umbrella. Yet the whole thing was alive, and was asking a definite, and for anybody else, anybody who really was a body, a reasonable question.

With a sensation of inward sinking, Gerald realized that now or never was the time for him to rise to the occasion. And at the thought he inwardly sank more deeply than before. It seemed impossible to rise in the very smallest degree.

"I beg your pardon" was absolutely the best he could do; and the painted, pointed paper face turned to him once more, and once more said: "Aa 00 re o me me oo a oo ho el?"

"You want a hotel?" Gerald repeated stupidly, "a good hotel?"

"A oo ho el," reiterated the painted lips.

"I'm awfully sorry," Gerald went on one can always be polite, of course, whatever happens, and politeness came natural to him "but all our hotels shut so early about eight, I think."

"Och em er," said the Ugly-Wugly. Gerald even now does not understand how that practical joke hastily wrought of hat, overcoat, paper face and limp hands could have managed, by just being alive, to become perfectly respectable, apparently about fifty years old, and obviously well known and respected in his own suburb the kind of man who travels first class and smokes expensive cigars. Gerald knew this time, without need of repetition, that the Ugly-Wugly had said: "Knock 'em up."

"You can't," Gerald explained; "they re all stone deaf every single person who keeps a hotel in this town. It's," he wildly plunged "it's a County Council law. Only deaf people are allowed to keep hotels. It's because of the hops in the beer," he found himself adding; "you know, hops are so good for ear-ache."

"I 0 wy ollo oo," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly; and Gerald was not surprised to find that the thing did "not quite follow him."

"It is a little difficult at first," he said. The other Ugly-Wuglies were crowding round. The lady in the poke bonnet said Gerald found he was getting quite clever at understanding the conversation of those who had no roofs to their mouths:

"If not a hotel, a lodging."

"My lodging is on the cold ground," sang itself unbidden and unavailing in Gerald's ear. Yet stay was it unavailing?

"I do know a lodging," he said slowly, "but ," The tallest of the Ugly-Wuglies pushed forward. He was dressed in the old brown overcoat and top-hat which always hung on the school hat-stand to discourage possible burglars by deluding them into the idea that there was a gentleman-of-the-house, and that he was at home. He had an air at once more sporting and less reserved than that of the first speaker, and anyone could see that he was not quite a gentleman.

"Wa I wo oo oh," he began, but the lady Ugly-Wugly in the flower-wreathed hat interrupted him. She spoke more distinctly than the others, owing, as Gerald found afterwards, to the fact that her mouth had been drawn open, and the flap cut from the aperture had been folded back so that she really had something like a roof to her mouth, though it was only a paper one.

"What I want to know," Gerald understood her to say, "is where are the carriages we ordered?"

"I don't know," said Gerald, "but I'll find out. But we ought to be moving," he added; "you see, the performance is over, and they want to shut up the house and put the lights out. Let's be moving."

"Eh ech e oo-ig," repeated the respectable Ugly-Wugly, and stepped towards the front door.

"Oo urn oo," said the flower-wreathed one; and Gerald assures me that her vermilion lips stretched in a smile.

"I shall be delighted," said Gerald with earnest courtesy, "to do anything, of course. Things do happen so awkwardly when you least expect it. I could go with you, and get you a lodging, if you'd only wait a few moments in the in the yard. It's quite a superior sort of yard, he went on, as a wave of surprised disdain passed over their white paper faces not a common yard, you know; the pump," he added madly, "has just been painted green all over, and the dustbin is enamelled iron."

The Ugly-Wuglies turned to each other in consultation, and Gerald gathered that the greenness of the pump and the enamelled character of the dustbin made, in their opinion, all the difference.

"I'm awfully sorry," he urged eagerly, "to have to ask you to wait, but you see I've got an uncle who's quite mad, and I have to give him his gruel at half-past nine. He won't feed out of any hand but mine." Gerald did not mind what he said. The only people one is allowed to tell lies to are the Ugly-Wuglies; they are all clothes and have no insides, because they are not human beings, but only a sort of very real visions, and therefore cannot be really deceived, though they may seem to be.

Through the back door that has the blue, yellow, red, and green glass in it, down the iron steps into the yard, Gerald led the way, and the Ugly-Wuglies trooped after him. Some of them had boots, but the ones whose feet were only broomsticks or umbrellas found the open-work iron stairs very awkward.

"If you wouldn't mind," said Gerald, "just waiting under the balcony? My uncle is so very mad. If he were to see see any strangers I mean, even aristocratic ones I couldn't answer for the consequences."

"Perhaps, said the flower-hatted lady nervously, "it would be better for us to try and find a lodging ourselves?"

"I wouldn't advise you to," said Gerald as grimly as he knew how; "the police here arrest all strangers. It's the new law the Liberals have just made," he added convincingly, "and you'd get the sort of lodging you wouldn't care for I couldn't bear to think of you in a prison dungeon," he added tenderly.

"I ah wi oo er papers," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly, and added something that sounded like "disgraceful state of things."

However, they ranged themselves under the iron balcony. Gerald gave one last look at them and wondered, in his secret heart, why he was not frightened, though in his outside mind he was congratulating himself on his bravery. For the things did look rather horrid. In that light it was hard to believe that they were really only clothes and pillows and sticks with no insides. As he went up the steps he heard them talking among themselves in that strange language of theirs, all oo's and ah's; and he thought he distinguished the voice of the respectable Ugly-Wugly saying, "Most gentlemanly lad," and the wreathed-hatted lady answering warmly: "Yes, indeed."

The coloured-glass door closed behind him. Behind him was the yard, peopled by seven impossible creatures. Before him lay the silent house, peopled, as he knew very well, by five human beings as frightened as human beings could be. You think, perhaps, that Ugly-Wuglies are nothing to be frightened of. That's only because you have never seen one come alive. You must make one any old suit of your father s, and a hat that he isn't wearing, a bolster or two, a painted paper face, a few sticks and a pair of boots will do the trick; get your father to lend you a wishing ring, give it back to him when it has done its work, and see how you feel then.

Of course the reason why Gerald was not afraid was that he had the ring; and, as you have seen, the wearer of that is not frightened by anything unless he touches that thing. But Gerald knew well enough how the others must be feeling. That was why he stopped for a moment in the hall to try and imagine what would have been most soothing to him if he had been as terrified as he knew they were.

"Cathy! I say! What ho, Jimmy! Mabel ahoy!" he cried in a loud, cheerful voice that sounded very unreal to himself.

The dining-room door opened a cautious inch.

"I say such larks!" Gerald went on, shoving gently at the door with his shoulder. "Look out! what are you keeping the door shut for?"

"Are you alone?" asked Kathleen in hushed, breathless tones.

"Yes, of course. Don't be a duffer!"

The door opened, revealing three scared faces and the disarranged chairs where that odd audience had sat.

"Where are they? Have you unwished them? We heard them talking. Horrible!"

"They're in the yard," said Gerald with the best imitation of joyous excitement that he could manage. "It is such fun! They're just like real people, quite kind and jolly. It's the most ripping lark. Don't let on to Mademoiselle and Eliza. I'll square them. Then Kathleen and Jimmy must go to bed, and I'll see Mabel home, and as soon as we get outside I must find some sort of lodging for the Ugly-Wuglies they are such fun though. I do wish you could all go with me."

"Fun?" echoed Kathleen dismally and doubting.

"Perfectly killing," Gerald asserted resolutely. "Now, you just listen to what I say to Mademoiselle and Eliza, and back me up for all you're worth.

"But," said Mabel, "you can't mean that you're going to leave me alone directly we get out, and go off with those horrible creatures. They look like fiends."

"You wait till you've seen them close," Gerald advised. "Why, they re just ordinary the first thing one of them did was to ask me to recommend it to a good hotel! I couldn't understand it at first, because it has no roof to its mouth, of course."

It was a mistake to say that, Gerald knew it at once.

Mabel and Kathleen were holding hands in a way that plainly showed how a few moments ago they had been clinging to each other in an agony of terror. Now they clung again. And Jimmy, who was sitting on the edge of what had been the stage, kicking his boots against the pink counterpane, shuddered visibly.

"It doesn't matter," Gerald explained "about the roofs, I mean; you soon get to understand. I heard them say I was a gentlemanly lad as I was coming away. They wouldn't have cared to notice a little thing like that if they'd been fiends, you know."

"It doesn't matter how gentlemanly they think you; if you don't see me home you aren't, that's all. Are you going to?" Mabel demanded.

"Of course I am. We shall have no end of a lark. Now for Mademoiselle."

He had put on his coat as he spoke and now ran up the stairs. The others, herding in the hall, could hear his light-hearted there s-nothing-unusual-the-matter-whatever-did-you-bolt-like-that-for knock at Mademoiselle's door, the reassuring "It's only me Gerald, you know," the pause, the opening of the door, and the low-voiced parley that followed; then Mademoiselle and Gerald at Eliza's door, voices of reassurance; Eliza's terror, bluntly voluble, tactfully soothed.

"Wonder what lies he's telling them," Jimmy grumbled.

"Oh! not lies," said Mabel; "he's only telling them as much of the truth as it's good for them to know."

"If you'd been a man," said Jimmy witheringly, "you'd have been a beastly Jesuit, and hid up chimneys."

"If I were only just a boy," Mabel retorted, "I shouldn't be scared out of my life by a pack of old coats."

"I'm so sorry you were frightened," Gerald's honeyed tones floated down the staircase; "we didn't think about you being frightened. And it was a good trick, wasn't it?"

"There!" whispered Jimmy, "he's been telling her it was a trick of ours."

"Well, so it was," said Mabel stoutly.

"It was indeed a wonderful trick," said Mademoiselle; "and how did you move the mannikins?"

"Oh, we've often done it with strings, you know," Gerald explained.

"That's true, too," Kathleen whispered.

"Let us see you do once again this trick so remarkable," said Mademoiselle, arriving at the bottom-stair mat.

"Oh, I've cleared them all out," said Gerald. ("So he has, from Kathleen aside to Jimmy.) "We were so sorry you were startled; we thought you wouldn't like to see them again."

"Then," said Mademoiselle brightly, as she peeped into the untidy dining-room and saw that the figures had indeed vanished, "if we supped and discoursed of your beautiful piece of theatre?"

Gerald explained fully how much his brother and sister would enjoy this. As for him Mademoiselle would see that it was his duty to escort Mabel home, and kind as it was of Mademoiselle to ask her to stay the night, it could not be, on account of the frenzied and anxious affection of Mabel's aunt. And it was useless to suggest that Eliza should see Mabel home, because Eliza was nervous at night unless accompanied by her gentleman friend.

So Mabel was hatted with her own hat and cloaked with a cloak that was not hers; and she and Gerald went out by the front door, amid kind last words and appointments for the morrow.

The moment that front door was shut Gerald caught Mabel by the arm and led her briskly to the corner of the side street which led to the yard. Just round the corner he stopped.

"Now," he said, "what I want to know is are you an idiot or aren't you?"

"Idiot yourself!" said Mabel, but mechanically, for she saw that he was in earnest.

"Because I'm not frightened of the Ugly-Wuglies. They're as harmless as tame rabbits. But an idiot might be frightened, and give the whole show away. If you're an idiot, say so, and I'll go back and tell them you're afraid to walk home, and that I'll go and let your aunt know you're stopping."

"I'm not an idiot," said Mabel; "and," she added, glaring round her with the wild gaze of the truly terror-stricken, "I'm not afraid of anything."

"I'm going to let you share my difficulties and dangers," said Gerald; "at least, I'm inclined to let you. I wouldn't do as much for my own brother, I can tell you. And if you queer my pitch I'll never speak to you again or let the others either."

"You're a beast, that's what you are! I don't need to be threatened to make me brave. I am."

"Mabel," said Gerald, in low, thrilling tones, for he saw that the time had come to sound another note, "I know you're brave. I believe in you, That's why I've arranged it like this. I'm certain you've got the heart of a lion under that black-and-white exterior. Can I trust you? To the death?"

Mabel felt that to say anything but "Yes" was to throw away a priceless reputation for courage. So "Yes" was what she said.

"Then wait here. You're close to the lamp. And when you see me coming with them remember they re as harmless as serpents I mean doves. Talk to them just like you would to anyone else. See?"

He turned to leave her, but stopped at her natural question:

"What hotel did you say you were going to take them to?"

"Oh, Jimminy!" the harassed Gerald caught at his hair with both hands. "There! you see, Mabel, you're a help already." he had, even at that moment, some tact left. "I clean forgot! I meant to ask you isn't there any lodge or anything in the Castle grounds where I could put them for the night? The charm will break, you know, some time, like being invisible did, and they'll just be a pack of coats and things that we can easily carry home any day. Is there a lodge or anything?"

"There's a secret passage," Mabel began but at the moment the yard-door opened and an Ugly-Wugly put out its head and looked anxiously down the street.

"Righto!" Gerald ran to meet it. It was all Mabel could do not to run in an opposite direction with an opposite motive. It was all she could do, but she did it, and was proud of herself as long as ever she remembered that night.

And now, with all the silent precaution necessitated by the near presence of an extremely insane uncle, the Ugly-Wuglies, a grisly band, trooped out of the yard door.

"Walk on your toes, dear," the bonneted Ugly-Wugly whispered to the one with a wreath; and even at that thrilling crisis Gerald wondered how she could, since the toes of one foot were but the end of a golf club and of the other the end of a hockey-stick.

Mabel felt that there was no shame in retreating to the lamp-post at the street corner, but, once there, she made herself halt and no one but Mabel will ever know how much making that took. Think of it to stand there, firm and quiet, and wait for those hollow, unbelievable things to come up to her, clattering on the pavement with their stumpy feet or borne along noiselessly, as in the case of the flower-hatted lady, by a skirt that touched the ground, and had, Mabel knew very well, nothing at all inside it.

She stood very still; the insides of her hands grew cold and damp, but still she stood, saying over and over again: "They re not true they can't be true. It's only a dream they aren't really true. They can't be." And then Gerald was there, and all the Ugly-Wuglies crowding round, and Gerald saying: "This is one of our friends Mabel the Princess in the play, you know. Be a man!" he added in a whisper for her ear alone.

Mabel, all her nerves stretched tight as banjo strings, had an awful instant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whether she would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For the respectable Ugly-Wugly shook her limply by the hand.

("He can't be true," she told herself), and the rose-wreathed one took her arm with a soft-padded glove at the end of an umbrella arm, and said: "You dear, clever little thing! Do walk with me!" in a gushing, girlish way, and in speech almost wholly lacking in consonants.

Then they all walked up the High Street as if, as Gerald said, they were anybody else.

It was a strange procession, but Liddlesby goes early to bed, and the Liddlesby police, in common with those of most other places, wear boots that one can hear a mile off. If such boots had been heard, Gerald would have had time to turn back and head them off. He felt now that he could not resist a flush of pride in Mabel's courage as he heard her polite rejoinders to the still more polite remarks of the amiable Ugly-Wuglies. He did not know how near she was to the scream that would throw away the whole thing and bring the police and the residents out to the ruin of everybody.

They met no one, except one man, who murmured, "Guy Fawkes, swelp me!" and crossed the road hurriedly; and when, next day, he told what he had seen, his wife disbelieved him, and also said it was a judgement on him, which was unreasonable.

Mabel felt as though she were taking part in a very completely arranged nightmare, but Gerald was in it too Gerald, who had asked if she was an idiot. Well, she wasn't. But she soon would be, she felt. Yet she went on answering the courteous vowel-talk of these impossible people. She had often heard her aunt speak of impossible people. Well, now she knew what they were like.

Summer twilight had melted into summer moonlight. The shadows of the Ugly-Wuglies on the white road were much more horrible than their more solid selves. Mabel wished it had been a dark night, and then corrected the wish with a hasty shudder.

Gerald, submitting to a searching interrogatory from the tall-hatted Ugly-Wugly as to his schools, his sports, pastimes, and ambitions, wondered how long the spell would last. The ring seemed to work in sevens. Would these things have seven hours'life or fourteen or twenty-one?"His mind lost itself in the intricacies of the seven-times table (a teaser at the best of times) and only found itself with a shock when the procession found itself at the gates of the Castle grounds.

Locked of course.

"You see," he explained, as the Ugly-Wuglies vainly shook the iron gates with incredible hands; "it's so very late. There is another way. But you have to climb through a hole."

"The ladies," the respectable Ugly-Wugly began objecting; but the ladies with one voice affirmed that they loved adventures. "So frightfully thrilling," added the one who wore roses.

So they went round by the road, and coming to the hole it was a little difficult to find in the moonlight, which always disguises the most familiar things Gerald went first with the bicycle lantern which he had snatched as his pilgrims came out of the yard; the shrinking Mabel followed, and then the Ugly-Wuglies, with hollow rattlings of their wooden limbs against the stone, crept through, and with strange vowel-sounds of general amazement, manly courage, and feminine nervousness, followed the light along the passage through the fern-hung cutting and under the arch.

When they emerged on the moonlit enchantment of the Italian garden a quite intelligible "Oh!" of surprised admiration broke from more than one painted paper lip; and the respectable Ugly-Wugly was understood to say that it must be quite a show-place by George, sir! yes.

Those marble terraces and artfully serpentining gravel walks surely never had echoed to steps so strange. No shadows so wildly unbelievable had, for all its enchantments, ever fallen on those smooth, grey, dewy lawns. Gerald was thinking this, or something like it (what he really thought was, "I bet there never was such ado as this, even here! ), when he saw the statue of Hermes leap from its pedestal and run towards him and his company with all the lively curiosity of a street boy eager to be in at a street fight. He saw, too, that he was the only one who perceived that white advancing presence. And he knew that it was the ring that let him see what by others could not be seen. He slipped it from his finger. Yes; Hermes was on his pedestal, still as the snow man you make in the Christmas holidays. He put the ring on again, and there was Hermes, circling round the group and gazing deep in each unconscious Ugly-Wugly face.

"This seems a very superior hotel," the tall-hatted Ugly-Wugly was saying; "the grounds are laid out with what you might call taste."

"We should have to go in by the back door," said Mabel suddenly. "The front door's locked at half-past nine."

A short, stout Ugly-Wugly in a yellow and blue cricket cap, who had hardly spoken, muttered something about an escapade, and about feeling quite young again.

And now they had skirted the marble-edged pool where the goldfish swam and glimmered, and where the great prehistoric beast had come down to bathe and drink. The water flashed white diamonds in the moonlight, and Gerald alone of them all saw that the scaly-plated vast lizard was even now rolling and wallowing there among the lily pads.

They hastened up the steps of the Temple of Flora. The back of it, where no elegant arch opened to the air, was against one of those sheer hills, almost cliffs, that diversified the landscape of that garden. Mabel passed behind the statue of the goddess, fumbled a little, and then Gerald's lantern, flashing like a searchlight, showed a very high and very narrow doorway: the stone that was the door, and that had closed it, revolved slowly under the touch of Mabel's fingers.

"This way," she said, and panted a little. The back of her neck felt cold and goose-fleshy.

"You lead the way, my lad, with the lantern," said the suburban Ugly-Wugly in his bluff, agreeable way.

"I I must stay behind to close the door," said Gerald.

"The Princess can do that. We'll help her," said the wreathed one with effusion; and Gerald thought her horribly officious.

He insisted gently that he would be the one responsible for the safe shutting of that door.

"You wouldn't like me to get into trouble, I'm sure," he urged; and the Ugly-Wuglies, for the last time kind and reasonable, agreed that this, of all things, they would most deplore.

"You take it," Gerald urged, pressing the bicycle lamp on the elderly Ugly-Wugly; "you're the natural leader. Go straight ahead. Are there any steps?" he asked Mabel in a whisper.

"Not for ever so long," she whispered back. "It goes on for ages, and then twists round."

"Whispering," said the smallest Ugly-Wugly suddenly, "ain't manners."

"He hasn't any, anyhow," whispered the lady Ugly-Wugly; "don't mind him quite a self-made man," and squeezed Mabel's arm with horrible confidential flabbiness.

The respectable Ugly-Wugly leading with the lamp, the others following trustfully, one and all disappeared into that narrow doorway; and Gerald and Mabel standing without, hardly daring to breathe lest a breath should retard the procession, almost sobbed with relief. Prematurely, as it turned out. For suddenly there was a rush and a scuffle inside the passage, and as they strove to close the door the Ugly-Wuglies fiercely pressed to open it again. Whether they saw something in the dark passage that alarmed them, whether they took it into their empty heads that this could not be the back way to any really respectable hotel, or whether a convincing sudden instinct warned them that they were being tricked, Mabel and Gerald never knew. But they knew that the Ugly - Wuglies were no longer friendly and commonplace, that a fierce change had come over them. Cries of "No, No!" "We won't go on!" "Make him lead!" broke the dreamy stillness of the perfect night. There were screams from ladies voices, the hoarse, determined shouts of strong Ugly - Wuglies roused to resistance, and, worse than all, the steady pushing open of that narrow stone door that had almost closed upon the ghastly crew. Through the chink of it they could be seen, a writhing black crowd against the light of the bicycle lamp; a padded hand reached round the door; stick-boned arms stretched out angrily towards the world that that door, if it closed, would shut them off from for ever. And the tone of their consonantless speech was no longer conciliatory and ordinary; it was threatening, full of the menace of unbearable horrors.

The padded hand fell on Gerald's arm, and instantly all the terrors that he had, so far, only known in imagination became real to him, and he saw, in the sort of flash that shows drowning people their past lives, what it was that he had asked of Mabel, and that she had given.

"Push, push for your life!" he cried, and setting his heel against the pedestal of Flora, pushed manfully.

"I can't any more oh, I can't!" moaned Mabel, and tried to use her heel likewise but her legs were too short.

"They mustn't get out, they mustn't!" Gerald panted.

"You'll know it when we do," came from inside the door in tones which fury and mouth-rooflessness would have made unintelligible to any ears but those sharpened by the wild fear of that unspeakable moment.

"What's up, there?" cried suddenly a new voice a voice with all its consonants comforting, clean-cut, and ringing, and abruptly a new shadow fell on the marble floor of Flora's temple.

"Come and help push!" Gerald's voice only just reached the newcomer. "If they get out they'll kill us all."

A strong, velveteen-covered shoulder pushed suddenly between the shoulders of Gerald and Mabel; a stout man's heel sought the aid of the goddess's pedestal; the heavy, narrow door yielded slowly, it closed, its spring clicked, and the furious, surging, threatening mass of Ugly-Wuglies was shut in, and Gerald and Mabel oh, incredible relief! were shut out. Mabel threw herself on the marble floor, sobbing slow, heavy sobs of achievement and exhaustion. If I had been there I should have looked the other way, so as not to see whether Gerald yielded himself to the same abandonment.

The newcomer he appeared to be a gamekeeper Gerald decided later looked down on well, certainly on Mabel, and said:

"Come on, don't be a little duffer." (He may have said, "a couple of little duffers .) "Who is it, and what's it all about?"

"I can't possibly tell you," Gerald panted.

"We shall have to see about that, shan't we," said the newcomer amiably. "Come out into the moonlight and let's review the situation."

Gerald, even in that topsy-turvy state of his world, found time to think that a gamekeeper who used such words as that had most likely a romantic past. But at the same time he saw that such a man would be far less easy to "square" with an unconvincing tale than Eliza, or Johnson, or even Mademoiselle. In fact, he seemed, with the only tale that they had to tell, practically unsquarable.

Gerald got up if he was not up already, or still up and pulled at the limp and now hot hand of the sobbing Mabel; and as he did so the unsquarable one took his hand, and thus led both children out from under the shadow of Flora's dome into the bright white moonlight that carpeted Flora's steps. Here he sat down, a child on each side of him, drew a hand of each through his velveteen arm, pressed them to his velveteen sides in a friendly, reassuring way, and said: "Now then! Go ahead!"

Mabel merely sobbed. We must excuse her. She had been very brave, and I have no doubt that all heroines, from Joan of Arc to Grace Darling, have had their sobbing moments.

But Gerald said: "It's no use. If I made up a story you'd see through it."

"That's a compliment to thy discernment, anyhow," said the stranger. "What price telling me the truth?"

"If we told you the truth," said Gerald, "you wouldn't believe it."

"Try me," said the velveteen one. He was clean-shaven, and had large eyes that sparkled when the moonlight touched them.

"I can't," said Gerald, and it was plain that he spoke the truth. "You'd either think we were mad, and get us shut up, or else Oh, it's no good. Thank you for helping us, and do let us go home."

"I wonder," said the stranger musingly, "whether you have any imagination."

"Considering that we invented them " Gerald hotly began, and stopped with late prudence.

"If by 'them' you mean the people whom I helped you to imprison in yonder tomb," said the Stranger, loosing Mabel's hand to put his arm round her, "remember that I saw and heard them. And with all respect to your imagination, I doubt whether any invention of yours would be quite so convincing."

Gerald put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

"Collect yourself," said the one in velveteen; "and while you are collecting, let me just put the thing from my point of view. I think you hardly realize my position. I come down from London to take care of a big estate."

"I thought you were a gamekeeper," put in Gerald.

Mabel put her head on the stranger's shoulder. "Hero in disguise, then, I know," she sniffed.

"Not at all," said he; "bailiff would be nearer the mark. On the very first evening I go out to take the moonlit air, and approaching a white building, hear sounds of an agitated scuffle, accompanied by frenzied appeals for assistance. Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, I do assist and shut up goodness knows who behind a stone door. Now, is it unreasonable that I should ask who it is that I've shut up helped to shut up, I mean, and who it is that I've assisted?"

"It's reasonable enough," Gerald admitted.

"Well then," said the stranger.

"Well then," said Gerald, "the fact is No," he added after a pause, "the fact is, I simply can't tell you."

"Then I must ask the other side," said Velveteens. "Let me go I'll undo that door and find out for myself."

"Tell him," said Mabel, speaking for the first time. "Never mind if he believes or not. We can't have them let out."

"Very well," said Gerald, "I'll tell him. Now look here, Mr. Bailiff, will you promise us on an English gentleman's word of honour because, of course, I can see you're that, bailiff or not will you promise that you won't tell any one what we tell you and that you won't have us put in a lunatic asylum, however mad we sound?"

"Yes," said the stranger, "I think I can promise that. But if you've been having a sham fight or anything and shoved the other side into that hole, don't you think you'd better let them out? They'll be most awfully frightened, you know. After all, I suppose they are only children."

"Wait till you hear," Gerald answered. "They're not children not much! Shall I just tell about them or begin at the beginning?"

"The beginning, of course," said the stranger.

Mabel lifted her head from his velveteen shoulder and said, "Let me begin, then. I found a ring, and I said it would make me invisible. I said it in play. And it did. I was invisible twenty-one hours. Never mind where I got the ring. Now, Gerald, you go on."

Gerald went on; for quite a long time he went on, for the story was a splendid one to tell.

"And so," he ended, "we got them in there; and when seven hours are over, or fourteen, or twenty-one, or something with a seven in it, they'll just be old coats again. They came alive at half-past nine. I think they'll stop being it in seven hours that's half-past four. Now will you let us go home?""I'll see you home," said the stranger in a quite new tone of exasperating gentleness. "Come let's be going."

"You don't believe us," said Gerald. "Of course you don t. Nobody could. But I could make you believe if I chose."

All three stood up, and the stranger stared in Gerald's eyes till Gerald answered his thought.

"No, I don't look mad, do I?"

"No, you aren't. But, come, you're an extraordinarily sensible boy; don't you think you may be sickening for a fever or something?"

"And Cathy and Jimmy and Mademoiselle and Eliza, and the man who said 'Guy Fawkes, swelp me!' and you, you saw them move you heard them call out. Are you sickening for anything?"

"No or at least not for anything but information. Come, and I'll see you home."

"Mabel lives at the Towers," said Gerald, as the stranger turned into the broad drive that leads to the big gate.

"No relation to Lord Yalding," said Mabel hastily " housekeeper's niece." She was holding on to his hand all the way. At the servants entrance she put up her face to be kissed, and went in.

"Poor little thing!" said the bailiff, as they went down the drive towards the gate.

He went with Gerald to the door of the school.

"Look here," said Gerald at parting. "I know what you're going to do. You're going to try to undo that door."

"Discerning!" said the stranger.

"Well don't. Or, anyway, wait till daylight and let us be there. We can get there by ten."

"All right I'll meet you there by ten," answered the stranger. "By George! you're the rummest kids I ever met."

"We are rum," Gerald owned, "but so would you be if Good-night."

As the four children went over the smooth lawn towards Flora's Temple they talked, as they had talked all the morning, about the adventures of last night and of Mabel's bravery. It was not ten, but half-past twelve; for Eliza, backed by Mademoiselle, had insisted on their "clearing up," and clearing up very thoroughly, the "litter" of last night.

"You're a Victoria Cross heroine, dear," said Cathy warmly. "You ought to have a statue put up to you."

"It would come alive if you put it here," said Gerald grimly.

"I shouldn't have been afraid," said Jimmy.

"By daylight," Gerald assured him, "everything looks so jolly different."

"I do hope he'll be there," Mabel said; "he was such a dear, Cathy a perfect bailiff, with the soul of a gentleman."

"He isn't there, though," said Jimmy. "I believe you just dreamed him, like you did the statues coming alive."

They went up the marble steps in the sunshine, and it was difficult to believe that this was the place where only in last night's moonlight fear had laid such cold hands on the hearts of Mabel and Gerald.

"Shall we open the door," suggested Kathleen, "and begin to carry home the coats?"

"Let's listen first," said Gerald; "perhaps they aren't only coats yet."

They laid ears to the hinges of the stone door, behind which last night the Ugly-Wuglies had shrieked and threatened. All was still as the sweet morning itself. It was as they turned away that they saw the man they had come to meet. He was on the other side of Flora's pedestal. But he was not standing up. He lay there, quite still, on his back, his arms flung wide.

"Oh, look!" cried Cathy, and pointed. His face was a queer greenish colour, and on his forehead there was a cut; its edges were blue, and a little blood had trickled from it on to the white of the marble.

At the same time Mabel pointed too but she did not cry out as Cathy had done. And what she pointed at was a big glossy-leaved rhododendron bush, from which a painted pointed paper face peered out very white, very red, in the sunlight and, as the children gazed, shrank back into the cover of the shining leaves.

It was but too plain. The unfortunate bailiff must have opened the door before the spell had faded, while yet the Ugly Wuglies were something more than mere coats and hats and sticks. They had rushed out upon him, and had done this. He lay there insensible was it a golf-club or a hockey-stick that had made that horrible cut on his forehead? Gerald wondered. The girls had rushed to the sufferer; already his head was in Mabel's lap. Kathleen had tried to get it on to hers, but Mabel was too quick for her.

Jimmy and Gerald both knew what was the first thing needed by the unconscious, even before Mabel impatiently said: "Water! water!"

"What in?" Jimmy asked, looking doubtfully at his hands, and then down the green slope to the marble-bordered pool where the water-lilies were.

"Your hat anything," said Mabel.

The two boys turned away.

"Suppose they come after us," said Jimmy.

"What come after us?" Gerald snapped rather than asked.

"The Ugly-Wuglies," Jimmy whispered..

"Who's afraid?" Gerald inquired.

But he looked to right and left very carefully, and chose the way that did not lead near the bushes. He scooped water up in his straw hat and returned to Flora's Temple, carrying it carefully in both hands. When he saw how quickly it ran through the straw he pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket with his teeth and dropped it into the hat. It was with this that the girls wiped the blood from the bailiff's brow.

"We ought to have smelling salts," said Kathleen, half in tears. "I know we ought."

"They would be good," Mabel owned.

"Hasn't your aunt any?"

"Yes, but "

"Don't be a coward," said Gerald; "think of last night. They wouldn't hurt you. He must have insulted them or something. Look here, you run. We'll see that nothing runs after you."

There was no choice but to relinquish the head of the interesting invalid to Kathleen; so Mabel did it, cast one glaring glance round the rhododendron bordered slope, and fled towards the castle.

The other three bent over the still unconscious bailiff.

"He's not dead, is he?" asked Jimmy anxiously.

"No," Kathleen reassured him, "his heart's heating. Mabel and I felt it in his wrist, where doctors do. How frightfully good-looking he is!"

"Not so dusty," Gerald admitted.

"I never know what you mean by good-looking," said Jimmy, and suddenly a shadow fell on the marble beside them and a fourth voice spoke not Mabel s; her hurrying figure, though still in sight, was far away.

The children looked up into the face of the eldest of the Ugly-Wuglies, the respectable one. Jimmy and Kathleen screamed. I am sorry, but they did.

"Hush!" said Gerald savagely: he was still wearing the ring. "Hold your tongues! I'll get him away," he added in a whisper.

"Very sad affair this," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly. He spoke with a curious accent; there was something odd about his r's, and his m's and n's were those of a person labouring under an almost intolerable cold in the head. But it was not the dreadful "oo" and "ah" voice of the night before. Kathleen and Jimmy stooped over the bailiff. Even that prostrate form, being human, seemed some little protection. But Gerald, strong in the fearlessness that the ring gave to its wearer, looked full into the face of the Ugly-Wugly and started. For though the face was almost the same as the face he had himself painted on the school drawing-paper, it was not the same. For it was no longer paper. It was a real face, and the hands, lean and almost transparent as they were, were real hands. As it moved a little to get a better view of the bailiff it was plain that it had legs, arms live legs and arms, and a self-supporting backbone. It was alive indeed with a vengeance.

"How did it happen?" Gerald asked, with an effort of calmness a successful effort.

"Most regrettable," said the Ugly-Wugly. "The others must have missed the way last night in the passage. They never found the hotel."

"Did you?" asked Gerald blankly.

"Of course," said the Ugly-Wugly. "Most respectable, exactly as you said. Then when I came away I didn't come the front way because I wanted to revisit this sylvan scene by daylight, and the hotel people didn't seem to know how to direct me to it I found the others all at this door, very angry. They'd been here all night, trying to get out. Then the door opened this gentleman must have opened it and before I could protect him, that underbred man in the high hat you remember ,"

Gerald remembered.

"Hit him on the head, and he fell where you see him. The others dispersed, and I myself was just going for assistance when I saw you."

Here Jimmy was discovered to be in tears and Kathleen white as any drawing-paper.

"What's the matter, my little man?" said the respectable Ugly-Wugly kindly. Jimmy passed instantly from tears to yells.

"Here, take the ring!" said Gerald in a furious whisper, and thrust it on to Jimmy's hot, damp, resisting finger. Jimmy's voice stopped short in the middle of a howl. And Gerald in a cold flash realized what it was that Mabel had gone through the night before. But it was daylight, and Gerald was not a coward.

"We must find the others," he said.

"I imagine," said the elderly Ugly-Wugly, "that they have gone to bathe. Their clothes are in the wood."

He pointed stiffly.

"You two go and see," said Gerald. "I'll go on dabbing this chap's head."

In the wood Jimmy, now fearless as any lion, discovered four heaps of clothing, with broomsticks, hockeysticks, and masks complete all that had gone to make up the gentlemen Ugly-Wuglies of the night before. On a stone seat well in the sun sat the two lady Ugly-Wuglies, and Kathleen approached them gingerly. Valour is easier in the sunshine than at night, as we all know. When she and Jimmy came close to the bench, they saw that the Ugly-Wuglies were only Ugly-Wuglies such as they had often made. There was no life in them. Jimmy shook them to pieces, and a sigh of relief burst from Kathleen.

"The spell's broken, you see," she said; "and that old gentleman, he's real. He only happens to be like the Ugly-Wugly we made."

"He's got the coat that hung in the hall on, anyway," said Jimmy.

"No, it's only like it. Let's get back to the unconscious stranger."

They did, and Gerald begged the elderly Ugly-Wugly to retire among the bushes with Jimmy; "because, said he, "I think the poor bailiff's coming round, and it might upset him to see strangers and Jimmy'll keep you company. He's the best one of us to go with you," he added hastily.

And this, since Jimmy had the ring, was certainly true.

So the two disappeared behind the rhododendrons. Mabel came back with the salts just as the bailiff opened his eyes.

"It's just like life," she said; "I might just as well not have gone. However ," She knelt down at once and held the bottle under the sufferer's nose till he sneezed and feebly pushed her hand away with the faint question: "What's up now?"

"You've hurt your head," said Gerald. "Lie still."

"No more smelling-bottle," he said weakly, and lay.

Quite soon he sat up and looked round him. There was an anxious silence. Here was a grown-up who knew last night's secret, and none of the children were at all sure what the utmost rigour of the law might be in a case where people, no matter how young, made Ugly-Wuglies, and brought them to life dangerous, fighting, angry life. What would he say what would he do?" He said: "What an odd thing! Have I been insensible long?"

"Hours," said Mabel earnestly.

"Not long," said Kathleen.

"We don't know. We found you like it," said Gerald.

"I'm all right now," said the bailiff, and his eye fell on the blood-stained handkerchief. "I say, I did give my head a bang. And you've been giving me first aid. Thank you most awfully. But it is rum."

"What's rum?" politeness obliged Gerald to ask.

"Well, I suppose it isn't really rum I expect I saw you just before I fainted, or whatever it was but I've dreamed the most extraordinary dream while I've been insensible and you were in it."

"Nothing but us?" asked Mabel breathlessly.

"Oh, lots of things impossible things but you were real enough."

Everyone breathed deeply in relief. It was indeed, as they agreed later, a lucky let-off.

"Are you sure you're all right?" they all asked, as he got on his feet.

"Perfectly, thank you." He glanced behind Flora's statue as he spoke. "Do you know, I dreamed there was a door there, but of course there isn't. I don't know how to thank you," he added, looking at them with what the girls called his beautiful, kind eyes; "it's lucky for me you came along. You come here whenever you like, you know," he added. "I give you the freedom of the place."

"You're the new bailiff, aren't you?" said Mabel.

"Yes. How did you know?" he asked quickly; but they did not tell him how they knew. Instead, they found out which way he was going, and went the other way after warm handshakes and hopes on both sides that they would meet again soon.

"I'll tell you what," said Gerald, as they watched the tall, broad figure of the bailiff grow smaller across the hot green of the grass slope, "have you got any idea of how we're going to spend the day? Because I have."

The others hadn't.

"We'll get rid of that Ugly-Wugly oh, we'll find a way right enough and directly we've done it we'll go home and seal up the ring in an envelope so that its teeth'll be drawn and it'll be powerless to have unforeseen larks with us. Then we'll get out on the roof, and have a quiet day books and apples. I'm about fed up with adventures, so I tell you."

The others told him the same thing.

"Now, think," said he "think as you never thought before how to get rid of that Ugly-Wugly."

Everyone thought, but their brains were tired with anxiety and distress, and the thoughts they thought were, as Mabel said, not worth thinking, let alone saying.

"I suppose Jimmy's all right," said Kathleen anxiously.

"Oh, he's all right: he's got the ring," said Gerald.

"I hope he won't go wishing anything rotten," said Mabel, but Gerald urged her to shut up and let him think.

"I think I think best sitting down," he said, and sat; "and sometimes you can think best aloud. The Ugly-Wugly's real don't make any mistake about that. And he got made real inside that passage. If we could get him back there he might get changed again, and then we could take the coats and things back."

"Isn't there any other way?" Kathleen asked; and Mabel, more candid, said bluntly: "I'm not going into that passage, so there!"

"Afraid! In broad daylight," Gerald sneered.

"It wouldn't be broad daylight in there," said Mabel, and Kathleen shivered.

"If we went to him and suddenly tore his coat off," said she "he is only coats he couldn't go on being real then.

"Couldn't he!" said Gerald. "You don't know what he's like under the coat."

Kathleen shivered again. And all this time the sun was shining gaily and the white statues and the green trees and the fountains and terraces looked as cheerfully romantic as a scene in a play.

"Anyway," said Gerald, "we'll try to get him back, and shut the door. That's the most we can hope for. And then apples, and Robinson Crusoe or the Swiss Family, or any book you like that's got no magic in it. Now, we've just got to do it. And he's not horrid now; really he isn't. He's real, you see."

"I suppose that makes all the difference," said Mabel, and tried to feel that perhaps it did.

"And it's broad daylight just look at the sun," Gerald insisted. "Come on!"

He took a hand of each, and they walked resolutely towards the bank of rhododendrons behind which Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly had been told to wait, and as they went Gerald said: "He's real" "The sun's shining" "It'll all be over in a minute." And he said these things again and again, so that there should be no mistake about them.

As they neared the bushes the shining leaves rustled, shivered, and parted, and before the girls had time to begin to hang back Jimmy came blinking out into the sunlight. The boughs closed behind him, and they did not stir or rustle for the appearance of anyone else. Jimmy was alone.

"Where is it?" asked the girls in one breath.

"Walking up and down in a fir-walk," said Jimmy, "doing sums in a book. He says he's most frightfully rich, and he's got to get up to town to the Stocks or something where they change papers into gold if you're clever, he says. I should like to go to the Stocks-change, wouldn't you?"

"I don't seem to care very much about changes, said Gerald. "I've had enough. Show us where he is we must get rid of him."

"He's got a motor-car," Jimmy went on, parting the warm varnished-looking rhododendron leaves, "and a garden with a tennis-court and a lake and a carriage and pair, and he goes to Athens for his holiday sometimes, just like other people go to Margate."

"The best thing," said Gerald, following through the bushes, "will be to tell him the shortest way out is through that hotel that he thinks he found last night. Then we get him into the passage, give him a push, fly back, and shut the door."

"He'll starve to death in there," said Kathleen, "if he's really real."

"I expect it doesn't last long, the ring magics don't anyway, it's the only thing I can think of."

"He's frightfully rich," Jimmy went on unheeding amid the cracking of the bushes; "he's building a public library for the people where he lives, and having his portrait painted to put in it. He thinks they'll like that."

The belt of rhododendrons was passed, and the children had reached a smooth grass walk bordered by tall pines and firs of strange different kinds. "He's just round that corner," said Jimmy. "He's simply rolling in money. He doesn't know what to do with it. He's been building a horse-trough and drinking fountain with a bust of himself on top. Why doesn't he build a private swimming-bath close to his bed, so that he can just roll off into it of a morning? I wish I was rich; I'd soon show him ,"

"That's a sensible wish," said Gerald. "I wonder we didn't think of doing that. Oh, criky!" he added, and with reason. For there, in the green shadows of the pine-walk, in the woodland silence, broken only by rustling leaves and the agitated breathing of the three unhappy others, Jimmy got his wish. By quick but perfectly plain-to-be-seen degrees Jimmy became rich. And the horrible thing was that though they could see it happening they did not know what was happening, and could not have stopped it if they had. All they could see was Jimmy, their own Jimmy, whom they had larked with and quarrelled with and made it up with ever since they could remember, Jimmy continuously and horribly growing old. The whole thing was over in a few seconds. Yet in those few seconds they saw him grow to a youth, a young man, a middle-aged man; and then, with a sort of shivering shock, unspeakably horrible and definite, he seemed to settle down into an elderly gentleman, handsomely but rather dowdily dressed, who was looking down at them through spectacles and asking them the nearest way to the railway-station. If they had not seen the change take place, in all its awful details, they would never have guessed that this stout, prosperous, elderly gentleman

with the high hat, the frock-coat, and the large red seal dangling from the curve of a portly waistcoat, was their own Jimmy. But, as they had seen it, they knew the dreadful truth.

"Oh, Jimmy, don't!" cried Mabel desperately.

Gerald said: "This is perfectly beastly," and Kathleen broke into wild weeping.

"Don't cry, little girl!" said That-which-had-been Jimmy; "and you, boy, can't you give a civil answer to a civil question?"

"He doesn't know us!" wailed Kathleen.

"Who doesn't know you?" said That-which-had-been impatiently.

"You y-you don t!" Kathleen sobbed.

"I certainly don't," returned That-which "but surely that need not distress you so deeply."

"Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy!" Kathleen sobbed louder than before.

"He doesn't know us," Gerald owned, "or look here, Jimmy, y you aren't kidding, are you? Because if you are it's simply abject rot "

"My name is Mr. ," said That-which-had-been-Jimmy, and gave the name correctly. By the way, it will perhaps be shorter to call this elderly stout person who was Jimmy grown rich by some simpler name than I have just used. Let us call him 'That' short for 'That-which-had-been Jimmy'.

"What are we to do?" whispered Mabel, awestruck; and aloud she said: "Oh, Mr. James, or whatever you call yourself, do give me the ring." For on That's finger the fatal ring showed plain.

"Certainly not," said That firmly. "You appear to be a very grasping child."

"But what are you going to do?" Gerald asked in the flat tones of complete hopelessness.

"Your interest is very flattering," said That. "Will you tell me, or won't you, the way to the nearest railway station?"

"No," said Gerald, "we won't."

"Then," said That, still politely, though quite plainly furious, "perhaps you'll tell me the way to the nearest lunatic asylum?"

"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Kathleen. "You're not so bad as that."

"Perhaps not. But you are," That retorted; "if you're not lunatics you're idiots. However, I see a gentleman ahead who is perhaps sane. In fact, I seem to recognize him." A gentleman, indeed, was now to be seen approaching. It was the elderly Ugly-Wugly.

"Oh! don't you remember Jerry?" Kathleen cried, "and Cathy, your own Cathy Puss Cat? Dear, dear Jimmy, don't be so silly!"

"Little girl," said That, looking at her crossly through his spectacles, "I am sorry you have not been better brought up." And he walked stiffly towards the Ugly-Wugly. Two hats were raised, a few words were exchanged, and two elderly figures walked side by side down the green pine-walk, followed by three miserable children, horrified, bewildered, alarmed, and, what is really worse than anything, quite at their wits end.

"He wished to be rich, so of course he is," said Gerald; "he'll have money for tickets and everything.

And when the spell breaks it's sure to break, isn't it? he'll find himself somewhere awful perhaps in a really good hotel and not know how he got there."

"I wonder how long the Ugly-Wuglies lasted," said Mabel.

"Yes," Gerald answered, "that reminds me. You two must collect the coats and things. Hide them, anywhere you like, and we'll carry them home tomorrow if there is any tomorrow " he added darkly.

"Oh, don t!" said Kathleen, once more breathing heavily on the verge of tears: "you wouldn't think everything could be so awful, and the sun shining like it does.

"Look here," said Gerald, "of course I must stick to Jimmy. You two must go home to Mademoiselle and tell her Jimmy and I have gone off in the train with a gentleman say he looked like an uncle. He does some kind of uncle. There'll be a beastly row afterwards, but it's got to be done.

"It all seems thick with lies," said Kathleen; "you don't seem to be able to get a word of truth in edgewise hardly."

"Don't you worry," said her brother; "they aren't lies they're as true as anything else in this magic rot we've got mixed up in. It's like telling lies in a dream; you can't help it."

"Well, all I know is I wish it would stop."

"Lot of use your wishing that is," said Gerald, exasperated. "So long. I've got to go, and you've got to stay. If it's any comfort to you, I don't believe any of it's real: it can't be; it's too thick. Tell Mademoiselle Jimmy and I will be back to tea. If we don't happen to be I can't help it. I can't help anything, except perhaps Jimmy." He started to run, for the girls had lagged, and the Ugly-Wugly and That (late Jimmy) had quickened their pace.

The girls were left looking after them.

"We've got to find these clothes," said Mabel, "simply got to. I used to want to be a heroine. It's different when it really comes to being, isn't it?"

"Yes, very," said Kathleen. "Where shall we hide the clothes when we've got them? Not not that passage?"

"Never!" said Mabel firmly; "we'll hide them inside the great stone dinosaurus. He's hollow."

"He comes alive in his stone," said Kathleen.

"Not in the sunshine he doesn't," Mabel told her confidently, "and not without the ring."

"There won't be any apples and books today," said Kathleen.

"No, but we'll do the babiest thing we can do the minute we get home. We'll have a dolls tea-party. That'll make us feel as if there wasn't really any magic."

"It'll have to be a very strong tea party, then," said Kathleen doubtfully.

And now we see Gerald, a small but quite determined figure, paddling along in the soft white dust of the sunny road, in the wake of two elderly gentlemen. His hand, in his trousers pocket, buries itself with a feeling of satisfaction in the heavy mixed coinage that is his share of the profits of his conjuring at the fair. His noiseless tennis-shoes bear him to the station, where, unobserved, he listens at the ticket office to the voice of That-which-was-James. "One first London," it says and Gerald, waiting till That and the Ugly-Wugly have strolled on to the platform, politely conversing of politics and the Kaffir market, takes a third return to London. The train strides in, squeaking and puffing. The watched take their seats in a carriage blue-lined. The watcher springs into a yellow wooden compartment. A whistle sounds, a flag is waved. The train pulls itself together, strains, jerks, and starts.

"I don't understand," says Gerald, alone in his third - class carriage, "how railway trains and magic can go on at the same time."

And yet they do.

Mabel and Kathleen, nervously peering among the rhododendron bushes and the bracken and the fancy fir-trees, find six several heaps of coats, hats, skirts, gloves, golf-clubs, hockey - sticks, broom-handles. They carry them, panting and damp, for the mid-day sun is pitiless, up the hill to where the stone dinosaurus looms immense among a forest of larches. The dinosaurus has a hole in his stomach. Kathleen shows Mabel how to "make a back" and climbs up on it into the cold, stony inside of the monster. Mabel hands up the clothes and the sticks.

"There's lots of room," says Kathleen; "its tail goes down into the ground. It's like a secret passage."

"Suppose something comes out of it and jumps out at you," says Mabel, and Kathleen hurriedly descends.

The explanations to Mademoiselle promise to be difficult, but, as Kathleen said afterwards, any little thing is enough to take a grown-up's attention off. A figure passes the window just as they are explaining that it really did look exactly like an uncle that the boys have gone to London with.

"Who's that?" says Mademoiselle suddenly, pointing, too, which everyone knows is not manners.

It is the bailiff coming back from the doctor's with antiseptic plaster on that nasty cut that took so long a-bathing this morning. They tell her it is the bailiff at Yalding Towers, and she says, "Ciel!" (Sky!) and asks no more awkward questions about the boys. Lunch very late is a silent meal. After lunch Mademoiselle goes out, in a hat with many pink roses, carrying a rose-lined parasol. The girls, in dead silence, organize a dolls tea-party, with real tea. At the second cup Kathleen bursts into tears. Mabel, also weeping, embraces her.

"I wish," sobs Kathleen, "oh, I do wish I knew where the boys were! It would be such a comfort."

Gerald knew where the boys were, and it was no comfort to him at all. If you come to think of it, he was the only person who could know where they were, because Jimmy didn't know that he was a boy and indeed he wasn't really and the Ugly-Wugly couldn't be expected to know anything real, such as where boys were. At the moment when the second cup of dolls tea very strong, but not strong enough to drown care in was being poured out by the trembling hand of Kathleen, Gerald was lurking there really is no other word for it on the staircase of Aldermanbury Buildings, Old Broad Street. On the floor below him was a door bearing the legend "MR. U. W. UGLI, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock Exchange)" and on the floor above was another door, on which was the name of Gerald's little brother, now grown suddenly rich in so magic and tragic a way. There were no explaining words under Jimmy's name. Gerald could not guess what walk in life it was to which That (which had been Jimmy) owed its affluence. He had seen, when the door opened to admit his brother, a tangle of clerks and mahogany desks. Evidently That had a large business.

What was Gerald to do? What could he do?

It is almost impossible, especially for one so young as Gerald, to enter a large London office and explain that the elderly and respected head of it is not what he seems, but is really your little brother, who has been suddenly advanced to age and wealth by a tricky wishing ring. If you think it's a possible thing, try it, that's all. Nor could he knock at the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock Exchange), and inform his clerks that their chief was really nothing but old clothes that had accidentally come alive, and by some magic, which he couldn't attempt to explain, become real during a night spent at a really good hotel which had no existence.

The situation bristled, as you see, with difficulties. And it was so long past Gerald's proper dinner-time that his increasing hunger was rapidly growing to seem the most important difficulty of all. It is quite possible to starve to death on the staircase of a London building if the people you are watching for only stay long enough in their offices. The truth of this came home to Gerald more and more painfully.

A boy with hair like a new front door mat came whistling up the stairs. He had a dark blue bag in his hands.

"I'll give you a tanner for yourself if you'll get me a tanner's worth of buns," said Gerald, with that prompt decision common to all great commanders.

"Show us yer tanners," the boy rejoined with at least equal promptness. Gerald showed them. "All right; hand over."

"Payment on delivery," said Gerald, using words from the drapers which he had never thought to use.

The boy grinned admiringly.

"Knows 'is wy abaht," he said; "ain't no flies on 'im."

"Not many," Gerald owned with modest pride. "Cut along, there's a good chap. I've got to wait here. I'll take care of your bag if you like."

"Nor yet there ain't no flies on me neither," remarked the boy, shouldering it. "I been up to the confidence trick for years ever since I was your age."

With this parting shot he went, and returned in due course bun-laden. Gerald gave the sixpence and took the buns. When the boy, a minute later, emerged from the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock Exchange), Gerald stopped him.

"What sort of chap's that?" he asked, pointing the question with a jerk of an explaining thumb.

"Awful big pot," said the boy; "up to his eyes in oof. Motor and all that."

"Know anything about the one on the next landing?"

"He's bigger than what this one is. Very old firm special cellar in the Bank of England to put his chink in all in bins like against the wall at the corn-chandler s. Jimminy, I wouldn't mind 'alf an hour in there, and the doors open and the police away at a beano. Not much! Neither. You'll bust if you eat all them buns."

"Have one?" Gerald responded, and held out the bag.

"They say in our office," said the boy, paying for the bun honourably with unasked information, "as these two is all for cutting each other's throats oh, only in the way of business been at it for years."

Gerald wildly wondered what magic and how much had been needed to give history and a past to these two things of yesterday, the rich Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly. If he could get them away would all memory of them fade in this boy's mind, for instance, in the minds of all the people who did business with them in the City? Would the mahogany-and-clerk-furnished offices fade away? Were the clerks real? Was the mahogany? Was he himself real? Was the boy?

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked the other boy. "Are you on for a lark?"

"I ought to be getting back to the office," said the boy.

"Get then!" said Gerald.

"Don't you get stuffy," said the boy. "I was just a-going to say it didn't matter. I know how to make my nose bleed if I'm a bit late."

Gerald congratulated him on this accomplishment, at once so useful and so graceful, and then said: "Look here. I'll give you five bob honest."

"What for?" was the boy's natural question.

"If you'll help me. "

"Fire ahead."

"I'm a private inquiry," said Gerald.

"Tec? You don't look it."

"What's the good of being one if you look it?" Gerald asked impatiently, beginning on another bun. "That old chap on the floor above he's wanted."

"Police?" asked the boy with fine carelessness.

"No sorrowing relations."

"'Return to,'" said the boy; "'all forgotten and forgiven.' I see."

"And I've got to get him to them, somehow. Now, if you could go in and give him a message from someone who wanted to meet him on business ,"

"Hold on!" said the boy. "I know a trick worth two of that. You go in and see old Ugli. He'd give his ears to have the old boy out of the way for a day or two. They were saying so in our office only this morning."

"Let me think," said Gerald, laying down the last bun on his knee expressly to hold his head in his hands.

"Don't you forget to think about my five bob," said the boy.

Then there was a silence on the stairs, broken only by the cough of a clerk in That's office, and the clickety-clack of a typewriter in the office of Mr. U. W. Ugli.

Then Gerald rose up and finished the bun.

"You're right," he said. "I'll chance it. Here's your five bob."

He brushed the bun crumbs from his front, cleared his throat, and knocked at the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli. It opened and he entered.

The door-mat boy lingered, secure in his power to account for his long absence by means of his well-trained nose, and his waiting was rewarded. He went down a few steps, round the bend of the stairs, and heard the voice of Mr. U. W. Ugli, so well known on that staircase (and on the Stock Exchange) say in soft, cautious accents:

"Then I'll ask him to let me look at the ring and I'll drop it. You pick it up. But remember, it's a pure accident, and you don't know me. I can't have my name mixed up in a thing like this. You're sure he's really unhinged?"

"Quite," said Gerald; "he's quite mad about that ring. He'll follow it anywhere. I know he will. And think of his sorrowing relations."

"I do I do," said Mr. Ugli kindly; "that's all I do think of, of course."

He went up the stairs to the other office, and Gerald heard the voice of That telling his clerks that he was going out to lunch. Then the horrible Ugly-Wugly and Jimmy, hardly less horrible in the eyes of Gerald, passed down the stairs where, in the dusk of the lower landing, two boys were making themselves as undistinguishable as possible, and so out into the street, talking of stocks and shares, bears and bulls. The two boys followed.

"I say," the door-mat-headed boy whispered admiringly, "whatever are you up to?"

"You'll see," said Gerald recklessly. "Come on!"

"You tell me. I must be getting back."

"Well, I'll tell you, but you won't believe me. That old gentleman's not really old at all he's my young brother suddenly turned into what you see. The other's not real at all. He's only just old clothes and nothing inside."

"He looks it, I must say," the boy admitted; "but I say you do stick it on, don't you?"

"Well, my brother was turned like that by a magic ring."

"There ain't no such thing as magic," said the boy. "I learnt that at school."

"All right," said Gerald. "Good-bye."

"Oh, go ahead!" said the boy; "you do stick it on, though."

"Well, that magic ring. If I can get hold of It I shall just wish we were all in a certain place. And we shall be. And then I can deal with both of them."

"Deal?"

"Yes, the ring won't unwish anything you've wished. That undoes itself with time, like a spring uncoiling. But it'll give you a brand-new wish I'm almost certain of it. Anyhow, I'm going to chance it."

"You are a rotter, aren't you?" said the boy respectfully.

"You wait and see," Gerald repeated.

"I say, you aren't going into this swell place! You can't?"

The boy paused, appalled at the majesty of Pym's.

"Yes, I am they can't turn us out as long as we behave. You come along, too. I'll stand lunch."

I don't know why Gerald clung so to this boy. He wasn't a very nice boy. Perhaps it was because he was the only person Gerald knew in London to speak to except That-which-had-been-Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly; and he did not want to talk to either of them.

What happened next happened so quickly that, as Gerald said later, it was "just like magic". The restaurant was crowded busy men were hastily bolting the food hurriedly brought by busy waitresses. There was a clink of forks and plates, the gurgle of beer from bottles, the hum of talk, and the smell of many good things to eat.

"Two chops, please," Gerald had just said, playing with a plainly shown handful of money, so as to leave no doubt of his honourable intentions. Then at the next table he heard the words, "Ah, yes, curious old family heirloom," the ring was drawn off the finger of That, and Mr. U. W. Ugli, murmuring something about a unique curio, reached his impossible hand out for it. The door-mat-headed boy was watching breathlessly.

"There's a ring right enough," he owned. And then the ring slipped from the hand of Mr. U. W. Ugli and skidded along the floor. Gerald pounced on it like a greyhound on a hare. He thrust the dull circlet on his finger and cried out aloud in that crowded place:

"I wish Jimmy and I were inside that door behind the statue of Flora."

It was the only safe place he could think of.

The lights and sounds and scents of the restaurant died away as a wax-drop dies in fire a rain-drop in water. I don't know, and Gerald never knew, what happened in that restaurant. There was nothing about it in the papers, though Gerald looked anxiously for 'Extraordinary Disappearance of well-known City Man.' What the door-mat-headed boy did or thought I don't know either. No more does Gerald. But he would like to know, whereas I don't care tuppence. The world went on all right, anyhow, whatever he thought or did. The lights and the sounds and the scents of Pym's died out. In place of the light there was darkness; in place of the sounds there was silence; and in place of the scent of beef, pork, mutton, fish, veal, cabbage, onions, carrots, beer, and tobacco there was the musty, damp scent of a place underground that has been long shut up.

Gerald felt sick and giddy, and there was something at the back of his mind that he knew would make him feel sicker and giddier as soon as he should have the sense to remember what it was. Meantime it was important to think of proper words to soothe the City man that had once been Jimmy to keep him quiet till Time, like a spring uncoiling, should bring the reversal of the spell make all things as they were and as they ought to be. But he fought in vain for words. There were none. Nor were they needed. For through the deep darkness came a voice and it was not the voice of that City man who had been Jimmy, but the voice of that very Jimmy who was Gerald's little brother, and who had wished that unlucky wish for riches that could only be answered by changing all that was Jimmy, young and poor, to all that Jimmy, rich and old, would have been. Another voice said: "Jerry, Jerry! Are you awake? I've had such a rum dream."

And then there was a moment when nothing was said or done.

Gerald felt through the thick darkness, and the thick silence, and the thick scent of old earth shut up, and he got hold of Jimmy's hand.

"It's all right, Jimmy, old chap," he said; "it's not a dream now. It's that beastly ring again. I had to wish us here, to get you back at all out of your dream."

"Wish us where?" Jimmy held on to the hand in a way that in the daylight of life he would have been the first to call babyish.

"Inside the passage behind the Flora statue," said Gerald, adding, "it's all right, really."

"Oh, I dare say it's all right," Jimmy answered through the dark, with an irritation not strong enough to make him loosen his hold of his brother's hand. "But how are we going to get out?"

Then Gerald knew what it was that was waiting to make him feel more giddy than the lightning flight from Cheapside to Yalding Towers had been able to make him. But he said stoutly:

"I'll wish us out, of course." Though all the time he knew that the ring would not undo its given wishes.

It didn't.

Gerald wished. He handed the ring carefully to Jimmy, through the thick darkness. And Jimmy wished.

And there they still were, in that black passage behind Flora, that had led in the case of one Ugly-Wugly at least to 'a good hotel'. And the stone door was shut. And they did not know even which way to turn to it.

"If I only had some matches!" said Gerald.

"Why didn't you leave me in the dream?" Jimmy almost whimpered. "It was light there, and I was just going to have salmon and cucumber."

"I," rejoined Gerald in gloom, "was just going to have steak and fried potatoes."

The silence, and the darkness, and the earthy scent were all they had now.

"I always wondered what it would be like," said Jimmy in low, even tones, "to be buried alive. And now I know! Oh! his voice suddenly rose to a shriek, "it isn't true, it isn't! It's a dream that's what it is!"

There was a pause while you could have counted ten. Then "Yes," said Gerald bravely, through the scent and the silence and the darkness, "it's just a dream, Jimmy, old chap. We'll just hold on, and call out now and then just for the lark of the thing. But it's really only a dream, of course."

Of course, said Jimmy in the silence and the darkness and the scent of old earth.

There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs for ever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real. And when once people have found one of the little weak spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets, and the like, almost anything may happen. Thus it is not surprising that Mabel and Kathleen, conscientiously conducting one of the dullest dolls tea-parties at which either had ever assisted, should suddenly, and both at once, have felt a strange, unreasonable, but quite irresistible desire to return instantly to the Temple of Flora even at the cost of leaving the dolls tea-service in an unwashed state, and only half the raisins eaten. They went as one has to go when the magic impulse drives one against their better judgement, against their wills almost.

And the nearer they came to the Temple of Flora, in the golden hush of the afternoon, the more certain each was that they could not possibly have done otherwise.

And this explains exactly how it was that when Gerald and Jimmy, holding hands in the darkness of the passage, uttered their first concerted yell, "just for the lark of the thing", that yell was instantly answered from outside.

A crack of light showed in that part of the passage where they had least expected the door to be. The stone door itself swung slowly open, and they were out of it, in the Temple of Flora, blinking in the good daylight, an unresisting prey to Kathleen's embraces and the questionings of Mabel.

"And you left that Ugly-Wugly loose in London," Mabel pointed out; "you might have wished it to be with you, too."

"It's all right where it is," said Gerald. "I couldn't think of everything. And besides, no, thank you! Now we'll go home and seal up the ring in an envelope."

"I haven't done anything with the ring yet," said Kathleen.

"I shouldn't think you'd want to when you see the sort of things it does with you," said Gerald.

"It wouldn't do things like that if I was wishing with it," Kathleen protested,

"Look here," said Mabel, "let's just put it back in the treasure-room and have done with it. I oughtn't ever to have taken it away, really. It's a sort of stealing. It's quite as bad, really, as Eliza borrowing it to astonish her gentleman friend with."

"I don't mind putting it back if you like," said Gerald, "only if any of us do think of a sensible wish you'll let us have it out again, of course?"

"Of course, of course," Mabel agreed.

So they trooped up to the castle, and Mabel once more worked the spring that let down the panelling and showed the jewels, and the ring was put back among the odd dull ornaments that Mabel had once said were magic.

"How innocent it looks!" said Gerald. "You wouldn't think there was any magic about it. It's just like an old silly ring. I wonder if what Mabel said about the other things is true! Suppose we try."

"Don't!" said Kathleen. "I think magic things are spiteful. They just enjoy getting you into tight places."

"I'd like to try," said Mabel, "only well, everything's been rather upsetting, and I've forgotten what I said anything was."

So had the others. Perhaps that was why, when Gerald said that a bronze buckle laid on the foot would have the effect of seven-league boots, it didn't; when Jimmy, a little of the City man he had been clinging to him still, said that the steel collar would ensure your always having money in your pockets, his own remained empty; and when Mabel and Kathleen invented qualities of the most delightful nature for various rings and chains and brooches, nothing at all happened.

"It's only the ring that's magic," said Mabel at last; "and, I say!" she added, in quite a different voice.

"What?"

"Suppose even the ring isn't!"

"But we know it is."

"I don't," said Mabel. "I believe it's not today at all. I believe it's the other day we've just dreamed all these things. It's the day I made up that nonsense about the ring."

"No, it isn't," said Gerald; "you were in your Princess-clothes then.

"What Princess-clothes?" said Mabel, opening her dark eyes very wide.

"Oh, don't be silly," said Gerald wearily.

"I'm not silly," said Mabel; "and I think it's time you went. I'm sure Jimmy wants his tea."

"Of course I do," said Jimmy. "But you had got the Princess-clothes that day. Come along; let's shut up the shutters and leave the ring in its long home."

"What ring?" said Mabel.

"Don't take any notice of her," said Gerald. "She's only trying to be funny."

"No, I'm not," said Mabel; "but I'm inspired like a Python or a Sibylline lady. What ring?"

"The wishing-ring," said Kathleen; "the invisibility ring."

"Don't you see now," said Mabel, her eyes wider than ever, "the ring's what you say it is? That's how it came to make us invisible I just said it. Oh, we can't leave it here, if that's what it is. It isn't stealing, really, when it's as valuable as that, you see. Say what it is.

"It's a wishing-ring," said Jimmy.

"We've had that before and you had your silly wish," said Mabel, more and more excited. "I say it isn't a wishing-ring. I say it's a ring that makes the wearer four yards high."

She had caught up the ring as she spoke, and even as she spoke the ring showed high above the children's heads on the finger of an impossible Mabel, who was, indeed, twelve feet high.

"Now you've done it!" said Gerald and he was right. It was in vain that Mabel asserted that the ring was a wishing-ring. It quite clearly wasn't; it was what she had said it was.

"And you can't tell at all how long the effect will last," said Gerald. "Look at the invisibleness." This is difficult to do, but the others understood him.

"It may last for days," said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, it was silly of you!"

"That's right, rub it in," said Mabel bitterly; "you should have believed me when I said it was what I said it was. Then I shouldn't have had to show you, and I shouldn't be this silly size. What am I to do now, I should like to know?"

"We must conceal you till you get your right size again that's all," said Gerald practically.

"Yes but where?" said Mabel, stamping a foot twenty-four inches long.

"In one of the empty rooms. You wouldn't be afraid?"

"Of course not," said Mabel. "Oh, I do wish we'd just put the ring back and left it."

"Well, it wasn't us that didn't," said Jimmy, with more truth than grammar.

"I shall put it back now," said Mabel, tugging at it.

"I wouldn't if I were you," said Gerald thoughtfully. "You don't want to stay that length, do you? And unless the ring's on your finger when the time's up, I dare say it wouldn't act."

The exalted Mabel sullenly touched the spring. The panels slowly slid into place, and all the bright jewels were hidden. Once more the room was merely eight-sided, panelled, sunlit, and unfurnished.

"Now," said Mabel, "where am I to hide? It's a good thing auntie gave me leave to stay the night with you. As it is, one of you will have to stay the night with me. I'm not going to be left alone, the silly height I am."

Height was the right word; Mabel had said "four yards high" and she was four yards high. But she was hardly any thicker than when her height was four feet seven, and the effect was, as Gerald remarked, "wonderfully worm-like". Her clothes had, of course, grown with her, and she looked like a little girl reflected in one of those long bent mirrors at Rosherville Gardens, that make stout people look so happily slender, and slender people so sadly scraggy. She sat down suddenly on the floor, and it was like a four-fold foot-rule folding itself up.

"It's no use sitting there, girl," said Gerald.

"I'm not sitting here," retorted Mabel; "I only got down so as to be able to get through the door. It'll have to be hands and knees through most places for me now, I suppose."

"Aren't you hungry?" Jimmy asked suddenly.

"I don't know," said Mabel desolately; "it's it's such a long way off!"

"Well, I'll scout," said Gerald; "if the coast's clear "

"Look here," said Mabel, "I think I'd rather be out of doors till it gets dark."

"You can't. Someone's certain to see you."

"Not if I go through the yew-hedge," said Mabel. "There's a yew-hedge with a passage along its inside like the box-hedge in The Luck of the Vails.

"In what?"

"The Luck of the Vails. It's a ripping book. It was that book first set me on to hunt for hidden doors in panels and things. If I crept along that on my front, like a serpent it comes out amongst the rhododendrons, close by the dinosaurus we could camp there.

"There's tea," said Gerald, who had had no dinner.

"That's just what there isn't," said Jimmy, who had had none either.

"Oh, you won't desert me!" said Mabel. "Look here I'll write to auntie. She'll give you the things for a picnic, if she's there and awake. If she isn't, one of the maids will."

So she wrote on a leaf of Gerald's invaluable pocketbook: "DEAREST AUNTIE Please may we have some things for a picnic? Gerald will bring them. I would come myself, but I am a little tired. I think I have been growing rather fast. Your loving niece, MABEL." "P.S. Lots, please, because some of us are very hungry."

It was found difficult, but possible, for Mabel to creep along the tunnel in the yew-hedge. Possible, but slow, so that the three had hardly had time to settle themselves among the rhododendrons and to wonder bitterly what on earth Gerald was up to, to be such a time gone, when he returned, panting under the weight of a covered basket. He dumped it down on the fine grass carpet, groaned, and added, "But it's worth it. Where's our Mabel?"

The long, pale face of Mabel peered out from rhododendron leaves, very near the ground.

"I look just like anybody else like this, don't I?" she asked anxiously; "all the rest of me's miles away, under different bushes."

"We've covered up the bits between the bushes with bracken and leaves," said Kathleen, avoiding the question; "don't wriggle, Mabel, or you'll waggle them off."

Jimmy was eagerly unpacking the basket. It was a generous tea. A long loaf, butter in a cabbage-leaf, a bottle of milk, a bottle of water, cake, and large, smooth, yellow gooseberries in a box that had once held an extra-sized bottle of somebody's matchless something for the hair and moustache. Mabel cautiously advanced her incredible arms from the rhododendron and leaned on one of her spindly elbows, Gerald cut bread and butter, while Kathleen obligingly ran round, at Mabel's request, to see that the green coverings had not dropped from any of the remoter parts of Mabel's person. Then there was a happy, hungry silence, broken only by those brief, impassioned suggestions natural to such an occasion:

"More cake, please."

"Milk ahoy, there."

"Chuck us the goosegogs."

Everyone grew calmer more contented with their lot. A pleasant feeling, half tiredness and half restfulness, crept to the extremities of the party. Even the unfortunate Mabel was conscious of it in her remote feet, that lay crossed under the third rhododendron to the north-north-west of the tea-party. Gerald did but voice the feelings of the others when he said, not without regret:

"Well, I'm a new man, but I couldn't eat so much as another goosegog if you paid me."

"I could," said Mabel; "yes, I know they re all gone, and I've had my share. But I could. It's me being so long, I suppose."

A delicious after-food peace filled the summer air. At a little distance the green-lichened grey of the vast stone dinosaurus showed through the shrubs. He, too, seemed peaceful and happy. Gerald caught his stone eye through a gap in the foliage. His glance seemed somehow sympathetic.

"I dare say he liked a good meal in his day," said Gerald, stretching luxuriously.

"Who did?"

"The dino what s-his-name," said Gerald.

"He had a meal today," said Kathleen, and giggled.

"Yes didn't he?" said Mabel, giggling also.

"You mustn't laugh lower than your chest," said Kathleen anxiously, "or your green stuff will joggle off."

"What do you mean a meal?" Jimmy asked suspiciously. "What are you sniggering about?"

"He had a meal. Things to put in his inside," said Kathleen, still giggling.

"Oh, be funny if you want to," said Jimmy, suddenly cross. "We don't want to know do we, Jerry?"

"I do," said Gerald witheringly; "I'm dying to know. Wake me, you girls, when you've finished pretending you're not going to tell."

He tilted his hat over his eyes, and lay back in the attitude of slumber.

"Oh, don't be stupid!" said Kathleen hastily. "It's only that we fed the dinosaurus through the hole in his stomach with the clothes the Ugly-Wuglies were made of!"

"We can take them home with us, then," said Gerald, chewing the white end of a grass stalk, "so that's all right."

"Look here," said Kathleen suddenly; "I've got an idea. Let me have the ring a bit. I won't say what the idea is, in case it doesn't come off, and then you'd say I was silly. I'll give it back before we go."

"Oh, but you aren't going yet!" said Mabel, pleading. She pulled off the ring. "Of course, she added earnestly, "I'm only too glad for you to try any idea, however silly it is."

Now, Kathleen's idea was quite simple. It was only that perhaps the ring would change its powers if someone else renamed it someone who was not under the power of its enchantment. So the moment it had passed from the long, pale hand of Mabel to one of her own fat, warm, red paws, she jumped up, crying, "Let's go and empty the dinosaurus now, and started to run swiftly towards that prehistoric monster. She had a good start. She wanted to say aloud, yet so that the others could not hear her, "This is a wishing-ring. It gives you any wish you choose. And she did say it. And no one heard her, except the birds and a squirrel or two, and perhaps a stone faun, whose pretty face seemed to turn a laughing look on her as she raced past its pedestal.

The way was uphill; it was sunny, and Kathleen had run her hardest, though her brothers caught her up before she reached the great black shadow of the dinosaurus. So that when she did reach that shadow she was very hot indeed and not in any state to decide calmly on the best wish to ask for.

"I'll get up and move the things down, because I know exactly where I put them," she said.

Gerald made a back, Jimmy assisted her to climb up, and she disappeared through the hole into the dark inside of the monster. In a moment a shower began to descend from the opening a shower of empty waistcoats, trousers with wildly waving legs, and coats with sleeves uncontrolled.

"Heads below!" called Kathleen, and down came walking-sticks and golf-sticks and hockey-sticks and broom-sticks, rattling and chattering to each other as they came.

"Come on," said Jimmy.

"Hold on a bit," said Gerald. "I'm coming up. He caught the edge of the hole above in his hands and jumped. Just as he got his shoulders through the opening and his knees on the edge he heard Kathleen's boots on the floor of the dinosaurus's inside, and Kathleen's voice saying: "Isn't it jolly cool in here? I suppose statues are always cool. I do wish I was a statue. Oh!"

The "oh" was a cry of horror and anguish. And it seemed to be cut off very short by a dreadful stony silence.

"What's up?" Gerald asked. But in his heart he knew. He climbed up into the great hollow. In the little light that came up through the hole he could see something white against the grey of the creature's sides. He felt in his pockets, still kneeling, struck a match, and when the blue of its flame changed to clear yellow he looked up to see what he had known he would see the face of Kathleen, white, stony, and lifeless. Her hair was white, too, and her hands, clothes, shoes everything was white, with the hard, cold whiteness of marble. Kathleen had her wish: she was a statue. There was a long moment of perfect stillness in the inside of the dinosaurus. Gerald could not speak. It was too sudden, too terrible. It was worse than anything that had happened yet. Then he turned and spoke down out of that cold, stony silence to Jimmy, in the green, sunny, rustling, live world outside.

"Jimmy, he said, in tones perfectly ordinary and matter of fact, "Kathleen's gone and said that ring was a wishing-ring. And so it was, of course. I see now what she was up to, running like that. And then the young duffer went and wished she was a statue."

"And she is?" asked Jimmy, below.

"Come up and have a look," said Gerald. And Jimmy came, partly with a pull from Gerald and partly with a jump of his own.

"She's a statue, right enough," he said, in awestruck tones. "Isn't it awful!"

"Not at all," said Gerald firmly. "Come on let's go and tell Mabel."

To Mabel, therefore, who had discreetly remained with her long length screened by rhododendrons, the two boys returned and broke the news. They broke it as one breaks a bottle with a pistol-shot.

"Oh, my goodness!" said Mabel, and writhed through her long length so that the leaves and fern tumbled off in little showers, and she felt the sun suddenly hot on the backs of her legs. "What next? Oh, my goodness!"

"She'll come all right," said Gerald, with outward calm.

"Yes; but what about me?" Mabel urged. "I haven't got the ring. And my time will be up before hers is. Couldn't you get it back? Can't you get it off her hand? I'd put it back on her hand the very minute I was my right size again faithfully I would."

"Well, it's nothing to blub about," said Jimmy, answering the sniffs that had served her in this speech for commas and full-stops; "not for you, anyway."

"Ah! you don't know," said Mabel; "you don't know what it is to be as long as I am. Do do try and get the ring. After all, it is my ring more than any of the rest of yours, anyhow, because I did find it, and I did say it was magic."

The sense of justice always present in the breast of Gerald awoke to this appeal.

"I expect the ring's turned to stone her boots have, and all her clothes. But I'll go and see. Only if I can't, I can't, and it's no use your making a silly fuss."

The first match lighted inside the dinosaurus showed the ring dark on the white hand of the statuesque Kathleen.

The fingers were stretched straight out. Gerald took hold of the ring, and, to his surprise, it slipped easily off the cold, smooth marble finger.

"I say, Cathy, old girl, I am sorry," he said, and gave the marble hand a squeeze. Then it came to him that perhaps she could hear him. So he told the statue exactly what he and the others meant to do. This helped to clear up his ideas as to what he and the others did mean to do. So that when, after thumping the statue hearteningly on its marble back, he returned to the rhododendrons, he was able to give his orders with the clear precision of a born leader, as he later said. And since the others had, neither of them, thought of any plans, his plan was accepted, as the plans of born leaders are apt to be.

"Here's your precious ring," he said to Mabel. "Now you're not frightened of anything, are you?"

"No," said Mabel, in surprise. "I'd forgotten that. Look here, I'll stay here or farther up in the wood if you'll leave me all the coats, so that I shan't be cold in the night. Then I shall be here when Kathleen comes out of the stone again."

"Yes," said Gerald, "that was exactly the born leader's idea.

"You two go home and tell Mademoiselle that Kathleen's staying at the Towers. She is."

"Yes," said Jimmy, "she certainly is."

"The magic goes in seven-hour lots," said Gerald; "your invisibility was twenty-one hours, mine fourteen, Eliza's seven. When it was a wishing-ring it began with seven. But there's no knowing what number it will be really. So there's no knowing which of you will come right first. Anyhow, we'll sneak out by the cistern window and come down the trellis, after we've said good night to Mademoiselle, and come and have a look at you before we go to bed. I think you'd better come close up to the dinosaurus and we'll leaf you over before we go."

Mabel crawled into cover of the taller trees, and there stood up looking as slender as a poplar and as unreal as the wrong answer to a sum in long division. It was to her an easy matter to crouch beneath the dinosaurus, to put her head up through the opening, and thus to behold the white form of Kathleen.

"It's all right, dear," she told the stone image; "I shall be quite close to you. You call me as soon as you feel you're coming right again."

The statue remained motionless, as statues usually do, and Mabel withdrew her head, lay down, was covered up, and left. The boys went home. It was the only reasonable thing to do. It would never have done for Mademoiselle to become anxious and set the police on their track. Everyone felt that. The shock of discovering the missing Kathleen, not only in a dinosaurus's stomach, but, further, in a stone statue of herself, might well have unhinged the mind of any constable, to say nothing of the mind of Mademoiselle, which, being foreign, would necessarily be a mind more light and easy to upset. While as for Mabel

"Well, to look at her as she is now," said Gerald, "why, it would send any one off their chump except us."

"We're different, said Jimmy; "our chumps have had to jolly well get used to things. It would take a lot to upset us now."

"Poor old Cathy! all the same," said Gerald. "Yes, of course," said Jimmy.

The sun had died away behind the black trees and the moon was rising. Mabel, her preposterous length covered with coats, waistcoats, and trousers laid along it, slept peacefully in the chill of the evening. Inside the dinosaurus Kathleen, alive in her marble, slept too. She had heard Gerald's words had seen the lighted matches. She was Kathleen just the same as ever only she was Kathleen in a case of marble that would not let her move. It would not have let her cry, even if she wanted to. But she had not wanted to cry. Inside, the marble was not cold or hard. It seemed, somehow, to be softly lined with warmth and pleasantness and safety. Her back did not ache with stooping. Her limbs were not stiff with the hours that they had stayed moveless. Everything was well better than well. One had only to wait quietly and quite comfortably and one would come out of this stone case, and once more be the Kathleen one had always been used to being. So she waited happily and calmly, and presently waiting changed to not waiting to not anything; and, close held in the soft inwardness of the marble, she slept as peacefully and calmly as though she had been lying in her own bed.

She was awakened by the fact that she was not lying in her own bed was not, indeed, lying at all by the fact that she was standing and that her feet had pins and needles in them. Her arms, too, held out in that odd way, were stiff and tired. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and remembered. She had been a statue a statue inside the stone dinosaurus.

"Now I'm alive again," was her instant conclusion, "and I'll get out of it."

She sat down, put her feet through the hole that showed faintly grey in the stone beast's underside, and as she did so a long, slow lurch threw her sideways on the stone where she sat. The dinosaurus was moving!

"Oh!" said Kathleen inside it, "how dreadful! It must be moonlight, and it's come alive, like Gerald said.

It was indeed moving. She could see through the hole the changing surface of grass and bracken and moss as it waddled heavily along. She dared not drop through the hole while it moved, for fear it should crush her to death with its gigantic feet. And with that thought came another: where was Mabel? Somewhere somewhere near? Suppose one of the great feet planted itself on some part of Mabel's inconvenient length? Mabel being the size she was now it would be quite difficult not to step on some part or other of her, if she should happen to be in one's way quite difficult, however much one tried. And the dinosaurus would not try: Why should it? Kathleen hung in an agony over the round opening. The huge beast swung from side to side. It was going faster; it was no good, she dared not jump out. Anyhow, they must be quite away from Mabel by now. Faster and faster went the dinosaurus. The floor of its stomach sloped. They were going downhill. Twigs cracked and broke as it pushed through a belt of evergreen oaks; gravel crunched, ground beneath its stony feet. Then stone met stone. There was a pause. A splash! They were close to water the lake where by moonlight Hermes fluttered and Janus and the dinosaurus swam together. Kathleen dropped swiftly through the hole on to the flat marble that edged the basin, rushed sideways, and stood panting in the shadow of a statue's pedestal. Not a moment too soon, for even as she crouched the monster lizard slipped heavily into the water, drowning a thousand smooth, shining lily pads, and swam away towards the central island.

"Be still, little lady. I leap!" The voice came from the pedestal, and next moment Phoebus had jumped from the pedestal in his little temple, clearing the steps, and landing a couple of yards away.

"You are new," said Phoebus over his graceful shoulder. "I should not have forgotten you if once I had seen you."

"I am," said Kathleen, "quite, quite new. And I didn't know you could talk."

"Why not?" Phoebus laughed. "You can talk."

"But I'm alive."

"Am not I?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so," said Kathleen, distracted, but not afraid; "only I thought you had to have the ring on before one could even see you move."

Phoebus seemed to understand her, which was rather to his credit, for she had certainly not expressed herself with clearness.

"Ah! that's for mortals," he said. "We can hear and see each other in the few moments when life is ours. That is a part of the beautiful enchantment."

"But I am a mortal," said Kathleen.

"You are as modest as you are charming," said Phoebus Apollo absently; "the white water calls me! I go," and the next moment rings of liquid silver spread across the lake, widening and widening, from the spot where the white joined hands of the Sun-god had struck the water as he dived.

Kathleen turned and went up the hill towards the rhododendron bushes. She must find Mabel, and they must go home at once. If only Mabel was of a size that one could conveniently take home with one! Most likely, at this hour of enchantments, she was. Kathleen, heartened by the thought, hurried on. She passed through the rhododendron bushes, remembered the pointed painted paper face that had looked out from the glossy leaves, expected to be frightened and wasn't. She found Mabel easily enough, and much more easily than she would have done had Mabel been as she wished to find her. For quite a long way off in the moonlight, she could see that long and worm-like form, extended to its full twelve feet and covered with coats and trousers and waistcoats. Mabel looked like a drain-pipe that has been covered in sacks in frosty weather. Kathleen touched her long cheek gently, and she woke.

"What's up?" she said sleepily.

"It's only me," Kathleen explained.

"How cold your hands are!" said Mabel.

"Wake up," said Kathleen, "and let's talk."

"Can't we go home now? I'm awfully tired, and it's so long since tea-time."

"You're too long to go home yet," said Kathleen sadly, and then Mabel remembered.

She lay with closed eyes then suddenly she stirred and cried out:

"Oh! Cathy, I feel so funny like one of those horn snakes when you make it go short to get it into its box. I am yes I know I am "

She was; and Kathleen, watching her, agreed that it was exactly like the shortening of a horn spiral snake between the closing hands of a child. Mabel's distant feet drew near Mabel's long, lean arms grew shorter Mabel's face was no longer half a yard long.

"You're coming right you are! Oh, I am so glad!" cried Kathleen.

"I know I am," said Mabel; and as she said it she became once more Mabel, not only in herself which, of course, she had been all the time, but in her outward appearance.

"You are all right. Oh, hooray! hooray! I am so glad!" said Kathleen kindly; "and now we'll go home at once, dear."

"Go home?" said Mabel, slowly sitting up and staring at Kathleen with her big dark eyes. "Go home like that?"

"Like what?" Kathleen asked impatiently.

"Why, you," was Mabel's odd reply.

"I'm all right," said Kathleen. "Come on."

"Do you mean to say you don't know?" said Mabel. "Look at yourself your hands your dress everything."

Kathleen looked at her hands. They were of marble whiteness. Her dress, too her shoes, her stockings, even the ends of her hair. She was white as new-fallen snow.

"What is it?" she asked, beginning to tremble. "What am I all this horrid colour for?"

"Don't you see? Oh, Cathy, don't you see? You've not come right. You're a statue still."

"I'm not I'm alive I'm talking to you."

"I know you are, darling," said Mabel, soothing her as one soothes a fractious child. "That's because it's moonlight."

"But you can see I'm alive."

"Of course I can. I've got the ring."

"But I'm all right; I know I am."

"Don't you see," said Mabel gently, taking her white marble hand, "you're not all right? It's moonlight, and you're a statue, and you've just come alive with all the other statues. And when the moon goes down you'll just be a statue again. That's the difficulty, dear, about our going home again. You're just a statue still, only you've come alive with the other marble things. Where's the dinosaurus?"

"In his bath," said Kathleen, "and so are all the other stone beasts."

Well," said Mabel, trying to look on the bright side of things, "then we've got one thing, at any rate, to be thankful for!"

"If," said Kathleen, sitting disconsolate in her marble, "if I am really a statue come alive, I wonder you're not afraid of me."

"I've got the ring," said Mabel with decision. "Cheer up, dear! you will soon be better. Try not to think about it."

She spoke as you speak to a child that has cut its finger, or fallen down on the garden path, and rises up with grazed knees to which gravel sticks intimately.

"I know," Kathleen absently answered.

"And I've been thinking," said Mabel brightly, "we might find Out a lot about this magic place, if the other statues aren't too proud to talk to us."

"They aren't," Kathleen assured her; "at least, Phoebus wasn't. He was most awfully polite and nice."

"Where is he?" Mabel asked.

"In the lake he was," said Kathleen.

"Then let's go down there," said Mabel. "Oh, Cathy! it is jolly being your own proper thickness again." She jumped up, and the withered ferns and branches that had covered her long length and had been gathered closely upon her as she shrank to her proper size fell as forest leaves do when sudden storms tear them. But the white Kathleen did not move.

The two sat on the grey moonlit grass with the quiet of the night all about them. The great park was still as a painted picture; only the splash of the fountains and the far-off whistle of the Western express broke the silence, which, at the same time, then deepened.

"What cheer, little sister!" said a voice behind them a golden voice. They turned quick, startled heads, as birds, surprised, might turn. There in the moonlight stood Phoebus, dripping still from the lake, and smiling at them, very gentle, very friendly.

"Oh, it's you!" said Kathleen.

"None other," said Phoebus cheerfully. "Who is your friend, the earth-child?"

"This is Mabel," said Kathleen.

Mabel got up and bowed, hesitated, and held out a hand.

"I am your slave, little lady," said Phoebus, enclosing it in marble fingers. "But I fail to understand how you can see us, and why you do not fear."

Mabel held up the hand that wore the ring.

"Quite sufficient explanation," said Phoebus; "but since you have that, why retain your mottled earthy appearance? Become a statue, and swim with us in the lake."

"I can't swim," said Mabel evasively.

"Nor yet me," said Kathleen.

"You can," said Phoebus. "All statues that come to life are proficient in all athletic exercises. And you, child of the dark eyes and hair like night, wish yourself a statue and join our revels."

"I'd rather not, if you will excuse me," said Mabel cautiously. "You see ... this ring ... you wish for things, and you never know how long they're going to last. It would be jolly and all that to be a statue now, but in the morning I should wish I hadn't."

"Earth-folk often do, they say," mused Phoebus. "But, child, you seem ignorant of the powers of your ring. Wish exactly, and the ring will exactly perform. If you give no limit of time, strange enchantments woven by Arithmos the outcast god of numbers will creep in and spoil the spell. Say thus: "I wish that till the dawn I may be a statue of living marble, even as my child friend, and that after that time I may be as before Mabel of the dark eyes and night-coloured hair."

"Oh, yes, do, it would be so jolly!" cried Kathleen. "Do, Mabel! And if we're both statues, shall we be afraid of the dinosaurus?"

"In the world of living marble fear is not," said Phoebus. "Are we not brothers, we and the dinosaurus brethren alike wrought of stone and life?"

"And could I swim if I did?"

"Swim, and float, and dive and with the ladies of Olympus spread the nightly feast, eat of the food of the gods, drink their cup, listen to the song that is undying, and catch the laughter of immortal lips."

"A feast!" said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, do! You would if you were as hungry as I am."

"But it won't be real food," urged Mabel.

"It will be real to you, as to us," said Phoebus; "there is no other realness even in your many-coloured world."

Still Mabel hesitated. Then she looked at Kathleen's legs and suddenly said: "Very well, I will. But first I'll take off my shoes and stockings. Marble boots look simply awful especially the laces. And a marble stocking that's coming down and mine do!"

She had pulled off shoes and stockings and pinafore. "Mabel has the sense of beauty," said Phoebus approvingly. "Speak the spell, child, and I will lead you to the ladies of Olympus."

Mabel, trembling a little, spoke it, and there were two little live statues in the moonlit glade. Tall Phoebus took a hand of each.

"Come run!" he cried. And they ran.

"Oh it is jolly!" Mabel panted. "Look at my white feet in the grass! I thought it would feel stiff to be a statue, but it doesn't."

"There is no stiffness about the immortals," laughed the Sun-god. "For tonight you are one of us."

And with that they ran down the slope to the lake.

"Jump!" he cried, and they jumped, and the water splashed up round three white, gleaming shapes.

"Oh! I can swim!" breathed Kathleen.

"So can I," said Mabel.

"Of course you can," said Phoebus. "Now three times round the lake, and then make for the island."

Side by side the three swam, Phoebus swimming gently to keep pace with the children. Their marble clothes did not seem to interfere at all with their swimming, as your clothes would if you suddenly jumped into the basin of the Trafalgar Square fountains and tried to swim there. And they swam most beautifully, with that perfect ease and absence of effort or tiredness which you must have noticed about your own swimming in dreams. And it was the most lovely place to swim in; the water-lilies, whose long, snaky stalks are so inconvenient to ordinary swimmers, did not in the least interfere with the movements of marble arms and legs. The moon was high in the clear sky-dome. The weeping willows, cypresses, temples, terraces, banks of trees and shrubs, and the wonderful old house, all added to the romantic charm of the scene.

"This is the nicest thing the ring has brought us yet," said Mabel, through a languid but perfect side-stroke.

"I thought you'd enjoy it," said Phoebus kindly; "now once more round, and then the island."

They landed on the island amid a fringe of rushes, yarrow, willow-herb, loose-strife, and a few late, scented, powdery, creamy heads of meadow-sweet. The island was bigger than it looked from the bank, and it seemed covered with trees and shrubs. But when, Phoebus leading the way, they went into the shadow of these, they perceived that beyond the trees lay a light, much nearer to them than the other side of the island could possibly be. And almost at once they were through the belt of trees, and could see where the light came from. The trees they had just passed among made a dark circle round a big cleared space, standing up thick and dark, like a crowd round a football field, as Kathleen remarked.

First came a wide, smooth ring of lawn, then marble steps going down to a round pool, where there were no water-lilies, only gold and silver fish that darted here and there like flashes of quicksilver and dark flames. And the enclosed space of water and marble and grass was lighted with a clear, white, radiant light, seven times stronger than the whitest moonlight, and in the still waters of the pool seven moons lay reflected. One could see that they were only reflections by the way their shape broke and changed as the gold and silver fish rippled the water with moving fin and tail that steered.

The girls looked up at the sky, almost expecting to see seven moons there. But no, the old moon shone alone, as she had always shone on them.

"There are seven moons," said Mabel blankly, and pointed, which is not manners.

"Of course," said Phoebus kindly; "everything in our world is seven times as much so as in yours."

"But there aren't seven of you," said Mabel.

"No, but I am seven times as much," said the Sun-god. "You see, there's numbers, and there's quantity, to say nothing of quality. You see that, I'm sure."

"Not quite," said Kathleen.

"Explanations always weary me," Phoebus interrupted. "Shall we join the ladies?"

On the further side of the pool was a large group, so white that it seemed to make a great white hole in the trees. Some twenty or thirty figures there were in the group all statues and all alive. Some were dipping their white feet among the gold and silver fish, and sending ripples across the faces of the seven moons. Some were pelting each other with roses roses so sweet that the girls could smell them even across the pool. Others were holding hands and dancing in a ring, and two were sitting on the steps playing cat's-cradle which is a very ancient game indeed with a thread of white marble.

As the new-comers advanced a shout of greeting and gay laughter went up. "Late again, Phoebus!" someone called out. And another: "Did one of your horses cast a shoe?" And yet another called out something about laurels.

"I bring two guests," said Phoebus, and instantly the statues crowded round, stroking the girls hair, patting their cheeks, and calling them the prettiest love-names.

"Are the wreaths ready, Hebe?" the tallest and most splendid of the ladies called out. "Make two more!"

And almost directly Hebe came down the steps, her round arms hung thick with rose-wreaths. There was one for each marble head.

Everyone now looked seven times more beautiful than before, which, in the case of the gods and goddesses, is saying a good deal. The children remembered how at the raspberry vinegar feast Mademoiselle had said that gods and goddesses always wore wreaths for meals.

Hebe herself arranged the roses on the girls heads and Aphrodite Urania, the dearest lady in the world, with a voice like mother's at those moments when you love her most, took them by the hands and said: "Come, we must get the feast ready. Eros Psyche Hebe Ganymede all you young people can arrange the fruit."

"I don't see any fruit," said Kathleen, as four slender forms disengaged themselves from the white crowd and came towards them.

"You will though," said Eros, a really nice boy, as the girls instantly agreed; "you've only got to pick it."

"Like this," said Psyche, lifting her marble arms to a willow branch. She reached out her hand to the children it held a ripe pomegranate.

"I see," said Mabel. "You just " She laid her fingers to the willow branch and the firm softness of a big peach was within them.

"Yes, just that," laughed Psyche, who was a darling, as any one could see.

After this Hebe gathered a few silver baskets from a convenient alder, and the four picked fruit industriously. Meanwhile the elder statues were busy plucking golden goblets and jugs and dishes from the branches of ash-trees and young oaks and filling them with everything nice to eat and drink that anyone could possibly want, and these were spread on the steps. It was a celestial picnic. Then everyone sat or lay down and the feast began. And oh! the taste of the food served on those dishes, the sweet wonder of the drink that melted from those gold cups on the white lips of the company! And the fruit there is no fruit like it grown on earth, just as there is no laughter like the laughter of those lips, no songs like the songs that stirred the silence of that night of wonder.

"Oh!" cried Kathleen, and through her fingers the juice of her third peach fell like tears on the marble steps. "I do wish the boys were here!"

"I do wonder what they're doing," said Mabel.

"At this moment," said Hermes, who had just made a wide ring of flight, as a pigeon does, and come back into the circle "at this moment they are wandering desolately near the home of the dinosaurus, having escaped from their home by a window, in search of you. They fear that you have perished, and they would weep if they did not know that tears do not become a man, however youthful."

Kathleen stood up and brushed the crumbs of ambrosia from her marble lap.

"Thank you all very much, she said. "It was very kind of you to have us, and we've enjoyed ourselves very much, but I think we ought to go now, please.

"If it is anxiety about your brothers," said Phoebus obligingly, "it is the easiest thing in the world for them to join you. Lend me your ring a moment."

He took it from Kathleen's half-reluctant hand, dipped it in the reflection of one of the seven moons, and gave it back. She clutched it. "Now," said the Sun-god, "wish for them that which Mabel wished for herself. Say "

"I know," Kathleen interrupted. "I wish that the boys may be statues of living marble like Mabel and me till dawn, and afterwards be like they are now."

"If you hadn't interrupted," said Phoebus "but there, we can't expect old heads on shoulders of young marble. You should have wished them here and but no matter. Hermes, old chap, cut across and fetch them, and explain things as you come."

He dipped the ring again in one of the reflected moons before he gave it back to Kathleen.

"There," he said, "now it's washed clean ready for the next magic."

"It is not our custom to question guests," said Hera the queen, turning her great eyes on the children; "but that ring excites, I am sure, the interest of us all."

"It is the ring," said Phoebus.

"That, of course," said Hera; "but if it were not inhospitable to ask questions I should ask, How came it into the hands of these earth-children?"

"That," said Phoebus, "is a long tale. After the feast the story, and after the story the song."

Hermes seemed to have "explained everything" quite fully; for when Gerald and Jimmy in marble whiteness arrived, each clinging to one of the god's winged feet, and so borne through the air, they were certainly quite at ease. They made their best bows to the goddesses and took their places as unembarrassed as though they had had Olympian suppers every night of their lives. Hebe had woven wreaths of roses ready for them, and as Kathleen watched them eating and drinking, perfectly at home in their marble, she was very glad that amid the welling springs of immortal peach-juice she had not forgotten her brothers.

"And now," said Hera, when the boys had been supplied with everything they could possibly desire, and more than they could eat "now for the story."

"Yes," said Mabel intensely; and Kathleen said, "Oh yes; now for the story. How splendid!"

"The story," said Phoebus unexpectedly, "will be told by our guests."

"Oh no!" said Kathleen, shrinking.

"The lads, maybe, are bolder," said Zeus the king, taking off his rose-wreath, which was a little tight, and rubbing his compressed ears.

"I really can't," said Gerald; "besides, I don't know any stories."

"Nor yet me," said Jimmy.

"It's the story of how we got the ring that they want," said Mabel in a hurry. "I'll tell it if you like, Once upon a time there was a little girl called Mabel," she added yet more hastily, and went on with the tale all the tale of the enchanted castle, or almost all, that you have read in these pages. The marble Olympians listened enchanted almost as enchanted as the castle itself, and the soft moonlit moments fell past like pearls dropping into a deep pool.

"And so," Mabel ended abruptly, "Kathleen wished for the boys and the Lord Hermes fetched them and here we all are."

A burst of interested comment and question blossomed out round the end of the story, suddenly broken off short by Mabel.

"But," said she, brushing it aside, as it grew thinner, "now we want you to tell us."

"To tell you ?"

"How you come to be alive, and how you know about the ring and everything you do know."

"Everything I know?" Phoebus laughed it was to him that she had spoken and not his lips only but all the white lips curled in laughter. "The span of your life, my earth-child, would not contain the words I should speak, to tell you all I know."

"Well, about the ring anyhow, and how you come alive," said Gerald; "you see, it's very puzzling to us."

"Tell them, Phoebus," said the dearest lady in the world; "don't tease the children."

So Phoebus, leaning back against a heap of leopard - skins that Dionysus had lavishly plucked from a spruce fir, told.

"All statues," he said, "can come alive when the moon shines, if they so choose. But statues that are placed in ugly cities do not choose. Why should they weary themselves with the contemplation of the hideous?"

"Quite so," said Gerald politely, to fill the pause.

"In your beautiful temples," the Sun-god went on, "the images of your priests and of your warriors who lie cross-legged on their tombs come alive and walk in their marble about their temples, and through the woods and fields. But only on one night in all the year can any see them. You have beheld us because you held the ring, and are of one brotherhood with us in your marble, but on that one night all may behold us."

"And when is that?" Gerald asked, again polite, in a pause.

"At the festival of the harvest," said Phoebes. "On that night as the moon rises it strikes one beam of perfect light on to the altar in certain temples. One of these temples is in Hellas, buried under the fall of a mountain which Zeus, being angry, hurled down upon it. One is in this land; it is in this great garden."

"Then," said Gerald, much interested, "if we were to come up to that temple on that night, we could see you, even without being statues or having the ring?"

"Even so," said Phoebus. "More, any question asked by a mortal we are on that night bound to answer."

"And the night is when?"

"Ah!" said Phoebus, and laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know!"

Then the great marble King of the Gods yawned, stroked his long beard, and said: "Enough of stories, Phoebus. Tune your lyre."

"But the ring," said Mabel in a whisper, as the Sun-god tuned the white strings of a sort of marble harp that lay at his feet "about how you know all about the ring?"

"Presently," the Sun-god whispered back. "Zeus must be obeyed; but ask me again before dawn, and I will tell you all I know of it." Mabel drew back, and leaned against the comfortable knees of one Demeter Kathleen and Psyche sat holding hands. Gerald and Jimmy lay at full length, chins on elbows, gazing at the Sun-god; and even as he held the lyre, before ever his fingers began to sweep the strings, the spirit of music hung in the air, enchanting, enslaving, silencing all thought but the thought of itself, all desire but the desire to listen to it.

Then Phoebus struck the strings and softly plucked melody from them, and all the beautiful dreams of all the world came fluttering close with wings like doves wings; and all the lovely thoughts that sometimes hover near, but not so near that you can catch them, now came home as to their nests in the hearts of those who listened. And those who listened forgot time and space, and how to be sad, and how to be naughty, and it seemed that the whole world lay like a magic apple in the hand of each listener, and that the whole world was good and beautiful.

And then, suddenly, the spell was shattered. Phoebus struck a broken chord, followed by an instant of silence; then he sprang up, crying, "The dawn! the dawn! To your pedestals, O gods!"

In an instant the whole crowd of beautiful marble people had leaped to its feet, had rushed through the belt of wood that cracked and rustled as they went, and the children heard them splash, in the water beyond. They heard, too, the gurgling breathing of a great beast, and knew that the dinosaurus, too, was returning to his own place.

Only Hermes had time, since one flies more swiftly than one swims, to hover above them for one moment, and to whisper with a mischievous laugh:

"In fourteen days from now, at the Temple of Strange Stones."

"What's the secret of the ring?" gasped Mabel.

"The ring is the heart of the magic," said Hermes. "Ask at the moonrise on the fourteenth day, and you shall know all."

With that he waved the snowy caduceus and rose in the air supported by his winged feet. And as he went the seven reflected moons died out and a chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, and it was very cold.

"We ought to have gone with them," said Mabel with chattering teeth. "We can't swim now we re not marble. And I suppose this is the island?"

It was and they couldn't swim.

They knew it. One always knows those sort of things somehow without trying. For instance, you know perfectly that you can't fly. There are some things that there is no mistake about.

The dawn grew brighter and the outlook more black every moment.

"There isn't a boat, I suppose?" Jimmy asked.

"No," said Mabel, "not on this side of the lake; there's one in the boat-house, of course if you could swim there."

"You know I can't," said Jimmy.

"Can't anyone think of anything?" Gerald asked, shivering.

"When they find we've disappeared they'll drag all the water for miles round, said Jimmy hopefully, "in case we've fallen in and sunk to the bottom. When they come to drag this we can yell and be rescued."

"Yes, dear, that will be nice," was Gerald's bitter comment.

"Don't be so disagreeable," said Mabel with a tone so strangely cheerful that the rest stared at her in amazement.

"The ring," she said. "Of course we've only got to wish ourselves home with it. Phoebus washed it in the moon ready for the next wish.

"You didn't tell us about that," said Gerald in accents of perfect good temper. "Never mind. Where is the ring?"

"You had it," Mabel reminded Kathleen.

"I know I had," said that child in stricken tones, "but I gave it to Psyche to look at and and she's got it on her finger!"

Everyone tried not to be angry with Kathleen. All partly succeeded.

"If we ever get off this beastly island," said Gerald,

"I suppose you can find Psyche's statue and get it off again?"

"No I can't," Mabel moaned. "I don't know where the statue is. I've never seen it. It may be in Hellas, wherever that is or anywhere, for anything I know."

No one had anything kind to say, and it is pleasant to record that nobody said anything. And now it was grey daylight, and the sky to the north was flushing in pale pink and lavender.

The boys stood moodily, hands in pockets. Mabel and Kathleen seemed to find it impossible not to cling together, and all about their legs the long grass was icy with dew.

A faint sniff and a caught breath broke the silence. "Now, look here," said Gerald briskly, "I won't have it. Do you hear? Snivelling's no good at all. No, I'm not a pig. It's for your own good. Let's make a tour of the island. Perhaps there's a boat hidden somewhere among the overhanging boughs.

"How could there be?" Mabel asked.

"Someone might have left it there, I suppose," said Gerald.

"But how would they have got off the island?"

"In another boat, of course," said Gerald; "come on." Downheartedly, and quite sure that there wasn't and couldn't be any boat, the four children started to explore the island. How often each one of them had dreamed of islands, how often wished to be stranded on one! Well, now they were. Reality is sometimes quite different from dreams, and not half so nice. It was worst of all for Mabel, whose shoes and stockings were far away on the mainland. The coarse grass and brambles were very cruel to bare legs and feet.

They stumbled through the wood to the edge of the water, but it was impossible to keep close to the edge of the island, the branches grew too thickly. There was a narrow, grassy path that wound in and out among the trees, and this they followed, dejected and mournful. Every moment made it less possible for them to hope to get back to the school-house unnoticed. And if they were missed and beds found in their present unslept-in state well, there would be a row of some sort, and, as Gerald said, "Farewell to liberty!"

"Of course we can get off all right," said Gerald. "Just all shout when we see a gardener or a keeper on the mainland. But if we do, concealment is at an end and all is absolutely up!"

"Yes," said everyone gloomily.

"Come, buck up!" said Gerald, the spirit of the born general beginning to reawaken in him. "We shall get out of this scrape all right, as we've got out of others; you know we shall. See, the sun's coming out. You feel all right and jolly now, don't you?"

"Yes, oh yes!" said everyone, in tones of unmixed misery.

The sun was now risen, and through a deep cleft in the hills it sent a strong shaft of light straight at the island. The yellow light, almost level, struck through the stems of the trees and dazzled the children's eyes. This, with the fact that he was not looking where he was going, as Jimmy did not fail to point out later, was enough to account for what now happened to Gerald, who was leading the melancholy little procession. He stumbled, clutched at a tree-trunk, missed his clutch, and disappeared, with a yell and a clatter; and Mabel, who came next, only pulled herself up just in time not to fall down a steep flight of moss-grown steps that seemed to open suddenly in the ground at her feet.

"Oh, Gerald!" she called down the steps; "are you hurt?"

"No," said Gerald, out of sight and crossly, for he was hurt, rather severely; "it's steps, and there's a passage."

"There always is," said Jimmy.

"I knew there was a passage," said Mabel; "it goes under the water and comes out at the Temple of Flora. Even the gardeners know that, but they won't go down, for fear of snakes."

"Then we can get out that way I do think you might have said so," Gerald's voice came up to say.

"I didn't think of it," said Mabel. "At least And I suppose it goes past the place where the Ugly-Wugly found its good hotel."

"I'm not going," said Kathleen positively, "not in the dark, I'm not. So I tell you!"

"Very well, baby," said Gerald sternly, and his head appeared from below very suddenly through interlacing brambles. "No one asked you to go in the dark. We'll leave you here if you like, and return and rescue you with a boat. Jimmy, the bicycle lamp!" He reached up a hand for it.

Jimmy produced from his bosom, the place where lamps are always kept in fairy stories see Aladdin and others a bicycle lamp.

"We brought it," he explained, "so as not to break our shins over bits of long Mabel among the rhododendrons."

"Now," said Gerald very firmly, striking a match and opening the thick, rounded glass front of the bicycle lamp, "I don't know what the rest of you are going to do, but I'm going down these steps and along this passage. If we find the good hotel well, a good hotel never hurt anyone yet."

"It's no good, you know," said Jimmy weakly; "you know jolly well you can't get out of that Temple of Flora door, even if you get to it."

"I don't know," said Gerald, still brisk and commander-like; "there's a secret spring inside that door most likely. We hadn't a lamp last time to look for it, remember."

"If there's one thing I do hate its undergroundness," said Mabel.

"You're not a coward," said Gerald, with what is known as diplomacy. "You're brave, Mabel. Don't I know it!" You hold Jimmy's hand and I'll hold Cathy s. Now then."

"I won't have my hand held," said Jimmy, of course. "I'm not a kid."

"Well, Cathy will. Poor little Cathy! Nice brother Jerry'll hold poor Cathy's hand."

Gerald's bitter sarcasm missed fire here, for Cathy gratefully caught the hand he held out in mockery. She was too miserable to read his mood, as she mostly did. "Oh, thank you, Jerry dear," she said gratefully; "you are a dear, and I will try not to be frightened." And for quite a minute Gerald shamedly felt that he had not been quite, quite kind.

So now, leaving the growing goldness of the sunrise, the four went down the stone steps that led to the underground and underwater passage, and everything seemed to grow dark and then to grow into a poor pretence of light again, as the splendour of dawn gave place to the small dogged lighting of the bicycle lamp. The steps did indeed lead to a passage, the beginnings of it choked with the drifted dead leaves of many old autumns. But presently the passage took a turn, there were more steps, down, down, and then the passage was empty and straight lined above and below and on each side with slabs of marble, very clear and clean. Gerald held Cathy's hand with more of kindness and less of exasperation than he had supposed possible.

And Cathy, on her part, was surprised to find it possible to be so much less frightened than she expected.

The flame of the bull's-eye threw ahead a soft circle of misty light the children followed it silently. Till, silently and suddenly, the light of the bull's-eye behaved as the flame of a candle does when you take it out into the sunlight to light a bonfire, or explode a train of gunpowder, or what not. Because now, with feelings mixed indeed, of wonder, and interest, and awe, but no fear, the children found themselves in a great hail, whose arched roof was held up by two rows of round pillars, and whose every corner was filled with a soft, searching, lovely light, filling every cranny, as water fills the rocky secrecies of hidden sea-caves.

"How beautiful!" Kathleen whispered, breathing hard into the tickled ear of her brother, and Mabel caught the hand of Jimmy and whispered, "I must hold your hand I must hold on to something silly, or I shan't believe it's real."

For this hall in which the children found themselves was the most beautiful place in the world. I won't describe it, because it does not look the same to any two people, and you wouldn't understand me if I tried to tell you how it looked to any one of these four. But to each it seemed the most perfect thing possible. I will only say that all round it were great arches. Kathleen saw them as Moorish, Mabel as Tudor, Gerald as Norman, and Jimmy as Churchwarden Gothic. (If you don't know what these are, ask your uncle who collects brasses, and he will explain, or perhaps Mr. Millar will draw the different kinds of arches for you.) And through these arches one could see many things oh! but many things. Through one appeared an olive garden, and in it two lovers who held each other's hands, under an Italian moon; through another a wild sea, and a ship to whom the wild, racing sea was slave. A third showed a king on his throne, his courtiers obsequious about him; and yet a fourth showed a really good hotel, with the respectable Ugly-Wugly sunning himself on the front doorsteps. There was a mother, bending over a wooden cradle. There was an artist gazing entranced on the picture his wet brush seemed to have that moment completed, a general dying on a field where Victory had planted the standard he loved, and these things were not pictures, but the truest truths, alive, and, as anyone could see, immortal.

Many other pictures there were that these arches framed. And all showed some moment when life had sprung to fire and flower the best that the soul of man could ask or man's destiny grant. And the really good hotel had its place here too, because there are some souls that ask no higher thing of life than "a really good hotel" .

"Oh, I am glad we came; I am, I am!" Kathleen murmured, and held fast to her brother's hand.

They went slowly up the hall, the ineffectual bull's-eye, held by Jimmy, very crooked indeed, showing almost as a shadow in this big, glorious light.

And then, when the hall's end was almost reached, the children saw where the light came from. It glowed and spread itself from one place, and in that place stood the one statue that Mabel "did not know where to find" the statue of Psyche. They went on, slowly, quite happy, quite bewildered. And when they came close to Psyche they saw that on her raised hand the ring showed dark.

Gerald let go Kathleen's hand, put his foot on the pediment, his knee on the pedestal. He stood up, dark and human, beside the white girl with the butterfly wings.

"I do hope you don't mind," he said, and drew the ring off very gently. Then, as he dropped to the ground, "Not here," he said. "I don't know why, but not here."

And they all passed behind the white Psyche, and once more the bicycle lamp seemed suddenly to come to life again as Gerald held it in front of him, to be the pioneer in the dark passage that led from the Hall of but they did not know, then, what it was the Hall of.

Then, as the twisting passage shut in on them with a darkness that pressed close against the little light of the bicycle lamp, Kathleen said, "Give me the ring. I know exactly what to say."

Gerald gave it with not extreme readiness.

"I wish," said Kathleen slowly, "that no one at home may know that we've been out tonight, and I wish we were safe in our own beds, undressed, and in our nightgowns, and asleep."

And the next thing any of them knew, it was good, strong, ordinary daylight not just sunrise, but the kind of daylight you are used to being called in, and all were in their own beds. Kathleen had framed the wish most sensibly. The only mistake had been in saying "in our own beds" because, of course, Mabel's own bed was at Yalding Towers, and to this day Mabel's drab-haired aunt cannot understand how Mabel, who was staying the night with that child in the town she was so taken up with, hadn't come home at eleven, when the aunt locked up, and yet she was in her bed in the morning. For though not a clever woman, she was not stupid enough to be able to believe any one of the eleven fancy explanations which the distracted Mabel offered in the course of the morning. The first (which makes twelve) of these explanations was The Truth, and of course the aunt was far too clever to believe That!

It was show-day at Yalding Castle, and it seemed good to the children to go and visit Mabel, and, as Gerald put it, to mingle unsuspected with the crowd; to gloat over all the things which they knew and which the crowd didn't know about the castle and the sliding panels, the magic ring and the statues that came alive. Perhaps one of the pleasantest things about magic happenings is the feeling which they give you of knowing what other people not only don't know but wouldn't, so to speak, believe if they did.

On the white road outside the gates of the castle was a dark spattering of breaks and wagonettes and dogcarts. Three or four waiting motor-cars puffed fatly where they stood, and bicycles sprawled in heaps along the grassy hollow by the red brick wall. And the people who had been brought to the castle by the breaks and wagonettes, and dog-carts and bicycles and motors, as well as those who had walked there on their own unaided feet, were scattered about the grounds, or being shown over those parts of the castle which were, on this one day of the week, thrown open to visitors.

There were more visitors than usual today because it had somehow been whispered about that Lord Yalding was down, and that the holland covers were to be taken off the state furniture so that a rich American who wished to rent the castle, to live in, might see the place in all its glory.

It certainly did look very splendid. The embroidered satin, gilded leather and tapestry of the chairs, which had been hidden by brown holland, gave to the rooms a pleasant air of being lived in. There were flowering plants and pots of roses here and there on tables or window-ledges. Mabel's aunt prided herself on her tasteful touch in the home, and had studied the arrangement of flowers in a series of articles in Home Drivel called "How to Make Home High-class on Nine-pence a Week".

The great crystal chandeliers, released from the bags that at ordinary times shrouded them, gleamed with grey and purple splendour. The brown linen sheets had been taken off the state beds, and the red ropes that usually kept the low crowd in its proper place had been rolled up and hidden away.

"It's exactly as if we were calling on the family," said the grocer's daughter from Salisbury to her friend who was in the millinery.

"If the Yankee doesn't take it, what do you say to you and me setting up here when we get spliced?" the draper's assistant asked his sweetheart. And she said: "Oh, Reggie, how can you! you are too funny."

All the afternoon the crowd in its smart holiday clothes, pink blouses, and light-coloured suits, flowery hats, and scarves beyond description passed through and through the dark hall, the magnificent drawing-rooms and boudoirs and picture-galleries. The chattering crowd was awed into something like quiet by the calm, stately bedchambers, where men had been born, and died; where royal guests had lain in long-ago summer nights, with big bow-pots of elder-flowers set on the hearth to ward off fever and evil spells. The terrace, where in old days dames in ruffs had sniffed the sweet-brier and southern-wood of the borders below, and ladies, bright with rouge and powder and brocade, had walked in the swing of their hooped skirts the terrace now echoed to the sound of brown boots, and the tap-tap of high-heeled shoes at two and eleven three, and high laughter and chattering voices that said nothing that the children wanted to hear. These spoiled for them the quiet of the enchanted castle, and outraged the peace of the garden of enchantments.

"It isn't such a lark after all," Gerald admitted, as from the window of the stone summer-house at the end of the terrace they watched the loud colours and heard the loud laughter. "I do hate to see all these people in our garden."

"I said that to that nice bailiff-man this morning," said Mabel, setting herself on the stone floor, "and he said it wasn't much to let them come once a week. He said Lord Yalding ought to let them come when they liked said he would if he lived there."

"That's all he knows!" said Jimmy. "Did he say anything else?"

"Lots," said Mabel. "I do like him! I told him ,"

"You didn't!"

"Yes. I told him lots about our adventures. The humble bailiff is a beautiful listener."

"We shall be locked up for beautiful lunatics if you let your jaw get the better of you, my Mabel child."

"Not us!" said Mabel. "I told it you know the way every word true, and yet so that nobody believes any of it. When I'd quite done he said I'd got a real littery talent, and I promised to put his name on the beginning of the first book I write when I grow up."

"You don't know his name," said Kathleen. "Let's do something with the ring."

"Imposs!" said Gerald. "I forgot to tell you, but I met Mademoiselle when I went back for my garters and she's coming to meet us and walk back with us."

"What did you say?"

"I said," said Gerald deliberately, "that it was very kind of her. And so it was. Us not wanting her doesn't make it not kind her coming "

"It may be kind, but it's sickening too," said Mabel, "because now I suppose we shall have to stick here and wait for her; and I promised we d meet the bailiff-man. He's going to bring things in a basket and have a picnic-tea with us."

"Where?"

"Beyond the dinosaurus. He said he'd tell me all about the anteddy-something animals it means before Noah's Ark; there are lots besides the dinosaurus in return for me telling him my agreeable fictions. Yes, he called them that."

"When?"

"As soon as the gates shut. That's five."

"We might take Mademoiselle along," suggested Gerald.

"She d be too proud to have tea with a bailiff, I expect; you never know how grown-ups will take the simplest things." It was Kathleen who said this.

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Gerald, lazily turning on the stone bench. "You all go along, and meet your bailiff. A picnic's a picnic. And I'll wait for Mademoiselle."

Mabel remarked joyously that this was jolly decent of Gerald, to which he modestly replied: "Oh, rot!"

Jimmy added that Gerald rather liked sucking-up to people.

"Little boys don't understand diplomacy," said Gerald calmly; "sucking-up is simply silly. But it's better to be good than pretty and ,"

"How do you know?" Jimmy asked.

"And," his brother went on, "you never know when a grown-up may come in useful. Besides, they like it. You must give them some little pleasures. Think how awful it must be to be old. My hat!"

"I hope I shan't be an old maid," said Kathleen.

"I don't mean to be," said Mabel briskly. "I'd rather marry a travelling tinker."

"It would be rather nice," Kathleen mused, "to marry the Gypsy King and go about in a caravan telling fortunes and hung round with baskets and brooms."

"Oh, if I could choose," said Mabel, "of course I'd marry a brigand, and live in his mountain fastnesses, and be kind to his captives and help them to escape and ,"

"You'll be a real treasure to your husband," said Gerald.

"Yes," said Kathleen, "or a sailor would be nice. You'd watch for his ship coming home and set the lamp in the dormer window to light him home through the storm; and when he was drowned at sea you d be most frightfully sorry, and go every day to lay flowers on his daisied grave."

"Yes," Mabel hastened to say, "or a soldier, and then you'd go to the wars with short petticoats and a cocked hat and a barrel round your neck like a St. Bernard dog. There's a picture of a soldier's wife on a song auntie's got. It's called 'The Veevandyear'."

"When I marry " Kathleen quickly said.

"When I marry," said Gerald, "I'll marry a dumb girl, or else get the ring to make her so that she can't speak unless she's spoken to. Let's have a squint.

He applied his eye to the stone lattice.

"They're moving off," he said. "Those pink and purple hats are nodding off in the distant prospect; and the funny little man with the beard like a goat is going a different way from everyone else the gardeners will have to head him off. I don't see Mademoiselle, though. The rest of you had better bunk. It doesn't do to run any risks with picnics. The deserted hero of our tale, alone and unsupported, urged on his brave followers to pursue the commissariat waggons, he himself remaining at the post of danger and difficulty, because he was born to stand on burning decks whence all but he had fled, and to lead forlorn hopes when despaired of by the human race!"

"I think I'll marry a dumb husband," said Mabel, "and there shan't be any heroes in my books when I write them, only a heroine. Come on, Cathy."

Coming out of that cool, shadowy summer-house into the sunshine was like stepping into an oven, and the stone of the terrace was burning to the children's feet.

"I know now what a cat on hot bricks feels like," said Jimmy.

The antediluvian animals are set in a beech-wood on a slope at least half a mile across the park from the castle. The grandfather of the present Lord Yalding had them set there in the middle of last century, in the great days of the late Prince Consort, the Exhibition of 1851, Sir Joseph Paxton, and the Crystal Palace. Their stone flanks, their wide, ungainly wings, their lozenged crocodile-like backs show grey through the trees a long way off.

Most people think that noon is the hottest time of the day. They are wrong. A cloudless sky gets hotter and hotter all the afternoon, and reaches its very hottest at five. I am sure you must all have noticed this when you are going out to tea anywhere in your best clothes, especially if your clothes are starched and you happen to have a rather long and shadeless walk.

Kathleen, Mabel, and Jimmy got hotter and hotter, and went more and more slowly. They had almost reached that stage of resentment and discomfort when one "wishes one hadn't come" before they saw, below the edge of the beech-wood, the white waved handkerchief of the bailiff.

That banner, eloquent of tea, shade, and being able to sit down, put new heart into them. They mended their pace, and a final desperate run landed them among the drifted coppery leaves and bare grey and green roots of the beech-wood.

"Oh, glory!" said Jimmy, throwing himself down. "How do you do?"

The bailiff looked very nice, the girls thought. He was not wearing his velveteens, but a grey flannel suit that an Earl need not have scorned; and his straw hat would have done no discredit to a Duke; and a Prince could not have worn a prettier green tie. He welcomed the children warmly. And there were two baskets dumped heavy and promising among the beech-leaves.

He was a man of tact. The hot, instructive tour of the stone antediluvians, which had loomed with ever-lessening charm before the children, was not even mentioned.

"You must be desert-dry," he said, "and you'll be hungry, too, when you've done being thirsty. I put on the kettle as soon as I discerned the form of my fair romancer in the extreme offing."

The kettle introduced itself with puffings and bubblings from the hollow between two grey roots where it sat on a spirit-lamp.

"Take off your shoes and stockings, won't you?" said the bailiff in matter-of-course tones, just as old ladies ask each other to take off their bonnets; "there's a little baby canal just over the ridge."

The joys of dipping one's feet in cool running water after a hot walk have yet to be described. I could write pages about them. There was a mill-stream when I was young with little fishes in it, and dropped leaves that spun round, and willows and alders that leaned over it and kept it cool, and but this is not the story of my life.

When they came back, on rested, damp, pink feet, tea was made and poured ouy delicious tea with as much milk as ever you wanted, out of a beer bottle with a screw top, and cakes, and gingerbread, and plums, and a big melon with a lump of ice in its heart a tea for the gods!

This thought must have come to Jimmy, for he said suddenly, removing his face from inside a wide-bitten crescent of melon-rind:

"Your feast's as good as the feast of the Immortals, almost."

"Explain your recondite allusion," said the grey-flannelled host; and Jimmy, understanding him to say, "What do you mean?" replied with the whole tale of that wonderful night when the statues came alive, and a banquet of unearthly splendour and deliciousness was plucked by marble hands from the trees of the lake island.

When he had done the bailiff said: "Did you get all this out of a book?"

"No," said Jimmy, "it happened."

"You are an imaginative set of young dreamers,. aren't you?" the bailiff asked, handing the plums to Kathleen, who smiled, friendly but embarrassed. Why couldn't Jimmy have held his tongue?

"No, we re not," said that indiscreet one obstinately; "everything I've told you did happen, and so did the things Mabel told you."

The bailiff looked a little uncomfortable. "All right, old chap," he said. And there was a short, uneasy silence. "Look here," said Jimmy, who seemed for once to have got the bit between his teeth, "do you believe me or not?"

"Don't be silly, Jimmy!" Kathleen whispered. "Because, if you don't I'll make you believe."

"Don't!" said Mabel and Kathleen together.

"Do you or don't you?" Jimmy insisted, lying on his front with his chin on his hands, his elbows on a moss-cushion, and his bare legs kicking among the beech leaves.

"I think you tell adventures awfully well," said the bailiff cautiously.

"Very well," said Jimmy, abruptly sitting up, "you don't believe me. Nonsense, Cathy! he's a gentleman, even if he is a bailiff."

"Thank you!" said the bailiff with eyes that twinkled.

"You won't tell, will you?" Jimmy urged.

"Tell what?"

"Anything."

"Certainly not. I am, as you say, the soul of honour."

"Then Cathy, give me the ring."

"Oh, no!" said the girls together.

Kathleen did not mean to give up the ring; Mabel did not mean that she should; Jimmy certainly used no force. Yet presently he held it in his hand. It was his hour. There are times like that for all of us, when what we say shall be done is done.

"Now," said Jimmy, "this is the ring Mabel told you about. I say it is a wishing-ring. And if you will put it on your hand and wish, whatever you wish will happen."

"Must I wish out loud?"

"Yes I think so."

"Don't wish for anything silly," said Kathleen, making the best of the situation, "like its being fine on Tuesday or its being your favourite pudding for dinner tomorrow. Wish for something you really want."

"I will," said the bailiff. "I'll wish for the only thing I really want. I wish my I wish my friend were here."

The three who knew the power of the ring looked round to see the bailiff's friend appear; a surprised man that friend would be, they thought, and perhaps a frightened one. They had all risen, and stood ready to soothe and reassure the newcomer. But no startled gentleman appeared in the wood, only, coming quietly through the dappled sun and shadow under the beech-trees, Mademoiselle and Gerald, Mademoiselle in a white gown, looking quite nice and like a picture, Gerald hot and polite.

"Good afternoon," said that dauntless leader of forlorn hopes. "I persuaded Mademoiselle "

That sentence was never finished, for the bailiff and the French governess were looking at each other with the eyes of tired travellers who find, quite without expecting it, the desired end of a very long journey.

And the children saw that even if they spoke it would not make any difference.

"You!" said the bailiff.

"Mais . . . c'est donc vous," said Mademoiselle, in a funny choky voice.

And they stood still and looked at each other, "like stuck pigs" , as Jimmy said later, for quite a long time.

"Is she your friend?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes oh yes," said the bailiff. "You are my friend, are you not?"

"But yes," Mademoiselle said softly. "I am your friend."

"There! you see," said Jimmy, "the ring does do what I said."

"We won't quarrel about that," said the bailiff. "You can say it's the ring. For me it's a coincidence the happiest, the dearest ,"

"Then you ?" said the French governess.

"Of course," said the bailiff. "Jimmy, give your brother some tea. Mademoiselle, come and walk in the woods: there are a thousand things to say."

"Eat then, my Gerald," said Mademoiselle, now grown young, and astonishingly like a fairy princess. "I return all at the hour, and we re-enter together. It is that we must speak each other. It is long time that we have not seen us, me and Lord Yalding!"

"So he was Lord Yalding all the time," said Jimmy, breaking a stupefied silence as the white gown and the grey flannels disappeared among the beech trunks. "Landscape painter sort of dodge silly, I call it. And fancy her being a friend of his, and his wishing she was here! Different from us, eh? Good old ring!"

"His friend!" said Mabel with strong scorn; "Don't you see she's his lover? Don't you see she's the lady that was bricked up in the convent, because he was so poor, and he couldn't find her. And now the ring's made them live happy ever after. I am glad! Aren't you, Cathy?"

"Rather!" said Kathleen; "it's as good as marrying a sailor or a bandit."

"It's the ring did it," said Jimmy. "If the American takes the house he'll pay lots of rent, and they can live on that."

"I wonder if they'll be married tomorrow!" said Mabel.

"Wouldn't if be fun if we were bridesmaids," said Cathy.

"May I trouble you for the melon," said Gerald. "Thanks! Why didn't we know he was Lord Yalding? Apes and moles that we were!"

"I've known since last night," said Mabel calmly; "only I promised not to tell. I can keep a secret, can't I?"

"Too jolly well," said Kathleen, a little aggrieved.

"He was disguised as a bailiff," said Jimmy; "that's why we didn't know."

"Disguised as a fiddle-stick-end," said Gerald. "Ha, ha! I see something old Sherlock Holmes never saw, nor that idiot Watson, either. If you want a really impenetrable disguise, you ought to disguise yourself as what you really are. I'll remember that."

"It's like Mabel, telling things so that you can't believe them," said Cathy.

"I think Mademoiselle's jolly lucky," said Mabel.

"She's not so bad. He might have done worse," said Gerald. "Plums, please!"

There was quite plainly magic at work. Mademoiselle next morning was a changed governess. Her cheeks were pink, her lips were red, her eyes were larger and brighter, and she had done her hair in an entirely new way, rather frivolous and very becoming.

"Mamselle's coming out!" Eliza remarked.

Immediately after breakfast Lord Yalding called with a wagonette that wore a smart blue cloth coat, and was drawn by two horses whose coats were brown and shining and fitted them even better than the blue cloth coat fitted the wagonette, and the whole party drove in state and splendour to Yalding Towers.

Arrived there, the children clamoured for permission

to explore the castle thoroughly, a thing that had never yet been possible. Lord Yalding, a little absent in manner, but yet quite cordial, consented. Mabel showed the others all the secret doors and unlikely passages and stairs that she had discovered. It was a glorious morning. Lord Yalding and Mademoiselle went through the house, it is true, but in a rather half-hearted way. Quite soon they were tired, and went out through the French windows of the drawing-room and through the rose garden, to sit on the curved stone seat in the middle of the maze, where once, at the beginning of things, Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy had found the sleeping Princess who wore pink silk and diamonds.

The children felt that their going left to the castle a more spacious freedom, and explored with more than Arctic enthusiasm. It was as they emerged from the little rickety secret staircase that led from the powdering-room of the state suite to the gallery of the hall that they came suddenly face to face with the odd little man who had a beard like a goat and had taken the wrong turning yesterday.

"This part of the castle is private," said Mabel, with great presence of mind, and shut the door behind her.

"I am aware of it," said the goat-faced stranger, "but I have the permission of the Earl of Yalding to examine the house at my leisure."

"Oh!" said Mabel. "I beg your pardon. We all do. We didn't know."

"You are relatives of his lordship, I should surmise?" asked the goat-faced.

"Not exactly," said Gerald. "Friends".

The gentleman was thin and very neatly dressed; he had small, merry eyes and a face that was brown and dry-looking.

"You are playing some game, I should suppose?"

"No, sir," said Gerald, "only exploring."

"May a stranger propose himself as a member of your Exploring Expedition?" asked the gentleman, smiling a tight but kind smile.

The children looked at each other.

"You see," said Gerald, "it's rather difficult to explain but you see what I mean, don't you?"

"He means," said Jimmy, "that we can't take you into an exploring party without we know what you want to go for."

"Are you a photographer?" asked Mabel, "or is it some newspaper's sent you to write about the Towers?"

"I understand your position," said the gentleman. "I am not a photographer, nor am I engaged by any journal. I am a man of independent means, travelling in this country with the intention of renting a residence. My name is Jefferson D. Conway."

"Oh!" said Mabel; "then you're the American millionaire."

"I do not like the description, young lady," said Mr. Jefferson D. Conway. "I am an American citizen, and I am not without means. This is a fine property a very fine property. If it were for sale ,"

"It isn't, it can't be," Mabel hastened to explain. "The lawyers have put it in a tale, so Lord Yalding can't sell it. But you could take it to live in, and pay Lord Yalding a good millionairish rent, and then he could marry the French governess "

"Shish!" said Kathleen and Mr. Jefferson D. Conway together, and he added: "Lead the way, please; and I should suggest that the exploration be complete and exhaustive."

Thus encouraged, Mabel led the millionaire through all the castle. He seemed pleased, yet disappointed too.

"It is a fine mansion," he said at last when they had come back to the point from which they had started; "but I should suppose, in a house this size, there would mostly be a secret stairway, or a priests hiding place, or a ghost?"

"There are," said Mabel briefly, "but I thought Americans didn't believe in anything but machinery and newspapers." She touched the spring of the panel behind her, and displayed the little tottery staircase to the American. The sight of it worked a wonderful transformation in him. He became eager, alert, very keen.

"Say!" he cried, over and over again, standing in the door that led from the powdering-room to the state bed-chamber. "But this is great great!"

The hopes of everyone ran high. It seemed almost certain that the castle would be let for a millionairish rent and Lord Yalding be made affluent to the point of marriage.

"If there were a ghost located in this ancestral pile, I'd close with the Earl of Yalding today, now, on the nail," Mr. Jefferson D. Conway went on.

"If you were to stay till tomorrow, and sleep in this room, I expect you'd see the ghost," said Mabel.

"There is a ghost located here then?" he said joyously.

"They say," Mabel answered, "that old Sir Rupert, who lost his head in Henry the Eighth's time, walks of a night here, with his head under his arm. But we've not seen that. What we have seen is the lady in a pink dress with diamonds in her hair. She carries a lighted taper," Mabel hastily added. The others, now suddenly aware of Mabel's plan, hastened to assure the American in accents of earnest truth that they had all seen the lady with the pink gown.

He looked at them with half-closed eyes that twinkled.

"Well," he said, "I calculate to ask the Earl of Yalding to permit me to pass a night in his ancestral best bed - chamber. And if I hear so much as a phantom footstep, or hear so much as a ghostly sigh, I'll take the place."

"I am glad!" said Cathy.

"You appear to be very certain of your ghost," said the American, still fixing them with little eyes that shone. "Let me tell you, young gentlemen, that I carry a gun, and when I see a ghost, I shoot."

He pulled a pistol out of his hip-pocket, and looked at it lovingly.

"And I am a fair average shot," he went on, walking across the shiny floor of the state bed-chamber to the open window. "See that big red rose, like a tea-saucer?"

They saw.

The next moment a loud report broke the stillness, and the red petals of the shattered rose strewed balustrade and terrace.

The American looked from one child to another. Every face was perfectly white.

"Jefferson D. Conway made his little pile by strict attention to business, and keeping his eyes skinned," he added. "Thank you for all your kindness."

"Suppose you'd done it, and he'd shot you!" said Jimmy cheerfully. "That would have been an adventure, wouldn't it?"

"I'm going to do it still," said Mabel, pale and defiant. "Let's find Lord Yalding and get the ring back."

Lord Yalding had had an interview with Mabel's aunt, and lunch for six was laid in the great dark hall, among the armour and the oak furniture a beautiful lunch served on silver dishes. Mademoiselle, becoming every moment younger and more like a Princess, was moved to tears when Gerald rose, lemonade-glass in hand, and proposed the health of "Lord and Lady Yalding".

When Lord Yalding had returned thanks in a speech full of agreeable jokes the moment seemed to Gerald propitious, and he said:

"The ring, you know you don't believe in it, but we do. May we have it back?"

And got it.

Then, after a hasty council, held in the panelled jewel-room, Mabel said: "This is a wishing-ring, and I wish all the American's weapons of all sorts were here."

Instantly the room was full six feet up the wall of a tangle and mass of weapons, swords, spears, arrows, tomahawks, fowling pieces, blunderbusses, pistols, revolvers, scimitars, kreeses every kind of weapon you can think of and the four children wedged in among all these weapons of death hardly dared to breathe.

"He collects arms, I expect," said Gerald, "and the arrows are poisoned, I shouldn't wonder. Wish them back where they came from, Mabel, for goodness sake, and try again."

Mabel wished the weapons away, and at once the four children stood safe in a bare panelled room. But

"No,", Mabel said, "I can't stand it. We'll work the ghost another way. I wish the American may think he sees a ghost when he goes to bed. Sir Rupert with his head under his arm will do."

"Is it tonight he sleeps there?"

"I don't know. I wish he may see Sir Rupert every night that'll make it all serene."

"It's rather dull," said Gerald; "we shan't know whether he's seen Sir Rupert or not."

"We shall know in the morning, when he takes the house."

This being settled, Mabel's aunt was found to be desirous of Mabel's company, so the others went home.

It was when they were at supper that Lord Yalding suddenly appeared, and said: "Mr. Jefferson Conway wants you boys to spend the night with him in the state chamber. I've had beds put up. You don't mind, do you? He seems to think you've got some idea of playing ghost-tricks on him."

It was difficult to refuse, so difficult that it proved impossible.

Ten o clock found the boys each in a narrow white bed that looked quite absurdly small in that high, dark chamber, and in face of that tall gaunt four-poster hung with tapestry and ornamented with funereal-looking plumes.

"I hope to goodness there isn't a real ghost," Jimmy whispered.

"Not likely," Gerald whispered back.

"But I don't want to see Sir Rupert's ghost with its head under its arm," Jimmy insisted.

"You won't. The most you'll see'll be the millionaire seeing it. Mabel said he was to see it, not us. Very likely you'll sleep all night and not see anything. Shut your eyes and count up to a million and don't be a goat!"

As soon as Mabel had learned from her drab-haired aunt that this was indeed the night when Mr. Jefferson D. Conway would sleep at the castle she had hastened to add a wish, "that Sir Rupert and his head may appear tonight in the state bedroom."

Jimmy shut his eyes and began to count a million. Before he had counted it he fell asleep. So did his brother.

They were awakened by the loud echoing bang of a pistol shot. Each thought of the shot that had been fired that morning, and opened eyes that expected to see a sunshiny terrace and red-rose petals strewn upon warm white stone.

Instead, there was the dark, lofty state chamber, lighted but little by six tall candles; there was the American in shirt and trousers, a smoking pistol in his hand; and there, advancing from the door of the powdering-room, a figure in doublet and hose, a ruff round its neck and no head! The head, sure enough, was there; but it was under the right arm, held close in the slashed-velvet sleeve of the doublet. The face looking from under the arm wore a pleasant smile. Both boys, I am sorry to say, screamed. The American fired again. The bullet passed through Sir Rupert, who advanced without appearing to notice it.

Then, suddenly, the lights went out. The next thing the boys knew it was morning. A grey daylight shone blankly through the tall windows and wild rain was beating upon the glass, and the American was gone.

"Where are we?" said Jimmy, sitting up with tangled hair and looking round him. "Oh, I remember. Ugh! it was horrid. I'm about fed up with that ring, so 1 don't mind telling you."

"Nonsense!" said Gerald. "I enjoyed it. I wasn't a bit frightened, were you?"

"No," said Jimmy, "of course I wasn't.

"We've done the trick," said Gerald later when they learned that the American had breakfasted early with Lord Yalding and taken the first train to London; "he's gone to get rid of his other house, and take this one. The old ring's beginning to do really useful things."

"Perhaps you'll believe in the ring now," said Jimmy to Lord Yalding, whom he met later on in the picture-gallery; "it's all our doing that Mr. Jefferson saw the ghost. He told us he'd take the house if he saw a ghost, so of course we took care he did see one."

"Oh, you did, did you?" said Lord Yalding in rather an odd voice. "I'm very much obliged, I'm sure."

"Don't mention it," said Jimmy kindly. "I thought you'd be pleased and him too."

"Perhaps you'll be interested to learn," said Lord Yalding, putting his hands in his pockets and staring down at Jimmy, "that Mr. Jefferson D. Conway was so pleased with your ghost that he got me out of bed at six o clock this morning to talk about it."

"Oh, ripping!" said Jimmy. "What did he say?"

"He said, as far as I can remember," said Lord Yalding, still in the same strange voice "he said: "My lord, your ancestral pile is Al. It is, in fact, The Limit. Its luxury is palatial, its grounds are nothing short of Edenesque. No expense has been spared, I should surmise. Your ancestors were whole-hoggers. They have done the thing as it should be done every detail attended to. I like your tapestry, and I like your oak, and I like your secret stairs. But I think your ancestors should have left well enough alone, and stopped at that." So I said they had, as far as I knew, and he shook his head and said:

"No, Sir. Your ancestors take the air of a night with their heads under their arms. A ghost that sighed or glided or rustled I could have stood, and thanked you for it, and considered it in the rent. But a ghost that bullets go through while it stands grinning with a bare neck and its head loose under its own arm and little boys screaming and fainting in their beds no! What I say is, If this is a British hereditary high-toned family ghost, excuse me!" And he went off by the early train.

"I say," the stricken Jimmy remarked, "I am sorry, and I don't think we did faint, really I don't but we thought it would be just what you wanted. And perhaps someone else will take the house."

"I don't know anyone else rich enough," said Lord Yalding. "Mr. Conway came the day before he said he would, or you'd never have got hold of him. And I don't know how you did it, and I don't want to know. It was a rather silly trick."

There was a gloomy pause. The rain beat against the long windows.

"I say" Jimmy looked up at Lord Yalding with the light of a new idea in his round face "I say, if you're hard up, why don't you sell your jewels?"

"I haven't any jewels, you meddlesome young duffer," said Lord Yalding quite crossly; and taking his hands out of his pockets, he began to walk away.

"I mean the ones in the panelled room with the stars in the ceiling," Jimmy insisted, following him.

"There aren't any," said Lord Yalding shortly; "and if this is some more ring-nonsense I advise you to be careful, young man. I've had about as much as I care for."

"It's not ring-nonsense, said Jimmy: "there are shelves and shelves of beautiful family jewels. You can sell them and ,"

"Oh, no!" cried Mademoiselle, appearing like an oleograph of a duchess in the door of the picture-gallery; "don't sell the family jewels "

"There aren't any, my lady," said Lord Yalding, going towards her. "I thought you were never coming."

"Oh, aren't there!" said Mabel, who had followed Mademoiselle. "You just come and see,"

"Let us see what they will to show us," cried Mademoiselle, for Lord Yalding did not move; "it should at least be amusing."

"It is," said Jimmy.

So they went, Mabel and Jimmy leading, while Mademoiselle and Lord Yalding followed, hand in hand.

"It's much safer to walk hand in hand," said Lord Yalding; "with these children at large one never knows what may happen next."

It would be interesting, no doubt, to describe the feelings of Lord Yalding as he followed Mabel and Jimmy through his ancestral halls, but I have no means of knowing at all what he felt. Yet one must suppose that he felt something: bewilderment, perhaps, mixed with a faint wonder, and a desire to pinch himself to see if he were dreaming. Or he may have pondered the rival questions, "Am I mad? Are they mad?" without being at all able to decide which he ought to try to answer, let alone deciding what, in either case, the answer ought to be. You see, the children did seem to believe in the odd stories they told and the wish had come true, and the ghost had appeared. He must have thought but all this is vain; I don't really know what he thought any more than you do.

Nor can I give you any clew to the thoughts and feelings of Mademoiselle. I only know that she was very happy, but anyone would have known that if they had seen her face. Perhaps this is as good a moment as any to explain that when her guardian had put her in a convent so that she should not sacrifice her fortune by marrying a poor lord, her guardian had secured that fortune (to himself) by going off with it to South America. Then, having no money left, Mademoiselle

had to work for it. So she went out as governess, and took the situation she did take because it was near Lord Yalding's home. She wanted to see him, even though she thought he had forsaken her and did not love her any more. And now she had seen him. I dare say she thought about some of these things as she went along through his house, her hand held in his. But of course I can't be sure.

Jimmy's thoughts, of course, I can read like any old book. He thought, "Now he'll have to believe me." That Lord Yalding should believe him had become, quite unreasonably, the most important thing in the world to Jimmy. He wished that Gerald and Kathleen were there to share his triumph, but they were helping Mabel's aunt to cover the grand furniture up, and so were out of what followed. Not that they missed much, for when Mabel proudly said, "Now you'll see, and the others came close round her in the little panelled room, there was a pause, and then nothing happened at all!

"There's a secret spring here somewhere," said Mabel, fumbling with fingers that had suddenly grown hot and damp.

"Where?" said Lord Yalding.

"Here," said Mabel impatiently, "only I can't find it."

And she couldn't. She found the spring of the secret panel under the window all right, but that seemed to everyone dull compared with the jewels that everyone had pictured and two at least had seen. But the spring that made the oak panelling slide away and displayed jewels plainly to any eye worth a king's ransom this could not be found. More, it was simply not there. There could be no doubt of that. Every inch of the panelling was felt by careful fingers. The earnest protests of Mabel and Jimmy died away presently in a silence made painful by the hotness of one's ears, the discomfort of not liking to meet anyone's eyes, and the resentful feeling that the spring was not behaving in at all a sportsmanlike way, and that, in a word, this was not cricket.

"You see!" said Lord Yalding severely. "Now you've had your joke, if you call it a joke, and I've had enough of the whole silly business. Give me the ring it's mine, I suppose, since you say you found it somewhere here and don't let's hear another word about all this rubbish of magic and enchantment."

"Gerald's got the ring," said Mabel miserably.

"Then go and fetch him," said Lord Yalding "both of you."

The melancholy pair retired, and Lord Yalding spent the time of their absence in explaining to Mademoiselle how very unimportant jewels were compared with other things.

The four children came back together.

"We've had enough of this ring business," said Lord Yalding. "Give it to me and we'll say no more about it."

"I I can't get it off," said Gerald. "It it always did have a will of its own."

"I'll soon get it off," said Lord Yalding. But he didn't. "We'll try soap," he said firmly. Four out of his five hearers knew just exactly how much use soap would be.

"They won't believe about the jewels," wailed Mabel, suddenly dissolved in tears, "and I can't find the spring. I've felt all over we all have it was just here, and "

Her fingers felt it as she spoke; and as she ceased to speak the carved panels slid away, and the blue velvet shelves laden with jewels were disclosed to the unbelieving eyes of Lord Yalding and the lady who was to be his wife.

"Jove!" said Lord Yalding.

"Misericorde!" said the lady.

"But why now?" gasped Mabel. "Why not before?"

"I expect it's magic," said Gerald. "There's no real spring here, and it couldn't act because the ring wasn't here. You know Phoebus told us the ring was the heart of all the magic."

"Shut it up and take the ring away and see.

They did, and Gerald was (as usual, he himself pointed out) proved to be right. When the ring was away there was no spring; when the ring was in the room there (as Mabel urged) was the spring all right enough.

"So you see," said Mabel to Lord Yalding.

"I see that the spring's very artfully concealed," said that dense peer. "I think it was very clever indeed of you to find it. And if those jewels are real ,"

"Of course they're real," said Mabel indignantly.

"Well, anyway," said Lord Yalding, "thank you all very much. I think it's clearing up. I'll send the wagonette home with you after lunch. And if you don't mind, I'll have the ring."

Half an hour of soap and water produced no effect whatever, except to make the finger of Gerald very red and very sore. Then Lord Yalding said something very impatient indeed, and then Gerald suddenly became angry and said: "Well, I'm sure I wish it would come off," and of course instantly, "slick as butter" , as he later pointed out, off it came.

"Thank you," said Lord Yalding.

"And I believe now he thinks I kept it on on purpose," said Gerald afterwards when, at ease on the leads at home, they talked the whole thing out over a tin of preserved pineapple and a bottle of ginger-beer apiece. "There's no pleasing some people. He wasn't in such a fiery hurry to order that wagonette after he found that Mademoiselle meant to go when we did. But I liked him better when he was a humble bailiff. Take him for all in all, he does not look as if we should like him again.

"He doesn't know what's the matter with him," said Kathleen, leaning back against the tiled roof) "it's really the magic it's like sickening with measles."

Don't you remember how cross Mabel was at first about the invisibleness?"

"Rather!" said Jimmy.

"It's partly that," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "and partly it's the being in love. It always makes people like idiots a chap at school told me. His sister was like that . quite rotten, you know. And she used to be quite a decent sort before she was engaged."

At tea and at supper Mademoiselle was radiant as attractive as a lady on a Christmas card, as merry as a marmoset, and as kind as you would always be yourself if you could take the trouble. At breakfast, an equal radiance, kindness, attraction, merriment. Then Lord Yalding came to see her. The meeting took place in the drawing-room; the children with deep discreetness remained shut in the school-room till Gerald, going up to his room for a pencil, surprised Eliza with her ear glued to the drawing-room key-hole.

After that Gerald sat on the top stair with a book.

He could not hear any of the conversation in the drawing-room, but he could command a view of the door, and in this way be certain that no one else heard any of it. Thus it was that when the drawing-room door opened Gerald was in a position to see Lord Yalding come out. "Our young hero, as he said later, "coughed with infinite tact to show that he was there," but Lord Yalding did not seem to notice. He walked in a blind sort of way to the hat-stand, fumbled clumsily with the umbrellas and macintoshes, found his straw hat and looked at it gloomily, crammed it on his head and went out, banging the door behind him in the most reckless way.

He left the drawing-room door open, and Gerald, though he had purposely put himself in a position where one could hear nothing from the drawing-room when the door was shut, could hear something quite plainly now that the door was open. That something, he noticed with deep distress and disgust, was the sound of sobs and sniffs. Mademoiselle was quite certainly crying.

"Jimminy!" he remarked to himself, "they haven't lost much time. Fancy their beginning to quarrel already! I hope I'll never have to be anybody's lover."

But this was no time to brood on the terrors of his own future. Eliza might at any time occur. She would not for a moment hesitate to go through that open door, and push herself into the very secret sacred heart of Mademoiselle's grief. It seemed to Gerald better that he should be the one to do this. So he went softly down the worn green Dutch carpet of the stairs and into the drawing-room, shutting the door softly and securely behind him.

"It is all over," Mademoiselle was saying, her face buried in the beady arum-lilies on a red ground worked for a cushion cover by a former pupil: "he will not marry me!"

Do not ask me how Gerald had gained the lady's confidence. He had, as I think I said almost at the beginning, very pretty ways with grown-ups, when he chose. Anyway, he was holding her hand, almost as affectionately as if she had been his mother with a headache, and saying "Don't!" and "Don't cry!" and "It'll be all right, you see if it isn't" in the most comforting way you can imagine, varying the treatment with gentle thumps on the back and entreaties to her to tell him all about it.

This wasn't mere curiosity, as you might think. The entreaties were prompted by Gerald's growing certainty that whatever was the matter was somehow the fault of that ring. And in this Gerald was ("once more, as he told himself) right.

The tale, as told by Mademoiselle, was certainly an unusual one. Lord Yalding, last night after dinner, had walked in the park "to think of "

"Yes, I know," said Gerald; "and he had the ring on. And he saw "

"He saw the monuments become alive," sobbed Mademoiselle; "his brain was troubled by the ridiculous accounts of fairies that you tell him. He sees Apollon and Aphrodite alive on their marble. He remembers him of your story. He wish himself a statue. Then he becomes mad imagines to himself that your story of the island is true, plunges in the lake, swims among the beasts of the Ark of Noe, feeds with gods on an island. At dawn the madness become less. He think the Pantheon vanish. But him, no he thinks himself statue, hiding from gardeners in his garden till nine less a quarter. Then he thinks to wish himself no more a statue and perceives that he is flesh and blood. A bad dream, but he has lost the head with the tales you tell. He say it is no dream but he is fool mad how you say? And a mad man must not marry. There is no hope. I am at despair! And the life is vain!"

"There is," said Gerald earnestly. "I assure you there is hope, I mean. And life's as right as rain really. And there's nothing to despair about. He's not mad, and it's not a dream. It's magic. It really and truly is."

"The magic exists not," Mademoiselle moaned; "it is that he is mad. It is the joy to re-see me after so many days. Oh, la-la-la-la-la!"

"Did he talk to the gods?" Gerald asked gently.

"It is there the most mad of all his ideas. He say that Mercure give him rendezvous at some temple tomorrow when the moon raise herself."

"Right," cried Gerald, "righto! Dear nice, kind, pretty Mademoiselle Rapunzel, don't be a silly little duffer" he lost himself for a moment among the consoling endearments he was accustomed to offer to Kathleen in moments of grief and emotion, but hastily added: "I mean, do not be a lady who weeps causelessly. Tomorrow he will go to that temple. I will go. Thou shalt go he will go. We will go you will go let 'em all go! And, you see, it's going to be absolutely all right. He'll see he isn't mad, and you'll understand all about everything. Take my handkerchief, it's quite a clean one as it happens; I haven't even unfolded it. Oh! do stop crying, there's a dear, darling, long-lost lover."

This flood of eloquence was not without effect. She took his handkerchief, sobbed, half smiled, dabbed at her eyes, and said: "Oh, naughty! Is it some trick you play him, like the ghost?"

"I can't explain," said Gerald, "but I give you my word of honour you know what an Englishman's word of honour is, don't you? even if you are French that everything is going to be exactly what you wish. I've never told you a lie. Believe me!"

"It is curious," said she, drying her eyes, "but I do." And once again, so suddenly that he could not have resisted, she kissed him. I think, however, that in this her hour of sorrow he would have thought it mean to resist.

"It pleases her and it doesn't hurt me much," would have been his thought.

And now it is near moonrise. The French governess, half-doubting, half-hoping, but wholly longing to be near Lord Yalding even if he be as mad as a March hare, and the four children they have collected Mabel by an urgent letter-card posted the day before are going over the dewy grass. The moon has not yet risen, but her light is in the sky mixed with the pink and purple of the sunset. The west is heavy with ink-clouds and rich colour, but the east, where the moon rises, is clear as a rock-pool.

They go across the lawn and through the beech wood and come at last, through a tangle of underwood and bramble, to a little level tableland that rises out of the flat hill-top one tableland out of another. Here is the ring of vast rugged stones, one pierced with a curious round hole, worn smooth at its edges. In the middle of the circle is a great flat stone, alone, desolate, full of meaning a stone that is covered thick with the memory of old faiths and creeds long since forgotten. Something dark moves in the circle. The French girl breaks from the children, goes to it, clings to its arm. It is Lord Yalding, and he is telling her to go.

"Never of the life!" she cries. "If you are mad I am mad too, for I believe the tale these children tell. And I am here to be with thee and see with thee whatever the rising moon shall show us."

The children, holding hands by the flat stone, more moved by the magic in the girl's voice than by any magic of enchanted rings, listen, trying not to listen.

"Are you not afraid?" Lord Yalding is saying.

"Afraid? With you?" she laughs. He put his arm round her. The children hear her sigh.

"Are you afraid," he says, "my darling?"

Gerald goes across the wide turf ring expressly to say: "You can't be afraid if you are wearing the ring. And I'm sorry, but we can hear every word you say."

She laughs again. "It makes nothing," she says "you know already if we love each other."

Then he puts the ring on her finger, and they stand together. The white of his flannel coat sleeve marks no line on the white of her dress; they stand as though cut out of one block of marble.

Then a faint greyness touches the top of that round hole, creeps up the side. Then the hole is a disc of light a moonbeam strikes straight through it across the grey green of the circle that the stones mark, and as the moon rises the moonbeam slants downward. The children have drawn back till they stand close to the lovers. The moonbeam slants more and more; now it touches the far end of the stone, now it draws nearer and nearer to the middle of it, now at last it touches the very heart and centre of that central stone. And then it is as though a spring were touched, a fountain of light released. Everything changes or, rather, everything is revealed. There are no more secrets. The plan of the world seems plain, like an easy sum that one writes in big figures on a child's slate. One wonders how one can ever have wondered about anything. Space is not; every place that one has seen or dreamed of is here. Time is not; into this instant is crowded all that one has ever done or dreamed of doing. It is a moment and it is eternity. It is the centre of the universe and it is the universe itself. The eternal light rests on and illuminates the eternal heart of things.

None of the six human beings who saw that moon-rising were ever able to think about it as having anything to do with time. Only for one instant could that moon-ray have rested full on the centre of that stone.

And yet there was time for many happenings.

From that height one could see far out over the quiet park and sleeping gardens, and through the grey green of them shapes moved, approaching.

The great beasts came first: strange forms that were when the world was new gigantic lizards with wings dragons they lived as in men's memories mammoths, strange vast birds, they crawled up the hill and ranged themselves outside the circle. Then, not from the garden but from very far away, came the stone gods of Egypt and Assyria bull-bodied, bird-winged, hawk-headed, cat-headed, all in stone, and all alive and alert; strange, grotesque figures from the towers of cathedrals figures of angels with folded wings, figures of beasts with wings wide spread; sphinxes; uncouth idols from Southern palm-fringed islands; and, last of all, the beautiful marble shapes of the gods and goddesses who had held their festival on the lake-island, and bidden Lord Yalding and the children to this meeting.

Not a word was spoken. Each stone shape came gladly and quietly into the circle of light and understanding, as children, tired with a long ramble, creep quietly through the open door into the firelit welcome of home.

The children had thought to ask many questions. And it had been promised that the questions should be answered. Yet now no one spoke a word, because all had come into the circle of the real magic where all things are understood without speech.

Afterwards none of them could ever remember at all what had happened. But they never forgot that they had been somewhere where everything was easy and beautiful. And people who can remember even that much are never quite the same again. And when they came to talk of it next day they found that to each some little part of that night's great enlightenment was left.

All the stone creatures drew closer round the stone the light where the moonbeam struck it seemed to break away in spray such as water makes when it falls from a height. All the crowd was bathed in whiteness. A deep hush lay over the vast assembly.

Then a wave of intention swept over the mighty crowd. All the faces, bird, beast, Greek statue, Babylonian monster, human child and human lover, turned upward, the radiant light illumined them and one word broke from all.

"The light!" they cried, and the sound of their voice was like the sound of a great wave; "the light! the light "

And then the light was not any more, and, soft as floating thistle-down, sleep was laid on the eyes of all but the immortals.

The grass was chill and dewy and the clouds had veiled the moon. The lovers and the children were standing together, all clinging close, not for fear, but for love.

"I want," said the French girl softly, "to go to the cave on the island."

Very quietly through the gentle brooding night they went down to the boat-house, loosed the clanking chain, and dipped oars among the drowned stars and lilies. They came to the island, and found the steps.

"I brought candles," said Gerald, "in case."

So, lighted by Gerald's candles, they went down into the Hall of Psyche! and there glowed the light spread from her statue, and all was as the children had seen it before.

It is the Hall of Granted Wishes.

"The ring," said Lord Yalding.

"The ring," said his lover, "is the magic ring given long ago to a mortal, and it is what you say it is. It was given to your ancestor by a lady of my house that he might build her a garden and a house like her own palace and garden in her own land. So that this place is built partly by his love and partly by that magic. She never lived to see it; that was the price of the magic."

It must have been English that she spoke, for otherwise how could the children have understood her? Yet the words were not like Mademoiselle's way of speaking.

"Except from children," her voice went on, "the ring exacts a payment. You paid for me, when I came by your wish, by this terror of madness that you have since known. Only one wish is free."

"And that wish is ,"

"The last," she said. "Shall I wish?"

"Yes wish," they said, all of them.

"I wish, then," said Lord Yalding's lover, "that all the magic this ring has wrought may be undone, and that the ring itself may be no more and no less than a charm to bind thee and me together for evermore."

She ceased. And as she ceased the enchanted light died away, the windows of granted wishes went out, like magic-lantern pictures. Gerald's candle faintly lighted a rudely arched cave, and where Psyche's statue had been was a stone with something carved on it.

Gerald held the light low.

"It is her grave," the girl said.

Next day no one could remember anything at all exactly. But a good many things were changed. There was no ring but the plain gold ring that Mademoiselle found clasped in her hand when she woke in her own bed in the morning. More than half the jewels in the panelled room were gone, and those that remained had no panelling to cover them; they just lay bare on the velvet-covered shelves. There was no passage at the back of the Temple of Flora. Quite a lot of the secret passages and hidden rooms had disappeared. And there were not nearly so many statues in the garden as everyone had supposed. And large pieces of the castle were missing and had to be replaced at great expense.

From which we may conclude that Lord Yalding's ancestor had used the ring a good deal to help him in his building.

However, the jewels that were left were quite enough to pay for everything.

The suddenness with which all the ring-magic was undone was such a shock to everyone concerned that they now almost doubt that any magic ever happened.

But it is certain that Lord Yalding married the French governess and that a plain gold ring was used in the ceremony, and this, if you come to think of it, could be no other than the magic ring, turned, by that last wish, into a charm to keep him and his wife together for ever.

Also, if all this story is nonsense and a make-up if Gerald and Jimmy and Kathleen and Mabel have merely imposed on my trusting nature by a pack of unlikely inventions, how do you account for the paragraph which appeared in the evening papers the day after the magic of the moon-rising?

"Mysterious Disappearance Of A Well-Known City Man,"

it said, and then went on to say how a gentleman, well known and much respected in financial circles, had vanished, leaving no trace.

"Mr. U. W. Ugli," the papers continued, "had remained late, working at his office as was his occasional habit. The office door was found locked, and on its being broken open the clothes of the unfortunate gentleman were found in a heap on the floor, together with an umbrella, a walking stick, a golf club, and, curiously enough, a feather brush, such as housemaids use for dusting. Of his body, however, there was no trace. The police are stated to have a clew."

If they have, they have kept it to themselves. But I do not think they can have a clew, because, of course, that respected gentleman was the Ugly-Wugly who became real when, in search of a really good hotel, he got into the Hall of Granted Wishes. And if none of this story ever happened, how is it that those four children are such friends with Lord and Lady Yalding, and stay at The Towers almost every holidays?

It is all very well for all of them to pretend that the whole of this story is my own invention: facts are facts, and you can't explain them away.

<eob>

Adventure Of A Kite

By

Mrs. Harriet Myrtle



One evening, when Mary, her mamma, and Willie had all taken their seats near the window, and the story was about to begin, Mary reminded her mamma of a merry adventure that she had mentioned as having happened when she and her brother and Master White went out to fly their "new Kite."

"Do, mamma, tell us about that," said Mary.

Her mamma said she would, and after thinking for a few minutes, to recollect all about it, she began.

One fine, breezy morning in October, Master White came suddenly to our house, with his eyes looking so bright, and his cheeks so red from running in the fresh air, and quite out of breath besides.

"What is the matter, James?" we all cried out. "What a red face you've got!"

"Have I?" said he; "my nose is so cold! I ran here as fast as I could, there is such a beautiful breeze for a Kite. Come, both of you, and let us fly the Kite high up in the blue sky; come as many of you as can, and this day you shall see what a Kite can do!"

Up we all jumped, the Kite was brought down, and away we all started into the meadows, running nearly all the way, and James White never ceasing to talk of the wonderful things he intended the Kite should this day perform.

We arrived in a large, grassy meadow, sloping down to a low hedge. Beyond the hedge was a very large field, and beyond that field another large field, which had some high trees at the farthest end. In the tops of these trees was a rookery; we knew these trees very well, because we often used to walk that way, partly because it was a nice walk, and partly because an old woman, whom we were all very fond of, kept an apple and gingerbread-nut stall under the largest tree. However, as I said before, these trees were a long way off-two whole fields off-more, two whole fields and all the meadow. At the top of the meadow, near where we stood, there was also a high tree, and at the foot of this we laid down the Kite.

"O, James," said my brother, "do you think we shall be able to make the Kite fly as high as the tree we are under?"

"As high!" said James White, "six times as high, at the very least."

He now carefully unfolded the tail from the body of the Kite, being very particular to undo all the tangles near the tassel, which made quite a bunch; but he brought it out perfectly. One end of the ball of twine was now attached to the body of the Kite. He then raised it up with the right hand, holding out the tail in three great festoons with the left, and in this way walked to and fro very uprightly and with a stately air, and turning his head in various quarters, to observe the direction of the wind. Suddenly he dropped the tail upon the ground, and lifting up the Kite with his right hand in the air, as high as he possibly could, off he ran down the meadow slope as fast as his legs could carry him, shouting all the way, "Up, up, up! rise, rise, rise! fly, Kite, in the air!" He finished by throwing the Kite up, continuing to run with the string in his hand, allowing it to slip through his fingers as the Kite rose. The breeze caught the Kite, and up it went in fine style. It continued to rise rapidly, and we ran to and fro underneath, shouting all the time, "O, well done, James White, and well done, Kite!"

By the excellent management of James, the Kite rose and rose, till we all said, "O, how high! how wonderful!" And then James White said he was satisfied.

Now you are all to recollect that this Kite was very large. In the story I told you in summer, where the making of this Kite was described, you remember that it was said to be as tall as James White himself, and of course very much broader. The consequence was, that this Kite was extremely strong. So we all sat down on the grass to hold the string, which James White said was necessary, as the Kite struggled and pulled so hard. It was now up quite as high as the string would allow it to go. But the wind seemed to be increasing, and James White said he began to be rather afraid that he must draw the Kite downwards, for fear it should have a quarrel with the wind up in the clouds, and then some accident might happen. We accordingly began to draw down the Kite slowly, winding the string upon the stick as it gradually descended. But notwithstanding all this care, an accident did happen after all.

Before the Kite was half-way down, a strong wind suddenly caught it sideways, and the Kite made a long sweep downwards, like a swallow, rising up again at some distance, swinging its tail about in a most alarming manner. "Bless my heart!" said James White.

Up we all jumped from the grass. "Help me to hold her!" cried James White; "how she struggles!" Again came the wind, again the Kite made a sweep down and rose up again, as if indignant-then shook her tail and wings as if threatening to do some mischief-then made a quick motion to the right and a dance to the left-then made a very graceful courtesy deep down, as though she was very politely saluting the wind, but suddenly rose up with a sharp jerk, as though she had spitefully altered her mind-and the next moment made a dart first to the right and then to the left, and continued to do this till James White said he was sure something must happen.

We all held the string as fast as we could, and tried to pull down the Kite; but it was impossible, for instead of bringing her down, we were all three dragged along down the meadow slope, crying out, "Somebody come and help us! somebody come and help us!" But nobody else was near. In this manner the Kite was pulling us along, the string cutting our hands, and running through our fingers like fire, till at last I was obliged to let go, and being unable to get out of the way, was knocked down, and being also unable to roll myself out of the way, my brother fell over me. James White was thus left alone with the Kite, and was dragged struggling and hallooing down the meadow slope.

He was determined, however, not to let go; nothing could make him loose the string; he was determined not to be conquered; but before he had got to the bottom of the slope, the string of the Kite broke about half-way down, and up sprang the Kite again towards the sky, taking its course over the meadow towards the great field beyond. We all three followed of course, as fast as we could, staring up, and panting, and not knowing what to do. The Kite continued to fly in rather an irregular manner over the first great field. It then made a pitch downwards, and several tosses upwards, and flew straight over the second great field, in the direction of the high trees. "O, those trees!" cried James White, "it is flying towards the trees!"

He was right, the Kite did fly directly towards the trees, as James White said it would. Just as it arrived nearly over those trees, it made a great pitch downwards, right into the top of the largest tree, and completely knocked over one of the rooks' nests that was built there. We came running up as soon as we could, and then we saw that it was the very tree, at the foot of which was the stall of our dear old woman, who sold apples and gingerbread-nuts.

"Make haste!" cried she;-"the Kite is safe among the boughs; I can see its long tail hanging down. But do look here! the Kite has made us a present of five young rooks; two are fluttering among the golden pippins, and three are hopping and gaping among the gingerbread-nuts."

James White scarcely looked at the rooks; he said he had more important business to attend to. He took off his jacket, and immediately began to climb up the tree. In less than twenty minutes he succeeded in bringing down the Kite, with only two small rents in its left shoulder, and the loss of one wing, all of which he said he could easily repair.

We took the five young rooks home with us, and had great amusement in rearing and feeding them, and as soon as they were old enough, we took them out into their native fields, and let them fly directly under the tree where they were born.


An Autumn Flood.

"I am going," said Mary's mamma, on another evening, to tell you a story about Scotland, and about some children who went there by sea, in a large steam-ship.

Their names were Charlotte, Helen, and Robert, and they went with their papa and mamma to visit their uncle and aunt. They went in August, when the weather is fine, and the days are long. They left home in the evening, for the steamer was to start at ten o'clock at night. There was a great bustle when they came to the place where the ships lie in the river Thames. Many people were getting their trunks and boxes in, and hurrying about. They liked to see all this bustle, and to see their own trunks and boxes put in. Then they stepped on board, across a wide, firm plank, and jumped for joy to find themselves really in the ship, and going to Scotland.

It was such a large steamer! They were surprised to see what a length it was. Then they went into a handsome cabin, called the saloon, beautifully lighted, with a great many people in it; and after being there a little while they grew very tired, and their mamma took them to the cabin where they were to sleep. When they saw their beds, they all began to laugh. They looked just like beds made on shelves, one above another. Two were on one side and two on the other, of a kind of closet. But they soon crept in, Charlotte and Helen one above another, and little Robert opposite. The fourth bed was for their nurse, who was going with them. They were all soon asleep. They never knew when the steamer began to go fast down the river towards the sea.

In the morning when they awoke, first one and then another heard a constant "thump, thump! bump, bump!" going on. This noise was made by the great engine that turned the paddle-wheels, and moved the ship on. And they felt the ship shaking, and trembling, and rocking, and then they were surprised to hear that they were already out of the river Thames, and had got into the salt sea. They were in a great hurry to be dressed, and when they ran up on the deck they saw the land on one side of them, and numbers of ships all round them, with their white sails shining in the sun, for it was a very fine morning. They tried to count them, but it was very difficult; Charlotte counted a hundred, and Helen a hundred and ten. As to little Robert, he was too delighted to keep steady enough to count, and after trying once or twice, declared that there must be a thousand.

Very soon they were called to breakfast in the saloon, and sat by their papa and mamma very happily; but they ran away before they had finished, to see a town called Yarmouth, by which they passed so closely that they could see the houses, and bathing machines, and people. All the morning they had plenty to look at. They met other steamers, and fishing-boats, and ships, and saw different places on the coast. But before dinner-time they had lost sight of land, and saw nothing all round them but sea, and did not meet so many ships and boats. Their papa then took them to see the engine, and the great fires down in the engine-room, and made them look at the paddle-wheels, that go foaming round and round. Then came dinner-time, and they were very hungry; and afterwards they amused themselves with running about on the deck and reading story books. Soon after tea they went to bed and fell fast asleep.

Next morning they were glad to see the coast again. They were passing high cliffs and dark rocks, and they saw many sea-birds; gulls, with large flapping wings, that gave a strange, wild cry; and divers-pretty little creatures, that swam, riding along on the waves, and every now and then dipped down quite under, and then came up again at a little distance. On went the great steam-ship, and soon their papa told them that the land they now saw was Scotland.

Presently they came to some very fine rocks, higher than any they had seen, and then they passed some rocky islands. Now they began to see a great many large white birds flying about, stretching out their long necks, and their papa told them that these were called Solan geese, and that they had their nests on a great rock, standing out in the sea, called the Bass Rock. They soon came in sight of it, and when they passed near it they could see that its sides were all white with hundreds of these geese that were sitting there, and great numbers were flying in the air over it and round it. When they were able to leave off looking at all this, they saw on the top of the high cliff opposite to the Bass Rock a large ruined castle, called Tantallon Castle, which they thought very beautiful.

"Do you remember reading about the Black Douglas in 'Tales of a Grandfather'?" asked their papa.

"O, yes," said first one, and then another.

"Well, that was his castle," he replied.

Illustration



They looked at Tantallon Castle for a long time, as long as it was in sight. Charlotte said it was a great pity it was so ruined, and Robert wished he could see where the drawbridge used to be.

Now there began to be a great bustle in the ship, for they were getting near Edinburgh, where they were to land. At last Edinburgh was in sight. It is the capital city of Scotland, just as London is of England, and it is very beautiful. They saw it quite plain from the sea, with hills behind it and on each side of it, of many forms; some bare and rocky, others clothed with trees. When they came quite opposite to it, a gun was fired in the ship. It made such a noise that everybody started, and some of the ladies screamed. Charlotte and Helen did not like it; but Robert did very much indeed. Very soon afterwards they came up to a fine pier, stretching out into the sea, and there they all landed.

"So now they were in Scotland," said Willie.

They found their uncle's carriage waiting for them, and it took them to his house in the country, about fifteen miles off.

Well, at this place they were very happy. There was plenty of green grass to play about upon, and there were large, spreading trees, and sheep, and cows, and horses, and ponies; and there was a nice garden, with plenty of fruit and flowers. But what I am going to tell you most about is a little river that ran along just outside the garden wall; because this little river was the cause of a curious adventure, that happened in the month of September, after they had been several weeks in this pleasant place.

This river was narrow, and rather deep in some places; but in others it was broader, and very shallow. It was so shallow in dry weather that you could cross it without wetting your feet, by choosing some part where there were large stones standing up, and where there was not much water. But then you must go steadily. Charlotte could do it very easily; Helen generally stopped short, after she had placed her foot on the second stone, and turned back; but as to Robert, he jumped from stone to stone, and a day hardly ever passed that he did not go souse into the water, and get quite wet half up his legs. The proper way to cross was by a long plank, laid from one bank to the other, or by a little wooden bridge not far off.

You would hardly think that such a little gentle river as this could suddenly swell into a foaming flood, and do all manner of mischief. But so it was.

This river rose, or began to flow, among a range of hills at some miles distance; and when you are older, you will understand how it is that rivers that rise among hills or mountains are apt to overflow when there is much rain. It happened one day, when all the family, except the children, had gone out on a visit, that it rained from morning till night, and when night came it still rained heavily. In the morning, when nurse went to dress the children, she told them to look out of the window. Their surprise was great to see the little stream, that they were used to step across, changed into a wide, rapid, foaming river. It made such a sound that they could hear it quite plain in their bed-room. It no longer looked clear and blue, but was thick, muddy, and of the color of red clay. They did not like to see it so; and what was worse it still rained, and the water rose more and more. The plank across it had been carried away in the night by the water, and had gone swimming down the stream. Before they had done breakfast, they heard that the wooden bridge was broken down; and now, when they looked out, they saw that the water had spread half over the meadow on the opposite side. The trees were standing in it, and looked as if they grew in a lake. The cows were all collected on a high bank, among some trees, and were lowing and appearing quite angry and offended at this strange conduct in the river. The sheep had gone as far as they could out to the very hedge, to keep on dry ground. The ponies had found a high part of the field, that had water all round it, so that it looked like a green island, and were feeding quite contentedly. Now and then they looked up, and shook their manes, as much as to say, "You can't get at us. It's of no use to want a ride."

At last it stopped raining, and the children were well wrapped up, and put on good thick shoes, and went out to look at all this nearer. On their way they met the gardener running down to try to save his stack of pea-sticks; but he was too late, it was already swimming away; all his fine stack, that he had piled up ready for spring; and he had had so many more important things to take care of that he had not had time to remove it sooner.

Many things now came floating down on the water. Young trees, branches, parts of railings and fences, broken bridges and planks, all went hurrying along, and the water foamed, and roared, and surged, and looked quite fearful.

While they all stood looking on, the gardener still lamenting over his pea-sticks, they saw something that looked like a large covered basket come floating along. It chanced that it passed very near the bank on which they stood, and little Robert cried out, "Stop it!" and began to try to reach it with a long pole he had in his hands, with which he had been pretending to be a ship, and holding this up for the mast. He could not reach it; but the gardener took the pole, and after failing once or twice, managed to push and poke at the basket till he got it so near that the dairy-maid and nurse reached it with their hands, and pulled it to the bank. It was only covered with a few arched sticks, over which a white cloth was fastened.

They all crowded round it to see what it contained. They lifted up the white cloth. O, wonder and surprise! What did they see?

"What was it? What did they see?" cried Mary and Willie both at once.

They saw a pretty little baby fast asleep, and at its feet a cat coiled up comfortably.

"And was the baby not hurt, mamma?"

No, it was quite safe, and did not awake directly. Puss awoke and jumped out, and ran off before any one could stop her.



Illustration

The gardener said, that the basket, which they now saw to be a cradle, must have floated away from some cottage in the village just above. "Some poor woman is perhaps now in great grief about her child," said he.

"But we've got it safe," said Charlotte. "We'll take great care of it, and give it back to her. Let us take it into a warm room."

As she said this the baby opened its eyes and began to cry. Nurse lifted it up and tried to quiet it, and they all went in with it, the children kissing its poor little red arms, and saying all sorts of soothing things to it. When they got into the house, nurse asked for some warm whey with a little sugar in it. She said that was the best thing for such a little baby; and it sucked it in, and seemed to like it, and soon began to smile, and crow, and kick about its feet, and throw about its arms. The children were quite delighted at this; and now being happy about the baby they began to think of poor puss; and Robert and Helen went out to look for her. They found her just outside the house door, mewing and making a great fuss. Helen ran away and got a saucer full of milk, and put it down in the lobby. At this, puss began to walk slowly in, and then ran up to it and lapped it all up; and then she let Helen take her up, and carry her into the room where the baby was.

While they were all engaged in this way, they heard sounds of voices shouting and calling out near the river, and ran to the window to see what it was. They saw far out, on the other side of the water, near the edge of the meadow, five or six men and a woman, and the gardener was making signs and calling out to them.

"O!" said nurse, "you may be sure that is the poor mother of the baby."

"Let us run out and hold up the baby, to show her it is safe!" cried Charlotte. "Come quick! O, how happy she will be!"

Nurse wrapped up the baby in a warm shawl, and out they went. Helen carried the cat, and little Robert came bustling after them with the cradle, shouting as loud as he could, "They're all safe! here they are! look here!"

When the gardener saw them coming, he ran and caught up little Charlotte in his arms, and nurse gave her the baby, and she held it up as high as she could. The poor woman, who was indeed the mother, saw it directly, and seemed hardly able to bear so much joy, for her husband who was by her, threw his arm round her as if to prevent her falling down. She clasped her hands together-then held them out towards her child-then raised them upwards.

Mary and Willie could not sit still any longer, they both jumped up, and began to clap their hands and dance for joy.

"Did she come to the house to bring away her baby?" asked Mary.

Yes; she walked about two miles off, to a part of the river where there was a stone bridge; it was impossible to get across nearer, so she came in about an hour.

"But did she see that puss was there?" said Willie.

O, yes; I forgot to tell you that after she had a little recovered of the first joy of seeing her child safe, nurse held up Helen with puss in her arms, and Robert climbed up on the stump of a tree, and held up the cradle as high as he could.

"And then what did they do when the mother came?" said Mary.

She kissed her baby, and cried over it, and held it a long time in her arms; and her husband, who came also, told them that the flood had risen so suddenly that it had carried away part of the wall of their cottage, and swept away everything they had, while he and his wife were trying to save their stack of wood; and that when they turned round, at the sound of the rushing water, they found that the cradle was gone; and then they forgot every thing else, and ran with several of their neighbors by the side of the river; but never hoped to find their child alive.

"But it was alive, and safe, and well," said Mary, "with these kind little girls and little Robert."

And when their uncle and aunt came home they were very kind to the father and mother. They had their cottage built up again and furnished, and gave them help in putting their garden in order, and there always continued to be kind feeling between them. As to the baby, it grew up to be a fine strong boy, and its parents named it Robert, in memory of the little boy who had helped to save it from the water.



The Little Milk-maid.

There was once a little Milk-maid, who lived at a farm-house. Her name was Sally. On the summer mornings she used to be up and dressed at five o'clock. Then she took her bright milk-pail on her head, and her three-legged stool in her hand, and called her little dog Trusty, and tripped over the dewy grass to the stile that led to the field where the cows fed. The wild thyme gave out a sweet scent as she walked along; and the green leaves glistened in the sun, for the dew was still on them; and the lark flew up high, and his song came pouring down over her head. When she got to the stile, she saw all the four cows quite at the other side of the field. One was called Dapple, one Brindle, one Frisky, and one Maggie. They saw her get over the stile, but never stirred a step towards her. Dapple looked up for a moment, and then began eating again; Brindle did not seem to mind her; Maggie was lying down, and did not move; and Frisky lashed her tail and shook her head, and went on eating.

"O, this will never do!" said Sally. "Trusty, Trusty! go and bring me Dapple."

Dapple was brown all over, except a white face and tail. Trusty ran behind Dapple, and barked two or three times, just to tell her to move on. And she began to walk slowly and gravely towards Sally. Then Sally put down her little three-legged stool, and sat down by Dapple and milked her. When she had done, she gave her a pat, and said, "Now you may go." Then Dapple began to eat again.

"Now, Trusty," said Sally, "go and bring me Brindle." Brindle was all white. Trusty ran up to her, and she began to walk on; but when she had got to the middle of the field, she stopped to eat, and Trusty was obliged to bark pretty sharply, and tell her it was shameful of her. Then she went on and was milked.

Sally next sent Trusty to bring Frisky. She was brown and white, prettily spotted; but she was sometimes quite naughty when she was milked, and this time she seemed to mean to be so; for, as soon as Trusty got up to her, she set off and galloped up to Sally. Then, just as Sally began to milk her, she walked on, and left her and her stool behind, and very nearly knocked the pail over besides. So Sally had to get up, and move stool and pail onwards, and then she said, "Stand still, Frisky," and stroked and patted her. So she stood still, and was very good.

"Now, Trusty, bring pretty Maggie," said Sally. Maggie was black and white, and very gentle and pretty. She came directly, and stood quite still, and was milked. Then they were all done.

Sally now lifted the pail, which was quite full, on her head, and carried it so firmly and steadily, that she had not to put her hand up to it, not even when she got over the stile, and in this way she walked along back to the farm.

Then she went into the cool, fresh dairy, and Trusty lay down at the door. The dairy had a stone shelf all round it, with shallow round pans ranged along it, all filled with sweet, rich milk, covered with thick, yellow cream. Here she took down her pail; and first she filled a large jug with the new milk for breakfast. She then poured all the rest into two or three pans, like the others on the shelf. Next, she took a flat wooden spoon, and skimmed the cream off several of the others, and poured it all into a square wooden machine, called a churn. It had a handle which turned round. She threw in some salt, and then began to turn the handle round and round, and it turned a wheel inside, and the wheel beat and splashed the cream round and round in the churn. Presently she looked in, and said, "It's not come yet." Then she turned the handle round again for some time. At last, when she looked in, there was a large lump of fine fresh butter, and all about it a thin white liquid, called butter-milk, and all the cream was gone. She took out the butter, and put it into a bowl of cold spring water, and made it up into three large rolls with two flat wooden knives. Next she cut off three or four slices, made them up into nice little rounds, and pressed them with a wooden stamp, with a rose-bud and leaves cut out upon it, and when she took it off, there were the rose-bud and leaves marked on the butter.

Then Sally poured all the butter-milk, and all the milk from which she had skimmed the cream, into a clean wooden pail, and stirred in some barley meal, and carried it off to the pig-sty. She stood outside the paling of the pigs' little yard, and called, "Pig-pig-pig!" and out came the pigs from their sty, little and big, grunting and squeaking and scrambling, and tumbling over one another. Then she poured all her pailful into the pigs' trough, and then they began squeaking and grunting and scrambling more than ever, and put their long noses in, some of them up to their eyes, and some got their feet in, and all of them gobbled it up as fast as they possibly could.

After Sally had fed the pigs, she took out some corn, and went to the poultry yard, and called, "Chuck-chuck-chuck!" and then the cocks and hens, and ducks and geese, came running round her, crowing and clucking, and quacking, and cackling, and the pigeons flew down and helped to eat, and all of them pecked up the corn, as fast as they could. In the afternoon they had boiled potatoes and sopped bread and vegetables, and curd, too, if Sally had been making whey.

When Sally had done all this, she went back into her room, and opened the bed curtains; and there was lying a little rosy-cheeked girl with light curly hair. And when Sally looked at her, she opened two large blue eyes, and held out her arms, and Sally kissed her, and said, "Are you ready to get up, little Annie?" And she said, "Yes." This was Sally's little sister, that her kind mistress let her have with her to love and take care of.

Then Sally took up little Annie, and got a large brown pan for her bath, and stood her in it, and brought a jug of fresh cold water to pour over her.

Little Annie stood very still, but when the water was coming, she held up her hands and said, "Will it be cold?"

"O, no!" said Sally; "it's a beautiful warm morning." Then she washed and dressed little Annie, and afterwards they had their breakfast together in a nice comfortable kitchen. Sally had a good appetite after having been so busy, and little Annie had a large basin of boiled bread and milk, and she always gave some to Trusty. This was the end of the little Milk-maid's morning work.

<eob>

Adventures In Australia

By

William Henry Giles Kingston



Chapter One.

Some years ago two travellers, mounted on wiry yet strong looking steeds, were wending their way through a forest in Australia.  They were both young and dressed much alike in broad-brimmed pith hats, loose red shirts, corduroy trousers and high boots with spurs.

Each of them had stuck in his belt an axe, a brace of pistols, and a long knife; while at his back was slung a serviceable-looking rifle, showing that they were prepared to defend themselves, should they encounter any treacherous blacks, a very possible contingency at that period of the country's history.

They were followed by an active native also mounted, who led a horse carrying their baggage.  The scenery was not especially attractive, indeed so great was its sameness that alone they would have been utterly unable to find their way.  On either side rose tall stringy-bark and other gum-trees, their curious and narrow leaves affording scarcely any shelter from the rays of the almost vertical sun, the huge white stems from which the bark hung down in ragged masses giving them a weird and dreary aspect.  Tracks there were, but they branched now in one direction now in the other, and were more calculated to bewilder the travellers than to guide them aright.  Their map -- for being new arrivals in the country they carried one -- told them that they should soon reach a broad stream.  They were now looking out eagerly for it, wondering whether they should have to wade through it or should find a ferry-boat ready to take them and their animals across.

I may as well say -- having thus begun, after the fashion of a writer whose pure and wholesome works I used heartily to enjoy in my boyhood days -- that one of the travellers was myself, Maurice Thurston, and the other my brother Guy, a year only my senior.  We had lately lost our father, with whose sanction we had settled some time before to come out to Australia and seek our fortunes.  We, our mother, our two sisters, and another brother, had been left with a very limited income; and Guy and I, wishing to push our own fortunes and establish a home for the rest of the family, agreed that no time should be lost in carrying our plan into execution.  As soon therefore as our mother's affairs had been settled, we set sail from England, and, about two weeks before the day I am describing, arrived in Australia.  We had not come entirely on a wild-goose chase.  A cousin of our father's, Mr Oliver Strong, had long been settled in the country, and had replied to an application made to him some time before by our father, saying that he should be happy to receive us and put us in the way of doing well for ourselves, if we were sober, steady, strong, active, willing fellows with heads on our shoulders and without any "fine gentleman" notions.

We were now making our way toward his station, some hundred miles in the interior.  Though we had not ridden far from our camping place, the intense heat of the sun made us feel very thirsty, and sympathise with our horses which must have been equally so; thus we were anxious as soon as possible to reach the river, where we hoped to find an abundance of water.

From our black guide we could not obtain much information; for, although we were well assured that he spoke English when we engaged him, we found that it was of a character which would take us some time to learn. However he understood us better than we did him, though we had to put questions in all sorts of ways and repeat them over and over again.  We then had to puzzle out his replies, not always arriving at a satisfactory conclusion.

Guy frequently stood up in his stirrups and looked ahead, hoping to catch the sheen of water.  At last we began to have some uncomfortable suspicions that, although our black attendant professed to know the way, he had managed to lose it -- a circumstance not at all unlikely to occur --  and that we were wandering far out of our proper course.  Though the sun was of some assistance, yet we might be going too much to the north or too much to the west, and might pass a long way off from the station which we wished to reach.  All we could do therefore was to exert our wits, and, should we have got out of the direct path, to try and find it.  At length the foliage before us became somewhat thicker, but no sign of water did we see.  We were riding on when a loud cry reached our ears.

"There's some one in distress!"  I exclaimed.

"I fear that you are right, we must find out," answered Guy.

We were urging on our horses, when a peal of mocking laughter seemed to come from the wood close to us.

"What can that be?"  I asked; "some natives who want to frighten us, or an unfortunate maniac."

The shout of laughter was repeated.

"Him one jackass!" observed our guide, Toby.

"Jackass!  What can the fellow mean?" cried Guy.

Then looking up we discovered a large bird not far off who was evidently uttering the extraordinary sound we heard.  It was, as Toby told us, a laughing-jackass, or a gigantic kingfisher.  So ridiculous were the sounds that we could not help laughing too.

Presently a number of cockatoos, rising with loud screams just before us, flew over the trees to pitch again not far off.  As we were watching them we found ourselves at the top of a bank, some thirty or forty feet in height.  Below it, to the right and left, stretched a sandy bottom scarcely less than half a mile in breadth, and on the opposite side rose another bank.  Below the one on which we stood was a stream of water, flowing sluggishly along, scarcely twelve feet wide, and so shallow that we could see the bottom.

"Can this be the river we were to come to?"  I exclaimed, examining the map.

"No doubt about it," answered my brother; "perhaps sometimes this broad bed of sand is covered, and if we had found it so, we should have had considerable difficulty in crossing; so it is as well as it is, here is water enough for ourselves and our weary beasts."  We accordingly agreed to stop and dine.  Having watered our horses, we hobbled them and turned them at liberty under some trees where grass was growing; then unslinging our guns, we went in search of the cockatoos we had seen.  I killed one, and Guy a parrot; but the report of our guns frightened away the birds, which were more wary than usual, and we had to return satisfied with this scanty supply of food.  On reaching the spot we had selected for our camp, close to the water where our black boy was waiting for us, we found that he had during our absence made a fire, at which we cooked the birds, Toby devouring the larger portion.

We would gladly have eaten some fruit, however sour it might have been, but none was to be found.  We had just finished masticating the tough parrot, when we caught sight of two natives scampering along as if they were mad, so it seemed to us, for they had their eyes fixed in the air and appeared regardless of all impediments in their way.  We shouted to them, but not hearing us, on they went, now leaping over the fallen trunk of a tree, now rushing through a bush, now tumbling into a hole, still keeping their eyes fixed on the object which engaged their attention.  We asked Toby what they were about.

"Dey huntee bee.  Soon catchee!" he answered.  The reply was intelligible enough, but why they should hunt a bee puzzled us.  They however stopped, while yet in sight, under a large tree, the stem of which they began to climb.  Hoping, as was really the case, that they were going to rob the hive of its honey, we followed them.  As we approached we could see their dusky forms among the lower branches, with vast numbers of bees flying about them, whose presence they seemed almost to disregard.

The two natives were so busily employed that they did not at first perceive us; but when they came down, they regarded us with much astonishment, and we were afraid that they would turn tail and run off, without giving us the honey which it was our object to obtain.  We therefore made all the friendly signs we could think of, and I having fortunately a gaily printed cotton handkerchief in my pocket, presented it to them, signifying at the same time that we wished some of the honey in return.

Our quiet manner quickly disarmed their suspicions, and returning with us, they poured out as much honey as our two tin pots could contain.

I may as well describe the mode of finding the honey the bee-hunters adopt.  On perceiving a bee sucking the juice from flowers, he hurries to the nearest pool and selects a spot where the banks shelve gradually. He then lying on his face fills his mouth with water, and patiently awaits the arrival of the bee: as the insect requires moisture, he knows that ere long it will come and drink.  The moment it approaches him he blows the water from his mouth over it, thus slightly stunning it. Before it has recovered, he seizes it and by means of some gum fastens to its legs a tuft of white down, which he has obtained from the neighbouring trees.  The insect flies in a straight line towards its nest, while the white down serving to impede the progress, enables the hunter to keep it in view, till it reaches its home.

We ate the honey with a small supply of biscuit, and found it far more satisfactory food than the tough parrots had proved.

Having taken a last drink and filled up our waterbottles, we parted on friendly terms with the natives; when, saddling our horses, we continued our journey.

"There is little chance of our reaching another river with more water in it than the last, to camp by," observed my brother; "I see none marked down on the maps for leagues ahead."

We passed through the same sort of scenery as before, with the same dreary views on either side, so that we might have fancied that we had already crossed the country a dozen times.

We at length came to the bed of a stream, no longer however containing water, though I doubt not that we should have obtained it by digging beneath the surface.

The appearance of the bee-hunters had warned us that there were natives about, and we had been cautioned against trusting them.  We heard that they had at different times murdered a number of unfortunate hut-keepers and shepherds up the country, so that we were inclined to form very unfavourable opinions of the aborigines.  Toby, to be sure, was faithful enough, but then he was semi-civilised.  We now asked him if he thought that there were many natives in the neighbourhood to whom the bee-hunters belonged.

He shook his head -- "May be!" he said; "bad mans, keep out of him way."

This advice we were ready enough to adopt, and we had no fear, should we meet them on the open ground, of keeping them at bay; but we wished especially to avoid being caught asleep, either at night or resting during the noon-day heat.

We had, at this time, literally no experience about Australia.  We had read a few books, to be sure, but Mr Strong had not described the country, and only advised our father to send us out without incumbrances of any description -- a small stock of serviceable clothes, a few books and a box of pills apiece.  We followed out his injunctions almost to the letter, adding only some well-made tools, a fowling-piece each, and a supply of ammunition, to which we added on our arrival a few necessaries for travelling in the bush.

Thus we found that one animal could carry all our worldly possessions, a few odd articles for immediate use being packed in our saddle-bags.  We were now, as the day was wearing on, looking out for a convenient place to camp.  We tried to make Toby understand that we wished for one in which we could not easily be surprised by natives, or if surprised, where we could defend ourselves with some hope of success.

The nature of the ground had changed since the morning, and we now entered a rocky and wild-looking district.

Here we should have no difficulty, we thought, in selecting a spot for our camp.  We were looking about, when we spied in the distance what appeared to be the figure of a man standing against a tree.  My brother instantly rode forward and I following him saw a person who, to all appearance, though in bush costume, was a gentleman, bound with his hands behind his back, and secured firmly to a tree.  He was deadly pale and seemed so much exhausted that he did not even speak to us as we approached.

To leap from our horses and release him without asking questions, was the work of a minute.  Having put him on his feet and waited until he had somewhat recovered, we inquired how he had been placed in the position in which we had found him.

"Some rascally bushrangers surprised, and `stuck me up,'" he answered. "I had just dismounted, when three of them, who had been lying in ambush, suddenly sprang on me, and before I could draw my revolver, knocked me down.

"I fully believed that they intended to murder me, but they contented themselves with carrying off my horse and arms and ammunition and everything I had about me; having lashed me to this tree, and then galloped away, leaving me to the chance of dying of thirst and starvation, or being gnawed to death by the dingoes.  Had you not come up, such might have been my fate; and, believe me, I am deeply grateful to you for rescuing me from it."

We had been aware of the possibility that we might meet with natives, but had not thought of the likelihood of encountering bushrangers, indeed we fancied that the country was no longer infested by such characters.

We, of course, having assured the stranger that we were very glad to have been of use to him, invited him to accompany us until he could obtain another horse, and offered to let him ride one of ours by turns.

"I should like however to try and catch the fellows who robbed you;" exclaimed Guy.  "Is there any chance of overtaking them?  Surely they will encamp not far from this, and if we follow their tracks we might come upon them as suddenly as they surprised you."

"Very little chance of that," observed the stranger.  "They are desperate fellows, and, knowing that every man's hand is against them, keep a strict watch.  They are aware that it is possible that I might be released, and will probably ere this have got a good many miles away, I am, however, grateful to you for your offer, though I am sorry to delay you.  I confess that, without a gun or flint and steel, I should be very sorry to perform the rest of the journey on foot by myself.  I am going to the north-west, and I judge, from the direction you were riding, that our roads lie the same way."

Guy told him that we were bound for Mr Strong's station, which we understood was nearly a hundred miles off; and at the rate we could travel with our baggage-horse, we did not expect to reach it for three or four days.

Observing how ill the stranger looked I suggested that we should at once look out a good spot for camping.

"I can help you, as I know the country," said the stranger.  "A short distance further on there is a water-hole in what during the rainy season is sometimes a torrent; we can there obtain all the requisites for a camp."

I now insisted that he should mount my horse, and we set out.

Pushing forward, we soon reached the spot he spoke of.  Our new companion, after examining the ground, told us that the bushrangers had been there, and after watering their horses had ridden on, as he supposed they would, and that we need have no apprehensions of an attack from them.

We soon hobbled the horses in the usual fashion, fastening their legs together with leathern straps in such a way as to make it impossible for them to move beyond a slow walk, so that if they were inclined to stray they could not go far.

Toby quickly lighted a fire, while the stranger by our advice rested near it.  Guy and I taking our guns went out in different directions in search of game, which is usually to be found near a water-hole in Australia.  We soon came back, Guy with a brace of pigeons and I with three parrots, so that we had ample food for all hands.  As we had damper and tea, we enjoyed a satisfactory meal which greatly revived our new friend.  While we were seated round the fire -- Toby watching the horses -- the stranger inquired if we were related to Mr Strong.  This led us to give him a brief sketch of our history.

"May I ask your name?" he said.  "Mine is Norman Bracewell."

"And ours is Thurston," said my brother.  "What!  Guy Thurston?" exclaimed Bracewell, leaning forward and grasping Guy's hand; "I thought from the first that I knew your features.  We were at school together. `Little Guy' we used to call you, and you haven't forgotten me?"

"No indeed!" said Guy warmly, "you always stood my friend when the big fellows tried to bully me, and I have a perfect recollection of your countenance.  I have often wished to know what had become of you, but could only hear that you had gone abroad."

"I thought of writing to let you know, in case you should ever come out to Australia; but I fancied that that was so unlikely and the chances of meeting you so small that I did not carry out my intention.  You must stop at my hut.  The longer you stay the better.  We will have many a talk about old times and I think I can put you up to all sorts of information which will be useful to you in the country.  To tell you the truth, I doubt if you will find your cousin, Mr Strong, as I heard that he had gone northwards to occupy a new station, some hundreds of miles off, and if so you will probably find no one to give you a welcome at his house except some old hut-keeper."

On hearing this, Guy and I gladly agreed to stop a few days with Bracewell until we could obtain some definite information as to the movements of our cousin.

We told him of our meeting with the two bee-hunters.

"This proves that there are some natives in the neighbourhood.  They may be honest, but they may also be ill-disposed, as are many of the blacks in this region.  I advise that we keep a strict watch at night, and I offer to stand guard part of the time," observed Bracewell.

We agreed to keep a watch, but after the trying time he had gone through we thought that he ought to have a quiet night's rest so as to be the better able to continue his journey the next morning.

Toby had put up a rough hut of boughs, which would afford two of us at a time sufficient shelter from the night air.  Of rain there was no fear. Toby erected a hut for himself with a few boughs stuck upright in the ground, which formed all the protection he required.

I undertook to keep the first watch, and I promised my brother that I would call him when I could no longer remain with my eyes open.  From past experience we knew that it would not do to trust Toby, who would be very certain to be down as soon as he found that our eyes were off him. Guy and Bracewell were quickly asleep and I commenced walking to and fro, keeping a look-out on every side and sometimes stopping to throw a few sticks on the fire.  I could see the horses safely feeding hear at hand, and so perfect was the silence which reigned around that I could not fancy that there was any real necessity for keeping awake.  Still, as I had undertaken to do so, I should not have felt justified in lying down.  I should probably have let the fire out, and the smoke from that was at all events useful to keep mosquitoes and sandflies somewhat at bay.  Should the fire go out it was no more than possible that a pack of dingoes might creep up, and while we were in darkness drive the horses away, or carry off our saddle-bags, or tear our saddles and sleeping-rugs to pieces.  I persevered therefore, stopping every now and then to amuse myself by looking up at the star-lighted sky and trying to make out the various constellations, conspicuous among which was the brilliant cross of the southern hemisphere.  Except the occasional croak of a frog, the cry of a night bird, or the chirp of a cricket, not a sound had reached my ears; when suddenly, as I was watching the moon rising above the rocks on one side of the camp, the most unearthly shrieks and yells rent the air.  Guy, awakening, started to his feet.

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed.  "I dreamed that savages were upon us, and expected the next moment to have a spear through me."

"I haven't seen any savages, but those sounds seem scarcely human, I wonder Bracewell hasn't been awakened by them.  We must rouse up Toby and learn what he thinks they are."

The fearful noise still continued.  We stood with our arms ready expecting every moment to see a herd of savages rush in upon us, for that the sounds were produced by natives we could have no doubt.  We quickly made Toby spring to his feet.

"What's all that noise about?" asked Guy.

"He-he-he, ho-ho-ho! dat corroborree," answered Toby who did not appear, as we expected would be the case, at all astonished at the uproar.

Bracewell at length awoke and confirmed what Toby had said, that the savages were indulging in one of their native dances.

"I should like to go and see it," I exclaimed; "can we do so without risk of being discovered?"

Taking Toby to guide us, while Bracewell remained in camp, we set out. We were scarcely prepared for the strange and weird sight which we saw as we looked over some low bushes we had just reached.  Before us was an open glade, beyond which the moon was rising brightly.  In the centre of the glade burned a fire.  Seated on the ground were a number of figures rattling sticks together.  Suddenly there burst forth out of the darkness a score of skeleton-like figures who threw themselves into every possible attitude, now stretching out their legs, now springing up and clapping their hands, and all the time shrieking, laughing and singing, and following a big black fellow who acted as fugleman and stood on one side with stick in hand to direct the proceedings.

Not for a moment did they cease, though every now and then we might have fancied that they had disappeared had we not distinguished their black backs turned towards us.  We watched until we grew weary of the sight, but the dancers appeared in no way tired; and as we saw no chance of their giving in, we retreated to our own camp, pretty well tired out and assured that they would not molest us during the night.



Chapter Two.

The night passed as Bracewell had predicted, without a visit from the natives; and as he assured us that they were not at all likely to attack four armed men in the day-time, we, being anxious to become better acquainted with them, agreed before setting off to pay a visit to their camp.  They were sure indeed to find ours out; so that it would be as well to show that we had no fear of them, and to gain their friendship. On examining the birds we had cooked the previous evening we found they had been nearly devoured by the white ants, a large nest of which we discovered a short distance from the camp.  We had therefore to look out for some fresh provisions.  Bracewell was a much better shot than either of us; and, taking my gun, in a few minutes he killed a small kangaroo which he found as it was about to spring out of the bush where it had spent the night, scarcely a hundred yards from the camp.  Having skinned it in the most scientific fashion, the joints were put on to roast.  We had now an abundance for our noon-day meal; for, as the animal was about four feet long, including the tail which was nearly half its length, it afforded us a good supply of meat.  We should have preferred starting at day-break, but without food we none of us felt inclined to commence our journey.  Toby indeed gave us to understand that he could not think of leaving while so much good meat remained to be eaten.  Having given him as much as we all three consumed, we packed up the remainder in our saddle-bags and then -- I insisting that Bracewell should mount my horse while I walked -- we set off for the native village which we caught sight of a short distance to the north of our camp.  The inhabitants were lying about in front of it, evidently enjoying the otium cum dignitate.  The men mostly stretched on the ground surrounded by their dogs, while the women were squatting outside their leafy bowers.  The huts, if so they can be called, were placed in a semi-circle, and were formed by thick boughs stuck in the ground joining at the top on which other boughs were lightly thrown.  They were scarcely more than four feet in height and might be described rather as screens than huts, as their only object appeared to be to keep off the wind from the inhabitants and the small fires which burnt before them.  On the outside were stuck their spears ready for instant use.  Except some pieces of opossum skin round their loins, the men wore no garments, though several of them had fillets bound round their brows.  Two or three were smoking short clay pipes obtained from shepherds or hut-keepers with whom they had come in contact.  Several of the men started up, and seizing their spears advanced as they saw us approach, but the greater number lay gorged with food on the ground, not apparently noticing us.  Bracewell, who could speak Toby's lingo, told him to say to the black fellows, that we wished to be their friends; that their corroborree had afforded us a good deal of amusement; and that if we could kill a kangaroo we would give it to them to make another feast the next night.

As soon as Toby had translated what had been said, the blacks began chattering away in the most extraordinary fashion.

As they ceased Toby informed us that they were highly pleased with our offer.  They wished to remain friends with the white men, and if we chose to stop with them we should be welcome.  Of course, we had no inclination to do this, but we asked if two or three of them would accompany us to carry home any game we might kill.  They however declined the invitation, saying that they were well filled already, of which fact their distended condition was sufficient evidence.

"Well then, as we cannot turn back, you will have to go without a kangaroo, even though we may shoot one," said Bracewell, and telling Toby to wish them a friendly farewell we rode on.

As I was very active and had been accustomed to running at school, I easily kept up with the horses.  At length however, as the sun grew hotter, I should have been glad enough to remount.  Bracewell, observing that I was becoming fatigued, insisted on getting off his horse, but of this I would not hear.  He however dismounted, when Guy made him get on again and put me on his own horse.  Before long, however, my brother was nearly knocked up, and seeing this I proposed that he should remount, and that I should ride Toby's horse.  Toby made a wry face, for, although better able to run than any of us, he considered that it was more dignified to ride.

As we rode along we kept a look-out for kangaroos, as we should have been glad to kill one for ourselves, although our black friends were not likely to benefit by it.

We had gone some way when we caught sight of a dark object appearing just above a thick mass of leaves some two hundred yards away.  Standing up in my stirrups I saw that it was the head of a kangaroo who was engaged in pulling off the foliage.  I called to Bracewell and my brother, hoping that if we could get nearer before the creature moved away, we might shoot it.

Throwing the halter of the baggage-horse, which I had been leading, to Toby, I rode towards the spot, unslinging my rifle and as I did so ramming down a ball.  The creature was more wide-awake than I had supposed.  I had just got near enough to fire, when it broke from its cover in fine style and, after taking a few jumps to see in what direction to go, it started forward over the open ground without apparent effort.

"That's a large boomer, an old one!" shouted Bracewell, "he'll give us a long run.  If we had dogs we should soon however catch him."

In the excitement of the chase, forgetting that we ran great risk of knocking up our horses, away we started.  Although the animal had only two legs to run on and had an enormous tail to carry, which does not, I really believe, help it, though it serves to balance itself in its upright position, so far did it get ahead of us that it was useless firing.  I had scarcely noticed the direction it was taking, but on looking round I found that it was leading us back to the spot from which we had come.  How far it had got I cannot say, when four or five black fellows started up with spears in their hands uttering loud shouts and shrieks.  The boomer saw that it had no chance of escape in that direction, being perhaps better acquainted with its black enemies than with the strange creatures on four legs which had been pursuing it.  It therefore stopped and gave us time to approach before it bounded round and made off to the right.  I had thrown myself from my horse, for I had no notion at that time of firing from my saddle.  I took a steady aim and pulled the trigger.  My bullet must have hit it on the hinder leg, for it slackened its pace.  In the meantime Bracewell and Guy dashed forward.  The creature, instead of continuing its flight, again stopped, and facing the horsemen as they approached struck out with one of its hinder claws, and had not Bracewell suddenly turned his steed, so furiously did it strike that he would have been severely wounded. Turning round however he dealt it so heavy a blow on the head with his riding-whip that it staggered, and Guy firing brought it to the ground. The natives, whom we recognised as our friends of the morning, now came up and claimed the prize.  Bracewell gave them to understand that we must first cut out as many steaks as we required.  When this was done we handed the body over to them.  They appeared highly delighted and especially struck by the moderate quantity we claimed.  We had now to turn back to where we had left Toby in charge of the baggage animal.  I had some secret apprehensions that, if not honest, he might bolt with our traps and be received with open arms as a wealthy man among some of his countrymen.  I was not aware at the time that he belonged to a tribe regarded as hereditary enemies by the people inhabiting the country we were travelling through, and that he was as likely to lose his life at their hands as any white man would be.  We looked about in all directions and at length, to our no small satisfaction, espied him still standing by the horses and wondering what had become of us.  We had lost considerable time by our hunting, though we had obtained a good dinner, and of course had been delayed also by one of the party having to proceed on foot.

While we were seated round our camp-fire Bracewell said -- 

"I scarcely like to make the proposal I am about to do, and yet perhaps you will not object.  If you will consent to remain in camp here and allow me to take one of your horses, I will ride forward and bring a couple of fresh ones from my station.  Should you not do this I must insist on walking, though I shall of necessity delay you.  I confess also, that I am anxious to give notice that the bushrangers are abroad, or they may be visiting my hut or some of my neighbours, and carry off arms and ammunition, which is chiefly what they come after, for they don't find much else than food in the shepherds' huts."

"Pray do as you think best," said Guy, "I am sure Maurice will agree with me that we should not at all mind remaining stationary for a few hours, nor will our other horses, which require rest."

I thought the plan a good one, and before the day had actually broken, Bracewell mounted my horse and away he rode at a rate which assured us that we should not be long alone.  As Toby had plenty of food, he did not grumble at the delay, but sat himself down contentedly at the fire which he promised to keep alight, while we took our guns and went to shoot some birds or a kangaroo if we could see one.

The great drawback to a traveller in a hot country is the impossibility of preserving fresh meat, which exposed to the sun quickly becomes uneatable.  What we killed one day was therefore unfit for food the next, and we had each morning to shoot some more game, or content ourselves with damper and tea.

We had already become pretty skilful in baking damper, which consists simply of flour and water, kneaded on a board, and baked in the form of a large biscuit under the ashes.

We saw several kangaroos, but they bounded away before we could get near enough to shoot them, and had to content ourselves as before with a couple of parrots and as many pigeons, which was an ample supply, for although the over-high kangaroo meat did not suit our palates, Toby had no objection to it.

We had been shooting for some time, and were making our way back to camp, when we caught sight in the distance of three horsemen, their heads and those of their steeds, occasionally appearing above the brushwood.  They appeared to be coming towards us.

At first we thought that they must be Bracewell and two companions; but as we could make out no led horses, and they were not approaching from the direction he would appear, we concluded that they must be strangers.

"What if they should be bushrangers?" said Guy.  "If they catch Toby alone they are certain to carry off our baggage and horses, and will probably shoot him to prevent him giving information."

"The sooner we get back to camp the better," I answered.

We hurried on, keeping ourselves concealed as much as possible.  "It would be prudent to load our guns with ball," said Guy; "the fellows won't know that we suspect them, and may think that they can stick us up with perfect ease."

Fortunately our horses were close to the camp, and as soon as we reached it we sent Toby to bring them in, not telling him that we suspected the character of the strangers.  As they approached we anxiously examined their appearance, which was certainly not in their favour.  They were savage-looking fellows with long beards, their unkempt hair hanging over their shoulders.  They pulled up suddenly when they saw us standing with our backs to a couple of large trees, our baggage and saddles piled on the ground, and Toby holding our horses.

"What is your pleasure, friends?" asked Guy.  The fellows examined us without answering.

"You look as if you'd know us again should we come across you," said Guy.  "Just take my advice.  Ride on and leave us to cook our dinner."

"Who are you, young chaps, and where are you going?" inquired one of the horsemen, who from his appearance we concluded was the leader of the party.

"We are going our own way and are not inclined to give that information to those who have no authority to ask it," replied Guy in a firm voice.

"Did you fall in with a young fellow who had been stuck up by bushrangers?" inquired the man.

The question convinced us that we were not mistaken as to the character of our visitors.

"I have just told you that we are not going to answer any questions from those who have no right to put them," said Guy.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the man, making a movement as if he was about to unsling his gun.

"If you do that, I'll fire," shouted Guy.  "Our rifles are loaded with ball; now ride on, we do not wish to take your lives, but we have no intention of being stuck up."

During this conversation I was looking at the other two fellows, who had not spoken but seemed to be waiting until their chief gave a sign to them to act.  As my eye ranged over the countenance of one of them, it struck me forcibly that I had seen the man before, but when or where, I could not recollect.  He was evidently very young, for while the faces of the others were covered with hair, he had but a small moustache on his lips, but exposure to the hot sun had so tanned his complexion, that had he been an intimate friend I might have failed to recognise him.  He looked at me and then at my brother, whose attention was occupied by the older bushranger and did not notice him as I was doing.

"Oh, oh, oh!" exclaimed the man, after the warning Guy had given him; and, without saying another word, he and his companions turned their horses' heads and rode away in the direction from whence they had come. Probably they had been attracted by the smoke of our fire, and expected to find some travellers unprepared for them; so we should have been had we not fallen in with Bracewell, and should certainly have lost our baggage and horses, and perhaps our lives.

"We have had a narrow escape, for there is no doubt about those fellows being bushrangers," I observed to Guy.

"Not the slightest," replied my brother.  "I felt that there was only one way to deal with them.  Had we shown the slightest hesitation or nervousness, they would have attempted to frighten us into submission."

"Did you notice the countenance of one of the others?"  I asked.  "I could not help fancying that I knew it well.  If it were not so very improbable, I should say that it was that of a fellow I remember at school when I first went there.  I wish that you had observed him, for as you must have known him better than I did, you would have been more sure about the matter."

"What, do you mean the youngest of the three?" asked Guy.  "The fact is I did note him.  It struck me that he was wonderfully like a fellow I always stood clear of, though he especially tried to make friends with me.  If you remember the name of the person you think he was, tell me, and I shall better be able to judge whether I am right."

"I am nearly certain then that it was Cyril Vinson."

"You are right," answered Guy.  "He was a clever fellow without a particle of principle; and I remember hearing it reported some time after he left school, that he had committed forgery, and that, although he was not convicted, his friends had sent him out of the country."

We talked over the matter, and agreed that it was very strange we should so soon after our arrival in the country have fallen in, under such extraordinary circumstances, with two old school-fellows.

The day passed by without another visit, either from the bushrangers or the blacks.  As may be supposed, we kept a remarkably bright look-out during the night.  Either Guy or I remained awake, walking up and down in the neighbourhood of our camp-fire.  Directly the bells on the necks of our horses sounded faint, we sent out Toby to drive them in, that we might run as little risk as possible of their being carried off.

Bracewell had told us that sometimes natives stole up and speared the horses at night, or tried to drive them away from the camp, though they might not venture to attack their owners.  We had chiefly therefore to fear a trick of this sort being played us, but it was almost impossible to guard against the horses being surprised during the darkness, should they be at any distance from the camp.

As those we had fallen in with appeared to be friendly, we hoped that we should escape so unpleasant a loss.

As the next day passed on we looked at our watches, anxiously expecting Bracewell.  With the chance of another visit from the bushrangers, we did not like to go far from the camp; but we shot as many birds as we wanted, though Toby would have been happier had we brought him a kangaroo, that he might gorge himself to his heart's content.

As I had been awake so much during the night, I felt very sleepy, and had thrown myself on the ground to get some rest, when I heard Guy say -- 

"Here come a couple of horsemen, but whether they are Bracewell and a companion, or the bushrangers returning, I cannot say.  At all events we must be prepared for them."

I sprang to my feet, and Toby was sent to bring in the horses.  Our apprehensions of another visit from the bushrangers were soon set at rest when we recognised Bracewell, who was followed by another man leading a spare horse.

"I am sorry to have kept you so long," he exclaimed, as he threw himself from his steed.  "Our horses had strayed, frightened by the blacks, who have killed one of them.  If we come across the fellows they must look out for broken heads in consequence.  However, Bob and I succeeded in catching three, and then lost no time in coming to you."

When we told him of the visit we had received from the bushrangers, he exclaimed: -- 

"We must run those fellows down.  It is too bad that we should be unable to ride in security through the country without the risk of being robbed, perhaps murdered, by such villains."

We immediately saddled our horses, packed our traps on our baggage animal, and prepared to go forward under Bracewell's guidance.  Old Bob, his hut-keeper and factotum, dropped behind to drive on the baggage-horse at a greater speed than Toby was inclined to move.  I heard him talking to the black in a lingo which was utterly incomprehensible to me.

Bracewell was much astonished when Guy told him that we had recognised Cyril Vinson among the bushrangers.  We were once more, on account of the slow pace of our baggage-horse, compelled to camp, but as Bracewell wished to get back to his hut that night, he rode forward, leaving old Bob to guide us in the morning.  Old Bob undertook to keep watch, and as he did not look like a man who would go to sleep while so engaged, we were able to rest securely.

It was nearly evening the next day when we caught sight of the huts forming our friend's station.  He came forward to meet us.

"I expected you somewhat sooner," he said.  "As Bob was away, I was engaged in performing one of his duties -- feeding the inhabitants of my farm-yard.  I have a curious lot, which I have caught and tamed at different times.  Here they are, come and have a look at them."

And he led the way to an enclosure with a hut on one side of it.  As he stooped down, ducks and fowls rushed forward to obtain the food he held in his hand, the pigs came grunting up, and several long-legged birds --  storks I believe they were -- stood by waiting for their share, numerous parrots and parroquets were perched on the railings, as tame as the barn-door fowls, while a laughing-jackass looked on complacently from an overhanging bough, every now and then uttering its strange notes.

Bracewell directed Bob to finish feeding the birds, and ushered us into the hut.  It was about thirty feet long and twelve wide, roughly built with a verandah in front, and contained a centre room and one on either side.  The interior was far neater than I had expected from the appearance of the outside, and was furnished with tables and chairs, and several cupboards and some book-shelves; the walls were ornamented with a few pictures and native weapons, while two spare guns and some pistols were against them.  A couple of large Scotch deer hounds of a badger-like colour accompanied their master.  They were intelligent, powerful-looking animals, and were used, he told us, for hunting the kangaroo.  Before a fire in a smaller hut on one side of the main building, two joints of mutton were roasting.

"I can give you but bush fare," said our host, "mutton, damper, and tea; for of wine and spirits I have none, with the exception of a bottle of brandy, which I keep safely locked up for reasons which I will explain to you."

Besides the large hut I have described there were two smaller ones and a shed, which served as a stable and cowhouse.  Near them was an enclosed field and small kitchen-garden, such as is not often seen at an Australian cattle or sheep station.  To the west was a thick wood, which afforded shelter from the winds blowing at times hot and sand-laden from the interior; while in front was a slight dip, at the bottom of which was the bed of a river, but through it a trickling stream alone at present found its way to the eastward.  Here and there appeared groves of acacias, while as far as the eye could reach in every other direction were grassy downs, scattered over which we caught sight of a considerable herd of sheep wending their way homewards.  Altogether, Bracewell's station presented a more civilised aspect than any we had fallen in with on our journey.



Chapter Three.

We spent a pleasant evening with Bracewell, talking over old times and our future prospects.  He gave us a great deal of good advice, by which we hoped to profit.

"I am very glad you have come out, old fellows, for I am sure you will succeed if you stick to work," he observed.  "I have not done badly.  I began with eight head of cattle, and now I have three hundred; and with forty sheep, which have become upwards of two thousand.  I should have had a larger number had I known more of the business when I commenced, but I have lost many by disease and dingoes, and the natives.  You must make up your mind to take the rough and smooth together, and not despair though you happen to get what they call a run of ill-luck -- which in nine cases out of ten arises from a man's carelessness.  I confess that I have sometimes felt my solitude; but yet, with my friends on the shelves up there, and these faithful animals at my feet, I have had no great reason to complain.  I also remember that I should have been much worse off in many respects had I remained at home."

"But what about the blacks and the bushrangers?" asked Guy.

"The blacks have been troublesome at times, but I have hitherto been able to keep them at bay," answered Bracewell; "and with regard to the bushrangers, none have ever paid me a visit.  The fellows who stuck me up the other day were the first I had the misfortune to fall in with.  I wonder if Vinson recognised me; but I think not, or if he did he kept out of sight.  I am grieved to think it was him, as he will certainly, before long, come to an untimely end; for no bushranger ultimately escapes, and most of them run but a very short career: they either get shot or die of starvation and sickness in the bush."

When we talked of continuing our journey the next day, Bracewell would not hear of it.

"Your relative does not expect you," he observed, "and you will pick up more useful knowledge on my station than you will on a more extensive run; besides which I want you to have some hunting with me, to show you this part of the country."

Nothing loth, we agreed to Bracewell's proposal.  It was not until a late hour, for the bush, that we turned into our bunks in one of the side-rooms, which he told us he kept as his guest-chamber.  Bracewell slept in a hammock in the sitting-room, while old Bob occupied the other room.

The first day we spent riding over the run, visiting the cattle and inspecting the sheep.  In the evening Bracewell proposed that we should go into the neighbouring wood in search of opossum, whose skins he wished to obtain to make some rugs, which he said he wanted to sleep on when camping out or to serve as coverlets in cold weather.  His shepherd possessed a couple of small dogs, famous opossum hunters.  The sheep having been penned, their master was requested to accompany us.

The Australian opossum is a long-bodied short-legged little animal, with a furry tail by which he can suspend himself on the branches of trees, while it assists him to make rapid progress among them.  He is fond of hiding himself in the holes of decayed trees, out of which it is no easy matter to smoke him.  Being a nocturnal animal he is more generally captured during the day-time, for the bright light of the sun puzzles him and he knows not in what direction to make his escape.

We soon arrived at a large hole in a gum-tree round which the dogs began barking, leaving us no doubt that several opossums were ensconced within.  Our first care was to collect a quantity of sticks and green leaves; when, a fire being kindled inside the hole, the smoke began to ascend, filling the whole of the cavity, which extended to where the boughs branched off.  The moon having risen, we could see almost as well as in daylight.  Before long, three or four little creatures emerged from the hole and began to make their way upwards.  One, however, almost suffocated by the smoke, fell to the ground; when the dogs, instantly pouncing upon it, would have torn it to pieces had not their master pulled them off.  Guy shot another, and two more were brought to the ground by the sticks which the rest of us hove at them before they had recovered their senses, after having been so unexpectedly smoked out of their nests.

We were equally successful with two other trees, round which the dogs gave tongue, and after an hour's hunting we returned carrying our prizes, which took Bracewell and his shepherd some time to clean.

"Of course opossum hunting is but tame work, I'll allow," exclaimed Bracewell while washing his hands after having cleaned the last of the beasts; "but as you are both good horsemen and have steady nerves we will to-morrow go in chase of some wild cattle which have appeared in the bush not far off.  I should not object to kill a couple of them, as we are in want of fresh meat and I cannot afford to slaughter my sheep. Perhaps on the way we may fall in with a kangaroo, which is sure to give us good sport."

Next morning found us all three galloping along through the open forest. We trusted entirely to Bracewell's guidance, for before we had gone a mile, I confess I should have had a difficulty in finding my way back again.

"We are in luck," cried Bracewell, as in less than half an hour we caught sight of four head of the wild cattle we were in search of.  As we approached they began pawing on the ground, sticking out their tails and looking anything but amiable.

"They will charge if we don't take care," observed Bracewell.  "Shout and crack your whips, that will make them show us their flanks."

We had, I should have said, our guns in readiness, and a brace of pistols in our belts, so that we were well armed for the encounter with a wild bull, who, looking upon human beings and every other animal as enemies, was a dangerous character to engage.

Bracewell had before instructed us how to act under such ordinary circumstances as were likely to occur.  The cracking of our whips, and our loud shouts, at length frightened the three bulls, and instead of running at us they turned tail and off they went.

"Tally-ho!" shouted Bracewell, and we made chase.

Our object was now to overtake them.  Bracewell having got up to a powerful red bull, for a few seconds he and the animal kept time together; then gaining a little and keeping it on his right side he fired, and the superb beast, with a low bellow, crashed headlong to the ground.  Pulling up for a moment he galloped after me, as I dashed on close to another bull I had singled out; but in consequence of a fallen tree which would have compelled me to slacken speed, I had ranged up on the wrong side, so that I could not fire with due effect.  Fearing however that the bull would escape, I took the best aim I could, fired, and wounded it.  The bull, maddened with rage, charged wildly at my horse.

"Spur for your life," shouted Bracewell.  I did so, for I expected every moment to see the bull rip open my steed with his powerful horns, and I knew that if it was gored I might be trampled to death.

The bull came thundering behind me and actually touched my horse, which nearly sent me over its head as it kicked out viciously to defend itself.  Happily Bracewell was close behind, and coming up presented the muzzle of his pistol at the bull's head.  The next moment I was safe. In the meantime Guy had been pursuing a third bull.  I had heard him fire twice.  I now saw the animal rushing on, with head down, about to run at him.  Fortunately a tree was near at hand, round which he managed to guide his horse, when the bull for a moment losing sight of him he was able to take a steady aim: he fired and the monster rolled over.

"Nervous work!" exclaimed Bracewell.  "You fellows have behaved capitally, though I really forgot the danger to which you might be exposed, but I am very thankful that no harm has been done.  We'll now ride back as hard as we can go, and get the cart to bring in the meat before the dingoes or black fellows or the ants have taken possession of it."

We agreed that hunting wild cattle was more exciting sport than galloping after kangaroos, although we fancied that the latter was the finest amusement to be found in Australia.  Not a moment was lost on our arrival at home in getting the cart under way, and Guy and I undertook to accompany it, but Bracewell could not again leave the station during the time that old Bob who drove it, and Toby who went to assist him, were away.  As we approached the scene of action, we caught sight of a number of what at a distance I should have fancied were ordinary dogs --  with sharp muzzles, short, erect ears, and bushy tails -- hovering round the spot.

"They're dingoes!" cried Guy.  "The rascals have already commenced operations on one of the bulls.  We must drive them off or old Bob won't have much meat to carry home."

We dashed at the brutes with our riding-whips, which we brought into active play.  Some well-aimed lashes on their backs made the dingoes turn tail and retreat to a safe distance, where they stood watching the operation of cutting up one of the animals.

While we were assisting Bob and Toby to load the cart with the flesh of the first bullock, the dingoes made a sudden dash at the carcase of the animal on which they had before commenced.

This was more than we could stand.

"If I was you, sir, I'd give them a lesson they'll not forget," cried Bob; and throwing ourselves on our horses, we rode at the savage pack, using the butts of our whips with such good effect that we knocked over upwards of half a dozen before the rest of the pack took to flight.  To prevent their returning, we pursued them as they went off in the direction of the station, when, firing our pistols, we brought down two or three more; but we were soon thrown behind by having to pull up and reload, and the pack, keeping wonderfully well together, again managed to distance us.  Still, excited by the chase, we kept on, the dead dingoes marking the course we had taken.  Our horses, having been somewhat tired by the chase after the wild cattle and the rides to and from the station, did not make as good play as they might otherwise have done.  Neither Guy nor I thought of pulling up, however, while we had the chance of killing more of the brutes.  At last my horse, stumbling, threw me over his head, and I lost the rein; when finding himself at liberty, away he galloped, showing no inclination to be caught.  I shouted to my brother, who had got some distance on; he heard me, and seeing what had occurred went in chase of my steed, which by occasionally doubling and then galloping off again, well-nigh tired out his horse.  I ran here and there hoping to catch the animal, but it took good care to avoid me.  At length however Guy got hold of it, by which time, of course, the pack had escaped.  We now had to consider what road we should take, but when we looked round we found it was a question difficult to decide.

"If we could but come across one of the dead dingoes, we could easily make our way back to where we left old Bob," observed Guy.

We felt sure that the last dingo we had killed could not be far off.

"This is the spot where my horse threw me, and I had just before knocked over a dingo," I said, "I know it by that peculiar-looking gum-tree."

We rode on, expecting to come upon the dead dingo, but though we searched about we could nowhere discover it.  On and on we went, still no dingoes could we see, nor could we distinguish the track made by our horses' feet.  The sky had become overcast, but though we could not see the sun, we knew that it must be near setting.  In a short time the increasing darkness made us feel somewhat uncomfortable about the chance of being benighted.

We cooeyed as loudly as we could in the hope that Bob and Toby would hear our voices, but no answer reached us.  Had we been riding horses belonging to the station, we might have let them select their course and they would probably have taken us in; but we had mounted our own beasts, which could not be depended on.  Still, as long as there was light sufficient to enable us to avoid knocking our heads against the boughs of trees, we rode on, hoping that we might at length reach the station. At last, however, we agreed that we must make up our minds to spend the night in the bush, hungry and thirsty as we felt.  Next morning we thought we should, at all events, easily find our way.  We accordingly dismounted, hobbled our horses, collected materials for a fire, and choosing a spot free from grass we soon kindled a flame, though it rather mocked us as we had nothing to cook at it.  We settled that one should keep watch and look after the horses.  The poor animals were suffering from thirst as much as we were, and were continually moving away to look for water, for without it they showed little inclination to crop the grass.  Had we thought it prudent for both of us to sleep, the night would have appeared to pass by much more quickly than it did.  I was very thankful when at length day broke, and we were saluted by the merry call of the laughing-jackass.  We did not shoot him, but we killed a couple of parrots, which we quickly roasted to satisfy the gnawings of hunger, and then mounting our horses made, as we thought, in the direction of the station.  We felt especially vexed with ourselves for losing our way, and causing Bracewell the anxiety he would naturally feel on our account, though he would guess pretty clearly what had happened from the report old Bob would give him on his return.

We had gone some distance, when we caught sight of a fire and a column of smoke rising, in the morning air.

"Perhaps that is the camp of some people Bracewell has sent out to look for us," said I.

"It may be that of bushrangers," observed Guy.  "It will be prudent, at all events, to approach it cautiously."

Riding on, we caught sight of a black figure with his back towards us, seated before a small fire at which he was apparently engaged in cooking something.  His attention absorbed in his occupation, he did not observe us.  The delicate morsel he was preparing for his meal was, we afterwards discovered, a large snake.  When his ear at length caught the sound of horses' feet, he started up, and seizing the half-roasted snake, scampered off.  Had we not made signs to him that we wished to be friends, he would soon have been out of sight.  Seeing, however, that we did not unsling our rifles, he gained courage and returned to the fire.

We beckoned to him to continue roasting his snake, and then endeavoured to make him understand that we wanted a guide to conduct us to the station.  He seemed determined not to understand our wishes.  However, we waited patiently, hoping that when he had eaten his snake he might be more inclined to act as our guide.  Finding that we had no intention of molesting him, he took things leisurely.  The snake being roasted, he began to stow it away.

"I wonder he doesn't offer us some, though I'm not inclined to eat it," I observed.

"He is a perfect savage, and has no wish to part with his dainty fare," replied Guy.

We thought that the fellow would soon come to an end of the meal, and that then he would pack up the rest of the snake and carry it with him. To our surprise he did not stop until he had swallowed the whole of it, and when we again made signs to him that we wanted him to guide us, he stroked his stomach and signified that he should prefer sleeping by the side of his fire.

Guy at length, losing patience, gave a flourish with his stock whip, when an idea seemed suddenly to strike the black, and getting up he made signs to us to follow him.  We naturally supposed that he intended to lead us to the station, and rode after him without hesitation.  We had not gone far, however, when a cooee reached our ears.  We replied, and presently, looking round in the direction from whence the sound came, we saw Bracewell galloping towards us, followed by Toby.

"I am thankful that I found you sooner than I expected," he said. "Where do you think you were going?"

"To the station," answered Guy.

"You were riding, however, in an opposite direction," said our friend.

"The black we fell in with, undertook to guide us," I remarked.

"The rascal had no intention of taking you to my station.  He would probably have led you into the midst of a gang of his own people who, I have had notice, are encamped in the neighbourhood, and had they found you unprepared they might have speared you for the sake of your horses and clothes.  The fellow you fell in with was probably one of their scouts who had been sent forward to ascertain what we were about. Should they have found us off our guard, they might have robbed the huts and carried off some of our cattle and sheep."

While Bracewell was speaking, I looked round and found that the black fellow had disappeared.  This strongly corroborated the account our friend had given us.

As we were suffering greatly from thirst, we were anxious to get back as soon as possible.  We had, we found, gone at least ten miles out of our way.  Bracewell had, however, with the aid of Toby, traced us.  Though our horses were tired, their eagerness to obtain water made them exert themselves, and they did not take long to cover the ground.  Most thankful we were when we reached the stream close to the station, where we and they could take a good draught of the refreshing fluid.

We then, by our friend's advice -- while old Bob was preparing dinner --  turned into our bunks and managed to get a sound snooze, awaking much refreshed.

Next morning we had completely recovered from the fatigues we had gone through, and we now felt that we ought to continue our journey to Mr Strong's.

"But I don't like you two fellows, with only Toby, to travel through the bush, with a chance of falling in with hostile blacks or those rascally bushrangers, who would only be too glad to stick you up and revenge themselves for your setting me free," said Bracewell.  "I have given notice to the police that the latter gentlemen are abroad, and before long, clever as they may think themselves, they will be run to earth; but the blacks are far more difficult customers to deal with -- they are here, there, and everywhere.  One only knows where they have been when the cattle are found speared, or the hut-keeper murdered, or the sheep driven off.  I should like to accompany you myself, but I cannot at present leave my station.  However, if you will wait for a couple of days longer I will ride part of the way with you, and in the meantime we will try to ascertain the whereabouts of the mob of blacks, and I shall be able to judge whether the road will be safe for you to travel."

The two days passed by pleasantly enough, during which we rode round the station with Bracewell, to assist him in examining his sheep and to help in the various duties of a squatter's life.

Meantime, Toby and another native were sent out to ascertain what had become of the mob of blacks reported to be in the neighbourhood.  They came back saying that, although they had come upon their tracks, the natives had moved away westward, and that we were not likely to fall in with them.  We again, accordingly, told our host that we must go.

"Well, if you must, you must; and according to my promise I intend to ride part of the way with you," he answered.  "I wish however that you could do without your baggage, and we would see how fast we could get over the ground; but as you have to take that, we must be content with a steady pace, and I'll make play on my way back so as to be at home again by night."

As there was a moon in the sky, and Bracewell knew every inch of the ground, we were in our saddles long before day-break, carrying with us our breakfast and kettle in which the tea could easily be made at the camp-fire.

We had performed some ten or twelve miles before sunrise, enjoying the cool fresh air of early morning, and fresh it is even in Australia before the burning sun gains his power over the world.

We camped near a water-hole, from which we obtained all the fluid we required for our morning's meal.  We had again mounted and were going round on the opposite side, when Bracewell exclaimed -- "The blacks have been here.  See, here are the remains of their fire still smouldering. They cannot have left it very long.  We must keep a look-out for them when passing any spot from which they may hurl their lances should they be badly disposed; not that that is likely to be the case, and they certainly will not venture to attack us in the open."

Toby, who had examined the ground, gave it as his opinion that they had gone away to the northwards and that, being probably on a hunting expedition, they would be too intent on attacking their game to annoy us.  Toby was right, and in about half an hour, just as we reached the top of a slight ridge or elevation which had before hidden them from view, we caught sight of several dusky figures, each holding in his hand a throwing-stick with a long spear attached to it.  One of them had fixed to his left arm a shield of boughs which concealed his body as he crept towards a group of kangaroos feeding in the grassy bottom.  As the hunters did not perceive us and we had time, we stood still watching them.

The throwing or throw-stick, is to serve the purpose of a sling for casting the spear.  A heavy flat piece of wood, between two and three feet long, has at one end a slight hollow into which the end of the spear is fitted while at the other is a heavy weight, thus assisting the hunter in the act of throwing the spear.  Except a small fillet of grass the natives wore not a particle of clothing, though there were several scarifications on their bodies; and what sailors call a spritsail-yard run through their nostrils which added to the ferocity of their appearance.

As we wanted to see how they would proceed, we kept as much as possible behind the ridge, and as the wind came from the kangaroos to us, we were not discovered by the animals.  All this time the hunters were creeping forward, concealing themselves among the shrubs and trees until they got near enough to the game to hurl their spears with effect.

One fellow crept forward, holding his shield of boughs, until it seemed to us that he was almost close up to the kangaroos.  Then his spear flew from his throwing-stick with so tremendous a force that the animal was almost pinned to the ground.  Not a spear missed, and almost at the same moment three kangaroos were killed.  Three others hopped away, but were pursued by the nimble-footed hunters, who using their throwing-sticks as clubs, despatched the animals with reiterated blows on the head.

Not until the hunt was over did we show ourselves, when we astonished the savages standing over their slain game.  Fixing their spears in their sticks they threatened to launch them against us should we attempt to deprive them of their prizes.  On seeing this we directed Toby to say that we had no intention of interfering with them.  Whether or not they understood him, however, we could not tell, for they stood without altering their position, and not wishing to have an encounter with them which must have ended in bloodshed, we made a wide circuit beyond the reach of their weapons.  When we looked back we saw them joined by a large number of their fellows who were employed in dragging off the bodies of the kangaroos.

"I am afraid you will be in some danger from them on your return," I observed to Bracewell.

"No fear of that," he answered.  "They will be too busy in gorging themselves with the flesh of the kangaroos; besides they will not be on the look-out for me, and a well-mounted man, provided he doesn't come unexpectedly on a mob, need have no fear of them.  My rifle can carry farther than their throwing-sticks, a fact of which they are well aware."

We soon lost sight of the blacks, and after riding on several miles further, our friend told us that he must bid us farewell, promising, however, to ride over to Mr Strong's station, should he find he could leave home, to see how we were getting on.  "And remember," he added, "I shall be glad if one or both of you can join me, should you not find yourselves comfortable at your relative's; and if he has moved on, as he intended doing, to another station, come back if you think fit at once; though probably, if he expects you, he will have left word that you may be forwarded on to him.  He has, I understand, a large family, but as we have never met I cannot give you a description of them.  I need not warn you to keep as good a watch at night as you have hitherto done, and to avoid either blacks or suspicious looking white men, though I do not mean to say that you are to look upon every traveller you meet with as a bushranger."

We having again thanked Bracewell for his advice and the hospitality he had shown us, he turned his horse's head towards his home, and we proceeded on our journey.



Chapter Four.

We had already, according to our calculation, performed the distance to Mr Strong's station, but no signs of it could we discover.  The heat was oppressive, and seeing a wood on our left, we were assured from the nature of the trees, that either a water-hole or a stream would be found.  We agreed to camp there for a couple of hours to let our horses feed and to take our dinner, hoping then by pushing on that we should before evening at all events arrive at the station.  I had ridden forward to look out for the water, when just as I caught sight of the glitter of a pool, I saw two persons emerge from the shade.  They were white lads with a couple of dogs and had guns in their hands.  So intent were they on some object before them that they did not perceive me.  One of them fired at an opossum which they had, I concluded, driven out of its hole.  The animal fell to the ground, when they dashed forward to save it from being torn to pieces by the dogs.  As they did so, one of them looked up and saw me watching them.

"Hallo!  Where do you come from?" he exclaimed advancing.

"From England," I answered.  "We want to reach Mr Strong's station, and shall be obliged if you will help us to find it."

"That's where we live, so we can take you to it," replied the lad.  "You have, however, come somewhat out of your way, and must have passed it on your right."

I thanked him.  "And who are you?"  I asked.

"We are Mr Strong's sons," he replied.  "We came here to look for some stray cattle which are hid in this scrub, so we shall first have to drive them out, but that won't take us long.  We left our horses hobbled close at hand while we stopped, intending to take our dinner, as we have been out since the morning."

"We were going to do the same," I observed.  "Here comes my brother Guy; if you haven't eaten your dinner you'll join us, won't you?"

"Of course!" he said laughing.  "And I conclude that you are Guy and Maurice Thurston, our cousins we have been expecting out from the old country for some months past.  My name is Hector.  That is my brother Oliver.  I suppose you have heard of us?"

I had to confess that I had not before heard their names, though I did not like to say how little I knew about them.

Guy, Toby, and I, having dismounted and allowed our horses to drink at the pool, hobbled them and let them go away to feed, while we sat down in a shady spot to discuss our provisions.  Our cousins produced damper, cold beef and cheese from their pockets; while Toby placed before us a piece of a kangaroo which we had shot the previous day and some biscuits, while we all contented ourselves with a draught of water from the pool.

The meal was quickly despatched, when our cousins jumped up saying that they must look out for the cattle, and that as soon as we saw the herd rounded up and clear of the scrub, we might follow in the rear.  They advised us to take care should any of them charge us, as they were apt to be vicious, and Toby might have a difficulty in escaping.  "You need not hurry yourselves," they added, "but when you hear the sound of our stock whips, you had better mount and be ready to start."

Guy and I agreed that it was very fortunate we had fallen in with our cousins, who seemed to be wonderfully hardy fellows, and we hoped might prove good companions.

We waited a short time, when we heard, coming from some distance, apparently, the sharp report of the whips, like the sound of crackers. Now the sounds, mingled with a chorus of lowing and bellowing, reached us from one side, now from the other, every moment approaching nearer, so that we agreed that it would be wise to catch our horses and mount. We were quickly in our saddles, when several bulls burst out of the scrub a short distance from us.  We rode forward to get out of their way as they looked very much inclined to charge us.  Presently others appeared in different directions, and then our two young cousins, cracking their long whips, followed, rounding up the cattle in the most scientific manner, and turning several cows which with their calves were evidently intent on bolting back into the scrub.

We soon got excited with the scene, and although our horses were somewhat tired and we had no stock whips, we managed so effectually to turn the cattle with our ordinary riding-whips, that our cousins declared we assisted them very much.  The mob once collected went on steadily until we got them into the paddock, an enclosure half a mile in extent, into which, some bars being removed, most of them eagerly rushed.  A few however tried to bolt, but were sent back by the stock whips, and all were fortunately turned in; some to be used for beef, others for branding, while the cows were wanted for milking.

"Where is the station?"  I asked.  "I can see only this immense paddock."

"There!" answered Hector, pointing to where I caught sight of the roofs of several low buildings.  "We shall soon be there."

We put our horses into a canter, and in a short time arrived before a collection of buildings like Indian bungalows, the centre of which was the dwelling house, which had slab walls and shingled roof, with a pretty verandah in front.

A stout gentleman, a few grey hairs sprinkling his head and large bushy beard, came out to meet us, and on hearing from Hector who we were, welcomed us cordially.

Our cousins took our horses, which they turned into a small paddock containing a shed at one end to afford shelter to the animals.

We then entered the house, where we were introduced to the hostess, a tall lady, somewhat sallow and careworn, but with considerable animation in her manner.  We were next made known to three young ladies, two of whom we understood were Misses Strong and a third Clara Mayne, a friend; besides these there were three young children.  In a short time, two tall lads, sunburnt, and sinewy, made their appearance with stock whips in their hands and broad-brimmed hats on their heads.

"You have not seen them all yet," observed our hostess.

Two more young men came in, one somewhat older than Guy, the other about my own age, and I found that they also were cousins.  Altogether a goodly company sat down to the evening meal.  We all waited on ourselves, there being no female helps in the household.

A rattling conversation was kept up, the young men describing to their father the events of the day, while we had to give an account of our adventures from the time of our landing.  They were all highly interested in hearing of Bracewell being stuck up by bushrangers and how we had rescued him.

"We must put a stop to the career of those gentlemen," observed Mr Strong.  "We have heard before this of their doings, and I have even considered it prudent not to leave the ladies alone in the house without two or three men as guards; a most abominable inconvenience, and yet, from knowing the atrocities of which they are capable, I consider it absolutely necessary."

The blacks, he said, had also been troublesome.  A large mob who had been wandering about in that part of the country, might, he thought it possible, take it into their heads, to pay the station a visit; though it was not likely that they would do harm should they find his people prepared for them.

After a pleasant evening, we were shown to the room we were to occupy in one of the other sheds where three of our cousins also slept.  One of the elder ones was called in the night to mount guard, and we found that a watch was regularly kept in case either bushrangers or blacks should make their appearance.

Next morning our cousins invited us to accompany them to drive in another mob of cattle for the purpose of mustering and branding the calves.  We proposed riding our own horses, but they laughed at the notion.

"You'd get run down to a certainty," said Hector.  "As we go along I'll tell you what you'll have to do, for there's nothing like beginning at once."

We were in the saddle before daylight, having first breakfasted, when we found a mob of sixty or eighty tame cattle, a short distance from the station.

"What are they for?"  I asked.

"They are coaches!" answered Hector.  "We use them to entice the wild ones, who take shelter among them, and then the whole are more easily driven into the stock yards."

The animals quietly pursued their way, going wherever their drivers chose to direct them.  We mustered a dozen horsemen.  On arriving close to the run where the wild cattle were known to be, three of the men remained with the coaches, and the rest of us rode forward, dividing into two parties, the one going to the right, the other to the left, so as to encircle the whole camp, -- the name given to the spot where the wild cattle congregate.  The country had a very wild appearance, there were rocks and hills and fallen trees in all directions, and I guessed that we should have a pretty rough ride.  Our object was to drive the cattle towards the coaches and to prevent any of them turning back and breaking through the line we formed in their rear.  We were accompanied, I should have said, by a pack of dogs, of a somewhat mongrel appearance, of all sizes and shapes.  On arriving at the camp one of the best mounted stockmen went ahead to lead the cattle, which curiously enough always follow where they see another animal going, and now the work began.

Cracking our whips and shouting at the top of our voices, off we started over the rough ground, now dashing up a hill, now descending the steep side of another, our animals springing and dodging about to avoid rocks and other obstructions.  Now we leaped over trees, twisting and turning in every direction to avoid the standing stumps and jumping over scattered logs; now we had to force our way through a thick patch of saplings which caught us as in a net.  Not occasionally but every moment some of the cattle would turn and attempt to break through, some of our party having immediately to wheel round, with loud cracks of their whips, and make the beasts head the other way.  None of us seemed to think of the danger we were running.  Though Guy and I were good horsemen it was pretty hard work for us, and our whips were but of little use as we could not make them crack like the rest of the party. The cows gave us most trouble, but the dogs hung on to the animals, some catching them by the nose, others by the heels or tails, not ceasing to worry them until they took the required direction.

As we were riding along, after we had got free of the bush, a huge bull made a dash out, attempting to escape.  I galloped after him, belabouring him with my whip, and in spite of his continuing to try and toss me, turned him back into the herd.

"Well done, Maurice," exclaimed Hector, "you'll make a first-rate stockman, but you must practise with your whip before you can become as expert as is necessary."

We visited, in the course of a day or two, other camps in which the wild cattle were collected in the same fashion; when, led by the coaches, the whole were driven into the yards, as they are called, situated at the head station.  Here they were allowed to remain until next morning when the operation of mustering and branding commenced.  The yard was so divided that the cattle required for the various purposes were driven into different compartments; the calves into one, the cattle to be slaughtered into another, and those to be turned loose again, into a third, while the stockmen from two or three neighbouring stations attended to claim any of their masters' cattle which had got in among Mr Strong's.

A calf having been lassoed, it was hauled up and its head held down by a plank, when a hot brand was handed to a man standing ready to press it against the creature's skin, where an indelible mark was left, when the little bellower was allowed to rise and make its escape into another pen.

Guy and I were not of much use, but we saw everything going forward, and lent a hand whenever we could.

"Now, my lads," said Mr Strong to us the next day; "I see the stuff you are made of.  You'll do, and if you like to remain with me to learn all you ought to know, you are welcome; after that you can decide what course you will follow."

We had been some days at the station when a person arrived who had occasionally been spoken of as Mr Kimber.  He acted as tutor to our host's younger sons as he did also to another family in the neighbourhood.  He was a graduate of one of our leading universities, and had been found by Mr Strong in the humble capacity of hut-keeper on a neighbouring station, a situation he was compelled to take in consequence of having expended the whole of his means.  His present occupation was more in accordance with his tastes, although his salary was, I suspect, not very considerable.  He was evidently not cut out for an Australian settler, for though he could manage to stick on horseback, as Hector observed, "he preferred a walk to a gallop;" while he persisted in wearing a stove-pipe hat and a swallow-tail coat, which he evidently considered a more dignified costume than the straw hat and red shirt generally worn by all ranks in the bush.  He was amusing from the simplicity of his remarks, and as he was honest and well-informed, Mr Strong was really glad to retain him.

We had been expecting a visit from Bracewell, as Guy had written to him to tell him that we were still remaining with our relative, who did not appear to have any idea of leaving his station, but he had received no answer.

Mr Kimber gave two days of the week to the family of a Captain Mason, who owned the station next to Mr Strong's.  His plan was to ride over early in the morning of one day and to return late in the evening of the next.

After we had become tolerably intimate he invited me to accompany him, and to assist in teaching two of the younger boys.  As I wished to become acquainted with Captain Mason, and to see his station, I readily accepted his invitation.  I found a family very similar to that of Mr Strong, and quite as numerous; the girls and boys tall and lithe, but as active as crickets.  The girls told me to tell my cousins that they would ride over some day to see them, as soon as those abominable bushrangers had been captured.

We started somewhat later than usual from Captain Mason's, but the "Dominie," as the boys called him, had frequently traversed the road, and assured me that he knew it perfectly.  We pushed on, however, as fast as we could go, wishing to get in before dark, as my companion confided to me the fact that he felt not a little nervous about the bushrangers, of whose atrocious deeds the young Masons had been telling him -- the murders they had committed, the huts they had attacked, and the number of people they had stuck up.  I could not disprove the statements, though I believe the accounts greatly exaggerated, and I described to him the way we had driven the fellows off by the exhibition of firmness and courage.

"All very well in daylight," he observed; "but suppose the villains were to pop up from behind the bushes on the other side of the road, and order us to stand and deliver, and to threaten to shoot us if we attempted to draw our pistols, -- and by the bye I haven't any to draw, --  what should we do?"

"Put spurs to our horses and gallop out of their way," I answered. "They wouldn't dare to fire, and if they did, the chances are they would miss us.  We must run some danger in this country, and the risk is not nearly so great as riding after wild cattle as we have still to do, so pray do not make yourself unhappy on the subject."

Still, I saw that my companion looked anxiously about him, especially as it began to grow dusk, immediately after which darkness came on, and we were compelled to moderate our speed for fear of getting a knock on our heads from overhanging branches, or riding against fallen logs.

Eager as the dominie was to get on, not being a first-rate horseman he went even slower than was necessary.  We were passing through a thickish part of the forest, when, reining in his steed, he whispered to me in a tremulous voice -- "Pull up, pray do, I hear the tramp of horses' feet. Suppose they should be bushrangers, they might shoot us down before we had time to escape."

I reined in my steed to listen for the sounds which his sensitive ear had detected.  "They may be simply wild cattle, or riderless horses, taking a scamper," I observed, laughing.

"Oh, no; they don't move about after dark," he said; "they must be mounted horses, do let us remain quiet until we ascertain who the people are."

"They are very likely some of the young Strongs coming out to meet us," I remarked.

Scarcely had I said this, however, than I caught sight of two horsemen riding across an open glade some distance off.  There was sufficient light for me to make out the figures distinctly.  One was a big fellow in a rough garb, the other was slighter, and both were armed.  Presently afterwards two others came into view, the moonbeams glancing on the barrels of their rifles, showing that they also were armed.  I fully expected that they would discover us, and I intended if they did so boldly to ride up and enquire where they were going.  They galloped on, however, without perceiving us.  As I alone had arms I felt that it would be folly to interfere with them, as we might run the risk of being shot, while we could gain no possible advantage.  I therefore remained perfectly quiet, and in another minute they were out of sight.  They were going in the direction of Captain Mason's station.  They would be, however, mistaken, I hoped, if they expected to surprise our friends; who had assured me that they kept a watch by night and day, and were well prepared for such gentry.

As soon as they were out of hearing, we rode on; the dominie I saw feeling far from happy, as every now and then he turned his head over his shoulder to assure himself that we were not followed.

The moon, which had now risen high in the sky, afforded us ample light to see our way.  As the country became more open, we were able to push on as fast as we could go.

We were to have another adventure.  While still some distance from home, the loud lowing of a cow reached our ears.  The animal was evidently alarmed at something.  Galloping towards it, we found on getting up that she was endeavouring to protect her calf from the attack of a dozen dingoes.  Now she would run at one with her sharp horns, now at another, but the moment she had gone in one direction the brutes would assail her helpless young one.  They were not even deterred by our approach.

"We must put an end to these dingoes!"  I exclaimed.  Unstrapping one of my stirrup irons and using it as a weapon, I singled out one of the wild dogs, and succeeded, after several attempts, in giving it a blow on the head which brought it to the ground.  I then attacked another, which I treated in the same fashion.  The dominie tried to imitate me but very nearly tumbled over on his nose, though he assisted in protecting the calf by driving off the cowardly brutes.  The cow at last pinned one to the ground with her horns, and then turning round attacked it with her heels until she well-nigh pounded it into a jelly.  At length the survivors took to flight.

"We have killed three at at all events," remarked the dominie.

"Not so sure of that," I answered as we rode away, and turning my head, I observed that one of the dingoes was beginning to move.  I turned round, when it lay perfectly still, but it had crept on half a dozen yards at least.

I gave it a few more blows with my stirrup iron, and then getting out my knife cut its throat.  I treated its companions in the same manner, as I did not feel sure that the one the cow had tossed was really dead, so tenacious of life are the brutes.

I do not know whether the cow was grateful, but we left her licking her calf where the dingoes had bitten it.  When we drew in sight of the station we saw Hector and his elder brother Ralph coming to meet us.

"We got somewhat anxious about your being so much later than usual," said the latter.  "We have had a visit from some suspicious characters who said that they were in search of work and had lost their way, and begged that they might have a night's lodging in one of the out-houses, and some supper and breakfast, and that one or two of us would ride along with them in the morning to show them the road to the next station.  As, however, Hector had detected a brace of pistols under the shirt of the man who spoke, and saw that the others had long knives in their belts, while their countenances were of the most villainous cast, we refused to comply with their wishes, and told them that they must ride on and camp out as they had evidently previously been doing."

"I did not think all had villainous countenances," said Hector; "there was one good-looking young fellow among them.  He kept in the background and said nothing.  However, I had no doubt of what they were, and they showed it by riding away when they found that we were not to be taken in.  Oliver followed them, when they stopped at a piece of scrub, from which they each drew forth a rifle and several other articles, still further proving that they had some treacherous design in coming to the station."



Chapter Five.

The account we brought of the direction the supposed bushrangers were riding convinced Mr Strong that such was their character, and that pressed for food and ammunition, probably for both, they were going to some other station to supply their wants by force.  We, however, heard nothing of them, nor had they, we found, visited Captain Mason's station, and in what direction they had gone we could not ascertain.

Some days after the events I have described, a stockman who had been engaged by Mr Strong's agent arrived.  He had stopped at Bracewell's, and brought the sad intelligence that our friend was ill, and that he had expressed a strong wish that either Guy or I should come and stay with him.  He also greatly wanted medical advice.  No doctor was to be found within sixty miles of the station.  Guy and I were eager to go to the assistance of our friend, and Mr Strong gave both of us leave. Hector having some business to transact for his father at the chief town, and the dominie, who we found had a considerable amount of medical knowledge, offered to go if he could be spared for a few days.  To this Mr Strong did not object, and before daylight the next morning we set off carrying huge saddle-bags in which the articles we required were stowed.  Those of the dominie contained his medicine chest -- not a very large one, but well suited for the bush, where Morrison's pills are more in request than drugs in general.  We were accompanied by two dogs, one of which had from my first arrival especially attached himself to me, and Hector, to whom he belonged, had made me a present of him.

Though anxious about our friend we were all in high spirits at the prospect of a gallop across the country, which few people in good health could fail to enjoy.  Even the dominie forgot his fears of bushrangers and mials, or wild blacks.

Our road lay through a lightly timbered country, and here and there patches of scrub consisting of a sweet-scented wattle.  We saw pigeons in abundance, and at times a kangaroo hopped away before us.  The grass, owing to the heat of the weather, was rather yellow than green, but we knew that a few showers would soon change its hue.  After traversing this country for several miles, we saw some trees evidently much larger than those round us.  As we drew near, the vegetation below us looked green, a sign that we were approaching a creek or water-hole.  Just then we caught sight of three kangaroos leisurely cropping the grass. Before, however, we could unsling our rifles, they winded us and bounded away at a rate which would have made it hopeless to follow them unless we had been accompanied by native dogs and were prepared for a long chase.  We accordingly unsaddled at the hole, which was full of unusually clear water, a luxury not often obtained in the bush.  The grass, also, beneath the trees being shaded was closer and greener than that elsewhere; they were mostly tea-trees and gum-trees, many of them growing to a good size.  Among the boughs we saw numbers of white cockatoos, parrots, laughing-jackasses, and many other birds, who received us, as we prepared to camp for our noon-day meal, with a loud chorus of varied cries.

Having allowed our horses some time to feed, we again mounted and rode forward.  We camped again at night at another water-hole, and were at an early hour the next morning once more in our saddles.

We had proceeded some little distance, when I observed that Guy's horse had gone lame, and presently it made a fearful stumble from which he could with difficulty recover it.

"I am afraid that I must get off and walk, and give the horse a chance of recovering himself," said Guy.

We pulled up, and Hector examined the animal's hoofs.  A sharp thorn had run into his right fore-foot, and though Hector extracted it, the animal still remained as lame as before.  We should not, under ordinary circumstances, have minded the delay, but knowing how ill Bracewell was we were much annoyed.

At last Hector offered to remain with Guy, if the dominie and I would ride on.  To this proposal I was very glad to accede.

The dominie at first looked a little uncomfortable at having to proceed with a single companion.

"Suppose we were to fall in with bushrangers," he observed.  "What should we do?"

"Shoot them through the head if they offer to interfere with you," said Hector.  "You are always thinking of those fellows.  The chances are they cleared out of our district long ago when they found that we were prepared for them."

"You may do our friend Bracewell a great deal of good," I observed, "for you at all events know more about doctoring than any of us.  You can discover what is the matter with him."

"I certainly will not decline doing what you say," he answered, and seeing to our saddle-girths we prepared for a gallop which would bring us up to Bracewell's station before nightfall, Hector and Guy promising to follow as fast as they could, although they would have to camp out another night.  We started off.  The dominie had lately improved in his horsemanship, and we made good play over the ground.  I felt sure that I knew the way, as the track between the two stations was tolerably well defined.  There were only two places, of no great extent, passing through which we should have to pull rein.  At the first the ground was unusually rough and rocky, with thick underwood.  We got over it, however, and soon afterwards had to pass through a gorge in the only range of hills we had to cross.  The path was narrow, so that we could not conveniently ride side by side.  I therefore, as guide, took the lead, and had unintentionally got some way ahead of the dominie, when I heard him cry out, and turning round to see what was the matter I found my right arm seized by a fellow who had sprung out from behind a rock while another grasped my horse's rein, and the next instant I was dragged to the ground.

"Stuck up at last, young master," cried a voice which I recognised as that of the tall bushranger Guy and I had before encountered and driven off.  "Do not be a fool and show fight, or I'll blow your brains out. Here, hand out what you've got about you.  You may think yourself fortunate if we leave you the clothes on your back, but we don't want them.  Do as I tell you, down on your knees and stay there, while I feel your pockets."

As may be supposed I did not carry much money in the bush, but on leaving home I had put a couple of sovereigns in my pocket.  My rifle, of course, I expected to lose.

While the bushranger was performing the operation of cleaning me out, a savage bull-dog approached, and I thought was going to fly at me, but I found his eyes were directed towards some object at my back, which proved to be my faithful Carlo, who, however ready to do battle in my cause, thought it prudent, in the presence of a superior force, to yield to circumstances.

All this time I could not see what was happening to the dominie, but I concluded that he would wisely not attempt to make any resistance, and that he was being cleaned out as I was.  I did not again hear his voice, and as the bushranger swore that he would shoot me through the head should I move, I thought it as well not to look round lest he should put his threat into execution.  The fellow who had taken my horse now picked up my gun and carried it off to a short distance.  Two of them then produced a rope, intending, I concluded, to treat the dominie and me as they had Bracewell.

As the man who stood over me returned his pistol to his belt, I took a glance round to try and ascertain what had become of my companion, but he was nowhere to be seen, and I feared, therefore, that they intended to bind him to a tree at such a distance that we could hold no communication with each other.  My dog Carlo was also not to be seen; I felt, however, nearly sure that the bushrangers had not carried him off. I had often remarked his peculiar sagacity, and hoped that, finding he could do me no good, he had kept out of the way to avoid the risk of being either killed or captured.  I soon found that my anticipations were correct.  The bushranger now holding a pistol to my head made me get up and walk to a tree some distance from the track, so that should any travellers pass by I should not be discovered.  I might have acted a more heroic part had I struggled desperately, seized a pistol, and attempted to blow out the brains of one of the ruffians; but as I felt that it was more than likely I should lose my own life, I considered it wiser to yield with calmness and dignity.

The villains were well up to their work, and having secured my hands behind me, they fastened me in so effectual a way to a tree, that I could not possibly set myself at liberty.

Without speaking another word to me, the big bushranger led off my horse, carrying with him my gun and articles he had taken from me, and disappeared among the trees.  I saw two other persons leading a horse, going in the same direction, one of whom I felt sure, from his figure, was Vinson, though I did not see his countenance.  Indeed, I suspect that he had unintentionally avoided coming near me.

As soon as the bushrangers had gone, I looked round in search of the dominie, but could nowhere discover him.  I could scarcely hope that he had escaped, or, if he had, that he had got off on horseback.  I felt nearly sure that the horse I had just seen led away by the robbers was his.  I was thus left in doubt how they had treated him, whether they had bound him as they had me, or used greater violence.  As soon as I fancied that they had gone off to a sufficient distance not to hear me, I shouted to the dominie, hoping to hear a reply.  Not a sound reached my ears, and I began seriously to apprehend that they had knocked him on the head or stabbed him.  I remembered the dread he had always expressed of the bushrangers, and I thought it possible that he might have had some especial reason for fearing them.  Perhaps he had known one of them, or might have attempted at some time or other to betray them into the hands of the police.

After shouting in vain for some minutes, I began to lose all hope of receiving a reply.  What had become of Carlo, I could not tell; I feared that the bushrangers must have killed him, as I felt nearly sure that he would not have deserted me, either to make his escape from the scene of danger, or to follow them.  I should have been glad to have him by my side for the sake of companionship; it also struck me that should he come, he might possibly be able to bite through the thongs if I could show him what I wanted done.  I called to him several times, but he did not appear.  At last I arrived at the conclusion that the bushrangers had killed him.  I now began to think of my own dangerous position, while thus utterly unable to defend myself.  If discovered by hostile blacks, they would make me a target for their spears, or a pack of dingoes might attack me.  I never had heard of their assaulting a living man, but I saw no reason why they should not do so, should they discover that I had no means of defending myself.  A snake or scorpion might bite me, and mosquitoes or other stinging insects were sure to find me out and annoy me; while I had the prospect of remaining without water or food for hours, or perhaps days to come, when I might at last perish from hunger and thirst.  Such and other gloomy thoughts passed through my mind.  I had not from the first struggled, for I felt sure that I should thus tighten the thongs which bound me.  Now, however, I set to work calmly to try and release myself, by drawing up one of my hands, hoping that if I could but get my head low enough to reach the thong round my arm, I might in time gnaw it through; but after making a variety of efforts I found that the attempt was vain, and giving it up, I resigned myself to my fate, whatever that might be.

Still it must be understood that I did not altogether lose hope.  There was the possible chance of the dominie having escaped, and that some traveller might be coming by and release me, as Guy and I had released Bracewell.  Still many hours might pass before then, and I was already suffering from thirst, though I was not troubled by hunger.  Being out of the path, I could only hope to attract attention from passers-by by shouting as I heard the sound of their horses' footsteps.  This I could do as long as I retained my senses, but I might, I feared, drop off into a state of stupor, and those who might have released me might be close at hand without my knowing it.

Suddenly I thought I would make one more attempt to ascertain if the dominie was within hearing.  I shouted as loud as I could bawl, and then gave a cooey, which would reach further than any other sound.  I listened; a faint cry came from a distance.  It was the dominie's voice, I thought, but could not make out what he said.  The tones were melancholy in the extreme.  It might be some consolation to him, poor fellow, to know that I was alive, and I no longer doubted that the bushrangers had treated him in the same manner that they had me, though I suspected that he had been either stunned or so frightened that he had not before heard my shouts or been able to reply.  I intended every now and then to give him a hail, when it occurred to me that our voices might attract any blacks passing at a distance, and that we should thus increase the risk of being killed by them.

I could scare sly tell how the hours went by.  At length darkness came on, and I began to doze.  It was the best thing I could do, as it prevented me from feeling either hunger or thirst.  I was, however, quickly awakened by the thongs cutting my limbs as I bent forward.  I then tried to lean against the tree with my feet out, and in that position I escaped the pressure on my limbs, and was at last able to drop off to sleep.  My slumbers, as may be supposed, were far from pleasant, indeed I was conscious all the time that something disagreeable had happened; but still, by thus snatching a few intervals of sleep, I found that the night passed away faster than I should have supposed possible.  Strange sounds occasionally reached my ears.  I fancied that I heard in the distance the yelping and barking of a pack of dingoes, and as the brutes often hunt together in considerable numbers, I dreaded that they might find out the dominie and me, and tear us to pieces.  With intense relief I saw the streaks of dawn appear in the sky.  The laughing-jackass uttered his cheerful notes, and parrots and other birds began to chirp and screech and chatter.  The sound tended somewhat to raise my spirits, though the pangs of hunger and thirst which now oppressed me soon became insupportable.  As in daylight the blacks might be passing, I was afraid of attracting their attention by crying out, so that I was unable to ascertain how it fared with the poor dominie.  When the sun rose, the heat became oppressive, and the insects began to buzz about my face, while I had no power to drive them off.

This annoyance was trying in the extreme.  I spluttered and spat, and winked my eyes, and shook my head, to very little effect; and although the creatures did not often bite me, their buzzing and tickling almost drove me mad.  At last a sound struck my ear.  It was the bay of a hound, then came a bark, and the next instant the faithful Carlo bounded up to me, and licking my face, soon drove off the flies.  Then, having exhibited his delight, away he went barking cheerfully.  Presently the sound of the tramping of horses' hoofs reached my ears, but on a sudden, the sound ceased, and I feared that I had been deceived; but then it occurred to me that the rider had discovered the dominie, and was stopping to set him at liberty.  In a few seconds I caught sight of a horseman.  It was my brother Guy, who came galloping up to me.  Throwing himself from his saddle, without stopping to ask questions he cut the thongs which bound me to the tree.

"You looked so pale that I thought that was the first thing to do," said Guy, as he supported me in his arms, and gradually let me sink down on the ground, for I could not stand.  "Hector is looking after the dominie, he is even in a worse condition than you are."

"I am fearfully thirsty," I said.

"I knew you must be," he replied, applying a water-bottle to my mouth.

The draught, which was tolerably cool, had an almost instantaneous effect, and I was at once able to get up on my feet.

"We thought something had happened when Carlo, rushing back, came barking and pulling at our trousers; and as soon as we could catch our horses, in spite of the lameness of mine, we started off.  We could not travel fast at night, but immediately day broke we galloped on; and I am thankful indeed, my dear Maurice, to find you uninjured -- but how did you get into this plight?"

I briefly told him of the way the bushrangers had stuck me up.

"The villains!  I wish that we could find them.  Now, get up on my horse, and we will go to where I left Hector and the dominie.  We'll breakfast as soon as we can reach a water-hole.  We passed one a little way back, and we must then try and get on to Bracewell's as soon as possible."

With his assistance, I mounted his horse, and we soon reached the spot where Hector was attending to the dominie, who was slowly recovering.  I really believe, from the condition he was in, that he would soon have died.  One of the ruffians had struck him over the head with the butt of his pistol, but he had suffered more from fear than from the blow, for he fully believed that they were going to put him to death.  He was lifted on Hector's horse, and we soon reached the water-hole.  The fire was quickly lighted, and after a good breakfast on a paddy-melon -- a small species of kangaroo -- which Hector had shot the previous evening, we felt greatly revived, and fully able to continue the journey; indeed, I felt myself as strong as ever.  Guy and Hector ran alongside the horses, and we made good progress.  We had reached an open part of the country, when we caught sight of a figure seated on a fallen log.  His back was towards us, and he did not appear to notice our approach; indeed, so motionless did he sit, that he might have been mistaken for a bronze statue.  He had not a rag round his body, but on his shoulders were a number of raised marks, produced by making slashes in the skin, and filling them up with clay, so that when the wound healed, an elevated scar was made.  His hair was fastened in a top-knot, and he had a long pointed beard, with moustache on his lips, his prominent nose having nothing of the negro character about it.  Fastened to a belt round his waist was a snake and a little kangaroo rat, on which he evidently intended to make his dinner.  A cord round his neck supported a shell ornament in front, and a tassel behind completed his costume.  I describe him, of course, not as we saw him when at a distance, but according to the appearance he presented on a further acquaintance. Suddenly, as we came upon him, he seemed in no way alarmed; but, jumping up, he seized his spear and throwing-stick which lay on the ground at his side.  Seeing, however, that he could not possibly escape us, he made no attempt to run.

As we approached, Hector, who from a long intercourse with the blacks was able to make him understand what he said, inquired whether he had seen any white men passing that way, and should he have done so, whether he could tell us who they were.

The black, without hesitation, replied, saying, that he had seen no less than four, that they were armed with guns, and were leading a couple of horses.

"That looks suspicious.  They must have been the bushrangers," observed Hector; "and if -- as I think possible -- they are not far off, we must try and capture the fellows, or at all events recover our horses."

Hector, who closely questioned the black, was satisfied that he wished to be honest, and accordingly asked him if he thought that he could track the bushrangers.  He replied, without hesitation, that if he once came upon their trail he could do so.

"Lead on, then," said Hector.

Anxious as we were to get to Bracewell's, it was important to recover our horses, and if possible to capture the robbers.  We were five against four, for having promised the black a handsome reward, if we should catch one or more of the villains, we could trust to his aid, and his spear would be of as much use as our guns at close quarters; but we could not reckon much on the assistance of the dominie, whose nervousness we thought would prevent him from doing what was necessary.

We had not gone far, when the black declared positively, that he had found the trail of the robbers, and that probably they would be encamped at a water-hole not far off.

Our undertaking was one requiring the greatest caution, for they were certain to be on the watch, and being well armed, would prove formidable opponents.  We might, to be sure, steal upon them during the darkness of night and shoot them down, but we had no wish to do that; our object was to recover our property and bring them to justice.  The black showed himself to be an admirable scout.  The evening was drawing on when he told us that we were not far from where he expected to find them.  How it happened that they had not ridden to a distance, it was impossible to say; probably the spot they had chosen, being out of the high road, they did not expect to be discovered.

Securing our horses in a thick scrub, where they were completely concealed, we cautiously advanced, the black going ahead.  It was by this time getting quite dark.  Our great fear was that the dog they had with them would wind us, and if so it would be necessary to shoot the creature as it approached.  This, of course, would give them the alarm, though we hoped to spring upon them and knock over two or three before they could escape.  The horses were probably feeding at a distance, and the saddles and baggage would be at the camp.

We were noiselessly making our way, when the black signed to us to halt, and then began to creep forward.  Anxious to have a look at the fellows I followed his example, carrying my pistols in my belt, and I found that Carlo was close at my heels, evidently aware that danger was at hand. At last the black stopped, when I joined him; and looking over some low shrubs, I saw the four bushrangers seated round a fire, their saddles and baggage and their guns lying on the ground near them.  They evidently did not suppose that there was any chance of their being attacked.  The only one of their party who seemed to be on the watch was their bull-dog, who, lifting up his head, turned his eyes towards us. The wind was blowing from them to us, or the dog would have smelt us out.  As it was I fully expected every moment to see him dash forward with a loud bark to where we lay.  I did not dare to move, and scarcely, indeed, to breathe.

After watching for some time, the black began slowly to retreat, and I was truly thankful when we got out of hearing of their voices.



Chapter Six.

When I got back to my friends we held a consultation as to our best mode of proceeding.  It was agreed that we would wait until the bushrangers separated, which they were sure to do in the morning, and then rush on those in the camp while the others were away.  The dog would prove the chief obstacle, and it was settled that I was to shoot him while Hector and Guy should dash into their camp.  Two of the men would in all probability remain, while the others went to look after the horses, leaving their arms behind them.  The dominie was to remain with the horses in case any of the fellows escaping might gallop off with them.

We waited until about a couple of hours to dawn, when we crept forward, led by the black.  We dared not approach as close as we could have wished, on account of their watch-dog, who would be certain to give the alarm.  Our plans being arranged, the dominie and I lay down, and, wearied with what we had lately gone through, slept for the greater part of the night.

It was still dusk when, having crept up to the robbers' camp, we saw one of them get up and throw some sticks on the fire.  He then aroused his companions, and two of them, the big bushranger and one I took to be Vinson, went off, as we concluded, to bring in the horses, happily leaving their guns behind them.

Now was our opportunity.  At a signal from Hector, we rose to our feet, and holding our guns ready to fire, rushed towards the two men, who were engaged in cooking their breakfast.  The bull-dog, with a fierce bark, sprang towards us.  As he did so, the black with his spear nearly fixed the brute to the ground, which saved me from having to fire, and thus alarming the other two.  One of the men attempted to take up his gun, but it was beyond his reach; he, however, seized from the fire a thick stick, with which he made a blow at my head; but at that instant my brave Carlo sprang at his throat with a force which brought him to the ground.  Hector and Guy were in the meantime struggling with the other man, whom they succeeded in securing.  Having lashed his arms behind him, they were at liberty to come to my assistance, and soon firmly bound the fellow Carlo had overthrown, for I had not struck a blow.  On examining the countenances of the men we discovered that they were both strangers.  The big bushranger and Vinson, who were, we had little doubt, the other two we had seen, had gone off probably to catch the horses.  Having left their arms behind them they were in our power, but it was a great question whether we could manage to capture them.  They would probably be back in a few minutes, and we had at once to decide how to act.

"I have a bright idea," exclaimed Guy; "I tell you what we will do. We'll gag these two fellows to prevent them from crying out, and drag them behind those bushes close to the camp.  You, Maurice, and the black, being also concealed, must threaten to shoot them if they attempt to make any noise.  Hector and I will then take their places at the fire, and pretend to be cooking the breakfast.  As there will not be much light for some time, the other men when they return will not at first discover us, and we shall be able to point our rifles and order them to give in before they are aware of the trap we have laid.  To make things more certain, we'll put on our prisoners' cabbage straw hats and red shirts, so that the chances are that they will get close up before they find out their mistake."

Hector and I highly approving of Guy's suggestion, we immediately set about putting it into execution.  The black, who, being a remarkably intelligent fellow, fully understood our object, seemed highly delighted, grinning from ear to ear, as he assisted us.

We quickly gagged our prisoners, and then, dragging them behind the bushes, took off their shirts and hats, which, as they were far from clean, I was secretly glad I had not got to wear.  Guy and Hector put them on, and then examining the fire-arms to ascertain if they were properly loaded, drew them close to the fire, before which they sat down.  While one turned the spits on which they had put some meat to roast, the other employed himself in chopping up sticks and placing them on the fire.  So exactly did they act the parts in which we had found our present prisoners engaged, that I felt sure the other men would not suspect the trap laid for them until they were close up to the camp.  It was to be hoped that both would come at the same time, for if not, though we might seize one, the other would probably be warned, and make his escape.  There was a risk, of course, that they would come across the dominie and the horses, and if so, would guess that we had discovered their camp, and would at all events be on their guard.  Guy had, however, especially charged the dominie that should the bushrangers by any accident discover him, he was to keep them at a distance by threatening to fire if they approached.

While my brother and Hector were bending over the fire as I have described, I kept peering through the bushes, keeping one eye on our two prisoners, though I felt sure that the black would watch them carefully as he squatted down by their side with a sharp knife in his hand.  It was a nervous time, but we had not long to wait before we heard the dull sound of galloping feet, and several horses came in sight, followed by the big bushranger mounted on a powerful steed.  I could nowhere see Vinson, so that he at all events would have a chance of escaping.  The horses came rushing on, and as they got near the fire separated, some on one side, some on the other.  With an oath the big man shouted out -- 

"Why don't you stop them, you fellows?"  The two figures bending over the fire did not appear to hear him, until, throwing himself from his horse, he approached them; when, snatching up their rifles, they suddenly turned round and presented the barrels at his head.

"Hands up, or we fire!" cried Guy and Hector in the same breath.

Notwithstanding this warning the bushranger's right hand instantly moved towards the butt of the pistol in his belt, his left still holding the rein; he, however, quickly changed his mind, for he well knew, should he attempt to draw his weapon, before he could present it a couple of balls might be crashing through his brain.  Another oath escaped his lips.

"Caught at last," he cried out, as if he was going to yield, but the next instant with a bound he was in his saddle, leaning forward at the same time, so that the horse's neck might protect his head.  Guy fired.

The bullet only grazed the fellow's shoulder.  I was taking aim at the fugitive, when another person appeared, driving before him the remainder of the horses.  Forgetting for a moment that the bushranger's guns lay beside my brother and Hector, but recollecting that the big fellow had a brace of pistols in his belt, I was afraid of firing lest I should miss; and that he, coming back, would turn the tables on us.  The next instant Hector and Guy had each picked up a gun.  The big bushranger had, however, already got to a considerable distance, and although both fired, he continued his course, apparently uninjured.

While they were reloading, the fourth man, whom I took to be Vinson, had disappeared.  We all three immediately rushed out to stop the horses, and succeeded in catching our own and two others.  Our own saddles were in the robber's camp, so all we had to do was to put them on ready for a start.  We then placed our prisoners on the backs of the other two, securing their legs under the horses' bellies, and fastening long leathern thongs to the bridles.  We then, carrying off the ammunition, and two of the guns as trophies, smashed up the others, and threw the saddles and the few articles of baggage we found, on the fire, retaining, however, one or two things which were likely to prove acceptable to our black guide, who was highly delighted with his share of the plunder.  Hoping to receive a further reward, he undertook to accompany us to Bracewell's, and to lead our prisoners' horses.  We thought it prudent, however, not to trust him too much, though we accepted his offer, provided he could keep up to us.

We were anxious as soon as possible to hand our prisoners over to the police, lest their two comrades, still at large, with others of the gang they might fall in with, should attempt their rescue; but we felt pretty secure, as they would know that, so long as we were on the watch, they were not likely to succeed.  Should we, however, be kept out another night, they would compel us to be very vigilant, while we should have to guard both ourselves and the horses.

Although the two bushrangers had escaped, we had succeeded in breaking up the gang, and without guns and ammunition they would have great difficulty in supporting themselves; while the two we had made prisoners would probably, on their trial, be ready to give such information as might assist in the capture of others.

Leading on our prisoners, we now set out to return to where we had left the dominie.

We had, I should have said, hurriedly eaten some of the provisions Guy and Hector had cooked, and we took the remainder so that no time need be lost in proceeding to Bracewell's.

On reaching the spot, what was our dismay to see neither the dominie nor the horses.  We shouted to him, but no reply came.

"What can have become of him?" exclaimed Guy.  "Those fellows must have fallen in with him, and compelled him to accompany them."

"I do not think that is possible," I remarked, "for they went off in a different direction.  Still his disappearance is very mysterious.  We must try to learn what the black thinks about the matter."

We inquired of our guide, by signs and such words as he understood.

He examined the ground on every side and then started off at a run in a southerly direction, and on closer examination we discovered traces of the horses.

After waiting some time, as the black did not return, Guy proposed that Hector should stay by the prisoners and the two animals we had recovered, while he and I went in search of our missing friend.

Hector undertook to do as proposed.

"I'll hobble all four of them," he observed, "and there'll be no risk of their getting away."

Not wishing to lose more time we started.  After going on for some time we got separated, and I found to my right a deep gully, with steep cliff-like banks, mostly covered with trees of a character which showed that there was generally an abundance of water; indeed, I observed several small pools, joined by a trickling rivulet three or four feet only in width.

As I went along, I shouted out our friend's name.  At last I heard the tramp of horses, and looking about, I caught sight through the trees of our two animals with their saddles on their backs, the black following, driving them before him.

I was thankful to find that they had been recovered, though much grieved not to see the dominie, for I naturally feared that some serious accident had happened to him.  I now once more returned, intending to rejoin Hector, when I heard a faint shout.  It came from the direction of the gully.  My hopes revived of finding the dominie.  After going on some way, I again heard the shout followed by a cooey which I was sure, however, was not uttered by him.  It was the voice either of Guy or Hector.

I cooeyed in return.  Soon afterwards another reached my ears, coming from the same direction.  At last I gained the summit of a cliff, when, looking down, I saw Guy bending over the prostrate form of a man.

I soon joined my brother, and found that the fallen person was the dominie.  Guy was employed in chafing his hands, and trying to restore him to consciousness.

"Can he have been attacked by bushrangers, and thrown here?"  I asked.

"I don't think that," answered Guy, pointing up to the cliff.  "See, he must have fallen over, and striking his head on the ground, have become insensible.  Go and get some water from yonder pool in your hat, and I think that if we bathe his head, he will come to."

I did as Guy desired me, and in a short time we had the satisfaction of seeing our companion revive.

"Have you got the horses?" were the first words he spoke.

"All right!"  I answered, "and we have captured two bushrangers into the bargain."

The news seemed to have a good effect, and now that he had come to himself, he quickly, with our assistance, was able to get up the cliff, when we helped him along.

In a short time we joined Hector, who had caught the horses driven up to him by the black.

We immediately mounted, and Hector taking charge of one prisoner, and Guy of the other, I attended to the dominie.  We expected that our black guide would have kept up with the horses, but when he found the rate at which we went, he appeared to have had enough of our society, and, suddenly bolting off into the bush, disappeared.

"It is the way of those black fellows," observed Hector.  "He has obtained more than he expected, and has no fancy to be shot by the bushrangers, should we encounter them; probably, also, he wants to join his gins, who, I dare say, are not far off, though they have kept out of our sight."

We rode on, when the ground was level breaking into a gallop.  The dominie now and then groaned, but when I offered to pull up, he always answered -- 

"Go on, go on; perhaps those villains will be watching for us; I don't want to be stuck up again or shot."

When I observed that they had only pistols, he answered -- 

"Ah, well! pistols will kill as well as rifles, and we don't know at what moment they may pounce out from this thick scrub."

As I thought it possible that they might make an attempt to surprise us, I was not sorry to follow the dominie's wishes.

We made such good way that I hoped we should reach Bracewell's before sundown.  Late in the day, I began to recognise spots we had passed while staying with him, although so great is the sameness of the country, that I could not feel very certain that such was the case, until I heard Guy, who was ahead, sing out -- 

"Here we are!  I see the top of Bracewell's hut."

We gave a cooey to let those at the station know of our approach, and in another moment old Bob came hurrying out to meet us.

"Thankful you've come, gentlemen," he exclaimed; "though Mr Bracewell's round the corner, he'll be glad of your society.  He's in terribly low spirits at having only me to look after him.  But, whom have you there? Picked up a couple of pirates on the road?"

We soon explained who our captives were.  Old Bob shook his fist at them.

"You rascals!  You're caught at last, are you?  You'll be having your legs in chains before long I hope, and not be keeping honest folk in fear of their lives."

"We must see where we can stow these fellows until we can send for the police," said Guy.

"We'll stow them safe enough," said old Bob, "and, provided we keep their arms lashed behind their backs, and their legs in limbo, they'll not escape from where I'll put them."

The captive bushrangers cast angry glances at the speaker, but as their mouths were still gagged, they could not express their feelings by words.

Before we went in to see Bracewell, we had hauled them off their horses, and under Bob's directions, dragged them into a hut, which had only one door and one window.  He then brought a couple of stout ropes, with which we secured them to the posts which supported the roof, one on either side of the hut, so that they could not reach each other.  We next drew the gags from their mouths, expecting that they would make the first use of their tongues by abusing us, but they appeared to be too dull and brutal even to do that.  After closing the door and window, we left them to their own devices.

"I'll take care that they don't get out during the night.  If they try that dodge, I'll send a bullet through their heads," muttered old Bob.

Bracewell, who had been asleep when we arrived, awoke as we entered, delighted to see us, and insisted on getting up to do the honours of his hut.  Old Bob in the meantime was cooking supper, and a very satisfactory one he managed to produce.

Our coming, as we expected, did our friend a great deal of good, and we hoped that the medicine which the dominie brought would still further restore him.

Old Bob insisted that a guard should be kept on the prisoners, and he offered to stand watch for four hours, provided we three took the remainder of the night between us.  To this we could not object, though when he aroused me, I confess that I got up very unwillingly.

I was thankful, however, that his advice was followed.  While standing before the door, I heard one of the fellows announce to his comrade that he had got one of his arms free, and that in another minute he would set him at liberty.  Had they succeeded in doing this, they would have had no difficulty in working their way out of the hut.

I at once opened the door, and walked up to the fellow with a pistol in my hand.  I found that he had really managed to get an arm free, though the moment he saw me he placed it behind him.

I shouted to old Bob, who quickly came to my assistance, and we soon had the fellow more securely fastened than before.  We then examined the other.  Though he had evidently been trying his best to get out his arms, he had not succeeded.  As may be supposed, we did not allow them an opportunity of attempting the same trick again, and when I called up Guy, I charged him to keep a watch on the two fellows, a lantern being placed in the middle of the hut to throw its light upon them.

At day-break Hector rode off to execute the commissions for his father, and at the same time to summon the police.

As our prisoners required our constant attention, we were very thankful when a dozen black troopers came clattering up to the station under the command of an English officer, to whom we handed over the bushrangers, and gave a full description of how they had been caught, and of their two companions who had escaped.

We had, as we expected, to go and give evidence; but, fortunately, as their trial came on at once, we were not long delayed.

By the time we were wanted, Bracewell, thanks to the dominie's medical skill, had almost entirely recovered.  He was able to identify the two men as among the party who had attacked him, we also having found in their possession some of his property which they had taken.  The other two were still at large, but the police entertained no doubt that they should catch them before long.

We all returned to Bracewell's, and I was glad to find that he had accepted an invitation from Mr Strong, to pay him a visit, which he was able to do as he had engaged a trustworthy man to assist old Bob in taking care of the station.  We therefore prepared to set out immediately.



Chapter Seven.

We were actually in our saddles and about to set off, when Hector received a letter from his father directing him to return to town to make some further purchases, and to transact other business.

The dominie, who had been expressing a wish to visit the city and buy some books, begged permission to accompany him.

"You go on leisurely, we'll soon catch you up," said Hector.  "It is a pity that you should be delayed for us."

Bracewell agreed to this arrangement.  As his strength was not completely restored, it was considered advisable that he should make short stages.  While we therefore rode on as we intended to the north-west, our friends, borrowing a couple of horses, that their own might be fresh when they returned to the station, galloped off towards the coast.

We were approaching a water-hole by the side of which we proposed encamping the first evening, when we caught sight of a native walking leisurely along with an axe in his hand.  He came forward with a confidence which showed that he was accustomed to meet white men, and we recognised, as he approached, our former guide.  He appeared to be highly pleased at seeing us, and began jabbering away in a language which neither Guy nor I could understand.  Bracewell, who seemed to comprehend him, replied in the same lingo; and then told us that the black had informed him that his tribe was in the neighbourhood and would be happy if we would pay them a visit, that they might show their gratitude for the wealth we had showered upon them.

While he was speaking, another black popped his head out from behind the bushes, when the other called to him, and he came forward.  As he was approaching he cast his eyes to the top of a tree, a little distance off, when a few words were exchanged between the two.

They both ran to it and without more ado, began to ascend, cutting slight notches with their axes, just of sufficient size to enable them to put in their toes and fingers.

We watched their proceedings with wonder at the rapidity with which they got up, almost indeed as fast as if they were mounting an ordinary ladder.  Round and round the tree they climbed, giving a couple of strokes with their little axes sufficient to make a notch of the required size.  Until I saw the confidence with which they proceeded, I expected every moment that they would drop down again to the ground. Though the tree must have been sixty feet high without a branch, they were at the top in less than a minute, when securing themselves they plunged down their hands.  While the one drew out an opossum, the other, before the animal could bite him, knocked it on the head and threw it to the ground.

They descended with even greater celerity than they had mounted, and then to our surprise brought the animal to us, apparently as an offering.

Bracewell thanking them, told them to keep it for themselves, which they were evidently well content to do.  They accompanied us to the water-hole, where, without being told to do so, they assisted in collecting sticks for a fire.

This being done, we having hobbled our horses, they squatted themselves on the ground to skin their opossum which they then brought to be roasted.  The confidence they exhibited in us showed that we might trust them, and we allowed them to go about the camp as they liked, though Bracewell advised that we should keep an eye on our saddle-bags and valises lest the temptation to appropriate their contents might be too great to be resisted.

While we were discussing our supper, they managed to devour the whole of the opossum between them; and then, having stuck some boughs in the ground to form a hut, they lay down side by side beneath them, and were quickly asleep, evidently feeling perfectly secure in our neighbourhood.

Both Guy and I wanted to see more of the natives, and Bracewell consented, should our guests again offer to guide us to their camp, to ride round to it, as it would not take us much out of our way.  There was, he said, a few miles off, a large shallow lagoon, near which they were assembled for the purpose of fishing and catching the wild fowl which frequented it; and that we should thus have an opportunity of seeing the way in which they engaged in those pursuits.  As he knew the country well, he could easily make his way back to the direct route, so that we could run no risk of missing Hector and the dominie.  That Bracewell might enjoy a full night's rest, Guy and I agreed to keep watch and watch, but he laughed at our proposal, declaring that it was useless.

"But should bushrangers stumble upon us, we might all three be stuck up, and find ourselves minus our horses and rifles," said Guy.

"No chance of that," answered Bracewell, "the fellows were certain to clear out of this part of the country, when they knew the police were on their tracks.  There is a greater risk from the blacks, though I feel sure those two fellows there can be trusted."

In spite of Bracewell's remarks, Guy and I determined to keep to our resolution, and as soon as he was asleep, I rose, and having made up the fire, walked about, endeavouring to keep my eyes open.  I tried this for some time, when feeling tired, I sat down with my rifle by my side.

How it was I could not tell, but before long I found myself stretched on the ground, and when I awoke the fire was almost out.  Giving a kick to the embers to obtain a flame, I looked at my watch.  It was then almost day-break and I thought it useless to rouse my brother. Directly afterwards a chorus of cachinnations from a couple of laughing-jackasses, gave me notice that the morning would soon commence.

I called Guy and Bracewell, who shrewdly suspected what had happened, although as no harm had come of it, they spared me any severe remarks.

While we were breakfasting, the blacks, who had got on their legs, sauntered up to the camp, and begged for some of the tea and damper on which we were regaling ourselves.

To catch our horses, saddle up and mount, did not take us long, and as our new friends repeated their offer, we set off, the blacks running ahead.  As they were making their way through scrub some distance ahead, one of them stopped and called to the other, when they each cut a long thin switch and ran towards an object which we just then saw moving in the grass.  Presently the wicked-looking head of a large snake rose in the air.  The blacks ran towards it, one on either side, and bestowing some sharp blows with their wands, down it dropped.  On getting up to the spot, we found that it was a snake between nine and ten feet long.

The blacks seemed to consider it a great prize, for, chopping off the head, one of them slung the body over his shoulder, and they then again went on shouting with glee.

In a short time we arrived at the blacks' camp.  It consisted of a number of rude bowers, such as I have before described, tenanted by a few women, children, and old men, all the active men being out hunting in the lagoon which appeared just beyond.

Riding on we caught sight of a number of black figures, scattered in all directions, engaged in knocking down with their boomerangs some large birds perched on the withered branches of the trees overhanging the water.

Our friends brought us one of the boomerangs to examine.  It was a curved piece of wood about two feet two inches from tip to tip, rather more than two inches wide in the middle, and diminishing towards the tips.

We saw bird after bird knocked off the trees with this remarkable weapon.  When it first left the hand of the thrower, we could not decide in what direction it was going, but after making numberless circles in the air, it never failed to hit the object intended.

Most of the birds we saw struck were cormorants, which, as they fell into the water, the blacks seized and wrung their necks.  Some, however, not being killed outright or stunned, showed fight, and attacked the naked bodies of their assailants with their sharp beaks.  We witnessed the sport for some time, till the birds nearest us becoming alarmed, took to flight, but were followed by the persevering hunters, who marked where they again alighted.

As we did not wish to delay, we thanked our friends, who with the prospect of an ample feast before them, showed no inclination to accompany us.  One of them, however, had a talk with Bracewell just before we started.

"What was the black fellow saying?"  I asked as we rode along.

"He told me that a mob of bad black fellows, as he called them, are in the neighbourhood, and that we must take care not to fall in with them, as they will not scruple to spear our horses at night, or, should we be off our guard, murder us."

"What had we better do then?"  I enquired.

"Be on our guard and not let them surprise us," he answered, laughing. "I have no fear of the blacks, provided they know that we are prepared to give them a warm reception.  We will, however, keep a look-out for the fellows, and as soon as we get back to the regular track, I'll leave a note fixed to a tree for Hector, telling him what we have heard, and advising him and the dominie to keep a watch at night on their horses, as I don't think it's worth while waiting for them.

"Still, notwithstanding what our black friend said, the chances are that we shall not fall in with the mob of bad natives," he added; and as he knew the country much better than Guy or I did, we were perfectly ready to be guided by his opinion.

We soon again got into the main track.

On reaching it, Bracewell taking out his pocketbook, wrote a few lines, warning Hector that a mob of blacks were said to be in the neighbourhood, and telling him where we proposed camping.

Cutting some thorns, he pinned it to a tree in a conspicuous place.

"Hector will not fail to observe it," he said, as he did so.

"But if the blacks see it they'll tear it down surely," I remarked.

"They'll not do that," he answered, "they'll fancy it is some charm, and will not venture to touch it."

This done, we pushed forward, rather faster than we had hitherto been going, in order to arrive at a spot at which Bracewell advised that we should camp early in the evening.

Although there were several stations scattered over the country in various directions, the traffic between them was so limited, that no inns or even liquor stores had been established; and travellers had consequently to camp out in the bush night after night when proceeding towards the interior.

We found doing this was no hardship, and infinitely preferred sleeping by our camp-fire with the canopy of heaven above us, to taking up our quarters in a shepherd's hut or grog shop.

We were approaching the end of our day's journey, when I caught sight of a black figure flitting among the trees in the distance.  Presently another, and another appeared.  They did not come near us, but were apparently moving in the same direction that we were.

I pointed them out to Bracewell.

"I saw the rascals," he answered.  "They are up to mischief very likely, and think it prudent to keep at a distance from us.  I'll soon make them vanish."

Lifting his rifle, he uttered a loud whoop, when in an instant every black disappeared, either having dropped to the ground, or got behind the stems of trees.

"I don't suppose they'll come near us again, but it will be as well to be on our guard when passing any thick scrub.  We must either give it a wide berth so that their spears cannot reach us, or gallop quickly by."

During the day-time, however, there was not much probability that the blacks would venture to attack us; but we agreed that we must be very careful during the night, lest they should spear our horses, -- a trick they are apt frequently to play when they think that they can do so and make their escape without the risk of a bullet through their bodies.

Though we looked out for them on every side, not another black did we see; but Bracewell remarked, that we must not consequently fancy that they had taken themselves off.

However, as the day wore on, and they did not again reappear, we began to hope that we had distanced them, and that they would not trouble us during the night.  At length we reached the water-hole, near which grew several magnificent trees, where there was abundance of grass for the horses, so that they would not be tempted to stray away.

Choosing a spot with a water-hole on one side, and three or four fine trees of large girth on the other, we unsaddled our horses and made up our fire.  We had provisions enough for the evening, but should have to go on short commons the next day, unless we could shoot a paddy-melon or some birds.

Bracewell offered, as there was still sufficient light, to try to do so; but Guy and I advised him to remain in camp while we endeavoured to shoot a few parrots or cockatoos, so many of which were flitting about among the boughs that we felt confident of shooting as many as we required.

No sooner, however, did we fire, than having each brought down a parrot, the remainder of the noisy birds flew away.  We followed, expecting to get some more shots, but the sound of our guns having alarmed them, as soon as we approached they again took to flight.

By some means or other, I, having hurried on, lost sight of Guy, though I concluded that he was following me.  At last I saw a large cockatoo nodding his head as if not aware of my presence.  I fired, and brought him down, when directly afterwards I heard the report of Guy's gun, much further off than I had expected.

The thought just then occurred to me, that should the blacks be in the neighbourhood, they might discover our whereabouts by the reports; so I felt that it would be wise to be satisfied with the birds we had killed, and return to camp.

I was therefore making my way back, when, turning my head, I caught sight of a black figure stealthily approaching with a lance in his hand. Suspecting that his intentions were hostile, I quickly reloaded, ramming down a ball.  As he approached from behind the trunk of a tree, I levelled my rifle.  He vanished in an instant, though when I moved on again, I felt pretty sure that he was following me.  I therefore every now and then turned suddenly round and pointed my rifle towards my pursuer.  At last, having gone on for some distance, I began to fear that I had lost my way, for I could not see either our camp-fire or the smoke rising from it.  To ascertain if I was near it, I gave a loud cooey, expecting that Guy and Bracewell would hear me and reply.

No answer came.  I began to feel rather uncomfortable, for although with my rifle in my hand, I was a match for two or three blacks, I should be in an awkward predicament should I be followed by a whole mob.  It would not do to stop, so on I pushed.

Again I cooeyed, and this time I heard my friends cooey in return. Still the distance was apparently considerable, and at any moment the blacks might overtake me.  I ran on as fast as the nature of the ground would allow, endeavouring to keep a straight course.

Once more I turned round when to my dismay I beheld a score or more of blacks armed with spears and shields.  For a moment I faced them as before, presenting my rifle.  I might bring down one of the fellows, I knew; but then, unarmed, I should be at their mercy; I therefore contented myself with threatening them.  The instant I raised my weapon, they all vanished as before.  Directly afterwards I caught sight of the glare of the fire: I dashed forward, when to my surprise I found my brother and Bracewell coolly seated on the ground, engaged in preparing a couple of parrots which the former had shot.

"Up, up!"  I exclaimed: "the blacks are upon us -- there is not a moment to lose if we intend to save our lives."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Bracewell.  "You've seen a big `boomer,' or the stump of a tree, which you have mistaken for a black fellow."

I loudly protested that I was not mistaken, and advised them to load their rifles with ball.

While I was speaking, a spear quivered in the tree close to where they were sitting.  They jumped to their feet in an instant.

"If we don't take care, we shall have the horses wounded," I exclaimed, and I ran to where they were feeding, leaving Guy and Bracewell to keep watch for the appearance of our enemies.

Just as I had brought the horses up, and was tethering them behind the clump of trees, the mob of blacks came in sight, shrieking and dancing and brandishing their spears.

Bracewell, on this, exclaimed, "We'll show them that we're not to be trifled with; or they will become bolder, and make a rush upon us with their waddies.  Guy, do you pick off that fellow on the right; I'll take the fellow in the centre who is nourishing his weapon -- he intends to hurl it at us as soon as he gets near enough.  Maurice, you must keep them in check while we are reloading, but don't fire unless they advance."

As he spoke, he and Guy pulled their triggers.  As the smoke cleared off I saw two blacks on the ground -- my companions were rapidly reloading while I kept my rifle pointed at the advancing mob.  I had my eye upon one of them, who appeared to be leader.  We were tolerably well sheltered by the roots of the trees, so that we could take aim without exposing ourselves.

The determined front we exhibited did not however deter the blacks from advancing, and as they did so, they sent a whole shower of spears, which stuck quivering in the trunk of the tree forming our chief protection. Several, however, passed and fell into the ground close to the horses, fortunately none of which were injured.

I fired and brought down the man at whom I had aimed; I then sprang behind shelter and reloaded, while my brother and Bracewell knocked over two more.

It was dreadful work, having thus to kill our fellow-creatures; but at that moment all we thought about was that they intended to kill us, and that it was our business to defend our lives.  Whether or not we should do so successfully seemed very doubtful; for as far as we could judge, while they flitted in and out among the trees, there were a hundred or more of them yelling and shrieking and hurling their sharp-pointed spears towards us.  A hundred opposed to three were fearful odds. Probably they were not aware of the smallness of our number, or they might have made a rush at our camp, and knocked us all over with their waddies.  Every moment we expected that they would do so.  Should one of us be killed or wounded so as to be unable to fire, the other two must inevitably become their victims.

As yet we had happily escaped injury, and the blacks did not appear inclined to venture closer than at first.  We had been firing away as rapidly as we could reload, but though we had killed several, we had frequently missed, for as they kept springing in and out behind the trees in the thickening gloom, it was very difficult to hit them. Suddenly they vanished, and I was afraid were coming round to get on our flank; the width of the water-hole, and the marshy ground on the further side was, however, too great to allow them to hurl their spears across it.  My gun was loaded, but when I put my hand into my bullet-pouch, to my dismay, I found that I had not another shot left.  I told my companions.  "Neither have I, and have just loaded with small shot," said Bracewell.

"So have I," said Guy; "but it will do to pepper them with if they come nearer."

"But small shot will not go through their shields," I remarked.

"Then we must aim at their legs," answered Bracewell, calmly.

"Don't you think it would be prudent to mount the horses and gallop off before they again attack us?" asked Guy.

"They will probably be on the look-out should we make the attempt, and surround us before we get to any distance," said Bracewell.  "Better try and hold our own here, where we have the shelter of the trees, only don't throw a shot away."

This discussion was cut short by a loud yell uttered by our savage enemies, who, the next instant, again came into view, and advanced with their spears poised.  We had barely time to spring behind the trees, when a shower of spears flew through the air, some passing close to us, others sticking in the opposite side of the trunks.  We immediately replied, but could not see whether our shots took effect.  The spears now fell so thickly, that we could scarcely venture to show ourselves even for a moment to fire in return.  By the sound of the savages' voices we judged they were getting nearer, and now we all felt that we should have to sell our lives dearly, unless we could manage to mount our horses and gallop away; but it would take some time to saddle them, and the natives were not likely to allow us many moments to do so. Bracewell, however, desperate as was our condition, tried to keep up our spirits.

As far as we could judge, the savages showed no intention of abandoning their object.  Just as we expected that they would make their final rush, a loud cooey was heard, and I caught the sound of the trampling of horses' feet.  We cooeyed in return again and again.  The savages must have heard us, as well as the cooeys in the distance; for after vainly hurling another shower of spears, they turned and scampered off as fast as their legs could carry them, their flight hastened by the peppering we gave their backs with small shot.  Almost immediately afterwards Hector and the dominie, accompanied by half a dozen troopers, came galloping up along the path close to the water-hole.  As they appeared, without waiting to exchange words, we threw our saddles on our horses' backs and mounted ready to join them in the pursuit of our foes.



Chapter Eight.

The sergeant in command of the troopers told us that they had been sent forward in search of some bushrangers who with unaccountable hardihood, notwithstanding the capture of two of their companions, were still committing their depredations in that part of the country; and that having accompanied Hector, who had discovered our note, they had come on to assist us in case we should be attacked by the blacks.

We all rode on together in the direction we supposed the savages to have taken.  But darkness was coming on: the sergeant soon pulled up declaring that we might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay, as expect to catch one of them.

Had we had any natives with us we might have tracked them during the night.  We should now however only run the risk of losing our way without the slightest chance of capturing a black man.

This was very evident, and we accordingly settled to return to the camp and wait until the following morning.

Hector and the dominie had brought a good supply of provisions in their saddle-bags, and our supper being cooked, we sat round the fire sipping our mugs of scalding tea, and fighting our battle over again.

The sergeant told us that the mob which had attacked us was said to be the most daring in that part of the country.  They had already, it was supposed, murdered two hut-keepers and a shepherd, and had carried off large numbers of sheep.  Without natives to track them it would be impossible to come upon their camp so as to capture their leaders.  The punishment they had received from us might perhaps, we thought, prevent them from committing further depredations in the neighbourhood; and the sergeant's business for the present was to hunt down the bushrangers, which was more in his way.  He, as soon as he had seen us safely on our road, must continue his course in the direction he had been informed they had taken.

At length we began to get drowsy, and one after the other we lay down with our horse-cloths for bedding and our saddles for pillows.

The sergeant undertook that one of his men should keep watch, though it was very improbable that the blacks would venture to attack us during the night.

I was awakened just before dawn by the "settler's clock," as the laughing-jackass is frequently called; and lifting my head, by the light of the still burning embers of our fire saw the dominie rubbing his eyes, but no one else was moving.  I suspected from this that the last man on guard had gone to sleep.  No sticks had been thrown on for a considerable time, and on counting heads I discovered that the sergeant and his troopers were all snoring loudly, and sound asleep.  I bethought me that we would play them a trick; so quickly arousing Guy and Bracewell, I proposed that we should unite our voices and give a terrific shriek as if a whole mob of black fellows were about to break into the camp.  They agreed.

We did shriek with a vengeance, the echo resounding through the forest. The effect was electrical.  Up jumped the sergeant and his men and seizing their arms prepared to receive their expected foes.

"Whereabouts are they?" exclaimed the sergeant.  "Reserve your fire, until you see them," he added -- a caution I should not have considered necessary.  "Did any of you gentlemen catch sight of them?" he asked. Our loud laugh told him the trick we had played.  "Which of you lads was keeping guard?" he enquired.

"I was," answered one, who had been among the loudest of the snorers, and we found that the speaker had in reality the middle watch, but having dropped off, had not called his relief.

We thought it best to say as little as possible about the matter, for according to strict military discipline, the man who goes to sleep on guard in the face of an enemy, becomes liable to the punishment of death.  The sergeant also, who was a good-natured fellow, was evidently anxious not to take too much notice of the matter.

We soon got the fire made up, and having breakfasted, we mounted and rode in the direction we supposed that the blacks had taken, but except the dead bodies of the men we had shot, no trace of them could we discover.  They probably could not tell whether or not we had any natives with us, and therefore took care to leave no trail by which they could be followed up.  They might possibly have been hiding all the time in the neighbourhood, or might -- contrary to their usual custom -- have travelled during the night.

After looking for an hour or more we agreed that it would be useless to search further and pursued our course towards Mr Strong's.  The sergeant's way for some distance lay in the same direction, and he and his men therefore accompanied us.  We had got about half way, when we saw a white man running towards us.  He appeared to be in a desperate hurry, and as he approached made signs entreating us to stop.

"What's the matter, my man?" inquired Bracewell as he came up.

"I am a shepherd on Mr Robinson's out-station," he answered.  "I had driven my flock to the run this morning, when who should I see coming towards me but old Bill the hut-keeper who had a spear in his side and another in his back.  He had just time to tell me that, soon after I had gone, a whole mob of blacks surrounded the hut, and to the best of his belief were still either in or about it, when, though I did my best to help him by cutting out the spear, he sank back and died.  On this I was afraid to stay where I was lest the blacks should find me out, and was trying to reach Mr Strong's or some other station, when I saw you."

This account made us resolve at once to try and surprise the blacks. The shepherd acknowledged that he and his mate had just before got in on the sly some bottles of rum, which it was possible the blacks might have found; and that if so, should we advance cautiously, we might very likely catch them.  Not a moment however was to be lost, and one of the troopers taking the shepherd up behind him on his horse to act as our guide, we set off in the direction of the hut.  It was so situated at the bottom of a hill, with a belt of trees on one side, that led by the shepherd we were able to get close up to it without being discovered.

We there dismounted, leaving our horses under the charge of the dominie who volunteered for the service.

We crept cautiously down towards the hut, the sounds proceeding from which showed us to our great satisfaction, that it was still in possession of the blacks.  We now advanced with greater caution, Bracewell and Hector, who were the most experienced in bush life, leading, I following, until we could look right down upon the hut.  A few blacks were squatting on the ground outside, and the hut itself appeared to be full of them.  The sergeant and his men, I should have said, had brought some coils of rope with which to bind any prisoners they might capture.  These they formed into lassoes for the purpose of throwing over the heads of the blacks.  As we watched the hut, the people collected round it had, as far as we could judge, no intention of moving, probably fancying that they were safe, for the present, from pursuit.

Bracewell now made a sign to us to rise to our feet, so that we might rush down on the hut and capture all the blacks in it if not those outside.  At the signal we were in motion, the troopers with their drawn swords in one hand and their pistols in the other, and we with our rifles.  We had got half way down the slope before the blacks discovered us.  Most of those outside scampered off, but we saw, by the crowd at the door, that the hut was full, and before many could escape, we were at the entrance.  Some tried to get out of the window on one side of the hut, but Guy, Hector, and I shot them down as they reached the ground, thus putting a stop to any others escaping in that direction; while the sergeant and his troopers, bursting into the hut, soon had several of the rest secured by their necks.  Others were knocked down.  The greater number either lay helpless on the ground or stared stupidly at their assailants.  Had our object been slaughter we might have killed the whole mob, but the sergeant had received orders to capture as many as possible alive, and we were thankful not to have to destroy any more of the poor wretches.

Altogether, thirty were made prisoners, but we could not calculate how many had made their escape.  The greater number, however, had left their spears and waddies behind them, so that they were not likely for the present to attempt further mischief.  At the request of the sergeant we brought down the horses and assisted him in securing the prisoners and arranging them in the order in which they were to march.  It took some time to bind the unfortunate wretches, whom we secured with their arms behind them, and then fastened together by strong ropes six in a line. Our next care was to collect all the arms, which, with the exception of a few we desired to possess, were broken and thrown on the fire.

There was very little chance of rescue; indeed, had the blacks still at liberty made the attempt, they would to a certainty have hastened the death of their friends.  The shepherd entreated us to assist him in bringing in the body of the hut-keeper -- a task, from a sense of humanity, we undertook, while he remained to look after his sheep.

We accordingly brought the body in on the dominie's horse and placed it in the bunk in which the unfortunate man, a few hours before, had been sleeping, little dreaming of the fate awaiting him.  The dominie, Guy, and I remained at the hut, while Bracewell and Hector rode off to the head station to give information of what had occurred and to obtain a companion for the poor man.

Finding a couple of spades in the hut, Guy and I employed our time in burying the blacks who had been shot on the first onslaught.  It was a far from pleasant undertaking, but it was better to put them underground before they were discovered by the dingoes or vultures, which would before long find them out.

The day was waning and as our companions had not returned we began to fear that we should have to spend the night in the hut.  I was glad at length when I saw the shepherd returning with the flock.  He thanked us heartily for what we had done.

When he entered the hut he seemed dreadfully upset at the sight of his dead mate.  "It is a trying life, this shepherding, gentlemen," he observed; "with the chance of being speared or clubbed by the blackfellows, or stuck up by a bushranger, while one has to spend day after day without a human being to speak to, from sunrise to sunset -- and then to have one's only chum killed so suddenly!  It is well-nigh more than I can bear."

It was late at night before Bracewell and Hector came back, accompanied by Mr Piatt, the overseer from the head station, and another man to take the place of the murdered hut-keeper.  As it was now too late to think of proceeding on our journey that night, we turned our horses into a spare paddock, where they could find grass enough to satisfy their hunger until the morning.

Having stowed our baggage inside the hut, after supper we lay down, where we could find room on the ground; one of the party, however, keeping watch in case the blacks should return, though it was not at all likely they would do that.

Before sunrise the shepherd and his new mate got up to dig a grave for the murdered man, in which we saw him placed before we started.  We then, having breakfasted, continued our route, Mr Piatt accompanying us, as, for a couple of miles or so, our roads lay in the same direction.  He had come away without his rifle, or arms of any description, excepting his heavy riding-whip, and he declared that they were unnecessary; for the blacks, he said, would never venture to attack a well-mounted man, and as for bushrangers, when there was no booty to be obtained they were not likely to interfere with him.  He had ridden about the country in all directions, and except when hunting a kangaroo or emu, he had never had to fire a shot.

"But with a mob of savage blacks in the neighbourhood, it would be more prudent to be armed," I observed.

"My horse-whip will soon send them to the rightabout, should any of them venture to come near me," he answered laughing.  "However we have got half a dozen rifles at the head station, and as soon as I get back I'll arm each man and we'll quickly drive the remainder of the mob from the neighbourhood.  Depend upon it if any are remaining they'll clear out fast enough when they find we are after them."

We soon got over the two miles the overseer was to accompany us.  He then, thanking us for the service we had rendered his people, turned off to the right.  He was still in sight, when we heard him shout, and I saw that he was galloping along with uplifted whip as if to strike some object on the ground.  Supposing that he had called us, we rode towards him.  Just then I saw a tall black man spring up from behind a bush and, with axe in hand, attack the overseer, who, it appeared to me, was in great danger of being killed; but as the savage was about to strike, the lash of the whip caught his arm and wrenched the weapon out of his hand.

The black, uttering a cry of disappointed rage, bounded away and a moment after was lost to sight among the scrub.  On getting near to Piatt we saw two more natives on the ground, the one a youth badly wounded, the other a gin, old and wrinkled, apparently the mother of the lad.

"I would not have attempted to strike them, had I seen that one was a woman and that the lad was wounded," said the overseer, as he pointed to the wretched beings; "but I fancied they were black fellows hiding away, and trying to escape my notice.  The man who attacked me is probably the boy's father, and they have shown more than usual affection for their son."

"Don't you think that we could do something for the poor lad?" observed Bracewell.  "Mr Kimber will see what chance there is of his recovery."

"With all the pleasure in the world," said the dominie, dismounting, and he and Bracewell examined the lad's hurt.

The gin sat watching their proceedings.

"He is shot through the body.  It is a wonder that he has lived so long, for I make no doubt he is one of the blacks who attacked the hut," observed the dominie.  "I don't believe that the best surgeon in the land could do him any good.  If we were to attempt to move him, he would die before we had carried him a hundred yards."

Bracewell expressed the same opinion.

We tried to make the old gin understand that there was no hope of her son's recovery; indeed, the next instant, while lifting him up, and after he had given a few gasps, his arms fell helplessly by his side, and we saw that he was dead.

"We had better leave him to his mother, and probably his father will return as soon as we have gone," observed Bracewell.  "He has brought his fate upon himself, and we can do no more."

This was very evident, and the overseer, who was in a hurry to get back, galloped on, while we once more rode forward, leaving the poor woman with her dead son.

We had had enough of fighting, and were truly glad to reach Mr Strong's station without any other accident.  Bracewell was warmly welcomed.

Although he had not before been a visitor at the house, his high character, his perseverance and industry were all known to Mr Strong, who might possibly have had no objection to bestow upon him one of his blooming daughters.

We spent our time in the usual way, working on the station, varied with an occasional hunt after kangaroos, for as they eat up the grass required for the sheep, it is considered necessary to destroy them when they are numerous near a station.  The blacks, after the severe lesson they had received from us, and from other settlers in the neighbourhood, betook themselves to another part of the country, and we had no longer any fear of being troubled by them.

We had been some days at Mr Strong's, and Bracewell was talking of returning home, when a hut-keeper from the most distant station arrived in great alarm, stating that he had been beset the previous evening by a party of white men on horseback, who, taking his gun and ammunition, his week's supply of provisions and everything else, they could lay hands on in the hut, had lashed him hand and foot, threatening that if he gave information of their visit, they would return and kill him. Fortunately, soon after they had gone a shepherd arrived, but he had been afraid at first to leave the hut lest they should put their threat into execution.  Waiting till daylight, he had followed their tracks for some distance, when he had hurried back to bring us information of the robbery.  His idea was, that having supplied themselves with arms, they intended to pillage some of the larger stations, but how he arrived at this conclusion he did not say.  His account was sufficiently clear to make us resolve to follow them up, and to try and put a stop to their career.  Whether or not they were led by our former acquaintance, the big bushranger, and that unhappy fellow Vinson, we could not tell; but from the description the hut-keeper gave of two of the men who had attacked him, we strongly suspected that such was the case.

As there was no time to be lost, we at once organised a party to set out in search of the fellows.  The only black on whom we could rely to act as a scout was our own attendant Toby, who volunteered, without hesitation, to accompany us.  The party consisted of the three elder Strongs, Bracewell, Guy, and I, and two men from the station, with Toby. All of us were mounted, and we agreed to call on our way at Captain Mason's to get further reinforcements, thinking it not unlikely that the bushrangers had already paid him a visit, or if not that they were lurking in the neighbourhood.

As we rode fast we arrived at the captain's before the evening.  He had seen nothing of the bushrangers; but we found the family somewhat in a state of alarm, as a shepherd had come in with the information that a keeper on one of the captain's stations had been killed in his hut the previous night, and that he himself had narrowly escaped with his life.

Captain Mason, therefore, gladly reinforced us with a couple of men; he, however, thinking it prudent to remain to defend his house, lest, during our absence, the daring ruffians might venture to attack it.

Riding towards the hut, we hoped that we might come upon the track of the outlaws.  In this we were not mistaken; and Toby assured us that we should be able to follow them up, as they had taken no pains to conceal their movements.  As it grew dark he dismounted, and led the way in a manner which showed that he was well accustomed to the work.

After going some distance, he begged us to halt, saying that we were not far off from the camp of the bushrangers.

Having pulled up under the shelter of some tall bushes, we waited to hear the report Toby might bring us.  He again crept forward.  We had not remained long, when the crack of a rifle was heard.  As Toby had gone unarmed, with the exception of a long knife which he usually carried in his belt, we feared that coming suddenly on the bushrangers he had been shot.  At all events, as concealment was no longer necessary, we dashed forward, Bracewell and I, with Mr Strong's overseer leading.  We had not gone far, when we caught sight of Toby standing with his knife in his hand, and, some twenty paces from him, of a man in the act of levelling his musket to fire.

That the latter was one of the bushrangers, there could be no doubt, and the overseer, without waiting to inquire, raising his rifle, discharged it.  The bullet took effect, but not until the man had fired; Toby at the same moment fell to the ground, and I thought was killed; but the bushranger, before the smoke had cleared away, had darted behind a tree.

I had not fired, and my attention was attracted for an instant by Toby, who, to my great satisfaction, I saw spring to his feet and make chase after the fugitive.  We called him back, thinking, probably, that the man was not alone, and that our black follower would fall a victim to his intrepidity; but, without heeding us, he dashed forward, and as soon as Bracewell had reloaded, we followed him.  It was no easy matter, however, to make our way between the trees, which here grew unusually thick, while the ground was encumbered by fallen trunks and boughs.  The spot had evidently been chosen by the bushrangers as a place likely to afford concealment, and, at the same time, enable them to defend themselves.

"That fellow was placed here on watch, to warn his comrades of the approach of an enemy, and, depend upon it, they are not far off," said Bracewell.  "We shall come upon them presently, and it will be our own fault if we allow any of the gang to escape."

We now heard the sound of fire-arms, and as the bushrangers were warned of our approach, we knew that their first impulse would be to mount their horses and gallop off.

Our great object, therefore, was to prevent them from doing this, and unless they had kept their animals saddled and bridled, we had still a prospect of succeeding.



Chapter Nine.

Darkness was coming on, but we had still light sufficient to see our way, and should we not come up with the bushrangers at once, they might be off, and we should find it a hard matter to overtake them.  We had gone on for some minutes, expecting every instant to discover them, when Toby stopped.

"Dey dare," he said, pointing to a rocky knoll which rose just above the wood through which we were making our way.  The reason they had not mounted their horses was now apparent, for we caught sight of the animals scampering away in the distance.  The outlaws had probably taken up this position under the idea that they could effectually defend themselves against us, evidently not knowing the numbers composing our party.  The instant we emerged from among the trees, several bullets came flying past our heads.  By a simultaneous impulse we fired in return.

"On, on! before they have time to reload," cried Bracewell.

We dashed forward with our pistols in our hands.  When we reached the knoll, not a man was to be seen on his feet, but three lay dead or dying among the rocks.  At that instant a fourth sprang up with a rifle in his hand with which he was taking aim at Bracewell, when, before he had time to pull the trigger, the overseer fired and he fell.  I had recognised Vinson, and as I rode up, I observed the look of agony and despair which overspread the countenance of my former school-fellow.  I think he must have known me, but he was unable to speak, and before I could dismount he had ceased to breathe.

It was a sad end of a mis-spent life, and yet at one time Cyril Vinson was one of the most admired and sought after in a fashionable circle. Among the bodies we discovered that of the big bushranger, while we found that of the man who first fired a short distance from the knoll, where he had fallen and died before he had been able to reach his companions.

One of the gang only escaped, but Toby declined to go in search of him until the following morning, as he could not, he said, traverse the forest at night.

At daylight we followed him up, but found that he had managed to catch one of the horses, and for the time had made good his escape.

We got back to the station the next day.  The information we brought of the destruction of the long dreaded gang, caused no small satisfaction to our neighbours.  Some weeks afterwards the body of the bushranger who had escaped was discovered in a state of emaciation, showing that he must have been starved to death.

Although there is generally work enough on an Australian station to occupy everybody, we made frequent excursions to hunt kangaroo, dingoes, and emus.  Mr Strong, however, objected to the younger members of his family expending the large amount of powder and shot they were apt to fire away.  He would allow them, he said, only the use of bows and arrows, promising, however, to give each a rifle when they could bring a parrot down on the wing, an emu running, or a kangaroo bounding over the ground.  We therefore employed ourselves during the longer evenings of winter in manufacturing bows and feathering a large supply of arrows, for both of which objects we found suitable material.

We were in the meantime daily gaining experience in all farming operations which would prove of the greatest value when we should have charge of a station on our own account.

I had long promised to make a hunting trip with Hector and his two young brothers, Oliver and Ralph.  As soon as our weapons were finished we set off, accompanied by Toby, who, since the courage he had displayed in capturing the bushrangers, had become a person of no small importance. I took the liberty, however, of carrying my rifle, as Hector also did his.  We agreed to camp out for one or two nights, or as long as the flour and biscuits in our wallets would last.

It is usual to hunt the emu on horseback with dogs, when the bird is pursued until the dogs can get up to it, and seizing it by the throat drag it down.  We, however, hoped with Toby's assistance to stalk it as the natives are in the habit of doing, and for this purpose our bows and arrows were likely to prove as efficient weapons as rifles, the report of which would be certain to drive the birds away from the spot where they were feeding; whereas the silent arrow might bring down one without frightening the others.

We tramped over many weary miles till we reached the edge of a large plain known to be frequented by emus, far beyond any of the sheep-runs. On one side it was bounded by an extensive scrub, which being fortunately to leeward, we hoped by creeping along under its cover to get within reach of the birds.  We had proceeded some way when we caught sight of several, but they were all feeding too far off to give us any hope of shooting them without showing ourselves.  Had we been mounted we might have been able to run down two or three, but being on foot, our best chance was to wait in ambush until some unwary bird got within range of our arrows.  My idea was that, if we could shoot one, the others, from curiosity, would come to see what was the matter.

We accordingly agreed to wait patiently until we were certain of hitting our "quarry."  Toby set us a good example by taking post behind a bush, where he stood looking like a bronze statue well blackened by London smoke.

Had two or three emus come near enough, I do not think that Hector and I could have resisted the temptation to use our rifles.  Not a sound was heard, except when an emu uttered its hollow, booming note, as if carrying on a conversation with its mate.  At length one of the noble birds came stalking up directly towards where we lay hid.  It was fully seven feet in height, with powerful, stout legs, while its wings were so small that they could not be distinguished from its lightish brown and grey plumage.  It got up to within twenty yards, when Oliver and Ralph, unable longer to restrain their eagerness, leapt to their feet, and sent a couple of shafts into its body.  The emu, seeing them, turned tail, and off it went at a rapid rate.  Influenced by a natural impulse, they started off in chase, instead of getting under cover and watching for the chance of another bird coming up to it.  Toby also sprang out from behind a tree, and Hector and I followed, trusting that the arrows had struck deep enough, if not mortally to wound the emu, at all events, to prevent its keeping up the pace at which it was going.  Our plucky young companions were fixing fresh arrows to their strings as they ran on, while Toby, bounding over the ground, promised soon to come up with the wounded bird.  What had become of the other emus, I could not see; and I had to look where I was stepping, for fear of toppling down on my nose. I do not think I ever ran faster in my life.  The emu kept on, but still it did not gain upon us sufficiently fast to make us abandon the hope of coming up with it.  At length its pace became slower, and Oliver, who was leading, sent another arrow into its body.  It went off again on feeling the pain, faster than ever; but before long, once more slackened its speed, though it still managed to keep ahead.  A pretty long chase it led us altogether, still the excitement and prospect of catching it at last induced us to proceed, Oliver and Ralph shouting and hallooing in high glee, as they dashed over the ground, while Toby held his axe ready to give it a finishing blow as soon as he could get up to it.  I was but a short distance behind the others, and supposed that Hector was following me; but at last the hard-pressed emu showed evident signs of giving in, and Oliver was springing towards it, when Toby shouted -- 

"Take care, him give kick one side!"

Fortunately Oliver followed this advice, when, in spite of its hurts, the bird struck out so furiously behind and on one side, that it would have broken his leg, or have inflicted a dangerous wound, had it struck him.

The black now, getting in front of it, threw the axe with so sure an aim, that the bird, its head almost cleft in two, fell dead to the ground.

The two boys uttered a shout of triumph, in which I joined.  I expected to hear Hector's voice, but on looking round he was nowhere to be seen. What had become of him, neither his brothers nor the black could say. We were afraid that he must have hurt his foot, or fallen and been unable to follow.  We could scarcely calculate how far we had come. Oliver declared that it must have been five miles at least; but I did not think the distance was nearly so much.  The question was now, what to do with our emu while we went back in search of Hector, as we were unwilling to abandon so valuable a prize to the dingoes, who were very likely to find it out.  Fortunately there were some bushes near which would afford fuel for a fire, and Toby consented to camp on the spot, while we returned to look for our companion.

I should have said that Guy and Bracewell had promised to ride after us the next morning with a spare horse or two, to carry back the spoils of the chase.  I knew that they would come, although they had expressed great doubt whether we should have any game to carry home.  They had settled to meet us at a spot with which Hector was acquainted; but if he were lost we should be unable to find it.

After we had taken some rest and food we set off, leaving Toby to skin and cut up the emu.

We had spent so much time in the chase, that it began to grow dark before we had got a mile on our way; still, as we had a compass with us, we were able to keep in the right direction.

"As the moon is about to rise, we shall soon be able to see our way," said Oliver; "but what can have happened to Hector?"

No one was able to answer that question.  As we went on we shouted out his name, but no reply came, and I began to feel very uneasy.  I thought that I had seen him certainly close to the point we had now reached.

I twice fired off my rifle, but listened in vain for the report of his. I now began to regret that we had not brought Toby with us, for he would have been far more likely to find him than we were.

His brothers were almost in despair.

"We had better go back and get Toby," exclaimed Oliver.

"Something dreadful must have happened.  Perhaps he has been bitten by a poisonous snake, or kicked by an emu," said Ralph.

"Unless a mob of blacks have been hiding in the scrub and tracked us," I remarked.

"But then I don't see how they could have overtaken him without our seeing them," said Oliver.

At last it became so dark that we found it impossible to proceed, and it was proposed to halt until the moon should rise, when we should better be able to find our way.

We accordingly sat down on the ground to wait until the pale luminary of night could give us her light.

She rose even sooner than we had expected.

"Hurrah!" cried Oliver, "it will soon be almost as light as day, and unless Hector has fallen asleep, we shall find him."

We accordingly went on, shouting out as before.  Presently my foot slipped into a hole, and I very nearly dislocated my ankle.

"What could have made that hole?"  I exclaimed.

"Wombats, I've a notion," answered Oliver.  "Look, there's one of the creatures!"  As he spoke we saw an animal like a small bear waddling along over the ground.  Presently we caught sight of another and another.  We had evidently got into a colony of the creatures.

"I wonder we did not come across these when we were running after the emu," I observed.  "I am afraid that we have got out of our way."

"We must have been close on one side or the other, for I'm certain that we were at no great distance from this," answered Oliver.

"Hector, Hector!" he shouted.

"Listen!" cried Ralph: "I heard a voice.  It came from the right -- it's not far off there!"

Again we shouted, when listening attentively we all three heard a reply and felt sure that we were not mistaken as to the direction from which it came.

On making our way towards the spot we caught sight of a dozen or more wombats, and presently of the head and arms of a person rising above the ground.

"That must be Hector!  Hector, Hector, is it you?" shouted Oliver.

"Yes, yes! make haste or I shall tumble back again," was the answer.

We sprang forward and caught him by the arms; when, all three hauling away, we quickly dragged him out of a large hole into which he had fallen.

"Take care," he said.  "I cannot stand -- I sprained my ankle when falling into the hole, and the pain was so great that I believe I must have fainted.  When I came to myself, I found that it was perfectly dark, and no sooner had I managed to reach the top of the hole than a whole herd of those wombats came sniffing round me, wondering what strange creature had got among them.  I shouldn't have minded them, had they not tried to bite my hands and compelled me to let go again."

The wombats, on our appearance, had waddled off, so that they did not interfere with us while we were attending to Hector.

On his trying to use his foot he found that his ankle was not so much injured as he had supposed, and that by supporting himself on our shoulders he could manage to hobble along.  He therefore very willingly agreed to try and get back to the camp.

"But what has become of your gun?"  I asked; "can you remember where you left it?"

"I'm sure I don't know," answered Hector; "I had it in my hand when I fell, but when I felt about for it I could nowhere find it."

We searched for the rifle round the hole and at last came to the conclusion that it must have fallen in.

Ralph offered to descend.

He got down without difficulty and soon cried out that he had found the rifle at the bottom.  "Stay, I have found something else," he added as he handed up the rifle.  "While I was groping about, my hand came in contact with two hairy creatures.  Here they are!" and stooping down again he hauled out two young wombats.  We speedily knocked them on the head, agreeing that they would make a very good roast for supper.

We should have been puzzled to know how the big wombat got out of the hole, had not Ralph told us that he had found a passage sloping upwards to a smaller entrance some distance off.

As the two small wombats might not prove sufficient for all hands I shot a big fellow which measured nearly three feet in length, and was covered with a thick hairy coat.

Ralph undertook to carry it on his shoulders, while Oliver and I supported Hector.

We now lost no time in making our way back to the camp.  Our progress was of necessity slow, but we reached it at last, having been guided during the latter part of the distance by the bright flames of Toby's fire.

We immediately set to work to cook the wombat.  Toby however had satisfied his hunger on the flesh of the emu, though he managed after a little rest to devour no small portion of the meat we had brought.

We then lay down to sleep, pretty well tired by the fatigue we had gone through.  To our dismay Hector was utterly unable to walk the next morning, but fortunately our friends discovered us on their way to the rendezvous, and he mounting one of the horses we set off for home.  We carried with us the emu, which it was calculated would yield between six and seven quarts of fine oil.  It is for the sake of this valuable product that the bird is generally hunted.

Hector very good-naturedly bore the bantering of the rest of the party on the subject of his adventure among the wombats.

We had ridden some distance across the open country, when we observed ahead what looked like a dense black mist in the far distance above the scrub.

"What can that be?"  I asked of Bracewell.

"I don't like its appearance," he answered.  "I fear that the bush is on fire, and if so it is impossible to say where it will stop.  It appears to be at no great distance from the station.  What do you think, Hector?"

"I'm sure it's very near," he answered hurriedly; "and during this dry weather the rapidity with which it spreads is extraordinary.  Push on, all of you; don't mind me, I can be of no use with this lame foot, but you may still be in time to assist in saving our dear ones at home should the fire reach the house.  Here, Maurice, do you mount my horse, and I'll get on the animal carrying the emu; there's not a moment to lose."

I willingly acted according to his suggestion; and, leaving him with his two younger brothers and Toby, Bracewell, Guy, and I galloped forward.

Bracewell appeared more agitated than I had ever seen him before.  He had been paying great attention to Mary Strong, and the thought now occurred to him that she was in danger.  While we were dashing on as hard as we could go, it appeared to us that the conflagration was rapidly extending.  Already dense wreaths of smoke, rising towards the sky, formed a thick canopy overhead; while we could see every now and then the bright flames darting upwards above the intervening bush as some tall tree was wrapped in their embrace.

It was very evident that the homestead was in the greatest danger, even if it was not already encircled in flames; and although the inmates might have made their escape, we could not tell in what direction they had fled.  They would have endeavoured to save as much of their property as possible from destruction, and Bracewell's fears conjured up the dreadful idea that they might have been caught by the rapidly advancing foe before they could reach a place of safety.

With whip and spur we urged on our animals.  We had as yet seen no one to tell us in what direction our friends had gone.  There was a stream to the left, used in the shearing season for washing the sheep, and Bracewell hoped that they might have made their way to it.

The intervening ground was free of trees, and the grass had been cropped so low that the fire was not likely to make much progress over it.  They might, however, still be at the house, and towards it we directed our course.

As we galloped up what was our dismay to find it on fire, while the outbuildings were nearly burnt to the ground!  We dashed up shouting to our friends, but no one replied.

"They must have gone across the stream," cried Bracewell; and turning our horses' heads we rode furiously on through the flames which had already caught the bushes on either side of us.  After shouting again and again it was with unspeakable thankfulness that we heard our shouts answered, and dashing across the stream, we found the family assembled on a spot where the fire was not likely to reach.

Mary was on her palfrey, her father standing by her side endeavouring to quiet her alarm, while Mrs Strong with the children and young people were seated on the ground among such articles as they had been able to save.

Our arrival greatly relieved their anxiety, for they had fancied that we and the boys might have been passing through a part of the wood in which the fire had been raging.

The flames spread to the east and the west, but having nothing to feed on near the stream they fortunately did not cross to the side on which we had taken refuge.

The fire continued to rage long after darkness had come on, and grand and terrible was the spectacle it exhibited.  We watched it anxiously not knowing how far it might extend.  I was much struck with the calm way in which Mr Strong endured his hard fortune.  Not a murmur escaped his lips, but over and over again he expressed his gratitude to Heaven for having preserved all those dear to him from injury.

Under his directions we all turned to and put up some huts for the ladies, in which they passed the night.  Mercifully towards morning a heavy fall of rain came on and extinguished the fire almost as suddenly as it had begun.

Next morning Mr Strong set about ascertaining his losses and with wonderful energy took steps to repair them.

Bracewell invited the family to take up their abode at his hut until their new house was ready to receive them, and they immediately set off in one of the waggons which had escaped.

Guy and I, with the young Strongs, worked with the farm hands from morning till night, in putting up fences and rebuilding the house; and in a wonderfully short time the station, which had become little more than a mass of ruins, began to assume a habitable aspect.

Though we worked without wages the knowledge we gained was of the greatest value to us in our subsequent career.  In a year or two our worthy cousin had completely recovered from the heavy losses he had sustained.

Bracewell before long became the husband of Mary Strong.

The proprietor of the next station to his wishing to sell out, we, assisted by him, were able to purchase it; and as soon as we had got up a tolerable residence, we sent to the old country for our mother and sisters; and I may honestly say we have had no cause to regret having fixed our home in Australia.

<eob>

The Boy Scout Camera Club

Or

The Confession Of A Photograph

By

G. Harvey Ralphson



Chapter I

Lost: A Foreign Prince!


"Two Black Bears!"

"Two Wolves!"

"Three Eagles!"

"Five Moose!"

"Quite a mixture of wild creatures to be found in a splendid clubroom in the city of New York!" exclaimed Ned Nestor, a handsome, muscular boy of seventeen. "How many of these denizens of the forests are ready to join the Boy Scout Camera Club?"

"You may put my name down twice -- in red ink!" shouted Jimmie McGraw, of the Wolf Patrol. "I wouldn't miss it to be president of the United States!"

"One Wolf," Ned said, writing the name down.

"Two Wolves!" cried Jimmie, red-headed, freckled of face and as active as a red squirrel, "two wolves! You're a Wolf yourself, Ned Nestor!"

"Two Wolves, then!" laughed Ned. "Of course Jimmie and I can form a club all by ourselves, and he can be the officers and I can be the members, but we'd rather have a menagerie of large size, as we are going into the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee."

The boys who had not yet spoken were on their feet in an instant, all clamoring for membership in the Boy Scout Camera Club. Ned lifted a hand for silence.

"Why this present rush?" he asked. "I've been thinking that Jimmie and I would have to go to the mountains alone! Why this impetuosity?"

"The mountains!" shouted Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol. "It is the mountains that get us! We've been thinking that the club you were organizing wouldn't get outside of little old New York, but would loaf around taking snap-shots of the slums and the trees in the parks. But when you mention mountains, why -- "

"I'm going right down stairs and pack my camera!" Jack Bosworth, of the Black Bear Patrol, declared. "When it comes to mountains!"

The clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol was on the top floor of the handsome residence of Jack's father, who was a famous corporation lawyer, and the boys persuaded Jack to wait until they had completed the organization of the Camera Club before he started in packing for the journey to the mountains!

"You'll want an Eagle, if you're going to the mountains!" shouted Teddy Green, of the Eagle Patrol. "I'll fly home and get my wardrobe right now!"

Teddy Green was the son of a Harvard professor, and was inclined to follow in the footsteps of his father in the matter of learning -- after he had first climbed to all the high spots of the world and descended into all the low ones! He insisted on exploring the earth before he learned by rote what others had written about it!

"All right!" Ned grinned. "We'll need an Eagle!"

"And a Bull Moose!" yelled Oliver Yentsch, of the Moose Patrol. "You've got to have a Moose along with you!"

Oliver was the son of a ship builder, and had a launch and a yacht of his own. He was liked by all his associates in spite of his tendency to grumble at trifles. However, if he complained at small things, he met large troubles with a smile on his bright face. He now seized Teddy about the waist and waltzed around the room with him.

"And that's all!" Ned decided, closing the book. "We can't take more than six."

A wail went up from the others, but they were promised a chance at the next "hike" into the hills, and soon departed, leaving the six members of the Camera Club to perfect arrangements for their departure. It was a warm May night, still Ned closed the door leading out into the wide corridor which ran through the house on that floor.

"We can't afford to take others into our plans," he said, "for this is to be another Secret Service expedition."

"For the Government?" demanded Frank Shaw. "Then," he added, without waiting for a reply, "I'll call up dad's editorial rooms and have a reporter sent up here. Top of column, first page, illustrated! That's our Camera Club in the morning newspaper!"

Frank's father was owner and editor of one of the big New York dailies, and the boy always took along, on his trips, plenty of blank paper for "copy," but never sent in a line! His letters to his father's newspaper were usually addressed to the financial department, upon which he had permission to draw at will!

"Huh!" Jimmie commented, wrinkling his freckled nose, "if you should ever furnish an item for your daddy's newspaper he'd never live it down! You've been on all our trips with Ned, and never wired in a word!"

The Boy Scouts of the Black Bear and Wolf Patrols had been through many exciting experiences with Ned Nestor, who, young as he was, was often in the employ of the Secret Service department of the United States government. Frank, as Jimmie said, had been with Ned from the start, and had never sent in a line of "copy" for the paper.

"I'm going to furnish a column a day this trip!" Frank declared, making a motion to seize Jimmie. "We're going to take pictures, aren't we? We'll take 'em by the acre, and dad's newspaper is going to catch every one of them."

"Huh!" Jimmie declared, with a freckled nose in the air. "I'm a newspaper man, too. You needn't think you're the only cherry in the pie! I used to sell newspapers before I got into the Secret Service with Ned!"

From his earliest years Jimmie had indeed been a newsboy on the Bowery. He had never had a home except that provided by himself, and this, in the early days of his life, had as often been a box or barrel in an alley as anything else.

"Why the mountains?" asked Frank Shaw, presently. "Do you have to go to the hills on this trip? I'm glad if you do, of course, but I'd like to know something about it before we start. Dad will have to be shown this time, I reckon! He thinks we rather overdid the stunt when we went to Lady Franklin bay!"

"Never had so much fun in my life!" laughed Jimmie. "When you get where it is forty below, there's some delight in living!"

"What are we going to take pictures of?" demanded Teddy Green.

"Moonshiners!" laughed Frank. "Isn't that right, Ned?"

"Not exactly," was the answer. "This is not a whisky case at all."

"Counterfeiters, then?" queried Oliver. "They live in the hills!"

"No, not counterfeiters, either," Ned replied. "The government has plenty of men to look after counterfeiters and moonshiners. All we've got to do is to go into the mountains and take pictures, and keep our eyes open."

"Open for what?" insisted Jimmie. "My peepers will be open for a venison steak about the first thing! You remember how fine the venison steaks were up in British Columbia? That Columbia river trip was some exciting! What?"

"Well," Ned began, "you all know that I'm in the Secret Service, for you've been with me, some of you, at Panama, in China, and under the ocean, so we'll let the details go without explanation. I'm going to the mountains to look after a precious package stolen from Washington -- from almost under the eyes of the president -- three days ago!"

"Papers?" asked Jimmie. "You know we went to Lady Franklin bay after papers."

"And they think the mountaineers stole this package?" asked Oliver.

"Tell us what it was that was taken first!" insisted Frank. "I'm beginning to see a front-page story in this, right now!"

"The package stolen," Ned went on, with a smile, "was more precious than any bundle of papers could be! It wasn't of gold, silver, diamonds, or anything possessing that kind of value. It was of flesh and blood!"

"A child stolen!" cried Frank. "This goes to dad's sheet right now!"

"Boy or girl?" asked Oliver. "Age, please!"

"Boy," answered Ned. "A boy belonging to one of the ambassadors! Age seven!"

"But why should the mountaineers steal such a child?" asked Jimmie.

"I said the boy belonged to one of the ambassadors," Ned corrected himself. "I should have said he belonged at one of the foreign embassies."

"The son of one of the attaches?" asked Teddy. "That's strange! Why?"

"Teddy," reproved Jimmie, "you can ask more questions in a minute than a motion picture machine can take in a hundred years."

"The stolen boy is in no ways related to any one in this country," Ned answered, "yet his safety is of the utmost importance. It is up to us to find him."

"But why should the mountain men make a grab at a kid?" insisted Jimmie. "I've asked that question numerous times now," he added, with a wrinkled nose.

"It is not believed that the mountain men know anything about the matter," Ned replied. "No one suspects them of taking the child. Mountain men are not up to that sort of thing, as a rule. They will make moonshine -- some of them will -- and may hide a counterfeiter, but they don't steal children!"

"Then who did steal him?" asked Frank. "Don't be so mysterious."

"I want the matter to sink deep into your alleged minds!" was Ned's smiling rejoinder, "and that is the reason I'm drawing the explanation out. It is thought the boy was stolen by some one who came over the sea to do the job -- some one never before in this country."

"I twig!" Jimmie declared, skipping about the room. "The stolen boy is next of succession to some measly old throne! What? And he was sent out here to get him out of the zone of danger, and now he's been nipped?"

The boys looked at Ned with redoubled interest. It had been interesting, the very idea of going into the mountains in quest of an abducted child, but the thought of going after a boy who would one day be a king! That was exciting indeed!

"I can't tell you who the boy is." Ned went on, "but I can tell you that he must be found! The Secret Service men at Washington have a pretty good idea as to who got him, and they believe the criminals are not above committing the crime of murder. In a certain sense, this boy is in the way in the old country!"

"Oh, they wouldn't kill a kid like that!" Jimmie asserted.

"Wouldn't they?" demanded Teddy Green. "If you read up on history, you'll soon find out whether ambitious men will murder children who stand in their way! I half believe the boy was murdered at the very moment he was taken!"

"He has been seen alive since that time," Ned responded. "This is Thursday. He was taken on Monday, and was seen yesterday. Or a boy believed to be the prince was seen yesterday, on a launch on the Potomac river."

"Prince, eh?" cried Frank. "It is a prince, is it? Say, but won't dad be glad to hear about this? I'd like to write the headlines!"

"We may as well call him the prince," Ned laughed.

Before more could be said, a servant knocked at the door and Jack opened it so as to look out. In a moment he turned back inside with a flushed face.

"Say, boys," he said, "there's something strange going on here to-night!"



Chapter II

The Hole In The Attic Floor


Ned sprang to his feet in an instant and beckoned Jack to one side. The others gathered around, but Ned motioned them back.

"Let us find out exactly what Jack means before any remarks are made," he said.

"Well," Jack began, almost in a whisper, "the servant who came to the door said -- "

"Wait a moment!" Ned requested. "Let us get this at first hand. Is the servant you refer to still out in the corridor? Look and see."

Jack opened the door an inch and looked out.

"Yes," he reported, facing Ned, with the door still ajar, "he is still there."

"Then ask him to come in here," Ned suggested, "and you, boys," he added, turning to the wondering faces at the other side of the apartment, "you get as close as you wish while this man is talking, but don't interrupt. It may be that we shall have to do something right soon. I reckon our hunt for the prince starts right here, in the Black Bear Patrol clubroom, in the heart of little old New York."

The servant Jack had beckoned to now entered the room and stood with his back to the door, looking from one boyish face to another. He was a heavily built, muscular fellow, evidently an Irishman, judging from his face and manner.

"Will you kindly come over here and sit down?" Ned asked.

The servant complied and the others gathered around him.

"Now," Jack began, "tell Ned what you just told me -- about the man in the attic, and about the hole in the ceiling."

Every eye in the room was instantly turned toward the lofty ceiling, but nothing out of the ordinary was to be seen there.

"The hole he refers to," Jack, smiling, explained, "is not in sight. It is under the ornamental brass piece that circles the rod from which the chandelier hangs. It was made to listen at, and not to see through, I take it!"

"That makes a good starter," Ned smiled, "so go on."

"Half an hour ago," the servant began, "I was called to this floor by one of the maids, Mary Murphy it was, and she was that scared she looked like a bag of flour! She pointed to the staircase leading to the attic and asked me to go up there.

"So I says to her: 'Why do you want me to go up there? If there's a haunt there, or a burglar, or a man after one of the girls, why should I risk the precious neck of me, when it's the only one I've got, with no prospect of ever getting another in case this one was damaged beyond repair?' So she says to me, she says -- "

"Never mind what she said," Ned interrupted, fearful of a long, involved dialogue between the two servants. "Tell me what you did."

"I went up the staircase, three steps at a jump, an' bumped the head of me on the edge of the door at the top of it. You can see the dent in my coco now!"

"And what did you find there?" asked Ned.

"There was a rug on the floor and a hole in the floor, and a twinkle of light shining into the attic from this room. Some one had been listening there!"

"You saw no one?"

"Never a soul! I'm that sorry I can't express it!"

"When were you in that attic before -- the last time before to-night?"

"Late yesterday afternoon it was."

"Was there a rug in the middle of the floor at that time?" Ned went on.

"No more than there is a bold lion in the middle of this floor, sir."

"Well, what did you do after you got up there to-night?"

"I hunted around for the man who had been lying there listening to the talk in this room, but I didn't find him, sir."

"Did you ascertain where all the servants were at the time the listening must have been going on?" asked Jack, after a short pause.

"All but one," was the reply.

"And that one? Where is he now? That is, tell, if you know where he is?"

"I don't know, sir. He has left the house, I reckon -- bag and baggage."

"Who was it?" demanded Jack, moving toward the door.

"Chang Chu, the Chink, may the Evil One get into his bed!"

"And then you came here and notified Jack?" asked Ned. "As soon as you learned that Chang Chu was not in the house?"

"Indeed I did -- within a minute and a half."

"Where is this girl, Mary Murphy?" asked Ned, turning to Jack. "We must get hold of her right away. I want to hear her story of what she saw in the attic."

Jack went out of the room, but was back in a minute with the girl, a pretty, modest maid of about eighteen. She looked frightened at finding herself the center of interest, but was soon in the midst of her story.

"I went up to the attic to get a piece of cloth for a bandage, Sally having cut her hand with the bread knife. When I got to the door of that room I heard some one inside of it. I listened at the crack there is between the panel and the stile and heard footsteps, slow and soft like. I thought it was one of the maids, and opened the door quick, so as to give her a scare."

The girl paused and wiped her face with a white apron bordered with pink.

"Go on," Ned requested. "Tell us what you saw in the attic."

"It wasn't much, sir," was the agitated answer. "I saw just a flash of dark blue, coming at me like the lightning express, and then I was keeled over -- just as if I had been a bag of meal, sir!"

"He bunted into you, did he?" asked Jack. "Who was it?"

"Indeed I don't know, sir," was the reply. "It was dim in the room, there being only the light from the hall as I opened the door. Then he came at me with such a bunt that it took the breath out of me body!"

"And what followed?" asked Ned.

"She wint down f'r the count!" chuckled the servant who had been first questioned.

"I did not!" was the indignant retort. "When I got up the man was still on the stairs leading to this floor, and I picked up the great shears which had tumbled out of me hand and heaved thim at him. I had brought the shears up to cut a bandage, sir."

"Did you hit him?" asked Jack with a smile. "Where are the shears?"

"I never went back after them!" answered the girl. "I'll go this minute."

"Wait," Ned said, "and I'll get them. Now, you say you saw a blue streak coming at you, head-on! Who wears blue clothes around the house?"

"Chang Chu, the Chink, sir."

"You saw him dressed in blue to-day?" asked Ned.

"All in blue he was!" the male servant interrupted, "with his shirt on the outside of his trousers, like the bloody heathen he is."

"And so you looked for him and failed to find him on the premises?" asked Jack.

"He's gone, bag and baggage," answered Terance, the coachman. "Bad luck to him!"

"Still, you don't really know that it was the Chinaman?" asked Ned.

"He was dressed like the Chink," was the reply. "He smelled like a saloon!"

"Does the Chinaman drink?" asked Ned, facing Terance. "Does he get drunk?"

"He does not," was the reply. "He doesn't know the taste of good liquor!"

"That's all," Ned concluded. "Now you two keep on looking for the Chinaman. He may be hiding in the house, or he may be at some of the dens such people frequent. You, Mary, look for him in the house, and you, Terance, see if you can learn where he usually went when he left the house."

"Pell street!" cried Jimmie. "Look in Pell street!"

"Or Doyers!" Jack exclaimed. "Look in the dumps in Doyers street."

The two went away, forgetting all about the shears which Mary had hurled at the mysterious man she had caught in the attic. Asking the boys to remain where they were, Ned went out to the staircase and secured the article. Taking it carefully by the handle, he returned to the room and held up one blade.

Jack looked at the blade casually at first, then cried out that there was blood on it, and that Mary had speared the sneak.

"Yes," Ned explained, "there is blood on it. Mary hit the fellow on the head with this blade. What else do you see on the steel?" he asked with a smile.

Jimmie looked and backed away in disgust. His freckled face was thrust out of the door for an instant, and they heard him calling to Mary, who, being in the kitchen, beyond sound of his voice, did not respond.

"What do you want of Mary?" demanded Jack. "Shall I call her?"

"She said it was the Chink, didn't she?" the boy asked. "Or, she said it was a man dressed like the Chink? Well, it wasn't the Chink."

Ned laughed and looked at the boy admiringly.

"How do you know that?" he asked. "Why are you so sure it was not the Chink?"

Jimmie looked up into Ned's face with a provoking grin.

"You know just as well as I do that it wasn't the Chink," he said. "Just you look on that blade again! Ever see a Chink with light brown hair?"

"Now, what do you think of that?" roared Jack. "Sometimes this boy, Jimmie, seems to me to be possessed of almost human intelligence!" The lads gathered closer around the shears, one blade of which Ned was still holding out for inspection. There was the blood, and there was the long, blonde hair!

"Hit him on the belfry!" Jimmie grinned. "Knocked off a shingle and brought away a piece of it! Now, why did the Chink run away? That's what I'd like to know!"

"Where did the man get the Chink's dress?" asked Oliver. "That's what you'd better be asking? Why did the Chink let him in and then loan him the dress?"

"I rather think that's why the Chinaman ran away!" laughed Ned. "You boys seem to have reasoned it all out. He might have let the sneak in and then let him have some of his own clothes to wear! And that will make trouble for us!"

"Do you think the fellow heard about the Camera Club trip, and the object of it?" asked Oliver. "If he was scared away half an hour ago he didn't learn much, for we hadn't begun to talk much about it at that time!"

"He may not have heard anything important," Ned replied, "but the fact that he was sent here to listen is significant! Some one in Washington knows that we have been chosen to search the mountains for the prince! Some one knows that we are going out as an innocent-looking Boy Scout Camera Club, but really to find the boy. Now, what will that person do to the Camera Club, after we get out into the mountains?"

"The question in my mind," Jimmie broke in, "is what we shall do to him!"

"I'm sorry the information about our going leaked out," Ned said, gravely. "As boy snapshot friends we might have been able to do things which the Secret Service men could not do. No one would pay much attention to a group of boys roaming over the mountains. But now I'm afraid our investigations will be all in the limelight!"

"Tell you what," Jimmie cut in, "suppose we find the Chink and make him point out the man who was in the house -- listening?"



Chapter III

What The Box Contained


"All right," Oliver encouraged. "Let's go out and make a throw at finding him, anyway! He may be in the garage, or the carriage house right this minute."

Jimmie and Oliver rushed away to find Terance, the coachman, and undertake the search suggested, while Ned, Jack, Frank and Teddy sat at the open windows looking out on the street.

"Chang Chu was at liberty to go into the attic at any time?" asked Ned, tentatively.

"Oh, yes," Jack answered, "the other servants sent him about on errands. He is a handy man about the premises -- or was, rather."

"Is he a man to do such a thing as we are accusing him of?" Ned then asked.

"I never thought so," was the puzzled reply. "I hope you don't think that he was beaten up by the man who secured his blue clothes! That would be tough on the fellow."

"I have been thinking of that," Ned responded, "and while the boys are looking for the Chinaman in the outbuildings suppose we look for him in the upper part of the house."

"But if the sneak could get into the upper part of the house without the use of the disguise," reasoned Jack, "he wouldn't need it at all, would he?"

"He might have been surprised while at work by the Chinaman," Ned suggested. "In that case he might have taken the clothes as an afterthought. Suppose we look and see?"

Leaving Frank and Teddy sitting by the window, looking out on a perfect May night, Ned and Jack climbed the staircase to the attic and entered the room directly over the Black Bear Patrol clubroom. It was a large room, more of a storeroom than an attic, with a hardwood floor and papered walls and ceiling.

A great sack upon which clothing and odds and ends of all descriptions were hanging stood at the south end of the apartment, while a long row of boxes and packing trunks occupied the floor at the north end. The rug, which had been thrown down on the floor near the hole bored through a plank, was still there where the servants had seen it. The listener had, at least, a good notion of personal comfort!

"Where was this rug taken from?" asked Ned.

"It was on the rack the last time I saw it," Jack answered.

"Was it clean at that time?" Ned continued, examining the rug with a glass.

"What do you mean by clean? It was dusty, of course, like everything else here."

"Were there any stains on it -- stains like blood?" Ned went on, dragging the rug under the electric lights which had been switched on.

"Why, of course not. It was originally in the little den off the library, but father became tired of it and told Terance to bring it here."

"How long ago was that?"

"Oh, a month or two. I can't be exact as to the date, you know."

Ned handed his chum the glass and indicated a certain portion of the rug.

"What do you call that?" he asked. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like a spot of blood," Jack declared. "And it is wet, too! What do you make of this, Ned? Was Chang Chu attacked and killed by that sneak thief?"

"That is for us to find out," Ned answered. "At the present moment, it looks as if Chang Chu wouldn't be found on Pell or Doyers street. What is there is those boxes -- the large ones sitting against the wall?"

"About everything, I take it. I never looked into them. Why?"

"We may as well see what they contain," Ned replied, advancing to the largest box and throwing up the cover. "What do you think now?" he asked, as a huddled figure stirred in the box and opened a pair of suffering eyes. "This is the Chink, I suppose?"

Before Jack could reply, Ned had the man out of the box, with the cords cut from his hands and feet, the cruel gag removed from his mouth. His blue blouse was gone! Chang Chu tumbled over on the floor when Ned tried to stand him on his feet. There was a small cut on his head.

"Chang velly much bum!" he said, with his hands on his stomach.

"Chang never forgets a word of slang," Jack laughed. "He will remember the slang word for anything when he forgets the real word! What did they do to you, Chang?" he continued, addressing the Chinaman.

Chang pressed his hands to his nose significantly and dropped his head back.

"Chloroform!" Ned declared, sniffing at the contents of the box.

The Chinaman could not describe the man who had attacked him. He had been alone in the attic, putting away old clothes, when he had been struck and seized from behind by a man he described as a giant for strength, stripped of his blouse, and lifted bodily into the box. There he had been bound, gagged and rendered unconscious by the use of the drug.

"The man who did it," mused Ned, "is an adept at crime, resourceful, daring. The chloroform would have attracted the attention of the servants at once if it had been administered in the open air. Then his taking the Chink's blouse as a disguise shows that he is quick to take advantage of his opportunities. A clever man."

"And he left no clue!" Jack complained. "Just our luck, Ned!"

"All we know is that he is tall, has light brown hair, and is very strong," Ned replied. "But there are ten thousand people in New York this minute who answer to that description."

"How do you know he is tall?" demanded Jack.

"When he lay on the rug," Ned explained, "he stretched out on his stomach to look through the hole, if he could. He couldn't; he could only listen, for the cut was made so as to be hidden by the ornamental brass piece that circles the rod from which the chandelier swings. The marks of his elbows and toes were on the soft fiber of the rug, showing him to be a man at least six feet tall."

Ned walked over to the large box again and bent over it.

"Crumbs!" he exclaimed, in a second. "Crumbs!"

"Then he must have brought a lunch up with him," Jack exclaimed excitedly. "There is no knowing how long he was here!"

"Some one in Washington has leaked!" Ned declared, angrily.

"Why Washington?" demanded Jack. "Why not New York?"

"Because no one in this city knows about our being engaged to hunt down the abductor. My instructions have all come in cypher, and some of them have, as you know, been addressed to this house. And there you are!"

Chang Chu arose limply, rubbing a small wound in his head from which blood had come, and tottered off toward the staircase. As he did so, Ned noticed that his pigtail was very black, very long, and very greasy.

"Did he take you by the cue?" asked the boy. "Did he pull your hair?"

"Velly much lough-neck pull -- dam!" answered the Chinaman.

Ned went back to the box where the Chink had been hidden and began taking out the articles it held, slowly and one by one.

"The cloth he poured the chloroform on must be here," he said. "He would naturally throw it into the box before shutting down the cover, as there might still be enough of the drug in it to put the Chink to sleep."

"Here it is," Jack said, reaching into the box and lifting out a rag and smelling of it. "Here is the dope cloth, all right and pretty strong yet."

"That's it, all right," Ned answered. "A worn white handkerchief, eh?"

"Name or mark on it?" asked Jack, passing the cloth to Ned.

"Nothing of the sort," was the answer, "but there's something better. When the fellow pulled at the Chink's greasy pigtail he got his hand smeared with oil. Then he grasped this white cloth fiercely, and there you are! See! The mark of the thumb couldn't be plainer if it had been printed on. Observe the long cicatrice on the ball of the thumb? I'll take this down and photograph it."

"Tall, strong, blonde, scar on the thumb!" laughed Jack. "We are getting on."

"It would be interesting to know how he got into the house," Ned mused.

"If we could only catch him and shut his mouth," Jack muttered, "we wouldn't have such a rotten bad time in the mountains."

"It is not what he knows," Ned suggested. "It is what his master as Washington knows. We might put this chap under ten feet of earth, but the opposition from Washington would go right on."

"When was the child abducted?" asked Jack. "When and how?"

"He was taken from in front of the embassy early in the morning. The ambassador brought him out for a spin in his automobile and left him out in front a moment. When he went back to continue his morning ride the automobile and the boy were nowhere to be seen! This was before nine o'clock Monday morning. Yesterday, along about noon, the boy -- or a lad very much resembling him -- was seen by a lieutenant of infantry in a motor boat, speeding up the Potomac."

"Why didn't he catch him, then?" asked Jack.

"Because he did not know at that time that the prince had been kidnapped. The authorities kept everything quiet! I presume they thought the thief didn't know that he had committed a crime, and were afraid the newspapers would tell him about it!"

"Tell that to Frank!" laughed Jack. "He'll go up in the air!"

The boys found Jimmie and Oliver in the club-room when they went down. The garage and carriage house had been searched -- in vain, of course, for the boys had encountered the Chinaman on his way down to the basement as they ascended the stairs, the elevator being closed for the night.

"I believe that Chink had something to do with it, all the same," declared Jimmie. "He ought to be watched every minute of the time!"

"Now, here's another point I don't understand," Jack said, going back to the conversation he had had with Ned in the attic. "Why do the authorities think the boy has been taken to the mountains?"

"Because that would be a natural place for the thieves to hide," Ned answered. "The mountains are easily within reach of Washington, and they are virtually inaccessible to known officers of the law -- at least so it is reported. The mountains run from central Pennsylvania to central Alabama, a distance of about a thousand miles, and afford many desirable hiding places."

"Yes, and we're likely to get our crusts split down there!" Teddy grinned. "We will if they find out that we belong to the Secret Service!"

"The Potomac river rises in West Virginia," continued Ned, "and the prince may have been taken to the foothills in the launch he was seen in."

"Are we going in a motor boat?" asked Jimmie.

"We are going by rail as far as we can go," Ned answered, "and then take shank's horses for the wild country, with mules to tote the baggage. In the eastern part of West Virginia, we are likely to travel forty miles without seeing a cabin."

"Where do we get our eatings?" demanded Jimmie. "It makes me hungry to climb mountains. We'll have to have a relief expedition sent after us if we don't get plenty of eatings," he added, with a wink at Teddy.

"Plenty of game up there," Ned grinned. "Plenty of deer, turkeys, coon, rabbits, birds and bears! We can dodge the game laws! Also a few wildcats are reported to have been seen there. And there is said to be plenty of moonshine in the caves, too. Oh, we'll have a sweet old vacation, boys. And we start tomorrow!"



Chapter IV

A Camp In The Mountains


It was early June, and the members of the Boy Scout Camera Club were camped on a mountain top in West Virginia. They had spent about two weeks in making the trip to the point where they had established camp.

Three mules, divested of their burdens now, were "staked out" in a little corral fragrant with grass down near the timber line. The tent they had carried was a short distance below the summit, on the eastern slope, with packages and bags and boxes of provisions piled around it.

To the south lay Virginia, to the north, east and west stretched the mountainous district of West Virginia. Far below them ran the North Fork of the Potomac river.

What they saw was a wild and lonely country, with more deer, wild turkeys, and raccoons than human beings. On their hard and frequently delayed journey in they had passed cabins, surrounded here and there by rail fences, but there were none in sight from where they now stood.

The sun, a round ball of fire in the west, would be out of sight in half an hour, and then the desolate darkness of the mountains would surround them. A wild turkey called to its mate in the distance, and small creatures of the air fluttered about, as if determined to know what human beings were doing there, in their ordinarily safe retreat.

The boys had visited Washington the day following the incidents at the clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol, but had learned nothing of importance there. The launch in which the young prince had been seen had been traced up the river to the vicinity of Cumberland, but there the trail had ended.

"It is a case of needle-in-the-haystack," the Secret Service chief had said to Ned, on the morning of his departure for the mountains. "We have men looking over every inch of the large cities. We want you to rake those mountains with a fine-tooth comb! Personally, I believe that the prince is there."

"But," Ned had replied, "how are we to communicate with you in case we require more definite instructions?"

"You know what Sherman did when he left Atlanta?" laughed the chief.

"Why, he cut the wires," returned Ned, "so as not to have his movements hampered by orders from men who, not being on the ground, could not possibly know as much as he did of what ought to be done."

"That is what I want you to do!" the chief continued. "Cut the wires."

"But that is assuming a great responsibility," urged the boy.

"Very true, but I have an idea that you want to work in your own way, so go to it. A mess of lively boys running up and down the mountain sides looking for game and snap-shots ought not to arouse the suspicion of the thieves if they are there. Make friends with the mountain people if you can. They are naturally suspicious, but good as gold at heart."

That was his last talk with the chief. After that supplies had been bought and transported by rail to the nearest point, and there the mules had been bought and the difficult journey begun. They had just made their first permanent camp.

"I wouldn't mind living here a few years!" Teddy said. "It beats the hot old city! If I had plenty of reading matter and a full larder, I don't think I would ever go back. I wish Dad could step out of that Harvard thing and eat supper with us!"

The shrill scream of a mule now came up from the feeding ground below, and a commotion at the tent showed that one of the animals was kicking up a row there.

"That's that long-eared Uncle Ike," Jimmie McGraw exclaimed. "I feel in my bones that I'm going to love that mule! He's so worthless! If he had two legs less he'd beat Jesse James to the tall timber in piracy! He won't work if you don't watch him, and he'll steal everything he gets his eyes on! Yes, sir, I feel that there's a common sympathy between that mule and me, yet I know that we'll have a falling out some day! He's so open and above-board in his mischief."

"Can you see what he's doing now?" asked Teddy.

"Why, I saw him knocking at the door of the tent, and I presume that by this time he is sitting in my chair picking his teeth, after devouring the bread! That sure is some highwayman, that mule, yet I feel that I'm going to love and admonish him!"

The boys dashed down the slope to the tent and found Uncle Ike, as Jimmie insisted on calling a tall, ungainly, raw-boned mule, chewing at a slice of ham which he had pilfered from a box by the side of the fire.

"There's one thing about Uncle Ike," Jimmie grinned, as Ned drove the animal away with a club. "He always looks like he had been sent for to lead an experience meeting! He'll put on a face as long as a cable to a freight train, and then he'll turn to me and wink one eye, as if explaining that it was all for a joke."

"That's your ham he's chewing, Jimmie!" Ned declared.

"I suppose so," the boy replied. "That's what you get by being brother to a long-eared mule that for cussedness has Becker's gunmen backed up a creek with the oars lost!"

While the mule was being restored to his companions, Jimmie and Teddy began getting supper. They had plenty of tinned goods, plenty of flour, potatoes, meal and ham and bacon. Still, they thought they ought to have something in the way of game.

"I saw a wild turkey back there," Teddy volunteered.

"And I saw a coon," Jimmie added.

"Is there any law on turkeys and coons?" asked Jack, who was trying to make the fire burn bright with lengths of green wood.

"There ain't no law of any kind up here," Frank insisted.

"Then we'll go and get a coon," Jimmie declared. "You boys get a red-hot fire and I'll have the bird here before Ned gets that mule tied up!"

"Guess I'll go along," Teddy suggested. "I never did like to have anyone else go to the trouble of getting my wild meat for me! I'll go along, and Frank and Ned and Oliver can get supper."

Without waiting for any affirmative replies from their companions, the two lads darted away, and were soon lost in a canyon which ran at right angles with the ridge much farther down. Frank and Oliver began piling dry wood on the fire.

"Those boys will be back here in time for breakfast -- just about!" Frank commented, as the coffee water boiled and the bacon began sizzling in the pan. "If they get any supper here they'll have to cook it!"

Presently Ned came back from the little valley where the mules were feeding and took a field glass from the tent.

"What's up now?" Teddy asked, as Ned walked back to the ridge and looked down into the valley of the North Fork. "Ned must be seeing, things!"

Ned remained oh the summit a long time, until the sun sank behind the range to the west and the valleys became ribbons of black between the lighter crests of the mountains.

Presently Frank scrambled up the yards of rugged, rock-strewn slope which led to the summit where Ned was standing, still with his field glass in his hand.

"Anything in sight over that way?" the boy asked, as he came to Ned's side.

"There is a column of smoke in the valley," Ned answered. "I thought at first that there were two, but I may have been mistaken. Do you remember what two columns of smoke would have indicated?"

"Of course!" laughed Frank. "If I should become lost in woods or mountains, or anywhere, I'd build two fires and get wet wood to make smudge, good and plenty. That would mean that I was lost and needed assistance. That's the Boy Scout Indian signal for help. I remember when we saw it north of the Arctic Circle, don't you?"

"I won't be apt to forget it right away," was the reply.

The boys remained standing on the summit for some moments, although it was now too dark for them to distinguish objects in the valley below. All around the June night called to them with its silences and its sharp and sudden rasp of sounds. There were the mountains, brooding, heavy, mysterious, and there were the fleets of flying clouds reaching down to wrap their summits!

"It is simply great up here!" Ned exclaimed presently. "That is the only word that seems to express it -- great!"

"Yes, it is fine for a change," Frank admitted, "though I don't believe in the wilds as a permanent thing! Everything in the mountains and forests seems to me to be crude and half done. This, I presume, is because the world isn't finished yet. Those who come to places like this catch the Creator with his sleeves rolled up, if that isn't a coarse way of saying it."

"I like it, just the same!" Ned declared. "It is glorious! It is life!"

"It is healthful so far as animal life goes," laughed Frank, "but what about mental life? There would never have been anything wonderful in the way of inventions -- like the wireless, and the telephone, and the uses of electricity -- if mankind had been content to live and die in the wilds! It is crude, as I said before, unfinished, out of line with all the decrees of art. I'll take the city for mine, with its marble buildings, its wonderful art galleries, its beautiful parks!"

"Say, you mooners!" came a voice from the camp below, "if you've got done surveying the beautiful black landscape, suppose you come down to supper?"

The boys went down to the tent to find Jimmie and Teddy still absent.

"There are two things we'll have to set aside time for," Ned declared, as he took a seat on the ground before the blaze, with a great plate of food in his lap. "We'll have to arrange for keeping Uncle Ike, the mule, out of mischief, and for keeping track of Jimmie and Teddy. Those boys will get lost in the mountains yet, and go hungry for a few days. That would be punishment enough for Jimmie -- hunger!"

The boys sat by the campfire a long time, heaping dry wood on the blaze until they were obliged to widen the circle about it. There was only the light of the stars, looking down from a cloud-flecked sky, but there would be a moon shortly after ten o'clock.

"If the boys don't return before long," Frank broke out, after a moment of silence, "I'm going to take a searchlight and go out looking for them."

The boy expressed the thought which was brooding in the minds of them all. They were more than anxious for the safety of the two truants. Oliver arose and walked away from the fire up the slope, until his figure was out of sight, but shortly came back and sat down again, his face expressing impatience as well as anxiety.

"There's no reason why they shouldn't see this fire," he said. "I walked over the summit a bit to see if the light was reflected over there. It is. If anywhere within two miles, they ought to see this blaze or the glow from it. They're just doing this to make us worry. I'd like to get them by the neck, this minute," he added.

Uncle Ike, the mule, gave vent to a vicious scream at that moment, and Ned arose and started in the direction of the feeding ground. When he reached the spot he saw that the mules were agitated, weaving about on the tying lines in either fear or anger.

"Uncle Ike," Ned said, patting the ugly beast on the neck, "what is it about your sleeping chamber that you don't like? Or it is your supper you object to?"

Uncle Ike thrust his long ears forward and elevated his heels, as if kicking at some imaginary object back of him. Then Ned saw a figure moving in the darkness.

"Come out of that!" he called. "Why are you sneaking around here?"

The figure advanced toward the boy then -- the figure of an old woman!



Chapter V

Jimmie And Teddy Miss A Meal


"I was scared to come up until I heard your voice," the old lady said, as she came close to Ned. "I didn't know you were only a boy."

The woman appeared to be very old. Her hair was white and her lean face was wrinkled and leathery with time and storm and exposure to the winds of the hills. Still, old as she seemed to be, she walked alertly, with the swinging grace of the true mountain woman. She was very plainly dressed in a one-piece gown of dark calico. Her head was not covered at all, and the white hair took on a tinge of gold from the distant campfire. Her black eyes were sharp, yet kindly in expression.

"Good evening, mother," Ned said, removing his cap as he greeted the old lady, "we didn't expect to meet ladies here. Do you live in this locality?"

"Quite a step," the old lady said, in a gentle, hesitating tone, "quite a bit down the slope is where I live. I wanted to know what the fire meant, and so I came up. You don't mind my being here, do you?"

"Glad to have you come!" Ned responded, truthfully. "If you care to come up to our camp we'll be glad to give you a cup of tea and whatever else you want."

"I'll be glad to get a cup of tea," the woman declared. "We don't get tea up here in the mountains -- not very often. We don't have the money to pay for it, and, then it is such a long way to go after it. Yes, I'll go with you."

Ned noted that the woman did not speak the dialect of the mountains. He wondered how long she had lived there, and if she lived alone. She did not long leave him in doubt on these points, for she seemed anxious to talk.

"I'm Mary Brady," she said, as they ascended the slope toward the fire. "I came here years ago with my husband, Michael Brady, to live in peace. Mike was a good man when he was himself, but the saloon men of New York were always after him when he had any money. We came here to be rid of them."

"That was the correct thing to do, it strikes me," Ned said, for want of something better, as she seemed to expect some friendly comment.

"I don't know," she went on. "We meant it for the best -- but there was the moonshine! I didn't know about the moonshine when we came here. All I thought of was to get away from Houston street! He fell one day and they brought him home dead."

Ned was strangely interested in this simple life history. The poor old woman living there, probably alone and in want, after such an ending to a hopeful plan!

"And you kept on here?" he asked. "Why didn't you go back to the city?"

"There was the boy," she answered. "He was ten when we came here. I didn't want him to get the thirst! After Mike died I lived here to keep him in the good path. He is a good boy, but when he was twenty they got him, too -- the moonshiners!"

"And he left you?" asked Ned.

"He said he couldn't make anything of himself here, so he went to Washington. He's never come back, though I've always kept a home for him, and never ceased to look for him. He writes me now and then that he's coming home, but he doesn't come! When I saw your fire I thought he might be with you."

By this time they were at the camp, and Mary Brady was presented to the boys and made comfortable by the fire, with tea and canned fruit before her. She enjoyed the lunch immensely and looked the gratitude she did not speak.

"When did you hear from your boy last?" asked Frank, by way of keeping the conversation going. "Did he write from Washington? Was it to Washington you said he went?"

"It was Washington," was the reply. "He wrote me a month or more ago that he would be here with friends in June. I thought he might be with you. He has been married since he left home, and has a child, though his wife is dead."

"And he said he was thinking of bringing the child here?" asked Ned, glancing significantly at Frank. "Did he say that in his last letter?"

"Yes, that he was thinking of bringing the boy here. It is only a mite of a boy -- not more than seven years old, he said. I'm anxious for him to come."

Jack and Oliver gathered closer about the old lady in order to hear every word that was spoken. One brought her more tea and the other filled the sauce dish with peaches. Ned motioned to them to remain silent.

"And so you expect him to drop down on you any time?" Ned asked.

"Yes, my son and the boy. He's a cute little chap, Mike says. Mike was named for his father, and the lad's name is Mike, too. I'm anxious for him to get here. And I'm wondering whether he's light and blonde, with brown hair and blue eyes like his father, or dark, like my side of the family.

"What do you make of it?" Jack whispered to Oliver.

"What do I make of what?" demanded the other.

"Of the old lady and her three Mikes?" replied Jack, scornfully. "Have you been asleep all this time?"

"I was waiting for you to express an opinion," Oliver declared. "Do you think it possible that they would change the name of a prince of the royal blood to Mike?"

"So you've caught on, at last!" whispered Jack. "Do you really think we've tumbled on a streak of luck at the send-off?"

"I don't know," was the hesitating reply. "We'll have to cultivate this old lady."

"Sure thing!"

"Did she say where her cottage is?" asked Oliver, directly. "We ought to verify her story, it seems to me. I'd like to hear Ned's opinion!"

"Do you remember what she said about Mike II. having blonde hair and blue eyes?" asked Jack, presently.

"Sure!" was the answer. "That made me sit up and take notice. It brought back to my memory the light brown hair on the bloody blade of the shears."

"Same here," announced Jack. "If this Mike II. comes here we'll have to find out if he has a cicatrice on the right thumb and a scar on the head, a scar which might have been brought about by a pair of shears thrown by a frightened maid in the city of New York!"

"Think of a crown prince being called Mike!" chuckled Oliver.

"Ned didn't say it was a crown prince!"

"He might just as well have said it! He didn't dispute me when I asked if it was a crown prince who had been abducted."

"If Jimmie and Teddy don't return soon," Jack said, changing the subject, "we'll have to start the Boy Scout Camera Club out looking for them."

"They'll be back when they get hungry!" laughed the other.

But Jimmie and Teddy were still away when the moon rose over the ridge to the east. Mrs. Brady was still by the campfire. She appeared to delight in the companionship of the boys. Having lived alone for years, she would have been delighted at any companionship whatever, but the boys were full of life and vitality, they were sympathetic, and, besides, they were from her old home -- New York!

As the moon showed her round face over the summit of the range to the east she arose and stretched out a withered hand to Ned.

"I'm going," she said. "I've had a pleasant evening. You don't know how much it has been to me to sit here and talk with you! If you'll come down to my cabin some day I'll try to make it pleasant for you!"

"Some day," laughed Ned. "What do you say to my going right now? Of course I've got to see you home! Couldn't think of letting you go away alone."

"I've walked these mountains night and day for more than twenty years," faltered the old lady, "and I'm not afraid now!"

"You don't object to my going?" asked Ned.

"I'm awful glad to have you go," was the reply. "But you'll find it a long walk, there and back," she added.

"If it is too far for me to walk back," Ned laughed, "you may give me a bunk on the floor! Anyway, I'm going to see you home!"

As the boy spoke he beckoned to Frank to step to one side with him.

"Of course this looks all straight, on the face of it," he said, when the two were alone together, "but one can never tell. We've got to be pretty careful, for we are in a strange country, and are here for a purpose which may be resented by the mountaineers. We can't afford to take any chances."

"Do you suspect the old lady?" asked Frank, in amazement.

"I don't know what to think," was the hesitating reply. "The first night we spend in a permanent camp, up she comes with a story about a son being about to bring in a boy of seven for her to mother! Then, as if that wasn't enough of a bait for us to snap at, she goes on to say that the son is blonde, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Looks like we were being led on!"

"You bet it does," Frank replied. "Jimmie and Teddy have disappeared, and this may be a frame-up, and so I wouldn't go off alone with her. And, look here," Frank went on, "do you believe Uncle Ike would have kicked, and screamed, and made a row generally, if only this old lady had approached him? Do you, now?"

"She might have frightened him," Ned replied, "for he may not be used to women. Still, she may have had some one with her! I was thinking that Uncle Ike sounded a warning on slight cause," he added.

"Well, if I were you, I wouldn't go away alone with her," advised Frank. "Let me go with you if you insist on going."

"Of course I've got to go now," Ned went on. "I've promised her, and she is expecting me to go. But I'll tell you what you may do. You can wait until I have gone some distance and then follow on behind, not so as to be seen by any other person trailing us, but still close enough to be available in case of trouble."

"All right," Frank agreed. "I'll keep back far enough to see any one who might be following the two of you! I wish Jimmie was here! He'd be just the one to go with me. And there's always something doing when Jimmie is around!"

"I'm worried about those boys!" Ned answered. "I'm going to keep a sharp lookout for them, all the way to the cabin."

"There's something wrong," Frank hastened to say. "They never would have remained away from camp like this. And without supper, too! Jimmie is particular to be on hand when it comes to eating time. There! There's Uncle Ike talking in his sleep! I wonder what's eating him now? Shall I go and see?"

"No," Ned said, hastily, seizing Frank by the arm. "Don't even look in that direction. Watch Mrs. Mary Brady!"

The old woman's face was turned toward the spot where the mules were staked out, her figure was straight, tense, alert. She appeared to be listening and watching for some agreed-upon signal from the corral. Ned moved over toward her cautiously.

Once the old woman moved, involuntarily, toward the mules, but she drew back in a moment and stood, waiting, with her eyes on the boys, now in a little group not far from the spot where she stood.



Chapter VI

Signals In The Canyon


Jimmie and Teddy passed over the summit to the west of the camp and took their way down a difficult incline toward the headwaters of the Greenbrier river. They traveled some distance, walking, sliding, creeping, before they came in sight of a copse which appeared to be worth looking over for wild game.

"I don't know about this wild turkey business," Teddy said, as the boys stood on an elevation lifting above the patch of timber. "If I've got it right, wild turkeys are precious birds in West Virginia."

"I never once thought of that!" Jimmie exclaimed. "Why, we won't have any fun hunting at all! I wonder if there is a closed season for coons?"

Teddy took out a memorandum book and turned to an insert pasted on the inside of the cover. Dropping to the ground, so as not to attract the attention of any natives who might be near by, he read the slip by the aid of his electric searchlight.

"Open season for wild turkeys in West Virginia from October fifteen to December one," he read. "Now, what do you know about that? Rotten, eh?"

"I guess we can get one to eat, all right," grumbled Jimmie. "Who's going to know anything about it if we do, I'd like to know? Away off here in the mountains!"

"I presume there are constables and justices up here who would be glad to soak us for fifty or a hundred apiece!" Teddy grinned. "I reckon we'd better eat hens, and coon, and fresh fish -- if we can get them! And deer! We get no venison steaks!"

"Not this season!" Jimmie grunted. "They'd take great joy, as you say, in getting us into jail and extracting all our vacation money! I'm going to take photographs of the West Virginia game laws. A man is about the only creature one can shoot down here during the summer and get away with it! I'll have Frank put that idea in his dad's newspaper!"

"We've got enough to eat, anyway," laughed Teddy. "The question before the house right now is how are we going to get down into that patch of trees?"

"The laws of gravity will take us down!" answered Jimmie. "Just step off this ledge and see if I'm not right. What do we want to go down there for, anyway, if we can't shoot a wild turkey after we get there? I'm going back to camp."

The night was falling fast, and stars were showing between masses of clouds. The boys had traveled farther from the camp than they had intended, and the return journey was all up hill. They surveyed the prospect gloomily.

"I could eat the top off one of the mountains!" Jimmie declared, as they turned to make the climb. "I never was so hungry in my life. Wish we were back in camp!"

Teddy, who had turned to look down into the valley, now caught Jimmie by the arm and pointed downward, where a low-lying ridge jutted out of the general slope and made a small canyon between itself and the body of the mountains, a canyon in which a trinkle of water showed.

"Do you see that column of smoke?" he asked, as Jimmie turned.

"There must be a camp there," Jimmie exclaimed. "I thought we would be all alone up here for a time -- until we got a line on the men who stole the prince."

"Wait a minute!" Teddy answered. "There! Now do you see two columns of smoke?"

The two columns lifted skyward for only a second, then died down.

"That's the Boy Scout signal for help!" Jimmie commented. "I wonder what shut it off so quickly? It would be strange if we found Boy Scouts here in the mountains -- eh?"

"According to all reports," Teddy answered, "you boys found Scouts in all parts of the world, even in China and the Philippines! If it is a Scout making that Indian sign for help, he'll get the smoke going again before long. There they are!"

The two columns of smoke were in the air again, ascending from the canyon between the mountainside and the outcropping ridge. Directly a gleam of fire was seen.

"That's the call for help, all right!" Jimmie cried. "What shall we do about it?"

"We ought to go right there. The boy may have been injured in a fall, and may be starving! We ought to get there as soon as possible."

"Without going back to camp to tell the boys?" asked Jimmie. "We have been gone a long time now, remember. They will be worrying about us pretty soon."

"But we ought to go right now!" insisted Teddy. "The boy may be in trouble."

"Something else coming!" cried Jimmie, then. "See that blazing stick working overtime? He's going to talk in the Myer code! Now count right and left."

"There's one to the right!" Teddy said. "I've lost track of the code already."

"No. 1 motion is to the right," Jimmie quoted from the wig-wag lesson he had learned on first becoming a Boy Scout. "It should embrace an arc of ninety degrees, starting at the vertical and returning to it without pause, and should be made in a plane exactly at right angles to the line connecting the two stations.

"And No. 2 motion is the same, only on the left side. And three is the same, only the signal goes to the ground and comes back to the vertical! Now I've got it! Then he wig-wags again I'll tell you what he says. You read, too, and see if we agree."

"One to the right!" cried Jimmie, "and two to the left!"

"That means H," Teddy translated. "What comes next?"

"No. 1 and then No. 2," replied Jimmie. "That's plain enough!"

"It stands for E," Teddy went on, "and I know what the next letter will be, too."

"No. 2, No. 2, No, 1! I knew it! That is L. The other will be P!"

"No. 1, No. 2, No. 1, No. 2!" read Teddy, following the flight of the blazing stick as it moved through the darkness. "That's L, and the word is HELP!"

"And here we go to see about it!" Jimmie decided, moving down the slope. "The boy can't be very far off. I'd like to know how a Boy Scout got lost out here."

"We may become lost ourselves," laughed Teddy, "if we don't look out where we are going. I wouldn't know where to head for if I wanted to go back to camp right now."

"All we would have to do would be to climb the mountain," Jimmie declared.

"There's more than one summit," persisted Teddy. "We'd better get a line on something to guide ourselves by when we go back."

"We came straight west," the other said, "and if we get lost the moon will tell us which way to go -- if it doesn't rise in the west down here!"

The wig-wag code below was still in evidence, always repeating the same word, "Help." The boys hesitated no longer, but went rattling down the slope at a speed which spoke well for their balancing powers! As they entered the little canyon from the north, Jimmie halted and settled back on a rock, his hand on Teddy's shoulder.

"Do you suppose he heard us coming down the slope?" he asked.

"He must have been deaf if he didn't," was the reply. "We brought about half the mountain down with us, it seemed to me. Of course he heard us."

"Well, we ought to have been more cautious," Jimmie declared.

"I guess we aren't likely to frighten him away," suggested Teddy.

"But this may be a frame-up," warned the other. "Look here! The people who sent that spy to Jack's house knew the Boy Scouts were going out to look for the prince, didn't they? We have never seen or heard anything of them since that night, but there is good reasons for believing that they have had us under surveillance."

"And you think this may be a trap for us?" asked Teddy.

"It may be," was the reply. "If they wanted to trap us, they would go about it in just about this way, if they were wise, wouldn't they? Sure they would."

"Then we'd better sneak up to that campfire and find out what is going on before we show ourselves," suggested Teddy. "We ought to have come down here as softly as two flakes of snow? What? We'll know better then to make so much noise next time!"

"There may be no next time," Jimmie advised, as they moved down the canyon, in the middle of which ran a small stream of water, a rivulet connecting with the Greenbrier river farther to the south and west. It was now quite dark, and they were obliged to feel every step of their way, for there were numerous crevices in the floor of the canyon.

Pressing on, slowly, cautiously, their weapons within easy reach, the boys finally turned a little angle of rock and came within sight of a camp-fire not far away.

"There!" Jimmie whispered. "I had a notion that we should find more than one here. Why did the Scout wig-wag for help when there were three husky men with him?"

Teddy opened his eyes wider, but attempted no solution of the puzzle.

"There's a little chap sitting alone by the fire," Jimmie went on, peering through his field-glass, "and there are three men gathered in a huddle on the other side of the fire. They all look like they were listening for something."

"I don't wonder -- the way we came down the slope!" The other grinned.

While the boys watched one of the men strode over to where the boy was sitting and, evidently, began questioning him. The watchers were too far away to hear any conversation between the two. Presently the boy sprang up and started to run.

In a moment the heavy hand of the man was on his shoulder and he was dragged back to the fire and dumped down like a sack of grain. He lay quite still for a moment.

"I'd like to know what that means!" Teddy whispered. "That's brutal!"

"That gives me faith in the boy!" exclaimed Jimmie.

"What's the answer to that?" demanded Teddy.

"They probably saw him doing the wig-wag!" was Jimmie's reply. "They're threatening him."

"And they may have been beating him up for doing it? That may be."

"And, again," the other continued, "that may be a little rehearsal all for our benefit! There are men in the world sharp enough to put up just that kind of a bluff."

"That's very true," was the reply. "We've got to lie here until we know what it all means. We can't go away and leave the little fellow without knowing more about the signals. Those men may be moonshiners. We might get a reward!"

"We'll be lucky if we don't get into jail!" Jimmie grunted. "If we don't, we'll get into an infirmary for the hungry! If I have to lie on this rock much longer with nothing to eat I'll have to be carried back on a stretcher!"

"You always were the brave little man with the knife and fork!" grinned Teddy.

The four figures by the fire remained in the old order for a long time, the men grouped together, the boy alone on the side of the blaze next to the watchers.

"I wish I could get up to him?" Teddy said, as if requesting advice on the question of a nearer approach to the boy. "I'd like to see if it is the prince!"

"The prince isn't a Boy Scout!" declared Jimmie. "Besides, this boy is too old to be the prince! The prince is only seven years old -- just a little baby."

"Anyway, I'm going to make a sneak up there," insisted Teddy.

Before Jimmie could stop him he was away, crawling on hands and knees through the heavy shadows of the cliffs which lay about the camp-fire. Jimmie watched him anxiously for a moment and then started to follow him. The two were not far away from the lad, and were thinking of doing something to attract his attention when a stone rolled into a crevice with a great bumping sound. The boys dropped down on their faces and waited, their hearts beating like trip-hammers as the men around the fire sprang to their feet.

"What was that?" demanded a hoarse voice. "Who is out there?" he added, turning to the darkness beyond. "I'm going to shoot out that way in a minute!"

"I like this!" whispered Jimmie. "This is some adventure! What?"



Chapter VII

A Mint In The Mountains


"Why," the old woman said, stepping closer to the group of boys, "that's Buck!"

A heavily-built man with a scraggly beard stepped away from the corral and approached the group by the fire, his stubby fingers twining in and out of his unkempt whiskers as he walked along, his eyes fixed on the fire and those about it.

"That's Buck Skypole," the old woman went on, as the advancing figure stopped. "I didn't know you was to come after me Buck," she added, speaking to the new-comer.

"I 'lowed you'd be right skeered of the dark," the man answered, "so I 'lowed I'd come on up an' tote you home."

He rubbed his left thigh carefully for a moment and then spoke to Ned.

"That's a right pert mule," he said.

"Did Uncle Ike kick you?" asked Jack, nudging Oliver in the ribs with an elbow. "We'll have to wallop him a bit, if he did."

"I reckon I ain't got no mad at the creeter," Buck replied. "A man must keep out'n reach of a mule. Seein' the mule's got only a few feet of play in his laigs, he ought to be able to do that! No; I ain't goin' to recommend no beatin's f'r the mule!"

"Buck," said the old lady, "these are boys from New York, my old home! They're taking pictures of the mountains."

"They c'n take the mountains, too!" Buck laughed. "F'r all me!"

"I thought Mike might have come in with them," the old lady went on. "He isn't here, but I've had a real pleasant time with the boys. I'm much obliged to you, lads," she added, facing Ned. "I'm grateful for the tea and the fruit. They're rare here."

"I reckoned you wouldn't find Mike here," Buck chuckled, "f'r while you was gone a message come from Mike. He can't get here now, but he's sent the kid!"

"He has?" cried the woman, joyfully. "Do you mean to tell me, Buck, that the boy is right down there this minute, in my cabin?"

"Sure I do," was the reply, "an' a bright little feller he is."

"Give us a guess on that," whispered Jack to Oliver. "Is the kid in the cabin Mike III., or is he the prince? Give you three guesses!"

"I give it up!" the boy whispered back.

"Why didn't you bring the kid along with you?" asked Frank. "We all want to see him. His grandmother has been telling us about him."

"Its a right smart walk for a little one!" Buck answered.

"You're welcome to come down and see him," Mrs. Brady said. "I'd be proud to give you all a snack in the morning."

"Suppose we do go and see the kid?" asked Oliver. "I'm curious to know all about the little shaver!"

"I'm for it!" Frank exclaimed.

"And I'll be the first one there!" Jack put in. "I always liked kids -- from Washington! No one will molest the camp while we are gone."

"I wouldn't leave it alone, if I were you," advised the old lady. "There's a heap of bad people come into the mountains sometimes. Don't all leave at once."

"That's good advice, mother," Ned said. "Two will go and two will remain here. In a short time the two out in the hills will return, and then there will be a good-sized guard for what little stuff we have."

"All right," Jack declared, "if any one is going to stay here, it will be me! Come to think of it, I'm too blamed tired to walk another step to-night. Eh, Oliver?"

"I'll remain here if you do," the boy replied. "I'm worn out up to my knees now, climbing mountains. And, besides, Uncle Ike would be lonesome without me away!"

"Very well," Ned agreed. "That leaves Frank and me for the visit. When Jimmie and Teddy come, put them to bed without supper!"

"You'll know when they come, then," laughed Jack, "for Jimmie going to bed without supper will be a noisy proposition. You can hear him for ten miles."

"I'm anxious about the boys," Ned went on. "I'm afraid something is wrong with them. They should have been back here hours ago."

"You remember the Indian signal for help you saw in the valley?" asked Frank, in a moment. "Well, they may have seen that, too, and taken a notion to find out about it. They went in that direction when they left the camp."

"That may be the reason for their delay," Ned answered. "We should have attended to that signal ourselves," he added. "There may have been some one in serious trouble down there. I hope the boys did go -- that is, if nothing happens to them because of their going. Boy Scouts should assist each other at every opportunity."

After a little more talk regarding the boy who had been sent to Mary Brady by her son in Washington, and after Buck had been given a couple of cups of steaming hot coffee, the four started down the slope to the west.

"Did any one say how far it was to the old lady's cabin?" asked Jack of his chum, as they nestled down by the fire, the mountain air being cold, even in June.

"Buck said it was three whoops and a holler!" almost shrieked Oliver. "Do you know what he meant by that?"

"I don't know," answered Jack, "but I should think, from what she said, that the boys won't feel like walking back up the mountain to-night. Therefore, if Jimmie and Teddy don't come, well be alone."

"I wonder if they would know the prince if they met him in the road?" laughed Oliver. "That kid down there is just as much the prince as I am. What did they steal the kid for, anyway?"

"Politics!" yawned Jack.

"What did they send him over here for, anyway?"

"Politics!" with another yawn.

"Aw, go on to bed!" grinned Oliver. "I'll build up another fire, to serve as a sort of lighthouse for the boys and sit up for them."

So Jack went into the tent, pulled down a great heap of blankets, drew off his coat and shoes and stockings, and was soon asleep in a neat little nest!

Oliver sat by the fire for a short time and then went up to the summit to look over the valley. The moon was rising now, and he could see the four who had recently left the camp working their way over a ridge to the south and west.

Straight down, in a canyon made by an outcropping ledge of rock, he saw a faint light, as from a campfire which had been allowed to die down.

"The mountains are full of people to-night!" he mused. "If I thought I could make Uncle Ike behave himself, I'd ride down there and see who those campers are."

The boy stood undecided for some moments, then his eyes opened wider and he moved downward toward the fire. He was thinking of the Boy Scout signals for help which Ned and Frank had mentioned seeing!

"I wonder if Jack would go down there with me!"

When he reached the camp Jack was in the land of dreams, and he decided not to awake him. He could go alone just as well!

He went on down to the feeding ground and presented Uncle Ike with a lump of sugar. The mule thanked him with wiggling ears and dived a soft muzzle into his coat pocket for another lump.

"Not until you come back, Uncle Ike!" Oliver explained. "If you do a good job traveling up and down the mountainside, you're going to have another piece of sugar when we get back!"

The boy saddled and bridled the animal, mounted, and urged him away from the feeding ground. Uncle Ike, thinking his day's work finished, objected to being put into harness again, and reared and kicked until Oliver was obliged to dismount and bribe him with more sugar.

"Will you go now, you fool mule?" he asked.

Uncle Ike finally decided to go, and his sure feet were soon pressing the slope toward the campfire. Oliver struck the canyon just about where Jimmie and Teddy had entered it.

He left Uncle Ike there and advanced toward the campfire on foot. There were only a few embers left, and no signs of the fires which had sent up the two columns of smoke! There was no one in sight from the place where Oliver first came in direct view of the blaze.

He stepped along cautiously, listening as he walked, and soon came to a second fire. This, too, was burned down low. Beyond this he saw the dark opening of a cave in the outcropping ridge.

As Oliver stepped toward it, thinking the boys might have taken refuge there for the night, he stumbled over something which rolled under his foot and nearly fell to the ground. When he stooped over to see what it was that had tripped him, he saw an electric flashlight lying before him.

"The boys have been here, all right," he mused. "Now, I wonder if this was taken from them, or whether they lost it, or whether it was placed here to mark the trail? Either supposition may be the correct one!"

The question was settled in a moment, for a voice which he knew came out of the darkness.

"Found it, eh? Give it to me!"

"Jimmie!" whispered Oliver.

"Get in here out of the light of the fire!" Jimmie whispered, "and bring the electric in with you. Come on in, and see what we've found."

The opening in the ridge was a shallow one, Oliver discovered as he entered it. To his surprise he found three lads there instead of the two he had been looking for.

"You saw the fires?" asked Jimmie, in a low tone.

"Of course I did. Why didn't you come to camp?"

"This is the boy that built the Boy Scout signals!" Jimmie said, bringing the other forward. "His name is Dode Surratt, and he's a bold, bad boy, being at present lookout for a gang of counterfeiters!"

"That's a nice clean job," Oliver replied. "Where are the counterfeiters?"

"At work in a hole in the ground. Hear the click of their machines? They are turning out silver dollars faster than we can spend them. We hid around until they went to work, then came up to talk with Dode."

Jimmie pointed to a crevice in the rock and invited Oliver to look. A lance of light came up into the cave, and the boy's eyes followed it. He could see a square room below, with a bright fire burning at one end and figures moving about it.

"Making counterfeit money, are they?" asked Oliver.

"That's what they're doing! We were just thinking of getting out when you came. Dode wants to go with us, but we tell him to remain with the gang until they can be rounded up by the officers."

Dode started to make some remark, but Jimmie stopped him.

"They haven't got any consideration coming from you, have they?" he asked. "They stole you, didn't they? They brought you here from Washington to make a thief of you, didn't they?"

"And they beat you up for making the signals, too," Teddy put in. "And they're coming out now!" he added. "So we'll all git -- but Dode!"



Chapter VIII

Uncle Ike Presents Himself


Mrs. Brady and Buck walking together, Ned and Frank discussed the situation thoroughly as they descended the mountainside.

"This may be a frame-up," Ned observed, "but it is up to us to see it through. The boy who has just been brought in may be the prince, or he may be the grandson, and we are here to get the answer."

"Or there may be no boy at the cabin at all!" Frank suggested. "The conspirators know that we are in the mountains for the purpose of looking up the prince. What better plan than the one now working could they have settled on? If they are sharp at all, they would understand that a story of a child brought on from Washington would set us in motion -- would be likely to get us into a trap!"

They scrambled on down the slope for some distance, too busy keeping upright to do any talking, then Frank went on.

"You know very well that I'm no prophet of evil, Ned, but it looks to me that we have betrayed our mission here by taking such an interest in the child. Would a lot of boys looking for snap-shots trail off in the night to see a boy when they might have taken a look at him the next day?"

"If I know anything about human nature," Ned answered, "those two people ahead of us are honest. If it is a frame-up, they are not in it."

"Anyway," Frank went on, "I'm glad the plans were changed by the arrival of Buck. It is much better for us to meet whatever is coming to us side by side than to have me sneaking back in the distance!"

Ned agreed to this, and the two quickened their pace in order to come up with Buck and Mrs. Brady, who were now turning from the west to the south, keeping along the slope of the mountain. Directly they came to a narrow trail which led into a green valley.

Following this, they soon came to a couple of acres of cleared land, in the middle of which stood a rough cabin of peeled logs. A dim light came from a square window by the door, and there came from the interior the sound of a man's voice humming a song.

The woman drew up and looked suspiciously at Buck.

"Who is that?" she asked. "You didn't tell me my son came, too."

"No," replied Buck, "I didn't, because, you see, Mike didn't come! He sent this young fellow in with the kid, bringing word that he would be along later."

"And who is it?" demanded the woman.

"A likely young chap," was the reply. "He asked me to get you home to-night, because he wants to leave early in the morning."

"He won't leave early in the morning if he sees us here," Ned whispered to Frank. "If that is the prince in there, the man with him may be the fellow who made his way into Jack's house and listened from the attic."

"What are we going to do about it, then?" asked Frank, anxiously.

"We've got to meet him," Ned replied. "Whoever he is, he knows from Buck that Mrs. Brady went up the mountain to visit a camp of strangers. We've got to go in and face him! I wish we had kept away from here to-night."

Mrs. Brady and Buck now opened the door and entered the cabin, the boys close behind them. A log fire was burning on a stone hearth, and a tall, rather handsome young man with light hair and blue eyes was sitting in a homemade chair before it.

He stirred the fire to a brighter blaze as they entered, and the leaping flames disclosed a dark-haired child of perhaps seven years asleep on a bed in a corner of the small room. Without speaking, without so much as a glance at the visitor, the old lady walked swiftly to the bed and took the child in her arms.

The boy opened his eyes and started to cry, but she quieted him with low words and sat down on the edge of the bed, swinging him back and forth with a motion of her arms and shoulders. The man at the fire glanced sharply at the woman and then turned his eyes to the boys, now standing not far from the bed.

"The little dear!" the woman cried, mothering the child. "He's all tired out with his long journey!"

"This is the man that brung the boy in," Buck said, pointing to the figure by the fire. "A mess of a time he must have had of it, too."

"You are the grandmother?" asked the stranger. "Yes, I understand. And are these boys your sons, too?" he added, nodding at Ned and Frank, suspiciously.

"Only New York boys spending a vacation in the mountains," Ned said, answering the question. "Mrs. Brady came to our camp tonight looking for her son and we came home with her. We are looking for good pictures," he added.

The stranger pointed to the old lady, sitting with the sleeping child on her breast.

"There is one," he said.

"Yes, and I'm sorry I haven't my camera with me."

"Are you thinking of remaining in this section long?" the visitor asked.

"We can't say," laughed Ned. "We may move on to-morrow, and may stay here a week."

The man's suspicions seemed to have vanished. He talked frankly with the boys, and occasionally addressed a word to the old lady. He gave her, briefly, a good report of her son's progress in Washington, and handed her a roll of bank-notes.

"He is coming here himself soon," he said, "and he will bring more. He is doing very nicely there."

Ned was wishing the boy would waken when the old lady arose from the bed and laid him gently down. He stirred uneasily in his sleep and she stood by his side, smoothing his dark hair away from his forehead.

"He favors my side of the family, being dark," she said. "The Stileses are all dark. If one of you boys will sit with him a moment," she added, with mountain hospitality, "I'll get you all a snack. It was a long road over the mountains."

Ned accepted the invitation eagerly and sat down by the child. The face was dark and slender, the eyebrows turned up a trifle at the outer comers.

"Is it Mike III., or is it the prince?" he was asking himself when the boy awoke and sat up in bed with a jerk.

"What's comin' off here?" he demanded, rubbing his sleepy eyes. "What kind of a bum game is this? I want my daddy."

The visitor by the fire laughed.

"He's up in city slum talk," he said. "And he's learned something of French, too, knocking around with the boys in school."

"I can talk Franch like a native," asserted the boy.

"And what else?" asked the man by the fire.

"Any old thing!" boasted the child. "They keep me at books all the time. I'm glad I'm with grandmother in the hills. Are you my grandmother?" he asked, pointing to the old woman, now bending over the fire.

"Yes, deary," was the reply. "I'm going to take care of you now."

"I'm glad!"

The boy tumbled back on the bed again and closed his eyes. Frank looked at Ned significantly.

"There's no doubt about it!" his eyes said. "This child is Mike III."

The old lady made hot corn bread and brewed a pot of mountain tea. The boys were not at all hungry, but managed to eat and drink moderately. Then Ned arose.

"We've got to be on our way," he said. "It will be morning before we get back to camp if we don't start pretty soon!"

When the boys, after a cordial good night from Mrs. Brady and Buck, left the cabin the visitor followed them out. Ned stopped breathing, almost, as he took him by the arm.

"There's one thing I want you to explain to the old lady after a time," the man said. "I suppose I might do it myself, but I prefer to let her know from personal observation something of the case first. That boy is not exactly right."

"Not mentally sound, you mean?" asked Ned. "He appeared to be all right just now."

"Oh, he's bright enough," answered the other, "but he's been ill and has been in a hospital at Washington, and has been cuddled and humored so long that he likes to boss! Not good people to boss, the attendants in a hospital, you will say, but I guess they let this kid have his way. When he was delirious they told him all sorts of fairy tales about kings and princes, and he actually thinks some of them are true. If he breaks out in any of his tantrums before you leave, kindly tell the old lady what I am telling you, will you?"

Ned almost gasped! So the boy was likely to talk of kings and princes! He was likely to become masterful in his manners!

"I may have to change my mind," he thought. "This may be the prince, and not Mike III. But the boy's English, and there's his street slang! What about that? I reckon that we have a job on our hands!"

The two stood talking together in the moonlight for some moments, the stranger evidently resolved to make a good impression on the boys, while Frank walked on along the trail, looking back now and then to see if his chum was coming.

"This boy's father," the man went on, "has permitted him to have his own way about everything. That was a mistake, of course, but he is trying to rectify it now by placing him under the care of his grandmother, who, if I mistake not, will see that he is properly disciplined."

"It has been a long time since the father left here," Ned suggested.

"Yes, along time."

"He is doing well in Washington?"

"Yes, he is connected with the State department."

Ned made a mental note of that!

"And is receiving a fair salary?" he asked.

"Oh, yes; he's doing nicely, far better than his mother has any notion of."

Here was more food for thought. Why had the father delegated the pleasant duty of taking the boy back to the old mountain home to another if he had been situated so that he might have taken the journey himself?

"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?" he kept asking himself.

While they stood there together a great clattering came down the trail, and they saw Frank turn aside and stand at attention, as if waiting for some object, seen in the distance, to come up. Directly the sounds settled down to the rattling of stones and the steady pounding of hoofs.

"Look what's here!" Frank shouted, pointing.

Ned moved forward, closer to the trail, and in a moment caught sight of a tall, lank, ungainly mule coming galloping toward him!

"What do you think of him?" called Frank. "He's come to tell us that it is time we were home and in bed."

"Uncle Ike!" called Ned. "Come here, you foolish mule!"

Uncle Ike, now in plain sight, kicked up his heels in derision but finally came to an abrupt halt in front of Ned, and stood with ears pitched forward and forelegs braced back, evidently very much frightened.



Chapter IX

A Lank Mule As A Decoy


Judd Bradley, the young man who had brought the boy into the mountains, stood for a moment watching the mule curiously. Then he stepped nearer to Ned, who was trying to quiet the fractious animal.

"Be careful," Ned warned, as Bradley approached. "Uncle Ike doesn't take to strangers. He may kick if you come within reach."

"Hell kick you whether you come within reach or not!" grumbled Buck, who had been brought from the cabin by the clatter of the mule's hoofs. "He reached over forty acres of rock to hand me one on the laig!" he added, rubbing his left thigh.

Mrs. Brady came to the doorway of the cabin and stood there, outlined against the red firelight within, with the boy in her arms. The child reached forth his arms impatiently, then began beating the old woman with his small fists.

"Go an' get me the horse!" he commanded. "Mike wants a ride!"

"That's the prince, all right!" whispered Frank to Ned. "That's the prince of some slum alley in Washington. What he needs is a club, applied just before and after meals, and just before retiring, with a dose at intervals during the night!"

"I'm not thinking of the prince now," Ned returned, still in a low tone, for the others were not far off, "I'm wondering how Uncle Ike came to be here."

"Broke away and eloped with himself, probably," laughed Frank.

"Yes," grinned Ned, "and put on saddle and bridle before he started!"

Frank's eyes now began to stick out.

"S-a-a-y!" he whispered. "We'd better be getting back to camp! There's something out of whack there! If the mule could only talk!"

Bradley, who had backed away at Ned's warning, now came up to the mule's head.

"He doesn't kick with his ears, does he?" he asked, with a smile.

"He's an outlaw," Ned answered, wishing Bradley would return to the cabin. "He's thrown one of the boys, and we must be on our way. If you have time before you leave, come up to the camp. We've got the latest things in cameras and photographic material."

"I may get up there in the morning," was the reply.

Bradley and Mrs. Brady entered the house and closed the door, and Ned turned to his chum with an odd look on his face.

"I've seen that man somewhere before tonight!" he said.

"Then you'd better try hard to place him," Frank answered, "for we are going to see more of him in the future, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps you saw him on one of your visits to Washington."

"That may be," Ned replied. "Anyway, I may be able to think it out before morning."

Uncle Ike laid his nose against Ned's shoulder and gave him a push.

"He's in a hurry!" the boy laughed. "We ought to be, too! Is it possible that one of the boys saddled him for a ride on the mountain in the night?"

"Just like Jack or Oliver. Or Jimmie may have returned and planned one of his midnight expeditions!"

"Get up and ride," Ned advised. "I'll walk and try to place that man's face."

"You might have seen it in the rogue's gallery," suggested Frank, leaping into the saddle and starting away, the mule pulling and rearing every moment.

Finally Ned called out to him to stop, and walked up to his side.

"What is the matter with Uncle Ike?" he asked.

"He insists on keeping down toward the canyon," was Frank's reply. "We came cat-cornering down the slope, didn't we?"

"We certainly did," Ned answered, considering the matter gravely. "Tell you what you do," he went on, "let the mule have his head! Let him go just where he wants to. It is the instinct of animals to follow precedent, same as men. A man will follow a cow path until it becomes a city street, and a cow, a horse, or a mule will follow a trail previously used -- if only passed over once! Let the mule have his head, and he may take us to the place where somebody was dumped!"

"Solomon had nothing on you, Ned!" laughed Frank. "Go to it! Uncle Ike, it is you for the scene of the abduction! And you may go just as fast as you please!"

The mule started off at a fast pace, keeping to the bottom of the valley and finally entering the canyon at the south end. Ned walked by Frank's side, his hand on the stirrup, listening for a sound he dreaded to hear. He was afraid one of the boys had been thrown from the animal's back, and might be lying, suffering, in one of the crevices or breaks which marked the bottom of the canyon.

After traveling some little distance in the canyon, Frank drew up and pointed ahead.

"Right over there," he said, "is the spot where we saw the smoke signs!"

"That's a fact!" Ned answered. "One of the boys must have come here to investigate and left Uncle Ike without tying! The mule has been here before, or he wouldn't plod along so steadily. Suppose we leave him here and walk on cautiously?"

"Just what I was about to propose," Frank agreed.

Uncle Ike seemed to resent being left alone in the canyon, which was now almost as light as day, save where the shadows of the mountain to the east lay along the wall on that side. The mule was finally quieted and left in a dark angle.

Moving in the shadows, the boys soon came to an angle in the cut and looked out on the remains of a campfire. They pushed on until they came opposite to it, but saw no one. In order to reach it they would be obliged to cross the canyon, not very wide there, but flooded with moonlight in the center.

While they stood in the shadow of the mountain a man came stumbling down the slope ten yards away from them. At first they thought it was one of their chums, but when the man's figure came into the moonlight they saw that he was tall, heavily built, and also heavily bearded. He walked straight across to the fire and passed it, turning into a shallow cave there was in the rock of the outcropping ridge.

The boys saw him enter the cave and look sharply around, then he disappeared as suddenly and completely as if he had walked into the solid rock.

"We're getting all the stage effects!" Frank whispered. "That man ducked into a moonshiner's establishment!"

"He ducked in somewhere, all right," Ned answered. "I wish we could get across there without exhibiting ourselves to the whole country."

"I believe the boy that rode the mule is over there!" Frank suggested.

"Yes; and he's probably been picked up by the moonshiners," Ned agreed. "We've got to get over there, so here goes!"

The boys went across the streak of moonlight like a couple of flashes, and drew up at the mouth of the cavern. So far as they could determine no one had observed them.

They crept to the very back of the cave and huddled close together, listening.

"Not a soul in sight!" Frank whispered. "That might have been a ghost!"

"Do ghosts rattle metal?" asked Ned.

There followed another silence, and then the clink of metal came clearer to the ears of the listening boys.

"Where does it come from?" asked Frank. "There's not a crack in sight in this rock."

A puff of soft coal gas wafted into the cave, causing the boys to hold their breaths. Then, in spite of all he could do to prevent it, Frank sneezed.

Almost instantly a dark figure appeared between the place where the boys were hidden and the space of moonlight in front. The man stepped out, looked up and down the canyon, and came slowly back to meet another figure.

"Nothing doing!" a gruff voice said.

"But that wasn't any bird!" insisted another gruff voice.

"Well, you may look for yourself!"

"I tell you," the second speaker went on, "that those boys are still out in the hills! When I was at the camp there was only one in the tent, and he sat there with a gun in his lap, watching for the others to come back."

"Did you speak with him?"

"What for would I speak with him?"

"To get his story. What are they here for? That is worth knowing."

"Well, I didn't show myself because we're not supposed to be here ourselves!" came the other voice. "If you hadn't built the fire outside to-night we'd have been in no danger. Now we've got a lot of boys sneaking around. What did you do with the others?"

"They're in the work-room."

"In the work-room, seeing everything! You're a bright lot! You know now, I suppose that we've got to leave those lads here when we go away?"

"I have known that all along. There are plenty of kids in the world. These won't be missed. It is a bad job, but it must be done!"

"They shouldn't have come sneaking around!"

The two men disappeared again, but this time Ned saw the opening to the work-room, as they had termed the underground apartment, when they swung an imitation rock made of plank aside and stepped down. For a moment their figures were illumined by the red light of the fire within, and then they were no longer in sight.

"They're a cheerful pair!" Frank whispered.

"Counterfeiters!" Ned whispered, in reply. "And murderers!"

"How are we going to get the boys out?" asked Frank. "They'll be killed if we don't."

"One must raise a ruction on the outside, and the other must sneak in while the outlaws are gone. That is the only way I can think of now. If you go out there and get Uncle Ike, and coax a couple of sobs out of him, and rattle stones, and shoot your automatic like rain, the outlaws may all rush out of the cave."

"I can do all that, but how will you get in?"

"When they run out, they will pass me. Then I'll get in through the door," Ned replied. "If there's no one in there it won't take me long to find the boys and turn them loose."

"But if there is some one in there?"

"Then you'll hear shooting," Ned answered, grimly. "In that case, mount the mule and get back to camp and bring Jack and Oliver and a lot of guns."

"But one of those boys must be in there," Frank insisted. "Some one rode Ike here!"

"We don't know who it is that is here," Ned reflected. "Anyway, you've got to get away with the mule after making all that noise. Don't go in the direction of the Brady cabin. We don't want that man Bradley mixing us up with police officers!"

"Every minute counts!" Frank declared, "I'm off. You'll hear a racket like the blowing up of a world in about three minutes! Good luck!"

The lads shook hands and parted. It seemed to each one that the other was going to his death, but only encouraging words were spoken.

In five minutes a horrible clamor rang down the canyon. Uncle Ike screamed, and the beating of hoofs sounded like a charge of cavalry. Then came sharp, quick pistol shots.

Three men dashed out of the cavern and Ned crept in at the open door!

"I don't know what I shall find in here!" he mused, as he came into the light of a great fire, "but I'll know all about it right soon!"



Chapter X

"Packed Away Like Sardines"


Even in that underground room Ned could hear the shooting outside and the screams of the aggravated mule. Several weapons seemed to be pouring out lead, and the boy wondered if the outlaws were getting the range of his chum.

The firing seemed to grow fainter as he advanced into the room. Either the outlaws were pursuing Frank or the shooters were taking refuge behind rocks which deadened the sound.

At first the boy kept his eye out for an attack on himself, but there seemed to be none of the outlaws left in the subterranean place. The fire was built at one side, and the light from it filled the whole apartment. Counterfeit dollars lay about, scattered over the floor as if dropped in great haste.

Halting in the center of the room, after closing and baring the outer door, Ned put his fingers to his lips and gave out a low whine, one of the signals used by the boys of the Wolf Patrol. While he listened for a response, the firing outside came nearer, or appeared from the sound to do so.

"I'd be in a nice fix if they should seek to retreat to the cave!" Ned thought.

While he listened an answer came to his call -- the low, sharp signal of the Wolves!

"That's Jimmie!" Ned muttered. "He's in some of the holes just outside this room."

"Where are you?" he asked, and the answer came with a giggle.

"We're packed away like sardines! Come get us out! We're only tied with ropes, but the ropes know their business! Here! To the right of the fire!"

Ned soon found that the wall at the point indicated was of plank, like the door, painted and sanded to imitate rock. He had no difficulty in finding the opening, and in a short time the boys were relieved of their bonds. Ned opened his eyes wide at sight of Dode, the fourth boy, and of Oliver, who had been left at the camp.

"What's the shooting outside?" asked Jimmie, stretching his arms, cramped from long confinement. "Who's out there with Uncle Ike? Say, but I was glad to hear the gentle voice of that wicked old mule!"

"And now," Teddy observed, "how about getting out of this? I'm hungry."

"If Frank keeps that racket going," Ned answered, motioning the group toward the door by which he had entered, "we may be able to get out without being seen. You can tell me how you got caged later on. Now we'll try the door."

"Wait!" whispered Jimmie.

"Wait!" said Dode.

Ned turned and faced both boys with enquiring eyes.

"Why wait?" he asked.

"I want my gun!" Jimmie replied. "They searched us and put the plunder in that alcove in the rock on the other side of the fire. We'll need the guns, I take it."

The three boys, Jimmie, Teddy, and Oliver, made a quick rush for the alcove and soon came back with their guns and electrics. The firing outside was again farther away, and the chances for getting out without being attacked appeared to be good.

"What is it?" Ned asked Dode, as he pulled at his sleeve.

"There's another door," the lad explained. "It opens on the slope on the west side of the ridge we are under. We can go that way without being seen."

"That's just the thing!" Jimmie exclaimed. "We can get out and join Frank in the mess outside! Then I reckon we'll put the skids under the outlaws!"

Dode led the way to the opening indicated, passed, with the others at his heels, through a long passage, and finally came to a plank door which was securely fastened on the inside. From this position the racket outside became only a hum.

The boy unfastened the door and swung it inside. Beyond lay the slope, and, beyond that, the valley and the distant mountains. The air of the night was sweet and clear after the close atmosphere of the underground room.

From the other side of the ridge, which was not very high, came shots and the vicious shrieks of a pestered mule! Ned turned to the south, from which direction the clamor came, and passed as swiftly as possible along the slant of the elevation.

"Are you going to attack the outlaws from the rear?" asked Teddy. "We are taking the wrong course if you want to go back to camp."

"Huh!" Jimmie grunted, trudging along puffing at every breath, "we've got to find Frank and Uncle Ike, I guess."

When the party came to the end of the ridge under which the counterfeiters had been working, they faced the valley, some distance away, in which the cabin of Mary Brady stood. Through the moonlight they could just distinguish the crude stone chimney of the structure.

"Now, Ned," Jimmie explained, "if we turn up the slope here and do a little shooting when we reach a good elevation, the counterfeiters will think they are being attacked by a fresh party and duck back to the cave. Then Frank can come along with that blessed old mule. Did you ever hear a lop-eared old rascal of the mule tribe make such a racket? I wonder what Frank was doing to him?"

"I know!" Teddy broke in. "He was tickling him with his heels. That makes Uncle Ike half crazy! There goes another yell! Fine old bird, is Uncle Ike!"

It was plain to the boys that the battle was quite a distance to the south and leading down into the valley, so they began the ascent of the rocky slope and continued up until they were all out of breath. Then they stopped and looked back.

The outlaws came into sight, in a minute, making for their cave. They fired an occasional shot as they retreated, and this fact convinced the boys that Frank had not been wounded by any of the shots which had been fired at him.

"We'll quicken their steps a trifle!" Ned said. "You boys go on up to the next shelf and I'll fire from here. They may charge us, and if they do I can cover your retreat. Besides, you will have a longer start."

"I'm going to stay right here and shoot, too!" Jimmie declared. "Those men have several bumps coming from me!"

"Ain't he the great little gunman?" snickered Teddy.

"But I need you up there with the others to protect my retreat," urged Ned, so Jimmie unwillingly toiled up the acclivity. They came to a shelf perhaps three hundred feet beyond Ned's stand and crouched down.

Ned's fire, when it came, had the effect of sending the outlaws on a run toward their cave, so the boy joined the others without facing a return fire.

"They'll be out again when they see what's been going on at the cave!" Jimmie predicted, but the prophecy was not a good one, for no figures were seen in the canyon after that, and no more shots were fired from that direction.

"I know what the bogus money-makers will do now," Jimmie snickered. "They'll pack up their tools and vanish! They'll be thinking the whole Secret Service bunch is after them!"

"That's just the trouble," Ned said. "I'm afraid the mountaineers will also think we are Secret Service operatives and spies and make trouble for us."

"We'll have to get busy with our cameras, then," Jimmie went on, "and take pictures of everything in sight. We may be believed if we tell the truth, that we blundered on their cave and they attacked us. I wonder why Frank doesn't show up? He may have been killed or wounded!"

"If he has been hurt," Teddy observed, as the sound of hoofs came From the south, "Uncle Ike hasn't, for here he comes, ugly as ever."

Believing that Frank was indeed approaching, the boys fired a number of shots to direct his course and waited. The hoofbeats, the labored breathing of the mule, became more distinct directly, and then Frank came into sight.

The greeting he received was a warm one, and Uncle Ike was petted and permitted to search every pocket for sugar!

"I don't see how you escaped being hit," Ned observed. "The outlaws fired enough shots to cripple an army."

"They never saw me," declared Frank. "I kept behind ridges and outcropping rocks, and in the shadows. They were afraid to come too close, for they must have thought a dozen men were attacking them. Whenever I fired I changed my position, and when Uncle Ike yelled I hustled him along! I reckon a good many of the shots you heard came from my gun! When you began shooting that settled it! They will be fifty miles from here by tomorrow noon!"

"That's likely, for they won't dare remain here after they have been caught at their work," Ned admitted. "Moonshiners might remain and fight, but counterfeiters will get away right soon. I take it they don't belong to this section anyway."

On the way to the camp, during the brief rests, Jimmie explained how they had been surprised while in the outer cave and had been taken inside and tied up. The boy Dode was overjoyed at his escape from the gang, and explained that they had captured him not far from Washington and forced him to accompany them, the idea being to use him in the future in getting rid of the spurious coins.

"They are making a lot of it," he declared, "and the country will be flooded with their work if the government doesn't catch them."

It may be well to state here that the reasoning of the boys with regard to the future actions of the outlaws was correct, as they disappeared from that section that night. When the lads visited the cave later on some of the counterfeit coin which had been made was still scattered about the subterranean room.

When they first reached the camp Jack was not in sight, but he soon appeared, coming from a hiding place near the summit.

"I thought I'd better not expose myself by remaining in the tent," he explained, "so ducked away and hid where I could watch the mules and the provisions without being seen. I had about made up my mind that the state militia had been called out, you made such a racket!"

"We're going to give Uncle Ike a medal, also a barrel of sugar, for heroic conduct in the face of the enemy!" Jimmie declared, and the mule, for once in his life, found a full pocket when he nosed about for sweet lumps!

While the lads were eating a delayed supper, Jack turned to Oliver with a mock frown on his face.

"The next time you go away in the night and leave me alone in camp," he said, "I'm going to break your dial in! I might have been shot while asleep. According to the conversation between the outlaws, just related by Jimmie, one of the toughs came up here! Don't you ever do that again, if you want to keep a whole hide."

"I guess Uncle Ike has a larger kick coming than you have!" Jimmie remarked.

When the boys compared notes and thoughts concerning the child, the old lady, and the blonde stranger, they could not agree at all. Some of them insisted that the boy was Mike III., while the others declared that he was the prince!

"If he isn't the grandson," one asked, "why this American slang?"

"And if he is," questioned another, "why this talk about French and other foreign languages? Mike III. wouldn't know a foreign tongue, would he?"



Chapter XI

Jack's Elegant Chicken Pie


The sun was high over the mountains when Ned awoke on the morning following the adventure with the counterfeiters. Leaving Jimmie, Frank, Teddy and Oliver in their bunks and Dode, the new acquisition to the party, curled up in a nest of blankets, he issued forth from the tent and looked about for Jack, who had been left on guard.

The boy was nowhere in sight at first, then he saw him at a spring which bubbled out of the mountain not far from the corral. It was the water from this spring which brought forth the tender grass upon which the mules were feeding.

Jack looked up with a shout when he saw Ned, and came running up to the camp, carrying in one hand a pail in which three large-sized chickens lay, nicely boiled, carved and washed.

"What do you think of that?" he demanded, pushing the pail up under Ned's nose. "I guess we're some hustlers for sustenance!"

"Where did you get the hens?" asked Ned. "They sure look good to me."

"You couldn't guess in a thousand years!" Jack replied. "So I'm going to tell you, right off the handle! Judd Bradley, the blonde fellow who brought the boy in, came up with them, with the compliments of Mrs. Brady, about an hour ago. He brought the boy up with him, too. What do you know about that?"

"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?" asked Ned, with a smile.

"If you leave it to me," Jack answered quite positively, "it is the prince!"

"How does he look and act this morning?"

"Like a kid raised under restraint, now free and full of the de -- Old Nick!"

"And Bradley?" asked Ned.

"That's another point! He watches the kid every second of the time, and when the boy speaks a word of French he looks daggers at him! I reckon the son of Mike II. wouldn't be talking French! Nor he wouldn't be here with a chaperon from Washington. We have found the prince, all right, and I'm sorry for it! It makes our work too easy!"

"Don't crow until you're out of the woods!" laughed Ned. "There may be a few adventures in store for us yet! So this seven-year-old boy talks French, does he?"

"You bet he does! Like a native!"

"Where are they now -- Bradley and the boy, I mean?"

"Down by the mules! The boy, who is constantly called Mike -- ostentatiously called by that name -- wants to ride Uncle Ike! Fat time he'll have if he gets aboard of that argumentative brute!"

"Are they going to help eat the chicken?" asked Ned.

"Sure! I told them to stick around until I got the most beautiful chicken pie built they ever touched tongue to. They're going to stay. You go and talk with them while I make the pie. It is going to be a corker -- melt in your mouth, make you dream of the old red barn down on the farm!"

"Ever make a chicken pie?" asked Ned.

"Of course not! There's got to be a first time to everything! But I know how. I've got a recipe here which is used by the chef at Sherry's."

"Go to it!" laughed Ned. "I'll take my chances on having canned meat for dinner."

"You just wait!" roared Jack, as Ned dashed down to the spring.

Jack stood a moment, pail in hand, watching Ned washing at the spring, and then went on to the fire, leaving Ned to proceed to the corral and entertain the guests.

Jimmie was just tumbling out of the tent when Jack came up with the chicken. That young man immediately set up a shout which awakened the others and brought them out rubbing their eyes.

"Chicken for breakfast!" he shouted.

"Chicken pie for dinner!" Jack corrected.

"All right!" sighed the boy. "Then I'll cook a couple of pounds of ham and a couple of dozen eggs for breakfast! That ought to keep us alive until you get the pie ready!"

"How do you make chicken pie?" demanded Frank. "I've always wanted to know how to make a pie out of a hen."

"You just watch me," Jack answered, not without a touch of pride, "and I'll show how it is done. Here, young man, don't set down on my dough! That's for the crust."

Jimmie bounded off a camp stool where the cook had deposited his crust-dough on a clean white paper and watched Jack line a six-quart tin pail with the mixture of flour, water and baking powder.

"That ain't thick enough!" he commented. "The crust ought to be an inch thick."

"You go out and feed the mules!" ordered Jack. "When I want any help in making a chicken pie I won't call on you!"

"Anyway," Jimmie insisted, "it ought to be an inch thick."

Jack laid the pieces of chicken in the bed of dough -- the chickens having been cooked tender long before Ned was out of his blankets -- and put in salt, pepper, a small piece of butter -- out of a glass can! -- and then poured in some of the liquid the chickens had been stewed in.

"If there should happen to be a drumstick you can't get in," Jimmie volunteered, "I can eat it for breakfast!"

"So that's why you wanted the crust so thick!" cried Jack. "You wanted to crowd the chicken out so you could stuff yourself with a hen for breakfast! Run along and play you'r a baker's wagon delivering goods on the Bowery!"

"You're the wise little man -- not!" Jimmie grunted and set about cooking ham and eggs for breakfast.

"How long will it take that chicken pie to cook?" asked Teddy.

"Couple of hours," replied Jack. "Sometimes it takes longer."

Jack prepared a great bed of coals, drew up dry wood to make more, and set the pail of chicken pie in the heavy double oven to cook.

"I'm making this 'specially light and sweet," he said, poking the coals up to the oven, "because we're going to have a prince of the royal blood to breakfast."

"Where is he?" asked Jimmie, with a grin, "Down by the mules! He brought these chickens to us -- or his chaperon did! Rather thoughtful of him! Say, Frank," Jack added, "will you go down to the corral and take a lot of snapshots of the kid? I want to send some home to Chicago, just to convince the boys I've been dining with royalty."

"Dining with Mike III.," Frank laughed. "It is dollars to dills that the boy trying to get on Uncle Ike's back is fresh from the Washington slums!"

"Look you here, little man," Jack began, but just at that moment Ned, Bradley, and the boy appeared on the slope, headed for the camp. The boy was seated on the back of Uncle Ike, who, for a wonder, was marching along sedately, as if accustomed to being made the plaything of children.

"I wouldn't have believed it of him!" Jimmie muttered. "I wouldn't have trusted a kid on that wild animal's back any sooner than I would have trusted eggs to a hay-baler. Uncle Ike's sure going into a decline!"

The boy came riding up ahead of the others and shouted to Jimmie:

"Gardez! A cheval!" he shouted, urging the mule into a trot.

"That's your kid from the Washington slums!" Jack laughed, scornfully. "Talking French!"

"What does he say?" demanded Jimmie.

"He says for you to be on your guard -- to look out for yourself -- as he is coming on horseback. I don't know much French, but that is easy!"

Bradley hastened to the boy's side and said something to him in a tone which the others could not hear, the lad coloring slightly as he listened.

"He's jawing him for speaking French!" Jimmie commented.

"It looks like it," Jack observed. "Oh, I reckon we've got the prince all right. I wonder when we are going to start back to Washington with him, and if Ned will pinch that blonde beauty who brought him in?"


Uncle Ike stopped at the campfire and stuck his nose into Jimmie's pocket, looking for sugar. Mike III., as some of the boys insisted on thinking of the little fellow, dropped off and seized the animal by the tail and began to pull. Frank ran to get the child out of his dangerous position, but Uncle Ike merely looked around to see what it was that was pulling his tail winked one eye at Frank, and went on searching pockets.

"That mule sure gets my goat!" grinned Jimmie. "What do you think of his standing still while his tail is being pulled?"

By this time Jimmie had prepared breakfast, and the boys gathered about the fire with tin plates on their knees, and devoured ham and eggs, baked beans, and bread and butter and coffee with a mountain relish. Mike III. ate what was given to him at the first helping and then clamored for more. Bradley whispered something in his ear, but the boy pushed him off with a scowl:

"Alles-vous en!" he cried, angrily.

Jack snickered and Frank looked as if he had made a mistake in his estimate of the boy and knew it! Bradley drew the boy away, but Jimmie hastened to replenish his plate.

"Let the kid have all he wants!" he said. "We can cook more. We're going to have a chicken pie for dinner, and he'll like that."

"Seems to me it is about time Jack was looking after that pie," Frank suggested.

"Pretty near forgot it!" Jack admitted, going to the oven and opening the door so as to look inside at the dainty.

Something took place when he did that! The square piece of metal flew back on its hinges with a thump, and cut of the oven flew the cover of the tin pail in which the chicken pie had been tucked. It shot across the fire and struck Jimmie under the ear and then rolled back into the blaze!

"Jerusalem!" cried the boy. "What you shootin' at me for?"

No attention was paid to what the boy said, for at that moment a wave of dough, spotted here and there with pieces of chicken, puffed out of the pail and tumbled over Jack's stooping shoulders and on into the fire, where it continued to grow until the fire half consumed it.

"Catch the chicken!" yelled Frank. "He's running away."

Jack tried to keep the dough in the oven, but it rolled out and covered his hands and arms with a sticky mess. The little fellow screamed with delight.

"Oh, oh, de mal en pis!" he shouted.

"Grab the chicken!" shouted Teddy. "We can finish breakfast on that!"

While the mess was being cleared up, Frank asked Jack:

"How much baking powder did you put into that dough?"

"Only one can!" was the reply, and Frank went away and rolled on the ground!

"Say," Jimmie whispered to Jack, who was scraping the chicken pie off his clothes, "what did the kid say when he pushed Bradley away, and when the pie busted?"

"First he said 'be off with you' or 'let me alone' next he said 'from bad to worse' Or something like that. Look at Bradley. He's calling him down for it, right now. I'm going, to talk French to that kid when Bradley goes away. I'm going to know about this three Mike and this prince business!"



Chapter XII

The Black Hand Game


Shortly after breakfast, and after what remained of the chickens had been eaten, Bradley and his charge left the camp, after inviting the boys to visit them in the cabin in the valley. Bradley appeared anxious to be friendly, and seemed absolutely frank in his talks. The only suspicious thing they noticed in him was his jealous care of the boy -- his reproaches when the lad had indulged in a word or two of French!

"You bet I'll visit you at the cabin!" Jack said, as the two disappeared over the summit. "I'll be there with the lingo, too! I can soon find out from the boy what he knows of the French language! Of course I'll be down to the cottage!"

"Bradley will see that you don't talk with the boy alone!" Jimmie declared.

"I'll catch him doing it!" was Jack's reply.

"What do you think about it, Ned?" asked Frank. "Is that the prince, or is it Mike III.? You may have all the guesses you need.

"First," Ned said, turning to Jack and Frank, "tell me what the boy said when he spoke in French."

Jack repeated the interpretations as previously given, and Ned remained in a thoughtful mood for a long time. Then he went into the tent, without answering any questions, and began overhauling the stock of reading matter brought along.

When he found what he wanted to he threw himself on the bunk where he had slept and read steadily for an hour or more. At least he held to the book for that length of time, turning the leaves rapidly at times, and then not at all for several minutes.

"What's he up to?" asked Teddy. "Something on his alleged mind!"

"I'll go and find out what he's reading," Jimmie volunteered.

The boy entered the tent, but was back in a moment with a broad grin on his face.

"It is a French dictionary!" he gasped. "Ned is learning French, so he can talk with the prince in his native tongue!"

"The prince isn't French!" Jack declared. "He belongs away in the East somewhere. French is the polite language of Europe, so of course, he's been taught it!"

After a time Ned came to the door of the tent and beckoned to Jimmie.

"Suppose we go and get some pictures of the mountains," he said, when the boy entered. "We haven't taken a snap-shot since we came here.

"I'm strong for it!" Jimmie declared. "We might go and take a few snaps at the counterfeiter's den. That will be fine!"

"What's that?" demanded Frank Shaw, poking his nose into the tent. "Going to take pictures of the counterfeiters den! I'm in on that. We'll take a bunch of pictures -- enough for a first-page layout -- and send 'em in to dad's newspaper. Hot stuff! What? And I'll write the biography of Uncle Ike, and send it in with the rest. His picture ought to go in the center of the layout. He'll be a hero, all right."

"All right!" Ned agreed. "We'll go and take the pictures, and we'll send them in when you get the story written! Will that answer?"

"Sure it will!"

So Ned, Jimmie, and Frank started away laughing, for all knew Frank would never write the story, toward the counterfeiters' cave. When they came in sight of the ridge which jutted out of the slope to make the canyon, and under which the workroom was situated, they saw a man moving northward, keeping close to the jagged summit of the lesser elevation, and looking sharply about as he advanced.

"That may be one of them," Jimmie suggested.

"I don't believe it!" Frank contradicted. "What do you think, Ned?" he added.

"Never saw the outlaws," Ned answered, "so I can't decide the question. Still, I doubt if one of the counterfeiters is within fifty miles of this spot now."

"That's the idea!" Frank said. "Of course the shooting of last night would draw out the natives. There'll be dozens around the caves to-day."

The boys walked on to the canyon, taking snap-shots of everything they saw. The slope, the canyon, the valley to the west, the green valley to the south, the shallow cave from which the entrance to the workroom gave, all were transferred to films to await development. When at last they entered the shallow cave they paused.

"There may be some of them in here yet," Frank suggested.

"Not to-day!" Ned replied. "There are too many strangers about!"

They entered cautiously. There was now no fire on the stone hearth, and the atmosphere of the place was damp and chill, as well as dark. Here and there a break in the rocky roof above -- the ceiling of the apartment was very near to the surface of the outcropping ridge -- let in a shaft of light, but for the most part the apartment was in heavy shadows.

Ned took out his electric light and turned it enquiringly about the room. Counterfeit money still lay scattered over the floor. The melting pot and the dies were on the cold iron shelf where they had been left, and even a coat hung against the wall.

"They got out in a hurry," Jimmie declared.

"And they are not likely to come back in a hurry!" Ned added.

Frank paced the apartment off, set his camera tripod, and got out his powder.

"You boys stand over on the other side," he requested, as he moved back to his tripod, "and when I give the word you, Jimmie, touch off this flash."

"What do you want a view of that corner for?" asked Jimmie. "You are too close, anyway, to get a good picture."

"I'm going to have a picture of every corner, and the middle, and the roof, and the chimney, and everything about the blooming place!" Frank declared.

"Wait a minute!" Jimmie shouted. "I'll hide in the passage we went out of last night, and when you are ready to spring the print I'll look out, with a fierce expression on my pretty face. That will make the picture look like the real brigandish thing. What?"

"All right," laughed Frank, "get in there! It is only an excuse for getting your mug into dad's newspaper, but we'll let it go."

Frank and Ned busied themselves for half an hour or more, taking pictures and looking over the implements used in the manufacture of spurious coin. At length, when they returned to the outer cave, they remembered that Jimmie had not returned from the west passage to the workroom, and Ned went there to look for him. He was not there, nor was he in any of the niches or shallow openings in the rocky walls. Ned called to him, but he did not reply. Then Frank came running into the passage and joined in the hunt. In vain! Jimmie was nowhere to be found.

"Wherever he is," Frank said, after a long search, "he has his camera with him."

"I didn't see him have one," Ned replied. "You must be mistaken."

"It was the baby camera he had," Frank explained. "He carried it under his coat. The little monkey has doubtless gone off on a picture-making tour of his own."

"That is just like him," Ned agreed, "so we'll go on about our business and let him present himself when he gets ready."

"He seemed to take quite an interest in that child," Frank suggested, "and he may have gone on to the cabin."

"We may as well go that way and thank the old lady for the hens Jack didn't make into a pie," Ned observed. "I'd like another look at that child myself."

"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?" laughed Frank.

Ned smiled, but made no reply, They walked on down the slope and connected with the valley at the south end of the ridge. When they came to the cabin they found Mrs. Mary Brady sitting in the doorway, the child playing on the ground -- beaten hard by years of wear -- in front of her. She arose as they appeared, and the boy darted off into the fenced garden farther to the south, looking back with a grin from behind the stake-and-rider fence.

"Good day to you, young gentlemen," the old lady said. "I hope you passed a pleasant night! The mountain air is good for those who seek sleep."

Then it occurred to Ned that neither Bradley nor the child had referred in any way to the shooting of the night before, though, if at the cabin, they must have heard it. He regarded the old lady keenly as he said:

"Has any one seen anything of the outlaws to-day?"

"The outlaws?" repeated the other.

"You heard nothing in the night?" Ned asked.

"I thought I heard a gunshot now and then," was the indifferent reply, "but they are too common here to attract attention. Did the shooting disturb you?"

Ned did not believe the old lady had slept through the furious fusilades of shots of the night before. What her motive was in ignoring the matter he could not understand, but he decided to set himself right with her and also with her mountain friends by telling of the events of the night.

If they were to remain long in that section, it was quite necessary, he thought, that the natives should understand that the boys of the Camera Club were not there to spy on counterfeiters or the moonshiners, if any there were in that region.

So he told her that the boys had blundered on the workroom of the counterfeiters, had been suspected of being spies sent by the government and seized, and finally had been released by strategy. He added that they were not there to molest the people of the district, whatever their occupation might be, but to take pictures and have a long vacation in the health-giving mountain air.

"And I hope you'll pass the word along," he closed, "so that your friends will not regard us as enemies. We are anxious to meet as many of them as possible, and to be on good terms with them."

This was strictly true, as the boys were not there to convict any of the natives, whatever their offenses might be, but to deal with the strangers who had abducted the prince from his home in Washington. Ned was certain that no one belonging in that region had had a hand in the crime, although he suspected that some of them might innocently harbor the outlaws he was in quest of.

The old lady listened to Ned's story and his explanation with a startled face.

"I'm sure," she said, "that no one belonging here was interested in the counterfeiting gang you boys came upon. I am sure, too, that no one will blame you for what you did. We are law-abiding people, but our mountains constitute a secure refuge for some who are not worthy of protection."

Ned was more than pleased at the outcome of the matter, for he was sure the old lady would take pains to set the matter before her friends in the correct light. The conversation soon changed to other subjects. The child did not return, and directly Frank saw him walking along a distant hillside, hand-in-hand with Bradley.

"Mr. Bradley seems to stick close to Mike," he said, tentatively.

"Never lets him out of his sight," was the reply, and Mrs. Brady seemed to resent the face as stated. She evidently had little of the lad's companionship.

When the boys reached the camp Jimmie had not returned, but their chums were gathered around a sheet of letter paper which had, no one knew how, been thrust into the tent. Jack's face was deadly white as he handed it to Ned.

"We are up against a black hand game," he said. "Jimmie has been stolen!"



Chapter XIII

Three Days To Move In


Ned took the paper into his hand and read:

"You boys are not wanted in the hills. We give you three days to get out. On the morning of the fourth day, if you are still here, we shall send you your friend's right hand. On the fifth day you will receive his left hand. On the sixth day his right foot. On the seventh day his left foot. On the eighth day his head. If you obey this command he will be restored to you, in good health, at Cumberland."

"Is it a joke?" asked Frank, white to the lips.

"It must be!" cried Jack. "No one would mutilate Jimmie."

"It is a coarse joke!" Teddy cut in.

"I'm afraid it is no joke, boys," Ned said. "I'm afraid we'll have to go."

"But we'll come back again!" shouted Oliver. "We'll come back with a whole company of Boy Scouts! There are enough Boy Scouts in New York to tear these mountains up by the roots!"

"But I don't understand how they got him," Teddy wailed. "He went away with you."

"He went into a hidden passage to make a picturesque effect," Frank said, "and did not return. We thought it one of his jokes, and paid little attention to his absence. We might have rescued him if we had known."

"Of course he was seized in that passage," Dode said. "Did you get the picture he was to be in?"

"Sure we did!" cried Frank. "I'll see if he was there when the camera opened."

As he spoke the boy made a rush for his suitcase, took out his development tank, printing frame and other tools, and set to work on his film roll. He used two powders instead of one, and in ten minutes was ready for the printing.

In a few minutes more he was at work in the tent, with the boys gathered around him. The developer had worked perfectly, notwithstanding the haste, and the printing was well advanced in the soft light of the tent. Directly he had the picture taken in the cave under view -- the snapshot of the wall showing the entrance to the secret passage.

"Quick work!" Ned declared. "What does it show?"

They all gathered around the print, each trying to get the first glance at it.

"There's Jimmie!" Teddy shouted. "He was looking out of the door when the picture was taken! I can almost see his freckles!"

"There he is, sure enough!" Frank cried. "The little monkey!"

Ned took the print and examined it carefully, while the others waited for him to express any discoveries he might make.

"Did you see anything back of Jimmie?" he asked of Frank.

"Just the dark wall," was the reply.

Ned passed the print to him and left the tent.

"Yes," Frank said, with a threat in his voice, there's a face looking over Jimmie's shoulder. "Oh, I wish we had known!"

"Can you see the face plainly?" asked Teddy.

"Quite plainly," was the reply. "The door was open, as you see, and Jimmie stood with his hand on the edge of it, looking at the camera, his head in the room."

"Yes; that makes the picture good," Teddy observed.

"And there was a slant of light from the passage, and the head of the outlaw shows in that. He's an ugly looking brute!"

"Observe the alfalfa on his map!" exclaimed Teddy.

"That picture may send him to prison!" Frank cried. "I hope so!"

He put the tank, the printing frame, the print, and the other articles away in his suitcase and went out to where Ned was standing.

"Did you see the face behind the boy?" asked Frank -- "get a good look at it?"

"Yes," was the reply. "It shows that this is not a joke! Did you notice the face closely?"

"I think so."

"What about the beard?"

"Quite a growth, I should say."

"Anything else odd about it?" persisted Ned.

"Not that I saw," was the wondering reply. "What about it?"

"It was a false beard! The man was disguised!"

Frank's face looked, for an instant, as if he had received a blow.

"And I was counting on that beard," he said, "as a means of identification!"

"Keep the print safe," Ned advised. "It may be useful in that way yet."

"Well," Frank declared, "we've got to go away! We can take no chances on Jimmie being murdered. Isn't that your idea?"

"We certainly will take no such chances," Ned responded. "Up to this time we have been successful in getting out of trouble, though, and we may be able to rescue the boy without giving up the search for the abducted lad."

"Here's another question," Frank said, "was that note sent by the counterfeiters, or are the men interested in the abduction of the prince resorting to such tactics?"

"I have an idea that the abductors are the ones who are doing it," Ned answered.

"It may be moonshiners," suggested Frank.

"I don't think there are any illicit stills in this district," Ned replied.

"Well, we're up against a desperate gang now, anyway," Frank said, "and it looks as if they held the high cards! If we had only suspected what was going on in that passage, we might have rescued the boy before they got him away!

"I believe we'll do well to watch Bradley," he suggested.

"But Bradley was at the cabin when we got there."

"Oh, he had plenty of time to get Jimmie away and get back to the cabin!" Frank insisted. "We remained at the cave half an hour after Jimmie left us, and we took our time in getting to the cottage."

"Also we took a great many snap-shots at the scenery," Ned went on. "Now, I wish you would take all the films out of the cameras and develop and print a picture of each."

"I'll go right at it," Frank replied, turning back to the tent.

"And if any of the boys were taking pictures about the tent, or the corral, have them developed. It may be that one of the snap-shots will show the person who slipped the note into the tent."

"I don't see how it was ever done without the man being seen," Frank exclaimed.

"But it was done," Ned replied, "and we've got to find out when and how if we can."

When Frank left for the tent Ned started on toward the summit. He had traveled only a short distance when Frank came puffing after him.

"Here's another print Jack and Teddy took," he said. "It shows something in the cave we never noticed. See if you can tell what it is."

Ned glanced at the print and returned it.

"There is another opening in the wall at the east side," he said. "The picture shows it. I noticed something there, but neglected to investigate."

While the two talked Jack came up the slope, his camera over his shoulder.

"I think it is about time for me to be having an outing," he said. "I've been in the camp most of the time since we've been here."

"Come along, then," Ned replied. "I'm going back to the cave, and it may be just as well to have some one with me."

Frank went down the slope to the tent and Ned and Jack hastened down the slope on the other side. They were busy with their thoughts and for a long time neither spoke.

"Of course it is the abductors?" Jack asked, presently.

"I have no doubt of it," was the reply.

"Do you connect the man Bradley with it?" was the next question.

"There is no proof against him," Ned replied.

"But you must have some idea about it," persisted Jack.

"For all we know," Ned remarked, "he may be entirely innocent in the abduction matter. He may have brought the real grandchild here."

"The grandchild!" repeated Jack. "Here's the old question once more: 'Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?'"

"I have the answer to that question written down in my memorandum book," Ned said. "I don't want to show it to you now, because I may be mistaken. When the case is closed I will show you the entry. Then you may laugh at me if you feel like it."

"I'd like to see it now," Jack coaxed.

"I want all you boys to think for yourselves," Ned went on. "Don't get a theory and pound away at it. If you do, you'll overlook everything which doesn't agree with that theory. If I should show you what I have written, you might look only for clues calculated to prove it to be correct, or you might look only for opposing clues."

A second examination of the counterfeiters' cave revealed nothing of importance except that the broken wall on the east side showed a small room into which Jimmie and his captor might have fled after the abduction. Still, there was no proof that they had done so, Ned explained.

"Why didn't the little fellow yell?" asked Jack.

"I think he would have yelled if that had been possible!" Ned said.

The boys left the cave in a short time and passed south, toward the valley and the cabin. Instead of going directly to the cabin, however, Ned kept away to the west and came out south of it, in the section where Bradley had walked with the child.

After a time Jack wandered away to the east, so as to come up on that side of the cabin. Although the boys had circled the building, no sign of life had been seen.

While Ned was yet some distance away he saw Jack standing on the slope of the valley watching the front door. He walked back and looked in at a small window in the rear wall. The child lay asleep on a bed in one corner of the room, and Mrs. Brady sat by his side. Bradley occupied a chair not far away.

"Quite a domestic scene!" Ned muttered.

While the boy watched through the window, the old woman arose and left the cabin by the front door. Then Bradley arose, went to a suitcase in a corner by the hearth, took therefrom a small green paper parcel, and went to the cupboard, hanging on the north wall.

After feeling about for a time he took out a cup, filled it with warm water from a kettle on the fire and stirred the contents of the green package into it with a brush which he took from a pocket. Ned could not see the contents of the cup, but when the man held the brush up to the light he saw that it was soaked in what seemed to be a black dye. It appeared too thick to suit the taste of the man, and he poured in more water out of the kettle.

Then, with the brush wet in one hand and the cup in the other, Bradley drew closer to the bed where the child slept. Ned watched for a few seconds more, then the footsteps of the old lady were heard approaching the door, ringing on the hard earth at the front of it. Ned made another entry in his memorandum book and turned away.



Chapter XIV

Pointing Out The Trail


After leaving the window at the rear of the cabin, Ned moved to the north side, where there was no window at all, and stood there, huddled against the wall, until he heard the old lady enter the house and close the door. Peering around the corner to see that no one was in sight, he crossed the open space swiftly and approached the grove where he had seen Jack.

Jack was not in sight, but a round hole cut in the bark of a tree told the direction in which he had gone. In the Indian sign language used by the Boy Scouts this meant:

"This is the trail. Keep on in this direction."

Wondering what had taken Jack away so suddenly, Ned followed on until he came to an open space where no trees were growing. He, however, kept straight ahead, taking snapshots as he came to desirable scenes.

A hundred yards from the edge of the grove he came to a small round stone sitting on top of a large one. Then he walked faster and with more confidence. This, too, said:

"This is the trail! Keep on!"

It was now after noonday, and the sun poured fiercely down into the valley between the great ridges. There were patches of forest here and there, and now and then the boy came to a field which had been planted to corn. Still, he came upon no human being. The two cabins he saw seemed empty and deserted.

Weary and hungry as he was, Ned kept on, now reading the trail sign from a tree, now from a stone, now from a bunch of grass tied at the top, with the ends of the blades sticking straight up. He walked a couple of miles without turning to the right or left, and then found a new signal. The hole in the bole of the tree where the sign stood was accompanied by a long cut in the bark of the left side.

This, as plainly as a voice from the thicket could have done, said:

"Turn to the left and keep on in that direction until you are further instructed."

The turn to the left led Ned up the slope. So the field of action was likely to be in the mountains again! The signs were closer together now, and Ned followed them with faith that he was on the right track.

But who had made the trail? Was it Jimmie or Jack? Probably the latter, Ned concluded, for Jimmie would not be likely to have had an opportunity of so blazing his trail, while Jack was free to do so at will.

But why had Jack gone away on the trail alone? Why had he not called to him, Ned, in order that they might proceed together?

It was possible that the boy might be following some person whom he suspected of the abduction, still that did not seem to be likely, as any one tracking another in the broad light of day, in such a country as that, over open places and rocky elevations, would be almost certain to be discovered. Ned feared the boy was being led into a trap.

Finally, almost at the edge of the timber, Ned came to a third sign. There were three holes cut in the bark of a tree, facing the trail he had followed, and on the right side was the familiar slit in the bark.

"Turn to the right and be careful, for there may be danger ahead!"

That is what the talk on the tree said!

To the right lay a rim of trees, facing the bare face of the mountain. Between the trees and the summit lay a long stretch of rocky slope, in some places actually inaccessible to one not an expert in mountain climbing.

Obeying the signal, Ned turned to the right and kept under the shelter of the trees. It was very still there, save for the sharp raspings of insects hiding in the foliage and the sleepy call of birds in the sky and in the tops of the trees.

The boy made his way through the underbrush for some distance without finding any sign. At a loss what course to pursue, he decided to do nothing! So he sat down in a thicket and waited. And while he waited he took snapshots!

His thought, sitting there in suspense, was that Jack might have waited for him at some point on the trail! At best the boy could have been only a half hour ahead of him. He waited an hour, until the sun began to touch the tops of the distant western mountains, and then climbed cautiously up a tree and looked about.

Then there came a rustling in the bushes farther to the south, and the low, angry growl of a black bear came up to him! Ned began sliding down the tree at once.

That was the call of the Black Bear Patrol! He knew now that Jack was not far off. At the bottom of the tree he found the boy waiting for him!

"Say, but I've had a long wait!" Jack complained.

"Why didn't you signal before, then?" demanded Ned.

"Why, I thought you'd come right on, come on and meet me!"

"And you never knew I was here until I climbed the tree?"

"Of course not. How should I?"

"Well," Ned observed, "we'll know better next time. I presume I should have made a sign myself -- the call of the pack, for instance."

"Of course," Jack replied. "Now," he went on, "do you know what's doing here?"

"I'm in quest of information," Ned grinned. "What have you found?"

"I've discovered that the Brady cabin is being watched!"

Ned couldn't understand that, and said so. Jack went on: "When I stood in front of the house, two men came out of the canyon and walked down to the tree belt and stopped. They stood there a long time, talking, and then started off in this direction and I followed them."

"Are they mountaineers?" asked Ned. "People of this section?"

"Certainly not! They are to all appearances city people, at least in dress."

"You couldn't hear what they were saying?" asked Ned.

"No, but I could get some idea of their thoughts from their gestures. One was kicking about something, and the other was trying to pacify him."

"Well, where did they go? Where did you see them last?" asked Ned.

"They went up the slope, and disappeared behind that chimney of rock. I've got pictures of that rock!"

"This looks like a three-cornered game!" Ned mused.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Jack. "Where are the three interests?"

"We'll probably have to come back here tonight," Ned went on, without answering the question. "We can never get up that slope in daylight without attracting their attention."

"We must be at least four up-hill miles from camp," Jack calculated.

"All of that," answered Ned. "It is a long walk there and back."

"Then why not remain here?" asked Jack. "I'm hungry, but I'm more in need of rest than food just now. We can lie here in the thicket until night, and then creep up the slope and see what's doing."

"I was about to suggest that," Ned observed, "but I thought you'd be ravenous for the sight of a camp dinner!"

"I have a hunch," Jack declared, after a time, "that Jimmie is somewhere in this section! I don't know why, but when I saw those men, strangers, evidently, walking so stealthily over the country I got the hunch! Then I followed them, because I thought I might get a clue to the boy's whereabouts by so doing."

"If the boy is here," Ned replied, grimly, "we'll find him!"

"Of course we'll find him! That's what we are here for!"

The boys thus encouraging each other crawled deeper into the thicket and lay down. They were more than tired, worse than hungry, but they never thought of sleep, or of leaving their post of observation. The afternoon passed slowly, the boys taking snapshots now and then.

"The boys will be thinking we've been geezled!" Jack said. "I wish they knew where to find us. There's no knowing what they will do, they're so anxious about Jimmie. And if they scatter over the country others may be captured."

"They usually show good sense in emergencies," Ned commented.

When the first tint of twilight came, the boys crept to the edge of the thicket and sat looking out on the mountain. There was the broken way to the summit, and there was the chimney rock behind which the men had disappeared, but no human being was, for a long time im sight.

Then a small figure came swinging down the slope, off to the north, and presently came opposite to where the boys lay. Jack seized Ned by the arm and pointed.

"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III?" he asked.

Ned got out his field glass and studied the face and figure until, whistling some childish discord, the boy turned back and disappeared in the direction of the cabin.

"What is that boy doing off here alone?" asked Jack, then.

"Keep watch of the chimney rock," Ned advised.

"But what do you think of it?" demanded Jack. "How did that boy get up here?"

"If you see any one moving up there," Ned went on, provokingly, "let me know."

"Oh, look here!" Jack insisted, half angrily, "what's the use of shutting up like a clam? What is your idea about that boy? We've never seen him before except in Bradley's company. Do you think he ran away? Why can't we go and get him and hold him until Jimmie is released?"

"So you think the men who have taken Jimmie are the men who are conducting the abduction game?" asked Ned.

"Yes, don't you?"

"I have written the answer to that down in my little book," smiled Ned, "and when the right time comes I'll show it to you."

"Well, if we are going to catch the boy we'll have to be moving."

"We are not going to catch the boy."

Jack threw himself down on the ground in disgust.

"You're the Secret Service man," he said, "and I presume you know what you are about, but it looks to me as if you had been reading a dream book, or something like that."

"Why should we catch the child?" asked Ned.

"To hold him! To be able to say to the outlaws that we hold the top hand!"

"And trade the child for Jimmie, as you suggested?"

"Why, of course!"

"That would make a failure of our mission, me son!"

"But it would save Jimmie's life."

It was now growing quite dark in the valley, especially where the tree growth was heavy, but upon the slope objects might still be clearly distinguished some distance away. While the boys watched the child came out of the thicket to the north and began ascending the mountain, walking with a light, springing step, as if out for exercise after a long and tiresome confinement.

"Now keep your eye on the mountain," Ned requested.

In a moment a column of smoke arose from behind the chimney rock. The boys watched it intently and the child with it, for he was now approaching the rock.

"Cooking supper!" remarked Jack. "I wish they would pass it around!"

"Does it take two fires to cook supper up there?" asked Ned, with a smile.

Jack half arose in his excitement, but Ned drew him down again.

"Jimmie's up there!" he whispered. "There's the Boy Scout call for help!"



Chapter XV

A Night On The Summit


"Now," Ned said, as the signal columns died down, "we'll hike back to camp with our pictures and get supper! How does that strike you?"

Jack turned toward Ned impatiently. There was not light enough for his face to show clearly, but Ned knew how the boy was scowling!

"And go off and leave Jimmie here?" Jack said. "I'd like to know what you're thinking of! Why have you changed your mind? I'm going to stay here until it gets good and dark and then go up there."

"You may spoil all my plans if you attempt to reach him to-night," Ned replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "On the way back I want to stop at the cabin a moment."

"All right," Jack grumbled. "I suppose I'll have to go with you! When are you thinking of rescuing Jimmie? After they send us one of his hands?"

"Don't be sarcastic," laughed Ned. "You'll understand it all before long."

Jack was not at all pleased with the idea of returning to camp, and said so repeatedly as they walked along both keeping in the thicket as far as possible, but Ned seemed to take no offense at his remarks.

"What I can't get through my head," Jack finally said, changing the topic of conversation, "is why they let us travel through here without nipping us."

"I have an idea," Ned answered, "that they are pretty busy just now."

"Well, what was the use of our going at all if we sneak away as soon as we get where we might accomplish something?" demanded the boy, reverting to the old subject.

"You did a good job in finding and following them," Ned replied, ignoring the question, "and another good job in showing me the way. We have accomplished more than you think! I'm anxious for the end to come, so you'll know just how much you have accomplished! There is the cabin light," he added.

The boys walked boldly up to the door and Ned knocked. Mrs. Brady looked out with a welcoming smile on her faded face. She invited them in and tried to appear pleased at their visit, but Ned saw that she was under a great mental strain.

Judd Bradley sat by the hearth, with the child by his side. He smiled when Ned nodded to him and pointed to a chair.

"Pardon my not arising," he said. "The fact is that I'm a bit leg-weary to-night. This little chap ran away to-day, and I had a long chase after him!"

"We were worried about him," Mrs. Brady added.

"Aw, what's the matter wid youse folks, anyway?" demanded the boy, in a strident tone. "I didn't promise to sit in a chair an' play wid a cat all day!"

"I've had quite a busy day myself," Ned observed, "for one of the boys has been abducted by the counterfeiters, as I suppose, and we've been looking for him."

"Have you found him?" asked the old lady, anxiously.

"No," was the reply. "He must be securely hidden."

"The poor little fellow!"

Ned glanced casually at Bradley and saw that he was all interest.

"It seems," he went on, "that the counterfeiters blame us for what took place last night, and want us to leave the district. If we do they will send the boy out to us unharmed, at least that is what they promise."

"I don't see how they can blame you for the trouble of last night," Bradley said, and Ned caught a tone of irony in his voice.

"That's what I can't see," Ned went on, "but it seems that they do."

"And so they have ordered you out of the hills?" asked Bradley. "That's too bad, just as we were getting well acquainted. But, then, you don't have to go!"

"I think we'll go," Ned replied. "There are other localities where we can take pictures, and we can't afford to take any chances on the boy being injured."

"Sorry to have you go," Bradley remarked, "but that may be the wisest course."

"We think so," Ned replied. "Anyway, we're going day after to-morrow, in time to meet Jimmie at Cumberland. I think we can get packed up and out by that time."

"Shall we see you again before you go?" asked the old lady, anxiously.

"Oh, I presume so. I am going now to leave a note in the cave, saying that we are going out, and then on to camp."

When the boys stepped outside the cabin the old lady followed as far as the threshold standing with her gray head outside.

"I'm sorry," she said. "If there is anything I can do -- "

Jack stood a couple of yards away, whistling shrilly. At a word from Ned the old lady stepped out into the open air, half closing the door after her. From the inside came the heavy tread of Bradley approaching the door.

But before the visitor gained the threshold Ned and Mrs. Bradley had exchanged half a dozen short sentences, and when Bradley looked out she was saying.

"I shall look for you if you ever come this way again."

"I'll surely be back, some bright day!" laughed Ned, and the two boys walked on.

"Well," Jack said, as they left the cabin behind, "of all the fire-proof, enthusiastic, gilt-edged, slicky-slick members of the Ananias club I ever heard mentioned, you certainly take the bakery! What did you go and tell Bradley we were going out for?"

"Because," Ned answered, "we are going out."

"Not by day after to-morrow?"

"I hope so! We ought to get ready by that time!"

"I don't ask any more questions!" grumbled Jack. "I don't know hot from cold! I'm deaf and dumb and blind from this minute on. Uncle Ike has a classical education in comparison with what I know. Go to it, Neddie, boy!"

They stopped at the cave and Ned wrote a note to the effect that they were going out inside the limit set, placed it in a conspicuous place on the shelf with the dies, and then the two boys set out for camp. It was a long, hard climb, but they made it before the boys were in their bunks.

"You're a nice party!" Frank exclaimed, as Ned came up. "We thought you had been pinched! There's plenty of hot supper in the oven for you, but you don't deserve a thing! Square yourself!"

"Don't ask him a single question!" grumbled Jack. "He won't tell you a thing! We've been within sight of a signal from Jimmie this afternoon, and we've had a chance to tell the outlaws where they can go, but he's muffed every play! I'm going to eat and go to bed!"

Jack really was out of temper, so no objections were made to his going to his bunk as soon as he had finished supper! Ned laughed good-naturedly at the boy's remarks and thought no more about them.

Frank came and sat down by Ned while the latter was eating a hearty supper.

"The worry doesn't seem to affect your appetite!" the boy laughed. "Have you solved the riddle, that you are so calm through it all? If you have, just tell me this:

"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?"

"I've written the answer to that in my little red book," laughed Ned.

Frank eyed the other with a grin, but made no reply for a time, then he merely said:

"You are up to your old tricks! Well, what is on for to-night?"

"Why," Ned answered, "if you would like a stroll by moonlight, I think we might get a good view of the south country from the top of the mountain."

"I don't know what you're up to," Frank answered, springing to his feet, "but I'm game for anything. I've been eating my heart out all day."

"What about the prints?" asked Ned.

"They are remarkably good," Frank replied, "but there are no special features. In one picture, taken down in the canyon, there is a face that we did not see, though."

"What sort of a face?"

"A strange one to me. But I'll show them all to you in the morning. When are you going out for that stroll in the moonlight?"

"In two hours. That will be about midnight. Between now and that time I'm going to get a little sleep. Wake me at twelve, will you -- and, by the way, say nothing to the others about it. They'll all want to go! We can notify whoever is on watch when we get ready to start."

Ned hastened to his bunk and lay down. Five minutes later, when Frank looked in, he was studying a French dictionary by the light of his electric candle. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep. At twelve the boys were ready to start, and Teddy, who was on watch, was warned to keep wide awake and listen for noises from the south.

"If you hear shooting," Ned said, "two of you jump on Uncle Ike and charge along the summit to the south. Make all the noise you can! Don't go down the slope, but keep to the summit."

"Now where?" asked Frank, as they walked over the rocks and wound around jutting crags. "If you'll give me time I'll take some moonlight pictures for Dad's newspapers. He must be expecting some by this time!"

"Poor old Dad!" laughed Ned. "By this time he must have given up sitting around the New York postoffice, waiting for your pictures to come!"

"I'm going to send him some on this trip, sure!" declared the boy. "He deserves them, you know, and his newspaper needs them! Besides, we are planning another Boy Scout trip, and I shall want a whole lot of money!"

"I see!" cried Ned. "You are casting an anchor to windward!"

"In other words," grinned Frank, "I'm laying the foundation for another appropriation! I'm going to send on some of the pictures of the counterfeiters' den!"

The summit of the ridge was by no means a level pathway. There were peaks, canyons, gulleys and twistings to east and west which caused the boys to travel two miles or more for every mile they advanced toward the point where the two men Jack had followed had taken refuge.

It was about two o'clock in the morning when they came in sight of the chimney rock which Ned had noted on the trip of the afternoon. It rose from the west slope of the mountain like a tower, tall, bulky, forbidding.

Looking down upon it from the east, Ned saw that there was a small canyon in between it and the slope, much the same as the formation near the cave of the counterfeiters. It was evident that the rock had been cast down from the summit, and had caught there -- on a projecting ridge of stone.

"Looks like a fortress!" Frank whispered as the rock sparkled in the light of the moon. "Notice the campfire in the canyon?" "There were two there this afternoon," Ned said, "and we thought one of them was there simply to make the second column -- the Boy Scout call for assistance."

"If Jimmie isn't tied up hand and foot," Frank suggested, "if he is allowed to move about, under guard, and help in the cooking, he could easily build two fires, and the outlaws wouldn't know what he was up to. That is how Dode came to signal to us, you remember. The counterfeiters never suspected that he was making Indian talk!"

"I think it was Jimmie," Ned declared. "He would find some way to make the signal, if he wasn't tied hard and fast! Anyway," the boy added, "I'm going down the slope right now to see if he is there!"



Chapter XVI

The Call Of The Pack


Ned and Frank stood in the shadow behind a protecting rock and peered down into the moonlit canyon for a long time. At first there was no one in sight below, but presently a man came out by the fire, which was burning low now.

It appeared to the boys that he must have crawled out from under the chimney rock itself! He appeared so suddenly that they knew that, at least, there must be an underground hiding place in which he had been concealed when they had first come in view of the canyon and the rock.

The man mended the fire, gathering up the ends of the logs and limbs which had burned through in the middle and placing them back on the coals. Then he opened a box which he had brought from some out-of-sight place and took out canned food and cooking utensils. He was evidently going to get an early breakfast.

Presently a second man joined the first arrival, and they sat down by the fire to wait for water in a great pot to boil. At least, the boys supposed that they were waiting for it to boil.

"I'd like to know what they are talking about," Frank said. "I'm going to see if I can get close enough to them to find out."

"I was just thinking of that myself," Ned responded, "so we may as well be on our way. Keep your gun handy, but don't shoot unless one of them seizes you."

"I'll take good care they don't get hold of me," Frank answered. "Say," he went on, "if Jimmie is there, he must be in some hole under that rock -- the one they came out of! If they turn away, I may be able to get in there and see."

"Wait until there is little danger of detection," Ned advised. "We don't know how many men there are in the party, remember."

The boys walked softly back to the north, keeping ridges and outcropping rocks between the canyon and themselves, and then crept softly down the slope so as to come out at the north end of the little cut. The men they were watching were frying bacon and boiling coffee now, and appeared to be thoroughly occupied with their tasks.

In a few moments both boys were within hearing, distance. The men were not talking much, however. In fact, they both seemed to be harboring a grouch, from the infrequent low, grumbling complaints which the boys overheard.

"I'm through with the bunch after this!" one of the men said. "I'm not going to do all the work and let some one else draw all the money."

"It is time we got out of here anyway," the other said. "Those fresh boys were around here this afternoon."

"Why didn't you plug them if you knew they were here?" demanded the other.

Frank nudged Ned in the side with his fist.

"Cheerful sort of people!" he said. "I'm looking to see something start soon."

"I didn't know at the time that they were here!" the man replied, with a snarl. "I'm no Indian sleuth. After they left I started through the grove and found their tracks. Good thing for them that I saw their tracks instead of their heads!"

"Well," the other grunted, "if we are agreed that it is time for us to get out, why don't we get out? I'm not going to take all the chances! Why don't the others come? They won't come, and that's all there is to it. They're waiting for us to do the job! Then they'll claim the pay."

By this time the bacon was crisp and the coffee was simmering fragrantly in the pot and the two men fell to with an appetite. Frank watched them eat with an appetite of his own, rubbing his stomach and trying to show how near the point of starvation he was, although it had been only a short time since he had eaten a hearty meal!

"They don't trust us!" one of the men muttered, at length.

"We haven't got a thing on them, if they see fit to welch on us," the other admitted.

"But if we obey orders, they will have so much on us that we won't dare say a word, even if they make us walk back and buy our own meals on the way!"

"Is it agreed, then, that we're going to cut it?" asked one. "If it is, we may as well go now as at any future time."

"All right."

"Now?" asked the other.

"Why not? It will soon be daylight."

"Good idea, for we can't be seen trailing that kid along with us in the broad light of day," was suggested. "Let's move right now!"

"Now," whispered Frank, "do they mean Jimmie, when they speak of the kid, or some one else? And if they are speaking of some one else, here's a question: Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?"

"It seems to me," Ned whispered back, "that I've heard something like that before."

"Well, get the kid out and feed him!" one of the men commanded. "We've got to keep him with us until we get pay for what we have already done."

"Now we'll know!" Frank suggested, as one of the men turned toward the rock. "If it is Jimmie we'll soon know it. What?"

They were not long kept in doubt. Jimmie shot out of a hole under the rock like an arrow in full flight and squatted down by the fire. Frank snickered when he saw the boy, and turned hastily away toward a ledge which showed back to the north.

While Ned was wondering what the boy was up to, the long, vicious whine of a wolf reached his ears. The call died away slowly, and was followed by silence, then by the snarling call of the pack!

The men by the fire started to their feet and seized their revolvers. Jimmie jumped away from the blaze and held up his hands, bound tightly together.

"Cut me loose!" he cried. "Are you going to let the wolf come and eat me?"

"There are no wolves in these mountains," declared one of the men. "That was a signal of some kind!"

"I've seen wolves since we came in here," Jimmie declared, telling the exact truth, at that, only the wolves he referred to belonged to the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America! "They're fierce wolves, too!" he added.

Frank crawled back to Ned's side and lay laughing at the commotion the signal had caused in the little camp. The men hastened their packing, and one of them who had been about to give Jimmie his breakfast snatched the bread and bacon away and put them in a pack he was making up.

"Here!" the boy shouted. "You give me the eats! Think I'm going to travel over these mountains with me tummy abusing me for not doing the right thing by it?"

"You're lucky to have any tummy!" snarled one of the men.

"Aw, give the kid his breakfast!" commanded the other.

The men quarreled and growled at each other while the packing was going on, and Jimmie sat looking around for some sign of the Boy Scout who had given the signal. In half an hour they were ready, and then Jimmie was ordered to move on.

"If you try to run away," he was informed, "you'll be chased by a bullet. We have no time to fool with you! Just keep a pace or two in advance, and march straight ahead and you'll have no trouble. Get along, now!"

"But where's the prince?" asked Frank. "I thought we were going to find the royal prince here!"

"The prince of what?" asked Ned. "The prince of the slums or the prince of a little patch of ground over the sea?"

"Blessed if I know," Frank commented. "See me throw a scare into those bums!"

The men stopped still in their tracks when the ugly snarl of a bear came to them out of the darkness. Frank did himself proud in the manner in which he put out the bear talk. The men were surely frightened.

"Now there's a bear!" wailed Jimmie, although Ned thought he caught a note of fun in his voice. "Don't you know these hills are full of bears? We saw some at our camp last night," he added, "eating bread and honey!"

"Bear nothing!" shouted one of the men. "There ain't a bear within a hundred miles of this place! This is some trick!"

Again the fierce, angry snarl of the bear! Ned caught Frank by the arm to keep him quiet, but the boy finished the bear talk he had begun.

Then Jimmie hastened matters by breaking away and running toward the rock from which the sound had proceeded. Both men took after him, but a shot from Frank's gun caused them to halt. They stood still for an instant, their figures tense and tall, and then turned and ran, almost tumbling over each other in their fright!

They did not stop at slight declivities. They leaped gulleys and almost fell into canyons which split the summits. In vain Ned called to them to halt, that they would not be injured. They ran like race horses, and were soon out of sight. Frank and Jimmie were rolling on the ground in their delight.

Ned looked grave and annoyed. Without speaking he looked over the camp where the men had cooked the breakfast and then returned to the boys.

"I am sorry for that," he said, mildly. "I wanted to put those men through the third degree! We should have held them up and put on the handcuffs."

"You didn't say so!" observed Frank sheepishly.

"No use to talk about it now," Ned declared. "Perhaps Jimmie knows what we expected to learn from them."

"All I know is that the bums got me at the cave and tied me up," Jimmie said.

"How many men have you seen in the party?" asked Ned. "Just those two. They were always talking about some one else coming in, but I never saw any one else."

"What did they talk about?" asked Ned.

"They were trying, most of the time, to make me admit that the Camera Club was a secret service organization," laughed the lad. "Of course I denied it!"

"What did they say about a child?"

"Not one word! I kept my ears open for that kind of talk!"

"Did they have a boy with them at any one time?" asked Ned.

"This afternoon, or yesterday afternoon, rather, I saw a kid moving about on the slope. I was cooking, and built two fires so as to make a signal. Did you see it?"

"Yes, we saw it," answered Ned, "but did not reply to it for the reason that we feared discovery. We wanted to come here in the night and release you and capture the two outlaws! But what sort of a child was it that you saw?"

"Why, it was the kid from the cabin. Say, Ned," he added, with a wink at Frank, "is that the prince, or is it Mike III.?"

"Cut it out!" roared Frank. "We've heard enough of that."

Ned laid a hand on the shoulder of each boy.

"That shot attracted attention," he whispered, "or the runaways are coming back. I hear some one tramping over rock, and a moment ago I caught the gleam of a gun barrel."

"Then it's me for a hole to crawl into!" whispered Jimmie. "I've had troubles of my own for the past few hours! Say, but I'm hungry, boys."

The boys left their place of retreat just as a couple of bullets spattered on rock.



Chapter XVII

Just A Little Dark Wash


More shots were fired, but the boys were soon out of range. A flush of pink was showing in the sky now, and the sun would be up in half an hour. Jimmie looked longingly toward the camp, and Ned turned his footsteps that way.

"Speaking of quitters," Jimmie said, as they moved along, "the two men who geezled me take the bun! They quarreled all the time because some one else didn't come and do something they wanted done! No wonder they ducked when one shot was fired!"

"About the boy you saw yesterday afternoon," Ned asked. "Are you sure it was the lad who was brought to our camp?"

"Of course it was!"

"Dressed just the same?"

"Just exactly."

"Why didn't you take a picture of him?" asked Frank.

"Huh, don't you ever think I didn't," was the reply. "I've got it in my camera now. When we get to camp I'll develop it and print some. I've got pictures of the men, too, and about everything around the hole in the ground where they hid me."

"That is as it should be!" Ned declared. "But how did you do it!"

"They are easy!" was all the reply Jimmie made.

A quarter of a mile away from the chimney rock Ned paused and looked back.

"I can't understand where those men went to," he said.

"My friends do you mean?" asked Jimmie with a grin. "They're going on a hop yet."

"No; the men who did the shooting," said Ned.

"Well," Jimmie went on, in a minute, "there is a place somewhere near the rock where some friends of the men who ran are camping. I heard them talking together."

"You little rascal!" Ned exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"Oh, you won't find them there now!" Jimmie advised. "I'll bet they ducked when we got away. They won't remain around here now."

"Are they counterfeiters?" asked Frank.

"They're bums from the city, brought here in connection with the abduction of the prince!" laughed Jimmie.

"How did you manage to cook and take pictures when you were tied up like a fish for shipment?" asked Frank.

"They didn't tie me up for a time, for I gave them a lot of talk about liking their society," was the answer. "They just watched me. When it came night and they wanted to sleep, they put the harness on!"

"That was careless of them," declared Frank, "not to tie you up tight."

"They're just cheap bums," Jimmie insisted. "They couldn't kidnap a bird in a cage."

The sun was up when the boys reached the camp, and Teddy was getting breakfast.

The arrival of Jimmie was hailed with manifestations of joy, as may well be supposed. The boys clustered around him excitedly, and even Uncle Ike, from the corral, sent forth a he-haw greeting. The breakfast Teddy prepared for him was a wonder!

The meal was scarcely finished when Bradley came sauntering into the camp. He stopped suddenly when he saw Jimmie. Watching him closely, Ned saw that he was dismayed as well as astonished. However, he soon came forward with a set smile on his face and took the boy by the hand.

"You're lucky," he said, "to get out of the clutches of the counterfeiters so soon. I was afraid something serious might have happened to you. How did you do it?"

"Ned came after me," was the only reply the boy made.

"We've decided to go away," Ned explained, "and so they gave him up, after a short argument."

"With a gun!" whispered Jimmie to the others.

Bradley loitered about the camp for a long time, asking questions and talking of a great many things which did not interest the lads at all.

"And so you are going out to-morrow?" he asked, arising to go.

"We expect to," Ned replied soberly.

"Perhaps I'll meet you outside somewhere," Bradley laughed.

"I hope so!" Ned replied, whispering an aside to Frank.

Frank walked away toward the tent, and directly, while Bradley's face was in clear outline, Ned heard the click of a shutter and knew that the snapshot had been made.

When Bradley at last started away Ned called the boys together and asked them if it wouldn't be a good idea for them to take a prisoner -- just to equalize things!

"Bradley?" asked Frank and Jimmie in chorus.

"That's the man," laughed Ned. "Do you think you could head him off and hide him in some out-of-the way hole in the ground?"

"What for?" demanded Jack. "I don't see what you want to do that for."

"Just for the fun of it!" Jimmie exclaimed. "I'll guard him after he is taken!" he added, with an appealing look at Ned.

"Well," Ned went on, nodding at Jimmie, "I have an idea that if two of you work down the slope and come out ahead of him you can coax him to throw up his hands easily enough."

"Then, after that, if you leave it to me," Jack continued, "you'll go down to the cabin and get the prince and start away with him!"

"You're sure it is the prince?" asked Ned.

"Of course! I should think any one with sense could see that. Just see how suspiciously the kid is watched! Of course, if you want to take the abductor along too, why that will be all right, but I'd get the prince first!"

"That's good advice," Ned declared, seeking to conciliate the boy, "and I'll go down to the cabin now and look after that end of the game!"

"If things work this way," laughed Oliver, "I guess we will get away to-morrow!"

"Why don't you let me go with the boys and help capture that stiff?" asked Jack, speaking to Ned. "He may be armed and perfectly willing to shoot."

"We have messed things up a bit here," Ned answered, "so whatever we do must be done at once. I have another little errand to do while they capture Bradley!"

"Oh, we'll get him, all right!" Frank insisted.

"You bet we will!" Jimmie added. "I'll tie him up tight, too! He won't take no pictures while he is my prisoner."

"Perhaps he won't have a baby camera hidden under his coat! laughed Frank.

"What are you going to say to him, boys, when you take him?" asked Teddy.

"We ain't going to say anything," Jimmie answered, "We're just going to get him!"

"Be careful, boys," was all Ned said as Frank and Jimmie left on their dangerous mission. "Be careful!"

After they had disappeared up the slope Ned turned to Jack.

"You saw one act of the play yesterday," he said to him. "Suppose you come with me now and see another act."

Jack came forward with outstretched hand and downcast face.

"Say, Ned," he said, "I'm sore at myself!"

"What's that for?" Ned asked, shaking the hand heartily and lifting the boy's face by taking him by the chin. "Why are you sore at yourself?"

"Because I acted like a dunce when we left chimney rock without signaling to Jimmie," was the reply, "and because I grumbled like a bear with a sore head when you suggested that Bradley be captured."

"You had a perfect right to express your opinion, my boy," Ned said.

"Yes, but I might have known that you knew what you were about. To be honest, I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you bringing Jimmie back."

"The least demonstration on our part at that time," Ned said, then, "might have caused the men who were guarding Jimmie to shift their quarters. Besides, I wanted Bradley in the toils before I made the final break."

"But he wasn't when you released Jimmie," Jack suggested.

"He will be before the final card is laid down," Ned replied. "But come," he went on, "we must be moving if we get to the cottage before the trouble begins."

"I'm all in the dark," Jack said, "but I'm willing to take your judgment now."

Ned and Jack hastened away, traveling down the slope to the west and south so as to get to the cottage in the quickest possible time. When they came in sight of the structure they saw Mary Brady sitting in the doorway, her head bent forward, her face buried in the palms of her hands.

She arose at the sound of their footsteps and advanced with outstretched hands to meet them. There were tears on her face and her manner was excited.

"You came too late!" she cried, wringing Ned's hand. "They have taken him away."

"When?" asked Ned, leading the old lady into the cabin.

"Oh, I don't know when! Sometime in the night. I awoke and saw that the bed was empty and called to Bradley. He arose and has been looking for him ever since."

"He was just up at our camp -- looking!" Ned said, with a wink at Jack.

The old lady now went to a cupboard and brought forth a glass in which a dark fluid rested. A small black brush stood against the side of the vessel.

"I found this for you, as you asked," she said.

Ned examined the contents of the glass and made a mark on a white paper with the brush. The color transmitted to the paper was a light brown, not black.

"You washed the boy, as I asked you to?" Ned then enquired.

"I tried to," was the reply, "but Bradley said he would take him out and give him a swim in the run down in the valley. He wouldn't let me touch him."

"Well, what did the pillow case show this morning?"

The old lady pointed to the white paper.

"It was stained like that," she said.

During this talk Jack had been standing looking from Ned to the old lady with all shades of expression on his face. Now he spoke.

"Say, Ned," he almost gasped, "what is the meaning of all this?"

"Wait a minute!" Ned said, facing the old lady again. "And you listened to their talk when they sat together last night?"

"Indeed I did, sir, and its the first time I ever played the spy!"

"What was Bradley saying to him?" asked Ned, then.

"He was saying French words over and over for him to repeat!"

Jack dropped into a chair and looked helplessly at his chum.

"Foolish little French phrases, like one finds at the back of any dictionary?" asked Ned. "He was repeating them so that the boy could say them after him?"

"Yes, sir, that is just it."

"Now, Jack, what about your prince of the royal blood?" asked Ned.

"I gather from what I hear that he was painted," said Jack, with a shamed look in his eyes. "Painted!"

"Sure he was!" cried the woman. "Painted and taught foolish little French words to say! But he is Mike's boy! I know that!"

"This is like the Arabian Nights!" Jack cried.

"Worse!" Ned declared, "for all my plans have gone wrong with the disappearance of the boy."



Chapter XVIII

Bradley Becomes Indignant


Frank and Jimmie hastened down the slope to the west, after toiling up and crossing the broken summit, and soon caught sight of the man they had been instructed to take prisoner. Bradley was walking swiftly, his haste not at all matching the leisurely air he had affected at the camp.

"How do you feel now?" asked Jimmie, wrinkling his nose at Frank. "How does it seem to be a bold, bad gunman?"

"I think it is a little shivery," Frank answered. "When I get back to New York," he went on, "I'm going to write a story for Dad's newspaper entitled: 'Desperate Desmonds I have Shot Up in the Hills.' That title ought to make a hit on the East Side, south of First street!"

"I feel like a second-story man, and a gopher-worker, and a train-robber, and a confidence operative all rolled into one!" Jimmie admitted. "This holding people up is new exercise for us! Say, will you agree to let me push the gun into his face?"

"We'll both have guns, you little highway-man!" Frank replied. "You needn't think I'm going to look on and miss all the fun!"

"Then you let me tie him up!" coaxed Jimmie. "I won't tie him very tight, just so he can't breathe, and so his blood won't circulate!" "You're the fierce little bandit!" declared Frank.

"Well, the gang he belongs to tied me up!" complained the boy. "I'm going to get even on this geek! We can walk right down on him at any time now. He'll never suspect that we're pirates."

"First," Frank observed, "I'd like to know where he is going so fast."

"He may go so fast that he'll get to friends before we harness him!" warned Jimmie. "Then we couldn't get him at all, but might, instead, get geezled ourselves."

"There seems to be a little sense left in that head of yours," Frank laughed, "even if your friends do think it is solid bone! So we'd better skip along and take him under our protection before we have an army to fight. Say, but won't he take a tumble to himself when he finds himself stuck up by two boys?"

Not withstanding their half-humorous talk concerning what they were about to do, the boys both realized that they were facing a serious situation. They had every confidence in Ned's judgment, still they had no knowledge of Bradley which seemed to them to warrant the bold step they were about to take.

Jimmie was under the impression that Bradley belonged to the coterie which had taken him prisoner, but he had no proof of it. Bradley had been, apparently, accepted by Mrs. Mary Brady, and that seemed a good recommend for him. Still, there were the instructions, and they were resolved to carry them out. Neither expressed to the other his secret thought on the subject.

"Where are we going to hide him, after we take him?" asked Jimmie, after a time, during which the lads had managed by hard work to decrease the distance between themselves and Bradley. "How about the old counterfeiters' den?"

"That's the first place his friends will look for him! No, sir, we've got to find a little retreat of our own, and one of us must guard him. Do you know how long Ned wants to keep him?" asked Frank.

"Don't know a thing about it," was the reply. "I don't even know why he wants him captured, or what proof he has against him."

The boys were now not far away from Bradley, and, hearing the rattle of broken rock behind him, he turned and looked back at the boys, who were swinging along with their hands in their pockets. He waited for them to come up.

"Taking a little walk, eh?" he questioned, as the boys came to the level space on the mountainside where he had paused.

Bradley seemed to be entirely unconscious of danger, for he turned his back to the boys presently, after a few short sentences had passed between them, and moved forward, as if to continue his way down the slope.

"Just a minute!" Frank said, sharply, and he faced them.

Two automatic revolvers were within a foot of his head, and the eyes of the boys back of them declared that the situation was not the result of a joke.

"Hold out your hands!" Jimmie ordered. "We want to see if you're toting any smoke-wagons! Push 'em out, Mister!"

Bradley did not hesitate a second. His hands went out like a flash. There was a smile on his lips as Jimmie removed his revolver, but his jaw was threatening.

"And so you are just common thieves?" he said.

"Aw, quit it!" Jimmie answered. "We're taking care of you so you won't fall over a precipice and hurt yourself."

"You'll find very little money on me," Bradley went on. "I've sent in to the city for a couple of hundred. You ought to have waited a few days."

"We don't want your money," Frank cut in, "all we want is the benefit of your society for a time."

Bradley flushed angrily when Jimmie adroitly snapped a pair of handcuffs on his outstretched wrists, but he made no protest.

"Now you can put down your hands," Jimmie announced. "They'll get stiff if you hold 'em out too long. Now, sit down and pick out your hotel. You may have a room in most any section of this district. Immaterial to us where we put you!"

"What does it mean?" demanded Bradley. "I presume you boys know what you are doing. There's law in this state, as wild as this country looks to be. You'll get years behind prison bars for this."

"Before I forget it," Jimmie asked, with a wink at Frank, "I want you to tell me something. Will you?"

"That depends. What is it you want to know?"

"This: Is the boy down at the cabin the prince, or is he Mike III?"

The eyes of both boys were fixed keenly on Bradley's face as the question was put. So far as they could see, it did not change a particle in color or expression.

"That's a queer question for you to ask," he said. "You'd better asked Mrs. Brady whether it is her grandson or not! And I don't know what you mean, talking about a prince. I haven't seen any prince about here -- except the prince of the son of thieves!"

"So you won't tell, eh?" asked Frank.

"The boy I brought in is Michael Brady, son of the son of Mrs. Brady."

Sitting on the level space half way down to the outcropping ledge which held the workroom of the counterfeiters, Bradley looked anxiously in the direction of the canyon.

Jimmie noted the look and took out his field glass. People were moving about in the canyon, and down in the valley to the south, where the cabin stood, something out of the ordinary seemed to be going on.

"You are expecting friends?" asked Frank.

"They are liable to come any minute," was the cool reply.

"Then we'd better be going," Jimmie cut in. "There are men in the canyon, and in the valley, and they may be coming up here to find out why you don't meet them, as per agreement! Are they good waiters? If they are, you may find them still in the valley after you've served a couple of terms in a Federal prison!"

"Be careful what you say," warned Bradley. "I'm in your power now, but there'll come a time when I won't be. Remember that!"

Jimmie's glass showed him that the men below were starting up the slope.

"We'll go back toward camp," he said to Frank. "I guess the fellows down there are watching us through glasses. If you don't mind," he added, turning to Bradley with a provoking laugh, "we'll stow you away in a hole in the rocks somewhere until they get tired of looking for you!"

"Go as far as you like!" was the reply.

Frank and Jimmie stepped aside and conversed together in low tones, trying to make up their minds what to do with the prisoner. It had taken little trouble to capture him, but it seemed to them that it would be no easy matter to hold him.

"There's a cute little dip in the summit not far from the camp," Frank said, at length. "A boulder tumbled out of the slope, and there's a cave big enough to hide three in, only there is a part of it which has no roof."

"Don't mind that!" Bradley said, in a sarcastic tone. "We won't have a long residence in any place you select now."

"The summit is spotted with queer little openings where soft rock has been washed out," Frank said, "and we can locate not far from the camp if we want to."

"I suppose you boys are doing this under the orders of this Nestor boy?" asked Bradley. "When you get to him, kindly ask him to call on me. I want to know what all this means."

"Let's see, what was it you said about the child you brought in with you?" asked Jimmie, wrinkling his freckled nose until it did not seem possible to ever get it out straight again, "what was it you said his name was? Was it Prince Abductable or Mike the Third?"

Bradley scowled but said nothing. The boys now set off up the slope with their prisoner. Now and then they turned to look into the canyon and the valley below.

The men they had observed in the canyon were slowly ascending. There were four of them, and it seemed to the boys that they were examining every foot of the ground they covered. Bradley looked downward, too, and a smile came to his face as he did so. It was plain that he expected help from that quarter.

The boys walked as swiftly as possible, and soon came to the summit, where a view of the camp was had. The corral where the mules were feeding was also in sight, farther down, and Teddy was seen making friends with Uncle Ike.

The camp looked so quiet and deserted that Jimmie took out his field glass again and looked closely. The flap of the tent was up, and the boy could see for some distance into the interior.

Trunks and boxes were open, their contents scattered about the floor. A figure lay still on the floor, as if asleep. Jimmie could not see the face, but from the size and expression of the shoulders he imagined it to be Dode.

Oliver was not to be seen. Then, while the boy watched, with a premonition of approaching evil in his mind, he saw two men move out into the center of the tent. They were looking through handfuls of papers, or pictures, or something similar. Jimmie could not determine at that distance just what they were carrying.

"Look here, Frank," the boy said, "just take a look at the tent."

Not a word to arouse the interest of the prisoner was said. Frank looked and handed the glass back to his chum. Jimmie knew what his chum feared as well as if he had put that fear into words. Bradley was smiling calmly.

"They have raided the tent!" Jimmie whispered, and Frank nodded.

"And they are destroying our plates and prints," Jimmie went on, "and so we'd better be getting down there to see about it."



Chapter XIX

Ned Plays The Mind-Reader


Jack stood in the little cabin in the valley and looked Ned expectantly in the face.

"Tell me," he finally said, "tell me why they painted this boy?"

"To get us off the trail of the prince," replied Ned.

"But it seems that they failed," suggested Jack. "You know?"

"I suspected from the very first," Ned answered. "Yesterday afternoon I knew."

"Well, it may be all right," Jack muttered, "or the man who brought him here may need a new wire on his trolley, but I can't see why they should bring this counterfeit prince here at all."

"They knew that we were coming here," Ned explained, resolved to give his chum a full understanding of the situation. "They knew we were coming here in quest of the prince. How they knew I can't make out, but they knew."

"They might have heard more than we supposed from the attic over the clubroom," Jack suggested.

"If the story of the maid and the coachman is straight," Ned continued, "they heard little that night. But they knew! They might have bribed some of the servants. I don't know. They might have been in that room before that evening.

"At any rate, when the Boy Scout Camera Club started for West Virginia by way of Washington the friends of the abductors knew what was going on. Now, it is my opinion that the prince had been headed for the mountains before the conspirators became aware of our connection with the case."

"I begin to see daylight!" Jack cried.

"Well, the prince being on his way to the hills and we having a good idea as to the locality of his place of hiding, the conspirators conceived the idea of giving us a false little prince to play with!"

"They're no fools!" Jack exclaimed. "No fools at all!"

"Now," Ned went on, "some of the conspirators knew Mrs. Brady's son in Washington. They knew of his many promises to his mother to return to the mountains. They knew of his recent promise to her to come home and bring the boy with him. They were doubtless very intimate with Mike Brady, Senior, for they knew all the little details of the life his mother was living.

"So they got him to permit them to bring the boy to his grandmother. They knew he would be looking for a prince in the hills, and so they gave us a false one to engage our attention! Rather clever, that, Jack."

The old lady was now regarding Ned with eyes which expressed awe as well as wonder.

"How did you find it all out?" she asked. "How do you know what took place in the minds of those wicked men?"

"After they took possession of the boy they began bribing him to play the part he has played here so imperfectly. They taught him cheap little French phrases from the dictionary, and touched up his already dusky complexion so as to make him look darker than ever. Yesterday I saw Bradley at work on his face with a brush!"

"And the lad played his part!" the grandmother declared. "I don't know how Bradley led him along, but the boy was willing to do as he was told. I never saw such a wild little chap so thoroughly subdued before. He wouldn't even tell me the truth when I took him in my old arms last night and talked to him."

"But he evidently told Bradley what you said to him," Ned continued, "for he got the child away in the night. Then he came to camp this morning to see if he could find out how much I knew. He's probably tied up by this time!"

"You have had him arrested," asked the old lady. "Then he'll never tell where the boy has been hidden, and he'll die of starvation -- die almost within sound of my voice."

"We'll find him," Ned answered, grimly. "We can make Bradley talk, I imagine."

"And while this has been going on," Jack said, "the true prince, the boy we came here to find, has doubtless been carried to some other part of the country?"

"I don't believe it!" Ned replied. "The conspirators would naturally expect us to shift our search for him back to Washington, or Chicago, or New York, wouldn't they? As soon as we discovered that this boy was not the person we sought, they would expect us to leave the hills at once, wouldn't they? Well, if they anticipated such a move on our part, what is more natural than that they should take advantage of this alleged idea on our part and leave the prince right here?"

"That is just what they would do!" cried Jack. "That is just what they have done. I wondered why you told Bradley we were going out! I had no idea that you knew so much about the case."

"Bradley knew that I knew the boy to be an imposter," Ned went on. "He intended we should make the discovery in time -- after he had watched the grandson for a few days, sized up the situation generally, and dropped out of sight. He intended me to know in a couple of weeks, after he was out of harm's way. But I discovered the trick too quickly for him."

"When did you first suspect?" asked Jack.

"That first morning. The boy's French was from the back of the book, and there was too strong an atmosphere of Washington about him -- an atmosphere which does not savor of the quiet life of the prince of the blood. Then when I watched him closer I saw that he had been painted. Oh, it was all plain enough."

"So you think the prince is here -- in these hills?" asked the old lady.

"I can't say, now," Ned replied. "I am sure that he was here yesterday. I think I saw him! But the escape of the two men who captured Jimmie mussed things up a lot. I wanted to put them through a little examination.

"After their escape I could not pose longer as a lad after snapshots! I can't say as I deceived the conspirators when I laid the capture of Jimmie to the counterfeiters. I think I did fool them when I said we were going out of the hills in order to protect the captive.

"Well, when we released Jimmie and let the two guards escape, that part of the game was off. If I could have held the men it would have been different."

"Perhaps Bradley can be made to tell where the prince is," suggested Jack.

"I hardly thinks he knows," Ned replied. "He has not, I think, been taken fully into the confidence of the men higher up, any more than have the men who guarded Jimmie."

"He certainly knows where my grandson is," exclaimed the old lady, "and I'll tear his heart out but I'll make him tell me. He took him away!"

"I am not so certain of that, either," Ned mused. "I don't know just how far the criminal head of the conspiracy has trusted him."

"You'll do all you can to find my boy, won't you?" pleaded the old lady.

"Don't worry about the boy," Ned urged. "Well find him. If Frank and Jimmie have had good luck Bradley is under arrest now, and something will be brought out to lead to his discovery. Besides, with the disguise penetrated, there is no longer any motive for holding him, unless he knows too much, which is not likely."

"If his father was here he might help," suggested the old lady.

Jack, who had been looking steadily out of the window for some little time, now turned to Ned with a smile on his face.

"I know now what you wrote in your little red book!" he said.

"Are you certain of that?"

"Why, of course. You wrote the answer to the question: 'Is it the prince, or is it Mike III?' Didn't you, now?"

"Yes, I did!" was the reply. "I was almost positive before, but I knew that day."

"And now we are just where we began," Jack said. "We've solved one phrase of the case, but we haven't found the prince."

"That will come later," Ned declared, confidently. "Well," he went on, "we have finished our work here for the present. We have learned of the disappearance of the grandson and we have confirmed my previous belief, that the boy was sent in here to draw our attention from the abducted child. So we may as well go back to camp and see what the boys have been doing."

The old lady still clung to Ned piteously, begging him to restore her boy, and Ned promised to do all in his power to place the lad in her arms.

"If my son would only come!" the woman kept saying.

"If you'll give me his address," Ned promised, "I'll see him when I get back to Washington, if he is not already here or on his way here."

The address was given and the boys started on the return trip to camp.

"Now, Jack," Ned said, when they were on their way up the slope, "do you know where the nearest telegraph station is?"

"There's one over on the south fork of the Potomac," Jack replied.

"You are good friends with Uncle Ike?" Ned then asked, with a laugh.

"Sure I am. Uncle Ike is a friend of every person who carries sugar in his pocket."

"Well, when we get back to camp I'll give you a night message. You must take the mule and get it to the station. You may not be able to get there to-night. If you can't, send it when you do get there. Wait for an answer. When you get it tell Uncle Ike it is important and get here with it as soon as possible. You've got a hard trip ahead of you, boy!" he added. "I'm game!" laughed Jack. "If there's any of this prince trouble leaked out," he added, "what shall I say?"

"Tell the old story. Say that we are in the hills for art's sake, and that we have been annoyed by counterfeiters! Nothing serious, understand? Not a word about our real mission here. You notice that even the men we are battling with want it understood that it is the counterfeiters who are trying to drive us out."

"There must be something mighty strange about this abduction game," Jack grinned. "No one will even admit that there is a prince in the case."

When the boys came to the vicinity of the summit, south of a point in line with the camp and the canyon where the counterfeiters had been discovered, they stopped and took a good survey of the landscape.

"We can probably learn more about what has been going on," Jack suggested, "by hiking straight for the camp. I'm anxious to be off on that trip. Uncle Ike will like it -- not! But I'll make him like it! I'll give you a good imitation of a boy sailing over the mountains on the freight deck of a mule!"

"I was wondering," Ned said, composedly, though his eyes were troubled, "whether we had any camp left! If you'll look off to the north, you'll see four men crouching in a dent in the slope. Rough-looking chaps, eh?"

"I see!" Jack whispered. "Have they seen us? That's the question now."

"If they saw us," Ned continued, "they would either be making for us or trying to get out of sight. No; they are watching the camp. See! They are where they can look over the summit."

"If they haven't been to the camp I'll think ourselves lucky," Ned said.

"They probably haven't!" Jack cried. "But look there, they are going on a rush right now! Must be Bradley's friends. What?"



Chapter XX

Shooting On The Mountainside


Bradley smiled cynically as he looked down toward the tent. He could not, of course, distinguish the figures as plainly as Jimmie could with the glass, but he knew from the excited manner of the boys that something unusual was taking place.

"You have visitors at the camp?" he asked cooly, as the lads motioned to him to move on. "I shall be glad to meet them, you may be sure."

He held out his manacled hands suggestively as he spoke.

"You're not invited!" Jimmie grunted. "We've got private date with those people. You might muss things up, if we permitted you to go with us!"

"Very well," Bradley replied. "They'll know where I am. But, for fear they'll not recognize me, at this distance, I'll just give them notice that I'm here."

Jimmie and Frank both sprang forward to prevent the promised outcry, but Bradley proved too quick for them. The cry that rose from his lips was long, shrill and significant in its insistance. It was finally stopped by Bradley being thrown to the ground, where he lay with the old sarcastic smile on his face.

"You've done it now!" Frank gritted. "You ought to be shot."

"You are none too good to commit a murder -- to kill an unarmed and defenseless man."

"If you don't keep that twirler of yours reefed I'll tie it up!" Jimmie declared, with a threatening motion.

He might have gagged Bradley there and then only that Frank called his attention to the camp. The two men who had been seen inside were now hiding on the west side of the tent, and Teddy was coming up the slope from the corral. Oliver was nowhere to be seen, and the supposition was that he had been captured by the outlaws.

"We've got to tie this robber hand and foot and gag him!" Frank cried. "We've got to get down to the camp right away!"

"Perhaps," Bradley observed, with a provoking laugh, "you'll also tie and gag the men who are coming up the hill from the canyon."

The four men were now nearly half way up the slope from the cut, and having heard the cry, were making good time in the ascent. The situation looked anything but peaceful!

The boys were anxious and excited, and Bradley counted on this when he made the next move. The men on the west slope had of course heard his call, he reasoned, and were hastening up to his rescue.

Believing this, he took a desperate chance when he sprang away from the boys, dropped to the ground and went bumping over the broken slope, handcuffed as he was. Jimmie had his automatic out in a moment, but by that time Bradley was concealed by one of the boulders which lay on the declivity.

It was useless to try to recapture the fellow, for the men coming up the slope had seen something of what had taken place, and were now on the run wherever the nature of the ground permitted. Besides, they were already within shooting distance, and the boys would be directly under fire if they sought to bring Bradley back.

"It is a hopeless case!" Frank cried. "We can't get him!"

"The best thing we can do, then, is to get to the camp," Jimmie observed.

"Then duck low and cut away to the north!" Frank cried. "Perhaps we can make most of the distance under cover. Say," he added, as they moved along, northward on the slope toward the east, "did you ever see anything like that? That Bradley is some wise guy when it comes to a pinch!"

"He's daring!" Frank commented. "He will make us trouble yet!"

"I believe," Jimmie went on, "that he's the fellow that got into the attic over the clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol. When he was down on the ground, sitting looking over the country, I saw a scar on his head, a sharp cicatrice, three-cornered. You know how he got that?"

"The maid threw a large pair of shears at some one that night," Frank said. "You remember we found blood and a blonde hair on one of the blades."

"Just the sort of hair that gink carries on his dome!" Jimmie added.

The men coming up the west slope had not yet reached the summit, and the men below were still hiding behind the tent. Teddy was approaching the fire.

"They'll get the kid in a minute!" Jimmie said.

"I don't know about that," Frank replied. "He seems to me to be getting suspicious. Notice how he stops and looks around -- probably looking for Oliver or Dode."

It was clear that the men waiting behind the tent were becoming impatient, for they moved along and made ready to spring upon the boy. Teddy, however, was not advancing.

Something about the tent had warned him that it was in the hands of the enemy. With a shout of warning to Oliver and Dode, if they chanced to be free and within hearing, he turned and dashed toward the corral.

While the two men were getting under way in pursuit, Frank and Jimmie came out on an easier slope and moved rapidly downward. Teddy was soon out of sight, and then the men turned back.

At that moment a shot came from the summit, and the boys turned to see the four men whom they had observed on the slope heading down for the camp.

"They've found Bradley, of course!" Frank said.

"Yes," answered Jimmie, "there's no use of playing double now, for they know that we are next to their game."

"Shall we rush for the camp?" asked Frank.

"Nothing doing," Jimmie answered. "We can't do a thing there, and we are under cover here! Bradley has, of course, told them that we are here, but they won't be able to find us for a long time. If they get too gay with the things at the camp we'll send a few bullets down. Looks like things were coming their way now, eh?" he added.

"We can't hold the top hand all the time," Frank grunted. "Ned will come along directly and even things up a little. I wish he was here now!"

The four men were now scrambling along the slope, looking for the two boys as they walked, slid and jumped down. The two men who were at the camp had turned back from the pursuit of Teddy at the sound of the shot, and were now awaiting the approach of their friends.

"I suppose they'll burn the tent and drive the mules off!" wailed Jimmie. "I'd like to have a machine gun up here a little while!"

"I reckon they won't!"

This from Frank as a shot came from the slope to the south. The men who were rushing from the camp paused and looked at each other.

While they waited, uncertain as to what they ought to do, another shot came, this time from the corral. Teddy was evidently getting into action!

"Just for luck!" Jimmie shouted.

He fired two shots as he spoke, and two more came from the south and one from the corral. The four men beckoned to their companions at the tent -- if such they were -- and made a break for the summit which they had just left.

"Whoo -- pee!" shouted Jimmie. "Look at the racers!"

At sound of the voice one of the men turned and fired a shot at the rock against which the boy lay. It broke off a splinter but did no harm to the boys.

Frank left cover and ran up the slope.

"Come one!" he cried. "We'll get Bradley yet!"

Jimmie was not long in catching up with him. When they gained the summit the four men were losing no time in their journey to the canyon. They were on their feet only a part of the time.

The boys saw Bradley rise from a sheltering rock and start after them, but he fell in a moment. Handcuffed as he was, he could not keep pace with them. The fugitives paid no attention to his calls for assistance. It was every man for himself at that moment. Bradley sat hopelessly down to await the arrival of the boys.

Just as they gained the spot where he sat Ned and Jack came out of the jungle of broken rocks to the south and looked smilingly down at the prisoner.

"Good day!" laughed Jack.

Bradley forced a smile and turned away.

"You took that trick!" he said.

Jimmie stepped forward and put his fingers into the blonde hair of the captive.

"Where did you get this scar?" he asked, and Ned at once bent forward.

"I fell down and stepped on it!" Bradley answered, still smiling.

"I'll tell you how you got it," Jimmie went on. "You sneaked into a room in New York where you had no business to be and a girl threw a pair of shears at you!"

"That's a fine story!" snarled Bradley. "I never was in New York.

"Bring him along, boys," Ned said. "We'll go on down to camp and see what's been done to our tent and things by this man's friends."

When they once more came to the summit, Teddy was standing outside the tent with Oliver and Dode and the two outlaws were nowhere to be seen. After that Bradley complained at the rate of speed the boys insisted on.

"Your friends must have thought they had butted into an ambuscade!" Jimmie said to the captive. "Have they had much training in running? They bobbed along like professionals, it seemed to me."

"You'll see how fast they can run!" Bradley growled. "They'll go fast enough to send you all over the road."

"Now about this grandson," asked Ned, falling back. "Mrs. Brady wants to know where he is. No use for you to hide him, now that we all know he was disguised to look like the prince stolen from Washington. Why did you paint him if not to imitate this other boy we speak of?"

"I don't know anything about the boy," was the reply. "He was taken without my knowledge, and that is on the level. I was ordered to do the paint act."

They trudged on for some minutes in silence, and then Bradley asked:

"What is it about this prince you are always talking about? What is there about the prince? Where is he? Why is he supposed to be in this section?"

"You don't know a thing about him, do you?" asked Ned, laughing, "and yet you painted a boy to represent him?"

Bradley only scowled.

"When I find him," Ned continued, "I'll present him to you!"

When the boys reached the tent they found Oliver and Teddy mourning over the destruction of a large number of films and plates. Many pictures, developed and printed with great care, had also been torn or burned.

"Well," Jimmie declared, "they didn't get their hands on the films in my baby camera. I've got a few good ones left."

"Now, Jack," Ned said, "suppose you connect with Uncle Ike and make for the nearest telegraph office? Don't break your neck, and the neck of the mule, but get there as soon as you can. And get back as soon as you receive an answer."

"Why can't I go with him?" asked Jimmie. "I guess I want a mule ride."

"Go it, if you want to!" Ned laughed. "That will leave us one mule to run away on if things get too hot for us here!"



Chapter XXI

Told By The Pictures


"You'll think we took great care of the camp!" Teddy said, flushing, to Ned, as Jack and Jimmie, followed by the cheers and good wishes of their chums, started away.

"Aw, it wasn't Teddy's fault at all," Oliver declared. "He went down to tell Uncle Ike what a gentleman and a scholar he was, and I was supposed to watch the tent."

"And I was to help him," wailed Dode. "See how well I did it!"

He swung a hand around at the mess on the ground.

"So, while Teddy was down at the corral, Dode and I sat down to develop some snapshots. We never looked out at all! After we had a lot of pictures ready to show on your return, we heard a noise outside and thought Teddy had come back."

"And there is when we got it!" Dode cut in.

"Yes, there, is where we got it in the neck," Oliver went on, while Teddy grinned. "The gun I looked into seemed about as large as the tunnel under the Hudson, and I became the good little boy without further argument."

"I thought the gun I saw was a room in a cavern!" grinned Dode.

"So they performed with their ropes and gags, and we lay there like two little kittens while they tore up our work and smashed things generally. And the way they wrecked the trunks and boxes was a caution."

"What did they talk to each other about while they were searching?" asked Ned.

"Nothing much. They seemed to be too busy looking for papers. From what I could make out; I reckon they thought you had some official document with you."

"I have," laughed Ned, "but they did not find it."

"After they had made all the trouble they could," Oliver went on, "they spoke of burning the tent, and I guess they would haved one it, too, if other things hadn't attracted their attention just at that time!" he added, with a wink at Ned.

"Well," Ned observed, "I'm sorry we lost the pictures, but there may be some of the valuable ones left. We'll look them over right now."

"Jimmie left the films from his baby camera," Teddy remarked. "We can see what he got while he was in the hands of those cheap skates!"

Nearly all the snapshots taken by Ned and Jack on the afternoon they had come to the hiding place of Jimmie's captors had been printed by the boys, and most of them had been destroyed, plates and all. Stationing Oliver and Dode out on the slope to watch for any approach which might be made, Ned gave his attention to the pictures.

"The worst of it is," Frank declared, "that the good ones were the ones the boys printed, and the ones which were burned up."

"I don't know about that," Ned said. "The camera sees things the human eye does not see! What we want now is a knowledge of the country near the spot where Jimmie was held. We took plenty of pictures around there, and Jimmie took some, too, so we may be able to find what we want."

"I'll work over the baby camera pictures while you handle the others," suggested Frank, and the two boys were soon busy at their tasks. Finally Ned handed a torn print to Frank, pointing out a single feature as he did so.

"You see the tree in the foreground?" he asked.

"Yes, of course."

"Now follow along back to the bush at the left and in the rear."

"I see the bush," Frank said.

"What else do you see there?"

Frank bent closer over the print.

"Is that a face there?" he asked.

"It certainly is a face."

"But it looks too small for a human face. It may be caused be some odd arrangement of the leaves. Besides, it is very indistinct."

"Sure, because it is in the shade. It is almost a miracle that we see it at all. I 'll get a better print of it soon and enlarge it. Then we shall know more about it. Now, look lower down. What do you see there?"

"Say," cried Frank, "that's a child's face up there! Here is the leg below. Now, what do you think of that?"

"That is doubtless the boy Jack and I saw," said Ned.

"The grandson?" asked Frank.

"The prince, unless I am much mistaken," Ned said, cooly.

"So you saw him?" asked Frank.

"We saw a child," was the reply. "He came toward us for a few steps and then ran back! Now we'll look over the remaining pictures and see what we can find."

"That wasn't the grandson, was it?" asked Frank.

"Mike III. was at the cabin that afternoon," was the reply.

Presently Ned came to another torn print showing the mountain slope directly in front of Chimney rock. He passed it over to Frank with an odd look in his eyes.

"Look right in the foreground, between those two stones," he said.

"What is it between the stones?" asked the boy.

"Looks to me like a coat."

"Do you really think it is?"

"Sure thing!" laughed Ned. "I'm going over there directly and see if it is still there."

Frank looked puzzled.

"But how did it come there?" he asked. "Why should it be left there?"

"I have known children to throw off coats or jackets on a hot day," smiled Ned. "I imagine that princes are not different from other children."

Ned went on with his examination of the pictures. At last he came to one which was badly torn, almost half of it being missing.

"There," he said. "This is a picture taken right there at Chimney rock. Do you see the face above it?"

The face referred to was not that of either of the two men Jimmie had been captured by, or of Bradley, who sat scowling just beyond reach of their voices.

"That is the man we want," Ned said, with a sigh. "If we had the other part of the picture we should see the boy looking over the rock, close at the man's side."

"Very close!" Frank observed. "They seem to have hold of hands. Doesn't that look like a closed hand down lower?"

"That is just what it is!"

Ned laid the picture aside and Frank brought out those which had been made from the films taken from the baby camera. There were half a dozen of them and all were remarkably good.

"Look here," Frank said, "the kid took a picture of the slope back of the rock. Our pictures do not show that. Look up a short distance!"

Not very far up the slope hung a huge boulder which seemed on the verge of falling.

"If you'll notice the point of contact with the ground," Frank went on, "you'll see that the boulder is propped up by wedge-like stones put under it."

"Exactly!" Ned said. "And that means that the boulder has fallen or been pried out of its nest, and that the cavity behind it is regarded as a good hiding place."

"Do you think the prince could have been there?"

"Not when Jack and I were in that section. We saw him out on the slope."

"But he went back that way?"

"Yes."

"Tell you what!" Frank exclaimed. "I'm going to take these pictures home to Dad, and let him print them in his newspaper."

"You'll have to write a story to go with them."

"Oh, I suppose so, but stories aren't read when there are pictures. The cuts tell the story. Dad will like the photographs."

After a time Ned came to the picture of a man with the head torn off! In destroying the print the outlaws had contented themselves by merely ripping it into two pieces. The head part was not to be found.

"What's the dangling things in front of the man's breast?" asked Frank.

"Legs!" replied Ned.

"I never knew a man to wear his legs up there!" laughed Frank.

"But you have known men to lift kids to their backs and let their little legs hang down in front for handles? What?"

"Never thought of that?" Frank exclaimed.

"If we only had the face!" Ned worried.

Then he paused a moment and went back to the print carrying the strange face.

"Here it is!" he said. "See! This is the same man. There are the boots and the buttons. The camera caught the man twice."

"I don't know why you didn't see some of these things when the pictures were made," laughed Frank. "Next time I go out taking snapshots I'm going to study the landscape, so I can choose subjects for my pictures!"

"All this means," Ned began, "that we were watched when we were taking the pictures that afternoon. These people were looking at us! We might as well have been walking through an open street."

"But why didn't they do something to you, then?" demanded Frank. "They captured the ones who entered the workroom."

"Those were counterfeiters, not abductors."

"Well, then, they caught Jimmie and lugged him away?"

"In an effort to drive us out of the country, yes."

"Then why didn't they capture you?"

"Because they thought they had us scared so we'd go, and so didn't want to show their hand. Remember that it was the counterfeiters who were supposed by us to have taken Jimmie."

"I understand. When you found that the boy at the cabin was not the one you were looking for you were supposed to go away so as to save Jimmie's life, and leave the true prince here in hiding."

"That is just it."

Bradley now called out to the boys that he had something to say to them, and they hurried to his side.

"I want you to get the widow's grandson and take him to her," he said. "I was used decent, and I don't like to have her suffer."

"Where is the boy?" asked Ned.

Bradley open his eyes wider in wonder. "Do you really think I took him away?" he asked.

"Not a doubt of it!" Frank declared.

"Well, I didn't," Bradley insisted. "I don't know where he is, but I think I can point out the likeliest place to hunt for him."

"Down at Chimney rock?" asked Frank.

"In that section, yes. And, look here. You will need to be in a hurry, for the men who have him are anxious to get rid of him -- and they are unscrupulous!"



Chapter XXII

A Recruit From The Enemy


"So you know the men who have taken the boy we call Mike III.?" asked Ned.

"I know him too well," was the bitter answer. "He's one of the men who use their friends up to the limit and then drop them!"

"You say 'him,'" Ned suggested. "Is there only one in this outrage?"

"There are several, but all bow to the will of the leader. I can't tell you anything more about it! I don't like the way I have been treated, or I wouldn't have said as much as I have."

"I thought your motive was to secure the return of the boy to his grandmother?"

"I want that done, of course, but I wouldn't have suggested it to you only for the high and mighty airs of the man placed over me."

"Why don't you tell me who this man is?" asked Ned. "Why don't you tell me the object of this abduction of the prince? Why not tell me where to find this little chap you seem honestly interested in?"

"I don't know anything about any prince!" insisted Bradley.

"Look here," Ned said, "I believe I can tell you just how this man you hate looks. If I describe him, will you tell me if I am right?"

"I will tell you nothing, except that you ought to look in the vicinity of Chimney rock for the grandson -- not at the rock, but close to it! That is more than I ought to tell you."

"This man you speak of," Ned went on, recalling the features of the face caught above the rock by the camera, "has a very slim face, a prominent nose, a wide, thin-lipped mouth, high cheek boned, small eye-orbits, and eyebrows which tip up at the outer corners. He is fond of children, and will play with any child he comes across. He is also fond of mountain climbing, and delights in long tramps over the hills."

Bradley looked at Ned with the old cynical smile on his face.

"Where did you run across him?" he asked eagerly,

"That is enough!" laughed Ned. "You needn't say another word. We have two snapshots of him -- one without a head. In one he has hold of the hand of a child, and in the other he has the child on his back, with the little fellow's legs hanging down over his shoulders. A man would not be apt to ride children about on his shoulders unless he was fond of little ones generally, would he?"

"I presume not," Bradley admitted.

"And he wears in both pictures a mountain-climbing costume," Ned went on. "He evidently likes the errand he was sent here on!"

"The man I referred to a few moments ago as unscrupulous does," Bradley said.

"But if he likes children he won't be apt to injure this Mike III., will he?"

"He is a man who will do anything for expediency's sake. Now go away and leave me to my very entertaining thoughts! If I ever get out of these hills alive, and free, I'll never leave Manhattan island again."

"I remember you saying that you had never set foot in New York!" laughed Ned. "You'll have to make your stories consistent if you want them believed!"

"Never mind all that now," Bradley replied. "You get busy restoring that child to Mrs. Brady! Say, boy, but he is a bright-one!"

"Learned French quickly, didn't he, and consented to being blacked up like a negro minstrel, in order to pose as a prince?" asked Ned. "I reckon, however, that the credit does not all belong to the lad. He seems to have had a good instructor."

"If you'll release me," Bradley offered, after a pause, "I'll go and get the boy."

"That's an easy promise to make," laughed Ned.

"But I'll go and get him and bring him to you, and you can return him to his grandmother. Then you may put these bracelets on me again if you like. But, boy, let me tell you this: You've got nothing on me! I haven't done a thing in this state at least, to render myself liable to punishment. I supplied, for good pay, certain information in New York, and I brought the boy you call Mike III. on here from Washington, where I know his father well."

"You must have known what you were doing it for?"

"I did know -- for money!"

"But you must have known that the boy was to personate some one else?"

"I didn't care about that. I had my orders! See here, boy, if you ever work with these highbrow rulers of petty kingdoms, you'll soon find out that you're to obey and not ask questions! Do you get me?"

"That's enough!" laughed Ned. "You haven't betrayed your employer, but you have told me all I wanted to know."

The boys unlocked the handcuffs and laid them aside.

"I believe you'll do the right thing," he said. "Go and get the boy. If you need any help let me know."

Bradley arose and stretched out his arms luxuriously.

"That's the first time I ever stood in the accused row," he said, "and it will be the last! But, see here, boy, I can't get the kid in a minute! I'll go to the mother and tell her what I'm doing, if I live to get there!"

"You think your ex-friends may seek to terminate your lease of life?"

"They surely will -- now. And, here's a pointer for you, look out for yourself."

"I think I can fix you out so they will receive you with open arms," Ned grinned. "Here. I'll put these cuffs on again, with one arm locked carelessly. You can draw the bar out when you pull right hard. Now, eat what you need and take a run up the slope. We'll follow you with a serenade of bullets. When you join the outlaws down in the canyon you'll be a hero."

"That's a fine notion!" said Bradley, actually smiling.

"And don't come back here with the boy. Send him home to the old lady. Then, if you want to help me in the work I'm on -- "

"I don't, and I won't!"

"Don't blame you a mite! I never did like a traitor! If you won't help me, then cut sticks for New York. Some day when you are in better mood, come to the Black Bear Patrol clubroom. You know where it is! Well give you a look into the place without sending you up to the attic!"

Bradley's face twisted into a laugh, but Ned did not seem to notice the fact.

"I'm not saying anything more about the prince, understand, or the attic, or the French, or the black stain, but perhaps you'll tell me the whole story some day!"

And so, handcuffed again, Bradley was taken back to the tent, where he was given a hearty meal. Then he carefully made his way out and ran for the summit. Ned and his chums sat back and laughed at the tumbles he took in his eagerness to deceive any one who might be watching the camp. Now and then he fell down behind a rock and lay there for a moment, peering out in the direction of the tent.

Just before he gained the summit, Ned and the others ran out of the tent with shouts of alarm and dashed up the slope, firing as they went. At that time Bradley's speed might have shown a world record if it had been set down! He cleared the summit, shouting for assistance from anyone who might be below, and half rolled down toward the canyon. Ned fired a few shots and went back to the tent.

"What's the game?" asked Frank, as Ned sat down and roared. "This man Bradley seems to be It -- Tag!"

Ned explained the situation and Frank immediately began taking notes for a story for his father's newspaper.

"If I had had a motion picture machine here," Frank declared, "I could have made a fortune out of the films! It was glorious, the way the old boy tore up the rocks on his way down. Think he'll return?"

"I think he will," was the reply.

"But if he doesn't?"

"Then we shall have to find the boy ourselves, just as we are going to find the prince! That is the next job, you understand."

"And geezle the man who stole him -- that's in the job, isn't it?"

"Nothing said about that, but I hope to get him and have the goods on him, too. When I present him to the chief he can do whatever he likes with him."

"But how are you going to get the goods on him?" asked Oliver.

"I'll manage that easily," laughed Ned. "The first thing is to catch him. Now, Frank, you saw where Bradley went?"

"Why, he headed for the old counterfeiter den."

"Think you can keep track of him for a short time?"

"Can I? You know it!"

"Then take Dode with you, so as to be in communication with the camp, and follow him! Don't show yourself if you can help it, but if you are discovered keep busy with your camera. We are here only to take pictures, you know!"

"So you don't trust that chap, after all?" asked Frank.

"Yes, I trust him, but he won't betray the men he has been working with. In order to get the boy he'll have to go to the man I want."

"All right!" Frank laughed. "Come on, Dode! I might have known that Ned was next to his job. I'll come back just before sunset to report, if not before. If you love me have a supper fit for six of us ready for me!"

The two boys started away, and Ned, Teddy and Oliver went back to the pictures. After an hour or more Ned went down to the corral, as if looking after the mule. He saw no one on the way there, but when he reached the level spot, rich with June grass, he saw that it had had visitors during the day.

The grass was beaten down flat behind a boulder on the edge of the fertile spot, and there were cigarette stubs and half-burned matches scattered about. The lush grass still carried the odor of tobacco, and the boy knew that the watcher had not been long absent from his post.

He went back to the camp, and, much to the surprise of Teddy and Oliver, began packing.

"What's doing now?" the boy asked.

"Why," laughed Ned, "haven't I agreed to get out of here to-morrow or next day?"

"Yes, but -- "

"We're going to pack, anyway," Ned said, "whether we leave or not! There are people watching every move we make, and I want to convey to them the idea that we are going at once."

"If they are watching us," Oliver suggested, "they doubtless saw Jack and Jimmie leave the camp."

"They undoubtedly did," Ned admitted.

"And will follow them, I'm afraid."

"I've been wondering whether the boys got out of the hills in safety," Ned went on. "They were well mounted, and should have been able to dodge the outlaws. Besides, Jimmie and Jack are, as the boys say on the Bowery, inclined to be 'foolish in the head -- like a fox.' So they are probably safely out by this time."

"But, still, I'm worrying about them!" Oliver replied.



Chapter XXIII

Racing Motors On The Wat


"Some day," Jimmie said, as he urged Uncle Ike down an eastern slope of the Alleghany mountains, "I'm going to have this mule put in a book."

"If he keeps up his stealing," Jack declared, "he is more likely to be put in jail. That mule is certainly a bad actor."

"Huh!" grunted Jimmie. "He's got a sugar tooth, or he wouldn't steal!"

The boys drew up when nearly to the valley through which runs the North Fork and looked over the landscape. There was another range of mountains straight ahead, and beyond that the valley of the South Branch, for which they were headed.

"Looks like another climb and good-night!" Jack complained. "And Ned wanted this sent to-night. That's a right smart climb ahead of us," he added.

Jimmie coaxed Uncle Ike back to four feet again and patted him on the head before making any reply. Then he pointed to the south.

"Over there," he said, "is the Virginia line. The ridge ahead of us does no cross that. I know because I looked up this section once when Ned and I were thinking of running away for a rest."

"You always need a rest!" grinned Jack. "Why don't you make Uncle Ike stand still, like Dill Pickles, this old mountain ship of mine does?" he added.

"Why do you call him Dill Pickles?" asked Jimmie. "He looks more like a razor-back with sails set in front."

"He's Dill Pickles because he's got a good disposition gone sour," Jack explained. "He's just about shaken the life out of me now. Doesn't look it, does he?"

"Better call him Bones!" Jimmie advised. "As I was saying," he went on, "the ridge ahead of us drops down this side of the Virginia line, and we can dodge a climb by going around it."

"And get lost!" Jack grumbled.

"Lost -- not. We follow down this valley -- or up this valley, rather -- until the ridge drops down. Then we go straight east until we come to the South Branch. And there you are."

"Here we go, then!" Jack shouted. "Set your sails and come along."

Uncle Ike wanted a test of speed and endurance right there, but Jimmie held him back. It might be that they would be obliged to return to the camp that night.

They soon left the high places and wound among foothills. Below lay a fertile valley, with handsome and well-tilled fields.

"We're making a hit with these mules!" laughed Jimmie, as they passed along, the people staring at them from gates, doors, windows and fence-tops. "If these ladies and gentlemen ever see us again they'll be sure to know us."

It is not a great distance from the place where they came to the river to the city they sought, and the ground was covered in a couple of hours. The sun was still shining when they passed through a busy street, certainly the center of observation.

When they entered the telegraph office Jack took out the message and handed it to the clerk at the desk without looking at it. The clerk studied it a moment and asked: "Day rates? This seems to be a night letter."

The boys eyed each other keenly for a moment, and then Jimmie said: "I'd have it sent right off if I were you. Ned wouldn't have said anything about its being a night letter if he had had any idea we'd get here so soon."

"All right," Jack said. "Send it now. We'll wait for a little while to see if there's an answer."

"It is in cipher," the clerk said, "and will take some time to send."

"I never looked at it," Jack cried. "I' don't even know where it is going."

"To the Secret Service chief, Washington," said the clerk. "Are you boys out here on secret service business?"

"We're out here to take pictures," Jimmie cut in. "We have nothing to do with that dispatch. It was given to us by an acquaintance to send out."

"He wanted to make sure it got into the right hands," Jack said. "Will you call Washington and see if he's there -- the chief?"

"You'll have to pay for the message."

Jack laid a banknote of large denomination down on the desk.

"Ask for the chief," he said, "and tell him to wire any instructions he may have for the sender in cipher if he wants to, but to give any instructions he may have for us about the delivery of the message in plain United States!"

"Come back in half an hour," said the clerk, "and I'll probably have something for you. I suppose this cipher message is an important one?" he added, suspiciously.

"Don't know what it is," Jack answered, truthfully.

The clerk evidently did not believe the boy for he stood at the desk gazing after him with a look of distrust on his face. The lads were no sooner out of the office than a thin, angular gentleman, dusky of face and very black and bright of eye, entered and walked up to the clerk.

"I sent a message here by a couple of boys," he said, "and I wish to withdraw it."

"You'll have to find the boys, then, and have them withdraw it," replied the clerk.

"But can't I recall the dispatch -- my own dispatch?" demanded the other, exposing a $100 banknote in his palm. "It is worth something to me to get it back."

The clerk was angry at the plain attempt at bribery, so he turned back to a table and took up the message the boys had left.

"We have a message here," he said, "which may be recalled under proper conditions. Kindly tell me what your dispatch says."

"Which one did they file?" asked the other. "The one to Washington or the one to New York?"

The clerk laid the paper back on the desk.

"Give me the address you sent your message to at Washington," he said.

"It was the secretary of state," was the reply.

"And the message? Give me a few opening words."

"Read them!" snarled the other. "Can't you read English?"

"The message is in cipher!" said the clerk, "You also have the address wrong. You are evidently a fraud. Get out!"

When the boys returned to the office in half an hour the clerk called them over to the desk at once and told them of what had taken place.

"How did he ever follow us out without our seeing him?" asked Jimmie.

"He must have shot through the air," the other declared.

"Are you sure you kept a good lookout?" smiled the clerk.

"Well, we looked about a good deal," Jimmie admitted, "and I can't say as I thought of being chased up. What did Washington say?"

"You boys are to wait here until you receive instructions. The cipher message is now going on the wire."

The boys sat down in a restaurant not far from the telegraph office and ordered porterhouse steaks, French potatoes, and all the side dishes that were on the menu.

"We may have to ride to-night," Jack said, "and may as well prepare for it."

"I don't like the idea of our being followed here," Jimmie observed. "We'll be apt to come across that chap on the way back. The funny part of it all is that we never suspected there was a sleuth out after us!"

"We ought to have known," Jack grumbled. "Somehow everything has gone wrong with us. If we ride back in the night we'll probably have a skirmish."

After eating they went back to the telegraph office. The clerk was waiting for them, that being the usual hour for his supper.

"Here's your orders," he said, with a smile, "right from the chief himself. He seems to know who you are all right!"

Jack took the dispatch and read:

"Remain where you are until motor cars now on the way from Cumberland reach you. Our men say the cars can make good time clear to the foothills. The cipher message will arrive shortly. Be on your guard."

It was signed by the chief of the Secret Service department.

"What do you know about that?" asked Jack, passing the message over to Jimmie.

"How far is it to Cumberland?" he asked of the clerk.

"Something like eighty miles," was the reply.

"Are the roads good? Can a motor car make good time to-night."

"The river roads are fairly good. A fast car ought to get here in three hours."

"I see that Chinese-looking guy that wanted the message catching us if we go back in an automobile!" Jimmie laughed.

"But a motor car," Jack interrupted, "is an easy thing to wreck on a mountain."

"What do you think was in that dispatch?" Jimmie asked of Jack, as they sat in the telegraph office waiting.

"Something which brings out motor cars and secret service men," Jack answered. "I guess it made a hit at Washington."

"Perhaps he wired that he was going to bring the prince in!" laughed Jimmie. "Well, if he did, he'll do it, and that's all I've got to say about it."

Twice that evening a dark face appeared at the window of the telegraph office and peered in at the boys. Each time the owner of the dark face hastened away after a short inspection of the lads and conferred with two men in a dark little hotel office.

Shortly after ten o'clock two great touring cars, long, lean racers, ran up to the curb in front of the telegraph office and stopped. The street was now well-nigh deserted, but what few people were still astir gathered around the machines.

There were three husky men in each machine, and in each car was room for one more person. Only one man alighted and entered the office. When he saw the boys waiting he beckoned to them.

"Got your cipher?" he asked, and Jack nodded.

"Then come along. We'll get to the high climb before the moon comes up."

"Do you know the way?" asked the clerk.

"Only from verbal description," was the reply, "but we can find it."

"I'm off duty," the clerk said, "and I know every inch of the way. I was reared in the mountains west of the short ridge. I'd like a little adventure, too!" he laughed.

"What about the mules?" asked Jimmie, determined that Uncle Ike should be cared for.

"Get them into a barn, quick," said the chief, sharply. "We must be off."

When Jimmie came back the clerk and Jack were crowded into one seat in the rear machine, while a vacant seat in the front car was waiting for him. The party was off with a snort of motors and faint cheers from the little crowd which had gathered.

The river road was fairly good, and in an hour they were at the foothills, around the south end of the short ridge. The driver drew up there, and in the clear air, from the north came the sound of galloping horses.

"Get out and under cover, boys!" the chief commanded.



Chapter XXIV

The Man-Trap Is Set


Ned, Oliver and Teddy remained in camp all the afternoon -- waiting. They were not, of course, anticipating the immediate return of Jack and Jimmie, but they were looking every moment, after a couple of hours had passed, for some signs of the boys who had been sent out in the wake of Bradley.

"I'll bet a cookie," Teddy exclaimed, as the sun set over the ridge to the west, "that Frank and Dode have bumped into something hard!"

"I may have made a mistake in not going on that trip myself," Ned mused, "but I had an idea there would be business for me at the camp. I don't know what to make of this lack of attention on the part of our enemies!"

"It may be," Oliver suggested, "that they have taken alarm and ducked with the prince."

"That is just what I fear," Ned answered. "It will spoil all my plans if they move now; still, I admit that they've had enough unpleasant experiences here to make them long for a quieter retreat!"

The boys prepared supper, taking pains to provide enough food for Frank and Dode, but they did not come. The meal over, Ned made ready for a trip down the mountain.

"I'm going to Chimney rock," he said to the boys. "I should like to have one of you with me, but two ought to remain here. I'm going to take some rockets with me. If I do not return before midnight, one of you advance along the summit to the south, provided with rockets. If one of my rockets is seen, the watcher must send one up to notify the boy in camp. Then both must make a run for Chimney rock, traveling so as to come upon it from the up-hill side. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly," Oliver declared. "You are going to bring this prince back with you?"

"Perhaps!" laughed Ned. "I may have to bring Frank and Dode back with me!"

There was only the light of the stars when Ned reached the vicinity of Chimney rock, coming in from the slope to the north and moving with extreme caution. There was a dull glow in the dip back of the rock, the glow of coals nearly burned out.

The men who had captured Jimmie at the cave of the counterfeiters had fled before the shooting, and Ned had no idea that they had returned, or would return. Any fire built by them would have long since turned to ashes.

"The party having direct charge of the prince has been here," the boy mused, "though why they should come here is a puzzle to me, as they have, or had a camp of their own not far away. Still, the theory of hiding in a place which has been searched is an old one, and these fellows may have adopted it.

"They certainly adopted a theory something like it," the lad thought, as he watched the dying embers from a distance -- from the secure shadow, if the stars may be said to have cast a shadow that night, of a great rock -- "when they decided to remain here after the disguise of the widow's grandson had been discovered. They took it for granted that no one would look for the real prince where the disguised one had been found! They might better have taken him away!"

Ned knew very well that the men having charge of the abducted boy had hidden farther up the slope. His idea was that at the time the pictures were taken the men in charge were watching the two who had ran away.

From what Bradley had said, it was not likely that he, Bradley, had been permitted to associate with the actual custodians of the stolen lad. This had been the main source of his complaints.

Ned believed that a portion, at least, of the men sent into the hills as custodians of the prince had followed Jack and Jimmie out While trembling for the safety of the two boys, Ned had figured on cutting the force of the enemy in two before making an attempt to seize the little prisoner.

Even now, he figured, the force left on the ground had been again divided, for he was positive that the camp was being watched. For this reason he had caused the packing to be done, thus giving the impression that his party was going out at once.

The boy lay in the dark spot under the boulder for a long time, watching, listening, for some indication of human life in that vicinity. He had a half notion that Bradley would head that way, and that the boys would follow him.

"If Bradley does come here," Ned thought, "my trap will be set right! That is, if the dusky little chap from over the sea has not been taken away. If he has, the trap will not serve; still, I shall be able to console myself with the thought that it was at least well set!"

Every clue the boy had gained pointed to the spot where he lay. That had undoubtedly been the point of communication between the leader and his subordinates -- with Bradley and the men who had taken Jimmie prisoner.

"That was rather clever," Ned mused, "taking the boy while at the cave of the counterfeiters in order to give the impression that the coiners had seized him!"

Ned realized, too; that the capture of the grandson just at that time had been a master stroke on the part of the conspirators. The lad would have talked too much when he became satisfied that he was safe from all coercion.

Ned lay in his hiding place for what appeared to him to be a long time before he heard anything to indicate that his man-trap had been set in the right spot. Then the voice he heard caused him to spring quickly up to his feet. It was the low, soft, plaintive voice of Mary Brady.

"I haven't seen anything here I could talk about," the old lady was saying. "I wouldn't think of betraying anyone who put my boy in my arms. I've seen him with you -- I've been waiting about here for a long time. Bring him out to me and I'll go home and never trouble you any more."

"Now," thought Ned, "how did the old lady manage to find the boy here?"

"You shouldn't have come here," a low, well-modulated masculine voice said. "You have put your own life and the life of the boy in danger by so doing. How long had you been watching and listening before I saw you?"

"A long, long time."

"And you heard much of what was said?"

"I heard a good many words, but I don't remember now what they meant."

The voices came clearly from farther up the slope, and a little to the south. The figures of the speakers could not be seen by the watcher.

"Come up to the camp," the masculine voice said, presently. "I'll turn the boy over to you, but you can't go back to your cabin to-night."

"Are you going to keep me here against my will?" asked the trembling old voice.

"You have seen and heard too much," was the almost brutal rejoinder.

There was a rattle of pebbles as footsteps moved along the rocky surface of the slope. From above came the shrill cry of a child.

"I don't know of any better time to move up and take a peep at the camp of the man who crossed the sea to steal a child," Ned mused. "I wish Frank and Dode would come, but if they don't I'll have to take chances on going alone."

Keeping those in front of him as guides, Ned crept along the slope. More than once a loose pebble rolled with a great noise from under his feet, but those ahead seemed to pay no attention to these evidences of pursuit.

When, perhaps, two hundred paces up the slope the sounds above the boy ceased. The night was still, save for the rustling and creeping of the creatures of the air and the forest. For a long time not a sound indicative of the presence of human life was heard, then a woman's cry of fright came from above.

Ned was about to hasten forward when a voice came to his ears from the darkness.

"We can't permit either of them to leave!" the low, well-modulated voice he had heard before that night said. "Even if we get away with the prince, their stories would ruin us. There is no knowing how soon the gabblings of the old woman might reach the ears of the adherents of the prince."

"Then you propose -- "

"Nothing that will not come to them in due course of time! They can go to sleep in the snug inner room and never wake again. They will not know when the change comes. They will sleep forever in their mountain tomb."

"I am opposed to murder," said another voice, harsher, more decisive.

"And so the trap was well set!" mused Ned. "The princeling is still here! Well, the battle may not bring victory to me, but I will at least know that I planned it right, acting on the best information at hand."

It was plain, from what the first speaker had said, that the camp of the conspirators was in a cave, for he had spoken of a snug inner room. The entrance to this cave was undoubtedly closely guarded.

The boy crept along cautiously. The slope was steep, with here and there a ledge which had to be surmounted or circled, always at great risk. In a few hours the moon would be up, and then the work he had before him would be more difficult.

"I must get into the cave before the moon rises!" he thought. "But how?"

When he came to the precipice in the side of the mountain from which the cave opened, he saw the black spot which marked the entrance. It was not large, and, close in front, sitting with his back against the rock, was a guard!

Ned lay down to wait. When the moon rose it would cast the shadow of the mountain on that spot. For a few hours more he might wait for his chance.

Directly he heard a call which brought him to an alert attitude in an instant. It was the call of the wolf pack, sharp, vicious, warning!

There was a movement at the mouth of the cave, and a quick light showed for only a second. Then came a sound of footsteps negotiating the gravelly slope.

Ned dropped back to the west. The call had come from that direction. It might have been uttered either by Frank or by one of the boys left at the camp.

Presently the snarl was heard in a dark crevice toward which the boy was descending. Ned dropped down faster then, and soon heard Frank's voice.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

"Yes; and you?"

"Bradley and Dode are here."

Bradley moved forward and took Ned by the arm.

"Be careful!" he warned. "Those men would toss dynamite down here and take their own risk of death if they knew."

"We've had a run for our money!" Frank panted. "We've been everywhere. The cabin is deserted, and the lower camp and the counterfeiter cave are bare of life. Bradley caught us following him, and so we joined with him in his search for Mike III."

"Mike III.," Ned answered, "is up there in the cave with the abductors, and Mrs. Brady is with him. We've got to act quickly."

"They'll be murdered!" Bradley whispered. "What can we do?"

"They'll be spared for a short time," Ned answered, "but we must be on the move."



Chapter XXV

The Confession Of A Photograph


"There's a ravine off to the right where the machines may be hidden," the clerk said, when the racing automobiles stopped at the foot of the hills.

"Show the way, then, quick," hastily commanded the leader. "We want to see what sort of people they are who ride at break-neck speed in the darkness."

The machines were driven into the ravine referred to, and the secret service men and the boys secreted themselves in a clump of undergrowth close to the roadside. The horsemen came on swiftly, and would have passed only that the detectives closed in about them, three in front and three in the rear.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the dark little man who had shown himself at the telegraph office.

The two men with him whispered together but said nothing in the way of protest.

"Dismount!" ordered the leader.

The men hesitated, and a bullet cut the air within a fraction of an inch of the right ear of the leader. There was now no delay in reaching the ground.

"You shall pay for this!" shouted the little dark man.

"Of course," laughed the leader.

Jimmie pulled at the sleeve of the chief.

"That is one of the men I saw in the mountains," he declared. "He is the second one in command, as far as I could determine."

"What does the boy say?" demanded the other.

"What are you doing here?" asked the chief, impatiently.

"We are hunting in the hills."

"Hunting at this season?"

"Hunting and resting. Please now do we go on?"

The chief made a significant motion, and before the three men knew what was going on they were securely handcuffed. They roared at their captors and at each other in a foreign language for a moment and then sat down stolidly at the side of the road.

"You, Jerry, and you, Sam, take them back to the town and lock them up," ordered the chief. "Perhaps you, Charley, would better go with them. Ride and make them walk!"

"Locked up!" shouted the dark little man. "What for?"

"Treason to your country," was the short reply.

For a moment there was no word spoken, then the three men arose to their feet and approached the chief, standing with a hand on his revolver.

"There is money," one of the men said. "Plenty of money."

"Cut that out!" ordered the chief, curtly.

"Not in the thousands!" the other went on, "In the millions!"

"If they renew this proposition on the way in," ordered the chief, "gag them!"

In a moment the three men were away with their prisoners, the sound of the horses' feet dying away in soft echoes from the hills.

Then the chief turned to the clerk.

"Does our auto ride end here?" he asked.

The clerk shook his head.

"A few rods further on," he said, "you can turn into the bed of a half dry stream which runs out of the hills almost at the rocky wall of the mountain itself."

"And the bottom of the stream?" asked the chief.

"Sand and fine gravel. The grade is not steep."

"And how far from the summit shall we be when we get to the end of the water route?" asked the chief.

"Not more than three miles, but it is a stiff climb."

"Get under way then," was the order, and the motors sang their tune in the hills once more.

"What time does the moon rise?" the chief asked, after a few moments of splashing in the bed of the stream, which at that season of the year was not more than three inches deep, except in places, which were avoided.

"About twelve," was the reply.

"We must be well up the hill before that," the chief declared.

When they came to the end of the water course the machines were hidden in a canyon not far away and the men and the boys proceeded on up the slope.

In the meantime Ned and those with him were listening for the sound of footsteps in their immediate vicinity. The call of the pack had aroused the suspicions of the guard, and it was evident that he had left his place at the entrance of the cave to learn the meaning of it.

After a brief wait Ned heard the sound he was listening for and clutched Frank eagerly by the arm.

"Move away to the right and repeat the wolf call, only lower," he directed. "When you have done so dodge back here-quick! The guard may shoot!"

"What are you going to do?" whispered Bradley. "Be careful! Those Orientals are dangerous people to handle! Be careful!"

"I guess we won't start anything we can't finish," Frank grinned.

The boy did as requested, and Ned moved up the slope. Bradley sat watching the dim figures disappear and wondered what sort of company he had fallen into.

When the call of the pack came from the spot indicated by Ned, there was a rush of footsteps. The guard evidently, was advancing toward the suspicious sound.

The next event was so sudden, so unexpected, so startling, that Bradley almost held his breath for an instant. There was a choking gurgle, a blow, and a noise of falling bodies. Then Ned and the guard rolled into the little dip where the others were hiding.

Frank, back by this time, threw himself on the struggling mass and the guard was soon handcuffed and gagged. Then Frank sat back and laughed until Dode tried to gag him with a handkerchief.

"Come!" Ned whispered, giving the boy a poke in the ribs. "We're going into the cave now! Are you going, Bradley?" he added, turning to the blonde fellow.

"If you forget what took place at the club-room in New York, I'll -- "

"You're on!" whispered Ned. "Now -- quick and cautious!"

The old lady, sitting dejectedly with her grandson in her arms, in a rough cave-room, saw the boys creeping forward. Ned held up a warning hand and waited. The old lady, evidently knowing what was wanted, pointed to a small opening to the south.

"They are in there, two of them, asleep!" she whispered a moment later, when Ned had reached her side. "The others are away!"

"And the other boy?" asked Ned, anxiously.

"He is with them," was the gratifying reply.

It was Frank who accompanied Ned into the sleeping chamber where the heads of the conspiracy lay asleep. It was Frank who snapped the manacles on the wrist of the one who was lying across the entrance as a guard.

The supreme head of the wicked conspiracy struggled, half awake, as Ned slipped the handcuffs on and searched him for weapons. But it was all over in a moment, much to the amazement of Bradley, who, attracted by a gleam of light, looked through the low opening to see the searchlights of the Boy Scouts lighting up two angry faces. The prince -- the real prince this time! -- was asleep on a costly rug not far away. Later, when awakened, his attention was at once attracted to Mike III., who made a pretty good playfellow for him for the time being.

For there was little sleep in the Boy Scout Camera Club camp that night. When the boys, the old lady, the prince and the others came out of the cave, just as the moon was showing above the rim of the world, a rocket was mounting the sky to the north.

"One of the boys!" Ned exclaimed. "I reckon something is wrong there!"

But nothing was wrong there -- nothing at all, so far as the boys were concerned. Oliver and Teddy had succeeded in capturing the man who was watching the camp. Pretending to fall asleep by the fire, they had lain in wait for the spy and captured him just as he was in the act of setting fire to the tent.

Dode accompanied Mrs. Brady and her grandson to the cabin, where, at her request, he remained a welcome guest for many days.

When the stories of the night had been told Jack, Jimmie, and the three secret service men made their appearance, puffing from their long climb. Then new stories had to be told, and the prince was by no means slow in telling of his adventures in the hills.

"The boy lies!" the leader of the conspirators declared. "I had nothing to do with the boy! I was not here when he was brought in. I came on separate business with one of the men already here, and did not know of the lad's presence here until to-night, and even then I did not know who he was."

"All the others will swear to that," Bradley said, "in an attempt to save the man's life by sacrificing their own."

"Never mind," Ned said, "you can testify to his interest in the abduction."

"I don't know a thing about it," was the reply. "I was hired to watch you in New York, and to bring Mike III. in here. I never saw this man while here -- never saw the prince. I don't even know how they got Mike III. from his father! They kept me in ignorance of all their moves."

"Well," laughed Ned, "then we'll fall back on the confession that has been made."

"Confession!" repeated the others. "Who has confessed?"

"The photograph!" smiled Ned, taking out the two pictures in which the man and the prince were shown. "The pictures show this man in the company of the prince, and the prince will tell the rest. This closes the case."

"When are you going out?" asked the chief of the secret service men.

"Why," replied Ned, "I promised the outlaws that I would get away to-morrow morning. I'm going to keep my word!"

"You'd better go out with us and travel in the machines, then," said the other.

"And leave Uncle Ike?" demanded Jimmie. "Not for me! I'm going to ride that blessed mule to Cumberland, and ship him to New York."

And he actually did! While the others were riding at their ease in the racers, Jimmie was urging his mule along the country road, alighting now and then to let him thrust a soft muzzle into a pocket in quest of sugar.

At Cumberland Ned met Mike II., who was going in to spend a long time with his mother and the boy. He had sent the son in by a Washington friend, he said! That was all! Dode, he said, would be asked to remain there permanently. No one even knew how much the father knew of the trick to be played with his son.

And so, save for a few raveled ends, the story of the Boy Scout Camera Club is told.

Bradley was given a position by Oliver's father, and became very friendly with the boys. He insists to this day that he did not know about the abduction of the prince.

The conspirators were turned over to their own government, and there the record ends, though none of them was ever seen out of prison again!

Those who wish to follow the Boy Scouts farther can do so by reading the next book of this series, entitled: "The Boy Scout Electrician; or, the Hidden Dynamo."

<eob>

American Fairy Tales

By

L. Frank Baum



The Box Of Robbers


No one intended to leave Martha alone that afternoon, but it happened that everyone was called away, for one reason or another. Mrs. McFarland was attending the weekly card party held by the Women's Anti-Gambling League. Sister Nell's young man had called quite unexpectedly to take her for a long drive. Papa was at the office, as usual. It was Mary Ann's day out. As for Emeline, she certainly should have stayed in the house and looked after the little girl; but Emeline had a restless nature.

"Would you mind, miss, if I just crossed the alley to speak a word to Mrs. Carleton's girl?" she asked Martha.

"'Course not," replied the child. "You'd better lock the back door, though, and take the key, for I shall be upstairs."

"Oh, I'll do that, of course, miss," said the delighted maid, and ran away to spend the afternoon with her friend, leaving Martha quite alone in the big house, and locked in, into the bargain.

The little girl read a few pages in her new book, sewed a few stitches in her embroidery and started to "play visiting" with her four favorite dolls. Then she remembered that in the attic was a doll's playhouse that hadn't been used for months, so she decided she would dust it and put it in order.

Filled with this idea, the girl climbed the winding stairs to the big room under the roof. It was well lighted by three dormer windows and was warm and pleasant. Around the walls were rows of boxes and trunks, piles of old carpeting, pieces of damaged furniture, bundles of discarded clothing and other odds and ends of more or less value. Every well-regulated house has an attic of this sort, so I need not describe it.

The doll's house had been moved, but after a search Martha found it away over in a corner near the big chimney.

She drew it out and noticed that behind it was a black wooden chest which Uncle Walter had sent over from Italy years and years ago -- before Martha was born, in fact. Mamma had told her about it one day; how there was no key to it, because Uncle Walter wished it to remain unopened until he returned home; and how this wandering uncle, who was a mighty hunter, had gone into Africa to hunt elephants and had never been heard from afterwards.

The little girl looked at the chest curiously, now that it had by accident attracted her attention.

It was quite big -- bigger even than mamma's traveling trunk -- and was studded all over with tarnished brassheaded nails. It was heavy, too, for when Martha tried to lift one end of it she found she could not stir it a bit. But there was a place in the side of the cover for a key. She stooped to examine the lock, and saw that it would take a rather big key to open it.

Then, as you may suspect, the little girl longed to open Uncle Walter's big box and see what was in it. For we are all curious, and little girls are just as curious as the rest of us.

"I don't b'lieve Uncle Walter'll ever come back," she thought. "Papa said once that some elephant must have killed him. If I only had a key -- " She stopped and clapped her little hands together gayly as she remembered a big basket of keys on the shelf in the linen closet. They were of all sorts and sizes; perhaps one of them would unlock the mysterious chest!

She flew down the stairs, found the basket and returned with it to the attic. Then she sat down before the brass-studded box and began trying one key after another in the curious old lock. Some were too large, but most were too small. One would go into the lock but would not turn; another stuck so fast that she feared for a time that she would never get it out again. But at last, when the basket was almost empty, an oddly-shaped, ancient brass key slipped easily into the lock. With a cry of joy Martha turned the key with both hands; then she heard a sharp "click," and the next moment the heavy lid flew up of its own accord!

The little girl leaned over the edge of the chest an instant, and the sight that met her eyes caused her to start back in amazement.

Slowly and carefully a man unpacked himself from the chest, stepped out upon the floor, stretched his limbs and then took off his hat and bowed politely to the astonished child.

He was tall and thin and his face seemed badly tanned or sunburnt.

Then another man emerged from the chest, yawning and rubbing his eyes like a sleepy schoolboy. He was of middle size and his skin seemed as badly tanned as that of the first.

While Martha stared open-mouthed at the remarkable sight a third man crawled from the chest. He had the same complexion as his fellows, but was short and fat.

All three were dressed in a curious manner. They wore short jackets of red velvet braided with gold, and knee breeches of sky-blue satin with silver buttons. Over their stockings were laced wide ribbons of red and yellow and blue, while their hats had broad brims with high, peaked crowns, from which fluttered yards of bright-colored ribbons.

They had big gold rings in their ears and rows of knives and pistols in their belts. Their eyes were black and glittering and they wore long, fierce mustaches, curling at the ends like a pig's tail.

"My! but you were heavy," exclaimed the fat one, when he had pulled down his velvet jacket and brushed the dust from his sky-blue breeches. "And you squeezed me all out of shape."

"It was unavoidable, Luigi," responded the thin man, lightly; "the lid of the chest pressed me down upon you. Yet I tender you my regrets."

"As for me," said the middle-sized man, carelessly rolling a cigarette and lighting it, "you must acknowledge I have been your nearest friend for years; so do not be disagreeable."

"You mustn't smoke in the attic," said Martha, recovering herself at sight of the cigarette. "You might set the house on fire."

The middle-sized man, who had not noticed her before, at this speech turned to the girl and bowed.

"Since a lady requests it," said he, "I shall abandon my cigarette," and he threw it on the floor and extinguished it with his foot.

"Who are you?" asked Martha, who until now had been too astonished to be frightened.

"Permit us to introduce ourselves," said the thin man, flourishing his hat gracefully. "This is Lugui," the fat man nodded; "and this is Beni," the middle-sized man bowed; "and I am Victor. We are three bandits -- Italian bandits."

"Bandits!" cried Martha, with a look of horror.

"Exactly. Perhaps in all the world there are not three other bandits so terrible and fierce as ourselves," said Victor, proudly.

"'Tis so," said the fat man, nodding gravely.

"But it's wicked!" exclaimed Martha.

"Yes, indeed," replied Victor. "We are extremely and tremendously wicked. Perhaps in all the world you could not find three men more wicked than those who now stand before you."

"'Tis so," said the fat man, approvingly.

"But you shouldn't be so wicked," said the girl; "it's -- it's -- naughty!"

Victor cast down his eyes and blushed.

"Naughty!" gasped Beni, with a horrified look.

"'Tis a hard word," said Luigi, sadly, and buried his face in his hands.

"I little thought," murmured Victor, in a voice broken by emotion, "ever to be so reviled -- and by a lady! Yet, perhaps you spoke thoughtlessly. You must consider, miss, that our wickedness has an excuse. For how are we to be bandits, let me ask, unless we are wicked?"

Martha was puzzled and shook her head, thoughtfully. Then she remembered something.

"You can't remain bandits any longer," said she, "because you are now in America."

"America!" cried the three, together.

"Certainly. You are on Prairie avenue, in Chicago. Uncle Walter sent you here from Italy in this chest."

The bandits seemed greatly bewildered by this announcement. Lugui sat down on an old chair with a broken rocker and wiped his forehead with a yellow silk handkerchief. Beni and Victor fell back upon the chest and looked at her with pale faces and staring eyes.

When he had somewhat recovered himself Victor spoke.

"Your Uncle Walter has greatly wronged us," he said, reproachfully. "He has taken us from our beloved Italy, where bandits are highly respected, and brought us to a strange country where we shall not know whom to rob or how much to ask for a ransom."

"'Tis so!" said the fat man, slapping his leg sharply.

"And we had won such fine reputations in Italy!" said Beni, regretfully.

"Perhaps Uncle Walter wanted to reform you," suggested Martha.

"Are there, then, no bandits in Chicago?" asked Victor.

"Well," replied the girl, blushing in her turn, "we do not call them bandits."

"Then what shall we do for a living?" inquired Beni, despairingly.

"A great deal can be done in a big American city," said the child. "My father is a lawyer" (the bandits shuddered), "and my mother's cousin is a police inspector."

"Ah," said Victor, "that is a good employment. The police need to be inspected, especially in Italy."

"Everywhere!" added Beni.

"Then you could do other things," continued Martha, encouragingly. "You could be motor men on trolley cars, or clerks in a department store. Some people even become aldermen to earn a living."

The bandits shook their heads sadly.

"We are not fitted for such work," said Victor. "Our business is to rob."

Martha tried to think.

"It is rather hard to get positions in the gas office," she said, "but you might become politicians."

"No!" cried Beni, with sudden fierceness; "we must not abandon our high calling. Bandits we have always been, and bandits we must remain!"

"'Tis so!" agreed the fat man.

"Even in Chicago there must be people to rob," remarked Victor, with cheerfulness.

Martha was distressed.

"I think they have all been robbed," she objected.

"Then we can rob the robbers, for we have experience and talent beyond the ordinary," said Beni.

"Oh, dear; oh, dear!" moaned the girl; "why did Uncle Walter ever send you here in this chest?"

The bandits became interested.

"That is what we should like to know," declared Victor, eagerly.

"But no one will ever know, for Uncle Walter was lost while hunting elephants in Africa," she continued, with conviction.

"Then we must accept our fate and rob to the best of our ability," said Victor. "So long as we are faithful to our beloved profession we need not be ashamed."

"'Tis so!" cried the fat man.

"Brothers! we will begin now. Let us rob the house we are in."

"Good!" shouted the others and sprang to their feet.

Beni turned threateningly upon the child.

"Remain here!" he commanded. "If you stir one step your blood will be on your own head!" Then he added, in a gentler voice: "Don't be afraid; that's the way all bandits talk to their captives. But of course we wouldn't hurt a young lady under any circumstances."

"Of course not," said Victor.

The fat man drew a big knife from his belt and flourished it about his head.

"S'blood!" he ejaculated, fiercely.

"S'bananas!" cried Beni, in a terrible voice.

"Confusion to our foes!" hissed Victor.

And then the three bent themselves nearly double and crept stealthily down the stairway with cocked pistols in their hands and glittering knives between their teeth, leaving Martha trembling with fear and too horrified to even cry for help.

How long she remained alone in the attic she never knew, but finally she heard the catlike tread of the returning bandits and saw them coming up the stairs in single file.

All bore heavy loads of plunder in their arms, and Lugui was balancing a mince pie on the top of a pile of her mother's best evening dresses. Victor came next with an armful of bric-a-brac, a brass candelabra and the parlor clock. Beni had the family Bible, the basket of silverware from the sideboard, a copper kettle and papa's fur overcoat.

"Oh, joy!" said Victor, putting down his load; "it is pleasant to rob once more."

"Oh, ecstacy!" said Beni; but he let the kettle drop on his toe and immediately began dancing around in anguish, while he muttered queer words in the Italian language.

"We have much wealth," continued Victor, holding the mince pie while Lugui added his spoils to the heap; "and all from one house! This America must be a rich place."

With a dagger he then cut himself a piece of the pie and handed the remainder to his comrades. Whereupon all three sat upon the floor and consumed the pie while Martha looked on sadly.

"We should have a cave," remarked Beni; "for we must store our plunder in a safe place. Can you tell us of a secret cave?" he asked Martha.

"There's a Mammoth cave," she answered, "but it's in Kentucky. You would be obliged to ride on the cars a long time to get there."

The three bandits looked thoughtful and munched their pie silently, but the next moment they were startled by the ringing of the electric doorbell, which was heard plainly even in the remote attic.

"What's that?" demanded Victor, in a hoarse voice, as the three scrambled to their feet with drawn daggers.

Martha ran to the window and saw it was only the postman, who had dropped a letter in the box and gone away again. But the incident gave her an idea of how to get rid of her troublesome bandits, so she began wringing her hands as if in great distress and cried out:

"It's the police!"

The robbers looked at one another with genuine alarm, and Lugui asked, tremblingly:

"Are there many of them?"

"A hundred and twelve!" exclaimed Martha, after pretending to count them.

"Then we are lost!" declared Beni; "for we could never fight so many and live."

"Are they armed?" inquired Victor, who was shivering as if cold.

"Oh, yes," said she. "They have guns and swords and pistols and axes and -- and -- "

"And what?" demanded Lugui.

"And cannons!"

The three wicked ones groaned aloud and Beni said, in a hollow voice:

"I hope they will kill us quickly and not put us to the torture. I have been told these Americans are painted Indians, who are bloodthirsty and terrible."

"'Tis so!" gasped the fat man, with a shudder.

Suddenly Martha turned from the window.

"You are my friends, are you not?" she asked.

"We are devoted!" answered Victor.

"We adore you!" cried Beni.

"We would die for you!" added Lugui, thinking he was about to die anyway.

"Then I will save you," said the girl.

"How?" asked the three, with one voice.

"Get back into the chest," she said. "I will then close the lid, so they will be unable to find you."

They looked around the room in a dazed and irresolute way, but she exclaimed:

"You must be quick! They will soon be here to arrest you."

Then Lugui sprang into the chest and lay fat upon the bottom. Beni tumbled in next and packed himself in the back side. Victor followed after pausing to kiss her hand to the girl in a graceful manner.

Then Martha ran up to press down the lid, but could not make it catch.

"You must squeeze down," she said to them.

Lugui groaned.

"I am doing my best, miss," said Victor, who was nearest the top; "but although we fitted in very nicely before, the chest now seems rather small for us."

"'Tis so!" came the muffled voice of the fat man from the bottom.

"I know what takes up the room," said Beni.

"What?" inquired Victor, anxiously.

"The pie," returned Beni.

"'Tis so!" came from the bottom, in faint accents.

Then Martha sat upon the lid and pressed it down with all her weight. To her great delight the lock caught, and, springing down, she exerted all her strength and turned the key.

* * * * *

This story should teach us not to interfere in matters that do not concern us. For had Martha refrained from opening Uncle Walter's mysterious chest she would not have been obliged to carry downstairs all the plunder the robbers had brought into the attic.



The Glass Dog


An accomplished wizard once lived on the top floor of a tenement house and passed his time in thoughtful study and studious thought. What he didn't know about wizardry was hardly worth knowing, for he possessed all the books and recipes of all the wizards who had lived before him; and, moreover, he had invented several wizardments himself.

This admirable person would have been completely happy but for the numerous interruptions to his studies caused by folk who came to consult him about their troubles (in which he was not interested), and by the loud knocks of the iceman, the milkman, the baker's boy, the laundryman and the peanut woman. He never dealt with any of these people; but they rapped at his door every day to see him about this or that or to try to sell him their wares. Just when he was most deeply interested in his books or engaged in watching the bubbling of a cauldron there would come a knock at his door. And after sending the intruder away he always found he had lost his train of thought or ruined his compound.

At length these interruptions aroused his anger, and he decided he must have a dog to keep people away from his door. He didn't know where to find a dog, but in the next room lived a poor glass-blower with whom he had a slight acquaintance; so he went into the man's apartment and asked:

"Where can I find a dog?"

"What sort of a dog?" inquired the glass-blower.

"A good dog. One that will bark at people and drive them away. One that will be no trouble to keep and won't expect to be fed. One that has no fleas and is neat in his habits. One that will obey me when I speak to him. In short, a good dog," said the wizard.

"Such a dog is hard to find," returned the glass-blower, who was busy making a blue glass flower pot with a pink glass rosebush in it, having green glass leaves and yellow glass roses.

The wizard watched him thoughtfully.

"Why cannot you blow me a dog out of glass?" he asked, presently.

"I can," declared the glass-blower; "but it would not bark at people, you know."

"Oh, I'll fix that easily enough," replied the other. "If I could not make a glass dog bark I would be a mighty poor wizard."

"Very well; if you can use a glass dog I'll be pleased to blow one for you. Only, you must pay for my work."

"Certainly," agreed the wizard. "But I have none of that horrid stuff you call money. You must take some of my wares in exchange."

The glass-blower considered the matter for a moment.

"Could you give me something to cure my rheumatism?" he asked.

"Oh, yes; easily."

"Then it's a bargain. I'll start the dog at once. What color of glass shall I use?"

"Pink is a pretty color," said the wizard, "and it's unusual for a dog, isn't it?"

"Very," answered the glass-blower; "but it shall be pink."

So the wizard went back to his studies and the glass-blower began to make the dog.

Next morning he entered the wizard's room with the glass dog under his arm and set it carefully upon the table. It was a beautiful pink in color, with a fine coat of spun glass, and about its neck was twisted a blue glass ribbon. Its eyes were specks of black glass and sparkled intelligently, as do many of the glass eyes worn by men.

The wizard expressed himself pleased with the glass-blower's skill and at once handed him a small vial.

"This will cure your rheumatism," he said.

"But the vial is empty!" protested the glass-blower.

"Oh, no; there is one drop of liquid in it," was the wizard's reply.

"Will one drop cure my rheumatism?" inquired the glass-blower, in wonder.

"Most certainly. That is a marvelous remedy. The one drop contained in the vial will cure instantly any kind of disease ever known to humanity. Therefore it is especially good for rheumatism. But guard it well, for it is the only drop of its kind in the world, and I've forgotten the recipe."

"Thank you," said the glass-blower, and went back to his room.

Then the wizard cast a wizzy spell and mumbled several very learned words in the wizardese language over the glass dog. Whereupon the little animal first wagged its tail from side to side, then winked his left eye knowingly, and at last began barking in a most frightful manner -- that is, when you stop to consider the noise came from a pink glass dog. There is something almost astonishing in the magic arts of wizards; unless, of course, you know how to do the things yourself, when you are not expected to be surprised at them.

The wizard was as delighted as a school teacher at the success of his spell, although he was not astonished. Immediately he placed the dog outside his door, where it would bark at anyone who dared knock and so disturb the studies of its master.

The glass-blower, on returning to his room, decided not to use the one drop of wizard cure-all just then.

"My rheumatism is better to-day," he reflected, "and I will be wise to save the medicine for a time when I am very ill, when it will be of more service to me."

So he placed the vial in his cupboard and went to work blowing more roses out of glass. Presently he happened to think the medicine might not keep, so he started to ask the wizard about it. But when he reached the door the glass dog barked so fiercely that he dared not knock, and returned in great haste to his own room. Indeed, the poor man was quite upset at so unfriendly a reception from the dog he had himself so carefully and skillfully made.

The next morning, as he read his newspaper, he noticed an article stating that the beautiful Miss Mydas, the richest young lady in town, was very ill, and the doctors had given up hope of her recovery.

The glass-blower, although miserably poor, hard-working and homely of feature, was a man of ideas. He suddenly recollected his precious medicine, and determined to use it to better advantage than relieving his own ills. He dressed himself in his best clothes, brushed his hair and combed his whiskers, washed his hands and tied his necktie, blackened his hoes and sponged his vest, and then put the vial of magic cure-all in his pocket. Next he locked his door, went downstairs and walked through the streets to the grand mansion where the wealthy Miss Mydas resided.

The butler opened the door and said:

"No soap, no chromos, no vegetables, no hair oil, no books, no baking powder. My young lady is dying and we're well supplied for the funeral."

The glass-blower was grieved at being taken for a peddler.

"My friend," he began, proudly; but the butler interrupted him, saying:

"No tombstones, either; there's a family graveyard and the monument's built."

"The graveyard won't be needed if you will permit me to speak," said the glass-blower.

"No doctors, sir; they've given up my young lady, and she's given up the doctors," continued the butler, calmly.

"I'm no doctor," returned the glass-blower.

"Nor are the others. But what is your errand?"

"I called to cure your young lady by means of a magical compound."

"Step in, please, and take a seat in the hall. I'll speak to the housekeeper," said the butler, more politely.

So he spoke to the housekeeper and the housekeeper mentioned the matter to the steward and the steward consulted the chef and the chef kissed the lady's maid and sent her to see the stranger. Thus are the very wealthy hedged around with ceremony, even when dying.

When the lady's maid heard from the glass-blower that he had a medicine which would cure her mistress, she said:

"I'm glad you came."

"But," said he, "if I restore your mistress to health she must marry me."

"I'll make inquiries and see if she's willing," answered the maid, and went at once to consult Miss Mydas.

The young lady did not hesitate an instant.

"I'd marry any old thing rather than die!" she cried. "Bring him here at once!"

So the glass-blower came, poured the magic drop into a little water, gave it to the patient, and the next minute Miss Mydas was as well as she had ever been in her life.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed; "I've an engagement at the Fritters' reception to-night. Bring my pearl-colored silk, Marie, and I will begin my toilet at once. And don't forget to cancel the order for the funeral flowers and your mourning gown."

"But, Miss Mydas," remonstrated the glass-blower, who stood by, "you promised to marry me if I cured you."

"I know," said the young lady, "but we must have time to make proper announcement in the society papers and have the wedding cards engraved. Call to-morrow and we'll talk it over."

The glass-blower had not impressed her favorably as a husband, and she was glad to find an excuse for getting rid of him for a time. And she did not want to miss the Fritters' reception.

Yet the man went home filled with joy; for he thought his stratagem had succeeded and he was about to marry a rich wife who would keep him in luxury forever afterward.

The first thing he did on reaching his room was to smash his glass-blowing tools and throw them out of the window.

He then sat down to figure out ways of spending his wife's money.

The following day he called upon Miss Mydas, who was reading a novel and eating chocolate creams as happily as if she had never been ill in her life.

"Where did you get the magic compound that cured me?" she asked.

"From a learned wizard," said he; and then, thinking it would interest her, he told how he had made the glass dog for the wizard, and how it barked and kept everybody from bothering him.

"How delightful!" she said. "I've always wanted a glass dog that could bark."

"But there is only one in the world," he answered, "and it belongs to the wizard."

"You must buy it for me," said the lady.

"The wizard cares nothing for money," replied the glass-blower.

"Then you must steal it for me," she retorted. "I can never live happily another day unless I have a glass dog that can bark."

The glass-blower was much distressed at this, but said he would see what he could do. For a man should always try to please his wife, and Miss Mydas has promised to marry him within a week.

On his way home he purchased a heavy sack, and when he passed the wizard's door and the pink glass dog ran out to bark at him he threw the sack over the dog, tied the opening with a piece of twine, and carried him away to his own room.

The next day he sent the sack by a messenger boy to Miss Mydas, with his compliments, and later in the afternoon he called upon her in person, feeling quite sure he would be received with gratitude for stealing the dog she so greatly desired.

But when he came to the door and the butler opened it, what was his amazement to see the glass dog rush out and begin barking at him furiously.

"Call off your dog," he shouted, in terror.

"I can't, sir," answered the butler. "My young lady has ordered the glass dog to bark whenever you call here. You'd better look out, sir," he added, "for if it bites you, you may have glassophobia!"

This so frightened the poor glass-blower that he went away hurriedly. But he stopped at a drug store and put his last dime in the telephone box so he could talk to Miss Mydas without being bitten by the dog.

"Give me Pelf 6742!" he called.

"Hello! What is it?" said a voice.

"I want to speak with Miss Mydas," said the glass-blower.

Presently a sweet voice said: "This is Miss Mydas. What is it?"

"Why have you treated me so cruelly and set the glass dog on me?" asked the poor fellow.

"Well, to tell the truth," said the lady, "I don't like your looks. Your cheeks are pale and baggy, your hair is coarse and long, your eyes are small and red, your hands are big and rough, and you are bow-legged."

"But I can't help my looks!" pleaded the glass-blower; "and you really promised to marry me."

"If you were better looking I'd keep my promise," she returned. "But under the circumstances you are no fit mate for me, and unless you keep away from my mansion I shall set my glass dog on you!" Then she dropped the 'phone and would have nothing more to say.

The miserable glass-blower went home with a heart bursting with disappointment and began tying a rope to the bedpost by which to hang himself.

Some one knocked at the door, and, upon opening it, he saw the wizard.

"I've lost my dog," he announced.

"Have you, indeed?" replied the glass-blower tying a knot in the rope.

"Yes; some one has stolen him."

"That's too bad," declared the glass-blower, indifferently.

"You must make me another," said the wizard.

"But I cannot; I've thrown away my tools."

"Then what shall I do?" asked the wizard.

"I do not know, unless you offer a reward for the dog."

"But I have no money," said the wizard.

"Offer some of your compounds, then," suggested the glass-blower, who was making a noose in the rope for his head to go through.

"The only thing I can spare," replied the wizard, thoughtfully, "is a Beauty Powder."

"What!" cried the glass-blower, throwing down the rope, "have you really such a thing?"

"Yes, indeed. Whoever takes the powder will become the most beautiful person in the world."

"If you will offer that as a reward," said the glass-blower, eagerly, "I'll try to find the dog for you, for above everything else I long to be beautiful."

"But I warn you the beauty will only be skin deep," said the wizard.

"That's all right," replied the happy glass-blower; "when I lose my skin I shan't care to remain beautiful."

"Then tell me where to find my dog and you shall have the powder," promised the wizard.

So the glass-blower went out and pretended to search, and by-and-by he returned and said:

"I've discovered the dog. You will find him in the mansion of Miss Mydas."

The wizard went at once to see if this were true, and, sure enough, the glass dog ran out and began barking at him. Then the wizard spread out his hands and chanted a magic spell which sent the dog fast asleep, when he picked him up and carried him to his own room on the top floor of the tenement house.

Afterward he carried the Beauty Powder to the glass-blower as a reward, and the fellow immediately swallowed it and became the most beautiful man in the world.

The next time he called upon Miss Mydas there was no dog to bark at him, and when the young lady saw him she fell in love with his beauty at once.

"If only you were a count or a prince," she sighed, "I'd willingly marry you."

"But I am a prince," he answered; "the Prince of Dogblowers."

"Ah!" said she; "then if you are willing to accept an allowance of four dollars a week I'll order the wedding cards engraved."

The man hesitated, but when he thought of the rope hanging from his bedpost he consented to the terms.

So they were married, and the bride was very jealous of her husband's beauty and led him a dog's life. So he managed to get into debt and made her miserable in turn.

* * * * *

As for the glass dog, the wizard set him barking again by means of his wizardness and put him outside his door. I suppose he is there yet, and am rather sorry, for I should like to consult the wizard about the moral to this story.



The Queen Of Quok


A king once died, as kings are apt to do, being as liable to shortness of breath as other mortals.

It was high time this king abandoned his earth life, for he had lived in a sadly extravagant manner, and his subjects could spare him without the slightest inconvenience.

His father had left him a full treasury, both money and jewels being in abundance. But the foolish king just deceased had squandered every penny in riotous living. He had then taxed his subjects until most of them became paupers, and this money vanished in more riotous living. Next he sold all the grand old furniture in the palace; all the silver and gold plate and bric-a-brac; all the rich carpets and furnishings and even his own kingly wardrobe, reserving only a soiled and moth-eaten ermine robe to fold over his threadbare raiment. And he spent the money in further riotous living.

Don't ask me to explain what riotous living is. I only know, from hearsay, that it is an excellent way to get rid of money. And so this spendthrift king found it.

He now picked all the magnificent jewels from this kingly crown and from the round ball on the top of his scepter, and sold them and spent the money. Riotous living, of course. But at last he was at the end of his resources. He couldn't sell the crown itself, because no one but the king had the right to wear it. Neither could he sell the royal palace, because only the king had the right to live there.

So, finally, he found himself reduced to a bare palace, containing only a big mahogany bedstead that he slept in, a small stool on which he sat to pull off his shoes and the moth-eaten ermine robe.

In this straight he was reduced to the necessity of borrowing an occasional dime from his chief counselor, with which to buy a ham sandwich. And the chief counselor hadn't many dimes. One who counseled his king so foolishly was likely to ruin his own prospects as well.

So the king, having nothing more to live for, died suddenly and left a ten-year-old son to inherit the dismantled kingdom, the moth-eaten robe and the jewel-stripped crown.

No one envied the child, who had scarcely been thought of until he became king himself. Then he was recognized as a personage of some importance, and the politicians and hangers-on, headed by the chief counselor of the kingdom, held a meeting to determine what could be done for him.

These folk had helped the old king to live riotously while his money lasted, and now they were poor and too proud to work. So they tried to think of a plan that would bring more money into the little king's treasury, where it would be handy for them to help themselves.

After the meeting was over the chief counselor came to the young king, who was playing peg-top in the courtyard, and said:

"Your majesty, we have thought of a way to restore your kingdom to its former power and magnificence."

"All right," replied his majesty, carelessly. "How will you do it?"

"By marrying you to a lady of great wealth," replied the counselor.

"Marrying me!" cried the king. "Why, I am only ten years old!"

"I know; it is to be regretted. But your majesty will grow older, and the affairs of the kingdom demand that you marry a wife."

"Can't I marry a mother, instead?" asked the poor little king, who had lost his mother when a baby.

"Certainly not," declared the counselor. "To marry a mother would be illegal; to marry a wife is right and proper."

"Can't you marry her yourself?" inquired his majesty, aiming his peg-top at the chief counselor's toe, and laughing to see how he jumped to escape it.

"Let me explain," said the other. "You haven't a penny in the world, but you have a kingdom. There are many rich women who would be glad to give their wealth in exchange for a queen's coronet -- even if the king is but a child. So we have decided to advertise that the one who bids the highest shall become the queen of Quok."

"If I must marry at all," said the king, after a moment's thought, "I prefer to marry Nyana, the armorer's daughter."

"She is too poor," replied the counselor.

"Her teeth are pearls, her eyes are amethysts, and her hair is gold," declared the little king.

"True, your majesty. But consider that your wife's wealth must be used. How would Nyana look after you have pulled her teeth of pearls, plucked out her amethyst eyes and shaved her golden head?"

The boy shuddered.

"Have your own way," he said, despairingly. "Only let the lady be as dainty as possible and a good playfellow."

"We shall do our best," returned the chief counselor, and went away to advertise throughout the neighboring kingdoms for a wife for the boy king of Quok.

There were so many applicants for the privilege of marrying the little king that it was decided to put him up at auction, in order that the largest possible sum of money should be brought into the kingdom. So, on the day appointed, the ladies gathered at the palace from all the surrounding kingdoms -- from Bilkon, Mulgravia, Junkum and even as far away as the republic of Macvelt.

The chief counselor came to the palace early in the morning and had the king's face washed and his hair combed; and then he padded the inside of the crown with old newspapers to make it small enough to fit his majesty's head. It was a sorry looking crown, having many big and little holes in it where the jewels had once been; and it had been neglected and knocked around until it was quite battered and tarnished. Yet, as the counselor said, it was the king's crown, and it was quite proper he should wear it on the solemn occasion of his auction.

Like all boys, be they kings or paupers, his majesty had torn and soiled his one suit of clothes, so that they were hardly presentable; and there was no money to buy new ones. Therefore the counselor wound the old ermine robe around the king and sat him upon the stool in the middle of the otherwise empty audience chamber.

And around him stood all the courtiers and politicians and hangers-on of the kingdom, consisting of such people as were too proud or lazy to work for a living. There was a great number of them, you may be sure, and they made an imposing appearance.

Then the doors of the audience chamber were thrown open, and the wealthy ladies who aspired to being queen of Quok came trooping in. The king looked them over with much anxiety, and decided they were each and all old enough to be his grandmother, and ugly enough to scare away the crows from the royal cornfields. After which he lost interest in them.

But the rich ladies never looked at the poor little king squatting upon his stool. They gathered at once about the chief counselor, who acted as auctioneer.

"How much am I offered for the coronet of the queen of Quok?" asked the counselor, in a loud voice.

"Where is the coronet?" inquired a fussy old lady who had just buried her ninth husband and was worth several millions.

"There isn't any coronet at present," explained the chief counselor, "but whoever bids highest will have the right to wear one, and she can then buy it."

"Oh," said the fussy old lady, "I see." Then she added: "I'll bid fourteen dollars."

"Fourteen thousand dollars!" cried a sour-looking woman who was thin and tall and had wrinkles all over her skin -- "like a frosted apple," the king thought.

The bidding now became fast and furious, and the poverty-stricken courtiers brightened up as the sum began to mount into the millions.

"He'll bring us a very pretty fortune, after all," whispered one to his comrade, "and then we shall have the pleasure of helping him spend it."

The king began to be anxious. All the women who looked at all kind-hearted or pleasant had stopped bidding for lack of money, and the slender old dame with the wrinkles seemed determined to get the coronet at any price, and with it the boy husband. This ancient creature finally became so excited that her wig got crosswise of her head and her false teeth kept slipping out, which horrified the little king greatly; but she would not give up.

At last the chief counselor ended the auction by crying out:

"Sold to Mary Ann Brodjinsky de la Porkus for three million, nine hundred thousand, six hundred and twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents!" And the sour-looking old woman paid the money in cash and on the spot, which proves this is a fairy story.

The king was so disturbed at the thought that he must marry this hideous creature that he began to wail and weep; whereupon the woman boxed his ears soundly. But the counselor reproved her for punishing her future husband in public, saying:

"You are not married yet. Wait until to-morrow, after the wedding takes place. Then you can abuse him as much as you wish. But at present we prefer to have people think this is a love match."

The poor king slept but little that night, so filled was he with terror of his future wife. Nor could he get the idea out of his head that he preferred to marry the armorer's daughter, who was about his own age. He tossed and tumbled around upon his hard bed until the moonlight came in at the window and lay like a great white sheet upon the bare floor. Finally, in turning over for the hundredth time, his hand struck against a secret spring in the headboard of the big mahogany bedstead, and at once, with a sharp click, a panel flew open.

The noise caused the king to look up, and, seeing the open panel, he stood upon tiptoe, and, reaching within, drew out a folded paper. It had several leaves fastened together like a book, and upon the first page was written:

"When the king is in trouble This leaf he must double And set it on fire To obtain his desire."

This was not very good poetry, but when the king had spelled it out in the moonlight he was filled with joy.

"There's no doubt about my being in trouble," he exclaimed; "so I'll burn it at once, and see what happens."

He tore off the leaf and put the rest of the book in its secret hiding place. Then, folding the paper double, he placed it on the top of his stool, lighted a match and set fire to it.

It made a horrid smudge for so small a paper, and the king sat on the edge of the bed and watched it eagerly.

When the smoke cleared away he was surprised to see, sitting upon the stool, a round little man, who, with folded arms and crossed legs, sat calmly facing the king and smoking a black briarwood pipe.

"Well, here I am," said he.

"So I see," replied the little king. "But how did you get here?"

"Didn't you burn the paper?" demanded the round man, by way of answer.

"Yes, I did," acknowledged the king.

"Then you are in trouble, and I've come to help you out of it. I'm the Slave of the Royal Bedstead."

"Oh!" said the king. "I didn't know there was one."

"Neither did your father, or he would not have been so foolish as to sell everything he had for money. By the way, it's lucky for you he did not sell this bedstead. Now, then, what do you want?"

"I'm not sure what I want," replied the king; "but I know what I don't want, and that is the old woman who is going to marry me."

"That's easy enough," said the Slave of the Royal Bedstead. "All you need do is to return her the money she paid the chief counselor and declare the match off. Don't be afraid. You are the king, and your word is law."

"To be sure," said the majesty. "But I am in great need of money. How am I going to live if the chief counselor returns to Mary Ann Brodjinski her millions?"

"Phoo! that's easy enough," again answered the man, and, putting his hand in his pocket, he drew out and tossed to the king an old-fashioned leather purse. "Keep that with you," said he, "and you will always be rich, for you can take out of the purse as many twenty-five-cent silver pieces as you wish, one at a time. No matter how often you take one out, another will instantly appear in its place within the purse."

"Thank you," said the king, gratefully. "You have rendered me a rare favor; for now I shall have money for all my needs and will not be obliged to marry anyone. Thank you a thousand times!"

"Don't mention it," answered the other, puffing his pipe slowly and watching the smoke curl into the moonlight. "Such things are easy to me. Is that all you want?"

"All I can think of just now," returned the king.

"Then, please close that secret panel in the bedstead," said the man; "the other leaves of the book may be of use to you some time."

The boy stood upon the bed as before and, reaching up, closed the opening so that no one else could discover it. Then he turned to face his visitor, but the Slave of the Royal Bedstead had disappeared.

"I expected that," said his majesty; "yet I am sorry he did not wait to say good-by."

With a lightened heart and a sense of great relief the boy king placed the leathern purse underneath his pillow, and climbing into bed again slept soundly until morning.

When the sun rose his majesty rose also, refreshed and comforted, and the first thing he did was to send for the chief counselor.

That mighty personage arrived looking glum and unhappy, but the boy was too full of his own good fortune to notice it. Said he:

"I have decided not to marry anyone, for I have just come into a fortune of my own. Therefore I command you return to that old woman the money she has paid you for the right to wear the coronet of the queen of Quok. And make public declaration that the wedding will not take place."

Hearing this the counselor began to tremble, for he saw the young king had decided to reign in earnest; and he looked so guilty that his majesty inquired:

"Well! what is the matter now?"

"Sire," replied the wretch, in a shaking voice, "I cannot return the woman her money, for I have lost it!"

"Lost it!" cried the king, in mingled astonishment and anger.

"Even so, your majesty. On my way home from the auction last night I stopped at the drug store to get some potash lozenges for my throat, which was dry and hoarse with so much loud talking; and your majesty will admit it was through my efforts the woman was induced to pay so great a price. Well, going into the drug store I carelessly left the package of money lying on the seat of my carriage, and when I came out again it was gone. Nor was the thief anywhere to be seen."

"Did you call the police?" asked the king.

"Yes, I called; but they were all on the next block, and although they have promised to search for the robber I have little hope they will ever find him."

The king sighed.

"What shall we do now?" he asked.

"I fear you must marry Mary Ann Brodjinski," answered the chief counselor; "unless, indeed, you order the executioner to cut her head off."

"That would be wrong," declared the king. "The woman must not be harmed. And it is just that we return her money, for I will not marry her under any circumstances."

"Is that private fortune you mentioned large enough to repay her?" asked the counselor.

"Why, yes," said the king, thoughtfully, "but it will take some time to do it, and that shall be your task. Call the woman here."

The counselor went in search of Mary Ann, who, when she heard she was not to become a queen, but would receive her money back, flew into a violent passion and boxed the chief counselor's ears so viciously that they stung for nearly an hour. But she followed him into the king's audience chamber, where she demanded her money in a loud voice, claiming as well the interest due upon it over night.

"The counselor has lost your money," said the boy king, "but he shall pay you every penny out of my own private purse. I fear, however, you will be obliged to take it in small change."

"That will not matter," she said, scowling upon the counselor as if she longed to reach his ears again; "I don't care how small the change is so long as I get every penny that belongs to me, and the interest. Where is it?"

"Here," answered the king, handing the counselor the leathern purse. "It is all in silver quarters, and they must be taken from the purse one at a time; but there will be plenty to pay your demands, and to spare."

So, there being no chairs, the counselor sat down upon the floor in one corner and began counting out silver twenty-five-cent pieces from the purse, one by one. And the old woman sat upon the floor opposite him and took each piece of money from his hand.

It was a large sum: three million, nine hundred thousand, six hundred and twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents. And it takes four times as many twenty-five-cent pieces as it would dollars to make up the amount.

The king left them sitting there and went to school, and often thereafter he came to the counselor and interrupted him long enough to get from the purse what money he needed to reign in a proper and dignified manner. This somewhat delayed the counting, but as it was a long job, anyway, that did not matter much.

The king grew to manhood and married the pretty daughter of the armorer, and they now have two lovely children of their own. Once in awhile they go into the big audience chamber of the palace and let the little ones watch the aged, hoary-headed counselor count out silver twenty-five-cent pieces to a withered old woman, who watched his every movement to see that he does not cheat her.

It is a big sum, three million, nine hundred thousand, six hundred and twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents in twenty-five-cent pieces.

But this is how the counselor was punished for being so careless with the woman's money. And this is how Mary Ann Brodjinski de la Porkus was also punished for wishing to marry a ten-year-old king in order that she might wear the coronet of the queen of Quok.



The Girl Who Owned A Bear


Mamma had gone down-town to shop. She had asked Nora to look after Jane Gladys, and Nora promised she would. But it was her afternoon for polishing the silver, so she stayed in the pantry and left Jane Gladys to amuse herself alone in the big sitting-room upstairs.

The little girl did not mind being alone, for she was working on her first piece of embroidery -- a sofa pillow for papa's birthday present. So she crept into the big bay window and curled herself up on the broad sill while she bent her brown head over her work.

Soon the door opened and closed again, quietly. Jane Gladys thought it was Nora, so she didn't look up until she had taken a couple more stitches on a forget-me-not. Then she raised her eyes and was astonished to find a strange man in the middle of the room, who regarded her earnestly.

He was short and fat, and seemed to be breathing heavily from his climb up the stairs. He held a work silk hat in one hand and underneath his other elbow was tucked a good-sized book. He was dressed in a black suit that looked old and rather shabby, and his head was bald upon the top.

"Excuse me," he said, while the child gazed at him in solemn surprise. "Are you Jane Gladys Brown?"

"Yes, sir," she answered.

"Very good; very good, indeed!" he remarked, with a queer sort of smile. "I've had quite a hunt to find you, but I've succeeded at last."

"How did you get in?" inquired Jane Gladys, with a growing distrust of her visitor.

"That is a secret," he said, mysteriously.

This was enough to put the girl on her guard. She looked at the man and the man looked at her, and both looks were grave and somewhat anxious.

"What do you want?" she asked, straightening herself up with a dignified air.

"Ah! -- now we are coming to business," said the man, briskly. "I'm going to be quite frank with you. To begin with, your father has abused me in a most ungentlemanly manner."

Jane Gladys got off the window sill and pointed her small finger at the door.

"Leave this room 'meejitly!" she cried, her voice trembling with indignation. "My papa is the best man in the world. He never 'bused anybody!"

"Allow me to explain, please," said the visitor, without paying any attention to her request to go away. "Your father may be very kind to you, for you are his little girl, you know. But when he's down-town in his office he's inclined to be rather severe, especially on book agents. Now, I called on him the other day and asked him to buy the 'Complete Works of Peter Smith,' and what do you suppose he did?"

She said nothing.

"Why," continued the man, with growing excitement, "he ordered me from his office, and had me put out of the building by the janitor! What do you think of such treatment as that from the 'best papa in the world,' eh?"

"I think he was quite right," said Jane Gladys.

"Oh, you do? Well," said the man, "I resolved to be revenged for the insult. So, as your father is big and strong and a dangerous man, I have decided to be revenged upon his little girl."

Jane Gladys shivered.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm going to present you with this book," he answered, taking it from under his arm. Then he sat down on the edge of a chair, placed his hat on the rug and drew a fountain pen from his vest pocket.

"I'll write your name in it," said he. "How do you spell Gladys?"

"G-l-a-d-y-s," she replied.

"Thank you. Now this," he continued, rising and handing her the book with a bow, "is my revenge for your father's treatment of me. Perhaps he'll be sorry he didn't buy the 'Complete Works of Peter Smith.' Good-by, my dear."

He walked to the door, gave her another bow, and left the room, and Jane Gladys could see that he was laughing to himself as if very much amused.

When the door had closed behind the queer little man the child sat down in the window again and glanced at the book. It had a red and yellow cover and the word "Thingamajigs" was across the front in big letters.

Then she opened it, curiously, and saw her name written in black letters upon the first white leaf.

"He was a funny little man," she said to herself, thoughtfully.

She turned the next leaf, and saw a big picture of a clown, dressed in green and red and yellow, and having a very white face with three-cornered spots of red on each cheek and over the eyes. While she looked at this the book trembled in her hands, the leaf crackled and creaked and suddenly the clown jumped out of it and stood upon the floor beside her, becoming instantly as big as any ordinary clown.

After stretching his arms and legs and yawning in a rather impolite manner, he gave a silly chuckle and said:

"This is better! You don't know how cramped one gets, standing so long upon a page of flat paper."

Perhaps you can imagine how startled Jane Gladys was, and how she stared at the clown who had just leaped out of the book.

"You didn't expect anything of this sort, did you?" he asked, leering at her in clown fashion. Then he turned around to take a look at the room and Jane Gladys laughed in spite of her astonishment.

"What amuses you?" demanded the clown.

"Why, the back of you is all white!" cried the girl. "You're only a clown in front of you."

"Quite likely," he returned, in an annoyed tone. "The artist made a front view of me. He wasn't expected to make the back of me, for that was against the page of the book."

"But it makes you look so funny!" said Jane Gladys, laughing until her eyes were moist with tears.

The clown looked sulky and sat down upon a chair so she couldn't see his back.

"I'm not the only thing in the book," he remarked, crossly.

This reminded her to turn another page, and she had scarcely noted that it contained the picture of a monkey when the animal sprang from the book with a great crumpling of paper and landed upon the window seat beside her.

"He-he-he-he-he!" chattered the creature, springing to the girl's shoulder and then to the center table. "This is great fun! Now I can be a real monkey instead of a picture of one."

"Real monkeys can't talk," said Jane Gladys, reprovingly.

"How do you know? Have you ever been one yourself?" inquired the animal; and then he laughed loudly, and the clown laughed, too, as if he enjoyed the remark.

The girl was quite bewildered by this time. She thoughtlessly turned another leaf, and before she had time to look twice a gray donkey leaped from the book and stumbled from the window seat to the floor with a great clatter.

"You're clumsy enough, I'm sure!" said the child, indignantly, for the beast had nearly upset her.

"Clumsy! And why not?" demanded the donkey, with angry voice. "If the fool artist had drawn you out of perspective, as he did me, I guess you'd be clumsy yourself."

"What's wrong with you?" asked Jane Gladys.

"My front and rear legs on the left side are nearly six inches too short, that's what's the matter! If that artist didn't know how to draw properly why did he try to make a donkey at all?"

"I don't know," replied the child, seeing an answer was expected.

"I can hardly stand up," grumbled the donkey; "and the least little thing will topple me over."

"Don't mind that," said the monkey, making a spring at the chandelier and swinging from it by his tail until Jane Gladys feared he would knock all the globes off; "the same artist has made my ears as big as that clown's and everyone knows a monkey hasn't any ears to speak of -- much less to draw."

"He should be prosecuted," remarked the clown, gloomily. "I haven't any back."

Jane Gladys looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression upon her sweet face, and turned another page of the book.

Swift as a flash there sprang over her shoulder a tawney, spotted leopard, which landed upon the back of a big leather armchair and turned upon the others with a fierce movement.

The monkey climbed to the top of the chandelier and chattered with fright. The donkey tried to run and straightway tipped over on his left side. The clown grew paler than ever, but he sat still in his chair and gave a low whistle of surprise.

The leopard crouched upon the back of the chair, lashed his tail from side to side and glared at all of them, by turns, including Jane Gladys.

"Which of us are you going to attack first?" asked the donkey, trying hard to get upon his feet again.

"I can't attack any of you," snarled the leopard. "The artist made my mouth shut, so I haven't any teeth; and he forgot to make my claws. But I'm a frightful looking creature, nevertheless; am I not?"

"Oh, yes;" said the clown, indifferently. "I suppose you're frightful looking enough. But if you have no teeth nor claws we don't mind your looks at all."

This so annoyed the leopard that he growled horribly, and the monkey laughed at him.

Just then the book slipped from the girl's lap, and as she made a movement to catch it one of the pages near the back opened wide. She caught a glimpse of a fierce grizzly bear looking at her from the page, and quickly threw the book from her. It fell with a crash in the middle of the room, but beside it stood the great grizzly, who had wrenched himself from the page before the book closed.

"Now," cried the leopard from his perch, "you'd better look out for yourselves! You can't laugh at him as you did at me. The bear has both claws and teeth."

"Indeed I have," said the bear, in a low, deep, growling voice. "And I know how to use them, too. If you read in that book you'll find I'm described as a horrible, cruel and remorseless grizzly, whose only business in life is to eat up little girls -- shoes, dresses, ribbons and all! And then, the author says, I smack my lips and glory in my wickedness."

"That's awful!" said the donkey, sitting upon his haunches and shaking his head sadly. "What do you suppose possessed the author to make you so hungry for girls? Do you eat animals, also?"

"The author does not mention my eating anything but little girls," replied the bear.

"Very good," remarked the clown, drawing a long breath of relief. "you may begin eating Jane Gladys as soon as you wish. She laughed because I had no back."

"And she laughed because my legs are out of perspective," brayed the donkey.

"But you also deserve to be eaten," screamed the leopard from the back of the leather chair; "for you laughed and poked fun at me because I had no claws nor teeth! Don't you suppose Mr. Grizzly, you could manage to eat a clown, a donkey and a monkey after you finish the girl?"

"Perhaps so, and a leopard into the bargain," growled the bear. "It will depend on how hungry I am. But I must begin on the little girl first, because the author says I prefer girls to anything."

Jane Gladys was much frightened on hearing this conversation, and she began to realize what the man meant when he said he gave her the book to be revenged. Surely papa would be sorry he hadn't bought the "Complete Works of Peter Smith" when he came home and found his little girl eaten up by a grizzly bear -- shoes, dress, ribbons and all!

The bear stood up and balanced himself on his rear legs.

"This is the way I look in the book," he said. "Now watch me eat the little girl."

He advanced slowly toward Jane Gladys, and the monkey, the leopard, the donkey and the clown all stood around in a circle and watched the bear with much interest.

But before the grizzly reached her the child had a sudden thought, and cried out:

"Stop! You mustn't eat me. It would be wrong."

"Why?" asked the bear, in surprise.

"Because I own you. You're my private property," she answered.

"I don't see how you make that out," said the bear, in a disappointed tone.

"Why, the book was given to me; my name's on the front leaf. And you belong, by rights, in the book. So you mustn't dare to eat your owner!"

The Grizzly hesitated.

"Can any of you read?" he asked.

"I can," said the clown.

"Then see if she speaks the truth. Is her name really in the book?"

The clown picked it up and looked at the name.

"It is," said he. "'Jane Gladys Brown;' and written quite plainly in big letters."

The bear sighed.

"Then, of course, I can't eat her," he decided. "That author is as disappointing as most authors are."

"But he's not as bad as the artist," exclaimed the donkey, who was still trying to stand up straight.

"The fault lies with yourselves," said Jane Gladys, severely. "Why didn't you stay in the book, where you were put?"

The animals looked at each other in a foolish way, and the clown blushed under his white paint.

"Really -- " began the bear, and then he stopped short.

The door bell rang loudly.

"It's mamma!" cried Jane Gladys, springing to her feet. "She's come home at last. Now, you stupid creatures -- "

But she was interrupted by them all making a rush for the book. There was a swish and a whirr and a rustling of leaves, and an instant later the book lay upon the floor looking just like any other book, while Jane Gladys' strange companions had all disappeared.

* * * * *

This story should teach us to think quickly and clearly upon all occasions; for had Jane Gladys not remembered that she owned the bear he probably would have eaten her before the bell rang.



The Enchanted Types


One time a knook became tired of his beautiful life and longed for something new to do. The knooks have more wonderful powers than any other immortal folk -- except, perhaps, the fairies and ryls. So one would suppose that a knook who might gain anything he desired by a simple wish could not be otherwise than happy and contented. But such was not the case with Popopo, the knook we are speaking of. He had lived thousands of years, and had enjoyed all the wonders he could think of. Yet life had become as tedious to him now as it might be to one who was unable to gratify a single wish.

Finally, by chance, Popopo thought of the earth people who dwell in cities, and so he resolved to visit them and see how they lived. This would surely be fine amusement, and serve to pass away many wearisome hours.

Therefore one morning, after a breakfast so dainty that you could scarcely imagine it, Popopo set out for the earth and at once was in the midst of a big city.

His own dwelling was so quiet and peaceful that the roaring noise of the town startled him. His nerves were so shocked that before he had looked around three minutes he decided to give up the adventure, and instantly returned home.

This satisfied for a time his desire to visit the earth cities, but soon the monotony of his existence again made him restless and gave him another thought. At night the people slept and the cities would be quiet. He would visit them at night.

So at the proper time Popopo transported himself in a jiffy to a great city, where he began wandering about the streets. Everyone was in bed. No wagons rattled along the pavements; no throngs of busy men shouted and halloaed. Even the policemen slumbered slyly and there happened to be no prowling thieves abroad.

His nerves being soothed by the stillness, Popopo began to enjoy himself. He entered many of the houses and examined their rooms with much curiosity. Locks and bolts made no difference to a knook, and he saw as well in darkness as in daylight.

After a time he strolled into the business portion of the city. Stores are unknown among the immortals, who have no need of money or of barter and exchange; so Popopo was greatly interested by the novel sight of so many collections of goods and merchandise.

During his wanderings he entered a millinery shop, and was surprised to see within a large glass case a great number of women's hats, each bearing in one position or another a stuffed bird. Indeed, some of the most elaborate hats had two or three birds upon them.

Now knooks are the especial guardians of birds, and love them dearly. To see so many of his little friends shut up in a glass case annoyed and grieved Popopo, who had no idea they had purposely been placed upon the hats by the milliner. So he slid back one of the doors of the case, gave the little chirruping whistle of the knooks that all birds know well, and called:

"Come, friends; the door is open -- fly out!"

Popopo did not know the birds were stuffed; but, stuffed or not, every bird is bound to obey a knook's whistle and a knook's call. So they left the hats, flew out of the case and began fluttering about the room.

"Poor dears!" said the kind-hearted knook, "you long to be in the fields and forests again."

Then he opened the outer door for them and cried: "Off with you! Fly away, my beauties, and be happy again."

The astonished birds at once obeyed, and when they had soared away into the night air the knook closed the door and continued his wandering through the streets.

By dawn he saw many interesting sights, but day broke before he had finished the city, and he resolved to come the next evening a few hours earlier.

As soon as it was dark the following day he came again to the city and on passing the millinery shop noticed a light within. Entering he found two women, one of whom leaned her head upon the table and sobbed bitterly, while the other strove to comfort her.

Of course Popopo was invisible to mortal eyes, so he stood by and listened to their conversation.

"Cheer up, sister," said one. "Even though your pretty birds have all been stolen the hats themselves remain."

"Alas!" cried the other, who was the milliner, "no one will buy my hats partly trimmed, for the fashion is to wear birds upon them. And if I cannot sell my goods I shall be utterly ruined."

Then she renewed her sobbing and the knook stole away, feeling a little ashamed to realized that in his love for the birds he had unconsciously wronged one of the earth people and made her unhappy.

This thought brought him back to the millinery shop later in the night, when the two women had gone home. He wanted, in some way, to replace the birds upon the hats, that the poor woman might be happy again. So he searched until he came upon a nearby cellar full of little gray mice, who lived quite undisturbed and gained a livelihood by gnawing through the walls into neighboring houses and stealing food from the pantries.

"Here are just the creatures," thought Popopo, "to place upon the woman's hats. Their fur is almost as soft as the plumage of the birds, and it strikes me the mice are remarkably pretty and graceful animals. Moreover, they now pass their lives in stealing, and were they obliged to remain always upon women's hats their morals would be much improved."

So he exercised a charm that drew all the mice from the cellar and placed them upon the hats in the glass case, where they occupied the places the birds had vacated and looked very becoming -- at least, in the eyes of the unworldly knook. To prevent their running about and leaving the hats Popopo rendered them motionless, and then he was so pleased with his work that he decided to remain in the shop and witness the delight of the milliner when she saw how daintily her hats were now trimmed.

She came in the early morning, accompanied by her sister, and her face wore a sad and resigned expression. After sweeping and dusting the shop and drawing the blinds she opened the glass case and took out a hat.

But when she saw a tiny gray mouse nestling among the ribbons and laces she gave a loud shriek, and, dropping the hat, sprang with one bound to the top of the table. The sister, knowing the shriek to be one of fear, leaped upon a chair and exclaimed:

"What is it? Oh! what is it?"

"A mouse!" gasped the milliner, trembling with terror.

Popopo, seeing this commotion, now realized that mice are especially disagreeable to human beings, and that he had made a grave mistake in placing them upon the hats; so he gave a low whistle of command that was heard only by the mice.

Instantly they all jumped from the hats, dashed out the open door of the glass case and scampered away to their cellar. But this action so frightened the milliner and her sister that after giving several loud screams they fell upon their backs on the floor and fainted away.

Popopo was a kind-hearted knook, but on witnessing all this misery, caused by his own ignorance of the ways of humans, he straightway wished himself at home, and so left the poor women to recover as best they could.

Yet he could not escape a sad feeling of responsibility, and after thinking upon the matter he decided that since he had caused the milliner's unhappiness by freeing the birds, he could set the matter right by restoring them to the glass case. He loved the birds, and disliked to condemn them to slavery again; but that seemed the only way to end the trouble.

So he set off to find the birds. They had flown a long distance, but it was nothing to Popopo to reach them in a second, and he discovered them sitting upon the branches of a big chestnut tree and singing gayly.

When they saw the knook the birds cried:

"Thank you, Popopo. Thank you for setting us free."

"Do not thank me," returned the knook, "for I have come to send you back to the millinery shop."

"Why?" demanded a blue jay, angrily, while the others stopped their songs.

"Because I find the woman considers you her property, and your loss has caused her much unhappiness," answered Popopo.

"But remember how unhappy we were in her glass case," said a robin redbreast, gravely. "And as for being her property, you are a knook, and the natural guardian of all birds; so you know that Nature created us free. To be sure, wicked men shot and stuffed us, and sold us to the milliner; but the idea of our being her property is nonsense!"

Popopo was puzzled.

"If I leave you free," he said, "wicked men will shoot you again, and you will be no better off than before."

"Pooh!" exclaimed the blue jay, "we cannot be shot now, for we are stuffed. Indeed, two men fired several shots at us this morning, but the bullets only ruffled our feathers and buried themselves in our stuffing. We do not fear men now."

"Listen!" said Popopo, sternly, for he felt the birds were getting the best of the argument; "the poor milliner's business will be ruined if I do not return you to her shop. It seems you are necessary to trim the hats properly. It is the fashion for women to wear birds upon their headgear. So the poor milliner's wares, although beautified by lace and ribbons, are worthless unless you are perched upon them."

"Fashions," said a black bird, solemnly, "are made by men. What law is there, among birds or knooks, that requires us to be the slaves of fashion?"

"What have we to do with fashions, anyway?" screamed a linnet. "If it were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women's hats would you be contented to stay there? Answer me, Popopo!"

But Popopo was in despair. He could not wrong the birds by sending them back to the milliner, nor did he wish the milliner to suffer by their loss. So he went home to think what could be done.

After much meditation he decided to consult the king of the knooks, and going at once to his majesty he told him the whole story.

The king frowned.

"This should teach you the folly of interfering with earth people," he said. "But since you have caused all this trouble, it is your duty to remedy it. Our birds cannot be enslaved, that is certain; therefore you must have the fashions changed, so it will no longer be stylish for women to wear birds upon their hats."

"How shall I do that?" asked Popopo.

"Easily enough. Fashions often change among the earth people, who tire quickly of any one thing. When they read in their newspapers and magazines that the style is so-and-so, they never question the matter, but at once obey the mandate of fashion. So you must visit the newspapers and magazines and enchant the types."

"Enchant the types!" echoed Popopo, in wonder.

"Just so. Make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wear birds upon hats. That will afford relief to your poor milliner and at the same time set free thousands of our darling birds who have been so cruelly used."

Popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice.

The office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited by the knook, and then he went to other cities, until there was not a publication in the land that had not a "new fashion note" in its pages. Sometimes Popopo enchanted the types, so that whoever read the print would see only what the knook wished them to. Sometimes he called upon the busy editors and befuddled their brains until they wrote exactly what he wanted them to. Mortals seldom know how greatly they are influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who often put thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortals could have conceived.

The following morning when the poor milliner looked over her newspaper she was overjoyed to read that "no woman could now wear a bird upon her hat and be in style, for the newest fashion required only ribbons and laces."

Popopo after this found much enjoyment in visiting every millinery shop he could find and giving new life to the stuffed birds which were carelessly tossed aside as useless. And they flew to the fields and forests with songs of thanks to the good knook who had rescued them.

Sometimes a hunter fires his gun at a bird and then wonders why he did not hit it. But, having read this story, you will understand that the bird must have been a stuffed one from some millinery shop, which cannot, of course, be killed by a gun.



The Laughing Hippopotamus


On one of the upper branches of the Congo river lived an ancient and aristocratic family of hippopotamuses, which boasted a pedigree dating back beyond the days of Noah -- beyond the existence of mankind -- far into the dim ages when the world was new.

They had always lived upon the banks of this same river, so that every curve and sweep of its waters, every pit and shallow of its bed, every rock and stump and wallow upon its bank was as familiar to them as their own mothers. And they are living there yet, I suppose.

Not long ago the queen of this tribe of hippopotamuses had a child which she named Keo, because it was so fat and round. Still, that you may not be misled, I will say that in the hippopotamus language "Keo," properly translated, means "fat and lazy" instead of fat and round. However, no one called the queen's attention to this error, because her tusks were monstrous long and sharp, and she thought Keo the sweetest baby in the world.

He was, indeed, all right for a hippopotamus. He rolled and played in the soft mud of the river bank, and waddled inland to nibble the leaves of the wild cabbage that grew there, and was happy and contented from morning till night. And he was the jolliest hippopotamus that ancient family had ever known. His little red eyes were forever twinkling with fun, and he laughed his merry laugh on all occasions, whether there was anything to laugh at or not.

Therefore the black people who dwelt in that region called him "Ippi" -- the jolly one, although they dared not come anigh him on account of his fierce mother, and his equally fierce uncles and aunts and cousins, who lived in a vast colony upon the river bank.

And while these black people, who lived in little villages scattered among the trees, dared not openly attack the royal family of hippopotamuses, they were amazingly fond of eating hippopotamus meat whenever they could get it. This was no secret to the hippopotamuses. And, again, when the blacks managed to catch these animals alive, they had a trick of riding them through the jungles as if they were horses, thus reducing them to a condition of slavery.

Therefore, having these things in mind, whenever the tribe of hippopotamuses smelled the oily odor of black people they were accustomed to charge upon them furiously, and if by chance they overtook one of the enemy they would rip him with their sharp tusks or stamp him into the earth with their huge feet.

It was continual warfare between the hippopotamuses and the black people.

Gouie lived in one of the little villages of the blacks. He was the son of the chief's brother and grandson of the village sorcerer, the latter being an aged man known as the "the boneless wonder," because he could twist himself into as many coils as a serpent and had no bones to hinder his bending his flesh into any position. This made him walk in a wabbly fashion, but the black people had great respect for him.

Gouie's hut was made of branches of trees stuck together with mud, and his clothing consisted of a grass mat tied around his middle. But his relationship to the chief and the sorcerer gave him a certain dignity, and he was much addicted to solitary thought. Perhaps it was natural that these thoughts frequently turned upon his enemies, the hippopotamuses, and that he should consider many ways of capturing them.

Finally he completed his plans, and set about digging a great pit in the ground, midway between two sharp curves of the river. When the pit was finished he covered it over with small branches of trees, and strewed earth upon them, smoothing the surface so artfully that no one would suspect there was a big hole underneath. Then Gouie laughed softly to himself and went home to supper.

That evening the queen said to Keo, who was growing to be a fine child for his age:

"I wish you'd run across the bend and ask your Uncle Nikki to come here. I have found a strange plant, and want him to tell me if it is good to eat."

The jolly one laughed heartily as he started upon his errand, for he felt as important as a boy does when he is sent for the first time to the corner grocery to buy a yeast cake.

"Guk-uk-uk-uk! guk-uk-uk-uk!" was the way he laughed; and if you think a hippopotamus does not laugh this way you have but to listen to one and you will find I am right.

He crawled out of the mud where he was wallowing and tramped away through the bushes, and the last his mother heard as she lay half in and half out of the water was his musical "guk-uk-uk-uk!" dying away in the distance.

Keo was in such a happy mood that he scarcely noticed where he stepped, so he was much surprised when, in the middle of a laugh, the ground gave way beneath him, and he fell to the bottom of Gouie's deep pit. He was not badly hurt, but had bumped his nose severely as he went down; so he stopped laughing and began to think how he should get out again. Then he found the walls were higher than his head, and that he was a prisoner.

So he laughed a little at his own misfortune, and the laughter soothed him to sleep, so that he snored all through the night until daylight came.

When Gouie peered over the edge of the pit next morning he exclaimed:

"Why, 'tis Ippi -- the Jolly One!"

Keo recognized the scent of a black man and tried to raise his head high enough to bite him. Seeing which Gouie spoke in the hippopotamus language, which he had learned from his grandfather, the sorcerer.

"Have peace, little one; you are my captive."

"Yes; I will have a piece of your leg, if I can reach it," retorted Keo; and then he laughed at his own joke: "Guk-uk-uk-uk!"

But Gouie, being a thoughtful black man, went away without further talk, and did not return until the following morning. When he again leaned over the pit Keo was so weak from hunger that he could hardly laugh at all.

"Do you give up?" asked Gouie, "or do you still wish to fight?"

"What will happen if I give up?" inquired Keo.

The black man scratched his woolly head in perplexity.

"It is hard to say, Ippi. You are too young to work, and if I kill you for food I shall lose your tusks, which are not yet grown. Why, O Jolly One, did you fall into my hole? I wanted to catch your mother or one of your uncles."

"Guk-uk-uk-uk!" laughed Keo. "You must let me go, after all, black man; for I am of no use to you!"

"That I will not do," declared Gouie; "unless," he added, as an afterthought, "you will make a bargain with me."

"Let me hear about the bargain, black one, for I am hungry," said Keo.

"I will let your go if you swear by the tusks of your grandfather that you will return to me in a year and a day and become my prisoner again."

The youthful hippopotamus paused to think, for he knew it was a solemn thing to swear by the tusks of his grandfather; but he was exceedingly hungry, and a year and a day seemed a long time off; so he said, with another careless laugh:

"Very well; if you will now let me go I swear by the tusks of my grandfather to return to you in a year and a day and become your prisoner."

Gouie was much pleased, for he knew that in a year and a day Keo would be almost full grown. So he began digging away one end of the pit and filling it up with the earth until he had made an incline which would allow the hippopotamus to climb out.

Keo was so pleased when he found himself upon the surface of the earth again that he indulged in a merry fit of laughter, after which he said:

"Good-by, Gouie; in a year and a day you will see me again."

Then he waddled away toward the river to see his mother and get his breakfast, and Gouie returned to his village.

During the months that followed, as the black man lay in his hut or hunted in the forest, he heard at times the faraway "Guk-uk-uk-uk!" of the laughing hippopotamus. But he only smiled to himself and thought: "A year and a day will soon pass away!"

Now when Keo returned to his mother safe and well every member of his tribe was filled with joy, for the Jolly One was a general favorite. But when he told them that in a year and a day he must again become the slave of the black man, they began to wail and weep, and so many were their tears that the river rose several inches.

Of course Keo only laughed at their sorrow; but a great meeting of the tribe was called and the matter discussed seriously.

"Having sworn by the tusks of his grandfather," said Uncle Nikki, "he must keep his promise. But it is our duty to try in some way to rescue him from death or a life of slavery."

To this all agreed, but no one could think of any method of saving Keo from his fate. So months passed away, during which all the royal hippopotamuses were sad and gloomy except the Jolly One himself.

Finally but a week of freedom remained to Keo, and his mother, the queen, became so nervous and worried that another meeting of the tribe was called. By this time the laughing hippopotamus had grown to enormous size, and measured nearly fifteen feet long and six feet high, while his sharp tusks were whiter and harder than those of an elephant.

"Unless something is done to save my child," said the mother, "I shall die of grief."

Then some of her relations began to make foolish suggestions; but presently Uncle Nep, a wise and very big hippopotamus, said:

"We must go to Glinkomok and implore his aid."

Then all were silent, for it was a bold thing to face the mighty Glinkomok. But the mother's love was equal to any heroism.

"I will myself go to him, if Uncle Nep will accompany me," she said, quickly.

Uncle Nep thoughtfully patted the soft mud with his fore foot and wagged his short tail leisurely from side to side.

"We have always been obedient to Glinkomok, and shown him great respect," said he. "Therefore I fear no danger in facing him. I will go with you."

All the others snorted approval, being very glad they were not called upon to go themselves.

So the queen and Uncle Nep, with Keo swimming between them, set out upon their journey. They swam up the river all that day and all the next, until they came at sundown to a high, rocky wall, beneath which was the cave where the might Glinkomok dwelt.

This fearful creature was part beast, part man, part fowl and part fish. It had lived since the world began. Through years of wisdom it had become part sorcerer, part wizard, part magician and part fairy. Mankind knew it not, but the ancient beasts knew and feared it.

The three hippopotamuses paused before the cave, with their front feet upon the bank and their bodies in the water, and called in chorus a greeting to Glinkomok. Instantly thereafter the mouth of the cave darkened and the creature glided silently toward them.

The hippopotamuses were afraid to look upon it, and bowed their heads between their legs.

"We come, O Glinkomok, to implore your mercy and friendly assistance!" began Uncle Nep; and then he told the story of Keo's capture, and how he had promised to return to the black man.

"He must keep his promise," said the creature, in a voice that sounded like a sigh.

The mother hippopotamus groaned aloud.

"But I will prepare him to overcome the black man, and to regain his liberty," continued Glinkomok.

Keo laughed.

"Lift your right paw," commanded Glinkomok. Keo obeyed, and the creature touched it with its long, hairy tongue. Then it held four skinny hands over Keo's bowed head and mumbled some words in a language unknown to man or beast or fowl or fish. After this it spoke again in hippopotamese:

"Your skin has now become so tough that no man can hurt you. Your strength is greater than that of ten elephants. Your foot is so swift that you can distance the wind. Your wit is sharper than the bulthorn. Let the man fear, but drive fear from your own breast forever; for of all your race you are the mightiest!"

Then the terrible Glinkomok leaned over, and Keo felt its fiery breath scorch him as it whispered some further instructions in his ear. The next moment it glided back into its cave, followed by the loud thanks of the three hippopotamuses, who slid into the water and immediately began their journey home.

The mother's heart was full of joy; Uncle Nep shivered once or twice as he remembered a glimpse he had caught of Glinkomok; but Keo was as jolly as possible, and, not content to swim with his dignified elders, he dived under their bodies, raced all around them and laughed merrily every inch of the way home.

Then all the tribe held high jinks and praised the mighty Glinkomok for befriending their queen's son. And when the day came for the Jolly One to give himself up to the black man they all kissed him good-by without a single fear for his safety.

Keo went away in good spirits, and they could hear his laughing "guk-uk-uk-uk!" long after he was lost in sight in the jungle.

Gouie had counted the days and knew when to expect Keo; but he was astonished at the monstrous size to which his captive had grown, and congratulated himself on the wise bargain he had made. And Keo was so fat that Gouie determined to eat him -- that is, all of him he possibly could, and the remainder of the carcass he would trade off to his fellow villagers.

So he took a knife and tried to stick it into the hippopotamus, but the skin was so tough the knife was blunted against it. Then he tried other means; but Keo remained unhurt.

And now indeed the Jolly One laughed his most gleeful laugh, till all the forest echoed the "guk-uk-uk-uk-uk!" And Gouie decided not to kill him, since that was impossible, but to use him for a beast of burden. He mounted upon Keo's back and commanded him to march. So Keo trotted briskly through the village, his little eyes twinkling with merriment.

The other blacks were delighted with Gouie's captive, and begged permission to ride upon the Jolly One's back. So Gouie bargained with them for bracelets and shell necklaces and little gold ornaments, until he had acquired quite a heap of trinkets. Then a dozen black men climbed upon Keo's back to enjoy a ride, and the one nearest his nose cried out:

"Run, Mud-dog -- run!"

And Keo ran. Swift as the wind he strode, away from the village, through the forest and straight up the river bank. The black men howled with fear; the Jolly One roared with laughter; and on, on, on they rushed!

Then before them, on the opposite side of the river, appeared the black mouth of Glinkomok's cave. Keo dashed into the water, dived to the bottom and left the black people struggling to swim out. But Glinkomok had heard the laughter of Keo and knew what to do. When the Jolly One rose to the surface and blew the water from his throat there was no black man to be seen.

Keo returned alone to the village, and Gouie asked, with surprise:

"Where are my brothers:"

"I do not know," answered Keo. "I took them far away, and they remained where I left them."

Gouie would have asked more questions then, but another crowd of black men impatiently waited to ride on the back of the laughing hippopotamus. So they paid the price and climbed to their seats, after which the foremost said:

"Run, mud-wallower -- run!"

And Keo ran as before and carried them to the mouth of Glinkomok's cave, and returned alone.

But now Gouie became anxious to know the fate of his fellows, for he was the only black man left in his village. So he mounted the hippopotamus and cried:

"Run, river-hog -- run!"

Keo laughed his jolly "guk-uk-uk-uk!" and ran with the speed of the wind. But this time he made straight for the river bank where his own tribe lived, and when he reached it he waded into the river, dived to the bottom and left Gouie floating in the middle of the stream.

The black man began swimming toward the right bank, but there he saw Uncle Nep and half the royal tribe waiting to stamp him into the soft mud. So he turned toward the left bank, and there stood the queen mother and Uncle Nikki, red-eyed and angry, waiting to tear him with their tusks.

Then Gouie uttered loud screams of terror, and, spying the Jolly One, who swam near him, he cried:

"Save me, Keo! Save me, and I will release you from slavery!"

"That is not enough," laughed Keo.

"I will serve you all my life!" screamed Gouie; "I will do everything you bid me!"

"Will you return to me in a year and a day and become my captive, if I allow you to escape?" asked Keo.

"I will! I will! I will!" cried Gouie.

"Swear it by the bones of your grandfather!" commanded Keo, remembering that black men have no tusks to swear by.

And Gouie swore it by the bones of his grandfather.

Then Keo swam to the black one, who clambered upon his back again. In this fashion they came to the bank, where Keo told his mother and all the tribe of the bargain he had made with Gouie, who was to return in a year and a day and become his slave.

Therefore the black man was permitted to depart in peace, and once more the Jolly One lived with his own people and was happy.

When a year and a day had passed Keo began watching for the return of Gouie; but he did not come, then or ever afterwards.

For the black man had made a bundle of his bracelets and shell necklaces and little gold ornaments and had traveled many miles into another country, where the ancient and royal tribe of hippopotamuses was unknown. And he set up for a great chief, because of his riches, and people bowed down before him.

By day he was proud and swaggering. But at night he tumbled and tossed upon his bed and could not sleep. His conscience troubled him.

For he had sworn by the bones of his grandfather; and his grandfather had no bones.



The Magic Bon Bons


There lived in Boston a wise and ancient chemist by the name of Dr. Daws, who dabbled somewhat in magic. There also lived in Boston a young lady by the name of Claribel Sudds, who was possessed of much money, little wit and an intense desire to go upon the stage.

So Claribel went to Dr. Daws and said:

"I can neither sing nor dance; I cannot recite verse nor play upon the piano; I am no acrobat nor leaper nor high kicker; yet I wish to go upon the stage. What shall I do?"

"Are you willing to pay for such accomplishments?" asked the wise chemist.

"Certainly," answered Claribel, jingling her purse.

"Then come to me to-morrow at two o'clock," said he.

All that night he practiced what is known as chemical sorcery; so that when Claribel Sudds came next day at two o'clock he showed her a small box filled with compounds that closely resembled French bonbons.

"This is a progressive age," said the old man, "and I flatter myself your Uncle Daws keeps right along with the procession. Now, one of your old-fashioned sorcerers would have made you some nasty, bitter pills to swallow; but I have consulted your taste and convenience. Here are some magic bonbons. If you eat this one with the lavender color you can dance thereafter as lightly and gracefully as if you had been trained a lifetime. After you consume the pink confection you will sing like a nightingale. Eating the white one will enable you to become the finest elocutionist in the land. The chocolate piece will charm you into playing the piano better than Rubenstein, while after eating you lemon-yellow bonbon you can easily kick six feet above your head."

"How delightful!" exclaimed Claribel, who was truly enraptured. "You are certainly a most clever sorcerer as well as a considerate compounder," and she held out her hand for the box.

"Ahem!" said the wise one; "a check, please."

"Oh, yes; to be sure! How stupid of me to forget it," she returned.

He considerately retained the box in his own hand while she signed a check for a large amount of money, after which he allowed her to hold the box herself.

"Are you sure you have made them strong enough?" she inquired, anxiously; "it usually takes a great deal to affect me."

"My only fear," replied Dr. Daws, "is that I have made them too strong. For this is the first time I have ever been called upon to prepare these wonderful confections."

"Don't worry," said Claribel; "the stronger they act the better I shall act myself."

She went away, after saying this, but stopping in at a dry goods store to shop, she forgot the precious box in her new interest and left it lying on the ribbon counter.

Then little Bessie Bostwick came to the counter to buy a hair ribbon and laid her parcels beside the box. When she went away she gathered up the box with her other bundles and trotted off home with it.

Bessie never knew, until after she had hung her coat in the hall closet and counted up her parcels, that she had one too many. Then she opened it and exclaimed:

"Why, it's a box of candy! Someone must have mislaid it. But it is too small a matter to worry about; there are only a few pieces." So she dumped the contents of the box into a bonbon dish that stood upon the hall table and picking out the chocolate piece -- she was fond of chocolates -- ate it daintily while she examined her purchases.

These were not many, for Bessie was only twelve years old and was not yet trusted by her parents to expend much money at the stores. But while she tried on the hair ribbon she suddenly felt a great desire to play upon the piano, and the desire at last became so overpowering that she went into the parlor and opened the instrument.

The little girl had, with infinite pains, contrived to learn two "pieces" which she usually executed with a jerky movement of her right hand and a left hand that forgot to keep up and so made dreadful discords. But under the influence of the chocolate bonbon she sat down and ran her fingers lightly over the keys producing such exquisite harmony that she was filled with amazement at her own performance.

That was the prelude, however. The next moment she dashed into Beethoven's seventh sonata and played it magnificently.

Her mother, hearing the unusual burst of melody, came downstairs to see what musical guest had arrived; but when she discovered it was her own little daughter who was playing so divinely she had an attack of palpitation of the heart (to which she was subject) and sat down upon a sofa until it should pass away.

Meanwhile Bessie played one piece after another with untiring energy. She loved music, and now found that all she need do was to sit at the piano and listen and watch her hands twinkle over the keyboard.

Twilight deepened in the room and Bessie's father came home and hung up his hat and overcoat and placed his umbrella in the rack. Then he peeped into the parlor to see who was playing.

"Great Caesar!" he exclaimed. But the mother came to him softly with her finger on her lips and whispered: "Don't interrupt her, John. Our child seems to be in a trance. Did you ever hear such superb music?"

"Why, she's an infant prodigy!" gasped the astounded father. "Beats Blind Tom all hollow! It's -- it's wonderful!"

As they stood listening the senator arrived, having been invited to dine with them that evening. And before he had taken off his coat the Yale professor -- a man of deep learning and scholarly attainments -- joined the party.

Bessie played on; and the four elders stood in a huddled but silent and amazed group, listening to the music and waiting for the sound of the dinner gong.

Mr. Bostwick, who was hungry, picked up the bonbon dish that lay on the table beside him and ate the pink confection. The professor was watching him, so Mr. Bostwick courteously held the dish toward him. The professor ate the lemon-yellow piece and the senator reached out his hand and took the lavender piece. He did not eat it, however, for, chancing to remember that it might spoil his dinner, he put it in his vest pocket. Mrs. Bostwick, still intently listening to her precocious daughter, without thinking what she did, took the remaining piece, which was the white one, and slowly devoured it.

The dish was now empty, and Claribel Sudds' precious bonbons had passed from her possession forever!

Suddenly Mr. Bostwick, who was a big man, began to sing in a shrill, tremolo soprano voice. It was not the same song Bessie was playing, and the discord was shocking that the professor smiled, the senator put his hands to his ears and Mrs. Bostwick cried in a horrified voice:

"William!"

Her husband continued to sing as if endeavoring to emulate the famous Christine Nillson, and paid no attention whatever to his wife or his guests.

Fortunately the dinner gong now sounded, and Mrs. Bostwick dragged Bessie from the piano and ushered her guests into the dining-room. Mr. Bostwick followed, singing "The Last Rose of Summer" as if it had been an encore demanded by a thousand delighted hearers.

The poor woman was in despair at witnessing her husband's undignified actions and wondered what she might do to control him. The professor seemed more grave than usual; the senator's face wore an offended expression, and Bessie kept moving her fingers as if she still wanted to play the piano.

Mrs. Bostwick managed to get them all seated, although her husband had broken into another aria; and then the maid brought in the soup.

When she carried a plate to the professor, he cried, in an excited voice:

"Hold it higher! Higher -- I say!" And springing up he gave it a sudden kick that sent it nearly to the ceiling, from whence the dish descended to scatter soup over Bessie and the maid and to smash in pieces upon the crown of the professor's bald head.

At this atrocious act the senator rose from his seat with an exclamation of horror and glanced at his hostess.

For some time Mrs. Bostwick had been staring straight ahead, with a dazed expression; but now, catching the senator's eye, she bowed gracefully and began reciting "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in forceful tones.

The senator shuddered. Such disgraceful rioting he had never seen nor heard before in a decent private family. He felt that his reputation was at stake, and, being the only sane person, apparently, in the room, there was no one to whom he might appeal.

The maid had run away to cry hysterically in the kitchen; Mr. Bostwick was singing "O Promise Me;" the professor was trying to kick the globes off the chandelier; Mrs. Bostwick had switched her recitation to "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck," and Bessie had stolen into the parlor and was pounding out the overture from the "Flying Dutchman."

The senator was not at all sure he would not go crazy himself, presently; so he slipped away from the turmoil, and, catching up his had and coat in the hall, hurried from the house.

That night he sat up late writing a political speech he was to deliver the next afternoon at Faneuil hall, but his experiences at the Bostwicks' had so unnerved him that he could scarcely collect his thoughts, and often he would pause and shake his head pityingly as he remembered the strange things he had seen in that usually respectable home.

The next day he met Mr. Bostwick in the street, but passed him by with a stony glare of oblivion. He felt he really could not afford to know this gentleman in the future. Mr. Bostwick was naturally indignant at the direct snub; yet in his mind lingered a faint memory of some quite unusual occurrences at his dinner party the evening before, and he hardly knew whether he dared resent the senator's treatment or not.

The political meeting was the feature of the day, for the senator's eloquence was well known in Boston. So the big hall was crowded with people, and in one of the front rows sat the Bostwick family, with the learned Yale professor beside them. They all looked tired and pale, as if they had passed a rather dissipated evening, and the senator was rendered so nervous by seeing them that he refused to look in their direction a second time.

While the mayor was introducing him the great man sat fidgeting in his chair; and, happening to put his thumb and finger into his vest pocket, he found the lavender-colored bonbon he had placed there the evening before.

"This may clear my throat," thought the senator, and slipped the bonbon into his mouth.

A few minutes afterwards he arose before the vast audience, which greeted him with enthusiastic plaudits.

"My friends," began the senator, in a grave voice, "this is a most impressive and important occasion."

Then he paused, balanced himself upon his left foot, and kicked his right leg into the air in the way favored by ballet-dancers!

There was a hum of amazement and horror from the spectators, but the senator appeared not to notice it. He whirled around upon the tips of his toes, kicked right and left in a graceful manner, and startled a bald-headed man in the front row by casting a languishing glance in his direction.

Suddenly Claribel Sudds, who happened to be present, uttered a scream and sprang to her feet. Pointing an accusing finger at the dancing senator, she cried in a loud voice:

"That's the man who stole my bonbons! Seize him! Arrest him! Don't let him escape!"

But the ushers rushed her out of the hall, thinking she had gone suddenly insane; and the senator's friends seized him firmly and carried him out the stage entrance to the street, where they put him into an open carriage and instructed the driver to take him home.

The effect of the magic bonbon was still powerful enough to control the poor senator, who stood upon the rear seat of the carriage and danced energetically all the way home, to the delight of the crowd of small boys who followed the carriage and the grief of the sober-minded citizens, who shook their heads sadly and whispered that "another good man had gone wrong."

It took the senator several months to recover from the shame and humiliation of this escapade; and, curiously enough, he never had the slightest idea what had induced him to act in so extraordinary a manner. Perhaps it was fortunate the last bonbon had now been eaten, for they might easily have caused considerably more trouble than they did.

Of course Claribel went again to the wise chemist and signed a check for another box of magic bonbons; but she must have taken better care of these, for she is now a famous vaudeville actress.

* * * * *

This story should teach us the folly of condemning others for actions that we do not understand, for we never know what may happen to ourselves. It may also serve as a hint to be careful about leaving parcels in public places, and, incidentally, to let other people's packages severely alone.



The Capture Of Father Time


Jim was the son of a cowboy, and lived on the broad plains of Arizona. His father had trained him to lasso a bronco or a young bull with perfect accuracy, and had Jim possessed the strength to back up his skill he would have been as good a cowboy as any in all Arizona.

When he was twelve years old he made his first visit to the east, where Uncle Charles, his father's brother, lived. Of course Jim took his lasso with him, for he was proud of his skill in casting it, and wanted to show his cousins what a cowboy could do.

At first the city boys and girls were much interested in watching Jim lasso posts and fence pickets, but they soon tired of it, and even Jim decided it was not the right sort of sport for cities.

But one day the butcher asked Jim to ride one of his horses into the country, to a pasture that had been engaged, and Jim eagerly consented. He had been longing for a horseback ride, and to make it seem like old times he took his lasso with him.

He rode through the streets demurely enough, but on reaching the open country roads his spirits broke forth into wild jubilation, and, urging the butcher's horse to full gallop, he dashed away in true cowboy fashion.

Then he wanted still more liberty, and letting down the bars that led into a big field he began riding over the meadow and throwing his lasso at imaginary cattle, while he yelled and whooped to his heart's content.

Suddenly, on making a long cast with his lasso, the loop caught upon something and rested about three feet from the ground, while the rope drew taut and nearly pulled Jim from his horse.

This was unexpected. More than that, it was wonderful; for the field seemed bare of even a stump. Jim's eyes grew big with amazement, but he knew he had caught something when a voice cried out:

"Here, let go! Let go, I say! Can't you see what you've done?"

No, Jim couldn't see, nor did he intend to let go until he found out what was holding the loop of the lasso. So he resorted to an old trick his father had taught him and, putting the butcher's horse to a run, began riding in a circle around the spot where his lasso had caught.

As he thus drew nearer and nearer his quarry he saw the rope coil up, yet it looked to be coiling over nothing but air. One end of the lasso was made fast to a ring in the saddle, and when the rope was almost wound up and the horse began to pull away and snort with fear, Jim dismounted. Holding the reins of the bridle in one hand, he followed the rope, and an instant later saw an old man caught fast in the coils of the lasso.

His head was bald and uncovered, but long white whiskers grew down to his waist. About his body was thrown a loose robe of fine white linen. In one hand he bore a great scythe, and beneath the other arm he carried an hourglass.

While Jim gazed wonderingly upon him, this venerable old man spoke in an angry voice:

"Now, then -- get that rope off as fast as you can! You've brought everything on earth to a standstill by your foolishness! Well -- what are you staring at? Don't you know who I am?"

"No," said Jim, stupidly.

"Well, I'm Time -- Father Time! Now, make haste and set me free -- if you want the world to run properly."

"How did I happen to catch you?" asked Jim, without making a move to release his captive.

"I don't know. I've never been caught before," growled Father Time. "But I suppose it was because you were foolishly throwing your lasso at nothing."

"I didn't see you," said Jim.

"Of course you didn't. I'm invisible to the eyes of human beings unless they get within three feet of me, and I take care to keep more than that distance away from them. That's why I was crossing this field, where I supposed no one would be. And I should have been perfectly safe had it not been for your beastly lasso. Now, then," he added, crossly, "are you going to get that rope off?"

"Why should I?" asked Jim.

"Because everything in the world stopped moving the moment you caught me. I don't suppose you want to make an end of all business and pleasure, and war and love, and misery and ambition and everything else, do you? Not a watch has ticked since you tied me up here like a mummy!"

Jim laughed. It really was funny to see the old man wound round and round with coils of rope from his knees up to his chin.

"It'll do you good to rest," said the boy. "From all I've heard you lead a rather busy life."

"Indeed I do," replied Father Time, with a sigh. "I'm due in Kamchatka this very minute. And to think one small boy is upsetting all my regular habits!"

"Too bad!" said Jim, with a grin. "But since the world has stopped anyhow, it won't matter if it takes a little longer recess. As soon as I let you go Time will fly again. Where are your wings?"

"I haven't any," answered the old man. "That is a story cooked up by some one who never saw me. As a matter of fact, I move rather slowly."

"I see, you take your time," remarked the boy. "What do you use that scythe for?"

"To mow down the people," said the ancient one. "Every time I swing my scythe some one dies."

"Then I ought to win a life-saving medal by keeping you tied up," said Jim. "Some folks will live this much longer."

"But they won't know it," said Father Time, with a sad smile; "so it will do them no good. You may as well untie me at once."

"No," said Jim, with a determined air. "I may never capture you again; so I'll hold you for awhile and see how the world wags without you."

Then he swung the old man, bound as he was, upon the back of the butcher's horse, and, getting into the saddle himself, started back toward town, one hand holding his prisoner and the other guiding the reins.

When he reached the road his eye fell on a strange tableau. A horse and buggy stood in the middle of the road, the horse in the act of trotting, with his head held high and two legs in the air, but perfectly motionless. In the buggy a man and a woman were seated; but had they been turned into stone they could not have been more still and stiff.

"There's no Time for them!" sighed the old man. "Won't you let me go now?"

"Not yet," replied the boy.

He rode on until he reached the city, where all the people stood in exactly the same positions they were in when Jim lassoed Father Time. Stopping in front of a big dry goods store, the boy hitched his horse and went in. The clerks were measuring out goods and showing patterns to the rows of customers in front of them, but everyone seemed suddenly to have become a statue.

There was something very unpleasant in this scene, and a cold shiver began to run up and down Jim's back; so he hurried out again.

On the edge of the sidewalk sat a poor, crippled beggar, holding out his hat, and beside him stood a prosperous-looking gentleman who was about to drop a penny into the beggar's hat. Jim knew this gentleman to be very rich but rather stingy, so he ventured to run his hand into the man's pocket and take out his purse, in which was a $20 gold piece. This glittering coin he put in the gentleman's fingers instead of the penny and then restored the purse to the rich man's pocket.

"That donation will surprise him when he comes to life," thought the boy.

He mounted the horse again and rode up the street. As he passed the shop of his friend, the butcher, he noticed several pieces of meat hanging outside.

"I'm afraid that meat'll spoil," he remarked.

"It takes Time to spoil meat," answered the old man.

This struck Jim as being queer, but true.

"It seems Time meddles with everything," said he.

"Yes; you've made a prisoner of the most important personage in the world," groaned the old man; "and you haven't enough sense to let him go again."

Jim did not reply, and soon they came to his uncle's house, where he again dismounted. The street was filled with teams and people, but all were motionless. His two little cousins were just coming out the gate on their way to school, with their books and slates underneath their arms; so Jim had to jump over the fence to avoid knocking them down.

In the front room sat his aunt, reading her Bible. She was just turning a page when Time stopped. In the dining-room was his uncle, finishing his luncheon. His mouth was open and his fork poised just before it, while his eyes were fixed upon the newspaper folded beside him. Jim helped himself to his uncle's pie, and while he ate it he walked out to his prisoner.

"There's one thing I don't understand," said he.

"What's that?" asked Father Time.

"Why is it that I'm able to move around while everyone else is -- is -- froze up?"

"That is because I'm your prisoner," answered the other. "You can do anything you wish with Time now. But unless you are careful you'll do something you will be sorry for."

Jim threw the crust of his pie at a bird that was suspended in the air, where it had been flying when Time stopped.

"Anyway," he laughed, "I'm living longer than anyone else. No one will ever be able to catch up with me again."

"Each life has its allotted span," said the old man. "When you have lived your proper time my scythe will mow you down."

"I forgot your scythe," said Jim, thoughtfully.

Then a spirit of mischief came into the boy's head, for he happened to think that the present opportunity to have fun would never occur again. He tied Father Time to his uncle's hitching post, that he might not escape, and then crossed the road to the corner grocery.

The grocer had scolded Jim that very morning for stepping into a basket of turnips by accident. So the boy went to the back end of the grocery and turned on the faucet of the molasses barrel.

"That'll make a nice mess when Time starts the molasses running all over the floor," said Jim, with a laugh.

A little further down the street was a barber shop, and sitting in the barber's chair Jim saw the man that all the boys declared was the "meanest man in town." He certainly did not like the boys and the boys knew it. The barber was in the act of shampooing this person when Time was captured. Jim ran to the drug store, and, getting a bottle of mucilage, he returned and poured it over the ruffled hair of the unpopular citizen.

"That'll probably surprise him when he wakes up," thought Jim.

Near by was the schoolhouse. Jim entered it and found that only a few of the pupils were assembled. But the teacher sat at his desk, stern and frowning as usual.

Taking a piece of chalk, Jim marked upon the blackboard in big letters the following words:

"Every scholar is requested to yell the minute he enters the room. He will also please throw his books at the teacher's head. Signed, Prof. Sharpe."

"That ought to raise a nice rumpus," murmured the mischiefmaker, as he walked away.

On the corner stood Policeman Mulligan, talking with old Miss Scrapple, the worst gossip in town, who always delighted in saying something disagreeable about her neighbors. Jim thought this opportunity was too good to lose. So he took off the policeman's cap and brass-buttoned coat and put them on Miss Scrapple, while the lady's feathered and ribboned hat he placed jauntily upon the policeman's head.

The effect was so comical that the boy laughed aloud, and as a good many people were standing near the corner Jim decided that Miss Scrapple and Officer Mulligan would create a sensation when Time started upon his travels.

Then the young cowboy remembered his prisoner, and, walking back to the hitching post, he came within three feet of it and saw Father Time still standing patiently within the toils of the lasso. He looked angry and annoyed, however, and growled out:

"Well, when do you intend to release me?"

"I've been thinking about that ugly scythe of yours," said Jim.

"What about it?" asked Father Time.

"Perhaps if I let you go you'll swing it at me the first thing, to be revenged," replied the boy.

Father Time gave him a severe look, but said:

"I've known boys for thousands of years, and of course I know they're mischievous and reckless. But I like boys, because they grow up to be men and people my world. Now, if a man had caught me by accident, as you did, I could have scared him into letting me go instantly; but boys are harder to scare. I don't know as I blame you. I was a boy myself, long ago, when the world was new. But surely you've had enough fun with me by this time, and now I hope you'll show the respect that is due to old age. Let me go, and in return I will promise to forget all about my capture. The incident won't do much harm, anyway, for no one will ever know that Time has halted the last three hours or so."

"All right," said Jim, cheerfully, "since you've promised not to mow me down, I'll let you go." But he had a notion some people in the town would suspect Time had stopped when they returned to life.

He carefully unwound the rope from the old man, who, when he was free, at once shouldered his scythe, rearranged his white robe and nodded farewell.

The next moment he had disappeared, and with a rustle and rumble and roar of activity the world came to life again and jogged along as it always had before.

Jim wound up his lasso, mounted the butcher's horse and rode slowly down the street.

Loud screams came from the corner, where a great crowd of people quickly assembled. From his seat on the horse Jim saw Miss Scrapple, attired in the policeman's uniform, angrily shaking her fists in Mulligan's face, while the officer was furiously stamping upon the lady's hat, which he had torn from his own head amidst the jeers of the crowd.

As he rode past the schoolhouse he heard a tremendous chorus of yells, and knew Prof. Sharpe was having a hard time to quell the riot caused by the sign on the blackboard.

Through the window of the barber shop he saw the "mean man" frantically belaboring the barber with a hair brush, while his hair stood up stiff as bayonets in all directions. And the grocer ran out of his door and yelled "Fire!" while his shoes left a track of molasses wherever he stepped.

Jim's heart was filled with joy. He was fairly reveling in the excitement he had caused when some one caught his leg and pulled him from the horse.

"What're ye doin' hear, ye rascal?" cried the butcher, angrily; "didn't ye promise to put that beast inter Plympton's pasture? An' now I find ye ridin' the poor nag around like a gentleman o' leisure!"

"That's a fact," said Jim, with surprise; "I clean forgot about the horse!"

* * * * *

This story should teach us the supreme importance of Time and the folly of trying to stop it. For should you succeed, as Jim did, in bringing Time to a standstill, the world would soon become a dreary place and life decidedly unpleasant.



The Wonderful Pump


Not many years ago there lived on a stony, barren New England farm a man and his wife. They were sober, honest people, working hard from early morning until dark to enable them to secure a scanty living from their poor land.

Their house, a small, one-storied building, stood upon the side of a steep hill, and the stones lay so thickly about it that scarce anything green could grow from the ground. At the foot of the hill, a quarter of a mile from the house by the winding path, was a small brook, and the woman was obliged to go there for water and to carry it up the hill to the house. This was a tedious task, and with the other hard work that fell to her share had made her gaunt and bent and lean.

Yet she never complained, but meekly and faithfully performed her duties, doing the housework, carrying the water and helping her husband hoe the scanty crop that grew upon the best part of their land.

One day, as she walked down the path to the brook, her big shoes scattering the pebbles right and left, she noticed a large beetle lying upon its back and struggling hard with its little legs to turn over, that its feet might again touch the ground. But this it could not accomplish; so the woman, who had a kind heart, reached down and gently turned the beetle with her finger. At once it scampered from the path and she went on to the brook.

The next day, as she came for water, she was surprised to see the beetle again lying upon its back and struggling helplessly to turn. Once more the woman stopped and set him upon his feet; and then, as she stooped over the tiny creature, she heard a small voice say:

"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much for saving me!"

Half frightened at hearing a beetle speak in her own language, the woman started back and exclaimed:

"La sakes! Surely you can't talk like humans!" Then, recovering from her alarm, she again bent over the beetle, who answered her:

"Why shouldn't I talk, if I have anything to say?

"'Cause you're a bug," replied the woman.

"That is true; and you saved my life -- saved me from my enemies, the sparrows. And this is the second time you have come to my assistance, so I owe you a debt of gratitude. Bugs value their lives as much as human beings, and I am a more important creature than you, in your ignorance, may suppose. But, tell me, why do you come each day to the brook?"

"For water," she answered, staring stupidly down at the talking beetle.

"Isn't it hard work?" the creature inquired.

"Yes; but there's no water on the hill," said she.

"Then dig a well and put a pump in it," replied the beetle.

She shook her head.

"My man tried it once; but there was no water," she said, sadly.

"Try it again," commanded the beetle; "and in return for your kindness to me I will make this promise: if you do not get water from the well you will get that which is more precious to you. I must go now. Do not forget. Dig a well."

And then, without pausing to say good-by, it ran swiftly away and was lost among the stones.

The woman returned to the house much perplexed by what the beetle had said, and when her husband came in from his work she told him the whole story.

The poor man thought deeply for a time, and then declared:

"Wife, there may be truth in what the bug told you. There must be magic in the world yet, if a beetle can speak; and if there is such a thing as magic we may get water from the well. The pump I bought to use in the well which proved to be dry is now lying in the barn, and the only expense in following the talking bug's advice will be the labor of digging the hole. Labor I am used to; so I will dig the well."

Next day he set about it, and dug so far down in the ground that he could hardly reach the top to climb out again; but not a drop of water was found.

"Perhaps you did not dig deep enough," his wife said, when he told her of his failure.

So the following day he made a long ladder, which he put into the hole; and then he dug, and dug, and dug, until the top of the ladder barely reached the top of the hole. But still there was no water.

When the woman next went to the brook with her pail she saw the beetle sitting upon a stone beside her path. So she stopped and said:

"My husband has dug the well; but there is no water."

"Did he put the pump in the well?" asked the beetle.

"No," she answered.

"Then do as I commanded; put in the pump, and if you do not get water I promise you something still more precious."

Saying which, the beetle swiftly slid from the stone and disappeared. The woman went back to the house and told her husband what the bug had said.

"Well," replied the simple fellow, "there can be no harm in trying."

So he got the pump from the barn and placed it in the well, and then he took hold of the handle and began to pump, while his wife stood by to watch what would happen.

No water came, but after a few moments a gold piece dropped from the spout of the pump, and then another, and another, until several handfuls of gold lay in a little heap upon the ground.

The man stopped pumping then and ran to help his wife gather the gold pieces into her apron; but their hands trembled so greatly through excitement and joy that they could scarcely pick up the sparkling coins.

At last she gathered them close to her bosom and together they ran to the house, where they emptied the precious gold upon the table and counted the pieces.

All were stamped with the design of the United States mint and were worth five dollars each. Some were worn and somewhat discolored from use, while others seemed bright and new, as if they had not been much handled. When the value of the pieces was added together they were found to be worth three hundred dollars.

Suddenly the woman spoke.

"Husband, the beetle said truly when he declared we should get something more precious than water from the well. But run at once and take away the handle from the pump, lest anyone should pass this way and discover our secret."

So the man ran to the pump and removed the handle, which he carried to the house and hid underneath the bed.

They hardly slept a wink that night, lying awake to think of their good fortune and what they should do with their store of yellow gold. In all their former lives they had never possessed more than a few dollars at a time, and now the cracked teapot was nearly full of gold coins.

The following day was Sunday, and they arose early and ran to see if their treasure was safe. There it lay, heaped snugly within the teapot, and they were so willing to feast their eyes upon it that it was long before the man could leave it to build the fire or the woman to cook the breakfast.

While they ate their simple meal the woman said:

"We will go to church to-day and return thanks for the riches that have come to us so suddenly. And I will give the pastor one of the gold pieces."

"It is well enough to go to church," replied her husband, "and also to return thanks. But in the night I decided how we will spend all our money; so there will be none left for the pastor."

"We can pump more," said the woman.

"Perhaps; and perhaps not," he answered, cautiously. "What we have we can depend upon, but whether or not there be more in the well I cannot say."

"Then go and find out," she returned, "for I am anxious to give something to the pastor, who is a poor man and deserving."

So the man got the pump handle from beneath the bed, and, going to the pump, fitted it in place. Then he set a large wooden bucket under the spout and began to pump. To their joy the gold pieces soon began flowing into the pail, and, seeing it about to run over the brim, the woman brought another pail. But now the stream suddenly stopped, and the man said, cheerfully:

"That is enough for to-day, good wife! We have added greatly to our treasure, and the parson shall have his gold piece. Indeed, I think I shall also put a coin into the contribution box."

Then, because the teapot would hold no more gold, the farmer emptied the pail into the wood-box, covering the money with dried leaves and twigs, that no one might suspect what lay underneath.

Afterward they dressed themselves in their best clothing and started for the church, each taking a bright gold piece from the teapot as a gift to the pastor.

Over the hill and down into the valley beyond they walked, feeling so gay and light-hearted that they did not mind the distance at all. At last they came to the little country church and entered just as the services began.

Being proud of their wealth and of the gifts they had brought for the pastor, they could scarcely wait for the moment when the deacon passed the contribution box. But at last the time came, and the farmer held his hand high over the box and dropped the gold piece so that all the congregation could see what he had given. The woman did likewise, feeling important and happy at being able to give the good parson so much.

The parson, watching from the pulpit, saw the gold drop into the box, and could hardly believe that his eyes did not deceive him. However, when the box was laid upon his desk there were the two gold pieces, and he was so surprised that he nearly forgot his sermon.

When the people were leaving the church at the close of the services the good man stopped the farmer and his wife and asked:

"Where did you get so much gold?"

The woman gladly told him how she had rescued the beetle, and how, in return, they had been rewarded with the wonderful pump. The pastor listened to it all gravely, and when the story was finished he said:

"According to tradition strange things happened in this world ages ago, and now I find that strange things may also happen to-day. For by your tale you have found a beetle that can speak and also has power to bestow upon you great wealth." Then he looked carefully at the gold pieces and continued: "Either this money is fairy gold or it is genuine metal, stamped at the mint of the United States government. If it is fairy gold it will disappear within 24 hours, and will therefore do no one any good. If it is real money, then your beetle must have robbed some one of the gold and placed it in your well. For all money belongs to some one, and if you have not earned it honestly, but have come by it in the mysterious way you mention, it was surely taken from the persons who owned it, without their consent. Where else could real money come from?"

The farmer and his wife were confused by this statement and looked guiltily at each other, for they were honest people and wished to wrong no one.

"Then you think the beetle stole the money?" asked the woman.

"By his magic powers he probably took it from its rightful owners. Even bugs which can speak have no consciences and cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. With a desire to reward you for your kindness the beetle took from its lawful possessors the money you pumped from the well."

"Perhaps it really is fairy gold," suggested the man. "If so, we must go to the town and spend the money before it disappears."

"That would be wrong," answered the pastor; "for then the merchants would have neither money nor goods. To give them fairy gold would be to rob them."

"What, then, shall we do?" asked the poor woman, wringing her hands with grief and disappointment.

"Go home and wait until to-morrow. If the gold is then in your possession it is real money and not fairy gold. But if it is real money you must try to restore it to its rightful owners. Take, also, these pieces which you have given me, for I cannot accept gold that is not honestly come by."

Sadly the poor people returned to their home, being greatly disturbed by what they had heard. Another sleepless night was passed, and on Monday morning they arose at daylight and ran to see if the gold was still visible.

"It is real money, after all!" cried the man; "for not a single piece has disappeared."

When the woman went to the brook that day she looked for the beetle, and, sure enough, there he sat upon the flat stone.

"Are you happy now?" asked the beetle, as the woman paused before him.

"We are very unhappy," she answered; "for, although you have given us much gold, our good parson says it surely belongs to some one else, and was stolen by you to reward us."

"Your parson may be a good man," returned the beetle, with some indignation, "but he certainly is not overwise. Nevertheless, if you do not want the gold I can take it from you as easily as I gave it."

"But we do want it!" cried the woman, fearfully. "That is," she added, "if it is honestly come by."

"It is not stolen," replied the beetle, sulkily, "and now belongs to no one but yourselves. When you saved my life I thought how I might reward you; and, knowing you to be poor, I decided gold would make you happier than anything else.

"You must know," he continued, "that although I appear so small and insignificant, I am really king of all the insects, and my people obey my slightest wish. Living, as they do, close to the ground, the insects often come across gold and other pieces of money which have been lost by men and have fallen into cracks or crevasses or become covered with earth or hidden by grass or weeds. Whenever my people find money in this way they report the fact to me; but I have always let it lie, because it could be of no possible use to an insect.

"However, when I decided to give you gold I knew just where to obtain it without robbing any of your fellow creatures. Thousands of insects were at once sent by me in every direction to bring the pieces of lost gold to his hill. It cost my people several days of hard labor, as you may suppose; but by the time your husband had finished the well the gold began to arrive from all parts of the country, and during the night my subjects dumped it all into the well. So you may use it with a clear conscience, knowing that you wrong no one."

This explanation delighted the woman, and when she returned to the house and reported to her husband what the beetle had said he also was overjoyed.

So they at once took a number of the gold pieces and went to the town to purchase provisions and clothing and many things of which they had long stood in need; but so proud were they of their newly acquired wealth that they took no pains to conceal it. They wanted everyone to know they had money, and so it was no wonder that when some of the wicked men in the village saw the gold they longed to possess it themselves.

"If they spend this money so freely," whispered one to another, "there must be a great store of gold at their home."

"That is true," was the answer. "Let us hasten there before they return and ransack the house."

So they left the village and hurried away to the farm on the hill, where they broke down the door and turned everything topsy turvy until they had discovered the gold in the wood-box and the teapot. It did not take them long to make this into bundles, which they slung upon their backs and carried off, and it was probably because they were in a great hurry that they did not stop to put the house in order again.

Presently the good woman and her husband came up the hill from the village with their arms full of bundles and followed by a crowd of small boys who had been hired to help carry the purchases. Then followed others, youngsters and country louts, attracted by the wealth and prodigality of the pair, who, from simple curiosity, trailed along behind like the tail of a comet and helped swell the concourse into a triumphal procession. Last of all came Guggins, the shopkeeper, carrying with much tenderness a new silk dress which was to be paid for when they reached the house, all the money they had taken to the village having been lavishly expended.

The farmer, who had formerly been a modest man, was now so swelled with pride that he tipped the rim of his hat over his left ear and smoked a big cigar that was fast making him ill. His wife strutted along beside him like a peacock, enjoying to the full the homage and respect her wealth had won from those who formerly deigned not to notice her, and glancing from time to time at the admiring procession in the rear.

But, alas for their new-born pride! when they reached the farmhouse they found the door broken in, the furniture strewn in all directions and their treasure stolen to the very last gold piece.

The crowd grinned and made slighting remarks of a personal nature, and Guggins, the shopkeeper, demanded in a loud voice the money for the silk dress he had brought.

Then the woman whispered to her husband to run and pump some more gold while she kept the crowd quiet, and he obeyed quickly. But after a few moments he returned with a white face to tell her the pump was dry, and not a gold piece could now be coaxed from the spout.

The procession marched back to the village laughing and jeering at the farmer and his wife, who had pretended to be so rich; and some of the boys were naughty enough to throw stones at the house from the top of the hill. Mr. Guggins carried away his dress after severely scolding the woman for deceiving him, and when the couple at last found themselves alone their pride had turned to humiliation and their joy to bitter grief.

Just before sundown the woman dried her eyes and, having resumed her ordinary attire, went to the brook for water. When she came to the flat stone she saw the King Beetle sitting upon it.

"The well is dry!" she cried out, angrily.

"Yes," answered the beetle, calmly, "you have pumped from it all the gold my people could find."

"But we are now ruined," said the woman, sitting down in the path beginning to weep; "for robbers have stolen from us every penny we possessed."

"I'm sorry," returned the beetle; "but it is your own fault. Had you not made so great a show of your wealth no one would have suspected you possessed a treasure, or thought to rob you. As it is, you have merely lost the gold which others have lost before you. It will probably be lost many times more before the world comes to an end."

"But what are we to do now?" she asked.

"What did you do before I gave you the money?"

"We worked from morning 'til night," said she.

"Then work still remains for you," remarked the beetle, composedly; "no one will ever try to rob you of that, you may be sure!" And he slid from the stone and disappeared for the last time.

* * * * *

This story should teach us to accept good fortune with humble hearts and to use it with moderation. For, had the farmer and his wife resisted the temptation to display their wealth ostentatiously, they might have retained it to this very day.



The Dummy That Lived


In all Fairyland there is no more mischievous a person than Tanko-Mankie the Yellow Ryl. He flew through the city one afternoon -- quite invisible to moral eyes, but seeing everything himself -- and noticed a figure of a wax lady standing behind the big plate glass window of Mr. Floman's department store.

The wax lady was beautifully dressed, and extended in her stiff left hand was a card bearing the words:

"RARE BARGIN! This Stylish Costume (Imported from Paris) Former Price, $20, REDUCED TO ONLY $19.98."

This impressive announcement had drawn before the window a crowd of women shoppers, who stood looking at the wax lady with critical eyes.

Tanko-Mankie laughed to himself the low, gurgling little laugh that always means mischief. Then he flew close to the wax figure and breathed twice upon its forehead.

From that instant the dummy began to live, but so dazed and astonished was she at the unexpected sensation that she continued to stand stupidly staring at the women outside and holding out the placard as before.

The ryl laughed again and flew away. Anyone but Tanko-Mankie would have remained to help the wax lady out of the troubles that were sure to overtake her; but this naughty elf thought it rare fun to turn the inexperienced lady loose in a cold and heartless world and leave her to shift for herself.

Fortunately it was almost six o'clock when the dummy first realized that she was alive, and before she had collected her new thoughts and decided what to do a man came around and drew down all the window shades, shutting off the view from the curious shoppers.

Then the clerks and cashiers and floorwalkers and cash girls went home and the store was closed for the night, although the sweepers and scrubbers remained to clean the floors for the following day.

The window inhabited by the wax lady was boxed in, like a little room, one small door being left at the side for the window-trimmer to creep in and out of. So the scrubbers never noticed that the dummy, when left to herself, dropped the placard to the floor and sat down upon a pile of silks to wonder who she was, where she was, and how she happened to be alive.

For you must consider, dear reader, that in spite of her size and her rich costume, in spite of her pink cheeks and fluffy yellow hair, this lady was very young -- no older, in reality, than a baby born but half an hour. All she knew of the world was contained in the glimpse she had secured of the busy street facing her window; all she knew of people lay in the actions of the group of women which had stood before her on the other side of the window pane and criticised the fit of her dress or remarked upon its stylish appearance.

So she had little enough to think about, and her thoughts moved somewhat slowly; yet one thing she really decided upon, and that was not to remain in the window and be insolently stared at by a lot of women who were not nearly so handsome or well dressed as herself.

By the time she reached this important conclusion, it was after midnight; but dim lights were burning in the big, deserted store, so she crept through the door of her window and walked down the long aisles, pausing now and then to look with much curiosity at the wealth of finery confronting her on every side.

When she came to the glass cases filled with trimmed hats she remembered having seen upon the heads of the women in the street similar creations. So she selected one that suited her fancy and placed it carefully upon her yellow locks. I won't attempt to explain what instinct it was that made her glance into a near-by mirror to see if the hat was straight, but this she certainly did. It didn't correspond with her dress very well, but the poor thing was too young to have much taste in matching colors.

When she reached the glove counter she remembered that gloves were also worn by the women she had seen. She took a pair from the case and tried to fit them upon her stiff, wax-coated fingers; but the gloves were too small and ripped in the seams. Then she tried another pair, and several others, as well; but hours passed before she finally succeeded in getting her hands covered with a pair of pea-green kids.

Next she selected a parasol from a large and varied assortment in the rear of the store. Not that she had any idea what it was used for; but other ladies carried such things, so she also would have one.

When she again examined herself critically in the mirror she decided her outfit was now complete, and to her inexperienced eyes there was no perceptible difference between her and the women who had stood outside the window. Whereupon she tried to leave the store, but found every door fast locked.

The wax lady was in no hurry. She inherited patience from her previous existence. Just to be alive and to wear beautiful clothes was sufficient enjoyment for her at present. So she sat down upon a stool and waited quietly until daylight.

When the janitor unlocked the door in the morning the wax lady swept past him and walked with stiff but stately strides down the street. The poor fellow was so completely whuckered at seeing the well-known wax lady leave her window and march away from the store that he fell over in a heap and only saved himself from fainting by striking his funny bone against the doorstep. When he recovered his wits she had turned the corner and disappeared.

The wax lady's immature mind had reasoned that, since she had come to life, her evident duty was to mix with the world and do whatever other folks did. She could not realize how different she was from people of flesh and blood; nor did she know she was the first dummy that had ever lived, or that she owed her unique experience to Tanko-Mankie's love of mischief. So ignorance gave her a confidence in herself that she was not justly entitled to.

It was yet early in the day, and the few people she met were hurrying along the streets. Many of them turned into restaurants and eating houses, and following their example the wax lady also entered one and sat upon a stool before a lunch counter.

"Coffee 'n' rolls!" said a shop girl on the next stool.

"Coffee 'n' rolls!" repeated the dummy, and soon the waiter placed them before her. Of course she had no appetite, as her constitution, being mostly wood, did not require food; but she watched the shop girl, and saw her put the coffee to her mouth and drink it. Therefore the wax lady did the same, and the next instant was surprised to feel the hot liquid trickling out between her wooden ribs. The coffee also blistered her wax lips, and so disagreeable was the experience that she arose and left the restaurant, paying no attention to the demands of the waiter for "20 cents, mum." Not that she intended to defraud him, but the poor creature had no idea what he meant by "20 cents, mum."

As she came out she met the window trimmer at Floman's store. The man was rather near-sighted, but seeing something familiar in the lady's features he politely raised his hat. The wax lady also raised her hat, thinking it the proper thing to do, and the man hurried away with a horrified face.

Then a woman touched her arm and said:

"Beg pardon, ma'am; but there's a price-mark hanging on your dress behind."

"Yes, I know," replied the wax lady, stiffly; "it was originally $20, but it's been reduced to $19.98."

The woman looked surprised at such indifference and walked on. Some carriages were standing at the edge of the sidewalk, and seeing the dummy hesitate a driver approached her and touched his cap.

"Cab, ma'am?" he asked.

"No," said she, misunderstanding him; "I'm wax."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, and looked after her wonderingly.

"Here's yer mornin' paper!" yelled a newsboy.

"Mine, did you say?" she asked.

"Sure! Chronicle, 'Quirer, R'public 'n' 'Spatch! Wot'll ye 'ave?"

"What are they for?" inquired the wax lady, simply.

"W'y, ter read, o' course. All the news, you know."

She shook her head and glanced at a paper.

"It looks all speckled and mixed up," she said. "I'm afraid I can't read."

"Ever ben to school?" asked the boy, becoming interested.

"No; what's school?" she inquired.

The boy gave her an indignant look.

"Say!" he cried, "ye'r just a dummy, that's wot ye are!" and ran away to seek a more promising customer.

"I wonder that he means," thought the poor lady. "Am I really different in some way from all the others? I look like them, certainly; and I try to act like them; yet that boy called me a dummy and seemed to think I acted queerly."

This idea worried her a little, but she walked on to the corner, where she noticed a street car stop to let some people on. The wax lady, still determined to do as others did, also boarded the car and sat down quietly in a corner.

After riding a few blocks the conductor approached her and said:

"Fare, please!"

"What's that?" she inquired, innocently.

"Your fare!" said the man, impatiently.

She stared at him stupidly, trying to think what he meant.

"Come, come!" growled the conductor, "either pay up or get off!"

Still she did not understand, and he grabbed her rudely by the arm and lifted her to her feet. But when his hand came in contact with the hard wood of which her arm was made the fellow was filled with surprise. He stooped down and peered into her face, and, seeing it was wax instead of flesh, he gave a yell of fear and jumped from the car, running as if he had seen a ghost.

At this the other passengers also yelled and sprang from the car, fearing a collision; and the motorman, knowing something was wrong, followed suit. The wax lady, seeing the others run, jumped from the car last of all, and stepped in front of another car coming at full speed from the opposite direction.

She heard cries of fear and of warning on all sides, but before she understood her danger she was knocked down and dragged for half a block.

When the car was brought to a stop a policeman reached down and pulled her from under the wheels. Her dress was badly torn and soiled. Her left ear was entirely gone, and the left side of her head was caved in; but she quickly scrambled to her feet and asked for her hat. This a gentleman had already picked up, and when the policeman handed it to her and noticed the great hole in her head and the hollow place it disclosed, the poor fellow trembled so frightfully that his knees actually knocked together.

"Why -- why, ma'am, you're killed!" he gasped.

"What does it mean to be killed?" asked the wax lady.

The policeman shuddered and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"You're it!" he answered, with a groan.

The crowd that had collected were looking upon the lady wonderingly, and a middle-aged gentleman now exclaimed:

"Why, she's wax!"

"Wax!" echoed the policeman.

"Certainly. She's one of those dummies they put in the windows," declared the middle-aged man.

The people who had collected shouted: "You're right!" "That's what she is!" "She's a dummy!"

"Are you?" inquired the policeman, sternly.

The wax lady did not reply. She began to fear she was getting into trouble, and the staring crowd seemed to embarrass her.

Suddenly a bootblack attempted to solve the problem by saying: "You guys is all wrong! Can a dummy talk? Can a dummy walk? Can a dummy live?"

"Hush!" murmured the policeman. "Look here!" and he pointed to the hold in the lady's head. The newsboy looked, turned pale and whistled to keep himself from shivering.

A second policeman now arrived, and after a brief conference it was decided to take the strange creature to headquarters. So they called a hurry-up wagon, and the damaged wax lady was helped inside and driven to the police station. There the policeman locked her in a cell and hastened to tell Inspector Mugg their wonderful story.

Inspector Mugg had just eaten a poor breakfast, and was not in a pleasant mood; so he roared and stormed at the unlucky policemen, saying they were themselves dummies to bring such a fairy tale to a man of sense. He also hinted that they had been guilty of intemperance.

The policemen tried to explain, but Inspector Mugg would not listen; and while they were still disputing in rushed Mr. Floman, the owner of the department store.

"I want a dozen detectives, at once, inspector!" he cried.

"What for?" demanded Mugg.

"One of the wax ladies has escaped from my store and eloped with a $19.98 costume, a $4.23 hat, a $2.19 parasol and a 76-cent pair of gloves, and I want her arrested!"

While he paused for breath the inspector glared at him in amazement.

"Is everybody going crazy at the same time?" he inquired, sarcastically. "How could a wax dummy run away?"

"I don't know; but she did. When my janitor opened the door this morning he saw her run out."

"Why didn't he stop her?" asked Mugg.

"He was too frightened. But she's stolen my property, your honor, and I want her arrested!" declared the storekeeper.

The inspector thought for a moment.

"You wouldn't be able to prosecute her," he said, "for there's no law against dummies stealing."

Mr. Floman sighed bitterly.

"Am I to lose that $19.98 costume and the $4.25 hat and -- "

"By no means," interrupted Inspector Mugg. "The police of this city are ever prompt to act in defense of our worthy citizens. We have already arrested the wax lady, and she is locked up in cell No. 16. You may go there and recover your property, if you wish, but before you prosecute her for stealing you'd better hunt up a law that applies to dummies."

"All I want," said Mr. Floman, "is that $19.98 costume and -- "

"Come along!" interrupted the policeman. "I'll take you to the cell."

But when they entered No. 16 they found only a lifeless dummy lying prone upon the floor. Its wax was cracked and blistered, its head was badly damaged, and the bargain costume was dusty, soiled and much bedraggled. For the mischief-loving Tanko-Mankie had flown by and breathed once more upon the poor wax lady, and in that instant her brief life ended.

"It's just as I thought," said Inspector Mugg, leaning back in his chair contentedly. "I knew all the time the thing was a fake. It seems sometimes as though the whole world would go crazy if there wasn't some level-headed man around to bring 'em to their senses. Dummies are wood an' wax, an' that's all there is of 'em."

"That may be the rule," whispered the policeman to himself, "but this one were a dummy as lived!"



The King Of The Polar Bears


The King of the Polar Bears lived among the icebergs in the far north country. He was old and monstrous big; he was wise and friendly to all who knew him. His body was thickly covered with long, white hair that glistened like silver under the rays of the midnight sun. His claws were strong and sharp, that he might walk safely over the smooth ice or grasp and tear the fishes and seals upon which he fed.

The seals were afraid when he drew near, and tried to avoid him; but the gulls, both white and gray, loved him because he left the remnants of his feasts for them to devour.

Often his subjects, the polar bears, came to him for advice when ill or in trouble; but they wisely kept away from his hunting grounds, lest they might interfere with his sport and arouse his anger.

The wolves, who sometimes came as far north as the icebergs, whispered among themselves that the King of the Polar Bears was either a magician or under the protection of a powerful fairy. For no earthly thing seemed able to harm him; he never failed to secure plenty of food, and he grew bigger and stronger day by day and year by year.

Yet the time came when this monarch of the north met man, and his wisdom failed him.

He came out of his cave among the icebergs one day and saw a boat moving through the strip of water which had been uncovered by the shifting of the summer ice. In the boat were men.

The great bear had never seen such creatures before, and therefore advanced toward the boat, sniffing the strange scent with aroused curiosity and wondering whether he might take them for friends or foes, food or carrion.

When the king came near the water's edge a man stood up in the boat and with a queer instrument made a loud "bang!" The polar bear felt a shock; his brain became numb; his thoughts deserted him; his great limbs shook and gave way beneath him and his body fell heavily upon the hard ice.

That was all he remembered for a time.

When he awoke he was smarting with pain on every inch of his huge bulk, for the men had cut away his hide with its glorious white hair and carried it with them to a distant ship.

Above him circled thousands of his friends the gulls, wondering if their benefactor were really dead and it was proper to eat him. But when they saw him raise his head and groan and tremble they knew he still lived, and one of them said to his comrades:

"The wolves were right. The king is a great magician, for even men cannot kill him. But he suffers for lack of covering. Let us repay his kindness to us by each giving him as many feathers as we can spare."

This idea pleased the gulls. One after another they plucked with their beaks the softest feathers from under their wings, and, flying down, dropped then gently upon the body of the King of the Polar Bears.

Then they called to him in a chorus:

"Courage, friend! Our feathers are as soft and beautiful as your own shaggy hair. They will guard you from the cold winds and warm you while you sleep. Have courage, then, and live!"

And the King of the Polar Bears had courage to bear his pain and lived and was strong again.

The feathers grew as they had grown upon the bodies of the birds and covered him as his own hair had done. Mostly they were pure white in color, but some from the gray gulls gave his majesty a slight mottled appearance.

The rest of that summer and all through the six months of night the king left his icy cavern only to fish or catch seals for food. He felt no shame at his feathery covering, but it was still strange to him, and he avoided meeting any of his brother bears.

During this period of retirement he thought much of the men who had harmed him, and remembered the way they had made the great "bang!" And he decided it was best to keep away from such fierce creatures. Thus he added to his store of wisdom.

When the moon fell away from the sky and the sun came to make the icebergs glitter with the gorgeous tintings of the rainbow, two of the polar bears arrived at the king's cavern to ask his advice about the hunting season. But when they saw his great body covered with feathers instead of hair they began to laugh, and one said:

"Our mighty king has become a bird! Who ever before heard of a feathered polar bear?"

Then the king gave way to wrath. He advanced upon them with deep growls and stately tread and with one blow of his monstrous paw stretched the mocker lifeless at his feet.

The other ran away to his fellows and carried the news of the king's strange appearance. The result was a meeting of all the polar bears upon a broad field of ice, where they talked gravely of the remarkable change that had come upon their monarch.

"He is, in reality, no longer a bear," said one; "nor can he justly be called a bird. But he is half bird and half bear, and so unfitted to remain our king."

"Then who shall take his place?" asked another.

"He who can fight the bird-bear and overcome him," answered an aged member of the group. "Only the strongest is fit to rule our race."

There was silence for a time, but at length a great bear moved to the front and said:

"I will fight him; I -- Woof -- the strongest of our race! And I will be King of the Polar Bears."

The others nodded assent, and dispatched a messenger to the king to say he must fight the great Woof and master him or resign his sovereignty.

"For a bear with feathers," added the messenger, "is no bear at all, and the king we obey must resemble the rest of us."

"I wear feathers because it pleases me," growled the king. "Am I not a great magician? But I will fight, nevertheless, and if Woof masters me he shall be king in my stead."

Then he visited his friends, the gulls, who were even then feasting upon the dead bear, and told them of the coming battle.

"I shall conquer," he said, proudly. "Yet my people are in the right, for only a hairy one like themselves can hope to command their obedience."

The queen gull said:

"I met an eagle yesterday, which had made its escape from a big city of men. And the eagle told me he had seen a monstrous polar bear skin thrown over the back of a carriage that rolled along the street. That skin must have been yours, oh king, and if you wish I will sent an hundred of my gulls to the city to bring it back to you."

"Let them go!" said the king, gruffly. And the hundred gulls were soon flying rapidly southward.

For three days they flew straight as an arrow, until they came to scattered houses, to villages, and to cities. Then their search began.

The gulls were brave, and cunning, and wise. Upon the fourth day they reached the great metropolis, and hovered over the streets until a carriage rolled along with a great white bear robe thrown over the back seat. Then the birds swooped down -- the whole hundred of them -- and seizing the skin in their beaks flew quickly away.

They were late. The king's great battle was upon the seventh day, and they must fly swiftly to reach the Polar regions by that time.

Meanwhile the bird-bear was preparing for his fight. He sharpened his claws in the small crevasses of the ice. He caught a seal and tested his big yellow teeth by crunching its bones between them. And the queen gull set her band to pluming the king bear's feathers until they lay smoothly upon his body.

But every day they cast anxious glances into the southern sky, watching for the hundred gulls to bring back the king's own skin.

The seventh day came, and all the Polar bears in that region gathered around the king's cavern. Among them was Woof, strong and confident of his success.

"The bird-bear's feathers will fly fast enough when I get my claws upon him!" he boasted; and the others laughed and encouraged him.

The king was disappointed at not having recovered his skin, but he resolved to fight bravely without it. He advanced from the opening of his cavern with a proud and kingly bearing, and when he faced his enemy he gave so terrible a growl that Woof's heart stopped beating for a moment, and he began to realize that a fight with the wise and mighty king of his race was no laughing matter.

After exchanging one or two heavy blows with his foe Woof's courage returned, and he determined to dishearten his adversary by bluster.

"Come nearer, bird-bear!" he cried. "Come nearer, that I may pluck your plumage!"

The defiance filled the king with rage. He ruffled his feathers as a bird does, till he appeared to be twice his actual size, and then he strode forward and struck Woof so powerful a blow that his skull crackled like an egg-shell and he fell prone upon the ground.

While the assembled bears stood looking with fear and wonder at their fallen champion the sky became darkened.

An hundred gulls flew down from above and dripped upon the king's body a skin covered with pure white hair that glittered in the sun like silver.

And behold! the bears saw before them the well-known form of their wise and respected master, and with one accord they bowed their shaggy heads in homage to the mighty King of the Polar Bears.

* * * * *

This story teaches us that true dignity and courage depend not upon outward appearance, but come rather from within; also that brag and bluster are poor weapons to carry into battle.



The Mandarin And The Butterfly


A mandarin once lived in Kiang-ho who was so exceedingly cross and disagreeable that everyone hated him. He snarled and stormed at every person he met and was never known to laugh or be merry under any circumstances. Especially he hated boys and girls; for the boys jeered at him, which aroused his wrath, and the girls made fun of him, which hurt his pride.

When he had become so unpopular that no one would speak to him, the emperor heard about it and commanded him to emigrate to America. This suited the mandarin very well; but before he left China he stole the Great Book of Magic that belonged to the wise magician Haot-sai. Then, gathering up his little store of money, he took ship for America.

He settled in a city of the middle west and of course started a laundry, since that seems to be the natural vocation of every Chinaman, be he coolie or mandarin.

He made no acquaintances with the other Chinamen of the town, who, when they met him and saw the red button in his hat, knew him for a real mandarin and bowed low before him. He put up a red and white sign and people brought their laundry to him and got paper checks, with Chinese characters upon them, in exchange, this being the only sort of character the mandarin had left.

One day as the ugly one was ironing in his shop in the basement of 263 1/2 Main street, he looked up and saw a crowd of childish faces pressed against the window. Most Chinamen make friends with children; this one hated them and tried to drive them away. But as soon as he returned to his work they were back at the window again, mischievously smiling down upon him.

The naughty mandarin uttered horrid words in the Manchu language and made fierce gestures; but this did no good at all. The children stayed as long as they pleased, and they came again the very next day as soon as school was over, and likewise the next day, and the next. For they saw their presence at the window bothered the Chinaman and were delighted accordingly.

The following day being Sunday the children did not appear, but as the mandarin, being a heathen, worked in his little shop a big butterfly flew in at the open door and fluttered about the room.

The mandarin closed the door and chased the butterfly until he caught it, when he pinned it against the wall by sticking two pins through its beautiful wings. This did not hurt the butterfly, there being no feeling in its wings; but it made him a safe prisoner.

This butterfly was of large size and its wings were exquisitely marked by gorgeous colors laid out in regular designs like the stained glass windows of a cathedral.

The mandarin now opened his wooden chest and drew forth the Great Book of Magic he had stolen from Haot-sai. Turning the pages slowly he came to a passage describing "How to understand the language of butterflies." This he read carefully and then mixed a magic formula in a tin cup and drank it down with a wry face. Immediately thereafter he spoke to the butterfly in its own language, saying:

"Why did you enter this room?"

"I smelled bees-wax," answered the butterfly; "therefore I thought I might find honey here."

"But you are my prisoner," said the mandarin. "If I please I can kill you, or leave you on the wall to starve to death."

"I expect that," replied the butterfly, with a sigh. "But my race is shortlived, anyway; it doesn't matter whether death comes sooner or later."

"Yet you like to live, do you not?" asked the mandarin.

"Yet; life is pleasant and the world is beautiful. I do not seek death."

"Then," said the mandarin, "I will give you life -- a long and pleasant life -- if you will promise to obey me for a time and carry out my instructions."

"How can a butterfly serve a man?" asked the creature, in surprise.

"Usually they cannot," was the reply. "But I have a book of magic which teaches me strange things. Do you promise?"

"Oh, yes; I promise," answered the butterfly; "for even as your slave I will get some enjoyment out of life, while should you kill me -- that is the end of everything!"

"Truly," said the mandarin, "butterflies have no souls, and therefore cannot live again."

"But I have enjoyed three lives already," returned the butterfly, with some pride. "I have been a caterpillar and a chrysalis before I became a butterfly. You were never anything but a Chinaman, although I admit your life is longer than mine."

"I will extend your life for many days, if you will obey me," declared the Chinaman. "I can easily do so by means of my magic."

"Of course I will obey you," said the butterfly, carelessly.

"Then, listen! You know children, do you not? -- boys and girls?"

"Yes, I know them. They chase me, and try to catch me, as you have done," replied the butterfly.

"And they mock me, and jeer at me through the window," continued the mandarin, bitterly. "Therefore, they are your enemies and mine! But with your aid and the help of the magic book we shall have a fine revenge for their insults."

"I don't care much for revenge," said the butterfly. "They are but children, and 'tis natural they should wish to catch such a beautiful creature as I am."

"Nevertheless, I care! and you must obey me," retorted the mandarin, harshly. "I, at least, will have my revenge."

Then he stuck a drop of molasses upon the wall beside the butterfly's head and said:

"Eat that, while I read my book and prepare my magic formula."

So the butterfly feasted upon the molasses and the mandarin studied his book, after which he began to mix a magic compound in the tin cup.

When the mixture was ready he released the butterfly from the wall and said to it:

"I command you to dip your two front feet into this magic compound and then fly away until you meet a child. Fly close, whether it be a boy or a girl, and touch the child upon its forehead with your feet. Whosoever is thus touched, the book declares, will at once become a pig, and will remain such forever after. Then return to me and dip you legs afresh in the contents of this cup. So shall all my enemies, the children, become miserable swine, while no one will think of accusing me of the sorcery."

"Very well; since such is your command, I obey," said the butterfly. Then it dipped its front legs, which were the shortest of the six, into the contents of the tin cup, and flew out of the door and away over the houses to the edge of the town. There it alighted in a flower garden and soon forgot all about its mission to turn children into swine.

In going from flower to flower it soon brushed the magic compound from its legs, so that when the sun began to set and the butterfly finally remembered its master, the mandarin, it could not have injured a child had it tried.

But it did not intend to try.

"That horrid old Chinaman," it thought, "hates children and wishes to destroy them. But I rather like children myself and shall not harm them. Of course I must return to my master, for he is a magician, and would seek me out and kill me; but I can deceive him about this matter easily enough."

When the butterfly flew in at the door of the mandarin's laundry he asked, eagerly:

"Well, did you meet a child?"

"I did," replied the butterfly, calmly. "It was a pretty, golden-haired girl -- but now 'tis a grunting pig!"

"Good! Good! Good!" cried the mandarin, dancing joyfully about the room. "You shall have molasses for your supper, and to-morrow you must change two children into pigs."

The butterfly did not reply, but ate the molasses in silence. Having no soul it had no conscience, and having no conscience it was able to lie to the mandarin with great readiness and a certain amount of enjoyment.

Next morning, by the mandarin's command, the butterfly dipped its legs in the mixture and flew away in search of children.

When it came to the edge of the town it noticed a pig in a sty, and alighting upon the rail of the sty it looked down at the creature and thought.

"If I could change a child into a pig by touching it with the magic compound, what could I change a pig into, I wonder?"

Being curious to determine this fine point in sorcery the butterfly fluttered down and touched its front feet to the pig's nose. Instantly the animal disappeared, and in its place was a shock-headed, dirty looking boy, which sprang from the sty and ran down the road uttering load whoops.

"That's funny," said the butterfly to itself. "The mandarin would be very angry with me if he knew of this, for I have liberated one more of the creatures that bother him."

It fluttered along after the boy, who had paused to throw stones at a cat. But pussy escaped by running up a tree, where thick branches protected her from the stones. Then the boy discovered a newly-planted garden, and trampled upon the beds until the seeds were scattered far and wide, and the garden was ruined. Next he caught up a switch and struck with it a young calf that stood quietly grazing in a field. The poor creature ran away with piteous bleats, and the boy laughed and followed after it, striking the frightened animal again and again.

"Really," thought the butterfly, "I do not wonder the mandarin hates children, if they are all so cruel and wicked as this one."

The calf having escaped him the boy came back to the road, where he met two little girls on their way to school. One of them had a red apple in her hand, and the boy snatched it away and began eating it. The little girl commenced to cry, but her companion, more brave and sturdy, cried out:

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you nasty boy!"

At this the boy reached out and slapped her pretty face, whereupon she also began to sob.

Although possessed of neither soul nor conscience, the butterfly had a very tender heart, and now decided it could endure this boy no longer.

"If I permitted him to exist," it reflected, "I should never forgive myself, for the monster would do nothing but evil from morning 'til night."

So it flew directly into his face and touched his forehead with its sticky front feet.

The next instant the boy had disappeared, but a grunting pig ran swiftly up the road in the direction of its sty.

The butterfly gave a sigh of relief.

"This time I have indeed used the mandarin's magic upon a child," it whispered, as it floated lazily upon the light breeze; "but since the child was originally a pig I do not think I have any cause to reproach myself. The little girls were sweet and gentle, and I would not injure them to save my life, but were all boys like this transformed pig, I should not hesitate to carry out the mandarin's orders."

Then it flew into a rose bush, where it remained comfortably until evening. At sundown it returned to its master.

"Have you changed two of them into pigs?" he asked, at once.

"I have," replied the butterfly. "One was a pretty, black-eyed baby, and the other a freckle-faced, red-haired, barefooted newboy."

"Good! Good! Good!" screamed the mandarin, in an ecstasy of delight. "Those are the ones who torment me the most! Change every newboy you meet into a pig!"

"Very well," answered the butterfly, quietly, and ate its supper of molasses.

Several days were passed by the butterfly in the same manner. It fluttered aimlessly about the flower gardens while the sun shone, and returned at night to the mandarin with false tales of turning children into swine. Sometimes it would be one child which was transformed, sometimes two, and occasionally three; but the mandarin always greeted the butterfly's report with intense delight and gave him molasses for supper.

One evening, however, the butterfly thought it might be well to vary the report, so that the mandarin might not grow suspicious; and when its master asked what child had been had been changed into a pig that day the lying creature answered:

"It was a Chinese boy, and when I touched him he became a black pig."

This angered the mandarin, who was in an especially cross mood. He spitefully snapped the butterfly with his finger, and nearly broke its beautiful wing; for he forgot that Chinese boys had once mocked him and only remembered his hatred for American boys.

The butterfly became very indignant at this abuse from the mandarin. It refused to eat its molasses and sulked all the evening, for it had grown to hate the mandarin almost as much as the mandarin hated children.

When morning came it was still trembling with indignation; but the mandarin cried out:

"Make haste, miserable slave; for to-day you must change four children into pigs, to make up for yesterday."

The butterfly did not reply. His little black eyes were sparkling wickedly, and no sooner had he dipped his feet into the magic compound than he flew full in the mandarin's face, and touched him upon his ugly, flat forehead.

Soon after a gentleman came into the room for his laundry. The mandarin was not there, but running around the place was a repulsive, scrawny pig, which squealed most miserably.

The butterfly flew away to a brook and washed from its feet all traces of the magic compound. When night came it slept in a rose bush.

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The Bobbsey Twins On The Deep Blue Sea

By

Laura Lee Hope



Chapter I

On The Raft


"Flossie! Flossie! Look at me! I'm having a steamboat ride! Oh, look!"

"I am looking, Freddie Bobbsey!"

"No, you're not! You're playing with your doll! Look at me splash, Flossie!"

A little boy with blue eyes and light, curling hair was standing on a raft in the middle of a shallow pond of water left in a green meadow after a heavy rain. In his hand he held a long pole with which he was beating the water, making a shower of drops that sparkled in the sun.

On the shore of the pond, not far away, and sitting under an apple tree, was a little girl with the same sort of light hair and blue eyes as those which made the little boy such a pretty picture. Both children were fat and chubby, and you would have needed but one look to tell that they were twins.

"Now I'm going to sail away across the ocean!" cried Freddie Bobbsey, the little boy on the raft, which he and his sister Flossie had made that morning by piling a lot of old boards and fence rails together. "Don't you want to sail across the ocean, Flossie?"

"I'm afraid I'll fall off!" answered Flossie, who was holding her doll off at arm's length to see how pretty her new blue dress looked. "I might fall in the water and get my feet wet."

"Take off your shoes and stockings like I did, Flossie," said the little boy.

"Is it very deep?" Flossie wanted to know, as she laid aside her doll. After all she could play with her doll any day, but it was not always that she could have a ride on a raft with Freddie.

"No," answered the little blue-eyed boy. "It isn't deep at all. That is, I don't guess it is, but I didn't fall in yet."

"I don't want to fall in," said Flossie.

"Well, I won't let you," promised her brother, though how he was going to manage that he did not say. "I'll come back and get you on the steamboat," he went on, "and then I'll give you a ride all across the ocean," and he began pushing the raft, which he pretended was a steamboat, back toward the shore where his sister sat.

Flossie was now taking off her shoes and stockings, which Freddie had done before he got on the raft; and it was a good thing, too, for the water splashed up over it as far as his ankles, and his shoes would surely have been wet had he kept them on.

"Whoa, there! Stop!" cried Flossie, as she came down to the edge of the pond, after having placed her doll, in its new blue dress, safely in the shade under a big burdock plant. "Whoa, there, steamboat! Whoa!"

"You mustn't say 'whoa' to a boat!" objected Freddie, as he pushed the raft close to the bank, so his sister could get on. "You only say 'whoa' to a horse or a pony."

"Can't you say it to a goat?" demanded Flossie.

"Yes, maybe you could say it to a goat," Freddie agreed, after thinking about it for a little while. "But you can't say it to a boat."

"Well, I wanted you to stop, so you wouldn't bump into the shore," said the little girl. "That's why I said 'whoa.'"

"But you mustn't say it to a boat, and this raft is the same as a boat," insisted Freddie.

"What must I say, then, when I want it to stop?"

Freddie thought about this for a moment or two while he paddled his bare foot in the water. Then he said:

"Well, you could say 'Halt!' maybe."

"Pooh! 'Halt' is what you say to soldiers," declared Flossie. "We said that when we had a snow fort, and played have a snowball fight in the winter. 'Halt' is only for soldiers."

"Oh, well, come on and have a ride," went on Freddie. "I forget what you say when you want a boat to stop."

"Oh, I know!" cried Flossie, clapping her hands.

"What?"

"You just blow a whistle. You don't say anything. You just go 'Toot! Toot!' and the boat stops."

"All right," agreed Freddie, glad that this part was settled. "When you want this boat to stop, you just whistle."

"I will," said Flossie. Then she stepped on the edge of the raft nearest the shore. The boards and rails tilted to one side. "Oh! Oh!" screamed the little girl. "It's sinking!"

"No it isn't," Freddie said. "It always does that when you first get on. Come on out in the middle and it will be all right."

"But it feels so -- so funny on my toes!" said Flossie, with a little shiver. "It's tickly like."

"That's the way it was with me at first," Freddie answered. "But I like it now."

Flossie wiggled her little pink toes in the water that washed up over the top of the raft, and then she said:

"Well, I -- I guess I like it too, now. But it felt sort of -- sort of -- squiggily at first."

"Squiggily" was a word Flossie and Freddie sometimes used when they didn't know else to say.

The little girl moved over to the middle of the raft and Freddie began to push it out from shore. The rain-water pond was quite a large one, and was deep in places, but the children did not know this. When they were both in the center of the raft the water came only a little way over their feet. Indeed there were so many boards, planks and rails in the make-believe steamboat that it would easily have held more than the two smaller Bobbsey twins. For there was a double set of twins, as I shall very soon tell you.

"Isn't this nice?" asked Freddie, as he pushed the pretend boat farther out toward the middle of the pond.

"Awful nice -- I like it," said Flossie. "I'm glad I helped you make this raft."

"It's a steamboat," said Freddie. "It isn't a raft."

"Well, steamboat, then," agreed Flossie. Then she suddenly went:

"Toot! Toot!"

"Here! what you blowin' the whistle now for?" asked Freddie. "We don't want to stop here, right in the middle of the ocean."

"I -- I was only just trying my whistle to see if it would toot," explained the little girl. "I don't want to stop now."

Flossie walked around the middle of the raft, making the water splash with her bare feet, and Freddie kept on pushing it farther and farther from shore. Yet Flossie was not afraid. Perhaps she felt that Freddie would take care of her.

The little Bobbsey twins were having lots of fun, pretending they were on a steamboat, when they heard some one shouting to them from the shore.

"Hi there! Come and get us!" someone was calling to them.

"Who is it?" asked Freddie.

"It's Bert; and Nan is with him," answered Flossie, as she saw a larger boy and girl standing on the bank, near the tree under which she had left her doll. "I guess they want a ride. Is the raft big enough for them too, Freddie?"

"Yes, I guess so," he answered. "You stop the steamboat, Flossie -- and stop calling it a raft -- and I'll go back and get them. We'll pretend they're passengers. Stop the boat!"

"How can I stop the boat?" the little girl demanded.

"Toot the whistle! Toot the whistle!" answered her brother. "Don't you 'member, Flossie Bobbsey?"

"Oh," said Flossie. Then she went on:

"Toot! Toot!"

"Toot! Toot!" answered Freddie. He began pushing the other way on the pole and the raft started back toward the shore they had left.

"What are you doing?" asked Bert Bobbsey, as the mass of boards and rails came closer to him. "What are you two playing?"

"Steamboat," Freddie answered. "If you want us to stop for you, why, you've got to toot."

"Toot what?" asked Bert.

"Toot your whistle," Freddie replied. "This is a regular steamboat. Toot if you want me to stop."

He kept on pushing with the pole until Bert, with a laugh, made the tooting sound as Flossie had done. Then Freddie let the raft stop near his older brother and sister.

"Oh, Bert!" exclaimed Nan Bobbsey, "are you going to get on?"

"Sure I am," he answered, as he began taking off his shoes and stockings. "It's big enough for the four of us. Where'd you get it, Freddie?"

"It was partly made -- I guess some of the boys from town must have started it. Flossie and I put more boards and rails on it, and we're having a ride."

"I should say you were!" laughed Nan.

"Come on," said Bert to his older sister, as he tossed his shoes over to where Flossie's and Freddie's were set on a flat stone. "I'll help you push, Freddie."

Nan, who, like Bert, had dark hair and brown eyes, began to take off her shoes and stockings, and soon all four of them were on the raft -- or steamboat, as Freddie called it.

Now you have met the two sets of the Bobbsey twins -- two pairs of them as it were. Flossie and Freddie, the light-haired and blue-eyed ones, were the younger set, and Bert and Nan, whose hair was a dark brown, matching their eyes, were the older.

"This is a dandy raft -- I mean steamboat," said Bert, quickly changing the word as he saw Freddie looking at him. "It holds the four of us easy."

Indeed the mass of boards, planks and rails from the fence did not sink very deep in the water even with all the Bobbsey twins on it. Of course, if they had worn shoes and stockings they would have been wet, for now the water came up over the ankles of all of them. But it was a warm summer day, and going barefoot especially while wading in the pond, was fun.

Bert and Freddie pushed the raft about with long poles, and Flossie and Nan stood together in the middle watching the boys and making believe they were passengers taking a voyage across the ocean.

Back and forth across the pond went the raft-steamboat when, all of a sudden, it stopped with a jerk in the middle of the stretch of water.

"Oh!" cried Flossie, catching hold of Nan to keep herself from falling. "Oh, what's the matter?"

"Are we sinking?" asked Nan.

"No, we're only stuck in the mud," Bert answered. "You just stay there, Flossie and Nan, and you, too, Freddie, and I'll jump off and push the boat out of the mud. It's just stuck, that's all."

"Oh, don't jump in -- it's deep!" cried Nan.

But she was too late. Bert, quickly rolling his trousers up as far as they would go, had leaped off the raft, making a big splash of water.




Chapter II

To The Rescue


"Bert! Bert! You'll be drowned!" cried Flossie, as she clung to Nan in the middle of the raft. "Come back, you'll be drowned!"

"Oh, I'm all right," Bert answered, for he felt himself quite a big boy beside Freddie.

"Are you sure, Bert, it isn't too deep?" asked Nan.

"Look! It doesn't come up to my knees, hardly," Bert said, as he waded around to the side of the raft, having jumped off one end to give it a push to get it loose from the bank of mud on which it had run aground. And, really, the water was not very deep where Bert had leaped in.

Some water had splashed on his short trousers, but he did not mind that, as they were the old ones his mother made him put on in which to play.

"Maybe we can get loose without your pushing us," said Freddie, as he moved about on the raft, tilting it a little, first this way and then the other. Once before that day, when on the "boat" alone, it had become stuck on a hidden bank of mud, and the little twin had managed to get it loose himself.

"No, I guess it's stuck fast," Bert said, as he pushed on the mass of boards without being able to send them adrift. "I'll have to shove good and hard, and maybe you'll have to get in here and help me, Freddie."

"Oh, yes, I can do that!" the little fellow said. "I'll come and help you now, Bert."

"No, you mustn't," ordered Nan, who felt that she had to be a little mother to the smaller twins. "Don't go!"

"Why not?" Freddie wanted to know.

"Because it's too deep for you," answered Nan. "The water is only up to Bert's knees, but it will be over yours, and you'll get your clothes all wet. You stay here!"

"But I want to help Bert push the steamboat loose!"

"I guess I can do it alone," Bert said. "Wait until I get around to the front end. I'll push it off backward."

He waded around the raft, which it really was, though the Bobbsey twins pretended it was a steamboat, and then, reaching the front, or what would be the bow if the raft had really been a boat, Bert got ready to push.

"Push, Bert!" yelled Freddie.

But a strange thing happened.

Suddenly a queer look came over Bert's face. He made a quick grab for the side of the raft and then he sank down so that the water came over his knees, wetting his trousers.

"Oh, Bert! what's the matter?" cried Nan.

"I -- I'm sinking in the mud!" gasped Bert. "Oh, I can't get my feet loose! I'm stuck! Maybe I'm in a quicksand and I'll never get loose! Holler for somebody! Holler loud!"

And the other three Bobbsey twins "hollered," as loudly as they could.

"Mother! Mother!" cried Nan.

"Come and get Bert!" added Freddie.

"Oh, Dinah! Dinah!" screamed Flossie, for the fat, good-natured colored cook had so often rescued Flossie that the little girl thought she would be the very best person, now, to come to Bert's aid.

"Oh, I'm sinking away down deep!" cried the brown-eyed boy, as he tried to lift first one foot and then the other. But they were both stuck in the mud under the water, and Bert, afraid of sinking so deep that he would never get out, clung to the side of the raft with all his might.

"Oh, you're making us sink. You're making us sink!" screamed Nan. Indeed, the raft was tipping to one side and the other children had all they could do to keep from sliding into the pond.

"Oh, somebody come and help me!" called Bert.

And then a welcome voice answered:

"I'm coming! I'm coming!"

So, while some one is coming to the rescue, I will take just a few moments to tell my new readers something about the children who are to have adventures in this story.

Those of you who have read the other books of the series will remember that in the first volume, called "The Bobbsey Twins," I told you of Flossie and Freddie, and Bert and Nan Bobbsey, who lived with their father and mother in the eastern city of Lakeport, near Lake Metoka. Mr. Richard Bobbsey owned a large lumberyard, where the children were wont often to play. As I have mentioned, Flossie and Freddie, with their light hair and blue eyes, were one set of twins -- the younger -- while Nan and Bert, who were just the opposite, being dark, were the older twins.

The children had many good times, about some of which I have told you in the first book. Dinah Johnson, the fat, jolly cook, always saw to it that the twins had plenty to eat, and her husband, Sam, who worked about the place, made many a toy for the children, or mended those they broke. Almost as a part of the family, as it were, I might mention Snap, the trick dog, and Snoop, the cat. The children were very fond of these pets.

After having had much fun, as related in my first book, the Bobbsey twins went to the country, where Uncle Daniel Bobbsey had a big farm at Meadow Brook. Later, as you will find in the third volume, they went to visit Uncle William Minturn at the seashore.

Of course, along with their good times, the children had to go to school, and you will find one of the books telling what they did there, and the fun they had. From school the Bobbsey twins went to Snow Lodge, and then they spent some time on a houseboat and later again went to Meadow Brook for a jolly stay in the woods and fields near the farm.

"And now suppose we stay at home for a while," Mr. Bobbsey had said, after coming back from Meadow Brook.

At first the twins thought they wouldn't like this very much, but they did, and they had as much fun and almost as many adventures as before. After that they spent some time in a great city and then they got ready for some wonderful adventures on Blueberry Island.

Those adventures you will find told about in the book just before this one you are now reading. The twins spent the summer on the island, and many things happened to them, to their goat and dog, and to a queer boy. Freddie lost some of his "go-around" bugs, and there is something in the book about a cave, -- but I know you would rather read it for yourself than have me tell you here.

Now to get back to the children on the raft, or rather, to Flossie, Freddie and Nan, who are on that, while Bert is in the water, and stuck in the mud.

"Oh, come quick! Come quick!" he cried. "I can't get loose!"

"I'm coming!" answered the voice, and it was that of Mrs. Bobbsey. She had been in the kitchen, telling Dinah what to get for dinner, when she heard the children shouting from down in the meadow, where the big pond of rain water was.

"I hope none of them has fallen in!" said Mrs. Bobbsey as she ran out of the door, after hearing Bert's shout.

"Good land ob massy! I hopes so mahse'f!" gasped fat Dinah, and she, too, started for the pond. But, as she was very fat, she could not run as fast as could Mrs. Bobbsey. "I 'clar' to goodness I hopes none ob 'em has falled in de watah!" murmured Dinah. "Dat's whut I hopes!"

Mrs. Bobbsey reached the edge of the pond. She saw three of the twins on the raft. For the moment she could not see Bert.

"Where is Bert?" she cried.

"Here I am, Mother!" he answered.

Then Mrs. Bobbsey saw him standing in the water, which was now well over his knees. He was holding to the edge of the raft.

"Oh, Bert Bobbsey!" his mother called. "What are you doing there? Come right out this instant! Why, you are all wet! Oh, my dear!"

"I can't come out, Mother," said Bert, who was not so frightened, now that he saw help at hand.

"You can't come out? Why not?"

"'Cause I'm stuck in the mud -- or maybe it's quicksand. I'm sinking in the quicksand. Or I would sink if I didn't keep hold of the raft. I dassn't let go!"

"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "What shall I do?"

"Can't you pull him out?" asked Nan. "We tried, but we can't."

They had done this -- she and Flossie and Freddie. But Bert's feet were too tightly held in the sticky mud, or whatever it was underneath the water.

"Wait! I'll come and get you," said Mrs. Bobbsey. She was just about to wade out to get Bert, shoes, skirts and all, when along came puffing, fat Dinah, and, just ahead of her, her husband, Sam.

"What's the mattah, Mrs. Bobbsey?" asked the colored man, who did odd jobs around the Bobbsey home.

"It's Bert! He's fast in the mud!" answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "Oh, Sam, please hurry and get him out!"

"Yas'am, I'll do dat!" cried Sam. He did not seem to be frightened. Perhaps he knew that the pond was not very deep where Bert was, and that the boy could not sink down much farther.

Sam had been washing the automobile with the hose, and when he did this he always wore his rubber boots. He had them on now, and so he could easily wade out into the pond without getting wet.

So out Sam waded, half running in fact, and splashing the water all about. But he did not mind that. As did Dinah, he loved the Bobbsey twins -- all four of them -- and he did not want anything to happen to them.

"Jest you stand right fast, Bert!" said the colored man. "I'll have yo' out ob dere in 'bout two jerks ob a lamb's tail! Dat's what I will!"

Bert did not know just how long it took to jerk a lamb's tail twice, even if a lamb had been there. But it did not take Sam very long to reach the small boy.

"Now den, heah we go!" cried Sam.

Standing beside the raft, the colored man put his arms around Bert and lifted him. Or rather, he tried to lift him, for the truth of the matter was that Bert was stuck deeper in the mud than any one knew.

"Now, heah we go, suah!" cried Sam, as he took a tighter hold and lifted harder. And then with a jerk, Bert came loose and up out of the water he was lifted, his feet and legs dripping with black mud, some of which splashed on Sam and on the other twins.

"Oh, what a sight you are!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Oh, but good land of massy! Ain't yo' all thankful he ain't all drown?" asked Dinah.

"Indeed I am," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Come on away from there, all of you. Get off the raft! I'm afraid it's too dangerous to play that game. And, Bert, you must get washed! Oh, how dirty you are!"

Sam carried Bert to shore, and Nan helped Freddie push the raft to the edge of the pond. And then along came Mr. Bobbsey from his lumberyard.

"Well, well!" exclaimed the father of the Bobbsey twins. "What has happened?"

"We had a raft," explained Freddie.

"And I had to toot the whistle when I wanted it to stop," added Flossie.

"We were having a nice ride," said Nan.

"Yes, but what happened to Bert?" asked his father, looking at his muddy son, who truly was a "sight."

"Well, the raft got stuck," Bert answered, "and I got off to push it loose. Then I got stuck. It was awful sticky mud. I didn't know there was any so sticky in the whole world! First I thought it was quicksand. But I held on and then Sam came and got me out. I -- I guess I got my pants a little muddy," he said.

"I guess you did," agreed his father, and his eyes twinkled as they always did when he wanted to laugh but did not feel that it would be just the right thing to do. "You are wet and muddy. But get up to the house and put on dry things. Then I have something to tell you."

"Something to tell us?" echoed Nan. "Oh, Daddy! are we going away again?"

"Well, I'm not sure about that part -- yet," replied Mr. Bobbsey. "But I have strange news for you."




Chapter III

Strange News


Bert and Nan Bobbsey looked at one another. They were a little older than Flossie and Freddie, and they saw that something must have happened to make their father come home from the lumber office so early, for on most days he did not come until dinner time. And here it was scarcely eleven o'clock yet, and Dinah was only getting ready to cook the dinner.

"Is it bad news?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband.

"Well, part of it is bad," he said. "But no one is hurt, or killed or anything like that."

"Tell us now!" begged Bert. "Tell us the strange news, Daddy!"

"Oh, I couldn't think of it while you look the way you do," said Mr. Bobbsey. "First get washed nice and clean, and put on dry clothes. Then you'll be ready for the news."

"I'll hurry," promised Bert, as he ran toward the house, followed by Snap, the trick dog that had once been in a circus. Snap had come out of the barn, where he stayed a good part of the time. He wanted to see what all the noise was about when Bert had called as he found himself stuck in the mud.

"Are you sure no one is hurt?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband. "Are Uncle Daniel and Aunt Sarah all right?"

"Oh, yes, of course."

"And Uncle William and Aunt Emily?"

"Yes, they're all right, too. My news is about my cousin, Jasper Dent. You don't know him very well; but I did, when I was a boy," went on Mr Bobbsey. "There is a little bad news about him. He has been hurt and is now ill in a hospital, but he is getting well."

"And is the strange news about him?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she walked on, with Flossie, Freddie and Nan following.

"Yes, about Cousin Jasper," replied Mr. Bobbsey. "But don't get worried, even if we should have to go on a voyage."

"On a voyage?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey in surprise.

"Yes," and Mr. Bobbsey smiled.

"Do you mean in a real ship, like we played our raft was?" asked Freddie.

"Yes, my little fireman!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey, catching the little bare-footed boy up in his arms. Often Freddie was called little "fireman," for he had a toy fire engine, and he was very fond of squirting water through the hose fastened to it -- a real hose that sprinkled real water. Freddie was very fond of playing he was a fireman.

"And will the ship go on the ocean?" asked Flossie.

"Yes, my little fat fairy!" her father replied, as he caught her up and kissed her in turn.

"If your mother thinks we ought to, after I tell the strange news about Cousin Jasper, we may all take a trip on the deep blue sea."

"Oh, what fun!" cried Freddie.

"I hope we can go soon," murmured Nan.

"But Bert mustn't get off the ship to push it; must he, Daddy?" asked Flossie.

"No, indeed!" laughed her father, as he set her down in the grass. "If he does the water will come up more than above his knees. But now please don't ask me any more questions until I can sit down after dinner and tell you the whole story."

The children thought the dinner never would be finished, and Bert, who had put on dry clothes, tried to hurry through with his food.

"Bert, my dear, you must not eat so fast," remonstrated his mother, as she saw him hurrying.

"Bert is eating like a regular steam engine," came from Flossie.

At this Nan burst out laughing.

"Flossie, did you ever see an engine eat?" she asked.

"Well, I don't care! You know what I mean," returned the little girl.

"Course engines eat!" cried Freddie. "Don't they eat piles of coal?" he went on triumphantly.

"Well, not an auto engine," said Nan.

"Yes, that eats up gasolene," said Bert.

But they were all in a hurry to listen to what their father might have to say, and so wasted no further time in argument. And when the rice pudding was brought in Nan said:

"Dinner is over now, Daddy, for this is the dessert, and when you're in a hurry to go back to the office you don't wait for that. So can't we hear the strange news now?"

"Yes, I guess so," answered her father, and he drew from his pocket a letter. "This came this morning," he said, "and I thought it best to come right home and tell you about it," he said to his wife.

"The letter is from my Cousin Jasper. When we were boys we lived in the same town. Jasper was always fond of the ocean, and often said, when he grew up, he would make a long voyage."

"Freddie and I were having a voyage on a raft to-day," said Flossie. "And we had fun until Bert fell in."

"I didn't fall in -- I jumped in and I got stuck in the mud," put in Bert.

"Don't interrupt, dears, if you want to hear Daddy's news," said Mrs. Bobbsey, and her husband, after looking at the letter, as if to make sure about what he was talking, went on.

"Cousin Jasper Dent did become a sailor, when he grew up. But he sailed more on steamboats than on ships with sails that have to be blown by the wind. Many things happened to him, so he has told me in letters that he has written, for I have not seen him very often, of late years. And now the strangest of all has happened, so he tells me here."

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Well, he has been shipwrecked, for one thing."

"And was he cast away on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe?" asked Bert, who was old enough to read that wonderful book.

"Well, that's what I don't know," went on Mr. Bobbsey. "Cousin Jasper does not write all that happened to him. He says he has been shipwrecked and has had many adventures, and he wants me to come to him so that he may tell me more."

"Where is he?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"In a hospital in St. Augustine, Florida," was the answer.

"Oh, Florida!" exclaimed Flossie. "That's where the cocoanuts grow; isn't it, Daddy?"

"Well, maybe a few grow there, but I guess you are thinking of oranges," her father answered with a smile. "Lots of oranges grow in Florida."

"And are we going there?" asked Bert.

"That's what I want to talk to your mother about," went on Mr. Bobbsey. "Cousin Jasper doesn't say just what happened to him, nor why he is so anxious to see me. But he wants me to come down to Florida to see him."

"It would be a nice trip if we could go, and take the children," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Though, I suppose, this is hardly the time of year to go to such a place."

"Oh, it is always nice in Florida," her husband said, "though of course when it is winter here it seems nicer there because it is so warm, and the flowers are in blossom."

"And do the oranges grow then?" asked Freddie.

"I guess so," his father said. "At any rate it is now early spring here, and even in Florida, where it is warmer than it is up North where we live, I think it will not be too hot for us. Besides, I don't believe Cousin Jasper intends to stay in Florida, or have us stay there."

"Why not?" Mrs. Bobbsey asked.

"Well, in his letter he says, after he has told me the strange news, he hopes I will go on a voyage with him to search for some one who is lost."

"Some one lost!" replied Nan. "What does he mean, Daddy?"

"That's what I don't know. I guess Cousin Jasper was too ill to write all he wanted to, and he would rather see me and tell me. So I came to ask if you would like to go to Florida," and Mr. Bobbsey looked at his wife and smiled.

"Oh, yes! Let's go!" begged Bert.

"And pick oranges!" added Flossie.

"Please say you'll go, Mother!" cried Nan. "Please do!"

"I want to go in big steamboat!" fairly shouted Freddie. "And I'll take my fire engine with me and put out the fire!"

"Oh, children dear, do be quiet one little minute and let me think," begged Mrs. Bobbsey. "Let me see the letter, dear," she said to her husband.

Mr. Bobbsey handed his wife the sheets of paper, and she read them carefully.

"Well, they don't tell very much," she said as she folded them and handed them back. "Still your cousin does say something strange happened when he was shipwrecked, wherever that was. I think you had better go and see him, if you can leave the lumberyard, Dick."

"Oh, yes, the lumber business will be all right," said Mr. Bobbsey, whom his wife called Dick. "And would you like to go with me?" he asked his wife.

"And take the children?"

"Yes, we could take them. A sail on the ocean would do them good, I think. They have been shut up pretty much all winter."

"Will we go on a sailboat?" asked Bert.

"No, I hardly think so. They are too slow. If we go we will, very likely, go on a steamer," Mr. Bobbsey said.

"Oh, goody!" cried Freddie, while Mrs. Bobbsey smiled her consent.

"Well, then, I'll call it settled," went on the twins' father, "and I'll write Cousin Jasper that we're coming to hear his strange news, though why he couldn't put it in his letter I can't see. But maybe he had a good reason. Now I'll go back to the office and see about getting ready for a trip on the deep, blue sea. And I wonder --  -- "

Just then, out in the yard, a loud noise sounded.

Snap, the big dog, could be heard barking, and a child's voice cried:

"No, you can't have it! You can't have it! Oh, Nan! Bert! Make your dog go 'way!"

Mr. Bobbsey, pushing back his chair so hard that it fell over, rushed from the room.




Chapter IV

Getting Ready


"Oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, "I wonder what has happened now!"

"Maybe Snap is barking at a tramp," suggested Bert. "I'll go and see."

"It can't be a tramp!" Nan spoke with scorn. "That sounded like a little girl crying."

"It surely did," Mrs. Bobbsey said. "Wait a minute, Bert. Don't go out just yet."

"But I want to see what it is, Mother!" and Bert paused, half way to the door, out of which Mr. Bobbsey had hurried a few seconds before.

"Your father will do whatever needs to be done," said Bert's mother. "Perhaps it may be a strange dog, fighting with Snap, and you might get bitten."

"Snap wouldn't bite me."

"Nor me!" put in Nan.

"No, but the strange dog might. Wait a minute."

Flossie and Freddie had also started to leave the room to go out into the yard and see what was going on, but when they heard their mother speak about a strange dog they went back to their chairs by the table.

Then, from the yard, came cries of:

"Make him give her back to me, Mr. Bobbsey! Please make Snap give her back to me!"

"Oh, that's Helen Porter!" cried Nan, as she heard the voice of a child. "It's Helen, and Snap must have taken something she had."

"I see!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, looking out the door. "It's Helen's doll. Snap has it in his mouth and he's running with it down to the end of the yard."

"Has Snap really got Helen's doll?" asked Flossie.

"Yes," answered her mother. "Though why he took it I don't know."

"Well, if it's only Snap, and no other dog is there, can't I go out and see?" asked Bert. "Snap won't hurt me."

"No, I don't believe he will," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Yes, you may all go out. I hope Snap hasn't hurt Helen."

Helen Porter was a little girl who lived next door to the Bobbsey twins, and those of you who have the book about camping on Blueberry Island will remember her as the child who, at first, was thought to have been taken away by the Gypsies.

"Oh, Helen! What is the matter, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she hurried out into the yard, followed by Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie.

"Did Snap bite you?" asked Nan, looking toward her father, who was running after the dog that was carrying the little girl's doll in his mouth.

"No, Snap didn't bite me! But he bit my doll!" Helen answered.

"It doesn't hurt dolls to bite 'em," said Bert, with a laugh.

"It does so!" cried Helen, turning her tear-filled eyes on him. "It makes all their sawdust come out!"

"So it does, my dear," said Mrs. Bobbsey kindly. "But we'll hope that Snap won't bite your doll as hard as that. If he does I'll sew up the holes to keep the sawdust in. But how did he come to do it?"

"I -- I guess maybe he liked the cookie my doll had," explained Helen, who was about as old as Flossie.

"Did your doll have a cookie?" asked Nan.

"Yes. I was playing she was a rich lady doll," went on the little girl from next door, "and she was taking a basket of cookies to a poor doll lady. Course I didn't have a whole basket of cookies," explained Helen. "I had only one, but I made believe it was a whole basket full."

"How did you give it to your doll to carry?" asked Nan, for she had often played games this way herself, making believe different things. "How did your doll carry the cookie, Helen?"

"She didn't carry it," was the answer. "I tied it to her with a piece of string so she wouldn't lose it. The cookie was tied fast around her waist."

"Oh, then I see what happened," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Snap came up to you, and he smelled the cookie on your doll; didn't he?"

"Yes'm," answered Helen.

"And he must have thought you meant the cookie for him," went on Nan's mother. "And he tried to take it in his mouth; didn't he?"

"Yes'm," Helen answered again.

"And when he couldn't get the cookie loose, because you had it tied fast to your doll, he took the cookie, doll and all. That's how it was," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Never mind, Helen. Don't cry. Here comes Mr. Bobbsey now, with your doll."

"But I guess Snap has the cookie," said Bert with a laugh.

"I'll get you another one from Dinah," promised Nan to Helen.

In the meantime Mr. Bobbsey had run down to the lower end of the yard after Snap, the big dog.

"Come here, Snap, you rascal!" he cried. "Come here this minute!"

But for once Snap did not mind. He was rather hungry, and perhaps that accounted for his disobedience. Instead of coming up he ran out of sight behind the little toolhouse. Mr. Bobbsey went after him, but by the time he reached the spot Snap was nowhere to be seen.

"Snap! Snap!" he called out loudly. "Come here, I tell you! Where are you hiding?"

Of course, the dog could not answer the question that had been put to him, and neither did he show himself. That is, not at first. But presently, as Mr. Bobbsey looked first in one corner of the toolhouse and then in another, he saw the tip end of Snap's tail waving slightly from behind a big barrel.

"Ah, so there you are!" he called out, and then pushed the barrel to one side.

There was Snap, and in front of him lay the doll with a short string attached to it. Whatever had been tied to the other end of the string was now missing.

"Snap, you're getting to be a bad dog!" said Mr. Bobbsey sternly. "Give me that doll this instant!"

The dog made no movement to keep the doll, but simply licked his mouth with his long, red tongue, as if he was still enjoying what he had eaten.

"If you don't behave yourself after this I'll have to tie you up, Snap," warned Mr. Bobbsey.

And then, acting as if he knew he had done wrong, the big dog slunk out of sight.

"Here you are, Helen!" called Flossie's father, as he came back. "Here's your doll, all right, and she isn't hurt a bit. But the cookie is inside of Snap."

"Did he like it?" Helen wanted to know.

"He seemed to -- very much," answered Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "He made about two bites of it, after he got it loose from the string by which you had tied it to the doll."

Helen dried her tears on the backs of her hands, and took the doll which had been carried away by the dog. There were a few cookie crumbs sticking to her dress, and that was all that was left of the treat she had been taking to a make-believe poor lady.

"Snap, what made you act so to Helen?" asked Bert, shaking his finger at his pet, when the dog came up from the end of the yard, wagging his tail. "Don't you know you were bad?"

Snap did not seem to know anything of the kind. He kept on wagging his tail, and sniffed around Helen and her doll.

"He's smelling to see if I've any more cookies," said the little girl.

"I guess he is," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Well, come into the house, Helen, and I'll give you another cookie if you want it. But you had better not tie it to your doll, and go anywhere near Snap."

"I will eat it myself," said the little girl.

"One cookie a day is enough for Snap, anyhow," said Bert.

The dog himself did not seem to think so, for he followed the children and Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey back to the house, as though hoping he would get another cake.

"Heah's a bone fo' yo'," said Dinah to Snap, for she liked the big dog, and he liked her, I think, for he was in the kitchen as often as Dinah would allow him. Or perhaps it was the good things that the fat cook gave him which Snap liked.

"When we heard you crying, out in the yard," said Mr. Bobbsey to Helen, as they were sitting in the dining-room, "we didn't know what had happened."

"We were afraid it was another dog fighting with Snap," went on Nan.

"Snap didn't fight me," Helen said. "But he scared me just like I was scared when the gypsy man took Mollie, my talking doll."

I have told you about this in the Blueberry Island book, you remember.

"Well, I must get back to the office," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a while. "From there I'll write and tell Cousin Jasper that I'll come to see him, and hear his strange story."

"And we'll come too," added Bert with a laugh. "Don't forget us, Daddy."

"I'll not," promised Mr. Bobbsey.

The letter was sent to Mr. Dent, who was still in the hospital, and in a few days a letter came back, asking Mr. Bobbsey to come as soon as he could.

"Bring the children, too," wrote Cousin Jasper. "They'll like it here, and if you will take a trip on the ocean with me they may like to come, also."

"Does Cousin Jasper live on the ocean?" asked Flossie, for she called Mr. Dent "cousin" as she heard her father and mother do, though, really, he was her second, or first cousin once removed.

"Well, he doesn't exactly live on the ocean," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But he lives near it, and he often takes trips in boats, I think. He once told me he had a large motor boat."

"What's a motor boat?" Freddie wanted to know.

"It is one that has a motor in it, like a motor in an automobile, instead of a steam engine," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Big boats and ships, except those that sail, are moved by steam engines. But a motor boat has a gasolene motor, or engine, in it."

"And are we going to ride in one?" asked Flossie.

"Well, we'll see what Cousin Jasper wants us to do, and hear what his strange news is," answered her father.

"Are we going from here to Florida in a motor boat?" Freddie demanded.

"Well, not exactly, little fireman," his father replied with a laugh. "We'll go from here to New York in a train, and from New York to Florida in a steamboat.

"After that we'll see what Cousin Jasper wants us to do. Maybe he will have another boat ready to take us on a nice voyage."

"That'll be fun!" cried Freddie. "I hope we see a whale."

"Well, I hope it doesn't bump into us," said Flossie. "Whales are awful big, aren't they, Daddy?"

"Yes, they are quite large. But I hardly think we shall see any between here and Florida, though once in a while whales are sighted along the coast."

"Are there any sharks?" Bert asked.

"Oh, yes, there are plenty of sharks, some large and some small," his father answered. "But they can't hurt us, and the ship will steam right on past them in the ocean," he added, seeing that Flossie and Freddie looked a bit frightened when Bert spoke of the sharks.

"I wonder what Cousin Jasper really wants of you," said Mrs. Bobbsey to her husband, when the children had gone out to play.

"I don't know," he answered, "but we shall hear in a few days. We'll start for Florida next week."

And then the Bobbsey twins and their parents got ready for the trip. They were to have many strange adventures before they saw their home again.




Chapter V

Off For Florida


There were many matters to be attended to at the Bobbsey home before the start could be made for Florida. Mr. Bobbsey had to leave some one in charge of his lumber business, and Mrs. Bobbsey had to plan for shutting up the house while the family were away. Sam and Dinah would go on a vacation while the others were in Florida, they said, and the pet animals, Snap and Snoop, would be taken care of by kind neighbors.

"What are you doing, Freddie?" his mother asked him one day, when she heard him and Flossie hurrying about in the playroom, while Mrs. Bobbsey was sorting over clothes to take on the trip.

"Oh, we're getting out some things we want to take," the little boy answered. "Our playthings, you know."

"Can I take two of my dolls?" Flossie asked.

"I think one will be enough," her mother said. "We can't carry much baggage, and if we go out on the deep blue sea in a motor boat we shall have very little room for any toys. Take only one doll, Flossie, and let that be a small one."

"All right," Flossie answered.

Mrs. Bobbsey paid little attention to the small twins for a while as she and Nan were busy packing. Bert had gone down to the lumberyard office on an errand for his father. Pretty soon there arose a cry in the playroom.

"Mother, make Freddie stop!" exclaimed Flossie.

"What are you doing, Freddie?" his mother called.

"I'm not doing anything," he answered, as he often did when Flossie and he were having some little trouble.

"He is too doing something!" Flossie went on. "He splashed a whole lot of water on my doll."

"Well, it's a rubber doll and water won't hurt," Freddie answered. "Anyhow I didn't mean to."

"There! He's doing it again!" cried Flossie. "Make him stop, Mother!"

"Freddie, what are you doing?" demanded Mrs. Bobbsey. "Nan," she went on in a lower voice, "you go and peep in. Perhaps Flossie is just too fussy."

Before Nan could reach the playroom, which was down the hall from the room where Mrs. Bobbsey was sorting over the clothes in a large closet, Flossie cried again:

"There! Now you got me all over wet!"

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, laying aside a pile of garments. "I suppose I'll have to go and see what they are doing!"

Before she could reach the playroom, however, Nan came back along the hall. She was laughing, but trying to keep quiet about it, so Flossie and Freddie would not hear her.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "What are they doing?"

"Freddie is playing with his toy fire engine," Nan said. "And he must have squirted some water on Flossie, for she is wet."

"Much?"

"No, only a little."

"Well, he mustn't do it," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I guess they are so excited about going to Florida that they really don't know what they are doing."

Mrs. Bobbsey peered into the room where the two smaller twins had gone to play. Flossie was trying different dresses on a small rubber doll she had picked out to take with her. On the other side of the room was Freddie with his toy fire engine. It was one that could be wound up, and it had a small pump and a little hose that spurted out real water when a tank on the engine was filled. Freddie was very fond of playing fireman.

"There, he's doing it again!" cried Flossie, just as her mother came in. "He's getting me all wet! Mother, make him stop!"

Mrs. Bobbsey was just in time to see Freddie start his toy fire engine, and a little spray of water did shower over his twin sister.

"Freddie, stop it!" cried his mother. "You know you mustn't do that!"

"I can't help it," Freddie said.

"Nonsense! You can't help it? Of course you can help squirting water on your sister!"

"He can so!" pouted Flossie.

"No, Mother! I can't, honest," said Freddie. "The hose of my fire engine leaks, and that makes the water squirt out on Flossie. I didn't mean to do it. I'm playing there's a big fire and I have to put it out. And the hose busts -- just like it does at real fires -- and everybody gets all wet. I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Oh, I thought you did," said Flossie. "Well, if it's just make believe I don't mind. You can splash me some more, Freddie."

"Oh, no he mustn't!" said Mrs. Bobbsey, trying not to laugh, though she wanted to very much. "It's all right to make believe you are putting out a fire, Freddie boy, but, after all, the water is really wet and Flossie is damp enough now. If you want to play you must fix your leaky hose."

"All right, Mother, I will," promised the little boy.

One corner of the room was his own special place to play with the toy fire engine. A piece of oil cloth had been spread down so water would not harm anything, and here Freddie had many good times.

There really was a hole in the little rubber hose of his engine, and the water did come out where it was not supposed to. That was what made Flossie get wet, but it was not much.

"And, anyhow, it didn't hurt her rubber doll," said Freddie.

"No, she likes it," Flossie said. "And I like it too, Freddie, if it's only make believe fun."

"Well, don't do it any more," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "You'll soon have water enough all around you, when you sail on the blue sea, and that ought to satisfy you. Mend the hole in your fire engine hose, Freddie dear."

"All right, Mother," he answered. "Anyhow, I guess I'll play something else now. Toot! Toot! The fire's out!" he called, and Mrs. Bobbsey was glad of it.

Freddie put away his engine, which he and Flossie had to do with all their toys when they were done playing with them, and then ran out to find Snap, the dog with which he wanted to have a race up and down the yard, throwing sticks for his pet to bring back to him.

Flossie took her rubber doll and went over to Helen Porter's house, while Nan and Mrs. Bobbsey went back to the big closet to sort over the clothes, some of which would be taken on the Florida trip with them.

"I'm going to take my fire engine with me," Freddie said, when he had come in after having had fun with Snap.

"Do you mean on the ship?" asked Nan.

"Yes; I'm going to take my little engine on the ship with me. But first I'm going to have the hose mended."

"You won't need a fire engine on a ship," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Oh, I might," answered Freddie. "Sometimes ships get on fire, and you've got to put the fire out. I'll take it all right."

"Well, we'll hope our ship doesn't catch fire," remarked his mother.

When Mr. Bobbsey came home to supper that evening, and heard what had happened, he said there would be no room for Freddie's toy engine on the ship.

"The trip we are going to take isn't like going to Meadow Brook, or to Uncle William's seashore home," said the father of the Bobbsey twins. "We can't take all the trunks and bags we would like to, for we shall have to stay in two small cabins, or staterooms, on the ship. And perhaps we shall have even less room when we get on the boat with Cousin Jasper -- if we go on a boat. So we can't take fire engines and things like that."

"But s'posin' the ship gets on fire?" asked Freddie.

"We hope it won't," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But, if it does, there are pumps and engines already on board. They won't need yours, Freddie boy, though it is very nice of you to think of taking it."

"Can't I take any toys?"

"I think you won't really need them," his father said. "Once we get out on the ocean there will be so much to see that you will have enough to do without playing with the toys you use here at home. Leave everything here, I say. If you want toys we can get them in Florida, and perhaps such different ones that you will like them even better than your old ones."

"Could I take my little rubber doll?" asked Flossie.

"Yes, I think you might do that," her father said, with a smile at the little girl. "You can squeeze your rubber doll up smaller, if she takes up too much room."

So it was arranged that way. At first Freddie felt sad about leaving his toy fire engine at home, but his father told him perhaps he might catch a fish at sea, and then Freddie began saving all the string he could find out of which to make a fish line.

Finally the last trunk and valise had been packed. The railroad and steamship tickets had been bought, Sam and Dinah got ready to go and stay with friends, Snap and Snoop were sent away -- not without a rather tearful parting on the part of Flossie and Freddie -- and then the Bobbsey family was ready to start for Florida.

They were to go to New York by train, and as nothing much happened during that part of the journey I will skip over it. I might say, though, that Freddie took from his pocket a ball of string, which he was going to use for his fishing, and the string fell into the aisle of the car.

Then the conductor came along and his feet got tangled in the cord, dragging the ball boundingly after him halfway down the coach.

"Hello! What's this?" the conductor cried, in surprise.

"Oh, that's my fish line!" answered Freddie.

"Well, you've caught something before you reached the sea," said the ticket-taker as he untangled the string from his feet, and all the other passengers laughed.

After a pleasant ride the Bobbsey twins reached New York, and, after spending a night in a hotel, and going to a moving picture show, they went on board the ship the next morning. The ship was to take them down the coast to Florida, where Cousin Jasper was ill in a hospital, though Mr. Bobbsey had had a letter, just before leaving home, in which Mr. Dent said he was feeling much better.

"All aboard! All aboard!" called an officer on the ship, when the Bobbseys had left their baggage in the stateroom where they were to stay during the trip. "All ashore that's going ashore!"

"That means every one must get off who isn't going to Florida," said Bert, who had been on a ship once before with his father.

Bells jingled, whistles blew, people hurried up and down the gangplank, or bridge from the dock to the boat, and at last the ship began to move.

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were waving good-bye to friends on the pier, and Nan and Bert were looking at the big buildings of New York, when Mrs. Bobbsey turned, putting away the handkerchief she had been waving, and asked:

"Where are Flossie and Freddie?"

"Aren't they here?" asked Mr. Bobbsey quickly.

"No," answered his wife. "Oh, where are they?"

The two little Bobbsey twins were not in sight.




Chapter VI

In A Pipe


There was so much going on with the sailing of the ship -- so many passengers hurrying to and fro, calling and waving good-bye, so much noise made by the jingling bells and the tooting whistles -- that Mrs. Bobbsey could hardly hear her own voice as she called:

"Flossie! Freddie! Where are you?"

But the little twins did not answer, nor could they be seen on deck near Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey where they stood with Bert and Nan.

"They were here a minute ago," said Bert. "I saw Flossie holding up her rubber doll to show her the Woolworth Building." This, as you know, is the highest building in New York, if not in the world.

"But where is Flossie now?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, and there was a worried look on her face.

"Maybe she went downstairs," said Mr. Bobbsey.

"And where is Freddie?" asked his mother.

"I saw him getting his ball of string ready to go fishing," laughed Bert. "I told him to put it away until we got out on the ocean. Then I saw a fat man lose his hat and run after it and I didn't watch Freddie any more."

"Oh, don't laugh, Bert! Where can those children be?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "I told them not to go away, but to stay on deck near us, and now they've disappeared!"

"Did they go ashore?" asked Nan. "Oh, Mother! if they did we'll have to stop the ship and go back after them!"

"They didn't go ashore," said Bert. "They couldn't get there, because the gangplank was pulled in while Freddie was standing here by me, getting out his ball of string."

"Then they're all right," Mr. Bobbsey said. "They are on board, and we'll soon find them. I'll ask some of the officers or the crew. The twins can't be lost."

"Oh, but if they have fallen overboard!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Don't worry," said her husband. "We'd have heard of it before this if anything like that had happened. They're all right."

And so it proved. A little later Flossie and Freddie came walking along the deck hand in hand. Flossie was carrying her rubber doll, and Freddie had his ball of string, all ready to begin fishing as soon as the ship should get out of New York Harbor.

"Where have you been?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "You children have given us such a fright! Where were you?"

"We went to look at a poodle dog," explained Flossie.

"A lady had him in a basket," added Freddie.

"What do you mean -- a poodle dog in a basket?" asked Bert.

Then Freddie explained, while Mr. Bobbsey went to tell the steward, or one of the officers of the ship, that the lost children had come safely back.

The smaller twins had seen one of the passengers with a pet dog in a blue silk-lined basket, and they had followed her around the deck to the other side of the ship, away from their parents, to get a better look at the poodle. It was a pretty and friendly little animal, and the children had been allowed to pat it. So they forgot what their mother had said to them about not going away.

"Well, don't do it again," warned Mr. Bobbsey, and Flossie and Freddie said they would not.

By this time the big ship was well on her way down New York Bay toward the Statue of Liberty, which the children looked at with wondering eyes. They took their last view of the tall buildings which cluster in the lower end of the island of Manhattan, and then they felt that they were really well started on their voyage.

"Oh, I hope we have lots of fun in Florida!" said Nan. "I've always wanted to go there, always!"

"So have I," Bert said. "But maybe we won't stay in Florida long."

"Why not?" his sister asked.

"Because didn't father say Cousin Jasper wanted us to take a trip with him?"

"So he did," replied Nan. "I wonder where he is going."

"That's part of the strange news he's going to tell," said Bert. "Anyhow we'll have a good time."

"And maybe we'll get shipwrecked!" exclaimed Freddie, who, with his little sister Flossie, was listening to what the older Bobbsey twins were saying.

"Shipwrecked!" cried Bert. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"Maybe. If we could live on an island like Robinson Crusoe," Freddie answered, "that would be lots of fun."

"Yes, but if we had to live on an island without anything to eat and no water to drink, that wouldn't be so much fun," said Nan.

"If it was an island there'd be a lot of water all around it -- that's what an island is," Flossie said. "I learned it in geogogafy at school. An island has water all around it, my geogogafy says."

"Yes, but at sea the water is salty and you can't drink it," Bert said. "I don't want to be shipwrecked."

"Well, maybe I don't want to, either," said Freddie, after thinking about it a little. "Anyhow we'll have some fun!"

"Yes," agreed Bert, "I guess I will."

"Now I'm going to fish," remarked Freddie.

"You won't catch anything," Bert said.

"Why not?" Freddie wanted to know, as he again took the ball of string from his pocket.

"'Cause we're not out at sea yet," Bert replied. "This is only the bay, and fish don't come up here on account of too many ships that scare 'em away. You'll have to wait until we get out where the water is colored blue."

"Do fish like blue water?" asked Flossie.

"I guess so," answered Bert. "Anyhow, I don't s'pose you can catch any fish here, Freddie."

However, the little Bobbsey twin boy had his own idea about that. He had been planning to catch some fish ever since he had heard about the trip to Florida. Freddie had been to the seashore several times, on visits to Ocean Cliff, where Uncle William Minturn lived. But this was the first time the small chap had been on a big ship. He knew that fish were caught in the sea, for he had seen the men come in with boatloads of them at Ocean Cliff. And he had caught fish himself at Blueberry Island. But that, he remembered, was not in the sea.

"Come on, Flossie," said Freddie, when Bert and Nan had walked away down the deck. "Come on, I'm going to do it."

"Do what, Freddie?"

"I'm going to catch some fish. I've got my string all untangled now."

"You haven't any fishhook," observed the little girl; "and you can't catch any fish lessen you have a hook."

"I can make one out of a pin, and I've got a pin," answered Freddie. "I dassen't ever have a real hook, anyhow, all alone by myself, till I get bigger. But I can catch a fish on a pin-hook."

He did have a pin fastened to his coat, and this pin he now bent into the shape of a hook and stuck it through a knot in the end of the long, dangling string.

"Where are you going to fish?" asked Flossie. She and her brother were on the deck not far from the two staterooms of the Bobbsey family. Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting in a steamer chair near the door of her room, where she could watch the children.

"I'm going to fish right here," Freddie said, pointing to the rail at the side of the ship. "I'm going to throw my line over here, with the hook on it, just like I fish off the bridge at home."

"And I'll watch you," said Flossie.

Over the railing Freddie tossed his bent-pin hook and line. He thought it would reach down to the water, but he did not know how large the boat was on which he was sailing to Florida.

His little ball of string unwound as the end of it dropped over the rail, but the hook did not reach the water. Even if it had, Freddie could have caught nothing. In the first place a bent pin is not the right kind of hook, and, in the second place, Freddie had no bait on the hook. Bait is something that covers a hook and makes the fish want to bite on it. Then they are caught. But Freddie did not think of this just now, and his hook had nothing on it. Neither did it reach down to the water, and Freddie didn't know that.

But, as his string was dangling over the side of the ship there came a sudden tug on it, and the little boy pulled up as hard as he could.

"Oh, I've caught a fish! I've caught a fish!" he cried. "Flossie, look, I've caught a fish!"

Of course Flossie could not see what was on the end of her brother's line, but it was something! She could easily tell that by the way Freddie was hauling in on the string.

"Oh, what have you got?" cried the little girl.

"I've got a big fish!" said Freddie. "I said I'd catch a fish, and I did!"

From somewhere down below came shouts and cries.

"What's that?" asked Flossie.

"Them's the people hollering 'cause I caught such a big fish," answered Freddie. "Look, there it is!"

Something large and black appeared above the edge of the rail.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Flossie.

Mrs. Bobbsey, from where she was sitting in her chair, heard the cries and came running over to the children.

"What are you doing, Freddie?" she asked.

"Catching a fish!" he answered. "I got one and --  -- "

The black thing on the end of his line was pulled over the rail and flapped to the deck. Flossie and Freddie stared at it with wide-open eyes. Then Flossie said:

"Oh, what a funny fish!"

And so it was, for it wasn't a fish at all, but a woman's big black hat, with feathers on it. Freddie's bent-pin hook had caught in the hat which was being worn by a woman standing near the rail on the deck below where the Bobbsey family had their rooms. And Freddie had pulled the hat right off the woman's head.

"No wonder the lady yelled!" laughed Bert when he came to see what was happening to his smaller brother and sister. "You're a great fisherman, Freddie."

"Well, next time I'll catch a real fish," declared the little boy.

Bert carried the woman's hat down to her, and said Freddie was sorry for having caught it in mistake for a fish. The woman laughed heartily and said no harm had been done.

"But I couldn't imagine what was pulling my hat off my head," she told her friends. "First I thought it was one of the seagulls."

Freddie wound up his string, and said he would not fish any more until he could see where his hook went to, and his father told him he had better wait until they got to St. Augustine, where he could fish from the shore and see what he was catching.

From the time they came on board until it was the hour to eat, the Bobbsey twins looked about the ship, seeing something new and wonderful on every side. They hardly wanted to go to bed when night came, but their mother said they must, as they would be about two days on the water, and they would have plenty of time to see everything.

Bert, Freddie and their father had one stateroom and Mrs. Bobbsey and the two girls slept in the other, "next door," as you might say.

The night passed quietly, the ship steaming along over the ocean, and down the coast to Florida. The next day the four children were up early to see everything there was to see.

They found the ship now well out to sea, and out of sight of land. They were really on the deep ocean at last, and they liked it very much. Bert and Nan found some older children with whom to play, and Flossie and Freddie wandered off by themselves, promising not to go too far from Mrs. Bobbsey, who was on deck in her easy chair, reading.

After a while Flossie came running back to her mother in great excitement.

"Oh, Mother! Oh, Mother!" gasped the little girl. "He's gone!"

"Who's gone?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, dropping her book as she quickly stood up.

"Freddie's gone! We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he went down a big pipe, and now I can't see him! He's gone!"




Chapter VII

The Shark


Mrs. Bobbsey hardly knew what to do for a moment. She just stood and looked at Flossie as if she had not understood what the little girl had said. Then Freddie's mother spoke.

"You say he went down a big pipe?" she asked.

"Yes, Mother," answered Flossie. "We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and it was my turn to blind. I hollered 'ready or not I'm coming!' and when I opened my eyes to go to find Freddie, I saw him going down a big, round pipe."

"What sort of pipe?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, thinking her little boy might have crawled in some place on deck to hide, and that to Flossie it looked like a pipe.

"It was a pipe sticking up like a smokestack," Flossie went on, "and it was painted red inside."

"Oh, you mean a ventilator pipe!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "If Freddie crawled down in one of those he'll have a dreadful fall! Flossie, call your father!"

Flossie did not exactly know what a ventilator pipe was, but I'll tell you that it is a big iron thing, like a funnel, that lets fresh air from above down into the boiler room where the firemen have to stay to make steam to push the ship along. But, though Flossie did not quite know what a ventilator pipe was, she knew her mother was much frightened, or she would not have wanted Mr. Bobbsey to come.

Flossie saw her father about halfway down the deck, talking to some other men, and, running up to him, she cried:

"Freddie's down in a want-you-later pipe!"

"A want-you-later pipe?" repeated Mr. Bobbsey. "What in the world do you mean, Flossie?"

"Well, that's what mother said," went on the little girl. "Me and Freddie were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he hid down in a pipe painted red, and mother said it was a want-you-later. And she wants you now!"

"A want-you-later pipe!" exclaimed one of the men. "Oh, she must mean a ventilator. It does sound like that to a little girl."

"Yes, that's it," said Flossie. "And please come quick to mother, will you, Daddy?"

Mr. Bobbsey set off on a run toward his wife, and some of the other men followed, one of them taking hold of Flossie's hand.

"Oh, Dick!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey as her husband reached her, "something dreadful has happened! Freddie is down a ventilator pipe, and I don't know what to do!"

Neither did Mr. Bobbsey for a moment or two, and as the men came crowding around him, one of them bringing up Flossie, a cry was heard, coming from one of the red-painted pipes not far away. It was not a loud cry, sounding in fact, as if the person calling were down in a cellar.

"Come and get me out! Come and get me out!" the voice begged, and when Flossie heard it she said:

"That's him! That's Freddie now. Oh, he's down in the pipe yet!"

"Which pipe?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

Flossie pointed to a ventilator not far away. Mr. Bobbsey and the men ran toward it, and, as they reached it, they could hear, coming out of the big opening that was shaped somewhat like a funnel, a voice of a little boy, saying:

"Come and get me out! I'm stuck!"

Mr. Bobbsey put his head down inside the pipe and looked around. There he saw Freddie, doubled up into a little ball, trying to get himself loose. Flossie's brother was, indeed, stuck in the pipe, which was smaller below than it was at the opening -- too small, in fact, to let the little boy slip through. So he was in no danger of falling.

"Oh, Freddie! what made you get in there?" asked his father, as he reached in, and, after pulling and tugging a bit, managed to get him out. "What made you do it?"

"I was hiding away from Flossie," answered the little fellow. "I crawled in the pipe, and then I waited for her to come and find me. She didn't know where I was."

"Yes, I did so know where you went," declared Flossie. "I saw you crawl into the pipe, and I didn't peek, either. I just opened my eyes and I saw you go into the pipe, and I was scared and I ran and told mother."

"Well, if you didn't peek it's all right," Freddie said. "It was a good place to hide. I waited and waited for you to come and find me and then I thought you were going to let me come on in home free, and I tried to get out. But I couldn't -- I was stuck."

"I should say you were!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey. He could laugh now, and so could Mrs. Bobbsey, though, at first, they were very much frightened, thinking Freddie might have been hurt.

"Don't crawl in there again, little fireman," said one of the men with whom Mr. Bobbsey had been talking, and who knew the pet name of Flossie's brother. "This pipe wasn't big enough to let you fall through, but some of the ventilator pipes might be, and then you'd fall all the way through to the boiler room. Don't hide in any more pipes on the steamer."

"I won't," Freddie promised, for he had been frightened when he found that he was stuck in the pipe and couldn't get out. "Come on, Flossie; it's your turn to hide now," he said.

"I don't want to play hide-and-go-seek any more," the little girl said. "I'd rather play with my doll."

"If I had my fire engine I'd play fireman," Freddie said, for he did not care much about a doll.

"How would you like to go down to the engine room with me, and see where you might have fallen if the ventilator pipe hadn't been too small to let you through?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"I'd like it," Freddie said. "I like engines."

So his father took him away down into the hold, or lower part of the boat, and showed him where the firemen put coal on the fire. There Freddie saw ventilator pipes, like the one he had hid in, reaching from the boiler room up to the deck, so the firemen could breathe cool, fresh air. And there were also pipes like it in the engine room.

Freddie watched the shining wheels go spinning round and he heard the hiss of steam as it turned the big propeller at the back of the ship, and pushed the vessel through the waters of the deep blue sea.

"Now we'll go up on deck," said Mr. Bobbsey, when Freddie had seen all he cared to in the engine room. "It's cooler there."

Freddie and his father found several women talking to Mrs. Bobbsey, who was telling them what had happened to her little boy, and Bert and Nan were also listening.

"I wonder what Freddie will do next?" said Bert to his older sister. "First he catches a lady's hat for a fish, and then he nearly gets lost down a big pipe."

"I hope he doesn't fall overboard," returned Nan.

"So do I," agreed Bert. "And when we get on a smaller ship, if we go on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, we'll have to look after Flossie and Freddie, or they will surely fall into the water."

"Are we really, truly going on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, do you think?" Nan asked.

"Well, I heard father and mother talking about it, and they seemed to think maybe we'd take a trip on the ocean," went on Bert.

"I hope we do!" exclaimed Nan. "I just love the water!"

"So do I!" her brother said. "When I get big I'm going to have a ship of my own."

"Will you take me for a sail?" asked Nan.

"Course I will!" Bert quickly promised.

The excitement caused by Freddie's hiding in the ventilator pipe soon passed, and then the Bobbsey family and the other passengers on the ship enjoyed the fine sail. The weather was clear and the sea was not rough, so nearly every one was out on deck.

"I wonder if we'll see any shipwrecks," remarked Bert a little later, as the four Bobbsey twins were sitting in a shady place not far from Mrs. Bobbsey, who was reading her book. She had told the children to keep within her sight.

"A shipwreck would be nice to see if nobody got drowned," observed Nan. "And maybe we could rescue some of the people!"

"When there's a shipwreck," said Freddie, who seemed to have been thinking about it, "they have to get in the little boats, like this one," and he pointed to a lifeboat not far away.

"That's an awful little boat to go on the big ocean in," said Flossie.

"It's safe, though," Bert said. "It's got things in it to make it float, even if it's half full of water. It can't sink any more than our raft could sink."

"Our raft nearly did sink," said Flossie.

"No, it only got stuck on a mud bank," answered Bert. "I was the one that sank down in my bare feet," and he laughed as he remembered that time.

"Well, anyhow, we had fun," said Freddie.

"Oh, look!" suddenly cried Nan. "There's a small boat now -- out there on the ocean. Maybe there's been a shipwreck, Bert!"

Bert and the other Bobbsey twins looked at the object to which Nan pointed. Not far from the steamer was a small boat with three or four men in it, and they seemed to be in some sort of trouble. They were beating the water with oars and poles, and something near the boat was lashing about, making the waves turn into foam.

"That isn't a shipwreck!" cried Bert. "That's a fisherman's boat!"

"And something is after it!" said Nan. "Oh, Bert! maybe a whale is trying to sink the fisherman's boat!"

By this time Mrs. Bobbsey and a number of other passengers were crowding to the rail, looking at the small boat. The men in it did, indeed, seem to be fighting off something in the water that was trying to damage their boat.

"It's a big shark!" cried one of the steamship sailors. "The fishermen have caught a big shark and they're trying to kill it before it sinks their boat. Say, it's a great, big shark! Look at it lash the water into foam! Those men may be hurt!"

"A shark! A shark!" cried the passengers, and from all over the ship they came running to where they could see what was happening to the small boat.




Chapter VIII

The Fight In The Boat


When the Bobbsey twins first saw the small boat, and the fishermen in it trying to beat off the shark that was trying to get at them, the steamer was quite a little distance off. The big vessel, though, was headed toward the fishing boat and soon came close enough for the passengers to see plainly what was going on. That is, they could not see the shark very plainly, for it was mostly under water, but they could see a long, black shape, with big fins and a large tail, and the tail was lashing up and down, making foam on the waves.

"Hi!" cried Freddie in great excitement. "That's better'n a shipwreck, isn't it?"

"Almost as bad, I should say," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, who, with his wife and other passengers, stood near the rail with the children watching the ocean fight.

"The captain ought to stop the ship and go to the rescue of those fishermen," said the man who had told Freddie not to get in the ventilator pipe again. "I guess the shark is bigger than those men thought when they tried to kill it."

"Is that what they are trying to do?" asked Bert.

"It looks so," replied his father. "Sometimes the fishermen catch a shark in their nets, and they kill it then, as sharks tear the nets, or eat up the fish in them. But I guess this is a larger shark than usual."

"And is it going to sink the boat?" Nan wanted to know.

"That I can't say," Mr. Bobbsey replied. "Perhaps the fishermen caught the shark on a big hook and line, and want to get it into the boat to bring it to shore. Or maybe the shark is tangled in their net and is trying to get loose. Perhaps it thinks the boat is a big whale, or other fish, and it wants to fight."

"Whatever it is, those fishermen are having a hard time," said another passenger; and this seemed to be so, for, just as soon as the steamer came close enough to the small boat, some of the men in it waved their hands and shouted. All they said could not be heard, because of the noise made by the steamer, but a man near Mrs. Bobbsey said he heard the fisherman cry:

"Come and help us!"

"The captain ought to go to their help," said Flossie's mother. "It must be terrible to have to fight a big shark in a small boat."

"I guess we are going to rescue them," observed Bert. "Hark! There goes the whistle! And that bell means stop the engines!"

The blowing of a whistle and the ringing of a bell sounded even as he spoke, and the steamer began to move slowly.

Then a mate, or one of the captain's helpers, came running along the deck with some sailors. They began to lower one of the lifeboats, and the Bobbsey twins and the other passengers watched them eagerly. Out on the sea, which, luckily, was not rough, the men in the small boat were still fighting the shark.

"Are you going to help them?" asked Mr. Bobbsey of the mate who got into the boat with the sailors.

"Yes, I guess they are in trouble with a big shark, or maybe there are two of them. We'll help them kill the big fish."

When the mate and the sailors were in the boat it was let down over the side of the ship to the water by long ropes. Then the sailors rowed toward the fishermen.

Anxiously the Bobbsey twins and the others watched to see what would happen. Over the waves went the rescuing boat, and when it got near enough the men in it, with long, sharp poles, with axes and with guns, began to help fight the shark. The waters foamed and bubbled, and the men in the boats shouted:

"There goes one!" came a call after a while, and, for a moment, something long and black seemed to stick up into the air.

"It's a shark!" cried Bert. "I can tell by his pointed nose. Lots of sharks have long, pointed noses, and that's one!"

"Yes, I guess it is," his father said.

"Then there must be two sharks," said Mrs. Bobbsey, "for the men are still fighting something in the water."

"Yes, they certainly are," her husband replied. "The fishermen must have caught one shark, and its mate came to help in the fight. Look, the fishing boat nearly went over that time!"

That really came near happening. One of the big fish, after it found that its mate had been killed, seemed to get desperate. It rushed at the fishermen's boat and struck it with its head, sending it far over on one side.

Then the men from the steamer's boat fired some bullets from a gun into the second shark and killed it so that it sank. The waters grew quiet and the boats were no longer in danger.

The mate and the sailors from the steamer stayed near the fishing boat a little while longer, the men talking among themselves, and then the sailors rowed back, and were hoisted upon deck in their craft.

"Tell us what happened!" cried Mr. Bobbsey.

"It was sharks," answered the mate. "The fishermen came out here to lift their lobster pots, which had drifted a long way from shore. While they were doing this one of them baited a big hook with a piece of pork and threw it overboard, for he had seen some sharks about. A shark bit on the hook and then rammed the boat.

"Then another shark came along and both of them fought the fishermen, who might have been drowned if we had not helped them kill the sharks. But they are all right now -- the fishermen, I mean -- for the sharks are dead and on the bottom of the ocean by this time."

"Were they big sharks?" asked Bert.

"Quite large," the mate answered. "One was almost as long as the fishing boat, and they were both very ugly. It isn't often that such big sharks come up this far north, but I suppose they were hungry and that made them bold."

"I'm glad I wasn't in that boat," said Nan.

"Indeed we all may well be glad," Mrs. Bobbsey said.

"Will those fishermen have to row all the way to shore?" asked Freddie, looking across the waters. No land was in sight.

"No, they don't have to row," said the mate of the steamer. "They have a little gasolene engine in their boat, and the land is not so far away as it seems, only five or six miles. They can get in all right if no more sharks come after them, and I don't believe any will."

The fishermen waved their hands to the passengers on the steamer, and the Bobbsey twins and the others waved back.

"Good-bye!" shouted the children, as loudly as they could. Whether the others heard them or not was not certain, but they continued to wave their hands.

It took some time to hoist the lifeboat up in its place on the steamer, and in this Freddie and the others were quite interested.

"I'd like to own a boat like that myself," said the little boy.

"What would you do with it?" questioned Flossie.

"Oh, I'd have a whole lot of fun," was the ready answer.

"Would you give me a ride?"

"Of course I would!"

At last the lifeboat was put in its proper place, and then the steamer started off again.

The Bobbsey twins had plenty to talk about now, and so did the other passengers. It was not often they witnessed a rescue of that kind at sea, and Bert, who, like Freddie, had been hoping he might sight a shipwreck -- that is, he wished it if no one would be drowned -- was quite satisfied with the excitement of the sharks.

"Only I wish they could have brought one over closer, so we could have seen how big it was," he said.

"I don't," remarked Nan. "I don't like sharks."

"Not even when they're dead and can't hurt you?" asked Bert.

"Not even any time," Nan said. "I don't like sharks."

"Neither do I," said Flossie.

"Well, I'd like to see one if daddy would take hold of my hand," put in Freddie. "Then I wouldn't be afraid."

"Maybe there'll be sharks when we get to Cousin Jasper's house," said Flossie.

"His house isn't in the ocean, and sharks is only in the ocean," declared Freddie.

"Well, maybe his house is near the ocean," went on the little "fat fairy."

"Cousin Jasper is in the hospital," Nan remarked; "and I guess they don't have any sharks there."

"Maybe they have alligators," added Bert with a smile.

"Really?" asked Nan.

"Well, you know Florida is where they have lots of alligators," went on her older brother. "And we're going to Florida."

"I don't like alligators any more than I like sharks," Nan said, with a little shivery sort of shake. "I just like dogs and cats and chickens."

"And goats," said Flossie. "You like goats, don't you, Nan?"

"Yes, I like the kind of a goat we had when we went to Blueberry Island," agreed Nan. "But look! What are the sailors doing?"

She pointed to some of the men from the ship, who were going about the decks, picking up chairs and lashing fast, with ropes, things that might roll or slide about.

"Maybe we're almost there, and we're getting ready to land," said Freddie.

"No, we've got another night to stay on the ship," Bert said. "I'm going to ask one of the men." And he did, inquiring what the reason was for picking up the chairs and tying fast so many things.

"The captain thinks we're going to run into a storm," answered the sailor, "and we're getting ready for it."

"Will it be very bad?" asked Nan, who did not like storms.

"Well, it's likely to be a hard one, little Miss," the sailor said. "We will soon be off Cape Hatteras, and the storms there are fierce sometimes. So we're making everything snug to get ready for the blow. But don't be afraid. This is a strong ship."

However, as the Bobbsey twins saw the sailors making fast everything, and lashing loose awnings and ropes, and as they saw the sky beginning to get dark, though it was not yet night, they were all a little frightened.




Chapter IX

In St. Augustine


The storm came up more quickly than even the captain or his sailors thought it would. The deep, blue sea, which had been such a pretty color when the sun shone on it, now turned to a dark green shade. The blue sky was covered by black and angry-looking clouds, and the wind seemed to moan as it hummed about the ship.

But the steamer did not stop. On it rushed over the water, with foam in front, at the prow, or bow, and foam at the stern where the big propeller churned away.

"Come, children!" called Mrs. Bobbsey to the twins, as they stood at the rail, looking first up at the gathering clouds and then down at the water, which was now quite rough. "Come! I think we had better go to our cabins."

"Oh, let us stay up just a little longer," begged Bert. "I've never seen a storm at sea, and I want to."

"Well, you and Nan may stay up on deck a little longer," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "But you must not go far away from daddy. I don't want any of you to fall overboard, especially when such big sharks may be in the ocean."

"Oh, I'm not going to fall overboard!" exclaimed Bert. "Never!"

"Nor I," added his sister. "I'll keep tight hold of the rail, and when it gets too rough we'll come down."

Mr. Bobbsey and some of the men passengers were still on deck, watching the approach of the storm, and Bert and Nan moved over nearer their father, while Mrs. Bobbsey went below with Flossie and Freddie. The two smaller twins, when they found their older brother and sister were going to stay on deck, also wanted to do this, but their mother said to them:

"No, it is safer for you to be down below with me. It may come on to blow hard at any moment, and then it won't be so easy to go down the stairs when the ship is standing on its head, or its ear, or whatever way ships stand in a storm."

"But I want to see the storm!" complained Freddie.

"You'll see all you want of it, and feel it, too, down in our stateroom, as well as up on deck, and you'll be much safer," his mother told him.

The storm came up more and more quickly, and, though it was not yet four o'clock, it was as dark as it usually is at seven, for so many clouds covered the sky. The waves, too, began to get larger and larger and, pretty soon, the steamer, which had been going along smoothly, or with not more than a gentle roll from side to side, began pitching and tossing.

"Oh, my! isn't it getting dark?" cried Flossie.

"Say, it isn't time to go to bed yet, is it?" questioned Freddie anxiously.

"Of course not!" answered his twin. "It's only about the middle of the afternoon, isn't it, Mother?"

"Just about," answered Mrs. Bobbsey.

In the meanwhile the others, who were still on deck, were having a decidedly lively time of it.

"Come on, Nan and Bert!" called Mr. Bobbsey, to the older twins. "Better get below while you have the chance. It's getting too rough for children up here."

"Are you coming too, Daddy?" asked Nan.

"Yes, I'll go down with you. In fact, I think every one is going below except the sailors."

This was so, for the mate was going about telling the passengers still on deck that it would be best for them to get to the shelter of the cabins and staterooms.

Nan and Bert started to walk across the deck, and when they were almost at the stairs, or the "companionway" as it is called, that led to their rooms, the ship gave a lurch and roll, and Bert lost his balance.

"Oh! Oh!" he cried, as he found himself sliding across the deck, which was tilted up almost like an old-fashioned cellar door, and Bert was rolling down it. "Oh, catch me, Dad!"

Luckily he rolled in, and not out, or he would have rolled to the edge of the ship. Not that he could have gone overboard, for there was a railing and netting to stop that, but he would have been badly frightened if he had rolled near the edge, I think.

"Look out!" cried Mr. Bobbsey, as he saw Bert sliding and slipping. "Look out, or you'll fall downstairs!"

And that is just what happened. Bert rolled to the top of the companionway stairs, and right down them. Luckily he was a stout, chubby boy, and, as it happened, just then a sailor was coming up the stairs, and Bert rolled into him. The sailor was nearly knocked off his feet by the collision with Bert, but he managed to get hold of a rail and hold on.

"My! My! What's this?" cried the sailor, when he got his breath, which Bert had partly knocked from him. "Is this a new way to come downstairs?"

"I -- I didn't mean to," Bert answered, as he managed to stand up and hold on to the man. "The ship turned upside down, I guess, and I rolled down here."

"Well, as long as you're not hurt it's all right," said the sailor with a laugh. "It is certainly a rough storm. Better get below and stay there until it blows out."

"Yes, sir, I'm getting," grinned Bert.

"I think that is good advice," said Mr. Bobbsey to the sailor, with a smile, as he hurried after Bert, but not coming in the same fashion as his son.

Nan had grabbed tightly hold of a rope and clung to it when the ship gave a lurch. She was not hurt, but her arms ached from holding on so tightly.

After that one big roll and toss the steamer became steady for a little while, and Mr. Bobbsey and the two children made their way to the stateroom where Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting with Flossie and Freddie.

"What happened?" asked Bert's mother, as she saw that he was rather "mussed up," from what had occurred.

"Oh, I tried to come down the stairs head first," Bert answered with a laugh. "I don't like that way. I'm not going to do it again," and he told what had taken place.

And then the storm burst with a shower of rain and a heavy wind that tossed and pitched the boat, and made many of the passengers wish they were safe on shore.

The Bobbsey twins had often been on the water, when on visits to Uncle William at the seashore, as I have told you in that book, and they were not made ill by the pitching and tossing of the steamer.

Still it was not much fun to stay below decks, which they and the others had to do all that night and most of the next day. It was too rough for any one to be out on deck, and even the sailors, used as they were to it, had trouble. One of them was nearly washed overboard, but his mates saved him. And one of the lifeboats -- the same one in which the men had gone to save the fishermen from the sharks -- was broken and torn away when a big wave hit it.

"Is it always rough like this when you go past Cape Hatteras?" asked Bert of his father.

"Very frequently, yes. You see Cape Hatteras is a point of land of North Carolina, sticking out into the ocean. In the ocean are currents of water, and when one rushes one way and one the other, and they come together, it makes a rough sea, especially when there is a strong wind, as there is now. We are in this rough part of the ocean, and in the midst of a storm, too. But we will soon be out of it."

However, the steamer could not go so fast in the rough water as she could have traveled had it been smooth, and the wind, blowing against her, also held her back. So it was not until late on the second day that the storm passed away, or rather, until the ship got beyond it.

Then the rain stopped, the sun came out from behind the clouds just before it was time to set, and the hard time was over. The sea was rough, and would be for another day, the sailors said.

"And can we go on deck in the morning?" asked Bert, who did not like being shut up in the stateroom.

"I guess so," his father answered.

The next morning all was calm and peaceful, though the waves were larger than when the Bobbsey twins had left New York.

Every one was glad that the storm had passed, and that nothing had happened to the steamer, except the loss of the one small boat.

"Were those fishermen who fought the sharks out in all that blow in their small motor boat, Dad?" asked Bert.

"Oh, no," his father told him. "They only go out from shore, take up their nets or lobster pots, and go quickly back again. Their boats are not made for staying out in all night. Though perhaps sometimes, in a fog, when they can't see to get back, they may be out a long time. But I don't believe they were out in this storm."

It was peaceful traveling now, on the deep blue sea, which was a pretty color again, and the Bobbsey twins, leaning over the rail and looking at it, thought they had never come on such a fine voyage.

"It's getting warmer," said Bert when they had eaten dinner and were once more on deck.

"Yes, we are getting farther south, nearer to the equator, and it is always warm there," said Mr. Bobbsey.

"Are we near Florida?" asked Nan.

"Yes, we will be there this evening," her father told her.

It was late in the afternoon when the steamer reached Jacksonville. As the arrival of the steamship had been delayed by the storm, the Bobbsey's were left no time to look about Jacksonville, but hurried at once to the railroad station, and there took the train that carried them to St. Augustine. It was about an hour before sunset when they got out of the train at this quaint, pretty old town.

"Oh, what funny little streets!" cried Bert, as they started for their hotel where they were to stay until they could go to the hospital and see Cousin Jasper. "What little streets!"

"Aren't they darling?" exclaimed Nan.

"Yes, this is a very old city," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and some of the streets are no wider than they were made when they were laid out here over three hundred years ago."

"Oh, is this city as old as that -- three hundred years?" asked Nan, while Flossie and Freddie peered about at the strange sights.

"Yes, and older," said Mr. Bobbsey. "St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States. It was settled in 1565 by the Spaniards, and I suppose they built it like some of the Spanish cities they knew. That is why the streets are so narrow."

And indeed the streets were very narrow. The one called St. George is only seventeen feet wide, and it is the principal street in St. Augustine. Just think of a street not much wider than a very big room. And Treasury street is even narrower, being so small that two people can stand and shake hands across it. Really, one might call it only an alley, and not a street.

The Bobbseys saw many negroes about the streets, some driving little donkey carts, and others carrying fruit and other things in baskets on their heads.

"Don't they ever fall off?" asked Freddie, as he watched one big, fat colored woman on whose head, covered with a bright, red handkerchief, or "bandanna," there was a large basket of fruit. "Don't they ever fall off?"

"What do you mean fall off -- their heads?" asked Bert with a smile.

"No, I mean the things they carry," said Freddie.

"Well, I guess they start in carrying things that way from the time they are children," said Mrs. Bobbsey, "and they learn to balance things on their heads as well as you children learn to balance yourselves on roller skates. I dare say the colored people here would find it as hard to roller skate as you would to carry a heavy load on your head."

"Well, here we are at our hotel," said Mr. Bobbsey, as the automobile in which they had ridden up from the station came to a stop in front of a fine building. "Now we will get out and see what they have for supper."

"And then will we go to Cousin Jasper and find out what his strange story is?"

"I guess so," her father answered.

"Say, this is a fine hotel!" exclaimed Bert as he and the others saw the beautiful palm and flower gardens, with fountains between them, in the courtyard of the place where they were to stop.

"Oh, yes, St. Augustine has wonderful hotels," said his father. "This is a place where many rich people come to spend the winter that would be too cold for them in New York. Now come inside."

Into the beautiful hotel they went, and when Mr. Bobbsey was asking about their rooms, and seeing that the baggage was brought in, Mrs. Bobbsey glanced around to make sure the four twins were with her, for sometimes Flossie or Freddie strayed off.

And that is what had happened this time. Freddie was not in sight.

"Oh, where is that boy?" cried his mother. "I hope he hasn't crawled down another ventilator pipe!"

"No'm," answered one of the hotel men. "He hasn't done that. I saw your little boy run back out of the front door a moment ago. But he'll be all right. Nothing can happen to him in St. Augustine."

"Oh, but I must find him!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Dick, Freddie is gone again!" she said to her husband. "We must find him at once!" and she hurried from the hotel.




Chapter X

Cousin Jasper's Story


Mr. Bobbsey, who had been talking to the clerk of the hotel at the desk, looked toward Mrs. Bobbsey, who was hurrying out the front door.

"Wait a minute!" he called after her. "I'll come with you!"

"No, you stay with the other children," she answered. "I'll find Freddie."

"But you don't know your way about St. Augustine," said Mr. Bobbsey. "You've never been here before."

"Neither have you," returned his wife with a laugh, for she was not very much alarmed about Freddie -- he had slipped away too often before.

"I can find my way about as well as you can, Dick," went on Mrs. Bobbsey. "You stay here and I'll get our little fat fireman."

"Maybe he has gone to see a fire engine," suggested Nan.

"I don't believe so," answered her father. "I didn't hear any alarm, but perhaps they don't sound one here as we do back in Lakeport."

"I guess he's just gone out to look at the things in the streets here," said Bert. "They're a lot different from at home."

"Indeed they are!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I'll stay here," he said to his wife, "and you go and look for Freddie. But if you don't soon find him come back and I'll go out."

"I'll find him," she said, and one of the porters from the hotel offered to go with her to show Mrs. Bobbsey her way about the strange streets of St. Augustine -- the little, narrow streets that had not been changed much in three hundred years.

"Oh, what a lovely place this is," said Nan to Bert, while their father was talking with the hotel clerk. "It's like a palace."

"It looks like some of the places you see in a moving picture," said Bert.

And indeed the beautiful hotel, with the palms and flowers set all about, did look like some moving picture play. Only it was real, and the Bobbsey twins were to stay there until they had seen Cousin Jasper, and found out what his strange story was about.

Soon after Mr. Bobbsey had finished signing his name and those of the members of his family in the hotel register book, Mrs. Bobbsey came back, leading Freddie by the hand.

The little boy seemed to be all right, and he was smiling, while in one hand he held a ripe banana.

"Where've you been, Freddie?" asked Flossie. "I was afraid you had gone back home."

"Nope," Freddie answered, as he started to peel the banana. "I was seeing how they did it."

"How who did what?" asked his father.

"Carried the big baskets on their heads," Freddie answered, and by this time he had part of the skin off the yellow fruit, and was breaking off a piece for Flossie. Freddie always shared his good things with his little sister, and with Bert and Nan if there was enough.

"What does he mean?" asked Bert of his mother. "Was he trying to carry something on his head?"

"No," answered Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh, "but he was following a big colored woman who had a basket of fruit on her head. I caught him halfway down the street in front of another hotel. He was walking after this woman, and he didn't hear me coming. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was waiting to see it fall off."

"What fall off?" asked Nan, coming up just then.

"I thought maybe the basket would fall off her head," Freddie answered for himself. "It was an awful big basket, and it wibbled and wobbled like anything. I thought maybe it would fall, but it didn't," he added with a sigh, as though he had been cheated out of a lot of fun.

"If it did had fallen," he went on, "I was going to pick up her bananas and oranges for her. That's why I kept walking after her."

"Did she drop that banana?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, while several smiling persons gathered about the Bobbsey twins in the hotel lobby.

"No, I bought this with a penny," Freddie answered. "The colored lady didn't drop any. But if her basket did had fallen from off her head I could have picked up the things, and then maybe she'd have given me a banana or an orange."

"And when that didn't happen you had to go buy one yourself; did you?" asked Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "Well, that's too bad. But, after this, Freddie, don't go away by yourself. It's all right, at home, to run off and play in the fields or woods, for you know your way about. But here you are in a strange city, so you must stay with us."

"Yes, sir," answered Freddie, like a good little boy.

"I will, too," promised Flossie.

The Bobbsey family was together once again, and when Flossie and Freddie had eaten the banana, and porters had taken charge of their baggage, they all went up to the rooms where they were to stay.

"We don't know just how long we'll be here," said Mr. Bobbsey, as they were getting ready to go down to supper, as the children called it, or "dinner," as the more fashionable name has it.

"Are we going out on the ocean again?" asked Nan.

"Did you like it?" her father wanted to know.

"Oh, lots!" she answered.

"It was great!" declared Bert.

"I want to see 'em catch some more sharks," Freddie said.

"I like to see the blue water," added Flossie, who had got out a clean dress for her rubber doll.

"Yes, the blue water is very pretty," remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, we shall, very likely, sail on it again. I don't know just what Cousin Jasper wants to tell me, or what he wants me to do. But I think he is planning an ocean trip himself. I'll go to see him this evening, after we have eaten, and then I can tell you all about it."

"May I come with you?" asked Bert.

"Well, I think not this first trip," answered Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I am going to the hospital where Cousin Jasper is ill, and he may not be able to see both of us. I'll take you later."

"We can stay and watch the colored people carry things on their heads," put in Freddie. "That's lots of fun, and maybe some of 'em will drop off, and we can help pick 'em up, and they might give us an orange."

"I guess I'd rather buy my oranges, and then I'll be sure to have what I want," said Bert with a laugh.

"There are plenty of things you can look at while I'm at the hospital," said Mr. Bobbsey, and after the meal he inquired the way to the place where Cousin Jasper was getting well, while Mrs. Bobbsey took the children down to the docks, where they could see many motor boats, and fishing and oyster craft, tied up for the night.

It was a beautiful evening, and the soft, balmy air of St. Augustine was warm, so that only the lightest clothing needed to be worn.

"It's just like being at the seashore in the summer," said Nan.

"Well, this is summer, and we are at the seashore, though it is not like Ocean Cliff," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a smile. She was glad the children liked it, and she hoped they would have more good times if they were again to go sailing on the deep, blue sea.

When they got back to the hotel Mr. Bobbsey had not yet returned from the hospital, but he came before Flossie and Freddie were ready for bed, for they had been allowed to stay up a little later than usual.

"Well, how is Cousin Jasper?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Much better, I am glad to say," answered her husband. "He will be able to leave the hospital in a few days, and then he wants us to start on a trip with him."

"Start on a trip so soon!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Where does he want to go, and will he be well enough to travel?"

"He says he will. And as to where he wants to go, that is a strange story."

"Oh, tell us about it!" begged Bert.

"We're going to hear Cousin Jasper's secret at last!" cried Nan.

"Is it a real story, with 'once upon a time' in it?" Freddie questioned. "And has it got a fire engine in it?" he added.

"Well, no, not exactly a fire engine, though it has a boat engine in the story. And I can make it start with 'once upon a time,' if you want me to."

"Please do," begged Flossie. "And has it got any fairies in it?"

"No, not exactly any fairies," her father said; "though we may find some when we get to the island."

"Oh, are we going on an island?" exclaimed Bert.

"There!" cried his father, "I've started at the wrong end. I had better begin at the beginning. And that will be to tell you how I found Cousin Jasper.

"He has been quite ill, and is better now. Part of the time he was out of his head with fever, even after he wrote to me, and for a time the doctor feared he would not get well. But now he is all right, except for being weak, and he told me a queer story.

"Once upon a time," went on Mr. Bobbsey, telling the tale as his littler children liked to hear it, "Cousin Jasper and a young friend of his, a boy about fifteen years old, set out to take a long trip in a motor boat. That is it had an engine in it that ran by gasolene as does an automobile. Cousin Jasper is very fond of sailing the deep, blue sea, and he took this boy along with him to help. They were to sail about for a week, visiting the different islands off the coast of Florida.

"Well, everything went all right the first few days. In their big motor boat Cousin Jasper and this boy, who was named Jack Nelson, sailed about, living on their boat, cooking their meals, and now and then landing at the little islands, or keys, as they are called.

"They were having a good time when one day a big storm came up. They could not manage their boat and they were blown a long way out to sea and then cast up on the shore of a small island.

"Cousin Jasper was hurt and so was the boy, but they managed to get out of the water and up on land. They found a sort of cave in which they could get out of the storm, and they stayed on the island for some time."

"For years?" asked Bert, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, was much interested in Cousin Jasper's strange story. "That was just like Robinson Crusoe!" Bert went on. "Why didn't they stay there always?"

"They did not have enough to eat," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and it was too lonesome for them there. They were the only people on the island, as far as they knew. So they made a smudge of smoke, and on a pole they put up some pieces of canvas that had washed ashore from their motor boat. They hoped these signals would be seen by some ship or small boat that might come to take them off."

"Did they get rescued?" asked Bert.

Mr. Bobbsey was about to answer when the telephone, which was in the room, gave a loud ring.

"Some one for us!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.




Chapter XI

The Motor Boat


Mr. Bobbsey arose to answer the telephone, which big hotels put in the rooms of their guests nowadays instead of sending a bellboy to knock and say that the traveler is wanted.

"I wonder who wants us?" murmured Mr. Bobbsey.

The children looked disappointed that the telling of the story had to be stopped.

"Hello!" said their father into the telephone.

Then he listened, and seemed quite surprised at what he heard.

"Yes, I'll be down in a little while," he went on. "Tell him to wait."

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Was that Cousin Jasper?"

"Oh, no indeed!" her husband answered. "Though he is much better he is not quite well enough to leave the hospital yet and come to see us. This was an old sea captain talking from the main office of the hotel downstairs."

"Is he going to take us for a trip on the ocean?" asked Bert eagerly.

"Well, that's what he wants to do, or, rather, he wants me to see about a big motor boat in which to take a trip. Cousin Jasper sent him to me. But let me finish what I was saying about the island, and then I'll tell you about the sea captain."

Mr. Bobbsey hung up the telephone receiver and took his seat between Flossie and Freddie where he had been resting in an easy chair, telling the story.

"Cousin Jasper," went on Mr. Bobbsey, "was quite ill on the island, and so was Jack Nelson. Just how long they stayed there, waiting for a boat to come and take them off, they do not know -- at least, Cousin Jasper does not know."

"Doesn't that boy -- Jack Nelson -- know?" asked Bert.

"No, for he wasn't taken off the island," said Mr. Bobbsey. "And that is the strange part of Cousin Jasper's story. He, himself, after a hard time on the island, must have fallen asleep, in a fever probably. When he awakened he was on board a small steamer, being brought back to St. Augustine. He hardly knew what happened to him, until he found himself in the hospital.

"There he slowly got better until he was well enough to write and ask me to come to see him. He wanted me to do something that no one else would do."

"And what is that?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"He wants me to get a big motor boat, and go with him to this island and get that boy, Jack Nelson."

"Is that boy still on the island?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Why how long ago was this?"

"About three weeks," her husband answered. "Cousin Jasper does not know whether or not the boy is still there, but he is afraid he is. You see when the boat came to rescue Mr. Dent, as my cousin is called at the hospital, they did not take off with him his boy friend. The sailors of the rescue ship said they saw Cousin Jasper's canvas flag fluttering from a pole stuck up in the beach, and that brought them to the island. They found Cousin Jasper, unconscious, in a little cave-like shelter near shore, and took him away with them."

"Didn't they see the boy?" asked Nan.

"No, he was not in sight, the sailors afterward told Mr. Dent. They did not look for any one else, not knowing that two had been shipwrecked on the island. They thought there was only one, and so Cousin Jasper alone was saved.

"When he grew better, and the fever left him, he tried to get some one to start out in a boat to go to the island and save that boy. But no one would go."

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Because they thought Cousin Jasper was still out of his mind from fever. They said the sailors from the rescue ship had seen no one else, and if there had been a boy on the island such a person would have been near Mr. Dent. But no one was seen on the island, and so they thought it was all a dream of Cousin Jasper's."

"And maybe that poor boy is there yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.

"That's what my cousin is afraid of," her husband said. "And that is why he sent for me, his nearest relative. He knew I would believe him, and not imagine he was dreaming. So he wants me to hire for him, as he is rich, a motor boat and go to this island to rescue the boy if he is still there. Cousin Jasper thinks he is. He thinks the boy must have wandered away and so was not in sight when the rescue ship came, or perhaps he was asleep or ill further from the shore.

"At any rate that's Cousin Jasper's strange story. And now he wants us to help him see if it's true -- see if the boy is still on the island waiting to be rescued."

"How can you find the island?" asked Nan.

"Cousin Jasper says he will go with us and show us the way. The sea captain who called me up just now from down in the office of the hotel is a man who hires out motor boats. Cousin Jasper knows him, and sent him to see me, as I am to have charge of everything, Mr. Dent not yet being strong enough to do so."

"And are you going to do it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Oh, yes," her husband said. "I came here to help Cousin Jasper, and if he wants me to set off on a sea voyage to rescue a poor lonely boy from an island, why I'll have to do it."

"May we go?" eagerly asked Bert.

"Yes, I think so. Cousin Jasper says he wants me to get for him a big motor boat -- one large enough for all of us. We will have quite a long trip on the deep, blue sea, and if we find that the boy has been taken off the island by some other ship, then we can have a good time sailing about. But first we must go to the rescue."

"It's just like a story in a book!" cried Nan, clapping her hands.

"Is they -- are there oranges and bananas there?" asked Freddie.

"Where?" his father asked.

"On the island where the boy is?"

"Well, I don't know," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "Perhaps bananas may grow there, though I doubt it. It is hardly warm enough for them."

"Well, let's go anyhow," said Freddie. "We can have some fun!"

"Yes," said Flossie, who always wanted to do whatever her small brother did, "we can have some fun!"

"But we are not going for fun -- first of all," said Mr. Bobbsey. "We are going to try to rescue this poor boy, who may be sick and alone on the island. After we get him off, or find that he has been taken care of by some one else, then we will think about good times.

"And now, my dear," said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, "the question is, would you like to go?"

"Will it be dangerous?" she asked.

"No, I think not. No more so than coming down on the big ship. It is now summer, and there are not many storms here then. And we shall be in a big motor boat with a good captain and crew. Cousin Jasper told me to tell you that. We shall sail for a good part of the time -- or, rather, motor -- around among islands, so each day we shall not be very far from some land. Would you like to go?"

"Please say yes, Mother!" begged Bert.

"We'd like to go!" added Nan.

"Well," answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly, "it sounds as if it would be a nice trip. That is it will be nice if we can rescue this poor boy from the lonely island. Yes," she said to her husband, "I think we ought to go. But it is strange that Cousin Jasper could not get any one from here to start out before this."

"They did not believe the tale he told of the boy having been left on the island," said Mr. Bobbsey. "They thought Cousin Jasper was still out of his head, and had, perhaps, dreamed this. He was very anxious to get some one started in a boat for the island, but no one would go. So he had to send for me."

"And you'll go!" exclaimed Bert.

"Yes, we'll all go. Now that I have told you Cousin Jasper's strange story I'll go down and talk to the sea captain. I want to find out what sort of motor boat he has, and when we can get it."

"When are we going to start for the island?" asked Bert.

"And what's the name of it?" Nan questioned.

"Is it where Robinson Crusoe lived?" queried Freddie.

"I'll have to take turns answering your questions," said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "In the first place, Bert, we'll start as soon as we can -- that is as soon as Cousin Jasper is able to leave the hospital. That will be within a few days, I think, as the doctor said a sea voyage would do him good. And, too, the sooner we start the more quickly we shall know about this poor boy.

"As for the name of the island, I don't know that it has any. Cousin Jasper didn't tell me, if it has. We can name it after we get there if we find it has not already been called something. And I don't believe it is the island where Robinson Crusoe used to live, Freddie. So now that I have answered all your questions, I think I'll go down and talk to the captain."

Flossie and Freddie were in bed when their father came back upstairs, and Nan and Bert were getting ready for Slumberland, for it was their first day ashore after the voyage, and they were tired.

"Did you get the motor boat?" asked Bert.

"Not yet," his father answered with a laugh. "I am to go to look at it in the morning."

"May I come?"

"Yes, but go to bed now. It is getting late."

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey stayed up a little longer, talking about many things, and sending a few postcards to friends at home, telling of the safe arrival in St. Augustine.

Freddie was up early the next morning, standing with his nose flattened against the front window of the hotel rooms where the Bobbseys were stopping.

"I see one!" he cried. "I see one!"

"What?" asked Flossie. "A motor boat?"

"No, but another colored lady, and she's got an awful big basket on her head. Come and look, Flossie! Maybe it'll fall off!"

But nothing like that happened, and after breakfast Mr. Bobbsey suggested that the whole family set out to see some of the sights of St. Augustine -- the oldest city of the United States -- and also to go to the wharf and view the motor boat.

"Can't we send some postcards before we start, Mother?" questioned Nan eagerly.

"Certainly," returned Mrs. Bobbsey.

"I think I'll send a few to my friends," said Bert, and he and Nan spent some time picking out the postcards.

Even Flossie insisted upon it that she be allowed to send several to her best friends at home.

I wish I had room to tell you all the things the children saw -- the queer old streets and houses, the forts and rivers, for there are two rivers near the old city. But the Bobbsey twins were as anxious as I know you must be to see the motor boat, and hear more about the trip to the island to save the lonely boy, so I will go on to that part of our story.




Chapter XII

The Deep Blue Sea


"Glad to see you! Glad to see you! Come right on board!" cried a hearty voice, as the Bobbsey twins and their father and mother walked down the long dock which ran out into the harbor of St. Augustine.

"That's Captain Crane, with whom I was talking last night," said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife in a low voice.

"And is that the boat we are to take the trip in?" she asked, for the seaman was standing on the deck of a fine motor craft, dark red in color, and with shiny brass rails. A cabin, with white curtains at the portholes, or windows, seemed to offer a good resting place.

"Yes, that's the Swallow, as Captain Crane calls his boat," Mr. Bobbsey said.

"She's a beaut!" exclaimed Bert.

"Come on board! Come on board! Glad to see you!" called the old captain again, as he waved his hand to the Bobbseys.

"Oh, I like him, don't you?" whispered Nan to Bert.

"Yes," he replied. "He's fine; and that's a dandy boat!"

Indeed the Swallow was a beautiful craft. She was about eighty feet long, and wide enough to give plenty of room on board, and also to be safe in a storm. There was a big cabin "forward," as the seamen say, or in the front part of the boat, and another "aft," or at the stern, or back part. This was for the men who looked after the gasolene motor and ran the boat, while the captain and the passengers would live in the front cabin, out of which opened several little staterooms, or places where bunks were built for sleeping.

The Swallow was close to the dock, so one could step right on board without any trouble, and the children were soon standing on the deck, looking about them.

"Oh, I like this!" cried Freddie. "It's a nicer boat than the Sea Queen!" This was the name of the big steamer on which they had come from New York. "Have you got a fire engine here, Captain?" asked the little Bobbsey twin.

"Oh, yes, we've a pump to use in case of fire, but I hope we won't have any," the seaman said. "I don't s'pose you'd call it a fire engine, though, but we couldn't have that on a motor boat."

"No, I guess not," Freddie agreed, after thinking it over a bit. "I've a little fire engine at home," he went on, "and it squirts real water."

"And he squirted some on me," put in Flossie. "On me and my doll."

"But I didn't mean to -- an' it was only play," Freddie explained.

"Yes, it was only in fun, and I didn't mind very much," went on the little girl. "My rubber doll -- she likes water," she added, holding out the doll in question for Captain Crane to see.

"That's good!" he said with a smile. "When we get out on the ocean you can tie a string around her waist, and let her have a swim in the waves."

"Won't a shark get her?" Flossie demanded.

"No, I guess sharks don't like to chew on rubber dolls," laughed Captain Crane. "Anyhow we'll try to keep out of their way. But make yourselves at home, folks. I hope you'll be with me for quite a while, and you may as well get used to the boat. Mr. Dent has sailed in her many times, and he likes the Swallow first rate."

"Can she go fast?" asked Bert.

"Yes, she can fairly skim over the waves, and that's why I call her the Swallow," replied the seaman. "As soon as Mr. Dent heard I was on shore, waiting for some one to hire my boat, he told me not to sail again until you folks came, as you and he were going on a voyage together. I hope you are going?" and he looked at Mr. Bobbsey.

"Yes, we have made up our minds to go," said the children's father. "We are going to look for a boy who may be all alone on one of the islands off the Florida coast. We hope we can rescue him."

"I hope so, too," said Captain Crane. "I was shipwrecked on one of those islands myself, once, as your Cousin Jasper was. And it was dreadful there, and I got terribly lonesome before I was taken off."

"Did you have a goat?" asked Flossie.

"No, my little girl, I didn't have a goat," answered Mr. Crane. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because Robinson Crusoe was on an island like that and he had a goat," Flossie went on.

"When you were shipwrecked did you have to eat your shoes?" Freddie queried.

"Oh, ho! No, I guess not!" laughed Captain Crane. "I see what you mean. You must have had read to you stories of sailors that got so hungry, after being shipwrecked, that they had to boil their leather shoes to make soup. Well, I wasn't quite so bad off as that. I found some oysters on my island, and I had a little food with me. And that, with a spring of water I found, kept me alive until a ship came and took me off."

"Well, I hope the poor boy on the island where Cousin Jasper was is still alive, or else that he has been rescued," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"I hope so, too," said the captain. "Now come and I'll show you about my boat."

He was very proud of his craft, which was a beautiful one, and also strong enough to stand quite a hard storm. There was plenty of room on board for the whole Bobbsey family, as well as for Mr. Dent, besides a crew of three men and the captain. There were cute little bedrooms for the children, a larger room for Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, one for the captain and there was even a bathroom.

There was also a kitchen, called a cook's galley, and another room that could be used in turn for a parlor, a sitting-room or a dining-room. This was the main cabin, and as you know there is not room enough on a motor boat to have a lot of rooms, one has to be used for different things.

"What do you call this room?" questioned Flossie, as she looked around at the tiny compartment.

"Well, you can call this most anything," laughed the captain. "When you use it for company, it's a parlor; and when you use it for just sitting around in, it's a sitting-room; and when you use it to eat in, why, then what would you call it?"

"Why, then you'd call it a dining-room," answered the little girl promptly.

"And if I got my hair cut in it, then it would be a barber shop, wouldn't it?" cried Freddie.

"Why, Freddie Bobbsey!" gasped his twin. "I'm sure I wouldn't want my dining-room to be a barber shop," she added disdainfully.

"Well, some places have got to be barber shops," defended the little boy staunchly.

"I don't think they have barber shops on motor boats, do they, Daddy?"

"They might have if the boat was big enough," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "However, I don't believe we'll have a barber shop on this craft."

"When are we going to start?" asked Bert, when they had gone all over the Swallow, even to the place where the crew slept and where the motors were.

"We will start as soon as Cousin Jasper is ready," said Mr. Bobbsey. "It may be a week yet, I hope no longer."

"So do I, for the sake of that poor boy on the island," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Tell me, has nothing been heard of him since he was shipwrecked there with Mr. Dent?" she asked Captain Crane. "Has no other vessel stopped there but the one that took off Cousin Jasper?"

"I guess not," answered Captain Crane. "According to Mr. Dent's tell, this island isn't much known, being one of the smallest. It was only because the men on the ship that took him off saw his flag that they stood in and got him."

"And then they didn't find the boy," said Mr. Bobbsey.

"Perhaps he wasn't there," Captain Crane said. "He might have found an old boat, or made one of part of the wrecked motor boat, and have gone away by himself."

"And he may be there yet, half starved and all alone," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Yes, he may be," admitted the old seaman. "But we'll soon find out. Mr. Jasper Dent is very anxious to start and look for this boy, who had worked for him about two years on his boat. So we won't lose any time in starting, I guess."

"But how do you like my boat? That's what your cousin will be sure to ask you. When he heard that you were coming to see him, and heard that I was free to take a trip, he wanted you folks to see me and look over the Swallow. Now you've done it, how do you like it?"

"Very much indeed," said Mr. Bobbsey. "We like the boat exceedingly!"

"And the captain, too," added Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile.

"Thank you kindly, lady!" said the seaman, with a smile and a bow. "I hope we'll get along well together."

"And I like the water pump!" exclaimed Freddie. "Please may I squirt the hose some day?"

"I guess so, when it's nice and warm, and when we wash down the decks," said Captain Crane. "We use the pump for that quite a lot," he added. "We haven't had to use it for fire yet, and I hope we never have to."

"That's what we all say," put in Mr. Bobbsey. But no one could tell what might happen.

The Bobbsey twins went about the Swallow as they pleased, having a good time picking out the rooms they wanted to sleep in. Bert said he was going to learn how to run the big gasolene motors, and Freddie said he was going to learn how to steer, as well as squirt water through the deck hose.

"I want to cook in the cute little kitchen," said Nan.

"And I'll help set table," offered Flossie.

"We'll have a good time when we get to sea in this boat," declared Bert.

"And I hope we find that boy on the island," added Nan.

"Oh, yes, I hope that, too," agreed Bert.

None of the crew of the Swallow was on board yet, Captain Crane not having any need for the men when the boat was tied up at the dock.

"But I can get 'em as soon as you say the word," he told Mrs. Bobbsey when she asked him.

"And what about things to eat?"

"Oh, we'll stow the victuals on board before we sail," said the seaman. "We'll take plenty to eat, even though lots of it has to be canned. Just say the word when you're ready to start, and I'll have everything ready."

"And now we'll go see Cousin Jasper," suggested Mr. Bobbsey, when at last he had managed to get the children off the boat. "He will be wondering what has become of us."

They went to the hospital, and found Mr. Dent much better. The coming of the Bobbseys had acted as a tonic, the doctor said.

"Do you like the Swallow and Captain Crane?" asked the sick man, who was now getting well.

"Very much," answered Mr. Bobbsey.

"And will you go with him and me to look for Jack Nelson?"

"As soon as you are ready," was the answer.

"Then we'll start in a few days," decided Cousin Jasper. "The sea-trip will make me entirely well, sooner than anything else."

The hospital doctor thought this also, and toward the end of the week Mr. Dent was allowed to go to his own home. He lived alone, except for a housekeeper and Jack Nelson, but Jack, of course, was not with him now, being, they hoped, either on the island or safely rescued.

"Though if he had been taken off," said Mr. Dent, "he would have sent me word that he was all right. So I feel he must still be on the island."

"Perhaps the ship that took him off -- if one did," said Mr. Bobbsey, "started to sail around the world, and it will be a long while before you hear from your friend."

"Oh, he could send some word," said Cousin Jasper. "No, I feel quite sure he is still on the island."

Just as soon as Mr. Bobbsey's cousin was strong enough to take the trip in the Swallow, the work of getting the motor boat ready for the sea went quickly on. Captain Crane got the crew on board, and they cleaned and polished until, as Mrs. Bobbsey said, you could almost see your face in the deck.

Plenty of food and water was stored on board, for at sea the water is salt and cannot be used for drinking. The Bobbseys, after having seen all they wanted to in St. Augustine, moved most of their baggage to the boat, and Cousin Jasper went on board also.

"Well, I guess we're all ready to start," said Captain Crane one morning. "Everything has been done that can be done, and we have enough to eat for a month or more."

"Even if we are shipwrecked?" Freddie questioned.

"Yes, little fat fireman," laughed the captain. "Even if we are shipwrecked. Now, all aboard!"

They were all present, the crew and the Bobbseys, Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper.

"All aboard!" cried the captain again.

A bell jingled, a whistle tooted and the Swallow began to move away from the dock. She dropped down the river and, a little later, was out on the ocean.

"Once more the deep, blue sea, children!" said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Shall you like the voyage?"

"Oh, very much!" cried Nan, and the others nodded their heads to agree with her.

And then, as they were puffing along, one of the crew called to Captain Crane:

"There's a man in that motor boat who wants to speak to you! Better wait and see what he wants!"




Chapter XIII

Flossie's Doll


Captain Crane jingled a bell that told the engineer of the motor boat to slow down. Then he steered the Swallow over toward the other motor boat in which was a man waving his hand, as though he wanted the Bobbseys to stop, or at least to come closer, so that he might speak to them.

The Bobbsey twins were wildly excited.

"Hello, Captain Harrison!" called Captain Crane, as soon as the two boats were close enough to talk from one to the other. "Did you want to see me?"

"Well, yes, I did," answered Captain Harrison, who was on the other motor boat, which was named Sea Foam. "I think I have some news for you."

"I hope it's good news," Captain Crane made reply.

"Yes, I believe it is. Are you going out to rescue a boy from an island quite a way to the south of us?"

"Yes, these friends of mine are going," answered Captain Crane, pointing to the Bobbseys and to Cousin Jasper, who were sitting on the deck under the shade of an awning. "But how did you know?"

"I just passed Captain Peters in his boat, and he told me about your starting off on a voyage," went on Captain Harrison. "As soon as I heard what you were going to do, I made up my mind to tell you what I saw. I passed that island, where you are going to look for a lost man --  -- "

"It's a lost boy, and not a lost man," interrupted Captain Crane.

"Well, lost boy, then," went on Captain Harrison. "Anyhow, I passed that island the other day, and I'm sure I saw some one running up and down on the shore, waving a rag or something."

"You did!" cried Cousin Jasper, who, with the Bobbseys, was listening to this talk. "Then why in the world didn't you go on shore and get Jack? Why didn't you do that, Captain?"

"Because I couldn't," answered Captain Harrison. "A big storm was coming up, and I couldn't get near the place on account of the rocks. But I looked through my telescope, and I'm sure I saw a man -- or, as you say, maybe it was a boy -- running up and down on the shore of the island, waving something.

"When I found I couldn't get near the place, on account of the rocks and the big waves, I made up my mind to go back as soon as I could. But the storm kept up, and part of my motor engine broke, so I had to come back here to get it fixed.

"I just got in, after a lot of trouble, and the first bit of news I heard was that you were going to start off for this island to look for some one there. So I thought I'd tell you there is some one on the shore -- at least there was a week ago, when I saw the place."

The Bobbsey twins listened "with all their ears" to this talk, and they wondered what would happen next.

"Well, if Captain Harrison saw Jack there he must be alive," said Bert to Nan.

"Unless something happened to him afterward in the storm," remarked Nan.

"I wish we could hurry up and get him," said Freddie.

"Be quiet, children," whispered Mrs. Bobbsey. "Captain Crane wants to hear all that the other captain says."

"S-sh," hissed Flossie importantly.

"How long ago was this?" asked Captain Crane.

"About a week," answered Captain Harrison. "I had trouble getting back, so it was a week ago. I tried to see some other boat to send to the island to take off this lost boy, but I didn't meet any until I got here. Somebody on shore told me about you. Then I thought, as long as you are going there, I'd tell you what I saw."

"I'm glad you did," observed Cousin Jasper. "And I'm glad to know that Jack is well enough to be up and around -- or that he was when you saw him. We must go there as fast as we can now, and rescue him."

"Maybe some other boat stopped and took him off the island," said Captain Harrison.

"Well, maybe one did," agreed Cousin Jasper. "If so, that's all the better. But if Jack is still there we'll get him. Thank you, Captain Harrison."

Then the two motor boats started up again, one to go on to her dock at St. Augustine and the other -- the one with the Bobbsey twins on board -- heading for the deep blue sea which lay beyond.

"Do you think you can find Jack?" asked Freddie, as he stood beside Captain Crane, who was steering the Swallow.

"Well, yes, little fat fireman. I hope so," was the answer. "If Captain Harrison saw him running around the island, waving something for a flag, that shows he was alive, anyhow, and not sick, as he was when the folks took Mr. Dent off. So that's a good sign."

"But it was more than a week ago," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Of course we all hope he can be found, but we must hurry as fast as we can."

"That's right," said Cousin Jasper. "Make the boat go as fast as you can, Captain Crane."

"I will," answered the seaman. "You'll see how quickly my Swallow can skim over the waves."

Now that they were started on their voyage over the sea the Bobbsey twins had a good chance to get better acquainted with Cousin Jasper. There had been so much to do in getting ready for the trip and in leaving the hotel that they had hardly spoken to him, or he to them.

But now that they were all on board the motor boat, and there was nowhere else to go, and nothing to do, except to sit around on deck, or eat when the meal times came, there was a chance to see Cousin Jasper better and to talk with him more.

"I like him," said Freddie, as the four twins sat together under an awning out of the sun, and listened to the conversation of the older folk, who were talking about the news given them by Captain Harrison. "I like Cousin Jasper!"

"So do I. And he likes my rubber doll," said Flossie.

"What makes you think he likes your doll?" asked Nan, with a laugh at her little sister.

"'Cause when I dropped her on the floor in the cabin he picked her up for me and asked if she was hurt."

"You can't hurt a rubber doll!" exclaimed Freddie.

"I know you can't," said Flossie, "'ceptin' maybe when you pretend, and I wasn't doing that then. But Cousin Jasper brushed the dust off my doll, and he liked her."

"That was nice of him," said Bert. "I like Captain Crane, too. He's going to let me steer the boat, maybe, when we get out where there aren't any other ships for me to knock into."

"And he's going to let me run the engine -- maybe," added Freddie.

"Well, you'd better be careful how you run it," laughed Bert. "It's a good deal bigger than your fire engine."

So the Bobbsey twins talked about Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane, and they were sure they would like both men. As for Cousin Jasper, he really loved the little folk, and had a warm place in his heart for them, though he had not seen any of them since they were small babies.

On and on puffed the Swallow, over the deep blue sea, drawing nearer to the island where they hoped to find Jack Nelson.

"But it will take us some little time to get there, even if nothing happens," said Cousin Jasper, as they all sat down to dinner in the cabin a little later. The meal was a good one, and Nan and her mother were quite surprised that so much could be cooked in the little kitchen, or "galley," as Captain Crane called it, for on a ship that is the name of the kitchen.

One of the members of the crew was the cook, and he also helped about the boat, polishing the shiny brass rails, and doing other things, for there is as much work about a boat as there is about a house, as Nan's mother said to her.

"Yes, Mother, I can see that there is a lot of work to do around a boat like this, especially if they wish to keep it in really nice style," said Nan. "The sailors have to work just about as hard as the servants do around a house."

"Yes, my dear, and they have to work in all sorts of weather, too."

"Well, we have to work in the house even in bad weather."

"That's true. But the sailors on a boat often have to work outside on the deck when the weather is very rough."

"And that must be awfully dangerous," put in Bert.

"It does become dangerous at times, especially when there is a great storm on."

"Do you think we'll run into a storm on this trip?" Nan questioned.

"I'm sure I hope not!" answered the mother quickly. "To run into a big storm with such a small boat as this would be dangerous."

"Maybe we'd be wrecked and become regular Robinson Crusoes," said Bert.

"Oh, please, Bert! don't speak of such dreadful things!" said his mother.

"But that would be fun, Mother."

"Fun!"

"All right. We won't be wrecked then." And Bert and his mother both laughed.

After dinner the Bobbsey twins sat out on the deck, and watched the blue waves. For some little time they could look back and see the shores of Florida, and then, as the Swallow flew farther and farther away, the shores were only like a misty cloud, and then, a little longer, and they could not be seen at all.

"Now we are just as much at sea as when we were on the big ship coming from New York, aren't we?" Bert asked his father.

"Yes, just about," answered Mr. Bobbsey.

It was a little while after this that Mrs. Bobbsey, who had gone down to the staterooms, to get a book she had left there, heard Flossie crying.

"What's the matter, little fairy?" asked her mother, as she came up on deck.

"Oh, Mother, my nice rubber doll is gone, and Freddie took her and now he's gone," said Flossie.

"Freddie gone!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "What do you mean, Flossie? Where could Freddie go?"

"I don't know where he went. I guess he didn't go to look at any colored ladies with baskets on their heads, 'cause there aren't any here. But he went downstairs, where the engine is, and he took my doll with him. I saw him, and I hollered at him, but he wouldn't bring her back to me. Oh, I want my doll -- my nice rubber doll!" and Flossie cried real tears.

"I must find Freddie," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I wonder where that boy could have gone this time?"




Chapter XIV

Freddie's Fish


Although she was a little worried about Freddie, Mrs. Bobbsey felt quite sure nothing very serious could happen to him. He would not go near enough the railing of the deck to fall over, for he and Flossie, as well as Bert and Nan, had promised not to do this while they were on the Swallow. And if the little boy had gone "downstairs," as Flossie said, he could be in no danger there.

"Even if he went to the motor room," thought Mrs. Bobbsey, "he could come to no harm, for there is a man there all the while looking after the engine. But I must find him."

Flossie was still sobbing a little, and looking about the deck as if, by some chance, her doll might still be there.

"Tell me how it happened, Flossie," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

Her husband was down in the cabin, talking to Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper. The cook was getting things ready for supper, one of the men was steering, and another was looking after the engine. Nan and Bert were up in the bow of the boat, watching the waves and an occasional seagull flying about, and Flossie was with her mother. The only one of her family Mrs. Bobbsey did not know about was Freddie.

"It happened this way," said Flossie. "I was playing up here with my rubber doll, making believe she was a princess, and I was putting a gold and diamond dress on her, when Freddie came up with a lot of string. I asked him what he was going to do, and he said he was going to fish, and he asked me if I had a piece of cookie."

"What did he want of a piece of cookie?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"He wanted it to fasten on his line for bait for the fishes, he said," went on Flossie. "But I didn't have any cookie. I did have some before that, and so did Freddie. The cook gave them to us, but I did eat all my piece up and so did Freddie. So I didn't have any for his fishline."

"Then what happened?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she started down the companionway to look for Freddie.

"Well, Freddie asked me to go and get some more cookie from the cook, and I did, 'cause I was hungry and I wanted to eat more. But I couldn't find the cook, and when I came back upstairs again, and outdoors -- here on deck, I mean -- I saw Freddie grab up my doll, and run down the other stairs."

"Oh, well, maybe he only took it in fun," said Mrs. Bobbsey, and she was not at all worried now, feeling sure Freddie was safe, though he might be in some sort of mischief.

"Anyhow he took my doll," Flossie went on. "And he wouldn't bring her back to me when I told him to. Then I -- I cried."

"Yes, I heard you," said her mother. "But you mustn't be such a baby, Flossie. Of course it wasn't right for Freddie to take your doll, but you shouldn't have cried about a little thing like that. I'll tell him he mustn't plague you."

"But, Mother! he was going to throw my doll into the ocean, I'm sure he was."

"Oh, no, Flossie! Freddie wouldn't do a thing like that!"

"But I saw him tying a string to her, and I'm sure he was going to throw her into the ocean."

"Well, then he could pull her out again."

"Yes, but I don't want my doll in the ocean. The ocean is salty, and if salty water gets in her eyes it might spoil them."

Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to laugh, but she did not dare, for that would have made Flossie feel worse than ever.

"What makes you think Freddie was going to toss your doll into the ocean?" asked Flossie's mother.

"'Cause, before that he wanted me to do it to give her a bath. He had a long string and he said, 'let's tie it to the rubber doll and let her swim in the ocean.'"

"No, he mustn't do that, of course," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "And I'll tell him so when I find him. But perhaps he didn't do it, Flossie."

"Oh, yes he did!" said the little girl. "When he ran downstairs with my doll, and wouldn't come back when I hollered at him, he was tying a string on her then. Oh, dear!"

"Never mind! I'll get your doll back," Mrs. Bobbsey said. "But first we must find Freddie."

"He went down those stairs," said Flossie, pointing to a flight that led to the motor room, where the engine was chug-chugging away, sending the Swallow over the waves. "He went down there."

The engine room of the motor boat was a clean place, not like the engine room on a steamboat, filled with coal dust and a lot of machinery, and Mrs. Bobbsey knew it would be all right for her and Flossie to go down there and see what Freddie was doing.

"Now don't cry any more," Flossie's mother told her, giving the little girl a handkerchief on which to dry her tears. "We'll get your doll back, and I'll have to scold Freddie a little, I think."

"Maybe you can't find him," said Flossie.

"Oh, yes I can," her mother declared.

"You can't find him if he is hiding away."

"I don't think he will dare hide if he hears me calling him."

"Maybe he will if he's got my doll," pouted Flossie.

"Now, Flossie, you mustn't talk that way. I don't believe Freddie meant to be naughty. He was only heedless."

"Well, I want my doll!"

It was no easy matter for little Flossie to get down into the engine room of the motor boat. The little iron stairway was very steep, and the steps seemed to be very far apart.

"Let me help you, Flossie," said her mother. "I don't want you to fall and get yourself dirty."

"Oh, Mother, it isn't a bit dirty down here!" the little girl returned. "Why, it's just as clean as it can be!"

"Still, there may be some oil around."

"I'll be very careful. But please let me go down all by myself," answered the little girl.

She was getting at that age now when she liked to do a great many things for herself. Often when there was a muddy place to cross in the street, instead of taking hold of somebody's hand Flossie would make a leap across the muddy place by herself.

Knowing how much her little girl was disturbed over the loss of her doll, Mrs. Bobbsey, at this time, allowed her to have her own way. And slowly and carefully the stout little girl lowered herself from one step of the iron ladder to the next until she stood on the floor of the engine room.

"Now, I got down all right, didn't I?" she remarked triumphantly.

"Yes, my dear, you came down very nicely," the mother answered.

Down in the engine room a man was oiling the machinery. He looked up as Mrs. Bobbsey and Flossie came down the stairs.

"Have you seen my little boy?" asked Freddie's mother. "My little girl says he came down here."

"So he did," answered the engineer. "I asked him if he was coming to help me run the boat, and he said he would a little later. He had something else to do now, it seems."

"What?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Well, he said he wanted to go fishing. And as I knew you wouldn't want him leaning over the rail I showed him where he could fish out of one of the portholes of the storeroom. A porthole is one of the round windows," the engineer said, so Flossie would know what he was talking about. "I opened one of the ports for him, and said he could drop his line out of that. Then he couldn't come to any harm."

"Did he have a line?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Yes, a good, strong one. I guess he must have got it off Captain Crane. He's a fisherman himself, the captain is, and he has lots of hooks and lines on board."

"Oh, I hope Freddie didn't have a hook!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.

"No'm," answered the engineer. "I didn't see any, and I don't think he did have any. He just had a long string, and I thought all he was going to do was to dangle it out of the porthole in the storeroom. He couldn't come to any harm there, I knew, and I could keep my eye on him once in a while."

"Did he have my rubber doll?" asked Flossie.

"I didn't see any doll," answered the engineer. "But he's in there now," he went on. "You can ask him yourself."

Looking out of the engine room, Freddie could be seen farther back in the motor boat, in a place where boxes and barrels of food, and things for the boat, were kept. One of the side ports was open, and Freddie's head was stuck out of this, so he could not see his mother and Flossie and the engineer looking at him.

"Well, I'm glad he's all right," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a sigh of relief. "Thank you for looking after him."

"Oh, I like children," said the man with a smile. "I have some little ones of my own at home."

Mrs. Bobbsey and Flossie went into the storeroom. Freddie did not hear them, for his head was still out of the round window. There was no danger of his falling out, for he could not have got his shoulders through, so Mrs. Bobbsey was not frightened, even though the little boy was leaning right over deep water, through which the Swallow was gliding.

"Oh, where is my doll?" asked Flossie, looking about and not seeing it. "I want my rubber doll!"

"I'll ask Freddie," said Mrs. Bobbsey, and then, in a louder voice, she called:

"Freddie! Freddie! Where is Flossie's doll? You mustn't take it away from her. I shall have to punish you for this!"

For a moment it seemed as if the little boy had not heard what his mother had said. Then, when she called him again, he pulled his head in from the porthole and whispered:

"Please don't make a noise, Mother! I'm fishing, and a noise always scares the fish away!"

"But, Freddie, fishing or not, you mustn't take Flossie's playthings," his mother went on.

Freddie did not answer for a moment. He had wound around his hand part of a heavy cord, which Mrs. Bobbsey knew was a line used to catch big fish. Freddie was really trying to catch something, it seemed.

"Is there a hook on that line?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, fearing, after all, that her little boy might have found one.

"Oh, no, Mother, there's no hook," Freddie answered. "I just tied on --  -- " And then a queer look came over his face. His hand, with the line wound around it, was jerked toward the open porthole and the little boy cried:

"Oh, I got a fish! I got a fish! I got a big fish!"




Chapter XV

"Land Ho!"


Mrs. Bobbsey at first did not know whether Freddie was playing some of his make-believe games, or whether he really had caught a fish. Certainly something seemed to be pulling on the line he held out of the porthole, but then, his mother thought, it might have caught on something, as fishlines often do get caught.

"I've caught a fish! I've caught a fish!" Freddie cried again. "Oh, please somebody come and help me pull it in!"

Flossie was so excited -- almost as much as was her brother -- that she forgot all about her lost doll.

"Have you really caught a fish?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"I really have! I guess maybe it's a shark or a whale, it's so big, and it pulls so hard!" cried Freddie.

And, really, the line that was wound around his hand was pulled so tight, and stretched so hard, where it went out of the hole and down into the ocean, that Freddie could not lower his fist.

"Oh, Freddie!" cried his mother. "If you have caught a fish it may cut your fingers by jerking on that line."

"Well, I -- I caught something!" Freddie said. "Please somebody get it off my line. And hurry, please!"

By this time Nan and Bert had run down into the storeroom. They saw what was going on.

"Are you sure you haven't caught another hat?" asked Bert, as he remembered what had once happened to his little brother.

"It doesn't pull like a hat," Freddie answered. "It's a real fish."

"I believe he has caught something," said Mr. Chase, the engineer, as he ran in from the motor room. "Yes, it's either a fish or a turtle," he added as he caught hold of the line and took some of the pull off Freddie's hand. "Unwind that cord from your fingers," he told the little boy. "I'll take care of your fish -- if you really have one."

"Could it be a turtle?" asked Nan.

"Yes, there are lots of 'em in these waters," the engineer said. "But I never knew one of 'em to bite on just a piece of string before, without even a hook or a bit of bait on it."

"Oh, I got something on my line for bait," Freddie answered.

But no one paid any attention to him just then, for the engineer, gently thrusting the little boy aside, looked from the porthole himself, and what he saw made him cry:

"The little lad has caught something all right. Would you mind running up on deck and telling Captain Crane your brother has caught something," said Mr. Chase to Bert. "And tell him, if he wants to get it aboard he'd better tell one of the men to stand by with a long-handled net. I think it's a turtle or a big fish, and it'll be good to eat whatever it is -- unless it's a shark, and some folks eat them nowadays."

"Oh, I don't want to catch a shark!" exclaimed Freddie.

"It's already caught, whatever it is," said Mr. Chase, "It seems to be well hooked, too, whatever you used on the end of your line."

"I tied on a --  -- " began Freddie, but, once again, no one paid attention to what he said, for the fish, or whatever it was on the end of the line, began to squirm in the water, "squiggle" Freddie called it afterward -- and the engineer had to hold tightly to the line.

"Please hurry and tell the captain to reach the net overboard and pull this fish in," begged Mr. Chase of Bert. "I'd pull it in through the porthole, but I'm afraid it will get off if I try."

All this while the Swallow was moving slowly along through the blue waters of the deep sea, for when the engineer had run in to see what Freddie had caught he had shut down the motor so that it moved at a quarter speed.

Up on deck ran Bert, to find his father and Captain Crane there talking with Cousin Jasper.

"What is it, Bert?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"Oh, will you please get out a net, Captain!" cried Nan's brother. "Freddie has caught a big fish through the porthole and the engineer -- Mr. Chase -- is holding it now, and he can't pull it in, and will you do it with a net?"

"My! that's a funny thing to have happen!" said Mr. Bobbsey.

"I'll get the net!" cried Captain Crane. "If your brother has really caught a fish or a turtle we can have it for dinner. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a turtle," said the captain to Bert's father. "There are plenty around where we are sailing now, and they'll sometimes bite on a bare hook, though they like something to eat better. What bait did Freddie use?" he asked.

"I don't know," Bert answered.

By this time Captain Crane had found a large net, which had a long handle fast to it, and also a rope, so that if the fish were so large that the handle should break in lifting it from the water, the rope would hold.

With the net ready to dip down into the water, Captain Crane ran along the deck until he stood above the porthole, out of which ran the line. The fish, or whatever it was, was still fast to the other end of the strong cord.

"Haul it up as close as you can to the side of the boat!" called the captain to the engineer, who thrust his head partly out of the round hole. "Then I'll scoop it up in the net. Watch out he doesn't get off the hook."

"That's the trouble," said the engineer. "I don't believe Freddie used a hook. But we'll soon see."

Up on the deck of the Swallow, as well as down in the storeroom, where Freddie, his mother and the others were watching, there was an anxious moment. They all wanted to see what it was the little boy had caught.

"Here we go, now!" cried Captain Crane, as he lowered the long-handled net into the water near the cord. The captain held to the wooden handle, and Mr. Bobbsey had hold of the rope.

Through the porthole Mr. Chase pulled on the cord until he had brought the flapping, struggling captive close to the side of the motor boat. Then, with a sudden scoop, Captain Crane slipped the net under it.

"Now pull!" he cried, and both he and Mr. Bobbsey did this.

Up out of the blue sea rose something in the net. And as the sun shone on the glistening sides Freddie, peering from the porthole beside the engineer, cried:

"Oh, it's a fish! It's a big fish!"

And indeed it was, a flapping fish, of large size, the silver scales of which shone brightly in the sun.

"Pull!" cried the captain to Mr. Bobbsey, and a few seconds later the fish lay flapping on deck.

Up from below came Freddie, greatly excited, followed by his mother, Nan, Flossie and Mr. Chase, Flossie chanting loudly: "Freddie caught a fish! Freddie caught a fish!"

"Didn't I tell you I caught a fish?" cried the little boy, his blue eyes shining with excitement.

"You certainly did," his father answered. "But how did you do it, little fat fireman?"

"Well, Captain Crane gave me the fishline," Freddie answered.

"Yes, I did," the captain said. "He begged me for one and I let him take it. I didn't think he could do any harm, as I didn't let him take any sharp hooks -- or any hooks, in fact."

"If he didn't have his line baited, or a hook on it, I don't see how he caught anything," said the engineer.

"I did have something on my line," Freddie exclaimed. "I had -- I had --  -- "

But just then Flossie, who had been forgotten in the excitement, burst out with:

"Where's my doll, Freddie Bobbsey? Where's my nice rubber doll that you took? I want her! Where is she?"

"I -- I guess the fish swallowed her," Freddie answered.

"The fish!" cried all the others.

"Yes. You see I tied the rubber doll on the end of the line 'stid of a hook," the little boy added. "I knew I had to have something for to bait the fish, so they'd bite, so I tied Flossie's doll on. The fish couldn't hurt it much," he went on. "'Cause once Snap had your rubber doll in his mouth, Flossie, and she wasn't hurt a bit."

"And is my doll in the fish now?" the little girl demanded, not quite sure whether or not she ought to cry.

"I guess it swallowed the doll," returned Freddie. "Anyhow the doll was on the end of the string, and now the string is in the fish's mouth. But maybe you can get your doll back, Flossie, when the fish is cooked."

Captain Crane bent over the fish, which was flopping about on deck.

"It has swallowed the end of the line, and, I suppose, whatever was fast on the cord," he said. "If it was Flossie's doll, that is now inside the fish."

"And can you get it out?" asked Bert.

"Oh, yes, when we cut the fish open to clean it ready to cook, we can get the doll."

"Is that fish good to eat?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Very good indeed. It's one of our best kind," the captain said. "Freddie is a better fisherman than he knew."

And the little Bobbsey twin had really caught a fish. Just why it was the fish had bit on the line baited with Flossie's rubber doll, no one knew. But Captain Crane said that sometimes the fish get so hungry they will almost bite on a bare hook, and are caught that way.

This fish of Freddie's was so large that it had swallowed the doll, which was tied fast on the end of the line, and once the doll was in its stomach the fish could not get loose from the heavy cord.

"But you mustn't take Flossie's doll for fish-bait again," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"No'm, I won't!" Freddie promised. "But now maybe I can have a real hook and bait."

"Well, we'll see about that," said Mr. Bobbsey with a smile.

The line was cut, close to the mouth of the big fish, which weighed about fifteen pounds, and then Freddie's prize was taken by the cook down to the galley, or kitchen. A little later the cook brought back Flossie's rubber doll, cleanly washed, and with the piece of string still tied around its waist.

"Is she hurt?" asked Flossie, for her doll was very real to the little girl, since she often pretended she was alive.

"No, she's all right -- not even a pinhole in her," said Mr. Bobbsey. "There are a few marks of the teeth of the fish, where it grabbed your rubber doll, but she was swallowed whole, like Jonah and the whale, so no harm was done."

"I'm glad," said the little girl, as she cuddled her plaything, so strangely given back to her. "And don't you dare take her for fish-bait again, Freddie Bobbsey."

"No, Flossie, I won't," he said. "I'll use real bait after this."

"But you mustn't do any more fishing without telling me or your mother," cautioned Mr. Bobbsey. "You might have been pulled overboard by this one."

"Oh, no, I couldn't," Freddie declared. "Only my head could go through the porthole."

"Well, don't do it again," his father warned him, and the little boy promised that he would not.

The fish was cooked for supper, and very good it was, too. Flossie and Freddie ate some and Flossie pretended to feed her doll a little, though of course the doll didn't really chew.

"The fish tried to eat you, and now you can eat some of the fish," Flossie said, with a laugh.

The Bobbsey twins wanted to stay up late that night, and watch the moonlight on the water, but their mother, after letting them sit on deck a little while, said it would be best for them to "turn in," as the sailors call going to bed. They had been up early, and the first day of their new voyage at sea had been a long one.

So down to their berths they went and were soon ready for bed.

"My, we had a lot of things happen to-day!" remarked Flossie.

"Well, I'm sorry I took the doll, but I'm awful glad I caught that great big fish," answered Freddy.

"But you're never going to take her for fish bait again, Freddie Bobbsey!" repeated his twin.

"I didn't say I was. I guess the next time I want to go fishing I'll get a regular piece of meat from the cook."

"Children, children! It's time to go to sleep now," broke in their mother. "Remember, you'll want to be up bright and early to-morrow."

"If I don't wake up, you call me, please," cried Freddie; and then he turned over and in a few minutes was sound asleep, and soon the others followed.

The next day passed. The children had fun on board the motor boat, and the older folks read and talked, among other things, of how glad they would be to rescue Jack from the lonely island. The following day it rained hard, and the four twins had to stay in the cabin most of the time. But they found plenty to amuse them.

The third morning, as they came up on deck, the sun was shining, and one of the men was looking at something through a telescope.

"Does he see another fish, or maybe a whale or a shark?" asked Freddie.

The sailor answered for himself, though he was really speaking to Captain Crane, who was at the steering wheel.

"Land ho!" cried the sailor.

"Where away?" asked the captain.

"Dead ahead!" went on the sailor.

That is the way they talk on board a ship and it means:

"I see some land."

"Where is it?"

"Straight ahead."

The Bobbsey twins looked, but all they could see was a faint speck, far out in the deep, blue sea.

"Is that land?" asked Nan.

"Yes, it's an island," answered Captain Crane.

"Oh, maybe it's the island where Jack is!" Bert cried.

"Perhaps," said Captain Crane. "We'll soon know, for it is not many miles away, though it looks far off on account of the fog and mist. We'll soon be there."

He was just going to ring the bell, giving a signal to the engineer to make the boat go faster when, all at once, Mr. Chase, who had helped Freddie catch the fish, came hurrying up out of the motor room.

"Captain!" he cried. "We'll have to slow down! One of the motors is broken! We'll have to stop!"

This was bad news to the Bobbsey twins.




Chapter XVI

Under The Palms


Cousin Jasper, who had been talking to Mr. Bobbsey, walked along the deck with the children's father until he stood near Captain Crane, who was now looking through the telescope, across the deep, blue sea, at the speck which, it was said, was an island.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Dent. "Why are we stopping, Captain Crane?"

"Because one of our motors is broken, Mr. Dent. But don't let that worry you. We have two, or, rather, a double motor, and if we can't go with one we can with the other. It's like a little boy or girl, when they break one of their roller skates," he went on, looking at Flossie and Freddie.

"If they can't skate on two skates they can push themselves around on one skate," said the captain. "And that's what we'll have to do. But, Mr. Chase, you think you can mend the broken engine easily enough, don't you?" he asked the man who had helped Freddie hold on to the big fish.

"Oh, yes," answered the engineer. "We can easily fix the broken motor. But it will take a day or so, and we ought to be in some quiet place where the waves won't rock us so hard if a storm comes up. So why not go to this island that we see over there?" and he pointed to the speck in the ocean. "Maybe there is a little bay there where the Swallow can rest while my men and I fix the engine."

"That's a good idea," said Captain Crane. "Can you run to the island?"

"Oh, yes, if we go slowly."

"What's that?" cried Cousin Jasper. "Is there an island around here?"

"The sailor who was looking through his telescope just saw one," returned Captain Crane. "I was going to tell you about it when Mr. Chase spoke to me about the broken engine. There is the island; you can see it quite plainly with the glass," and he handed the spy-glass to Cousin Jasper.

"Maybe it's the island where that boy is," said Flossie to her father.

"Maybe," agreed Mr. Bobbsey.

"I hardly think it is," said Mr. Dent, as he put the telescope to his eye. "The island where we were wrecked is farther away than this, and this one is smaller and has more trees on it than the one where poor Jack and I landed. I do not think this is the place we want, but we can go there to fix the engine, and then travel on farther."

"Can we really land on the island?" asked Freddie.

"Yes, you may go ashore there," the captain said. "We shall probably have to stay there two or three days."

"Oh, what fun we can have, playing on the island!" cried Flossie.

"We'll pretend we're Robinson Crusoe," said her little brother. "Come on, Flossie, let's go and tell Nan and Bert!"

And while the two younger Bobbsey twins ran to tell their older brother and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane took turns looking through the glass at the island, which was about five miles away.

"It is not the island where I was," said Cousin Jasper again. "But it looks like a good place to stay while the engines of the Swallow are being mended. So we'll go there, Captain!"

"All right," Captain Crane answered. "We'll have to go a little slow, but we'll be there in plenty of time."

Once more the motor boat started off, not going as fast as at first, but the Bobbsey twins did not mind this a bit, as they were thinking what fun they would have on the island so far out at sea, and they stood at the rail watching it as it appeared to grow larger the nearer the boat came to it.

"We're coming up pretty fast, aren't we?" remarked Freddie.

"Not as fast as we might come," answered Bert. "However, we've got lots of time, just as Captain Crane said."

"Is it a really and truly Robinson Crusoe place?" questioned Flossie.

"I guess we'll find out about that a little later," answered her sister.

"I can see the trees now!" exclaimed Freddie presently.

"So can I," answered his twin.

At last the anchor was dropped in a little bay, which would be sheltered from storms, and then the small boat was lowered so that those who wished might go ashore.

"Oh, what lovely palm trees!" exclaimed Nan, as she saw the beautiful branches near the edge of the island, waving in the gentle breeze.

"They are wonderful," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "The whole island is covered with them."

"Do palm leaf fans grow on these trees, Mother?" asked Freddie as they were being rowed ashore by one of the sailors.

"Well, yes, I suppose they could make palm leaf fans from some of the branches of these palm trees," Mrs. Bobbsey said. "And shall we call this Palm Island? That is, unless it has some other name?" she asked Captain Crane.

"No, I hardly think it has," he answered. "I was never here before, though I have been on many of the little islands in this part of the sea. So we can call this Palm Island, if you like."

"It will be a lovely place to stay," stated Nan. "I just love to sit under a tree, and look at the waves and the white sand."

"I'm going in swimming!" declared Bert. "It's awful hot, and a good swim will cool me off."

"Don't go in until we take a look and see if there are any sharks or big fish around," his father warned him. "Remember we are down South, where the water of the ocean is warm, and sharks like warm water. This is not like it was at Uncle William's at Ocean Cliff. So, remember, children, don't go in the water unless your mother, or some of the grown people, are with you."

The children promised they would not, and a little later the rowboat grated on the sandy shore and they all got out on the beach of Palm Island.

"Then this isn't the place where you were wrecked with Jack?" asked Mr. Bobbsey of Cousin Jasper.

"No; it isn't the same place at all. It is a beautiful island, though; much nicer than the one where I was."

"I wonder if any one lives on it," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"I think not," answered Captain Crane. "Most of these islands are too small for people to live on for any length of time, though fishermen might camp out on them for a week or so. However, this will be a good place for us to stay while the engines are being fixed."

"Can we sleep here at night?" asked Bert, who wanted very much to do as he had read of Robinson Crusoe doing.

"Well, no, I hardly think you could sleep here at night," said Captain Crane. "We may not be here more than two days, and it wouldn't be wise to get out the camping things for such a little while. Then, too, a storm might come up, and we would have to move the boat. You can spend the days on Palm Island and sleep on the Swallow."

"Well, that will be fun!" said Nan.

"Lots of fun," agreed Bert. "And please, Daddy, can't we go in swimming?"

It was a hot day, and as Captain Crane said there would be no danger from sharks if the children kept near shore, their bathing garments were brought from the boat, and soon Bert and Nan, and Flossie and Freddie, were splashing about in the warm sun-lit waters on the beach of Palm Island.

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were sitting in the shade watching them, while the men on the boat were working at the broken engine, when suddenly Flossie, who had come out of the water to sit on the sand, set up a cry.

"Oh, it's got hold of me!" she shouted. "Come quick, Daddy! Mother! It's got hold of my dress and it's pulling!"

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey jumped up and ran down the beach toward the little girl.




Chapter XVII

A Queer Nest


Nan and Bert, who, with Freddie, were splashing out in the water a little way from where Flossie sat on the beach, heard the cries of the little girl and hurried to her. But Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were the first to reach Flossie.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"What's the matter?" asked Flossie's mother.

"Oh, he's pulling me! He's pulling me!" answered the little girl.

And, surely enough, something behind her, which Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey could not see, did appear to have hold of the little short skirt of the bathing suit Flossie wore.

"Can it be a little dog playing with her?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"We'd hear him bark if it was," his wife answered. "And I don't believe there are any dogs on this island."

Flossie was trying to pull away from whatever had hold of her, and the little girl was having a hard time of it. Her bare feet dug in the white sand, and she leaned forward, just as she would have done if a dog had had hold of her short skirt from behind.

Mr. Bobbsey, running fast, caught Flossie in his arms, and when he saw what was behind her he gave a loud shout.

"It's a turtle!" he cried. "A great, big turtle, and it took a bite out of your dress, Flossie girl!"

"Will it bite me?" asked the little "fairy."

"Not now!" the twins' father answered with a laugh. "There, I'll get you loose from him!"

Mr. Bobbsey gave a hard pull on Flossie's bathing suit skirt. There was a sound of tearing cloth and then Mr. Bobbsey could lift his little girl high in his arms. As he did so Mrs. Bobbsey, who hurried up just then, saw on the beach behind Flossie a great, big turtle, and in its mouth, which looked something like that of a parrot, was a piece of the bathing skirt. Mr. Bobbsey had torn it loose.

"Oh, if he had bitten you instead of your dress!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "Flossie, are you hurt?"

"No, she isn't hurt a bit," her father said. "But of course it is a good thing that the turtle did not bite her. How did it happen, Flossie?"

"Well, I was resting here, after I tried to swim," answered the little girl, for she was learning to swim; "and, all of a sudden, I wanted to get up, for Freddie called me to come and see how he could float. But I couldn't get up. This mud turkle had hold of me."

"It isn't a mud turtle," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But it certainly had hold of you."

Just then Cousin Jasper came along and saw the turtle crawling back toward the water.

"Ha! I'll stop that and we'll have some turtle soup for dinner to-morrow!" he cried. "Not so fast, Mr. Turtle!"

With that Cousin Jasper turned the turtle over on its back, and there the big creature lay, moving its flippers, which it had instead of legs. They were broad and flat.

"Won't it bite you?" asked Freddie, who, with Nan and Bert, had waded ashore.

"Not if I don't put my hand too near its mouth," Cousin Jasper answered. "If I did that it would take hold of me, as it took hold of Flossie's dress. But I'm not going to let it. Did the turtle scare you, little fat fairy?"

"I -- I guess it did," she answered. "Anyhow I hollered."

"You certainly did," her father said with a laugh. "At least, you hallooed."

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Bert, as he watched the big turtle, which still had hold of the piece torn from Flossie's bathing skirt.

"We'll eat him -- that is part of him, made into soup," answered Cousin Jasper.

"Can't he get away?" Nan inquired.

"Not when he's on his back," said Mr. Dent. "That's how the people down here catch turtles. They go out on the beach, and when any of the crawling creatures are seen, they are turned over as soon as possible. There they stay until they can be picked up and put into a boat to be taken to the mainland and sold."

"Can they bite hard?" asked Bert.

"Pretty hard, yes. See what a hold it has of Flossie's dress. I had to tear it to get it loose," returned Mr. Bobbsey. And the turtle still held in his mouth, which was like the beak of a parrot, a piece of the cloth.

"He looks funny," put in Nan. "But I feel sorry for him."

Bert and Freddie laughed at Nan for this.

"The turtle must have been crawling along the beach, to go back into the ocean for a swim," said Cousin Jasper, "and it ran right into Flossie as she sat on the sand. Then, not knowing just what sort of danger was near, the turtle bit on the first thing it saw, which was Flossie's dress."

"And it held on awful tight," said the little girl. "It was just like, sometimes, when our dog Snap takes hold of a stick and pulls it away from you. At first I thought it was Snap."

"Snap couldn't swim away down here from Lakeport!" said Freddie, with some scorn.

"I know he couldn't!" said his little sister. "But only at first I thought it was Snap. Are there any more turkles here, Cousin Jasper?"

"Well, yes, a great many, I suppose. They come up out of the sea now and then to lie on the sand in the sun. But I don't believe any more of them will take hold of you. Just look around before you sit down, and you'll be all right."

"My, he's a big one!" cried Bert, as he looked at the wiggling creature turned on its back.

"Oh, that isn't half the size of some," said Cousin Jasper. "They often get to weigh many hundreds of pounds. But this one is large enough to make plenty of soup for us. I'll tell Captain Crane to send the men over to get it."

A little later the turtle was taken on board the Swallow in the boat, and the cook got it ready for soup.

"And I think he'll make very good soup, indeed," said the cook.

"He certainly ought to make good soup," answered Captain Crane. "It will be nice and fresh, if nothing else."

While Mr. Chase and his men were mending the broken engine, and the cook was making turtle soup, the Bobbsey twins, with their father and mother and Cousin Jasper, stayed on Palm Island. They walked along the shore, under the shady trees, and watched the blue waves break up on the white sand. Overhead, birds wheeled and flew about, sometimes dashing down into the water with a splash to catch a fish or get something else to eat.

"It's getting near dinner time," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a while. "I guess you children had better get ready to go back to the boat for a meal. You must be hungry."

"I am," answered Nan. "It always makes me hungry to go in swimming."

"I'm hungry anyhow, even if I don't go in swimming," Bert said.

"Perhaps we could have a little lunch here, on Palm Island, without going back to the Swallow," Mrs. Bobbsey suggested.

"Oh, that would be fun!" cried Nan.

"Daddy and I'll go to the ship in the boat and get the things to eat," proposed Bert. "Then we'll bring 'em here and have a picnic."

"Yes, we might do that," Mr. Bobbsey agreed. "It will save work for the cook, who must be busy with that turtle. We'll go and get the things for an island picnic."

"This is almost like the time we were on Blueberry Island," said Nan, when her father and brother had rowed back to the Swallow.

"Only there isn't any cave," Freddie said.

"Maybe there is," returned Nan. "We haven't looked around yet. Maybe we might find a cave here; mightn't we, Mother?"

"Oh, yes, you might. But don't go looking for one. I don't want you to get lost here. We must all stay together."

In a little while Bert and Mr. Bobbsey came back with baskets filled with good things to eat. They were spread out on a cloth on the clean sand, not far from where the waves broke on the beach, and then, under the waving palms, the picnic was held, Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper having a share in it. On the Swallow the men still worked to mend the broken engine.

"How long shall we be here?" Mr. Bobbsey asked.

"About two days more," answered Captain Crane. "It will take longer than we at first thought to fix the break."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that!" exclaimed Cousin Jasper. "I wanted to get to the other island as soon as we could, and save Jack. It must be very lonesome for him there, and perhaps he is hurt, or has become ill. I wish we could get to him."

"We'll go there as soon as we can," promised Captain Crane. "I am as anxious to get that poor boy as you are, Mr. Dent. At the same time I hope he has, before this, been taken off the island by some other boat that may have seen him waving to them."

"I hope so, too," said Mr. Dent. "Still I would feel better if we were at the other island and had Jack safe with us."

They all felt sorry for the poor boy, and wondered what he was doing just then.

"I hope he has something as good to eat as we have." Nan spoke with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Indeed, this is a very nice meal, for a picnic," said her mother. "We ought to be very thankful to Cousin Jasper for taking us on such a nice voyage."

"I am glad you like it," returned Mr. Dent. "All the while I was in the hospital, as soon as I was able to think, my thoughts were with this poor boy.

"I tried to get the hospital people to send a boat to rescue Jack; but they said he could not be on the island, or the sailors who brought me off would have seen him. Then they thought I was out of my head with illness, and paid little attention to me.

"Then I thought of you, Dick, and I wrote to you. I knew you liked traveling about, and especially when it was to help some one."

"Indeed I do," said the father of the Bobbsey twins. "And if all goes well we'll soon rescue Jack!"

After the picnic lunch the Bobbseys and their friends sat in the shade of the palms and talked over what had so far happened on the voyage. Flossie and Freddie wandered down the beach, and the little girl was showing her brother where she sat when the turtle grabbed her dress.

"Let's dig a hole in the sand," Freddie said, a little later.

"We haven't any shovels," Flossie answered.

"We can take shells," said Freddie.

Soon the two little twins were having fun in the sand of the beach. They had not been digging very long when Freddie gave a shout.

"Oh, I hope nothing more has happened!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, starting up.

"What is it, Freddie?" called Mr. Bobbsey.

"Look at the funny nest we found!" answered the little boy. "It's a funny nest in the sand, and it's got a lot of chicken's eggs in it! Come and look!"




Chapter XVIII

The "Swallow" Is Gone


"What is the child saying?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband, for she did not hear all that Freddie said.

"He's calling about having found a hen's nest," Mr. Bobbsey answered, "but he must be mistaken. There can't be any chickens on this island."

"Maybe there are," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Perhaps, after all, some one lives here, on the other side where we haven't been. And they may keep chickens."

"Oh, no," answered her husband.

"I hardly think so," said Cousin Jasper. "But we'll go to look at what Freddie has found."

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, with Cousin Jasper, followed by Bert and Nan, hurried down the beach to Flossie and Freddie, standing beside a hole they had dug in the sand. The children were looking down into it.

"I busted one egg with my clam-shell shovel," Freddie was saying, "but there's a lot left."

"They were all covered with sand," added Flossie. "And we dug 'em up! Didn't we, Freddie? We dug up the chickie's nest!"

"But we didn't see any chickens," said the little boy.

"And for a very good reason," stated Cousin Jasper with a laugh, as he looked down into the little sand pit. "Those are the eggs of a turtle. Perhaps the very turtle that had hold of your dress, Flossie."

"Do turtles lay eggs?" asked Freddie in surprise.

"Indeed they do," said Cousin Jasper.

"O-o-oh!" gasped Flossie.

"And the turtle's eggs are good to eat, too. They are not quite as nice as the eggs of a hen, but lots of people, especially those who live on some of these islands, like them very much," went on Mr. Dent.

"Does a turkle lay its eggs in a nest like a hen?" Flossie questioned. "What made them all be covered up?"

"Well," answered Cousin Jasper, as they all looked at the eggs in the sand, "a turtle lays eggs like a hen, but she cannot hover over them, and hatch them, as a hen can, because a turtle has no warm feathers. You know it takes warmth and heat to make an egg hatch. And, as a turtle isn't warm enough to do that, she lays her eggs in the warm sand, and covers them up. The heat of the sun, and the warm sand soon hatch the little turtles out of the eggs."

"Would turtles come out of these eggs?" asked Nan.

"Really, truly?" added Flossie.

"Just as surely as little chickens come out of hen's eggs," answered Cousin Jasper. "But they must be kept warm."

"Then we'd better cover 'em up again!" exclaimed Freddie. "We found the turtle's eggs when we were digging in the sand -- Flossie and me. And I didn't know they were there and I busted one of the eggs. First I thought they were white stones, but when I busted one, and the white and yellow came out, I found they were eggs."

"And the shells aren't hard," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she leaned over the hole and touched the queer eggs in the sand-nest. "The shells are like the shell of a soft egg a hen sometimes lays."

"Except that the shells, or rather, skins, of these eggs are thicker than those of a chicken," explained Cousin Jasper. "These egg-skins are like a piece of leather. If they were hard, like the eggs of a hen, perhaps the little turtles could not break their way out, as a turtle, though it can give a hard bite, has no pointed beak to pick a hole in the shell."

"Well, you have made quite a discovery," said Mr. Bobbsey to the little twins. "Better cover the eggs up now, so the little turtles in them will not get cold and die."

"Are there turtles in them now?" asked Freddie.

"No, these eggs must be newly laid," Cousin Jasper said. "But if they are kept warm long enough the little turtles will come to life in them and break their way out. Would you like some to eat?" he asked Mr. Bobbsey.

The father of the twins shook his head.

"I don't believe I care for any," he answered. "I'm not very fond of eggs, anyhow, and I'll wait until we can find some that feathered chickens lay."

"Well, I'll take a few for myself, and I know Captain Crane likes them," said Cousin Jasper. "The rest we will leave to be hatched by the warm sun."

Mr. Dent took some of the eggs out in his hat, and then Flossie and Freddie covered the rest with sand again.

"We'll dig in another place, so we won't burst any more turtle's eggs," said the little boy, as he walked down the beach with Flossie, each one carrying a clam shell.

It was so nice on Palm Island that Mrs. Bobbsey said they would have supper there, before going back on board the Swallow to spend the night. So more things to eat were brought off in the small boat, and, as the sun was sinking down in the west, turning the blue waves of the sea to a golden color, the travelers sat on the beach and ate.

"Maybe we could build a little campfire here and stay for a while after dark," suggested Bert, who felt that he was getting to be quite a large boy now.

"Oh, no indeed! We won't stay here after dark!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "Snakes and turtles and all sorts of things might crawl up out of the ocean and walk all around us on the beach. As soon as it gets dark we'll go back to the ship."

"Yes, I think that would be best," said Mr. Bobbsey. "When we get to the other island, where we hope to find Jack, it will be time enough to camp out."

"Shall we stay there long?" Bert wanted to know.

"It all depends on how we find that poor boy," answered Cousin Jasper. "If he is all right, and doesn't mind staying a little longer, we can make a camp on the island. There are some tents on board and we can live in them while on shore."

"Oh, that'll be almost as much fun as Blueberry Island!" cried Nan.

"It'll be nicer!" Bert said. "Blueberry Island was right near shore, but this island is away out in the middle of the ocean, isn't it, Cousin Jasper?"

"Well, not exactly in the middle of the ocean," was the answer. "But I think, perhaps, there is more water around it than was around your Blueberry Island."

After supper, which, like their lunch, was eaten on the beach under the palm trees, the Bobbsey twins and the others went back to the Swallow. The men working for the engineer, Mr. Chase, had not yet gotten the engine fixed, and it would take perhaps two more days, they said, as the break was worse than they had at first thought.

"Well, we'll have to stay here, that's all," said Cousin Jasper. "I did hope we would hurry to the rescue of Jack, but it seems we can't. Anyhow it would not do to go on with a broken engine. We might run into a storm at sea and then we would be wrecked. So we will wait until everything is all right before we go sailing over the sea again."

"It seems like being back home," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she sat down later in a deck chair.

"Didn't you like it on the island?" asked Bert.

"Yes. But after it got dark some big turtle might have come up out of the sea and pulled on you, as one did on Flossie," and Bert's mother smiled.

"Well, no mud turkles can get on our ship, can they?" asked the little "fat fairy."

"No turtles can get on board here, unless they climb up the anchor cable," said Captain Crane with a laugh. "Now we'll get all snug for the night, so if it comes on to blow, or storm, we shall be all right."

It was a little too early to go to bed, so the Bobbsey twins and the grown folks sat on deck in the moonlight. The men of the crew, and the cook, sat on the other end of the deck, and also talked. It was very warm, for the travelers were now in southern waters, nearer the equator than they had ever been before. Even with very thin clothes on the air felt hot, though, of course, just as at Lakeport or Meadow Brook, it was cooler in the evening than during the day.

"It's almost too hot to go down into the staterooms," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I wonder if we couldn't sleep out on deck?"

"Yes, we could have the mattresses brought up," said Cousin Jasper. "I have often slept on the deck of my own boat."

"Some of the crew are going to, they tell me," Captain Crane said.

"Then we will," Mr. Bobbsey decided. "It will be more like camping out. And it certainly is very hot, even with the sun down."

"We may have a thunderstorm in the night," the captain said, "but we can sleep out until then."

So the mattresses and bed covers were brought up from the stateroom.

"This is a new kind of camping out, isn't it?" remarked Flossie, as she viewed the bringing up of the bed things with great interest.

"It's a good deal like moving, I think," answered Freddie. "Only, of course, we haven't got any moving van to load the things on to."

"What would you do with a moving van out here on a boat?" demanded Bert.

"I could put it on another boat -- one of those flat ones, like they have down at New York, where the horses and wagons walk right on," insisted Freddie, thinking of a ferryboat.

"Well, we haven't any such boats around here, so we'd better not have any moving vans either," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh.

"I don't want to move anywhere, anyway," said Flossie. "I'm too tired to do it. I'm going to stay right where I am."

"Oh, so'm I going to stay!" cried Freddie quickly. "Come on -- let us make our beds right over here," and he caught up one of the smaller mattresses. He struggled to cross the deck with it, but got his feet tangled up in one end, and pitched headlong.

"Look out there, Freddie Bobbsey, or you'll go overboard!" cried his brother, as he rushed to the little boy's assistance.

"If I went overboard, could I float on the mattress?" questioned Freddie, as he scrambled to his feet.

"I don't think so," answered his father. "And, anyway, I wouldn't try it."

Presently the mattresses and bedcovers were distributed to everyone's satisfaction, and then all lay down to rest.

For a time, Flossie and Freddie, as well as Nan and Bert, tossed about, but at last they fell asleep. It was very quiet on the sea, the only noise being the lapping of the waves against the sides of the Swallow.

Mrs. Bobbsey was just falling into a doze when there was a sudden splash in the water, and a loud cry.

"Man overboard! Man overboard!" some one yelled.

"Oh, if it should be one of the children!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. For, no matter whether it is a boy, girl or woman that falls off a ship at sea, a sailor will always call: "'Man' overboard!" I suppose that is easier and quicker to say.

"Who is it? What's the matter?" cried Mr. Bobbsey, awakened suddenly from his sleep.

There was more splashing in the water alongside the boat, and then Captain Crane turned on a lamp that made the deck and the water about very light.

"Jim Black fell overboard," answered Mr. Chase, the engineer. "He got up to draw a bucket of water to soak his head in so he could cool off, and he reached over too far."

"Is he all right?" asked Captain Crane.

"Yes, I'm all right," was the answer of the sailor himself. "I feel cooler now."

At this the older people laughed.

He had fallen in with the clothes on, in which he had been sleeping, but as soon as he struck the water he swam up, made his way to the side of the ship, grabbed a rope that was hanging over the side, and pulled himself to the deck.

"My! what a fright I had!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I thought one of the children had rolled into the ocean!"

"That couldn't happen," said Captain Crane. "There is a strong railing all about the deck."

"Well, it's cooler now," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I think I'll take the twins and go to our regular beds."

She did this and was glad of it, for a little later a thunderstorm broke, and it began to rain, driving every one below. The rest of the night the storm kept up, and though the thunder was loud and the lightning very bright, the rain did one good service -- it made the next day cooler.

"Well, shall we go ashore again?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, when breakfast had been eaten aboard the Swallow.

"Oh, yes!" cried the twins. "We want to go swimming again!"

"And I'm going to watch out for 'mud turkles,'" said Flossie, as she called them.

Once more they went to the beach of Palm Island, and they had dinner on the shady shore. In the afternoon, leaving the engineer and his helpers on board to work away at the motor, the whole party of travelers, Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and all, started on a walk to the other side of the island. This took them out of sight of the boat.

They found many pretty things at which to look -- flowers, a spring of sweet water where they got a drink, little caves and dells, and a place where hundreds of birds made their nests on a rocky cliff. The birds wheeled and soared about, making loud noises as they saw the Bobbsey twins and the others near their nests.

It was along in the afternoon when they went back to the beach where they had eaten, and where they were to have supper. Bert, who had run on ahead around a curve in the woodland path, came to a stop on the beach.

"Why -- why!" he cried. "She's gone! The Swallow is gone!" and he pointed to the little bay.

The motor boat was no longer at anchor there!




Chapter XIX

Away Again


"What's that you say?" asked Captain Crane. "The Swallow gone?"

"She isn't there," Bert answered. "But maybe that isn't the bay where she was anchored. Maybe we're in the wrong place."

"No, this is the place all right," said Cousin Jasper. "But our boat is gone!"

There was no doubt of it. The little bay that had held the fine, big motor boat was indeed empty. The small boat was drawn up on the sand, but that was all.

"Where can it have gone?" asked Mr. Bobbsey. "Did you know the men we left on it were going away, Captain Crane?"

"No, indeed, I did not! I can't believe that Mr. Chase and the others have gone, and yet the boat isn't here."

Captain Crane was worried. So were Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and Cousin Jasper. Even Flossie and Freddie, young as they were, could tell that.

"Maybe a big mud turkle came and pulled the ship away," said Flossie.

"Or a whale," added Freddie. Any big fish or swimming animal, the little twins thought, might do such a thing as that.

"No, nothing like that happened," said Captain Crane. "And yet the Swallow is gone. The men could not have thought a storm was coming up, and gone out to sea to be safe. There is no sign of a storm, and they never would have gone away, unless something happened, without blowing a whistle to tell us."

"Maybe," said Bert, "they got word from Jack, on the other island, to come and get him right away, and they couldn't wait for us."

Captain Crane shook his head.

"That couldn't happen," he said, "unless another boat brought word from poor Jack. And if there had been another boat we'd have seen her."

"Unless both boats went away together," suggested Mr. Bobbsey.

"No, I think nothing like that happened," said the captain.

"But what can we do?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Shall we have to stay on this island until the Swallow comes back?"

"She may not be gone very long," Mr. Bobbsey said.

"We can camp out here until she does come back," observed Nan. "We have lots left to eat."

"There won't be much after supper," Bert said. "But we can catch some turtles, or find some more eggs, and get fish, and live that way."

"I'll catch a fish," promised Freddie.

"I don't understand this," said Captain Crane, with another shake of his head. "I must go out and have a look around."

"How are you going?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"In the small boat. I'll row out into the bay for a little way," said the seaman. "It may be that the Swallow is around some point of the island, just out of sight. I'll have a look before we get ready to camp here all night."

"I'll come with you," offered Cousin Jasper.

"All right, and we'll leave Mr. Bobbsey here with his family," the captain said. "Don't be afraid," he added to the children and Mrs. Bobbsey. "Even if the worst has happened, and the Swallow, by some mistake, has gone away without us, we can stay here for a while. And many ships pass this island, so we shall be taken off pretty soon."

"We can be like Robinson Crusoe, really," Bert said.

"That isn't as much fun as it seems when you're reading the book," put in his mother. "But we will make the best of it."

"I think it'd be fun," murmured Freddie.

Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper got in the small boat and rowed out into the bay. Anxiously the others watched them, hoping they would soon come back with word that the Swallow had been blown just around "the corner," as Nan said, meaning around a sort of rocky point of the island, beyond which they could not look.

"I do hope we shall not have to camp out here all night," said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a little shiver, as she looked around.

"Are you afraid of the mud turkles?" asked Flossie.

"No, dear. But I don't want to sleep on the beach without a bed or any covers for you children."

"Perhaps we shall not have to," said Mr. Bobbsey.

They waited a while longer, watching the small boat in which were Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper, until it was rowed out of sight. Bert did not seem to mind much the prospect of having to stay all night on Palm Island.

Nan, however, like her mother and her father, was a bit worried. But Flossie and Freddie were having a good time digging in the sand with clam shells for shovels. The little twins did not worry about much of anything at any time, unless it was getting something to eat or having a good time.

"I know what I'm going to build!" cried Freddie.

"What?" demanded his twin quickly.

"I'm going to build a great big sand castle."

"You can't do it, Freddie Bobbsey. The sand won't stick together into a castle."

"I'm going to use wet sand," asserted Freddie. "That will stick together."

"You look out, Freddie Bobbsey, or you'll fall in!" cried his sister, when Freddie had gone further down near the water where the sand was wet.

"Freddie! Freddie! keep away from that water!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "I don't want you to get all wet and dirty."

"But I want to build a sand castle."

"Well, you come up here where the sand is dry and build it," continued Mrs. Bobbsey.

"All right. In a minute," answered Freddie.

Mr. Bobbsey was straining his eyes, looking out toward the point of rock, around which the rowboat had gone, and his wife was standing beside him, gazing in the same direction, when Bert, who looked the other way, cried:

"There she comes now! There's the Swallow!"

And, surely enough, there she came back, as if nothing had happened.

Mr. Bobbsey waved his hat and some one on the motor boat blew a whistle. And then, as if knowing that something was wrong, the boat was steered closer to shore than it had come before, and Mr. Chase cried:

"What's the matter? Did anything happen?"

"We thought something had happened to you!" shouted Mr. Bobbsey. "Captain Crane and Mr. Dent have gone off in the small boat to look for you."

"That's too bad," said Mr. Chase. "While you were away, on the other side of the island, we finished work on the engine. We wanted to try it, so we pulled up anchor and started off. We thought we would go around to the side of the island where you were, but something went wrong, after we were out a little while, and we had to anchor in another bay, out of sight. But as soon as we could we came back, and when I saw you waving your hat I feared something might have happened."

"No, nothing happened. And we are all right," said Mr. Bobbsey, "except that we were afraid we'd have to stay on the island all night. And Captain Crane has gone to look for you."

"I'm sorry about that," returned the engineer. "It would have been all right, except that the motor didn't work as I wanted it to. But everything is fine now, and we can start for the other island as soon as we like. I'll blow the whistle and Captain Crane will know that we are back at our old place."

Several loud toots of the air whistle were given, and, a little later, from around the point came the small boat with the captain and Cousin Jasper in it. They had rowed for some distance, but had not seen the Swallow, and they were beginning to get more worried, wondering what had become of her.

"However, everything is all right now," said Captain Crane, when they were all once more on board the motor boat, it having been decided to have supper there instead of on Palm Island.

"Aren't we coming back here any more?" asked Freddie.

"Not right away," his father told him. "We stopped here only because we had to. Now we are going on again and try to find Jack Nelson."

"We have been longer getting there than I hoped we'd be," said Cousin Jasper, "but it could not be helped. I guess Jack will be glad to see us when we do arrive."

The things they had taken to Palm Island, when they had their meals under the trees, had been brought back on the Swallow. The motor boat was now ready to set forth again, and soon it was chug-chugging out of the quiet bay.

"And we won't stop again until we get to where Jack is," said Mr. Dent.

"Not unless we have to," said Captain Crane.

The Swallow appeared to go a little faster, now that the engine was fixed. The boat slipped through the blue sea, and, as the sun sank down, a golden ball of fire it seemed, the cook got the supper ready.

The Bobbseys had thought they might get to eat on the beach, but they were just as glad to be moving along again.

"And I hope nothing more happens," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Freddie, don't try to catch any more fish, or anything like that. There is no telling what might come of it."

"I won't," promised the little fellow. "But if I had my fire engine here Flossie and I could have some fun."

On and on sailed the Swallow. Every one was safely in bed, except one man who was steering and another who looked after the motor, when Mrs. Bobbsey, who was not a heavy sleeper, awakened her husband. It was about midnight.

"Dick!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper, "I smell smoke! Do you?"

Mr. Bobbsey sniffed the air. Then he jumped out of his berth.

"Yes, I smell smoke!" he cried. "And I see a blaze! Wake up, everybody!" he cried, "The boat is on fire!"




Chapter XX

Orange Island


Perhaps Freddie Bobbsey had been dreaming about a fire. At any rate he must have been thinking about it, for, no sooner did Mr. Bobbsey call, after his wife spoke to him, than Freddie, hardly awake, cried:

"Where's my fire engine? Where's my fire engine? I can put out the fire!"

Mr. Bobbsey hurried to the berths where the children were sleeping.

That is, they had been sleeping, but the call of their father, and the shouting of Freddie, awakened them. Flossie, Nan and Bert sat up, rubbing their eyes, though hardly understanding what it was all about.

"What's the matter?" cried Bert.

"The boat is on fire!" his mother answered. "Slip on a few clothes, take your life preserver, end get out on deck."

When the Bobbseys first came aboard the Swallow they were shown how to put on a life preserver, which is a jacket of canvas filled with cork. Cork is light, much lighter than wood, and it will not only float well in water, but, if a piece is large enough, as in life preservers, it will keep a person who wears it, or who clings to it, up out of the sea so they will not drown.

"Get your life preservers!" cried Mr. Bobbsey; then, when he saw that his wife had one, and that the children were reaching under their berths for theirs, he took his.

The smoke was getting thicker in the staterooms, and the yells and shouts of Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and the crew could be heard.

Up on deck rushed the Bobbseys. There they found the electric lights glowing, and they saw more smoke. Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane had a hose and were pointing it toward what seemed to be a hole in the back part of the boat.

"Oh, see!" shouted Flossie.

"Is the fire engine working?" Freddie demanded, as he saw them. "Can I help put the fire out?"

"No, little fireman!" said Captain Crane with a laugh, and when Mrs. Bobbsey heard this she felt better, for she thought that there was not much danger, or the captain would not have been so jolly. "We have the fire almost out now," the captain went on. "Don't be worried, and don't any of you jump overboard," he said as he saw Mrs. Bobbsey, with the twins, standing rather close to the rail.

"No, we won't do that," she said. "But I was getting ready to jump into a boat."

"I guess you won't have to do that," said Cousin Jasper.

"Is the Swallow on fire?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"It was," his cousin answered. "But we have put it out now. There is a good pump on board, and we pumped water on the blaze as soon as we saw it."

From the hold, which was a place where canned food and other things could be stored, smoke was still pouring, and now and then little tongues of fire shot up. It was this fire which Mr. Bobbsey had seen through the open door of his stateroom.

"Oh, maybe it's going to be an awful big fire!" said Freddie. "Maybe it'll burn the whole boat up!"

"Freddie, Freddie! Don't say such dreadful things!" broke in his mother. "We don't want this boat to burn up."

"I see where it is," said Flossie. "It's down in that great big cellar-like place where they keep all those things to eat -- those boxes of corn and beans and salmon and sardines and tomatoes, and all the things like that."

"Yes. And the 'densed milk!" put in Freddie. "And 'spargus. And the jam! And all those nice sweet things, too!" he added mournfully.

"What shall we do if all our food is burnt up?" went on Flossie.

"We can't live on the boat if we haven't anything to eat," asserted Freddie. "We'll have to go on shore and get something."

"You might catch another big fish," suggested his twin.

"Would you let me have your doll?"

"No, I wouldn't!" was the prompt response. "You can get lots of other things for bait, and you know it, Freddie Bobbsey!"

"How did the fire happen?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of the captain, when she got the chance.

"One of the electric light wires broke and set fire to some oily rags," answered Captain Crane. "Then some empty wooden boxes began to blaze. There was nothing in them -- all the food having been taken out -- but the wood made quite a fire and a lot of smoke.

"Mr. Chase, who was on deck steering, smelled the smoke and saw the little blaze down in a storeroom. He called me and I called Mr. Dent. We hoped we could get the fire out before you folks knew about it. But I guess we didn't," said the captain.

"I smelled smoke, and it woke me up," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Then I called my husband and we all came on deck."

"That was the right thing to do," Captain Crane said. "And it was also good to put on the life preservers," for even Flossie and Freddie had done this. "Always get ready for the worst," the captain went on, "and then if you don't have to take to the small boats so much the better. But the fire will soon be out."

"Can I see the fire engine?" asked Freddie. "I haven't seen a fire engine for a long while." At his home he was always interested in this, but, luckily, Lakeport had few fires.

"It isn't exactly a fire engine," said Cousin Jasper to the little fellow. "It's just a big pump that forms part of one of the motors. I guess you can see how it works, for the fire is so nearly out now that we won't need much more water on it."

So the Bobbseys took off their life preservers, which are not very comfortable things to wear, and stayed on deck, watching the flames die out and the smoke drift away. The Swallow had been slowed down while the captain and the others were fighting the fire.

"Everything is all right now," said Cousin Jasper, and he took Freddie to the motor room to show him the pump, while Captain Crane still played the hose on the last dying embers.

The fire only burned up the oil-soaked rags and some empty boxes, not doing any damage to the motor boat, except a little scorching. The smoke made part of the Swallow black, but this could be painted over.

"And very lucky for us it was no worse," said Mr. Bobbsey, when they were ready to go back to their staterooms.

Freddie stayed and watched the pump as long as they would let him. It could be fastened to one of the motors and it pumped water from the ocean itself on the blaze.

"It's better than having a regular fire engine on land," said Freddie, telling Flossie about it afterward, "'cause in the ocean you can take all the water you like and nobody minds it. When I grow up I'm going to be a fireman on the ocean, and have lots of water."

"You'll have to have a boat so you can go on the ocean," said the little girl.

"Well, I like a boat, too," went on Freddie. "You can run the boat, Flossie, and I'll run the pump fire engine."

"All right," agreed little Flossie. "That's what we'll do."

After making sure that the last spark was out, Captain Crane shut off the water. The Bobbseys went back to bed, but neither the father nor the mother of the twins slept well the rest of the night. They were too busy thinking what might have happened if the fire had not been seen in time and plenty of water sprayed on it to put it out.

"Though there would not have been much danger," Captain Crane said at the breakfast table, where they all gathered the next morning. "We could all have gotten off in the two boats, and we could have rowed to some island. The sea was smooth."

"Where would we get anything to eat?" asked Nan.

"Oh, we'd put that in the boats before we left the ship," said the captain. "And we'd take water, too. But still I'm glad we didn't have to do that."

And the Bobbseys were glad, too.

Part of the day was spent in getting out of the storeroom the burned pieces of boxes. These were thrown overboard. Then one of the crew painted over the scorched places, and, by night, except for the smell of smoke and paint, one would hardly have known where the fire had been.

The weather was bright and sunny after leaving Palm Island, and the twins sat about the deck and looked across the deep, blue sea for a sight of the other island, where, it was hoped, the boy Jack would be found.

"I wonder what he's doing now," remarked Bert, as he and Nan were talking about the lost one, while Flossie and Freddie were listening to a story their mother was telling.

"Maybe he's walking up and down the beach looking for us to come," suggested Nan.

"How could he look for us when he doesn't know we're coming?" asked Bert.

"Well, maybe he hopes some boat will come for him," went on Nan. "And he must know that Cousin Jasper wouldn't go away and leave him all alone."

"Yes, I guess that's so," agreed Bert. "It must be pretty lonesome, all by himself on an island."

"But maybe somebody else is with him, or maybe he's been taken away," went on Nan. "Anyhow we'll soon know."

"How shall we?" asked Bert.

"'Cause Captain Crane said we'd be at the island to-morrow if we didn't have a storm, or if nothing happened."

On and on went the Swallow. When dinner time came there was served some of the turtle soup from the big crawler that had pulled on Flossie's dress. There was also fish, but Freddie did not catch any more.

Cousin Jasper and Mr. Bobbsey fished off the side of the motor boat and caught some large ones, which the cook cleaned and got ready for the table.

"Going to sea is very nice," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "You don't have to send to the store for anything to eat, and when you are hungry all you have to do is to drop your hook overboard and catch a fish."

It was about noon of the next day when Bert, who was standing in the bow, or front part of the vessel, said to his father:

"I see something like a black speck out there," and he pointed. "Maybe it's another boat."

Mr. Bobbsey looked and said:

"I think more likely that is an island. Perhaps it is the very one we are sailing for -- the one where Cousin Jasper left Jack."

He called to Captain Crane, who brought a powerful telescope, and through that the men looked at the speck Bert had first seen.

"It's land all right," said Captain Crane. In about an hour they were so near the island that its shape could easily be made out, even without a glass. Then Cousin Jasper said:

"That's it all right. Now to go ashore and find that poor boy!"

On raced the Swallow, and soon she dropped anchor in a little bay like the one at Palm Island. In a small boat the Bobbseys and others were rowed to the shore.

"Oh, look at the orange trees!" cried Nan, as she saw some in a grove near the beach.

"Are they real oranges, Captain?" asked the younger girl twin.

"Yes. And it looks as though some one had an orange grove here at one time, not so very long ago, though it hasn't been kept up."

"Is this Orange Island?" asked Bert.

"Well, we can call it that," said Cousin Jasper. "In fact it never had a name, as far as I know. We'll call it Orange Island now."

"That's a good name for it, I think," remarked Nan.

"And now to see if we can find Jack!" went on Nan's twin.

"Let's all holler!" suddenly said Freddie. "Let's all holler as loud as we can!"

"What for?" asked Cousin Jasper, smiling at the little boy. "Why do you want to halloo, Freddie?"

"So maybe Jack can hear us, and he'll know we're here. Whenever me or Flossie gets lost we always holler; don't we?" he asked his little sister.

"Yes," she answered.

"And when Bert or Nan, or our father or mother is looking for us, even if we don't know we're lost, they always holler; don't you, Bert?"

"Yes, and sometimes I have to 'holler' a lot before you answer," said Nan's brother.

"Well, perhaps it would be a good thing to call now," agreed Mr. Bobbsey. "Shall we, Cousin Jasper?"

"Yes," he answered. So the men, with the children to help them, began to shout.

"Jack! Jack! Where are you, Jack?"

The woods and the orange trees echoed the sound, but that was all.

Was the missing boy still on the island?




Chapter XXI

Looking For Jack


Again and again the Bobbseys and the others called the name of Jack, but the children's voices sounding loud, clear and shrill above the others. But, as at first, only the echoes answered.

"That's the way we always holler when we're lost," said Freddie.

"But I guess Jack doesn't hear us," added Flossie.

"No, I guess not," said Cousin Jasper, in rather a sad voice.

"Are you sure this is the right island?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, looking about the place where they had landed from the Swallow.

"Oh, yes, this is the island where I was shipwrecked," said Mr. Dent, "though Jack and I did not land just here. It was on the other side, and when we go there I can show you the wreck of my motor boat -- that is, if the storms have not washed it all away."

"Well, then maybe Jack is on the other side of the island," said Bert. "And he couldn't hear us."

"Yes, that might be so," agreed Cousin Jasper. "We'll go around there. But as it will take us some little time, and as we want to get some things ashore from the ship, we had better wait until later in the day, or, perhaps, until to-morrow, to look. Though I want to find Jack as soon as I can."

"Maybe he'll find us before we find him," suggested Mr. Bobbsey. "I should think he would be on the lookout, every day, for a ship to which he could signal to be taken off."

"Perhaps he is," said Cousin Jasper. "Well, I hope he comes walking along and finds us. He'll be very glad to be taken away from this place, I guess."

"And yet it is lovely here," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I never thought we would find oranges growing in such a place."

"I forgot to speak about them," said Cousin Jasper. "In fact I was so ill and so miserable after the wreck, that I did not take much notice of what was on the island. But there are many orange trees. It must have, at some time, been quite a grove."

"I was thinking maybe we'd find cocoanuts," said Freddie.

"But oranges are just as nice," put in his little sister.

"Nicer," Freddie declared. "I like oranges. May we eat some, Mother?"

"Why, yes, I guess so," answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly. "Will it be all right, Cousin Jasper?"

"Oh, yes, the oranges are for whomsoever wants them. Help yourselves, children, while we get the things on shore that we need from the motor boat."

"Oh, goody!" shouted Flossie.

"Are we going to sleep here at night?" asked Bert.

"Well, I did think we might camp out here for a week or so, after we got here and found that Jack was all right," answered Cousin Jasper. "But if he is ill, and needs a doctor, we shall have to go right back to Florida. However, until we are sure of that, we will get ready to camp out."

"Oh, what fun!" cried Nan.

"It'll be as nice as on Blueberry Island!" Flossie exclaimed, clapping her fat little hands.

"But there weren't any oranges on Blueberry Island," added Freddie. "Still the blueberries made nice pies."

"Mother made the pies," said Flossie.

"Well, the blueberries helped her," Freddie said, with a laugh.

The Bobbsey twins gathered oranges from the trees and ate them. The men folks then began to bring things from the Swallow, which was anchored in a little bay, not far from shore.

Two tents were to be set up, and though the crew would stay on the boat with Captain Crane, to take care of the vessel if a sudden storm came up, the Bobbseys and Cousin Jasper would camp out on Orange Island.

In a little while one tent was put up, an oil-stove brought from the boat so that cooking could be done without the uncertain waiting for a campfire, and boxes and baskets of food were set out.

"I want to put up the other tent," said Freddie. "I know just how it ought to be done."

"All right, Freddie, you can help," was the answer from Bert. "Only, you had better not try to pound any of the pegs in the ground with the hatchet, or you may pound your fingers."

"Ho! I guess I'm just as good a carpenter as you are, Bert Bobbsey!" said the little boy stoutly.

He took hold of one of the poles and raised it up, but then it slipped from his grasp and one end hit Nan on the shoulder.

"Oh, Freddie! do be careful!" she cried.

"I didn't mean to hit you, Nan," he said contritely. "It didn't hurt, did it?"

"Not very much. But I don't want to get hit again."

"Freddie, you had better let the older folks set up that tent," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Here, you and Flossie can help put these boxes and baskets away. There is plenty of other work for you to do."

A little later the second tent was in position, and everything about the camp was put in good shape.

Then Cousin Jasper, Mr. Bobbsey and the captain, taking Bert with them, started around for the other side of the island to look and call for the missing Jack.

"I want to come, too," said Freddie.

"Not now," his mother told him. "It is too far for a little boy. Perhaps you and Flossie may go to-morrow. You stay and help me make the camp ready for night."

This pleased Freddie and Flossie, and soon they were helping their mother, one of the sailors doing the heavy lifting.

Meanwhile Bert, his father and the others walked on through the woods, around to the other side of the island. They found the place where Cousin Jasper's boat had struck the rocks and been wrecked, and Mr. Dent also showed them the place where he and Jack stayed while they were waiting for a boat to come for them.

"And here is where we set up our signal," cried Mr. Bobbsey's cousin, as he found a pole which had fallen over, having been broken off close to the ground. On top was still a piece of canvas that had fluttered as a flag.

"But why didn't Jack leave it flying, to call a boat to come and get him when he found you gone?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"I don't know," said Cousin Jasper. "This is very strange. I thought surely we would find Jack as soon as we reached the island. It may be that he has been taken off by some fishermen, but I think I would have heard of it. And he was here about a week ago, for Captain Harrison saw him, you remember he told us. Well, we must look further."

"And yell and yell some more," added Bert. "Maybe he can hear us now."

So they shouted and called, but no one answered them, and Cousin Jasper shook his head.

"I wonder what can have happened to the poor boy!" he said.

They walked along the beach, and up among the palm and orange trees, looking for the missing boy. But they saw no signs of him.




Chapter XXII

Found At Last


When Bert, with his father, Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane, got back to the place where Mrs. Bobbsey had been left with Nan and the two smaller twins, the camp on Orange Island was nearly finished. The tents had been put up, and the oil-stove was ready for cooking.

"Didn't you find that poor boy?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"No, we saw no trace of him," her husband answered.

"Oh, isn't that too bad?"

"Yes, I am very sorry," sighed Cousin Jasper. "But I have not yet given up. I'll stay here until either I find him, or make sure what has happened to him. Poor Jack has no relatives, and I am his nearest friend. I feel almost as though he were my son. We will find him if he is on this island."

Bert and the others who had walked around to the other side of the island, hoping that Jack might be found, were tired from their trip, and when they got back were glad to sit on the beach in the shade. A meal was soon ready, and when they had eaten they all felt better.

"It is too late to do much more searching to-day," said Cousin Jasper, "but we will start early in the morning."

And this they did, after a quiet night spent on the island. As soon, almost, as the sun had risen, the Bobbsey twins were up, and Bert and Nan gathered oranges for breakfast.

"I wish we could live here always," said Freddie. "I'd never have to go to the store for any fruit."

"But if we stayed here we couldn't have Snap or Snoop or Dinah or Sam, or anybody like that from Lakeport," put in Flossie.

"Couldn't we, Mother?" asked the little boy.

"Course we couldn't!" insisted Flossie.

"Well, I guess it would be hard to bring from Lakeport all the friends and all the things you like there," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Well, then we'll go back home after we find Jack," decided Freddie.

Breakfast over, the search for the missing boy was begun once more, Mrs. Bobbsey and the smaller twins going along.

In some places, however, the way was rough and steep, and once on top of a little hill, Freddie suddenly cried:

"Look out! I'm coming!"

And come he did, but in a queer way. For he slipped and fell, and rolled to the bottom, bringing up with a bump against a stump.

"Oh, my dear little fat fireman! Did you hurt yourself?" asked his father.

Freddie did not answer at first. He slowly got to his feet, looked up the hill down which he had rolled, and then at the stump, which was covered with moss.

"I -- I guess I'm all right," he said.

"He's so fat he didn't get hurt," said Cousin Jasper. "Fat boys and girls are just the kind to bring to a place like this. They can't get hurt easily."

Freddie laughed, and so did the others, and then they went on again. They looked in different places for the missing boy, and called his name many times.

But all the sounds they heard in answer were those of the waves dashing on the beach or the cries of the sea-birds.

"It is very strange," said Captain Crane. "If that boy was here about a week ago, you'd think we could find some trace of him -- some place where he had built a fire, or set up a signal so it would be seen by passing ships. I believe, Mr. Dent, that he must have been taken away, and when we get back to St. Augustine he'll be there waiting for us."

"Well, perhaps you are right," said Cousin Jasper, "but we will make sure. We'll stay here a week, anyhow, and search every part of Orange Island."

They had brought their lunch with them, so they would not have to go back to the camp when noon came, and, finding a pleasant place on the beach, near a little spring of water, they sat down to rest.

Flossie and Freddie, as often happened, finished long before the others did, and soon they strolled off, hand in hand, down the sands.

"Where are you going, children?" called Mrs. Bobbsey to them.

"Oh, just for a walk," Freddie answered.

"An' maybe we'll see Jack," added Flossie.

"I only wish they would, but it is too much to hope for," said Cousin Jasper, and he looked worried.

Bert, Nan and the others stayed for some little time after lunch, sitting in the shade on the beach, and talking. They were just about to get up and once more start the search; when Flossie and Freddie came running back. One look at their faces told their mother that something had happened.

"What is it, children?" she asked.

"We -- we found a big, black cave!" answered Freddie, somewhat out of breath.

"An' -- an' they's a -- a giant in it!" added Flossie, who was also breathing hard.

"A cave!" cried Mr. Bobbsey.

"What do you mean by a giant in it?" asked Cousin Jasper.

"Well, when you see a big black hole in the side of a hill, isn't that a cave?" asked Freddie.

"It surely is," said his father.

"An' when you hear somebody making a big noise like 'Boo-oo-oo-oo! Boo!' maybe that's a giant, like it is in the story," said Flossie.

"Oh, I guess perhaps you heard the wind moaning in a cave," said Captain Crane.

"No, there wasn't any wind blowing," Freddie said. And, surely enough, there was not. The day was clear and calm.

"We heard the booing noise," Freddie said.

"Are you sure it wasn't a mooing noise, such as the cows make?" asked Nan.

"There aren't any cows on Orange Island; are there, Cousin Jasper?" asked Bert.

"I think not. Tell me, children, just what you heard, and where it was," he said to Flossie and Freddie.

Then the little twins told of walking along the hill that led up from the beach and of seeing a big hole -- a regular cave. They went in a little way and then they heard the strange, moaning sound.

Cousin Jasper seemed greatly excited.

"I believe there may be something there," he said. "We must go and look. If they heard a noise in the cave, it may be that it was caused by some animal, or it may be that it was --  -- "

"Jack!" exclaimed Bert. "Maybe it's Jack!"

"Maybe," said Cousin Jasper. "We'll go to look!"

Cousin Jasper and Mr. Bobbsey walked on ahead, with Flossie and Freddie to show where they had seen the big, black hole. It was not far away, but so hidden by bushes that it could have been seen only by accident, unless some one knew where it was.

Outside the entrance they all stopped.

"Listen!" said Flossie.

It was quiet for a moment, and then came a sound that surely was a groan, as if some one was in pain.

"Who's in there?" cried Cousin Jasper.

"I am," was the faint answer. "Oh, will you please come in and help me. I fell and hurt my leg and I can't walk, and --  -- "

"Are you Jack Nelson?" cried Cousin Jasper.

"Yes, that's my name. A friend and I were wrecked on this island, but I can't find him and --  -- "

"But he's found you!" cried Mr. Dent. "Oh, Jack! I've found you! I've found you! I've come back to get you! Now you'll be all right!"

Into the cave rushed Cousin Jasper, followed by the others. Mr. Bobbsey and Captain Crane had pocket electric flashlights, and by these they could see some one lying on a pile of moss in one corner of the cavern.

It was a boy, and one look at him showed that he was ill. His face was flushed, as if from fever, and a piece of sail-cloth was tied around one leg. Near him, on the ground where he was lying, were some oranges, and a few pieces of very dry crackers, called "pilot biscuits" by the sailors.

"Oh, Jack, what has happened to you? Are you hurt, and have you been in this cave all the while?" asked Mr. Dent.

"No, not all the while, though I've been in here now for nearly a week, I guess, ever since I hurt my leg. I can crawl about a little but I can't climb up and down the hill, so I got in here to stay out of the storms, and I thought no one would ever come to me."

"You poor boy!" softly said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Don't talk any more now. Wait until you feel better and then you can tell us all about it. Poor boy!"

"Are you hungry?" asked Freddie; for that, to him, seemed about the worst thing that could happen.

"No, not so very," answered Jack. "When I found I couldn't get around any more, or not so well, on my sore leg, I crawled to the trees and got some oranges. I had a box of the biscuit and some other things that washed ashore from the wreck after you went away," he said to Cousin Jasper.

"Well, tell us about it later," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Now we are going to take care of you."

They made a sort of little bed on poles, with pieces of the sail-cloth, and the men carried Jack to the camp. There Captain Crane, who knew something about doctoring, bound up his leg, and when the lost boy had been given some hot soup, and put in a comfortable bed, he felt much better.

A little later he told what had happened to him.

"After you became so sick," said Jack to Cousin Jasper, the others listening to the story, "I walked to the other end of the island to see if I could not see, from there, some ship I could signal to come and get us. I was so tired I must have fallen asleep when I sat down to rest, and when I woke up, and went back to where you had been, Mr. Dent, you weren't there. I didn't know what had happened to you and I couldn't find you."

"Men came in a boat and took me away," said Cousin Jasper, "though I didn't know it at the time. When I found myself in the hospital I wondered where you were, but they all thought I was out of my head when I wanted them to come to the island and rescue you. So I had to send for Mr. Bobbsey to come."

"And we found the cave, didn't we?" cried Freddie.

"Yes, only for you and Flossie, just stumbling on it, as it were," said his father, "we might still be hunting for Jack."

"I'm glad we found you," said Flossie.

"So'm I," added Freddie.

"I'm glad myself," Jack said, with a smile at the Bobbsey twins. "I was getting tired of staying on the island all alone."

"What did you do all the while?" asked Bert. "Did you feel like Robinson Crusoe?"

"Well a little," Jack answered. "But I didn't have as much as Robinson had from the wreck of his ship. But I managed to get enough to eat, and I had the cave to stay in. I found that other one, and went into that, as it was better than where we first were," he said to Mr. Dent.

"I made smudges of smoke, and set up signals of cloth," the boy went on, "but a storm blew one of my poles down, and I guess no one saw my signals."

"Yes, Captain Harrison did, but it was so stormy he couldn't get close enough to take you from the island," said Captain Crane.

"And then we came on as soon as we could," added Cousin Jasper. "Oh, Jack, I'm so glad we have found you, and that you are all right! You had a hard time!"

"Yes, it was sort of hard," the boy admitted. "But it's a good thing oranges grow here. I got some clams, too, and I found a nest of turtle's eggs, and roasted some of them. I didn't like them much, but they stopped me from being hungry."

"Well, now we'll feed you on the best in camp," said Mrs. Bobbsey.

"And I caught a turkle, once!" added Flossie.

"I guess you mean the turtle caught you," said Nan with a laugh.

But now Jack's troubles were over. As he was weak from not having had good food, and from being ill, it was decided to keep him at the camp for a short while. In that time the Bobbsey twins had a good time on Orange Island, and when he was able to walk about, even though he had to limp on a stick for a crutch, Jack went about with the children, showing them the different parts of the cave where he had stayed. He could not have lived there much longer alone, for his food was almost gone when Flossie and Freddie heard him groaning in the cavern.

"And we thought you were a giant!" said Flossie with a laugh.

They had found, by accident, what the others had been looking for so carefully but could not find. And Jack had no idea his friends were on the island until they walked into the cave with the flashing lights.

"Oh, I'm glad we traveled on the deep, blue sea," said Nan, about a week after Jack had been found. "This is the nicest adventure we ever had!"

These were happy days on Orange Island. Jack rapidly grew better, and would soon be able to make the trip back to St. Augustine in the motor boat. But it was so lovely on that island in the deep, blue sea that the Bobbseys stayed there nearly a month, and by that time they were all as brown as berries, including Jack, who had been pale because of his illness.

So the lost and lonely boy was found, and he and Cousin Jasper were better friends than ever. And as for the Bobbsey twins, though they had had many adventures on this voyage, still others were in store for them. But now we will say "Good-bye!" for a time.

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Rollo In Holland

By

Jacob Abbott



Chapter I.

Preparations.


Holland is one of the most remarkable countries on the globe. The peculiarities which make it remarkable arise from the fact that it is almost perfectly level throughout, and it lies so low. A very large portion of it, in fact, lies below the level of the sea, the waters being kept out, as every body knows, by immense dikes that have stood for ages.

These dikes are so immense, and they are so concealed by the houses, and trees, and mills, and even villages that cover and disguise them, that when the traveller first sees them he can hardly believe that they are dikes. Some of them are several hundred feet wide, and have a good broad public road upon the top, with a canal perhaps by the side of it, and avenues of trees, and road-side inns, and immense wind mills on the other hand. When riding or walking along upon such a dike on one side, down a long slope, they have a glimpse of water between the trees. On the other, at an equal distance you see a green expanse of country, with gardens, orchards, fields of corn and grain, and scattered farm houses extending far and wide. At first you do not perceive that this beautiful country that you see spreading in every direction on one side of the road is below the level of the water that you see on the other side; but on a careful comparison you find that it is so. When the tide is high the difference is very great, and were it not for the dikes the people would be inundated.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.]

Indeed, the dikes alone would not prevent the country from being inundated; for it is not possible to make them perfectly tight, and even if it were so, the soil beneath them is more or less pervious to water, and thus the water of the sea and of the rivers would slowly press its way through the lower strata, and oozing up into the land beyond, would soon make it all a swamp.

Then, besides the interpercolation from the soil, there is the rain. In upland countries, the surplus water that falls in rain flows off in brooks and rivers to the sea; but in land that is below the level of the sea, there can be no natural flow of either brooks or rivers. The rain water, therefore, that falls on this low land would remain there stagnant, except the comparatively small portion of it that would be evaporated by the sun and wind.

Thus you see, that if the people of Holland were to rely on the dikes alone to keep the land dry, the country would become in a very short time one immense morass.

To prevent this result it is necessary to adopt some plan to raise the water, as fast as it accumulates in the low grounds, and convey it away. This is done by pumps and other such hydraulic engines, and these are worked in general by wind mills.

They might be worked by steam engines; but steam engines are much more expensive than wind mills. It not only costs much more to make them, but the expense of working them from day to day is very great, on account of the fuel which they require. The necessary attendance on a steam engine, too, is very expensive. There must be engineers, with high pay, to watch the engine and to keep it always in order, and firemen to feed the fires, and ashmen to carry away the ashes and cinders. Whereas a wind mill takes care of itself.

The wind makes the wind mills go, and the wind costs nothing. It is true, that the head of the mill must be changed from time to time, so as to present the sails always in proper direction to the wind. But even this is done by the wind itself. There is a contrivance by which the mill is made to turn itself so as to face always in the right direction towards the wind; and not only so, but the mill is sometimes so constructed that if the wind blows too hard, it takes in a part of the sails by its own spontaneous action, and thus diminishes the strain which might otherwise be injurious to the machinery.

Now, since the advantages of wind mills are so great over steam engines, in respect especially to cheapness, perhaps you will ask why steam is employed at all to turn machinery, instead of always using the wind. The reason is, because the wind is so unsteady. Some days a wind mill will work, and some days it will lie still; and thus in regard to the time when it will do what is required of it, no reliance can be placed upon it. This is of very little consequence in the work of pumping up water from the sunken country in Holland; for, if for several days the mills should not do their work, no great harm would come of it, since the amount of water which would accumulate in that time would not do any harm. The ground might become more wet, and the canals and reservoirs get full, -- just as brooks and rivers do on any upland country after a long rain. But then, after the calm was over and the wind began to blow again, the mills would all go industriously to work, and the surplus water would soon be pumped up, and discharged over the dikes into the sea again.

Thus the irregularity in the action of the wind mills in doing such work as this, is of comparatively little consequence.

But in the case of some other kinds of work, -- as for example the driving of a cotton mill, or any other great manufactory in which a large number of persons are employed, -- it would be of the greatest possible consequence; for when a calm time came, and the wind mill would not work, all the hands would be thrown out of employ. They might sometimes remain idle thus a number of days at a time, at a great expense to their employers, or else at a great loss to themselves. Sometimes, for example, there might be a fine breeze in the morning, and all the hands would go to the mill and begin their work. In an hour the breeze might entirely die away, and the spinners and weavers would all find their jennies and looms going slower and slower, and finally stopping altogether. And then, perhaps, two hours afterwards, when they had all given up the day's work and gone away to their respective homes, the breeze would spring up again, and the wind mill would go to work more industriously than ever.

This would not answer at all for a cotton mill, but it does very well for pumping up water from a great reservoir into which drains and canals discharge themselves to keep a country dry.

And this reminds me of one great advantage which the people of Holland enjoy on account of the low and level condition of their country; and that is, it is extremely easy to make canals there. There are not only no mountains or rocks in the way to impede the digging of them, but, what is perhaps a still more important advantage, there is no difficulty in filling them with water. In other countries, when a canal is to be made, the very first question is, How is it to be filled? For this purpose the engineer explores the whole country through which the canal is to pass, to find rivers and streams that he can turn into it, when the bed of it shall have been excavated; and sometimes he has to bring these supplies of water for a great distance in artificial channels, which often cross valleys by means of great aqueducts built up to hold them. Sometimes a brook is in this way brought across a river, -- the river itself not being high enough to feed the canal.

The people of Holland have no such difficulties as these to encounter in their canals. The whole country being so nearly on a level with the sea, they have nothing to do, when they wish for a canal, but to extend it in some part to the sea shore, and then open a sluice way and let the water in.

It is true that sometimes they have to provide means to prevent the ingress of too much water; but this is very easily done.

It is thus so easy to make canals in Holland, that the people have been making them for hundreds of years, until now almost the whole country is intersected every where with canals, as other countries are with roads. Almost all the traffic, and, until lately, almost all the travel of the country, has been upon the canals. There are private canals, too, as well as public. A farmer brings home his hay and grain from his fields by water, and when he buys a new piece of land he makes a canal to it, as a Vermont farmer would make a road to a new pasture or wood lot that he had been buying.

Rollo wished very much to see all these things -- but there was one question which it puzzled him very much to decide, and that was whether he would rather go to Holland in the summer or in the winter.

"I am not certain," said he to his mother one day, "whether it would not be better for me to go in the winter."

"It is very cold there in the winter," said his mother; "so I am told."

"That is the very thing," said Rollo. "They have such excellent skating on the canals. I want to see the boats go on the canals, and I want to see the skating, and I don't know which I want to see most."

"Yes," said his mother, "I recollect to have often seen pictures of skating on the Dutch canals."

"And I read, when I was a boy," continued Rollo, "that the women skate to market in Holland."

Rollo here observed that his mother was endeavoring to suppress a smile. She seemed to try very hard, but she could not succeed in keeping perfectly sober.

"What are you laughing at, mother?" asked Rollo.

Here Mrs. Holiday could no longer restrain herself, but laughed outright.

"Is it about the Dutch women skating to market?" asked Rollo.

"I think they must look quite funny, at any rate," said Mrs. Holiday.

What Mrs. Holiday was really laughing at was to hear Rollo talk about "when he was a boy." But the fact was, that Rollo had now travelled about so much, and taken care of himself in so many exigencies, that he began to feel quite like a man. And indeed I do not think it at all surprising that he felt so.

"Which would you do, mother," said Rollo, "if you were I? Would you rather go in the summer or in the winter?"

"I would ask uncle George," said Mrs. Holiday.

So Rollo went to find his uncle George.

Rollo was at this time at Morley's Hotel, in London, and he expected to find his uncle George in what is called the coffee room. The coffee room in Morley's Hotel is a very pleasant place. It fronts on one side upon a very busy and brilliant street, and on another upon a large open square, adorned with monuments and fountains. On the side towards the square is a bay window, and near this bay window were two or three small tables, with gentlemen sitting at them, engaged in writing. There were other tables along the sides of the room and at the other windows, where gentlemen were taking breakfast. Mr. George was at one of the tables near the bay window, and was busy writing.

Rollo went to the place, and standing by Mr. George's side, he said in an under tone, -- 

"Uncle George."

Every body speaks in an under tone in an English coffee room. They do this in order not to interrupt the conversation, or the reading, or the writing of other gentlemen that may be in the room.

"Wait a moment," said Mr. George, "till I finish this letter."

So Rollo turned to the bay window and looked out, in order to amuse himself with what he might observe in the street, till his uncle George should be ready to talk with him.

He saw the fountains in the square, and a great many children playing about the basins. He saw a poor boy at a crossing brushing the pavement industriously with an old broom, and then holding out his hand to the people passing by, in hopes that some of them would give him a halfpenny. He saw a policeman walking slowly up and down on the sidewalk, wearing a glazed hat, and a uniform of blue broadcloth, with his letter and number embroidered on the collar. He saw an elegant carriage drive by, with a postilion riding upon one of the horses, and two footmen in very splendid liveries behind. There was a lady in the carriage, but she appeared old, and though she was splendidly dressed, her face was very plain.

"I wonder," said Rollo to himself, "how much she would give of her riches and finery if she could be as young and as pretty as my cousin Lucy."

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, interrupting Rollo's reflections, "what is the question?"

"Why, I want to know," said Rollo, "whether you think we had better go to Holland in the winter or in the summer."

"Is it left to you to decide?" asked Mr. George.

"Why, no," said Rollo, "not exactly. But mother asked me to consider which I thought was best, and so I want to know your opinion."

"Very well," said Mr. George, "go on and argue the case. After I have heard it argued I will decide."

Rollo then proceeded to explain to his uncle the advantages, respectively, of going in the summer and in the winter. After hearing him, Mr. George thought it would be decidedly better to go in the summer.

"You see," said he, "that the only advantage of going in the winter is to see the skating. That is very important, I know. I should like to see the Dutch women skating to market myself, very much. But then, in the winter you could see very little of the canals, and the wind mills, and all the other hydraulic operations of the country. Every thing would be frozen up solid."

"Father says that he can't go now very well," continued Rollo, "but that I may go with you if you would like to go."

Mr. George was just in the act of sealing his letter as Rollo spoke these words; but he paused in the operation, holding the stick of sealing wax in one hand and the letter in the other, as if he was reflecting on what Rollo had said.

"If we only had some one else to go with us," said Mr. George.

"Should not we two be enough?" asked Rollo.

"Why, you see," said Mr. George, "when we get into Holland we shall not understand one word of the language."

"What language do they speak?" asked Rollo.

"Dutch," said Mr. George, "and I do not know any Dutch."

"Not a word?" asked Rollo.

"No," said Mr. George, "not a word. Ah, yes! I know one word. I know that dampschiff means steamboat. Damp, I suppose, means steam."

Then Rollo laughed outright. Dampskiff, he said, was the funniest name for steamboat that he ever heard.

"Now, when we don't know a word of the language," added Mr. George, "we cannot have any communication with the people of the country, but shall be confined entirely to each other. Now, do you think that you could get along with having nobody but me to talk to you for a whole fortnight?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Rollo. "But then, uncle George," he continued, "how are you going to get along at the hotels without knowing how to speak to the people at all?"

"By signs and gestures," said Mr. George, laughing. "Could not you make a sign for something to eat?"

"O, yes," said Rollo; and he immediately began to make believe eat, moving his hands as if he had a knife and fork in them.

"And what sign would you make for going to bed?" asked Mr. George.

Here Rollo laid his head down to one side, and placed his hand under it, as if it were a pillow, and then shut his eyes.

"That is the sign for going to bed," said Rollo. "A deaf and dumb boy taught it to me."

"I wish he had taught you some more signs," said Mr. George. "Or I wish we had a deaf and dumb boy here to go with us. Deaf and dumb people can get along excellently well where they do not understand the language, because they know how to make so many signs."

"O, we can make up the signs as we go along," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I don't think that we shall have any great difficulty about that. But then it would be pleasanter to go in a little larger party. Two people are apt to get tired of each other, when there is nobody else that they can speak a single word to for a whole fortnight. I don't think that I should get tired of you. What I am afraid of is, that you would get tired of me."

There was a lurking smile on Mr. George's face as he said this.

"O, uncle George!" said Rollo, "that is only your politeness. But then if you really think that we ought to have some more company, perhaps the Parkmans are going to Holland, and we might go with them."

"I would not make a journey with the Parkmans," said Mr. George, "if they would pay all my expenses, and give me five sovereigns a day."

"Why, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo; "I thought you liked Mr. Parkman very much."

"So I do," said Mr. George. "It is his wife that I would not go with."

"O, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo again.

Rollo was very much surprised at hearing this declaration; and it was very natural that he should be surprised, for Mrs. Parkman was a young and beautiful lady, and she was very kindhearted and very amiable in her disposition. Mr. Parkman, too, was very young. He had been one of Mr. George's college classmates. He had been married only a short time before he left America, and he was now making his bridal tour.

Mr. George thought that Mrs. Parkman was very beautiful and very intelligent, but he considered her a very uncomfortable travelling companion. I think he judged her somewhat too harshly. But this was one of Mr. George's faults. He did not like the ladies very much, and the faults which he observed in them, from time to time, he was prone to condemn much too harshly.



Chapter II.

A Bad Travelling Companion.


The reason why Mr. George did not like his friend Mr. Parkman's young wife was not because of any want of natural attractiveness in her person, or of amiableness in her disposition, -- for she was beautiful, accomplished, and kindhearted. But for all this, from a want of consideration not uncommon among young ladies who are not much experienced in the world, she was a very uncomfortable travelling companion.

It is the duty of a gentleman who has a lady under his charge, in making a journey, to consult her wishes, and to conform to them so far as it is possible, in determining where to go, and in making all the general arrangements of the journey. But when these points are decided upon, every thing in respect to the practical carrying into effect of the plans thus formed should be left to the gentleman, as the executive officer of the party; just as in respect to affairs relating to housekeeping, or any thing else relating to a lady's department, the lady should be left free to act according to her own judgment and taste in arranging details, while in the general plans she conforms to the wishes of her husband. For a lady, when travelling, to be continually making suggestions and proposals about the baggage or the conveyances, and expressing dissatisfaction, or wish for changes in this, that, or the other, is as much a violation of propriety as it would be for the gentleman to go into the kitchen, and there propose petty changes in respect to the mode of cooking the dinner -- or to stand by his wife at her work table, and wish to have her thread changed from this place to that -- or to have some different stitch to be used in making a seam. A lady very naturally feels disturbed if she finds that her husband does not have confidence enough in her to trust her with such details.

"I will make or mend for you whatever you may desire," she might say, "and I will get for your dinner any thing that you ask for; but in the way of doing it you ought to leave every thing to my direction. It is better to let me have my own way, even if your way is better than mine. For in matters of direction there ought always to be only one head, even if it is not a very good one."

And in the same manner a gentleman might say when travelling with a lady, -- 

"I will arrange the journey to suit your wishes as far as is practicable, and will go at such times and by such conveyances as you may desire. I will also, at all the places where we stop, take you to visit such objects of interest and curiosity as you wish to see. But then when it comes to the details of the arrangements to be made, -- the orders to servants and commissioners, the determination of the times for setting out, and the bargains to be made with coachmen and innkeepers, -- it is best to leave all those things to me; for it always makes confusion to have two persons give directions at the same time."

To say this would be right in both cases, -- there must always be one to command. A great many families are kept in continual confusion by there being two or more ladies who consider themselves more or less at the head of it -- as, for instance, a wife and a sister, or two sisters and a mother. Napoleon used to say that one bad general was better than two good ones; so important is it in war to have unity of command. It is not much less important in social life.

Mrs. Parkman did not understand this principle. Mr. George had seen an example of her mode of management a day or two before, in taking a walk with her and her husband in London. They were going to see the tunnel under the Thames, which was three or four miles down the river from Morley's Hotel, where they were all lodging.

"Which way would you like to go?" asked Mr. Parkman.

"Is there more than one way?" asked his wife.

"Yes," said Mr. Parkman, "we can take a Hansom cab, and drive down through the streets, or we can walk down to the river side, and there take a boat. The boats are a great deal the cheapest, and the most amusing; but the cab will be the most easy and comfortable, and the most genteel. We shall have to walk nearly half a mile before we get to the landing of the boats."

"Is there much difference in the price?" asked Mrs. Parkman.

"Not enough to be of any consequence," replied her husband. "It will make a difference of about one and a half crown; for by the boats it would be only two or three pence, while by the cab it will be as many shillings. But that is of no consequence. We will go whichever way you think you would enjoy the most."

"You may decide for me," said Mrs. Parkman. "I'll leave it entirely to you. It makes no difference to me."

"Then, on the whole, I think we will try the boat," said Mr. Parkman; "it will be so much more amusing, and we shall see so much more of London life. Besides, we shall often read and hear about the steamers on the Thames when we return to America, and it will be well for us to have made one voyage in them. And, Mr. George, will you go with us?"

"Yes," said Mr. George.

So they all left the hotel together, and commenced their walk towards the bridge where the nearest landing stage for the Thames boats lay.

They had not gone but a very short distance before Mrs. Parkman began to hang rather heavily upon her husband's arm, and asked him whether it was much farther that they would have to walk.

"O, yes," said Mr. Parkman. "I told you that we should have to walk about half a mile."

"Then we shall get all tired out," said his wife, "and we want our strength for walking through the tunnel. It does not seem to be worth while to take all this trouble just to save half a crown."

Mr. Parkman, though he had only been married a little more than a month, felt something like a sense of indignation rising in his breast, that his wife should attribute to him such a motive for choosing the river, after what he had said on the subject. But he suppressed the feeling, and only replied quietly, -- 

"O, let us take a cab then, by all means. I hope you don't suppose that I was going to take you by the boat to save any money."

"I thought you said that you would save half a crown," rejoined his wife.

"Yes," said Mr. Parkman, "I did, it is true."

Mr. Parkman was too proud to defend himself from such an imputation, supported by such reasoning as this; so he only said, "We will go by a cab. We will take a cab at the next stand."

Mr. George instantly perceived that by this change in the plan, he was made one too many for the party, since only two can ride conveniently in a Hansom cab.[2] So he said at once, that he would adhere to the original plan, and go by water.

[Footnote 2: A Hansom cab is made like an old-fashioned chaise, only that it is set very low, so that it is extremely easy to step in and out of it, and the seat of the driver is high up behind. The driver drives over the top of the chaise! Thus the view for the passengers riding inside is wholly unobstructed, and this makes the Hansom cab a very convenient and pleasant vehicle for two persons to ride in, through the streets of a new and strange town.]

"But, first," said he, "I will go with you to the stand, and see you safe in a cab."

So they turned into another street, and presently they came to a stand. There was a long row of cabs there, of various kinds, all waiting to be employed. Among them were several Hansoms.

Mr. Parkman looked along the line to select one that had a good horse. The distance was considerable that they had to go, and besides Mr. Parkman knew that his wife liked always to go fast. So when he had selected the best looking horse, he made a signal to the driver. The driver immediately left the stand, and drove over to the sidewalk where Mr. Parkman and his party were waiting.

Mr. Parkman immediately opened the door of the cab to allow his wife to go in; but she, instead of entering, began to look scrutinizingly into it, and hung back.

"Is this a nice cab?" said she. "It seems to me that I have seen nicer cabs than this.

"Let us look," she added, "and see if there is not a better one somewhere along the line."

The cabman, looking down from his exalted seat behind the vehicle, said that there was not a nicer cab than his in London.

"O, of course," said Mrs. Parkman. "They always say that. But I can find a nicer one, I'm sure, somewhere in the line."

So saying she began to move on. Mr. Parkman gave the cabman a silver sixpence -- which is equal to a New York shilling -- to compensate him for having been called off from his station, and then followed his wife across the street to the side where the cabs were standing. Mrs. Parkman led the way all down the line, examining each hack as she passed it; but she did not find any one that looked as well as the first.

"After all," said she, "we might as well go back and take the first one." So she turned and began to retrace her steps -- the two gentlemen accompanying her. But when they got back they found that the one which Mr. Parkman had first selected was gone. It had been taken by another customer.

Mr. George was now entirely out of patience; but he controlled himself sufficiently to suppress all outward manifestation of it, only saying that he believed he would not wait any longer.

"I will go down to the river," said he, "and take a boat, and when you get a carriage you can go by land. I will wait for you at the entrance to the tunnel."

So he went away; and as soon as he turned the corner of the street he snapped his fingers and nodded his head with the air of a man who has just made a very lucky escape.

"I thank my stars," said he to himself, "that I have not got such a lady as that to take care of. Handsome as she is, I would not have her for a travelling companion on any account whatever."

It was from having witnessed several such exhibitions of character as this that Mr. George had expressed himself so strongly to Rollo on the subject of joining Mr. Parkman and his wife in making the tour of Holland.

But notwithstanding Mr. George's determination that he would not travel in company with such a lady, it seemed to be decreed that he should do so, for he left London about a week after this to go to Holland with Rollo alone; and though he postponed setting out for several days, so as to allow Mr. and Mrs. Parkman time to get well under way before them, he happened to fall in with them several times in the course of the journey. The first time that he met with them was in crossing the Straits of Dover.

There are several ways by which a person may go to Holland from London. The cheapest is to take a steamer, by which means you go down the Thames, and thence pass directly across the German Ocean to the coast of Holland. But that makes quite a little voyage by sea, during which almost all persons are subject to a very disagreeable kind of sickness, on account of the small size of the steamers, and the short tossing motion of the sea that almost always prevails in the waters that lie around Great Britain.

So Mr. George and Rollo, who neither of them liked to be seasick, determined to go another way. They concluded to go down by railway to Dover, and then to go to Calais across the strait, where the passage is the shortest. Mr. and Mrs. Parkman had set off several days before them, and Mr. George supposed that by this time they were far on their way towards Holland. But they had been delayed by Mrs. Parkman's desire to go to Brighton, which is a great watering place on the coast, not far from Dover. There Mr. and Mrs. Parkman had spent several days, and it so happened that in going from Brighton to Dover they met, at the junction, the train that was bringing Mr. George and Rollo down from London; and thus, though both parties were unconscious of the fact, they were travelling along towards Dover, after leaving the junction, in the same train, and when they stepped out of the carriages, upon the Dover platform, there they were all together.

Mr. Parkman and Mr. George were very glad to see each other; and while they were shaking hands with each other, and making mutual explanations, Mrs. Parkman went to the door of the station to see what sort of a place Dover was.

She saw some long piers extending out into the water, and a great many ships and steamers lying near them. The town lay along the shore, surrounding an inner harbor enclosed by the walls of the piers. Behind the town were high cliffs, and an elevated plain above, on which a great number of tents were pitched. It was the encampment of an army. A little way along the shore a vast promontory was seen, crowned by an ancient and venerable looking castle, and terminated by a range of lofty and perpendicular cliffs of chalk towards the sea.

"What a romantic place!" said Mrs. Parkman to herself. "It is just such a place as I like. I'll make William stay here to-day."

Just then she heard her husband's voice calling to her.

"Louise!"

She turned and saw her husband beckoning to her. He was standing with Mr. George and Rollo near the luggage van, as they call it in England, while the railway porters were taking out the luggage.

Mrs. Parkman walked towards the place.

"They say, Louise," said Mr. Parkman, "that it is time for us to go on board the boat. She is going to sail immediately."

"Ah! but, William," said Mrs. Parkman, "let us stay here a little while. Dover is such a romantic looking place."

"Very well," said Mr. Parkman, "we will stay if you like. Are you going to stay, Mr. George?"

"Yes," said Mr. George; "Rollo and I were going to stay till this afternoon. There is a boat to cross at four o'clock."

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning when this conversation occurred. The porter stood by all the time with Mr. Parkman's two trunks in his charge, waiting to have it decided when they were to go.

"I should think, sir," said the porter, "that as you have a lady with you, you would find this boat better. This is a tidal steamer, but the four o'clock is the mail boat, and it will be pretty rough this afternoon. There is a breeze coming up."

"O, never mind the breeze," said Mrs. Parkman. "We are used to it, porter. We've crossed the Atlantic."

"Very well," said Mr. Parkman, "we will wait until four o'clock."

"Then I'll put the luggage in the luggage room," said the porter, "and take it to the boat at half past three. That's the way to the hotel," he added, pointing the way.

There are several very nice hotels in Dover, but the one which the porter referred to is one of the finest and most beautifully situated hotels in Europe. It is a large and handsome edifice, built in modern style, and it stands close to the railroad station, on a point of land overlooking the sea. The coffee room, which, unlike other English coffee rooms, is used by both ladies and gentlemen, is a very spacious and splendidly decorated apartment, with large windows on three sides of it, overlooking the sea and the neighboring coasts. Each sash of these windows is glazed with one single pane of plate glass, so that whether they are shut or open there is nothing to intercept the view. The room is furnished with a great number of tables, each large enough to accommodate parties of four or six, and all, except two or three in different parts of the room that are reserved for reading and writing, are covered with neat white table cloths, and other preparations more or less advanced for breakfasts or dinners that may have been ordered, while at almost all times of the day, a greater or less number of them are occupied by parties of tourists, their bags and baskets lying on the neighboring chairs.

It was into this room, so occupied, that our travellers were ushered as they walked from the station into the hotel.

Mrs. Parkman walked forward, and took her seat near a window. The gentlemen attended her.

"What a magnificent view!" said she.

The view was indeed magnificent. Across the water was to be seen the coast of France, lying like a low cloud close to the horizon. Ships, and steamers, and fish boats, and every other sort of craft were seen plying to and fro over the water, -- some going out, others coming in. Through one of the windows in the end of the room, Mrs. Parkman could see the castle crowning its bold and lofty promontory, and the perpendicular cliffs of chalk, with the sea beating against the base of them below. Through the opposite window, which of course was at the other end of the room, the view extended down the coast for a great distance, showing point after point, and headland after headland, in dim perspective -- with a long line of surf rolling incessantly upon the beach, which seemed, in that direction, interminable.

After looking for some time at the view from the windows, Mrs. Parkman turned to observe the company in the room, and to watch the several parties of new comers as they successively entered. She wished to see if there were any young brides among them. While she was thus engaged, her husband selected a table that was vacant, and ordered breakfast. Mr. George and Rollo did the same at another table near.

While Mr. George and Rollo were at the table drinking their coffee, Mr. George asked Rollo what he supposed the porter meant by saying that the eleven o'clock boat was a tidal boat.

"I know," said Rollo. "I read it in the guide book. The tidal steamers go at high tide, or nearly high tide, and if you go in them you embark from the pier on one side, and you land at the pier on the other. But the mail steamers go at a regular hour every day, and then when it happens to be low tide, they cannot get to the pier, and the passengers have to land in small boats. That is what the porter meant when he said that it would not be pleasant for a lady to go in the mail steamer. It is very unpleasant for ladies to be landed in small boats when the weather is rough."

"I don't believe that Mrs. Parkman understood it," said Mr. George.

"Nor I either," said Rollo.

"I presume she thought," added Mr. George, "that when the porter spoke about the rough sea, he only referred to the motion of the steamer in going over."

"Yes," said Rollo, "but what he really meant was, that it would be bad for her to get down from the steamer into the small boat at the landing. I am afraid that she will not like it, though I think that it will be real good fun."

"Very likely it will be fun for you," said Mr. George.

"I would a great deal rather go across in a mail steamer at low tide than in any other way," said Rollo.



Chapter III.

The Mail Steamer.


Rollo's explanation in respect to the mail steamer was correct. As has before been stated in some one or other of the volumes of this series, the northern coast of France is low, and the shore is shelving for almost the whole extent of it, and there are scarcely any good harbors. Immense sandy beaches extend along the coast, sloping so gradually outward, that when the tide goes down the sands are left bare for miles and miles towards the sea. The only way by which harbors can be made on such a shore is to find some place where a creek or small river flows into the sea, and then walling in the channel at the mouth of the creek, so as to prevent it being choked up by sand. In this way a passage is secured, by which, when the tide is high, pretty good sized vessels can get in; but, after all that they can do in such a case, they cannot make a harbor which can be entered at low tide. When the tide is out, nothing is left between the two piers, which form the borders of the channel, but muddy flats, with a small, sluggish stream, scarcely deep enough to float a jolly boat, slowly meandering in the midst of them towards the sea.

The harbor of California is such a harbor as this. Accordingly, in case a steamer arrives there when the tide is down, there is no other way but for her to anchor in the offing until it rises again; and the passengers, if they wish to go ashore, must clamber down the side of the vessel into a small boat, and be pulled ashore by the oarsmen. In smooth weather this is very easily done. But in rough weather, when both steamer and boat are pitching and tossing violently up and down upon the waves, it is not very easy or agreeable, especially for timid ladies.

After finishing their breakfast, Mr. George and Rollo went out, and they rambled about the town until the time drew near for the sailing of the boat. Then they went to the station for the luggage, and having engaged a porter to take it to the boat, they followed him down to the pier till they came to the place where the boat was lying. After seeing the trunk put on board they went on board themselves. A short time afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Parkman came.

The steamer, like all the others which ply between the coasts of France and England, was quite small, and the passengers were very few. There were only four or five ladies, and not far from the same number of gentlemen. As the passage was only expected to occupy about two hours, the passengers did not go below, but arranged themselves on seats upon the deck -- some along the sides of the deck by the bulwarks, and some near the centre, around a sort of house built over the passage way which led down into the cabin.

Soon after Mr. and Mrs. Parkman came on board, Mr. Parkman said to his wife, -- 

"Now, Louise, my dear, you will be less likely to be sick if you get some good place where you can take a reclining posture, and so remain pretty still until we get over."

"O, I shall not be sick," said she. "I am not at all afraid."

So she began walking about the deck with an unconcerned and careless air, as if she had been an old sailor.

Pretty soon Mr. George saw two other ladies coming, with their husbands, over the plank. The countenances of these ladies were very pleasing, and there was a quiet gentleness in their air and manner which impressed Mr. George very strongly in their favor.

As soon as they reached the deck, and while their husbands were attending to the disposal of the luggage, they began to look for seats.

"We will get into the most comfortable position we can," said one of them, "and keep still till we get nearly across."

"Yes," said the other, "that will be the safest."

So they chose good seats near the companion way, and sat down there, and their husbands brought them carpet bags to put their feet upon.

In about fifteen minutes after this the steamer put off from the pier, and commenced her voyage. She very soon began to rise and fall over the waves, with a short, uneasy motion, which was very disagreeable. The passengers, however, all remained still in the places which they had severally chosen, -- some reading, others lying quiet with their eyes closed, as if they were trying to go to sleep.

Mr. Parkman himself tried to do this, but his wife would not leave him in peace. She came to him continually to inquire about this or that, or to ask him to look at some vessel that was coming in sight, or at some view on the shore. All this time the wind, and the consequent motion of the steamer, increased. Scudding clouds were seen flitting across the sky, from which there descended now and then misty showers of rain. These clouds gradually became more frequent and more dense, until at length the whole eastern sky was involved in one dense mass of threatening vapor.

It began to grow dark, too. The specified time for sailing was four o'clock; but there was a delay for the mails, and it was full half past four before the steamer had left the pier. And now, before she began to draw near the French coast, it was nearly half past six. At length the coast began slowly to appear. Its outline was dimly discerned among the misty clouds.

Long before this time, however, Mrs. Parkman had become quite sick. She first began to feel dizzy, and then she turned pale, and finally she came and sat down by her husband, and leaned her head upon his shoulder.

She had been sitting in this posture for nearly half an hour, when at length she seemed to feel better, and she raised her head again.

"Are we not nearly there?" said she.

"Yes," said her husband. "The lighthouse is right ahead, and the ends of the piers. In ten minutes more we shall be going in between them, and then all the trouble will be over."

Rollo and Mr. George were at this time near the bows. They had gone there to look forward, in order to get as early a glimpse as possible of the boats that they knew were to be expected to come out from the pier as soon as the steamer should draw nigh.

"Here they come!" said Rollo, at length.

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I see them."

It was so nearly dark that the boats could not be seen distinctly. Indeed there was not much to be discerned but a black moving mass, slowly coming out from under the walls of the pier.

The steamer had now nearly reached the ground where she was to anchor, and so the seamen on the forecastle took in the foresail, which had been spread during the voyage, and the helmsman put down the helm. The head of the steamer then slowly came round till it pointed in a direction parallel to the shore. This carried the boats and the pier somewhat out of view from the place where Mr. George and Rollo had been standing.

"Now we can see them better aft," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and they will board us aft too; so we had better be there ready."

Accordingly Mr. George and Rollo went aft again, and approached the gangway on the side where they supposed the boats would come.

In going there they passed round first on the other side of the entrance to the cabin, where the two ladies were sitting that have already been described. As they went by one of the gentlemen came to them and said, -- 

"Keep up your courage a few minutes longer. We are very near the pier. In ten minutes we shall be in smooth water, and all will be over."

The ladies seemed much relieved and rejoiced to hear this, and then the gentleman went with Mr. George and Rollo towards the gangway, in order that they might make further observations. He was joined there a moment afterwards by his companion. Now, these gentlemen, as it happened, knew nothing about the plan of landing in boats. They had made no particular inquiry at Dover in respect to the steamer that they had come in, but took it for granted that she would go into the harbor as usual, and land the passengers at the pier. Their attention had just been attracted to the singular movement of the steamer, when Rollo and Mr. George came up.

"What!" said one of them, speaking with a tone of surprise, and looking about eagerly over the water. "We are coming to, Mr. Waldo. What can that mean?"

Just then the little fleet of boats, six or seven in number, began to come into view from where the gentlemen stood. They were dimly seen at a distance, and looked like long, black animals, slowly advancing over the dark surface of the water, and struggling fearfully with the waves.

"What boats can those be?" said Mr. Waldo, beginning to look a little alarmed.

He was alarmed not for himself, but for his wife, who was very frail and delicate in health, and ill fitted to bear any unusual exposure.

"I am sure I cannot imagine," replied the other.

"It looks marvellously as if they were coming out for us," said Mr. Waldo.

"Can it be possible, Mr. Albert, that we are to land in boats such a night as this?" continued he.

"It looks like it," replied the other. "Yes, they are really coming here."

The boats were now seen evidently advancing towards the steamer. They came on in a line, struggling fearfully with the waves.

"They look like spectres of boats," said Mr. George to Rollo.

Mr. Albert now went round to the other side of the companion way, to the place where the two ladies were sitting.

"Ladies," said he, "I am very sorry to say that we shall be obliged to land in boats."

"In boats!" said the ladies, surprised.

"Yes," said Mr. Albert, "the tide is out, and I suppose we cannot go into port. The steamer has come to, and the boats are coming alongside."

The ladies looked out over the dark and stormy water with an emotion of fear, but they did not say a word.

"There is no help for it," continued the gentleman; "and you have nothing to do but to resign yourselves passively to whatever comes. If we had known that this steamer would not go into port, we would not have come in her; but now that we are here we must go through."

"Very well," said the ladies. "Let us know when the boat for us is ready."

Mr. Albert then returned to the gangway, where Rollo and Mr. George were standing. The foremost boat had come alongside, and the seamen were throwing the mail bags into it. When the mails were all safely stowed in the boat, some of the passengers that stood near by were called upon to follow. Mr. George and Rollo, being near, were among those thus called upon.

"Wait a moment," said Mr. George to Rollo, in a low tone. "Let a few of the others go first, that we may see how they manage it."

It proved to be rather difficult to manage it; for both the steamer and the boat were rocking and tossing violently on the waves, and as their respective motions did not at all correspond, they thumped against each other continually, as the boat rose and fell up and down the side of the steamer in a fearful manner. It was dark too, and the wind was blowing fresh, which added to the frightfulness of the scene.

A crowd of people stood about the gangway. Some of these people were passengers waiting to go down, and others, officers of the ship, to help them. The seamen in the boat below were all on the alert too, some employed in keeping the boat off from the side of the ship, in order to prevent her being stove or swamped, while others stood on each side of the place where the passengers were to descend, with uplifted arms, ready to seize and hold them when they came down.

There was a little flight of steps hanging down the side of the steamer, with ropes on each side of it in lieu of a balustrade. The passenger who was to embark was directed to turn round and begin to go down these steps backward, and then, when the sea lifted the boat so that the seamen on board could seize hold of him, they all cried out vociferously, "LET GO!" and at the same moment a strong sailor grasped him around the waist, brought him down into the bottom of the boat in a very safe, though extremely unceremonious manner.

After several gentlemen and one lady had thus been put into the boat, amid a great deal of calling and shouting, and many exclamations of surprise and terror, the officer at the gangway turned to Mr. George, saying, -- 

"Come, sir!"

There was no time to stop to talk; so Mr. George stepped forward, saying to Rollo as he went, "Come right on directly after me;" and in a moment more he was seized by the man, and whirled down into the boat, he scarcely knew how. Immediately after he was in, there came some unusually heavy seas, and the steamer and the boat thumped together so violently that all the efforts of the seamen seemed to be required to keep them apart.

"Push off!" said the officer.

"Here, stop! I want to go first," exclaimed Rollo.

"No more in this boat," said the officer. "Push off!"

"Never mind," said Rollo, calling out to Mr. George, "I'll come by and by."

"All right," said Mr. George.

By this time the boat had got clear of the steamer, and she now began to move slowly onward, rising and falling on the waves, and struggling violently to make her way.

"I am glad they did not let me go," said Rollo. "I would rather stay and see the rest go first."

Another boat was now seen approaching, and Rollo stepped back a little to make way for the people that were to go in it, when he heard Mrs. Parkman's voice, in tones of great anxiety and terror, saying to her husband, -- 

"I cannot go ashore in a boat in that way, William. I cannot possibly, and I will not!"

"Why, Louise," said her husband, "what else can we do?"

"I'll wait till the steamer goes into port, if I have to wait till midnight," replied Mrs. Parkman positively. "It is a shame! Such disgraceful management! Could not they find out how the tide would be here before they left Dover?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Parkman. "Of course they knew perfectly well how the tide would be."

"Then why did not they leave at such an hour as to make it right for landing here?"

"There are boats every day," said Mr. Parkman, "which leave at the right time for that, and most passengers take them. But the mails must come across at regular hours, whether the tide serves or not, and boats must come to bring the mails, and they, of course, allow passengers to come in these boats too, if they choose. We surely cannot complain of that."

"Then they ought to have told us how it was," said Mrs. Parkman. "I think it is a shameful deception, to bring us over in this way, and not let us know any thing about it."

"But they did tell us," said Mr. Parkman. "Do not you recollect that the porter at the station told us that this was a mail boat, and that it would not be pleasant for a lady."

"But I did not know," persisted Mrs. Parkman, "that he meant that we should have to land in this way. He did not tell us any thing about that."

"He told us that it was a mail boat, and he meant by that to tell us that we could not land at the pier. It is true, we did not understand him fully, but that is because we come from a great distance, and do not understand the customs of the country. That is our misfortune. It was not the porter's fault."

"I don't think so at all," said Mrs. Parkman. "And you always take part against me in such things, and I think it is really unkind."

All this conversation went on in an under tone; but though there was a great deal of noise and confusion on every side, Rollo could hear it all. While he was listening to it, -- or rather while he was hearing it, for he took no pains to listen, -- the gentleman who had been talking with Mr. Waldo, and whom the latter had called Mr. Albert, went round to the two ladies who were waiting to be called, and said, -- 

"Now, ladies, the boat is ready. Follow me. Say nothing, but do just as you are told, and all will go well."

So the ladies came one after the other in among the crowd that gathered around the gangway, and there, before they could bring their faculties at all to comprehend any thing distinctly amid the bewildering confusion of the scene, they found their bags and shawls taken away from them, and they themselves turned round and gently forced to back down the steps of the ladder over the boiling surges, when, in a moment more, amid loud shouts of "LET GO!" they were seized by the sailors in the boat, and down they went, they knew not how, for a distance of many feet into the stern of the boat, where they suddenly found themselves seated, while the boat itself was rocking violently to and fro, and thumping against the side of the steamer in a frightful manner.

The officer, who had charge of the debarkation on the deck of the steamer above, immediately called to Mrs. Parkman.

"Come, madam!" said he.

"No," said she, "I can't possibly go ashore in that way."

"Then you will have to stay on board all night."

"Well, I'd rather stay on board all night," said she.

"And you will have to go back to Dover, madam," continued the officer, speaking in a very stern and hurried manner, "for the steamer is not going into the pier at all."

Then immediately turning to Rollo, he said, "Come, young man!"

So Rollo marched up to the gangway, and was in a moment whirled down into the boat, as the others had been. Immediately afterwards the boat pushed off, and the sailors began to row, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Parkman on board the steamer. How they were to get to the shore Rollo did not know.

Rollo began to look about over the water. It had become almost entirely dark, and though the moon, which was full, had, as it happened, broken out through the clouds a short time before, when they were getting into the boats, she had now become obscured again, and every thing seemed enveloped in deep gloom. Still Rollo could see at a short distance before him the other boats slowly making their way over the wild and stormy water. He could also see the ends of the piers dimly defined in the misty air, and the tall lighthouse beyond, with a bright light burning in the lantern at the top of it.

"We shall only be a few minutes, now," said one of the gentlemen. "It is not far to the piers."

The boat went on, pitching and tossing over the waves, with her head towards the piers. The pilot who steered the boat called out continually to the oarsmen, and the oarsmen shouted back to him; but nobody could understand such sailor language as they used. At length, on looking forward again, Rollo saw that the boats before him, instead of going on in a line towards the land, were slowly scattering in all directions, and that their own boat, instead of heading towards the pier as at first, gradually turned round, and seemed to be going along in a direction parallel to the coast, as the steamer had done.

"What!" exclaimed Mr. Albert, on observing this, "we are not going towards the piers. Where can we be going?"

The other gentleman shook his head, and said he did not know.

The ladies remained quietly in their places. There was evidently nothing for them to do, and so they concluded, very sensibly, to do nothing.

The boat slowly turned her head round, all the time pitching and tossing violently on the billows, until finally she was directed almost towards the steamer again.

"What can be the matter?" asked one of the gentlemen, addressing the other. "We are not heading towards the shore." Then turning towards the pilot, he said to him, -- 

"What is the matter? Why cannot we go in?"

The pilot, who spoke English very imperfectly, answered, "It is a bar. The water is not enough."

"There is a bar," said the gentleman, "outside the entrance to the harbor, and the water is not deep enough even for these boats to go over. We can see it."

Rollo and the others looked in the direction where the gentleman pointed, and he could see a long, white line formed by the breakers on the bar, extending each way as far as the eye could reach along the shore. Beyond were to be dimly seen the heads of the piers, and a low line of the coast on either hand, with the lighthouse beyond, towering high into the air, and a bright and steady light beaming from the summit of it.

"I hope the tide is not going down," said the gentleman, "for in that case we may have to wait here half the night."

"Is the tide going down, or coming up?" he said, turning again to the pilot.

"It will come up. The tide will come up," answered the pilot.

"What does he say?" asked one of the ladies in a whisper.

"He says that the tide will come up," replied the gentleman. "Whether he means it is coming up now, or that it will come up some time or other, I do not know. We have nothing to do but to remain quiet, and await the result."

The clouds had been for some time growing darker and darker, and now it began to rain. So the gentlemen took out their umbrellas and spread them, and the party huddled together in the bottom of the boat, and sheltered themselves there as well as they could from the wind and rain. They invited Rollo to come under the umbrellas too, but he said that the rain would not hurt his cap, and he preferred to sit where he could look out and see what they would do.

"Very well," said one of the gentlemen. "Tell us, from time to time, how we get along."

So Rollo watched the manoeuvring of the boat, and reported, from time to time, the progress that she was making. It was not very easy for him to make himself heard, on account of the noise of the winds and waves, and the continual vociferations of the pilot and the seamen.

"We are headed now," said he, "right away from the shore. We are pointed towards the steamer. I can just see her, working up and down in the offing.

"Now the men are backing water," he continued. "We are going stern foremost towards the bar. I believe they are going to try to back her over."

The boat now rapidly approached the line of breakers, moving stern foremost. The roar of the surf sounded nearer and nearer. At length the ladies and gentlemen under the umbrellas looked out, and they saw themselves in the midst of rolling billows of foam, on which the boat rose and fell like a bubble. Presently they could feel her thump upon the bottom. The next wave lifted her up and carried her towards the shore, and then subsiding, brought her down again with another thump upon the sand. The pilot shouted out new orders to the seamen. They immediately began to pull forward with their oars. He had found that the water was yet too shallow on the bar, and that it would be impossible to pass over. So the sailors were pulling the boat out to sea again.

The ladies were, of course, somewhat alarmed while the boat was thumping on the bar, and the boiling surges were roaring so frightfully around them; but they said nothing. They knew that they had nothing to do, and so they remained quiet.

"We are clear of the bar, now," said Rollo, continuing his report. "I can see the breakers in a long line before us, but we are clear of them. Now the sailors are getting out the anchor. I can see a number of the other boats that are at anchor already."

The anchor, or rather the grapnel which served as an anchor, was now thrown overboard, and the boat came to, head to the wind. There she lay, pitching and tossing very uneasily on the sea. The other boats were seen lying in similar situations at different distances. One was very near; so near, that instead of anchoring herself, the seamen threw a rope from her on board the boat where Rollo was, and so held on by her, instead of anchoring herself. In this situation the whole fleet of boats remained for nearly an hour. Rollo kept a good lookout all the time, watching for the first indications of any attempt to move.

At length he heard a fresh command given by the pilot, in language that he could not understand; but the sailors at the bows immediately began to take in the anchor.

"They are raising the anchor," said he. "Now we are going to try it again. There is one boat gone already. She is just coming to the bar. She is now just in the breakers. I can see the white foam all around her. She is going in. Now she is over. I can see the whole line of foam this side of her. Our boat will be there very soon."

In a very few minutes more the boat entered the surf, and soon began to thump as before at every rise and fall of the seas. But as each successive wave came up, she was lifted and carried farther over the bar, and at last came to deep water on the other side.

"It is all over now," said one of the gentlemen, "and, besides, it has stopped raining." So he rose from his place and shut the umbrella. The ladies looked around, and to their great joy saw that they were just entering between the ends of the piers. The passage way was not very wide, and the piers rose like high walls on each side of it; but the water was calm and smooth within, and the boats glided along one after another in a row, in a very calm and peaceful manner. At length they reached the landing stairs, which were built curiously within the pier, among the piles and timbers, and there they all safely disembarked.

On reaching the top of the stairs, Rollo found Mr. George waiting for him.

"Uncle George," said Rollo, "here I am."

"Have you had a good time?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo, "excellent."

"And what became of Mr. and Mrs. Parkman?"

"I don't know," said Rollo; "I left them on board the steamer. She declared that she would not come in a small boat."

"You and I," said Mr. George, "will go off to-morrow morning by the first train, and go straight to Holland as fast as we can, so as to get out of their way."

"Well," said Rollo. "Though I don't care much about it either way."

Mr. George, however, carried his plan into effect. The next day they went to Antwerp; and on the day following they crossed the Belgian frontier, and entered Holland.



Chapter IV.

Entering Holland.


Rollo and Mr. George went into Holland by the railway. It was a long time before Rollo learned that in travelling from one European country to another, he was not to expect any visible line of demarcation to show the frontier. Boys at school, in studying the shape and conformation of different countries on the map, and seeing them marked by distinct colored boundaries, are very apt to imagine that they will see something, when travelling from one country to another, to show them by visible signs when they pass the frontier.

But there is nothing of the kind. The green fields, the groves, the farmhouse, the succession of villages continues unchanged as you travel, so that, as you whirl along in the railway carriage, there is nothing to warn you of the change, except the custom house stations, where the passports of travellers are called for, and the baggage is examined.

"Uncle George," said Rollo, after looking out of the window at a place where the train stopped, twenty or thirty miles from Antwerp, "I think we are coming to the frontier."

"Why so?" asked Mr. George.

"Because the Belgian custom house is at this station, and the next will be the Dutch custom house."

Rollo knew that this was the Belgian custom house by seeing the word DOUANE over one of the doors of the station, and under it the words VISITE DES BAGAGES, which means examination of baggage. There were besides a great many soldiers standing about, which was another indication.

"How do you know that it is the Belgian custom house?" asked Mr. George.

"Because all these soldiers are in the Belgian uniform," said he. "I know the Belgian uniform. I don't know the Dutch uniform, but I suppose I shall see it at the next station."

Rollo was perfectly right in his calculations. The last station on the line of the railway in Belgium was the frontier station for Belgium, and here travellers, coming from Holland, were called upon to show their passports, and to have their baggage examined. In the same manner the first station beyond, which was the first one in Holland, was the frontier station for that country, and there passengers going from Belgium into Holland were stopped and examined in the same way.

After going on a few miles from the Belgium station, the whistle blew and the train began to stop.

"Here we are!" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and now comes the time of trial for the musical box."

Rollo had bought a musical box at Antwerp, and he had some fears lest he might be obliged to pay a duty upon it, in going into Holland. Mr. George had told him that he thought there was some danger, but Rollo concluded that he would take the risk.

"They have no business to make me pay duty upon it," said he to Mr. George.

"Why not?" asked Mr. George.

"Because it is not for merchandise," said Rollo. "It is not for sale. I have bought it for my own use alone."

"That has nothing to do with it," said Mr. George.

"Yes it has, a great deal to do with it," replied Rollo.

There might have been quite a spirited discussion between Mr. George and Rollo, on this old and knotty question, over which tourists in Europe are continually stumbling, had not the train stopped. The moment that the motion ceased, the doors of all the carriages were opened, and a man passed along the line calling out in French, -- 

"Gentlemen and ladies will all descend here, for the examination of passports and baggage."

Mr. George and Rollo had no baggage, except a valise which they carried with them in the carriage. Mr. George took this valise up and stepped down upon the platform.

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "if they find your musical box and charge duty upon it, pay it like a man."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I will."

"And don't get up a quarrel with the custom house officer on the subject," continued Mr. George, "for he has the whole military force of the kingdom of Holland at his command, and what he says is to be done, in this territory, must be done."

So saying, Mr. George, valise in hand, followed the crowd of passengers through a door, over which was inscribed the Dutch word for baggage. In the centre of this room there was a sort of low counter, enclosing a sort of oblong square. Within the square were a number of custom house officers, ready to examine the baggage which the porters and the passengers were bringing in, and laying upon the counter, all around the four sides of the square.

Mr. George brought up his valise, and placed it on the counter. A custom house officer, who had just examined and marked some other parcels, turned to Mr. George's just as he had unlocked and opened it.

"Have you any thing to declare?" said the officer.

"Nothing, sir," said Mr. George.

The officer immediately shut the valise, and marked it on the back with a piece of chalk, and Mr. George locked it and took it away.

"Are you through?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George.

Mr. George then took the valise and followed a crowd of passengers, who were going through a door at the end of the room opposite to where they came in. There was an officer in uniform on each side of this door. These officers examined every bag, valise, or parcel that the passengers had in their hands, to see if they had been marked by the examiners, and as fast as they found that they were marked, they let them pass.

Following this company, Mr. George and Rollo came soon to another small room, where a man was sitting behind a desk, examining the passports of the passengers and stamping them. Mr. George waited a moment until it came his turn, and then handed his passport too. The officer looked at it, and then stamped an impression from a sort of seal on one corner of it. He also wrote Mr. George's and Rollo's name in a big book, copying them for this purpose from the passport.

He then handed the passport back again, and Mr. George and Rollo went out, passing by a soldier who guarded the door. They found themselves now on the railway platform.

"Now," said Rollo, "I suppose that we may go and take our seats again."

"Yes," said Mr. George. "We are fairly entered within the dominions of his majesty the king of Holland."

"And no duty to pay on my music box," said Rollo.

Rollo took a seat by a window where he could look out as the train went on, and see, as he said, how Holland looked. The country was one immense and boundless plain, and there were no fences or other close enclosures of any kind. And yet the face of it was so endlessly varied with rows of trees, groves, farm houses, gardens, wind mills, roads, and other elements of rural scenery, that Rollo found it extremely beautiful. The fields were very green where grass was growing, and the foliage of the trees, and of the little ornamental hedges that were seen here and there adorning the grounds of the farm houses, was very rich and full. As Rollo looked out at the window, a continued succession of the most bright and beautiful pictures passed rapidly before his eyes, like those of a gayly painted panorama, and they all called forth from him continually repeated exclamations of delight. Mr. George sat at his window enjoying the scene perhaps quite as much as Rollo did, though he was much less ardent in expressing his admiration.

"See these roads, uncle George," said Rollo; "they run along on the tops of the embankment like railroads. Are those dikes?"

"No," said Mr. George. "The dikes are built along the margin of the sea, and along the banks of rivers and canals, to take the water out. These are embankments for the roads, to raise them up and keep them dry."

There were rows of trees on the sides of these raised roads, which formed beautiful avenues to shelter the carriage way from the sun. These avenues could sometimes be seen stretching for miles across the country.

"Now, pretty soon," said Rollo, "we shall come to the water, and then we shall take a steamboat."

"Then we do not go all the way by the train," said Mr. George.

"No," said Rollo. "The railroad stops at a place called Moerdyk, and there we take a steamer and go along some of the rivers.

"But I can't find out by the map exactly how we are to go," he continued, "because there are so many rivers."

Rollo had found, by the map, that the country all about Rotterdam was intersected by a complete network of creeks and rivers. This system was connected on the land side with the waters of the Rhine, by the immense multitude of branches into which that river divides itself towards its mouth, and on the other side by innumerable creeks and inlets coming in from the sea. This network of channels is so extensive, and the water in the various branches of it is so deep, that ships and steamers can go at will all about the country. It would be as difficult to make a railroad over such a tract of mingled land and water as this, as it is easy to navigate a steamer through it; and, accordingly, the owners of the line had made arrangements for stopping the trains at Moerdyk, and then transferring the passengers to a steamer.

"I have great curiosity," said Rollo, "to see whether, when we come to the water, we shall go up to it, instead of down to it."

"Do you think that we shall go up to it?" asked Mr. George.

"I don't know," replied Rollo. "We do in some parts of Holland. In some places, according to what the guide book says, the land is twenty or thirty feet below the level of the water, and so when you come to the shore you go up an embankment, and there you find the water on the other side, nearly at the top of it."

When at length the train stopped at Moerdyk, the conductor called out from the platform that all the passengers would descend from the carriages to embark on board the steamer. Rollo was too much interested in making the change, and in hurrying Mr. George along so as to get a good seat in the steamer, to make any observation on the comparative level of the land and water. There was quite a little crowd of passengers to go on board; and as they walked along the pier towards the place where the steamer was lying, all loaded with as many bags, cloaks, umbrellas, or parcels of some sort, as they could carry, Rollo and Mr. George pressed on before them, Rollo leading the way. The steamer was a long and narrow boat, painted black, in the English fashion. There was no awning over the deck, and most of the passengers went below.

"I don't see what they are all going below for," said Rollo. "I should think that they would wish to stay on deck and see the scenery."

So Rollo chose a seat by the side of a small porch which was built upon the deck over the entrance to the cabin, and sat down immediately upon it, making room for Mr. George by his side. There was a little table before him, and he laid down his guide book and his great coat upon it.

"Now," said he, "this is good. We have got an excellent seat, and we will have a first rate time looking at Holland as we go along."

Just then a young man, dressed in a suit of gray, and with a spy glass hanging at his side, suspended by a strap from his shoulder, and with a young and pretty, but rather disdainful looking lady on his arm, came by.

"Now, Emily," said he, "which would you prefer, to sit here upon the deck or go below?"

"O George," said she, "let us go below. There's nothing to be seen on the deck. The country is every where flat and uninteresting."

"We might see the shores as we go along," suggested her husband.

"O, there's nothing to be seen along the shores," said she; "nothing but bulrushes and willows. We had better go below."

So Emily led George below.

"Rollo," said Mr. George, "if you would like to take a bet, I will bet you the prettiest Dutch toy that you can find in Amsterdam, that that is another Mrs. Parkman."

"I think it very likely she is," said Rollo. "But, uncle George, what do you think they have got down below? I've a great mind to go down and see."

"Very well," said Mr. George.

"And will you keep my place while I am gone?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "or you can put your cap in it to keep it."

So Rollo put his cap in his seat, and went down below. In a few minutes he returned, saying that there was a pretty little cabin down there, with small tables set out along the sides of it, and different parties of people getting ready for breakfast.

"It is rather late for breakfast," said Mr. George. "It is after twelve o'clock."

"Then perhaps they call it luncheon," said Rollo. "But I'd rather stay on deck. We might have something to eat here. Don't you think we could have it on this table?"

"Yes," replied Mr. George, "that is what the table is put here for."

"Well!" said Rollo, his eye brightening up at the idea.

"We can have it here, or we can wait and have it at the hotel in Rotterdam," said Mr. George. "You may decide. I'll do just as you say."

Rollo finally concluded to wait till they arrived at Rotterdam, and then to have a good dinner all by themselves at some table by a window in the hotel, and in the mean time to devote himself, while on board the steamer, to observing the shores of the river, or arm of the sea, whichever it might be, on which they were sailing.

The steamer had before this time set sail from the pier, and after backing out of a little sort of creek or branch where it had been moored, it entered a broad channel of deep water, and began rapidly to move along. The day was pleasant, and though the air was cool, Rollo and Mr. George were so well sheltered by the little porch by the side of which they were sitting, that they were very comfortable in all respects.

Before long the channel of water in which the steamer was sailing became more narrow, and the steamer passed nearer a bank, which Rollo soon perceived was formed by a dike.

"See, see! uncle George," said he. "There are the roofs of the houses over on the other side of the dike. We can just see the tops of them. The ground that the houses stand upon must be a great deal below the water."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and see, there are the tops of the tall trees."

The dike was very regular in its form, and it was ornamented with two rows of trees along the top of it. There were seats here and there under the trees, and some of these seats had people sitting upon them, looking at the passing boats and steamers. The water was full of vessels of all kinds, coming and going, or lying at anchor. These vessels were all of very peculiar forms, being built in the Dutch style, and not painted, but only varnished, so as to show beautifully the natural color of the wood of which they were made. They had what Rollo called fins on each side, which were made to be taken up or let down into the water, first on one side and then on the other, as the vessel was on different tacks in beating against the wind.

Opposite to every place where there was a house over beyond the dike, there was a line of steps coming down the face of the dike on the hither side, towards the water, with a little pier, and a boat fastened to it, below. These little flights of steps, with the piers and the boats, and the seats under the trees on the top of the dike, and the roofs of the houses, and the tops of the trees beyond, all looked extremely pretty, and presented a succession of very peculiar and very charming scenes to Mr. George and Rollo as the steamer glided rapidly along the shore.

In some places the dike seemed to widen, so as to make room for houses upon the top of it. There were snug little taverns, where the captains and crews of the vessels that were sailing by could stop and refresh themselves, when wind or tide bound in their vessels, and now and then a shop or store of some kind, or a row of pretty, though very queer-looking, cottages. At one place there was a ferry landing. The ferry house, together with the various buildings appertaining to it, was on the top of the dike, and a large pier, with a snug and pretty basin by the side of it, below. There was a flight of stairs leading up from the pier to the ferry house, and also a winding road for carriages. At the time that the steamer went by this place, the ferry boat was just coming in with a carriage on board of it.

There were a great many wind mills here and there along the dike. Some were for pumping up water, some for sawing logs, and some for grinding grain. These wind mills were very large and exceedingly picturesque in their forms, and in the manner in which they were grouped with the other buildings connected with them. Rollo wished very much that he could stop and go on shore and visit some of these wind mills, so as to see how they looked inside.

At length the vessels and ships seemed to increase in numbers, and Mr. George said that he thought that they must be approaching a town. Rollo looked upon the map and found that there was a large town named Dort, laid down on the shores of the river or branch on which they were sailing.

"It is on the other side," said he. "Let us go and see."

So they both rose from their seats and went round to the other side of the boat, and there, there suddenly burst upon their view such a maze of masts, spires, roofs, and wind mills, all mingled together in promiscuous confusion, as was wonderful to behold. In the centre of the whole rose one enormous square tower, which seemed to belong to a cathedral.

This was Dort, or Dordrecht, as it is often called.

As the steamer glided rapidly along the shores, and Mr. George and Rollo attempted to look into the town, they saw not streets, but canals. Indeed, the whole place seemed just level with the surface of the water, and far in the interior of it the masts of ships and the roofs of the houses were mingled together in nearly equal proportion.

The steamer threaded its way among the fleets of boats and shipping that lay off the town, and at length came to a stop at a pier. The passengers destined for this place began to disembark. Mr. George and Rollo stood together on the deck, looking at the buildings which lined the quay, and wondering at the quaint and queer forms which every thing that they saw assumed.

"I should really like to go ashore here," said Mr. George, "and see what sort of a place it is."

"Let us do it, uncle George!" said Rollo, eagerly. "Let us do it!"

"Only we have paid to Rotterdam," said Mr. George.

"Never mind," said Rollo. "It will not make much difference."

But before Mr. George could make up his mind to go on shore, the exchange of passengers was effected, and the plank was pulled in, the ropes were cast off, and the steamer once more began to move swiftly along over the water.

"It is too late," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and on the whole it is better for us to go on."

In about an hour more the steamer began to draw near to Rotterdam. The approach to the town was indicated by the multitude of boats and vessels that were passing to and fro, and by the numbers of steamers and wind mills that lined respectively the margins of the water and of the land. The wind mills were prodigious in size. They towered high into the air like so many lighthouses; the tops of the sails, as Mr. George estimated, reached, as the vanes revolved, up to not less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet into the air. It was necessary to build them high, in order that the sails might not be becalmed by the houses.

At length the steamer stopped at a pier. Two policemen stood at the plank, as the passengers landed, and demanded their passports. Mr. George gave up his passport, as he was directed, and then he and Rollo got into a carriage and were driven to the hotel.



Chapter V.

Walks About Rotterdam.


The hotel where Mr. George and Rollo were set down was a very magnificent edifice standing on the quay opposite to a line of steamers. On entering it, both our travellers were struck with the spaciousness of the hall and of the staircase, and with the sumptuous appearance in general of the whole interior. They called for a chamber. The attendants, as they soon found, all understood English, so that there was no occasion at present to resort to the language of signs, as Mr. George had supposed might be necessary. In answer to Mr. George's request to be shown to a room, the servant showed him and Rollo a very large and lofty apartment, with immense windows in front looking down upon the pier. On the back side of the room were two single beds.

"This will do very well for us," said Mr. George.

"Will you dine at the table d'hote?"[3] asked the waiter.

[Footnote 3: Pronounced tahble dote.]

The table d'hote is the public table.

"At what time is the table d'hote?" asked Mr. George.

"At half past four," said the waiter.

"No," said Mr. George, "we shall want to be out at that time. We will take something now as soon as we can have it. Can you give us a beefsteak?"

"Yes, sir," said the waiter.

"Very well. Give us a beefsteak and some coffee, and some bread and butter."

"Yes, sir," said the waiter. "Will you have two beefsteaks, or one beefsteak?"

"Two," said Rollo, in an under tone to Mr. George.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and coffee for two, also."

So the waiter left the travellers in their room, and went down stairs. In about ten minutes Mr. George and Rollo went down too. At the foot of the grand staircase they turned into the dining room, where they saw several tables set, and at one of them, near a window, were the preparations for their meal.

The window looked out upon the quay, and Rollo could see the men at work getting out hogsheads and bales of goods from a steamer that was moored there. Besides looking across to the quay, Rollo could also look up and down the street without putting his head out of the window. The way in which he was enabled to do this, was by means of looking glasses placed outside. These looking glasses were attached to an iron frame, and they were placed in an inclined position, so as to reflect the whole length of the street in through the window. Thus a person sitting at his ease within the room, could look up and down the street, as well as across it, at his pleasure.

Rollo afterwards observed such looking glasses attached to the windows of almost all the houses in town.

The dinner was soon brought in, and Mr. George and Rollo ate it with excellent appetites. Just as they had finished their meal, a neatly-dressed young man came to the table and asked them if they wished for some one to show them about the town.

"Because," said he, "I am a valet de place, and I can take you at once to all the places of interest, and save you a great deal of time."

"How much do you ask to do it?" asked Mr. George.

"Five francs a day," said the man.

"That's right," said Mr. George. "That's the usual price. But we shall not want you, at least for this afternoon. We may want you to-morrow. We shall stay in town a day or two."

The young man said that he should be very happy to serve them if they should require his services, and then bowed and went away.

After having finished their meal, Mr. George and Rollo set out to take a ramble about the town by themselves.

"We will go in search of adventures," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and if we lose our way, we shall be likely to have some adventures, for we cannot speak Dutch to inquire for it."

"Never mind," said Rollo, "I'm not afraid. We will be careful which way we go."

So they went out and took quite a long ramble through the town. The first aspect of the streets struck them with astonishment. The space was now more than half filled with docks and basins, and with canals in which ships and boats of every kind were moving to and fro. In fact almost every street consisted one half of canal, and one half of road way, so that in going through it you could have your choice of going in a boat or in a carriage. The water part of the streets was crowded densely with vessels, some of them of the largest size, for the water was so deep in the canals that the largest ships could go all about the town.

It was curious to observe the process of loading and unloading these vessels, opposite to the houses where the merchants who owned them lived. These houses were very large and handsome. The upper stories were used for the rooms of the merchant and his family, and the lower ones were for the storage of the goods. Thus a merchant could sit at his parlor window with his family about him, could look down upon his ship in the middle of the street before his house, and see the workmen unlading it and stowing the goods safely on his own premises, in the rooms below.

In some of the streets the canal was in the centre, and there was a road way along by the houses on each side. In others there was a road way only on one side, and the walls of the houses and stores rose up directly from the water's edge on the other. It was curious, in this case, to see the men in the upper stories of these stores, hoisting goods up from the vessels below by means of cranes and tackles projecting from the windows.

There was one arrangement in the streets which Rollo at first condemned, as decidedly objectionable in his mind, and that was, that the sidewalks were smooth and level with the pavement of the street, differing only from the street by being paved with bricks, while the road way was paved with stone.

"I think that that is a very foolish plan," said Rollo.

"I should not have expected so crude a remark as that from so old and experienced a traveller as you," said Mr. George.

"Why, uncle George," said Rollo. "It is plainly a great deal better to have the sidewalk raised a little, for that keeps the wheels of the carts and carriages from coming upon them. Besides, there ought to be a gutter."

"People that have never been away from home before," said Mr. George, "are very apt, when they first land in any strange country, and observe any strange or unusual way of doing things, or of making things, to condemn it at once, and say how much better the thing is in their country. But I thought that you had travelled enough to know better than that."

"How so?" asked Rollo.

"Why, you see that after people have travelled more, they get their ideas somewhat enlarged, and they learn that one way of doing things may be best in one country, and another in another, on account of some difference in the circumstances or the wants of the two countries. So, when they see any thing done in a new or unusual manner, they don't condemn it, or laugh at it, until they have had time to find out whether there may not be some good reason for it."

"But I don't see," said Rollo, "what possible good reason there can be for having the sidewalks made so that every cart that comes along can run over you."

"And because you don't in a moment see every reason, does that make it certain that there cannot be any?" said Mr. George.

"Why, no," replied Rollo.

"Then if you had travelled to much purpose," said Mr. George, "you would suspend your judgment until you had inquired."

It was not long before Rollo saw what the reason was for making the sidewalks in this way. Indeed, with a little reflection, he would probably have thought of it himself.

The object was to make it easy to wheel and convey the goods from the ships across to the warehouses. For, as the ships and boats go into almost all the streets in the town, goods have to be wheeled across every where, from the margin of the quay to the warehouses of the merchants, and a range of curbstones and gutter would make an obstacle that would be very much in the way.

Besides, contrary to Rollo's hastily formed opinion, there ought not to be any gutters in such a town as this, as far as the streets are perfectly level, from end to end; if gutters were made the water would not run in them. The only way to have the rain water carried off, is to form a gentle slope from the houses straight across the quay to the margin of the canal, and this requires that the connection between the sidewalk and the road way should be continuous and even. So that on every account the plan adopted in Rotterdam is the best for that town.

I advise all the readers of this book, whether old or young, if they have not yet had an opportunity to learn wisdom by actual experience in travelling, to remember the lesson that Rollo learned on this occasion; and whenever, in their future travels, they find any thing that appears unusual or strange, not to condemn it too soon, simply because it is different from what they have been accustomed to at home, but to wait till they have learned whether there may not be some good cause for the difference.

Rollo wished to stop continually, as he and his uncle walked along, to watch the operations of loading and unloading that were going on between the ships and the warehouses. At one place was a boat loaded with sails, which had apparently come from a sail maker's. The sails were rolled up in long rolls, and some people in a loft of a warehouse near were hoisting them up with tackles, and pulling them in at the windows.

At another place two porters were engaged wheeling something in wheelbarrows across from a slip to the warehouse, stopping by the way at a little platform to have every wheelbarrow load weighed. One of the porters wheeled the loads from the ship to the platform, and the other, after they were weighed, wheeled them to the warehouse. At the platform sat a man with a little desk before him and a big book upon it, in which he entered the weight of each load as it came. As soon as the load was weighed the warehouse porter would take it from the platform, wheel it across the street to the warehouse, empty it there, and then bring back the empty wheelbarrow and set it down by the side of the platform. In the mean time the ship porter would have wheeled another load up to the platform from the ship, and by the time that the warehouse porter had come back, it would be weighed and all ready for him. The ship porter, when he brought the loaded wheelbarrow, would take back to the ship the empty one. The whole operation went on with so much regularity and system, and it worked so well in keeping all the men employed all the time, without either having to wait at all for the other, that it was a pleasure to witness it.

At another place Mr. George himself, as well as Rollo, was much interested in seeing the process of tobacco inspection. There were a number of hogsheads of tobacco, with a party of porters, coopers, inspectors, and clerks examining them. It was curious to see how rapidly they would go through the process. The coopers would set a hogshead up upon its end, knock out the head, loosen all the staves at one end, whisk it over upon the platform of the scales, and then lift the hogshead itself entirely off, and set it down on one side, leaving the tobacco alone, in a great round pile, on the platform. Then when it was weighed they would tumble it over upon its side, and separate it into its layers, and the inspectors would take out specimens from all the different portions of it. Then they would pile up the layers again, and put the hogshead on over them, as you would put an extinguisher on a candle; and, finally, after turning it over once more, they would put it on the head, and bind it all up again tight and secure, with hoop poles which they nailed in and around it. The porters would then roll the hogshead off, in order to put it on a cart and take it away. The whole operation was performed with a degree of system, regularity, and promptness, that was quite surprising. The whole work of opening the hogshead, examining it thoroughly, weighing it, selecting specimens, and putting it up again, was accomplished in less time than it has taken me here to describe it.

There were a great many other operations of this sort that arrested the attention of Mr. George and Rollo, as they walked along the streets. Much of the merchandise which they saw thus landing from the ships, or going on board of them, was of great value, and the ships in which it came were of immense size, such as are engaged in the East India trade. Mr. George said that they were the kind that he had often read about in history, under the name of Dutch East Indiamen.

Rollo was very much amused at the signs over the doors of the shops, in those streets where there were shops, and in the efforts that he made to interpret them. There was one which read SCHEEP'S VICTUALIJ, which Mr. George said must mean victualling for ships. He was helped, however, somewhat in making this translation by observing what was exhibited in the windows of the shop, and at the door. There was another in which Rollo did not require any help to enable him to translate it. It was TABAK, KOFFY, UND THEE. Another at first perplexed him. It was this: HUIS UND SCHEEP'S SMEDERY. But by seeing that the place was a sort of blacksmith's shop, Rollo concluded that it must mean house and ship smithery, that is, that it was a place for blacksmith's work for houses and ships.

Over one of the doors was OOSTERHOUTS UND BREDA'S BIER HUIS. Mr. George said that Breda was a place not far from Rotterdam, and that the last part of the sign must mean house for selling Breda beer. Rollo then concluded that the first word must mean something connected with oysters. There was another, KOFFER EN ZADEL MAKERIJ. At first Rollo could not make any thing of this; but on looking at the window he saw a painting of a horse's head, with a handsome bridle upon it, and a saddle on one side. So he concluded it must mean a trunk and saddle makery. He was the more convinced of the correctness of this from the fact that the word for trunk or box, in French, is coffre.

Rollo amused himself a long time in interpreting in this way the signs that he saw in the streets, and he succeeded so well in it that he told Mr. George that he believed he could learn the Dutch language very easily, if he were going to stay for any considerable time in Holland.

Another thing that amused Rollo very much, was to see the wooden shoes that were worn by the common people in the streets. These shoes appeared to Rollo to be very large and clumsy; but even the little children wore them, and the noise that they made, clattering about the pavements with them, was very amusing.

In a great many places where the streets intersected each other, there were bridges leading across the canals. These bridges were of a very curious construction. They were all draw bridges, and as boats and vessels were continually passing and repassing along the canals, it became frequently necessary to raise them, in order to let the vessels go through. The machinery for raising these bridges and letting them down again, was very curious; and Rollo and Mr. George were both glad, when, in coming to the bridge, they found it was up, as it gave them an opportunity to watch the manoeuvre of passing the vessel through.

Every boat and vessel that went through had a toll to pay, and the manner of collecting this toll was not the least singular part of the whole procedure. While the bridge was up, and when the boat had passed nearly through, the helmsman, or helmswoman, as the case might be, -- for one half the boats and vessels seemed to be steered by women, -- would get the money ready; and then the tollman, who stood on the abutment of the bridge, would swing out to the boat one of the wooden shoes above described, which was suspended by a long line from the end of a pole, like a fishing pole. The tollman would swing out this shoe over the boat that was passing through, as a boy would swing his hook and sinker out over the water if he were going to catch fish. The helmsman in the boat would take hold of it when it came within his reach, and put the money into the toe of it. The tollman would then draw it in, and, taking out the money, would carry it to his toll house, which was a small building, not much bigger than a sentry box that stood on the pier close by.

In one case Rollo came to a bridge, which, instead of being made to be raised entirely, had only a very narrow part in the centre, just wide enough for the masts and rigging of the ship to go through, that could be moved. When this part was lifted up to let a vessel pass, it made only a very narrow opening, such as a boy might jump across very easily.

In some places where the passing and repassing of ships was very great, there was a ferry instead of a bridge. In these cases there was a flat-bottomed boat to pass to and from one side to the other, with a pretty little landing of stone steps at each end. Rollo was much entertained by these ferries. He said it was crossing a street by water. And it was exactly that, and no more. The place where he first crossed one of these ferries was precisely like a broad street of water, with ships and boats going to and fro upon it, instead of carriages, and a very wide brick sidewalk on each side. The ferry was at the crossing, at the place where another street intersected it.

As the houses on each side of these streets were very large and handsome, and as there were rows of beautiful trees on the margin of the water, and as every thing about the water, and the ships, and the quays, and the sidewalks, was kept very neat and clean, the whole view, as it presented itself to Rollo and Mr. George while they were crossing in the boat, was exceedingly attractive and exciting.

Mr. George and Rollo remained in Rotterdam several days before they were satisfied with the curious and wonderful spectacles which it presented to view. In one of their walks they made the entire circuit of the town, and Mr. George agreed with Rollo in the opinion that this was one of the most interesting walks they had ever taken.

The way led along a smooth and beautiful road, which was neatly paved, and kept very nice and clean. On the right hand side there extended along the whole length of it a wide canal, with boats all the time going to and fro. This canal looked brimming full. The water, in fact, came up within a few inches of the level of the road. The line of the road was formed by a smooth and straight margin of stone, -- like the margin of a fountain, -- with little platforms extending out here and there, where neatly-dressed girls and women were washing.

On the other side of the road, down ten feet or more below the level of it, was a range of houses, with yards, gardens, and fields about them. The way to these houses was by paths leading down from the dike on which the road was built, and across little bridges built over a small canal which extended between them and the dike. This small canal was for the draining of the land on which the houses stood. The water in this canal had a gentle flow towards the end of the street, where there was a wind mill to pump it up into the great canal on the other side of the street.

As Rollo and Mr. George walked along this road, it was very curious to them to see the water on one side so much higher than the land on the other. At the intervals between the houses they obtained glimpses of the interior of the country, which consisted of level fields lying far below where they were standing, and intersected in every direction by small canals, which served the purpose at the same time of fences, roads, and drains. There seemed to be no other divisions than these between the lands of the different proprietors, and no other roads for bringing home the hay or grain, or other produce which might be raised in the fields.

In pursuing their walk around the town, our travellers were continually coming to objects so curious in their construction and use, as to arrest their attention and cause them to stop and examine them. At one place they saw a little ferry boat, which looked precisely like a little floating room. It was square, and had a roof over it like a house, with seats for the passengers below. This boat plied to and fro across the canal, by means of a rope fastened to each shore, and running over pulleys in the boat.

"We might take this ferry boat," said Mr. George, "and go across the canal into the town again. See, it lands opposite to one of the streets."

"Yes," said Rollo, "but I would rather keep on, and go all around the town outside."

"We might go over in the ferry boat just for the fun of it," said Mr. George, "and then come back again."

"Well," said Rollo. "How much do you suppose the toll is?"

"I don't know," said Mr. George. "It can't be much, it is such a small boat, and goes such a little way; and then, besides, I know it must be cheap, or else there could not so many of these girls and women go back and forth."

For while they had been looking at the boat, as they gradually approached the spot, they had seen it pass to and fro with many passengers, who, though they were very neatly dressed, were evidently by no means wealthy or fashionable people.

So Mr. George and Rollo went to the margin of the road where the ferry boat had its little landing place, and when it came up they stepped on board. The ferryman could only talk Dutch, and so Mr. George could not ask him what was to pay. The only thing to be done was to give him a piece of silver, and let him give back such change as he pleased. Mr. George gave him a piece of money about as big as half a franc, and he got back so much change in return that he said he felt richer than he did before.

At another place they came to a bridge that led across the canal. This bridge turned on a pivot placed out near the middle of the canal, so that it could be moved out of the way when there was a boat to go by. A man was turning it when Mr. George and Rollo came along. They stopped to witness the operation. They were quite amused, not merely with the manoeuvring of the bridge, but with the form and appearance of the boat that was going through. It seemed to be half boat and half house. There was a room built in it, which rose somewhat above the deck, and showed several little windows with pretty curtains to them. There was a girl sitting at one of these windows, knitting, and two or three children were playing about the deck at the time that the boat was going through the bridge.

Farther on the party came to an immense wind mill, which was employed in pumping up water. This wind mill, like most of the others, was built of brick. It rose to a vast height into the air, and there its immense sails were slowly revolving. The wind mill was forty or fifty feet in diameter at the base, and midway between the base and the summit was a platform built out, that extended all around it. The sails of the mill, as they revolved, only extended down to this platform, and the platform itself was above the roofs of the four-story houses that stood near.

At the foot of this wind mill Mr. George and Rollo could see the water running in under it, through a sluice way which led from a low canal, and on the other side they could see it pouring out in a great torrent, into a higher one.

*    *    *    *    *

Besides making this circuit around the town, Mr. George and Rollo one evening took a walk in the environs, on a road which led along on the top of a dike. The dike was very broad, and the descent from it to the low land on each side was very gradual. On the slopes on each side, and along the margin on the top, were rows of immense trees, that looked as if they had been growing for centuries. The branches of these trees met overhead, so as to exclude the sun entirely. They made the road a deeply-shaded avenue, and gave to the whole scene a very sombre and solemn expression. On each side of the road, down upon the low land which formed the general level of the country, were a succession of country houses, the summer residences of the rich merchants of Rotterdam. These houses were beautifully built; and they were surrounded with grounds ornamented in the highest degree. There were winding walks, and serpentine canals, and beds of flowers, and pretty bridges, and summer houses, and groves of trees, and every thing else that can add to the beauty of a summer retreat.

All these scenes Mr. George and Rollo looked down upon as they sauntered slowly along the smooth sidewalk of the dike, under the majestic trees which shaded it. The place where they were walking on the dike was on a level with the second story windows of the houses.



Chapter VI.

Doing The Hague.


"And now what is the next place that we shall come to?" said Rollo to Mr. George one morning after they had been some days in Rotterdam.

"The Hague," replied Mr. George.

"Ah, yes," said Rollo, "that is the capital. We shall stop there a good while I suppose, because it is the capital."

"No," said Mr. George, "I shall go through it just as quick as I can for that very reason. I have a great mind not to stop there at all."

"Why, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo, surprised, "what do you mean by that?"

"Why, the Hague," rejoined Mr. George, "is the place where the king lives, and the princes, and the foreign ambassadors, and all the fashionable people; and there will be nothing to see there, I expect, but palaces, and picture galleries, and handsome streets, and such things, all of which we can see more of and better in Paris or London."

"Still we want to see what sort of a place the Hague is," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and I expect to do that in a very short time, and then I shall go on to Haarlem, where they have had such a time with their pumping."

Mr. George and Rollo packed up their valise, paid their bill at the hotel, and set off for the station.

"Let's go to the station by water," said Rollo.

"Well," said Mr. George, "if you will engage a boat."

"I know a place not far from here where there is a boat station," said Rollo.

So Rollo led the way until they came to a bridge, and there, by the side of the bridge, were some stairs leading down to the water. There were several boats lying at the foot of the stairs, and boatmen near, who all called out in Dutch, "Do you want a boat?" At least that was what Rollo supposed they said, though, of course, he could not understand their language. Rollo walked down the steps, and got into one of the boats, and Mr. George followed him.

"I can't speak Dutch," said Rollo to the boatman, "but that is the way we want to go." So saying, Rollo pointed in the direction which led towards the station. The man did not understand a word that Rollo had said; but still, by hearing it, he learned the fact that Rollo did not speak the language of the country, and by his signs he knew that he must go the way that he pointed. So he began to row the boat along.

"We cannot go quite to the station by the boat," said Rollo, "but we can go pretty near it, and we can walk the rest of the way."

"How will you find out the way," asked Mr. George, "through all these canals?"

"I can tell by the map," said Rollo.

So Rollo sat down on a seat at the stern of the boat, and taking out his map, which was printed on a pocket handkerchief, he spread it on his knee, and began to study out the canals.

"There," said he, "we are going along this canal, now; and there, a little way ahead from here, is a bridge that we shall go under. Then we shall make a turn," continued Rollo, still studying his map. "We shall have to go a very round-about way; but that is no matter."

So they went on, Rollo at each turn pointing to the boatman which way he was to go. Sometimes the boat was stopped for a time by a jam in the boats and vessels before it, as a hack might be stopped in Broadway in New York. Sometimes it went under bridges, and sometimes through dark archways, where Rollo could hear carriages rumbling over his head in the streets above.

At length the boat reached the point which Rollo thought was nearest to the station; and the man, at a signal which Rollo gave him, stopped at some steps. Rollo paid the fare by holding out a handful of money in his hand, and letting the man take what was right, watching him, however, to see that he did not take too much.

Then Mr. George and Rollo both went ashore, and walked the rest of the way to the station.

In the European railroad stations there are different waiting rooms for the different classes of travellers. Mr. George sometimes took second class carriages, and sometimes first. For short distances he generally went first class, and as it was only a few miles to the Hague from Rotterdam, he now went into the first class waiting room. There was a counter for refreshment in one corner of the room, and some sofas along the sides. Mr. George sat down upon one of the sofas, putting his valise on the floor at the end of it. Rollo said that he would go out and take a little walk around the station, for it was yet half an hour before the train was to go.

In a few minutes after Rollo had gone, there came to the door, among other carriages, one from which Mr. George, to his great surprise, saw Mr. and Mrs. Parkman get out. Mr. George's first thought was to go out by another door, and make his escape. But he checked this impulse, saying to himself,

"It would be very ungenerous in me to abandon my old friend in his misfortune; so I will stay."

Mr. Parkman seemed very much delighted, as well as surprised, to see Mr. George again; and Mrs. Parkman gave him quite a cordial greeting, although she half suspected that Mr. George did not like her very well.

Mr. George asked her how she liked Holland, so far as she had seen it.

"Not much," said she. "The towns are not pretty. The streets are all full of canals, and there is nothing to be seen but boats and ships. And what ugly wooden shoes they wear. Did you ever see any thing so ugly in all your life?"

"They look pretty big and clumsy," said Mr. George, "I must admit; but it amuses me to see them."

"At the Hague I expect to find something worth seeing," continued Mrs. Parkman. "That's where the king and all the great people live, and all the foreign ambassadors. If William had only got letters of introduction to some of them! He might have got them just as well as not. Our minister at London would have given him some if he had asked for them. But he said he did not like to ask for them."

"Strange!" said Mr. George.

"Yes," rejoined Mrs. Parkman, "I think it is not only strange, but foolish. I want to go to some of the parties at the Hague, but we can't stop. William says we can only give one day to the Hague."

"O, you can do it up quite well in one day," said Mr. George.

"If you would only go with us and show us how to do it," said Mrs. Parkman.

"Yes," said Mr. Parkman. "Do, George. Go with us. Join us for one day. I'll put the whole party entirely under your command, and you shall have every thing your own way."

Mr. George did not know what to reply to this proposition. At last he said that he would go and find Rollo, and consult him on the subject, and if Rollo approved of it they would consent to the arrangement.

Mrs. Parkman laughed at hearing this. "Why," said she, "is it possible that you are under that boy's direction?"

"Not exactly that," said Mr. George. "But then he is my travelling companion, and it is not right for one person, in such a case, to make any great change in the plan without at least first hearing what the other has to say about it."

"That's very true," replied Mrs. Parkman. "Do you hear that, William? You must remember that when you are going to change the plans without asking my consent."

Mrs. Parkman said this in a good-natured way, as if she meant it in joke. It was one of those cases where people say what they wish to have considered as meant in a joke, but to be taken in earnest.

Mr. George went out to look for Rollo. He found him lying on the grass by the side of a small canal which flowed through the grounds, and reaching down to the water to gather some curious little plants that were growing upon it. Mr. George informed him that Mr. and Mrs. Parkman were at the station, and that they had proposed that he himself and Rollo should join their party in seeing the Hague.

"And I suppose you don't want to do it," said Rollo.

"Why, yes," said Mr. George, "I've taken a notion to accept the proposal if you like it. We'll then do the Hague in style, and I shall get back into Mrs. Parkman's good graces. Then we will bid them good by, and after that you and I will travel on in our own way."

"Well," said Rollo, "I agree to it."

Mr. George accordingly went back into the station, and told Mr. and Mrs. Parkman that he and Rollo would accept their invitation, and join with them in seeing what there was in the Hague.

"And then, after that," said Mr. George, "we shall come back to Delft, while you go on to Amsterdam."

"I wish you would go on with us," said Mr. Parkman.

"We can't do that very well," said Mr. George. "We want to try a Dutch canal once, and a good place to try it is in going from the Hague to Delft. It is only about four or five miles. We are going there by the canal boat, and then coming back on foot."

Mr. George had taken care in planning the course which he and Rollo were to pursue after leaving the Hague, to contrive an expedition which he was very sure Mrs. Parkman would not wish to join in.

"O, Mr. George!" she exclaimed, "what pleasure can there be in going on a canal?"

"Why, the canal boats are so funny!" said Rollo. "And then we see such curious little places all along the banks of them, and we meet so many boats, carrying all sorts of things."

"I don't think it would be very agreeable for a lady," said Mr. George; "but Rollo and I thought we should like to try it."

Just at this moment the door leading to the platform opened, and a man dressed in a sort of uniform, denoting that he was an officer of the railroad, called out in Dutch that the train was coming. The ladies and gentlemen that were assembled in the waiting room immediately took up their bags and bundles, and went out upon the platform. As they went out, Mr. George, in passing the man in uniform, slipped a piece of money into his hand, and said to him in an under tone, first in French and then in English, -- 

"A good seat by a window for this lady."

The officer received the money, made a bow of assent, and immediately seemed to take the whole party under his charge. When the train arrived, and had stopped before the place, there was a great crowd among the new passengers to get in and procure seats. The officer beckoned to Mr. George to follow him, but Mrs. Parkman seemed disposed to go another way. She was looking eagerly about here and there among the carriages, as if the responsibility of finding seats for the party devolved upon her.

"What shall we do?" said she. "The cars are all full."

"Leave it to me," said Mr. George to her in an under tone. "Leave it entirely to me. You'll see presently."

The officer, finding the carriages generally full, said to Mr. George, in French, "Wait a moment, sir." So Mr. George said to the rest of the party -- 

"We will all stand quietly here. He'll come to us presently."

"Yes," said Mrs. Parkman, "when all the seats are taken. We shan't get seats at all, William."

"You'll see," said Mr. George.

In a moment more the officer came to the party, and bowing respectfully to Mrs. Parkman, he said,

"Now, madam."

He took out a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door of a carriage which had not before been opened, and standing aside, he bowed to let Mrs. Parkman pass.

Mrs. Parkman was delighted. There was nobody in the carriage, and so she had her choice of the seats. She chose one next the window on the farther side. Her husband took the seat opposite to her.

"Ah!" said she, with a tone of great satisfaction, "how nice this is! And what a gentlemanly conductor! I never had the conductor treat me so politely in my life."

Mrs. Parkman was put in excellent humor by this incident, and she said, towards the end of the journey, that she should have had a delightful ride if the country had not been so flat and uninteresting. To Mr. George and Rollo, who sat at the other window, it appeared extremely interesting, there was so much that was curious and novel to be seen. The immense green fields, with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep feeding every where, and separated from each other by straight and narrow canals instead of fences; the boats passing to and fro, loaded with produce; the little bridges built over these canals here and there, for the foot paths, with the gates across them to keep the cattle from going over; the long road ways raised upon dikes, and bordered by quadruple rows of ancient and venerable trees, stretching to a boundless distance across the plains; and now and then a wide canal, with large boats or vessels passing to and fro, -- these and a multitude of other such sights, to be seen in no other country in the world, occupied their attention all the time, and kept them constantly amused.

At length the train arrived at the station for the Hague, and the whole party descended from the carriage.

"Now, William," said Mr. George, "give me the ticket for your trunk, and you yourself take Mrs. Parkman into the waiting room and wait till I come."

"No," said Mr. Parkman, "I cannot let you take that trouble."

"Certainly," said Mr. George. "You said that I should have the entire command. Give me the ticket."

So Mr. Parkman gave him the ticket, and Mr. George went out. Rollo remained with Mr. and Mrs. Parkman. In a few minutes Mr. George returned, and said that the carriage was ready. They all went to the door, and there they found a carriage waiting, with Mr. and Mrs. Parkman's trunk upon the top of it. A man was holding the door open for the party to get in. As soon as they had all entered, Mr. George put a few coppers into the hand of the man at the door, and said to him,

"Hotel Belview."[4]

[Footnote 4: In French, Hotel Belle Vue; but Mr. George gave it the English pronunciation, because the pronunciation of words in Holland is much more like the English than like the French.]

"HOTEL BELVIEW!" shouted the man to the coachman. On hearing this command the coachman drove on.

The road that led into the town lay along the banks of a canal, and after going about half a mile in this direction, the horses turned and went over a bridge. They were now in the heart of the town, but the party could not see much, for the night was coming on and the sky was cloudy. It was cold, too, and Mrs. Parkman wished to have the windows closed. The carriage went along a narrow street, crossing bridges occasionally, until at length it came to a region of palaces, and parks, and grounds beautifully ornamented. Finally it stopped before a large and very handsome hotel. The hotel stood in a street which had large and beautiful houses and gardens on one side, and an open park, with deer feeding on the borders of a canal, on the other.

Two or three very nicely dressed servants came out when the carriage stopped, and opened the door of it in a very assiduous and deferential manner.

"Wait here in the carriage," said Mr. George, "till I come."

So saying, he himself descended from the carriage, and went into the house, followed by two of the waiters that had come to the door.

In about two minutes he came out again.

"Yes," said he to Mrs. Parkman, "I think you will like the rooms."

So saying, he helped Mrs. Parkman out of the carriage, and gave her his arm to conduct her into the house. At the same time he said to one of the waiters, -- 

"See that every thing is taken out of the carriage, and pay the coachman."

"Very well, sir," said the waiter.

Mr. George led Mrs. Parkman up a broad and handsome staircase. He was preceded by one waiter and followed by two others. These waiters had taken every thing from the hands of the party, especially from Mrs. Parkman, so that they were loaded with bags, cloaks, and umbrellas, while the travellers themselves had nothing to carry.

At the head of the staircase the waiter, who was in advance, opened a door which led to a large drawing room or parlor, which was very handsomely decorated and furnished. The windows were large, and they looked out upon a handsome garden, though it was now too dark to see it very distinctly.

As Mrs. Parkman turned round again, after trying to look out at the window, she saw a second waiter coming into the room, bringing with him two tall wax candles in silver candlesticks. The candles had just been lighted. The waiter placed them on the table, and then retired.

"And now," said Mr. George to the other waiter, "we want a good fire made here, and then let us have dinner as soon as you can."

"Very well, sir," replied the waiter; and so saying he bowed respectfully and retired.

A neatly-dressed young woman, in a very picturesque and pretty cap, had come into the room with the party, and while Mr. George had been ordering the fire and the dinner, she had shown Mrs. Parkman to her bedroom, which was a beautiful and richly furnished room with two single beds in it, opening out of the parlor. On the other side of the parlor was another bedroom, also with two beds in it, for Mr. George and Rollo.[5]

[Footnote 5: Almost all the bedrooms in the hotels on the continent of Europe are furnished thus with two single beds, instead of one double one. It is the custom for every body to sleep alone.]

Mr. and Mrs. Parkman remained in their room for a time, and when they came out they found the table set for dinner, and a very pleasant fire burning in the grate.

"Mr. George," said she, "I wish we had you to make arrangements for us all the time."

"It would be a very pleasant duty," said Mr. George. "You are so easily satisfied."

Mrs. Parkman seemed much pleased with this compliment. She did not for a moment doubt that she fully deserved it.

About eight o'clock that evening, Mr. George asked Mrs. Parkman at what time she would like to have breakfast the next morning.

"At any time you please," said she; "that is, if it is not too early."

"How would half past nine do?" asked Mr. George.

"I think that will do very well," said Mrs. Parkman.

"We will say ten, if you prefer," said Mr. George.

"O, no," said she, "half past nine will do very well."

So Mr. George rang the bell, and when the waiter came, he ordered a sumptuous breakfast, consisting of beefsteaks, hot rolls, coffee, omelet, and every thing else that he could think of that was good, and directed the waiter to have it ready at half past nine.

"I shall also want a carriage and a pair of horses to-morrow," continued Mr. George, "and a commissioner."

"Very well, sir," said the waiter; "and what time shall you wish for the carriage?"

"What time, Mrs. Parkman?" repeated Mr. George, turning to the lady. "Shall you be ready by half past ten to go out and see the town?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Parkman, "that will be a very good time."

"Very well, sir," said the waiter; and he bowed and retired.

The next morning, when the different members of the party came out into the breakfast room, they found the table set for breakfast. At half past nine all were ready except Mrs. Parkman. She sent word by her husband that she would come out in a few minutes.

"There is no hurry," said Mr. George. "It will be time enough to have breakfast when she comes."

In about fifteen minutes she came. Mr. George asked her very politely how she had spent the night; and after she had sat a few minutes talking by the fire, he said that they would have breakfast whenever she wished.

"Yes," said she, "I am ready any time. Indeed, I was afraid that I should be late, and keep you waiting. I am very glad that I am in season."

So Mr. George rang the bell; when the waiter came, he ordered breakfast to be brought up.

While the party were at breakfast, a very nicely-dressed waiter, with a white napkin over his arm, stood behind Mrs. Parkman's chair, and evinced a great deal of alertness and alacrity in offering her every thing that she required. When the breakfast was nearly finished, Mr. George turned to him and said, -- 

"Is the commissioner ready, John, who is to go with us to-day?"

"Yes, sir," said the waiter.

"I wish you to go down and send him up," said Mr. George.

So the waiter went down stairs to find the commissioner, and while he was gone Mr. George took out a pencil and paper from his pocket.

"I am going to ask him," said Mr. George to Mrs. Parkman, "what there is to be seen here, and to make a list of the places; and then we will go and see them all, or you can make a selection, just as you please."

"Very well," said Mrs. Parkman. "I should like that."

Accordingly, when the commissioner came in, Mr. George asked him to name, in succession, the various objects of interest usually visited by travellers coming to the Hague; and as he named them, Mr. George questioned him respecting them, so as to enable Mrs. Parkman to obtain a somewhat definite idea of what they were. The commissioner enumerated a variety of places to be seen, such as the public museum of painting, several private museums, the old palace, the new palace, two or three churches, the town hall, and various other sights which tourists, arriving at the Hague, usually like to view. Mr. George made a list of all these, and opposite to each he marked the time which the commissioner said would be required to see it well. After completing this list, he said, -- 

"And there is a great watering place on the sea shore, not far from this, I believe."

"Yes, sir," said the commissioner, "about three miles."

"Is it a pleasant ride there?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes, sir," replied the commissioner. "It is a very pleasant ride. You can go one way and return another. It is a very fashionable place. The queen and the princesses go there every summer."

"Very well; it takes about two hours and a half, I suppose, to go there and return," said Mr. George.

"Yes, sir," said the commissioner.

"Very well," said Mr. George. "Have the carriage ready in --  --  Shall we say half an hour, Mrs. Parkman? Shall you be ready in half an hour?"

Mrs. Parkman said that she should be ready in half an hour, and so Mr. George appointed that time, and then the commissioner went away.

Mr. George added up all the periods of time that the commissioner had said would be required for the several sights, and found that there would be time for them to see the whole, and yet be ready for the afternoon train for Amsterdam, where Mr. and Mrs. Parkman were going next. So Mrs. Parkman concluded not to omit any from the list, but to go and see the whole.

In half an hour the carriage was at the door, and in ten or fifteen minutes afterwards Mrs. Parkman was ready. Just before they went, Mr. George rang the bell again, and called for the bill, requesting the waiter to see that every thing was charged -- carriage, servants, commissioner, and all. When it came, Mr. Parkman took out his purse, expecting to pay it himself, but Mr. George took out his purse too.

"The amount," said Mr. George, looking at the footing of the bill, "is forty-five guilders and some cents. Your share is, say twenty-two guilders and a half."

"No, indeed," said Mr. Parkman. "My share is the exact footing of the bill. You have nothing to do with this payment."

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I have just one half to pay for Rollo and me. We are four in all, and Rollo and I are two."

Mr. Parkman seemed extremely unwilling to allow Mr. George to pay any thing at all; but Mr. George insisted upon it, and so the bill was paid by a joint contribution.

All this time the carriage was ready at the door, and the gentlemen, attended by two or three waiters, conducted Mrs. Parkman down to the door. The party then drove, in succession, to the various places which the commissioner had enumerated. There were museums consisting of a great many rooms filled with paintings, and palaces, where they were shown up grand staircases, and through long corridors, and into suites of elegant apartments, and churches, and beautiful parks and gardens, and a bazaar filled with curiosities from China and Japan, and a great many other similar places. Mr. George paid very particular attention to Mrs. Parkman during the whole time, and made every effort to anticipate and comply with her wishes in all respects. In one case, indeed, I think he went too far in this compliance, and the result was to mortify her not a little. It was in one of the museums of paintings. Mrs. Parkman, like other ladies of a similar character to hers, always wanted to go where she could not go, and to see what she could not see. If, when she came into a town, she heard of any place to which, for any reason, it was difficult to obtain admission, that was the very place of all others that she wished most to see; and if, in any museum, or palace, or library that she went into, there were two doors open and one shut, she would neglect the open ones, and make directly to the one that was shut, and ask to know what there was there. I do not know as there was any thing particularly blameworthy in this. On the contrary, such a feeling may be considered, in some respects, a very natural one in a lady. But, nevertheless, when it manifests itself in a decided form, it makes the lady a very uncomfortable and vexatious companion to the gentleman who has her under his care.

In one of the rooms where our party went in the museum of paintings, there was a door near one corner that was shut. All the other doors -- those which communicated with the several apartments where the pictures were hung -- were open. As soon as Mrs. Parkman came in sight of the closed door, she pointed to it and said, -- 

"I wonder what there is in that room. I suppose it is something very choice. I wish we could get in."

Mr. Parkman paid, at first, no attention to this request, but continued to look at the pictures around him.

"I wish you would ask some of the attendants," she continued, "whether we cannot go into that room."

"O, no," replied her husband. "If it was any thing that it was intended we should see, the door would be open. The fact that the door is shut is notice enough that, we are not to go in there."

"I'm convinced there are some choice pictures in there," said Mrs. Parkman; "something that they do not show to every body. Mr. George, I wish you would see if you can't find out some way to get in."

"Certainly," said Mr. George, "I will try."

So Mr. George walked along towards one of the attendants, whom he saw in another part of the room, -- putting his hand in his pocket as he went, to feel for a piece of money. He put the piece of money into the attendant's hand, and then began to talk with him, asking various indifferent questions about the building; and finally he asked him where that closed door led to.

"O, that is only a closet," said the attendant, "where we keep our brooms and dusters."

"I wish you would just let us look into it," said Mr. George. "Here's half a guilder for you."

The man looked a little surprised, but he took the half guilder, saying, -- 

"Certainly, if it will afford you any satisfaction."

Mr. George then went back to where he had left the rest of his party, and said to Mrs. Parkman, -- 

"This man is going to admit us to that room. Follow Him. I will come in a moment."

So Mr. George stopped to look at a large painting on the wall, while Mrs. Parkman, with high anticipations of the pleasure she was to enjoy in seeing what people in general were excluded from, walked in a proud and stately manner to the door, and when the man opened it, saw only a small, dark room, with nothing in it but brooms, dust pans, and lamp fillers. She was exceedingly abashed by this adventure, and for the rest of that day she did not once ask to see any thing that was not voluntarily shown to her.

After visiting all the places of note in the town, the coachman was ordered to drive to the watering place on the sea shore. It was a very pleasant drive of about three miles. Just before reaching the shore of the sea, the road came to a region of sand hills, called dunes, formed by the drifting sands blown in from the beach by the winds. Among these dunes, and close to the sea shore, was an immense hotel, with long wings stretching a hundred feet on each side, and a row of bath vans on the margin of the beach before it. The beach was low and shelving, and it could be traced for miles in either direction along the coast, whitened by the surf that was rolling in from the German Ocean.

After looking at this prospect for a time, and watching to see one or two of the bathing vans drive down into the surf, in order to allow ladies who had got into them to bathe, the party returned to the carriage, and the coachman drove them through the village, which was very quaint and queer, and inhabited by fishermen. The fishing boats were drawn up on the shore in great numbers, very near the houses. Rollo desired very much to go and see these boats and the fishermen, and learn, if he could, what kind of fish they caught in them, and how they caught them. But Mrs. Parkman thought that they had better not stop. They were nothing but common fishing boats, she said.

The carriage returned to the Hague by a different road from the one in which it came. It was a road that led through a beautiful wood, where there were many pleasant walks, with curious looking Dutch women going and coming. As the party approached the town, they passed through a region of parks, and palaces, and splendid mansions of all kinds. Mrs. Parkman was curious to know who lived in each house, and Mr. George contrived to communicate her inquiries to the coachman, by making signs, and by asking questions partly in English and partly in German. But though the coachman understood the questions, Mrs. Parkman could not understand the answers that he gave, for they were Dutch names, -- sometimes long and sometimes short; but whether they were long or short, the sounds were so uncouth and strange that Mrs. Parkman looked terribly distressed in trying to make them out.

At length the carriage arrived at the hotel again; and there the porters put on the baggage belonging both to Mr. and Mrs. Parkman, and to Mr. George and Rollo. It then proceeded to the station. Mr. George and Rollo waited there until the train for Amsterdam arrived, and then took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Parkman as they went to their seats in the carriage. Mrs. Parkman shook hands with Mr. George very cordially, and said, -- 

"We are very much obliged to you, Mr. George, for your company to-day. We have had a very pleasant time. I wish that we could have you to travel with us all the time."

*    *    *    *    *

"I think she ought to be obliged to you," said Rollo, as soon as the train had gone.

"Not at all," said Mr. George.

"Not at all?" repeated Rollo. "Why not? You have done a great deal for her to-day."

"No," said Mr. George. "All that I have done has not been for her sake, but for William's. William is an excellent good friend of mine, and I am very sorry that he has not got a more agreeable travelling companion."



Chapter VII.

Correspondence.


One day, when Mr. George and Rollo were at the town of Leyden, it began to rain while they were eating their breakfast.

"Never mind," said Rollo. "We can walk about the town if it does rain."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "we can; but we shall get tired of walking about much sooner if it rains, than if it were pleasant weather. However, I am not very sorry, for I should like to write some letters."

"I've a great mind to write a letter, too," said Rollo. "I'll write to my mother. Don't you think that would be a good plan?"

"Why, -- I don't know," -- said Mr. George, speaking in rather a doubtful tone. "It seems to me that it would be hardly worth while."

"Why not?" asked Rollo.

"Why, the postage is considerable," said Mr. George, "and I don't believe the letter would be worth what your father would have to pay for it; that is, if it is such a letter as I suppose you would write."

"Why, what sort of a letter do you suppose I should write?" asked Rollo.

"O, you would do as boys generally do in such cases," replied his uncle. "In the first place you would want to take the biggest sheet that you could find to write the letter upon. Then you would take up as much of the space as possible writing the date, and My dear mother. Then you would go on for a few lines, saying things of no interest to any body, such as telling what day you came to this place, and what day to that. Perhaps you'd say that to-day is a rainy day, and that yesterday was pleasant -- just as if your mother, when she gets your letter, would care any thing about knowing what particular days were rainy and what pleasant, in Holland, a week back. Then, after you had got about two thirds down the page, you would stop because you could not think of any thing more to say, and subscribe your name with ever so many scrawl flourishes, and as many affectionate and dutiful phrases as you could get to fill up the space.

"And that would be a letter that your father, like as not, would have to pay one and sixpence or two shillings sterling for, to the London postman."

Rollo laughed at this description of the probable result of his proposed attempt to write a letter; but he laughed rather faintly, for he well recollected how many times he had written letters in just such a way. He secretly resolved, however, that when they came in from their walk, and Mr. George sat down to his writing, he would write too, and would see whether he could not, for once, produce a letter that should be at least worth the postage.

After they came in from their walk, they asked the landlady to have a fire made in their room; but she said they could not have any fire, for the stoves were not put up. She said it was the custom in Holland not to put the stoves up until October; and so nobody could have a fire in any thing but foot stoves until that time. The foot stoves, she said, would make it very comfortable for them.

So she brought in two foot stoves. They consisted of small, square boxes, with holes bored in the top, and a little fire of peat in an earthen vessel within. Rollo asked Mr. George to give him two sheets of thin note paper, and he established himself at a window that looked out upon a canal. He intended to amuse himself in the intervals of his writing in watching the boats that were passing along the canal.

He took two sheets of note paper instead of one sheet of letter paper, in order that, if he should get tired after filling one of them, he could stop, and so send what he had written, without causing his father to pay postage on any useless paper.

"Then," thought he, "if I do not get tired, I will go on and fill the second sheet, and my mother will have a double small letter. A double small letter will be just as good as a single large one."

This was an excellent plan.

Rollo also took great pains to guard against another fault which boys often fall into in writing their letters; that is, the fault of growing careless about the writing as they go on with the work, by which means a letter is produced which looks very neat and pretty at the beginning, but becomes an ill-looking and almost illegible scrawl at the end.

"I'll begin," said he, "as I think I shall be able to hold out; and I'll hold out to the end just as I begin."

Rollo remained over his letter more than three hours. He would have become exceedingly tired with the work if he had written continuously all this time; but he stopped to rest very often, and to amuse himself with observing what was passing before him in the street and on the canal.

Mr. George was occupied all this time in writing his letter, and each read what he had written to the other that same evening, after dinner. The two letters were as follows: -- 

Mr. George's Letter.

"LEYDEN, HOLLAND, September 27.

"My Dear Edward:[6]

[Footnote 6: Edward was Mr. George's brother. He was a boy about twelve years old.]

"We have been travelling now for several days in Holland, and it is one of the most curious and amusing countries to travel in that I have ever seen.

"We all know from the books of geography which we study at school, that Holland is a very low country -- lower in many places than the ocean; and that the water of the ocean is kept from overflowing it by dikes, which the people built ages ago, along the shores. I always used to suppose that it was only from the sea that people had any danger to fear of inundations; but I find now that it is not so.

"The people have to defend themselves from inundations, not only on the side towards the sea, but also quite as much, if not more, on the side towards the land, from the waters of the River Rhine. The River Rhine rises in Switzerland, and flows through various countries of Europe until it comes to the borders of Holland, and there it spreads out into innumerable branches, and runs every where, all over the country. It would often overflow the country entirely, were it not that the banks are guarded by dikes, like the dikes of the sea. The various branches of the rivers are connected together by canals, which are also higher than the land on each side of them. Thus the whole country is covered with a great network of canals, rivers, and inlets from the sea, with water in them higher than the land. When the tide is low in the sea, the surplus water from these rivers and canals flows off through immense sluices at the mouth of them. When the tide comes up, it is kept from flowing in by immense gates, with which the sluices are closed. They call the tracts of land that lie lower than the channels of water around them, polders. That is rather a queer name. I suppose it is a Dutch name.

"The polders all have drains and canals cut in them. As we ride along in the railway carriages we overlook these polders. They look like immense green fields, extending as far as you can see, with straight canals running through them in every direction, and crossing each other at right angles. These canals, in the bottom of the polders, are about six feet wide. They are wide enough to prevent the cattle from jumping across them, and so they serve for fences to divide the fields from each other. They also serve for roads, for the Dutchmen use boats on their farms to get in their hay and produce, instead of carts.

"The water that collects in these low canals and drains, which run across the polders, cannot flow out into the large canals, which are higher than they are, and so they have to pump it out. They pump it out generally by means of wind mills. So wherever you go, throughout all Holland, you find an immense number of wind mills. These wind mills are very curious indeed. Some of them are immensely large. They look like lighthouses. The large ones are generally built of brick, and some of them are several hundred years old. The sails of the big ones are often fifty feet long, and sometimes eighty feet. This makes a wheel one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. When you stand under one of these mills, and look up, and see these immense sails revolving so high in the air that the lowest point, when the sail comes round, is higher than the tops of the four story houses, the effect is quite sublime.

"With these wind mills they pump the water up from one drain or canal to another, till they get it high enough to run off into the sea. In some places, however, it is very difficult to get the water into the sea even in this way, even at low tides. The River Amstel, for instance, which comes out at Amsterdam, and into which a great many canals and channels are pumped, is so low at its mouth that the sea is never, at the lowest tides, more than a foot and a half below it. At high tides the sea is a great deal above it. The average is about a foot above. Of course it requires a great deal of management to get the waters of the river out, and avoid letting the water of the sea in. They do it by immense sluices, which are generally kept shut, and only opened when the tide is low.

"In the mean time, if it should ever so happen that they could not succeed in letting the water out fast enough, it would, of course, accumulate, and rise in the rivers, and press against the dikes that run along the banks of it, till at last it would break through in some weak place; and then, unless the people could stop the breach, the whole polder on that side would be gradually overflowed. The inundation would extend until it came to some other dike to stop it. The polder that would first be filled would become a lake. The lake would be many miles in extent, perhaps, but the water in it would not usually be very deep -- not more than eight or ten feet, perhaps; though in some cases the polders are so low, that an inundation from the rivers and canals around it would make the lake twenty or thirty feet deep.

"Of course, in ancient times, when a portion of the country became thus submerged, it was for the people to consider whether they would abandon it or try to pump all that water out again, by means of the wind mills. They would think that if they pumped it out it would be some years before the land would be good again; for the salt in the water would tend to make it barren. So they would sometimes abandon it, and put all their energy into requisition to strengthen the dikes around it, in order to prevent the inundation from spreading any farther. For water, in Holland, tends to spread and to destroy life and property, just as fire does in other countries. The lakes and rivers, where they are higher than the land, are liable to burst their barriers after heavy rains falling in the country, or great floods coming down the rivers, or high tides rise from the sea, and so run into each other; and the people have continually to contend against this danger, just as in other countries they do against spreading conflagrations.

"In the case of spreading fire, water is the great friend and helper of man; and in the case of these spreading inundations of water, it is wind that he relies upon. The only mode that the Dutch had to pump out the water in former times was the wind mills. When the rains or the tides inundated the land, they called upon the wind to help them lift the water out to where it could flow away again.

"There was a time, two or three hundred years ago, when all the wind mills that the people could make, seem not to have been enough to do the work; and there was one place, in the centre of the country, where the water continued to spread more and more -- breaking through as it spread from one polder to another -- until, at last, it swallowed up such an extent of country as to form a lake thirty miles in circumference. This lake at last extended very near to the gates of Haarlem, and it was called the Holland Lake. You will find it laid down on all the maps of Holland, except those which have been printed within a few years. The reason why it is not laid down now is, because a few years ago, finding that the wind mills were not strong enough to pump it out, the government concluded to try what virtue there might be in steam. So they first repaired and strengthened the range of dikes that extended round the lake. In fact, they made them double all around, leaving a space between for a canal. They made both the inner and outer of these dikes water-tight; so that the water should neither soak back into the lake again, after it was pumped out, nor ooze out into the polders beyond. The way they made them water-tight was by lining them on both sides with a good thick coating of clay.

"When the dikes enclosing the lake were completed, the engineers set up three very powerful steam engines, and gave to each one ten or twelve enormous pumps to work. These pumping engines were made on such a grand scale that they lifted over sixty tuns of water at every stroke. But yet so large was the lake, and so vast the quantity of water to be drained, that though there were three of the engines working at this rate, and though they were kept at work night and day, it took them a year and a half to lay the ground dry. The work was, however, at last accomplished, and now, what was the bottom of the lake is all converted into pastures and green fields. But they still have to keep the pumps going all the time to lift out the surplus water that falls over the whole space in rain. You may judge that the amount is very large that falls on a district thirty miles round. They calculate that the quantity which they have to pump up now, every year, in order to keep the land from being overflowed again, is over fifty millions of tuns. And that is a quantity larger than you can ever conceive of.

"And yet the piece of ground is so large, that the cost of this pumping makes only about fifty cents for each acre of land, which is very little.

"Besides these great spreading inundations, which Holland has always been subject to from the lakes and rivers in the middle of the country, there has always been a greater danger still to be feared from the ice freshets of the Rhine, and other great rivers coming from the interior of the country. The Rhine, you know, flows from south to north, and often the ice, in the spring, breaks up in the middle of the course of the river, before it gets thawed in Holland. The broken ice, in coming down the stream towards the north, is kept within the banks of the stream where the banks are high; but when it reaches Holland it is not only no longer so confined, but it finds its flow obstructed by the ice which there still remains solid, and so it gets jammed and forms dams, and that makes the water rise very fast. At one time when such a dam was formed, the water rose seven feet in an hour. At such times the pressure becomes so prodigious that the dikes along the bank of the river are burst, and water, sand, gravel, and ice, all pour over together upon the surrounding country, and overwhelm and destroy every thing that comes in its way.

"Some of the inundations caused in Holland by these floods and freshets have been terrible. In ancient times they were worse than they are now; because now the dikes are stronger, and are better guarded. At one inundation that occurred about sixty years ago, eighty thousand persons were drowned. At another, three hundred years earlier, one hundred thousand perished. Think what awful floods there must have been.

"But I cannot write any more in this letter. I have taken up so much space and time in telling you about the inundations and freshets, that I have not time to describe a great many other things which I have seen, that are quite as curious and remarkable as they. But when I get home I can tell you all about them, in the winter evenings, and read to you about them from my journal.

"Your affectionate brother, "GEORGE."


Rollo's Letter.

"LEYDEN, Tuesday, September 27.

"My Dear Mother:

"Uncle George and I are having a very fine time indeed in travelling about Holland; it is such a funny country, on account of there being so many canals. The water is all smooth and still in all the canals, (except when the wind blows,) and so there must be excellent skating every where in the winter.

"I wish it was winter here now, for one day, so that uncle George and I could have some Dutch skating.

"There must be good skating every where here in the winter, for there is water every where, and it is all good water for skating. In the fields, instead of brooks running in crooked ways and tumbling over rocks, there are only long and narrow channels of smooth water, just about wide enough to skate upon, and reaching as far as you can see.

"The people here speak Dutch, and they cannot understand me, and I cannot understand them. And that is not the worst of it; they can't understand that I can't understand them. Sometimes the woman that comes to make my bed tells me something in Dutch, and I tell her that I can't understand. I know the Dutch for 'I can't understand.' Then she says, 'O!' and goes on to tell me over again, only now she tries to speak plainer -- as if it could make any difference to me whether she speaks plain or not. I shake my head, and tell her I can't understand any thing. I tell her in French, and in English, and in Dutch. But it does not do any good, for she immediately begins again, and tells me the whole story all over again, trying to speak plainer than ever. I suppose she thinks that any body can understand Dutch, if she only speaks it plain enough to them.

"When I want any thing of them, I always tell them by signs. The other evening, uncle George and I wanted some candles. So I rang the bell, and a woman came. I went to the door of the room, and made believe that I had two candlesticks in my hand, and that I was bringing them in. I made believe put them on the table, and then sat down and opened a book, and pretended that I was reading by the light of them. She understood me immediately. She laughed, and said, 'Ya, ya!' and went off out of the room to get the candles.

"Ya, ya, means yes, yes.

"Another time we wanted a fire. So when the woman came in, I shivered, and made believe that I was very cold, and then I went to the fireplace, and made believe warm myself. Then I pointed to the fireplace, and made a sign for her to go away and bring the fire to put there. But instead of going, she told me something in Dutch, and shook her head; and when I said I could not understand it, she told me over again; and finally she went away, and sent the landlady. The landlady could speak a little English. So she told me that we could not have any fire except in foot stoves, for the fireplace stoves were not put up.

"It is very curious to walk about the streets, and see the boats on the canals, and what the people are carrying back and forth in them. I watch them sometimes from the windows of the hotel, especially when it rains, and we cannot go out. They have every thing in these boats. They use some of them instead of houses; and the man who owns them lives in them with his wife and children, and sometimes with his ducks and chickens.

"I often see the little children playing on the decks of the boat. Once I saw one that had a dog, and he was trying to teach him to cipher on a slate. His mother and the other children were on the boat too.

"The people use their dogs here to draw carts. They have three or four sometimes harnessed in together. The dogs look pretty poor and lean, but they draw like good fellows. You would be surprised to see what great loads they draw. They draw loads of vegetables to market, and then, when the vegetables are sold, they draw the market women home in the empty carts.

"Only they don't mind very well, when they are told which way to go. I saw a boy yesterday riding along in a cart, with a good big dog to draw him, and when he came to a street where he wanted him to turn down, the dog would not turn. The boy hallooed out to him in Dutch a good many times, and finally the boy had to jump down out of the cart, and run and seize him by the collar, and pull him round.

"It is not a great deal that they use dog carts to bring things to market, for generally they bring them in boats. They take almost every thing to and fro along the canals in boats; and it is very curious to stand on a bridge and look down on the boats that pass under, and see how many different kinds of boats there are, and how many different kinds of things they have in them. This morning, I saw one that had the bottom of it divided into three pens for animals. In the first pen were two great cows, lying down on the straw; in the second pen were several sheep; and in the third there were as many as a dozen small pigs, just big enough to be roasted. I suppose it was a farmer bringing in his stock to market.

"Sometimes they row the boats along the canal, and sometimes they push them with setting poles. They have the longest setting poles in some of the boats that I ever saw. There is an iron pike at one end of the pole, and a wooden knob at the other. When they are pushing the boat by means of one of these poles, they run the ironed end of it down to the bottom, and then the man puts his shoulder to the little knob at the other end and pushes. As the boat goes on, he walks along the boat from the bow to the stern, pushing all the way as hard as he can push.

"When they are out of town the men pull the boats along the canals by means of a long cord, which is fastened to a strap over their shoulders. With this strap they walk along on the tow-path of the canal, pulling in this way -- so that if the cord should break, I should think they would fall headlong on the ground.

"I saw a man and a woman the other day pulling a double boat, loaded with hay, along a canal. The hay was loaded across from one boat to the other. It made as much as five or six of the largest cart loads of hay that I ever saw. I was surprised to see that a man and a woman could draw so much. They drew it by long lines, and by straps over their shoulders. The woman's line was fastened to one of the boats, and the man's to the other.

"The people travel a great deal in boats in these parts of the country, where there are no railroads. Uncle George and I took a little journey in one, the other day. I wanted to go very much, but uncle George was afraid, he said, that they might take us somewhere where there would be nobody that could talk English, and so we might get into some serious difficulty. But he said that he would go with me a few miles, if I could find a canal boat going to some place that we knew. So I found one going to a town called Delft. We knew that place, because we had come through it, or close by it, by the railway.

"Uncle George said that it was an excellent plan to go there, for then, if we got tired of the canal boat in going, we could come home by a railroad train.

"So we went; and we had a very pleasant time, indeed. I found the canal boat by going to the place where the boats all were, and saying, Delft, Delft, to the people; and then they pointed me to the right boat. So we got in. When the captain came for the fare, I took out a handful of money, and said Delft, and also pointed to uncle George. So he took out enough to pay for uncle George and me to go to Delft. At least I suppose he thought it was enough, though I thought it was very little.

"We had a very pleasant sail to Delft. The banks of the canal are beautiful. They are green and pretty every where, and in some places there were beautiful gardens, and summer houses, and pavilions close upon the shore.

"But now I begin to be tired of writing. I should have been tired a great while ago, only I have stopped to rest pretty often, and to look out the window, and see what is going by on the canal.

"There is a boat coming now with a mast, and I don't see what they are going to do, for there is a bridge here, and it is not a draw bridge. Almost all the bridges are draw bridges, but this one is not. So I don't see how he is going to get by.

"Ah, I see how it is! The mast is on a hinge, so that it can turn down backward, and lie along flat on the deck of the boat. It is going down now.

"Now it is down, and the boat is going under the bridge.

"But good by, mother, for it is time for me to stop.

"Your affectionate and dutiful son, "ROLLO.

"P. S. This is the longest letter that I ever wrote."



Chapter VIII.

The Commissioner.


AS may well be imagined, the best use to which the green fields of Holland can be put, is the raising of grass to feed cattle; for the wetness of the land, which makes it somewhat unsuitable to be ploughed, causes grass to grow upon it very luxuriantly. Accordingly, as you ride through the country along the great railway lines, you see, every where, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep feeding in the meadows that extend far and wide in every direction.

The cattle are kept partly for the purpose of being fatted and sent to market for beef, and partly for their milk, which the Dutch farmers make cheese of. Dutch cheeses are celebrated in every part of the world.

In the neighborhood of Amsterdam there are a number of dairy villages where cheeses are made, and some of them are almost always visited by travellers. They are great curiosities, in fact, on account of their singular and most extraordinary neatness. Cleanliness is, in all parts of the world, deemed a very essential requisite of a dairy, and the Dutch housewives in the dairy villages of Holland have carried the idea to the extreme. The village which is most commonly visited by strangers who go to Amsterdam, is one called Broek. It lies to the north of Amsterdam, and at a distance of about five or six miles from it.

One day when Mr. George and Rollo arrived in Amsterdam, Mr. George, just at sundown, looked out at the window of the hotel, and said, -- 

"Rollo, I think it is going to be a superb day to-morrow."

"So do I," said Rollo.

"At least," said Mr. George, "I should think so if I were in America. The wind has all gone down, and the western sky is full of golden clouds shining in roseate splendor."

Mr. George enunciated these high-sounding words in a pompous and theatrical manner, which made Rollo laugh very heartily.

"And, to descend from poetry to plain prose," said Mr. George, "I think we had better take advantage of the fine weather to go to Broek to-morrow."

"Very well," said Rollo, "that plan suits me exactly."

Rollo was always ready for any plan which involved the going away from the place where he was, to some new place which he had not seen before.

"But how are we going to find the way there?" said Rollo.

"I shall take a commissioner," said Mr. George. "I am going to Saandam, too, where Peter the Great learned ship carpentry."

"I have heard something about that," said Rollo, "but I don't know much about it."

"Why, Peter the Great was emperor of Russia," said Mr. George, "and he wished to introduce ship building into his dominions. So he came to Holland to learn about the construction of ships, in order that he might be better qualified to take the direction of the building of a fleet in Russia. Saandam was the place that he came to. While he was there he lived in a small, wooden house, near the place where the ship building was going on. That house is there now, and almost every body that comes to this part of the country goes to see it."

"How long ago was it that he was there?" asked Rollo.

"It was more than one hundred and fifty years ago," said Mr. George.

"I should not think a wooden house would have lasted so long," said Rollo.

"It would not have lasted so long," replied Mr. George, "if they had not taken special pains to preserve it. They have built a brick house around it and over it, to protect it from the weather, and so it has been preserved. Now I think we had better go to-morrow and see Broek, and also Saandam, and I am going to take a commissioner."

Mr. George had employed a commissioner once before, as the reader will perhaps recollect, namely, at the Hague; and perhaps I ought to stop here a moment to explain more fully what a commissioner is. He is a servant hired by the day to conduct strangers about the town where they reside, and about the environs, if necessary, to show them what there is that is curious and wonderful there. These men are called, sometimes commissioners and sometimes valets de place, and in their way they are very useful.

If a traveller arrives at a hotel in the morning, at any important town in Europe, before he has been in his room fifteen minutes he generally hears a knock at his door, and on bidding the person come in, a well-dressed looking servant man appears and asks, -- 

"Shall you wish for a commissioner, sir, to-day?"

Or if the gentleman, after remaining in his room a few minutes, takes his wife or his daughter, or whomever he may have travelling with him, and goes out from the door of the hotel, he is pretty sure to be met near the door by one or more of these men, who accost him earnestly, saying, -- 

"Do you want a commissioner, sir?" Or, "Shall I show you the way, sir?" Or, "Would you like to see the museum, sir?"

When a traveller intends to remain some days in a place, he has generally no occasion for a commissioner; since, in his rambles about the town, he usually finds all the places of interest himself, and in such a case the importunities of the commissioners seeking employment are sometimes annoying to him. But if his time is very short, or if he wishes to make excursions into the neighborhood of a town where he does not understand the language of the people, then such a servant is of very great advantage.

Mr. George thought that his proposed excursion to Broek and Saandam was an occasion on which a commissioner could be very advantageously employed. Accordingly, after he and Rollo had finished their dinner, which they took at a round table near a window in the coffee room, he asked Rollo to ring the bell.

Rollo did so, and a waiter came in.

"Send me in a commissioner, if you please," said Mr. George.

"Very well, sir," said the waiter, with a bow.

The waiter went out, and in a few minutes a well-dressed and very respectable looking young man came in, and advancing towards Mr. George, said, -- 

"Did you wish to see a commissioner, sir?"

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I want to make some inquiries about going to Broek and to Saandam, to-morrow. I want to know what the best way is to go, and what the expenses will be."

So saying, Mr. George took out a pencil and a piece of paper from his pocket, in order to make a memorandum of what the commissioner should say.

"In the first place," asked Mr. George, "what is your name? I shall want to know what to call you."

"My name is James," said the commissioner.

"Well, now, James," said Mr. George, "I want you to tell me what the best way is to go, and what all the expenses will be. I want to know every thing beforehand."

"Well, sir," said James, "we shall go first by the ferry boat across to the Y,[7] and there we shall take the trekschuyt for a short distance on the canal."

[Footnote 7: The Y is the name of the sheet of water which lies before Amsterdam. It is a sort of harbor.]

"And how much will that cost?" asked Mr. George.

"For the three, forty-five cents," said James.

He meant, of course, Dutch cents. It takes two and a half Dutch cents to make one American cent.

"There," continued James, "we take a carriage."

"And how much will the carriage be?" asked Mr. George.

"To go to Broek and back, and then to Saandam, will be ten guilders."

Mr. George made memoranda of these sums on his paper, as James named them.

"And the tolls," continued James, "will be one guilder and twenty-five cents more."

"And the driver?" asked Mr. George.

In most of the countries of Europe, when you make a bargain for the carriage, the driver's services are not included in it. He expects a fee besides.

"The driver, fifty cents. Half a guilder," said James.

"Is that enough for him?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes, sir," said James, "that's enough."

"We will call it seventy-five cents," said Mr. George. So saying, he wrote seventy-five.

"Then there will be some fees to pay, I suppose," said Mr. George, "both at Broek and at Saandam."

"Yes, sir," said James. "We pay twenty-five cents at the dairy, twenty-five cents at the garden, and twenty-five to the hostler. That makes seventy-five. And the same at Saandam, to see the hut of Peter the Great, and the house. That makes one guilder fifty centimes."

"Is that all?" asked Mr. George.

"There will be forty-five cents for the ferry, coming back," said James.

Mr. George added this sum to the column, and then footed it up. The amount was nearly fifteen guilders.

"We will call it fifteen guilders," said he. "To-morrow I will give you fifteen guilders, and you will pay all expenses. And then what shall I have to pay you for your services?"

"My charge is four guilders for the day," said James.

"Very well," said Mr. George. "And at what time in the morning will it be best to set out?"

"There is a boat at nine o'clock," said James.

"Then we will leave here at half past eight. We will have breakfast, Rollo, at eight. Or perhaps we can have breakfast at Broek. Is there a hotel there, James?"

"Yes, sir," said James. "There is a hotel there."

"Very well. Then we will wait till we get there before we take breakfast, and we will expect you at half past eight. Our room is number eleven."

The arrangement being thus fully made, the commissioner, promising to be punctual, bowed and retired.

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "to-morrow we will have a good time. After I give the commissioner the fifteen guilders, I shall have no further care or responsibility, but shall be taken along over the whole ground as if I were a child under the care of his father."



Chapter IX.

The Great Canal.

The commissioner knocked at Mr. George's door at the time appointed. Mr. George and Rollo were both ready. Mr. George counted out the fifteen guilders on the table, and James put them in his pocket. The party then set out.

Mr. George wished to stop by the way to put a letter in the post office, and to pay the postage of it. He desired to do this personally, for he wished to inquire whether the letter would go direct. So James led them by the way of the post office, and conducted Mr. George into the office where foreign letters were received, and the payment of postage taken for them. Here James served as interpreter. Indeed, it is one of the most important duties of a commissioner to serve as an interpreter to his employer, whenever his services are required in this capacity.

When the letter was put in, the party resumed their walk. The commissioner went on before, carrying Mr. George's travelling shawl and the umbrella, and Mr. George and Rollo followed. The way lay along a narrow street, by the side of a canal. There were a thousand curious sights to be seen, both among the boats on the canal and along the road; but Rollo could not stop to examine them, for the commissioner walked pretty fast.

"I wish he would not walk so fast," said Rollo.

"Ah, yes," said Mr. George, "he is right this morning, for we want to get to the pier in time for the boat. But in walking about the town to see it, it would be a great trouble to us."

"To-morrow we will go about by ourselves," said Rollo, "and stop when and where we please."

"We will," said Mr. George.

At last the party came out to what may be called the front of the city, where they could look off upon the harbor. This harbor is a sheet of water called the Y, which has been before referred to. The morning was bright and beautiful, and the water was covered with ships, steamers, barges, boats, and vessels of every form and size, going to and fro. The steamers passed swiftly, but the sailing vessels scarcely moved, so calm and still was the morning air. The sun was shining, and the whole scene presented to Mr. George's and Rollo's view, as they looked out over the water, was extremely brilliant and beautiful.

The commissioner led the way out over a long pier supported by piles, to a sort of landing platform at a distance from the shore. This place was quite large. It had a tavern upon it, and a great many different offices belonging to the different lines of steamers, and piers projecting in different directions for the different boats and steamers to land at. It stood at some distance from the shore, and the whole had the appearance of a little village on an island. It would have been an island indeed, if there had been any land about it; but there was not. It was built wholly on piles.

Here were crowds of people going and coming on this stage, some having just landed from the different steamers that had just arrived, and some about to embark in others that were going away. Small boats were coming, too, over the water, with passengers in them, among whom were many peasant girls, whose foreheads and temples were adorned with a profusion of golden ornaments, such as are worn by the ladies of North Holland. Rollo looked this way and that as he passed along the stage, and he wished for time to stop and examine what he saw; but the commissioner walked rapidly on, and led the way to the ferry boat.

"You will walk on board," said James, "while I get the tickets."

So Mr. George and Rollo went over the plank on board the boat, while James turned to a little office that stood near to get the tickets.

There was a man standing at the end of the plank to collect the tickets as the passengers came on board. Mr. George, as he passed, pointed back to the office where James had gone. The man bowed, and he and Rollo passed on.

"How independent we are!" said Mr. George. "I shall have nothing to do with making any payments all day to-day, and it will seem as if we were travelling free."

The ferry boat was of a very singular construction, and most singular looking people they were who were on board of it. It had a great flat deck, which was of an oval form, and was spreading out very wide at the sides. There were seats here and there in different places, but no awning or shelter of any kind overhead. Rollo was glad of this, for the morning was so fine, and the view on every side was so magnificent, that he was very much pleased to have it so wholly unobstructed.

As soon as the chimes of the city clocks began to strike for nine, the various steamboats began to shoot out in different directions from the piers of the landing, and soon the ferry boat began to move, too. She moved, however, very slowly.

"What a slow and clumsy boat!" said Rollo.

"I'm glad she is slow," replied Mr. George, "for I want to look about. I should be willing to be an hour in going across this ferry."

The prospect on every side was, indeed, very fine. On looking back they could see the buildings of the town extending far and wide for miles, with domes, and towers, and spires, and tops of trees, and masts of ships rising together every where above the tops of the houses. The water of the harbor was covered with ships and steamers passing to and fro -- those near glittering in the sun, while the distant ones were half lost in a smoky haze that every where softened and concealed the horizon. Mr. George and Rollo gazed earnestly on this scene, looking now in this direction, and now in that, but not speaking a word.

When they were about half across the Y, James came to Mr. George, and said, -- 

"This ferry boat connects with a steamer on the canal, which goes to the Helder, and also with various trekschuyts. We shall take a trekschuyt to go for a short distance? -- as far as to the place where we shall get a carriage."

"Very well," said Mr. George. "Arrange it as you think best. Then we shall go a short distance on the great canal."

"Yes, sir," said James. "You will like to see a little of the canal."

"I shall, indeed," said Mr. George.

The great canal of which James here spoke is the grandest work of the kind in Holland, and perhaps in the world. If you look at the map you will see that Amsterdam stands somewhat in the interior of the country, and that the only approach to it, by sea, is through a great gulf called the Zuyder Zee. Now, the water in the Zuyder Zee is shallow. There are channels, it is true, that are tolerably deep; but they are very winding and intricate, and they are so surrounded with shoals and sand banks as to make the navigation very difficult, especially for ships of large size.

The people, accordingly, conceived the plan of digging a canal across the country; from Amsterdam to the nearest place where there was deep water on the sea. This was at a point of land called the Helder.

The reason why there was deep water there, was, that that was the outlet for the Zuyder Zee, and the water rushing in there when the tide is rising, and out again when it goes down, keeps the channel deep and clear.

So it was determined to make a canal from the Helder to Amsterdam. But the land was lower, almost all the way, than the sea. This rendered it impossible to construct the canal so as to make it of the same level with the sea, without building up the banks of it to an inconvenient height. Besides, it was just as well to make the canal lower than the sea, and then to build gates at each end of it, to prevent the sea water from coming in.

"Then how were the ships to get in?" asked Rollo, when Mr. George explained this to him.

"Why, there were two ways," replied Mr. George, "by which ships might get in. You see, although the canal is lower than the sea is generally, there is an hour or two every day when the tide goes down, in which the two are about on a level. Accordingly, by opening the gates when the tide is low, a communication would be made by which the vessels could sail in and out."

"But that would be inconvenient, I should think," said Rollo, "not to have the gates open but twice a day."

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and so, to enable them to admit ships at any time, they have built locks at each end."

"Like the locks in a common canal in America?" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and by means of these locks, ships can be taken in and out at any time."

"I don't exactly understand how they do it," said Rollo.

"Let me explain it to you, then," replied Mr. George. "Listen attentively, and picture to your mind precisely what I describe, and see if you understand.

"First," continued Mr. George, "imagine that you are down by the sea shore, where the canal ends. The water in the sea is higher than it is in the canal, and there are two sets of gates, at a little distance from each other, near the mouth of the canal, which keep the water of the sea from flowing in."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I can picture that to my mind. But how far apart are the two sets of gates?"

"A little farther apart," said Mr. George, "than the length of the longest ship. Of course one pair of these locks is towards the sea, and the other towards the canal. I will call the first the sea gates, and the other the canal gates. The space between the two gates is called the lock."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I understand all that."

"Now," continued Mr. George, "a ship comes in, we will suppose, and is to be taken into the canal. First, the men open the sea gates. The sea can now flow into the lock, but it cannot get into the canal, because the canal gates are still shut."

"Yes," said Rollo.

"And, now you see," continued Mr. George, "that as the water in the lock is high, and on a level with the sea, the ship can sail into the lock."

"But it can't get down into the canal," said Rollo.

"No," replied Mr. George, "not yet. But now the men shut the sea gates, and thus shut the ship in. They then open the passages through the canal gates, and this lets the water out of the lock until it subsides to the level of that in the canal, and the ship settles down with it. But the sea cannot come in, for the sea gates, that are now behind the ship, are shut. When the water in the lock has gone down to the canal level, then they can open the gates, and the ship can sail along out of the lock into the canal.

"Thus they lock the ship down into the canal at one end, and when she has passed through the canal, they lock her up into the Y again at the other."

"Yes," said Rollo. "I understand it now. And shall we go into the canal through the locks in this way?"

"I don't know," said Mr. George. "I'll ask James."

So Mr. George beckoned to James to come to him, and asked him whether they should enter the canal through the lock.

"No," said James. "The ferry boat does not go into the canal at all. We go into a little dock or harbor by the side of it, and the passengers walk over the dike, and down to the canal, where they find the boats ready for them that they are to take."

"Why don't they pass from those boats through the locks, and let them come across to Amsterdam?" asked Rollo, "and then we might get on board them there, and so not have to change from one boat to the other."

"Because it takes some time, and some trouble," said James, "to pass any thing through the locks, and it is not worth while to do it, except in case of large and valuable ships. So the boats and steamers that ply along the canal are left inside the lock, and the passengers are taken to and from them by the ferry boat."

The ferry boat, by this time, began to approach the shore. It entered into a little opening in the land, which formed a sort of harbor. Here the passengers were landed at a wharf, which was surrounded by small buildings. Thence they ascended what was evidently a large dike. When they reached the top of the dike they saw below them, on the other side of it, the beginning of the canal. It lay several feet lower than the water of the harbor in which they had left the ferry boat; but it was quite wide, and it was bordered by broad dikes with avenues of trees upon them, on either side. On one side, under the trees, was a tow path, and on the other a broad and smoothly gravelled road.

Two boats were lying moored to the wharves at the side of the canal. One was a long, sharp, and narrow steamer, which was going through the whole length of the canal to the Helder. The other was a trekschuyt, or canal boat, which was going only a short way, to the nearest village.

The passengers that came in the ferry boat divided into two parties, as they came down the dike. One party went to the steamer, the other to the trekschuyt. Mr. George and Rollo, of course, went with the last.

The trekschuyt was a curious sort of boat. It was built like the Noah's ark made for children to play with; that is, it was a broad boat, with a house in it. The roof of the house, which formed the deck of the boat, was flat, and there were seats along the sides of it, and a railing behind them on the margin, to keep people from falling off. At each end of the house were two flights of steps, leading up to the roof or deck, and below them another flight, which led down to the little cabins below.

As soon as Rollo got on board, he first ran up on the deck. He sat down on the seat upon one side, and then, after looking about a moment, he ran over to the other side, and sat down there. Then he got up, and said that he was going below to look at the cabins.

Mr. George, all the time, stood quietly on the deck, looking at the canal, and at the country around. He could see the canal extending, in a winding direction, across the country; but the view of it was soon lost, as the winding of its course brought the dikes on the sides of it in the way so that they concealed the water. He could, however, trace its course for some distance, by the masts and sails of vessels which he saw at different distances rising among the green trees. Along the dike, on one side, was a high road, and on the other, a tow path. Different boats were coming and going in the part of the canal that was near. They were drawn by long and slender lines, that were fastened to a tall mast set up near the bows of the boat. Some were drawn by men, and some by horses.

Before the trekschuyt had gone far, after it commenced its voyage, a great ship was seen coming on the canal. She was coming from the Helder. It was a ship that had come from the West Indies, and was going to Amsterdam. The wind was contrary for her, and they could not use their sails, and so they were drawing her along by horses. There were two teams of horses, eight in each team. The view of these teams, walking along the tow path, with the immense ship following them in the canal, presented a very imposing spectacle.

The trekschuyt started before the Helder steamer; but it had not gone far before Rollo, who had now ascended to the deck again, saw her coming up behind very rapidly.

"I tell you what it is, uncle George," said he, "I wish you and I were on board that steamer, and were going along the whole length of the canal."

"So do I," said Mr. George.

"Could not we get on board?" asked Rollo.

"No," said Mr. George. "We cannot change our plan to-day very well. But now that we have found the way, we can come over here any morning we please, and take the Helder steamer."

"Let's come," said Rollo, eagerly. "Let's come to-morrow."

"We'll see about that," said Mr. George. "See, here comes a market boat."

"Yes," said Rollo. "The man is towing it, and his wife is steering."

"Now we will see how they pass," said Rollo.

There was no difficulty about passing, for as soon as the man who was towing the market boat found that the trekschuyt had come up to his line, he stopped suddenly, and the advance of his boat caused his line to drop into the water. The trekschuyt then sailed right over it. By this simple manoeuvre, boats and vessels could pass each other very easily, and generally the manoeuvre was executed in a prompt and very skilful manner. But once, when they were passing a boat, the woman who was steering it put the helm the wrong way, and though the captain of the trekschuyt, and also the husband of the woman, who was on the shore, shouted to her repeatedly in a loud and angry manner, she could not get it right again in time to avoid a collision. The trekschuyt gave the boat a dreadful bump as it went by. Fortunately, however, it did no harm, except to frighten the poor woman, and break their tow line.

After going on in this way for fifteen or twenty minutes along the canal, the trekschuyt arrived at its place of destination, and Mr. George and Rollo disembarked at a little village of very neat and pretty houses, built along the dike on one side of the canal.



Chapter X.

The Dairy Village.


Mr. George and Rollo walked ashore in a very independent manner, having the commissioner to attend to the tickets. They went up to the top of the dike, and waited for the commissioner to come to them.

"While I am getting the carriage ready," said the commissioner, when he came, "perhaps you will like to take a walk on the bridge, where there is a very fine view. But first, perhaps, you will look at the carriage, and choose the one that you will like."

So saying, James led the way into a sort of stable, where there were a great many very nice and pretty carriages, arranged very snugly together. Mr. George was surprised to see so many. He asked James how it happened.

"O, there is a great deal of travelling on the roads about here," said James. "The country is very rich and populous, and the people of Amsterdam come out a great deal."

Some of the carriages were very elegant. One of these an hostler took out, and told Mr. George that he could have it if he chose. There was another which was much less elegant, but it was more open.

"Let us take the open one," said Rollo. "We can see so much better."

So they decided upon the open one; and then, while the hostlers were harnessing the horses, Mr. George and Rollo went forward to the bridge.

The bridge led over a branch canal, which here comes into the main canal. The road to it lay along the dike, and formed the street of a little village. It was paved with bricks placed edgewise, and was as neat as a parlor floor. The houses were all on one side. They were very small; but they were so neat and pretty, and the forms of them were so strange and queer, that they looked like play houses, or like a scene in fairy land, rather than like the real habitations of men.

There were pretty gardens by them, which extended down the slope of the dike. The slopes of the dikes are always very gradual, and very nice gardens can be made on them.

Mr. George and Rollo stood on the bridge, and looked up and down the canals on either side. They saw boats, with people in them, getting ready to set out on their voyages.

"I wonder where that canal leads to?" said Rollo.

"O, it goes off into the interior of the country, some where," said Mr. George. "The country is as full of canals as Massachusetts is of roads."

"I should like, very much," said Rollo, "to get on board that boat with that man, and go with him wherever he is going."

"So should I, if I knew Dutch," said Mr. George, "so that I could talk with him as we sailed along."

"How pretty it is all about here," said Rollo. "What a queer village, -- built on a bank! And what a funny road! It looks like a play road."

The road, where it led through the village, did, indeed, present a very singular appearance. It was very narrow indeed, being barely wide enough for one carriage to pass, and leaving scarcely room on the side for a child to crowd up against the house, and let it go by. On the other side was a row of trees, with green grass beneath, covering the banks of the canal.

After Mr. George and Rollo had been standing a few minutes on the bridge they saw that the carriage was nearly ready. So they went back to the place and got in. The top of the carriage was turned entirely down, so that they could see about them in every direction as they rode along. James mounted on the box outside, with the driver.

"Now," said Rollo, in a tone of great satisfaction, "we will have a very first rate ride."

The carriage drove along through the little street, which has already been described. Rollo could reach his hand out and almost touch the houses as they rode by. There were little shops kept in some of the houses, and the things that were for sale were put up at the windows. They looked exactly as if children had arranged them for play.

After leaving the village the road turned and followed the dike of a branch canal. The views on every side were extremely beautiful. The canal was carried along between its two banks, high above the rest of the country, and here and there, at moderate distances from each other, wind mills were to be seen busy at work pumping up water from the drains in the fields, and pouring it into the canal. The fields were covered with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and here and there were parties of men mowing the grass or loading the new-made hay into boats, that lay floating in the small canals which bordered the fields.

In looking about over the country, there were wind mills to be seen in all directions, their long arms slowly revolving in the air, and interspersed among them were the masts and sails of sloops and schooners, that were sailing to and fro along the canals. As the water of these canals was often hidden from view by the dikes which bordered them, it seemed as if the ships and steamers were sailing on the land in the midst of green fields and trees, and smiling villages.

After going on in this way for an hour or more, the carriage approached the village which Mr. George and Rollo were going to see. The village lay on the borders of a canal, which was here quite broad, and as the road approached it on the other side of the canal, it was in full view for Mr. George and Rollo as the party approached it. The houses were close to the margin of the water. They were very neat and pretty, and were, most of them, painted green. Many of them had little canals by the side of them, like lanes of water leading into the rear of the houses, and the prettiest little porticoes, and trellises, and piazzas, and pavilions, and summer houses were seen in every part. The road went winding round a wide basin, and then, after crossing a bridge, the carriage stopped at an inn.

The inn was entirely outside of the village. The commissioner said that they must walk through the village, for there was no carriage road through it at all.

So Mr. George and Rollo dismounted, and the hostlers came out from the stable to unharness the horses.

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "we will go in and order a breakfast, and then we will take our walk through the village while it is getting ready."

"Yes," said Rollo. "I should like some breakfast very much."

"What shall we have?" asked Mr. George.

"What you like," replied Rollo. "You always get good breakfasts."

"Well," said Mr. George, "we will tell them the old story."

Just at this moment James came up to the door of the hotel where Mr. George and Rollo had been standing during this conversation.

"You may order breakfast for us, James," said Mr. George, "and let them have it ready for us when we get back from our walk."

"Yes, sir," said James. "And what will you have?"

"Biftek aux pommes,"[8] said Mr. George, "and coffee. And let them give us some of their best cheese."

[Footnote 8: Pronounced biftek-o-pom. This is a very favorite breakfast in France, and every where, in fact, throughout Europe. Mr. George liked it better than any thing else, not only for his breakfast, but also for his dinner. It consists of very tender beefsteaks, deliciously seasoned, and accompanied with sliced potatoes, fried in a peculiar manner, and arranged all around the margin of the dish.]

The commissioner went in to give the order.

"Uncle George," said Rollo, "I think you'll be known all through this country as the beefsteak and fried potato man."

Mr. George laughed.

"Well," said he. "There could not be a more agreeable idea than that to be associated with my memory."

The truth is, that both Mr. George and Rollo liked the biftek aux pommes better than almost any thing else that they could have, whether for breakfast or dinner.

After having given the order for the breakfast to a very nice and tidy-looking Dutch girl, whose forehead and temples were adorned with a profusion of golden ornaments, after the fashion of the young women of North Holland, the commissioner came back, and the whole party set out to walk through the village. There were no streets, properly so called, but only walks, about as wide as the gravel walks of a garden, which meandered about among the houses and yards, in a most extraordinary manner. There were beautiful views, from time to time, presented over the water of the canal on which the village was situated; and there were a great number of small canals which seemed to penetrate every where, with the prettiest little bridges over them, and landing steps, and bowers, and pavilions along the borders of them, and gayly-painted boats fastened at kitchen doors, and a thousand other such-like objects, characteristic of the intimate intermingling of land and water which prevails in this extraordinary country.

Every thing was, however, on so small a scale, and so scrupulously neat and pretty, that it looked more like a toy village than one built for the every-day residence of real men.

After walking on for about a quarter of a mile, the commissioner said that he would show them the interior of one of the dairy houses, where the cheeses were made, -- for the business of this town was the making of cheeses from the milk of the cows that feed on the green polders that lie all around them.

"The stalls for the cows," said James, "are in the same house in which the family lives; but the cows are not kept there in summer, and so we shall find the stalls empty."

So saying, James turned aside up a little paved walk which led to the door of a very pretty looking house. He opened the door without any ceremony, and Mr. George and Rollo went in.

The door was near one end of the house, and it opened into a passage way which extended back through the whole depth of it. On one side was a row of stalls, or cribs, for the cows. On the other, were doors opening into the rooms used for the family. A very nice looking Dutch woman, who had apparently seen the party from her window, came out through this side door into the passage way, to welcome them when they came.

The stalls for the cows were all beautifully made, and they were painted and decorated in such an extraordinary manner, that no one could have imagined for what use they were intended. The floors for them were made of the glazed tiles so often used in Holland, and the partitions between them were nicely rubbed as bright as a lady's sideboard. The cribs, too, were now, in the absence of the cows, occupied with various little etageres, and sets of shelves, which were covered with fancy cups and saucers, china images, and curiosities of all sorts, -- the Dutch housewives taking a special pride in the collection of such things.

The row of cribs was separated from the floor of the passage way by a sort of trench, about a foot and a half wide and ten inches deep, and outside this trench, and also within it, at the entrances to the cribs, were arrayed a great number of utensils employed in the work of the dairy, such as tubs, cans, cheese presses, moulds, and other such things. These were all beautifully made, and being mounted with brass, which had received the highest polish by constant rubbing, they gave to the whole aspect of the place an exceedingly gay and brilliant appearance.

Some of this apparatus was in use. There were tubs standing, with the curd or whey in them, and cheeses in press or in pickle, and various other indications that the establishment was a genuine one, and was then in active operation. The cheeses were of the round kind, so often seen for sale at the grocers' stores in Boston and New York. They looked like so many big cannon balls.

After walking down the passage way that led by the side of cribs, and examining all these things in detail, the party returned to the door where they had come in, and then, turning to the left, went into the rooms of the house. The first room was the bedroom. The second was the parlor. These rooms were both completely crowded with antique looking furniture, among which were cabinets of Chinese ware, and ornaments of every kind; and all was in such a brilliant condition of nicety and polish, as made the spectacle wonderful to behold.

The bed was in a recess, shut up by doors. When the doors were opened the bed place looked precisely like a berth on board ship.

After looking at all these things as long as they wished, Mr. George and Rollo bade the woman good by, and James gave her half a guilder. The party then withdrew.

"Well, uncle George," said Rollo, "and what do you think of that?"

"I think it is a very extraordinary spectacle," said Mr. George. "And it is very curious to think how such a state of things has come about."

"And how has it come about?" asked Rollo.

"Why, here," replied Mr. George, "for a thousand years, for aught I know, the people have been living from generation to generation with no other employment than taking care of the cows that feed on the polders around, and making the milk into cheese. That is a business which requires neatness. Every kind of dairy business does. So that here is a place where a current was set towards neatness a thousand years ago, and it has been running ever since, and this is what it has come to."

Talking in this manner of what they had seen, Mr. George and Rollo returned to the inn, and there they found an excellent breakfast. They were waited upon at the table by the young woman who had so many golden ornaments in her hair; and besides the biftek aux pommes, and the coffee, and the hot milk, and the nice butter, there was the half of one of the round cheeses, such as they had seen in process of making at the dairy.



Chapter XI.

Conclusion.


After finishing their breakfast, Mr. George and Rollo entered the carriage again, and returned by the same way that they came, for some miles towards Amsterdam, until they came to the place where the road turned off to go to Saandam. After proceeding for some distance upon one of the inland dikes, they came at length to the margin of the sea, and then for several miles the road lay along the great sea dike, which here defends the land from the ingress of the ocean.

"Ah," said Mr. George, as soon as they entered upon this portion of the road, "here we come to one of the great sea dikes. How glad I am."

"So am I," said Rollo. "I wanted to see one of the sea dikes."

"It is very much like the others," said Mr. George, "only it is much larger."

"Yes," said Rollo, "and see how it winds about along the shore."

In looking forward in the direction in which Rollo pointed, the dike could be traced for a long distance in its course, like an immense railroad embankment, winding in and out in a most remarkable manner, in conformity to the indentations of the shore. In one respect it differed from a railroad embankment, namely, in being bordered and overshadowed by avenues of immense trees, which showed how many ages ago the dike had been built. There is not a railroad embankment in the world that has been built long enough for such immense trees to have had time to grow.

The carriage road lay along the top of the dike, which was very broad, and the slopes of it, towards the water on one side, and towards the low meadow lands on the other, were very gradual. Men were at work every where along these slopes, cutting the second crop of grass, and making it into hay. Where the hay was ready to be got in, the men were at work loading it into boats that lay in the little canals that extend along the sides of the dike at the foot of the slopes.

Wind mills were to be seen every where, all about the horizon. As the road approached Saandam, these mills became more and more numerous.

"I mean to see if I can count them," said Rollo.

"You cannot count them, I am sure," said Mr. George.

Rollo began; but when he got up to a hundred, he gave up the undertaking in despair. Mr. George told him that he read in the guide book that there were four thousand wind mills in that region.

Some of these wind mills were very small indeed; and there were two or three which looked so "cunning," as Rollo said, that he wished very much that he had one of them to take with him to America.

The use of these very small wind mills was to pump up the water from some very limited tract of land, which, for some reason or other, happened to lie a few inches lower than the rest.

At last, after an infinite number of turnings and windings, by means of which every part of the surrounding country was brought in succession into view before Mr. George and Rollo as they sat in their carriage, they arrived at the town of Saandam.

The town consists of two streets, one on each embankment of a great canal. The streets are closely built up for many miles along the canal, but the town does not extend laterally at all, on account of the ground falling off immediately to very low polders.

After entering the street the commissioner left the carriage, in order that the horses might rest, and led Mr. George and Rollo on a walk through the prettiest part of the town. They walked about half a mile along the canal on one side, and then, crossing by a ferry, they came back on the other side.

In the course of this walk they went to see the hut where Peter the Great lived while he was in Holland engaged in studying ship building in the ship yards of Saandam. The hut itself was old and dilapidated; but it was covered and protected by a good, substantial building of brick, with open arches all around, which allowed the hut to be seen, while the roof and walls of the building protected it from the rain. The hut was situated in a very pretty little garden.

There were two rooms in the hut, and one of them -- the one shown in the engraving -- had a very curious-looking Dutch fireplace in one corner of it, and a ladder to go up to the loft above. The chairs were very curious indeed; the seats being three-cornered, and the back and arms being constructed in a very singular manner.

The walls of the rooms were perfectly covered, in every part, with the names of visitors, who had come from all countries to see the rooms. Besides these, there were a great many volumes of books filled with names. These books lay on a great table, which stood at one side of the room. There was one of the books which was not yet full, and this one lay open on the table, with a pen and ink near it, in order that fresh visitors, as fast as they came, might enter their names.

After looking at this cabin as long as they wished, and entering their names in the book, Mr. George and Rollo left the hut and returned through one of the main streets of the town to the place where they had left their carriage. The carriage was soon ready for them, and they set out to go back to Amsterdam.

They had a delightful drive back, going as they came, on the top of the great sea dike. On one side they could look off over a wide expanse of water, with boats, and steamers, and ships moving to and fro in every direction over it. On the other side they overlooked a still wider expanse of low and level green fields, intersected every where with canals of water and avenues of trees, and with a perfect forest of wind mills in the horizon.

*    *    *    *    *

As they were riding quietly along upon this dike on the return to Amsterdam, Rollo had the opportunity of imparting to Mr. George some valuable information in respect to Peter the Great.

"I am glad that I have had an opportunity to see the workshop of Peter the Great," said Mr. George. "It is very curious indeed. But I don't know much about Peter the Great. The first opportunity I get I mean to read an account of his life, and I advise you to do the same."

"I have read about him," said Rollo. "I found a book about him in a steamboat that we came in, and I read all about his coming to Holland."

"Then tell me about it," said Mr. George.

"Why, you see," said Rollo, "he was at war with the Turks, and he fought them and drove them off to the southward, until at last he came to the Sea of Asoph. Then he could not fight them any more, unless he could get some ships. So he made a law for all the great boyars of his kingdom, that every one of them must build or buy him a ship. What are boyars, uncle George?"

"Nobles," said Mr. George.

"I thought it must be something like that," replied Rollo.

"The old nobility of those Russian countries are called boyars," said Mr. George; "but I don't know why. Most of the common people are slaves to them."

"Well, at any rate," said Rollo, "he made a law that every one of them, or at least all that were rich enough, should build or buy him a ship; but they did not know how to build ships themselves, and so they were obliged to send to Holland for ship builders. They built more and better ships in Holland in those days than in any country in the world."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Mr. George.

"The boyars did not like it very well to be obliged to build these ships," continued Rollo. "And there was another thing that they disliked still more."

"What was that?" asked Mr. George.

"Why, the emperor made them send off their sons to be educated in different foreign countries," replied Rollo. "You see, in those days Russia was very little civilized, and Peter concluded that it would help to introduce civilization into the country, if the sons of the principal men went to other great cities for some years, to study sciences and arts. So he sent some of them to Paris, and some to Berlin, and some to Amsterdam, and some to Rome. But most of them did not like to go."

"That's strange," said Mr. George. "I should have thought they would have liked to go very much."

"At least their fathers did not like to send them," said Rollo; "perhaps on account of the expense; and some of the young men did not like to go. There was one that was sent to Venice, in order that he might see and learn every thing that he could there, that would be of advantage to his own country; but he was so cross about it that when he got to Venice he shut himself up in his house, and declared that he would not see or learn any thing at all."

"He was a very foolish fellow, I think," said Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo, "I think he was. But I've seen boys in school act just so. They get put out with the teacher for something or other, and then they won't try to understand the lesson."

"That is punishing themselves, and not the teacher," said Mr. George. "But go on about Peter."

"After a while," continued Rollo, "Peter concluded to make a journey himself. His plan was to go to all the most civilized countries, and into all the finest cities in Europe, and see what he could learn that would be of use in his own dominions. So he fitted out a grand expedition. He took a number of ambassadors, and generals, and great potentates of all kinds with him. These men were dressed in splendid uniforms, and travelled in great state, and had grand receptions in all the great towns that they came to. But Peter himself did nothing of the kind. He dressed plainly, like a common man, so that wherever he went he could ramble about at liberty, and see what he wanted to see in peace and quietness, while all the people were running after the procession of ambassadors and grandees."

"That was a good plan," said Mr. George.

"An excellent plan," rejoined Rollo. "In some of the seaports that he visited, he used to put on a sort of a pea jacket, such as the Dutch skippers wore, and go about in that, along the wharves and docks, and look at all the shipping.

"But he was most interested in going to Holland," continued Rollo, "for that was the country where they built the best ships. Besides, the first vessel that he ever saw happened to be a Dutch vessel. I forgot to tell you about that."

"Yes," replied Mr. George, "tell me now."

"Why, it was some years before this time," said Rollo, -- "two or three I believe, -- that he first saw a vessel. There was a country place with a handsome house and pleasure grounds, belonging to the royal family. I forget what the name of it was. But that is no matter. One time, after Peter came to the throne, he went out to this country place to spend a few days. He found on the grounds a sort of artificial winding canal or pond, with pretty trees on the banks of it. On this canal was a yacht, which had been built in Holland and brought there, for the people to sail in when they came to that palace. The yacht had not been used much, and was lying neglected at the wharf. But Peter immediately had it put in order, and took a sail in it, and he liked it very much indeed."

"Was it the first vessel that he ever saw?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo, "I believe it was; or at least it was the first that he ever particularly noticed. He liked sailing in it, and then, besides, there was one of his officers there, who had travelled in other countries in Europe where people had ships and navies, and he told Peter what great advantages they gained from them, not only in carrying goods from place to place, but in transporting armies, and fighting their enemies at sea.

"Peter thought a great deal about this, and when he went back to Moscow, which was then the capital, he inquired and found that there were some people from Holland there. He asked them if they knew how to build ships. Some of them said they did. Then he asked them if they could not build him some small vessels, just like the Dutch ships of war. They said they could. So he made a bargain with them, and they built him several.

"Do you know how many?" asked Mr. George.

"Not exactly," replied Rollo. "There were several small vessels, and I remember that there were four frigates, and each frigate had four guns. I don't suppose the guns were very large."

"Four guns is a very small armament for a frigate," said Mr. George.

"Yes," replied Rollo, "very small indeed. But you see, Peter did not want them for real service, but only for models, as it were."

"And what did he do with them, when they were done?" asked Mr. George.

"They were launched into a lake there was in that part of the country," said Rollo, "and there the emperor used to sail about in them, and have sham fights.

"But all this, you must understand," continued Rollo, "took place two or three years before Peter drove the Turks off from the southern part of his empire, so as to get to the sea. And it was not till then that he began to have real ships built of large size. And now, when he was going to Holland, he of course remembered the old Dutch yacht which he had on his pleasure grounds, and the small frigates which they had built him, and the large ones too, which they had built for the boyars, and he felt a great interest in going to see the ship yards. He determined that while he was in Holland he would spend as much time as he could in learning all about ship building.

"It is very curious about the emperor and his company's entering Amsterdam," continued Rollo. "When the government there heard that he was coming, they made grand preparations to receive him. They got the cannon all ready on the ramparts to fire salutes, and drew out the soldiers, and all the doors and windows were crowded with spectators. They prepared a great number of illuminations, too, and fireworks, for the night. But just before the party arrived at Amsterdam, the emperor slipped away in a plain dress, and left the ambassadors, and generals, and grandees to go in by themselves. The people of Amsterdam did not know this. They supposed that some one or other of the people dressed so splendidly, in the procession, was Peter; and so they shouted, and waved their flags and their handkerchiefs, and fired the cannon, and made a great parade generally."

"And Peter himself was not there at all?" said Mr. George.

"No," said Rollo. "He slipped away, and came in privately with a few merchants to accompany him. And instead of going to the great palace which the government of Amsterdam had provided and fitted up for him, he left that to his ambassadors, and went himself to a small house, by a ship yard, where he could be at liberty, and go and come when he pleased."

"And afterwards, I suppose he went to Saandam," said Mr. George.

"Yes, sir," replied Rollo. "Saandam was a great place for building ships in those days. They say that while he was there, he went to work regularly, like a ship carpenter, as if he wished to learn the trade himself. But I don't believe he worked a great deal."

"No," said Mr. George. "I presume he did not. He probably took the character and dress of a workman chiefly for the purpose of making himself more at home in the ship yards and about the wharves. Indeed, I can't see what useful end could be gained by his learning to do work himself. He could not expect to build ships himself when he should return to Russia."

"No," said Rollo. "I expect he wanted to see exactly how the ships were built, and how the yards were managed, and he thought he could do this better if he went among the workmen as one of their number."

"I presume so," said Mr. George. "I am very glad you found the book, and I am much obliged to you for all this information."

Soon after this Mr. George and Rollo arrived safely at Amsterdam.

*    *    *    *    *

Rollo and Mr. George remained, after this, some days in Amsterdam; and they were very much entertained with what they saw there in the streets, and with the curious manners and customs of the people.

<eob>

Rivers Of Ice

By

R.M. Ballantyne



Chapter One.

The Rover's Return.

On a certain summer morning, about the middle of the present century, a big bluff man, of seafaring aspect, found himself sauntering in a certain street near London Bridge. He was a man of above fifty, but looked under forty in consequence of the healthful vigour of his frame, the freshness of his saltwater face, and the blackness of his shaggy hair.

Although his gait, pilot-cloth coat, and pocketed hands proclaimed him a sailor, there were one or two contradictory points about him. A huge beard and moustache savoured more of the diggings than the deep, and a brown wide-awake with a prodigiously broad brim suggested the backwoods.

Pausing at the head of one of those narrow lanes which -- running down between warehouses, filthy little rag and bone shops, and low poverty-stricken dwellings -- appear to terminate their career, not unwillingly, in the Thames, the sailor gazed before him with nautical earnestness for a few seconds, then glanced at the corner house for a name; found no name; cast his eyes up to the strip of blue sky overhead, as if for inspiration; obtained none; planted his legs wide apart as if he had observed a squall coming, and expected the lane to lurch heavily -- wrinkled his eyebrows, and pursed his lips.

"Lost yer bearin's, capp'n?" exclaimed a shrill pert voice at his side.

The seaman looked down, and beheld a small boy with a head like a disorderly door-mat, and garments to match. He stood in what may be styled an imitative attitude, with his hands thrust into his ragged pockets, his little legs planted wide apart, his cap thrust well back on his head, and his eyebrows wrinkled. He also pursed his lips to such an extent that they resembled a rosebud in a dirty bush.

"Yes, imp," replied the seaman -- he meant to have said "impudence," but stopped at the first syllable as being sufficiently appropriate -- "yes, imp, I have lost my bearings, and I'll give you a copper if you'll help me to find 'em."

"Wot sort o' copper?" demanded the urchin, "there's three sorts of 'em, you know, in this 'ere kingdom -- which appears to be a queendom at present -- there's a farding and a ha'penny and a penny. I mention it, capp'n," he added apologetically, "in case you don't know, for you look as if you'd come from furrin parts."

The seaman's look of surprise melted into a broad grin of amusement while this speech was being fluently delivered. At its conclusion he pulled out a penny and held it up.

"Well, it ain't much," said the small boy, "and I ain't used to hire myself out so cheap. However, as you seem to be raither poorly off, I don't mind if I lend you a hand for that. Only, please, don't mention it among your friends, as it would p'raps lower their opinion of you, d'you see? Now then w'ot d'you want to know?"

To this the "capp'n," still smiling at the small boy's precocious insolence, replied that he was in search of an old woman who dwelt in a small court styled Grubb's Court, so he was told, which lay somewhere in that salubrious neighbourhood, and asked if he, the imp, knew of such a place.

"Know's of it? I should think I does. W'y, I lives there. It's right down at the foot o' this 'ere lane, an' a wery sweet 'ristocratik spot it is -- quite a perninsular, bein' land, leastwise mud, a'most surrounded by water, the air bein' 'ighly condoosive to the 'ealth of rats, likewise cats. As to old women, there's raither a broad sprinklin' of 'em in the court, rangin' from the ages of seventy to a hundred an twenty, more or less, an' you'll take some time to go over 'em all, capp'n, if you don't know your old woman's name."

"Her name is Roby -- ," said the seaman.

"O, Roby? ah," returned the small boy, looking sedately at the ground, "let me see -- yes, that's the name of the old 'ooman, I think, wot 'angs out in the cabin, right-'and stair, top floor, end of the passage, w'ere most wisiters flattens their noses, by consekince of there bein' no light, and a step close to the door which inwariably trips 'em up. Most wisiters to that old 'ooman begins their acquaintance with her by knocking at her door with their noses instead of their knuckles. We calls her place the cabin, 'cause the windows is raither small, and over'angs the river."

"Well then, my lad," said the seaman, "clap a stopper on your tongue, if you can, and heave ahead."

"All right, capp'n," returned the small boy, "foller me, an' don't be frightened. Port your helm a bit here, there's a quicksand in the middle o' the track -- so, steady!"

Avoiding a large pool of mud with which the head of the lane was garnished, and which might have been styled the bathing, not to say wallowing, quarters of the Grubb's Court juveniles, the small boy led the bluff seaman towards the river without further remark, diverging only once from the straight road for a few seconds, for the purpose of making a furious rush at a sleeping cat with a yell worthy of a Cherokee savage, or a locomotive whistle; a slight pleasantry which had the double effect of shooting the cat through space in glaring convulsions, and filling the small boy's mind with the placidity which naturally follows a great success.

The lane presented this peculiarity, that the warehouses on its left side became more and more solid and vast and tall as they neared the river, while the shops and dwellings on its right became poorer, meaner, and more diminutive in the same direction, as if there were some mysterious connection between them, which involved the adversity of the one in exact proportion to the prosperity of the other. Children and cats appeared to be the chief day-population of the place, and these disported themselves among the wheels of enormous waggons, and the legs of elephantine horses with an impunity which could only have been the result of life-long experience.

The seaman was evidently unaccustomed to such scenes, for more than once during the short period of his progress down the lane, he uttered an exclamation of alarm, and sprang to the rescue of those large babies which are supposed to have grown sufficiently old to become nursing mothers to smaller babies -- acts which were viewed with a look of pity by the small boy, and called from him the encouraging observations, "Keep your mind easy, capp'n; they're all right, bless you; the hosses knows 'em, and wouldn't 'urt 'em on no account."

"This is Grubb's Court," said the boy, turning sharply to the right and passing through a low archway.

"Thank 'ee, lad," said the seaman, giving him a sixpence.

The small boy opened his eyes very wide indeed, exclaiming, "Hallo! I say, capp'n, wot's this?" at the same time, however, putting the coin in his pocket with an air which plainly said, "Whether you've made a mistake or not, you needn't expect to get it back again."

Evidently the seaman entertained no such expectations, for he turned away and became absorbed in the scene around him.

It was not cheering. Though the summer sun was high and powerful, it failed to touch the broken pavement of Grubb's Court, or to dry up the moisture which oozed from it and crept up the walls of the surrounding houses. Everything was very old, very rotten, very crooked, and very dirty. The doorways round the court were wide open -- always open -- in some cases, because of there being no doors; in other cases, because the tenements to which they led belonged to a variety of families, largely composed of children who could not, even on tiptoe, reach or manipulate door-handles. Nursing mothers of two feet high were numerous, staggering about with nurslings of a foot and a half long. A few of the nurslings, temporarily abandoned by the premature mothers, lay sprawling -- in some cases squalling -- on the moist pavement, getting over the ground like large snails, and leaving slimy tracks behind them. Little boys, of the "City Arab" type, were sprinkled here and there, and one or two old women sat on door-steps contemplating the scene, or conversing with one or two younger women. Some of the latter were busy washing garments so dirty, that the dirty water of old Father Thames seemed quite a suitable purifier.

"Gillie," cried one of the younger women referred to, wiping the soap-suds from her red arms, "come here, you bad, naughty boy. W'ere 'ave you bin? I want you to mind baby."

"W'y, mother," cried the small boy -- who answered to the name of Gillie -- "don't you see I'm engaged? I'm a-showin' this 'ere sea-capp'n the course he's got to steer for port. He wants to make the cabin of old mother Roby."

"W'y don't you do it quickly, then?" demanded Gillie's mother, "you bad, naughty, wicked boy. Beg your parding, sir," she added, to the seaman, "the boy 'an't got no sense, besides bein' wicked and naughty -- 'e ain't 'ad no train', sir, that's w'ere it is, all along of my 'avin' too much to do, an' a large family, sir, with no 'usband to speak of; right up the stair, sir, to the top, and along the passage-door straight before you at the hend of it. Mind the step, sir, w'en you gits up. Go up with the gentleman, you bad, wicked, naughty boy, and show -- "

The remainder of the sentence became confused in distance, as the boy and the seaman climbed the stair; but a continuous murmuring sound, as of a vocal torrent, conveyed the assurance that the mother of Gillie was still holding forth.

"'Ere it is," said the young pilot, pausing at the top of the staircase, near the entrance to a very dark passage. "Keep 'er 'ead as she goes, but I'd recommend you to shorten sail, mind your 'elm, an 'ave the anchor ready to let go."

Having thus accommodated his language to the supposed intelligence of the seaman, the elfin youth stood listening with intense eagerness and expectation as the other went into the passage, and, by sundry kicks and bumps against wooden walls, gave evidence that he found the channel intricate. Presently a terrible kick occurred. This was the seaman's toe against the step, of which he had been warned, but which he had totally forgotten; then a softer, but much heavier blow, was heard, accompanied by a savage growl -- that was the seaman's nose and forehead against old Mrs Roby's portal.

At this, Gillie's expectations were realised, and his joy consummated. With mischievous glee sparkling in his eyes, he hastened down to the Court to exhibit his sixpence to his mother, and to announce to all whom it might concern, that "the sea-capp'n had run his jib-boom slap through the old 'ooman's cabin-door."



Chapter Two.

The Seaman Takes The "Cabin" By Surprise And Storm.

Without having done precisely what Gillie had asserted of him, our seaman had in truth made his way into the presence of the little old woman who inhabited "the cabin," and stood there gazing round him as if lost in wonder; and well he might be, for the woman and cabin, besides being extremely old, were exceedingly curious, quaint, and small.

The former was wrinkled to such an extent, that you could not have found a patch of smooth skin large enough for a pea to rest on. Her teeth were all gone, back and front, and her nose, which was straight and well-formed, made almost successful attempts to meet a chin which had once been dimpled, but was now turned up. The mouth between them wore a benignant and a slightly humorous expression; the eyes, which were bright, black, and twinkling, seemed to have defied the ravages of time. Her body was much bent as she sat in her chair, and a pair of crutches leaning against the chimney-piece suggested the idea that it would not be much straighter if she stood up. She was wrapped in a large, warm shawl, and wore a high cap, which fitted so close round her little visage, that hair, if any, was undistinguishable.

The room in which she sat resembled the cabin of a ship in more respects than one. It was particularly low in the root so low that the seaman's hair touched it as he stood there looking round him; and across this roof ran a great beam, from which hung a variety of curious ornaments, such as a Chinese lantern, a Turkish scimitar, a New Zealand club, an Eastern shield, and the model of a full-rigged ship. Elsewhere on the walls were, an ornamented dagger, a worsted-work sampler, a framed sheet of the flags of all nations, a sou'-wester cap and oiled coat, a telescope, and a small staring portrait of a sea-captain in his "go-to-meeting" clothes, which looked very much out of keeping with his staring sunburnt face, and were a bad fit. It might have been a good likeness, and was certainly the work of one who might have raised himself to the rank of a Royal Academician if he had possessed sufficient talent and who might have painted well if he had understood the principles of drawing and colour.

The windows of the apartment, of which there were two very small square ones, looked out upon the river, and, to some extent overhung it, so that a man of sanguine temperament might have enjoyed fishing from them, if he could have been content to catch live rats and dead cats. The prospect from these windows was, however, the best of them, being a wide reach of the noble river, crowded with its stately craft, and cut up by its ever-bustling steamers. But the most noteworthy part of this room, or "cabin," was the space between the two windows immediately over the chimney-piece, which the eccentric old woman had covered with a large, and, in some cases, inappropriate assortment of objects, by way of ornament, each article being cleaned and polished to the highest possible condition of which it was susceptible. A group of five photographs of children -- three girls and two boys, looking amazed --  formed the centrepiece of the design; around these were five other photographs of three young ladies and two young gentlemen, looking conscious, but pleased. The spaces between these, and every available space around them, were occupied by pot-lids of various sizes, old and battered, but shining like little suns; small looking-glasses, also of various sizes, some square and others round; little strings of beads; heads of meerschaums that had been much used in former days; pin-cushions, shell-baskets, one or two horse-shoes, and iron-heels of boots; several flat irons belonging to doll's houses, with a couple of dolls, much the worse for wear, mounting guard over them; besides a host of other nick-nacks, for which it were impossible to find names or imagine uses. Everything -- from the old woman's cap to the uncarpeted floor, and the little grate in which a little fire was making feeble efforts to warm a little tea-kettle with a defiant spout -- was scrupulously neat, and fresh, and clean, very much the reverse of what one might have expected to find in connection with a poverty-stricken population, a dirty lane, a filthy court, a rickety stair, and a dark passage. Possibly the cause might have been found in a large and much-worn family Bible, which lay on a small table in company with a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles, at the old woman's elbow.

On this scene the nautical man stood gazing, as we have said, with much interest; but he was too polite to gaze long.

"Your servant, missis," he said with a somewhat clumsy bow.

"Good morning, sir," said the little old woman, returning the bow with the air of one who had once seen better society than that of Grubb's Court.

"Your name is Roby, I believe," continued the seaman, advancing, and looking so large in comparison with the little room that he seemed almost to fill it.

The little old woman admitted that that was her name.

"My name," said the seaman, "is Wopper, tho' I'm oftener called Skipper, also Capp'n, by those who know me."

Mrs Roby pointed to a chair and begged Captain Wopper to sit down, which he did after bestowing a somewhat pointed glance at the chair, as if to make sure that it could bear him.

"You was a nuss once, I'm told," continued the seaman, looking steadily at Mrs Roby as he sat down.

"I was," answered the old woman, glancing at the photographs over the chimney-piece, "in the same family for many years."

"You'll excuse me, ma'am," continued the seaman, "if I appear something inquisitive, I want to make sure that I've boarded the right craft d'ee see -- I mean, that you are the right 'ooman."

A look of surprise, not unmingled with humour, beamed from Mrs Roby's twinkling black eyes as she gazed steadily in the seaman's face, but she made no other acknowledgment of his speech than a slight inclination of her head, which caused her tall cap to quiver. Captain Wopper, regarding this as a favourable sign, went on.

"You was once, ma'am, I'm told, before bein' a nuss in the family of which you've made mention, a matron, or somethin' o' that sort, in a foundlin' hospital -- in your young days, ma'am?"

Again Mrs Roby admitted the charge, and demanded to know, "what then?"

"Ah, jus' so -- that's what I'm comin' to," said Captain Wopper, drawing his large hand over his beard. "You was present in that hospital, ma'am, was you not, one dark November morning, when a porter-cask was left at the door by some person unknown, who cut his cable and cleared off before the door was opened, -- which cask, havin' on its head two X's, and bein' labelled, 'This side up, with care,' contained two healthy little babby boys?"

Mrs Roby, becoming suddenly grave and interested, again said, "I was."

"Jus' so," continued the captain, "you seem to be the right craft -- 'ooman, I mean -- that I'm in search of. These two boys, who were supposed to be brothers, because of their each havin' a brown mole of exactly the same size and shape on their left arms, just below their elbows, were named 'Stout,' after the thing in which they was headed up, the one bein' christened James, the other Willum?"

"Yes, yes," replied the little old woman eagerly, "and a sweet lovely pair they was when the head of that barrel was took off, lookin' out of the straw in which they was packed like two little cheruphims, though they did smell strong of the double X, and was a little elevated because of the fumes that 'ung about the wood. But how do you come to know all this, sir, and why do you ask?"

"Excuse me, ma'am," replied the sailor with a smile, which curled up his huge moustache expressively, -- "you shall know presently, but I must make quite sure that I'm aboard of -- that is to say, that you are the right 'ooman. May I ask, ma'am, what became of these two cheruphims, as you've very properly named 'em?"

"Certainly," answered Mrs Roby, "the elder boy -- we considered him the elder, because he was the first took out of the barrel -- was a stoodious lad, and clever. He got into a railway company, I believe, and became a rich man -- married a lady, I'm told, -- and changed his name to Stoutley, so 'tis said, not thinkin' his right name suitable to his circumstances, which, to say truth, it wasn't, because he was very thin. I've heard it said that his family was extravagant, and that he went to California to seek his brother, and look after some property, and died there, but I'm not rightly sure, for he was a close boy, and latterly I lost all knowledge of him and his family."

"And the other cheruphim, Willum," said the sailor, "what of him?"

"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs Roby, a flush suffusing her wrinkled countenance, while her black eyes twinkled more than usual, "he was a jewel, he was. They said in the hospital that he was a wild good-for-nothing boy, but I never thought him so. He was always fond of me -- very fond of me, and I of him. It is true he could never settle to anythink, and at last ran away to sea, when about twelve year old; but he didn't remain long at that either, for when he got to California, he left his ship, and was not heard of for a long time after that. I thought he was dead or drowned, but at last I got a letter from him, enclosing money, an' saying he had been up at the noo gold-diggings, an' had been lucky, dear boy, and he wanted to share his luck with me, an would never, never, forget me; but he didn't need to send me money to prove that. He has continued to send me a little every year since then; -- ah! it's many, many years now, -- ay, ay, many years."

She sighed, and looked wistfully at the spark of fire in the grate that was making ineffectual attempts to boil the little tea-kettle with the defiant spout; "but why," she continued, looking up suddenly, "why do you ask about him?"

"Because I knew him," replied Captain Wopper, searching for something which appeared to be lost in the depths of one of his capacious pockets. "Willum Stout was a chum of mine. We worked together at the Californy gold-mines for many a year as partners, and, when at last we'd made what we thought enough, we gave it up an' came down to San Francisco together, an' set up a hotel, under the name of the 'Jolly Tars,' by Stout and Company. I was the Company, ma'am; an', for the matter o' that I may say I was the Stout too, for both of us answered to the Stout or the Company, accordin' as we was addressed, d'ee see? When Company thought he'd made enough money to entitle him to a holiday, he came home, as you see; but before leavin', Willum said to him, 'Company, my lad, w'en you get home, you'll go and see that old 'oom of the name of Roby, whom I've often told you about. She lives in Lunun, somewheres down by the river in a place called Grubb's Court. She was very good to me, that old 'oom was, when she was young, as I've told you before. You go an' give her my blessin' -- Willum's blessin' -- and this here bag and that there letter.' 'Yes,' says I, 'Willum, I'll do it, my boy, as soon as ever I set futt on British soil.' I did set futt on British soil this morning, and there's the letter; also the bag; so, you see, old lady, I've kep' my promise."

Captain Wopper concluded by placing a small but heavy canvas bag, and a much-soiled letter, in Mrs Roby's lap.

To say that the little old woman seized the letter with eager delight, would convey but a faint idea of her feelings as she opened it with trembling hands, and read it with her bright black eyes.

She read it half aloud, mingled with commentary, as she proceeded, and once or twice came to a pause over an illegible word, on which occasions her visitor helped her to the word without looking at the letter. This circumstance struck her at last as somewhat singular, for she looked up suddenly, and said, "You appear, sir, to be familiar with the contents of my letter."

"That's true, ma'am," replied Captain Wopper, who had been regarding the old woman with a benignant smile; "Willum read it to me before I left, a-purpose to enable me to translate the ill-made pot-hooks and hangers, because, d'ee see, we were more used to handlin' the pick and shovel out there than the pen, an' Willum used to say he never was much of a dab at a letter. He never wrote you very long ones, ma'am, I believe?"

Mrs Roby looked at the fire pensively, and said, in a low voice, as if to herself rather than her visitor, "No, they were not long -- never very long -- but always kind and sweet to me -- very sweet -- ay, ay, it's a long, long time now, a long time, since he came to me here and asked for a night's lodging."

"Did you give it him, ma'am?" asked the captain. "Give it him!" exclaimed Mrs Roby, with sudden energy, "of course I did. The poor boy was nigh starving. How could I refuse him? It is true I had not much to give, for the family I was with as nuss had failed and left me in great distress, through my savings bein' in their hands; and that's what brought me to this little room long, long ago -- ay, ay. But no blame to the family, sir, no blame at all. They couldn't help failin', an' the young ones, when they grew up, did not forget their old nuss, though they ain't rich, far from it; and it's what they give me that enables me to pay my rent and stay on here -- God bless 'em."

She looked affectionately at the daguerreotypes which hung, in the midst of the sheen and glory of pot-lids, beads, and looking-glasses, above the chimney-piece.

"You gave him, meanin' Willum, nothing else, I suppose?" asked the captain, with a knowing look; "such, for instance, as a noo suit of clothes, because of his bein' so uncommon ragged that he looked as if he had bin captured in a clumsy sort of net that it would not have been difficult to break through and escape from naked; also a few shillin's, bein' your last, to pay his way down to Gravesend, where the ship was lyin', that you had, through interest with the owners, got him a berth aboard?"

"Ah!" returned Mrs Roby, shaking her head and smiling gently, "I see that William has told you all about it."

"He has, ma'am," replied Captain Wopper, with a decisive nod. "You see, out in the gold-fields of Californy, we had long nights together in our tent, with nothin' to do but smoke our pipes, eat our grub, and spin yarns, for we had no books nor papers, nothin' to read except a noo Testament, and we wouldn't have had even that, ma'am, but for yourself. It was the Testament you gave to Willum at partin', an' very fond of it he was, bein' your gift. You see, at the time we went to Californy, there warn't many of us as cared for the Word of God. Most of us was idolaters that had run away from home, our chief gods -- for we had many of 'em -- bein' named Adventure, Excitement and Gold; though there was some noble exceptions, too. But, as I was saying, we had so much time on our hands that we recalled all our past adventures together over and over again, and, you may be sure, ma'am, that your name and kindness was not forgotten. There was another name," continued Captain Wopper, drawing his chair nearer the fire, crossing his legs and stroking his beard as he looked up at the dingy ceiling, "that Willum often thought about and spoke of. It was the name of a gentleman, a clerk in the Customs, I believe, who saved his life one day when he fell into the river just below the bridge."

"Mr Lawrence," said the old woman, promptly.

"Ah! Mr Lawrence; yes, that's the name," continued the Captain. "Willum was very grateful to him, and bid me try to find him out and tell him so. Is he alive?"

"Dead," said Mrs Roby, shaking her head sadly.

The seaman appeared much concerned on hearing this. For some time he did not speak, and then said that he had been greatly interested in that gentleman through Willum's account of him.

"Had he left any children?"

"Yes," Mrs Roby told him; "one son, who had been educated as a doctor, and had become a sort of a city missionary, and was as pleasant a young gentleman as she ever knew."

"So, then, you know him?" said the Captain.

"Know him! I should think so. Why, this is the district where he visits, and a kind friend he is to the poor, though he is bashful a bit, an' seems to shrink from pushin' himself where he's not wanted."

"Not the less a friend to the poor on that account," thought Captain Wopper; but he said nothing, and Mrs Roby went on: -- 

"You see, his father before him did a great deal for the poor in a quiet way here, as I have reason to know, this district lying near his office, and handy, as it were. Long after the time when he saved Willum's life, he married a sweet young creeter, who helped him in visitin' the poor, but she caught fever among 'em and died, when their only son George was about ten year old. George had been goin' about with his mother on her visits, and seemed very fond of her and of the people, dear child; and after she died, he used to continue coming with his father. Then he went to school and college and became a young doctor, and only last year he came back to us, so changed for the better that none of us would have known him but for his kindly voice and fine manly-looking manner. His shyness, too, has stuck to him a little, but it does not seem to hinder him now as it once did. Ah!" continued Mrs Roby, in a sympathetic tone, "it's a great misfortune to be shy."

She looked pensively at the little fire and shook her tall cap at it, as if it or the defiant tea-kettle were answerable for something in reference to shyness.

"Yes, it's a great misfortune to be shy," she repeated. "Were you ever troubled with that complaint, Captain Wopper?"

The Captain's moustache curled at the corners as he stroked his beard, and said that really, on consideration, he was free to confess that he never had been convicted of that sin.

Mrs Roby bestowed on him a look of admiration, and continued, "Well, as I have said -- "

She was interrupted at this point by the entrance of an active little girl, with the dirtiest face and sweetest expression imaginable, with garments excessively ragged, blue eyes that sparkled as they looked at you, a mouth that seemed made for kissing, if only it had been clean, and golden hair that would have fallen in clustering curls on her neck, if it had not been allowed to twist itself into something like a yellow door-mat which rendered a bonnet unnecessary.

Bestowing a glance of surprise on the seaman, but without uttering a word, she went smartly to a corner and drew into the middle of the room a round table with one leg and three feet, whose accommodating top having been previously flat against the wall, fell down horizontal and fixed itself with a snap. On this the earnest little woman, quickly and neatly, spread a fairish linen cloth, and proceeded to arrange thereon a small tea-pot and cup and saucer, with other materials, for an early tea.

"Two cups, Netta, my dear," said Mrs Roby.

"Yes, grannie," replied Netta, in a soft quick, little voice.

"Your grandchild?" asked the Captain.

"No; a neighbour's child, who is very kind to me. She calls me grannie, because I like it. But, as I was saying," continued Mrs Roby, "young Dr Lawrence came back last year and began to visit us in the old way, intending to continue, he said, until he got a situation of some sort in the colonies, I believe; but I do hope he'll not be obliged to leave us, for he has bin a great blessin' to this neighbourhood, only he gets little pay for his work, I fear, and appears to have little of his own to live on, poor young man. -- Now, Captain Wopper, you'll stop and have a cup of tea with me. I take it early, you see, -- in truth, I make a sort of dinner of it, -- and we can have a talk about William over it. I'm proud to have a friend of his at my table, sir, I do assure you, though it is a poor one."

Captain Wopper accepted the invitation heartily, and thought, though he said nothing, that it was indeed a poor table, seeing that the only food on it besides the very weak tea in the wonderfully small pot, consisted of one small loaf of bread.

"Netta," exclaimed Mrs Roby, with a look of surprise, "there's no butter! Go, fetch it, dear."

Mrs Roby was, or thought herself, a remarkably deep character. She spoke to Netta openly, but, in secret, bestowed a meaning glance on her, and slipped a small coin into her hand. The dirty, sweet-faced damsel replied by a remarkably knowing wink -- all of which by-play, with the reason for it, was as clear to Captain Wopper as if it had been elaborately explained to him. But the Captain was a discreet man. He became deeply absorbed in daguerreotypes and sauce-pan lids above the fireplace, to the exclusion of all else.

"You've forgotten the bag, ma'am," said the Captain, drawing his chair nearer the table.

"So I have; dear me, what is it?" cried Mrs Roby, taking it up. "It's heavy."

"Gold!" said the Captain.

"Gold?" exclaimed the old nurse.

"Ay, nuggets," said the seaman, opening it and emptying its contents on the table.

As the old nurse gazed on the yellow heap her black eyes glittered with pleasure, as though they had derived additional lustre from the precious metal, and she drew them towards her with a trembling, almost greedy, motion, at sight of which Captain Wopper's countenance became troubled.

"And did Willie send this to me, dear boy?"

"He did, ma'am, hoping that it would be of use in the way of making your home more comfortable, and enabling you to keep a better table."

He glanced uneasily round the poor room and at the small loaf as he spoke, and the old woman observed the glance.

"It is very kind of him, very kind," continued Mrs Roby. "What may it be worth, now?"

"Forty pounds, more or less," answered the Captain.

Again the old woman's eyes sparkled greedily, and again the seaman's countenance fell.

"Surely, ma'am," said the Captain, gravely, "things must be uncommon dear in London, for you tell me that Willum has sent you a deal of money in time past, but you don't seem to be much the better for it."

"Captain Wopper," said Mrs Roby, putting her hand lightly on the Captain's arm as it lay on the table, and looking earnestly into his face, "if you had not been an old and valued friend of my dear Willie --  which I learn that you are from his letter -- I would have said your remark was a rude one; but, being what you are, I don't mind telling you that I save up every penny I can scrape together for little Netta White, the girl that has just gone out to fetch the butter. Although she's not well cared for, -- owing to her mother, who's a washerwoman, bein' overburdened with work and a drunken husband, -- she's one of the dearest creeters I ever did see. Bless you, sir, you'd be amazed if you knew all the kind and thoughtful things that untrained and uncared for child does, and never thinks she's doing anything more than other people. It's all along of her mother's spirit, which is as good as gold. Some months ago Little Netta happened to be up here when I was at tea, and, seeing the difficulty I had to move about with my old rheumatic limbs, she said she'd come and set out my tea and breakfast for me; and she's done it, sir, from that time to this, expecting nothing fur it, and thinking I'm too poor to give her anything. But she's mistaken," continued Mrs Roby, with a triumphant twinkle in her black eyes, "she doesn't know that I've made a confidant of her brother Gillie, and give him a sixpence now and then to give to his mother without telling where he got it, and she doesn't know that I'm saving up to be able to leave something to her when I'm called home -- it can't be long, now; it can't be long."

"Old 'ooman," cried Captain Wopper, whose face had brightened wonderfully during this explanation, "give us your flip -- your hand. I honour your heart, ma'am, and I've no respect whatever for your brain!"

"I'm not sure that that's a compliment," said Mrs Roby, with a smile.

Captain Wopper assured her with much solemnity that it might or might not be a compliment, but it was a fact. "Why, look here," said he, "you go and starve yourself, and deny yourself all sorts of little comforts --  what then? Why, you'll die long before your time, which is very like taking the law into your own hands, ma'am, and then you won't leave to Netta nearly as much as you might if you had taken care of yourself and lived longer, and saved up after a reasonable fashion. It's sheer madness. Why, ma'am, you're starving now, but I'll put a stop to that. Don't you mind, now, whether I'm rude or not. You can't expect anything else from an old gold-digger, who has lived for years where there were no women except such as appeared to be made of mahogany, with nothing to cover 'em but a coating of dirt and a blue skirt. Besides, Willum told me at parting to look after you and see that you wanted for nothing, which I promised faithfully to do. You've some regard for Willum's wishes, ma'am? -- you wouldn't have me break my promises to Willum, would you?"

The Captain said this with immense rapidity and vigour, and finished it with such a blow of his heavy fist on the little table that the cups and plates danced, and the lid of the little tea-pot leaped up as if its heart were about to come out of its mouth. Mrs Roby was so taken by surprise that she could not speak for a few seconds, and before she had recovered sufficiently to do so, Little Netta came in with the butter.

"Now, ma'am," resumed the Captain, when the girl had retired, "here's where it is. With your leave I'll reveal my plans to you, and ask your advice. When I was about to leave Californy, Willum told me first of all to go and find you out, and give you that letter and bag of nuggets, which I've done. 'Then,' says he, 'Wopper, you go and find out my brother Jim's widow, and give 'em my love an' dooty, and this letter, and this bag of nuggets,' -- said letter and bag, ma'am, bein' now in my chest aboard ship. 'So,' says I, 'Willum, I will -- trust me.' 'I do,' says he; 'and, Wopper,' says he, 'keep your weather eye open, my boy, w'en you go to see 'em, because I've my suspicions, from what my poor brother said on his deathbed, when he was wandering in his mind, that his widow is extravagant. I don't know,' Willum goes on to say, 'what the son may be, but there's that cousin, Emma Gray, that lives in the house with 'em, she's all right. She's corresponded with me, off an' on, since ever she could write, and my brother bein' something lazy, poor fellar, through havin' too much to do I fancy, got to throw all the letter-writin' on her shoulders. You take special note of her, Wopper, and if it should seem to you that they don't treat her well, you let me know.' 'Willum,' says I, 'I will -- trust me.' 'Well, then,' says Willum, 'there's one other individooal I want you to ferret out, that's the gentleman -- he must be an old gentleman now -- that saved my life when I was a lad, Mr Lawrence by name. You try to find him out and if you can do him a good turn, do it.' 'Willum,' says I, 'I'll do it -- trust me.' 'I do,' says he, 'and when may I expect you back in Californy, Wopper?' 'Willum,' says I, 'that depends.' 'True,' says he, 'it does. Give us you're flipper, old boy, we may never meet again in these terrestrial diggings. Good luck to you. Don't forget my last will an' testimony as now expressed.' 'Willum,' says I, 'I won't.' So, ma'am, I left Californy with a sacred trust, so to speak, crossed the sea, and here I am."

At this point Captain Wopper, having warmed in his subject, took in at one bite as much of the small loaf as would have been rather a heavy dinner for Mrs Roby, and emptied at one gulp a full cup of her tea, after which he stroked his beard, smiled benignantly at his hostess, became suddenly earnest again, and went on -- chewing as he spoke.

"Now, ma'am, I've three questions to ask: in the first place, as it's not possible now to do a good turn to old Mr Lawrence, I must do it to his son. Can you tell me where he lives?"

Mrs Roby told him that it was in a street not far from where they sat, in a rather poor lodging.

"Secondly, ma'am, can you tell me where Willum's sister-in-law lives, --  Mrs Stout, alias Stoutley?"

"No, Captain Wopper, but I daresay Mr Lawrence can. He knows 'most everythink, and has a London Directory."

"Good. Now, in the third place, where am I to find a lodging?"

Mrs Roby replied that there were plenty to be found in London of all kinds.

"You haven't a spare room here, have you?" said the Captain, looking round.

Mrs Roby shook her head and said that she had not; and, besides, that if she had, it would be impossible for her to keep a lodger, as she had no servant, and could not attend on him herself.

"Mrs Roby," said the Captain, "a gold-digging seaman don't want no servant, nor no attendance. What's up aloft?"

By pointing to a small trap-door in the ceiling, he rendered the question intelligible.

"It's a garret, I believe," replied Mrs Roby, smiling; "but having no ladder, I've never been up."

"You've no objection to my taking a look, have you?" asked the Captain.

"None in the world," replied the old woman. Without more ado the seaman rose, mounted on a chair, pushed open the trap-door, thrust his head and shoulders through, and looked round. Apparently the inspection was not deemed sufficiently close, for, to the old woman's alarm and inexpressible surprise, he seized the edges of the hole with his strong hands, raised himself up, and finally disappeared in the regions above! The alarm of the old woman was somewhat increased by the sound of her visitor's heavy tread on the boards overhead as he stumbled about. Presently his head appeared looking down through the trap. In any aspect, Captain Wopper's shaggy head was an impressive one; but viewed in an upside-down position, with the blood running into it, it was peculiarly striking.

"I say, old lady," he shouted, as if his position recalled the action and induced the tones of a boatswain, "it'll do. A capital berth, with two portholes and a bunk."

The Captain's head disappeared, and immediately his legs took its place, suggesting the outrageous idea that he had thrown a somersault. Next moment his huge body slid down, and he stood on the floor much flushed and covered with dust.

"Now, old girl, is it to be?" he said, sitting down at the table. "Will you take me as a lodger, for better and for worse? I'll fit up the berth on the main-deck, and be my own servant as well as your's. Say the word."

"I can refuse nothing to Willie's friend," said old Mrs Roby, "but really I -- "

"Done, it's a bargain," interrupted the Captain, rising abruptly. "Now, I'll go visit young Mr Lawrence and Mrs Stoutley, and to-morrow I'll bring my kit, take possession of my berth, and you and I shall sail in company, I hope, and be messmates for some time to come."



Chapter Three.

Difficulties Among The Social Summits.

In one of the many mansions of the "west end" of London, a lady reclined one morning on a sofa wishing that it were afternoon. She was a middle-aged, handsome, sickly lady. If it had been afternoon she would have wished that it were evening, and if it had been evening she would have wished for the morning; for Mrs Stoutley was one of those languid invalids whose enjoyment appears to be altogether in the future or the past, and who seem to have no particular duties connected with the present except sighing and wishing. It may be that this unfortunate condition of mind had something to do with Mrs Stoutley's feeble state of health. If she had been a little more thoughtful about others, and less mindful of herself, she might, perhaps, have sighed and wished less, and enjoyed herself more. At all events her doctor seemed to entertain some such opinion, for, sitting in an easy chair beside her, and looking earnestly at her handsome, worn-out countenance, he said, somewhat abruptly, being a blunt doctor.

"You must go abroad, madam, and try to get your mind, as well as your body, well shaken up."

"Why, doctor," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a faint smile; "you talk of me as if I were a bottle of physic or flat ginger-beer."

"You are little better, silly woman," thought the doctor, but his innate sense of propriety induced him only to say, with a smile, "Well, there is at least this much resemblance between you and a bottle of flat ginger-beer, namely, that both require to be made to effervesce a little. It will never do to let your spirits down as you have been doing. We must brighten up, my dear madam -- not Brighton up, by the way, we've had enough of Brighton and Bath, and such places. We must get away to the Continent this summer -- to the Pyrenees, or Switzerland, where we can breathe the fresh mountain air, and ramble on glaciers, and have a thorough change."

Mrs Stoutley looked gently, almost pitifully at the doctor while he spoke, as if she thought him a well-meaning and impulsive, but rather stupid maniac.

"Impossible, my dear doctor," she said; "you know I could not stand the fatigues of such a journey."

"Well, then," replied the doctor, abruptly, "you must stop at home and die."

"Oh! what a shocking naughty man you are to talk so."

Mrs Stoutley said this, however, with an easy good-natured air, which showed plainly that she did not believe her illness likely to have such a serious termination.

"I will be still more naughty and shocking," continued the doctor, resolutely, but with a twinkle in his eyes, "for I shall prescribe not only a dose of mountain air, but a dose of mountain exercise, to be taken -- and the patient to be well shaken while taken -- every morning throughout the summer and autumn. Moreover, after you return to England, you must continue the exercise during the winter; and, in addition to that, must have an object at the end of your walks and drives -- not shopping, observe, that is not a sufficiently out-of-door object; nor visiting your friends, which is open to the same objection."

Mrs Stoutley smiled again at this, and said that really, if visiting and shopping were forbidden, there seemed to be nothing left but museums and picture-galleries.

To this the doctor retorted that although she might do worse than visit museums and picture-galleries, he would prefer that she should visit the diamond and gold fields of the city.

"Did you ever hear of the diamond and gold fields of London, Miss Gray?" he said, turning to a plain yet pretty girl, who had been listening in silence to the foregoing conversation.

"Never," answered Miss Gray, with a look of surprise.

Now, Miss Gray's look of surprise induces us to state in passing that this young lady -- niece, also poor relation and companion, to Mrs Stoutley -- possessed three distinct aspects. When grave, she was plain, -- not ugly, observe; a girl of nineteen, with a clear healthy complexion and nut-brown hair, cannot in any circumstances be ugly; no, she was merely plain when grave. When she smiled she was decidedly pretty, and when she laughed she was captivating -- absolutely irresistible! She seldom laughed, occasionally smiled, and was generally grave. There was something quite incomprehensible about her, for she was not an unusually good girl, and by no means a dashing girl, neither was she an intensely modest girl -- and yet, plain Emma Gray had perhaps driven more young men into a condition of drivelling imbecility than any acknowledged beauty of the metropolis.

Observe, we say "perhaps," because we lay claim to no superhuman knowledge in regard to such matters.

"They are rather extensive fields," continued the doctor, "scattered here and there about the metropolis, but lying chiefly in the city and on the banks of the Thames. They comprise many picture-galleries, too, and museums; the latter containing wonderful specimens of old bones and fossil remains, filth, and miscellaneous abominations, in which the gold and diamonds are imbedded -- sometimes buried, -- and the former being hung with subjects -- chiefly interiors -- incomparably superior, in respect of graphic power, to the works of Hogarth."

"Oh! I know what you mean," said Miss Gray, with a little smile.

"Your wits are sharper than mine, Emma," said Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh and a placid look. "What do you refer to, Doctor Tough?"

"I refer to those districts, madam, chiefly inhabited by the poor, where there are innumerable diamonds and gold nuggets, some of which are being polished, and a good many are glittering brightly, though not yet fixed in their proper setting, while by far the greater number of them are down in the earth, and useless in the meantime, and apt to be lost for want of adventurous diggers. They are splendid fields those of London, and digging is healthful occupation -- though it might not seem so at first sight. Did you ever visit the poor, Mrs Stoutley?"

With a slight elevation of her eyebrows, and the application of a scent-bottle to her delicate nose, as if the question had suggested bad smells, the lady said that -- Well, yes, she had once visited a poor old gardener who had been a faithful creature in the family of a former friend, but that her recollection of that visit did not tend to induce a wish for its repetition.

"H'm!" coughed the doctor, "well, the taste of physic is usually bad at first, but one soon gets used to it, and the after effects, as you know, are exceedingly beneficial. I hope that when you visit the London diggings you may find the truth of this; but it will be time enough to speak of that subject when you return from rambling on the glaciers of Switzerland, where, by the way, the dirt, rubbish, and wrack, called moraines, which lie at the foot of the glaciers, will serve to remind you of the gold-fields to which I have referred, for much of what composes those moraines was once solid rock in a fixed position on the heights, or glittering ice which reflected the sun's dazzling rays on surrounding high life, though it lies low in the earth now. To a lady of your intelligence, madam, I need not expound my parable. There are many avalanches, great and small, in English society as well as among the Swiss mountains; and, whether by gradual subsidence or a tremendous rush, we must all find our places in the moraine at last."

"Really, doctor," said Mrs Stoutley, with a light laugh, "you seem to have already wandered much among these moral moraines, and to have acquired some of their ruggedness. How can you talk of such dismal things to a patient? But are you really in earnest about my going abroad?"

"Indeed I am," replied the doctor, firmly, "and I advise you to begin your preparations at once, for you must set out on your travels in less than a month. I lay the responsibility of seeing my orders carried into effect on your shoulders, Miss Gray."

So saying, the doctor rose and took his leave. Mrs Stoutley and her niece immediately began to discuss the subject of Switzerland -- the one languidly, the other with animation. It was plain enough that, although the invalid protested to the doctor her inability to travel, she really had no objection, perhaps felt some desire, to go abroad, for when Miss Gray mentioned the fact that there was a difficulty in the shape of insufficient funds, she replied with more warmth than usual -- 

"Now, Emma, what is the use of always bringing up that ridiculous idea?"

"No doubt, auntie," the maiden replied, "it is a little ridiculous to run short of ready money, considering the style in which we live; but it would be still more ridiculous, you know, to go to Switzerland without the means of paying our expenses while there."

"What's that you say about expenses, cousin?" exclaimed a tall handsome stripling who entered at the moment, and seated himself on the sofa at his mother's feet.

"Oh, bother the expense!" he exclaimed, when the difficulty had been explained to him, "it can't cost so much to spend a few months in Switzerland, -- besides, we can do it cheap, you know. Didn't Mr What's-his-name, our man of business, say that there was a considerable balance at the banker's, and that if the What-d'ee-call-'em mines paid a reasonable dividend, we should easily get over our difficulties?"

"He said something of that sort, I believe," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh.

"I rather think, cousin Lewis," said Emma, endeavouring to repress a smile, "that he said there was an inconsiderable balance at the bankers, and that unless the Gorong mine paid a reasonable dividend, we shouldn't easily get over our difficulties."

Both Lewis and his mother laughed at the quiet way in which this was said, but, while both admitted that Emma's view of the matter might perhaps be correct, Lewis held that there was no good reason for supposing there would be any difficulty in the meantime in obtaining from their "man-of-business" the paltry sum that was required for a short tour on the Continent. Indeed Mrs Stoutley regarded this man-of-business as a mere sponge, who required only to be squeezed in order to the production of what was desired, and the man-of-business himself found it no easy matter to convince her that she held erroneous views on this subject, and that at her present rate of progress, she would, to use the doctor's glacial simile, very soon topple from the pinnacle of fashion, on which she sat, and fall with the crash of a social avalanche into the moraine of ruin.

"What a wise little woman you are, cousin Emma," said Lewis, gaily. "You ought to have been bred to the law, or trained an accountant. However, we won't be guided by your advice just now, first, because the doctor has ordered mother abroad for her health, which is our chief consideration; and, second, because I wish of all things to see Switzerland, and climb Mont Blanc. Besides, we are not so poor as you think, and I hope to add a little to our general funds in a day or two. By the way, can you lend me ten pounds just now, mother?"

"Why do you want it?" asked Mrs Stoutley, sternly, as if she meant to refuse, but at the same time opening her purse.

"Don't ask me just now. I will repay you tomorrow, with interest and shall then explain."

With an easy, languid smile, the carelessly amiable invalid handed her last ten-pound note to her hopeful son, who had just transferred it to his pocketbook, when a footman entered and presented a scrap of dirty paper, informing his lady that the person who sent up the "card" desired to see her.

"What is this?" said Mrs Stoutley, holding the paper gingerly with the tips of her fingers, "Wip -- Wap -- Wopper! What is Wopper? Is the person a man or a woman?"

The footman, who, although well-bred, found it difficult to restrain a smile, intimated that the person was a man, and added, that he said he had come from California, and wanted to see Mrs Stoutley very particularly.

On hearing this, the lady's manner changed at once, and, with more animation than she had yet exhibited, she desired that he should be shown in.

With his large wide-awake in one hand, and a canvas bag in the other, Captain Wopper entered the drawing-room, and looked around him with a beaming and rather bashful smile.

"Mrs Stoutley, I believe," he said, advancing, "and Miss Emma Gray, I suppose," he added, turning with a beaming glance towards the young lady.

Mrs Stoutley admitted that he was right, and expressed some surprise that he, a perfect stranger, should be so well acquainted with their names.

"I am indeed a stranger personally, ma'am," said Captain Wopper, smoothing the hair down on his rugged brow, "but I may be said to know you pretty well, seeing that I have for many years been the friend and messmate of your late husband's brother in Californy."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs Stoutley, with increasing animation, as she rose and held out her hand; "any friend of my brother-in-law is heartily welcome. Be seated, Mr Wopper, and let me hear about him. He was very kind to my dear husband during his last illness -- very kind. I shall never forget him."

"No doubt he was," said the Captain, accepting the chair which Emma Gray handed to him, with looks of great interest. "Thank 'ee, Miss. Willum Stout -- excuse my familiarity, ma'am, I always called him Willum, because we was like brothers -- more than brothers, I may say, an' very friendly. Yes, Willum Stout was kind to his brother in his last days. It would have bin shame to him if he hadn't for your husband, ma'am, was kind to Willum, an' he often said to me, over the camp-fires in the bush, that he'd never forget his kindness. But it's over now," continued the seaman in a sad tone, "an' poor Willum is left alone."

"Is my uncle very poor?" asked Lewis, who had been paying more attention to the appearance of their rugged visitor than to what he had said.

"Ay, very poor," replied the seaman, "as regards near relations, leastwise such as he has seen and known in former days, but he an't poor as regards gold. He's got lots of that. He and I worked not far from each other for years, an' he used to hit upon good claims somehow, and shovelled up the nuggets like stones."

"Indeed! I wish he'd send a few of them this way," exclaimed Lewis, with a careless laugh.

"No doubt he might do so, young man, if he knew you were in need of 'em, but your father gave him to understand that his family was rich."

"Rich!" exclaimed Lewis, with a smile, in which there was a touch of contempt. "Well, yes, we were rich enough once, but when my father was away these wretched mines became -- "

"Lewie!" exclaimed his mother, hastily, "what nonsense you do talk! Really, one would think from your account that we were paupers."

"Well, mother, so we are -- paupers to this extent at least, that we can't afford to take a run to Switzerland, though ordered to do so for your health, because we lack funds."

Lewis said this half petulantly, for he had been a "spoilt child," and might probably have been by that time a ruined young man, but for the mercy of his Creator, who had blessed him with an amiable disposition. He was one of those youths, in short, of whom people say that they can't be spoiled, though fond and foolish parents do their best to spoil them.

"You mis-state the case, naughty boy," said Mrs Stoutley, annoyed at being thus forced to touch on her private affairs before a stranger. "No doubt our ready cash is what our man-of-business calls 'locked up,' but that, you know, is only a matter of temporary inconvenience, and cannot last long."

As Mrs Stoutley paused and hesitated, their visitor placed on the table a canvas bag, which, up to this point he had rested on one knee.

"This bag," he said, "of nuggets, is a gift from Willum. He desired me to deliver it to you, Miss Gray, as a small acknowledgment of your kindness in writin' so often to him. He'd have bought you a silk gown, or a noo bonnet, so he said, but wasn't sure as to your taste in such matters, and thought you'd accept the nuggets and buy it for yourself. Leastwise, that's somethin' like the speech Willum tried to tell me to deliver, but he warn't good at speech-makin' no more than I at remembrin', and hoped you'd take the will for the deed."

With a flush of surprise and pleasure, Emma Gray accepted both the will and the deed, with many expressions of gratitude, and said, that as she did not require either a silk dress or a bonnet just then, she would invest her little fortune; she would lend it at high interest, to a lady under temporary inconvenience, who was ordered by her doctor to Switzerland for the benefit of her health. To this Mrs Stoutley protested very earnestly that the lady in question would not accept the loan on any consideration; that it must not be diverted from its destined use, but be honestly expended on silk-dresses and new bonnets. To which Emma replied, that the destiny of the gift, with interest (she was very particular on that head), should be fulfilled in good time, but that meanwhile it must be lent out.

In the midst of a cross-fire of this kind the bag was opened, and its contents poured on the table, to the immense admiration of all the company, none of whom had, until that day, beheld gold in its native condition.

"How much may it be worth, Mr Wopper?" asked Lewis, weighing one of the largest lumps.

"About two hundred pound, I should say, more or less," replied the seaman.

"Indeed!" exclaimed the youth in surprise -- an exclamation which was echoed by his mother and cousin in modified tones.

While they sat thus toying with the lumps of gold, the conversation reverted to the sender of it, and the Captain told such entertaining anecdotes of bush life, in all of which "Uncle Willum" had been an actor, that the afternoon arrived before Mrs Stoutley had time to wish for it. They also talked of the last illness of the deceased father of the family; and when it came out that Captain (they had found out by that time that their visitor had been a skipper, and, by courtesy, a captain), had assisted "Willum" in nursing Mr Stoutley, and had followed him to the grave, Mrs Stoutley's gratitude was such that she insisted on her visitor staying to dinner.

"Thank 'ee, ma'am," he said, "I've dined. I always dines at one o'clock if I can manage it."

"But we don't dine till eight," said the lady, "so it will just suit for your supper."

"Do come," said Emma Gray, "we shall be quite alone, and shall have a great spinning of yarns over Uncle William and the gold-fields."

"Well, I don't mind if I do," said the Captain, "but before supper I must go to the docks for my kit and settle my lodgings."

"I am going to the Strand, and shall be happy to give you a lift," said Lewis.

The Captain accepted the offer, and as they drove along, he and his young friend became very intimate, insomuch that Lewis, who was lighthearted, open, and reckless, let him into his confidence, and spoke quite freely about his mother's difficulties. It is only justice to add that the Captain did not encourage him in this. When, however, the youth spoke of himself, he not only encouraged him, but drew him out. Among other things, he drew out of him the fact that he was in the habit of gambling, and that he fully expected -- if his usual luck attended him -- to assist in adding to the fund which was to take the family abroad.

The Captain looked at the handsome stripling for a few seconds in silent surprise.

"You don't mean to tell me," he said slowly, "that you gamble?"

"Indeed I do," replied Lewis, with a bland smile, and something of a twinkle in his eye.

"For money?" asked the Captain.

"For money," assented the youth; "what have you to say against it?"

"Why, I've to say that it's mean."

"That's strong language," said Lewis, flushing.

"It an't strong enough by a long way," returned the Captain, with indignation, "it's more than mean, it's contemptible; it's despicable."

The flush on Lewis's face deepened, and he looked at his companion with the air of one who meditates knocking another down. Perhaps the massive size and strength of the Captain induced him to change his mind. It may be that there occurred to him the difficulty -- if not impossibility -- of knocking down a man who was down already, and the want of space in a cab for such violent play of muscle. At all events he did nothing, but looked "daggers."

"Look 'ee here, my lad," continued the Captain, laying his huge hand on his companion's knee, and gazing earnestly into his face, "I don't mean for to hurt your feelin's by sayin' that you are mean, or contemptible, or despicable, for I don't suppose you've thought much about the matter at all, and are just following in the wake of older men who ought to know better; but I say that the thing -- gambling for money -- is the meanest thing a man can do, short of stealing. What does it amount to? Simply this -- I want another man's money, and the other man wants mine. We daren't try open robbery, we would be ashamed of that; we're both too lazy to labour for money, and labour doesn't bring it in fast enough, therefore we'll go play for it. I'll ask him to submit to be robbed by me on condition that I submit to be robbed by him; and which is to be the robbed, and which the robber, shall depend on the accidental turn of a dice, or something equally trifling -- "

"But I don't gamble by means of dice," interrupted Lewis, "I play, and bet, on billiards, which is a game of skill, requiring much practice, judgment, and thought."

"That makes no odds, my lad," continued the Captain. "There is no connection whatever between the rolling of a ball and the taking away of a man's money, any more than there is between the turning of a dice and the taking of a man's money. Both are dishonourable subterfuges. They are mere blinds put up to cover the great and mean fact, which is, that I want to get possession of my neighbour's cash."

"But, Captain," retorted Lewis, with a smile -- for he had now entered into the spirit of the argument -- "you ignore the fact that while I try to win from my friend, I am quite willing that my friend should try to win from me."

"Ignore it? no!" cried Captain Wopper. "Putt it in this way. Isn't it wrong for me to have a longing desire and itching fingers to lay hold of your cash?"

"Well, put in that simple form," said Lewis, with a laugh, "it certainly is."

"And isn't it equally wrong for you to have a hungering and thirsting after my cash?"

"Of course that follows," assented Lewis.

"Well, then," pursued the Captain, "can any agreement between you and me, as to the guessing of black or white or the turning of dice or anything else, make a right out of two wrongs?"

"Still," said Lewis, a little puzzled, "there is fallacy somewhere in your argument. I cannot see that gambling is wrong."

"Mark me, my lad," returned the Captain, impressively, "it is no sufficient reason for the doing of a thing that you cannot see it to be wrong. You are not entitled to do anything unless you see it to be right. But there are other questions connected with gambling which renders it doubly mean -- the question, for instance, whether a man is entitled to risk the loss of money which he calls his own, but which belongs to his wife and children as much as to himself. The mean positions, too, in which a gambler places himself, are numerous. One of these is, when a rich man wins the hard-earned and much-needed gains of a poor one."

"But one is not supposed to know anything about the affairs of those from whom one wins," objected Lewis.

"All the more reason," replied Captain Wopper, "why a man should never gamble, lest, unwittingly, he should become the cause of great suffering -- it might be, of death."

Still Lewis "could not see" the wrong of gambling, and the discussion was cut short by the sudden stopping of the cab at a door in the Strand, over which hung a lamp, on which the Captain observed the word "Billiards."

"Well, ta-ta, old fellow," said Lewis, gaily, as he parted from his new friend, "we'll finish the argument another day. Meanwhile, don't forget the hour -- eight, sharp."



Chapter Four.

Shows How The Captain Came To An Anchor, And Conceived A Deep Design.

When Captain Wopper parted from his young friend, he proceeded along the Strand in an unusually grave mood, shaking his head to such a degree, as he reflected on the precocious wickedness of the rising generation, that a very ragged and pert specimen of that generation, observing his condition, gravely informed him that there was an hospital for incurables in London, which took in patients with palsy and St. Wituses' dance werry cheap.

This recalled him from the depths of sorrowful meditation, and induced him to hail a cab, in which he drove to the docks, claimed his chest -- a solid, seamanlike structure, reminding one of the wooden walls of Old England -- and returned with it to the head of the lane leading to Grubb's Court. Dismissing the cab, he looked round for a porter, but as no porter appeared, the Captain, having been accustomed through life to help himself, and being, as we have said, remarkably strong, shouldered the nautical chest, and bore it to the top of Mrs Roby's staircase.

Here he encountered, and almost tumbled over, Gillie White, who saluted him with -- 

"Hallo! ship aho-o-oy! starboard hard! breakers ahead! Why, Capp'n, you've all but run into me!"

"Why don't you show a light then," retorted the Captain, "or blow your steam-whistle, in such a dark hole? What's that you've got in your arms?"

"The baby," replied Gillie.

"What baby?" demanded the Captain.

"Our baby, of course," returned the imp, in a tone that implied the non-existence of any other baby worth mentioning. "I brought it up to show it to the sick 'ooman next door but one to Mrs Roby's cabin. She's very sick, she is, an' took a great longing to see our baby, cos she thinks it's like what her son was w'en he was a baby. If he ever was, he don't look much like one now, for he's six-feet nothin' in his socks, an' drinks like a fish, if he don't do nothin' wuss. Good-night Capp'n. Baby'll ketch cold if I keep on jawin' here. Mind your weather eye, and port your helm when you reach the landin'. If you'll take the advice of a young salt, you'll clew up your mainsail an' dowse some of your top-hamper -- ah! I thought so!"

This last remark, delivered with a broad grin of delight, had reference to the fact that the Captain had run the corner of his chest against the low roof of the passage with a degree of violence that shook the whole tenement.

Holding his breath in hopeful anticipation, and reckless of the baby's "ketching cold," the small boy listened for more. Nor was he disappointed. In his progress along the passage Captain Wopper, despite careful steering, ran violently foul of several angles and beams, each of which mishaps sent a quiver through the old house, and a thrill to the heart of Gillie White. In his earnest desire to steer clear of the sick woman's door, the luckless Captain came into collision with the opposite wall, and anxiety on this point causing him to forget the step on which he had "struck" once before, he struck it again, and was precipitated, chest and all, against Mrs Roby's door, which, fortunately for itself, burst open, and let the avalanche of chest and man descend upon Mrs Roby's floor.

Knowing that the climax was now reached, the imp descended the stair filled with a sort of serene ecstasy, while Captain Wopper gathered himself up and sat down on his nautical portmanteau.

"I tell 'ee what it is, old 'ooman," said he, stroking his beard, "the channel into this port is about the wust I ever had the ill-luck to navigate. I hope I didn't frighten 'ee?"

"Oh, dear no!" replied Mrs Roby, with a smile.

To say truth, the old woman seemed less alarmed than might have been expected. Probably the noise of the Captain's approach, and previous experience, had prepared her for some startling visitation, for she was quite calm, and a humorous twinkle in her eyes seemed to indicate the presence of a spirit somewhat resembling that which actuated Gillie White.

"Well, that's all right," said the Captain, rising and pushing up the trap-door that led to his private berth in the new lodging; "and now, old lady, havin' come to an anchor, I must get this chest sent aloft as fast as I can, seein' that I've to clean myself an' rig out for a dinner at eight o'clock at the west end."

"Dear me," said Mrs Roby, in surprise, "you must have got among people of quality."

"It won't be easy to hoist it up," said the Captain, ignoring the remark, and eyeing the chest and trap-door in the roof alternately.

Just then a heavy step was heard in the passage; and a young man of large and powerful frame, with a gentle as well as gentlemanly demeanour, appeared at the door.

"Come in -- come in," said Mrs Roby, with a bright look, "this is only my new lodger, a friend of dear Wil -- "

"Why, bless you, old 'ooman," interrupted Captain Wopper, "he knows me well enough. I went to him this morning and got Mrs Stoutley's address. Come in, Dr Lawrence. I may claim to act the host here now in a small way, perhaps, and bid visitors welcome -- eh! Mrs Roby?"

"Surely, surely," replied the old woman.

"Thank you both for the welcome," said the visitor with a pleasant smile, as he shook hands with Mrs Roby. "I thought I recognised your voice, Captain Wopper, as you passed Mrs Leven's door, and came out to see how you and my old friend here get on together."

"Is she any better to-night, sir?" asked Mrs Roby, anxiously.

Lawrence shook his head sadly and said she was no better, and that he feared she had little chance of getting better while her dissipated son dwelt under the same roof with her. "It is breaking her heart," he added, "and, besides that, the nature of her disease is such that recovery is impossible unless she is fed on the most generous diet. This of course she cannot have, because she has no means of her own. Her son gambles away nearly all his small salary, and she refuses to go to an hospital lest her absence should be the removal of the last restraining link between him and destruction. It is a very sad case --  very."

Captain Wopper was struck with this reference to gambling coming so soon after his recent conversation on that subject, and asked if there were no charitable societies or charitable people in London who would help in a case so miserable.

Yes, there were plenty of charitable institutions, Lawrence told him, but he feared that this woman had no special claim on any of them, and her refusal to go to an hospital would tell against her. There were also, he said, plenty of charitable people, but all of those he happened to be acquainted with had been appealed to by him so often that he felt ashamed to try them again. He had already given away as much of his own slender means as he could well spare, so that he saw no way out of the difficulty; but he had faith in Providential supervision of human affairs, and he believed that a way would yet be opened up.

"You're right, sir -- right," said Captain Wopper, with emphasis, while he looked earnestly into the face of the young doctor. "This world wasn't made to be kicked about like a foot-ball by chance, or circumstances, or anything of the sort. Look 'ee here, sir; it has bin putt into my heart to feel charitable leanings, and a good bit o' cash has bin putt into my pocket, so that, bein' a lone sort o' man, I don't have much use for it. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, here are you, sir, the son of a friend o' my chum Willum Stout, with great need of aid from charitable people, an' here we two are met together -- both ready for action. Now, I call that a Providential arrangement, so please putt me down as one of your charitable friends. It's little I can boast of in that way as yet but it's not too late to begin. I've long arrears to pull up, so I'll give you that to begin with. It'll help to relieve Mrs Leven in the meantime."

As he spoke, the Captain drew a black pocketbook from his breast pocket and, taking a piece of paper therefrom, placed it in the doctor's hands.

"This is a fifty-pound note!" said Lawrence, in surprise.

"Well, what then?" returned the Captain. "You didn't expect a thousand-pound note, did you?"

"Not quite that," replied Lawrence, laughing, "but I thought that perhaps you had made a mistake."

"Ah! you judged from appearances, young man. Don't you git into the way of doin' that, else you'll be for ever sailin' on the wrong tack. Take my advice, an' never look as if you thought a man gave you more than he could afford. Nobody never does that."

"Far be it from me," returned Lawrence, "to throw cold water on generous impulses. I accept your gift with thanks, and will gladly put you on my list. If you should find hereafter that I pump you rather hard, please to remember that you gave me encouragement to do so."

"Pump away, sir. When you've pumped dry, I'll tell you!"

"Well," said Lawrence, rising, "I'll go at once and bring your liberality into play; and, since you have done me so good a turn, remember that you may command my services, if they can ever be of any use to you."

The Captain cast a glance at the trap-door and the chest.

"Well," said he, "I can scarcely ask you to do it professionally, but if you'd lend a hand to get this Noah's ark o' mine on to the upper deck, I'd -- "

"Come along," cried Lawrence, jumping up with a laugh, and seizing one end of the "ark."

Captain Wopper grasped the other end, and, between them, with much puffing, pushing, and squeezing, they thrust the box through the trap to the upper regions, whither the Captain followed it by means of the same gymnastic feat that he performed on his first ascent. Thrusting his head down, he invited the doctor to "come aloft," which the doctor did in the same undignified fashion, for his gentle manner and spirit had not debarred him from the practice and enjoyment of manly exercises.

"It's a snug berth, you see," said the Captain, stumbling among the dusty lumber, and knocking his head against the beams, "wants cleaning up, tho', and puttin' to rights a bit, but I'll soon manage that; and when I git the dirt and cobwebs cleared away, glass putt in the port-holes, and a whitewash on the roof and walls, it'll be a cabin fit for an admiral. See what a splendid view of the river! Just suited to a seafarin' man."

"Capital!" cried Lawrence, going down on his knees to obtain the view referred to. "Rather low in the roof, however, don't you think?"

"Low? not at all!" exclaimed the Captain. "It's nothin' to what I've been used to on the coastin' trade off Californy. Why, I've had to live in cabins so small that a tall man couldn't keep his back straight when he was sittin' on the lockers; but we didn't sit much in 'em; we was chiefly used to go into 'em to lie down. This is a palace to such cabins."

The doctor expressed satisfaction at finding that his new "charitable contributor" took such enlarged views of a pigeon-hole, and, promising to pay him another visit when the "cabin" should have been put to rights, said good-bye, and went to relieve the wants of the sick woman.

As the captain accompanied him along the passage, they heard the voice and step of poor Mrs Leven's dissipated son, as he came stumbling and singing up the stair.

He was a stout good-looking youth, and cast a half impudent half supercilious look at Captain Wopper on approaching. He also bestowed a nod of careless recognition on Dr Lawrence.

Thinking it better to be out of the way, the Captain said good-bye again to his friend, and returned to the cabin, where he expressed to Mrs Roby the opinion that, "that young feller Leven was goin' to the dogs at railway speed."

Thereafter he went "aloft," and, as he expressed it, "rigged himself out," in a spruce blue coat with brass buttons; blue vest and trousers to match; a white dicky with a collar attached and imitation carbuncle studs down the front. To these he added a black silk neckerchief tied in a true sailor's knot but with the ends separated and carefully tucked away under his vest to prevent their interfering with the effulgence of the carbuncle studs; a pair of light shoes with a superabundance of new tie; a green silk handkerchief, to be carried in his hat, for the purpose of mopping his forehead when warm, and a red silk ditto to be carried in his pocket for the benefit of his nose. In addition to the studs, Captain Wopper wore, as ornaments, a solid gold ring, the rude workmanship of which induced the belief that he must have made it himself, and a large gold watch, with a gold chain in the form of a cable, and a rough gold nugget attached to it in place of a seal or key. We class the watch among simple ornaments because, although it went --  very demonstratively too, with a loud self-asserting tick -- its going was irregular and uncertain. Sometimes it went too slow without apparent cause. At other times it went too fast without provocation. Frequently it struck altogether, and only consented to resume work after a good deal of gentle and persuasive threatening to wind it the wrong way. It had chronic internal complaints, too, which produced sundry ominous clicks and sounds at certain periods of the day. These passed off, however, towards evening. Occasionally such sounds rushed as it were into a sudden whirr and series of convulsions, ending in a dead stop, which was an unmistakeable intimation to the Captain that something vital had given way; that the watch had gone into open mutiny, and nothing short of a visit to the watchmaker could restore it to life and duty.

"I'm off now," said the Captain, descending when he was fully "rigged." "What about the door-key, mother? -- you've no objection to my calling you mother, have you?"

"None whatever, Captain," replied Mrs Roby, with a pleasant smile, "an old friend of William may call me whatever he pleases -- short," she added after momentary pause, "of swearin'."

"Trust me, I'll stop short of that. You see, old lady, I never know'd a mother, and I should like to try to feel what it's like to have one. It's true I'm not just a lad, but you are old enough to be my mother for all that, so I'll make the experiment. But what about the key of the door, mother? I can't expect you to let me in, you know."

"Just lock it, and take the key away with you," said Mrs Roby.

"But what if a fire should break out?" said the Captain, with a look of indecision.

"I'm not afraid of fire. We've got a splendid brigade and plenty of fire-escapes, and a good kick from a fireman would open my door without a key."

"Mother, you're a trump! I'll lock you in and leave you with an easy mind -- "

He stopped abruptly, and Mrs Roby asked what was the matter.

"Well, it's what I said about an easy mind that threw me all aback," replied the Captain, "for to tell 'ee the truth, I haven't got an easy mind."

"Not done anything wicked, I hope?" said Mrs Roby, anxiously.

"No, no; nothin' o' that sort; but there is somethin' lyin' heavy on my mind, and I don't see why I shouldn't make a confidant o' you, bein' my mother, d'ee see; and, besides, it consarns Willum."

The old woman looked eagerly at her lodger as he knitted his brows in perplexity and smoothed down his forelock.

"Here's where it is," he continued, drawing his chair closer to that of Mrs Roby; "when Willum made me his exikooter, so to speak, he said to me, 'Wopper,' says he, 'I'm not one o' them fellers that holds on to his cash till he dies with it in his pocket. I've got neither wife nor chick, as you know, an' so, wot I means to do is to give the bulk of it to them that I love while I'm alive -- d'ee see?' 'I do, Willum,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'besides them little matters that I axed you to do for me, I want you to take partikler notice of two people. One is the man as saved my life w'en I was a youngster, or, if he's dead, take notice of his child'n. The other is that sweet young creeter, Emma Gray, who has done the correspondence with me so long for my poor brother. You keep a sharp look-out an' find out how these two are off for money. If Emma's rich, of course it's no use to give her what she don't need, and I'll give the most of what I've had the good fortune to dig up here to old Mr Lawrence, or his family, for my brother's widow, bein' rich, don't need it. If both Emma and Lawrence are rich, why then, just let me know, and I'll try to hit on some other plan to make away with it, for you know well enough I couldn't use it all upon myself without going into wicked extravagance, and my dear old Mrs Roby wouldn't know what to do with so much cash if I sent it to her. Now, you promise to do this for me?' says he. 'Willum,' says I, 'I do.'"

"Now, mother," continued the Captain, "what troubles me is this, that instead o' findin' Miss Emma rich, and Mr Lawrence poor, or wice wersa, or findin' 'em both rich, I finds 'em both poor. That's where my difficulty lies."

Mrs Roby offered a prompt solution of this difficulty by suggesting that William should divide the money between them.

"That would do all well enough," returned the Captain, "if there were no under-currents drivin' the ship out of her true course. But you see, mother, I find that the late Mr Stoutley's family is also poor -- at least in difficulties -- although they live in great style, and seem to be rich; and from what I heard the other day, I know that the son is given to gamblin', and the mother seems to be extravagant, and both of 'em are ready enough to sponge on Miss Emma, who is quite willin' -- far too willin' -- to be sponged upon, so that whatever Willum gave to her would be just thrown away. Now the question is," continued the Captain, looking seriously at the kettle with the defiant spout, "what am I to advise Willum to do?"

"Advise him," replied Mrs Roby, promptly, "to give all the money to Dr Lawrence, and get Dr Lawrence to marry Miss Gray, and so they'll both get the whole of it."

A beaming smile crossed the Captain's visage.

"Not a bad notion, mother; but what if Dr Lawrence, after gettin' the money, didn't want to marry Miss Gray?"

"Get him to marry her first and give the money afterwards," returned Mrs Roby.

"Ay, that might do," replied the Captain, nodding slowly, "only it may be that a man without means may hesitate about marryin' a girl without means, especially if he didn't want her, and she didn't want him. I don't quite see how to get over all these difficulties."

"There's only one way of getting over them," said Mrs Roby, "and that is, by bringin' the young people together, and givin' 'em a chance to fall in love."

"True, true, mother, but, so far as I know, Dr Lawrence don't know the family. We couldn't," said the Captain, looking round the room, dubiously, "ask 'em to take a quiet cup of tea here with us -- eh? You might ask Dr Lawrence, as your medical man, and I might ask Miss Emma, as an old friend of her uncle, quite in an off-hand way, you know, as if by chance. They'd never see through the dodge, and would fall in love at once, perhaps -- eh?"

Captain Wopper said all this in a dubious tone, looking at the defiant kettle the while, as if propitiating its favourable reception of the idea, but it continued defiant, and hissed uncompromisingly, while its mistress laughed outright.

"You're not much of a match-maker, I see," she said, on recovering composure. "No, Captain, it wouldn't do to ask 'em here to tea."

"Well, well," said the Captain, rising, "we'll let match-makin' alone for the present. It's like tryin' to beat to wind'ard against a cyclone. The best way is to square the yards, furl the sails, and scud under bare poles till it's over. It's blowin' too hard just now for me to make headway, so I'll wear ship and scud."

In pursuance of this resolve, Captain Wopper put on his wide-awake, locked up his mother, and went off to dine at the "west end."



Chapter Five.

In Which Several Important Matters Are Arranged, And Gillie White Undergoes Some Remarkable And Hitherto Unknown Experiences.

It is not necessary to inflict on the reader Mrs Stoutley's dinner in detail; suffice it to say, that Captain Wopper conducted himself, on the whole, much more creditably than his hostess had anticipated, and made himself so entertaining, especially to Lewis, that that young gentleman invited him to accompany the family to Switzerland, much to the amusement of his cousin Emma and the horror of his mother, who, although she enjoyed a private visit of the Captain, did not relish the thought of his becoming a travelling companion of the family. She pretended not to hear the invitation given, but when Lewis, knowing full well the state of her mind, pressed the invitation, she shook her head at him covertly and frowned. This by-play her son pretended not to see, and continued his entreaties, the Captain not having replied.

"Now, do come with us, Captain Wopper," he said; "it will be such fun, and we should all enjoy you so much -- wouldn't we, Emma?" ("Yes, indeed," from Emma); "and it would just be suited to your tastes and habits, for the fine, fresh air of the mountains bears a wonderful resemblance to that of the sea. You've been accustomed no doubt to climb up the shrouds to the crosstrees; well, in Switzerland, you may climb up the hills to any sort of trees you like, and get shrouded in mist, or tumble over a precipice and get put into your shroud altogether; and -- "

"Really, Lewie, you ought to be ashamed of making such bad puns," interrupted his mother. "Doubtless it would be very agreeable to have Captain Wopper with us, but I am quite sure it would be anything but pleasant for him to travel through such a wild country with such a wild goose as you for a companion."

"You have modestly forgotten yourself and Emma," said Lewis; "but come, let the Captain answer for himself. You know, mother, it has been your wish, if not your intention, to get a companion for me on this trip -- a fellow older than myself -- a sort of travelling tutor, who could teach me something of the geology and botany of the country as we went along. Well, the Captain is older than me, I think, which is one of the requisites, and he could teach me astronomy, no doubt, and show me how to box the compass; in return for which, I could show him how to box an adversary's nose, as practised by the best authorities of the ring. As to geology and botany, I know a little of these sciences already, and could impart my knowledge to the Captain, which would have the effect of fixing it more firmly in my own memory; and every one knows that it is of far greater importance to lay a good, solid groundwork of education, than to build a showy, superficial structure, on a bad foundation. Come, then, Captain, you see your advantages. This is the last time of asking. If you don't speak now, henceforth and for ever hold your tongue."

"Well, my lad," said the Captain, with much gravity, "I've turned the thing over in my mind, and since Mrs Stoutley is so good as to say it would be agreeable to her, I think I'll accept your invitation!"

"Bravo! Captain, you're a true blue; come, have another glass of wine on the strength of it."

"No wine, thank 'ee," said the Captain, placing his hand over his glass, "I've had my beer; and I make it a rule never to mix my liquor. Excuse me, ma'am," he continued, addressing his hostess, "your son made mention of a tooter -- a travellin' tooter; may I ask if you've provided yourself with one yet!"

"Not yet," answered Mrs Stoutley, feeling, but not looking, a little surprised at the question, "I have no young friend at present quite suited for the position, and at short notice it is not easy to find a youth of talent willing to go, and on whom one can depend. Can you recommend one?"

Mrs Stoutley accompanied the question with a smile, for she put it in jest. She was, therefore, not a little surprised when the Captain said promptly that he could -- that he knew a young man -- a doctor -- who was just the very ticket (these were his exact words), a regular clipper, with everything about him trim, taut, and ship-shape, who would suit every member of the family to a tee!

A hearty laugh from every member of the family greeted the Captain's enthusiastic recommendation, and Emma exclaimed that he must be a most charming youth, while Lewis pulled out pencil and note-book to take down his name and address.

"You are a most valuable friend at this crisis in our affairs," said Lewis, "I'll make mother write to him immediately."

"But have a care," said the Captain, "that you never mention who it was that recommended him. I'm not sure that he would regard it as a compliment. You must promise me that."

"I promise," said Lewis, "and whatever I promise mother will fulfil, so make your mind easy on that head. Now, mother, I shouldn't wonder if Captain Wopper could provide you with that other little inexpensive luxury you mentioned this morning. D'you think you could recommend a page?"

"What's a page, lad?"

"What! have you never heard of a page -- a page in buttons?" asked Lewis in surprise.

"Never," replied the Captain, shaking his head.

"Why, a page is a small boy, usually clad in blue tights, to make him look as like a spider as possible, with three rows of brass buttons up the front of his jacket -- two of the rows being merely ornamental, and going over his shoulders. He usually wears a man's hat for the sake of congruity, and is invariably as full of mischief as an egg is of meat. Can you find such an article?"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Captain. "What is he used for?"

"Chiefly for ornament, doing messages, being in the way when not wanted, and out of the way when required."

"Yes," said the Captain, meditatively, "I've got my eye -- "

"Your weather eye?" asked Lewis.

"Yes, my weather eye, on a lad who'll fit you."

"To a tee?" inquired Emma, archly.

"To a tee, miss," assented the Captain, with a bland smile.

Lewis again pulled out his note-book to enter the name and address, but the Captain assured him that he would manage this case himself; and it was finally settled -- for Lewis carried everything his own way, as a matter of course -- that Dr George Lawrence was to be written to next day, and Captain Wopper was to provide a page.

"And you'll have to get him and yourself ready as fast as possible," said the youth in conclusion, "for we shall set off as soon as my mother's trunks are packed."

Next morning, while Captain Wopper was seated conversing with his old landlady at the breakfast-table -- the morning meal having been just concluded -- he heard the voice of Gillie White in the court. Going to the end of the passage, he ordered that imp to "come aloft."

Gillie appeared in a few seconds, nodded patronisingly to old Mrs Roby, hoped she was salubrious, and demanded to know what was up.

"My lad," said the Captain -- and as he spoke, the urchin assumed an awful look of mock solemnity.

"I want to know if you think you could behave yourself if you was to try?"

"Ah!" said Gillie, with the air of a cross-examining advocate, "the keewestion is not w'ether I could behave myself if I wos to try, but, w'ether I think I could. Well, ahem! that depends. I think I could, now, if there was offered a very strong indoocement."

"Just so, my lad," returned the Captain, nodding, "that's exactly what I mean to offer. What d'ee say to a noo suit of blue tights, with three rows brass buttons; a situation in a respectable family; a fair wage; as much as you can eat and drink; and a trip to Switzerland to begin with?"

While the Captain spoke, the small boy's eyes opened wider and wider, and his month followed suit, until he stood the very picture of astonishment.

"You don't mean it?" he exclaimed.

"Indeed I do, my lad."

"Then I'm your man," returned the small boy emphatically, "putt me down for that sitooation; send for a lawyer, draw up the articles, I'll sign 'em right off, and -- "

"Gillie, my boy," interrupted the Captain, "one o' the very first things you have to do in larnin' to behave yourself is to clap a stopper on your tongue -- it's far too long."

"All right, Capp'n," answered the imp, "I'll go to Guy's Hospital d'rectly and 'ave three-fourths of it ampitated."

"Do," said the Captain, somewhat sternly, "an' ask 'em to attach a brake to the bit that's left.

"Now, lad," he continued, "you've got a very dirty face."

Gillie nodded, with his lips tightly compressed to check utterance.

"And a very ragged head of hair," he added.

Again Gillie nodded.

The Captain pointed to a basin of water which stood on a chair in a corner of the room, beside which lay a lump of yellow soap, a comb, and a rough jack-towel.

"There," said he, "go to work."

Gillie went to work with a will, and scrubbed himself to such an extent, that his skin must undoubtedly have been thinner after the operation. The washing, however, was easy compared with the combing. The boy's mop was such a tangled web, that the comb at first refused to pass through it; and when, encouraged by the Captain, the urchin did at last succeed in rending its masses apart various inextricable bunches came away bodily, and sundry teeth of the comb were left behind. At last, however, it was reduced to something like order, to the immense satisfaction of Mrs Roby and the Captain.

"Now," said the latter, "did you ever have a Turkish bath?"

"No -- never."

"Well, then, come with me and have one. Have you got a cap?"

"Hm -- never mind, come along; you're not cleaned up yet by a long way; but we'll manage it in course of time."

As the Captain and his small protege passed along the streets, the former took occasion to explain that a Turkish bath was a species of mild torture, in which a man was stewed alive, and baked in an oven, and par-boiled, and scrubbed, and pinched, and thumped (sometimes black and blue), and lathered with soap till he couldn't see, and heated up to seven thousand and ten, Fahrenheit and soused with half-boiling water, and shot at with cold water -- or shot into it, as the case might be -- and rolled in a sheet like a mummy, and stretched out a like corpse to cool. "Most men," he said, "felt gaspy in Turkish baths, and weak ones were alarmed lest they should get suffocated beyond recovery; but strong men rather enjoy themselves in 'em than otherwise."

"Hah!" exclaimed the imp, "may I wentur' to ax, Capp'n, wot's the effect on boys?"

To this the Captain replied that he didn't exactly know, never having heard of boys taking Turkish baths. Whereupon Gillie suggested, that if possible he might have himself cleaned in an ordinary bath.

"Impossible, my lad," said the Captain, decidedly. "No or'nary bath would clean you under a week, unless black soap and scrubbin' brushes was used.

"But don't be alarmed, Gillie," he added, looking down with a twinkle in his eyes, "I'll go into the bath along with you. We'll sink or swim together, my boy, and I'll see that you're not overdone. I'm rather fond of them myself, d'ee see, so I can recommend 'em from experience."

Somewhat reassured by this, though still a little uneasy in his mind, the imp followed his patron to the baths.

It would have been a sight worth seeing, the entrance of these two into the temple of soap-and-water. To see Gillie's well-made, but very meagre and dirty little limbs unrobed; to see him decked out with the scrimpest possible little kilt, such as would, perhaps, have suited the fancy of a Fiji islander; to see his gaze of undisguised admiration on beholding his companion's towering and massive frame in the same unwonted costume, if we may so style it; to see the intensifying of his astonishment when ushered into the first room, at beholding six or seven naked, and apparently dead men, laid round the walls, as if ready for dissection; to see the monkey-like leap, accompanied by a squeal, with which he sprang from a hot stone-bench, having sat down thereon before it had been covered with a cloth for his reception; to see the rapid return of his self-possession in these unusual circumstances, and the ready manner in which he submitted himself to the various operations, as if he had been accustomed to Turkish baths from a period long prior to infancy; to see his horror on being introduced to the hottest room, and his furtive glance at the door, as though he meditated a rush into the open air, but was restrained by a sense of personal dignity; to see the ruling passion strong as ever in this (he firmly believed) his nearest approach to death, when, observing that the man next to him (who, as it were, turned the corner from him) had raised himself for a moment to arrange his pillow, he (Gillie) tipped up the corner of the man's sheet, which hung close to his face in such a manner that he (the man), on lying down again, placed his bare shoulder on the hot stone, and sprang up with a yell that startled into life the whole of the half-sleeping establishment with the exception of the youth on the opposite bench, who, having noticed the act, was thrown into convulsions of laughter, much to the alarm of Gillie, who had thought he was asleep and feared that he might "tell;" -- to see him laid down like a little pink-roll to be kneaded, and to hear him remark, in a calm voice, to the stalwart attendant that he might go in and win and needn't be afraid of hurting him; to observe his delight when put under the warm "douche," his gasping shriek when unexpectedly assailed with the "cold-shower," and his placid air of supreme felicity when wrapped up like a ghost in a white sheet, and left to dry in the cooling-room -- to see and hear all this, we say, would have amply repaid a special journey to London from any reasonable distance. The event, however, being a thing of the past and language being unequal to the description, we are compelled to leave it all to the reader's imagination.



Chapter Six.

A Lesson Taught And Learned.

Two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, rather late in the evening, Dr George Lawrence called at "the cabin" in Grubb's Court, and found the Captain taking what he called a quiet pipe.

"I have been visiting poor Mrs Leven," he said to Mrs Roby, sitting down beside her, "and I fear she is a good deal worse to-night. That kind little woman, Netta White, has agreed to sit by her. I'm sorry that I shall be obliged to leave her at such a critical stage of her illness, but I am obliged to go abroad for some time."

"Goin' abroad, sir!" exclaimed Mrs Roby in surprise, for the Captain had not yet told her that Lawrence was to be of the party, although he had mentioned about himself and Gillie White.

"Yes, I'm going with Mrs Stoutley's family for some weeks to Switzerland."

Captain Wopper felt that his share in the arrangements was in danger of being found out. He therefore boldly took the lead.

"Ah! I know all about that, sir."

"Indeed?" said Lawrence.

"Yes, I dined the other day with Mrs Stoutley; she asked me also to be of the party, and I'm going."

Lawrence again exclaimed, "Indeed!" with increasing surprise, and added, "Well, now, that is a strange coincidence."

"Well, d'ee know," said the Captain, in an argumentative tone, "it don't seem to me much of a coincidence. You know she had to git some one to go with her son, and why not you, sir, as well as any of the other young sawbones in London? If she hadn't got you she'd have got another, and that would have been a coincidence to him, d'ee see? Then, as to me, it wasn't unnatural that she should take a fancy to the man that nussed her dyin' husband, an' was chum to her brother-in-law; so, you see, that's how it came about and I'm very glad to find, sir, that we are to sail in company for a short time."

Lawrence returned this compliment heartily, and was about to make some further remark, when little Netta White rushed into the room with a frightened look and pale cheeks, exclaiming, "Oh, Dr Lawrence, sir, she's very ill. I think she's dying."

Without waiting for a reply, the child ran out of the room followed by Lawrence and Mrs Roby, who was assisted by the Captain -- for she walked with great difficulty even when aided by her crutches. In a few seconds they stood beside Mrs Leven's bed. It was a lowly bed, with scant and threadbare coverings, and she who lay on it was of a lowly spirit -- one who for many years had laid her head on the bosom of Jesus, and had found Him, through a long course of poverty and mental distress, "a very present help in trouble."

"I fear that I'm very ill," she said, faintly.

"No doubt you feel rather low just now," said the doctor, "but that is very much owing to your having lived so long on insufficient diet. I will give you something, however, which will soon pull you up a bit. Come, cheer up. Don't let your spirits get so low."

"Yes," she murmured, "I am brought very low, but the Lord will lift me up. He is my strength and my Redeemer."

She clasped her hands with difficulty, and shut her eyes.

A silence followed, during which Captain Wopper drew Lawrence into the passage.

"D'you think she is near her end, doctor?"

"She looks very like it," replied the doctor. "There is a possibility that she might recover if the right medicine could be found, namely, ease of mind; but her dissipated son has robbed her of that, and is the only one who can give it back to her -- if indeed he has the power left now. She is dying of what is unprofessionally styled a broken heart. It is unfortunate that her son is not with her at present."

"Does no one know where to find him?" asked the Captain.

"I fear not," replied the doctor.

"Please, sir, I think I know," said a subdued voice behind them.

It was that of Gillie White, who had drawn near very silently, being overawed by the sad scene in the sick-room.

"Do you, my lad? then get along as fast as you can and show me the way," said the Captain, buttoning up his pilot-coat. "I'll bring him here before long, doctor, if he's to be found."

In a few minutes the Captain and Gillie were at the head of the lane, where the former hailed a passing cab, bade the boy jump in, and followed him.

"Now, my lad, give the address," said the Captain.

"The Strand," said the boy, promptly.

"What number, sir?" asked the cabman, looking at the Captain.

"Right on till I stop you," said Gillie, with the air of a commander-in-chief -- whom in some faint manner he now resembled, for he was in livery, being clothed in blue tights and brass buttons.

In a short time Gillie gave the order to pull up, and they got out in front of a brilliantly-lighted and open door with a lamp above it, on which was written the word Billiards. The Captain observed that it was the same door as that at which he had parted from Lewis Stoutley some days before.

Dismissing the cab and entering, they quickly found themselves in a large and well-lighted billiard-room, which was crowded with men of all ages and aspects, some of whom played, others looked on and betted, a good many drank brandy and water, and nearly all smoked. It was a bright scene of dissipation, where many young men, deceiving themselves with the idea that they went merely to practise or to enjoy a noble game of skill, were taking their first steps on the road to ruin.

The Captain, closely attended by Gillie, moved slowly through the room, looking anxiously for Fred Leven. For some time they failed to find him. At last a loud curse, uttered in the midst of a knot of on-lookers, attracted their attention. It was followed by a general laugh, as a young man, whose dishevelled hair and flushed face showed that he had been drinking hard, burst from among them and staggered towards the door.

"Never mind, Fred," shouted a voice that seemed familiar to the Captain, "you'll win it back from me next time."

Ere the youth had passed, the Captain stepped forward and laid his hand on his arm.

Fred uttered a savage growl, and drew back his clenched hand as if to strike, but Captain Wopper's size and calm look of decision induced him to hold his hand.

"What d'you mean by interrupting me?" he demanded, sternly.

"My lad," said the Captain, in a low, solemn voice, "your mother is dying, come with me. You've no time to lose."

The youth's face turned ashy pale, and he passed his hand hastily across his brow.

"What's wrong?" exclaimed Lewis Stoutley, who had recognised the Captain, and come forward at the moment.

"Did he lose his money to you?" asked the Captain, abruptly.

"Well, yes, he did," retorted Lewis, with a look of offended dignity.

"Come along, then, my lad. I want you too. It's a case of life an' death. Ask no questions, but come along."

The Captain said this with such an air of authority, that Lewis felt constrained to obey. Fred Leven seemed to follow like one in a dream. They all got into a cab, and were driven back to Grubb's Court.

As they ascended the stair, the Captain whispered to Lewis, "Keep in the background, my lad. Do nothing but look and listen."

Another moment and they were in the passage, where Lawrence stopped them.

"You're almost too late, sir," he said to Fred, sternly. "If you had fed and clothed your mother better in time past, she might have got over this. Fortunately for her, poor soul, some people, who don't gamble away their own and their parents' means, have given her the help that you have refused. Go in, sir, and try to speak words of comfort to her now."

He went in, and fell on his knees beside the bed.

"Mother!" he said.

Fain would he have said more, but no word could he utter. His tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Mrs Leven opened her eyes on hearing the single word, and her cheek flushed slightly as she seized one of his hands, kissed it and held it to her breast. Then she looked earnestly, and oh! so anxiously, into his face, and said in a low tone: -- 

"Fred, dear, are you so -- "

She stopped abruptly.

"Yes, yes," cried her son, passionately; "yes, mother, I'm sober now! Oh mother, dearest, darling mother, I am guilty, guilty; I have sinned. Oh forgive, forgive me! Listen, listen! I am in earnest now, my mother. Think of me as I used to be long ago. Don't shut your eyes. Look at me, mother, look at Fred."

The poor woman looked at him with tears of gladness in her eyes.

"God bless you, Fred!" she murmured. "It is long, long, since you spoke like that. But I knew you would. I have always expected that you would. Praise the Lord!"

Fred tried to speak, and again found that he could not, but the fountain of his soul was opened. He laid his face on his mother's hand and sobbed bitterly.

Those who witnessed this scene stood as if spellbound. As far as sound or motion went these two might have been in the room alone. Presently the sound of sobbing ceased, and Fred, raising his head, began gently to stroke the hand he held in his. Sometime in his wild career, he knew not when or where, he had heard it said that this slight action had often a wonderful power to soothe the sick. He continued it for some time. Then the doctor advanced and gazed into the invalid's countenance.

"She sleeps," he said, in a low tone.

"May I stay beside her?" whispered Fred.

Lawrence nodded assent, and then motioning to the others to withdraw, followed them into Mrs Roby's room, where he told them that her sleeping was a good sign, and that they must do their best to prevent her being disturbed.

"It won't be necessary for any one to watch. Her son will prove her best attendant just now; but it may be as well that some one should sit up in this room, and look in now and then to see that the candle doesn't burn out, and that all is right. I will go now, and will make this my first visit in the morning."

"Captain Wopper," said Lewis Stoutley, in a subdued voice, when Lawrence had left, "I won this ten-pound note to-night from Fred. I -- I robbed him of it. Will you give it to him in the morning?"

"Yes, my lad, I will," said the Captain.

"And will you let me sit up and watch here tonight?"

"No, my lad, I won't. I mean to do that myself."

"But do let me stay an hour or so with you, in case anything is wanted," pleaded Lewis.

"Well, you may."

They sat down together by the fireside, Mrs Roby having lain down on her bed with her clothes on, but they spoke never a word; and as they sat there, the young man's busy brain arrayed before him many and many a scene of death, and sickness, and suffering, and sorrow, and madness, and despair, which, he knew well from hearsay (and he now believed it), had been the terrible result of gambling and drink.

When the hour was past, the Captain rose and said, "Now, Lewis, you'll go, and I'll take a look at the next room."

He put off his shoes and went on tiptoe. Lewis followed, and took a peep before parting.

Fred had drawn three chairs to the bedside and lain down on them, with his shoulders resting on the edge of the bed, so that he could continue to stroke his mother's hand without disturbing her. He had continued doing so until his head had slowly drooped upon the pillow; and there they now lay, the dissipated son and the humble Christian mother, sleeping quietly together.



Chapter Seven.

The Great White Mountain.

We are in Switzerland now; in the "land of the mountain and the flood" --  the land also of perennial ice and snow. The solemn presence of the Great White Mountain is beginning to be felt. Its pure summit was first seen from Geneva; its shadow is now beginning to steal over us.

We are on the road to Chamouni, not yet over the frontier, in a carriage and four. Mrs Stoutley, being a lady of unbounded wealth, always travels post in a carriage and four when she can manage to do so, having an unconquerable antipathy to railroads and steamers. She could not well travel in any other fashion here, railways not having yet penetrated the mountain regions in this direction, and a mode of ascending roaring mountain torrents in steamboats not having yet been discovered. She might, however, travel with two horses, but she prefers four. Captain Wopper, who sits opposite Emma Gray, wonders in a quiet speculative way whether "the Mines" will produce a dividend sufficient to pay the expenses of this journey. He is quite disinterested in the thought, it being understood that the Captain pays his own expenses.

But we wander from our text, which is -- the Great White Mountain. We are driving now under its shadow with Mrs Stoutley's party, which, in addition to the Captain and Miss Gray, already mentioned, includes young Dr George Lawrence and Lewis, who are on horseback; also Mrs Stoutley's maid (Mrs Stoutley never travels without a maid), Susan Quick, who sits beside the Captain; and Gillie White, alias the Spider and the Imp, who sits beside the driver, making earnest but futile efforts to draw him into a conversation in English, of which language the driver knows next to nothing.

But to return: Mrs Stoutley and party are now in the very heart of scenery the most magnificent; they have penetrated to a great fountain-head of European waters; they are surrounded by the cliffs, the gorges, the moraines, and are not far from the snow-slopes and ice-fields, the couloirs, the seracs, the crevasses, and the ice-precipices and pinnacles of a great glacial world; but not one of the party betrays the smallest amount of interest, or expresses the faintest emotion of surprise, owing to the melancholy fact that all is shrouded in an impenetrable veil of mist through which a thick fine rain percolates as if the mountain monarch himself were bewailing their misfortunes.

"Isn't it provoking?" murmured Mrs Stoutley drawing her shawl closer.

"Very," replied Emma.

"Disgusting!" exclaimed Lewis, who rode at the side of the carriage next his cousin.

"It might be worse," said Lawrence, with a grim smile.

"Impossible," retorted Lewis.

"Come, Captain, have you no remark to make by way of inspiring a little hope?" asked Mrs Stoutley.

"Why, never havin' cruised in this region before," answered the Captain, "my remarks can't be of much value. Hows'ever, there is one idea that may be said to afford consolation, namely, that this sort o' thing can't last. I've sailed pretty nigh in all parts of the globe, an' I've invariably found that bad weather has its limits -- that after rain we may look for sunshine, and after storm, calm."

"How cheering!" said Lewis, as the rain trickled from the point of his prominent nose.

At that moment Gillie White, happening to cast his eyes upward, beheld a vision which drew from him an exclamation of wild surprise.

They all looked quickly in the same direction, and there, through a rent in the watery veil, they beheld a little spot of blue sky, rising into which was a mountain-top so pure, so faint so high and inexpressibly far off, yet so brilliant in a glow of sunshine, that it seemed as if heaven had been opened, and one of the hills of Paradise revealed. It was the first near view that the travellers had obtained of these mountains of everlasting ice. With the exception of the exclamations "Wonderful!" "Most glorious!" they found no words for a time to express their feelings, and seemed glad to escape the necessity of doing so by listening to the remarks of their driver, as he went into an elaborate explanation of the name and locality of the particular part of Mont Blanc that had been thus disclosed.

The rent in the mist closed almost as quickly as it had opened, utterly concealing the beautiful vision; but the impression it had made, being a first and a very deep one, could never more be removed. The travellers lived now in the faith of what they had seen. Scepticism was no longer possible, and in this improved frame of mind they dashed into the village of Chamouni -- one of the haunts of those whose war-cry is "Excelsior!" -- and drove to the best hotel.

Their arrival in the village was an unexpected point of interest to many would-be mountaineers, who lounged about the place with macintoshes and umbrellas, growling at the weather. Any event out of the common forms a subject of interest to men who wait and have nothing to do. As the party passed them, growlers gazed and speculated as to who the new-comers might be. Some thought Miss Gray pretty; some thought otherwise -- to agree on any point on such a day being, of course, impossible. Others "guessed" that the young fellows must be uncommonly fond of riding to "get on the outside of a horse" in such weather; some remarked that the "elderly female" seemed "used up," or "blasee," and all agreed -- yes, they did agree on this point -- that the thing in blue tights and buttons beside the driver was the most impudent-looking monkey the world had ever produced!

The natives of the place also had their opinions, and expressed them to each other; especially the bronzed, stalwart sedate-looking men who hung about in knots near the centre of the village, and seemed to estimate the probability of the stout young Englishmen on horseback being likely to require their services often -- for these, said the driver, were the celebrated guides of Chamouni; men of bone and muscle, and endurance and courage; the leaders of those daring spirits who consider -- and justly so -- the ascent to the summit of Mont Blanc, or Monte Rosa, or the Matterhorn, a feat; the men who perform this feat it may be, two or three times a week -- as often as you choose to call them to it, in fact --  and think nothing of it; the men whose profession it is to risk their lives every summer from day to day for a few francs; who have become so inured to danger that they have grown quite familiar with it, insomuch that some of the reckless blades among them treat it now and then with contempt, and pay the penalty of such conduct with their lives.

Sinking into a couch in her private sitting-room, Mrs Stoutley resigned herself to Susan's care, and, while she was having her boots taken off, said with a sigh: -- 

"Well, here we are at last. What do you think of Chamouni, Susan?"

"Rather a wet place, ma'am; ain't it?"

With a languid smile, Mrs Stoutley admitted that it was, but added, by way of encouragement that it was not always so. To which Susan replied that she was glad to hear it, so she was, as nothink depressed her spirits so much as wet and clouds, and gloom.

Susan was a pretty girl of sixteen, tall, as well as very sedate and womanly, for her age. Having been born in one of the midland counties, of poor, though remarkably honest, parents, who had received no education themselves, and therefore held it to be quite unnecessary to bestow anything so useless on their daughter, she was, until very recently, as ignorant of all beyond the circle of her father's homestead as the daughter of the man in the moon -- supposing no compulsory education-act to be in operation in the orb of night. Having passed through them, she now knew of the existence of France and Switzerland, but she was quite in the dark as to the position of these two countries with respect to the rest of the world, and would probably have regarded them as one and the same if their boundary-line had not been somewhat deeply impressed upon her by the ungallant manner in which the Customs officials examined the contents of her modest little portmanteau in search, as Gillie gave her to understand, of tobacco.

Mrs Stoutley had particularly small feet, a circumstance which might have induced her, more than other ladies, to wear easy boots; but owing to some unaccountable perversity of mental constitution, she deemed this a good reason for having her boots made unusually tight. The removal of these, therefore, afforded great relief, and the administration of a cup of tea produced a cheering reaction of spirits, under the influence of which she partially forgot herself, and resolved to devote a few minutes to the instruction of her interestingly ignorant maid.

"Yes," she said, arranging herself comfortably, and sipping her tea, while Susan busied herself putting away her lady's "things," and otherwise tidying the room, "it does not always rain here; there is a little sunshine sometimes. By the way, where is Miss Gray?"

"In the bedroom, ma'am, unpacking the trunks."

"Ah, well, as I was saying, they have a little sunshine sometimes, for you know, Susan, people must live, and grass or grain cannot grow without sunshine, so it has been arranged that there should be enough here for these purposes, but no more than enough, because Switzerland has to maintain its character as one of the great refrigerators of Europe."

"One of the what, ma'am?"

"Refrigerators," explained Mrs Stoutley; "a refrigerator, Susan, is a freezer; and it is the special mission of Switzerland to freeze nearly all the water that falls on its mountains, and retain it there in the form of ice and snow until it is wanted for the use of man. Isn't that a grand idea?"

The lecturer's explanation had conveyed to Susan's mind the idea of the Switzers going with long strings of carts to the top of Mont Blanc for supplies of ice to meet the European demand, and she admitted that it was a grand idea, and asked if the ice and snow lasted long into the summer.

"Long into it!" exclaimed her teacher. "Why, you foolish thing, its lasts all through it."

"Oh indeed, ma'am!" said Susan, who entertained strong doubts in her heart as to the correctness of Mrs Stoutley's information on this point.

"Yes," continued that lady, with more animation than she had experienced for many months past, so invigorating was the change of moral atmosphere induced by this little breeze of instruction; "yes, the ice and snow cover the hills and higher valleys for dozens and dozens of miles round here in all directions, not a few inches deep, such as we sometimes see in England, but with thousands and millions of tons of it, so that the ice in the valleys is hundreds of feet thick, and never melts away altogether, but remains there from year to year -- has been there, I suppose, since the world began, and will continue, I fancy, until the world comes to an end."

Mrs Stoutley warmed up here, to such an extent that she absolutely flushed, and Susan, who had heretofore regarded her mistress merely as a weakish woman, now set her down, mentally, as a barefaced story-teller.

"Surely, ma'am," she said, with diffidence, "ice and snow like that doesn't fill all the valleys, else we should see it, and find it difficult to travel through 'em; shouldn't we, ma'am?"

"Silly girl!" exclaimed her preceptress, "I did not say it filled all the valleys, but the higher valleys -- valleys such as, in England and Scotland, would be clothed with pasturage and waving grain, and dotted with cattle and sheep and smiling cottages."

Mrs Stoutley had by this time risen to a heroic frame, and spoke poetically, which accounts for her ascribing risible powers to cottages.

"And thus you see, Susan," she continued, "Switzerland is, as it were, a great ice-tank, or a series of ice-tanks, in which the ice of ages is accumulated and saved up, so that the melting of a little of it -- the mere dribbling of it, so to speak -- is sufficient to cause the continuous flow of innumerable streams and of great rivers, such as the Rhone, and the Rhine, and the Var."

The lecture received unexpected and appropriate illustration here by the sudden lifting of the mists, which had hitherto blotted out the landscape.

"Oh, aunt!" exclaimed Emma, running in at the moment, "just look at the hills. How exquisite! How much grander than if we had seen them quite clear from the first!"

Emma was strictly correct, for it is well known that the grandeur of Alpine scenery is greatly enhanced by the wild and weird movements of the gauze-like drapery with which it is almost always partially enshrouded.

As the trio stood gazing in silent wonder and admiration from their window, which, they had been informed, commanded a view of the summit of Mont Blanc, the mist had risen like a curtain partially rolled up. All above the curtain-foot presented the dismal grey, to which they had been too long accustomed, but below, and, as it were, far behind this curtain, the mountain-world was seen rising upwards.

So close were they to the foot of the Great White Monarch, that it seemed to tower like a giant-wall before them; but this wall was varied and beautiful as well as grand. Already the curtain had risen high enough to disclose hoary cliffs and precipices, with steep grassy slopes between, and crowned with fringes of dark pines; which latter, although goodly trees, looked like mere shrubs in their vast setting. Rills were seen running like snowy veins among the slopes, and losing themselves in the masses of debris at the mountain-foot. As they gazed, the curtain rose higher, disclosing new and more rugged features, on which shone a strange, unearthly light -- the result of shadow from the mist and sunshine behind it -- while a gleam of stronger light tipped the curtain's under-edge in one direction. Still higher it rose! Susan exclaimed that the mountain was rising into heaven; and Emma and Mrs Stoutley, whose reading had evidently failed to impress them with a just conception of mountain-scenery, stood with clasped hands in silent expectancy and admiration. The gleam of stronger light above referred to, widened, and Susan almost shrieked with ecstasy when the curtain seemed to rend, and the gleam resolved itself into the great Glacier des Bossons, which, rolling over the mountain-brow like a very world of ice, thrust its mighty tongue down into the valley.

From that moment Susan's disbelief in her lady's knowledge changed into faith, and deepened into profound veneration.

It was, however, only a slight glimpse that had been thus afforded of the ice-world by which they were surrounded. The great ice-fountain of those regions, commencing at the summit of Mont Blanc, flings its ample waves over mountain and vale in all directions, forming a throne on which perpetual winter reigns, and this glacier des Bossons, which filled the breasts of our travellers with such feelings of awe, was but one of the numerous rivers which flow from the fountain down the gorges and higher valleys of the Alps, until they reach those regions where summer heat asserts itself, and checks their further progress in the form of ice by melting them.

"Is it possible," said Emma, as she gazed at the rugged and riven mass of solid ice before her, "that a glacier really flows?"

"So learned men tell us, and so we must believe," said Mrs Stoutley.

"Flows, ma'am?" exclaimed Susan, in surprise.

"Yes, so it is said," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a smile.

"But we can see, ma'am, by lookin' at it, that it don't flow; can't we, ma'am?" said Susan.

"True, Susan, it does not seem to move; nevertheless scientific men tell us that it does, and sometimes we are bound to believe against the evidence of our senses."

Susan looked steadily at the glacier for some time; and then, although she modestly held her tongue, scientific men fell considerably in her esteem.

While the ladies were thus discussing the glacier and enlightening their maid, Lewis, Lawrence, and the Captain, taking advantage of the improved state of the weather, had gone out for a stroll, partly with a view, as Lewis said, to freshen up their appetites for dinner -- although, to say truth, the appetites of all three were of such a nature as to require no freshening up. They walked smartly along the road which leads up the valley, pausing, ever and anon, to look back in admiration at the wonderful glimpses of scenery disclosed by the lifting mists. Gradually these cleared away altogether, and the mountain summits stood out well defined against the clear sky. And then, for the first time, came a feeling of disappointment.

"Why, Lawrence," said Lewis, "didn't they tell us that we could see the top of Mont Blanc from Chamouni?"

"They certainly did," replied Lawrence, "but I can't see it."

"There are two or three splendid-looking peaks," said Lewis, pointing up the valley, "but surely that's not the direction of the top we look for."

"No, my lad, it ain't the right point o' the compass by a long way," said the Captain; "but yonder goes a strange sail a-head, let's overhaul her."

"Heave a-head then, Captain," said Lewis, "and clap on stun's'ls and sky-scrapers, for the strange sail is making for that cottage on the hill, and will get into port before we overhaul her if we don't look sharp."

The "strange sail" was a woman. She soon turned into the cottage referred to, but our travellers followed her up, arranging, as they drew near, that Lawrence, being the best French scholar of the three (the Captain knowing nothing whatever of the language), should address her.

She turned out to be a very comely young woman, the wife, as she explained, of one of the Chamouni guides, named Antoine Grennon. Her daughter, a pretty blue-eyed girl of six or so, was busy arranging a casket of flowers, and the grandmother of the family was engaged in that mysterious mallet-stone-scrubbing-brush-and-cold-water system, whereby the washerwomen of the Alps convert the linen of tourists into shreds and patches in the shortest possible space of time.

After some complimentary remarks, Lawrence asked if it were possible to see the summit of Mont Blanc from where they stood.

Certainly it was; the guide's pretty wife could point it out and attempted to do so, but was for a long time unsuccessful, owing to the interference of preconceived notions -- each of our travellers having set his heart upon beholding a majestic peak of rugged rock, mingled, perhaps, with ice-blocks and snow.

"Most extraordinary," exclaimed the puzzled Captain, "I've squinted often enough at well-known peaks when on the look-out for landmarks from the sea, an' never failed to make 'em out. Let me see," he added, getting behind the woman so as to look straight along her outstretched arm, "no, I can't see it. My eyes must be giving way."

"Surely," said Lawrence, "you don't mean that little piece of smooth snow rising just behind the crest of yonder mountain like a bit of rounded sugar?"

"Oui, monsieur" -- that was precisely what she meant; that was the summit of Mont Blanc.

And so, our three travellers -- like many hundreds of travellers who had gone before them, and like many, doubtless, who shall follow -- were grievously disappointed with their first view of Mont Blanc! They lived, however to change their minds, to discover that the village of Chamouni lies too close to the toe of the Great White Mountain to permit of his being seen to advantage. One may truly see a small scrap of the veritable top from Chamouni, but one cannot obtain an idea of what it is that he sees. As well might a beetle walk close up to the heel of a man, and attempt from that position to form a correct estimate of his size; as well might one plant himself two inches distant from a large painting and expect to do it justice! No, in order to understand Mont Blanc, to "realise" it, to appreciate it adequately, it requires that we should stand well back, and get up on one of the surrounding heights, and make the discovery that as we rise he rises, and looks vaster and more tremendous the further off we go and the higher up we rise, until, with foot planted on the crest of one of the neighbouring giants, we still look up, as well as down, and learn -- with a feeling of deeper reverence, it may be, for the Maker of the "everlasting hills" -- that the grand monarch with the hoary head does in reality tower supreme above them all.



Chapter Eight.

Introduces The Reader To Various Personages, And Touches On Glaciers.

At this time our travellers, having only just been introduced to the mountain, had a great deal to hear and see before they understood him. They returned to the hotel with the feeling of disappointment still upon them, but with excellent appetites for dinner.

In the Salle a manger they met with a miscellaneous assortment of tourists. These, of whom there were above thirty, varied not only as to size and feature, but as to country and experience. There were veteran Alpine men -- steady, quiet, bronzed-looking fellows, some of them -- who looked as if they had often "attacked" and conquered the most dangerous summits, and meant to do so again. There were men, and women too, from England, America, Germany, France, and Russia. Some had been at Chamouni before, and wore the self-possessed air of knowledge; others had obviously never been there before, and were excited. Many were full of interest and expectation, a few, chiefly very young men, wore a blase, half-pitiful, half-patronising air, as though to say, "that's right, good people, amuse yourselves with your day-dreams while you may. We have tried a few weeks of this sort of thing, and have done a summit or two; in imagination we have also been up Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn, and a few of the Hymalaya peaks, and most of the mountains in the moon, and several of the fixed stars, and -- haw -- are now rather boa-ord with it all than otherwise!" There were men who had done much and who said little, and men who had done little and who spoke much. There were "ice-men" who had a desire to impart their knowledge, and would-be ice-men who were glad to listen. Easy-going men and women there were, who flung the cares of life behind them, and "went in," as they said, for enjoyment; and who, with abounding animal spirits, a dash of religious sentiment, much irrepressible humour and fun, were really pleasant objects to look at, and entertaining companions to travel with. Earnest men and women there were, too, who gathered plants and insects, and made pencil-sketches and water-colour drawings during their rambles among mountains and valleys, and not a few of whom chronicled faithfully their experiences from day to day. There was a Polish Count, a tall, handsome, middle-aged, care-worn, anxious-looking man, who came there, apparently in search of health, and who was cared for and taken care of by a dark-eyed little daughter. This daughter was so beautiful, that it ought to have made the Count well -- so thought most of the young men --  simply to look at her! There was a youthful British Lord, who had come to "do" Mont Blanc and a few other peaks. He was under charge of a young man of considerable experience in mountaineering, whose chief delight seemed to be the leading of his charge to well-known summits by any other and more difficult tracks than the obvious and right ones, insomuch that Lewis Stoutley, who had a tendency to imprudent remark, said in his hearing that he had heard of men who, in order to gain the roof of a house, preferred to go up by the waterspout rather than the staircase. There was an artist, whom Lewis -- being, as already observed, given to insolence -- styled the mad artist because he was enthusiastic in his art, galvanic in his actions, and had large, wild eyes, with long hair, and a broad-brimmed conical hat. Besides these, there was a Russian Professor, who had come there for purposes of scientific investigation, and a couple of German students, and a Scotch man of letters, whose aim was general observation, and several others, whose end was simply seeing the world.

In the arrangements of the table, Captain Wopper found himself between Emma Gray and the Polish Count, whose name was Horetzki. Directly opposite to him sat Mrs Stoutley, having her son Lewis on her right, and Dr Lawrence on her left. Beside the Count sat his lovely little daughter Nita, and just opposite to her was the mad artist. This arrangement was maintained throughout the sojourn of the various parties during their stay at Chamouni. They did, indeed, shift their position as regarded the table, according to the arrival or departure of travellers, but not in regard to each other.

Now it is an interesting, but by no means surprising fact, that Cupid planted himself in the midst of this party, and, with his fat little legs, in imminent danger of capsizing the dishes, began to draw his bow and let fly his arrows right and left. Being an airy sprite, though fat, and not at any time particularly visible, a careless observer might have missed seeing him; but to any one with moderate powers of observation, he was there, straddling across a dish of salad as plain as the salt-cellar before Captain Wopper's nose. His deadly shafts, too, were visibly quivering in the breasts of Lewis Stoutley, George Lawrence, and the mad artist. Particularly obvious were these shafts in the case of the last, who was addicted to gazing somewhat presumptuously on "lovely woman" in general, from what he styled an artistic point of view -- never from any other point of view; of course not.

Whether or not Cupid had discharged his artillery at the young ladies, we cannot say, for they betrayed no evidence of having been wounded. In their case, he must either have missed his aim, or driven his shafts home with such vigour, that they were buried out of sight altogether in their tender hearts. It is probable that not one member of that miscellaneous company gave a thought at that time to the wounded men, except the wounded men themselves, so absorbing is the love of food! The wounded were, however, sharp-set in all respects. They at once descried each other's condition, and, instead of manifesting sympathy with each other, were, strange to say, filled with intense jealousy. This at least is true of the younger men. Lawrence, being somewhat older, was more secretive and self-possessed.

At first Captain Wopper, having declined a dish of cauliflower because it was presented alone, and having afterwards accepted a mutton chop alone, with feelings of poignant regret that he had let the cauliflower go by, was too busy to observe what the heathen-mythological youngster was doing. Indeed, at most times, the said youngster might have discharged a whole quiver of arrows into the Captain's eyes without his being aware of the attack; but, at the present time, the Captain, as the reader is aware, was up to the eyes in a plot in which Cupid's aid was necessary; he had, as it were, invoked the fat child's presence. When, therefore, he had got over the regrets about the cauliflower, and had swallowed the mutton-chop, he began to look about him -- to note the converse that passed between the young men, and the frequent glances they cast at the young women.

It was not the first time that the Captain had, so to speak, kept his weather-eye open in regard to the affection which he had made up his mind must now have been awakened in the breasts of George Lawrence and Emma Gray; but hitherto his hopes, although sanguine, had not received encouragement. Though polite and respectful to each other, they were by no means tender; altogether, they acted quite differently from what the Captain felt that he would have done in similar circumstances. A suspicion had even crossed the poor seaman's mind that Emma was in love with her handsome and rattling cousin Lewis; but anxiety on this head was somewhat allayed by other and conflicting circumstances, such as occasional remarks by Lewis, to the effect that Emma was a goose, or a pert little monkey, or that she knew nothing beyond house-keeping and crochet, and similar compliments. Now, however, in a certain animated conversation between Lawrence and Emma, the designing seaman thought he saw the budding of his deep-laid plans, and fondly hoped ere long to behold the bud developed into the flower of matrimony. Under this conviction he secretly hugged himself, but in the salon, that evening, he opened his arms and released himself on beholding the apparently fickle Lawrence deeply engaged in converse with the Count Horetzki, to whose pretty daughter, however, he addressed the most of his remarks.

The Captain, being a blunt honest, straightforward man, could not understand this state of matters, and fell into a fit of abstracted perplexity on the sofa beside Mrs Stoutley, who listened listlessly to the Russian Professor as he attempted to explain to her and Emma the nature of a glacier.

"Well, I don't understand it at all," said Mrs Stoutley, at the end of one of the Professor's most lucid expositions.

We may remark, in passing, that the Professor, like many of his countrymen, was a good linguist and spoke English well.

"Not understand it!" he exclaimed, with a slight elevation of his eyebrows. "My dear madam, it is most plain, but I fear my want of good English does render me not quite intelligible."

"Your English is excellent," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a smile, "but I fear that my brain is not a sufficiently clear one on such matters, for I confess that I cannot understand it. Can you, Captain Wopper?"

"Certainly not, ma'am," answered the Captain, thinking of the fickle Lawrence; "it takes the wind out of my sails entirely."

"Indeed!" said the Professor. "Well, do permit me to try again. You understand that all the mountain-tops and elevated plateaus, for many miles around here, are covered with ice and snow."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Captain, awaking to the fact that his answer was not relevant; "may I ax what is the particular pint that puzzles you, ma'am?"

Emma laughed aloud at this, and coughed a little to conceal the fact. She was rather easily taken by surprise with passing touches of the ludicrous, and had not yet acquired the habit of effectually suppressing little explosions of undertoned mirth.

"The thing that puzzles me," said Mrs Stoutley, "is, that glaciers should flow, as I am told they do, and yet that they should be as hard and brittle as glass."

"Ah, well, yes, just so, h'm!" said the Captain, looking very wise; "that is exactly the pint that I want to know myself; for no man who looks at the great tongue of that glacier day Bossung -- "

"Des Bossons," said the Professor, with a bland smile.

"Day Bossong," repeated the Captain, "can deny that it is marked with all the lines, and waves, an eddies of a rollin' river, an' yet as little can they deny that it seems as hard-and-fast as the rock of Gibraltar."

The Professor nodded approvingly.

"You are right, Captain Whipper -- "

"Wopper," said the Captain, with a grave nod.

"Wopper," repeated the Professor, "the glacier des Bossons, like all the other glaciers, seems to remain immovable, though in reality it flows --  ever flows -- downward; but its motion is so slow, that it is not perceptible to the naked eye. Similarly, the hour-hand of a watch is to appearance motionless. Do you want proof? Mark it just now; look again in quarter of an hour, and you see that it has moved. You are convinced. It is so with the glacier. Mark him to-day, go back to-morrow -- the mark has changed. Some glaciers flow at the rate of two and three feet in the twenty-four hours."

"Yes, but how do they flow, being so brittle?" demanded Mrs Stoutley.

"Ay, that's the pint, Professor," said the Captain, nodding, "how do they flow, bein' made of hard and brittle ice?"

"Why, by rolling higgledy-piggledy over itself of course," said Lewis, flippantly, as he came up and sat down on the end of the sofa, being out of humour with himself and everybody in consequence of having utterly failed to gain the attention of Nita Horetzki, although he had made unusually earnest efforts to join in conversation with her father. Owing to somewhat similar feelings, the artist had flung himself into a chair, and sat glaring at the black fireplace with a degree of concentration that ought to have lighted the firewood therein.

"The cause of a glacier flowing," said the Professor, "has long been a disputed point. Some men of science have held that it is the pressure of ice and snow behind it which causes it to flow. They do not think that it flows like water, but say it is forced from behind, and crushed through gorges and down valleys, as it were, unwillingly. They say that, if left alone, as they now are, without additions, from this time forward, glaciers would no longer move; they would rest, and slowly melt away; that their motion is due to the fact that there are miles and miles of snow-fields, thousands of feet deep, on the mountain-tops and in the gorges, to which fresh snows are added every winter, so that the weight of what is behind, slipping off the slopes and falling from the cliffs, crushes down and forward that which is below; thus glaciers cannot choose but advance."

"Ay, ay," said the Captain, "no doubt no doubt that may be so; but why is it that, bein' as brittle as glass, a glacier don't come rumblin' and clatterin' down the valleys in small hard bits, like ten thousand millions of smashed-up chandeliers?"

"Ay, there's the rub," exclaimed Lewis; "what say you to that?"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Professor, again smiling blandly, "there you have touched what once was, and, to some philosophers it seems, still is, the great difficulty. By some great men it has been held that glacier ice is always in a partially soft, viscid, or semi-fluid condition, somewhat like pitch, so that, although apparently a solid, brittle, and rigid body, it flows sluggishly in reality. Other philosophers have denied this theory, insisting that the ice of glaciers is not like pitch, but like glass, and that it cannot be squeezed without being broken, nor drawn without being cracked. These philosophers have discovered that when ice is subjected to great pressure it melts, and that, when the pressure is removed, the part so melted immediately freezes again -- hence the name regelation, or re-freezing, is given to the process. Thus a glacier, they say, is in many places being continually melted and continually and instantaneously re-frozen, so that it is made to pass through narrow gorges, and to open out again when the enormous pressure has been removed. But this theory of regelation, although unquestionably true, and although it exercises some influence on glacier motion, does not, in my opinion, alone account for it. The opinion which seems to be most in favour among learned men -- and that which I myself hold firmly -- is, the theory of the Scottish Professor Forbes, namely, that a glacier is a semi-fluid body, it is largely impregnated throughout its extent with water, its particles move round and past each other -- in other words, it flows in precisely the same manner as water, the only difference being that it is not quite so fluid; it is sluggish in its flow, but it certainly models itself to the ground over which it is forced by its own gravity, and it is only rent or broken into fragments when it is compelled to turn sharp angles, or to pass over steep convex slopes. Forbes, by his careful measurements and investigations, proved incontestably that in some glaciers the central portion travelled down its valley at double or treble the rate of its sides, without the continuity of the mass being broken. In small masses, indeed, glacier-ice is to all appearance rigid, but on a large scale it is unquestionably ductile."

"Has the theory of regelation been put to the proof?" asked Lewis, with a degree of interest in glaciers which he had never before felt.

"It has," answered the Professor. "An experimentalist once cut a bar of solid ice, like to a bar of soap in form and size, from a glacier. To this an iron weight of several pounds was suspended by means of a very fine wire, which was tied round the bar. The pressure of the wire melted the ice under it; as the water escaped it instantly re-froze above the wire; thus the wire went on cutting its way through the bar, and the water went on freezing, until at last the weight fell to the ground, and left the bar as solid and entire as if it had never been cut."

"Well, now," said Captain Wopper, bringing his hand down on his thigh with a slap that did more to arouse Mrs Stoutley out of her languor than the Professor's lecture on glacier ice, "I've sailed round the world, I have, an' seen many a strange sight, and what I've got to say is that I'll believe that when I see it."

"You shall see it soon then, I hope," said the Professor, more blandly than ever, "for I intend to verify this experiment along with several others. I go to the Mer de Glace, perhaps as far as the Jardin, to-morrow. Will you come?"

"What may the Jardang be?" asked the Captain.

"Hallo! monkey, what's wrong?" said Lewis to Emma, referring to one of the undertoned safety-valves before mentioned.

"Nothing," replied Emma, pursing her little lips till they resembled a cherry.

"The Jardin, or garden," said the Professor, "is a little spot of exquisite beauty in the midst of the glaciers, where a knoll of green grass and flowers peeps up in the surrounding sterility. It is one of the regular excursions from Chamouni."

"Can ladies go?" asked Lewis.

"Young and active ladies can," said the Professor, with his blandest possible smile, as he bowed to Emma.

"Then, we'll all go together," cried Lewis, with energy.

"Not all," said Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh, "I am neither young nor active."

"Nonsense, mother, you're quite young yet, you know, and as active as a kitten when you've a mind to be. Come, we'll have a couple of porters and a chair to have you carried when you knock up."

Notwithstanding the glowing prospects of ease and felicity thus opened up to her, Mrs Stoutley resolutely refused to go on this excursion, but she generously allowed Emma to go if so disposed. Emma, being disposed, it was finally arranged that, on the following day, she, the Captain, Lewis, and Lawrence, with Gillie White as her page, should proceed up the sides of Mont Blanc with the man of science, and over the Mer de Glace to the Jardin.



Chapter Nine.

A Solid Stream.

There is a river of ice in Switzerland, which, taking its rise on the hoary summit of Mont Blanc, flows through a sinuous mountain-channel, and terminates its grand career by liquefaction in the vale of Chamouni. A mighty river it is in all respects, and a wonderful one -- full of interest and mystery and apparent contradiction. It has a grand volume and sweep, varying from one to four miles in width, and is about twelve miles long, with a depth of many hundreds of feet. It is motionless to the eye, yet it descends into the plain continually. It is hard and unyielding in its nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. It is not a half solid mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid, clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids, cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water -- as if a grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom.

It is being melted perpetually too. The fierce sun of summer sends millions of tiny streamlets down into its interior, which collect, augment, cut channels for themselves through the ice, and finally gush into the plain from its lower end in the form of a muddy river. Even in winter this process goes on, yet the ice-river never melts entirely away, but holds on its cold, stately, solemn course from year to year --  has done so for unknown ages, and will probably do so to the end of time. It is picturesque in its surroundings, majestic in its motion, tremendous in its action, awful in its sterility, and, altogether, one of the most impressive and sublime works of God.

This gigantic glacier, or stream of ice, springing, as it does, from the giant-mountain of Europe, is appropriately hemmed in, and its mighty force restrained, by a group of Titans, whose sharp aiguilles, or needle-like peaks, shoot upward to a height little short of their rounded and white-headed superior, and from whose wild gorges and riven sides tributary ice-rivers flow, and avalanches thunder incessantly. Leaving its cradle on the top of Mont Blanc, the great river sweeps round the Aiguille du Geant; and, after receiving its first name of Glacier du Geant from that mighty obelisk of rock, which rises 13,156 feet above the sea, it passes onward to welcome two grand tributaries, the Glacier de Lechaud, from the rugged heights of the Grandes Jorasses, and the Glacier du Talefre from the breast of the Aiguille du Talefre and the surrounding heights. Thus augmented, the river is named the Mer de Glace, or sea of ice, and continues its downward course; but here it encounters what may be styled "the narrows," between the crags at the base of the Aiguille Charmoz and Aiguille du Moine, through which it steadily forces its way, though compressed to much less than half its width by the process. In one place the Glacier du Geant is above eleven hundred yards wide; that of the Lechaud is above eight hundred; that of Talefre above six hundred -- the total, when joined, two thousand five hundred yards; and this enormous mass of solid ice is forced through a narrow neck of the valley, which is, in round numbers, only nine hundred yards wide! Of course the ice-river must gain in depth what it loses in breadth in this gorge, through which it travels at the rate of twenty inches a day. Thereafter, it tumbles ruggedly to its termination in the vale of Chamouni, under the name of the Glacier des Bois.

The explanation of the causes of the rise and flow of this ice-river we will leave to the genial and enthusiastic Professor, who glories in dilating on such matters to Captain Wopper, who never tires of the dilations.

Huge, however, though this glacier of the Mer de Glace be, it is only one of a series of similar glaciers which constitute the outlets to that vast reservoir of ice formed by the wide range of Mont Blanc, where the snows of successive winters are stored, packed, solidified, and rendered, as it were, self-regulating in their supplies of water to the plains. And the Mont Blanc range itself is but a portion of the great glacial world of Switzerland, the area occupied by which is computed at 900 square miles. Two-thirds of these send their waters to the sea through the channel of the Rhine. The most extensive of these glaciers is the Aletsch glacier, which is fifteen miles in length. It is said that above six hundred distinct glaciers have been reckoned in Switzerland.

This, good reader, is but a brief reference to the wonders of the glacial world. It is but a scratching of the surface. There is a very mine of interesting, curious, and astonishing facts below the surface. Nature is prodigal of her information to those who question her closely, correctly, and perseveringly. Even to those who observe her carelessly, she is not altogether dumb. She is generous; and the God of Nature has caused it to be written for our instruction that, "His works are wonderful, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

We may not, however, prolong our remarks on the subject of ice-rivers at this time. Our travellers at Chamouni are getting ready to start, and it is our duty at present to follow them.



Chapter Ten.

The First Excursion.

"A Splendid morning!" exclaimed Dr George Lawrence, as he entered the Salle a manger with an obviously new alpenstock in his hand.

"Jolly!" replied Lewis Stoutley, who was stooping at the moment to button one of his gaiters.

Lewis was addicted to slang, not by any means an uncommon characteristic of youth!

"The man," he said, with some bitterness, "who invented big buttons and little button-holes should have had his nose skewered with a button-hook. He was an ass!"

In order to relieve his feelings and accomplish his ends, Lewis summarily enlarged the holes with his penknife.

"And round buttons, too," he said, indignantly; "what on earth was the use of making round buttons when flat ones had been invented? A big hole and a flat button will hold against anything -- even against Scotch whins and heather. There, now, that abominable job is done."

"You are fond of strong language, Lewie," said Lawrence, as he examined the spike at the end of his alpenstock.

"I am. It relieves my feelings."

"But don't you think it weakens your influence on occasions when nothing but strong language will serve? You rob yourself of the power, you know, to increase the force of it."

"Oh bother! don't moralise, man, but let's have your opinion of the weather, which is an all-important subject just now."

"I have already given my opinion as to that," said Lawrence, "but here comes one who will give us an opinion of value. -- He is in capital time."

"Good morning, Antoine."

Their guide for the day, Antoine Grennon, a fine stalwart specimen of his class, returned the salutation, and added that it was a very fine morning.

"Capital, isn't it?" cried Lewis, cheerfully, for he had got over the irritation caused by the buttons. "Couldn't be better; could it?"

The guide did not admit that the weather could not be better.

"You look doubtful, Antoine," said Lawrence. "Don't you think the day will keep up?"

"Keep up!" exclaimed Lewis; "why, the sky is perfectly clear. Of course it will. I never saw a finer day, even in England. Why do you doubt it, Antoine?"

The guide pointed to a small cloud that hung over the brow of one of the higher peaks.

"Appearances are sometimes deceitful in this country," he said. "I don't doubt the fineness of the day at present, but -- "

He was interrupted here by the sudden and noisy entrance of Captain Wopper and the Professor, followed by the mad artist, whose name, by the way, was Slingsby.

"No, no," said the Captain to the Professor, with whom he had already become very intimate, "it won't do to part company. If the Jardang is too far for the ladies, we will steer for the Mairdyglass, an' cross over to the what's-'is-name -- "

"Chapeau," said the Professor.

"Ah! the shappo," continued the Captain, "and so down by the glacier dez boys -- "

"The what?" asked Lewis, with a half-suppressed smile.

"The glacier dez boys, youngster," repeated the Captain, stoutly.

"Oh, I see; you mean the Glacier des Bois?" said Lewis, suppressing the smile no longer.

"What I mean, young man," said the Captain, sternly, "is best known to myself. You and other College-bred coxcombs may call it day bwa, if you like, but I have overhauled the chart, and there it's spelt d-e-s, which sounds dez, and b-o-i-s, which seafarin' men pronounce boys, so don't go for to cross my hawse again, but rather join me in tryin' to indooce the Professor to putt off his trip to the Jardang, an' sail in company with us for the day."

"I will join you heartily in that," said Lewis, turning to the man of science, who stood regarding the Captain with an amiable smile, as a huge Newfoundland dog might regard a large mastiff; "but why is our proposed excursion to the Jardin to be altered?"

"Because," said the Professor, "your amiable sister -- I beg pardon, cousin -- with that irresistible power of suasion which seems inherent in her nature, has prevailed on Mademoiselle Horetzki to join the party, and Mademoiselle is too delicate -- sylph-like -- to endure the fatigues of so long an excursion over the ice. Our worthy guide suggests that it would afford more pleasure to the ladies -- and of course, therefore, to the gentlemen -- if you were to make your first expedition only to the Montanvert which is but a two hours' climb from Chamouni, picnic there, cross the Mer de Glace, which is narrow at that point, and descend again to Chamouni by the side of the Glacier des Bois, where you can behold the great moraines, and also the source of the river Arveiron. This would be a pleasant and not too fatiguing round, and I, who might perhaps be an encumbrance to you, will prosecute my inquiries at the Jardin alone."

"Impossible," exclaimed Lewis, "the Captain is right when he observes that we must not part company. As my mother says, we are a giddy crew, and will be the better of a little scientific ballast to keep us from capsizing into a crevasse. Do come, my dear sir, if it were only out of charity, to keep us in order."

To this entreaty Lawrence and the artist added their persuasions, which were further backed by the eloquence of Emma Gray and Nita Horetzki, who entered at the moment radiant with the flush of life's dawning day, and irresistible in picturesque mountain attire, the chief characteristics of which consisted in an extensive looping up of drapery, and an ostentatious display of those staffs called alpenstocks, five feet long, tipped with chamois horn, which are an indispensable requisite in Alpine work.

"Oh! you muss go," said Nita, in silvery tones and disjointed English. "If you go not, monsieur, I go not!"

"That of course decides the question, Mademoiselle," said the gallant Professor, with one of his blandest smiles, "I shall accompany you with pleasure. But I have one little request to make. My time at Chamouni is short; will you permit me, on arriving at the Mer de Glace, to prosecute my inquiries? I am here to ask questions of Nature, and must do so with perseverance and patience. Will you allow me to devote more of my attention to her than to yourself?"

"H'm! well -- what you say, Mademoiselle Gray?" demanded Nita, with an arch look at her companion. "Is the Professor's request reasonable?"

To this Emma replied that as Nature was, upon the whole, a more important lady than either of them, she thought it was reasonable; whereupon the Professor agreed to postpone his visit to the Jardin, and devote his day to fixing stakes and making observations on the Mer de Glace, with a view to ascertaining the diurnal rate of speed at which the glacier flowed.

"You spoke of putting certain questions to Nature, Professor," said Lawrence, when the party were slowly toiling up the mountain-side. "Have they not already been put to her, and satisfactorily answered some time ago?"

"They have been put," replied the Professor, "by such learned men as Saussure, Agassiz, Rendu, Charpentier, and by your own countryman Forbes, and others, and undoubtedly their questions have received distinct answers, insomuch that our knowledge of the nature and action of glacial ice is now very considerable. But, my dear sir, learned men have not been agreed as to what Nature's replies mean, nor have they exhausted the subject; besides, no true man of science is quite satisfied with merely hearing the reports of others, he is not content until he has met and conversed with Nature face to face. I wish, therefore, to have a personal interview with her in these Alps, or rather," continued the Professor, in a more earnest tone, "I do wish to see the works of my Maker with my own eyes, and to hear His voice with the ears of my own understanding."

"Your object, then, is to verify, not to discover?" said Lawrence.

"It is both. Primarily to verify; but the man of science always goes forth with the happy consciousness that the mine in which he proposes to dig is rich in gems, and that, while seeking for one sort, he may light upon another unexpectedly."

"When Captain Wopper turned up yonder gem, he lit on one which, if not of the purest water, is unquestionably a brilliant specimen of the class to which it belongs," said Lewis, coming up at that moment, and pointing to a projection in the somewhat steep part of the path up which they were winding.

The gem referred to was no other than our friend Gillie White. That hilarious youth, although regenerated outwardly as regards blue cloth and buttons, had not by any means changed his spirit since fortune began to smile on him. Finding that his mistress, being engaged with her dark-eyed friend, did not require his services, and observing that his patron, Captain Wopper, held intercourse with the guide -- in broken English, because he, the guide, also spoke broken English -- that Lawrence and the Professor seemed capable of entertaining each other, that Lewis and the artist, although dreadfully jealous of each other, were fain to hold social intercourse, the ladies being inseparable, and that he, Gillie, was therefore left to entertain himself he set about amusing himself to the best of his power by keeping well in rear of the party and scrambling up dangerous precipices, throwing stones at little birds, charging shrubs and stabbing the earth with Emma's alpenstock, immolating snails, rolling rocks down precipitous parts of the hill, and otherwise exhibiting a tendency to sport with Nature -- all of which he did to music whistled by himself, and in happy forgetfulness of everything save the business in hand. He was engaged in some apparently difficult piece of fancy work, involving large boulders, when Lewis drew attention to him.

"What can the imp be up to?" he said.

"Most likely worrying some poor reptile to death," said the artist, removing his conical wideawake and fanning himself therewith. (Mr Slingsby was very warm, his slender frame not being equal to his indomitable spirit.)

"I think he is trying to break your alpenstock, Emma," observed Lewis.

There seemed to be truth in this, for Gillie, having fixed the staff as a lever, was pulling at it with all his might. The projection of rock on which he stood, and which overhung the zigzag road, was partially concealed by bushes, so that the precise intention of his efforts could not be discovered.

At that moment Antoine, the guide, turned to see what detained the party, and instantly uttered a loud shout of alarm as he ran back to them.

The warning or remonstrance came too late. Gillie had loosened an enormous rock which had been on the point of falling, and with a throb of exultation, which found vent in a suppressed squeal, he hurled a mass, something about the size and weight of a cart of coals, down the precipice.

But the current of Gillie's feelings was rudely changed when a shriek from the ladies, and something between a roar and a yell from the gentlemen, told that they had observed a man with a mule, who, in ascending from the valley, had reached a spot which lay in the direct line of the miniature avalanche; and when the muleteer, also observing the missile, added a hideous howl to the chorus, the poor urchin shrank back appalled. The rock struck the track directly behind the mule with a force which, had it been expended only six inches more to the right, would have driven that creature's hind legs into the earth as if they had been tenpenny nails; it then bounded clear over the next turning of the track, crashed madly through several bushes, overturned five or six trees, knocked into atoms a sister rock which had taken the same leap some ages before, and finally, leaving behind it a grand tail of dust and debris, rolled to its rest upon the plain.

At the first symptom of the danger, Captain Wopper had rushed towards the culprit.

"Rascal!" he growled between his teeth, as he seized Gillie by the nape of the neck, lifted him almost off his legs, and shook him, "d'ee see what you've done?"

He thrust the urchin partially over the precipice, and pointed to the man and the mule.

"Please, I haven't done it," pleaded Gillie.

"But you did your best to -- you -- you small -- there!"

He finished off the sentence with an open-handed whack that aroused the echoes of Mont Blanc, and cast the culprit adrift.

"Now, look 'ee, lad," said the Captain, with impressive solemnity, "if you ever go to chuck stones like that over the precipices of this here mountain again, I'll chuck you over after 'em. D'ee hear?"

"Yes, Cappen," grumbled Gillie, rubbing himself, "but if you do, it's murder. No jury of Englishmen would think of recommendin' you to mercy in the succumstances. You'd be sure to swing -- an' I -- I could wish you a better fate."

The Captain did not wait to hear the boy's good wishes, but hastened to rejoin his friends, while Gillie followed in rear, commenting audibly on the recent incident.

"Well, well," he said, thrusting both hands deep into bush trouser-pockets, according to custom when in a moralising frame of mind, "who'd a thought it, Gillie White, that you'd 'ave bin brought all the way from London to the Halps to make such a close shave o' committin' man-slaughter to say nothin' of mule-slaughter, and to git whacked by your best friend? Oh! Cappen, Cappen, I couldn't 'ave believed it of you if I 'adn't felt it. But, I say, Gillie, wasn't it a big 'un? Ha! ha! The Cappen threatened to chuck me over the precipice, but I've chucked over a wopper that beats him all to sticks. Hallo! I say that's worthy of Punch. P'r'aps I'll be a contributor to it w'en I gets back from Zwizzerland, if I ever does get back, vich is by no means certain. Susan, my girl, I'll 'ave summat to enliven you with this evenin'."

We need scarcely say that this last remark had reference to Mrs Stoutley's maid, with whom the boy had become a great favourite. Indeed the regard was mutual, though there was this difference about it, that Susan, being two years older than Gillie, and tall as well as womanly for her age, looked upon the boy as a precocious little oddity, whereas Gillie, esteeming himself a man -- "all but" -- regarded Susan with the powerful feelings of a first affection.

From this, and what has been already said, it will be apparent to our fair readers that Cupid had accompanied Mrs Stoutley's party to Chamouni, with the intention apparently of amusing himself as well as interfering with Captain Wopper's matrimonial designs.

The road to the Montanvert is a broad and easy bridle-path, which, after leaving the valley, traverses a pine-forest in its ascent and becomes in places somewhat steep. Here and there a zigzag is found necessary, and in several places there are tracks of avalanches. About half-way up there is a spring named the Caillet which was shaded by trees in days of yore, but the avalanches have swept these away. Beside the spring of pure water there was a spring of "fire-water," in a hut where so-called "refreshments" might also be obtained. As none of our party deemed it necessary to stimulate powers, which, at that time of the day, were fresh and vigorous, they passed this point of temptation without halting.

Other temptations, however, were not so easily resisted. The Professor was stopped by rocky stratifications, the ladies were stopped by flowers and views, the younger gentlemen were of course stopped by the ladies, and the mad artist was stopped by everything. Poor Mr Slingsby, who had been asked to join the party, in virtue of his being a friend of the Count, and, therefore, of Nita, was so torn by the conflict resulting from his desire to cultivate Nita, and cut out Lewis and Lawrence, and his desire to prosecute his beloved art, that he became madder than usual. "Splendid foregrounds" met him at every turn; "lovely middle-distances" chained him in everywhere; "enchanting backgrounds" beset him on all sides; gorgeous colours dazzled him above and below; and Nita's black eyes pierced him continually through and through. It was terrible! He was constantly getting into positions of danger -- going out on ledges to obtain particular views, rolling his large eyes, pulling off his hat and tossing back his long hair, so as to drink in more thoroughly the beauties around him, and clambering up precipices to fetch down bunches of wild flowers when Nita chanced to express the most distant allusion to, or admiration of, them.

"He will leave his bones in one crevasse!" growled Antoine, on seeing him rush to a point of vantage, and, for the fiftieth time, squat down to make a rapid sketch of some "exquisite bit" that had taken his fancy.

"'Tis of no use," he said, on returning to his friends, "I cannot sketch. The beauties around me are too much for me."

He glanced timidly at Nita, who looked at him boldly, laughed, and advised him to shut his eyes, so as not to be distracted with such beauties.

"Impossible; I cannot choose but look. See," he said, pointing backward to their track, "see what a lovely effect of tender blue and yellow through yonder opening -- "

"D'you mean Gillie?" asked Lewis, with a quiet grin, as that reckless youth suddenly presented his blue coat and yellow buttons in the very opening referred to.

The laugh called forth by this was checked by the voice of Captain Wopper, who was far in advance shouting to them to come on.

A few minutes more, and the whole party stood on the Montanvert beside the small inn which has been erected there for the use of summer tourists, and from which point the great glacier broke for the first time in all its grandeur, on their view.

Well might Emma and Nita stand entranced for some time, unable to find utterance to their feelings, save in the one word -- wonderful! Even Slingsby's mercurial spirit was awed into silence, for, straight before them, the white and frozen billows of the Mer de Glace stretched for miles away up into the gorges of the giant hills until lost in and mingled with the clouds of heaven.



Chapter Eleven.

The Pursuit of Science under Difficulties.

After the first burst of enthusiasm and interest had abated, the attention of the party became engrossed in the proceedings of the Professor, who, with his assistants, began at once to adjust his theodolite, and fix stakes in the ice. While he was thus engaged, Captain Wopper regarded the Mer de Glace with a gaze of fixedness so intense as to draw on him the attention and arouse the curiosity of his friends.

"D'you see anything curious, Captain?" asked Emma, who chanced to stand beside him.

"Coorious -- eh?" repeated the Captain slowly, without altering his gaze or adding to his reply.

"Monsieur le Capitaine is lost in consternation," said Nita, with a smile.

"I think, Miss Horetzki," said Lewis, "that you probably mean admiration."

"How you knows w'at I mean?" demanded Nita, quickly.

"Ha! a very proper and pertinent question," observed Slingsby, in an audible though under tone.

"I nevair do put pertinent questions, sir," said Nita, turning her black eyes sharply, though with something of a twinkle in them, on the mad artist.

Poor Slingsby began to explain, but Nita cut him short by turning to Lewis and again demanding, "How you knows w'at I mean?"

"The uniform propriety of your thoughts, Mademoiselle," replied Lewis, with a continental bow, and an air of pretended respect, "induces me to suppose that your words misinterpret them."

Nita's knowledge of English was such that this remark gave her only a hazy idea of the youth's meaning; she accepted it, however, as an apologetic explanation, and ordered him to awaken the Captain and find out from him what it was that so riveted his attention.

"You hear my orders," said Lewis, laying his hand with a slap on the Captain's shoulder. "What are you staring at?"

"Move!" murmured the Captain, returning as it were to consciousness with a long deep sigh, "it don't move an inch."

"What does not move?" said Lawrence, who had been assisting to adjust the theodolite, and came forward at the moment.

"The ice, to be sure," answered the Captain. "I say, Professor, do 'ee mean to tell me that the whole of that there Mairdy-glass is movin'?"

"I do," answered the Professor, pausing for a minute in his arrangements, and looking over his spectacles at the Captain with an amused expression.

"Then," returned the Captain, with emphasis, "I think you'll find that you're mistaken."

"Ha! Captain Weeper -- "

"Wopper," said the Captain.

"Wopper," repeated the Professor, "you are not the first who has expressed disbelief in what he cannot see, and you will assuredly not be the last; but if you will wait I will convince you."

"Very good," replied the Captain, "I'm open to conviction."

"Which means," said Lewis, "that you have nailed your colours to the mast, and mean to die rather than give in."

"No doubt," said the Captain, paying no attention to the last remark, "I see, and believe, that at some time or other the ice here must have been in a flowin' state. I'm too well aware o' the shape of waves an' eddies, cross-currents and ripples, to doubt or deny that but any man with half an eye can see that it's anchored hard and fast now. I've looked at it without flinchin' for good ten minutes, and not the smallest sign of motion can I detect."

"So might you say of the hour-hand of a watch," observed Lawrence.

"Not at all," retorted the Captain, becoming argumentative. "I look at the hour-hand of a watch for ten minutes and don't see it move, but I do see that it has in reality passed over a very small but appreciable space in that time."

"Just so," said the Professor, "I will ere long show you the same thing in regard to the ice."

"I'll bet you ten thousand pounds you don't," returned the Captain, with an assured nod.

"Colours nailed!" said Lewis; "but I say, Captain," he added, remonstratively, "I thought you were a sworn enemy to gambling. Isn't betting gambling?"

"It is, young man," answered the Captain, "but I always bet ten thousand pounds sterling, which I never mean to pay if I lose, nor to accept if I win -- and that is not gambling. Put that in your pipe and smoke it; and if you'll take my advice, you'll go look after your friend Slingsby, who is gambolling up yonder in another fashion that will soon bring him to grief if he's not stopped."

All eyes were turned towards the mad artist, who, finding that his advances to Mademoiselle Nita were not well received, had for the time forsaken her, and returned to his first (and professional) love. In wooing her, he had clambered to an almost inaccessible cliff from which he hoped to obtain a very sketchable view of the Mer de Glace, and, when Captain Wopper drew attention to him, was making frantic efforts to swing himself by the branch of a tree to a projecting rock, which was so slightly attached to its parent cliff that his weight would in all probability have hurled it and himself down the precipice.

The remonstrative shouts of his friends, however, induced him to desist, and he sat down to work in a less perilous position.

Meanwhile the Professor, having completed his preliminary preparations, ordered his assistants to go and "fix the stakes in the ice."

It had been arranged that while the scientific experiments were in progress, the young ladies should ramble about the neighbourhood in search of flowers and plants, under the care of Lewis, until two o'clock, at which hour all were to assemble at the Montanvert hotel for luncheon, Captain Wopper and Lawrence resolving to remain and assist, or at least observe, the Professor. The former, indeed, bearing in mind his great and ruling wish even in the midst of scientific doubt and inquiries, had suggested that the latter should also accompany the ladies, the country being somewhat rugged, and the ladies -- especially Miss Emma -- not being very sure-footed; but Lawrence, to his disappointment, had declined, saying that the ladies had a sufficient protector in the gallant Lewis, and that Miss Emma was unquestionably the surest-footed of the whole party.

Lawrence therefore remained, and, at the Professor's request, accompanied the party who were to fix the stakes on the ice.

As this operation was attended with considerable difficulty and some danger, we will describe the process.

Finding that the spot which he had first chosen for his observations was not a very good one, the Professor changed his position to a point farther down on the steep sloping rocks that form the left bank of the Glacier des Bois. Here the theodolite was fixed. This instrument as even our young readers may probably know, is a small telescope attached to a stand with three long legs, and having spirit-levels, by means of which it can be fixed in a position, if we may say so, of exact flatness with reference to the centre of the earth. Within the telescope are two crossed hairs of a spider's-web, so fine as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye, and so arranged that their crossing-point is exactly in the centre of the tube. By means of pivots and screws the telescope can be moved up or down, right or left, without in the smallest degree altering the flatness or position of its stand. On looking through the telescope the delicate threads can be distinctly seen, and the point where they cross can be brought to bear on any distant object.

Having fixed the instrument on the rocks quite clear of the ice, the Professor determined the direction of a supposed line perpendicular to the axis of the glacier. He then sought for a conspicuous and well-defined object on the opposite side of the valley, as near as possible to that direction. In this he was greatly helped by Captain Wopper, who, having been long accustomed to look-out with precision at sea, found it not very difficult to apply his powers on land.

"There's a good land-mark, Professor," he said, pointing towards a sharply-cut rock, "as like the Dook of Wellington's nose as two peas."

"I see it," said the Professor, whose solid and masculine countenance was just the smallest possible degree flushed by the strong under-current of enthusiasm with which he prosecuted his experiments.

"You couldn't have a better object than the pint o' that," observed the Captain, whose enthusiasm was quite as great as, and his excitement much greater than, that of the Professor.

Having carefully directed the telescope to the extreme point of the "Dook's" nose, the Professor now ordered one of his assistants to go on the glacier with a stake. Lawrence descended with him, and thus planted his foot on glacier-ice for the first time, as Lewis afterwards remarked, in the pursuit scientific knowledge.

While they were clambering slowly down among the loose boulders and debris which had been left by the glacier in previous years, the Professor carefully sketched the Duke of Wellington's nose with the rocks, etcetera, immediately around it, in his notebook, so that it might be easily recognised again on returning to the spot on a future day.

The assistant who had been sent out with the first stake proved to be rather stupid, so that it was fortunate he had been accompanied by Lawrence, and by the guide, Antoine Grennon, who stirred up his perceptions. By rough signalling he was made to stand near the place where the first stake was to be driven in. The telescope was then lowered, and the man was made, by signals, to move about and plant his stake here and there in an upright position until the point of intersection of the spider's threads fell exactly on the bottom of the stake. A pre-arranged signal was then made, and at that point an auger hole was bored deep into the ice and the stake driven home.

"So much for number one," said Captain Wopper, with a look of satisfaction.

"They won't fix the other ones so easily," observed the Professor, re-examining the stake through the telescope with great care.

He was right in this. The first stake had been planted not far from the shore, but now Lawrence and his party had to proceed in a straight line over the glacier, which, at this steep portion of its descent into the Vale of Chamouni, was rent, dislocated, and tortured, to such an extent that it was covered with huge blocks and pinnacles of ice, and seamed with yawning crevasses. To clamber over some of the ice-ridges was almost impossible, and, in order to avoid pinnacles and crevasses, which were quite impassable, frequent detours had to be made. If the object of the ice-party had merely been to cross the glacier, the difficulties would not have been great; but the necessity of always returning to the straight line pointed out by the inexorable theodolite, led them into positions of considerable difficulty. To the inexperienced Lawrence they also appeared to be positions of great danger, much to the amusement of Antoine, who, accustomed as he was to the fearful ice-slopes and abysses of the higher regions, looked upon this work as mere child's play.

"You'll come to have a different notion of crevasses, sir," he said, with a quiet smile, "after you've bin among the seracs of the Grand Mulet, and up some of the couloirs of Monte Rosa."

"I doubt it not, Antoine," said Lawrence, gazing with feelings of awe into a terrible split in the ice, whose beautiful light-blue sides deepened into intense blackness as they were lost to vision in an abyss, out of which arose the deep-toned gurgling of sub-glacial streams; "but you must not forget that this is quite new to me, and my feet are not yet aware of the precise grip with which they must hold on to so slippery a foundation."

It was in truth no discredit to Lawrence that he felt a tendency to shrink from edges of chasms which appeared ready to break off, or walked with caution on ice-slopes which led to unfathomable holes, for the said slopes, although not steep, were undoubtedly slippery.

After much clambering, a ridge was at length gained, on which the second stake was set up, and then the party proceeded onwards to fix the third; but now the difficulties proved to be greater than before. A huge block of ice was fixed upon as that which would suit their purpose, but it stood like a peninsula in the very midst of a crevasse, and connected with the main body of ice by a neck which looked as sharp as a knife on its upper edge, so that none but tight-rope or slack-wire dancers could have proceeded along it; and even such performers would have found the edge too brittle to sustain them.

"You'll have to show, Monsieur, some of your mountaineer skill here?" said the man who carried the stakes to Antoine.

He spoke in French, which Lawrence understood perfectly. We render it as nearly as possible into the counterpart English.

Antoine at once stepped forward with his Alpine axe, and, swinging it vigorously over his head, cut a deep notch on the sloping side of the neck of ice. Beyond it he cut a second notch. No man -- not even a monkey -- could have stood on the glassy slope which descended into the abyss at their side; but Antoine, putting one foot in the first notch, and the other in the second, stood as secure as if he had been on a flat rock. Again he swung his axe, and planted his foot in a third notch, swinging his axe the instant it was fixed for the purpose of cutting the fourth. Thus, cut by cut and step by step, he passed over to the block of ice aimed at. It was but a short neck. A few notches were sufficient, yet without an axe to cut these notches, the place had been absolutely impassable. It was by no means a "dangerous" place, according to the ideas of Alpine mountaineers, nevertheless a slip, or the loss of balance, would have been followed by contain death. Antoine knew this, and, like a wise guide, took proper precautions.

"Stay, sir," he said, as Lawrence was screwing up his courage to follow him, "I will show you another piece of Alpine practice."

He returned as he spoke, and, unwinding a coil of rope which he carried, fastened one end thereof round his waist. Allowing a few feet of interval, he then fastened the rope round Lawrence's waist, and the assistants with the stakes -- of whom there were two besides the man already referred to -- also attached themselves to the rope in like manner. By this means they all passed over with comparative security, because if any one of them had chanced to slip, the others would have fixed the points of their axes and alpenstocks in the ice and held on until their overbalanced comrade should have been restored to his position.

On gaining the block, however, it was found that the line communicating with the theodolite on the one hand, and the Dook's nose on the other, just missed it. The Professor's signals continued to indicate "more to the left," (his left, that is) until the stake-driver stood on the extreme edge of the crevasse, and his comrades held on tight by the rope to prevent him from falling over. Still the professor indicated "more to the left!"

As "more to the left" implied the planting of the stake in atmospheric air, they were fain to search for a suitable spot farther on.

This they found, after some scrambling, on a serrated ridge whose edge was just wide and strong enough to sustain them. Here the exact line was marked, but while the hole was being bored, an ominous crack was heard ascending as if from the heart of the glacier.

"What was that?" said Lawrence, turning to the guide with a quick surprised look.

"Only a split in the ice somewhere. It's a common sound enough, as you might expect in a mass that is constantly moving," replied Antoine, looking gravely round him, "but I can't help thinking that this lump of ice, with crevasses on each side, is not the best of all spots for fixing a stake. It isn't solid enough."

As he spoke, another crash was heard, not quite so loud as the last and at the same moment the whole mass on which the party stood slid forward a few inches. It seemed as if it were about to tumble into the very jaws of the crevasse. With the natural instinct of self-preservation strong upon him, Lawrence darted across the narrow ridge to the firm ice in rear, dispensing entirely with that extreme caution which had marked his first passage over it. Indeed the tight-rope and slack-wire dancers formerly referred to could not have performed the feat with greater lightness, rapidity, and precision. The stake-drivers followed him with almost similar alacrity. Even the guide retraced his steps without further delay than was necessary to permit of his picking up the stakes which their proper custodians had left behind in their alarm -- for they were not guides, merely young and inexperienced porters.

"For shame, lads," said Antoine, laughing and shaking his head, "you'll be but bad specimens of the men of Chamouni if you don't learn more coolness on the ice."

One would have thought that coolness on the ice was an almost unavoidable consequence of the surrounding conditions, yet Lawrence seemed to contradict the idea, for his face appeared unusually warm as he laughed and said: -- 

"The shame lies with me, Antoine, for I set them the example, and all history goes to prove that even brave men are swept away under the influence of a panic which the act of one cowardly man may produce."

As Lawrence spoke in French, the porters understood and appreciated his defence of them, but Antoine would by no means encourage the fallacy.

"It is not cowardly, sir," he said, "to spring quickly out of a danger that one don't understand the nature of, but the young men of Chamouni have, or ought to have, a good understanding of the nature of ice, and the danger should be great indeed that would necessitate the leaving of their tools behind them."

A roar like that of a bull of Bashan, or a boatswain, here interrupted the conversation.

"Don't plant your post the-r-r-re," shouted Captain Wopper from the banks of the ice-river, "the Professor says the ice ain't firm enough. Heave ahead -- to where its ha-a-ard an' fa-a-ast."

"Ay, ay, sir," shouted Lawrence, with nautical brevity, in reply.

The next stake was accordingly fixed on a part of the ice which was obviously incapable of what might be called a local slip, and which must, if it moved at all, do so in accordance with the movements of the entire glacier.

Thus one by one the stakes were planted in a perfectly straight line, so that when Captain Wopper was requested by the Professor to look through the telescope -- which he did with a seaman's readiness and precision -- he observed that all the stakes together appeared to form but one stake, the bottom of which was touched on one side of the Mer de Glace by the centre-point of the crossed threads, and, on the other, by the extreme point of the "Dook" of Wellington's nose. The last stake had been fixed not many yards distant from the opposite bank of the glacier.

"Now," said the Professor, with a deep sigh of satisfaction when all this was accomplished and noted, "we will go have our luncheon and return hither to-morrow to observe the result of our experiments. But first we must fix the exact position of our theodolite, for unless it occupies to a hair's-breadth to-morrow the same position which it occupies to-day, the result will be quite inconclusive."

So saying, the man of science took a little line and plummet from his pocket, which he hung under the theodolite, and the spot where the plummet touched the ground was carefully marked by a small stake driven quite down to its head.

Thereafter an attempt was made to gather together the scattered party, but this was difficult. Owing to various causes several members of it had become oblivious of time. Emma had forgotten time in the pursuit of wild-flowers, of which she was excessively fond, partly because she had learned to press and classify and write their proper names under them, but chiefly because they were intrinsically lovely, and usually grew in the midst of beautiful scenery. Nita had forgotten it in the pursuit of Emma, of whom she had become suddenly and passionately fond, partly because she possessed a loving nature, but chiefly because Emma was her counterpart. Lewis had forgotten it in pursuit of Nita, of whom he had become extremely fond, partly because she was pretty and pert, but chiefly because he -- he -- well, we cannot say precisely why, seeing that he did not inform us, and did not himself appear clearly to know. Slingsby had forgotten it in the ardent effort to reproduce on paper and with pencil, a scene so magnificent that a brush dipped in the rainbow and applied by Claude or Turner would have utterly failed to do it justice; and last, as well as least, Gillie White had forgotten it in the pursuit of general knowledge, in which pursuit he had used his alpenstock effectively in opening up everything, stabbing, knocking down, uprooting, overturning, and generally shattering everything that was capable of being in any degree affected by the physical powers and forces at his command. There can be no doubt whatever that if Gillie White had been big and strong enough, Mont Blanc itself would have succumbed that day to his inquiring mind, and the greatest ice-reservoir of Europe would have been levelled with the plain. As it was, he merely levelled himself, after reaching the point of exhaustion, and went to sleep on the sunny side of a rock, where he was nearly roasted alive before being aroused by the shouts of Captain Wopper.

At last, however, the party assembled at the Montanvert, where, amid interjectional accounts of the various incidents and adventures of the forenoon, strength was recruited for the subsequent operations of the day. These, however, were only matters of amusement. The Professor, remarking jocosely that he now cast science to the dogs and cats (which latter he pronounced cawts), sent his instruments back to Chamouni, and, with the zest of a big boy let loose from school, crossed the Mer de Glace to the Chapeau.

This feat was by no means so difficult as that which had been accomplished by Lawrence. It will be remembered that the spot selected for measurement had been at the steep and rugged part of the ice-river styled the Glacier des Bois, below the Montanvert. The ordinary crossing-place lay considerably higher up, just opposite to the inn. The track had been marked out over the easiest and flattest part of the ice, and levelled here and there where necessary for the special benefit of tourists. Still man -- even when doing his worst in the way of making rough places plain, and robbing nature of some of her romance -- could not do much to damage the grandeur of that impressive spot. His axe only chipped a little of the surface and made the footing secure. It could not mar the beauty of the picturesque surroundings, or dim the sun's glitter on the ice-pinnacles, or taint the purity of these delicate blue depths into which Emma and Nita gazed for the first time with admiration and surprise while they listened to the mysterious murmurings of sub-glacial waters with mingled feelings of curiosity and awe.

Full of interest they traversed the grand unfathomable river of ice, --  the product of the compressed snows of innumerable winters, -- and, reaching the other side in less than an hour, descended the Chapeau through the terminal moraine.

Those who have not seen it can form but a faint conception of the stupendous mass of debris which is cut, torn, wrenched, carried, swept, hurled, rolled, crushed, and ground down by a glacier from the mountain-heights into the plain below. The terminal moraine of the Mer de Glace is a whole valley whose floor and sides are not only quite, but deeply, covered with rocks of every shape and size, from a pebble the size of a pea, to a boulder as large as a cottage, all strewn, piled, and heaped together in a wild confusion that is eminently suggestive of the mighty force which cast them there.

"To me there do seem something dreadful as well as grand in it," said Nita, as she sat down on a boulder beside Emma, near the lower end of the chaotic valley.

"It is, indeed, terrible," answered Emma, "and fills me with wonder when I think that frozen water possesses power so stupendous."

"And yet the same element," said the Professor, "which, when frozen, thus rends the mountains with force irresistible, when melted flows through the land in gentle fertilising streams. In both forms its power is most wonderful."

"Like that of Him who created it," said Emma, in a low tone.

The party stood on the margin of a little pond or lakelet that had collected in the midst of the debris, and which, by reflecting the clear sky and their figures, with several large boulders on its margin, gave point and a measure of softness to the otherwise confused and rugged scene. While they stood and sat rapt in silent contemplation of the tongue of the Mer de Glace, at whose tip was the blue ice-cave whence issued the Arveiron, a lordly eagle rose from a neighbouring cliff and soared grandly over their heads, while a bright gleam of the sinking sun shot over the white shoulders of Mont Blanc and lit up the higher end of the valley, throwing the lower part into deeper shade by contrast.

"There is a warning to us," said Lewis, whose chief interest in the scene lay in the reflection of it that gleamed from Nita Horetzki's eyes.

"Which is the warning," asked Slingsby, "the gleam of sunshine or the eagle?"

"Both, for while the sun is going to bed behind the snow, the eagle is doubtless going home to her eyrie, and Antoine tells me that it is full three miles from this spot to our hotel in Chamouni."

It did not take them long to traverse that space, and ere long, like the eagle and the sun, the whole party had retired to rest -- the younger members, doubtless, to dreamless slumber; the Professor and the Captain, probably, to visions of theodolites and ice.

Although, however, these worthies must needs await the coming day to have their scientific hopes realised, it would be cruel to keep our patient reader in suspense. We may therefore note here that when, on the following day, the theodolite was re-fixed, and the man of science and his amateur friend had applied their respective eyes to the telescope, they were assured beyond a doubt that the stakes had moved, some more and some less, while the "Dook's nose," of course, remained hard and fast as the rock of which it was composed. The stakes had descended from about one to three feet during the twenty-four hours --  those near the edge having moved least and those near the centre of the ice-river's flow having moved farthest.

Of course there was a great deal of observing with the theodolite, and careful measuring as well as scrambling on the ice, similar to that of the previous day; but the end of the whole was that the glacier was ascertained to have flowed, definitely and observably down its channel, there could be no doubt whatever about that; the thing had been clearly proved, therefore the Professor was triumphant and the Captain, being a reasonable man, was convinced.



Chapter Twelve.

In Which Gillie Is Sagacious, An Excursion Is Undertaken, Wondrous Sights Are Seen, And Avalanches Of More Kinds Than One Are Encountered.

"Susan," said Gillie, one morning, entering the private apartment of Mrs Stoutley's maid with the confidence of a privileged friend, flinging himself languidly into a chair and stretching out his little legs with the air of a rather used-up, though by no means discontented, man, "Susan, this is a coorious world -- wery coorious -- the most coorious I may say that I ever come across."

"I won't speak a word to you, Gillie," said Susan, firmly, "unless you throw that cigar out of the window."

"Ah, Susan, you would not rob me of my mornin' weed, would you?" remonstrated Gillie, puffing a long cloud of smoke from his lips as he took from between them the end of a cigar that had been thrown away by some one the night before.

"Yes, I would, child, you are too young to smoke."

"Child!" repeated Gillie, in a tone of reproach, "too young! Why, Susan, there's only two years between you an' me -- that ain't much, you know, at our time of life."

"Well, what then? I don't smoke," said Susan.

"True," returned Gillie, with an approving nod, "and, to say truth, I'm pleased to find that you don't. It's a nasty habit in women."

"It's an equally nasty habit in boys. Now, do as I bid you directly."

"When a man is told by the girl he loves to do anythink, he is bound to do it -- even if it wor the sheddin' of his blood. Susan, your word is law."

He turned and tossed the cigar-end out of the window. Susan laughingly stooped, kissed the urchin's forehead, and called him a good boy.

"Now," said she, "what do you mean by sayin' that this is a curious world? Do you refer to this part of it, or to the whole of it?"

"Well, for the matter of that," replied Gillie, crossing his legs, and folding his hands over his knee, as he looked gravely up in Susan's pretty face, "I means the whole of it, this part included, and the people in it likewise. Don't suppose that I go for to exclude myself. We're all coorious, every one on us."

"What! me too?"

"You? w'y, you are the cooriousest of us all, Susan, seeing that you're only a lady's-maid when you're pretty enough to have been a lady -- a dutchess, in fact, or somethin' o' that sort."

"You are an impudent little thing," retorted Susan, with a laugh; "but tell me, what do you find so curious about the people up-stairs?"

"Why, for one thing, they seem all to have falled in love."

"That's not very curious is it?" said Susan, quietly; "it's common enough, anyhow."

"Ah, some kinds of it, yes," returned Gillie, with the air of a philosopher, "but at Chamouni the disease appears to have become viroolent an' pecoolier. There's the Capp'n, he's falled in love wi' the Professor, an' it seems to me that the attachment is mootooal. Then Mister Lewis has falled in love with Madmysell Nita Hooray-tskie (that's a sneezer, ain't it), an' the mad artist, as Mister Lewis call him, has falled in love with her too, poor feller, an' Miss Nita has falled in love with Miss Emma, an Miss Emma, besides reciprocatin' that passion, has falled in love with the flowers and the scenery -- gone in for it wholesale, so to speak -- and Dr Lawrence, he seems to have falled in love with everybody all round; anyhow everybody has falled in love with him, for he's continually goin' about doin' little good turns wherever he gits the chance, without seemin' to intend it, or shovin' hisself to the front. In fact I do think he don't intend it, but only can't help it; just the way he used to be to my old mother and the rest of us in Grubb's Court. And I say, Susan," here Gillie looked very mysterious, and dropped his voice to a whisper, "Miss Emma has falled in love with him."

"Nonsense, child! how is it possible that you can tell that?" said Susan.

The boy nodded his head with a look of preternatural wisdom, and put his forefinger to the side of his nose.

"Ah," said he, "yes, I can't explain how it is that I knows it, but I do know it. Bless you, Susan, I can see through a four-inch plank in thick weather without the aid of a gimlet hole. You may believe it or not, but I know that Miss Emma has falled in love with Dr Lawrence, but whether Dr Lawrence has failed in love with Miss Emma is more than I can tell. That plank is at least a six-inch one, an' too much for my wision. But have a care, Susan, don't mention wot I've said to a single soul -- livin' or dead. Miss Emma is a modest young woman, she is, an' would rather eat her fingers off, rings and all, than let her feelin's be known. I see that 'cause she fights shy o' Dr Lawrence, rather too shy of 'im, I fear, for secrecy. Why he doesn't make up to her is a puzzle that I don't understand, for she'd make a good wife, would Miss Emma, an' Dr Lawrence may live to repent of it, if he don't go in and win."

Susan looked with mingled surprise and indignation at the precocious little creature who sat before her giving vent to his opinions as coolly as if he were a middle-aged man. After contemplating him for a few moments in silence, she expressed her belief that he was a conceited little imp, to venture to speak of his young mistress in that way.

"I wouldn't do it to any one but yourself, Susan," he said, in no wise abashed, "an' I hope you appreciate my confidence."

"Don't talk such nonsense, child, but go on with what you were speaking about," rejoined Susan, with a smile, to conceal which she bent down her head as she plied her needle briskly on one of Emma's mountain-torn dresses.

"Well, where was I?" continued Gillie, "ah, yes. Then, Lord what's-'is-name, he's falled in love with the mountain-tops, an' is for ever tryin' to get at 'em, in which he would succeed, for he's a plucky young feller, if it worn't for that snob -- who's got charge of 'im -- Mister Lumbard -- whose pecooliarity lies in preferrin' every wrong road to the right one. As I heard Mr Lewis say the other day, w'en I chanced to be passin' the keyhole of the sallymanjay, 'he'd raither go up to the roof of a 'ouse by the waterspout than the staircase,' just for the sake of boastin' of it."

"And is Mr Lumbard in love with any one?" asked Susan.

"Of course he is," answered Gillie, "he's in love with hisself. He's always talkin' of hisself, an' praisin' hisself, an' boastin' of hisself an' what he's done and agoin' to do. He's plucky enough, no doubt, and if there wor a lightnin'-conductor runnin' to top of Mount Blang, I do b'lieve he'd try to -- to -- lead his Lordship up that; but he's too fond of talkin' an' swaggerin' about with his big axe, an' wearin' a coil of rope on his shoulder when he ain't goin' nowhere. Bah! I don't like him. What do you think, Susan, I met him on the road the other evenin' w'en takin' a stroll by myself down near the Glassyer day Bossong, an' I says to him, quite in a friendly way, 'bong joor,' says I, which is French, you know, an' what the natives here says when they're in good humour an' want to say 'good-day,' 'all serene,' 'how are you off for soap?' an' suchlike purlitenesses. Well, would you believe it, he went past without takin' no notice of me whatsumdever."

"How very impolite," said Susan, "and what did you do?"

"Do," cried Gillie, drawing himself up, "why, I cocked my nose in the air and walked on without disdainin' to say another word -- treated 'im with suvrin contempt. But enough of him -- an' more than enough. Well, to continue, then there's Missis Stoutley, she's falled in love too."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, with wittles. The Count Hur -- what's-'is-name, who's always doin' the purlite when he's not mopin', says it's the mountain hair as is agreein' with her, but I think its the hair-soup. Anyhow she's more friendly with her wittles here than she ever was in England. After comin' in from that excursion where them two stout fellers carried her up the mountains, an' all but capsized her and themselves, incloodin' the chair, down a precipice, while passin' a string o' mules on a track no broader than the brim of Mister Slingsby's wide-awake, she took to her wittles with a sort of lovin' awidity that an't describable. The way she shovelled in the soup, an' stowed away the mutton chops, an' pitched into the pease and taters, to say nothing of cauliflower and cutlets, was a caution to the billions. It made my mouth water to look at her, an' my eyes too -- only that may have had somethin' to do with the keyhole, for them 'otels of Chamouni are oncommon draughty. Yes," continued Gillie, slowly, as if he were musing, "she's failed in love with wittles, an' it's by no means a misplaced affection. It would be well for the Count if he could fall in the same direction. Did you ever look steadily at the Count, Susan?"

"I can't say I ever did; at least not more so than at other people. Why?"

"Because, if you ever do look at him steadily, you'll see care a-sittin' wery heavy on his long yeller face. There's somethin' the matter with that Count, either in 'is head or 'is stummick, I ain't sure which; but, whichever it is, it has descended to his darter, for that gal's face is too anxious by half for such a young and pretty one. I have quite a sympathy, a sort o' feller-feelin', for that Count. He seems to me the wictim of a secret sorrow."

Susan looked at her small admirer with surprise, and then burst into a hearty laugh.

"You're a queer boy, Gillie."

To an unsophisticated country girl like Susan Quick, the London street-boy must indeed have seemed a remarkable being. He was not indeed an absolute "Arab," being the son of an honest hardworking mother, but being also the son of a drunken, ill-doing father, he had, in the course of an extensive experience of bringing his paternal parent home from gin-palaces and low theatres, imbibed a good deal of the superficial part of the "waif" character, and, but for the powerful and benign influence of his mother, might have long ago entered the ranks of our criminal population. As it was, he had acquired a knowledge of "the world" of London -- its thoughts, feelings, and manners -- which rendered him in Susan's eyes a perfect miracle of intelligence; and she listened to his drolleries and precocious wisdom with open-mouthed admiration. Of course the urchin was quite aware of this, and plumed himself not a little on his powers of attraction.

"Yes," continued Gillie, without remarking on Susan's observation that he was a "queer boy," for he esteemed that a compliment "the Count is the only man among 'em who hasn't falled in love with nothink or nobody. But tell me, Susan, is your fair buzzum free from the -- the tender --  you know what?"

"Oh! yes," laughed the maid, "quite free."

"Ah!" said Gillie, with a sigh of satisfaction, "then there's hope for me."

"Of course there is plenty of hope," said Susan, laughing still more heartily as she looked at the thing in blue and buttons which thus addressed her.

"But now, tell me, where are they talking of going to-day?"

"To the Jardang," replied Gillie. "It was putt off to please the young ladies t'other day, and now it's putt on to please the Professor. It seems to me that the Professor has got well to wind'ard of 'em all -- as the Cappen would say; he can twirl the whole bilin' of 'em round his little finger with his outlandish talk, which I believe is more than half nonsense. Hows'ever, he's goin' to take 'em all to the Jardang, to lunch there, an' make some more obserwations and measurements of the ice. Why he takes so much trouble about sitch a trifle, beats my understandin'. If the ice is six feet, or six hundred feet thick, what then? If it moves, or if it don't move, wot's the odds, so long as yer 'appy? If it won't move, w'y don't they send for a company of London bobbies and make 'em tell it to 'move on,' it couldn't refuse, you know, for nothin' can resist that. Hows'ever, they are all goin' to foller the lead of the Professor again to-day -- them that was with 'em last time -- not the Count though, for I heard him say (much to the distress apperiently of his darter) that he was goin' on business to Marteeny, over the Tait Nwar, though what that is I don't know -- a mountain, I suppose. They're all keen for goin' over things in this country, an' some of 'em goes under altogether in the doin' of it. If I ain't mistaken, that pleasant fate awaits Lord what's-'is-name an' Mr Lumbard, for I heard the Cappen sayin', just afore I come to see you, that he was goin' to take his Lordship to the main truck of Mount Blang by way of the signal halliards, in preference to the regular road."

"Are the young ladies going?" asked Susan.

"Of course they are, from w'ich it follers that Mr Lewis an' the mad artist are goin' too."

"And Mrs Stoutley?" asked Susan.

"No; it's much too far and difficult for her."

"Gillie, Gillie!" shouted a stentorian voice at this point in the conversation.

"Ay, ay, Cappen," yelled Gillie, in reply. Rising and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he sauntered leisurely from the room, recommending the Captain, in an undertone, to save his wind for the mountainside.

Not long afterwards, the same parties that had accompanied the Professor to the Montanvert were toiling up the Mer de Glace, at a considerable distance above the scene of their former exploits, on their way to the Jardin.

The day was all that could be desired. There were a few clouds, but these were light and feathery; clear blue predominated all over the sky. Over the masses of the Jorasses and the peaks of the Geant, the Aiguille du Dru, the slopes of Mont Mallet, the pinnacles of Charmoz, and the rounded white summit of Mont Blanc -- everywhere -- the heavens were serene and beautiful.

The Jardin, towards which they ascended, lies like an island in the midst of the Glacier du Talefre. It is a favourite expedition of travellers, being a verdant gem on a field of white -- a true oasis in the desert of ice and snow -- and within a five hours' walk of Chamouni.

Their route lay partly on the moraines and partly over the surface of the glacier. On their previous visit to the Mer de Glace, those of the party to whom the sight was new imagined that they had seen all the wonders of the glacier world. They were soon undeceived. While at the Montanvert on their first excursion, they could turn their eyes from the sea of ice to the tree-clad slopes behind them, and at the Chapeau could gaze on a splendid stretch of the Vale of Chamouni to refresh their eyes when wearied with the rugged cataract of the Glacier des Bois; but as they advanced slowly up into the icy solitudes, all traces of the softer world were lost to view. Only ice and snow lay around them. Ice under foot, ice on the cliffs, ice in the mountain valleys, ice in the higher gorges, and snow on the summits, -- except where these latter were so sharp and steep that snow could not find a lodgment. There was nothing in all the field of vision to remind them of the vegetable world from which they had passed as if by magic. As Lewis remarked, they seemed to have been suddenly transported to within the Arctic circle, and got lost among the ice-mountains of Spitzbergen or Nova Zembla.

"It is magnificent!" exclaimed Nita Horetzki with enthusiasm, as she paused on the summit of an ice-ridge, up the slippery sides of which she had been assisted by Antoine Grennon, who still held her little hand in his.

Ah, thoughtless man! he little knew what daggers of envy were lacerating the heart of the mad artist who would have given all that he possessed --  colour-box and camp-stool included -- to have been allowed to hold that little hand even for a few seconds! Indeed he had, in a fit of desperation, offered to aid her by taking the other hand when half-way up that very slope, but had slipped at the moment of making the offer and rolled to the bottom. Lewis, seeing the fate of his rival, wisely refrained from putting himself in a false position by offering any assistance, excusing his apparent want of gallantry by remarking that if he were doomed to slip into a crevasse he should prefer not to drag another along with him. Antoine, therefore, had the little hand all to himself.

The Professor, being a somewhat experienced ice-man, assisted Emma in all cases of difficulty. As for the Captain, Gillie, and Lawrence, they had quite enough to do to look after themselves.

"How different from what I had expected," said Emma, resting a hand on the shoulder of Nita; "it is a very landscape of ice."

Emma's simile was not far-fetched. They had reached a part of the glacier where the slope and the configuration of the valley had caused severe strains on the ice in various directions, so that there were not only transverse crevasses but longitudinal cracks, which unitedly had cut up the ice into blocks of all shapes and sizes. These, as their position shifted, had become isolated, more or less, -- and being partially melted by the sun, had assumed all sorts of fantastic shapes. There were ice-bridges, ice-caves, and ice obelisks and spires, some of which latter towered to a height of fifty feet or more; there were also forms suggestive of cottages and trees, with here and there real rivulets rippling down their icy beds, or leaping over pale blue ledges, or gliding into blue-green lakes, or plunging into black-blue chasms. The sun-light playing among these silvery realms -- glinting over edges and peaks, blazing on broad masses, shimmering through semi-transparent cliffs, and casting soft grey shadows everywhere -- was inexpressibly beautiful, while the whole, looming through a thin golden haze, seemed to be of gigantic proportions.

It seemed as if the region of ice around them must at one time have been in tremendous convulsions, but the Professor assured them that this was not the case, that the formation of crevasses and those confused heaps of ice called seracs was a slow and prolonged process. "Doubtless," he said, "you have here and there the wild rush of avalanches, and suchlike convulsions, but the rupture of the great body of the ice is gradual. A crevasse is an almost invisible crack at first. It yawns slowly and takes a long time to open out to the dimensions and confusion which you see around."

"What are those curious things?" asked Nita, pointing to some forms before her.

"They look like giant mushrooms," said Captain Wopper.

"They are ice-tables," answered Antoine.

"Blocks of stone on the top of cones of ice," said the Professor. "Come, we will go near and examine one."

The object in question was well suited to cause surprise, for it was found to be an enormous flat mass of rock, many tons in weight, perched on a pillar of ice and bearing some resemblance to a table with a central leg.

"Now," said Captain Wopper emphatically, "that is a puzzler. How did it ever get up there?"

"I have read of such tables," said Lawrence.

"They are the result of the sun's action, I believe."

"Oh, it's all very well, Lawrence," said Lewis, with a touch of sarcasm, "to talk in a vague way about the sun's action, but it's quite plain, even to an unphilosophical mind like mine, that the sun can't lift a block of stone some tons in weight and clap it on the top of a pillar of ice about ten feet high."

"Nevertheless the sun has done it," returned Lawrence. "Am I not right Professor?"

The man of science, who had listened with a bland smile on his broad countenance, admitted that Lawrence was right.

"At first," he said, "that big stone fell from the cliffs higher up the valley, and it has now been carried down thus far by the ice. During its progress the sun has been shining day by day and melting the surface of the ice all round, with the exception of that part which was covered by the rock. Thus the general level of the ice has been lowered and the protected portion left prominent with its protector on the top. The sides of the block of ice on which the rock has rested have also melted slowly, reducing it to the stalk or pillar which you now see. In time it will melt so much that the rock will slide off, fall on another part of the ice, which it will protect from the sun as before until another stem shall support it, and thus it will go on until it tumbles into a crevasse, reaches the under part of the glacier, perhaps there gets rolled and rounded into a boulder, and finally is discharged, many years hence, it may be, into the terminal moraine; or, perchance, it may get stranded on the sides of the valley among the debris or rubbish which we call the lateral moraine."

As the party advanced, new, and, if possible; still more striking objects met the eye, while mysterious sounds struck the ear. Low grumbling noises and gurglings were heard underfoot, as if great boulders were dropping into buried lakes from the roofs of sub-glacial caverns, while, on the surface, the glacier was strewn here and there with debris which had fallen from steep parts of the mountains that rose beside them into the clouds. Sudden rushing sounds -- as if of short-lived squalls, in the midst of which were crashes like the thunder of distant artillery -- began now to attract attention, and a feeling of awe crept into the hearts of those of the party who were strangers to the ice-world. Sounds of unseen avalanches, muffled more or less according to distance, were mingled with what may be called the shots of the boulders, which fell almost every five minutes from the Aiguille Verte and other mountains, and there was something deeply impressive in the solemn echoes that followed each deep-toned growl, and were repeated until they died out in soft murmurs.

As the party crossed an ice-plain, whose surface was thickly strewn with the wreck of mountains, a sense of insecurity crept into the feelings of more than one member of it but not a word was said until a sudden and tremendous crash, followed by a continuous roar, was heard close at hand.

"An avalanche!" shouted Slingsby, pointing upwards, and turning back with the evident intention to fly.

It did indeed seem the wisest thing that man or woman could do in the circumstances, for, high up among the wild cliffs, huge masses of rock, mingled with ice, dirt, water, and snow, were seen rushing down a "couloir," or steep gully, straight towards them.

"Rest tranquil where you are," said the guide, laying his hand on the artist's arm; "the couloir takes a bend, you see, near the bottom. There is no danger."

Thus assured, the whole of the party stood still and gazed upward.

Owing to the great height from which the descending mass was pouring, the inexperienced were deceived as to the dimensions of the avalanche. It seemed at first as if the boulders were too small to account for the sounds created, but in a few seconds their real proportions became more apparent, especially when the whole rush came straight towards the spot on which the travellers stood with such an aspect of being fraught with inevitable destruction, that all of them except the guide shrank involuntarily backwards. At this crisis the chaotic mass was driven with terrible violence against the cliffs to the left of the couloir, and bounding, we might almost say fiercely, to the right, rushed out upon the frozen plain about two hundred yards in advance of the spot on which they stood.

"Is there not danger in being so close to such places?" asked Lewis, glancing uneasily at Nita, whose flashing eyes and heightened colour told eloquently of the excitement which the sight had aroused in her breast.

"Not much," answered the Professor, "no doubt we cannot be said to be in a place of absolute safety, nevertheless the danger is not great, because we can generally observe the avalanches in time to get out of the way of spent shots; and, besides, if we run under the lea of such boulders as that, we are quite safe, unless it were to be hit by one pretty nearly as large as itself." He pointed as he spoke to a mass of granite about the size of an omnibus, which lay just in front of them. "But I see," he added, laughing, "that Antoine thinks this is not a suitable place for the delivery of lectures; we must hasten forward."

Soon they surmounted the steeps of the Glacier du Talefre, and reached the object of their desire, the Jardin.

It is well named. A wonderful spot of earth and rock which rises out of the midst of a great basin of half-formed ice, the lower part being covered with green sward and spangled with flowers, while the summit of the rock forms a splendid out-look from which to view the surrounding scene.

Here, seated on the soft grass -- the green of which was absolutely delicious to the eyes after the long walk over the glaring ice -- the jovial Professor, with a sandwich in one hand and a flask of vin ordinaire in the other, descanted on the world of ice. He had a willing audience, for they were all too busy with food to use their tongues in speech, except in making an occasional brief demand or comment.

"Glorious!" exclaimed the Professor.

"Which, the view or the victuals?" asked Lewis. "Both," cried the Professor, helping himself to another half-dozen sandwiches.

"Thank you -- no more at present," said Nita to the disappointed Slingsby, who placed the rejected limb of a fowl on his own plate with a deep sigh.

"Professor," said Nita, half-turning her back on the afflicted artist, "how, when, and where be all this ice formed?"

"A comprehensive question!" cried the Professor. "Thank you -- yes, a wing and a leg; also, if you can spare it, a piece of the -- ah! so, you are right. The whole fowl is best. I can then help myself. Miss Gray, shall I assist you to a -- no? Well, as I was about to remark, in reply to your comprehensive question, Mademoiselle, this basin, in which our Jardin lies, may be styled a mighty collector of the material which forms that great tributary of the Mer de Glace, named the Glacier du Talefre. This material is called neve."

"An' what's nevy?" asked Captain Wopper, as well as a full mouth would allow him.

"Neve," replied the Professor, "is snow altered by partial melting, and freezing, and compression -- snow in the process of being squeezed into ice. You must know that there is a line on all high mountains which is called the snow-line. Above this line, the snow that falls each year never disappears; below it the snow, and ice too, undergoes the melting process continually. The portion below the snow-line is always being diminished; that above it is always augmenting; thus the loss of the one is counterbalanced by the gain of the other; and thus the continuity of glaciers is maintained. That part of a glacier which lies above the snow-line is styled neve; it is the fountain-head and source of supply to the glacier proper, which is the part that lies below the snow-line. Sometimes, for a series of years, perhaps, the supply from above is greater than the diminution below, the result being that the snout of a glacier advances into its valley, ploughs up the land, and sometimes overturns the cottages. On the other hand the reverse process goes on, it may be for years, and a glacier recedes somewhat, leaving a whole valley of debris, or terminal moraine, which is sometimes, after centuries perhaps, clothed with vegetation and dotted with cottages."

"This basin, or collector of neve, on whose beautiful oasis I have the felicity to lunch in such charming society (the jovial Professor bowed to the ladies), is, according to your talented Professor Forbes (he bowed to Lawrence), about four thousand two hundred yards wide, and all the ice it contains is, farther down, squeezed through a gorge not more than seven hundred yards wide, thus forming that grand ice-cascade of the Talefre which you have seen on the way hither. It is a splendid, as well as interesting amphitheatre, for it is bounded, as you see, on one side by the Grandes Jorasses, on the other by Mont Mallet, while elsewhere you have the vast plateau whence the Glacier du Geant is fed; the Aiguille du Geant, the Aiguille Noire, the Montagnes Mandites, and Mont Blanc. Another wing, if you please -- ah, finished? No matter, pass the loaf. It will do as well."

The Professor devoted himself for some minutes in silence to the loaf, which was much shorn of its proportions on leaving his hand. Like many great men, he was a great eater. The fires of intellect that burned within him seemed to require a more than ordinary supply of fuel. He slept, too, like an infant Hercules, and, as a natural consequence, toiled like a giant when awake.

Little Gillie White regarded him with feelings of undisguised awe, astonishment and delight, and was often sorely perplexed within himself as to whether he or Captain Wopper was the greater man. Both were colossal in size and energetic in body, and both were free and easy in manners, as well as good-humoured. No doubt, as Gillie argued with himself (and sometimes with Susan), the Professor was uncommon larned an' deep, but then the Captain had a humorous vein, which fully counterbalanced that in Gillie's estimation.

The philosophic urchin was deeply engaged in debating this point with himself, and gazing open-mouthed at the Professor, when there suddenly occurred an avalanche so peculiar and destructive that it threw the whole party into the utmost consternation. While removing a pile of plates, Gillie, in his abstraction, tripped on a stone, tumbled over the artist, crushed that gentleman's head into Nita's lap, and, descending head foremost, plates and all, into the midst of the feast, scattered very moraine of crockery and bottles all round. It was an appalling smash, and when the Captain seized Gillie by the back of his trousers with one hand and lifted him tenderly out of the midst of the debris, the limp way in which he hung suggested the idea that a broken bottle must have penetrated his vitals and finished him.

It was not so, however. Gillie's sagacity told him that he would probably be wounded if he were to move. He wisely, therefore, remained quite passive, and allowed himself to be lifted out of danger.

"Nobody hurt, I 'ope," he said, on being set on his legs; "it was a awk'ard plunge."

"Awk'ard? you blue spider," cried the Captain; "you deserve to be keel-hauled, or pitched into a crevasse. Look alive now, an' clear up the mess you've made."

Fortunately the feast was about concluded when this contretemps occurred, so that no serious loss was sustained. Some of the gentlemen lighted their pipes and cigars, to solace themselves before commencing the return journey. The ladies went off to saunter and to botanise, and Slingsby attempted to sketch the scenery.

And here again, as on the previous excursion, Captain Wopper received a chill in regard to his matrimonial hopes. When the ladies rose, Lewis managed to engage Nita in an interesting conversation on what he styled the flora of central Europe, and led her away. Emma was thus left without her companion. Now, thought the Captain, there's your chance, Dr Lawrence, go in and win! But Lawrence did not avail himself of the chance. He suffered Emma to follow her friend, and remained behind talking with the Professor on the vexed subject of the cause of glacial motion.

"Most extraor'nary," thought the Captain, somewhat nettled, as well as disappointed. "What can the youngster mean? She's as sweet a gal as a fellow would wish to see, an' yet he don't pay no more attention to her than if she was an old bumboat 'ooman. Very odd. Can't make it out nohow!"

Captain Wopper was not the first, and will certainly not be the last, to experience difficulty in accounting for the conduct of young men and maidens in this world of cross-currents and queer fancies.



Chapter Thirteen.

Shows What Dangers May Be Encountered In The Pursuit Of Art And Science.

Who has not experienced the almost unqualified pleasure of a walk, on a bright beautiful morning, before breakfast? How amply it repays one for the self-denying misery of getting up! We say misery advisedly, for it is an undoubted, though short-lived, agony, that of arousing one's inert, contented, and peaceful frame into a state of activity. There is a moment in the daily life of man -- of some men, at least -- when heroism of a very high stamp is displayed; that moment when, the appointed hour of morning having arrived, he thrusts one lethargic toe from under the warm bed-clothes into the relatively cold atmosphere of his chamber. If the toe is drawn back, the man is nobody. If it is thrust further out, and followed up by the unwilling body, the man is a hero! The agony, however, like that of tooth-drawing, is soon over, and the delightful commendations of an approving conscience are superadded to the pleasures of an early morning walk.

Such pleasures were enjoyed one morning by Emma Gray and Nita Horetzki and Lewis Stoutley, when, at an early hour, they issued from their hotel, and walked away briskly up the Vale of Chamouni.

"I say, Emma, isn't it a charming, delicious, and outrageously delightful day!" exclaimed Lewis.

Although the young man addressed himself to his cousin, who walked on his left, he glanced at Nita, who walked on his right, and thus, with a sense of justice peculiarly his own, divided his attentions equally between them.

"You are unusually enthusiastic, cousin," said Emma, with a laugh. "I thought you said last night that weather never affected you?"

"True, but there is more than weather here, there is scenery, and -- and sunshine."

"Sunshine?" repeated Nita, lifting her large orbs to his face with a look of surprise, for although the sun may be said to have risen as regards the world at large, it had not yet surmounted the range of Mont Blanc, or risen to the inhabitants of Chamouni. "I not see it; where is the sunshine?"

"There!" exclaimed Lewis, mentally, as he gazed straight down into her wondering orbs, and then added aloud, as he swept his arm aloft with a mock-heroic air, "behold it gleaming on the mountain-ridges."

There is no doubt that the enthusiasm of Lewis as to the weather, scenery, and sunshine would have been much reduced, perhaps quenched altogether, if Nita had not been there, for the youth was steeped in that exquisite condition termed first love, -- the very torments incident to which are moderated joys, -- but it must not be supposed that he conducted himself with the maudlin sentimentality not unfrequently allied to that condition. Although a mischievous and, we are bound to admit, a reckless youth, he was masculine in his temperament, and capable of being deeply, though not easily, stirred into enthusiasm. It was quite in accordance with this nature that his jesting tone and manner suddenly vanished as his gaze became riveted on the ridge to which he had carelessly directed attention. Even Nita was for a moment forgotten in the sight that met his eyes, for the trees and bushes which crowned the ridge were to all appearance composed of solid fire!

"Did you ever see anything like that before Emma?" he asked, eagerly.

"Never; I have seen sunrises and sunsets in many parts of our own land, but nothing at all like that; what can be the cause of it?"

There was good reason for the wonder thus called forth, for the light was not on the trees but behind them. The sun had not quite risen, but was very near the summit of the ridge, so that these trees and bushes were pictured, as it were, against the brightest part of the glowing sky. In such circumstances we are taught by ordinary experience that objects will be unusually dark, but these trees were incomparably brighter than the glowing sky itself. It was not that their mere edges were tipped with fire, but their entire substance, even to the central core of the pine-stems, was to all appearance made of pure light, as if each tree and shrub had been made of steel raised to a condition of intense white heat. No shining of the sun through or upon trees can convey the slightest idea of the sight. It was something absolutely new to our travellers, and roused their astonishment as well as wonder to the highest pitch.

"Oh!" exclaimed Nita, clasping her hands with a force peculiar to her demonstrative nature, "how wonderful! How I do wish the Professor was here to tell us how and what it be."

That evening the Professor, who had observed the phenomenon more than once, told them all he knew about it. There were differences of opinion, he said, as to the cause, for men of physical science, not less than doctors, were prone to differ. For himself, he had only noted the facts and knew not the cause. The luminous trees appeared only at that part of the ridge where the sun was just going to rise -- elsewhere the trees were projected as dark objects, in the usual way, against the bright sky. Not only were the trees thus apparently self-luminous, but when birds chanced to be flying amongst them, they had the appearance of sparks of molten silver flitting to and fro. See Note 1.

"But you have not yet told me, ladies," said Lewis, as they resumed their walk, "what has induced you to indulge in so early a ramble to-day?"

"Can you not imagine," said Nita, "that it is the love of Nature?"

"Undoubtedly I can; but as this is the first time since we came that you have chosen to display a love for Nature before breakfast, I may be forgiven for supposing there is another and no doubt secondary cause."

"You are right," said Emma; "were you not present last night when we discussed our plans for to-day?"

"No, he was in the verandah," interposed Nita, with an arch smile, "indulging that savage and unintellectual taste you call smoking."

"Ah, Mademoiselle, be not too severe. It may not, indeed, be styled an intellectual pursuit, but neither, surely, can it be called savage, seeing that it softens and ameliorates the rugged spirit of man."

"It is savage," returned Nita, "because you do not encourage ladies to join you in it."

"Pardon me, Mademoiselle," cried Lewis, pulling out his cigar-case, "nothing would gratify me more than your acceptance of -- "

"Insult me not, Monsieur," said Nita, with a toss of her pretty little head, "but reply to your cousin's question."

"Ah, to be sure, well -- let me see, what was it? Was I present when the plans for the day were arranged? Yes I was, but I missed the first part of the conversation, having been, as Mademoiselle Horetzki truly observes, occupied with that -- a -- "

"Savage habit," interposed Nita.

"Savage habit," said Lewis, "the savage element of which I am willing to do away with at a moment's notice when desired. I merely heard that the professor had fixed to go on the glacier for the purpose of measuring it, as though it were a badly clad giant, and he a scientific tailor who had undertaken to make a top-coat for it. I also heard that you two had decided on a walk before breakfast, and, not caring to do tailoring on the ice, I begged leave to join you -- therefore I am here."

"Ah, you prefer woman's society and safety to manly exercise and danger!" said Nita.

Although Lewis was, as we have said, by no means an effeminate youth, he was at that age when the male creature shrinks from the slightest imputation of a lack of manliness. He coloured, therefore, as he laughingly replied that in his humble opinion his present walk involved the manly exercise of moral courage in withstanding shafts of sarcasm, which were far more dangerous in his eyes than hidden crevasses or flying boulders.

"But you both forget," interposed Emma, "that I have not yet explained the object of our morning walk."

"True, cousin, let us have it."

"Well," continued Emma, "when you were engages in your 'savage' indulgence, a difficulty stood in the way of the Professor's plans, inasmuch as our guide Antoine had asked and obtained leave to absent himself a couple of days for the purpose of taking his wife and child over the country to pay a short visit to a relative in some valley, the name of which I forget. Antoine had said that he would be quite willing to give up his leave of absence if a messenger were sent to inform his wife of his change of plan, and to ask a certain Baptist Le Croix, who lives close beside her, to be her guide. As we two did not mean to join the ice-party, we at once offered to be the messengers. Hence our present expedition at so early an hour. After seeing Madame Antoine Grennon and having breakfast we mean to spend the day in sketching."

"May I join you in this after-portion of the day's work?" asked Lewis. "I may not, indeed, claim to use the pencil with the facility of our friend Slingsby, but I am not altogether destitute of a little native talent in that way. I will promise to give you both as many cigars as you choose, and will submit my sketches to Mademoiselle's criticism, which will be incurring extreme danger."

"Well, you may come," said Nita, with a condescending nod, "but pray fulfil the first part of your promise, give me the cigars."

Lewis drew them out with alacrity, and laughingly asked, "how many?"

"All of them; the case also."

In some surprise the youth put the cigar-case into her hand, and she immediately flung it into a neighbouring pool.

"Ah, how cruel," said Lewis, putting on a most forlorn look, while Emma gave vent to one of her subdued little explosions of laughter.

"What! is our society not enough for Monsieur?" asked Nita, in affected surprise.

"More than enough," replied Lewis, with affected enthusiasm.

"Then you can be happy without your cigars," returned Nita.

"Perfectly happy," replied Lewis, taking a small case from his pocket, from which he extracted a neat little meerschaum pipe, and began to fill it with tobacco.

Again Emma had occasion to open the safety-valve of another little explosive laugh; but before anything further could be said, they came in sight of Antoine Grennon's cottage.

It was prettily situated beneath a clump of pines. A small stream, spanned by a rustic bridge, danced past it. Under the shadow of the bridge they saw Madame engaged in washing linen. She had a washing-tub, of course, but instead of putting the linen into this she put herself in it, after having made an island of it by placing it a few inches deep in the stream. Thus she could kneel and get at the water conveniently without wetting her knees or skirts. On a sloping slab of wood she manipulated the linen with such instrumentality as cold water, soap, a wooden mallet and a hard brush. Beside her, in a miniature tub, her little daughter conducted a miniature washing.

The three travellers, looking over the bridge, could witness the operation without being themselves observed.

"It is a lively process," remarked Lewis, as Madame seized a mass of linen with great vigour, and caused it to fall on the sloping plank with a sounding slap.

Madame was an exceedingly handsome and well-made woman, turned thirty, and much inclined to embonpoint. Her daughter was turned three, and still more inclined to the same condition. Their rounded, well-shaped, and muscular arms, acted very much in the same way, only Madame's vigour was a good deal more intense and persistent -- too much so, perhaps, for the fabrics with which she had to deal; but if the said fabrics possessed the smallest degree of consciousness, they could not have had the heart to complain of rough treatment from such neat though strong hands, while being smiled upon by such a pretty, though decisive countenance.

"It is dreadfully rough treatment," said Emma, whose domestic-economical spirit was rather shocked.

"Terrible!" exclaimed Nita, as Madame gripped another article of apparel and beat it with her mallet as though it had been the skull of her bitterest enemy, while soap-suds and water spurted from it as if they had been that enemy's brains.

"And she washes, I believe, for our hotel," said Emma, with a slightly troubled expression. Perhaps a thought of her work-box and buttons flashed across her mind at the moment.

"You are right," said Lewis, with a pleased smile.

"I heard Antoine say to Gillie, the other day, that his wife washed a large portion of the hotel linen. No doubt some of ours is amongst it. Indeed I am sure of it," he added, with a look of quiet gravity, as Madame Grennon seized another article, swished it through the water, caused it to resound on the plank, and scrubbed it powerfully with soap; "that a what's-'is-name, belongs to me. I know it by the cut of its collar. Formerly, I used to know it chiefly by its fair and fragile texture. I shall know it hereafter as an amazing illustration of the truth of the proverb, that no one knows what he can stand till he is tried. The blows which she is at present delivering to it with her mallet, are fast driving all preconceived notions in regard to linen out of my head. Scrubbing it, as she does now, with a hard brush, against the asperities of the rough plank, and then twisting it up like a roly-poly prior to swishing it through the water a second time, would once have induced me to doubt the strength of delicate mother-of-pearl buttons and fine white thread. I shall doubt no longer."

As he said so, Madame Grennon chanced to look up, and caught sight of the strangers. She rose at once, and, forsaking her tub, advanced to meet them, the curly-haired daughter following close at her heels, for, wherever her mother went she followed, and whatever her mother did she imitated.

The object of the visit was soon explained, and the good woman led the visitors into her hut where Baptist Le Croix chanced to be at the time.

There was something very striking in the appearance of this man. He was a tall fine-looking fellow, a little past the prime of life, but with a frame whose great muscular power was in no degree abated. His face was grave, good-natured, and deeply sunburnt; but there was a peculiarly anxious look about the eyes, and a restless motion in them, as if he were constantly searching for something which he could not find.

He willingly undertook to conduct his friend's wife and child to the residence of their relative.

On leaving the hut to return to Chamouni, Madame Grennon accompanied her visitors a short way, and Nita took occasion, while expressing admiration of Baptist's appearance, to comment on his curiously anxious look.

"Ah! Mademoiselle," said Madame, with a half sad look, "the poor man is taken up with a strange notion -- some people call it a delusion -- that gold is to be found somewhere here in the mountains."

"Gold?" cried Nita, with such energy that her companions looked at her in surprise.

"Why, Nita," exclaimed Emma, "your looks are almost as troubled and anxious as those of Le Croix himself."

"How strange!" said Nita, musing and paying no attention to Emma's remark. "Why does he think so?"

"Indeed, Mademoiselle, I cannot tell; but he seems quite sure of it, and spends nearly all his time in the mountains searching for gold, and hunting the chamois."

They parted here, and for a time Lewis tried to rally Nita about what he styled her sympathy with the chamois-hunter, but Nita did not retort with her wonted sprightliness; the flow of her spirits was obviously checked, and did not return during their walk back to the hotel.

While this little incident was enacting in the valley, events of a far different nature were taking place among the mountains, into the solitudes of which the Professor, accompanied by Captain Wopper, Lawrence, Slingsby, and Gillie, and led by Antoine, had penetrated for the purpose of ascertaining the motion of a huge precipice of ice.

"You are not a nervous man, I think," said the Professor to Antoine as they plodded over the ice together.

"No, Monsieur, not very," answered the guide, with a smile and a sly glance out of the corners of his eyes. Captain Wopper laughed aloud at the question, and Gillie grinned. Gillie's countenance was frequently the residence of a broad grin. Nature had furnished him with a keen sense of the ludicrous, and a remarkably open countenance. Human beings are said to be blind to their own peculiarities.

If Gillie had been an exception to this rule and if he could have, by some magical power, been enabled to stand aside and look at his own spider-like little frame, as others saw it, clad in blue tights and buttons, it is highly probable that he would have expired in laughing at himself.

"I ask the question," continued the Professor, "because I mean to request your assistance in taking measurements in a somewhat dangerous place, namely, the ice-precipice of the Tacul."

"It is well, Monsieur," returned the guide, with another smile, "I am a little used to dangerous places."

Gillie pulled his small hands out of the trouser-pockets in which he usually carried them, and rubbed them by way of expressing his gleeful feelings. Had the sentiment which predominated in his little mind been audibly expressed, it would probably have found vent in some such phrase as, "won't there be fun, neither -- oh dear no, not by no means." To him the height of happiness was the practice of mischief. Danger in his estimation meant an extremely delicious form of mischief.

"Is the place picturesque as well as dangerous?" asked Slingsby, with a wild look in his large eyes as he walked nearer to the Professor.

"It is; you will find many aspects of ice-formation well worthy of your pencil."

It is due to the artist to say that his wildness that morning was not the result only of despair at the obvious indifference with which Nita regarded him. It was the combination of that wretched condition with a heroic resolve to forsake the coy maiden and return to his first love --  his beloved art -- that excited him; and the idea of renewing his devotion to her in dangerous circumstances was rather congenial to his savage state of mind. It may be here remarked that Mr Slingsby, besides being an enthusiastic painter, was an original genius in a variety of ways. Among other qualities he possessed an inventive mind, and, besides having had an ice-axe made after a pattern of his own, -- which was entirely new and nearly useless, -- he had designed a new style of belt with a powerful rope having a hook attached to it, with which he proposed, and actually managed, to clamber up and down difficult places, and thus attain points of vantage for sketching. Several times had he been rescued by guides from positions of extreme peril, but his daring and altogether unteachable spirit had thrown him again and again into new conditions of danger. He was armed with his formidable belt and rope on the present excursion, and his aspect was such that his friends felt rather uneasy about him, and would not have been surprised if he had put the belt round his neck instead of his waist, and attempted to hang himself.

"Do you expect to complete your measurements to-day?" asked Lawrence, who accompanied the Professor as his assistant.

"Oh no. That were impossible. I can merely fix my stakes to-day and leave them. To-morrow or next day I will return to observe the result."

The eastern side of the Glacier du Geant, near the Tacul, at which they soon arrived, showed an almost perpendicular precipice about 140 feet high. As they collected in a group in front of that mighty pale-blue wall, the danger to which the Professor had alluded became apparent, even to the most inexperienced eye among them. High on the summit of the precipice, where its edge cut sharply against the blue sky, could be seen the black boulders and debris of the lateral moraine of the glacier. The day was unusually warm, and the ice melted so rapidly that parts of this moraine were being sent down in frequent avalanches. The rustle of debris was almost incessant, and, ever and anon, the rustle rose into a roar as great boulders bounded over the edge, and, after dashing portions of the ice-cliffs into atoms, went smoking down into the chaos below. It was just beyond this chaos that the party stood.

"Now, Antoine," said the Professor, "I want you to go to the foot of that precipice and fix a stake in the ice there."

"Well, Monsieur, it shall be done," returned the guide, divesting himself of his knapsack and shouldering his axe and a stake.

"Meanwhile," continued the Professor, "I will watch the falling debris to warn you of danger in time, and the direction in which you must run to avoid it. My friend Lawrence, with the aid of Captain Wopper, will fix the theodolite on yonder rocky knoll to our left."

"Nothin' for you an' me to do," said Gillie to the artist; "p'r'aps we'd better go and draw -- eh?"

Slingsby looked at the blue spider before him with an amused smile, and agreed that his suggestion was not a bad one, so they went off together.

While Antoine was proceeding to the foot of the ice-cliffs on his dangerous mission, the Professor observed that the first direction of a falling stone's bound was no sure index of its subsequent motion, as it was sent hither and thither by the obstructions with which it met. He therefore recalled the guide.

"It won't do, Antoine, the danger is too great."

"But, Monsieur, if it is necessary -- "

"But it is not necessary that you should risk your life in the pursuit of knowledge. Besides, I must have a stake fixed half-way up the face of that precipice."

"Ah, Monsieur," said Antoine, with an incredulous smile, "that is not possible!"

To this the Professor made no reply, but ordered his guide to make a detour and ascend to the upper edge of the ice-precipice for the purpose of dislodging the larger and more dangerous blocks of stone there, and, after that, to plant a stake on the summit.

This operation was not quickly performed. Antoine had to make a long detour to get on the glacier, and when he did reach the moraine on the top, he found that many of the most dangerous blocks lay beyond the reach of his axe. However, he sent the smaller debris in copious showers down the precipice, and by cleverly rolling some comparatively small boulders down upon those larger ones which lay out of reach, he succeeded in dislodging many of them. This accomplished, he proceeded to fix the stake on the upper surface of the glacier.

While he was thus occupied, the Professor assisted Lawrence in fixing the theodolite, and then, leaving him, went to a neighbouring heap of debris followed by the Captain, whom he stationed there.

"I want you," he said, "to keep a good look-out and warn me as to which way I must run to avoid falling rocks. Antoine has dislodged many of them, but some he cannot reach. These enemies must be watched."

So saying, the Professor placed a stake and an auger against his breast, buttoned his coat over them, and shouldered his axe.

"You don't mean to say that you're agoing to go under that cliff?" exclaimed the Captain, in great surprise, laying his hand on the Professor's arm and detaining him.

"My friend," returned the man of science, "do not detain me. Time is precious just now. You have placed yourself under my orders for the day, and, being a seaman, must understand the value of prompt obedience. Do as I bid you."

He turned and went off at a swinging pace towards the foot of the ice-cliff, while the Captain, in a state of anxiety, amounting almost to consternation, sat down on a boulder, took off his hat, wiped his heated brow, pronounced the Professor as mad as a March hare, and prepared to discharge his duties as "the look-out."

Although cool as a cucumber in all circumstances at sea, where he knew every danger and how to meet or avoid it, the worthy Captain now almost lost self-control and became intensely agitated and anxious, insomuch that he gave frequent and hurried false alarms, which he no less hurriedly attempted to correct, sometimes in nautical terms, much to the confusion of the Professor.

"Hallo! hi! look out -- starboard -- sta-a-arboard!" he shouted wildly, on beholding a rock about the size of a chest of drawers spring from the heights above and rush downward, with a smoke of ice-dust and debris following, "quick! there! no! port! Port! I say it's -- "

Before he could finish the sentence, the mass had fallen a long way to the right of the Professor, and lay quiet on the ice not far from where the Captain stood.

In spite of the interruptions thus caused, the lower stake was fixed in a few minutes. The Professor then swung his axe vigorously, and began to cut an oblique stair-case in the ice up the sheer face of the precipice.

In some respects the danger to the bold adventurer was now not so great because, being, as it were, flat against the ice-cliffs, falling rocks were more likely, by striking some projection, to bound beyond him. Still there was the danger of deflected shots, and when, by cutting a succession of notches in which to place one foot at a time, he had ascended to the height of an average three-storey house, the danger of losing his balance or slipping a foot became very great indeed. But the man of science persevered in doing what he conceived to be his duty with as much coolness as if he were the leader of a forlorn hope. Following the example of experienced ice-men on steep places, he took good care to make the notches or steps slope a little inwards, never lifted his foot from one step until the next was ready, and never swung his axe until his balance was perfectly secured. Having gained a height of about thirty feet, he pierced a hole with his auger, fastened a stake in it, and descended amid a heavy cannonade of boulders and a smart fire of smaller debris.

During the whole proceeding Lawrence directed his friend as to the placing of the stake, and watched with surprise as well as anxiety, while Captain Wopper kept on shouting unintelligible words of warning in a state of extreme agitation. The guide returned just in time to see this part of the work completed, and to remonstrate gravely with the Professor on his reckless conduct.

"'All's well that ends well,' Antoine, as a great poet says," replied the Professor, with one of his most genial smiles. "We must run some risk in the pursuit of scientific investigation. Now then, Lawrence, I hope you have got the three stakes in the same line -- let me see."

Applying his eye to the theodolite, he found that the stakes were in an exactly perpendicular line, one above another. He then carefully marked the spot occupied by the instrument and thus completed his labours for that time.

We may add here in passing that next day he returned to the same place, and found that in twenty-four hours the bottom stake had moved downwards a little more than two inches, the middle stake had descended a little more than three, and the upper stake exactly six inches. Thus he was enabled to corroborate the fact which had been ascertained by other men of science before him, that glacier-motion is more rapid at the top than at the bottom, where the friction against its bed tends to hinder its advance, and that the rate of flow increases gradually from the bottom upwards.

While these points of interest were being established, our artist was not less earnestly engaged in prosecuting his own peculiar work, to the intense interest of Gillie, who, although he had seen and admired many a picture in the London shop-windows, had never before witnessed the actual process by which such things are created.

Wandering away on the glacier among some fantastically formed and towering blocks or obelisks of ice, Mr Slingsby expressed to Gillie his admiration of their picturesque shapes and delicate blue colour, in language which his small companion did not clearly understand, but which he highly approved of notwithstanding.

"I think this one is worth painting," cried Slingsby, pausing and throwing himself into an observant attitude before a natural arch, from the roof of which depended some large icicles; "it is extremely picturesque."

"I think," said Gillie, with earnest gravity, "that yonder's one as is more picturesker."

He had carefully watched the artist's various observant attitudes, and now threw himself into one of these as he pointed to a sloping obelisk, the size of an average church-steeple, which bore some resemblance to the leaning-tower of Pisa.

"You are right, boy; that is a better mass. Come, let us go paint it."

While walking towards it, Gillie asked how such wild masses came to be made.

"I am told by the Professor," said Slingsby, "that when the ice cracks across, and afterwards lengthwise, the square blocks thus formed get detached as they descend the valley, and assume these fantastic forms."

"Ah! jis so. They descends the walley, does they?"

"So it is said."

Gillie made no reply, though he said in his heart, "you won't git me to swaller that, by no manner of means." His unbelief was, however, rebuked by the leaning-tower of Pisa giving a terrible rend at that moment, and slowly bending forward. It was an alarming as well as grand sight, for they were pretty near to it. Some smaller blocks of ice that lay below prevented the tower from being broken in its fall. These were crushed to powder by it, and then, as if they formed a convenient carriage for it, the mighty mass slid slowly down the slope for a few feet. It was checked for a moment by another block, which, however, gave way before the great pressure, fell aside and let it pass. The slope was slight at the spot so that the obelisk moved slowly, and once or twice seemed on the point of stopping, but as if it had become endowed with life, it made a sudden thrust, squeezed two or three obstacles flat, turned others aside, and thus wound its way among its fellows with a low groaning sound like some sluggish monster of the antediluvian world. Reaching a steeper part of the glacier, on the ridge of which it hung for a moment, as if unwilling to exert itself, it seemed to awake to the reality of its position. Making a lively rush, that seemed tremendously inconsistent with its weight, it shot over the edge of a yawning crevasse, burst with a thunderclap on the opposite ice-cliff, and went roaring into the dark bowels of the glacier, whence the echoes of its tumbling masses, subdued by distance, came up like the mutterings of evil spirits.

Gillie viewed this wondrous spectacle with an awe-stricken heart, and then vented his feelings in a prolonged yell of ecstasy.

"Ain't it splendid, sir?" he cried, turning his glowing eyes on Slingsby.

"Majestic!" exclaimed the artist, whose enthusiasm was equal to that of his companion, though not quite so demonstrative.

"Raither spoiled your drawin', though, ain't it, sir?"

"Yonder is something quite as good, if not better," said Slingsby.

He pointed, as he spoke, to a part of the crevasse higher up on the glacier, where a projecting cave of snow overhung the abyss. From the under-surface of this a number of gigantic icicles hung, the lower points of the longer ones almost lost in the blue depths. A good position from which to sketch it, however, was not easily reached, and it was only by getting close to the edge of the crevasse that the persevering artist at length attained his object. Here he sat down on his top-coat, folded several times to guard him from the cold ice, spread out his colour-box and sketching-block, and otherwise made himself comfortable, while Gillie sat down beside him on his own cap, for want of a better protector.

Had these two enthusiasts known the nature of their position, they would have retired from it precipitately with horror, for, ignorant of almost everything connected with glaciers, they had walked right off the solid ice and seated themselves on a comparatively thin projecting ledge of snow which overhung the crevasse. Thus they remained for some time enjoying themselves, with death, as it were, waiting for them underneath! What rendered their position more critical was the great heat of the day, which, whatever might be the strength of the sustaining ledge, was reducing its bulk continually.

After having sketched for some time, the artist thought it advisable to see as far down into the crevasse as possible, in order to put in the point of the longest icicle. The better to do this, he unwound his rope from his waist and flung it on the ice by his side, while he lay down on his breast and looked over the edge. Still he did not perceive the danger of his position, and went on sketching diligently in this awkward attitude.

Now it was a melancholy fact that Master Gillie's interest in art or science was short-lived, though keen. He soon tired of watching his companion, and began to look about him with a view to mischief. Not seeing anything specially suggestive, he thought of aiding the operations of nature by expediting the descent of some neighbouring boulders from their positions on ice-blocks. He intimated his intention to Slingsby, but the artist was too much engrossed to give heed to him. Just as he was rising, Gillie's eye fell on the rope, and a happy thought struck him. To carry striking thoughts into immediate execution was a marked feature of the boy's character. He observed that one end of the rope was attached to Mr Slingsby's belt. Taking up the hook at the other end, he went with it towards a large boulder, drawing the rope after him with extreme care, for fear of arousing his companion by a tug. He found that, when fully stretched, it was just long enough to pass round the rock. Quickly fastening it, therefore, by means of the hook, he walked quietly away.

He did not exhibit much excitement while doing this. It was, after all, but a trifling jest in his esteem, as the only result to be hoped for would be the giving of a surprise by the little tug which might perhaps be experienced by the artist on rising.

Thereafter, Gillie sent innumerable ice-blocks to premature destruction, and enjoyed the work immensely for a time, but, having exploratory tendencies, he soon wandered about among obelisks and caverns until he found himself underneath the ice-cliff on which his friend was seated. Then, as he looked up at the overhanging ledge from which gigantic icicles were hanging, a shock of alarm thrilled his little breast. This was increased by the falling of one of the icicles, which went like a blue javelin into the crevasse beside him. Gillie thought of shouting to warn Mr Slingsby of his danger, but before he could do so he was startled by an appalling yell. At the same moment part of the ice overhead gave way, and he beheld the artist descending. He was stopped with a sudden jerk, as the rope tightened, and remained suspended in the air, while his coat and colour-box accompanied icicles and snow-blocks into the abyss below. A second later and the struggling artist's head appeared to fall off, but it was only his hat.

Gillie had by this time recovered himself so far as to be able to add his piercing shrieks for help to the cries of the artist, and well was it that day for Mr Slingsby that Gillie had, since the years of infancy, practised his lungs to some purpose in terrifying cats and defying "Bobbies" in the streets of London.

"Oh, sir! sir! -- I say -- hi!" he cried, panting and glaring up.

"Eh? what? Hah!" gasped Slingsby, panting and glaring down.

"Don't kick like that sir; pray don't," cried Gillie in agonised tones, "you'll start the boulder wot yer fast to, if you don't keep still."

"Oh!" groaned the artist and instantly hung limp and motionless, in which condition he remained while Gillie ran towards the place where he had left the rest of the party, jumping and slipping and falling and yelling over the ice like a maniac in blue and buttons!

"D'ee hear that?" exclaimed Captain Wopper with a startled look, as he and his companions busied themselves packing up their instruments.

Antoine Grennon heard it but made no reply. He was familiar with cries of alarm. Turning abruptly he dashed off at full speed in the direction whence the cries came. The Captain and Professor instantly followed; Lawrence overtook and passed them. In a few minutes they met the terrified boy, who, instead of waiting for them and wasting time by telling what was wrong, turned sharp round, gave one wild wave of his hand, and ran straight back to the ledge from which poor Slingsby hung. Stout willing arms were soon pulling cautiously on the rope, and in a few minutes more the artist lay upon the safe ice, almost speechless from terror, and with a deadly pallor on his brow.

Strange to say the indomitable artist had held on tight to his sketch-book, possibly because it was almost as dear to him as life, but more probably because of that feeling which induces a drowning man to clutch at a straw.



Chapter Fourteen.

The Grand Ascent Begun.

Mrs Stoutley, reposing at full length on a sofa in the salon one evening, observed to the Count Horetzki that she really could not understand it at all; that it seemed to her a tempting of Providence to risk one's life for nothing, and that upon the whole she thought these excursions on glaciers were very useless and foolish.

The salon was full of people grouped in little knots, fighting the battles of the day o'er again, playing backgammon and chess, or poring over maps and guide-books.

"It does indeed seem foolish," answered the Count whose native politeness induced him always to agree with ladies when possible, "and as far as any practical purpose is served I should think it useless. Nevertheless it seems to afford amusement to many people, and amusement, in some form or other, would appear to be almost necessary to our happy existence."

"True," replied Mrs Stoutley, languidly, "but people ought to content themselves with quiet and safe amusements. How ridiculous it is to find pleasure in climbing ice-precipices, and leaping over crevasses, and sitting under shower-baths of boulder-stones. I'm sure that I could not find pleasure in such pranks even if I were to make the effort. How much better to seek and find enjoyment in wandering with a book through shady forests and gathering wild-flowers! Don't you agree with me, Count?"

The Count's usually grave and anxious visage relaxed into a smile as he protested that he agreed with her entirely. "At the same time," he added, "there does appear to be some sort of aspiring tendency in the young and strong, to attempt the repression of which would seem to be useless, even if desirable. Do you know, Madame, while on a voyage some years ago I saw a boy who used to dive off the fore-yard-arm into the sea, and who went regularly every morning before breakfast to the main-mast-head and sat on that button-like piece of wood called the truck?"

"How very reckless," said Mrs Stoutley, "and how shamefully regardless of the feelings of his mother, for of course if he had a mother, and if she were a woman of right feeling, she must have been horrified!"

"I am afraid, Madame, that you would have esteemed her a lady of wrong feeling, for she applauded her boy, and used to say that if he only took care to acquire as much moral as he had physical courage, so as to become as brave and bold a soldier of the Cross as he was sure to be of the Crown, he would resemble his own father, who was the best and bravest man that ever lived."

"How strange!" murmured Mrs Stoutley, "such inconsistencies! But there does seem to be a considerable number of masculine women in the world, who encourage what we call muscular Christianity."

"Yes, there are indeed strange inconsistencies around us," returned the Count. "You have, however, mistaken the character of this particular mother, for she was the reverse of masculine, being delicate, and tender-hearted, and refined, and ladylike, while her boy was bold as a lion -- yet obedient and gentle to her as a lamb. He afterwards became a soldier, and on the occasion of a wild storm on the east coast of England he swam off to a wreck with a rope, when no man in the place could be got to do it for love or money, and was the means of rescuing four women and six men, in accomplishing which, however, he lost his life."

"Oh, how shocking! how very sad!" said Mrs Stoutley, startled into animation by the suddenness of the revelation, "and how different it might have been if the youth had been trained to gentler amusements. He might have been alive now."

"Yes," returned the Count, "and the four women and six men might have been dead! But here come two friends who are better able to give an opinion on the point than I am."

"What may the pint be?" asked Captain Wopper, with a genial smile, as if he were ready to tackle anything from a pint of beer to a "pint" of the compass. "Only state your case, Mrs Stoutley, an' the Professor here, he'll act the judge, an' I'll be the jury."

"The jury is too small," said Lewis, coming up at that moment.

"Small, young man!" repeated the Captain, with feigned surprise, as he drew himself up to his full height and squared his broad shoulders.

"Not physically, but numerically," retorted Lewis, with a laugh -- "ho! Emma, Miss Horetzki, Lawrence, Slingsby," he called to the quartette, who sat chatting in a bay window, "you are hereby summoned to act on a jury. Come along and have yourselves impaled -- I mean to say impannelled. A most important case, just going on for trial."

"What is the nature of the case?" asked Lawrence, as they all came forward and sat down in a semicircle before Mrs Stoutley.

"It han't got no natur -- it's unnateral altogether," said the Captain, who had just heard it briefly stated by the Count.

"Hallo! are you appointed public prosecutor?" demanded Lewis.

"Yes, I am," retorted the Captain, "I've appinted myself public persecuter, Lord Advocate, Lord High Commissioner to the Woolsack, an' any other legal an' illegal character ye choose to name. So you clap a stopper on yer muzzle, youngster, while I state the case. Here is Mrs Stoutley, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen, who says that climbin', an' gaugin', and glaciers is foolish and useless. That's two counts which the Count here (nothin' personal meant) says the prisoner was guilty of. We'll go in an' win on the last count, for if these things ain't useless, d'ee see, they can't be foolish. Well, the question is, 'Guilty or not guilty?'"

"Guilty!" replied Mrs Stoutley, with an amused smile.

"Hear! hear!" from Slingsby.

"Silence in the Court!" from Lewis.

"I'm afraid," said the Professor, "that our forms of legal procedure are somewhat irregular."

"Never mind that, Professor," said the Captain, "you go ahead an' prove the prisoner wrong. Take the wind out of her sails if 'ee can."

The Professor smiled blandly, and began in jest; but his enthusiastic spirit and love of abstract truth soon made him argue in earnest.

"Oh, that's all very well," said Mrs Stoutley, interrupting him, "but what possible use can there be in knowing the rate of speed at which a glacier flows? What does it matter whether it flows six, or sixty, or six hundred feet in a day?"

"Matter!" cried Lewis, before the Professor could reply, "why, it matters very much indeed. I can prove it. Our excellent guide Antoine told me of a man who fell into a crevasse high up on the Glacier des Bossons, and was of course lost; but about forty years afterwards the part of the glacier into which he fell had descended into the valley, and the body of the man was found -- at least portions of it were found here and there. This, as you are all aware, is a well-known fact. Bear in mind, in connection with this, that all glaciers do not travel at the same rate, nor all parts of a glacier at an equal rate. Now, suppose that you were to lose a gold watch or a diamond ring in a crevasse, the value of which might be incalculable in consequence of being a gift from some beloved one, would it not be a matter of the last importance to know exactly the rate at which the said crevasse travelled, so that you or your grandchildren might return at the precise time and claim the property?"

"Don't talk nonsense, Lewie," said his mother.

"No doubt," said the Professor, laughing, "my young friend's illustration is to the point, and I fear that I cannot give you anything more definite to prove the value of glacial measurements and observations. I must rest my proof on the abstract truth that all knowledge is desirable, and ought to be sought after for its own sake, as being the means whereby we shall come better to know the good and wise Creator, 'whom to know,' as His own Word says, 'is life eternal' But I can give you distinct proof, in a somewhat analogous case, of good resulting from knowledge which was eagerly pursued and acquired without the searcher having the slightest idea as to the use to which his knowledge would be ultimately put. You have doubtless heard of Captain Maury, of the United States Navy?"

"Oh yes," replied Mrs Stoutley, "he who writes that charming book, the Physical Geography of the Sea, or some such title. My son is a great admirer of that work. I tried to read it to please him, but I must confess that I could not go far into it. It seemed to me an endless and useless search after currents of wind and water."

"I see you must have missed the very illustrations which I am about to cite, for they are given in his book -- one of the most interesting I ever read, and not the less interesting that its author distinguishes a connection between the Creator's Word and His works. You know that Captain Maury's investigations of currents of wind and water were conducted wisely, and on a vast scale. Nautical men of many nations sent in their 'logs' to him, and he patiently collected and collated all the facts observed in all parts of the ocean."

"Yes, and quite useless knowledge, it appears to me," said Mrs Stoutley.

"Well, we shall see," returned the Professor. "There was once a terrible storm on the Atlantic, and a vessel with troops on board was so disabled as to be left at last a helpless log upon the sea. She was passed by other vessels, but these could render no assistance, owing to the raging storm. They, however, took note of the latitude and longitude of the wreck, and reported her on arriving at New York. A rescue-ship was at once ordered to search for her, but, before sailing, Captain Maury was applied to for instructions how they should proceed. The man of science was seated in his study, had probably scarce observed the storm, and knew nothing about the wreck save her position, as observed at a certain date. Why, therefore, we might ask; apply to him? Just because he sat at the fountain-head of such knowledge as was needed. He had long studied, and well knew, the currents of the ocean, their direction and their rate of progress at specified times and particular places. He prepared a chart and marked a spot at, or near which, the wreck, he said, would probably be found. The wreck was found -- not indeed by the rescue-ship, but by another vessel, at the very spot indicated -- and the surviving crew and troops were saved. So, in like manner, the study of truth regarding currents of air has led us to knowledge which enables mariners to escape the Atlantic Sargasso-sea -- "

"Ha! the Doldrums," growled Captain Wopper, as if he had a special and bitter hatred of that sea. "Yes, the Doldrums, or Sargasso-sea, where ships used to be detained by long, vexatious calms, and islands of floating sea-weed, but which now we escape, because studious men have pointed out, that by sailing to one side of that sea you can get into favourable breezes, avoid the calm regions, and thus save much time."

"Now, Madame," said Captain Wopper, "are you convinced?"

"Not quite," replied Mrs Stoutley, with a baffled look; "but, I suppose, on the strength of this, and similar reasons, you intend to ascend Mont Blanc to-morrow?"

"We do," said the Professor. "I intend to go for the purpose of attempting to fix a thermometer on the summit, in order to ascertain, if possible, the winter temperature."

"And pray, for what purpose?" said Mrs Stoutley with a touch of sarcasm, "does Dr Lawrence intend to go?"

"For the purpose of seeing the magnificent view, and of testing the lungs and muscles, which are now, I think, sufficiently trained to enable me to make the ascent with ease," replied the doctor, promptly.

"I go to assist the Professor," said Captain Wopper.

"And I," said Lewis, "intend to go for fun; so you see, mother, as our reasons are all good, you had better go to bed, for it's getting late."

Mrs Stoutley accepted the suggestion, delivered a yawn into her pocket-handkerchief, and retired, as she remarked, to ascend Mont Blanc in dreams, and thus have all the pleasure without the bodily fatigue.

We are on the sides of the mountain monarch now, slowly wending our way through the sable fringe of pines that ornaments the skirt of his white mantle. We tramp along very slowly, for Antoine Grennon is in front and won't allow us to go faster. To the impatient and youthful spirits of Lawrence and Lewis, the pace appears ridiculously slow, and the latter does not hesitate to make audible reference in his best French to the progress of snails, but Antoine is deaf to such references. One might fancy that he did not understand bad French, but for the momentary twinkle in his earnest eyes. But nothing will induce him to mend his pace, for well does he know that the ascent of Mont Blanc is no trifle; that even trained lungs and muscles are pretty severely taxed before the fifteen thousand seven hundred and eighty feet of perpendicular height above the sea-level is placed below the soles of the feet. He knows, also, from long experience, that he who would climb a mountain well, and use his strength to advantage, must begin with a slow, leisurely pace, as if he were merely out for a saunter, yet must progress with steady, persevering regularity. He knows, too, that young blood is prone to breast a mountain with head erect and spanking action, and to descend with woeful countenance and limp limbs. It must be restrained, and Antoine does his duty.

The ascent of Mont Blanc cannot be accomplished in one day. It is therefore necessary to sleep at a place named the Grands Mulets, from which a fresh start is made for the summit at the earliest hours of morning on the second day. Towards this resting-place our travellers now directed their steps.

The party consisted of the Professor, Captain Wopper, Lewis, Lawrence, and Slingsby, headed by their trusty guide, besides three porters with knapsacks containing food, wine, etcetera. One of these latter was the chamois-hunter, Baptist Le Croix. He brought up the rear of the party, and all proceeded in single file, each, like the North American Indian, treading in his predecessor's footsteps.

Passing from the dark fringe of pines they emerged upon a more open country where the royal robe was wrought with larch and hazel, bilberry, and varied underwood, and speckled with rhododendrons and other flowers on a ground of rich brown, green, and grey. Steadily upwards, over the Glacier des Bossons, they went, with airy cloudlets floating around them, with the summit at which they aimed, the Dome du Gouter, and the Aiguille du Gouter in front, luring them on, and other giant Aiguilles around watching them. Several hours of steady climbing brought them to the Pierre l'Echelle, where they were furnished with woollen leggings to protect their legs from the snow. Here also they procured a ladder and began the tedious work of traversing the glaciers. Hitherto their route had lain chiefly on solid ground -- over grassy slopes and along rocky paths. It was now to be confined almost entirely to the ice, which they found to be cut up in all directions with fissures, so that great caution was needed in crossing crevasses and creeping round slippery ridges, and progress was for some time very slow.

Coming to one of the crevasses which was too wide to leap, the ladder was put in requisition. The iron spikes with which one end of it was shod were driven firmly into the ice at one side of the chasm and the other end rested on the opposite side.

Antoine crossed first and then held out his hand to the Professor, who followed, but the man of science was an expert ice-man, and in another moment stood at the guide's side without having required assistance. Not so Captain Wopper.

"I'm not exactly a feather," he said, looking with a doubtful expression at the frail bridge.

"It bore me well enough, Captain," said the Professor with a smile.

"That's just what it didn't," replied the Captain, "it seemed to me to bend too much under you; besides, although I'm bound to admit that you're a good lump of a man, Professor, I suspect there's a couple of stones more on me than on you. If it was only a rope, now, such as I've bin used to, I'd go at it at once, but -- "

"It is quite strong enough," said the guide confidently.

"Well, here goes," returned the mariner, "but if it gives way, Antoine, I'll have you hanged for murder."

Uttering this threat he crossed in safety, the others followed, and the party advanced over a part of the glacier which was rugged with mounds, towers, obelisks, and pyramids of ice. For some time nothing serious interrupted their progress until they came to another wide crevasse, when it was found, to the guide's indignation, that the ladder had been purposely left behind by the porter to whom it had been intrusted, he being under the impression that it would not be further required.

"Blockhead!" cried the Professor, whose enthusiastic spirit was easily roused to indignation, "it was your duty to carry it till ordered to lay it down. You were hired to act, sir, not to think. Obedience is the highest virtue of a servant! Shall we send him back for it?" he said, turning to Antoine with a flushed countenance.

"Not now, Monsieur," answered the guide, "it would create needless delay. We shall try to work round the crevasse."

This they did by following its edge until they found a part where crossing was possible, though attended with considerable danger in consequence of the wedge-like and crumbling nature of the ice.

Hoping that such a difficulty would not occur again they pushed on, but had not gone far when another, and still more impassable, fissure presented itself.

"How provoking, couldn't we jump it?" said Lewis, looking inquiringly into the dark-blue depths.

"Pr'aps you might, youngster, with your half fledged spider-legs," said the Captain, "but you'll not catch fourteen-stun-six goin' over that with its own free will. What's to be done now, Antoine?"

The guide, after looking at the crevasse for a few minutes, said that the next thing to be done was to look for a snow-bridge, which he had no doubt would be found somewhere. In search of this he scattered the whole party, and in a few minutes a loud shout from the chamois-hunter told that he had been successful. The members of the party at once converged towards him, but found that the success was only partial. He had indeed found a part of the crevasse, which, during some of the wild storms so frequent on the mountain, had been bridged over by a snow-wreath, but the central part of the bridge had given way, and it was thus divided by a gap of about a foot wide. This would have been but a small and insignificant step to take had the substance been solid, but although the ice on one side was strong the opposite edge was comparatively soft snow, and not much more than a foot thick. The chamois-hunter, being the lightest of the party, was called to the front and ordered to test the strength of the frail bridge, if bridge it could be called.

"Why, he might as well try to step on a bit of sea-foam," said the Captain in surprise.

Lawrence, Lewis, and Slingsby, having as yet had no experience of such places, expressed, or held a similar opinion, but the Professor bade them wait and see.

Baptist, throwing off his pack, and fastening a rope round his waist, which his comrades held, advanced to the extreme edge of the ice, and with his long-handled axe, gently patted the snow on the opposite side. The surface yielded, and it seemed as if even that small weight would break the lump off, but the operation consolidated the mass in a few minutes, by reason of what the Professor termed "regelation." He then stepped tenderly on it, crossed over, and drew the rope after him. Antoine followed next, and in a few minutes the whole party was safe on the other side.

"Dr Lawrence," said Slingsby, in a low grave tone, as they walked along after this, "if we ever see Chamouni again I shall be surprised."

"Indeed?" returned Lawrence, with a short laugh, "I don't take quite so gloomy a view of our case. Don't you think that the free and easy, quiet look of our guide and porters indicates that such work looks more dangerous than it really is?"

"I don't know that," said the artist, shaking his head, "when men get thoroughly accustomed to danger they become foolhardy, and don't realise it. I think it sheer madness to cross such places."

Lewis, who overheard the conversation, could scarce refrain from a burst of laughter.

"Upon my word, Slingsby," said he, "such observations come strangely from the lips of a man, who only a day or two ago was caught sketching on a snow-wreath over the edge of a crevasse."

"Ah, but I didn't know it," retorted the other, "and even if I had known it, the ledge of snow was immensely stronger than that on which we have just stood."

At this point the conversation was interrupted by the guide stopping and saying that it was now necessary to tie the party together.

They had reached those higher parts of the glacier where snow frequently falls and covers, to some extent the narrower crevasses, thus, by concealing them, rendering them extremely dangerous traps. It therefore became necessary to attach the various members of the party together by means of a rope, which, passing round their waists, with a few feet between each, enabled them to rescue any one who should chance to break through.

Thus, in a string, they advanced, and had scarcely proceeded a hundred yards when a surprised "hallo!" from Captain Wopper arrested them. He had sunk up to the knees in snow. A "hallo!" of alarm instantly succeeded. He was waist deep. A stentorian yell followed:

"Ho! hallo! hi! -- avast! Hold on there abaft! My legs are waublin' in nothin'!"

His great weight had indeed nearly plunged him into a hidden crevasse, over which those who preceded him had passed in safety. If the Captain had stood alone that crevasse would certainly have been his grave, but his friends held him tight, and in a few seconds he was dragged out of danger.

"Well, well," he said, wiping some large drops of perspiration from his brow, as he stood on the other side of the chasm, "land-lubbers talk about seafarin' men havin' nothin' but a plank between them an' death, but to my thinkin' the rottenest plank that ever was launched is absolute safety compared to 'a snow-wreath.'"

"Ah! Captain," said the Professor, laughing, "you think so just now because you're not used to it. In a few weeks you'll hold a different opinion."

"May be so," replied the Captain quietly, "but it don't feel so -- heave ahead, my hearties!"

Thus encouraged the party proceeded with caution, the guide sounding the snow at each step with his long axe-handle as he moved in advance.

Slowly they mounted higher and higher, occasionally meeting with, but always overcoming, difficulties, until towards evening they reached the little log cabin on the Grands Mulets, not sorry to find in it a sufficient though humble resting-place for the night.

Here they proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Some firewood had been carried up by the porters, with which a fire was kindled, wet garments were hung up to dry, and hot coffee was prepared, while the sun sank in a gorgeous world of amber and crimson fire.

One by one the stars came out and gradually twinkled into brilliancy, until at last the glorious host of heaven shone in the deepening sky with an intensity of lustre that cannot be described, contrasting strangely with the pallid ghostly aspect of the surrounding snow-fields. These were the only trace of earth that now remained to greet the eyes of our travellers when they looked forth from the door of the little hut. Besides being calm and beautiful, the night was intensely cold. There is this peculiarity, on Alpine mountain tops, that when the sun's last rays desert them the temperature falls abruptly, there being little or nothing of earth or rock to conserve the heat poured out during the day. The mountaineers, therefore, soon after night closed in, found it necessary to shut the door of their cabin, where they roused up the fire, quaffed their steaming coffee, and smoked their pipes, in joyful anticipation of the coming day.



Chapter Fifteen.

The Grand Ascent Continued And Completed.

Need we say that the younger of our adventurers -- for such they may truly be styled -- felt a tendency to "spin yarns," as Captain Wopper expressed it, till a late hour that night, as they sat round the fire at the Grands Mulets?

During this enjoyable period, Lawrence and Lewis made themselves better acquainted with Baptist Le Croix, the chamois-hunter, whose quiet, gentle, and unobtrusive manner was very attractive to them. Many an anecdote did he relate of adventures among the Alpine peaks and passes while pursuing the chamois, or guiding travellers on their way, and it is probable that he might have roamed in spirit among his beloved haunts -- eagerly followed in spirit by the young men -- if he had not been called to order by the guide, who, remembering the hard work that lay before them on the morrow, suggested repose. The profound silence that soon reigned in the hut was broken only by an occasional long-drawn sigh. Even Captain Wopper was quiet, having been so powerfully influenced by fresh mountain air and exercise as to have forgotten or foregone his ordinary and inveterate snore.

There is something peculiarly disagreeable in being awakened, when one is very tired and sleepy, about two minutes after one has dropped into a profound refreshing slumber; and the annoyance is severely aggravated when it is caused by the wanton act of one of whom we had expected better things.

So, in a hazy way, thought Lewis Stoutley when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and heard the voice of Antoine Grennon.

"Monsieur! Monsieur!" said the guide.

"G-t -- long. D-n borer me," murmured Lewis, in tones so sleepy that the dash of crossness was barely perceptible.

"It is time to rise, sir," persisted Antoine.

"'Mposs'ble -- 'v jus' b'n two min'ts sl-e -- "

A profound sigh formed an eloquent peroration to the sentence.

A loud laugh from his companions, who were already up and getting ready, did more than the guide's powers of suasion to arouse the heavy sleeper. He started to a sitting posture, stared with imbecile surprise at the candle which dimly lighted the cabin, and yawned vociferously.

"What a sleeper you are, Lewie!" said Lawrence, with a laugh, as, on his knees before the fire, he busied himself in preparing coffee for the party.

"And such a growler, too, when any one touches you," observed Slingsby, buttoning on his leggings.

"Sleeper! growler!" groaned Lewis, "you've only given me five minutes in which to sleep or growl."

"Ah, the happy obliviousness of youth!" said the Professor, assisting one of the porters to strap up the scientific instruments, "you have been asleep four hours at least. It is now past one. We must start in less than an hour, so bestir yourself -- and pray, Dr Lawrence, make haste with that coffee."

The doctor was by no means slow in his operations, but the difficulties in his way delayed him. At such a height, and in such a frozen region, the only mode of procuring water was to place a panful of snow on the fire; and, no matter how full the pan might be stuffed with it, this snow, when melted, was reduced to only a very small quantity of water; more snow had, therefore, to be added and melted, so that much time was spent before the boiling point was reached. Patience, however, was at last rewarded with a steaming draught, which, with bread and ham, did more than fire towards warming their chill bodies.

Outside, the scene was still exquisitely calm and beautiful. The stars appeared to have gathered fresh brilliancy and to have increased in number during the night. Those of them near the horizon, as the Professor pointed out, twinkled energetically, as if they had just risen, and, like Lewis, were sleepy, while those in the zenith shone with steady lustre, as if particularly wide awake to the doings of the presumptuous men who were climbing so much nearer than usual to their habitation in the sky. One star in particular gleamed with a sheen that was pre-eminently glorious -- now it was ruby red, now metallic blue, anon emerald green. Of course, no sunlight would tinge the horizon for several hours, but the bright moon, which had just risen, rolled floods of silver over the snowy wastes, rendering unnecessary the lantern which had been provided to illumine their upward path.

The party, having been tied together with a rope as on the previous day, set forth in line over the snow, each following the other, and soon they were doing battle with the deep crevasses. The nature of the ice varied, of course, with the form of the mountain, sometimes presenting rugged and difficult places, in which, as the Captain put it, they got among breakers and had to steer with caution, at other times presenting comparatively level plains of snow over which all was "plain sailing," but the movement was upwards -- ever upwards -- and, as the day advanced, felt so prolonged that, at last, as Slingsby said, the climbing motion grew into a confirmed habit. Meanwhile the old world sank steadily below them, and, seen from such an elevation in the pale moonlight, lost much of its familiar look.

Even sounds appeared gradually to die out of that mysterious region, for when they chanced to pause for a moment to recover breath, or to gaze downward, each appeared unwilling to break the excessive stillness, and all seemed to listen intently, as it were, to the soundlessness around --  hearing nought, however, save the beating of their own pulsations. In such a spot, if unaccompanied by guide or friend, one might perhaps realise, more than in other parts of earth, the significance of the phrase, "Alone with God."

As dawn approached, Lewis, who had taken care to have himself placed next to Baptist Le Croix, renewed his converse in reference to chamois-hunting, and made arrangements to accompany the hunter on one of his expeditions.

"Is that your sole occupation?" he asked, as the party entered upon a somewhat level snow-field.

"That and assisting travellers," answered Baptist.

"By the way," said Lewis, in a careless tone, "they tell me that gold is to be found in some parts of these mountains. Is that true?"

If the youth's back had not been towards the hunter, who walked behind him, he might have seen that this question was received with a startled look, and that a strange gleam shot from the man's eyes. The question was repeated before he answered it.

"Yes," said he, in a low voice, "they say it is to be found -- but I have never found it."

"Have you sought much for it?"

"I have sought for it."

The answer was not given promptly, and Lewis found, with some surprise, that the subject appeared to be distasteful to the hunter. He therefore dropped it and walked on in silence.

Walking at the time was comparatively easy, for a sharp frost had hardened the surface of the snow, and the gem-like lights of heaven enabled them to traverse valleys of ice, clamber up snow-slopes and cross crevasses without danger, except in one or two places, where the natural snow-bridges were frail and the chasms unusually wide.

At one of these crevasses they were brought to a complete standstill. It was too wide to be leaped, and no bridge was to be found. The movements of a glacier cause the continual shifting of its parts, so that, although rugged or smooth spots are always sure to be found at the same parts of the glacier each year, there is, nevertheless, annual variety in minute detail. Hence the most expert guides are sometimes puzzled as to routes.

The crevasse in question was a new one, and it was Antoine's first ascent of Mont Blanc for that year, so that he had to explore for a passage just as if he had never been there before. The party turned to the left and marched along the edge of the chasm some distance, but no bridge could be found. The ice became more broken up, smaller crevasses intersected the large one, and at last a place was reached where the chaos of dislocation rendered further advance impossible.

"Lost your bearin's, Antoine?" asked Captain Wopper.

"No; I have only got into difficulties," replied the guide, with a quiet smile.

"Just so -- breakers ahead. Well, I suppose you'll 'bout ship an' run along the coast till we find a channel."

This was precisely what Antoine meant to do, and did, but it was not until more than an hour had been lost that a safe bridge was found. When they had crossed, the configuration of the ice forced them to adopt a route which they would willingly have avoided. A steep incline of snow rose on their right, on the heights above which loose ice-grags were poised as if on the point of falling. Indeed, two or three tracks were passed, down which, probably at no distant period, some of these avalanches had shot. It was nervous work passing under them. Even Antoine looked up at them with a grave, inquiring glance, and hastened his pace as much as was consistent with comfort and dignity.

Soon after this the sun began to rise, and the upper portions of the snow were irradiated with pink splendour, but to our travellers he had not yet risen, owing to the intervening peaks of the Aiguille du Midi. In the brightening light they emerged upon a plain named the Petit Plateau, which forms a reservoir for the avalanches of the Dome du Goute. Above them rose the mountain-crest in three grand masses, divided from each other by rents, which exposed that peculiar stratified form of the glacier caused by the annual bedding of the snow. From the heights, innumerable avalanches had descended, strewing the spot where they stood with huge blocks of ice and masses of rock.

Threading their way through these impediments was a matter not only of time, but of difficulty, for in some parts the spaces between the boulders and blocks were hollow, and covered with thin crusts of snow, which gave way the instant a foot was set on them, plunging up to their waists the unfortunates who trod there, with a shock which usually called forth shouts of astonishment not unmingled with consternation.

"Here, then, we draw near to the grand summit," said the Professor, pointing to the snow-cliffs on the right, "whence originates the ice-fountain that supplies such mighty ice-rivers as the Glacier des Bossons and the Mer de Glace."

"Oui, Monsieur," replied Antoine, smiling, "we draw near, but we are not yet near."

"We are nearer to the summit however, than we are to the plain," retorted the Professor.

"Truly, yes," assented the guide.

"I should think no one could doubt that," observed Slingsby, looking upwards.

"It looks quite near now," said Lewis.

"Not so near, however, as you think, and as you shall find," rejoined the guide, as they resumed their upward march.

This was indeed true. Nothing is more deceptive to an inexperienced eye than the apparent distance of a high mountain-top. When you imagine that the plain below is miles and miles away, and the peak above close at hand, you find, perhaps, on consulting your watch, that the plain cannot be very far distant, and that the greater part of your work still lies before you. It requires no small amount of resolution to bear up against the depression of spirit caused by frequent mistakes in this matter.

Owing to the increasing height and power of the sun, the snow beyond the Petit Plateau soon became soft, and the steepness of the ascent increasing, their advance became slower, and their work much more laborious. A pleasant break was, however, at hand, for, on reaching the Grand Plateau, they were cheered by the sun's rays beaming directly on them, and by the information that they had at length reached their breakfast-point.

It may not be a very romantic, but it is an interesting fact, that the joys connected with intellectual and material food are intimately blended. Man, without intellectual food, becomes a "lower animal." What intellectual man is without material food, even for part of a day, let those testify who have had the misfortune to go on a pic-nic, and discover that an essential element of diet had been forgotten. It is not merely that food is necessary to maintain our strength; were that so, a five minutes' pause, or ten at the outside, would suffice, in Captain Wopper's phraseology, to take in cargo, or coal the human engine; but we "rejoice in food," and we believe that none enjoy it so much as those whose intellectual appetite is strong. If any doubters of these truths had witnessed the Professor and his friends at breakfast that morning on the Grand Plateau, they must have infallibly been convinced.

"What a gourmand he is!" whispered Lewis to the Captain, in reference to the man of science, "and such a genial outflow of wit to correspond with his amazing indraught of wittles."

The Captain's teeth were at the moment fixed with almost tigerish ferocity in a chicken drumstick, but the humour and the amazing novelty -- to say nothing of the truth -- of Lewis's remark made him remove the drumstick, and give vent to a roar of laughter that shook the very summit of Mont Blanc -- at all events the Professor said it did, and he was a man who weighed his words and considered well his sentiments.

"Do not imagine that I exaggerate," he said, as distinctly as was compatible with a very large mouthful of ham and bread, "sound is a motion of vibration, not of translation. That delightfully sonorous laugh emitted by Captain Wopper (pass the wine, Slingsby -- thanks) was an impulse or push delivered by his organs of respiration to the particles of air in immediate contact with his magnificent beard. The impulse thus given to the air was re-delivered or passed on, not as I pass the mutton to Dr Lawrence (whose plate is almost empty), but by each particle of air passing the impulse to its neighbour; thus creating an aerial wave, or multitude of waves, which rolled away into space. Those of the waves which rolled in the direction of Mont Blanc communicated their vibrations to the more solid atoms of the mountain, these passed the motion on to each other, of course with slight -- inconceivably slight -- but actual force, and thus the tremor passed entirely through the mountain, out on the other side, greatly diminished in power no doubt, and right on throughout space. -- Hand me the bread, Lewis, and don't sit grinning there like a Cheshire cat with tic-douloureux in its tail."

At this Slingsby laughed and shook the mountain again, besides overturning a bottle of water, and upsetting the gravity of Antoine Grennon, who chanced to be looking at him; for the artist's mouth, being large, and also queerly shaped, appeared to the guide somewhat ludicrous. Sympathy, like waves of sound, is easily transmitted. Thus, on the Captain making to Antoine the very simple remark that the "mootong was mannyfeek," there was a general roar that ought to have brought Mont Blanc down about their ears. But it didn't -- it only shook him. Laughter and sympathy combined improve digestion and strengthen appetite. Thus the Professor's brilliant coruscations, and the appreciative condition of his audience, created an enjoyment of that morning's meal which was remembered with pleasure long after the event, and induced an excessive consumption of food, which called forth the remonstrances of the guide, who had to remind his uproarious flock that a portion must be reserved for the descent. To the propriety of this Lewis not only assented, but said that he meant to continue the ascent, and rose for that purpose, whereupon the Doctor said that he dissented entirely from the notion that bad puns increased the hilarity of a party, and the Captain, giving an impulse to the atmosphere with his respiratory organs, produced the sound "Avast!" and advised them to clap a stopper in their potato-traps.

Even at these sallies they all laughed -- proving, among other things, that mountain air and exercise, combined with intellectual and physical food, are conducive to easy-going good humour.

It is not impossible that the tremors to which Mont Blanc had been subjected that morning had put him a little out of humour, for our mountaineers had scarcely recommenced their upward toil when he shrouded his summit in a few fleecy clouds. The guide shook his head at this.

"I fear the weather won't hold," he said.

"Won't hold!" exclaimed the Captain, "why, it's holdin' now as hard as it can grip."

"True," observed the Professor; "but weather in these regions is apt to change its mood rather suddenly."

"Yet there seems to me no sign of an unfavourable change," said Lawrence, looking up at the blue and almost cloudless sky.

"Fleecy clouds are fleeting at times," returned the Professor, pointing to the summit which again showed its cap of clear dazzling white, "but at other times they are indicative of conditions that tend to storm. However, we must push on and hope for the best."

They did push on accordingly, and all, except the guide, had no difficulty in "hoping." As they passed over the Plateau the sun poured floods of light on the snow, from the little crystals of which it shone with prismatic colours, as though the place had been strewn with diamonds. The spirit of levity was put to flight by this splendid spectacle, and the feelings of the travellers were deepened to solemnity when the guide pointed to a yawning crevasse into which, he said, three guides were hurled by an avalanche in the year 1820. He also related how, on one occasion, a party of eleven tourists perished, not far from where they then stood, during a terrible storm, and how an English lady and her guide were, at another time, lost in a neighbouring crevasse.

By this time all except the chief among the surrounding heights were beginning to look insignificant by comparison, and the country assumed a sort of rugged flatness in consequence of being looked down upon from such an elevation. Passing the Grand Plateau they reached a steep incline, which rose towards a tremendous ice-precipice. From the upper edge of this there hung gigantic icicles. Up the incline they went slowly, for the crust of the snow broke down at every step, and the Captain, being heavy, began to show symptoms of excessive heat and labouring breath, but he grew comparatively cool on coming to a snow-bridge which had to be passed in order to get over a crevasse.

"It'll never bear my weight," he said, looking doubtfully at the frail bridge, and at the blue gulf, which appeared to be a bottomless pit.

Antoine, however, thought it might prove strong enough. He patted the snow gently, as on previous occasions of a similar kind, and advanced with caution, while his followers fixed their heels in the snow, and held tight to the rope to save him if he should break through. He passed in safety, and the others followed, but new difficulties awaited them on the other side. Just beyond this bridge they came to a slope from which the snow had been completely swept, leaving the surface of hard ice exposed. It was so steep that walking on it was impossible. Antoine, therefore, proceeded to cut steps along its face. Two swings of his ponderous mountain-axe were sufficient to cut each step in the brittle ice, and in a few minutes the whole party were on the slope, every man having a coil of the rope round his waist, while, with the spike of his alpenstock driven firmly into the ice, he steadied himself before taking each successive step.

There would have been no difficulty in crossing such a slope if its base had terminated in snow, but as it went straight down to the brow of an ice-precipice, and then abruptly terminated in a cornice, from which the giant icicles, before mentioned, hung down into an unfathomable abyss, each man knew that a false step, a slip, or the loss of balance, might result in the instant destruction of the whole party. They moved therefore very slowly, keeping their eyes steadily fixed on their feet.

The mercurial temperament of Mr Slingsby was severely tried at this point. His desire to look up and revel in the beauties of nature around him proved too strong a temptation. While gazing with feelings of awe at the terrible edge or cornice below he became, for the first time, fully alive to his situation, -- the smallness of the step of ice on which he stood, the exceeding steepness of the glassy slope below, the dread abyss beyond! He shut his eyes; a giddy feeling came over him -- a rush of horror.

"Take care, Monsieur!" was uttered in a quick, deep tone, behind him.

It was the warning voice of Le Croix, who observed his condition.

The warning came too late. Slingsby wavered, threw up his arms, slipped, and fell with an appalling shriek.

Le Croix, however, was prepared. In an instant he had fixed his staff and heels firmly, and had leaned well back to resist the pull. The porter in front was not less prompt; the stout rope stood the strain; and in another moment the artist was restored to his position, panting, pale, and humbled.

A few minutes sufficed to restore his confidence sufficiently to admit of his proceeding, and, with many warnings to be more cautious, the advance was continued.

Up to this point the weather had favoured them, but now Mont Blanc seemed as if inclined to resent the free and easy way in which these men of mingled muscle and science had attacked his crown. He drew several ominous clouds around him, and shook out a flood of hoary locks from his white head, which, caught up by a blast, created apparently for the purpose, were whirled aloft in wild confusion, and swooped down upon the mountaineers with bitter emphasis, in the form of snow-drift, as if they had come direct from Captain Wopper's favourite place of reference, --  Nova Zembla. Coats, which had hitherto been carried on the arm or thrown open, were put on and buttoned, and heads were bent to meet the blast and repel the snow-drift. Little was said, save a murmured doubt by Antoine as to the possibility of gaining the summit, even although they were now so near it, for the day was far spent by that time, and the rugged nature of the route over they had passed, precluded the possibility of a rapid return to the hut at the Grands Mulets. They pushed steadily on, however, for the Professor was anxious to bury his thermometer in the snow at the top; the guide was anxious to maintain his credit for perseverance; and the others were anxious to be able to say they had reached the highest height in Europe.

In any weather the ascent of Mont Blanc requires somewhat more than the average share of physical vigour and perseverance; in bad weather it demands unusual strength and resolution. When, therefore, a severe storm of wind arose, most of the party began to show symptoms of distress. The labour of ascending, being coupled with that of forcing way against the blast, was very exhausting to the muscles, while the extreme cold reduced the physical energy and cooled the most sanguine spirit. Antoine alone seemed to be proof against all influences, but the responsibility lying on him clouded his usually open countenance with a careworn expression. Prudence counselled immediate return. Ambition, as they were now so near the top, urged prolonged effort. The guide expressed his anxieties, but meeting with no response, followed the dictates of his feelings, and pushed on.

Like pillars of living snow they toiled patiently upwards. Breath became too precious to waste in words. They advanced in silence. The wind howled around them, and the snow circled in mad evolutions, as if the demon of wintry storms dwelt there, and meant to defend his citadel to the "bitter end." There are two rocks near the summit, which crop through the ice like rugged jewels in the monarch's diadem. The lower is named the Petits Mulets, the upper the Derniers Roches. On reaching the latter of these they paused a few moments to rest. A feeling of certainty that the end would be gained now began to prevail, but the guide was a little alarmed, and the Professor horrified, on looking at their companions' faces, to observe that they were pinched, haggard, and old-looking, as if they all had aged somewhat during the last few hours! Captain Wopper's rubicund visage was pale, and his nose blue; the face of Lewis was white all over, and drawn, as if he were suffering pain; Dr Lawrence's countenance was yellow, and Slingsby's was green. The Professor himself was as bad as his comrades, and the porters were no better.

"We shan't be beaten now," said the man of science, with a ghastly smile.

"Go 'head! nev'r s'die s'l'ng's th'r's shot 'n th' locker!" replied the Captain, in the tone of a man who would rather avoid speaking, if possible.

"What a face you've got, Stoutley!" said the artist.

"You're another!" replied Lewis, with a horrible grin.

"Allons!" exclaimed the guide, bending once more against the storm.

Once, for a few minutes, the wind ceased and the clouds lifted. Captain Wopper uttered a cheer, and rushed forward in advance of the guide, took off his hat and threw it into the air. They had reached the round summit without being aware of it. They stood 15,781 feet above the sea-level! No envious peak rose above their heads. The whole world lay below them, bathed, too, in bright sunshine, for the storm, which had so suddenly swooped upon them, was confined, like an elemental body-guard, to the head of the mountain-king. But, clear though it was at the moment, they were too high in the air to see anything quite distinctly, yet this hazy aspect had a charm of its own, for it increased the feeling and idea of vastness in connection with surrounding space. Around, and now beneath, stood the mountain nobility of the land, looking, however, somewhat reduced in size and majesty, as seen from the royal presence.

Scarcely had the mountaineers assembled and glanced at the wondrous panorama, when the envious clouds swooped down again and mingled with the snow-drift which once more rose to meet them.

"We must be quick, Monsieur," said Antoine, taking a shovel from one of the porters, while Le Croix grasped another. "Where shall we dig?"

The Professor fixed on a spot, and, while the grave of the thermometer was being dug, a plaid was set up on a couple of alpenstocks, in the shelter of which the others consumed the bread and wine that had been saved from breakfast. It did them little good, however; the cold was too intense. The Captain's beard was already fringed with icicles, and the whiskers of those who had them were covered with hoar-frost, while the breath issued from their mouths like steam. Before the thermometer was buried all had risen, and were endeavouring to recover heat by rubbing their hands, beating their arms across their breasts, and stamping violently.

"Come," said the Professor, quickly, when the work was done, "we must start at once."

"Oui, Monsieur," assented the guide, and, without more words, the whole party began to descend the mountain at a run.

There was cause for haste. Not only did the storm increase in violence, but evening drew on apace, and all of them were more or less exhausted by prolonged muscular exertion and exposure to severe cold.

Suddenly, having gone a considerable way down the mountain, they emerged from fog and snow-drift into blazing sunshine! The strife of elements was confined entirely to the summit. The inferior ice-slopes and the valleys far below were bathed in the golden glories of a magnificent sunset and, before they reached the huts at the Grands Mulets, they had passed from a condition of excessive cold to one of extreme heat, insomuch that the Captain and Professor were compelled to walk with their coats slung over their shoulders, while perspiration streamed from their bare brows.

That night the party slept again at the Grands Mulets, and next day they reached Chamouni, fagged, no doubt, and bearing marks of mountaineering in the shape of sun-burnt cheeks and peeled noses, but hearty, nevertheless, and not a little elated with their success in having scaled the mighty sides and the hoary summit of Mont Blanc.



Chapter Sixteen.

Tells How Lewis Distinguished Himself.

Seated one morning on an easy chair in Susan Quick's apartment and swinging his little blue legs to and fro in a careless, negligent manner, Gillie White announced it as his opinion that Mister Lewis had gone, or was fast going, mad.

"Why do you think so?" asked Susan, with a smile, looking up for a moment from some portion of Lewis's nether integuments, which Mont Blanc had riven almost to shreds.

"W'y do I think so?" repeated Gillie; "w'y, cos he's not content with havin' busted his boots an' his clo'se, an' all but busted hisself, in goin' to the top o' Mont Blang an' Monty Rosa, an' all the other Monty-thingumbobs about but he's agoin' off to day with that queer fish Laycrwa to hunt some where up above the clouds -- in among the stars, I fancy -- for shamwas."

"Indeed!" said Susan, with a neat little laugh.

"Yes, indeed. He's mountain-mad -- mad as a Swiss March hare, if not madder -- By the way, Susan, wot d'ee think o' the French?"

Gillie propounded this question with the air of a philosopher.

"D'you mean French people?"

"No; I means the French lingo, as my friend Cappen Wopper calls it."

"Well, I can't say that I have thought much about it yet. Missis keeps me so busy that I haven't time."

"Ah!" said Gillie, "you're wastin' of precious opportoonities, Susan. I've bin a-studdyin' of that lingo myself, now, for three weeks -- off and on."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Susan, with an amused glance, "and what do you think of it?"

"Think of it! I think it's the most outrageous stuff as ever was. The man who first inwented it must 'ave 'ad p'ralersis o' the brain, besides a bad cold in 'is 'ead, for most o' the enns an' gees come tumblin' through the nose, but only git half out after all, as if the speaker was afraid to let 'em go, lest he shouldn't git hold of 'em again. There's that there mountain, now. They can't call it Mont Blang, with a good strong out-an'-out bang, like a Briton would do, but they catches hold o' the gee when it's got about as far as the bridge o' the nose, half throttles it and shoves it right back, so that you can scarce hear it at all. An' the best joke is, there ain't no gee in the word at all!"

"No?" said Susan, in surprise.

"No," repeated Gillie. "I've bin studdyin' the spellin' o' the words in shop-winders an' posters, an', would you b'lieve it, they end the word Blang with a c."

"You don't say so!"

"Yes I do; an' how d'ee think they spell the name o' that feller Laycrwa?"

"I'm sure I don't know," answered Susan.

"They spells it," returned Gillie, with a solemn look, "L-e-c-r-o-i-x. Now, if I had spelt it that way, I'd have pronounced it Laycroiks. Wouldn't you?"

"Well, yes, I think I should," said Susan.

"It seems to me," continued Gillie, "that they goes on the plan of spellin' one way an' purnouncin' another -- always takin' care to choose the most difficult way, an' the most unnatt'ral, so that a feller has no chance to come near it except by corkin' up one nostril tight, an' borin' a small extra hole in the other about half-way up. If you was to mix a sneeze with what you said, an' paid little or no attention to the sense, p'raps it would be French -- but I ain't sure. I only wish you heard Cappen Wopper hoistin' French out of hisself as if he was a wessel short-handed, an' every word was a heavy bale. He's werry shy about it, is the Cappen, an' wouldn't for the world say a word if he thought any one was near; but when he thinks he's alone with Antoine -- that's our guide, you know -- he sometimes lets fly a broadside o' French that well-nigh takes my breath away."

The urchin broke into a laugh here at the memory of the Captain's efforts to master what he styled a furrin' tongue, but Susan checked him by saying slily, "How could you know, Gillie, if the Captain was alone with Antoine?"

"Oh, don't you know," replied Gillie, trying to recover his gravity, "the Cappen he's wery fond o' me, and I like to gratify his feelin's by keepin' near him. Sometimes I keep so near -- under the shadow of his huge calf d'ee see -- that he don't observe me on lookin' round; an', thinkin' he's all alone, lets fly his French broadsides in a way that a'most sends Antoine on his beam-ends. But Antoine is tough, he is. He gin'rally says, 'I not un'r'stan' English ver' well,' shakes his head an' grins, but the Cappen never listens to his answers, bein' too busy loadin' and primin' for another broadside."

The man to whom he referred cut short the conversation at this point by shouting down the stair: -- 

"Hallo! Gillie, you powder-monkey, where are my shoes?"

"Here they are, Cappen, all ready; fit to do dooty as a lookin'-glass to shave yerself," cried the "powder-monkey," leaping up and leaving the room abruptly.

Gillie's opinion in regard to the madness of Lewis was shared by several of his friends above stairs. Doctor Lawrence, especially, felt much anxiety about him, having overheard one or two conversations held by the guides on the subject of the young Englishman's recklessness.

"Really, Lewis," said the Doctor, on one occasion, "you must listen to a lecture from me, because you are in a measure under my charge."

"I'm all attention, sir," said Lewis meekly, as he sat down on the edge of his bed and folded his hands in his lap.

"Well then, to begin," said the Doctor, with a half-serious smile, "I won't trouble you with my own opinion, to which you attach no weight -- "

"Pardon me, Lawrence, I attach great weight to it -- or, rather, it has so much weight that I can scarcely bear it."

"Just so, and therefore you shan't have it. But you must admit that the opinion of a good guide is worth something. Now, I heard Antoine Grennon the other day laying down some unquestionable principles to the Professor -- "

"What! lecturing the Professor?" interrupted Lewis, "how very presumptuous."

"He said," continued the Doctor, "that the dangers connected with the ascent of these Swiss mountains are real, and, unless properly provided against, may become terrible, if not fatal. He instanced your own tendency to go roving about among the glaciers alone. With a comrade or a guide attached to you by a rope there is no danger worth speaking of, but it must be as clear to you as it is to me that it when out on the mountains alone, you step on a snow-covered crevasse and break through, your instant death is inevitable."

"Yes, but," objected Lewis, with that unwillingness to be convinced which is one of the chief characteristics of youth, "I always walk, when alone on the glaciers, with the utmost caution, sounding the snow in front of me with the long handle of my axe at every step as I go."

"If the guides do not find this always a sufficient protection for themselves, by what amazing power of self-sufficiency do you persuade yourself that it is sufficient for you?" demanded Lawrence.

"Your question suffices, Doctor," said Lewis, laughing; "go on with your lecture, I'm all attention and, and humility."

"Not my lecture," retorted Lawrence, "the guide's. He was very strong, I assure you, on the subject of men going on the high glaciers without a rope, or, which comes to the same thing, alone, and he was not less severe on those who are so foolhardy, or so ignorant, as to cross steep slopes of ice on new-fallen snow. Nothing is easier, the new snow affording such good foothold, as you told us the other day when describing your adventures under the cliffs of Monte Rosa, and yet nothing is more dangerous, says Antoine, for if the snow were to slip, as it is very apt to do, you would be smothered in it, or swept into a crevasse by it. Lives are lost in the Alps every year, I am told, owing to indifference to these two points. The guides say -- and their opinions are corroborated by men of science and Alpine experience -- that it is dangerous to meddle with any slope exceeding 30 degrees for several days after a heavy fall, and yet it is certain that slopes exceeding this angle are traversed annually by travellers who are ignorant, or reckless, or both. Did you not say that the slope which you crossed the other day was a steeper angle than this, and the snow on it not more than twenty-four hours' old?"

"Guilty!" exclaimed Lewis, with a sigh.

"I condemn you, then," said Lawrence, with a smile, "to a continuation of this lecture, and, be assured, the punishment is much lighter than you deserve. Listen: -- There are three unavoidable dangers in Alpine climbing -- "

"Please don't be long on each head," pleaded Lewis, throwing himself back in his bed, while his friend placed the point of each finger of his right hand on a corresponding point of the left, and crossed his legs.

"I won't. I shall be brief -- brief as your life is likely to be if you don't attend to me. The three dangers are, as I have said, unavoidable; but two of them may be guarded against; the other cannot. First, there is danger from falling rocks. This danger may be styled positive. It hangs over the head like the sword of Damocles. There is no avoiding it except by not climbing at all, for boulders and ice-blocks are perched here, and there, and everywhere, and no one can tell the moment when they shall fall. Secondly, there is danger from crevasses -- the danger of tumbling into one when crossing a bridge of snow, and the danger of breaking through a crust of snow which conceals one. This may be called a negative danger. It is reduced to almost nothing if you are tied to your comrade by a rope, and if the leader sounds with his staff as he walks along; but it changes from a negative to a positive danger to the man who is so mad as to go out alone. Thirdly, there is danger from new snow on steep slopes, which is positive if you step on it when recently fallen, and when the slope is very steep; but is negative when you allow sufficient time for it to harden. While, however, it is certain that many deaths occur from these three dangers being neglected, it is equally true that the largest number of accidents which occur in the Alps arise chiefly from momentary indiscretions, from false steps, the result of carelessness or self-confidence, and from men attempting to do what is beyond their powers. Men who are too old for such fatigue, and men who, though young, are not sufficiently strong, usually come to grief. I close my lecture with a quotation from the writings of a celebrated mountaineer -- 'In all cases the man rather than the mountain is at fault.'"

"There is truth in what you say," observed Lewis, rising, with a yawn.

"Nay, but," returned his friend, seriously, "your mother, who is made very anxious by your reckless expeditions, begged me to impress these truths on you. Will you promise me, like a good fellow, to consider them?"

"I promise," said Lewis, becoming serious in his turn, and taking his friend's hand; "but you must not expect sudden perfection to be exemplified in me. -- Come, let's go have a talk with Le Croix about his projected expedition after the chamois."

Up in the mountains now, -- above some of the clouds undoubtedly, almost 'mong the stars, as Gillie put it, -- Lewis wanders in company with Baptist Le Croix, half-forgetful of his promise to Lawrence. Below them lies a world of hills and valleys; above towers a fairy-land of ice, cliff, and cloud. No human habitation is near. The only indications of man's existence are so faint, and so far off in the plains below, that houses are barely visible, and villages look like toys. A sea of cloud floats beneath them, and it is only through gaps in this sea that the terrestrial world is seen. Piercing through it are the more prominent of the Alpine peaks -- the dark tremendous obelisk of the Matterhorn towering in one direction, the not less tremendous and far grander head of Mont Blanc looming in another. The sun shines brightly over all, piercing and rendering semi-transparent some of the clouds, gilding the edges and deepening the shadows of others.

"Do you see anything, Le Croix?" asked Lewis, as he reclined on a narrow ledge of rock recovering breath after a fatiguing climb, while his comrade peered intently through a telescope into the recesses of a dark mountain gorge that lay a little below them.

For some moments the hunter made no reply. Presently he closed the glass, and, with an air of satisfaction, said, "Chamois!"

"Where?" asked Lewis, rising eagerly and taking the glass.

Le Croix carefully pointed out the spot but no effort on the part of the inexperienced youth could bring anything resembling the light and graceful form of a chamois into the field of vision.

"Never mind, Le Croix," he said, quickly returning the glass and picking up his rifle; "come along, let's have at them."

"Softly," returned the hunter; "we must get well to leeward of them before we can venture to approach."

"Lead where you will; you'll find me a quiet and unquestioning follower."

The hunter at once turned, and, descending the mountain by a precipice which was so steep that they had in some places to drop from ledge to ledge, at last gained a position where the light air, that floated but scarce moved the clouds, came direct from the spot where the chamois lay. He then turned and made straight towards them. As they advanced the ground became more rugged and precipitous, so that their progress was unavoidably slow, and rendered more so by the necessity that lay on them of approaching their game without noise.

When they had reached a spot where a sheer precipice appeared to render further progress impossible, the hunter stopped and said in a low tone, "Look, they are too far off; a bullet could not reach them."

Lewis craned his neck over the cliff, and saw the chamois grazing quietly on a small patch of green that lay among brown rocks below.

"What's to be done?" he asked anxiously. "Couldn't we try a long shot?"

"Useless. Your eyes are inexperienced. The distance is greater than you think."

"What, then, shall we do?"

Le Croix did not answer. He appeared to be revolving some plan in his mind. Turning at last to his companion, he said -- 

"I counsel that you remain here. It is a place near to which they must pass if driven by some one from below. I will descend."

"But how descend?" asked Lewis. "I see no path by which even a goat could get down."

"Leave that to me," replied the hunter. "Keep perfectly still till you see them within range. Have your rifle ready; do not fire in haste; there will be time for a slow and sure aim. Most bad hunters owe their ill-luck to haste."

With this advice Le Croix crept quietly round a projecting rock, and, dropping apparently over the precipice, disappeared.

Solitude is suggestive. As long as his companion was with him, Lewis felt careless and easy in mind, but now that he was left alone in one of the wildest and grandest scenes he had yet beheld, he became solemnised, and could not help feeling, that without his guide he would be very helpless in such a place. Being alone in the mountains was not indeed new to him. As we have already said, he had acquired the character of being much too reckless in wandering about by himself; but there was a vast difference between going alone over ground which he had traversed several times with guides in the immediate neighbourhood of Chamouni, and being left in a region to which he had been conducted by paths so intricate, tortuous, and difficult, that the mere effort to trace back in memory even the last few miles of the route confused him.

There was a mysterious stillness, too, about everything around him; and the fogs, which floated in heavy masses above and below, gave a character of changeful wildness to the scenery.

"What a place to get lost in and benighted!" he thought. Then his mind, with that curious capacity for sudden flight, which is one of the chief characteristics of thought, leaped down the precipices, up which he had toiled so slowly, sped away over hill and dale, and landed him in Chamouni at the feet of Nita Horetzki. Once there, he had no desire to move. He kept looking steadily in her pretty face, speculated as to the nature of the charm that rendered it so sweet, wondered what was the cause of the lines of care that at times rippled her smooth white brow, longed to become the sharer of her grief, and her comforter, and pondered the improbability of his ever being in a position to call her Nita -- darling Nita -- sweetest Nita -- exquisite Nita! He was still engaged in creating adjectives at Chamouni when he was brought suddenly back to the Alpine heights by the sound of a shot. It was repeated in a hundred echoes by the surrounding cliffs, as he seized his rifle and gazed over the precipice.

A puff of smoke, hanging like a cloudlet, guided his eyes. Not far in front of it he saw the fawn-like form of a chamois stretched in death upon the ground, while two others were seen bounding with amazing precision and elasticity over the rocks towards him.

He turned at once to an opening among the rocks at his right, for, even to his unpractised eye, it was obviously impossible that anything without wings could approach him in front or at his left.

Coolness and promptitude were characteristics of the youth; so that he sat crouching with the rifle, resting in the palm of his left hand, over one knee, as motionless as if he had been chiselled from the rock against which he leaned; but his natural coolness of deportment could not prevent, though it concealed, a throbbing of anxiety lest the game should pass out of reach, or behind rocks, which would prevent his seeing it. For an instant he half-rose, intending to rush to some more commanding elevation, but remembering the parting advice of Le Croix, he sank down again and remained steady.

Scarcely had he done so when the clatter of bounding hoofs was heard. He knew well that the open space, across which he now felt sure the chamois must pass, was only broad enough to afford the briefest possible time for an aim. He raised the rifle more than half-way to the shoulder. Another instant and a chamois appeared like an arrow shooting athwart the hill-side before him. He fired, and missed! The bullet, however, which had been destined for the heart of the first animal, was caught in the brain of that which followed. It sprang high into the air, and, rolling over several times, lay stretched at full length on the rocks.

We need not pause to describe the rejoicing of the young sportsman over his first chamois, or to detail Lecroix's complimentary observations thereon.

Having deposited their game in a place of safety, the hunter suggested that, as there was no chance of their seeing any more in that locality, it would be well to devote the remainder of the day to exploring the higher slopes of a neighbouring glacier, for, familiar as he was with all the grander features of the region, there were some of the minuter details, he said, with which he was unacquainted.

Lewis was a little surprised at the proposal, but, being quite satisfied with his success, and not unwilling to join in anything that smacked of exploration, he readily assented; and, ere long, the two aspiring spirits were high above the spot where the chamois had fallen, and struggling with the difficulties of couloir and crevasse.

Before quitting the lower ground, they had deposited their game and rifles in a cave well known to Le Croix, in which they intended to pass the night, and they now advanced armed only with their long-handled Alpine hatchets, without which implements it is impossible to travel over glaciers.

Being both of them strong in wind and limb, they did not pause often to rest, though Lewis occasionally called a momentary halt to enjoy the magnificent prospect. During one of these pauses a dark object was seen moving over the ice far below them.

Le Croix pointed to it, and said that it approached them.

"What is it -- a crow?" asked Lewis.

"More like a man; but it is neither," returned the hunter, adjusting his telescope; "yes, it is, as I fancied, a chamois."

"Then it cannot have seen us," said Lewis, "else it would not approach."

"Nay, it approaches because it has seen us. It mistakes us for relatives. Let us sit down to deceive it a little."

They crouched beside a piece of ice, and the chamois advanced, until its pretty form became recognisable by the naked eye. Its motions, however, were irregular. It was evidently timid. Sometimes it came on at full gallop, then paused to look, and uttered a loud piping sound, advancing a few paces with caution, and pausing to gaze again. Le Croix replied with an imitative whistle to its call. It immediately bounded forward with pleasure, but soon again hesitated, and stopped. At last it seemed to become aware of its mistake, for, turning at a tangent, it scoured away over the ice like wind swooping down from the mountain-summits, bounded over the crevasses like an india-rubber ball, and was quickly out of sight.

While gazing with profound interest at this graceful creature, the explorers were not at first aware that a dark mass of inky cloud was rapidly bearing down on them, and that one of those wild storms which sweep frequently over the high Alps seemed to be gathering.

"We must make haste, if we would gain the shelter of our cave," said Le Croix, rising.

As he spoke, a low rumbling sound was heard behind them. They turned just in time to see a small avalanche of rocks hopping down the cliffs towards them. It was so far off, and looked such an innocent rolling of pebbles, that Lewis regarded it as an insignificant phenomenon. His companion formed a better estimate of its character, but being at least five hundred yards to one side of the couloir or snow-slope, down which it rushed, he judged that they were safe. He was mistaken. Some of the largest stones flew past quite near them, several striking the glacier as they passed, and sending clouds of ice-dust over them, and one, as large as a hogshead, bounding, with awful force, straight over their heads.

They turned instantly to hasten from so dangerous a spot, but were arrested by another and much louder rumbling sound.

"Quick, fly, Monsieur!" exclaimed Le Croix, setting his young companion the example.

Truly there was cause for haste. A sub-glacial lake among the heights above had burst its icy barriers, and, down the same couloir from which the smaller avalanche had sprung, a very ocean of boulders, mud, ice, and debris came crashing and roaring with a noise like the loudest thunder, with this difference, that there was no intermission of the roar for full quarter of an hour; only, at frequent intervals, a series of pre-eminent peals were heard, when boulders, from six to ten feet in diameter, met with obstacles, and dashed them aside, or broke themselves into atoms.

Our hunters fled for their lives, and barely gained the shelter of a giant boulder, when the skirts of the hideous torrent roared past leaped over an ice-cliff, and was swallowed up by the insatiable crevasses of the glacier below. For several minutes after they had reached, and stood panting in, a position of safety, they listened to the thunderous roar of Alpine artillery, until it died slowly away -- as if unwillingly --  in the light pattering of pebbles.

Gratitude to the Almighty for deliverance from a great danger was the strongest feeling in the heart of the chamois-hunter. Profound astonishment and joy at having witnessed such an amazing sight, quickened the pulse of Lewis.

"That was a narrow escape, Le Croix?"

"It was. I never see such a sight without a shudder, because I lost a brother in such an avalanche. It was on the slopes of the Jungfrau. He was literally broken to fragments by it."

Lewis expressed sympathy, and his feelings were somewhat solemnised by the graphic recital of the details of the sad incident with which the hunter entertained him, as they descended the mountain rapidly.

In order to escape an impending storm, which was evidently brewing in the clouds above, Lewis suggested that they should diverge from the route by which they had ascended, and attempt a short cut by a steeper part of the mountains.

Le Croix looked round and pondered. "I don't like diverging into unknown parts when in a hurry, and with the day far spent," he said. "One never knows when a sheer precipice will shut up the way in places like this."

The youth, however, was confident, and the man of experience was too amiable and yielding. There was also urgent reason for haste. It was therefore decided that the steeper slopes should be attempted.

They began with a glissade. A very steep snow-slope happened to be close at hand. It stretched uninterruptedly down several hundred feet to one of the terraces, into which the precipitous mountainside at that place was cut.

"Will you try?" asked Le Croix, looking doubtfully at his companion.

"Of course I will," replied Lewis, shortly. "Where you choose to go I will follow."

"Have you ever done such work before?"

"Yes, often, though never on quite so steep or long a slope."

Le Croix was apparently satisfied. He sat down on the summit of the slope, fixed the spiked end of his axe in the snow, resting heavily on the handle, in order to check his descent, and hitched himself forward.

"Keep steady and don't roll over," he cried, as he shot away. The snow rose and trailed like a white tail behind him. His speed increased almost to that of an avalanche, and in a few seconds he was at the bottom.

Lewis seated himself in precisely the same manner, but overbalanced himself when halfway down, swung round, lost self-command, let slip his axe, and finally went head over heels, with legs and arms flying wildly.

Le Croix, half-expecting something of the kind, was prepared. He had re-ascended the slope a short way, and received the human avalanche on his right shoulder, was knocked down violently as a matter of course, and the two went spinning in a heap together to the bottom.

"Not hurt, I hope?" cried Lewis, jumping up and looking at his comrade with some anxiety.

"No, Monsieur," replied Le Croix, quietly, as he shook the snow from his garments -- "And you?"

"Oh! I'm all right. That was a splendid beginning. We shall get down to our cave in no time at this rate."

The hunter shook his head. "It is not all glissading," he said, as they continued the descent by clambering down the face of a precipice.

Some thousands of feet below them lay the tortuous surface of a glacier, on which they hoped to be able to walk towards their intended night-bivouac, but the cliffs leading to this grew steeper as they proceeded. Some hours' work was before them ere the glacier could be reached, and the day was already drawing towards its close. A feeling of anxiety kept them both silent as they pushed on with the utmost possible speed, save when it was necessary for one to direct the other as to his foothold.

On gaining each successive ledge of the terraced hill-side, they walked along it in the hope of reaching better ground, or another snow-slope; but each ledge ended in a precipice, so that there was no resource left but to scramble down to the ledge below to find a similar disappointment. The slopes also increased, rather than decreased, in steepness, yet so gradually, that the mountaineers at last went dropping from point to point down the sheer cliffs without fully realising the danger of their position. At a certain point they came to the head of a slope so steep, that the snow had been unable to lie on it, and it was impossible to glissade on the pure ice. It was quite possible, however, to cut foot-holes down. Le Croix had with him a stout Manilla rope of about three hundred feet in length. With this tied round his waist, and Lewis, firmly planted, holding on to it, he commenced the staircase. Two blows sufficed for each step, yet two hours were consumed before the work was finished. Re-ascending, he tied the rope round Lewis, and thus enabled him to descend with a degree of confidence which he could not have felt if unattached. Le Croix himself descended without this moral support, but, being as sure-footed as a chamois, it mattered little.

Pretty well exhausted by their exertions, they now found themselves at the summit of a precipice so perpendicular and unbroken, that a single glance sufficed to convince them of the utter impossibility of further descent in that quarter. The ledge on which they stood was not more than three feet broad. Below them the glacier appeared in the fading light to be as far off as ever. Above, the cliffs frowned like inaccessible battlements. They were indeed like flies clinging to a wall, and, to add to their difficulties, the storm which had threatened now began in earnest.

A cloud as black as pitch hung in front of them. Suddenly, from its heart, there gushed a blinding flash of lightning, followed, almost without interval, by a crash of thunder. The echoes took up the sounds, hurling them back and forward among the cliffs as if cyclopean mountain spirits were playing tennis with boulders. Rain also descended in torrents, and for some time the whole scene became as dark as if overspread with the wing of night.

Crouching under a slight projection of rock, the explorers remained until the first fury of the squall was over. Fortunately, it was as short-lived as violent, but its effects were disagreeable, for cataracts now poured on them as they hurried along the top of the precipice vainly looking for a way of escape. At last, on coming to one of those checks which had so often met them that day, Le Croix turned and said -- 

"There is no help for it, Monsieur, we must spend the night here."

"Here!" exclaimed Lewis, glancing at the cliffs above and the gulf below.

"It is not a pleasant resting-place," replied the hunter, with a sad smile, "but we cannot go on. It will be quite dark in half an hour, when an effort to advance would insure our destruction. The little light that remains must be spent in seeking out a place to lie on."

The two men, who were thrown thus together in such perilous circumstances, were possessed of more than average courage, yet it would be false to say that fear found no place in their breasts. On the contrary, each confessed to the other the following day that his heart had sunk within him as he thought of the tremendous cliffs against which they were stuck, with descent and ascent equally impossible, a narrow ledge on the precipice-edge for their bed, and a long, wild night before them. Cowardice does not consist in simple fear. It consists in the fear of trifles; in unreasonable fear, and in such fear as incapacitates a man for action. The situation of our explorers was not one of slight danger. They had the best of reason for anxiety, because they knew not whether escape, even in daylight, were possible. As to incapacity for action, the best proof that fear had not brought them to that condition lay in the fact, that they set about preparations for spending the night with a degree of vigour amounting almost to cheerfulness.

After the most careful survey, only one spot was found wider than the rest of the ledge, and it was not more than four feet wide, the difference being caused by a slight hollow under the rock, which thus might overhang them -- one of them at least -- and form a sensation of canopy. At its best, a bed only four feet wide is esteemed narrow enough for one, and quite inadequate for two, but when it is considered that the bed now selected was of hard granite, rather round-backed than flat, with a sheer precipice descending a thousand feet, more or less, on one side of it, and a slope in that direction, there will be no difficulty in conceiving something of the state of mind in which Lewis Stoutley and Baptist Le Croix lay down to repose till morning in wet garments, with the thermometer somewhere between thirty-two and zero, Fahrenheit.

To prevent their rolling off the ledge when asleep, they built on the edge of the cliff a wall of the largest loose stones they could find. It was but an imaginary protection at best, for the slightest push sent some of the stones toppling over, and it necessarily curtailed the available space. No provisions, save one small piece of bread, had been brought, as they had intended returning to their cave to feast luxuriously. Having eaten the bread, they prepared to lie down.

It was agreed that only one at a time should sleep; the other was to remain awake, to prevent the sleeper from inadvertently moving. It was also arranged, that he whose turn it was to sleep should lie on the inner side. But here arose a difference. Le Croix insisted that Lewis should have the first sleep. Lewis, on the other hand, declared that he was not sleepy; that the attempt to sleep would only waste the time of both, and that therefore Le Croix should have the first.

The contention was pretty sharp for a time, but the obstinacy of the Englishman prevailed. The hunter gave in, and at once lay down straight out with his face to the cliff, and as close to it as he could squeeze. Lewis immediately lay down outside of him, and, throwing one arm over his Lecroix's broad chest gave him a half-jocular hug that a bear might have enjoyed, and told him to go to sleep. In doing this he dislodged a stone from the outer wall, which went clattering down into the dark gulf.

Almost immediately the deep, regular breathing of the wearied hunter told that he was already in the land of Nod.

It was a strange, romantic position; and Lewis rejoiced, in the midst of his anxieties, as he lay there wakefully guarding the chamois-hunter while he slept. It appeared to Lewis that his companion felt the need of a guardian, for he grasped with both hands the arm which he had thrown round him.

How greatly he wished that his friends at Chamouni could have even a faint conception of his position that night! What would Lawrence have thought of it? And the Captain, -- how would he have conducted himself in the circumstances? His mother, Emma, the Count, Antoine, Gillie, Susan -- every one had a share in his thoughts, as he lay wakeful and watching on the giddy ledge -- and Nita, as a great under-current like the sub-glacial rivers, kept flowing continually, and twining herself through all. Mingled with these thoughts was the sound of avalanches, which ever and anon broke in upon the still night with a muttering like distant thunder, or with a startling roar as masses of ice tottered over the brinks of the cascades, or boulders loosened by the recent rain lost their hold and involved a host of smaller fry in their fall. Twining and tying these thoughts together into a wild entanglement quite in keeping with the place, the youth never for one moment lost the sense of an ever present and imminent danger -- he scarce knew what -- and the necessity for watchfulness. This feeling culminated when he beheld Nita Horetzki suddenly appear standing close above him on a most dangerous-looking ledge of rock!

Uttering a loud cry of alarm he sought to start up, and in so doing sent three-quarters of the protecting wall down the precipice with an appalling rush and rumble. Unquestionably he would have followed it if he had not been held by the wrist as if by a vice!

"Hallo! take care, Monsieur," cried Le Croix, in a quick anxious tone, still holding tightly to his companion's arm.

"Why! what? Le Croix -- I saw -- I -- I -- saw -- Well, well -- I do really believe I have been -- I'm ashamed to say -- "

"Yes, Monsieur, you've been asleep," said the hunter, with a quiet laugh, gently letting go his hold of the arm as he became fully persuaded that Lewis was by that time quite awake and able to take care of himself.

"Have you been asleep too?" asked Lewis.

"Truly, no!" replied the hunter, rising with care, "but you have had full three hours of it, so it's my turn now."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Lewis.

"Indeed I do; and now, please, get next the cliff and let me lie outside, so that I may rest with an easy mind."

Lewis opposed him no longer. He rose, and they both stood up to stamp their feet and belabour their chests for some time -- the cold at such a height being intense, while their wet garments and want of covering rendered them peculiarly unfitted to withstand it. The effort was not very successful. The darkness of the night, the narrowness of their ledge, and the sleepiness of their spirits rendering extreme caution necessary.

At last the languid blood began to flow; a moderate degree of warmth was restored, and, lying down again side by side in the new position, the hunter and the student sought and found repose.



Chapter Seventeen.

Danger And Death On The Glacier.

Daylight -- blessed daylight! How often longed for by the sick and weary! How imperfectly appreciated by those whose chief thoughts and experiences of night are fitly expressed by the couplet: -- 

"Bed, bed, delicious bed, Haven of rest for the weary head."

Daylight came at last, to the intense relief of poor Lewis, who had become restless as the interminable night wore on, and the cold seemed to penetrate to his very marrow. Although unable to sleep, however, he lay perfectly still, being anxious not to interrupt the rest of his companion. But Le Croix, like the other, did not sleep soundly; he awoke several times, and, towards morning, began to dream and mutter short sentences.

At first Lewis paid no attention to this, but at length, becoming weary of his own thoughts, he set himself with a half-amused feeling to listen. The amusement gave place to surprise and to a touch of sadness when he found that the word 'gold' frequently dropped from the sleeper's lips.

"Can it be," he thought, "that this poor fellow is really what they say, a half-crazed gold-hunter? I hope not. It seems nonsensical. I never heard of there being gold in these mountains. Yet it may be so, and too much longing after gold is said to turn people crazy. I shouldn't wonder if it did."

Thoughts are proverbial wanderers, and of a wayward spirit, and not easy of restraint. They are often very honest too, and refuse to flatter. As the youth lay on his back gazing dreamily from that giddy height on the first faint tinge of light that suffused the eastern sky, his thoughts rambled on in the same channel.

"Strange, that a chamois-hunter should become a gold-hunter. How much more respectable the former occupation, and yet how many gold-hunters there are in the world! Gamblers are gold-hunters; and I was a gambler once! Aha! Mr Lewis, the cap once fitted you! Fitted, did I say? It fits still. Have I not been playing billiards every night nearly since I came here, despite Captain Wopper's warnings and the lesson I got from poor Leven? Poor Leven indeed! it's little gold that he has, and I robbed him. However, I paid him back, that's one comfort, and my stakes now are mere trifles -- just enough to give interest to the game. Yet, shame on you, Lewie; can't you take interest in a game for its own sake? The smallest coin staked involves the spirit of gambling. You shouldn't do it, my boy, you know that well enough, if you'd only let your conscience speak out. And Nita seems not to like it too -- ah, Nita! She's as good as gold -- as good! ten million times better than the finest gold. I wonder why that queer careworn look comes over her angel face when she hears me say that I've been having a game of billiards? I might whisper some flattering things to myself in reference to this, were it not that she seems just as much put out when any one else talks about it. Ah, Nita!"

It is unnecessary to follow the youth's thoughts further, for, having got upon Nita, they immediately ceased their wayward wandering practices and remained fixed on that theme.

Soon afterwards, the light being sufficient the mountaineers rose and continued their descent which was accomplished after much toil and trouble, and they proceeded at a quick pace over the glacier towards the place where the chamois had been left the previous day.

"Why are you so fond of gold, Le Croix?" said Lewis, abruptly, and in a half-jesting tone, as they walked along.

The hunter's countenance flushed deeply, and he turned with a look of severity towards his companion.

"Who said that I was fond of it?"

"A very good friend of mine," replied Lewis, with a light laugh.

"He can be no friend of mine," returned the hunter, with contracted brows.

"I'm not so sure of that," said the other; "at least if you count yourself a friend. You whispered so much about gold in your dreams this morning that I came to the conclusion you were rather fond of it."

The expression of the hunter changed completely. There seemed to be a struggle between indignation and sorrow in his breast as he stopped, and, facing his companion, said, with vehemence -- 

"Monsieur, I do not count myself a friend. I have ever found self to be my greatest enemy. The good God knows how hard I have fought against self for years, and how often -- oh, how often -- I have been beaten down and overcome. God help me. It is a weary struggle."

Lecroix's countenance and tones changed as rapidly as the cloud-forms on his own mountain peaks. His last words were uttered with the deepest pathos, and his now pale face was turned upward, as if he sought for hope from a source higher than the "everlasting hills." Lewis was amazed at the sudden burst of feeling in one who was unusually quiet and sedate, and stood looking at him in silence.

"Young man," resumed the hunter, in a calmer tone, laying his large brown hand impressively on the youth's shoulder, "you have heard aright. I have loved gold too much. If I had resisted the temptation at the first I might have escaped, but I shall yet be saved, ay, despite of self, for there is a Saviour! For years I have sought for gold among these mountains. They tell me it is to be found there, but I have never found it. To-day I intended to have visited yonder yellow cliffs high up on the shoulder of the pass. Do you see them?"

He pointed eagerly, and a strange gleam was in his blue eyes as he went on to say rapidly, and without waiting for an answer -- 

"I have not yet been up there. It looks a likely place -- a very likely place -- but your words have turned me from my purpose. The evil spirit is gone for to-day -- perhaps for ever. Come," he added, in a tone of firm determination, "we will cross this crevasse and hasten down to the cave."

He wrenched himself round while he spoke, as if the hand of some invisible spirit had been holding him, and hurried quickly towards a wide crevasse which crossed their path at that place.

"Had we not better tie ourselves together before attempting it?" suggested Lewis, hastening after him.

Le Croix did not answer, but quickened his pace to a run.

"Not there!" exclaimed Lewis, in sudden alarm. "It is almost too wide for a leap, and the snow on the other side overhangs. Stop! for God's sake -- not there!"

He rushed forward, but was too late. Le Croix was already on the brink of the chasm; next moment, with a tremendous bound, he cleared it, and alighted on the snow beyond. His weight snapped off the mass, his arms were thrown wildly aloft, and, with a shout, rather than a cry, he fell headlong into the dark abyss!

Horror-stricken, unable to move or cry out Lewis stood on the edge. From far down in the blue depths of the crevasse there arose a terrible sound, as if of a heavy blow. It was followed by the familiar rattling of masses of falling ice, which seemed to die away in the profound heart of the glacier.

The "weary struggle" had come to an end at last. The chamois-hunter had found a tomb, like too many, alas! of his bold-hearted countrymen, among those great fields of ice, over which he had so often sped with sure foot and cool head in days gone by.

Lewis was as thoroughly convinced that his late comrade was dead, as if he had seen his mangled corpse before him, but with a sort of passionate unbelief he refused to admit the fact. He stood perfectly motionless, as if transfixed and frozen, in the act of bending over the crevasse. He listened intently and long for a sound which yet he knew could never come. An oppressive, sickening silence reigned around him, which he suddenly broke with a great and terrible cry, as, recovering from his stupor, he hurried wildly to and fro, seeking for some slope by which he might descend to the rescue of his friend.

Vainly he sought. Both walls of the crevasse were sheer precipices of clear ice. At one spot, indeed, he found a short slope, and, madly seizing his axe, he cut foot-holds down it, descending, quite regardless of danger, until the slope became too perpendicular to admit of farther progress. Struck then with alarm for himself, he returned cautiously to the top, while beads of cold perspiration stood on his pale brow. A few minutes more, and he became sufficiently calm to realise the fact that poor Le Croix was indeed beyond all hope. As the truth was forced into his heart he covered his face with his hands and wept bitterly.

It was long ere the passionate burst of feeling subsided. Lewis was very impressionable, and his young heart recoiled in agony from such a shock. Although the hunter had been to him nothing but a pleasant guide, he now felt as if he had lost a friend. When his mind was capable of connected thought he dwelt on the unfortunate man's kindly, modest, and bold disposition, and especially on the incidents of the previous night, when they two had lain side by side like brothers on their hard couch.

At last he rose, and, with a feeling of dead weight crushing his spirit began to think of continuing his descent. He felt that, although there was no hope of rescuing life, still no time should be lost in rousing the guides of Chamouni and recovering, if possible, the remains.

Other thoughts now came upon him with a rush. He was still high up among the great cliffs, and alone! The vale of Chamouni was still far distant, and he was bewildered as to his route, for, in whatever direction he turned, nothing met his eye save wildly-riven glaciers or jagged cliffs and peaks. He stood in the midst of a scene of savage grandeur, which corresponded somewhat with his feelings.

His knowledge of ice-craft, if we may use the expression, was by that time considerable, but he felt that it was not sufficient for the work that lay before him; besides, what knowledge he possessed could not make up for the want of a companion and a rope, while, to add to his distress, weakness, resulting partly from hunger, began to tell on him.

Perhaps it was well that such thoughts interfered with those that unmanned him, for they served to rouse his spirit and nerve him to exertion. Feeling that his life, under God, depended on the wisdom, vigour, and promptitude of his actions during the next few hours, he raised his eyes upward for a moment, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, asked help and guidance of his Creator, with the feeling strong upon him that help and guidance were sorely needed.

Almost at the commencement of his descent an event occurred which taught him the necessity of extreme caution. This was the slipping of his axe. He had left the fatal crevasse only a few hundred yards behind him, when he came to a fracture in the ice that rendered it impossible to advance in that direction any longer; he therefore turned aside, but was met by a snow slope which terminated in another yawning crevasse. While standing on the top of this, endeavouring to make up his mind as to the best route to be followed, he chanced to swing his axe carelessly and let it fall. Instantly it turned over the edge, and shot like an arrow down the slope. He was ice-man enough to know that the loss of his axe in such circumstances was equivalent to the signing of his death-warrant and his face flushed with the gush of feeling that resulted from the accident. Fortunately, the head of the weapon caught on a lamp of ice just at the edge of the crevasse, and the handle hung over it. Something akin to desperation now took possession of the youth. The slope was far too steep to slide down. Not having his axe, it was impossible to cut the necessary steps. In any case it was excessively dangerous, for, although the snow was not new, it lay on such an incline that the least weight on it might set it in motion, in which case inevitable death would have been the result. The case was too critical to admit of delay or thought. At all hazards the axe must be recovered. He therefore lay down with his face to the slope, and began to kick foot-holds with the toe of his boots. It was exceedingly slow and laborious work, for he dared not to kick with all his force, lest he should lose his balance, and, indeed, he only retained it by thrusting both arms firmly into the upper holes and fixing one foot deep in a lower hole, while with the other he cautiously kicked each new step in succession. At last, after toiling steadily thus for two hours, he regained his axe.

The grip with which he seized the handle, and the tender feeling with which he afterwards laid it on his shoulder, created in him a new idea as to the strange affection with which man can be brought to regard inanimate objects, and the fervency with which he condemned his former flippancy, and vowed never more to go out on the high Alps alone, formed a striking commentary on the adage, "Experience teaches fools!"

For some time after this Lewis advanced with both speed and caution. At each point of vantage that he reached he made a rapid and careful survey of all the ground before him, decided on the exact route which he should take, as far as the eye could range, and then refused every temptation to deviate from it save when insurmountable obstacles presented themselves in the shape of unbridged crevasses or sheer ice-precipices. Such obstacles were painfully numerous, but by indomitable perseverance, and sometimes by a desperate venture, he overcame them.

Once he got involved in a succession of crevasses which ran into each other, so that he found himself at last walking on the edge of a wedge of ice not a foot broad, with unfathomable abysses on either side. The wedge terminated at last in a thin edge with a deep crevasse beyond. He was about to retrace his steps -- for the tenth time in that place -- when it struck him that if he could only reach the other side of the crevasse on his right, he might gain a level patch of ice that appeared to communicate with the sounder part of the glacier beyond. He paused and drew his breath. It was not much of a leap. In ordinary circumstances he could have bounded over it like a chamois, but he was weak now from hunger and fatigue; besides which, the wedge on which he stood was rotten, and might yield to his bound, while the opposite edge seemed insecure and might fail him, like the mass that had proved fatal to Le Croix.

He felt the venture to be desperate, but the way before him was yet very long, and the day was declining. Screwing up his courage he sprang over, and a powerful shudder shook his frame when he alighted safe on the other side.

Farther down the glacier he came to a level stretch, and began to walk with greater speed, neglecting for a little the precaution of driving the end of his axe-handle into the snow in front at each step. The result was, that he stepped suddenly on the snow that concealed a narrow crevasse. It sank at once, sending something like a galvanic shock through his frame. The shock effected what his tired muscles might have failed to accomplish. It caused him to fling himself backward with cat-like agility, and thus he escaped narrowly. It is needless to say that thereafter he proceeded with a degree of care and caution that might have done credit even to a trained mountaineer.

At last Lewis found it necessary to quit the glacier and scale the mountains by way of a pass which led into the gorge from which he hoped to reach the vale of Chamouni. He was in great perplexity here, for, the aspect of the country being unfamiliar to his eye, he feared that he must have lost his way. Nothing but decision, however, and prompt action could serve him now. To have vacillated or retraced part of his steps, would have involved his spending a second night among the icy solitudes without shelter; and this he felt, fatigued and fasting as he was, would have been quite beyond his powers of endurance. He therefore crossed the bergschrund, or crevasse between the glacier and the cliffs, on a snow-bridge, faced the mountain-side once more, and, toiling upwards, reached the summit of the pass a little before sunset. Fortunately the weather continued fine, and the country below appeared much less rugged than that over which he had passed, but he had not yet got clear of difficulties. Just below him lay the longest ice-slope, or couloir, he had hitherto encountered. The snow had been completely swept off its surface, and it bore evidence of being the channel down which rushed the boulders and obelisks of ice that strewed the plain below. To reach that plain by any other route would have involved a circuit of unknown extent. The risk was great but the danger of delay was greater. He swung the heavy axe round his head, and began at once the tedious process of cutting steps. Being an apt scholar, he had profited well from the lessons taught by Le Croix and others. Quick, yet measured and firm, was each stroke. A forced calmness rested on his face, for, while the ice-blocks above, apparently nodding to their fall, warned him to make haste, the fear of slipping a foot, or losing balance, compelled him to be very cautious. In such a case, a rope round the waist and a friend above would have been of inestimable value.

When about two-thirds of the way down, the exhausted youth was forced to stop for a few seconds to rest. Just then several pieces of ice, the size of a man's head, rushed down the couloir and dashed close past him. They served to show the usual direction of an avalanche. Fearing they were the prelude to something worse, he quickly cut his way to the side of the couloir. He was not a moment too soon. Glancing up in alarm, he saw the foundations of one of the largest ice-masses give way. The top bent over slowly at first, then fell forward with a crash and broke into smaller fragments, which dashed like lightning down the slope, leaping from side to side, and carrying huge rocks and masses of debris to the plain with horrible din.

Poor Lewis felt his spirit and his body shrink. He had, however, chosen his position well. Nothing save a cloud of dust and snow reached him, but the part of the slope down which he had passed was swept clean as with the besom of destruction. It was an awful ordeal for one so young and inexperienced, for the risk had to be encountered again. "The sooner the better," thought he, and immediately swayed aloft his axe again, lifting, as he did so, his heart to his Maker for the second time that day. A few minutes more, and he stood at the foot of the couloir.

Without a moment's pause he hurried on, and finally reached the lower slopes of the mountains. Here, to his inexpressible joy and thankfulness, he fell in with a sheep-track, and, following it up, was soon on the high-road of the valley. But it was not till far on in the night that he reached Chamouni, scarce able to drag himself along.

He went straight to the Bureau of Guides, where a profound sensation was created by the sad tidings which he brought. Antoine Grennon happened to be there, and to him Lewis told his sad tale, at the same time eagerly suggesting that an immediate search should be made for the body, and offering to go back at once to guide them to the scene of the accident. Antoine looked earnestly in the youth's face.

"Ah, Monsieur," he said, shaking his head, "you are not fit to guide any one to-night. Besides, I know the place well. If poor Le Croix has fallen into that crevasse, he is now past all human aid."

"But why not start at once?" said Lewis, anxiously, "if there is but the merest vestige of a chance -- "

"There is no chance, Monsieur, if your description is correct; besides, no man could find the spot in a dark night. But rest assured that we will not fail to do our duty to our comrade. A party will start off within an hour, proceed as far as is possible during the night, and, at the first gleam of day, we will push up the mountains. We need no one to guide us, but you need rest. Go, in the morning you may be able to follow us."

We need scarcely say that the search was unavailing. The body of the unfortunate hunter was never recovered. In all probability it still lies entombed in the ice of the great glacier.



Chapter Eighteen.

A Mystery Cleared Up.

"Is Nita unwell, Emma?" asked Lewis early one morning, not long after the sad event narrated in the last chapter.

"I think not. She is merely depressed, as we all are, by the melancholy death of poor Le Croix."

"I can well believe it," returned Lewis. "Nevertheless, it seems to me that her careworn expression and deep despondency cannot be accounted for by that event."

"You know that her father left last week very suddenly," said Emma. "Perhaps there may be domestic affairs that weigh heavily on her. I know not, for she never refers to her family or kindred. The only time I ventured to do so she appeared unhappy, and quickly changed the subject."

The cousins were sauntering near their hotel and observed Dr Lawrence hurry from the front door.

"Hallo! Lawrence," called out Lewis.

"Ah! the very man I want," exclaimed the Doctor, hastening to join them, "do you know that Miss Horetzki is ill?"

"How strange that we should just this moment have referred to her looking ill! Not seriously ill, I trust," said Emma, with a troubled look in her sympathetic eyes.

"I hope not, but her case puzzles me more than any that I have yet met with. I fancy it may be the result of an overstrained nervous system, but there appears no present cause for that. She evidently possesses a vigorous constitution, and every one here is kind to her -- her father particularly so. Even if she were in love, which she doesn't seem to be (a faint twinkle in the Doctor's eye here), that would not account for her condition."

"I can't help thinking," observed Lewis, with a troubled look, "that her father is somehow the cause of her careworn looks. No doubt he is very kind to her in public, but may there not be a very different state of things behind the scenes?"

"I think not. The Count's temper is gentle, and his sentiments are good. If he were irascible there might be something behind the scenes, for when restraint is removed and temper gets headway, good principles may check but cannot always prevent unkindness. Now, Emma, I have sought you and Lewis to ask for counsel. I do not say that Nita is seriously ill, but she is ill enough to cause those who love her -- as I know you do -- some anxiety. It is very evident to me, from what she says, that she eagerly desires her father to be with her, and yet when I suggest that he should be sent for, she nervously declines to entertain the proposal. If this strange state of mind is allowed to go on, it will aggravate the feverish attack from which she now suffers. I wish, therefore, to send for the Count without letting her know. Do you think this a wise step?"

"Undoubtedly; but why ask such a question of me?" said Emma, with a look of surprise.

"First, because you are Nita's friend -- not perhaps, a friend of long standing, but, if I mistake not, a very loving one; and, secondly, as well as chiefly, because I want you to find out from her where her father is at present, and let me know."

"There is something disagreeably underhand in such a proceeding," objected Emma.

"You know that a doctor is, or ought to be, considered a sort of pope," returned Lawrence. "I absolve you from all guilt by assuring you that there is urgent need for pursuing the course I suggest."

"Well, I will at all events do what I can to help you," said Emma. "Shall I find her in her own room?"

"Yes, in bed, attended, with Mrs Stoutley's permission, by Susan Quick. Get rid of the maid before entering on the subject."

In a few minutes Emma returned to the Doctor, who still walked up and down in earnest conversation with Lewis. She had succeeded, she said, in persuading Nita to let her father be sent for, and the place to which he had gone for a few days was Saxon, in the Rhone valley. The Count's address had also been obtained, but Nita had stipulated that the messenger should on no account disturb her father by entering the house, but should send for him and wait outside.

"Strange prohibition!" exclaimed Lawrence. "However, we must send off a messenger without delay."

"Stay," said Lewis, detaining his friend; "there seems to be delicacy as well as mystery connected with this matter, you must therefore allow me to be the messenger."

Lawrence had no objection to the proposal, and in less than an hour Lewis, guided by Antoine Grennon, was on the road to Martigny by way of the celebrated pass of the Tete-Noire.

The guide was one of Nature's gentlemen. Although low in the social scale, and trained in a rugged school, he possessed that innate refinement of sentiment and feeling -- a gift of God sometimes transmitted through a gentle mother -- which makes a true gentleman. Among men of the upper ranks this refinement of soul may be counterfeited by the superficial polish of manners; among those who stand lower in the social scale it cannot be counterfeited at all, but still less can it be concealed. As broadcloth can neither make nor mar a true gentleman, so fustian cannot hide one. If Antoine Grennon had been bred "at Court," and arrayed in sumptuous apparel, he could not have been more considerate than he was of the feelings and wishes of others, or more gentle, yet manly, in his demeanour.

If, on an excursion, you wished to proceed in a certain direction, Antoine never suggested that you should go in another, unless there were insurmountable difficulties in the way. If you chanced to grow weary, you could not have asked Antoine to carry your top-coat, because he would have observed your condition and anticipated your wishes. If you had been inclined to talk he would have chatted away by the hour on every subject that came within the range of his knowledge, and if you had taken him beyond his depth, he would have listened by the hour with profound respect, obviously pleased, and attempting to understand you. Yet he would not have "bored" you. He possessed great tact. He would have allowed you to lead the conversation, and when you ceased to do so he would have stopped. He never looked sulky or displeased. He never said unkind things, though he often said and did kind ones, and, with all that, was as independent in his opinions as the whistling wind among his native glaciers. In fact he was a prince among guides, and a pre-eminently unselfish man.

Heigho! if all the world -- you and I, reader, included -- bore a stronger resemblance to Antoine Grennon, we should have happy times of it. Well, well, don't let us sigh despairingly because of our inability to come up to the mark. It is some comfort that there are not a few such men about us to look up to as exemplars. We know several such, both men and women, among our own friends. Let's be thankful for them. It does us good to think of them!

From what we have said, the reader will not be surprised to hear that, after the first words of morning salutation, Lewis Stoutley walked smartly along the high road leading up the valley of Chamouni in perfect silence, with Antoine trudging like a mute by his side.

Lewis was too busy with his thoughts to speak at first. Nita's illness, and the mystery connected somehow with the Count, afforded food not only for meditation, but anxiety, and it was not until the town lay far behind them that he looked at his guide, and said: -- 

"The route over the Tete-Noire is very grand, I am told?"

"Very grand, Monsieur -- magnificent!"

"You are well acquainted with it, doubtless?"

"Yes; I have passed over it hundreds of times. Does Monsieur intend to make a divergence to the Col de Balme?"

"No; I have urgent business on hand, and must push on to catch the railway. Would the divergence you speak of take up much time? Is the Col de Balme worth going out of one's way to see?"

"It is well worthy of a visit," said the guide, replying to the last query first, "as you can there have a completely uninterrupted view -- one of the very finest views of Mont Blanc, and all its surroundings. The time required for the divergence is little more than two hours; with Monsieur's walking powers perhaps not so much; besides, there is plenty of time, as we shall reach Martigny much too soon for the train."

"In that case we shall make the detour," said Lewis. "Are the roads difficult?"

"No; quite easy. It is well that Monsieur dispensed with a mule, as we shall be more independent; and a mule is not so quick in its progress as an active man."

While they chatted thus, walking at a quick pace up the valley, Antoine, observing that his young charge was now in a conversational frame of mind, commented on the magnificent scenery, and drew attention to points of interest as they came into view.

Their route at first lay in the low ground by the banks of the river Arve, which rushed along, wild and muddy, as if rejoicing in its escape from the superincumbent glaciers that gave it birth. The great peaks of the Mont Blanc range hemmed them in on the right, the slopes of the Brevent on the left. Passing the village of Argentiere with rapid strides, and pausing but a few moments to look at the vast glacier of the same name which pours into the valley the ice-floods gendered among the heights around the Aiguille Verte and the Aiguille du Chardonnet, which rise respectively to a height of above 13,400 and 12,500 feet they reached the point where the Tete-Noire route diverged to the left at that time, in the form of a mere bridle-path, and pushed forward towards the Col, or pass.

On the way, Antoine pointed out heaps of slabs of black slate. These, he said, were collected by the peasants, who, in spring, covered their snow-clad fields with them; the sun, heating the slabs, caused the snow beneath to melt rapidly; and thus, by a very simple touch of art, they managed to wrest from Nature several weeks that would otherwise have been lost!

As they rose into the higher grounds, heaps and rude pillars of stone were observed. These were the landmarks which guided travellers through that region when it was clad in its wintry robe of deep snow, and all paths obliterated.

At last they stood on the Col de Balme. There was a solitary inn there, but Antoine turned aside from it and led his companion a mile or so to one side, to a white stone, which marked the boundary between Switzerland and France.

It is vain to attempt in words a description of scenes of grandeur. Ink, at the best, is impotent in such matters; even paint fails to give an adequate idea. We can do no more than run over a list of names. From this commanding point of view Mont Blanc is visible in all his majesty -- vast, boundless, solemn, incomprehensible -- with his Aiguilles de Tour, d'Argentiere, Verte, du Dru, de Charmoz, du Midi, etcetera, around him; his white head in the clouds, his glacial drapery rolling into the vale of Chamouni, his rocks and his pine-clad slopes toned down by distance into fine shadows. On the other side of the vale rise the steeps of the Aiguilles Rouges and the Brevent. To the north towers the Croix de Fer, and to the north-east is seen the entire chain of the Bernese Alps, rising like a mighty white leviathan, with a bristling back of pinnacles.

Splendid though the view was, however, Lewis did not for a moment forget his mission. Allowing himself only a few minutes to drink it in, he hastened back to the Tete-Noire path, and soon found himself traversing a widely different scene. On the Col he had, as it were, stood aloof, and looked abroad on a vast and glorious region; now, he was involved in its rocky, ridgy, woody details. Here and there long vistas opened up to view, but, for the most part, his vision was circumscribed by towering cliffs and deep ravines. Sometimes he was down in the bottom of mountain valleys, at other times walking on ledges so high on the precipice-faces, that cottages in the vales below seemed little bigger than sheep. Now the country was wooded and soft; anon it was barren and rocky, but never tame or uninteresting.

At one place, where the narrow gorge was strewn with huge boulders, Antoine pointed out a spot where two Swiss youths had been overwhelmed by an avalanche. It had come down from the red gorges of the Aiguilles Rouges, at a spot where the vale, or pass, was comparatively wide. Perhaps its width had induced the hapless lads to believe themselves quite safe from anything descending on the other side of the valley. If so, they were mistaken; the dreadful rush of rock and wrack swept the entire plain, and buried them in the ruin.

Towards evening the travellers reached Martigny in good time for the train, which speedily conveyed them to Saxon.

This town is the only one in Switzerland -- the only one, indeed, in Europe with the exception of Monaco -- which possesses that great blight on civilisation, a public gambling-table. That the blight is an unusually terrible one may be assumed from the fact that every civilised European nation has found it absolutely necessary to put such places down with a strong hand.

At the time Lewis Stoutley visited the town, however, it was not so singular in its infamy as it now is. He was ignorant of everything about the place save its name. Going straight to the first hotel that presented itself, he inquired for the Count Horetzki. The Count he was told, did not reside there; perhaps he was at the Casino.

To the Casino Lewis went at once. It was an elegant Swiss building, the promenade of which was crowded with visitors. The strains of music fell sweetly on the youth's ear as he approached.

Leaving Antoine outside, he entered, and repeated his inquiries for the Count.

They did not know the Count, was the reply, but if Monsieur would enter the rooms perhaps he might find him.

Lewis, remembering the expressed desire of Nita, hesitated, but as no one seemed inclined to attend to his inquiries, beyond a civil reply that nothing was known about the Count he entered, not a little surprised at the difficulty thrown in his way.

The appearance of the salon into which he was ushered at once explained the difficulty, and at the same time sent a sudden gleam of light into his mind. Crowds of ladies and gentlemen -- some eager, some anxious, others flippant or dogged, and a good many quite calm and cool --  surrounded the brilliantly-lighted gaming tables. Every one seemed to mind only his own business, and each man's business may be said to have been the fleecing of his neighbour to the utmost of his power -- not by means of skill or wisdom, but by means of mere chance, and through the medium of professional gamblers and rouge-et-noir.

With a strange fluttering at his heart, for he remembered his own weakness, Lewis hurried forward and glanced quickly at the players. Almost the first face he saw was that of the Count. But what a changed countenance! Instead of the usual placid smile, and good-humoured though sad expression about the eyes, there was a terrible look of intense fixed anxiety, with deep-knotted lines on his brow, and a horribly drawn look about the mouth.

"Make your play, gentlemen," said the presiding genius of the tables, as he spun round the board on the action of which so much depended.

The Count had already laid his stake on the table, and clutched his rake with such violence as almost to snap the handle.

Other players had also placed their stakes, some with cool calculating precision, a few with nervous uncertainty, many with apparent indifference. With the exception of the Count and a lady near him, however, there was little of what might indicate very strong feeling on any countenance. One young and pretty girl, after placing her little pile of silver, stood awaiting the result with calm indifference --  possibly assumed. Whatever might be the thoughts or feelings of the players, there was nothing but business-like gravity stamped on the countenances of the four men who presided over the revolving board, each with neatly-arranged rows of silver five-franc pieces in front of him, and a wooden rake lying ready to hand. Each player also had a rake, with which he or she pushed the coins staked upon a certain space of the table, or on one of the dividing lines, which gave at least a varied, if not a better, chance.

The process of play was short and sharp. For a few seconds the board spun, the players continuing to place, or increase, or modify the arrangement of the stakes up to nearly the last moment. As the board revolved more slowly a pea fell into a hole -- red or black -- and upon this the fate of each hung. A notable event, truly, on which untold millions of money have changed hands, innumerable lives have been sacrificed, and unspeakable misery and crime produced in days gone by!

The decision of the pea -- if we may so express it -- was quietly stated, and to an ignorant spectator it seemed as if the guardians of the table raked all the stakes into their own maws. But here and there, like white rocks in a dark sea, several little piles were left untouched. To the owners of these a number of silver pieces were tossed -- tossed so deftly that we might almost say it rained silver on those regions of the table. No wizard of legerdemain ever equalled the sleight of hand with which these men pitched, reckoned, manipulated, and raked in silver pieces!

The Count's pile remained untouched, and a bright flush suffused his hitherto pale cheeks while the silver rain was falling on his square, but to the surprise of Lewis, he did not rake it towards him as did the others. He left the increased amount on exactly the same spot, merely drawing it gently together with his rake. As he did so the knotted haggard look returned to his once again bloodless brow and face. Not less precise and silent were his companions. The board again spun round; the inexorable pea fell; the raking and raining were repeated, and again the Count's stake lay glittering before him. His eyes glittered even more brightly than the silver. Lewis concluded that he must have been brought down to desperate poverty, and meant to recover himself by desperate means, for he left the whole stake again on the same spot.

This time the pea fell into black. The colour was symbolic of the Count's feelings, for next moment the silver heap was raked from before him, along with other heaps, as if nothing unusual had happened; and, in truth, nothing had. Wholesale ruin and robbery was the daily occupation there!

For a few seconds the Count gazed at the blank space before him with an expression of stony unbelief; then springing suddenly to his feet, he spurned his chair from him and rushed from the room. So quick was the movement, that he had reached the door and passed out before Lewis could stop him.

Springing after him with a feeling of great alarm, the youth dashed across the entrance-hall, but turned in the wrong direction. Being put right by a porter, he leaped through the doorway and looked for Antoine, who, he knew, must have seen the Count pass, but Antoine was not there.

As he quickly questioned one who stood near, he thought he saw a man running among the adjacent shrubbery. He could not be sure, the night being dark, but he promptly ran after him. On dashing round a turn in the gravel-walk, he found two men engaged in what appeared to be a deadly struggle. Suddenly the place was illumined by a red flash, a loud report followed, and one of the two fell.

"Ah! Monsieur," exclaimed Antoine, as Lewis came forward, "aid me here; he is not hurt, I think."

"Hurt! Do you mean that he tried to shoot himself?"

"He had not time to try, but I'm quite sure that he meant to," said Antoine; "so I ran after him and caught his hand. The pistol exploded in the struggle."

As the guide spoke, the Count rose slowly. The star-light was faint, but it sufficed to show that the stony look of despair was gone, and that the gentle expression, natural to him, had returned. He was deadly pale, and bowed his head as one overwhelmed with shame.

"Oh pardon, Monsieur!" exclaimed poor Antoine, as he thought of the roughness with which he had been compelled to treat him. "I did not mean to throw you."

"You did not throw me, friend. I tripped and fell," replied the Count, in a low, husky voice. "Mr Stoutley," he added, turning to Lewis, "by what mischance you came here I know not but I trust that you were not --  were not -- present. I mean -- do you know the cause of my conduct -- this -- "

He stopped abruptly.

"My dear sir," said Lewis, in a low, kind voice, at the same time grasping the Count's hand, and leading him aside, "I was in the rooms; I saw you there; but believe me when I assure you, that no feeling but that of sympathy can touch the heart of one who has been involved in the meshes of the same net."

The Count's manner changed instantly. He returned the grasp of the young man, and looked eagerly in his face, as he repeated -- 

"Has been involved! How, then, did you escape?"

"I'm not sure that I have escaped," answered Lewis, sadly.

"Not sure! Oh, young man, make sure. Give no rest to your soul till you are quite sure. It is a dreadful net -- terrible! When once wrapped tightly round one there is no escape -- no escape. In this it resembles its sister passion -- the love of strong drink."

The Count spoke with such deep pathos, and in tones so utterly hopeless, that Lewis's ready sympathies were touched, and he would have given anything to be able to comfort his friend, but never before having been called upon to act as a comforter, he felt sorely perplexed.

"Call it not a passion," he said. "The love of gaming, as of drink, is a disease; and a disease may be cured -- has been cured, even when desperate."

The Count shook his head.

"You speak in ignorance, Mr Stoutley. You know nothing of the struggles I have made. It is impossible."

"With God all things are possible," replied Lewis, quoting, almost to his own surprise, a text of Scripture. "But forgive my delay," he added; "I came here on purpose to look for you. Your daughter Nita is ill -- not seriously ill, I believe," he said, on observing the Count's startled look, "but ill enough to warrant your being sent for."

"I know -- I know," cried the Count, with a troubled look, as he passed his hand across his brow. "I might have expected it. She cannot sustain the misery I have brought on her. Oh! why was I prevented from freeing her from such a father. Is she very ill? Did she send for me? Did she tell you what I am?"

The excited manner and wild aspect of the gambler, more than the words, told of a mind almost, if not altogether, unhinged. Observing this with some anxiety, Lewis tried to soothe him. While leading him to an hotel, he explained the nature of Nita's attack as well as he could, and said that she had not only refrained from saying anything about her father, but that she seemed excessively unwilling to reveal the name of the place to which he had gone, or to send for him.

"No one knows anything unfavourable about Count Horetzki," said Lewis, in a gentle tone, "save his fellow-sinner, who now assures him of his sincere regard. As for Antoine Grennon, he is a wise, and can be a silent, man. No brother could be more tender of the feelings of others than he. Come, you will consent to be my guest to-night. You are unwell; I shall be your amateur physician. My treatment and a night of rest will put you all right, and to-morrow, by break of day, we will hie back to Chamouni over the Tete-Noire."



Chapter Nineteen.

Mountaineering In General.

A week passed away, during which Nita was confined to bed, and the Count waited on her with the most tender solicitude. As their meals were sent to their rooms, it was not necessary for the latter to appear in the salle-a-manger or the salon. He kept himself carefully out of sight, and intelligence of the invalid's progress was carried to their friends by Susan Quick, who was allowed to remain as sick-nurse, and who rejoiced in filling that office to one so amiable and uncomplaining as Nita.

Of course, Lewis was almost irresistibly tempted to talk with Susan about her charge, but he felt the impropriety of such a proceeding, and refrained. Not so Gillie White. That sapient blue spider, sitting in his wonted chair, resplendent with brass buttons and brazen impudence, availed himself of every opportunity to perform an operation which he styled "pumping;" but Susan, although ready enough to converse freely on things in general, was judicious in regard to things particular. Whatever might have passed in the sick-room, the pumping only brought up such facts as that the Count was a splendid nurse as well as a loving father, and that he and his daughter were tenderly attached to each other.

"Well, Susan," observed Gillie, with an approving nod, "I'm glad to hear wot you say, for it's my b'lief that tender attachments is the right sort o' thing. I've got one or two myself."

"Indeed!" said Susan, "who for, I wonder?"

"W'y, for one," replied the spider, "I've had a wery tender attachment to my mother ever since that blessed time w'en I was attached to her buzzum in the rampagin' hunger of infancy. Then I've got another attachment -- not quite so old, but wery strong, oh uncommon powerful -- for a young lady named Susan Quick. D'you happen to know her?"

"Oh, Gillie, you're a sad boy," said Susan.

"Well, I make a pint never to contradict a 'ooman, believin' it to be dangerous," returned Gillie, "but I can't say that I feel sad. I'm raither jolly than otherwise."

A summons from the sick-room cut short the conversation.

During the week in question it had rained a good deal, compelling the visitors at Chamouni to pass the time in-doors with books, billiards, draughts, and chess. Towards the end of the week Lewis met the Count and discovered that he was absolutely destitute of funds -- did not, in fact possess enough to defray the hotel expenses.

"Mother," said Lewis, during a private audience in her bed-chamber the same evening, "I want twenty pounds from you."

"Certainly, my boy; but why do you come to me? You know that Dr Lawrence has charge of and manages my money. How I wish there were no such thing as money, and no need for it!"

Mrs Stoutley finished her remark with her usual languid smile and pathetic sigh, but if her physician, Dr Tough, had been there, he would probably have noted that mountain-air had robbed the smile of half its languor, and the sigh of nearly all its pathos. There was something like seriousness, too, in the good lady's eye. She had been impressed more than she chose to admit by the sudden death of Le Croix, whom she had frequently seen, and whose stalwart frame and grave countenance she had greatly admired. Besides this, one or two accidents had occurred since her arrival in the Swiss valley; for there never passes a season without the occurrence of accidents more or less serious in the Alps. On one occasion the news had been brought that a young lady, recently married, whose good looks had been the subject of remark more than once, was killed by falling rocks before her husband's eyes. On another occasion the spirits of the tourists were clouded by the report that a guide had fallen into a crevasse, and, though not killed, was much injured. Mrs Stoutley chanced to meet the rescue-party returning slowly to the village, with the poor shattered frame of the fine young fellow on a stretcher. It is one thing to read of such events in the newspapers. It is another and a very different thing to be near or to witness them -- to be in the actual presence of physical and mental agony. Antoine Grennon, too, had made a favourable impression on Mrs Stoutley; and when, in passing one day his extremely humble cottage, she was invited by Antoine's exceedingly pretty wife to enter and partake of bread and milk largely impregnated with cream, which was handed to her by Antoine's excessively sweet blue-eyed daughter, the lady who had hitherto spent her life among the bright ice-pinnacles of society, was forced to admit to Emma Gray that Dr Tough was right when he said there were some beautiful and precious stones to be found among the moraines of social life.

"I know that Lawrence keeps the purse," said Lewis, "but I want your special permission to take this money, because I intend to give it away."

"Twenty pounds is a pretty large gift, Lewis," said his mother, raising her eyebrows. "Who is it that has touched the springs of your liberality? Not the family of poor Le Croix?"

"No; Le Croix happily leaves no family. He was an unmarried man. I must not tell you, just yet, mother. Trust me, it shall be well bestowed; besides, I ask it as a loan. It shall be refunded."

"Don't talk of refunding money to your mother, foolish boy. Go; you may have it."

Lewis kissed his mother's cheek and thanked her. He quickly found the Count, but experienced considerable difficulty in persuading him to accept the money. However, by delicacy of management and by assuming, as a matter of course, that it was a loan, to be repaid when convenient, he prevailed. The Count made an entry of the loan in his notebook, with Lewis's London address, and they parted with a kindly shake of the hand, little imagining that they had seen each other on earth for the last time.

On the Monday following, a superb day opened on the vale of Chamouni, such a day as, through the medium of sight and scent, is calculated to gladden the heart of man and beast. That the beasts enjoyed it was manifest from the pleasant sounds that they sent, gushing, like a hymn of thanksgiving -- and who shall say it was not! -- into the bright blue sky.

Birds carolled on the shrubs and in the air; cats ventured abroad with hair erect and backs curved, to exchange greetings with each other in wary defiance of dogs; kittens sprawled in the sunshine, and made frantic efforts to achieve the impossible feat of catching their own shadows, varying the pastime with more successful, though arduous, attempts at their own tails; dogs bounded and danced, chiefly on their hind legs, round their loved companion man (including woman); juvenile dogs chased, tumbled over, barked at, and gnawed each other with amiable fury, wagging their various tails with a vigour that suggested a desire to shake them off; tourist men and boys moved about with a decision that indicated the having of particular business on hand; tourist women and girls were busily engaged with baskets and botanical boxes, or flitted hither and thither in climbing costume with obtrusive alpenstocks, as though a general attack on Mont Blanc and all his satellite aiguilles were meditated.

Among these were our friends the Professor, Captain Wopper, Emma Gray, Slingsby, Lewis, and Lawrence, under the guidance of Antoine Grennon.

Strange to say they were all a little dull, notwithstanding the beauty of the weather, and the pleasant anticipation of a day on the hills -- not a hard, toilsome day, with some awful Alpine summit as its aim, but what Lewis termed a jolly day, a picnicky day, to be extended into night, and to include any place, or to be cut short or extended according to whim.

The Professor was dull, because, having to leave, this was to be his last excursion; Captain Wopper was dull, because his cherished matrimonial hopes were being gradually dissipated. He could not perceive that Lawrence was falling in love with Emma, or Emma with Lawrence. The utmost exertion of sly diplomacy of which he was capable, short of straightforward advice, had failed to accomplish anything towards the desirable end. Emma was dull, because her friend Nita, although recovering, was still far from well. Slingsby was dull for the same reason, and also because he felt his passion to be hopeless. Lewis was dull because he knew Nita's circumstances to be so very sad; and Lawrence was dull because -- well, we are not quite sure why he was dull. He was rather a self-contained fellow, and couldn't be easily understood. Of the whole party, Antoine alone was not dull. Nothing could put him in that condition, but, seeing that the others were so, he was grave, quiet attentive.

Some of the excursionists had left at a much earlier hour. Four strapping youths, with guides, had set out for the summit of Mont Blanc; a mingled party of ladies, gentlemen, guides, and mules, were on the point of starting to visit the Mer de Glace; a delicate student, unable for long excursions, was preparing to visit with his sister, the Glacier des Bossons. Others were going, or had gone, to the source of the Arveiron, and to the Brevent, while the British peer, having previously been conducted by a new and needlessly difficult path to the top of Monte Rosa, was led off by his persecutor to attempt, by an impossible route, to scale the Matterhorn -- to reach the main-truck, as Captain Wopper put it, by going down the stern-post along the keel, over the bobstay, up the flyin' jib, across the foretopmast-stay, and up the maintop-gallant halyards. This at least was Lewis Stoutley's report of the Captain's remark. We cannot answer for its correctness.

But nothing can withstand the sweet influences of fresh mountain-air and sunshine. In a short time "dull care" was put to flight and when our party -- Emma being on a mule -- reached the neighbouring heights, past and future were largely forgotten in the enjoyment of the present.

Besides being sunny and bright, the day was rather cool, so that, after dismissing the mule, and taking to the glaciers and ice-slope, the air was found to be eminently suitable for walking.

"It's a bad look-out," murmured Captain Wopper, when he observed that Dr Lawrence turned deliberately to converse with the Professor, leaving Lewis to assist Emma to alight, even although he, the Captain, had, by means of laboured contrivance and vast sagacity, brought the Doctor and the mule into close juxtaposition at the right time. However, the Captain's temperament was sanguine. He soon forgot his troubles in observing the curious position assumed by Slingsby on the first steep slope of rocky ground they had to descend, for descents as well as ascents were frequent at first.

The artist walked on all-fours, but with his back to the hill instead of his face, his feet thus being in advance.

"What sort of an outside-in fashion is that, Slingsby?" asked the Captain, when they had reached the bottom.

"It's a way I have of relieving my knees," said Slingsby; "try it."

"Thank 'ee; no," returned the Captain. "It don't suit my pecooliar build; it would throw too much of my weight amidships."

"You've no idea," said Slingsby, "what a comfort it is to a man whose knees suffer in descending. I'd rather go up twenty mountains than descend one. This plan answers only on steep places, and is but a temporary relief. Still that is something at the end of a long day."

The artist exemplified his plan at the next slope. The Captain tried it, but, as he expressed it, broke in two at the waist and rolled down the slope, to the unspeakable delight of his friends.

"I fear you will find this rather severe?" said the Professor to Emma, during a pause in a steep ascent.

"Oh no; I am remarkably strong," replied Emma, smiling. "I was in Switzerland two years ago, and am quite accustomed to mountaineering."

"Yes," remarked Lawrence, "and Miss Gray on that occasion, I am told, ascended to the top of the Dent du Midi, which you know is between ten and eleven thousand feet high; and she also, during the same season, walked from Champery to Sixt which is a good day's journey, so we need have no anxiety on her account."

Although the Doctor smiled as he spoke, he also glanced at Emma with a look of admiration. Captain Wopper noted the glance and was comforted. At luncheon, however, the Doctor seated himself so that the Professor's bulky person came between him and Emma. The Captain noted that also, and was depressed. What between elation and depression, mingled with fatigue and victuals, the Captain ultimately became recklessly jovial.

"What are yonder curious things?" asked Emma, pointing to so me gigantic objects which looked at a distance like rude pillars carved by man.

"These," said the Professor, "are Nature's handiwork. You will observe that on each pillar rests a rugged capital. The capital is the cause of the pillar. It is a hard rock which originally rested on a softer bed of friable stone. The weather has worn away the soft bed, except where it has been protected by the hard stone, and thus a natural pillar has arisen -- just like the ice-pillars, which are protected from the sun in the same way; only the latter are more evanescent."

Further on, the Professor drew the attention of his friends to the beautiful blue colour of the holes which their alpenstocks made in the snow. "Once," said he, "while walking on the heights of Monte Rosa, I observed this effect with great interest, and, while engaged in the investigation of the cause, got a surprise which was not altogether agreeable. Some of the paths there are on very narrow ridges, and the snow on these ridges often overhangs them. I chanced to be walking in advance of my guide at the time to which I refer, and amused myself as I went along by driving my alpenstock deep into the snow, when suddenly, to my amazement I sent the end of the staff right through the snow, and, on withdrawing it, looked down into space! I had actually walked over the ridge altogether, and was standing above an abyss some thousands of feet deep!"

"Horrible!" exclaimed Emma. "You jumped off pretty quickly, I dare say."

"Nay, I walked off with extreme caution; but I confess to having felt a sort of cold shudder with which my frame had not been acquainted previously."

While they were thus conversing, a cloud passed overhead and sent down a slight shower of snow. To most of the party this was a matter of indifference, but the man of science soon changed their feelings by drawing attention to the form of the flakes. He carried a magnifying glass with him, which enabled him to show their wonders more distinctly. It was like a shower of frozen flowers of the most delicate and exquisite kind. Each flake was a flower with six leaves. Some of the leaves threw out lateral spines or points, like ferns, some were rounded, others arrowy, reticulated, and serrated; but, although varied in many respects, there was no variation in the number of leaves.

"What amazin' beauty in a snowflake," exclaimed the Captain, "many a one I've seen without knowin' how splendid it was."

"The works of God are indeed wonderful," said the Professor, "but they must be 'sought out' -- examined with care -- to be fully understood and appreciated."

"Yet there are certain philosophers," observed Lewis, "who hold that the evidence of design here and elsewhere does not at all prove the existence of God. They say that the crystals of these snow-flakes are drawn together and arrange themselves by means of natural forces."

"They say truly," replied the Professor, "but they seem to me to stop short in their reasoning. They appear to ignore the fact that this elemental original force of which they speak must have had a Creator. However far they may go back into mysterious and incomprehensible elements, which they choose to call 'blind forces,' they do not escape the fact that matter cannot have created itself; that behind their utmost conceptions there must still be One non-created, eternal, living Being who created all, who upholds all, and whom we call God."

Descending again from the heights in order to cross a valley and gain the opposite mountain, our ramblers quitted the glacier, and, about noon, found themselves close to a lovely pine-clad knoll, the shaded slopes of which commanded an unusually fine view of rocky cliff and fringing wood, with a background of glacier and snow-flecked pinnacles.

Halting, accidentally in a row, before this spot they looked at it with interest. Suddenly the Professor stepped in front of the others, and, pointing to the knoll, said, with twinkling eyes -- 

"What does it suggest? Come, dux (to Slingsby, who happened to stand at the head of the line), tell me, sir, what does it suggest?"

"I know, sir!" exclaimed the Captain, who stood at the dunce's extremity of the line, holding out his fist with true schoolboy eagerness.

"It suggests," said the artist, rolling his eyes, "'a thing of beauty;' and -- "

"Next!" interrupted the Professor, pointing to Lawrence.

"I know, sir," shouted the Captain.

"Hold your tongue, sir!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"It is suggestive," said Lawrence, "of an oasis in the desert."

"Very poor, sir," said the Professor, severely. "Next."

"It suggests a cool shade on a hot day," said Emma.

"Better, but not right. Next."

"Please, sir, I'd rather not answer," said Lewis, putting his forefinger in his mouth.

"You must, sir."

"I know, sir," interrupted Captain Wopper, shaking his fist eagerly.

"Silence, you booby! -- Well, boy, what does it suggest to you?"

"Please, sir," answered Lewis, "it suggests the mole on your professorial cheek."

"Sir," cried the Professor, sternly, "remind me to give you a severe caning to-night."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, booby, what have you got to say to it?"

"Wittles!" shouted the Captain.

"Right," cried the Professor, "only it would have been better expressed had you said -- Luncheon. Go up, sir; put yourself at the head of the class, and lead it to a scene of glorious festivity."

Thus instructed, the Captain put himself at the head of the line.

"Now, then, Captain," said Lewis, "let's have a true-blue nautical word of command -- hoist yer main tops'l sky-scrapers abaft the cleat o' the spanker boom, heave the main deck overboard and let go the painter -- or something o' that sort."

"Hold on to the painter, you mean," said Slingsby.

"You're both wrong," cried the Captain, "my orders are those of the immortal Nelson -- 'Close action, my lads -- England expects every man to' --  hooray!"

With a wild cheer, and waving his hat, the seaman rushed up the side of the knoll, followed by his obedient and willing crew.

In order to render the feast more complete, several members of the party had brought small private supplies to supplement the cold mutton, ham, bread, and light claret which Antoine and two porters had carried in their knapsacks. Captain Wopper had brought a supply of variously coloured abominations known in England by the name of comfits, in Scotland as sweeties. These, mixed with snow and water, he styled "iced-lemonade." Emma tried the mixture and declared it excellent, which caused someone to remark that the expression of her face contradicted her tongue. Lewis produced a small flask full of a rich dark port-winey liquid, which he said he had brought because it had formerly been one of the most delightful beverages of his childish years. It was tasted with interest and rejected with horror, being liquorice water! Emma produced a bottle of milk, in the consumption of which she was ably assisted by the Professor, who declared that his natural spirits required no artificial stimulants. The Professor himself had not been forgetful of the general good. He had brought with him a complex copper implement, which his friends had supposed was a new species of theodolite, but which turned out to be a scientific coffee-pot, in the development of which and its purposes, as the man of science carefully explained, there was called into play some of the principles involved in the sciences of hydraulics and pneumatics, to which list Lewis added, in an under-tone, those of aquatics, ecstatics, and rheumatics. The machine was perfect, but the Professor's natural turn for practical mechanics not being equal to his knowledge of other branches of science, he failed properly to adjust a screw. This resulted in an explosion of the pot which blew its lid, as Lewis expressed it, into the north of Italy, and its contents into the fire. A second effort, using the remains of the scientific pot as an ordinary kettle, was more successful.

"You see, my friends," said the Professor, apologetically, "it is one of the prerogatives of science that her progress cannot be hindered. Her resources and appliances are inexhaustible. When one style of experiment fails we turn at once to another and obtain our result, as I now prove to you by handing this cup of coffee to Miss Gray. You had better not sweeten it, Mademoiselle. It is quite unnecessary to make the very trite observation that in your case no sugar is required. Yes, the progress of science is slow, but it is sure. Everything must fall before it in time."

"Ah, just so -- 'one down, another come on,' -- that's your motto, ain't it?" said Captain Wopper, who invariably, during the meal, delivered his remarks from a cavern filled with a compound of mutton, bread, and ham. "But I say, Professor, are you spliced?"

"Spliced?" echoed the man of science.

"Ay; married, I mean."

"Yes, I am wed," he replied, with enthusiasm. "I have a beautiful wife in Russia, and she is good as beautiful."

"In Roosia -- eh! Well, it's a longish way off, but I'd advise you, as a friend, not to let her know that you pay such wallopin' compliments to young English ladies. It might disagree with her, d'ye see?"

At this point the conversation and festivities were interrupted by Slingsby, who, having gone off to sketch, had seated himself on a mound within sight of his friends, in a position so doubled up and ridiculous as to call forth the remark from Lawrence, that few traits of character were more admirable and interesting than those which illustrated the utter disregard of personal appearance in true and enthusiastic devotees of art. To which Captain Wopper added that "he was a rum lot an' no mistake."

The devotee was seen by the revellers to start once or twice and clap his hands to various pockets, as though he had forgotten his india-rubber or pen-knife. Then he was observed to drop his sketching-book and hastily slap all his pockets, as if he had forgotten fifty pieces of india-rubber and innumerable pen-knives. Finally, he sprang up and slapped himself all over wildly, yelling at the same time as if he had been a maniac.

He had inadvertently selected an ant-hill as his seat, that was all; but that was sufficient to check his devotion to art, and necessitate his retirement to a rocky defile, where he devoted himself to the study of "the nude" in his own person, and whence he returned looking imbecile and hot.

Such contretemps, however, do not materially affect the health or spirits of the young and strong. Ere long Slingsby was following his companions with his wonted enthusiasm and devotee-like admiration of Nature in all her varying aspects.

His enthusiasm was, however, diverted from the study of vegetable and mineral, if we may so put it, to that of animal nature, for one of the porters, who had a tendency to go poking his staff into holes and crannies of the rocks, suddenly touched a marmot. He dropped his pack and began at once to dig up earth and stones as fast as possible, assisted by his comrades; but the little creature was too sagacious for them. They came to its bed at last, and found that, while they had been busy at one end of the hole, the marmot had quietly walked out at the other, and made off.

Having pushed over the valley, and once more ascended to the regions of perpetual ice, the ramblers determined to "attack" -- as the phrase goes among Alpine climbers -- a neighbouring summit. It was not a very high one, and Emma declared that she was not only quite able, but very anxious, to attempt it. The attempt was, therefore, made, and, after a couple of hours of pretty laborious work, accomplished. They found themselves on a pinnacle which overlooked a large portion of the ice-world around Mont Blanc. While standing there, one or two avalanches were observed, and the Professor pointed out that avalanches were not all of one character. Some, he said, were composed of rock, mud, and water; others entirely of ice; many of them were composed of these elements mixed, and others were entirely of snow.

"True, Monsieur," observed the guide, "and the last kind is sometimes very fatal. There was one from which my wife and child had a narrow escape. They were visiting at the time a near relation who dwelt in a village in a valley not far distant from this spot. Behind the village there is a steep slope covered with pines; behind that the mountain rises still more steeply. The little forest stands between that village and destruction. But for it, avalanches would soon sweep the village away; but wood is not always a sure protector. Sometimes, when frost renders the snow crisp and dry, the trees fail to check its descent. It was so on the last night of my wife's visit. A brother was about to set off with her from the door of our relative's house, when the snow began to descend through the trees like water. It was like dry flour. There was not much noise, merely a hissing sound, but it came down in a deluge, filled all the houses, and suffocated nearly all the people in them. My brother-in-law saw it in time. He put his horse to full speed, and brought my dear wife and child away in safety, but his own father, mother, and sister were lost. We tried to reach their house the next day, but could advance through the soft snow only by taking two planks with us, and placing one before the other as we went along."

Soon after the ramblers had begun their return journey, they came to a slope which they thought might be descended by sliding or "glissading." It was the first time that Emma had seen such work, and she felt much inclined to try it, but was dissuaded by Antoine, who led her round by an easier way. At the foot of the slope they came to a couloir, or sloping gorge, so steep that snow could not lie on it. Its surface was, therefore, hard ice. Although passable, Antoine deemed it prudent not to cross, the more so that he observed some ominous obelisks of ice impending at the top of the slope.

"Why not cross and let Emma see how we manage by cutting steps in the ice?" said Lewis.

He received a conclusive though unexpected answer from one of the obelisks above-mentioned, which fell at the moment, broke into fragments, and swept the couloir from top to bottom with incredible violence.

It is wonderful what a deal of experience is required to make foolish people wise! Winthin the next ten minutes this warning was forgotten, and Lewis led his cousin into a danger which almost cost the lives of three of the party.



Chapter Twenty.

Records A Serious Event.

Our ramblers had now reached a place where a great expanse of rock surface was exposed, and the temptation to dilate on the action of glaciers proved too strong for the Professor. He therefore led those who were willing to follow to a suitable spot and pointed out the striations, flutings, and polishings of the granite, which showed that in former ages the glacier had passed there, although at that time it was far below in the valley. The polishings, he said, were caused by the ice slowly grinding over the surface of the rock, and the flutings and groovings were caused, not by the ice itself, but by stones which were embedded in its under surface, and which cut the solid granite as if with chisels.

Meanwhile, Lewis and Emma, having taken the opportunity to search for plants, had wandered on a little in advance, and had come to another steep slope, which was, however, covered with snow at its upper part. Below, where it became steeper, there was no snow, only pure ice, which extended downwards to an immense distance, broken only here and there by a few rocks that cropped through its surface. It terminated in a rocky gorge, which was strewn thickly with debris from above.

"Let us cross this," said Emma, with a look of glee, for she possessed an adventurous spirit.

"We'd better not," answered Lewis. "The slope is very steep."

"True, O cautious cousin," retorted Emma, with a laugh, "but it is covered here with snow that is soft and probably knee-deep. Go on it, sir, and try."

Thus commanded, Lewis obeyed, and found that the snow was indeed knee-deep, and that there was no possibility of their either slipping or falling, unless one were unusually careless, and even in that case the soft snow would have checked anything like an involuntary glissade.

"Let me go first," said Lewis.

"Nay, I will go first," returned Emma, "you will follow and pick me up if I should fall."

So saying, she stepped lightly into the snow and advanced, while her companion stood looking at her with a half-amused, half-anxious smile.

She had not made six steps, and Lewis was on the point of following, when he observed that there was a crack across the snow just above where he stood, and the whole mass began to slide. For a moment he was transfixed with horror. The next he had sprung to his cousin's side and seized her arm, shouting -- 

"Emma! Emma! come back. Quick! It moves." But poor Emma could not obey. She would as soon have expected the mountain itself to give way as the huge mass of snow on which she stood. At first its motion was slow, and Lewis struggled wildly to extricate her, but in vain, for the snow avalanche gathered speed as it advanced, and in its motion not only sank them to their waists, but turned them helplessly round, thus placing Lewis farthest from the firm land. He shouted now with all the power of his lungs for help, while Emma screamed from terror.

Lawrence chanced to be nearest to them. He saw at a glance what had occurred, and dashed down the hill-side at headlong speed. A wave was driving in front of the couple, who were now embedded nearly to their armpits, while streams of snow were hissing all round them, and the mass was beginning to rush. One look sufficed to show Lawrence that rescue from the side was impossible, but, with that swift power of perception which is aroused in some natures by the urgent call to act, he observed that some yards lower down -- near the place where the ice-slope began --  there was a rock near to the side in the track of the avalanche, which it divided. Leaping down to this, he sprang into the sliding flood a little above it, and, with a powerful effort, caught the rock and drew himself upon it. Next moment Emma was borne past out of reach of his hand. Lawrence rushed deep into the snow and held out his alpenstock. Emma caught it. He felt himself turned irresistibly round, and a sick feeling of despair chilled his life-blood. At the same moment a powerful hand grasped his collar.

"Hold on, Monsieur," cried Antoine, in a deep, yet encouraging voice, "I've got you safe."

As he spoke, Emma shrieked, "I cannot hold on!"

No wonder! She had not only to resist the rushing snow, but to sustain the drag of Lewis, who, as we have said, had been carried beyond his cousin, and whose only chance now lay in his retaining hold of her arm. Ere the words had quite left her lips, Lewis was seen deliberately to let go his hold and throw up his arm -- it seemed as if waving it.

Next moment Emma was dragged on the rock, where she and her companions stood gazing in horror as their companion was swept upon the ice-slope and carried down headlong. The snow was by this time whirled onward in a sort of mist or spray, in the midst of which Lewis was seen to strike a rock with his shoulder and swing violently round, while parts of his clothing were plainly rent from his body, but the painful sight did not last long. A few seconds more and he was hurled, apparently a lifeless form, among the debris and rocks far below.

Death, in such a case, might have been expected to be instantaneous, but the very element that caused the poor youth's fall, helped to save him. During the struggle for life while clinging to Emma's arm, the check, brief though it was, sufficed to allow most of the snow to pass down before him, so that he finally fell on a comparatively soft bed; but it was clear that he had been terribly injured, and, what made matters worse, he had fallen into a deep gorge surrounded by precipices, which seemed to some of the party to render it quite impossible to reach him.

"What is to be done?" exclaimed Lawrence, with intense anxiety. "He must be got at immediately. Delay of treatment in his case, even for a short time, may prove fatal."

"I know it, Monsieur," said Antoine, who had been quietly but quickly uncoiling his rope. "One of the porters and I will descend by the precipices. They are too steep for any but well-accustomed hands and feet. You, Monsieur, understand pretty well the use of the axe and rope. Cut your way down the ice-slope with Jacques. He is a steady man, and may be trusted. Run, Rollo (to the third porter), and fetch aid from Gaspard's chalet. It is the nearest. I need not say make haste."

These orders were delivered in a low, rapid voice. The men proceeded at once to obey them. At the same time Antoine and his comrade swung themselves down the cliffs, and were instantly lost to view. The young porter, whom he had named Rollo, was already going down the mountain at a smart run, and Jacques was on the ice-slope wielding his axe with ceaseless energy and effect, while Lawrence held the rope to which he was attached, and descended the rude and giddy staircase behind him.

It was a terrible time for those who were left above in a state of inaction and deep anxiety, but there was no help for it. They had to content themselves with watching the rescue, and praying for success.

It was not long before the guide and porter reached the spot where poor Lewis lay. He was not insensible, but a deadly pallor overspread his scarred face, and the position in which he lay betokened utter helplessness. He could scarcely speak, but whispered that he fancied he was not so much hurt as might have been expected, and expressed wonder at their having been so long in reaching him.

The guide spoke to him with the tenderness of a woman. He knew well how severely the poor youth was injured, and handled him very delicately while making such preliminary arrangements as were in his power. A few drops of brandy and water were administered, the poor limbs were arranged in a position of greater comfort, and the torn rags of clothing wrapped round him.

Soon they were joined by Lawrence, who merely whispered a few kind words, and proceeded at once to examine him. His chief anxiety was as to the amount of skin that had been destroyed. The examination revealed a terrible and bloody spectacle; over which we will draw a veil; yet there was reason to believe that the amount of skin torn off and abraded was not sufficient to cause death. Lawrence was comforted also by finding that no bones appeared to have been broken.

Nothing could be done in the way of attempting a removal until the return of Rollo with a litter. Fortunately this was not long of being brought, for the young porter was active and willing, and Gaspard had promptly accompanied him with men and materials for the rescue.

But it was a sad, slow, and painful process, to bear the poor youth's frame from that savage gorge, and convey him on a litter, carried by four men, over glaciers and down rugged mountain sides, even although done by tender hearts and strong hands. Everything that ingenuity could contrive was done to relieve the sufferer, and when at last, after weary hours, they reached the high-road of the valley, a carriage was found waiting. A messenger had been sent in advance to fetch it, and Mrs Stoutley was in it.

There was something quite touching in the quiet, firm air of self-restraint with which she met the procession, and afterwards tended her poor boy; it was so unlike her old character!

The sun was setting in a field of golden glory when they carried Lewis into the hotel at Chamouni, and laid him on his bed -- a mere wreck of his former self.



Chapter Twenty One.

Down In The Moraine At Last.

As the reader may suppose, the terrible accident to Lewis Stoutley put an end to further merry-making among our friends at Chamouni. Mrs Stoutley would have left for England at once if that had been possible, but Lewis could not be moved for several weeks. At first indeed, fears were entertained for his life, but his constitution being good, and not having been damaged by dissipation, he rallied sooner than might have been expected, although it was evident from the beginning that complete restoration could not be looked for until many months, perhaps years, had passed away.

We need scarcely say, that the rapid improvement of his health was largely due to the tender watchful care of his mother.

Since visiting Switzerland, that excellent lady's spirit had undergone a considerable change. Without going minutely into particulars, we may say that the startling events which had occurred had been made the means of opening her spiritual eyes. It had occurred to her -- she scarce knew how or why -- that her Creator had a claim on her for more consideration than she had been in the habit, heretofore, of testifying by a few formalities on Sundays; that there must be some higher end and aim in life than the mere obtaining and maintaining of health, and the pursuit of pleasure; and that as there was a Saviour, whom she professed on Sundays to follow, there must be something real from which she had to be saved, as well as something real that had to be done. Sin, she knew, of course, was the evil from which everybody had to be saved; but, being a good-natured and easy-going woman, she really did not feel much troubled by sin. Little weaknesses she had, no doubt, but not half so many as other people she knew of. As to anything seriously worthy the name of sin, she did not believe she had any at all. It had never, until now, occurred to her that the treating of her best Friend, during a lifetime, with cool and systematic indifference, or with mere protestations, on Sundays, of adoration, was probably as great a sin as she could commit.

Her thoughts on these points she did not at first mention to any one, but she received great help and enlightenment, as well as comfort, from the quiet sensible talk of Dr Lawrence, as he sat day after day, and hour after hour, at the bedside of his friend, endeavouring to cheer his spirits as well as to relieve his physical pain -- for Lawrence was well fitted to do both.

He was not by any means what is styled a sermoniser. He made no apparent effort to turn conversation into religious channels. Indeed we believe that when men talk with the unrestrained freedom of true friendship, conversation needs no directing. It will naturally flow along all channels, and into all the zigzags and crevices of human thought -- religion included. Lewis was in great pain and serious danger. Lawrence was a man full of the Holy Spirit and love to Jesus. Out of the fullness of his heart his mouth spoke when his friend appeared to desire such converse; but he never bored him with any subject -- for it is possible to be a profane, as well as a religious, bore!

As soon as Lewis could turn his mind to anything, after his being brought back to the hotel, he asked earnestly after Nita Horetzki.

"She has left," said Mrs Stoutley.

"Left! D'you mean gone from Chamouni, mother?" exclaimed Lewis, with a start and a look of anxiety which he did not care to conceal.

"Yes, they went yesterday. Nita had recovered sufficiently to travel, and the medical man who has been attending her urged her removal without delay. She and her father seemed both very sorry to leave us, and left kind messages for you. The Count wanted much to see you, but we would not allow it."

"Kind messages for me," repeated Lewis, in a tone of bitterness, "what sort of messages?"

"Well, really, I cannot exactly remember," returned Mrs Stoutley, with a slight smile, "the kind of messages that amiable people might be expected to leave in the circumstances, you know -- regret that they should have to leave us in such a sad condition, and sincere hope that you might soon recover, etcetera. Yes, by the way, Nita also, just at parting, expressed a hope -- an earnest hope -- that we might meet again. Poor dear thing, she is an extremely affectionate girl, and quite broke down when saying good-bye."

"D'you know where they have gone to, mother?"

"No. They mean to move about from place to place, I believe."

"Nita said nothing about writing to you, did she?"

"Did they leave any address -- a poste restante -- anywhere, or any clew whatever as to their whereabouts?"

"None whatever."

So then, during the weary days of suffering that he knew full well lay before him, poor Lewis had no consolatory thought in regard to Nita save in her expressed "earnest hope" that they might meet again. It was not much, but it was better than nothing. Being an ingenious as well as daring architect, Lewis built amazing structures on that slight foundation -- structures which charmed his mental eyes to look upon, and which, we verily believe, tended to facilitate his recovery -- so potent is the power of true love!

"Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley one morning, towards the end of their stay in Switzerland, Lewis having been pronounced sufficiently restored to travel homeward by easy stages, "I have sent for you to ask you to do me a favour -- to give me your advice -- your -- "

Here, to the Captain's amazement, not to say consternation, Mrs Stoutley's voice trembled, and she burst into tears. If she had suddenly caught him by the nose, pulled his rugged face down and kissed it, he could not have been more taken aback.

"My dear madam," he stammered, sitting down inadvertently on Mrs Stoutley's bonnet -- for it was to the good lady's private dressing-room that he had been summoned by Gillie White -- "hold on! don't now, please! What ever have I done to -- "

"You've done nothing, my dear Captain," said Mrs Stoutley, endeavouring to check her tears. "There, I'm very foolish, but I can't help it. Indeed I can't."

In proof of the truth of this assertion she broke down again, and the Captain, moving uneasily on his chair, ground the bonnet almost to powder -- it was a straw one.

"You have been a kind friend, Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley, drying her eyes, "a very kind friend."

"I'm glad you think so, ma'am; I've meant to be -- anyhow."

"You have, you have," cried Mrs Stoutley, earnestly, as she looked through her tears into the seaman's rugged countenance, "and that is my reason for venturing to ask you now to trouble yourself with -- with -- "

There was an alarming symptom here of a recurrence of "squally weather," which caused the Captain to give the bonnet an "extra turn," but she recovered herself and went on -- 

"With my affairs. I would not have thought of troubling you, but with poor Lewie so ill, and Dr Lawrence being so young, and probably inexperienced in the ways of life, and Emma so innocent and helpless, and -- in short I'm -- hee! -- that is to say -- ho dear! I am so silly, but I can't -- indeed I can't -- hoo-o-o!"

It blew a regular gale now, and a very rain of straw debris fell through the cane-bottomed chair on which the Captain sat, as he vainly essayed to sooth his friend by earnest, pathetic, and even tender adjurations to "clap a stopper upon that," to "hold hard," to "belay", to "shut down the dead-lights of her peepers," and such-like expressive phrases.

At length, amid many sobs, the poor lady revealed the overwhelming fact that she was a beggar; that she had actually come down to her last franc; that her man of business had flatly declined to advance her another sovereign, informing her that the Gorong mine had declared "no dividend;" that the wreck of her shattered fortune had been swallowed up by the expenses of their ill-advised trip to Switzerland, and that she had not even funds enough to pay their travelling expenses home; in short that she was a miserable boulder, at the lowest level of the terminal moraine!

To all this Captain Wopper listened in perfect silence, with a blank expression on his face that revealed nothing of the state of feeling within.

"Oh! Captain Wopper," exclaimed the poor lady anxiously, "surely --  surely you won't forsake me! I know that I have no claim on you beyond friendship, but you have always given us to understand that you were well off, and I merely wish to borrow a small sum. Just enough, and no more. Perhaps I may not be able to repay you just immediately, but I hope soon; and even if it came to the worst, there is the furniture in Euston Square, and the carriage and horses."

Poor Mrs Stoutley! She was not aware that her man of business had already had these resources appraised, and that they no more belonged to her at that moment than if they had been part of the personal estate of the celebrated man in the moon.

Still the Captain gazed at her in stolid silence.

"Even my personal wardrobe," proceeded Mrs Stoutley, beginning again to weep, "I will gladly dis -- "

"Avast! Madam," cried the Captain, suddenly, thrusting his right hand into his breeches-pocket, and endeavouring to drag something therefrom with a series of wrenches that would have been terribly trying to the bonnet, had its ruin not been already complete, "don't talk to me of repayment. Ain't I your -- your -- husband's brother's buzzum friend --  Willum's old chum an' messmate? See here."

He jerked the chair (without rising) close to a table which stood at his elbow, and placed thereon a large canvas bag, much soiled, and tied round the neck with a piece of rope-yarn, which smelt of tar even at a distance. This was the Captain's purse. He carried it always in his right trouser-pocket, and it contained his gold. As for such trifling metal as silver, he carried that loose, mixed with coppers, bits of tobacco, broken pipes, and a clasp-knife, in the other pocket. He was very fond of his purse. In California he had been wont to carry nuggets in it, that simple species of exchange being the chief currency of the country at the time he was there. Some of the Californian debris had stuck to it when he had filled it, at a place of exchange in London, with Napoleons. Emptying its glittering contents upon the table, he spread it out.

"There, madam," he said, with a hearty smile, "you're welcome to all I've got about me just at this moment, and you shall have more when that's done. Don't say 'not so much,' cause it ain't much, fifty pound, more or less, barrin' the nuggets, which I'll keep, as I dessay they would only worry you, and there's plenty more shot in the locker where that come from; an' don't talk about payin' back or thankin' me. You've no occasion to thank me. It's only a loan, an' I'll hold Willum, your brother-in-law, responsible. You wouldn't decline to take it from Willum, would you?"

"Indeed no; William Stout has always been so kind to us -- kinder than I have deserved."

"Well, then, I'll write to Willum. I'll say to him, 'Willum, my boy, here's your brother's widdy bin caught in a squall, had her sails blown to ribbons, bin throw'd on her beam-ends, and every stick torn out of her. You've got more cash, Willum, than you knows what to do with, so, hand over, send me a power of attorney (is that the thing?) or an affydavy -- whatever lawyer's dockiments is required -- an' I'll stand by and do the needful.' An' Willum 'll write back, with that power an' brevity for which he is celebrated, -- 'Wopper, my lad, all right; fire away. Anything short o' ten thousand, more or less. Do yer w'ust. Yours to command,

"'Willum.'"

There was no resisting such arguments. Mrs Stoutley smiled through her tears as she accepted the money. Captain Wopper rose, crammed the empty canvas bag into his pocket, and hastily retired, with portions of the bonnet attached to him.

"Susan," said Mrs Stoutley, on the maid answering her summons, "we shall start for London tomorrow, or the day after, so, pray, set about packing up without delay."

"Very well, ma'am," replied Susan, whose eyes were riveted with an expression of surprised curiosity on the cane-bottomed chair.

"It is my bonnet Susan," said the lady, looking in the same direction with a sad smile. "Captain Wopper sat down on it by mistake. You had better remove it."

To remove it was a feat which even Susan, with all her ready wit and neatness of hand, could not have accomplished without the aid of brush and shovel. She, therefore, carried it off chair and all, to the regions below, where she and Gillie went into convulsions over it.

"Oh! Susan," exclaimed the blue spider, "wot would I not have given to have seed him a-doin' of it! Only think! The ribbons, flowers, and straw in one uniwarsal mush! Wot a grindin' there must ave bin! I heer'd the Purfesser the other day talkin' of wot he calls glacier-haction -- how they flutes the rocks an' grinds in a most musical way over the boulders with crushin' wiolence; but wot's glacier haction to that?"

Susan admitted that it was nothing; and they both returned at intervals in the packing, during the remainder of that day, to have another look at the bonnet-debris, and enjoy a fresh explosion over it.



Chapter Twenty Two.

Mysterious Proceedings Of The Captain And Gillie.

We are back again in London -- in Mrs Roby's little cabin at the top of the old tenement in Grubb's Court.

Captain Wopper is there, of course. So is Mrs Roby. Gillie White is there also, and Susan Quick. The Captain is at home. The two latter are on a visit -- a social tea-party. Little Netta White, having deposited Baby White in the mud at the lowest corner of the Court for greater security, is waiting upon them -- a temporary handmaiden, relieving, by means of variety, the cares of permanent nursehood. Mrs White is up to the elbows in soap-suds, taking at least ocular and vocal charge of the babe in the mud, and her husband is -- "drunk, as usual?" No -- there is a change there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at work. Either knowingly or unwittingly some one has been "overcoming evil with good," for Mrs White's husband is down at the docks toiling hard to earn a few pence wherewith to increase the family funds. And who can tell what a terrible yet hopeful war is going on within that care-worn, sin-worn man? To toil hard with shattered health is burden enough. What must it be when, along with the outward toil, there is a constant fight with a raging watchful devil within? But the man has given that devil some desperate falls of late. Oh, how often and how long he has fought with him, and been overcome, cast down, and his armoury of resolutions scattered to the winds! But he has been to see some one, or some one has been to see him, who has advised him to try another kind of armour -- not his own. He knows the power of a "new affection" now. Despair was his portion not long ago. He is now animated by Hope, for the long uncared-for name of Jesus is now growing sweet to his ear. But the change has taken place recently, and he looks very weary as he toils and fights.

"Well, mother," said Captain Wopper, "now that I've given you a full, true, an' partikler account of Switzerland, what d'ee think of it?"

"It is a strange place -- very, but I don't approve of people risking their lives and breaking their limbs for the mere pleasure of getting to the top of a mountain of ice."

"But we can't do anything in life without riskin' our lives an' breakin' our limbs more or less," said the Captain.

"An' think o' the interests of science," said Gillie, quoting the Professor.

Mrs Roby shook her tall cap and remained unconvinced. To have expected the old nurse to take an enlightened view on that point would have been as unreasonable as to have looked for just views in Gillie White on the subject of conic sections.

"Why, mother, a man may break a leg or an arm in going down stairs," said the Captain, pursuing the subject; "by the way, that reminds me to ask for Fred Leven. Didn't I hear that he broke his arm coming up his own stair? Is it true?"

"True enough," replied Mrs Roby.

"Was he the worse of liquor at the time?"

"No. It was dark, and he was carrying a heavy box of something or other for his mother. Fred is a reformed man. I think the sight of your poor father, Gillie, has had something to do with it, and that night when his mother nearly died. At all events he never touches drink now, and he has got a good situation in one of the warehouses at the docks."

"That's well," returned the Captain, with satisfaction. "I had hopes of that young feller from the night you mention. Now, mother, I'm off. Gillie and I have some business to transact up the water. Very particular business -- eh, lad?"

"Oh! wery partickler," said Gillie, responding to his patron's glance with a powerful wink.

Expressing a hope that Susan would keep Mrs Roby company till he returned, the Captain left the room with his usual heavy roll, and the spider followed with imitative swagger.

Captain Wopper was fond of mystery. Although he had, to some extent made a confidant of the boy for whom he had taken so strong a fancy, he nevertheless usually maintained a dignified distance of demeanour towards him, and a certain amount of reticence, which, as a stern disciplinarian, he deemed to be essential. This, however, did not prevent him from indulging in occasional, not to say frequent, unbendings of disposition, which he condescended to exhibit by way of encouragement to his small protege; but these unbendings and confidences were always more or less shrouded in mystery. Many of them, indeed, consisted of nothing more intelligible than nods, grins, and winks.

"That'll be rather a nice cottage when it's launched," said the Captain, pointing to a building in process of erection, which stood so close to the edge of the Thames that its being launched seemed as much a literal allusion as a metaphor.

"Raither bobbish," assented the spider.

"Clean run fore and aft with bluff bows, like a good sea-boat," said the Captain. "Come, let's have a look at it."

Asking permission to enter of a workman who granted the same with, what appeared to Gillie, an unnecessarily broad grin, the Captain led the way up a spiral staircase. It bore such a strong resemblance to the familiar one of Grubb's Court that Gillie's eyes enlarged with surprise, and he looked involuntarily back for his soapy mother and the babe in the mud. There were, however, strong points of dissimilarity, inasmuch as there was no mud or filth of any kind near the new building except lime; and the stair, instead of leading like that of the Tower of Babel an interminable distance upwards, ended abruptly at the second floor. Here, however, there was a passage exactly similar to the passage leading to Mrs Roby's cabin, save that it was well lighted, and at the end thereof was an almost exact counterpart of the cabin itself. There was the same low roof, the same little fireplace, with the space above for ornaments, and the same couple of little windows looking out upon a stretch of the noble river, from which you might have fished. There was the same colour of paint on the walls, which had been so managed as to represent the dinginess of antiquity. There was also, to all appearance, Mrs Roby's own identical bed, with its chintz curtains. Here, however, resemblance ended, for there was none of the Grubb's Court dirt. The craft on the river were not so large or numerous, the reach being above the bridges. If you had fished you not have hooked rats or dead cats, and if you had put your head out and looked round, you would have encountered altogether a clean, airy, and respectable neighbourhood, populous enough to be quite cheery, with occasional gardens instead of mud-banks, and without interminable rows of tall chimney-pots excluding the light of heaven.

Gillie, not yet having been quite cured of his objectionable qualities, at once apostrophised his eye and Elizabeth Martin.

"As like as two peas, barrin' the dirt!"

The Captain evidently enjoyed the lad's astonishment.

"A ship-shape sort o' craft, ain't it? It wouldn't be a bad joke to buy it -- eh?"

Gillie, who was rather perplexed, but too much a man of the world to disclose much of his state of mind, said that it wouldn't be a bad move for any feller who had got the blunt. "How much would it cost now?"

"A thousand pounds, more or less," said the Captain, with discreet allowance for latitude.

"Ha! a goodish lump, no doubt."

"I've half a mind to buy it," continued the Captain, looking round with a satisfied smile. "It would be an amoosin' sort o' thing, now, to bring old Mrs Roby here. The air would be fresher for her old lungs, wouldn't it?"

Gillie nodded, but was otherwise reticent.

"The stair, too, wouldn't be too high to get her down now and again, and a boat could be handy to shove her into without much exertion. For the matter of that," said the Captain, looking out, "we might have a slide made, like a Swiss couloir, you know, and she could glissade comfortably into the boat out o' the winder. Then, there's a beam to hang her ship an' Chinee lanterns from, an' a place over the fireplace to stick her knick-knacks. What d'ee think, my lad?"

Gillie, who had begun to allow a ray of light to enter his mind, gave, as his answer, an emphatic nod and a broad grin.

The Captain replied with a nod and a wink, whereupon the other retired behind his patron, for the purpose of giving himself a quiet hug of delight, in which act, however, he was caught; the Captain being one who always, according to his own showing, kept his weather-eye open.

"W'y, what's the matter with you, boy?"

"Pains in the stummick is aggrawatin' sometimes," answered Gillie.

"You haven't got 'em, have you?"

"Well, I can't exactly go for to say as I has," answered Gillie, with another grin.

"Now, look 'ee here, youngster," said the Captain, suddenly seizing the spider by his collar and trousers, and swinging him as though about to hurl him through the window into the river, "if you go an' let your tongue wag in regard to this matter, out you go, right through the port-hole -- d'ee see?"

He set the spider quietly on his legs again, who replied, with unruffled coolness -- 

"Mum's the word, Cappen."

Gillie had been shorn of his blue tights and brass buttons, poor Mrs Stoutley having found it absolutely necessary, on her return home, to dismiss all her servants, dispose of all her belongings, and retire into the privacy of a poor lodging in a back street. Thus the spider had come to be suddenly thrown on the world again, but Captain Wopper had retained him, he said, as a mixture of errand-boy, cabin-boy, and powder-monkey, in which capacity he dwelt with his mother during the night and revolved like a satellite round the Captain during the day. A suit of much more appropriate pepper-and-salt had replaced the blue tights and buttons. Altogether, his tout-ensemble was what the Captain styled "more ship-shape."

We have said that Mrs Stoutley and her family had made a descent in life. As poor Lewis remarked, with a sad smile, they had quitted the gay and glittering heights, and gone, like a magnificent avalanche, down into the moraine. Social, not less than physical, avalanches multiply their parts and widen their course during descent. The Stoutleys did not fall alone. A green-grocer, a shoemaker, and a baker, who had long been trembling, like human boulders, on the precipice of bankruptcy, went tumbling down along with them, and found rest in a lower part of the moraine than they had previously occupied.

"It's a sad business," said Lewis to Dr Lawrence one morning; "and if you continue to attend me, you must do so without the most distant prospect of a fee."

"My dear fellow," returned Lawrence, "have you no such thing as gratitude in your composition?"

"Not much, and, if I had ever so much, it would be poor pay."

"Poor, indeed, if regarded as one's only source of livelihood," rejoined Lawrence, "but it is ample remuneration from a friend, whether rich or poor, and, happily, capable of being mixed with pounds, shillings and pence without deterioration. In the present case, I shall be more than rejoiced to take the fee unmixed, but, whether fee'd or not fee'd, I insist on continuing attendance on a case which I have a right to consider peculiarly my own."

"It would have been a bad case, indeed, but for you," returned Lewis, a flush for a moment suffusing his pale cheek as he took his friend's hand and squeezed it. "I am thoroughly convinced, Lawrence, that God's blessing on your skill and unwearied care of me at the time of the accident is the cause of my being alive to thank you to-day. But sit down, my dear fellow, and pray postpone your professional inquiries for a little, as I have something on my mind which I wish to ask you about."

Lawrence shook his head. "Business first, pleasure afterwards," he said; "professional duties must not be postponed."

"Now," said Lewis when he had finished, "are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?"

"I admit nothing," retorted the other; "but now, what have you got to say to me?"

"I am going to make a confidant of you. Are you to be trusted?"

"Perhaps; I dare not say yes unconditionally, because I'm rather sociable and communicative, and apt to talk in my sleep."

"That will do. Your answer is sufficiently modest. I will venture. You know Captain Wopper, I mean, you are well acquainted with his character; well, that kind and eccentric man has made a proposal to my dear mother, which we do not like to accept, and which at the same time we do not quite see our way to refuse. My mother, when in great distress in Switzerland, was forced to borrow a small sum of money from him, and thought it right to justify her doing so by letting him know --  what everybody, alas! may know now -- that we were ruined. With that ready kindness which is his chief characteristic he at once complied. Since our return home he has, with great delicacy but much determination, insisted that we shall accept from him a regular weekly allowance until we have had time to correspond with our uncle Stout in California. 'You mustn't starve,' he said to my mother -- I give you his own words -- 'and you'd be sure to starve if you was to try to wegitate for six months or so on atmospheric air. It'll take that time before you could get a letter from Willum, an' though your son Lewis could an' would, work like a nigger to keep your pot bilin' if he was well an' hearty, it's as plain as the nose on your own face, ma'am, that he can't work while he's as thin as a fathom of pump-water an' as weak as a babby. Now, you know-at least I can tell 'ee -- that my old chum Willum is as rich as a East Injin nabob. You wouldn't believe, madam, what fortins some gold-diggers have made. W'y, I've seed men light their pipes with fi'-pun' notes for a mere brag out there. I've made a goodish lump o' money myself too, -- a'most more than I know what to do with, an' as to Willum, I may say he's actooally rollin' in gold. He's also chockfull of regard for you and yours, ma'am. That bein' so, he's sure to send you somethin' to tide you over yer difficulties, an' he's also sure to send somethin' to Lewis to help him start fair when he gits well, and he's surest of all to send somethin' to Miss Emma for all the kind letters she's writ to him doorin' the last five or six years. Well, then, I'm Willum's buzzum friend, and, knowin' exactly what he'll say an' do in the circumstances, what more nat'ral an' proper than that Willum's chum should anticipate Willum's wishes, and advance the money --  some of it at least -- say three thousand pounds to start with.' Now, Lawrence," continued Lewis, "what should we do? Should we accept this offer? The good fellow has evidently made a great deal of money at the gold-fields, and no doubt speaks truly when he says he can afford to advance that sum. And we know our uncle William's character well enough, though we have never seen him, to be quite sure that he will assist my dear mother until I am able to support her. What say you?"

"Accept the offer at once," said Lawrence. "From what I have seen of the Captain, I am convinced that he is a warm friend and a genuine man. No doubt he can well afford to do what he proposes, and his opinion of William Stout's character is just, for, from what I know of him through Mrs Roby, who knew him when he was a lad, when his life was saved by my father, he must have a kind heart."

"I have no doubt of it, Lawrence, and a grateful heart too, if I may judge from a few words that fell from Captain Wopper about your father and yourself."

"Indeed! what did he say about us?"

"I have no right to repeat observations dropped inadvertently," said Lewis, with a laugh.

"Nor to raise curiosity which you don't mean to satisfy," retorted his friend; "however, my advice is, that you accept the Captain's offer, and trust to your uncle's generosity."



Chapter Twenty Three.

The Captain Surprises His Friends In Various Ways, And Is Himself Baffled.

Time and Tide passed on -- as they are proverbially said to do -- without waiting for any one. Some people in the great city, aware of this cavalier style of proceeding on the part of Time and Tide, took advantage of both, and scaled the pinnacled heights of society. Others, neglecting their opportunities, or misusing them, produced a series of avalanches more or less noteworthy, and added a few more boulders to the vast accumulations in the great social moraine.

Several of the actors in this tale were among those who, having learnt a few sharp lessons in the avalanche school, began to note and avail themselves of Time and Tide -- notably, Mrs Stoutley and her son and niece. A decided change had come over the spirit of Mrs Stoutley's dream of life. She had at last visited the great London moraine, especially that part of it called Grubb's Court, and had already dug up a few nuggets and diamonds, one of which latter she brought to her humble home in the back street, with the design of polishing it into a good servant-maid. Its name was Netta White. Mrs Stoutley had formerly been a spendthrift; now she was become covetous. She coveted the male diamond belonging to the same part of the moraine -- once named the Spider, alias the Imp -- but Captain Wopper had dug up that one for himself and would not part with it. Gradually the good lady conceived and carried out the idea of digging out and rescuing a number of diamonds, considerably lower in the scale than the Netta type, training them for service, and taking pains to get them into good situations. It was hard work no doubt, but Mrs Stoutley persevered, and was well repaid -- for the Master of such labourers esteems them "worthy of their hire." Emma assisted in the work most heartily. It was by no means new to her. She might have directed if she had chosen, but she preferred to follow.

Lewis recovered rapidly -- so rapidly that he was soon able to resume his medical studies and prosecute them with vigour. No bad effects of the accident remained, yet he was an altered man -- not altered in appearance or in character, but in spirit. He was still off-hand in manner, handsome in face and figure, hearty in society, but earnest and grave --  very grave -- in private. He pored over his books, and strove, successfully too, to master the difficulties of the healing art; but do what he would, and fight against it as he might, he was constantly distracted by a pretty face with bright sparkling eyes and a strangely sad expression coming between him and the page. He made continual inquiries after the owner of the sparkling eyes in every direction without success, and at last got into the habit when walking, of looking earnestly at people as if he expected to meet with some one. "If I had got into this state," he sometimes said to himself, "because of being merely in love with a pretty face, I should consider myself a silly nincompoop; but it is such a terrible thing for so sweet and young a creature to be chained to a man who must in the nature of things, land her in beggary and break her heart." Thus he deceived himself as to his main motive. Poor Lewis!

One morning Captain Wopper got up a little earlier than usual, and began a series of performances which Mrs Roby had long ago styled "rampadgin" round his garret.

The reader may have discovered by this time that the Captain was no ordinary man. Whatever he did in connection with himself was done with almost superhuman energy and noise. Since the commencement of his residence in the garret he had unwittingly subjected the nerves of poor Mrs Roby to such a variety of shocks, that the mere fact of her reason remaining on its throne was an unquestionable proof of a more than usually powerful constitution. It could not well be otherwise. The Captain's limbs resembled the limbs of oaks in regard to size and toughness. His spirits were far above "proof." His organs were cathedral organs compared with the mere barrel-organs of ordinary men. On the other hand, the "cabin" in Grubb's Court was but a flimsy tenement; its plank floorings were thin, and its beams and rafters slim and somewhat loose owing to age, so that when the captain snored, which he did regularly and continuously, it was as if a mastiff had got inside a double-bass and were growling hideously.

But Mrs Roby had now got pretty well accustomed to her lodger's ways. Her nerves had become strung to the ordeal, and she even came to like the galvanic battery in which she dwelt, because of its being worked by the intimate friend of her dear William; such is the power of love -- we might almost say, in this case, of reflected love! The good old lady had even become so acute in her perceptions, that, without seeing the "rampadger," she knew precisely the part of his daily programme with which he happened to be engaged. Of course the snoring told its own tale with brazen-tongued clamour, and the whole tenement trembled all night long from top to bottom. Nothing but the regardless nature of the surrounding population prevented the Captain from being indicted as a nuisance; but there were other sounds that were not so easily recognised.

On the morning in question, Mrs Roby, lying placidly in her neat white little bed, and gazing with a sweet contented face through one of her cabin windows at the bright blue sky, heard a sound as though a compound animal -- hog and whale -- had aroused itself and rolled over on its other side. A low whistling followed. Mrs Roby knew that the Captain was pleasantly engaged with his thoughts -- planning out the proceedings of the day. Suddenly the whistling ceased and was followed by a sonorous "how-ho!" terminating in a gasp worthy of an express locomotive. The Captain had stretched himself and Mrs Roby smiled at her own thoughts, as well she might for they embraced the idea that a twentieth part of the force employed in that stretch would have rent in twain every tendon, muscle, sinew, and filament in her, Mrs Roby's, body. Next, there descended on the floor overhead a sixteen-stone cannon ball, which caused -- not the neighbours, but the boards and rafters to complain. The Captain was up! and succeeding sounds proved that he had had another stretch, for there was a bump in the middle of it which showed that, forgetting his stature, the careless man had hit the ceiling with his head. That was evidently a matter of no consequence.

From this point the boards and rafters continued to make unceasing complaint, now creaking uneasily as if under great provocation, anon groaning or yelling as though under insufferable torment. From the ceiling of Mrs Roby's room numerous small bits of plaster, unable to stand it longer, fell and powdered Mrs Roby's floor. The curtains of her little bed saved her face. There was a slushing and swishing and gasping and blowing now, which might have done credit to a school of porpoises. The Captain was washing. Something between the flapping of a main top-sail in a shifting squall and the currying of a hippopotamus indicated that the Captain was drying himself. The process was interrupted by an unusual, though not quite unknown, crash and a howl; he had overturned the wash-hand basin, and a double thump, followed by heavy dabs, told that the Captain was on his knees swabbing it up.

Next instant the Captain's head, with beard and hair in a tremendously rubbed-up condition, appeared upside down at the hatchway.

"Hallo! old girl, has she sprung a leak anywhere?"

"Nowhere," replied Mrs Roby, with a quiet smile. She felt the question to be unnecessary. "She," that is, the roof above her, never did leak in such circumstances. If the Thames had suddenly flooded the garret, the Captain's energy was sufficient to have swabbed it up in time to prevent a drop reaching "the lower deck."

Soon after this catastrophe there was a prolonged silence. The Captain was reading. Mrs Roby shut her eyes and joined him in spirit. Thereafter the Captain's feet appeared at the trap where his head had been, and he descended with a final and tremendous crash to the floor.

"See here, mother," he cried, with a look of delight, holding up a very soiled and crumpled letter, "that's from Willum."

"From William," exclaimed the old woman, eagerly; "why, when did you get it? the postman can't have been here this morning."

"Of course he hasn't; I got it last night from the limb-o'-the-law that looks after my little matters. I came in late, and you were asleep, so I kep' it to whet yer appetite for breakfast. Now listen, you must take it first; I'll get you breakfast afterwards."

The Captain had by this time got into the way of giving the old woman her breakfast in bed every morning.

"Go on," said the old woman, nodding.

The Captain spread out the letter on his knee with great care, and read aloud: -- 

"My Dear Wopper, Got yer letter all right.

"My blissin' to the poor widdy. Help her? ov coorse I'll help her. You did right in advancin' the money, though you fell short, by a long way, when you advanced so little. Hows'ever, no matter. I gave you my last will an' testimony w'en we parted. Here's a noo un. Inside o' this, if I don't forget it before I've done, you'll find a cheque for thirteen thousand pounds sterling. Give three to the widdy, with my respects; give four to dear Emma Gray, with my best love and blissin'; give two to Mister Lewis, with my compliments; an' give four to young Lawrence, with my benediction, for his father's sake. As for the old 'ooman Roby, you don't need to give nothin' to her. She and I understand each other. I'll look after her myself. I'll make her my residooary legatee, an' wotever else is needful; but, in the meantime, you may as well see that she's got all that she wants. Build her a noo house too. I'm told that Grubb's Court ain't exactly aristocratic or clean; see to that. Wotever you advance out o' yer own pocket, I'll pay back with interest. That's to begin with, tell 'em. There's more comin'. There -- I'm used up wi' writin' such a long screed. I'd raither dig a twenty-futt hole in clay sile any day. --  Yours to command, Willum.

"P.S. -- You ain't comin' back soon -- are you?"

"Now, mother, what d'ee think o' that?" said the Captain, folding the letter and putting it in his pocket.

"It's a good, kind letter -- just like William," answered the old woman.

"Well, so I'm inclined to think," rejoined the Captain, busying himself about breakfast while he spoke; "it provides for everybody in a sort o' way, and encourages 'em to go on hopeful like -- don't it strike you so? Then, you see, that's four to Miss Emma, and four to Dr Lawrence, which would be eight, equal to four hundred a year; and that, with the practice he's gettin' into, would make it six, or thereabouts -- not bad to begin with, eh?"

The Captain followed his remark with a sigh.

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs Roby.

"Why, you remember, mother, before goin' abroad I set my heart on these two gettin' spliced; but I fear it's no go. Sometimes I think they looks fond o' one another, at other times I don't. It's a puzzler. They're both young an' good-lookin' an' good. What more would they have?"

"Perhaps they want money," suggested the old woman. "You say Dr Lawrence's income just now is about two hundred; well, gentlefolks find it summat difficult to keep house on that, though it's plenty for the likes of you an' me."

"That's true. P'r'aps the Doctor is sheerin' off for fear o' draggin' a young creeter into poverty. It never struck me in that light before."

Beaming under the influence of this hopeful view of the case, the Captain proceeded to make another move in the complicated game which he had resolved to play out and win; but this move, which he had considered one of the easiest of all, proved to be the most unfortunate, or rather unmanageable.

"Now, mother," said he, "I mean to make a proposal to 'ee, before going out for the day, so that you may have time to think over it. This cabin o' yours ain't just the thing, you know, -- raither dirty, and too high in the clouds by a long way, so I've bin an' seen a noo house on the river, not unlike this one, an' I wants you to shift your berth. What say 'ee -- eh?"

To the Captain's surprise and dismay, the old woman shook her head decidedly, and no argument which he could bring to bear had the least effect on her. She had, in fact, got used to her humble old home, and attached to it, and could not bear the thought of leaving it. Having exhausted his powers of suasion in vain, he left her to think over it, and sallied forth crestfallen. However, he consoled himself with the hope that time and consideration would bring her to a right state of mind. Meanwhile he would go to the parties interested, and communicate the contents of Willum's letter.

He went first to Doctor Lawrence, who was delighted as well as pleased at what it contained. The Captain at first read only the clauses which affected his friends the Stoutleys, and said nothing about that which referred to the Doctor himself.

"So you see, Doctor, I'm off to let the Stoutleys know about this little matter, and just looked in on you in passing."

"It was very kind of you, Captain."

"Not at all, by no means," returned the Captain, pulling out a large clasp-knife, with which he proceeded carefully to pare his left thumb nail. "By the way, Doctor," he said carelessly, "were you ever in love?"

Lawrence flushed, and cast a quick glance at his interrogator, who, however, was deeply engaged with the thumb nail.

"Well, I suppose men at my time of life," he replied, with a laugh, "have had some -- "

"Of course -- of course," interrupted the other, "but I mean that I wonder a strapping young fellow like you, with such a good practice, don't get married."

The Doctor, who had recovered himself, laughed, and said that his good practice was chiefly among the poor, and that even if he wished to marry -- or rather, if any one would have him -- he would never attempt to win a girl while he had nothing better than two hundred a year and prospects to offer her.

"Then I suppose you would marry if you had something better to offer," said the Captain, finishing off the nail and shutting the clasp-knife with a snap.

Again the Doctor laughed, wondered why the Captain had touched on such a theme, and said that he couldn't exactly say what he might or might not do if circumstances were altered.

The Captain was baffled. However, he said that circumstances were altered, and, after reading over the latter part of Willum's letter, left Lawrence to digest it at his leisure.

We need not follow him on his mission. Suffice it to say that he carried no small amount of relief to the minds of Mrs Stoutley and her household; and, thereafter, met Gillie by appointment at Charing Cross, whence he went to Kensington to see a villa, with a view to purchasing it.

At night he again essayed to move Mrs Roby's resolution, and many a time afterwards attacked her, but always with the same result. Although, as he said, he fought like a true-blue British seaman, and gave her broadside after broadside as fast as he could load and fire, he made no impression on her whatever. She had nailed her colours to the mast and would never give in.



Chapter Twenty Four.

In Which Tremendous Forces Come To The Captain's Aid.

It is probable that most people can recall occasions when "circumstances" have done for them that which they have utterly failed to effect for themselves.

Some time after the failure of Captain Wopper's little plots and plans in regard to Mrs Roby, "circumstances" favoured him -- the wind shifted round, so to speak, and blew right astern. To continue our metaphor, it blew a tremendous gale, and the Captain's ends were gained at last only by the sinking of the ship!

This is how it happened. One afternoon the Captain was walking rather disconsolately down the Strand in company with his satellite -- we might almost say, his confidant. The street was very crowded, insomuch that at one or two crossings they were obliged to stand a few minutes before venturing over, -- not that the difficulty was great, many active men being seen to dodge among the carts, drays, vans, and busses with marvellous ease and safety, but the Captain was cautious. He was wont to say that he warn't used to sail in such crowded waters -- there warn't enough o' sea room for him -- he'd rather lay-to, or stand -- off-an'-on for half a day than risk being run down by them shore-goin' crafts.

"Everything in life seems to go wrong at times," muttered the Captain, as he and the satellite lay-to at one of these crossings.

"Yes, it's coorious, ain't it, sir," said Gillie, "an' at other times everything seems to go right -- don't it, sir?"

"True, my lad, that's a better view to take of it," returned the Captain, cheerfully, "come, we'll heave ahead."

As they were "heaving" along in silence, the rattle and noise around them being unsuited to conversation, they suddenly became aware that the ordinary din of the Strand swelled into a furious roar. Gillie was half way up a lamp-post in an instant! from which elevated position he looked down on the Captain, and said -- 

"A ingine!"

"What sort of a ingine, my lad?"

"A fire! hooray!" shouted Gillie, with glittering eyes and flushed countenance, "look out, Cappen, keep close 'longside o' me, under the lee o' the lamp-post. It's not a bad buffer, though never quite a sure one, bein' carried clean away sometimes by the wheels w'en there's a bad driver."

As he spoke, the most intense excitement was manifested in the crowded thoroughfare. Whips were flourished, cabmen shouted, horses reared, vehicles of all kinds scattered right and left even although there had seemed almost a "block" two seconds before. Timid foot passengers rushed into shops, bold ones mounted steps and kerb-stones, or stood on tip-toe, and the Captain, towering over the crowd, saw the gleam of brass helmets as the charioteer clove his way through the swaying mass.

There is something powerfully exciting to most minds in the sight of men rushing into violent action, especially when the action may possibly involve life and death. The natural excitement aroused in the Captain's breast was increased by the deep bass nautical roar that met his ear. Every man in the London fire-brigade is, or used to be, a picked man-of-war's-man, and the shouting necessary in such a thoroughfare to make people get out of the way was not only tremendous but unceasing. It was as though a dozen mad "bo's'ns," capped with brazen war-helmets, had been let loose on London society, through which they tore at full gallop behind three powerful horses on a hissing and smoking monster of brass and iron. A bomb shell from a twenty-five-ton gun could scarce have cut a lane more effectually. The Captain took off his hat and cheered in sympathy. The satellite almost dropped from the lamp-post with excess of feeling. The crash and roar increased, culminated, rushed past and gone in a moment.

Gillie dropped to the ground as if he had been shot, seized the Captain's hand, and attempted to drag him along. He might as well have tried to drag Vesuvius from its base, but the Captain was willing. A hansom-cab chanced to be in front of them as they dashed into the road, the driver smoking and cool as a cucumber, being used to such incidents. He held up a finger.

"Quick, in with you, Cappen!"

Gillie got behind his patron, and in attempting to expedite his movements with a push, almost sent him out at the other side.

"After the ingine -- slap!" yelled Gillie to the face which looked down through the conversation-hole in the roof, "double extra fare if you look sharp."

The cabman was evidently a sympathetic soul. He followed in the wake of the fire-engine as well as he could; but it was a difficult process, for, while the world at large made way for it, nobody cared a straw for him!

"Ain't it fun?" said Gillie, as he settled his panting little body on the cushion beside his friend and master.

"Not bad," responded the Captain, who half laughed at the thought of being so led away by excitement and a small boy.

"I'd give up all my bright prospects of advancement in life," continued Gillie, "to be a fireman. There's no fun goin' equal to a fire."

"P'r'aps it don't seem quite so funny to them as is bein' burnt out," suggested the Captain.

"Of course it don't, but that can't be helped, you know -- can it, sir? What can't be cured must be endoored, as the proverb says. Get along, old fellow, don't spare his ribs -- double fare, you know; we'll lose 'em if you don't."

The latter part of the remark was shouted through the hole to the cabman, who however, pulled up instead of complying.

"It's of no use, sir," he said, looking down at the Captain, "I've lost sight of 'em."

Gillie was on the pavement in a moment.

"Never mind, Cappen, give him five bob, an' decline the change; come along. I see 'em go past the Bridge, so ten to one it's down about the docks somewheres -- the wust place in London for a fire w'ich, of course, means the best."

The idea of its being so afforded such unalloyed pleasure to Gillie, that he found it hard to restrain himself and accommodate his pace to that of his friend.

It soon became very evident that the fire was in truth somewhere about the docks, for not only was a dense cloud of smoke seen rising in that direction, but fire-engines began to dash from side streets everywhere, and to rush towards the smoke as if they were sentient things impatient for the fray.

The cause of such unusual vigour and accumulation of power was, that a fire anywhere about the docks is deemed pre-eminently dangerous, owing to the great and crowded warehouses being stuffed from cellars to roof-trees with combustibles. The docks, in regard to fire, form the citadel of London. If the enemy gets a footing there, he must be expelled at all hazards and at any cost.

As the Captain and his protege hurried along, they were naturally led in the direction of their home. A vague undefined fear at the same instant took possession of both, for they glanced gravely at each other without speaking, and, as if by mutual consent, began to run. Gillie had no need now to complain of his companion's pace. He had enough to do to keep up with it. There were many runners besides themselves now, for the fire was obviously near at hand, and the entire population of the streets seemed to be pressing towards it. A few steps more brought them in sight of the head of Grubb's Court. Here several fire-engines were standing in full play surrounded by a swaying mass of human beings. Still there was no sign of the precise locality of the fires for the tall houses hid everything from view save the dense cloud which overshadowed them all.

Even Captain Wopper's great strength would have been neutralised in such a crowd if it had not now been seconded by an excitement and anxiety that nothing could resist. He crushed his way through as if he had been one of the steam fire-engines, Gillie holding tight to the stout tails of his monkey jacket. Several powerful roughs came in his way, and sought to check him. The Captain had hitherto merely used his shoulders and his weight. To the roughs he applied a fist -- right and left -- and two went down. A few seconds brought him to the cordon of policemen. They had seen him approaching, and one placed himself in front of the Captain with the quiet air of a man who is accustomed never to give way to physical force!

"I live down Grubb's Court, my man," said the Captain, with an eager respectful air, for he was of a law-abiding spirit.

The constable stepped aside, and nodded gravely. The Captain passed the line, but Gillie was pounced upon as if he had been a mouse and the constable a cat.

"He belongs to me," cried the Captain, turning back on hearing Gillie's yell of despair.

The boy was released, and both flew down the Court, on the pavement of which the snake-like water-hose lay spirting at its seams.

"It's in the cabin," said the Captain, in a low deep voice, as he dashed into the Court, where a crowd of firemen were toiling with cool, quiet, yet tremendous energy. No crowd interrupted them here, save the few frantic inhabitants of the Court, who were screaming advice and doing nothing; but no attention whatever was paid to them. A foreman of the brigade stood looking calmly upwards engaged in low-toned conversation with a brother fireman, as if they were discussing theories of the picturesque and beautiful with special application to chimney-cans, clouds of smoke, and leaping tongues of fire.

Immense engine power had been brought to bear, and one of the gigantic floating-engines of the Thames had got near enough to shower tons of water over the buildings, still it was a matter of uncertainty whether the fire could be confined to the Court where it had originated.

The result of the foreman's quiet talk was that the brother-fireman suddenly seized a nozzle from a comrade, and made a dash at the door leading up to "the cabin." Flames and smoke drove him back instantly.

It was at this moment that Captain Wopper came on the scene. Without a moment's hesitation he rushed towards the same door. The foreman seized his arm.

"It's of no use, sir, you can't do it."

The Captain shook him off and sprang in. A few seconds and he rushed out choking, scorched, and with his eyes starting almost out of their sockets.

"It is of no use, sir," remonstrated the foreman, "besides, the people have all bin got out, I'm told."

"No, they 'aven't," cried Mrs White, coming up at the moment, frantically wringing the last article of linen on which she had been professionally engaged, "Mrs Roby's there yet."

"All right, sir," said the foreman, with that quiet comforting intonation which is peculiar to men of power, resource, and self-reliance, "come to the back. The escape will be up immediately. It couldn't get down the Court, owin' to some masonry that was piled there, and had to be sent round."

Quick to understand, the Captain followed the fireman, and reached the back of the house, on the riverside, just as the towering head of the escape emerged from a flanking alley.

"This way. The small window on the right at the top -- so."

The ladder was barely placed when the Captain sprang upon it and ran up as, many a time before, he had run up the shrouds of his own vessel. A cheer from the crowd below greeted this display of activity, but it was changed into a laugh when the Captain, finding the window shut and bolted, want into the room head first, carrying frame and glass along with him! Divesting himself of the uncomfortable necklace, he looked hastily round. The smoke was pretty thick, but not sufficiently so to prevent his seeing poor Mrs Roby lying on the floor as if she had fallen down suffocated.

"Cheer up, old lass," he cried, kneeling and raising her head tenderly.

"Is that you, Cappen?" said the old woman, in a weak voice.

"Come, we've no time to lose. Let me lift you; the place is all alight. I thought you was choked."

"Choked! oh dear, no," replied the old woman, "but I've always heard that in a fire you should keep your face close to the ground for air --  Ah! gently, Cappen, dear!"

While she was speaking, the Captain was getting her tucked under his strong right arm. He could have whisked her on his shoulder in a moment, but was afraid of her poor old bones, and treated her as if she had been a fragile China tea-cup of great value.

Next moment he was out on the escape, and reached the ground amid ringing cheers. He carried her at once to the nearest place of safety, and, committing her to the care of Mrs White, rushed back to the scene of conflagration just as they were about to remove the escape.

"Stop!" shouted the Captain, springing on it.

"There's nobody else up, is there?" cried a fireman, as the Captain ran up.

"No, nobody."

"Come down then, directly," roared the fireman, "the escape is wanted elsewhere. Come down, I say, or we'll leave you."

"You're welcome to leave me," roared the Captain, as he stepped into the window, "only hold your noise, an' mind your own business."

With a mingled feeling of amusement and indignation they hurried away with the escape. It had been urgently wanted to reach a commanding position whence to assail the fire. The order to send it was peremptory, so the Captain was left in his uncomfortable situation, with the smoke increasing around him, and the fire roaring underneath.

The actions of our seaman were now curious as well as prompt. Taking a blanket from his old friend's bed, he spread it below the chimney-piece, and in a remarkably short time pulled down, without damaging, every object on the wall and threw it into the blanket. He then added to the heap the Chinese lantern, the Turkish scimitar, the New Zealand club, the Eastern shield, the ornamented dagger, the worsted work sampler, the sou'-wester, the oiled coat, the telescope, the framed sheet of the flags of all nations, and the small portrait of the sea-captain in his "go-to-meetin'" clothes; also the big Bible and a very small box, which latter contained Mrs Roby's limited wardrobe. He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and humorous than complimentary.

"Gillie," shouted the Captain, "cast off the rope, lad, and look well after the property."

"Ay, ay, Cappen," replied the youth, taking up a thick cart-pin, or something of the sort, that lay near, and mounting guard.

There was another laugh, from crowd and firemen, at the nautical brevity and promptitude of Gillie.

At every large fire in London there may be seen a few firemen standing about in what an ignorant spectator might imagine to be easy indifference and idleness, but these men are not idlers. They are resting. The men who first arrive at a fire go into action with the utmost vigour, and toil until their powers are nearly -- sometimes quite --  exhausted. As time passes fresh men are continually arriving from the more distant stations. These go into action as they come up, thus relieving the others, who stand aloof for a time looking on, or doing easy work, and recruiting their energies. It was these men who watched the Captain's proceedings with much amusement while their comrades were doing battle with the foe.

Presently the Captain reappeared at the window and lowered a huge sea-chest. A third time he appeared with the model of a full-rigged ship in his hand. This time he let the end of the rope down, and then getting over the window, slid easily to the ground.

"You're uncommon careful o' your property," exclaimed one of the onlookers, with a broad grin.

"'Taint all my property, lad," replied the Captain, with a good-humoured nod, "most of it is a poor old 'ooman's belongings."

So saying, he got a man to carry his sea-chest, himself shouldered the bundle, Gillie was intrusted with the full-rigged model, and thus laden they left the scene followed by another laugh and a hearty cheer.

But our bluff seaman was not content with rescuing Mrs Roby and her property. He afterwards proceeded to lend his effective aid to all who desired his assistance, and did not cease his exertions until evening, by which time the fire was happily subdued.

"She must not be moved to-night Captain," said Dr Lawrence, for whom Gillie had been sent; "the place where she lies is doubtless far from comfortable, but I have got her to sleep, and it would be a pity to awake her. To-morrow we shall get her into more comfortable quarters."

"Could she bear movin' to-morrow, a mile or so?" asked the Captain.

"Certainly, but there is no occasion to go so far. Lodgings are to be had -- "

"All right, Doctor; I've got a lodging ready for her, and will ask you to come an' have pot-luck with us before long. Gillie, my lad, you go hail a cab, and then come back to lend a hand wi' the cargo."

In a few minutes the pair were whirling towards the west end of London, and were finally landed with their "cargo" on the banks of the Thames above the bridges, near the new building which Captain Wopper had named, after its prototype, "the cabin."

To fit this up after the fashion of the old place was a comparatively short and easy work for two such handy labourers. Before they left that night it was so like its predecessor in all respects, except dirt, that both declared it to be the "identical same craft, in shape and rig, even to the little bed and curtains." Next afternoon Mrs Roby was brought to it by Captain Wopper, in a specially easy carriage hired for the purpose.

The poor old woman had received more of a shock than she was willing to admit, and did exactly as she was bid, with many a sigh, however, at the thought of having been burnt out of the old home. She was carried up the stair in a chair by two porters, and permitted the Captain to draw a thick veil over her head to conceal, as he said, her blushes from the men. He also took particular care to draw the curtains of the bed close round her after she had been laid in it and then retired to allow her to be disrobed by Netta, who had been obtained from Mrs Stoutley on loan expressly for the occasion.

Much of this care to prevent her seeing the place that day, however, was unnecessary. The poor old creature was too much wearied by the short journey to look at anything. After partaking of a little tea and toast she fell into a quiet sleep, which was not broken till late on the following morning.

Her first thought on waking was the fire. Her second, the Captain. He was in the room, she knew, because he was whistling in his usual low tone while moving about the fireplace preparing breakfast. She glanced at the curtains; her own curtains certainly, -- and the bed too! Much surprised, she quietly put out her thin hand and drew the curtain slightly aside. The Captain in his shirt sleeves, as usual, preparing buttered toast, the fireplace, the old kettle with the defiant spout singing away as defiantly as ever, the various photographs, pot-lids, and other ornaments above the fireplace, the two little windows commanding an extensive prospect of the sky from the spot where she lay, the full-rigged ship, the Chinese lantern hanging from the beam --  everything just as it should be!

"Well, well," thought Mrs Roby, with a sigh of relief; "the fire must have been a dream after all! but what a vivid one!"

She coughed. The Captain was at her side instantly.

"Slept well, old girl?"

"Very well, thank you. I've had such a queer dream, d'you know?"

"Have you? Take your breakfast, mother, before tellin' it. It's all ready -- there, fire away."

"It was such a vivid one," she resumed, when half through her third cup, "all about a fire, and you were in it too."

Here she proceeded to relate her dream with the most circumstantial care. The Captain listened with patient attention till she had finished, and then said -- 

"It was no dream, mother. It's said that the great fire of London was a real blessin' to the city. The last fire in London will, I hope, be a blessin' to you an' me. It was real enough and terrible too, but through God's mercy you have been saved from it. I managed to save your little odds and ends too. This is the noo 'cabin,' mother, that you wouldn't consent to come to. Something like the old one, ain't it?"

Mrs Roby spoke never a word, but looked round the room in bewilderment. Taking the Captain's hand she kissed it, and gazed at him and the room until she fell asleep. Awaking again in half an hour, she finished her breakfast, asked for the old Bible, and, declaring herself content, fell straightway into her old ways and habits.



Chapter Twenty Five.

An Unexpected Gem Found.

Although Lewis Stoutley found it extremely difficult to pursue his studies with the profusely illustrated edition of medical works at his command, he nevertheless persevered with a degree of calm, steady resolution which might be almost styled heroic. To tear out the illustrations was impossible, for Nita's portrait was stamped on every page, compelling him to read the letterpress through it. Success, however, attended his labours, for he not only carried out the regular course, but he attached himself to the poor district of the "moraine" which had been appropriated as their own by his mother and Emma, who ministered to the bodies of the sick while they sought to bring their souls to the Good Physician. This professional work he did as a sort of amateur, being only a student under the guidance of his friend Lawrence, whose extending practice included that district. It happened also to be the district in which Mrs Roby's new "cabin" was situated.

These labourers, in what Dr Tough had styled the London gold fields, not only did good to the people, and to themselves in the prosecution of them, but resulted occasionally in their picking up a nugget, or a diamond, which was quite a prize. One such was found by Lewis about this time, which, although sadly dim and soiled when first discovered, proved to be such a precious and sparkling gem that he resolved to wear it himself. He and Emma one day paid a visit to the cabin, where they found old Mrs Roby alone, and had a long chat with her, chiefly about the peculiarities of the Captain and his boy.

"By the way," said Mrs Roby to Lewis, when they rose to go, "a poor woman was here just before you came, askin' if I knew where she could find a doctor, for her father, she said, was very ill. The two have come to live in a room near the foot of this stair, it seems, and they appear to be very poor. I could not give her Dr Lawrence's new address, for I don't know it, so I advised her to apply to the nearest chemist. Perhaps, Mr Lewis, you'll go yourself and see the poor man?"

"Willingly, and I shall myself call for Lawrence on my way home and send him, if necessary. Come, Emma. Perhaps this may be a case for the exercise of your philanthropy."

They soon found the place, and knocked at a low door, which was slowly opened by a middle-aged woman, meanly clad and apparently very poor.

"Ah, sir, you're too late, he's dead," said the woman, in reply to Lewis's inquiry.

"O how sad!" broke from Emma's sympathetic spirit, "I am so sorry we are too late. Did you find a doctor?"

"No, ma'am, I didn't, but the chemist gave me the address of one, so I ran back to tell the poor young thing that I'd go fetch one as quick as I could, and I found him just dying in her arms."

"In whose arms? are not you the daughter -- " said Emma.

"Me, miss! oh dear, no. I'm only a neighbour."

"Has she any friends?" asked Lewis.

"None as I knows of. They are strangers here -- only just came to the room. There it is," she added, stepping back and pointing to an inner door.

Lewis advanced and knocked, but received no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. He therefore ventured to lift the latch and enter.

It was a miserable, ill-lighted room, of small size and destitute of all furniture save a truckle bed, a heap of clean straw in a corner, on which lay a black shawl, a deal chair, and a small table. Abject poverty was stamped on the whole place. On the bed lay the dead man, covered with a sheet. Beside it kneeled, or rather lay, the figure of a woman. Her dress was a soiled and rusty black. Her hair, fallen from its fastenings, hung dishevelled on her shoulders. Her arms clasped the dead form.

"My poor woman," whispered Emma, as she knelt beside her, and put a hand timidly on her shoulder.

But the woman made no answer.

"She has fainted, I think," exclaimed Emma, rising quickly and trying to raise the woman's head. Suddenly Lewis uttered a great cry, lifted the woman in his arms, and gazed wildly into her face.

"Nita!" he cried, passionately clasping her to his heart and covering the poor faded face with kisses; but Nita heard not. It seemed as if the silver chord had already snapped. Becoming suddenly aware of the impropriety as well as selfishness of his behaviour, Lewis hastily bore the inanimate form to the heap of straw, pillowed the small head on the old shawl, and began to chafe the hands while Emma aided him to restore consciousness. They were soon successful. Nita heaved a sigh.

"Now, Emma," said Lewis, rising, "this is your place just now, I will go and fetch something to revive her."

He stopped for one moment at the bed in passing, and lifted the sheet. There was no mistaking the handsome face of the Count even in death. It was terribly thin, but the lines of sorrow and anxiety were gone at last from the marble brow, and a look of rest pervaded the whole countenance.

On returning, Lewis found that Nita had thrown her arms round Emma's neck and was sobbing violently. She looked up as he entered, and held out her hand. "God has sent you," she said, looking at Emma, "to save my heart from breaking."

Lewis again knelt beside her and put her hand to his lips, but he had no power to utter a word. Presently, as the poor girl's eye fell on the bed, there was a fresh outburst of grief. "Oh, how he loved me! -- and how nobly he fought! -- and how gloriously he conquered! -- God be praised for that!"

She spoke, or rather sobbed, in broken sentences. To distract her mind, if possible, even for a little, from her bereavement, Emma ventured to ask her how she came there, when her father became so ill, and similar questions. Little by little, in brief sentences, and with many choking words and tears, the sad story came out.

Ever since the night when her father met with Lewis at Saxon, he had firmly resisted the temptation to gamble. God had opened his ear to listen to, and his heart to receive, the Saviour. Arriving in London with the money so generously lent to them by Lewis, they took a small lodging and sought for work. God was faithful to His promises, she said; he had sent a measure of prosperity. Her father taught music, she obtained needlework. All was going well when her father became suddenly ill. Slowly but steadily he sank. The teaching had to be given up, the hours of labour with the needle increased. This, coupled with constant nursing, began to sap her own strength, but she had been enabled to hold out until her father became so ill that she dared not leave him even for a few minutes to visit the shops where she had obtained sewing-work. Then, all source of livelihood being dried up, she had been compelled to sell one by one the few articles of clothing and furniture which they had begun to accumulate about them.

"Thus," she said, in conclusion, "we were nearly reduced to a state of destitution, but, before absolute want had been felt by us, God mercifully took my darling father home -- and -- and -- I shall soon join him."

"Say not so, darling," said Emma, twining her arms round the poor stricken girl. "It may be that He has much work for you to do for Jesus here before He takes you home. Meanwhile, He has sent us to claim you as our very dear friend -- as our sister. You must come and stay with mamma and me. We, too, have tasted something of that cup of adversity, which you have drained to the very dregs, my poor Nita, but we are comparatively well off now. Mamma will be so glad to have you. Say you will come. Won't you, dearest?"

Nita replied by lifting her eyes with a bewildered look to the bed, and again burst into a passion of uncontrollable sorrow.



Chapter Twenty Six.

The Denouement.

Being naturally a straightforward man, and not gifted with much power in the way of plotting and scheming, Captain Wopper began in time to discover that he had plunged his mental faculties into a disagreeable state of confusion.

"Gillie, my lad," he said, looking earnestly at his satellite while they walked one afternoon along the Bayswater road in the direction of Kensington, "it's a bad business altogether."

Gillie, not having the smallest idea what the Captain referred to, admitted that it was "wery bad indeed," but suggested that "it might be wuss."

"It's such a perplexin' state o' things," pursued the Captain, "to be always bouncin' up an' down wi' hopes, an' fears, an' disappointments, like a mad barometer, not knowin' rightly what's what or who's who."

"Uncommon perplexin'," assented Gillie. "If I was you, Cappen, I'd heave the barometer overboard along wi' the main-deck, nail yer colours to the mast, cram the rudder into the lee-scuppers, kick up your flyin'-jib-boom into the new moon, an' go down stern foremost like a man!"

"Ha!" said the Captain, with a twinkle in the corner of his "weather-eye," "not a bad notion."

"Now, my lad, I'm goin' out to my villa at Kensington to dine. There's to be company, too, an' you're to be waiter -- "

"Stooard, you mean?"

"Well, yes -- stooard. Now, stooard, you'll keep a good look-out, an' clap as tight a stopper on yer tongue as may be. I've got a little plot in hand, d'ee see, an' I want you to help me with it. Keep your eye in a quiet way on Dr Lawrence and Miss Gray. I've taken a fancy that perhaps they may be in love with each other. You just let me have your opinion on that pint after dinner, but have a care that you don't show what you're up to, and, whatever you do, don't be cheeky."

"All right," said the stooard, thrusting both hands into his trouser-pockets; "I'll do my best."

While these two were slowly wending their way through Kensington Gardens, Emma Gray arrived at the Captain's villa -- California Cottage, he called it -- and rang the bell. The gate was opened by Netta White, who, although not much bigger than when first introduced to the reader, was incomparably more beautiful and smart. Mrs Stoutley had reason to be proud of her.

"I did not know that you were to be here, Netta?" said Emma, in surprise, as she entered.

"It was a very sudden call, Miss," said Netta, with a smile. "Captain Wopper wrote a note to me, begging me to ask Mrs Stoutley to be so good as lend me to him for a day to help at his house-warming. Here is the letter, Miss."

Emma laughed as she glanced carelessly at the epistle, but became suddenly grave, turned white, then red, and, snatching the letter from the girl's hand, gazed at it intently.

"La! Miss, is anything wrong?"

"May I keep this?" asked Emma.

"Certainly, Miss, if you wish it."

Before she could say anything more, they were interrupted by the entrance of Dr Lawrence. With a surprised look and smile he said -- 

"I have been invited to dine with our friend Captain Wopper, but did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting Miss Gray here."

Emma explained that she also had been invited to dine with the Captain, along with her mother and brother, but had supposed that that was all the party, as he, the Captain, had mentioned no one else, and had been particular in begging her to come an hour before the time, for the purpose of going over his new villa with him, and giving him her private opinion of it.

"I am punctual," she added, consulting her watch; "it is just four o'clock."

"Four! Then what is the dinner hour?"

"Five," answered Emma.

"The Captain's wits must have been wool-gathering," rejoined Lawrence, with a laugh. "He told me to come punctually at four. However, I rejoice in the mistake, as it gives me the great pleasure of assisting you to form an unprejudiced opinion of the merits of the new villa. Shall we begin with an exploration of the garden?"

Emma had no cause to blush at such an innocent proposal, nevertheless a richer colour than usual mantled on her modest little face as she fell in with the Doctor's humour and stepped out into the small piece of ground behind the house.

It was of very limited extent and, although not surrounded too closely by other villas, was nevertheless thoroughly overlooked by them, so that seclusion in that garden was impossible. Recognising this fact, a former proprietor had erected at the lower end of the garden a bower so contrived that its interior was invisible from all points except one, and that was a side door to the garden which opened on a little passage by which coals, milk, meat, and similar substances were conveyed from the front to the rear of the house.

Dr Lawrence and Emma walked round and round the garden very slowly, conversing earnestly. Strange to say, they quite forgot the object which had taken them there. Their talk was solely of Switzerland. As it continued, the Doctor's voice deepened in tones and interest, and his fair companion's cheek deepened in colour. Suddenly they turned into the bower. As they did so, Gillie White chanced to appear at the garden door above referred to, which stood ajar. The spider's countenance was a speaking one. During the five minutes which it appeared in the doorway, it, and the body belonging to it, became powerfully eloquent. It might have conveyed to one's mind, as it were, a series of tableaux vivants. Gillie's first look was as if he had been struck dumb with amazement (that was Lawrence suddenly seizing one of Emma's hands in both of his and looking intently into her face). Then Gillie's look of amazement gave place to one of intense, quite touching -- we might almost say sympathetic -- anxiety as he placed a hand on each knee and stooped (that was the Doctor's right hand stealing round Emma's waist, and Emma shrinking from him with averted face). The urchin's visage suddenly lighted up with a blaze of triumph, and he seized his cap as if about to cheer (that was the Doctor's superior strength prevailing, and Emma's head, now turned the other way, laid on his shoulder). All at once Gillie went into quiet convulsions, grinned from ear to ear, doubled himself up, slapped his thigh inaudibly -- a la Captain Wopper -- and otherwise behaved like an outrageous, yet self-restrained, maniac (that was -- well, we have no right to say what that was). As a faithful chronicler, however, we must report that one-half minute later the stooard found Captain Wopper in the villa drawing-room, and there stated to him that it was "hall right; that he didn't need for to perplex hisself about Doctor Lawrence and Miss Hemma Gray, for that they was as good as spliced already, having been seen by him, Gillie, in the bower at the end of the garding a-blushin' and a -- " Here the spider stopped short and went into another fit of convulsions -- this time unrestrained.

Is it necessary to say that Captain Wopper sat at the foot of his own table that day -- Mrs Stoutley being at the head -- with his rugged visage radiant and his powerful voice explosive; that he told innumerable sea-stories without point, and laughed at them without propriety; that, in the excess of his hilarity, he drank a mysterious toast to the success of all sorts of engagements, present and future; that he called Mrs Stoutley (in joke) sister, and Emma and Lewis (also in joke) niece and neffy; that he called Doctor Lawrence neffy, too, with a pointedness and a sense of its being the richest possible joke, that covered with confusion the affianced pair; and with surprise the rest of the company; that he kicked the stooard amicably out of the room for indulging in explosions of laughter behind his chair, and recommending him, the Captain, to go it strong, and to clap on sail till he should tear the mast out of 'er, or git blowed on his beam-ends; that the stooard returned unabashed to repeat the offence unreproved; that towards the end, the Captain began a long-winded graphic story which served to show how his good friend and chum Willum Stout in Callyforny had commissioned him to buy and furnish a villa for the purpose of presenting it to a certain young lady in token of his gratitood to her for bein' such a good and faithful correspondent to him, Willum, while he was in furrin' parts; also, how he was commissioned to buy and furnish another villa and present it to a certain doctor whose father had saved him from drownin' long long ago, he would not say how long ago; and how that this villa, in which they was feedin', was one of the said villas, and that he found it quite unnecessary to spend any more of Willum's hard-earned gains in the purchase of the other villa, owing to circumstances which had took place in a certain bower that very day! Is it necessary, we again ask, to detail all this? We think not; therefore, we won't.

When reference was made to the bower, Emma could stand, or sit, it no longer. She rose hastily and ran blushing into the garden. Captain Wopper uttered a thunderous laugh, rose and ran after her. He found her in the bower with her face in her hands, and sat down beside her.

"Captain Wopper," she suddenly exclaimed, looking up and drawing a note from her pocket, "do you know this?"

"Yes, duckie," (the Captain was quite reckless now), "it's my last billy-doo to Netta White. I never was good at pot-hooks and hangers."

"And do you know this letter?" said Emma, holding up to the seaman's eyes her uncle William's last letter to herself.

The Captain looked surprised, then became suddenly red and confused.

"W'y -- ye-es, it's Willum's, ain't it?"

"The same pot-hooks and hangers precisely!" said Emma, "are they not? Oh!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms round the Captain's neck and kissing him, "uncle William, how could you deceive us so?"

The Captain, to use his own expressions, was taken aback -- fairly brought up all standin'.

It had never occurred to his innocent mind that he should commit himself so simply. He felt an unconquerable objection to expressions of gratitude, and perceiving, with deep foresight that such were impending, his first impulse was to rise and fly, but Emma's kiss made him change his mind. He returned it in kind but not in degree, for it caused the bower to resound as with a pistol shot.

"Oh! wot a cracker, ain't it just? you're a nice man, ain't you, to go poachin' on other fellers -- "

The Captain seized his opportunity, he broke from Emma and dashed wildly at the spider, who incontinently fled down the conduit for coals, cheering with the fury of a victorious Ashantee chief!



Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Last.

Humbly confessing to Emma Gray that he had no talent whatever for plotting, Captain Wopper went off with a deprecatory expression of countenance to reveal himself to Mrs Roby. Great was his anxiety. He entered her presence like a guilty thing. If, however, his anxiety was great, his surprise and consternation were greater when she received his revelation with tears, and for some time refused to be comforted!

The workings of the human mind are wonderful. Sometimes they are, as the Captain said, bamboozling. If analysed it might have been discovered that, apart altogether from the shock of unexpectedness and the strain on her credulity, poor Mrs Roby suffered -- without clearly understanding it -- from a double loss. She had learned to love Captain Wopper for his own sake, and now Captain Wopper was lost to her in William Stout! On the other hand William, her darling, her smooth-faced chubby boy, was lost to her for ever in the hairy savage Captain Wopper! It was perplexing as well as heart-rending. Captain Wopper was gone, because, properly, there was no such being in existence. William Stout was gone because he would never write to her any more, and could never more return to her from California!

It was of no use that the Captain expressed the deepest contrition for the deception he had practised, urging that he had done it "for the best;" the old woman only wept the more; but when, in desperation, the Captain hauled taut the sheets of his intellect, got well to wind'ard of the old 'ooman an' gave her a broadside of philosophy, he was more successful.

"Mother," he said, earnestly, "you don't feel easy under this breeze, 'cause why? you're entirely on the wrong tack. Ready about now, an' see what a change it'll make. Look 'ee here. You've gained us both instead of lost us both. Here am I, Willum Stout yours to command, a trifle stouter, it may be, and hairier than I once was, not to say older, but by a long chalk better able to love the old girl who took me in, an' befriended me when I was a reg'lar castaway, with dirty weather brewin', an' the rocks o' destitootion close under my lee; and who'll never forget your kindness, no never, so long as two timbers of the old hulk hold together. Well then, that's the view over the starboard bulwarks. Cast your eyes over to port now. Here am I, Captain Wopper, also yours to command, strong as a horse, as fond o' you as if you was my own mother, an' resolved to stick by you through thick and thin to the last. So you see, you've got us both -- Willum an' me -- me an' Willum, both of us lovin' you like blazes an' lookin' arter you like dootiful sons. A double tide of affection, so to speak, flowin' like strong double-stout from the beer barrel out of which you originally drew me, if I may say so. Ain't you convinced?"

Mrs Roby was convinced. She gave in, and lived for many years afterwards in the full enjoyment of the double blessing which had thus fallen to her lot in the evening of her days.

And here, good reader, we might close our tale; but we cannot do so without a few parting words in reference to the various friends in whose company we have travelled so long.

Of course it is unnecessary to say, (especially to our lady readers, who were no doubt quite aware of it from the beginning), that Lawrence and Emma, Lewis and Nita, were, in the course of time, duly married. The love of their respective wives for each other induced the husbands not only to dwell in adjoining villas, but to enter into a medical co-partnery, in the prosecution of which they became professionally the deities, and, privately, the adored of a large population of invalids --  with their more or less healthy friends -- in the salubrious neighbourhood of Kensington. To go about "doing good" was the business, and became the second nature, of the young doctors. It was long a matter of great surprise to not a few of their friends that though Lawrence and Lewis neither smoked nor drank, they were uncommonly healthy and apparently happy! Some caustic spirits asserted that they were sure budding wings were to be found on the shoulders of the two doctors, but we are warranted in asserting, on the best authority, that on a strict examination, nothing of the kind was discovered. Need we say that Emma and Nita were pattern wives? Of course not, therefore we won't say it. Our reticence on this point will no doubt be acceptable to those who, being themselves naughty, don't believe in or admire "patterns," even though these be of "heavenly things." It is astonishing, though, what an effect their so-called "perfection" had in tightening the bonds of matrimony. Furthermore, they had immense families of sons and daughters, insomuch that it became necessary to lengthen their cords and strengthen their stakes, and "Calyforny Villa" became a mere band-box compared to the mansions which they ultimately called "home."

Mrs Stoutley having managed to get entirely out of herself -- chiefly by means of the Bible and the London gold-fields and moraines -- became so amiable and so unlike her former self, and, withal, so healthy and cheery, that the two great families of Stoutley and Lawrence went to war for possession of her.

The feud at last threatened to become chronic, and was usually carried to an excess of virulence about Christmas and New Year time. In order, therefore, to the establishment of peace, Mrs Stoutley agreed to live one-half of the year with Lewis, and the other half with Lawrence -- Lewis to have the larger half as a matter of course; but she retained her cottage in Notting Hill and her maid Netta White, with the right to retire at any moment, when the exigencies of the gold-fields or the moraines demanded special attention; or when the excess of juvenile life in the mansions before mentioned became too much for her. On these occasions of retirement which, to say truth, were not very frequent, she was accompanied by Netta White -- for Netta loved her mistress and clave to her as Ruth to Naomi. Being a native of the "fields," she was an able and sympathetic guide and adviser at all times, and nothing pleased Netta better than a visit to Grubb's Court, for there she saw the blessed fruit of diamond and gold digging illustrated in the person of her own reformed father and happy mother, who had removed from their former damp rooms on the ground floor to the more salubrious apartments among the chimney pots, which had been erected on the site of the "cabin" after "the fire." Directly below them, in somewhat more pretentious apartments, shone another rescued diamond in the person of Fred Leven. He was now the support and comfort of his old mother as well as of a pretty little young woman who had loved him even while he was a drunkard, and who, had it been otherwise decreed, would have gone on loving him and mourning over him and praying for him till he was dead. In her case, however, the mourning had been turned into joy.

In process of time Gillie White, alias the spider, became a sturdy, square-set, active little man, and was promoted to the position of coachman in the family of Lewis Stoutley. Susan Quick served in the same family in the capacity of nurse for many years, and, being naturally thrown much into the society of the young coachman, was finally induced to cement the friendship which had begun in Switzerland by a wedding. This wedding, Gillie often declared to Susan, with much earnestness, was the "stunninest ewent that had ever occurred to him in his private capacity as a man."

There is a proverb which asserts that "it never rains but it pours." This proverb was verified in the experience of the various personages of our tale, for soon after the tide of fortune had turned in their favour, the first showers of success swelled into absolute cataracts of prosperity. Among other things, the Gowrong mines suddenly went right. Mrs Stoutley's former man of business, Mr Temple, called one day, and informed her that her shares in that splendid undertaking had been purchased, on her behalf, by a friend who had faith in the ultimate success of the mines; that the friend forbade the mention of his name; and that he, Mr Temple, had called to pay her her dividends, and to congratulate her on her recovery of health and fortune. Dr Tough -- who, when his services were no longer required, owing to the absence of illness, had continued his visits as a jovial friend -- chanced to call at the same time with Mr Temple, and added his congratulations to those of the man of business, observing, with enthusiasm, that the air of the Swiss mountains, mixed in equal parts with that of the London diamond-fields, would cure any disease under the sun. His former patient heartily agreed with him, but said that the medicine in question was not a mere mixture but a chemical compound, containing an element higher than the mountains and deeper than the diamond-fields, without which the cure would certainly not have been effected.

Need we say that Captain Wopper stuck to Mrs Roby and the "new cabin" to the last? Many and powerful efforts were made to induce him to bring his "mother" to dwell in Kensington, but Mrs Roby flatly refused to move again under any suasion less powerful than that of a fire. The eldest of Lewis Stoutley's boys therefore hit on a plan for frequent and easy inter-communication. He one day suggested the idea of a boating-club to his brothers and companions. The proposal was received with wild enthusiasm. The club was established, and a boathouse, with all its nautical appurtenances, was built under the very shadow of Mrs Roby's dwelling. A trusty "diamond" from Grubb's Court was made boat-cleaner and repairer and guardian of the keys, and Captain Wopper was created superintendent general director, chairman, honorary member, and perpetual grand master of the club, in which varied offices he continued to give unlimited satisfaction to the end of his days.

As for Slingsby, he became an aspirant to the honours of the Royal Academy, and even dreamt of the president's chair! Not being a madman, he recovered from the disease of blighted hopes, and discovered that there were other beings as well as Nita worth living for! He also became an intimate and welcome visitor at the two Kensington mansions, the walls of which were largely decorated with his productions. Whether he succeeded in life to the full extent of his hopes we cannot say, but we have good reason to believe that he did not entirely fail.

From time to time Lewis heard of his old guide Antoine Grennon from friends who at various periods paid a visit to the glaciers of Switzerland, and more than once, in after years, he and his family were led by that prince of guides over the old romantic and familiar ground, where things were not so much given to change as in other regions; where the ice-rivers flowed with the same aspects, the same frozen currents, eddies, and cataracts as in days gone by; where the elderly guides were replaced by youthful guides of the same type and metal -- ready to breast the mountain slopes and scale the highest peaks at a moment's notice; and where Antoine's cottage stood unchanged, with a pretty and rather stout young woman usually kneeling in a tub, engaged in the destruction of linen, and a pretty little girl, who called her "mother," busy with a miniature washing of her own. The only difference being that the child called Antoine "grandfather," and appeared to regard a strapping youth who dwelt there as her sire, and a remarkably stout but handsome middle-aged woman as her grandmother.

Last, but not least, the Professor claims a parting word. Little, however, is known as to the future career of the genial man of science, one of whose chief characteristics was his reverent recognition of God in conversing about His works. After returning to his home in the cold north he corresponded for some years with Dr Lawrence, and never failed to express his warmest regard for the friends with whom he had the good fortune to meet while in Switzerland. He was particularly emphatic -- we might almost say enthusiastic -- in his expressions of regard for Captain Wopper, expressions and sentiments which the bold mariner heartily reciprocated, and he often stated to Mrs Roby, over an afternoon cup of tea, his conviction that that Roosian Professor was out o' sight one of the best fellows he had ever met with, and that the remembrance of him warmed his heart to furriners in general and Roosians in particular. This remark usually had the effect of inducing Mrs Roby to ask some question about his, the Captain's, intercourse with the Professor, which question invariably opened the flood-gates of the Captain's memory, and drew from him prolonged and innumerable "yarns" about his visit to the Continent -- yarns which are too long to be set down here, for the Captain never tired of relating, and old Mrs Roby never wearied of listening, to his memorable rambles on the snow-capped mountains, and his strange adventures among the -- Rivers of Ice.

<eob>

Caleb In The Country

By

Jacob Abbott



Chapter I.

Caleb's Discovery.


Caleb was a bright-looking, blue-eyed boy, with auburn hair and happy countenance. And yet he was rather pale and slender. He had been sick. His father and mother lived in Boston, but now he was spending the summer at Sandy River country, with his grandmother. His father thought that if he could run about a few months in the open air, and play among the rocks and under the trees, he would grow more strong and healthy, and that his cheeks would not look so pale.

His grandmother made him a blue jacket with bright buttons. She liked metal buttons, because they would wear longer than covered ones, but he liked them because they were more beautiful. "Besides," said he, "I can see my face in them, grandmother."

Little Caleb then went to the window, so as to see his face plainer. He stood with his back to the window, and held the button so that the light from the window could shine directly upon it.

"Why grandmother," said Caleb, "I cannot see now so well as I could before."

"That is because your face is turned away from the light," said she.

"And the button is turned towards the light," said Caleb.

"But when you want to see any thing reflected in a glass, you must have the light shine upon the thing you want to see reflected, not upon the glass itself; and I suppose it is so with a bright button."

Then Caleb turned around, so as to have his face towards the light; and he found that he could then see it reflected very distinctly. His grandmother went on with her work, and Caleb sat for some time in silence.

The house that Caleb lived in was in a narrow rocky valley. A stream of water ran over a sandy bed, in front of the house, and a rugged mountain towered behind it. Across the stream, too, there was a high, rocky hill, which was in full view from the parlour window. This hill was covered with wild evergreens, which clung to their sides, and to the interstices of the rocks; and mosses, green and brown, in long festoons, hung from their limbs. Here and there crags and precipices peeped out from among the foliage, and a grey old cliff towered above, at the summit.

Caleb turned his button round again towards the window, and of course turned his face from the window. The reflection of his face was now dim, as before, but in a moment his eye caught the reflection of the crags and trees across the little valley.

"O, grandmother," said he again, "I can see the rocks in my buttons, and the trees. And there is an old stump," he continued, his voice falling to a low tone, as if he was talking to himself, -- "and there is a tree, -- and, -- why -- why, what is that? It is a bear, grandmama," -- calling aloud to her, -- "I see a bear upon the mountain."

"Nonsense, Caleb," said the grandmother.

"I do certainly," said Caleb, and he dropped the corner of his jacket, which had the button attached to it, and looked out of the window directly at the mountain.

Presently Caleb turned away from the window, and ran to the door. There was a little green yard in front of the house, with a large, smooth, flat stone for a door-step. Caleb stood on this step, and looked intently at the mountain. In a moment he ran back to his grandmother, and said,

"Grandmother, do come and see this black bear."

"Why, child," said she, smiling, "it is nothing but some old black stump or log."

"But it moves, grandmother. It certainly moves."

So his grandmother smiled, and said, "Well, I suppose I must come and see." So she laid down her work, and took off her spectacles, and Caleb took hold of her hand, and trotted along before her to the step of the door. It was a beautiful sunny morning in June.

"There," said Caleb, triumphantly pointing to a spot among the rocks and bushes half-way up the mountain, -- "there, what do you call that?"

His grandmother looked a moment intently in silence, and then said,

"I do see something there under the bushes."

"And isn't it moving?" said Caleb.

"Why, yes," said she.

"And isn't it black?"

"Yes," said she.

"Then it is a bear," said Caleb, half-delighted, and half afraid, "Isn't it, grandmother? I'll go and get the gun."

There was an old gun behind the high desk, in the back sitting-room; but it had not been loaded for twenty years, and had no back upon it. Still Caleb always supposed that some how or other it would shoot.

"Shall I, grandmother?" said he eagerly,

"No," said she. "I don't think it is a bear."

"What then?" said Caleb.

"I think it is Cherry."

"Cherry!" said Caleb.

"Yes, Cherry," said she. "Run and see if you can find the boys."

Cherry was the cow. She had strayed from the pasture the day before, and they could not find her. She was called Cherry from her colour; for although she had looked almost black, as Caleb had seen her in the bushes, she was really a Cherry colour. Caleb saw at once, as soon as his grandmother said that it was Cherry, that she was correct. In fact, he could see her head and horns, as she was holding her head up to eat the leaves from the bushes. However he did not stop to talk about it, but, obeying his grandmother immediately, he ran off after the boys.

He went out to the back door, where the boys had been at play, and shouted out, "David! DA -- VID! DWI -- GHT! DA -- VID!" But there was no reply, except a distant echo of "David" and "Dwight" from the rocks and mountains.

So Caleb came back, and said that he could not find the boys, and that he supposed that they had gone to school.

"Then we must call Raymond," said she.

"And may I ring for him, grandmother?" said Caleb.

Grandmother said he might: and so Caleb ran off to the porch at the back door, and took down quite a large bell, which was hanging there. Caleb stood upon the steps of the porch, and grasping the great handle of the bell with both hands, he rang it with all his might. In a minute or two he stopped; and then he heard a faint and distant "Aye-aye" coming, from a field. Caleb put the bell back into its place, and then went again to his grandmother.

In a few minutes Raymond came in. He was a thick-set and rather tall young man, broad-shouldered and strong, -- slow in his motions, and of a very sober countenance. Caleb heard his heavy step in the entry, though he came slowly and carefully, as if he tried to walk without making a noise.

"Did you want me, Madam Rachel?" said he, holding his hat in his hand.

Caleb's grandmother was generally called Madam Rachel.

"Yes," said she. "Cherry has got up on the rocks. Caleb spied her there; he will shew you where, and I should like to have you go and drive her down."

Caleb wanted to go too; but his grandmother said it would not do very well, for he could not keep up with Raymond; and besides, she said that she wanted him. So Caleb went out with Raymond under the great elm before the house, and pointed out the place among the rocks, where he had seen Cherry. She was not there then, at least she was not in sight; but Raymond knew that she could not have gone far from the place, so he walked down over the bridge, and soon disappeared.

While Caleb stood watching Raymond, as he walked off with long strides towards the mountain, his grandmother came to the door and said,

"Come, Caleb."

Caleb turned and ran to his grandmother. She had in her hand a little red morocco book, and taking Caleb's hand, she went slowly up stairs, he frisking and capering around her all the way. There was a bed in the room, with a white covering, and by the window an easy chair, with a high back, and round well-stuffed arms. Madam Rachel went to the easy chair and sat down and took Caleb in her lap. Caleb looked out upon the long drooping branches of the elm which hung near the window.

Caleb's countenance was pale; and he was slender in form, and delicate in appearance. He had been sick, and even now, he was not quite well. His little taper fingers rested upon the window-sill, while his grandmother opened her little Bible and began to read. Caleb sat still in her lap, with a serious and attentive expression of countenance.

"Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a pharisee, the other a publican."

"What is a pharisee and a publican?" asked Caleb.

"You will hear presently. 'And the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers."

"What are all those?" asked Caleb.

"O, different kinds of crimes and sins. The pharisee thanked God that he had not committed any of them."

"Was he a good man, grandmother?"

"Very likely he had not committed any of these great crimes."

"Very well, grandmother, go on."

"'Or even as this publican.' A publican, you must know, was a tax-gatherer. He used to collect the taxes from the people. They did not like to pay their taxes, and so they did not like the tax-gatherers, and despised them. And thus the pharisee thanked God that he was not like that publican. 'I fast twice in the week. I pay tithes of all that I possess.'

"Tithes?" said Caleb.

"Yes, that was money which God had commanded them to pay. They were to pay in proportion to the property they had. But some dishonest men used to conceal some of their property, so as not to have to pay so much; but this pharisee said he paid tithes of all that he possessed."

"That was right, grandmother," said Caleb.

"Yes," said his grandmother, "that was very well."

"If he really did it," continued Caleb doubtfully. "Do you think he did, grandmother?"

"I think it very probable. I presume he was a pretty good man, outside."

"What do you mean by that, grandmother?"

"Why, his heart might have been bad, but he was probably pretty careful about all his actions, which could be seen of men. But we will go on."

"'And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.'"

"Which man?" said Caleb.

"The publican."

"The publican was justified?" said Caleb, "what does justified mean?"

"Forgiven and approved. God was pleased with the publican, because he confessed his sins honestly; but he was displeased with the pharisee, because he came boasting of his good deeds."

Here there was a pause. Caleb sat still and seemed thoughtful. His grandmother did not interrupt him, but waited to hear what he would say.

"Yes; but, grandmother, if the pharisee really was a good man, it wasn't right for him to thank God for it?"

"It reminds me of Thomas's acorns," said Madam Rachel.

"Thomas's acorns!" said Caleb, "tell me about them, grandmother."

"Why, Thomas and his brother George were sent to school. They stopped to play by the way, until it was so late that they did not dare to go in. Then they staid playing about the fields till it was time to go home. They felt pretty bad and out of humour, and at last they separated and went home different ways.

"In going home, Thomas found an oak-tree with acorns under it. 'Ah!' said he, 'I will carry mother home some acorns.' He had observed that his mother was pleased whenever he brought her things; and he had an idea of soothing his own feelings of guilt, and securing his mother's favour, by the good deed of carrying her home some acorns. So, when he came into the house, he took off his hat carefully, with the acorns in it, and holding it in both hands, marched up to his mother with a smiling face, and look of great self-satisfaction, and said, 'Here, mother, I have got you some acorns.'"

"And what did his mother say?" asked Caleb.

"She shook her head sorrowfully, and told him to go and put the acorns away. She knew where he had been.

"Then presently George came in. He put away his cap, walked in softly, and put his face down in his mother's lap, and said, with tears and sobs, 'Mother, I have been doing something very wrong.' Now, which of these do you think came to his mother right?'"

"Why, -- George," said he, "certainly."

"Yes, and that was the way the publican came; but the pharisee covered up all his sins, being pleased and satisfied himself, and thinking that God would be pleased and satisfied with his acorns."

Here Madam Rachel paused, and Caleb sat still, thinking of what he had heard.

Madam Rachel then closed her eyes, and, in a low, gentle voice, she spoke a few words of prayer; and then she told Caleb that he must always remember in all his prayers to confess his sins fully and freely, and never cover them up and conceal them, with an idea that his good deeds made him worthy. Then she put Caleb down, and he ran down stairs to play.

He asked his grandmother to let him go over the bridge, so as to be ready to meet Raymond, when he should come back with the cow. She at first advised him not to go, for she was afraid, she said, that he might get lost, or fall into the brook; but Caleb was very desirous to go, and finally she consented. He had a little whip that David had made for him. The handle was made from the branch of a beach-tree, which David cut first to make a cane of, for himself; but he broke his cane, and so he gave Caleb the rest of the stick for a whip-handle. The lash was made of leather. It was cut out of a round piece of thick leather, round and round, as they made leather shoe-strings, and then rolled upon a board. This is a fine way to make lashes and reins for boys.

Caleb took his whip for company, and sauntered along over the bridge. When he had crossed the bridge, he walked along the bank of the stream, watching the grass-hoppers and butterflies, and now and then cutting off the head of a weed with the lash of his whip.

The banks of the brook were in some places high, and the water deep; in other places, there was a sort of beach, sloping down to the water's edge; and here, the water was generally shallow, to a considerable distance from the shore. Caleb was allowed to come down to the water at these shallow places; but he had often been told that he must not go near the steep places, because there was danger that he would fall in.

Now, boys are not very naturally inclined to obey their parents. They have to be taught with great pains and care. They must be punished for disobedience, in some way or other, a good many times. But neglected children, that is, those that are left to themselves, are almost always very disobedient and unsubmissive. Caleb, now, was not a neglected child. He had been taught to submit and obey, when he was very young, and his grandmother could trust him now.

Besides, Caleb, had still less disposition now to disobey his grandmother than usual, for he had been sick, and was still pale and feeble; and this state of health often makes children quiet, gentle, and submissive.

So Caleb walked slowly along, carefully avoiding all the high banks, but sometimes going down to the water, where the shore was sloping and safe. At length, at one of these little landing places he stopped longer than usual. He called it the cotton landing. David and Dwight gave it that name, because they always found, wedged in, in a corner between a log and the shore, a pile of cotton, as they called it. It was, in reality, light, white froth, which always lay there; and even if they pushed it all away with a stick, they would find a new supply the next day. Caleb stood upon the shore, and with the lash of his whip, cut into the pile of "cotton." The pile broke up into large masses, and moved slowly and lightly away into the stream. One small tuft of it floated towards the shore, and Caleb reached it with his whip-handle, and took a part of it in, saying, "Now I will see what it is made of."

On closely examining it, he found to his surprise, that it was composed of an infinite number of very small bubbles, piled one upon another, like the little stones in a heap of gravel. It was white and beautiful, and in some of the biggest bubbles, Caleb could see all the colours of the rainbow. He wondered where this foam could come from, and he determined to carry some of it home to his grandmother. So he stripped off a flat piece of birch bark from a neighbouring tree, and took up a little of the froth upon it, and placed it very carefully upon a rock on the bank, where it would remain safely, he thought, till he was ready to go home.

Just above where he stood was a little waterfall in the brook. The current was stopped by some stones and logs, and the water tumbled over the obstruction, forming quite a little cataract, which sparkled in the sun.

Caleb threw sticks and pieces of bark into the water, above the fall, and watched them as they sailed on, faster and faster, and then pitched down the descent. Then he would go and whip them into his landing, and thus he could take them out, and sail them down again. After amusing himself some time in this manner, he began to wonder why Raymond did not come, and he concluded to take his foam, and go along. He went to the rock and took up his birch bark; but, to his surprise, the foam had disappeared. He was wondering what had become of it, when he heard across the road, and at a little distance above him, a scrambling in the bushes, on the side of the mountain. At first, he was afraid; but in a moment more, he caught a glimpse of the cow coming out of the bushes, and supposing that Raymond was behind, he threw down his birch bark, and began to gallop off to meet him, lashing the ground with his whip.

At the same time, the cow, somewhat worried by being driven pretty fast down the rocks, came running out into the road, and when she saw Caleb coming towards her, and with such antics, began to cut capers too. She came on, in a kind of half-frolicsome, half-angry canter, shaking her horns; and Caleb, before he got very near her, began to be somewhat frightened. At first he stopped, looking at her with alarm. Then he began to fall back to the side of the road, towards the brook. At this instant Raymond appeared coming out of the bushes, and, seeing Caleb, called out to him to stand still.

"Stand still, Caleb, till she goes by: she will not hurt you." But Caleb could not control his fears. His little heart beat quick, and his pale cheek grew paler. He could not control his fears, though he knew very well that what Raymond said must be true. He kept retreating backwards nearer and nearer to the brook, as the cow came on, whipping the air, towards her to keep her off. He was now at some little distance above the cotton landing, and opposite to a part of the bank where the water was deep. Raymond perceived his danger, and as he was now on the very brink, he shouted out suddenly,

"Caleb! Caleb! take care!"

But the sudden call only frightened poor Caleb still more; and before the "Take care" was uttered, his foot slipped, and he slid back into the water, and sank into it until he entirely disappeared.

Raymond rushed to the place, and in an instant was in the water by his side, and pulling Caleb out, he carried him gasping to the shore. He wiped his face with his handkerchief, and tried to cheer and encourage him.

"Never, mind, Caleb," said he; "it won't hurt you. It is a warm sunny morning." Caleb cried a few minutes, but, finally, became pretty nearly calm, and Raymond led him along towards home, sobbing as he went, "O dear me! -- what will my grandmother say?"




Chapter II.

Trouble.


As Caleb walked along by the side of Raymond, and came upon the bridge, he was seen both by his grandmother, who happened to be standing at the door, and also at the same instant, by the two boys, Dwight and David, who were just then coming home from school. Dwight, seeing Caleb walking along so sadly, his clothes and hair thoroughly drenched, set up a shout, and ran towards him over the bridge. David was of a more quiet and sober turn, and he followed more slowly, but with a face full of surprise and curiosity.

Madam Rachel, too, perceived that her little grandson had been in the brook, and she said, "Can it be possible that he has disobeyed?" Then, again, the next thought was, "Well, if he has, he has been punished for it pretty severely, and so I will treat him kindly."

David and Dwight came eagerly up, with exclamations, and questions without number. This made poor Caleb feel worse and worse -- he wanted to get home as soon as possible, and he could not tell the boys all the story there; and presently Raymond, finding that he could not get by them very well, took him up in his arms, and carried him towards the house, David and Dwight following behind. Caleb expected that his grandmother would think him very much to blame, and so, as he came near enough to speak to her, he raised his head from Raymond's shoulder, and began to say,

"I am very sorry, grandmother; but I could not help it. I certainly could not help it."

But he saw at once, by his grandmother's pleasant-looking face, that she was not going to find any fault with him.

"You have not hurt yourself, Caleb, I hope," said she, as Raymond put him down.

"No," said he, "but I feel rather cold."

His grandmother said she would soon warm him, and she led him into a little bedroom, where he was accustomed to sleep, and undressed him, talking good-humouredly with him all the while, so as to relieve his fears, and make him feel more happy. She wiped him dry with soft flannel, and gave him some clean, dry clothes, and made him very comfortable again. She did not ask him how he happened to fall in the water, for she knew it would trouble him to talk about it. So she amused him by talking about other things, and at last let him out again into the parlour.

The wetting did Caleb no injury; but the fright and the suddenness of the plunge gave him a shock, which, in his feeble state of health, he was ill able to bear. A good stout boy, with red cheeks and plump limbs, would not have regarded it at all, but would have been off to play again just as soon as his clothes were changed. But poor Caleb sat down in his little rocking chair by the side of his grandmother, and began to rock back and forth, as if he was rocking away the memory of his troubles, while his grandmother went on with her work.

Presently he stopped to listen to the voices of Dwight and David, who were out before the house.

"Grandmother," said he, "is that the boys?"

"Yes," said she, "I believe it is."

Then Caleb went on rocking, and the voices died away.

Presently, they came nearer again. The boys seemed to be passing down in front of the house, with a wheelbarrow, towards the water.

"Grandmother," said Caleb, stopping again, "what do you suppose the boys are doing?"

"I don't know," said she, "should not you like to go and see? You can play with them half an hour before dinner, if you please."

Caleb did not answer, but began to rock again. He did not seem inclined to go.

Soon after he heard a splash, as of stones thrown into the water. Caleb started up and said,

"Grandmother, what can they be doing?"

"I don't know," said she, "if you want to know very much, you must go and see."

Caleb rose slowly, put his rocking chair back into its place, and went to the door. He looked down towards the bank of the brook before the house, and saw Dwight and David there. They had a wheelbarrow close to the edge of the water, with a few stones in it, some as big as Caleb's head. Each of the boys had a stone in his hand, which he was just throwing into the brook. Caleb had a great desire to go down and see what they were doing; but he felt weak and tired, and so, after looking on a moment, he said to himself, "I had rather sit down here." So he sat down upon the step of the door, and looked on.

After the boys had thrown one or two large stones into the water, they took hold of the wheelbarrow, and, then, tipping it up, the whole load slid down into the water, close to the shore. The boys then came back, wheeling the great wheelbarrow up into the road.

They went after another load of stones, and Caleb's curiosity was so far awakened, that he rose slowly, and walked down towards the place. In a few minutes, the boys came back with their load; David wheeling, and Dwight walking along by his side, and pushing as well as he could, to help. As soon as he saw Caleb, he began to call out,

"O Caleb, you were afraid of a cow!"

Caleb looked sad and unhappy. David said,

"I would not laugh at him, Dwight. Caleb, we are building a mole."

"A mole!" said Caleb. "What is that?"

"Why, it is a kind of wharf, built out far into the water, to make a harbour for our shipping. We learned about it in our geography."

"Yes," said Dwight, coming up, eagerly, to Caleb, "you see the current carries all our vessels down the stream, you know, Caleb, and we are going to build out a long mole, out into the middle of the brook, and that will stop our vessels; and then we are going to make it pretty wide, so that we can walk out upon it, and the end of it will do for a wharf."

"Yes, it will be a sort of harbour for 'em," said David.

Caleb looked quite pleased at this plan and wanted the boys to let him help; and Dwight said he might go and help them get their next load of stones.

But Caleb did not help much, although he really tried to help. He kept getting into the other boys' way. At last Dwight got out of patience, and said,

"Caleb, you don't help us the least mite. I wish you would go away."

But Caleb wanted to help; and Dwight tried to make him go away. Presently, he began to laugh at him for being afraid of a cow.

"I suppose I could frighten you by moo-ing at you, Caleb."

Caleb did not answer, but walked along by the side of the wheelbarrow. David was wheeling it; for they had now got it loaded, and were going back to the shore of the brook, Caleb on one side, and Dwight upon the other. Dwight saw that Caleb hung his head, and looked confused.

"Moo! moo!" said Dwight.

Caleb walked along silent as before.

"Moo! moo!" said Dwight, running round to Caleb's side of the wheelbarrow, and moo-ing close into his ear.

Caleb let go of the wheelbarrow, turned around, burst into tears, and walked slowly and sorrowfully away towards the house.

"There, now," said David, "you have made him cry. What do you want to trouble him so for?"

Dwight looked after Caleb, and seeing that he was going to the house, he was afraid that he would tell his grandmother. So he ran after him, and began to call to him to stop; but, before he had gone many steps, he saw his grandmother standing at the door of the house, and calling to them all to come.

Caleb had nearly stopped crying when he came up to his grandmother. She did not say any thing to him about the cause of his trouble, but asked him if he was willing to go down cellar with Mary Anna, and help her choose a plateful of apples for dinner. His eye brightened at this proposal, and Mary Anna, who was sitting at the window, reading, rose, laid down her book, took hold of his hand with a smile, and led him away.

Madam Rachel then went to her seat in her great arm-chair, and David and Dwight came and stood by her side.

"I am sorry, Dwight, that you wanted to trouble Caleb."

"But, mother," said Dwight, "I only moo-ed at him a little."

"And what did you do it for?"

"O, only for fun, mother."

"Did you suppose it gave him pain?"

"Why, -- I don't know."

"Did you suppose it gave him pleasure?"

"Why, no," said Dwight, looking down.

"And did not you know that it gave him pain? Now, tell me, honestly."

"Why, yes, mother, I knew it plagued him a little; but then I only did it for fun."

"I know it," said Madam Rachel; "and that is the very thing that makes me so sorry for it."

"Why, mother?" said Dwight in a tone of surprise.

"Because if you had given Caleb four times as much pain for any other reason, I should not have thought half so much of it, as to have you trouble him for fun. If it had been to do him any good, or to do any body else any good, or from mistake, or mere thoughtlessness, I should not have thought so much of it; but to do it for fun!"

Here Madam Rachel stopped, as if she did not know what to say.

"I rather think, mother, it was only thoughtlessness," said David, by way of excusing Dwight.

"No; because he knew that it gave Caleb pain, and it was, in fact, for the very purpose of giving him pain, that Dwight did it. If he had been saying moo accidentally, without thinking of troubling Caleb, that would have been thoughtlessness; but it was not so. And what makes me most unhappy about this," continued Madam Rachel, putting her hand gently on Dwight's head, "is that my dear Dwight has a heart capable under some circumstances, of taking pleasure in the sufferings of a helpless little child."

David and Dwight were both silent, though they saw clearly that what their mother said was true.

"And yet, perhaps, you think it is a very little thing after all," she continued, "just moo-ing at Caleb a little. The pain it gave him was soon over. Just sending him down cellar to get apples, made him forget it in a moment; so that you see it is not the mischief that is done, in this case, but the spirit of mind in you, that it shews. It is a little thing, I know; but then it is a little symptom of a very bad disease. It is very hard to cure."

"Well, mother," said Dwight, looking up, and speaking very positively, "I am determined not to trouble Caleb any more."

"Yes, but I am afraid your determinations won't reach the difficulty. As long as the spirit of mind remains, so that you are capable of taking pleasure in the sufferings of another, your determinations not to indulge the bad spirit, will not do much good. You will forget them all, when the temptation comes. Don't you remember how often I have talked with you about this, and how often you have promised not to do it, before?"

"Why, yes, mother," said Dwight, despondingly.

"So, you see determinations will not do much good. As long as your heart is malicious, the malice will come out in spite of all your determinations."

Just at this moment Caleb came in, bringing his plate of apples, with an air of great importance and satisfaction. He had nearly forgotten his troubles. Soon after this, dinner was brought in, and Madam Rachel said no more to the boys about malice. After dinner, they went out again to play.




Chapter III.

Building The Mole.


Caleb sat down upon the step of the door, eating a piece of bread, while Dwight and David returned to their work of building the mole. They got the wheelbarrow, and loaded it with stones.

Caleb sat a few minutes more at the door, and then he went into the house, and got his little rocking chair, and brought it out under the elm, and sat down there, looking towards the boys, who were at work near the water. At last, David spied him sitting there, and said,

"There is Caleb, sitting under the great tree."

Dwight looked around, and then, throwing down the stone that he had in his hands, he said,

"I mean to go and get him to come here."

So he ran towards him, and said,

"Come, Caleb, come down here, and help us make our mole."

"No," said Caleb, shaking his head, and, turning away a little; "I don't want to go."

"O, do come, Caleb," said Dwight; "I won't trouble you any more."

"No," said Caleb: "I am tired, and I had rather stay here in my little chair."

"But I will carry your chair down to the brook; and there is a beautiful place there to sit and see us tumble in the stones."

So Caleb got up, and Dwight took his chair, and they walked together down to the shore of the brook. Dwight found a little spot so smooth and level, that the rocking-chair would stand very even upon it, though it would not rock very well, for the ground was not hard, like a floor. Caleb rested his elbow upon the arm of his chair, and his pale cheek in his little slender hand, and watched the stones, as, one after another, they fell into the brook.

The brook at this place, was very wide and shallow, and the current was not very rapid, so that they got along pretty fast; and thus the mole advanced steadily out into the stream.

"Well, Caleb," said Dwight, as he stopped, after they had tossed out all the stones from the wheelbarrow, "and how do you like our mole?"

"O, not very well," said Caleb.

"Why not?" said Dwight, surprised.

"It is so stony."

"Stony?" said Dwight.

"Yes," said Caleb, "I don't think I could walk on it very well."

"O," said Dwight, "we are going to make the top very smooth, when we get it done."

"How?" said Caleb.

"Why, we are going to haul gravel on it, and smooth it all down."

"Why can't we do it now?" said David, "as we go along: and then we can wheel our wheelbarrow out upon it, and tip our stones in at the end."

"Agreed," said Dwight; and they accordingly leveled the stones off on the top, and put small stones in at all the interstices, that is, the little spaces between the large stones, so as to prevent the gravel from running down through. Then they went and got a load of gravel out of a bank pretty near, and spread it down over the top, and it made a good, smooth road; only, it was not trodden down hard at first, and so it was not very easy wheeling over it.

They found one difficulty, however, and that was that the gravel rolled over each side of the mole, and went into the water. To prevent this, they arranged the largest stones on each side, in a row, for the edge, and then filled in with gravel up to the edge, and thus they gradually advanced towards the middle of the stream, finishing the mole completely as they went on. Caleb then said he liked it very much, and wanted to walk on it. So the boys let him. He went out to the end, and stood there a minute, and then said that he wished he had his whip there, to whip in a stick which was sailing down a little way off.

"Where is your whip?" said David.

"I suppose it is hanging up on its nail," said Caleb, "I mean to go and get it."

So Caleb walked off the mole, and went slowly up towards the house, singing by the way, while David and Dwight went after another load of gravel. While they were putting down this load, and spreading it on, Caleb came back, looking disappointed and sorrowful, and saying that he could not find his whip.

"Where did you put it when you had it last?" asked David.

"I put it on the nail," said Caleb, "I always put it on the nail."

"O, no, Caleb," said Dwight; "you must have left it about somewhere."

"No," said Caleb, shaking his head with a positive air, "I am sure I put it on my nail."

"When did you have it last?"

"Why, -- let me see," said Caleb, thinking. "I had it yesterday, playing horses on the wood-pile: and then I had it this morning, -- I believe, -- when I went up the brook to meet Raymond."

"Then you left it up there, I know," said Dwight.

"No," said Caleb, "I am sure I put it on my nail."

"You did not have it, Caleb," said David, mildly, "when we met you on the bridge."

"Didn't I?" said Caleb, standing still and trying to think.

"No," replied Dwight, decidedly.

"I wish you would go up there with me, and help me find it."

"Why, we want to finish our mole," said David.

"I'll go," said Dwight, "while you, David, get another load of gravel. Come, Caleb," said he, "go and shew me where it was."

So Dwight and Caleb walked on. They went down to the bridge, crossed the stream upon it, then turned up, on the opposite bank, and walked on until they came to the cotton landing. Caleb then pointed to the place where he had fallen in; and they looked all about there, upon the bank, and in the water, but in vain. No whip was to be found.

Before they returned, they stopped a moment at the cotton landing, and Caleb shewed Dwight that the cotton was all made of little bubbles. They got some of it to the shore and examined it, and then, just as they were going away. Dwight exclaimed, suddenly,

"There is your whip, now, Caleb."

Caleb looked round, and saw that Dwight was pointing towards the little fall or rather great ripple of water, and there, just in the fall, was the whip-handle floating, and kept from drifting away by the lash, which had got caught in the rocks. There the handle lay, or rather hung, bobbing up and down, and struggling as if it was trying to get free.

After various attempts to liberate it, by throwing sticks and stones at it, Dwight took off his shoes, turned up his pantaloons to his knees, and waded in to the place, and after carefully extricating the whip, brought it safely to the shore.

"I am very glad I have got my whip again," said Caleb, while Dwight was putting on his shoes.

"I am glad too," said Dwight. "But you told a lie about it, Caleb."

"A lie!" said Caleb.

"Yes: you said you certainly hung it up upon the nail," said Dwight, as they began to walk along.

"Well, I thought I did," said Caleb.

"That makes no difference. You did not say you thought you hung it up, but that you were sure you did."

"Well, I certainly thought I did," said Caleb; "and I am sure it wasn't a lie."

Dwight insisted that it was, and Caleb determined to ask his grandmother.

They returned to the mole.

It was not long after this, that David, on looking towards the house, called out that his mother was coming. It was true. She put on her bonnet, and was coming slowly down to the brook, to see how the boys got on with their work. They were rejoiced to see her coming. They took Caleb's chair, and laid it down upon its side, and then put one of the side-pieces of the wheelbarrow upon it with the clean side up; and this made quite a comfortable seat for her, though it was a little unsteady. She sat down upon it, and made a good many enquiries about their plan and the progress of the work.

"Well, boys," said she, "that is a capital plan, and you will have a great eddy above your mole."

"An eddy!" said Dwight, "what is that?"