The St. Johns herald., 1897-06-19
@|THE OTHER BOX.~@

been settled with due eXactneSS. The Junior Subaltern had been an uncon- sclonable time at work It is proba ble that he was getting very sick of his hoax, and would have been glad enough to show it up if anyone had given him the lead. After all, he knew that there was an ugly side to the farce, and as his first boyish enthusiasm died away he wanted to throw the thing up. But no one helped him out of it, and for very shame he could scarcely give him. self away. Besides, the two principals wouldn't have thanked him.
 Nothing more remained to be done. There was solemn enough leave-taking on all sides as the five youngsters filed out of the room and locked the door, leaving the two men in their corners and the box In the center of the room. For moment or two the five stood in silence out in the passage, the Junior Subaltern holding the end of the string and shaking like an aspen leaf with suppressed excitement. Then he gave 1t sharp tug, and they could hear the box-lid sliding back until it dropped to the floor with slight smack.
 It was a hushed and rather con- science-stricken band that dispersed to the various rooms in quarters, and the hours of that night hung heavily. It is a fact that the five youngsters did not average an hour ofsleep between them. This was proved by the alacrity with which they all turned out at the first break of dawn, and assembled, shiver- ing and dra wn-looking and haggard, ready to go and release their voluntary prisoners.
 They were, in fact, so disturbed that they took no notice of the Senior Cap tain, who, for some reason best known to himself, had turned out, too, and fol lowed them as they trod softly along to the door of the disused room. He was still unnoticed as they reached 1t, and there made marked halt; and his curiosity to see their little game pre- vented him from announcing himself. They stood for a moment in breathless silence, showing a strange, sudden dis inclination to stir.
 Then, as was the case the night be- fore, the Junior Subaltern took the lead. There was faint murmur es he turned the key In the lock and stepped boldly into the room the rest following in a crowd. The Senior Captain stood for a moment outside, wondering and trying to make out what it all meant. But sudden, stifled cry caused him to step quickly after them.
 He was a man who had been in sev- eral actions. He had seen men killed under all sorts of ghastly circum- stances. He had commanded burial parties sent out ofter the Afghan wo- men had been at their devilish work, and had seen sights that, hardened as he was, had made him feel sick and full of horror. But those scenes were in no way comparable with what met his eyes as he entered the room behind his juniors.
 The two men were no longer propped up in the position In which they had |. bodies were huddled on the floor in at- titudes that showed the awful manner in which they had met their doom. But the figures, almost grotesque in the cOntortions which had attended the last death agony, were as nothing. In each case the face was upturned, livid, with distended cheeks and crack ed skin, with fiecks of blood ooZing from mouth and nose, and with eyes widely open and fear and horror In them past all description. It was not so much the physical agony as the ex- pression of terror In the fixed faces that rendered these corpses so dreadful to contemplate. Yet the two men, while alive, were as brave, with all their faults, as any men should be.
 As he looked in, the Captain was glued to the ground by the nameless horror of that death-stare. He seemed forgetful of his companions, of where he was, all his faculties concentrated on the two huddled masses on the floor.
 A ghastly incident aroused him. The Junior Subaltern burst into a laugh, faint at first, and then swelling into peal after peal of uproarious mirth. The others stood and watched him.
 "Ha! hap he shouted, reeling from foot to foot, and holding his shaking sides. Look at them! Don't they sham we'll? Aren't they first-rate ac- tors?'
 The Senior Captain stepped up t. him, and laid a hand roughly on his shoulder.
 Then the boy turned, and they could all see in his eyes that he was rad. But the touch had Quieted him.
 'They act beautifully, don't they?" he whispered confidentially to his senior officer. q wonder when they first found out the joke"
 What do you mean?" asked the other, soothingly.
 'Mean?" the maniac replied. ''Why, don't you see? had two boxes just alike, and put the empty box in here. The snake Is still in my own room.
 It seemed something like a grim con- tradiction that, almost at the same mo- meNt, a fiat, spectacled head reared itself under one of the bodies, and two baleful eyes surveyed the awe-struck grOup.-San Francisco Argonaut