The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1897-11-09

and that the betrothal Of his eldest
daughter had been announced. But the
day before the festivities in honor of the
former occasion the son, Don Manuelo,
had sat in the plaza with Don Jose, his
sisters betrothed, who had left it, it
was easily proved, with merry party
of grandees, Don Manuelo waving them
merry goodby. Passersby saw him
sitting there alone, sunken down as if
resting, and there he was found some
what later, dead, evidently by strangu-
lation. There was the usual sensation
and more than the usual search for the
murderer who had left no clew
Three months after this event the
little Innocencia, the 4-year-old daugh-
condition in the grounds of Don Perez,
the father of the betrothed of Dona
Theresa, Don Pico's eldest daughter.
The residence Of Don Perez was but a
block from that of Don Pico AS in the
case of her brother, the police found
positively no clew
These calamities caused the postpone
ment for one year of the nuptials of
Don Jose and Dona Theresa, at the end
of which time they were celebrated with
all churchly and social ceremonies
Upon their return from the wedding
journey Don Jose and his beautiful lady
took up their residence at the house Of
Don Perez. Scarce a fortnight had
elapsed when Dona Theresa was found
dead in her bed-likewise her husband s
bed. Marks upon her tender neck show
ed that she had been garroted All drew
two conclusions-Don Manuelo and lit
tie Innocencia had been garroted, and
Don Jose was the criminal His protes-
tations, denials and anguish availed
nothing. He was hurried away to prison.
An accident saved his life-the shut.
ting Of window.
Dona Maria Theresa, the sorely
afflicted wife of Don Pico, had become
the victim of insomnia since these re-
peated family bereavements and fancied
strange noises in their apartment at
night Don Pico gave heed and listened
for himself for few nights, but heard
nothing and attributed the noises to a
woman fears, but Dona Maria Theresa
arose one night because she heard the
noise and shut the window AS she APP
preached the window, hung with vines,
one of the house cats jumped from the
sill to the thick vines and rustled away
among them, and the lady was reas-
sured and slept-slept all the longer
and more heavily because of sleepless
nights
When she awoke in the morning she
looked at Don Pico. But was it Don
Pico beside her, that purple, swollen
face with awful eyes? The lady s reason
fed in that awful look, and her screams
aroused the household Investigation
seemed at first to offer no clew, but at
length at the back of the top of large
frame containing an oil painting of his
lady in her youth was found power
full snake whose bright eyes watched
the window and all whose efforts were
toward reaching it, which he never did,
dying as nonresistant as though in a
trance.
Don Jose was liberated
Liz Olu, udIIul6SS lOOK1UR m0n talked
and smoked next evening and for many
evenings behind their little house and
sometimes boiled their sardines over a
coal fire and looked across at the great
house of Don Pico and talked-as who
did not?
Excitement was gradually depressed
after the source of the mysterious
deaths was indisputable. The snake had
coiled about them all, but Don Pico had
strength to struggle and had been bitten
instead of only strangled Some asked
why snake should discern only mem
bers of the Pico family, but none could
guess the reason.
And far away in the divine beauty Of
a Peruvian cordillera two old men look
aloft toward the man stunning condor
two old, brown men, grown harmless
and with no uncanny companions--herd
with Indian women and brown babies
and drink from rude golden bowls and
go down to the sea no more. A. r.
Kalfus in San Francisco Argonaut.