The Elk Mountain pilot., 1899-03-21
KILLING VILLAINS
HOW FAMOUS NOvELISTS DO
MURDER.
Some of Them Arc Brutal, Others Re-
fined, While the Great Majority En-
deavor to Do Something Original
Collins Alone GhastIy.

tei laiuiuS SdlleTy Oh TOSueS. Qullp
(the distorted DWARF, Rogue Riderhood
(the rufIian), and Bill Skies 0he brutal
cracksman) alike terminate their eX-
istence in watery grave; no small ad-
ditional pathos being added in the last
case by the fate of the ragged, beaten
cur, which, faithful even in death, fol-
lows his masters sullen corpse into the
reeking mud of Folly Ditch Ralph
Nickleby, Gashford and Jonas Chuzzle-
wit take their own lives; whilst Uriah
Heep, Squeers, and Littimer leave their
country for their country's good in
garbs gratuitously provided by govern
ment and freely embossed with broad
arrows
Perhaps the most grewsome of Dick
ems death scenes is that provided by
the fate of the ever-smiling Carker into
which the irresistible locomotive is i'm
pressed probably for the first time in
the history of fiction.
Scott's villains most frequently meet
with violent deaths at the hands of
others. But the sensation-lover has,
nevertheless, been catered for in
the death of Anthony Foster, the ac-
complice Of the prisoner Richard Var
ney. This miserable wretch is depicted
as hiding from his pursuers in a Sc
cret cell. The entrance to this is fas-
tened by means of a spring lock, of
which. however, he omits to retain the
key, with the consequence that he even
tually perishes miserably OF mingled
fear and famine.
Lytton's Might and Morning" gives
us the coiner Gawtrey, who meets his
fate at the hands OF the Paris police,
from whom he is attempting to es-
cape when a pistol-shot drops him over
the side of house to perish miserably.
This idea of falling from height is
by no means confined to Lytton. 1t Is
utilized by Anthony Hope. in "Phroso."
and by Stanley Weyman in Under the
Red Robe" where the villain and his
victim fall from lofty bridge into Il
seething torrent below. In this way
| too, Conan Doyle killed the immortal
Sherlock Holmes. who, fast locked in
struggle with the greatest villain
of them all" falls over an Alpine precl-
pice.
Wilkie Collins brings his principal
villain. the double-faced, calculating
| Count Fosco, to an ignoble end, he dis
| appearing for a time, only to reappear
upon the ghastly shelves of the Paris
morgue. A still more CHASTITY fate is
that of the she-fiend, Gagood, immor-
talized by Rider Haggard in king Sol
| omons Mines" Having conducted
| Quatermain. Curtis and party into
that celebrated monarch's rock-hewn
| treasury, which is guarded by pom
| derous rising door of living rock, she
touches secret spring, by means of
which the door begins once more to
descend with slow but Irresistible
motion.
Whilst the Englishmen are sizing up
the jewelry she makes off through the
rapidly lessening aperture. Her
progress is temporarily arrested by the
unfortunate girl Foulata, whom she
stabs in order to free herself. Hurried
ly scrambling over the threshold she is
caught by the inexorable force which
she has herself put in motion, and
realistically dramatic 'scrunch" puts
an end forever to the Vaccinations of
this truly horrible old woman.
Svengal. like Scott's Templar in
INdHHDt, ul'S llOlll tAItSSlNt
tai strain acting upon the heart;
whilst, to hark back to the days of the
bluff Doctor OF Fleet Street, the gentle,
genial-hearted Goldsmith is contented
to reform the rakish Squire Thornhill
in order that he may at last become the
exemplary spouse of the gentle Olivia,
around whom we wove that entranc-
ingly simple narrative, The Vicar OF
Wakefield"
Finally. the palm for writing lurid"
may fairly be accorded Harrison
Ainsworth for his thrilling disposal of
the two ghoulish wretches who haunt
the pages of his celebrated novel, "Old
Saint Pauls." The creatures who fat
tened upon the spoils of the dead and
dying during the Great Plague were
wont to stow their ili-gotten gains in
one OF the Cathedral vaults. The Ca
thedral taking fire, they hasten thither
in order to rescue their precious hoard,
The greed of gain, however. misleads
them into sojourning just a moment
too long.
AS they turn to leave the now sitting
vault, they see that thin silvery
stream is making its way down the
stairs, by which alone they can gain
an exit. Even as they look it thick
ems perceptibly and before they can
escape the whole stairway is blocked
and the vault around them begins to
fill with the silvery liquid. When it is
added that the Misunderstanding fluid
is nothing more or less than the molten
lead from the roof and windows of the
Cathedral, 1t will become apparent that
even Mr.. Gilbert's something with
boiling oil in it, possesses a dangerous
rival in the pages of "Old Saint Paul"