'Guess, ma'am, nothin's too terrible to the explorin' mind. I've beenin some queer places in my time. Spent a night inside a dead horsewhile a prairie fire swept over me in Montana Territory--an' anothertime slept inside a dead buffler when the Comanches was on the warpath an' I didn't keer to leave my kyard on them. I've been two daysin a caved-in tunnel in the Billy Broncho gold mine in New Mexico, an'was one of the four shut up for three parts of a day in the caissonwhat slid over on her side when we was settin' the foundations of theBuffalo Bridge. I've not funked an odd experience yet, an' I don'tpropose to begin now!'
We saw that he was set on the experiment, so I said: 'Well, hurry up,old man, and get through it quick!'
'All right, General,' said he, 'but I calculate we ain't quite readyyet. The gentlemen, my predecessors, what stood in that thar canister,didn't volunteer for the office--not much! And I guess there was someornamental tyin' up before the big stroke was made. I want to go intothis thing fair and square, so I must get fixed up proper first. Idare say this old galoot can rise some string and tie me up accordin'to sample?'
This was said interrogatively to the old custodian, but the latter,who understood the drift of his speech, though perhaps notappreciating to the full the niceties of dialect and imagery, shookhis head. His protest was, however, only formal and made to beovercome. The American thrust a gold piece into his hand, saying:'Take it, pard! it's your pot; and don't be skeer'd. This ain't nonecktie party that you're asked to assist in!' He produced some thinfrayed rope and proceeded to bind our companion with sufficientstrictness for the purpose. When the upper part of his body was bound,Hutcheson said:
'Hold on a moment, Judge. Guess I'm too heavy for you to tote into thecanister. You jest let me walk in, and then you can wash up regardin'my legs!'
Whilst speaking he had backed himself into the opening which was justenough to hold him. It was a close fit and no mistake. Amelia lookedon with fear in her eyes, but she evidently did not like to sayanything. Then the custodian completed his task by tying theAmerican's feet together so that he was now absolutely helpless andfixed in his voluntary prison. He seemed to really enjoy it, and theincipient smile which was habitual to his face blossomed intoactuality as he said:
'Guess this here Eve was made out of the rib of a dwarf! There ain'tmuch room for a full-grown citizen of the United States to hustle. Weuster make our coffins more roomier in Idaho territory. Now, Judge,you jest begin to let this door down, slow, on to me. I want to feelthe same pleasure as the other jays had when those spikes began tomove toward their eyes!'
'Oh no! no! no!' broke in Amelia hysterically. 'It is too terrible! Ican't bear to see it!--I can't! I can't!' But the American wasobdurate. 'Say, Colonel,' said he, 'why not take Madame for a littlepromenade? I wouldn't hurt her feelin's for the world; but now that Iam here, havin' kem eight thousand miles, wouldn't it be too hard togive up the very experience I've been pinin' an' pantin' fur? A mancan't get to feel like canned goods every time! Me and the Judgehere'll fix up this thing in no time, an' then you'll come back, an'we'll all laugh together!'
Once more the resolution that is born of curiosity triumphed, andAmelia stayed holding tight to my arm and shivering whilst thecustodian began to slacken slowly inch by inch the rope that held backthe iron door. Hutcheson's face was positively radiant as his eyesfollowed the first movement of the spikes.
'Wall!' he said, 'I guess I've not had enjoyment like this since Ileft Noo York. Bar a scrap with a French sailor at Wapping--an' thatwarn't much of a picnic neither--I've not had a show fur real pleasurein this dod-rotted Continent, where there ain't no b'ars nor noInjuns, an' wheer nary man goes heeled. Slow there, Judge! Don't yourush this business! I want a show for my money this game--I du!'
The custodian must have had in him some of the blood of hispredecessors in that ghastly tower, for he worked the engine with adeliberate and excruciating slowness which after five minutes, inwhich the outer edge of the door had not moved half as many inches,began to overcome Amelia. I saw her lips whiten, and felt her holdupon my arm relax. I looked around an instant for a place whereon tolay her, and when I looked at her again found that her eye had becomefixed on the side of the Virgin. Following its direction I saw theblack cat crouching out of sight. Her green eyes shone like dangerlamps in the gloom of the place, and their colour was heightened bythe blood which still smeared her coat and reddened her mouth. I criedout:
'The cat! look out for the cat!' for even then she sprang out beforethe engine. At this moment she looked like a triumphant demon. Hereyes blazed with ferocity, her hair bristled out till she seemed twiceher normal size, and her tail lashed about as does a tiger's when thequarry is before it. Elias P. Hutcheson when he saw her was amused,and his eyes positively sparkled with fun as he said:
'Darned if the squaw hain't got on all her war paint! Jest give her ashove off if she comes any of her tricks on me, for I'm so fixedeverlastingly by the boss, that durn my skin if I can keep my eyesfrom her if she wants them! Easy there, Judge! don't you slack that arrope or I'm euchered!'
At this moment Amelia completed her faint, and I had to clutch hold ofher round the waist or she would have fallen to the floor. Whilstattending to her I saw the black cat crouching for a spring, andjumped up to turn the creature out.
But at that instant, with a sort of hellish scream, she hurledherself, not as we expected at Hutcheson, but straight at the face ofthe custodian. Her claws seemed to be tearing wildly as one sees inthe Chinese drawings of the dragon rampant, and as I looked I saw oneof them light on the poor man's eye, and actually tear through it anddown his cheek, leaving a wide band of red where the blood seemed tospurt from every vein.
With a yell of sheer terror which came quicker than even his sense ofpain, the man leaped back, dropping as he did so the rope which heldback the iron door. I jumped for it, but was too late, for the cordran like lightning through the pulley-block, and the heavy mass fellforward from its own weight.
/> As the door closed I caught a glimpse of our poor companion's face. Heseemed frozen with terror. His eyes stared with a horrible anguish asif dazed, and no sound came from his lips.
And then the spikes did their work. Happily the end was quick, forwhen I wrenched open the door they had pierced so deep that they hadlocked in the bones of the skull through which they had crushed, andactually tore him--it--out of his iron prison till, bound as he was,he fell at full length with a sickly thud upon the floor, the faceturning upward as he fell.
I rushed to my wife, lifted her up and carried her out, for I fearedfor her very reason if she should wake from her faint to such a scene.I laid her on the bench outside and ran back. Leaning against thewooden column was the custodian moaning in pain whilst he held hisreddening handkerchief to his eyes. And sitting on the head of thepoor American was the cat, purring loudly as she licked the bloodwhich trickled through the gashed socket of his eyes.
I think no one will call me cruel because I seized one of the oldexecutioner's swords and shore her in two as she sat.
The Secret of the Growing Gold
When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent's Rock the wholeneighbourhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal.Scandals in connection with either the Delandre family or the Brentsof Brent's Rock, were not few; and if the secret history of the countyhad been written in full both names would have been found wellrepresented. It is true that the status of each was so different thatthey might have belonged to different continents--or to differentworlds for the matter of that--for hitherto their orbits had nevercrossed. The Brents were accorded by the whole section of the countrya unique social dominance, and had ever held themselves as high abovethe yeoman class to which Margaret Delandre belonged, as ablue-blooded Spanish hidalgo out-tops his peasant tenantry.
The Delandres had an ancient record and were proud of it in their wayas the Brents were of theirs. But the family had never risen aboveyeomanry; and although they had been once well-to-do in the good oldtimes of foreign wars and protection, their fortunes had witheredunder the scorching of the free trade sun and the 'piping times ofpeace.' They had, as the elder members used to assert, 'stuck to theland', with the result that they had taken root in it, body and soul.In fact, they, having chosen the life of vegetables, had flourishedas vegetation does--blossomed and thrived in the good season andsuffered in the bad. Their holding, Dander's Croft, seemed to havebeen worked out, and to be typical of the family which had inhabitedit. The latter had declined generation after generation, sending outnow and again some abortive shoot of unsatisfied energy in the shapeof a soldier or sailor, who had worked his way to the minor grades ofthe services and had there stopped, cut short either from unheedinggallantry in action or from that destroying cause to men withoutbreeding or youthful care--the recognition of a position above themwhich they feel unfitted to fill. So, little by little, the familydropped lower and lower, the men brooding and dissatisfied, anddrinking themselves into the grave, the women drudging at home, ormarrying beneath them--or worse. In process of time all disappeared,leaving only two in the Croft, Wykham Delandre and his sisterMargaret. The man and woman seemed to have inherited in masculine andfeminine form respectively the evil tendency of their race, sharing incommon the principles, though manifesting them in different ways, ofsullen passion, voluptuousness and recklessness.
The history of the Brents had been something similar, but showing thecauses of decadence in their aristocratic and not their plebeianforms. They, too, had sent their shoots to the wars; but theirpositions had been different and they had often attained honour--forwithout flaw they were gallant, and brave deeds were done by thembefore the selfish dissipation which marked them had sapped theirvigour.
The present head of the family--if family it could now be called whenone remained of the direct line--was Geoffrey Brent. He was almost atype of worn out race, manifesting in some ways its most brilliantqualities, and in others its utter degradation. He might be fairlycompared with some of those antique Italian nobles whom the paintershave preserved to us with their courage, their unscrupulousness, theirrefinement of lust and cruelty--the voluptuary actual with the fiendpotential. He was certainly handsome, with that dark, aquiline,commanding beauty which women so generally recognise as dominant. Withmen he was distant and cold; but such a bearing never deterswomankind. The inscrutable laws of sex have so arranged that even atimid woman is not afraid of a fierce and haughty man. And so it wasthat there was hardly a woman of any kind or degree, who lived withinview of Brent's Rock, who did not cherish some form of secretadmiration for the handsome wastrel. The category was a wide one, forBrent's Rock rose up steeply from the midst of a level region and fora circuit of a hundred miles it lay on the horizon, with its high oldtowers and steep roofs cutting the level edge of wood and hamlet, andfar-scattered mansions.
So long as Geoffrey Brent confined his dissipations to London andParis and Vienna--anywhere out of sight and sound of his home--opinionwas silent. It is easy to listen to far off echoes unmoved, and we cantreat them with disbelief, or scorn, or disdain, or whatever attitudeof coldness may suit our purpose. But when the scandal came close homeit was another matter; and the feelings of independence and integritywhich is in people of every community which is not utterly spoiled,asserted itself and demanded that condemnation should be expressed.Still there was a certain reticence in all, and no more notice wastaken of the existing facts than was absolutely necessary. MargaretDelandre bore herself so fearlessly and so openly--she accepted herposition as the justified companion of Geoffrey Brent so naturallythat people came to believe that she was secretly married to him, andtherefore thought it wiser to hold their tongues lest time shouldjustify her and also make her an active enemy.
The one person who, by his interference, could have settled all doubtswas debarred by circumstances from interfering in the matter. WykhamDelandre had quarrelled with his sister--or perhaps it was that shehad quarrelled with him--and they were on terms not merely of armedneutrality but of bitter hatred. The quarrel had been antecedent toMargaret going to Brent's Rock. She and Wykham had almost come toblows. There had certainly been threats on one side and on the other;and in the end Wykham, overcome with passion, had ordered his sisterto leave his house. She had risen straightway, and, without waiting topack up even her own personal belongings, had walked out of the house.On the threshold she had paused for a moment to hurl a bitter threatat Wykham that he would rue in shame and despair to the last hour ofhis life his act of that day. Some weeks had since passed; and it wasunderstood in the neighbourhood that Margaret had gone to London, whenshe suddenly appeared driving out with Geoffrey Brent, and the entireneighbourhood knew before nightfall that she had taken up her abode atthe Rock. It was no subject of surprise that Brent had come backunexpectedly, for such was his usual custom. Even his own servantsnever knew when to expect him, for there was a private door, of whichhe alone had the key, by which he sometimes entered without anyone inthe house being aware of his coming. This was his usual method ofappearing after a long absence.
Wykham Delandre was furious at the news. He vowed vengeance--and tokeep his mind level with his passion drank deeper than ever. He triedseveral times to see his sister, but she contemptuously refused tomeet him. He tried to have an interview with Brent and was refused byhim also. Then he tried to stop him in the road, but without avail,for Geoffrey was not a man to be stopped against his will. Severalactual encounters took place between the two men, and many more werethreatened and avoided. At last Wykham Delandre settled down to amorose, vengeful acceptance of the situation.
Neither Margaret nor Geoffrey was of a pacific temperament, and it wasnot long before there began to be quarrels between them. One thingwould lead to another, and wine flowed freely at Brent's Rock. Now andagain the quarrels would assume a bitter aspect, and threats would beexchanged in uncompromising language that fairly awed the listeningservants. But such quarrels generally ended where domesticaltercations do, in reconciliation, and in a mutual respect for thefighting qualities proportionate to their manifestation. Fighting forits own sake is found by a certain class of persons, all the worldover, to be a matter of absorbing interest, and there is no reason tobelieve that domestic conditions minimise its potency. Geoffrey andMargaret made occasional absences from Brent's Rock, and on each ofthese occasions Wykham Delandre also absented himself; but as hegenerally heard of the absence too late to be of any service, hereturned home each time in a more bitter and discontented frame ofmind than before.
At last there came a time when the absence from Brent's Rock becamelonger than before. Only a few days earlier there had been a quarrel,exceeding in bitterness anything which had gone before; but this, too,had been made up, and a trip on the Continent had been mentionedbefore the servants. After a few days Wykham Delandre also went away,and it was some weeks before he returned. It was noticed that he wasfull of some new importance--satisfaction, exaltation--they hardlyknew how to call it. He went straightway to Brent's Rock, and demandedto see Geoffrey Brent, and on being told that he