CHAPTER VI

A WANDERER FROM ARABY

Incredible as my assertion may appear to you who have just heard Lord

Galonfield relate his remarkable adventures, I may truly say that not

at any time since the night on which his lordship told me that he loved

me have I believed that his conduct on that occasion was inspired

by any motive other than a desire to obtain a fortune which, I was

assured, he believed would go with my hand.

Despite the fact that Meschid Pasha introduced me as his daughter,

there is not a drop of Moslem blood in my veins. My mother was the

daughter of Sir George Bridwell, a member of the British House of

Commons. When she was only twenty years of age, she became the second

wife of Prince Maranotti, the head of one of the noble families of

Italy. By his first wife Prince Maranotti had a son--Victor--who was

seven years old at the time of my mother’s marriage.

I was born a year after my mother became the Princess Maranotti. For

several months prior to my birth, the Prince’s unreasonable jealousy

had caused him to treat my mother with a degree of cruelty that was

almost inhuman. After I was born the Prince’s conduct became so

unbearable that, when I was only five months old, my mother, with me

in her arms, and accompanied only by a maid, fled from Italy. Her

brother had been serving as an attaché to the British embassy in

Constantinople, and it was to him she fled now for protection.

Upon our arrival in the Turkish capital, my mother learned that her

brother, having obtained leave of absence, had set out for England

only a few days before. The funds then in her possession were little

more than sufficient to take her and her infant and maid to England.

This course, however, she hesitated to follow. Her father was a man

dominated by a strong sense of duty, and she feared that he would

compel her to return to Prince Maranotti, whose vengeful disposition

was likely to cause him to inflict some terrible punishment upon

her. Despite her fears, she finally decided to go to London, but she

resolved that if Sir George reproached her with her conduct she would

seek refuge with relatives of her mother.

We were stopping then at a hotel in Pera, and, in order to elude Prince

Maranotti, or such agents as he might have employed to seek her, my

mother assumed the name of Mrs. Andrew Fenchurch. When her preparations

for her journey were completed, she sent for a couple of carriages

to take us and our luggage to the vessel on which we were to embark.

Entering the first carriage, with me in her arms, my mother directed

the maid to seat herself in the second, which contained articles of

value, and to meet us at the quay.

As the two carriages drew away from the hotel, my mother, though

wearing a thick veil, still feared discovery, and so drew down the

curtains of the vehicle in which she was seated.

At length the carriage stopped, and my mother, raising one of the

curtains, looked out. Instead of the entrance to the quay, she beheld

the richly carved walls of a splendid courtyard. Throwing open the

door, my mother called to the driver. The man made no reply, but a

few moments later four negroes, seizing her by the arms, forced her

to alight and enter a door which was opened at her approach. A fifth

negro, closely following the others, carried me in his arms. When the

negroes released my mother, she found herself in a sumptuous apartment

which, she was informed, was one of a suite in the harem of Meschid

Pasha.

Too terrified to question further the black-skinned men who were

stationed outside the door, my mother spent nearly twenty minutes of

nerve-racking suspense. Then there entered the apartment a man about

thirty-five years of age, with pleasing features and a sturdy figure.

He was clad in Turkish dress, and in him my mother recognized one of

the passengers who had been aboard the vessel that had brought her from

Naples.

To my mother this man then made the most ardent protestations of

affection. Because of the black garments she had worn since her

departure from Italy, he had thought her to be a widow, and had hoped

to win her consent to become his wife. My mother indignantly spurned

the affection that he offered her, and demanded her liberty.

Apparently thoroughly crestfallen, Meschid retired. On the following

day he told my mother he suddenly had been ordered to join the army

in one of the Arabian provinces. This assignment, he said, would

necessitate his absence from Constantinople for several months. He

informed her, however, that during this period she would be treated

with the utmost respect by the members of his household, but that she

was not to make any attempt to regain her freedom. My mother, who was

now a prisoner, resolved to submit to the conditions which the Pasha

had imposed upon her until such a time as her brother might return to

his post.

Each week English and French newspapers were brought to my mother’s

room by respectful attendants, and by means of these she learned that,

shortly after his return to London, her brother had married and retired

from the diplomatic service. More important than this, however, were

reports that Prince Maranotti, believing that there had been ample

grounds for his jealousy, was convinced that his wife had eloped with

one of her admirers. Accordingly he had divorced her.

When Meschid returned to Constantinople, his wooing of my mother was

resumed. This time he did not sue in vain. The light came back to

her eyes, and among the first of my memories were the songs she used

to sing while the infatuated Pasha, standing beside the piano he had

brought to her from Paris, turned the sheets of music that lay before

her. In the years that followed she bore to Meschid three sons and two

daughters.

Perhaps it was my mother’s many evidences of affection for me, the

child of her first marriage, that caused my stepfather to dislike me.

But, though I knew I would never share the love that he bestowed upon

my brothers and sisters, I never feared him. In his way he was kind

to me. When my mother expressed a wish that I might have an English

governess who should prepare me for that world that lay beyond the

walls of the harem, her fond husband readily consented.

My education was as strange as were my early associations. I was taught

English, French and Turkish, and soon became proficient in music and

drawing. In my early youth I was inordinately fond of fairy tales. I

was taught to read the Bible and the Koran, and of these the Koran

was my favorite. But of all the books that were placed in my youthful

hands, those which pleased me most were the works of the old Persian

poets, whose lutes were attuned to the praise of Oriental loves, the

songs of birds, the splashing of fountains and the voices of angels,

peris and genii who lurked amid whispering trees and fragrant, nodding

flowers.

After her marriage to the Pasha, my mother was free to leave the house

whenever she listed. But, whether she walked or rode through the crowded

streets, there was none among those she passed who would be bold enough

to imagine that the bright eyes that looked through her _yashmak_, or

the graceful form that was enclosed by her _farendje_ were those of a

daughter of Old England, who, having been an unhappy Italian Princess,

was now the contented wife of a distinguished Mussulman.

Despite the indifference of my stepfather, I think I should have been

content to remain in that luxurious, song-haunted harem forever, had

not, when I was eighteen years of age, a terrible misfortune befallen

me. This was the death of my mother.

Then all light suddenly went out of my life. The songs which had made

the harem seem to us like a corner of the Prophet’s paradise were heard

no more, except when, like spirit voices, we heard them echoing faintly

in the dim-lighted, rose-scented chambers of our memories. No more did

Meschid enter the harem with smiling lips and expectant eyes. His face

had become more stolid--his gaze more abstracted and severe.

Two of my half-brothers--Abdul and Ildebrin--no longer made their

quarters in the harem, and, after the departure of Ildebrin, then

fourteen years of age, the place became more cheerless than before.

When I was nineteen, my English governess died. I felt that I was quite

friendless now.

Fond as I was of dress and jewels, with which I was well supplied,

vanity never had been numbered among my faults, but there came a time

when the praise of plain-spoken women visitors brought to me the

knowledge that my physical attractions were far greater than those of

my dark-skinned half-sisters, who resembled their father, rather than

their mother. These comparisons were always displeasing to me, for I

saw that my sisters were becoming less and less disposed to mask the

aversion with which I inspired them. For the first time I realized that

I was living on the bounty of a man to whom I was bound by no ties

of blood. Meschid was a devout Mussulman while I--half English, half

Italian--had not a drop of Moslem blood in my veins.

At length there reached the harem a rumor that Meschid Pasha, who

during the lifetime of my mother had no other wife, was about to wed

again. I knew that he or his daughters had no love for me, and I

wondered what would be my position in the harem when the new wife was

placed at its head.

The star of my destiny had risen, however. Meschid had seen it, but not

I.

And so it came to pass, while I was preparing to go out among the shops

one morning, that Meschid entered the harem, and, by a gesture, bade me

accompany him to one of the rooms where we might be alone.

After we seated ourselves, Meschid looked at me long and thoughtfully,

without speaking.

“Pauline,” he said, at length, “what is your faith?”

It was the first time he ever had spoken to me on the subject of

religion, and I colored with embarrassment.

“My mother died a Christian, did she not?” I murmured.

Meschid nodded.

“Yes--she died a Christian,” he answered, with a sigh. “She made me

promise I would not make you change your faith. That promise shall be

kept.”

Then, after a little pause, he added, gloomily:

“Your father is a Christian, too.”

I did not reply to this, and for several minutes Meschid sat looking

abstractedly at the floor.

What had my stepfather come to say to me? With a fluttering heart I

looked around at the walls that once had constituted a part of my

mother’s home. I knew that the time was at hand when I should say

farewell to them forever.

“Most Moslem girls marry before they are sixteen,” Meschid said,

musingly. “You are nineteen, I believe.”

The gates of Dreamland seemed to be opening their portals to me now,

and I felt as if peris, standing at my side, were pointing to where the

heroes who so often had visited my girlish fancies were gazing on me

from the mystic city’s walls.

“Yes--yes, I know,” I faltered.

“If you are to remain a Christian, you must have a Christian husband,”

Meschid said.

A great fear smote me. Would there come a time when, like Giaour women,

I would have to appear with my face unveiled in city streets?

“And I have one in view,” Meschid added.

I was trembling violently. For better or for worse, my fate was sealed.

There was nothing I might do of my own volition--nothing I could say.

Meschid rose.

“We will start for England to-morrow,” he said.

Involuntarily I clapped my hands.

“For my mother’s country!” I exclaimed, half-joyfully. “Ah, it must be

very beautiful in England, for my mother loved it so.”

A frown settled on the Pasha’s face, and he looked at me darkly.

“Yes,” he said, sighing as he turned away. “Yes, your mother loved

it--once. But, sometimes, I fancied she was happy here.”

He left me then, and, with feverish haste, I began my preparations for

the long journey on which I was to set out on the morrow.

When we had embarked on the steamer that was to take us from the

Bosphorus to Naples, I laid aside my _yashmak_, but, in obedience to

the command of Meschid, I had all meals served in my stateroom, which I

never left without a heavy green or gray veil over my face. At Naples

we boarded a train for the north, and, in due time, we arrived in

England.

In London a house was in readiness for our occupancy, and I marveled

much when I saw how greatly its appointments resembled those of Turkish

homes. It had its harem and its selamlik, but here I had less liberty

than in Constantinople, for, under no circumstances, was I permitted

to leave the harem unless I was accompanied by my stepfather. We took

several drives together, and on these occasions I wore one of the

French gowns that constituted part of my traveling wardrobe, but I

was not permitted to raise my veil, which, unlike a _yashmak_, had no

opening for the eyes.

While I was in this London house I suddenly was summoned to the

selamlik and there found myself in the presence of Lord Galonfield. My

stepfather bade me remove my veil, and, for the first time since I was

ten years old, my face was revealed to a man who was not a member of my

stepfather’s household.

Scarcely had I acknowledged my introduction to Lord Galonfield when I

became conscious of the fact that a strange person had followed me into

the room. This person was clad in a black gown and _yashmak_, but whose

face it was that was concealed by the _yashmak_ I did not attempt to

guess.

Believing that in Lord Galonfield I beheld the man who was to become

my husband, I studied him critically. His marked admiration for me,

his gentle manner and apparent manliness were not without effect. He

pleased me, and I told myself that I would be content to be his wife.

When Lord Galonfield left the house, I asked my stepfather whether or

not my surmise was correct. He answered, coldly, that nothing had been

decided, but that it was more than probable that Lord Galonfield would

ask for my hand.

I then sought information concerning the black-garmented woman I had

seen.

“It is a lady in whom I have the most implicit confidence,” Meschid

replied. “In no circumstances are you to see Lord Galonfield except in

her presence. If he asks you who she is, you may tell him that she is

Ayesha, a Moslem woman to whose charge you have been confided during

your residence in England. Discourage all further questioning on the

subject, and abstain from it yourself.”

Lord Galonfield’s visits now became frequent, and, when he called, my

stepfather arranged matters so that his lordship, the mysterious Ayesha

and I were left together for an hour. It was only at these times that I

saw Ayesha at all.

Each visit found Lord Galonfield’s regard for me increasing, and at

length he threw aside all restraint and, telling me that he loved me,

he asked me to be his wife. I inquired whether he had obtained the

consent of my stepfather. He replied that he had not, but would try to

do so. Again he asked me if I loved him, but, just as I was in the act

of confessing that I did, my stepfather entered the room. Meschid, to

my great surprise, bitterly rebuked his lordship for thus declaring

his sentiments to me, then he ordered me to return to the harem. I was

on my way thither when the idea occurred to me to address the strange

woman who had attended me. Turning suddenly to do this, I saw that my

companion, believing that I was on the point of entering the apartments

of the harem, had removed the _yashmak_. The face that was revealed by

this action was one of the most extraordinary I had ever seen--a face

with long, masculine features--the face of a man about fifty years of

age, and who, wearing a dark, trailing gown, at once reminded me of

descriptions I had read of old astrologers.

This singular person did not perceive that I had seen him, and, almost

terrified by my discovery, and fearful of the consequences of the act,

I hurried into the harem and closed the door.

Having a premonition that, late as it was, my stepfather might desire

to see me after Lord Galonfield left, I made no preparations to retire

for the night. I was not mistaken. Twenty minutes later Meschid entered

the harem.

My stepfather appeared to be greatly agitated. After severely

reproaching me because I had permitted Lord Galonfield to place an arm

around me while he was declaring his love, he told me that if I had

been so unfortunate as to let the young Englishman find a place in my

heart I must banish all thoughts of him from my mind at once.

“I had thought that he would have found your charms sufficient dowry,”

he added, bitterly. “But the heathen dog would have me rob my own

children by yielding to him with you one-half of my estate.”

My heart grew cold, and a sense of desolation entered it. Then,

suddenly, a wild rush of anger and indignation choked me. It was not

I, but the dowry he sought, that had appeared so beautiful to his eyes.

“Are all men so base as that?” I gasped, as my wounded pride fluttered

in my bosom like a frightened, half-stifled dove in a smoke-filled cage.

“No,” said Meschid, thoughtfully, “but young men are much the same.

An older man makes a more affectionate and indulgent husband. But

let us have no more of England. You have seen how gray and fog-bound

it is, and what we have to expect of its people. Shall we return to

Constantinople to-morrow, and forget that we ever have known this

grasping man they call a lord?”

“Yes--yes,” I murmured, eagerly.

And the next morning we set forth for the distant Orient.

Tortured as I was by outraged love and the bitter pangs of a proud

woman’s humiliation, the journey homeward seemed like one long

nightmare. Arriving in Constantinople, I found no one in the house

of Meschid Pasha to bid me welcome. My sisters regarded me coldly or

with sneers. The man to whom I had been offered as a wife had seen and

rejected me.

During the month that followed my return, I saw little of my

stepfather. Most of this time, a prey to bitter reflections, I remained

in my room, reading or engaged in needlework.

One day there came a knock on my door, and Meschid entered.

“Here is something that may interest you,” he said, carelessly, and,

as he spoke, he handed me a French newspaper. Around a paragraph which

consisted of five or six lines a pencilled circle had been drawn.

I saw that the article was an announcement of the death of Prince

Giuseppe Maranotti--my father.

If Meschid had expected to read in my face any sign of sorrow or

satisfaction, he was disappointed. I thanked him coldly, and laid the

paper aside. The announcement scarcely had interested me.

On the following day Meschid visited me again. This time, to my

utter amazement, he bade me put on my veil and accompany him to his

selamlik--an apartment in which Turkish men receive their male friends,

and which no female member of the family is supposed to enter.

Upon entering the selamlik, I perceived the figure of a man standing

beside one of the windows. As the visitor turned toward me and I saw

his face, I started and an exclamation of alarm escaped me.

The man before me was the one who, in the guise of a Turkish woman, had

been present at my interviews with Lord Galonfield!

In a low, brusque voice, my stepfather bade me remove my veil. With

trembling fingers I did so.

“Pauline,” said Meschid, “this is Mr. Glyncamp, an American, who has

honored us by asking for your hand.”

With a little cry of pain, I shrank from the burning eyes and

outstretched hand of the long, grim-featured man who now approached me.

“No--no--oh, God, no!” I exclaimed. “Do not tell me that! I

cannot--I----”

My stepfather laughed mirthlessly, and then said:

“It is a little sudden, you must admit, Mr. Glyncamp. Even Galonfield

disappointed her, for all her dreams of a husband have had a fairy

prince for their subject. But, Pauline, my dear, you dreamt better than

you knew. Your future husband has powers which are commonly attributed

only to fairies. He will make you happy and, taking you without a

dowry, he will give to you a home to which you will have a better

claim than that which you now have on mine.”

I was now trembling so violently that, I think, I should have fallen,

had not my stepfather’s next words assured me that I should have a

respite, at least, from the terrible fate that thus confronted me.

“Mr. Glyncamp is going on a long journey to the East, and he will not

wed you until his return,” Meschid went on. “It was such a journey that

I made when your mother rejected my suit. When I returned, your mother

was more favorably disposed. May it be so with you.”

I bowed to Glyncamp, and, summoning all my fortitude, I weakly thanked

him for the honor he had done me. He smiled as he told me that, having

seen me, the memory of my face would be ever with him on his travels

and that, therefore, I would find him looking younger on his return.

Hurrying back to the harem, I entered my room, locked the door and

flung myself down on an ottoman. Convinced that life held nothing more

for me now that was worth the having, I abandoned myself to despair,

and thought of suicide. Then, suddenly, a new idea entered my mind.

I would flee from Meschid as my mother had fled from my father.

But to whom should I turn for aid? My mother’s father and brother were

dead, and I knew nothing of her other relatives. Then my thoughts

turned to the Maranottis--to Victor, now the head of the house. Was he

like his father? Did he, too, share the belief that my mother’s flight

had been due to another cause than the cruelty of her husband? Perhaps

family pride would impel him to come to my relief. I would send for him.

With the marks of my tears still upon my face, I seated myself at my

writing desk and wrote to the young Prince a long letter in which I

told him all that I had suffered since the death of my mother. When I

finished writing, I read the letter over carefully, then thrust it into

an envelope and addressed it to him at his country seat at Basselanto.

Four miserable, heart-breaking, nerve-racking weeks passed, and, as I

failed to get a reply to my pitiful appeal, I again resigned myself

to despair. But, shortly after leaving the house one day to visit the

cemetery in which my poor mother now slept amid the cypresses and

flowers, I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. Turning quickly, I beheld a

woman who wore a _yashmak_.

“You are Pauline?” the stranger asked, in English.

The accents were soft and gentle, but I hesitated.

“You are Pauline Maranotti?” the woman asked again.

“Yes, madame,” I answered, faintly.

“Let us walk on,” the other said in a low, confidential voice. “I am

from the Prince--your half-brother.”

With a little cry that was almost a sob, I grasped her arm.

“He is here--in Constantinople?” I asked eagerly.

“No, he is not here,” the woman answered. “He was unable to come

himself, so he sent me to take you to him. There is a carriage awaiting

us in yonder street. Let us hasten to it. We can talk better there.”

Once more fear gripped my heart.

“How am I to know that you----” I began, but the veiled stranger

interrupted me.

“Come with me to the carriage,” she said quietly. “You shall be

convinced before you confide yourself to my care.”

When we were out of view of Meschid’s house I saw a closed carriage

with two horses standing in the street that my guide had mentioned. At

the step of the carriage my companion paused and took from her pocket a

little leather case. She pressed a spring, and a cover, flying open,

disclosed within a beautiful miniature surrounded by a lock of dark

brown hair. It was an exquisite portrait of my mother, painted before

my birth. I had heard her speak of this gift that she had given to the

Prince on her wedding day, and I knew that the lock of hair was her own.

With a little sob, I turned to my guide.

“You may take me where you will,” I said.

The woman who had come to my rescue was Mrs. Woodson, an American,

who, with her artist husband, long had lived in Rome. She was a few

years older than my mother, whom she had known prior to her marriage to

Prince Maranotti.

A few days after my flight from Constantinople, Prince Victor Maranotti

welcomed me in Rome. I found my brother to be a singularly kindly and

handsome young man, and the moment I looked upon his face, I knew that

a merciful fate had led me at last to a natural protector.

After listening to my story, the Prince informed me that, in the

circumstances, it would be better for me to remain incognito in Rome

until the following week, when it would be necessary for him to start

for the United States where he had extensive business interests.

“In America, for a time, at least, you will be safe from the

persecutions of Meschid and his friend, Glyncamp, of whose strange

performances I often have heard,” he said. “There are several reasons

why it is better that you should not assume the title of Princess

Pauline Maranotti now.”

What the reasons were, he did not tell me, but I suspected that,

despite his friendliness, his family pride prevented him from publicly

acknowledging as his sister the daughter of a woman who, having

deserted his father, became the inmate of a Turkish harem.

Little did I think when I saw the shores of America rise from the

western horizon that here awaited me a new and no less alarming series

of misfortunes. I had been fleeing from persons and circumstances which

threatened my undoing, but the objects of these fears were known to me.

Now, however, I was about to be confronted by conditions which, though

constantly threatening me, were involved in mysteries which no art of

mine would enable me to fathom.

A few hours before we sighted land, the Prince, seated beside me in a

corner of the deck that we had to ourselves, gave to me a clearer idea

concerning his plans for me than he had vouchsafed before.

For many years my father had been heavily interested in the development

of American mining properties, some of which had yielded him large

profits. He had not made these investments in his own name, however,

and his principal representative in these transactions was a man named

Trevison, who now was well advanced in years, and childless.

Assuring me that it was in my interest that I should not assume the

name of Maranotti, the Prince suggested that, as Paula Trevison, I

should be known as Mr. Trevison’s daughter. Then he added:

“If you are believed to be the daughter of this old man, who is now

pretty close to the grave, you will find yourself in a well-defined

position, from which, by reason of your natural charms and your various

accomplishments, you may steadily advance. Nearly all the large fortune

which Trevison is handling over here, and which really is mine, is

believed to belong to him. I will so arrange matters that, after his

death, it will appear that you have inherited from him a sum sufficient

to give you a comfortable income. Meantime, whenever I visit the United

States, I, assuming the name of Trevison, as I am doing now, may be

recognized as your brother.”

“You will be known by a false name over here, only in order that you

may aid me?” I asked, suspiciously.

The Prince laughed gaily.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Even if I had not brought you with me I would have

to be known as Trevison.”

“I am afraid I do not understand,” I murmured, wonderingly.

“Well, then, I will explain,” the Prince went on more gravely. “I am

only doing what was done by my father, but in a slightly different

way. On his visit to this country he always represented himself as

old Trevison’s brother. The reason for it was this: Poor as it is,

Italy still retains much of its ancestral pride, and it has not been

confronted with the spectacle of the head of a noble family engaging in

commercial pursuits. Yet, for more than a quarter of a century, such

pursuits have made the house of Maranotti one of the most influential

in the kingdom. But the Maranotti who followed these pursuits has been

known in America as a Trevison. In the United States his identity was

unknown. In Italy, none of the nobles know the name of Trevison.”

On the day of our arrival in New York, my brother and I, who were

registered at our hotel as ‘Thomas Trevison and Paula Trevison,’

met the man who had a rightful claim to the surname. He was very

old--almost eighty I should say--and his face had an almost unearthly

pallor. In a shaking voice, he greeted my princely brother with a

familiarity that startled me.

“Well, Tom, the old man beat me out in our race for the grave,” he

said. “But I reckon I’ll be spry enough to let out a few links that

will make him think he’s standing still, after I catch up with him on

the other side. Are you going West this trip?”

Shocked by this old man’s gruesome jocularity, I was glad to escape

from his presence. That evening, however, we dined together in a

fashionable restaurant where the irreverent patriarch seemed to be

perfectly at ease. He was frequently addressed respectfully by men who

passed our table, and to several of these he explained that I was his

daughter.

“She’s just back from Europe where she’s had a few foreigners

completing her training,” he said. “Most people think Europe’s the

best place to get female metal out of our Western ore, so Paula’s been

passing through the mill over there. Doesn’t look as if it did her much

harm, does it now?”

My brother smiled as if he saw some humor in this sort of thing, but I,

shocked almost beyond the power of expression by the roughness of it

all, felt my face flush hotly as I heard the person addressed chuckle

good-naturedly and mutter compliments which, while frank enough,

perhaps, were devoid of delicacy.

The following day my brother told me that, as he found it desirable

to visit the West, where some of his mining properties were situated,

he had arranged that I should spend a few weeks in the Adirondack

Mountains, with a widowed niece of Trevison’s. He had been assured that

it was a delightful retreat, and that its isolation was of a nature to

commend it to us.

Having determined on this course, our preparations soon were made for

the journey. As we were passing along the station platform, between two

waiting trains, a strange thing happened. The click of a car window,

suddenly raised, attracted my attention and a man’s head and shoulders

were thrust out.

With a little exclamation of alarm, I drew back. The man’s face was the

most grotesque I had ever seen. His eyes, turned suddenly to mine, held

my gaze. In the very ugliness of this stranger there was something that

fascinated me.

“What is the matter?” asked my brother, who observed that I had stopped.

Quickly recovering my presence of mind, I laughed nervously, and said:

“It is nothing, but I never expected that I would see a live gargoyle.

In those wonderful mountains to which you are taking me, I shall not be

surprised to encounter peris and genii.”

My brother, whose quick eyes had by this time discovered the face that

had caused me such consternation, laughed lightly as he replied:

“By Heaven, you are right! The man is a veritable gargoyle.”

I heard the window close with a slam, but I did not look over my

shoulder to assure myself that the strange creature was no longer

there. All during that long journey to the mountains, that weird,

unearthly face haunted me. I saw it staring at me from the shimmering

waters of the Hudson. It took form among the giant boulders and wooden

summits of the Catskills, and, at eve, I saw it lurking among the great

cloud-curtains that folded in the sunset.

Not until near the close of the second day of our journey did we arrive

at our destination, and, ah, how may I describe the splendid spectacle

that then revealed itself to my eyes?

Alighting from a “buckboard,” one of the most torture-inflicting

vehicles in which man ever traversed rough mountain roads, I found

myself on the pebbled margin of a turquoise lake that was dotted

everywhere with lily-pads, whose white and yellow flowers sifted

into the virile, pine-odored air a perfume that was as fragrant and

langorous as the breath of love.

Walled in by great mountain slopes, from the sides of which rose

larches as lofty and majestic as cathedral spires, I felt as if I were

standing in an enchanted valley. The mountainsides were thickly wooded,

and here and there great seams of granite were visible through rifts

in the deep, green foliage, so that the valley had the aspect of a

crystal-bottomed basin wrought out of a single emerald that had been

inlaid with silver tracery. Among the trees fluttered birds unlike any

I had ever seen before, but their sweet, full-throated songs seemed to

be no more than the pattering of raindrops on the surface of a sea of

silence--a silence so weird and illimitable that, appalled, I felt as

if I were standing in the vestibule of infinity.

Dazed by the wild splendor of my environment, I felt as the Emperor of

China might have done when from his window he for the first time beheld

the splendid palace which genii hands had wrought for Aladdin in a

single night.

I was roused from my trance by the sounds of strange voices. Then I saw

two strangers, clad in rough garments of countrymen, approaching to

take charge of the horses that had drawn our two buckboards through the

mountains.

As I looked around for the house which was to be my home for the next

two weeks, I saw a large, squat structure built of logs. In the door

of this stood a portly woman, with gray hair. Despite the charms and

reassuring isolation of this mountain retreat, a suspicion that this

log-house was the dwelling to which I had been consigned filled me

with alarm. I had been told that among these mountains deer, bears

and other wild animals were numerous, and the general aspect of the

building recalled pictures I had seen of assaults made by Indians on

the houses of white settlers. Were there Indians here?

The motherly face of the elderly woman, who was now approaching, partly

reassured me, and I saw that the men who were busying themselves with

the horses were honest-featured, sturdy and marvelously self-possessed.

The woman--whose name I was informed was Mrs. Seaver--welcomed me with

the dignity of a princess in the doorway of her castle. As she led me

into the log-house, I gazed about me with the most lively sensation of

pleased surprise. The place was as carefully kept as a palace hall,

and in the charming rooms through which she led me I beheld all the

luxuries of Western civilization--a piano, pictures, shelves of books,

the heads of animals which I had seen only in picture form, comfortable

chairs, soft rugs, cosy ‘dens’, and beds which I thought were the

whitest and neatest in all the world.

Clapping my hands with delight, I laughed as I had not done for many

months.

Fanned by balsam-breathing breezes, I slept that night as, I think, I

never slept before. I had never thought that in all the world was to be

found a place that was capable of inspiring such a sense of ineffable

peace as this.

The next day my brother left. But, however kindly I had come to regard

him, I was not now conscious of a feeling of loss. The wilderness had

taken me into its heart, and, thoroughly enamoured, I was happy there.

Little by little I conquered the pleasurable fear with which the dark

recesses of the wood-clad slopes had inspired me. In the course of

the first three days an uncontrollable desire to see wild animals in

their native haunts took possession of me. I learned to use the paddle

of a canoe, and I acted like an overjoyed child when, by my efforts, I

succeeded in sending the frail craft out over the shimmering surface

of the lily-dotted lake. Turtles, chipmunks, sportive minnows and

long-leaping water spiders filled me with delight, and how shall I

describe the sensations that overwhelmed me when, as I looked out of my

open window late one moonlight night, I saw three deer steal from out a

leafy covert and move down to the waterside to drink?

I had been in the Adirondacks a little more than a week, when a new and

greater wonder presented itself to my view. Upon awakening, early one

morning, I rose and stepped to my window, as was my custom, to steal a

glimpse at the great tree-crowded amphitheatre and to inhale the fresh,

balsam-laden air before dressing for breakfast. My lips were framing a

prayer of heartfelt thankfulness that, here in the heart of this vast

wilderness, I was so far from all I feared, when something that was

pinned to one of the swaying white curtains of the window attracted

and held my attention. As, with wondering eyes, I leaned toward it,

I saw that it was a delicately tinted, square envelope on which were

inscribed the words: “For Paula.”

The only person who had thus addressed me since my arrival in America

was the Prince, and though the handwriting before me now was apparently

that of a man, I was certain that my brother was not the writer.

The envelope was unsealed, and, thrusting in my fingers I drew out a

sheet of notepaper on which were written the following verses:

TO PAULA

Sleep,

And the starlight shines,

Like Faith, among the pines,

To all revealing

Thy trust in man and maid.

And while from out the shade

Of Earth are stealing

Thy thoughts that dreamward go,

I, keeping vigil, know

Love’s bells are pealing.

Wake,

And the starlight dies,

For then, athwart the skies,

Thy glances, streaming,

Do prove thou art the sun.

Now that his vigil’s done

And thou art beaming,

Fond Hope doth close his eyes

But, as in sleep he lies,

Of thee he’s dreaming.

Tingling with pleasure, I re-read the lines. These were the first

verses I had ever read in the handwriting of their author, and a great

wonder filled me as I asked myself whether, indeed, it was I who had

inspired them. But this question quickly gave place to one of still

greater import.

Who had written them?

I now found myself thoroughly bewildered. Except the Prince and Mr.

Trevison, there was no person in the United States with whom I had

exchanged more than a few, perfunctory words prior to coming to the

mountains, and in my new home Mrs. Seaver and the servants were the

only persons who, so far as I had been able to learn, were within

many miles of me. That the lines had been written by one of the

rough-mannered and illiterate manservants, was, of course, impossible.

But what other man had been in the neighborhood? Who was it who had

come to my window while I slept?

Once more the old fears took possession of me. Had I been followed from

Europe by someone who----? But, no, this, too, was impossible. While

there I had only two suitors--Lord Galonfield and Glyncamp. The first

had sought me only for the wealth he believed me to possess, and the

second had gone to Asia. Thus, except Meschid, Prince Maranotti and

Trevison, all men were strangers to me.

I was only a child of the harem, however, and in Moslem harems many

superstitions that would be laughed to scorn in Western households

are deeply rooted in all minds. And so, assured that there was no man

about me who could have written these lines, I fell to speculating as

to whether or not the verses had come to me through some supernatural

agency.

At breakfast I again inquired of Mrs. Seaver whether any of the

neighboring valleys was inhabited.

She shook her head gravely.

“No,” she replied. “We are many miles from any other house. Even

the sportsmen who come to the Adirondacks for deer and bear seldom

penetrate so far as this. That is one reason why I like it so.”

I resumed my breakfast, and for several minutes the silence that

followed remained unbroken. Mrs. Seaver was the first to speak.

“Perhaps, my dear, it is better that you should know something else,”

she said, hesitatingly. “What I have told you is the truth, as I

understand it. I know of no other habitation than ours, but there are

times when rumors reach us that some strange persons occasionally

are to be seen about Deadwood Lake--a body of water that lies in the

valley immediately north of ours. Who they are we never have been

able to learn. My men have seen these strangers on several occasions,

but they never succeeded in getting close enough to them to describe

them accurately. One undoubtedly is an aged Indian, while the second

is a white youth, who, if the rumors are to be credited, is strangely

handsome. These two are always together, but a third--a white man of

patriarchal appearance, is sometimes observed. It is scarcely likely

that you will see them, but, if you do, it is just as well, perhaps, to

avoid them as much as possible.”

My breath came quickly. So far from exciting my fears, this information

stimulated my curiosity. Who was this mysterious young man whom my

prosaic hostess had described as “strangely handsome”? If these three

men were the only persons in our neighborhood who were unknown to me,

one of them doubtless was the author of the verses I had received.

Assuredly, the Indian had not written them, nor was it probable that

the “man of patriarchal appearance” had done so. But the other--ay, it

might have been this other.

The stream which filled the lake I had come to love so well, entered

our valley from the north. This fact indicated that the clear waters

over which my canoe daily glided were the outflow of Deadwood Lake.

Then, I remembered that one of the menservants had told me that our

lake was merely one link of a beautiful crystal chain that extended

well back into the mountains.

When breakfast was done, I left the house and, singing as I went,

I made my way to where my shining, green canoe was drawn up on the

pebbled shore. One of the menservants, who was painting a fishing punt,

smiled and nodded a “good-morning” as I drew near.

“You are going out to-day, Miss?” he asked.

I felt my cheeks flush slightly as I answered:

“Yes, I am going to gather some lilies for my room.”

The man rose, and, as he started toward my canoe to run it down the

beach, he glanced toward the southwest, and hesitated.

“I wouldn’t go out far or stay too long, Miss,” he said, thoughtfully.

“The sky looks bad over yonder, and one who is down in the valley

can’t see a bad blow coming till it’s on us. The weather’s been pretty

respectful-like since you’ve been here, but there ain’t no other hell

on earth that’s quite so bad as an Adirondack storm. Does the missis

know you’re going?”

“No,” I answered, coldly. “Mrs. Seaver has never required me to report

to her anything which it pleases me to do or not to do.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I meant no harm,” he said, almost curtly. “But when thunder once

begins to bellow up here, it’s mighty seldom a strong man can drive

a boat inshore before he gets a soaking, and a soaking is the least

of it. Small as this lake of ours is, it can kick up waves on shorter

notice than the Atlantic can.”

Realizing that I had unkindly slighted one whose only fault had been

over-zealousness in manifesting a regard for my safety, I laughed

reassuringly and said indulgently:

“You are right, I know, so, though I see no storm clouds, I will not go

too far from the shore.”

And, as my canoe glided over the shimmering lake to where the lilies

were, I was resolved to keep my word. But the dancing sunlight lured

me on and on, and my promise, dying like the song of a bird, went to

mingle with the lily-scented airs.

The valley in which Mrs. Seaver’s log-house stood was about three miles

long and two miles wide, and the lake covered three-fourths of its

bottom. Well out in the lake were five or six tree-covered islets,

and on one that lay furthest to the south I had discovered a little

leafy nook to which I sometimes went with one of the volumes from Mrs.

Seaver’s shelves.

But it was not to the south that I turned this morning. At first I kept

the head of my little craft toward the center of the lake, then, as my

glance continued to stray curiously toward the north, I found, at last,

that, half-unconsciously, I was moving in that direction.

For the first time since my arrival in the Adirondacks, I was dominated

by a desire to see the stream whose waters filled the clear lake in our

valley. The sun was still shining brightly, when, suddenly determining

to give rein to my curiosity, I brought the bow of the canoe directly

to the northward, and, in response to the determined paddle-strokes,

the little craft moved swiftly over the gleaming waters.

As I approached an indentation in the northern shore I marveled that

I never had been inspired with the desire to visit it before. Here

the lily-pads seemed to form a great green, white and yellow rug, and

the perfume of the blossoms so filled the air that it was no longer

possible for me to identify the odor of the pines in the breezes which,

rushing down the great mountain slopes, seemed to dally in love-rapt

idleness among the langourous spirits of the flowers.

I had been singing as I left the log-house, and I was singing now, but,

as I kept glancing to right and left to find places in which to thrust

my paddle without breaking lily leaves or blossoms, I was singing a

song that had been sung by no human lips before. It was a song in

which the words of the verses I had received that morning had adapted

themselves to an Arabian air that, in the harem of Meschid Pasha, had

been one of the lullabies sung by my mother to each of her little ones.

Thus singing and moving slowly through the lilies and their wide-spread

leaves, I suddenly found myself at the very stream I had been seeking.

At its mouth it was about a hundred feet in width, but, as I looked

up along the course, I saw that it narrowed perceptibly. Laying my

dripping paddle across the canoe, I stopped singing and listened.

The very air seemed motionless. Within a distant leafy covert on the

mountainside at my right a single woodlark was piping its clear, sad

notes. All else was so still that the very perfume that filled the air

was eloquent.

For several moments a feeling of fear and awe stole over me, and I

looked at the sky. There the blue hue had given place to a pinkish

tint, but the sun still was shining and there was scarcely a ripple on

the clear, gleaming waters over which I had passed.

Should I go back, and return some other day to explore this unknown

watercourse? Surely, I could find no fairer day than this. I would do

it now.

Owing to the fact that the beauties of the lake and dingles so often

caused me to give no thought to the flight of the hours, it often had

happened that the hour for luncheon found me far from the hospitable

table in the log-house. Thus it had come to pass that, whenever I left

the house in the morning for a stroll or a canoe trip, I took with me,

in a little net-work bag, sandwiches, cake and fruit. Fortunately I had

done so to-day.

Glancing at my watch, I now saw that it was only a few minutes after

ten, then, with a sigh of pleasurable anticipation, I again picked up

my paddle and, more reckless concerning the fate of leaves and blossoms

than I had been before, I forced the canoe into the sluggish current

of the mysterious stream.

As I proceeded, my progress became less and less impeded by sprawling

lily-pads. I was now at the feet of two lofty mountains at the bases of

which the stream pursued a winding course.

At length, with a little sigh of excitement and pleasure, I saw that

the splendors of a second valley were being unfolded to my view.

But, ah, how different was this valley from the one I had just left

behind me. The ruggedness of its lofty, bare granite precipices filled

me with a half-defined sense of alarm. Over the bosom of this shining

stream I seemed to have passed from one of Nature’s pleasure gardens to

the vast portal of one of her towering, deserted and crumbling abbeys.

A chillness seemed to enter the air. The arms of the giant pine trees

appeared to be gently beckoning and nodding to the unseen spirits of

the valley.

But, though the valley’s lofty walls thus were revealed to my eyes,

of the mysterious lake I saw nothing. Ahead of me was a great expanse

of tall rushes through which the stream had cut its way. Around

me, however, the waters seemed to have lost their lustre. Like the

mountains whose images they reflected they appeared to be dark, sullen

and forbidding.

The speed of my canoe was gradually abating for, half-overcome by

distrust, I was paddling mechanically.

Darker and darker grew the waters, then a greater chillness smote me. I

was about to raise my eyes toward the sky when I beheld something that

riveted my attention.

Before me lay the waters of Deadwood Lake and, as I looked, I shrank

back in affright. Trunks and roots of fallen trees that had been wrung

from the mountainsides by tempests or great avalanches were rotting on

the narrow, gray pebbled shores. The waters were of a brownish black,

and the hundreds of white-trunked birches that they reflected near

their margin gave to them a weird, ghostly effect.

I was not yet clear of the masses of high rushes that grew out of the

water, and the channel between them was so narrow that I could touch

each green wall with my paddle. Deciding to return at once to the other

valley, I was about to reverse my position in the canoe, when I beheld

something so startling that I almost dropped my paddle, and for several

seconds I seemed to lose the power to breathe.

What I saw was a canoe, fashioned out of the bark of birch trees, and,

as I looked, it moved slowly across the thin screen of rushes that

separated me from the clear surface of the lake. In this canoe were two

human figures, but the appearance of each was so extraordinary that I

suspected that they were indeed more than men.

The face of the figure that sat in the stern of the canoe was of a

brownish-red color and, despite its wrinkled forehead and cheeks,

there was something sphinx-like in its expression. The eyes seemed to

be looking fixedly into a storied future that they might live to see

embodied in the storied past. But the figure in the bow--ah how shall I

describe what then appeared to me to be the head and body of a god?

Though I have heard enthusiastic women describe certain men as

“beautiful,” I never believed until that moment that such an adjective

could be used appropriately to describe a man’s appearance. But here

was a man, scarcely older than I, whose head and shoulders would have

put to shame those of the far-famed Apollo Belvidere. His slightly

curling black hair had the gloss which shines on the plumage of birds,

and though his skin was bronzed by exposure to the weather, it had the

rich, transparent coloring of youth. Never had I thought it possible

that a human brow, nose or chin could be so exquisitely formed and, at

the same time, be so expressive of intellectual and physical vigor. But

it was the expression of spiritual virility and omniscience that gave

to the classic features a suggestion of divine perfection.

“Is it god or man?” I whispered, and at that moment I seemed to have my

answer from the skies.

In the distance I heard a faint, rumbling sound, then, suddenly, a

terrific crash of thunder directly above my head filled me with the

most indescribable sensation of awe and fear. The mountains seemed to

shiver with the sound and, glancing above me, I saw great towering

clouds, like enormous, gray-wreathed icebergs drifting swiftly toward

the north. Among these advancing monsters lightning was glowing

sullenly, at first one point and then another, then there came a flash

that almost blinded me, and as, with a low despairing cry, I hid my

face in my hands, a second peal of thunder rocked the dreadful valley.

Turning again toward where, only a few moments before, I had seen the

birchbark canoe, I saw it had disappeared. But through the screen of

reeds I beheld a sight that was scarcely less terrifying than the

lightning and the thunder.

The waters of Deadwood lake had assumed an inky blackness, and were

covered with great strings of froth that looked as if they had dropped

from the mouth of a gigantic rabid hound. From over the mountain tops

came a dull, quivering, humming sound that I knew was the voice of the

advancing storm.

Half choking with fear, I reversed my position in the canoe, then,

seizing the paddle, I started back toward the lake from which, in an

ill-omened hour, I, a helpless woman, had been tempted by curiosity.

As my paddle-strokes fell quickly and nervously to right and left, I

prayed--to God, to Christ, to Allah, and to Mohammed, the Prophet of

Allah. Then, with closed eyes and bowed head, I, paddling blindly,

became once more a mere child of the harem, for I prayed to the two

genii I had seen in the birchbark canoe.

As a child had I not learned that the appearances of genii often were

accompanied by peals of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning? Did

not one of the stories of the Thousand and One Nights tell how the

Sultan of the Genii assumed the form of a handsome young man when he

appeared to Zeyn Alasnam, the young Sultan of Bussorah? And were not

those appearances invariably attended by such displays as I had seen

just now, while, terror-stricken, I sat in my canoe among the reeds of

Deadwood Lake?

Then, in a wild burst of self-reproach, I told myself that I was to

blame for the very storm itself--that, by trespassing on these waters

frequented by the genii, and stealing a view of two of them, I had

invoked the wrath of Heaven.

No drop of rain yet had fallen, but the wind was growing stronger every

moment. Around me the high reeds began to lower their heads as if they,

too, were inspired by the fears which were overwhelming me. Like men

struggling in the grip of engulfing quicksands, the reeds, tugging at

their roots, seemed to be making desperate efforts to get to the shore,

and, as they swayed and bent low, the little channel through which I

had passed was completely hidden from my view.

Half sobbing with fright, and bitterly repenting the folly that had led

me there, I succeeded in getting the bow of the canoe turned toward the

shore on my right--a low, narrow strip of beach and shingle that lay at

the foot of a lofty precipice. This strip I saw over the now low-lying

reeds. It was only thirty feet away, but the craven reeds, huddling

closer together as they sank lower and lower to the surface of the

water, threatened to hold my canoe like a fish in a net.

At length, however, my desperate efforts were rewarded. I felt the bow

of the canoe grate on the stones of the beach. Rising from my seat, I

reeled forward and, laughing hysterically, I leaped ashore just as a

dazzling flash of lightning illumined the valley, which was almost as

dark as the last five minutes of twilight. I was raising my trembling

hands to my eyes to shut out the glare when a nerve-racking clap of

thunder drove me almost to the verge of madness.

Half blinded by the lightning and deafened by the thunder, I plunged

into a cluster of young pines, hoping to find shelter there from the

rain which I now knew to be imminent. The lightning was beginning to

crackle and hiss in a manner which showed it was dangerously near,

when, having suddenly found myself at the inner edge of the cluster of

evergreens, I stood at the very base of the precipitous mountain wall.

Then, as I looked, I saw something that steadied me, and, despite my

agitation, filled me with wonder.

Set in the very face of the cliff was the wall of a log-house--about

twenty feet wide and twelve feet high. In this wall were two

glass-paned windows and a door.

Running quickly to the door, I knocked. As I waited for an answer,

something smote one of my hands. I perceived it was a large drop of

water, then other drops began to fall around me, and there came

another gleaming lightning flash.

The crashing, rolling thunder made it seem impossible that any one who

might have been in the shelter of the log wall should hear my continued

knocking, so, without further hesitation, I laid a hand on the knob of

the door. The knob turned, and, with a cry in which terror and relief

were blended, I ran inside.

The light that entered the dust-covered panes was so feeble that it

was only when the lightning was playing that I was able to see the

whole interior of the apartment I had entered so unceremoniously. This

I perceived to be nothing more nor less than a small natural cave to

which the hand of man had given a front of logs. Broad at its mouth,

the cave tapered back like the end of a canoe, the roof and side walls

coming to a point a few feet above the bare ground in the rear. At

this point a curious bunk had been roughly hewn out of the massive

gray granite and on this bunk lay a soiled mattress and a dilapidated

oil-skin coat. Near one of the windows stood a table, the under part

of which was rounded and still holding some of the bark of the tree

from which it had been taken. Near the table stood two old chairs and

a campstool. Against one of the walls leaned an easel which supported

a canvas on which an artist had begun to paint a view of Deadwood Lake

from almost the very point from which I first had seen it.

The cave was about twenty-five feet in length, and its rough aspect,

as revealed by lightning flashes, was not altogether of a nature to

reassure me. Still, it afforded shelter from the torrential rainpour

that was now thundering down in the valley.

Convinced that I was alone in the cave, I wiped away some of the dust

that darkened one of the window panes. As I looked out I saw what

appeared to be a vast wall of water under the weight of which the very

earth seemed to tremble.

And now the crashes of thunder became less violent, the lightning

flashes less keen, and, despite the enormous volume of falling water,

the atmosphere assumed a brighter hue.

At length the rainfall began to abate. I could distinguish the outlines

of the pines through which I had fled to this place of refuge. I

scraped from other panes some of the grime with which they were

encrusted, and once more surveyed the apartment.

It now became apparent that this cave once had afforded shelter to a

painter. Besides the easel and the campstool, I saw several maulsticks,

palettes, paint tubes and torn canvases lying around the place.

As I have said, the canvas on the easel revealed a view of Deadwood

Valley. The picture was scarcely more than one-fifth done, but the

instruction that I had received in drawing and painting was sufficient

to enable me to recognize the work of a master. Satisfied of this,

and thinking to find another example of his work, I turned to a piece

of canvas that lay on the ground. Like everything else in the place,

it was covered with grime, but, as I turned it over, a little cry

of astonishment escaped me. The partly obliterated face which was

painted upon it was that of the white man, or genie, I had seen in the

birchbark canoe!

I had scarcely more than recognized the features, however, when an

object moving on the floor about two paces from where I stood caused

me to shrink back in affright. It was a dusty brown thing, and looked

at first like a piece of stout rope. But no rope moves of its own

volition, and one end of this strange object slowly rose, then, with

a sudden jerk, the thing assumed the form of a coil. A triangular head

moved back, and two beadlike eyes regarded me fixedly, while a broad,

dark thread darted in and out of a closed, hideous mouth.

I was confronted by a serpent--a serpent which, by the description I

had heard of it, I knew to be a copperhead!

For several moments horror held me spellbound, then a feeling of

creepiness stole up my back and settled among the roots of my hair.

Breathing heavily, I retreated slowly, rapidly gathering courage as I

saw that the reptile made no move to follow me.

Glancing quickly around me, my gaze fell on an iron frying-pan that

stood on a wooden stool. Taking hold of the long handle of this,

I moved slowly forward toward the dark coil which, except for the

nervously darting tongue, still was motionless. When I was three or

four paces away from this, I hurled the pan at it and darted backward.

The pan fell upon the coil, and a moment later the reptile, with its

tail beating the air, lay writhing on the floor. All fear left me

now, and, seizing the stool from which I had taken the pan, I ran

forward and hammered the triangular head until it lay flattened at my

feet. Then, panting as a result of my exertions, I looked around me

apprehensively. Might there not be other serpents lurking here?

And now a rich, mellow light began to filter into the gloomy

rock chamber, through the dusty window panes. Hurrying to the door, I

flung it open. The terrible storm, as if by enchantment, had changed

into a gleaming sunshower, and the air was charged with the fragrant

odors of the moistened wilderness. Then, once more, my superstitious

fancies took possession of me. The death of the serpent had changed

all, and once more I stood at one of the portals of Eden.

The shower, too, soon passed, and as, leaving the gloomy cave

behind me, I stepped out into the warm sunshine a great feeling of

thankfulness entered my heart. Looking at the watch that was fastened

to my waist, I saw that it was half past twelve.

But, as I glanced toward the reeds from which I had so narrowly

escaped, a new fear fell upon me. Their mattered masses were now

almost covered by the swollen flood which the mountain streams were

momentarily reenforcing. Somewhere in that vast tangle of muddy green

sticks and leaves was my canoe. How was I to make my way afoot over the

soggy ground and flooded banks to Mrs. Seaver’s log-house?

I saw that for a woman to make such a journey without boat or guide

was impossible. But, after all, my position was not altogether so

unfortunate as it seemed at first. There was little doubt in my mind

that, as soon as the lake grew more calm, Mrs. Seaver would send her

manservants to seek me. Her log-house commanded a full view of the

lake, and it was quite unlikely that the movement of my canoe toward

the north shore had been unobserved. The men would look for me here.

Finding consolation in these reflections, I now decided to walk as far

as possible in the direction of the lake in the lower valley, hoping

that I might succeed in getting to some point from which I might be

able to signal to those who came to seek me.

But, alas, I soon found that at a short distance below the cave the

swollen waters had risen to the very base of the precipice. I returned,

therefore, to the shelter afforded by the pines, for, despite the fall

of the temperature that had accompanied the terrible storm, the sun

now was blazing fiercely.

Hour after hour I waited in the shadow of the pines, but no human

voice came to my ears. Then I began to fancy that, owing to the matted

condition of the reeds, the passage of a boat up the stream that

connected the two lakes would be impracticable.

At length twilight fell, and, while I watched and prayed, its shadows

deepened into night, and the sky was flecked with the stars; then, over

one of the dark mountains, the full moon flooded the valley with its

light.

A new thought came to me. Several times during the afternoon I found

myself repeating, or singing to the air of that old Moslem lullaby,

the words of the verses I had found pinned to my window curtain in the

morning. In one of these verses the writer had written:

“And while from out the shade

Of Earth are stealing

Thy thoughts that dreamward go,

I, keeping, vigil, know

Love’s bells are pealing.”

Were these words no more than the mere expression of a poet’s fancy, or

did they reveal a truth? If the writer had kept vigil near the windows

of my room in which I lay unthreatened by danger, was it not possible

that he might be near me now in this hour of my distress? Whether he

might be man or genie, I would put his fidelity to the proof.

Then, rising from my seat among the pines, I walked down to the margin

of the swollen stream, and, after murmuring a prayer that, lurking

somewhere in this mighty, moonlighted wilderness, my unknown lover

would hear my voice and come to me, I sang his words to the sweet music

of the old Turkish lullaby.

Never before had I been afforded an opportunity to test the full power

of my voice, and, as I heard it rising among the lofty crags, I half

forgot the object of my effort. A spirit of exaltation seemed to seize

my very soul and lift it up so far above the mountain heights that I

felt as if I was singing where only angel-voices had been heard before.

At length I came to the close of the last verse:

“Now that this vigil’s done,

And thou art beaming,

Fond Hope doth close his eyes,

But, as in sleep he lies,

Of thee he’s dreaming.”

As the last note left my lips, I stood and listened. Then I started.

Was it an echo that had repeated “dreaming,” or was it a human voice

which, far, far among the dark shadows of the great wilderness, had

called “Pauline”?

While, trembling with anxious expectancy, I continued listening,

hoping that I might hear the sound again, my gaze wandered nervously

to my left whence had come a sound like the snapping of a dry stick.

Then my heart seemed to leap to my throat, and, gasping with fear and

astonishment, I beheld him whose presence I had evoked--the white man

I had seen in the canoe--the genie to whom, when under the influence

of childish superstitions, some of my incoherent prayers had been

addressed.

Half in the shadow of one of the pines, the strange, beautiful face

of the young man was turned to mine, but on that face there was an

expression of wonder that I could not understand.

Twice or thrice I tried to speak, but the words would not leave my

lips. Why did this stranger remain standing thus, regarding me with

such a steady, searching and unfathomable gaze? Did he not see the

plight to which the storm had brought me? Why did he wait for me to

speak?

At length the stranger advanced slowly toward me. His lips moved,

but before the words they framed were spoken, the old Indian darted

suddenly from a shadow and seized him by the arm. The white man turned

impatiently.

“Your hand is on me, Glenagassett,” he said.

Though he spoke quietly, there was an unmistakable note of imperious

rebuke in the clear, musical voice, and the hand of the Indian fell.

“Is this a woman?” the young man asked, turning to the Indian, who,

standing beside him, was bending on me a gaze that seemed to flash

anger and defiance.

“Yes,” replied the Indian, gravely.

The white man turned again to me.

“What brought you here?” he asked, almost roughly.

“I came this morning in my canoe, but, in the storm, it was lost

somewhere in that mass of reeds.”

“Why do you not get it out?” he demanded, shortly. “Go--get it now.”

I looked at him in wonder. Was I talking with a madman?

As I hesitated, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” he said. “You women are too weak to do such

things. Glenagassett, bring out the canoe.”

The Indian hesitated, then, with stooping shoulders, he turned and

moved quickly to the waterside.

The white man, reaching out one of his hands, firmly grasped my arm and

turned me so that the moonlight shone upon my face.

“And so you are one of those creatures which men kiss and love, and for

which they sell their foolish souls,” he said. “I have read about you,

but I never saw you. You talk with the voice of man, but your brain is

that of the devil. I have never been told, however, that women sing

like the angels. And so I see Nathan has again deceived me.”

Suddenly realizing that I was in the clutches of a victim of insanity,

I began trembling violently.

“You will sing again?” he asked.

“Not now,” I faltered.

“But I bid you,” he said, sharply.

“I cannot sing,” I answered.

“Even now I watched and heard you,” he retorted angrily. “In this

valley I am lord. I am Rayon Demain. You will sing.”

I saw that I must humor him, and, nodding humbly, I drew back. He

watched me curiously as, raising my head, I sang, as earnestly as I had

sung the other air, Arthur Sullivan’s beautiful “Lost Chord.”

Not once while I was singing did I look upon the man who had so excited

my fears. When the song was done, however, I turned to him.

He was standing as if he had been turned to stone, and the look of

wonder on his face was deeper. For several moments he was silent, then,

passing a hand across his eyes, he murmured:

“If all devils are like you, it is small wonder that men confuse them

with the angels and give their souls into their keeping.”

A sound from the waterside caused me to glance quickly in that

direction. Something was moving in the reeds, and, as I looked, I

fancied I saw an enormous bird swimming to the shore. One end rose,

like a great head and neck, and then I saw that the Indian, having

waded out among the reeds, had found my canoe and was bringing it to

the bank.

My heart leaped within me, for I felt that the hour of my deliverance

was at hand.

“You will send me home--to the log-house in the valley below?” I asked

eagerly, turning to the man who called himself Rayon Demain.

He, looking at me earnestly, was about to reply when the tall figure of

a man, with flowing white hair and beard, strode quickly from the shade

of the evergreens.

“Rayon!” exclaimed the newcomer, sharply.

The young man turned quickly to the speaker.

“You have lied to me again,” he said, angrily. “The valley in which you

have kept me is so narrow and high walled that Truth, like the sun,

finds me only at noonday. I will go to where it rises and it sets, and

will see and know all that lies between. In the books that you have

given to me are songs that poets have sung to love, but I have known

no love and, therefore, know not how to sing. And yet--to-night--I’ve

heard----”

He stopped, and once more I saw him pass a hand over his eyes in that

same bewildered manner I had observed before. Then, with his gaze

resting on the ground, he went on, half-abstractedly:

“To-night I heard a voice that seemed, at first, to come to me from

Heaven, but, as I listened, I knew that it was rising from the earth,

and, following the sound, I came here thinking to find an angel

singing. But the song was a song of love, and Glenagassett told me that

the singer, so far from being an angel, was only one of those creatures

which, as you have taught me, are two-thirds devil and one-third man,

without a single attribute of divinity. And now I know that the harp

of life which you have suffered me to play all these years is nothing

more than a mere child’s toy, after all--that from it many chords are

missing, and that the chord it most sadly lacks is that lost one of

which this strange creature sang to-night--the chord of earthly love.”

“Come!” commanded the graybeard in a hoarse, broken voice. “You

have much to learn, and of this knowledge that which has to do

with devil-snares is not the least. Come, like Adam in the garden,

you have been subjected to the greatest temptation that can befall

mankind--fruit of the forbidden tree that is offered to you by one

of the daughters of that Eve whose angel beauty and diabolical mind

brought shame and sorrow to thousands of generations of men.”

Trembling with shame and horror as the graybeard, pointing one of his

long fingers at me, branded me as one of the most despicable of God’s

creatures, I shrank from the strange, searching gaze that young Rayon

fixed on me while his mentor spoke.

My falling gaze decided all. In it the young man seemed to read a

confession of my unworthiness. When I raised my eyes again, Rayon and

the graybeard were gone, but in the place where they had been standing

I saw the Indian, Glenagassett, who held my canoe paddle toward me.

“Go,” the red man said, and, as he spoke, he pointed imperiously toward

where the bow of my canoe was drawn up on the shore.

With trembling fingers, I grasped the paddle the Indian was holding out

to me. The redskin, turning from me abruptly, strode quickly toward the

cluster of evergreens and disappeared from my view.

From the great wilderness around me there came no sound. Deserted by

him to whom my song had been addressed, I stood alone in the shadow of

the great, dark precipice.

The story of the fall of man constitutes part of the Mohammedan story

of the creation of the world, and I have often thought that in the

Koran it is more beautifully told than in the Bible, but this was the

first time in my life that I had been brought to know that living men

believed that women of their own period were cursed with the frailities

of the Eve from whom they are descended. Then it seemed to me that the

moonlight lost its splendor, and each star became a stern, accusing

eye, while the nightwinds, sighing softly in the pines, seemed to be

pitying me because, in my ignorance, I had not known that when men come

alone to this great wilderness they find earthly Edens, but when woman

enters them their glories begin to fade. Then the forest trees are hewn

into boards for summer hotels and bungalows, and the sounds of raucous

dance-music and the inane songs of music halls still forever the great

hymns which Nature is ever singing in her summer solitudes. The lake

yields its lilies to women’s idle whims, and the lily plants, sooner or

later, die like bereaved mothers. The gay-plumed singers of the forest

no more voice the carols of the Spring, for the daughters of Eve, not

content with their own charms, must enhance them with hats on which

the feathered choristers are crucified like Him whose death agonies

inspire with sorrow those wearers of stolen plumage when they assemble

in Christian churches on Easter morning.

And so, beautiful as I might be, I was only a woman, after all--a

prettily-tinted reptile that was an enemy to the flowers and birds--or

a flame at which things that loved light and life would find

destruction!

With a little sigh I had just started to walk down to my canoe when,

once more, a sound coming from the evergreens attracted my attention.

It was the sound of a tenor voice that was softly singing the verses

I had found in my window, and the air was that to which I had put

them--the air of the old Turkish lullaby.

I started, and, fearing to meet again this strange, young man whom the

graybeard had induced to leave me, I took a couple of steps in the

direction of my canoe.

“Paula!”

The word was so softly spoken that I half believed I had been deluded

by my fancy.

“Paula!”

I turned again to the evergreens, but no human figure met my view.

“Well?” I asked, abruptly.

“Go to the canoe and take the forward seat, leaving the paddle behind

you,” said the voice. “If you do not look behind you, you will be home

in an hour. If, however, you turn to see your boatman, evil will result

to you and him. Will you promise?”

I hesitated.

“Yes,” I said.

That I was in an enchanted valley I did not now pretend to doubt.

The magnificence of this stupendous wilderness, the flashing of that

terrible lightning, the awe-inspiring thunderpeals, the rush of those

mighty winds, the sullen rumble of the falling flood, my encounter

with the serpent and my extraordinary adventure with the three men

united to put to flight all the materialistic impressions that European

civilization had made upon my mind during the few weeks I had been

under its influence. Once more I was a child of the Orient, as the

heroines of the Thousand and One Nights had been. I, Princess Pauline

Maranotti, was being confronted by a situation that was no more

wonderful than those which confronted other princesses--Badoura, the

Princess of China, who became the wife of Camaralzaman; Perie-Zadeh,

Princess of Persia, whose brothers were transformed into black stones;

and Nouronnihar, Princess of India, whose beauty had caused her three

royal cousins to have extraordinary adventures.

Thus resigning myself to the superstitions of the people among whom

nearly all my life had been spent, I believed that it was the voice of

a genie that had come to me from among the evergreens, and that it was

the genie that was to be my boatman on my journey home. But so great

was the confidence with which the kindly voice had inspired me that

I no longer feared to do its bidding, and, as I walked down to the

waiting canoe, I resolved to guard against any incautious movement that

would cause me to see the forbidden face.

I entered the canoe resolutely, and, in obedience to the instructions I

had received, I sat down on the forward seat.

I had not long to wait. The crunching of the gravel and the snapping of

dead reed-sticks soon apprised me of the mysterious boatman’s approach.

A few moments later the canoe began to move forward, then it tilted

violently from side to side as the boatman entered it.

As the little craft moved on I saw that a way had been cleared for it

to the channel of the stream. A more materialistic mind would have

suspected that this had been done by the Indian who had brought it to

the shore, but, versed in Eastern lore, I knew that the magic of my

genie boatman was accomplishing all that.

Having arrived at last at the channel, the bow of the canoe was quickly

swung around and, with a speed which, in other circumstances, I would

have thought incredible, the little craft, gliding over the swollen

current, moved in the direction of the lower lake.

My trip up this stream had occupied nearly twenty-five minutes, for I

had been paddling leisurely against a sluggish current, but now less

than ten minutes sufficed to bring me to its mouth and the bright,

moonlit waters of the lake below.

Thus far the only sounds that gave evidence of the presence of my

boatman were the strong, even strokes of his double-bladed paddle.

A faint “hello” now sounded from the north-eastern shore of the lake. I

was about to glance over my shoulder when my boatman said abruptly:

“Have a care! Remember the warning!”

A cold chill passed over me, as I replied, contritely:

“Someone is calling. Perhaps Mrs. Seaver’s servants are seeking me.”

“They have sought you all the afternoon, but the lake has been very

rough, and one of their boats was capsized.”

In my anxiety I half turned again.

“But those in it got ashore?” I asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Will you let those who are seeking me know that I am safe?” I asked.

The unseen boatman hesitated.

“No,” he answered, quietly, “It is too soon to tell them now.”

For several moments we were silent.

“Why did you go to Deadwood Lake?” my boatman asked.

My cheeks began to burn, but something in me told me it was best to

tell the truth.

“I thought I might see the man who was described as so ‘strangely

handsome’,” I replied. “If I had known that there were genii there, I

would not have gone, of course.”

“If who were there?” asked the boatman.

“Genii.”

There was a pause.

“Ah, you believe in the genii, then?” he said, in a lower voice.

“Having seen them, can I believe anything else?” I murmured.

“You are from the East--the Orient?”

“From Constantinople,” I answered, wonderingly. “Do you not know?”

“I know a little, but you must tell me more.”

From across the widening waters came the voices of men who called my

name. To these my boatman gave no heed.

“Tell me why you left Constantinople--why you are here,” he persisted.

Then, as briefly as I could, I told him all.

I told him why I had fled from Meschid to Prince Maranotti and how I

was brought to America and represented as being Trevison’s daughter.

I told him how I had received the verses in the morning and how I had

suspected that the young white man in the neighboring valley was their

author.

When I was done, another silence fell. Then the boatman spoke.

“You will find other verses--verses and letters at your window,” he

said, quietly. “You may trust the writer, but do not trust others, for

I fear that great danger soon will threaten you. You did wrong to go

to the upper lake to-day, but it is fortunate that you sang, for the

first song of yours brought me to your side. But you must go there no

more.”

“You do not speak now as you did when I first met you,” I said,

reprovingly. “You spoke then as if you had been taught to hate all

women.”

There was a long pause before he answered me.

“Unlike the others whom you saw, I am not a genie,” he replied. “I am

a man who is held under enchantment. When this is broken I may take my

place with other men. Until then----”

“Until then?” I murmured.

“Until then I must continue to suffer.”

“And how may this enchantment be broken?” I asked.

“By marriage.”

“By marriage!” I exclaimed, wonderingly. “With whom?”

“With you,” he murmured, softly.

I started, and once more I was about to turn my head when the strange

companion cautioned me.

“You must not see me,” he said.

Again the cries of the men who had been seeking me came to me from

across the water. The voices were more distinct now, and the fact that

my friends were drawing nearer assured me that they had seen me.

“With you,” my boatman repeated, softly. “Do you pity me?”

“Yes--yes,” I answered. “How could I fail to pity you?”

I was trembling violently, and even the fresh night airs were stifling

me.

I now observed that, though the canoe was headed for the shore, the bow

was turned toward a point that was several hundred yards distant from

the log-house.

“You are not taking me home,” I murmured.

“Those who follow us will do that,” my boatman said. “They must not

see me, nor must you tell your friends that those you saw to-day were

genii. You may tell them, however, that an Indian, finding you beside

Deadwood Lake, just after the storm, brought you here. You will do

this?”

“Yes,” I faltered.

There was a long pause. He was using the paddle more vigorously now,

and the shouts that came to our ears from the pursuing boat were louder

and more earnest.

The canoe was rapidly approaching the shore, and in front of the

log-house I saw the dancing of lanterns. I knew my anxious hostess was

preparing to set out to meet the returning boat and was wondering why

the canoe in which I sat was not approaching the regular landing place.

“You will not give me your answer now?” my boatman asked.

With a little shrug of the shoulder, I said faintly:

“There is only one to give. If what you say is true--if it is only I

who can make you free, I must become your wife.”

The strokes of the paddles ceased abruptly, and a great silence fell

around us.

“You will meet me three nights hence, at midnight, at the place at

which we are about to land?” he asked in a low, eager, trembling voice.

“I am to marry you then?” I murmured.

“Yes,” he answered. “But it will ruin both of us if, while the ceremony

is being performed, or afterward on that night, you raise your eyes to

my face. You will be there?”

“Yes, I will be there,” I said.

A voice from the boat that followed cried:

“Miss Trevison.”

“You may answer,” said my boatman, “but do not turn your head.”

“I am here!” I cried.

A few vigorous strokes of the paddle brought my canoe to the shore.

“Remain seated,” said the boatman. “Do not look after me as I go. Three

nights hence, at midnight, I will be here, and, except ourselves and

the priest I will bring with me, no other person must know.”

The side of the canoe was against the bank of a little cove. The boat

rocked from side to side as the boatman left it.

“Good-night, Paula,” he said.

“Good-night, Rayon Demain,” I murmured, with a sigh.

And, as I heard the twigs snapping as he strode quickly into the

forest, I suddenly reflected that his name consisted of two French

words which, together, signified “a beam of to-morrow.”

“Miss Trevison!”

Looking in the direction from whence this cry had come, I beheld a

boat, propelled by two pairs of oars, moving quickly toward me. The

rowers were the two menservants from the log-house.

“I am here,” I called back to them.

In a few moments the bow of the boat was against the bank.

“Who was that man that brought you here?” one of the men asked, shortly.

“An Indian,” I replied.

“You have been to Deadwood Lake?”

“Yes,” I answered, coldly. “I was just entering it when the storm

overtook me.”

The moonlight enabled me to see a strange look settle on the face of

the man who had questioned me.

“I told you, Jim, no good would come of it,” the other muttered,

surlily.

“All right, George; it’s no business of ours--now we’ve found her,” Jim

said, quietly, then addressing me, he added: “Better get in here with

us, Miss. We can tow the canoe better if it is light.”

I got into the boat, and ten minutes later Mrs. Seaver had me in her

arms on the beach in front of the log-house.

The story I told was simple. I explained that when the storm broke

I had landed on the southern shore of Deadwood Lake, and, after

nightfall, believing that the servants would come to seek me, I had

been singing in order that my voice would guide them to me. Then

an Indian had appeared, and I accepted his offer to take me to the

log-house.

“Why did you go there?” asked my hostess, looking at me curiously.

“Because the north end of our lake was the only part of it I had not

visited,” I replied. “I saw the stream that entered it, and, through

it, I paddled up to Deadwood Lake.”

“You must not go again,” Mrs. Seaver said, thoughtfully. “You will

promise me you will not go?”

“Why, yes, I’ll promise you that,” I answered, laughingly.

A warm dinner was soon set before me, but I had little appetite for

it. In my mind were ringing those fateful words which had been softly

uttered by the unseen boatman: “Three nights hence, at midnight, I will

meet you here.”

An hour later, when the lamp in my room was extinguished, the

moonlight, streaming through the open window, found me with closed

lids, but my dreams were of the strange, god-like man whose name

signified “a beam of to-morrow.”

When I woke the sun was shining on the valley and a robin was singing

under my window. My heart was beating rapidly as, half-rising, I leaned

on my elbow and glanced toward the window curtain on which I had found

the verses pinned the morning before.

A few moments later my feet were on the floor, and, with trembling

steps, I approached the curtain on which I saw another envelope.

The first had been marked: “For Paula.” On this was inscribed the

name:--“Pauline.”

Drawing out a sheet of notepaper, I read:--

THY GONDOLIER

Glide thou o’er moonlit waters where

The lilies wake to see thee pass,

And swing their censers to the air

As acolytes at Beauty’s mass;

Or move thee on the tide of dreams

In stately barge; or, if in fear,

Thou art on storm-swept lakes or streams,

Let me be e’er thy gondolier.

While Spring doth shine from out thine eyes,

While brightly beams thy Summer’s sun

And loving friends around thee rise,

I’ll deem my lifelong task begun.

Then, when exposed to Autumn’s breath,

Other loves and faiths grow sere--

Ay, when chill Winter comes, with Death,

They’ll find me still thy gondolier.

Twenty-four hours ago the author of the verses I then received was

unknown to me, but now the mystery had been solved. The hand that had

written the verses yesterday was the same that had penned those of

to-day. It was the hand of the mysterious boatman who had guided my

canoe over the lake less than ten hours ago--the man whose wife I would

be before the week was ended.

But the next morning and the next I looked in vain for the expected

envelope. My heart grew heavy with fear as I wondered what had

prevented the writer’s coming. Had there been a tightening of the bonds

that bound him to that dreadful valley? Would he be unable to keep the

appointment he had made with me?

At length the fateful night arrived. I went to my room at nine o’clock,

for this was the time my hostess and her servants were in the habit of

retiring. For more than an hour I tried to read, but, naturally enough,

I was unable to concentrate my thoughts on a book on the eve of such an

important event in my life. Time and again I asked myself what would be

the result of this unreasonable act I was about to do, but not once did

my courage fail me.

It was half past eleven o’clock when, after extinguishing the light

that had been dimly burning, I lowered myself from my window to the

ground.

Then for several moments I hesitated. The night was darker than I had

expected to find it. Large clouds, moving from the northwest, totally

obscured the moon from time to time, and the night breezes were

freshening.

Not knowing what fate awaited me, or whether I would be able to return

to the log-house, I thrust into one of my pockets a purse containing

all the money I had brought with me to the mountains.

After stealing away from the house as quietly as possible, I found the

path that led along the shore of the lake to the place at which I had

agreed to meet my boatman. How much time it took to cover the distance

I do not know, but on arriving at my destination I was not kept long

in suspense for, from the shadow of a group of low trees, there came a

voice.

“Pauline,” it said softly.

The voice was one that I could not have mistaken anywhere.

“I am here,” I answered, firmly.

“Do you remember?” asked the voice, and I detected a note of warning in

its tone.

“Yes,” I said.

I heard the sound of approaching footsteps, but I did not raise my eyes.

“This is Dr. Belford,” the voice went on. “He is a clergyman, and will

marry us.”

The ceremony was much shorter than I had expected it to be, and the

words were quietly spoken. A strange thrill passed through me as the

bridegroom took my hand, and I was trembling when he slipped the ring

on my finger. Then, at last, I heard the fateful words:

“I do now pronounce you man and wife.”

And so I had my fairy prince at last!

A great silence fell around me, then I heard the voice of the man who

was now my husband.

“Return to the cottage now, Pauline,” he said, gently. “To-morrow

you will hear from me. It is forbidden that I should touch your

lips with mine to-night, or that I should look into your eyes. But

to-morrow--to-morrow----”

I heard him turn away.

“Good-night, my dear,” he said.

“Good-night, Rayon,” I answered, humbly.

And so on our bridal night we parted, and in a few moments I was

returning to the log-house by the path along which I had come from it.

I had proceeded only a few paces, however, when from the direction of

the log-house there came the sound of a pistol shot.

I halted and my heart grew still. Then I heard three other shots in

quick succession. These were followed by the hoarse voices of men.

For several moments terror held me spellbound. Then, standing

motionless in the path, I heard the sound of someone running toward me

from the forest. Cowering with fear, I shrank behind a dwarf evergreen.

The dark shadow moved swiftly past, about thirty feet away from me.

This was quickly followed by another. They were men, but I was unable

to see the faces of either.

A succession of women’s shrieks and the cries of men now rose from

the log-house. Then, looking in that direction, I saw something that

brought a cry of horror to my lips.

The structure was in flames!

Still I hesitated, but the pitiful cries of a woman--cries that I knew

were Mrs. Seaver’s--caused me to fling to the winds all fears for my

personal safety. Running and stumbling, I made my way along the path,

and, as I ran, the dull, angry glow of the burning house grew brighter.

I heard another pistol shot, but the only fear I felt was for the

hostess who had so kindly cared for me.

At length, reaching the clearing round the house, I saw Mrs. Seaver

running toward me. I called her name, but at that moment a tall man

overtook her, and, seizing her in a rough grasp, started with her

toward the burning house. Up the steps he ran, then, with a curse so

loud that it reached my ears, the man hurled the woman through the door.

As I hurried forward, I recognized the perpetrator of the terrible act,

and, in a shrieking voice, I cried:

“Rayon--Rayon--are you mad?”

The tall man turned and thrust away a second tall figure that was about

to throw itself upon him. Then, as swiftly as a deer, Rayon ran to me.

Never shall I forget the awful expression that I saw upon his face as,

standing before me, he looked into my eyes.

“Come--devil or angel--you belong to me now,” he said, laughing

roughly. “To-night I have declared myself free.”

As he grasped one of my arms it seemed to me that his fingers were

burning their way to its bone.

“Stop--stop--coward--help me!” I cried at the top of my voice.

The lips of the magnificent fiend again parted in a smile.

“Come,” he began, but he said no more.

A powerful fist, passing before my eyes, had felled him to my feet.

Freed from his grasp, I turned to the man who had rescued me.

Then I saw that he to whom I owed my release was the man whose

grotesque face--a very caricature of the human visage--had looked down

upon me in New York while I was preparing to board a train for the

Adirondacks--the man whose almost indescribable ugliness had caused me

to refer to him as “the Gargoyle.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked in an abrupt, thick voice.

“No--no, but Mrs. Seaver! She----”

The Gargoyle, laying one hand on my shoulder, pointed to the

milk-house, and said:

“She is safe. Go to her.”

Rayon, who for a few moments had appeared to be insensible, now began

to rise.

“Go!” the Gargoyle repeated, sharply.

I needed no further urging, and several seconds later I was at Mrs.

Seaver’s side. She was moaning pitifully as I approached her, but, as

soon as she saw me, she uttered a cry of relief and clasped me in her

arms.

“Who has done all this?” I asked.

“The demons from the valley,” she sobbed. “It was the Indian who set

fire to the house. The other--the white man----”

James, one of the menservants, came running up.

“We can’t save the house ma’am,” he said quickly, “but I guess all else

is safe enough now. The redskin is dead, and--oh, God!”

A look of horror overspread the speaker’s face and his rifle fell from

his hand. Nor did I marvel that his courage had left him. Standing near

us, with the lurid glare of the fire lighting his terrible features,

was the Gargoyle.

“’Tis the devil himself!” James muttered between his chattering teeth.

With a little cry of terror, Mrs. Seaver hid her face in her hands.

For several moments the strange being before me looked meditatively at

our little group. Then, turning quickly, he strode off into the forest.

“Oh, James--James, you must get us away from here to-night--now!” cried

Mrs. Seaver desperately. “Where is George?”

James, turning his face toward the lake, shrugged his shoulders

slightly, but said nothing.

“Dead?” I asked in a trembling voice.

James faced me slowly.

“Yes, Miss,” he said, quietly. “The white devil killed him--with an

axe.”

“And Mary?” Mrs. Seaver faltered.

“She tried to shoot him, but he was too quick for her,” said James.

“She, too, went down.” Then, turning to me, he added, abruptly: “He was

seeking you, Miss. I was afraid----”

I could hear no more. The ground seemed to give away beneath my feet,

and, tottering forward, I stumbled and fell.

When I recovered consciousness, James and Mrs. Seaver were helping me

into a covered wagon. As I looked around me, I saw the barn was in

flames, the light of which had transformed the lake I loved into a

great orange-colored thing that filled me with dismay.

“Where are we going?” I asked faintly, as I sank on a roll of blankets.

“We are going to leave these terrible mountains,” Mrs. Seaver replied,

in a strange, hard voice. “Until this hour I loved them, but I hate

them now and I hope that I may never see them more. James will drive

us to the nearest railway station, then he will report to the proper

officials all that has happened. He will return with men to help him

bury poor George and Mary. Everything we had here, except the horses

and the wagon, has been destroyed, so let us go.”

A week later, sitting in my apartment in New York, I read in a

newspaper an account of how deputy sheriffs, seeking the outlaw, Rayon

Demain, had come upon a remarkable cavern in Deadwood Valley. It was

apparent that this cavern was, for the most part, the work of man.

Windows, which afforded light and ventilation to the various chambers,

were high up in an almost inaccessible mountainside, and were so

cunningly constructed and concealed that it was not until after the

secret entrance to the cavern had been discovered that their presence

in the big rock wall was suspected.

The cavern contained several galleries, and there were about nine

rooms in all. In these rooms were found hundreds of valuable books,

several different kinds of musical instruments, paraphernalia for the

exhibition of moving pictures and a well-equipped gymnasium.

But by far the most remarkable of the discoveries made was a large

collection of magnificent paintings, most of which were of an

allegorical nature. These had been identified as the work of Nathan

Bonfield, who, many years before, had given promise of becoming one

of the greatest painters of his period, but of whom, in recent years,

little was known. It was found, too, that Bonfield was a frequent

visitor to Deadwood Valley, and there was some reason to suspect that

Rayon Demain, now charged with the murder of two of Mrs. Seaver’s

servants, was some relative of the eccentric painter’s.

It had been learned also that for many years an Indian, named

Glenagassett, had been Demain’s almost constant attendant, and that

it was this Indian who had lighted the fire that destroyed Mrs.

Seaver’s buildings. What had been the motive that inspired this deed,

no man knew. The Indian had been killed and Demain had mysteriously

disappeared. Of Bonfield’s present whereabouts nothing was known.

But before these matter-of-fact reports were published in the

newspapers, I had been disillusioned. From the moment that the brutal

Rayon had been sent to earth by a blow from a human hand, I knew how

absurd had been those superstitions which, excited by that Adirondack

storm, had endowed him with more than human attributes. My god-like

man had degenerated into something that was little better than one of

the lower animals. The outlaw, whose wife I had become, was either a

monster or a madman.

As may be readily understood, the secret of my night canoe trip and

my midnight marriage never left my lips. I was resolved that not even

Prince Maranotti should learn of my almost inconceivable act of folly,

if I could prevent that knowledge from reaching him.

Fearful lest I should again fall into the clutches of Demain, I became

anxious to return to Europe. The fear of Meschid Pasha and his friend

Glyncamp no longer haunted me. Upon me Meschid had no claim, and so

long as I kept away from Turkish territory it was scarcely likely that

either of these enemies would make any attempt to rob me of my newfound

liberty. It was as the daughter of the late Prince Maranotti I would

now take my place in the world.

As soon as the young Prince, my brother, returned from the West I

attempted to persuade him to allow me to go with him to Europe. To

this, however, he demurred. I must remain in the United States, he

said, and retain the name of Paula Trevison.

“It is here that you must marry and make your home,” he told me.

“Through Trevison I will make ample provision for you, but it is

contrary to your interests and mine that you be known as Pauline

Maranotti. The members of the nobility would not receive you, and your

lot in Italy would be exceedingly unhappy.”

I would not have it so, however. The result was that we quarreled and

parted in anger. The following day I received a visit from the Prince’s

American lawyer, who told me my brother had deposited in a New York

bank the sum of ten thousand dollars, in the name of Paula Trevison.

This was to constitute my allowance for the year. The lawyer also

informed me that on that morning the Prince had embarked on a vessel

for Italy.

While the lawyer was with me, I succeeded in restraining my feelings,

but as soon as he was gone a spirit of revolt asserted itself,

and I determined that I would go to England, seek out my mother’s

relatives and enlist their support in an attempt to assert my claim to

recognition as a daughter of the house of Maranotti, and, as such, one

who rightfully might claim a part of its vast estate.

Kind as he had been to me, the Prince had at last plainly given me

to understand that my mother’s flight from his father’s cruelty was

unwarranted, and that, in the interest of the family, he would be

compelled to recognize me only privately as his half-sister. In short

I was to be dependent on his benevolence for that financial aid to

which I had an hereditary right. This, together with the light manner

in which he had set off for Europe, without coming to bid me farewell,

had thoroughly angered me, and from a sense of respect for my injured

mother, as well as from a sense of my individual rights in the matter,

I was determined that this masquerade as Paula Trevison should cease.

Having taken this resolution, I decided to act in accordance with it

without delay.

Looking over the advertising columns of a newspaper, I saw that a large

steam yacht had been chartered by a tourist company for an early Autumn

cruise among the British Isles. I never had been aboard a steam yacht,

and it occurred to me that perhaps on such a vessel I would be less

likely to be seen by anyone who had known me before. It was not such a

vessel as a friend of Glyncamp’s or Meschid’s would be likely to take,

nor was it probable that the fugitive, Demain, would embark on such a

trip. I saw that I could leave the yacht at any of its stopping places,

and as these, for the most part, were not likely to be regular ports of

entry, I might the more easily succeed in escaping detection.

The vessel was to sail on the morrow. Accordingly I drew from the bank

the full amount that had been deposited there to my credit and took

passage on the steam yacht, _Highland Lady_.

Except for one incident, this voyage was uneventful. Near the close of

our fourth day out, we sighted a derelict that lay almost directly in

our course. As our yacht drew near this ill-fated vessel it was seen

that it had been ravaged by fire, but from the charred staff over the

stern a white cloth was fluttering, and a closer inspection showed that

a rope was trailing from one of the davits. Believing, therefore, that

some living person still might be on the helpless vessel, our captain

sent four men in one of the yacht’s boats to learn whether survivors

were aboard.

On the derelict one man was found, and never shall I forget the

spectacle he presented when, haggard and delirious, he was brought

aboard the _Highland Lady_. He was taken to one of the staterooms, and,

heartily pitying the poor fellow, I asked the yacht’s surgeon if I

could do anything to aid him.

The offer was made impulsively, and I was a little startled when the

doctor said:

“Why, yes, Miss Trevison, you can help me, if you will. He has a bad

scratch on one of his arms--from a piece of metal, I suppose--and, if

we don’t give it treatment at once, it is likely to cause considerable

trouble.”

Then, asking all others, except a stewardess and myself to leave the

room, the doctor prepared to dress the injured arm. After a careful

examination, he said he would have to lance it. He, therefore, asked

me to hold the arm while he performed the simple operation. While he

was preparing for this, the physician’s attention was distracted by the

sound of a concertina, which, played by a little son of one of the

passengers, had annoyed many persons during the voyage. The doctor,

stepping to the door, directed that the concertina be silenced. He then

turned to his patient.

All was over in a few minutes, but, while I held the arm, the delirious

man struggled desperately, and never will I forget the look of horror

I saw on his haggard face. When the lancing was finished the doctor

washed the arm and, after applying some sort of ointment, he bandaged

it.

When all was done, I left the stateroom, just as a steward entered it

with a bowl of steaming broth.

Later in the day, when I stopped at the stateroom door to learn the

condition of the patient, he opened his eyes suddenly and, seeing me,

he accused me of being a vampire. When I visited the stateroom on the

following morning he repeated the strange charge. Then, learning that I

was the only visitor whom he had addressed in this astonishing manner,

I discontinued my visits.

The _Highland Lady_ was to make her first stop at the Scilly Islands

and, as it was scarcely likely that the sufferer would find good

hospital treatment there, he was transferred to a vessel bound for

Liverpool.

Shortly after this, upon picking up an English newspaper that had been

published only a day or two after we had taken the stranger from the

_Hannibal_, I saw an account of how an American ship captain had sent a

man aboard the _Hannibal_ in order that he might be able to report on

the derelict’s condition. This man had found no one on the vessel. As

his visit had been made more than a week after the burning _Hannibal_

had been abandoned by its crew, and before it had been sighted by the

_Highland Lady_, the fact that the presence of the famished man we

took off had not been discovered, struck me as extraordinary. It did,

however, account for the unburned rope which we had seen trailing from

the davit.

Upon my arrival in England, the few surviving relatives of my mother

received me coldly, and were frank enough to tell me that the treatment

I had received from the Prince was better than I had a right to expect.

Then, reluctantly deciding to abandon my determination to insist that

I should be formally acknowledged as the late Prince’s daughter, I

returned to the United States.

In the vessel that brought me across the Atlantic I met a young woman,

about my own age, who was the wife of Adolph Janot, an aviator and

the inventor of an improved seaplane which then was being subjected

to a series of tests by the government. Mrs. Janot and I became great

friends, and, when we arrived in New York, it was at her suggestion

that I took a small suite of rooms in the apartment hotel in which she

made her home. Several times, in the course of the weeks that followed,

Mr. Janot invited me to go up with him in his big seaplane, but, unable

to conquer my strange fears, I always declined.

Correspondence between the Prince and myself soon completely effected

a reconciliation, and when, a few months after our parting, he found

it necessary to return to the United States, it was arranged that he

should be my guest.

It was while the Prince still was on the Atlantic that I saw in a

newspaper a report of the death of Rayon Demain. According to this,

the young man, who then was passing under an assumed name, was slain

in Arizona in singularly mysterious circumstances. Concerning his

identity, however, there was not the slightest doubt.

The report was brief and I read the lines without emotion. My love for

this misguided man was only an incident of a long midsummer night’s

dream, after all. His physical perfections, his verses to me and the

words I heard him speak while he guided the canoe across the moonlit

lake had captivated me. Taking advantage of my superstitions, he had

caused me to become his wife, then, in an hour of inexplicable madness,

he had assumed the aspect of a fiend, and I had learned to loathe him.

So lightly had I come to regard that midnight marriage that it was

difficult for me to realize that in the eyes of the law I was a widow.

When my half-brother and I met again we became even better friends than

we had been before. He told me something, however, that disquieted

me. Lord Galonfield had been seeking me in Europe, and had caused the

Prince to be informed that he had obtained possession of the Rajiid

diamonds which, according to an arrangement with Meschid Pasha, were to

constitute the price of my hand in marriage. The Prince gave the young

nobleman no information concerning me.

Like me, the Prince was passionately fond of the better class of music,

and, during the six months he remained in New York, we frequently went

together to musicales and the opera. It was at the Metropolitan Opera

House that I first saw Philip Wadsworth, a well-to-do young man, who

was destined to play an important part in my life.

The circumstances incident to the manner in which Mr. Wadsworth wooed

and wed me have been related by that gentleman himself.

Several times I had been puzzled by his occasional periods of

abstraction, but on the day of our marriage I was wholly at a loss to

account for his remarkable display of nervousness, and, during the

ceremony, I observed that some of his responses were uttered almost as

if he were speaking against his will. His increasing haggardness in

the cab that took us to the pier startled me, and then, for the first

time, I fancied that I saw in his face something that was suggestive

of a face I had seen before. But it was not until he entered the

stateroom, just before the vessel left the pier, that I recognized him.

The haggard face of my husband was that of the delirious man who had

been taken from the derelict, and in his eyes was the same expression I

had seen in them when he had called me a vampire!

Then, as if in confirmation of my discovery, there came to my ears from

the pier the sound of a concertina. Several times, while the rescued

man was on board the _Highland Lady_, passengers found it necessary to

rebuke the irrepressible boy whose playing of a concertina near the

sick man’s room was likely to disturb his rest.

Deserted by the man who, scarcely more than an hour before, had made me

his wife, I continued on my way to Europe. There a cablegram from the

Prince recalled me to the United States. Upon my return I was informed

that Mr. Wadsworth had mysteriously disappeared, leaving no explanation

of his desertion of me.

My brother’s anger and indignation knew no bounds, but, fearing that if

the affair got to the attention of the public, his true name might be

revealed, he decided to institute no legal proceedings against the man

who had so cruelly deserted me.

When the time arrived for me to bid farewell to the Prince, I went down

to the pier with Mrs. Janot to see him off. On my return to my room, I

found among the letters the postman had brought during my absence an

envelope addressed in a handwriting that drove the color from my face.

I quickly opened the envelope, and, as I drew out the sheet it

contained I saw it contained more verses from the hand of Rayon Demain!

With a cry of anguish, I sank insensible to the floor.

When I recovered consciousness, Mrs. Janot was bending over me. As, in

her sympathetic way, she asked me the cause of my trouble, I shrank

from her in dismay.

What would this good woman have said if I had told her I was a bigamist?

The following day I received other verses, and a letter. Neither bore

the hated name, however, for they were signed “Thy Gondolier.” The

letter informed me that the writer was in New York, and he besought

me to receive him when he called at three o’clock on the following

afternoon.

I had rented my apartment furnished, and three trunks were sufficient

to hold all my personal property. These trunks were quickly packed,

and, four hours after I had received the verses and letter, I left the

house.

I went first to a modest hotel, and then rented and furnished a flat in

the northern part of the city. The only persons who knew my new address

were the Janots and the Prince’s lawyer.

For several weeks I was undisturbed, then I was completely prostrated

by the report of the assassination of Prince Maranotti, at Basselanto.

The news came to me through his American lawyer, who informed me that

two men were suspected of the crime. Of these, one was a man whose

features were those of a “laughing devil,” and the other was a cousin

of the man who was slain.

The description of the first man was so similar to that of the man

known to me as the “Gargoyle,” that I could scarcely doubt that it was

indeed this person who had committed the act. I had heard the Prince

speak once of a cousin in America--“a helpless sort of a fellow,” he

said--whom I might chance to meet one day. He advised me, however, not

to take this man into my confidence.

Assured by my legal adviser that my claim to the Maranotti estates

was indisputable, I placed the matter entirely in his hands. He then

decided that, for the present, at least, it would be better for me to

remain in the United States while he went to Italy to consult with

legal authorities there. Two days after my lawyer sailed, a cablegram

from Italy was received at his office. The cablegram yielded the

information that the will of Prince Maranotti had been found and that

he left all the Maranotti estates to me.

Five days have passed since my lawyer left New York. During the first

three I remained in my apartments. Yesterday afternoon, however, Mrs.

Janot invited me to take an automobile trip with her to Rockaway where,

at the aviation station, her husband was going to try out one of his

new seaplanes. Believing the trip would improve my spirits, which were

somewhat depressed because of my long seclusion indoors, I accepted the

invitation.

Arriving at Rockaway, we were welcomed by Mr. Janot, who, in a launch,

took us out to the new seaplane. Not suspecting that any attempt would

be made to take me on a flight against my will, I was easily persuaded

to board the big machine and seat myself in the fusilage. For several

minutes Mr. Janot explained to me the nature of the mechanism by means

of which the seaplane was controlled. While I listened, a mechanician

was oiling one of the great motors.

With a suddenness that completely bewildered me, the whole structure

began to vibrate and I was almost deafened by the sound of the motors’

exhaust. I turned to protest, but in the roar my words were inaudible.

Mr. Janot smiled grimly and avoided my gaze as he continued to

manipulate the mechanical devices with which he was surrounded.

With ever-increasing speed, the plane now was moving over the surface

of the water; then I saw we were rising. Slowly my resentment died

away. As we sped onward and upward, I closed my eyes. Again I found

myself under the spell of old Arabian tales. One moment I felt like

Sinbad in the talons of a roc; another, and I was mounted on the back

of a flying steed, and then I would fancy I was nestling on the crooked

arm of a great, black, Sphinx-faced genie, who, with the speed of a

comet, was traversing the star-strewn wilderness of the night. Nor

did the mighty coughing of the motors’ exhaust find vulnerable the

all-pervading ecstasy which filled my mind with visions of the wonders

of Mohammed’s Paradise.

From time to time I looked down at the wonderful panorama that was

moving under me. I caught my breath as I saw scores of clusters of

toy-houses, and woods and fields, and the sea, wrinkled and gray,

stretching out to the horizon.

But, suddenly, my fears overwhelmed me again. The coughing of the

motors ceased and I was conscious of a faint sensation of sinking.

Looking down, I saw there was land below us--a great expanse of

greenish-yellow meadows, lined with many gray creeks of various sizes.

Toward these meadows the seaplane was gliding, apparently heading for a

big barge that was moored to a bank of one of the larger creeks.

It was near the mouth of one of the creeks that we came to water.

Scarcely was the seaplane at rest when Mr. Janot and his mechanician

began making a collapse boat ready for service. As I looked at them

wonderingly, Mr. Janot said:

“Something serious has happened. The motors are overheated and the

machine is unsafe. We must get you ashore at once.”

Two or three minutes later I was in the boat and Mr. Janot rowed me to

the shore. He helped me to land. As he stepped back into the boat, he

said:

“The condition of the plane is such that I dare not ask you to return

to it. I think you will have little difficulty in getting to a

railway station, with the assistance of someone you will find on the

barge yonder.” He paused, then added: “When we meet again, you will

understand, and will not blame me for leaving you in this unfortunate

situation. Good-night.”

Speechless with astonishment, I watched him row back to the seaplane.

Soon after he boarded it, its exhaust sounded again and it took the air.

The declining sun warned me that if I was to get to the railroad before

nightfall, it would be necessary for me to act quickly. Not far from me

was the barge I had seen in the course of the seaplane’s descent. I was

about to go toward this when I heard the discharge of a gun, and saw

the fall of several ducks that had been flying overhead. Thinking that

the man who fired the gun was from the barge, I hurried toward the bank

which concealed him from my view. Reaching this, I saw him in a little

boat, and to him I appealed for aid in getting me to the railroad.

This, he thought, could not be done at night. Thanks to his courtesy,

however, I soon found myself on this barge where I was welcomed by Mr.

Westfall. I was compelled to remain against my will, but already our

host has partly convinced me that it was well I did so. Painful as have

been the narratives of the three gentlemen who have proved that I have

been responsible for the grievous misfortunes that have befallen them,

I willingly await the stories to be told by the others, with the hope

that what they have to tell will lift forever from my unhappy life the

clouds of mystery and fear which now envelop it.

* * * * *

As the Veiled Aeronaut finished speaking, all eyes, flashing with

disapproval and curiosity, were turned toward the Gargoyle, whose

ever-smiling face was partly concealed by one of his long, white hands.

“Well, sir--well?” demanded the Nervous Physician, irritably. “We are

now prepared to hear your explanation, I believe.”

The Gargoyle, drumming nervously on the table, glanced interrogatively

toward Westfall. But before the millionaire had time to speak, the

Fugitive Bridegroom, leaning across the table, addressed the Aeronaut.

“Then my--my doubts--my horrible suspicions--were only the results of

delirium, after all,” he said, in a hoarse, broken voice.

“Of course, of course,” replied the Nervous Physician. “Isn’t it clear

enough to you now? There is scarcely an hour in the day when some

delirious man or woman in New York is not receiving such impressions. A

man whose bare feet get below his bedclothes on a Winter’s night will

dream that he is in the Arctic regions, and to a dreamer incidents

which seem to occupy hours will pass through his mind in a few seconds.

Science has shown that in a five-minute dream a man may read a

three-volume novel. Most men know this, and, when delirium is passed,

they have sense enough to put aside the fantastic impressions they have

received. You, however, have hoarded yours, with the result that you

have made a fool of yourself, and have withdrawn from this inestimable

young woman the protection she had a natural right to expect from

you. I have no sympathy for you, sir--none. Now let us hear what this

miserable Gargoyle has to say. Why don’t you speak, sir?”

“Stop!” commanded Westfall sharply. “In no circumstances, Doctor, is

any of my guests to be subjected to insult while on this barge. The

Gargoyle awaits your apology, sir.”

The Homicidal Professor leaned forward.

“We are to understand, then, that the appearance of the Princess

on this marsh, and so near this barge, is not to be regarded as a

coincidence?” he asked, impressively.

Westfall shook his head gravely.

“No, it was not that,” he said. “Having learned that her highness was

on friendly terms with the Janots, I persuaded the aviator to bring

her here at the time and in the manner she appeared. Our plan had been

carefully arranged. But, Doctor, I have reminded you that the Gargoyle

is expecting an apology.”

“Well, let him have it, then,” snapped the nervous physician, as the

Homicidal Professor again settled back in his chair. “I apologize now,

sir, but, in time, I may withdraw my apology.”

“We will now hear the story of the Hypochondriacal Painter,” said

Westfall.

The Hypochondriacal Painter stroked his white beard meditatively for a

few moments, then, in a deep, mellow voice, he began: