my straightforward story,—exultation not due alone to the thought of
bringing guilt to justice, but, also, and, perhaps, even more to the
thought of my own triumph over myself, in that most manly atonement which
a coward can make for his cowardice,—the confession of his own weakness.
“I could not resist noting the effect of my story on the prisoner as
I proceeded. When I first mentioned the fact that I carried my camera
with me up the mountain I detected a slight start and aversion of
face on the part of the Mexican. When I described the bounding of the
wounded deer into the clearing, its fall on the opposite edge, and
the appearance of the two hunters hastening to the spot the prisoner
seemed to tremble slightly. But when I confessed the natural timidity
which led me to take a photograph of the struggling hunters, instead
of rushing out to separate them, a deathly pallor overspread the man’s
face, and he clutched at the railing before him for support. Then, as
I kept relentlessly on, describing the knife-thrust, the fall of the
murdered man, the withdrawing of the weapon from his bosom, and the
snap-shot photograph of the murderer while engaged in that very act,
then the backward look of mingled triumph and terror, perpetuated by the
relentless camera, and, finally, the hurried flight through the woods,
the man’s chin sank upon his bosom, and his whole frame shook with abject
fear.
“The most intense excitement now reigned in the little court room.
Attention was divided between myself and the prisoner, until I drew
forth the photographs and held them out to the State’s attorney to be
submitted to the jury. At this stage of the proceedings, impelled, it
would seem, by a strange, ungovernable fascination, the prisoner, though
almost palsied with fear, stretched out his hand and snatched one of the
photographs as they were being passed to the jury. It happened to be the
one which represented the murderer drawing the knife from his victim’s
bosom, while the light fell full and strong upon the pale, upturned
face of the murdered man. As his eyes fell upon this awful portrayal of
a scene which he supposed was pictured alone in his own haunting and
accusing memory, the superstitious Mexican shrieked with terror and fell
heavily upon the floor. I shall never forget the horrible intensity of
fear and despair in that cry, nor the picture of the round-faced State’s
attorney standing over the prostrate form, with accusing finger pointed
downward, and cheery countenance for once tragically solemn as he bent
his triumphant eyes upon the jury.
“Of course the jury pronounced a verdict of guilty without leaving their
seats, and the Mexican, abject, cowering, and self-convicted, was hurried
away to jail, hemmed in by a howling mob. The brother of the murdered
Albert Stetson came to me as soon as he could force his way through the
crowd, intent upon obtaining a sight of the strange, pictured testimony,
seized my hand, and fairly overwhelmed me with grateful acknowledgments.”
At this point Henderson stopped short, as though his story were finished.
“But what in the name of common sense has all this to do with your
endowment of the Woodville Library?” asked the mystified listener.
“Oh, yes; on the day after my return to Woodville I received a letter
from Cyrus Stetson, notifying me that he would call the next morning to
pay the reward of twenty-five thousand dollars offered by him for the
apprehension of his brother’s murderer. Now, I had known nothing of any
such reward. My testimony in the case had been given simply with the idea
of convicting the murderer and at the same time partially atoning for my
own cowardice. But it isn’t every day that twenty-five thousand dollars
is thrown into the hands of a man in my circumstances; and I may as well
confess that the thought of all that the money could do for my family
and myself was a strong temptation. On the other hand, to accept it was
to accept a reward for my own cowardice and so to forfeit my last shred
of self-respect. Between these two courses I could see no middle way.
Well, you can imagine how fierce the battle was between conscience and
self-interest when I tell you that I never breathed a word of all this
to a soul, even to my wife, but lay awake all night, my mind oscillating
like a pendulum between two decisions. In the end, however, conscience
conquered. I determined to refuse the reward, with the request that Mr.
Stetson keep it for the family of the murdered man. But when Stetson
arrived the next morning he simply wouldn’t hear of a refusal, declared
that the dead man had left no family, pooh-poohed all my objections, and,
in short, so far overcame my scruples in the heat of the conversation
that when he left his check for twenty-five thousand dollars was in my
pocket.
“No sooner was he gone, however, and my excitement was cooled than all my
doubts of the night before returned threefold. For the five days that I
was the secret possessor of that twenty-five thousand dollars I was the
most unhappy man on the face of the earth. And it was only when I had
converted the entire sum into an endowment for the Woodville Library that
I finally felt at peace with myself and the world.”
[Illustration]
Unchallenged.
BY KATHERINE MORROW.
The moonlight fell through the climbing roses over the wide piazza of a
country house where some people were sitting. It was midsummer in the
foot-hills of the California Sierras, and the insects, the dogs, and the
water in the ditch had their voices in the air with the people.
The talk, uninfluenced by the beauty of the night, had been mostly of
murders and scenes of blood. Then a girl shook it off quickly.
“Alice and I sleep outside now. Also Ned, the restless, takes to a
hammock. It’s glorious.”
There had been too many tales of an abnormal nature for the equilibrium
of the timid ones. A voice came from the corner:—
“It isn’t safe.”
Ned Carter laughed with his sisters.
“I’ve a little revolver—a beauty,” he said, “and nothing could come
within half a mile! Besides, there are the dogs.”
“Yes,” the three admitted in chorus, “we’re too much on the alert for
impressions. We’re too anxious to waken for anything to escape.”
“Oh,” said a girl from the steps, “I’ve heard this sort of thing before.
I’ll venture you snore profoundly all night.”
“I advise you not to test us in disguise,” they retorted. Ned added with
vigor: “I’d bet my twelve-mule threshing machine that neither man, woman,
child, nor animal could pass our front gate at any hour of the night
unchallenged.” He laughed: “Ah, the gleam on my pistol in the moonlight!”
At eleven that night two who had been guests of Ned and his sisters sat
together, scheming.
“We’ll do it,” they said as they separated.
The next afternoon two girls in a cart drove a fat mare over hot
stretches of brown meadows and along dusty roads that lay over the
hills. They darted into stray coverts, and drove among the stones of dry
creek-beds. As they rattled home in the twilight a collection of bleached
cattle bones lay at their feet.
Under the awnings of a little gray cottage a woman waited.
“You’re late,” she said as they came up. “But here’s Joe.”
“Bring up the riding-horses to-night, Joe, and put on men’s saddles,”
called his young mistress as she went in the house.
“And now, mother, may we have tea? We want to be ready by midnight.”
As the clock struck twelve Mrs. Head laughed her apprehension and her
sense of the effect of light opera. The girls were in men’s canvas suits
and summer sombreros. Bulky bundles were tied to their saddle strings and
they supported others on their shoulders.
“But we’ve really no sign of defense,” they suddenly exclaimed, looking
at each other.
In a moment Mrs. Head had produced two huge leather pistol cases. When
they were strapped on, no belligerent cow-boy or primitive desperado
could have hit a more happy effect of emphasizing independence.
The girls strode out to their horses and, tightening the girths, took
their mounts quickly.
“We’ll stay out on the haystack when we come back, remember; so please go
to sleep and forget us.”
The moon was full in the heavens and the unwooded part of their hilly
road lay bright before them. The horses felt their bits resentfully,—kept
to a walk along the crest of the hill and down the rocky, pine-dotted
slope of the flat. Everything but the soft brilliance of the night seemed
to fall away. The soul of summer hovered.
“Let’s give the horses their heads the first two miles. We’ll creep the
last half—near the house.”
The beasts went forward at a bound. A level road shut in by the hills lay
before them. There was a strange specter sense of being at one with power
as the horses raced neck and neck through the silence. The caressing
radiance was an intoxicant.
Finally they reached the stony hill which lay between them and the main
road. The heated horses took it slowly, climbing through the shadow and
rousing the uncanny wail of a wandering coyote and the hoot of a curious
owl.
They reined up as they swung into the stage road, and gave the horses a
mouthful of water from a tiny spring.
If there was anybody to meet, this would be the place.
The horses’ ears were in constant motion, though there seemed nothing but
the easy pace of their own hoofs to give attention to. Suddenly, from
an obscure bridle-path, three horsemen came into the road, and toward
them. There was no time to arrange concerted action. The beating of
their hearts made suffocation an experience, until one was visited by an
inspiration.
“Answer anything in Mexican,” she gasped; “that will pass us.”
It suddenly dawned upon their consciousness that under the shadow of this
very oak, on this awkward turn of the winding grade, the mail stage had
been held up and robbed, just a month before. There had been shooting,
and a wounded driver and passenger dripping blood over the wheels into
the dust.
But the men had reined up before them.
The instant of silence compassed eons of apprehension before one of the
men spoke.
“How far to Mokelumne Hill, partners?”
Promptly it came, though burdened with an unnatural guttural inflection:—
“_Quien sabe!_”
Daring to risk no more, the girls pulled out and, passing the horsemen,
rode quietly down the road.
The men watched them disappear, ignoring an impulse to follow, before
they continued on their journey.
“A couple of suspicious-looking greasers up to no good,” said one, as
they trotted ahead through the night.
The outbuildings of the Carter ranch appeared ahead. The girls grasped
each other’s hands.
“The pistol cases,” they whispered. “They saved our lives!”
At a little weather-beaten cabin used as a smithy the girls dismounted.
It was as if they pledged themselves in epic measure, standing there,
silent, in the spirit of the adventure.
Tying their horses, they loaded themselves with the bundles, and walked
cautiously, slowly, towards the gulch they must cross before they reached
the road lying in front of the house. They crept through its thick,
uncertain shadows with the animal stealth of the forest, and found
themselves up in the high light of the roadway. Forty yards lay between
them and the gate which shut in people, and dogs, and a little revolver
that was pretty in the moonlight.
Their watch showed one o’clock.
Step by step they accomplished with almost suspended breath. Of a sudden
a dried fig leaf under foot filled the air with a sharp crackling.
Transfixed with a horror that raised their hair, one balanced on the ends
of her toes, the other crouched low on her knees.
But the moments returned no echoes of an alarm.
Nearer they moved and almost imperceptibly nearer. The breath from their
lungs seemed a thousand voices. At last they stood together at the gate,
looking up at the white house spreading its piazza over three who were in
slumber.
With motion so fraught with care it seemed motionless, they managed to
arrange a series of things on its fence pickets. Then they salaamed low
in a burlesque of social mockery, and waved their hands in a pantomimic
farewell.
Little by little, they moved up the road again, through the gulch, and on
to their horses. Not a note from the throats of the dogs followed them.
Mounting, they walked the half mile to the spring before they even dared
express their elation.
“It’s too good to go to sleep on,” said one.
“Let’s ride on it,” said the other.
They chose the black depths of the twisting stage road, and, leaving the
moon-bathed open, took four miles of wooded riding. The farm dogs below
in the valley barked greeting, but no one else seemed abroad in the land.
The spirit of the night was wholly theirs.
At three o’clock they were home. They stabled the horses and walked back
to a lonely haystack. Ginger beer, crackers, and blankets had been stowed
there, so they made festive toasts to their success before they settled
to sleep with the dews of the morning.
The sun was hurrying on toward the breakfast hour when a girl at the
Carter farm wakened her companions.
“Horrors!” she cried aloud.
All three sat up in their hammocks. Visions of Ku Klux, White Caps, and
midnight assassins ran riot in their minds. A certain terror stiffened
their very joints.
Facing them from the inside of the gate hung a long white placard,
printed in letters of flaming red:—
“We are Iron-Jawed Hyenas of the West and our food is Gore.”
Two red hand-marks decorated each end. Underneath hung a calf’s skull and
cross-bones, livid with fiery symbols. Along the fence were rows of bones
bearing the same ghastly stamp, and on another post hung another placard:—
“Thirty years have we been on your track and at last we have found you!”
In a moment a contagion of laughter reached even the kitchen. The truth
had dawned! As they swayed in the clutches of a mild hysteria, a mounted
messenger appeared with a note addressed to Mr. Edward Carter.
The young man read it aloud to his sisters:—
“Mr. Carter will please deliver to the bearer his twelve-mule
threshing machine.
“_Merciless Ben, the Hairlifter_
“_Tomahawk Tom, of Toyone._”
[Illustration]
Aidu.
BY HERO DESPARD.
In the early fall of 1880 I was in Dahbol, India, having run down from
Bombay, upon a sister who had set up a little bungalow there.
Dahbol is charmingly situated between the sea and the wooded heights of
the Western Ghauts, and as nothing pressed me at the time, I remained
there, spending my time rambling about the place and sometimes running
into a chance adventure. Thus it happened that the following strange
experience befell me.
One evening, in the cool of the late twilight, I was strolling about
through the sea-end of the town, and, stopping before a small temple
which was a little removed from the houses around, stood studying out the
lines of the usual grotesque figures cut upon its face. Dense shadows
cast by the rising moon threw the entrance into such obscurity that
nothing could be seen within. In fact, I thought the place deserted for
the time, and was about to obey an impulse to step up into the shadows
banked in the doorway, when, suddenly, a human figure hurled itself upon
me from out the darkness with such force that I staggered back and almost
lost my footing. I had instinctively thrown out my arms and clasped the
figure for support, and now, as I recovered my balance and looked down,
it was into the face of the fairest woman I have ever seen in any land.
The marvelousness of her beauty served to steady my faculties where
ordinarily I should have felt bewildered, and, still holding her close,
for she trembled as if she would fall from my arms, I said in such
Hindustani as I was capable of:
“Something has frightened you. You are fleeing from danger?”
“Sir,” she answered, in a voice soft and rich, though broken by low
gasps, “I must hasten;” and she pulled against my arms for release.
From my knowledge of the country, I felt sure no woman like the one who
stood before me could safely venture into the streets at this hour, and,
having an Anglo-Saxon’s feelings for all womankind, I acted on a quickly
formed resolve.
“I do not know what sends you out into the night, nor what pursuit you
fear, but I am ready to take you where you wish to go,” I said.
“I must go far from this place,—and alone,” she answered, speaking
agitatedly.
“We will go,” I said reassuringly. “I will take you to your own people.”
Upon this her slender body trembled anew, and replying, “I have no
people. I cannot stay here,” she turned from me and began to walk quickly
away.
I as quickly followed, walking behind her through street after street,
she choosing the deserted by-ways, until we came out through some
suburban orchards, and finally reached the edge of a stretch of thick
forest which belts the eastern side of the town. Here she stopped
suddenly, and, turning to me, said entreatingly:
“Leave me! You cannot help.”
I looked at the town behind, at the forest in front, and felt it a moral
impossibility to obey.
“I think I can,” I ventured, “if you will confide in me. I have a sister
here in whose care I can place you, and if anything is threatening you I
can hide you with her. She is an English doctor, and is devoting her life
to work among your countrywomen.”
It would be impossible to describe the changes of expression which
flashed over her face at this. Relief, questioning, consent, and doubt
arose from the depths of her dark eyes and looked out at me. For some
time she stood thus, inwardly debating, and at last answered:
“Yes, if I may come out alone once in seven days.”
“You shall have perfect liberty, of course,” I eagerly assured her.
This promise seemed so completely to allay any lurking feeling of fear or
doubt that at once she laid her hand upon mine, saying, “I will go with
you.”
Now, I had no hesitation whatever in taking this girl to my sister,
who, as I had said, lived in India for the purpose of dealing with the
conditions of life surrounding the Oriental women. Indeed, no sooner had
she seen Aidu and heard her story than she insisted upon taking this
beautiful waif into our household as one of ourselves; and as time passed
and the lovableness of her nature was fully revealed to us, we found that
we had rescued one of the rarest of pearls from the depths of the human
sea around us.
She was pathetically gentle, and when the first constraint of the
situation wore off showed herself possessed of a brilliant though
unformed mind.
My sister built many hopes upon Aidu—for that was the name of our waif—as
a future coadjutor in her chosen work; though I may as well confess at
once that I had other intentions about her.
After only a few weeks spent in her society, I found myself deeply in
love, and but for one singular, inexplicable circumstance would have
begged her then and there to become my wife.
The mystery was this:
While she looked the perfection of sweet and elastic health and possessed
an unusually pure vitality, no one ever saw Aidu partake of food. At
first we thought that perhaps she shrank from burdening us, and believed
that in some way she secretly procured cheap food outside. To all
questions on the subject she returned a jesting reply, or else remained
pleadingly silent. Once only, during each week, was she seen to leave
the house, when she went upon those twilight walks for which she had
stipulated. And the mystery of her sustenance, puzzling at first, grew
darker and denser every day, the more so as Aidu steadily became more
radiant in health and tinted like a ripe pomegranate from a fountain of
rich vitality. Indeed, she seemed the incarnation of some flawless vital
force consciously masking itself in human form.
But there came a day when I could restrain my love no longer.
My jealousy of those walks, during which she went I knew not where nor
whom to see, became at last unbearable, and I determined to push my
misgivings to a conclusion by questioning her outright.
Late in the afternoon of one of these seventh days of the week, on which
she never failed of her twilight walk, I sought her where she sat in the
shade of a trellised veranda, and, seating myself beside her, took her
hands in my own.
“Aidu, you must know how I love you!” I said impetuously.
I could wipe out the fact of my own soul sooner than I could forget the
measureless depth and meaning of the look she gave me, straight from
her lifted eyes! Oh, cold and reasonable Westerner! Never, even through
eternity, will you know the infinity of meaning hidden in the lotus-heart
of love, never having looked into the eyes of Aidu raised in a pure and
perfect confession!
“I love you!” she murmured. Echo of my own words only, but enough.
“You will not go out alone again, now, Aidu?” I questioned pleadingly.
“I would _try_ to do what you ask, even that which I cannot,” she said
wistfully.
Having gained so much, I was in a measure satisfied; but I determined,
in virtue of my now undoubted right, to follow her should she again go
on her secret errand. This I hoped she would not do; but later I saw her
steal out from the house and walk away, not briskly, as was usual, but
with a certain languor, as if pulling against her will. It was an easy
matter to follow her at a little distance, for she went straight forward,
as to a well-known goal, never once looking back. On she went, past the
houses of the town, out into a stretch of the suburban orchards, until we
stood again upon the edge of the same tangled forest where we had stopped
on the evening I first found her. Surely, it could not be that Aidu would
venture within those dense shadows!
Yes, even here she did not hesitate, but forced her way through the
gloomy thicket, deftly stepping over obstructions and pushing away the
drooping vines as if the path were a clear and familiar one. And all the
while I followed, possessed by an intensity of curiosity and feeling
which must have given me the eyes of a night animal, for I never for a
moment lost sight of her; but, while she walked easily and swiftly, I
rushed on, panting through excitement, until when, at last, she halted
and leaned back against a tree in an attitude of expectation, I stopped,
trembling and weak from agitation.
And now that happened which is burnt into my memory forever.
As she stood there, motionless, her slight figure in its snowy garments
dully outlined against the dark tree trunk, I noted that Aidu’s eyes
were fixed upon a certain spot in the ground before her, whither mine
followed. At first I saw only a faint glow in the grass at her feet, like
the light of two phosphorescent insects side by side, but as this rapidly
grew and widened, the shape of a dark head was outlined within the rays.
Brighter and brighter the light grew until—yes, a cobra’s hooded head
appeared! and from the glowing eyes streamed the rapidly increasing light
in a coruscating flood.
Horror-stricken, I looked at Aidu! She was gazing down into those
burning, venomous eyes, whose radiance was momentarily intensified until
her rapt face and figure, the coiled length of the serpent, and even the
grass and trees around were illuminated as by the shining of two small
suns.
Under this compelling gaze Aidu’s languor melted. Her form dilated and
changed in my sight as if the very crucible of vital life were there,
purging away the particles of mortality and building her form anew out of
imperishable materials. Her glowing beauty was indescribable; it was a
revelation.
And now the monster slowly raised himself, stretching up out of his
coils, until his scintillating, fiery orbs were on a level with the
smiling, dewy eyes of the woman whom I loved. She leaned gently forward
and softly stroked the mottled neck. A tremor shook my whole body. In
that moment I was overwhelmed by the horrible certainty that here I
beheld the rites of the ancient mystic serpent worship still practised in
certain parts of India; and that Aidu, my Aidu, served as the unwilling
instrument of the priests of the temple, from whose fearful power she had
vainly attempted to escape on the night of our first meeting.