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THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SWANSTON EDITION
VOLUME V
_Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
Copies are for sale._
_This is No._ ........
[Illustration: 8 HOWARD PLACE, EDINBURGH, BIRTHPLACE OF R. L. S. IN 1850]
THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
VOLUME FIVE
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
AND COMPANY MDCCCCXI
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
PAGE
PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN 7
CHALLONER'S ADVENTURE
THE SQUIRE OF DAMES 15
STORY OF THE DESTROYING ANGEL 24
THE SQUIRE OF DAMES (_concluded_) 57
SOMERSET'S ADVENTURE
THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION 73
NARRATIVE OF THE SPIRITED OLD LADY 78
THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (_continued_) 104
ZERO'S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB 130
THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (_continued_) 139
DESBOROUGH'S ADVENTURE
THE BROWN BOX 149
STORY OF THE FAIR CUBAN 155
THE BROWN BOX (_concluded_) 190
THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (_concluded_) 202
EPILOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN 212
STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
STORY OF THE DOOR 227
SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 234
DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE 243
THE CAREW MURDER CASE 246
INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 251
REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 256
INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 261
THE LAST NIGHT 263
DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 276
HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 284
THRAWN JANET 305
MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH MRS. STEVENSON
_TO
MESSRS. COLE AND COX_
_POLICE OFFICERS_
_Gentlemen,_
_In the volume now in your hands, the authors have touched upon that
ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory to have contended. It
were a waste of ink to do so in a serious spirit. Let us dedicate our
horror to acts of a more mingled strain, where crime preserves some
features of nobility, and where reason and humanity can still relish the
temptation. Horror, in this case, is due to Mr. Parnell: he sits before
posterity silent, Mr. Forster's appeal echoing down the ages. Horror is
due to ourselves, in that we have so long coquetted with political
crime; not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to
consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like the
schoolboy with the penny tale, applauding what was specious. When it
touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false to these
imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less cruel and no
less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our false deities._
_But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our
defenders. Whoever be in the right in this great and confused war of
politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the bully,
dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest;--your side, your part,
is at least pure of doubt. Yours is the side of the child, of the
breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust. If our society were
the mere kingdom of the devil (as indeed it wears some of his colours),
it yet embraces many precious elements and many innocent persons whom
it_ _is a glory to defend. Courage and devotion, so common in the ranks
of the police, so little recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at
length found their commemoration in an historical act. History, which
will represent Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr.
Forster, and Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not
forget Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr.
Cox coming coolly to his aid._
_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
FANNY VAN DE GRIFT STEVENSON._
_A NOTE FOR THE READER_
_It is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this
volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor: the first series
of_ NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS. _The loss is yours--and mine; or, to be more
exact, my publishers'. But if you are thus unlucky, the least I can do
is to pass you a hint. When you shall find a reference in the following
pages to one Theophilus Godall of the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert
Street, Soho, you must be prepared to recognise under his features no
less a person than Prince Florizel of Bohemia, formerly one of the
magnates of Europe, now dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in
the tobacco trade._
_R. L. S._
MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN
In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more
precise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two young
men of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation. The first,
who was of a very smooth address, and clothed in the best fashion,
hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his companion.
"What!" he cried, "Paul Somerset!"
"I am indeed Paul Somerset," returned the other, "or what remains of him
after a well-deserved experience of poverty and law. But in you,
Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said, without
hyperbole, to write no wrinkle on your azure brow."
"All," replied Challoner, "is not gold that glitters. But we are here in
an ill posture for confidences, and interrupt the movement of these
ladies. Let us, if you please, find a more private corner."
"If you will allow me to guide you," replied Somerset, "I will offer you
the best cigar in London."
And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a
brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in Rupert Street, Soho.
The entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic Highlanders of wood
which have almost risen to the standing of antiquities; and across the
window-glass, which sheltered the usual display of pipes, tobacco, and
cigars, there ran the gilded legend: "Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T.
Godall." The interior of the shop was small, but commodious and ornate;
the salesman grave, smiling, and urbane; and the two young men, each
puffing a select regalia, had soon taken their places on a sofa of
mouse-coloured plush, and proceeded to exchange their stories.
"I am now," said Somerset, "a barrister; but Providence and the
attorneys have hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine. A select
society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my afternoons, as
Mr. Godall could testify, have been generally passed in this divan; and
my mornings, I have taken the precaution to abbreviate by not rising
before twelve. At this rate, my little patrimony was very rapidly and, I
am proud to remember, most agreeably expended. Since then a gentleman,
who has really nothing else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my
maternal uncle, deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if
you behold me once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in
my favourite quarter, you will readily divine that I have come into a
fortune."
"I should not have supposed so," replied Challoner. "But doubtless I met
you on the way to your tailors."
"It is a visit that I purpose to delay," returned Somerset, with a
smile. "My fortune has definite limits. It consists, or rather this
morning it consisted, of one hundred pounds."
"That is certainly odd," said Challoner; "yes, certainly the coincidence
is strange. I am myself reduced to the same margin."
"You!" cried Somerset. "And yet Solomon in all his glory----"
"Such is the fact. I am, dear boy, on my last legs," said Challoner.
"Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have scarcely a decent
trouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I would this instant set
about some sort of work or commerce. With a hundred pounds for capital,
a man should push his way."
"It may be," returned Somerset; "but what to do with mine is more than I
can fancy.--Mr. Godall," he added, addressing the salesman, "you are a
man who knows the world: what can a young fellow of reasonable education
do with a hundred pounds?"
"It depends," replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot. "The power
of money is an article of faith in which I profess myself a sceptic. A
hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a year; with
somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night; and without any
difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes on the Stock Exchange.
If you are of that stamp of man that rises, a penny would be as useful;
if you belong to those that fall, a penny would be no more useless. When
I was myself thrown unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to
possess an art: I knew a good cigar. Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?"
"Not even law," was the reply.
"The answer is worthy of a sage," returned Mr. Godall.--"And you, sir,"
he continued, turning to Challoner, "as the friend of Mr. Somerset, may
I be allowed to address you the same question?"
"Well," replied Challoner, "I play a fair hand at whist."
"How many persons are there in London," returned the salesman, "who have
two-and-thirty teeth? Believe me, young gentleman, there are more still
who play a fair hand at whist. Whist, sir, is wide as the world; 'tis an
accomplishment like breathing. I once knew a youth who announced that he
was studying to be Chancellor of England; the design was certainly
ambitious; but I find it less excessive than that of the man who aspires
to make a livelihood by whist."
"Dear me," said Challoner, "I am afraid I shall have to fall to be a
working man."
"Fall to be a working man?" echoed Mr. Godall. "Suppose a rural dean to
be unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain were
cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge? The ignorance of your
middle class surprises me. Outside itself, it thinks the world to lie
quite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common degradation; but to the eye
of the observer, all ranks are seen to stand in ordered hierarchies, and
each adorned with its particular aptitudes and knowledge. By the defects
of your education you are more disqualified to be a working man than to
be the ruler of an empire. The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learned
arts--those which alone are safe from the competition of insurgent
laymen--are those which give his title to the artisan."
"This is a very pompous fellow," said Challoner in the ear of his
companion.
"He is immense," said Somerset.
Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young fellow
made his appearance, and rather bashfully requested some tobacco. He was
younger than the others; and, in a somewhat meaningless and altogether
English way, he was a handsome lad. When he had been served, and had
lighted his pipe and taken his place upon the sofa, he recalled himself
to Challoner by the name of Desborough.
"Desborough, to be sure," cried Challoner. "Well, Desborough, and what
do you do?"
"The fact is," said Desborough, "that I am doing nothing."
"A private fortune, possibly?" inquired the other.
"Well, no," replied Desborough, rather sulkily. "The fact is that I am
waiting for something to turn up."
"All in the same boat!" cried Somerset. "And have you, too, one hundred
pounds?"
"Worse luck," said Mr. Desborough.
"This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall," said Somerset: "three
futiles."
"A character of this crowded age," returned the salesman.
"Sir," said Somerset, "I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit one
fact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile, and that
we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered
law, smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I
have even a working knowledge of judicial astrology; and here I stand,
all London roaring by at the street's end, as impotent as any baby. I
have a prodigious contempt for my maternal uncle; but without him, it is
idle to deny it, I should simply resolve into my elements like an
unstable mixture. I begin to perceive that it is necessary to know some
one thing to the bottom--were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man
of the world is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an
extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at home;
he has seen life in all its phases; and it is impossible but that this
great habit of existence should bear fruit. I count myself a man of the
world, accomplished, _cap-a-pie_. So do you, Challoner. And you, Mr.
Desborough?"
"Oh yes," returned the young man.
"Well, then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world, without
a trade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of the universe
(for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in the midst of the
chief mass of people, and within earshot of the most continuous chink of
money on the surface of the globe. Sir, as civilised men, what do we do?
I will show you. You take in a paper?"
"I take," said Mr. Godall solemnly, "the best paper in the world, the
_Standard_."
"Good," resumed Somerset. "I now hold it in my hand, the voice of the
world, a telephone repeating all men's wants. I open it, and where my
eye first falls--well, no, not Morrison's Pills--but here, sure enough,
and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the
weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offer
of substantial gratitude: '_Two Hundred Pounds Reward_.--The above
reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the identity
and whereabouts of a man observed yesterday in the neighbourhood of the
Green Park. He was over six feet in height, with shoulders
disproportionately broad, close shaved, with black moustaches, and
wearing a sealskin great-coat.' There, gentlemen, our fortune, if not
made, is founded."
"Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?"
inquired Challoner.
"Do I propose it? No, sir," cried Somerset. "It is reason, destiny, the
plain face of the world, that commands and imposes it. Here all our
merits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers of conversation,
vast stores of unconnected knowledge, all that we are and have builds up
the character of the complete detective. It is, in short, the only
profession for a gentleman."
"The proposition is perhaps excessive," replied Challoner; "for hitherto
I own I have regarded it as of all dirty, sneaking, and ungentlemanly
trades, the least and lowest."
"To defend society?" asked Somerset; "to stake one's life for others? to
deracinate occult and powerful evil? I appeal to Mr. Godall. He, at
least, as a philosophic looker-on at life, will spit upon such
philistine opinions. He knows that the policeman, as he is called upon
continually to face greater odds, and that both worse equipped and for a
better cause, is in form and essence a more noble hero than the soldier.
Do you, by any chance, deceive yourself into supposing that a general
would either ask or expect, from the best army ever marshalled, and on
the most momentous battlefield, the conduct of a common constable at
Peckham Rye?"[1]
"I did not understand we were to join the force," said Challoner.
"Nor shall we. These are the hands; but here--here, sir, is the head,"
cried Somerset. "Enough; it is decreed. We shall hunt down this
miscreant in the sealskin coat."
"Suppose that we agreed," retorted Challoner, "you have no plan, no
knowledge; you know not where to seek for a beginning."
"Challoner!" cried Somerset, "is it possible that you hold the doctrine
of Free Will? And are you devoid of any tincture of philosophy, that you
should harp on such exploded fallacies? Chance, the blind Madonna of the
Pagan, rules this terrestrial bustle; and in Chance I place my sole
reliance. Chance has brought us three together; when we next separate
and go forth our several ways, Chance will continually drag before our
careless eyes a thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but
to the countless mysteries by which we live surrounded. Then comes the
part of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred. This clue,
which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as a cat, he
leaps upon it, makes it his, follows it with craft and passion, and from
one trifling circumstance divines a world."
"Just so," said Challoner; "and I am delighted that you should recognise
these virtues in yourself. But in the meanwhile, dear boy, I own myself
incapable of joining. I was neither born nor bred as a detective, but as
a placable and very thirsty gentleman; and, for my part, I begin to
weary for a drink. As for clues and adventures, the only adventure that
is ever likely to occur to me will be an adventure with a bailiff."
"Now there is the fallacy," cried Somerset. "There I catch the secret of
your futility in life. The world teems and bubbles with adventure; it
besieges you along the streets; hands waving out of windows, swindlers
coming up and swearing they knew you when you were abroad, affable and
doubtful people of all sorts and conditions begging and truckling for
your notice. But not you: you turn away, you walk your seedy mill round,
you must go the dullest way. Now here, I beg of you, the next adventure
that offers itself, embrace it in with both your arms; whatever it
looks, grimy or romantic, grasp it. I will do the like; the devil is in
it, but at least we shall have fun; and each in turn we shall narrate
the story of our fortunes to my philosophic friend of the divan, the
great Godall, now hearing me with inward joy. Come, is it a bargain?
Will you, indeed, both promise to welcome every chance that offers, to
plunge boldly into every opening, and, keeping the eye wary and the head
composed, to study and piece together all that happens? Come, promise:
let me open to you the doors of the great profession of intrigue."
"It is not much in my way," said Challoner, "but, since you make a point
of it, amen."
"I don't mind promising," said Desborough, "but nothing will happen to
me."
"O faithless ones!" cried Somerset. "But at least I have your promises;
and Godall, I perceive, is transported with delight."
"I promise myself at least much pleasure from your various narratives,"
said the salesman, with the customary calm polish of his manner.
"And now, gentlemen," concluded Somerset, "let us separate. I hasten to
put myself in fortune's way. Hark how, in this quiet corner, London
roars like the noise of battle; four million destinies are here
concentred; and in the strong panoply of one hundred pounds, payable to
the bearer, I am about to plunge into that web."
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Hereupon the Arabian author enters on one of his digressions.
Fearing, apparently, that the somewhat eccentric views of Mr.
Somerset should throw discredit on a part of truth, he calls upon
the English people to remember with more gratitude the services of
the police; to what unobserved and solitary acts of heroism they are
called; against what odds of numbers and of arms, and for how small
a reward, either in fame or money: matter, it has appeared to the
translators, too serious for this place.
CHALLONER'S ADVENTURE:
THE SQUIRE OF DAMES
Mr. Edward Challoner had set up lodgings in the suburb of Putney, where
he enjoyed a parlour and bedroom and the sincere esteem of the people of
the house. To this remote home he found himself, at a very early hour in
the morning of the next day, condemned to set forth on foot. He was a
young man of a portly habit; no lover of the exercises of the body;
bland, sedentary, patient of delay, a prop of omnibuses. In happier days
he would have chartered a cab; but these luxuries were now denied him;
and with what courage he could muster he addressed himself to walk.
It was then the height of the season and the summer; the weather was
serene and cloudless; and as he paced under the blinded houses and along
the vacant streets, the chill of the dawn had fled, and some of the
warmth and all the brightness of the July day already shone upon the
city. He walked at first in a profound abstraction, bitterly reviewing
and repenting his performances at whist; but as he advanced into the
labyrinth of the south-west, his ear was gradually mastered by the
silence. Street after street looked down upon his solitary figure, house
after house echoed upon his passage with a ghostly jar, shop after shop
displayed its shuttered front and its commercial legend; and meanwhile
he steered his course, under day's effulgent dome and through this
encampment of diurnal sleepers, lonely as a ship.
"Here," he reflected, "if I were like my scatter-brained companion, here
were indeed the scene where I might look for an adventure. Here, in
broad day, the streets are secret as in the blackest night of January,
and in the midst of some four million sleepers, solitary as the woods
of Yucatan. If I but raise my voice I could summon up the number of an
army, and yet the grave is not more silent than this city of sleep."
He was still following these quaint and serious musings when he came
into a street of more mingled ingredients than was common in the
quarter. Here, on the one hand, framed in walls and the green tops of
trees, were several of those discreet, _bijou_ residences on which
propriety is apt to look askance. Here, too, were many of the
brick-fronted barracks of the poor; a plaster cow, perhaps, serving as
ensign to a dairy, or a ticket announcing the business of the mangler.
Before one such house, that stood a little separate among walled
gardens, a cat was playing with a straw, and Challoner paused a moment,
looking on this sleek and solitary creature, who seemed an emblem of the
neighbouring peace. With the cessation of the sound of his own steps the
silence fell dead; the house stood smokeless; the blinds down, the whole
machinery of life arrested; and it seemed to Challoner that he should
hear the breathing of the sleepers.
As he so stood, he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation from
within. This was followed by a monstrous hissing and simmering as from a
kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the same time from every
chink of door and window spurted an ill-smelling vapour. The cat
disappeared with a cry. Within the lodging-house feet pounded on the
stairs; the door flew back, emitting clouds of smoke; and two men and an
elegantly dressed young lady tumbled forth into the street and fled
without a word. The hissing had already ceased, the smoke was melting in
the air, the whole event had come and gone as in a dream, and still
Challoner was rooted to the spot. At last his reason and his fear awoke
together, and with the most unwonted energy he fell to running.
Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had resumed
his sober gait and begun to piece together, out of the confused report
of his senses, some theory of the occurrence. But the occasion of the
sounds and stench that had so suddenly assailed him, and the strange
conjunction of fugitives whom he had seen to issue from the house, were
mysteries beyond his plummet. With an obscure awe he considered them in
his mind, continuing, meanwhile, to thread the web of streets, and once
more alone in morning sunshine.
In his first retreat he had entirely wandered; and now, steering vaguely
west, it was his luck to light upon an unpretending street, which
presently widened so as to admit a strip of gardens in the midst. Here
was quite a stir of birds; even at that hour, the shadow of the leaves
was grateful; instead of the burnt atmosphere of cities, there was
something brisk and rural in the air; and Challoner paced forward, his
eyes upon the pavement and his mind running upon distant scenes, till he
was recalled, upon a sudden, by a wall that blocked his further
progress. This street, whose name I have forgotten, is no thoroughfare.
He was not the first who had wandered there that morning; for, as he
raised his eyes with an agreeable deliberation, they alighted on the
figure of a girl, in whom he was struck to recognise the third of the
incongruous fugitives. She had run there, seemingly, blindfold; the wall
had checked her career; and being entirely wearied, she had sunk upon
the ground beside the garden railings, soiling her dress among the
summer dust. Each saw the other in the same instant of time; and she,
with one wild look, sprang to her feet and began to hurry from the
scene.
Challoner was doubly startled to meet once more the heroine of his
adventure and to observe the fear with which she shunned him. Pity and
alarm, in nearly equal forces, contested the possession of his mind; and
yet, in spite of both, he saw himself condemned to follow in the lady's
wake. He did so gingerly, as fearing to increase her terrors; but, tread
as lightly as he might, his footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty
street. Their sound appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for
scarce had he begun to follow ere she paused. A second time she
addressed herself to flight; and a second time she paused. Then she
turned about, and, with doubtful steps and the most attractive
appearance of timidity, drew near to the young man. He on his side
continued to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness.
At length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim
over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.
"Are you an English gentleman?" she cried.
The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation. He was the spirit
of fine courtesy, and would have blushed to fail in his devoirs to any
lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse from amorous
adventures. He looked east and west; but the houses that looked down
upon this interview remained inexorably shut; and he saw himself, though
in the full glare of the day's eye, cut off from any human intervention.
His looks returned at last upon the suppliant. He remarked with
irritation that she was charming both in face and figure, elegantly
dressed and gloved: a lady undeniable; the picture of distress and
innocence; weeping and lost in the city of diurnal sleep.
"Madam," he said, "I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion; and if
I have appeared to follow you, the fault is in this street, which has
deceived us both."
An unmistakable relief appeared upon the lady's face. "I might have
guessed it!" she exclaimed. "Thank you a thousand times! But at this
hour, in this appalling silence, and among all these staring windows, I
am lost in terrors--oh, lost in them!" she cried, her face blanching at
the words. "I beg you to lend me your arm," she added with the
loveliest, suppliant inflection. "I dare not go alone; my nerve is
gone--I had a shock, O what a shock! I beg of you to be my escort."
"My dear madam," responded Challoner heavily, "my arm is at your
service."
She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her sobs; and
the next, with feverish hurry, began to lead him in the direction of the
city. One thing was plain, among so much that was obscure: it was plain
her fears were genuine. Still, as she went, she spied around as if for
dangers; and now she would shiver like a person in a chill, and now
clutch his arm in hers. To Challoner her terror was at once repugnant
and infectious; it gained and mastered, while it still offended him; and
he wailed in spirit and longed for release.
"Madam," he said at last, "I am, of course, charmed to be of use to any
lady; but I confess I was bound in a direction opposite to that you
follow, and a word of explanation----"
"Hush!" she sobbed, "not here--not here!"
The blood of Challoner ran cold. He might have thought the lady mad; but
his memory was charged with more perilous stuff; and in view of the
detonation, the smoke, and the flight of the ill-assorted trio, his mind
was lost among mysteries. So they continued to thread the maze of
streets in silence, with the speed of a guilty flight, and both
thrilling with incommunicable terrors. In time, however, and above all
by their quick pace of walking, the pair began to rise to firmer
spirits; the lady ceased to peer about the corners; and Challoner,
emboldened by the resonant tread and distant figure of a constable,
returned to the charge with more of spirit and directness.
"I thought," he said, in the tone of conversation, "that I had
indistinctly perceived you leaving a villa in the company of two
gentlemen."
"Oh!" she said, "you need not fear to wound me by the truth. You saw me
flee from a common lodging-house, and my companions were not gentlemen.
In such a case, the best of compliments is to be frank."
"I thought," resumed Challoner, encouraged as much as he was surprised
by the spirit of her reply, "to have perceived, besides, a certain
odour. A noise, too--I do not know to what I should compare it----"
"Silence!" she cried. "You do not know the danger you invoke. Wait, only
wait; and as soon as we have left those streets and got beyond the reach
of listeners, all shall be explained. Meanwhile, avoid the topic. What a
sight is this sleeping city!" she exclaimed; and then, with a most
thrilling voice, "'Dear God,'" she quoted, "'the very houses seem
asleep, and all that mighty heart is lying still.'"
"I perceive, madam," said he, "you are a reader."
"I am more than that," she answered, with a sigh. "I am a girl condemned
to thoughts beyond her age; and so untoward is my fate, that this walk
upon the arm of a stranger is like an interlude of peace."
They had come by this time to the neighbourhood of the Victoria Station;
and here, at a street corner, the young lady paused, withdrew her arm
from Challoner's, and looked up and down as though in pain or
indecision. Then, with a lovely change of countenance, and laying her
gloved hand upon his arm:
"What you already think of me," she said, "I tremble to conceive; yet I
must here condemn myself still further. Here I must leave you, and here
I beseech you to wait for my return. Do not attempt to follow me or spy
upon my actions. Suspend yet awhile your judgment of a girl as innocent
as your own sister; and do not, above all, desert me. Stranger as you
are, I have none else to look to. You see me in sorrow and great fear;
you are a gentleman, courteous and kind; and when I beg for a few
minutes' patience, I make sure beforehand you will not deny me."
Challoner grudgingly promised; and the young lady, with a grateful
eye-shot, vanished round the corner. But the force of her appeal had
been a little blunted; for the young man was not only destitute of
sisters, but of any female relative nearer than a great-aunt in Wales.
Now he was alone, besides, the spell that he had hitherto obeyed began
to weaken; he considered his behaviour with a sneer; and plucking up the
spirit of revolt, he started in pursuit. The reader, if he has ever
plied the fascinating trade of the noctambulist, will not be unaware
that, in the neighbourhood of the great railway centres, certain early
taverns inaugurate the business of the day. It was into one of these
that Challoner, coming round the corner of the block, beheld his
charming companion disappear. To say he was surprised were inexact, for
he had long since left that sentiment behind him. Acute disgust and
disappointment seized upon his soul; and with silent oaths he damned
this commonplace enchantress. She had scarce been gone a second ere the
swing-doors reopened, and she appeared again in company with a young man
of mean and slouching attire. For some five or six exchanges they
conversed together with an animated air; then the fellow shouldered
again into the tap; and the young lady, with something swifter than a
walk, retraced her steps towards Challoner. He saw her coming, a miracle
of grace; her ankle, as she hurried, flashing from her dress; her
movements eloquent of speed and youth; and though he still entertained
some thoughts of flight, they grew miserably fainter as the distance
lessened. Against mere beauty he was proof: it was her unmistakable
gentility that now robbed him of the courage of his cowardice. With a
proved adventuress he had acted strictly on his right; with one whom, in
spite of all, he could not quite deny to be a lady, he found himself
disarmed. At the very corner from whence he had spied upon her
interview, she came upon him, still transfixed, and--"Ah!" she cried,
with a bright flush of colour. "Ah! Ungenerous!"
The sharpness of the attack somewhat restored the Squire of Dames to the
possession of himself.
"Madam," he returned, with a fair show of stoutness, "I do not think
that hitherto you can complain of any lack of generosity; I have
suffered myself to be led over a considerable portion of the metropolis;
and if I now request you to discharge me of my office of protector, you
have friends at hand who will be glad of the succession."
She stood a moment dumb.
"It is well," she said. "Go! go, and may God help me! You have seen
me--me, an innocent girl! fleeing from a dire catastrophe and haunted by
sinister men; and neither pity, curiosity, nor honour move you to await
my explanation or to help in my distress. Go!" she repeated. "I am lost
indeed." And with a passionate gesture she turned and fled along the
street.
Challoner observed her retreat and disappear, an almost intolerable
sense of guilt contending with the profound sense that he was being
gulled. She was no sooner gone than the first of these feelings took the
upper hand; he felt, if he had done her less than justice, that his
conduct was a perfect model of the ungracious; the cultured tone of her
voice, her choice of language, and the elegant decorum of her movements,
cried out aloud against a harsh construction; and between penitence and
curiosity he began slowly to follow in her wake. At the corner he had
her once more full in view. Her speed was failing like a stricken
bird's. Even as he looked, she threw her arm out gropingly, and fell and
leaned against the wall. At the spectacle, Challoner's fortitude gave
way. In a few strides he overtook her, and, for the first time removing
his hat, assured her in the most moving terms of his entire respect and
firm desire to help her. He spoke at first unheeded; but gradually it
appeared that she began to comprehend his words; she moved a little, and
drew herself upright; and finally, as with a sudden movement of
forgiveness, turned on the young man a countenance in which reproach and
gratitude were mingled. "Ah, madam," he cried, "use me as you will!" And
once more, but now with a great air of deference, he offered her the
conduct of his arm. She took it with a sigh that struck him to the
heart; and they began once more to trace the deserted streets. But now
her steps, as though exhausted by emotion, began to linger on the way;
she leaned the more heavily upon his arm; and he, like the parent bird,
stooped fondly above his drooping convoy. Her physical distress was not
accompanied by any failing of her spirits; and hearing her strike so
soon into a playful and charming vein of talk, Challoner could not
sufficiently admire the elasticity of his companion's nature. "Let me
forget," she had said, "for one half-hour, let me forget"; and sure
enough, with the very word, her sorrows appeared to be forgotten. Before
every house she paused, invented a name for the proprietor, and sketched
his character: here lived the old general whom she was to marry on the
fifth of the next month, there was the mansion of the rich widow who had
set her heart on Challoner; and though she still hung wearily on the
young man's arm, her laughter sounded low and pleasant in his ears.
"Ah," she sighed, by way of commentary, "in such a life as mine I must
seize tight hold of any happiness that I can find."
When they arrived, in this leisurely manner, at the head of Grosvenor
Place, the gates of the park were opening, and the bedraggled company of
night-walkers were being at last admitted into that paradise of lawns.
Challoner and his companion followed the movement, and walked for awhile
in silence in that tatterdemalion crowd; but as one after another, weary
with the night's patrolling of the city pavement, sank upon the benches
or wandered into separate paths, the vast extent of the park had soon
utterly swallowed up the last of these intruders; and the pair proceeded
on their way alone in the grateful quiet of the morning.
Presently they came in sight of a bench, standing very open on a mound
of turf. The young lady looked about her with relief.
"Here," she said, "here at last we are secure from listeners. Here,
then, you shall learn and judge my history. I could not bear that we
should part, and that you should still suppose your kindness squandered
upon one who was unworthy."
Thereupon she sat down upon the bench, and motioning Challoner to take a
place immediately beside her, began in the following words, and with the
greatest appearance of enjoyment, to narrate the story of her life.
STORY OF THE DESTROYING ANGEL
My father was a native of England, son of a cadet of a great ancient but
untitled family; and by some event, fault, or misfortune he was driven
to flee from the land of his birth and to lay aside the name of his
ancestors. He sought the States; and instead of lingering in effeminate
cities, pushed at once into the Far West with an exploring party of
frontiersmen. He was no ordinary traveller; for he was not only brave
and impetuous by character, but learned in many sciences, and above all
in botany, which he particularly loved. Thus it fell that, before many
months, Fremont himself, the nominal leader of the troop, courted and
bowed to his opinion.
They had pushed, as I have said, into the still unknown regions of the
West. For some time they followed the track of Mormon caravans, guiding
themselves in that vast and melancholy desert by the skeletons of men
and animals. Then they inclined their route a little to the north, and,
losing even these dire memorials, came into a country of forbidding
stillness. I have often heard my father dwell upon the features of that
ride: rock, cliff, and barren moor alternated; the streams were very far
between; and neither beast nor bird disturbed the solitude. On the
fortieth day they had already run so short of food that it was judged
advisable to call a halt and scatter upon all sides to hunt. A great
fire was built, that its smoke might serve to rally them; and each man
of the party mounted and struck off at a venture into the surrounding
desert.
My father rode for many hours with a steep range of cliffs upon the one
hand, very black and horrible; and upon the other an unwatered vale
dotted with boulders like the site of some subverted city. At length he
found the slot of a great animal, and from the claw-marks and the hair
among the brush, judged that he was on the track of a cinnamon bear of
most unusual size. He quickened the pace of his steed, and, still
following the quarry, came at last to the division of two watersheds. On
the far side the country was exceeding intricate and difficult, heaped
with boulders, and dotted here and there with a few pines, which seemed
to indicate the neighbourhood of water. Here, then, he picketed his
horse, and, relying on his trusty rifle, advanced alone into that
wilderness.
Presently, in the great silence that reigned, he was aware of the sound
of running water to his right; and leaning in that direction, was
rewarded by a scene of natural wonder and human pathos strangely
intermixed. The stream ran at the bottom of a narrow and winding
passage, whose wall-like sides of rock were sometimes for miles together
unscalable by man. The water, when the stream was swelled with rains,
must have filled it from side to side; the sun's rays only plumbed it in
the hour of noon; the wind, in that narrow and damp funnel, blew
tempestuously. And yet, in the bottom of this den, immediately below my
father's eyes as he leaned over the margin of the cliff, a party of some
half a hundred men, women, and children lay scattered uneasily among the
rocks. They lay, some upon their backs, some prone, and not one
stirring; their upturned faces seemed all of an extraordinary paleness
and emaciation; and from time to time, above the washing of the stream,
a faint sound of moaning mounted to my father's ears.
While he thus looked, an old man got staggering to his feet, unwound his
blanket, and laid it, with great gentleness, on a young girl who sat
hard by propped against a rock. The girl did not seem to be conscious of
the act; and the old man, after having looked upon her with the most
engaging pity, returned to his former bed and lay down again uncovered
on the turf. But the scene had not passed without observation even in
that starving camp. From the very outskirts of the party, a man with a
white beard and seemingly of venerable years, rose up on his knees and
came crawling stealthily among the sleepers towards the girl; and judge
of my father's indignation, when he beheld this cowardly miscreant strip
from her both the coverings and return with them to his original
position. Here he lay down for a while below his spoils, and, as my
father imagined, feigned to be asleep; but presently he had raised
himself again upon one elbow, looked with sharp scrutiny at his
companions, and then swiftly carried his hand into his bosom and thence
to his mouth. By the movement of his jaws he must be eating; in that
camp of famine he had reserved a store of nourishment; and, while his
companions lay in the stupor of approaching death, secretly restored his
powers.
My father was so incensed at what he saw that he raised his rifle; and
but for an accident, he has often declared, he would have shot the
fellow dead upon the spot. How different would then have been my
history! But it was not to be: even as he raised the barrel, his eye
lighted on the bear, as it crawled along a ledge some way below him; and
ceding to the hunter's instinct, it was at the brute, not at the man,
that he discharged his piece. The bear leaped and fell into a pool of
the river; the canon re-echoed the report; and in a moment the camp was
afoot. With cries that were scarce human, stumbling, falling, and
throwing each other down, these starving people rushed upon the quarry;
and before my father, climbing down by the ledge, had time to reach the
level of the stream, many were already satisfying their hunger on the
raw flesh, and a fire was being built by the more dainty.
His arrival was for some time unremarked. He stood in the midst of these
tottering and clay-faced marionettes; he was surrounded by their cries;
but their whole soul was fixed on the dead carcase; even those who were
too weak to move, lay, half-turned over, with their eyes riveted upon
the bear; and my father, seeing himself stand as though invisible in the
thick of this dreary hubbub, was seized with a desire to weep. A touch
upon the arm restrained him. Turning about, he found himself face to
face with the old man he had so nearly killed; and yet, at the second
glance, recognised him for no old man at all, but one in the full
strength of his years, and of a strong, speaking, and intellectual
countenance stigmatised by weariness and famine. He beckoned my father
near the cliff, and there, in the most private whisper, begged for
brandy. My father looked at him with scorn: "You remind me," he said,
"of a neglected duty. Here is my flask; it contains enough, I trust, to
revive the women of your party; and I will begin with her whom I saw you
robbing of her blankets." And with that, not heeding his appeals, my
father turned his back upon the egoist.
The girl still lay reclined against the rock; she lay too far sunk in
the first stage of death to have observed the bustle round her couch;
but when my father had raised her head, put the flask to her lips, and
forced or aided her to swallow some drops of the restorative, she opened
her languid eyes and smiled upon him faintly. Never was there a smile of
a more touching sweetness; never were eyes more deeply violet, more
honestly eloquent of the soul! I speak with knowledge, for these were
the same eyes that smiled upon me in the cradle. From her who was to be
his wife, my father, still jealously watched and followed by the man
with the grey beard, carried his attentions to all the women of the
party, and gave the last drainings of his flask to those among the men
who seemed in the most need.
"Is there none left? not a drop for me?" said the man with the beard.
"Not one drop," replied my father; "and if you find yourself in want,
let me counsel you to put your hand into the pocket of your coat."
"Ah!" cried the other, "you misjudge me. You think me one who clings to
life for selfish and commonplace considerations. But let me tell you,
that were all this caravan to perish, the world would but be lightened
of a weight. These are but human insects, pullulating, thick as
may-flies, in the slums of European cities, whom I myself have plucked
from degradation and misery, from the dung-heap and gin-palace door. And
you compare their lives with mine!"
"You are then a Mormon missionary?" asked my father.
"Oh!" cried the man, with a strange smile, "a Mormon missionary if you
will! I value not the title. Were I no more than that, I could have died
without a murmur. But with my life as a physician is bound up the
knowledge of great secrets and the future of man. This it was, when we
missed the caravan, tried for a short cut and wandered to this desolate
ravine, that ate into my soul and, in five days, has changed my beard
from ebony to silver."
"And you are a physician," mused my father, looking on his face, "bound
by oath to succour man in his distresses."
"Sir," returned the Mormon, "my name is Grierson: you will hear that
name again; and you will then understand that my duty was not to this
caravan of paupers, but to mankind at large."
My father turned to the remainder of the party, who were now
sufficiently revived to hear; told them that he would set off at once to
bring help from his own party; "and," he added, "if you be again reduced
to such extremities, look round you, and you will see the earth strewn
with assistance. Here, for instance, growing on the underside of
fissures in this cliff, you will perceive a yellow moss. Trust me, it is
both edible and excellent."
"Ha!" said Dr. Grierson, "you know botany!"
"Not I alone," returned my father, lowering his voice; "for see where
these have been scraped away. Am I right? Was that your secret store?"
My father's comrades, he found, when he returned to the signal-fire, had
made a good day's hunting. They were thus the more easily persuaded to
extend assistance to the Mormon caravan; and the next day beheld both
parties on the march for the frontiers of Utah. The distance to be
traversed was not great; but the nature of the country and the
difficulty of procuring food extended the time to nearly three weeks;
and my father had thus ample leisure to know and appreciate the girl
whom he had succoured. I will call my mother Lucy. Her family name I am
not at liberty to mention; it is one you would know well. By what series
of undeserved calamities this innocent flower of maidenhood, lovely,
refined by education, ennobled by the finest taste, was thus cast among
the horrors of a Mormon caravan, I must not stay to tell you. Let it
suffice, that even in these untoward circumstances, she found a heart
worthy of her own. The ardour of attachment which united my father and
mother was perhaps partly due to the strange manner of their meeting; it
knew, at least, no bounds, either divine or human; my father, for her
sake, determined to renounce his ambition and abjure his faith; and a
week had not passed upon the march before he had resigned from his
party, accepted the Mormon doctrine, and received the promise of my
mother's hand on the arrival of the party at Salt Lake.