THE DEAD RETURNED TO LIFE.
Let us return to the moment at which Silas Craig received from the
hands of William Bowen, his accomplice and tool, the document which he
had fully believed to be destroyed.
It is thus that the wicked are always deserted and betrayed by their
allies. The old phrase, "Honor among thieves," is a false and delusive
one.
Among the dishonest there can be no honor. The same impulse which
prompts them to cheat and deceive their victims, will, at another time,
induce them to cheat each other.
Thus it was with the unscrupulous overseer, William Bowen; so long as
his employer had paid him for his silence he was content to suppress
the guilty secret of the money which Silas had received from Philip
Treverton, but on the first occasion of the attorney's refusing to
supply him with funds, he was ready to turn round and betray him.
It was with this view that he had contrived to substitute a blank sheet
of paper, and to preserve the actual receipt written and signed by
Silas Craig.
The wealthy attorney, the pretended Christian, stood convicted a cheat
and a swindler.
Augustus Horton turned indignantly from his old ally.
"Bear witness, Mr. Leslie, and you, Mortimer," he said, "that I did not
know what this man was."
Silas Craig gnashed his teeth in silence; then crushing the paper in
his hand, he rose from his chair and looked about him.
It was the look of a wild beast at bay; the look of a fox that knows
the chase is over and the dogs are round him.
He sees their glaring eyes, he feels their hot and hungry breath, but
he determines on concentrating the energy of his nature on one last
effort.
"This receipt is a forgery!" he screamed, in a shrill and broken voice.
"I deny its validity!"
"Take care, Silas Craig," said his old accomplice, "I calculate lying
won't save you. You'd better speak the truth for once in a way, I
reckon, and throw yourself upon the mercy of these gents."
"I deny its validity!" repeated the attorney; "it's an infamous
forgery, fabricated by that man, William Bowen. I defy any living
creature to prove that Philip Treverton paid me one hundred thousand
dollars."
"Beware, Silas Craig!" said a voice from the interior of the apartment.
"You defy the living, do you also defy the dead?"
A man emerged from the shadow of the curtains about the window. That
man was the elder of the two gold-diggers; but he was no stranger to
those assembled there.
"The dead!" gasped Silas, dropping once more into his chair.
Those present never forgot the expression of the attorney's face, as
with open mouth and protruding eyeballs, he stared at the newcomer.
It was but for a moment that they beheld the gaze of horror, for after
one brief glance he covered his face with his outspread hands.
"The dead!" he repeated; "the dead!"
"Philip Treverton!" exclaimed Gerald Leslie.
"Yes, Gerald," answered the stranger, extending his hand to Cora's
father; "that Philip Treverton whom you have been taught to think a
gamester and a cheat. That Philip to whom, when about to sail for
England, you intrusted a large sum of money, to be paid by him to that
wretch yonder. You departed, secure in the belief that your friend and
partner was a man of honor, and that the money was as safe in his hands
as in your own. On your return you were told that your friend was dead,
and that the money had not been paid. I have only learned to-day, from
the lips of Bowen there, your noble and generous conduct. You uttered
no word of complaint, no syllable of reproach, but you bore up to the
last against the reverses brought upon you, as you thought, by the
dishonor of another."
"Do not speak of that, Philip," said Gerald Leslie; "I attributed the
loss of the money to some fatal moment of imprudence, and I never, even
in thought, accused you of dishonor."
"Imprudence would have been dishonor in such a case," answered Philip
Treverton. "Ay, Silas Craig, well may you hide your face from me--well
may your eyes refuse to meet those of the man you would have murdered!"
"Murdered!" exclaimed Gerald and Mortimer, while the women listened
with white and terrified faces to the disclosures of the returned
wanderer.
"Yes, murdered. It is a foul word to speak beneath the broad blue sky,
and in the sunlight of yonder heaven, but it is the word for all that."
"Silas Craig," cried Augustus Horton, "have you no word to answer to
all this? Can you sit calmly there and hear these accusations? Speak,
man, speak, and give your accuser the lie."
"He cannot!" said Philip Treverton, pointing to the lawyer. "Is that
the attitude of a man who is falsely accused? Look at him; look at him
crouching like a beaten hound beneath its master's whip."
"Do not speak of him," cried Gerald Leslie, impetuously, "but explain
this mystery. How is it that for a twelvemonth you have disappeared
from New Orleans, to return at this moment of ruin and despair?"
"I will tell you," answered Philip Treverton; "and I call upon this
man, William Bowen, here, to bear witness of my truth, and on yonder
wretch to contradict me if he dare. Upward of a year ago I was left
by you with the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in my hands--the
amount of the loan advanced to our firm by the usurer, Silas Craig.
This was to be repaid upon a certain date; that date fell about a
month after your departure for England. I held the money more sacred
than my life, and I laid it by in the strong box devoted to important
documents."
"You did as I myself would have done," said Gerald Leslie.
"I did; but I was by no means faultless. I was the victim of a vice
which has brought dishonor upon men who never thought to blush before
their fellow men--I was a gamester! I devoted my days to business
cheerfully, conscientiously; but at night the demon of the dice-box
lured me from my quiet home, and led me to a secret gaming-house in
Columbia Street--a house known to all the gamblers of New Orleans, but
which flourishes in bold defiance of the law. I had known this house
for years, and had been a constant guest at its unholy altars, but
there was one thing concerning it that I did not know."
"And that was--?"
"Its owner! I did not know that Silas Craig, the lawyer, that
sanctimonious attorney whom men met every Sunday morning in the sacred
temple of Heaven; I did not know that this man was the proprietor of
that earthly hell, the wretch that pandered in secret to the vices of
his fellow-citizens. I did not know this, and I did not know that the
gaming-house in Columbia Street communicated by a secret passage with
the office of Silas Craig."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Augustus Horton.
"Ay, the secret has been well kept; and it was a secret that was only
to have been known to me when the hand of Death was on my lips to seal
them to eternal silence. But the ways of Providence are inscrutable.
The day arrived upon which our debt to this man became due. At twelve
o'clock on that day I called, delivered to him the sum of one hundred
thousand dollars in bills of exchange, and received his written
acknowledgment of the money. This done I left as light as a feather.
A load was removed from my mind, and I determined to spend a day of
enjoyment. I dined with some friends at an hotel, and after sitting
late over the table, and drinking a good deal of wine, we adjourned to
the gambling-house in Columbia Street."
There was a brief pause; but Silas Craig never stirred from his abject
attitude, never attempted by either word or gesture, to contradict the
speaker.
"We played for some hours, but my friends were not such inveterate
gamesters as myself, and they grew weary of the demoniac fever. After
persuading me to quit the place with them, they at last lost patience
with my folly and departed, leaving me still at the fatal green cloth.
It was by this time four o'clock in the morning. I had drunk a great
deal, and I had been losing money. My head was bewildered; my brain
dizzy, and my temper soured by my losses. The room was almost deserted,
but I still sat with my eyes fixed upon the game, madly endeavoring to
retrieve my losses. At this crisis a great brawny fellow opposite to
me, a Frenchman, ventured to insult me. Tipsy as I was, I was in no
humor to brook this. I sprung toward him to chastise his insolence, and
a fight ensued, in which I was getting the worst of it, when one of the
bystanders interfered, and suggested that we should resort to small
swords, and finish the business in a more gentlemanly manner."
"It was a plot!" said Gerald Leslie.
"It was! A villainous and foul plot, concocted by yonder stricken
wretch. Stupefied and bewildered, I let them do what they pleased with
me, and I know nothing of what happened till I found a duelling sword
in my hand, and saw that my adversary was armed in the same fashion.
By this time the room was entirely deserted, except by my antagonist,
the other man, and myself. This other man--the same who had suggested
our using swords--opened a door in the wall, a door which I had never
before perceived, and pushed me into a long dimly lighted corridor,
which was also strange to me. The door closed behind us, and we hurried
along the corridor for some distance, until we were stopped by the
stranger who had taken upon himself the management of the business.
He placed us opposite to each other, put the swords into our hands,
and gave us the signal to begin. I felt in a moment that I was a lost
man. My head spun round. In the dim light I could scarcely see my
adversary's face, as the lamps were so arranged that what light there
was fell full upon mine. In vain I tried to parry his thrusts. I had
been twice wounded slightly on the shoulder, when the lights were
suddenly extinguished, and I felt the sharp pang of a stab from a long
and slender sword.
"But this stab did not come from my opponent. Although I lost
consciousness upon the moment of receiving the stroke, I knew that I
was stabbed in the back."
"Execrable traitors!" exclaimed Gerald Mortimer, and Augustus.
"When I recovered my senses I found myself in a lonely boat-house on
the banks of the Mississippi, four miles from New Orleans. I was lying
on a mattress, and my wound had been dressed by a surgeon; but I was
too feeble, from loss of blood and the pain I had endured, to utter a
word, or ask one question of the man seated by my side."
"You were not alone, then?"
"No! William Bowen, the accomplice of Silas Craig, had repented of the
horrible work as soon as it was done; and, under pretense of carrying
my body to the river, had contrived to convey me to this lonely shed,
which belonged to a friend of his."
"Stop a bit, Mr. Treverton," interrupted William; "when Mr. Craig
settled with me that we were to set that villainous Frenchman on to
you, get up a duel, and rob you of the receipt for the hundred thousand
dollars, it was agreed that you were to be attacked in fair fight, and
that you were not to be seriously hurt. It was Mr. Silas Craig yonder
who couldn't be content with this; it was he who turned out the gas
in the thick of the fight, and stabbed you in the back. You dropped
down like a dead man; but the lawyer there was too great a coward to
make sure whether you were really dead; he dared not approach within a
couple of yards of his victim. He told me to ransack your pockets, and
secure the receipt; and then, assisted by the Frenchman, to carry the
body to the river."
"And you did so?"
"I did; but I contrived to get rid of the Frenchman as soon as we
reached the quay, and then, dropping my bleeding burden into a boat, I
rowed down to the boat-house, where I sought a surgeon to look at my
patient. Mr. Treverton knows the rest."
"I do, William," answered Philip Treverton; "I know that you attended
me faithfully and patiently; and then when I recovered you assisted me
to get off to California, whence, after nearly a twelve-months' toil, I
return so rich a man as to be able to recompense the noble conduct of
my old friend, Gerald Leslie. As for yonder wretch," he added, pointing
to Craig, "defeat has followed so utterly upon his career of crime that
I doubt if the law can do much more to punish him. He will refund the
hundred thousand dollars of which he has defrauded his victim."
"I will," gasped the unhappy wretch, rising, and staggering toward
the door; "I am rich; take what you will. I shall leave New Orleans
forever--"
He stopped suddenly, and passed his handkerchief across his lips; when
he removed it, it was stained with patches of crimson.
He had broken a blood-vessel!