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_"Laden with Golden Grain"_
* * * * *
THE
ARGOSY.
EDITED BY
CHARLES W. WOOD.
* * * * *
VOLUME LI.
_January to June, 1891._
* * * * *
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON,
8, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, LONDON, W.
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
_All rights reserved._
LONDON:
PRINTED BY OGDEN, SMALE AND CO. LIMITED,
GREAT SAFFRON HILL, E.C.
_CONTENTS._
THE FATE OF THE HARA DIAMOND. Illustrated by M.L. GOW.
Chap. I. My Arrival at Deepley Walls Jan
II. The Mistress of Deepley Walls Jan
III. A Voyage of Discovery Jan
IV. Scarsdale Weir Jan
V. At Rose Cottage Feb
VI. The Growth of a Mystery Feb
VII. Exit Janet Hope Feb
VIII. By the Scotch Express Feb
IX. At "The Golden Griffin" Mar
X. The Stolen Manuscript Mar
XI. Bon Repos Mar
XII. The Amsterdam Edition of 1698 Mar
XIII. M. Platzoff's Secret--Captain Ducie's Translation of
M. Paul Platzoff's MS Mar
XIV. Drashkil-Smoking Apr
XV. The Diamond Apr
XVI. Janet's Return Apr
XVII. Deepley Walls after Seven Years Apr
XVIII. Janet in a New Character May
XIX. The Dawn of Love May
XX. The Narrative of Sergeant Nicholas May
XXI. Counsel taken with Mr. Madgin May
XXII. Mr. Madgin at the Helm Jun
XXIII. Mr. Madgin's Secret Journey Jun
XXIV. Enter Madgin Junior Jun
XXV. Madgin Junior's First Report Jun
* * * * *
THE SILENT CHIMES. By JOHNNY LUDLOW (Mrs. HENRY WOOD).
Putting Them Up Jan
Playing Again Feb
Ringing at Midday Mar
Not Heard Apr
Silent for Ever May
* * * * *
THE BRETONS AT HOME. By CHARLES W. WOOD, F.R.G.S. With
35 Illustrations Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun
* * * * *
About the Weather Jun
Across the River. By HELEN M. BURNSIDE Apr
After Twenty Years. By ADA M. TROTTER Feb
A Memory. By GEORGE COTTERELL Feb
A Modern Witch Jan
An April Folly. By GILBERT H. PAGE Apr
A Philanthropist. By ANGUS GREY Jun
Aunt Phoebe's Heirlooms: An Experience in Hypnotism Feb
A Social Debut Mar
A Song. By G.B. STUART Jan
Enlightenment. By E. NESBIT Feb
In a Bernese Valley. By ALEXANDER LAMONT Feb
Legend of an Ancient Minster. By JOHN GRÆME Mar
Longevity. By W.F. AINSWORTH, F.S.A. Apr
Mademoiselle Elise. By EDWARD FRANCIS Jun
Mediums and Mysteries. By NARISSA ROSAVO Feb
Miss Kate Marsden Jan
My May Queen. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. May
Old China Jun
On Letter-Writing. By A.H. JAPP, LL.D. May
Paul. By the Author of "Adonais, Q.C." May
"Proctorised" Apr
Rondeau. By E. NESBIT Mar
Saint or Satan? By A. BERESFORD Feb
Sappho. By MARY GREY Mar
Serenade. By E. NESBIT Jun
Sonnets. By JULIA KAVANAGH Jan, Feb, Apr, Jun
So Very Unattractive! Jun
Spes. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. Apr
Sweet Nancy. By JEANIE GWYNNE BETTANY May
The Church Garden. By CHRISTIAN BURKE May
The Only Son of his Mother. By LETITIA MCCLINTOCK Mar
To my Soul. From the French of Victor Hugo Jun
Unexplained. By LETITIA MCCLINTOCK Apr
Who Was the Third Maid? Jan
Winter in Absence Feb
* * * * *
_POETRY._
Sonnets. By JULIA KAVANAGH Jan, Feb, Apr, Jun
A Song. By G.B. STUART Jan
Enlightenment. By E. NESBIT Feb
Winter in Absence Feb
A Memory. By GEORGE COTTERELL Feb
In a Bernese Valley. By ALEXANDER LAMONT Feb
Rondeau. By E. NESBIT Mar
Spes. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. Apr
Across the River. By HELEN M. BURNSIDE Apr
My May Queen. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. May
The Church Garden. By CHRISTIAN BURKE May
Serenade. By E. NESBIT Jun
To my Soul. From the French of Victor Hugo Jun
Old China Jun
* * * * *
_ILLUSTRATIONS._
By M.L. Gow.
"I advanced slowly up the room, stopped, and curtsied."
"I saw and recognised the mysterious midnight visitor."
"He came back in a few minutes, but so transformed in outward
appearance that Ducie scarcely knew him."
"Behold!"
"Sister Agnes knelt for a few moments and bent her head in silent
prayer."
"He put his hand to his side, and motioned Mirpah to open the letter."
* * * * *
Illustrations to "The Bretons at Home."
[Illustration: "BEHOLD!"]
THE ARGOSY.
_APRIL, 1891._
THE FATE OF THE HARA DIAMOND.
CHAPTER XIV.
DRASHKIL-SMOKING.
"It must and shall be mine!"
So spoke Captain Ducie on the spur of the moment as he wrote the last
word of his translation of M. Platzoff's MS. And yet there was a keen
sense of disappointment working within him. His blood had been at fever
heat during the latter part of his task. Each fresh sentence of the
cryptogram as he began to decipher it would, he hoped, before he reached
the end of it, reveal to him the hiding-place of the great Diamond. Up
to the very last sentence he had thus fondly deluded himself, only to
find that the abrupt ending of the MS. left him still on the brink of
the secret, and left him there without any clue by which he could
advance a single step beyond that point. He was terribly disappointed,
and the longer he brooded over the case the more entirely hopeless was
the aspect it put on.
But there was an elasticity of mind about Captain Ducie that would not
allow him to despair utterly for any length of time. In the course of a
few days, as he began to recover from his first chagrin, he at the same
time began to turn the affair of the Diamond over and over in his mind,
now in one way, now in another, looking at it in this light and in that;
trying to find the first faint indications of a clue which, judiciously
followed up, might conduct him step by step to the heart of the mystery.
Two questions naturally offered themselves for solution. First: Did
Platzoff habitually carry the Diamond about his person? Second: Was it
kept in some skilfully-devised hiding-place about the house? These were
questions that could be answered only by time and observation.
So Captain Ducie went about Bon Repos like a man with half-a-dozen pairs
of eyes, seeing, and not only seeing but noting, a hundred little things
such as would never have been observed by him under ordinary
circumstances. But when, at the end of a week, he came to sum up and
classify his observations, and to consider what bearing they had upon
the great mystery of the hiding-place of the Diamond, he found that they
had no bearing upon it whatever; that for anything seen or heard by him
the world might hold no such precious gem, and the Russian's letter to
Signor Lampini might be nothing more than an elaborate hoax.
When the access of chagrin caused by the recognition of this fact had in
some degree subsided, Ducie was ready enough to ridicule his own foolish
expectations. "Platzoff has had the Diamond in his possession for years.
For him there is nothing of novelty in such a fact. Yet here have I been
foolish enough to expect that in the course of one short week I should
discover by some sign or token the spot where it is hidden, and that too
after I knew from his own confession that the secret was one which he
guarded most jealously. I might be here for five years and be not one
whit wiser at the end of that time as regards the hiding-place of the
Diamond than I am now. From this day I give up the affair as a bad job."
Nevertheless, he did not quite do that. He kept up his habit of seeing
and noting little things, but without any definite views as to any
ulterior benefit that might accrue to him therefrom. Perhaps there was
some vague idea floating in his mind that Fortune, who had served him so
many kind turns in years gone by, might befriend him once again in this
matter--might point out to him the wished-for clue, and indicate by what
means he could secure the Diamond for his own.
The magnitude of the temptation dazzled him. Captain Ducie would not
have picked your pocket, or have stolen your watch, or your horse, or
the title-deeds of your property. He had never put another man's name to
a bill instead of his own. You might have made him trustee for your
widow or children, and have felt sure that their interests would have
been scrupulously respected at his hands. Yet with all this--strange
contradiction as it may seem--if he could have laid surreptitious
fingers on M. Platzoff's Diamond, that gentleman would certainly never
have seen his cherished gem again. But had Platzoff placed it in his
hands and said, "Take this to London for me and deposit it at my
bankers'," the commission would have been faithfully fulfilled. It
seemed as if the element of mystery, of deliberate concealment, made all
the difference in Captain Ducie's unspoken estimate of the case.
Besides, would there not be something princely in such a theft? You
cannot put a man who steals a diamond worth a hundred and fifty thousand
pounds in the category of common thieves. Such an act verges on the
sublime.
One of the things seen and noticed by Captain Ducie was the absence,
through illness, of the mulatto, Cleon, from his duties, and the
substitution in his place of a man whom Ducie had never seen before.
This stranger was both clever and obliging, and Platzoff himself
confessed that the fellow made such a good substitute that he missed
Cleon less than he at first feared he should have done. He was indeed
very assiduous, and found time to do many odd jobs for Captain Ducie,
who contracted quite a liking for him.
Between Ducie and Cleon there existed one of those blind unreasoning
hatreds which spring up full-armed and murderous at first sight. Such
enmities are not the less deadly because they sometimes find no relief
in words. Cleon treated Ducie with as much outward respect and courtesy
as he did any other of his master's guests; no private communication
ever passed between the two, and yet each understood the other's
feelings towards him, and both of them were wise enough to keep as far
apart as possible. Neither of them dreamed at that time of the strange
fruit which their mutual enmity was to bear in time to come. Meanwhile,
Cleon lay sick in his own room, and Captain Ducie was rather gladdened
thereby.
* * * * *
M. Platzoff rarely touched cigar or pipe till after dinner; but,
whatever company he might have, when that meal was over, it was his
invariable custom to retire for an hour or two to the room consecrated
to the uses of the Great Herb, and his guests seldom or never declined
to accompany him. To Captain Ducie, as an inveterate smoker, these
_séances_ were very pleasant.
On the very first evening of the Captain's arrival at Bon Repos, M.
Platzoff had intimated that he was an opium smoker, and that at no very
distant date he would enlighten Ducie as to the practice in question.
About a week later, as they sat down to their pipes and coffee, said
Platzoff, "This is one of my big smoke-nights. To-night I go on a
journey of discovery into Dreamland--a country that no explorations can
exhaust, where beggars are the equals of kings, and where the Fates that
control our actions are touched with a fine eccentricity that in a more
commonplace world would be termed madness. But there nothing is
commonplace."
"You are going to smoke opium?" said Ducie, interrogatively.
"I am going to smoke drashkil. Let me, for this once, persuade you to
follow my example."
"For this once I would rather be excused," said Ducie, laughingly.
Platzoff shrugged his shoulders. "I offer to open for you the golden
gates of a land full of more strange and wondrous things than were ever
dreamed of by any early voyager as being in that new world on whose
discovery he was bent; I offer to open up for you a set of experiences
so utterly fresh and startling that your matter-of-fact English
intellect cannot even conceive of such things. I offer you all this, and
you laugh me down with an air of superiority, as though I were about to
present you with something which, however precious it might be in my
eyes, in yours was utterly without value."
"If I sin at all," said Ducie, "it is through ignorance. The subject is
one respecting which I know next to nothing. But I must confess that
about experiences such as you speak of there is an intangibility--a
want of substance--that to me would make them seem singularly
valueless."
"And is not the thing we call life one tissue of intangibilities?" asked
the Russian. "You can touch neither the beginning nor the end of it. Do
not its most cherished pleasures fly you even as you are in the very act
of trying to grasp them? Do you know for certain that you--you
yourself--are really here?--that you do not merely dream that you are
here? What do you know?"
"Your theories are too far-fetched for me," said Ducie. "A dream can be
nothing more than itself--nothing can give it backbone or substance. To
me such things are of no more value than the shadow I cast behind me
when I walk in the sun."
"And yet without substance there could be no shadow," snarled the
Russian.
"Do your experiences in any way resemble those recorded by De Quincey?"
"They do and do not," answered Platzoff. "I can often trace, or fancy
that I can, a slight connecting likeness, arising probably from the fact
that in the case of both of us a similar, or nearly similar, agent was
employed for a similar purpose. But, as a rule, the intellectual
difference between any two men is sufficient to render their experiences
in this respect utterly dissimilar."
"It does not follow, I presume, that all the visions induced by the
imbibing of opium, or what you term drashkil, are pleasant ones?"
"By no means. You cannot have forgotten what De Quincey has to say on
that score. But whether they are pleasant or the contrary, I accept them
as so much experience, and in so far I am satisfied. You look
incredulous, but I tell you, sir, that what I see, and what I
undergo--subjectively--while under the influence of drashkil make up for
me an experience as real, that dwells as vividly in my memory and that
can be brought to mind like any other set of recollections, as if it
were built up brick by brick, fact by fact, out of the incidents of
everyday life. And all such experiences are valuable in this wise: that
whatever I see while under the influence of drashkil I see, as it were,
with the eyes of genius. I breathe a keener atmosphere; I have finer
intuitions; the brain is no longer clogged with that part of me which is
mortal; in whatever imaginary scenes I assist, whether actor or
spectator, matters not; I seem to discern the underlying meaning of
things--I hear the low faint beating of the hidden pulses of the world.
To come back from this enchanted realm to the dull realities of everyday
life is like depriving some hero of fairyland of his magic gifts and
reducing him to the level of common humanity."
"At which pleasant level I pray ever to be kept," said Ducie; "I have no
desire to soar into those regions of romance where you seem so
thoroughly at home."
"So be it," said Platzoff drily. "The intellects of you English have
been nourished on beef and beer for so many generations that there is no
such thing as spiritual insight left among you. We must not expect too
much." This was said not ill-naturedly, but in that quiet jeering tone
which was almost habitual with Platzoff.
Ducie maintained a judicious silence and went on puffing gravely at his
meerschaum. Platzoff touched the gong and Cleon entered, for this
conversation took place before the illness of the latter. The Russian
held up two fingers, and Cleon bowed. Then Cleon opened a mahogany box
in one corner of the room, and took out of it a pipe-bowl of red clay,
into which he fitted a flexible tube five or six yards in length and
tipped with amber. The bowl was then fixed into a stand of black oak
about a foot high and there held securely, and the mouthpiece handed to
Platzoff. Cleon next opened an inlaid box, and by means of a tiny silver
spatula he cut out a small block of some black, greasy-looking mixture,
which he proceeded to fit into the bowl of the pipe. On the top of this
he sprinkled a little aromatic Turkish tobacco, and then applied an
allumette. When he saw that the pipe was fairly alight, he bowed and
withdrew.
While these preparations were going on Platzoff had not been silent. "I
have spoken to you of what I am about to smoke, both as opium and
drashkil," he said. "It is not by any means pure opium. With that great
drug are mixed two or three others that modify and influence the chief
ingredient materially. I had the secret of the preparation from a Hindoo
gentleman while I was in India. It was imparted to me as an immense
favour, it being a secret even there. The enthusiastic terms in which he
spoke of it have been fully justified by the result, as you would
discover for yourself if you could only be persuaded to try it. You
shake your head. Eh bien! mon ami; the loss is yours, not mine."
"Some of what you have termed your 'experiences' are no doubt very
singular ones?" said Ducie, interrogatively.
"They are--very singular," answered Platzoff. "In my last
drashkil-dream, for instance, I believed myself to be an Indian fakir,
and I seemed to realise to the full the strange life of one of those
strange beings. I was stationed in the shade of a large tree just
without the gate of some great city where all who came and went could
see me. On the ground, a little way in front of me, was a wooden bowl
for the reception of the offerings of the charitable. I had kept both my
hands close shut for so many years that the nails had grown into the
flesh, and the muscles had hardened so that I could no longer open them;
and I was looked upon as a very holy man. The words of the passers-by
were sweet in my ears, but I never spoke to them in return. Silent and
immovable, I stood there through the livelong day--and in my vision it
was always day. I had the power of looking back, and I knew that, in the
first instance, I had been led by religious enthusiasm to adopt that
mode of life. I should be in the world but not of it; I should have
more time for that introspective contemplation the aim and end of which
is mental absorption in the divine Brahma; besides which, people would
praise me, and all the world would know that I was a holy man. But the
strangest part of the affair remains to be told. In the eyes of the
people I had grown in sanctity from year to year; but in my own heart I
knew that instead of approaching nearer to Brahma, I was becoming more
depraved, more wicked, with a great inward wickedness, as time went on.
I struggled desperately against the slough of sin that was slowly
creeping over me, but in vain. It seemed to me as if the choice were
given me either to renounce my life of outward-seeming sanctity, and
becoming as other men were, to feel again that inward peace which had
been mine long years before; or else, while remaining holy in the eyes
of the multitude, to feel myself sinking into a bottomless pit of
wickedness from which I could never more hope to emerge. My mental
tortures while this struggle was going on I can never forget: they are
as much a real experience to me as if they had made up a part of my
genuine waking life. And still I stood with closed hands in the shade of
the tree; and the people cried out that I was holy, and placed their
offerings in my bowl; and I could not make up my mind to abnegate the
title they gave me and become as they were. And still I grew in inward
wickedness, till I loathed myself as if I were some vile reptile; and so
the struggle went on, and was still going on when I opened my eyes and
found myself again at Bon Repos."
As Platzoff ceased speaking, Cleon applied the light, and Ducie in his
eagerness drew a little nearer. Platzoff was dressed à la Turk, and sat
with cross legs on the low divan that ran round the room. Slowly and
deliberately he inhaled the smoke from his pipe, expelling it a moment
later, in part through his nostrils and in part through his lips. The
layer of tobacco at the top of the bowl was quickly burnt to ashes. By
this time the drug below was fairly alight, and before long a thick
white sickly smoke began to ascend in rings and graceful spires towards
the roof of the room. Cleon was gone, and a solemn silence was
maintained by both the men. Platzoff's eyes, black and piercing, were
fixed on vacancy; they seemed to be gazing on some picture visible to
himself alone. Ducie was careful not to disturb him. His inhalations
were slow, gentle and regular. After a time, a thin film or glaze began
to gather over his wide-open eyes, dimming their brightness, and making
them seem like the eyes of someone dead. His complexion became livid,
his face more cadaverous than it naturally was. Then his eyes closed
slowly and gently, like those of an infant dropping to sleep. For a
little time longer he kept on inhaling the smoke, but every minute the
inhalations became fainter and fewer in number. At length the hand that
held the pipe dropped nervelessly by his side, the amber mouthpiece
slipped from between his lips, his jaw dropped, and, with an almost
imperceptible sigh, his head sank softly back on to the cushions
behind, and M. Paul Platzoff was in the opium-eater's paradise.
Ducie, who had never seen anyone similarly affected, was frightened by
his host's death-like appearance. He was doubtful whether Platzoff had
not been seized with a fit. In order to satisfy himself he touched the
gong and summoned Cleon. That incomparable domestic glided in, noiseless
as a shadow.
"Does your master always look as he does now after he has been smoking
opium?" asked the Captain.
"Always, sir."
"And how long does it take him to come round?"
"That depends, sir, on the strength of the dose he has been smoking. The
preparation is made of different strengths to suit him at different
times; but always when he has been smoking drashkil I leave him
undisturbed till midnight. If by that time he has not come round
naturally and of his own accord, I carry him to bed and then administer
to him a certain draught, which has the effect of sending him into a
natural and healthy sleep, from which he awakes next morning thoroughly
refreshed."
"Then you will come to-night at twelve, and see how your master is by
that time?" said Ducie.
"It is part of my duty to do so," answered Cleon.
"Then I will wait here till that time," said the Captain. Cleon bowed
and disappeared.
So Ducie kept watch and ward for four hours, during the whole of which
time Platzoff lay, except for his breathing, like one dead. As the last
stroke of midnight struck Cleon reappeared. His master showed not the
slightest symptom of returning consciousness. Having examined him
narrowly for a moment or two, he turned to Ducie.
"You must pardon me, sir, for leaving you alone," he said, "but I must
now take my master off to bed. He will scarcely wake up for conversation
to-night."
"Proceed as though I were not here," said Ducie. "I will just finish
this weed, and then I too will turn in."
Platzoff's private rooms, forming a suite four in number, were on the
ground floor of Bon Repos. From the main corridor the first that you
entered was the smoking-room already described. Next to that was the
dressing-room, from which you passed into the bed-room. The last of the
four was a small square room, fitted up with book-shelves, and used as a
private library and study.
Cleon, who was a strong, muscular fellow, lifted Platzoff's shrivelled
body as easily as he might have done that of a child, and so carried him
out of the room.
Ducie met his host at the breakfast-table next morning. The latter
seemed as well as usual, and was much amused when Ducie told him of his
alarm, and how he had summoned Cleon under the impression that Platzoff
had been taken dangerously ill.
Platzoff rarely indulged in the luxury of drashkil-smoking oftener than
once a week. His constitution was delicate, and a too frequent use of so
dangerous a drug would have tended to shatter still further his already
enfeebled health. Besides, as he said, he wished to keep it as a luxury,
and not, by a too frequent indulgence in it, to take off the fine edge
of enjoyment and render it commonplace. Ducie had several subsequent
opportunities of witnessing the process of drashkil-smoking and its
effects, but one description will serve for all. On every occasion the
same formula was gone through, precisely as first seen by Ducie. The
pipe was charged and lighted by Cleon (after he became ill, by the new
servant Jasmin). Precisely at midnight Cleon returned, and either
conducted or carried his master to bed, as the necessities of the case
might require. It was his knowledge of the latter fact that stood Ducie
in such good stead later on, when he came to elaborate the details of
his scheme for stealing the Great Hara Diamond.
But as yet his scheme was in embryo. His visit was drawing to a close,
and he was still without the slightest clue to the hiding-place of the
Diamond.