Eleven Possible Cases

Judge Favart de Caumartin's residence was a large, rambling structure, more like a hotel than like a private house. Considering that his wife was dead and that he had but one living child, a daughter of seventeen, it was strange that he kept up such an extensive establishment, in which, perhaps, twenty rooms stood richly furnished but unoccupied. It was his pleasure, however, and his pleasure was law.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin was greatly surprised when by merest chance she discovered Hepworth Coleman making himself quite at home in a remote room of the house. We have seen how she showed her confusion as she stepped into the doorway and found herself face to face with the young man. The glance that passed between them wrought a wonder in the heart of each. I shall not say that they fell in love at first sight. Love cannot be so accurately traced that its origin can be exactly found out in any particular case. It is enough to record that Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin caught something new, something sweet from that momentary gaze, and shut it up in her heart involuntarily, with a thrill that never again quite left her breast. She was back through halls and rooms to her own boudoir, her cheeks and lips rosy with excitement, and a gentle tremor in her limbs.

That evening in the library the Judge told his daughter that he had given a suit of rooms in the farthest wing of the mansion to a wealthy young gentleman from New York.

"I have had letters from Mr. Cartwright, my banker there, asking me to take care of him, and this seemed the best I could do under the circumstances. I did not see my way to bringing him any nearer to us. We don't care to have another member added to our family, eh, Olympe, dear?"

Mlle. de Caumartin blushed. She may have felt a touch of guilt because she could not muster courage to tell her father that she had already visited Mr. Coleman.

"I have not seen him yet," continued the Judge; "I thought it best to let him have some rest before calling upon him. Cartwright advises me that he is of an excellent family—a man to be given the greatest attention, and for my banker's sake, if for nothing else, I must meet the demand upon my hospitality. He came a fortnight earlier than I expected; but I had Jules watching for him, and you know Jules never fails."

"But you should have told me before, father dear," said Mlle. Olympe. "Only a while ago, while wandering through the distant wing of the house, I invaded this young gentleman's apartment. It surprised him evidently as much as it abashed me."

"The obvious moral of which is," replied the Judge quickly, "that you are hereafter to be more careful about what rooms you are stumbling into." As he spoke his dark oval face, with its fine, grave smile, was almost like a boy's. The flush that lay under the skin shone through with a suggestion of some repressed stimulus, as if a great passion had forced it up. In his eyes an underglow, so to call it, smoldered with fascinating vagueness.

Mlle. Olympe sat for a moment on his knee and stroked his long black hair.

"You will stay with me to-night, father, dear," she presently murmured, coaxingly; "you will not go out to-night."

"I must be gone a little while," he said, rising at once, "but just a little while."

She clung close to him.

"Not this night, please," she urged, with a touching tremor in her voice. "Oh! you remember this night a year ago you had that dreadful adventure in the dark room. You must not go out; please, for my sake, do not."

An expert observer could have seen while this was going on a strange, half-worried, almost fiercely concentrated expression in the Judge's eyes. It was as if he mightily wished to remain with his child, but could not by any effort resist some powerful temptation tugging at him and drawing him away.

He kissed her tenderly, pushed her gently from him and went out.

The girl cast herself upon a sofa and buried her face in her hands, as a vision of that night one year before came up before her eyes.

Some strange masked men had brought her father home far in the night, white as a ghost, helpless, speechless, apparently dead. They put him down there in the room and vanished.

He had no wound, no bruise, no mark of any violence. But he recovered very slowly, and he never told what had befallen him.

Mlle. Olympe knew of her father's frequent duels, and if he had been brought in dead or badly off on account of pistol ball or rapier thrust she would not have been surprised beyond measure, but this mysterious performance of the masked men and the unaccountable condition of the Judge were taken hold upon by her imagination and raised to the highest power of romantic meaning.

A year had passed, and she might not have recalled the exact anniversary but for the prattle of an old servant to the effect that she had seen her master, the Judge, marching at the head of a company of masked men, himself wearing an "invisible" mask and a queer black velvet cap.

Mlle. Olympe observed that her father was flushed as if with wine, and his bearing was indicative of some subtile and indescribable excitement within him. When he went away she felt that something startling was going to happen soon.

When Hepworth Coleman suddenly found himself a prisoner in that close, dark room, he did not at first suspect any treachery on the part of Judge Favart de Caumartin. He expected that gentleman to return in the course of a few minutes, but this favorable impression was soon removed by certain startling events that crowded one upon another.

First a low, rumbling, clanging sound, like the beating of metallic gongs in the distance, came through the walls and filled the cell. Then as this died away to utter silence he heard tumultuous whispering all around, above, below. The thousand voices all seemed to be saying the same thing, which presently he made out to be the words: "The Krewe is coming; make ready for the Krewe!" When the whispering ended little purple lights began to flash here and there, but so mysteriously glinted that he could not locate them, and these were followed by phantom faces, wan, waxen, faintly luminous, appearing and fading instantly, succeeded by intense darkness.

Now, Hepworth Coleman was a man of iron nerve, an athlete in body and spirit, who, although full of romantic and poetic impulses, was at the base of his character as brave and steadfast as a lion. Still, even the best courage has its moment of faltering, and just at the point when one whole wall of his cell was withdrawn, so that he stood in the full glare of twenty brilliant chandeliers that lighted a large, gorgeously decorated hall, he felt the blood grow stiflingly heavy on his heart. Before him stood a file of fantastic figures, men oddly clad and strangely armed, who clashed their brazen shields together and pointed their swords at his breast. On the walls of the spacious room hung weird-looking trophies, skulls, pictures of dead men, ghastly and livid, pistols, swords, and strange banners. The floor was carpeted with heavy Persian tapestry, thickly padded underneath.

Coleman stood gazing while the file of armed men—perhaps platoon would be more correct—went through some silent but intricate evolutions after beating their shields together and threatening him with their swords. When the movements were ended one of the masters came up to him and struck him lightly with the flat of his weapon across the cheek, saying in a loud whisper:

"Beware! you are in imminent danger."

Coleman took him at his word and instantly let go a blow from the shoulder. His close-set fist met the masker's jaw with a sound of crushing pasteboard, and down went the man outstretched at full length on the floor, his shield and sword giving forth a muffled clang as they crossed upon the soft carpet.

Quick as a cat Coleman leaped forward and picked up the sword, a beautiful rapier, and, assuming a defensive attitude, cried out boldly:

"Come one at a time and I will fight you all!"

The fantastic figures looked at one another with evident questioning, though not a word was said.

Meantime the fallen one scrambled to his feet and swore two or three bitter French oaths. The leader rebuked him with gestures.

"Come one at a time, you cowardly villains," repeated Coleman, "and I'll soon finish you all. Come on, the first one, if you dare meet a man!"

He was terribly angry, but his voice was steady and even.

There was a space of silence. Then the leader said something to one of the men, who immediately cast aside his shield and advanced with his rapier.

It was a short conflict. Coleman disarmed his antagonist with ease in less than a minute.

Another man came on and shared the same fate, with the addition of a prick through the wrist of the sword-arm.

This was exhilarating to Coleman in his exasperation at being made the butt of some mysterious trick.

"Come next," he cried; "I want the best of you—and the best is a coward. Come on!"

Evidently the mystic band now felt the gravity that the occasion was assuming. The maskers looked to their leader.

"Don't stand there afraid," sneered Coleman; "come on and get your turn. Who's next?"

One after another responded, only to fare badly. As yet, however, all had escaped without deadly hurt, when the leader himself made ready to fight. Those who had come to grief were quietly cared for by others, and all seemed to treat the proceedings as by no means startling or even unusual.

When the leader threw aside his shield and took off his tall plume-covered hat, Coleman was able to recognize Judge Favart de Caumartin, more by his form and bearing than by any disclosure of his features.

As the Judge handled his rapier, all the company of maskers, even the sorely-wounded ones, came forward to look on with eager expectation. His was steel that never yet had failed to find the vitals of his opponent. But, on the other hand, there stood Coleman, steadfast and alert, the very picture of strength and will, and the embodiment of quickness and certainty, his sword bearing at its point a tiny red clot of blood.

They looked with straining eyes and did not feel sure of the result even with their captain as their champion.

"Come on, sir, and take your punishment, you cowardly leader of cowards!" exclaimed Coleman in a most exasperating tone. "Don't stand there dreading it. Pluck up a little nerve and come on!"

It is useless to say that Judge Favart de Caumartin needed no bullying of this sort to urge him into combat. With beautiful swiftness and grace he sprang forward and at once took the offensive. Then followed sword play that was amazing to look at. Each combatant showed that mastery of the fencing art which makes the weapon appear to be a part of the man. So swiftly leaped the shining shafts of steel that the eye saw only fine symmetrical figures shimmering between the fighters, while spangles of fire leaped from the crossing edges. Coleman felt at once that he had met his match; the Judge tingled with the discovery that here at last was a master.

From the first it was a fight to the death if possible. Neither could hope to disarm the other, nor was there probability of any mere disablement ending the contest. The watchers, looking on in breathless suspense, heard with intensely straining ears the almost magically rapid clinking of the blades.

Coleman fought as if with the energy of all the accumulated romance of his recent experiences, half recognizing, as he parried and thrust and feinted and recovered guard, the vivid picturesqueness, the melodramatic unreality, and yet the deadly intensity of the situation. He did not know where he was or why he had been brought there. The whole affair had mystery enough in it to have destroyed the will power of any weaker man; but to him, while the strangeness affected his imagination, there was nothing in the matter to make him falter or to weaken the force of his arm. A fine glow of enthusiasm flashed indeed into his blood, and with it an access of cunning grace and swift certainty of hand and eye. The feeling prevailed that he had in some strange way stepped out of the real world into the world of romance, and as he fought, the charm of heroism fell upon him, and, like the knights of old, he felt the strength of a glorious desperation. All round him the vague spirit of dreamland seemed to hover, though the hideous pictures of skeletons and cadavers gleamed real enough in the glare of the chandeliers. What inspired him most, however, was the knowledge that he was trying his force with that of the greatest duellist in the world, and one who had always killed his man.

There was something more that gave spirit and courage to Coleman: he was in some indirect way remembering the beautiful girl who had appeared at the door of his room, and he half imagined that he was doing battle for the right to know more of her. Youth is a mystery in itself, and love knows no law of origin or of progress. By some cerebral slight, some trick of thinking under a thought, so to say, Coleman was making a love dream keep time to the ringing strokes of his sword. A girl whose name he did not know, whose voice he had never heard, was inspiring him as he strained every nerve.

As the combat proceeded, the lookers-on saw that Coleman's play was new to the Judge, who found great difficulty in meeting and parrying certain eccentric movements that invariably ended in a thrust of lightning quickness. Presently the Judge tore off his mask with his left hand. He had to do this at the risk of his life, for he could not breath freely with it on. But his great skill saved him even then; nay, more, it came near giving him the victory. As Coleman lunged, the agile creole leaped aside and returned quickly with a wicked thrust that barely reached his adversary's breast, piercing it to the depth of a half inch.

Now the fight took on more of passion and less of grace, as if the men felt that it was to be a test of strength at last. Round and round, back and forth, this way and that, they leaped, and recoiled, and advanced; their faces—one dark and beautiful as a southern night, the other fair and magnetic as a New England June day—fixed and staring, the white froth gathering on their lips.

When the end came it was like nothing ever before witnessed in a New Orleans duel. How it happened not one of the observers could tell; but the two men appeared to rush into each other's arms, and then it was seen that each had run the other through.

That broke the charm. The masked men sprang forward and separated the combatants, and all began to speak at once.

Judge Favart de Caumartin and Hepworth Coleman were, by order of the Judge himself, taken to the Judge's mansion, where their wounds were examined by physicians and surgeons quickly summoned.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin found herself nursing two almost dying patients at the same time. Although she suspected that this was the result of a duel between her father and the young stranger, she was not told the secret of the affair until long afterward.

Strange to say, although the Judge was much the older man, and was wounded much nearer the heart, he recovered and was walking about in his house before Coleman had even taken a turn for the better. The first thing he did was to order his daughter to cease her nursing of the young man.

"It is not proper," he said, "for a young girl to be the nurse of a man who is a stranger."

Mlle. Olympe blushed scarlet, and was so much confused that she could not find a word to say. It had been a great pleasure to her to wait upon Coleman, who, though for the greater part of the time quite insensible of her presence, seemed to respond better to her care than to the treatment of the doctors. She had been having her sweet dream, was in love with him, indeed, and the command of her father struck her like a blow.

Judge Favart de Caumartin suspected the truth about his daughter, and was not slow in making up his mind in the matter. He gave strict orders that the hall between Coleman's rooms and the rest of the mansion should be kept at all times locked and barred.

Love laughs at such precautions. Hepworth Coleman, during his convalescence, lay on his back and thought of nobody but Mlle. Olympe, and when at last he was able to get up he sent for her. It so chanced that the Judge, having got well in a measure, was gone up to Natchez on business.

Mlle. Olympe did not go to see the young man; but she wrote him a note explaining her father's wishes.

"But he has never forbidden you to come to see me when you are able to walk so far as to the library," she added very frankly, "and I see no reason why you should stay away."

When the Judge returned it was too late to interfere, as he soon discovered, and he had to bow to the inevitable.

The mystery of the adventure with the masked men in that secret salle has never been further explained. Judge Favart de Caumartin would not consent to his daughter's marriage until he had exacted a promise from Coleman that he would never divulge what he knew.

The truth was that Coleman knew very little. He tried to discover the blind alley into which the Judge had led him on that eventful evening, but there was no such alley to discover. The whereabouts of the mysterious hall cannot be pointed out to-day, although from that memorable Tuesday in the spring of 1820 up to the Mardi-Gras of 1891, every anniversary of the Mystic Krewe has been duly celebrated by a fantastic band that at a certain hour of the night parades the streets of New Orleans. I do not refer to the regular carnival societies. These are but playful imitations of mystery. The genuine Krewe, as weirdly, strange and mysterious as ever, may be seen only on Royal Street, a small band headed by a tall, slender, dark man, who wears an invisible mask and a quaint black velvet cap. Where they come from nobody has ever been able to discover. Who they are is not known even to the great Rex, the king of the Carnival.

Hepworth Coleman and Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin were married in due time and lived on Royal Street all their lives. Every year on the evening of Mardi-Gras, they were called upon to give dinner to the Mystic Krewe, thirteen in number, who ate in silence with their masks on. The last of these dinners was in 1860. That year saw the twain, who for forty years had been happy together, laid in their tomb side by side.

Strangely enough there is no record whatever of Judge Favart de Caumartin's death; indeed, there is a tradition to the effect that he it is who still leads the Mystic Krewe.

BY INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD.

Old New Yorkers may remember Dingee's famous Club House in lower Greene Street. From 1800 to 1850 it was the most fashionable gambling house in the metropolis, its founder, Alphonse Dingee, having been the first to introduce roulette and rouge et noir into the new world. It was in 1850 or a little later that ill health obliged his son Cyrill to sell the business out. He retired to his country seat at Bricksburg, quite a palatial residence for those days, where he died shortly after, leaving a round million dollars and one child, a daughter, Daisy. Spite of the fact that she was popularly known throughout the country as the "gambler's daughter," there were several respectable young men in the place who would have been only too happy to administer an estate worth a round million with Daisy thrown in for better or worse.

But Daisy Dingee knew what she wanted, and it was nothing more nor less than an alliance with the most aristocratic family in the country, to wit: the Delurys, whose large white mansion at the other end of the town was as tumble-down and shabby looking as Daisy's was neat, fresh, and well kept. Miss Dingee, therefore, proceeded to throw herself at the head of one Monmouth Delury, mentally and physically a colorless sort of an individual, who, for want of sufficient intellect to make an honest living, passed his time going to seed with the thousand or so acres of land belonging to him and his maiden sisters, Hetty, Prudence, and Martha, three women who walked as stiff as they talked, although they never were known to discuss any subject other than the Delury family.

When Daisy's proposition was made known to them they tried to faint, but were too stiff to fall over, and were obliged to content themselves with gasping out:

"What! Daisy Dingee marry our brother, the head of the Delury family!"

But it was the first idea that had ever entered the brother's head, and he clung to it with a parent's affection for his first born. In a few months Mr. and Mrs. Monmouth Delury set out for Paris with that proverbial speed with which Americans betake themselves to the French capital when occasion offers. They found it a much pleasanter place than Bricksburg. Delury improved rapidly and Daisy fell quite in love with him, made her will in his favor, contracted the typhoid fever and died.

Whereupon the really disconsolate widower sent for his three sisters to join him. They had but one objection to going, that was to part company with the dear old homestead, but they overcame it the day after receiving Monmouth's letter, which happened to be a Friday, and took the Saturday's steamer.

To confess the truth, the Delurys had been so land-poor that their spare aristocratic figures were rather the result of necessity than inclination. Six months of Paris life under the benign protection of Dingee's round million made different women of them. It was wonderful what a metamorphosis Parisian dressmakers and restaurateurs effected in their figures. They became round and plump. They stopped talking about Bricksburg, signed themselves the Misses Delury of New York, enrolled themselves as patrons of art, gave elegant dinners, and in a very short time set up pretensions to being the leaders of the American colony.

But remorseless fate was at their heels. Figaro unearthed the secret of old Dingee's million, and the Delurys suddenly found themselves the sensation of Paris, the butt of ridicule in the comic papers. Monmouth had been in poor health for several months, and this killed him.

Dingee's million was now in the eye of the law divided up among his three sisters, but fate willed it otherwise, for the following year Hetty, the eldest, died of Roman fever, and six months later Prudence fell a victim to rat poison in a small hotel at Grasse, City of Delightful Odors, in the south of France, whither she had gone in search of balmy air for her sister Martha, who had suddenly developed symptoms of consumption.

Left thus alone in the world with old Dingee's million and an incurable ailment, Martha's only ambition was to reach Bricksburg and die in the old white Delury mansion. It seemed to her that its great spacious rooms would enable her to breathe more easily and to fight death off for possibly another year.

But it was not to be. She got as far as Paris when old Dingee's million again changed hands, going this time by will to Martha's only relatives, twin brothers, John and William Winkletip, produce dealers in Washington street, New York.

The will was a peculiar one, as was to be expected:

I give, devise, and bequeath all the property popularly known as the "Dingee Million" to my cousins John and William Winkletip, produce dealers of New York, as joint tenants for their lives and the life of each of them, with remainder over to the eldest son of the survivor, his heirs and assigns forever; provided, that said remainder man shall be of full age at the time of his father's decease, and shall thereupon enter the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church and devote his life and the income of this estate to the encouragement of legislative enactment throughout the United States for the suppression of gambling and wager laying.

In default of such male heir, the Dingee million was to be divided up among certain religious and eleemosynary institutions.

When the cablegram from Paris informing them of their extraordinary luck reached the Winkletip Brothers, they were down in the cellar of the old tenement which served as their place of business, with their long jean coats on, busily engaged in sorting onions. As the Winkletips were only a little past fifty, and as strong as hickory knobs, their families were quite satisfied to get only a life estate in the Dingee million, for, barring accidents, the brothers had twenty-five or thirty years to live yet.

True, Brother John had a son, Cyrus, who would soon be of age, but he was a worthless wight, whose normal condition was alcoholic stupor, barely characterized with sufficient lucidity to enable him to distinguish rotten vegetables from sound.

"He will die years before his father," every one remarked, "and then the gambler's money will go where it ought to go."

There had been a fire next door to the Winkletips about the time the good news had arrived from Paris; a huge warehouse had burned down, leaving a brick wall towering sixty feet above the old wooden tenement in which the brothers did business. They had given notice to the authorities; but the inspectors had pronounced the wall perfectly safe. So the two brothers continued to come and go, in their best Sunday clothes, however, for they were only engaged in settling up the old business.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the huge wall fell with a terrific crash upon the wooden tenement, crushing it like an egg-shell. When the two brothers were taken out from the ruins, John was pronounced dead and a coroner's permit was given to remove him to a neighboring undertaker's establishment. William lived six hours, conscious to the last and grateful to an all-wise Providence that his worthless nephew would now be excluded from any control over the Dingee million.

John Winkletip was a grass widower, his wife, an Englishwoman, having abandoned him and returned to England, and for many years he had made his home with his only other child, a widowed daughter, Mrs. Timmins, who was openly opposed to many of her father's peculiar notions, as she termed them, one of which was his strong advocacy of cremation; he being one of the original stockholders and at the time of his death a director of the Long Island Cremation Society.

Consequently Mrs. Timmins gave orders that immediately after the coroner's inquest, her father's body should be removed to her residence in Harlem, but as the officers of the Cremation Society held the solemnly executed direction and authorization of their late friend and associate to incinerate his remains, they were advised by the counsel of their corporation that such an instrument would justify them in taking possession of the remains at the very earliest moment possible and removing it to the crematory.

Warned by the undertakers of Mrs. Timmins' threatened interference, they resolved not to risk even the delay necessary to procure a burial casket; in fact it would be a useless expense, anyway, and consequently John Winkletip began his last ride on earth lying in the cool depths of the undertaker's ice box.

As Mrs. Timmins's cab turned into Washington Street she met a hearse, but not until she had reached the undertaker's establishment was her suspicion transformed into certainty by being told that her father's body was already on its way to the crematory.

Mrs. Timmins was a long-headed woman. She knew the uncertainties of cab transportation through the crowded streets below Canal, and dismissing her cab at the Chambers Street station of the Third Avenue Elevated, she was soon speeding on her way to the Long Island City ferry.

This she reached just as a boat was leaving the slip. Misfortune number one. When she finally reached the Long Island side, she threw herself into the carriage nearest at hand, crying out:

"To the crematory! Five dollars extra if you get me there in time!"

It was not many minutes before Mrs. Timmins became aware of the fact that the horse was next to worthless, and could scarcely be lashed into a respectable trot. Mrs. Timmins was nearly frantic. Every minute her head was thrust out of the window to urge the hackman to greater speed. There was but one consoling thought—the hearse itself might get blocked or might have missed a boat!

As again and again her head was thrust out of the carriage window her hair became disheveled, for she had removed her hat, and the superstitious Hibernian on the box was upon the point of abandoning his post at sight of the wild and crazed look presented by Mrs. Timmins. Was she not some one's ghost, making this wild and mysterious ride?

But the promise of an extra five dollars kept the man at his post.

Suddenly a cry of joy escaped Mrs. Timmins's lips. The hearse was just ahead of them; but its driver had the better horses, and half suspecting that something was wrong, he whipped up vigorously and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Mrs. Timmins's horse was now as wet as if he had been dipped into the river, and she expected every minute to see him give out; but, strange to say, he had warmed up to his work, and now, in response to the driver's urging, broke into a run.

Again Mrs. Timmins caught a glimpse of the black coach of death in the dust clouds ahead of her. The race became every instant more exciting. It was a strange sight, and instinctively the farmers, in their returning vegetable wagons, drew aside to let them pass. Once more the hearse disappeared in the dust clouds. This was the last Mrs. Timmins saw of it until she drew up in front of the crematorium. There it stood, with its black doors thrown wide open. She had come too late! Her father's body had already been thrust into the fiery furnace.

The antagonism of Winkletip's family to his views concerning the cremation of the dead was an open secret with every attaché of the society, and the men in charge were determined that the society should come out the winner. They were on the lookout for the body. Everything, to the minutest detail, was in readiness. The furnace had been pushed to its greatest destroying power, and hence was it that haste overcame dignity when the foam-flecked and panting horses of the undertaker drew up in front of the entrance of the crematory.

The ice-chest was snatched from the hearse, borne hurriedly into the furnace-room, set upon the iron platform, wheeled into the very center of the white flames, whose waving, curling, twisting tongues seemed reaching out to their fullest length, impatient for their prey, and the iron doors slammed shut with a loud, resounding clangor.

At that instant a woman, hatless and breathless, with disheveled hair, burst into the furnace-room.

"Hold! Hold!" she shrieked, and then her hands flew to her face, and staggering backward and striking heavily against the wall, she sank, limp and lifeless, in a heap on the stone floor of the furnace-room.

But the two men in charge had neither eyes nor ears for Mrs. Timmins. As the doors closed they sprang to their posts of observation, in front of the two peep-holes, and stood watching the effect of the flames upon the huge ice-chest.

Its wooden covering parted here and there with a loud crack, laying bare the metal case, from the seams of which burst fitful puffs of steam. Now came a sight so strange and curious that the two men held their breath as they gazed upon it! By the vaporizing of the water from the melted ice the flames were pushed back from the chest, and it lay there for an instant, as if protected by some miraculous aura.

Then happened something which caused the men to reel and stagger as if their limbs were paralyzed by drink, and which painted their faces with as deep a pallor as death's own hand could have laid upon them.

From the furnace depths came forth a dull, muffled cry of "Help! Help!"

Making a desperate effort, the men tore open first the outer and then the inner doors of the fire chamber. As the air rushed in, the lid of the metal chest burst silently open. Again the cry of "Help!" rang out, and two hands quivered for an instant above the edge of the chest, then with a loud and defiant roar the flames closed in upon it, and began to lick it up ravenously. The doors were banged shut, and John Winkletip had his way.

But the Dingee million seemed to draw back instinctively from the touch of the worthless Cy Winkletip.

With loud cries of joy, the various beneficiaries under Martha Delury's will now discovered that Cyrus Winkletip was born on the 11th day of August, and that as his father had departed this life on the 10th day of August, the son was not of full age when his father died. But the law put an end to this short-lived joy by making known one of its curious bits of logic, which so often startle the layman.

It was this: The law takes no note of parts of a day, and therefore as Cyrus Winkletip was of age on the first minute of his twenty-first birthday, he was also of age on the last minute of the day before—consequently on the first minute of the day before he was twenty-one!

This gave the Dingee million to Cy Winkletip!

Under constant and stringent surveillance and tutelage, Cy Winkletip was, after several years of as close application as was deemed safe in view of his weak mental condition, admitted to the ministry in accordance with the provisions of Miss Delury's will.

At last the wicked Dingee million seemed safely launched upon its task of undoing the wrong it had done; but Cy Winkletip's mind ran completely down in five years and he died a wretched slavering, idiot.

Mrs. Timmins was inclined to warn off the Dingee million with a gesture of horror; but, yielding to the solicitation of her friends, she consented to take title in order that she might create a trust with it for some good and noble purpose. To this end, by a last will and testament she created and endowed the American Society for the Suppression of Gambling and Wager-laying, and then died.

The trustees at once began to erect the buildings called for, but before the society had had an opportunity to suppress a single gaming establishment, the lawyers, at the prayer of Mrs. John Winkletip, Mrs. Timmin's mother, fell tooth and nail upon the trust, which was declared too "vague, shadowy, and indefinite to be executed," and the Dingee million, its roundness now sadly shrunken, made its way across the ocean to Mrs. John Winkletip, of Clapham Common, London.

She died last year and with her the wanderings of the Dingee million came to an end. She willed it to trustees for building and maintaining a Hospital for Stray Dogs and Homeless Cats, and those learned in the law say that the trust will stand.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.

"My Family," John Dalrymple would say, "have the strange failing (that is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of——"

And then somebody would always try to interrupt him. At the Gramercy, the small but charming club of which he had been for years an honored member, they made a point of interrupting him when he began on his family failing. Not a few of them held to the belief that it was a myth of Dalrymple's imagination. Still, others argued, all of the clan except John himself had been a queer lot; there was no real certainty that they had not done extraordinary acts. Meanwhile, apart from his desire to delve among ancestral records and repeat tales which had been told many times before, he was a genuine favorite with his friends. But that series of family anecdotes remained a standing joke.

They all pitied him when it became known that his engagement to the pretty winsome widow, Mrs. Carrington, was definitely broken. He was past forty now, and had not been known to pay serious court to any woman before in at least ten years. Of course Mrs. Carrington was rich. But then her money could not have attracted Dalrymple, for he was rich himself, in spite of his plain way of living there in that small Twenty-second Street basement house.

But the widow's money had doubtless lured to her side the gentleman who had cut poor Dalrymple out. A number of years ago, when this little occurrence which we are chronicling took place, it was not so easy as it is now to make sure of a foreigner's credentials and antecedents. The Count de Pommereul, a reputed French nobleman of high position, had managed to get into the Gramercy as a six-months' member, and had managed also to cross the thresholds of numerous select New York drawing-rooms. At the very period of his introduction to Mrs. Carrington her engagement with Dalrymple had already become publicly announced. Then, in a few weeks, society received a shock. Dalrymple was thrown over, and it transpired that the brilliant young widow was betrothed to the Count.

Dalrymple, calm and self-contained, had nothing to say on the subject of why he had received such shabby treatment, and nobody ventured to interrogate him. Some people believed in the Count, others thought that there was a ring of falsity about him, for all his frame was so elegantly slender and supple, for all his mustache was so glossily dark, and his eyes so richly lustrous. Dalrymple meanwhile hid his wound, met the Count constantly at the Club, though no longer even exchanging bows with him, and—worked at his revenge in secret as a beaver works at the building of his winter ranch. He succeeded, too, in getting superb materials for that revenge. They surprised even himself when a few relatives and friends in Paris mailed him appalling documentary evidence as to what sort of a character this Count really was. There is no doubt that he now held in his hand a thunderbolt, and had only to hurl it when he pleased.

He did not tell a single soul what he had learned. The thought of just how he should act haunted him for several days. One evening he went home from the club a little earlier than usual, and tossed restlessly for a good while after going to bed. When sleep came it found him still irresolute as to what course he should take.

It seemed to him that he had now a succession of dreams, but he could recall none of them on awaking. And he awoke in a peculiar way. There was yet no hint of dawn in the room, and only the light from his gas, turned down to a very dim star. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, and feverish, fatigued sensations oppressed him. "What have I been dreaming?" he asked himself again and again. But as only a confused jumble of memories answered him, he sank back upon the pillows, and was soon buried in slumber.

It was past nine o'clock in the morning when he next awoke. He felt decidedly better. Both the feverishness and the fatigue had left him. He went to the club and breakfasted there. It was almost empty of members, as small clubs are apt to be at that hour of the morning. But in the hall he met his old friend Langworth and bowed to him. Langworth, who was rather near-sighted, gave a sudden start and a stare. "How odd," thought Dalrymple, as he passed on into the reading-room, "I hope there's nothing unexpected about my personal appearance." Just at the doorway of the room he met another old friend, Summerson, a man extremely strict about all matters of propriety. Summerson saw him and then plainly made believe that he had not seen. As they moved by one another Dalrymple said lightly, "Good-morning, old chap. How's your gout?"

Summerson, who was very tall and excessively dignified, gave a comic squirm. Then his eyelids fluttered and with the tips of his lips he murmured, "Better," as he glided along.

"Pooh," said Dalrymple to himself. "Getting touchy, I suppose, in his old age. How longevity disagrees with some of us mortals."

He nearly always took a bottle of seltzer before breakfast, and this morning old Andrew (a servant who had been in the club many years) poured it out for him.

"I hope you're all right again this mornin', sorr," said Andrew with his Celtic accent and in an affable half whisper.

"All right, Andrew," was the reply. "Why, you must be thinking of some one else. I haven't been ill. My health has been excellent for a long time past."

"Yes, sorr," said Andrew, lowering his eyes and respectfully retiring.

That last "Yes, sorr," had a dubious note about its delivery that almost made Dalrymple call the faithful old fellow back and further question him. "All right again?" As if he had ever been all wrong! Oh, well, poor Andrew was ageing; others had remarked that fact months ago.

A different servant came to announce breakfast. There were only about five men in the dining-room as Dalrymple entered it. All of them gazed at him in an unusual way, or had late events led him to think that they did so? At the table nearest him sat Everdell, one of the jolliest men in the club, a person whose face was nearly always wreathed in smiles.

"Good-morning!" said Dalrymple, as he caught Everdell's eye!

"Good-morning!" The tones were replete with mild consternation, and the look that went with them was smileless to the degree of actual gloom. Then Everdell, who had just finished his breakfast, rose and drew near to Dalrymple.

"'Pon my word," he said, "I'm delighted to see you all right again so soon."

"All right again so soon?" was the reply. "What in mercy's name do you mean?"

"Oh, my dear old fellow," began Everdell, fumbling with his watch-chain, "it was pretty bad, you know, yesterday."

"Pretty—bad—yesterday?"

"I saw you in the morning, and for an hour or so in the afternoon. Perhaps no one would have noticed it if you hadn't stayed here all day, and poured those confidences into people's ears about De Pommereul. You didn't appear to have drank a drop in the club; there's the funny part of it. You went out several times, though, and came back again. All that you had to drink (except some wine here at dinner, you remember) you must have got outside. I wasn't here at ten o'clock when De Pommereul came in. I'm glad I wasn't. You must have been dreadful. If Summerson and Joyce hadn't rushed in between you and the Count, heaven knows what would have happened. As it is——"

At this point Dalrymple broke in with cold harshness: "Look here, Everdell, I always disliked practical jokes, and I've known for a number of years that you're given to them. You've never attempted to make me your butt before, however, and you'll have the kindness to discontinue any such proceeding now."

Everdell drew back for a moment, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and then muttering, "Oh, if you're going to put it in that way," strode quickly out of the dining-room.

Dalrymple scarcely ate a morsel of breakfast. After he had gulped down some hot coffee he repaired to the reading-room. As he re-entered it a waiter handed him several letters. One, which he opened first, was marked "immediate," and had been sent him from his own house by an intelligent and devoted woman servant there, who had been for a long period in his employ. This letter made poor Dalrymple's head swim as he read it. Written and signed by Mr. Summerson himself, as chairman of the house committee of the club, it ordered him to appear that same evening before a meeting of the governors and answer to a charge of disorderly conduct on the previous night. Then it went on to state that he (Dalrymple) had been seen throughout the previous day at the club in a state of evident intoxication, and had, finally, between the hours of 10 and 11 P. M., accosted and grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul in the main drawing-room of the Gramercy.

"Disorderly conduct," "evident intoxication," "grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul." These words were trembling on Dalrymple's lips as he presently approached Summerson himself, the very gentleman who had signed the letter, and who stood in the hall, arrayed for the street.

"What—what does it all mean?" gasped Dalrymple. "I—I never was intoxicated in my life, Lawrence Summerson; you ought to know that! I played euchre last night, up in the card-room, from nine o'clock till twelve, with Ogden and Folsom and yourself. If there's any practical joke being got up against me, for God's sake——"

"Wait a minute, please," said Summerson. He went back into the coat-room, disarrayed himself of his street wraps, and finally joined Dalrymple. His first words, low and grave, ran thus: "Can it be possible you don't recollect that our game of euchre was played the night before last and not last night?" Then he went with Dalrymple into a corner of the reading room, and they talked together for a good while.

Dalrymple went back to his home that day in a mental whirl. It still wanted a number of hours before the Governing Committee would meet. He had lost a day out of his life—there could be no doubt of that. If he had moved about the Club at all yesterday with a drunken manner, reviling De Pommereul to everybody who would lend him an ear—if he had afterward met De Pommereul in the Club and directed toward him in loud and furious tones a perfect torrent of accusation—he himself was completely, blankly ignorant.

For a good while he sat quite still and thought. Then he summoned Ann, the elderly and very trustworthy Ann, who had been his dear mother's maid, and was now his housekeeper. He questioned Ann, and after dismissing her he pondered her answers. Three times yesterday she had seen him, and regarding his appearance Ann had her distinct opinions.

Suddenly a light flashed upon Dalrymple while he sat alone and brooded. He sprang up and a cry, half of awe, half of gladness, left his lips. The baffling problem had been solved!

That evening he presented himself before the Governing Committee. All assembled were sorry for him. Of course, punishment must be dealt, but for an old and popular member like Dalrymple it must not be expulsion. The general feeling of the Club had indeed already been gauged, and it was in favor of suspension for six months or a year at the farthest.

Dalrymple, however, was determined that he should be visited with no punishment at all. And he meant to state why.

The judges, as he faced them, all looked politely grim. The President, after a few suave preliminaries, asked Dalrymple if he had anything to say concerning the charges preferred against him. Dalrymple then proceeded to speak with a clear voice and composed demeanor.

His first sentences electrified his hearers. "I have no possible recollection of yesterday," he began, "and it is precisely as much of a lost day to me as though I had lain chloroformed for twenty-four hours. On Wednesday night I returned home from this club and went to rest. I never really woke until Friday, possibly a little while after midnight, and then within my own bed. On Thursday morning I must have risen in a state of somnambulism, hypnotism, mental aberration, whatever you please, and not come to myself until Thursday had passed, and I had once more retired. Of what yesterday occurred I therefore claim to have been the irresponsible agent, and to have become so through no fault of my own. I am completely innocent of the misdemeanors charged against me, and I now solemnly swear this, on my word of honor as a gentleman."

Here Dalrymple paused. The members of the committee interchanged glances amid profound silence. On some faces doubt could be read, but on others its veriest opposite. The intense stillness had become painful when Dalrymple spoke again.

"I had hoped that I should escape throughout my own lifetime all visitations of this distressing kind. My grandfather and two of my uncles not only walked in their sleep to an alarming degree, but were each subject to strange conditions of mind, in which acts were performed by them that they could not possibly remember afterward." Here the speaker paused, soon continuing, however, in a lower and more reflective tone:

"Yes, my family have had the strange failing (that is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of——"

But he said no more. The tension was loosened, and a great roar of laughter rose from the whole committee. How often every man there had joked him about that marvelous budget of stories which he infallibly began one way and one way only! And when the familiar formula sounded forth, it was all the funnier to those who heard it because of the solemn, judicial circumstances in which it again met their hearing.

The plaintiff was honorably acquitted. As for De Pommereul, as every word that Dalrymple had said concerning his past life in France happened to be perfectly true, the Count never reappeared at the Gramercy. His engagement with Mrs. Carrington was soon afterward broken off by the lady herself, and for a good while it was rumored that this lady had repentantly made it optional with Dalrymple whether he should once more become her accepted sweetheart.

But Dalrymple remained a bachelor. He is quite an old man now, yet he may be found in the card-room of the Gramercy nearly every evening. He is very willing to tell you the story of his "lost day" if you ask him courteously for it, and not in any strain of fun-poking; but he attempts no more voluntary recitals on the subject of his "family's" maladies or mishaps.

BY BRAINARD GARDNER SMITH.

In the course of my work last year I had occasion to go over a file of old Liverpool newspapers, and thus came upon a remarkable paragraph in the ship news. Translated out of the language of commerce, it was to the effect that the good ship Empress, just arrived from Australia, reported that while rounding the Cape of Good Hope she had been driven southward far out of her course by a storm; and that away down in the Southern Atlantic had sighted a vessel drifting aimlessly about. The first mate boarded her, and, returning, reported that the derelict was the ship Albatross. That she had been abandoned was plain, for all the boats were gone, and so were the log and the ship's instruments. On the deck, close by the companion hatch, lay two bodies, or rather skeletons, clad in weather-rotted garments, that showed them to have been man and woman. These bodies were headless, but the heads were nowhere to be found on the deserted deck. The mate found on the cabin table an open book, with writing on its pages. A pen lay on the table, and a small inkstand, in which the ink had evidently long since dried. The book was evidently a journal or diary, so the mate reported, and he put it in his pocket, meaning to carry it aboard the Empress; but when he was getting down into his small boat the book slipped from his pocket, dropped into the water and sunk. The Albatross was badly water-logged, and, he thought, could not have floated much longer. To this report the editor of the paper added a note saying that the readers would all doubtless remember that the Albatross had sailed from Liverpool several years before, bound for Australia, and it was thought to have gone down with all on board, as no news of her had since been received.

That was the substance of the remarkable paragraph. What was almost as remarkable to me, a newspaper man, was that the Liverpool paper had evidently made no effort to learn the owners of the Albatross, the name of her captain and crew, or whether or not she carried any passengers. I carefully searched files to see if there was any further reference to the case. There was none. After the manner of his kind, the editor of the paper had, so it seemed, taken it for granted that his intelligent readers "would remember" all the particulars that they wanted to know.

I was much impressed by the paragraph. My professional instinct told me that there was a good newspaper story there, and I was disgusted that any editor could let it go untold. I also experienced more than usual curiosity to know how those headless bodies came there, or rather, why they should lie there on the deck headless. Then there was that journal that had been found lying open on the cabin table, as though the writer had been interrupted in the writing which had never been finished. What light might that little book not throw on the mystery? And now it was lying fathoms deep in the Southern Atlantic. Of what use to speculate over the matter. Thanks to the careless mate and the stupid editor, that mystery would remain forever unsolved. But in spite of reason I did speculate considerably over the matter, and, try as I did, could not banish the story from my mind.

A few weeks after that I went into Northern Vermont to report the Benton murder trial, which was attracting much more than local attention. I was pleased to find that the prosecuting attorney was an old classmate of mine, George Judson. I had known him pretty well as a hard-working and remarkably bright man, with a curious streak in his mental make-up that led him to investigate every new "ism" that appeared. We used to call him a Spiritualist, and, had the word been in use, I am sure would have called him a crank. He was five years older than I, had married immediately after graduating, had prospered as a lawyer, and now had a good home for his wife and two children. He seemed much pleased to renew the acquaintance of college days, and insisted that I should make his house my home during my stay in the town.

One Saturday evening as we sat in his comfortable library smoking after dinner, Judson said, with some apparent hesitation:

"There's going to be a show here this evening that may interest you."

"Yes?"

"Yes. There's a woman living here who does some remarkable things when in a trance. There are a few of us who are curious about such things, and I've asked her and them here to my house this evening."

"What is it?" I asked lightly; "the cabinet act?"

Judson looked a trifle hurt. "Yes," he answered, slowly, "she's a medium, and you newspaper men have said that she's a fraud. But I've seen manifestations that I can't explain on any theory other than that they were the work of higher powers, and I'm going to look into it further."

The same old Judson, I thought. He was evidently more in earnest than his assumed indifference indicated. I marveled that the shrewd, successful lawyer could be so easily deluded, for I was sure that he was deluded. I had attended many a séance, and had helped to expose more than one medium, and knew that the whole matter of manifestations was nothing but a more or less clumsy juggle. But I kept my thoughts to myself—experience had taught me that when it was known that there was present at a séance a pronounced unbeliever in that phase of Spiritualism, the "conditions" were usually "unfavorable" for a "manifestation." So I said that I should be glad to see the "show," as he called it. Then I encouraged Judson to talk, and he talked well. From mediums and cabinets, and manifestations and the ways of spirits generally, our conversation drifted to the marvelous and the mysterious, and finally I told the story of the Albatross and the headless skeletons. Judson was much impressed by the story. He joined me in anathematizing the careless mate of the Empress and the stupid editor of the Liverpool paper. His lifelong habit of seeking to know the unknowable, re-enforced by the detective instinct that is developed in every good lawyer as well as newspaper man, made him unnaturally anxious to solve the mystery. The thought came to me just then that if Spiritualism was good for anything it would be in such a case. What I said was, "I have often wondered whether the peculiar power of the trance medium might not be employed in such cases. Now, is it impossible that that journal found on the Albatross, and which I believe contains the solution of our mystery, should be materialized for us here?"

Judson jumped at the idea. "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "it shall be—it must be. How fortunate!" He spoke with such earnestness and confidence that I showed my surprise in my face. I also voiced it.

"You talk as though the thing were already accomplished. My experience with mediums has led me to consider them a trifle unreliable, but you seem to be sure of this one."

"Not of the medium but of myself. I had better tell you now what but one other living person knows—that I have a very peculiar power. I don't attempt to explain it, but it is no less a fact. I seem to be able, by mere force of will, to control certain persons. This medium is one of them. I have never been able to produce any results unaided, but more than once have I thought into visible form those who had long before died."

The same old story you see. Judson was apparently an out-and-out Spiritualist, ready to be humbugged by the first shrewd trickster that came along. He went on:

"Now, this evening you will see a remarkable woman; I have been able to control her in a remarkable way. I confess that I had never thought of seeking the materialization of an inanimate object. But I believe that it can be done. It shall be done. We shall have that journal this night."

I was almost convinced by my friend's absolute confidence; then saddened by the thought that this usually hard-headed, keen young lawyer had such a weak spot in his brain. He was the last man you would expect to be deluded by the tricks of the medium. At the same time I found myself, in spite of my skepticism, wondering what would come of it all. That evening I was seated in Judson's large parlor, one of about twenty persons of the sort usually seen at such séances; the Spiritualists of the place, I thought. The room had been arranged after the fashion customary. There was an improvised cabinet in one corner, chairs in a semi-circle in front of it, not too near. Judson seemed a sort of master of ceremonies, passing in and out, greeting newcomers, whispering a word here and there. He was pale, I thought, and seemed rather pre-occupied. We waited perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then Judson ushered into the room a tall, slender woman, middle-aged, gray-haired, with rather strongly marked features and dark eyes that had a tired look. She seemed a person of nerves. A trifle above the average medium in appearance of intelligence and refinement, and with rather less of the self-assertive boldness usually displayed by the women who make a business of communing with spirits. There was no preliminary nonsense. She entered the cabinet in a business-like way. Judson turned the gas down low, so that we were in the dimmest sort of a dim religious light—just the light, I have always observed, that seemed most congenial to spirits, or, rather, that aided most effectually in the tricks played by the mediums. Then he sat down by my side and said: "Let us all clasp hands."

I grasped with my left the fat hand of a large woman next to me, and Judson seized my right with his left hand. It was quite cold, and I thought trembled a little. He leaned over me and whispered in my ear: "I am determined to see that journal to-night. If will can do it, it shall be done. Join your will with mine. You are a man of will. Let us force the powers to yield to our combined wills."

I was startled by the intensity of his manner more than by the words. In spite of my half disgust at the whole proceedings, that were such an exact repetition of more than one humbugging séance, I was forced into a respectful attitude of mind, and at once became an interested assistant, where a moment before I had been an unbelieving, critical observer. I nodded my head, and Judson's grasp of my hand became firm.

Then there was complete silence for many moments. I bent all my mind to the one thought that I would see that journal wherever in the large world it might be. At first my thoughts would wander, but then it seemed to me that Judson's grasp tightened and drew the desultory thought back to the one subject of his own thoughts. I have considered this a good deal since and conclude that Judson did, for the time at least, possess some extraordinary power, possibly pure force of will. At all events, I grew more and more determined to have my will done. Then there came a calm voice from behind the curtain of the cabinet.

"What is your wish?"

No one spoke for a moment, and then a weak voice at my left said something about a desire to see a child that had died, and another voice expressed the wish to look upon the form of a departed husband. I was too much occupied with my own thoughts to notice then that this was the same old scene, enacted as at all the other séances. Again there was perfect silence; it seemed interminable. I could hear the breathing of the fat woman on my left. I could hear my watch ticking in my pocket. I thought that I could hear my heart beat, but all the time there was the firm pressure of the cold hand of my friend, and the constant thought, now shaped into words and the words into a sentence, and that sentence continually repeating itself until I seemed to hear that too: "I will see that journal to-night."

And still that strange silence. The air in the room became close. Every door and window had been carefully closed, and the breathing of twenty or more persons had made large drafts on the oxygen. Suddenly a breath fanned my cheek, then a stronger draught, and then a steady current of air set against my face. I felt it move my hair, and it smelled of the sea. It was salty. Yes, undoubtedly a strong, steady sea breeze was in that room, and it brought with it the smell of a ship, tar and oakum and pitch—the odor that arises when the sun beats hotly down upon the unprotected deck and the boards shrink and the great pine masts feel the fierce heat. But there was no heat; only at first that cool sea breeze and then the patter of rain, seemingly on the floor of the room in which we sat.

Then a low moan came from behind the curtains of the cabinet, and then the sound of a heavy fall. At this some of the women shrieked weakly. There was a general letting go of hands, and Judson sprang to the cabinet and disappeared behind its folds. After an instant of silence we heard his voice: "More light." I hastened to turn on the gas. Judson pulled aside the curtains, and we saw that the woman was lying outstretched on the floor.

"She has fainted," said Judson, calmly. "That is all. I believe that she is subject to such attacks. I doubt, my friends, if we shall have any manifestations to-night. May I ask you all to consider the meeting adjourned? I will give our friend here all medical attention."

He spoke so calmly and with such authority that without a word the little company passed out of the room and out of the house. Judson and I raised the woman to a couch, and he brought water and bathed her face. She opened her eyes, sighed deeply, and then sat up. There was a strange scared look on her face.

"Where is it?" she asked faintly.

"Here," said Judson, and he drew from beneath his coat a small book and handed it to her. She turned away with a shudder.

"No, no. Take it away. Take it away."

Judson handed it to me. "Will you kindly take this book to the library," said he; "I will join you in a moment."

I obeyed mechanically. Before going into the library I stepped to the broad piazza and looked out into the night. The snow lay white on the ground, stars twinkled in the frosty sky, it was very cold, and I could hear the snow creak under the feet of passers-by, and yet I had felt that sea breeze and heard the patter of rain. What did it mean? I shivered, entered the warm house, turned the light high in the library, shut the door, and not till then looked at the book in my hand. It was a small blankbook about six inches long and four inches wide, well bound in leather and thoroughly water-soaked. I opened it. The leaves were wet and discolored, and I could see that the pages were covered with writing. I turned to the fly-leaf and there read these words:

"Arthur Hartley's journal. Begun on board the ship Albatross, March 7, 1851."

I stood in a daze, glaring at the written words, utterly confounded. The door opened and Judson entered hurriedly. His cheeks were now flushed, his eyes fairly blazed with light, his face was bright with a smile of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it!" he said loudly. "What a victory! What a victory! Even Nature yields to the power of Will!"

He paced back and forth rapidly, showing no desire to see the book that had come to us so strangely. Then he threw himself into a big chair, lighted a cigar, puffed at it vigorously a moment, then became quiet, looked intently at the glowing coals in the grate, and said calmly:

"Well, let's see what Mr. Hartley has to say for himself. Read the journal, please."

I had been standing all this time by the table, with the little damp book in my hand, and watching Judson curiously. I drew up a chair, opened to the first page and began to read.