The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blood Will Tell, by Benj. Rush Davenport.

Transcriber’s Note: The reader may wish to be warned that this book contains racial stereotyping more than usually unpleasant even by the standards of its time. Read as far as the Dedication and use that to decide whether or not you want to continue.

“The brutalized features of Walter Burton were revealed.”

Frontispiece

BLOOD WILL TELL

THE STRANGE STORY OF
A SON OF HAM

BY
BENJ. RUSH DAVENPORT
AUTHOR OF
Blue and Gray, Uncle Sam’s Cabins,
Anglo-Saxons, Onward, Etc.

Illustrations
by
J.H. Donahey

CLEVELAND
Caxton Book Co.
1902

DEDICATION

To all Americans who deem purity of race an all-important element in the progress of our beloved country.

THE AUTHOR

For obvious reasons the date of this story is not given ...

List of Illustrations

BLOOD WILL TELL

Boston was shrouded in a mantle of mist that November day, the north-east wind bringing at each blast re-enforcement to the all-enveloping and obscuring mass of gloom that embraced the city in its arms of darkness.

Glimmering like toy candles in the distance, electric lights, making halos of the fog, marked a pathway for the hurrying crowds that poured along the narrow, crooked streets of New England’s grand old city. In one of the oldest, narrowest and most crooked thoroughfares down near the wharfs a light burning within the window of an old-fashioned building brought to sight the name “J. Dunlap” and the words “Shipping and Banking.”

No living man in Boston nor the father of any man in Boston had ever known a day when passing[2] that old house the sign had not been there for him to gaze upon and lead him to wonder if the Dunlap line would last unbroken forever.

In early days of the Republic some Dunlap had in a small way traded with the West Indian islands, especially Haiti, and later some descendant of this old trade pathfinder had established a regular line of sailing ships between Boston and those islands. Then it was that the sign “J. Dunlap, Shipping and Banking” made its appearance on the front of the old house. A maxim of the Dunlap family had been that there must always be a J. Dunlap, hence sons were ever christened John, James, Josiah and such names only as furnished the everlasting J as the initial.

“J. Dunlap” had grown financially and commercially in proportion to the growth of the Republic. There was not room on a single line in the Commercial Agency books to put A’s enough to express the credit and financial resources of “J. Dunlap” on this dark November day. Absolutely beyond the shoals and shallows of the dangerous shore of trade where small crafts[3] financially are forced to ply, “J. Dunlap” sailed ever tranquil and serene, neither jars nor shocks disturbing the calm serenity of the voyage.

This dismal November day marked an unparalleled experience in the career of the present “J. Dunlap.” The customary calm was disturbed. J. Dunlap disagreed and disagreed positively with J. Dunlap concerning an important event, and that event was a family affair.

The exterior of “J. Dunlap” may be dark, grimy, dingy and old, but within all is bright with electric light. Behind glass and wire screens long lines of clerks and accountants bend over desks and busy pens move across the pages of huge ledgers and account books—messengers hurry in and out of two glass partitioned offices. On the door of one is painted “Mr. Burton, Manager;” on the other “Mr. Chapman, Superintendent.”

Separated by a narrow passageway from the main office is a large room, high ceiling, old-fashioned, furnished with leather and mahogany fittings of ancient make, on the door of which are the words, “J. Dunlap, Private Office.” This[4] is the sanctum sanctorum in this temple of trade. Within “J. Dunlap’s” private office before a large grate heaped high with blazing cannel coal two old men are seated in earnest conversation. They are “J. Dunlap.”

Seventy-two years before this November day that enfolded Boston with London-like fog there were born to one J. Dunlap and his wife twin boys to whom were given in due season the names of James and John. These boys had grown to manhood preserving the same likeness to each other that they had possessed as infants in the cradle. James married early and when his son was born and was promptly made a J. Dunlap, his twin brother vowed that there being a J. Dunlap to secure the perpetuation of the name, he should never marry.

When the J. Dunlap, father of the twin brothers, died, the twins succeeded to the business as well as the other property of their father, share and share alike. To change the name on the office window to Dunlap Bros. was never even dreamed of; such sacrilege would surely have caused the rising in wrath of the long line of[5] ghostly “J. Dunlaps” that had preceded the twins. Hence on this dark day “J. Dunlap” was two instead of one.

Handsome men were all the Dunlaps time out of mind, but no ancestor was ever more handsome than the two clean cut, stalwart, white haired old men who with eager gestures and earnest voices discussed the point of difference between them today.

“My dear brother,” said the one whose face bore traces of a more burning sun than warms the Berkshire hills, “You know that we have never differed even in trivial matters, and James, it is awful to think of anything that could even be called a disagreement, but I loved your poor boy John as much as I have ever loved you and when he died his motherless little girl became more to me than even you, James, and it hurts my heart to think of my darling Lucy being within possible reach of sorrow and shame.” The fairer one of the brothers bent over and grasping with both hands the raised hand of him who had spoken said with an emotion that filled his eyes with moisture:

“God bless you, John! You dear old fellow! I know that that loving heart of yours held my poor boy as near to it as did my own, and that Lucy has ever been the dearest jewel of your great soul, but your love and tenderness are now conjuring up imaginary dangers that are simply beyond a possibility of existence. While I will not go so far as to admit that had I known that there was a trace of negro blood in Burton I should have forbidden his paying court to my granddaughter, still I will confess that I should have considered that fact and consulted with you before consenting to his seeking Lucy’s hand. However, it is too late now, John. He has won our girl’s heart and knowing her as you do you must appreciate the consequences of the disclosure of this discovery and the abrupt termination of her blissful anticipations. It is not only a question of the health and happiness of our dear girl, but her very life would be placed in jeopardy.”

This seemed an unexpected or unrealized phase of the situation to the first speaker, for he made no reply at once but sat with troubled[7] brow gazing into the fire for several minutes, then with a sigh so deep that it was almost a groan, exclaimed:

“Oh! that I had known sooner! I am an old fool! I might have suspected this and investigated Burton’s family. John Dunlap, d——n you for the old idiot that you are,” and rising he began pacing the floor; his brother watched him with eyes of tender, almost womanly affection until a suspicious moisture dimmed the sight of his worried second self. Going to him and taking him by the arm he joined him in his walk back and forth through the room, saying:

“John, don’t worry yourself so much old chap, there is nothing to fear; what if there be a slight strain of negro blood in Burton? It will disappear in his descendants and even did Lucy know all that you have learned, she loves him and would marry him anyhow. You know her heart and her high sense of justice. She would not blame him and really it is no fault of his.”

“You say,” broke in his brother, “that the negro blood will disappear in Burton’s descendants? That is just what may not happen! Both in the[8] United States and Haiti I have seen cases of breeding back to the type of a remote ancestor where negro blood, no matter how little, ran in the veins of the immediate ancestor. In the animal kingdom see the remoteness of the five toed horse, yet even now sometimes a horse is born with five toes. Man is but an animal of the highest grade.”

“Well, even granting what you say about the remote possibility of breeding back, you know that our ancestors years ago stood shoulder to shoulder with Garrison, Beecher and those grand heroes who maintained that the enslavement of the negro was a crime, and that the color of the skin made no difference—that all men were brothers and equal.”

“Yes, I know and agree with our forefathers in all of that,” exclaimed the sun burned J. Dunlap with some show of impatience. “But while slavery was all wrong and equality before the law is absolutely right, still I have seen both in this country and in the West Indies such strange evidence of the inherent barbarism in the negro race that I am almost ready to paraphrase a[9] saying of Napoleon and declare, ‘Scratch one with negro blood in him and you find a barbarian.’”

“Your long residence in disorderly Haiti, where your health and our interest kept you has evidently prejudiced you,” replied the fair J. Dunlap. “Remember that for generations our family has extended the hospitality of our homes to those of negro blood provided they were educated, cultured people.”

“Yes, James, Yes! Provided they had the culture and education created by the white man, and to be frank between ourselves, James, there has been much affectation about the obliteration of race distinction even in the case of our own family, and you know it! We Dunlaps have made much of our apparent liberality and consistency, but in our hearts we are as much race-proud Aryans as those ancestors who drove the race-inferior Turanians out of Europe.”

James Dunlap was as honest as his more impetuous brother. Suddenly stopping and confronting him with agitated countenance, he said: “You are right, John, in what you say about[10] our affecting social equality with those of negro blood. God knows had I been aware of the facts that you have hastened from Port au Prince to lay before me all might have been different; our accursed affectation may have misled Burton, who is an honorable gentleman, no matter if his mother was a quadroon. Social equality may be all right, but where it leads to the intermarriage of the races all the Aryan in me protests against it, but it is too late and we must trust to Divine Providence to correct the consequences of the Dunlap’s accursed affectation.”

“I expected Lucy to marry Jack Dunlap, the son of our cousin; then the old sign might have answered for another hundred years. Lucy and Jack were fond of each other always, and I thought when two years ago I left Boston for Haiti that the match was quite a settled affair. Why did you not foster a marriage that would have been so satisfactory from every standpoint?”

“I did hope that Lucy would marry your namesake, dear brother; don’t blame me; while I believe that the boy was really fond of my granddaughter, still, being poor, and having the[11] Dunlap pride he positively declined the position in our office that I offered him. I wished to keep him near Lucy and to prepare him to succeed us as ‘J. Dunlap.’ When I made the offer he said in that frank, manly, sailor man fashion of his that he was worthless in an office and he wished no sinecure by reason of being our kinsman; that he was a sailor by nature and loved the sea; that he wished to make his own way in the world; that if we could fairly advance him in his profession he would thank us, but that was all that he could accept at our hands.”

“See that now!” exclaimed the listener. “Blood will tell. The blood of some old Yankee sailor man named Dunlap spoke when our young kinsman made that reply. Breed back! Yes indeed we do.”

“No persuasion could move the boy from the position he had taken and as he held a master’s certificate and had proven a careful mate I gave him command of our ship ‘Lucy’ in the China trade. I imagine there was some exhibition of feeling at the parting of Lucy and John, as my girl seemed much depressed in spirits after he left.

“You recall how Walter Burton came to us fifteen years ago with a letter from his father, our correspondent in Port au Prince, saying that he wished his son to enter Harvard and asking us to befriend him. The lad was handsome and clever and we never dreamed of his being other than of pure blood. He was graduated at the head of his class, brilliant, amiable, fascinating. Our house was made bright by his frequent visits.

“When his father died, leaving his great wealth to Walter, he begged to invest it with us, and liking the lad we were glad to have him with us. Beginning at the bottom, by sheer force of ability and industry, within ten years he has become our manager. I am sure John Dunlap, your namesake, never told Lucy that he loved her before he sailed for China. The pride of the man would hold back such a declaration to our heiress. So with Jack away, his love, if it exist, for Lucy untold, it is not strange that Burton, and he is a most charming man, in constant attendance upon my granddaughter should have won her heart. He is handsome, educated, cultured and wealthy. I could imagine no cause for an objection, so[13] when he asked for Lucy’s hand I assented. The arrangements are completed and they will be married next month. Lucy wished you to witness the ceremony and wrote you and you hasten from Haiti home with this unpleasant discovery. Now, John, think of Lucy and tell me, brother, what your heart says is our duty.”

James Dunlap, exhausted by the vehement earnestness that he had put into this long speech, recounting the events and circumstances that had led up to the approaching marriage of his granddaughter, dropped into one of the large armchairs near the fire, waiting for a reply, while his brother continued his nervous tramp across the room.

Silence was finally disturbed by a light knock on the door and a messenger entered, saying that Captain Dunlap begged permission to speak with the firm a few moments. When the name was announced the two brothers exchanged glances that seemed to say, “The man I was thinking of.”

“Show him in, of course,” cried John Dunlap, eagerly stopping in his monotonous pacing up and down the room.

The door opened again and there entered the[14] room a man of about twenty-seven years of age, rather below the medium height of Americans, but of such breadth of shoulders and depth of chest as to give evidence of unusual physical strength. A sailor, every inch a sailor, anyone could tell, from the top of his curly blonde hair to the sole of his square toed boots. His sunburnt face, while not handsome, according to the ideals of artists, was frank, manly, bold—a brave, square jawed Anglo-Saxon face, with eyes of that steely gray that can become as tender as a mother’s and as fierce as a tiger’s.

“Glad to see you my boy,” added John Dunlap. “How did you find your good mother and the rest of our friends in Bedford? I only landed today; came from Port au Prince to see the Commons once more; heard that the ‘Lucy’ and her brave master, my namesake, had arrived a week ahead of me, safe and sound, from East Indian waters.”

So saying he grasped both of the sailor’s hands and shook them with the genuine cordiality of a lad of sixteen.

“Have you seen my granddaughter since your return, Captain Jack?” inquired James Dunlap, as he shook the young man’s hand.

“I was so unfortunate as to call when she was out shopping, and as Mrs. Church, the housekeeper, told me that she was so busy preparing for the approaching wedding that she was engaged all the time, I have hesitated to call again,” replied the sailor, as with a somewhat deeper shade of red in his sun burned face he seated himself between the twins.

“Lucy will not thank Mrs. Church for that speech if it is to deprive her of the pleasure of welcoming her old playmate and cousin back to Boston and home. You must come and dine with us tomorrow,” said Lucy’s grandfather.

“I am much obliged for your kind invitation, sir, but if you will only grant the request I am about to make of the firm, my next visit to my cousin will be to say goodby, as well as to receive a welcome home from a voyage.”

“Why, what do you mean, lad!” exclaimed both of the brothers simultaneously.

Concealment or deception was probably the[16] most difficult of all things for this frank man with the free spirit of the sea fresh in his soul, so that while he answered the color surged up stronger and stronger in his face until the white brow, saved from the sun by his hat, was as red as his close shaven cheeks.

“Well, sir, this is what I mean. I learned yesterday that the storm we encountered crossing the Atlantic coming home had strained my ship so badly that it will be two months before she is out of the shipwright’s hands.”

“What of that, Jack,” broke in the darker J. Dunlap. “Take a rest at home. I know your mother will be delighted, and speaking from a financial standpoint, as you know, it makes not the least difference.”

“I was going to add, sir, that this morning I learned that Captain Chadwick of your ship ‘Adams,’ now loaded and ready to sail for Australia, was down with pneumonia and could not take the ship out, and that there was some difficulty in securing a master that filled the requirements of your house. I therefore applied to Mr. Burton for the command of the ‘Adams,’ but he[17] absolutely refused to consider the application saying that as I had been away for almost two years, that it would be positively brutal to even permit me to go to sea again so soon, and that the ‘Adams’ might stay loaded and tied to the dock ten years rather than I should leave home so speedily.”

“Burton is exactly right, I endorse every word he has said. You can’t have the ‘Adams’!” said James Dunlap with emphasis. “What would Martha Dunlap, your mother, and our dear cousin’s widow, think if we robbed her of her only son so soon after his return from a long absence from home?”

“My mother knows, sir, that my stay at home will be very brief. She expects me to ask to go to sea again almost immediately. I told her all about it when I first met her upon my return,” and as he spoke the shipmaster’s gaze was never raised from the nautical cap that he held in his hand.

“Well! You are not going to sea again immediately, that is all about it. You have handled the ‘Lucy’ for two years, away from home, using[18] your own judgment, in a manner that, even were you not our kinsman, would entitle you to a long rest at the expense of our house as grateful shipowners,” said Lucy’s grandfather.

The young man giving no heed to the compliment contained in the remarks made by James Dunlap, but looking up and straight into the eyes of the brother just arrived from Haiti, said so earnestly that there could be no question of his purpose:

“I wish to get to sea as soon as possible. If I cannot sail in the ‘Adams,’ much as I dislike to leave you, sirs, I must seek other employ.”

“Why, if you sail now you will miss your cousin’s wedding and disappoint her,” added James Dunlap.

“Again, gentlemen, I say that I shall get to sea within a few days. I either go in the ‘Adams’ or seek other employ,” and all the time he was speaking not once did the sailor remove his steady gaze from the eyes of him for whom he was named.

To say that the Dunlap brothers were astonished is putting it too mildly; they were amazed. The master of a Dunlap ship was an object of envy to every shipmaster out of Boston—the pay and employ was the best in America—that a kinsman and master should even propose to leave their employ was monstrous. In amazement both of the old gentlemen looked at the young man in silence.

Suddenly as old John Dunlap looked into young John Dunlap’s honest eyes he read something there, for first leaning forward in his chair and gazing more intently into the gray eyes of the sailor, he sprang to his feet and grasping the arm of his young kinsman he fairly hauled him to the window at the other end of the room, then facing him around so that he could get a good look at his face, he almost whispered:

The answer came so quickly that the question must have been read in the eyes of the older man before uttered.

“I thought so,” said the old man softly and sadly, as he walked, still holding the sailor by the arm, back to the fire, and added as he neared his brother:

“James, Jack wants the ‘Adams’ and is in earnest. I can’t have him leave our employ; therefore he must go as master of that ship.”

“There is no but about it, James, I wish him to sail in our ship, the ‘Adams,’ as master. I understand his desire and endorse his wish to get to sea.”

“Oh! Of course if you really are in earnest just instruct Burton in the premises, but Jack must dine with us tomorrow and see Lucy or she will never forgive him or me.”

“Don’t you see that the lad has always loved Lucy, is heartbroken over her marriage and wants to get away before the wedding?” cried John Dunlap, as he turned after closing the door upon Captain Jack’s departing figure.

“What a blind old fool I am not to have seen or thought of that!” exclaimed his brother.

“How I wish in my soul it was our cousin that my girl was going to marry instead of Burton, but it is too late, too late.”

Sadly the darker Dunlap brother echoed the words of Lucy’s grandfather, as he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands:

II.

“You don’t mean that Mr. Dunlap has consented to your going out to Australia in charge of the ‘Adams,’ do you, Captain Jack?”

The man who asked the question, as he rose from the desk at which he was sitting, was quite half a head taller than the sea captain whom he addressed. His figure was elegant and graceful, though slim; his face possessed that rare beauty seen only on the canvas of old Italian masters, clearly cut features, warm olive complexion in which the color of the cheeks shows in subdued mellow shadings, soft, velvet-like brown eyes, a mouth of almost feminine character and proportion filled with teeth as regular and white as grains of rice.

Save only that the white surrounding the brown of his beautiful eyes might have been clearer, that his shapely hands might have been[23] more perfect, had a bluish tinge not marred the color of his finger nails, and his small feet might have been improved by more height of instep, Walter Burton was an ideal picture of a graceful, handsome, cultivated gentleman.

“Yes, Mr. Burton, I am to sail as master of the ‘Adams.’ How soon can I get a clearance and put to sea?”

“It is an absolute outrage to permit you to go to sea again so soon. Why, Captain, you have had hardly time to get your shore legs. You have not seen many of your old friends; Miss Dunlap told me last evening that she had not even seen you.”

Burton’s voice was as soft, sweet and melodious as the tones of a silver flute, and the thought of the young sailor’s brief stay at home seemed to strike a chord of sadness that gave added charm to the words he uttered.

“I expect to dine with my cousin tomorrow evening and will then give her greeting upon my home coming and at the same time bid her goodby upon my departure.”

“I declare, Jack, this is awfully sad to me, old[24] chap, and I know Lucy will be sorely disappointed. You know that we are to be married next month and Lucy has said a dozen times that she wished you to be present; that you had always been a tower of strength to her and that nothing could alarm or make her nervous if, as she put it, ‘brave and trustworthy Jack be near.’”

The sailor’s face lost some of its color in spite of the tan that sun and sea had given it, as he listened to words that he had heard Lucy say when, as a boy and girl, they had climbed New Hampshire’s hills, or sailed along Massachusetts’ coast together.

“I shall be sorry if Lucy be disappointed, but I am so much of a sea-swab now that I am restless and unhappy while ashore.”

What a poor liar young John Dunlap was. His manner, or something, not his words, in that instant revealed his secret to Burton, as a flash of lightning in the darkness discloses a scene, so was Jack’s story and reason for hurried departure from Boston made plain.

By some yet unexplained process of mental telegraphy the two young men understood each[25] other. Spontaneously they extended their hands and in their warm clasp a bond of silent sympathy was established. Thus they stood for a moment, then Burton said in that sad, sweet voice of his:

“Jack, dear old chap, I will get your clearance papers tomorrow and you may put to sea when you please, but see Lucy before you sail.”

Ere Dunlap could reply the door of the manager’s office opened and there entered the room a man of such peculiar appearance as to attract the attention of the most casual observer. He was thin, even to emaciation. The skin over his almost hairless head seemed drawn as tightly as the covering of a drum. The ghastliness of his dead-white face was made more apparent by the small gleaming black eyes set deep and close to a huge aquiline nose, and the scarlet, almost bloody stripe that marked the narrow line of his lips.

“Beg pardon,” said the man, seeing someone with Burton, and then, recognizing who the visitor was, added:

“Oh, how are you, Jack? I did not know that you were with the manager,” and he seemed to[26] put the faintest bit of emphasis upon the word “manager.”

“I only wished to inform you that I have secured a master for the ‘Adams.’ Captain Mason, who was formerly in our employ, has applied for the position and as he was satisfactory when with us before I considered it very fortunate for us to secure his services just now.”

“The ‘Adams’ has a master already assigned to her,” interrupted the manager.

The gleaming black eyes of Chapman seemed to bury their glances into the very heart of the manager as he stretched his thin neck forward and asked:

“J. Dunlap made the assignment of Captain Jack to the ship today at his own request and contrary to my wishes,” said Burton abruptly, somewhat annoyed at Chapman’s manner.

It was now the turn of Jack to stand the battery of those hawk eyes of the superintendent, who sought to read the honest sailor’s soul as he shot his glances into Jack’s clear gray eyes.

“Ah! Cousin Jack going away so soon and our Miss Lucy’s wedding next month. How strange!” Chapman seemed speaking to himself.

“If that is all, Chapman, just say to Mason that the firm appointed a master to the ‘Adams’ without your knowledge; therefore he can’t have the ship,” said Burton with annoyance in his tone and manner, dismissing the superintendent with a wave of his hand toward the door.

When Chapman glided out of the room, the man moved always in such a stealthy manner that he appeared to glide instead of walk, Burton exclaimed:

“Do you know, Jack, that that man Chapman can irritate me more by his detective demeanor than any man I ever saw could do by open insult. I am ashamed of myself for allowing such to be the case, but I can’t help it. To have a chap about who seems to be always playing the Sherlock Holmes act is wearing on one’s patience. Why,[28] confound it! If he came in this minute to say that we needed a new supply of postage stamps he would make such a detective job of it that I should feel the uncomfortable sensation that the mailing clerk had stolen the last lot purchased.”

Jack, who disliked the sneaky and secretive as much as any man alive and had just been irritated himself by Chapman’s untimely scrutiny, said:

“I am not astonished and don’t blame you. While I have known Chapman all my life, I somehow, as a boy and man, have always felt when talking to him that I was undergoing an examination before a police magistrate.”

“Of course I ought to consider that he has been with the house for more than forty years and is fidelity and faithfulness personified to ‘J. Dunlap,’ but he is so absurdly jealous and suspicious that he would wear out the patience of a saint, and I don’t pretend to be one,” supplemented Burton.

“Half the time,” said Jack, glad apparently to discuss Chapman and thus avoid the subject which beneath the surface of their conversation was uppermost in the minds of both Burton and himself.

“I have not the slightest idea what ‘Old Chap,’ as I call him, is driving at. He goes hunting a hundred miles away for the end of a coil of rope that is lying at his very feet, and he is the very devil, too, for finding out anything he wishes to know. Why, when I was a boy and used to get into scrapes, if ‘Old Chap’ cornered me I knew it was no use trying to get out of the mess and soon learned to plead guilty at once,” and Jack smiled in a dreary kind of way at the recollection of some of his boyish pranks.

“Well, let old Chapman, the modern Sherlock Holmes, and his searching disposition go for the present. Promise to be sure to dine with Lucy tomorrow evening. She expects me to be there also, as she is going to have one or two young women and needs some of the male sex to talk to them. I know that she will want you all to herself,” said Burton.

“Yes, I’ll be on hand all right tomorrow night and you get my papers in shape during the day, as I will sail as early day after tomorrow as the tide serves,” replied the captain.

“By the way, Jack! Send your steward to me[30] when you go aboard to take charge of the ‘Adams’ in the morning. Tell him to see me personally. You sailors are such queer chaps and care so little about your larder that I am going to see to it myself that you don’t eat salt pork and hard tack on your voyage out, nor drink bilge water, either.”

“You are awfully kind, Burton, but you need not trouble yourself. I am sure common sea grub is good enough for any sailor-man.”

As they walked together toward the front door, when Captain Jack was leaving the building, in the narrow aisle between the long rows of desks they came face to face with the superintendent. He stepped aside and gazing after them, whispered:

“Be sure to send that steward of yours to me tomorrow, Jack,” called the manager of “J. Dunlap” as the sturdy figure of the sailor disappeared in the fog that filled the crooked street in which Boston’s oldest shipping and banking house had its office.

“And no ship ever sailed from Boston provided as yours shall be, poor old chap,” muttered the manager as he hurried back to his own room in the office. “There shall be champagne enough on board the ‘Adams,’ Jack, to drink our health, if you so will, on our wedding day, even though you be off Cape Good Hope.”

In the gloaming that dark November day the Dunlap brothers were seated close together, side by side, in silence gazing into the heap of coals that burned in the large grate before them. John Dunlap’s hand rested upon the arm of his brother, as if in the mere touching of him who had first seen the light in his company there was comfort.

Burton thought, as he entered the private office that no finer picture was ever painted than that made by these two fine old American gentlemen as the flame from the crackling cannel coal shot up, revealing their kind, gentle, generous faces in the surrounding gloom of the room.

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” said the manager,[32] pausing on the threshold, hesitating to break in upon a scene that seemed almost sacred, “but I was told that you had sent for me while I was out of the office.”

“Come in, Burton, you were correctly informed,” said James Dunlap, still neither changing his position nor removing his gaze from the fire.

“My brother John and I have determined as a mark of love for our young kinsman, Captain John Dunlap, and as an evidence of our appreciation for faithful services rendered to us as mate and master, to make him a present of our ship ‘Adams,’ now loaded for Australia,” continued James Dunlap, speaking very low and very softly.

“You will please have the necessary papers for the transfer made out tonight. We will execute them in the morning and you will see that the proper entry is made upon the register at the custom house. Have the full value of the ship charged to the private accounts of my brother John and myself, as the gift is a personal affair of ours and others interested in our house must[33] be fully indemnified,” continued the old man as he turned his eyes and met his brother’s assenting look.

The flame blazing up in the grate at that moment cast its light on Burton’s flushed face as he listened to the closing sentence of Mr. James Dunlap’s instructions.

“Forgive me, sir, but I do not comprehend what you mean by ‘others interested in our house.’ I believe other than yourselves I alone have the honor to hold an interest in your house,” and moving forward in the firelight where he would stand before the brothers he continued, almost indignantly, his voice vibrating with emotion:

“You do me bitter, cruel injustice if you think that I do not wish, nay more, earnestly beg, to join in this gift. I have learned that today that would urge me to plead for permission to share in this deed were it of ten times the value of the ‘Adams.’”

Quickly old John Dunlap, rising from his chair, placing his hand on Burton’s shoulder and regarding him kindly, said:

“I am glad to hear you say that, Burton, very[34] glad. It proves your heart to be right, but it cannot be as you wish. Jack is so sensitive even about receiving aid from us, his kinsmen, that you must conceal the matter from him, put the transfer and new registration with his clearance papers and tell him it is our wish that they be not opened until he is one week at sea.”

“Could the transfer not be made just in the name of the house without explanation? He might never think of my being interested,” urged the manager eagerly.

“You are mistaken, Walter,” said James Dunlap. “Within a month you might see the ‘Adams’ sailing back into Boston harbor. I am sorry to deny you the exercise of your generous impulse; we appreciate the intent, but think it best not to hamper a gift to this proud fellow with anything that might cause its rejection.”

Burton, realizing the truth of the position taken by the brothers and the hopelessness of gaining Jack Dunlap’s consent to be placed under obligations to one not of his own blood, could offer no further argument upon the subject. Dejected and disappointed he turned to leave the[35] room to accomplish the wishes expressed by the twins. As he reached the door John Dunlap called to him.

“Hold on a minute, Burton. Have we any interest in the cargo of the ‘Adams?’”

“About one-quarter of her cargo is agricultural implements consigned to our Australian agent for the account of the house,” quickly answered the manager.

“No you don’t, James! We only agreed on the ship. John is my godson and namesake. I have a right to do more than anyone else,” exultantly cried the kind hearted old fellow, and for the first time that day he laughed as he slapped his brother on the shoulder and thought of how he had gotten ahead of him.

Burton was obliged to smile at the sudden anxiety of Mr. John to get rid of him when Mr. James began to protest against his brother’s selfishness in wishing to have no partner in the gift of the cargo.

“Now, you just hurry up those papers, Burton. Yes, hurry! Run along! Yes, Yes,” and so saying old Mr. John fairly rushed him out of the room.

“How I wish I were Captain Jack’s uncle, too,” thought Burton sadly, with a heart full of generous sympathy for the man who he knew loved the woman that ere a month would be Mrs. Burton.

III.

Some men have one hobby, some have many and some poor wretches have none. David Chapman had three hobbies and they occupied his whole mind and heart.

First in place and honor was the house of J. Dunlap. “The pillared firmament” might fall but his fidelity to the firm which he had served for forty years could never fail. His was the fierce and jealous love of the tigress for her cub where the house of Dunlap was concerned. He actually suffered, as from mortal hurt, when any one or any thing seemed to separate him from this great object of his adoration.

He had ever regarded the ownership of even a small interest by Walter Burton as an indignity, an outrage and a sacrilege. He hated him for defiling the chiefest idol of his religion and life. He was jealous of him because he separated in a manner the worshiper from the worshiped.

Because solely of jealous love for this High Joss of his, Chapman would have gladly, cheerfully suffered unheard of agonies to rid the house of J. Dunlap of this irreverent interloper who did not bear the sacred name of Dunlap.

The discovery of anything concealed, unravelling a mystery, ferreting out a secret was the next highest hobby in Chapman’s trinity of hobbies. He was passionately fond of practicing the theory of deduction, and was marvelously successful at arriving at correct conclusions. No crime, no mystery furnished a sensation for the Boston newspapers that did not call into play the exercise of this the second and most peculiar hobby of Chapman.

By some strange freak of nature in compounding the elements to form the character of David Chapman, an inordinate love for music was added to the incongruous mixture, and became the man’s third and most harmless hobby. Chapman had devoted years to the study of music, from pure love of sweet and melodious sounds. In the great and musical city of Boston no one[39] excelled him as master of his favorite instrument, the violoncello. Like Balzac’s Herr Smucker, in his hours of relaxation, he bathed himself in the flood of his own melody.

Chapman owned, he was not poor, and occupied with his spinster sister, who was almost as withered as himself, a house well down in the business section of the city. He could not be induced to live in the more desirable suburbs. They were too far from the temple of his chiefest idol, the house of J. Dunlap.

“Jack Dunlap sails as master of our ship ‘Adams’ day after tomorrow,” suggested Chapman meditatively, as he sipped his tea and glanced across the table at the dry, almost fossilized, prim, starchy, old lady seated opposite him in his comfortable dining room that evening.

And the little old lady seemed to pick at the words as she uttered them much as a sparrow does at crumbs of bread.

“What is the reason for his sudden departure? Did the house order him to sea again?” pecked out the sister.

“No, that is the strange part of the affair. Jack himself especially urged his appointment to the ship sailing day after tomorrow.”

“Then it is to get away from Boston before Lucy is married. I believe he is in love with her and can’t bear to see her marry Burton.”

Oh! boastful man, with all your assumed superiority in the realm of reason and your deductive theories and synthetical systems for forming correct conclusions. You are but a tyro, a mere infant in that great field of feeling where love is crowned king. The most withered, stale, neglected being in whose breast beats a woman’s heart, by that mysterious and sympathetic something called intuition can lead you like the child that you are in this, woman’s own province.

“You are entirely wrong, Arabella, as usual. Jack never thought of Miss Lucy in that way; besides he and Burton are exceedingly friendly; can’t you make it convenient to visit your friends in Bedford and see Martha Dunlap? If anything[41] be wrong with Jack, and I can help him, I shall be glad to do so. The mother may be more communicative than the son.”

“I will surely make the attempt to learn if anything be wrong, and gladly, too; I have always loved that boy Jack, and if he be in trouble I want you to help him all in your power, David.” The little old maid’s face flushed in the earnestness of the expression.

“Burton is still an unsolved problem to me,” and in saying the words Chapman’s jaws moved with a kind of snap, like a steel trap, while his eyes had the glitter of a serpent’s in them as he continued, “for years I have observed him closely and I cannot make him out at all. I am baffled by sudden changes of mood in the man; at times he is reckless, gay, thoughtless, frivolous, and I sometimes think lacking in moral stamina; again he is dignified, kind, courteous, reserved and seems to possess the highest standard of morals.”

“I don’t suppose that he is unlike other men; they all have moods. You do yourself, David, and very unpleasant moods, too,” said Arabella[42] with the proverbial sourness of the typical New England spinster.

“Well, I may have moods, as you say, Arabella, but I don’t break out suddenly in a kind of frenzy of gaiety, sing and shout like a street Arab and then as quickly relapse into a superlatively dead calm of dignity and the irreproachable demeanor of a cultured gentleman.

“Now, David, you are allowing your dislike for Burton and your prejudice to overdraw the picture,” said prim Miss Arabella, as she daintily raised the teacup to her lips.

“I am not overdrawing the picture! I have seen and heard Burton when he thought that he was alone in the office, and I say that there is something queer about him; Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde of that old story are common characters in comparison. I knew his father well; he was an every-day sort of successful business man; whom his father married and what she was like I do not know, but I shall find out some day, as therein may lie the reading of the riddle,” retorted the brother vehemently.

“As Lucy Dunlap will be married to the man[43] shortly and it will then be too late to do anything, no matter what is the result of your inquiry, it seems to me that you should cease to interest yourself in the matter,” chirped the bird-like voice of Miss Arabella.

“I can’t! I am absolutely fascinated by the study of this man’s strange, incongruous character; you remember what I told you when I returned from the only visit I ever made at Burton’s house. It was business that forced me to go there, and I have never forgotten what I saw and heard. I am haunted by something that I cannot define,” said Chapman, intensity of feeling causing his pale face and hairless head to assume the appearance of the bald-eagle or some other bird of prey.

“Think of it, Arabella! That summer day as I reached the door of his lonely dwelling, surrounded by that great garden, through the open windows there came crashing upon my ears such a wild, weird burst of song that it held me motionless where I stood. The sound of those musical screams of melodious frenzy, dying away in rythmic cadence until it seemed the soft summer[44] breeze echoed the sweet harmony in its sighing. Words, music and expression now wild and unbridled as the shriek of a panther, and then low, gentle and soothing as the murmuring of a peaceful brook,” cried Chapman, becoming more intense as his musical memory reproduced the sounds he sought to describe.

“David, you know that music is a passion with you, and doubtless your sensitive ear gave added accent and meaning to the improvised music of a careless, idle young man,” interrupted Miss Arabella.

“Not so! Not so! I swear that no careless, idle man ever improvised such wild melody; it is something unusual in the man; when at last the outburst ceased, and I summoned strength to ring the bell, there was something almost supernatural that enabled that frenzied musician to meet me with the suavity of an ordinary cultured gentleman of Boston as Burton did when I entered his sitting room.”

“Brother, I fear that imagination and hatred in this instance are sadly warping your usually sound judgment,” quietly replied the sedate sister,[45] seeing the increasing excitement of her brother.

“Imagination created also, I suppose, the uncanny, barbaric splendor with which his apartments were decorated which I described to you,” sneered the man.

“All young men affect something of that kind, I am told, in the adornment of their rooms,” rejoined the spinster, mincing her words, and, old as she was, assuming embarrassment in mentioning young men’s rooms.

“Nonsense! Arabella, I have seen many of the Harvard men’s rooms. A few swords, daggers, and other weapons; a skin or two of wild animals; something of that kind, but Burton’s apartments were differently decorated; masses of striking colors, gaudy, glaring, yet so blended by an artistic eye that they were not offensive to the sight. Articles of furniture of such strange, savage and grotesque shape as to suggest a barbarian as the designer. The carving on the woodwork, the paneling, the tone and impression created by sight of it all were such as must have filled the souls of the Spanish conquerors when they[46] first gazed upon the barbaric grandeur of the Moors, as exposed to their wondering eyes by the conquest of Granada.”

“Don’t get excited, David!” said staid Miss Arabella. “Suppose that you should discover something to the discredit of Burton, what use could and would you make of it?”

The veins in Chapman’s thin neck and bony brow became swollen and distended as if straining to burst the skin that covered them; his eyes flashed baleful fire, as extending his arm and grasping the empty air as if it were his enemy, he fairly hissed:

“I! I! I would tear him out of the house of J. Dunlap, intruder that he is, and cast him into the gutter! Yea! though I tore the heartstrings of a million women such as Lucy Dunlap! What is she or her heart in comparison with the glory of Boston’s oldest business name?”

Panting, as a weary hound, who exhausted but exultant, fastens his fangs in the hunted stag, overcome by the violence of his hatred, David Chapman dropped down into his chair.

Nestling among grand old oaks and profusion of shrubbery, now leafless in the November air of New England, on the top of the highest hill in that portion of the suburbs, sat the “Eyrie,” the bachelor home of Walter Burton.

Though the house was small, the conservatory adjoining it was one of the largest in the city. Burton was an ardent lover of flowers, and an active collector of rare plants. The house stood in the center of an extensive and well kept garden through which winding paths ran in every direction.

The place would have seemed lonely to one not possessing within himself resources sufficient to furnish him entertainment independent of the society of others.

Burton never knew loneliness. He was an accomplished musician, an artist of more than ordinary ability, a zealous horticulturist, and an omnivorous devourer of books.

A housekeeper who was cook at the same time, one man and a boy for the garden and conservatory and a valet constituted the household servants of the “Eyrie.”

At the moment that Chapman’s wrathful mind was expressing its concentrated hate for him, the owner of the white house on the hill sat before the open grand piano in his music-room, his shapely hands wandering listlessly over the keys, touching them once in a while in an aimless manner. The young man’s mind was filled with other thoughts than music.

Chapman had drawn an accurate picture of Burton’s apartments in many respects, yet he had forgotten to mention the many musical instruments scattered about the rooms. Harp, guitar, mandolin, violin, banjo and numberless sheets of music, some printed and some written, marked this as the abode of a natural musician. Burton was equally proficient in the use of each of the instruments lying about the room, as well as being the author of original compositions of great beauty and merit.

The odor of violets perfumed the whole house. Great bunches of these, Burton’s favorite flower, filled antique and queerly shaped vases in each room.

Burton ceased to even sound the keys on which[49] his hands rested, and as some scene was disclosed to his sympathetic soul, his soft brown eyes were dimmed by a suspicious moisture. Sighing sadly he murmured:

“Poor Jack! While I am in a heaven of bliss with the woman I love, surrounded by all that makes life enjoyable, he, poor old chap, alone, heartsick and hopeless, will be battling with the stormy waves of the ocean. Alas! Fate how inscrutable!”

As his mind drifted onward in this channel of thought, he added more audibly, “What a heart Jack has! There is a man! He will carry his secret uncomplaining and in silence to his grave, that, too, without permitting envy or jealousy to fill his soul with hatred; I would that I could do something to assuage the pain of that brave heart.” And at the word “brave” the stream of his wandering fancy seemed to take a new direction.

“Brave! Men who have sailed with him say he knows no fear; the last voyage they tell how he sprang into the icy sea, all booted as he was, waves mountain high, the night of inky blackness,[50] to save a worthless, brutal Lascar sailor. Tender as a woman, when a mere child as careful of baby Cousin Lucy as a granddame could be, and ever her sturdy little knight and champion from babyhood. Poor Jack!”

Again the current of his thought changed its course. He paused and whispered to himself, “Lucy, am I worthy of her? Shall I prove as kind, as true and brave a husband as Jack would be to her? Oh! God, I hope so, I will try so hard. Sometimes there seems to come a strange inexplicable spell over my spirit—a something that is beyond my control. A madness seems to possess my very soul. Involuntarily I say and do that, during the time that this mysterious influence holds me powerless in its grasp, that is so foreign to my natural self that I shudder and grow sick at heart at the thought of the end to which it may lead me.”

At the recollection of some horror of the past the young man’s face paled and he shivered as if struck by a cold blast of winter wind.

“Ought I to tell Lucy of these singular manifestations? Ought I to alarm my darling concerning[51] something that may partly be imaginary? I am uncertain what, loving her as I do, is right; I can always absent myself from her presence when I feel that hateful influence upon me, and perhaps after I am married I may be freed from the horrible thraldom of that irresistible power that clutches me in its terrible grasp. I cannot bear the idea of giving my dear love useless pain or trouble. Had I not better wait?”

At that moment some unpleasant fact must have suggested itself or rather forced itself upon Burton’s mind for he pushed back the piano-stool and rising walked with impatient steps about the room, saying:

“It would be ridiculous! Absurd! Really unworthy of both Lucy and myself even to mention the subject! Long ago that old, nonsensical prejudice had disappeared, at least among cultivated people in America. There is not a shade of doubt but that both the Messrs. Dunlap and Lucy are aware of the fact that my mother was a quadroon. Doubtless that circumstance is deemed so trivial that it never has occurred to them to mention it to me. People of education[52] and refinement, regardless of the color of skin, are welcome in the home of the Dunlaps as everywhere else where enlightenment has dispelled prejudice.”

He paused and bursting into a musical and merry laugh at something that his memory recalled, exclaimed,

“Why, I have seen men and women as black as the proverbial ‘ace of spades,’ the guests of honor in Mr. James Dunlap’s house, as elsewhere in Boston. I shall neither bore nor insult the intelligence of my sweetheart or her family by introducing the absurd subject of blood in connection with our marriage. The idea of blood making any difference! Men are neither hounds nor horses!”

Laughing at the odd conceit that men, hounds and horses should be considered akin by any one not absolutely benighted, he resumed his seat at the piano and began playing a gay waltz tune then popular with the dancing set of Boston’s exclusive circle.

As Burton ended the piece of music with a fantastic flourish of his own composition, he[53] turned and saw his valet standing silently waiting for his master to cease playing.

“Yes, sir,” replied the valet, pronouncing his words with marked French accent. “The steward at your club furnished all the articles on the list that the housekeeper lacked, sir.”

“You are sure that you put in the hampers the ‘44’ vintage of champagne, the Burgundy imported by myself, and you examined the cigars to be certain to get only those of the last lot from Havana?”

“Quite sure, sir; I packed everything myself, as you told me you were especially anxious to have only the very best selected,” said the little Frenchman.

“Now, listen, Victor; tomorrow I dine away from home, but before I leave the house I shall arrange a box of flowers, which, with the hampers, you are to carry in my dog-cart to Dunlap’s wharf and there you are to have them placed in the cabin of the ship ‘Adams.’ You will open the box of flowers and arrange them tastefully, as I[54] know you can, about the master’s stateroom—take a half-dozen vases to put them in.”

“Very good, sir; it shall be done as you say, sir,” answered the valet bowing and moving toward the door.

“Hold on, Victor!” called Burton, “I wish to add just this: if by any accident, no matter what, you fail to get these things on board the ‘Adams’ before she sails, my gentle youth, I will break your neck.”

So admonished the servant bowed low and left the room, as his master turned again to the piano and began to make the room ring with a furious and warlike march.

IV.

The United States is famous for its beautiful women, but even in that country where beauty is the common heritage of her daughters, Lucy Dunlap’s loveliness of face and figure shone as some transcendent planet in the bright heavens of femininity where all are stars.

“How can you be so cruel, Jack, as to run away to sea again so soon and when I need you so much?”

The great hazel eyes looked so pleadingly into poor Jack’s that he could not even stammer out an excuse for his departure.

Sailors possibly appreciate women more than all other classes of men. They are so much without their society that they never seem to regard them as landsmen do, and Lucy Dunlap was an exceptional example of womankind to even the most blase landsman. Small wonder then[56] that sailor Jack, confused, could only gaze at the lovely being before him.

Lucy Dunlap, though of the average height of women, seemed taller, so round, supple and elastic were the proportions of her perfect figure. The charm of intellectual power gave added beauty to a face whose features would have caused an artist to realize that the ideal model did not exist alone in the land of dreams.

In the spacious drawing-room of Dunlap’s mansion were gathered those who had enjoyed the sumptuous dinner served that evening in honor of their seafaring kinsman. Mr. John Dunlap was relating his experiences in Port au Prince to his old friend, Mrs. Church, while his brother, with that old-fashioned courtliness that became him so well, was playing the cavalier to Miss Winthrop, one of his granddaughter’s pretty friends. Walter Burton was bending over Miss Stanhope, a talented young musician, who, seated before the piano, was scanning a new piece of music.

There seemed a mutual understanding between all of those present that Lucy should monopolize[57] her cousin’s attention on this the first occasion that she had seen him for two years, and probably the last for a like period of time. In a far corner of the great room Jack and Lucy were seated when she asked the question mentioned, to which Jack finally made awkward answer by saying:

“Oh! well, Lucy, I am not of much account at social functions. I should only be in some one’s way. I fancy my proper place is the quarter-deck of a ship at sea.”

“Don’t be absurd, Jack! You know much better than that,” said his cousin, glancing at the manly, frank face beside her, the handsome, curly blonde head carried high and firm, and the grand chest and shoulders of the man, made more noticeable by the close fitting dress coat that he wore.

“Why, half the women of our set in Boston will be in love with you if you remain for my wedding. Please do, Jack. I will find you the prettiest sweetheart that your sailor-heart ever pictured.”

“I am awfully sorry, little cousin, to disappoint[58] you, as you seem to have expected me to be present at your wedding,” said Jack manfully, attempting to appear cheerful.

“And as for the sweetheart part of your suggestion, it may be ungallant to say so, but I don’t believe there is any place in my log for that kind of an entry.”

“How odd it is, Jack, that you have never been in love; why, any woman could love you, you big-hearted handsome sailor.”

Lucy’s admiring glances rested upon the face of her cousin as innocently as when a little maid she had kissed him and said that she loved him.

“Yes, it is rather odd for a man never to love some woman, but I can’t say that I agree that any woman could or would love me,” answered Jack dryly, as he smiled at the earnest face turned toward him.

Miss Stanhope played a magnificent symphony as only that clever artist could; Walter Burton’s clear tenor voice rang out in an incomparable solo from the latest opera, but Lucy and Jack, oblivious to all else, in low and confidential tones conversed in the far corner of the room.

As of old when she was a child, Lucy had nestled down close to her cousin and resting one small hand upon his arm was artlessly pouring out the whole story of her love for Walter Burton, her bright hopes and expectations, the joy that filled her soul, the happiness that she saw along the vista of the future; all with that freedom from reserve that marks the exchange of confidences between loving sisters.

The day of the rack and stake has passed, but as long as human hearts shall beat, the day of torture can never come to a close; Jack listened to the heart story of the innocent, confiding woman beside him, who, all unaware of the torture she was inflicting, painted the future in words that wrung more agony from his soul than rack or stake could have caused his body.

How bravely he battled against the pain that every word brought to his breast! Pierced by a hundred darts he still could meet the artless gaze of those bright, trusting, hazel eyes and smile in assurance of his interest and sympathy.

“But of course my being married must make no difference with you, Cousin Jack. You must[60] love me as you always have,” she said, as if the thought of losing something she was accustomed to have just occurred to her mind.

“I shall always love you, Lucy, as I ever have.” The sailor’s voice came hoarse and deep from the broad breast that rose and fell like heaving billows.

“You know, Jack, that you were always my refuge and strength in time of trouble or danger when I was a child, and even with dear Walter for my husband I still should feel lost had I not you to call upon.” Lucy’s voice trembled a little and she grasped Jack’s strong arm with the hand that rested there while they had been talking.

“You may call me from the end of the earth, my dear, and feel sure that I shall come to you,” said Jack simply, but the earnest manner was more convincing to the woman at his side than fine phrases would have been.

“Oh! Jack! what a comfort you are, and how much I rely upon you. It makes me quite strong and brave to know that my marriage will make no change in your love for me.”

“As long as life shall last, my cousin, I shall[61] love you,” replied the man almost sadly, as he placed his hand over hers that held his arm.

“Or until some day you marry and your wife becomes jealous,” added Lucy laughing.

“Or until I marry and my wife is jealous,” repeated Dunlap with the faintest kind of emphasis upon “until.”

Miss Stanhope began to play a waltz of the inspiring nature that almost makes old and gouty feet to tingle, and is perfectly irresistible to the young and joyous. Burton and Miss Winthrop in a minute were whirling around the drawing-room. How perfectly Burton could dance; his easy rythmic steps were the very poetry of motion. Lucy and Jack paused to watch the handsome couple as they glided gracefully through the room.

“Does not Walter dance beautifully?” exclaimed Lucy as she followed the dancers with admiring glances.

“Bertie Winthrop, who was at Harvard with Walter, says that when they were students and had their stag parties if they could catch Walter in what Bertie calls ‘a gay mood,’ he would astonish[62] them with his wonderful dancing. Bertie vows that Walter can dance any kind of thing from a vulgar gig to an exquisite ballet, but he is so awfully modest about it that he denies Bertie’s story and will not dance anything but the conventional,” continued Lucy.

“Take a turn, Jack!” called Burton as he and his partner swept by the corner where the sailor and his cousin were seated, and added as he passed, “It is your last chance for some time.”

“Come on, Jack,” cried Lucy springing up and extending her hands. A moment more and Jack was holding near his bosom the woman for whom his heart would beat until death should still it forever.

Oft midst the howling winds and angry waves, when storm tossed on the sea, will Jack dream o’er again the heavenly bliss of those few moments when close to his heart rested she who was the beacon light of his sailor’s soul.

When the music of the waltz ended, Jack and his fair partner found themselves just in front of the settee where John Dunlap and Mrs. Church were seated.

“Uncle John, I have been trying to induce Jack to stay ashore until after my wedding,” said Lucy addressing Mr. John Dunlap who had been following her and her partner with his eyes, in which was a pained expression, as they had circled about the room.

“Won’t you help me, Uncle John?” added the young woman in that pleading seductive tone that always brought immediate surrender on the part of both her grandfather and granduncle.

“I am afraid, Lucy, that I can’t aid you this time,” replied the old gentleman and there was so much seriousness in his sunburnt face that Lucy exclaimed anxiously:

“Why? What is the matter that the house must send Cousin Jack away almost as soon as he gets home?”

“Nothing is the matter, dear, but it is an opportunity for your cousin to make an advancement in his profession, and you must not be selfish in thinking only of your own happiness, my child. You know men must work and women must wait,” replied her uncle.

“Oh! Is that it? Then I must resign myself[64] with good grace to the disappointment. I would not for the world have any whim of mine mar dear old Jack’s prospects,” and Lucy clasped both of her dimpled white hands affectionately on her cousin’s arm, which she still retained after the waltz ended, as she uttered these sentiments.

“I am sure that he would, Lucy, so don’t insist,” said John Dunlap very seriously and positively.

Just then Burton began singing a mournfully sweet song, full of sadness and pathos, accompanying himself on a guitar that had been lying on the music stand. All conversation ceased. Every one turned to look at the singer. What a mellow, rich voice had Walter Burton. What expression he put into the music and words!

What a handsome man he was! As he leaned forward holding the instrument, and lightly touching the strings as he sang, Lucy thought him a perfect Apollo. Her eyes beamed with pride and love as she regarded her future husband.

None noticed the flush and troubled frown on old John Dunlap’s face. Burton’s crossed legs had drawn his trousers tightly around the limb below the knee, revealing an almost total absence of calf and that the little existing was placed higher up than usually is the case. That peculiarity or something never to be explained had brought some Haitian scene back to the memory of the flushed and frowning old man and sent a pang of regret and fear through his kind heart.

“God bless and keep you, lad! Jack, you are the last of the Dunlaps,” said Mr. John Dunlap solemnly as they all stood in the hall when the sailor was leaving.

“Amen! most earnestly, Amen!” added Mr. James Dunlap, placing his hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“Good-by! dear Jack,” said Lucy sorrowfully while tears filled her eyes, when she stood at the outer door of the hall holding her cousin’s hand.

“Think of me on the twentieth of next month, my wedding day,” she added, and then drawing the hand that she held close to her breast as if still clinging to some old remembrance and anxious[66] to keep fast hold of the past, fearful that it would escape her, she exclaimed:

“Until death, Lucy,” replied the man, as he raised the little white hand to his lips and reverently kissed it.

She stood watching the retreating figure until it was hidden by the gloom of the ghostly elms that lined the avenue. As she turned Burton was at her side.

Alone through the darkness strode a man with a dull, hard, crushing pain in his brave, faithful heart.

“The child will be ruined,” said all the old ladies of the Dunlaps’ acquaintance when they learned that it had been determined by the child’s grandfather to keep the motherless and fatherless little creature at home with him, rather than[67] send her to reside with some remote female members of her mother’s family.

“Those two old gentlemen will surely spoil her to that degree that she will be unendurable when she becomes a young woman,” asserted the women with feminine positiveness.

“They will make her Princess of the house of Dunlap, I suppose,” added the most acrimonious.

To a degree these predictions were verified by the result, but only to a degree. The twin brothers almost worshiped the beautiful little maiden, and did in very fact make her their Princess, and so, too, was she often called; but possibly through no merit in the management of the brothers, probably simply because Lucy was not spoilable was the desirable end arrived at that she grew to be a most amiable and agreeable woman.

The son of Mr. John Dunlap, the father of Lucy, survived but one year the death of his wife, which occurred when Lucy was born. Thus her grandfather and uncle became sole protectors and guardians of the child; that is until the lad, Jack Dunlap, came to live at the house of his godfather.

Young Jack was the only child of a second cousin of the twin brothers; his father had been lost at sea when Jack was yet a baby. His mother, Martha Dunlap, had gladly availed herself of the kind offer of the boy’s kinsman and godfather, when he proposed that the boy should come and live with him in Boston, where he could obtain better opportunities for securing an education than he could in the old town of Bedford.

Jack was twelve years of age when he became an inmate of the Dunlap mansion, and a robust, sturdy little curly haired chap he was; Princess Lucy’s conquest was instantaneous. Jack immediately enrolled himself as the chief henchman, servitor and guard of the pretty fairy-like maid of six years. No slave was ever more obedient and humble.

Great games awoke the echoes through Dunlap’s stately old dwelling; in winter the lawn was converted into a slide, the fish-pond into a skating-rink; in summer New Hampshire’s hills reverberated with the merry shouts of Jack and “Princess” Lucy or flying over the blue waters of the bay in the yacht that his godfather had[69] given him. Jack, aided by Lucy’s fresh young voice, sang rollicking songs of the sea.

The old gentlemen dubbed Jack, “Lucy’s Knight,” and were always perfectly satisfied when the little girl was with her cousin.

“He is more careful of her than we are ourselves,” they would reply when speaking of Jack and his guardianship.

All the fuming of Miss Lucy’s maids and the complaints of Miss Lucy’s governess availed nothing, for even good old Mrs. Church joined in the conspiracy of the grandfather and uncle, saying:

“She is perfectly safe in Jack’s care, and I wish to see rosy cheeks rather than hear Emersonian philosophy from our pet.”

Notwithstanding the “lots of fun,” as Jack used to call their frolics, Lucy and Jack did good hard work with their books, music and “all the rest of it,” as the young people called drawing and dancing.

When Jack became twenty years of age, and was prepared to enter Harvard college, where Mr. John Dunlap proposed to send him, he made[70] his appearance one day in the city and asked to see his kind kinsman.

“I thank you, sir, for your great kindness in offering to place me in Harvard College, as I do for all the countless things you have done for me, but I can’t accept your generous proposition. You will not be angry, I am sure, for you know, I hope, how grateful I am for all you have done. But, sir, I have a widowed mother and I wish to go to work that I may earn money for her and obtain a start in life for myself,” said Jack with boyish enthusiasm when admitted to the presence of Mr. John Dunlap.

Though the old gentleman urged every argument to alter Jack’s determination, the boy stood firmly by what he had said.

“You are my namesake, the only male representative of our family; neither you nor your mother shall ever want. I have more money than I need.” Many other inducements were offered still the young man insisted upon the course that he laid out for himself.

“I am a sailor’s son and have a sailor’s soul; I wish to go to sea,” Jack finally exclaimed.

Both of the twins loved Jack. He had been so long in their house and so closely associated with Lucy that he seemed more to them than a remote young kinsman.

Finding Jack’s decision unalterable, a compromise was effected on the subject. Jack should sail in one of their coasting ships, and when on shore at Boston continue to make their house his home.

Great was the grief of Lucy at parting with her Jack, as she called him. But consoling herself with the thought that she should see him often and that the next autumn she should be obliged to leave Boston for some dreadful seminary and thus they would be separated under any circumstances, she dried her eyes and entered with enthusiasm into his preparations for sea, saying, “I have a good mind to dress up as a boy and go with Jack! I declare I would do it, were it not for grandfather and Uncle John.”

Jack’s kit on his first voyage was a marvel in the way of a sailor’s outfit; Lucy had made a bankrupt of herself in the purchase of the most extraordinary handkerchiefs, caps, shirts and things of that kind that could be found in Boston,[72] saying proudly to Mrs. Church when displaying the assortment:

After several years of sea service Mr. James Dunlap, during the residence of his brother in Haiti, had tendered to Jack a position in the office, hoping that having seen enough of the ocean he would be willing to remain ashore and possibly with a half-formed hope that Jack would win Lucy’s hand and thus the house of Dunlap continue to survive for other generations.

Much to the chagrin of Lucy’s grandfather, Jack absolutely refused to entertain the proposition, saying:

“I should be of no earthly use in the office. I am not competent to fill any position there, and I positively will not accept a sinecure. If you wish to advance me, do so in the line of my profession! Make me master of your ship Lucy and let me take her for a two years’ cruise in Eastern waters.”

Thus it happened that Jack was absent from Boston for two years and returned to find that he had lost that, that all the gold of El Dorado could not replace—the woman whom he loved.

“Mother Sybella, Mother Sybella! May I approach?” yelled every few minutes the man seated on a rock half way up the hill that rose steep from the Port au Prince highway.

The neglected and broken pavement of the road that remained as a monument to the long-departed French governors of Haiti was almost hidden by the rank, luxurious growth of tropical plants on either side of it. As seen from the hillside, where the man was sitting, it seemed an impracticable path for even the slowly moving donkeys which here and there crawled between the overhanging vegetation.

The man looked neither to the right nor to the left, but throwing back his head, at intervals of possibly fifteen minutes, as if addressing the blazing sun above, bawled out at the top of his voice:

The man was a mulatto, though with features markedly of the negro type; around his head he wore a much soiled white handkerchief. His body was fairly bursting out of a tight-fitting blue coat of military fashion, adorned with immense brass buttons. His bare feet and long thin shanks appeared below dirty duck trousers that once had been white.

There evidently was something awe-inspiring about the name that he shouted even though the rest of the words were unintelligible to the natives. The man shouted his request in the English language; the natives of Haiti used a jargon of French, English and native dialect difficult to understand and impossible to describe or reproduce in writing.

If, when the man called, a native were passing along the highway, as sometimes happened, he would spring forward so violently as to endanger the safety of the huge basket of fruit or vegetables that he carried upon his head, and glancing over his shoulder with dread in his distended,[75] white and rolling eyes, would break into a run and speed forward as if in mortal terror.

The man had just given utterance to a louder howl than usual when he felt the grip of bony claw-like fingers on his shoulder; with one unearthly yell he sprang to his feet, turned and fell upon his knees before the figure that so silently had stolen to his side.

“Has the yellow dog brought a bone to his mother?” The words were spoken in the patois of the native Haitians with which the man was familiar.

The speaker was a living, animated but mummified black crone of a woman. She leaned upon a staff made of three human thigh bones, joined firmly together by wire. Her fleshless fingers looked like the talons of a vulture as she gripped the top of her horrid prop and bent forward toward the man.

Her age seemed incalculable in decades; centuries appeared to have passed since she was born. The wrinkles in her face were as gashes in black and aged parchment, so deep were they. The skin over her toothless jaws was so drawn[76] and stretched by untold time that the very hinges of the jaw were plainly traced; in cavernous, inky holes dug deep beneath the retreating forehead sparkled, like points of flame, eyes so bright and glittering that sparks of electric fire shot forth in the gaze by which she transfixed the groveling wretch at her feet.

“The coffee, sugar, ham and calico are in that bundle lying over there, Mother Sybella,” and the man pointed to a roll of matting near him.

“And I told you to gather all the gossip and news of Port au Prince. Have you done so?” queried the hag with a menacing gesture.

“Yes! yes! Mother; every command has been obeyed. I have learned what people are talking of, and, too, I have brought some printed talk from among the Yankees,” cried the mulatto quickly, anxious to propitiate the crone.

“Fool, you know I can’t make out the Yankee printed talk,” snarled the sunken lips.

“I can though, Mother Sybella; I lived among the Yankees many years. I will tell you what they talk of concerning our country,” said the man rising from his knees.

“I will listen here in the sun’s rays; I am cold. Sit there at my feet,” mumbled the hag, crouching down on the rock that had been occupied by Manuel.

“Begin,” she commanded fiercely, fixing her keen gaze upon the yellow face below her.

“Dictator Dupree is unable to obtain money to pay the army; the Yankees and English will not make a loan unless concessions be made to the whites.”

“Dupree fears an insurrection of the people if he make concessions to the whites, and an outbreak by the army if he fail to pay the arrears due to it. He is distracted and knows not which move to make,” answered the yellow man at the hag’s feet.

“Dupree is a coward! Let him come to me and see how quickly his difficulties disappear![78] The army is worthless, the people powerful,” cried Sybella.

“Twenty priests, with a Bishop at their head, have come from France, and go among the people urging them to attend the churches, and threatening them with awful punishment hereafter if they fail to heed the commands of the priests,” continued Manuel.

“Much good may it do the black-gowns,” chuckled the old creature, making a horrible grimace in so doing.

“My children fear Sybella more than the black-gowns’ hell,” she cackled exultantly.

“The priests are trying to persuade the Dictator to give them permission to re-open those schools that have been closed so long, but Dupree has not consented yet. He seems to fear the anger of the black party in Haiti,” said the witch’s newsman.

“If he consent, I shall set up my altar, call my children around me and then! and then! No matter, he is a coward; he will never dare consent,”[79] she added. The mulatto here drew from his bosom a newspaper. Shading his eyes from the sun’s glare, he began searching for any item of news in the Boston paper that he had secured in Port au Prince, which might interest his terrifying auditor.

“Do you wish to know about the Yankee President and Congress?” he asked humbly, pausing as he turned the sheet of the newspaper.

“No! you ape, unless they mention our island,” replied the woman, her watchful eyes looking curiously at the printed paper that the man held.

“About the ships coming and going between the United States and Haiti?” he asked anxiously, as if fearing that he might miss something of importance to the black seeress.

“No! That is an old story; the accursed Yankees are ever coming and going, restless fools,” said the woman.

“Here is a long account of a grand wedding of a wealthy Haitien that has just taken place in Boston. He married the granddaughter and heiress of J. Dunlap, who is largely interested in our island,” remarked Manuel interrogatively.

“His name! fool, his name!” almost screamed the hag, springing to her feet with an agility fearful to contemplate in one so decrepit, suggesting supernatural power to the beholder. Manuel, with trembling lip, cried, as she fastened him in the shoulder with her claws:

Without changing, by even a line her fingers from the place where she had first fixed them in the flesh of the frightened man, she dragged him, bulky as he was, to his feet, and up the steep, pathless hillside with a celerity that was awful to the frightened mulatto.

A deep ravine cutting into the back of the hill formed a precipice. Along the face of the rocky wall thus formed a narrow, ill-defined footway ran, almost unsafe for a mountain goat. Nearly a thousand feet below, dark and forbidding in the gloom of jungle and spectral moss-festooned trees, roared the sullen mutterings of a mountain torrent.

When near the top of the hill, with a quick whirl the black crone darted aside and around the elbow of the hill, dragging Manuel along at[81] a furious pace, she dashed down the precipitous path with the swiftness and confidence of an Alpine chamois.

Half way down the cliff, a ledge of rock made scanty foundation for a hut of roughly hewn saplings, thatched with the palm plants of the ravine below. So scarce was room for the hovel that but one step was necessary to reach the brink of the declivity.

As the excited hag reached the aperture that served as the doorway of her den, a hideous, blear-eyed owl, who like an evil spirit kept watch and ward at the witch’s castle, gave forth a ghostly “Hoot! Hoot!” of welcome to his mistress. At the unexpected sound the mulatto’s quivering knees collapsed and he sank down, nearly rolling over the edge of the precipice.

Sybella seemed not to feel the weight of the prostrate man whom she still clutched and hauled into the dark interior of her lair.

Dropping the almost senseless man, she threw some resinous dry brush upon a fire that was smouldering in the center of the hut. As the flame shot up Manuel opened his eyes. With a[82] shriek he sprang to his feet, terror shaking his every limb as he stared about him.

Two giant rats were tugging at some bone, most human in shape; each trying to tear it from the teeth of the other, as squealing they circled around the fire. In corners toads blinked their bead-like eyes, while darting lizards flashed across the floor. Slowly crawling along between the unplastered logs of the walls snakes of many colors moved about or coiled in the thatch of the roof hung head downward and hissed as they waved their heads from side to side.

Along the wall a bark shelf stood. On it were two small skulls with handles made of cane. These ghastly vessels were filled with milk. Conch shells and utensils made of dried gourds were scattered on the shelf, among which a huge and ugly buzzard stalked about.

An immense red drum hung from a pole fixed in a crevice of the rock and by its side dangled a long and shining knife. A curtain of woven grass hanging at the rear of the hovel seemed to conceal the entrance to some cavern within the hill’s rock-ribbed breast.

When the blaze of the burning fagots cast a glow over the grewsome interior of this temple of Voo Doo, Sybella, the High Priestess, turned upon the cowering man, upon whose ashy-hued face stood great drops of ice-cold sweat, tearing from her head the scarlet turban that had hidden her bare, deathly skull, and beckoning him with her skeleton hand to approach, in guttural, hissing voice commanded:

“Say over what you told me on the hill! Say, if you dare, you dog, here in my lair where Tu Konk dwells, that my daughter’s grandson, the last of my blood, has mated with a white cow.”

Benumbed by the dazzling light that poured from the black pits in her naked, fleshless skull, the mulatto could not walk, but falling on his hands and knees he moved toward her; prostrate at her feet, overcome by fear, he whined faintly:

“Burton, Walter Burton, married a white woman in Boston the twentieth of last month.”

The hag grasping his ears drew his head up toward her face, and thrusting her terrible head forward she plunged her gaze like sword points down into the man’s very soul.

With a cry like that of a wounded wild-cat, she jumped back and throwing her skinny arms up in the air began waving them above her head, screaming:

In impotent rage she dug the sharp nails of her fingers into the skin of her bald head and tore long ridges across its smooth bare surface.

Manuel, limp, scarcely breathing, staggered to his feet. The hag held him by the bleeding ears that she had half torn from his head. Pushing him before her they passed behind the curtain suspended against the rock wall at the rear of the room.

The cave they entered was of small dimensions. It was illuminated by four large candles, which stood at each of the four corners of a baby’s cradle. This misplaced article occupied the center of the space walled in by the rocky sides of the apartment. The place otherwise was bare.

Sybella as soon as the curtain fell behind her began a monotonous chant. Moving slowly with shuffling side-long steps around the cradle, sang:

Manuel saw a black head thrust itself from below the cover, and rest upon the dainty pillow in the cradle. The head was covered by an infant’s lacy cap.

Sybella saw the head appear. Dashing under the curtain and seizing one of the skull-cups she returned and filled a nursing bottle that lay in the cradle.

The head covered with its cap of lace rose from the pillow. Sybella, on her knees, with[86] bowed head and adoring gestures, crept to the side of the cradle and extended the bottle. King of terrors! By all that is Horrible!

The nipple disappeared in the scarlet flaming mouth of an immense, fiery eyed, hissing black-snake. It was Tu Konk!

Chanting these words, the Voo Doo priestess struck her head repeatedly upon the hard surface of the floor of the cave. Blood ran down her face to mingle with the froth that dropped from her shriveled and distorted lips.

The mulatto with bursting, straining eye-balls and chattering teeth gasped for breath. The hideous grotesqueness of the scene had frozen the very life-blood in his veins. The vestments of an angel adorning a fiend! Paralyzed by fear,[87] with bulging eyes nearly popping from their sockets, the man stared at the horrible head surrounded by those trappings most closely associated with innocence.

Human nature could stand no more! With one frenzied shriek Manuel broke the spell that held him helpless. Tearing aside the curtain he leaped out of this Temple of Terrors; heedless of the danger of plunging over the precipice he raced along the treacherous path nor paused for breath until miles intervened between Tu Konk, Sybella and himself.

VI.

No social event of the season equalled the Burton-Dunlap wedding. For weeks prior to the date of the ceremony it had been the one all-engrossing theme of conversation with everybody; that is, everybody who was anybody, in the metropolis of the Old Bay State.

The immense settlement, the magnificent gifts, the exquisite trousseau from Paris, the surpassing beauty of the bride, the culture and accomplishments of the handsome groom, the exalted position of the Dunlap family, these formed the almost exclusive topics of Boston’s most exclusive set for many weeks before the wedding.

What a grand church wedding it was! The church was a perfect mass of flowers and plants of the rarest and most expensive kind. The music grandissimo beyond expression. A bishop assisted by two clergymen performed the ceremony.[89] The bride, a dream of loveliness in lace, satin and orange blossoms; the groom a model of grace and chivalry; the tiny maids, earth-born angels; the ushers Boston’s bluest blooded scions of the Pilgrim Fathers, and finally everybody who was anybody was there.

And the reception! The Dunlap mansion and grounds were resplendent in a blaze of light; the beauty, talent, wealth and great names of New England were gathered there to congratulate the happy bride, Dunlap’s heiress, and the fortunate groom.

“A most appropriate match! How fortunate for all concerned! How delightful for the two old gentlemen!” declared everybody who was anybody.

Four special policemen guarded the glittering array of almost priceless wedding presents; in the splendid refreshment room, brilliant in glittering glass and silver, Boston’s best and gentlest pledged the happy bride and groom in many a glass of rarest wine and wished long life and happiness to that charming, well-mated pair.

The bride, radiant in her glorious beauty, rejecting[90] as adornment for this occasion, diamond necklace and tiara, gifts of the groom, selected a simple coil of snowy pearls.

“The gift of my Cousin Jack,” she proudly said. “My earliest lover and most steadfast friend.”

The savings of years of sailor life had been expended ungrudgingly to lay this tribute of love on that fair bosom.

How well assured was the future of this fortunate couple! The prospect stretched before them like one long, joyous journey of uninterrupted bliss. Life’s pathway all lined with thornless roses beneath summer’s smiling sky.

Naught seemed lacking to make assurance of the future doubly sure. Youth, health, wealth, social position, culture, refinement, intelligence, amiability.

Soft strains of music floated on the perfumed air, bright eyes “spake love to eyes that spake again,” midst palms and in flower-garlanded recesses gentle voices whispered words of love to willing ears; in the center of this unalloyed blissfulness were Burton and his bride.

“Old bachelors are as excitable concerning marriage as old spinsters can possibly be. See Mr. John Dunlap, how flushed and nervous he seems! He hovers about the bride like an anxious mother!” So said two elderly grand-dames behind their fans while watching the group about Burton’s fair young wife.

Among that gay and gallant company moved one restless figure and peering face. David Chapman, leaving his sister, Miss Arabella, under the protecting care of Mrs. Church, lest during the confusion of so large a gathering, some daring cavalier, enamored of her maiden-charms, should elope with the guileless creature, mingled with the throng of guests, unobtrusive, but ever vigilant and watchful.

Chapman’s countenance bore an odd expression, a mixture of satisfied curiosity, vindictiveness and regret.

That very day a superannuated sailor who for years had served the house of Dunlap, and now acted as ship-keeper for vessels in its employ, called to report to the superintendent some trifling loss. Before leaving he asked respectfully, knuckling his forehead.

“Nothin’ ’cept I’ve often seen his mother and took notice of him here,” replied the man.

“Where did you see Mr. Burton’s mother? Who was she?” Chapman asked eagerly in his keen way.

“In Port au Prince, mor’n twenty-five year er’go. She was Ducros’, the sugar planter’s darter, and the puttiest quadroon I ever seen. Yea, the puttiest woman of any kind I ever seen,” answered the old ship-keeper in a reminiscent tone.

Chapman’s eyes fairly sparkled with pleasure as he thus secured a clew for future investigation, but without asking other questions he dismissed the retired seaman. It was this information that gave to his face that singular expression during the reception.

A private palace car stood on the track in the station waiting for the coming of the bridal party. Naught less than a special train could be considered when it was decided that Florida should be the favored spot where the wealthy[93] Haitien and his bride, the Dunlap heiress, would spend their honeymoon.

Soft and balmy are the breezes, that pouring through the open windows of the car, flood the interior with odors of pine cones and orange blooms, as Burton’s special train speeds through the Flower State of the Union.

The car is decked with the fresh and gorgeous blossoms of this snowless land; yet of all the fairest is that sweet bud that rests on Burton’s breast.

“Walter, how sweet is life when one loves and is beloved,” said Burton’s young wife dreamily, raising her head from his breast and gazing fondly into her husband’s eyes.

“Yes, love, life then is heaven on earth, sweet wife,” whispered the husband clasping closely the yielding figure in his arms.

“I am so happy, dearest Walter, I love you so dearly,” murmured Lucy clinging still closer to her lover.

“You will always love me thus, I hope, my darling,” said Walter, as he kissed the white forehead of his bride.

“Of course I shall, my own dear husband,” answered unhesitatingly the happy, trusting woman.

“Could nothing, no matter what, however unexpected and unforeseen, shake your faith in me, or take from me that love I hold so sacred and so dear?” asked Burton earnestly, pressing his wife to his heart.

“Nothing could alter my love for you, my husband,” answered Lucy quickly, as she raised her head and kissed him.

The special train slows up at a small station. Put on breaks! The whistle calls, and the train stops until the dispatcher can get a “clear track” message from the next station.

The crowd of negroes, male and female, large and small, stare with wondering admiration at the beautiful being who appears on the rear platform of the car accompanied by such a perfect Adonis of a man.

Lucy Burton was an object not likely to escape attention. Her full round form, slender, yet molded into most delicious curves, was shown to perfection by the tight-fitting traveling gown of[95] some kind of soft stuff that she wore; her happy, beautiful face, bright with the love-light in her hazel eyes, presented a picture calculated to cause even the most fastidious to stare. To the ignorant black people she was a revelation of loveliness.

As the negroes, in opened-mouthed wonder, came closer and clustered about the steps of the car, their great eyes wide and white, Lucy drew back a little and somewhat timidly slipped her hand into her husband’s, whispering:

“I am afraid of them, they are so black and shocking with their rolling eyes and thick lips.”

“Nonsense! sweetheart,” said Walter with a laugh not all together spontaneous.

“They are a merry, gentle folk, gay and good-natured; the Southern people would have no other nurses for their babies. I thought New England people had long since ceased to notice the color of mankind’s skin.”

“But, Walter, how horrid they are! We see so few of them in New England that they don’t seem like these. How dreadfully black and brutal they are. Let us go inside, I really am[96] afraid!” cried Lucy in a low voice and started to retreat.

At that moment a tall and very black woman who held a baby at her breast, negro-like, carried away by thoughtless good nature and admiration for the lovely stranger, raised her ink-colored picaninny, and in motherly pride thrust it forward until its little wooly black head almost touched Lucy’s bosom.

With one glance of loathing, terror and unconcealed horror at the object resting nearly on her breast, Lucy gave a scream of fear and fled. Throwing herself on one of the settees in the car she buried her face among the cushions and wept solely from fright and nervousness.

“Why! sweetheart, what is the matter? There is nothing to fear. Those poor people were only admiring you, my darling,” cried Burton hurrying to his young wife’s side and seeking to quiet her fears.

“I can’t help it, Walter, all those black faces crowded together near to me was awful, and that dreadful little black thing almost touched me,” sobbed Lucy nervously.

“Darling, the dreadful little black thing was only a harmless baby,” replied the husband soothingly.

“Baby!” cried the astonished young woman, lifting her head from the cushions and regarding her companion through her undried tears with doubt, as if suspecting him of joking. “I thought it was an ape or some hideous little imp! Baby!” and seeing that there was no joke about what her husband said, she added:

“I didn’t know negroes looked like that when babies. I would not touch that loathsome, horrid thing for worlds. It made my flesh fairly quiver to see it even near me.”

Walter Burton succeeded in allaying the alarm of his wife only after the train had resumed its rapid journey southward. When Lucy, lulled to sleep by the low music of the guitar which he played to distract her attention from the unpleasant recollection, no longer demanded his presence, Burton sought the smoking-room of the car and passed an hour in solemn, profound meditation, as he puffed continuously fragrant Havanas.

“I was wrong! She did not know. Now she[98] never shall if I can prevent it.” Such were the words of Lucy’s husband when throwing away his cigar he arose to rejoin his young wife.

Many hundred miles from flowery Florida across a watery way, a ship was wildly tossing upon an angry, sullen sea. For three days and nights with ceaseless toil, in constant danger, the weary crew had battled with howling winds and tempestuous waves.

A storm of awe-inspiring fury had burst upon the good ship “Adams,” of Boston, bound for Melbourne, on the night of December the nineteenth in that good year of our Lord.

The superb seamanship of the skipper, combined with the prompt alacrity of the willing crew, alone saved the ship from adding her broken frame to that countless multitude which rest beneath the waves.

The wind was still blowing a gale, but there was perceptibly less force in it, as shrieking it tore through the rigging and against the almost bare masts, than there had been in three days.

Two men stood in the cabin, enveloped in oil-skins,[99] with rubber boots reaching above their knees. Their eyes were red from wind and watching, while they answered the heave of the ship wearily as if worn out with the excessive labor of the last seventy-two hours. The men were the two mates of the “Adams.” The captain had sent them below for a glass of grog and a biscuit. There had been no fire in the galley for the three days that the storm had beaten upon the ship.

“The skipper must be made of iron,” said the shorter man, Morgan, the second officer.

“He has hardly left the deck a minute since the squall struck us, and he is as quick and strong as a shark,” he continued, munching on the biscuit and balancing himself carefully as he raised his glass of grog.

“Sailed with Captain Dunlap in the ‘Lucy,’ and no better master ever trod a quarter-deck,” added Mr. Brice, the first officer of the “Adams.”

“He surely knows his business and handles the ship with the ease a Chinaman does his chopsticks,[100] but he’s the surliest, most silent skipper I ever sailed with. You told us, Mr. Brice, when you came aboard that he was the jolliest; was he like this when you were with him on the ‘Lucy’?” said the second mate inquiringly.

“Somethin’ went wrong with him ashore,” adding angrily as he turned and glared at his young companion:

“But ’tis none of your blamed business or mine neither what’s up with the skipper; you didn’t ship for society, did you?”

“That’s right enough, Mr. Brice, but I tell you what ’tis, the men think the captain a little out of trim in the sky-sail. They say he walks about ship at night like a ghost and does queer things. Second day of the storm, the twentieth, in the evening, while it was blowing great guns and ship pitching like she’d stick her nose under forever, I was standin’ by to help Collins at the wheel; we see the skipper come staggering along aft balancing himself careful as a rope walker an a holdin’ a glass of wine in his hand. When[101] he gets to the rail at the stern he holds up high the glass and talks to wind, Davy Jones or somethin’, drinks the wine and hurls the glass to hell and gone into the sea. How’s that, mate? Collins looks at me and shakes his head, and I feels creepy myself.”

For a minute Brice, with red and angry eyes, stared at the second mate, then he burst out in a roar:

“I’ll knock the head off ’er Collins, and marlin spike the rest ’er the bloomin’ sea lawyers in the for’castle if I catch them talkin’ erbout the skipper, and I tell you, Mr. Second Mate, you keep your mouth well shut or you’ll get such ’er keel haulin’ you won’t fergit. Captain Dunlap is no man to projec’k with and he’s mighty rough in er shindy.”

With that closing admonition the first officer turned and climbed the reeling stairs that led to the deck. As he emerged from the companion-way a great wave struck the side of ship heeling her over and hurling the mate against the man who had formed the topic of discussion in the cabin below.

The skipper was wet to the skin; he had thrown aside his oil-skins to enable him to move more nimbly, his face was worn, drawn and almost of leaden hue. Deep lines and the dark circles around his eyes told a story of loss of sleep, fatigue and anxiety. How much of this was due to an aching pain in the heart only Him to whom all things are revealed could know.

Morgan’s story was true. He had described when, how and under what conditions Jack had pledged Lucy in a glass of wine on her wedding day, praying God to send blessings and happiness to his lost love.

Sing sweet mocking birds! Shine genial sun! Bloom fairest flowers of Sunny Florida! Bliss be thine, loved Lucy! Dream not of the ocean’s angry roar! The tempest’s cruel blast!

VII.

“I really can hardly realize, grandfather, that I have been married one year and that today is the anniversary of my wedding,” exclaimed Mrs. Walter Burton to her grandfather, as lingering over a late breakfast, they chatted in a desultory manner on many subjects.

The breakfast-room of the Dunlap mansion was one of the prettiest apartments in the house; bright and airy, with great windows reaching from ceiling to floor, which flooded the place with sunshine and cheerfulness this brilliant snowy New England morning.

Surely it had been difficult to find anything prettier than the young matron who presided over the sparkling service with the grace of the school-girl still visible notwithstanding the recently assumed dignity of wife.

Lucy Burton’s face and form possessed that[104] rare quality of seeming always displayed to best advantage in the last costume she wore. Nothing could be more becoming than the lace-trimmed breakfast gown of a clinging silky, pink fabric worn by her this morning.

The tete-a-tete between grandfather and granddaughter each morning over the breakfast-table was an established and, to both, a cherished custom that had grown up since Lucy’s marriage.

Mr. James Dunlap carried his seventy-three years as lightly as many men of less rugged constitutions carry fifty. His was a fresh, healthy, kindly old face, the white hair resting like the snow on some Alpine peak served but to heighten the charm of those goodly features below.

“A year to young people means very little, I judge, daughter, but we old folk regard it differently. You have been away from me during the last year so much that old man as I am, the time has dragged,” the grandfather replied laying aside his morning paper and adjusting his glasses that he might see better the pretty face across the table.

“Now, that I look at you, my dear, apparently you have not aged to any alarming extent since you have become a matron,” jocosely added the old gentleman, his eyes beaming lovingly on his granddaughter.

“I may not show it, still I have my troubles.” Lucy’s attempt to wrinkle her smooth brow and draw down the corners of her sweet mouth while she tried to muster up a sigh was so ridiculous that her companion began to laugh.

“Don’t laugh at me, grandfather; it’s unkind,” cried Lucy, with the childish manner that still crept out when alone with him who had been both father and mother to her.

“Very well, deary, I shall not laugh. Tell me of those dire troubles that afflict you,” rejoined her still smiling grandfather.

“Well! now there is Walter, obliged to run away so early to that horrid old office that I never see him at the breakfast-table,” began the young creature with pretty pettishness.

“Sad! indeed sad!” said Mr. Dunlap in affected sorrow. “A gay young couple attend some social function or the theatre nightly and[106] are up late; the unfortunate young husband is obliged to be at his office at ten o’clock in the morning to save an old man of seventy odd from routine labor; the young wife who is fond of a morning nap must breakfast alone, save the companionship of an old fogy of a grandfather; ’tis the saddest situation I ever heard of.”

The laughter in the old gentleman’s throat gurgled like good wine poured for welcome guest as Lucy puckered up her lips at him.

“Then that hateful old ‘Eyrie.’ When we were married and you insisted that we should live here with you, which, of course, I expected to do, I thought Walter would sell or lease that lonely bachelor den of his, but he has done no such thing; says he keeps up the establishment for the sake of the conservatory, which is the finest in the State,” proceeded the wife ruefully recounting her alleged woes.

“Walter speaks truly concerning the conservatory at the ‘Eyrie.’ Mr. Foster Agnew, who is authority on the subject, says that he has never seen a finer collection of rare and beautiful plants and flowers in any private conservatory in this[107] country,” replied Mr. Dunlap in defense of Burton’s action in maintaining his former home.

“Yes, but there is no reason for Walter’s running up there at all hours of the night, and sometimes even staying there all night, telling me that he is anxious about the temperature; that Leopold may fall asleep or neglect something. I hate that miserable conservatory,” rejoined Lucy with flushed face and flashing eyes.

“Oh! Pshaw! you exacting little witch! You are fearfully neglected by reason of the ‘Eyrie’s’ conservatory, are you? Now, let me see. You were in Florida and California two months of the last year, and in Europe four more, leaving just six months that you have spent in Boston since your marriage. I suppose Walter has spent a half dozen nights at the ‘Eyrie.’ Great tribulation and trial,” rejoined the amused grandfather.

“Well, but Walter knows I don’t like his going there at night. Something might happen to him,” persisted Lucy, woman-like seizing any argument to gain her point.

“Lucy passed her soft, white arm around her grandfather’s neck.”

Page 108

“As Princess Lucy does not like it, she thinks that should be a sufficient reason for the visits[108] to the ‘Eyrie’ at night to cease. Being accustomed to that humble and abject obedience rendered to her slightest wish by the old slaves John and James, and the young slave, Jack Dunlap. Is that it, Princess?” said the old gentleman making a mocking salaam to ‘Her Highness’ as he sometimes called his pretty vis-a-vis.

“Stop making fun of me, grandfather; I think you are really unkind. I never made slaves of you and Uncle John and good old Jack. Did I now?”

Lucy Burton surely was a beauty. Small wonder that the Dunlap men, old and young, loved her long before Walter Burton came to win her. She looked so pretty as she asked the last question that her grandfather held out his hands and said:

“Come here, my dear, and kiss me. I forgive you if you have been an exacting ruler.” When Lucy settled herself on the arm of his chair as some graceful bird of gay plumage perches itself on a twig, the fine old face was filled with tenderness and love as he kissed her.

Lucy passed her soft white arm around her[109] grandfather’s neck, and resting her dimpled cheek on his snowy head, she said seriously:

“That is not all of my reason for disliking the ‘Eyrie.’ You know, grandfather, I should not discuss my husband with any one other than yourself, so this is a secret; I have noticed that whenever Walter makes an all-night visit to the ‘Eyrie’ that the trip is preceded by an outburst of unusual hilarity on his part; in fact, on such occasions I am almost annoyed by something nearly undignified in Walter’s demeanor; he seems as thoughtless as a child, says and does things that are ridiculous and silly.”

“Tut, tut, child, you have a very vivid imagination, and are so anxious for everyone to regard your husband with the exaggerated admiration that you have for him, that you are allowing yourself to become hypercritic, my pet,” rejoined Mr. Dunlap reassuringly.

“No, grandfather, you are mistaken. I not alone notice something peculiar about Walter’s periodical outbursts of unseemly mirth; I see others regard with surprise this departure from his customary reposeful dignity,” insisted the[110] young wife earnestly with a note of indignation in her voice when speaking of others observing any thing strange in the conduct of her husband.

“Oh! nonsense, Lucy, all young men occasionally cast aside dignity. In the fullness of youth and vigor they become now and again fairly exuberant with happiness and forget all about the conventionalities of society. I have seen nothing about Walter in that particular different from other young men. Don’t make yourself wretched over nothing, little girl.”

“Possibly I observe my husband with more attention than anyone else, even than you, grandfather, for I certainly perceive a great differentiation between Walter’s spasmodic mirth and similar exhibitions by other men. Walter seems different in many ways that mystify me. On every occasion that he remains all night at the ‘Eyrie,’ after a display of this extraordinary and boyish merriment, he returns home the next day with broad dark circles around his eyes, and is in a most depressed state of spirits,” said the young wife, with real anxiety revealed in the tone of her voice.

“Well, really, daughter, if you are anxious concerning what you say, I shall observe Walter more closely. He may be over exerting himself by the late hours that he keeps in your company, and the detail work that he has taken off my hands. However, just as a venture, I will wager a box of gloves against a kiss, deary, that Walter does not appear in the condition you have described this evening, notwithstanding that he passed last night at the ‘Eyrie’ and was markedly mirthful during last evening,” said Lucy’s grandfather, passing his arm around her slim waist and drawing his anxious girl to his heart.

“I am glad you mentioned last evening, for I wish to speak of something I noticed during the serving of dinner and afterward. Who was that old gentleman whom you introduced as Professor Charlton?” said the young woman interrogatively.

“Oh, that is my old friend and fellow classmate when we were at Harvard. He is a Georgian and is Dean of the Georgia University and one of the most learned ethnologists in the world. He is here to consult with Professor Wright of Harvard[112] concerning a forthcoming book on which Charlton has been engaged for years. Now, that I have answered fully, why were you curious about that old book-worm and chum of mine, my pretty inquisitor?”

“Simply because he seemed perfectly fascinated by my husband. He appeared unable to remove his gaze from him even when addressed by you or any one else. He would peer at him over his glasses, then raise his head and inspect Walter through them just as botanists do when they come upon some rare plant.”

“By Jove! What next will that brown head of yours conjure up to worry over? Are you jealous of old Charlton’s admiring glances? If he were a pretty woman I might understand, but old Cobb Charlton. Well! I am prepared for anything, my pet, so go ahead. What about those glances seen by your watchful eyes?” said her grandfather, chuckling over some farcical suggestion in connection with old Professor Thos. Cobb Charlton.

“Yes, but they were not admiring glances, and I didn’t say so. They were studious, scrutinizing,[113] investigating, and I thought, insulting,” indignantly replied Lucy.

“Ah! Now we are called upon to criticise the quality and kind of glance with which an old student may regard a gay young fellow who is rattling gleefully through a somewhat tedious dinner,” said Mr. Dunlap in an amused manner.

“You may laugh at me, grandfather, as much as you please, but Walter was made so nervous and uncomfortable by that old fellow’s disconcerting scrutiny that he acted almost silly. I have never seen him quite so ridiculously merry. That old Professor squinted even at Walter’s hands, as if he wished for a microscope to examine them, and after dinner while Walter was singing he edged up near the piano and peered down Walter’s throat, listening intently as if to catch some peculiar note for which he was waiting, all the time with his old head on one side like an ugly owl,” said the exasperated young woman.

Lucy’s description of his old college friend and her manner of setting forth his idiosyncracies was too much for James Dunlap’s risibility.[114] He threw back his head and incontinently laughed in his granddaughter’s pretty flushed face.

“Oh! my, Oh! my! How old Cobb would enjoy this! My dearest, old Cobb Charlton is the jolliest, most amiable fellow on earth. He would not wound the sensibilities of a street-dog, and is one of the best bred gentlemen alive. Oh! my, Lucy! You’ll be the death of me yet with your whimsical notions,” cried the fine old fellow leaning back in his chair, shaking with laughter.

“Well, I don’t care; it is just as I said, for finally, he seemed to discover something about Walter for which he had been seeking. I saw a self-satisfied smile steal over his face as he nodded his bushy white head. Then he stared at you as if amazed, and then, if I be not blind and I don’t think that I am, he had the impertinence to look at me with, actually, pity in his big, staring black eyes,” retorted Lucy angrily as she recalled the events of the previous evening.

“Imagination, pure and simple!” exclaimed Mr. Dunlap, continuing to laugh, enjoying hugely Lucy’s anger.

“Charlton was possibly thinking about something connected with his favorite science and probably did not even see us while apparently he was casting about those peculiar glances that you depict so vividly.”

“Even so, I think it ill-bred and unkind in him to make my husband the subject of a study in ethnology.”

“Ah!” gasped her grandfather, as though a sudden pain had struck his heart. Some new idea had flashed upon his brain, the laughter vanished from lips and the color from his face. He straightened up in his chair while a look of anxiety replaced the merriment that had sparkled in his eyes.

“Why, what is the matter, grandfather?” cried Lucy in undisguised alarm at the change in his countenance.

“Nothing, my darling, it will pass away. Please hand me a glass of water,” the old man answered.

Lucy hastened to fill a glass with water and while she was so engaged Mr. Dunlap struggled to master some emotion that had caused the sudden[116] departure of all his jocoseness of the moment before she said that her husband had been made a subject of a study in ethnology.

“I am better now, thank you, dear; it was just a little twinge of pain that caught me unaware of its approach,” said the old gentleman forcing a smile to his pale lips.

“And now let us talk about your Cousin Jack, and leave alone the vagaries of a moth-eaten old scholar whom you will probably never see again,” he continued, as if eager to banish some disagreeable thought from his mind.

“Oh, yes! Do tell me some news of dear old Jack. His very name seems to bring the purity, freshness and freedom of the sea into this hot-house life one leads in society. Where is he and how is he?” cried Lucy enthusiastically at mention of the name of her sailor cousin.

“You recall, do you not, the brief mention that he made in the first letter that we received after he sailed of a fearful storm encountered by his ship when not less than a month out from Boston, and that his ship (so he wrote) had been fortunate enough to rescue some people from a[117] foundered and sinking vessel during the gale?” asked Mr. Dunlap regaining gradually his composure as his mind dwelt upon a subject pleasant to contemplate.

“Yes, surely, I remember, grandfather, because the storm, I recall, was at its height on my wedding day and I wondered at the time if in all that fearful danger Jack even thought of me.”

“Well, then! to begin with I must let you into a state secret. Your good Uncle John the day before Jack sailed insisted that he should carry old Brice, who had been long in our service, as one of his mates. John’s object was this: knowing Jack’s pride and obstinacy, he feared that he might need help and not apply to us for it, so he sent for Brice and bribed him to stick by our young kinsman and keep us informed concerning his welfare. We have had only glowing accounts of Jack’s success as a ship-owner from Brice. Yesterday there came a letter and a copy of a London paper from him that filled my heart with pride and pleasure, and I know will overjoy your uncle.

“Do hurry, grandfather. I can’t wait long to[118] hear fine things about my good, faithful old Jack,” exclaimed Lucy impatiently, as she resumed her place on the arm of the old man’s chair.

“This is what the report in the London newspaper states, and is what neither Jack nor Brice wrote home. The ship that foundered was filled with emigrants from Ireland bound for Australia. The fourth day of the storm she was sighted by the ‘Adams.’ While the wind had subsided somewhat the waves were still rolling mountain high. When Jack called for volunteers to man the boats the crew hung in the wind, until Jack, noticing the women and children on the deck of the sinking ship, called to Brice to come with him, and pushing aside the reluctant crew made ready to spring into a boat which had been lowered. Then the shamed crew rushed over the side and insisted that the captain allow them to make the attempt to rescue the people from the wrecked vessel. With the last boat-load of the emigrants that came safely on board of the ‘Adams’ was a little girl who, weeping bitterly, cried that her sick mother had been left behind. The sailors and Mr. Morgan, the second[119] mate of the ‘Adams,’ said that the child’s mother was nearly dead, lying in a bunk in the sick-bay, and that she had smallpox and no one dared lift and carry her to the boat.”

“What an awful position! What did Jack say?” cried Lucy, breaking the thread of her grandfather’s narrative.

“Jack did not say much, but he did that that makes me proud to call him my kinsman, a Dunlap and a Yankee sailor. He whispered to the child not to cry any more, that she should have her mother brought to her. Then he leaped into the boat and was shoving off to make the trip alone to the wreck when old Brice tumbled over the ship’s side and took his place at an oar. Jack brought the woman in his arms from the sick-bay and laid her in the boat, regaining his own ship, he made the smallpox patient comfortable in his own cabin, nursed her himself and saved her life,” said Mr. Dunlap exultantly, relating the report of the rescue as published in the English journal.

“Hurrah! for our noble Jack!” cried Lucy, springing up and waving about her head a napkin that lay upon the table.

“But hear the end, daughter, in recognition of the humanity of the generous deed, the Royal Humane Society of England has presented both Jack and Brice with medals, and as an extraordinary mark of distinction, the King of England has, with his own hand, written a letter to our Jack, congratulating him upon the performance of a noble, unselfish and courageous act,” added the grandfather.

“Three times three! for brave Jack Dunlap! Hurrah, for the blood of a good old Yankee race that tells its story in noble deeds,” and waving the improvised banner above her fair head she bent down and kissed the glowing cheek of the proud old man.

“Run along now, dear, and dress. You may take me for a sleigh-ride behind your fast ponies before I go down to the office.”

As Lucy went upstairs, there came floating back to her grandfather’s ears her fresh, musical voice singing:

VIII.

Early in the morning after Mr. Dunlap’s dinner-party in honor of Professor Charlton, when the newly risen sun had made a dazzling field of glittering diamonds of the snow that lay white and spotless about the ‘Eyrie,’ Walter Burton threw up the sash of one of the long, low windows in his sitting-room and stepped out on the balcony.

With a sigh of relief he drank in deep draughts of the fresh, crisp air, and exclaimed as he shaded his eyes:

“What a blessing is fresh air and sunlight after the closeness of the house and gas-light.”

The man’s face was haggard and drawn like one who has passed a night of vigil and suffering. His eyes were surrounded by bands of black that gave to them a hollow appearance.

“How utterly idiotic and inexplicable seems my mood and conduct of last night out here in[122] the sunshine, now that I am my natural self once more.”

Burton walked down from the balcony on the crackling snow that lay dry and sparkling on the lawn in front of the house. After a few moments spent in the exercise of pacing about and swinging his arms, he returned to his sitting-room refreshed and apparently restored to his usual condition of mind.

All around the room that he entered were scattered promiscuously, musical instruments, books, cushions, flowers and fragments of a late supper, all in that confusion that could not fail to impress the beholder with the idea that the room had been recently the scene of reckless orgies. Pillows heaped upon a sofa still bore the imprint of some one’s head, and was evidently the couch from which the young man had risen when he went forth into God’s bright sunlight.

With supreme disgust depicted on his aesthetic countenance, Walter Burton gazed at the evidence of his nocturnal revel while in that state of mind he had named idiotic.

“These sporadic spells of silliness which come[123] over my spirit are as revolting to me, when relieved from their influences, as is incomprehensible the cause of their coming,” muttered Burton, kicking aside the various articles that littered the floor.

“What earthly reason could there be for the peculiar effect produced upon me by the scrutiny of that old professor from the South? There exists nothing natural to account for the strange sensation caused by the penetrating gaze of that old Southerner.

“The cause must be sought in the sphere of the supernatural, a province wherein reason, education and culture protest against my wandering.” Pausing the young man strove to recall the scenes and sensations of the previous night, but in vain.

“It is useless for me to struggle to bring back the vanished state of feeling that possessed me last evening. It refuses to pass before the spectrum of my mind.

“It is ever thus while the normal condition of my mental faculties exists. I always fail to catch the fleeting shadow of that distorting spectre that[124] haunts my spirit with its degrading, masterful influence.

“Could I but hold that sensation that steals upon me, while my mental powers are yet unimpaired by its presence, I might make a diagnosis of the disease, analyze the cause and produce the remedy, but my attempts are always futile. I fail to reproduce the feeling that was all-pervading a few short hours before the current of my mind returned to its accustomed channel.”

The helplessness and baffled look upon the man’s face as he ended this self-communion was piteous. Throwing himself into a chair and covering his face with his hands, he cried almost with a moan:

“To what depth of degradation, brutality and crime may I not be carried while actuated by a power foreign and antagonistic to all that Christianity, morality and education have imparted to me?”

“My God! How I had hoped that time and marriage would cause a diminution in the power of these strange spells and the frequency of their[125] visits, until, at last, I might be freed from a thralldom repugnant to all my better self.”

“Vain that hoped for release! Rather do the mysterious visitations increase in frequency, and alas! also in power.”

“Like insidious waves that sap and undermine the foundation of some massive granite cliff, the delusive tide recedes but to return, each succeeding visit adding to the inroad already made. Though small may be the gain, they never once relax their firm grip upon the headway won before, until the toppling mass comes crashing from its majestic height, vanquished by and victim of unremitting insidiousness.”

“So I find with each recurrence of the tide of the strange spell that submerges me. That granite cliff of Christianity whereon I builded my castle of morality, that bastion of education, those redoubts of refinement, culture, aesthetics, deemed by me as creating an impregnable fortress wherein by the aid of civilization I should find secure shelter, are trembling and toppling, undermined by the waves of that inexplicable, relentless influence.”

“Each attack finds me weaker to resist, each advance carries me further from my fortress; I feel my defense falling; I am drawing nearer to the brink; shall I fall? Shall I go crashing down, dragged from my high estate by some fiendish tendency as inexorable as it is degrading?”

“As yet I am enabled to resist beyond the point of insensate silliness and folly, but each returning shock is accompanied by ever stronger suggestion of immorality, brutality and crime. Shall I be strong enough always to repulse this tireless current of assault? Shall I finally succumb and fall to the level of the barbarian and the beast? Soul harrowing thought!”

“The insane or drink frenzied man is unconscious of his acts, but such is not my miserable fate, while held in bondage by that unknown power I appreciate the absurdity of my every act. I still am I, but powerless to control myself, I catch the look of wonder that fills the eyes of others. I feel the shame, but am powerless to remove the cause.”

“And, oh! the horror of seeing and recognizing[127] a look of rebuke and repulsion in the eyes of those I love and those who love me. To see the smile of pride vanish and the blush of mortification succeed it on the face of that being of all the world to me the dearest and fairest.”

“Last night in my dear Lucy’s eyes I read reproof, rebuke, and on her cheeks I saw the red flag of shame. Cognizant of the cause, I, like a leaf upon the current of some mighty cataract, helpless, rushed along in humiliation and self-disgust. I beat against the stream with all my remaining strength of mind; I struggled to regain the shore of my accustomed dignity, but all in vain.”

“I was carried on and on, until plunging over the brink of the fall I struck the bottom where lie those self-respect destroying rocks of disgrace. In ignominy I fled and sought refuge here; ceasing my unavailing efforts to break the chain that held me I gave free rein to the influences that governed my mood.”

“Wild and ribald songs burst from my lips, hilarious and lascivious music poured from the instruments that I touched, movements, rythmic[128] but novel, fantastic, barbarous, jerked my limbs about in the measure of some savage dance. I ate and drank more as an untutored tribesman of the jungle than a civilized citizen of our cultured country.”

“All unrestrained and unopposed that mystifying mood bore me on recklessly, abandoned, until it swept me to the very verge of wickedness and sin. On the extremist edge of that precipice, below which lies the gulf of infamy, I found strength to grasp and hold the feeble tendrils of that higher estate that still clung around me; in every fiber of my being there surged Satanic suggestions to relinquish my hold upon the fragile stay to which I desperately clung, and take the plunge into that dark gulf below.”

“Go where base associates await you! Where lewdness, lasciviousness, brutality, beastliness and licensed libidinousness lead to savage satiety that ends in blood. These were the suggestive words whispered to me by that fiendish spirit of these strange spells. They vibrated through every nerve and vein of my racked and straining being.”

“Thank God! I still had power of soul sufficient to resist, but Lord! how long shall I be enabled to avert that which is seemingly my doom?”

Burton arose and for several minutes walked about the apartment with agitated, nervous tread. Passing before a long mirror that stood between the windows, he stopped suddenly before it, gazed intently at his image reflected there, and cried out:

“The reflection there tells me that I appear to be as other men around me. In stature and features I seem not essentially at variance with the average man I meet, perhaps I am even more comely. What then is it that caused me to fall shamefaced, embarrassed and simpering like a silly school boy, before the scrutiny of that old scholar last night?”

“I hold the Christian faith; I possess more than the ordinary degree of education common in this country; I have acquired proficiency in many accomplishments; I bear the impress of the culture and refinement of this most enlightened century, and yet! and yet!”

“The searching, piercing glance of that old scientist seemed to penetrate some concealing veil and tearing it aside revealed me in my very nakedness; I seemed to stand forth an exposed impostor; I felt myself a self-confessed charlatan, caught in the very act of masquerading in the stolen trappings of my superiors; I became the buffoon in borrowed gown and cap of the philosopher, an object of ridicule and wrath.”

“Before those deep seeing eyes I was no longer self-assured; convicted of mimicking manners foreign to myself, I seemed to cast aside the unavailing, purloined mask and mummery and thus reveal myself a fraud. Seeking safety from the scorn and just resentment of the defrauded I took refuge in pitiful imbecility and silliness.”

“Once before the same experience was mine. In Paris, at the American Ambassador’s reception I met the Liberian minister. As soon as the gigantic black man fastened his gaze upon me, I became disconcerted. When we clasped hands all the feeling of superiority that education gives departed from me, all the refined sentiments created by culture vanished, I could only simper[131] and chuckle like a child over senseless jokes as did the negro giant beside me.”

“On that occasion, fearing to shock and disgust my bride, I stole like a thief from her side and feigning sudden illness begged a friend to take my place as escort of my wife, while as one bereft of reason I raced along the boulevards and buried myself beneath the dark shade of the trees in the Bois de Boulogne, where, capering and shouting madly I danced until, exhausted, I fell to the ground.”

As Burton stood regarding his image reflected in the mirror, he became suddenly aware of how wan and worn was the face before him and turning wearily away he exclaimed,

“I must throw aside these wretched recollections and forebodings. I look absolutely ill. I shall be in no condition to appear either at the office or at my home unless I succeed in obliterating some of the evidences of my suffering last night.”

When, by a mighty effort, he had acquired sufficient control of his nerves and voice as not to attract the attention of his valet, he rang the bell.

“Victor, prepare my bath, lay out some linen and a proper suit of clothing. Order my breakfast served as soon as I ring, open the windows and let fresh air into the room when I leave it,” said Burton to his attendant, when the valet appeared in answer to his master’s summons.

A refreshing bath, a liberal indulgence in strong, black coffee, assisted by the will power of the man enabled Burton to enter the office of “J. Dunlap” almost entirely restored to his customary appearance.

The Manager had just finished examining the reports submitted by the heads of the various departments of the great Shipping and Banking house when the door of his office opened and the Superintendent entered.

David Chapman looked even more hawk-like, hungry and eager than when he had stood one year before in the same place.

“Beg pardon, Mr. Burton, but I thought you might wish to be informed of the fact that under instructions from Mr. Dunlap, I am forwarding by the steamer that leaves today for Hong Kong, a package and some letters that Mr. Dunlap gave[133] me to send to Captain Jack Dunlap. The package contains, I believe, a testimonial of Mr. Dunlap’s admiration for the noble conduct of his kinsman in connection with the rescue from the wreck of that emigrant ship. As I am availing myself of the opportunity to communicate my own opinion concerning Captain Jack’s action, I thought it not improbable that you would wish to send some message,” said the Superintendent, peering stealthily at Burton as he spoke.

“I thank you, Chapman, most heartily for letting me know this,” cried Burton warmly.

“How much time may I have to prepare a letter and package to accompany yours and Mr. Dunlap’s?”

“Mr. Dunlap told me to hold the package until he arrived at the office as it was likely that his granddaughter would wish to place some communication for her cousin with his.”

“And I am sure she will! My wife’s admiration for her cousin Jack is unbounded. I will hasten to prepare my contribution to the congratulations sent to Captain Jack. He is a magnificent man and I am proud to be connected in any way with such a noble character.”

“You are right, sir. Jack Dunlap is a brave, true man and comes of a brave, true race. His actions prove that blood will tell,” rejoined Chapman with more enthusiasm than it seemed possible for one of his disposition to exhibit.

“Oh! Pshaw! Nonsense! I give Jack greater credit for his courage and faithfulness than you do when you announce the absurd doctrine that men inherit such qualities. I give him alone credit for what he is, not his race or blood. Blood may be well enough in hounds and horses, but education and culture make the man not the blood in his veins,” exclaimed Burton impatiently.

“The same reason that exists for the superiority of the well-bred horse or dog, causes the man of a good race to be the superior of the man of an inferior race,” said Chapman meaningly, with an almost imperceptible sneer in the tone of his voice.

“That argument might hold good provided that men like horses carried jockeys to furnish the intelligence or like hounds had huntsmen to guide them,” replied the Manager with more heat than seemed justified.

“Give a mule the most astute jockey on earth and he is no match for the thorough-bred horse. Give the mongrel cur the craftiest huntsman, he can neither find nor hold as the hound of pure blood. Give the man of inferior race every advantage that education and culture can furnish, he still remains inferior to the man of the purer, better race and blood. The superiority of the latter lies in the inherent qualities of his race,” replied Chapman, while a sinister smile distorted his thin scarlet lips, and a baleful light flashed from his black eyes. For a moment he waited to see the effect of his last speech, then turned and glided from the Manager’s office.

IX.

Arabella Chapman was the neatest of housekeepers. The sitting room of the home of David Chapman was a pattern of tidiness and cleanliness, the furniture was rubbed and polished until it shone like glass, every picture, rug and curtain was as speckless as newly fallen snow.

Miss Arabella seemed especially created to form the central figure of her surroundings, as seated on a low rocking chair, she plied a neat little needle on some nice little article of lace-work.

No tiny, tidy wren was ever brighter and more chipper in its shining little brass cage than was Miss Arabella, as, bird-like, she peeped at her brother, when he drew the cover from the violoncello which stood in one corner of the room.

“I am glad to see that you intend passing the evening at home, David,” piped up the ancient maiden.

“It has really been so long since we had any music that I am delighted to see you uncover your violoncello,” continued the twin sister of David Chapman.

“Well, Arabella, the fact is that in my many excursions during the last year I have collected such a quantity of food for thought, that, like a well filled camel I feel it necessary to pause and chew the cud awhile,” replied David arranging some sheets of music on a stand and passing his hand lovingly over the chords of the instrument that he held.

“I must admit that I should prefer to remain hungry mentally forever if to procure food for thought it were necessary to don the apparel of a tramp, and prowl around at all hours of the night, seeking, doubtless, in the vilest dens, among the lowest vagabonds for mental sustenance,” chirped Arabella sharply, prodding her needlework spitefully.

“Perhaps, my good sister, you will never quite understand that some men are born investigators. By nature they are led to investigate any phenomenon that presents itself.”

“Then I insist that it is a most unfortunate thing for one so born,” pecked Miss Arabella with the sharpness of a quarrelsome English sparrow.

“It causes one to make a Paul Pry of himself and wander about in a very questionable manner at unseemly hours, to the injury of both health and reputation. When one of your age, David, is so endowed by nature it is a positive misfortune.”

Chapman appeared greatly amused by the irritated manner of his sister, for he smiled in that ghastly way of his as he leaned back in his chair, still with his violoncello resting between his legs, and said,

“You see, Arabella, there may be a great difference in the way we regard the affairs of life. Doubtless scientific researches may not afford much pleasure to a spinster of your age, but such researches are very attractive to me.”

“All I can add to the opinion already expressed is that when your so-called scientific researches not alone lead you to assume the character of an outcast, and cause you to wander about at night[139] like a homeless cat, but also induce you to make our home a receptacle for all the stray, vulgar, dirty negroes that happen to come to Boston, I must certainly protest against indulgence in such researches by you,” retorted the elderly maiden severely, as she cast her glances about her immaculately clean apartment, and remembered some disagreeable event of the last few months.

David was highly amused by this speech, for he gave utterance to a cackling kind of laugh and exclaimed,

“Arabella, you’ll never get to heaven if the road be muddy. You will be fearful of getting your skirts soiled. I shall be right sorry for your soul if the path to the other place be clean. I fear in that event that nothing could hold you back from going straight to Hades.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, David. You know full well that I am no more particular about tidiness than every other decent woman.”

“I insist,” continued Miss Arabella indignantly, “that when one indulges a fad to the[140] extent of disarranging an entire household, under the pretense that it is part of a scientific research, it is time to protest against such proceedings.”

“Oh, I don’t imagine that the entire household has seriously suffered by my investigations in the field of ethnology,” replied the brother still enjoying his sister’s perturbation of mind as she recalled some recent experiences.

“It may be highly amusing to you, David. I hope that you enjoy the joke, but it has been anything but amusing to me and to Bridget, having to clean, rub and air every article of furniture in the house two or three times each week, and it is no laughing matter to freeze while the cold wind blows the disgusting odors left by your guest out of the rooms. Bridget has notified me that she will leave if you continue to make a hostelry for dirty darkies out of the house,” said the sister fairly shivering at the remembrance of the condition in which she had found her spotless premises after a visit of some of her brother’s newly found associates.

“I don’t think that I am the only member of this family that has a hobby, Arabella,” replied[141] Chapman grinning at the flushed little lady.

“I am unaware of what you refer to, David. I certainly have no such uncomfortable idiosyncrasy as a hard ridden hobby.”

“Don’t you think even cleanliness may become a most pestiferous hobby?” queried Chapman with assumed guilelessness.

“Cleanliness and tidiness are but other words for common decency, and can never be classed with the vagaries of a ‘born investigator,’” said the spinster sarcastically, sticking her dictum into her needlework, savagely.

“You doubtless have heard, Arabella, of the woman who possessed so much of what you call ‘common decency’ that she forced her family to live in the barn in order that the dwelling might remain clean and tidy,” answered Chapman, to whom the wrath of Arabella was the greatest pleasure imaginable.

“I only wish that we had a barn. I would soon enough force you to entertain your negro visitors there instead of bringing their odoriferous persons and filthy accompaniments into this house,” cried the sister vindictively.

“When I became interested in the science of ethnology, I deemed it expedient to begin by studying the negro race, their habits, characteristics, manners and tendencies. Being a man born and bred in a northern state I have never had the opportunities possessed by southerners, who are surrounded by negroes from infancy, to know the traits of that most interesting race. Hence I have been forced, on behalf of science, to go forth and gather such material as was obtainable for subjects of study and observation.”

“David, don’t be hypocritical with me; you know that neither ethnology nor the negro race possessed the slightest interest for you, until you learned that Walter Burton had a strain of negro blood in his veins.”

“I do not deny that my zeal was not diminished by that fact,” answered Chapman shortly and dryly.

“And I maintain that your zeal is caused entirely by that fact, and I wish to say further, David Chapman,” exclaimed the withered wisp of[143] a woman, drawing herself up very straight in her chair and looking angrily at her brother, “if all this investigation and research lead to anything that may cause trouble, annoyance or pain to Lucy Dunlap, whom I have held in these arms as a baby, then I say that you are a wicked, ungrateful man, and I wish to know nothing of your diabolic designs, nor of the disgusting science that you call ethnology.”

God bless the dried-up spinster! God bless thy bony, skinny arms that held that baby! Thrice blessed be the good and kindly heart that beats warmly in thy weak and withered little body.

Seriously and steadily did Chapman gaze for a minute at the vehement, fragile figure before him, then said meditatively,

“More, indeed a great deal more, for I could not cause pain to one of that name even though I benefited all the other Dunlaps who have ever been born by so doing,” quickly cried the old maid.

“My investigations are neither undertaken to injure Lucy nor could they do so even had I that intention. It is too late. I am perfectly frank and truthful when I state that the subject is exceedingly interesting to me, and the developments fascinating. Since I have familiarized myself somewhat with the leading peculiarities of the negro race I recognize much more of the negro in Burton than I imagined could possibly exist in one possessing so great a preponderance of the blood of the white race.”

“I am glad to learn that no harm can come to Lucy by your persistent pursuit after knowledge of ethnology, but I must say it does not seem to me a very genteel course of conduct for a man of you age and education to be spying about and watching an associate in business,” said the candid Arabella.

“I assure you that I am not obliged either to play the spy or watch particularly, for it seems to me that the negro in Burton positively obtrudes itself daily. In fact I am certain that it is neither[145] because I am watching for such evidences, nor because I can now recognize negro traits better than formerly, but simply because the negro in the man becomes daily more obtrusively apparent,” answered Dunlap’s superintendent as he began tuning and testing his favorite musical instrument.

Even the most prejudiced critic would be forced to admit that whatever David Chapman undertook to do he accomplished well. He never relaxed in persistent effort until an assigned task was performed. He became for the time being absolutely fanatic upon any subject he had before him. His performance on the violoncello was of the same character as his efforts in other directions where his attention was demanded. It was artistic, magnificent, sympathetic and impressive.

To the violoncello Chapman seemed to tell his soul-story; through it he breathed those hidden sentiments that were so deeply buried in the secret recesses of his heart that their existence could never be suspected. Music seemed the angel guarding with flaming sword the gateway of this peculiar man’s soul. When music raised[146] the barrier glimpses of unexpected beauties surprised all those who knew the jealous, prying, cynical nature of the man.

As David Chapman began playing his sister with closed eyes rested her head on the back of the rocking chair and bathed her lonely old heart in the flood of melody that poured from the instrument in her brother’s hands.

How that music spoke to the poor, craving, hungry heart within her flat and weazen bosom. Youth and hope seemed singing joyous songs of life’s springtime; love then burst forth blushing while whispering the sweet serenade of that glorious summer season of womankind. Then in cadence soft and tender, gently as fall the autumn leaves, the music sadly told of blighting frosts. Youth and hope like summer roses withered and vanished. Now the gloom, despair and disappointment of life’s winter wailing forth filled the heart of the forlorn old maiden; tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks unheeded and almost a sob escaped from her quivering lips.

Weep no more sad heart. The music in pealing tones of triumph is shouting the Glad Tidings[147] of that eternity of endless spring, where all is Love and all is Joy; where the flowers of everlasting summer never fade and die; where no blighting frost can come to wither the blossoms of Youth and Hope; where the cold blasts of winter’s gloom and disappointment never blow to chill and sadden the soul.

Grandly resound those notes triumphant; open seem the gates of that promised future, together brother and sister their souls seem ascending; above all is bright, refulgent with the great light of gladness, now, coming sweetly, faintly, they catch the sound of welcome, sung above by that heavenly chorus.

The music died away in silence. Brother and sister sat for a long time, each busy with their own thoughts. Who but the All-wise can ever tell what thoughts come on such occasions to those who in silence hold self-communion in the sanctuary of their own souls.

“David, it seems strange to me that one having the tenderness of heart that you have, should never have found some good woman to love,” said the sister softly when the silence was finally broken.

“Indeed, sister, I sometimes think I might have done so and been happier far than I am, had I not early in life given, in the intense way that is part of my nature, all the love of my heart and consecrated all my devotion to the business in which I then engaged and submerged my every emotion in the glory and honor of the house of ‘J. Dunlap.’”

“Ah, brother, I often think of that and wonder what would happen if aught should go wrong with the object of your life-long devotion.”

The certainty of the result to the man, should misfortune shatter the idol of his adoration, was more convincingly conveyed to the listener by that simple sentence and quiet tone than excited exclamation could have carried; Arabella uttered a sigh as she thought of the unshared place that ‘J. Dunlap’ held in the strenuous soul of her brother.

“Brother, you should not allow your mind and heart to become so wrapped up in the house of Dunlap; remember the two old gentlemen, in the course of nature, must soon pass away and that[149] then there is no Dunlap to continue the business, and the career of the firm must come to an end.”

“No, Arabella, that may not happen,” replied Chapman. His voice, however, gave no evidence of the pleasure that such a statement from him seemed to warrant.

“There was an ante-nuptial contract entered into by Burton, in which it is agreed that any child born to James Dunlap’s granddaughter shall bear the name of Dunlap; hence the career of our great house will not necessarily terminate upon the death of the twin brothers.”

“I am so glad to know that, David. I have been much concerned for your sake, brother, fearing the dire consequences of the death of both of the old gentlemen whom you have served so devotedly for forty odd years.” The reassured little creature paused and then a thought, all womanly, occurred to her mind reddening her peaked visage as she exclaimed,

A worried, anxious, doubtful look came over Chapman’s countenance. He gazed at the floor[150] thoughtfully for several minutes and then apparently speaking to himself said,

“That is the point; there is where I am at sea; it is that question that gives me most anxiety.”

“Why, what can you mean, most inscrutable man, Mr. Burton is one of the handsomest men that I ever saw and surely no prettier woman ever lived than sweet Lucy Dunlap,” cried the loyal-hearted old maid.

“It is not a question of beauty, it is a question of blood. If it be only a matter of appearances Lucy Burton’s children would probably be marvels of infantine loveliness, but it is a scientific problem,” replied David seriously and earnestly.

“What in the name of all that is nonsensical has science to do with Lucy’s babies if any be sent to her?” cried out Miss Arabella, forgetting in her excitement that maidenly reserve that was usually hers.

“I regret to say that science has a great deal to do with the subject,” answered the brother quietly. “It is a matter of grave doubt in the minds of many scientific men whether, under any circumstances, an octoroon married to one of the white[151] race ever can produce descendants; it is claimed by many respectable authorities that negro blood is not susceptible of reduction beyond the point attained in the octoroon; that it must terminate there or breed back through its original channel,” continued Chapman.

“It is not true! I don’t believe a word of such stuff,” ejaculated Miss Arabella, dogmatically.

“Authorities admit, it is true, that there may be exceptions to the invariability of this law, but claim that such instances are faults in nature and likely, as all faults in nature, to produce the most astounding results. These authorities assert that the progeny of an octoroon and one of the white race being the outcome of a fault in nature, are certain to be deficient in strength and vigor, are apt to be deformed, and even may possibly breed back to a remote coal-black ancestor,” said Chapman, speaking slowly, punctuating each sentence with a gasping sound, almost a groan.

“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed his sister rising in indignation from her chair and moving toward the door, saying,

“I positively will hear no more of your absurd[152] science. It’s all foolishness. If that be the idiocy that you learn from ethnology I think that you had better occupy your time otherwise. Thanks to your ‘authorities’ and their crazy notions, I suppose that I shall dream all night of monkeys and monsters, but even that is better than sitting her and listening to my brother, whom I supposed had some brains, talk like a fit subject for the lunatic asylum.” With the closing sentence, as a parting shot at her brother the incensed spinster sailed out of the door and with a whisk went up stairs to her virgin chamber.

“Lucy Burton is a perfect dream tonight, is she not?” exclaimed enthusiastically Alice Stanhope, gazing admiringly at the fair companion of her school days who had just entered the room leaning on the arm of her husband.

“Almost as pretty as you are,” gallantly replied ‘Bertie’ Winthrop, to whom the remark of the young woman was addressed.

“Well, don’t expect me to vie with you in flattery and reply by saying that Mr. Burton is almost as handsome as you are, for I am like the father of our country, ‘I can’t tell a lie.’”

“Oh! Now, that’s good. I am justified in supposing from that speech that Burton is not nearly as handsome as I am, much obliged,” replied young Winthrop, laughing and making a profound obeisance to the pretty creature beside him.

“You know what I mean you rascal, so don’t[154] try to look innocent. See with what adoring glances Lucy looks up into her husband’s face,” said Miss Stanhope again calling her attendant’s attention to the group of guests near the entrance.

“Are you going to look at me like that a year from now?” asked ‘Bertie’ in a quizzical fashion as he slyly squeezed the dimpled elbow near his side. On dit, Alice Stanhope and Albert Winthrop will soon be married.

“Bertie, you horrid tease, I don’t believe you will ever deserve to be looked at except angrily,” retorted the blushing girl and added as she moved a little further from him,

“It’s a deuce of a crush you have gotten up,” said ‘Bertie’ promptly disregarding the warning that he had received by stepping up close to the side of his fiancee.

“There’s no ‘all these people’ about it, they are the musical set among my friends in Boston and New York; as Signor Capello and Mme. Cantara[155] are to sing of course everyone invited was eager to be present.”

“Hush, you embarrassing wretch,” cried Miss Stanhope turning to welcome some recently arrived guests.

After considerable diplomatic finessing and resort to that most efficacious auxiliary, “Papa’s cheque book,” Miss Stanhope had secured the services of the two great operatic luminaries to sing at a grand musicale given by her.

All the “swell set” of Boston and New York thronged the palacious home of the Stanhope’s on the occasion. The gray-haired, courtly governor of Massachusetts was chatting as gaily with petite Bessie Winthrop as he had done with her grandmother a half century before. Foreign diplomatists and Federal potentates discussed in corners the comparative merits of Italian and German composers of music; literary lights from all over New England joined the musical element of New York and Boston in filling the Stanhope’s halls.

“I insisted upon coming here tonight, Alice, even though this over-worked husband of mine did complain of a headache at dinner and I was loathe to have him accompany me. You remember this is the anniversary of my wedding and I wished to celebrate the day,” said Lucy Burton to the hostess when at last Burton had managed to make a way for himself and wife through the crowded rooms and reached the place where Miss Stanhope was receiving her guests.

“I am awfully glad you came, dear. We are sure to have a treat. Signor Capello has promised to sing something from the new opera by Herman that has just been produced in Berlin,” and addressing Burton Miss Stanhope added,

“Thank you, Miss Alice, it has entirely vanished under the influence of my charming wife’s ministrations, and the brilliant gathering about me here,” replied Burton.

“A slight pallor and circles around sad eyes, you know, Mr. Burton, give an exceedingly interesting and romantic appearance to dark men,” rejoined Alice Stanhope smiling in spite of her[157] effort not to do so when she noticed the anxious, worshiping look with which Lucy regarded her husband.

“Really, I believe Lucy is more in love than she was a year ago,” said the laughing hostess as she turned to receive the German Ambassador, who had traveled all the way from Washington in the hope of hearing selections from Herman’s new opera.

In all that gathering of fair women and gallant men, there was no couple so noticeable as the splendid pair who this day one year before were wedded.

As Burton and his wife passed through the crowded halls all eyes were turned toward them, paying mute tribute to the exceeding beauty of both man and woman.

Burton, by one of those sudden rebounds of spirit to which he was subject, inspired by the gaiety about him was in a perfect glow of intellectual fire. The brilliancy of his well trained mind never shone more brightly, his wit scintillated in apt epigrams, and incomparably clever metaphors. He won the heart of the German[158] Ambassador by discussing with the taste and discrimination of a savant that distinguished Teuton’s favorite composer, Herman, using the deep gutturals of the German language with the ease of a native of Prussia.

He exchanged bon-mots with wicked old Countess DeMille, who declared him a preux chevalier and the only American whom she had ever met who spoke her language, so she called French, like a Parisian.

Lucy’s beaming face and sparkling eyes told of the rapture of pride and love that filled her heart. She looked indeed the “Princess” as with her well-turned head, with its gold-brown crown, held high, she proudly looked upon her lover and her lord and caught the approval and applause that appeared in every eye about her.

Never had her husband seemed so much superior to all other men, in Lucy’s mind, as he did this night. Wherever they paused in their passage around the rooms, that spot immediately became the center of a group of people eager to render homage to the regal beauty of the young matron, and to enjoy the wit and vivacity of the most distingue man present.

“Ah, Mr. Burton, I see that the splendor of the Rose of Dunlap remains undiminished, notwithstanding its transference from the garden of its early growth,” said the gallant Governor of the old Bay State when greeting the young couple as they stopped near him.

“The splendor of the roses of Massachusetts is so transcendent that it would remain unimpaired in any keeping how e’er unworthy,” replied Lucy’s husband, bowing gracefully to the Executive of the State.

“When I saw you enter the room, Mrs. Burton, I hoped to see my old friend, your grandfather, follow. How is James? You see I take the liberty of still speaking of him as I did many years before your bright eyes brought light into the Dunlap mansion.”

“Grandfather is very well, thank you, Governor, but I failed to coax him away from his easy chair and slippers this evening; beside I think he was a little ‘grump,’ as I call it, about having lost a wager to a certain young woman of about my height; he declared it was not the box of gloves but loss of prestige that he disliked,” answered[160] Lucy merrily as she looked up at the amused countenance of the Governor.

“I fear that I shall be obliged to exercise my official prerogative and give that gay youth, James Dunlap, a lecture if I hear anything more of his reckless wagers,” said the jocose old gentleman, and then added:

“By the way, Mrs. Burton, the newspapers this evening contain long accounts of the magnificent conduct of a New England sea captain, to whom the King of England has sent a letter of congratulation and praise. As the name given is Captain John Dunlap, I have been wondering if it can be that stubborn fellow whom your Uncle John and I endeavored to convince that he ought to enter Harvard.”

“It is the same stubborn, dear old cousin Jack who preferred the sea to being sent to Harvard, and he is the best and bravest sailor on the waters blue,” answered Lucy quickly, her face flushed by pleasure at hearing Jack’s praises sung and pride in knowing that he was her kinsman.

“It seems the lad was wiser than we were when he refused to be convinced by John and me. A[161] grand sailor might have been spoiled in the making of a poor scholar. As long as the sailor sons of Uncle Sam can number men of your cousin Jack’s kind among them we need never fear for honor of the Gem of the Ocean,” said the Governor quite seriously.

“I heartily endorse that sentiment, your Excellency, but fear that on land or sea it would be difficult to discover many men like Jack Dunlap,” exclaimed Walter Burton warmly.

“When is he coming home, Lucy? You know that I lost my heart the first time that I met your bronzed sailor cousin, and am waiting anxiously for my mariner’s return,” said Bessie Winthrop, her violet-colored eyes twinkling with the gladness of youth and happiness. En passant she was a fearful little flirt.

“He does not say in his letters when we may expect him, but when I write I’ll tell him what you say, and if he does not hurry home after that nothing can induce him to do so,” said Lucy as she moved away with her husband to make room for several admirers of Miss Winthrop who were eagerly awaiting an opportunity to pay court to that popular young lady.

Just as Burton and his wife left the Governor and his pretty companion, the tuning of instruments announced the prelude to the programme for the evening. Silence fell upon the assembly, the gentlemen sought seats for the ladies and secured the most available standing room for themselves.

Surely Signor Capello never sang so grandly before. The superb harmony of Herman’s great composition filled the souls of that cultivated audience. The German Ambassador was in a perfect ecstasy of delight, and even the least appreciative were impressed, while the hypercritic, casting aside all assumption of ennui, became enthusiastic.

Madame Cantara trilled and warbled in tones so clear, flute-like and sweet that to close one’s eyes was to imagine the apartment some vast forest, filled with a myriad of feathered songsters, vying with each other for woodland supremacy in Apollo’s blessed sphere.

Miss Stanhope’s musicale was a pronounced and splendid success. Nothing approaching it had entertained Boston’s fastidious “four hundred” that season.

Burton declared that it was the most delightful function he had attended in years, when Lucy, enwrapped in furs, was closely nestled at his side in the carriage after the entertainment was over. Burton was par excellence a judge of such affairs. In fact, he had been accorded the position of arbiter elegantiarum by a tacit understanding among people of taste and culture in Boston’s elite society.

It was among such scenes, surroundings, environments and society as above described that Burton’s life had been passed since coming to America. It was in this joyous atmosphere that the first year of Lucy’s married life glided by so rapidly that the length of time seemed difficult for her to realize. It was like the dream of a summer’s day, so bright, cloudless and calm, so fragrant with the perfume of love’s early blossoms, that its passage was as that of a fleeting shadow.

The sinking sun cast lengthening shadows across Manila Bay, where swinging peacefully at their anchors lay the great war ships of several nations, and where the tall masts of a fleet of[164] merchantmen caused bars of shade to stripe the burnished waters of the Bay.

The starry flag of the great Republic had received that salute, ever loyally given by the sons of Columbia, as the sun sank beneath the horizon, and the bugle blew its farewell to the departing orb of day.

Four majestic, floating fortresses, on whose decks stood uncovered crews as the proud flag of the union descended, gave notice to the world of the might of that young giant of the west that held dominion in the Philippines.

Striding along in the rapidly darkening twilight, up the main street of Manila, walked one who would have been known as a sailor by his swinging, rolling gait, even without the nautical cut and material of the clothing that he wore.

As he approached the newly erected, palacious American hotel, around which ran a broad veranda filled with tables and chairs, the chief resort of the army and naval officers stationed at Manila, a voice cried from the balcony above him:

The sailor-man looked up and with an exclamation of pleased recognition, shouted:

“Come up here this instant, you sea-dog, wet your whistle and swap yarns with me,” called the first speaker, rising from the table at which he was seated and hurrying to the top of the half dozen steps that rose from the sidewalk to the entrance on the veranda.

The two men shook hands with the warmth and cordiality of old cronies, when the sailor reached the balcony. The meeting was evidently as agreeable as it was unexpected.

The man who had been seated on the veranda, when the sailor approached, was apparently of the same age as the friend whose coming he had hailed with delight. He, too, was evidently a son of Neptune, for he wore the cap and undress uniform of a lieutenant in the United States Navy.

He was a big, fine man on whose good-looking, tanned face a smile seemed more natural, and, in fact, was more often seen than a frown.

“Jack, old man, you can’t imagine how glad I[166] am to run afoul of you. Had the choice been left to me as to whom I would choose to walk up the street just now, I’d have bawled out ‘Good old Jack Dunlap!’ Well, how are you anyway? Where’ve you been? and how are all in Boston? But first let’s have a drink; what shall it be, bully?”

All of these questions and ejaculations were made while the naval man still held Jack’s hand and was towing him along like a huge, puffing tug toward the table from which the officer sprang up to welcome his companion.

“By Jove, Tom, give me time to breathe; you’ve hurled a regular broadside of questions into my hull. Haul off and hold a minute; cease firing! as you fighters say,” expostulated our old acquaintance, Captain Jack, as he was fairly shoved into a chair at the table and opposite the laughing and red-faced lieutenant.

“Come here, waiter,” called Maxon to a passing attendant, in high glee over Jack’s cry for quarter and his own good luck in meeting an old chum when he was especially lonely and eager to have a talk about home and friends.

“Bring us a bottle of champagne and let it be as cold as the Admiral’s heart when a poor devil of a lieutenant asks for a few day’s shore leave.”

“Now, my water-logged consort, we will first and foremost drink in a brimming bumper of ‘Fizz’ the golden dome in Boston and the bonny-bright eyes of the beauties that beam on it,” exclaimed jolly Tom Maxon, bubbling over with happiness at having just the man he wished to talk about Boston with.

“I say! Tom, have you been studying up on alliteration? You rang in all the B’s of the hive in that toast,” said the merchant skipper, emptying his glass in honor of Boston and her fair daughters.

“I don’t require thought or study to become eloquent when the ‘Hub’ and her beauties be the theme, but you just up anchor and sail ahead giving an account of yourself, my hearty,” Tom replied with great gusto.

“To begin, then, as the typical story writer does, one November day some thirteen months ago, I sailed away (I’ve caught the complaint. I came near making a rhyme) from Boston in the[168] good ship ‘Adams.’ When a week out of harbor as per instructions from the house of Dunlap, I unsealed my papers to find that the ship had been presented to me by my kinsmen, the Dunlap brothers.”

“Stop! Hold, my hearty, until we drink the health of the jolly old twins. May their shadows never grow less and may the good Lord send along such kinsmen to poor Tom Maxon,” interrupted the irreverent Tom, filling the glasses and proceeding to honor the toast by promptly draining his.

Jack and Tom had been pupils in the same school in Boston when they were boys. Their tastes and dispositions being much alike they became chums and warm friends. Like young ducks, both of the lads naturally took to the water. When they had gotten through with the grammar-school an appointment to the Annapolis Naval Academy was offered to young Maxon by the representative of his Congressional district, which he joyfully accepted, and hence was now a United States officer. Jack had entered the High School and later the merchant marine service.

Though seeing but little of each other after their first separation, the same feeling of friendship and comradeship was maintained between Jack and Tom that had existed when as Boston schoolboys they chummed together, and whenever, at rare intervals, they were fortunate enough to meet they mutually threw off all the reserve that had come to them with age and became Boston boys once again.

“Now, heave ahead, my bully-boy!” cried Tom, putting down his empty wine glass.

“In addition to the gift of the ship from the firm, I found that my old cousin John had personally presented me with a large part of the ship’s cargo.”

“Again hold! you lucky sea-dog! Here’s to dear old Cousin John, and God bless him!” called Tom gleefully, his generous sailor-soul as happy over the good fortune of his friend as if he himself had been the beneficiary of Mr. John Dunlap’s munificence, again pledging Jack’s kind kinsman in a glass of iced wine.

“With all my heart I say, amen! Tom, God never made better men and more liberal kinsmen[170] than the ‘J. Dunlaps,’” said Jack earnestly as he began again his recital.

“When I arrived in Melbourne I disposed of my cargo through our agents, loaded and sailed for Liverpool, returned to Melbourne, took on a cargo for Manila, and here I am drinking to long life and good health to my two old kinsmen with my school fellow Tom Maxon.”

“You have left out lots about yourself, that I know of, concerning your past movements, so try to be truthful about your future plans,” continued Maxon, assuming an inquisitorial air.

“I have done well as far as making money is concerned, which statement I wish added to my former deposition. Oh! most wise judge; I propose sailing within the week for Hong-kong, thence to San Francisco, from the latter port I desire to clear for Boston, in God’s country, stopping, however, at Port au Prince, Haiti, both as a matter of business and also with the design of[171] personally thanking my kind godfather for his gifts. Finally I hope to reach New England and be with my dear mother while yet the Yankee hills are blooming with summer flowers. One word further and my story is finished. My object in returning to Boston is to induce my mother to return with me to Australia, where I have purchased some property and where I desire to make my home in future—finis—”

“Fairly well told, my bold buccaneer; however, I disapprove of your making Australia your home. Now, sir, what about saving a few smallpox patients, emigrants, and such like, and receiving a letter from H.M. King of England, and such trifles as we read of in the newspaper?” demanded Tom, sententiously.

“Oh! That just happened, and there has been too much said about it to find a place on my logbook,” replied Jack, shortly, coloring just a shade.

“I’m!—well, no matter—I don’t agree with you, but I will shake your hand once again and say that I find my old chum as modest as I always knew him to be brave,” rejoined Tom Maxon, rising, reaching over and grasping Jack’s[172] hand, and bowing gravely and respectfully as he held it.

“You know what the Admiral said when he read the account of what you had done?” cried out Tom when he settled back in his chair.

“Of course, you don’t, but it’s a fine ram at the merchant marine. The Admiral thinks that an officer for sea service can’t be made except at Annapolis. When he read of what you had done, he exclaimed: ‘That fellow is almost good enough to be an officer in the United States Navy.’ The Executive officer who heard the Admiral repeated it, and ever since the fellows of our mess, who hate some of the ‘snobs’ that Annapolis sends to us, have been quietly poking fun at the old man about it.”

“Now, will Lieutenant Thomas Maxon, U.S.N., in all the glory of his Annapolis seamanship, give an account of himself?” broke in Jack, anxious to escape further mention of his own affairs.

“The last time I saw you, Tom, you were[173] dancing at the end of Bessie Winthrop’s hawser. Though I had never, at the time, met your charmer, I thought her a pretty craft.”

“I was stationed at Boston, and went about some little. I met Bert Winthrop’s sister and, like an ass of a sailor that I am, fell in love with her at the first turn of the wheel. Well, I rolled around after the beauty like a porpoise in the wake of a dolphin for the whole season. Finally I mustered up courage to bring the chase to a climax and got a most graceful conge for my temerity, whereupon I retired in bad order, and was rejoiced when assigned to the battleship Delaware and sent to sea.”

As the rollicking sailor ended his story, he threw back his head and began softly singing in a sentimental tone, “Oh! Bessie, you have broken my heart.”

“Well, I’ll go bail that the fracture won’t kill you, you incorrigible joker,” said Jack, interrupting the flow of Maxon’s sentimentality.

“See, now, our best friends never take us[174] seriously, and sympathize with us when we suffer,” said the lieutenant dolefully.

“But to continue my sad story. I was ordered to the U.S.S. Delaware, flag-ship of the Asiatic fleet. Admiral Snave can out-swear Beelzebub, has the sympathy of a pirate, and would work up all the old iron of a fleet if there was as much in it as in the mountains of Pennsylvania. So your poor, delicate friend is tempted to ask to be retired on account of physical disability.” So saying, Tom began roaring with laughter so healthful that it shook his stalwart frame.

“Hold though!” exclaimed the U.S. officer, stopping in the midst of his outburst of merriment, suddenly thinking of something omitted.

“You must understand that we all admire the Admiral hugely. He is a magnificent officer, and a fighter to the end of his plume; carries a chip on his shoulder when he imagines anyone is spoiling for a fight, or even looks crossways at grand Old Glory.”

Thus the two friends talked on, relating their experiences, joking each other, and laughing in that careless happy way, common alike to schoolboys and those who sail the sea.

Captain Dunlap declared that this berth was good enough for him, that he would drop his anchor right there, and calling a waiter proceeded to order everything on the menu for dinner, telling the waiter to serve it where they were and serve slowly so that they might enjoy a rambling conversation while they dined.

Eating, drinking, talking and smoking, the chums of boyhood days sat for hours, until the streets became, as was the veranda, almost deserted. Suddenly in an interval of silence as they puffed their cigars, a piercing scream disturbed the quiet of the street below. Again and again was the cry repeated in an agonized female voice.

Both men sprang to their feet and peered along the dark avenue that ran toward the bay. About a block away they discerned just within the outer circle of light cast by an electric burner a struggling mass of men. At the instant that Jack and Tom discovered whence came the cries, a figure broke from the crowd and ran screaming through the illuminated spot on the avenue pursued by a half dozen men wearing the Russian naval uniform.[176] The pursued figure was that of a half nude female.

With an angry growl, Jack Dunlap placed one hand on the low railing around the veranda and cleared it at a bound, landing on the sidewalk below, he broke into a run, and dashed toward the group of men under the electric light, who were struggling with the person whom they had pursued and recaptured.

“The flag follows trade in this case,” cried Maxon, who would joke even on his death-bed, as he, too, sprang to the pavement and raced after Jack.

The brutal Finnish sailors of the Russian man-of-war in Manila Bay swore to their mess-mates that ten gigantic Yankees had fallen upon them and taken away the Malay girl. They thus accounted for their broken noses and discolored optics.

Truth is, that it was a rush; the working of four well-trained Yankee arms like the piston rods of a high-speed engine. Outraged American manhood and old Aryan courage against the spirit of brutal lustfulness, ignorance and race inferiority.

“I say, Jack,” cried out Maxon as he raised his face from the basin in which he had been bathing a bruise, “Why don’t you go in for the P.R. championship? You must be a sweet skipper for a crew to go rusty with! Why, Matey, you had the whole gang going before I even reached you. Look here, sonny, you are just hell and a hurricane in a shindy of that kind.”

“Well, I tell you, Tom,” called Jack from the next room, where, seated on the edge of the bed, he was binding a handkerchief around the bleeding knuckles of his left hand.

“That kind of thing always sets my blood boiling, but that in a city under our flag an outrage of that kind should be attempted made me wild. I guess from the looks of my hands that maybe I did punch rather hard.” Rising, Jack walked to the open door between the two bedrooms and added:

“I don’t mind just a plain fight, or even sometimes a murder, but when it comes to a brute assaulting a woman or child, I’m damned if I don’t become like one of Victor Hugo’s characters, ‘I see red.’ Temper seems to surge in my very blood.”

Jack’s face, as he spoke, wore an angry scowl, to which the earnest gesticulations with his bandaged fists gave double meaning.

“Of course it surges in your blood, old chap, as it does on such occasions in mine and every other decent descendant of Shem and Japheth on earth,” replied Tom Maxon.

XI.

The Scottish Bard has written that to see fair Melrose Abbey a-right, one must visit it in the moon’s pale light. To see New England in its greatest glory one must visit that section of hallowed memories in the summer season.

Then it is that granite hills are wrapped in emerald mantles. Then it is that hill-sides, slopes and meadows are dimpled with countless daisies, peeping enticingly from the face of smiling nature. Then it is brooks, released from winter’s icy bondage, laugh, sing, dance and gambol like merry maidens in some care-free frolic.

August, in the second year of Lucy Burton’s married life, found Dunlap’s mansion still occupied by the entire family. True, the Dunlap estate lay in the most elevated portion of the suburbs of Boston, and the house stood in the center of[180] extensive grounds almost park-like in extent and arrangement, still it was unusual for the house to be occupied by the family at that season of the year.

Generations of Dunlaps had sought relief from city life and bustle during the month of August, either among the Berkshire Hills, where an ornate villa had been owned by them for decades, or at Old Orchard, where their summer home was rather a palace than a cottage, though so called by the family. Burton, too, had a fine establishment at Newport; yet this eventful August found the family in their city residence.

Many other things unusual attracted attention and caused comment among the associates of members of the Dunlap household. Burton and Lucy had been noticeably absent during the past few months from those public functions to which, by their presence, they had formerly given so much eclat.

The very clerks in the office of J. Dunlap commented upon the jubilant spirit that had taken possession of, the always genial, manager. Chapman regarded his apparent joyousness with suspicion,[181] and of all the office forces alone seemed displeased with its presence.

To intimate friends Burton spoke of selling the “Eyrie,” saying that it was of no further use or pleasure to him; that for months he had only been near it to select some choice flowers from the conservatory for the vases that adorned his wife’s apartments.

Mr. James Dunlap, ever the kindest, most considerate of beings, the gentlest of gentlemen, had become so solicitous concerning his granddaughter’s comfort and care as to appear almost old womanish. The anxiety he displayed about all that tended to Lucy’s welfare was absolutely pathetic.

Walter Burton’s demeanor toward his young wife might, for all men, serve as a model of devoted, thoughtful deportment on the part of husbands. To amuse and entertain her seemed his all-absorbing idea and object. To exercise his brilliant mental gifts in gay and enlivening conversation was his chief pleasure. To use all the great musical talent that he possessed, to drive any momentary shadow of sadness from her[182] spirit. To stroll about the garden in the moonlight, again whispering those words of love by which he had first won her, was blissful occupation to him.

Even good old Uncle John in far-off Haiti imbibed the spirit that seemed all pervading in the realm about the young matron. Great hampers of tropical fruits, plants and flowers came by trebly-paid expressage from the West Indies, speed alone being considered. They must be fresh when offered to Lucy. Then, too, almost daily messages came over the cable from Haiti, “How are all today,” signed “John,” and it was ordered at the office that each day should go a message to Port au Prince, unless especially forbidden, saying, “All is well,” this to be signed “James.”

Mrs. Church, the most sedate, composed and stately of old gentlewomen, too, is in a flutter of suppressed excitement, frequently closeted in deep and mysterious consultations with medical men and motherly looking women; giving strange orders about the preparation of certain dishes for the table, driving the chef almost distracted by forbidding sauces that should always[183] accompany some favorite entree of that tyrant.

A suite of rooms in the Dunlap mansion has been newly decorated; nothing like these decorations has ever been seen before in Boston. In elegance, taste and beauty they are the ne plus ultra of decorative art. One, while in the sacred precincts of the recently remodeled apartments, might readily imagine that spring had been captured and fettered here to make its sweet, bright presence perpetual in this favored place. Colors of the tinted sunbeam mingled with the peach blossom’s tender shade to make the spot a bower of beauty wherein a smiling cupid might pause and fold his wings to slumber, forgetful of his couch of pink pearl shell.

The cultured, artistic, delicate taste of Boston’s arbiter elegantiarum never produced anything approaching the exquisite blending of colors and unique, airy, harmonious fittings seen in this, the ideal conception of the abode of angels.

The delicacy and tenderness of Lucy’s refined and loving spirit contributed to create an indefinable feeling that this was the chosen spot where[184] innocence, purity and love should seek repose. Her womanly instinct had added soft shadings to art’s perfect handiwork.

The great sea shell, half opened, made of shining silver, lined with the pearly product of the Eastern Isles, in which lie, soft and white as snow, downy cushions, filled from the breasts of Orkney’s far-famed fowls, and these be-trimmed with lace in tracery like frost on window pane, in texture so gossamery and light that the brief span of life seems all too short in which to weave one inch, must surely be the nest wherein some heaven-sent cherub shall nestle down in sleep.

Some sprite from fairy-land alone may make a toilet with the miniature articles of Etruscan gold, bejeweled with gems of azure-hued turquois that fill the gilded dressing case.

The chiffoniers, tables, chairs and stands are all inlaid with woods of the rarest kinds and colors, with ivory and polished pearl shells interwoven in queerly conceived mosaic; mirrors of finest plate here and there are arranged that they may catch the beauteous image of the cherubic occupant of this bijou bower, and countlessly reproduce[185] its angelic features; urns and basins of transparent china-ware, in the production of which France and Germany have surpassed all former efforts, beautified by the brushes of world-renowned artists, furnish vessels in which the rosy, laughing face and dimpled limbs may lave.

The Western hills have cooled the eager glance of the August sun. Lucy, softly humming as she assorts and arranges a great basket of choice buds and blossoms just arrived from the “Eyrie,” is seated alone in a fantastic garden pagoda, which, trellised by climbing rose bushes, stands within the grounds of the Dunlap estate.

As she rocks back and forth in the low chair that is placed there for her comfort, little gleams of sunshine sifting through the screen of roses wander amidst her gold-brown tresses and spot the filmy gown of white she wears with silver splashes. As the lights and shadows of the gently swaying leaves and roses dance about her, she seems surrounded by hosts of cherubim in frolicsome attendance on her. Some thought of that nature came to her, for she let her hands lie still[186] in her lap among the blossoms and watched the ever fleeting, changeful rays of sunlight and shade that like an April shower fell upon her. Then she smiled as at some unseen spirit and smiling grew pensive.

The limpid light in Lucy’s eyes, as gazing into the future she sees the coming glory of her womanhood, is that same light that shone along the road from Galilee to Bethlehem, when she, most blessed of women for all time, rode humbly on an ass to place an eternal monarch on a throne.

That light in Lucy’s pensive hazel eyes, that gentle, hopeful expectant look on her sweet face, has, from the time that men were born on earth subdued the fiery rage of angry braves in mortal strife engaged, has turned brutality into cowering shame, and caused the harshest, roughest and most savage of the human kind to smooth the brow, soften the voice and gently move aside, rendering ready homage to a being raised higher far than the throne of the mightiest king on earth.

As she, who chambered with the cattle on Judah’s hills, opened the passage from the groaning earth to realms of eternal bliss by what she[187] gave to men, so ever those crowned with that pellucid halo of expected maternity stand holding ajar the gates that bar the path from man to that mysterious source of life and soul called God.

It is woman in her grandest glory, who draws man and his Maker near together, with arms outstretched and hands extended she grasps man and reaches up toward the Divine Author of our beings.

In simplest attire and humblest station she sanctifies the spot she stands upon. When most beset by want or danger there lives no man worthy of the name, who could refuse to heed her lightest call.

Oh! that wistful, yearning, hopeful, tender, loving look that transfigured Lucy’s sweet face until resemblance came to it, to that face that has employed the souls, hearts and hands of those most gifted by high heaven with pen and brush.

Out of this trance-like blissfulness the pensive dreamer was aroused by the coming of her ever constant guardian, her grandfather, who told her that Miss Arabella Chapman had called, bringing[188] some offering that could be placed in no other hand than that of the young matron.

Away hastened Lucy to greet the time-worn maiden, but fresh-hearted friend, and to hurry with her up to a sealed and sacred apartment, over whose threshold no male foot must ever step, wherein was hidden heaping trays and shelves of doll-like garments of marvelous texture and make, articles the names of which no man ever yet has learned to call, all so cunningly devised as to create the need of lace, embroidery or such matter on every edge and corner.

Silky shawls and fleecy wraps, and funny little caps of spider-spun lace, and socks of soft stuff so small that Lucy’s tiny thumb could scarce find room therein, all and much more than man can tell were here stored carefully away and only shown to closest friends by the fair warder of that holy keep.

And, oh! the loving, jealous care of Lucy. No hand but her own could fold these small garments just right. What awful calamity might befall should one crease be awry or disturbed; no eye so well could note some need in that dainty,[189] diminutive collection of fairy underwear as hers; no breast could beat so tenderly as hers as close she pressed, fondled and kissed the little gowns for elfin wear.

Who would for all the gold coined on earth rob her of one jot or tittle of her half-girlish, all-womanly joy and jealous care? Not one who ever whispered the word Mother!

That night the watchman and his faithful dog who guarded the Dunlap house and grounds, saw at the unseemly hour of two o’clock many lights suddenly appear within the mansion. The shadow of the family physician, white-haired and wise, flits by the windows of the room which, for some weeks, he has occupied. Mrs. Church in wrapper, lamp in hand, hastens by the great hall window and ascends the stairs, accompanied by an elderly woman, who a month before came to live in the mansion. Soon a window on the balcony is raised and Mr. James Dunlap in dressing gown and slippers steps out, accompanied by Mr. Burton, who seems too nervous to notice Mr. Dunlap’s soothing hand placed on his shoulder.

Soon the bell, that warns him to open wide the[190] outer gate, is rung, and then the watchman and his dog see no more of the commotion within the house. As he holds back the gate, he asks of the coachman, who, with the dog-cart and the horse, Dark Dick, is racing by:

A standing order of the house of J. Dunlap was that should at any time neither J. Dunlap nor the manager appear by the noon hour, the superintendent, Mr. Chapman, should take cab and hasten to the residence of Mr. James Dunlap for instructions concerning transactions that pressed for immediate attention.

Five minutes after noon, on the day when at two o’clock in the morning the private watchman had seen lights appear within the Dunlap mansion. David Chapman was seated in a cab speeding toward his employer’s residence.

As the cab turned the corner on the avenue that ran before the gate of the Dunlap place, the horse’s hoof-beats were silenced. Chapman looked out; the straw-carpeted pavement told the whole[191] story. He ordered the driver to stop his horse, and springing from the vehicle the superintendent, walking, proceeded the balance of the distance.

The vigil and anxiety of the past night had told fearfully on well-preserved Mrs. Church, thought Chapman as he noted her drawn, white and frightened face, and listened to the awed tone of her voice, as she told him that a boy was born to Lucy; that she was very ill; that Mr. Burton was troubled and wretched over the danger of his wife, and would see no one; that Mr. Dunlap, exhausted by agony of mind and weakened by watching, had fainted, was now lying down and must not be disturbed under any circumstances.

Chapman in mute amazement stared at the trembling lips that gave an account of the striking down, within so short a time, of all three members of the family. Speechless he stood and stared, but could find no words to express either his surprise or sorrow. As he stood thus, a faint and husky, yet familiar, voice called from the far end of the wide hall that ran through the center of the house.

With uncertain step, and bowed head, a figure came forward. As Chapman turned he saw that it was Mr. Dunlap. One moment the old employee gazed at the approaching man. Then springing toward him, he cried as he caught sight of the ashen hue on his old master’s blanched and deep-lined face, and saw the blank look in his kind eyes:

“Yes, David; I am not well; I am somewhat weak, but I wish to give you certain commands that must not, as you value my friendship, be disobeyed.” The old man paused and painfully sought to gain command of his voice, and failing, gasped forth:

“Send a message to my brother saying, ‘It is a boy and all is well,’ and add—David Chapman, do you understand me?—and add these very words, ‘Do not come home; it is unnecessary.’ Sign the message ‘James’—and, listen, Chapman, listen; no word that I am not well or my granddaughter in danger must reach my brother John.”

“Your instructions shall be obeyed, sir,” and Chapman’s voice was almost as indistinct as that of his loved master.

“What of the business, sir, while Mr. Burton is absent?” the ever-faithful superintendent asked.

“Use your own discretion in everything,” and with a dry, convulsive sob that shook his bended frame, he added in a whisper:

David Chapman heard the sob, and caught those heartbroken words. In an instant that strangely constituted man was on his knees at the feet of him whom of all on earth he worshiped most.

“Can I help you, sir, in your trouble? Say anything that man can do, and I shall do it, sir,” cried Chapman piteously.

“No, David, no; but, David, I thank you. Go, my faithful old friend, and do what I have requested.”

Chapman arose and pressed the wan hand that James Dunlap extended, then hurried from the house.

Those who saw the superintendent that day[194] wondered why they were unable to tell whether it was grief or rage that marked the man’s face so deeply.

XII.

By special concession from the Haitian government, the blacks still maintaining a prejudice against white people owning real estate in Haiti, John Dunlap had purchased several acres of land lying in the outskirts of Port au Prince, and had built a commodious house thereon, constructed in accordance with the requirements of the warm climate of the island.

To-night with impatient manner he is walking up and down the veranda which surrounds the house, accompanied by Captain Jack Dunlap, to whom he says:

“I do not like the monotonous sentence that, without change, has come to me daily for two weeks past. It is not like my brother James, and something, that I cannot explain, tells me that all is not well at home in Boston.”

“Don’t you think that this presentiment is only[196] the result of anxiety; that you are permitting imaginary evils to disturb you, sir?” put in Jack respectfully.

“No, Jack, I do not. From boyhood there has existed an indescribable bond of sympathy between my brother and myself that has always conveyed to each of us, no matter how far apart, a feeling of anxiety if trouble or danger threatened either one. For days this feeling has been increasing upon me, until it now has become unbearable. I regret that I did not take passage on the steamer that sailed today for New York. Now I must wait a week.” As Mr. Dunlap came to the end of his sentence, a chanting, croning kind of sound was heard coming from some spot just beyond the wall around his place.

“Confound that old hag!” cried the impatient old gentleman, as he heard the first notes of the weird incantation, “for the last month, night and day, she has been haunting my premises, wailing out some everlasting song about Tu Konk, white cows, black kids, and such stuff, all in that infernal jargon of the mountain blacks. She looks more like the devil than anything else. I[197] tried to bribe her to go away, but the old witch only laughed in my face. I then ordered her driven away, but the servants are all afraid of her and can’t be induced to molest her.”

“She probably is only some half-witted old woman, whom the superstitious negroes suppose possessed of supernatural power. I don’t think the matter worthy of your notice,” said Jack.

“I suppose it is foolish, but her hanging about my place just now, makes me nervous; but never mind the hag at present. I was going to say to you, when that howling stopped me, that so strong has become my feeling of apprehension within the last few hours that could I do so, I should leave Port au Prince tonight and hurry straight to Boston and my brother. This cursed Haitian loan, for which the English and American bankers hold our house morally, if not legally, responsible, has held me in Haiti this late in the hot season, and, tonight, I would gladly assume the entire obligation legally, to be placed instantly on Boston Common.”

The positiveness and seriousness with which his kinsman spoke caused even Jack’s steady nerves[198] to become somewhat shaken. Just then footsteps were heard coming rapidly up the walk that led to the roadway. As the two Dunlaps reached the top step of the veranda a telegraph messenger sprang up the stairs and handed an envelope to Mr. John Dunlap. With trembling fingers he opened the paper and going to a lamp that hung in the hallway read it. Then with a cry of pain he would have fallen to the floor had not Jack’s strong arms been around him.

Jack took the message from the cold, numb hand of the grief-stricken man and read:

“Come immediately; your brother dying, Lucy in great danger. David Chapman.”

Jack almost carried the groaning old man to a couch that stood in the hall, placing him upon it he hurried to the side-board in the dinner-room for a glass of wine or water; when he returned he found Mr. Dunlap sitting up, with his face hidden in his hands, rocking back and forward murmuring.

“A million dollars for a steamer; yea! all I am worth for a ship to carry me to Boston! Oh! Brother, Brother!”

Jack, though stricken to the heart by what the message said, still held firm grip upon his self-command for the sake of the kind old man before him. When he heard the muttered words of his suffering friend, for one instant he stood as if suddenly struck by some helpful idea, then cried,

“You have the fastest sailing ship on the Atlantic, Cousin John. The ‘Adams’ has only half a cargo aboard. She can beat any steamer that sails from Haiti to America, if there be breeze but sufficient to fill her canvas. My crew is aboard. Within one hour my water casks can be filled, the anchor up, the bow-sprit pointing to Boston, and, God send the wind, we’ll see the Boston lights as soon as any steamer could show them to us, or I’ll tear the masts out of the ‘Adams’ trying.”

Like the revivifying effect of an electric shock, the words of the seaman sent new life into John Dunlap. He sprang to his feet, grabbed for a hat and coat lying on the hall-table and, ere Jack realized what was happening, was racing down the pathway, leading to the road, calling back:

Soon Jack was by the old man’s side, passing his arm through that of his godfather, and thus helping him forward, their race toward the water was continued.

Not one word was said to the house-servants. The Dunlaps saw no one before they dashed from the premises; no, not even the evil, flashing eyes of the old black hag, who, listening to what they said, peered at them through the low window case.

“Mr. Brice, call all hands aft,” commanded Captain Dunlap as he stepped upon the deck of his ship, half an hour after leaving the house of Mr. Dunlap in Port au Prince.

“Men,” said the skipper, when the astonished crew had gathered at the mast and were waiting.

“Most of you have sailed with me for months, and know I ‘crack on’ every sail my ship can carry at all times. Now, listen well to what I say. This old gentleman at my side, my kinsman and friend, and I have those in Boston whom we love, and we have learned tonight that one of them is dying and one is in danger. We[201] must reach Boston at the earliest moment possible. Within the hour I’ll heave my anchor up and sail, such carrying of sail, in weather fair or foul, no sailor yet has seen as I shall do. My masts may go. I’ll take the chance of tearing them out of the ship if I can but gain one hour. No man must sail with me in this wild race unwillingly or unaware of what I intend to do. Therefore, from mate to cabin-boy, let him who is unwilling to share the perils of this trip step forward, take his wages and go over the side into the small boat that lies beside the ship.”

The skipper Stopped speaking and waited; for some seconds there was a scuffling of bare feet and shoving among the knot of seamen, but no man said aught nor did any one step forward. At last the impatient master cried out,

Then came more shuffling and shoving and half audible exclamations of “Say it yourself!” “Why don’t you answer the skipper?” Finally old Brice moved around from behind the captain and stood between him and the men. Then addressing[202] the master but looking at the crew, he said,

“I think, sir, the men wish to say, that they are Yankee sailors, and see you and Mr. Dunlap half scuttled by your sorrow and that they will stick by you, and be d——n to the sail you carry! Is that it, men?”

“The mate says right enough; we’ll stick to the ship and skipper,” came in chorus from the brazen lungs of the crew.

Such scampering about the deck was never seen before on board the “Adams” as that of the next thirty minutes. When the crew manned the capstan and began hoisting the anchor a strange black bundle, with gleaming eyes, came tumbling over the bow. The startled crew sprang away from what they took to be a huge snake, but seeing, when it gathered itself together and stood upright, that it was an old witch of a black woman, they bawled out for the mate.

The old termagant fought like a wild-cat, scratching and tearing at the eyes of the men[203] as they bundled her over the ship’s side and into the canoe in which she had come from the shore. All the time the hag was raving, spitting and swearing by all kinds of heathenish divinities that she would go to Boston to see “my grandchild,” and muttering all sorts of imprecations and incantations, in the jargon of the West Indies, upon the heads of all who attempted to prevent her.

As the ship gathered headway and swung around, Mr. John Dunlap, who stood in the stern, heard a weird chant, which he recognized as coming from below him. He looked over the railing and saw old Sybella standing upright in the canoe in which she had been thrust by the crew, waving her skinny bare arms, and chanting,

When Sybella saw Mr. Dunlap she ceased her song, and began hurling savage and barbarous curses upon him and his, which continued until the tortured old gentleman could neither hear nor see the crone longer.

There was just enough cargo aboard the “Adams” to steady her and give her the proper trim. As soon as Jack secured enough offing, in sailors’ parlance he “cut her loose.” Everything in shape of sail that could draw was set, the skipper took the deck nor did he leave it again until he sprang into a yawl in Boston harbor.

On the second day out from Port au Prince, the wind increased to the fury of a gale, but still no stitch of cloth was taken from the straining masts and yards of the “Adams.” Two stalwart sailors struggled with the wheel, the muscles of their bared and sinewy arms standing out taut, as toughened steel. The ship pitched and leaped like a thing of life. The masts sprang before the gale as if in their anguish they would jump clear out of the ship.

With steady, hard set eyes, the skipper[205] watched each movement of his ship. He knew her every motion as huntsman knows the action of his well-trained hound. His jaws were locked, the square, firm, Anglo-Saxon chin might have been modeled out of granite, so rock-like did it look. Away goes a sail, blown into fragments that wildly flap against the yard. Will the skipper ease her now?

Old Brice looked toward the master, saw something in his eyes, and saw him shake his head—

“Lay along here to clear up the muss, and set another sail!” bawled Brice, and again he looked toward the skipper; this time Jack nodded.

Brave old John Dunlap scarcely ever left the deck. He had a sailor’s heart and he had mingled with those of the sea from babyhood. He saw the danger and going to his namesake, said,

“Carry all she’ll bear Jack. If you lose the ship, I’ll give you ten; get me to Boston quickly, lad, or wreck the ship.”

“I will,” was all the answer that came from Jack’s tightly pressed lips, nor did he change his gaze from straight ahead while answering—yet[206] the old man knew that Jack would make his promise good.

He, who in the hollow of His hand doth hold the sea, knew of their need and favoring the object of such speed, did send unto that ship safety through the storm and favoring winds thereafter.

No yacht, though for speed alone designed, ever made such time, or ever will, or ever can, as made the good ship “Adams” from Port au Prince to Boston harbor.

During the two weeks that succeeded the birth of Lucy’s baby, her grandfather never left the house, but like some wandering spirit of unrest, moved silently but constantly, in slippered feet, from room to room, up and down the broad flight of stairs, and back and forth through the halls.

Maids and serving men stepped aside when they saw the bent and faltering figure approaching; James Dunlap had aged more within two weeks than during any ten years of his life before. His kind and beaming eyes of but yesterday[207] had lost all save the look of troubled age and weariness. The ruddy glow bequeathed by temperate youth had vanished from his countenance in that short time, as mist beneath the rays of the rising sun. The strong elastic step of seasoned strength had given place to the shambling gait of aged pantaloon.

Burton in moody silence kept his room, or venturing out was seen a changed and altered man, with blood-shot eyes, as if from endless tears, and haggard, desperate face deeply traced by lines of trouble’s trenches dug by grief.

Mrs. Church, the physician, nurse and even the buxom black woman, who came to give suck to the babe, all, seemed awe struck, distraught, as if affrighted by some ghostly, awful thing that they had seen.

And then, too, all seemed to hold some strange, mysterious secret in common, that in some ways was connected with the recently arrived heir to the Dunlap proud name and many millions. The frightened conspirators held so sacred the apartments blessed by the presence of the Dunlap heir, that none but themselves might[208] enter it, or even, in loyal love for all who bear their old master’s name, see the babe. One poor maid in loving, eager curiosity had ventured to peep into the sacred shrine and when discovered, though she had seen naught of the child, was quickly driven from the house and lost her cherished employment.

Lucy Burton from the first hour after the birth of the child was very ill. For two whole days she hovered, hesitatingly, between life and death, most of the time entirely unconscious or when not so in a kind of stupor. But finally, after two days of anxious watching, the physician and Mrs. Church noticed a change. Lucy opened her eyes and feebly felt beside her as if seeking something, and finding not what she sought, weakly motioned Mrs. Church to bend her head down that she might whisper something in her ear. As her old friend bent over her, she whispered softly,

Mrs. Church’s face became so piteous as she turned her appealing eyes toward the Doctor that, that good man arose and coming to the bedside[209] took Lucy’s soft white hand in his. He had known her as an infant, and guessing from Mrs. Church’s face what Lucy wished, he said,

“Not yet, dear child, you are too ill and weak, and the excitement might be dangerous in your condition.”

But Lucy would listen no longer; she shook her head and cried out quite audibly:

“Bring me my baby! I want to see it. Every mother wishes to see her baby.” Tears came rolling from her sweet eyes.

“But child, the baby boy is not well and to bring him to you might cause serious conditions to arise.”

Well did that Doctor know the mother heart. How ready that heart ever is to suffer and to bleed that the off-spring may be shielded from some danger or a single pang.

“I can wait; don’t bring my darling if it will do him harm. A boy! A boy! My boy! I’ll wait, but where is Walter?”

The Doctor told the nurse to summon Mr. Burton, but cautioned Lucy not to excite or agitate herself as she had been quite ill.

Let him who has seen the look on the condemned felon’s face, when the poor wretch gazes on the knife within the guillotine, recall that look. Let him who has seen the last wild, desperate glance of a drowning man, recall that look, and mingle with these the look of Love at side of Hope’s death-bed, and thus find the look on Burton’s face when he entered his wife’s bedroom.

The man fell, he did not drop, upon his knees by the bedside and burying his face in the covering wept bitterly. He took her hands, kissed them, and wet them with his tears.

“Oh! Don’t weep so, darling. I will soon be well, and Oh! my husband we have a precious baby boy.” Then she said, as if in the joy of knowing that her baby was a boy, she had forgotten all else,

The Doctor went himself to bring her grandfather to her. She never noticed that strange fact.

James Dunlap, never had you in your seventy-three years of life more need of strength of mind than now!

Her grandfather came to her leaning heavily upon the Doctor’s arm. He bent and kissed her brow, and in so doing dropped a tear upon her cheek. Quickly she looked up and seeing pain and grief in the white face above her, she started and in the alarmed voice of a little child, she cried,

“Am I going to die? Are you all so pale and weep because I am dying? Tell me Doctor! Why Mamma Church is crying too.”

The Doctor seeing that she was flushed and greatly excited hastened to the bedside and said calmly but most earnestly,

“No, my dear. You will not die, they are not weeping for that reason, but you have been very ill and we all love you so much that we weep[212] from sympathy for you, my dear. Now please lie down. You must my child, and all must leave the room but nurse and me,” and speaking thus, he gently pressed the gold-brown head back on the pillows and urged all to leave the room immediately.

That night the nurse and Doctor heard the patient often murmur both while awake and while she slept,

For two or three days after this night Lucy was quite ill again. Her mind seemed wandering all along the path of her former life, but always the all over-shadowing subject in all the wanderings of her thoughts was, “My baby,” “My baby.” Sometimes she called for Jack saying, “Come Jack, and see my baby,” and then for her uncle, laughing in her sleep and saying “See, Uncle John, I’ve brought into the world a boy, my baby.”

When the fever again abated and once more she became conscious her first words were “My baby, bring it now.”

For several days the mental resources of the[213] nurse, Doctor and Mrs. Church were taxed to their utmost in finding excuses for the absence of the baby. He was not well. He was asleep, she was not well enough and many other things they told her as reasons for not bringing her baby to her.

But, Oh! the piteous pleading in her voice and eyes, as with quivering lips and fluttering hands extended toward them she would beg,

“Please bring my baby to me. Every mother wishes to see her baby, to press it to her breast, to feel its breath upon her cheek, to hold it to her heart; Oh! Please bring my darling to me.”

Poor Mrs. Church, no martyr ever suffered more than did that tender-hearted woman, who loved Lucy with a mother’s heart.

The Doctor, when he had reassured and quieted, for a little while, his patient, would leave the room and standing in the hall would wring his hands and groan, as if in mortal agony.

One night when Lucy seemed more restful than usual, and was slumbering, worn out by emotion and watching, the Doctor, lying on a couch in the hall, fell fast asleep. The nurse,[214] seeing all about her resting, her charge peacefully and regularly, first became drowsy, nodded and then slept.

The gold-brown head was raised cautiously from its pillows, the hazel eyes wide opened looked about, and seeing that the nurse was sleeping and that no one was looking, then two little white feet slipped stealthily from beneath the coverlet, the slim figure rose, left the bed and glided along the well remembered passage that led from her chamber to that bower of beauty made for her baby. As she, weak and trembling, stole along, she smiled and whispered to herself:

In the room, that with loving, hopeful hands she had helped to decorate, the faintest flame gave dim, uncertain light, yet quick she reached the silver shell-like crib and feeling found no baby there. Hearing a steady, loud breathing of some one asleep and seeing the indistinct outline of a bed in one corner of the room, she softly crept to its side and feeling gently with[215] her soft hands found a tiny figure reposing beside the snoring sleeper. To gather the baby to the warm breast wherein her longing, loving heart was beating wildly was the work of only an instant.

With her babe clutched close to her, she opened her gown and laid its little head against her soft and snowy bosom, then she stole back, carrying her treasure to her own chamber.

Like child that she was, women have much of childish feeling ever in them. In girlish happiness she closed her eyes and felt her way to the gas-light, and turned it up full blast, laughing to herself and saying as she uncovered the baby’s face,

Now, Oh! Mother of the Lord look down! Oh! Christ, who hanging on His cross for the thief could pity feel, have pity now!

The thing she held upon her milk white breast was Black—Black with hideous, misshapen head receding to a point; with staring, rolling[216] eyes of white set in its inky skin; and features of an apish cast, increased the horror of the thing.

My God! That shriek! It pealed through chamber, dome and hall. Again, again it rang like scream of tortured soul in hell. It roused the horses in the barn, they neighed in terror, stamped upon the floor and struggled to be free. The doves in fright forsook their cot. The dogs began to bark. Yet high above all other sound, that wild, loud scream rang out.

When the nurse sprang up she dared not move so wild were Lucy’s eyes. The Doctor, Burton, her grandfather found her standing, hair unbound, glaring wildly at what crying, lay on the floor.

“You have robbed me of my babe, and left that in its stead.” She pointed at the object on the floor.

“Back, old man, back! You stole my child[217] away,” she yelled, her blazing eyes filled with insane rage and hate.

“My God! She is mad,” the Doctor cried, and rushing forward caught her as she fell.

Burton, petrified by the awfulness of the scene had until that moment stood like some ghastly, reeling statue, now in an automatic manner he came forward and helped the Doctor place her on the bed.

“Look to Mr. Dunlap,” cried the Doctor but ere anyone could reach him the old man fell forward, crashing on the floor; a stroke of paralysis had deadened and benumbed his whole right side.

Chapman was told next day that James Dunlap was dying. Then, for the first and only time in the life of David Chapman, he disobeyed an order given by a Dunlap and sent the message to Haiti.

XIII.

Thus spoke among themselves a knot of seafaring men who stood on the Boston docks watching a ship under almost full sail, that came tearing before a strong north-east gale into Boston’s crowded harbor.

The man who held the wheel and guided the ship through the lanes of sail-less vessels anchored in the harbor, as a skillful driver does his team in crowded streets, was neither mad nor drunk nor was there mutiny among the crew. The man was Jack Dunlap; the ship was the “Adams.”

Jack knew the harbor, as does the dog its kennel. He held a pilot’s certificate and waiving assistance steered his ship himself in this mad[219] race with time, that no moment should be lost by lowering sails until the anchor dropped in Massachusetts sand.

The crew was ready at the sheets and running gear. Each man at his station and all attention. Old Brice in the waist stood watching the skipper ready to pass the word, to “let all go;” Morgan, the second mate, at the boat davits held the tackle to lower away the yawl the instant the ship “came round.”

The skipper at the wheel, stood steady, firm and sure, as though chiseled from hardest rock. He never shifted his blood-shot eyes from straight ahead. His strong, determined face, colorless beneath the tan, never relaxed a line of the intensity that stamped it with sharp angles. The skipper had not closed his eyes in sleep since leaving Port au Prince nor had he left the deck for a single hour.

“Let go all!” the helmsman called and Brice repeated the order. The ship flew around, like a startled stag and then came,

“Let go the anchor! Lower away on that boat tackle! Come, Cousin John, we are opposite[220] Dunlap’s docks. This is Boston harbor, thank God!” So called Jack Dunlap, springing toward the descending small boat that had hung at the davits, and dragging the no-way backward old gentleman, John Dunlap, along with him.

The only moment lost in Port au Prince before the “Adams” sailed was to arouse the operator and send a message to Chapman saying that John Dunlap had left in the “Adams” and was on his way to Boston and his brother’s bedside.

When the red ball barred with black streaming from the masthead announced that a Dunlap ship was entering the port, the information was sent at once to the city, and an anxious, thin and sorrowing man gave an order to the driver of the fastest team in the Dunlap stables, to hasten to Dunlap’s wharf and sprang into the carriage.

The impatient, scrawny figure of David Chapman caught the eyes of the two passengers in the yawl, as with lusty strokes the sailors at the oars urged the small boat toward the steps of the dock. Chapman in his excitement fairly raced up and down the dock waving his hands toward the approaching boat.

“He still lives!” he shouted when they could hear him, instinctively knowing that, that question was first in the minds of those nearing the wharf.

“And Lucy?” said Jack huskily, as he stepped on the dock and grasped Chapman’s extended hand. Old John Dunlap had said never a word nor looked right nor left, but springing up the steps with extraordinary agility in one of his age, had run directly to the waiting carriage.

“Alive but better dead,” was all that the superintendent could find breath to say as he ran beside Jack toward the carriage and leaped in.

“Stop for nothing; put the horses to a gallop,” commanded Mr. Dunlap, leaning out of the carriage window and addressing the coachman as he wheeled his horses around and turned upon the street.

It was at an early hour on Sunday morning when the Dunlaps landed and the streets were freed from the week day traffic and the number of vehicles that usually crowded them.

As the swaying carriage dashed along, Chapman was unable to make the recently arrived[222] men understand more than that Lucy had suddenly become deranged as a result of her illness, and that this appalling circumstance, in connection with his idolized granddaughter’s severe sickness had produced a paralytic stroke, that had rendered powerless the entire right side of James Dunlap’s body; that his vitality was so low and his whole constitution seemed so shaken and undermined by the events of the last few weeks, that the physicians despaired of his life.

As the foaming horses were halted before the entrance of the Dunlap mansion, Mr. John Dunlap jumped from the still swaying vehicle and ran up the steps, heedless of Mrs. Church and the servants in the hall, he rushed straight to the well remembered room where, as boys, he and his brother had slept, and which was still the bed-chamber occupied by Mr. James Dunlap.

John Dunlap opened the door and for a moment faltered on the threshold; then that voice he loved so well called out,

“Is that my brother John?” The stricken man had recognized his brother’s footsteps.

An instant more and John Dunlap had thrown[223] himself across the bed and his arms were around his brother; for several minutes those two hearts, which in unison had beaten since first the life-blood pulsated through them, were pressed together. James Dunlap’s left hand weakly patting his brother.

David Chapman had followed, close upon the heels of John Dunlap and was crouching at the bottom of the bed, with his face hidden by the bed-clothing that covered his old master’s feet, and was silently sobbing. When Jack Dunlap entered the hall good Mrs. Church, who had been a second mother to him while he lived at the Dunlap house in his school boy days, ran to him and throwing her arms about his neck fell upon his broad breast, weeping and crying,

“My boy is home! Thank God for sending you, Jack. We have suffered so, and needed you so much, my boy!”

When the sailor man had succeeded in pacifying the distressed old housekeeper and disengaged himself from her embrace, he hastened after Chapman. As he entered the room and stepped near the bed he heard a feeble voice[224] which he scarcely recognized as that of Mr. James Dunlap, say,

“It is all my fault John. You, brother, tried to prevent it. I alone am to blame. I have driven my darling mad and I believe that it will kill her. I did it Oh God! I did it. Blame no one John; be kind, punish no one, my brother. I alone am at fault.”

These words came with the force of a terrible blow to Jack Dunlap, and halted him in mute and motionless wonder where he was.

“James, don’t talk that way. I can’t stand it, brother. Whatever you have done, I know not, and care not, it is noble, just and right and I stand with you, brother, in whatsoever it may be,” said John Dunlap in a broken but energetic voice.

“Has no one told you then, John?” came faintly from the partially paralyzed lips of him who lay upon the bed.

“Told me what? Brother James; but no matter what they have to tell, you are not blamable as you say; I stand by that.”

Though the voice was husky, there was a challenge[225] in the tone that said, let no man dare attack my brother. The innate chivalry of the old New Englander was superior even to his sorrow.

“Who is in the room beside you, John?” asked James Dunlap, anxious that something he had to say should not be heard by other than the trustworthy, and unable to move his head to ascertain.

“No one, James, but our kinsman, Jack Dunlap, and faithful David Chapman,” replied his brother.

The palsied man struggled with some powerful emotion, and by the greatest effort was only able to utter in a whisper the words,

“Lucy’s baby is black and impish. The negro blood in Burton caused the breeding back to a remote ancestor, as, John, you warned me might be the case. It has driven my granddaughter insane and will cause her death. God have mercy on me!” The effort and emotion was too much for the weak old gentleman; his head fell to one side; he had fainted.

John Dunlap started when he heard these direful[226] words. A look of horror on his face, but brotherly love stronger than all else caused him to put aside every thought and endeavor to resuscitate the unconscious man.

Poor Jack. He had borne manfully much heartache, but the dreadful thing that he had just heard was too much for even his iron will and nerves. He collapsed as if a dagger had pierced his heart, and would have fallen to the floor had he not gripped the bedstead when his legs gave way.

Chapman raised his head and gazed, with eyes red from weeping, at him who told the calamitous story of the events that had stricken him down. There was a dangerous glitter in the red eyes as Chapman sprung to John Dunlap’s assistance in reviving the senseless man.

When Jack recovered self-command sufficient to realize what was happening about him, he found that the physician, who had been summoned, had administered restoratives and stimulants, and that the patient had returned to consciousness; that the kind Doctor was trying to comfort the heartbroken brother of the sufferer[227] even while obliged to admit that the end of life for James Dunlap was not far distant.

“Come and get in my bed, Jack,” came in a low and indistinct voice from the couch of the helpless patient. Captain Dunlap started in surprise, but old John Dunlap made a motion with his hand and said in a voice choking with emotion,

“He always so called me when we were boys,” and lying down by his brother he put his arms lovingly and protectingly around him.

Thus the two old men lay side by side as they had done years before in their cradle. The silence remained for a long time unbroken, save for the muffled sobs that came from those who watched and grieved in the chamber.

“How cold it is, Jack, come closer; I’m cold. I broke through the ice today and got wet but don’t tell mother, she will worry. Jack, don’t tell on me.” The words were whispered to his brother by the dying man.

“No, Jim, I’ll not tell, old fellow,” bravely answered John Dunlap, but a smothered sob shook his shoulders. He knew his brother’s mind was[228] straying back into the days of their boyhood.

For what inscrutable cause does the mind of the most aged recur to scenes and associations of childhood when Death, the dread conqueror, draws near? Why does the most patriarchal prattle as though still at the mother knee in that last and saddest hour? Is it because mother, child, in purity approach nearest to that transcendent pellucidity that surrounds the throne of Him before whom all must appear? Does the nearness of the coming hour cast its shadow on the soul, causing it to return to the period of greatest innocence, and that love that is purest on earth?

Alas! James Dunlap had gone on that long, last journey! The noble, kindly soul had gone to its God. John Dunlap held in his arms the pulseless form of him who for seventy-three years had been his second self, and whom he had loved with a devotedness seldom seen in this selfish world of ours.

To see a strong man weep is painful; to hear[229] him sob is dreadful; but to listen and look upon the sorrow of a strong and aged man is heartbreaking and will cause sympathetic tears to flow from eyes of all who are not flinty-hearted.

Chapman, when he knew the end had come, clasped the cold feet of his old employer and wept bitterly; Jack could bear no more. With bursting heart he fled from the room, but kept the chamber sacred from intrusion, and in the sole possession of the two old men who sorrowed there.

The funeral of James Dunlap was attended by the foremost citizens of that section of the United States, where for so many years he had justly held a position of honor and prominence.

The universal gloom and hush that was observable throughout the city of Boston on the day that the sorrowful cortege followed all that remained earthly of this esteemed citizen, gave greater evidence of universal grief than words or weeping could have done.

While James Dunlap had never held any civic or political position, his broad charity, unostentatious generosity, kindliness of spirit, constant[230] thoughtfulness of his fellow men, and the unassuming gentleness of his lovable disposition and character, gave him an undisputed high place in the hearts of his fellow citizens of both lofty and lowly condition.

The chief executive of his native state, jurists, scholars, and capitalists gathered with rough, weather beaten seafaring men, clerks and laborers to listen to the final prayer offered up, to Him above, at the old family vault of the Dunlaps beneath the sighing willow trees.

Haggard and worn by the emotions that had wrenched his very soul for the past two or three weeks, David Chapman dragged himself to the tea-table where his sister waited on the evening of the day of the funeral ceremonies.

With the fidelity of a faithful, loving dog he had held a position during all of many nights at the feet of him who in life had been his object of paramount devotion; during those days with unswerving faithfulness to the house of “J. Dunlap,” he was found leaden hued and worn, but still attentive, at his desk in the office. The[231] great business must not suffer, thought the man, even if I drop dead from exhaustion. Neither John Dunlap nor Walter Burton was in a condition, nor could they force themselves, to attend to the business of the house no matter how urgent the need might be.

When the business of the day ended, Chapman hastened to the Dunlap mansion, and like a ghostly shadow glided to his position at the feet of his old employer, speaking to no one and no one saying him nay—it seemed the sad watcher’s right.

As David Chapman dropped into a chair at the tea-table, the anxious and sympathetic sister said,

“Brother, you really must take some rest. Indeed you must, David, now that all is over.”

The man’s condition was pitiable; his words came from his throat with the dry, rasping sound of a file working on hardest steel.

“What a God-send Jack Dunlap is at this time, sister. He has taken charge of everything,[232] and in that steady, confident, masterful way of his has brought order out of the chaos that existed at the mansion. It may be the training and habits acquired at sea, but no matter what it is the transformation in the affairs at the house is wonderful. His decisive manner of directing everything and everybody and the correctness and promptness with which all people and things are disposed of by him is phenomenal. I thank Providence for the relief that Jack’s coming has brought.”

The total exhaustion of Chapman’s intense energy was best exhibited in the satisfaction he felt at having some one to assist him even in the affairs of the Dunlaps.

“Jack is one of the best and strongest minded men in the world. While I know that his heart is bleeding for all, especially for Lucy, he has maintained a self-control that is superb,” said the spinster.

“When he learned that Lucy’s hallucination led her to believe that the old family physician had conspired to deprive her of her baby, he promptly procured the attendance of another[233] doctor, saying positively, ‘Lucy’s mind must not be disturbed by sight of anything or person tending to aggravate her mental disorder.’ He forbade Mrs. Church going into Lucy’s apartments, dismissed the nurse and procured a new one, had that accursed infant put with his nurse into other apartments and did it all so firmly and quietly that no one dreamed of disputing any order given by him,” said David wearily, but evidently much relieved with the changes made by Jack.

“Her mental faculties are totally disarranged. She has not spoken coherently since she fell senseless on that dreadful night and was carried to her bed. Besides, her physical condition is precarious in the extreme,” replied the brother.

“Yes, and it is very strange how rational she became as soon as she saw him enter the room. You know, Arabella, the steady, earnest, matter of fact manner he has. Well, he walked into her room with just that manner, they say he[234] stopped to steady himself before going in, and said ‘How are you, Cousin Lucy? I’ve come home to see you,’ and without a quiver took her extended hands and pressed them to his breast.

“Lucy knew him at once when he stepped inside the door. She looked intently at him, then gave a glad, joyful cry and held out her hands, calling, ‘Jack, Oh Jack! Come to me, my champion! Now all will be well.’ Then she put her weak, white arms about his neck and began to weep as she sobbed out, ‘Jack, I have needed you. You said you would come from the end of the earth to me. I knew you would come; Jack, they have stolen my angel boy, my baby. Jack, find it, bring it to me. I know you can. You said until death you would love me, Jack. Oh! find my baby, my darling.’”

“Poor Lucy! Poor Jack!” broke in the old lady, as tears of pity ran down her withered cheek.

“But think of the strength of the man, Arabella. You and I know what he was suffering. Yet he answered with never a waver in his voice, ‘All right, little cousin, I am here and no[235] harm shall come to you. I’ll help you, but you must be a good little girl and stay quiet and get well. Shall I have my mother come to sit with you?’ She cried out at once, ‘Please do, Jack, Cousin Martha did not steal my baby,’ and then he insisted that she put her head back on the pillow and close her eyes. When she did so Jack had the courage to sit on the bedside and sing softly some old song about the sea that they had sung together when children. The poor girl fell fast asleep as he sung, but still clung to Jack’s brown hand.”

“Lucy never calls, as formerly, for her grandfather or husband. In fact, when Burton entered her room after that awful night she flew into a perfect frenzy, accusing him of stealing her child and putting some imp that, at some time, she had seen in Florida, in his place, notwithstanding his protestations and entreaties. Her mad fury increased to such a degree that[236] the doctor insisted that Burton should leave the room, and has forbidden him to again visit his wife until there is a change in her mental condition. Of course, Lucy knows nothing of the death of her grandfather.” The man’s voice became choked as he uttered the last sentence.

“Have Jack and Mr. Burton been together since Jack’s return?” inquired Arabella, after a long silence.

“I think not, except once when they were closeted in the library for two hours the day after Jack arrived. When they came out I was in the hall and heard Jack say, as he left the library with Burton, ‘I shall hold you to your promise. You must wait until my cousin be in a condition of mind to express her wishes in that matter.’ Jack’s voice was firm and emphatic and his face was very stern. Burton replied, ‘I gave you my word of honor.’ He seemed in great distress and mental anguish. My opinion is that he had proposed disappearing forever, and I think so for the reason that he had asked me to dispose of a great amount of his personal securities, and to bring him currency for the proceeds in bills of[237] large denomination, and Jack must have objected,” rejoined Chapman.

“I am sorry for Mr. Burton and am glad Jack would not let him go away,” said the kind spinster.

“They would better let him go. This misfortune is the physical one that long ago I told you was possible. The next may be spiritual and result in some emotional or fanatic outburst of barbarous religious fervor that may again disgrace us all. Then may develop the bestial propensities of the sensual nature of savages and may result in crime and ruin the house of Dunlap forever.”

“David, go to bed and rest. You are worn out and conjure up imaginary horrors purely by reason of nervousness and weariness,” said the sister soothingly.

“You maintained months ago that the danger of breeding back was imaginary. What do you think now? The other things that I suggest as possible, are inherent in Burton’s blood and may tell their story yet.”

Chapman, though weak, became vehement immediately upon the mention of this unfortunate subject. It required all the persuasion and diplomacy of his good sister to get him to desist and finally to retire to his bed room for the rest that was so needed by the worn out man.

XIV.

“You have been a tower of strength to me, Jack, in the grief and trouble of the last three months. I don’t know what would have become of us all without your aid and comfort.”

So spoke Mr. John Dunlap. He appeared many years older than he did when three months before he arrived in Boston on board the “Adams.” He was bent, and care worn. Deep sorrow had taken the fire and mirth from his honest, kindly eyes.

“I am rejoiced and repaid if I have been able to be of service to those whom I love, and who have always been so kind to me,” replied Jack Dunlap simply.

The two men were seated in the library of the Dunlap mansion in the closing hour of that late November day, watching the heavy snow flakes falling without.

“Jack, I have meditated for several days upon[240] what I am about to say and can find no way but to beg you to make more sacrifices for us,” said the old gentleman, after a lapse of several minutes.

“The condition in which our family is demands the presence of some younger, stronger head and hand than mine is now. I know the ‘Adams’ is refitted, after her two years of service, and ready for sea. I know you, my lad, and your reluctance to remain idle when you think that you should be at work.”

“To be frank, sir, you have hit upon a subject about which I desired to talk with you but have hesitated for several days,” said the young man, with something of relief in his tone.

“Well then, Jack, to begin with, I wish to charter your ship for a voyage and to show that it is no subterfuge to hold you here, I say at once I wish you to sail in her.” Mr. Dunlap paused for a moment to note the effect of his proposal and then continued,

“Let me go over the situation, Jack, and tell me if you do not agree in my conclusions. Lucy, while apparently restored in a degree to her former[241] health, is still weak and looks fragile. The physicians advise me to take her to a warmer climate before our New England Winter sets in. Her dementia still continues, and while she is perfectly gentle and harmless, she will neither tolerate the presence of her husband, nor poor Mrs. Church, and is even not pleased or quiet in my company. I think my likeness to my beloved brother affects her. She clings to your good mother and to you, my lad, with the confident affection of a child. When she is not softly singing, as she rocks and smiles in a heartrending, far-off-way, some baby lullaby, she is flitting about the house like some sweet and sorrowful shadow. Can we, Jack, expose our girl in this condition to the unsympathetic gaze of strangers?”

“No, no, a thousand times no!” was the quick and emphatic answer of the younger man.

“Now listen, Jack. Since the death of that poor, little misshapen black creature, which innocently brought so much trouble into our lives, and, Jack, your thoughtfulness in having it buried quietly in Bedford instead of here is[242] something I shall never forget. But to return to Lucy: Since that object is out of the way, and after the consultation of those great specialists in mental disorder cases, I am led to hope that Lucy may be restored to us in all the glory of her former mental condition.”

“The specialists affirm that as this aberration of mind was produced by a shock and as there is no inherited insanity involved in the case, that the restoration may occur at any moment in the most unexpected manner. A surprise, shock or some accident may instantly produce the joyful change.

“It is for that very reason that I have insisted that Burton should remain near at hand, and ready to respond to a call from the restored wife for her husband’s presence. We must bear in mind the fact that Lucy, before this hallucination, was devotedly attached to her husband and grandfather. With the return of her reason we may justly expect the return of her former affections and feelings,” interrupted Jack by way[243] of explanation of something he had done.

“I know that, Jack, and approve of your course, but I am only a weak human creature, and notwithstanding the injunction of my dying brother to blame no one, I cannot eradicate from my mind a feeling of animosity toward Burton. I know that he is not culpable, but still I should be glad to have him pass out of our lives, if it were not for the probable effect upon Lucy if she ever be restored to reason. However, I was not displeased by his decision to return to his own house, the ‘Eyrie,’ until his presence was required here.”

“Burton’s position, sir, has been a very trying one. I may say a very dreadful one, and I think that he has acted in a very manly, courageous manner, sir, and I think it our duty, as Christian men, to put aside even our natural repugnance to the author of our misfortune and be lenient toward one who has suffered as well as ourselves.”

“And to be frank and outspoken with you, sir,[244] by heavens! I am saving him for Lucy’s sake; if she wish him, when she know all, she shall have him safe and sound if it cost my life.” There was a fierce determination in Jack’s voice that boded no good to Burton should he attempt to disappear, nor to any one who attempted to injure the man whom Lucy’s loyal sailor knight was safe-keeping for his hopeless love’s sake.

“Jack, I love you, lad.” was all that the old Dunlap said, but he knew and felt the grandeur of the character of the man, who pressed the dagger down into his own heart, to save a single pang to the woman whom he loved so unselfishly.

“But to resume the recital of my plans and our situation,” said the old gentleman settling back in his chair. He had leaned forward to pat Jack on the shoulder.

“We agree that Lucy cannot be subjected to the scrutiny and criticism of strangers. I propose, that as the physicians advise a warmer climate, to charter the ‘Adams,’ have the cabin remodeled to accommodate Lucy, your mother, the nurse and Lucy’s maid, and to take them all with[245] me to Haiti, just as soon as the changes in the accommodations on your ship can be made.”

“Decidedly, yes! The business may suffer, but let it. What is business in comparison to the restoration of Lucy?” cried Jack in an aggressive tone of voice.

“It shall be as you think best, my lad. The business will not suffer in any event, for since Burton’s return to his position as manager, he has in some extraordinary manner become worthless in the management of the affairs of the house. He does not inspire the respect that he did formerly nor does he seem to possess the same self-confidence and decision of character that marked his manner before the events of the past few weeks. I don’t know what I should have done had it not been for Chapman. He has taken full charge of everything and will continue in control while I am absent, if you decide to take Burton along.”

“You surprise me, sir. I had noticed no alteration in Burton’s manner,” exclaimed Jack, sincerely astonished at what he heard.

“That is quite likely as he seems to regard you with a kind of awed respect, but nevertheless what I state is an absolute fact. When first he made his appearance at the office he endeavored by a brave, bold front to resume his position, but somehow his attempt was a lamentable failure. He seemed to feel that everyone was aware that there was something sham about his assumed dignity and authority and like an urchin caught masquerading in his father’s coat and hat, he has discarded the borrowed garments and relapsed into the character that nature gave him. Burton’s succeeding efforts to impress the office force and people with whom we do business with a sense of his importance have been absurdly laughable,” said Mr. Dunlap.

“The secret of the child, and all that concerns our family is confined to our own people, and a few old and faithful friends, is it not?” asked Jack in an anxious, troubled voice.

“Certainly, but that apparently does not lessen[247] Burton’s sense of being garbed in stolen apparel. I can notice the dignity and culture of the white race growing less day by day in Burton’s speech and manner, just as frost-pictures on a window pane lessen each hour in the rays of the sun until naught remains but the naked and bared glass.”

“One by one the purloined habiliments of the superior race will disappear until finally he will stand forth stripped of the acquired veneering created by the culture of the white race, a negro. This transformation, which I think time will effect, recalls to me an example of the inordinate vanity and love of parading in borrowed plumage common to the negro race. During one of the numerous insurrections in Haiti I used to see one of the major generals of the insurgents—they had a dozen for every hundred privates—a big black fellow, strut about, puffed up with assumed importance and dignity. In less than one week after the insurrection was suppressed he was at my door selling fish. While there he began[248] to ‘pat Juba,’ as he called it, and dance, giggling with childish glee and winding up the performance by begging me for a quarter. There you see the negro of it. Prick the balloon and when the borrowed elevating gas escapes the skin collapses immediately,” said John Dunlap, with the positiveness of a prophet.

“God grant that the end be not as you surmise or let God in His mercy continue our Lucy in her present condition. It were more merciful. History gives the records of men of the negro race who did not end their lives in the manner you suggest, however,” replied Jack, extracting a crumb of comfort from the last statement.

“True! my lad, true! There have been white elephants and white crows; in every forest occasionally a rare bird is found. So with the negro race, rare exceptions to the general rule do appear but so infrequently as to only accentuate the accuracy of the general rule.”

Walter Burton was seated at a table in his bedroom at the “Eyrie.” Before him were scattered letters, papers and writing material. It[249] was late at night and he had evidently been engaged in assorting and destroying the contents of an iron box placed beside him on the floor. His elbows were on the table and his chin rested in both of his hands while he gazed meditatively at the flame in the lamp before him.

“I am, oh! so weary of this farce. How I long to be able to run away and be free,” he sighed as he said this to himself. After a little while he continued.

“The farce has been played to the final act. I know it. What is the use to continue upon the stage longer? Should Lucy’s mind return to its normal condition she must be informed of what has transpired and then my happiness will terminate anyhow. Of what earthly use is it for me to remain here. She might call for me at first, but only to repulse me at last. I am tolerated by old John Dunlap, hated or despised by the others except the noblest of them all, Jack Dunlap. He relies upon my word of honor. I must not lose his respect. I would to God I had given another the promise not to disappear.”

The man paused for some time in his soliloquy[250] and then broke out again by exclaiming,

“The moment that the nurse showed the child to me a curtain of darkness seemed to roll back. I saw clearly what produced the strange spells that for so long have mystified me. I am a negro. My blood and natural inclinations are those common to the descendants of Ham. It matters not that my skin is white, I am still a negro. The acquirement of the education, culture and refinement of the white race has made no change in my blood and inherent instincts. I am ever a negro. Like a jaded harlot I may paint my face with the hues of health but I am like her, a diseased imitator of the healthy. I may have every outward and visible sign but the inward and spiritual grace of the white race is not and can never be mine. I am a wretched sham, fraud and libel upon the white race with my fair skin and affected manner.”

The man’s arms fell upon the table and he hid his head in them and groaned. Thus he remained for a short time, then raised his head and cried out,

“I even doubt that my Christianity is genuine[251] and not a hollow mockery! The doctrine of Mahomet is received more readily, and practiced more consistently by my native race in its ancient home of Africa than the pure and elevating teachings of Christ. The laws of Mahomet seem more consistent with the sensual nature of my race than the chaste commands of Christ. History relates that Islamism is able to turn an African negro from idolatry where the Christian religion utterly fails. Are my protestations of faith in Christianity like my refinement, culture and manners, merely outward manifestations in imitation of the white race and as deceitful as is the color of my skin?”

Burton sat silent for several moments and then said in a tone of sad reminiscence.

“I recall how everything in the Christian religion or service that appealed to the emotional element within me aroused me, but is my nature as a negro, susceptible of receiving, retaining and appreciating permanently the truths of that purest and noblest of all faiths?” Again the man paused as if silently struggling to solve the problem suggested.

“It has of late, I know, become the fashion to refuse to accept the Scriptures literally, but there is one prophecy concerning the descendants of Ham which thousands of years have demonstrated as true.”

“The sculpture of that oldest of civilizations, the mother of all culture, the Egyptian, proves beyond a doubt that the children of Ham came in contact with the source of Greek and Roman culture yet they advanced not one step. The profiles of some even of the early Pharaohs as seen on their tombs furnish unmistakable proof of that contact in the Negroid type of the features of Egypt’s rulers.”

“The Romans carried civilization to every people whom they conquered and to those who escaped the Roman domination they bequeathed an impetus that urged them forward, with the single exception of the accursed Hamites.”

“The Arabs occupied Northern Africa and kept burning the torch of civilization in the chaos of the Dark Ages in Europe. The Arabs fraternized more freely with the sons of Ham than all other branches of the human race, but failed to[253] push, pull or drive them along the highway of culture.”

“The negro race seems bound by that old Scriptural prophecy concerning the descendants of Ham. It does not advance beyond being the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the balance of mankind, notwithstanding five thousand years of opportunity and inducement.”

“The negro race in Africa, its ancestral land, can point to no ruined temples, no not even mounds like can the American Indians. It borrowed not even the art of laying stones from Egypt. It has no written language though the Phoenicians gave that blessing to the world. It has no religion worthy of the name, neither laws nor well defined language. Notwithstanding its association with Egyptian, Roman and Arabian culture and civilization, fountains for all of the thirsty white race, the negro race has benefited not at all. It is where it was five thousand years ago. God’s will be done!”

“Haiti, after decades of freedom, starting with[254] the benefits conferred by the religion and civilization of one of the leading nations of earth, is the home today of ignorance, slothfulness and superstition. Every improvement made by the former white rulers neglected and passing away. In the hands of the white race it had now been a Paradise. Liberia is as dead, stagnant and torpid as if progress had vanished with the fostering care of the white nations that founded that republic.”

The young man ceased in recapitulating the failures of his race, but added with a sigh,

“In America! Well one may grow oranges in New England by covering the trees with glass and heating the conservatory, but break the glass or let the fire expire and the orange trees die. Break the civilization of the white race in America like the glass, let the fire of its culture become extinguished and alas for the exotic race and its artificial progress.”

“But enough of my race,” exclaimed Burton impatiently as he arose from the table and began walking about the room.

“Formerly I tried to curb an inclination that[255] was incomprehensible. Now that I know the cause I rather enjoy the relapses into my natural self. I welcome the casting aside of the mask and affectation of the unreal. It is a relief. The restraint imposed by the presence of those who know me for what I am, is irksome. I long all day for the freedom of my isolation here in the ‘Eyrie’ where no prying eye is finely discriminating the real from the sham. I loath the office and the association there. Each day I seem to drop a link of the chain that binds me to an artificial existence.”

Suddenly an idea seemed to present some new phase to the soliloquizing man. He put his hand to his head as if in pain, and cried out,

XV.

“It was good of you Jack, to have Mr. Dunlap invite me to dine with him this evening. I am deucedly weary of the ‘off colored,’” exclaimed Lieutenant Tom Maxon as he and his companion, Captain Jack Dunlap walked in the twilight through the outskirts of Port au Prince.

“To tell you the truth, Tom, I was not thinking of your pleasure in the visit half so much as I was about my old kinsman’s. You see we have been here a month, and as my Cousin Lucy is an invalid and sees no company, Mr. Dunlap has divided his great rambling house into two parts. He and Burton occupy one part and the women folk the other; I join them as often as possible but as Burton is exceedingly popular with the dusky Haitians and often absent, my old cousin is apt to be lonely. I thought your habitual jolliness would do him good, and at the same time[257] secure you a fine dinner, excellent wine and the best cigars in Haiti; hence the invitation.”

“How is Mrs. Burton? I remember her from the days when you, the little Princess and I used to make ‘Rome howl’ in the Dunlap attic.”

“Lucy is much improved by the sea voyage and change of climate, but must have absolute quiet. For that reason my mother keeps up an establishment in one part of the house to insure against noise, or intrusion,” said Jack.

“I hope that you didn’t promise much jollity on my part this evening, old chum, for the thought of our little Princess being an invalid and under the same roof knocks all the laugh and joke out of even a mirthful idiot like Tom Maxon,” said the lieutenant.

“It’s sailing rather close to tears, I confess, Tom, but I do wish you to cheer the old gentleman up some if you can,” replied Jack as they strolled along the highway between dense masses of tropical foliage.

“I say, Jack, is Mr. Dunlap’s place much further? I don’t half like its location,” said Maxon as he looked about him and noticed the absence[258] of houses and the thick underbrush.

“Why? What’s the matter with it? Are you leg weary already, you sea-swab?” cried Dunlap laughing.

“Not a bit; but I’ll tell you something that may be a little imprudent in a naval officer, but still I think you ought to know. The American Consul fears some trouble from the blacks on account of the concessions that Dictator Dupree was forced to grant the whites before the English and American bankers would make the loan that Mr. Dunlap negotiated. The rumor is that the ignorant blacks from the mountains blame your kinsman and mutter threats against him. When Admiral Snave received the order at Gibraltar to call at Port au Prince on our way home with the flag-ship Delaware and one cruiser, we all suspected something was up, and after we arrived and the old fighting-cock placed guards at the American Consulate we felt sure of it,” replied Lieutenant Tom seriously.

“Oh! pshaw, these black fellows are always muttering and threatening but it ends at that,” said Jack with a contemptuous gesture.

“‘Luff round,’ shipmate,” suddenly called Tom Maxon grabbing hold of Jack’s arm and pointing through a break in the jungle that lined the roadway.

“Isn’t that a queer combination over there by that dead tree?” continued the officer directing Jack’s gaze to a cleared spot on the edge of the forest.

In the dim light could be distinguished the figure of a well-dressed man, who was not black, in earnest conversation with a bent old hag of a black woman who rested her hand familiarly and affectionately upon his arm. Dunlap started when he first glanced at them. The figure and dress of the man was strangely similar to that of Walter Burton.

“Some go-between in a dusky love affair doubtless,” said Jack shortly as he moved on.

“Well, I think I could select a better looking Cupid,” exclaimed Tom laughing at the suggestion of the old witch playing the part of love’s messenger.

“By the way, Jack, speaking of Cupid, I received a peculiar communication at Gibraltar.[260] It was only a clipping from some society paper but this was what it said: ‘Mr. T. DeMontmorency Jones has sailed in his magnificent yacht the “Bessie” for the Mediterranean, where he will spend the winter. En passant, rumor says the engagement between Mr. Jones and one of Boston’s most popular belles has been terminated.’ This same spindle shanked popinjay of a millionaire was sailing in the wake of my inamorata and was said to have cut me out of the race after my Trafalgar. So, when I tell you, old chap, that the writing on the envelope looks suspiciously like the chirography of Miss Elizabeth Winthrop, you can guess why I can sing

The light-hearted lieutenant aroused the birds from their roosts by the gusto of his boisterous baritone in his improvised song. He stopped short and said abruptly,

“Jack, why the deuce didn’t you fall in love with the little Princess and marry her yourself?”

“Hold hard, Tom. My cousin Lucy is the object of too much serious concern to us all to[261] be made the subject of jest just now, even by you, comrade, and what you ask is infernal nonsense anyhow,” replied Jack, somewhat confused and with more heat than seemed justifiable.

“Oh! I beg your pardon, Jack. You know that I’m such a thoughtless fool, I didn’t think how the question might sound,” said Tom quickly, in embarrassment.

Captain Dunlap made no mistake in promising the lieutenant of the U.S.N. a good dinner, rare wine and fine cigars. John Dunlap in the desert of Sahara would have surrounded himself, somehow, with all the accessories necessary to an ideal host.

Good-natured Tom Maxon exercised himself to the utmost in cheering the old gentleman and dispelling any loneliness or gloom that he might feel. Tom told amusing anecdotes of the irascible admiral, recounted odd experiences and funny incidents in his term of service among the Philippinoes and Chinese; he sang queer parodies on popular ballads, and rollicking, jolly sea songs until the old gentleman, temporarily forgetting his care and grief, was laughing like a schoolboy.

When they were seated, feet upon the railing, a la Americaine, on the broad piazza, listening to the songs of the tropical night birds, as they smoked their cigars, the lieutenant recalled the subject of the location of Mr. Dunlap’s house, by saying,

“I mentioned to Jack, while on my way here, sir, that it seemed to me that you would be safer nearer the American Consulate in case any trouble should arise concerning the concessions to the whites made by Dupree.”

“Oh! I don’t think that there is any occasion for alarm. To bluff and bluster is part of the negro nature. The whole talk is inspired by the agitation caused by the Voo Doo priests and priestesses among the superstitious blacks from the mountains. By the way, Jack, our old friend the witch who wished to sail in your ship with us when we left for Boston, still haunts my premises.” As if to corroborate what the speaker had just said, a wailing chant arose on the tranquil night air, coming from just beyond the wall around the garden,

“My black boy who waits at the table told me that the old crone was holding meetings nightly in worship of Voo Doo, and that too in the very suburbs of the city,” said Mr. Dunlap when the sound of old Sybella’s voice died away in the distance.

“I don’t know. When he does not appear at the established dinner hour I take it for granted that he is at the club in the city or dining with some of his newly made friends. He is quite popular here, being a Haitian himself,” replied the old gentleman.

It was late that night when Walter Burton entered the apartments reserved for his exclusive use in the house of John Dunlap. Throwing off his coat he sat down in a great easy chair in the moonlight by the open window and lighted a cigar.

“I wish that I were free to fly to the mountains[264] and hide myself here in Haiti among my own people forever,” sighed the young man glancing away off to the shadowy outline of the hills against the moonlit sky.

“The sensation of being pitied is humiliating and hateful, and that was what I endured during the voyage from Boston, and have suffered ever since I arrived and have been in enforced association with the Dunlaps. The devoted love for Lucy, my wife, is a source of pain, not pleasure. Her unreasoning antipathy now is more bearable than will surely be the repulsion that must arise if, when restored to reason, she learn that I am the author of the cause of her disappointment, horror and dementia. Woe is mine under any circumstances! The evil consequences of attempted amalgamation of the negro and white races are not borne alone by the white participants but fall as heavily upon those of the negro blood who share in the abortive effort.”

Burton seemed to ruminate for a long while, smoking in silence, then he muttered,

“Am I much happier when with my own race? Hardly! When I am in the society of even the[265] most highly cultivated Haitian negroes I am unable to free myself from the thought that we are much like a lot of monkeys, such as Italian street musicians carry with them. We negroes are togged out in the dignity, education and culture of the white race, but we are only aping the natural, self-evolved civilization and culture of the whites. The clothing does not fit us, the garments were not cut according to our mental and moral measurements, and we appear ridiculous when we don the borrowed trappings of the white race’s mind, and pompously strut before an amused and jeering world.”

“When I imagined the mantle that I wore was my own it set lightly and comfortably on me. Now that I realize that it is the property of another, it has become cumbersome, unwieldy, awkward and is slipping rapidly from my shoulders.”

“On the other side of the subject are equal difficulties. If, weary of imitation and affectation, I seek the society of my race in all its natural purity and ignorance, my senses have become so acute, softened and made tender by the long use of my borrowed mantle that I am shocked, horrified[266] or disgusted. Oh! Son of Ham, escape from the doom pronounced against you while yet time was new seems impossible. In My Book it is writ, saith the Lord!”

In melancholy musing the man tortured by so many contrary emotions and feelings, sat silently gazing at the distant stars and then cried out in anguish of spirit,

“Oh! that I should be forced to feel that the Creator of all this grand universe is unjust! That I should regard education and culture as a curse to those foredoomed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. That I should realize that refinement is a cankerous limb, a clog and hindrance to a negro, unfitting him for association with his own race and yet impotent to change those innate characteristics inherited by him from his ancestors, that disqualify him from homogeneousness with the white race.”

The young man’s voice was full of despair and even something of reproach as his subtle intellect wove the meshes of the adamantine condition that bound him helpless, in agony, to the rack of race inferiority.

“Mother Sybella, who has proven herself my great-grandmother, urges me to fly and seek among my own people that surcease from suffering unattainable among the whites. While she fascinates me, she fills me with horror. I am drawn toward her yet I am repelled by something loathsome in the association with her. She seems to possess hypnotic power over my senses; she leads me by some magnetic influence that exerts control over the negro portion of my nature.”

“I am ashamed to be seen by the white people, especially the Dunlaps, in familiar conversation with the grandmother of my mother, but in our secret and frequent interviews she has told me much that I was unaware of concerning my ancestors and my mother. I have promised to attend a meeting of my kinsmen tomorrow night, which will be held in a secluded spot near the city, whither she herself will guide me. I do not wish to go. I did not wish to make the promise and appointment to meet her, but was compelled by the overmastering power she wields over the natural proclivities within me. I must meet her and go with her.”

The struggle in the dual nature of the man between the contending forces of the innate and the acquired was obvious in the reluctant tone in which, while he admitted that he would obey the innate, he lamented the abandonment of the acquired.

“I must go, I feel that I must! My destiny was written ere Shem, Ham and Japhet separated to people the world. I bow to the inevitable! I am pledged to Dupree for dinner tomorrow evening, but I shall excuse myself early, and keep my appointment with Mother Sybella, and accompany her to the meeting of my kindred.”

XVI.

The cleared spot selected by Mother Sybella as the scene of her mystic ceremonies and the gathering place of the worshipers of Voo Doo, though scarcely beyond the outskirts of the city, was so screened by the umbrageous growth of tropical forest, interlaced with vanilla and grape-vines that festoon every woodland of Haiti, that its presence was not even suspected save by the initiated.

On the night that Dictator Dupree entertained, among other guests the wealthy Haitian, Walter Burton, partner in the great American house of “J. Dunlap,” and husband of the heiress to the millions accumulated by the long line of “J. Dunlaps” which had controlled the Haitian trade with the United States, a strange and uncanny drama was enacted almost within sound of the music that enlivened the Dictator’s banquet.

Through trees entwined by gigantic vines, resembling[270] monstrous writhing serpents, glided silently many dark forms carrying blazing torches of resinous wood to guide the flitting figures through the intricacies of the hardly definable pathways that ran in serpentine indistinctness toward the clear spot, where Mother Sybella had set up the altar of Tu Konk, and was calling her children to worship by the booming of an immense red drum upon which she beat at short intervals.

In the center of the clearing, coiled upon the stump of a large tree, was a huge black snake, that occasionally reared its head and, waving it from side to side, emitted a fearful hissing sound as it shot forth its scarlet, flame-like tongue.

Torches and bonfires illuminated the spot and cast gleams of light upon the dark faces and distended, white and rolling eyes of the men and women who, squatting in a circle back in the shade of the underbrush, chanted a monotonous dirge-like invocation to the Voo Doo divinity called by them Tu Konk, and supposed to dwell in the loathsome body of the serpent on the stump.

By almost imperceptible degrees the blows upon the drum increased in frequency; old Sybella seemed some tireless fiend incarnate as gradually she animated the multitude and quickened the growing excitement of her emotional listeners by the ceaseless booming of her improved tom-tom. Soon the forest began to resound with hollow bellowing of conch shells carried by many of the squatters about the circle. The chant became quicker. Shouting took the place of the droning monotonous incantations to Tu Konk.

Higher and higher grew the gale of excitement. The shouting grew in volume and intensity. Wild whoops mingled with the more sonorous shouts that made the forest reverberate.

Suddenly the half-clad figure of a man sprang into the circle of light that girded the stump whereon the now irritated snake was hissing continuously. The man was bare to the waist and without covering on his legs and feet below the knees; his eyes glared about him, the revolving white balls in their ebony colored setting was something terrifying to behold. The man uttered whoop after whoop and began shuffling sideways[272] around the stump, every moment adding to the rapidity and violence of his motions until shortly he was madly bounding into the air and with savage shouts tearing at the wool on his head, while white foam flecked his bare black breast.

The man’s madness became contagious. Figure after figure sprang within the lighted space about the serpent. Men, women, and even children all more or less nude, the few garments worn presenting a heterogeneal kaleidoscope of vivid, garish colors as the frenzied dancers whirled about in the irregular light of the torches and bonfires.

Soon spouting streams of red stained the glistening black bodies, and joined the tide of white foam pouring from the protruding, gaping, blubber lips of the howling, frantic worshipers.

The fanatic followers of Voo Dooism were wounding themselves in the delirium of irresponsible emotion. Blood gushed from long gashes made by sharp knives on cheeks, breasts, backs and limbs. The gyrations of the gory, crazed and howling mass were hideous to behold.

When the tempest of curbless frenzy seemed[273] to have reached a point beyond which increase appeared impossible, old Sybella rushed forward, like the wraith of the ancient witch of Endor, dashing the dancers aside, springing to the stump she seized the snake and winding its shining coils about her she waved aloft the long, glittering blade of the knife that she held in hand, and shrieked out, in the voice of an infuriated fiend,

“Bring forth the hornless goat. Let Tu Konk taste the blood of the hornless one!”

A crowd of perfectly naked and bleeding men darted forward bearing in their midst an entirely nude girl, who in a perfect paroxysm of terror fought, writhed and struggled fearfully, yelling wildly all the time, in the grip of her merciless and insensate captors.

The men stretched the screaming wretch across the stump on which the snake had rested, pressed back the agonized girl’s head until her slender neck was drawn taut. Quick as the serpent’s darting tongue, Sybella’s bright, sharp blade descended, severing at one stroke the head almost from the quivering body.

A fiercer, wilder cry arose from the insane devotees[274] as a great tub nearly full of fiery native rum was placed to catch the gushing stream that flowed in a crimson torrent from the still twitching body of the sacrifice to Voo Doo.

Sybella stirred the horrible mixture of blood and rum with a ladle, made of an infant’s skull affixed to a shin-bone of an adult human being, and having replaced the snake upon his throne, on the stump, in an abject posture presented to the serpent the ladle filled with the nauseating stuff. The re-incarnate Tu Konk thrust his head repeatedly into the skull-bowl and scattered drops of the scarlet liquid over his black and shining coils.

Then Sybella using the skull-ladle began filling enormous dippers made of gourds, that the eager, maddened crowd about the Voo Doo altar held expectantly forth, craving a portion in the libation to Tu Konk.

The maniacal host gorged themselves with the loathsome fluid, gulped down in frenzied haste, great draughts of that devilish brew, from the large calabashes that Sybella filled.

Now hell itself broke forth. No longer were[275] the worshipers men and women. The lid was lifted from hell’s deepest, most fiendish caldron. A crew of damned demons was spewed out upon earth. With demoniac screams that rent the calmness of the night, they beat and gashed themselves, their slabbering, thick lips slapping together as they gibbered, like insane monkeys, sending flying showers of foam over their bare and bleeding bodies. Human imps of hell’s creation fell senseless to the ground or writhing in hideous, inhuman convulsions twined their distorted limbs about the furious dancers who stamped upon their hellish faces and brought the dancers shrieking to the earth.

In the midst of this pandemonium, redolent with the odor of inferno, a dark figure, that, crouched in the deep shade of the clustering palm plants, and covered with a dark mantle, had remained unnoticed a spectator of the scene, sprang up, hurled to one side the concealing cloak and bounded toward the stump whereon the serpent hissed defiance at his adorers.

With an unearthly yell, half-groan, half-moan, but all insane, frantic and wild, the neophyte[276] leaped about in erratic gyrations of adoration before the snake, that embodiment of Tu Konk, the Voo Doo divinity.

As whirling and, in an ecstacy of emotion, waving aloft his hands the howling dancer turned and the light of the bonfire fell upon his face, the brutalized features of Walter Burton were revealed.

Those refined, aesthetic features that had made the man “the observed of all observers” at Miss Stanhope’s musicale in Boston, had scarcely been recognized as the same in the strangely flattened nose, the thickened lips, the popped and rolling eyes of the man who, in the forest glade of Haiti danced before the Voo Doo god Tu Konk the serpent.

Burton’s evening dress was torn and disarranged, his hair disheveled, his immaculate linen spotted with blood, his shoes broken and muddy, his face contorted and agonized, as twisting and squirming in every limb he sprang and leaped in a fiercely violent dance before the snake. Yells of long pent-up savage fury rang through the dank night air, as Burton threw back his head and whooped in barbarous license.

Sybella’s flashing eyes gleamed with joy as she gazed at this reclaimed scion of the negro race. She stole toward the flying figure that spun around, transported to the acme of insane emotion, singing in triumphant screeches as she crept forward,

Mr. Dunlap was aroused at daylight by a messenger wearing the naval uniform of the United States, who waited below with an important communication from Lieutenant Maxon.

Two hours before Mr. Dunlap heard the rap on his bedroom door, a pale and trembling figure, clothed in a dilapidated evening suit, had slunk stealthily past his chamber and entered the apartments occupied by the husband of the Dunlap heiress.

“Dear Mr. Dunlap.—I am instructed by Admiral Snave to inform you that an uprising of[278] the blacks is imminent; that it will be impossible to protect you in your exposed position should such an event take place. The admiral suggests that you remove your family at once to the American Consulate, where protection will be furnished all Americans. Very respectfully,

Thomas Maxon, Lieut. U.S.N.”

“P.S.—Please adopt the Admiral’s suggestion. I think you had better let Jack know about this.

T.M.”

Such were the contents of the letter of which the U.S. marine was bearer and it was answered as follows:

“Dear Mr. Maxon.—Express my gratitude to Admiral Snave for the suggestion, but be good enough to add that the health of my niece demands absolute quiet and that I shall remain here instead of going to the crowded Consulate; that I deem any disturbance as exceedingly improbable from my intimate acquaintance with the character of the natives of this island.

Very respectfully,

J. Dunlap.

[279]

P.S.—Will notify Jack to bring a man or two from his ship to guard premises for a night or so.”

In the evening, as the shadows of night fell upon the house of Mr. John Dunlap and the owls began to flutter from their roosts and hoot, Mr. Brice, first officer, and McLeod, the big, bony carpenter of the “Adams” were seated on the steps of the piazza in quiet contentment, puffing the good cigars furnished by Mr. Dunlap after, what seemed to them, a sumptuous banquet.

“I declare, Jack, were it not that the consequences might be serious, I should rather enjoy seeing long-limbed Brice and that wild, red-haired Scotchman of yours, led by you, charging an angry mob of blacks, armed with those antiquated cutlasses that your fellows brought from the ship. The blacks would surely run in pure fright at the supposed resurrection of the ancient buccaneers. No scene in a comic opera could compare with what you and your men would present,” said Mr. Dunlap in an amused tone, as he rocked back and forth in an easy chair on the veranda, and chatted with his namesake, Jack.

“It might be amusing to you, sir,” replied Jack laughing, “but it would be death to any black who came within the swing of either of the cutlasses carried by Brice and McLeod. I picked up a half dozen of those old swords at a sale in Manila, and decorated my cabin with them. When I told the men that there might be a fight they could find no other weapons on board ship so denuded my cabin of its decorations and brought them along. Of course I have a revolver but in a rush those old cutlasses could do fearful execution. They are heavy and as sharp as razors.”

“While I am unwilling to take even a remote risk with Lucy and your mother in the house, still in my opinion there is not one chance in a million that anything but bluff and bluster will come of this muttering. Admiral Snave is always anxious for a fight, and the wish is father of the thought in this alarm,” said the old gentleman.

“He is up stairs. He has been feeling ill all day and asked not to be disturbed unless he be[281] needed. I shall let him rest. However, he has a revolver and is an excellent shot and will prove a valuable aid to us should the fools attempt to molest the premises.”

For an hour or two Brice and McLeod exchanged an occasional word or two but gradually these brief speeches became less frequent and finally ceased altogether. Mr. Dunlap and Jack carried on a desultory conversation for some time, but had sat in silent communion with their own thoughts for possibly an hour when, under the somnific influence of the night songsters, the Scotch ship-carpenter yawned, rose to his feet and stretched his long, hairy arms. He paused in the act and thrust forward his head to catch some indistinct sound, then growled,

Jack was on his feet in an instant and ran down the walk to the gate in the high brick wall that surrounded the premises. He came running back[282] almost immediately and said in low voice as he reached the piazza.

“There is a mob coming toward the house, along the road leading from the mountains. They carry torches and may mean mischief. Cousin John, will you have Burton called and will you please remain here to look after the women. Brice you and McLeod get cutlasses and bring me one also. We will meet the mob at the gate.”

“Oh! It is nothing Jack, maybe a negro frolic. No use arousing Burton,” said the elder Dunlap.

“If you please, sir, do as I ask. I will be prepared in any event,” said Jack Dunlap tersely.

“All right, Commander, the laugh will be at your expense,” cried the amused old gentleman as he ordered a servant to call Burton.

Jack and his two stalwart supporters had barely reached the gate when the advance guard of the savage horde of black mountaineers appeared before it. Instantly it flashed upon the mind of the skipper that if he barred the gate, that then part of the mob might go around and break over the wall in the rear of the house and attack the defenceless women.

“Throw open the gate, McLeod, we will meet them here,” commanded Captain Dunlap, and turning as some one touched his shoulder, he found Burton at his side, very pale and but half clad, with a revolver in his hand.

The main body of the mob now came up and gathered about the open gate. The men were armed with clubs and knives and some few, who were evidently woodsmen, carried axes. Many torches shed their light over the black and brutal faces, making them appear more ebony by the white and angry eyes that glared at the men who stood ready to do battle just within the gateway.

“I wish you people to understand that if you attempt to enter this gate many of you will be killed.”

Young Dunlap spoke in a quiet voice, as he stood between the pillars of the gate, but there was such an unmistakable menace in the steady tone that even the ignorant barbarians understood what he meant.

For the space of a minute of time the mob hesitated. Suddenly a tall woodsman struck a sweeping, chopping blow with his ax. The skipper sprang aside just in time, and as quick as a flash of lightning a stream of flame poured out of the pistol he held in his hand, and that woodsman would never chop wood again.

Brice and McLeod had cast aside their coats, and with their long, sinewy arms bared to the elbows, cutlasses grasped in their strong hands, they were by Jack’s side in a second.

As the pistol shot rang out it seemed to give the signal for an assault. With a howl, like wild and enraged animals, the mob rushed upon the men at the gate. The rush was met by the rapid discharge of the revolvers held by Dunlap and Burton; for a moment it was checked, then a shrill voice was heard screaming high above the howling of the savages,

“Kill the white cow! She has stolen our son from us! Kill the Yankee robbers! Spare my black goat!”

Sybella could be heard though concealed by the tall black men of the mountains who again hurled[285] themselves on the white men who guarded the gateway.

The revolvers were empty. Jack sent his flying into a black face as he gripped the hilt of his cutlass and joined old Brice and the carpenter in the deadly reaping they were doing. Burton having no other weapon than the revolver, threw it aside and seized a club that had dropped from the hands of one of the slain blacks.

The sweep of those old cutlasses in the powerful hands that held them was awful, magnificent; no matter what may have been the history of those old blades they had never been wielded as now. But numbers began to tell and the infuriated negroes fought like fiends, urged on by the old siren Sybella who shrieked out a kind of battle song of the blacks.

How long the four held back the hundreds none can tell, but it seemed an age to the fast wearying men who held the gate. A blow from an ax split McLeod’s head and he fell dead without even a groan. Brice turned as he heard his shipmate fall and received a stunning smash on the temple from a club that felled him like an ox in the shambles.

“He recklessly rushed in front of Burton.”

Page 286

Jack saw Burton, who was fighting furiously, beset by two savage blacks armed with axes stuck on long poles. In that supreme moment of peril the thought of Lucy’s sorrow at loss of her husband, should she be restored to reason, came to the mind of the great hearted sailor. He recklessly rushed in front of Burton, severed at a stroke of his sword the arm of one of Burton’s assailants, and caught the descending ax of the other when within an inch of the head of the man who had taken the place in Lucy’s love that he had hoped for.

Jack Dunlap’s cutlass warded off the blow from Burton but the sharp ax glanced along the blade and was buried in the broad breast of Lucy’s knight, and he fell across the bodies of his faithful followers, Brice and McLeod; Jack’s fast deafening ears caught sound of—

“Follow me, lads, give them cold steel. Don’t shoot. You may hit friends! Charge!”

Tom Maxon’s voice was far from jolly now. There was death in every note of it as, at the head of a body of United States Blue-jackets, he dashed in among the black barbarians. When he caught sight of the prostrate, bleeding form[287] of his old school-fellow he raged like a wounded lion among Sybella’s savage followers.

As the lieutenant saw that the range of fire was free from his friends, he cried out, hoarse with passion,

“Fire at will. Give them hell!” and he emptied his own revolver into the huddled crowd of mountaineers, who still stood, brave to recklessness, hesitating about what to do against the new adversaries.

The repeating rifles of the Americans soon covered the roadway with dark corpses. Long lanes were cut by the rapid fire through the black mass. With howls and yells of mingled terror, rage and disappointment the mob broke and taking to the jungle disappeared in the darkness of the adjacent forest.

A sailor kicked aside what he thought was a bundle of rags, and started back as the torch that he bore revealed the open, fangless mouth and snake-like, glaring eyes of an old crone of a woman who in death seemed even more horrible than in life.

XVII.

All established rules of the house of “J. Dunlap” were as the laws of the Medes and Persians to David Chapman, inviolable. When the hour of twelve struck and neither Mr. John Dunlap nor Mr. Burton appeared at the office, the Superintendent immediately proceeded to the residence of Mr. Dunlap.

“I am sorry, Chapman, to have given you the trouble of coming out here, but the fact is I am not so strong as formerly, and I expected that Burton would be at the office and thought a day of repose might benefit me,” remarked Mr. John Dunlap as Chapman entered his library carrying a bundle of papers this March afternoon.

“Mr. Burton has only been at the office once within the past week and not more than a dozen times since you all returned from Haiti some two months ago,” replied the Superintendent, methodically arranging the various memoranda on the large library table.

“First in order of date is as follows: Douglass and McPherson, the solicitors at Glasgow, write that they have purchased the annuity for old Mrs. McLeod and that the income secured to her is far larger than any possible comfort or even luxury can require; they also say that the lot in the graveyard has been secured and that the mother of the dead ship carpenter is filled with gratitude for the granite stone you have provided to mark her son’s grave and that no nobler epitaph for any Scotsman could be carved than the one suggested by you to be cut on the stone, ‘Died defending innocent women;’ they expect the body to arrive within a few days and will follow instructions concerning the reinterment of the remains of gallant McLeod; they add that beyond all expenditures ordered they will hold a balance to our credit and ask what is your pleasure concerning same, that the four thousand pounds remitted by you was far too large a sum.”

“Far too small! Tell them to buy a cottage for McLeod’s mother and draw at sight for more money, that the cottage may be a good one. Why! Chapman, McLeod was a hero; but they[290] were all of them that. He, however, gave his life in our defense and there is no money value that can repay that debt to him and his,” exclaimed Mr. Dunlap earnestly, and leaning forward in the excitement that the recollection of the past recalled, continued:

“David, the dead were heaped about the spot where McLeod, Brice and Jack fell like corded fire-wood. When I could leave the women, Lieutenant Maxon and his men had dispersed the blacks, I fairly waded in blood to reach the place where Maxon and Burton were bending over Jack. It was a fearful sight. It had been an awful struggle, but it was all awful that night. I dared not leave the women, yet I knew that even my weak help was needed at the gate. Had my messenger not met Maxon on the road, to whom notice of the intended attack had been given by a friendly black, we had all been killed.”

The excited old gentleman paused to regain his breath and resumed the story of that dreadful experience.

“Martha Dunlap is the kind of woman to be mother of a hero. She was as calm and brave[291] as her son and helped me like a real heroine in keeping the others quiet. We told Lucy it was only a jubilee among the natives and that they were shouting and shooting off firearms in their sport along the highway. God forgive me for the falsehood, but it served to keep our poor girl perfectly calm and she does not even now know to the contrary.” Mr. Dunlap reverently inclined his head when he spoke of that most excusable lie that he had told.

“Jack does not get all of his nerve and courage from the Dunlap blood, that is sure! When the surgeon was examining the great gash in his breast, Martha stood at his side and held the basin; her hand never trembled though her tearless face was as white as snow. All the others of us, I fear, were blubbering like babies, I know, anyhow Tom Maxon was whimpering more like a lass than the brave and terrible fighter that he is. When the surgeon gave us the joyful news that the blow of the ax had been stopped by the strong breast bone over our boy’s brave heart, we were all ready to shout with gladness, but Martha then, woman like, broke down and began weeping.”

There was rather a suspicious moisture in the eyes of the relator of the scene, as he thought over the occurrences of that night in Haiti. Even though all danger was past and his beloved namesake, Jack Dunlap, was now so far recovered as to be able to walk about, true somewhat paler in complexion and with one arm bound across his breast, but entirely beyond danger from the blow of the desperate Haitian axman.

“That fighting devil of an American admiral soon cleared Port au Prince of the insurgents and wished me to take up my residence at the consulate, but I had enough of Haiti, for awhile anyway. So as soon as Jack could safely be moved, and old Brice, whose skull must be made of iron, had come around sufficiently after that smashing blow in the head, to take command of the ‘Adams’ and navigate her to Boston, I bundled everybody belonging to me aboard and sailed for home.” The word home came with a sigh of relief from Mr. Dunlap’s lips as he settled back in his chair.

“When we heard of your frightful experience, I had some faint hope that the shock might have[293] restored Mrs. Burton to her normal condition of mind,” said Chapman.

“Well, in the first place Lucy learned nothing concerning the affair, and was simply told when she called for Jack that he was not well and would be absent from her for a short time. But even had she received a nervous shock from the harrowing events of that night, the experts in mental disorders inform me that it is most unlikely that any good result could have been produced; that as the primary cause of her dementia is disappointed hope, expectation, and the recoil of the purest and best outpouring of her heart, that the only shock at all probable to bring about the desired change must come from a similar source,” answered Mr. Dunlap.

“To proceed with my report,” said the Superintendent glancing over some papers.

“Lieutenant Maxon is not wealthy, in fact, has only his pay from the United States, and while his family is one of the oldest and most highly respected in Massachusetts all the members of it are far from rich. The watch ordered made in New York will be finished by the time the U.S.[294] Ship Delaware arrives, which will not be before next month.”

“That all being as you have ascertained, I am going to make a requisition upon your ingenuity, David. You must secure the placing in Maxon’s hands of twenty one-thousand dollar bills with no other explanation than that it is from ‘an admirer.’ The handsome, gay fellow may think some doting old dowager sent it to him. The watch I will present as a slight token of my friendship when I have him here to dine with me, and he can never suspect me in the money matter.” Mr. Dunlap chuckled at the deep cunning of the diabolical scheme.

Chapman evidently was accustomed to the unstinted munificence of the house of Dunlap, for he accepted the instruction quite as a mere detail of the business, made a few notes and with his pen held between his teeth as he folded the paper, mumbled:

“I’ll see that he gets the money all right, sir, without knowing where it comes from.”

“Here are several things that Mr. Burton, who is familiar with the preceding transactions,[295] should pass upon, but as he is so seldom at the office, I have had no opportunity to lay them before him,” continued the ever vigilant Chapman, turning over a number of documents.

“I know even less than you do about Burton’s department, so make out the best way that you can under the circumstances.”

“Is Mr. Burton ill, sir, or what is the reason why he is absent from the office so much?” asked Chapman, to whom it seemed that the greatest deprivation in life must be loss of ability to be present daily in the office of J. Dunlap.

“I am utterly at a loss to explain Burton’s conduct, especially since our return from Haiti. He is morbid, melancholy, and seems to avoid the society of all those who formerly were his chosen associates and companions. He calls or sends here daily with religious regularity to ascertain the condition of Lucy’s health, and occasionally asks Jack to accompany him on a ride behind his fine team. You know that he is aware that Jack saved his life by taking the blow on his own breast that was aimed at Burton’s head. He was devoted to Jack on the voyage home and[296] here, until Jack’s recovery was assured beyond a doubt, but now he acts so peculiarly that I don’t know what to make of him,” replied the perplexed old gentleman.

“Humph! Humph!” grunted Chapman, in a disparaging tone, and resumed the examination of the sheets of paper before him. Selecting one, he said:

“I find Malloy, the father of the girl, who was the victim of that nameless crime and afterward murdered, to be a respectable, worthy man, poor, but in need of no assistance. He is a porter at Brown Brothers. It appears that the girl, who was only fifteen years of age, was one of the nursery maids in the Greenleaf family, and had obtained permission to visit her father’s home on the night of the crime and was on her way there when she was assaulted.”

“To tell the truth, very little. The detectives seem mystified by a crime of so rare occurrence in our section that it has shocked the whole of New England. However, I know what would[297] have happened had the crowd assembled around Malloy’s house when the body was brought home, been able to lay hands on the perpetrator of the deed, the whole police force of Boston notwithstanding.”

“That had been a disgrace to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said the old gentleman warmly.

“That may or may not be, sir. Malloy and his friends are all peaceable, law-abiding citizens. Malloy was almost a maniac, not at the death of his child but the rest of the crime, and the agony of the heartbroken father was too much for the human nature of his neighbors, and human nature is the same in New England as elsewhere in our land.”

“But the law will punish crime and must be respected no matter what may be the provocation to ignore its regular administration of justice,” said Mr. Dunlap with a judicial air.

“Truth is, sir, that one can hardly comprehend[298] a father’s feelings under such circumstances, and I don’t imagine there is a great difference between the paternal heart in Massachusetts and in Mississippi. Human nature is much alike in the same race in every clime. Men of the North may occasionally be slower to wrath but are fearfully in earnest when aroused by an outrage,” rejoined Chapman.

“I frankly confess, David, that I recognize that it is one thing for me to sit here calmly in my library and coolly discuss a crime in which I have no direct personal interest, and announce that justice according to written law only should be administered, but it would be quite a different state of mind with which I should regard this crime if one of my own family were the victim of the brute’s attack. I fear then I should forget about my calm theory of allowing the regular execution of justice and everything else, even my age and hoary head, and be foremost in seeking quick revenge on the wretch,” said the old New Englander hotly.

“Knowing you and your family as I do, sir, I’ll make oath that you would head the mob of lynchers.”

“My brother James, who was the soul of honor and a citizen of whom the Commonwealth was justly proud, was very liberal in his opinion of lynching for this crime. It was the single criminal act for which his noble, charitable heart could find no excuse. I think even my brother James, model citizen though he was, would have been a law-forgetting man under such circumstances.”

Old John Dunlap’s voice grew soft and tender when he mentioned the name of his beloved brother, and either Chapman became extraordinarily near-sighted or the papers in his hand required close scrutiny.

“I have published the notice of the reward of one thousand dollars offered by our house for the capture of the perpetrator of the crime,” said the Superintendent rather huskily, changing the subject from that of the character of his old master.

“That is well, we are the oldest business house in Boston, and none can think it presumptuous that we should be anxious to erase this stain from the escutcheon of our Commonwealth. I wish every inducement offered that may lead to[300] the apprehension of the criminal.” Mr. Dunlap stopped short as if suddenly some new idea had occurred to his mind, and then exclaimed:

“David, you possess a wonderful faculty for fathoming deep and complex mysteries. Why don’t you seek to discover the perpetrator of this horrible crime?”

David Chapman was not in the habit of blushing, but certainly his cheeks took on an unusually bright crimson hue, as Mr. Dunlap asked the question, and he answered in a somewhat abashed manner, as though detected in some act of youthful folly.

“I confess, sir, that I am making a little investigation in my own way. There are a few trifling circumstances and fragments of evidence left by the criminal that were considered unworthy of attention by the police that I am tracing up, like an amateur Sherlock Holmes.”

“Good for you, David! May you succeed in unearthing the brutal villain! You have carte-blanche to draw on the house for any expense that your search may entail. Go ahead! I will stand by you!” cried John Dunlap enthusiastically.

XVIII.

“The abysmal depth of degradation has now been reached; I no longer, even in my moments of affected refinement, attempt to conceal the fact from myself, the gauzy veil of acquisition no longer deceives even me, it long since failed to deceive others.”

What evil genii of metamorphosis had transformed the debonair Walter Burton into the wretched, slovenly, brutalized being who, grunting, gave utterance to such sentiments, while stretched, in unkempt abandonment, on a disordered couch in the center of the unswept and neglected music-room in the ‘Eyrie’ early on this March morning?

Even the linen of the once fastidious model of masculine cleanliness was soiled, and the delights of the bath seemed quite unknown to the heavy-eyed, listless lounger on the couch.

“I have abandoned useless effort to rehabilitate[302] myself in the misfit garments of a civilization and culture for which the configuration of my mental structure, by nature, renders me unsuited. My child indicated the off-springs natural to me. My emotion and actions in the forest of Haiti gave evidence of the degree of the pure spirit of religion to be found in my inmost soul, and my conduct, following natural inclinations, since my return to Boston, has demonstrated how little control civilization, morality, or pity have over my inherent savage nature.”

The man seemed in a peculiar way to derive some satisfaction from rehearsing the story of his hopeless condition, and in the fact that he had reached the limit of descent.

“I should have fled to the mountains of Haiti, had I not been led to fight against my own kinsmen. For the moment I was blinded by the thread-bare thought that I was of the white instead of black race, and when I had time to free my mind from that old misleading idea, my hands were stained with the blood of my own race. I was obliged to leave Haiti or suffer the fate that ever overtakes a traitor to his race.”

“There is no hope of the restoration of my wife’s mental faculties, and even should there be that is all the more reason for my fleeing from Boston and forever disappearing, I retain enough of the borrowed refinement of the whites in my recollection to know that as I am now I should be loathesome to her.”

“Here, I must shun the sight of those who know me, realizing that I can no longer appear in the assumed character that I formerly did. Here, I skulk the streets at night in the apparel of a tramp seeking gratification of proclivities that are natural to me.”

“I know that I must leave this city and country as quickly as possible. The long repressed desires natural to me break forth with a fury that renders me oblivious to consequences and my own safety. Repression by civilization and culture foreign to a race but serves to increase the violence of the outburst when the barrier once is broken.”

“I will go to the office today, secure some private documents and notify Mr. Dunlap that I desire to withdraw at once from the firm of J.[304] Dunlap. I will nerve myself for one more act in the farce. I will don the costume in which I paraded the stage so long for one more occasion.”

Burton arose slowly from his recumbent position as if reluctant to resume even for a day a character that had become tiresome and obnoxious to his negro nature.

David Chapman had on several occasions made suggestions to the head of the Police Department in Boston that had resulted in the detection and apprehension of elusive criminals. Unlike many professional detectives, Chief O’Brien welcomed the aid of amateurs and listened respectfully to theories, sometimes ridiculous, but occasionally suggestive of the correct solution of an apparently incomprehensible crime.

The deductive method of solving the problem of a mysterious crime employed by Chapman was not alone interesting to the Chief of Detectives, but appeared wonderful in the correctness of the conclusions obtained. He therefore gave eager attention to what Chapman communicated to him[305] while seated in the Chief’s private office on the evening of the day that Burton visited the office of J. Dunlap to secure his private correspondence and documents.

“In the first place, Chief, as soon as I learned the details of this Malloy crime, I decided that the perpetrator of it was of the negro race,” said Chapman, methodically arranging a number of slips of paper on the Chief’s desk, at which he sat confronting O’Brien on the opposite side.

“Well, as you are aware, for you laughed at me often enough when you ran across me with my black associates, I ‘slummed’ among the negroes for months to gain some knowledge of the negro nature”.

“Yes, I know that and often wondered at your persistent prosecution of such a disagreeable undertaking,” said O’Brien.

“I learned in that investigation that beneath the surface of careless, thoughtless gaiety and good nature there lies a tremendous amount of cruelty and brutal savagery in the negro nature;[306] that dire results have been caused by a misconception of the negro character on this point to those associated with them; that while sensual satiety produces lassitude in other races, in the negro race it engenders a lust for blood that almost invariably results in the murder of the victim of a brutal attack. I checked the correctness of my conclusions by an examination of all obtainable records and completely verified the accuracy of my deduction.”

“That had not occurred to me before,” said the Chief frankly; “now that you mention it, I think from the record of that crime, as it recurs to me at this moment, that your statement is true.”

“The next step was to look for the particular individual of the negro race who could fit in with the trifling evidence in your possession, which you so readily submitted to me. From the mold taken by your men of the criminal’s foot-prints it is evident that his feet were small and clad in expensive shoes. In the shape of the imprints I find corroboration of my premise that the author of the crime was of the negro race. The fragment of finger nail embedded in the girl’s throat,[307] under a microscope reveals the fact that, while the nail was not free from dirt, it had recently been under the manipulation of a manicure and was not of thick, coarse grain like a manual laborer’s nails,” said the amateur detective glancing at his notes.

“Yes, I agree in all that, Mr. Chapman. Go ahead; what follows?” remarked O’Brien.

“We have then a negro, but one not engaged in the usual employment of the negro residents in Boston, to look for; next you found clutched in the fingers of the dead girl two threads of brownish color and coarse material, together with a fragment of paper like a part of an envelope on which was written a few notes of music.”

“Yes, and I defy the devil to make anything result from such infinitesimal particles of evidence,” exclaimed the professional detective.

“Well, I’m not the devil.” said Chapman, quietly proceeding to recapitulate the process adopted by him.

“From the few notes—you know that I am something of a musician—I began, poco a poco, as they say in music, to reconstruct the tune of[308] which the few notes were a part. As I proceeded, going over the notes time and again on my violoncello, I became convinced that I had heard that wild tune before, and am now able to say where and when.”

“Wonderful, perfectly wonderful if you can, Chapman,” cried the thoroughly interested Chief.

“What next?” O’Brien asked, impatient at the calmness of the man on the opposite side of the desk.

“To-day I saw the finger that the fragment of nail found in the girl’s neck would fit, and one finger-nail had been broken and was gone,” continued Chapman, by great effort restraining the evidence of the exultation that he felt.

“Wait a moment! Upon reflection I realized that the only part of a man’s apparel likely to give way in a desperate struggle would be a coat pocket; that the hand of the girl had grasped the edge of the pocket and in so doing had closed upon an old envelope in the pocket, which was torn and remained in her hand with a couple of[309] threads from the cloth of the coat when the murderer finally wrenched the coat out of her lifeless fingers.”

“This afternoon I examined under the most powerful microscope procurable in Boston the threads that your assistant has in safe keeping. I recognized the color and material of which those threads are made. I know the coat whence the threads came, and the owner of the coat,” declared Chapman emphatically.

The Chief glared at the exultant amateur with wonder, in which a doubt of the man’s sanity was mingled.

“It is the coat of the suit I wore while ‘slumming’ in my investigations concerning the negro race. It has hung in my private closet in the office until some time within the last two months,[310] when it was abstracted by some one having keys to the private offices of J. Dunlap. Mr. Dunlap, Walter Burton and I alone possess such keys. Burton, like me, is tall and slim, the suit will fit him; Burton is of the negro race; I heard Burton play the tune of which the few notes are part when I went to his house on the only occasion that I ever visited the ‘Eyrie;’ Burton’s shoes—I tried an old one today which was left at the office some months ago—exactly fit the tracks left by the murderer. Burton having no suit that he could wear as a disguise while rambling the streets in search of adventure, found and appropriated my old ‘slumming’ suit. You will find that suit, blood-stained, the coat pocket torn, now hidden somewhere in the ‘Eyrie’ if it be not destroyed. Walter Burton is guilty of the Malloy assault and murder!” Chapman had risen from his chair, his face was aflame with vindictiveness and passion, his small eyes blazing with satisfied hatred as he almost yelled, in his excitement, the denunciation of Burton.

“Great God! man, it can’t be,” gasped the Chief of Detectives, saying as he regained his breath,

“Burton and the Dunlaps are not people to make mistakes with in such a horrible case as this.”

“Burton has withdrawn from our firm. He has provided himself with a large sum of currency. He is leaving the country. Tomorrow night he dines with Mr. Dunlap to complete the arrangements for the severance of his relations with the house of J. Dunlap. Captain Jack Dunlap will dine with Mr. Dunlap on that occasion, and I shall be there to draw up any papers required. The coast will be clear at the ‘Eyrie;’ go there upon the pretext of arresting Victor, Burton’s valet, on the charge of larceny; search throughout the premises; if you find the garments, and the coat is in the condition I describe, come at once to the Dunlap mansion and arrest the murderer, or it will be too late, the bird will have flown.” The veins in Chapman’s brow and neck were fairly bursting through the skin, so intense were the passion and vehemence of the man who, straining forward, shouted out directions to the detective.

O’Brien sat for several minutes in silence, buried[312] in deep meditation, glancing ever and anon at Chapman, who, chafing with impatience, fairly danced before the desk. The official arose and, walking to the window, stood for some time gazing out upon the lighted street below. Suddenly he turned and came back to Chapman, whom he held by the lapel of the coat, while he said,

“Chapman, I know that you hate Burton. I know also of your fidelity to the Dunlaps. You would never have told this to me, even as much as you hate Burton, if it were not true. This disclosure and disgrace, if it be as you suspect, will wound those dear to you.”

This phase of the situation had evidently not occurred to David Chapman in his zeal for satisfaction to his all-consuming hatred of Burton. He dropped his eyes, nervously clasped and unclasped his hands, while his face paled as he faltered out,

“Well—maybe you had best not act upon my suggestions; I may be all wrong.”

“There, Mr. Chapman, is where I can’t agree with you. I am a sworn officer of this commonwealth, and, by heavens! I would arrest the[313] governor of the state if I knew it to be my duty. Not all the money of the Dunlaps or in the whole of Massachusetts could prevent me from laying my hand on Walter Burton and placing him under arrest for the murder of the Malloy girl, if I find the clothing you mention in the condition you describe. I shall wait to make the search at the ‘Eyrie’ until tomorrow night, that if there be a mistake it shall not be an irreparable one,” said the conscientious Chief of Detectives sternly, in a determined tone of voice.

“You have convinced me that there are grounds for your statements; I know them now, and, knowing them, by my oath of office, must take action,” quietly replied O’Brien.

“Then promise to keep my connection with the case a secret, except what may be required of me as a witness subpoenaed to appear and testify,” cried the now remorseful Chapman.

“That I will, and readily too, as it is but a small favor in comparison to the great aid you have been to our department, and is not in conflict[314] with my duty. I shall also collect and hand over to you all of the reward.”

“Never mind the reward; keep it for your pension fund,” replied the regretful Superintendent of J. Dunlap, who had played detective once too often and too well for his own peace of mind.

XIX

Never had there assembled beneath the roof of the Dunlap mansion since the old house was constructed, a company so entirely uncomfortable as that around the table in the library on the night that Walter Burton dined for the last time with Mr. Dunlap.

John Dunlap’s mind was filled with doubts concerning what was his duty with regard to Burton, having due consideration for the memory of his deceased brother, and as to what would have been the wish of that beloved brother under existing circumstances. Recognizing, as John Dunlap did, the influence that his personal antipathy for Burton had upon his conduct, he was nervous and uncomfortable.

Burton felt the restraint imposed upon him irksome, even for the time of this brief and final visit to the home where his best emotions had been aroused, and the purest delights of his artificial[316] existence enjoyed. He was anxious to be gone, to be free, to forget, and was impatient of delay.

Jack Dunlap, pale and somewhat thin, still carrying his arm bound to his breast, felt the weight of the responsibility resting upon him in releasing Lucy’s husband from a promise that for months had held him near her should the husband’s presence be required at any moment, and was correspondingly silent and meditative.

Nervous, expectant and fearful, David Chapman sat only half attentive to what was said or done around him. His ears were strained to catch the first sound that announced the coming of the visitors which he now dreaded.

“The terms of the settlement of my interest in your house, Mr. Dunlap, are entirely too liberal to me, and I only accept them because of my anxiety to be freed from the cares of business at the earliest possible moment, and am unwilling to await the report of examining accountants,” said Walter Burton as he glanced over the paper submitted to him by Chapman.

“Do you expect to leave the city at once?”[317] asked Mr. Dunlap in a hesitating, doubtful voice.

“Yes, I will make a tour through the Southern States, probably go to California and may return and take a trip to Europe. I have promised Captain Dunlap to keep your house informed of my movements and address at all times, and shall immediately respond, by promptly returning, if my presence in Boston be called for,” replied Burton.

“I confess, Burton, that my mind is not free from doubt as to the propriety of allowing you to withdraw from our house. I should like to act as my brother James would have done. His wishes are as binding upon me now as when he lived,” said Mr. Dunlap in a low and troubled voice.

“It is needless to rehearse the painful story of the last few months, Mr. Dunlap. Had your brother lived he must have perceived the total vanity of some of his most cherished wishes regarding the union of his granddaughter and myself. Heirs to his name and estate must be impossible from that union under the unalterable conditions. My wife’s dementia and her irrational[318] aversion to my presence would have influenced him as it does you and me, and—I might as well say it—I am aware of the fact and realize the naturalness of the sentiment. I am persona non grata here.”

There was a tinge of bitterness in the closing sentence and Burton accompanied it with a defiant manner that evinced much concealed resentment.

As Burton ceased speaking, the eyes of the four men sitting at the table turned to the door, hearing it open. The footman who had opened it had hardly crossed the threshold when he was pushed aside by the firm hand of Chief of Detectives O’Brien, who, in full uniform, followed by a man in citizens’ dress carrying a bundle under his arm, entered the room.

“Mr. Dunlap, stop a moment.” There was a look in the official’s eyes that froze Mr. Dunlap’s welcome on his lips and nailed him to the spot on[319] which he stood. Chapman glanced at Burton, on whom O’Brien’s gaze was fastened. Burton had risen and stood trembling like an aspen leaf without a single shade of color left in cheeks or lips. Jack Dunlap’s face flushed somewhat indignantly as he rose and walked forward to the side of his kinsman.

“With all due regard for that high respect I entertain for you, Mr. Dunlap, it has become my painful duty to enter your house tonight in my official capacity and arrest one accused of the most serious crime known to the law.” While O’Brien was speaking he moved toward the table, never removing his eyes from Burton.

“What do you mean, sir?” cried Jack in a wrathful voice, interposing himself between O’Brien and the table.

“Stand aside, Captain Dunlap!” said the Chief sternly. Quickly stepping to Burton’s side and placing his hand on his shoulder he said,

“Walter Burton, I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth, on the charge of murder.”

With a movement too quick even for a glance to catch, the Chief jerked Burton’s hands together[320] and snapped a pair of handcuffs on the wrists of the rapidly collapsing man.

The eyes of all present were fixed, in stupified amazement, on O’Brien and Burton, and had not seen what stood in the open doorway until a low moan caused Jack to turn his head. He saw then the figure of Lucy slowly sinking to the floor.

Lucy in her wanderings about the house was passing through the hall when the uniformed officer entered. Attracted by the unusual spectacle of a man in a blue coat ornamented with brass buttons, she had followed the policeman and overheard all that he had said, and seen what he had done.

“I will furnish bail in any amount, O’Brien,” exclaimed Mr. Dunlap, staying the two officers by stepping before them as they almost carried Burton, unable to walk, from the room.

“Don’t make it harder than it is now for me to do my duty,” and gently pushing the old gentleman aside, O’Brien and his assistant bore Burton[321] from the library and the Dunlap mansion.

“Help me, quick! Lucy has fainted!” called Jack, who, crippled as he was, could not raise the unconscious wife of Burton.

When Mr. Dunlap reached Jack’s bending figure, Lucy opened her eyes, gazed about wildly for an instant, gasped for breath as if suffocating, and suddenly sprang unassisted to her feet, as if shot upward by some hidden mechanism.

“Walter! My husband! Where is he? Where is grandfather? What has happened?” she cried out, in a confused way, as one just aroused from a sound sleep.

Jack and Mr. Dunlap stared at her for a moment in wonderment; then something in her eyes gave them the gladsome tidings, in this their hour of greatest trouble, that reason had resumed its sway over loved Lucy’s mind; she was restored to sanity. The shock had been to her heart and restored her senses, as a similar shock had deprived her of them. The experts had predicted correctly.

“Walter is in trouble, danger. I heard that policeman say murder! Save my husband, Jack! Uncle John! Where is my grandfather?”

Jack finally gathered enough of his scattered composure to reply somehow to the excited young woman. He said all that he dared say so soon after the return of reason to her distracted head.

“Be calm, Cousin Lucy! Your grandfather is absent from the city. You have been ill. Your Uncle John and I will do all in our power to aid Walter if he be in danger.”

She turned her eyes toward her Uncle John and regarded him steadily for the space of a minute, and then she whirled about and faced Jack, crying out in clear and ringing tones,

“I will not trust Uncle John. He dislikes Walter and always has, but you! you, Jack Dunlap, I trust next to my God and my good grandfather. Will you promise to aid Walter?”

There was no madness now in Lucy’s bright, gleaming, hazel eyes; womanly anxiety as a wife was superb in its earnestness. She was grand, sublime as with the majestic grace of a queen of tragedy she swept close to her cousin, then raising herself to her greatest height, with her[323] hand extended upward, pointing to heaven, she commanded as a sovereign might have done.

“Swear to me, Jack Dunlap, by God above us and your sacred honor, that you will stop at nothing in the effort to save my husband. Swear!”

The woman’s manner, speech, and the scene did not seem strange to those who stood about her. She was suddenly aroused to reason to find the object of her tenderest love in direst danger; her stay, prop and reliance, her grandfather, unaccountably absent. In that trying stress of circumstances, the intensity of the feeling within her wrought-up soul found expression in excessive demands and exaggerated attitudes.

“Now go! my Jack; hurry after Walter and help him,” she urged as with nervous hands she pushed him toward the door.

Next morning, when the newspapers made the startling announcement that a member of the firm of J. Dunlap, Boston’s oldest and wealthiest business house, had been arrested on the charge[324] of that nameless crime and the murder of the Malloy girl, the entire city was stunned by the intelligence.

A crowd quickly gathered around the city jail. Threatful mutterings were heard as the multitude increased in numbers about the prison. When Malloy came and his neighbors clustered about the infuriated father of the outraged victim, that slow and slumbering wrath that lies beneath the calm, deceptive surface of the New England character began to make itself evident. “Tear down the gates!” “Lynch the fiend,” and such expressions were heard among the men, momentarily growing louder, as the cool exterior of the Northern nature gave away.

Soon many seafaring men were seen moving among the most excited of the mob, saying as they passed from one group to another, “It’s not true! You know the Dunlaps too well!” “Keep quiet, it’s a lie!” “Dunlap offered a reward for the arrest of the villain; it can’t be as the papers say!”

One sailor-man, who carried a crippled arm, mounted a box and made a speech, telling the[325] people there must be a mistake and begging them to be quiet. When he said that his name was Dunlap, the seafaring men began to cheer for “Skipper Jack,” and the mob joined in. Seeing one of the Dunlap name so calm, honest and brave in their very midst, the mob began to doubt, and shaking their heads the people moved gradually away and dispersed, persuaded that naught connected with the worthy Dunlap name could cause such foul wrong and disgrace to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The best legal talent of New England was retained that day for the defense of Burton. When they had examined the circumstantial evidence against Burton they frankly told Jack Dunlap that an alibi, positively established, alone could save the accused man.

The unselfish sailor sought the seclusion of his cabin on board his ship, that lay at anchor in the harbor, there to ponder over the terrible information given him by the leading lawyers of Boston.

Uncomplainingly the man had resigned his hope of the greatest joy that could come to his[326] strong, unselfish soul—Lucy’s love. For the sake of her whom he loved he had concealed his suffering. He had smothered the sorrow that well nigh wrenched the heart out of his bosom, that he might minister to her in the hour of her mental affliction. He had shed his blood in shielding with his breast the man whom she had selected in his stead. All this he had done as ungrudgingly and gladly as he had tended her slightest bidding when as wee maid she had ruled him.

Love demanded of this great heart the final and culminating sacrifice. Could he, would he offer up his honor on the altar of his love?

To this knight by right of nature, honor and truth were dearer far than his blood or his life. Would he surrender the one prize he cherished highest for his hopeless love’s sake?

“I will swear that you were aboard my ship with me every hour of the night on which the crime of which you stand accused was committed. An absolute alibi alone can save you. May God forgive you! May God forgive me! and may the people of Massachusetts pardon

Perjured Jack Dunlap.”

[327]

Such was the letter sent by the sailor, by well paid and trusty hand, to the successful suitor for Lucy’s hand, now closely mewed within the prison walls of Boston’s strongest jail.

The court room was crowded, not only by the casual visitors to such places, who are ever in search of satisfaction to their morbid curiosity, but also by the most fashionable of Boston’s elite society.

The preliminary examination in the case of the Commonwealth vs. Walter Burton was on the docket for hearing that day.

Nearly a month had elapsed since the arrest; all that an unlimited amount of money could accomplish had been done to ameliorate the terrible position of the prisoner. More than a million dollars was offered in bail for the accused, and it was hoped that by a preliminary examination such a strong probability of the establishment of an alibi could be presented, that the Court would make an order permitting the acceptance of bail for the appearance of the accused after the report of the Grand Jury.

Neither old John Dunlap nor Burton’s wife was present. Jack had insisted that they must not be in the court-room when he was called upon to give his evidence.

Lieutenant Thomas Maxon, bronzed, stalwart, and serious, sat beside his friend Jack Dunlap among the witnesses for the defense.

With a face of ghastly white, Jack Dunlap, his arm still in a sling, stared straight before him, heedless of the stir and flutter around him while the audience was waiting the appearance of the judge and the accused.

There was a look of desperate resolve and defiance on Burton’s face as he entered the court-room between two officers and took his seat at the counsel table behind the lawyers who appeared for the defense.

The prosecuting attorney proceeded, when the case was called, to present the case for the Commonwealth with the coldness and emotionless precision that marks the movements of an expert surgeon as he digs and cuts among the vitals of a subject on the operating table.

Chapman was much embarrassed and very nervous[330] on the witness stand; his testimony was fairly dragged from his livid, unwilling lips; he interjected every doubt and possible suspicion that might weigh against his evidence and weaken the case of the Commonwealth. When he left the stand he staggered like one intoxicated as he walked back to his seat among the witnesses.

When the case of the people was closed, the leading counsel for the defense, one most learned in the law, arose and, making a few well-chosen introductory remarks, turned to a bailiff and said,

For the first time in his life Jack Dunlap seemed afraid to look men in the eyes. Neither glancing right nor left, he strode with a determined air to the witness stand and took his seat. His face wore the hue of death. His jaws were so clamped together that they seemed to crush his teeth between them.

They asked his name, age and occupation and then his whereabout on the night of the crime for which the prisoner stood accused.

The witness made answer briefly to each of these questions without removing his gaze from[331] the wall above the heads of the audience, and seemed collecting himself for an ordeal yet to come.

“Who was with you on board your ship, the ‘Adams,’ that night?” was the next question of the lawyer for the defense.

“Stop! Do not answer, Jack!” came in clear, commanding tones from the mouth of the prisoner as he sprang to his feet. His lawyers about him tried to pull him down into his chair, but he struggled and shook himself free and stood where all could see him.

Burton looked around him defiantly at the assembled crowd in the court-room, holding up his hand with palm turned toward Jack, in protest against his giving answer to the last question. Then, throwing back his head, he said in a loud and steady voice,

“I must and do protest against this further sacrifice in my behalf on the part of that noble, generous, grand man on the stand. Already he has far exceeded the belief of the most credulous in sacrificing himself for those whom he loves. That I may prevent this last and grandest offering, the[332] honor of that brave man, I tell you all that I am guilty of the crime as charged, and further, I hurl into your teeth the fact that by your accursed affectation of social equality between the White and Negro races, which can never exist, you are responsible in part for my crime, and you are wholly answerable for much agony to the most innocent and blameless of mortals on earth. Your canting, maudlin, sentimental cry of social intercourse between the races has caused wrong, suffering, sorrow, crime, and now causes my death.”

As Burton ceased speaking he swiftly threw a powder between his lips and quickly swallowed it.

The audience, judge, lawyers, bailiffs, all sat still, chained in a trance of astonishment as the accused man uttered this unexpected phillipic against a sometime tradition of New England, and likewise pronounced his guilt by this open and voluntary confession.

None seemed to realize that the prisoner’s speech was also his valedictory to life, until they saw him reel, and, ere the nearest man could reach him, fall, face downward, upon the court-room floor, dead.

Like the last ray of the setting sun, Burton’s expiring speech and deed had been the parting gleam of the nobility begotten by the blood of the superior race within his veins, and reflected on the bright surface of the civilization and culture of the white race. The predominance of animalism in the negro nature precludes the possibility of suicide in even the extremest cases of conscious debasement. Suicide is almost unknown among the negro race.

“Chapman found dead at his desk in the office! My God! What more must I bear in my old age! Oh! God, have mercy upon an old man!”

Poor old John Dunlap fell upon Jack’s shoulder and wept from very weakness and misery, and so the sailor supported and held him until the paroxysm of wretchedness had passed; then he gently led the broken old gentleman to the easiest chair in the parlor of the Dunlap house and begged him to sit down and compose his overwrought feelings.

“You say, Jack, that the porter found him[334] seated at his desk this morning; that he thought he was sleeping, as my faithful employee’s head rested on his arms, and that it was only when he touched him and noticed how cold he was that he realized that Chapman was dead. My God! How awful!” groaned the distressed speaker.

“Yes, sir, and when the head clerks of the different departments arrived and raised him they saw lying on his desk before him ready for publication the notice of the closing of the business career of the house of J. Dunlap, and they took from the dead man’s stiffened fingers the long record of the firm to which he clung even in death.”

“I saw the poor fellow’s face grow pale and his features twitch as if in pain when I told him that the career of our house was ended. I urged him to rest here until he was better, but he only shook his head and hurried from my presence.”

Mr. Dunlap spoke sadly and after a pause of several minutes, during which an expression of deepest melancholy settled over his countenance, he continued sorrowfully,

“Poor David Chapman, good and faithful servant![335] He loved the old house of ‘J. Dunlap’ with all of his soul, and when he knew that the end had come, it broke that intense heart of his.”

“Why did you determine, sir, to take the old sign down, and close those doors that for two hundred years have stood open every day except holidays?” asked Jack, full of sympathy for the grief-stricken kinsman beside him.

“I cannot bear the sight of my loved boyhood’s home, dear old Boston, at present. It has been the scene of so much agony and horror for me within the past year that I must, for my own sake, get away from the agonizing associations all about me here. Lucy absolutely must be taken away now that her mind is restored to its normal condition, or she will surely go mad from weeping and grieving. As soon as she is able to travel we shall go to Europe to be absent months,—years. I am an old man, maybe I shall never see Boston again.” The old man stopped to choke back a sob and then said,

“It is hard, very hard, on me that I should be obliged to close the house my brother James loved so well, and that has been a glory to the Dunlap[336] name for two centuries. It may break my heart, too, lad.”

The white head sunk on the heaving chest and an audible sob now shook the bended frame. Jack watched his good godfather with manly tears filling his honest eyes. Then, laying his hand softly on the old man’s arm, he said,

“Cousin John, would you feel less wretched if I promised to leave the sea, and do my best to keep the old sign, ‘J. Dunlap,’ in its place in the crooked street where it has hung for two hundred years?”

John Dunlap raised his head almost as soon as his namesake began to speak, and when Jack had finished he had him around the neck and was hugging the sturdy sailor, crying all the time,

“God bless you, boy! Will you do that for your old kinsman? Will you, lad?” And then wringing Jack’s hand he cried,

“A young J. Dunlap succeeds the old; all the ships, trade and the capital remain as before! You and Lucy are sole heirs to everything! The chief clerks will shout for joy to know that the house still goes on; they will help you faithfully[337] for love of my brother James and me. And oh! Jack, when I am far away it will make my heart beat easier to know that the Dunlap red ball barred with black still floats upon the ocean, and that the old sign is still here; that I was not the one of my long line to take it from its place.”

EPILOGUE.

Five times has Boston Common, old, honored in history’s story, slept beneath its snowy counterpane, all damaskeened by winter sunbeam’s glory.

Five times have brooks in Yankee vales burst icy chains to flee, with gladsome shouts of merriment, on joyous journey to the sea.

Five times have Massachusetts hills and dales been garbed in cloak of emerald, embroidered wide in gay designs of daffodils and daisies since the grand old Commonwealth was shocked by the commission of a horrid crime by one called Burton.

An old sign still swings before an even older building, in one of Boston’s most crooked streets. “J. Dunlap, Shipping and Banking,” is what the passersby may read on the old sign.

Sometimes an old man is seen to enter the building above the door of which is suspended this sign; he is much bent and white of hair, but[339] sturdy still, despite some four-score years. All men of Boston accord great respect to this handsome old gentleman.

The man who is head and manager of all the business done within the old building where that sign is seen, has the tanned and rugged look of one who had long gazed upon the bright surface of the sea. While he is only seen in landsmen’s dress, it seems that clothing of a nautical cut would best befit his stalwart figure.

This head man at J. Dunlap’s office is cavalier-in-chief to three old ladies, with whom he often is seen driving in Boston’s beautiful suburbs; one of these white-haired old dames he addresses as “Mother,” another as “Mrs. Church,” and the most withered one of the three he calls “Miss Arabella.”

He has been seen, too, with a sweet, sad, yet very lovely young woman in whose glorious crown of gold-brown hair silver silken threads run in and out.

A big, jovial naval man periodically drives up before the old sign and shouting out, “Jack, come here and see the latest!” exhibits a baby to the[340] sailor-looking manager. The last time he roared in greatest glee, “It’s a girl, named Bessie, for her mother.”

Kind harvest moon, send forth your tenderest glances, that fall betwixt the tall elm’s branches on that sad, sweet face that lies so restfully against a sailor’s loyal bosom.

“Lucy, I have always loved you!” Jack Dunlap kissed his “Little Princess” and put his strong arms around her.

Everlasting time, catch up those words, and bear them on forever, as motto of most faithful lover.

An old man, standing at a window in the Dunlap mansion, watched the man and woman in the moonlight between the elm trees, and what he witnessed seemed to bring a great joy to his good, kind heart, for he reverently raised his eyes to heaven and said,

DEDICATION

List of Illustrations

BLOOD WILL TELL

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EPILOGUE.