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Show THE EXPERIENCE OF A NIGHT. Dr. ? C.W. Townsend. One afternoon, about three years ago, I was seated in the editorial room of a Comstock paper, just after the paper had gone to press, when the following dispatch was received. Carson Nev., October --, 1877. Attempted break at prison. One prisoner killed, two badly wounded. Mathewson shot through the arm. The Nevada State Prison is at Carson. Mathewson was a deputy warden. The managing editor handed me this dispatch, and said "run down to the depot. There is a wood engine goes to Carson about this time. Get all the blood and thunder you can, and come back by the morning train.?" I just caught the engine as it was moving out of the depot. A ride down grades and curves - making the wildest railroading on the Central Pacific appear straight and level by comparison-landed me in Carson shortly after dark. I ran to the nearest livery stable, and was soon galloping a mustang at his best gait toward the prison. At the prison I found an air of suppressed excitement, an extra guard; and it took some time for my carefully in-??????? to the warden's office. An order finally came to admit me, and I was shown into an office occupied by General Datterman,? The warden, Mr. Mathewson, his deputy, and several "trusties"? as guards. The deputy soon told the story of the attempted break. That afternoon he had gone into the prison shoe-shop, in the second story of a brick building and while talking to a foreman, was suddenly surrounded by a gang of convicts, flourishing the razor-like knives used in their trade, and howling, "Liberty or death!" The deputy carried no arms, and was soon overpowered and his hands bound behind him. The convicts hustled him down stairs, and as he passed a window he sent his foot crashing through the glass, to attract the attention of the guards. The yard was reached, and the convicts, crowding around and keeping him in the center of their midst, made a rush for an open gate. "Shoot!" cried the deputy to a guard on the nearest parapet? The guard hesitated, for the convicts purposely kept their prisoner in a dangerous position, should a guard fire. "Shoot d__n you, shoot!" cried Mathewson again; and a ball from a Winchester rifle ploughed? Through a convict's shoulder, and then through the deputy's arm. The circling mass of convicts poured on toward the gates. Over the inside gate-there were two through which they had to pass - a bridge was built, so that the patrol need not be interrupted. When the first gate was reached, two guards stood on this bridge, carrying shot guns loaded with buck shot. They were directly over the escaping convicts. "If you order them to shoot, I'll drive this knife into your heart," said a convict, serving a term for murder. "Blaze away!" yelled Mathewson. The convict raised his knife and fell dead, with his body riddled with buck-shot. The outside gate was lowered; a dozen guards, running from all parts of the prison, covered the escaping convicts with their guns. "Don't shoot - we give up!" they cried. The prisoners were all locked up, the dead murderer laid out in a corridor, and the wounded cared for. When the deputy had finished the story, I asked to be shown over the ground. I was in search of more blood and thunder. I saw the broken glass, the bloody ground, the wounded man, and was then taken to the corridor where the dead convict was laid out. He was being watched by four convicts. The turnkey had locked the deputy (and myself) inside with them. The cold stony place was half-lighted by the candles at the dead man's head and foot. "Did you know him?" I asked of one of the silent watchers, pointing to the white, hard-looking face. The man did not answer. I asked the same question of another watcher. He looked at me in a manner which showed that he had heard and comprehended the question, but did not reply. It had an unpleasant effect on one's nerves to have a man look at you, under those circumstances, and remain dumb when you question him. I concluded, rather suddenly, that I had all the material necessary and walked toward the door, conscious of a slight mental chill. The turnkey clanged the bolts and door lock, and we passed by him to the outer hall. I looked back through the grating, and saw the four convicts silently pacing up and down before their dead comrade. "The regulations of the prison don't allow convicts to talk after nine o'clock," said the deputy. It was after that hour. I mounted my horse and galloped back to the city. I wanted to be somewhere where there was plenty of light, and people talked. It occurred to me that Madame Modjeska? had left Virginia City that afternoon to play in Carson that night. The thought of going into a theater was peculiarly welcome to me at that moment. I left my horse, and went around to the stage door of the old theater. I found Modjeska? Standing in the musty old wings.? Extending her hand, she said, smilingly? " you haf just arrive in time to see me die?," and hearing her cue, Adrienne Leconvrear? stepped upon the stage. I had seen the wonderful artiste "die" as Adrienne, and in other characters, a half-dozen times before; but never with such horrible realism as on that occasion. Old Jim Vinson? And Fred Maeder?, the latter as the lover, helped her "work up" the scene, and when the curtain fell, they still stood bending over her. But Adrienne did not jump from the chair, in which she had sunk in the convulsions of a death by poison. Her jaw remained dropped, her eyes fixed and staring, and her cheeks drawn and haggard. Maeder took one of her clenched hands and slowly the natural expression came back to her face. She saw three of us bending anxiously over her. "Oh it is nothing," she said, "I was a little tired; I think that is all." Then she went to her dressing room. "Never saw such a death in my life," exclaimed old Vinson, enthusiastically. "Beautiful!" he continued. "beautiful; the madame died like-like an angel." "She acts too well," said Maeder. I was unfortunate. I had gone to a theater to shake off a mental depression, and had witnessed a scene more impressive than any real death I ever expect to see. I gladly accepted Maeder's invitation to wait and go down with them to a Bohemian resort for beer and sandwiches. We had ordered beer and were about to drink, when it occurred to me to remark, "By the way, Ned Adams died to day." I had seen the dispatch before leaving Virginia City. Maeder and Vinson both looked at me, startled; both raised their hats, and we all three drank in silence. Then we all went to Maeder's room at the hotel, as I could not get a room to myself. "There was on experience Ned Adams had on an Australian steamer," said Maeder. "which impressed me very deeply. He was in Melbourne with his wife when I was in Sydney with mine. He sent us word that he would leave for Sydney on a certain steamer, and wife and I were down at the wharf to meet him. There had been a terrible storm, and the steamer was overdue. The officials expressed doubt of the boat's ability to weather the gale they ??? encountered. She arrived, however, with all on board safe, but had a fearful experience. We found Ned prostrated, in his stateroom, and had to remove him on the mattress to our hotel. His wife told us that he had been more dead than alive since shortly after the gale had struck them. "it was not the gale, the tossing of the ship, the terror and prayers of the passengers that laid me so low, ‘said Ned, the next morning, ‘it was those poor dumb beasts. The ship had on board a number of horses. They were ‘tween decks, and only confined by hastily-erected partitions. These were broken by the horses being thrown against them as soon as the steamer began to roll. They were terribly frightened. Their keepers deserted them and came on the upper deck, and the tramping of the horses' hoofs on their deck was a sound more awful to me than anything I have ever heard. In fact. I could scarcely hear anything else. Even when I went to my stateroom, I heard the dull thud, thud, thud, thud; thud, thud, thud, thud of their hoofs, in their efforts to keep standing. Suddenly they appeared to be panic stricken. Perhaps they heard the cries of the terrified passengers, for they, too, set up the most unearthly crying. "To me the dull monotonous thud, thud, thud, thud of their hoofs was more distressing than their cries. I imagined them trying to escape from a danger they felt to be near them, but could not appreciate." When Fred had proceeded this far with Adam's recital, he stopped, and involuntarily, we three in the room looked inquiringly at each other. While Fred was telling the story-and he told it much better than I can repeat it-I had noticed Vinson glancing uneasily toward the door. Fred had once or twice hesitated, and looked also in that direction. I, myself was conscious of something which gave an unpleasant reality to the story I argued with myself, while still listening to Fred that I had had a little too much "blood and thunder," and not enough dinner, to be perfectly sure of all my senses?. The deputy wardens story, the dead murderer, the speechless watchers, Modjeska's thrilling death-scene, and Fred's story itself, had affected my nerves to an unusual degree, I said to myself, and tried not to hear anything but the words of the story. But I thought I did hear something else; and, when Vinson stared motionless in the direction in which I had been attracted, I said; "That's curious." "Yes," said Fred, a little hastily. "But let me finish poor Ned's experience, and we will go to bed." Vinson never removed his gaze from the door." Fred continued in Adam's words: "Finally that awful thud, thud, thud, thud, overcame every other sound on the boat. The throbbing of the engine, the yelling of the officers, the shrieks of the passengers, and the howling of the gale, all resolved themselves into the beating of those helpless, wild horses' hoofs on their prison floor. It seemed as if I should go mad if the noise did not cease, or change it's character. The very beating of my heart, my pulsing head, my breathing, all seemed a part and were in perfect time with that meaning? Sound - the only one my senses could entertain? - the thud, thud, thud, thud -----" "Thud, thud, thud, thud," echoed Vinson, and we were all three on our feet, looking curiously, consciously, into each other's faces. "I've heard that ever since you began that story," said Vinson uneasily. "I thought all the while that I had, too," replied Fred. I, too, had heard - what I knew, then that they all had heard-a perfect representation of the sound Ned Adams had heard on the Australian Steamer. We opened the door of the room, and located the sound in a dark room, with a door opening into the hall, directly opposite ours. We placed a chair near the door and I stood upon it with a lamp in my hand, and tried to peer in through the transom. It was closed and covered with a heavy cloth. While I stood on the chair the noise grew more indistinct, and gradually nearly faded away. Fred rang for the clerk. "Whose room is that?" we asked. "The man who rooms there is out of town," he replied. "Are you sure no one is occupying the room to-night?" "I am sure that the man who owns the room is away, and has the key of the room in his pocket," and the clerk left. We went back to our room, and the echo of the hoofs was plainly heard. Vinson went to his room. Fred went to bed, but not to sleep, and I tried to write. We favored talking and smoking however. The noise I found, began to affect me in exactly the manner it had poor Ned Adams. Fred too, was apparently becoming similarly absorbed. Our conversation lagged. If either spoke, neither observed. "Thud, thud, thud, thud, the dull, monotonous sound drove thought of everything else away. My sensations, both mentally and physically, assumed the shape and effect of a nightmare, and I longed for something to arouse me. Suddenly came a sharp rap on the door, followed by the appearance of a grimy head. It was the engineer of the engine I rode down to Carson on. I had asked him to call me in time to return with him at five o'clock in the morning. "I knew you were awake," he said, "for I heard you having some kind of a circus as I came along the hall." A year after that night I met the two actors in Piper's Opera House, in Virginia City. "Do you remember that night in Carson?" was their first greeting. Then we asked the others; "have you ever satisfactorily explained that noise?" None of us then had. I have not yet. --- The Argonaut. |