OCR Text |
Show M?m MMDS of- (fPWm C Author of "CardigarfThe Conspirators" " Maids-at-Arms"etc EtWS COPYRIGHT ROBT. W CHAMBERS COPYRIG-HT Sx P.F. COLLIER SOf SYNOPSIS. S'-arlntl an American soldier of fortune for-tune In the rmploy of the French Imperial Im-perial Police at Hie outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. is ordered to arrest John IJuckhiirst. a leader of the Communists Com-munists and suspected of having stolen the French crown jewels. While searching search-ing for Huckhiirst, Scarlett Is ordered to arrest Countess de Vassart and her group of socialists and escort them to the Bel-Klan Bel-Klan border. Scarlett finds Sylvia Elveri of the Ocleon disguised as a peasant and carries her to La Trappe where the countess and her friends are assembled. All are arrested. The countess saves Scarlett from a fatal fall from the roof of the house. He denounces Buckhurst as the leader of the Keds and the countess coun-tess conducts him to where Buckhurst Is secreted German Uhlans descend on the place and Buckhurst escapes during the melee. Scarlett Is wounded. He recovers re-covers consciousness In the countess' house at Morsbronn. where he is cared fir by the countess. A tierce battle Is ought In the streets between French .nd Prussian soldiers. Buckhurst processes pro-cesses repentenee and returns the crown Jewels to Scarlett. He declares he will Klve himself up to the authorities. Scar-'ett Scar-'ett doubls his sincerity. Buckhurst urges the countess to go to Paradise. Buckhurst Buck-hurst admits that he receives pay from the Prussians for Information which he does not give. He secures passports to the French lines for Scarlett, the countess coun-tess and himself. Scarlett reports to the secret service in Paris and finds Mor-nac, Mor-nac, shadow of the emperor, in charge. He deposits the crown jewels and later, when making a detailed report, finds that pebhles have been substituted for the real stones. Speed, a comrade in the service, warns Scarlett that Mornac is dangerous. He also Informs him that all the government govern-ment treasure is being transported to the coast for shipment out of the country. Scarlett and Speed escape to join a circus. cir-cus. The circus arrives at Paradise. An order Is received by the mayor calling the citizens to arms. Jacqueline, .daughter .daugh-ter of the Lizard, offers to join the circus to give exhibitions in the character of a mermaid. Scarlett makes friends with the Lizard. CHAPTER XIII. Continued. With mallet, hammer, saw, and screw-driver I worked until noon, maturing ma-turing my plans all the while. These plans would take the last penny in the treasury and leave us in debt several sev-eral thousand francs. But it was win or go to smash now, and personally I have always preferred a tremendous tmash to a slow and oozy fizzle. A big pot of fragrant soup was served to the company at luncheon; and it amused me to eee Jacqueline troop into the tent with the others and sit down with her bit of bread and her bowl of broth. . "How is she getting on?" I called across to Speed." "The child is simply startling," he said, in English. "She is not afraid of anything. She and Miss Crystal have been doing that hair-raising 'flying swing' without rehearsal!" Byram's buoyancy had returned in a measure. He sat in his shirt sleeves at the head of the table, vigorously sopping his tartine in his soup, and, mouth full, leaned forward, chewing and listening to the conversation around him. "I'll say one thing," observed By-ram, By-ram, with dignity; "if ever I git out of this darn continong with my circus, I'll recooperate in the undulatin' medders an' j'yful vales of the United States. Hereafter that country will continue to remain good enough for me." Now that 1 had stirred up this beehive bee-hive and set it swarming again, I had no inclination to turn drone. Yet I remembered re-membered my note to the Countess de Vassart and her reply. So about four o'clock I made the best toilet I could In my only other suit of clothes, and walked out of the bustling camp into the square, where the mossy fountain splashed under the oaks and the children chil-dren of Paradise were playing. One thing I noticed as I crossed the unused moat of the Chateau de Tre-court Tre-court on a permanent bridge. There was a man, lying belly down in the bracken, watching me; and as I walked into the court I tried to re-member re-member where I had seen his face before. be-fore. There was a soft whirring in the air like the sound of a humming bird close by; It came from a spinning-wheel, and , grew louder as a servant admitted me Into the house and guided me to a sunny sun-ny room facing the fruit garden. Suddenly the melody ceased, and a voting I'.retonne girl appeared in the , doorway, court.esying to me and saying in perfect English: "How do you do, I Mr. Scarlett?" ! The girl was Mademoiselle Sylvia Wlven, the marvelously clever actress j from the Odeon, the same young wom- in who had played the Alsacienne at I l.a Trappe, as perfectly in voice and Ii costume as she now played the Bre- 'onne. I "I only came to renew an old and deeply valued friendship. I am going l back to my flax now. And. by-the-way," J. she said, languidly, "is there in your f Intellectual circus company a young l! gentleman whose name is Eyre?" "Kelly Eyre? Yes," I said, sulkily. "Ah. Would you take a message to Mistaire Kelly Eyre for me?" she asked, sweetly. I said that I would. "Then please say that: 'On Sunday Sun-day the book stores are closed in Paris.' " "Very well, mademoiselle." She courtesied and vanished. I fancied, after a few moments, that I heard the distant thudding of a horse's hoofs; soon I was sure of it, and rose to my feet expectantly, just as a flushed young girl in a riding-habit riding-habit entered the room and gave me her gloved hand. I looked at her earnestly, scarcely understanding that she was saying she was glad I had come, that she had waited for me, that she had wanted to see me, that she had wished to tell me how deeply our tragic experience at La Trappe and in Morsbronn had impressed im-pressed her. "But come out to my garden," she said, smiling, and stripping off her little lit-tle buff gauntlets. "There we will have a tea a l'Anglaise, and sunshine, and a long, long, satisfying talk." She led the way along a path under the apricots to a seat against a sunny wall. "First of all," she said, impulsively, "I know your life all of it in minute particular. Are you astonished?" "No, madame," I replied; "Mornac showed you my dossier." "That is true," she said, with a troubled trou-bled look of surprise. I smiled. "As for Mornac," I began, but she interrupted me. "Ah, Mornac! Do you suppose I believed be-lieved him? In yoiir dossier I read the tragedy of a gentleman." "Do you know," said I, "that I am now a performer in a third-rate traveling travel-ing circus?" "I think that is very sad," she said, sweetly. "With no hope?" "Hope?" With every hope," I said smiling. "My name is not my own, but it must serve me to my end, and I shall wear it threadbare and leave it to no one." "Is there no hope?" she asked, quietly. Suddenly the ghost of all I had lost rose before me with her words rose at last after all these years, towering, terrible, free once more to fill the days with loathing and my nights with hell eternal, . . . after all these years! "There is every hope," I said, "save the hopes of youth the hope of a woman's love, and of that happiness which comes through love. I am a man past thirty, madame thirty-five, mm, "My Name Is Not My Own, but It Must Serve Me to My End." I believe my dossier makes it. It has taken me fifteen years to bury my youth. Let us talk of Mornac." "Yes, we will talk of Mornac." she said, gently. So with Infinite pains I went back and traced for her the career of Buckhurst, Buck-hurst, sparing her nothing. She sat motionless, her face like cold marble, as I carefully gathered the threads of the plot and gently twitched that one which galvanized the mask of Mornac. "Mornac!" she stammered, aghast. I showed her why Buckhurst desired to come to Paradise: I showed her why Mornac had Initiated her into the mysteries of my dossier, taking that infernal precaution, although he had every reason to believe he had me practically in prison, with the keys in his own pocket. She told me that Buckhurst came to her house here in Paradise early in September; that while in Paris, pondering pon-dering on what I had said, she had determined to withdraw herself abso lutely from all organized socialistic associations as-sociations during the war; that she believed she could do the greatest good by living a natural and cheerful life, by maintaining the position that birth and fortune had given her, and by using that portion and fortune for the benefit of those less fortunate. This she had told Buckhurst, and the rascal appeared to agree with her so thoroughly that, when Doctor Del-mont Del-mont and Professor Tavernier arrived. ar-rived. -they also applauded the choice she made of Buckhurst as distributer of money, food and clothing to the provincial hospitals, now crowded to suffocation with the wreck of battle. Then a strange thing occurred. Doctor Doc-tor Delmont and Professor Tavernier disappeared without any explanation. They had started for St. Nazaire with a sum of money twenty thousand francs, locked in the private strongbox strong-box of the countess to be distributed among the soldiers of Chanzy; and they had never returned. In the light of what she had learned from me, she feared that Buckhurst had won them over. "But," I said, patiently, "you have not yet told me where he is." "I don't know," she said. "A week ago a dreadful creature came here to see Buckhurst; they went across the moor toward the semaphore and stood for a long while looking at the cruiser which is anchored off Groix. Then Buckhurst came back and prepared for a journey. He said he was going to Tours to confer with the Red Cross. I don't know where he went. He took all the money for the general Red Cross fund." "When did he say he would return?" "He said in two weeks. "That is good news," I said, gayly. "But tell me one thing: Do you trust Mademoiselle Elven?" "Yes, indeed Indeed!" she cried horrified. "Very well," said I, smiling. "Only for the sake of caution extra, and even perhaps useless caution say nothing of this matter to her, nor to any living soul save me." "I promise," she said, faintly. "Now that Mornac is not even a pawn in the game so, indeed, I begin to believe he never really was, but has been from the first a dupe of Buckhurst Buck-hurst it is the duty of every honest man to watch Buckhurst and warn the authorities that he possibly has designs de-signs on the crown jewels of France, which that cruiser yonder is all ready to bear away to Saigon. "How he proposes to attempt such a robbery I can't imagine. I don't want to denounce him to General Chanzy or Aurelles de Palladine, because be-cause the conspiracy is too widely spread and too dangerous to be defeated de-feated by the capture of one man, even though he be the head of it. "What I want is to entrap the entire band; and that can only be done by watching Buckhurst, not arresting him. Meanwhile, as long as we stay in Paradise we both are your devoted servants, and we beg the privilege of serving you." "You a6k the privilege of serving me," she said. "You could serve me best by giving me your .friendship." I was silent. "Have you never given women your friendship?" she asked. "Not in fifteen years nor asked theirs' She sprang up and caught both my hands in her ungloved hands. "Won't you take my friendship and give me yours ray friend?" "Yes," I said, slowly. As in a dream I bent forward; she abandoned her hands to me; and I touched a woman's wom-an's hands with my lips for the first time in fifteen years. "In all devotion and loyalty and gratitude," I said. "And in friendship say it!" "In friendship." "Now you may go if you desire to. When will you come again?" "When may I?" "When you will." CHAPTER XIV. The Path of the Lizard. About nine o'clock the next morning an incident occurred which might have terminated my career in one way, and did, ultimately, end it in another. I had been exercising my lions and putting them through their paces, and had noticed no unusual insubordina' tion among them, when suddenly. Tim. our Melek, a big Algerian lion, flew at me without the slightest provocation or warning. Fortunately I had a training-chair in my hand, on which Timour had just been sitting, and I had time to thrust it into his face. "Down, Timour Melek! Down! down! down!" I said, steadily, accompanying each word with a blow of the whip across the nose. The brute had only hurt himself when he struck the chair; and now, under the blows raining on his sensitive sensi-tive nose, he doubtless remembered similar episodes in his early training, and shrank back, nearly deafening me with his roars. I followed, punishing him, and ke fled towards the low iron grating which separated the training-cage training-cage from the night quarters. I was not in perfect trim that morning. morn-ing. Not that I felt nervous in the least, nor had I any lack of self-confidence, but I was not myself. The lions had been aware of it as soon as I set foot in their cage; and I knew it. As I emerged from the cage Speed asked me whether I was hurt, and I gasped out that I was not. "What went wrong?" he persisted. "Speed, it was one of those seconds that come to us, when the faintest shadow of indecision settles matters. Engineers are subject to it at the throttle, pilots at the helm, captains in battle" "Men in love," added Speed. I looked him over in astonishment. "What's the matter with you?" he asked, amused. "What's the matter with you?" I demanded. de-manded. "If you mean to intimate that I have fallen in love you are certainly cer-tainly an astonishing ass!" "Don't talk that way," he said, good-humoredly. good-humoredly. "I didn't dream of such a thing, or of offending you, Scarlett." I had an appointment to meet Robert Rob-ert the Lizard at noon, and I was rather curious to find out how much his promises were worth when the novelty of his new gun had grown stale. The poacher was sunning himself on his doorsill when I came into view over the black basalt rocks. To my surprise, he touched his cap as I approached, ap-proached, and rose civilly, replying to my greeting with a brief, "Salute, m'sieu!" "You are prompt to the minute," I said, pleasantly. "Come to the point, m'sieu," he said, dryly. "We have struck palms." "Lizard," I said, "give me your confidence con-fidence as I give you mine. Yesterday, Yester-day, on a visit to Point Paradise, I saw a man lying belly down in the bracken; but I didn't let him know I saw him. I have served in the police; I think I recognize that man. He is "What's That Box?" Asked the Lizard. known in Belleville as Tric-Trac. He came here, I believe, to see a man called Buckhurst. Can you find this Tric-Trac for me? Do you, perhaps, know him?" "Yes," said the Lizard, "I knew him in priBon." "How long has be been here in Paradise?" Para-dise?" "For two months." "He is a filou a town rat. He came here to meet a man named Buckhurst." "I have seen that man Buckhurst, too. What is he doing here?" asked the Lizard. "That is what 1 want you to find oul and help me to find out!" I said. "Vol-la! "Vol-la! Now you know whrvt I want ol you. Think out a plan which will per mit me to observe this Monsieur Trie Trac at my leisure, without I mysel! being observed." "That is easy." he said. "I take hint food today." The village square in Paradise was nearly deserted. The children had raced away to follow the newly arrived gendarmes as closely as they dared, and the women were in-doors hanging about their men, whom the government govern-ment summoned to Lorient. Far away towards Sainte-Ysole we saw the blue woods which were our goal. However, we had no intention of going there as the bee flies, partly because be-cause Tric-Trac might see us, partly because the Lizard wished any prowling prowl-ing passer-by to observe that he was occupied with his illegitimate profession. profes-sion. All the while we had been twisting twist-ing and doubling and edging nearer and nearer to the Sainte-Ysole woods, until we were already within their cool shadow, and I heard the tinkle of a stream among leafy depths. The Lizard's poacher's eyes began to glisten and shimmer in the forest dusk like the eyes of wild things that hunt at night. Presently he beckoned me, stepped into the moss, and crawled without a sound straight through the holly thicket. "Watch here," he whispered. "Count a hundred when I disappear, then creep on your stomach to the edge of that bank." Before I had counted fifty I heard the Lizard cry out, "Bonjour, Tric-Trac!" Tric-Trac!" but I counted on, obeying the Lizard's orders as I should wish mine to be obeyed. I counted one hundred and crept forward to the mossy edge of the bank, under the yellow beach leaves. Below me stood the Lizard, intently watching a figure crouched on hands and knees before a small, iron-bound box. The person addressed as Tric-Trac promptly tried to hide the box by sitting sit-ting down on it. "Flute!" he snarled. "Like a mud-rat, mud-rat, you creep with no sound e'est pas polite, nom d'un nom!" "What's that box?" asked the Liz ard, abruptly. "Box? I don't see any box." "You're sitting on It," observed the Lizard. "What's in it?" "Don't know," replied Tric-Trac with brisk interest. "I found it." The Lizard was silent. "Did you bring me anything tc chew on?" inquired Tric-Trac, sniffing at the poacher's sack. "Bread, cheese, three pheasants cider more than I eat in a week," saic the Lizard, quietly. "It will cost forty sous." He opened his ssck and slowly dis played the provisions. I looked hard at the iron-bound box On one end was printed the Genevs cross. Doctor Delmont and Professoi Tavernier had disappeared carrying Red Cross funds. Was that their box'. Tric-Trac having devoured th( cheese, bread and an entire pheasant made a bundle of the remaining food emptied the cider jug, wiped his beard less face with his cap, and announcer that he would be pleased to "broil' a cigarette. The Lizard laughed, and Tric-Trac disgusted, stood up, settled his cat over his wide ears, humming a song as he loosened his trousers belt. "Vhc are you gaping at?" he added, abrupt ly. "Bon; e'est ma geule. Et apres'' Drop that box! The next time yov, come here to sell your snared pheas ants, come like a man, nom de Dieu! and not like a cat of the Glaciere! oi I'll find a way to stop your curiosity.' He picked up his box and the packei of provisions, dropped his revolve into the side pocket of his jacket cocked his greasy cap, blew a kiss tc the Lizard, and started off straight in to the forest. On our way home I drew from th( poacher that Tric-Trac had namec Mornac as head of the communistic plot in Brittany; that Mornac wai coming to Paradise very soon, ane that then something gay might b looked for. And that night I took Speed into m) confidence and finally Kelly Eyre, oui balloonist. I (TO BE CONTINUED.) Unfair Examination. Two suburban mothers met on the train one day, and the topic of theii conversation was their daughters "How did your daughter pass her ex ' amination for a position as teacher?" asked one. "Pass!" was the answer "She didn't pass at all. Maybe yot ' wouldn't believe it, but they askec that girl about things that happenec i long before she was born." Lippin cott's Magazine. |