Chapter II: Part 2

“I think I can guess to what I owe this visit,” he said as he went up-stairs with me to my room, “and I would to God I thought you would be able to accomplish what has so far proved impossible.”

I told him that it was owing to his advertisement that my present trip had been undertaken, and begged him to tell me more about the wonderful invention.

“Wait till after dinner,” he said, “for it is a long story. We will go to my room, and I will tell you then a tale as strange as it is true.”

That dinner was the most dismal affair I ever attended. Churchill sat like a man in a trance, completely absorbed in his meditations; and twice, after listening as I had seen him on my first arrival, he excused himself and left the table abruptly.

“You and Rannie are such old friends, you mustn’t mind him to-night,” Mrs. Churchill said to me apologetically, while he was out of the room; “this terrible affair of the seismaphone has upset us both completely.”

That was the only mention of the subject during dinner; but after we had sat in the library a little while discussing trivial topics, such as Robert’s progress in school and the new furnishings of the house since my last visit, Churchill and I excused ourselves and went to his private room.

“I may as well start at the very beginning,” he said as he threw himself down languidly in an easy chair, after drawing out from under the table a long, narrow box, which he placed in his lap.

“On the night of the tenth of last June the maid brought me the card of a man who was waiting down-stairs, and who said he wanted to see me on very important private business. I glanced at the name scrawled in red ink on the bit of card-board,‘Martin M. Bradley,’ and wondered vaguely who the man could be, as I did not remember ever having heard of him before.

“I told the maid to show him up here to the den, and a few minutes later she ushered into this room the man who has been the cause of these gray hairs.

“He was short and sallow, about thirty-five years of age, as I afterwards found out, though care and privations had marked him so harshly that he looked to be nearly fifty. He carried in his hand this black, leather-covered box which you see in my lap; and, after seating himself at my invitation, began:

“‘You are no doubt surprised, Mr. Churchill, to have a visit from me, for you probably don’t remember ever having heard of me before; but I’ve come to you because I know you are in the patent office, and used to be a friend of mine back in the seventies, and because, too, I’ve got something so valuable here that I don’t dare to send it up to the office in the usual way.’

“He unstrapped, as he spoke, the box, which he had not let out of his hands since he entered, and took from it two black, galvanized rubber instruments, one of which you see here.”

Churchill lifted from the case a thing which resembled more than anything else the receiver of a telephone, except that both ends were turned out like the one you put to the ear. He unscrewed this outer cap and handed both parts to me to examine.

About two inches in from the bell-shaped end of the cylinder was a diaphragm of peculiar looking metal, which from appearance I judged to be an alloy of copper and zinc, with something else included. Immediately over this, and tightly stretched across at unequal distances apart, were some twenty fine German silver wires.

“Bradley opened one of the instruments, as I have just done,” continued Churchill, “and proceeded to explain to me its construction.

“‘These two instruments,’ said he, ‘which together I call the Martin Bradley Seismaphone, are to the telephone what telegraphy without wires is to the ordinary method of sending messages. Both light and sound, as you know, travel by waves which produce sensation; one by striking against the retina of the eye, the other by striking on the drum of the ear.

“‘The light wave travels with a velocity of something over 185,000 miles a second, while the sound wave moves much slower. This difference, however, is overcome by the mechanical device in the tube-like section in the middle part of the instrument.

“‘As you have seen the sun’s rays collected and focused to one small spot by a reading glass, and the power intensified so that combustion takes place, so in a similar way does the seismaphone collect the sound waves, intensify and bring them to a focus here,’ and he indicated with his finger a point back of the metal diaphragm.

“‘By speaking into one of these instruments the sound passes through the wires, and strikes against the metal disk. This sets in motion a series of waves, which, traveling with the enormous velocity of which I have spoken, produce such rapid vibrations that the ear, unaided, cannot perceive the sound, but by means of the other half of the seismaphone these sound waves are collected and so transformed by the corresponding wires and diaphragm that the voice is reproduced by one instrument in exactly the tone spoken.

“‘By means of the seismaphones, you and I, though separated by thousands of miles, can converse as easily as though we were in the same city, connected by an ordinary metallic current.’

“In a fifteen years’ experience with patent seekers, I have met many inventive freaks, and probably something of what I was thinking of his seismaphone showed in my face, for he stopped describing it abruptly, and handing me one of the instruments, said,--

“‘I see you don’t believe a word I’ve told you, and you probably think I’m crazy; so, before I tell you anything more about the construction or possibilities of my invention, I want to ask you to take this half of the seismaphone, and go up to the top of your house. When you are ready to make the test, put the end marked “voice” to your mouth, and say in a distinct tone, “Ready, Bradley.” Then, when you see this little hammer striking against the bell, and hear a sharp tinkling inside the cylinder, put the other end to your ear and listen. Oh, you may lock me in as you go out, if you are afraid I may remove any of the bric-à-brac,’ he added, as I seemed to hesitate.

“I don’t know why it was, for I am not over credulous, but something told me the man was speaking the truth. And when you stop to think of it, what was there so very improbable about it?

“Who would have believed one hundred years ago that we would ever be able to communicate instantaneously with the inhabitants of another continent by any means whatever? Or, to come nearer to our own time, twenty years ago we would have scoffed at the idea of telegraphing without wires. Why, then, was it so impossible to transmit the tones of the human voice without them? It would be only another step in the march of progress.

“I took the instrument and climbed to the garret without a word. Placing the end he had indicated to my lips, I said loudly, ‘Ready, Bradley.’ Without any special expectation I then put the other end to my ear, and at the result nearly fell over backwards; for, as distinctly as if the man I had left down-stairs had been standing beside me, I heard him say,--

“‘Don’t speak so loud. I can hear you at this distance if you merely whisper. Now press the little button at the end marked “ear,” and wait for the megaphone attachment.’ I did as he said, and again I jumped and nearly dropped the instrument, for the room was filled with a voice which sounded louder than a peal of thunder.

“‘By pressing that button you do for the seismaphone what by putting on the horns you do for the phonograph or graphophone,’ the stentorian voice said. ‘You had better press the button in the other end, for my voice with this attachment is probably too loud for pleasure.’

“I pressed the button obediently as directed, and walked back down-stairs filled with wonder.

“We shall not get to bed any earlier than Martin Bradley and I did that night, if I stop to tell you all of our conversation. I found that he was a man I had known slightly some years ago when I was trying for the patent office position.

“He had in his youth been through a technical school and received a good education; but had been unable to settle down to any steady employment, preferring to devote himself to some great invention. Eight years ago he began working on this instrument, and had been developing and perfecting it ever since.

“The proposition he made me was that I should go into partnership with him to get the seismaphone patented and before the public, he furnishing the device, and I the money and backing.

“We sat and talked for hours, and the morning sun found us still in our chairs discussing the immense possibilities of the invention.

“It would supersede the mails. Speaking-tubes, telephones, telegraphs, and cables would give way to it. In short, the inventor of such an instrument would win for himself a name greater than a Morse or an Edison, and the fortune he could amass would exceed that of all the Vanderbilts, Goulds, and Rockefellers in the country.

“Martin Bradley remained at my house all that week, and had the best of everything that money could buy. I secured a two weeks’ vacation from the patent office, and he and I worked together every hour of that time.

“One day as a test he took one-half of the seismaphone and went down the Potomac a hundred and forty miles to Point Lookout, while I stayed at home with the other instrument. He had by use of the long-distance telephone hired a man down there to keep watch for the arrival of the boat he was coming on, and given him instructions to telephone me when it first hove in sight.

“I sent Nellie and the children out to Chevy Chase for the day, and sat all the afternoon in front of the telephone, with the seismaphone on my knee. Several times I called to Bradley, but he did not answer.

“About three o’clock, however, the ’phone rang; and, just as I had got connection, and began talking with the man down at the Point, I saw the little hammer of the seismaphone vibrating, and, putting the instrument to my ear, heard Martin Bradley say distinctly: ‘Have just sighted the lighthouse, so get down to the telephone for a message.’

“I turned to the telephone, and, sure enough, the man at the other end of the wire was telling me that the Petrel was in sight. As the boat neared the shore, Bradley kept up a running comment on events that took place.

“‘We’re just pulling up the flag and firing a salute,’ he called; and scarcely did I catch his words when from the telephone at my ear, as if in echo, came the message, ‘They have just run up a flag and are firing a salute.’

“During the next week we tried every kind of test imaginable with the seismaphone, and there was not a flaw in its workings.

“I was perfectly satisfied, and had started proceedings to secure a patent, when the first news of the recent trouble in China came; and then, for two weeks, as you know, the various legations were regularly slaughtered one day and reported safe on the following.

“Martin Bradley was so excited that he nearly forgot his seismaphone. In the course of his wanderings he had lived for two years in Northern China, and could talk the lingo like a native, and was wild to go out there as a newspaper correspondent.

“One day he came rushing to my room with a copy of a morning paper in his hand.

“‘See that,’ he cried excitedly, ‘this paper says that Minister Conger was butchered in cold blood June 24, and all the others of the legation tortured to death by those yellow devils. To-morrow if you buy a paper you will read that they are safe and well. I tell you, I am going to China to find out for myself the truth of this matter, and when I do the world shall know what is true and what is false. They can put restrictions on the press, the telegraph, and the cables, but they can’t restrict Martin Bradley’s seismaphone.

“‘Just think of the advertisement for the invention, too,’ he continued, getting more and more excited. ‘Every reading person in the world will know that the truth was finally obtained through Martin Bradley, by means of his greatest of all inventions, the seismaphone.’

“I tried to dissuade him, telling him of the terrible risk he would run, but he would not listen. He had lived in Peking for two years, he said, and knew the city perfectly and the customs and language of the people.

“He scraped together three hundred dollars some way, the Lord only knows how, engaged a berth for San Francisco, and inside three days had made all preparations for the trip. When I found that nothing I could say or do made any difference, I gave up arguing and helped him all I could.

“He knew what he wanted, though, so much better than I that the only practical assistance I gave him was of the financial kind. I arranged credit for him at the British bank of Hong Kong and Shanghai, and furnished all the money needed for his traveling expenses.

“He purchased a complete Chinese disguise from a Washington costumer, and when one night, before leaving, he appeared before me, a long black cue hanging down his back, his face stained, and chattering the disjointed dialect he had learned during his two years’ stay in Peking, I felt a little hope that his scheme, daring as it was, might succeed.

“I heard from him several times each day, all along the journey to San Francisco. Every time he grew tired or lonesome he called me up and told me of the country he was passing through, while I kept him informed of what was going on back here in Washington.

“For a whole week after he left San Francisco I didn’t hear a word from him, though I kept the seismaphone with me all the time, and I was growing terribly worried, when one night he signaled and I heard a weak voice saying, ‘Oh, Lord, I’ve been so seasick, I didn’t care for one while whether there was any such place as China or not, and the thought of the seismaphone never entered my head.’

“After landing at Hong Kong he had to wait two days before starting for Shanghai, but he had to be resigned, and I never spent a pleasanter afternoon in my life than that day when I sat in the patent office and heard him describing his trip about Victoria, that beautiful possession of the British crown.

“He put on the megaphone attachment while he was being wheeled about in a little jinrikisha, and I could hear him talking to the coolie who pulled it, and the squeaking of the wheels, as plainly as the scratching of the pens over where the clerks sat writing in my office.

“All the men at the office thought me crazy, and I don’t know as I blame them, for of course I hadn’t taken any of them into my confidence, and it is rather an unusual sight to see a man stop in the midst of a conversation with you, put an unconnected receiver up to his ear, then start talking apparently with the empty air.

“I had to take Nellie into the secret after a while, though, for she, too, thought I must be insane, and smuggled a couple of doctors up to the house to dinner one night to watch me. I told Bradley, and he submitted to the necessary evil, as he called it.

“So, while he was in Shanghai, describing one of the Chinese pagodas to me (at twelve o’clock at night, mind you) I awakened her and let her take the seismaphone, and you never saw a more excited woman. She sat up all the rest of the night, listening to Bradley and asking him questions.

“Towards morning I told her to throw in the megaphone attachment, and the instrument was laid up for four days, for she was so frightened at the loudness of the voice that she dropped the seismaphone, and two of the German silver wires snapped. I was nearly crazy in fact for the next few days, for I thought that the instrument was ruined.

“I couldn’t tell whether Bradley was getting my messages all right or not, and not a word did I hear from him during all that time.

“After working all one night, however, I succeeded in getting the wires fixed in the right position and signaled to Bradley. Almost immediately he answered and I heard him shouting:--

“‘What the devil has happened to you? Have you been seasick too? I haven’t heard a word from you for four days, and here I’ve been sending you the most exciting kind of messages. The disguise is working fine, and I shall soon be in the city of Peking.’

“That day I received a note from the head of my department, telling me I was granted an indefinite leave of absence, and I haven’t been in the office since. They think me a lunatic, and God knows I’ve been through enough to make a maniac of any man.

“For three days more I didn’t get a message from Bradley, and I had begun to fear that the wires I had fixed weren’t right, when the bell started to tinkle and I heard him signaling faintly.

“‘This is the last time you will ever hear from me,’ he said, and I noticed that he spoke as if in great pain. ‘I worked my way into the city last night, but got mixed up in a street fight between the imperial troops and a crowd of ruffians and was captured by the latter, who found out my disguise.

“‘Don’t interrupt me,’ he called faintly, for I had uttered an exclamation of horror, and he, seeing the hammer striking, thought I was trying to speak to him, ‘for I can’t hear if you do. They cut my ears off this morning, and filled up the holes with hot wax.

“‘There are three Englishmen and a Russian here also, all of whom were captured and brought in to-day.’

“He stopped for a few minutes, and I stood cursing the helplessness of the whole thing. There he was, thousands of miles away, being tortured to death in some filthy Chinese den, and I had to stand and listen calmly to his voice, not able to raise a hand to aid him.

“‘I give you my share in the seismaphone,’ he continued after a while, ‘and I pray you may be able to duplicate the half you now have, for you will never see this one again. The two instruments are exactly alike, except for the wiring, and that you will have to get by experiment, for all my data have been destroyed.’

“Then he must have fainted, for he stopped suddenly, and I heard a voice, probably that of one of the Englishmen, saying, ‘Poor devil, I wish I could get to him; but they’ve tied me to this ring in the wall, and I can’t move a foot.’

“I didn’t hear another word till late that night, when I woke up to find Nellie by my bed, pale and trembling.

“‘Don’t you hear him calling you?’ she gasped.

“I seized the seismaphone, pressed the button, and, in the silence of the night, I heard Martin Bradley wailing, ‘Churchill--Churchill.’

“I spoke into the thing, so that his bell would ring, and he would know that I was listening.

“‘Good-by,’ he called. ‘They are killing us off one by one. The Russian, and two of the Englishmen are dead now, and it’s my turn next. They’ve just brought in an American, and he told me on his fingers that the legations----’

“That was as far as he got. I heard a terrible screeching, which drowned out his voice; and suddenly all was quiet.

“Three times since that some of those heathen have got hold of the thing; but that death message of Bradley’s is the last English word that has come over the seismaphone.

“The third time I heard them at it, I threw in the megaphone attachment, and shouted as loud as I could. Since then not a sound has come from the instrument.

“I put the advertisement you saw in the papers; but though hundreds of men have tried, no one has been able to duplicate the part of the seismaphone I now have. Some have refused even to try, when I explained what was wanted, for they thought me either crazy or a fool.

“I hoped at first that some one might be able to replace the loss, but now I know it cannot be done. Bradley told me that it took him three years to determine the distances at which the wires had to be placed, and he alone knew the principle on which the whole mechanism depends.

“No one has ever been able to duplicate the diaphragm. It is a curious alloy of copper, zinc, and some other metal; but what that third metal is, no one can determine.”

Churchill had finished his strange story; and now he leaned back in his chair, his face gray and set. Outside the noise of a great city waking to another day’s life could be heard, and somewhere in the house I heard a clock slowly strike five.

I picked up the seismaphone from the table and brought it over to the light. Then, even as I held it in my hand, I saw the little hammer begin vibrating rapidly, and heard the tinkling of the bell.

But Randolph Churchill had heard that signal too, and starting from his chair, he snatched the instrument from my hands, and held it to his ear.

“It’s only those damned heathen at it again,” he groaned, and threw the thing on the table.

In falling it must have pressed the tiny button, which threw on the megaphone attachment. The little bell began ringing again, and I started back, trembling with a strange mixture of fear and awe.

For, above the clatter of the wagons, and the grinding of the cars as they climbed Fourteenth Street hill, there, in that little room, fifteen thousand miles from the Celestial Empire, I heard a confused bable of many voices, howling and cursing in the Chinese tongue.

A QUESTION OF HONOR.

A QUESTION OF HONOR.

The man on the shore stood perfectly motionless watching his companions of a few hours before as they hastened down the beach, launched their boat, and pulled away toward the huge ship some quarter of a mile distant. He saw them clamber on board; a few minutes later the sails were run up, the ship headed off to the south, and soon disappeared around a rocky promontory which ran out into the ocean.

Then, overcome with the hopelessness and helplessness of his position, The Man threw himself on the sand cursing and moaning.

Three days before he had been first mate of that ship, engaged in various profitable but decidedly questionable undertakings. Now he was alone, marooned on a deserted coral island, over a hundred miles from any regular steamer line. The mutiny which he had incited had almost succeeded. But for that cursed cabin boy who had listened at the key-hole and then run to the Captain on the very eve of his success, he would now be in command of the NORSKA, and the sale of the five hundred blacks down in the hold would have made him a rich man. Well, the cabin boy would never tell any more tales, he had at least had the satisfaction of assuring himself of that before he was put in irons.

Yesterday, when he first heard the fate in store for him, he had begged the Captain to have him shot rather than leave him on that deserted isle. But now, such is the perversity of man, though death was easily within his reach, he did not attempt to kill himself.

Indeed, after the first paroxysm of rage and anger was over he gathered the few possessions which had been left him and carried them back out of reach of any high tide. The next day he began building himself a rough house, and within a week he was planning escape from his prison.

Then followed weary days and weeks in which he spent the time hewing timber and fashioning it into a rude boat. He had much time during this enforced solitude to think over his past, and the thoughts of it brought him little satisfaction. For ten years he had lived the life of the sea in its worst phases. He had been pirate, ship-scuttler and slave-trader. He had murdered and tortured the innocent. His life had been only one long succession of crimes, and still--he clung to it.

At the end of six weeks he had constructed a boat in which he would attempt to reach the nearest land--some three hundred miles away. Then, one day, just before his departure, the dream of his life was realized. While roaming over the shore he stumbled into a lagoon which was literally studded with pearls. For another week he worked loading his boat with the precious stones, and after some difficulty succeeded in getting his cumbersome craft out to sea.

But the oars which he had hewn out being too weak to have any appreciable effect on his boat, he was completely at the mercy of the sea. For days he drifted about, now driven north, now south. The scanty supply of water which he had brought with him soon gave out, and then he suffered the tortures of the damned; and, as if to mock his misery, the pearls, loosened from the rough bags by the rocking of the boat, rolled to and fro under his feet. About the sides of the craft the water swarmed with sharks, and several times in his delirium The Man was on the point of ending his misery by jumping overboard.

“What was the use of all this struggle, anyway?” he asked himself. Again the thoughts of his lawless and wasted life came back to him. He had never in all his life done one noble or honorable deed; and should he ever land with that cargo of wealth, he knew that the old dissipations would be resumed wilder and more dissolute with this new fortune.

Impelled by some curious fancy, and true to his gambler-like nature, he suddenly drew a coin from his pocket.

“I leave it to God to decide,” he muttered. “If I spin heads three times out of five I will try and make for land; if not,--” He did not finish the sentence, but he looked over the side of the boat into the blue waters, and shivered slightly as the white belly of a shark flashed in the sunlight within three feet of him.

He knelt down on the bottom of the boat. It was a most momentous question for him. He held the little coin for a second, then spun it nervously. As he lifted his trembling hand he saw that the silver piece had fallen head up.

“I am not beyond pardon,” he whispered to himself. “God wishes me to live.”

Once more he spun the coin. Again it came head up. The Man jumped to his feet joyfully. The burning thirst was for the moment forgotten. He was like a man whom a priest has just absolved. God must surely wish him to live; He would not torture him thus. For the first time in his life a noble thought came to The Man. The fortune which he had stumbled upon he determined to use in works of charity. He would atone for his misspent life.

Once more he knelt and confidently spun the coin. To his horror it fell tails uppermost. He seized it and spun it again. It wobbled to and fro like a drunken man for a few seconds, then once more fell tails up.

The man raised a haggard face to heaven, and for the first time since his childhood, prayed. As he lowered his eyes he almost shouted for joy; for, far on the western horizon, but rapidly approaching, he saw the outlines of a ship. He had been so intent on the game of life and death he was playing that he had not seen the ship till now it was plainly in view.

He sat for a few minutes and watched with unbelieving eyes his approaching rescue, for the ship was heading directly for him.

Then, suddenly, he felt the piece of metal in his hand. His fate was not yet decided. He had a question of honor which God and he were to decide. He spun the coin slowly, but shut his eyes before it had ceased whirling. Then he groped for the coin, and spread his hand over it not daring to look at it.

He sat thus for a long time, the cold perspiration standing out on his face. The ship drew nearer and nearer, and he began to distinguish forms on board. In a few minutes she would be within hailing distance.

At last he reached down and picked up the coin carefully, and holding it between both palms, he arose and stepped to the side of the boat, prepared for the first time in his life to keep his word of honor. He looked down at the heap of pearls at his feet, then at the rapidly approaching ship. He saw that the men on board had sighted him, and were preparing to lower a boat.

Slowly he opened the fingers of the hand covering the coin, and looked between with scared eyes. Then he raised his right hand, made the sign of the cross muttering “Thy will be done,” and slipped quietly over the side of the boat to the waiting mouths below.

THE WINE OF PANTINELLI.

THE WINE OF PANTINELLI.[4]

For an Italian Prince, Fabriano was exceedingly good company for an American doctor. He rode and shot like a cowboy, kept a stud of seventeen polo ponies, and had traveled this little world from end to end. Above all things, he was a connoisseur of wines, and his cellars were stocked with cask upon cask and tier upon tier of cobwebbed bottles of rare old vintages. Indeed, it was indirectly through this passion of Prince Fabriano that Doctor Hardy made his acquaintance. Hardy was consulting physician at the Protestant Hospital in the Villa Betania, outside the Porta Romana, and the Prince, on a flying visit to the Tuscan capital to secure a vinous treasure, and incidentally witness the annual festival of Santa Croce, brought with him a touch of Roman fever which caused his commitment to the care of the American doctor. His illness was short, but long enough to ripen the acquaintance with the doctor into a warm friendship, resulting in an invitation to the physician to visit the princely estate of Fabriano. In this Umbrian fastness, where his ancestors had exercised sovereign power, Fabriano was regarded as the lord of the soil, by all but a few adherents of a deposed house under the leadership of Luigi di Folengo.

One evening, as Hardy went to the Prince’s rooms for their usual smoke and game of cards, he found the Prince sitting by the table, holding a bottle of amber-colored liquid.

“Why not pull the cork, Fabriano, and let us have something more than a sight of this richly-colored fluid?” said the doctor in a bantering tone.

To his surprise, the Prince answered quite seriously, and with almost a shudder:

“I would not drink one sip of the wine that comes in that flask--not even for the polo pony Gustavo that we saw in the Royal stables last week, and you know how much I coveted that little beast.”

A second look showed Hardy that the bottle was of peculiar shape and peculiarly stoppered; and he asked the question which he saw the Prince was ready to answer.

“You remember the trip to Florence to which I owe the pleasure of your acquaintance? Well, I had another reason beside my interest in the Santa Croce festival. You have heard of the Monastery of La Certosa, out on the Galluzzo road, beyond your hospital? The government had abolished it, and there was a store of valuable wine to be put up at auction, including a few bottles of Pantinelli. Fate has seemed to be against my getting any of that wine, until to-day. I have tried for years to get one small bottle, but never yet have tasted it. Pantinelli was a rich old banker in Genoa, who owned a vineyard on the sunny slopes of the Riviera di Ponente. He never sold his wine, but presented it to his friends; and as he was a cousin of Luigi di Folengo, of whose hatred for me I have already told you, he, naturally, never included me in his list of beneficiaries.

“There was nothing peculiar in the appearance of Pantinelli’s wine, but it was invariably put up in bottles just like this. He was an eccentric old fellow, and always corked his bottles by means of this peculiar device, which he claimed to have invented. He gave as a reason for his oddity the belief that if he used the customary seal his friends would keep his beverage for years unopened, without discovering its flavor, and that he meant them to test its superiority at once on receipt. He seems to have relied on his friends themselves to prevent the fraudulent substitution of another wine, which would, in his queer bottles, have brought an enormous price. However, any one lucky enough to receive a bottle of the famous beverage usually followed the old man’s request to the letter, and drank it the same day.

“This afternoon, while you slept, a messenger brought this bottle with a message from Luigi di Folengo, expressing the wish that we might live in amity hereafter, and begging the acceptance of a gift which he believed that I, more than any one else in all Italy would appreciate, a flask of genuine Pantinelli.

“Now I do not absolutely know that the wine he sent is poisoned, but I think I know Folengo pretty well, and I am going to try an experiment this evening which I should like to have you witness. I answered him immediately to the effect that his overtures were gladly welcomed, and that on my part I should be pleased to give him an important appointment in my service, and hand him the papers to-night. I ended by telling him that to-morrow, seeking out a quiet spot, I should enjoy my Pantinelli to the last drop.”

The Prince put the bottle away in a sideboard and produced from a desk a folded paper as Count Luigi di Folengo was announced. He was a swarthy person, with a saber cut across one cheek, and a droop to the eyelid which, to Dr. Hardy, was singularly unprepossessing. The physician highly approved his friend’s course in leaving the Pantinelli untasted.

The conversation was general for a few moments after the guests had been introduced, and then the Prince, taking out the queer-shaped flask, silently placed it upon the table as he handed Folengo his appointment. Dr. Hardy watched the man as he stared at the bottle, half-guessing what was to come. Folengo mumbled words of thanks for the paper, but his eyes never left the wine.

“I see you looking longingly at your present of the afternoon,” said the Prince pleasantly, “and instead of selfishly drinking it all by myself to-morrow, I will be generous. Of course this wine has not the novelty of charm to you that it has to others unrelated to its famous grower, but no one could get enough of such a drink; and, in honor of our new-formed friendship, you must drink my health in one small glass of the famed wine of Pantinelli.”

He poured out a brimming glass and set it down in front of Luigi di Folengo, who sat shaking like a leaf, his drooping eyelid fluttering with strong excitement.

“I am to play to-night, with my friend the doctor here, a game for very high stakes, so I must keep my head clear; but to-morrow you may think of me as steeped in Pantinelli’s generous vine juice.”

As the Prince spoke the last sentence he took from the table-drawer a handsome gold-mounted revolver, which he held up to the light so that glittering rays darted from its polished barrel as he said to the trembling Luigi, “I also wish to present you this pistol, with which I have never missed a shot, and which has sent more than one of my enemies down the long road.”

While Fabriano spoke the man’s eyes anxiously searched the room for a means of escape, and finally came back to the calm face of the Prince. He glanced from the heavy amber liquor before him to the shining weapon with which Fabriano lovingly toyed, and then with a quiet heroism which Hardy could not help but admire, he raised the glass to his lips and drained it.

He sat there for a minute or two, gazing stupidly at the empty glass. Then, of a sudden, he began to tremble violently; his teeth chattered, and great beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. On his lips there came a yellowish foam, and he started to his feet, clawing at his breast as if it were on fire, while a hoarse, cackling noise came from his throat. Dr. Hardy knew that the man must be suffering terribly, and, guilty as he believed him to be, could only pity.

Rocking to and fro, Folengo threw himself upon the floor, where he lay writhing and twisting in his death agony. His face turned black, and his eyes started from his head, like those of a strangled man. After that he lay quite still.

Dr. Hardy stooped and felt for the man’s heart. There was not the trace of a beat. He turned to the Prince, who had sat through the whole scene with a smiling face, and said, “You are amply avenged, Prince Fabriano. That man died the most terrible death I have witnessed in twenty years of practice.”

Fabriano, still smiling strangely, poured out two more glasses of the wine which the dead man had just drunk. “So be it with all assassins!” he said. “Drink to the downfall of my enemy!”

“No, thank you,” answered Hardy drily, thinking the ghastly joke was being carried too far; “life has still a few attractions.”

“Oh, as you will,” replied the Prince carelessly. “Then I must drink alone,” and he emptied the glass.

“But you are missing something choice,” he continued, wiping his lips. “That wine has been in my cellars for fifty years. The stuff our late friend sent is safely locked away for analysis, together with a poisoned dagger and an infernal machine, both of which, I believe, I owe to him or his followers. If you were coroner in this case, what would your verdict be--death from a guilty conscience, supplemented by a vivid imagination? Come, I believe it’s my first deal this evening.”

THE STRANGEST FREAK.

THE STRANGEST FREAK.

“Snakes in a den, like bees in a hive, and she eats ’em alive. That’s what she does, ladies and gentlemen. She bites the head off, eats the body, and throws the tail away. And it costs you but ten cents, one dime, the tenth part of a dollar, to see Bosko.”

It was just outside the main side-show connected with Poole Brothers’ Royal Roman Hippodrome and Three Ring Circus, and the big tent had not yet opened for the afternoon’s performance.

Stetson, manager of the freaks and chief announcer for all the special shows, had just succeeded, by beating on a large iron triangle, in attracting a majority of the people standing about the grounds. Behind him on a raised platform was a huge box-like pen which rose to about the height of a man’s shoulder.

Gaudy placards and pictures adorning the upper part of this platform stated that within could be seen Bosko--the Strangest Freak Ever Born to Live--a human snake-eater. One of the pictures represented a creature clothed principally in long black hair and a ferocious expression squatting at the entrance of a large cave. In one hand, or paw, was a decapitated giant rattlesnake which she was in the act of devouring.

“Esau, that’s her first name; Bosko, that’s her last name; and she eats live snakes,--rattlesnakes, copperheads, yellow backs, and Gila monsters. That’s what she eats, that’s what she lives on,” shouted the manager.

The country people, anxious as ever to throw away the money so hardly wrung from their stubborn hill farms, crowded each other in their eagerness to be first on the platform. The box-like pen was about ten feet long by four feet wide, and soon between thirty and forty people had crowded about the rail, and were peering open-mouthed over the edge.

On the bottom of the pen was crouched a dark-skinned Something lazily rolling its head from side to side. This Something wore a brown canvas skirt which came to the knees, and a sort of loose coat or jacket over the shoulder. On her head, and hanging down over her eyes, was a long, black mane of hair, which but few of the yokels about recognized as a wig.

But crawling over this swarthy, thick-lipped creature were the things which caused the exclamations on the part of the bystanders. Over the body of Bosko, under, beside and behind her, twined and wriggled dozen upon dozen of twisting, writhing snakes. They coiled and uncoiled over her black legs, running out their little forked tongues spitefully. The sun beat down fiercely overhead, and swarms of flies settled down on every part of the evil smelling pen.

Stetson made way for himself at one end of the rail, and began a more detailed description. “Before you, ladies and gentlemen, you see, as I just told you, the strangest freak ever born to live, Bosko, Esau Bosko, the human snake eater. The medical fraternity declare that she is part snake, part woman. Part snake because she has to kill her own food before she eats it. When first captured in Australia, Bosko was living in a cave like you see in the pictures outside, subsisting entirely on the most poisonous kinds of snakes. It is about the time she usually feeds, and if you watch carefully you may see how this strangest of all freaks obtains its food.”

As if taking its cue from the manager’s last remark, the Thing in the pen ceased rolling its head, and began running about on all fours, making low guttural noises in its throat, and feeling first one then another of the reptiles.

Suddenly it seized a small rattler, and taking it firmly in both hands just below the head gave a quick twisting movement. There was a sound of rending flesh and the head was flung to the floor. Then taking the remaining stump, Bosko drew back the skin as if peeling a banana, and buried her teeth in the still quivering flesh.

Most of the spectators turned away at this point and left the platform. Several looked rather white and seemed not to feel particularly well. Others, however, of a stronger constitution, or of lesser sensibilities, stayed on, anxious to see if the show was a “fake,” and if the mouthful would be spit out.

Meanwhile Stetson at the foot of the platform, was shouting, “Go where they all go, see what they all see. Bosko, the human snake eater, that’s what they’re all looking at. That’s what they’re all interested in. Yellow backed rattlers, that’s what Bosko is eating to-day.”

There was something so disgusting about the show, and since each man who saw the freak advised his neighbors not to do likewise, those same neighbors, being human, immediately purchased tickets, and the railing about the pen of Bosko was lined with wide-eyed, fascinated spectators till the show in the main tent was over for the afternoon.

Then Murphy, one of the attendants, came to the pen and threw a cover over the top. Almost instantly a small trap door in the bottom of the box opened, and Bosko disappeared from the den of snakes. Twenty minutes later a short, thickset negro of a remarkably unpleasant cast of features was walking unsteadily about the grounds consuming cigarettes without number.

It cost the manager of the Royal Roman Hippodrome one dollar and seventy cents a day in money, a few inexpensive snakes, and an unlimited amount of cheap whiskey to present to the gullible public Bosko, the “Strangest Freak Ever Born to Live.”

It had been put on by Poole Brothers as an experiment three months before, when the show split up at Boston. The best part of the side show, including Bobo, the Wild Man from Borneo, Herman the Ossified Boy, and the Sacred White Elephant, had followed the best part of the circus and gone through Rhode Island and Connecticut, while the remainder was sent up through Northern New England.

The side show was thus left a little short of first-class freaks. So Stetson, with his customary ingenuity, had arranged for an entirely new sensation,--Bosko, a human snake-eater,--and the attraction, which was only an experiment at first, was now one of the best drawing cards.

Like all other good things in this world, however, it had its disadvantages. Bosko had to be watched constantly. Twice he had smuggled the little black bottle which was his constant companion, when not before the public, into the pen with him. Fortunately, no one had seen him taking surreptitious pulls at it either time, but there was always the possibility.

Stetson had also been alarmed, during his preliminary harangue to the crowd one day, to see smoke issuing from the top of the pen, and, on looking in, found Bosko stealthily puffing away on a cigarette. Murphy was quickly dispatched to the little trap-door in the bottom of the cage, and the smoking immediately ceased.

To be sure, it took more and more whiskey every day to get Bosko “keyed up” to that state when he would consent to go on with the part; but whiskey was cheap, especially the brand furnished by Poole Brothers, so there was no kick from the powers above. They realized that this particular impersonator of Bosko couldn’t last very long--a quart of raw whiskey a day is a terrible strain for any man’s nerves, even a negro’s; so they “indulged” the snake-eater.

The only thing that worried Stetson was the fear that perhaps Bosko wouldn’t be able to keep up the part till the Amalgamated Shows came together in the fall. He had watched the “nigger” a good deal of late, and saw certain unmistakable signs. He was the only man in the show who knew the exact amount of the poison that Bosko drank every day before assuming his part, so he was in a position to read those signs very correctly.

The first trouble came just after the circus struck Vermont. In the interval between the close of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening performance, Bosko went up street at a small town called Montpelier, and stayed till after time for the evening show to begin.

Murphy and the camp doctor, Foley, were sent for him, and finally located him in the town jail. He had bought some alcohol at the local agency, prepared some “splits,” and drunk about a pint of the stuff. A few minutes later he had developed an acute attack of something so terrifying to some street urchins, who found him in a back street, that they had run to the only officer in town, and informed him that there was a mad man loose.

After a certain amount of “fixing” with the high sheriff, who was also constable, health officer, and game warden, the doctor was finally allowed to take Bosko back to the circus grounds. But the “Strangest Freak” was not on exhibition that evening, being too busily engaged with snakes of his own, not furnished by the management of the Royal Roman Hippodrome.

During the next week several changes were tried in regard to Bosko. He was given a decrease in pay and a decrease in liquor, as a punishment for his misdemeanor. This not being exactly what you might call a success, he was given a raise in pay, the decrease in whiskey still being continued.

Fluctuations in salary proved, however, to have no effect on Bosko, so long as he was not allowed to spend the money according to his own lights. The arrangement which was finally settled upon was, therefore, a total discontinuance of pay and an increase in whiskey.

Three days after the first trouble, even while an instalment of the afternoon’s crowd was eagerly watching the snake-eater and listening to Stetson’s description of him, Bosko was suddenly visited by his other collection of snakes.

Carried away by the violence of the attack, but apparently from force of habit remembering his part, he gave an exhibition that day in the destruction of his companions of the pen, which, though rather expensive to Messrs. Poole Brothers, nevertheless made Bosko’s lifelong reputation as a snake-eater.

Stetson, with true managerial instinct, made the most of the attack, and the receipts at Bosko’s platform on that day rivalled those of the main show. Admissions were put up to a quarter, but still the crowd which blocked the railing refused to diminish.

Such was the success of that day’s terrible performance that Bosko’s fame quickly spread throughout the entire state, and for the next month he proved one of the brightest and most remunerative “stars” that Poole Brothers had exhibited since the old days of the Hindoo Leper.

Nor did he have to live on the reputation of that one performance alone, for towards the last of the month the attacks were of almost daily occurrence. But that state of affairs could not continue long.

The last public appearance of the “Strangest Freak” was in Concord, N. H., and those who witnessed the ravings of the Australian snake-eater on that day saw something which they did not forget for many a year.

The next day Bosko was too ill to leave his bed, and a week later he died, still fighting his foes, and wailing piteously, “Take ’em away; I can’t eat ’em all. There’s too many of ’em, and they’re too big. There’s hundreds of ’em. Take ’em away, I say. They’re in my hair, they’re choking me.”

The snake-eating attraction had to be discontinued after that, for though Stetson made some very flattering offers to several of the colored cooks, hostlers, and helpers connected with the show, no one seemed to aspire to the position. Some few had seen the negro the last night, and news of that kind travels fast.

The public, however, clamored for a snake-eater. They had heard such blood-curdling reports of the freak which had passed through Vermont and New Hampshire, that many were the complaints made to the management for not bringing out their whole show.

The circus, being, above all things, an institution catering to the public’s wishes, made heroic efforts. Stetson was sent on a special trip to New York, and spent most of the time slumming. He returned soon after with a negro well past middle age and almost blind, but with a strong affinity for gin.

It wasn’t much of a sight for anyone who had ever seen the creator of the part of Bosko, this stupid, muttering old man, who sometimes went to sleep during performances; but his predecessor had made the reputation, and he simply lived on it, staying gloriously drunk six days out of the week.

As for Poole Brothers, they couldn’t complain. The attraction had already netted them ten times what they had ever expected to get out of it. And, remembering how tame had been the original snake-eater when he first took the part, they gave Stetson _carte blanche_ in the matter of gin, and trusted that, perhaps, in time the precedent which Bosko had established might be repeated.

THE FALSE PROPHET.

THE FALSE PROPHET.[5]

I met him the first time in a low _cabaret_ in the Rivola, the cheapest quarter of Paris. How did I come there? Perhaps I am a student of the lower classes, and was pursuing my study there. Perhaps--but never mind, it makes no difference how I came there or who or what I am. This is not my story, it concerns the Prophet only.