A Daughter of Midian.

Auckland Star, Issue 311, 31 December 1900, Page 6

A Daughter of Midian.

By JOHN K. LEYS. Author of "A Sore Temptation," "The Thumb Print," "The Broken Fetter," "In the Toils," "A Million of Money," etc., etc., etc.

ETNOPSIS OP PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.—Professor Zucatti, an Italian palmist, is consulted by a lady, Miss Grant, as to an undertakin| On which she is about to embarK. -n« hts iiYet her previously at a^rdenpam at Spezzia. He consults, her hand ana tells her that her future is &*"&£ with great danger. She desires to look ma magic crystal which the professor has lying on a table, and she makes the necessary arrangements. CHAPTER 11. —In the crystal ' she sees a murder enacted, and a man she sees a murder enacted, and a man thrown over a precipice, aad a person representing herself standing- near. She promises, to consult him again. £ftei she has left, a couple of Sisters of Bethany take refuge in his doorway from a thunderstorm, and he assists them in their charity. After they have left he remembers that he will write to his old friend, and sits down and writes for two hours.

|f] CHAPTER 111. f' THE ITALIAN'S LETTER. f My Friend, — 'A strange thing has happened to me >—twio strange things, in fact —the first ■unexpected, new, and delightful, surpassing my most sans.vine expectations; the second inexplicable, menacing, and to me terrifying. You, who know all ttie secrets of my , [heart, are aware of the impression i made-upon me by the English, lady whom I met at Spezz\a. last summer. fYou know that the miire sound of her traiee had power to imove me like a fppell, that, in one word, she bewitched jme. You know that I went to Paris, to Baden, to Vienna, in the faint liope that I might gain a clue by which I! might follow her, and you know that ultWough I succeeded fin gleaning some (details of her past life: I quite failedto trace her. Judge the: n of my surprise and delight when this ; day, within the last hour, she visited me in my house Jiere in London of hi jr own accord! Mr principal obje/ ct in coming to England was that I might come upon #?omeone who knew her, for as her name is English it seemed certain that she must have English friends or relations. How this ma y be I do not yet fenow, but I began i io practise my old trade of a palmist for my support, never dreaming that it would in less than six months bring her to my door. Yet so it has been..

She came toco? as suit me about some Enterprise she, ha.cl on hand. How can I describe, ro.y data: Eiotti, the feeling's *3 experienced art she-laid her hand xn mine, that -white 'hand which I would give my f ,gu\ to .call, my own. I was far too ranch, agitated to use even! what I know of j tier past history to make i cv believe that Ij coiild foretell her future, as I. have done to many anoth er . All I could do was to give her f i vague warnings of .a disaster —• 3t is always a safe thing1 ;"to do, for if ihe k a d fortime 'comes, "why,: it was P rp dieted—if not, it was averted by titf a timely warning. •■ f ■ But now I must tell you >of the iJecond thing-.that happened; I was still trying to tk'ink of some way of inducing- Miss Grrant to call again,-or some excuse fa;r,asking- fcrr her address, when she noticed the crystal on my. table and took it into her .head to try its supposed magical p:owers. I was in a manner forced to deceive hei, for it was a unique opportunity of impressing- her with my power and gaining influence with her. And fortunately the means of doing- so were ready to my hand.. As you may not be acquainted with the trick of the magic ' crystal I will explain to you ■ the method by which it is made to serve my purpose iof impressing the credulous. The crystal is immovably fixed in the. centre of a small pedestal. 'The pedestal which supports the table is hollow, and a tube communicates with a room on the floor below, in which- I •have stationed an. assistant , with an apparatus like that by which pictures known as dissolving views are sbown. to the public, and a number of slides. By means of a spring roller the assist-, ant has it in his power to stretch at the proper moment a fine linen screen across the under surface of the crystal.; The room is, of course, darkened, and after a short time a faint ray of light is thrlown up from belo-w. The burning of a pinch of powder in the track of this ray is enough to cause a cloudy appearance in the crystal, and when this has cleared away the

first picture is seen reflected from below, as in the case of a dissolving view, the small linen screen acting as a transparency. Everything, as you will see, depends on the views which may be selected; and here there is room for a display of my ingenuity and my knowledge of human nature. I have hundreds of slides, some of which contain scenes such as those which are used to illustrate cheap stories —scenes which represent events which are tolerably sure to have occurred in the life of every human being. In a shelf of; a. bookcase in the room containing the crystal is a series of small knobs, numbered, and connected with pointers upon.a scale in the room below. I make pretence of consulting a work on astrology ior magic. The book is in reality a numbered list of the slides in the case below. Having selected the slides which I think appropriate I press, the knobs giving the proper numbers when replacing the volume on the shelf. As a rule I can form a pretty accurate guess about some scene in the past life of my client from her replies to my remarks while I read .the lines in her palm, and if I have an appropriate scene in stock I show it, and then show another illustrating some one of the events which I have foretold as likely to happen in the future. But of course about this method there, is a good deal of uncertainty; and when I have an important client I proceed more cautiously. I affect to learn from my authority on astrology that it is not a propitious day for consulting the oracle, and that it would be more satisfactory to fix another day. In nine cases out of ten my client (who is generally a_ lady) believes that this is a mere device for extracting a fresh fee, and in this belief I; am content to leave her. But if I have-.not. already ascertained ,her name a smart lad in my employ follows her home; and when I have once ■Identified my customer the rest is easy. My assistant, who is a young man of many experiences, goes to the house, and, having waited till the lady has gone out, bribes one of the servants to allow him to take a rough sketch of a sideboard or a cabinet in one of the principal rooms. While doing this he takes a snap photograph of the room by means of a kodak concealed about his person, and from this photograph (or a sketch if a photograph cannot be had.) I make a picture which depicts a.place familiar to my client, so that she has no difficulty in recognising it. As a rule the lady is so amazed at the accuracy of the representation, thai she i pays small attention to the. figures in | the scene, and accepts the second pic-; ture as a veritable representation of j the'unseen. Of course, if I can ascer- j tain that any one of the principal, events in the past life of my client has i be>en transacted in a public place, ; suieh as a street, a wood, a pier, a church, or a theatre, it is much easier . to'obtain a photograph from which a good.slide may be manufactured; ' arick if a scene already known to the lady\is used for the second slide, she is still more deeply impressed. Such is my plan of operations; and ! so long as men and women are what i they are, vain, egotistical, and credu-; lous about what they cannot explain, | such means will be successful in drawing money out of well-filled purses. You ■ will now ■be able to understand the significance of what I have to tell you.. .-■.,«..■ SoW after my meeting with Miss Grant, on the very next day, in fact, I made a drawing of. the villa and garden which had been the scene of the" happiest day I had ever known, intending it simply as a souvenir. Af- j tefwards I painted a slide from it, and you.may imagine the effect on the lady's mind- when she saw before her eyes a faithful representation of the spot where we had already met! And now comes the strange part 'of my'•experience. , . You were, far away from. Italy ,in tte year 1889, so'it is possible that; you may never have heard the name of Tito Carecci. He was a Sicilian, and a bad man, and he came to a bad end. 'At that time I was practicing , my'profession in Palermo, and he caane to consult me about an affair he had in hand. It was not long be-,' foire I discovered that it was a love, aftVir, and that he had a rival. Later I found that this rival's name was Sig- ■■■ CaVeeci was like all Sicilians, cruel, treacherous, and- revengeful.' I saw that he meditated foul play, and I did my best, as I: thought, .to dissuade him iromlgivirig way, to his ; passion.^

The girl favoured Signini, and Tito was mad with baffled desire and envy. He demanded to be shown Ms future in the crystal, and I prepared two scenes which I thought would have the effect of terrifying him and makino-' him-abandon the designs which 1 knew he was harbouring. The first scene represented a murder. <it showed a precipice, and a man lymg at the foot of it. He had evidently been pushed over the edge by an enemy, whose head could be seen at the top of the cliff as he peered down to make sure that his victim had been killed outright. In the foreground of the picture was the figure of a woman, and I intended that he should understand by this that there would be a' witness to his crime. In the next scene I depicted a trial in a court of law he himself being the prisoner. But this picture Carecci never saw When he saw the shadow of the crime he had meditated stealing out of The mist, as it were, in the depths of the mysterious crystal, he uttered efyai rushed out of the. house. What I had foolishly intended as a salutary warning he took to be aggnrecv which he was fated to num. The very next night Carecci waylaid his rival as he was returning from a viS to his betrothed, .and actuary murdered him by throwing h.m over a cliff, exactly as I had made him do in the picture. I knew I was playing with edged tools, but I never anticipated such a result. The crime could not remain hidden, and Carecci' was suspected from the first, as the enmity between • him and the murdered man was well known. Strangely enough, a peasant woman, returning from her workm the field, had seen something ot trie crime, and Carecci was arrested. No sooner did the villain find himself in prison than he denounced me to the police as the instigator ol Ins crime! You know what this would mean in Sicily. I was arrested; and in order to save myself I was forced to disclose my plan of working to the police, and give up the scenes I had painted. This did not satisfy them, however; and in order to satisfy the public conscience, or the. bloodthirsty instincts of an ignorant and superstitious people, I was put on my trial and actually c6ndemned to death. T The judges, however, knew that I was innocent, and I have no doubt that they exerted themselves to procure a pardon for me. I escaped the scaffold, and after a few months was conveyed to Borne and there liberated. My goods were restored to me, and by some oversight the apparatus which I had used to delude the public ■was not confiscated, as I suppose it ouo-ht to have-been, though most of the glass slides were broken.. I was told that the unlucky pictures which had brought all this trouble on me had been destroyed by the police. You can imagine what I felt when, the crystal being cleared for the second picture, I looked over the lady s shoulder, and saw this accursed murder scene, which had so nearly brought me to the scaffold! My heart stood still. I felt like a man bewitched. I could not answer when 'Miss Grant spoke to me. A dread that some might call superstitious seized !my very heart-strings. I had ■ been told that the unlucky picture was crushed into powder. How did it cbme to be there? Either it must have been {spared and restored to me by some ■accident, or a duplicate of the picture, ! a first attempt which I had rejected as jbeinf inferior in workmanship,' had lin some way got mixed up with; my i regular series, and my assistant, the most careful of men, must have made a mistake with the I numbers. - I However the mistake occurred, the 'picture was there, before my eyes, with all its memories of danger1 and of terror! As I gazed at it I stood once more before the judge, being 1 tried for my life, knowing that an ! excited crowd outside the court-house j was clamouring for my blood. I lay 'ao-ain in the narrow, ill-smelhng prison cell, where I woke each morning thinking that that day would be my last. That picture had already been a prophet of evil to me. . What did its re-appearance at that moment foretell? That it, meant something I am convinced. Was it meant for a warning, a warning by which I may profit, or was it a portent of an. implacable, inevitable fate? If the former, what steps can I take to avert the threatened evil? I should, tell you that before she left me Miss Grant hinted that if. I chose I might join with her .in f the scheme she has on foot: It appears she thinks I can render .her .assistance in some way. ■ Of course,. if anyone 'had'rtold me-yesterday tliat such an ' offer would, be made to me, I should have been transported with delight. Even now I cannot contain myself , when I think of,what this may.mean. And' yet, after ~su<-h- a .warning, would! it not be ■'madness to accept 'Miss Grant's proposal?: Is.'itnpt clear-j-ly .foreshadowed- that her connection with me can bring us nothing but disaster? Is it fated that I am to meet and slay a rival?.. Or, is the mysterious ■ appearance of ;the, picture a token that if-1 go-on-w}th the. enterprise into which the lady would lead me I am to fall by the hand of an; assassin? ..:....:.'.

I /cannot tell. To-morrow Miss Graiit is to visit me again, and confide in tne more fully. She is to tell me the part she desires me to play. And then I must make irp" my ■■ mind. I must choose whether I am to obey the omen, or rush forward upon my fate. (To be continued daily.)