HER VENGEANCE!

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 148, 23 June 1909, Page 10

HER VENGEANCE!

BY E. R. PUNSHON, Autlioi_etJ"de.CboJ<;§,"..;!TlkeJ3piii.ef tM.Cein, , ' etc., etc.

_ '- PROLOGUE. T£one of the western States of the American Union, not far from where the district known as "The Bad Lands stretches-its -strange ..fantastic desolation- there is"n" JaJmVdf some flvle hundred acres: remote, for the soil is poor andtbarren so that there are few other setSers near; aloof from the common life -of the district, for that seemed to be it- owner"? will and wish; alien and shunned, for strange tales were told

concerning it. - itbelonged to a white man, who was. jeldb'rti seen, but ..it .was chiefly worked,; by negroes, of whom' a small -colony re, Fi'ded'on it. Another reason, this, why its -owner was looked on askance; for. why' the neighbourhood asked indignantly, should the owner of this farmappear to prefer labourers of a colour different from his own? On the farm itselt, which to the post offioe and to surveyors, .was know as Siddle's farm. "neighbourhood bore another and a stranger name, the most conspicuous building was a tall barn-like erection, surorunded by two-wire fences, and ha-vjfig-m the lower part-'of its wall not a single window. Twenty f«et above the ground the wails rose blank, and then were pierced by windows, barred and guarded with iron shutters, that were, however," seldom closed. Cut it was plain that the occupant of this building had no mind to be overlooked by prying eyes, and. m point of fact he =eemed safe- enough.- at any rate till air*hio> should be invented Thi- stramre building had also a tall, chimney. from which great clouds of i smoke would sometimes issue and drift «wav over the surrounding prairie. Within a large room on the upper | floor—the rooms pn the lowct floor, Bavins- no windows; could- only be used . for storing things in, and not "for living j or working in—there sat this. afternoon two .people, tending a furnace that burned in Qne_.corner _~wi>h_a ..steady^andJ interiS?~gto*!P: - ■■—• ■

Of these two one was a man and old, the other a woman and young. The man wa* tall and thin, with long white hair and a head nobly shaped. But when he lifted his face - most- people- knew not whether-*o laugh or be terrified, for by enme'c-rusl freak" of nature lie had been barn ' without., a .nose..«J.t..yras ~repre-„ eented only by two nostrils; a-luiost flat with his cheeks. s» that the centre of his- face was blank except for these two Email holes. The effect of this 'queer deformity was to give an expression_half terrible, half. grotesque,- and -comic. His eves—which, as soon saw you, looked at '-you as an...enemy—-had: in' them a look, as of one: apart, that seemed to' ,teli how tnuch' this;«ceident; of conformation had separated him from hh fallows-

The woman, or girl rather. - "for "she was quite young, had a pale, oval face ■with a big month and chin and a mass of thick- black-hair" that was wrapped in close" coils about her head. She was rafber thin.iv build* but looked active. nn|i had'two large dark'eyes that-seemed to;searcli for something they had never found. From where- she sat, between the window and the burning furnace, she gazed far out over the rolling prairie toward* a distant hill where'was the beginning of trees—a small wood,-in fact, or "hush." as it was called in the neighbourhood. Except for a few "bluffs," where poplars and willows grew", there were no other trees in sight,, and the «nr] loved trees and watched these in the distance, and loved them none the less because she knew the railroad parsed through them, framning east, and-west. '"I see there is another ease of lynching rer-orted in the Athens 'Clarion,'" observed the noseless old man abruptly. "S'.all I read it to you. Eira?" "So.'- said the girld shuddering; 5T hate to hear of such things!"

"Editor Keene does not," returned the o!i- jman: "he gloats over his account as if hf> were telling of the most heroic and noble action conceivable. But>-he not lik° negroes." •I do not like Mr Keene." the, girl said: "I don't think he is quite sarfe." "Oh. sane enough." her companion answered. "They say his wife was murdered by a negro, and that is why he hates them so, but likely enough that is only a tal». It seems this negro murdered a whits woman in Missouri, so the neighbours took him" and burned him alive. Now. if that negro had any enemies, there was a fine death to gratify them." "Grandfather." protested the girl; "what ideas you have!" "Why else do I live alone?" the old man asked. "Solitude, is the mother of ideas. Here is another for you. Look!" He rolled urr the sleev« of the flannel shirt he was wearing, and showed that between the wrist and the elbow his skin was coloured a deent, shiny black, exactly like a purp-blooded negro's. "The most successful of my inventions." he said. "If I treated my whole body with this.preparation I have invented, and went somewhere where I was not known. I thinkT could pass for a negro, eh? And if I claimed to be a white man, it would take some proving, eh?" .. ". "It is very wonderful," said the girl, evidently not much interested: "but you could surely easily prove you were white; by washing, for example." - : "Ah." the old man answered, "that is the chief merit of this new dye of mine. Washing simply makes it look shinier and fresher. The only- thing to do-/ if you want to get rid of it. is to wait 24 hours, and then it-will begin to fade, and dry friction will bring it off in flakes. I could wish it were more permanent, but 24 hours_shor,ld be enough for all practical purposes." "But what is the use of it?" Eira objected. "No white man ever wants to pretend to be a.' nearb." "Wlm knows?" said the old man, and an expression of mysterious hate passed across his strange, noseless face. . Eira. who did not look much interested in the discovery of this new colouring matter, rose to attend to the.furnace. '. "Ts it not ready yetl' she asked. ' "Almost," her companion answered. "I am not hopeful of success, Eira.- I Bare never mastered the secret your Sather went to England to discover, and paid for there with his life." Eira did'not answer, though her pale face took on a look of pain as at the ir.erno-ry of old and sad days. She went Bgnin to the window. - "There is that man Bryan driving along the trail," she remarked, as if anxious to change the-conversation. "Grandfather, you do not really mean to foreclose on his farm, do you?" "Unless he quits Ms drinking I shall." the old man answered. "Oh. but think of his wife, and how hare she tries!" the girl exclaimed. "I have told her plainly," said the old sa-a, speaking rather slowly, "that un-

less Bryan quits drinking I shall foreclose. She cried, oi course, and said there was no hope of that; but I told her I had a plan to cure him. I have an idea that if we gaye-'him some very great shock, that might Rober him for the rest of his frfe. Something-drastic, I mean." "What did Mrs Bryan say?" asked Eira. • "Oh. she declared she would be only too' willing, to help." said the old man with again his old. mysterious smile. •'Grandfather." the girl asked suddenly, "what made you lend Bryan that money ?" . "Gratitude, to be sure." the old man answered.. 'Tain one of Nature's jokes, I .know,.and folk show it by screaming with laughter whenever I show my face without a nose. But I have thought that Bryan laughed less heartily than some of the others, so, knowing how pressed he was for money, I lent him some". That is all."

The girl did not answer. She knew her grandfather spoke mockingly to hide his real motive, and what that might be she had no idea. She only hoped it was not some strange design, aimed at the whole nf the community, that would bring down on them an active hate in place of the passive and half-contemptuous dislike with which she knew they were at. present regarded by their neighbours. She did not persist in questioning him. however, for she -was aware it would be useless, knowing as she did how bitterly her grandfather felt his queer deformity, and how every smile it caused filled his heart with gall,' till he had come almost to hate the whole of mankind. Tf he had only had the strength to treat it for what it ■n-as —as essentially a trifle —the world would have followed his lend, and in time, growing used to him, would almost have forgotten it. But that had not been his way. and others' folly acting on his own morbid self-consciousness, had bred an all-embracing hate.' in which alone he lived and moved -and had his being. Yet even for him there were two things he lored—the memory of his dead son and the living Eira, that son's only child. 'The furnace is ready now, I think, Eira said, looking at it. "Aye." the old man said. They became busy. and drew from the glowing heart of the coals a cylinder that they placed in water to cool. - "I take men on their weakest side, said the old man. "Tf I have solved "this* problem" at' last, the whole world will'come grovelling at the feet of the man without a nose. 11l- tog them, alms or not. as I've a mind." "We do not know if it is successful vet." said Eira quietly. ' In fact, neither of them showed much excitement, though the work they were -engaged on, if successful, would echo over the whole of the world, and make them perhaps the two most powerful people in Working together quietly and skilfully, they took the oooled cylinder from the water and opened it. With a steady hand the old. man shook it over a linen sheet spread out ready on the table. There fell out, perhaps, a couple of handfuls of dust, that and .nothing mors... 'r;\ "Failure," he said, "absolute failure." Eira put out her-"hand" and touched the little heap of dust- Neither spoke: there ~-was nothing to say. Such hopes as two human beings 'have seldom known, had all vanished in that little pile of dust. "Yet my boy did it—your father did it, Eira," - the - old man exclaimed. He turned and took from a shelf a large object, dull in colour and irregular in shape,- and in size - about as big as a juelon. It was seamed with innumerable cracks, and appeared to have been often broken and to have been as often carefully put together again. At present it was secured by a multitude of fine wires, as if their support was necessary to keep it together. The old man held it very tenderly in his hands.

"Hera is the proof," he said. Of course it is a failure, for it is full of flaws and so fragile that it shivers into fragments at a .touch.,. Bu.t .it,is,...there, Eira. it is "there,-*and"you know -your father cabled to mc only the day before his death to say he had solved the problem of stability, the one difficulty left. Then he died, and the man who caused his death has neVer yet been punished." "I know, I know!" Eira said quickly; "do not let us go all over that again." "You think God will punish him," the old. man said; "so dp I, but I wish to be His instrument! Yet if we make no attempt to punish him " "When you say punishment you mean revenge, grandfather," Eira answered; "and we have neither the right nor the power to revenge ourselves." "And bo you will let this man remain m possession of the secret your father lost his life for. his great- discovery that this man stole from him?" "Xo," said Eira quickly, still playing with that heap of black dust that lay upon the linen sheet upon the table. "Xo, I should be very willing to do anything to recover that. I would offer first to buy it back, and if he would not sell it, then I would get it from him in any other way I could. My father's memory has a right to the fame such a discovery would- bring it, and his daughter has. more than a right; she has a duty to vindicate 'his memory, "and to let all the world know of his genius. Yes, I should be willing to work for that revenge, to risk my life for it, to do anything for it, to die for it, so as to prove what a great man .my father was - , and. let it be known how he was treated; and to let all the world-judge between hie memory and that cruel, rich Englishman who ruined him and drove him to his death." She spoke with passion, with a heaving chest and flashing eyes, and. the old man had again on hj« strange face that look of a mysterious hate. "Yes," -she said again, "I would do anything to do justice to -fathers memory, and-to-let the whole world know that bad Englishman for what he'is." " : ."Well, will.ydti try?" her grandfather asked, quickly; "are you brave enough to tryr". . . ;.;.T:"-; "Yes," she answered. 1 "When?" ->~-~j •' -•;• - '• "At once." "• ■• w*"lt should have'been my work," the old man said, moodily, "but a man without a nose is .tbo":"niar.ked a figure for secret and. delicate missions; so it falls to you, Eira;" ; "But are you sure this Englishman has the secret? Are you sure my father ever wrote it down at all?" "I am sure he wrote it down, and I am sure that man has the paper still." , "Why has he not used it, then?" j "Because it is written in a cipher he does not understand." "Well, 1 am ready," she said. "One thing more," the old. man said. "You tell mc I must not seek revenge

oil the inari who ruined my son at tho very moment of his' great silCGesS. Wall, bnt I've * asore s-wbtle mind than you, lira, ftttd I think at least I Would Hka to have him here, on. this spot, in this v«ry house, perhaps, to witness our success." "How could you make him como?" o,skc4 Eira. "If you gave him any hint of what we arc doing,-he woul&'b<s at once warned. Even It 1 loft a message for him after getting the paper from him, he would follow mo and perhaps overtako mc." "Oh. child," the old man smiled, "1 should not go to work like that. He should come of his own free will and yet not knowing why he came. All men are. puppets to those who know how to pull the strings—-which are called motives. Will you help mc in my whim, Eira'?" "1 tiink it is rather silly, grandfather," she said frankly. ' "Oh, well, I am approaching my dotage,'you know," he answered with his strange smile. "When will you start?" " "To-day,"' she said. "To-morrow," he said- "Come into the next room. There is much we must settle and arrange. Yours will be no light task, Eira, to match yourself against such a man to win from him such a secret."

They went together into the adjoining room, where they talked long and earnestly, while in the apartment they had left the dull coals of the furnace flickered and glowed and expired, and on the table still lay that sraajj heap of black dust in which such dreams had vanished—dreams of solving one of the most curious of nature's secrets and of winning as well almost unimaginable wealth.

CHAPTER 1. LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.

"If one were to discover the secret of making diamonds!" The sentence seemed to buzz in Hugh Tallentine's brain as if a tiny voice whispered it there ceaslessly. inspired by a sense of biting contrast between such illimitable dreams of wealth and the sorry truth of his own position.

"If one were td discover the secret of making diamonds!"

Hugh's uncle, James Hetherington. the head of the well-known firm of financiers. Messrs Hetherington and Co., of Lombard-street, in the City of London, had used thai phrase twice over in speaking to him the day before, and he had dreamed of the words, for somehow they had struck forcibly in his imagination. But now it was broad day in the City of London, and no time for dreams, and Hugh -Wrned again to the complicated figures and accounts he was dealing with, - Hugh possessed a very good head for figures, but hot "the most expert mathematican in the world can persuade two and two to make five. Hugh pushed the papers from him with a sigh, and sounded the little bell that stood on his table.

"Has Mr Logan come in yet from lunch?" he asked the errand boy who appeared to his summons.

"No, sir," answered the boy. "Tell him I want to see him when he comes back, will you," said Hugh.

"Yes, sir," returned the boy and retired, wondering why the governor seemed to be quite forgetting his own lunch to-day.

Hugh began to walk restlessly up and down the little office "that seemed; to have a curiously cramping effect on'his tall and largely-built form. "If could discover the secret of malting diamonds!" Now, why-was it that sentence 'would come bothering him so? Suc-h a discovery was never likely to be made, certainly not by an unlucky chap like himself, whose energies day and night were absorbed in trying to prop up the tottering business his father had founded, and that, when it hatf come into his hands on his father's anor den death, he had found already on the verge of bankruptcy.

That was three years ago, and after much hard work had seemed to bring success in sight, the recent failure of a large German firm, with which he had had heavy commitments, had plunged him into greater difficulties than ever. It seemed to him too bad that in such a position his mind should be so plagued by such a silly phrase.

."If one.could discover the secret of making diamonds!" Why, then, one would have little need to bother over a few thousands of pounds.

Vexed at his inability to control his thoughts and to dismiss this haunting phrase from his mind, Hugh turned to •his bookcase, where stood an imposing row of frigid and ponderous volumes on business, finance, and commercial law. But behind these, tucked well out of sight of visitors who might have thought such books frivolous and unbusiness-like, were some dozen or two cheap reprints of masterpieces of literature, the Elizabethan dramatists, the Caroline wits, and even —tell it not on the Exchange, publish "it not on the floor of "the house" a few volumes of poetry, for though Hugh had been better known at college as an athlete than as a student, he had a very real love for letters, and would sometimes refresh his mind by turning from the sordid worries o-f business to the sweet langour of Keats, the fiery passion of Shelley, or to the god-like repose of Wordsworth.

Putting in his hand at random he drew out a copy of Plato, in Jowett's translation—Hugh was no great scholar—and, opening it at random, read:

"Know this of a truth: that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or in death."-

Hugh laughed, and flung the book back.

"Does evil include bankruptcy, I wonder?" he said, aloud; "or do I not come under the beading of a good man? Xo, Plato, you are not for mc to-day."

-He sat down at his desk again, and taking up his pen scribbled mechanically on the back of an envelope:

"If one were to discover the secret of making diamonds!"

He had just written the last word when there came a knock at the door, and there entered a small, dry, preciselooking man of about sixty years of age. This was Mr. Logan, Hugh's manager, as he had been his father's before him. Entering the office as an errand boy the day the business was started, Mr. Logan had worked himself up to the position of manager. So man could havo worked harder or better to avert the threatened catastrophe' than he had done, and it is hardly too much to say .that the business was as much to him as if he had been owner instead of manager. ~ V

."I have gone.all through/the figures," said Hugh abruptly, as he quickly thrust into his pocket the envelope on which he had been writing, quite alarmed lest his dry, business-like manager should catch sight of such a fantastic bit of scribbling, "and I simply don't see what can be done. It strikes mc we shall have to file our petition at the end of the week."

Mr Logan said nothing; there was nothing to say. He stared blankly at the wall opposite, and Hugh felt himself touched by a curious sense of pity for this

old man, whose face hod gone so white and drawn at his words. He quite felt for the moment. as though it were Mr Logan's ruin, and not his own at all, that wax under contemplation.

"Oncer up, Logan," he said; "its rough luck, but anyhow you have done more than any other two' men alive could have done; and if we did pull through, by Jove I the least I. could do would be to offer you a partnership." The old man flushed with pleasure at his young employers praise. "Oh, sir," he exclaimed, " that is more than I ever dramed of. I'm exceedingly grateful " '.

"I am afraid you have nothing to be grateful for," said Hugh; "a partnership in a sinking concern is not worth even a 'thank'you.' I suppose there is no chance of Ziebold's giving us more time ?"

"He has refused absolutely," said Mr Logan; "in fact, from a business point of view, why should he?"

"Why, indeed!" said Hugh, with some bitterness. "Yet another month would give us another chance."

"Oh, another chance would give us more than a chance," exclaimed Mr Logan—"if we could only get it."

"Well, by Jove!" cried Hugh jumping up, "I'll go back and see my uncle again, and ask him for help." Mr Logan did not answer. He knew Mr Hetherington, and it struck him it would be as useful to ask him for help as to ask the Monument for a drink on a hot day in August. Hugh thought so, too', but he was in a mood and • state to snatch at any hope. He changed his office jacket, removed the pieces of paper with which he protected his cuffs, and picked up his hat. "You will be able to get on all right without mc for the rest of the day?" he said.

"Oh, ye 3, I think so," answered Mr Logan, who was, in fact, quite as competent as Hugh to conduct the business — more competent, perhaps. Hugh nodded, and went ont of the office, followed by the envious glances of the errand boy, who wished he were a •'governor," and could take half a day off whenever he wished to. But Hughjs mood was no holiday one as he made his way ranidly to the nearest station whence he "could book to the village near which his uncle's country house was situated. He was fortunate in just catching a fast train, by which he reached his destination in only a little over half an hour. This left him plenty of time to spare, for he did not wish to arrive at his uncle's house too early. The house was six miles across country from the station, and as the day was fine Hugh determined to walk, glad of a chance of some exercise, and determining not to think again of his errand till he reached his uncle's. So he set off at a swinging pace that promised to cover the six miles in not much more than an hour.

"It will do mc good," he thought, swinging along with great strides and expanding his broad chest with deep draughts of the fresh country air. "Hang it. I have been cooped up in that wretched country office long enough."

Coming to a field path he turned into it from the highway, which he knew it joined again- half a mile or 'so further on. The path crossed various fields each divided from it's- • neighbour by a hedge and five-barred gate, alongside which would be a stile for the conveni ence of the users of the footpath. But Hugh, disdaining the stile, made a poin.t of leaping each gate as he came to it. and, big man of big build as he was, he succeeded in clearing them all without touching once. He was, in fact, surprisingly active for a man of his weight and build, and he was delighted to find himself in such good form with hijumping.

"This comes from using the clubs regularly," he said to himself.

He was now in the last field, whenci the path issued to join the highway at a spot where the road turned sharplround by a thick grove of trees. Th? gate between this field and the road wntopped with a row of spikes, while thenwas also a very bad take-off. Hugh saw it would be a difficult jump, but was not going to 3hirk it. Only he gavr himself a yard or two of extra run. went at it full speed, cleared triumphant ly, and thereby as nearly as possible gained his own death and a speedy solution to all his troubles and difficul ties.

For just as he came flying over the gate a motor-car rounded the corner by the trees at a high rate of speed, and as nearly as possible went over him He just saved himself by a quick jerk forward, and losing his balance with the effort, went head foremost and with violence into the ditch, where he lay. half stunned and wholly wondering what had happened.

"Is he killed?" a voice said afar ofl". and Hugh sat up and groped for his hat and looked about bis wonderingly.

The car had stopped a few yards away. Hugh noticed the number was ZZI79, and he saw sitting in it a woman, heavily veiled so that her face was quite hidden, wrapped so closely in a great rug of costly fur that it could not even be told whether she were old or young, but yet by her attitude evidently looking back to see what had happened to him.

"Are you hurt?" said another voicenot the one that had spoken .before — and the still somewhat dazed Hugh realised that a man was standing looking at him. This seemed a chaffeur by his leather jacket, peaked cap, and leggings, and he was apparently of negro blood, for his skin was of a shining black, though his features were of the Caucassian type, and his hair was quite straight. Hugh decided he must be a mulatto or quadroon who had inhter-ited the colour of one parent and the features of the other. He was a very big man, quite as big as Hugh himself, and as Hugh did not answer he now repeated his question, saying again, "Are you hurt?"

"Xo, thanks, I am not hurt," Hugh said, slowly, as he got to his feet.

"He is not hurt, madam," called' the negro chauffeur to the lady in the car, who thereupon made him an almost imperceptible gesture of the head that, however, the chauffeur seemed to understand at once.

"Yes, madam," he called; and then added to Hugh: "A narrow escape, sir, but entirely your own fault, you know, coming flying into the road like that."

Hugh could not deny that the blame was chiefly his; but all the same felt it was highly inconsiderate of the motorcar to have been just there when he took his leap, when there were so many other places in the world where it could have been just as easily.

"Well," he grumbled, crossly, "at any rate you ought not to go round corners at such a speed; an accident might easily happen."

"It might, if you do not look before you leap," said the negro; "but this is certainly an awkward corner, and I should never be surprised to hear of a bad accident having happened here," and with that he turned and went back to his car.

Hugh stood looking after him, and U = Felt as if some irresistible attraction drew his eyes to the silent, immobili' figure of the lady sitting so quietly in

her car. There was something in her impassive attitude that struck him as singular, withont Mb.quite knowing why he should find it so. He said to himself that most people would have jumped.'--down, to .see what damage was done,j even if only o'-Ut of curiosity. But she | eat impassive as a statue, and what I with -her cloak and her veil, there was j absolutely nothing one could tell about I her. The car began to move. Hugh. still stood and gazed on that motionless form, and now he was aware of an im- i pression that from behind the thickness of her veil she gf.zed back at him with j. equal intensity. Still she made not the least sign, not the faintest gesture; only sat absolutely impassive, and yet fie thought that she watched him as he I watched her till the car was out of sight.')

Then Hugh moved impatiently, and like a man rousing himself from a dream that had been almost an obsession. He called himself a fool with vigour and many adjectives; and he asked himself what possible cause there could be for the curious impression that had come upon him that this was a fateful encounter to him, one that for good or ill linked with all his future life that veiled, impassive, motionless figure. He shook himself again, as if to shake off these sick fancies, and proceeded briskly on his way; and again he did not quite know why, but it was with an extraordinary shock that, as he turned the corner of the road past the clump of trees, he saw sitting by the wayside a negro, who was eating bread and cheese by the aid of a large clasp knife. (To be continued daily.) For Children's Masking Cough at night. Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, 1/6 and s/e-