THE RED PARASOL

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 299, 16 December 1911, Page 16

THE RED PARASOL

E. R. PUNSHON. (Author of "Earl's Great I/ord," Tho Choice," etc.) • CHAPTER XX—(Continued.) When she awoke she was conscious of a devouring hunger, thinking tenderly of great beefsteaks and huge paddings, and she was inclined to be very -agry with Solomon when be insisted on strict moderation. "Yon say yon never interfere," she argued pettishly, "and yet you won't let me have what I want to eat, though I am just as hungry as can be." "It is my theory of life never to interfere," he explained gravely; "and if I have seriously departed from it the last few days, circumstances are to blame. But I am very anxious to get you better and away from here. It is even more against my theory of life to have » woman in my house." "I think .you are very horrid and rude," said Altessa, who was developing a •certain irritability in her rapid recovery.

The old man gave a smile that made her rather ashamed of her bad temperand went away, but she heard him walking up and down outside, playing on his violin.

Altessa dropped off to sleep with the soft music still continuing, and mingled so perfectly with the distant murmur of the sea and the faint whispering of the wind through the trees, that they all seemed to make together ono perfect harmony of sweet sound. When she awakened the next morning she was allowed to eat nearly as much as she wanted. The same afternoon Solomon brought in little Q-ussie to see her, and Altessa gave an exclamation of pleasure on seeing the boy. "Why, Gussue," she exclaimed, "how nice—l am glad to see you again."

"Same "ere," he answered, • grinning. "Lor', miss! I just stood on my 'ed when I 'eard as you wasn't dead, after aIL But we ain't out of the wood yet, miss, not by a long way." "Has anything Seen heard of Teddy?" she asked. "There's something on," he answered cautiously, "but what I don't know. Yon see, they don't trust me now, me bem' a recently reformed character, I ain't claimed a thing, miss, since I promised you." "Oh, 'I art glad, Gussie," she exclaimed. They went on talking a little, and then Gussie and Solomon went away, the lad declaring that he must try to find out what was happening, for he was certain, he said, that some new plan was being hatched. This was on the eve of that day on •which <Lord Deremount fell into the trap the masked woman had prepared for him. In the morning AJtessa felt so mu-ih better that she got up and dressel herself. She felt in fact so well and strong that it was decided she could travel back to London that evening. But early on the afternoon Solomon came to her with a very disturbed expression on his usually impassive countenance.

"What is the matter?" she asked immediately. "Only that she and Jimmy the Greek are here," he answered. "Here!" exclaimed Altessa, very frightened; "oh, do you think they suspect? . . . they know? . . ." "I cant say," he answered. "I don't see why they should, for I am sure Sneaky Joe fully believes that he helped to throw you into the sea. You must not let them Bee you, yon must keep hidden. I have told them all I want no more ghosts coming up out of the sea, all wet and dripping, to interfere with my music, but she cares for nothing. He took lits violin and began to play, till she snatched up a shawl and mutHed it about her head that she might not hear, so terrible in its wild defiance, in its bitter mockery, was the music she heard. Rocking himself to and fro, his whole mis-shapen body hunched together as he squatted like a tailor on his hams, ■ he sat there and played, his arm swingI ing without pause or slackening, and i the music that he made no other human j ear had heard, nor has the heart of : another man conceived it.

For it was a man arraigning God that Altessa heard; the finite flinging defiance at the Infinite, challenging the justice of the Judge of all the earth, reminding Him of the tears of man that He does not wipe away, telling the Creator how the days of the Creature arc few and evil and full of sorrow as the sparks fly upward, declaring aloud that the wicked flourish and neither wither nor pass away, proclaiming and dying aloud that the seed of the righteous beg their bread and there is no hope for them. "Vanity, vanity, all ds vanity," shrilled the violin. "The gates of hell prevail and shall not be cast down," said the music, and louder and more loudly the musician played, the noble head that topped bis mis-shapen body turned Heavenwards with a pale defiance, till on a sudden he flung bow and violin far from him, and sat there very still and silent, and with wild eyes that buried. "I believe," gasped Altessa, **l believe that you are mad." "1 have thought so a long time myBelf," he answered. "Poor man," she said, looking at him softly. "You see I have found out the truth," he said, "my violin taught it me. Well, if one knows the truth, that means that one is mad." "What is the truth?" she asked. "That everything is just one Great Joke," he answered; "a rare joke, and any clear night you may see the stars all a-twtnkle with the fun of it. There is nothing hut one eternal jest, and man is it." "Oh, hush," Altessa cried; "you must not sav such things. . . ." "ShnH I tell you how I found out!" the old man asked. "It is because 1 am myself one of the finest witticisms in the whole Great Joke. I am so hideous that people laugh to see me; and yet I could tell them of such beauty when I make music, as for themselves they would never dream existed. I can wring the very soul from men if they would listen, but ihoy will not, for when they see me they begin to laugh. Once, was young I dreamed I could make them listen, and forgot my ffrotesque uifliness in the world of beauty I should show them. So I worked—how I worked and starved and studied—to teach men beauty by music. For music, child, is the most truly divine of all the arts, since it alone speaks directly to tj-- soul of man. \*d the day canie, and when 1 waddled ou the platform, they roared with laughter. I tried to make them listen; I played—child, I have never played like ' that again, and no man ever shall till the last trumpet proclaims the end of the Great Jest—but they still sat and laughed, and laughed the more, hecause I ma excited and waddled up and

Aosni the platform as I played—oh, I can well imagine that I looked funny. But I played such music as the world has not often heard, and then— ■" he touched himself on the forehead " —then was something here that snapped, and I laughed, too. So they laughed, and I laughed, and we ail laughed together." "I am to sony," began Altessa, falteringly. "Naturally," he replied, nodding Us head gravely, "it is part of the Great Jest that we should be sorry for each other. That masked woman—a really funny joke was played on her, out she has not taken it the right way. Her quarrel is with man, whereas it should be, like mine, with God. Men only act according to their nature, which they cannot help, bat she hates them all—except one—and loves to hurt them—except one.""Who is she?" asked Altessa, "and why does she always go masked?" "No one knows but mo," he answered, "and I have sworn not to tell. Only remember, I am not mad, but she is—mad with hate for men, who are only part of the Great .Test, like herself. Child, never ask her to remove her mask." "ATiy?" Altessa asked. "Because she might do it," he answered, with a quirk shudder. Before Altessa could answer, the door opened, and Oissie oaine in quickly, his face very pale. "Oh, 'ere's a go," he said: "thev're all 'ere, so they are, the whole boiling of 'em, and they've pot the kid with 'em—lor*, I dunno whatll 'appen." "T)o von mean," eTcltuTied Altessa quickly,' "that little Tcddv's here?" "Yes, and all of 'em," Gussie answered " 'or. and jimmr the Greek, and all: and what's more. Jimmv saw me, and enve chase, so T run 'ere. for T thAiotht thev would never think of look'ti' for me 'ere, when it's their own meetinsr p)*e*- B ,c ttnt is Teddy safe?" A T ti«ma asked.

Cimww's fare went paler still. " TDre's there and safe enousrh," the lad said in a whisper, "font I believe they're planning to pnt 'im away, poor Iciddv, so T do. And we can't do nothin', miss, for thev've downed the hi? bloke in the old mill, and it's up now, all up now." CHAPTER XXL AN APPARITION. "Do you mean," cried Altessa, seizing the lad by the arm, "do yon mean they have killed him killed Lord Derei mount T" | "Pretty near it," he answered, gulping in his throat; "oh, miss, isn't it awful! They must have faked the floor of the mill so as it broke when he stepped on it, and he -went crash through into the cellar." | "Then he is dead!" said Altessa witn I a low cry. "No, he ain't, for I was 'iding near, ' and when Jimmy the Greek looked over i the edge, I 'eard a pistol go off and Jknmy jumped with a hit of 'is ear shot off. If I 'ad been an inch more to one side . . ." "Then he must be alive!" Aliens* cried. "Of course," mgreed Gussie, "corpses not firin' pistols, so far as I know. So Jimmy »nd 'er went off, sayin' as *ow 'e was safe enough, and they could finish the fob sometime when he ain't 'andy with his pistoL They saw me on the way and chased me; but I dodged back I'ere, where they never thought of mo 'iding. Now they're all in the kitchen with that poor little kid, and they** I telling the rest of the mob as 'ow they've put the big Woke through it, and so they others must do up the kid." | "We must save them," said Altessa : slowly, "somehow we must save them both.*" "Take us all our time to save our blessed selves," retorted Gussie, "you are balmy to talk like that." "Wait here," interposed Solomon, "why should I interfere, I? But I will see what I can do."

He shuffled away hurriedly, while Altessa stood and looked after him, her delicate and pale face beautiful in fear and distress as dn happier moments. By her side stood Gussie, trying to conquer an emotion ho was deeply ashamed of. He would have liked to announce what had happened with that appearance of perfect indifference —that callous and brutal unconcern, in other words, which he had been trained to consider "game" and "plucky," and. ho was sadly aware that he had fallen short of this high ideal.

I "Oh, well," he said, with a fine attempt to recover the desired attitude, "we shall likely be o.k. ii we don't get meddiin'; and, after all, there's lot more where i that big, ugly bloke came from." To his immense astonishment Altessa i boxed his ears with a force and painful , energy he had never credited her with. ', Has head fairly sang under the emphasis l of her slap, and his bewilderment in- : creased when she burst into tears and begged his pardon. ' "Lor', miss," he said awkwardly, "do '■■ it again if you like, though you 'it surprisin' 'ard for your weight. 'Ere, miss, where are you going?" "Down into the kitchen," she answered. " 'Ere, I say, my eye, no kid now," ho protested with earnestness, if somewhat incoherent; "itfß gospel as they'll do for you the moment they see you." "If they kill< Teddy, they can kill me, too," she answered, putting him aside. "But that's just what they Want," he persisted, following her, "just the very I thing they want tc do. Oh, lor', my eye, he added, "it ain't no use talkin' when she looks like that there, as I might ha' known from the first. 'Ere goes, then, I Jot 'avin' both our throats cut. My won't I Jimmy 'are juat a good time a-doin'of ' it?"

His face very pale, Gussie ran swiftly after the girl, who was now standing in the passage near the kitchen. The door of the kitchen was a few inches open, and through this opening bhey could see into the room, while tihsy themselves were not likely to be noticed, not, at least, so long as the attention of those within was as much occupied as at present. At the further end of the room little Teddy wis sitting in a high wooden chair. He looked pale and somewhat frightened, and a cat, which 'had been given him to keep him quiet, he held clasped in his arms in a position which seemed to involve immediate strangling, but which left it politely complHsaTit. Altessa saw with immense relief that he was so far safe and unlmrt, and even seemed to have been properly attended to since his disappearance, though he had m>"W neither that appearance of the child of weaßh and luxury he had borne when slie first saw him, nor that other manner of petted attention he had been accustomed fco slrow her. But that so far he was safe, was the greatest relief possible to 'Altessa. Sitting about the room in different attitudes were all the members of the Lace Court gang. In one corner was the elder Ward, his back resolutely turned to the others, as though he denied all connection with them. Bill Young, chewing a3 usual the end of an nnligbted cigar, leaned by one of <*» -windows, and sitting

=5 I ■ just in front of him was the sham det% tire, Bertjcnt Payne, the man whose i*. position on her, Alte&aa was beginoia, to understand. Joe—"Sneaky JoeTiS the others ceiled him—l«ord Iteremount'j ex-footman, was also present sitting on a stool near the window. Before the hearth stood Jimmy the Greek, —""'"rg ainiabW and humming a tune, while ■his swtellju "Jumj-er" Ussher, was just entering th« room with hh anns full of bottles ol brandy and of gin. AM these men wore a Burly and angry air, as though th»j had been quarrelling among themselves, and Altessa .noticed man than one of them giving furtive gknees of fear and doubt towards the itttle hoy in his nigh chair. One might have said there w SJ something about "the child that frightened them. The outer door of tEe room waj open, and through it Altessa could get the slender, graceful form of the masked woman, standing ant looking towards the ruined mill, as if to make sure that no rescue Teached the, victim her treachery had there overwhelmed. Close to Teddy, stood t'he old violinist, his head not much higher than the chair by which he stood. \

"Of course, it's not a nice job," Jimmy was saying, "but it has to'.be done, so what is the use of making a fusat She and I have done our share, so ifc's only fair that you should put the hr*t through it." "But 1 tell you 111 not have it not here," cried old Solomon. "If the'drf. ping ghost of a man came up out of the sea, what would the spirit of a child do? I tell you noDc of us would ever be free from it." ** like all criminals, essentially superstitious, the men were plainly much im. pressed by the old violinist's wanuni The Greek at once perceived the impression made. "Drink up, boys," he said, as toe man. "Jumper" put his bottles down on the table. "There's more than one I've killed in my time, and none of them ever cams back to trouble me. No, no, the dead li 6 quiet enough, dead men never rise m» Old Solomon drew his bow toss, his violin and produced a To*? strange, weird sounding cadence that all who heard it start*! and looked uneasily, as If expectin. to see something—they knew not whaE_t» which this musne was the herald. "Just shut that noise, wfll y ont » gaii the Greek with a curse. "^ e I°. u erer kmed * **&r demanded Solomon; "because, since they are so innocent, babies come back easily —easily—" and again his violin sounded with a long low noti, whkh seemed, as it were, lake a whieper from that other land of which the old man spoke. ffis argument, oddly enough, both impressed and disturbed those bad and reckless men, whose own days of innocence were so far behind them, each one of whom had long ago steeped his sold in all abomination. Who knows, too but that the ead and mystic music of tin" violin had its own effect on them? "Tough I am and tough I've lived," said Young, who indeed could boast the rare distinction of having made' era Chicago too hot to hold him, "but til bt eternally condemned if I take a hand a this job."

"Take a drink, Billy," purred tic Greek; "take a drop of gin, man." "Nor me," shouted Ward, bursting suddenly into a torrent of profanity as hi stood in his corner and glared at' then over his shoulder, "there's my Gwm, what you've bullied so, was just'i sock another kid at this *un. Let 1m aim, I says." "I ain't particular," observed Payas, "but why can't he be put out'to'nam eomewheres and just forgotten! It tilt won't Aa, let Jimmy do his own dirty work." "Let us drink," purred the Greek to his oily, persuasive tones; "let's drink all together and talk it over." "That's what," cried the ex-footman, 'Tm all of a shake now, but fill m up with gin, and I'll do for all the brats as ever squealed." "Brave boy, brave boy," said the Greek, clapping him on the shoulder, "come up, boys, and drink, and we will talk it over while we drink. It's a lot of none;, a fortune for us all—and as for the kid, that's as safe and easy a job as can bebesidfeb, is it any worse than if he ctagtt the measles or whooping cough ? Lot* of kids peg out that way; this wiy"i ■ different But let's drink while we talk about it." The men crowded op to the .table, where Jumper was already knocking th» necks off the bottles and fitting fro* them a collection of cups, glasses,'pwatkins, mheinjr with the spirits the snStllest quantities c. water. "Miss," Gussie whispered to Altens in the passage without, "it **"*"? good. Miss, once they start on the *inlt it'll need one of them miracles you ww talking about to save the kid-4ioi t» mention you ftnd ne, mtea." (To be continued nest Saturday.)