THE STORY-TELLER. The Jaws of Death.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 119, 15 November 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE STORY-TELLER. The Jaws of Death.

By BEATRICE HERON MAXWELL. (Author of "Those Silverlons," etc.) [All Rights Reserved.] "I am glad that you have won your •case," said Roland Mortlake, "these points of contract are difficult to gel over sometimes, and the other side had a fairly strong position. But all's well that encis well." His client rose and held out her hand. "'I cannot thank you enough," she said -with a little thrill oi earnestness in her voice ; "you have taken so much trouble, and success means everything to me. You see, I was earning practically nothing and had no chance of doing so for two years unde,. Mr. Levin ; the terras were so hard and fast. Whereas now, under my new manager I am getting a good salary !" He looked a*t her attentively, considering her. It was not the fiist time he Lad done so during the two or three weeks of association that this legal business of hers had brought about. Thenmeetings had been very short ai)d desultory, but it had occurred to him more than once that this girl with the pale spiritual face and wonderful dark eyes' was not only beautiful but interesting to a very marked 'degree. The little there was tc know of her history he knew ; her mother, an English governess, had married an Anglo-Spanish music mastet, both dying alter fifteen years' of futile struggle against poverty. _ The little danghtez they left, Mattea Serlone, had found professional friends who helped her to become one of them, and she had crept up gradually to doing a turn at one oi the lesser variety theatres, where the manager, seeing a future for the graceful, sweet-voiced girl, had taken care to make terms with her, tho iniquity of which she did not see until their burden pressed heavily upon her. Then she rebelled, and when the manager came down on her, she wenij — by chance — to Roland Mortlake for legal advice. He took the case to Court and won it for her. "You are acting now at the Palindrome, are you not?" he asked, more for the sake of detaining her than from any special curiosity. "I appear there every night," she answered. "I can hardly call it acting." She flushed a little, ahd the colour added to the biilliancy of her eyes ; he thought again what an unusual face her's was, and felt his imagination stirred in picturing her on the stage. "In what capacity, then?" he asked. "As a singer?" "No." Her voice was troubled and hesitating, and she looked away for a moment ; then meeting his gaze once more, fully and freely, she added : "As a lion-tamer." "A lion-tamer 1" There was surprise, dismay, almost incredulity in his echo ' of her statement; and she had evidently anticipated these. "Herr Werthaus is the real tamer," she went on a little hurriedly. "There are ' twenty lions, you know, and, of course, I 'could not manage them. But when he wants to perfect them ir- a new trick now he lets me help him — the lions recognise some magnetic power in me he says. And he has introduced me as a new sensation in his turn." "What do you do?" Roland demanded, the sudden overpowering interest he felt, astonishing even himself. "I go into the cageTa-ad walk round amidst the lions. /Then he makes a grand trophy of us/-*all. and I sit on Caesar's back — that is the biggest — ia the centre, and Sipido, the wicked one, lies with, one of my feet in his open mouth. The people clap it tremendously." Her eyes were sparkling now with the fire, of excitement and courage ; her lips were slightly parted ; she Jiad forgotten her former hesitation and was all enthusiasm. "How horrible I" said Roland, in a low, strained voice, • "Mr. Mortlake! Why do you say so?" "Because I shudder to think that this' frightful danger to you should be made into a public spectacle. A woman — alone in a cage with twenty lions." "But I am not alone! Herr Werthaus is there all the time." "A man who can permit you to do such a thing is not to be trusted. Besides, what is one man against all those beasts. It is shameful that such shows should be allowed. Miss Serlone, would inythiug persuade you to give it up?" She shook her head. "It would take rery strong arguments," she said. "You 3ee I have only lately known that I possess this power of control over wild natures. I learnt it by chance when I went behind the scenes one night to see the lions in their den. Hen. Werthaus told me it was worth a fortune to me. I believe it will be. I glory in the power, and love to exercise it; and with the money that it brings me! hay. gained independence at last and have been able to repay those who were good to me in my poverty. Why should I give it up, Mr. Mortlake?" She ended almost pleadingly, for his opinion was unaccountably of value to her. "Because it is not right to risk your life night after night," he said ; "it does not seem to me womanly." She recoiled from him as if he had struck her. "Not womanly!" she said in a startled voice. "I — I never thought) courage was considered unfeminine." But the sedate and sober young lawyer had suddenly lost ms head, and allowed his feelings — repressed hitherto — to get the better of him. "Mattea," he exclaimed impetuously, "give up this awful profession, I implore you. Act, sing, dance, if you will, but nave nothing more to do with Hen Werthaua." He caught one of her hands in his, his face alight with eagerness ; and Mattea, reading in it what he had not yet told her, said in a startled whisper: "Mr. Mortlake, it would mean ruin to me. Managers would fight shy of me ; they would think I always- broke my cottracts. Why do you ask me to do it?" "I ask you," Ronald said, "to do it for my sake. Because I: " He broke off, for there was a knock at the door, and a clerk came in from the outer office with a visitor's card. "Say I shall be disengaged in a moment," said Roland ; then, us the clerk vanished, he took, Mattea's hand in his once more. "When and where may I see you again?" he said. "Let it be soon," "You can see me at the Palindrome. I am there every night." , He thought for a moment. "I will go there to-night," he said briefly. "May I ask for you at the stage door afteriwards?" She murmured assent, and he released " •"• hand, and opened the door for her pass out. u*ll through the day's business that

followed his mind was a chaos of doubts and difficulties and fears. The knowledge that he loved her had come to him so suddenly that he could scarcely yet; realise it ; for in spite of his thirtj years Roland Mortlake had never loved before. Even the transient episodes of flirtation and love-making so usual to most lives had had little ' place in his ; for his nature was on the surface a reserved one, holding depths nevertheless of strong emotion unsounded yet by himself or others. It had needed the touch of Mattea's soft hand, the look slumbering in her eyes, ihe thought of her danger, to unlock the door of his heart and show -him the place she unconsciously held , there. And though he began to feel quite sure of himself, he was full of uncertainty . about her ; the possibility of her caring for him, even if she was free to do so, appeared so small. Besides, with her beauty, and her bravery, she must have many admirers, and. was probably engaged to some one already. He shrank from the thought of seeing her in her part of Palindrome, yet when he arrived there he counted the moments until No. 8 on the programme,when Herr Werthaus was to appear with his troop of twenty East African lions, ir> his world-renowned performance, ending with the introduction of the LionQueen, .Mattea Serlone, in the midst of her. subjects. The theatre was orowded, its circular rows of spectators, massed from floor to ceiling, attracted by this latest novelt}', which had proved an enormous success. Round the arena had uprisen a massive iron framework of bars, transforming 'it into a huge and impassable cage, the only entrance to which was the barred passage-way through which the tamer and bis troop appeared. Roland sat in the third row of the amphitheatre stalls, separated by a yard or two only from the prison, visible but impossible of access, in which Mattea would risk her life, had risked it nightly amidst a horde of the largest, as well as the least tractable lions y in the world ; with only the strength of her own will, and that of one man's to keep them from rending her to pieces. A mist swam before Roland's eyes, and his heart beat to suffocation ; if any lingering doubt of his love for Mattea was in his mind it was slain at this moment. The bars dividing the passage were raised >by machinery, and one by one the lions and lionesses entered tho arena; some listlessly as though newlyroused from sleep or satisfied hunger, some slouching against the side with suspicious distrust and reluctance, others scuffling together, and leaping -one over the other tintil the glare- of light and the concentrated' gaze of thousands of eyes checked their ferocious play and made them stand staring, with here and there a muffled growl of angry discomfiture. . At the last, driven before their masterlike two whipped hounds, came Ccesar and Sipido, and Herr Werthaus advancing to the centre of the arena stood there with one on either side of him, bowing to the audience and waiting for the applause to cease. A mail of middle height, splendidly built, with a head like a Greek god's round which waves of fair hair clustered thickly. Eyes bright and keen ; complexion, fresh and clear, of -one in perfect physical condition ; muscles like cords of silk, and a carriage that betokened self-reliance, indomitable will, and a quality akin to the savagery of the King of Beasts himself when roused. There were<~five different " tricks " to be performed before the sixth and last that included Mattea, and Roland, mas tering his sensations with a violent effort, set himself to watch both lions and lion-tamer closely, in order to gain a proper appreciation of the exact risk attending this manifestation. The lions were, he had ascertained, all urfder six years of age ; and had been, , with the exception of Sipido, who was comparatively a new-comer, under Herr Werthaus's guidance from cubhodd. With their sixth year a certain element of resistance, and untamed wildness iavari,ably began to show itself, and in most cases it was necessary to withdraw them after the completion of it from 'the arena, and allow them to retire into the more private life of menageries or zoological gardens. Sipido, who was five years old when he came into the tamer's hand, was already showing signs of restlessness, and defiance, and this was to be his last season of starring as a tnck performer Several times during the first displays, Roland noticed that he was not as amenable as the others, loitering .when his turn came, crouching with a furtive lash of his tail and a muttered growl when the tamer's eye warned him to hurry, even going so far once as to grip the threatening whip between* his teeth and snarlingly worry.it until, with a lightning whirl, Herr Werthaus released it and brought it heavily down on him, when Sipido leapt with a furious roar linto his appointed place. These little whims and caprices on his part were, as Roland could see, more or le*s disconcerting to his comrades, who, like boys at school, grew inattentive and a little out of hand, watching his byplay. Herr Werthaus, however, seemed in no wise disturbed ; and was absolutely devoid of fear or anxiety, carelessly dropping his whip once as he approached Sipido, and giving a box on the ears to the offender instead, which easy method of punishment was greeted with a shout of laughter and applause from the audience. At last came the moment for the grand finale. The lions, under direction, had ranged themselves in a double circular line and in the middle of this, walking as lightly and confidently as though she were dancing Sir Roger de Coverley, came Mattea, clad in white and gold draperies that were clasped in Greek fashion with jewels on her shoulders and fell thence to her feet, with her cloud of dark hair hanging loose, except where a sparkling fillet bound it on ncr brows. For an instant, as she came smiling towards him, the vision of her faded before Roland, and he sat blind and deaf and dumb, every pulse in his body beating .like a sledge-hammer ; then, as his sight cleared and he lpoked steadfastly at her, he saw her take Herr Werthaus's hand, and bowing three times, spring lightly on the back of Caesar crouching to receive her, and wreathe her fingers in his mane. Sipido, with down-drooped head and snllen eye, then crouched, and in response to a crack of the whip opened his huge mouth so that the tip 6f her foot could rest on it. There was an instant's pause, of intense strained silence, while Herr Werthaus, facing Mattea and the whole of his troop round her, kept them quelled with eye and uplifted whip ; then quite quietly and still immovable he called Sipido forward and made him lie at his feet, while Mattea jumping lightly down from her perilous seat, bowed, kissed her hands, and ran from the arena, disappearing down the passage-way, followed a moment after-

wards by all the lions with Herr Werthaus at their heels. The feat was over ; the girl who had taken her life into her hands to- please a multitude willing to pay for such a pleasure was spared to renew her performance yet another night ; and with a sigh of gratified excitement the audience were already giving their attention t<s a tramp cyclist in his funniest mood. Roland, feeling like one in a dream, rose, and went out, making his way to the stage-door with a tumult of mingled hope and despair in his heart. Would Mattea bo content to resign all this for his sake ; to exchange this life of brilliance—false, perhaps, but dazzling, for the humdrum existence he could offer her? Moderate means, he possessed, sufficient to keep her in comfort and ease ; but with her extraordinary beauty and force of character, what riches and position might she not attain toj He tortured himself with these questions while he waited for an answer as to whether he could see her, and when it came his disappointment was crushing. "Miss Serlone was feeling very tired and was unable to see any one that evening. She was going to drive straight home after resting for a little while." He had no choice but to acquiesce and give up the hope of seeing her that night. For a whole month each night brought a repetition to Roland of what he had gone through on that first evening. He was powerless to resist the temptation of going to see her at .the Palindrome ; he felb that he must be assured of her safety or his brain would give way with suspense. His love for her hid taken complete possession of him and grew all the stronger because of its increasing hopelessness. Mattea had continued her refusal to see him, and in answer to a letter in which he confessed his love and entreated her to give him some token of regard in return, she replied that she could not trust herself to see him. She was, she explained, at the turning point in her career. She found herself quite suddenly at the height of popularity and circus-fame, she was drawing a large salary, and she was bound by her agreement to appear as the LionQuesn until the end of the current season. • His words had stirred her so deeply, she confessed, that if she listened to them again she would probably yield to his entreaties, and throw up her engagement; and this, for many reasons, she did not wish to do. Ii when the season ended he still cared to see her, she would receive him gladly. There was just sufficient hope in her admission of his influence over her to encourage Roland and keep him from banishing all thought of her, if such a thing had been possible to him. He de- j termined to wait until the time came when she would see him, and meanwhile > he contented himself with sending her flowers every day. But he fiuffered terribly, and, indeed, had he known it, Mattea was suffering, too. Ine remembrance of his words, of his face — handsome, steadfast, impassioned — haunted her, and 'she felt in truth that if she, trusted herself to speak io him even once she would confess that she returned/ his love, and would consent to resign independence, fame, the exercise of this new, fascinating power of hers— all, in fact — for his sake. There was, in addition to this reluctance of her own, the opposition of another will to contend with, that ,6f Herr Werthaus. On the night when first she came, with other privileged visitors, to see his lions after their display, he had felt greatly attracted by her, and her fearlessness of his beasts won his admiration. The thought of a new "trick," which would demonstrate his skill and power still more, occurred to him, and he made it his business to lead her thoughts towards this, persuading her that she possessed an unusual influence over the lions, which, in reality, was only the result of her natural courage and of his own indirect assistance. Gradually he had learnt .to, love her with a passion as strong as Roland's, and he had set jiot only the whole of his heart, but the 'whole strength of his inflexible will to winning her for his wife. ' Keen-eyed as he was, he noticed *a change in her from the" night when Roland — whose determined face he singled out from the spectitors — was present at the show; and as the time went on and he found' that not- only was his influence over Mattea waning, but that her nerve was growing a little uncertain, he came to the conclusion that it was this man who had intervened between them. His temperament was as unscrupulous as it was strong. He found out who Roland ' was, and that in his capacity as lawyer he hau become acquainted with Mattea; he bribed the attendants to tell him of every occasion when Roland came to the Palmdrome, ascertaining in this way that never a night was missed. And he made up his mind that unless Mattea accepted him, the last night of the season should end everything irrevocably for all three of them. It was on the night before the closing one that he spoke at last openly to Mattea. ' "It is impissible, Herr Werthaus," she said, with more decision than she had ever shown before. "I am grateful to you for all you have taught me, and all you have done for me, but I do not love you — on the contrary, I am afraid of you — and I can never marry you." . "You shall marry no one else." "That is for me to decide." "Is it? I think you will find it is for me." His tone was overbearing and insolent" to the last degree; his rage had mastered him, and made him reveal his true character. She made no answer, and would have passed him and left the room, but he caught her arm and detained her. "Listen," he said. "I know who it is and all about him. You shall never marry Mr. Roland Mortlake, and he shall be punished for having ventured to love you." "How dare you speak of him to me, Herr Werthaus? I forbid you to mention his name again, or indeed, ever to renew this subject with me." Her beautiful pace was pale with anger, and her dark eyes full of scorn ; she swept away from him like an offended queen, ' and Herr Werthaus vowed an oath of vengeance ou both her and Roland. As the hours passed on, and the day dawned that was to herald her last appearance at the Palindrome, Mattea experienced a strange new sinking at her heart; a leaden weight of apprehension and helplessness that she could nqt shake off, and that deepened with every moment that brought her nearer to the time of her final triumph. She was to have a tremendous ovation they told her when she reached her dress-ing-room ; bouquets were waiting for her already, others were to bo thrown to her when she came back in response to her "call" after the lions had gone and the cage had disappeared.

She wondered uneasily if Roland would be there, and whether the exquisite posy of white roses and forget-me-nots was from him, and what its message was. She strove to reassure herself, to,believe that Herr Werthaus's threats were all empty ones which he would have neither the courage nor the means to carr yout. Her hands shook as she bound the fillet round her hair, and for a moment, when she started to walk to the arena, her limbs failed her and she turned faint. But there was no time for giving way ; the call-boy was shouting her name, the audience were waiting — she pulled herself together and hurried on. As she tripped along between the wall of lions on either side, smiling mechanically from custom, hei mind was busying itself with Herr Werthaus's threat, and her eyes were roving all ov.er the theatre to discover if Roland was there watching her. If she could but see his face — read in it that he had not forgotten her nor given her up, and that this ordeal before her might be, if she willed; her last, she felt that it would give her strength to get through her task. There was no sign of him. Yet he was there, close to her, but. disguised purposely, for it had seemed to him lately that her nerve faltered, and he was afraid that his own anxiety ou_ her behalf was communicating itself to' her. * An uneasy sense of impending danger oppressed him, too; and sq strong had it been that after leaving his ( chambers he had returned, unlocked a case containing a pair of revolvers, taken out one, loaded it, and put it in the pocket of his ulster. He had been watching Herr Werthaus too intently night after night not to have arrived at the conclusion that the man was his rival, and in addition to a vague unformed fear about the tamer's jealousy, he had bepn growing more and more alarmed at Sipido's increasing disobedience and bad temper. So, while Mattea's eyes searched eagerly for him, he was looking into her face at a distance of a few yards, ond reading in its pallnr 'and the twitching of her lips that something unusual had shaken her out of- the gay insouciance that used to be hers at first. The tricks that had gone before had been less satisfactory than usual; Sipido had doggedly refused twice to do his part, and the tamer evidently distrusted him, for he had more than once deliberately ignored this obstinacy and let ifc go unpunished. Indeed, it had seemed to Roland, watching every sign and sound, that Herr Werthaus was allowing the beast to have his own way of set purpose, and that Sipido understood it and was taking advantage of this new treatment. As Mattea, holding the tamer's hand, made her usual circuit, Roland could see i that Herr Worthaus was addressiug her rapidly, but he could not of course hear what was said. The words were these : "You have chosen to slight and to refuse me ; yoar death is on your ow m head. Sipido is out of hajid. I have purposely allowed him to be so. When you put your foot in his mouth he will spring on you and rend you limb from limb. My life is in the balance, too; but there* is just a chance for me — for you, none. Good-bye, Mattea! your hour has come." ' The deadly phrases burnt into Mattea's mmd like ikunes of fire; a red mist .seemed to close round her and wall her in; she swayed for an instant, and then sank on to her knees, her hands uuplifted in wild and speechless appeal. To the majority of the spectators', unaware of any alteration, this seemed'to be merely part of the performance; they imagined that she was feigning, in dumb show, reluctance to show her power over these wild subjects of hers. But to Roland, whose eager eyes read the terror in her face, and the madness of rage- convulsing the features of Herr Werthaus, the awful certainty came like a bolt from the blue that the danger he feared for her was real and imminent. He graspad his. revolver and drew it staalthily Irom his pocket, no one heeding him, since all eyes were bent, upon the scene inside the cage. As the tamer, lifting Mattea from her knees carried her to where Coesar crouched iv his appointed place, Sipido creeping after him, seemed to be making ready to spring upon them. There was air instant's pause, then Ilerr Werlhaus turned, looked at Sipido, who halted irresolute, and instead of quelling him with voice, and eye, and whip, stepped aside and made a gesture towards Mattea with a low sibilant sound of encouragement to Sipido: The great beast gathered his limbs toge.ther for. a leap — a wave, of sudden reali-sation-and terror running through the assembly — and a woman's anguished cry clove the v spell-bound stillness. Roland, a, supreme coolness and calm poisecsing him now that the crisis had come, rose, took steady aim at Sipido's uead, and — fired. Then, while a dozon eagor hands were stretched ou,t to grasp him, he sprang on to the broad rim enclo.Mng the edge of the arena, and ran round to the passage way. "Open the gates,'' he shouted in command to the attendant, "and let the lions paf-s out ; it is the only chance. I will drive them from the other side with shots." ' < Tho tumult and noise were indescribable ; the roaring of the maddened beasts mingling with tho shrieks and sobs and clamours for help of the crowd. The manager and some of his men had rushed in with long batons, at the end of which were electric globes, and these they thrust through the bars of the cage, the lions flying before them towards the passage-way until the cage was empty except for three still forms lying in the centre. , Sipido, leaping at the very instant of death, had fallen sideways on the tamer, who lay senseless under him, while a few paces off Mattea, flung op to her face, her white draperies trampled and torn, was either unconscious or — dead. "Who are you?" snid the manager, roughly, as Rolaud hurried with him and two doctors who hod volunteered their services, into the cage. "The man who killed Sipido," answered Roland quietly. "I saw the whole thing. I can tell you how it happened, afterwards." And then, with reverent care, he helped to lift Mattea and carry her to her room. * # i # •*. The awful scene at the Palindrome, a harvest of horror for the press, and a subject for many emphatic "leaders'' in the papere, and realistic illustrations in the weeklies, lasted as a wonder for the full proverbial nine days ; anct yet, as public protest and interest waucd, Mattea still hung between life and death in a torpor of mind and body that was more dangerous to both than any delirium of fever. Roland's action in shooting Sipido had been open to the gravest misconception, many people condemning him as the cause of the whole catastrophe, and there was unfortunately no one to corroborate his statement of the facts as long as Mattea's was unable to do so. [ He had been brought up before a I Magistrate, charged with creating a pub-

he disturbance, and also with wilfully killing a lion, the property of Herr Werthaus, and bound over to keep the peace and to appear agam when culled upon. But he cared nothing for all this; his one thought was Mattea, and that if H hc died or lost her reason, life would be over for him. There came a day at last when the doctors said that she must be roused at any cost, and advised that Roland should be admitted to see her, and should endeavour to awaken her sleeping memory. Me took with him' a bunch of white roses and forget-me-nots— for when he lifted her on that awful night he had noticed that some of his flowers were clasped by the jewelled buckle of her drc-s— and as he knelt at her side and held them out to her, a flicker of recognition came into the vacant stare of her eyes. "Mattea," he said softly, and iakinjr her arms, he put them round his neck, "I am Roland, who loves you— and I have come to take you away to happiness and safety. Will you trust yourself to me, sweetheart." A little shudder of terror shook her wasted figure and rippled over her face, "lovely still, but unearthly in its fixed and lifeless beauty. "Do you remember that night," he continued, "when you wore my floweis and looked for me. I was there — close to you, Maltea; witching over you." In the startled gaze of her eyes, and the trembling of her hands, he learnt that she was beginning to recall what had happened at the Palindrome, and he clasped her to him more closely. "Don't be frightened, darling," he said; "don't think of anything that distresses yod. Let me take care of you always.' 1 And with a sob and a passionate cry of his name she laid her head down ou his shoulder and clung to lv'm s "That is all right," said the doctor, later, "she will do now. It was a dangerous experiment, but it has succeeded, 'ihe sooner your marriage can be arranged and you can take her away for a tour abroad, the better. New scenes and thoughts will restore her. Do not tell her about Herr Werthaus until she is quite -strong."* And so it was not until many months had passed and Mattea's old existence seemed like a dim dream from which she had awakened to life and love, that Roland one day told her the sequel to that scene of horror. "Herr Werthaus has expiated his crime," he said. "His reason is completely gone. He must have been on the verge of madness that night, and ths shock of his injuries sent him' over the border."