The Double Chance.

Waipa Post, Volume VIII, Issue 370, 27 November 1914, Page 3

The Double Chance.

^ — BY J. S. FLETCHER, Author of " The Golden Hope," &c.

(Published by Special Arrangement.) CHATEJiP XXV.

Ever since he had set eyes on them Dogger Tandy had been sorely exercised in mind about the diamonds which he had found Marshall Stead gloating over. Like most people who do not know much about such matters and who have heard stories about them which bordered on the miraculous, he began to attach an enormous value to them. He had read about diamonds in the newspapers, he had dim and vague ideas that he had heard it said that the King or the Queen, he was not sure which, had diamonds which were worth millions. The more hethought of those which he had seen Stead, handling, the more valuable they seemed to become. Certainly, he said to himself, he would have his share out of them, and a handsome share, too. He would give up all work- of course. He would go away from Mannersley' and .his illfavored wife. He would buy himself a nice house somewhere outside a big town, and he would keep a dogcart and a good horse, and have greyhounds; he would smoke large cigars and drink whisky all day long, and be a gentleman. He had as much right to, at any rate, half the diamonds as Stead had. Yes, of course, it w,as only right that he should have his proper and lawful share. . .

While he was thus arguing within himself there suddenly came into Dogger Tandy's mind a new idea, which made him first feel very hot, and then very cold, and then very hot again. He faced that idea boldly, and took a fresh quid of tobacco, whereon to ruminate over it. It seemed such a grand idea. Why should he not have the diamonds' for himself? Not a quarter noY half of them, but all—all?

When the newness of this idea, its unaccustomedness, had worn olf, Dogger Tandy had become so enamoured of it, so familiar with it, that he wondered he had not thought of it before—thought of it at once. Why, the diamonds were as good as his own already ! If he chose to put out his hand for them, who was going to stop him from taking them? Certainlv not Stead. He laughed at the thought. He could break Stead in two with one hand. Besides, what right had Stead to retain property which wasn't his? Dogger Tandy's creed was a simple ana well-known one, aid very familiar to a lot of people, supposedly his superiors in station, education, and ability. It was simply that

"Those should take who have the power, And they should keep who can."

Dogger 'tandy knew himself in the position to take; if Stead could manage to keep, let him. But he wasn't. Dogger Tandy. laughed to himself. Stead was as safe as a rat in a trap. He could not get out of tne hole underground without his (Tandy's) aid. Therefore Stead did not count. He was in the position of the small boy who has sixpence and is defenceless before the big boy who means to have that sixpence. Of course, he had no intention of murdering Stead for the sake of the diamonds. No—but, equally, of course, if Stead would not- hand them over he would make him. He might have to hurt him—-well, that would be his own fault. Dogger Tandy was not by any means a sentimentalist, and had no intention of sticking at trifles. And so, as Stead, panic-stricken with fear because he knew that Tandy knew, and nerve-shaken by his days and nights twelve hundred feet beneath the surface, was creeping along the gallaries to evade Tandy —Tandy was advancing to meet him. When they met the struggle was short and sharp. The miner nearly shook the life out of the escaping fugitive, and dragging him back to his place of hiding, flung him, bruised and breathless, on his bed of sacking, and administered a sound kick to him, which made him groan with fear as much as with pain. "So that's how you would treat me, you white-livered cur, you!" said Dogger Tandy, towering over his captive with lifted fist. "Break out without paying up, would you? We'll see about that, my lad. Hand over those shiners, d'ye hear, else I'll make you as you'll never see daylight again ! Quick now !" "I promised you should have your share," answered Stead, sobbing with rage and pain. "They're no use to either of us until I'm out of this; you can't do anything with them." •Can't I?" said Tandy. "Happen I don't know a chap as can, neither? Oh, no! Hand 'em over, I say! v

"They'd have you as soon as ever you tried to deal with them!'' cried Stead. "The description's out—it .was in all those papers you left." Tandy's sole reply to this was a savage kick, which landed in Stead's ribs and knocked the breath out of him for a moment. Me rolled over gobbing and groaning, and the miner, clutching him by the collar gnd lifting him as easily as if he had

been an infant, dumped him info the chair with one hand, and smote the table with the other.

"Out with 'em!" he said, with a terrible oath. "Flank 'em down, ■very man jack of 'em ! Keep a single jne back, and I'll smash every bone ai your body!"

More dead than alive from fright and agony Stead drew a canvas bag from some secret receptacle in his clothing, and laid it on the table. Watching him fixedly, the miner .slowly untied the string 1 the string which fastened the bag, and shook the glittering gems out on the tabic. Then, remembering that he himself had been searched by the police on more than one occasion, he lifted Stead up with one hand and went through him with the other in quite professional style, discovering nothing, however, but another bag in which money jingled. This, too, he. threw on the table besides the diamonds. After which, with another hearty kick, he flung Stead on the sacking again and shook his fist at him.

"What's the use of golden sovereigns and diamonds to you down here?" he snarled. /'You can't buy wittlcs with 'em, nor yet a drop of liquor, nor yet a bit o' 'bacca. Aren't you dependent on me for your bite and sup, you ungratefuldog? Who's a-keeping of you safe from the hangman, you scoundrel? I'll learn you to treat me uncivil. You shall have a spell o' starvation and darkness, my beauty, till you know your master, and then happen I'll do something for you, d'ye sec?"

He had restored the diamonds to their bag as he spoke, and now, transferring both bags to his pocket, he picked up the lamp, and with a fierce scowl and a shake of his fist, turned to leave Stead alone in darkness. It was at this point that Stead's sanity gave way. With a howl which was more like that of a desperate brute than a man he made one bound at the miner, and, fastening on his throat with tearing and gripping fingers, bore him to the ground, and, screaming in his madness, strove to squeeze the life out of him. Tandy, surprised by the suddenness of the attack, fell against the wall; the safety lamp slipped out of his hand,'and rolling away on the floor was suddenly extinguished. He recognised, with a curious alertness of mind, that he was engaged in a death-like struggle with a madman whom despair and fear had endowed with superhuman strength, and that he would need all his own resource and energy to combat it. Already he felt the blood bursting in the veins in his head from the fierceness of Stead's grip on his throat, already he felt his breath coming in shorter gasps. The grip was like that of a giant; in a short time it would be—ah!

Dogger Tandy was quick to think in ways of violence. He had long, powerful, muscular arms, and hands as strong as an ape's. Finding he could not tear Stead's grip away from his throat, he got one hand at the back of his opponent's head, the other firmly under his chin. Then he braced himself for the effort, and with the force of a machine jerked the other man's head upwards and backwards until he heard the spine crack and felt a convulsive tremor run through the body, the grip on his own throat relax and become as eeble as a child's. He shook the body off, and rose trembling, to his feet, in the darkness.

"He would have it, curse him!" he muttered to himself. "I wouldn't ha' finished him if it hadn't been that he'd ha' finished me —I'm most strangled as it is. Curse that lamp —I shall have to find my way out now in the darkness."

Feeling for the table, he leant against it for a minute or two to recover his breath. Then he began to feel about in the hope of discovering the tin bottle in which he had brought drink to Stead during his captivity. He found it at last and shook it eagerly; there was nothing in it.

Dogger Tandy threw the empty bottle away with another oath, and shook himself together. He stumbled forward a step or two, and bending down felt for Stead's body; then, undoing the clothing, placed his hand on the heart.

"He's a goner," he muttered, rising up. "A goner, right enough. Well, serve him right—he shouldn't ha' tried to throttle me, curse him! Well, let's be clearing out."' Mechanically, he thrust his hand into the pocket of his rough jacket to feel if his prize was safe. Another curse broke from him—the diamonds were gone. "Can't be far away," he said. "Must ha' slipped out when he flew at me."

Dogger Tandy got down on his hands and knees and began to feel about the floor. He-knew that he and the dead man had rolled hither and thither in the struggle, but, after all, the area was circumscribed, and the bag must be close at hand, And yet, feel about as he would in the soft coal dust-strewn surface, he could not lay his hands on what lie sought. He began to swear beneath his breath, for he was beginning to realise two things in no very unpleasant fashion —first, that he was alone with a dead man, whose life he had taken, and second, that the impenetrable blackness was beginning to weigh heavily upon him, and that his nerves

were getting unstrung- • lie scare,i ed with his fingers more eagerrthan ever, but the diamonds eluded him. - - ■

Then 'Dogger Tandy suddenly re membered something. He remembered thai in his pocket there were some' matches—three matches. Now it Was' a very terrible thing to be in possession of matches in the workings' of Mannersley Main Colliery, and Dogger Tandy had no business" tb have those matches on his person. But he had these, and he knew where—they were in a'hole ill the'lining of the waistcoat ' pocket, and were all that remained of a small stock which he had kept there. And in his eagerness to find the bag containing the diamonds he felt for them and drew one out. Standing.up. in the darkness he ruminated.

"I never heard of no. gas in these here, workings," he said. "Anyway., I'm gomg to chance. it—l can't stop here for ever a-feeling about, as- if I was a-playing blind man's buff.": -

And he struck".the match on the sole of his boot' and, carefully shielding the tiaras, with the other hand, bent • down and looked quickly \i about him.

The little wash-leather bag lay close at hand-—just by Marshall Stead's shoulder. He made a snatch and secured it, but not without seeing the dead man's wideopen eyes, now glazed and staring and terrible. • •■•

The flame of the match died out. Xow the darkness seemed ten thousand times more dense and impenetrable than ever, and Dogger 1 andy began to sweat with fear of it, and of those staring, eyes and that rigid form. I-feTclt "his way out of the disused office, and -into the gallery, and made off as fast as he could towards the new workings.

But the..blackness and silence, and the thought of-what he had left behind, were upon him. He knew little of Where he was going, for he had ncy'er visited that -part of the mine .without a lamp, and before he had gone, far-he realised that he.was not going' in the right direction.;- It; seemed' to,him that he had taken some:wrong turning, and he stopped, feeling- at the walls on either: side. The walls told him nothing,.-and he grew desperate. He hesitated, and h.s fingers sought the hole in his waistcoat pocket.

Dogger Tandy struck- the second .jnatch..'He bent down, and examined the black dust at his feet. Yes, there were his. own footprints—many of them. He was all right. The flame died as he .pressed for-ward-again . He- went on, feeling the walls,: now this side, now the other. . Suddenly- he ran into a projection that seemed to be in the very middle-of the.gallery which he was traversing. Dogger Tandy could not remember that projection. Where was it? What was it doing there? Perhaps the gallery divided there, one fork going to the left, the other to the' right. At any. rate, he must see. ' He was emboldened now, and his fingers _ went again to the hole in the waistcoat pocket. He' drew but the last match and lit it.

A sudden blinding, dazzling flash, a great roar as of the letting loose of eternal'thunders, a heavy blow as of worlds falling upon him, and darkness never to be lifted. (To be Continued.)—D.C. 23.