THAT EPISODE

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 12, 1 September 1900, Page 907

THAT EPISODE

By C. Brash,.

JjfT was not a badly-assorted ship's pai-ty, fl and the weather was perfect. f=* # # * * # The Inquisitive Lady broke the silence that had been observed by saying that it would not be a bad idea to tell the thrilling episodes of our various careers. " You must all have had carious experiences," she gushed. " Life, for my part," ejaculated the young Irrepressible, " is mostly comprised of girls' letters and unpaid tailor's bills." "Bah! young fellow," said the Morose Man, " wait until you have made a fortune during ten laborious years of hardship, and squandered it during ten months of maniacal folly!" " Oh, do tell us," interrupted the Inquisitive Lady. " Sorry to disoblige you, Mann," growled the Morose Man, and silence once more reigned supreme. " My friends," said the gentleman whom we had christened the " Silent Member," " I'll tell you an episode in my life." He was a very silent man, and in consequence of his taciturnity was eagerly listened to. You always find that those who speak

Illustrated hj Herbert Mtzharlwrf.

little are rewarded ■by the consideration accorded to their most trival utterances. "I'll tell you an episode in my life," continued the Silent Member, " tho remembrance of which, even now, in after years, makes me shudder ! "I was only a young fellow at the time, five and twenty years of age, bubbling over with that intensity of youth which makes one yearn for fires in order to be there to make heroical rescues, and to long for dark streets in which to succour lovely females in distress. In those days I way employed at Messrs. — say Brown and Jones, the diamond merchants, and whether I looked honest or not, I don't know, but they trusted me. " I had on this occasion been on a mission conveying a large parcel of diamonds to my employer's offices. How well the very streets that I passed through come back to me!" " I know it is going to be something thrilling," said the Inquisitive Lady, " I can feel it " " Change in the weather, Mann," murmured the Morose Man. " I always get like that, sorter loosening of the bones." The Silent Man had sunk into a reverie, but was persuaded to continue his narrative.

"Yes," said he, "I remember those streets. I did not see that any especial danger attached to the carrying of the precious stones, for no one knew that I had them except the dealer from whom they were being returned, and I was wending my way along leisurely enough when, on turning into a side lane to shorten my journey, I heard distinct sounds of a woman's voice crying for help. "I looked where jthe sounds seemed to

come from, and following the direction, presently opened a high gate and came into a dirty courtyard at the back of a most forbidding tenement. I had hardly glanced around me when I "was felled to the ground by a blow on the' back of the head, a blow which seemed to have a strange benumbing power, for I tried to raise my voice and could not utter a sound. "I could see perfectly what was going on, but my whole frame seemed paralysed, and when the author of the blow came before

me, and stooping down called to his mate to just ran through tliis lot to see if there was any blunt about, I could only gaze at him with eyes which must have been fixed in their sockets. " They were tie most villainous-looking pair that it is possible to conceive : one, the short one who spoke, and who was now busily engaged in roughly searching my pockets, was a stout, thick-set man with a cast in one eye, a brutal chin, a receding

forehead, and a head with such close-cropped hair that it betokened recent residence at Her Majesty's Government's expense. The other was an oilier, more polite and gentlemanly villain, and had I been capable, I would have shuddered at the silky expressiveness of his voice. Of course they presently came to the diamonds. '"Hullo, Jerry, what about this? If I don't think that these sparklers are worth a trfle Gawd 'elp us, the young uns

about dead,' and very much like a corpse I must have looked. " ' Feel him, Jerry,' continued the ruffian. " 'Feel him, William,' retorted the other, ' feel him ; get through with him, turn him out, and we'll soon bury the corpse if it is

one,' and he accompanied| Ithesej, Ibrutal words with a most hideous smile. " Oh, the horror of the insensibility which seemed to pervade my frame! I knew all that was going on, but movement of any kind I was unable to make, I tried to call

out — how I tried ! My whole being was stricken with catalepsy. " ' Wot 'ull we do, Jerry, as you 'avo the 'ed ?' said William, after ransacking my clothes. ' What 'nil wo do ? he's dead and no error.'

'"How nardj] is the ground hero, Sweet William ?' said he other. 'We shall have a little funeral all to ourselves ; thore is no one overlooking us, flowers respectfully declined !' " 'Oh, Gawd, Jerry, you are dcvil — is "c dead V

..••'..Dead, fo.ol, dead! Look at him! Go into the house, get a spade and a sheet and we'll cramp him up in the sheet, easier to bury.' "My friends," said the Silent Man, pausing, "the very remembrance of those moments of horror causes the perspiration to break out on my brow !" " Oh, how dreadful, please stop !" cried the Inquisitive Lady, putting her hands to her ears. " Go on, go on," said Irrepressible. "Well," continued the Silent Member, " the cloth was brought, and I was trussed up in it, with my hands and feet squeezed up so as to make my body go into the smallest possible compass, and all the while the brutal William was digging in the earth of the courtyard. " I could hear the thud, thud of the spade and the smothered cursing of the man, and still my tongue seemed glued to the roof of my mouth. To attract the attention of the gentleman villain, who was looking carelessly at me, I tried to move my eyes, for my head was not covered, but my gaze was fixed. The blood-curdling intensity of the horror that I experienced was awful in the extreme, but can you imagine a more hideous feeling

than that of knowing that you are' about to be buried alive? Well, they put me into the hole, dug, pounded the earth down upon me, and buried me." " Buried you !" was echoed on all sides. "Yes, buried me," continued the Silent Member. " They buried me as if I had been in a cemetery. The grave took ages to dig — ages that streaked ray hair with gray." " But, but," interrupted another listener, " how did you get here ?" " Oh, yes, how did you escape ?" cried everybody. "Escape," replied the Silent Man, " there was no escape. I woke just then, but the reality of that nightmare " At this stage the remarks of the listeners prevented further narrative, and the Inquisitive Lady was heard to say, "I am so disappointed !" Not that it is to be believed that she really regretted the Silent Member's escape from entombment. "Applause," added the Silent Member, hastily, as the clamour somewhat subsided, " effects me. "I have been slightly nervous always!" and with a wink to the Morose Man, he departed, saying that he would take a stroll on deck.