Author: Arthur Machen
Category: Fiction
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/arthur-machen/page,4,9460-the_three_impostors;_or,_the_transmutations.html
NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY.
I am the son of a poor but learned clergyman in the West ofEngland,--but I am forgetting, these details are not of specialinterest. I will briefly state, then, that my father, who was, as Ihave said, a learned man, had never learnt the specious arts by whichthe great are flattered, and would never condescend to the despicablepursuit of self-advertisement. Though his fondness for ancientceremonies and quaint customs, combined with a kindness of heart thatwas unequalled and a primitive and fervent piety, endeared him to hismoor-land parishioners, such were not the steps by which clergy thenrose in the Church, and at sixty my father was still incumbent of thelittle benefice he had accepted in his thirtieth year. The income of theliving was barely sufficient to support life in the decencies which areexpected of the Anglican parson; and when my father died a few yearsago, I, his only child, found myself thrown upon the world with aslender capital of less than a hundred pounds, and all the problem ofexistence before me. I felt that there was nothing for me to do in thecountry, and as usually happens in such eases, London drew me like amagnet. One day in August, in the early morning, while the dew stillglittered on the turf, and on the high green banks of the lane, aneighbor drove me to the railway station, and I bade good-bye to theland of the broad moors and unearthly battlements of the wild tors. Itwas six o'clock as we neared London; the faint sickly fume of thebrickfields about Acton came in puffs through the open window, and amist was rising from the ground. Presently the brief view of successivestreets, prim and uniform, struck me with a sense of monotony; the hotair seemed to grow hotter; and when we had rolled beneath the dismal andsqualid houses, whose dirty and neglected back yards border the linenear Paddington, I felt as if I should be stifled in this faintingbreath of London. I got a hansom and drove off, and every streetincreased my gloom; gray houses with blinds drawn down, wholethoroughfares almost desolate, and the foot-passengers who seemed tostagger wearily along rather than walk, all made me feel a sinking atheart. I put up for the night at a small hotel in a street leading fromthe Strand, where my father had stayed on his few brief visits to town;and when I went out after dinner, the real gayety and bustle of theStrand and Fleet Street could cheer me but little, for in all this greatcity there was no single human being whom I could claim even as anacquaintance. I will not weary you with the history of the next year,for the adventures of a man who sinks are too trite to be worthrecalling. My money did not last me long; I found that I must be neatlydressed, or no one to whom I applied would so much as listen to me; andI must live in a street of decent reputation if I wished to be treatedwith common civility. I applied for various posts, for which, as I nowsee, I was completely devoid of qualification; I tried to become a clerkwithout having the smallest notion of business habits, and I found, tomy cost, that a general knowledge of literature and an execrable styleof penmanship are far from being looked upon with favor in commercialcircles. I had read one of the most charming of the works of a famousnovelist of the present day, and I frequented the Fleet Street tavernsin the hope of making literary friends, and so getting theintroductions which I understood were indispensable in the career ofletters. I was disappointed; I once or twice ventured to addressgentlemen who were sitting in adjoining boxes, and I was answered,politely indeed, but in a manner that told me my advances were unusual.Pound by pound, my small resources melted; I could no longer think ofappearances; I migrated to a shy quarter, and my meals became mereobservances. I went out at one and returned to my room at two, butnothing but a milk-cake had occurred in the interval. In short, I becameacquainted with misfortune; and as I sat amidst slush and ice on a seatin Hyde Park, munching a piece of bread, I realized the bitterness ofpoverty, and the feelings of a gentleman reduced to something far belowthe condition of a vagrant. In spite of all discouragement I did notdesist in my efforts to earn a living. I consulted advertisementcolumns, I kept my eyes open for a chance, I looked in at the windows ofstationers' shops, but all in vain. One evening I was sitting in a FreeLibrary, and I saw an advertisement in one of the papers. It wassomething like this: "Wanted, by a gentleman a person of literary tasteand abilities as secretary and amanuensis. Must not object to travel."Of course I knew that such an advertisement would have answers by thehundred, and I thought my own chances of securing the post extremelysmall; however, I applied at the address given, and wrote to Mr. Smith,who was staying at a large hotel at the West End. I must confess that myheart gave a jump when I received a note a couple of days later, askingme to call at the Cosmopole at my earliest convenience. I do not know,sir, what your experiences of life may have been, and so I cannot tellwhether you have known such moments. A slight sickness, my heart beatingrather more rapidly than usual, a choking in the throat, and adifficulty of utterance; such were my sensations as I walked to theCosmopole. I had to mention the name twice before the hall porter couldunderstand me, and as I went upstairs my hands were wet. I was a gooddeal struck by Mr. Smith's appearance; he looked younger than I did, andthere was something mild and hesitating about his expression. He wasreading when I came in, and he looked up when I gave my name. "My dearsir," he said, "I am really delighted to see you. I have read verycarefully the letter you were good enough to send me. Am I to understandthat this document is in your own handwriting?" He showed me the letterI had written, and I told him I was not so fortunate as to be able tokeep a secretary myself. "Then, sir," he went on, "the post I advertisedis at your service. You have no objection to travel, I presume?" As youmay imagine, I closed pretty eagerly with the offer he made, and thus Ientered the service of Mr. Smith. For the first few weeks I had nospecial duties; I had received a quarter's salary, and a handsomeallowance was made me in lieu of board and lodging. One morning,however, when I called at the hotel according to instructions, my masterinformed me that I must hold myself in readiness for a sea-voyage, and,to spare unnecessary detail, in the course of a fortnight we had landedat New York. Mr. Smith told me that he was engaged on a work of aspecial nature, in the compilation of which some peculiar researches hadto be made; in short, I was given to understand that we were to travelto the far West.
After about a week had been spent in New York we took our seats in thecars, and began a journey tedious beyond all conception. Day after day,and night after night, the great train rolled on, threading its waythrough cities the very names of which were strange to me, passing atslow speed over perilous viaducts, skirting mountain ranges and pineforests, and plunging into dense tracts of wood, where mile after mileand hour after hour the same monotonous growth of brushwood met the eye,and all along the continual clatter and rattle of the wheels upon theill-laid lines made it difficult to hear the voices of ourfellow-passengers. We were a heterogeneous and ever-changing company;often I woke up in the dead of night with the sudden grinding jar of thebrakes, and looking out found that we had stopped in the shabby streetof some frame-built town, lighted chiefly by the flaring windows of thesaloon. A few rough-looking fellows would often come out to stare at thecars, and sometimes passengers got down, and sometimes there was a partyof two or three waiting on the wooden sidewalk to get on board. Many ofthe passengers were English; humble households torn up from the mooringsof a thousand years, and bound for some problematical paradise in thealkali desert or the Rockies. I heard the men talking to one another ofthe great profits to be made on the virgin soil of America, and two orthree, who were mechanics, expatiated on the wonderful wages given toskilled labor on the railways and in the factories of the States. Thistalk usually fell dead after a few minutes, and I could see a sicknessand dismay in the faces of these men as they looked at the ugly brush orat the desolate expanse of the prairie, dotted here and there withframe-houses, devoid of garden, or flowers or trees, standing all alonein what might have been a great gray sea frozen into stillness. Dayafter day the waving sky line, and the desolation of a land without formor color or variety, appalled the hearts of such of us as wereEnglishmen, and once in the night as I lay awake I heard a woman weepingand sobbing, and asking what she
had done to come to such a place. Herhusband tried to comfort her in the broad speech of Gloucestershire,telling her the ground was so rich that one had only to plough it up andit would grow sunflowers of itself, but she cried for her mother andtheir old cottage and the beehives, like a little child. The sadness ofit all overwhelmed me, and I had no heart to think of other matters; thequestion of what Mr. Smith could have to do in such a country, and ofwhat manner of literary research could be carried on in the wilderness,hardly troubled me. Now and again my situation struck me as peculiar; Ihad been engaged as a literary assistant at a handsome salary, and yetmy master was still almost a stranger to me; sometimes he would come towhere I was sitting in the cars and make a few banal remarks about thecountry, but for the most part of the journey he sat by himself, notspeaking to any one, and so far as I could judge, deep in his thoughts.It was I think on the fifth day from New York when I received, theintimation that we should shortly leave the cars; I had been watchingsome distant mountains which rose wild and savage before us, and I waswondering if there were human beings so unhappy as to speak of home inconnection with those piles of lumbered rock, when Mr. Smith touched melightly on the shoulder. "You will be glad to be done with, the cars, Ihave no doubt, Mr. Wilkins," he said. "You were looking at themountains, I think? Well, I hope we shall be there to-night. The trainstops at Reading, and I dare say we shall manage to find our way."
A few hours later the brakeman brought the tram to a standstill at theReading depot and we got out. I noticed that the town, though of coursebuilt almost entirely of frame-houses, was larger and busier than any wehad passed for the last two days. The depot was crowded, and as the belland whistle sounded, I saw that a number of persons were preparing toleave the cars, while an even greater number were waiting to get onboard. Besides the passengers, there was a pretty dense crowd of people,some of whom had come to meet or to see off their friends and relatives,while others were mere loafers. Several of our English fellow passengersgot down at Reading, but the confusion was so great that they were lostto my sight almost immediately. Mr. Smith beckoned to me to follow him,and we were soon in the thick of the mass; and the continual ringing ofbells, the hubbub of voices, the shrieking of whistles, and the hiss ofescaping steam, confused my senses, and I wondered dimly as I struggledafter my employer, where we were going, and how we should be able tofind our way through an unknown country. Mr. Smith had put on awide-brimmed hat, which he had sloped over his eyes, and as all the menwore hats of the same pattern, it was with some difficulty that Idistinguished him in the crowd. We got free at last, and he struck downa side street, and made one or two sharp turns to right and left. It wasgetting dusk, and we seemed to be passing through a shy portion of thetown, there were few people about in the ill-lighted streets, and thesefew were men of the most unprepossessing pattern. Suddenly we stoppedbefore a corner house, a man was standing at the door, apparently on thelook-out for some one, and I noticed that he and Smith gave sharpglances one to the other.
"From New York City, I expect, mister?"
"From New York!"
"All right; they 're ready, and you can have 'em when you choose. I knowmy orders, you see, and I mean to run this business through."
"Very well, Mr. Evans, that is what we want. Our money is good, youknow. Bring them round."
I had stood silent, listening to this dialogue, and wondering what itmeant. Smith began to walk impatiently up and down the street, and theman Evans was still standing at his door. He had given a sharp whistle,and I saw him looking me over in a quiet leisurely way, as if to makesure of my face for another time. I was thinking what all this couldmean, when an ugly, slouching lad came up a side passage, leading tworaw-boned horses.
"Get up, Mr. Wilkins, and be quick about it," said Smith. "We ought tobe on our way."
We rode off together into the gathering darkness, and before long Ilooked back and saw the far plain behind us, with the lights of the townglimmering faintly; and in front rose the mountains. Smith guided hishorse on the rough track as surely as if he had been riding alongPiccadilly, and I followed him as well as I could. I was weary andexhausted, and scarcely took note of anything; I felt that the track wasa gradual ascent, and here and there I saw great boulders by the road.The ride made but little impression on me; I have a faint recollectionof passing through a dense black pine forest, where our horses had topick their way among the rocks, and I remember the peculiar effect ofthe rarefied air as we kept still mounting higher and higher. I think Imust have been half asleep for the latter half of the ride, and it waswith a shock that I heard Smith saying--
"Here we are, Wilkins. This is Blue-Rock Park. You will enjoy the viewto-morrow. To-night we will have something to eat, and then go to bed."
A man came out of a rough-looking house and took the horses, and wefound some fried steak and coarse whiskey awaiting us inside. I had cometo a strange place. There were three rooms,--the room in which we hadsupper, Smith's room and my own. The deaf old man who did the work sleptin a sort of shed, and when I woke up the next morning and walked out Ifound that the house stood in a sort of hollow amongst the mountains;the clumps of pines and some enormous bluish-gray rocks that stood hereand there between the trees had given the place the name of Blue-RockPark. On every side the snow-covered mountains surrounded us, the breathof the air was as wine, and when I climbed the slope and looked down, Icould see that, so far as any human fellowship was concerned I might aswell have been wrecked on some small island in mid-Pacific. The onlytrace of man I could see was the rough log-house where I had slept, andin my ignorance I did not know that there were similar houses withincomparatively easy distance, as distance is reckoned in the Rockies. Butat the moment, the utter, dreadful loneliness rushed upon me, and thethought of the great plain and the great sea that parted me from theworld I knew, caught me by the throat, and I wondered if I should diethere in that mountain hollow. It was a terrible instant, and I have notyet forgotten it. Of course I managed to conquer my horror; I said Ishould be all the stronger for the experience, and I made up my mind tomake the best of everything. It was a rough life enough, and roughenough board and lodging. I was left entirely to myself. Smith Iscarcely ever saw, nor did I know when he was in the house. I have oftenthought he was far away, and have been surprised to see him walking outof his room, locking the door behind him and putting the key in hispocket; and on several occasions when I fancied he was busy in his room,I have seen him come in with his boots covered with dust and dirt. Sofar as work went I enjoyed a complete sinecure; I had nothing to do butto walk about the valley, to eat, and to sleep. With one thing andanother I grew accustomed, to the life, and managed to make myselfpretty comfortable, and by degrees I began to venture farther away fromthe house, and to explore the country. One day I had contrived to getinto a neighboring valley, and suddenly I came upon a group of mensawing timber. I went up to them, hoping that perhaps some of them mightbe Englishmen; at all events they were human beings, and I should heararticulate speech, for the old man I have mentioned, besides being halfblind and stone deaf, was wholly dumb so far as I was concerned. I wasprepared to be welcomed in a rough and ready fashion, without much, ofthe forms of politeness, but the grim glances and the short gruffanswers I received astonished me. I saw the men glancing oddly at eachother, and one of them who had stopped work began fingering a gun, and Iwas obliged to return on my path uttering curses on the fate which hadbrought me into a land where men were more brutish than the very brutes.The solitude of the life began to oppress me as with a nightmare, and afew days later I determined to walk to a kind of station some milesdistant, where a rough inn was kept for the accommodation of hunters andtourists. English gentlemen occasionally stopped there for the night,and I thought I might perhaps fall in with some one of better mannersthan the inhabitants of the country. I found as I had expected a groupof men lounging about the door of the log-house that served as a hotel,and as I came nearer I could see that heads were put together and looksinterchanged, and when I walked
up the six or seven trappers stared atme in stony ferocity, and with something of the disgust that one eyes aloathsome and venomous snake. I felt that I could bear it no longer, andI called out:--
"Is there such a thing as an Englishman here, or any one with a littlecivilization?"
One of the men put his hand to his belt, but his neighbor checked himand answered me.
"You'll find we've got some of the resources of civilization before verylong, mister, and I expect you'll not fancy them extremely. But anyway,there's an Englishman tarrying here, and I've no doubt he'll be glad tosee you. There you are, that's Mr. D'Aubernoun."
A young man, dressed like an English country squire, came and stood atthe door, and looked at me. One of the men pointed to me and said:--
"That's the individual we were talking about last night. Thought youmight like to have a look at him, squire, and here he is."
The young fellow's good-natured English face clouded over, and heglanced sternly at me, and turned away with a gesture of contempt andaversion.
"Sir," I cried, "I do not know what I have done to be treated in thismanner. You are my fellow-countryman, and I expected some courtesy."
He gave me a black look and made as if he would go in, but he changedhis mind, and faced me.
"You are rather imprudent, I think, to behave in this manner. You mustbe counting on a forbearance which cannot last very long; which may lasta very short time, indeed. And let me tell you this, sir, you may callyourself an Englishman and drag the name of England through the dirt,but you need not count on any English influence to help you. If I wereyou, I would not stay here much longer."
He went into the inn, and the men quietly watched my face, as I stoodthere, wondering whether I was going mad. The woman of the house cameout and stared at me as if I were a wild beast or a savage, and I turnedto her, and spoke quietly.
"I am very hungry and thirsty, I have walked a long way. I have plentyof money. Will you give me something to eat and drink?"
"No, I won't," she said. "You had better quit this."
I crawled home like a wounded beast, and lay down on my bed. It was alla hopeless puzzle to me. I knew nothing but rage and shame and terror,and I suffered little more when I passed by a house in an adjacentvalley, and some children who were playing outside ran from meshrieking. I was forced to walk to find some occupation. I should havedied if I had sat down quietly in Blue Rock Park and looked all day atthe mountains; but wherever I saw a human being I saw the same glance ofhatred and aversion, and once as I was crossing a thick brake I heard ashot, and the venomous hiss of a bullet close to my ear.
One day I heard a conversation which astounded me; I was sitting behinda rock resting, and two men came along the track and halted. One of themhad got his feet entangled in some wild vines, and swore fiercely, butthe other laughed, and said they were useful things sometimes.
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing much. But they 're uncommon tough, these here vines, andsometimes rope is skerse and dear."
The man who had sworn chuckled at this, and I heard them sit down andlight their pipes.
"Have you seen him lately?" asked the humorist.
"I sighted him the other day, but the darned bullet went high. He's gothis master's luck, I expect, sir, but it can't last much longer. Youheard about him going to Jinks's and trying his brass, but the youngBritisher downed him pretty considerable, I can tell you."
"What the devil is the meaning of it?"
"I don't know, but I believe it'll have to be finished, and done in theold style, too. You know how they fix the niggers?"
"Yes, sir, I've seen a little of that. A couple of gallons ofkerosene'll cost a dollar at Brown's store, but I should say it's cheapanyway."
They moved off after this, and I lay still behind the rock, the sweatpouring down my face. I was so sick that I could barely stand, and Iwalked home as slowly as an old man, leaning on my stick. I knew thatthe two men had been talking about me, and I knew that some terribledeath was in store for me. That night I could not sleep. I tossed on therough bed and tortured myself to find out the meaning of it all. At lastin the very dead of night I rose from the bed, and put on my clothes,and went out. I did not care where I went, but I felt that I must walktill I had tired myself out. It was a clear moonlight night, and in acouple of hours I found I was approaching a place of dismal reputationin the mountains, a deep cleft in the rocks, known as Black Gulf Canyon.Many years before, an unfortunate party of Englishmen and Englishwomenhad camped here and had been surrounded by Indians. They were captured,outraged, and put to death with almost inconceivable tortures, and theroughest of the trappers or woodsmen gave the canyon a wide berth even inthe day-time. As I crushed through the dense brushwood which grew abovethe canyon, I heard voices, and wondering who could be in such a place atsuch a time, I went on, walking more carefully and making as littlenoise as possible. There was a great tree growing on the very edge ofthe rocks, and I lay down and looked out from behind the trunk. BlackGulf Canyon was below me, the moonlight shining bright into its verydepths from midheaven, and casting shadows as black as death from thepointed rock, and all the sheer rock on the other side, overhanging thecanyon, was in darkness. At intervals a light veil obscured themoonlight, as a filmy cloud fleeted across the moon; and a bitter windblew shrill across the gulf. I looked down as I have said, and sawtwenty men standing in a semicircle round a rock; I counted them one byone, and knew most of them. They were the very vilest of the vile, morevile than any den in London could show, and there was murder and worsethan murder on the heads of not a few. Facing them and me stood Mr.Smith with the rock before him, and on the rock was a great pair ofscales, such, as are used in the stores. I heard his voice ringing downthe canyon as I lay beside the tree, and my heart turned cold as I heardit.
"Life for gold," he cried, "a life for gold. The blood and the life ofan enemy for every pound of gold."
A man stepped out and raised one hand, and with the other flung a brightlump of something into the pan of the scales, which clanged down, andSmith muttered something in his ear. Then he cried again:--
"Blood for gold; for a pound of gold, the life of an enemy. For everypound of gold upon the scales, a life."
One by one the men came forward, each lifting up his right hand; and thegold was weighed in the scales, and each time Smith leaned forward andspoke to each man in his ear. Then he cried again:--
"Desire and lust, for gold on the scales. For every pound of gold,enjoyment of desire."
I saw the same thing happen as before; the uplifted hand, and the metalweighed, and the mouth whispering, and black passion on every face.
Then, one by one, I saw the men again step up to Smith. A mutteredconversation seemed to take place; I could see that Smith was explainingand directing, and I noticed that he gesticulated a little as one whopoints out the way, and once or twice he moved his hands quickly as ifhe would show that the path was clear and could not be missed. I kept myeyes so intently on his figure that I noted little else, and at last itwas with a start that I realized that the canyon was empty. A momentbefore I thought I had seen the group of villainous faces, and the twostanding, a little apart by the rock; I had looked down a moment, andwhen I glanced again into the canyon there was no one there. In dumbterror I made my way home, and I fell asleep in an instant fromexhaustion. No doubt I should have slept on for many hours, but when Iwoke up, the sun was only rising, and the light shone in on my bed. Ihad started up from sleep with the sensation of having received aviolent shock, and as I looked in confusion about me I saw to myamazement that there were three men in the room. One of them had hishand on my shoulder and spoke to me.
"Come, mister, wake up. Your time's up now, I reckon, and the boys arewaiting for you outside, and they 're in a big hurry. Come on; you canput on your clothes, it's kind of chilly this morning."
I saw the other two men smiling sourly at each other, but I understoodnothing. I simply pulled on my clothes, and said I wa
s ready.
"All right, come on then. You go first, Nichols, and Jim and I will givethe gentleman an arm."
They took me out into the sunlight, and then I understood the meaning ofa dull murmur that had vaguely perplexed me while I was dressing. Therewere about two hundred men waiting outside, and some women too, and whenthey saw me there was a low muttering growl. I did not know what I haddone, but that noise made my heart beat and the sweat come out on myface. I saw confusedly, as through a veil, the tumult and tossing of thecrowd, discordant voices were speaking, and amongst all those facesthere was not one glance of mercy, but a fury of lust that I did notunderstand. I found myself presently walking in a sort of procession upthe slope of the valley, and on every side of me there were men withrevolvers in their hands. Now and then a voice struck me, and I heardwords and sentences of which I could form no connected story. But Iunderstood that there was one sentence of execration; I heard scraps ofstories that seemed strange and improbable. Some one was talking of men,lured by cunning devices from their homes and murdered with hideoustortures, found writhing like wounded snakes in dark and lonely places,only crying for some one to stab them to the heart, and so end theirtorments; and I heard another voice speaking of innocent girls who hadvanished for a day or two, and then had come back and died, blushing redwith shame even in the agonies of death. I wondered what it all meant,and what was to happen, but I was so weary that I walked on in a dream,scarcely longing for anything but sleep. At last we stopped. We hadreached the summit of the hill, overlooking Blue Rock Valley, and I sawthat I was standing beneath a clump of trees where I had often sat. Iwas in the midst of a ring of armed men, and I saw that two or three menwere very busy with piles of wood, while others were fingering a rope.Then there was a stir in the crowd, and a man was pushed forward. Hishands and feet were tightly bound with cord, and though his face wasunutterably villainous I pitied him for the agony that worked hisfeatures and twisted his lips. I knew him; he was amongst those that hadgathered round Smith in Black Gulf Canyon. In an instant he was unbound,and stripped naked; and borne beneath one of the trees, and his neckencircled by a noose that went around the trunk. A hoarse voice gavesome kind of order; there was a rush of feet, and the rope tightened;and there before me I saw the blackened face and the writhing limbs andthe shameful agony of death. One after another, half a dozen men, all ofwhom I had seen in the canyon the night before, were strangled before me,and their bodies were flung forth on the ground. Then there was a pause,and the man who had roused me a short while before, came up to me andsaid:--
"Now, mister, it's your turn. We give you five minutes to cast up youraccounts, and when that's clocked, by the living God we will burn youalive at that tree."
It was then I awoke and understood. I cried out:--
"Why, what have I done? Why should you hurt me? I am a harmless man, Inever did you any wrong." I covered my face with my hands; it seemed sopitiful, and it was such a terrible death.
"What have I done?" I cried again. "You must take me for some other man.You cannot know me."
"You black-hearted devil," said the man at my side, "we know you wellenough. There's not a man within thirty miles of this that won't curseJack Smith when you are burning in hell."
"My name is not Smith," I said, with some hope left in me. "My name isWilkins. I was Mr. Smith's secretary, but I knew nothing of him."
"Hark at the black liar," said the man. "Secretary be damned! You wereclever enough, I dare say, to slink out at night, and keep your face inthe dark, but we've tracked you out at last. But your time's up. Comealong."
I was dragged to the tree and bound to it with chains, and I saw thepiles of wood heaped all about me, and shut my eyes. Then I felt myselfdrenched all over with some liquid, and looked again, and a womangrinned at me. She had just emptied a great can of petroleum over me andover the wood. A voice shouted, "Fire away," and I fainted and knewnothing more.
When I opened my eyes I was lying on a bed in a bare comfortless room. Adoctor was holding some strong salts to my nostrils, and a gentlemanstanding by the bed, whom I afterwards found to be the sheriff,addressed me:--
"Say, mister," he began, "you've had an uncommon narrow squeak for it.The boys were just about lighting up when I came along with the posse,and I had as much as I could do to bring you off, I can tell you. And,mind you, I don't blame, them; they had made up their minds, you see,that you were the head of the Black Gulf gang, and at first nothing Icould say would persuade them you weren't Jack Smith. Luckily, a manfrom here named Evans, that came along with us, allowed he had seen youwith Jack Smith, and that you were yourself. So we brought you along andjailed you, but you can go if you like, when you're through with thisfaint turn."
I got on the cars the next day, and in three weeks I was in London;again almost penniless. But from that time my fortune seemed to change.I made influential friends in all directions; bank directors courted mycompany, and editors positively flung themselves into my arms. I hadonly to choose my career, and after a while I determined that I wasmeant by nature for a life of comparative leisure. With an ease thatseemed almost ridiculous I obtained a well-paid position in connectionwith a prosperous political club. I have charming chambers in a centralneighborhood close to the parks; the club _chef_ exerts himself when Ilunch or dine, and the rarest vintages in the cellar are always at mydisposal. Yet, since my return to London, I have never known a day'ssecurity or peace; I tremble when I awake lest Smith should be standingat my bed, and every step I take seems to bring me nearer to the edge ofthe precipice. Smith, I knew, had escaped free from the raid of thevigilantes, and I grew faint at the thought that he would in allprobability return to London, and that suddenly and unprepared I shouldmeet him face to face. Every morning as I left my house, I would peer upand down the street, expecting to see that dreaded figure awaiting me; Ihave delayed at street corners, my heart in my mouth, sickening at thethought that a few quick steps might bring us together; I could not bearto frequent the theatres or music halls, lest by some bizarre chance heshould prove to be my neighbor. Sometimes, I have been forced, againstmy will, to walk out at night, and then in silent squares the shadowshave made me shudder, and in the medley of meetings in the crowdedthoroughfares, I have said to myself, "It must come sooner or later; hewill surely return to town, and I shall see him when I feel mostsecure." I scanned the newspapers for hint or intimation of approachingdanger, and no small type nor report of trivial interest was allowed topass unread. Especially I read and re-read the advertisement columns,but without result. Months passed by and I was undisturbed till, thoughI felt far from safe, I no longer suffered from the intolerableoppression of instant and ever present terror. This afternoon as I waswalking quietly along Oxford Street, I raised my eyes, and looked acrossthe road, and then at last I saw the man who had so long haunted mythoughts.
* * * * *
Mr. Wilkins finished his wine, and leaned back in his chair, lookingsadly at Dyson; and then, as if a thought struck him, fished out of aninner pocket a leather letter case, and handed a newspaper cuttingacross the table.
Dyson glanced closely at the slip, and saw that it had been extractedfrom the columns of an evening paper. It ran as follows:--
WHOLESALE LYNCHING.
SHOCKING STORY.
A Dalziel telegram from Reading (Colorado) states that advices receivedthere from Blue Bock Park report a frightful instance of popularvengeance. For some time the neighborhood has been terrorized by thecrimes of a gang of desperadoes, who, under the cover of a carefullyplanned organization, have perpetrated the most infamous cruelties onmen and women. A Vigilance Committee was formed, and it was found thatthe leader of the gang was a person named Smith, living in Blue RockPark. Action was taken, and six of the worst in the band were summarilystrangled in the presence of two or three hundred men and women. Smithis said to have escaped.
* * * * *
"This is a terr
ible story," said Dyson; "I can well believe that yourdays and nights are haunted by such fearful scenes as you havedescribed. But surely you have no need to fear Smith? He has much, morecause to fear you. Consider, you have only to lay your informationbefore the police, and a warrant would be immediately issued for hisarrest. Besides, you will, I am sure, excuse me for what I am going tosay."
"My dear sir," said Mr. Wilkins, "I hope you will speak to me withperfect freedom."
"Well, then, I must confess that my impression was that you were ratherdisappointed at not being able to stop the man before he drove off. Ithought you seemed annoyed that you could not get across the street."
"Sir, I did not know what I was about. I caught sight of the man, but itwas only for a moment, and the agony you witnessed was the agony ofsuspense. I was not perfectly certain of the face; and the horriblethought that Smith was again in London overwhelmed me. I shuddered atthe idea of this incarnate fiend, whose soul is black with shockingcrimes, mingling free and unobserved amongst the harmless crowds,meditating perhaps a new and more fearful cycle of infamies. I tellyou, sir, that an awful being stalks through the streets, a being beforewhom the sunlight itself should blacken, and the summer air grow chilland dank. Such thoughts as these rushed upon me with the force of awhirlwind; I lost my senses."
"I see. I partly understand your feelings, but I would impress on youthat you have nothing really to fear. Depend upon it, Smith will notmolest you in any way. You must remember he himself has had a warning;and indeed from the brief glance I had of him, he seemed to me to be afrightened-looking man. However, I see it is getting late, and if youwill excuse me, Mr. Wilkins, I think I will be going. I dare say weshall often meet here."
Dyson walked off smartly, pondering the strange story chance had broughthim, and finding on cool reflection that there was something a littlestrange in Mr. Wilkins's manner, for which not even so weird a catalogueof experiences could altogether account.