Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 219 — page 3: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

— ie = ———— . x — — > - , Despard, the Duelist. ‘¢ Hortense!” was his next appeal, in a voice somew bat shaken. The woman wade a proud gesture of depreca- tion with her head. ‘‘My name is Mrs. Despard Dangerfield!” she said in icy tones. The man clinched his hand, set his teeth, and breathed hard through dilated nostrils. He looked steadily into her cold, white, repellent face, while he slowly regained self-mastery. Then, while a wistful longing struggled with the proud resentment in bis eyes, he asked:— * Wio-e hand did this?” The lady’s lip curled in a smile of quiet dis- dain, while she said, with supercilious indiffer- Snace:= ‘Can you ask? ‘*] do ask!” he replied, his voice deep witha pain he could not wholly hide, The lady’s sensitive ear caught the cadence. She flashed a searching glance into lis eyes. Then a cold, steely glitter came into hers, and a sneer to her cupid’s-bow lips. oY» ‘“No doubt the first fault lay in my own de- ficiency —’ ‘** Hortense!” 3 ‘‘But the wearying of stale charms, the severing of distasteful ties, the perfidious deser- tion —these were surely—” “No, by the Everlasting God!” cried the man. as he leaped forward, his strong emotion sending a wave of crimson to his brow. The horse shied at this sudden movement. The lady curbed the animal with a skillful touch, and merely lifted the tremulous point of her whip between herself and the man who had just cried out to her from the depths of his soul. “You forget yourself, sir!” she said, slightly. arching her delicately -penciled brows. That rebuff checked him as effectually as a stone wall. The pailor of a great dread drove the blood from his face again. He extended his hands to her, crying: ** Hortense, | swear to you—” A wild fluttering sprung up in the heart of the woman; but there was no external trace of it, as she ruthlessly interrupted his impassioned appeal; ‘I beg your pardon. My husband must be awaiting my return, as [ am already somewhat delayed.”’ Then mounted to his brow the purple tide of wrath. “You do well to remind me of your hus- band !” he said, through his teeth. ‘‘I had forgotten him—and the debt lowe him! But from this moment it will Jive in my brain in characters of fire, until Ll wash them out with his beart’s blood!” He stepped aside; the milk-white steed bounded past him; he turned and watched the flowing green skirt and the dancing plume, un- til they disappeared round a bend in the road; then he cast himself face downward on the rocky earth in an agony of commingled love, rage and despair. hen the Little Giant roused himself and rose to return to the camp it was night. Be- fore he stirred from the spot his attention was attracted by a deep-drawn sigh, and at the same instant an icy chill passed over him. With wildly-beaving heart he whirled round, and saw the light, ethereal form of a woman standing at a little distance, gazing at him with great, sad eyes. As he caught her eye, she smiled sweetly and beckoned to him. The effect on the man was startling. He turned as pale as death; his jaw dropped; his eyes protruded; an icy sweat staried from every pore. To him, it seemed as if his hair rose on end. He was the picture of abject ter- ror. Joe Smedley was fully convinced that he was gazing at a disembodied spirit; and wiih that apparition was axsociated a memory that froze his blood. The leaden weight peculiar to a nightmare fel! upon his limbs, and he telt that his wiil was paralyzed. The phantom turned, and, looking over her shoulder, waved her hand for bim to follow her, Powerless to resist, he obeyed, though feeling that he was walking to his doom. Away from the road she led him, along a rock-obstrucied way, now bare, now carpeted with the decaying, needle-like foliage of the pines, until she stood on the verge of a preci- DiGe. His heart died within him. He had heard of men being thus lured to destruction. ‘At last! at last! you are avenged!” was the ery ef his soul, But just as he expected to see the siren float | “No! no! Listen!” out in mid-air over the chasm, she stopped and raised one hand on high, while with the other she pointed down into the yawning abyss. Then, like the sighing of the wind, came faint- ly to his ear, yet seeming to echo and re-echo through the hidden chambers of his soul, the words: “Not yet! Not vet!” The phantom vanished, and a sudden oblivion fell upon him. The unconsciousness of the Little Giant seemed but momentary. He rose with a dull pain in his head, and shudderingly drew back from the precipice, on the verge of which he had fallen. “Tt isa warning,” he said, aloud—‘‘ the spirit of one woman whom my hand has destroyed come to save anotber,”’ In reply, like the sighing of the wind through the pines, came, or seemed to come, the word: ** Beware |” Joe Smedley started as if electrified. Had he really heard it; or was if only his excited im- agination? Everything around looked commonplace— the rocks, the pines, the moonlight streaming through a break in the clouds—and yet the Lit- tle Giant hastened from the spot with a chill of dread upon him. Returning to the camp, he entered a cabin, at the door of which he was received by a woman whose manner betrayed nothing of her keen disappointment of the afternoon, In reality thirty years of age, even he did not suppose her to be more than twenty-five. She was very slender in build, which, aided by certain de- vices in dress that escaped the uninitiated eye, made her appear taller than she really was, Her face was perfectly colorless, her pure, white exin being in marked contrast with her jet-black hair. This, cut short, clustered about her head in rings, and gave a piquancy to her undenia- ble beauty which was very ‘‘taking ” with the opposite sex. | This woman received the Little Giant with a smile of gladness mingled with anxiety. “Oh, Joe!” was her salutation, ‘“ where have you been? To think of your not coming to. me for even a minute, if you were called away again,” She twined her arms about his neck and looked reproachfully into his eyes, between the kisses which she pressed upon his lips. ‘‘There, there, Hally!’ he said. ‘‘ To tell you the truth, l’m tired to death, and as hungry as awolf. Let me off, now, and Vill make it up as soon as I’ve had something to eat anda nap.” She noticed that far from greeting her with a love made keen by days of separation, he scarcely returned her glowing caresses. But she did not let him see the death of bope that fell like a blight upon her heart. 0; she wooed him with caressing words, while he ate in abstracted silence, broken only by monosyl- lables, the tempting supper she placed before him. But when he lay asleep, then the fires of her soul burst forth; then she wrung her hands, only with superhuman effort stifling the moans which might awaken him; or she clenched them in white rage, her eyes blazing, her nostrils dilating, while through her set teeth came the fierce words: ‘It is to be the old story over again! Never! never! I will kill him with my own hand first!” lt was in this mood that the tortured woman drew his bowie-knife from his belt, and held it poised above his heart. At that moment there rose out of the night a sound once heard, never to be forgotten—the voiee of a great multitude stricken by abject terror. it roused the sleeper, as well it might. He saw the woman and the knife. With a cry of wonder and dismay, he sprung up and caught her wrist. CHAPTER III. A BIG SCARE. “Bly from the wrath to come! Fly! Fly! Fry! The Day of Judgment is at hand! God’s vengeance is about to fall upon this abomina- tion of the mountain, as of old it fell upon the cities of the plain! Repent and be saved! Turn from your wickedness erg it be too late! Hter- nal damnation to him that dieth in his iniquity! Everlasting bliss to the sinner that crieth unto the Lord! Awake! awake! oh, Sodom of the West!” ‘* What, in God’s name, is that ** Bah! it’s that infernal crazy detieted He’s always shootin’ off his mouth about some tom- foolery or other. He’s never happy when he ain’t rakin’ over the brimstun. W hat’s trumps?” ! ‘‘ Listen be blowed! Ef that blarsted fook has got to knock a quiet game o’ draw, jest when luck has begun to run to my hand, i’il go out. and ram his infernal—” * Hark, 1 say! Dont you hear it? Not the preacher, but that dull, rumbling sound,” ‘*“[t ain’t nothin’ but a storm, ‘Thunder an’ lightnin’! play away. Isee youand go you two better.’ But Bullwhacker Ben’s opponent was already on his feet, disregarding his cards, and even the money he had staked, and gazing about him with the pallor of sudden panic, ‘*Gents!” be cried, appealing to the other oc- cupants of the saloon, “is there any mountain reservoir amoung these hills to burst and wash out this gully? if there is, we’re scooped! DPve heard that sound before—I’ve been thar /—and I don’t want no more in mine, you bet!” The excited words of Hoss Johnson, the stage- driver, commanded immediate and universal attention, and a hush fell upon the Babel of rofane and querulous discussion in Billy Wil- iams’s saloon. In the stillness, the canyon was heard to re- verberate with a dull, jarring sound, Then again rose the ring ng voice of the crazy preacher, crying: “Fly! Fly! The Lord God that reigneth for-. ever is come to judge the world? Oh, the wail- ing and gnashing of teeth! “Ob, the unavailin shrieks of anguish! Have mercy, oh, r they know not what they do!” Thrilled with unreasoning panic there was a simultaneous rush for the anor. pell mell into the street, where other saloons were disgerging their rough bearded hordes. In the darkness they gazed arovhd at the. black cliffs, at the black sky, at each other. The street was filled with shadowy forms. A. tall, gaunt man, dressed in a long frock coat, and with lank gray locks hanging to his shoul- ders, was rushing through the crowd, his eyes ablaze, his arms tossed wildly aloft, shouting his warning. ‘or a moment his was the only voice heard, Then rose a wailing cry of terror, and eve eye was turned up the ravine, while the crow es apart, leaving the middle of the street clear. Swooping down upon the camp like a rushing wind, and just at hand, was discovered a troo of ee strangest horsemen ever beheld by iditertan sight. The steeds themselves were uncanny monsters, breathing fire. Their hoofs gave forth, not the ringing clatter of the hoofs of earth-born ho but that dull, jarring thud that had puazle Hoss Johnson, Their headlong rusb was like the swoop of ill-omened birds, The riders who bestrode these equine monsters were fleshless skeletons—the same who, half an. hour later, filled Foxy and Tidy Tip with bor. ror and dread by the sight of their terrible ven- geance, Now, as they rode, their black mantles floated out behind, flapping in the wind like vampire wings. Their weird torches were thrust forward, as if to light their way, while their javelins were carried at arm’s length above their heads, pointe. ing directly to the tront. sing no bridles, they must have guided their horses with their knees, if, indeed, such animals. pee direction hke their, fellows of earthly mold. No sound uttered these weird riders of the, night, nor turned they their heads to the right nor to the left, tut silently, swiftly, directly they rode, like unsubstantial phantoms. Clinging to his horse’s mane, with every mus- cle tense and rigid, in their midst rode Jim, Kane! In an agony of fear bordering on insanity, he. seemed beyond the power of taking cognizance of his surroundings. It is doubtful whether Le knew that be was passing through a camp where every one recognized him. As silent, as heed- ip as his ghostly companions he rode on with them, Like the wind they swooped down upon the camp, passed through it, and were gone! A deathlike silence reigned. The miners stood staring breathlessly at each other, The crazy preacher lay where he had fallen in a swoon, Shivering with superstitious dread, the miners, cowered close together in krots. “ Boys,that was Jim Kane!” said one. ‘** His spook!” suggested another, ‘* He’s done fur!” Ceclared a third. Then dead silence fell. After a while, a quavering voice said:— (EO! NMUCELONOKe) < (EO)