Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 481 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

aa ou own self. That China boy no makee bob- ery “iong you.” ‘“The leetle cuss!” cried One of the men, car- ried away with admiration of this consummate acting. Little Ah Sin looked from one face to the other in a most unconscious way, only repeat- ing: ‘** You no touchee mi!” ‘* Tle’s got the cheek of a gover’ment mule!” “That ain’t all he’s got. Jest look ait his fhand.” Little Ah Sin glanced down with the rest, and his heart leaped as if it would jump from his mouth, ‘* Blood!” cried one of the men, aghast. ‘* What do you expect?” asked another. ‘ Ef he tapped the old man, wasn’t that what he’d be likeiy to find inside of him?’ \Vith a low cry of dismay, Little Ah Sin cid a most natural thing, and yet one which seemed to confirm his guilt. He quickly thrust his hand out of sight under the blanket, which he had huddled up about him as he sat, ** Cave!” cried one of the men, reaching out and clutching him by the shoulder. ‘‘ We've got you, John?” V, ith a chattering cry of protest, Little Ah Sin began to squirm, protesting his innocence wildly, but in such a jumble of higgly-piggly Enelish that scarcel ya word was intelligible. However, he was in a remorseless grip.. The man who had him offered no needless injury; but he would hang him without a throb cf pity. ‘*Look!” cried another, catching up the boy’s clothes. ‘* Hyar’s more blood!” A howl of rage greeted this revelation. Little Ah Sin looked with chatterin teeth. **Wetch him along!” cried one of the men, starting out of the stables with the besmirched clothes, to-show them. “ Hold on!” cricd another. to him,” Little Ah Sin was huddled into some of his garments, but with such dispatch that they were for the most part hind-side before. \ In this condition he was dragged out into the night, where he was surrounded by a hoot ng crowd. Boldly Edith forced her way into the midst. ‘* Stop!” she commanded, throwing her arm about the boy and striking away the hand that held him, Shivering with terror, Little Ah Sin sunk up- on his knees at her feet, clinging to her skirts. ‘* Put his duds on- CHAPTER X. ‘“moO BE HANGED BY THE NECK.” But the bloody creese and the signs of the dragging of the body to the whirlpool, added to the blood on Little Ah Sin’s person, seemed to form a continuous chain of evidence which Edith could not combat. In vain she appealed to Jim Stebbins. ‘*No unlawful harm shall come to him,” he assured her, ‘* We'll take him up to Rodger’s Mat, an’ he'll stand his trial. I’m free to say that it looks to me like a dead open-and-shut; but ef the lawyers kin git him off, that’s their privilege.” Little Ah Sin was in, too much of a panic to defend himseif. Ile only begged to be saved from the mob. ‘*Promise me,” said» Edith, holding to Jim’s arm, ** that you will be responsible for his pro- tection until he is in the hands of the officers of the law.” ‘*T sw’ar that, ma’am,” And so the culprit was led away. Edith went back to Mrs. Swayne. The woman, with her hair hanging in strings, looked as if she were insane. Reaching out her bony arm, she clutched Edith by the wrist, and dragging her to the bedside, cried: ‘Tell me all! What has become of him?” ‘* Dear aunt Mercy!” began Edith, who would have saved her the painful recital until she was more composed. But the woman snarled wi h rage: “Don’t ‘dear’ me! I tell you I want the truth and the whole truth, without prevarica- tion. What is this uproar going on outside? Have they caught him?’ ‘*'Yes, aunt Mercy,” said Edith, misunder- standing to whom Mrs. Swayne referred. The woman fell back on the bed with a groan of despair. “Try not to think of it!” pleaded Edith, bending over her, and trying to put her arm con- solingly about her. **(rod’s curse is upon us all!” groaned the un- —_— _ ——— — ——————— ae SO Naeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eee eee 7 . ——————————— . Little Ah Sin. happy mother. ‘‘It is of no use to struggle and pray. Hell is our portion!” ‘*Oh, hush! hush!” shuddered Edith, ‘What will they do with him?’ suddenly cried Mrs. Swayne, once more seizing Edith, and reading her face with bloodshot eyes, while she held her so close to her that her hot breath fan- ned her cheek. ‘*Oh, I don’t know! Let us not speak of it!” ‘**But I will speak of it!” shouted the mother, with wild violence. ‘*They will hang him— that’s what they will do! And it serves him right, the ingrate!” But the natural love of a mother overcame her, and she fell back with a scream of anguish, writhing as if in physical pain. Supposing that she referred to Little Ah Sin, Edith did not have the key to this burst of emo- tion, She only tried to soothe her with gentle touches and low-breathed words of sympathetic endearment. | But the woman flung her hands away, crying savagely: ‘Tell me everything! Don’t you see that I know nothing of what has happened?) How am I to know what has become of my husband? Is he dead? What have they done with him?” There was no use in endeavoring to spare her the horrible details. As gently as she could oD told her the situation as it appearef to er, dawned upon her that her son had not been ap- prehended, but that it was Little Ah Sin who in bed, staring at Edith, with mouth agape. She saw the chain of evidence in which the boy was insnared. She knew well the strong bias of the prejudice against him. His Cenials vould amount to nothing, if she chose to let him go to punishment in the place of Ler sen. ‘*But a mother to betray her own child!” she thought. ‘*That’s monstrous! And to save an emissary of the devil!” But that thought set in train cthers which led to a startling conclusion. ‘*An emissary of the devil!” she repeated to herself. ‘*‘ Why, see how it has all turned out. If 1t had been planned to cetch him, it could not have been better arranged. First Abednego must have a motive strong enough to induce him to scourge the heathen with many stripes. What could more imbitter him than the effort to destroy our child’s soul? Then the boy must have an apparent motive for revenge sufficient to incite to murder. The scourging supplied that. Then there was the knife. I alone know that Abednego took itfrom him. And the blood on his clothes, and the footprints, and his sneak- ing back to bed. I don’t understand that atall. Can it be that, seeing Abednego’s dead body, his hatred prompted him to throw it into the whirlpool? ‘‘At any rate, he is hopelessly involved. I alone can exculpate him. Ha! ha! my chance for revenge is thus thrust intomy hands! He would hurl my child into the Bottomless Pit. I will at least leave him to the tender mercies cf the hangman!” While these fierce reflections passed through her mind, she sat staring straight into Edith’s face, yet evidently not sceing her, but looking on into vacancy. Her face looked as if it were chiseled out of stone. Its expression was terrible. As she came to the contemplation of Little Ah Sin on the gallows, she ground her teeth with rage. Edith was horrified into silence. She feared that the woman was going mad. What dark thoughts could produce such an expression? But suddenly another interpretation of the facts flashed across Mrs, S:vayne’s mind. ‘“‘*An emissary of the devil!” she repeated. ‘Why, it bas all been planned to turn out this way! Satan wan*s him to die—to die by my refusal to speak! See! Here’s my love for my soun— A mother loves her son, of course. There’s nothing stronger than one’s love for one’s own children—after one has born them, and striven with them through all sorts of trials and prayed over them when it seemed as if God had stopped his ears and turned his face away. Here’s my love for my son and my hatred of the would-be destroyer of my daughter, both on one side sealing my lips. And what's on the other side? He’s only a heathen, a follower after false gods;—that’s to lessen my Mani you see, i ‘* But he didn’t do it!—he didn’t do it! He’s as innocent of thatasIlam! AndI let him go to the gallows! That’s—that’s— ‘* Murder !” Coming after the dead silence that preceded At first Mrs, Swayne broke in upon the re- | cital with sharp cries and groans; but as it | was suspected of tbe crime, she started upright | ———— ~~ °.- CE ee eh owe Hg Set ewensy — oo amy it, that last word burst out ina piercing scream, so startling that Edith sprung to her feet. The woman clapped her hands over her ears, and shrieked again: ‘‘The devil is bidding for my soul! He has husband and children—all! all!—and now comes my turn! Get thee behind me, Satan! I will not!—I will not! But, a mother’s love for her child!—dear God, a mother must love her child!” She clasped her hands and raised her stream- ing eyes in agonized supplication. ‘Take away this cup, dear God!” she moan- ed. ‘It is too bitter! too bitter!” She fell back upon the bed, gasping and moan. ing. ‘*She has gone mad!” sobbed Edith. For days she nursed the afflicted woman ten- derly. But nothing would still the conflict that was going on in her soul. At times she was indeed delirious; and her fanaticism lay so near to madness, that her really rational moments could not be ; dis- tinguished from those in which reason was de- throned. The only difference was that, when her brain was wholly under the sway of the fever that consumed it, she would burst into wild denun- ciations of Little Ah Sin as the murderer of her husband and the destroyer of her children and herself; while at other times the flerce con- flict between conscience and her fear of eternal punishment on the one side, and her love for her son on the other, would wring from her those leart-rending appeals to Heaven. She would not be confined to her bed. After the first shock, she went about her accustomed household duties, but was liable to an outburst at any mement, when she would drop down upon her knees, andeven at times writhe upon the ficor. Edith could do nothing but watch her, in con- stant fear that she might attempt some fatal viclence against herself. Meanwhile Little Ah Sin lay in prison await- | ing bis trial. ——e ' crime, Edith visited him. She could not bring her- self to fully kelicve that he Lad done this awful She must talk’ the maticr over with him, She found him pale and emaciated, and great- ly dejected. She could get cut of him only one reply. Z No catchee killum. You makee talkee that mississee,” | So great was her own agitation, and so fixed in her mind was the idea of Abednego Swayne’s death, that ske for the first time misinterpreted Little Ab Sin’s speech. He told her that the man had not been killed ; and she understood him to say that he had not killed him. For the rest, he referred her to Mrs. Swayne. She returned home with her heart like lead, ‘‘T have been to see Little Ah Sin,” she said, abruptly. The woman, who was at the moment grinding coffee with the mill in her lap, did not start; but she turned her hot eyes upon Edith’s face, and said: ‘* Well?” ‘¢ He denies the charge, aunt Mercy.” The woman stopped turning the miil, and sat staring at Edith and waiting in stony immo- bility. ‘He told me to ask you,” persisted the girl, keeping her eyes fixed upon the other’s face, while she felt her heart quiver like an aspen leaf. ‘* Ask me what?” said the woman, in the same hard, metallic tone, ‘‘T don’t know. He said only that. He denied having done it, and I was to ‘ ask the missis.’” ‘‘ But what are you to ask? There is nothing to ask, and nothing to answer.” Then her teeth set down hard, and every muscle in her body seemed to become rigid. Her face took on a livid pallor, and her eyes glittered with the fire of delirium. She rose to her feet, lifting her clinched hands to heaven, heedless of the mill which rolled from her lap to the floor. Then she burst into a torrent of curses, callin down upon the bead of the little culprit the m horrible calamities in this world and in the world to come, Edith was stunned and filled with shuddering horror. She turned and fled from the room; but as she crossed the threshold, she heard a heavy fall be~ hind her, followed by dead silence. She looked round. Mrs. Swayne lay on the floor, evidently in some sort of a fit, foaming at the mouth through clinched teeth, —— ». e f ae ut af 4 et = ° 7 yr is 4 : , * * be 7 2 cals A ay > : : , LS Shy 5 Le pF ht 4: La : . we oe, (wns 4 oy Se oa J 7 R id é ~~ _—— “4 et Py - om