Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 100 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

4. *“T care not. I must get in to Victor Bramont —the wretch! He has the link! He alone knows the secret that for seventeen years I Aas have been mad to learn—he, my enemy, now in | my po er! Vill wring it from his lips, from | bis heart! Ha! h-al we have him now. Seven- ; teen years ago it was his turn, now it is mine/ . Let mein here! Open this gate!” and as she | called aloud she rattled the , then the Lrazen knob in the wall and wrenched it out | its full length. ' At the moment she pulled the bell, clamoring for admittance, the door of M. Achefort’s house opened, anda man stepped out. The light from the entry flashed for asecond on the two women who recoiled as if they feared discovery —an recoiled again as a low, savage growl issued be- tween the bars of the gate, and the bristly muz- zle, sharp jaws and gleaming eyes of a mon- strous dog startled them. Simultaneous!y—almost ere the door on the opposite side was shut, and as they shrunk from the brute that snapped at them through the gate —there was a quick outcry and the clash of swords in combat. ** Assassins! Back there!” thundered a des- perate voice. ‘‘A mort! A mort!” snarled a rough chorus. He who came from the house of M. Achefort had scarce taken a dozen steps to the west, when three burly figures set upon him from the sur- rounding shadows, coming from the east, and at his back. One of these grappled him by the coJar—to fall asif by the butcher’s ax, for the solitary person was alert and rapid, and his fist shot out- | ward with terrible precision. | “4 mort! A mort!” they bellowed, an with short swords, they attacked him front an rear. He, foo, was armed. A short sword leaped from beneath his cape, and he gave battle with a fury. : ““A mort! A mort !” they shouted. | A terrific struggle. Three to one. Back, slowly backward they forced him. They : crossed the street—he laying about him in : circles and cuts, already smarting with wounds, | maddened to hopelessness by the odds. The were nearing the grim wall of Le Bibou. He would stand here at bay, and sell his life dearly. ) To escape or conquer was impossible; for plain ib was that he handled his weapon poorly. ““Cowards!” he gasped, ‘‘ why do you wish to murder me?” / “*Surrender, then!” snapped one, making a fearful lunge, Annette plucked at the mantle of her mistress, R ” Oh, madame! let us fly! Wearein danger ere.” _ But the actress seemed riveted and deaf. “Mark how they press him, Annette!” she | yapted, in a singular excitement. ‘‘ And see; é isno match for them. He grows weak. They are at himhard. He must be beaten in a few seconds more. Ha! now I shall help him!” and | as she uttered the last, she sprung toward the combatants. The beset man’s heel had caught in an old | wheel that lay on the pave; he stumbled, and the sword went hurtling from his hand. With a cry, the ruffians dashed upon him. But the sword that flew from the hand of the worsted man scarce touched the ground. A woman’s form glided out of the darkness: some- thing hissed in the air, and the foremost of the attacking trio went down, blurting an oath. An unlooked-for antagonist confronted the remaining pair of rascals, and @ new cry rose on the night: *A mort! A bas assassins |” ae Heien Varela rushed upon them with the . sword of the man who had stumbled and the sword of the man she bad killed. A sword in each hand, whirling, hissing, thrusting, parrying; and the way in which she beat them back, wich the right hand and the ; Jeft hand, showed that her wrists were of mar- | velous muscle, her perfect skill and ease of mo- ! tion something more than mere stage practice, ~** 4 bas assassins !” she cried pines, | In lightning circles ani crashing strokes her ' two weapons smote and rung on the ds of her surprised adversaries; with clenched teeth she harassed and pricked them, forcing them, foot by foot, away from the wa And while she fought she heard the voice of her maid, who screamed: “‘Madame! this man is Franz Edouin!” —— ae oe —— — CHAPTER IL . THE HOUSE OF THE VOODOO, We enter Le Bibou by the barred and spiked _ gate at the front, by a narrow doorway on a porch at the end of a broad, straight, cobbled path; we gain an entryway of confused light and darkness, at the extremity of which ascends | a fiight of stairs, balustraded with crape and | banistered by a whitish wood carved to repre- sent the bleached limb bones of dead men. . _Half-way up these stairs, a turn to the right; then a short flight, and a little way beyond this second flight a door—a large and heavy door studded with rivets and pemcuntes OY a calf’s head, out of the crown of which a lamp- —— ees LE eT The French Spy. wick of blue, flickering flame. Across the threshold of this massive door was the reception closet of XImo, the Voodoo. A gaudily-furnished though small apartment, hung with remarkably fine pictures, tapes- tried; frescoed in gilt, at one side a pair of lux- urious curtains, whose slight, wavy motion told of an archway leading to an additional recess dedicated to the private and infernal orgies of the witch-like owner of this mystery-dismaled edifice. The recess comprised a cube of twenty feet; its ceiling an allegory, with Ops, the shameless goddess, driving her lion -yoked chariot over the verdure of Eden. In one corner, Clotho, the youngest of the Fates, decked in her robe of many colors and wearing a diadem of twelve stars; in another corner the great red dragon, conqueror of the Fates; in the other corners, heads of Senoges, the phenix, the marimba, fiying fish, battle-axes, maces, oe swords clubs—the whole in a mass of muddle hightened by garish hues. A black cat perched on a tall, ap OP fom ri stool of black wood, and squirmed her tail slow- ly toand fro; an immense parrot chattered upon its standing-stick. In an ample hearth a fire blazed, filling the room with an odor not un- pleasant to the sense, and over this fire, swing- ing and turning pendulum-like, hung a sm caldron, hot, steaming, bubbling. Beside the fire was an image of Typhon, carved in stone, his eyes aglare, his shape of fright, his fist aloft as if to sow the terror of his thousand perfidies; in front of the fire Xlmo, the Voodoo—sorceress, witch, doctress, whose fame at medicine was almost unearthly, whose one pt bang was a marvel to the credulous, and whose remarkable powers and wondrous deeds had just awakened the suspicious inquiry of the Government, when war convulsed France and drew attention from her for the time. Her light brown skin was that of the Mako- lolo; her visage was that of the thug of north- ern India. Her eyes were large, staring, glit- tering, like those of the satanic image beside the fireplace. Her kinky but long hair was deftly twisted and twined round fine wires, stiff and straight, and each lock tied at the end with scarlet ribbon. Her hands and fingers, long, slim, supple with strength, terminated in talon- like s of e pink, and in one claw-of-a hand she held a knotty cane topped with a death’s head. She rocked from foot to foot, with arms ex- tended outward at her sides, her eyes fixed upon the hissing, fuming pot, muttering, the while, a weird incantation. And the cat purred loud, the parrot screamed, the specters, goblins, de- mons and skulls on the surrounding walls seem- ed imbued with devilish animation: ** Boil! boil!” she sung. “The fluid of death, from a fiery breath, ds woe to the innocent gay; The charms of health, the blisses of wealth, Shall rob the soul of its clay. The curse! the curse! and the poisoned sip, The wine of Dua for sensual lip; ie we metheglin where foes may dine— To and eure both arts are mine.”’ ‘Oho! how it bubbles and bubbles. Ha!—a - Who comes? So. How now, Zabach?’ @ curtains were pushed aside, and a man ap in haste; an African of unusual mus- cular. development and stoic mien. A reason- able specimen of the bushman; his head shaved like an Arab, wearing a rumal and concha. “A cab. It is near,” he said, in tolerable English. ‘ ,’ she answered, in like language. ‘* My emissaries work well. Listen.” There was a dull sound in the wall, likea single tap on a muffled drum. ‘“* Yetu /” (one) exclaimed the hag. Again the sound in the wall. ** Bitri!” (two) she uttered, quickly. Again the = ‘*Sancod ! (three). ‘‘ Admit them, Zabach; my eras have brought Victor Bramont to me. aste.” Zabach vanished quick and noiseless as a shadow. XImo left her position at the hearth, and crossed the room, rubbing the death’s-head cane between her hands and grinning gleefully. Ina few minutes there was a scuffle and scrape of feet in the direction of the ante-room; two men entered on a half-run, dragging between them a third man who struggled violently in their grasp and shouted fierce curses upon their murder-molded faces. Forward they drag him into the labora- of the Voodoo—finally flinging bim across, with a reel and a stumble, to bring up suddenly against the opposite wall with a bump that jar- red his brains, “Sacre diable !” he roared, in rage and pain. ‘‘Kidnappers! cutthroats! Where have you brought me? Heh!” ! He recoiled from the horribly-ciphered wall against which his nose had been Br si shak- ing himself convulsively, as if he felt the paint- ed snakes and reptiles crawling up his arms and round his neck; then he made a frantic dash at the draping curtains in the archway, to escape from beicous place. Buta strong paneling _ and surp ‘Beware of tho Voodoo in her den,” warned a> Ba ea Bee Oe ee Eee had been shot into its recess, from sheaths in the side wall, and again his head received a severe thump as he came violently in contact with the unexpected obstruction to his exit. Diable !” he snarled. ‘‘ What devil’s den is this? I shall knock my brains out presently. Ho! villains. Let me out. Sacre! Open this abomination-of-a-door—do you hear? Ha! who spoke?” During these few moments of rage at his in- carceration the raving man had notseen X1mo, who stood in the shadow of the niche formed by ~~ et a eee the flue above the hearth. Now, while he kick- ' ed with both feet, alternately, on the obstruct- ing panel, the Voodoo emerged to the glare of light thrown out by the fire on the hearth, say- ing, as she slowly advanced: ‘Victor Bramont, I have you at last!” ‘*Ha! who spoke?’ he cried, turning sharp around. ‘* |—XImo, the Voodoo,” An instant he glared at her in uncertain si- lence. He turned pale, and his lips compressed beneath his long-ended mustache of jet until they were two livid streaks. His eyes, before flashing with anger, assumed a dull, sickl glance, and his whole frame appeared to be spi ted, upright, to the floor, Whatever might have been the terror occa- sioned by a thought that, in some way, he had offended the powerful and relentless Voodoo— of whose deep methods of vengeance many fear- ful tales were afloat—evidently, not this terror alone for the moment froze his pulse and shock- ed his quivering nerves; for instantly, upon be- holding the ominous face, with its piercing, un- winking eyes, he thought: ‘** Sacre diable! If I mistake not, then I am undone. I have seen that face before. Where? Oh, in England! If not that face, a face so like it that this one seems to say: ‘ I told you I would not die, Victor Bramont; that 1 would live to kill you for trying to kill me! If this is XImo, the Voodoo—of whose devilish juggieries I have often heard—then, XImo, the Voodoo, wonder- fully resembles the nurse whom I struck dead with my dagger in the cellar of a certain house in England, seventeen years ago—” ‘*Wehave met before,” interrupted the sor- se ‘In Italy, Germany, India—have we not?’ ‘Also in England,” Victor Bramont would have added, had he not remembered that, if Xlmo was the woman he supposed her to be, there were chances that she did not recognize him now as the man who had stabbed her when he and she bore other names. **Do you know who I am?’ asked XImo, ‘Sorceress! yes!” he snarled, finding speech at last. ‘‘May you be strangled a thousand times! What am I here for¢ Let me get out! Will you cut these cursed ropes?” and he tug- ed furiously at the rope and stick which pin- loned his arms. ‘‘ Sacre! Cut me loose—do you hear?’—dancing and whirling about as if on a carpet of blazing spikes, and redoubling his efforts to break the binding rope. ‘“*T say we have met before.’ ‘Yes. Sacre! Let me out of this and we may meet again,’’ he snorted. “When Xlmo sends for enybody, they are sure to come—even to the cellar of a certain house in England. Eh, Victor Bramont?’ At this point the tapping in the wall, advisin of some one desiring admittance below, sounded in the room. ** Diable !” muttered Bramont. ‘“Itis she. I must be loose now, and fight for my life!” Then aloud: ‘*Why did you send for me? I shal] get our throat between my fingers presently—hag! h? now Iam free. Ha! ha!” and here, by a gigantic strain, he burst the ropes and flourish- ed the stick menacingly aloft. ‘‘ Command that door to open—sorceress !—or I'll beat you dead with this same stick.” ‘** Not so fast, Victor Bramont—” ** Let me see about that. Be q ick and com- mand | that door—sacre/ Ho! my finger is gone!’ He fairly shouted the last in agony, for, hav- ing a madly toward the Voodoo, she level- ed her death’s-bead cane full at the hand clenched on the upraised stick; there was a scarce perceptible concussion, a whiz and a thud, as a pea bullet from the air-gun— for such the cane was—clipped off the tip of one of Bra- mont’s fingers and wrung forth that ery cf pain rise. XImo. You have shot away my finger!” ** Next time it may be an ear or an eye.” ** Diable !” “I did not want you for butchery, Victor Bramont. This time you are not my captive. ou came in answer to the note signed with three stars—came to pounce upon your prey; and A od enemies have pounced upon you.” ‘You wrote the letter signed with three stars,” he yelped, while he tried to stop the flow of blood from his wounded finger. ‘“‘T had another doit. But you are not my captive.” ‘Not yours? Good. Then you do not intend e—cannibal-sarceress?” to make a meal of m Ximo chuckled low JOO (ECO MICE CS) com