Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 4 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

" No. 4, breeding. He had a tongue of silk and the heart of a devil. Hc turned my head with his flattery, persuading me that I was a born lady and we were made for each other. And I, like tho silly fool I was, believed him, and—will you ever forgive me?—married him!’ Thus far the youth listens to her rapid words ina sort of daze; but when sie comes to that fatal word, ho thrusts hcr from him at arm’s lenvth, wth a cry asif stung. * Marriod him!” Almost fainting, the girl extends her arms to him and cries: ‘Sidney! Sidney! you swore that Be! would continuo to love me, no matier what I told you! And have I not paid for my folly? You know that I love you now, a hundred times more than ever before: and as for tie wretch who de- ecived mo, I hats him!—TI loathe him!—I would shrink from his touch as from the coil of a ser- pent. I told you that I married him; but I do not mow wheter I am his wife or not. He did not marry me in his right name, and it may have been a sham all throuch. But, whether tie marriage was legal or not, his villainy since es destroyed every claim on me; and now I ow that I never loved him. And when I come back to you, Sidney, do you turn away from mo?” With great sobs he clasps her to his heart, muttering: : ‘*Nover, Mary, never!” 3 it strange that the man who yesterday was willing to give her up for an unloving and an unloved bride who would bring him money, to- day ésteems her beyond all earthly things? But yesterday they were apart; to-day her living presence appea's to him. He idealizes her, and all his better nature responds to the imave his fancy has created. Such is the mysterious in- flaence which woman exercises overman. How often it is wielded for good—how often for evil! “T bless you, my darling!” says this woman to this man. “I shall not live to enjoy your love; but when I am dead you can avenge my wrongs.” “And I will avengo you!” cried Sidney. “T>5]l me who tac man is that I may tear out his falso heart!” Drawing from her bosom a_ blood-stained miniature of her false husband, the woman shui lers an 1 turns hor face away as she hands it to her lover. *‘ This is his picture,” shesays. ‘‘ Ile dces not know that Ihave it. He lost it, and I found it after he went away. “Tt is stained with your heart’s blood!” says her lover, fictcely. ‘‘I will drown it in his be- fore Iam done with him! What is his name?” ‘* Hi; right name is Harry Bearsley. He pre- tended to marry me under the name of Charles ” Se ——— M ‘ And then deserted you?—the villain!” A sharp spasm of pain distorts his face. He cannot help thinking that had she not proved fic’xle to her first lover the villainy of the other woul l have been impotent to harm her. “Yes,” she replies. ‘‘It seems he was engaged to an heiress before he knew me,” ** And her name?” ** Blanche Burbank.” “What! The girl my father has been figurin’ for! Why, she is maybe within a mile of us now, somewhere in thesc woods. She escaped from us last night, and we are now on her trail.” Tho woman shuddered arain. *“ Yos,” she says; “and it was because I stood between her and him that he murdered me.” ‘Tio murdered you?” ‘*Yos. He, too, is somewhere near us. In com- pany with her father he is seeking to rescuo her, and then to make her his wife. Sidney, you swore that you loved me and would avenge me. Now I leave you to hunt the accursed murderer to his death, as he has slain me!” While speaking she has torn herself from his arms, and now stands erect with hand raised to heaven in tragic denunciation. The truti bursts upon her lover, and he blurts it out without thinking of the effect upon her. ‘“‘Tie murdered you, an’ then scalped you so that the Injins would have to shoulder the deed.” An awful horror distends the woman’s eyes and thrills her with a mortal shudder. Witha gasping cry she tosses her arms above her head and falls backward, the blood gushing from the wound in her bosom. He springs forward to catch her, but too late. The dull thud with which she strilxes tho ground shocks him like a blow. Without examination he knows that she is dead. Then, an awful calm settling down about him, he kneels beside her, and with the blood-stained miniature held between his white face and heaven swears: ae a When I forget my mission may God forget mo! It does not strike him as blasphemous. He has no moral perception whatever. He only sees the murderer and his victim. That sight has transformed him from a youth with rather more of evil than of good in him into an impla- cable evenger of blood But a voice—bis father’s—raised in a sharp ' } The Kidnapper ; or, the Great Shanghai of the Northwest. 13 - a — a i ee I — tone of command, calls him from his ecstasy of he shivered with dread that they wero holding | something in reserve. hatred. “Sidney, I want you immediately!” CHAPTER XIX. MASKED HEARTS, We have said that Walter shrunk instinctive- iy from the rival to whom Fate had awarded the prize he so ardently coveted—instinctively, because he himself had never analyzed the re- pulsion he felt for Hal, ascribing it to an un- worthy jealousy. But whether that or a vague perception of Hal’s real character, the feeling was too powerful to be mastered; and passin his rival with a formal bow—he could not as him of the woman over whose fate his heart ‘“‘If they have discovered anything, they shall never live to betray me!” he muttered, as he followed Walter and Burly Ben toward the cave. He shuddered as he reflected cn the depth to which he was becoming involved. | ‘“‘A murder to hide a sham marriage, and two murders to cover the first! Where is it all to end?’ They reached. the cave and entered, a signal from Burley Ben warning their friends of their approach. Shaken by a great surge of emotion, now that he felt himself so near the woman he idolized, Walter allowed the others to precede him, while was so tortured—he grasped Burly Ben’s hand | he sought to command at least outward com- and said: ‘My dear Ben, as glad as I am to see you, I am pained that it should be under such circum- stances.” Here he stopped. Hecould not bring himself to utter Blanche’s name, lest his manner should betray his heart’s secret. “You may well say that, Master Walter,” returned Burly Ben, with feeling. ‘‘ We’re in trouble where your arm won’t go amiss, nor be given grudgingly, I know. but, how in the world iia you happen to run across us? an’ how did you come to know o’ Miss Blanche’s cap- tivity?” ‘“We were told by the woman whom you rescued from the Indians yesterday, only to ‘ The woman whom we rescued yesterday!” It was Hal’s voice, raised to a dangerous pitch by excitement. He had returned Walter's bow with one equally formal, with an infusion, how- ever, of hatred and contempt. But when he had heard Walter’s reference to Mary Edwards he started forward with a pallor like death an the eyes of a murderer brought to bay. As if + yi aa aap his hand sought the butt of a pis- ol. ‘‘Hist!” sibilated Burly Ben, in warning, alarmed by Hal’s unguarded tones. ‘‘ What’s the matter with you, man? Do ye want to bring the hull kit an’ passle of ’em down on us to once?” Walter turned with a stare of surprise, and then answered with distant deliberation: ‘““We went to her after you left her for dead—” ‘“*T left her for dead?” again interrupted Hal, almost as unguardedly as before. “You were driven off by the Indians,” re- plied Walter, not comprehending the true im- port of Hal’s question. **You went to her afterward, and she was not dead?” pursued Hal, livid and trembling. Still wondering, Walter replied: ‘**I succeeded in restoring her to an interval of consciousness.” ‘* And what did she say to you?” ‘““She told us of her rescue by the party in a of Miss Burbank, only to be fouttared at **Murdered! By whom?” ‘““Why, by the Indians, of course.” “Oh, certainly! Of course she could not tell one from the other.” Hal made a sickly attempt at a smile as he thus avoided the precipice over which he had so nearly plunged. ‘‘ But was that all she said?” he pursued, still on the rack. “‘In the first moments of her recovery she ke of her husband—not very coherently,” replied Walter, still blind to anything like sus- icion of the truth. How could he connect lanche Burbank’s accepted lover—affianced erie - babyhood—with Mary Edwards’ hus- “er husband?” repeated Hal. ‘“‘ What of him? What did she call him?” “‘ Charles—or Charley.” ‘*'Was that all? No other name?” ‘““No. She gave but his first name. Now I think of it, she seemed to wish to conceal her surname,” said Walter, his words showing how wholly unsuspicious he was. ‘* Great God!” The relief was so grout that the guilty husband reeled and clutched a sapling for support, wip- ing the cold sweat from his forehead. en conscious of the blank stare of the rest, an feeling that his extreme emotion called for some explanation, he added: ‘It was a horrible spectacle! I shall carry it to my dying day!” ; The moment Hal ceased to claim his attention Walter began to ply Ben with questions. He was almost dizzy with emotion when he learned that Blanche was secure in a cave under the protection of her father. _ What pen can describe his thoughts and feel- ings when, leaving Bantam to look for Shang, he approached the cave with the other two? As for Hal, his mind was ill at rest. He long- ed to know what Mary said of her husband in what Walter had called the incoherent words of the first moments of her Berges yet dared not make further inquiry, lest solicitude should awaken suspicion. He passed in review Walter’s and Bantam’s looks and manner, until | LLL ALLL LALLA LLL LLL LLL LLL LL LLL LL LLL LLL LL LL ttt ttt te ttt, LLL tt ttt ttt posure. The inner cave was dimly illuminated bya torch, no gleam of wheose light could reach the outer world through the tortuous entering pas- sage. Mr. Burbank met his friends at the in- ner mouth of this corridor. ‘“*Ah, Hal and Ben!” he said, giving eacha hand, ‘“ you don’t know how wasnt od we have awaited your return, nor how heartily we wel- come you safely back! Eut Miss Edwards? you surely have brought her with you!” And he peered into the shadows behind them. Hal seemed overccme with emoticn—his friends did not oa it as guilty fear! “Oh dear!” said blanche, with pale lips and clasped hands, ‘‘I hope nothing has happened to her.” It was Burly Ben who replied. ‘** She’s past our help, Miss Blanche,” he said avely. **‘ We kin cnly feel sorry for her, bein’ she was so young an’ innercent.” ‘* Not dead!” exclaimed Mr. Burbank. ‘Oh, no! no! You mean that she has been Nyy ig said Blanche, a my a inst hope. ‘“‘She’s gone whar Injuns kin foller her, but not bring her back,” sai Then Hal found voice. ““The particulars would only be painful to ou,” he said. “fuffice it that we can be of no urther service to her. Meanwhile,” he forced himself to add, feeling that it was incumbent upon him, though his whole soul rebelled, ‘‘ we have run across an old acquaintance, who has kindly volunteered his aid.” This said, he turned so that his face was in shadow, and set himself to watch the meeting between the woman whom he was engaged to a and the man who might hold the terrible secret of his former marriage and the fiendish deed of blood by which he had removed the ob- struction to the second. Meanwhile Walter has schooled his heart to the trying ordeal which was before him. “She is another’s! She is another's!” he kep repeating to himself. “I have no right to be- tray my dishonorable yassion for her. If I Ben. could despoil the rightful pessessor, I would be — unworthy of her. Oh, God! why am I tor- tured so!” But he heard Hal’s introduction; heard Mr. Burbank say, inquiringly: ‘“* An old acquaintance?” And then stepped forth from the shadows of the pomee. “Why, my dear Mr. Weston!” exclaimed Mr. Burbank, seizing upon both his hands, and shaking them with an enthusiastic cordiality which made Walter choke with teful emo- tion. ‘*‘ Was ever greater good fortune? But have you sprung up from the carth or dropped from the heavens, that we come across you in the heart of this vast wilderness?” “Thave been making my hcme with some friends—hunters—and learned of your vicinity,” — Walter, when Mr. Burbank interrupted ‘‘But here is my Canehtet, who—-thank God! —has just been restored to us from worse than Indian captivity. Blanche, my dear, here is your friend Mr. Weston, whose courage will be a unwelcome acquisition for your future de- ense.” Her friend! The word thrilled Walter. He had noticed Hal’s use of the word acquaintance. A mist swam before his vision, as he locked wu to see which term her reception would warran But, Hal’s jealous eye had seen what escaped all the others, Upon the appearance of Walter, he had seen her start forward with a quick catching of the breath, a clasping of the hands, and such a glad, radiant e as could only be called up by a thrill of ecstasy, while a crimson spot glowed in either cheek, A was as if the gate of paradise had been opened to her view; the next it was as if the door had been shut again in her face. Pale to the li and with her hand pressed over her heart, she stood fighting hard for composure, When Wal- ter looked up, she was trying to smile an ordi- n welcome. ‘*T need not assure Miss Burbank that I place my life between her and her foes,” he said screening his throbbing heart behind a mask of extreme formality. His studied manner acted like a tonic; and, with a naturalness she could not otherwise have , She extended her hand, and said: “You are too good, Mr, Weston. I shall be ‘Ss Eomichoo moment it © (E(0)