Beadle's Dime Library No. 509 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

20 ** Indeed! I should almost have guessed it to - be somewhat the other way. But goon, please.” ‘* Well, I was finally just weak enough to let Jake persuade me into the conspiracy against you, as one might call it.” ** But what could have been the object?” *¢ Jake’s was plain enough,” ‘*What was it?” “To marry you, that he might eventually possess and squander your fortune, of whose existence he was self-assured.” ‘“‘ Ah! to take advantage of my hard straits with poverty?’ ‘* Exactly.” ‘* And you could lend yourself to such a mer- eenary and unmanly scheme?” ‘‘T was weaker than he, as I said, and ever the more easily led. However, I was not with- out a dream of my own, that might be deemed a selfish one, though I took no stock at first in the existence of the buried treasure,” ‘* Well?” ‘Well, in joining him in the conspiracy against vou, I am afraid I was instigated in my turn to conspire against poor Jake himself.” ‘**T don’t understand.” ‘* You will do so in a minute—perhaps to my confusion, if not to the blighting of my hopes, You remember the first glimpse we got of you from the buggy?” ““‘ es ** Well, from the family resemblance, we both knew you for what you were, for Henriette Mervyn, on the instant. The resulf was thet Jake’s cupidity was excited. ‘The girl may be rich one day,’ he said. ‘TJl take my chances for it by courting and marrying her in her poverty, if possible.’ That was the birth of the conspiracy against you, in which I was weak enough to join, though chiefly through a motive he could not suspect.” ‘* What was your motive?” * “Tloved youon sight! There! the secret is out.” “Oh, do not talk so!” “‘T must—Il can’t helpit! For the first and only time in my life, I loved. My beart went out to you, in what seemed your mute loneli- ness, poverty and desolation, like a river of sympathy. I said to myself: ‘ He would marry her for the money. I sball first try to find and save the money to her, if it has any real ex- istence—then cast it into her lap, and, with the confession of my own pennilessness, pour forth the story of my love and hope!” She seemed to have scarcely heeded him, and now came to a pause through absolute breath- lessness and exhaustion. It chanced to be on that rise in the road whence he had turned to retrace his course, after identifying the haunted house; and she leaned, panting hard, against a roadside tree. *“You must not speak thus to me, sir!” she yet. managed to say. ‘You do not believe in the truth of my words, then?’ ‘*T do not say that. Butit isn’t right—I do not like it!” **You shall not be offended again. From this moment I am mute—a hermit with my precious, my painful secret forevermore! I can at least die in treasuring and hugging to my- self the deur consciousness that I kave known and loved you. But come; we must on!” ‘**] feel that I can go no further. I tremble, I am overtaxed,” **Do not say so! Toomuchisatstake. Yon- ae the haunted house. Come; I will help you ong.” She made a gesture of resistance, but, never- theless, he drew her arm through his, and aided her forward steps. After that her strength seemed to rally ina measure, and a certain rapidity of pace was once more resumed. In a few minutes they had passed through the old orchard, and noiselessly entered the ne- giected house. The reflection of a dim ligbt was visible at the bottom of the cellar stairs, and then there came the hollow, ringing sound of a piece of metal being cast to one side. Under Joseph Mervyn’s cautious lead, the pair descended into the cellar, To return to Harvey Mayfield, it behooves us to say tbat he reached the treasure’s hiding- lace in the north cellar, without a suspicion of ing followed, though at that very moment the detective and the disguised Therese were close at his heels, and secretly, breathlessly studying his every movement. He seized the pick and shovel, which he found as he had Jeft them, and, having alreaay light- ed the dark-lantern, which had also been left convenient to bis return visit, lost no time in removing the loose earth which he had cast ‘back into the excavation on top of the cistern lid. But this was a longer and more laborious task than he had anticipated. . There seemed to be something in the nature of the earth composing the cellar floor that caused it to settle and pack down to much of its origin- al hardness, In spite of reassuring evidences that it had not been again disturbed, he found almost as i ee — much difficulty in re-emptying the excavation as in scooping it out on his first visit. However, as he imagined that there was no etal of special haste, he proceeded methudi- eally. At last the cistern-cover was reached, and it was the clang of the chain against its under side, upon his lifting it, that had sounded through the stillness as Retta and Joseph reached the cellar-stair. In the mean time, the detective and Therese, on their part, were keeping such an interested watch from the narrow doorway of the ad- joining cellar, as to have not the slightest sus- picion of the secret flanking movement in their rear, A few minutes later Mayfield was once more on the rubbish heap in the bottom of the cistern, his lantern turned on at full, so as to light up the confined space, his two large grip-sacks lying open at his side, and the precious contents of the secret receptacle scattered around him. The detectiveand Therese were now stooping down over the aperture, peeriug into the cis- tern, and feasting their eyes upon the treasure- boxes, even yet’ without this suspecting their proxinity. CHAPTER XXX. LIKE RATS IN A TRAP. BrEFoRE filling his grip-sacks out of the cash- boxes, Mayfield placed his hands on his bips, and, squatting down ina rather undignified at- titude, surveyed the money with a positively mournful expression. ‘¢Hven now I can’t take it all away with me!” he soliloquized, with much_ bitterness, ‘‘How miserably unfortunate! The portman- teaus, stuff them as I may, can’t possibly be made to hold more than half the money, and even then I would beoverloaded.” — He could almost have shed tears over this matter, which will appear so ridiculous in tbe eyes of the reader, To have so much cash wealth at one’s com- mand as not to be able to carry it all at once! Can anything in the world be more melancholy and pitiable? He shook his head sadly, while setting about the work of transferring the bunches of banuk- notes from one of the boxes tothe interior of the larger of the grip-sacks, which he had drawn, wide open, to his side, in as matter-of-fact a way as if studying to economize its space in packing up his spare linen for an important journey. s ** No, no; it can’t be done!” he said out loud once more. ‘Curse the luck! I can’t carry off more than, say a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, even if I can manage with that much.” ‘“* What an infernal pity!” exclaimed, with mock concern, a deep voice from directly over his head. Mayfield looked up, almost with a scream, to erceive the two pairs of eyes looking down at ie through the great round hole—the detec- tive’s, which he instantly recognized, and the companion pair, which seemed to have some- thing maliciously familiar in them, though they seemed to be looking out of a stranger lad’s head, and anfexceedingly handsome head at that. But Mayfield was only startled for an instant. After that he was infuriated. > Instantly he was on his feet, revolver in hand. ‘** Accursed BotecGn ener !” he exclaimed, fairly gnashing his teeth. ‘‘ What? you have tracked my secret, then? But the knowledge shall cost you dear!” ‘*Throw-up your hands!” The detective’s leveled revolver was in ad- vance of the other’s, though Therese was stretching out her hand across the hole to grasp it But at this juncture there was a loud, rasping laugh from above and behind, followed bya crashing double blow with the discarded spade, and both spies, man and woman, detective and adventuress, were precipitated headlong into the cistern, Then the lid was hurled down tightly over the aperture, there came the muffled sound of a woman’s protesting scream, and the entombed trio heard the earth heing heaped back into the excavation on top of the cover, with their hearts in their mouths. ‘* You must not! ‘You shall not!” The word’s were Henriette’s, and she was desperately, even fiercely, clutching at Joseph’s hands, which were, nevertheless, filing in the earth with an angry impatience, and without desisting in the least. ‘‘ Away, Cousin Retta!” he hoarsely exclaim- ed. ‘‘The would-be purloiners must be sealed up; otherwise your fortune is lost to you.” ‘Villain! murderous scoundrel!” and still she tugged at his strong wrists, even throwing her- self upon the spade. ‘‘ Do you forget that he— Mayfield—is down there?” “Ha! you love him, then?” ‘“*Love him? I—I adore bim! What is a paltry fortune, the dross of money, to his life, to sav nothing of the lives of -those two others? Stop! stop, I say, on your life!” Sbe had by this time hurled him back, and a small revolver was glistening in her hand, a Old Falcon, the Thunderbolt Detective. As by now, however, he had prey well filled in the hole, he regarded her with a look of pre- tended astonishment—nothwithstanding that her beauty was intensified by her excitement to that degree as to make his blood course like lava through his veins—and his ready dissimulation was at his command, _ He burst into a loud laugh, that was an ex- cellent counterfeit of genuineness, ‘* What!” he exclaimed, with a stare; ‘‘ you don’t really suppose that 1 would murder the rascals—entomb them alive?” ‘* But what else have you done?” ‘*Pooh! Sealed them up from above for safe- keeping. That is all. ho ever heard of a cistern without air-holes around the upper edge of its interior masonry? Otherwise, the storage of water would speedily grow foul, you know.” Of course she didn’t know anything of the sort, nor could any one else, with even the most superficial knowledge of the laws of ventilation and mechanics. But for all that, she placed ber hand to her temples and reflected. ‘*T seem to dimly remember that there was some secret passage in connection with the old cistern,” she murmured to herself. ‘‘It had been partly filled in even before my father pur- chased the place, when I was but a child, though we had lived here before, ‘‘ Yes; there was something said between my parents about a strange sort of tunnel connection baving been discovered before I was born.” He only caught her last two or three words, ‘* Ah, | remember now your saying you were born im this house!” he exclaimed, willing enough to divert her thoughts from the tragedy just enacted; for that he bad entombed the trio to their deaths he did not for a moment doubt— and, in fact, it would have disquieted him greatly to think otherwise. ‘ But still you could not have lived here for a long time back?” ‘‘No, no; the place has long been deserted, and is now in litigation, | believe. But tell me, reassure me,” she was looking fixedly at him, as he could just perceive by the last flickerings of a chance scrap of candle that he had secretly lighted in the adjoining cellar before making the attack, ‘‘ You are quite certain that they— those three persons—will not suffocate down there?” ‘*Of course I am!” he unhesitatingly replied, though apecniely certain to the contrary in his own mind, ‘‘Whyy any one acquainted with the principles on which cisterns are constructed wonld know that! And surely, Cousin Retta, a few hours’ t#nprisonment down there, even if somewhat painful, would not be an excessive re- tribution for their attempt to rob you of your fortune.” She had regained her collectedness in a man- my that somewhat mystified him, to say the east, ‘‘T say nothing to the contrary, Cousin Joseph,” she replied, ‘But what are your lans now with regard to those entombed ones? hat do you propose?” ‘‘ Let me think. It ought to be nearly day- light now, and this house, I fancy, is over the dividing line, and into the metropolitan annexed district.” “T believe dt is.” *‘ Well, less than half a mile to the south is Riverdale, the next railroad station below Yonkers,” ‘* What of that?” ** How would it do to push on down there, tell our story at the precinct station-house, return with a squad of policemen, and bag the entire thieving trio of ’em? That would also secure your treasure against future mishap, too—less what Mayfield muy have already appropriated.” This proposition was quickly and shuddering- ly rejected, as he had well divined it would be. Have Harvey Mayfield publicly humiliated with a charge of theft, or of having appropri- ated stolen moneys! The very idea was terri- fying, No, no; if he bad succumbed toa vul- gar temptation, it was not Retta’s action that should expose him to contumely, however he might have fallen in her estimaticn. “That is not to be thought of!” she said, de- ado ‘* Think of some other plan,” ** Well, then, we'll leave them where they are till next midnight. It won’t burt them much, and will afford ample time for dark-cells reflec- tions on their evil courses.” ‘That will do, I think.” And she con:posedly hurried away, as the bit of candle gave its expiring flicker, not pausing until she was once more in the moonlight out- side the house, where he quickly rejoined her. ** One moment, Cousin Retta!” ‘* What is it?” **T love you—love you to madness!” And he threw himself at her feet. CHAPTER XXXII. OLD RECOLLECTIONS BRIGHTENED, HENRIETTE drew back under the shadow of an apple-tree, offended and annoyed. ‘‘Why do you act thus, Cousin Joseph?” she said, with cold displeasure. ‘‘ Do getupon your feet! Cannot vou see how ridiculous this is?” ‘* Ridiculous!” but_he, nevertheless, did arise, and quickly, too. ‘‘I simply love you!” Gomilchoo f ae ee S a a ieee C ] J - ~~ (oy (| ; ‘ * v4 Pi * “Sa