Beadle's Dime Library No. 509 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

§ 0 ee ge ee ae" \ Coe oo Old Falcon, the Thunderbolt Detective. 7 But, as has been said, Mayfield had a good, orderly set of nerves. However, he was proceeding, after a cursory glance all round, directly to the cellar stairs, and already had his hand on the door, when a slight noise, real or fancied, apparently from somewhere up in the attic, recalled the streak of light fancied to have been seen at one of the dormer windows, and he paused and listened. The alarm was not repeated. He half-turned, with the intention of re- examining the upper rooms before proceeding to the cellars, but paused again in impatient self- contempt. ‘‘ Pshaw!” be muttered; ‘‘ it was merely a rat or a wandering wind. 1 explored the rooms from top to bottom once, and no one can have entered the house since then. The entrance- door yonder showed no signs of having been tampered with afresh.” ith that, be continued on down below, and presently found himself in the cellar compart- ment directly under the kitchen. It was close-smelling and empty, save for some old barrels and a few sickly-looking fun- gous growths directly under the narrow half- window, by which light and air were admitted from the garden-level. The next cellar, going forward under the dining-room, was littered with boxes and bar- rels, in some places piled up to the hight of the bare rafters. Then, with hurried steps, he was in the third cellar, directly beneath the parlor—the small cellar to the north, the cellar of the alleged buried treasure—and the young man drew a long breath as he propped his lantern, with its light fully exposed, upon a ledge of masonry, and grasped the pick with a nervous grasp. The place was damp, ill-smelling, devoid of rukbish, about sixteen feet square, and with few or no signs of its hard-packed earth-flooring having ever been disturbed. CHAPTER IX, TREASURE TROVE, ‘“‘Te rascals certainly managed to cover up their work well,” thought the searcher, with a last glance over the beaten floor before selecting a spot in which to begin digging—*‘ that is, supposing that they really were here, and I am not the dupe of a desperate criminal’s parting joke!” : The very possibility of such a disappointment in prospect caused the sweat to start on his fore- head and cold shivers to run through his frame, as the sudden apparition of any number of the alleged ghosts pertaining to the locality could not have evoked. Tn an instant, however, he had shaken off his depression, and driven his pick into a corner of the cellar-bed where the presence of a piece of broken iron pipe against the wall suggested that the covered-up cistern might have once been communicated with. With the initial stroke, his sauguine spirits seemed to return to bim with a rusb, Alternately with pick and spade, he digged and delved with scarcely an instant’s cessation, notwithstanding that the earth was tantaliz- ingly solid, and, in places, almost as hard as stone, At last, when about a foot and a half down, sheer exhaustion compelled him to take a mo- mentary rest. Could he have seen his own face, as he paused on the edge of the wide, ragged. shallow trench, wiping his heated brow with a trembling hand, and half-ready to drop with the heat induced by his unwonted exertions—for he had not even paused to discard his coat and waistcoat—its aspect might have frightened him, Tt was not ouly lividly pale, but also distorted and in’a measure transformed, under the undis- uised impress of those base passions and that Nnsoretiantion that had latterly claimed him so indubitably as their prey. “The deuce!” he muttered, hoarsely. ‘*‘ What could have induced them to have so packed down tue earth over their secret, in this seclud- ed place, too, as to make it like iron? That is, if—supposing—” : But the return of the doubt was maddening. He tore off his upper garments, flung them intoa heap over the open grip-sack, that had been gaping and staring at him in a sortof mockery, and once more set to work with clinched teeth and knitted brows. But realization was at hand, At scarcely a dozen additional strokes the und grew more yielding, with indications of its having been previously disturbed and then hastily thrown back. He now worked like a madman. He had discarded the pick altogether, and at last the spade, sinking through the last few inches of loose earth, struck forth a hollow, metallic sound. An instant later, the round iron plate of the cistern cover, with a large lifting-ring in the center, was exposed to view. Mayfield uttered a husky cry of triumph, and, once more exhausted, though more by excite- ment than physical fatigue, he sat on the edge of the excavation, trembling like a leaf. The pallor of his face gave way to a purpling | | Se se ct flush, which, however, was yet more lamenta- ble; for the features remained distorted and drawn, and the rutbless, dishonest devil of the man’s nature was more thoroughly, gloatingly to the front than theretofore. ‘* No longer a doubt of it!” he gasped through his Ke parched lips. ‘‘I shall be rich—rich— rich !” The cistern-plate was lifted, and set carefull on edge at the sideof the opening, with less diffi- culty than migbt have been anticipated, He then got the lantern, and, bending with it far down through the opening, which was roomy enough, examined the interior, A single glance was sufficient to prompt a shout of ‘* Nil ultra!” to his proudest hopes, The cistern, an uncommoovly large and deep one, was more than _ half-filled with plaster, bricks and other rubbish; and, still better, after the first admission of air from above, was neither so offensive nor close-smelling as one would have looked for. At one side, about midway down to the rub- bishy filling-in, the cement and masonry had been torn out for the construction of a rude, jagged receptacle, a foot and a half or two feet square, The lowered lantern, flinging some of its beams into this receptacle, brought out the metallic glistening and even the distinct out- lines of tin boxes, such as are used for cash and bonds in bank-vaults, piled in orderly rows. Breathless, the young man tried to reach into the hole after one of the boxes, but from his then attitude the stretch was too much for even his greedy arms, ‘* However,” he grumbled, “ better, eto down there than elsewhere for a primary baul.” He reached down far enough to drop the lan- tern easily upon the rubbish-heap, scrambled back, then up out of the excavation; and, bur- riedly resuming his coat and vest, for it was damp and chilly enough back dowu there, was speedily at the bottom of the choked cistern, grip-sack in hand. ropping the latter, and raising the lantern, he peered into the hole in the wall with glisten- ne and rapidly enlarging eyes. here were 2s many as twenty of the cash- boxes piled within! Pulling out and tearing open the first one to his hand, once more a boarse, muffled cry, like that of a long-famishing beast over a cache of stored meats, broke from his lips. It was filled with bundles of crisp greenbacks of the fifty-dollar denomination, and, as shown by a swift, trembling manipulation, a thousand dollars to the package, making ten thousand dollars as the entire contents. Forcing himself to a methodical coolness of search and estimate, he proceeded with the in- ventory seriatim, The next box disclosed contents exactly simi- lar to the first. The next after that, being un- expectedly heavy, was found to be brimmed with silver half-dollars, Three succeeding ones produced a like revelation. Then came a box yet heavier. It was filled to the top with up- ended pink-papered rolls of double gold eagles. There were three more similar boxes, equally packed, one with ten-dollar, another with five- dollar, and the third with quarter-eagle gold pieces. Twelve boxes remained for examination, poms twenty-two in all. They were found severally packed with bundles of bank-notes of various denominations—twenties, tens, fives and wos, Mayfield sat down on the center of the rub- bish heap, and, after pressing both bands to his temples, as if to quiet their tumultuous throb- bings, gazed dreamily around him, and yet with gloating eyes, His dream of wealth was in his grasp. The written promise of the dead convict had ma- terialized. Around him were the open treasure- boxes, ‘‘crammed to the lids,” as had been scrawled down by that d rate hand a mo- ment or two before it was stilled forever. Ata rough estimate, there was considerably more than three hundred thousand dollars repre- sented in all, coin and paper—perhaps twenty thousand in excess of that round and princely amount. For some minutes the young man sat thus in silence, alone with the stolen treasure, the pur- loined fortune. _ ; Surely it was his by treasure-trove, Or, at least, he had come so near to that line of think- ing, as to have scarcely a remaining qualm as to its appropriation to his own pleasures and desires. Then he aroused himself, and his ideas began to take a business-hke and practical turn, He must remove and bank the wealth to his credit by degrees, or suspicion might be excited. He made what he considered a modest be- ginning im this course by stuffing the grip-sack to its full capacity with bunches of fifty, twenty ten and five-dollar greenbacks to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars. As much more, some in rolls of gold (he had already come to look on the silver coin with disdainful contempt), but chiefly in bills of various denominations, went to the comfortable, not to say plethoric, lining of every pocket be had at his bel pegs In fact, he thought seriously of distributing more of the Fe a money in his shoes under the soles of his feet, and around under the lining of his derby hat, but finally gave up the notion with the sotto voce soliloquy that it might be as well not to play the hog at a first venture. ‘** There!” he muttered, after re these arrangements, ‘‘The thirty thousand I shall carry away is doubtless the excess, and will round off the three hundred thousand to be left behind quite nicely. That should satisfy me for the present, and what remains—with Grayton safely entombed alive in bis lhife-imprisonment, and Brummagem Bob probably dead and buried long ere now (though I must not neglect some precautionary inquiries in these regards) is safer right bere than in any bank-vault in the coun- try. Good! good! good! But no enthusiasm, no hysterics, young man! Thorough is the word hereafter, and cold, secretive horse-sense as the talisman for security.” After returning the cash-boxes to their re- ceptacle, he was about to climb up out of tbe cistern, with the grip-sack in one hand and the lantern in the ier. when his head struck against a chain, dangling from the lower side of the uptilted plate-cover, which he had not perceived before. ‘* Hallo!” he thought; “ this would argue that the cistern has some time or other been used as a human, no less than a money, hiding-place,” However, he lost no further time in clamber- ing cut of the cistern and the over-topping ex- cavation, after which he replaced the iron plate, and filled in the earth above it, though much more loosely than before. He bad scarcely reached the top of the ceilar stairs, though, when there was the sound of something falling in one of the upper rooms, CHAPTER X. AN UNEXPECTED FIND. Tris time the alarm was unmistakable, and the sound had evidently come from the attic, as had the half-suspected admonitions that had preceded it. ‘* Had there been some lurker in the old house after all? and with a possibility of his, May- csc searchings having been secretly spied upon The young man at first turned pale, though he was not lacking in physica], howsoever he might be in want of moral, stamina, Then the fierce, savage resolve, so natural to a brave man in bemg summoned to defend bis property against a lawless marauder, came jaa into bis face and eyes, The inconsistency of his virtuous indignation was wholly unapparent to his deteriorated con- science and indurated sensibilities. It was his wealth, his property—bard-earned by thirty days’ brooding anxiety and as many minutes’ sweat of the brow with pick and spade —tbhat was at stake, and be would defend it to the death! Shifting the lantern to the same band that clutched the treasure-crammed grip-sack, with the other he graspéd his revolver; and, thus tS began to ascend to the second floor with cautious but untrembling steps, compressed lips und undaunted brow, | There were but three second-floor rooms, and these were found deserted, with no signs of havy- ing. even been entered before in a great while. ut a dim light was perceived under the closed door at the top of the narrow stars lead- ing on up to the attic, from which the sound bad, it was now beyond doubt, proceeded, As Mayfield approached this door, he became aware of gasping, struggling sounds from with- in, that somehow vaguely excited his commisera- tion, Incontinently bursting open the door, and springing into the one large rocm of which the entire attic-floor was composed, and which was feebly lighted by a guttering candle stuck in a a bottle near one of the windows that bad been jealously curtained iv, a terrible and most un- expected sight met bis astounded gaze. ; Suspended from a hook in the opposite wa wasa human being—a young woman—in the final throes of strangulation; the overturned chair almost directly underneath, whose fall had produced the alarm beard below, telling with startling significance the suicida) story. The unfortunate creature was all but gone— already black in the face, in fact—though she was still feebly struggling, while faint, choking gasps were yet being emitted from the cord-en- circled throat. ; To drop his burdens, cast aside bis pistol, and rush forward to the rescue, with a loud, hay 8 thetic shout, was the work of an instant on the part of the horrified Mayfield. The next instant be had cut her down, torn away the throttling cord, and she was helpless, though faintly striving to catch back the breath of life in his arms, Fortunately, Mayfield was not wholly igno- rant of. the best means of resuscitation in such a case; and he praised God that bis chance succor had not been delayed a moment, else in all proba- oor it would — —— es seme ie arge jug of water, together with a glass ie sal =. stood on a rickety table near at hanc. ; By a lavish use of the water, combined with com S (¢ . aa : ; ™ eas ist ee | " .OOk - * tt . eS a «7