The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of PRADO the Assassin, by Louis Berard.

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No. 22—A HEART'S BITTERNESS, by Bertha M. Clay.
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A SERVANT OF SATAN.

An Extraordinary Record of Crime in Many Lands—He was Reared in a Royal Palace.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889,
By Street & Smith,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

“Prado was a wonderful fellow,” said Chief Inspector Byrnes, of the New York police, recently, “and for criminal ingenuity and devilishness stands without a peer. I question whether cupidity lay at the foundation of his diabolical work, inclining to the belief that some great wrong worked on his mind and embittered him against the wealthier members of the class of women whom he selected as his victims. Certainly the opening chapters of the story would indicate as much. The fact that this recital of Prado's crimes is made up from notes furnished by the man himself makes it unusually interesting, and the splendidly written and graphically illustrated story will find a place in the scrap-book of every police detective in the country.

“I do not think a career like Prado's in Paris could be possible in this city. Our police system is so different from that of Paris that we can weave a net about criminals much easier. We do not have to unreel miles of red tape before starting out on a hunt for criminals, but are at work with scores of detectives, aided by the entire force, if necessary, before a victim of murder is fairly cold. We seek motives, study the antecedents and acquaintances of the slain, and, following clew after clew, we make it so warm for an assassin that he seeks safety rather than a duplication of crime. Prado, however, was an assassin far above the average of men in intelligence and ingenuity, and gave evidence of having moved in high circles of society, and I should not be surprised if the story will make clear his identity to students of the ‘Almanac de Gotha.’”—New York World.

It was at Madrid, in the month of April, 1880, that I first made the acquaintance of the extraordinary man, who, under the pseudonym of “Prado” met his fate beneath the Paris guillotine. I had just driven back into town from witnessing the execution by the “garrote” of the regicide Francisco Otero, and was in the act of stepping from my brougham, when suddenly the crowd assembled on the Puerto del Sol parted as if by magic to give place to a runaway carriage. I had barely time to note the frantic efforts of the coachman to stop the onward course of the frightened horses, when there was a terrible crash, and the victoria was shattered to splinters against one of the heavy posts on the square. The coachman, still clutching hold of the reins, was torn from the box, and dragged some hundred yards farther along the ground, before the horses were stopped and he could be induced to release his hold of the ribbons. To the surprise of all the spectators, he escaped with a few bruises. His master, however—the only other occupant of the carriage—was less fortunate. Hurled by the shock with considerable violence to the pavement, almost at my very feet, he remained unconscious for some minutes. When at length he recovered his senses, and attempted to rise with my assistance, it was found that he had broken his ankle, and was unable to stand upright. Placing him in my trap, I drove him to the address which he gave me—a house in the Calle del [Pg 8] Barquillo—and on our arrival there, assisted the door porter and some of the other servants to carry him up stairs to a very handsome suite of apartments on the second floor. On taking my departure, he overwhelmed me with thanks for what he was pleased to call my kindness, and entreated me to do him the favor of calling, handing me at the same time a card bearing the name of Comte Linska de Castillon.

A couple of days later, happening to be in the neighborhood of the Calle del Barquillo, I dropped in to see how he was getting on. He received me with the greatest cordiality, and so interesting was his conversation that it was quite dark before I left the house. It turned out that he, too, had been present at the execution of the wretched Otero, and that he was on his way home when his horses became frightened and bolted. After discussing all the horrible details of the death of the regicide, the conversation took the direction of capital punishment in foreign countries—a theme about which he displayed the most wonderful knowledge.

From the graphic manner in which he described the strange tortures and cruel methods of punishment practiced at the courts of the native princes in India and China, it was evident that he was speaking of scenes which he had witnessed, and not from mere hearsay. He seemed equally well acquainted with the terrors of lynch law in the frontier territories of the United States, and with the military executions of spies and deserters in warfare. In short, it became clear to me that he was a great traveler, and that he was as well acquainted with America and Asia as he was with the ins and outs of almost every capital in Europe. His French, his Spanish, his German, and his English, were all equally without a trace of foreign accent. His manners were perfect, and displayed unmistakable signs of birth and breeding. Although not above the ordinary stature, he was a man of very compact and muscular build. Dressed [Pg 9] in the most perfect and quiet taste, his appearance, without being foppish, was one of great chic and elegance. No trace of jewelry was to be seen about his person. His hands and feet were small and well shaped; his mustache was black, as were also his large and luminous eyes. His hair, slightly gray toward the temples, showed traces of age, or, perhaps, of a hard life. But the most remarkable thing about him was his smile, which seemed to light up his whole face, and which was singularly winning and frank. I confess I took a great fancy to the man, who at the time was exceedingly popular in Madrid society. He was to be seen in many of the most exclusive salons, was present at nearly all the ministerial and diplomatic receptions, and apparently enjoyed universal consideration. Our intimacy continued for about a couple of years, during the course of which I had the opportunity of rendering him one or two more slight services. Toward the end of 1882, I was obliged to leave Madrid rather suddenly, being summoned to Torquay by the dangerous illness of my mother, who is an English woman, and I did not return to Spain until several years later, when I found that Comte Linska de Castillon had meanwhile gone under—in a financial sense—and had disappeared from the surface.

It is unnecessary to describe here the horror and consternation with which I learned that “Prado,” the man charged with numerous robberies and with the murder of the demi-mondaine, Marie Aguetant, was no other than my former friend, Comte Linska de Castillon. Of course, I made a point of attending the trial. I confess, however, that I had some difficulty in recognizing in the rather unprepossessing individual in the prisoner's dock the once elegant viveur whom I had known at Madrid. His features had become somewhat bloated and coarse, as if by hard living, his dress was careless and untidy, his hair gray and his eyes heavy. It was only on the rare occasions when he smiled that his [Pg 10] face resumed traces of its former appearance. Day after day I sat in court and listened to the evidence against him. The impression which the latter left on my mind was that, however guilty he undoubtedly had been of other crimes—possibly even of murder—he was, nevertheless, innocent of the death of Marie Aguetant, the charge on which he was executed. The crime was too brutal and too coarse in its method to have been perpetrated by his hand. Moreover, the evidence against him in the matter was not direct, but only circumstantial. Neither the jewelry nor the bonds which he was alleged to have stolen from the murdered woman have ever been discovered. Neither has the weapon with which the deed was committed been found, and the only evidence against him was that of two women, both of loose morals, and both of whom considered themselves to have been betrayed by him. The one, Eugenie Forrestier, a well-known femme galante, saw in the trial a means of advertising her charms, which she has succeeded in doing in a most profitable manner. The other, Mauricette Courouneau, the mother of his child, had fallen in love with a young German and was under promise to marry him as soon as ever the trial was completed, and “Prado's head had rolled into the basket of Monsieur de Paris.”

Shortly after the sentence had been pronounced upon the man whom I had known as “Comte Linska de Castillon” I visited him in his prison, and subsequently at his request called several times again to see him. He seemed very calm and collected. Death apparently had no terrors for him, and on one occasion he recalled the curious coincidence that our first meeting had been on our way home from the execution of the regicide Otero. The only thing which he seemed to dread was that his aged father—his one and solitary affection in the world—should learn of his disgrace. In answer to my repeated inquiries as to who his father was he invariably put me off with a smile, exclaiming, [Pg 11] “Demain, demain!” (to-morrow). He appeared, however, to be filled with the most intense bitterness against the other members of his family, step-mother, half-brothers and sisters, who, he declared, had been the first cause of his estrangement from his father and of his own ruin.

Although condemned criminals are never informed of the date of their execution until a couple of hours before they are actually led to the scaffold, yet “Prado,” or “Castillon” appeared to have an intuition of the imminence of his death. For two days before it took place, when I was about to take leave, after paying him one of my customary visits, he suddenly exclaimed:

“I may not see you again. It is possible that this may be our last interview. You are the only one of my former friends who has shown me the slightest kindness or sympathy in my trouble. It would be useless to thank you. I am perfectly aware that my whole record must appear repulsive to you, and that your conduct toward me has been prompted by pity more than by any other sentiment. Were you, however, to know my true story you would pity me even more. The statements which I made to M. Guillo, the Judge d'Instruction who examined me, were merely invented on the spur of the moment, for the purpose of showing him that my powers of imagination were, at any rate, as brilliant as his own. No one, not even my lawyer, knows my real name or history. You will find both in this sealed packet. It contains some notes which I have jotted down while in prison, concerning my past career.”

“I want you, however,” he continued, “to promise me two things. The first is that you will not open the outer covering thereof until after my execution; the second, that you will make no mention or reference to the name inscribed on the inner envelope until you see the death of its possessor announced in the newspapers. It is the name of my poor old father. He is in failing health and can scarcely live much longer. When he passes away you are at liberty to break the seals and to use the information contained therein in any form you may think proper. The only object I have in now concealing my identity is to spare the old gentleman any unnecessary sorrow and disgrace.”

He uttered these last words rather sadly and paused for a few minutes before proceeding.

“With regard to the remainder of my family,” said he at last, “I am totally indifferent about their feelings in the matter.”

“One word more, my dear Berard,” he continued. “I am anxious that these papers should some day or other be made known to the world. They will convince the public that at any rate I am innocent of the brutal murder for which I am about to suffer death. My crimes have been numerous; they have been committed in many different lands, and I have never hesitated to put people out of the way when I found them to be dangerous to my interests. But whatever I may have done has been accomplished with skill and delicacy. My misdeeds have been those of a man of birth, education, and breeding, whereas the slayer of Marie Aguetant was, as you will find out one of these days, but a mere vulgar criminal of low and coarse instincts, the scum indeed of a Levantine gutter.

“And now good-by my dear Berard. I rely on you to respect the wishes of a man who is about to disappear into Nirwana. You see,” he added with a smile, “I am something of a Buddhist.”

Almost involuntarily I grasped both his hands firmly in mine. I was deeply moved. All the powers of attraction which he had formerly exercised on me at Madrid came again to the surface, and it was he who gently pushed me out of the cell in order to cut short a painful scene.

Two days later one of the most remarkable criminals of the age expiated his numerous crimes on the scaffold in the square in front of the Prison de la Grande Roquette.

Late last night, when alone in my library, I broke the seals of the outer envelope of the parcel which he had confided to me. When I saw the name inscribed on the inner covering I started from my chair. It was a name of worldwide fame, one of the most brilliant in the “Almanac de Gotha,” and familiar in every court in Europe. However, mindful of my promise to the dead, I locked the package away in my safe. My curiosity, however, was not put to a very severe test, for about a week later the papers of every [Pg 14] country in Europe announced the death of the statesman and soldier whose name figured on the cover of the parcel of documents.

Without further delay I broke the seals of the inner wrapper. The whole night through and far on into the next day, I sat poring over the sheets of closely written manuscript—the confessions of the man who had been guillotined under the assumed name of “Prado.” They revealed an astounding career of crime and adventure in almost every corner of the globe, and thoroughly impressed me with the conviction that, however innocent he may have been of the murder of Marie Aguetant, yet he fully deserved the penalty which was finally meted out to him. Of scruples or of any notions of morality he had none, and so cold-blooded and repulsive is the cynicism which this servant of Satan at times displays in the notes concerning his life which he placed at my disposal, I have been forced to use considerable discretion in editing them. While careful to reproduce all the facts contained in the manuscript, I have toned down a certain Zola-like realism of expression impossible to render in print, and have shaped the disjointed memoranda and jottings into a consecutive narrative.

One word more before finally introducing the real Prado to the world. However great my desire to accede to the last wish of my former friend, I cannot bring myself to disclose to the general public the real name of the unfortunate family to which he belonged. There are too many innocent members thereof who would be irretrievably injured by its disclosure.

But the pseudonym which I have employed is so transparent, and the history of the great house in question so well known, that all who have any acquaintance of the inner ring of European society will have no difficulty in recognizing its identity.

Count Frederick von Waldberg, who was tried and guillotined at Paris under the name of Prado, was born at Berlin in 1849 and was named after King Frederick William IV. of Prussia, who, together with Queen Elizabeth, was present at the christening and acted as sponsor. This somewhat exceptional distinction was due to the fact that the child's father, Count Heinrich von Waldberg, was not only one of the favorite aides-de-camp generals of his majesty, but had also been a friend and companion of the monarch from his very boyhood.

Although at the time the general had not yet achieved the great reputation as a statesman which he subsequently attained, yet he was already known throughout Europe as an ambassador of rare skill and diplomacy, and as one of the most influential personages of the Berlin Court. Married in 1847 to a princess of the reigning house of Kipper-Deutmolde, a woman of singular beauty, little Frederick was the first and only offspring of their union. The child was scarcely a year old when the mother died at Potsdam, after only a few days' illness, leaving the whole of her fortune in trust for the boy. The general was inconsolable, and so intense was his grief that for some days it was feared that his mind would give way. The very kindest sympathy was displayed by both the king and his consort, the latter in particular being deeply moved by the motherless condition of little Frederick. During the next three years the child spent much of his time in her majesty's private apartments, both at Berlin and Potsdam, and, herself childless, Queen [Pg 16] Elizabeth did her utmost to act the part of a mother to the pretty curly headed boy.

After four years of widowhood the general became convinced that it was not “good for man to be alone,” and cast his eyes about him in search of another wife. Greatly to the disgust of the beauties of the Prussian capital, who were only too ready to surrender their hands and their hearts to the high rank and station of Count von Waldberg, his choice fell on an Italian lady, whose sole recommendation in his eyes was, as he publicly proclaimed to his friends, that she bore certain traces of resemblance to his dead princess.

Several children were born of this second marriage, and, as usual in such cases, poor little Frederick suffered the ordinary fate of a step-child. The new Countess von Waldberg could not bring herself to forgive the boy for being the heir to a large fortune, while her own children had nothing but a meager portion to which they could look forward. Moreover she was intensely jealous of the marked favor and interest which both the king and the queen displayed toward their godson whenever the family came to Berlin. As, however, the general spent the first ten years of his second marriage at the foreign capitals to which he was accredited as ambassador, Frederick but rarely saw his royal friends. His childhood was thoroughly embittered by the repellent attitude of his step-mother and of his half brothers and sisters toward him. His father, it is true, was always kind and affectionate; but engrossed by the cares and duties of his office, he often allowed whole days to pass without seeing his eldest son, whose time was wholly spent in the company of servants, grooms, and other inferiors.

At the age of fifteen he was entered at the School of Cadets at Brandenburg, and while there was frequently detached to act as page of honor at the various court functions at Berlin and Potsdam. He was scarcely eighteen years old when he received his first commission as ensign in a regiment [Pg 17] of the foot-guards, Queen Elizabeth making him a present of his first sword on the occasion.

Frederick, in receipt of a handsome allowance from the trustees of his mother's fortune, now entered on a course of the wildest dissipation. The fame of his exploits on several occasions reached the ears of the king, who kindly, but firmly, reproved the lad for his conduct, and urged him to remember what was due to names so honored as those of his father and his dead mother. Nothing, however, seemed to have any effect in checking the career of reckless and riotous extravagance on which he had embarked, and at length, after being subjected to numerous reprimands and sentences of arrest, he was punished by being transferred to a line regiment engaged in frontier duty on the Russian border. His dismay at being thus exiled from the court and capital to the wilds of Prussian Poland was impossible to describe, and he bade farewell to his numerous friends of both sexes as if he had been banished for life to the mines of Siberia. The most painful parting of all was from a pretty little girl, whom he had taken from behind the counter of “Louise's” famous flower shop, and installed as his mistress in elegant apartments near the “Thier Garten.”

Rose Hartmann was a small and captivating blonde, with dark-blue eyes, fringed with long black lashes. The lovers were at that time in the honey-moon of their liaison, and while Frederick was sincerely and deeply attached to the girl, she on her side was chiefly attracted by the luxuries and pleasures which he had placed within her reach. Whereas he was almost heart-broken at the idea of leaving her, she only apprehended in the separation a sudden end to all the advantages of a life of ease and indulgence and a return to her former obscure existence. To make a long story short, she played her cards so well during the last days of the young lieutenant's stay at Berlin, that on the eve of his departure she induced him to contract a secret marriage [Pg 18] with her. It is needless to add that this was a fatal step, as far as the future career of Frederick was concerned. But he was scarcely nineteen years old at the time, and in the hands of a clever and designing woman several years his senior. Of course, they adopted every possible measure to prevent their altered relations from becoming known, for in the first place German officers are prohibited, under severe penalties, from marrying without having previously obtained an official authorization from the Minister of War; and secondly, Frederick was perfectly aware of the intense indignation with which both his father and the royal family would regard such a terrible misalliance. Two days after the ceremony Frederick left for his new garrison, promising Rose that he would make speedy arrangements whereby she would be enabled to rejoin him.

In due course he arrived at his destination—a dreary-looking village in the neighborhood of Biala—and was received with considerable coldness by his new colonel and fellow-officers who did not particularly relish the notion that their regiment should be regarded as a kind of penitentiary for offending guardsmen. The commander, in particular, was a thorough martinet, who looked with extreme disfavor on all the mannerisms and dandified airs of the young count. Thoroughly out of sympathy with his uncongenial messmates, Frederick soon began to feel oppressed by the monotony and solitude of his existence, and repeatedly urged Rose by letter and telegram to join him. This, however, she was in no hurry to do, as she naturally preferred the gay life of the capital, with plenty of money to spend and numerous admirers, to the dreariness and discomfort of a Polish village in the middle of winter. At length, however, Frederick's letters grew so pressing that delay was no longer possible, and she started for Biala with a perfect mountain of luggage. On her arrival there she was met by her husband, who was beside himself with joy at seeing her again. Of course, [Pg 19] it was more than ever necessary that their true relationship should remain a secret, and accordingly Rose took up her residence under an assumed name at the solitary inn of the village where Frederick was quartered. Every moment that he could spare from his military duties he spent with her, and it is scarcely necessary to state that their apparently questionable relations were soon the talk of the whole place. The person, however, who felt herself the most aggrieved by the presence of Rose in the village was the colonel's wife, who was profoundly indignant that the “woman” of a mere lieutenant should presume to cover herself with costly furs and wear magnificent diamonds, whereas she—good lady—was forced to content herself with cloaks lined with rabbit-skin and a total absence of jewelry. Morning, noon, and night she assailed her lord and master on the subject, and to such a pitch of irritation she had brought him by her vituperations that, when at the end of a week he finally decided to summon Count von Waldberg to his presence, he was in a frame of mind bordering on frenzy.

“Your conduct, sir, is a scandal and a disgrace to the regiment,” was the greeting which he offered to the young lieutenant, as the latter stepped into his room. “You appear to be lost to all sense of decency and shame.”

Frederick, pale to the very lips, stepped rapidly forward and looked his chief defiantly in the face, exclaiming as he did so:

“I am at a loss to understand, colonel, in what manner I have merited such a torrent of abuse.”

“You know perfectly well to what I am alluding,” retorted the colonel. “How dare you bring that infernal woman to this place, and install her right under our very nose here at the inn? I don't intend to have any of these Berlin ways here. If you can't do without her, have the good taste, at least, to keep her at Biala, where there are houses for women of that class.”

With almost superhuman efforts to remain calm, the young officer murmured hoarsely:

“Lady, indeed!” fairly yelled the colonel, who was becoming black in the face with rage; “that vile——”

As he uttered these words he was felled to the ground by a terrific blow in the face from Frederick, who exclaimed as he struck him:

The sun was just rising from behind Vesuvius when one of those hideous and awkward-looking cabs which infest the streets of Naples crawled up to the park gates of a handsome villa on the road to Posilipo. Carelessly tossing a five-lire note to the driver, a young man whose travel-stained appearance showed traces of a long journey jumped to the ground and violently rang the bell. Some minutes elapsed before the porter was sufficiently aroused from his sleep to realize the fact that a stranger was waiting for admittance, and when he finally issued forth to unlock the gates, his face bore manifest evidence of the intense disgust with which he regarded the premature disturbance of his ordinarily peaceful slumbers.

“At this hour? Per Bacco! Who has ever heard of such a thing? You will have to come back later in the day, my young friend—very much later in the day—if you wish to be granted the honor of an audience,” and with that he turned away and was about to leave the stranger standing in the road, when suddenly steps were heard approaching along the gravel path which led up to the villa, and a tall, soldierly figure appeared in view.

“Good morning, Beppo; what brings you out of bed at this unearthly hour of the morning? This is rather unusual, is it not?”

“It is, indeed, Sig. Franz. It is a young fellow outside there who actually insists on seeing his excellency at once.”

On hearing this Franz, who was the general's confidential valet, took a cursory glance at the stranger, and suddenly seizing the pompous porter by the shoulder, caused him to wheel round with such violence as to almost destroy his equilibrium.

“Open, you fool! It is the young count! What do you mean by keeping him waiting out in the road? Are you bereft of your senses?”

Snatching the keys from the hands of the astonished Italian he brushed past him, threw open the gates and admitted Frederick, for it was he.

“Herr Graf, Herr Graf, what an unexpected pleasure is this. How delighted his excellency will be!”

“I don't know so much about that, Franz, but I want to speak to my father at once. Let him know that I am here, and ask him to receive me as soon as possible.”

After conducting Frederick to a room on the first floor of the villa and attending to his wants the old servant left him to notify the general of his son's arrival.

The young man had meanwhile dragged a low arm-chair to the open window, and sat gazing with a tired and troubled expression at the magnificent landscape stretched out before him.

Four days had elapsed since the exciting scene described in the last chapter. The violence of the blow inflicted by Frederick had caused the colonel to fall heavily against the brass corner of a ponderous writing-table, cutting a deep gash across his forehead, and the blood trickled freely from the wound as he lay unconscious on the ground. The [Pg 23] sight of the prostrate figure of his commanding officer recalled the young lieutenant to his senses, and he realized in a moment the terrible consequences of his act. Visions of court-martial, life-long incarceration in a fortress, or even death, flashed like lightning through his brain and, rushing from the room, he hastened to his stables. Hastily saddling the fleetest of the three horses which he had brought from Berlin, he galloped at break-neck speed to the nearest point of the frontier, and within an hour after the incident was out of German territory, and for the moment, at any rate, safe from pursuit. Four hours after passing the border line he rode into the Austrian town of Cracow, and alighted at the Hotel de Saxe. Having but little money about him at the moment of his flight, he disposed of his horse to the innkeeper, and with the proceeds of the sale purchased an outfit of civilian clothes in lieu of his uniform, and a ticket to Naples, where his father was spending the winter.

Before his departure for Cracow, Frederick posted a letter to Rose instructing her to lose no time in leaving the neighbourhood of Biala and to proceed to Berlin, where she was to remain until he wrote to her from Naples.

His object in proceeding to the latter place was easy to understand. He knew that the general was the only man who possessed sufficient influence in the highest quarters to venture to intercede on his behalf, and although he was acquainted with his father's strict ideas on all questions pertaining to military discipline, yet he retained a faint hope that parental affection would overpower the former and would induce him to regard, with a certain amount of indulgence, his eldest son's conduct. Moreover, Frederick was at the time in great financial difficulties. The debts which he had contracted before leaving Berlin were enormous. His appeal to the trustees of the fortune left to him by his mother for an increase of his allowance, [Pg 24] or, at any rate, for an advance sufficient to stave off the most pressing claims, had been met by a stern refusal, and the “cent per cent. gentry” of the capital proved equally obdurate in declining to loan any further sums on the strength of the inheritance due him at his majority. On the other hand, it was perfectly clear to Frederick that he would be obliged to remain absent from Germany for several years, until the incident with his colonel had blown over. But he could not hope to do this without money—especially now that he was married—and the only person from whom there was the slightest prospect of his obtaining any financial assistance was his father.

He was in no cheerful frame of mind as he thought of all this while awaiting his father's summons. Had the latter already received news of his son's conduct? That was hardly possible. It was too soon. How, then, was he to explain the events of the last ten days to the general, of whom he stood somewhat in awe?

His meditations were interrupted by Franz's return to tell him that General von Waldberg was ready to receive him.

“His excellency would hardly believe me when I told him of the Herr Graff's arrival,” said Franz, with a beaming smile, “but he is much delighted, as I knew he would be.”

Frederick's heart sank as he pictured to himself the grief and anger which the discovery of the true reason of his unexpected visit would cause his father.

His hesitating knock at the general's door was answered by a cheery “Come in;” and hardly had he entered the room when he found himself clasped in his father's arms. General Count von Waldberg was still at that time a remarkably handsome and young-looking man. Tall, and straight as a dart, his appearance was extremely aristocratic; his hair and mustache were tinged with gray, but his bright blue eyes were undimmed by age.

After the first greetings had been exchanged, the general sat down on a couch, and said, laughingly:

“Now, my dear boy, tell me by what trick you have managed to obtain from your new colonel a leave of absence after such a short service in his regiment. I know you of old. What fresh deviltry have you been up to? Come, make a clean breast of it at once, and let us have it over.”

“My dear father,” murmured the young man, with downcast eyes, “I am afraid that the confession which I have to make will pain you very much. The fact is, I—I—took French leave.”

“Come, come, that is more serious than I thought,” exclaimed the general, whose genial smile had suddenly given [Pg 26] way to a very stern expression. “Surely you are joking. You don't mean to tell me that you are here without the permission of your superiors?”

“But are you aware that this is nothing less than an act of desertion?” thundered the general, exasperated by his son's silence, and starting to his feet. “You must be bereft of your senses, sir, to dare to tell me that a Count von Waldberg has deserted from his regiment. Speak! Explain. I command you!”

“I was provoked beyond all endurance by my colonel,” replied Frederick, in short, broken sentences. “We quarrelled, and in a moment of blind passion I struck him a blow in the face which felled him to the ground. I was compelled to make my escape in order to avoid a court-martial.”

The general, now as pale as his son, advanced a step toward him, and, laying his hand heavily on the young man's shoulder, said, in a tone of voice which betrayed the most intense emotion:

“Do you mean to say that you actually struck your superior officer! and that, after committing this unpardonable crime, you made matters worse by deserting, like a coward, instead of at least displaying the courage to remain and face the consequences, whatever they might be? Great God, that I should live to see this day?”

Frederick, who by this time thoroughly realized that the only course to adopt lay in throwing himself entirely on his father's mercy, muttered, in a low voice:

“The colonel, who has always displayed the most marked dislike toward me ever since I joined his regiment, summoned me five days ago, to reprimand me concerning my relations with a lady who was staying at the inn of our village—in fact, who had come there on my account.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the general, “I was sure of it. Another [Pg 27] of those insane scrapes into which you are always being led by some disreputable cocotte.”

“Stay, father,” interrupted Frederick. “Not a word more, I entreat you. It was just for such a remark that I struck my colonel. I will not hear a word against the woman who is my wife.”

“Your wife! your wife! Do you want me to believe that you have married without my consent—without the permission of the military authorities—without the approval of your family and of your king? Who, then, is the woman whom you were so ashamed to acknowledge?”

“A pure and noble-hearted girl, whose only sin is her humble birth,” retorted Frederick.

“Her name was Rose Hartmann, and she——Well, she was a shop-girl at Louise's when I first made her acquaintance.”

The general had by this time become perfectly calm, but it was a calm that boded far worse than his former anger.

“Look here, Frederick,” said he, very coldly, “I have full reason to mistrust you now; and before I take any step in this unfortunate matter, I must write to Berlin, and to your regiment, for the purpose of discovering the full extent of your misconduct. You will be good enough to consider yourself as under arrest here. I forbid you to leave your room under any pretext whatever. I will tell your step-mother that you are ill, and can see nobody, not even her, and I shall take good care that all our friends are left in ignorance of your presence here. And now leave me. I want to be alone. I will send for you when I want you.”

Frederick, thoroughly cowed by his father's manner, murmured some words of regret and explanation, but the general pointed toward the door, and he left his presence with a heavy heart.

Returning to the rooms to which Franz had conducted him on his arrival, he gave himself up to the gloomiest forebodings, and spent hours in gazing abstractedly out of the windows. His meals were brought him by Franz, whose feelings can more easily be imagined than described.

On the third day after his interview with his father, one of the Italian servants knocked at the door, and handed him a letter, which bore the Biala postmark, and which evidently had escaped the vigilance of both the general and of Franz. It was from Rose, and its contents agitated him beyond all measure. She wrote him that she had been subjected to the greatest indignity after his flight—in fact, treated like a mere common camp-follower—and had been turned out of the inn and driven from the village by the orders of the colonel. She added that, having but little money, she had not been able to proceed any farther than Biala, where she was now awaiting his instructions and remittances. She concluded by declaring that if after all she had suffered for his sake, he did not at once send a sufficient sum to enable her to leave the place and to return to Berlin, she would put an end to her days, having no intention to continue to live as she was doing now.

Frederick was nearly heart-broken. He had no funds, beyond a few lire notes, and, in his present position, no means of obtaining any except through his father. He therefore immediately wrote a few lines, which he sent to the general by Franz, entreating him to let him have at once a check for a couple of hundred thalers.

The general's reply was a decided refusal, and couched in such terms as to leave no glimmer of hope that he would relent in the matter.

Driven to desperation, Frederick turned over in his mind a hundred different schemes for raising the money he required, but he was forced to acknowledge to himself that each was more hare-brained than the other; and in the bitterness [Pg 29] of his heart he ended by cursing the day he was born.

That night, after all the inmates of the villa had retired to rest, they were startled by several pistol-shots, and the sound of a violent scuffle in the general's library, on the ground floor. The general himself and several of the men-servants rushed to the spot from which the noise proceeded, and discovered Frederick, who, in his dressing-gown, stood near a shattered window, with a smoking revolver in his hand.

As they entered the room Frederick fired another shot through the window and shouting, “I have hit one of them, I am sure. I heard a scream!” jumped into the garden and rushed across the lawn and through the shrubbery, followed by the general and the more or less terrified servants. All their endeavors to capture the midnight intruders proved, however, fruitless, and whether wounded or not, the burglars had evidently succeeded in making good their escape.

On returning to the library it was ascertained that the general's desk had been forced open and that a considerable sum of money in gold and notes, together with several valuable bonds and railway shares, had been abstracted therefrom. Frederick related that he had been awakened shortly after midnight by a strange grating sound proceeding from the room immediately beneath his own. That, jumping out of bed, he had quickly put on his dressing-gown, and seizing a loaded revolver, had softly crept down stairs. Peeping through the keyhole he had seen two men who, by the light of a small taper, were ransacking his father's desk. His efforts in the dark to open the door must have evidently disturbed them, for by the time he managed to enter they had reached the window and were in the act of leaping into the gardens when he fired several shots at them in rapid succession. It was at this juncture that his father and the servants had appeared on the scene.

So gratified was the general by the courage and presence of mind displayed by Frederick in attacking the burglars single-handed that he forgot for the moment both the loss of his stolen property and the grave offenses of which the young man had been guilty. Grasping his son's hands he expressed his satisfaction to him in no measured terms, and indeed was on the point of releasing him from any further arrest or confinement to his room. On second thought, however, he decided to await the replies to his letters from [Pg 31] Berlin before doing so, especially as he was extremely anxious that none of the visitors to the villa should become aware of Frederick's presence at Naples.

Early next morning Gen. Von Waldberg drove into Naples to inform the chief of police of the robbery committed at his residence and to request him to offer a reward for the capture of the thieves and the recovery of the stolen property. As he rode back to Posilipo he reflected, with feelings of much gratification, on the pluck shown by his son during the night, and determined to write at once an account of the whole occurrence to the king, in the hope [Pg 32] that it might induce his majesty to regard with greater leniency the lad's misconduct. He was just in the act of entering his library for this purpose when he happened to catch sight of one of the Italian servants coming down stairs from Frederick's room with a bulky envelope in his hand. On perceiving the general the man attempted to conceal it, but the old count was too quick, and, ordering him into the library, exacted the surrender of the letter.

“Where are you going, and what is this?” demanded he of the frightened Neapolitan. The latter's eyes lowered before his master's stern gaze, and he confessed in faltering tones that the “young count” had told him to go and post the letter immediately and without letting any one know about it.

“You need not trouble yourself any further about the matter,” remarked the general, “Franz will attend to it, and see here, if you breathe a word about this either to Count Frederick or to any one else you will be turned out of the house at an hour's notice. Do you understand?”

“Si eccellenza, si eccellenza,” murmured the badly scared Italian, as with many low bows he backed out of the general's presence.

As soon as the door was closed the old count raised his glasses to his eyes for the purpose of discovering the destination of his son's letter. It was addressed to Rose Hartmann, at Biala, and judging by its bulk certainly contained something besides ordinary note-paper.

Suddenly a terrible suspicion flashed through his mind. He remembered Frederick's urgent appeal for money on the previous day. But no! The idea was too horrible. It was impossible. The boy was certainly a thorough scapegrace, but not that! No, not that! The unhappy father dashed the letter down on the table and began pacing up and down the room in an agony of incertitude and doubt. Could his son be guilty? The solution of the mystery was [Pg 33] contained in that envelope. Would he be justified in opening it? The whole honor of the ancient house of Waldberg was at stake. It was absolutely necessary that he, as its chief, should know whether or not one of the principal members thereof was a common thief. If so it was his duty to mercilessly lop off the rotten branch of the family tree. After long hesitation he finally seized the letter, and with one wrench tore open the envelope. As he did so an exclamation of horror and disgust escaped his blanched lips, for several Prussian bank-notes of considerable value, which he immediately recognized as his property, fell at his feet on the carpet.

It is impossible to describe the intense misery of the wretched father when he found that the thief who was being tracked by the Neapolitan police was no other than his first-born. For several hours he sat at his writing-table, his gray head bowed in grief and almost prostrated by this awful discovery. For a long time he was totally unable to decide what was to be done, and, indeed, had Frederick presented himself before him at that time he would have been almost capable of killing him with his own hand in his paroxysm of anger and shame.

Shortly after darkness had set in, Franz entered Frederick's room and handed him a sealed letter addressed in his father's hand. Glancing at its contents the young man uttered a cry of despair and terror, and springing to his feet was rushing toward the door, when Franz quietly placed himself with his back against it, saying:

“His excellency's orders are that the Herr Graf must not leave this room under any pretext until the hour of departure. I have his strict commands to remain with the Herr Graf and to prevent him from communicating with anybody in the house.

The old soldier's lips quivered as he spoke, and his eyes were full of tears. For it cut him to the very heart to see [Pg 34] the suffering depicted on the lad's face, and what between his loyalty and devotion to his master and his affection for the young man whom he had carried about in his arms as a child, he was in great distress.

Frederick groaned, and picking up his father's letter read it over once more. It ran as follows:

“You have betrayed and robbed me! You are not only a deserter, but also a thief. I intercepted your letter to the woman you call your wife, and feeling myself justified under the circumstances to open it I found therein the proofs of your crime. You will leave my house to-night forever. The proceeds of your robbery will keep you for some time from want. It will be all that you will have to depend on, for having become an outlaw by your desertion, and your attack on your colonel, the Prussian Government will never permit you to enter into possession of your mother's fortune. You never need hope to see me again, or to hold any further communication with me or mine. You are no longer a child of mine. I solemnly renounce you as my son. May God Almighty keep you from further crime.

“Count H. von Waldberg.”

That night at 10 o'clock Frederick embarked at Naples on a Marseilles-bound steamer, being escorted to the wharf by Franz.

The strains of a beautiful old German melody, rendered by a rich contralto voice, floated through the night air and caused many a passer-by to linger beneath the open windows of a house in the Avenue Friedland whence they proceeded. It was a singularly beautiful woman who was singing, seated at the piano, in the half [Pg 35] light of a daintily furnished drawing-room. Dressed in a marvelous composition of white velvet and old lace, with fragrant gardenias nestling in her bosom and in her soft, golden hair, her low bodice displayed to great advantage the marble whiteness and perfect outline of her bust.

“Nonsense, nonsense,” cries a cheery voice from the balcony where Frederick von Waldberg has been enjoying his after-dinner weed. With a light-hearted laugh he flings his half-burnt cigar into the street and steps into the room. Approaching his wife he encircles her slender waist with his arm and draws her curly head upon his shoulder.

“Dare to repeat, now, you perverse little woman, that you are sad. What ails you? Have you not all you can wish for, including a devoted slave of a husband who has given up everything for you, and is only governed by your sweet will?”

“Yes, dear, yes, dear,” murmurs Rose, gently disengaging herself from his embrace, “but you can't think how it pains me to know that it is I who have been the cause of your quarrel with your father—and then the future is so uncertain. We have not very much money left, and how we shall manage to keep up this establishment is more than I can tell.”

“Never mind; leave that to me. I will find the means somehow or other; only don't fret,” replies Frederick, in a low voice. “As long as you continue to love me everything will be all right. You are not yet tired of me, Weibchen, are you?”

She laughs saucily, but there is a queer light in her dark-blue eyes as she seats herself again at the piano and runs her fingers dreamily over the keys.

Three months have elapsed since the burglary at Gen. von Waldberg's Neapolitan residence, and some eight or ten weeks since Count and Countess Frederick von Waldberg have taken up their quarters in Paris. They live recklessly [Pg 36] and extravagantly, like children who are intent on sipping all the sweets of the cup of life without giving a moment's thought to the dregs at the bottom thereof, and which they are bound to reach sooner or later.

Frederick's careless and easy-going nature had enabled him to forget in an incredibly short space of time all the tragic scenes through which he passed at Biala and Naples. He is still passionately in love with his wife, whose beauty is the talk of Paris. He has not attempted to enter society, but when the young couple drive in the “Bois” in their well-appointed victoria, or enter a box at one of the fashionable theaters, they are the cynosure of all eyes. Moreover Frederick has picked up many male acquaintances, and the choice fare and exquisite wines which are always to be found at his hospitable board prove nearly as great an attraction as the lovely eyes and matchless elegance of the mistress of the house.

Rose has, outwardly at least, become a perfect femme du monde. She has picked up all the ways and mannerisms of the higher classes with a quickness that astonishes and delights her husband. But it is fortunate that he is unable to fathom the depths of her heart. For it is just as hard, as mercenary and corrupt as of yore, and she often involuntarily yearns for the gutter from which her husband has raised her.

Toward 9 o'clock Frederick called for his coat and hat, and, kissing his wife tenderly, exclaimed:

“Do not wait up for me, little woman, as I shall not be home from the club till about 2 o'clock.”

With that he left the house and strolled down the avenue to one of the well-known cercles de jeu (gambling clubs) of the Boulevards.

Luck, however, was against him for once, and shortly after 11 o'clock, having sustained heavy losses, he left the club and walked rapidly home, in a very bad temper.

Letting himself in with his latch-key he walks softly up stairs and enters the drawing-room where a light is still dimly burning. His footsteps fall noiselessly on the thick carpet, and wishing to surprise Rose, who could hardly have retired for the night at this comparatively early hour, he pulls aside the heavy drapery of tawny plush which screens the door of her “boudoir,” and peeps in. Hardly has he done so than he springs forward with a yell of rage, for there on a low oriental divan he beholds his wife, his beloved Rose, in the arms of his butler.

The terrified servant makes a dash for the nearest door and escapes through the adjoining conservatory. Frederick, scorning to pursue him, turns his attention to Rose. Brutally grasping her arm, he raises her from the ground where she has flung herself on her knees at his feet, and without a word he drags her down stairs, stopping for a moment in the hall below to throw a gorgeous red-brocaded opera-cloak, which hangs there, on the speechless woman's shoulders. Opening the front door, he thrusts her into the street, exclaiming hoarsely as he bangs it behind her:

For a few minutes Rose stood on the pavement, dazed and trembling, but suddenly recalling to mind the expression of her infuriated husband's eyes as he pushed her down stairs she was seized with terror and fled down the avenue.

She had not gone very far when two men, springing from a dark side street, arrested her wild flight by clutching her arms.

“Why don't you answer?” yelled the other, shaking her violently. “Don't you hear me talking to you? Are you drunk?”

The unfortunate woman draws herself up, and, shaking [Pg 38] off the dirty hand of the “Agents-des-Mœurs” (police charged with the control of the women of ill-repute,) replied:

“I do not know what you mean. There is some mistake. I am the Countesse de Waldberg; let me go!”

“Countess indeed! Is that all? We know all about such countesses. They belong in the St. Lazarre Prison when they run round without their ‘livret’(police permit.) Allons! come along! Enough of these airs and graces! A decent woman does not pace the streets at midnight in a ball-dress.”

With a shriek of horror Rose made a sudden dart forward, but has not got far before she is seized by the hair with such force as to throw her on the pavement. Picking her up again, the Agents-des-Mœurs call a passing night cab, and, bundling the now fainting woman into it, order the coachman to drive to the police station.

On arriving at the police station Rose was roughly dragged from the cab by the two Agents des Mœurs and thrust into the “Violon”—a filthy cell which was already crowded with a score or two of drunk and disorderly women. The atmosphere which reigned in the place was indescribably horrible and nauseating; and the shrieks, the yells, and the disgusting songs and discordant cries of its occupants were only interrupted from time to time when the door was opened to give admittance to some fresh samples of the feminine scum of the Paris streets. Such was the pandemonium in which the Countess von Waldberg passed the first night after being driven out of her luxuriously appointed home in the Avenue Friedland.

When at length day began to dawn through the iron grating of the solitary window of the cell, she breathed a sigh of relief. The scene around her was one fit to figure in “Dante's Inferno.” Every imaginable type of woman seemed to be assembled within the circumscribed limits of those four grimy walls, from the demi-mondaine in silks and satins who had been run in for creating a disturbance at Mabille, down to the old and tattered ragpicker who had been arrested for drunkenness; from the bourgeoise who had been discovered in the act of betraying her husband, down to the ordinary street-walker, who had been caught abroad without her police livret. Here and there, too, were a shoplifter, a bonne who had assaulted her mistress, and a market woman who, in a moment of fury, had [Pg 40] chewed off her antagonist's nose. Dressed in the most motley of costumes, they lay about on the wooden bench which ran round the cell, or were stretched prostrate on the damp and dirty brick floor.

Amid these surroundings Rose presented a truly strange appearance as she stood up in the cold morning light, with her costly white velvet gown all stained with mud, from which the superb lace flounces had been partly torn by the brutal hands of the men who had arrested her. Her beautiful golden hair lay in tangled masses on her bare shoulders, from which the red opera-cloak had fallen as she rose to her feet. She was very pale and there was a hard and stony look in her sunken eyes.

She had had time to reflect on the events of the previous evening, and thoroughly realized the fact that after what had happened Frederick would refuse to acknowledge her as his wife. It would be, therefore, more than useless to appeal to him to substantiate the statements which she had at first made as to her rank and condition; indeed, matters might be only aggravated by such a course, and she determined to maintain the strictest silence concerning her former life. Her heart, however, was filled to overflowing with bitterness against her husband, to whose conduct she attributed her present horrible predicament. Intense hatred had taken the place of any feelings of affection which she might formerly have possessed for him, and she then and there registered a solemn oath that she would never rest until she had wreaked a terrible vengeance for all she had suffered on his account.

At eight o'clock she was brought into court and charged with having been found plying an immoral trade in the public streets, without having previously obtained the required license from the “Prefecture de Police.” For this offense the magistrate, without much questioning, sentenced her to three months' imprisonment at St. Lazarre. Shortly [Pg 41] afterward the police-van, which in French bears the euphonic name of “Panier a Salade” (Salad Basket), drew up at the door of the station-house, and Rose, with most of the women who had spent the night in the same cell with her, was bundled into the dismal conveyance. The latter then rattled off through the streets along which she had last driven reclining lazily on the soft cushions of her victoria, to the well-known prison in the Faubourg St. Denis, within the walls of which even an hour's sojourn is sufficient to brand a woman with infamy for the remainder of her days.

On alighting in the court-yard of St. Lazarre, Rose was taken to the clerk's office, where her name, age, and origin were entered on the prison register. She gave her name as Rose Hartmann, her age as twenty-five, and declared, in response to the inquiries on the subject, that she had no profession and was of German extraction. From thence she was passed on to the hands of “Madame la Fouilleuse,” as the searcher is nicknamed, who made her strip, and, after having searched her clothes and even her hair, bade her put on the prison dress, consisting of coarse linen under-clothes, blue cotton hose, thick shoes, a brown stuff dress, brown woolen cap, and large blue cotton cloth apron.

The prison regulations at St. Lazarre were then and are still very severe. The prisoners have to get up at five o'clock in the morning. They sleep four together in one room, and have no other toilet utensils than small pitchers of water and basins no bigger than a moderate-sized soup plate. This makes their morning bath a rather difficult operation. Their meals, except when they are allowed meat on Sundays, consist of a dish of thin vegetable broth, a piece of brown bread, and fricasseed vegetables. While they are at table, a Sister of the religious order of Marie-Joseph reads aloud to them extracts from some pious book. Ten hours of the long, weary day are spent in doing plain needlework, and they have to be in bed for the night at [Pg 42] 7:30 o'clock. At eight o'clock all lights are extinguished throughout the prison, and during the long night no sound is heard in the big pile of buildings but the steps of the Sisters of Marie-Joseph, who are on guard, and who pace [Pg 43] the long corridors at fixed intervals to see that there is no talking going on.

It must be acknowledged that all this was a cruel change to Rose, who, at any rate during the previous twelve months, had been accustomed to a life of elegance, refinement, and cruelty.

A fortnight after the events described in the previous chapter the war broke out which cost Napoleon III. his throne, and all the German residents in Paris were forced to take their departure at an exceedingly short notice. Among their number was Count Frederick von Waldberg, who, since the disappearance of Rose, had plunged into the wildest course of dissipation and debauchery, as if with the intention of drowning all memory of the past. The discovery of his wife's infamy had exercised a most disastrous effect on the young man's mind. It had rendered him thoroughly hardened and cynical, and had definitely banished forever any remnant of moral feeling or conscience, which he had until then retained. When he reflected on all the brilliant prospects and future which he had surrendered for Rose's sake, he grew sick at heart, and determined to put to good account the bitter experience which he had acquired. Never again would he allow himself to be softened and influenced by any affaire de cœur, but, on the contrary, women should become subservient to his interests. He would deal with them in the same relentless and cruel manner that Rose had dealt with him. The old life was dead and gone, and he made up his mind to start out on a new career unburdened by any such baggage as scruples or honor.

It was in this frame of mind that he embarked at Marseilles on board an English steamer bound for Alexandria. Being debarred from returning to Germany or Italy, and France having now closed her doors against him, he decided to leave Europe for a time and to try his luck in the Orient.

In due course he arrived at Cairo and took up his residence at Shepheard's well-known hostelry. He could not help being struck by the novelty of the scenes which met his eye on every side, and the ancient capital of Egypt, with its narrow, winding streets; its fierce sunlight and dark shadows, its palaces, gardens, and waving palm trees, appealed to all his artistic instincts.

One afternoon, as he was riding round Gezireh, his attention was attracted to a brougham drawn by two magnificent black horses which had pulled up under one of the grand old sycamore trees that shade the avenue, and near to the kiosk in the Khedival gardens, where a military band was rendering with more vigor than harmony several of the most popular airs from “La Grande Duchesse.” The only occupant of the carriage was a woman dressed in Turkish fashion, but whose “yashmak,” or vail, was of a transparency which enhanced rather than concealed her lovely features. The large, dark, and sensuous eyes which glanced at him between the tulle folds of the vail sent a thrill through his very heart, and he involuntarily checked his horse and stood gazing at the enchanting vision. At this moment a gigantic black eunuch, who was evidently in attendance on the lady and who had been standing on the off side of the carriage, suddenly became aware of the admiring looks cast by the young stranger on his mistress. He rushed up to the carriage window, with stifled oath pulled down the silken blind, and then, turning to the coachman, ordered him to drive on. He then mounted a magnificent barb which was being walked up [Pg 45] and down by a gorgeously dressed “sais,” or groom, and galloped after the brougham, casting as he did so a look of such malignance at Frederick that the latter, taken by surprise, did not even retain enough presence of mind to make any attempt to follow the carriage.

For several days in succession Frederick made a point of spending his afternoons in riding round Gezireh in the hope of obtaining another glance at the beautiful Hanem; but she did not put in an appearance, and the young man had almost forgotten the incident, when one morning, while riding along the road which Khedive Ismail, with truly oriental gallantry, had caused to be constructed from Cairo out to the Pyramids for the use of Empress Eugenie, on the occasion of her visit in 1869, he suddenly caught sight of the black horses and brougham coming slowly toward him. There was no one else in view, and the ordinarily watchful eunuch had taken advantage of the solitude of the spot to relax his vigilance and to lag a good way behind. Frederick was therefore enabled to gaze unhindered at the Oriental beauty. He bowed low over his horse's mane, and was delighted to see that not only was his salutation graciously responded to, but that, moreover, the lady, raising one of her small jeweled hands to her “yashmak,” pulled it slightly aside so as to discover to his enraptured eyes a face so perfectly lovely that he was fairly staggered. She smiled enchantingly at him, and, putting the tips of her fingers to her rosy lips, motioned him away with a look full of promise. Frederick would fain have drawn nearer to the carriage, but the coachman suddenly started his horses off at a sharp trot, and there was nothing for him to do but to resume his canter out to the Pyramids and to receive with a smile the angry glances of his friend the eunuch, whom he passed shortly afterward.

Neither the Sphinx nor the Pyramids possessed much attraction for Frederick that day, and his stay out at Gezireh [Pg 46] was but a short one. He was in a hurry to get back into town. He was perfectly wild with delight at the idea of his adventure. Who could the beautiful creature be? He had noticed a princess' coronet on the panels of the carriage, and the black horses and glittering liveries of the coachman, footman, and of the two grooms would lead to belief that they belonged to a member of the Khedival family. Moreover, the eunuch in attendance was certainly a person of high rank, a fact which was demonstrated by the ribbon of the Order of the “Osmanieh” which he wore in his button-hole.

Frederick was puzzled to know how all this would end. That the fair lady looked upon him with favor was undeniable.

But he knew enough about the strict rules of an oriental harem to doubt whether he would ever be able to meet her alone, as the eunuch had already noticed his admiration of the lady and would certainly warn his master, the Pasha. However, Frederick determined to go to the bitter end, no matter what the cost might be.

Two days later he was lounging on the terrace of the hotel, lazily watching the throng of Arabs, donkeys, and beggars jostling one another along the Esbekleh street, when his attention was suddenly attracted by a ragged individual, with a very black countenance and a basket of flowers, who was evidently trying to catch his eye. Frederick, leaning over the balustrade, was about to throw a few piasters to the man, when the latter suddenly broke loose from the crowd, and walking up the marble steps, “salaamed” to him in the most approved fashion; then squatting down on the ground in front of him, he extracted a bunch of flowers from his basket. Frederick was about to motion him away, when the man hurriedly thrust the roses into his hands, whispering in a low, guttural voice:

He then “salaamed” again and, arising from the ground, began displaying his wares to some ladies who were sitting under the veranda. Frederick, whose thoughts immediately turned to the lady whom he had met two days before on the road to the Pyramids, repaired at once to his room and, cutting the thread which bound the flowers together, brought to view a small, square envelope without any address. Carefully opening it he extracted therefrom a highly perfumed sheet of pink paper on which the following words were written:

“If you wish to see me again, go to-night between 11 and 12 o'clock to the farther end of the Mouski street and follow the woman who will give you a bunch of lotus flowers. She will bring you to me. Destroy this.”

Frederick dropped the note to the floor in his surprise and delight. His wildest anticipations were surpassed, for in a few hours he would see his “houri” face to face.

At 11 o'clock that night he wandered up the long Mouski street, which at that hour looked weird and deserted. He took care to keep as much as possible in the more shadowy portions of the thoroughfare, so as not to attract the attention of the few Arabs who, wrapped in their spectral-looking “burnous,” were still to be met with here and there. After about an hour's walk he stopped at the end of the long street and looked about him. Nobody was in sight, and he was just thinking of retracing his steps when a hand was laid on his arm and a vailed woman, without uttering a word, placed a small bunch of lotus flowers in his hand. She then beckoned to him to follow her, saying in a low, musical voice:

A few steps brought them to a high stone wall, in which a small kind of postern was pierced. Taking hold of his hand she led him under the archway, and, inserting a [Pg 48] small key in the lock, she opened the door and pushed him into the garden.

Frederick, for a moment, believed that he had been suddenly transported into fairy-land. He found himself in an immense garden, where groups of feathery palms and dark sycamores made a fitting background for masses of brilliant flowers and shrubs in full bloom. The air was redolent with the perfume of thousands of orange trees and starry jessamine, while the high wall, which looked so bare and grim from without, was on the inside covered with blue passion-flowers and pink aristolochus. Numerous marble fountains sent their silvery jets of spray toward the dark-blue heavens, and a flock of red flamingoes stalked majestically up and down the long stretches of velvety lawn.

In the distance a white alabaster palace gleamed in the glorious Egyptian moonlight, which rendered the scene almost as bright as day; and its cupolas and minarets, all fretted and perforated, looked like some wonderful piece of old lacework.

Frederick followed his silent companion through a dense thicket of rose-bushes, where a narrow path had been cut. He noticed that she was very careful to keep away from the bright light of the moon and that she occasionally stopped to listen. After about ten minutes' walk they reached a side entrance of the palace. The woman, once more taking hold of his hand, led him up six or seven steps and into a narrow passage where a silver hanging-lamp shed a dim light on the tapestried walls. Turning suddenly to the left she lifted a large gold-embroidered drapery which hung before an archway and motioned him inside.

Emerging from the comparative darkness of the gardens, Frederick was fairly dazzled by the brilliancy of the scene which met his eyes. He found himself in a lofty apartment, the walls of which were entirely covered with silver [Pg 49] brocade. White velvet divans ran all around the room, and from the painted ceiling hung a rock-crystal chandelier, lighted by at least a hundred wax candles. Great masses of blooming camellias, azalias, and tuberoses were tastefully arranged in silver vases on tables of transparent [Pg 50] jade. The floor was covered with a white velvet carpet richly embroidered with silver, and the windows were hung with fairy-like draperies of silver gauze and point lace.

At the farther end of the apartment was a kind of broad, oriental divan, and there, nestling among a pile of cushions, reclined the jewel of which all the splendors above described formed but the unworthy setting. Princess Louba, a little over twenty-two years of age at the time, was certainly one of the loveliest women of the day. Tall and exquisitely proportioned, her hands and feet were marvelously small and the rich contours of her figure were absolutely perfect. She had one of those dead white complexions, ever so delicately tinted with pink, which remind one of the petal of a tea-rose or the interior of a shell. Her large, languid black eyes were shaded by long and curly eyelashes, and her straight eyebrows almost met over a small, aquiline nose, the sensuous nostrils of which quivered at the slightest emotion. In piquant contrast to her dark eyes, her hair, of a pale golden color, hung down to below her knees. She was dressed in a long “djebba,” or loose robe of white crepe de chine, the semi-transparent folds of which clung to her form as the morning dew clings to a flower which it is loth to conceal.

For several minutes Frederick stood as if transfixed, unable to remove his fevered gaze from the lovely apparition which rendered him blind to all else. He could see nothing but the princess, as she lay there in all her indolent beauty.

The “Muezzin” droning forth his harmonious summons to prayers from the loftiest galleries of the minarets, had but just notified the faithful that it was two hours after midnight, when suddenly one of the curtains was softly drawn aside, and a woman scarcely less beautiful than the princess herself glided into the room.

Her largo violet eyes flashed triumphantly, and a mocking, [Pg 51] cruel smile hovered around her red lips as she advanced toward the princess and her lover.

“Enfin! Louba Hanem!” exclaimed she, in French. “At length I have you in my power! Revenge always comes to those who can afford to wait! For months and months you have been the favorite of our lord, the pearl of surpassing value, beside whom all were but as dross, the treasure of his heart and the joy of his life, while I—I—was left far behind—hardly noticed—often repulsed—I, who am as beautiful as you, and who love him with a love of which you are utterly incapable! How often have I besought Allah to grant me my revenge! He has heard my prayer! for within the hour that is now passing away our lord will have slain both your lover and yourself! Even at this very moment you are being watched, and at a sign from me he will be summoned hither to behold with his own eyes the shameful manner in which you betray him with a dog of an unbeliever!”

Princess Louba had meanwhile started to her feet, and stood there in all her glorious beauty, white and trembling with rage and with terror.

“Who is it that will dare to raise his or her hand against me, the daughter of his highness! Who are you but a mere slave—a toy bought by our lord! The pastime of one short hour, thereafter to be flung back into the depths of ignominy from which you were raised by his hand! You shall suffer cruelly for your present insolence. I will cause you to be whipped until every particle of skin has been torn from your body.”

“Will you, indeed, Louba Hanem? I challenge you to try it. You will find that even your royal father will be powerless to save either your lover or yourself.”

With a snake-like motion of her supple body the vindictive creature glided to one of the windows opening out on to the veranda and was about to issue forth on her dangerous [Pg 52] errand, when, with one bound, Frederick was alongside of her, and, grasping her firmly by the arm, exclaimed:

“What is it you want? Is it money? If so, you shall have it! If you will only be silent! Speak! What do you require?”

“Keep your money. It is revenge that I seek! Your touch defiles me! Let me go, or it will be the worse for you! Are you then so anxious to die a few minutes sooner that you dare to tempt me thus?”

Tearing away her arm from Frederick's grasp, she drew a long stiletto or dagger from her bosom and made a violent lunge at his heart. Frederick, now thoroughly infuriated, and realizing the fact that he had to deal with a desperate and half-crazy woman, wrenched the knife from her and hurled it away among the shrubs in the garden. For one moment she struggled desperately to release herself, but seeing that it was of no avail and that the young man's slender hands held her like a vise, she uttered one loud cry for assistance, which rang through the silence of the night.

“Curse you, be quiet! you she-devil!” hissed Frederick in her ear. “If you utter another sound, I will kill you.”

Once more the girl attempted to scream, but Frederick's fingers clutched her throat like steel and stifled her voice. For the space of several seconds—they seemed to him so many hours—he maintained his grasp, and when at length he released his hold the slight body of the girl fell with a dull thud to the tessellated floor of the veranda. Instinctively he bent down over her, and suddenly, with a thrill of horror, realized that she was dead.

At the same moment he heard the sound of heavy steps hurrying to the spot where he was, and, forgetting everything except that his life was at stake, he leaped over the alabaster balustrade of the terrace, and fled through the gardens without looking behind him.

Oh, the agony of those minutes! The cold perspiration was streaming from his forehead, and his heart was beating so violently that it nearly took his breath away. In what direction was he to escape? The immense gardens seemed to constitute an interminable labyrinth of gravel paths, winding in and out of the clusters of trees and bushes. [Pg 54] Twice he found himself at the foot of the high stone wall, which, however, offered no foothold by which he could ascend to the summit. At one moment he nearly fell into a small lake, which lay half-concealed, buried between moss-covered banks. Like a hunted animal, he was about to retrace his steps, when he saw in the distance a score or so of men, carrying torches, who were running in all directions, shouting loudly as they drew nigh to him. His desperation was such that he thought for one moment of giving himself up to them. But the instinct of self-preservation was too strong, and once more he sped along in the shadow of a tall hedge of arbutus, till suddenly he found his flight again arrested by the wall.

Stay! What was that? A door! Yes, the very door by which he had entered a few hours previously. Trembling from head to foot, he tried the lock. It yielded to his pressure, and with one wild, cat-like spring, he bounded into the dark street which led to the Mouski. Closing the massive oak postern after him, he rushed onward, casting [Pg 55] terrified glances behind him from time to time as he ran. But all was still; and the noise of his footsteps was the only sound which disturbed the quiet hour of dawn. Gradually he slackened his speed, and, turning down into a dark side-street, cautiously threaded his way among the maze of narrow passages and by-ways of the Hebrew quarter. At last he arrived at the gate of the Esbekieh Gardens, and a few minutes afterward reached the Hotel Shepheard. Ten minutes later he was seated in his own room, hardly able to realize that he was, for the moment, at any rate, out of danger.

To remain at Cairo was out of the question. This last adventure was likely to involve more serious consequences than any of his previous scrapes. Seizing a time-table, he discovered, to his unspeakable relief, that a steamer bound for Bombay was leaving Suez the very same day. He hurriedly packed up his belongings, and, summoning the porter, informed him that he had been called away on matters of the utmost importance, and ordered his trunks to be conveyed without delay to the railway station.

That afternoon at four o'clock a majestic steamer of the Peninsular and Oriental Company weighed its anchor at Suez, and proceeded down the Red Sea. She carried among the passengers on board Count Frederick von Waldberg, who had been fortunate enough to escape arrest for the murder of M. Pasha's second wife.

Frederick's fellow-passengers on board the mail steamer comprised the usual contingent of Calcutta and Bombay merchants; of judges, collectors, and other members of the [Pg 56] Indian Civil Service en route to rejoin their posts on the expiration of their leave of absence, and of a considerable sprinkling of military men, some of whom were on their way to the East for the first time. There were also quite a number of ladies and young girls who had been spending the hot season in England, and who were returning for the winter to their husbands and fathers. Besides these, there were several Parsee and other native traders, who, having been welcomed as princes and nabobs at Paris, and elsewhere in Europe, found it difficult to reconcile themselves again to the contemptuous treatment which even the humblest British subaltern deems it his duty to extend to the “black men.”

For the first three days after leaving Suez, Frederick failed to put in an appearance either at table or on deck, and remained most of the time in the seclusion of his own cabin. His nerves had been rudely shaken by the exciting scenes attending his departure from Cairo, and he felt a cold shiver run down his back when he thought of the terrible fate that would have been his lot had he fallen into the hands of the janizaries and eunuchs of M. le Pasha. With all its veneer of civilization, Egypt was then, and still is to this day, an essentially oriental country. The mysteries of the harem are still as dark and shadowy as in days of yore; and notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary, neither justice nor police legislation has ever succeeded in penetrating the Zenana. Within its walls, the pasha, or bey, especially if he be wealthy and influential, is absolute master of life and death of the inmates. He is accountable to no one for what goes on in his harem; and the stranger who dares to commit the unpardonable offense of invading its sanctity must be prepared to face either death or the most horrible forms of mutilation and torture.

Of remorse for the death of the pasha's second wife, Frederick felt none. He had strangled her in self-defense; [Pg 57] and, although he had no intention of killing her at the time, yet he considered that she fully merited her fate. He was equally indifferent as to what had become of the princess. His enthusiasm had given way to feelings of anger against her for causing him to incur so terrible a danger. It is evident, however, that she must have succeeded in giving some satisfactory explanation to the pasha, both as to the presence of a stranger in her apartments, and as to the death of his second wife, for she is alive to this day, and neither increasing age nor corpulency had had the effect of putting a stop to her adventures, which from time to time furnish a piece of gossip, seasoned highly enough even for the jaded palates of the Cairenes. Her husband, the pasha, expired somewhat suddenly a few years ago, and she has not since remarried.

On the fourth day of the voyage, just as the vessel was steaming past the barren island of Perim, Frederick, who by this time had entirely recovered, made his way on deck, and, with a cigar in his mouth, leaned against the bulwarks, watching signals which were being displayed from the masthead of the fort. He was just about to turn away and to stroll forward for the purpose of inspecting the strange assortment of native deck passengers bound for Aden, when he was accosted by a handsome young Englishman, who requested the favor of a light for his pipe. A conversation sprang up between the two, during the course of which Frederick discovered that his new acquaintance was a wealthy young guardsman, Sir Charles Montgomery by name, who was on his way out to take up a staff appointment at Calcutta. The name of General von Waldberg was not unknown to the baronet, and he therefore had no hesitancy about introducing Frederick not only to his fellow-officers, but also to most of of the other prominent passengers on board. The young count soon became a great favorite, especially with the ladies. Much of his time, however, was [Pg 58] spent in the smoking-room on deck, playing cards with Sir Charles, and some four or five of the latter's messmates. During the first two days Frederick lost heavily, which he could ill afford, for, after paying his hotel bill at Cairo, and purchasing his passage for Bombay, he had found that his money was almost exhausted. On the third day, however, his spell of bad luck came to an end, and from that time forth his winnings were considerable. No matter what the game might be, his hand was invariably such as to arouse the envy and admiration of all beholders. Both Sir Charles and two other of the officers lost large sums to him, and at length one night, on rising from the card-table, the baronet was sharply taken to task by one of his fellow-losers, a Captain Clery, who inquired, with some asperity, whether he was sure of “that dused German fellow.”

“What do you mean? What on earth are you driving at, my dear Clery? What should I know more about him than you do yourself? There is no doubt about his being the son of old General von Waldberg, whose name you are just as well acquainted with as I am.”

“That is just what puzzles me,” replied the captain. “How can you explain the fact that a man of his station and military training should be here on board a Bombay-bound steamer, instead of being with the German Army before Paris? There is something very fishy and queer about him.”

“I don't agree with you one bit,” retorted Sir Charles. “I think he is a very nice fellow—remarkably bright and amusing, and exceedingly wide awake and clever.”

“Too clever by half,” muttered Captain Clery, savagely twisting his heavy blonde mustache. “I am going to watch his game. I don't believe he plays fair. It isn't natural that he should win whenever there is a heavy stake on the [Pg 59] table. I believe he is simply plucking us like so many blue-necked pigeons.”

Had Frederick obtained any inkling of the purport of Captain Clery's remarks about his extraordinary run of luck, or was it mere coincidence that he lost twenty guineas at ecarte on the following afternoon? Be this as it may, the fact remains that during the rest of the voyage he seized various pretexts for absenting himself from the card-table, and devoted his whole time to a very lovely girl, Florence Fitzpatrick by name, to whom he had been presented by Sir Charles. Her father, who hailed from County Cork, held a high command in the Army of the “Guicowar,” or King of Baroda, and had made the acquaintance of General von Waldberg some years previously at Vienna. The old count had not only treated him with much kindness and consideration, but had also obtained him facilities for attending the annual maneuvers of the Prussian and Austrian Armies. He was therefore delighted to have an opportunity of making some return for the courtesy shown to him by Frederick's father, and warmly pressed the young man to visit him at Baroda.

About a fortnight after landing in India, just as Frederick was beginning to grow heartily sick of Bombay, he received a letter from Colonel Fitzpatrick reminding him of his promise to spend a few weeks at Baroda, and urging him to come up at once so as to be in time for a big tiger-hunt which was about to take place. Accordingly, on the next day, having telegraphed to the colonel to announce his impending arrival, he started on his journey up country.

Baroda is, without exception, one of the most interesting and picturesque cities in India. It is perched on the lofty, precipitous banks of the River Wishwamitra. Large marble staircases lead down to the water's edge, and above them rise thousands of minarets, bell towers, temples, kiosks, and pagodas half screened here and there by masses of dark green foliage.

Frederick met with a very hospitable reception on his arrival at Colonel Fitzpatrick's comfortable bungalow. He could not help being touched by the heartiness of welcome extended to him, and Florence appeared to him more charming and beautiful than ever.

As in duty bound, the colonel immediately took steps to notify the Guicowar of Frederick's presence in the capital, and a few days afterward received an intimation that his highness would be glad to grant Count von Waldberg the honor of an audience. Accordingly, on the appointed day, Frederick, accompanied by Fitzpatrick, drove to the royal palace, and after traversing numerous halls and gorgeous apartments thronged with courtiers, found himself in the presence of the Guicowar, to whom he was introduced with due form and ceremony.

The first moments of the interview were passed almost in silence. Then the Guicowar, addressing Frederick in English, declared that he was happy to receive the son of so illustrious a soldier and statesman as General von Waldberg, and bade him consider himself at home in his dominions, [Pg 61] adding that he would do all that lay in his power to render Frederick's sojourn in Baroda as agreeable as possible. The Guicowar wore a red velvet tunic, over which was spread a profusion of magnificent jewels. His turban was adorned with an aigrette of diamonds, among which sparkled the famous “Star of the South.” He was at the time a man of about thirty-five years of age and of tall and commanding stature. His complexion was tolerably clear, and his strongly marked features at once gave a perfect idea of this singular man, who to extreme gentleness in every-day intercourse united the most atrocious cruelty on many other occasions. The origin of the dynasty of the Guicowars is very interesting. Their name, “Guicowar,” of which they are so extremely proud, signifies in the Mahratta language, “Keeper of Cows,” and they are fond of tracing their descent to a family of “Koumbis,” or peasants.

After a time hookhas, with jeweled amber mouthpieces, were brought in, and both the colonel and Frederick, following the example of the Guicowar, began to smoke in true oriental fashion. Meanwhile a number of pretty girls, covered with trinkets and attired in thin chemises, had stepped into the room. They were bayaderes, or dancing girls, who played, sang, and danced for the entertainment of the Guicowar's guests, moving with all the languid voluptuousness peculiar to the East. These privileged individuals are allowed to come and go as they please in the royal palace, as if to make up for the absence of the ladies secluded in their Zenana. When, at the close of the audience, which had lasted about two hours, Frederick at length took leave of his dusky highness, he was thoroughly enraptured with all he had seen. The Court of the Guicowar is the only one in India which has preserved down to the present time the customs of the middle ages in all their primitive splendor, and during his stay at Baroda, Frederick had numerous opportunities of admiring the extreme luxury and lavish magnificence [Pg 62] of ceremonies which are not to be witnessed anywhere else in the world.

Frederick soon began to feel as if he were a member of the colonel's family. The old gentleman treated him like a son, and was never tired of introducing him to all his friends and acquaintances. One morning he proposed that they should call together on a Hindoo lady, the widow of a great dignitary, and whose wealth was enormous. Being free of control and of advanced notions, she was fond of frequenting good European society, and would, so the colonel declared, be delighted to make Count von Waldberg's acquaintance. The opportunities of entering the house of a lady of great fortune and high caste in India are exceedingly rare, for the rules of the Zenana are so strict and so full of deeply rooted prejudices that even widows, proverbially forward, seldom dare to break through them. Frederick, therefore, declared in reply that he would be much pleased to avail himself of the colonel's offer.

The widow received them in a magnificently decorated room. Her face was partly vailed by a rose-colored silk scarf, and her dress was literally ablaze with diamonds, rubies, and gold. She was a woman of between forty and fifty years of age, very dark, and with piercing coal-black eyes. When the colonel and his young friend entered, she quickly rose from the divan, and having shaken hands with them both in European fashion, invited them to take seats on either side of her. She began by thanking Colonel Fitzpatrick for having brought Count von Waldberg to see her, and then, turning to the latter, added graciously that she would be “at home” to him whenever he might deign to call for the purpose of cheering her lonely life by his welcome presence. Frederick assured her that he would frequently avail himself of her permission,and the conversation then turned to European topics and to social scandal both at home and abroad, concerning which the widow appeared [Pg 63] to know much more than might reasonably have been expected from a Hindoo lady living in the seclusion of a Baroda Zenana.

Frederick could not help noticing the very marked impression that he was producing on the widow. She addressed herself almost exclusively to him, and her piercing eyes hardly ever left his face. She insisted on their staying until nightfall, and when Frederick pleaded some urgent business appointment she prevailed on Frederick to allow the colonel to depart alone and to remain behind, at any rate until it was time for the city gates to close. The heat being intense indoors, the widow shortly afterward made a proposal that they should adjourn to the gardens of her palace, and conducted him along a winding path sheltered from the glare of the sun by the dense foliage of the sycamore trees to a fairy-like kiosk, built on a kind of rocky promontory, which seemed to hang out over the river. A gentle breeze made its way through the closed lattices of the windows, and a pink marble fountain perfumed the atmosphere with its jet of rose-water.

Frederick had entered this charming buen retiro a free man. When he left it he was enthralled by fetters which he would find it difficult to sever.

He had been about four months at Baroda when one morning as he was in the act of mounting his pony to ride over to pay his customary visit to the widow a diminutive black boy stealthily slipped a note into his hand. Hastily turning round Frederick recognized the grinning features of Florence's little page, who, after making a profound salaam, disappeared as fast as his legs would carry him. Putting his horse at a walk the young count opened the letter and read the following words:

“I will be this evening, at dusk, in the wood adjoining our bungalow, near the little temple of Jain. Meet me there. I must speak to you alone and without delay. I [Pg 64] have a communication to make to you of such importance that our lives are endangered thereby. Oh, my love, my love! Why are you so cruel?”

With a stifled curse Frederick crushed the note in his hand and thrust it into one of the outside pockets of his jacket. Then, giving his unfortunate pony a vicious dig with his spurs, he started off at a sharp canter, and fifteen minutes later he alighted at the palace of the widow, who, having become insanely jealous, was making his life a perfect burden to him.

On that particular morning she was more than usually fractious and exacting, and it was only by playing the part of an enthusiastic and passionate lover that he could in any way pacify her. When at length he reached home he was in a state of exasperation bordering on frenzy. Flinging himself upon the couch in his room he gave way to a most violent fit of rage. Suddenly remembering Florence's note he put his hand into his pocket, with the object of reading it once more. The letter, however, was gone. It was in vain that he turned all his pockets inside out; the note had disappeared. This caused him a moment of anxiety, but on second thought he remembered that it bore neither signature nor address, and, taking it for granted that it had dropped from his pocket while riding, he dismissed the subject from his mind.

Shortly after sundown he started to walk through the wood to the little temple of Jain where Florence had requested him to meet her. It was a lovely and romantic spot. The small temple, built of delicately chiseled stone forming a kind of open trellis work, was surmounted by nine little carved domes and tiny fretted minarets. All round the building rose half-broken columns, the ruins of a mosque, while huge trees covered the spot with deep shade, and Barbary figs, cactuses and poisonous euphorbias enveloped the ancient stones. Thousands of parrots and [Pg 65] humming birds dwelt in the branches of the sycamores and palms and flew off at the slightest sound. The place was very lonely, and as he approached it there was no sound save the babble of a brook whispering among tall rushes and lotus plants to be heard in the quiet evening air.

Florence, who had been sitting on the fragments of the basalt column, rose to her feet as she saw him coming, and advanced toward him with outstretched hands. She had been a very beautiful girl a few months previously, but the brilliant pink color, which was one of her chief charms, had now given place to a sickly pallor. Her cheeks were haggard and drawn and her soft brown eyes had a sad and hunted expression which was very painful to see in one so young and fair.

“Fred,” exclaimed she, as he took her hands in his and bent to kiss her cheek. “I cannot bear this any longer. You promised me long ago that you would talk to my father! Why don't you do so now? The time has come! I have asked you to come here to-day to tell you that soon I shall be unable to conceal my shame any longer. Already now I tremble every time my dear father looks at me, and I have no strength left to carry on this horrible deceit any longer.”

As she said this she leaned her head on her lover's shoulder and sobbed bitterly.

The expression on Frederick's face became very dark, now that her face was hidden against his breast and that she could no longer see him. He bit his lips savagely and his eyes flashed with anger. Here was a pretty state of things. What was he to do? She must be pacified with new promises and induced to wait till he could find means to flee once more before the storm which he seemed to call forth wherever he went. He tried to compose his features and to soften the tones of his voice. Drawing the weeping girl closer to him he murmured, gently:

“Look here, Florence, you must not give way like this! You only hurt yourself and pain me. You know how doubly precious your life is to me now. Do not doubt me! Believe me, I am acting for the best. You shall be my wife long before many days are passed and long before there is any danger of discovery. You are nervous and low-spirited, and exaggerate the difficulties of our situation. I adore you! That ought to satisfy you, together with the knowledge that I will guard you from any misfortune and trouble. Cheer up, darling! Better times are coming. Have patience but a little longer.”

As he said this they both gave a sudden start of terror. Behind them in the thicket they heard the noise of a broken twig and the rustle of a dress. Florence, in an agony of fright, tore herself from his embrace and disappeared in the direction of her father's bungalow, exclaiming as she rushed off:

Frederick, turning toward the tangled bushes whence the sound had proceeded, found himself face to face with the widow.

The latter presented a truly awful appearance as she advanced toward him. Her black eyes were distended with fury, and her face, from which the vail had fallen, was distorted by a cruel and mocking smile.

“Is that the way you keep your troth to me, you miserable scoundrel?” screamed she, clutching hold of Frederick's arm. “Is that my reward for the love of which I have given you so many proofs? Is that the return for the bounty I have heaped upon you—for all my lavish generosity?”

“Silence!” exclaimed Frederick, “and cease to taunt me about your gifts and presents. They have been purchased dearly enough in all conscience. I have never given you the right to control my actions. Although I may be a [Pg 67] mere boy compared to you, yet I am old enough to take care of myself.

“Is that it, then? So I am too old for you! You dare to let me see that all your pretenses of love were only due to your greed for my wealth! The widow is good enough to furnish you with money and to help you to pay your numerous debts! But you require something younger, lovelier, and more attractive than I am, to satisfy your passions.”

“I wonder,” she continued, “what your friend Col. Fitzpatrick will say when I inform him how you have betrayed his hospitality and dishonored his daughter. As there is a heaven above us, I swear to take such a revenge, both on you and upon your light-o'-love, that you will live to curse the day on which you were born.”

Frederick, exasperated beyond all expression, shook her hand roughly off his arm, saying as he did so:

“Do anything you please, but be silent now! You have said more than enough! I have done forever with yourself, your money, and the very questionable charms of your acquaintance! Good-evening.”

Turning his back on her, he was about to effect his retreat when the frantic woman bounded toward him and clutched him by his coat with such violence that he nearly lost his balance.

“Thief, coward, traitor! You shall not leave me thus!” hissed the widow through her clenched teeth.

Almost blind with rage, Frederick caught her by both arms and pushed her from him with such brutality that she fell backward, striking her head as she did so on the jagged edge of a broken marble column. The young man attempted to raise her from the ground, but she lay back lifeless on the greensward.

Trembling with fear, Frederick put his hand to her heart. It had ceased to beat. For the second time within [Pg 68] the space of six months Frederick had become a murderer. The full horror of the situation flashed through his mind like a streak of lightning. He must leave Baroda at once. But how was he to do so without money? Not a moment was to be lost, and without casting a look behind him he hurried toward the city, leaving the corpse of his victim lying among the ruins of the temple, with her poor livid face and wide-open eyes, still distorted by passion, turned upward toward the dark heavens, where the crescent of the new moon was rising.

Half an hour later Frederick presented himself at the gate of the widow's palace and asked to see her. The servants replied that their mistress had gone out two hours previously and that she was expected back every minute. If his excellency would take the trouble of walking up stairs he might wait for her in her boudoir. Shortly afterward Frederick came down stairs again, and handing the servant a card for the widow declared that, being pressed for time, he was unable to wait any longer.

He then hastened to his hotel and locked himself up in his room, determined to pack up his belongings and find an excuse for leaving Baroda the next morning. He was not short of money now, for, emptying his pockets on the table, he sat for some moments gazing at a heap of gold pieces and jewels which must have amounted to a value of over several thousands of pounds. Locking this treasure in a small trunk, he was just about to change his clothes for evening dress when there was a loud knock at the door. Frederick started and looked helplessly around him before hoarsely exclaiming:

“It is I,” replied the voice of Col. Fitzpatrick. “Open the door, my dear boy. I want to speak to you.”

Somewhat reassured, Frederick hastened to admit the colonel, who, throwing himself on a chair, exclaimed:

“A terrible thing has happened. You will be horribly shocked. Our poor old friend, the widow, has been found murdered near the ruins of the Temple of Jain,” and without noticing the ashy hue of Frederick's face he continued: “Her assassin was captured just as he was attempting to remove from her corpse the jewels which she wore. The whole town is in an uproar about it, and the culprit was nearly torn to pieces by the people when he was taken through the streets on his way to the prison.”

“Yes,” answered the colonel, “and a villainous, hang-dog looking fellow he is, too—a member of some of those wandering tribes of beggars who infest our part of the country—and no mercy will be shown to him.”

Frederick instantly realized that it was necessary for his safety that he should remain at least some days longer at Baroda, so as not to arouse, by his sudden departure, suspicions which had, so luckily for him, taken another direction, and, coolly finishing his toilet, he accompanied the [Pg 70] colonel to a dinner party at the bungalow of the English political resident.

Three days afterward Frederick received an invitation from the Guicowar to be present at the execution of the widow's murderer, who was condemned to undergo the punishment of “death by the elephant.”

This punishment is one of the most frightful that can possibly be imagined. The culprit, secured hand and foot, is fastened to the elephant's hind leg by a long cord passed round his waist. The latter is urged into a rapid trot through the streets of the city, and every step gives the cord a violent jerk which makes the body of the condemned wretch bound on the pavement. On arriving at the place of execution he is released, and by a refinement of cruelty a glass of water is given to him. Then when he has sufficiently recovered to feel the throes of death his head is placed upon a stone block, and the elephant executioner is made to crush it beneath his enormous foot.

Up to this juncture Frederick, though very pale, had remained standing behind the Guicowar's chair, his eyes intently fixed on the horrible scene which was being enacted before his eyes. But at the moment when the head of the poor innocent man was being crushed to atoms under the dull thud of the monster's foot he uttered a cry of horror and sank to the ground in a dead faint.

The transcontinental express was speeding on its way along the banks of the mighty River Ganges, between Agra and Benares, on a dark night at the beginning of the rainy season. On reaching Allahabad two English officers boarded the train, and on displaying their tickets were shown to their places in one of the three roomy compartments of the luxuriously appointed sleeping-cars.

The lamp was shaded by a green silk blind, and the hermetically closed gauze musquito curtains of one of the upper berths indicated that it was tenanted by a sleeping traveler.

Not having very far to go, the new-comers stretched themselves on their couches without undressing and began to converse in a low tone of voice.

“Have you heard about this terrible business at Baroda?” inquired the taller of the two.

“No,” replied the other. “I am only just down from the hills and have hardly seen a newspaper or spoken to a civilized being since we landed at Bombay.”

“Well,” continued the former, “do you remember that young German Count whom we had on board on our voyage out and who‘rooked’ us so terribly at cards?”

“By Jove, I should think I did! Why, he won a couple of hundred off me. Never saw such infernal luck. Wasn't his name Dalberg or Waldberg, or something of the kind? He was awfully spooney on old Fitzpatrick's pretty daughter, now that I think of it. What's become of the fair Florence?”

“Dead! You don't mean to say so! Why, she looked the very embodiment of health and happiness on board. What on earth did she die of?”

“Well, the story is a sad one, and makes my blood boil whenever I think of it. It appears that old Fitzpatrick invited Waldberg, whose father he had met in Europe, to visit him at Baroda, and had him staying at his house for [Pg 74] quite a number of weeks. The only return which the cursed scoundrel saw fit to make for all the hospitality and kindness lavished on him by the colonel was to betray the latter's daughter under a promise of marriage.

“Unable to conceal her shame any longer, and driven to desperation by the sudden disappearance of her lover from Baroda, the poor girl committed suicide. She was seen by some natives, who were on their way down the river, to throw herself into the stream, but on quickly rowing to the spot they were unable to find any trace of her body, which had evidently been dragged under by the crocodiles which infest the Wishwamitra.

It is said that she left a letter imploring her father's pardon, and stating the reasons which had led her to put an end to her life. The old man's grief, I hear, is something heart-rending, and in the agony of the first moments, he allowed the secret of his daughter's ruin by Count von Waldberg to escape his lips. His frenzy against the latter is beyond all description, and he has sworn to hunt him down, wherever he may have fled to, to bring him to account.”

While Captain Clery—for it was he—was in the act of thus describing the fate of poor Florence Fitzpatrick, the curtains of the upper berth were slightly pushed aside, and the head of a man might have been seen to bend forward as he listened intently to the story. But at the last words thereof he hurriedly closed the curtains again and disappeared from view.

This incident had escaped the notice of the two officers, and Captain Clery continued as follows:

“But this is not all. There are some very ugly suspicions concerning Waldberg in connection with the murder of a rich Hindoo widow, who was found dead, with her skull fractured, among the ruins of an ancient temple, in a wood adjoining the Fitzpatrick bungalow. Her servants have since made disclosures which conclusively prove that Waldberg [Pg 75] had been her lover during almost the entire period of his stay at Baroda. A quarter of an hour before her body was discovered, Waldberg is said to have visited her apartments alone, and a considerable amount of money and jewels are ascertained to have been abstracted therefrom. Moreover, in the letter which Florence left for her father she hinted that one of the reasons of her suicide was that she believed her lover to have been guilty of a terrible crime and declared that her last interview with him had taken place near the ruins of the temple above mentioned, just before the body of the murdered woman was discovered. An unfortunate Bengalee beggar, who was found hovering over the corpse of the widow as if about to rob it of its jewels, was publicly put to death a few days later on the charge of having killed her. The execution took place in the presence of Waldberg, who is now believed to have been the real assassin and who was invited by the Guicowar to witness the horrible scene. It appears that the count was unable to bear the sight, and that he fainted away, creating a great commotion thereby. A few hours later he suddenly left Baroda, informing the colonel by letter that he was called away on most urgent business. He has not been heard of since, but the police are on the look out for him.”

A few minutes later the train steamed into the station of Allahabad, and the two officers, gathering up their cloaks, swords, and other traps, left the sleeping-car.

As soon as the express had again started on its way to Calcutta the man who had displayed such an intense interest in the conversation of Captain Clery and his friend cautiously descended from his berth and began to dress himself as noiselessly as possible. Drawing the blind aside for a moment from the lamp, the dim light thereof revealed the features of Frederick von Waldberg. As soon as he had finished dressing he repaired to the cabinet de toilette of the [Pg 76] sleeping-car, taking with him a small leather dressing-case. When he emerged therefrom a few minutes later it was to be seen that he had shaven off the short beard which he had allowed to grow during his stay at Baroda. Anxious, however, to avoid attracting the attention of the conductor to this metamorphosis, he threw a light Inverness cape overcoat over his shoulders, pulled the collar over his ears, and, drawing his soft felt traveling hat low down over his eyes, sat motionless in a corner, apparently fast asleep.

The morning after his arrival at Calcutta, Frederick took passage on a sailing ship bound for Havre. He was dressed in the garb of a workingman, and gave his name as Franz Werner, and his trade as that of a painter and decorator. He informed the skipper that, his health having been broken by a long stay in the murderous climate of Bengal, the doctor had prescribed the long sea voyage round the Cape as his only hope of recovery. He gave this as the reason for his preferring to return to Europe by a sailing ship instead of by one of the mail steamers via the Suez Canal.

Once again Frederick had succeeded in evading capture and arrest for his crimes.

Toward the end of September, 1871, Count Frederick von Waldberg, alias Franz Werner, arrived in Paris and took up his quarters at a well-known hotel in the Rue de Rivoli under the name of Baron F. Wolff. He stated that he had just arrived from Japan, a country in which he claimed to have resided for over two years. As he spent his money very liberally he was taken at his word and treated with great respect and consideration at the hotel, where he soon made the acquaintance of several American and English families who proposed to spend the winter at Paris. Frederick's personal appearance had undergone such a change during the twelve months which had elapsed since he left Paris that there was not much fear of his being recognized [Pg 78] by any of his former acquaintances. He had grown taller and broader, his face was bronzed by the Indian sun, and his beard, which he had once more allowed to grow during the long sea voyage, caused him to look much older than he was in reality.

One night, some two months after his arrival at Paris, he accompanied three of his new acquaintances to the Jardin Mabille, at that time a well-known rendezvous of the jeunesse doree and of the demi-mondaines of every class.

He was standing near the orchestra, leaning against one of the artificial palm trees loaded with fantastically colored glass fruits, each of which contained a tiny gas jet, and was watching the gay throng of dancers as they bounded through the intricate figures of a disheveled can-can, when suddenly a woman, who was conspicuous by the enormous amount of satin, lace, and flowers which she had managed to accumulate about the lower part of her person, and by the extraordinary scantiness of her corsage, stopped in front of him, and with the tip of her satin-slippered foot delicately knocked his hat from off his head to the ground. This being by no means an unusual feat among the female habitues of Mabille, the incident did not attract much attention and no one noticed the start of surprise and consternation with which Frederick recognized in the painted creature with dyed hair his wife Rose—Countess of Waldberg.

As his hat fell to the ground, the mocking smile on Rose's face disappeared. Her features assumed a hard, stony expression; there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes, and she gave one or two convulsive little shivers, as if striving to control her feelings. Then, rapidly bending toward him, she murmured:

Frederick, realizing that the recognition had been mutual [Pg 79] and afraid that if he made any attempt to resist she would create a disturbance and reveal his identity to all the bystanders, followed her without a word. They soon reached a part of the gardens which was comparatively deserted, and Rose led the way to a small arbor. Throwing herself down on one of the wooden benches, she crossed her arms, and, looking insolently into her husband's face, exclaimed, in a hard, rasping voice:

“Concealment is useless with me. I would have recognized you fifty years hence. If love is blind, hatred is not. I have a little account to square with you, mon cher, and you had better hear me out. I am not surprised at your look of alarm when you realized who it was that had kicked at your hat. It is unpleasant to be recognized when one has so very much to keep dark.”

“Oh, yes, you do. The newspapers have hinted at your doings in India, and a man who had made your acquaintance out there caught sight of one of your portraits in my rooms about a fortnight ago. From him—I forget his name, but he was an English captain—I heard the whole story of your connection with the murder of——”

“Hush, for Heavens sake! not so loud!” interrupted Frederick, terror-stricken. “You don't know what you are saying! If any one were to hear you!”

“What do I care if the whole world hears?” retorted Rose. “You didn't take the trouble of thinking about the world's opinion when you thrust your wife out into the street in the middle of the night and suffered her to be locked up at St. Lazarre as a common street-walker. Every dog has its day, Monsieur le Comte, and I mean to show you that I can be as cruel and relentless as you are yourself.”

“You surely will not betray me, Rose. You loved me once. I am a rich man now, and can do much for you, if [Pg 80] you will only be reasonable,” exclaimed Frederick, imploringly.

He saw that his safety depended on Rose's silence and determined to do everything that he could to propitiate her and to gain time. She looked up with something like relenting in her hard blue eyes. The mention of his wealth had evidently created some impression on her mercenary nature.

“Why, why,” laughed she, “misfortunes seem to have rendered you more reasonable, and to have softened your temper somewhat. It's more than they have done for me. I don't think that I ever had what you can call un cœur sensible (a soft heart), but now I have none left at all. Give me money, jewels, an easy life, and I am easy enough to manage! A fig for sentiment! It's all bosh!”

Frederick, shuddering at the vulgarity displayed by the woman who was still legally his wife, and fearing that his friends, missing him, might hunt him up and insist on being introduced to his companion, touched her lightly on the shoulder, saying:

“Come, Rose, let me take you home. It is impossible to talk quietly here, and I have much to say to you. This is no place for you.”

“How very particular you have become! This place is decidedly more pleasant than the “violon” (cell at police station) or St. Lazarre. It is true that the society which one meets at the Jardin Mabille is slightly mixed, but by far not so much as in the two places I have just mentioned. Come home with me, if you like. It will show you what you have made of me—of me, the Countess von Waldberg. I wonder if your conscience ever troubles you. You have a good deal to answer for, my dear Frederick!”

Frederick having dispatched a waiter to fetch her wraps from the cloak-room, for she had been sitting all this time [Pg 81] with bared shoulders, offered her his arm and led her away. As they were stepping forth into the street, the young man felt a slight tap on his shoulder, and, turning quickly around, found himself face to face with one of his American friends, who laughingly exclaimed:

“I see you have met your fate, my dear Wolff; I congratulate you. Don't forget that we have those two men to lunch at the hotel to-morrow.”

And with a parting “au revoir, baron,” he jumped into a fiacre, and in a loud, cheery tone of voice, bade the coachman drive home to the Hotel Kensington. A couple of minutes later, Frederick, who was greatly put out at thus having his alias and his residence made known to Rose, hailed a passing cab, and a quarter of an hour afterward arrived at her apartments in the Rue de Constantinople. They consisted of four rooms, the tawdry ornaments, greasy furniture, vulgar attempts at display and false elegance of which denoted that their tenant had sunk to the level of a third-rate cocotte.

Before Frederick left Rose that night he succeeded in exacting a promise from her that as long as he maintained her in luxury and gave her all the money she wanted, she would make no attempt to reveal his identity or to injure him in any way. He handed her a couple of thousand-franc bank-notes on his departure, and, promising to call on the following afternoon, strolled back to his hotel.

“She knows too much! She is dangerous! This will never do!” he muttered to himself, as he walked along under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli.

He knew full well that as he was able to provide her with money, he would not have much to fear from her. She was far too careful of her own interests to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by forcing him to take to flight. But, unfortunately, he was ever of a spendthrift disposition. His tastes, pleasures, and mode of life were extravagant; [Pg 82] gold escaped like water through his fingers, and he realized that as soon as the last penny of the money which he had abstracted from the murdered widow's apartments at Baroda had been spent he would find himself powerless to silence Rose, whose revelations would inevitably result in a demand for his extradition on the part of the Anglo-Indian Government.

Several days went by. He had installed Rose in a very handsomely furnished apartment on the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, and had presented her with a carriage and pair, besides providing her with jewels and handsome dresses. It became noised abroad among the demi-monde that she had become the mistress of a wealthy Austrian named Baron Wolff, and both Frederick and Rose were careful to avoid any allusion to the real relationship which existed between them.

Rose found that by means of a few judicious taunts and threats she was able to get anything she wanted out of him. Of love between this curiously assorted couple there was none, and with each additional demand for money on her part the hatred and loathing with which he regarded her increased.

One evening, about a month after his meeting with Rose at the Jardin Mabille, Frederick entered her drawing-room half an hour before dinner, carrying in his hand a large bouquet of gardenias and white lilac. It was her birthday, and after having duly congratulated her he handed her a blue velvet box, which she opened with a cry of delight. It contained a bracelet composed of superb sapphires which a few months previously had figured on the wrist of the murdered widow at Baroda. Kissing her hand with old-fashioned courtesy, Frederick clasped the jewel round Rose's shapely arm, and then led her before one of the huge mirrors which gleamed here and there between the plush hangings of the luxuriously appointed room. They were indeed a [Pg 83] handsome couple as they stood there gazing at their reflections in the glass. Rose was now dressed in perfect taste, and her pale-blue satin dinner dress set off her beauty to perfection. Suddenly she looked up at him with a mocking smile, and exclaimed, with a sneer:

“What a charming pair we are to be sure! No wonder we love each other so tenderly.”

They remained a long time at table that night, sipping their wine, and for a wonder chatting peacefully and pleasantly. Suddenly Rose jumped up and exclaimed:

“By the by, Frederick, I must show you a letter which I received to-day. There is a kind of East Indian nabob who is staying here at the Grand Hotel. He has seen me at the opera, and writes to make me the most dazzling proposals,” added she, cynically.

It was one of Rose's chief delights to show her husband what she had now become; and without giving him time to say a word she ran lightly out of the room in quest of the letter.

Hardly had she disappeared behind the portiere which hung before the door than Frederick, who had suddenly grown very pale, took from his waistcoat-pocket a small cut-glass bottle filled with a colorless and transparent fluid. Bending over the table, he dropped part of its contents in the half-finished glass of green chartreuse which stood in front of Rose's plate. With an almost supernatural coolness he shook the mixture, so as to amalgamate it properly, and then sank back into his chair and lit a cigar, as if to give himself what the French call a “countenance.”

“Let me read this to you. It will show you that if you don't behave I can do without you, sir,” she said.

“Nonsense, Rose! What pleasure can it afford you to be always teasing me? You are not half so bad as you try to [Pg 84] make yourself out to be. Here, let me drink your health again. That will be much more to the purpose!”

Rose laughed a harsh, unlovely laugh, and seizing hold of her glass clinked it against her husband's and tossed the liquor down her throat with a “cranerie” which showed that she was not afraid of a stiff drink!

“What a peculiar taste this chartreuse has,” she said, as she threw herself back in her chair.

“You swallowed it too quickly. It is a pity, for it is good stuff, and I prefer taking mine more quietly,” continued he, raising his own glass to his lips.

“I feel awfully jolly to-night,” exclaimed Rose, jumping up from her chair again and beginning to restlessly pace the floor. “We ought to go out. Why don't you take me to some theater? Oh! it's too late for that! Let us go to my boudoir and have some music; it will remind us of past times.”

She left the room, beckoning him to follow. He did so, but as soon as she rose from the table he quietly pocketed the glass from which she had been drinking. He found Rose in the act of opening all the windows in her boudoir. She was unusually flushed, and he noticed that the pupils of her bright blue eyes were greatly contracted. This gave her so strange and wild a look that he started back as she turned toward him.

“How oppressively hot it is to-night, Frederick!” said she, in a muffled voice, and breathing heavily.

“Why, no; it is not warmer than usual. You must have been drinking too much, Rose. Compose yourself. Come here and lie down on the sofa, while I play you some of your favorite melodies.”

Saying this, he sat down at the piano and began to play at random, watching her intently all the time as she flitted about the room. At the end of a few minutes she flung [Pg 85] herself down on a lounge and closed her eyes. She breathed more heavily than before, and from time to time passed her hand across her forehead, which was bathed in cold perspiration.

“Frederick,” she cried, in a low, oppressed kind of tone, “please come here. I am not feeling well. I wish you would give me a glass of water.”

He walked to a side table and brought her a large glass filled to the brim with iced water, which she drank eagerly.

Frederick sat down near her on the edge of the lounge, and watched her curiously. Her face had assumed a cadaverous aspect, and now and again she shuddered from head to foot. She appeared to be suffocating, and there was a bluish tint round her drawn mouth and sunken eyes. Frederick did not move. His face was nearly as white as that of his victim. But he made no attempt to help or to assist her. He cruelly, and in cold blood this time, allowed the poison to take definite hold of her system, and his pitiless eyes remained fastened on her distorted face without once relenting.

Gradually her breathing became less and less audible, and a few moments later it had entirely ceased. Placing his hand to her bosom he convinced himself that the beating of the heart had stopped forever.

Then arising from the couch he calmly removed his picture from its place on the table, and then, loudly ringing the bell, he summoned the servants.

The violence of the peal brought two or three of them to the door. They found Baron Wolff apparently in a state of extreme excitement, trying with all his might to revive their mistress as she lay unconscious on the sofa.

“Quick! For Heaven's sake! Run for a doctor! Madam is very ill. She is in a fit!” exclaimed he, wringing his hands.

Two nights afterward, as Frederick was seated at dinner in the large dining-room of the Cafe Riche, two well dressed men walked up to his table and informed him that they had a warrant for his arrest on a charge of having murdered the demi-mondaine, Rose Hartmann.

It is needless to recount the weary formalities and interrogatories to which Frederick was subjected during the next few weeks. He was, however, clever enough to evade all attempts made to discover his real identity, and was encouraged by his lawyer to believe that his conviction on the evidence which had been obtained against him would be a matter of great difficulty.

A month later the trial was opened with due form and ceremony. As soon as the judges—dressed in their scarlet robes lined with ermine—had taken their seats, immediately under the life-like picture of the Crucifixion which forms so striking a feature of every French court of justice, the prisoner was led in between two “Gardes de Paris,” and was conducted to his place in the dock. The court-room was comparatively empty, popular interest at that moment being centered in the courts-martial which were being held at Versailles on the various leaders of the Commune. After again stating in reply to the inquiries of the president that his name was Frederick Wolff, and that he was of Austrian origin, although born in London, his indictment was read. It charged him with having administered a poisonous dose of morphia to his mistress a femme galante of the name of [Pg 87] Rose Hartmann, a native of Berlin. It further stated that an autopsy had revealed the fact that the dose had been administered in a manner which displayed an intimate knowledge of the chemical properties of the drug.

Frederick's counsel thereupon arose and began his speech in defense of the young man. He urged that his client could have no object in murdering his mistress, to whom he was passionately attached, and on whom he had showered innumerable and lavish tokens of his affection. He painted in graphic colors the career of the dead woman in the annals of the Parisian galanterie, related how Frederick had made her acquaintance at the Jardin Mabille, and finally wound up by insinuating that, the woman being addicted to the use of chloral and morphia as sleeping draughts, her death was due to an overdose of the drug, administered by her own hand. He concluded his speech by an eloquent appeal to the jury to acquit his client.

The advocate-general (district attorney) then arose and begged leave of the court to summon two witnesses of whose existence he had only become aware a few hours previously, and whose testimony was calculated to shed a most important light on the case. A few moments afterward a short, fat man, with spectacles, was shown into the witness-box.

The witness, after having been duly sworn, stated that his name was Christian Martin, and that he was a bookseller by trade. He testified that about ten days before the newspapers published an account of the murder of Rose Hartmann, a young man visited his shop in the Rue de Rivoli, and purchased several works on toxicology. He had specially asked for the most recent publications on the subject of opium and morphine, and explained that he had recently returned from a long sojourn in the far East, where he had become interested in the study of the deleterious effects of these drugs among the natives. The bookseller added that the stranger had declined to allow him to send the books selected, but had insisted on taking them away with him in his carriage. M. Martin's attention had been specially attracted to the young man by the mention of his residence in the Orient, and by the remarkable knowledge which he displayed of the properties of hashish, and other narcotics used by the Asiatics. He had, however, thought no more about the matter until the previous evening, when passing in front of the offices of the Figaro, a portrait displayed on the bulletin-board of the newspaper had caught his eye. On examining it more closely, he had recognized therein the features of the gentleman who had visited his shop some weeks previously for the purpose of buying books on toxicology; and having learned from the superscription that it was the picture of “Baron” F. Wolff, the suspected murderer [Pg 89] of Rose Hartmann, he had deemed it his duty to inform the commissary of police of the district of the facts above mentioned. The latter, knowing that the trial was about to begin, had given him a letter to the advocate-general and had sent him off post-haste to the Palais de Justice.

The sensation produced by this evidence both on the judges and the jury was most prejudicial to Frederick's case, which until then had appeared extremely promising.

But the climax was reached when, a few minutes afterward, a lady, in an extremely loud and startling toilet, was [Pg 90] ushered into the witness-box. Frederick gazed at her inquiringly, but was unable to recall to mind ever having met her before.

This announcement appeared to create a considerable amount of amusement in court.

After furnishing the court with information on all these points, “Mme. de St. Augustin” proceeded to relate that she had been on terms of great intimacy with Rose Hartmann, whose acquaintance she admitted, after some pressure on the part of the president, to having made at St. Lazarre. Meeting Rose a few days after the latter's migration from the Rue de Constantinople to the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, she had congratulated her on her altered fortunes, and had questioned her about her new “Protecteur.” Rose, it appeared, had replied, that, as far as the material advantages were concerned, she had nothing to complain of, but that her lover was a peculiar kind of man, with whom she did not feel altogether safe, and that, if she listened to her presentiments, she would certainly decline to have anything further to do with him. “She added,” declared the fair Cora, “‘I have a queer, uncanny feeling about that man. Indeed, I shouldn't be surprised if I came to grief through him some day. Remember, ma chere, if anything [Pg 91] ever happens to me, you may depend upon it that he will have had something to do with the matter. I believe him to be capable of anything, but he is too good a catch, financially speaking, to be abandoned until a more desirable party turns up.’”

Then, satisfied with the impression which her remarks had produced, the witness turned toward the judges, and inquired whether “ces messieurs” had any further questions to ask. On receiving a reply in the negative, she swept out of the witness-box, and dropping a low courtesy, in which she graciously included both the public and the tribunal, she passed out.

Thereupon, the advocate-general arose and commenced his argument for the prosecution. He used the evidence of the two witnesses who had just been heard by the court with crushing effect, and wound up his brilliant and clever peroration by a demand to the jury that they should mete out to the prisoner the full penalty of the law.

The jury then retired, and remained absent about three-quarters of an hour. When they reappeared, their foreman, in response to the inquiry of the presiding judge, declared that their unanimous verdict was to the effect that the prisoner was guilty of the murder of Rose Hartmann; but that, in view of the purely circumstantial nature of the evidence submitted to them, they recommended him to the mercy of the court.

The president, addressing Frederick, asked whether he had any reason to put forward why the sentence of the law should not be pronounced upon him.

“I can only once more swear by all that I hold sacred that I am innocent of the crime laid to my charge. I was deeply attached to the poor girl whom I am accused of having murdered, and it ought to be clear to every one present [Pg 92] that I had no possible object to attain in putting an end to her days. It is not mercy I demand, but justice.”

The president, after consulting with his two associate judges, then, in a loud and impressive voice, pronounced the sentence of the court, whereby “Frederick Wolff” was condemned to twenty years penal servitude, and to ten years more police supervision and loss of civil rights.

The judge had scarcely uttered the last words of the sentence, when Frederick's arms were grasped on either side by a stalwart “Garde de Paris,” and he was hurried from the court-room. Instead of being taken back to the “Mazas” House of Detention, where he had been imprisoned until then, he was conveyed to “La Grande Roquette,” which he was to visit some years later under still more dramatic circumstances.

“La Grande Roquette,” besides containing the cells for prisoners under sentence of death, is used as a depot for convicts pending their transfer either to the penitentiaries or to the penal colonies.

On arriving within the gloomy walls of this terrible prison, [Pg 94] from whose portals none step forth excepting to the scaffold or to undergo a long term of disgrace and social death, Frederick was taken to the “Greffe” (register's office). There he surrendered the name of “Wolff,” under which he had been sentenced, and received instead the numeral by which henceforth he was to be designated. From thence he was conducted to the barber-shop, where his beard was removed and his head shaved. The clothes which he had worn until then were now taken away from him, and he was forced to assume the hideous garb of a condemned prisoner.

A few days later a special train, consisting of eight railway carriages, partitioned off into small and uncomfortable cells, lighted only by ventilators from the roof, steamed out of the Gare d'Orleans on its way to St. Martin de Re. Among the number of blood-stained criminals of every imaginable category which constituted its living freight, was Frederick Count von Waldberg, alias Franz Werner, alias Baron Wolff, but now known only as No. 21,003.

Before proceeding any further, it may be as well to devote a few words to an explanation of the somewhat remarkable fact that nobody at Paris should have recognized the identity of Baron Wolff with the Count von Waldberg, who had resided for some months on the banks of the Seine previous to the fall of the empire. In the first place, as has been already stated, his personal appearance had undergone a most remarkable change during his absence in the East; and, secondly, the siege by the Germans and the subsequent insurrection of the Commune had so thoroughly disorganized the metropolitan police and judicial administrations, whose ranks were now filled by entirely new and inexperienced men that his success in concealing his real rank and station had nothing surprising in it.

On reaching St. Martin de Re, Frederick was manacled to a repulsive-looking prisoner, and was fastened to a long [Pg 95] chain to which some sixty other convicts were attached. Escorted by gendarmes with loaded rifles, they were led down to the sea-shore and embarked on huge flat-bottomed barges or pontoons for conveyance to the ship which lay in the offing, which was to be their place of abode for the three weary months which would elapse before their arrival in New Caledonia.

The Loire was one of the small fleet of old sailing ships which have been fitted up for the transport of convicts to Noumea and to Cayenne, and which are nicknamed “Les Omnibuses du Bagne.” Steam vessels are not used for this purpose, as speed is no object, and the voyage to France's penitential colony in Australasia is effected via the Cape of Good Hope, instead of by the Suez Canal. The lower decks are divided up into a series of large iron cages, in which the convicts are imprisoned by groups of sixty. These cages are separated from each other by narrow passages, along which armed sentinels pace day and night. Once every morning, and once every afternoon, the prisoners are brought up on deck for an hour's airing when the weather is fine; but when storms prevail, they are frequently confined in the stifling atmosphere of the lower decks for whole weeks at a time. In front of every cage, hydrants are fixed, by means of which, in case of any serious disturbance, the inmates can be deluged with powerful jets of cold water, and if that prove ineffectual, then with hot water.

A heavy gale was blowing in the Bay when the Loire spread its sails to the wind and started on its long and dreary voyage.

A fortnight later the vessel cast anchor in the port of Santa Cruz, of the Canary Islands, where a stay of six days was to be made for the purpose of shipping the provisions which were to last until the arrival of the transport at its destination. While there, Frederick and three of his fellow-prisoners, [Pg 96] who had formed part of the gang employed one night to clean the deck from the dirt occasioned by the embarkation of some eighty head of cattle and numerous sheep and poultry, took advantage of the darkness and of the rough weather which prevailed, to slip overboard. The guard-boat happened to be on the other side of the ship, and the fugitives would probably have reached land and effected their escape, had not they suddenly encountered a cutter, which was bringing off several of the ship's officers who had been dining on shore. Unfortunately for the convicts, the moon, which had been hidden until then by the clouds, shone forth for a few minutes and shed its light on the shorn heads of the swimmers. The latter immediately plunged, in order to avoid detection. But it was too late. They had already been caught sight of by the officers. The latter having hailed the watch on board the ship and called for assistance, then rounded their boat on the fugitives. Aware of the terrible punishment which awaited them if captured, the poor wretches made almost superhuman efforts to escape, and turned a deaf ear to the threats of their pursuers that they would fire on them. One by one, however, they were run down and dragged on board. Frederick alone, who was a magnificent swimmer, continued to elude the cutter by swimming under water, coming to the surface only from time to time, to take breath. Volleys of buckshot swept the spot whenever his head appeared for a moment above water; but he seemed to bear a charmed life. Suddenly, however, one of the sailors espied him, as, miscalculating his distance, he emerged on the surface within a few feet of the boat. Quick as lightning, the man raised his oar and brought it down with terrific force on Frederick's head, rendering him unconscious.

When Frederick recovered his senses, he found himself in a dark cell in the lowest part of the hold, heavily chained, and with his head covered with bandages.

Four days after leaving the Canary Islands, the attention of the convicts was attracted to some rather unusual preparations which were being made between decks. A detachment of fifty marines filed in and took up their position amidships. At a word of command on the part of their officer, they proceeded to load their rifles. Two gendarmes who were accompanying the convoy thereupon appeared and likewise loaded their revolvers, with a good deal of ostentation. A few minutes afterward the warders pasted up in each cage an “order of the day,” signed by the commander, wherein it was stated that in accordance with a decision of the court-martial, the four convicts who had attempted to escape in the harbor of Santa Cruz were about to receive forty lashes of the “cat.”

This instrument of torture, which is only used for the punishment of prisoners under sentence of penal servitude, is composed of five thongs of plaited whipcord, thirty inches long and about an inch thick. At the end of each thong are three knots, with small balls of lead. The handle is about two to three feet long and an inch and a half in diameter, and is composed of very heavy teak wood. The thongs are carefully tarred until they become as stiff and as hard as iron, after which they are dipped for several hours in the strongest kind of vinegar.

The officers having assembled, a wooden bench was brought in by two of the warders, and thereupon the men about to undergo punishment appeared on the scene, stripped to the waist and barefooted. The sentence was then read aloud by the officer of the watch.

Convict No. 21,003, the number by which Frederick was known, was the first to undergo the punishment. Two of the warders seized him, and stretching him at full length on the wooden bench, face downward, bound him thereto by means of ropes tied round his shoulders, waist, and ankles.

A brawny prisoner who had volunteered to act as corrector, now stepped forth from the ranks, seized the “cat,” and began to let it fall heavily and at regular intervals on the back and shoulders of the unfortunate Frederick, allowing enough time between each blow to make the suffering still more acute. The first strokes left long, livid stripes on the young man's white skin. Soon, however, the blood oozed forth, and by the time the twentieth blow was inflicted, Frederick's back was one mass of lacerated and bleeding wounds. He bore the cruel punishment with Spartan courage, never uttering a complaint or letting a moan escape him. But when they untied his bonds and attempted to raise him from the bench, it was found that he had become insensible.

For two weeks after this cruel punishment Frederick lay in the ship's hospital, part of the time in a state of delirium brought on by wound-fever. When at length he had recovered sufficiently to be able to leave the infirmary his tortures began afresh. Both he and the three convicts who had attempted to escape with him were set to perform the most disgusting and revolting kind of work that could be found on a vessel freighted with such an enormous cargo of human beings. It is needless to describe what these duties were, but it will be sufficient to state that they were peculiarly repugnant to Frederick, reared as he had been in palaces, and accustomed to every form of the most refined and elegant luxury. As a further disciplinary measure they were deprived of one of their two meals a day. The food on board the transport was execrable, and for some reason or other none was ever served out to the prisoners between the hours of 6 o'clock on Saturday morning and 6 o'clock on Sunday evening.

Frederick bore all these hardships in silence, but became more and more embittered against mankind. His heart grew as hard as stone. Every slight vestige of good feeling, [Pg 100] morality, and humanity disappeared, and by the time he arrived in New Caledonia he had become the most desperate and dangerous of all the blood-stained criminals on board.

At last, ninety-three days after her departure from St. Martin de Re, the Loire cast anchor in the Bay of Noumea. The town, perched on the slope of a hill, is quite picturesque with its flat-roofed white houses that are shaded by gigantic cocoanut trees, and half hidden by huge bushes of a kind of scarlet rhododendron of a singular luxuriance and beauty. Owing to the frequence of cyclones and tornadoes no building is more than one-story high, even the church tower having been razed to the ground by a storm which took place a short time before Frederick reached the colony.

The young man, however, had no opportunity of examining the town more closely. For shortly before midday the convicts were placed on barges rowed by naked savages, and conveyed to the barren and desolate Island of Nou, distant about an hour from the city. On landing the convicts were taken to a shed where they were ordered to strip. Their bodies were then plentifully besprinkled with the most nauseating kind of insect powder, after which they were furnished with their new kit, consisting of coarse canvas trousers, jackets and shirts, straw hats, wooden shoes, hammocks and dingy-colored blankets. They were then locked up by batches of sixty in long, low buildings, the small windows of which were heavily barred.

There they were left without either food or water until the following morning. The night was horrible. The most impenetrable darkness prevailed, no lantern or any kind of light having been provided to dispel the gloom. The [Pg 101] heat and foul odors due to the want of proper ventilation were indescribable, and the men, driven almost frantic by thirst and hunger, rendered the long, weary hours of the night still more hideous with their yells, oaths, and execrations. At about 2 o'clock in the morning a fearful cry of agony rang through the building:

“Help! Help! They are killing me! Let me go, cowards! Help for the love of God!”

A great silence followed this heart-rending appeal, which was only broken by the sound of a few shuddering gasps. A few minutes later the pandemonium broke loose again with increased violence and continued until morning. When day began to pierce through the grated windows the cause of the awful cries for help which had made the blood of even some of the most hardened criminals run cold became apparent. Stretched on the ground, with his open eyes distended by pain and terror, lay the dead body of the convict who during the voyage out had volunteered to act as the “corrector” on the occasion of the flogging of Frederick and of the three men who attempted to escape with him in the harbor of Santa Cruz. Death had evidently been caused by strangulation, for purple finger-marks were plainly visible on the victim's throat.

At 6 o'clock the doors were thrown open, and the warders ordered the prisoners to file out into the open air. After having been ranged in line, the roll was called. The several numerals by which the respective convicts were known were called forth and responded to by their owners. Suddenly there was a pause caused by the failure of No. 21,265, to answer the summons.

“Where the devil is No. 21,265?” shouted the head warder, in an angry tone of voice.

Fearing that the missing man had escaped, several of the “gardes-chiourmes” (sub-warders) rushed into the building [Pg 102] where the prisoners had spent the night, and reappeared a few moments later bearing the body of the murdered man.

Of course the convicts one and all denied any knowledge as to how their comrade had come to his death, and as it was impossible to discover which of the sixty prisoners had been the perpetrator or perpetrators of the deed, a report was made to the governor stating that a fight had taken place among the newly arrived convicts during the night, in the course of which one of their number had met his death. To tell the truth, the affair attracted but little attention on the part of the authorities. After all, it was but a convict the less. As, however, it was deemed necessary to take some notice of the matter, the ten prisoners who had the largest number of black marks against their name, and among whom was Frederick, were sentenced to undergo the following punishment. Their hands were tightly secured behind their backs and fastened to a chain attached to iron rings in the exterior wall of the building in which the murder had been committed. The chains were sufficiently loose to enable them either to squat on the ground or to stand upright. But being unable to use their hands to convey their miserable pittance of bread and water to their mouths, they were forced to bend their faces down to the ground in order to seize the bread with their teeth and to lap up the water like dogs.

In defiance of all notions of humanity or decency they were left bound in this cruel manner for seven days and seven nights, exposed to the weather and unable to defend themselves from the bites of the myriads of musquitoes and other aggressive insects.

When, at the end of this week of indescribable torture, they were released, five of their number, including Frederick, were in such a state as to necessitate their being sent to the hospital. Frederick, who possessed a wonderfully strong constitution and powerful physique, soon recovered. [Pg 103] Two of his companions, however, had their arms paralyzed for the remainder of their lives from the effects of this appalling treatment.

For two long years Frederick remained on the Island of Nou, subject to the never-ending tyranny and brutality of the jailers and overseers, who are recruited from the very lowest ranks of society. The slightest appearance of hesitation or failure on the part of the convict to submit to every caprice of the “chiourme” was immediately interpreted as an act of insubordination, and formed the subject of daily reports to the superintendent, who responded thereto by sending vouchers either for a flogging or for an imprisonment during a certain number of days in the dark punishment cell.

One day matters came to a climax. Frederick, with a gang of about twelve others, was engaged on the main landing in breaking stones for the construction of a new road. Two warders with loaded rifles kept watch over them. One of the two, however, seeing the men quietly at work withdrew after a while to a neighboring farm-house, which belonged to an ex-convict who was still under the supervision of the police.

The fate of these liberated convicts is scarcely a happy one. For although they are permitted to summon to their side the wife, sisters, or children whom they may have left behind them in France, or, if they prefer it, to marry some female ex-convict, yet their womankind are entirely subject to the caprices and passions of the various prison functionaries. Even the very lowest sub-warder has it in his power to force these unfortunate people to submit to his demands, no matter how outrageous their nature may be, since any refusal would inevitably entail a denunciation, accusing either the husband or wife, or possibly both, of acts of insubordination. Needless to add that the word of persons who are under police supervision and who are deprived of their civil rights has no weight whatsoever when opposed by that of a prison official.

One of the warders having, as has been stated above, retired to a neighboring farm-house, his companion sat down under the shade of some bushes which grew at the top of a small mound, whence he could exercise a careful watch over the men intrusted to his charge. The heat was overpowering, and from time to time he refreshed himself with long pulls from a suspicious-looking flask which he had hidden away in an inside pocket. The liquor, whatever it was, instead of rendering him more good-humored and tractable, seemed to call forth all the latent savagery of his nature. Every time one of the unfortunate convicts attempted to rest from his work for a few brief moments the [Pg 105] brute would force him, by means of taunts and threats, to resume his task. Not a moment's respite would he permit them for the purpose of slaking their intense thirst with a drink of water; and for six long hours, in the very hottest part of the day, he kept them exposed without interruption to the scorching rays of the tropical sun.

At length, overcome by the sultriness of the atmosphere and by the frequency of his potations, he sank off into a deep and drunken sleep, his rifle still loosely lying across his knees. Frederick's attention having been attracted thereto by one of his comrades, he immediately perceived that the moment had arrived for carrying into effect his long-cherished project of escape. Quick as lightning he communicated his intention to his fellow-prisoners. A few sturdy blows with the hammers which they had been using until then for breaking the stones were sufficient to relieve them of their waist and ankle chains, and in a moment they had overpowered and tightly bound and gagged their still sleeping warder. Frederick seized his rifle, and accompanied by the others made a bolt for the woods, which they were able to reach unobserved. It was not until an hour after nightfall, when they were already several miles distant from the spot where they had regained their liberty, that the booming of the big guns of the fort at stated intervals proclaimed the fact to them that their escape had become known and that a general alarm had been given.

On becoming aware of this they held a kind of council of war, and it was determined that they should scatter in groups of two and three, which they considered would be more likely to enable them to avoid being recaptured.

The notes left by “Prado” do not mention the fate of those from whom he parted company at the time. It is probable that they either were caught by the posses of warders sent in their pursuit or else that they fell into the [Pg 106] hands of the “Canaks,” as the ferocious natives of New Caledonia are called. The “Canaks” before deciding as to what to do with their prisoners would probably hesitate, influenced on the one hand by their appetite for human flesh and on the other by their greed for the handsome reward offered by the Government for the capture, either alive or dead, of runaway convicts.

For many days Frederick and his two companions wandered through almost impenetrable forests. They were frightened by every sound, by every rustle of a leaf, and were dependent for food on the berries, fruits, and roots, which they devoured with some apprehension, afraid lest they should contain some unknown and deadly poison. Everywhere around them they felt that death was hovering. The dense foliage of the trees completely hid the sky and surrounded them with deep shadows, which appeared full of horror and mystery. Large birds flew off as they advanced, with a startling flutter of their heavy wings, and their only resting-place at night was among the branches of some lofty tree. Frequently they had to wade through pestilential swamps, in which masses of poisonous snakes and other loathsome reptiles squirmed and raised their hissing heads against the intruders. Once they were almost drowned in a deep lake of liquid mud which was so overgrown with luxuriant grasses and mosses that they had mistaken it for terra firma.

At length, on the twelfth day after their escape, they reached, shortly after nightfall, a small coast-guard station. The night was very dark and a heavy tropical rain was falling. A little after midnight the three men, who had remained hidden until then among the rocks, made their way down the little creek, where the open boat used by the coast guards lay at anchor. Gliding noiselessly into the water, they swam out to where the tiny craft was rising and [Pg 107] falling under the influence of a heavy ground swell. In a few moments they were safely on board.

The tide was going out, and, unwilling to attract the attention of the coast guards by the noise which would attend the raising of the anchor, they quietly slipped the cable and allowed the boat to drift silently out to sea.

It was a terrible voyage on which they had embarked and must have been regarded as fool-hardy and insane to the last degree were it not that to remain on the island meant life-long captivity and sufferings so intolerable that death would be but a happy release. As soon as they had drifted far enough they spread the boat's single sail to the wind, and by daylight were well-nigh out of sight of land. On searching the craft they discovered, to their unspeakable delight, that a locker in the bow contained a sack of ship's biscuits, while in the stern was a small cask of water, both of which had evidently been kept on board by the coast-guards for use in case of their being becalmed at any distance from their station. It was little enough, in all conscience, but to Frederick and to his starving companions it seemed the most delicious fare which they had ever tasted.

Frederick's two fellow-fugitives were men of the lowest class. The one was a thorough type of the Paris criminal, with a pale face, bleary eyes, and an outrageously flat, turned-up nose. His breast was adorned with a tattooed caricature of himself, of which he was inordinately proud. The other was a miner who had been condemned to penal servitude for life for killing his chief in response to some violent reproaches which had been addressed to him by the latter.

Without compass, without even a sailor's knowledge of the constellations, they sailed aimlessly before the wind, intent only on increasing the distance which already lay between them and their abhorred prison. Their only hope was that they would be picked up by some passing vessel which, [Pg 108] as long as it did not fly the French colors, would certainly not deliver them back into the hands of their tormentors.

They had been sailing along for some four or five days when the water began to give out. Only a little drop remained. Moreover, there was no protection to be obtained from the burning rays of the sun, the reflection of which on the blue waters of the Pacific seemed to increase the heat tenfold. The three men had agreed to keep the remaining drops of water until the very last extremity, and then only to divide it up into equal shares before preparing to undergo the terrible death by thirst which stared them in the face. Suddenly the ex-miner was seized with convulsions, brought on, no doubt, by the terrific heat of the midday sun on his unprotected head. When these ceased he started to his feet, and, with the yell of a maniac, for such he had now become, made a rush for the water cask. Divining his intention, Frederick and the Parisian “voyou” threw [Pg 109] themselves before him, and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, which was, however, brought to a quick end by the madman breaking loose from them and, with a cry of “Water, water!” jumping head foremost into the sea, almost capsizing the boat as he did so.

A moment afterward, and before he had time to come to the surface again, the spot where he had disappeared became tinged with blood, and the fins of several huge sharks appeared between the waves. Raising his eyes to the horizon from this terrible scene, Frederick suddenly exclaimed:

About three weeks later, a bark, whose storm-beaten and weather-stained appearance showed traces of a long and tempestuous voyage, cast anchor in the port of Batavia. Among the first to land were a couple of men who, although dressed in the garb of common sailors, yet displayed the most palpable evidence that they belonged to some other sphere in life. They presented a strange contrast to one another. The taller of the two, it was easy to see by his well-shaped hands and feet, by his clear-cut features, and by his general bearing, was a gentleman by birth and education, whereas his companion had evidently sprung from the lower classes.

“Safe at last,” muttered the former, who was no other than Frederick von Waldberg. “As long as I was on board that ship, I always had a kind of feeling that we were in danger, somehow or other, of being delivered up to the French authorities. I can't help thinking that the skipper had his doubts as to the authenticity of the story which we told him.”

“At any rate, he kept his own counsel about it,” replied his companion, with a laugh; “and here we are at last beyond the reach of our friends, the ‘gardes chiourmes’ (prison warders). Just look at this! How different from La Nouvelle! (New Caledonia). The very air seems to reek with prosperity and wealth. See those houses there. How glorious it would be to have the looting of one of them!”

“Hush, you idiot!” exclaimed Frederick. “There must [Pg 111] be lots of people here who understand French, and I don't suppose that you want everybody to know who you are.”

“They will find it out soon enough, to their cost,” replied the other, under his breath, as they strolled on.

Frederick and his fellow-convict had been in the last stage of exhaustion when rescued by the Dutch bark, which was on its way from Amsterdam to Java, and during the first three days were unable to give any account of themselves. On recovering, however, they informed the skipper that they were the solitary survivors of a French vessel engaged in the Polynesian trade. They asserted that the boat had broken loose from the sinking ship before its full complement of the crew had been embarked, and that, owing to the darkness, and to the gale which prevailed, they were unable to return to the ship.

During the time which had elapsed since their break for liberty, both their hair and beards had grown, and moreover they had taken the precaution to remove from their scanty attire all traces which might have revealed the fact that it had formed part of the garb of a French convict.

They now found themselves in a strange country, without a cent in their pockets, and without any honest means in view of obtaining a livelihood. The very clothes on their backs they owed to the charity of the sailors of the bark. They applied at several of the great warehouses and stores for employment, and, meeting with no success, then addressed themselves to the occupants of several of the magnificent villas in the suburbs, begging for food and money. The Dutch, however, are not of a particularly generous nature. If they err, it is on the side of economy and excessive caution. Everywhere Frederick and his companion were met with the same response, “Apply to your consul.” As this was about the last person to whom the two ex-convicts would have dreamed of addressing themselves, there seemed to be every prospect that they would spend the night in the [Pg 112] open air, and remain both dinnerless and supperless. They were just about to turn their steps once more in the direction of the port, when suddenly a man who had been watching them for some few moments as they wandered aimlessly along, stepped across the street, and inquired in German what they were looking for, and whether he could be of any assistance to them. Frederick at once replied in the same language that they were destitute and starving, and that they were exceedingly anxious to discover some means of earning a decent living.

“Yes,” replied Frederick; “but it is a hopeless task. It appears, from what they say, that they all have more employees than they know what to do with.”

“How would you like if I were to obtain for you this very night the sum of fifty guilders apiece, and an agreeable means of livelihood for several years to come?”

“Of course we should be delighted, and exceedingly grateful to you. Do you mean it seriously? It would be cruel to joke on such a subject with men in our position.”

“I can assure you,” rejoined the stranger, “that I am thoroughly serious about the matter. What I propose to you is that you should enlist in the Dutch Army here. You know that the colonial troops receive a high rate of pay. The promotion is rapid, the duties are light; and although certificates of good conduct in the past are required, yet your face inspires me with such confidence, and your destitute appearance with such sympathy, that I am prepared to give the authorities the requisite guarantees in your behalf.”

Frederick quickly communicated the friendly offer to his companion, and after a few minutes' consultation, they decided on accepting it, with many thanks. It was indeed a [Pg 113] perfect godsend for them, and it is impossible to say what would otherwise have been their fate.

Shortly before nightfall, and after providing the two men with a good square meal, the benevolent stranger accompanied them to the railway station, and took the train with them to “Meester Cornelis,” the great central depot and headquarters of the Dutch Army in the East. On arriving there, an hour later, he conducted them to the bureau of the chief recruiting officer. After undergoing examination by a regimental surgeon, who pronounced them physically fit for active service, they were duly enrolled as soldiers of a regiment of fusileers. Their friend, thereupon, having obtained a voucher from the recruiting officer, proceeded to the paymaster's bureau, where a sum of money was counted out to him on presentation of the document. Of this amount he handed fifty guilders to each of the two men, and then bade them adieu, and left them in charge of the sergeant who had piloted them through the barracks.

It is probable that neither Frederick nor his companion would have been so effusive in their protestations of gratitude toward the stranger, had they been aware of the fact at the time that he had appropriated to himself the major portion of the bounty of three hundred guilders which becomes the property of every European recruit who takes service in the Dutch Colonial Army.

The latter, which numbers some 27,000 men, is composed of men of almost every nationality. Germans and Swiss form the major portion of the foreign element, which comprises, however, many Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans. At least half of all these are men who have previously occupied a more elevated rank in life. Ruined clubmen, bankrupt merchants and traders, fugitive cashiers and dishonest clerks, and a large sprinkling of deserters from the various European armies, figure largely among the contingent. Among the corporals and simple [Pg 114] privates are to be found men who have held even colonels' commissions in the Prussian and Austrian Armies, while once prominent but now ruined noblemen, such as the two Counts E——, of Berlin, and Prince R——, of Vienna, are to be seen figuring as mess-sergeants, and even as orderlies of half-educated and coarse Dutch infantry officers. Indeed, there is scarcely a foreigner in the Dutch Colonial Army who has not some sad or dark history attached to his name. Few of them ever return to their native land, for the climate of Java is deadly. It has been calculated that, of all the men who enlist, not more than thirty-five per cent. live through the whole period of their service. Of the 27,000 men who constitute the army, an average of at least 6,000 men are permanently on the sick list and hors de combat.

The name under which Frederick had been enrolled was Frederick Gavard, of Alsace, while his companion had described himself as Charles Renier, of Paris.

During the next three years Frederick and his fellow fugitive endured all the hardships of a soldier's life. Frederick had now learned how to control his former ungovernable temper, and had acquired the conviction that there is much more to be obtained by concealing one's real sentiments and by biding one's time than by any headstrong act of violence. Although he kept his hands free from crime during this period, yet it must not for one moment be gathered therefrom that his moral character had undergone any improvement. On the contrary, he was a far more dangerous character now than he had ever been before. It was but the absence of a suitable opportunity for making a profitable coup that prevented him from adding to his list of crimes.

By dint of the most careful observance of the regulations, by his remarkable intelligence, and by the evidences which he displayed of having undergone a most careful military [Pg 115] training, he had succeeded in working his way up to the rank of sergeant. He was regarded with favor by his superiors and respected by his inferiors. Curiously enough he had kept himself free from any of those entanglements with native women which constitute the bane and shadow of a soldier's life in the East. At any rate, if he was engaged in intrigues of that kind they were kept secret from everybody.

The chief trial and annoyance to which he was subjected was the difficulty which he experienced in getting rid of Charles Renier, the companion of his flight from New Caledonia. The man was constantly getting into trouble and appealing to him for assistance and for money. Frederick dared not refuse him, as he was afraid that he would disclose his past history. Hardly a month elapsed without Charles being sentenced for some scrape or other to receive “twentig Rietslagen” (twenty blows from the terrible Malacca cane of the corporal), and he was on the high-road to terminate his military career by the “strop,” as the gallows is called out there. At length, catching sight one day of a corporal in the act of leaving the rooms inhabited by the dusky Mme. Renier for the time being, he threw himself upon him and thrashed him to within an inch of his life, showing thereby the superiority of the French “Savatte” over the Dutch “Boxie!” Indeed, he left the unfortunate man in a shocking condition, his jaw broken, and one of his ears partly torn from his head. Then, bursting into the woman's room, he seized the faithless damsel by the throat and kicked and pounded her into unconsciousness. After these exploits, well knowing that if caught he would probably be court-martialed and hanged, he deemed it prudent to show a pair of clean heels, and on the following morning his name was posted up as that of a deserter, and a reward was offered for his capture.

It may incidentally be stated that there are no less than an [Pg 116] average of three hundred to four hundred desertions every year in the Dutch East Indies.

A few weeks later Frederick, who had meanwhile been promoted to the rank of pay sergeant, was walking quietly along one evening after dark in the outskirts of Padang, when suddenly he was startled by a strange noise proceeding from behind a clump of bushes. A second later he heard a voice calling gently, “Wolff! Wolff!” Frederick started violently, for there was no one in the colony who knew him by the name under which he had been sentenced for murder at Paris, excepting Charles Renier. Before he had time to recover from his disagreeable surprise the face of his former fellow-convict showed itself peering through the branches of a “summak” bush.

“What is it?” said Frederick, angrily, as he approached. “You know I can't be seen talking to you. A price has been set on your head, and were it to be known that I had held any communication with you without delivering you up to the authorities I would be court-martialed. What is it you want? Money again?”

“All I want is your assistance in a little business transaction of my own invention.”

“I assure you it is. I am very proud of it. It is the finest coup imaginable, and you know that you have always put me off with the assurance that if ever anything really good turned up I might rely upon you to take a hand in it.”

“Well, speak, man! What is it? Don't keep me here the whole night!” exclaimed Frederick, who began to feel interested.

“It is merely this: The boat from Batavia, which arrived yesterday, brought a considerable amount of specie for the payment of the troops here. I know that you have been promoted to the rank of pay-sergeant, and that you have been ordered to sleep on a camp-bed in the office where the safe containing the money is placed.”

“I want you to allow yourself to be surprised to-morrow night, when I and a few of my ‘pals’ will creep in by the window and take a look at the safe with some profit to ourselves. There will be no danger for you, as we shall tie you down to your bed and gag you, so as to convince the authorities that it was no fault of yours if the money is gone. The only thing I want for you to do is not to give an alarm when you hear us coming.”

Frederick began by firmly refusing to have anything to do with the matter. But upon Renier, who had nothing more to lose, threatening him to make public the fact that he was nothing more than an escaped convict under sentence to penal servitude for murder, and as such extraditable, he gave way and promised to do what he was asked in return for a share in the proceeds of the robbery.

On the following night some six or seven figures might [Pg 118] have been seen creeping noiselessly through the gardens of the bungalow, on the first floor of which were located the paymaster's offices. The leader of the gang, having climbed up on the roof of the veranda, followed by two of his men, gently pushed open a window which had been left ajar. A moment later two pistol-shots rang out in rapid succession, followed by a loud cry. A second afterward another shot was heard.

Immediately the whole place was in an uproar. On entering the room the officers found Frederick Gavard, the pay-sergeant, standing guard over the safe, while near the window lay stretched the dead body of the deserter, Charles Renier, and on the roof of the veranda outside lay another corpse, also of a deserter, shot through the head. In the garden and on the flower-beds were traces of numerous footsteps, showing that the house had been attacked by a large gang.

Six weeks afterward the troops at Padang were formed into a square, and the officer in command of the place summoned the pay-sergeant, Frederick Gavard, from the ranks, and pinned on his breast the silver cross which had been conferred upon him by the Governor-General of the East Indies for his gallantry in defending the treasure chest of the cantonment against heavy odds.

At no period of Frederick's career did his prospects seem more promising than now. Renier, who had been the only person in the colony who was acquainted with his past record, was dead, and instead of being punished as he might have been for putting an end to the days of the man who had possessed so dangerous a knowledge concerning him, he had been rewarded for the deed as if it had been one of the most brilliant feats that he could possibly have accomplished. Not only had he received a decoration ordinarily conferred for acts of valor on the field of battle, but about three months later he had the pleasure of learning that he [Pg 119] had been promoted to the rank of a lieutenant. His colonel, who had taken a great fancy to him, now frequently invited him to his quarters, where he spent many agreeable hours.

The regiment having been transferred to Batavia, he had the opportunity of meeting at his colonel's house all the most prominent members of the Dutch East India Society. The colonel's young wife was extremely fond of amusements of all kinds and held open house. Many were the dinners, soirees, balls, or croquet parties which Frederick helped her to organize; besides this, he often accompanied her to the houses of her numerous friends, where his good looks, charming manner, talents, and witty conversation soon made him a universal favorite.

Among the most brilliant entertainments of the season [Pg 120] was a superb ball given by a Mr. and Mrs. Van der Beck, who were intimate friends of the colonel and his wife. The dance was preceded by some private theatricals. The piece performed was “La Belle Helene,” the role of Paris being filled by Frederick and that of Helene by Mme. Van der Beck, who, although no longer in the first bloom of youth, was still a remarkably handsome woman. Tall, with magnificent auburn hair and lustrous hazel eyes, she was, like many of the Dutch ladies in the far East, slightly inclined to embonpoint, a disposition due to their lazy and indolent existence and to the high living in which they indulged. When, in the second act of the operetta, she made her appearance in the great scene with Paris she was greeted with a murmur of admiration and approval. Her skirt of primrose-colored satin was parted, Greek fashion, from the hem to the hip on the left side in such a manner as to reveal an exceedingly shapely leg, and her magnificent hair, loosened and falling far below her waist, covered her low-cut and gold-embroidered “peplum” like a royal mantle. Frederick as Paris, in a costume of pale-blue and silver, looked like a Greek god, and when they began the “duo du Reve” a perfect storm of applause broke out. It was noticed by many of those present that Mme. Van der Beck acted her part with rather more fervor and feeling than might have been considered strictly necessary for a drawing-room performance. However, as Mr. Van der Beck himself was in raptures about his wife's acting, there was nothing more to be said in the matter.

From that time forth Frederick became a constant visitor at the Van der Beck villa, and strange to say, was as great a favorite of the husband as he was of the wife. Mr. Van der Beck was one of the most prominent and wealthy merchants of the East India trade, and owned vast warehouses, not only at Batavia, but also at Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

The life in these Dutch colonies is an extremely agreeable [Pg 121] one. Hospitality is practised on a scale unknown in Europe. No invitation is considered necessary to dine or lunch with one's friends, for everybody keeps open house, and an addition of half a dozen impromptu guests at the dinner-table is quite an ordinary occurrence. The ladies in particular are accustomed to a life of such indolence and ease that they are utterly incapable of doing anything for themselves. They lie all day on their sofas or in their hammocks, clad in diaphanous muslin peignoirs, eating bonbons, smoking cigarettes or drinking small cups of coffee. In the cool hours of the evening, however, they seem to wake up, and go to the dinners, balls, and the theater, and are then as lively and loquacious as possible, banishing [Pg 122] their laziness and languor till the moment when they return home and have nobody except their husbands to fascinate.

Some time had elapsed since Frederick had made the acquaintance of the Van der Becks, when one day a letter arrived from Holland informing Mr. Van der Beck of the death of his eldest brother, and demanding his immediate presence in Amsterdam. As it was the worst season of the year for traveling, and he was extremely solicitous of his wife's health, he decided that it would be imprudent for her to accompany him. Madam submitted to this with much more equanimity than she usually displayed in her relations with her lord and master, and three days later, escorted by Frederick, she accompanied her husband to the steamer. As Mr. Van der Beck's absence was to last six months, if not more, he intrusted his wife with all the interests of his house and business and even with the signature of the firm. She was a remarkably clever and shrewd woman, and had on more than one occasion given him proof of her ability in business matters. In taking leave he especially recommended her to the care of Frederick, adding that he knew how much he could depend on the young man's friendship and devotion.

The deep mourning necessitated by the death of so near a relative forcing Mme. Van der Beck to withdraw entirely from society, she was now free to devote all her time to Frederick, with whom she became, as the days went by, more and more infatuated. Strong-minded as she was in all other respects, she seemed to have surrendered her whole will-power to the young officer, whose word was absolute law to her. He spent all the hours he could dispose of with her, and their intimacy grew apace. Frederick, as has been seen often before this, knew how to make himself perfectly irresistible to women. His manners were caressing and winning, and this, added to his numerous talents and good looks, made him a very dangerous friend for a woman like [Pg 123] Nina Van der Beck, who had reached that period of life when the passions are most easily aroused. When a woman on the wrong side of thirty-five falls in love she is generally apt to make a much greater fool of herself than a girl would do, and if the man she loves is some years her junior she invariably makes an absolute idol of him, anxious, as it were, to make up in devotion and self-sacrifice for all that she feels may be missing in other respects.

As to Frederick, he at last began to see his way to bringing to a close his stay at Batavia, of which he had become heartily sick. By means of the most insidious suggestions and advice, he prevailed upon Nina to cautiously and gradually realize all her husband's available property. This, added to her own fortune, which was considerable, rendered her a very desirable prize indeed, and Frederick had all reason to congratulate himself on his luck.

Mr. Van der Beck had been absent a little over four months, when Frederick one day applied for a four weeks' leave of absence. This was readily granted by his colonel, with whom Frederick had remained on the most excellent terms.

Among the passengers who landed at Singapore a week later were Mrs. Van der Beck and Frederick. Twenty-four hours afterward they left for Hong-Kong on board the French Messageries Maritime mail steamer Tigre, having given their names as Mr. and Mrs. Muller, from Grats, Austria.

On touching at the French port of Saigon, where the steamer was to remain some twenty hours, they went on shore and, hiring a carriage, drove around the town, which Nina was curious to visit. After inspecting the park and the magnificent palace of the governor-general, they repaired to a fashionable restaurant, where they dined. While sipping their coffee the French waiter, who had been dazzled by a princely pourboire from Frederick, informed them that there was at that moment in the town a very good opera-bouffe troupe which gave performances every evening at a cafe chantant in the vicinity of the restaurant. He even offered to get him tickets. Nina having manifested a desire to witness the performance, they crossed the street and entered the wooden building, which was brilliantly lighted with rows of gas-jets, and took their seats in the front row of the auditorium. A few minutes after the curtain had gone up a gentleman in undress uniform took the seat on the other side of Mme. Van der Beck. Frederick, glancing indifferently at him, suddenly recognized, to his horror, the municipal surgeon of the convict hospital at Noumea. He fairly shuddered as he realized what the [Pg 125] consequences might be should he be recognized by the man who had attended him several times during his illness on the Island of Nou. But with his usual coolness in matters of the kind he did not show his terror either by word or look.

During the course of the piece, Nina having dropped her fan, her neighbor picked it up, and seized this occasion to enter into conversation with her. He looked several times inquiringly at Frederick as if seeking to recall to mind a half-forgotten face. At last, bowing courteously, he addressed himself to the man, saying:

“I can't help thinking that I have had the pleasure of meeting you before, but I cannot remember where.”

With incredible audacity Frederick quietly replied: “Your face also seems very familiar to me. Perhaps we have met at Paris. Have you been long absent from France?”

Thereupon the conversation turned on Paris and Parisian society, and toward midnight “Mr. and Mrs. Muller,” taking leave of the surgeon, returned on board the Tigre.

Early the next morning, before the steamer cast loose its moorings, Frederick, who was smoking his morning's cigar on deck, saw a sight which, hard-hearted as he was, deeply moved him. A Jesuit missionary was carried on board in a dying condition. This unfortunate man had been detained for two years as a prisoner by the Anamites, and during the whole of this time the inhuman monsters had kept him in a wooden cage, so small that he could neither stand up nor lie down. As an additional refinement of cruelty, thick wedges of wood had been inserted between his fingers and toes and secured there with supple willow twigs. The hair of the poor wretch, who was only twenty-six years old, had become as white as snow, and he was entirely paralyzed! He died before the vessel reached Hong-Kong.

Frederick, as he directed his steps toward the saloon, could not help making a comparison between the easy and luxurious life he, who so little deserved it, was now enjoying, and the shattered and broken existence of this saint, who had never done anything but good during his short but pure and admirable career.

With a movement of impatience, quickly followed by a sneer, he turned away, and, dismissing these thoughts from his mind, knocked at the door of Nina's cabin.

A fortnight later, the snow-capped peak of the lordly and beautiful Mount Fusiyama appeared in sight, and a few hours afterward the steamer rounded the promontory and cast anchor in the port of Yokohama. The ship was soon surrounded by some score of native boats, and having taken their place in the “sampan” of the Grand Hotel, Frederick and his inamorata were rowed on shore. The first few days were spent in visiting the various sights and curiosities of the place, and so enchanted were the couple with the beauty and picturesque aspect of the environs that they determined to remain for a time in Japan.

With the assistance of the hotel officials, they secured a very pretty Japanese “yashiki,” or villa, situated at about half an hour's distance from the town, and caused such European furniture as they were likely to require to be transported thither. When all was ready, they took up their residence there, with a large retinue of native servants, both male and female. These were under the orders of an ex-Samurai (member of the lower grades of the nobility), who spoke both English and German, and who was to act as their interpreter and major-domo.

The secrecy with which it had been necessary to observe all their relations until the moment when they left Batavia, had imbued their intrigue with a certain degree of piquancy, and the constant change of scene which had passed before their eyes like a kaleidoscope, since they left Java, had prevented any danger of monotony and ennui. The experiment which they were now, however, [Pg 128] about to enter upon was a most perilous one. With no European society in the neighborhood, and dependent solely on one another for conversation and diversion, it was only natural that a man of Frederick's character and temperament should soon begin to weary of the sameness and dreariness of his existence. It is useless to expect that any man should remain in a state of perpetual adoration for an indefinite length of time before his lady-love, no matter how beautiful she may be. Familiarity breeds contempt, and this is especially the case when the lady is no longer young and has become sentimental and exacting. Accustomed as Nina had been at Batavia to see Frederick, and in fact all the other men by whom she was surrounded, anxious for a smile and ever ready to execute her slightest behest, it cut her to the very heart to see how, after the first few weeks of their residence in Japan, her lover's affection toward her decreased. He betrayed traces of weariness in her society, and spent much of his time in riding about alone in the neighborhood.

At about a quarter of an hour's distance from the house, and standing on the banks of a small river, was a pretty village, of which the chief attraction was a “chaya,” or tea-house. It was here that Frederick's horse might have been frequently seen walking up and down, attended by his “betto” (native groom), while his master was being entertained by the graceful “mousmes,” who constitute so charming a feature of every Japanese restaurant.

Stretched on a mat of the most immaculate whiteness, Frederick would remain for hours, lazily sipping his tea and watching the voluptuous dances of the “geishas” (dancing-girls). Although not beautiful, yet the Japanese women, when young, are exceedingly pretty and captivating. They have many winning and gracious little ways, and are thoroughly impressed with the notion that their sole mission in life is to provide amusement for the sterner sex.

The young man appreciated these little excursions into the country all the more since, with commendable caution, Madame Van der Beck had insisted that all the female servants employed in the house should be married women. In order to realize what this meant, it must be explained that on their wedding-day, the Japanese wives are obliged by custom and tradition to shave off their eyebrows and to stain their teeth a brilliant black, so that their husbands may have no further grounds for jealousy. Their appearance is therefore scarcely prepossessing.

Nina, more and more embittered by her lover's ever-increasing indifference, lost much of her former good humor and cheerfulness. She spent the whole day brooding alone in the gardens which surrounded her villa. These were laid out with much ingenuity and artistic feeling by one of the most famous Japanese landscape gardeners. Miniature rivers traversed the ground in every direction, spanned by miniature bridges, and with miniature temples and pagodas on their banks. There were also miniature waterfalls, miniature junks, and even miniature trees, the latter being especially curious. By some method which has been kept a profound secret by the great guild of horticulturists at Tokio, trees even two hundred and three hundred years old have been treated in such a manner as to stunt their growth and to prevent them from attaining a height of more than two or, at the most, three feet. Their trunks are gnarled and twisted by age, but there is no trace of the pruning-knife, and they constitute an exact representation in miniature of the grand old sycamore, oak, and cedar trees which line the magnificent fifty-mile avenue which leads up to the sacred shrines of “Nikko.” The object which the Japanese have in view in thus stunting the growth of certain classes of their trees is the fact that owing to the want of space the inhabitants of cities are obliged to content themselves with very small gardens. In order to make these appear larger [Pg 130] and to allow for the composition of the landscape, which is the Japanese ideal of a garden, they are obliged to arrange everything in miniature, and since trees of normal size would be out of keeping with the rest they have discovered an ingenious scheme of dwarfing them to a corresponding size.

One day, a few minutes after Frederick had arrived on his customary visit to the (tea-house), he was suddenly called out into the court-yard, where he found his betto stretched dead on the ground. Frederick had been in such a hurry to get away from home that he had ridden too fast, and the unfortunate native, whose duty, as in all oriental countries, it was to run before the horse, had, on reaching his destination, expired of the rupture of an aneurism of the heart. Much annoyed by this incident, Frederick ordered the corpse to be conveyed home at once, and spent the remainder of the day with the pretty “mousmes” at the tea-house.

When he returned home that evening, the widow of his ill-fated groom rushed up to him and, kissing his boot, entreated his pardon for the “stupidity of which her husband had been guilty in dying while out with the master and occasioning him thereby the trouble of attending to his own horse.”

Frederick, much amused at this display of truly oriental courtesy, tossed the woman a few yen notes and entered the the house, laughing, with the intention of telling Madame Van der Beck about it. The smile, however, faded from his lips when he came into her presence, for, having learned from the men who had brought home the groom's body, the nature of the place where Frederick was in the habit of passing his days, her feelings of jealousy and anger were aroused to a boiling pitch. Thoroughly spoiled, accustomed to have every whim humored, and with no notion of how to control her temper, she gave full vent to a perfect torrent [Pg 131] of reproaches and abuse against the man for whom she had sacrificed husband, rank, and position. She taunted him bitterly with his ingratitude, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he at length succeeded in restoring her to anything like calm.

Had she but known the true character and the past record of the man to whom she had so rashly confided her happiness, it is probable that she would have exercised a greater restraint over her temper. Frederick had now lost all sense of her charms and attractions, and was determined to cut himself loose from bonds which, though gilded, had become irksome to him. Moreover, he lived in constant dread that her husband, Mr. Van der Beck, would end by discovering their place of refuge. This last encounter with his mistress brought matters to a climax, and he determined to put into execution, without any further delay, the projects which he had been maturing for some time past.

A few days later, he rode into Yokohama and took the train up to Tokio. There he directed his jinrikisha, as the little two-wheeled carriages (drawn at a sharp trot by one, two, or three coolies, harnessed tandem fashion) are called, to take him to the quarter of the metropolis inhabited by the merchants dealing in furs. After considerable trouble, he succeeded in finding some skins of the wild-cat, with which he returned to the railway station and thence to Yokohama.

On reaching home, he seized the earliest possible moment to lock himself up in his room, where he spent an hour in cutting off the short, hard hairs of the furs which he had purchased, and, locking them away in a small box, he then destroyed the skins.

While stationed in the interior of Java, a native soldier to whom he had shown some acts of kindness had displayed his gratitude by making him acquainted with the properties of the chopped hair of a wild-cat when mixed [Pg 132] with food. These hairs are swallowed without being noticed, but remain stuck by their points in the intestines. Any attempts to remove them or to relieve the patient by means of medicines are useless, since the hairs merely bend in order to give way to the medicament and then resume their former position. In a very short space of time, they produce terrible and incurable ulcerations of the intestines, and in the course of a few weeks the victim, who is unable to take any further food or nourishment, wastes away and finally dies of exhaustion and inanition.

It was of this fiendish method that Frederick was about to avail himself for the purpose of getting rid of his rich inamorata, whose money, however, he was determined at all costs to retain.

Mme. Van der Beck soon began to notice an agreeable change in the conduct of Frederick. His indifference and coldness vanished entirely and he became once more an attentive and devoted lover. He no longer spent his days at the “chaya,” but remained at home, and only left the house to accompany her on her drives in the lovely environs of Yokohama. Nina was at first at a loss to understand the reason of so radical a reformation, but finally made up her mind that it was to be attributed to the sorrow she had manifested at his neglect; and her love for him revived in all its former intensity.

One day while driving in the neighborhood their attention was suddenly attracted by cries for assistance which proceeded from the banks of a small stream. On approaching the spot they found that an English phaeton of somewhat antiquated build, and drawn by an exceedingly vicious looking pair of half-broken Japanese ponies, had been overturned into the water. The carriage was imbedded in the mud, and the grooms were making frantic efforts to extricate the terrified horses from the tangle of harness and reins. On the bank stood a Japanese gentleman in native costume, [Pg 133] who was giving directions to his men. Frederick, having alighted, courteously raised his hat and inquired if he could be of any assistance, an offer which was gratefully accepted. With the help of his servants the ponies were at length freed, but it was found impossible to pull the heavy and cumbrous vehicle out of the mud. At Nina's pressing solicitation, the Japanese, who, judging by his dress and appearance, was evidently a man of high rank, allowed himself to be prevailed upon to accept a seat in her carriage and to be driven to his home. The latter was an extremely pretty country house surrounded by vast grounds. On taking leave of them, with many profuse expressions of gratitude, he requested permission to call upon them on the following day. They learned subsequently from their major-domo that their new acquaintance was one of the most famous statesmen of the land.

On the following day he paid them a long visit, and before he left requested them to spend the next afternoon at his yashiki. There for the first time they caught a glimpse of Japanese life such as is rarely enjoyed by foreigners.

On arriving in the court-yard and entering the house they found the entire body of servants and dependents of the establishments assembled in two rows under the heavy portico of carved wood. All were on their knees, and when Frederick and Nina passed between their ranks every head was lowered to the ground in silent and respectful greeting to the guests of their lord. At this moment the master of the house appeared, and in his flowing silken robes, with his slow and dignified movements, presented a striking contrast to the restless and frisky little Japs whom one is accustomed to see rushing through the streets of London and Paris.

A magnificent banquet was then served in true Japanese style. Six girls in gorgeous apparel entered the dining hall, and, falling on their knees, prostrated themselves till their [Pg 134] heads touched the floor. They wore the most artistic of dresses, with huge sashes of a soft rich color. In their hands they bore several native instruments of music, including a “koto,” a kind of horizontal harp or zither; a “samasin,” or banjo, and a “yokobuc,” or flute. The fair musicians, still kneeling on the floor, began to play and to sing a strangely weird but somewhat exciting melody. Meanwhile other handmaidens, scarcely less richly dressed than the first, made their appearance, carrying costly lacquer trays with egg-shell porcelain cups containing slices of the feelers of the octopus, or devil-fish, wonderfully contrived soups, oranges preserved in sirups, and various other extraordinary confections. At first both Nina and Frederick made fruitless attempts to convey the viands to their mouths by means of the chop-sticks which had been placed before them, but soon, following the example of their host, they overcame this difficulty by raising the cups to their lips and gulping down the contents.

Then came the most dainty morsel of the feast, which is to the Japanese epicure what fresh oysters and Russian sterlet are to us. Resting on a large dish of priceless Kioto porcelain, garnished with a wreath of variegated bamboo leaves, was a magnificent fish of the turbot species. It was still alive, for its gills and its mouth moved regularly. To Nina's horror, the serving girl raised the skin from the upper side of the fish, which was already loose, and picked off slice after slice of the living creature, which, although alive, had been carved in such a manner that no vital part had been touched; the heart, gills, liver, and stomach had been left intact, and the damp sea-weed on which the fish rested sufficed to keep the lungs in action. The miserable thing seemed to look with a lustrous but reproachful eye upon the guests while they consumed its body. To be buried alive is horrible enough in all conscience, but to be eaten alive must be even still worse. It [Pg 135] should be added that this particular fish, the dai, is only good when eaten alive. The moment it is dead the flesh becomes opaque, tough, and starchy. The wine consisted of warm “sakke” and other kinds of liquor distilled from rice.

Toward the end of the repast, which lasted several hours, a sliding panel was suddenly drawn aside and an elderly Japanese lady made her appearance, crawling on her hands and knees. She was followed by a considerably younger looking woman and two little girls. On Frederick looking inquiringly at his host, the latter, with a contemptuous jerk backward of his thumb, said:

“Oh! my wife,” at which words the good lady touched the floor with her forehead.

The younger woman was equally briefly introduced as “Okamisan,” and was the second wife of the worthy host. Of the two little girls one was a daughter by the first wife and the other by Okamisan, who all dwelt on the best of terms together.

Both Frederick and Nina were about to rise from the cushions on which they were sitting on the floor in order to greet the ladies, but they were forced by their entertainer to keep their places, while with an important wave of the hand he dismissed his family.

On her way home that night Nina complained of feeling very ill, but attributing it to the effects of the extraordinary and mysterious dishes of which she had partaken, she attached no particular importance thereto.

On the following day she was but little better, and from that time forth was scarcely ever well. Her languor and loss of appetite increased day by day. At Frederick's suggestion one of the best European doctors at Yokohama was summoned to attend to her case, but the remedies which he prescribed proved of no avail. She was rarely able to leave the grounds of the villa, and grew more feeble as the time [Pg 136] passed by. Frederick was unremitting in his attention, and nursed her with what was apparently the most tender solicitude.

Their residence at the “vashiki” was brought to a sudden close shortly afterward by a tragic incident. A valuable gold bracelet belonging to Nina had disappeared, and as the young Samurai (nobleman) who acted as interpreter and major-domo, had engaged the servants and rendered himself personally responsible for their honesty, Frederick laid the blame on him, and reproached him about the theft in the most violent and unmeasured terms. The poor fellow seemed to take the matter to heart very much, but uttered no word of response.

The following day, however, he summoned all his friends and relatives, to the number of about twenty, and caused them to assemble in one of the detached pavilions of the villa which had been assigned to his use. Squatting on their heels around the room, with their “hibashi” or charcoal boxes in front of them, from the burning embers of which they every few minutes lighted their small and peculiarly shaped pipes, they listened in silence to a long document which the young man, who was seated in the middle of the room, read to them. Its contents were to the effect that he had rendered himself responsible for the honesty of the servants of his employer's establishment, that an important theft had occurred, that he had been held accountable, and that not only had he been loaded with reproaches, but even himself been suspected of being the thief. Dishonor such as this could only be wiped out by his blood. He had therefore requested his friends and relatives to be present during his last moments, and to receive his dying wishes.

As soon as he had concluded the reading of this document every one of those present prostrated himself with a long-drawn exclamation of “Hai,” which seemed to come [Pg 137] from the very depths of the heart. This was to indicate that they fully approved of the course which he intended to adopt.

After a few moments of profound silence the young man, in a low but yet matter-of-fact tone of voice, addressed each one of those present in succession, giving directions as to the disposal of his property and messages for absent acquaintances.

Then there was another silence, during which cups of tea and “sakke” were passed around.

Suddenly, on a sign from the young man, the person nearest to him, and who was his dearest relative, arose and left the room. On returning a few minutes later he drew from his loose and flowing sleeve a short but heavy Japanese sword about twenty inches in length. The whole of the broad, heavy blade and the razor-like edge were hidden by a double layer of fine but opaque Japanese tissue paper, which effectually concealed from sight every trace of the deadly steel excepting about a quarter of an inch of the point. Prostrating himself before the young Samurai he handed it to him with much formality.

The latter received it in the same ceremonious manner, and having taken one last whiff at his pipe and replaced it in the fire-box, he bared his stomach, and inserting the point into his left side, plunged it up to its hilt, and then, without a cry, without a moan, or even a single exclamation of pain, drew it swiftly across to the right side and halfway back again before he fell forward on his face. A few gasps were all that was heard, except the deep-drawn sighs of those present. The plucky young fellow was dead. Almost every internal organ had been severed by the terrible cut, and he lay there motionless in a pool of blood, the red color of which contrasted vividly with the pure whiteness of the straw matting.

Tenderly raising him up, his friends bore the corpse into an adjoining room, where, after washing off the blood and cleansing the body, they clothed it in the full costume of a Samurai and laid him on a mat, with his legs drawn up and crossed, his hands folded on his breast, and his two swords—the long one for his enemies and the short one for himself—lying on the ground by his side. Not a trace of pain or anguish was to be seen on the dead man's face, which looked incredibly calm and peaceful.

During that whole night his friends sat by the body, moaning and chanting in a low voice some kind of “Shinto” songs or verse.

It was only on the morrow that Frederick and Nina were made acquainted with all the particulars of the tragedy of the previous evening. The doctor happening to arrive shortly afterward, and being informed of the terrible incident, immediately impressed upon them the necessity of leaving the spot at once, and even recommended them to quit Japan as soon as possible. At any rate, he urged that they should drive back with him to Yokohama and take up their residence temporarily at the Grand Hotel, within the boundaries of the foreign settlement. He explained to them that since their major-domo had committed hari-kari in consequence of his deeming himself mortally insulted by Frederick, it had become the bounden and solemn duty of the nearest relative of the dead man to avenge his honor.

Nina, whose nerves had already received a terrible shock on hearing of her major-domo's tragical end—a shock which in her feeble condition of health she was scarcely in a position to bear—now became terribly alarmed, and insisted on acting on the doctor's advice. Frederick, knowing how small are the chances of a European against the deadly swords of the Samurai, which cut through flesh and bone, readily consented, and, having hastily gathered together their money, jewelry, papers, and other portable valuables, they drove to Yokohama in the doctor's carriage.

Nina, however, even when comfortably established in the handsome apartments on the first floor of the Grand Hotel, was in a constant state of dread and terror. She was convinced that every native whom she saw passing along the wharf was intent on murdering her beloved Frederick, and the idea of remaining any longer in Japan was intolerable to her. Having become aware that a steamer was about to leave two days later for San Francisco, she prevailed upon [Pg 140] Frederick to secure passages, and accordingly at the hour appointed for sailing she was carried on board in an exceedingly feeble condition.

Before taking leave of them their friend, the doctor, who had attended to the removal of all their property from the villa, solemnly informed Frederick that he considered his wife's case almost hopeless; that he believed her to be suffering from decomposition of the blood, and that her only chance of recovery lay in a radical change of climate and a sea voyage.

It was a magnificent, sunshiny morning when the great paddle-wheel steamer of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company raised its anchor and started forth on its twenty-three days' journey to San Francisco. As it rounded the point it passed almost within a stone's throw of the inward-bound French mail-boat from Hong-Kong. Mme. Van der Beck, who, lying back in a deck chair, had been gazing languidly at the French vessel through a pair of opera-glasses, suddenly raised herself in her chair, and, uttering a piercing shriek, fell back in a dead faint. Quickly turning his gaze in the direction of the passing ship Frederick was able, even without the assistance of the glasses, to recognize in one of the passengers on the hurricane deck Nina's husband, Mr. Van der Beck.

A moment later the French vessel rounded into the bay and passed out of sight, while the American mail steamer proceeded out to sea. Nina was borne down to her cabin, and a long time elapsed before she could be restored to consciousness. From that time forth she sank day by day. The glimpse which she had caught of her bitterly wronged husband had proved a final and crushing blow, and although her love for Frederick never wavered, yet it was easy to perceive that her heart was filled with remorse at the fatal step which she had taken in eloping with him from Batavia.

One evening some ten days after their departure from Japan, Mme. Van der Beck, who was feeling more oppressed and restless than usual, insisted on being carried up [Pg 142] on deck, where she was laid on a cane lounge and propped up with cushions.

The night was a beautiful one. The dark-blue waters of the Pacific were so calm and still that they reflected the myriads of stars, and the full moon shed its soft, silvery light on the track of foam made by the vessel in its rapid progress.

Nina at first lay perfectly still looking up at the sky, and now and again gently stroking Frederick's hand, which she had taken in both her own. The young man, who was sitting on a camp-stool close at her side, looked unusually sad and listless, and from time to time his eyes scanned her colorless face as it rested on the white pillows, with an expression of mingled remorse and sorrow. He knew that her days were numbered, and for once in his life he was on the verge of regretting what he had done. After all, this poor woman's only crime had been that she had loved him too well. She had always tried her very best to render him happy, and he had, in return, brought on her nothing but sorrow and death.

“My darling, I have been very happy with you. But you must not grieve! It is best so! It is best so!”

This was the first time that she had ever alluded to the possibility of her death; and Frederick, greatly shocked, exclaimed:

“Why, what do you mean, dear? What are you talking about? I don't understand you.”

“Oh! yes, you do! You know well that I am dying! You love me so much that you do not like to think of the possibility thereof. But I feel sure that it is better for us to talk about it now that the time of separation is so near at hand. I shall never reach America. I feel it; and I want to arrange everything for you before I go!”

“Nonsense, Nina! Don't talk in that way, my dear girl! I cannot spare you. This voyage was all that was wanted to set you up. You are only suffering from langour and weakness. In a few days you will be yourself again.”

She shook her head gently, and turning her face toward him replied, while tears welled up in her large, soft eyes and glittered like diamonds in the moonlight.

“I have only one wish, Frederick. I want you to return to—to—my husband—all that I have taken from him. My own fortune and my jewels you must keep. They are yours. I have written a kind of last will or testament this afternoon, leaving to you all I have. But it has long been a subject of bitter remorse to me that I should have taken away one penny of what belonged to him. Will you promise me, dear, to fulfil my last wishes in this matter?”

“Why, of course—certainly; anything you please, my dear girl. But for my sake stop talking of so terrible a possibility as your leaving me. I cannot bear it.”

Raising her small, emaciated hand to his lips he kissed it tenderly. As he lifted his eyes once more to her face he was startled by the change he saw there. Her thin and delicate features had become drawn and haggard, and her eyes were dull as if a film had gathered over them.

He started up alarmed. He was not himself that night and he felt ashamed of the softness which had crept unawares into his head. He bent over the dying woman and moistened her parched lips with a few drops of brandy and water. She looked up at him somewhat revived and murmured wistfully:

He knelt down beside her and gently drew her head onto his shoulder. For a few minutes there was perfect silence. Then, suddenly, Nina threw her arms around his neck, gasping:

She clung to him in terror for a second. Then a spasm shook her from head to foot, and relaxing her hold, she sank back on her pillow.

Nina Van der Beck was dead, and one more life was added to the number of Frederick von Waldberg's victims.

On the following evening at sunset, the deck of the steamer presented a most impressive appearance. All the officers and passengers of the ship were assembled around the corpse of poor Nina Van der Beck, over which the captain was reading the burial service. The evening was gloomy and threatening, and the dark-green waves were beginning to be capped with foam. Overhead there was a glaring red sky, of the fierce, angry color of blood which tinged the water around the ship a lurid crimson. Away in the west the sun, like a gigantic ball of fire, was sinking behind a bank of ominous-looking clouds, and from time to time a passing shadow shivered on the troubled waters like a streak of purple. Several huge albatross were unceasingly circling around the vessel with broad expanded wings, and their discordant cries added to the weird fantasy of the scene. The engines had been stopped, and the silence was only broken by the slashing of the waves against the ship's side and the melancholy moaning of the wind through the rigging, which was so strong as to sometimes almost drown the voice of the commander as he proceeded with the service.

On the deck at his feet lay a long, narrow object, sewed up in a canvas cover. An Austrian flag had been thrown partly over it, so as to conceal as much as possible the rigid outline of the corpse which produced so dismal an impression in its shroud of sail-cloth, to which two heavy cannonballs had been attached.

Frederick was leaning against the bulwark, close to the [Pg 146] place where an opening had been purposely prepared. His arms were folded on his breast, and his head was bent; but, although he was deadly pale, he showed no trace of emotion, and remained so perfectly still that he might have been carved in marble. Only once during the brief ceremony did his unnatural calm give way. The captain had arrived at those most solemn words of a burial service at sea:

Four quartermasters, with bared heads, at that moment seized the corpse, and, placing it on an inclined plank, allowed it to gently glide downward into the dark waters. The waves opened for an instant, with a low, hissing sound, and then closed again over all that remained of the once beautiful and admired Nina. Frederick shuddered, as if overcome by a great terror, and an expression of horror swept over his livid features. Making his way through the group of mourners, he rapidly walked forward to the very bows of the vessel, and for three long hours he remained there motionless, leaning against the bulwark, peering into the gathering darkness, and apparently heedless of the terrible storm which was coming on.

The tempest, which had announced itself by an alarming fall of the barometer, burst forth shortly after ten o'clock that night in all its intensity. It seemed as if the very elements were raising their voices in protest against the great crime which had been committed. For a time the wind was so powerful that the ship could make no headway, and the very waves were beaten down by its terrific force. The air for a depth of about fifteen feet above the surface of the water was covered with a dense kind of mist, formed of pulverized spray. It was impossible to stand on deck without being tied.

On the following day the wind lulled slightly, and then the waves, as if released from the pressure which had kept them down, burst upon the vessel in all their mad fury. Seas mountain high swept the deck from stem to stern, carrying almost all before them. The boats were torn from [Pg 148] their davits and shattered to pieces. The smoking-room, pilot-house, and captain's cabin were severely damaged, and the paddle-boxes splintered to match-wood, leaving the huge wheels exposed to view.

In the midst of all this turmoil, Frederick was below in the saloon, half-stretched on a divan, making an attempt to read. Suddenly a terrific lurch sent everything flying to starboard, and the young man, without touching the table in front of him, was hurled clean over it through the air to the other side of the cabin, where his head came in violent contact with the heavy brass lock of the door.

For a moment it was thought that he was dead. Some artery had been cut, and a torrent of blood deluged his face and clothes. As soon as his fellow-passengers were able to regain their feet, they carried him off to the surgeon's quarters, where some minutes elapsed before he could be restored to his senses.

Marvelous to relate, it was found that he had sustained no injury beyond a deep and jagged cut extending over the top of the head. This was carefully sewed up, and with the exception of severe headaches during the next few weeks, accompanied by slight fever, Frederick suffered no ill effects from his accident.

The wound, although it had healed well, yet left, even when the hair had grown again, a slight scar, which the French police might have discovered at the time of “Prado's” imprisonment and execution, had they taken the trouble to shave the front part of his head.

The storm had driven the steamer so far out of its course that it did not arrive in front of the Golden Gate until the twenty-ninth day after leaving Yokohama. A few hours later the good ship was made fast to the enormous wharf of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Frederick hastened on shore, and was driven to one of the leading hotels.

In the afternoon, having gone down to see about the [Pg 149] passing of his luggage through the custom-house, he was much amused by the sight of the landing of the five or six hundred Chinese who had made the passage across the Pacific with him. If ever human beings were treated like chattels it was on this occasion. The inspectors first of all began by carefully examining the strange-looking bundles and boxes which constituted their baggage; and, having ascertained that there was no opium concealed therein, they marked them with a large hieroglyphic in white chalk, in order to show that they had been duly passed. The owners themselves were then taken in hand, and their persons equally minutely searched, after which ceremony their backs were ornamented with a similar large hieroglyphic in chalk. The spectacle they presented as they marched into San Francisco, labeled in this fashion, from the highest mandarin down to the humblest coolie, was ludicrous beyond description, and was greeted with many a hearty laugh.

Frederick had intended to leave San Francisco on the following day for the Atlantic coast. He was seized, however, that same night with a severe attack of fever, which kept him confined to his bed for over a fortnight. As soon, however, as he had sufficiently recovered to be able to travel, he betook himself to the offices of the railway company and purchased a ticket for New York, engaging for himself the private saloon on board the sleeping-car. On the next night he took the ferry-boat over to Oakland, and embarked on the transcontinental express. Among his fellow-passengers were a couple of young English noblemen, who had been visiting the Yosemite Valley, and who were now on their way to Ottawa. Frederick soon became acquainted with them, and created the most favorable impression. The name under which he introduced himself to them was the Comte de Vaugedale, and he gave them to understand that he was traveling around the world for his health. As both his manners and appearance bespoke every trace of aristocratic birth and breeding, and as he seemed to have plenty of money, the young Englishmen saw no cause to treat him with the distrust and suspicion which foreigners ordinarily experience at the hands of the subjects of her britannic majesty.

The time was spent in playing whist and ecarte, games at which Frederick, who was an exceedingly wealthy man, could afford to lose in such a cool manner as to attract the admiration of his fellow-travelers. So agreeable did they find their new acquaintance, that they prevailed upon him [Pg 151] to accompany them to Canada, instead of going straight to New York, as had been originally his intention.

In due time they arrived at Ottawa, having spent a few days en route at Salt Lake City, Omaha, and Chicago.

During the two weeks which they spent in the Canadian capital, they were most hospitably entertained by various persons of high birth and breeding in that city. They were also included among the guests at the ball given by the governor-general at Rideau Hall, where the man who, as “Prado,” was some years later to suffer an ignominious death at the hands of M. Deibler (the Paris executioner) had the honor of dancing with the illustrious personage who at that time graced the vice-regal mansion with her presence.

At the conclusion of their visit to Ottawa, the three young men started for Niagara Falls, which they were anxious to see, and on arriving there, took up their residence at one of the principal hotels on the Canadian side of the cataract.

The day after their arrival was spent in visiting the Cave of the Winds, and other sights of the place. That same evening, after dinner, Frederick, leaving his two friends playing billiards at the hotel, lighted a cigar, and strolled down toward the Falls. As he was walking along the edge of the precipitous bank of the mighty torrent, he suddenly heard footsteps advancing toward him from the opposite direction. Raising his eyes to see who the stranger might be, he recognized, to his horror, in the bright moonlight, the last person on earth whom he wished to meet—the husband of Nina, Mr. Van der Beck.

Frederick hoped that Nina's husband would fail to recognize him, and pulling his hat down over his eyes quickened his pace for the purpose of preventing the latter from obtaining a glimpse of his features. His onward course, however, was brought to a sudden stop by Mr. Van der Beck, who, courteously raising his hat, requested him to give [Pg 152] him a light for his cigar. As the two men stood face to face, the moon, which for a moment past had been obscured by a fleeting cloud, suddenly shone forth again, casting its bright rays full on Frederick's face.

With a hoarse cry, the old man started back when he recognized the man who had so grievously wronged him. His face assumed a terrible expression; his eyes glittered fiercely, and, trembling with suppressed fury from head to foot, he seemed for a moment unable to speak.

In striking contrast with the violent passions which surged in the breasts of both the husband and lover of the ill-fated Nina Van der Beck was the deep calm and loveliness of the scene around them. Not a breath of wind stirred the lofty branches of the trees. The moon was sailing majestically across the dark heavens, shedding a light so bright and pure that every blade of grass, every pebble in the path was distinguishable in the silvery sheen. Many feet beneath them, they could hear the mighty rush of waters as they sped on their tumultuous course between their rocky banks, and from a short distance off came the dull and unceasing roar of the great Niagara Falls.

At length Mr. Van der Beck broke the silence and exclaimed in a dry, hollow voice:

“I have caught you at last, Frederick Gavard. My hour has come! God help you, for I have much to avenge.”

Frederick, who had by this time regained all his habitual composure, contemptuously shrugged his shoulders and replied with a sneer:

“This is rather melodramatic, Mr. Van der Beck. May I inquire how you propose to take your revenge? I can make some allowance for your feelings. I quite realize that the role of a betrayed husband has its drawbacks, but——”

“Silence! How dare you add insult to the bitter injury you have done to me. Have you no atom of feeling left? [Pg 153] When you think of the unhappy woman you have ruined—of the friend you have betrayed—dishonored—robbed—yes, robbed, not only of his wife, but of his fortune! Do you suppose that I shall allow you to escape unpunished?—you who have shattered my life and killed the woman I loved so passionately.”

With these words Mr. Van der Beck took a step toward Frederick and raised his hand in a threatening manner.

“Stay, you old fool! You do not know what you are talking about. You had best not tempt me too far. I am not in a mood to be trifled with,” retorted the young man, defiantly.

“Neither am I!” exclaimed the infuriated Mr. Van der Beck. “You have in your possession still a part of my fortune. I will have you arrested as a robber and a thief if I do not kill you before then, as the destroyer of my happiness. But whatever happens you shall not escape me.”

“I have followed you half across the world,” continued Mr. Van der Beck, “and I swear by Heaven that I will put a stop to your shameless career and hinder you from doing any further harm.”

The old man looked so awful in his anger that Frederick involuntarily recoiled. They were now standing on the edge of the path and within a few feet of the brink of the yawning abyss beneath him. Mr. Van der Beck violently grasped the young man by the shoulder, exclaiming:

“Come with me. It is of no use to resist. I am armed; and, though I am but a feeble old man compared to you, you will have to follow me.”

Saying this, he pulled a revolver from his breast-pocket and leveled it at Frederick's breast.

A fiendish expression swept over the young man's features. With one swift blow of his arm he dashed the weapon from Mr. Van der Beck's hand, and, seizing him in [Pg 154] his iron grasp, he pushed him toward the precipice. There was a short struggle, during which the moon was once again obscured by a fleecy cloud. Twice a cry for help rang through the still night air; twice the two men, struggling frantically, almost rolled together over the brink. But at last, putting forth all his strength, Frederick actually lifted his adversary by the waist from the ground and with one mighty effort hurled him into the surging waters below. There was a crash of falling stones, an agonized cry, which was heard even above the roar of the cataract, and a splash.

In the woods an owl hooted twice dismally, and a dog in the distance uttered that peculiar howl which is only heard when the Angel of Death passes through the air.

When the moon shone forth again Frederick might have been seen picking up the revolver which had belonged to Mr. Van der Beck from the ground. After hesitating for a minute he flung it into the river. Then, having arranged as best he could the disorder of his dress occasioned by the struggle, he turned on his heels and walked back slowly to the hotel, muttering to himself as he went:

“It was his own fault. What need had he to cross my path? However, it is best so. Dead men tell no tales.”

When Frederick re-entered the billiard-room at the hotel his friends noticed that he was very pale. He called for a glass of brandy, and when it was brought drained it at one gulp.

“My dear boy,” exclaimed one of the young Englishmen, “what the duse is the matter with you? Have you seen a ghost? How ill you look!”

“Oh, there is nothing much the matter with me,” replied Frederick. “I suppose I have caught a chill; it is fearfully damp about here.”

“Well, I am glad, all the same, that I went. The view of the falls by moonlight is well worth seeing. Yes,” added Frederick, abstractedly, “on the whole, I am glad I went.”

On the following morning the three young men crossed over to the American side of the Niagara and took the train to New York. They had hardly settled down at their hotel when cards began to pour in on them. The names of both of Frederick's traveling companions were well known, and the one which he himself had assumed sounded sufficiently grand to inspire a desire on the part of the hospitable New Yorkers to become acquainted with its possessor. Photographers called the first thing next morning to request the privilege of taking their pictures, and several young ladies who were staying at the same hotel sent up their albums by the waiter with a request for autographs.

A day or two later Frederick, glancing over the papers, caught sight of a paragraph dated from the Falls, which related that a Dutch gentleman who had arrived there and taken up his residence at a hotel on the American side had been missing for several days, and that as he had appeared to be in a very melancholy frame of mind on his arrival it was feared that he had thrown himself into the rapids.

During the time which Frederick and his friends remained in New York they dined out almost every evening, and there is some ground for surprise as to why Frederick should not have availed himself of the opportunity which he had of marrying one of the wealthiest and handsomest women of New York society.

As this portion of “Prado's” career deals with certain personalities which would be easily recognized here, even under a pseudonym, it is better, considering the nature of the circumstances, to dismiss it with this brief allusion.

Among the passengers on board the Cunard steamer which made its way up to its moorings in the Mersey on a misty and stormy morning three months after the tragedy which had taken place at Niagara Falls were Count Frederick de Vaugelade and his two English fellow-travelers, Mr. Harcourt and Lord Arthur Fitzjames. The intimacy between the three young men had become very much closer, and Frederick was under promise to visit each of them at his father's country-seat as soon as the London season was over.

On the day after their arrival in London Lord Arthur called at Frederick's hotel in Piccadilly, and after taking him for a lounge in the Row, and thence to lunch at his club, proceeded to his father's house in Park lane and introduced his friend to his mother and sisters. From that time forth Frederick became almost a daily visitor at the Marquis of Kingsbury's house.

His great attraction there was Lady Margaret, familiarly called “Pearl” in the family, a charming little brunette, with large, mischievous gray eyes and a joyful, light-hearted disposition which made her a general favorite. She set up a desperate flirtation with Frederick, and the latter began to believe that luck was decidedly with him, and that it only depended on himself to become a member of one of the greatest families of the United Kingdom.

Lady Margaret's elder sister, Lady Alice, appeared, however, from the first to be prejudiced against the young man, and showed him by her marked coldness that she at least was [Pg 158] not following the general example of admiring everything that he did or said. Indeed, he soon realized that she might become in an emergency a very serious obstacle to his matrimonial projects.

The marquis himself took an immense fancy to Frederick, and introduced him everywhere with such marked favor that the hopes of the young man began to grow into certitude.

One evening Frederick called toward 10 o'clock at the mansion in Park lane, and was ushered by the groom of the chambers into the drawing-room. The ladies had not yet left the dining-room, and he sat down on an ottoman to wait for them, taking up an album to while away the time.

As he was idly turning over the leaves he suddenly uttered an exclamation of surprise as he caught sight of a portrait of his old enemy, Capt. Clery.

“By Jove, this is unfortunate,” muttered he. “I hope the man is not in London, for if he is we may meet any day here and I shall be in a fine hole.”

He was so absorbed in the contemplation of the pictures that he did not hear the door open. A tall, soldierly figure entered the room and walked slowly toward where Frederick was sitting. As he laid his opera hat down on the table Frederick looked up, and could not help starting to his feet as he saw the original of the picture standing before him.

Frederick's first thought was to effect his escape without delay. But while he hesitated for a moment as to the means of doing so without attracting Captain Clery's attention, the drawing-room doors were thrown open, and Lady Kingsbury, followed by her daughters and two other ladies in full evening dress, entered the room. Baffled in his purpose, Frederick now determined to put the best face on the matter that he could. Of one thing he was certain, namely, that there had been no gleam of recognition in Clery's eye [Pg 159] when the latter had cursorily glanced at him on entering. The drawing-rooms were but dimly lighted by several shaded lamps, and the great change which had taken place in Frederick's appearance during the years which had elapsed since he left India encouraged him to hope that he might possibly escape detection, even on closer inspection. He therefore advanced toward the lady of the house, and, bowing low, kissed her outstretched hand with the graceful and never-failing courtesy that was habitual to him in his relations with the fair sex.

“How are you, my dear count? so glad to see you!” exclaimed the marchioness; then, as she caught sight of Captain Clery, who had meanwhile approached, she added: “Why, Charlie, is that you? I did not know you were back in town. Let me introduce you to the Comte de Vaugelade, a new but already very dear friend of ours.”

The two men bowed to each other, and Frederick began to feel more sure of his ground as Clery gave no token of ever having met him before.

The conversation soon became general, and Frederick, always a brilliant talker, surpassed himself that evening and kept them all interested and amused by his witty sallies and repartees until a late hour.

He noticed that on two or three occasions the colonel—for such Clery had now become—fixed his piercing blue eyes somewhat inquiringly on him, as if trying to place him. It was evident that he was rather puzzled.

At midnight they left the house together and strolled toward Piccadilly, chatting rather pleasantly on various topics. As they were about to take leave of each other, Colonel Clery suddenly exclaimed:

“I don't know why, but I have an impression that I have had the pleasure of meeting you once before, count. Your face seems familiar, although your name was until to-night unknown to me.”

“I fear that you must be mistaken, colonel,” quietly rejoined Frederick, taking out his match-box to light a cigarette. “I am quite sure that I have never had the honor of an introduction to you before—a circumstance which I certainly could not have forgotten had it taken place,” added he, with a bow.

Thereupon the two men shook hands cordially, and Frederick made his way back to his hotel, leaving Colonel Clery to hail a passing hansom and to drive home.

As the cab rattled up Piccadilly toward St. James, the colonel thoughtfully twirled his mustache as he muttered to himself:

“Dashed if I can make it out! Where on earth did I meet that French fellow before? It seems to me as if he were connected with some disagreeable incident of my past life, but I will be blessed if I can remember when or how. I must try to find it out, however. The Kingsburys are making such a friend of him; and I am afraid that little Pearl is fast losing her heart to him. I must have a talk with Alice about the matter, and ask her where Arthur picked him up.”

On the following day, meeting Lord Arthur in the Row, Colonel Clery questioned him about Frederick.

“Oh, Vaugelade is a capital fellow!” exclaimed the young lord. “Tommy Harcourt and I traveled with him all over America. Lots of money, you know; good form and all that. The girls at Ottawa and New York were all crazy about him. We thought we should never be able to get him away. Awfully good fellow, and the most agreeable traveling companion I have ever met!”

“Well, but, my dear boy, do you know anything more definite about him? You see, one can never know too much about these blasted foreigners. Wasn't it somewhat imprudent to introduce him to your mother and sisters? I [Pg 161] am afraid that Pearl is becoming rather infatuated with him.”

“Oh, hang it, Clery, you croak like an old parson. Pearl is a desperate flirt, and is always going it with some fellow or other. What would be the harm anyhow? I don't think the pater would object very much. Vaugelade has fortune, birth, position, good looks, talents.”

“What on earth do you know about his birth, position, or fortune beyond what he tells you himself?” remonstrated the colonel.

A look of real annoyance passed over Lord Arthur's good-humored face, as he exclaimed, with unusual asperity:

“Now, see here, Charlie, I think you have said enough. Vaugelade is a friend of mine, and I won't hear another word against him. Why, man alive, he is not poaching on your preserves. On the contrary, I am rather inclined to believe that he and Alice don't hit it off well together.”

“Well, that is neither here nor there. Don't let us quarrel about it, there's a good fellow. By Jove, when you and Alice are married your house will be difficult of approach. I have never seen such people as you both are for always picking holes in everybody.”

Nothing more was said about the matter, and Colonel Clery decided to keep his own counsel in future.

A week later the colonel and Frederick both dined in Park lane, and as nobody was going out that night, the party assembled after dinner in Lady Kingsbury's boudoir and began looking over some magnificent photographs which Clery had given to Lady Alice on his return from India.

“Oh, by the by, my dear count,” said Lady Kingsbury to Frederick, who was sitting near her, “you must tell me all about that horrible story of the elephant execution which you told Pearl the other day. She has been talking so much [Pg 162] to me about it that I am quite anxious to hear from you if it is really true. Surely it is impossible that such barbarous cruelty should still be practiced in a country over which her majesty's power extends!”

“I don't believe a word of it!” exclaimed Lady Alice, in very decided tones. “The count, as we all know, is a great hand at oriental embroidery, no matter how flimsy the fabric on which it reposes.”

“My dear,” remonstrated her mother, “how can you say such a rude thing when Monsieur de Vaugelade has assured your sister that he himself has witnessed the ghastly scene with his own eyes!”

Colonel Clery, who was turning over the photographs, quickly looked up at this moment and cast a searching look on Frederick.

“Now, Charlie,” said Lady Alice, crossing over to him, “you have been in India. Do tell us if you have ever heard of this mode of execution?”

“Yes,” replied the colonel, slowly, “I have. It is, however, a very rare occurrence, and during the whole of my long stay in the East I have only known it to be applied on two occasions, both of which, as far as I can remember, took place at Baroda, a God-forsaken spot, ruled by a cruel and tyrannical man, who snaps his fingers at English laws. I particularly remember the last of these two executions, for the victim was a poor devil whose innocence was discovered some weeks after his having been put to death.”

“Oh, now, you must tell us all about it,” cried Lady Margaret, whose love of the horrible was a standing joke in the family. “It positively sounds like a story out of a novel.”

Colonel Clery, who had risen and was now standing before the fire-place, turned his eyes full upon Frederick and remarked:

“You really ought to ask Count de Vaugelade to tell you [Pg 163] all about it, instead of me. Having been present on one of these occasions, he is certainly in a better position to satisfy your curiosity than I am.”

“Not at all, my dear colonel. If the ladies insist on hearing about this vilaine affaire, I had much rather that you would tell them. But,” he added, in a somewhat agitated voice, “is it not rather a dismal subject to discuss? Let us talk of something else.”

“No, no,” urged Lady Margaret. “We are in for the horrible! Don't disappoint us, I beg of you.”

“Well, then, as the count is so modest and declines to give us another proof of his talents as a narrator, I will tell you what I know about the matter,” said Colonel Clery, as he resumed his seat.

“It was about eight or nine years ago, and I had only recently returned to India from a long furlough in England, when all Baroda and Bombay society were startled by the announcement of the murder of a very prominent and well-known Hindoo widow, whose body had been discovered among the ruins of a temple in the outskirts of Baroda. A poor, half-witted beggar had been found removing some jewels from the corpse as it lay in the long grass, and it was immediately taken for granted that it was he who had killed her. He was immediately seized and dragged before the guicowar or king, who lost no time in sentencing him to suffer death by the elephant. This most atrocious punishment, as Monsieur de Vaugelade will doubtless have informed you, consists in tying the culprit, who is securely bound hand and foot and unable to stir, by a long rope to the hind leg of the monster. The latter is then urged to a sharp trot, and at each movement of its leg the helpless body of the victim is jerked with a bound over the stone pavement. This is kept up for about the space of half a mile or so, after which the poor wretch's sufferings are brought to a close, his head being placed on a stone [Pg 164] block and crushed flat by the ponderous foot of the elephant.”

There was a murmur of horror among those present, in which even Lord Arthur joined, and Frederick, who had been sitting motionless on the sofa with Lady Kingsbury's toy terrier lying across his knees, unconsciously twisted the little dog's ear so violently that it gave a suppressed howl, and, reproachfully looking at him, retired to its mistress' skirts in high dudgeon.

“Remember, please,” remarked the colonel, “that you insisted that I should tell you all this, and that I did so against my own inclination.”

“Yes, of course, of course, my dear Charlie. But do go on, please,” exclaimed Lady Margaret, impatiently.

“All right, Pearl. You are really the most blood-thirsty little woman I have ever met. I suppose I shall have to spin you the remainder of the yarn,” replied the colonel, as he laughed somewhat constrainedly.

“I forgot to tell you that a man of the name of Count von Waldberg, a Prussian nobleman, with whom we had become acquainted on our passage out to Bombay, was at the time staying at Baroda with a Colonel Fitzpatrick. This young man never took my fancy, and I had had occasion to believe him to be a rather shady character.”

“Just like you. You always manage to see the dark side of everybody,” interrupted Lord Arthur, who was lounging on a pile of cushions.

“Please, Arthur, spare us your remarks. Do, there's a good fellow,” cried the irrepressible Pearl.

“When you have quite finished fighting there I will resume my story,” exclaimed Colonel Clery.

“Don't mind them, Charlie. We are all very anxious to hear the end,” rejoined Lady Kingsbury, smiling.

“Very well. I was just telling you about this man Waldberg. [Pg 165] He was invited by the Guicowar of Baroda to be present at the execution which I have just described, and created quite a sensation by fainting away at the most crucial moment thereof. Some days later he disappeared from Baroda, leaving a letter for Colonel Fitzpatrick, in which he stated that he had been called away on pressing business, and he has never been heard of since. However, it was ascertained soon after his departure that he was the last person who had been seen with the murdered woman before her death, and that he had been noticed within a short time of the crime near the very spot where the body was found. It was also discovered that he had been on terms of considerable intimacy with her, and that half an hour before the body was found he had called at the house, and, under pretext of waiting for her, had spent some time alone in her boudoir. As a considerable sum of money and some very valuable jewels were afterward found by the widow's executors to be missing from a desk in this particular room, the theft, as well as the murder, was immediately laid at Count von Waldberg's door. It was too late, however, for the bird had flown, and all efforts of the police were powerless even to trace him out of India. I must add that there were some very distressing circumstances with regard to Colonel Fitzpatrick's lovely daughter, who, on hearing of the count's sudden departure, committed suicide by drowning herself in the river.”

“How horrible!” exclaimed Lady Margaret. “Why, the man must have been a perfect monster!”

“Not in appearance, at any rate. He was a very good-looking fellow—remarkably handsome—not very tall, but of aristocratic bearing, with small hands and feet, large, soft black eyes, and a black mustache. Yes, I remember him perfectly now!”

At this juncture Frederick, who had risen, glanced at the clock, and, addressing Lady Kingsbury, said, apologetically:

“I am afraid that this interesting story has made me forget how late the hour is. I must pray you to excuse me and to permit me to take my leave.”

“Why, it is actually 2 o'clock!” exclaimed the marchioness. “I had no idea it was so late. Good-night, my dear count. Do come to luncheon to-morrow. You know that you promised to accompany us to the exhibition of water-colors in the afternoon. I am so anxious to hear your opinion about our English pictures.”

After duly expressing his thanks and acceptance of the invitation, and, after bidding adieu, Frederick was moving toward the door, accompanied by Lord Arthur, when Colonel Clery called out to him:

“Wait a moment for me, count. I will walk part of the way with you, if you will allow it. I have got to go, too.”

Frederick bowed his assent, and the two men went down stairs together, Lord Arthur calling after them over the balustrades.

“Dolce repose, Charlie; don't dream of all these blood-and-thunder stories, and don't treat poor Vaugelade to any more of them on his way home. You are enough to give a fellow the creeps.”

For a minute after they had left the house Colonel Clery and Frederick walked on in silence. The night was very dark, and a fine drizzling rain was beginning to fall.

Suddenly Colonel Clery stopped short in front of Frederick, and laying his hand on the latter's arm said, quietly:

The light of a street lamp was shining full on Frederick's face, and Colonel Clery remarked, with surprise, that not a muscle of his features moved.

“May I inquire, Colonel Clery, what on earth you mean by this astounding piece of insolence; for I can scarcely regard it in any other light after what you have told us to-night about the gentleman whose name you are attempting [Pg 167] to father on me in such a preposterous fashion. Had I not spent the entire evening in your company I should be tempted to believe that you had been drinking.”

“I am perfectly aware of what I am saying,” replied the colonel, “and I should not have ventured to make such an assertion had I not been sure of my ground. Ever since I first met you here in London I have been seeking to recall your face. I knew that I had seen you before, but could not remember where. To-night, however, the conversation about the Baroda executions has brought the whole thing back to me, and I recognize you perfectly now. I cannot be mistaken.”

“It is to be regretted, for your own sake, that you are,” replied Frederick, “and very much so, too. I will hold you accountable for this deliberate calumny, Colonel Clery. A man should have proper proof before daring to accuse a gentleman of such crimes as those which your Count Waldberg or Walderburg seems, according to your story, to have committed.”

Colonel Clery was fairly staggered by Frederick's extraordinary coolness and self-possession. He began to ask himself whether he had not been committing some awful blunder in asserting that M. de Vaugelade and Count Waldberg were one and the same person.

“Of course,” faltered he, at length, “if you can give me any proof to show that you are not the man I believe you to be, I shall be only too happy to beg your pardon for what I have said, and attribute it all to a most remarkable resemblance.

“I am quite ready to give you any proof you may desire,” replied Frederick, very stiffly. “I may add, however, that were it not for the peculiar and privileged position which you hold with regard to the Kingsburys I should not dream of taking the trouble to exculpate myself in your [Pg 168] eyes. It is for their sake alone that I consent to lower myself to answer your ridiculous insinuations.”

During this conversation they had walked on, and had passed Frederick's hotel without noticing it. They were now very near Colonel Clery's rooms, in St. James.

“Have you got any—any papers about you which could convince me of my mistake and prove your identity?” inquired Clery, somewhat hesitatingly.

“Well, I have my passport, which is attached to my pocket-book, and some cards and letters besides, if that will suffice,” replied Frederick with a sneer; “but I do not suppose that you wish me to sit down here on the curbstone in the rain and let you examine them by the light of the street lamps.”

“Certainly not. Come up to my room—that is, if you don't object. It will be best for both of us to have this matter settled once and for all.”

“All right; show the way. But I must acknowledge that you English are an infernally queer lot, and well deserve to be called ‘originals.’”

Colonel Clery, taking a latch-key from his pocket, opened the house door and preceded Frederick up a broad flight of steps. Opening another door on the first floor he ushered him into a large but cozy-looking sitting-room. The heavy Turkish curtains were drawn before the windows, and a reading lamp, shaded by a crimson silk screen, was burning on a low side table, leaving part of the room in semi-darkness. Here and there on the tapestried walls were trophies of remarkably fine Damascened Indian swords and inlaid matchlocks. A few good water-colors hung over the sofa, and on the chimney was a large photograph of Lady Alice, in a splendid enameled frame, standing between two old Satsuma vases filled with cut flowers.

Colonel Clery mechanically motioned Frederick to the sofa, but the latter, taking from his pocket a small portefeuille [Pg 169] and three or four letters, handed them to him, saying:

“Look at these first, colonel, so as to convince yourself before anything else that you are not now harboring a thief and assassin under your roof.”

Colonel Clery, throwing his hat and overcoat on a chair, and taking the documents from Frederick, sat down on a low arm-chair in front of the table for the purpose of examining them by the light of the lamp.

Had he been able to glance behind his chair he would scarcely have been reassured by the expression which came over Frederick's features as soon as he felt that he was no longer observed. But the colonel was so absorbed in the perusal of one of the letters handed to him that he did not even notice that Frederick had softly approached and was bending over him as if to read over his shoulder.

Noiselessly Frederick removed from his collar a long and slender pearl-headed platinum pin with a very sharp point, which he habitually wore in the evening to keep his white tie in place. After a rapid glance at the nape of the [Pg 170] colonel's neck, which was fully exposed to view as he bent over the latter, Frederick, with a swift downward motion of his hand, buried this novel kind of a stiletto to the very head between the first and second vertebræ of the spinal column. Without a cry, without a sound, the unfortunate officer fell forward on the table as if he had been struck by lightning. Death had been instantaneous, the spinal marrow having been touched by the unerring and steady prick of the tiny weapon.

This was but another instance of the dangerous knowledge which Frederick had acquired from the natives during his sojourn in Java. All the more dangerous, as when death has been brought about in this way no trace of violence remains except the minute puncture at the back of the neck produced by the pin. This is almost certain to escape observation unless specially looked for, and the death is attributed to a sudden failure of the action of the heart.

Frederick, having ascertained that the colonel was quite dead, took from his contracted hand the letter he had been reading, replaced it in the portefeuille with the others, and then restored it to his pocket. Bending once more over the lifeless form of the colonel he drew the pin from the almost invisible wound, which had not even bled, and replaced it in his tie. Then, taking the body in his arms, he dragged it to the lounge, on which he carefully laid it, closing the wide-open eyes and arranging the pillows under the head. Lowering the lamp, he went softly to the door, and, after listening intently for some minutes to hear if any one was about, he stepped out of the room, and closing the door after him, walked down stairs and into the quiet, lonely street.

The next day was a fine one. The sun was shining brightly, the sky was a deep transparent blue, and as Frederick walked through the park on his way to the Kingsbury mansion he stopped several times to enjoy the cool morning air. The trees were clothed in all the fresh beauty of their spring garments, dew was sparkling like diamonds on the velvetry lawns, where flocks of sheep were peacefully grazing, and the still sheet of water of the Serpentine flashed like a mirror in the bright morning light. Great rose-bushes, with their sweet-smelling pink, red, and white blossoms, perfumed the air, while the paths were bordered with a rainbow of many-colored flowers, over which yellow butterflies were hovering. In the distance there was a kind of dim silvery haze hanging midway between heaven and earth, and through its gauzy vail the tall clumps of trees and bushes looked almost fairy-like and unreal.

As he reached the Marble Arch Frederick espied an old beggar woman who was squatting outside on the pavement close to the park railings. She was a repulsive-looking object. Her face was seamed and lined with numerous wrinkles, clearly defined by the dirt which was in them; her bushy gray eyebrows were drawn frowningly over her watery, red-rimmed blue eyes; her nose was hooked like the beak of a bird of prey, and from her thin-lipped mouth two yellow tusks protruded, like those of a wild boar.

Frederick, with one of those momentary contrasts which made him so difficult to understand, stopped in front of the old crone and dropped a guinea into her palm. She [Pg 172] raised one skinny hand to shade her eyes and looked curiously at the generous stranger.

“You'll drink it,” I suppose, said Frederick, gazing at her inflamed nose and sunken cheeks, which bore unmistakable signs of debauchery.

“Werry likely,” retorted the hag with a grin; “I'm a fortune to the public 'ouse, I am. And it's the only pleasure I 'ave in my blooming life, blarst it!”

Ignoring this polite speech, the young man directed his steps to the Kingsbury residence, and was ushered by the groom of the chambers into the morning-room of the marchioness. It was a long, low apartment, oak-paneled, and had an embossed and emblazoned ceiling from which silver lamps of old Italian work hung by silver chains. The blinds were drawn down, and the hues of the tapestry, of the ivories which stood here and there on the carved brackets, of the paintings on the walls, and of the embroideries on the satin furniture, made a rich chiaro-oscuro of color. Large baskets and vases full of roses and lilies rendered the air heavy with their intoxicating odor.

Frederick sat down on a low couch to await the mistress of the house. His brows were knit and he murmured to himself abstractedly.

“Do they know it already? Hardly yet, I should think. Well, I must make bonne contenance if I wish to win the game. By Heaven! it's worth the candle.”

He had been brooding in this fashion for some ten minutes, when the door opened, and Lady Kingsbury, wrapped in a loose gown of olive-colored cashmere, with a profusion of old lace at her breast, and open sleeves, entered the room. She was very pale, and her still beautiful eyes showed traces of weeping.

She advanced toward Frederick with outstretched hands, saying in a broken, unsteady voice:

“Pardon me for keeping you waiting, my dear count. But this terrible misfortune has upset me so much that I am quite ill and ought not to have left my room.”

“Good Heaven! my dear Lady Kingsbury, what has happened?” exclaimed Frederick, with an air of the most profound surprise.

“Oh! it is too, too awful! My poor, poor Alice! Colonel Clery has been found dead in his room this morning!”

“Dead! dead! Colonel Clery! Great God! Why, I left him in perfect health a few hours ago! What could have caused his death?”

“Heart disease, I presume; though nobody who saw him would ever have believed him to be subject thereto. When his servant entered his rooms this morning he found him lying on the lounge, still wearing his evening dress. Surprised at such a proceeding on the part of a man who was as regular and methodical in his habits as was his master, the valet approached the sofa and attempted to rouse him. But he was dead! and the doctor, who was immediately called in, declared that he must have been so for some hours,” concluded Lady Kingsbury, bursting into fresh tears.

“This is really terrible,” said Frederick, with a display of considerable emotion. “I cannot tell you how shocked I am! One could not help being fond of Colonel Clery. He was a man in a thousand, and though our acquaintance was so short I feel his loss as that of an old and dear friend. Will you think me indiscreet if I ask how Lady Alice bears this crushing blow?”

“Don't talk about it,” sobbed the marchioness, “I almost fear that she will go out of her mind. Her otherwise cold and indifferent nature was centered in Charlie, whom she had loved for several years. Her father at first objected to the match, having looked higher for his eldest daughter. But he had to give way before the unwavering [Pg 174] constancy of the two young people. I don't know what is to become of Alice now. It breaks my very heart to see her silent despair!”

“I will not keep you away from her any longer. She needs your loving care and sympathy,” said Frederick, rising. “I trust that you will forgive my intrusion on your sorrow, and that you will tell me frankly if I can be of any use to you. Dispose of me entirely. You have been so kind to me that I should deem it a great favor to be able to be of service to you.”

“Thank you so much, my dear M. de Vaugelade. It is very kind of you to say so. Don't think that I am sending you away. I hope you will come soon again, but I really am afraid that I cannot bear much more this morning.”

Kissing her hand, Frederick bowed himself out and was slowly descending the wide staircase when he heard himself called by name.

Turning himself quickly round he saw Lady Alice standing at the head of the stairs and beckoning to him. Was this the bright and happy girl whom he had left but a few hours ago? Her head leaned backward against the high, carved panel of the wall, her face was deadly pale and cold, and had the immutability of a mask of stone. Other women might moan aloud in their misery and curse their fate, but she was one of those who choke down their hearts in silence and conceal their death-wounds.

A few steps brought Frederick to her side. He did not dare to salute her, for it seemed to him as if her whole being shrank within her as she saw him there. Without looking at him, she spoke in a voice quite firm though it was faint from feebleness.

“I have but little to say to you. I want only to ask you, how and where you parted last night with—with—him?”

She almost lost her self-control. Her lips trembled and she pressed her hand on her breast.

Frederick staggered slightly, as if under some sword-stroke from an unseen hand. A great faintness came upon him. For a moment he was speechless and mute. She looked up at him steadily once. Then she spoke again in that cold, forced, measured voice which seemed to his ear as hard and pitiless as the strokes of an iron hammer.

With a mighty effort he broke the spell which held him mute, and murmured, with a suffocated sound in his voice, as though some hand were clutching at his throat:

“Lady Alice! what do you mean?” exclaimed Frederick, who, seeing the danger, was regaining his entire self-possession.

“Nothing,” she answered wearily. “Go. It is best so. I must have time—time to think.”

She passed her hand over her forehead twice, as if in pain, and he, bowing low, walked down stairs blindly, not knowing whither he went. Mechanically he reached the entrance, passed the threshold, and went out into the bright spring sunlight.

The morning papers on the following day contained the announcement of Colonel Charles Clery's sudden death, and after devoting some space to a brief outline of his career, concluded with the following sentences:

“The late colonel dined the night before his death at the house of the Marquis of Kingsbury, in Park lane. He appeared to be in excellent health and spirits, and left some time after midnight with the Comte de Vaugelade, in whose company he walked up Piccadilly. The count is reported to be the last person who saw him alive.

A couple of days later, and before Frederick had had an opportunity of calling again at Park lane, a well-known society paper, renowned for the venom of its attacks and for the correctness of its information, published the following paragraph:

“Who is the Comte de Vaugelade, the foreign nobleman, in whose company the late Colonel Clery was last seen alive? We are informed, both at the Belgian Legation and at the French Embassy, that the name and the title are extinct.”

These words caught Frederick's eye as he was glancing over the papers after his early breakfast in the privacy of his own room three days after Colonel Clery's death. He immediately realized that this, together with Lady Alice's mysterious words, was making London too hot for him. It was a great disappointment to have to leave England just as he believed that he was on the point of obtaining his heart's fondest wish—namely, a wife belonging to a wealthy and [Pg 177] noble family, who would place her husband for once and all in the sphere to which he was born. He could then have left his career of adventurer far behind him, and lived the untrammeled life of a gentleman of means and leisure, respected and honored by all.

Men, according to the old Greeks, were the toys of the gods, who, from their high estate in Olympus, put evil and foul instincts and desires into their mortal hearts, and then, when the evil actions became the outlet of evil thoughts, amused themselves by watching the fruitless efforts made by their victims to escape a cruel and merciless goddess, called Nemesis, who stood there ready to punish them. The gods may have enjoyed it, but how about the poor mortals? In these days of skepticism and unbelief we have dropped this deity, but only to replace her by another, whom we have christened Fate, and whom we use as a scapegoat upon which to lay the blame of our own shortcomings. The true religion of Fate, however, is that our lives are the outcome of our actions. Every action, good or bad, has its corresponding reward—as Frederick found to his cost.

He resolved to leave London without delay; but, fearing that if he traveled via Dover or Folkestone, he might meet a number of his English acquaintances, and thereby attract attention—a thing he particularly wished to avoid—he determined to take the train for Southampton that very afternoon, and thence to proceed to St. Malo, on the coast of Brittany.

Before his departure, he wrote a long letter to Lady Kingsbury, informing her that to his great sorrow he had been called away by his only sister's dangerous illness, and that, having no time to come and make his adieus in person, he begged her ladyship to remember him most gratefully to the marquis, and to her son and daughters, whose kindness, as well as her own, he could never forget. He added that he hoped soon to be able to return to London, [Pg 178] since it was his most cherished wish to meet them all again.

That same evening he embarked on board one of those small steamboats which make the passage between Southampton and St. Malo, and as he lay tossing on the narrow couch of the deck cabin, many a bitter thought filled his troubled mind. He got but little sleep, and when the vessel steamed into the harbor of St. Malo he was standing on deck, looking moodily into the deep, transparent waters, where the jelly-fish were floating many fathoms beneath the surface of the bay, and where a school of porpoises were sporting in the foaming track left by the ship.

St. Malo is one of the most picturesque places in France, and one of the most ancient. It is fortified, and its gray, moss-grown walls and battlements, when seen from the entrance of the harbor, carry one back to old feudal times.

Frederick, having passed his trunks through the custom-house, made his way to the best hotel in the place—a grim-looking stone building, with mullioned windows, rusty iron balconies, and peaked roof, which looked more like one of Dore's pictures than any modern hostelry. Entering the office of the hotel, he asked for a sitting-room and bedroom, and was soon ushered into the very suite of apartments in which the poet Chateaubriand had been born. The ponderous oak furniture of the rooms, coupled with the dark paneling of the walls, rendered them a rather gloomy place of abode.

He walked listlessly to the window, and amused himself in watching the crowd of peasants, who, as it was market-day, were assembling upon the esplanade in front of the hotel. The poorer classes have kept here in all its integrity the costume which was worn before the French revolution of 1793 by the peasants in Brittany and the Vendee. The men with their red coats, baggy white breeches, tied with ribbons at the knee over their crimson stockings, low silver-buckled shoes, and three-cornered hats; the women with [Pg 179] their short dark woolen petticoats, blue or pink aprons, lace fichus, and white caps, which look like the wings of a gigantic butterfly, presented a scene not only animated, but also exceedingly picturesque, which appealed strongly to Frederick's artistic instincts. Taking his sketch-book with him, he went down stairs again, with the intention of making a few sketches of this queer little town and its quaint inhabitants.

He walked over to St. Servan, and, after spending some time in taking a sketch of the walls and turrets of St. Malo, he hired a boat and rowed over to the island of Grand Bey, where he intended to visit Chateaubriand's monument. When he returned to the Hotel de France, he ordered his dinner to be brought up to his sitting-room; and long after the piquant little chambermaid had removed the cloth, and noiselessly left the great dark room, he sat wrapt deep in thought, brooding over the past and planning out the future, which seemed very uncertain to him at that moment.

A few days later, a cab drew up at the door of a hotel on the Puerto del Sol at Madrid, and from it alighted Frederick von Waldberg, in his latest role as Count Linska de Castillon.

Finding, however, the Spanish capital intolerably hot and dismally empty, he soon turned his steps northward again, and took up his residence in the pretty seaport town of St. Sebastien, which is the most fashionable bathing-place on the Peninsula. It was crowded at the time with all the cream of Spanish society; and Frederick, with his ordinary skill and savoir faire, soon became acquainted with all the best people there, including a clique of gay young clubmen, who turned the night into day, and gambled, danced, flirted, and drank, with untiring energy.

Frederick's passion for cards soon revived in all its intensity in this vortex of dissipation, and he seldom left the “Salon de Jeu” of the Casino before the small hours of the morning. At first he won a great deal, but soon his luck began to fail him, and at the end of three weeks he discovered, to his disgust, that he had left on the green baize of the card-table a sum of over 150,000 francs.

“This has got to stop,” muttered he, angrily, “or I shall soon be running down hill at a rapid pace. The question is, how can I stop now without arousing comment?”

At the beginning of his stay in St. Sebastien, he had been introduced by a young Madrilene, who was staying at the same hotel, to a charming family, composed of the father, an old Spanish grandee; the mother, who had been a [Pg 181] beauty, and their lovely daughter, Dolores. Don Garces y Marcilla was evidently a wealthy man, and occupied a luxuriously appointed villa on the sea-shore. Frederick soon began to be a constant visitor at this house, and his attentions to the fair Dolores were so marked that they became the talk of the beau-monde of St. Sebastien. Dolores was a remarkably dashing and handsome girl, with fiery black eyes and raven tresses. Her complexion was dark, and her lips were of the vivid crimson of a pomegranate flower. She was evidently very much in love with Frederick, and he had but little doubt that he would be accepted if he chose to ask her to be his wife.

For him this marriage presented many advantages. To begin with, it would open wide to him the doors of the Spanish aristocracy. The Garces y Marcilla prided themselves on being able to trace their descent from the kings of Aragon, and were high up on the social ladder. Then, there was also the question of money. Frederick had found out that Dolores would not only receive on her wedding-day a dowry of 200,000 francs—not a big sum in itself, although in Spain it is considered quite large—but that, Don Garces y Marcilla being a rich man, she would further inherit a fortune at his death. Since he had lost all hopes of obtaining the hand of Lady Margaret, a marriage with the daughter of Don Garces seemed to him to be the most advantageous to his interests.

Still undecided, however, as to the course he should adopt, he one morning directed his steps toward the Garces villa, with the object of inviting the whole family to a dinner which he proposed giving, some days later, for the purpose of returning in some measure the courtesy and hospitality with which they had received him.

As it was near midday, all the servants were down below at luncheon, and his approach was unnoticed. Walking along the veranda, he soon came to the long French windows [Pg 182] of the drawing-room, and, peeping in between the half-closed blinds, he saw Dolores, who, stretched on an oriental divan, was smoking a cigarette. There was but little light in the corner of the room where she reclined, but he could plainly distinguish the outline of her voluptuous form in its soft loose white wrapper, and the gleam of the rings on her small hands. Her great black eyes seemed positively to glow in the semi-darkness as she looked up at the rings of blue smoke that floated through the air.

Frederick's heart began to beat faster. He vaguely felt that his hour of fate had come.

They were as completely alone as if they had been in a desert. No one of the household would have dared to approach that room without a summons from her. A nightingale was singing in the Cape jasmine which wreathed the veranda. Gently he pushed open the casement of the window, and stepped into the room. She raised herself on her elbow, and, flinging her half-finished cigarette into a silver tray on the table, stretched out her hand to him, saying, in her low, melodious voice:

“Is it really so?” murmured he, bending over the small, cool hand, which he retained in his own, prolonging the fleeting moments with irresistible pleasure. Every gesture, glance, and breath of this girl allured him; a swift and wicked temptation flashed through his brain. He knew that she loved him, and that she was at his mercy. A shudder passed over him, and before he knew what he was about he had wound his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. It was but a second, and then he thrust her away from him. She gave him a look of such intense surprise and pain, that, dropping on one knee before her, he murmured, in a voice which still shook with suppressed passion:

Three weeks later, on the first of November, 1879, at the Church of Santa Maria, the marriage of Dona Dolores Garces y Marcella with Count Linska de Castillon was celebrated with great pomp.

That same evening the young couple left for Madrid, where a handsome suite of apartments had been prepared for them in a house on the Calle del Barquillo.

The first weeks of the honey-moon were delightful. Through his wife's relatives Frederick became acquainted with all the leaders of society at Madrid. The life of the young couple was a whirl of perpetual excitement and pleasure; they were invited everywhere and attended court receptions, embassy balls, and official entertainments. Frederick was very proud of Dolores, and she became every day more and more infatuated with her handsome and gifted husband. Frederick, who had a love for everything beautiful, and who was a born artist, had arranged their apartment of the Calle del Barquillo with such exquisite taste and elegance that it was the talk of the whole town. The luxury displayed in every detail, from the magnificent Gobelin tapestries which lined the walls down to the dinner services of priceless Sevres and Japanese porcelain, the marvelous toilets which he insisted that his wife should wear, and the splendid dinners and entertainments they gave all cost a great deal of money, and at the end of the winter season Frederick could once more foresee the moment when not only his own fortune but also his wife's dowry would have vanished. He had been made a member of several clubs, and with a view of reimbursing himself for what his daily life cost, he began to risk large sums at the card table.

Six months after his marriage he met with a rather serious accident. His horses took fright while he was being driven home one morning from witnessing the execution by the “garrote” of the regicide Francisco Otero, and he was flung with such violence to the pavement that his ankle was broken. His victoria having been shattered to pieces, he was driven to his house by a young stranger who had witnessed the catastrophe and had offered his assistance. An intimacy soon sprang up between the two, and the affection which Frederick displayed toward the stranger, whose name was Louis Berard, was one of the only really disinterested ones in his life.

As soon as Frederick had recovered sufficiently to travel, he left Madrid with his wife for a few weeks' sojourn at Biarritz, on the Bay of Biscay. The weather was not yet hot enough to be disagreeable, and the sea-breeze proved very beneficial to him. The pretty bathing resort, far from being deserted at this season of the year, still contained a considerable number of English, American, and Russian families who had been wintering there, and the Casino was nearly as animated and frequented as in the months of September and October, which constitute the fashionable season of Biarritz.

One morning Frederick, who could now walk without any difficulty, proposed to his wife that they should go for a stroll to the Vieux-Port, and they set off in high spirits, taking a path along the shore, which latter is lined here with lofty cliffs, in which large and mysterious-looking caves have been excavated by the waves. It was a lovely day, although the sun was not shining. Both sea and sky were of that delicate pearly tint which reminds one of the inside of a shell; the violets were thick in the hedges, and the yellow blossoms of the butterwort were flung like so many gold pieces over the brown furrows of the fields. Far below them the sea was full of life; market boats and fishing boats, skiffs and canoes of all kinds, with striped sails, were crossing each other on its surface. There were lovely white wreaths of mist to the southward, airy and suggestive as the vail of a bride, and the silver-shining wings of a score of white sea-gulls dipped now and again in the hollows of the lazy wavelets. The air was full of the intense perfume of the trees, which were starred all over with their white and pink blossoms. In the distance the beautiful coast of Spain stretched away into endless realms of sparkling, though subdued, light, and the lofty range of the Pyrenees rose blue and snow-crowned behind the fairy shore of this enchanted paradise.

Frederick and Dolores walked briskly along arm in arm. The path was narrow and there was just room for two people to pass between the precipice and the tall hawthorn hedges intermingled with bowlders of fallen rocks, from between which here and again there rose great stone pines, relics of those wild pine woods which, before the modern culture had appeared on the scene with ax and spade, had doubtless covered the whole of the table land.

Suddenly at a sharp curve of the path they came face to face with a lady and gentleman who were approaching from the opposite direction. The lady was young and rather good-looking; the gentleman was old, and his hair and mustache were snow-white, but his erect bearing and still firm step belied his age. He was a tall, aristocratic-looking man, with piercing blue eyes, and gave one the impression of being an officer in plain clothes. In the button-hole of his light gray frock-coat was the rosette of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Frederick pulled Dolores on one side to make room for the strangers, but as he did so he became pale to the very lips. Involuntarily he bared his head and made a rapid movement toward the old gentleman. But he was met by so haughty a gaze that he lowered his eyes and, forgetting the astonished Dolores, he walked quickly on. He had recognized his father, General Count von Waldberg, from whom he had parted under such painful circumstance eleven years before.

From this time forth Frederick commenced to go, from a moral standpoint, more and more down hill. On returning to Madrid he lived fast and recklessly, neglecting Dolores and spending his nights in gambling-hells, where he lost piles of money. On several occasions he was forced to appeal to his father-in-law to pay his debts of honor. The old gentleman came to his rescue without a murmur, his intense love for his daughter preventing him from using harsh words toward the husband whom she still continued to adore, notwithstanding the ever-increasing neglect with which he treated her. It is true that Dolores, having ceased going much into society, did not hear about the numerous successes of her lord among the demi-monde, but his once courteous and deferential behavior to her had now given place to continual irritability, and to never-ending quarrels about money and other domestic matters.

At last the climax came. Frederick, after a particularly unlucky week, during which he had sustained heavier losses than ever, finding it impossible to obtain the sum which he urgently required, actually went so far as to forge his father-in-law's name for the amount of 25,000 francs. Don Garces y Marcilla, giving way to the entreaties of his daughter, who threw herself at his feet, paid the amount and saved Frederick from prison and disgrace; but he declared to Dolores that if she did not leave her husband and return to the shelter of his house he would disown her and never see her again. There was a terrible scene; but Dolores was immovable, and refused to abandon the man she loved, although [Pg 188] she could no longer either respect or esteem him. Her father, who was a violent man, drove her from the home of her childhood, and warned her if she ever dared to cross his threshold again he would have her turned away by his servants.

The situation had now become a truly desperate one. Frederick sold his horses and carriages, his furniture, and valuable bric-a-brac—yes, even his wife's jewels and costly dresses, and moved with her to a small house in the outskirts of Madrid. Unknown to her, however, he hired a suite of rooms in a fashionable street, and, going into partnership with two disreputable adventurers, he started a private gambling hell.

Poor Dolores! her days of happiness were over. She was now always alone in the dingy little house in the suburbs. Weeping and privations were fast robbing her of her beauty, and Frederick, whenever he looked at her, which was seldom, had the cruelty to taunt her with what he called “her washed-out appearance!” He bitterly complained of having married a woman who was of no earthly use to him.

“Had you but known how to play your cards,” he would often say to her, “you might have avoided the quarrel with your infernal old idiot of a father. He is soft enough, in all conscience, when one knows how to handle him. But, no; you must needs go into heroics and get yourself kicked out of the house for your pains. Upon my word, Dolores, you are worse than a fool. Without you I would never have come down in the world like this.”

The poor woman, terrified by the violence of her husband, who was fast losing his former refinement and distinction, and was becoming downright brutal, could only cry and sob, imploring her dear “Eric” to take pity on her. But her tears only seemed to exasperate him more, and as lately his gambling saloon, thanks to his partners, [Pg 189] who were nothing but vulgar sharpers, had got into bad repute with the jeunesse doree, who cautiously avoided going there, he one fine morning gave the slip to his army of creditors, and, abandoning Dolores without a cent of money, started alone for Paris.

The unfortunate woman, when she discovered that she had been deserted, nearly went out of her mind with grief and despair. But nothing could destroy her love for Frederick, and she resolved to discover his hiding-place and to entreat him to let her live with him, if only as his servant.

Women are singularly illogical. The whole world may be against a man, but the woman who loves him will stand boldly forward as his champion. No matter how vile a man may be, if a woman loves him she exalts him to the rank of a demi-god and refuses to see the clay feet of her idol. When he is forsaken by all, she still clings to him. When all others frown, she still smiles on him, and when he dies, she adores and reverences his memory as that of a martyr of circumstances. God help the man who in time of trouble has not a true and loving woman to stand by his side and help him through life's bitter struggle!

However, Dolores, being penniless, had to leave her little house and to seek refuge at the lodgings of her old nurse, who lived in a narrow, dark street in the slums of Madrid. Old Carmen loved her, and, although the good woman was poor herself (her husband having, before he departed from this life, managed to drink up every penny), she took the unfortunate Dolores in and tended her through a violent fit of illness, brought on by sorrow and privation.

Dolores' home was now in a dark lane which glowed like a furnace during the hot months of the Spanish summer. She tried to earn some money by doing a little plain needlework, but often as she sat by the open casement of the small window which looked out into a dirty, ill-smelling alley, where ragged children played all day long in the dried-up [Pg 190] gutter, she would let her head fall on the greasy window-sill and weep scalding tears of pain and regret. Far happier were the victims whom Frederick had dispatched from this world than this broken-hearted creature whose life he had shattered and ruined.

In the middle of 1883 Frederick arrived in Paris, and continued to live there in the same reckless and dissipated fashion. He lost all the little money he had brought with him from Spain, and sank lower and lower, cheating at cards, swindling hotel and lodging-house keepers, and gradually rolling to the very bottom of the social scale. More than once he went to bed without a dinner, and in one word he now belonged to the very lowest class of adventurers. Driven by the pangs of hunger and misery, he even went so far as to blackmail several ladies of high rank and position, but somehow or other always managed to escape the vigilant eye of the French police.

One night, having made a few napoleons at baccarat, he bought seats at the Folies-Bergeres, and after a scanty dinner at a cheap restaurant he proceeded thither accompanied by the woman who was then living with him, a gaudily dressed, red-haired, and brazen-faced creature, who was well known on the outer boulevards.

During a pause in the performance the well-assorted couple repaired to the foyer, where they began to pace up and down, arm in arm, among the crowd of habitues, where here and there a stranger was noticeable who had come to see the fun.

Suddenly Frederick and his companion found themselves face to face with a lady and gentleman who were just about to leave the place. As Frederick caught sight of the lady he unconsciously dropped his companion's arm and bowed low. Lady Margaret, for it was she, looked at him in haughty surprise, then turned to her husband as if to complain of this piece of insolence.

“Well,” exclaimed the latter in English, and in a very audible tone of voice, “I told you what you would expose yourself to if you came here. You see, Pearl, that's what comes of always insisting on visiting the most extraordinary places.”

That night, for the first time in his life, Frederick von Waldberg got drunk; the words of the young Englishman had shown him, more than anything else, to what depths he had sunk. Lady Margaret, the girl whom he had once fancied loved him, had not even recognized, in the degraded individual he had now become, the man who had aspired to her hand. Crimsoning to the very roots of his hair, he left the red-haired cocotte standing in the middle of the floor, directed his steps towards the buvette, and, ordering a demi-setier (about half a pint) of brandy to be served him, drained it at a gulp.

One evening, in the month of January, 1885, Frederick, who beyond the clothes on his back now possessed nothing but a well-worn suit of evening dress and a few shirts, happened to be strolling down the Champs Elysees, when suddenly his attention was attracted by sounds of a violent altercation. On approaching the spot whence they proceeded he found a middle-aged man, manifestly a foreigner, who was undergoing severe treatment at the hands of a couple of students from the Quartier Latin. The stranger was accompanied by a tall and exceedingly handsome blonde. The students, with the impudence peculiar to their class, had ventured on some remarks of a tender and even indiscreet nature to the lady, whose escort had been quick to resent the insult. The students, however, were decidedly getting the best of the scuffle when Frederick appeared on the scene. Not even the life of dissipation and debauchery into which he had allowed himself to sink had been able to diminish the power of his muscular arms. Dashing his fist into the face of the taller of the two students, [Pg 192] he sent him sprawling on the ground at some distance, on seeing which the other prudently took to his heels. Then bending down Frederick picked up the little man's hat and returned it to him, at the same time expressing the hope that he had escaped without any serious damage. The stranger was most profuse in his expressions of gratitude, in which the lady cordially joined, and insisted that Frederick should accompany them to take supper at the Cafe “Americain.” Nothing loth, Frederick acquiesced, and it was almost daylight before they finally separated.

Frederick found that his new acquaintance was an American, whose name is equally well known in the highest social circles both of New York and New Orleans, and whose mature age and sedate appearance does not prevent him from burning the candle at both ends, in Europe as well as in the States. The lady by whom he was accompanied was a Mme. Varlay, who had deserted her husband some three months previous to this date, and had adopted the “nom de guerre” of Eugenie Forestier. During the course of the supper the fair Eugenie cast several admiring glances at the man who had displayed such muscular power in effecting their deliverance, and Frederick quickly perceived that he had made an impression upon her. Before they parted a mutual interchange of addresses took place, and arrangements were made for a theater party to take place some days later.

On the following afternoon Frederick called on Mme. Forestier, who soon became deeply infatuated with him. Indeed, from that time forth Frederick may be said to have practically lived at her expense—or rather at that of her American lover. When, however, in the month of April the latter took his departure for the United States, the finances of the lady underwent a disastrous change. The drafts received from New York and Newport were few and far between, [Pg 193] and in course of time Eugenie found it necessary to dispose of her jewels, and even of her fine laces and dresses, in order to keep the wolf from the door.

It was during this period of penury that Frederick spent much of his time in dictating to Eugenie letters to her American friend, in which terms of endearment and devotion were most artistically blended with requests for money. Clever as were these compositions, they ended by dispelling any feelings of affection which might have existed on the part of her ex-lover, and in the month of October he sent her from New Orleans a draft on a bank at Boulogne-sur-Mer for a couple of thousand francs, announcing to her at the same time that it would be impossible for him to make any further remittances. Within a few weeks the money was spent, and in the month of January, 1886, almost every article of any value possessed by Eugenie or by Frederick had found its way to the mont-de-piete (pawnshop).

Frederick's companion during most of this time was a Spaniard of the name of Ybanez, his accomplice in many of his schemes for raising the wind by all kinds of questionable means. One night about the 15th or 16th of January, 1886, Ybanez came to Frederick and informed him that an Italian friend of his had a certain number of jewels in his possession which he (Ybanez) believed to be the proceeds of a robbery, and which his friend the Italian was anxious to get rid of on the sly. Ybanez added that as he himself had been afraid to take any action in the matter, and that as his friend had fully realized the danger of disposing of the jewels at Paris, he had advised him to sell them either at Marseilles, Bordeaux, or some other large provincial town at a distance from the metropolis.

“Well, where has he finally decided to take them to?” inquired Frederick, quickly.

The two men looked sharply at one another for a few seconds. They had understood each other.

Negligently and without apparent intention Ybanez continued to speak of his Italian friend, and casually gave Frederick a full and minute description of his personal appearance.

That same evening at the Gare de Lyons, a minute before the train started out of the station, a man dressed in a gray overcoat and wearing a soft felt traveling hat was hustled by the conductor into a coupe which until then had been tenanted by one solitary traveler. A shade of annoyance passed over the face of the latter as the door opened. It was evident that he had hoped to remain in undisturbed possession of the compartment. But he soon regained his equanimity. For from the fussy manner in which the intruder collected and arranged in the netting his impediments, among which was a lunch-basket, he surmised that he had to deal with a petit bourgeois, probably a small shop-keeper, who was totally unaccustomed to travel any farther than Bougival or Asnieres.

A conversation quickly sprang up between the two, and the man in gray displayed the greatest interest and unfeigned astonishment at the recital of his companion's adventures in foreign lands, and especially in Egypt and the Soudan. In response to a further inquiry, the latter explained that his knowledge of those countries was due to the fact of his having held a high position on the staff of General Lord Wolseley during the Nile expedition of 1884 for the rescue of Gordon.

In return for these confidences the man in gray stated that he was a wholesale grocer in the Faubourg Montmartre, and that he was on his way to visit a married sister who was established at Avignon. He added confidentially that he [Pg 196] had never in his life been farther away from Paris than Fontainebleau.

Shortly after they passed Melun the alleged grocer opened his lunch-basket and began to feast on some cold chicken, wine, and a box of sardines, which probably came from his shop in the Faubourg Montmartre. Suddenly he appeared to remember the fact that his fellow-traveler might possibly be hungry, too, and rather shyly asked if monsieur would do him the honor of joining him in his repast. This invitation was readily accepted, and a bottle of excellent Burgundy followed by a dram of old cognac, put the two men in such good humor that they began to grow more and more confidential.

The man in gray imparted to his companion all kinds of little tricks in the grocery trade, such as mingling sand with brown sugar, oleomargarine with fresh table butter, and he even acknowledged, to the great amusement of the other, that he had a Japanese in his employ to carefully open the boxes of prime tea received from China and Japan, who after having mixed the contents with some tea of very inferior quality, recanted them in such an adept manner that it was impossible for the retail grocers to detect the fact that they had ever been opened or their contents adulterated.

On the other hand Lord Wolseley's alleged staff officer horrified his grocer friend by a detailed description of the Soudanese method of killing their enemies, namely, by a swift, sweeping stroke across the throat with an exceedingly sharp knife, and which is invariably yielded from behind, so that the slayer escapes being deluged by the blood of his victim.

“When one has the knack,” added he, with a significant sweep of his hand, “one can almost sever the head with such a stroke.”

Meanwhile both of the men had been smoking some exceedingly [Pg 197] fine Manilla cheroots, which it is well known are slightly washed with opium, and which the grocer had offered to his new acquaintance. By and by they both dropped off into a deep sleep, the slumbers of the alleged staff officer being far more heavy than those of his companion, as it was easy to perceive by his stertorous breathing. Indeed, it almost sounded as if he was under the influence of some particularly strong narcotic.

Suddenly the grocer stealthily opened his eyes, and, having assured himself that his fellow-traveler was asleep, proceeded to examine the contents not only of his pockets but also of his valise. An exclamation of satisfaction burst from his lips as he found the objects of his search, which, as he held them up to the dim light of the lamp, it was easy to perceive consisted of valuable jewelry.

As he raised his face toward the lamp for the purpose of examining his booty his false beard fell off and revealed the features of Frederick von Waldberg.

The sleeping man who had been drugged both by means of the brandy and of the cigar which had been offered to him was Pranzini, who over a year later was guillotined for the murder of a demi-mondaine named Marie Regnault, who, together with her maid and the latter's child, were found in her apartment of the Rue Montaigne, slain in identically the same fashion in which Marie Aguetant had been killed two days previous to Pranzini's and Frederick's departure together from Paris. All four victims had been murdered with the same sweeping backward stroke of the knife so graphically described by Pranzini to the alleged grocer.

When the train steamed into Dijon, Frederick gathered up all his belongings and got out.

Pranzini did not awake till after leaving Avignon, and only discovered after his arrival in Marseilles that he had been robbed. Of course, under the circumstances, he was [Pg 198] unable to apply to the police for assistance, for these jewels were those stolen from Marie Aguetant, whom he, Pranzini, had killed, but for whose murder “Prado” suffered death.

Frederick, after leaving Dijon, made his way across country to Bordeaux, and from thence to Madrid, where he pawned the jewels, with the help of a woman of the name of Ximenes.

It was mainly on the evidence adduced by this very woman, to the effect that the jewels in question had been pawned by Linska de Castillon, alias “Prado” (the name which he gave on his arrest), that he was condemned for the murder of Marie Aguetant, which he had not committed, but of which Pranzini alone was guilty.

Pranzini always bore a grudge against l'homme en gris (the man in the gray coat), whose name he did not know, but whom he accused of having been his accomplice in the triple murder of the Rue Montaigne.

Frederick, on the other hand, when the trial of Pranzini took place, recognized in the features of the prisoner those of his traveling companion from whom he had stolen the jewels subsequently identified as those of Marie Aguetant.

But why did he not speak when, later on, his own life was at stake? The only explanation of this mysterious silence is to be found in the last lines of the confession which he intrusted to Louis Berard. They are, word for word, as follows:

“I know that I yet could save myself. Why should I not say the truth, that Pranzini, the assassin of Marie Regnault, was also the slayer of Marie Aguetant, of whose murder I am unjustly accused! My reason for remaining silent and for refusing to sign my recours en grace (appeal for mercy) is that I am heartily sick of life. I am bound, in any case, to be condemned to penal servitude for robbery; a second time I would not escape from Noumea. My life is [Pg 199] destroyed; all my ambitions are dead—I have nothing more to live for in this world. I am happy to leave it. The guillotine, toward which I am going, is a just retribution for other crimes. My sins have found me out.

“(Signed)

Count Frederick von Waldberg.”

Such is the extraordinary history of the man who was guillotined on the 4th of December, 1888, under the alias of “Prado,” and who, having escaped punishment for the innumerable atrocities he had committed, finally suffered death for a crime of which he was innocent.

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Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that references them.
Other corrections:
- p. 36: Cercies changed to Cercles (Cercles de jeu).
- p. 73: Barona changed to Baroda (to visit him at Baroda).
- p. 197: Arignon changed to Avignon (after leaving Avignon).
French words with diacritics appear without. This was not corrected.

A SERVANT OF SATAN.

PREFACE.

PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Transcriber's Note: