Read Ebook: The Black Cat Vol. I No. 5 February 1896 by Various

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tions return."

Burwell stormed, raged, and pleaded; but it availed nothing. The Secretary was inexorable, and yet he positively refused to throw any light upon the causes of this monstrous injustice.

"Here is your card," he said, handing him a large envelope closed with the seal of Legation. "I advise you to burn it and never refer to the matter again."

That night the ill-fated man took the train for London, his heart consumed by hatred for the whole French nation, together with a burning desire for vengeance. He wired his wife to meet him at the station, and for a long time debated with himself whether he should at once tell her the sickening truth. In the end he decided that it was better to keep silent. No sooner, however, had she seen him than her woman's instinct told her that he was laboring under some mental strain. And he saw in a moment that to withhold from her his burning secret was impossible, especially when she began to talk of the trip they had planned through France. Of course no trivial reason would satisfy her for his refusal to make this trip, since they had been looking forward to it for years; and yet it was impossible now for him to set foot on French soil.

So he finally told her the whole story, she laughing and weeping in turn. To her, as to him, it seemed incredible that such overwhelming disasters could have grown out of so small a cause, and, being a fluent French scholar, she demanded a sight of the fatal piece of pasteboard. In vain her husband tried to divert her by proposing a trip through Italy. She would consent to nothing until she had seen the mysterious card which Burwell was now convinced he ought long ago to have destroyed. After refusing for awhile to let her see it, he finally yielded. But, although he had learned to dread the consequences of showing that cursed card, he was little prepared for what followed. She read it, turned pale, gasped for breath, and nearly fell to the floor.

"I told you not to read it," he said; and then, growing tender at the sight of her distress, he took her hand in his and begged her to be calm. "At least tell me what the thing means," he said. "We can bear it together; you surely can trust me."

But she, as if stung by rage, pushed him from her and declared, in a tone such as he had never heard from her before, that never, never again would she live with him. "You are a monster!" she exclaimed. And those were the last words he heard from her lips.

Failing utterly in all efforts at reconciliation, the half-crazed man took the first steamer for New York, having suffered in scarcely a fortnight more than in all his previous life. His whole pleasure trip had been ruined, he had failed to consummate important business arrangements, and now he saw his home broken up and his happiness ruined. During the voyage he scarcely left his stateroom, but lay there prostrated with agony. In this black despondency the one thing that sustained him was the thought of meeting his partner, Jack Evelyth, the friend of his boyhood, the sharer of his success, the bravest, most loyal fellow in the world. In the face of even the most damning circumstances, he felt that Evelyth's rugged common sense would evolve some way of escape from this hideous nightmare. Upon landing at New York he hardly waited for the gang-plank to be lowered before he rushed on shore and grasped the hand of his partner, who was waiting on the wharf.

"Jack," was his first word, "I am in dreadful trouble, and you are the only man in the world who can help me."

An hour later Burwell sat at his friend's dinner table, talking over the situation.

Evelyth was all kindness, and several times as he listened to Burwell's story his eyes filled with tears.

"It does not seem possible, Richard," he said, "that such things can be; but I will stand by you; we will fight it out together. But we cannot strike in the dark. Let me see this card."

"There is the damned thing," Burwell said, throwing it on the table.

Evelyth opened the envelope, took out the card, and fixed his eyes on the sprawling purple characters.

"Can you read it?" Burwell asked excitedly.

"Perfectly," his partner said. The next moment he turned pale, and his voice broke. Then he clasped the tortured man's hand in his with a strong grip. "Richard," he said slowly, "if my only child had been brought here dead it would not have caused me more sorrow than this does. You have brought me the worst news one man could bring another."

His agitation and genuine suffering affected Burwell like a death sentence.

"Speak, man," he cried; "do not spare me. I can bear anything rather than this awful uncertainty. Tell me what the card means."

Evelyth took a swallow of brandy and sat with head bent on his clasped hands.

"No, I can't do it; there are some things a man must not do."

Then he was silent again, his brows knitted. Finally he said solemnly:--

"No, I can't see any other way out of it. We have been true to each other all our lives; we have worked together and looked forward to never separating. I would rather fail and die than see this happen. But we have got to separate, old friend; we have got to separate."

They sat there talking until late into the night. But nothing that Burwell could do or say availed against his friend's decision. There was nothing for it but that Evelyth should buy his partner's share of the business or that Burwell buy out the other. The man was more than fair in the financial proposition he made; he was generous, as he always had been, but his determination was inflexible; the two must separate. And they did.

With his old partner's desertion, it seemed to Burwell that the world was leagued against him. It was only three weeks from the day on which he had received the mysterious card; yet in that time he had lost all that he valued in the world,--wife, friends, and business. What next to do with the fatal card was the sickening problem that now possessed him.

He dared not show it; yet he dared not destroy it. He loathed it; yet he could not let it go from his possession. Upon returning to his house he locked the accursed thing away in his safe as if it had been a package of dynamite or a bottle of deadly poison. Yet not a day passed that he did not open the drawer where the thing was kept and scan with loathing the mysterious purple scrawl.

In desperation he finally made up his mind to take up the study of the language in which the hateful thing was written. And still he dreaded the approach of the day when he should decipher its awful meaning.

One afternoon, less than a week after his arrival in New York, as he was crossing Twenty-third Street on the way to his French teacher, he saw a carriage rolling up Broadway. In the carriage was a face that caught his attention like a flash. As he looked again he recognized the woman who had been the cause of his undoing. Instantly he sprang into another cab and ordered the driver to follow after. He found the house where she was living. He called there several times; but always received the same reply, that she was too much engaged to see any one. Next he was told that she was ill, and on the following day the servant said she was much worse. Three physicians had been summoned in consultation. He sought out one of these and told him it was a matter of life or death that he see this woman. The doctor was a kindly man and promised to assist him. Through his influence, it came about that on that very night Burwell stood by the bedside of this mysterious woman. She was beautiful still, though her face was worn with illness.

"Yes," she murmured, after a moment's study of his face; and he noted with relief that she spoke English.

"Then, for God's sake, tell me, what does it all mean?" he gasped, quivering with excitement.

"I gave you the card because I wanted you to--to--"

Here a terrible spasm of coughing shook her whole body, and she fell back exhausted.

An agonizing despair tugged at Burwell's heart. Frantically snatching the card from its envelope, he held it close to the woman's face.

"Tell me! Tell me!"

With a supreme effort, the pale figure slowly raised itself on the pillow, its fingers clutching at the counterpane.

Then the sunken eyes fluttered--forced themselves open--and stared in stony amazement upon the fatal card, while the trembling lips moved noiselessly, as if in an attempt to speak. As Burwell, choking with eagerness, bent his head slowly to hers, a suggestion of a smile flickered across the woman's face. Again the mouth quivered, the man's head bent nearer and nearer to hers, his eyes riveted upon the lips. Then, as if to aid her in deciphering the mystery, he turned his eyes to the card.

With a cry of horror he sprang to his feet, his eyeballs starting from their sockets. Almost at the same moment the woman fell heavily upon the pillow.

Every vestige of the writing had faded! The card was blank!

The woman lay there dead.

Tang-u.

BY LAWRENCE E. ADAMS.

Among the most interesting souvenirs that Marston, the naval officer, brought from the Orient was a curious portrait, evidently the work of a native artist, painted in brilliant colors on a panel of foreign wood. More striking than the workmanship of the portrait, however, was its subject, a small Chinese boy, apparently not more than ten or twelve years of age, but wearing the uniform of a high Japanese naval officer, and adorned with a whole string of jeweled decorations.

Here is the history of the portrait:

When the Japanese flagship steamed out of the harbor of Canton on the day that war was formally declared between Japan and China, it carried one human being whose name was not on the ship's rolls,--and he belonged to the enemy. He became a passenger under the following circumstances: Just before the ship weighed anchor a small steam launch was sent back for the commander and superior officers, who had been detained until late. Among these officers were three Americans, all graduates of the Annapolis academy, who had been engaged by the Japanese government as advisers during the coming hostilities. As the little launch wormed its way through the maze of picturesque craft and sampans,--the curious little Chinese house-boats,--which crowded the bay, the eyes of the American officers were riveted by a curious sight. To the top of a wooden stake to which a sampan was moored a little Chinese boy clung, swaying to and fro, eyeing delightedly the steam launch as it shot through the water. In his anxiety to see the fun, however, he had disregarded the weakness of this reedlike support, which, when a passing sampan collided with it, suddenly broke off short, plunging the little chap into the water. At first the launch's passengers paid slight attention to the accident, knowing that these little natives are as much at home in the water as on shore. Indifference, however, gave way to concern when the child's shrill cry for help rang through the air, followed by the mad efforts of every sampan-man within sight to get away from the drowning boy, instead of to him. It was now evident that the little fellow had become entangled in a floating coil of rope, and that his drowning was a matter of a few seconds; yet not one of the Chinese boatmen but watched from a distance and in silence the small hero's frantic struggles for life. Indeed, the little Mongolian was already disappearing in the waters of the bay when the steam launch, at the signal of the commander, veered in its course, and a strong arm snatched the little body from the waves. As for the sampan-men, they watched the rescue with cries of amazement. This was because of the curious law existing in certain provinces of China that whosoever saves a life, the rescued one may lawfully look to the rescuer for support forever after. It is plain that this barbaric edict virtually puts a premium on death; but the explanation lies in the fatalistic religion, which holds that whenever a man falls into peril it is by the express wish and will of the gods, and that to rescue him is to obstruct their just decrees.

Meantime the officers, who had arrived on shipboard with their prot?g? before it had occurred to them to plan for his disposal, were examining their find as though he had been a new and curious toy. To send him back to shore was impossible, as they were already steaming out of the harbor. The only course, then, was to keep him on board, at least during the voyage to Japan, a plan rendered all the easier by the fact that the little heathen was, according to his broken Japanese, both homeless and friendless.

But if the boy had seemed a nuisance in prospect, he was anything but that in reality. Shrewd as any Bowery ragamuffin, the little fellow's alert ways and quick wits were the unfailing delight of the three American officers. More imitative, even, than the Japanese, he picked up their language and customs with such incredible ease that in a few days he was more Japanese than any subject of the Mikado. Indeed, before many weeks had passed, the entire crew was accustomed to the curious spectacle of one of the enemy enjoying the most marked attention and hospitality that the ship could afford.

Now that he could no longer exercise his strange gift in his accustomed way, Tang-u would often amuse himself by standing for hours on the deck, peering out through the mist or the darkness in search of things hidden to common eyes. Indeed, among the Americans he soon became known as the "kid with the telescopic eye," while the commander, on various occasions, allowed him to accompany the men in the lookout, where he discovered objects often in advance of the field-glass. Even the dark waters of the ocean were not proof against the vision of the little heathen, whose bright eyes would detect curious fish as they swam around the ship, many feet below the surface; while a fog that blinded the ordinary eye proved no obstacle to his keen sight. Before long every one came to the conclusion that a boy whose eye was equal to a combined field-glass and search-light was a valuable addition to a modern warship; and on more than one occasion during the months of the war the little Chinaman's discernment was appealed to as gravely as though he had been thirty years old and a Japanese officer, instead of a ten-year-old Chinaman.

On one occasion, indeed, Tang-u's sixth sense made him for five minutes the ship's commander.

It was late in the evening before the memorable engagement of Port Arthur. The flagship, which, having passed unscathed through months of war, had been recently ordered to this stronghold, had just anchored in the harbor, and preparations were making for the night's defense. The torpedo net had not yet been lowered, but the whole ship resounded with the bustle and hurry of preparations for what every one felt would be the most decisive battle of the war. Meantime Tang-u stood alone near the bow, peering out through the darkness, as was his custom upon arriving in a strange place, in search of some new and interesting sight. Suddenly, above the confusion, there rang out a shrill little scream, and Tang-u, with his eyes bulging from his head, rushed towards the admiral, and, pointing out to sea, frantically shrieked: "Tor-pee-to! tor-pee-to!!"

Instantly every eye followed the direction of the tiny finger. The sea looked unruffled. Not a soul on the deck, even by straining his vision to the utmost, could verify Tang-u's cry. Yet so accustomed had they become to relying upon the little fellow's keen sight that the admiral gave instant orders to lower the net. In a moment there was a sound of hurrying feet, a hundred hands were raised to the ropes, and the great net fell into place. Before the splash of the falling net had died away, there was a thundering explosion, and a tremendous upheaval of water, like that of a mighty geyser, shook the huge ship from bow to stern. It was indeed a torpedo that Tang-u's keen eyes had detected far away through the approaching night. But swiftly as it came, the boy's marvelous vision had been swifter. The well-aimed missile of destruction, that in a moment more would have destroyed the flower of the Japanese navy, had, in coming in contact with the netting, exploded harmlessly, flooding the deck with water. The great warship with over three hundred souls had been saved from annihilation,--and by one of the enemy.

A few months later, when Tang-u's exploit was brought to the notice of the Mikado, that dignitary conferred upon the little Chinese rat-catcher the rank of honorary admiral in the Japanese navy.

And it was in this way that a heathen nation furnished the youngest naval hero in existence.

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