Detective Johnson of New Orleans. A tale of love and crime

Front matter

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CHAPTER II. A Good Turn j.nd its Consequences . . 13

CHAPTEE HI.

Challenged. — Bliss and its Eude Awakening 25

CHAPTEE IV.

A Life For a Life — Whose Shall It Be? . 36

CHAPTER V.

A Dastardly Trick and a Pathetic Side Scene 46

CHAPTEE VI.

What Became of the Monet. — A Terrible

CHAPTEE VII.

Frank Streator’s Account of the Duel . 68

CHAPTER VIII.

“ You ARE NOT My Sister, Lea ye Me!” . 79

CHAPTER IX.

A Haven Among Friends 91

CHAPTER X.

Elsie’s Arrival 100

CHAPTER XL

Two Conspirators Get Their Heads Together .

IV

CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE XIL

First Step of the Conspiracy . . . .

CHAPTER XIIL

Unavailing Search

CHAPTER XIV.

On the Scent

CHAPTER XV.

A Eat of Hope Through a Dreary Solitude

CHAPTER XVI.

PoMPEY Returns

CHAPTER XVII.

A Recognition and a Pursuit.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Pursuers Foiled. — More Plotting

CHAPTER XIX.

Again in the Toils . . . . ,

CHAPTER XX.

On Board the “ Girard ” ...

CHAPTER XXL

In Awful Peril . . . . .

CHAPTER XXII.

The Fate of the “ Girard ” .

CHAPTER XXm.

Aid From an Unexpected Source .

CHAPTER XXIV.

Reginald Finds Happiness . . . .

CHAPTER XXV.

A Pair of Matrimonial Surprises .

Page.

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] 81 :

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW ORLEANS.

CHAPTEE 1.

THE START OF A MEMORABLE TRIP.

Twenty minutes to four. At the hour the “ Mabel Girard would start down the river with her valuable cargo of merchandise and her more precious freight of human beings.

The big boat shivered and shook like a ti’emulous thing of life. Dense, impenetrable clouds of smoke poured from three tall smoke-stacks which stood abreast a little aft of the well-house. There was a hissing sound of escaping steam. The deck-hands and some forty wharfnien ran hurriedly to and fro, loading bales, boxes, and barrels on to drays, wheeling the merchandise aboard the steamer, and there unloading it again; two of the steamer^s officers stood by and bawled themselves hoarse with issuing orders.

The passengers who had not already embarked were going aboard in a leisurely fashion, for there was yet more than a quarter of an hour of grace. The “ Girard was one of the most palatial river-boats of her time, and seldom missed a full complement of passengers from her highest starting-point up the Mississippi, St. Paul.

One of the passengers in particular, who stood near the forward gang-plank, seemed in no haste to go aboard, and

DETECTIVE JOHNSO^T OF NEW OKLEANS.

it is with this young man in question that our story has largely to deal.

Eeginald Prentiss was a typical young Southern gentle" man of the ante-bellum period, tall, graceful, slender and well-formed, with a dark olive skin, jet-black hair, and expressive blue eyes, but without the faintest suspicion of beard or mustache.

He could not have been over eight-and-twenty and he dressed fastidiously in the neatest fashion of the period. As he walked about on the dock, one could see at a glance the easy and unrestrained carriage which everywhere betokens the gentleman to the manor born.

Eeginald^s home was on the shores of one of the numerous bayous to be found on the gulf coast near the Mississippi's delta. With his mother he was part owner of one of the largest Louisiana sugar plantations, which required the services of fully eight hundred slaves to keep it in running order. Prentiss, 'pire, had died a dozen years ago, and left to his widow and son this magnificent estate, in^ itself a handsome and unfailing fortune.

The Christmas holidays were approaching, and this glorious season was to be as fully observed as usual in the Prentiss family; but yule-tide once past, Eeginald was resolved to give the stately old mansion over into the hands of carpenters. It was to secure the larger portion of the lumber and building materials needed in the construction that the young Louisianian had come to St. Paul at a season of the year so unpropitious to warm-blooded Southerners.

Ugh!^^ he muttered, turning his coat-collar up

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW ORLEANS.

around his neck, as a gust of wind swept down the wharf from the city, and seemed to seek him out among the piles of merchandise. “ Thank Heaven, twenty-four hours will see me in warmer latitudes, and then the time will pass more pleasantly until I am in that good old home once more. But where can Elsie be?’^

Elsie was a favorite cousin of his, studying at a seminary near St. Paul, who always spent the holidays at the Prentiss homestead in Louisiana. She had agreed to meet him at the boat, but so far Eeginald had not seen anything of the young lady.

At last! Yes, she was coming. The sun was near the horizon, and already the day had begun to darken, but despite the semi-gloom he thought there could be no mistake. The petite figure and brisk, jaunty walk could belong to none other than Elsie Prentiss.

“ I have been waiting for you ever so long,^^ he said, stepping forward and raising his hat, and this biting northern wind is really —

He went no further. The young lady looked sharply at him, but without more than a momentary pause in her gait she tripped lightly over the gang-plank. Eeginald saw that he had made a mistake; the young lady certainly was not Elsie.

Who, then, was she?

‘ As the young lady turned for a moment to glance at the Southerner, he saw a face infinitely more beautiful than that of his pretty cousin Elsie, and of a radically different style of loveliness. Whereas Miss Prentiss had the typical Southern complexion and graces, the unknovji beauty

DETECTIVE JOHNSOIST OF NEW ORLEANS.

whom he had so accosted was a pronounced blonde, with the prettiest of golden hair and the delicate pink-andwhite face of her type.

“ That^s not Elsie, I’ll be bound,” muttered Prentiss; “ but she is as much more beautiful as day is lighter than night. I wonder who she is? May the fates will it that she and I are fellow-passengers the whole length of the river, ”

He stood at the shore end of the main gangway-plank and gazed in upon the main-deck, in the hope that she would emerge from the ladies’ cabin. See her again he must and would, even if only once and at a distance. The prosaic occupation of watching his lumber loaded on to the “ Girard’s ” forward deck had lost its interest; he had ears and eyes only for this peerless woman, the sight of whom had driven all else out of his mind.

“ Eeally, am I to be treated in this way by my nearest aud dearest relative?” came in petulant tones from behind him.

“ Oh, it’s you, Elsie!” said Eeginald, absent-mindedly, as he t limed and recognized his interlocutor.

“ Yes, it’s I, Elsie,” the girl answered, with amusing indignation, “ and I had to speak to you three times before you would look at me. I declare, Eeggy, you’re looking in there again, and you don’t understand a word I am saying to you. ”

“ Yes, 1 do,” answered the young man, half turning to his pretty cousin, ‘‘ but — ”

“ There! 1 thought I’d secured your attention at last, but you are gazing into the inmost depths of that horrid

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OE NEW ORLEANS.

old steamer again. Eeggy, you really act as if you were looking into Paradise.

“ Pve had a glimpse of it,^’ Prentiss answered^ eagerly; “ and^ oh, cousin, I want you to use your wonian^s wit in helping me. How opportune that you are here — and what a beauty she is!^^

Elsie pouted.

‘‘ So that’s the secret of your incivility to me?” she demanded, sarcastically. “ Why is it, 1 wonder, that directly a man falls in love he so completely ignores the rest of that happy creature’s sex?^’

“ You seem jealous, Elsie,” said her cousin, amusedly, partly turning toward her, but not for a moment relinquishing his watch on the steamer’s cabin.

“And why shouldn’t 1 be?” she demanded. “Howdo you know, Peggy, that I’ve not picked you out for myself? Cousins can marry, you know.”

“ But you would not be so absurd, dear cousin.”

“ And yet you doubtless exjiect that some woman will love you madly. Oh, you men are so consistent!”

“ But we’ve known each other ever since we were mere babies,” Prentiss observed, good-humoredly.

“And that’s a good and sufficient reason why you. shouldn’t want to marry me? Thank you, Peggy. I am. going aboard now. Why do you stand shivering in the^ cold yourself? Old Boreas has positively turned your nose, blue.”

“ Peally, I — 1 don’t know why 1 am standing here,” returned the young man, confusedly, offering his arm to his cousin. The absurdity of his standing at the gang-

DETECTIVE JOHNSOIST OF NEW OKLEANS.

plank, when his chances of seeing the unknown beauty would have been much better if he had gone aboard, struck Prentiss with the force of a sudden conviction.

“ Who is your divinity, Eeggy?^^ Elsie complacently demanded, when he had seen her comfortably seated in the upper saloon.

“My — er — what?’^ he queried, sharply, not altogether liking her question.

“ Your divinity, she repeated; “ the young female person who has so completely insnared you as to make you impervious to the ties of relationship. Of course, sarcastically, “ you won^t try to make me believe it was merely a beautiful horse. Horses don^t go aboard at this end of the boat.'’ ^

“ A horse !’^ Reginald repeated, scornfully, glaring under lifted eyebrows at his pretty cousin. “ No, no, Elsie, the most beautiful woman in the South.

“But this is the North, dear; you forget that you are in St. Paul/^

“ No woman as beautiful as she is could come from any section but the South — or the Orient, Reginald declared, with the positiveness of conviction.

“ She is dark, then, like yourself— and me?^^ demurely.

“ No, cousin; as bright and beautiful and fair as one of our summer days; the perfection of loveliness in woman, a vision worthy of a Byron ^s dream, a —

“ Please, Mr. Reginald Prentiss, where is my place in the presence of this peerless houri.^^^ Elsie interrupted, with a teasing assumption of petulance.

“ Cousin, the young man responded, loftily, “ you are

DETECTIVE JOHITSOlSr OF KEW ORLEANS.

getting unbearably sarcastic — or jealous — 1 don^t know which. I am going now to look after your baggage. How much is there?’’

Four trunks.”

Is that all?”

“ Isn’t that enough?”

“ For a two weeks’ sojourn? I should say emphatically that it was. I coukl carry enough for two men in one trunk.”

“ Men are so different/’ she answered.

“ Yes, cousin; not so vain of personal appearance. Au revoirA^

Prentiss made his way to the main-deck below, intending to go ashore. As he reached the after gangway, he saw there was at least a fathom of space between the boat and the wharf. The gang-plank had already been pulled ashore, and, as he paused a second, he heard the clang of the pilot’s bell in the engine-room. There was a rumbling motion that made the boat quiver slightly; the sound of escaping steam ceased suddenly, and the dock appeared slowly to recede. He had been too late to go ashore, and there was only a chance that the baggage in his charge was aboard.

“ The forward part is too crammed with freight to find anything there,” he soliloquized. “ I think I’d best have a smoke before going back to Elsie to confess that I don’t know whether her trunks are aboard or not.”

He lighted a weed and stepped outside on the outer main-deck, though the wind was sweeping down the river with a frigidity that threa^tened to chill him to the mar-

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW ORLEANS.

rov\^. Before the cigar was half finished, he threw it away and gave up the effort to smoke in disgust. He deterniim d to go back to Elsie and invoke her aid in getting acquainted with the beautiful unknown one.

xVccordingly, Prentiss ascended the broad flight of stairs and made his way to the spot where he had left his cousin. He soon found her, but she was not alone. There was a second young lady present, and, though her back was turned to him, his heart began to beat violently as soon as he spied her.

Elsie caught sight of him, and springing for\/ard, she cried :

“ Oh, Peggy, dear, Fm glad you\e come at last, 1 want to introduce you to my dearest friend.

The second young lady turned as Elsie spoke. The Southerner’s heart beat as if it would suffocate him. Elsie^s friend was, indeed, the unknown beauty who had captivated him.

“ She’s coming to spend the holidays with us,” Miss Prentiss added.

Reginald bowed awkwardly.

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW ORLEANS.

CHAPTER IL

A GOOD TURN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

^‘Oh! pardon me, Eeggy/^ Miss Prentiss added suddenly, with the dashing affability of a school-girl, “ Pve been thoughtless enough to overlook the necessity of an introduction. Dianne, my dear, permit me to present my cousin, Mr. Reginald Prentiss. Reggy, my best and truest school friend. Miss Lorraine.

Reginald bowed less constrainedly now, and Miss Lorraine offered him the tips of a little gloved hand, a special favor of courtesy granted in recognition of his relationship with her school chum. The young man treated both ladies with the courteous deference and attention which marks the Southern gentleman when seen at his best.

There was a flush of happy satisfaction on his face which Elsie noticed, and she readily comprehended the situation.

“ Oh, 1 do believe, Dianne, dear,^^ she began impulsively, “ that you are the young lady Reggy was talking to me about. He —

There was a look of mischievous malice in her eves as she

t/

said this, but she got no further, for Prentiss shot a keen covert glance of warning at his audacious cousin and turned off his threatened expose of his feelings by interjecting hastily:

“Yes, indeed, Miss Lorraine, 1 have been deeply annoyed and embarrassed by a painful mistake which 1 made

DETECTIVE JOnKSOJ^" OE KEW OBLEANS.

a little while ago. I believe you are the lady whom 1 intercepted and spoke to on the wharf.

“ I believe you did, sir/^ returned Miss Lorraine, surveying him archly.

“ It was wholly unintentional, I assure you/^

Indeed, curiously.

“ I mean. Miss Lorraine,^^ said Prentiss, correcting himself, with some accession of color to his face, “ that it was altogether a mistake. 1 thought when I first beheld you that you were Elsie.

“ There is some resemblance, to be sure,’^ said Dianne, leniently; and so the matter was dropped. A word given quietly aside to Miss Prentiss made her cousin feel confident that she would not again attempt to betray his infatuation in his presence, but the young man was by no means sure that she would refrain from it in his absence.

Eeginald Prentiss, after nearly thirty years of bachelorhood, serene and undisturbed by any intense longing for feminine participation of his many joys and few sorrows, had at last become deeply infatuated with a mere school-girl in years. Dianne could not have been more than eighteen, he felt, as he gazed upon her young, fresh, rosy face and girlish form; but, despite what seemed to him a great disparity in their ages, he was prepared to throw himself at her feet with his three decades of life, and with it, whatever the future held in store for him— whatever it might bring him besides the radiant creature who had crossed his path hardly an hour before.

It was love at first sight on his part, and a deej), lasting love too. Wiseacres may sneer at the existence of such in-

DETECTIVE JOHKSOK OF KEW ORLEANS.

stantaneous passion; indeed, the}" always have sneered, and always will; but in this the wiseacres have always been wrong, and always will be. With such impulsive natures as that which possessed Reginald Prentiss, love, when it does come, must date from the first contact with the loved one, though it grows more intense as it progresses. When he first encountered her at the boat landing he had felt a thrill responsive to her being. The first words she uttered to him in the upper saloon of the steamboat had forged and bound his fetters, and he felt himself her slave.

And Dianne? Was she aware of his suddenly conceived devotions? Did she respond, ever so little, to his love?

Had young Prentiss been as familiar with the ways of women as he was with most of the ways of the world, he might have sufficiently discovered her nature to have perceived that she could love with the same intensity that stirred the depths of his own nature now for the first time.

Did she care for him? Did she even like him? These questions unceasingly presented themselves to his mind.

’ He was uneasy in Dianne^s presence. The two girls chatted unrestrainedly, addressing themselves to him with no greater frequency than a recognition of his presence demanded. He was grateful to Elsie for thus leaving hiui to himself for the time being, for it gave him opportunity to covertly study his divinity. More than that, it occurred to him to observe whether his silence and assumed moodiness appeared to pique her.

Apparently, Miss Lorraine did notice his silence, for, after the lapse of a few minutes, during which the young

DETECTiYE JOHNSON OF KEW ORLEANS.

ladies kept a running fire of questions, ansvvers and sallies, the divinity turned to him with:

‘‘ You must find us stupid company, Mr. Prentiss. You haven’t said a word for a quarter of an hour. Are you usually so taciturn?”

“ I have never attended a seminary, you know,” he answered evasively, not knowing what to say, and instinctively disliking to talk about himself.

But Dianne put on an air of great dignity.

“ Then, Mr. Prentiss,” she said, teasingly, ‘‘ you assume that all seminary girls are necessarily voluble. ”

“ I didn’t say that,” Reginald protested.

“ But you meant it, did you not?”

“ By no means; I merely intended to—”

Intended to say that you are moody and unsociable, as you always are,” put in Elsie, who could not from the nature of things keep .quiet more than a few moments at a time.

“ You know better than that, cousin,” he answered, reproachfully; “ I am not always unsociable; never intentionally so with ladies.”

Elsie’s only answer was a defiant shake of her head, as if she were routed, but not convinced.

But after that things went more smoothly. In some W’ay or other, Reginald soon found himself the central figure in the conversation that followed. ♦ The time passed so quickly that none of the trio could believe their ears when, at seven o’clock, the clanging of a gong in the hands of an ebony-hued darky proclaimed the fact that dinner was served in the main saloon under the deck. Reginald es-

DETECTIVE JOHKSOK OF NEW ORLEANS.

corted the ladies to the table, giving his divinity the seat of

honor on his right. Awake to the great responsibility of

his temporary position as Dianne^s provider and protector,

he did all he could to ingratiate himself in the little beauty’s favor. Apparently with considerable success, too, for she attended all his remarks and attempts at appropriate conversation with a closeness that flattered him.

Prentiss was exultant at the ease with which he found himself becoming Dianne’s friend. He fancied that it was all very plain sailing, and promised himself a trip to New Orleans that should be one long dream of ideal courtship, hasty though its inception had been. In his calculations, the young man entirely ignored his cousin; but Elsie soon made herself felt, and with crushing effect. As the trio were leaving the table to go above, that "^oung lady whispered in his ear:

“ Keggy, dear, if you want to go about this in the right way, don’t spoil your chances at the outset. Leave us, and don’t come back until you’ve had time to smoke a cigar or two. If she sees too much of you in the first evening it may prejudice your chances in the end.”

The young man hesitated. The proposition was not pleasing to his vanity.

“ Then you understand — ” he began.

“ That she is the divinity you were raving about,” Elsie finished, with a significant look, and in tones that did not go above a whisper. “ Yes, dear, and may you succeed; she’s a noble girl.”

“ God bless you, Elsie,” murmured Prentiss, squeezing his cousin’s little hand with a grateful pressure. And, ex"

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW ORLEANS.

casing himself to Dianne, who had not, of course, heard a word of the whispered conversation, and who did not appear to notice it, he left the ladies where he had first found them together, in the upper saloon.

There was a good-sized cabin forward on the lower deck, and in those days before the war, when gambling was freely tolerated on the Mississippi Eiver boats the forward apartment was always well filled with knights of the green cloth, who did a thriving business with greenhorns. The bar, too, was open at all hours, and scenes of debauchery that would hardly be credited in this age were then enacted day and night.

Eeginald Prentiss, like most of the Southern planters of that time, was a frequent traveler on the river boats, and to him this was all an old story. He was not surprised when he entered the forward saloon to find that at every one of the half score of tables a game was in full blast.

Poker appeared to be the predominant game, but in his slow promenade through the apartment Eeginald saw three or four faro “ layouts, for this latter game had slowly but surely gained a hold on the patrons of the Mississippi boats.

The element of chance was even stronger in this latter game than in poker, and all the extravagant combinations which were possible at the time lent more zest to some minds than the stereotyped game of “ draw.^^

The stakes were high on every table, and whisky — good, bad, indijfferent, and worse than indifferent — was being imbibed freely by two thirds of the players and spectators. A few of the more opulent — or. more lucky, which amount-

DETECTIVE JOHKSOH OF NEW ORLEANS.

ed to very much the same thing — were emptying bottles of champagne with a recklessness that bespoke big losses — and colossal heads the next morning.

“ I kin fix yo% sah^ berry soon, if yo^ like to play/^ a grinning colored attendant whispered in Eeginald^s ear.

But the young man had no desire to play, and the darky lost the expected tip.

Prentisses eye had wandered to a group that sat at one of the furthermost tables.

There were four men in the party. Two, in appearance, were typical slave-drivers, men who bought and sold negroes on speculation. A third was a strikingly handsome young man, with a clear olive skin and the darkest of hair and eyes. His features were finely chiseled and his pose and bearing were of an ultra-dignified order. His clothes were of the finest texture and make, and altogether this young man had every appearance of being a gentleman born. ^

Only one thing marred the prepossessing appearance of this young stranger at the table. His watch chain and the rings which glittered on several fingers were very massive, altogether too loud.

A taste for such ponderous jewelry, and under such circumstances, clearly bespoke the confirmed gambler to the observant man of the world. That this was true in this instance there could be no doubt, for he handled the cards

with the utmost sang froid and pocketed the stakes when he won with an air of placid unconcern.

And that he did win much more frequently than anyone else at the table was plain to the most listless observer.

DETECTIVE JOHKSOET OF KEW ORLEAl^S.

But it was neither of the three we have mentioned who interested Eeginald Prentiss particularly.

The fourth man in the game would have attracted the attention of an experienced on-looker much more readily than either of the other players. He was a youngs, bojdshlooking fellow with sunny hair, clear blue eyes, and a face so open and frank that any one would have trusted in him on first sight. Shown in plain relief against his three companions this youth seemed like a rose among thorns.

“ More like the man who fell among thieves,’^ muttered Prentiss as the former simile came into his mind.

There was something strikingly familiar in the face of this handsome boy, who could not have been more than twenty years of age. The likeness to some one he had seen before haunted Eeginald. It was some time before Iris re*

creant memory could locate the object of his fixed attention.

“ It must be — yes, it is Frank Streatoi',^^ Eeginald finally decided, and became more interested than ever in the game.

It was evident that Streator was losing badly, and Prentiss became suspicious that the other three were leagued

against him.

The Streators had a plantation in Louisiana, not far for the Prentiss lands. Though Eeginald had not seen Frank for several years, they had once been intimate friends, after the fashion of large boy and small boy.

Eeginald moved around slowly, in order not to^attract attention to his movements, and finally gained a position w^hence he could overlook the cards held by the dark young stranger.

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW OKLEANS.

But the other was a careful player, who knew better than to take too many risks at cheating in the days of ready pistols and bowie-knives. At last, however, Eeginald saw the opportunity for which he was watching. It came about in this manner:

The young gambler, he of the fastidious dress and massive jewelry, on the first draw of the new hand, secured a pair of aces, a pair of fours and a six spot. Discarding all but the aces, he drew again. A third ace and two useless cards were the result. He now held three aces.

Streator, indiscreet and much excited, ‘‘ raised several times, until over $1,000 were on the table.

He must hold good cards, thought Eeginald; now let us see if he will win.

But he who held the three aces seemed not a particle disconcerted. Carelessly he paid in his wagers, and seemed to have no anxiety as to the result. Finally he called the boy.

Four kings cried Streator, fiushed and exultant.

‘‘ That goes ahead of me,^^ said one of the drivers calmly, throwing his cards down upon the table.

“ And ahead of me, too,^^ drawled the second driver in the same indifferent manner, not taking the trouble to show his hand.

“ Good!^^ muttered Eeginald under his breath.

But, with his eyes fastened attentively upon the movements of the black-haired gambler, he was prepared for what followed.

The latter, with a movement so quick as to almost escape detection, dropped one of his useless cards, picked up a

DETECTIVE JOHNSON OF NEW OKLEANS.

fourth ace from the seat of the chair in which he sat, and threw down the quartet of single spots.

“ Lost!^^ groaned Streator. ‘‘ A little more of this will ruin me.

But the apparent winner did not seem to hear him, and nonchalantly stretched forth his hand to gather in the pile of bank-notes and gold.

Hold! On your life don’t touch that money!”

The gambler’s self-possession deserted him; but for a moment only. He turned apprehensively toward the speaker, and seemed to cower, but immediately regained his composure.

That moment, however, had sufficed for Eeginald Prentiss to reach the table at a single bound, and seize the stakes from beneath the hands of the man who had so fraudulently won them.

“ You have dared to interfere, sir,” said the gambler, haughtily, as soon as he had recovered from his momentary fear.

“ I have,” thundered Reginald, “ for you have dared to cheat a friend of mine.”

“ I have dared to cheat?” reiterated the gambler with a, fine simulation of scornful contempt.

“ Yes,” responded Prentiss, and you are an arrant knave. You are sitting on some extra cards this minute.

I saw you pick that fourth ace out from under your leg.”

Fully two score of men had crowded around the table by this time, and excitement was running high.

“ Pull him out of the chair!” shouted one man.

“ Shoot him!” suggested another.

DETECTIVE JOHNSOJST OF NEW ORLEANS.

“ Lynch him!^^ prompted a third.

But the exposed swindler paid no attention to these threats.

Slowly and coolly drawing a revolver from his pocket he leveled it at Eeginald^s head.

Put that money down. One!^^ he commanded in low tones, but there was not a tremor in his voice.

Eeginald quietly pocketed the money and folded his arms across his breast. In his calm, defiant look there was no tinge of fear.

“ Put that money down. Two!^^

Every one present felt that a tragedy was about to be enacted, yet no one offered to interfere. There was a breathless silence, and all seemed spell-bound.

“ Put it down. Th —

But that three was never counted.