Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1912 — PHANTOM OF THE OPERA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

by Gaston Leroux

i •:. Author' o/® ■ v-r : v TrtC • MYSTERY •OP • THE • YELLOW ROOMa net TnCPERPUMCOPTttE LADY- INbIACK--111ustratu'on&by Af-G-jfcsGG/nsjr-Copyright /g// Ay 7~/?& Sob&s Af&rr/// Company

synopsis. Consternation ta caused on the last night that the Opera is managed by Deblenne and Pollgnjr because of the appearance of a ghost, paid to have been In evidence on several previous occasions. Christine Daae, a member of the-opera company. Is called upon to fill a very important part and scores a great success. Count de Chagny and his brother Raoul are among those who applaud the singer. Raoul trie* to see Christine In the dressing room, but is unable to do so and later discovers that some one is making love to her. She emerges alone, and upon entering the room he finds It empty. While the farewell ceremony for the retiring managers Is going on, the Opera Ghost appears and Informs the pew masagers that Box No. S Is reserved for -him. Box No. 5 Is sold with disastrous results. The managers receive a letter from the Opera Ghost calling attention to the error. Christine Daae writes Raoul that she has gone to visit the grave of her father. He goes also, and in the night follows her to the church. Wonderful violin music Is heard. Raoul visits a graveyard. Raoul is found next morning almost frosen. Moncharmln and Richard investigate Box No. A and decide to see the performance of "Faust" from front seats of that box. Carlottsu who sings the leading.part in "Faust,” is warned to v give the part to Christine. Carlotta refusing, loses her voice In the middle of a song and the main chandelier crashes _ down, killing a woman and wounding many. Raoul searches for Christine, who has disappeared. He sees her at last, but does not speak, and later a note is received from her making an appointment for a masked ball. Raoul meets Christine at the balL He sees a person In the disguise of Red Death. He hears her conversing with some one whom she calls Erik. Raoul visits Christine and tells her he knows the, name of the unseen man whom she calls the Angel of Music. Christine and Raoul become secretly engaged prior to a polar expedition that Raoul is to make, Christine relates a strange adventure with the unseen Erik and promises to run awgywlth Raoul Raoul announces his intention of marrying Christine, which displeases Philippe. In the midst of a performance the stage is enveloped In darkness and Christine disappears. No trace of her Is fouhd. Moncharmln and Richard behave strangely. Raoul searches madly for the missing singer. The Opera Ghost demands the first installment of his allowance, and when It Is left at an appointed place the sum mypterlously disappears. Raoul goes In search of Christine. He meets a mysterious person known a* the Persian. The Persian plans to aid Raoul in' locating Christine and they gain access to a secret chamber. The two find themselves in a passageway which they expect will lead to where Christine has undoubtedly been carried by Erik. The Persian knows Erik to have been one of the contractors who built the Opera. Also that while the work was Ir progress there was built a secret torture chamber beneath the structure. From this chamber Raoul and the Persian hear Erik and Christine conversing Erik misses a bag containing valuable kevs. Christine looks into the chamber and assures Erik that there is no on# there. She discovers that he is a ventriloquist. Erik and the Persian are almost overcome by the horrors of this room, and while searching for means of release they come upon a barrel of gunpowder. CHAPTER XXV. (Continued.) At last, I found the staircase. But, suddenly 1 drew myself up on the first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind: "What Is the time?" Ah, what was the time? . . . For, after all, eleven o’clock tomorrow evening might, be now, might be this very moment! Who could tell us the time? We seemed to have been imprisoned in that bell for days and days ... for years . . since the beginning of the world. Perhaps we should be blown up then and there! Ah, a sound! A crack!, "Did you hear that? . . . There, in the corner . . . good heavens! . . . Like a sound of machinery! . . . Again! ... Oh, for a light! . s . Perhaps It’s the machinery that la to blow everything up! . . . I tell you,g cracking sound: are you deaf?" M. de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen. Fear spurred us on. We rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anything to escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room of mirrors! We found the trap-door still open, hut it was now as dark In the room of minors as In the cellar which we had left We dragged ourselves along the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated os from the pow-der-magazine. What was the time? We shouted, we called: If, de Chagny to Christine, 1 to Erik. I reminded him that I had saved his Use. But no answer, save that of oar despair, of our madness: what was the time? We argued, we. tried to calculate the time we had spent there, but we were Of reasoning. If only we eouhl see the face of a watch! . . Mine had stopped, but M. de Chagnrs wao stm going. . . He told me that he had wound tt up before drees fog tor the opera. ... We bad not a match upon un. . • • And yet we amt. know. . . - M.de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands. . . . Hs ijnrotlnroit the tends of the watte with his finger-tips, going by the Position of the ting of the watch. . . Judging by the space betwe« the hands, he ttemgM It aright be Jo* eleven o'clock! Bat perhaps tt was not the eleven P«rtaape°ee hdd sail twelve hours betore us! -<» . _ _ , _ Suddenly. I siristwied: I sowed to hoar testetegn M tho wml? Cteiiti®* _

"Raoul! Raoul r We were now all talking at once, on either side of the wall. Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M. de Chagny alive. The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the. "yes" which she refused. And yet she had promised him that “yea,” if he would take her to the torture-chamber. But be had obstinately declined, and -had uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race! At last, after hoyrs and hours or that hell, he had that moment gone out, leaving her alone to reflect for the last time. “Hours and hours? What is the time now? What Is the time, Christine r "It is eleven o’clock. Eleven o’clock, all but five minutes]” ''"’’But which eleven o’clock?" .“The eleven o'clock that Is to decide. life or .death! ... He told me so Just before he went. . . He is terrible. . . . He Is quite mad; he tore off bis mask and bis yellow eyes shot flames! ... He did nothing but laugh! ... He said, “I give you five minutes to spare your blushes! Here, 1 he said, taking a key from the little bag of lire and death, ‘here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the mantelpiece in the Louis-Phlllppe room. . . , In one of the caskets, you will find a scorpion. In the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly imitated in Japanese bronze; they wilt say yes or no for you. If you turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you have said yes. The grasshopper will mean no.’ And he laughed like a drunken demon. I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the key of the torture-chamber, promising to be hits wife if he granted me that request . . . But he told me that there "was no future need for that key and that he was going to throw it Into the lake! ... . And he again laughed like a drunken demon and left me. Oh, his last words were, ‘The grasshopper! Be careful of the grasshopper! A grasshopper does not oily turn: It hops! It hops! And It hops Jolly high!’ ” The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and the grasshopper were scratching at my brain. Nevertheless. I had sufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper were turned, it wbuld hop . and with It many members of the human race! There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric current- intended to blow up the powder-magazine! M. de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from hearing Christine’s voice, explained to her, In a few hurried words, the situation in which we and all the opera were. He told her to turn the scorpion at once. There was a pause. “Christine," i cried., “where are you?” “By the scorpion." “Don’t touch It!" The Idea had come to me-—for l knew my Erik —that the monster had perhaps deceived the girl once more. Perhaps it was the scorpion that would blow everything up. After all, why wasn't he there? The live minutes were long past . . . and he was not back. . . . Perhaps he had taken shelter and was waiting for the expioaion! . . . Why had he not returned? . . .- He could not really expect Christine ever to consent to become his voluntary prey! , , . Why had he not returned? “Don’t touch the scorpion!" 1 said. “Here he comes!” cried Christine. *1 hear him! -Here he Is!" We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room. He came up to Christine, but did not speak. Then I raised my voice: "Erikl It is I! Do you know me?" With extraordinary calmness, he st once replied: “8o yon are not dead in there? Well, then, see that yon keep quiet." , I tried to speak, but he said coldly: "Not a word, daroga, or 1 shall blow everything up." And he added. “The honor rests with mademoiselle. . . Mademoiselle had -not touched the scorpion"—how deliberately he spoke! —"mademoiselle has not touched the grasshopper"—with that composure!, —"but tt Is not too Mte to do the right thing. There, I open the caskets without a key, for 1 am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what 1 please sad as I please. I open the look at she little dears Inside. Aren’t they pretty? If you torn the gratehopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up. 'Thera la enough gunpowder under oar fast to blow np a whole qaarter e t Paris. tt you turn the scorpion, msdemrtselle, all that pewter wg he tented and drowned.

ding, you shafl make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer’s . . . you shall make them a present of their lives. ... For, with, your own fair you shall turn the scorpion. . . . And merrily, merrily, we will be married!" A pause; and then: "If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, 1 shall turn the grasshopper , ; . and the grasshopper, I tell you, hops Jolly high I" The terrible sllenoe began anew. The Vicomte de Chagny. realising that there was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees andprayed. As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that -1 had to take my heart 4n both hands, lest It should burst. At fast, - heard Erik’s voice: "The two minutes sre past. . . . Good-by, mademoiselle. ... Hop, grasshopper! . . .” “Erik," cried Christine, “do you swear to me, monster, do you swear to me that the scorpion Is the one to turn? ..." "Yes. to hop at our wedding.” "Ah, you see! You said, to hop!" "At our wedding, ingenuous child! . . . The scorpion opens the ball. . . . But that will do! ... You won’t have the scorpion? Then I turn the grasshopper!" “Erik!” “Enough!" I was crying out in concert with Christine. M. de Chagny was still on his knees, praying. “Erikl I have turned the scorpion!" Oh, the second through which we passed! Waiting! Waiting to find ourselves In fragments, amid the roar and the ruins! Feeling something crack beneath our feet, hearing ah appalling hiss through the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket! It came softly, at first, then louder, then very loud. But it was not the hiss of ffre. It was mbre llke tbe hiss of water. And now* It became s gurgling sound: “Guggle! Guggle!" We rushed to the trap-door. All our thirst, which vanished when the terror came, now returned with the lapping of the water. The water rose In the cellar, above

the barrels, the powder-barrels—"Bar-rela! ... Barrels! Any barrels to sell?”—and we went down to it with parched throats. It rose to our chins, to our mouths. And we drank. We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank. And we went up tbe stairs again in the dark, step by step, Bent up with the water. The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of the room. If this went on, tbe whole house on the lake would be swamped. The floor of the torture-chamber'had itself become a regular little lake. In which our feet splashed. Surely there was water enough now! Erik must turn off the tapl .W- ---“ Erik Erik! That Is water enough for Hie gunpowder! Turn off the tap! Turn off the scorpion!" But Erik did not reply. We heard nothing but the water rising: It was half-way to our waists! “Christina!" cried M. de Chagny. Christine! The water la up to our knees!" But Christine did not reply. . . - We heard nothing but the water rtsi ng No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turn the scorpion! We were all ak»e, in the dark, with

the dark water that seised aa and clasped os and froze us! “Erik! Erik!" “Christine! Christine!" _ By this time, we bad lost our foothold and were spinning round In the water, carried away by an Irresistible whirl, for the water turned with ua and dashed us against the dark mirror, wklch thrust us back again; and oar throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud. Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seen that.. Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Masenderan, had never shown me that, through the little ln--yisible window. “Erik! Erik!” I cried. "I saved your life! Remember! . . . You were sentenced to death! But for Erik!” —V”- --i------ ■ ; We whirled around In the water like so much wreckage. But, suddenly, my straying hands seized the trunk of the Iron tree! 1 called M. de Chagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree. And the water rose still higher. "Oh! Oh! Can you remember? How much space is there' between the branch of the tree and the domeshaped ceiling? Do try to remember! . . . After all. the water may stop, It must find Its level! . . . There, I think It Is stopping! . . . No, no, oh, horrible! . . . Swim! Swim for your life!” Our arms became entangled In the effort of swimming; we choked; we fought In the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear escaping through some vent-hole or other. “Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then glue our mouths to-It!” But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls! Oh, how those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers! . . . We whirled round again! . . . We began to sink! ~ . . One last effort? . A last cry: “Erik! . . . Christine! . . .” “Guggle,- guggle, guggle!" in our ears. “Guggle! Guggle!" At the bottom of the dark water, our ears went, “Guggle! Guggle!” And, before losing consciousness en-

tirely, I seemed to hear, between two guggles: “Barrels! Barrels! Any barrels to sell?" CHAPTER XXVI. The End of the Ghost’s Love Story, The previous chapter marks the

eonelusion of the written narrative which the Persian left behind him. Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely to abandon them to their deaths, M. de Chagny and his companion were saved by the sublime devotion of Christine Daae- And 1 had the rest of the story from the Ups of the daroga himself. When I went to see him, he wss still living In his Uttle flat In the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tulieriee. He was Very 111, and It required all my ardor as ah historian pledged to the truth <0 persuade him to live the Incredible tragedy oxer again for my 'benefit. Ms faithful old servant Darius Bhowed me In to him. The daroga received me at a window overlooking the garden of the Tulieriee. He still had bis magnificent eyes, but hla poor face looked very worn. He had shaved the whole of his head, which was usually covered with an astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a long, plain coat and amused himself by unconsciously twisting his thumbs inside the sleeves; hut his mind was quite clear, and be told me his story with perfect lucidity. It seems that, when he opened his eyes, the daroga found himself lying on a bed. M. de Chagny was on a sofa, beside the wardrobe. An angel and a devil were watching over them. After the deceptions and Illusions of the torture-chamber, the precision of the details of that quiet little mid-dle-class room seemed to have been invented for the express purpose of puzzling the mind of the mortal rash enough to stray Into that abode of living nightmare. The wooden bedstead, the waxed mahogany chairs, the efiest of drawers, those brasses, the little square antimacassars carefully placed on the backs of the chairs, the clock on the mantelpiece and the harmless-looking ebony caskets at either end, lastly, the whatnot filled with shells, with red pin-cushions, with mother-of-pearl boats and an enormous ostrich-egg, the whole discreetly lighted by a shaded lamp standing on a small round table: this collection of ugly, peaceable, reasonable furniture, at the bottom of tbe opera cellars, bewildered the imagination more than all the late fantastic happenings. And the figure of tbe masked man seemed all the" more formidable in this old-fashioned, neat and trim little frame. It bent down over the Persian and said, In bis ear: “£re you better, daroga? . . . You are looking at my furniture? ... It is all that 1 have left of my poor unhappy mother.” Christine Daae did not say a word; she moved about noiselessly, like a sister of charity, who had taken a vow of silence. She brought a cup of cordial, or of hot tea, he did not remember which. The man in the mask took it from her hands and gave It to the Persian. M. de Chagny was still sleeping. Erik poured a drop of rum Into tbe daroga’s cup and, pointing to tbe viscount, said: % "He came to himself long before we knew if you were still alive, daroga. He is quite well. He la asleep. We must not wake him." (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Give You Five Minutes to Spare Your Blushes!”