Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1914 — THE DEVIL CHAIR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE DEVIL CHAIR

A. Chronicle of the Strange Adventures of John Haynes ; . and His Gyroscope Vehicle : r

THE GOD FROM THE PAGODA

By H. M. EGBERT

“At Chung Ling, twelve miles north of Wu Chang. She wept there as a missionary after she thought you and her daughter dead!” This was all that John Haynes was able to leayh concerning his wife, and those few words he had wrested from the last of hie enemies only when he held him upon the brink Of death. Now, his venghAnce accomplished, there remained only the task of this discovery. And, it seemed but a matter of a few weeks until he should find her; there could Be '/little difficulty, orice he set foot within the confines of the Flowery land, for Wu Chang is a mighty metropolis In central China, and there are few white women in its vicinity. Five years before John Haynes had been torn from his wife'and daughter and railroaded into the penitentiary at Nokomis Falls, on a false charge, by, the conspirators who had leagued themselves together to steal his landqj In the prison he had invented a won- * derful machine—a gyroscope, which he’ bound to his feet and, gaining access to the outer world, utilized to. effect his escape. Propelled by this powerful top along road, railroad, or trolley line, at the speed of two hundred miles' an hour, he was invincible. He set to work to execute justice upon his enemies, and, one by one, they had paid the penalty, according to the magnitude of their crimes. Apd now the last had suffered retribution and Haynes was free to find the woman who, he doubted not, had long since mourned him as dead. . He had already discovered his daugh- , ter, living in an obscure northern town, and sent her to Chicago to await his summons. He had enlisted her sympathies, but she was married now, and he had chosen not to blacken her life with the knowledge of all that he had done and hoped to do. But when the last of his enemies was disposed of be sought her out and told her that he was resolved to find her mother and' bring her back to he?. A And then he found that fate had played a strange prank op him. For, when he appeared, unexpectedly,, in Eleanor’s splendid home on the' Lake front, he found the house in confusion. Mr. Beyers, his daughter’s husband, and junior partner in his father's firm, had been coinmissioned to go to Shanghai to straighten out the accounts of a branch bank there, and. with his wife, he.was to leave for San Francisco on the following day. ' Beyers knew. Haynes and all about his deeds, for bis father had been one of those who had wronged him; the two men had been dramatically reconciled by the marriage of their children, and their mutual hatred had been replaced by mutual esteem. Between Haynes and his son-in-law had sprung up a warm friendship, which was cordially renewed on that last evening in | Chicago, and before they separated it

wgs agreed that thethree should travel to Wu Chang together in order to fipd the missing wife and mother. She had been told that her husband died in a eteamship accident, together with her child —at least, so the searchers inferred, after comparing all that they knew concerning the tragic separation five y«ars prevfoußly. Mary Haynes, left thus alone, as she believed, had been hurried to a remote corner of the United States by one of the conspirators, under, the guise of protection, and, when she recovered from a protracted illness, there had reeved in her a girlish ambition to become a missionary in the Orient. So she had sailed for China and -disappeared in the interior of that enormous country. . . ~ , Several weeks later the three arrived in Wu Chang under unexpected circumsta. s. Hardly had . they landed in China before the revolution broke out, having its center in Wu Chang and Hankow, two of a trinity.of towns upon the river bank in which millions of yellow men toll and labor. Even New Jork and its activities are dwarfed by the commercial industries of this densely populated region. The three proceeded, up the river aboard a Chinese gunboat, on which Beyers, by the lavish expenditure of money, had secured passage. The knowledge that Mary Haynes was exposed to the fanaticism of the mob, always ready to be excited against foreigners, made them reckless of running into danger. They reached Wu Chang to learn that a furious battle had taken place there the week previously; that the Manchus had been worsted, and that the Republican army was tn hot pursuit, leaving the city exposed, as was the surrounding ‘. country, to the raids of robbers and murderous bands. Conditions could hardly have been worse, but they were worse, for it was learned that the telegraph lines lead-ing-put of Chun* Ling had been cut and that the roads blocked. Hiring a force of twenty soldiers, the forth, Eleanor Beyers refusing to leave her father and husband in spite of their protestations. Constantly they passed straggling bodies' of bandits, but these hesitated to attack a force so strongly armed and passed them peaceably enough. The news- of th<- travelers’, journey, however, had evidently preceded them for when they were already on the outskirts of Chung- Ling, and actually in sight of the mission building in which, reports said, the missionaries were shut up under the guardianship of a few loyal soldiers, an armed mob came racing down the road in their direction, evidently with hostile Intent The three took shelter in tpe garden of a native temple, a pagoda dedicated to the local god of War; this proceeding evidently infuriated the townspeople, sos suddenly a volley. was discharged in their direction. The irol-

diers who accompanied the travelers broke and fled., ; ’ It was then three o’clock in the afternoon. Haynes, Beyers and Eleanor found themselves alone, surrounded by a constantly -augmenting crowd, which evidently meant to capture them sflive in order to torture them. From the group before the garden wall a spokesman detached himself and walked forward, smiling, and waving a cheap Japanese white paper handkerchief in token of truce. Haynes, pushing his daughter back behind the shelter of a pillar’immediately before the temple 'door, walked forward. The Chinaman smiled still more broadly. • “What for you come to Chung Ling?-’ he asked: “To take away the missionaries,’’ Haynes answered. “We mean no harm. Bring them to us or let us go to them, rather, and we will depart peaceably.’* The yellow man drew in his breath with a hiss. “Unfortunately," he said suavely, “my people say you must stay here with the missionaries. They are afraid to let you leave Chungking for fear you tell the Republicans that the Manchus have left the,town. All who come stay; it is the rule.” “Very well," said Haynes, after a moment’s thought. "Take us to the missionaries, then. There is a woman there,* he added, unable to restrain his desire to learn whether Mary was< in that building whose strange, funnelshaped ro<jf was plainly visible five or six hundred yards distant, towering over the Intervening houses.' “Yes, but wait a minute,” said the yellow man. “Treaty must be made —’’ He hesitated. Haynes saw his eyes wander and, with a sudden instinct of treachery, looked back. At the same moment a. cry broke from Eleanor’s lips. Under cover of this friendly parley a murderous band were creeping up, with knives in their hands, toward the rear of the temple, with the evident intention of rushing Beyersjand his wife and taking them captives.' Haynes drew his revolver and discharged it full into the other’s face. The man - staggered back, groaning; the multitude made a rush toward the visitors.. The three, turned back toward the temple doors and hammered on them with their fists. In vain; they could not hope to break those panels of solid, inlaid teakwood. They were like tiny islands in the yellow sea that swept on them from all sides, crueleyed men with yellow faces and hideous, shaven heads, from the backs of .which hung the long pigtails, still worn 1 tn conservative Chung Ling as a sign of Manchu sympathies. But just as the three had formed back, determined to fight to the last rather than submit to the tortures which they knew awaited them, the, temple doors opened and a monk, with shaven head and keen, litapawive features, beckoned to them to enter. And at his appearance, the

mob outside stood still as though petrified. The three followed the priest, whose robe of white wool was alone visible in the obscurity of the interior. He flitted in front of them, his felt slippers making no sound upon the thick pile of the carpet, until at length be etopped before an altar, behind which, in brar sen armor, stood the life-size figure of the god of war. The grinning face and dripping sword seemed to be faintly illumined by the reflection of lights burning somewhere in the recesses of the building. The sudden aspect of this ferocious face under the steel headpiece, the crimson stains upon the sword, horrified the fugitives; they stood stock still, uncertain where to advance. And suddenly the priest disappeared and a door snapped shut. ' They waited in silence until their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and, little by little, they were able to distinguish objects around them; then they felt their way cautiously forward until farther progress was arrested by a steel barrier. Haynes struck a match, and by its light they perceived that a wall of wrought iron, extending from the stone floor to the high roof of the pagoda, barred their advance. On either side of them was a similar wall. Behind- them was another, 4n which was set the temple gate, two feet behind the teakwood door. They were in ;a trap.

Then all at once the truth dawned on them. They were caged securely as any wild beasts in zoological gardens, caged before the altar of the god of war, to whom they were destined to be offered as a sacrifice. And the* inscrutable Chinese mind had planned all this from the first, had lured them into the pagoda in the belief that they would find safety there. Escape was impossible. They looked into each other’s faces, and each read his fate in hie fellow’s eyes. Six feet behind the wrought iron barrierthegodßtoodoverhlsaltar.one hand stretched out, brandishing that dreadful sword,, still wet from the blood of victims. At some time, perhaps days later, after exhaustion had made resistance impossible, that secret gate in the iron wall would open again, and, one by one, they would be dragged off by the priests to the sacrifice. . If Haynes could reach the sword he calculated that he could hew his way through the soft ircfa, whose malleable properties made it more serviceable as a cage than any structure of steel, which might haply - have been fractured or disjointed by repeated blows. But it was so closely wrought that he could pass only two fingers of one hand the interstices. He looked at Beyers in despair. But the others had resigned themselves to the inevitable; husband and wife were taking/ last farewell of dne another, oblivious of his presence. In that hour of peril he was forgotten, and for an instant, as he recalled all that he had endured for his wife and daughter, a little fire of jealousy smouldered in Haynes’ heart. It was but momentary, but ere it died it sefit back his thoughts with a rush to Mary. Perhaps she too stood in some such deadly danger. Perhaps—he shuddered and turned sick with horror at the unhallowed thought—perhaps that was her blood upon the sword!

He set his wits ,to work examining the iron structure. There seemed no way of assaulting it without the sword. But he perceived that there was a space of about four Inches between the bottom of the steel and the ground, and thaf the point of the sword, held in the idol’s hand, reached to withm an inch of the flooring and was turned toward him. His eye could measure a straight line from where he stood to the point and thence! to the sword hilt. < From the deep pocket of his coat he drew a flat, round object, resembling\ in size and shape nothing so much as' one of those toy roulette .wheels used by amateur gamblers. Tliis was the gyroscope. From another pocket he took the little motor, unscrewed it from the tiny tank, and looked inside. The tank contained almost a Quarter of a pint of gasoline—half its capacity. Haynes never traveled without this apparatus, which had often proved his salvation. Now, desperate as his design was, it seemed to open to them the only possible avenue of escape. The gyroscope was so well made and spun so easily that a quarter of a pint would serve to keep it running tor perhaps an hour. And he could do so muchpin that period.' he started the motor and its low buzzing startled the lovers from their rhapsody.- .Haynes went up to Beyers. “Do you happen to have a piece of string about you?” he asked. Beyers felt in his pockets doubtfully.. “No," he answered, “What should I do with a piece of string?” “You, Eleanor?” She shook her head. “Then tear off the hem of your petticoat.” said Haynes impatiently. Even in that peril she hesitated. No woman likes to wear a petticoat with a draggled hem, nor is the dislike lessened even when she stands in a Chinese pagoda, awaiting death at the hands of a blood-thirsty priest. She hesitated one moment; then, stooping. she rent off a long strip of filmy lace and gave it to her father. Haynes tore it into two strips, folded and joined them. One end he fastened to the body of the machine, the other to the stop which controlled its action, and he held the loop in bis hand, in the manner of reins. Then, while the others watched with languid interest,.be aimed the little gyroscope at the point of the sword and started it'beneath the cage.

It, flashed across the floor, missed the swojrd point, and pulled, up with a jerk that threw Haynes against the ironwork. Pulling hard on the right rein, he shut off the mechanism; then with the left rein he pulled back the machine. Again and again be launched

this strgnge missile, aiming in the half darkness at the edge of that bloodstained weapon, and always missing it Twenty-eight times he did this. At the twenty-ninth attempt the gyroscope struck the sword point fairly; it trembled, and then* running straight ae an arrow, it raced up the blade along the narrow edge, reached the hilt, dashed into the idol’s porcelain hand that held the Sword, and smashed it from the armored body. The sword fell crashing to the ground, its hilt toward the ironwork of the cage. Haynes thrust his hand under the structure, grasped the hilt, and drew back the sword. Then he drew -back the gyroscope and shut off the motor. Haynes held the heavy weapon aloft and looked at it. It was of the finest steel, such a weapon as is used by official executioners for beheading their victims. Motioning to Beyers and bls daughter to stand as far back as possible, Haynes swung the weapon aloft* and brought it down upon the malleable iron with all his force, denting and cutting into it. Again and again he swung the sword with the full force of his arm. And at each blow the structure trembled and bent and twisted, until at last he bad hewn a space in it through which the three might creep. He squeezed his body through the cage and, standing beside the altar, listened intently. Nobody came. If any priest heard him he was afraid to enter, but, more probably, all were -away, engaged In pillaging. Haynes took the helmet from tlje head of the god and placed it upon his own, pulling down an inner covering of chain mail over his face. He donned the breast and back pieces, the greaves and shoulder pieces; finally he stood up, the very image of the idol, which now lay, a poor, shattered thing of porcelain, fallen beside its terrible altar. When he was fully attired Haynes placed the gyroscope upon one foot in such a way that he oould at will, by a motion of the other, start the motor in action. Then, hobbling as a boy who goes on one roller skate, he beckoned to Beyers and Eleanor to follow him and crept round behind the altar. ‘r A door barred them from without There was a peephole half way down through which Haynes could perceive the outlines of a garden, concealed by hedges of box. Without hesitation he unlocked it and went out; then turned back, and called in a low voice to the others. When they emerged they found themselves in a tiny close, shut in by high box hedges, and quite deserted. In the midst of it was a well. There was no water in the well. But six feet down, clinging with clenched fingers to a shelf in the broken brickwork of the wall, was a white man in tattered Chinese garb, the body strained in agony and the face blanched with pain. As Haynes stood on the edge, Wielding the sword, a fearful figure in his armor, the man’s eyes were opened and were turned upon him, and from his mouth, came a few Chinese words. Haynes understood nothing of it, but he surmised that the fugitive imagined him to be the executioner. He called in English. "Come out! ■ You. are safe! We are friends!” The man stared up at him incredulously and clung still more tightly to the wall. Haynes saw that his sufferings had paralyzed his understanding. “There’s a man down here —a white man,*’ he called back to Beyers. “We’ve got to pull him out Lie flat and catch me round the waist. Let Eleanor catch you. Now —.pull!” Two minutes later the man emerged from the well. He was one of the missionaries, he said, when he recovered his wits. There had been five men and three Wbmen in the mission, one of the latter his wife, married to him only two weeks previously. He had gone out as an envoy to parley with the mob, had been lured into the temple, and had somehow contrived to secret himself near the altar when he suspected the priests’ designs. While they pursued him through another door, by which they thought he had escaped, he had discovered the exit into the little garden and, seeing the well, had flung himself’into, it and had/ clung there for several-hours. So far as he was aware, the mission was safe. Only a few of the mob had firearms, and they were too cowardly to attack, since the defenders were well supplied with rifles and ammunition. Furthermore, they had contrived to send a messenger through the mob to seek aid from a body of English marines, who were supposed to have landed at Wu Chang to protect the consulate. Rescue might? arrive at any moment. When he had left, all were unharmed. Haynes did not dare to ask if Mary were there. -- - -

At the end of the garden was a small dcor, of a height level with the top of the hedge. Motioning to the others to remain where they were, Haynes opened It cautiously and looked out, his 1 ~ly still concealed from, view by the iiowering branches. In front of him was a large open space, surrounded by small, mean hduses, and immediately across this square, facing him, was the mission itself. Half way between the mission and the pagoda were encamped a number of Irregular levies. They had raised a low parapet of sandbags, from behind which they kept up an interntittent fire upon the building. Evidently, falling to capture it by storm, of which attempt evidence was aplenty in the shape of bodies of their dead, lying where they had fallen upon the street in front of the mission, they had yeeorted to siege tactics. The main force of the rioters seemed to have withdrawn to another part of the city, for their cries came faintly to Haynes’ egrs, snd here and there

the smoke of burning houses wag swept up on the breeze. Yet, even as he looked, he saw a body of them sweep round the far angle of the plaza-like space and run > wildly toward the mission, uttering savage, guttural cries. They seemed like devils—and they were devils, athirst for murder. Some carried pikes, some swords, some blazing torches; and at the sight of them the besiegers leaped to their feet from behind their defenses and, joining them, swept up to the mission doors once more. Now from within resounded the; craek of repeating rifles. Here and there a man feU, but the meh were too insatiate for blood to heed their dead. They broke like a storm against the heavy, barricaded doors, hammering on them, firing into the shuttered windows, battering at them with axes and billets of wood. Haynes saw that this onslaught must prove decisive. No doors could survive so tremendous an impetus. JSven while he watched the place would be stormed, then men slaughtered, and the women . . . . That thought set the. blood whirling through his brain. He touched the stop that set the gyroscope in motion. An instant later he was darting across the square with the speed of a missile shot from a catapult He saw houses, whiz past him, he shot by the heaps of dead, wielding that dripping sword and shouting exultantly. They heard him, turned, and saw a terrific apparition —their own* god of war and destruction, fully armed and wielding his dreadful sword, issuing forth against them! A moment and Haynes was in their midst and cutting them down. ~ ' * . None could withstand hint. He ran through their ranks like a war chariot leaving a broad trail of death behind him. He clicked the stop of the gyroscope, swung round, and went through them again. Their missiles glanced like hail off" his "bi*azen "Hanks and shoulders. They turned and fled along the narrow streets, and he pursued them; packed tightly as they were between the houses, there Was nowhere for them to seek safety. He passed them, hewing them down, swung _ round, and repeated his journey of destruction. Th-ee times he traversed their ranks, like some angel of destruction, and each time the dead were heaped up on either side of him like chaff on a threshing floor. When at last he paused, through sheer phy»Acal weakness, the streets were redder than a shambles and the last of the mob were flying in the distance. Then he came to his senses out of a delirious dream; he wiped the sword and went back to the pagoda garden, where he found the others still waiting. “Come,” he said. “The streets ar* clear.” ■ • ■ ’—■ ' He did not know that he was spa> tered from head to foot, nor x that at that moment he seemed to them as inhuman as he bad appeared to the Chinese. They followed in abject fear; "they dared not answer, him. Haynes led them across the square toward the mission, but, pefore they reached it they heard the shouting of another mob and, at his command stood still. Haynes drew himself up before them, waiting, one foot against the stop of the gyroscope. But it was white men who were ; advancing—white men, in khaki tunics and wearing white helmets. In column of fours they swept up the streets and into the square; and all at- once came answering cries from the mission windows, and the defenders poured forth, men and women, unscathed, and ran to meet their rescuers. Half way between the cowering bodies stood Haynes and his little band. Then the man whom he had recued broke from his side with a glad cry and caught his wife by the arms and drew her to him and kissed her joyously. For the first time the figure In armor drooped a little and the drawn sword bent to the ground. Haynes bowed his bead upon his breast He knew that he had come too late. For in this woman he recognized his wife, unchanged after all those years, but seen again at what a price of suffering! He turned to Eleanor, who stood at his side in fear, trembling, not daring to claim kinship with her whom she had come so far to see. He drew her aside, and Beyers too, and spoke to them softly, raising hie chain faceguard ever so little. "You understand?” he asked. He saw that they understood. "I am going away,” said Haynes. "You will not tell her?” They could not answer him. "You will tell her that you learned she was here and came after her. Of me you will never speak. If you must do so, when occasion makes this neceseary, you will speak of me as though I died in that steamship accident five I years ago. You must blot me out of l your memory.” Eleanor’s arms were round him, round the spattered and stained armor which contained all that, next to her husband, was most dear to her. "You promise?" he asked. "I promise,” he heard her whisper. He kissed her; he- grasped Beyere by the hand; an instant later, and he had touched the stop of the gyroscope again and was speeding southward toward Wu Chang. He knew that he had acted’rightly, and that fate had been wiser than he. For the blood on bis armor was but a symbol of that upon bis soul, and between himself -and Mary there was a barrier which he might not lift.

THE TEMPLE DOORS OPENED AND A MONK, WITH SHAVEN HEAD AND KEEN IMPASSIVE FEATURES, BECKONED TO THEM TO ENTER.