Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1907 — The KING of DIAMONDS. [ARTICLE]

The KING of DIAMONDS.

By Louis Tracy,

“What has happened?*’ he demanded. "Is anybody hurt?” The man answered: "My horses were startled by the •term. I jumped out and was endeavoring to extricate my niece when this wretched l>oy got In the way.” "Uncle,” protested the girl, "you closed the door on me, and the boy”— “Shut up!” he growled curtly. “Go Inside the bouse!” But his niece shared with him at least one characteristic. She possessed the family temper. , “I will not go away and let yon say things which are not true. Listen to me, Mr. Policeman. Lord Vanstone’ did close the door because he thought the carriage would turn over on top of him. Fpr some reason the accident did not happen Immediately, and the boy ran round to the other side and helped me out Just in time.” "Confound the brnt! I think he was the real cause of the whole affair. Why was he hiding In my doorway?" Lord Vanstone was more enrnged than ever by the girl's obstinate defense of her rescuer and her Insistence on his own seeming cowardice. “I was not hiding. I only took shelter from the storm. I tried to help you because the footman was struggling with the horses. I do not claim any credit for simply opening a door and helping the young lady to alight, but I lost both my dinner and my papers In doing so.” Every one experienced a shock of Surprise at hearing the boy’s elegant diction. Tlio policeman was puzzled. He Instantly understood the facta, but dared not browbeat an earl. "You do not bring any charge against him, my lord?” he said. Bnt his lordship deigned no reply. He told the coachman to arrange for the removal of the carriage, grasped bis niece by the arm and led her, Jtlll protesting, Into the house. The policeman saw the bundle of papers scattered over the roadway and near them the partly eaten bun. After a wrench at his garments he produced a penny. “Here,” he said to the boy. “Buy another bun and be off. It’s a good job for you the young lady spoke up the way she did.” “She merely tolil the truth. That man was a liar.” Refusing the proffered penny, the boy turned on his heel. The policeman looked after him. “That’s a queer kid,” ho thought. "Talked like a regular young gent. I wonder why he is selling papers. Poor lad! He lost a bob's worth at least, and small thanks he got for it.” Passing out of the square by the first eastward street, Philip Anson, with his head erect and hands clinched In his pockets, strode onward at a rapid pace. The lightning was less frequent now, and the thunder was flying away In sullen rumblings. He was wet and hungry, yet, although he had three bnlfi>ence, the remaining balance of the only sales effected that evening, he passed many shops where be could have bought food. In Piccadilly, where the cessation of the storm created a rush of traffic, he was nearly run over by reason of bis own carelessness and received a slash from a whip, accompanied by a loud oath from an angry cabman. He shivered, bnt never even looked around. Crossing Trafalgar square, ho plunged through the vortex of vehicles without troubling to avoid them In the slightest degree. Once the hot breath of a pair of van horses touched his cheek while a speechless driver pulled them back onto their haunches. Again, the off wheel of pn omnibus actually grazed bis heel as be sped behind the statue of Charles I. At last he reached the comparative ■ecluslon of the Embankment and stood for a moment to gaze fixedly at the swirling, glkuting river. “Not here,” he muttered aloud. “I must be nearer to mother—dear old mother! She Is there waiting for me.” He trudged steadily away though Queen Victoria street, Corulitll, Leadenhall street and so on to Johnson’s Mews, In the Mile End road. Pausing at a marine store dealer’s shop kept by an army j>ensloner, an Irishman, With whom he had a slight acquaintance, he entered. An elderly man was laboriously reading a paper of the preceding day’s date. “Good evening, Mr. O’Brien,” he said. “Can you oblige me with a piece of rope? I want a strong piece about three or four yards In length. I can only spare three halfpence.” “Falx, I dunno. They use nails on the crates mostly nowadays. If I have a bit It's at yer sarvice. I wouldn’t be afther chargin’ the likes o’ you.” Philip’s story was known In that hnmble locality, and the old aoldler Sympathized with the boy. “He has tale spunk an’ no mistake,” was his verdict when others said Philip was proud and overbearing. O’Brien moved rheumatlcally about the squalid ‘ shop. At last he found some portion es a clothesline. “Will that dor he inquired. Philip tested It with vigorous pulling against bis knee. "Excellently,” he said. “Let me pay yon for ML” "Aarah, ye!_ Arid, be

Author of “Wings of the Morning,” “Tha Pillar of Light.” Etc. COPYRIGHT. 1004, By EDWARD J. CLODS.

the powers, Isn'F'Tbe poor lad cowld an’ furnished? Luke here, now. In five minutes I’m goln’ to have a cup o’ tny.” “I am awfully obliged to you, but I could not touch a mors&l. I am In a hurry.” “Are ye goln’ a Journey? Have ye got a Job?” “I think so. It looks like a permanency. Good by.” “Goodby, an’ good luck to ye. Sure the boy looks mighty quare. ’Tls grief for his mother has turned his head entirely.” No wqrds could more clearly express Philip’s condition than this friendly summing up. Since his mother's burial he hud been half demented. His curt, disconnected answers had lost him two places as an errand boy, which he could easily have secured. His small stock of money, ridiculously depleted by the generosity with which be met the open hints of the undertaker's assistants, barely sufficed to keep him In food for a week. Then he sought employment, but with such stiff upper lip and haughty Indifference to success that he unknowingly turned those against him who would have assisted him. For two days he was chosen to act as van boy for a parcel delivery firm. He earned a few meals, but In a fit of aberration Induced by the sight of a lady who was dressed In a costume similar to one he remembered his mother wearing at Dieppe, he allowed a ham to be stolen from the rear of the van. This procured his instant dismissal, with threats. Then he Bold newspapers, only to find that every good site was jealously guarded by a gang of roughs who mercilessly bullied any newcomer. Personal strength and courage were unavailing against sheer numbers. His face was still swollen and his ribs sore as the result of being knocked down and kicked at Ludgate Circus. At Charing Cross next day he was hustled under the wheels of an omnibus and narrowly escaped death. So he was driven Into the side streets and the quiet squares. In which, during three or four days, he managed to earn an average of elghtpence daily, which he spent on food. Each night ho crept back to the poor tenement In Johnson’s Mews, his bleak “home” amid the solitude of empty stables and warehouses. The keeper of a coffee stall, touched one night by his woebegone appearance, gave him some half dried coffee grounds In a paper, together with a handful of crusts. "Put ’arf that in a pint of water.” he said, looking critically at the soddoned mass of coffee, “an’ when It comes to a bile let it settle. It’ll surprise you to find *ow grateful an’ comfortin’ it tastes on a cold night. As for tlio crusts, if you bake ’em over the fire, they’re just as good as the rusks you buy in tins.” This good Samaritan had repeated his gift on two occasions, and Philip had a fairly large supply of small coal, sent to his mother by the colliery company, so his position,desperate enough, was yet l)earable had he but sought to accustom himself to the new conditions of life. There was a chance that his wild breedings would have yielded to the necessity to earn a living, and that when next a situation was offered to him he would keep It, but the occurrences of this stormy night had utterly shaken him for the hour. He was on the verge of lunacy. As he passed through the dark archway leading to his abode, the desolate stable yard was fitfully lit by lightning and in the distance he heard the faint rumble of thunder. The elemental strife was beginning again. This was the second and more disastrous outbreak of the evening of March 19. Although wet to the skin, he was warm now on account of his long and rapid walk. When he unlocked the door another flash lightning revealed the dismal Interior. He closed and locked the door behind him. On the mantelpiece were a farthing eandle and some matches. He groped for them and soon had a light On other occasions his next task was to light a fire. By sheer force of habit he gathered together some sticks and bits of paper and arranged them In the grate. But the task was Irksome to him. It was absurd to seek any degree of comfort for the few minutes he had to live. Better end It atonce. Moreover, the storm was sweeping up over the East End with such marvelous speed that the lightning now played through the tiny room with dazzling brilliancy, and the wretched candle burned with blue and ghostlike feebleness. The cold of the bouse, too, began to Btrike chilly. He was so exhausted from hunger that if he did not eat soon be would not hare the strength left to carry out his dread purpose. He sprang erect with a mocking little laugh, picked up the candle and the piece of rope and climbed the atairg. He paused irresolutely at the top, but, yielding to overwhelming desire, went on and stood at the side of the bed on which his mother bad died. He fancied he could see her lying there still, with a smile on her wane face unspoken words of welcome on her Ups. A flood of tears came and he trembled violently.

T am coming to you, mother," be murmured. “You told me to trust la God, but I think God has forgotten me, I don’t want to live. I want to join yon, and then perhaps God will remember me.” He stooped and kissed the pillow, nestling his face against it, as he was wont to fondle the dear face that rested there so many weary days. Then he resolutely turned away, descended four steps of the ladder-like stairs and tied the clothesline firmly to a hook which had been driven into the ceUlng during the harness room period of the room beneath. With equal deliberation he knotted the other end of the cord round his neck, and he calculated that by springing from the stairs he would receive sufficient shock to become insensible very quickly, while his feet would dangle several Inches above the floor. There was a terrible coolness, a settled fixity of purpose far beyond his years, In the manner of these final preparations. At last they were completed. He blew out the candle and stood erect. At that Instant the room became absolutely flooded with lightning, not in a single vivid flash, but In a trembling, continuous glare that suggested the effect of some luminous constellation fierce with electric energy. Before his eyes was exhibited a startling panorama of the familiar objects of his lonely abode. The brightness, so sustained and tremulous, startled him Back from the very brink of death. “I will wait,” he said. “When the thunder comes, then I will Jump.” Even as the thought formed in hts mind a ball of fire so glowing, so iridescent, in Its flaming heat that It dominated the electric waves fluttering In the overburdened air darted past the little window thpt looked out over the tiny yard In the rear of the house and crashed through the flagstones with the din of a ten inch shell. Philip, elevated on the stairway, distinctly saw the molten splash which accompanied its Impact He saw the heavy stones riven asunder as if they were tissue paper, and from the hole caused by the thunderbolt or meteor came a radiance that sent a spreading shaft of light upward like the beam of a searchlight. The warmth, too, of the object was almost overpowering. Were not the surrounding walls constructed of stone and brick there must have been an immediate . outbreak of Are. As It was, the glass in the windows cracked and the woodwork began to scorch. In the same instant a dreadful rolljof thunder swept over the locality, and a deluge of rain, without any further warning, descended. All this seemed to the wondering boy to be a very long time In passing. In reality It occupied but a very few seconds. People In the distant street could not distinguish the crash of the fallen meteor from the accompanying (bunder, and the downpour of rain came In the very nick of time to prevent the wood In the house and the neighboring factories from blazing forth Into a disastrous fire. The torrent of water caused a dense volume of steam to generate in the back yard, and this helped to minimize the strange light shooting up from the cavity. There was a mad hissing and crackling as the rain poured over the meteor and gradually dulled its brightness. Pandemonium raged In that curiously secluded nook. Amazed and cowed, not by the natural phenomenon he had witnessed, but by the Interpretation he placed on It, the boy unfastened the rope from his neck. “Very well, mother,” he whispered aloud. “If It Is your wish, I will live. I suppose that God speaks in this way,” [TO BE CONTINUED]