People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1895 — THE MILL MYSTERY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MILL MYSTERY.

HY MY FATHER had disappeared so mysteriously, what had become of him, and why he had never returned to his loving wife and only son. was the mystery and gossip of our little village for years. - It was in the spring when he left

us —in the spring when the river roared past our home, swollen by rains and melting snow. I was four years old that spring, and I might have forgotten how he looked had not mother kept his face fresh in my memory by frequently showing me his picture. Once, as we were looking through the album, I remember that I stopped her at the picture of a low-browed, handsome man, with a dark, drooping mustache, and steady, almost deadly, eyes. “Who is that, mother?” I asked. I fancied she shivered a bit as she replied: “That is my cousin Elbert. Like your father, he disappeared rather mysteriously—or, more correctly, he went away some time before your father’s disappearance, and he has never returned. What has become of him I do not know.” ‘‘l do not like him,” I declared. “He has a bad face, mother. I hope he will not come back at all.” Until the day of my vision—until she heard the story from my lips—my mother firmly believed father would some day return and explain why he had deserted us thus. But what I saw in the old mill crushed the last hope from her breast. For years the mill had not been in use; it was abandoned even before the strange departure of my father. A spring freshet had swept away the dam, and no attempt was ever made to rebuild it. The mill was fast falling into decay. Something about the old mill fascinated me, and I used to play there a great deal, for all that mother did not like it, and often told me to keep away. I remember the great square opening in the upper floor, and how I used to look down at the swirling water far bebefore I fell asleep, but sleep I eventlow. I sometimes wondered if I were to fall, how long I would live after striking the surface of the water. Sometimes I would fall asleep in some nook or cranny of the old mill. I was

an odd boy, and I did not fear the place, although it was deserted and lonely, and more than one of the village folks had hinted that it was haunted. One day, in the springtime, when the swollen river rushed past the old mill and lulled me with its murmuring roar, I lay on the sawdust and fell to thinking about my father. I remembered how he had left us exactly seven years ago that very day, and boy though I was, began to feel that mother’s hope of his final return was a vain and foolish one.

I know not how long I lay thinking ually did. I awoke with a start, a great feeling of horror upon me, although I am sure I had not been dreaming. Sitting up, I was startled beyond measure to behold two men facing each other but a short distance from me. One of them was speaking excitedly, while the other listened, a scornful smile on his face.

I could see the features of both men —see them distinctly. A great cry rose to my lips, but something held it back, and I stared and stared. There could be no doubt —one of the man was my own father—the father who had left us years before. The lapse of time had not seemed to change him in the least. He looked just the same as he did in the photograph mother showed me so often.

And the other —it was my mother’s cousin. I recognized the low-browed, dark-mustached man with the deadly eyes, and now those eyes seemed more deadly than they looked in the picture I so much disliked. He was speaking fiercely, swiftly: “So you married her almost as soon as I went away and left you together, Horace!” he cried, shaking a clinched fist in my father's face. “You knew I loved her —you knew —” “I knew she did not love you, Elbert,” returned my father, still smiling scornfully, “She feared you, and she was glad when you went away.” “What did I ever do to make her fear me? I loved her madly!” “It was your love she feared.” “But you—you were false to me! You knew of my love, and still you married her as soon as possible after I left!” “I fail to see in what way I was false. We were never particular friends. Had you remained, I should have won her if I could.” “You should not have possessed her!” shouted the darkly-handsome man, his features working with passion. “By the eternal skies! I would have killed you first!” My father laughed aloud, and that laugh seemed to turn the other into a fiend, for he snarled: “I’ll kill you now!” Then they grappled, and before my staring eyes a terrible battle took place. I watched them straining, swaying, staggering, panting, fighting on apd on. I would have flown to my father's aid, but something held me chained and silent. I could see it all, but I was powerless to interfere. At length I caught a glampse of something bright—something that glittered

in a deadly way. It was a knife, and it was grasped by the hand of my father’s antagonist. For one brief moment the blade was bright and glittering. Then it rose and fell and when it rose again it was dripping darkly. A great groan broke from the lips of my father, and he sunk limply in the arms of his slayer, who lowered him to the sawdust-covered floor. I saw my father's lips move, and I heard him faintly murmur: “You have killed me, Elbert!’’ Then he lay white and motionless, with the dark stain spreading and spreading about him. For some moments the victor stood over his victim, his shaking hand clutching the terrible knife, his deadly eyes now full of horror. At last he sprang away to the square hole in the floor, and down into the surging water far below he fiercely flung the bloody blade.

For a moment he seemed ready to fly from the mill, but he did not just then. Slowly he came back to where my father lay,, stooping to peer into his pale face. “Yes, he is dead!” were the words that came hoarsely from the murderer's lips. Then with a sudden impulse he clutched the body and dragged it to the square hole. Down into the water where the knife had been thrown went my father, and, with a wild cry, the assassin fled headlong from the old mill. I know not how I reached, my home and told the story to mother. I can remember telling it in a broken manner, and I know she fainted then seeing her so white and still at my feet, I ran to a neighbor's for aid. • When mother was restored she insisted on going to the old mill with the party that had gathered. But nothing could induce me to accompany them.

i They returned after some time, and > I know the village physician came and i examined me closely, asking me many I questions. He ended by writing a prei scription for me. No sign of a struggle had they found in the old mill; not one trace of blood ■ was there on the sawdust-covered floor. Some of the neighobrs insisted I had dreamed it all; some suggested “haunts;" some shook their heads soberly and said nothing. Many times my mother made me tell the story of what I had seen, and I know that from that day she gave up all hope that father would ever return to us. What did I see? That question I cannot answer. It is possible I dreamed i it all; but if so, I believe I dreamed i how my father died seven years before that day. When I became older and dared visit i the old mill again, I searched at low l water in the pool beneath the mill, fc-.d ; from the sand I brought up a knife | with the letters “E. D.” carved on the ■ handle. The initials were those of my moth- < er s handsome, dark-faced cousin, Elbert Darcy.

THEN IT ROSE AND FELL.