Evening Star Newspaper, March 23, 1895, Page 14

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, MAROH 23, 1895—-TWENTY PAGES. (Copyright by Bacheller, Johnson & Bacheller.) CHAPTER I. “Oh! my necklace!” cried a fair woman as she leaned over the side of her gondola. A string of opals, linked and set in gold, had been loosened from her throat, and had slid down into the water of the la- goon, midway between the Lido and the city of Venice. But the gondola was mov- ing swiftly under the impulsion of a rower fore and aft, and, though they stopped a few moments after at her cry, the spot where it had fallen was already passed and left behind. She was vexed and pro- voked. She had many jewels, but the opal necklace was an heirloom, and of fine and curious workmanship. The gondoliers did their best to find it, but in vain. They were in the deeper water of the sailing roads, which were marked out by the lines of poles, and the necklace, a slight thing, had been borne away by the current set- ting in from the open sea. _ Neither of the men could swim; many ‘Venetians eannot; but they got over the side, and waded up-to their waists in the water, and with their oars struck and sounded the sandy bottom; but the lagoon, which has been the grave of so many, kept the drowred orals. “We will go back and send divers,” she said to her men, who, wet to their waists, were well content to turn the head of the gondola back to the city. ‘They wore white clothes, with red sashes and red ribbens around their straw hats; they were in her private service; they steered quickly home again over the calm waterway, and in and out the crowded craft by the schiavone past the customs house, and S. Giorgio and the Salvature, until they reached a palace on the Grand “I bave lost my opals in the water.” canal, which was their mistress’ residence, with poles painted red and white, with coronets on their tops, marking the land- ing stairs in the old Venetian fashion. “TI have lost my opals in the water!” she cried to a friend who was on one of the balconies of the first floor. “I am glad you have lost them,” replied her friend. “They are pierres de malheur.” “Nonsense! They were heautiful, and they were Ninetta Laranigra’s,poor Carlo’s great-great-grandmother; they were one of her nuptial presents a hundred years ago. Her portrait hangs in the Belle Arte. She was beautiful, and had a tragic fate. I must have the men dive and dredge till they are found. The water is so shallow. I cannot think how they have vanished so completely in such a moment of time.” On the morrow, when it was known through Venice that the rich and generous Countess Laranigra had lost her jewels, all the best divers hurried to the place where it had dropped and worked sedulously from. daybreak to find it, sailors and fishermen and boatmen all joining in the search, in hope to merit the reward she promised. But not one of them succeeded. Their efforts were useless. The tenacious water would not yleld up its prey. The opals were gone, like spindrift. In the hollow of an old oak pile the opals femained all winter long, lying like bird’s eggs in a nest, whilst the restless waters washed and swirled above its sanctuary. The wern stump of the wood had kept its place for centuries, and many a corpse had drifted past it outward to the sea in days when the white marbles of St. Mark's city had run red with blood. It had once been the base of a sea shrine, of a madonna of the waters to whom the boatmen passing had invoked the Stella Maria Virginis so dear to fishermen and sailors. , But the painted shrine had long dis- appeared, and only the old piece of tim- ber, down underneath the waters, rooted in the sand among the ribbon weed and mussels, had had power to resist the forces of the tide and tempest. All the winter long the old pile kept the opals safe and sound. But one day, when the peach and pear and plum trees had in turn burst into blossom on the isles and the flocks of gulls who had survived the stress of famine and cold had returned to their feeding places on the outer lagoons, a large iron ship coming from the Black sea gave a rude shock in passing to the old oak pile; the top of it under the blow parted ana fell asunder; the necklace was washed out of its hiding place, and, carried in the heavy trough of the steamer’s path, was floated ashore up the creeks into the long grasses and reeds beneath the Devil's bridge at Torcello, The yellow water iris was then flowering, and two little reed warblers were nesting among the flags, as the opals were drifted up under some hemlock leaves and there rested. “I think they are eggs, but they are all strung together,” said the warbler to his mate. “They look more like the spawn of a fish,” said the little winged lady, with scorn. A water rat came up and smelled at them, then went away disdainfully—they were not good to eat. For birds and beasts do not care for jewels; it is only humanity, which thinks itself superior to them, which sees any value in stones, and calls such toys precious. There is nowhere in the world any grass vicher than that of Torcello, and forget- “Why will you spenk of death?” me-nots, honeysuckles and wild roses grow down to the water’s edge and around the hoary stones of the deserted isle. What a God-forgotten place!” said a young man as he sprang from a boat on to the bank by the -bridge. “Torcello was the mother of Venice; the daughter has slain her,” replied an older man, as he laid down his oars in the boat and prepared to follow his companion. His foot trod amongst the hemlock leaves and was entangled by them; he stooped, and his eyes, which were very keen, caughi sight of the string of opals. “A woman's necklace!" he said, as he drew it from under the salt seaweed- and the dewy dock leaves. It was discolored, and had sand and mud on it, and bore lit- tle traces of its former beauty, but he recognized that it was a jewel of wort! he perceived, even dulled as they wer that the stones were opals. “What have you there?” cried the young- er man from above on the bank. “The skull of an archimandrite?” The other threw the necklace upon the grass. “You would have been a fitter finder of a woman's collar than I.” “Opals! The stones of sorrow!” said the younger man, gravely, as he raised it and brushed oif the sand. ““It has been beauti- ful," he added. “It will be so again. It is BY OVIDA- not really hurt, only a little bruised and tarnished. “Lend me your glass,” said the younger man. The glass was of strong magnifying power. When it was handed to him he looked through it at some little marks on the back of the clasp of the opal collar. “Laran! 1775,"" he read igra, aloud. “Lara- pigra” is a Venetian name. “There is a Ca’ Laranigra on the Grand canal. It is next to the . You ad- mired its Moorish windows on the second story this morning. Carlo Laranigra died young. He has a widow who is only twen- ty now. She was a daughter of the duke of Monfalcone, a family of the Trentino, but pure Italians in blood. Their place is im the mountains above Garizia. It must be she who owns this necklace, an heir- loom, bably.”” emake it ine said the finder of it, with indifference. cede you my rights.” The younger leughed. who knows what they may be- come?” “Whatever they may become they are souey I do not appreciate that kind of re- ward.” “Really?” said the younger man. “If so I pity yout” “Nay; I pity you,” said the elder. The young man still stood with the opals in his hands; with a whisp of grass he had cleared the sand in a measure off them; the pearly softness and the roseate flame of the stone began to show here and there; two alone of their number were missing. “Come,’ said his companion, with impa- tience. “Put that broken rubbish in your pocket and let us go and see the cathedral and S. Fosca, for it will soon grow dark.’ They went, without visiting the basilica, back to Venice in the twilight, which deep- encd into night as they drew near the city; the moon was high and the air still. They dined in the spacious rooms set aside in the hotel for Andreis. When the dinner was over he rose. “Will you comer akon “Where?” amer. “To the Ca’ Laranigra,” said Andrels, with a borer freee “Not I,” repl amer. “A rivedercl, eet said macrels: But he linge! @ moment. “It will SS be fair to you,” he said, “for me to take the credit of having found this necklace.” “Whatever ig pms eeybe in the sal- re I cede it, I tell you, willingly. wate caare shall tell her: that it was you.” There is no need to do so; I am not a squire of dames. She will prefer a Sicilian prince to a plain man of science. However, you must find the lady first. The true owner lies under some eae ahaa slab in some chapel crypt, no doul be “Why will you speak of death? I hate it. “Hate it as you may, it will overtake ou.” : *e looked at his companion as he spoke, ana thought what he did not speak: “Yes; strong as you are, and young as you are, and fortunate as you are, you, too, will die like a pauper and the cripple and the beggar!” The reflection gratified him; for of the youth, of the beauty, of the fortune, he was envious, and with all his scorn of higher intellect he despised the childlike, happy, amorous temperament and the uncultured mind which went with them. “If I had only his wealth,” he thought often. “Or if he only had my knowledge!’ The sun was setting behind the Istrian hills, and they depended on their own oars to take them back to Venice in the rose- hued dusk, and a few seconds later the splash of the canal water beneath the bal- cony told his companion that the gondola was moving. ~It was, 12 o’clock when into the empty, brilliantly lighted room Andreis entered, and came acrce3s it to where Damer sat on the balcony. “I have found her!” he said, with joyous triumph. The moonlight shone on his dark, starry eyes, his laughing mouth, his tall figure, full of grace and strength, dike the form of the Greek Hermes in the Vatican. Damer laid aside his papers with impa- tlence. “And she has welcomed you, apparently? It {9 midnight, and you look victorious.” Andreis made a gesture of vexed protes- tation. “Pray do not suspect such things. I sent in my card, and begged her major- domo to say I had found her necklace. She sent word for me to go upstairs, that she might thank me. Of course, my name was known to her. She had a duenna. It was all solemn and correct. She was enchanted to find her necklace. It was an heirloom which Laranigra gave her. He was killed in a duel, as I told you, two years ago. She is very beautiful, and looks twenty years old, even less. I was very honest. I told her that an Englishman who was traveling with me had had the honor of finding the opals, and she wishes to see you tomor- row. I promised to take you in prima sera; you surely ought to be grateful.” Damer shrugged his sfioulders and looked regretfully at his papers and penciis. “Women only disturb one,” he said, un- graciously. Andreis laughed. “It is that disturbance which perfumes our life and shake the rose leaves over it. But.I remember, to attract you'a woman must be lying, dead or alive, on an oper- ating table.” “Alive by preference,” said Damer. ‘The dead are little use to us; their nervous system is still, like a stopped clock.” “A creature muzt suffer to interest you?” “Certainly.” sg Andreis shuddered slightly. “Why did you save me?” Damer smiled. . “My dear prince, it is my duty to save when I can. I should have preferred to let you alone and study your natural powers of resistance in conflict with the destruc- tion which was menacing them. But I could not follow my preferences. I was called in to assist your natural powers by affording them artificial resistance, and I was bound to do so.” Andreis made a grimace which signified disappointment and distaste. “If my mother knew you looked at it in that way she would not adore you, my friend, as she does.” CHAPTER II. . Veronica Laranigra was charmed to find her necklace; she was still more charmed to find an adventure through it. This beautiful youth with his starry eyes, soft with admiration, who had brought her back the opals, looked like a knight out of fairyland. She was young; she was weary of the seclusion of her wid- owhood; she was kept in close con- straint by those who had authority over her; she was ready to re-enter life in its enjuyments, its amusements, its fec- tions, its desires. The tragic end of her husband had impressed and saddened her, but she had recovered from its shock. The marriage had been arranged by their re- spective families, and the heart of neither had been consulied. Laranigra, however, had become much in love with her, and had left her all which it was in his power to leave, and that had been much. “Hew clever it was of you to see my opals under the grass and the sand!” she said, a few minutes later, as Andreis pre- sented Damer in the long, dim room hung with tapestries and rich in bronzes, mar- bles, pictures and mosaics. She was like a picture of Caterina Cor- naro as she stood on the balcony of her house; her gold hair was inclosed in a pearl-sown net, and her cloak of red satin, lined with sables, lay on her shoulders and fell to her feet like tHe robes of a Dagaressa; for her dead lord she had felt no regret. The balcony was filled with spiraea, whose white blossoms were like snow about her in the starlight and lamp- light as the gondola which brought An- d@reis and his companion to her palace paused below at the water stairs. She threw her cloak on a couch as she spoke; she was dressed in black, but the gauze sleeves of the gown showed her fair arms, and the bodice was slightly open on her bosom; her face was bright, like a rose above the deep shadow of the gown. Her hair had been a little ruffled by the wind of the evening as she had stood on the balcony. “Madam,” said~Damer, as he bowed to her with a strange and unwelcome sense of embarrassment, “Prince Andreis should not have told you that I had such good fortune. I am no fit squire of dames; he is. . She did not catch his meaning. She turned from him a little impatiently, and addressed Andreis. z She spoke of music. Andreis was accom- pene? in that art; there was a mandolin lying on the grand piano; he took it up and sang to it a Sictlian love song; she took it from him and sang Venetian bar- cata and starnelll; then they sang to- gether, and their clear, youthful voices blent harmoniously. People passing on the canal stopped their gondolas under the balcony to listen; some Venetian profes- sional musicians in a boat applauded. Damer sat in the shadow and listened, and looked at them. Music said little or noth- ing to him; he had scarcely any compre- hension of it, but something in the sound of those blended voices touched a chord iv his nature—made him feel vaguely sad, restlessly desirous, foolishly irritated. The light fell on the handsome head of Andreis, on the carnations at the lady’s throat, on the rings on their hands, which touched as they took the mandolin one from tie other: behind them was the open casement, the balcony with its white spiraea; the lighted frontage of a palace on the op- Posite side of the canal. As they ceased to sing the people below on the water ap- Plauded again and cried: “Brava! brava! brava!" “Prince Andreis is a poet,” said Damer, with a harsh tone in his voice. -_ “Who never wrote a verse,” said An- dreis, as h> handed a cup of coffee to his hostess. Through the closed windows the sounds of a chorus sung by the strolling singers below came faintly and muffled into the room; the lamplight shone on the white They Sang Together. spray of the spiraea, which looked like a ¢rystal of snow. “If I had found the opals I should have been inspired by them,” he added. is, I am dumb and unhappy.” Veronica Laranigra smiled. “If you are dumb, so was Orpheus.” “And if you are unhappy,” added Damer, “you are only so out of wantonness because the gods have given you too many gifts.” “Or because he has stolen a piece of spiraea,” said Veronica. “I may keep my theft?” asked Andreis. “Yes. For you brought back the opals, though you did not find them.” Soon after they took their leave of her and went down to the waiting gondola. The boat load of musicians had drifted up- ward toward Rialto, the colors of their pa- per lanthorns glowing through the dark. There was no moon. They did not speak to each other in the few minutes which carried them to their hotel. When they reached it they parted with a brief good- night. Neither asked the other what his impressions of the evening had been. “As it When the young Sicilian prince, Lionello Andreis, head of an ancient Hispano Italian family, had met with a hunting accident and the tusks of an old boar had brought him near to death, an English surgeon, by name Frederic Damer, who was then in Palermo, did for him what none of the Italian surgeons dared to do, and, so far as the phrase can ever be correct of human action, saved his life. A year had passed since then; the splendid vitality of the Sicilian had returned to all its natural vigor; he was only twenty-four years of age and naturally strong as a young oak in the woods of Etna. But he had a mother who loved him, and was anxious; she beg- ged the Englishman to remain awhile near him; the Sicilian laughed, but submitted; he and Damer had traveled together during several months, and were now about in another month to part company, the Sicilian to return to his own people, the Englishman to occupy a chair of physifology in a town of northern Europe. ‘Their lives had been briefly united by accident and would have parted in peace; a collar of opals was by chance washed up amongst the flags and burdocks of Torcello and the shape of their fate was altered. Damer was the son of a gountry phys!- clan, but his father had been poor, the family numerous, and he, a third son, had been sent out into the world with only his education as his capttal. He practiced surgery to live; he practiced phystology to reach through it that power and celebrity for which his nature craved and his men- tal capacity fitted him. But at every step his narrow means galled and fretted him, and he had been a demonstrator, an as- sistant, a professor in schools, when his vast ability and relentless will fitted him for the position of a Helmholtz or a Vir- chow in that new priesthood which had arisen to claim the rule of mankind, and sacrifices to itself all sentient races. In Andreis he saw all the powers of youth and wealth :oncentrated in one who mere- ly used them for a careless enjoyment and a thoughtless good nature, which seemed to himself as senseless as the dance in the sup of an amorous negro. Andreis and the Ww “I like to wear them.” whole of his family had shown him the utmost gratitude, liberality and considera- tion, and the young prince bore from him good-humoredly sarcasms and _ satires which he would not have supported from an emperor; but Damer in his turn felt for the Sicilian and his people nothing but the contempt of the great intellect for the un- cultured mind, the irritation of the wise man who sees a child gayly making a kite to divert itself out of the parchments of a treatise in an urknown tongue which, studied, might have yielded up to the student the secret of perished creeds and of lost nations. There is no pride so arro- gant, no supremacy so unbending, as those of the intellect. It may stand, iike Beli- sarius, a beggar at the gate; but, like Bell- sarius, it deems itself the superior of all the crowds who drcp their alms to it, and while it stretches out its hand to them its lips curse them. “I wish I had lived when this collar was new,” Veronica Laranigra said, when her jewelers returned to her the opals restored to their pristine brilliancy. “Life in Venice was one long festa then. I have read of it. It was all masque and serenade and courtship and magnificence. People were not philosophical about life then; they lived—Mina Laranigra was a beauti- ful woman. They have her. portrait in the Belle Arte. It is by Lucchi. She holds a-rose to her lips and laughs. She was killed by her husband for an amour. She had these opals on her throat when he drove the stiletto through it. At least, so Carlo used to tell me. But perhaps it was not true.” i “Do not wear them,” sald Andreis, to, whom she was speaking. “Do not wear them if they are blood-stained. You know they are plerres de malheur.” She laughed. “You Sicitans are superstitious. We northerners are not. I like to wear them for that very reason of their tragedy.” She took up the necklace and clasped it round her throat; some tendrils of her hair caught in the clasp; she gave an in- voluntary little cry of pain. Andreis has' ened to release her hair from the clasp. His hand trembled; their eyes met and said much to each other. Damer, who was near, drew nearer. She was silent, looking at him with that mixture of curiosity, in- terest and vague apprehension which he always aroused in her. She was not very intelligent, but she had quick suscepti- bilities; there was that in him which alarmed them and yet fascinated them. “He awes me,” she said later in the day to Andreis. “So often one cannot fol- low his meaning, but one always feels his reserve of power.’ It was a grave speech for a light-hearted lover of pleasure. Andreis heard it with vexation, but he was loyal to the man who had saved his life: “He is a person of;great intellect,” he. answ red; “we are pigmies beside him. But—” ts : “But what?” 2 on “He used his brains to save my body. So I must not dispute the virtue of his use of them. But sometimes I fancy that he has no heart. Eithink all the forces in him have only nourished his mind, which is immense. But hiaoheart, perhaps, has withered -away, getting no nourishment. He would say I tal monsense; but I think you will Papier at I mean.” ¥ “I think I und wea said Veronica, thoughtfully. ue She had thought wety little in her care- less young life. Ske had begun to think more since these two men had come into it. “Andreis meritsmdre than you give him,” said her duehng ‘to her. ‘‘How long will you keep him in 51 se? You ought to remember ‘what hell it is in waiting to abide.” at with the color a “A hell?” said Veronica, in her face. “You mean a paradise. “A fool's paradise, I fear,” replied the elder woman. “‘And what does that other man do here? He told me he was due at some university in Germany.” “How can I tell you why either of them stays?” said Veronica, disingenuously, as her conscience told her. “Venice allures many people, especially in her spring sea- 50! ‘So does a woman in her spring,” said the elder lady, dryly, with an impatient gesture. “You are angry with me.” “No, my dear. It is as useless to be angry with you as to be angry with @ young cat because in its gambois it breeks a@ vase of which it knows nothing of the preciousness.” Veronica Laranigra did not resent or re- ply. She knew the vase was precious. She did not mean to break it; but she wanted to be free awhile longer. Mutual love was sweet, but it was not freedom. And what she felt ashamed of was a certain reluc- tance which she felt to allow Damer to see or know that she loved a man of so little intellectual force as Andreis, a man who had nothing but his physical beauty and his gay, glad temper and kind heart. “Do you want nothing more than these?” the gaze of Damer seemed in her imagina- tion to say to her. Andreis was delightful to her; his beauty, his gayety, and his homage were all sym- pathetle to her. She knew that he loved her, but she prevented him telling her so; she liked her lately acquired liberty; she did not want a declaration which: would force her to decide one way or another what to do with her future. And she was affected, without being aware of it, by the scarcely disguised contempt which his companion had for him. It was seldom out- spoken, but it was vistble in every word of Damer, in every glance. “He is beautiful, yes," he said once to hes. “So is an animal.” “Do you like animals?” “I do not like or dislike them. The geolo- gist does not like or dislike the stones he breaks up, the metallurgist does not like or dislike the ore he fuses.” “You are what they call a physiologist?” she said once, suddenly. “Iam,” replied Damer. She looked at him under her long silky lashes as a child looks at what it fears in the dusk ef a fading day. He attracted her and repelled her, as when she had her- self been a child she had been at once charmed and frightened by the great ghost- ly figures on the tapestries, and the white and gray busts of gods and sages on the grand winged staircase of her father’s house in the Trentino. She would have liked to ask him many things, things of Mystery ana horror, but she was afraid. After all, how much better were the sed, the sunshine, the dog rose, the barcarolle, the laughter, the lute! CHAPTER III. She turned to Andreis, who at that mo- ment came along ,the,sands of the beach, his hands filled with spoils from the blos- soming hedges—tyrneq to him as when, a little child on the staircase in the dusk, she hed run to reach the shelter of a warmed and lighted room. He was of her own country, her,own age, her own tem- perament; he carried about him a sense cf gladness, an atmosphere of youth; he was of her own rank; he was as rich as she and richer. There was no le&ven of self- secking in the loye he bore her; the pas- sion she had roused in him was pure of any alloy; it was the love of the poets and the singers. If she accepted it, her path, from youth to age, would Be like one of those flowering meadows af, fill the cloudless day with perfume. She knew that;/her foot was ready to tread the nareissus-filled-grass, but by an unaccountable indetision and:caprice she would not let him invite her thither. She continually evaded or eluded the final words which woula have united them or parted them. “Have you given up your appointment?” he asked once, directly. Damer merely answered: “No.” He did not offer any explanations; but he contin- ued to stay on in Venice, though he had removed from the fine apartments occu- pied by his friend to a house on the Fon- damente Nuovi, where he had hired two chambers. Andreis, who was very generous and had always a grateful and uneasy sense of un- repaid obligation, vainly urged him to re- main at his hotel. But Damer, somewhat rudely, refused. “I cannot pursue any studies there,” he replied. The house he had chosen was obscure and uninviting, standing amidst the clang of coppersmiths’ hammers and the stench of iron foundries,.in what was once the most patrician and beautiful garden quar- ter.of Venice, and which is* now befouled, blackened, filled with smoke, and clamor, and vileness, where once the rose terraces and the clematis-covered pergole ran down to the lagoon and the marble stairs were white as snow under silken awnings. “What do you do there?” Veronica wish- ed to ask him; but she never did so; she felt vaguely afraid, as a woman of the mid- Gle age would have feared to ask a ma- gician what he did with his alembics and his spheres. Although the eyes of lovers are proverb- ially washed by the collyrium of jealousy, those of Andreis were blind to the passion which Damer, like himself, had conceived. The reserve and power of self-restraint in Damer were extreme, and served to screen his secret from the not very discerning mind of his companion. Moreover, the pride of race which was born and bred in Andreis rendered it impossible for him to suspect that he possessed a rival in one who was, however mentally superior, so far secially inferior, to himself and to the wo- man he loved. That a man who was going to receive a stipend as a teacher in a German univers- ity could lift his eyes to Veronica Larani- gra would have seemed wholly impossible to one who had been reared in patrician and conservative tenets. He never noticed the fires which slumbered in the cold, wide-open eyes of his friend and monitor. He never observed how frequently Damer watched him end her when they were to- gethér, listened from afar to their conver- sation, and invariably interrupted them at any moment when their words verged on more tender or familiar themes. He was himself tenderly, passionately, romantically enamored; his temper was-full of a ro- mance to which he could not often give adequate expression; his love for her had the timidity of alf sintere nascent passion; he was pained and‘chafed by the manner in which she avoided the definite declaration of it, but he did not for a moment trace it to its right causé—the magnetic influence which Damer had’ upon her, the hesitation which was giver her by vague hypnotic suggestion. If any looker-on had warned him he would have laughed and said that days of magic were past. Damer read the young man’s heart like an open book, avid he knew that it was wholly filled with the image of Veronica. He had never liked Andreis; he had no liking for youth or for physical beauty, or for kindliness and! sweetness and simplicity of character. Such qualities were not in tune with him; they were no more to him than the soft, thick fur of the cat in his laboratory, which he stripped off her body that he might lay bare her spinal cord; the pretty, warm skin was nothing to science. He had saved the life of Andreis because it had interested him and recompensed him to do so; he had traveled with him for a year because it suited him financially to do so; but he had never liked him, he had never been touched by any one of the many generous and delicate acts of the young man, nor by the trust which the mother of Andreis continually expressed in her let- ters to himself. Where jealousy sits on the threshold of the soul, goodness and kind- ness and faith knock in vain for admit- tance. Envy is hatred in embryo and only waits in the womb of time for birth. ~ One day Veronica asked him to go and see an old servant of-the Laranigra house- hold who was very ill and in hospital; they had begged him not to go to the hospital, but he had wished to do so, and had been allowed to fulfill his wish. Damer went to see him. He found the man at death’s door with cancer of the food and air pas- sages. own Sicily, which | “If he be not operated on he Will die in @ week,” said Damer. None of the hospital surgeons dared per- form such an operation. “I will operate if you consent,” said Damer. The surgeons acquiesced. a “Will Biancon recover?’ asked Veronica, when he returned and told her on what they had decided. “In his present state he cannot live a week,” replied Damer, evasively. . = he wish for the operation?” “He can be no judge. He cannot know his own condition.” “But it will be frightful suffering.” “He wiil be under anaesthetics.’’ ‘But will he recover?” “Madame, I am not the master of fate.” “But what is probable?” “What is certain is that the man will die if left as he is.” He performed the operation next day. The man ceased to breathe as !t was end- She Turred to Andreis. ed; the shock to the nervous system had killed him. When Veronica heard that he was dead she burst into tears. “Oh, why, oh! why,” she said passion- ately to Damer, later in the day, “if you knew he must die, did you torture him in his last moments?” “I gave him a chance,” he replied, in- differently. ‘Anyhow he would never have survived the operation more than a few weeks.” i “Why did you torture him with it then?” said Veronica, indignantly. “It was a rare and almost unique oppor- tunity. I have solved by it a doubt which has never heen sclved before and never could have been without a human subject.’ She shrank from him in horror. ‘You are a wicked man!” she seid, faint- ly. “Gh, how I wish, how I wish I had never asked you to see my poor Biancon! He might have lived!” x “He would mest certainly have died, said Damer, unmoved. “The life of a man at sixty is not an especially valuable thing, and I believe he did nothing all his life ex- cept polish your palace floors with bees- wax or oil; I forget which it is they use in Venic>.” She lvoked at him with a mixture of hor- ror and fear. “But you have killed him!—and you can jest.” “I did not kill kim. His disease killed replied Damer, with calm indiffer- “And his end has been a source of “Bat you have killed him.” knowledge. I should wish my own end to be as fruitful.” She shuddered, and motioned to him to leave her “Go away, go away, you have uo heart. and no conscience.” Damer smiled slightly. “I have a scientific conscience; it is as good as a moral one, and does better work.” Andreis began to desire the exile of his companion, though his loyalty withheld him from trying to obtain it by any unfair means or unjust attack. He began to per- ceive that Damer had an influence on Countess Veronica which was contrary to kis own, and adverse to his interests. He did rot attach importance to {t, because he saw that it was purely intellectual; but he would have preferred that it had not ex- isted. So would she. “Picrres de malheur! Pierres de mal- heur!” she said, as she looked at the opals that night. “Why did you bring that cruel man into my life?” She might banish him, as Andreis had said, but she felt that she would never have courage to do it. Damer awed her. She felt something of what the poor women in the saltpetiere had felt, when he had hypnotized them and made them believe that they clasped their hands on red-hot fron, or were being dragged by ropes to the scaffold. She strove to resist and conquer the impression, but she was subjugated by it against her will. (To be concluded next Saturday.) A”‘GREAT CAVE. A Discovery in Missouri That May Rival the Mammoth Cave. From the New York Evening Post. Mr. Herbert Bartlett, a mining engineer, has recently explored the cave in the Ozark mountains in southern Missouri which is beginning to attract the attention of trav- elers, and he gives a very interesting ac- count vf its marvels, which he believes will make it as famous in course of time as the Mammoth Cave. So difficult of access is the Ozark cave that no thorough expjora- tion has yet been made, and Mr. Bartlett found himself baffled in his undertaking, as others were before him. Describing the first chamber, he says: “This grand amphitheater is almost circu- lar in form, 700 feet in diameter, while the ceiling, 225 feet above, appears to be held in place by immense columns of onyx and marble. Leading off into another direction from this central room is a lofty passage- way. Fcllowing this the throne room is reached, and here in solitude is a grander throne than was ever built by man or de- signed by humar brain. It stands alone in the middle of a chamber, with ceilings 300 fect above, while from side to side the floor measures 20) feet, and from end to end 579 feet. The throne, a majestic stalagmite, fcrmed of pure onyx and jasper with mark- ings of beryl, stands in the center. It is 36 feet across and 20 feet from front to back. It rises to a height of 6 feet. There is more to be found by following the various passages leading in every direction. Rooms spread out at the end of beautiful arched passageways. All are adorned with the same colored and white carvings. “One passage has been traced for a dis- tance of twelve miles in a southwest direc- tion, and there is a current of air coming from the interior. It is thought that there are connections with the famous Barry county cave, thirty-five miles away. Nor is this immense cavern uninhabited. It has a flora and fauna peculiar to itself. In the grand amphitheater is to be found a plant or fungus blanched white by the darkness. In the long passageways leading toward the Barry county entrance are found bats that have evidently made their way in from the outside world. Some of these are enormous in size.” Probably the most wonderful feature in the cave is the river which flows through it, of which Mr. Bartlett says: “This stream is fifty feet wide, flows very swiftly, and at a distance can be heard the roar of falls. No attempt has been made to ex- plore it, as all that have seen it are afraid of the perils of the undertaking. The wa- ter is very cold, and it is believed that it finds its way, underground, to the White river. I hope that the geolcgical survey of Missouri, under its present able manage- ment, will find time to look into the hidden wonders of this cave, and give a better ac- count of them to the world.” ——— Active at 107 Years. From the London Telegraph. Mrs. Sarah Thomas, centenarian, of Bur- ryport, Llanelly, who last year received a check of £5 6s. from the Princess of Wales, or a shilling for each natal anniversary, celebrated yesterday her one hundred and seventh birthday. She is in possession of all her faculties, and is a very amusing conversationalist. Mrs. Thomas was born at Whitland on February 5, 1788, has one daughter, eight grandchildren,eleven great- yhildren and three great-great-grand- children. Sho is very fond of a well-sea- soned clay pipe filled with strong tobacco. Highest of all in Leavening Power.— Latest U.S. Gov't Report Roval Baking Powder THE NAVY OF SPAIN As Compared in Strength With That of This Country. UNCLE SAM'S HAS EFFECTIVE CRUISERS Cost of Maintaining a War Vessel in Active Service. AS TO PRIZE MONEY ee Written for The Evening Star. PAIN WOULD CER- tainly be most re- i luctant to undertake a war with the United States, even ~under great provoca- fl tion. It is difficult to sée how she could win. At the first sign of serious inter- national trouble our vessels would be gathered from ail parts of the world as quickly as telegraph- ed orders could fetch them, and a great show of force would be made in Cuban waters. ‘The navy of Spain does not amount to much, possessing only three battle ships and three cruisers that are powerful enough to be seriously considered. Her strongest vessel is the Pelayo—a steel battle ship of 9,900 tons, with an eighteen-inch armor belt. But the Pelayo is not so heavy nor equipped with such big guns as the Massa- chusetts, Indiana, Oregon and Iowa. The available battle ships belonging to Spain are the Pelayo, the Infanta Maria Teresa, the Vizcaya, the Numancia and the Vitoria. The last two are very old and out of date; at present they are prob- ably laid up in ordinary at the navy yards. The Numancia was built in 1862 and has a displacement of 7,305 tons. She.is of iron, like the Vitoria, which was built in 1865, and is of about the same size. Our Mian- tonomoh and Amphitrite could whip them badly, though not nearly so big, these two Coast defense monitors being of only 3,890 tons each. The Infanta Maria Teresa has just been ccmpleted. She has a displacement of 7,000 tons. The Vizcaya is of the same size. The former is about equal to the Maine and the latter to the Texas. Spain is now building several big ships. Of these the most powerful are two steel battle ship, the Emperador Carlos V snd a sister vessel not yet named. Each of them will have a displacement of 9,325 tons and the ‘remarkable speed of twenty knots an hour. ‘They will not be so large nor so powerful as the Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon and Iowa. Of these the first three are of 10,200 tons, while the gigantic sea-going steel battle ship Iowa has six turrets and a displacement of 11,296 tons. Battle Ships and Cruisers. At present the government of the United States does not pcssess a single finished battle ship, but within three months the Massachusetts, Indiana and Oregon could be completed and ready for business. Their guus are ready now. The Massachusetts is at the Cramps’ yards in Philadelphia, while the Indiana and Oregon, her sister ships, are receiving their final touches at the Union iron works in San Francisco. The Maine is in process of building at Brooklyn, and the Texas at Norfolk. They are nowhere near completion. Uncle Sam is particularly strong in re- spect to cruisers, while Spain is very weak. e has two steel cruisers of about 5,000 tons each—the Alfonso XIII and the Le- panto. These are her only strong vessels of that kind, though she has a number of others of more or less antiquated types. Recently she has been constructing four steel battle ships of 7,000 tons each, at a cost of $3,000,000 apiece. Only one of these, the Almirante Oquendo, been complet- ed; but it is not yet in service. The re- maining three are not nearly finished. These are the Cardenal Cisneros, the Cata- lina and the Princesa de Asturias. The first two, like the Almirante Oquendo, have steel forts called “‘citadels” on their decks. The Iowa, by the way, has a citadel as well as turrets. The description of the ves- sels of the Spanish navy may be completed by mention of an antique iron monitor of 583 tons, the Puig-Cerda, and the Duque de Tetuar, harbor-defense craft of 703 tons, equally gut of date. One reason why Spain would be slow to enter upon a conflict with the United States is that she is very poor. Her credit is not erpecially good, and it is doubtful if she could raise a big loan. She is not a manu- facturing country and her zesources are small. Her population has been at a stand- still for the last 100 years. She can get money to build big ships, but she cannot afford to keep them in commission. The cost of maintaining a vessel of war in ac- tive service is enormous. It is iike a yacht in that respect, but on a very large scale. Take the cruiser New York, for example. ‘lo keep her going costs something like $400,000 a year. Of-sthis sum about $240,000 is for pay of officers and crew; $10,000 is for provisions; $40,000 more ‘ts for coal, though that item varies, inasmuch as ccal at a home station costs $4 a ton, whereas in foreign parts it may come to as much as $18 a ton. For docking, overhauling and wear and tear, about $50,000 should be added. To Secure Sailors Of course, in case of war, one of the first things to be considered would be to get men for the ships. At present we have more ships than men, notwithstanding the provision recently made by Congress for 1,000 additicnal seamen. Men could be pressed into the service from the merchant marine, but this would not be necessary. There would be plenty of volunteers from mercantile vessels. The 8,000 seamen al- ready in the navy would be scattered among the ships, serving as a nucleus, while a sufficient number of recruits would be added to bring the complement of every war vessel up to its full fighting capacity. And, by the way, there are many old man- o’-war’s men in the merchant marine to- day who would be only too glad to enlist. The pay in the navy is better than in the army, and rations are more liberal. The prospect of prize money would be a great inducement. The practice of offering prize money for the capture of vessels belonging to an en- emy is justly regarded as an evidence of tarbarism, bat it Most useful in war. What is war anyway but a relic of sav- agery? It is a question whether or not the government of the United States would countenance privateering—that is to say, give its approval to private individuals who might choose to fit out vessels for the purpose of preying on the commerce of the foe as a matter of money speculation. Civ- ilization today is disposed to look askance upon this sort of thing, and the nations of Europe some time ago agreed that it should not be tolerated. But the United States refused to come into this agreement. Award of Prize Money. According to the law in force, when a United States vessel takes a ship of less strength than its own, the officers and crew of the captor receive one-half of the net proceeds from the sale of the captured craft. The other half goes to the navy pen- sion fund, out of which annuities are paid to‘disabled naval officers and sailors and to their widows and minor children. But when the enemy. is of equal or greater strength, the erltire proceeds of the sale goes to the victorious United States ship. Prize money is not paid for the destruc- tion of an enemy’s ship-of-war, but instead of that this government grants a bounty, which is distributed in exactly the same way. If the vessel wiped out was of greater strength than the victor, $200 is allowed for every officer and sailor on board of the vanquished craft. If she was of less strength, the allowance is $100 per capita. The sum thus reckoned is divided, like the prize money, among the officers and sail- ors of the victor according to certain rules. The commander of a fleet gets one-half of everything taken by the vessels under his control. The division commander receives one-fiftieth. The fleet captain is entitled to one one-hundredth part. After that every officer and man shares in the ratio of his annual pay. a THE FAT MAN’S JOKE. He Was Helped On, but Not Of the Car. “Skip lively now!” shouted the conductor. But the fat man on the corner was evi- dently very feeble. The conductor jumped off to give him a helping hand, but his strength seemed not sufficient to boost the passenger aboard. So—for the car was somewhat behind time—the driver came to his assistance. Still it was quite a lift, and it was only with the aid of a sympathetic department clerk in giglamps that the new fare was finally lifted into the vehicle. ‘The driver and conductor pushed from be- hind, while the individual in giglamps held on to the lapels of the fat man’s overcoat and pulled with might and main. At length the fat man was shoved fhrough the rear doorway of the convey- ance and dropped into a seat. The amia~ bly-disposed department clerk wiped the perspiration from his brow, while the ae — In set and whip- yank at the bell sirap and remarked: “Well, that’s the nearest thing to a corpse I ever handled!” Fully two minutes had been lost, and the muttered profanity of the driver was in measure pardonable. The car, under an impetus given by a few lashes bestowed upon the horses, sped Fm fem penn man proceeded to ngEaAgS himself from his hat, which had been crushed down over his head to some ex- tent. It was observed that his nose was red, perhaps from the biting air, and that a Cheerful smile irradiated his counte- nance, Furthermore, he winked pieasantly twice or thrice at a pretty young woman who sat opposite, so that she became quite embarrassed, not probably that ee eee aren given A stout gentle- a age, me! indica: spectful admiration. y ig “And him on the edge of the grave!’ thought a respectable Irish woman with @ market basket, half aloud. She sat next pei hoes pretty girl and toak notice of those vinks. : Perhaps ten minutes had passed, and the car had got eight or nine blocks further on its journey, when it stopped at a street corner, and the fat man rose to get out. Without exhibiting the slightest symptom of his previous decrepitude, he walked out upon the rear platform—the conductor being at the moment in the for- gvard part of the vehicle—and, refusing an arm proffered ‘by the department clerk in giglamps, jumped lightly down and off the steps. The conductor, giving a pull at the bell rope, and hastening out just in time to witness this surprising spectacle, could only say: The fat turnt id wavi e fat man, turning and wa’ a sky- <a umbrella, which he carried, "shouted ck: ston, I forgot!” t what?" asked the conductor, not at all recovered from his amazement. “I forgot I was so feeble,” replied the erstwhile decrepit passenger. Then he added, “Ta, ta!” and skipped ligittly upon the sidewalk. “Well, I'm dashed,” ejaculated the de- partment cierk. “I should say so!” said the conductor. “That feller was just puttin’ up a job on us, pretendin’ he was ‘most a corpse. Just wait till he tries that on me again, and I'll drop him into a mud puddle.” ‘The car sped onward, but for a while all the joy had gone out of the life of two human beings. And the driver had not yet Sine of the little game which had trans- ——>——. Written for The Evening Star. Drifting. The waves may ripple through the livelong day, Decked in the folds of Heaven's reflected blue; And, sparkling, over soft-voiced shoels may play: Or mirror in its surfacedepths the new:— But the stream flows on and we upon life’s river, Like leaves, upon the current drift forever. Soft melodies may soothe us, as we drift Beneath the boughs of over-arching trees, While perfumes float from every leafy rift And from the neighboring lily-mantled leas:~ But life expands into a mighty river And we, upon its bosom, drift fcrever. Ah, soon its sparkle Gulls; its glitter dies; And all the song in life is left bebind,— . Till only emptiness around us lies As love grows cold; and so at Inst we find Life's perfume fled. Then we upon the river Yeara for & sweetness that is gone forever. But often to our hearts a fragrant breeze Floats down the stream in sad, delicious sighs; And in, and round, and near us everywhere A thousand mellowed memories arise, Like flowery perfumes wafted down the river, To soothe us as we drift along forever. GEORGE H. MURPHY. —_— To Entertain a Sick Child. A little sick child will play for an hour with a small hand mirror, ani a stack of bright picture cards is a positive boon. Never throw away a picture card, put them in a box and they will come in use some day, if not for your own children for those of somebody else. Half the pleasure in living comes from being able to be of serv- ice to others. It gives a glow to the heart that nothing else on earth will bring. Those who live for self alone, without thought for others, are the crusty old cur- mudgeors who go out of life unregretted. their place considered better than their company. To bring a smile to a little @hild’s face, a laugh into its heart ought to be the height of happiness, but we don’t often think of it that way. “Even to the least of these,” One wiser than we once said, and he who carries in his heart the love for a child has gone far on the road to a better life. ——___- «e+ ______ A Vanderbilt Necklace, From the London Telegraph. At a sale of silver plate and jewelry by Messrs. Ellis, Morris & Co., a pearl neck- lace, with diamond clasp, comprising thir- ty-nine well-matched pearls, weighing 621% grains, was disposed of. The bidding com- menced at £1,500, and proceeded by hun- dreda to- £2,900, at which sum it was sold to the representatives of Mr. W. Vander- bilt of New York. From Life.