Evening Star Newspaper, March 30, 1895, Page 23

(Copyright by Bacteller, Johnson & Bacheller.) (Concluded.) CHAPTER IV. ‘After the death of the serving man Bian- ‘con the name of the English scientist and surgeon became krown and revered among the persons of hts profession in Venice. The poor man had died certainly from the shock to the nerves, but that was of small mo- ment. The operation had been eminently successful, as science counts success. It had been admirably performed, and had, as he had said to Veronica, cleared up a doubt which could not, without a human subject, have been satisfactorily dissipated. His skill, his manual dexterity, his courage, were the themes of universal praise, and more than one rich person of the Veneto entreated his examination, and were sub- mitted to his treatment. Andreis saw but little of him in the day- time, but most evenings in prima sera they met in the Palazzo Laranigra. Then Da- mer spoke a little, but he spoke with effec: and when he was silent it seemed to this young mistress of the house that his si- lence was odiously eloquent, for it appeared always to say to her: “What-a mindless creature you are! What a mindless crea- ture you lov 5 “You play with your happiness,” said her duenne angrily to her. “I do not play, indeed,” she answered se- riously, but said no more. Even in broad daylight, and on the sunlit waters of the lagoon, as she saw in the dis- tance the foundry flames and factory smoke of the Fondamente, where Damer’s tower stood, she shuddered in the hot mid- summer noon. It seemed as if even from that distance the eyes of the strange Eng- Eshman could see her and lay silence on her lips and terror on her heart. It was but a morbid fancy—she knew that; but she could not shake off the impression. Even when far out on the green waves of “You will be mine—mine—mine!” ‘the Adriatic, when Venice had long dropped @way out of sight, the chilliness and op- [ s <sppees of the hallucination remained with As summer drew on Andreis decided if he could not persuade her to promise herself to him in Venice he would follow her to -the hills above Cadara, and there decide his fate. He had little doubt that he would succeed before the summer should have wholly fled. ‘He went out one day to make some pur- chases of glass and metal work for which one of his ‘sisters had written him. He thought that when they were completed it would be but courtesy to go and tell Damer that he himself was about to leave the city, and offer him his yacht to go in, if he de- sired it, to Trieste. The indulgent kindli- ness of Andreis made him wish to part friends with a man to whom he considered that he owed his life. He bade his gondolier steer northward to the Fondamente. In passing the Ponte del Paradiso, a sandalo, in which there was one person alone, fouled his own in the narrow channel, and that solitary person was Damer. “I was just going to your apartments,” cried Andreis, while his gondolier swore as prow grazed the wall of Palazzo Narni. “I am going to the hospital, and shall not be at home till dark,” replied Damer, ungractously. “I was coming to tell you that I am about to leave Venice.” “And are going to Goritz, no doubt,” said Damer, with a dark, brief smile. “I may be and I may not,” replied An- dreis, in a tone which implied that where- ever he chose to go was no business of any one’s. “Anyhow, I am led to say that the schooner is entirely at your disposition if you remain here or if you cross to Trieste.” “Thanks. Yachts are rich men’s toys for which I have no use,” answered Damer, without saying where he was going or what he intended to do. “Send yours to her docks in Messina if you do not require her yourself.” “You might be a little mcre polite,” said Andreis; half angrily, half jestingly. “! should be glad to do you any services. ‘Poor men cannot accept such services.” “Why do you constantly speak of your poverty? You have intellect; that is much rarer than riches.” “And much less esteemed,” said Damer, with that brief, dull smile which always depréssed and troubled Andreis. “I fear I cannot stay to gcessip,” he added. “I am already rather late for a conference at the hospital.” ‘They were about to part—Damer to pass underneath the bridge, Andreis to pursue his way to a coppersmith's workshop, when a weak, infantile cry smote on their ears, echoed by other shriller childish voices. Some children were playing on the black barges which were laden with firewood and coal. They were small creatures, half naked in the warm air and sportive as young rabbits. They ran, leaped, climbed the piles of fuel, caught each other in mimic wrestling and screamed with glad laughter. There was only one who did not Join in the games, a little boy who lay lan~ guidly and motionless on some sacks, and watched the others with heavy eyes. As their gondola passed under that wall the sporting children, growing wilder and more reckless, rushed in their course past and over the little sick bey, and jostled him so roughly that they pushed him over the edge of the barge, and he fell, with a shrill cry, into the water. The others, frightened at what had befallen them, gathered together, whimpering and afraid, irresolute and incapable. The fallen child disappeared. The water hereabouts is thick ang dark, and sewage flows uncheck- ed into it. It was in that instant of his fall that his cry and the shrieks of his companions rose shrilly on the morning si- Tence. In a second Andreis had sprung from the gondola, dived for the child, who had drifted underneath the barge, and brought him up in his arms. He was a child of some five years old, with a pretty pale face and naked limbs; his small curly head fell in exhaustion on the young man’s shoulder; his ragged clothes were dripping. Damer looked at him with professional insight. “That boy is ill,” he said to An- dreis. ‘You had better put him out of your arms. “Poor little man!” said Andreis, gently holding the child closer. “What shall we do with him? We cannot leave him here with only these children.” “You are wet through yourself. You must go to your hote sald Damer. Andreis was still standing in the water. At that moment a woman rose up from the cabin of the farthest barge and came leaping wildly from one barge to another, sereaming: “The child! the child! my Carlino!", She was his mother. Andreis gave him to her outstretched arms and slipped some mcney into the little ragged shirt. “I will come and see how he is in an heur,” he said to her, amidst her prayers and blessings. ‘He is not well. You must take care of him—not leave him alone. ‘The child opened his eyes and smiled. Andreis stooped and kissed him. “Go home by yourself. I will stay and see what is the matter with him,” said HS Ee eae Sa Ral do : I I IA EE ae tr aE ee EO le Te a ee ec THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1895—TWENTY-FOUR PAGES. 8Y QVIDAr Damer. Andreis went. Damer, bidding the woman go before him, walked over the barges until he reached the one in which she had a sort of rude deck-house or cabin, in which she and five children lived. There he examined the little boy. “A sore throat,” he said, simply. “I will bring you remedies.’ He hailed a passing gondola and went to his house in the Fondamente. “What is amiss with him?’ said Andreis, later in the day. “You would have done better to leave him in the canal water,” replied Damer. “He is a weak little thing; he has never had any decent food; he will never re- cover.” “But what is4t?” “A sore throat,” replied Damer, as he had replied to the mother. - They went both to the Ca’ Laranigra that evening. There were several people there; the night was yery warm; the tall lilies and palms on the balcony glistened in the light of a full moon; there was music. Veronica held out the lute to An- dreis. “Will you not sing with me tonight?” “Alas! You must forgive me. I am rather hoarse. I have no voice,” he an- swered, with regret. “I heard of what you did this morning,” she murmured, in a low tone. “Your gon- dolier told mine. Perhaps you have taken a chill. I will go and see the little child temorrow.”” z = “We will go together,” he replied, in the same soft whisper, while his hand touched hers in seeming only to take the lute. Damer saw the gesture where he sat in the embrasure of a window speaking of a frontier question of the hour with a Ger- ian minister who was passing through Venice. When they left the house two or three other men accompanied them on to- the water steps. Warm though as the night was, Andreis shivered a little as he wrap- ped his overcoat round him. “1 could bear my sables,” he said, as he descended the stairs. Damer looked at him in the moon- light, which was clear as the light of early morning. “You should not plunge into sewage water and embrace little beggars,” he said, coldly, as he accompanied one of the Vene- tian gentlemen whose palace was near the Fondamente, and who had offered him a seat in his gondola. Andreis, refusing the entreaties of his cempanions to go and sup with them at Florian’s, went to his rooms at the hotel. He had a flood of happiness at the well- springs of his heart, but in his body he felt feverish and cold. 2 “It is the sewage water. It got down my throat as I dived,” he thought, recalling the words of his friend. “1 shall sleep this chill off and be well again in the morning.” But he did not sleep; he drank some iced drinks thirstily, and only fell into a trou- bled and heavy slumber as the morning dawned red over the roofs of Venice, and the little cannon on the Guidecca saluted a new day. He felt ill when he rose, but he bathed and dressed, and, though he had no eppe- tite for breakfast, went down to his gon- dola, which he had bidden to be before the hotel at 9 o'clock. At parting from her he had arranged with Veronica that.they should go at that hour to see the little child of the Bridge of Paradise. As he stood on the steps and was about to descend Damer touched him on the arm. “You are going to take the Countess Laranigra to the sick boy?” “Yes,” said Andreis, with a haughty ac- cent; he did not like the tone of authority in which he was addressed. “I forbid you to do so, the: said Da- mer. “She would only see a dead body, and that body infectious with disease.” Andreis was pained. “Is the little thing dead?” he said, in a hushed voice. “Dead already?” i “He died twenty minutes ago. He had been ill for three days.” “Poor little pretty thing!” murmured An- dreis, “I am sorry. I will go to the moth- er.” “You had better go to your bed. You are unwell. You did a foolish act yesterday.” “I am quite well. When I require your advice I will ask it,” said Andreis, impa- tiently, as he entered his gondola and went to the house of Veronica. Damer, standing on the steps of the hotel, looked after him with a gaze which would have killed him could a look have slain. Her house was bright in the morning radiance, the green water lapping its mar- bles, the lilies and palms fresh from the night's dew, the doors standing open show- ing the blossoming acacias in the garden behind. She came to him at once in one of the smaller salons. * “I am ready,” she said, gayly. “Look! I have got these fruits and toys for your little waif.” Then something in his expression checked her slatness. : < “What is it?” she asked. “The child is dead,” said Andreis. “Oh, how sad!” She put down the little gifts she had prepared on a table near her; she was tender-hearted and quickly moved; the tears came into her eyes for the little boy whom ske had never seen. Andreis drew nearer to her. “Mia cara,” he murmured. “Do not play with me any longer. Death is so near us always. I have told you a hundred times that I love you. I will make you so happy if you will trust to me. Tell me—tell me—” She was softened by emotion, conquered “Will his mother soon be here?” by the answering passion which was in her; she did not speak, but her breast heaved, her lips trembled; she let him take her hands. “You will be mine—mine—mine!” he cried, in delirious joy. “I love you,” she answered, in a voice so low. that it was like the summer breeze passing softly. over the lilies, “Hush! Leave me! Go now. Come back at 3 I shall be alone.” The doors were open and the windows; in a farther chamber two liveried servants stood; approaching through the ante-room was the figure of the major-domo of the palace. Andreis pressed her hands to his lips and left her. He was dizzy from ecstasy, or so he thought, as the busts and statues of the entrance hall reeled and swam before his sight, and his limbs felt so powerless and nerveless that, if ore of kis gondoliers had not caught and held him, he would have fallen headlong down the water steps. CHAPTER V. When 3 of the clock chimed from the belfries of St. Mark she awaited him alone in her favorite room, clothed in white with a knot of tea-roses at her breast; she was full of gladness; she looked at herself in the many mirrors and saw that she was as fair as the fair June day. “How beautiful our lives will be!” she thought. “Poor little dead child! It was his little hands joined ours. Perhaps he is an angel of God now, and_ will always be with us!” She heard the swish of oars at the water stairs below; she heard steps ascending those stairs; she heard the voice of her head servant speaking. It was he! She put her hand to her heart; it beat so wildly that the leaves of the roses fell; she crossed her- self and murmured a prayer; such happi- ness seemed to merit gratitude. Through the vista of the ante-chambers came the figure of a man. But it was not that of Andreis. Damer came up to her with his calm, ex- pressionless face, his intént.eyes, his air of authority and of indifference. “You expected the Prince Andreis,” he said to her. “I regret to tell you, madame, that he is unable to keep his appointment with you. He has taken the disease of which that child on the barge died this morning. He has-what the vulgar call diphtheria.” Andreis lay in the large salon where they had dined together in the evening after finding the opal necklace, Damer had caused a bed to be taken into it and placed in the center of the room, as affording more air from the four large windows than was to be obtained from the inner bed chamber adjoining. He did not give the true name to the disease in speaking to the people of the hotel; he spoke merely of cold and fever. from a plunge in the hot noonday into foul canal water; on the local doctor, whom he paid the compliment of calling in, he enjoined the same reserve. “The prince is very rich,” he said, “he will pay for any loss which may be incur- red, and renewal of furniture and of dra- peries.” eam Andreis he did not conceal the tru + Irdeed, Andreis himself said, in a hoarse, faint voice: “I have the disease which the child had. Cure me if you can, for—” He did not add why life was more than ever beautiful to him, but the tears rose into his eyes; the other understood what remained unspoken. When 3 in the afternoon sounded from the clock-tower on the south side of -the hotel he raised his head, and, with a de- is “Let me see him! oh, let me see him!” spairing gesture, said to Dame ‘She ex- pects me. Go and explain to her; say I am ill. Tell her I would get up and keep my tryst if I died at her feet, but I fear—I fear —the contagion—for her.” “Lie where you are, and you will probably be well in a few days,” said Damer. “I will leave Stefanio with you and take your message. I shall soon return. Meanwhile your man knows what to do.” Stefanio was the valet. The eyes of Andreis followed him from the room with longing and anguish. He was not yet so’ ill that the apathy of ex- treme illness dulled his desires and stilled his regrets. Both were intense as life was still intense in him. He would have risen and dragged himself to the Ca’ Laranigra; but as he had said he feared the infection for-her which would be in his voice, in his touch, in his breath, in his mere presence. “She loves me, she loves me,” he thought, and he, like a coward, like a knave, must be untrue to the first meeting she had Promised him! “Why is it,” he thought, as the tears welled up under his closed eyelids, “that our better, kinder impulses always cost us so much more heavily than all our egotisms and all our vices?” If he had left the little child underneath the barge to drown, would it not have been better even for the child? The little thing had only suffered some eighteen hours longer through his rescue. “What did you tell her?’ he asked, breathlessly, when Damer at last returned. “I told her the truth,” replied Damer, as he placed the thermometer under the sick man’s armpit. “You have worried and fretted; your fever has increased.” “What did she say? She is not angry— labcratory to its just and logical sequence. What he felt for Veronica was not love, but passion, and not passion alone, but the sense of dominion. ;He knew that the fair creature shrank fram him, but submitted to him. All the intense instinctive tyranny of his nature longed exercise itself on her, the beautiful end, patrician thing, so far above him, so fragile and so fair. He knew that he would, never possess her or command her except.through fear; but this would suffice to ‘The finer and more delicate elements of; jove were indifferent to him, were, ind gunknown. They had existed in Andreis, whom he bad despised; but in his own temperament they could find no dwelling place. Late at night and early at dawn messen- gers came from the, Ca’ Laranigra. Damer replied to all inquiries:;“It is impossible to say what turn the disease may take.” Andreis had writ! at intervals various Penciied notes to her; indistinct, feebly scrawled, but still coherent. He pointed to each when it was ‘written and looked at his friend with supplicating eyes. He could not speak, for the, false membrane filled his throat. Damer had taken each note. “To Countess Laranigra?” he had asked. Andreis gave mute assent. Damer had carried each note to the next room, read it, then disinfected it, then sent it to its destination. He was of too proud a tem- per to use the usual small arts of the traitor. ‘ Once she wrote in reply: “I cannot see, my eyes are too weak.” Andreis scrawled on a scrap of paper, “Read it to me.” Damer opened and read it aloud. It was short, timid, simple, but a deep love and an intense anxiety spoke in it. An- dreis took it and laid his cheek on it with a smile of ineffable peace. It seemed to give him firmer hold on life. Damer sat by the bedside and watched ‘him. He belleved that he would recover. Andreis slept, his cheek on the little let- ter, as a child falls to sleep with a favorite toy on its pillow. In the dark. Damer was told that a lady who was below in her gondola desifed to see him. He descended the stairs prepared to find Veronica Laranigra. She was veil- ed; he could not see her features, but he knew her by the turn of her head, the jape of her hand, before she spoke. “You come for news of the prince?” he said, coldly and harshly. “I can give you none. The dis»ase is always uncertain and deceptive.” - : “Let me see him! oh, let me see him!” she murmured. “I came for that. No mat- ter what they say. No matter what dan- ger there be. Only let me see him!’ “That is wholly impossible,” replied Da- mer, in an unchanged tone. “Why do you come on such errands?” “Who should see him if not I? Who are you that you should keep me from him?” “I am a man of science, whose duty it is to protect you from yourself. Go” home, madame, and pray for your betrothed. That is all that you can do.” “Why does she love him?” thought Da- mer. “Like to like. Fool to fool. Flower to flower!” From his soul he despised her, poor, love- ly, mindless, childlike creature! But her voiee turned his blood to flame; the sound of her weeping deepened his scorn to hate; the touch of her ungloved hand was ecsta- cy and agony in one. He loved her with furious, brutal, unsparing passion, like lava under the ice of his self-restraint. He stood in the twilight and looked after the black shape of the gondola. “He shall never be yours,” he said in his heart. ‘“Never—neyer—never! unless I die instead of him tenight.” CHAPTER VI. He remained there some minutes whilst the water traffic passed by him unnoticed and the crowds flocked out from a novena in the Salute., Ofie of the medical men whom he had summoné came out onto the steps. offended?” “Who can be so at the misfortune of dis- ease? Of course she knows that you have pee this misfortune through your own lly.” “Did she say so?” ‘i “No; I am not aware that she said so. But she no doubt thought it. She bade me tell you not to agitate yourself.” “Was that all?” “She added—for her sake,’ said Damer, with a cold, slight smile. He was truthful in what he repeated; he scorned vulgar methods of misrepresentation and betrayal. The heavy eyes of Andreis gleamed and lightened with joy. “Thanks,"’ he said softly, and his hot hand pressed that of his friend. “I will write to her,” he added. disinfect a note?” “Yes. But do not exert yourself. Try to sleep.” He crossed the room and closed the green wooden blinds; he gave an order to Stef- anio, and dipped his hands in a disinfecting fluid; then he sat down and took up a book. But he could not read. He saw before him that blanched, frightened face, which a Iit- tle while before had been raised to his as the voice of Veronica had cried to him: “Save him! You will save him? You have so much knowledge, so much power. You will save him for my sake!’ He had promised her nothing; he had only said briefly, in the language of people who were fools, that the issue of life and of death was in the hands of Deity. He had Promised her nothing; in his own way he was sincere. Up to that time he had done everything which science and experience could suggest to combat the disease. He called in a second medical man of the town and two sisters of charity to replace Stefanio, who grew alarmed for his own vemee and would no longer approach the “You can “Send for my mother,” said Andreis, in ~his choked voice. - “Certainly,” answered his friend, but Damer telegraphed only to the Andreis’ palace in Palermo, and he knew that it was unlikely she would be in that city in the summer heats of the end of Jurie. It might be forwarded or it might not; Italian households are careless in such matters. The disease which had fastened on An- dreis was not one which waits. But when he murmured once and again, “Send for my mother!” Damer could, with a clear conscience, reply, “I have telegraphed.” The day wore into night, and the night waned into dawn. All the animation of Venetian life began again to awake with the whirr of the pigeons taking their sun- rise flight from dome and cupola and pin- nacle and gutter. To the Sisters of Char- ity their patient seemed better, to~ the = of the city also; Damer said noth- ing. Andreis drew his pencil and paper to him and wrote feebly, “Veronica?” Damer read the name. “She came to see you an hour or two ago,” he answered. “But I could not allow it. Your illness is infectious.” He spoke in his usual brief, calm, in- different manner. Andreis sighed, but it was a sigh of content; he was half asleep; he turned on his pillows and drew the lit- tle note which he had hidden under them once more against his cheek. “He will sleep himself well,” nen. “Let us hope so,”’ replied Damer, but she heerd from his tone that he did not share her belief. It_was now 11 o'clock. “Go and rest,” he said to her. ‘You need it. I and his servant will watch tonight. If there be any necessity I will summon cu. yONWill his mother soon be here?” asked the sister, whose heart was tender. “I believe so,” replied Damer. He lit a candle and approached the bed. Andreis smiled faintly. He could not speak. “Let me see your throat,” said Damer. He saw that the nun had spoken truly; the fungus growth was wasting, the false membrane was shrinking; there was a healthier look on the tongue. He set the lamp down and said nothing. “Is he nct better?” said the sister, arxiously. “Perhaps,” he replied. “If there be no re-formaticn of the false membrane he may be saved. Go, my good woman, and rest while you can. She went, nothing loth, to her supper and her bed. Damer was alone with the man who trusted him and whose mother trusted him. “Man cannot control circumstances,” he thought, “but the wise man can assist cir- cumstances; the fool does not.” Once it had suited him to save that young man’s life; now it sulted him to end t. said the One action was as wrong or as righteous as the other. It was an exercise of power, as when the monarch grants an amnesty or signs a death warrant. Who blames the monarch who does but use his power? The prerogative of superior reason is higher than the prerogative of a monarch. His professional conscience would have shrunk from giving the disease, but it did not shrink from making death certain where it was merely possible. He did but add a stronger poison to that which nature had already poisoned. Men slew their rivals in duels and no one blamed them; who should blame him be- cause he used the finer weapon of science irstead of the coarser weapon of steel? He did but carry out the doctrine of the “The sisters say the prince is better. He seems so,” said his colleague. “What do they know?’ said Damer; and added, less harshly; *“?f is too early to be able to make sure of recovery; it is a dis- ease which is very trea¢herous.” “You have more knowledge than I,” said the Venetian, who was a meek man, not very wise. , “Come to my laboratory in the Fonda- mente, and I will show’ you something and tell you something,’ said Damer. His Italian colleague, flattered, complied with the request. { ‘What he showed him were three animals two rabbits and a cat—inoculated with and dying of diphtheria; what he explained to him were thé theories of Loffier and Klebs and ithe discovery of the antidote by Behring; and displayed.to him some serum which he had received from Roux,.who was only then at the commencement of hfs ap- plications of Behring’s theory. The Venetian doctor inspected and lis- tened with deep respect. “Why do you not try this treatment on the prince?” he sald, which was what Da- mer desired and intended him to say. “I will do so on my own responsibility if he is no better in the morning,” he replied; “but you will admit that the responsibility will be great, the theory of the cure being at present unknown to the general public and no one of his family being at present in Venice to authorize the experiment.’’ “We are there as your colleagues, and We shall support you,” replied the more ob- scure man, touched and flattered by the deference of one who was in the confidence of French and German men of science. “If there be no other way,’’ said Damer, as he put the small phial of serum back into a locked case. The dual meaning which layin the words was like a devil’s laugh in his ears. . When the Venetian doctor had left him he had taken the phial of serum, inoculat- ing syringe and another smaller bottle con- taining a clear liquid; he had put these to- gether in the breast pocket of his coat. He looked up at the Ca’ Laranigra as he passed it; its windows were all dark, and the white lilies had no light upon them save that from the rays of the moon. As he entered the lighted hall of the hotel they handed him a telegram. It was from the Princess Andreis. She had received his dispatch twelve hours late, as she had been in her summer palace in the mountains; s#e had left Si- cily immediately, and said that she would travel without pause at the utmost speed possible. She added commend my dar- ling to God and you.” Damer crushed the paper up in his hand with a nervous gesture and flung it out, by the open doorway, into the water below. Then he ascended the staircase and en- tered his patient's room. The night was very warm; the windows stood wide open; there was a shaded porce- lain lamp on the table. One nun watched whilst the other slept. Andreis lay still on the great bed in the shadow; he was awake; his eyes were looking upward, his mouth was open, but his breathing was easier and less hard. The Sister of Charity whis- pered to Damer: “I think he is better. The fungus growth seems loosening. We have given the wine and the meat essence. He could swallow.” Damer said nothing. He was absorbed in meditation. The infliction of death was nothing to him—could be nothing; he was used to kill as he was used to torture with profound indifference, with no more hesita- tion than he ate or drank or fulfilled any natural function of the body. What was the man lying sleeping there to him? Only an organism like those which daily he broke up and destroyed and threw aside. Only an organism, filled by millions of other invisible organisms, by a myriad of parasite animalculae,” numerous as the star-dust in th< skies, He sat by the windéw and looked out absently at the night. 3 He knew that the nun’ was right; he knew that the disease Was passing away from the sick man; that,'if left alone, sleep and youth would restore him to health, to joy, and love. * Should he leave him ‘alone? ‘The mother of Andreis could not be there before another day, travel as rapidly as she would. He knew tlie effect of affection on the nervous system, ‘and that the sight and sense of a beloved. person. rear often gave to enfeebled frames the power of re- sistance and recovery. Those emotions were not in hixaself; but he recognized their existence, and he khew’' that in Andreis the emotions and the’ affections were very strong in proportion as the mental powers were slight. “What thou doest, dd’ quickly,” he mur- mured in the words which he had heard in his childhood as he had sat in the old parish church of his native village. He rose and walked to the bed. Andreis still seemed to sleep, the breath- ing was heavy and forced chiefly through tke nasal passage; but there was a look of returning serenity on his features—a look which the man of science is well aware precedes recovery, not death. As surely as any one can gauge the unseen future, he was sure that if let alone Andreis would recover He no longer hesitated! he no longer doubted. He went to the adjacent chamber, where the two nuns, still dressed, were sleeping. He awakened them. “Come,” he said gently. “He is worse. I am about to try the cure of Behring. It may succeed. It will be necessary to hold him. I require you both:” He was well aware that it would be un- wise to essay that operation alone—it would rouse comment in to come. “Hold him motionless,” he said to the two women. “Do not awake him if you can avoid it.” He filled the inoculating syringe from one of the little phials which he had ht from the Lattere. He stood in the full light of the lamp so that the two sisters could see all that he did. “Loosen his shirt,” he said to them. An- dreis still slept; in his pr ition to sleep the few drops of chloral had sufficed to render him almost insensible. Damer bent over him and inserted the in- jecting needle into the side of his throat; the incision disturbed him without wholly lcosening the bonds of the soporific; he struggled slightly, moaned a little, but the nuns succeeded in resisting his endeavor to rise. The face of Damer in the lamplight was rot paler than usual, but his hand trembled as he withdrew the syringe. “What is Behring’s cure?” asked the nun who felt most interest in her patient. Damer had walked to the window and stood looking out at the moonlit water. “An antitoxin; the serum of an immune * ‘The Nuns Sank on Their Knees. beast,” he answered, calmly, as he turned slightly toward her. The nun did not un- cerstand, but she was afraid of troubling him with other questions. He had left on a table the syringe and the pPial of serum which was half empty. But in the breast pocket of his coat he had the phial of toxin, which was wholly empty. The nuns, engaged in holding down An- dreis, had not seen that the phial on the table was not the phial from which the syringe had been filled; and, when used, Damer had plunged the syringe immediate- iy into a bowl of disinfecting acid. There was no trace anywhere that the toxin had been used—no trace whatever save in the tumifying vein of the sick man’s throat. “You had better stay, you may be want- ed, and it is 2 o'clock,” said Damer to the. nurses. “I shall remain here. There will be, I hope, a great change soon.” He went out on to the balcony and turned his back on the watching women and lean- ed against the iron work, looking down on the canal, where nothing moved except the slow, scarcely-visible ripple of the water. He did not repent or regret; he did not see any evil in his act. The right of the strohg, the right of the sage was his; he had but exercised his reason to produce an issue he desired. So he thought as he leaned against the iron scrol] work and watched the thick, dark water glide by the Salute. There was a faint light in the sky on the east, but he could not see the east where he stood; it was still completely night between the walls of the Grand canal. The voice of a man called up to him from the darkness below. . : “Madame sends me to know how goes it with the prince?” Damer looked down. “Tell the Coun- tess Laranigra that things are as they were. A new remedy has been essayed.” The man who had come by the calle retired by them, swinging a lantern in his hand. The vulcans of the clock tower hard- by in St. Mark’s square struck four times upon their anvil. Damer looked up the darkness of the canal, where nothing was to be seen but the lamps which burn- ed on either side of it with their reflections, and the lanthorns tied to poles before some of the palaces. He could not see the Ca’ Laranigra, which was not in sight even in the day, but he saw it in remembrance, with its flowering balconies, its tapestried chambers, its red and white awnings, its great escutcheon over its portals. He saw her in his vision as she must be now— awake, listening for her messenger’s re- turn, in some white, loose gown no doubt, with her hair loose, too, upon her shoul- ders, her face white, her eyes strained in anxiety, as he had seen them that after- noon and evening. If Andreis had lived she would have been his wife; that was as certain as that the sea was beating on the bar of Malomocco underneath the moon. “I have done well; I have exercised my right,” he thought. “We have right cf life and death over all birds and beasts and things which swim and crawl, by virtue of our greater rain; in like manner has the greater brain the right to deal as it will with the weaker brain when their paths meet and one must yield and go under. The fool hath said that there is sanctity in life, but the man of science has never said it. To him one organism or an- other has the same measure in his scales.” He was consistent enough and sincere enough to follow out the theories of the lgboratory to their logical sequence with- out flinching. He honestly held himself without blame. He called up to his command that power a4 In the Corridor Beyond Was a Priest in His Canonicals. of will which had never failed him; he returned to the bedside as he would have returned to visit a dog dying under at- mospheric pressure. Andreis still lay in the same position. About the almost in- visible orifice where the needle had punc- tured there was a slight tumified swelling. “He seems worse,” whispered the nun. The head of Andreis was thrown back on the pillows; his eyes were closed; his face was pallid and looked blue round the mouth and about the temples. He was now straining for breath like a horse fallen on the road, blown and, broken. “He is worse,” said Damer, gravely. The nun, who had a tender heart, wept. Damer sat down by the bed. He had seen that struggle for air_a thousand times in all the hospitals of Europe. It could now have but one end. A little while after they brought him a note end a telegram. The first was from Veronica. It said: “How good you are. How I thank you.’ The second was from the mother of An- dreis. It said: “I have reached Bologna. I shall soon be with you. God bless you for your goodness to my son.” He read them and put them in his breast pocket beside the cmpty phial of toxin. They would be useful if any called in question the too late usage of the Behring serum. They would show the complete confidence placed in him by the writers. At that moment his two Venetian col- leagues arrived. The day had dawned. The women put out the light of the lamps. “You have given the anti-toxin?” said the elder of the Venetians, glancing at the syringe. “I have,” replied Damer. “But, I be- lieve, too late.” “I fear too late,” replied the Venetian, “Net less admirable is your courage in ac- cepting such responsibility.” ‘The pure light of earliest daybreak was in the whole of the vast chamber. It shone on that ghastly sight, a man dying in his youth, struggling and strain- ing for a breath of alr, fighting against suffocation. 23 The poisoned growth filled every chink of the air passages as though they were tubes mortared up and closed hermetically. His face grew purple and tumid, his eyes gtart- ed from their sockets, his arms waved wildly, beckoning in space; he had no sense left except the mere instinctive mechanical effort to gasp for the air which he was never to breathe again. The five persons around him stood in silence, while the stifled sobs of the nun were heard, the splash of cars echoed from the water be- low, somewhere without a bird sang. The minutes went on; the nuns sank on their knees; the ore who wept hid her face on the coverlét of the bed. All which had been the youth, the form, the vitality of Andreis wrestled with death as a young lion tears at the walls of the den which imprisons him. The terrible choking sounds were heard througk the air to which his closed throat cculd not open. Blood foam- ed. in froth from his lips, which were curl- ed up over the white teeth, and were cracked an@ blue. Damer ceased to look; almost he regretted. “He is out of pain,” said one of the Venettans. “He is dead,” sald Damer. The women crossed themselves. The little bird outside sang loudly. The door opened, and the mother of An- dreis stood on the threshold. In the corridor beyond was a priest in his canonicals and a boy bearing the Host. Six months later the man who had killed him wedded Veronica Laranigra. Her family opposed and her friends warned her in vain; she shrank from him, she feared him, but the magnetism of his will govern- ed hers till he shaped her conduct as the hand of a sculptor molds the clay. He became master of her person, of her fortune, of her destiny; but her soul, frightened and dumb, escapes from him, and hides in the caverns of memory and regret. = ——-+0s. YARNS OF THE SEA. The Remarkable Adventure of a Long Island Track Farmer. From the New York Herald. “A whaling story? Well, therc’s a man here named Phillips, a truck farmer, and, of course, a whaler. About cight years ago he belonged to one of our hoat’s crews. A big whale was sighted about three miles out, and the usual excitement occurred. Every man of a crew knows his place, and when the alarm is given he drops every- thing and makes for the beach. “So, at the first cry of ‘whale’ the barber left his half-shaved man in the chair, the man driving out of town drove back again, the storekeeper deserted his customers, and everybody ran. - “This truck farmer happened to be trim- ming som2 trees, and had no coat on, though it was a pretty cold day. He ran down the road in his shirt sleeves, knife in hand, just as he was. If a member of a crew isn’t there, you see, a volunteer will get his place, and, if the whale is killed, also his share of the proceeds. Phillips got there. The boats were man- red—the oars, harpoons, lances, etc., are slways kept right there under the boats for such an emergency—and with the gen- eral help got safely through the combers that were rolling in from a pretty stiff sea. “Now, there's always a rivalry between whalemen as to getting in the first iron. ‘The two crews were pretty evenly matched, and reached the whale about the same time, taking either side, the whale’s nose being toward shore. It is a trick they play on a whale, you see. He just lies there looking from one to the other, as if wondering which he’d tackle, or which was liable to tackle him. The bowman who was to throw the harpoon was as much excited in one boat as in the other. Both threw at once, and both fell short— yes, and both boats were swamped at exactly the same moment. The whale was so surprised to see everything suddenly disappear on both sides of him that he rever stirred, It was a nasty situation. His Remarkable Feat. “Phillips was thrown out of the boat right up against the side of the monster. Phillips was excited, and, being a truck farmer from Long Island, hated to go out three miles and get only a wetting. He had the pruning knife in his overalls, and viile every other man was trying to right the boats he drew this knife and struck the whale a terrible blow just back of his lett flipper—and killed it. < “Yes; that single blow killed it, but a whale never dies right away when he gets a death blow. Phillips didn’t want to iose his knife, and he could not pull it out. While he was hanging on to it, the whale dived to the bottom of the ocean, taking Phillips along with it. You never heard of a-Long Islander letting go of anything voluntarily that had money in it, so Phil- lips held on. The whale soon came to the surface, or else’ the man would have been drowned, and as soon as he came up he made for the open sea, dragging Phillips alcrgside. ~ “The whale never stopped until he got ter miles out, where he rolled over on his side, as dead as a salted mackerel. Now, Fhillips was sticking on the starboard side, you ree, and when the whale rolled over the other way it brought the truck farmer on the upper side, and on a mod- erately firm footing. To be sure of not slipping off, he took off his suspenders and tied himself to his knife, still fast behind the starboard fin, and then went to sleep. “Well, sir, a ship came along and found the man there asleep on top of the whale. The skipper hailed Phillips and woke him up. “What're ye doing there?” says he. “ Sleeping,’ says Phillips. ‘D'ye want to buy a whale?’ “The skipper was a Yankee, and saw that there was money in this job, so he offered to rescue the truck farmer ard take him back to Southampton for nothing for whatever interest he had in the whale. “ “Not a cent less than $250 will buy me off, said Phillips. “Then stay _on,’ said the skipper, ard he squared braces and sailed away, leaving Fkillips where he was. He was a plucky man, and knew what a whale was worth. And he said to himself, ‘I'll stick to my whale till I get my price, if I have to live on blubber all summer,’ and then he cut out a chunk for a lunch. It Made His Fortune. “But he was right in the track of ves- sels, and was finally picked up at a bar- gain by a whale ship just going round to Bering sea, and they took in the oil and bone, and paid Phillips a big salary ‘to go along—more than he could ‘make by his truck farm and summer boarders in five years. The skipper reasoned that a man who could go eut and kill a whale alone with a pruning knife, and had pluck €rough to stick to his find until he sold it, would be a good man to take on a voyage. And he was right, for the yessel had the biggest kind of luck, and came home full of oil. The share of the truck farmet gave him a good ‘start, and he invested in a sandbank, and sold it out to New Yorkers fer country seats. “He lives over yonder in that pretty cot- tage, but you'll know him by a scar on his ncse, where the whale scraped him on the bottom of the ocean eight years ago.” Some Hatlway Map Making. From the New York Herald. “This won't do,” said the general pas- senger agent, in anonyed tones, to the map maker. “I want Chicago moved down here half an inch, so as to come on our direct route to New York. Then take Buf- falo and put it a little further from the lake, “You've got Detroit and New York on different latitudes, and the impression that that is correct won't help our road. “And, man, take those two lines that compete with us and make ‘em twice as crooked as that. Why, you've got one of + almost straight. Yank Boston over a little to the west and put New York a little to the west, so as to show passengers that our Buffalo division is the shortest route to-Boston. “When you've done all these things I've said, you may print ten thousand copies— but say, how long have you been in the railroad business, anyway?” ————+e+-______ Unsubstantial Footings. From Harper's Young People. “Mamma, ts it true that they wear snow- shoes in Alaska?” “Certainly, Teddie.”” “Don’t they melt when they go in the house?” ———+e+_____ Couldn't Hear Himself. From Life, Forrester—“Your dog has quit barking at night, it seems.” Lancaster—“Yes; he got discouraged, I suppose. We have twins at our house now, you know.” GERMS AND SICKNESS, Microbes the Cause of All Diseases, RADAN'S MICROBE KILLER, A WON DERFOL DISCOVERY, A Pleasant, Simple, Inexpensive, Infallible Remedy. There 1s no reason that people should be sick. Sickness is an unnatural state. The taking of medicine for the cure of disease is as unnatural as it is needless. Strict adherence to natu laws, ard a knowledge of. the real cause. ease, will make sickness as rare as it agreeable: The germ theory of isense is no\ well Known, and everywhere recognized. Peo- ple have read and know about it in a general way, but do not thoroughly understand it, and are as yet unwilling to accept it in its entirety. ‘The indisputable fact remains, however, that all disentes are due to germs and their develop. ment. The germs and microbes in the blood are the one and only cause of all diseases. These diseases manifest themselves in different wars in different people, due to a variety of bodily conditions. A person with weak lungs may go through Ife without having any trouble from them. ‘There will be no difficulty unless, from scme cause, a germ or microbe finds its way to the lungs. In that’ case it will develop and multiply and consumption will ensue. If the Weakness were in the digestive organs instead’ of in the lungs the disease would manifest iteclf in them and would be called dyspepsia, or Bright's disease, or liver complaint. That is what is meant by the germ theory of disease. Its correctness can readily be determined by the microscope. Under a microscope, the mi- crobes in the Blood can be plainly seen. After continued treatment with Radam's Microbe Killer, the microbes disappear entirely, the blood is clear and healthful, and the disease is cured. There 1s absolutely no doubt about the efficiency of Radam’s Microbe Killer. It was discovered by Wm. Radem eight years ago and has since grown into most universal use, because of its marvelous curative powers. Its record of successes is such that it cannot be ignored. No matter how skepti- cal any one may be about it, it is the height of folly to dismiss it without a trial. It is not composed of drugs or acids, and there 4s not the slightest possibility that it’ will prove hurtful in any degre> to the most delicate or- govism. It is In truth nothing but distilled water thoroughly impregnated with antiseptic gases. It is pleasant to take, increasing the appetite, and thoroughly purifying the blood and system. If you are si:k it will cure you. It makes no différence What the matter is, we are not at all concerned alout that. We know that every disease under the sun fs caused by the existence of microbes in the blood, and we are quite positive that Radam's Microbe Killer will completely and effectually eradicate these microbes. You may doubt this statement if you wish to, but if you are sick and want to get well, you are doing yourself a great injustice if you do not make a trial of this most wonderful remedy. A 50-page book containing full information, also testimonials of cures, mailed free on application to the Wm. Rada Microbe Killer Co., 7 Laight st., New York city, or Acker & Kenner, 1429 Penn- sylvania avenue, or Scheller & Stevens, 9th and Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, D.' C. It aN of dis- is dis- is NOSTRUMS FOR THE MILLION. Bewildering Array of Medicinal Prep- arations in a Modern Drug Store. From the New York World. The catalogue of a great wholesale drug concern gives an impressive Mst of the proprietary medicines that are sold to the American public. Such a catalogue makes & book of over 400 pages, with sixty ar- ticles to the page. An examination of this interesting publication shows the existence of 78 “balms,” each with a destructive mame. Under the general name of “bal- sams” there are 241 preparations. Extracts of beef in various combinations with iron, wine, pepsin, &c., come in 63 shapes. For the use of people who scorn to take liquor for its own sake, but who are will- ing to take a daily portion of alcohol in the guise of “bitters,” a choice’ is offered between 136, more or less, well-advertised concoctions. There are 25 blood purifiers and 312 remedies are put up in “cap- sule” form to be retailed by druggists. There are 26 kinds of medicated cigarettes. “Cordial” is the soothing name given to 68 prescriptions for various diseases. Of toilet preparations known as “creams” there are 98 brands. There are 374 nos- trums labeled “cures” for man and beast and for every ill that flesh is heir to. Of tooth powders, pastes and other dentifrices a bewildering choice is offered from 256 varieties. Of “drops” there are 104 stand- ard preparations. “Elixir” is in high favor, and the up-to-date druggist must carry 167 selections. In the line of “extracts” there is a choice of 291, exclusive of perfumes. Of baby, brain, nerve and other “foods” there are an even 100. Twenty-three manu- facturers have hair dyes on the market and other preparations for the hair under various names swell the total to 200. Of liniments there are 146 patented va- rieties. Peqple with delicate palates may take medicine in ninety-three forms of lozenges. There are 214 oils and 195 oint- ments. There are eighty forms of pepsin. But pills top the list, there being on Jan- uary 1 of this year 577 kinds known to and handled by the trade. Tie -popularity of plasters as a remedial agent is proven by 154 distinct brands. Of powders there are 417 varieties, and they are second in number only to pills. One brand is known as the P. D. Q. “Reiief” is the *trade- mark of sixty-three remedies, while “rem- edy” is sufficiently descriptive of 268 nos- trums. “Restorers” there are to the num- ber of fiftyltwo, and “salve” is good erough for 171 preparations. Druggists are expected to furnish any one of 355 Kinds of soap, each possessed of curative power. Drugs are advertised as “sirups” in 408 preparations, and there are 199 kinds of “tablets.” Tonics are lsted to the number of 118, and medicated waters in bottles come from 184 springs through- out the world. eee. A Safe Age. From London Spare Moments, An ol may went into a life insurance office and asked to be insured. The com- pany asked his age. “His reply was ninety- four. “Why, my good man, we cannot in- sure you,” said the company. “Why not?” he demanded “Why, you are ninety-four years old.” “What of that?” the old man cried, “Look at statistics and they will tell you that fewer men die at ninety-four than st any other age.” FITCHBURGH & WEST SHORE. Wm. Huston and E. A. Palmer's Ex- periences There is no body of men who labor more hours continuously than railroad men. So constant and tiring are their responsivle duties that there are few who do not suffer from overwork and nervous troubles, and it does mot strongest constitution gives way to the ravages of disease. Dyspepeia, rheumatism, urinary and kid- ney troubles have incapacitated’ many a man that could have been saved if the proper precaution had been taken. Frgineer Wm. Huston of the West Shore raflroad says: “For years I suffered from kidney trouble and dyspepsia; at th thought I would hav been under the t take long before the get a bot- emedy; it will do you more good than all the doctors jn’ex- istence.” I followed this a and in a few days I began to feel better and I Lave been well ever since.” + E. A. Palmer of the Fitchburg Railroad's freight department at Troy, N. Y., in speaking of the eat good he had received’ from using F Ttemeds, sald; “I was troubled with urinary dif- ficulty for a long time. My attention was called to Dr. Kennedy's Favorite Remedy; I began its use, and in a few weeks was cured of the trouble. I have since used it as a family medicine with splendid results, expecially in cases of constipation and stomach difficulty.”” Dr. Kennedy's Favorite Remedy is 2 natural an- tidote for disesses arising from urle acid in the blood; in cases of scrofula, sleeplessness or nery- ousness, it cures where all cise fails, PRIOR BES FLOUR=: “The universal verdict.” ‘The consumers are our best advertisers. Pillsbury’s Best is the Best. Better