The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 30, 1905, Page 2

THE N FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL This is the ninth of a series of thir- teen mew stories entitled “Raffies, the Amateur Cracksman.” iMies is destined to mchieve &8 widesprend fame in his own peculisr line as 4id Sherlock Holmes in a to- tally different sphere, for Raflles and lmes are exact opposites in view, ara r and career. While Sherlock Holmes exercised his onderful powers toward the detection of crime, Raffles ix represented =s m man of unusual intellect and of high birth and breeding who has sunk to employing his undoubted genius to en- able him to live by his wits. The tenth adventure of Raffles will appear next Sunday ® blazh g £ and 1 got er nd emer- Fency « AZes were T lutely honest ma Juxnry of T out-Heroded Heroc dn't touch a grape, and most delicious danger of r my principles by the rew ] had'joined. the kind of place where every ses—and all the rest of ft— the rest. But may I see it 1 die—as it was in the fore anything began to hap- wedge of rock sticking out bay, thatched with vines, and h the rummiest old hpuse on the yery of all, a devil of a beight aboveé the might have sat at the windows 1 »ed your Sullivan-ends plumb into blue water 150 feet below. “¥r the garden behind the house— I subterranean at least there were reled through the 1 gate, and another air, and last of penny-plain- took the wine to the tub's cut cie used t well where he on his slaves, those ripping old oes and ver - was could have become ing else to do, bt I wasn't busy with the to trim th gather the help If in a cool ath the temple t . And c oo! Squish, squast guggle; and your a4 been wading throne. Yes, Bun- vou mightn't think it; but this good never was on the wrong n.the ball left my n known to 1£h the lees of pleasure sine grapes of pain.” dden pause, as though bled on the truth in jest. illed with lines. He was sit- room that had been Dbare it. There were basket le in it now, all meant ostensibly f hence - Raffles would slip to his h schoolboy every tinkle of the bell. This we felt fairly safe, for Theo- i had called in the morning, and obald still took up much of his ‘hrough the open wingow we r the piano-organ and “Mar— ga—ri” a few hundred yards farther on. T fancied Raffles was listening to it 1il¢ he pavsed. He shook hig head stractedly when I handed him the igarettes, and his tone hereafter was never just what it had been. “1 don't kuow, Bunny, whether you're a believer In transmigration of souls. I have often thought it easier to believe than lots of other things, and I have been pretty near believing in it myself since 1 had my being on that villa of Tiberius. The brute who had it in my day, If he isn't stfll running it with a whole skin, was cr is as cold-blooded a blackguard as the worst of the Emper- ors, but I have often thought he had a lot in common with Tiberius. He had the great, high, sensual Roman nose, eyes that were sinks of iniguity in themselves, and that swelled with fat- ness, like the rest of him, so that he wheezed if he walked a yard; otherwise right foot, that rather a fine beast to look at, with a huge gray mustache, like a flying gull, and the most courteous manners even to his men, but one of the worst, Bunny, one of the worst that ever was. It was sald that the vineyard was his only hobby. If so, he did his best to make his hobby pay. He used to come out from Naples for the weck-ends—in the tub when it wasp't too rough for his nerves—and he, didn’'t: always ‘come alone. His very name sounded un- healthy—Corbucei. I suppose I ought:to add that he was a Count, though Counts are two-a-peany in Naples and:in sea- son all the<year round, He had a little }nglish and liked air it upon me, much to my disgust. I could npt hope to conceal my nation ality as yet T at least did not want § have it advertised, apd the swing had English friends. When he heard that' I wus bathing fn November, when the bay is still as warm as new milk, he would ke his wicked old head and tay, ‘You wre very audashuss—you are veyy wdashuss!’ and put on no end of side before his Itallans. By God, he had pitched upon the right word unawares, and T let him know it in the end! “But that bathing, Bunny; it was ab- solutely the best I ever had anywhere. I said just now the water was like wine; in my own mind I used to call it blue champngne, und ‘was rather an- noyed tlat I had no one to admire the phrase. Otherwise 1 assure you that I missed my own particular kind very little ludeed, though I often wished that you were there, olfl chap, particu- larly when I went forimy lonesome swith first thing in the morning, when the bay wuas all rose leaves, and last thing at night, when your body caught pliogphoreseent fire! Ah, yes, it was n gard enough life for a change, a per: fect paradise to lie low in,” .another Edefr untit " * * ¥ ¥ poor Eve AfQ he fetched u sigh that took away hig words; then his jaws snapped to- gether and his eves spoke terribly while he concuered his emotion. I pen the last word advisedly. I fancy it is one which I have never used be- fore .in writing of A. J. Raffles, for I :annoet at the moment recall any other oceasion upon which fts use would have been justified. -On . resuming, however, he was not only ecalm but cold, and this flying for safety to the other extreme Is the single ‘instance of gelf-disirust ‘which the present-Achates can record to the credit of his implous Aeneas. 5 5 “1 called the girl Eve,” said he. “Her real name was Faystina, and she was one of a_ vast family who hung out in a hovel on the inland border of the vineyard. And Aphrodite rising from the sea was less wonderful and ot more beautiful than Aphrodite emeig- ing from that hole! g Tt was the most - exquisite face I ever saw or shall leerl'g‘t'bll life—ab- solutely perfect features, a skin that reminded you of old gold, so delicate was its bronze; magnificent r, 7ot Llack - but nearly, and such ay: tecth that would have made the for- 2 4 /wENr For Ky WITY 1Y BARE FHANDS " . app: tune of a f@ice withoyt another point. 1 tell yoy, Bununy, London would go mad about fa gIfl like that. But I don’t belfeve there's such another in the waorld. “And there she was wisting her sweetnoss upon- that lovely\ but desolate’ little corner of it! Well, she did hot wate it upon me. - I would have ninfr®a jher and lved haprily ever after Jn.such a hovel as her pei- ple's—ivitheher. Only to look at he: only ta lookgat wer for the rest of my days—I cou. have lain low and 3 mained dead gven to you! And th all I'm going to tell you about t Bunny; cursed ‘be he who tells mor Yet don't you run away with ‘he thdt this poor Faustina wuas the only wonian I ever cared about. I don't lLe- lieve in all that ‘only’ rot; ‘neverthe- Jess I tell yoi that she was tic one being who ever entirely ssatisfled my sensc of beauty, and I henestly belicve I could have chucked the world und been true to Faystina for that alone “We met sometimes in the little tem- ple I told you about, sometimes among the vines, now by honest accident, now by flagrait design, and found a ready mace rendezvous, romantic as oie could wish, in the cave down all those subterranean steps. Then the sea would call us—my blue champagne, my spar- kiling cobalt—and there was the dingy Gy to our hand. Oh, those nights! I never knew which T liked best, the it ones when you sculled through and could see for miles, or the ddark nights when the fishermen’s torches stood for the sea and a red zigzag in the sky for old Vesuvius. We were liuppy. 1 don't mind owning it. We sremad not to have a cdre between L Ay muates took no Interest in my affairs and Faustina's family .did not ar to bother about her. The Count was in Naples five nights of the seven; the other two we sighed apart. “At first 1t was the oldest story in literature—Jaden plus Eve. ‘Fhe place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it wag heaven itself. So for u lit- tle. Then one night-—a Monday night— Faustina burst out erying in the hoat 1d sobbed her story as we drifted without mishap by the mercy of the Lord. And that was almost as old a story as tie other. “she was engaged—what! Had I never heard of it? IId I mean to up- Set the boat? What was her engage ment beside our love? ‘Niente, nfente,’ crooned Fausting, sighing vet smiling through her tears. No, but what did matter was that the man had threat- ened to stab her to. the heart—and would do it as soon ag look at her— that T knew. “I knew It merely from my knowl- ,edge ot the Neapolitans, for I had no idea who the man might be. I knew iz, and yet T took this detail better than the fact of the engagement, though now I bezan to laugh at both. As if I was going to let her marry anybody else! As if a halr of her lovely head shouldebe touched while I lived to pro- tect her! T had a great mind to row away to blazes with her that very night and never go near the vineyard again, or let her either. But we had not a lira between us at the time, afid only the rags In which we sat barefoot in the boat. Besides, I had to Know the nume of the animal who had threat- ened a woman, and such a woman as this! “For a long-time she refused to tell me, with splendid obduracy, but I was as determined as she, so that she made conditions. I was not to go and get put in prison for sticking a knife into him he wasn't worth it—and I did prom- ise not to stab him in the back. Faus- tinn seemed quite satisfied, though a little puzzled by my manner, having herself the racjal tolerance for cold steel, and next moment she had taken away my breath, ‘It is Stefgno,’ she whispered and hung her head. “And well she might, "poor thing! Stefano, of all creatures on God's earth—for her! “Bunny, he was a miserable little un- dersized wretch, {ll-favored, servile, surly and second only to his master in bestial cunning and hypocrisy His face was enough for me; that was what 1 read in it, and I don't often make mis- takes. He was Corbucci’s own coufi- dential body servant, and that alone was enough to damn him in decent eyes; always came out first on the Sat- urday with the spese, to ‘have all ready for his master and current mistress, and stayed behind on !h? Monday - to clear ahd lock up. Stefano! That worm! T could well understand his threatening woman with a knife. What beat me was how any woman could ever have listened to him; above all, that Faus- tina should be the one! It passed my comprehension.. But I questioned her as gently as I could, and her explana- tion was largely the threadbare one you wolrld expect. Her parents were: So poor. They were so many in family. Some of them begged—would I prom- ise never to tell? Then some of them stole—sometimes—and all knew the paing of actual want. She looked after the cows, but there were only two of them, and brought the milk to the vine- yard and eisowhere, but that was not employment for more than one, gand there were countless sisters waiting to take heér place. Then he was so rich, Stefano, “*Rich?” 1 echoeéd. ‘Stefano’ ““8§, Arturo mie.' “Yes, 1 played the game on that vine- yard, Bunny, even to going by my own first name. “*And how comes he to be rich? I asked suspiciously. “She did not know, but he had given her such beautiful jewels, the family had ived on them for months, she pre- tending an avocat had taken chargs of them for her against her marriage. But [ carcd nothing about all that. “Jewels! Stefano!' I could only mutter, “ ‘Perhaps the Count has paid for some of them. He is very kind.' 'To, you, is Hett i3 . " “‘Oh, ves, very kine." « o “'And you would live in his house afterward?" gaLE “ ‘Not now, mia cara—not now!" “*No, by God, you don't’"said I in ‘But you would have done so, “%0f course. That was arranged. The Count is real “‘Da you see anything of him when he he had sometimes brought her the Iike. but the offering had alwa through this Knowing. the man, T now knew heart and the white who made it, and for all her kindness to a tattered scapegrace who made love to her in broken Italian between the ripples what I was, remember, and besides Cor- bucei and his henchman I w angel Gabriel come down to earth “Well; as I lay awake that night two more. lines of Swinburne came head and came to stay: “@od said, ‘Let him who wins her take And keep Faustine.’ “On that couplet I slept at last, and it and watchword awoke in the morning. know your Swinburne, don’t you run.away with th there, was anything else last time let me tell you tha tina was the whitest and the best I ever “Well, I was strung up for trouble when the next Sunday came, pledge and burgled Corbuce! Not that it gave me the trouble, but no human being could have told that I had been in when I And 1 had stolen nothing, mark you, but only borrowed a revolver fr in the Count's TFifling “ace had the measure of these damned Neapo- desk, with end of a shooting iron and they'll streak like rabbits for the revclver wasn't for my ow was for Faustina, and I taught her how to use it in the eave down there by the sea shooting at candles stuck upon The noise In the cave was some- but high up thing frightful, couldn’t be heard at all, as we proved to each other's satlefaction pretty carly in the proceedings. armed with muritions of and 1 knew enough of her character to entertain no doubt as to their spirited Between the two of our friend Stefano seemed tolerably eertain of a warm week-end. “But the Saturday brought word that the Count was. not coming thiz week, being in Rome on business and unable to return In time, so for a whole Sun- day we were promised peace, and made Dbold plans accordingly. further merit in hushjng this thing up. ‘Let him who wins her take and keep Faustine” Yes, but let him win her openly, or lose her and be damned to So on the Sunday I was going to have it out. with her people—rwith the Count and Stefano as soon' as- Faustina was use upon accasion. There was no showed their noses.” I had no induce- ment, remember, ever to return to sur- reptitious life within a cab fare . of Wormwood Scrubbs. Faustina and the bay of Naples were quite good enough for me. And the prehistoric man in me rather exulted in the idea of fighting for my desire. “On the Saturday, however, we were to meet for the last time as heretofore— Just once more in secret, down there in the cave, as soon as might Dbe after dark. Nelther of us minded it if we were kept for s; each knew that In the end the other would come, and there was a charm of its own even in walting for such knowledge. But that night I did lose patience, not in the cave but up above first on ome pretext and he direttore kept me going unti ed a rat. He was not given to exacting overtime, this direttore ly fault was his ser vile subj v ommon boss. 1 emed obvious, therefore, that was act upon some seeret in- ictions from sei himself, and the moment ected this’ I asked was not the case. d it with many ently weak per- >st ashamed of him on finding he had to go had said he wes very sorry then, as among other things ntended to sp > me about Jaus- tina. Stefano had told him all about his row with her, and, moreover, that it gras my accou which Faustina Had old me, though I had guessed-as ch for myself the Count was I's part for all_he ist exactly what rtended going but meanwhile I is absence, and which wa xpected him to do. for me on was so tk ad grders t keep me a y. I.under ok not beast away but at t d him I b the faintest th doing ar gtroke ¢ work that n “It w I Temember knocking e oranges as I.ran up ow steps which ended the lodge and the vi bac! about, a bare ch where it was bored by that » stair. So I saw the stars close overhead, and the fishermen's torches far t the urney between the direttore's lla itself. But at the as the garden I spoke ess of the ime I appreciated charm of this d that was the unique and peacef h spo stair was two long fights, hole or two at e top of upper one, & ot another pin- prick till you came to tae iron gate at the bottom of the lower. AsS you ma read of an infinitely lighter place, in finer work of ion 0u are eve likely to wrige, Bur was. ‘gloc at noon, dark as midnight at dusk as the ninth plague of ' 1 won't swear to ati to those stairs: were as black .that night as the inside of the safe: £ 2 e stronges strong-room in ry Lane De- posit. " Yet I had not got far down them with my bare feet before I hienrd s0 élse “coming up Iin bod You may imagine what a turn th. ve mel could who went _barefoat the four, and yet t waiting for fright she n have own blood like a kettle and-up. It w short-w a Count all supposed to be in Rome! “Higher he came and hearef., nearer slowly yet hurriedly, now stopping to cough ‘and gasp, now taking -a few steps to elephantine assault. I 'should have enjoyed the situation if it had net been for poor Faustina in the cave; as it was I was filled with nameless But I could not resist giving grampus Corbucel one bad mo- ment on account. A y handrail ramn up one wall, so I carefully flattene 1f against the otk and he passed n six in of me, pufiing and rezing like a brass band. I let him 0 a few steps higher, and then I let im have it with both lun_s. “‘Buona sera, eccellenza signor!” I roared after hi And @ scream came down ‘in answer—such a scream A dozen different terrors were. in it and the wheezing had stopped with the old scoundrel’s heart. “‘Chi sta la?” he squeaked at last, gibbering 'and whimpering liké a whipped monk so that I could net bear to miss his face and got a match all ready to strike. “ ‘Arturo, signort. “He didn’t repeat my name, nor d!] he damn me in heaps. He did nothimg but wheeze for a good minute - ind when he spoke it was with: insinua® ing civility, in his best English. “*Come nearer, Arturo. You are in the lower regions down there. I want to speak with you.' No, thanks. I'm in a hurry,” T sald, anq dropped t match back into my pocket. He might be armed, and I was not. “‘So you are T ebe man sa a ‘urry?’ and he wheezed amuse t. ‘And ou thought I was still in Rome, no doubt; and so I was until this afterncon, when I eaught the train from Naples to Pozzuoll. I hive been rowed here now by a fisherman of Pozzuoll. I had not time to stop an where in Naples, but only to drive from station to station. So I am without Stefano, Arturo, I am without Stefane.’ “His sly voice sounded pretérnaturally sly in the absolute darkness,.but even through that impenetrable veil I knew it for a sham. I had laid hold of the hand rail. It shook violently fn my hand: v.Y aiso was holding it where he stoed. And these suppressed tyemors, or rather their detection in this way, struck a strange chill to my heart, just as | was begin- ning to piuck it up. “ ‘It is lucky for Stefane,’ said I, grim death. Ah, but you must not be too "ard on ‘im,’ remonstrated the Count. *You have stole his girl; he speak with me about it, and I wish to speak with you. It is very audashuss. Arturo, very audashuss' Perhaps you are even going to meet her now, eh? ‘I told him straight that T was. ** “Then thers is no "urry, for she is not there.’ “‘You didn’t see her In the cave? [ cried, too delighted at the thought to keep it to myself. I had ne sueh fc said. ** ‘She Is there, all the same.’ “‘I only wish I 'ad known.' * ‘And I've kept her long enough!' “In fact. I threw this over my should as 1 turned and went running down. “ ‘T "ope you will find her! his masi- cious voiece came croaking after me. ‘I ‘ope you will-I ‘one so.’ i‘i:nd find her I did.’ fles had been gn his feet some e, unable to sit still or to mltuovm:”: citedly about the room. But now he st still enough, his elbows on the cast-fron tune,” the old dewvil ‘Continued on Page Three)