Part 4

The man on the shore stood perfectly motionless watching his companions of a few hours before as they hastened down the beach, launched their boat, and pulled away toward the huge ship some quarter of a mile distant. He saw them clamber on board; a few minutes later the sails were run up, the ship headed off to the south, and soon disappeared around a rocky promontory which ran out into the ocean.

Then, overcome with the hopelessness and helplessness of his position, The Man threw himself on the sand cursing and moaning.

Three days before he had been first mate of that ship, engaged in various profitable but decidedly questionable undertakings. Now he was alone, marooned on a deserted coral island, over a hundred miles from any regular steamer line. The mutiny which he had incited had almost succeeded. But for that cursed cabin boy who had listened at the key-hole and then run to the Captain on the very eve of his success, he would now be in command of the NORSKA, and the sale of the five hundred blacks down in the hold would have made him a rich man. Well, the cabin boy would never tell any more tales, he had at least had the satisfaction of assuring himself of that before he was put in irons.

Yesterday, when he first heard the fate in store for him, he had begged the Captain to have him shot rather than leave him on that deserted isle. But now, such is the perversity of man, though death was easily within his reach, he did not attempt to kill himself.

Indeed, after the first paroxysm of rage and anger was over he gathered the few possessions which had been left him and carried them back out of reach of any high tide. The next day he began building himself a rough house, and within a week he was planning escape from his prison.

Then followed weary days and weeks in which he spent the time hewing timber and fashioning it into a rude boat. He had much time during this enforced solitude to think over his past, and the thoughts of it brought him little satisfaction. For ten years he had lived the life of the sea in its worst phases. He had been pirate, ship-scuttler and slave-trader. He had murdered and tortured the innocent. His life had been only one long succession of crimes, and still--he clung to it.

At the end of six weeks he had constructed a boat in which he would attempt to reach the nearest land--some three hundred miles away. Then, one day, just before his departure, the dream of his life was realized. While roaming over the shore he stumbled into a lagoon which was literally studded with pearls. For another week he worked loading his boat with the precious stones, and after some difficulty succeeded in getting his cumbersome craft out to sea.

But the oars which he had hewn out being too weak to have any appreciable effect on his boat, he was completely at the mercy of the sea. For days he drifted about, now driven north, now south. The scanty supply of water which he had brought with him soon gave out, and then he suffered the tortures of the damned; and, as if to mock his misery, the pearls, loosened from the rough bags by the rocking of the boat, rolled to and fro under his feet. About the sides of the craft the water swarmed with sharks, and several times in his delirium The Man was on the point of ending his misery by jumping overboard.

“What was the use of all this struggle, anyway?” he asked himself. Again the thoughts of his lawless and wasted life came back to him. He had never in all his life done one noble or honorable deed; and should he ever land with that cargo of wealth, he knew that the old dissipations would be resumed wilder and more dissolute with this new fortune.

Impelled by some curious fancy, and true to his gambler-like nature, he suddenly drew a coin from his pocket.

“I leave it to God to decide,” he muttered. “If I spin heads three times out of five I will try and make for land; if not,--” He did not finish the sentence, but he looked over the side of the boat into the blue waters, and shivered slightly as the white belly of a shark flashed in the sunlight within three feet of him.

He knelt down on the bottom of the boat. It was a most momentous question for him. He held the little coin for a second, then spun it nervously. As he lifted his trembling hand he saw that the silver piece had fallen head up.

“I am not beyond pardon,” he whispered to himself. “God wishes me to live.”

Once more he spun the coin. Again it came head up. The Man jumped to his feet joyfully. The burning thirst was for the moment forgotten. He was like a man whom a priest has just absolved. God must surely wish him to live; He would not torture him thus. For the first time in his life a noble thought came to The Man. The fortune which he had stumbled upon he determined to use in works of charity. He would atone for his misspent life.

Once more he knelt and confidently spun the coin. To his horror it fell tails uppermost. He seized it and spun it again. It wobbled to and fro like a drunken man for a few seconds, then once more fell tails up.

The man raised a haggard face to heaven, and for the first time since his childhood, prayed. As he lowered his eyes he almost shouted for joy; for, far on the western horizon, but rapidly approaching, he saw the outlines of a ship. He had been so intent on the game of life and death he was playing that he had not seen the ship till now it was plainly in view.

He sat for a few minutes and watched with unbelieving eyes his approaching rescue, for the ship was heading directly for him.

Then, suddenly, he felt the piece of metal in his hand. His fate was not yet decided. He had a question of honor which God and he were to decide. He spun the coin slowly, but shut his eyes before it had ceased whirling. Then he groped for the coin, and spread his hand over it not daring to look at it.

He sat thus for a long time, the cold perspiration standing out on his face. The ship drew nearer and nearer, and he began to distinguish forms on board. In a few minutes she would be within hailing distance.

At last he reached down and picked up the coin carefully, and holding it between both palms, he arose and stepped to the side of the boat, prepared for the first time in his life to keep his word of honor. He looked down at the heap of pearls at his feet, then at the rapidly approaching ship. He saw that the men on board had sighted him, and were preparing to lower a boat.

Slowly he opened the fingers of the hand covering the coin, and looked between with scared eyes. Then he raised his right hand, made the sign of the cross muttering “Thy will be done,” and slipped quietly over the side of the boat to the waiting mouths below.

THE WINE OF PANTINELLI.

THE WINE OF PANTINELLI.[4]

For an Italian Prince, Fabriano was exceedingly good company for an American doctor. He rode and shot like a cowboy, kept a stud of seventeen polo ponies, and had traveled this little world from end to end. Above all things, he was a connoisseur of wines, and his cellars were stocked with cask upon cask and tier upon tier of cobwebbed bottles of rare old vintages. Indeed, it was indirectly through this passion of Prince Fabriano that Doctor Hardy made his acquaintance. Hardy was consulting physician at the Protestant Hospital in the Villa Betania, outside the Porta Romana, and the Prince, on a flying visit to the Tuscan capital to secure a vinous treasure, and incidentally witness the annual festival of Santa Croce, brought with him a touch of Roman fever which caused his commitment to the care of the American doctor. His illness was short, but long enough to ripen the acquaintance with the doctor into a warm friendship, resulting in an invitation to the physician to visit the princely estate of Fabriano. In this Umbrian fastness, where his ancestors had exercised sovereign power, Fabriano was regarded as the lord of the soil, by all but a few adherents of a deposed house under the leadership of Luigi di Folengo.

One evening, as Hardy went to the Prince’s rooms for their usual smoke and game of cards, he found the Prince sitting by the table, holding a bottle of amber-colored liquid.

“Why not pull the cork, Fabriano, and let us have something more than a sight of this richly-colored fluid?” said the doctor in a bantering tone.

To his surprise, the Prince answered quite seriously, and with almost a shudder:

“I would not drink one sip of the wine that comes in that flask--not even for the polo pony Gustavo that we saw in the Royal stables last week, and you know how much I coveted that little beast.”

A second look showed Hardy that the bottle was of peculiar shape and peculiarly stoppered; and he asked the question which he saw the Prince was ready to answer.

“You remember the trip to Florence to which I owe the pleasure of your acquaintance? Well, I had another reason beside my interest in the Santa Croce festival. You have heard of the Monastery of La Certosa, out on the Galluzzo road, beyond your hospital? The government had abolished it, and there was a store of valuable wine to be put up at auction, including a few bottles of Pantinelli. Fate has seemed to be against my getting any of that wine, until to-day. I have tried for years to get one small bottle, but never yet have tasted it. Pantinelli was a rich old banker in Genoa, who owned a vineyard on the sunny slopes of the Riviera di Ponente. He never sold his wine, but presented it to his friends; and as he was a cousin of Luigi di Folengo, of whose hatred for me I have already told you, he, naturally, never included me in his list of beneficiaries.

“There was nothing peculiar in the appearance of Pantinelli’s wine, but it was invariably put up in bottles just like this. He was an eccentric old fellow, and always corked his bottles by means of this peculiar device, which he claimed to have invented. He gave as a reason for his oddity the belief that if he used the customary seal his friends would keep his beverage for years unopened, without discovering its flavor, and that he meant them to test its superiority at once on receipt. He seems to have relied on his friends themselves to prevent the fraudulent substitution of another wine, which would, in his queer bottles, have brought an enormous price. However, any one lucky enough to receive a bottle of the famous beverage usually followed the old man’s request to the letter, and drank it the same day.

“This afternoon, while you slept, a messenger brought this bottle with a message from Luigi di Folengo, expressing the wish that we might live in amity hereafter, and begging the acceptance of a gift which he believed that I, more than any one else in all Italy would appreciate, a flask of genuine Pantinelli.

“Now I do not absolutely know that the wine he sent is poisoned, but I think I know Folengo pretty well, and I am going to try an experiment this evening which I should like to have you witness. I answered him immediately to the effect that his overtures were gladly welcomed, and that on my part I should be pleased to give him an important appointment in my service, and hand him the papers to-night. I ended by telling him that to-morrow, seeking out a quiet spot, I should enjoy my Pantinelli to the last drop.”

The Prince put the bottle away in a sideboard and produced from a desk a folded paper as Count Luigi di Folengo was announced. He was a swarthy person, with a saber cut across one cheek, and a droop to the eyelid which, to Dr. Hardy, was singularly unprepossessing. The physician highly approved his friend’s course in leaving the Pantinelli untasted.

The conversation was general for a few moments after the guests had been introduced, and then the Prince, taking out the queer-shaped flask, silently placed it upon the table as he handed Folengo his appointment. Dr. Hardy watched the man as he stared at the bottle, half-guessing what was to come. Folengo mumbled words of thanks for the paper, but his eyes never left the wine.

“I see you looking longingly at your present of the afternoon,” said the Prince pleasantly, “and instead of selfishly drinking it all by myself to-morrow, I will be generous. Of course this wine has not the novelty of charm to you that it has to others unrelated to its famous grower, but no one could get enough of such a drink; and, in honor of our new-formed friendship, you must drink my health in one small glass of the famed wine of Pantinelli.”

He poured out a brimming glass and set it down in front of Luigi di Folengo, who sat shaking like a leaf, his drooping eyelid fluttering with strong excitement.

“I am to play to-night, with my friend the doctor here, a game for very high stakes, so I must keep my head clear; but to-morrow you may think of me as steeped in Pantinelli’s generous vine juice.”

As the Prince spoke the last sentence he took from the table-drawer a handsome gold-mounted revolver, which he held up to the light so that glittering rays darted from its polished barrel as he said to the trembling Luigi, “I also wish to present you this pistol, with which I have never missed a shot, and which has sent more than one of my enemies down the long road.”

While Fabriano spoke the man’s eyes anxiously searched the room for a means of escape, and finally came back to the calm face of the Prince. He glanced from the heavy amber liquor before him to the shining weapon with which Fabriano lovingly toyed, and then with a quiet heroism which Hardy could not help but admire, he raised the glass to his lips and drained it.

He sat there for a minute or two, gazing stupidly at the empty glass. Then, of a sudden, he began to tremble violently; his teeth chattered, and great beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. On his lips there came a yellowish foam, and he started to his feet, clawing at his breast as if it were on fire, while a hoarse, cackling noise came from his throat. Dr. Hardy knew that the man must be suffering terribly, and, guilty as he believed him to be, could only pity.

Rocking to and fro, Folengo threw himself upon the floor, where he lay writhing and twisting in his death agony. His face turned black, and his eyes started from his head, like those of a strangled man. After that he lay quite still.

Dr. Hardy stooped and felt for the man’s heart. There was not the trace of a beat. He turned to the Prince, who had sat through the whole scene with a smiling face, and said, “You are amply avenged, Prince Fabriano. That man died the most terrible death I have witnessed in twenty years of practice.”

Fabriano, still smiling strangely, poured out two more glasses of the wine which the dead man had just drunk. “So be it with all assassins!” he said. “Drink to the downfall of my enemy!”

“No, thank you,” answered Hardy drily, thinking the ghastly joke was being carried too far; “life has still a few attractions.”

“Oh, as you will,” replied the Prince carelessly. “Then I must drink alone,” and he emptied the glass.

“But you are missing something choice,” he continued, wiping his lips. “That wine has been in my cellars for fifty years. The stuff our late friend sent is safely locked away for analysis, together with a poisoned dagger and an infernal machine, both of which, I believe, I owe to him or his followers. If you were coroner in this case, what would your verdict be--death from a guilty conscience, supplemented by a vivid imagination? Come, I believe it’s my first deal this evening.”

THE STRANGEST FREAK.

THE STRANGEST FREAK.

“Snakes in a den, like bees in a hive, and she eats ’em alive. That’s what she does, ladies and gentlemen. She bites the head off, eats the body, and throws the tail away. And it costs you but ten cents, one dime, the tenth part of a dollar, to see Bosko.”

It was just outside the main side-show connected with Poole Brothers’ Royal Roman Hippodrome and Three Ring Circus, and the big tent had not yet opened for the afternoon’s performance.

Stetson, manager of the freaks and chief announcer for all the special shows, had just succeeded, by beating on a large iron triangle, in attracting a majority of the people standing about the grounds. Behind him on a raised platform was a huge box-like pen which rose to about the height of a man’s shoulder.

Gaudy placards and pictures adorning the upper part of this platform stated that within could be seen Bosko--the Strangest Freak Ever Born to Live--a human snake-eater. One of the pictures represented a creature clothed principally in long black hair and a ferocious expression squatting at the entrance of a large cave. In one hand, or paw, was a decapitated giant rattlesnake which she was in the act of devouring.

“Esau, that’s her first name; Bosko, that’s her last name; and she eats live snakes,--rattlesnakes, copperheads, yellow backs, and Gila monsters. That’s what she eats, that’s what she lives on,” shouted the manager.

The country people, anxious as ever to throw away the money so hardly wrung from their stubborn hill farms, crowded each other in their eagerness to be first on the platform. The box-like pen was about ten feet long by four feet wide, and soon between thirty and forty people had crowded about the rail, and were peering open-mouthed over the edge.

On the bottom of the pen was crouched a dark-skinned Something lazily rolling its head from side to side. This Something wore a brown canvas skirt which came to the knees, and a sort of loose coat or jacket over the shoulder. On her head, and hanging down over her eyes, was a long, black mane of hair, which but few of the yokels about recognized as a wig.

But crawling over this swarthy, thick-lipped creature were the things which caused the exclamations on the part of the bystanders. Over the body of Bosko, under, beside and behind her, twined and wriggled dozen upon dozen of twisting, writhing snakes. They coiled and uncoiled over her black legs, running out their little forked tongues spitefully. The sun beat down fiercely overhead, and swarms of flies settled down on every part of the evil smelling pen.

Stetson made way for himself at one end of the rail, and began a more detailed description. “Before you, ladies and gentlemen, you see, as I just told you, the strangest freak ever born to live, Bosko, Esau Bosko, the human snake eater. The medical fraternity declare that she is part snake, part woman. Part snake because she has to kill her own food before she eats it. When first captured in Australia, Bosko was living in a cave like you see in the pictures outside, subsisting entirely on the most poisonous kinds of snakes. It is about the time she usually feeds, and if you watch carefully you may see how this strangest of all freaks obtains its food.”

As if taking its cue from the manager’s last remark, the Thing in the pen ceased rolling its head, and began running about on all fours, making low guttural noises in its throat, and feeling first one then another of the reptiles.

Suddenly it seized a small rattler, and taking it firmly in both hands just below the head gave a quick twisting movement. There was a sound of rending flesh and the head was flung to the floor. Then taking the remaining stump, Bosko drew back the skin as if peeling a banana, and buried her teeth in the still quivering flesh.

Most of the spectators turned away at this point and left the platform. Several looked rather white and seemed not to feel particularly well. Others, however, of a stronger constitution, or of lesser sensibilities, stayed on, anxious to see if the show was a “fake,” and if the mouthful would be spit out.

Meanwhile Stetson at the foot of the platform, was shouting, “Go where they all go, see what they all see. Bosko, the human snake eater, that’s what they’re all looking at. That’s what they’re all interested in. Yellow backed rattlers, that’s what Bosko is eating to-day.”

There was something so disgusting about the show, and since each man who saw the freak advised his neighbors not to do likewise, those same neighbors, being human, immediately purchased tickets, and the railing about the pen of Bosko was lined with wide-eyed, fascinated spectators till the show in the main tent was over for the afternoon.

Then Murphy, one of the attendants, came to the pen and threw a cover over the top. Almost instantly a small trap door in the bottom of the box opened, and Bosko disappeared from the den of snakes. Twenty minutes later a short, thickset negro of a remarkably unpleasant cast of features was walking unsteadily about the grounds consuming cigarettes without number.

It cost the manager of the Royal Roman Hippodrome one dollar and seventy cents a day in money, a few inexpensive snakes, and an unlimited amount of cheap whiskey to present to the gullible public Bosko, the “Strangest Freak Ever Born to Live.”

It had been put on by Poole Brothers as an experiment three months before, when the show split up at Boston. The best part of the side show, including Bobo, the Wild Man from Borneo, Herman the Ossified Boy, and the Sacred White Elephant, had followed the best part of the circus and gone through Rhode Island and Connecticut, while the remainder was sent up through Northern New England.

The side show was thus left a little short of first-class freaks. So Stetson, with his customary ingenuity, had arranged for an entirely new sensation,--Bosko, a human snake-eater,--and the attraction, which was only an experiment at first, was now one of the best drawing cards.

Like all other good things in this world, however, it had its disadvantages. Bosko had to be watched constantly. Twice he had smuggled the little black bottle which was his constant companion, when not before the public, into the pen with him. Fortunately, no one had seen him taking surreptitious pulls at it either time, but there was always the possibility.

Stetson had also been alarmed, during his preliminary harangue to the crowd one day, to see smoke issuing from the top of the pen, and, on looking in, found Bosko stealthily puffing away on a cigarette. Murphy was quickly dispatched to the little trap-door in the bottom of the cage, and the smoking immediately ceased.

To be sure, it took more and more whiskey every day to get Bosko “keyed up” to that state when he would consent to go on with the part; but whiskey was cheap, especially the brand furnished by Poole Brothers, so there was no kick from the powers above. They realized that this particular impersonator of Bosko couldn’t last very long--a quart of raw whiskey a day is a terrible strain for any man’s nerves, even a negro’s; so they “indulged” the snake-eater.

The only thing that worried Stetson was the fear that perhaps Bosko wouldn’t be able to keep up the part till the Amalgamated Shows came together in the fall. He had watched the “nigger” a good deal of late, and saw certain unmistakable signs. He was the only man in the show who knew the exact amount of the poison that Bosko drank every day before assuming his part, so he was in a position to read those signs very correctly.

The first trouble came just after the circus struck Vermont. In the interval between the close of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening performance, Bosko went up street at a small town called Montpelier, and stayed till after time for the evening show to begin.

Murphy and the camp doctor, Foley, were sent for him, and finally located him in the town jail. He had bought some alcohol at the local agency, prepared some “splits,” and drunk about a pint of the stuff. A few minutes later he had developed an acute attack of something so terrifying to some street urchins, who found him in a back street, that they had run to the only officer in town, and informed him that there was a mad man loose.