text:
Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/28

8 almost for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers in the second cabin had already made the passage by the cheaper fare, and declared it was an experiment not to be repeated. As I go on to tell about my steerage friends, the reader will perceive that they were not alone in their opinion. Out of ten with whom I was more or less intimate, I am sure not fewer than five vowed, if they returned, to travel second cabin; and all who had left their wives behind them assured me they would go without the comfort of their presence until they could afford to bring them by saloon. Our party in the second cabin was not perhaps the most interesting on board. Perhaps even in the saloon there was as much good-will and character. Yet it had some elements of curiosity. There was a mixed group of Swedes, Danes, and Norsemen, one of whom, generally known by the name of "Johnny," in spite of his own protests, greatly diverted us by his clever, cross-country efforts to speak English, and became on the strength of that an universal favourite—it takes so little in this world of shipboard to create a popularity. There was, besides, a Scots mason, known from his favourite dish as "Irish Stew," three or four nondescript Scots, a fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special word of condemnation. One of them was


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/213

 (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Richard II. i. 77, 276). At the beginning of the reign of Richard II he was one of the king's serjeants, and on 6 May was appointed justice of the king's bench, where he sat as the only puisne judge for three years. During the early years of Richard II Tresilian appears on various judicial commissions (ib. i. passim). He presided at the trial of Sir Alan Buxhull in November 1379 (ib. i. 479), and on 12 April 1380 was going on the king's service to Ireland (ib. i. 458). In 1380 he was a commissioner to inquire into certain disturbances at Oxford (, Hist. and Antiq. i. 497, ed. Gutch).

On 22 June 1381 Tresilian was appointed chief justice of the king's bench, and, after the suppression of the peasants' revolt, was employed in the trial of the insurgents. He first sat at Chelmsford for the trial of the Essex prisoners, and then went on to St. Alban's, where on 14 July he tried and sentenced John Ball (d. 1381) [q. v.] William Grindecob and other St. Alban's rioters were brought before him at the same time, but their actual trial did not take place till October. The jury at first refused to make any presentation, but, under pressure from Tresilian, indicted the ringleaders in accordance with a list drawn up by him. To the list thus obtained the assent of a second and third jury was afterwards procured, and Grindecob and his chief associates were thus eventually condemned (, Hist. Angl. ii. 35–6). Walsingham, through his natural prejudice, speaks with favour of Tresilian's conduct; but Knighton (ii. 150) represents him as acting with great severity, and says that whoever was accused before him, whether guilty or not, was sure to be condemned. It is not improbable that Tresilian had somewhat strained his office, for when parliament met in November a special indemnity was obtained for those who had acted in the suppression of the rebellion ‘without due process of law.’

Tresilian refused to try John de Northampton [q. v.] in 1384, as jurisdiction belonged to the lord mayor, though he was present at the examination of the prisoners before the seneschal ( ap., ix. 97–8). Such a show of independence did not keep Tresilian from winning the favour of the court party, and he was one of Richard's advisers in calling the assembly at Nottingham in August 1387. He sealed the indictments that were then prepared, and took a foremost part in framing the opinions of the judges, declaring that the commission appointed in the previous year was unlawful, as impinging upon the royal prerogative (Chron. Angl. 1328–88, pp. 378–9). On 17 Nov. the commissioners appealed Tresilian, Robert de Vere, Suffolk, and Nicholas Brembre of treason, and forced the king to summon a parliament to meet in February 1388 to deal with the charge. Tresilian, like others of the king's chief advisers, took refuge in flight, and on 31 Jan. 1388 Walter de Clopton was appointed chief justice in his place. Parliament met on 3 Feb., and the lords appellant presented thirty-nine articles of impeachment against the accused, and Tresilian, De Vere, and Suffolk were condemned in default on 13 Feb. (Rot. Parl. iii. 229–37). While the trial of Nicholas Brembre was still proceeding, Tresilian was taken prisoner. According to the story somewhat differently related by Froissart (ii. 617) and by Knighton (ii. 292–3), Tresilian had come to London to watch what was going on. Having grown his beard and disguised himself as a poor countryman, he took up his dwelling in an alehouse, or, as Knighton says, in an apothecary's near the palace at Westminster. There he was recognised by a servant of the Duke of Gloucester, who betrayed him to his master. Malverne (ap., ix. 167, 271) gives a different story, according to which Tresilian was discovered in sanctuary at Westminster, and forcibly removed by order of Gloucester. Tresilian was arrested on 19 Feb., and on the same morning brought before parliament. When asked to show reason why the sentence already passed on him should not be carried out, he could make no reply. He was ordered to be removed to the Tower, and the same afternoon was drawn through the city and hanged at Tyburn (, ii. 293; Rolls of Parliament, iii. 238; Froissart incorrectly states that he was beheaded). His body was buried at the Greyfriars Church. All Tresilian's Cornish estates, besides property which he held at Oxford, were confiscated. The attainder against Tresilian was reversed in the parliament of September 1397, but again revived under Henry IV (ib. iv. 425, 445).

He married Emmeline, daughter of Richard Hiwishe of Stowford, Devonshire, and had by her a son, John, and a daughter, Emmeline. His widow married as her second husband Sir John Colshall, who obtained a grant of Tremordret; she died in 1403. His daughter married John Hawley of Dartmouth, a pirate-merchant (d. 1408), who purchased his father-in-law's lands at Tresilian.

[Walsingham's Historia Anglicana, Knighton's Chronicle, Malverne's Continuation of Higden (all in Rolls Ser.); Vita Ricardi II by the Monk of Evesham, ed. Hearne; Froissart, ed. Buchon (in

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/214

  Froissart, ed. Buchon (in Panthéon Littéraire); Rolls of Parliament; Calendar of Patent Rolls, Richard II; Boase's Register of Exeter College, Oxford; Foss's Judges of England.]  TREVELYAN, CHARLES EDWARD (1807–1886), governor of Madras, fourth son of  (1764–1827), archdeacon of Taunton, by Harriet, third daughter of Sir Richard Neave, bart., was born at Taunton on 2 April 1807. He was educated at the grammar school of his native place, at the Charterhouse from 1820, was afterwards at Haileybury, and entered the East India Company's Bengal civil service as a writer in 1826, having displayed from an early age a great proficiency in the oriental tongues and dialects. On 4 Jan. 1827 he was appointed assistant to Sir [q. v.], the commissioner at Delhi, where, during a residence of four years, he was entrusted with the conduct of several important missions. For some time he acted as guardian to the youthful Madhu Singh, the rajah of Bhurtpore. He also devoted himself energetically to improving the condition of the native population, and carried out inquiries that led to the abolition of the transit duties by which the internal trade of India had long been fettered. For these and other services he received the special thanks of the governor-general in council. Before leaving Delhi he contributed from his own funds a sufficient sum to make a broad street through a new suburb, then in course of erection, which thenceforth became known as Trevelyanpur. In 1831 he removed to Calcutta, and became deputy secretary to the government in the political department. On 23 Dec. 1834 he married Hannah Moore, sister of Lord Macaulay, who was then a member of the supreme council of India, and one of his most attached friends.

Trevelyan was especially zealous in the cause of education, and in 1835, largely owing to his eagerness and persistence, government was led to decide in favour of the promulgation of European literature and science among the natives of India. An account of the efforts of government, entitled ‘On the Education of the People of India.’ was published by Trevelyan in 1838. In April 1836 he was nominated secretary to the Sudder board of revenue, which office he held until his return to England in January 1838. On 21 Jan. 1840 he entered on the duties of assistant secretary to the treasury, London, and discharged the functions of that office for exactly nineteen years. In Ireland he administered the relief works of 1845–6–7, when upwards of 734,000 men were employed by the government; and on 27 April 1848 he was made a K.C.B. in reward of his services. In 1853 he investigated the organisation of a new system of admission into the civil service. The report, signed by himself and Sir in November 1853, entitled ‘The Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service,’ laid the foundation of all that has since been done in securing the admission of qualified and educated persons into situations which were previously too much at the disposal of aristocratic and influential families.

In 1858 Lord Harris resigned the governorship of the presidency of Madras, and Trevelyan was offered the appointment. Having maintained his knowledge of oriental affairs by close attention to all subjects affecting the interest of that country, he felt justified in accepting the offer, and entered upon his duties as governor of Madras in the spring of 1859. He soon became popular in the presidency, and in a great measure through his conduct in office the natives became reconciled to the government. An assessment was carried out, a police system organised in every part, and, contrary to the traditions of the East India Company, land was sold in fee simple to any one who wished to purchase. These and other reforms introduced or developed by Sir Charles won the gratitude and esteem of the Madras population. All went well until February 1860. Towards the close of 1859 James Wilson was appointed financial member of the legislative council of India, and in the beginning of next year he proposed a plan of retrenchment and taxation by which he hoped to improve the financial position of the Indian government. His plan was introduced in Calcutta on 18 Feb., and transmitted to Madras. On 4 March an open telegram was sent to Calcutta implying an adverse opinion of the governor and council of Madras. On 9 March a letter was sent to Madras stating the objection felt by the central government to the transmission of such a message by an open telegram at a time when native feeling could not be considered in a settled condition. At the same time the representative of the Madras government in the legislative council of India was prohibited from following the instructions of his superiors by laying upon the table and advocating the expression of their views. On 21 March a telegram was sent to Madras stating that the bill would be introduced and referred to a committee, which would report in five weeks. On 26 March the opinions of Trevelyan and his council were recorded in a minute, and on the responsibility of Sir Charles alone the document


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/215

 was made generally known, and found its way into the papers. On the arrival of this intelligence in England the governor of Madras was at once recalled. This decision occasioned much discussion both in and out of parliament. Palmerston, in his place in parliament, while defending the recall, said: ‘Undoubtedly it conveys a strong censure on one act of Sir Charles Trevelyan's public conduct, yet Sir Charles Trevelyan has merits too inherent in his character to be clouded and overshadowed by this simple act, and I trust in his future career he may be useful to the public service and do honour to himself.’ Sir Charles Wood, the president of the board of control, also said: ‘A more honest, zealous, upright, and independent servant could not be. He was a loss to India, but there would be danger if he were allowed to remain, after having adopted a course so subversive of all authority, so fearfully tending to endanger our rule, and so likely to provoke the people to insurrection against the central and responsible authority’ (Hansard, 11 May 1860, cols. 1130–61; Statement of Sir C. E. Trevelyan of the Circumstances connected with his Recall from India, 1860).

His temporary disgrace made more significant his later triumph. In 1862 he went to India as finance minister, an emphatic endorsement of the justness of his former views. His tenure of office was marked by important administrative reforms and by extensive measures for the development of the resources of India by means of public works. On his return home in 1865 he threw himself with his usual enthusiasm into the discussion of the question of army purchase, on which he had given evidence before the royal commission in 1857. Later on his name was associated with a variety of social questions, such as charities, pauperism, and the like, and in the treatment of these, as well as in his political sympathies, he retained to the last all his native energy of temperament. He was a staunch liberal, and gave his support to the liberal cause in Northumberland, while residing at Wallington House in that county. He is drawn by Trollope in ‘The Three Clerks,’ 1857, 3 vols., under the name of Sir Gregory Hardlines. He died at 67 Eaton Square, London, on 19 June 1886. His first wife died on 5 Aug. 1873, leaving a son, now Sir George Otto Trevelyan, bart. Sir Charles married, secondly, on 14 Oct. 1875, Eleanor Anne, daughter of Walter Campbell of Islay.

Besides the work mentioned, Trevelyan wrote: 1. ‘The Application of the Roman Alphabet to all the Oriental Languages,’ 1834; 3rd edit. 1858. 2. ‘A Report upon the Inland Customs and Town Duties of the Bengal Presidency,’ 1834. 3. ‘The Irish Crisis,’ 1848; 2nd edit. 1880. 4. ‘The Army Purchase Question and Report and Evidence of the Royal Commission considered,’ 1858. 5. ‘The Purchase System in the British Army,’ 1867; 2nd edit. 1867. 6. ‘The British Army in 1868,’ 1868; 4th edit. 1868. 7. ‘A Standing or a Popular Army,’ 1869. 8. ‘Three Letters on the Devonshire Labourer,’ 1869. 9. ‘From Pesth to Brindisi, being Notes of a Tour,’ 1871; 2nd edit. 1876. 10. ‘The Compromise offered by Canada in reference to the reprinting of English Books,’ 1872. 11. ‘Christianity and Hinduism contrasted,’ 1882. His letters to the ‘Times,’ with the signature of Indophilus, he printed with ‘Additional Notes’ in 1857; 3rd edit. 1858. Several of his addresses, letters, and speeches were also published.

[Times, 21 June 1886; The Drawing-room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages, 4th ser. 1860, portrait xvi.; The Statesmen of England, 1862, portrait xxxvii.; Illustrated London News, 1859, xxxiv. 333–4; Annual Reg. 1886, ii. 146; Boulger's Lord William Bentinck (Rulers of India), pp. 12, 150, 160; Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Macaulay.]  TREVELYAN, RALEIGH (1781–1865), miscellaneous writer, born on 6 Aug. 1781, was the younger son of Walter Trevelyan, by his first wife, Margaret, elder daughter and coheiress of James Thornton of Netherwitton, Northumberland. Walter was the second son of Sir George Trevelyan of Nettlecombe Court, Somerset, third baronet.

Raleigh was educated at Eton and at St. John's College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1804 and M.A. in 1807. He was an able classical scholar, and in 1806 he obtained the senior bachelor's medal for Latin essay. On 11 Nov. 1801 Trevelyan entered Lincoln's Inn, and in 1810 he was called to the bar; but on the death of his elder brother, Walter Blackett Trevelyan, on 3 April 1818, without issue, he succeeded to the Netherwitton estates and relinquished his practice. The remainder of his life was passed chiefly in Northumberland, where he indulged his literary tastes and his conservative tendencies by writing poems and political pamphlets. The former were marked by elegance and scholarship, the latter by unusual moderation. Trevelyan died at Netherwitton Hall on 12 May 1865. He married, on 14 June 1819, Elizabeth, second daughter of Robert Grey of Shoreston, Northumberland. By her he had a son, Thornton Raleigh Trevelyan, who died before him on 14 Feb. 1845. He was succeeded at Netherwitton by his grandson, Thornton Roger Trevelyan.

Raleigh Trevelyan was the author of:


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXVI

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXVI


text:
Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/29

Rh Scots; the other claimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. He had a sister on board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the voyage, though she was not only sick, but much his senior, and had nursed and cared for him in childhood. In appearance he was like an imbecile Henry the Third of France. The Scotsman, though perhaps as big an ass, was not so dead of heart; and I have only bracketed them together because they were fast friends, and disgraced themselves equally by their conduct at the table.

Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had a newly married couple, devoted to each other, with a pleasant story of how they had first seen each other years ago at a preparatory school, and that very afternoon he had carried her books home for her. I do not know if this story will be plain to Southern readers; but to me it recalls many a school idyll, with wrathful swains of eight and nine confronting each other stride-legs, flushed with jealousy; for to carry home a young lady's books was both a delicate attention and a privilege.

Then there was an old lady, or, indeed I am not sure that she was as much old as antiquated and strangely out of place, who had left her husband,


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXVII

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXVII


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXVIII

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXVIII


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXIX

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXIX


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XL

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XL


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XLI

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XLI


text:
Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/30

10 and was travelling all the way to Kansas by herself. We had to take her own word that she was married; for it was sorely contradicted by the testimony of her appearance. Nature seemed to have sanctified her for the single state; even the colour of her hair was incompatible with matrimony, and her husband, I thought, should be a man of saintly spirit and phantasmal bodily presence. She was ill, poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty tablecloth shocked her like an impropriety; and the whole strength of her endeavour was bent upon keeping her watch true to Glasgow time till she should reach New York. They had heard reports, her husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between these two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was a good thing for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in studying the watch. Once, when prostrated by sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed on her harmless mind in letters of adamant that the hands of a watch must never be turned backwards; and so it behoved her to lie in wait for the exact moment ere she started it again. When she imagined this was about due, she sought out one of the young second-cabin Scotsmen, who was embarked on the same experiment as herself and had hitherto been less neglectful.


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/367

R. CUMBERLY, his face unusually pale, stood over by the window of Inspector Dunbar’s room, his hands locked behind him. In the chair nearest to the window sat Henry Leroux, so muffled up in a fur-collared motor-coat that little of his face was visible; but his eyes were tragic as he leant forward resting his elbows upon his knees and twirling his cap between his thin fingers. He was watching Inspector Dunbar intently; only glancing from the gaunt face of the detective occasionally to look at Denise Ryland, who sat close to the table. At such times his gaze was pathetically reproachful, but always rather sorrowful than angry.

As for Miss Ryland, her habitual self-confidence seemed somewhat to have deserted her, and it was almost with respectful interest that she followed Dunbar’s examination of a cabman who, standing cap in hand, completed the party so strangely come together at that late hour.

“This is what you have said,” declared Dunbar, taking up an official form, and, with a movement of his hand warning the taxi-man to pay attention: “‘I, Frederick Dean, motor-cab driver, was standing

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/367


text:
Author:Alfred Morel-Fatio

Works

 * Language (in part), and Literature (in part)

title: Author:Alfred Morel-Fatio


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/368

360 on the rank in Little Abbey Street to-night at about a quarter to nine. My cab was the second on the rank. A young lady who wore, I remember, a woolen cap and jersey, with a blue serge skirt, ran out from the corner of the Square and directed me to follow the cab in front of me, which had just been chartered by a dark man wearing a black overcoat and silk hat. She ordered me to keep him in sight; and as I drove off I heard her calling from the window of my cab to another lady who seemed to be following her. I was unable to see this other lady, but my fare addressed her as “Denise.” I followed the first cab to Whitechapel Station; and as I saw it stop there, I swung into Mount Street. The lady gave me half-a-sovereign, and told me that she proposed to follow the man on foot. She asked me if I could manage to keep her in sight, without letting my cab be seen by the man she was following. I said I would try, and I crept along at some distance behind her, going as slowly as possible until she went into a turning branching off to the right of Cambridge Road; I don’t know the name of this street. She was some distance ahead of me, for I had had trouble in crossing Whitechapel Road.

“‘A big limousine had passed me a moment before, but as an electric tram was just going by on my off-side, between me and the limousine, I don’t know where the limousine went. When I was clear of the tram I could not see it, and it may have gone down Cambridge Road and then down the same turning

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/368


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/369

Rh as the lady. I pulled up at the end of this turning, and could not see a sign of any one. It was quite deserted right to the end, and although I drove down, bore around to the right and finally came out near the top of Globe Road, I did not pass anyone. I waited about the district for over a quarter-of-an-hour and then drove straight to the police station, and they sent me on here to Scotland Yard to report what had occurred.’

“Have you anything to add to that?” said Dunbar, fixing his tawny eyes upon the cabman.

“Nothing at all,” replied the man—a very spruce and intelligent specimen of his class and one who, although he had moved with the times, yet retained a slightly horsey appearance, which indicated that he had not always been a mechanical Jehu.

“It is quite satisfactory as far as it goes,” muttered Dunbar. “I’ll get you to sign it now and we need not detain you any longer.”

“There is not the slightest doubt,” said Dr. Cumberly, stepping forward and speaking in an unusually harsh voice, “that Helen endeavored to track this man Gianapolis, and was abducted by him or his associates. The limousine was the car of which we have heard so much”…

“If my cabman had not been such a…fool,” broke in Denise Ryland, clasping her hands, “we should have had a different…tale to tell.”

“I have no wish to reproach anybody,” said Dunbar, sternly; “but I feel called upon to remark,

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/369


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/370

362 madam, that you ought to have known better than to interfere in a case like this; a case in which we are dealing with a desperate and clever gang.”

For once in her life Denise Ryland found herself unable to retort suitably. The mildly reproachful gaze of Leroux she could not meet; and although Dr. Cumberly had spoken no word of complaint against her, from his pale face she persistently turned away her eyes.

The cabman having departed, the door almost immediately reopened, and Sergeant Sowerby came in.

“Ah! there you are, Sowerby!” cried Dunbar, standing up and leaning eagerly across the table. “You have the particulars respecting the limousine?”

Sergeant Sowerby, removing his hat and carefully placing it upon the only vacant chair in the room, extracted a bulging notebook from a pocket concealed beneath his raincoat, cleared his throat, and reported as follows:

“There is only one car known to members of that division which answers to the description of the one wanted. This is a high-power, French car which seems to have been registered first in Paris, where it was made, then in Cairo, and lastly in London. It is the property of the gentleman whose telephone number is 18642 East—Mr. I. Gianapolis; and the reason of its frequent presence in the neighborhood of the West India Dock Road, is this: it is kept in a garage in Wharf-End Lane, off Limehouse

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/370


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/371

Rh Causeway. I have interviewed two constables at present on that beat, and they tell me that there is nothing mysterious about the car except that the chauffeur is a foreigner who speaks no English. He is often to be seen cleaning the car in the garage, and both the men are in the habit of exchanging good evening with him when passing the end of the lane. They rarely go that far, however, as it leads nowhere.”

“But if you have the telephone number of this man, Gianapolis,” cried Dr. Cumberly, “you must also have his address”…

“We obtained both from the Eastern Exchange,” interrupted Inspector Dunbar. “The instrument, number 18642 East, is installed in an office in Globe Road. The office, which is situated in a converted private dwelling, bears a brass plate simply inscribed, ‘I. Gianapolis, London and Smyrna.’”

“What is the man’s reputed business?” jerked Cumberly.

“We have not quite got to the bottom of that, yet,” replied Sowerby; “but he is an agent of some kind, and evidently in a large way of business, as he runs a very fine car, and seems to live principally in different hotels. I am told that he is an importer of Turkish cigarettes and”…

“He is an importer and exporter of hashish!” snapped Dunbar irritably. “If I could clap my eyes upon him I should know him at once! I tell you, Sowerby, he is the man who was convicted last

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/371


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/372

364 year of exporting hashish to Egypt in faked packing-cases which contained pottery ware, ostensibly, but had false bottoms filled with cakes of hashish”…

“But,” began Dr. Cumberly…

“But because he came before a silly bench,” snapped Dunbar, his eyes flashing angrily, “he got off with a fine—a heavy one, certainly, but he could well afford to pay it. It is that kind of judicial folly which ties the hands of Scotland Yard!”

“What makes you so confident that this is the man?” asked the physician.

“He was convicted under the name of G. Ionagis,” replied the detective; “which I believe to be either his real name or his real name transposed. Do you follow me? I. Gianapolis is Ionagis Gianapolis, and G. Ionagis is Gianapolis Ionagis. I was not associated with the hashish case; he stored the stuff in a china warehouse within the city precincts, and at that time he did not come within my sphere. But I looked into it privately, and I could see that the prosecution was merely skimming the surface; we are only beginning to get down to the depths now.”

Dr. Cumberly raised his hand to his head in a distracted manner.

“Surely,” he said, and he was evidently exercising a great restraint upon himself—“surely we’re wasting time. The office in Globe Road should be raided without delay. No stone should be left unturned to effect the immediate arrest of this man

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/372


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/373

Rh Gianapolis or Ionagis. Why, God almighty! while we are talking here, my daughter”…

“Morbleu! who talks of arresting Gianapolis?” inquired the voice of a man who silently had entered the room.

All turned their heads; and there in the doorway stood M. Gaston Max.

“Thank God you’ve come!” said Dunbar with sincerity. He dropped back into his chair, a strong man exhausted. “This case is getting beyond me!”

Denise Ryland was staring at the Frenchman as if fascinated. He, for his part, having glanced around the room, seemed called upon to give her some explanation of his presence.

“Madame,” he said, bowing in his courtly way, “only because of very great interests did I dare to conceal my true identity. My name is Gaston, that is true, but only so far as it goes. My real name is Gaston Max, and you who live in Paris will perhaps have heard it.”

“Gaston Max!” cried Denise Ryland, springing upright as though galvanized; “you are M. Gaston Max! But you are not the least bit in the world like”…

“Myself?” said the Frenchman, smiling. “Madame, it is only a man fortunate enough to possess no enemies who can dare to be like himself.”

He bowed to her in an oddly conclusive manner, and turned again to Inspector Dunbar.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/373


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/374

366 “I am summoned in haste,” he said; “tell me quickly of this new development.”

Sowerby snatched his hat from the vacant chair, and politely placed the chair for M. Max to sit upon. The Frenchman, always courteous, gently forced Sergeant Sowerby himself to occupy the chair, silencing his muttered protests with upraised hand. The matter settled, he lowered his hand, and, resting it fraternally upon the sergeant’s shoulder, listened to Inspector Dunbar’s account of what had occurred that night. No one interrupted the Inspector until he was come to the end of his narrative.

“Mille tonnerres!” then exclaimed M. Max; and, holding a finger of his glove between his teeth, he tugged so sharply that a long rent appeared in the suede.

His eyes were on fire; the whole man quivered with electric force.

In silence that group watched the celebrated Frenchman; instinctively they looked to him for aid. It is at such times that personality proclaims itself. Here was the last court of appeal, to which came Dr. Cumberly and Inspector Dunbar alike; whose pronouncement they awaited, not questioning that it would be final.

“To-morrow night,” began Max, speaking in a very low voice, “we raid the headquarters of Ho-Pin. This disappearance of your daughter, Dr. Cumberly, is frightful; it could not have been foreseen or it should have been prevented. But the

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/374


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/375

Rh least mistake now, and”—he looked at Dr. Cumberly as if apologizing for his barbed words—“she may never return!”

“My God!” groaned the physician, and momentarily dropped his face into his hands.

But almost immediately he recovered himself and with his mouth drawn into a grim straight line, looked again at M. Max, who continued:

“I do not think that this abduction was planned by the group; I think it was an accident and that they were forced, in self-protection, to detain your daughter, who unwisely—morbleu! how unwisely!—forced herself into their secrets. To arrest Gianapolis (even if that were possible) would be to close their doors to us permanently; and as we do not even know the situation of those doors, that would be to ruin everything. Whether Miss Cumberly is confined in the establishment of Ho-Pin or somewhere else, I cannot say; whether she is a captive of Gianapolis or of Mr. King, I do not know. But I know that the usual conduct of the establishment is not being interrupted at present; for only half-an-hour ago I telephoned to Mr. Gianapolis!”

“At Globe Road?” snapped Dunbar, with a flash of the tawny eyes.

“At Globe Road—yes (oh! they would not detain her there!). Mr. Gianapolis was present to speak to me. He met me very agreeably in the matter of occupying my old room in the delightful Chinese hotel of Mr. Ho-Pin. Therefore”—he

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/375


text:
Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/31

Rh She was in quest of two o'clock; and when she learned it was already seven on the shores of Clyde, she lifted up her voice and cried "Gravy!" I had not heard this innocent expletive since I was a young child; and I suppose it must have been the same with the other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed our fill.

Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It would be difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he mine, during the voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only scooped gravy; but at our concerts, of which more anon, he was the president who called up performers to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his errands and pleaded privately with the over-modest. I knew I liked Mr. Jones from the moment I saw him. I thought him by his face to be Scottish; nor could his accent undeceive me. For as there is a lingua franca of many tongues on the moles and in the feluccas of the Mediterranean, so there is a free or common accent among English-speaking men who follow the sea. They catch a twang in a New England port; from a cockney skipper, even a Scotsman sometimes learns to drop an h; a word of a dialect is picked up from another hand in the forecastle; until often the result is undecipherable, and you have to ask for the man's place of birth. So it was with Mr. Jones. I


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/376

368 swept his left hand around forensically, as if to include the whole of the company—“to-morrow night at eleven o’clock I shall be meeting Mr. Gianapolis at Piccadilly Circus, and later we shall join the limousine and be driven to the establishment of Ho-Pin.” He turned to Inspector Dunbar. “Your arrangements for watching all the approaches to the suspected area are no doubt complete?”

“Not a stray cat,” said Dunbar with emphasis, “can approach Limehouse Causeway or Pennyfields, or any of the environs of the place, to-morrow night after ten o’clock, without the fact being reported to me! You will know at the moment that you step from the limousine that a cyclist scout, carefully concealed, is close at your heels with a whole troup to follow; and if, as you suspect, the den adjoins the river bank, a police cutter will be lying at the nearest available point.”

“Eh bien!” said M. Max; then, turning to Denise Ryland and Dr. Cumberly, and shrugging his shoulders: “you see, frightful as your suspense must be, to make any foolish arrests to-night, to move in this matter at all to-night—would be a case of more haste and less speed”…

“But,” groaned Cumberly, “is Helen to lie in that foul, unspeakable den until the small hours of to-morrow morning? Good God! they may”…

“There is one little point,” interrupted M. Max with upraised hand, “which makes it impossible that we should move to-night—quite apart from the

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/376


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/377

Rh of such a movement. We do not know exactly where this place is situated. What can we do?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and, with raised eyebrows, stared at Dr. Cumberly.

“It is fairly evident,” replied the other slowly, and with a repetition of the weary upraising of his hand to his head, “it is fairly evident that the garage used by the man Gianapolis must be very near to—most probably adjoining—the entrance to this place of which you speak.”

“Quite true,” agreed the Frenchman. “But these are clever, these people of Mr. King. They are Chinese, remember, and the Chinese—ah, I know it!—are the most mysterious and most cunning people in the world. The entrance to the cave of black and gold will not be as wide as a cathedral door. A thousand men might search this garage, which, as Detective Sowerby” (he clapped the latter on the shoulder) “informed me this afternoon, is situated in Wharf-End Lane—all day and all night, and become none the wiser. To-morrow evening”—he lowered his voice—“I myself, shall be not outside, but inside that secret place; I shall be the concierge for one night—Eh bien, that concierge will admit the policeman!”

A groan issued from Dr. Cumberly’s lips; and M. Max, with ready sympathy, crossed the room and placed his hands upon the physician’s shoulders, looking steadfastly into his eyes.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/377


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/378

370 “I understand, Dr. Cumberly,” he said, and his voice was caressing as a woman’s. “Pardieu! I understand. To wait is agony; but you, who are a physician, know that to wait sometimes is necessary. Have courage, my friend, have courage!”

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/378


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/379

UKE SOAMES, buttoning up his black coat, stood in the darkness, listening.

His constitutional distaste for leaping blindfolded had been over-ridden by circumstance. He felt himself to be a puppet of Fate, and he drifted with the tide because he lacked the strength to swim against it. That will-o’-the-wisp sense of security which had cheered him when first he had realized how much he owed to the protective wings of Mr. King had been rudely extinguished upon the very day of its birth; he had learnt that Mr. King was a sinister protector; and almost hourly he lived again through the events of that night when, all unwittingly, he had become a witness of strange happenings in the catacombs.

Soames had counted himself a lost man that night; the only point which he had considered debatable was whether he should be strangled or poisoned. That his employers were determined upon his death, he was assured; yet he had lived through the night, had learnt from his watch that the morning was arrived…and had seen the flecks at the roots of his dyed hair, blanched by the terrors of that

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/379


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/380

372 that watching, from moment to moment, for the second coming of Ho-Pin.…

Yes, the morning had dawned, and with it a faint courage. He had shaved and prepared himself for his singular duties, and Said had brought him his breakfast as usual. The day had passed uneventfully, and once, meeting Ho-Pin, he had found himself greeted with the same mirthless smile but with no menace. Perhaps they had believed his story, or had disbelieved it but realized that he was too closely bound to them to be dangerous.

Then his mind had reverted to the conversation overheard in the music-hall. Should he seek to curry favor with his employers by acquainting them with the fact that, contrary to Gianapolis’ assertion, an important clue had fallen into the hands of the police? Did they know this already? So profound was his belief in the omniscience of the invisible Mr. King that he could not believe that Power ignorant of anything appertaining to himself.

Yet it was possible that those in the catacombs were unaware how Scotland Yard, night and day, quested for Mr. King. The papers made no mention of it; but then the papers made no mention of another fact—the absence of Mrs. Leroux. Now that he was no longer panic-ridden, he could mentally reconstruct that scene of horror, could hear again, imaginatively, the shrieks of the maltreated woman. Perhaps this same active imagination of

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/380


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/381

Rh his was playing him tricks, but, her voice…Always he preferred to dismiss these ideas.

He feared Ho-Pin in the same way that an average man fears a tarantula, and he was only too happy to avoid the ever smiling Chinaman; so that the days passed on, and, finding himself unmolested and the affairs of the catacombs proceeding apparently as usual, he kept his information to himself, uncertain if he shared it with his employers or otherwise, but hesitating to put the matter to the test—always fearful to approach Ho-Pin, the beetlesque.

But this could not continue indefinitely; at least he must speak to Ho-Pin in order to obtain leave of absence. For, since that unforgettable night, he had lived the life of a cave-man indeed, and now began to pine for the wider vault of heaven. Meeting the impassive Chinaman in the corridor one morning, on his way to valet one of the living dead, Soames ventured to stop him.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, confusedly, “but would there be any objection to my going out on Friday evening for an hour?”

“Not at all, Soames,” replied Ho-Pin, with his mirthless smile: “you may go at six, wreturn at ten.”

Ho-Pin passed on.

Soames heaved a gentle sigh of relief. The painful incident was forgotten, then. He hurried into the room, the door of which Said was holding open, quite eager for his unsavory work.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/381


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/382

374 In crossing its threshold, he crossed out of his new peace into a mental turmoil greater in its complexities than any he yet had known; he met M. Gaston Max, and his vague doubts respecting the omniscience of Mr. King were suddenly reinforced.

Soames’ perturbation was so great on that occasion that he feared it must unfailingly be noticed. He realized that now he was definitely in communication with the enemies of Mr. King! Ah; but Mr. King did not know how formidable was the armament of those enemies! He (Soames) had overrated Mr. King; and because that invisible being could inspire Fear in an inconceivable degree, he had thought him all-powerful. Now, he realized that Mr. King was unaware of the existence of at least one clue held by the police; was unaware that his name was associated with the Palace Mansions murder.

The catacombs of Ho-Pin were a sinking ship, and Soames was first of the rats to leave.

He kept his appointment at the “Three Nuns” as has appeared; he accepted the blood-money that was offered him, and he returned to the garage adjoining Kan-Suh Concessions, that night, hugging in his bosom a leather case containing implements by means whereof his new accomplice designed to admit the police to the cave of the golden dragon.

Also, in the pocket of his overcoat, he had a neat Browning pistol; and when the door at the back of the garage was opened for him by Said, he found

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/382


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/383

Rh that the touch of this little weapon sent a thrill of assurance through him, and he began to conceive a sentiment for the unknown investigator to whom he was bound, akin to that which formerly he had cherished for Mr. King!

Now the time was come.

The people of the catacombs acquired a super-sensitive power of hearing, and Soames was able at this time to detect, as he sat or lay in his own room, the movements of persons in the corridor outside and even in the cave of the golden dragon. That mysterious trap in the wall gave him many qualms, and to-night he had glanced at it a thousand times. He held the pistol in his hand, and buttoned up within his coat was the leather case. Only remained the opening of his door in order to learn if the lights were extinguished in the corridor.

He did not anticipate any serious difficulty, provided he could overcome his constitutional nervousness. In his waistcoat pocket was a brand new Yale key which, his latest employer had assured him, fitted the lock of the end door of Block A. The door between the cave of the dragon and Block A was never locked, so far as Soames was aware, nor was that opening from the corridor in which his own room was situated. Therefore, only a few moments—fearful moments, certainly—need intervene, ere he should have a companion; and within a few minutes of that time, the police—his friends!—would be there to protect him! He recognized

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/383


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/384

376 that the law, after all, was omnipotent, and of all masters was the master to be served.

There was no light in the corridor. Leaving his door ajar, he tiptoed cautiously along toward the cave. Assuring himself once again that the pistol lay in his pocket, he fumbled for the lever which opened the door, found it, depressed it, and stepped quietly forward in his slippered feet.

The unmistakable odor of the place assailed his nostrils. All was in darkness, and absolute silence prevailed. He had a rough idea of the positions of the various little tables, and he stepped cautiously in order to skirt them; but evidently he had made a miscalculation. Something caught his foot, and with a muffled thud he sprawled upon the floor, barely missing one of the tables which he had been at such pains to avoid.

Trembling like a man with an ague, he lay there, breathing in short, staccato breaths, and clutching the pistol in his pocket. Certainly he had made no great noise, but…

Nothing stirred.

Soames summoned up courage to rise and to approach again the door of Block A. Without further mishap he reached it, opened it, and entered the blackness of the corridor. He could make no mistake in regard to the door, for it was the end one. He stole quietly along, his fingers touching the matting, until he came in contact with the corner angle; then, feeling along from the wall until he touched

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/384


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/385

 the strip of bamboo which marked the end of the door, he probed about gently with the key; for he knew to within an inch or so where the keyhole was situated.

Ah! he had it! His hand trembling slightly, he sought to insert the key in the lock. It defied his efforts. He felt it gently with the fingers of his left hand, thinking that he might have been endeavoring to insert the key with the irregular edge downward, and not uppermost; but no—such was not the case.

Again he tried, and with no better result. His nerves were threatening to overcome him, now; he had not counted upon any such hitch as this: but fear sharpened his wits. He recollected the fall which he had sustained, and how he had been precipitated upon the polished floor, outside.

Could he have mistaken his direction? Was it not possible that owing to his momentary panic, he had arisen, facing not the door at the foot of the steps, as he had supposed, but that by which a moment earlier he had entered the cave of the golden dragon?

Desperation was with him now; he was gone too far to draw back. Trailing his fingers along the matting covering of the wall, he retraced his steps, came to the open door, and reentered the apartment of the dragon. He complimented himself, fearfully, upon his own address, for he was inspired with an idea whereby he might determine his position. Picking his way among the little tables and

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/385


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/386

 the silken ottomans, he groped about with his hands in the impenetrable darkness for the pedestal supporting the dragon. At last his fingers touched the ivory. He slid them downward, feeling for the great vase of poppies which always stood before the golden image.…

The vase was on the left and not on the right of the pedestal. His theory was correct; he had been groping in the mysterious precincts of that Block B which he had never entered, which he had never seen any one else enter, and from whence he had never known any one to emerge! It was the fall that had confused him; now, he took his bearings anew, bent down to feel for any tables that might lie in his path, and crept across the apartment toward the door which he sought.

Ah! this time there could be no mistake! He depressed the lever handle, and, as the door swung open before him, crept furtively into the corridor.

Repeating the process whereby he had determined the position of the end door, he fumbled once again for the keyhole. He found it with even less difficulty than he had experienced in the wrong corridor, inserted the key in the lock, and with intense satisfaction felt it slip into place.

He inhaled a long breath of the lifeless air, turned the key, and threw the door open. One step forward he took…

A whistle (God! he knew it!) a low, minor

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/386


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/218

 [Memoir by the Rev. John Penrose from a manuscript by Sir C. V. Penrose; Gent. Mag. 1790, ii. 765; Letters of Anna Seward, 1811, iii. 31; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis.]

TREVERIS, PETER (fl. 1525), printer, is known only from having issued books from 1522 to 1532. His surname was supposed by Ames to show that he was a native of the city of Treves or Treveris. It has been maintained, however, that he was a member of the Cornish family of Treffry, a name sometimes spelt Treveris. A Sir John Treffry fought at Poictiers, and took as supporters to his arms a wild man and woman. These were retained by Peter Treveris in his trade device (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. xii. 374), but they were not uncommon in the devices of other printers of the period. A Peter Trevers was, on 4 Aug. 1461, appointed keeper of the chancery rolls in Ireland (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1461–7, p. 26).

Treveris's printing office was in Southwark at the sign of the ‘Wodows.’ His first dated book was an edition of the ‘Syntaxis’ of Robert Whitinton, issued in 1522. Several earlier works are quoted by bibliographers, but the dates ascribed to them are either supposititious, or else refer to the writing rather than the printing. Treveris issued in all between thirty and forty books, and more than half of these were small grammatical tracts. Perhaps the most important book which came from his press was the handsome edition of Trevisa's translation of Higden's ‘Polychronicon,’ issued in 1527, and printed at the expense of John Reynes. This, the ‘Great Herball,’ and the two works of Hieronymus Braunschweig, ‘The noble Experyence of the virtuous Handy-worke of Surgeri’ and ‘The vertuouse Book of the Dystillacion of the Waters,’ are the only important books which he printed.

It has been stated that Treveris printed for a while at Oxford, but there is no evidence that such was the case (cf., Early Oxford Press, pp. 10, 273). One book of his, however, an edition of the ‘Opus Insolubilium’ for use at Oxford, was printed for ‘I. T.,’ probably John Dorne or Thorne, the Oxford bookseller.

Some of the printing material which had belonged to Treveris found its way, on the cessation of his press, into Scotland, and was there used by Thomas Davidson, who, like Treveris, used as his device a shield, bearing his mark and initials, suspended from a tree, and supported by two savages or ‘wodows.’

TREVISA, JOHN (1326–1412), author, was born in 1326 at Crocadon in St. Mellion, near Saltash, Cornwall, and was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, from 1362 to 1369. In the latter year he became fellow of Queen's College, but in 1379 Trevisa, together with Whitfield, the provost, and some others, were expelled from the college by the archbishop of York for their unworthiness. The excluded fellows carried away certain moneys, charters, and other property of the college, and on 20 Oct. 1379 the chancellor was ordered to inquire into the matter, and, after some delay, the property was restored (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Richard II, i. 420, 470;, Hist. and Antiq. ed. Gutch, i. 496). However, Trevisa still appears as paying 13s. 4d. for a chamber at Queen's College in 1395–6 and 1398–9 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. pp. 140, 141). Previous to 1387 Trevisa had entered the service of Thomas, fourth baron Berkeley, as chaplain and vicar of Berkeley. He was also a canon of Westbury-on-Severn. He died at Berkeley in 1412. In his ‘Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk,’ Trevisa speaks of ‘where the Apocalips is wryten in the walles and roof of a chapel both in Latyn and Frensshe;’ this no doubt refers to some ancient writing in Berkeley church, which still survived in 1805, and which may possibly have owed its origin to Trevisa. Trevisa speaks in the ‘Polychronicon’ of having visited ‘Akon in Almayne and Egges in Savoye.’

Trevisa was not an original writer, but was a diligent translator of Latin works into English for the benefit of his master, Lord Berkeley. His scholarship is not unfrequently at fault; however, the value of his writings is not in their matter, but in their interest as early specimens of English prose. His most notable work was the translation of Higden's ‘Polychronicon,’ which he concluded on 18 April 1387 (Polychronicon, viii. 352; Caxton, in error, gave the date as 1357). He inserted at some places brief notes, and added a continuation down to 1360. Trevisa's translation was published in a revised form by Caxton in 1482, by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495 (?), and by [q. v.] in 1527. A portion of the work, entitled ‘The Descrypcyon of Englonde,’ was printed in 1497, 1502, 1510, 1515, and 1528. The whole work has been reprinted from the manuscripts in the Rolls Series edition of Higden, 1865–85.

Trevisa also wrote:
 * 1) ‘A Dialogue on Translation between a Lord and a Clerk,’ which he composed as an introduction to the ‘Polychronicon,’ and which was printed


text:
Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/32

12 thought him a Scotsman who had been long to sea; and yet he was from Wales, and had been most of his life a blacksmith at an inland forge; a few years in America and half a score of ocean voyages having sufficed to modify his speech into the common pattern. By his own account he was both strong and skilful in his trade. A few years back, he had been married and after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead and the money gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, and goes on from one year to another and through all the extremities of fortune undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should look to see Jones, the day following, perched on a step-ladder and getting things to rights. He was always hovering round inventions like a bee over a flower, and lived in a dream of patents. He had with him a patent medicine, for instance, the composition of which he had bought years ago for five dollars from an American pedlar, and sold the other day for a hundred pounds (I think it was) to an English apothecary. It was called Golden Oil, cured all maladies without exception; and I am bound to say that I partook of it myself with good results. It is a character of the man that he was not only perpetually dosing himself with Golden Oil, but wherever there was a head aching or a finger cut, there would be Jones with his bottle.


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/387

, wavered through the stillness. He was enveloped, mantled, choked, by the perfume of roses!

The door, which, although it had opened easily, had seemed to be a remarkably heavy one, swung to behind him; he heard the click of the lock. Like a trapped animal, he turned, leaped back, and found his quivering hands in contact with books—books—books…

A lamp lighted up in the center of the room.

Soames turned and stood pressed closely against the book-shelves, against the book-shelves which magically had grown up in front of the door by which he had entered. He was in the place of books and roses—in the haunt of Mr. King!

A great clarity of mind came to him, as it comes to a drowning man; he knew that those endless passages, through which once he had been led in darkness, did not exist, that he had been deceived, had been guided along the same corridor again and again; he knew that this room of roses did not lie at the heart of a labyrinth, but almost adjoined the cave of the golden dragon.

He knew that he was a poor, blind fool; that his plotting had been known to those whom he had thought to betray; that the new key which had opened a way into this place of dread was not the key which his accomplice had given him. He knew that that upon which he had tripped at the outset of his journey had been set in his path by cunning design, in order that the fall might confuse his sense

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/387


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/388

 of direction. He knew that the great vase of poppies had been moved, that night.…

God! his brain became a seething furnace.

There, before him, upstood the sandalwood screen, with one corner of the table projecting beyond it. Nothing of life was visible in the perfumed place, where deathly silence prevailed.…

No lion has greater courage than a cornered rat. Soames plucked the pistol from his pocket and fired at the screen—once!—twice!

He heard the muffled report, saw the flash of the little weapon, saw the two holes in the carven woodwork, and gained a greater, hysterical courage—the courage of a coward’s desperation.

Immediately before him was a little ebony table, bearing a silver bowl, laden to the brim with sulphur-colored roses. He overturned the table with his foot, laughing wildly. In three strides he leapt across the room, grasped the sandalwood screen, and hurled it to the floor.…

In the instant of its fall, he became as Lot’s wife. The pistol dropped from his nerveless grasp, thudding gently on the carpet, and, with his fingers crooked paralytically, he stood swaying…and looking into the face of Mr. King!

Soames’ body already was as rigid as it would be in death; his mind was numbed—useless. But his outraged soul forced utterance from the lips of the man.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/388


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/389

 A scream, a scream to have made the angels shudder, to have inspired pity in the devils of Hell, burst from him. Two yellow hands leaped at his throat.…

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/389


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/390

GASTON MAX, from his silken bed in the catacombs of Ho-Pin, watched the hand of his watch which lay upon the little table beside him. Already it was past two o’clock, and no sign had come from Soames; a hundred times his imagination had almost tricked him into believing that the door was opening; but always the idea had been illusory and due to the purple shadow of the lamp-shade which overcast that side of the room and the door.

He had experienced no difficulty in arranging with Gianapolis to occupy the same room as formerly; and, close student of human nature though he was, he had been unable to detect in the Greek’s manner, when they had met that night, the slightest restraint, the slightest evidence of uneasiness. His reception by Ho-Pin had varied scarce one iota from that accorded him on his first visit to the cave of the golden dragon. The immobile Egyptian had brought him the opium, and had departed silently as before. On this occasion, the trap above the bed had not been opened. But hour after hour had passed, uneventfully, silently, in that still, suffocating room.…

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/390


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/391

 A key in the lock!—yes, a key was being inserted in the lock! He must take no unnecessary risks; it might be another than Soames. He waited—the faint sound of fumbling ceased. Still, he waited, listening intently.

Half-past-two. If it had been Soames, why had he withdrawn? M. Max arose noiselessly and looked about him. He was undecided what to do, when…

Two shots, followed by a most appalling shriek—the more frightful because it was muffled; the shriek of a man in extremis, of one who stands upon the brink of Eternity, brought him up rigid, tense, with fists clenched, with eyes glaring; wrought within this fearless investigator an emotion akin to terror.

Just that one gruesome cry there was and silence again.

What did it mean?

M. Max began hastily to dress. He discovered, in endeavoring to fasten his collar, that his skin was wet with cold perspiration.

“Pardieu!” he said, twisting his mouth into that wry smile, “I know, now, the meaning of fright!”

He was ever glancing toward the door, not hopefully as hitherto, but apprehensively, fearfully.

That shriek in the night might portend merely the delirium of some other occupant of the catacombs; but the shots…

“It was Soames!” he whispered aloud; “I have risked too much; I am fast in the rat-trap!”

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/391


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/392

 He looked about him for a possible weapon. The time for inactivity was past. It would be horrible to die in that reeking place, whilst outside, it might be, immediately above his head, Dunbar and the others waited and watched.

The construction of the metal bunk attracted his attention. As in the case of steamer bunks one of the rails—that nearer to the door—was detachable in order to facilitate the making of the bed. Rapidly, nervously, he unscrewed it; but the hinges were riveted to the main structure, and after a brief examination he shrugged his shoulders despairingly. Then, he recollected that in the adjoining bathroom there was a metal towel rail, nickeled, and with a heavy knock at either end, attached by two brackets to the wall.

He ran into the inner room and eagerly examined these fastenings. They were attached by small steel screws. In an instant he was at work with the blade of his pocket-knife. Six screws in all there were to be dealt with, three at either end. The fifth snapped the blade and he uttered an exclamation of dismay. But the shortened implement proved to be an even better screw-driver than the original blade, and half a minute later he found himself in possession of a club such as would have delighted the soul of Hercules.

He managed to unscrew one of the knobs, and thus to slide off from the bar the bracket attachments; then, replacing the knob, he weighed the

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/392


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/393

 bar in his hand, appreciatively. His mind now was wholly composed, and his course determined. He crossed the little room and rapped loudly upon the door.

The rapping sounded muffled and dim in that sound-proof place. Nothing happened, and thrice he repeated the rapping with like negative results. But he had learnt something: the door was a very heavy one.

He made a note of the circumstance, although it did not interfere with the plan which he had in mind. Wheeling the armchair up beside the bed, he mounted upon its two arms and, once—twice—thrice—crashed the knob of the iron bar against that part of the wall which concealed the trap.

Here the result was immediate. At every blow of the bar the trap behind yielded. A fourth blow sent the knob crashing through the gauze material, and far out into some dark place beyond. There was a sound as of a number of books falling.

He had burst the trap.

Up on the back of the chair he mounted, resting his bar against the wall, and began in feverish haste to tear away the gauze concealing the rectangular opening.

An almost overpowering perfume of roses was wafted into his face. In front of him was blackness.

Having torn away all the gauze, he learned that the opening was some two feet long by one foot high.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/393


text:
Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/33

Rh If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study character. Many an hour have we two walked upon the deck dissecting our neighbours in a spirit that was too purely scientific to be called unkind; whenever a quaint or human trait slipped out in conversation, you might have seen Jones and me exchanging glances; and we could hardly go to bed in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discussed the day's experience. We were then like a couple of anglers comparing a day's kill. But the fish we angled for were of a metaphysical species, and we angled as often as not in one another's baskets. Once, in the midst of a serious talk, each found there was a scrutinising eye upon himself; I own I paused in embarrassment at this double detection; but Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected laughter, and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair of us indeed.


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/394

 Resting the bar across the ledge he extended his head and shoulders forward through this opening into the rose-scented place beyond, and without any great effort drew himself up with his hands, so that, provided he could find some support upon the other side, it would be a simple matter to draw himself through entirely.

He felt about with his fingers, right and left, and in doing so disturbed another row of books, which fell upon the floor beneath him. He had apparently come out in the middle of a large book-shelf. To the left of him projected the paper-covered door of the trap, at right angles; above and below were book-laden shelves, and on the right there had been other books, until his questing fingers had disturbed them.

M. Max, despite his weight, was an agile man. Clutching the shelf beneath, he worked his way along to the right, gradually creeping further and further into the darkened room, until at last he could draw his feet through the opening and crouch sideways upon the shelf.

He lowered his left foot, sought for and found another shelf beneath, and descended as by a ladder to the thickly carpeted floor. Grasping the end of the bar, he pulled that weapon down; then he twisted the button which converted his timepiece into an electric lantern, and, holding the bar in one tensely quivering hand, looked rapidly about him.

This was a library; a small library, with bowls

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/394


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/395

 of roses set upon tables, shelves, in gaps between the books, and one lying overturned upon the floor. Although it was almost drowned by their overpowering perfume, he detected a faint smell of powder. In one corner stood a large writing-table with papers strewn carelessly upon it. Its appointments were markedly Chinese in character, from the singular, gold inkwell to the jade paperweight; markedly Chinese—and—feminine. A very handsome screen lay upon the floor in front of this table, and the rich carpet he noted to be disordered as if a struggle had taken place upon it. But, most singular circumstance of all, and most disturbing…there was no door to this room!

For a moment he failed to appreciate the entire significance of this. A secret room difficult to enter he could comprehend, but a secret room difficult to quit passed his comprehension completely. Moreover, he was no better off for his exploit.

Three minutes sufficed him in which to examine the shelves covering the four walls of the room from floor to ceiling. None of the books were dummies, and slowly the fact began to dawn upon his mind that what at first he had assumed to be a rather simple device, was, in truth, almost incomprehensible.

For how, in the name of Sanity, did the occupant of this room—and obviously it was occupied at times—enter and leave it?

“Ah!” he muttered, shining the light upon a row of yellow-bound volumes from which he had

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/395


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/396

 his tour of inspection and to which that tour had now led him back, “it is uncanny—this!”

He glanced back at the rectangular patch of light which marked the trap whereby he had entered this supernormal room. It was situated close to one corner of the library, and, acting upon an idea which came to him (any idea was better than none) he proceeded to throw down the books occupying the corresponding position at the other end of the shelf.

A second trap was revealed, identical with that through which he had entered!

It was fastened with a neat brass bolt; and, standing upon one of the little Persian tables—from which he removed a silver bowl of roses—he opened this trap and looked into the lighted room beyond. He saw an apartment almost identical with that which he himself recently had quitted; but in one particular it differed. It was occupied…and by a woman!

Arrayed in a gossamer nightrobe she lay in the bed, beneath the trap, her sunken face matching the silken whiteness. Her thin arms drooped listlessly over the rails of the bunk, and upon her left hand M. Max perceived a wedding ring. Her hair, flaxen in the electric light, was spread about in wildest disorder upon the pillow, and a breath of fetid air assailed his nostrils as he pressed his face close to the gauze masking the opening in order to peer closely at this victim of the catacombs.

He watched the silken covering of her bosom,

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/396


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/219

 :: by Caxton. Trevisa is also credited by Caxton with a translation of the Bible. Archbishop Ussher quotes a genealogy of King David of Scotland as by Trevisa. Other works attributed to Trevisa by Bale, as ‘Gesta Regis Arthuri,’ &c., are probably only portions of the ‘Polychronicon.’
 * 1) A translation of Bartholomew de Glanville, ‘De Proprietatibus Rerum,’ which he finished at Berkeley on 6 Feb. 1398, ‘the yere of my lord's age 47.’ This translation was printed by Wynkyn de Worde probably in 1495, and by Berthelet in 1535.  [q. v.] produced a revised version in 1582, with which Shakespeare was probably familiar.
 * 2) Translation of a sermon by Richard FitzRalph against the mendicant friars (St. John's College, Cambridge, MS. H. 1; Addit. MS. 24194, and Harleian, 1900).
 * 3) ‘The Begynning of the Worlde and the Rewmes betwixe of Folkis and the ende of Worldes,’ a translation of a spurious tract of Methodius (Harleian MS. 1900).
 * 4) Vegetius ‘De re Militari;’ a translation of this work made for Thomas, lord Berkeley, in 1408 is in Digby MS. 233 in the Bodleian Library, and is probably by Trevisa.
 * 5) Ægidius ‘De Regimine Principum,’ a translation contained in Digby MS. 233, and reasonably ascribed to Trevisa.
 * 6) A translation of Nicodemus de Passione Christi, Additional MS. 16165 at British Museum; written, like other translations, at the request of Lord Berkeley. Dr. Babington ascribes to Trevisa the translation of the ‘Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum de potestate ecclesiastica et civili’ (a Latin tract inaccurately attributed to  [q. v.]), which was published at London in 1540.

TREVITHICK, RICHARD (1771–1833), ‘the father of the locomotive engine,’ the only son of Richard Trevithick, by his wife Anne Teague (d. 1810) of Redruth, was born at Illogan in the west of Cornwall on 13 April 1771. The elder Richard Trevithick, who was born in 1735, became manager of Dolcoath mine, where he constructed a deep adit in 1765, and where he erected a Newcomen engine ten years later. He continued manager of the four important mines, Dolcoath, Wheal Chance, Wheal Treasury, and Eastern Stray Parks, until his death at Penponds, near Camborne, on 1 Aug. 1797. John Wesley often visited him during his visits to Cornwall; and for the last twenty years of his life Trevithick was a methodist class leader. Between 1782 and 1785, as manager of Dolcoath, he came into contact with the eccentric adventurer [q. v.]

Young Trevithick was brought up amid the clash of rival opinions as to the respective merits of the old school of Cornish engineers [see ] and innovators such as Smeaton and Watt. The arrival of the Soho engineers in Cornwall in 1777 had proved the source of much discord, and the ingenuity of Cornishmen was exercised during the next twenty years in attempts to discover the means of evading Boulton and Watt's patents. From 1780 to 1799 the ablest of Watt's assistants, [q. v.], was residing at Redruth, within a few miles of Trevithick's home, and there is little doubt that from him and from pupils of the Hornblowers, such as William Bull, the youthful Trevithick derived an insight into the first principles of the steam engine. When not playing truant, Trevithick was educated at Camborne school, but he was not a favourite with the master, whom he once put in a dilemma by offering to do six sums to the pedagogue's one. Many stories are current in Cornwall of his inventive genius and his quickness at figures when a boy, and of his herculean strength as a young man. He was one of the most powerful west-country wrestlers of his day, and at South Kensington is still to be seen a smith's tool, called a mandril, weighing ten hundredweight, which he was in the habit of lifting when a stripling of eighteen. As early as 1795 Trevithick was receiving pay for the saving of fuel by improvements in an engine at Wheal Treasury mine. At the time of his father's death, in 1797, he was engineer at Ding Dong mine, near Penzance, trying to effect improvements in the engine model invented by William Bull, and he set up one of Bull's engines with his improvements at the Herland mine in rivalry with one of Watt's best engines. Shortly afterwards he effected an improvement in the plunger pump, an indispensable adjunct to mines the depth of which was continually on the increase; and this was three years later developed by him into a double-acting water-pressure engine, being a perfected form of the machine first projected more than a century previously by Sir [q. v.] One of these engines, erected in 1804 at Alport mines, near Bakewell, Derbyshire, was working down to 1852.


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/397

, but failed to detect the slightest movement.

“Morbleu!” he muttered, “is she dead?”

He rent the gauze with a sweep of his left hand, and standing upon the bottom shelf of the case, craned forward into the room, looking all about him. A purple shaded lamp burnt above the bed as in the adjoining apartment which he himself had occupied. There were dainty feminine trifles littered in the big armchair, and a motor-coat hung upon the hook of the bathroom door. A small cabin-trunk in one corner of the room bore the initials: “M. L.”

Max dropped back into the incredible library with a stifled gasp.

“Pardieu!” he said. “It is Mrs. Leroux that I have found!”

A moment he stood looking from trap to trap; then turned and surveyed again the impassable walls, the rows of works, few of which were European, some of them bound in vellum, some in pigskin, and one row of huge volumes, ten in number, on the bottom shelf, in crocodile hide.

“It is weird, this!” he muttered, “nightmare!”—turning the light from row to row. “How is this lamp lighted that swings here?”

He began to search for the switch, and, even before he found it, had made up his mind that, once discovered, it would not only enable him more fully to illuminate the library, but would constitute a valuable clue.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/397


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/398

 At last he found it, situated at the back of one of the shelves, and set above a row of four small books, so that it could readily be reached by inserting the hand.

He flooded the place with light; and perceived at a glance that a length of white flex crossing the ceiling enabled anyone seated at the table to ignite the lamp from there also. Then, replacing his torch in his pocket, and assuring himself that the iron bar lay within easy reach, he began deliberately to remove all of the books from the shelves covering that side of the room upon which the switch was situated. His theory was a sound one; he argued that the natural and proper place for such a switch in such a room would be immediately inside the door, so that one entering could ignite the lamp without having to grope in the darkness. He was encouraged, furthermore, by the fact that at a point some four feet to the left of this switch there was a gap in the bookcases, running from floor to ceiling; a gap no more than four inches across.

Having removed every book from its position, save three, which occupied a shelf on a level with his shoulder and adjoining the gap, he desisted wearily, for many of the volumes were weighty, and the heat of the room was almost insufferable. He dropped with a sigh upon a silk ottoman close beside him.…

A short, staccato, muffled report split the heavy silence…and a little round hole appeared in the

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/398


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/399

 woodwork of the book-shelf before which, an instant earlier, M. Max had been standing—in the woodwork of that shelf, which had been upon a level with his head.

In one giant leap he hurled himself across the room—…as a second bullet pierced the yellow silk of the ottoman.

Close under the trap he crouched, staring up, fearful-eyed.…

A yellow hand and arm—a hand and arm of great nervous strength and of the hue of old ivory, directed a pistol through the opening above him. As he leaped, the hand was depressed with a lightning movement, but, lunging suddenly upward, Max seized the barrel of the pistol, and with a powerful wrench, twisted it from the grasp of the yellow hand. It was his own Browning!

At the time—in that moment of intense nervous excitement—he ascribed his sensations to his swift bout with Death—with Death who almost had conquered; but later, even now, as he wrenched the weapon into his grasp, he wondered if physical fear could wholly account for the sickening revulsion which held him back from that rectangular opening in the bookcase. He thought that he recognized in this a kindred horror—as distinct from terror—to that which had come to him with the odor of roses through this very trap, upon the night of his first visit to the catacombs of Ho-Pin.

It was not as the fear which one has of a

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/399


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/400

 wild beast, but as the loathing which is inspired by a thing diseased, leprous, contagious.…

A mighty effort of will was called for, but he managed to achieve it. He drew himself upright, breathing very rapidly, and looked through into the room—the room which he had occupied, and from which a moment ago the murderous yellow hand had protruded.

That room was empty…empty as he had left it!

“Mille tonneres! he has escaped me!” he cried aloud, and the words did not seem of his own choosing.

Who had escaped? Someone—man or woman; rather some thing, which, yellow handed, had sought to murder him!

Max ran across to the second trap and looked down at the woman whom he knew, beyond doubt, to be Mrs. Leroux. She lay in her death-like trance, unmoved.

Strung up to uttermost tension, he looked down at her and listened—listened, intently.

Above the fumes of the apartment in which the woman lay, a stifling odor of roses was clearly perceptible. The whole place was tropically hot. Not a sound, save the creaking of the shelf beneath him, broke the heavy stillness.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/400


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/401

EVERISHLY, Max clutched at the last three books upon the shelf adjoining the gap. Of these, the center volume, a work bound in yellow calf and bearing no title, proved to be irremovable; right and left it could be inclined, but not moved outward. It masked the lever handle of the door!

But that door was locked.

Max, with upraised arms, swept the perspiration from his brows and eyes; he leant dizzily up against the door which defied him; his mind was working with febrile rapidity. He placed the pistol in his pocket, and, recrossing the room, mounted up again upon the shelves, and crept through into the apartment beyond, from which the yellow hand had protruded. He dropped, panting, upon the bed, then, eagerly leaping to the door, grasped the handle.

“Pardieu!” he muttered, “it is unlocked!”

Though the light was still burning in this room, the corridor outside was in darkness. He pressed the button of the ingenious lamp which was also a watch, and made for the door communicating with the cave of the dragon. It was readily to be detected by reason of its visible handle; the other doors

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/401


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/402

 being externally indistinguishable from the rest of the matting-covered wall.

The cave of the dragon proved to be empty, and in darkness. He ran across its polished floor and opened at random the door immediately facing him. A corridor similar to the one which he had just quitted was revealed. Another door was visible at one end, and to this he ran, pulled it open, stepped through the opening, and found himself back in the cave of the dragon!

“Morbleu!” he muttered, “it is bewildering—this!”

Yet another door, this time one of ebony, he opened; and yet another matting-lined corridor presented itself to his gaze. He swept it with the ray of the little lamp, detected a door, opened it, and entered a similar suite to those with which he already was familiar. It was empty, but, unlike the one which he himself had tenanted, this suite possessed two doors, the second opening out of the bathroom. To this he ran; it was unlocked; he opened it, stepped ahead…and was back again in the cave of the dragon.

“Mon dieu!” he cried, “this is Chinese—quite Chinese!”

He stood looking about him, flashing the ray of light upon doors which were opened and upon openings in the walls where properly there should have been no doors.

“I am too late!” he muttered; “they had

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/402


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/403

 of this and they have ‘unloaded.’ That they intend to fly the country is proven by their leaving Mrs. Leroux behind. Ah, nom d’un nom, the good God grant that they have left also.”…

Coincident with his thoughts of her, the voice of Helen Cumberly reached his ears! He stood there quivering in every nerve, as: “''Help! Help!''” followed by a choking, inarticulate cry, came, muffled, from somewhere—he could not determine where.

But the voice was the voice of Helen Cumberly. He raised his left fist and beat his brow as if to urge his brain to super-activity. Then, leaping, he was off.

Door after door he threw open, crying, “Miss Cumberly! Miss Cumberly! Where are you? Have courage! Help is here!”

But the silence remained unbroken—and always his wild search brought him back to the accursed cave of the golden dragon. He began to grow dizzy; he felt that his brain was bursting. For somewhere—somewhere but a few yards removed from him—a woman was in extreme peril!

Clutching dizzily at the pedestal of the dragon, he cried at the top of his voice:—

“Miss Cumberly! For the good God’s sake answer me! Where are you?”

“Here, M. Max!” he was answered; “the door on your right…and then to your right again—quick! quick! Saints! she has killed me!”

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/403


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/404

 It was Gianapolis who spoke!

Max hurled himself through the doorway indicated, falling up against the matting wall by reason of the impetus of his leap. He turned, leaped on, and one of the panels was slightly ajar; it was a masked door. Within was darkness out of which came the sounds of a great turmoil, as of wild beasts in conflict.

Max kicked the door fully open and flashed the ray of the torch into the room. It poured its cold light upon a group which, like some masterpiece of classic statuary, was to remain etched indelibly upon his mind.

Helen Cumberly lay, her head and shoulders pressed back upon the silken pillows of the bed, with both hands clutching the wrist of the Eurasian and striving to wrench the latter’s fingers from her throat, in the white skin of which they were bloodily embedded. With his left arm about the face and head of the devilish half-caste, and grasping with his right hand her slender right wrist—putting forth all his strength to hold it back—was Gianapolis!

His face was of a grayish pallor and clammy with sweat; his crooked eyes had the glare of madness. The lithe body of the Eurasian writhing in his grasp seemed to possess the strength of two strong men; for palpably the Greek was weakening. His left sleeve was torn to shreds—to bloody shreds beneath the teeth of the wild thing with which he

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/404


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/220

 With the introduction of his double-acting engine of 1782, Watt may be said to have perfected the vacuum engine, which a long line of inventors had been striving to produce. Despite, however, the immense superiority of Watt's low-pressure engine over that of Newcomen, the steam engine was as yet only in its infancy. On the expiration of Watt's patent in 1800 the steam engine entered upon a new career. The era of high-pressure steam and of steam locomotion commences from this date, and in connection with both these applications the name of Richard Trevithick occupies the foremost place. In 1800 Trevithick built a highly ingenious double-acting high-pressure engine, with a crank, for Cook's Kitchen mine, and this economical type of engine, known as a ‘puffer’ to distinguish it from the noiseless condensing engine, was soon in demand in Cornwall and South Wales for raising the ore and refuse from the mines.

As early as 1796 Trevithick had made models of steam locomotives, which were exhibited to friends at Camborne, and made to run on the table. The boiler and engine were in one piece; hot water was put into the boiler and a redhot iron was inserted into a tube beneath, thus causing steam to be raised and the engine set in motion. A model by Trevithick of a similar order, probably made in 1798, is now in the South Kensington Museum. The working of the crank in one of the mining or ‘whim’ engines of the Cook's Kitchen type suggested to Trevithick an improvement upon his toy model, and during 1800 and 1801 he was, at intervals, busy in modelling and designing a genuine steam carriage. Such a vehicle was completed by him on Christmas Eve, 1801, when it conveyed for a short experimental trip the first load of passengers ever moved by the force of steam. It was known locally as the ‘puffing devil’ or ‘Captain Dick's puffer,’ but apart from the difficulty experienced in keeping up the steam for any reasonable length of time, the roads about Redruth were execrably bad, and the engine met with several mishaps. Nevertheless, in January 1802, the inventor went up to London with his cousin Andrew Vivian, was interviewed by Count Rumford and Davy as to the possible utility of the new machine, and with some difficulty obtained a patent (dated 24 March 1802), the specification having been drawn up with the aid of Peter Nicholson [q. v.]

The introduction of the high-pressure principle as indicated in this patent gave increased power to steam, and Stuart would date the era of the locomotive from this discovery of Trevithick. The principle of moving a piston by the elasticity of the steam against the pressure only of the atmosphere had been described, it is true, by Leupold, and mentioned by Watt in one of his patents; but there is equally no doubt that Trevithick, by his rejection of Watt's fears as to the use of steam at high temperature, no less than by his ingenuity in the selection and arrangement of forms, gave the high-pressure engine for the first time a practical application. His only competitor in the construction of a practical high-pressure engine was another great mechanical genius, Oliver Evans of Philadelphia, who in 1804 built a steam wagon, the pioneer of the extended use of steam in America (cf., Anecdotes of Steam Engines, ii. 461).

About 1759 John Robison [q. v.], when at Glasgow, had suggested to James Watt the use of steam for the moving of a wheel carriage, but the idea had been dropped. In 1770 Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, a native of Lorraine, constructed upon three wheels a ‘fardier mû par l'effet de la vapeur d'eau produite par le feu,’ a species of locomotive, which ran a mile in a quarter of an hour; but its tractive force was practically nil, and it was promptly voted a public nuisance (it is now to be seen in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers at Paris). A somewhat similar fate overtook a low-pressure locomotive built by Watt's ingenious assistant, William Murdock, in 1786. Murdock would have liked to pursue the experiment further, but it was strongly discountenanced by Watt as chimerical.

From where it was thus left Trevithick carried the locomotive a greater distance than any single man. In the early months of 1803 a second steam carriage of his design, built at Camborne, was exhibited in London, and made several successful trips in the suburbs. It had a cylinder 5½ inches in diameter, with a stroke of 2½ feet, and with thirty pounds of steam it worked fifty strokes a minute. The trials were brought to an end by the frame getting a twist, whereupon the engine was detached from the coach and applied to driving a mill for rolling hoop-iron. Trevithick's partners, Vivian and West, were disappointed by the lack of practical success, and experiments in steam road-carriages were postponed for many years.

Trevithick himself seems to have been in no wise depressed, for during the latter months of 1803, while employed in a general capacity as engineer at Pen-y-darran ironworks, near Merthyr Tydvil, he was engaged upon the first steam locomotive ever tried


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/405

 fought; and lower, lower, always nearer to the throat of the victim, the slender, yellow arm forced itself, forced the tiny hand clutching a poniard no larger than a hatpin but sharp as an adder’s tooth.

“Hold her!” whispered Gianapolis in a voice barely audible, as Max burst into the room. “She came back for this and…I followed her. She has the strength of…a tigress!”

Max hurled himself into the mêlée, grasping the wrist of the Eurasian below where it was clutched by Gianapolis. Nodding to the Greek to release his hold, he twisted it smartly upward.

The dagger fell upon the floor, and with an animal shriek of rage, the Eurasian tottered back. Max caught her about the waist and tossed her unceremoniously into a corner of the room.

Helen Cumberly slipped from the bed, and lay very white and still upon the garish carpet, with four tiny red streams trickling from the nail punctures in her throat. Max stooped and raised her shoulders; he glanced at the Greek, who, quivering in all his limbs, and on the verge of collapse, only kept himself upright by dint of clutching at the side of the doorway. Max realized that Gianapolis was past aiding him; his own resources were nearly exhausted, but, stooping, he managed to lift the girl and to carry her out into the corridor.

“Follow me!” he gasped, glancing back at Gianapolis; “Morbleu, make an effort! The keys—the keys!”

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/405


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/406

 Laying Helen Cumberly upon one of the raised divans, with her head resting upon a silken cushion, Max, teeth tightly clenched and dreadfully conscious that his strength was failing him, waited for Gianapolis. Out from the corridor the Greek came staggering, and Max now perceived that he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the breast.

“She came back,” whispered Gianapolis, clutching at the Frenchman for support…“the hellcat!…I did not know…that…Miss…Cumberly was here. As God is my witness I did not know! But I followed…her—Mahâra…thank God I did! She has finished me, I think, but”—he lowered the crooked eyes to the form of Helen Cumberly—“never mind…Saints!”

He reeled and sank upon his knees. He clutched at the edge of his coat and raised it to his lips, wherefrom blood was gushing forth. Max stooped eagerly, for as the Greek had collapsed upon the floor, he had heard the rattle of keys.

“She had…the keys,” whispered Gianapolis. “They have…tabs…upon them…Mrs. Leroux…number 3 B. The door to the stair”—very, very slowly, he inclined his head toward the ebony door near which Max was standing—“is marked X. The door…at the top—into garage…B.”

“Tell me,” said Max, his arm about the dying

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/406


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/407

 man’s shoulders—“try to tell me: who killed Mrs. Vernon and why?”

“Mr. King!” came in a rattling voice. “Because of the…carelessness of someone…Mrs. Vernon wandered into the room…of Mrs. Leroux. She seems to have had a fit of remorse…or something like it. She begged Mrs. Leroux to pull up…before…too late. Ho-Pin arrived just as she was crying to…Mrs. Leroux…and asking if she could ever forgive her…for bringing her here.…It was Mrs. Vernon who…introduced Mrs.…Leroux. Ho-Pin heard her…say that she…would tell…Leroux the truth…as the only means”…

“Yes, yes, morbleu! I understand! And then?”

“Ho-Pin knows…women…like a book. He thought Mrs. Vernon would…shirk the scandal. We used to send our women…to Nurse Proctor’s, then…to steady up a bit…We let Mrs. Vernon go…as usual. The scene with…Mrs. Leroux had shaken…her and she fainted…in the car…Victoria Street.…I was with her. Nurse Proctor had…God! I am dying!…a time with her;…she got so hysterical that they had to…detain her…and three days later…her husband died; Proctor, the…fool…somehow left a paper

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/407


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/408

 containing the news in Mrs. Vernon’s room.…They had had to [sic]administer an injection that afternoon…and they thought she was…sleeping.”…

“Morbleu! Yes, yes!—a supreme effort, my friend!”

“Directly Ho-Pin heard of Vernon’s death, he knew that his hold…on Mrs. Vernon…was lost.…He…and Mahâra…and…Mr. King…drove straight to…Gillingham…Street…to…arrange.…Ah!…she rushed like a mad woman into the street, a moment before…they arrived. A cab was passing, and”…

“I know this! I know this! What happened at Palace Mansions?”

The Greek’s voice grew fainter.

“Mr. King followed…her…upstairs. Too late;…but whilst Leroux was in…Cumberly’s flat…leaving door open…Mr. King went…in…Mahâra…was watching…gave signal…whistle…of someone’s approach. It was thought…Mr. King…had secured all the message…Mrs. Vernon…was…writing.…Mr. King opened the door of…the lift-shaft…lift not working…climbed down that way…and out by door on…ground floor…when Mr.…the Member of Parliament…went upstairs.”…

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/408


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/409

 “Ah! pardieu! one last word! Who is Mr. King?”

Gianapolis lurched forward, his eyes glazing, half raised his arm—pointing back into the cave of the dragon—and dropped, face downward, on the floor, with a crimson pool forming slowly about his head.

An unfamiliar sound had begun to disturb the silence of the catacombs. Max glanced at the white face of Helen Cumberly, then directed the ray of the little lamp toward the further end of the apartment. A steady stream of dirty water was pouring into the cave of the dragon through the open door ahead of him.

Into the disc of light, leaped, fantastic, the witch figure of the Eurasian. She turned and faced him, threw up both her arms, and laughed shrilly, insanely. Then she turned and ran like a hare, her yellow silk dress gleaming in the moving ray. Inhaling sibilantly, Max leaped after her. In three strides he found his foot splashing in water. An instant he hesitated. Through the corridor ahead of him sped the yellow figure, and right to the end. The seemingly solid wall opened before her; it was another masked door.

Max crossed the threshold hard upon her heels. Three descending steps were ahead of him, and then a long brick tunnel in which swirled fully three feet of water, which, slowly rising, was gradually flooding the cave of the dragon.

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/409


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/410

 On went the Eurasian, up to her waist in the flood, with Max gaining upon her, now, at every stride. There was a damp freshness in the air of the passage, and a sort of mist seemed to float above the water. This mist had a familiar smell.…

They were approaching the river, and there was a fog to-night!

Even as he realized the fact, the quarry vanished, and the ray of light from Max’s lamp impinged upon the opening in an iron sluice gate. The Eurasian had passed it, but Max realized that he must lower his head if he would follow. He ducked rapidly, almost touching the muddy water with his face. A bank of yellow fog instantly enveloped him, and he pulled up short, for, instinctively, he knew that another step might precipitate him into the Thames.

He strove to peer about him, but the feeble ray of the lamp was incapable of penetrating the fog. He groped with his fingers, right and left, and presently found slimy wooden steps. He drew himself closely to these, and directed the light upon them. They led upward. He mounted cautiously, and was clear of the oily water, now, and upon a sort of gangway above which lowered a green and rotting wooden roof.

Obviously, the tide was rising; and, after seeking vainly to peer through the fog ahead, he turned and descended the steps again, finding himself now nearly

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/410


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/411

 up to his armpits in water. He just managed to get in under the sluice gate without actually submerging his head, and to regain the brick tunnel.

He paused for a moment, hoping to be able to lower the gate, but the apparatus was out of his reach, and he had nothing to stand upon to aid him in manipulating it.

Three or four inches of water now flooded the cave of the golden dragon. Max pulled the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door at the foot of the steps. He turned, resting the electric lamp upon one of the little ebony tables, and lifting Helen Cumberly, carried her half-way up the steps, depositing her there with her back to the wall. He staggered down again; his remarkable physical resources were at an end; it must be another’s work to rescue Mrs. Leroux. He stooped over Gianapolis, and turned his head. The crooked eyes glared up at him deathly.

“May the good God forgive you,” he whispered. “You tried to make your peace with Him.”

The sound of muffled blows began to be audible from the head of the steps. Max staggered out of the cave of the golden dragon. A slight freshness and dampness was visible in its atmosphere, and the gentle gurgling of water broke its heavy stillness. There was a new quality come into it, and, strangely, an old quality gone out from it. As he lifted the lamp from the table—now standing in

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/411


text:
Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/412

 slowly moving water—the place seemed no longer to be the cave of the golden dragon he had known.…

He mounted the steps again, with difficulty, resting his shaking hands upon the walls. Shattering blows were being delivered upon the door, above.

“Dunbar!” he cried feebly, stepping aside to avoid Helen Cumberly, where she lay. “Dunbar!”…

title: Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/412