Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 57

"And they saw all that?"

"I am afraid so. Of course they could not tell how much there was. They saw a number of coins. If they attempt to rob us of it all to-night we shall have nothing to continue our journey to-morrow. And how we can keep it from them I don't know."

Mother's face was white and drawn. Father and Norah would not have recognised her.

"We shall hide it from them," I answered as bravely as I could. I would not let mother see that I was nervous.

The room was bare of everything but just the necessary furniture. A more difficult place to hide anything could not easily be found. Every article of ours would be ransacked, I felt sure. Our handbags would be searched; our clothes ditto. Where on earth could we put that purse?

I was sitting on the bed as I looked round the room. We would, of course, be lying in the bed when they came to search the room, and even our pillows would not be safe from their touch. Stay! What did the bed clothes consist of? A hasty examination disclosed two blankets and a sheet, and under those the mattress. That mattress gave me an idea. I had found a hiding-place.

"Have you scissors and needle and cotton in your bag?" I whispered.

Mother nodded. "I think Norah put my sewing case in."

She opened it. Yes, everything was to hand.

With her help I turned the mattress right up, and made an incision in the middle of the ticking.

"Give me the money," I said in a low voice.

She handed it silently. I slipped each coin carefully into the incision.

"We'll leave them the francs," mother whispered. "They might ... they might ... wish to harm us if they found nothing."

I nodded. Then with the aid of the needle and cotton I st.i.tched up the opening I had made, and without more ado we took off our outer clothes, our boots and stockings, and lay down in the bed.

But not to sleep! We neither of us closed an eyelid, so alert were we for the expected footstep on the other side of the door.

They gave us a reasonable time to go to sleep. Our extinguished candle told them we were in bed. Near about twelve o'clock our strained hearing detected the sound of a slight fumbling at the door. It opened, and the moonlight streaming in through the uncurtained windows showed us, through our half-shut eyelids, the figures of our escort and the hunchback. They moved like cats about the room. It struck me even then that they were used to these midnight searches.

A thrill of fear went through me as the hunchback pa.s.sed the bed, but a dogged persistency was with me still that they should not have our money. Our handbags were taken out of the room, doubtless to be examined at leisure by the old woman, and mulct of anything valuable. We heard a slight clink of money which meant the purse was emptied. Our clothes were shaken and examined, even our boots were looked into.

Lastly they came to the bed. My eyes were glued then to my cheeks, and mother's must have been so as well. I could not see what they did, but I could feel them. They were practised though in their handling of our pillows, for had I been really asleep I should never have felt anything.

They looked everywhere, they felt everywhere, everywhere but in the right place, and then with a hardly-concealed murmur of dissatisfaction they went from the room, closing the door after them. Mother and I lay quiet. The only thing we did was to hold one another's hands under the bed-clothes, and to press our shoulders close together.

Only once again did the door open, and that was to admit our escort, who had brought back our handbags.

And then the door closed for good and all, but we never said a word all the long night through, though each knew and felt that the other was awake. The grey dawn stealing in saw us with eyes strained and wide, and we turned and looked at each other, and mother kissed me. It was Christmas Day.

Our hearts were braver with the daylight, and what was joy unspeakable was to see the snow melting fast away under the heavy thaw that had set in during the early hours of the dawn. Our journey could be pursued without much difficulty, for if need be we could walk every step of the way.

When it was quite light we got up and dressed. I undid my st.i.tching of the night before, gave mother back the gold safe and intact, and then sewed up the incision as neatly as I could.

We went down hatted and cloaked to the room we had supped in the night before. It presented no change. Over the fire the old woman bent, stirring something in a saucepan; our escort was seated at the table, and by the stove sat the hunchback nursing his knees--with only one difference,--there was no grin upon his face. He looked like a man thwarted.

We had just bade them good morning and the old woman was asking us how we had slept, when the noise of wheels and horses' feet sounded outside.

It was the second _diligence_. The landlord of the inn had told the conductor to call and see if we had been forced to take refuge in our escort's house. The jovial conductor was beaming all over as he stamped his wet feet on the stone floor of the kitchen, laughing at the miraculous disappearance of all the snow. His very presence seemed to put new life into us.

"And what am I indebted to you," asked mother, "for the kindly shelter you have afforded us?"

Our escort shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever madame wishes," was his reply.

So mother placed a napoleon upon the table. It was too much, I always maintained, after all the francs they had robbed from the purse, and the gold piece the hunchback had picked up, but it was the smallest coin mother had, and she told me afterwards she didn't grudge it, for our lives had been spared us as well as the bulk of our money.

The _diligence_ rattled briskly along, and we reached the _Pomme d'Or_ to find that father's illness had taken a favourable turn during that terrible night, and the only thing he needed now was care and good nursing. When he was well again he reported our experiences to the police, and we had good reason to believe that no credulous wayfarer ever had to undergo the terrible ordeal that we did that night. The house was ever after kept under strict police surveillance.

A NIGHT OF HORROR.

BY ALFRED H. MILES.

The jaguar, otherwise known as the American leopard, belongs to the forests of South America, and has many points of difference from, as well as some of similarity with, the leopard of Asia. Though ferocious in his wild state, he is amenable to civilising influences and becomes mild and tame in captivity. He is an excellent swimmer and an expert climber, ascending to the tops of high branchless trees by fixing his claws in the trunks. It is said that he can hunt in the trees almost as well as he can upon the ground, and that hence he becomes a formidable enemy to the monkeys. He is also a clever fisherman, his method being that of dropping saliva on to the surface of the water, and upon the approach of a fish, by a dexterous stroke of his paw knocking it out of the water on to the bank.

But the jaguar by no means confines his attention to hunting monkeys and defenceless fish. He will hunt big game, and when hungry will not hesitate to attack man.

The strength of the jaguar is very great, and as he can climb, swim, and leap a great distance, he seems to be almost equally formidable in three elements. He is said to attack the alligator and to banquet with evident relish off his victim. D'Azara says that on one occasion he found a jaguar feasting upon a horse which it had killed. The jaguar fled at his approach, whereupon he had the body of the horse dragged to within a musket shot of a tree in which he purposed watching for the jaguar's return. While temporarily absent he left a man to keep watch, and while he was away the jaguar reappeared on the opposite side of a river which was both deep and broad. Having crossed the river the animal approached, and seized the horse with his teeth, dragged it some sixty paces to the water side, plunged in with it, swam across the river, pulled it out upon the other side, and carried it into a neighbouring wood.

Such an animal could not but be a formidable foe to any one who had the misfortune to be unarmed when attacked, as many an early settler in the Western States of America found to his cost. Among such experiences, the following story of a night of horror told by Mrs. Bowdich stands out as a tale of terror scarcely likely to be surpa.s.sed.

Two of the early settlers in the Western States of America, a man and his wife, once closed their wooden hut, and went to pay a visit at a distance, leaving a freshly-killed piece of venison hanging inside. The gable end of this house was not boarded up as high as the roof, but a large aperture was left for light and air. By taking an enormous leap, a hungry jaguar, attracted by the smell of the venison, had entered the hut and devoured part of it. He was disturbed by the return of the owners, and took his departure. The venison was removed. The husband went away the night after to a distance, and left his wife alone in the hut. She had not been long in bed before she heard the jaguar leap in at the open gable. There was no door between her room and that in which he had entered, and she knew not how to protect herself. She, however, screamed as loudly as she could, and made all the violent noises she could think of, which served to frighten him away at that time; but she knew he would come again, and she must be prepared for him. She tried to make a large fire, but the wood was expended. She thought of rolling herself up in the bed-clothes, but these would be torn off. The idea of getting under the low bedstead suggested itself, but she felt sure a paw would be stretched forth which would drag her out. Her husband had taken all their firearms. At last, as she heard the jaguar this time scrambling up the end of the house, she in despair got into a large store chest, the lid of which closed with a spring. Scarcely was she within it, and had dragged the lid down, inserting her fingers between it and the side of the chest, when the jaguar discovered where she was.

He smelt round the chest, tried to get his head in through the crack, but fortunately he could not raise the lid. He found her fingers and began to lick them; she felt them bleed, but did not dare to move them for fear she should be suffocated. At length the jaguar leaped on to the lid, and his weight pressing down the lid, fractured these fingers.

Still she could not move. He smelt round again, he pulled, he leaped on and off, till at last getting tired of his vain efforts, he went away.

The poor woman lay there till daybreak, and then only feeling safe from her enemy, she went as fast as her strength would let her to her nearest neighbour's, a distance of two miles, where she procured help for her wounded fingers, which were long in getting well. On his return, her husband found a male and female jaguar in the forest close by, with their cubs, and all were destroyed.

Human hair has been known to turn white in a single night, and is often said to do so in the pages of fiction. Whether it did so or not in the present case is not recorded, but certainly if it did not, it lost an exceptional opportunity.

AUNT GRIEVES' SILVER.

BY LUCIE E. JACKSON.

When Kate Hamilton's father had been dead six months, and Kate had had time to realise that the extensive sheep station belonged to her and to her alone--that she, in fact, was what the shearers called "the boss"--then did she sit down and pen a few lines to her aunt in England--her father's only sister. She did not exactly know what possessed her to do it. She had never at any time during her nineteen years corresponded with her aunt; it was her father who had kept up the tie between his sister and himself. But notwithstanding that she was now "boss," perhaps a craving for a little of the sympathy and the great affection with which her father had always surrounded her, had something to do with her wis.h.i.+ng to get up a correspondence with his sister.

Whatever the reason the impulse was there, and the letter was despatched to the England that Kate had never seen except through her father's eyes.

A few weeks later she received an answer that filled her with surprise.

After a few preliminary remarks relating to the grief she felt at the news of her brother's death, Mrs. Grieves wrote as follows:

"Your cousin Cicely and I cannot bear to think of your being alone--young girl that you are--without a single relative near for comfort or advice. I have made up my mind to start for Australia as soon as I can arrange my affairs satisfactorily. There is nothing to keep us in England since Cicely's father died last year, and I long to see my brother's only child. Moreover, the voyage will do Cicely good, for she is very fragile, and the doctor warmly approves of the idea. So adieu, my dear child, till we meet. I shall send a cablegram the day before our vessel starts.