

E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations. See 34817-h.htm or 34817-h.zip:
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/34817/pg34817-images.html)
      or
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34817/34817-h.zip)





[Illustration]

[Illustration: TALES of the Wonder Club]


TALES OF THE WONDER CLUB. by

DRYASDUST. VOL. II. [Decoration]

Illustrated by John Jellicoe and Val Prince,
After Designs by the Author. Harrison & Sons, 59, Pall Mall. Booksellers to the Queen and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. All rights reserved. London:
Printed By A. Hudson and Co.,
160 Wandsworth Road, S.W. CONTENTS
                                                 Page
   CHAPTER I. 5
   Buried Alive.--The Landlord's Story. CHAPTER II. 61
   Der Scharfrichter.--The Artist's Second Story. CHAPTER III. 154
   The Three Pauls.--The Artist's Third Story. CHAPTER IV. 238
   The Waxen Image.--The Hostess's Story. CHAPTER V.                                        322
   In which occurs Mr. Parnassus' Ballad--The
   Chieftain's Destiny. CHAPTER VI. 338
   A Tale of the French Revolution.--The
   Barber's Story. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE

   ARTIST AND MODEL         _Frontispiece_

   PERSIAN GULF               _Title Page_

   BURIED ALIVE                          5

   EXECUTION                            61

   THE THREE PAULS                     154

   THE WAXEN IMAGE                     238

   CHIEFTAIN'S DESTINY                 322

   THE BASTILLE                        338




[Illustration]


CHAPTER I. BURIED ALIVE.--THE LANDLORD'S STORY. "Bravo, Oldstone! A very capital story!" cried several members at once. "It is a pity our host isn't here to have heard it." "I heard a good part of it, though, gentlemen," said a voice from a dark
corner of the room (for the lights had been extinguished, though it was
still murky without). "What, are you there, Jack?" cried Mr. Crucible. "We none of us saw
you." "Well, sir," said the landlord, "finding that I was not wanted outside
as I thought, I ventured to enter the room quietly, so as not to disturb
the story." "Well done, Jack," said Hardcase, "and so you heard all, eh? Well, what
do you think of it?" "Pretty nearly all, I guess, sir," replied the landlord, "and a curious
one it is, too, and no mistake. But talk of being buried alive, I could
tell you a queer adventure that happened to myself, if you gentlemen
would care to hear it." "Only be too glad, Jack," said Oldstone. "Out with it; there is nothing
like a good story to beguile the time in weather like this." Our host, thus encouraged, drew his chair close to the fire, and his
example was immediately followed by his guests. Then, refilling his yard
of clay and lighting it in the fire, he gave one or two preliminary
whiffs, and commenced his story thus:--

Well, gentlemen, when I was a youngster, that is to say, a lad of
nineteen, I fell deeply in love with my Molly, who, though I say it, was
the finest lass in the village and for miles round it. For all the world
like my Helen, at her age, bless her dear heart! She was the daughter of
a rich miller--his only child. Well, it had been a long attachment, for
Molly and I were play-mates when we was little, but when I grew to be
about nineteen, and my father began to see that I was head over ears in
love with Molly, he forbade me to see any more of her, because he and
old Sykes--leastways, Molly's father, the miller--wasn't friends, d'ye
see. Nevertheless, Molly and I used to get a peep at each other on the sly
like, and often took long walks together when no one was near. Well, old Sykes also objected to me keeping company with his daughter,
and sometimes suspecting what was up, used to lie in wait for us, and
catch us in the lane as we was coming home from our walk. Then he'd give
us both a "blowing up," for old Sykes wasn't partickler nice in his
language, and Molly was locked up in her room while he went to complain
of me to my father. This sort of thing occurred more than once, and
Sykes, not knowing how to put a stop to it in any other way, sent his
daughter on a visit to an aunt of hers some distance off. I didn't know nothing of this for some time, and still went hovering
round the house, expecting to see Molly at the window. Now, there
happened to be at that time an epidemic running through the village, as
proved fatal to many, carrying off both the young and the old, and when
my father saw how pulled down I was in health and spirits, which was all
along of my not having seen Molly for many a week, he took it into his
head that I had caught the epidemic, and sent for a doctor. The doctor
came, felt my pulse, and looked at my tongue, and pronounced me very
bad, but said that he did not see the usual signs of the epidemic. He ordered me, however, to be put to bed, and prescribed me some physic. Instead of doing me any good, it only made me worse, for the doctor was
ignorant of the true cause of my low spirits. I was forced to keep in
bed, and could do nothing night or day but think of Molly. My father,
seeing me rapidly grow worse, but still ignorant of the cause--though he
knew that I had been very much cut up about Molly--began to take on
so--I being his only son--that the doctor was afraid that he would have
to take to his bed. Once, shortly after Molly's disappearance, he told
me that she had caught the epidemic and had died. He hoped by this tale to bring me to my senses, and that I should soon
forget her, and begin courting some other girl, but it had a very
different effect upon me, and I rapidly sunk from worse to worse. When
the doctor called again, he found me in a dangerous state, and he came
to the conclusion that it must be the epidemic after all. Whether I
really had caught the epidemic in addition to my love-sickness I can't
tell. All I know is that I felt so bad that I didn't expect to live, and
even the doctor said it was all over with me. My death was expected daily, and when one morning the doctor came and
found me stiff and cold, he gave out to my parents that I was dead. I
was no more dead than I am at the present moment. It is true that I
could not budge an inch, and I have no doubt that I looked thoroughly
dead, but my mind was as clear and as sharp as possible. "Poor young man," I heard the doctor say. "So hale and strong, too. Who'd have thought it?" "Oh, my poor son! my poor son!" wept my father. "You whom I thought to
rear to be the prop of my old age, now you are torn from me for ever." "Calm yourself, sir," said the doctor, "else you will make yourself
ill."

"How can I calm myself?" cried my father, in agony. "Was he not my
_only_ son? and I--I--fool, wretch, that I was--_I_ killed him!" "_You_ killed him!" cried the doctor. "How? Surely you rave, sir."