And I guess there was some
ornamental tyin’ up before the big stroke was made. I want to go into
this thing fair and square, so I must get fixed up proper first. I dare
say this old galoot can rise some string and tie me up accordin’ to
sample?”

This was said interrogatively to the old custodian, but the latter, who
understood the drift of his speech, though perhaps not appreciating to
the full the niceties of dialect and imagery, shook his head. His
protest was, however, only formal and made to be overcome. The American
thrust a gold piece into his hand, saying: “Take it, pard! it’s your
pot; and don’t be skeer’d. This ain’t no necktie party that you’re
asked to assist in!” He produced some thin frayed rope and proceeded to
bind our companion with sufficient strictness for the purpose. When the
upper part of his body was bound, Hutcheson said:

“Hold on a moment, Judge. Guess I’m too heavy for you to tote into the
canister. You jest let me walk in, and then you can wash up regardin’
my legs!”

Whilst speaking he had backed himself into the opening which was just
enough to hold him. It was a close fit and no mistake. Amelia looked on
with fear in her eyes, but she evidently did not like to say anything. Then the custodian completed his task by tying the American’s feet
together so that he was now absolutely helpless and fixed in his
voluntary prison. He seemed to really enjoy it, and the incipient smile
which was habitual to his face blossomed into actuality as he said:

“Guess this here Eve was made out of the rib of a dwarf! There ain’t
much room for a full-grown citizen of the United States to hustle. We
uster make our coffins more roomier in Idaho territory. Now, Judge, you
jest begin to let this door down, slow, on to me. I want to feel the
same pleasure as the other jays had when those spikes began to move
toward their eyes!”

“Oh no! no! no!” broke in Amelia hysterically. “It is too terrible! I
can’t bear to see it!—I can’t! I can’t!” But the American was obdurate. “Say, Colonel,” said he, “why not take Madame for a little promenade? I
wouldn’t hurt her feelin’s for the world; but now that I am here,
havin’ kem eight thousand miles, wouldn’t it be too hard to give up the
very experience I’ve been pinin’ an’ pantin’ fur? A man can’t get to
feel like canned goods every time! Me and the Judge here’ll fix up this
thing in no time, an’ then you’ll come back, an’ we’ll all laugh
together!”

Once more the resolution that is born of curiosity triumphed, and
Amelia stayed holding tight to my arm and shivering whilst the
custodian began to slacken slowly inch by inch the rope that held back
the iron door. Hutcheson’s face was positively radiant as his eyes
followed the first movement of the spikes. “Wall!” he said, “I guess I’ve not had enjoyment like this since I left
Noo York. Bar a scrap with a French sailor at Wapping—an’ that warn’t
much of a picnic neither—I’ve not had a show fur real pleasure in this
dod-rotted Continent, where there ain’t no b’ars nor no Injuns, an’
wheer nary man goes heeled. Slow there, Judge! Don’t you rush this
business! I want a show for my money this game—I du!”

The custodian must have had in him some of the blood of his
predecessors in that ghastly tower, for he worked the engine with a
deliberate and excruciating slowness which after five minutes, in which
the outer edge of the door had not moved half as many inches, began to
overcome Amelia. I saw her lips whiten, and felt her hold upon my arm
relax. I looked around an instant for a place whereon to lay her, and
when I looked at her again found that her eye had become fixed on the
side of the Virgin. Following its direction I saw the black cat
crouching out of sight. Her green eyes shone like danger lamps in the
gloom of the place, and their colour was heightened by the blood which
still smeared her coat and reddened her mouth. I cried out:

“The cat! look out for the cat!” for even then she sprang out before
the engine. At this moment she looked like a triumphant demon. Her eyes
blazed with ferocity, her hair bristled out till she seemed twice her
normal size, and her tail lashed about as does a tiger’s when the
quarry is before it. Elias P. Hutcheson when he saw her was amused, and
his eyes positively sparkled with fun as he said:

“Darned if the squaw hain’t got on all her war paint! Jest give her a
shove off if she comes any of her tricks on me, for I’m so fixed
everlastingly by the boss, that durn my skin if I can keep my eyes from
her if she wants them! Easy there, Judge! don’t you slack that ar rope
or I’m euchered!”

At this moment Amelia completed her faint, and I had to clutch hold of
her round the waist or she would have fallen to the floor. Whilst
attending to her I saw the black cat crouching for a spring, and jumped
up to turn the creature out. But at that instant, with a sort of hellish scream, she hurled herself,
not as we expected at Hutcheson, but straight at the face of the
custodian. Her claws seemed to be tearing wildly as one sees in the
Chinese drawings of the dragon rampant, and as I looked I saw one of
them light on the poor man’s eye, and actually tear through it and down
his cheek, leaving a wide band of red where the blood seemed to spurt
from every vein. With a yell of sheer terror which came quicker than even his sense of
pain, the man leaped back, dropping as he did so the rope which held
back the iron door. I jumped for it, but was too late, for the cord ran
like lightning through the pulley-block, and the heavy mass fell
forward from its own weight. As the door closed I caught a glimpse of our poor companion’s face. He
seemed frozen with terror. His eyes stared with a horrible anguish as
if dazed, and no sound came from his lips. And then the spikes did their work. Happily the end was quick, for when
I wrenched open the door they had pierced so deep that they had locked
in the bones of the skull through which they had crushed, and actually
tore him—it—out of his iron prison till, bound as he was, he fell at
full length with a sickly thud upon the floor, the face turning upward
as he fell. I rushed to my wife, lifted her up and carried her out, for I feared
for her very reason if she should wake from her faint to such a scene. I laid her on the bench outside and ran back. Leaning against the
wooden column was the custodian moaning in pain whilst he held his
reddening handkerchief to his eyes. And sitting on the head of the poor
American was the cat, purring loudly as she licked the blood which
trickled through the gashed socket of his eyes. I think no one will call me cruel because I seized one of the old
executioner’s swords and shore her in two as she sat. The Secret of the Growing Gold


When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent’s Rock the whole
neighbourhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal.