LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 645, 13 July 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

0 5 . A DOCTOR’S STORY. { Continued .) I started off at a brisk pace, and even as I did so I could feel the wind rising; and I had not gone above a hundred yards or so when I felt a flake of snow fall on my face. That ought to have warned me; but I was somewhat stubborn and self-willed, and I determined at all hazards to persevere. Night fell, but neither moon nor friendly stars shone out, and presently I found myself in the midst of a heavy snow-storm. For some time I managed to keep the track—at least so I imagined ; but at length I became conscious that I had lost it, though I flattered myself that I was blundering on in ‘| the right direction. For a little time the snow-storm seemed to slacken; at all events. £ I was able to make some progress. After a || short time I felt myself getting drowsy; but 1 I knew it would be death to stop ; and then m | again the flakes came down heavier than ever, and I could hardly make headway at all against the driving wind and drifting snow. I was plodding feebly on, when suddenly, above the noise of the storm, I heard a sound that, cold as I was, seemed to chill me through and through. It was a wild . loud scream —a man’s, I concluded ; for it was strangely strong and hoarse, and it continued until suddenly it was broken off sharply, and I heard no more. Something had stopped it, or, I argued, a turn of the wind might have suddenly swept the sound away from me. It was sufficiently appalling, and on first hearing it I started violently and dropped my stick, which, in the thick snow, I was unable to find. What terrible scene was being enacted on that wild moor on such a night ? What criminal was trusting to the white snow to hide his crime ? ‘ I nerved myself for an effort, and struggled on wildly for what • seemed a long time; and at last I came against a door half covered with the drifted snow, and almost at the same moment my foot struck against something in the snow, and stooping down, I picked up, to my intense astonishment, the slick I had dropped an hour ago. Close to the door was a narrow window, through which I could see a faint light, and in an instant I recognised three terrible facts connected with my situation. ' In the first place, I had walked for hoars, '• and had only covered the two miles which separated Gabriel Sturm’s from Hobtrush. I knew it was the house, for I could feel the sign above the low door. In the second place, I had passed close to it an hour or more ago, as my stick proved, and therefore must be wandering in a circle. In the third place—and this fact was the most terrible—the awful scream I had heard must, humanly speaking, have come from some one inside the lonely inn. But whatever might have happened, I must have shelter, for I could not have struggled a yard farther; so I knocked loudly at the door, and after some delay it was opened. The man who let me in—l can say now it was Gabriel Sturm —was most anxious, apparently, I should not see his face. He had a large comforter round the lower part of it ; and a hat slouched over the forehead ; while the horn-lantern he carried, gave out a dim, uncertain light. ‘ What d’you want ?’ he said, in a hoarse voice. I would have given a great deal to have been able to turn atvay ; but better the possible dangers inside the house than the merciless storm without, so I answered : ‘ A night’s lodging. I can get no farther in this snow.’ The man hesitated a good deal; certainly an innkeeper, this, who did not care much for custom ; and at last he said gruffly ; * Come in.’ With a shiver that was not owing to the cold, I crossed the threshold, aud found myself in a low room, very roughly and scantily furnished, with a doorway in a corner leading out of it to the upper storey. I could see also by the dim light a few rough shelves, with some bottles and pewter pots upon them. Still keeping his face as much sm possible in shadow, but still, I could see, intently watching me, he, took down a bottle and a wineglass, and then saying brusquely, ‘This road; I sleep here,’ led the way upstairs. As he strode up, he said, as if an afterthought, ‘And there’s no one’ else in the house’—pleasant news from such a man. I followed him, and was shown into a small room containing a bed, a chair, and a table, and a small press near the door. Sturm put the lantern on the table, filled out a wineglass of liquor, and saying ‘ Whisky,’ handed it to me. Strange to say, he retained the bottle, wbichat once aroused my suspicions ; so I drank, and then only nodded.* He gruffly said ‘Goodnight,’ and strode out of the room. The moment his back was turned I discharged the whisky, Avnich I had retained in my mouth, into the basin; at all events, I thought, I would not be drugged. Two things were very noticeablehis anxiety not to be seen himself, and his evident desire to watch me that I should see nothing more of the house than he chose to show' me—should not take a step into any room or passage other than those through which he led me. He succeeded in both, for I never, even when he offered me the whiskey, had a fair look at his face; and, at the same time, I felt that he watched ms narrowly. I felt very sleepy from cold and exposure ; but I had made up my mind that I must not go to sleep, or my life would be in danger, 1 felt that as I stepped over -the threshold, and it increased upon me every moment; a conclusion arrived at on insufficient premises, you will say, but, nevertheless, one that I never staid to argue with myself; a conclusion justified, too, after these discoveries. After putting out the whisky,_which, as I anticipated, smelt strongly of opium, I tried to fasten the door, but found no lock or means of doing so-merely a latch. This was not reassuring ; and I made another discovery shortly which alarmed me still more. The tnblc, I found, formed part of the bed. The chair, as it seemed at first, was a scat imitating one let into the w all, into which also the press was fastened. There was nothing to drag against the door, and nothing to turn into an offensive weapon ; for there was neither fender nor lire irons, and the washbowl was tin aud very small. 1 was caught in a death-trap, and scarcely dared to breathe a prayer that I might get out of it safely, so impossible did it seem. For some time I was stunned ; and if Sturm had come irp then 1 should have been an easy

victim. I seemed in imagination to die, and the shock nearly deprived me of my senses. But I kept awake, and gradually-got accustomed to the situation, awful as it was. I seemed resigned to the struggle which I felt must come sooner or later, and my mind began to wander vaguely round the subject, I can recall my thoughts now ; but I hardly know in what order they succeeded each otheh then. Sturm would he sure to be armed ; moreover, he had evidently the strength of a giant, and I was by no means strong, and had nothing whatever with which to defend myself, except (the absurdity struck me even then) a syringe ! A syringe and a bottle of diluted acid. You smile at the idea now, as, even in the horror of the moment, i could smile at it then; and yet, as the event proved, the two together made a weapon not to be despised. The syringe, as I have said before, worked _ perfectly well, and only wanted the ring-handle fastening. It was a very powerful instrument, and would carry a strong, continuous douche of any fluid within a considerable distance, spreading as it went farther, just as shot spreads out of a gun. As for the acid, if once a man received any of that, or even the spray, in his eyes, he would certainly be blinded for some hours, if not for life—the latter contingency which, in my desperate situation then, I did not for a moment consider. I do not know how the idea, ivhich you will now have seized, flashed across my mind; but I saw that if only I could get an opportunity of syringing Mr Sturm’s eyes in a wholly non-professional way, I had a very good chance of escaping. The only difficulty was how to get the chance of apply mg my novel charge when the attack came ; and, though it seems simple enough now, it cost me many minutes of agonising thought before I could determine it on that night. The storm had abated, and the moon was shining out, flooding the room—for the window had no blind —with a stream of silver. It behoved me, in the first place, then, to make up some semblance of myself, and place it in the bed, and, in the second, to conceal myself where, unseen, I could get near my assailant. I could not get behind the door, for it opened right on to the press; and, moreover, before my attack, I was bound to be sure of my assailant’s intention; for my host might come to visit me in a friendly way only, and I must be cautious. You laugh, as I can now, at such casuistry; but it is a fact that I did go through that ■process of reasoning then, and acted upon it. [ To be continued .]