Chapter I. The Diamond Bullet. Chapter I.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 273, 24 April 1873, Page 7

Chapter I.

The Diamond Bullet.

[BY WILLIAM SAWYER]

Snow had fallen all day, and midnight found the city streets strange and silent as the streets of a city in a dream. The snow upon the housetops and in the quiet nooks, where it lay white and pure, had the effect of moonlight. The familiar forms of things changed under it, and that change extended to a little old city church, dedicated to an obscure saint, and so lost in a blind alley that its very existence seems to have been forgotten. Years before, St. Hugh-the-Less had been hustled and elbowed out of the open space which its ugliness had made hideous. Time had been when it had enjoyed the dignity of a churchyard, in which tradition affirmed, city magnates slept their last sleep under the shadow of the rustling boughs, musical with the chirp and twitter of the city sparrows. But this was in the dim past. There was no churchyard now, and its main approach was through a deserted court.

The porch of the church projecting into the court was deep and dark ; on the top the snow lay in a clotted mass, from which shining icicle-spikes descended. Underneath there was shelter, for the flukes drifted past and left the worn steps black and bare. Here was good protection from the weather, and this had been taken advantage of; for as the cracked chimes in the belfry, up in the dark, began to tell of midnight, a woman's face was suddenly thrust out in the snow. For a moment eager eyes glanced in all directions ; then the face drew back, and was lost in the gloom from which it had emerged. A sweet haunting face, beautiful, but sad ! Its beauty that of youth , its sadness as from the accumulated sorrows of long years. It bore also the stamp of race, of aristocratic refinement, which in itself is a kind of loveliness.

The wheezy chimes had barely got through their asthmatic burden, the echoes of which lingered in the dense air, before a faint tramp of footsteps in the snow was audible, and the cloaked figure of a man suddenly entered the church-court. Snow-flakes lay thick upon his head and shoulders. Without hesitation he made direct to the porch.

An exclamation of surprise or delight escaped the lips of the concealed woman, and she at once stepped forward and held out her hand. The newcomer bowed low, and pressed the fingers with her lips.

" Not a minute late, Armand ? " said a gracious voice out of the darkness.

" That would have been impossible," was the obsequious reply.

" Yet you were in Moscow ? You must have travelled day and night ? "

" Day and night," was the quite response. There was a momentary paiiße. In spite of apparent calmness and studied courtesy, it was clear that both speakers were animated by earnestness of purpose, and not a little agitated in this strange meetiug. It was Armand who resumed. " You are on the track ? " he asked. " Yes. After five years of wandering in cavernous darkness, a ray of light steals in. Olympia is in England." " G-ood ; though our country is not so small but that one may hide in it." " True — in one's grave ! " The words dropt from the lips of | the speaker slowly, oue by one. Thus uttered, their effect was startling. There was little in them; but analysed, the venom of the cobra and of la dama blanca yields only a little albumen. Armand listened with a shudder — but the night was cold. " And now, as ever, you do not despair of finding her ? " he asked. "Despair!" There was a scornful fierceness in her voice. " Think what I have suffered, and that I live! Look back. Eecall the past, and ask yourself if just heaven can deny me justice. It dare not I " Excitement lent fierceness to her utterance. Waving aside with an impetuous gesture what the young man was about to say in return, she continued :

" You recall the old, and happy days ? Surely it was always sunshine then ! We were so happy, you and I. Love crowded sorrow out of life ; there was no gloom, no sadness, and the future stretched before us like a sea of light. And then Olympia came between our hearts ; she, with her hideous loveliness and her sleek seductive ways. I hated her and feared her from the first. You felt her fascination, and I saw it. The splendour of her tropic beauty overpowered you. Her insidious accents poisoned your soul. She flattered you with a flattery that had its slanderous side. In praising you, she disparaged me ; in raising herself in your regard, it was my heart on which she mounted — my heart she trampled under foot." " But she did not succeed," the listener ursjed.

"And' if she failed," the woman returned, in bitter accents, •' it was because her arts defeated themselves, You saw too much. To admiration succeeded revulsion. Then she changed her tactics. Where she could not fascinate, she sought to bribe ; if she could not win your love, she would buy it-"

"Her vanity was piqued," Armand interposed.

" Or, like enongh — God knows !—! — she suffered. She had passions; she was a woman. Put it at the best ; put it at the best — and then 1 She had wormed out the secret of your life. She knew that poor as you then were, you might be rich. You were heir to an estate of half a county. None doubted the justice of your claims, but one man, and one alone could prove it. Your father bad wandered in his youth ralf the world over. In mature life he returned, bringing you with him. He found an inheritance awaiting him and you. All that was needed was proof of his identity. "Was he the Armand G-leicb,en who had left home a boy, come back a grey-haired old man',? That was thesole point; was it not so ?" " It was." "If he could prove this, prove his identity, those holding his estate were willing" to relinquish it ? " " Yes." " And this proof was not wanting. He had attached himself to the fortunes of a nobleman, the Baron Rheinart, who had not lost sight of him from first to last. They had been together in England when you were born. Infirm as the Baron was, he no sooner heard the nature of the case than he resolved to set out for Germany, The weather was bad: he could not cross the water ; delay was thus occasioned, and that delay ruined all. It gave this woman time to propose an infamous bargain to you." " Let us be just. She made no bargain." " What ! Did she not say, ' I love you a million times better than this milk-faced English girl — this Evaline. Forget her, and your father shall enter on his estates ; you shall become a gentleman. Refuse, and beware, what will happen ! ' Did she not say this ? " "She did." " And you refused her with just scorn. You reiterated your love for the English girl ; and then what happened ? The Baron, descending from his carriage at the door of what should now be your mansion, was shot to the heart ! With his life ebbed away all proof of your claim. The fortune he could have secured to you this demon snatched away with her own hand,"

" With her own hand ; yes. There cannot be a doubt of this," said Armand decisively.

" No," rejoined Evaline, as she had called herself; "For Grod is just. The wicked make the net for their own feet. It was not by chance that the bullet lodged itself in the dead man's body. It was fate. That bullet was a diamond jjlobp, torn by the murderess from her own ear in a desperate moment ; and its discovery convicted her of the crime of which she would else never have been suspected."

" You love to dwell on these terrible details," said Armand.

" Else," was t ! ie rejoinder, " I might forget my mission, or relax in the prosecution of it. I have sworn to bring this wretched woman to justice for her crime. Justice, not vengeance, is the motive which impels me. I forget my wrongs in sympathy for the poor old man, whose live was snatched from him to serve her guilty ends. But years weaken the purpose of life ; and I might hesitate, might grow indifferent or abandon my resolve, did I not perpetually brood over the past, and remember the compact there is between us, Armand ; remember what it is that has sundered us these many years." " Let it do so no longer, Evaline," cried the young man eagerly ; "we have sacrificed enough. Let us forgot all that but we love."

" Yes, Armand, yes — when Olympia is in her grave."

He turned aside with an impatient gesture, then abruptly demanded : " What is it you would have me to do? How can I serve your purpose."

The woman drew from her bosom a paper, which she unfolded and held towards him.

" All ia -yrrifcten here," said she ; " every particular. You will go one way, I another. It would not do that we should be seen together. Olympia has her spies, and terror has made her merciless ; she would hesitate at nothing, not even our lives. And see, here i 3 the diamond. Let the sight of it inspire and strengthen you." She held the gem with the tips of her forefinger and thumb. There was only a dim light, but it gleamed and glistened like a star — now tremulous in its pure lustre, and now with a baleful lurid glow.

In the instant that it was withdrawn from his sight, Armand saw, or fancied he saw, that its prismatic lustres were all absorbed in one hue — that, like the ruby, it was blood-red.