A Fatal Freak.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1836, 12 April 1884, Page 5 (Supplement)

A Fatal Freak.

The Folly of Fire School-Girls Joined as " Les Diablesses Noires." ■ I

"Mathilde, give me two pellets more." "Mais, madame, you have already had three." " What is that t^you ? My pain is worse to-night, and two more grains of my beloved morphine will give me not only ease from my sorrow, but dreams in which I Bhall forget my troubles, and live with my friends of other days a few hours in peace." While passing me the pellets, which I swallowed quickly, my little French maid gave vent to a sigh so deep that I looked up in amazement, and asked its cause. "Oh, madame/' was the answer, "you will \ kill yourself with this dreadful medicine." " What matter, Mathilde," I laughingly said, " so that the pain is also killed ?" And then thoughts of other days came ringing pleasantly through my mind, and I looked up at the girl, so kindly anxious on ray bohalf, and asked her if she would like to hear how I came to take my first dose of morphine. She brightened up and seemed so interested that I at once became so strangely anxious to make the simplo story as pleasant as possible to her eager ears. " It was away back in my school-days when I first came under the direful influence of the drug. Don't start and look incredulous ; girls in boarding-schools do many foolish and dangerous things • and I was as wild as any of them. "We were a club of fire. Marie, a dashing, stately brunette of seventeen, whom we all adored and obeyed like slaves. Yula, her sister, a little imp of darkness and daring, who could not bo made to fear anything in the three worlds. Alda, a wiser girl than we others, but fond of excitement and full of curiosity. Then came Lai and I, who were ' chums ' and room-mates, and inseparable. We called ourselves ' Les Diablesses Noirea.' A ferocious name, wasn't it, Mathilde £. Butwe liked it, and we prided _our3eives~upon it. " Lax was the strange bird in the nest. She was most peculiar in appearance, having coalblack hair and blue eyes, a dusky complexion, and thick, disagreeable lips, and her voice, when one was not accustomed to it, was startling and never to be forgotten. While studying French I found an adjective that I at once applied to her voice ; ratique was the word, and although I suppose the English word ! * harsh,' or ' hoarse ' would give one as good an idea, still I preferred the expressive French word when thinking or speaking of her. And her disposition was like her voice— harsh and repellant to all but a chosen few, which few loved her well enough to make up for the loss of a thousand lesser friendships, which a pleasant face or manner will gain from humanity generally. "A gold crescent, witlx the initials of our club-name enamelled in German text on the outer surface, was our badge in public. In private during our midnight conclaves, we wore long black dominoes and black caps, and our faces and hands we daubed with phosphorus, that we might not only be carrying out more perfectly our idea of diablerie, but at the same time be enabled to see one another in the intense darkness in vthietrvre were obliged to work, ';' To be suro, we owned a dark lantern, by which we read our minutes and planned future movements, but this was used as seldom as possible, for fear it would betray us to the college watchman as he made his constant rounds through the night. I can not help smiling even yet, when I conjure up in imagination the expression of consternation we should have seen on the generally placid face of our good principal, had he chanced in during one of our meetings, while Alda, seated in the closet on a shoe-box, was reading in sepulchral whispers from the club ledger, and Yula was holding the lantern so that its light would fall only on the pages, and the rest of us, bending forwurd with solemn, eager faces, listened intently to the reader's account of what we had dene, and were about to do in the future. '"What did we do?' " We did what a thousand other girls did, do now, and probably will do again. And we did more. Each one of us iive Diablesses Noires had an unconquerable curiosity to know how it seemed to be under the influence of chloroform ; to experience the excitement which absinthe gives j to realize the fascination that lurks under the sparkle of intoxicating drinks j to experience the dreams of hashisheaters ; and to travel in the famed heaven of opium-smokers. " So, every Sunday, at midnight, for fourteen weeks we made an experiment on one of the members of the club. We all Buffered frightfully at different times, but our love of excitement spurred us on, and not until one of us came so near death that the lightesthearted among us were awed and terrified, did we cease our more than dangerous play, Satan himself seemed to keep an eye on his reckless nameaakes, for long after we left school the effect of our pastimes lurked about us. " One year after we left school Lai married, Ah, Mathilde, the happiest night of my life was Lai's wedding night, for it was there I met one who, had he lived, would have made of my life an eternal summer. How happy Lai wus that night, and how queenly she looked ; for, in spite of other great want of attraction, she had a tall figure and a stately carriage. And Will Dartington, whom she married, looked radiant in his pride and manly beauty. "We other four were bridesmaids ; and in the dressing-room — while the women were fastening the veil and flower 3 to Lai's dark hair, and we girls were occupied with pinning flowers tq our shoulders, with our badges — onr queen proposed that we all drink each other's, health for the last time in absinthe, and then steep our monies in the fumes of opium. , % " A year after, Will tfted, leaving Lai rich, and alone; then Yula died of consumption, and Alda married an incurable drunkard, Marie soon commenced to oueeumb to the same disease her sister had \dys&st, and I became ill and and nc^ejof jyis who are living know what has bt£fm£j&wL others."

Then I became weary and ceased talking. A dreamy, hazy feeling was stealing over me j my breath seemed about to leave me ; a dim conciousness that I had taken too much tojmh-| phine crept through my mind, and, with stfoden fear, I attempted to speak, but I found that I was for the moment dumb. I could still see Mathilde sitting by the fire, which, like my life, seemed in doubt whether it would burn or die out altogether. At first, flashes of light struck into the farthest corners of the room, then the darkness that was left when the flashes were gone seemed greater and heavier than before. Again the light, again the shade, and between the gleams and shadows, that danced and waved long arms about me in ghastly beckonings, imps spang chattering into lif e, and, like gnats in summer sunshine, seemed always to have lived and were never to die. I hid my face in my pillow to escape them, and when I closed my eyes, I realized for the firßt time how completely my pain had passed away. " How delicious it is," I sighed, " when one has suffered, to be one moment free from the thoughts of pain, even though devils do lurk above the corners, watching that we do iU>t slip wholly out of their sight and power." \ Then I half opened my eyes to see if the imps had disappeared, when a sudden flash or fire-light illuminated the moulding around a, bit of gas-pipe over my head that extended into the room several inches, and to wluch fixtures had never been attached. Close to the pipe on this moulding I saw characters which I fashioned into F I L. "Fil," mused I; "that means thread. Queer, I never saw that before. How strange if, through these letters, I should chance upon some clew to Lai, of whom I am thinking bo strongly to-night. Again I closed my eyes, for I was becoming sleepy, when I was awakened, and started almost out of my bed, by a touch upon my hand, so icy cold that for a moment I could not tell whether I had been burned or frozen. I looked up, and saw swinging from this pipe a thread of light that reached down to the bed, and, in its swayings backward and forward, it had touched my hand, and so thoroughly awakened me. To my horror, I saw it was growing larger, and realized that soon it would reach me and draw me in, and I should be no more. I tried to move, but I was paralyzed. I attempted once more to speak, but my tongue seemed frozen to my teeth. Slowly the snake-like thread approached 5 gradually I felt myself losing all substance, and, at last, I was the thread, of light. By some terrible force I was drawn through the pipe, and all was dark and still. Through, curves and windings I twisted and turned without pain, without fear — in fact, with no sensation whatever. Several times I found myself forced upward and into the globe of some street-lamp, when I would nicker and flare in the wind for a moment, and then would I be forced down and onward again. After several such experiences I began to find out where I was. I seemed to be running along Market Street j then I found myself on Tenth ; another time and Mission Street was reached ; then Howard, Seventeenth, Twentieth and Twenty-seventh, and finallyjt was burning dimly in a globe cVBPTtu"immenfle~"' iron. gate. A"gain I found myself in the darkless, and soon after, I was looking doWn a *long, dreary hallway. Ifrom here I was forced upward, and-became one of many dim , lights in the dormitory of some hospital. All about me lay the sick and dying; some praying, some groaning, and some weeping. Past all this I was forced, and found my« self weeping feebly by a bed, in a small room at_ the lower end of the dormitory through, which I had just passed. - On this bod sat a human being — a woman, Her face I could not see for it was buried in her knees, which were drawn up, and around which she had clasped her hands. The long, black, unkempt hair was hanging almost to the floor, and in this position of utter imbe* cility the figure sat, and rocked and swayed herself about. Suddenly, as if in a paroxysm of pain, she threw herself back, and then writhed and twisted about in a manner most horrible to witness. I struggled to get away from the scene, but the same power that brought me held me there, till the object in the bed cried out in a voice rauque and horribly familiar to me: _.-..•- " O friend, give me opium, for the lore of <\ heaven J" I wanted to cry out, " LaCXai, I-32aI -32a here } your old friend and •choolmate !" But before I knew well what had happened to me, I was nickering in the fierce night •wind, under the globe over the iron gate. A dull, cloudy looking moon had risen, and all the street-lamp/, ho A hpi»n extinguisly^. - - so I was drawn slowly back, and it was not long before I was descending into my room and resuming once more my own shape and substance. And as I, sighing, looked about me, I saw that the fire-light, the shadows, and the imps had died away, and only Mathilde myself, and my pain remained. Three days after, Mathilde was reading to me, and among the deaths she read: "Died, January 22, 18—, at the City and County Hospital, Lai, wife of tUe late "William Dartiugton, aged twenty-six years." "Mathilde, was it not on the night of the twenty-second that I was so ill ?" " Yes, madame !" A. J. H.

Truth — the open, bold, honest truth — is always the safe9t, for every one in any and all circumstances. A lawyer returned to his home one evening to find that a tramp had forced his way into the house and appropriated property of considerable value. He rushed for the police, and by some unaccountable accident the thief was overhauled and conducted to the cooler. "Ah ! you rascal, you shall suffer for this !" growled the lawyer. " I desire to engage your legal service to defend me !" was the sheet-iron rejoinder. " I will give you half the stolen property to clear me of the charge." "Wretch! how dare you?" "O, j't you don't cloao with me, some other lawyer.Tvill take all !" was the steady reply. The lawyer reflected for a moment, and then decided to plead the man's case and tearfully call the attention of the jury to the fact that his client had no intention of stealingnnything, but that, in leaving the house in a hurry, the property got tangled up in his boot-legs. [Note: Verdict of acquital, and another triumph for right honesty.] I was on a "Western Eailroad. The conductor had been his rounds, ana had taken a seat beside a very quiet and wmssnmisg passenger. "Pretty full train," finally observed the passenger. " Yes." " Road seems to be doing a good business.'' "O, the road makes plenty of money, ' , but—" "But what ?" asked the passenger, as the v other hesitated, II Bad management. It's the worst man* aged line in this whole country." "Is that so?" "That's so. The board of -*, officials might know how to ran a side-show ; J? to a circus, but they can't tackle a railroad." 11 Who u the biggest fool in the lot ?" ( j!~ " Well, the superintendent is." <■ -'jf^M^k " I'm glad of th*t," said fch^puwnglr^^H -his face brightened up. "I was afraid would say it was the president." ' V'^^H "Suppose I had?" "Well, I'm the coa^M