The American Claimant

  CHAPTER VIII.

  "GOD bless my soul, Hawkins!"

  The morning paper dropped from the Colonel's nerveless-grasp.

  "What is it?"

  "He's gone!--the bright, the young, the gifted, the noblest of hisillustrious race--gone! gone up in flames and unimaginable glory!"

  "Who?"

  "My precious, precious young kinsman--Kirkcudbright LlanoverMarjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, son and heir of usurpingRossmore."

  "No!"

  "It's true--too true."

  "When?"

  "Last night."

  "Where?"

  "Right here in Washington; where he arrived from England last night, thepapers say."

  "You don't say!"

  "Hotel burned down."

  "What hotel?"

  "The New Gadsby!"

  "Oh, my goodness! And have we lost both of them?"

  "Both who?"

  "One-Arm Pete."

  "Oh, great guns, I forgot all about him. Oh, I hope not."

  "Hope! Well, I should say! Oh, we can't spare him! We can better affordto lose a million viscounts than our only support and stay."

  They searched the paper diligently, and were appalled to find that aone-armed man had been seen flying along one of the halls of the hotelin his underclothing and apparently out of his head with fright, and ashe would listen to no one and persisted in making for a stairway whichwould carry him to certain death, his case was given over as a hopelessone.

  "Poor fellow," sighed Hawkins; "and he had friends so near. I wish wehadn't come away from there--maybe we could have saved him."

  The earl looked up and said calmly:

  "His being dead doesn't matter. He was uncertain before. We've got himsure, this time."

  "Got him? How?"

  "I will materialize him."

  "Rossmore, don't--don't trifle with me. Do you mean that? Can you doit?"

  "I can do it, just as sure as you are sitting there. And I will."

  "Give me your hand, and let me have the comfort of shaking it. I wasperishing, and you have put new life into me. Get at it, oh, get at itright away."

  "It will take a little time, Hawkins, but there's no hurry, none in theworld--in the circumstances. And of course certain duties have devolvedupon me now, which necessarily claim my first attention. This poor youngnobleman--"

  "Why, yes, I am sorry for my heartlessness, and you smitten with thisnew family affliction. Of course you must materialize him first--I quiteunderstand that."

  "I--I--well, I wasn't meaning just that, but,--why, what am I thinkingof! Of course I must materialize him. Oh, Hawkins, selfishness is thebottom trait in human nature; I was only thinking that now, withthe usurper's heir out of the way. But you'll forgive that momentaryweakness, and forget it. Don't ever remember it against me that MulberrySellers was once mean enough to think the thought that I was thinking.I'll materialise him--I will, on my honor--and I'd do it were he athousand heirs jammed into one and stretching in a solid rank from hereto the stolen estates of Rossmore, and barring the road forever to therightful earl!

  "There spoke the real Sellers--the other had a false ring, old friend."

  "Hawkins, my boy, it just occurs to me--a thing I keep forgetting tomention--a matter that we've got to be mighty careful about."

  "What is that?"

  "We must keep absolutely still about these materializations. Mind, not ahint of them must escape--not a hint. To say nothing of how my wife anddaughter--high-strung, sensitive organizations--might feel about them,the negroes wouldn't stay on the place a minute."

  "That's true, they wouldn't. It's well you spoke, for I'm not naturallydiscreet with my tongue when I'm not warned."

  Sellers reached out and touched a bell-button in the wall; set his eyeupon the rear door and waited; touched it again and waited; and justas Hawkins was remarking admiringly that the Colonel was the mostprogressive and most alert man he had ever seen, in the matter ofimpressing into his service every modern convenience the moment it wasinvented, and always keeping breast to breast with the drum major in thegreat work of material civilization, he forsook the button (which hadn'tany wire attached to it,) rang a vast dinner bell which stood on thetable, and remarked that he had tried that new-fangled dry battery, now,to his entire satisfaction, and had got enough of it; and added:

  "Nothing would do Graham Bell but I must try it; said the mere fact ofmy trying it would secure public confidence, and get it a chance to showwhat it could do. I told him that in theory a dry battery was just acurled darling and no mistake, but when it come to practice, sho!--andhere's the result. Was I right? What should you say, Washington Hawkins?You've seen me try that button twice. Was I right?--that's the idea. DidI know what I was talking about, or didn't I?"

  "Well, you know how I feel about you, Colonel Sellers, and always havefelt. It seems to me that you always know everything about everything.If that man had known you as I know you he would have taken yourjudgment at the start, and dropped his dry battery where it was."

  "Did you ring, Marse Sellers?"

  "No, Marse Sellers didn't."

  "Den it was you, Marse Washington. I's heah, suh."

  "No, it wasn't Marse Washington, either."

  "De good lan'! who did ring her, den?"

  "Lord Rossmore rang it!"

  The old negro flung up his hands and exclaimed:

  "Blame my skin if I hain't gone en forgit dat name agin! Come heah,Jinny--run heah, honey."

  Jinny arrived.

  "You take dish-yer order de lord gwine to give you I's gwine down sullerand study dat name tell I git it."

  "I take de order! Who's yo' nigger las' year? De bell rung for you."

  "Dat don't make no diffunce. When a bell ring for anybody, en oldmarster tell me to--"

  "Clear out, and settle it in the kitchen!"

  The noise of the quarreling presently sank to a murmur in the distance,and the earl added: "That's a trouble with old house servants that wereyour slaves once and have been your personal friends always."

  "Yes, and members of the family."

  "Members of the family is just what they become--THE members of thefamily, in fact. And sometimes master and mistress of the household.These two are mighty good and loving and faithful and honest, but hangit, they do just about as they please, they chip into a conversationwhenever they want to, and the plain fact is, they ought to be killed."

  It was a random remark, but it gave him an idea--however, nothing couldhappen without that result.

  "What I wanted, Hawkins, was to send for the family and break the newsto them."

  "O, never mind bothering with the servants, then. I will go and bringthem down."

  While he was gone, the earl worked his idea.

  "Yes," he said to himself, "when I've got the materializing down to acertainty, I will get Hawkins to kill them, and after that they will beunder better control. Without doubt a materialized negro could easilybe hypnotized into a state resembling silence. And this could be madepermanent--yes, and also modifiable, at will--sometimes very silent,sometimes turn on more talk, more action, more emotion, according towhat you want. It's a prime good idea. Make it adjustable--with a screwor something."

  The two ladies entered, now, with Hawkins, and the two negroes followed,uninvited, and fell to brushing and dusting around, for they perceivedthat there was matter of interest to the fore, and were willing to findout what it was.

  Sellers broke the news with stateliness and ceremony, first warning theladies, with gentle art, that a pang of peculiar sharpness was aboutto be inflicted upon their hearts--hearts still sore from a like hurt,still lamenting a like loss--then he took the paper, and with tremblinglips and with tears in his voice he gave them that heroic death-picture.

  The result was a very genuine outbreak of sorrow and sympathy from allthe hearers. The elder lady cried, thinking how proud that great-heartedyoung hero's mother would be, if she were living, and how unappeasableher grief; and the t
wo old servants cried with her, and spoke out theirapplauses and their pitying lamentations with the eloquent sincerity andsimplicity native to their race. Gwendolen was touched, and the romanticside of her nature was strongly wrought upon. She said that such anature as that young man's was rarely and truly noble, and nearlyperfect; and that with nobility of birth added it was entirely perfect.For such a man she could endure all things, suffer all things, even tothe sacrificing of her life. She wished she could have seen him; theslightest, the most momentary contact with such a spirit would haveennobled her whole character and made ignoble thoughts and ignoble actsthereafter impossible to her forever.

  "Have they found the body, Rossmore?" asked the wife.

  "Yes, that is, they've found several. It must be one of them, but noneof them are recognizable."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I am going down there and identify one of them and send it home to thestricken father."

  "But papa, did you ever see the young man?"

  "No, Gwendolen-why?"

  "How will you identify it?"

  "I--well, you know it says none of them are recognizable. I'll send hisfather one of them--there's probably no choice."

  Gwendolen knew it was not worth while to argue the matter further, sinceher father's mind was made up and there was a chance for him to appearupon that sad scene down yonder in an authentic and official way. So shesaid no more--till he asked for a basket.

  "A basket, papa? What for?"

  "It might be ashes."