bolt and turn the key therein. The next instant he turned to Jonathan a visage transformed as suddenly as though he had dropped a mask from his face. The gossiping and polite little old bachelor was there no longer, but in his stead a man with a countenance convulsed with some furious and nameless passion.

"That ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and raucous voice. "That ivory ball! Give it to me upon the instant!"

As he spoke he whipped out from his bosom a long, keen Spanish knife that in its every appearance spoke without equivocation of the most murderous possibilities.

The malignant passions that distorted every lineament of the countenance of the little old gentleman in black filled our hero with such astonishment that he knew not whether he were asleep or awake; but when he beheld the other advancing with the naked and shining knife in his hand his reason returned to him like a flash. Leaping to his feet, he lost no time in putting the table between himself and his sudden enemy.

"Indeed, friend," he cried, in a voice penetrated with terror—"indeed, friend, thou hadst best keep thy distance from me, for though I am a man of peace and a shunner of bloodshed, I promise thee that I will not stand still to be murdered without outcry or without endeavoring to defend my life!"

"Cry as loud as you please!" exclaimed the other. "No one is near this place to hear you! Cry until you are hoarse; no one in this neighborhood will stop to ask what is the matter with you. I tell you I am determined to possess myself of that ivory ball, and have it I shall, even though I am obliged to cut out your heart to get it!" As he spoke he grinned with so extraordinary and devilish a distortion of his countenance, and with such an appearance of every intention of carrying out his threat as to send the goose-flesh creeping like icy fingers up and down our hero's spine with the most incredible rapidity and acuteness.

Nevertheless, mastering his fears, Jonathan contrived to speak up with a pretty good appearance of spirit. "Indeed, friend," he said, "thou appearest to forget that I am a man of twice thy bulk and half thy years, and that though thou hast a knife I am determined to defend myself to the last extremity. I am not going to give thee that which thou demandest of me, and for thy sake I advise thee to open the door and let me go free as I entered, or else harm may befall thee."

"Fool!" cried the other, hardly giving him time to end. "Do you, then, think that I have time to chatter with you while two villains are lying in wait for me, perhaps at the very door? Blame your own self for your death!" And, gnashing his teeth with an indescribable menace, and resting his hand upon the table, he vaulted with incredible agility clean across it and upon our hero, who, entirely unprepared for such an extraordinary attack, was flung back against the wall, with an arm as strong as steel clutching his throat and a knife flashing in his very eyes with dreadful portent of instant death.

With an instinct to preserve his life, he caught his assailant by the wrist, and, bending it away from himself, set every fibre of his body in a superhuman effort to guard and protect himself. The other, though so much older and smaller, seemed to be composed entirely of fibres of steel, and, in his murderous endeavors, put forth a strength so extraordinary that for a moment our hero felt his heart melt within him with terror for his life. The spittal appeared to dry up within his mouth, and his hair to creep and rise upon his head. With a vehement cry of despair and anguish, he put forth one stupendous effort for defence, and, clapping his heel behind the other's leg, and throwing his whole weight forward, he fairly tripped his antagonist backward as he stood. Together they fell upon the floor, locked in the most desperate embrace, and overturning a chair with a prodigious clatter in their descent—our hero upon the top and the little gentleman in black beneath him.

As they struck the floor the little man in black emitted a most piercing and terrible scream, and instantly relaxing his efforts of attack, fell to beating the floor with the back of his hands and drubbing with his heels upon the rug in which he had become entangled.

Our hero leaped to his feet, and with dilating eyes and expanding brain and swimming sight stared down upon the other like one turned to a stone.

He beheld instantly what had occurred, and that he had, without so intending, killed a fellow-man. The knife, turned away from his own person, had in their fall been plunged into the bosom of the other, and he now lay quivering in the last throes of death. As Jonathan gazed he beheld a thin red stream trickle out from the parted and grinning lips; he beheld the eyes turn inward; he beheld the eyelids contract; he beheld the figure stretch itself; he beheld it become still in death.

IV. The Momentous Adventure with the Stranger with the Silver Ear-rings

So our hero stood stunned and bedazed, gazing down upon his victim, like a man turned into a stone. His brain appeared to him to expand like a bubble, the blood surged and bummed in his ears with every gigantic beat of his heart, his vision swam, and his trembling hands were bedewed with a cold and repugnant sweat. The dead figure upon the floor at his feet gazed at him with a wide, glassy stare, and in the confusion of his mind it appeared to Jonathan that he was, indeed, a murderer.

What monstrous thing was this that had befallen him who, but a moment before, had been so entirely innocent of the guilt of blood? What was he now to do in such an extremity as this, with his victim lying dead at his feet, a poniard in his heart? Who would believe him to be guiltless of crime with such a dreadful evidence as this presented against him? How was he, a stranger in a foreign land, to totally defend himself against an accusing of mistaken justice? At these thoughts a developed terror gripped at his vitals and a sweat as cold as ice bedewed his entire body. No, he must tarry for no explanation or defense! He must immediately fly from this terrible place, or else, should he be discovered, his doom would certainly be sealed!

At that moment, and in the very extremity of his apprehensions, there fell of a sudden a knock upon the door, sounding so loud and so startling upon the silence of the room that every shattered nerve in our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in answer to it. He stood petrified, scarcely so much as daring to breathe; and then, observing that his mouth was agape, he moistened his dry and parching lips, and drew his jaws together with a snap.

Again there fell the same loud, insistent knock upon the panel, followed by the imperative words: "Open within!"

The wretched Jonathan flung about him a glance at once of terror and of despair, but there was for him no possible escape. He was shut tight in the room with his dead victim, like a rat in a trap. Nothing remained for him but to obey the summons from without. Indeed, in the very extremity of his distraction, he possessed reason enough to perceive that the longer he delayed opening the door the less innocent he might hope to appear in the eyes of whoever stood without.

With the uncertain and spasmodic movements of an ill-constructed automaton, he crossed the room, and stepping very carefully over the prostrate body upon the floor, and with a hesitating reluctance that he could in no degree master, he unlocked, unbolted, and opened the door.

The figure that outlined itself in the light of the candle, against the blackness of the passageway without was of such a singular and foreign aspect as to fit extremely well into the extraordinary tragedy of which Jonathan was at once the victim and the cause.

It was that of a lean, tall man with a thin, yellow countenance, embellished with a long, black mustache, and having a pair of forbidding, deeply set, and extremely restless black eyes. A crimson handkerchief