hands together sharply two or three times in succession, whereupon a door near to where he stood was, as though in echo, immediately opened by a waiting attendant, who, with a silent footfall, entered the apartment. This new personage upon the scene possessed an Oriental cast of countenance, which was further enhanced by his extraordinary costume, his head being surmounted by a turban, and his figure clad in a long garment of dark embroidered silk. In one hand he bore a casket about the bigness of a hat-box, bound about with bands of steel of prodigious strength, and studded with polished brass nails. In the other he carried a small tray with a leathern bag upon it. Without betraying the slightest signs of curiosity or surprise at Griscombe's extraordinary figure, but with a deportment of the utmost seriousness, he placed both of these objects upon the table beside our hero, and then, with a profound obeisance to the gentleman beside the fireplace, withdrew as silently and as suddenly as he had entered.

"In yonder bag," said the gentleman, immediately resuming his colloquy, "are one hundred pieces of gold, valued at twenty dollars each. Such part of this as you find necessary, you are to expend in executing the commission with which I shall presently intrust you: the residue you are to retain as a fee for your services. This strong box you are immediately to convey to your lodgings in my cabriolet (which waits for you below at the back gate), devoting to its safety the most extraordinary care; for it contains a priceless treasure. If by nine o'clock to-morrow morning you receive no word from me, you will know that I am no longer in the world of the living, and that the vengeance that has followed so relentlessly upon my footsteps has at last overtaken me. In that case you are immediately and with all despatch to convey this box to Bordentown in the State of New Jersey, and are to deliver it to the person designated upon the address attached to the handle. He is my brother; and his name, as you will discover, is Mr. Michael Desmond. Upon the opposite side of the ferry at Paulus Hook you will find a post-chaise awaiting its passenger. This I have provided for myself in case I am able to escape the dangers which overhang me. Should I not be so fortunate as to accomplish an escape, you are to take my place in the conveyance, and to pursue your commission, stopping neither day nor night until it is accomplished. My brother I make the legatee of the greater part of that wealth (the price, if you please, of treachery and of blood) which has proved the source of my own undoing. Behold! You shall see it for yourself!"

As he spoke, our young lawyer's extraordinary client stepped briskly to the box, applied a key to the lock, and lifted the lid. Within was a considerable mass of closely packed lamb's-wool, which—as Griscombe, consumed by a fever of curiosity, arose to observe—the speaker deftly removed, displaying to the young lawyer's dazzled and bewildered gaze a sight that well-nigh bereft him of what reason he had remaining after his late most incredible interview. Reposing upon a second mass of lamb's wool, hollowed out as though to receive its precious contents, was a double handful of precious stones of inconceivable size and brilliancy, which, in the light of the candles that had been lit, shed forth a thousand dazzling sparks of infinite variety of flaming colors. It was but a glance: the next moment the lamb's wool was replaced, the lid was clapped down again, the key turned, and Griscombe's bedazzled sight returned once more to the objects about him.

"And now, my dear sir," resumed his interlocutor, "whether or not you believe my story, you will, I am sure, perceive how important is the commission I intrust to your keeping, and how well I am inclined to pay you for all of your trouble. I trust, therefore, you will consider me to be lacking neither in courtesy nor in hospitality if I beg you to withdraw, and to return to your own house. So great is my threatened danger that I dare not even accompany you to my cabriolet that is awaiting you where we left it; but in lieu of myself I shall send with you an attendant who is altogether attached to my interests, and who will serve as a guard until you and your charge are safely ensconced in your lodgings."

Thereupon he once more clapped his hands together. Again the same mysterious attendant, who had before replied to the summons, appeared in instant response, and, in obedience to elaborate directions delivered in a foreign tongue, of which the young lawyer understood not a single iota, bowed to our hero, and indicated that he was prepared to accompany him upon his return.

With this concludes the first chapter of our narrative, with only this to add, that our hero—under the escort of his singular attendant—arrived safely at home, where he hid his treasure casket under the bed, in the remotest corner of the room, until he could otherwise dispose of it.

HERE FOLLOWS THE SECOND CHAPTER

CHAPTER TWO

The Remarkable BEHAVIOR of the LAWYER'S Second CLIENT.

As the ingenuous reader may readily imagine, what little remained of that night was passed with no great ease or repose by our hero. But little slumber visited his eyelids, and that little so disturbed by vivid and diabolical visions of terror that he had better have remained awake than to have fallen into so portentous a sleep. In a succession of monstrous images he continually beheld his client distorted by the most grotesque and fantastic pangs of dissolution; as continually he was haunted by visions of the journey he was about to undertake; and such phantoms were always accompanied by corresponding dreams of the strong box of treasure.

In one of these tremendous visions he beheld himself searching in a deep bed of sliding sand for the jewels which had been lost from the overturned casket, while a dreadful form leaned out of the window of the post-chaise upon the bank above, shrieking to him to hasten or it would immediately perish.

It was from this portentous dream that he awoke to find the early winter daylight struggling through the window-shades, and to an immediate realization of the strange and inexplicable commission that awaited him.

Nor was it until in the gray of the morning he had again viewed the bag of gold and the casket of treasure, that he could feel entirely assured that what had befallen him the night before was not an hallucination, such as those that had pursued him throughout the troubled sleep from which he had just aroused himself. It appeared to him incredible that such strange occurrences could really have happened to him, and it was above an hour before he could compose his mind to accept that which had occurred.

Finding himself at the end of that time in no small degree exhausted by the several instances of extreme excitement through which he had just passed, and discovering that he was now assailed by a sharp and vehement appetite, he determined to visit an oyster-bay at the neighboring Oswego Market, where, so long as he had been able to obtain the necessary credit, he had been in the habit of taking an occasional meal. To this end, having extracted a piece of gold from the leathern bag, and having carefully hidden the rest in a drawer of his bureau, he sallied forth in quest of that