第31章 CHAPTER VI(3)

"Do I understand,"said Don Caesar,sternly,"that Senora Mulrady has not told you that I entrusted to her an important letter,belonging to Senor Esslinn,which I had the honor to discover in the wood six months ago,and which she said she would refer to you?""Letter?"echoed Mulrady,slowly;"my wife had a letter of Slinn's?"Don Caesar regarded the millionaire attentively."It is as Ifeared,"he said,gravely."You do not know or you would not have remained silent."He then briefly recounted the story of his finding Slinn's letter,his exhibition of it to the invalid,its disastrous effect upon him,and his innocent discovery of the contents."I believed myself at that time on the eve of being allied with your family,Senor Mulrady,"he said,haughtily;"and when I found myself in the possession of a secret which affected its integrity and good name,I did not choose to leave it in the helpless hands of its imbecile owner,or his sillier children,but proposed to trust it to the care of the Senora,that she and you might deal with it as became your honor and mine.I followed her to Paris,and gave her the letter there.She affected to laugh at any pretension of the writer,or any claim he might have on your bounty;but she kept the letter,and,I fear,destroyed it.You will understand,Senor Mulrady,that when I found that my attentions were no longer agreeable to your daughter,I had no longer the right to speak to you on the subject,nor could I,without misapprehension,force her to return it.I should have still kept the secret to myself,if I had not since my return here made the nearer acquaintance of Senor Esslinn's daughters.Icannot present myself at his house,as a suitor for the hand of the Senorita Vashti,until I have asked his absolution for my complicity in the wrong that has been done to him.I cannot,as a caballero,do that without your permission.It is for that purpose I am here."It needed only this last blow to complete the humiliation that whitened Mulrady's face.But his eye was none the less clear and his voice none the less steady as he turned to Don Caesar.

"You know perfectly the contents of that letter?""I have kept a copy of it.""Come with me."

He preceded his visitor down the staircase and back into his private office.Slinn looked up at his employer's face in unrestrained anxiety.Mulrady sat down at his desk,wrote a few hurried lines,and rang a bell.A manager appeared from the counting-room.

"Send that to the bank."

He wiped his pen as methodically as if he had not at that moment countermanded the order to pay his daughter's dowry,and turned quietly to Slinn.

"Don Caesar Alvarado has found the letter you wrote your wife on the day you made your strike in the tunnel that is now my shaft.

He gave the letter to Mrs.Mulrady;but he has kept a copy."Unheeding the frightened gesture of entreaty from Slinn,equally with the unfeigned astonishment of Don Caesar,who was entirely unprepared for this revelation of Mulrady's and Slinn's confidences,he continued,"He has brought the copy with him.Ireckon it would be only square for you to compare it with what you remember of the original."In obedience to a gesture from Mulrady,Don Caesar mechanically took from his pocket a folded paper,and handed it to the paralytic.But Slinn's trembling fingers could scarcely unfold the paper;and as his eyes fell upon its contents,his convulsive lips could not articulate a word.

"P'raps I'd better read it for you,"said Mulrady,gently."You kin follow me and stop me when I go wrong."He took the paper,and,in dead silence,read as follows:--"DEAR WIFE,--I've just struck gold in my tunnel,and you must get ready to come here with the children,at once.It was after six months'hard work;and I'm so weak I ...It's a fortune for us all.We should be rich even if it were only a branch vein dipping west towards the next tunnel,instead of dipping east,according to my theory--""Stop!"said Slinn,in a voice that shook the room.

Mulrady looked up.

"It's wrong,ain't it?"he asked,anxiously;"it should be EASTtowards the next tunnel.""No!IT'S RIGHT!I am wrong!We're all wrong!"Slinn had risen to his feet,erect and inspired."Don't you see,"he almost screamed,with passionate vehemence,"it's MASTERS'ABANDONED TUNNEL your shaft has struck?Not mine!It was Masters'pick you found!I know it now!"

"And your own tunnel?"said Mulrady,springing to his feet in excitement."And YOUR strike?""Is still there!"The next instant,and before another question could be asked,Slinn had darted from the room.In the exaltation of that supreme discovery he regained the full control of his mind and body.

Mulrady and Don Caesar,no less excited,followed him precipitately,and with difficulty kept up with his feverish speed.Their way lay along the base of the hill below Mulrady's shaft,and on a line with Masters'abandoned tunnel.Only once he stopped to snatch a pick from the hand of an astonished Chinaman at work in a ditch,as he still kept on his way,a quarter of a mile beyond the shaft.Here he stopped before a jagged hole in the hillside.Bared to the sky and air,the very openness of its abandonment,its unpropitious position,and distance from the strike in Mulrady's shaft had no doubt preserved its integrity from wayfarer or prospector.

"You can't go in there alone,and without a light,"said Mulrady,laying his hand on the arm of the excited man."Let me get more help and proper tools.""I know every step in the dark as in the daylight,"returned Slinn,struggling."Let me go,while I have yet strength and reason!

Stand aside!"

He broke from them,and the next moment was swallowed up in the yawning blackness.They waited with bated breath until,after a seeming eternity of night and silence,they heard his returning footsteps,and ran forward to meet him.As he was carrying something clasped to his breast,they supported him to the opening.

But at the same moment the object of his search and his burden,a misshapen wedge of gold and quartz,dropped with him,and both fell together with equal immobility to the ground.He had still strength to turn his fading eyes to the other millionaire of Rough-and-Ready,who leaned over him.

"You--see,"he gasped,brokenly,"I was not--crazy!"No.He was dead!

End