The Treasure Tower

-rfWboPYRIGHT 1892 BYRAND.MCNAL.LY & CO. J She was diverted from her conjectvtres by a heavy sigh.whichresembled a groan, hehind lier. Dolores turned her head quicklv, and discovered lier grandfather leaning against the doorway, watching her movements in an attitude so rigid and threatening-, in a f rozen immobility, that she mig-ht have believed him stricken with paralysis had he not remained in an uprig-ht posture. "What is the matter, grandpapa?" she cried in alarm. The sound of her voice seemed to loosen the bonds of a spell, the silence imposed by sheer impotent rage on the benumbed faculties of the old man. He moved his right hand feebly and mechanically, his pale features worked, and his pallid lips twisted awry as if by a spasm of pain, re covered the power of speech sufficiently to articúlate in agitated tones- "You- you jade? What are you doing there?" "I was only dusting the portrait, grandpapa," she replied, relieved to notice the change in him. "I will teach you, idle hussy! tomeddle with my house," continued the old man, a violent nervous tremor pervading his frame, while his eyes rolled in their sockets and flashed ominously. ' 'How of ten am I to warn you not to touch my thiDgs? You have no right to be here, at all. What are you but a beggar's brat? I- I- have a mind to drive you off altogether. Go, beg your bread of strangers! You are not wanted here." He seized her arm, and left the imprint of hisclaw-like fingers in a bruise on the soft and shrinking flesh. Dolores recoiled, with terrified eyes, and a deep flush of shame and ang-er mounting to her cheeks. She was wuuercu aun xuc cuu j. cleaning the portrait seemed so slight an offense that she was amazed at the anger aroused. If she had not fully understood the torrent of reproach whieh had g-athered in volume on the lips of her grandfather on the former occasion, when she had attempted to bury a broken doll in the garden, his bitter invectives now reached her mind with a keen f orce of comprehension, wounding deeply her heart The excitement and wrath of Jacob Dealtry did not abate during the entire day. The most trifling incident would arouse a fresh paroxysm of rage, and he would walk away f rom his granddaughter as if in the fear of such propinquity with the object of his displeasure as might lead him to some act of violence. Dolores had trembled and wept at first, troubled by such manifest ïnjustice, as well as frightened by the expression of her grandfather's tenance. Gradually her tears were dried in the íever oí sullen rebellion; as, in the depths of her soul, the seething passions, prone to swift action, of her southern temperament became aroused. The slow hours were torture to her irritated nerves, and each new attack of Jacob Dealtry, harping ever on the same chord of his grievances, fanned the rising flame of resentment in the breast oí the girl. At length they met at the evening meal. "You deserve no supper, ungrateful child, but come along to the table," grumbled the old man. Dolores paused, erect, with flashing eyes and quivering nostrils. "I will not eat your supper, grandpapa!" she exclaimed, in a trembling voice. "You make me hate you! What have I done? I will go back to the convent and take the veil Kobody wants me anvwhere! Ko! I shall go to tbe town and teil all the people how cruel and wicked you are to your only grandchild. Then those who have children will take pity on me, and come and mob you, tearing down our tower stone by stone!" "Eh!" ejaculated her companion, blinking nervously, and turning his head as if he had not heard aright. At the same time he clutched the edge of the table, as ü to support himself, while an expression of startled appreliension swept over his featxires. Dolores nodcled her head energeti1 cally, enjoying1 this unforeseen triumph. Evidently her chance threat, actuated by chikïish spite, had intimidated her relative. "They will mob you," she continued. "Who?" "Oh, the good, kind people." "Hush!" "They will tear the garden all to shreds and destroy everything." The threat was her defiance of exhausted patience, of overwrought emotions. The trag-ic woe of the pictured destruction of the Wateh Tower suited her mood. Jacob Dealtry uttered an unsteady laugh, and then his voice assumed a whining infleetion. "You would not set the populace against me, child? There are always wretclies that delight to hound and worry a poor old man. You shall return to the convent and become a nun, if you like We must speak of it later." Dolores made no response, but sought her own chamber, supperless, with nostril dilated and head thrown back. She was aroused f rom her first slumbers by hearing her grandfather insert a key in the lock of her door and turn it, thus making of her a prisoner. He feared she might run away to the town and set the populace against him, then. She feil asleep once more, with a smile on her lips. The following morning Jacob Dealtry was mild and ingratiating in manner. Evidently his anger had spent its f orce over night Dolores was sulky and heavy-eyed. At breakfast the old man insinuated that she might return to the convent if she wished to do so. The girl pouted at his alacrity to get rid of her companionship. Khe beheld herself a min, with, a flowing robe and a veil, investing the placid image with all the fervor of a youthful imagination. The next moment fright seized her at the thought of the prison bars of restraint imposed on her wayward humors and impatient spirit by dedication to the cloister. "Not yet, grandpapa," she said, appealingly. "Let us wait a while before we decide. Besides," she added, with soft feminine reproachfulness. "there would be no one to take care of you in case of illness if I lef t you. " '■To take care of me?" repeated the ' grandfather in shrill accents. "Tut! I need no care or company. Suit yourself, girl." A warm color mounted to the temples of Dolores, and sudden tears dimmed her eyes. Her glance strayed to the garden, and then reverted to the picture of the Knight in the entrance hall of their dwelling. "Do not leave us!" the potnegranate and orange trees seemed to whisper, swaying in the light breeze. "Do not leave us!" sighed the flowers, each unfolding bud of rose and jessamine wafting their fragrance to her senses. "Depart if you daré, foolish child!" said the Knight of Malta in the picture, a threatening shape in the shadow. "I am not sure that I would like to beeome a religious recluse," the f uil red lips of the girl murmured, half ruefully. Unconscious of these subtle influences at work on the nature of his granddaughter, Jacob Dealtry pointed to the picture with the in tent of disparaging its merits. "Rubbish! Mere rubbish as a painting, you understand," was his contemptuous comme nt "I like it," said the girl slowly. "Give it to me and I willhang it in my room." "Nonsense! ' he retorted, regarding her with furtive uneasiness. "What put that idea in your head? Do not touch the picture again. I forbid it. Ha! Oarry the Knight away to your room, indeed!" "Grandpapa, do you believe that he built oxir tower?" "Pooh! No." "Perhaps he did, you know. He may be pleased to shelter us here, or very angry with us for the intrusión. It is like that with ghosts who have buried treasures, for example. I heard the Sister Scolastica once telling " "How you run on, with your woman's tongue," interrupted the old man, peevishly. "When I said that the picture was poor trash it was between ourselves. Some fooi may take a fancy to it and pay a good round sum for an ancient portrait of a Knight of Malta, artist and date unknown." xuc juuuiie ïeaLures 01 ijoiores aequired a scornf ui expression, and she replied with that mixture of audaeity and timidity vthich had ever eharacterized her intercourse with her aged relative: "Then you wish to cheat some stranger? 1 would not try to sell the Knig-ht at all in that case, but just leave him hanging there on the wa)L" Jacob Dealtr'y chuckled, and rubbed his chin. "Your adviee is sound, my dear. Perhaps I will leave him," and he moved away. Dolores siefhed, and went to the fountain, where she gazed at her blooming imag-e, reflected in th water, for a long time. What was life af ter all? Perhaps "the riddle of the painful earth" flashed through her being for the first time. As every maiden, in all social conditions, beholds in a swif t and dazzling glimpse the visión of fleeting pleasares not to I be her portion, and the brave knights ridiDg away two and two, the fountain's basin may have served as the crystal mirror of the Lady of Shalott to Dolores, giving back, as yet, the blue sky above. To be young was to resemble herself. To be old was to be like grandfather. She shuddered sliphtly, and turned aside, with a gesture of repulsión. Perhaps it would be better never to grow old. Th at night the girl drifted softly away to dreamland. Between shifting shadow and rippling light, other than that of the moon. she beheld a radiant shape approach her door and pause on the threshold. Theaccompanyingfootstep, whicb had echoed on her heart and smitten sharply her brain, had been clear and ringins1 with a ing, musical sound, unlike the dull, shuffling1 movements of grandfather around the house at all hours. Woven of the tissue of pure fantasy was her sleeping thought, mingled with the tenchings of saintly lives in the convent school. Not the ' angelic presence of Si. Úrsula this, but the Knight of Malta, terrible, beautiful, awe-inspiring, his cross glittering with a phosphorescent ray, and his drawn sword sparkling as the waves of the Mediterranean gleam in breaking on the shores of the island in the midnight hour of summer. Spurning the clogging film of the obscuring years in the portrait, he revealed himself to her in his pristine strength of noble and chivalrous manhood, and the soul of Dolores trembled in her breast. He seemed to address her in a tongue that reached her senses like the murmur of a sea shell, or the soughing of the wind through the trees. After that, Jacob Dealtry brought the tiny dog Florio to the delighted Dolores. Her happy and careless temperament cast off the first somber impression of the incident. She did not forcret the Knight, she even entered into a secret alliance with the picture, unknown to her grandfather. She no longer whispered to the pigeons and the flowers, but questioned the dim portrait and wove histories about the career of the hero; muttered poems, vague, confused, and fleeting as the rainbow spanning a dissolving stormcloud. She artfully led her grandfather to converse about the history of the island. Jacob Dealtry was a wellinformed man in many respects, and he spoke occasionally, in connection with some relie of stone, pottery, or glass discovered by Mm, of the rule of Count Roger of Sicily, the institution of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, the first crusade. He repeopled that rock of soft sandstone called Tufa, known as Malta, with generations of earlier inhabitants, until the coming of the knights to hold the citadel against the Turk. The little maid at his elbow listened demurely, and the old man may have experienced some transient sentiment of gratification in the awakening intelligence of his granddaughter. He was ignorant that Dolores, bridging time and space with fancy's airy bow, linked each glorious deed with the original of the portrait. Nay, she actually became the heroine of thrilling adventures, in which, about to be swept away by an invading host oí bola and brutal Corsairs, the Knight Templar rushed to her rescue, and drove off her assailants with prodigious valor. These idle reveries resolved themselves from roseate mirage into a solid conviction in the mind of the girL The Knight had built their Watch Tower and protected them in humble poverty, a feeble old man and an ignorant child, within his precincts. He still kept guard about the crumbling beacon at night. When the sea was rising, with a monotonous beating on the strand heralding an approaching tempest, Dolores fancied she heard his footstep of a sentinel coming and going beyond the boundary walL To-day, Dolores lost herself in pleasant dreams, as she worked on the pink dress. "To rerider it sweetand sacred, the heart must have a little garden of its own, with its umbrage and fountains and perennial flowêrs; a careless company!"' Her thoughts dwelt on Dr. Busatti, as the first young man in whose eyes she had ever read a dawning admiration. The purchase of the dress was clistinctlv traceable to such a source. She was accustomed to his presence, pondered on his words during his absence, and found it agreeable to watch for his return. Pickle Dolores! The unexpected intrusión of the young naval officer, Arthur Curzon, handsome, amiable and full of youthful animation, banished speedily preference for the sallow and thin Maltese physician. Her pulses still nuttered, as the blood coursed more rapidly through her veins, at the recollection of his visit. Should she ever see him again? Why not? Then, as her needie flew, her dream deepened. The Iinig-ht of Malta, in polished armor, vvould come to the garden gate in a golden chariot and lead her away. Are the knights all dead, and must the world grow so old and sad as to lose all faith in the actual existence of these splendid cavaliers? Stay! what was he like? Had she ever truly gazed upon his face? She paused, with her needie uplif ted, and her features contracted in meditation. At this moment, Florio up and uttered the most miniature of fierce canine barks. Dolores glanced about her, with a little gasp of wonder. Lieut. Curzon, after a preliminary rap, pushed open the gate and entered the inclosure without ceremony. His face glowed with a smile of satisfaction, as his glance sought the girl, seated beside the fountain with her work. Each paused in silence and gazed at the other, Dolores with indefinable apprehensiou, and the young man with an eagerness of which he was uneonscious. The soul of the girl spoke through her eyes with an instinctive, graee, and Lieut. Curzon was again thrilled through with an emotion that occasioned a quiekened heart-throb beneath his uniform. ''Good day, " he said, at length, advancing and extending liis hand. "Good day," replied Dolores, placing1 her small brown iingers on his brown palm, and dropping thimble and scissors in the act. Florio growled, menaeingly, and seized the boot of the intruder in his teeth. "I trust your grandpapa is ali right," continued the visitor, retaining the little hand in his grasp rather longer than ceremonious politeness -xacted. "Yes! thanks," ■ murely. "Shall I cali him?" "No! Give me another moment flrst." "As many moments as you wish. You were so good to popr grandpapa that day," and gratitude brought a warm tide of rose color to the velvety cheek, a moisture to the brillianteyes. "Was I good?" He forgot his mission, and everything1 else in the world, except the piquant face before him, which fascinated him strangely. Passion, unreasonable, mad, even capricious, was kindled in his breast f or the first time. He feit an impulse to take the gracef ui head between his hands, and cover brow, cheek and ■ móuth with rapid kisses, as he would have gathered one of the flowers blooming near her, and erushed the fragrance out of it against his lips. Separation of a day had but deepened the longing to return, and lent wings to his feet. He had cheated himself with the delusion that he had j gotten her. Hitherto sufficiently bold in the wooing and flattering of ttie owners of pretty faces, the sailor was shy, almost embarrassed, in the presence of Dolores. This fresh fruit ; of maidenhood, still protected by the sheath of unconsciousness and purity, intimidated him. The absence of the old man did not encourage him to once more venture to touch her hand. Then he communicated the true aim of his coming. At first speech was ' difficult to him, and his words were stammered, half completed, until, encouraged by the subtle sympathy of his listener, he waxed so eloquent that Florio grew weary of worrying his boot and decided to take another nap. Un the lollowmg evenmg nis cousin, Mrs. Griffith, was to receive the RusBian grand duke now on board the corvette Lad islas in the harbor. The lady wished to greet her guest with a series of characteristic tableaux. Dolores must consent to take a part in the entertainment The girl listened in passive silence. Her rich color f aded to a warm, golden pallor, the corners of her lips drooped; the delicate arch of black eyebrows met above the bridge of thin nose with the flexible nostriL She did not question the means whereby Mrs Griffith had become aware of her capacity to serve on the occasion. Possibly she divined that some suggestion made by Lieutenant Curzon had resulted in the invitation. Why did she not betray more joy in the opportunity of diversion? The messenger was piqued, puzzled, even tantalized, by the appearance of willful indifEerence in her bearing. "You understand the. role assigned you, do you not?" he demanded, with tender insistence. "I understand perfectly well," she rejoined, musingly. "Grandpapa may not consent, though. " "He must consent. We will teil him there is question of receiving a Eussian grand duke." "Should I be required to recite a verse? I have done that several times at the convent," said Dolores, with childish triumph. He suppressed a smile. "Not on this occasion, Dolores. Mav I cali you Dolores?" She gave neither consent nor refusal; a (limpie deepened near the corner of her mouth. "I will bring all the things in the morning, I mean your stage wardrobe, and then we wiil have a full dress rehearsal here in the garden," said the young man, blithely. "Grandpapa shall decide ïf you are a true Phoenician maiden. " ' 'I must be ugly and yellow, like the figures on the bits of stone and pottery," demurred Dolores, ruefully. "Asif you could be other than lovely, Dolores," he said, bending over her. "Afterward there isto be aball." An expression of sudden delight transfigured her face. She threw back her head, and opened her eyes. To go to a ball and dance! What feheity of happiness! She clapped her hands together, with an irrepressible transport of delight, and sprang to her feet with an elasticity of movement which sent a tingling vibration of sympathy througb. the veins of her companion. ' 'I will come if grandpapa only consents, " she exclaimed. "Give me the very flrst waltz," slsted Arthur Curzon, with a soft meaning in his tone. The maiden accustomed to ball room gallantry might have blushed i estly, lowered her glance and toyad ■with her bracelet bef ore yielding consent. Young Dolores stooped to recover her scissors, and retorted frankly - "Oh, yes!" Then she added, naively: "I thank you for remembering me." Jacob Dealtry approached from the house and returnea the greeting of the officer without warmth, and yet without any manifestation of surprise at his second visit. Dolores flew to his side, clasped her hands on his arm, and explained the invitation of Mrs. Griffith's to the j leaux and ball. The old man listened without commert, while his countenance betrayed bewilderment and suspicion. "Did you come to see my Moorish coin?" he questioned abruptly of Lieut. Curzon, when his grandehild had finished. "Yes," said the young man, with hypocritical alaerity. "I think of go' ing in for that sort of things Mr. Dealtry, during my stay at Malta, and making a collection. j "Very good," muttered the grandf ather, producing the Moorish coin for his inspection, Wounded pride made Dolores flash a re-Droachful glance at the officer, while her short upper lip curled scornfully. "I would not buy a privilege," she said in a smothered tone, as the old man shuffled away in search of other relies, tempted by the yielding mood of the amateur collector. "I would buy some privileges, " he retorted, laughing. She shook her head and approached him near. Her shoulder touched his arm. "Why are old people so greedy for gold?" she inquired, seriously. "They have learned the value of all earthly things, my child," said Arthur Curzon, with mature gravity. "Will you become sohorribly greedy when you are old?" pondered Dolores. "Even more so," he said promptly. "I do not believe it," she said, gazing up into his face intently. Again the sailor drank deeply of the soul in the eyes of the girl. When Jacob Dealtry liad yielded a half abstracted consent, the messeng-er of Mrs. Griffith departed. Dolores ran to her own chamber, climbed on a chair and lif ted down a green box, studded with. brass nails, from a high shelf. She raised the lid of the receptacle and drew forth a mantilla of black lace, a shell comb, a fan and a tiny pair of black satin slippers. A faint perfume of samidlv.cod and orange flowers emanated from these treasures, whieh had belonged to her Spanish mother. Was the faded green box destined to play the part of Pandora's casket, and scatter abroad, with the contents, the fairy shoes and the fan, confusión and trouble? Then she put on the pink dress, and pausing before a small looking' glass, audacioubly severed the sleeves above the rounded elbows, and cut down the corsage. She thus prepared the new robe for a, most unexpected debut. Attired to her satisfaction, Dolores sought the corridor, and paused before the portrait She made a little genuflexión, and held up a finger mockingly. "Perhaps he is the Knight of Malta af ter all," she said aloud. The cavalier the picture was mute, somber, threatening, in the obscurity of the old Watch Tower. CRAFTLR VIL THE SWAI.LOW WALTZ. HE OLD PALAZzo of the Strada Zecca, occupied by Gen. Griffith and his family, was brilliantly lighted on the ensuing evening-. A massive tem above the entrance shed a ray on the scutcheon of the Order of the Knights of St. John; while within the vestibule, trophies of the cavaliers, heimet, pike, halbert, and sword, were still grouped on the walls. The visitor who passed nnder the arch of the portal on this occasion, found himself in an atmosphere redolent of the sweetness of flowers, and surrounded by those elements of life in which European and Oriental influences were curiously blended. The colonnades of the mansion were illuminated with pendent clusters of eastern lamps, alternating with the cool and fragrant shadow of clumps of palms and jessamine, acd the plash of a fountain was audible in the center of the adjacent court, while Turkish raga and cushions, exhaling musk and amber from their folds, were placed in convenient embrasures between the columns, as if invitingr to that tranquil repose suggestive of the inseparable accompaniment of a pipe of perfumed tobáceo, a gilded tray of sweetmeats, coffee, or sherbet, served on bent knee by one of those liubian slaves in jeweled turban and silken tunic still to be found, in mute effigy, in Venetian places. Surely a beauty of the harem, in embroidered vestments, would peep from the shelter of yonder screen of lattice of arabesqne earriiig, or g-lide down the marble steps on the lef t! Instead, the intruder jostled a stiff, glish servant carrying tea, carne unexpectedly upon a group of officers in brilliant uniform lingering at a buffet, or was surrounded by a bevy of ladies in toilettes bearing the imprint of Paris and London make. The hostess received her royal guest at the entrance of the first sala, a graeious presence in a robe of cream-colored moire antique over pistachio green satin, with fair'arms and shoulders revealed by a corsage of golden tracery, studded with opals The young prince, pale, slender and beardless, with heavy-lidded eyes, and a languid utterance, was a modern Telemachus, .escorte by Mentor in the person of Gen. Lubomirsky, with a bristling, white mustache, a la militaire, and several orders attached to the breast of his uniform. As such Mrs. Griffith wished to welcome the grand duke. Telemachus was conducted by his host through several rooms, where myriads of lights were reflected on mirrors, and a profusión of flowers, arranged in banks and masses, with a background of tree fcrns and tall plants, with variegated lea ves, formed a miniature garden, to a gilded arm chair placed in the center of a large and lofty apartment. The prince, seated here, and surrounded by an expectant company, was required to contémplate a dark curtain, draped with Russian and British flags, until such time as the drapery was drawn aside, revealing a tiny stage. The seene, arranged with admirable artistic effect, represented a margin of shore and rocks, with tropical vegetation. In the background was visible the entrance of a grotto, half concealed by a drooping vine. The hostess, personating Calypso-, in a classical mantle and robe of ivorywhite tints, with a soft crepe peplum, embroidered in a Greek pattern, and her abundant dark hair gathered in a knot at the back of the hsad, pushed aside the vine, emerging from the grotto, and extendingher hand with a smile to the grand duke, said in a musical voice: "Telemaque, venez dans ma demeure ou, je vous reeevrai comme, mon fils.'1 "Malta was the island of Calypso," said the prince, when the curtain had fallen. "Yes. Let us respect all myths at such a moment," added Gen. Lubomirsky. When the mimic stage again became visible, three pictures, divided by a seemingly massive frame, occupied the space. [TO BE CONTINUED.]