LITMIR.BIZ

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time I had known him I had never found him to exaggerate in anything. What if I had taken a taste when he offered it me? What if I took some now? I could feel my heart jump at the thought, and I had to stand up to get my breath. Why shouldn't I at any rate get hold of the jar? No one knew of its existence yet, except myself, and no one need ever know. At any rate, I could get it now and think over later about using it. But I must get it at once, whilst Mrs. Bratt was out; later on I should have no excuse for entering the old man's room.

      Without giving myself a moment to reflect, and marvelling all the time at my own boldness. I tiptoed stealthily into the Captain's sitting-room and opened the cabinet door. Yes—there was the box in the same place where I had first seen it, but now it was not even tied with string. Trembling all over, I thrust a shaking hand under the lid and, feeling the jar in its oilskin covering, quickly transferred it to the depths of my trouser pocket. Then closing up the cabinet again, I ran back quickly to the kitchen, and there Mrs. Bratt found me when she returned about a quarter of an hour later.

      "Oh, Mr. Wacks," she called out, "how dreadfully pale you are. I'll have you going next if you don't take care," and she burst again weakly into tears.

      I got away from her in a little while, and by 9 o'clock, at latest, went into my bedroom to get ready for bed.

      I was just tired out and worn out, and only in half a mind after all about tasting any of the paste. I unwrapped the jar, however, and taking off the parchment cover curiously examined its contents. It was dark red in color, and thick, like jam that has set very hard. Almost automatically, I tasted a little with my finger. It was rather sickly and had the strong flavor of aniseed. I dipped in the handle of my tooth brush and brought up what I thought was about a small teaspoonful. I hesitated, perhaps for two seconds and then quickly put it in my mouth and gulped it down, so as not to give myself time to consider or repent.

      I am sure now that I expected something to happen at once. I know I stood still in a perfect smother of excitement with great drops of perspiration running down my face.

      Nothing happened, however, except that I felt rather sick. I waited and waited, mopping my forehead with shaking hands, hardly able to breathe for my emotion. Quite ten minutes must have passed and my feelings turned partly to relief and partly to disgust. What an ass I had been to believe all the old Captain had said! I had made no allowance for the natural superstitious credulity of all sea-going men and had now gone and swallowed some beastly stuff that might have turned rotten years ago and would probably give me fearful stomach-ache later in the night.

      I threw the pot angrily into the cupboard amongst my clothes, and, very much disgusted with myself, undressed and got into bed.

      My head was aching terribly and I expected to turn and toss, hour upon hour, before getting off to sleep.

      But no, I must have dropped to sleep almost at once, for with a most vivid recollection of even the remotest happenings of that eventful night I can remember nothing more until when I woke up just before the hall clock struck three.

      I believe, indeed, I had had some heavy dreams in which Waller and Captain Barker figured prominently, but, they left no distinct waking impressions on my brain, and I woke to the howl of Boulter's dog in the garden of the house next door.

      I sat up instantly in a tearful rage.

      What right had Boulter to keep such a brute out of doors at night? Boulter himself might be as deaf as a post, but that was no reason why everyone else in the road should be nightly exasperated by the howling of his beastly cur.

      I for one had put up with it long enough and would stand it no longer. I would kill the brute, and I wouldn't care if everyone knew it.

      I sprang out of bed and hurriedly slipping on my trousers ran into the hall.

      I remembered a short iron bar that I had noticed once under some papers on a shelf in the back kitchen, and I struck a match and found it. It was part of the handle of a broken linen press rotting outside in the yard, and it was curved and had a heavy ball at one end. I thrust it down into my pocket and, opening the hall door quietly, softly slipped out into the road.

      Boulter's house was a corner house and honored with a back door which opened into a narrow passage that led into the garden.

      I gambled on the back door being unlocked, and instead of climbing over the fence, approached it from the road.

      The noise of my approaching footsteps cut short the howling of the dog and I could hear her shuffling down the passage to meet me.

      She growled menacingly as I came near, and to reassure her I called her softly by name.

      "Nell, old girl—good dog, lie down."

      She knew my voice at once for I had often patted her in passing and not infrequently she had come to our house for scraps.

      She stopped growling at once, and very gently I pushed open the door intending to bash her with the iron directly I saw her head appear. But she was too quick for me, for when I had opened the door, ever so slightly, she slipped by me in a flash, and was out and down the road before I could even aim at her with my heavy bit of iron.

      I swore at her retreating figure with a damn that came easily, though strangely, to my lips, and seeing there was no chance at all of overtaking her, turned back into her master's back garden.

      It was still dark, but a faint glowing in the sky warned me that morning was not far off.

      There was a nasty strong smell in the garden and my disappointed rage found vent in more cursing. It was Boulter's rabbits, of course.

      What right had Boulter, I asked myself angrily, to keep his stinking rabbits so near to other houses? With his dog and his other dirty belongings he was a positive menace to the health of the place. He should be taught a lesson anyhow.

      I cautiously approached the row of hutches and, after looking round to make sure no one was watching me, opened the door of the one nearest, and feeling about for a moment inside, brought out the inmate by its ears.

      It was a fine big beast, and in the softly glowing light I could see the glinting of two big, frightened eyes. But I had no pity at all, and in a sudden paroxysm of rage nipped its body firmly between my knees and broke its neck.

      Making sure I had killed it, I put back the quivering body into the hutch and, curling it in what I considered a natural position for sleep, carefully reshut and fastened the door.

      The animals in the next hutches I served in exactly the same way, and in three or four minutes at most, seven of Boulter's best rabbits were in the process of stiffening in their houses.

      I felt the lust of taking life intoxicating me like wine and I should undoubtedly have finished off every rabbit in the place but for the sudden noise of a distant train.

      It startled me unpleasantly and thinking that at all events I had done enough to go on with, I hurried stealthily back by the same way I had come.

      I closed the hall door very carefully and with hardly a sound tiptoed to my bedroom and threw myself back into bed. Again I fell asleep at once, but this time I had no disturbing dreams.

      CHAPTER IV.—THE FIRST CRIME.

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      I woke up feeling very irritable and with a bitter taste in my mouth. It was seven o'clock, and about the usual time I awoke. I could hear Mrs. Bratt brushing vigorously in the hall and my first thought was one of annoyance at the noise she was making. Then all the events of the previous twenty-four hours flashed through my mind and I felt out of temper with everyone.

      I would make them smart at the office for all their insolence to me. Captain Barker deserved to die for being such an old liar about his wretched red paste. Mrs. Bratt was a drunken old charwoman, and I would clear out of her dirty show with a week's notice. Boulter had only got his deserts and it was a pity all his beastly old rabbits weren't dead, instead of a beggarly lot of seven.

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