The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

by Ambrose Bierce

  A HOLY TERROR

  I

  There was an entire lack of interest in the latest arrival atHurdy-Gurdy. He was not even christened with the picturesquelydescriptive nick-name which is so frequently a mining camp's word ofwelcome to the newcomer. In almost any other camp thereabout thiscircumstance would of itself have secured him some such appellation as"The White-headed Conundrum," or "No Sarvey"--an expression naivelysupposed to suggest to quick intelligences the Spanish _quien sabe_. Hecame without provoking a ripple of concern upon the social surface ofHurdy-Gurdy--a place which to the general Californian contempt of men'spersonal history superadded a local indifference of its own. The timewas long past when it was of any importance who came there, or ifanybody came. No one was living at Hurdy-Gurdy.

  Two years before, the camp had boasted a stirring population of two orthree thousand males and not fewer than a dozen females. A majority ofthe former had done a few weeks' earnest work in demonstrating, to thedisgust of the latter, the singularly mendacious character of the personwhose ingenious tales of rich gold deposits had lured them thither--work, by the way, in which there was as little mental satisfaction aspecuniary profit; for a bullet from the pistol of a public-spiritedcitizen had put that imaginative gentleman beyond the reach of aspersionon the third day of the camp's existence. Still, his fiction had acertain foundation in fact, and many had lingered a considerable time inand about Hurdy-Gurdy, though now all had been long gone.

  But they had left ample evidence of their sojourn. From the point whereInjun Creek falls into the Rio San Juan Smith, up along both banks ofthe former into the canon whence it emerges, extended a double row offorlorn shanties that seemed about to fall upon one another's neck tobewail their desolation; while about an equal number appeared to havestraggled up the slope on either hand and perched themselves uponcommanding eminences, whence they craned forward to get a good view ofthe affecting scene. Most of these habitations were emaciated as byfamine to the condition of mere skeletons, about which clung unlovelytatters of what might have been skin, but was really canvas. The littlevalley itself, torn and gashed by pick and shovel, was unhandsome withlong, bending lines of decaying flume resting here and there upon thesummits of sharp ridges, and stilting awkwardly across the intervalsupon unhewn poles. The whole place presented that raw and forbiddingaspect of arrested development which is a new country's substitute forthe solemn grace of ruin wrought by time. Wherever there remained apatch of the original soil a rank overgrowth of weeds and brambles hadspread upon the scene, and from its dank, unwholesome shades the visitorcurious in such matters might have obtained numberless souvenirs of thecamp's former glory--fellowless boots mantled with green mould andplethoric of rotting leaves; an occasional old felt hat; desultoryremnants of a flannel shirt; sardine boxes inhumanly mutilated and asurprising profusion of black bottles distributed with a truly catholicimpartiality, everywhere.

  II

  The man who had now rediscovered Hurdy-Gurdy was evidently not curiousas to its archaeology. Nor, as he looked about him upon the dismalevidences of wasted work and broken hopes, their dispiritingsignificance accentuated by the ironical pomp of a cheap gilding by therising sun, did he supplement his sigh of weariness by one ofsensibility. He simply removed from the back of his tired burro aminer's outfit a trifle larger than the animal itself, picketed thatcreature and selecting a hatchet from his kit moved off at once acrossthe dry bed of Injun Creek to the top of a low, gravelly hill beyond.

  Stepping across a prostrate fence of brush and boards he picked up oneof the latter, split it into five parts and sharpened them at one end.He then began a kind of search, occasionally stooping to examinesomething with close attention. At last his patient scrutiny appeared tobe rewarded with success, for he suddenly erected his figure to its fullheight, made a gesture of satisfaction, pronounced the word "Scarry" andat once strode away with long, equal steps, which he counted. Then hestopped and drove one of his stakes into the earth. He then lookedcarefully about him, measured off a number of paces over a singularlyuneven ground and hammered in another. Pacing off twice the distance ata right angle to his former course he drove down a third, and repeatingthe process sank home the fourth, and then a fifth. This he split at thetop and in the cleft inserted an old letter envelope covered with anintricate system of pencil tracks. In short, he staked off a hill claimin strict accordance with the local mining laws of Hurdy-Gurdy and putup the customary notice.

  It is necessary to explain that one of the adjuncts to Hurdy-Gurdy--oneto which that metropolis became afterward itself an adjunct--was acemetery. In the first week of the camp's existence this had beenthoughtfully laid out by a committee of citizens. The day after had beensignalized by a debate between two members of the committee, withreference to a more eligible site, and on the third day the necropoliswas inaugurated by a double funeral. As the camp had waned the cemeteryhad waxed; and long before the ultimate inhabitant, victorious alikeover the insidious malaria and the forthright revolver, had turned thetail of his pack-ass upon Injun Creek the outlying settlement had becomea populous if not popular suburb. And now, when the town was fallen intothe sere and yellow leaf of an unlovely senility, the graveyard--thoughsomewhat marred by time and circumstance, and not altogether exempt frominnovations in grammar and experiments in orthography, to say nothing ofthe devastating coyote--answered the humble needs of its denizens withreasonable completeness. It comprised a generous two acres of ground,which with commendable thrift but needless care had been selected forits mineral unworth, contained two or three skeleton trees (one of whichhad a stout lateral branch from which a weather-wasted rope stillsignificantly dangled), half a hundred gravelly mounds, a score of rudeheadboards displaying the literary peculiarities above mentioned and astruggling colony of prickly pears. Altogether, God's Location, as withcharacteristic reverence it had been called, could justly boast of anindubitably superior quality of desolation. It was in the most thicklysettled part of this interesting demesne that Mr. Jefferson Doman stakedoff his claim. If in the prosecution of his design he should deem itexpedient to remove any of the dead they would have the right to besuitably reinterred.

  III

  This Mr. Jefferson Doman was from Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where sixyears before he had left his heart in the keeping of a golden-haired,demure-mannered young woman named Mary Matthews, as collateral securityfor his return to claim her hand.

  "I just _know_ you'll never get back alive--you never do succeed inanything," was the remark which illustrated Miss Matthews's notion ofwhat constituted success and, inferentially, her view of the nature ofencouragement. She added: "If you don't I'll go to California too. I canput the coins in little bags as you dig them out."

  This characteristically feminine theory of auriferous deposits did notcommend itself to the masculine intelligence: it was Mr. Doman's beliefthat gold was found in a liquid state. He deprecated her intent withconsiderable enthusiasm, suppressed her sobs with a light hand upon hermouth, laughed in her eyes as he kissed away her tears, and with acheerful "Ta-ta" went to California to labor for her through the long,loveless years, with a strong heart, an alert hope and a steadfastfidelity that never for a moment forgot what it was about. In themean time, Miss Matthews had granted a monopoly of her humble talent forsacking up coins to Mr. Jo. Seeman, of New York, gambler, by whom it wasbetter appreciated than her commanding genius for unsacking andbestowing them upon his local rivals. Of this latter aptitude, indeed,he manifested his disapproval by an act which secured him the positionof clerk of the laundry in the State prison, and for her the _sobriquet_of "Split-faced Moll." At about this time she wrote to Mr. Doman atouching letter of renunciation, inclosing her photograph to prove thatshe had no longer had a right to indulge the dream of becoming Mrs.Doman, and recounting so graphically her fall from a horse that thestaid "plug" upon which Mr. Doman had ridden into Red Dog to get theletter made vicarious atonement under the spur all the way back to camp.The letter failed in a signal way to accomplish its ob
ject; the fidelitywhich had before been to Mr. Doman a matter of love and duty wasthenceforth a matter of honor also; and the photograph, showing the oncepretty face sadly disfigured as by the slash of a knife, was dulyinstated in his affections and its more comely predecessor treated withcontumelious neglect. On being informed of this, Miss Matthews, it isonly fair to say, appeared less surprised than from the apparently lowestimate of Mr. Doman's generosity which the tone of her former letterattested one would naturally have expected her to be. Soon after,however, her letters grew infrequent, and then ceased altogether.

  But Mr. Doman had another correspondent, Mr. Barney Bree, ofHurdy-Gurdy, formerly of Red Dog. This gentleman, although a notablefigure among miners, was not a miner. His knowledge of mining consistedmainly in a marvelous command of its slang, to which he made copiouscontributions, enriching its vocabulary with a wealth of uncommonphrases more remarkable for their aptness than their refinement, andwhich impressed the unlearned "tenderfoot" with a lively sense of theprofundity of their inventor's acquirements. When not entertaining acircle of admiring auditors from San Francisco or the East he couldcommonly be found pursuing the comparatively obscure industry ofsweeping out the various dance houses and purifying the cuspidors.

  Barney had apparently but two passions in life--love of Jefferson Doman,who had once been of some service to him, and love of whisky, whichcertainly had not. He had been among the first in the rush toHurdy-Gurdy, but had not prospered, and had sunk by degrees to theposition of grave digger. This was not a vocation, but Barney in adesultory way turned his trembling hand to it whenever some localmisunderstanding at the card table and his own partial recovery from aprolonged debauch occurred coincidently in point of time. One day Mr.Doman received, at Red Dog, a letter with the simple postmark, "Hurdy,Cal.," and being occupied with another matter, carelessly thrust it intoa chink of his cabin for future perusal. Some two years later it wasaccidentally dislodged and he read it. It ran as follows:--

  HURDY, June 6.

  FRIEND JEFF: I've hit her hard in the boneyard. She's blind and lousy. I'm on the divvy--that's me, and mum's my lay till you toot. Yours, BARNEY.

  P.S.--I've clayed her with Scarry.

  With some knowledge of the general mining camp _argot_ and of Mr. Bree'sprivate system for the communication of ideas Mr. Doman had nodifficulty in understanding by this uncommon epistle that Barney whileperforming his duty as grave digger had uncovered a quartz ledge with nooutcroppings; that it was visibly rich in free gold; that, moved byconsiderations of friendship, he was willing to accept Mr. Doman as apartner and awaiting that gentleman's declaration of his will in thematter would discreetly keep the discovery a secret. From the postscriptit was plainly inferable that in order to conceal the treasure he hadburied above it the mortal part of a person named Scarry.

  From subsequent events, as related to Mr. Doman at Red Dog, it wouldappear that before taking this precaution Mr. Bree must have had thethrift to remove a modest competency of the gold; at any rate, it was atabout that time that he entered upon that memorable series of potationsand treatings which is still one of the cherished traditions of the SanJuan Smith country, and is spoken of with respect as far away as GhostRock and Lone Hand. At its conclusion some former citizens ofHurdy-Gurdy, for whom he had performed the last kindly office at thecemetery, made room for him among them, and he rested well.

  IV

  Having finished staking off his claim Mr. Doman walked back to thecentre of it and stood again at the spot where his search among thegraves had expired in the exclamation, "Scarry." He bent again over theheadboard that bore that name and as if to reinforce the senses of sightand hearing ran his forefinger along the rudely carved letters.Re-erecting himself he appended orally to the simple inscription theshockingly forthright epitaph, "She was a holy terror!"

  Had Mr. Doman been required to make these words good with proof--as,considering their somewhat censorious character, he doubtless shouldhave been--he would have found himself embarrassed by the absence ofreputable witnesses, and hearsay evidence would have been the best hecould command. At the time when Scarry had been prevalent in the miningcamps thereabout--when, as the editor of the _Hurdy Herald_ would havephrased it, she was "in the plenitude of her power"--Mr. Doman'sfortunes had been at a low ebb, and he had led the vagrantly laboriouslife of a prospector. His time had been mostly spent in the mountains,now with one companion, now with another. It was from the admiringrecitals of these casual partners, fresh from the various camps, thathis judgment of Scarry had been made up; he himself had never had thedoubtful advantage of her acquaintance and the precarious distinction ofher favor. And when, finally, on the termination of her perverse careerat Hurdy-Gurdy he had read in a chance copy of the _Herald_ hercolumn-long obituary (written by the local humorist of that lively sheetin the highest style of his art) Doman had paid to her memory and to herhistoriographer's genius the tribute of a smile and chivalrouslyforgotten her. Standing now at the grave-side of this mountain Messalinahe recalled the leading events of her turbulent career, as he had heardthem celebrated at his several campfires, and perhaps with anunconscious attempt at self-justification repeated that she was a holyterror, and sank his pick into her grave up to the handle. At thatmoment a raven, which had silently settled upon a branch of the blastedtree above his head, solemnly snapped its beak and uttered its mindabout the matter with an approving croak.

  Pursuing his discovery of free gold with great zeal, which he probablycredited to his conscience as a grave digger, Mr. Barney Bree had madean unusually deep sepulcher, and it was near sunset before Mr. Doman,laboring with the leisurely deliberation of one who has "a dead surething" and no fear of an adverse claimant's enforcement of a priorright, reached the coffin and uncovered it. When he had done so he wasconfronted by a difficulty for which he had made no provision; thecoffin--a mere flat shell of not very well-preserved redwood boards,apparently--had no handles, and it filled the entire bottom of theexcavation. The best he could do without violating the decent sanctitiesof the situation was to make the excavation sufficiently longer toenable him to stand at the head of the casket and getting his powerfulhands underneath erect it upon its narrower end; and this he proceededto do. The approach of night quickened his efforts. He had no thought ofabandoning his task at this stage to resume it on the morrow under moreadvantageous conditions. The feverish stimulation of cupidity and thefascination of terror held him to his dismal work with an ironauthority. He no longer idled, but wrought with a terrible zeal. Hishead uncovered, his outer garments discarded, his shirt opened at theneck and thrown back from his breast, down which ran sinuous rills ofperspiration, this hardy and impenitent gold-getter and grave-robbertoiled with a giant energy that almost dignified the character of hishorrible purpose; and when the sun fringes had burned themselves outalong the crest line of the western hills, and the full moon had climbedout of the shadows that lay along the purple plain, he had erected thecoffin upon its foot, where it stood propped against the end of the opengrave. Then, standing up to his neck in the earth at the oppositeextreme of the excavation, as he looked at the coffin upon which themoonlight now fell with a full illumination he was thrilled with asudden terror to observe upon it the startling apparition of a darkhuman head--the shadow of his own. For a moment this simple and naturalcircumstance unnerved him. The noise of his labored breathing frightenedhim, and he tried to still it, but his bursting lungs would not bedenied. Then, laughing half-audibly and wholly without spirit, he beganmaking movements of his head from side to side, in order to compel theapparition to repeat them. He found a comforting reassurance inasserting his command over his own shadow. He was temporizing, making,with unconscious prudence, a dilatory opposition to an impendingcatastrophe. He felt that invisible forces of evil were closing in uponhim, and he parleyed for time with the Inevitable.

  He now observed in succession several unusual circumstances. The surfaceof the coffin upon which his eyes were fastened was not flat; itpresented two distinct ri
dges, one longitudinal and the othertransverse. Where these intersected at the widest part there was acorroded metallic plate that reflected the moonlight with a dismallustre. Along the outer edges of the coffin, at long intervals, wererust-eaten heads of nails. This frail product of the carpenter's art hadbeen put into the grave the wrong side up!

  Perhaps it was one of the humors of the camp--a practical manifestationof the facetious spirit that had found literary expression in thetopsy-turvy obituary notice from the pen of Hurdy-Gurdy's greathumorist. Perhaps it had some occult personal signification impenetrableto understandings uninstructed in local traditions. A more charitablehypothesis is that it was owing to a misadventure on the part of Mr.Barney Bree, who, making the interment unassisted (either by choice forthe conservation of his golden secret, or through public apathy), hadcommitted a blunder which he was afterward unable or unconcerned torectify. However it had come about, poor Scarry had indubitably been putinto the earth face downward.

  When terror and absurdity make alliance, the effect is frightful. Thisstrong-hearted and daring man, this hardy night worker among the dead,this defiant antagonist of darkness and desolation, succumbed to aridiculous surprise. He was smitten with a thrilling chill--shivered,and shook his massive shoulders as if to throw off an icy hand. He nolonger breathed, and the blood in his veins, unable to abate itsimpetus, surged hotly beneath his cold skin. Unleavened with oxygen, itmounted to his head and congested his brain. His physical functions hadgone over to the enemy; his very heart was arrayed against him. He didnot move; he could not have cried out. He needed but a coffin to bedead--as dead as the death that confronted him with only the length ofan open grave and the thickness of a rotting plank between.

  Then, one by one, his senses returned; the tide of terror that hadoverwhelmed his faculties began to recede. But with the return of hissenses he became singularly unconscious of the object of his fear. Hesaw the moonlight gilding the coffin, but no longer the coffin that itgilded. Raising his eyes and turning his head, he noted, curiously andwith surprise, the black branches of the dead tree, and tried toestimate the length of the weather-worn rope that dangled from itsghostly hand. The monotonous barking of distant coyotes affected him assomething he had heard years ago in a dream. An owl flapped awkwardlyabove him on noiseless wings, and he tried to forecast the direction ofits flight when it should encounter the cliff that reared itsilluminated front a mile away. His hearing took account of a gopher'sstealthy tread in the shadow of the cactus. He was intensely observant;his senses were all alert; but he saw not the coffin. As one can gaze atthe sun until it looks black and then vanishes, so his mind, havingexhausted its capacities of dread, was no longer conscious of theseparate existence of anything dreadful. The Assassin was cloaking thesword.

  It was during this lull in the battle that he became sensible of afaint, sickening odor. At first he thought it was that of arattle-snake, and involuntarily tried to look about his feet. They werenearly invisible in the gloom of the grave. A hoarse, gurgling sound,like the death-rattle in a human throat, seemed to come out of the sky,and a moment later a great, black, angular shadow, like the same soundmade visible, dropped curving from the topmost branch of the spectraltree, fluttered for an instant before his face and sailed fiercely awayinto the mist along the creek.

  It was the raven. The incident recalled him to a sense of the situation,and again his eyes sought the upright coffin, now illuminated by themoon for half its length. He saw the gleam of the metallic plate andtried without moving to decipher the inscription. Then he fell tospeculating upon what was behind it. His creative imagination presentedhim a vivid picture. The planks no longer seemed an obstacle to hisvision and he saw the livid corpse of the dead woman, standing ingrave-clothes, and staring vacantly at him, with lidless, shrunken eyes.The lower jaw was fallen, the upper lip drawn away from the uncoveredteeth. He could make out a mottled pattern on the hollow cheeks--themaculations of decay. By some mysterious process his mind reverted forthe first time that day to the photograph of Mary Matthews. Hecontrasted its blonde beauty with the forbidding aspect of this deadface--the most beloved object that he knew with the most hideous that hecould conceive.

  The Assassin now advanced and displaying the blade laid it against thevictim's throat. That is to say, the man became at first dimly, thendefinitely, aware of an impressive coincidence--a relation--a parallelbetween the face on the card and the name on the headboard. The one wasdisfigured, the other described a disfiguration. The thought took holdof him and shook him. It transformed the face that his imagination hadcreated behind the coffin lid; the contrast became a resemblance; theresemblance grew to identity. Remembering the many descriptions ofScarry's personal appearance that he had heard from the gossips of hiscamp-fire he tried with imperfect success to recall the exact nature ofthe disfiguration that had given the woman her ugly name; and what waslacking in his memory fancy supplied, stamping it with the validity ofconviction. In the maddening attempt to recall such scraps of thewoman's history as he had heard, the muscles of his arms and hands werestrained to a painful tension, as by an effort to lift a great weight.His body writhed and twisted with the exertion. The tendons of his neckstood out as tense as whip-cords, and his breath came in short, sharpgasps. The catastrophe could not be much longer delayed, or the agony ofanticipation would leave nothing to be done by the _coup de grace_ ofverification. The scarred face behind the lid would slay him through thewood.

  A movement of the coffin diverted his thought. It came forward to withina foot of his face, growing visibly larger as it approached. The rustedmetallic plate, with an inscription illegible in the moonlight, lookedhim steadily in the eye. Determined not to shrink, he tried to brace hisshoulders more firmly against the end of the excavation, and nearly fellbackward in the attempt. There was nothing to support him; he hadunconsciously moved upon his enemy, clutching the heavy knife that hehad drawn from his belt. The coffin had not advanced and he smiled tothink it could not retreat. Lifting his knife he struck the heavy hiltagainst the metal plate with all his power. There was a sharp, ringingpercussion, and with a dull clatter the whole decayed coffin lid brokein pieces and came away, falling about his feet. The quick and the deadwere face to face--the frenzied, shrieking man--the woman standingtranquil in her silences. She was a holy terror!

  V

  Some months later a party of men and women belonging to the highestsocial circles of San Francisco passed through Hurdy-Gurdy on their wayto the Yosemite Valley by a new trail. They halted for dinner and duringits preparation explored the desolate camp. One of the party had been atHurdy-Gurdy in the days of its glory. He had, indeed, been one of itsprominent citizens; and it used to be said that more money passed overhis faro table in any one night than over those of all his competitorsin a week; but being now a millionaire engaged in greater enterprises,he did not deem these early successes of sufficient importance to meritthe distinction of remark. His invalid wife, a lady famous in SanFrancisco for the costly nature of her entertainments and her exactingrigor with regard to the social position and "antecedents" of those whoattended them, accompanied the expedition. During a stroll among theshanties of the abandoned camp Mr. Porfer directed the attention of hiswife and friends to a dead tree on a low hill beyond Injun Creek.

  "As I told you," he said, "I passed through this camp in 1852, and wastold that no fewer than five men had been hanged here by vigilantes atdifferent times, and all on that tree. If I am not mistaken, a rope isdangling from it yet. Let us go over and see the place."

  Mr. Porfer did not add that the rope in question was perhaps the veryone from whose fatal embrace his own neck had once had an escape sonarrow that an hour's delay in taking himself out of that region wouldhave spanned it.

  Proceeding leisurely down the creek to a convenient crossing, the partycame upon the cleanly picked skeleton of an animal which Mr. Porferafter due examination pronounced to be that of an ass. Thedistinguishing ears were gone, but much of the inedible head had beenspared by the
beasts and birds, and the stout bridle of horsehair wasintact, as was the riata, of similar material, connecting it with apicket pin still firmly sunken in the earth. The wooden and metallicelements of a miner's kit lay near by. The customary remarks were made,cynical on the part of the men, sentimental and refined by the lady. Alittle later they stood by the tree in the cemetery and Mr. Porfersufficiently unbent from his dignity to place himself beneath the rottenrope and confidently lay a coil of it about his neck, somewhat, itappeared, to his own satisfaction, but greatly to the horror of hiswife, to whose sensibilities the performance gave a smart shock.

  An exclamation from one of the party gathered them all about an opengrave, at the bottom of which they saw a confused mass of human bonesand the broken remnants of a coffin. Coyotes and buzzards had performedthe last sad rites for pretty much all else. Two skulls were visible andin order to investigate this somewhat unusual redundancy one of theyounger men had the hardihood to spring into the grave and hand them upto another before Mrs. Porfer could indicate her marked disapproval ofso shocking an act, which, nevertheless, she did with considerablefeeling and in very choice words. Pursuing his search among the dismaldebris at the bottom of the grave the young man next handed up a rustedcoffin plate, with a rudely cut inscription, which with difficulty Mr.Porfer deciphered and read aloud with an earnest and not altogetherunsuccessful attempt at the dramatic effect which he deemed befitting tothe occasion and his rhetorical abilities:

  MANUELITA MURPHY. Born at the Mission San Pedro--Died in Hurdy-Gurdy, Aged 47. Hell's full of such.

  In deference to the piety of the reader and the nerves of Mrs. Porfer'sfastidious sisterhood of both sexes let us not touch upon the painfulimpression produced by this uncommon inscription, further than to saythat the elocutionary powers of Mr. Porfer had never before met with sospontaneous and overwhelming recognition.

  The next morsel that rewarded the ghoul in the grave was a long tangleof black hair defiled with clay: but this was such an anti-climax thatit received little attention. Suddenly, with a short exclamation and agesture of excitement, the young man unearthed a fragment of grayishrock, and after a hurried inspection handed it up to Mr. Porfer. As thesunlight fell upon it it glittered with a yellow luster--it was thicklystudded with gleaming points. Mr. Porfer snatched it, bent his head overit a moment and threw it lightly away with the simple remark:

  "Iron pyrites--fool's gold."

  The young man in the discovery shaft was a trifle disconcerted,apparently.

  Meanwhile, Mrs. Porfer, unable longer to endure the disagreeablebusiness, had walked back to the tree and seated herself at its root.While rearranging a tress of golden hair which had slipped from itsconfinement she was attracted by what appeared to be and really was thefragment of an old coat. Looking about to assure herself that sounladylike an act was not observed, she thrust her jeweled hand into theexposed breast pocket and drew out a mouldy pocket-book. Its contentswere as follows:

  One bundle of letters, postmarked "Elizabethtown, New Jersey."

  One circle of blonde hair tied with a ribbon.

  One photograph of a beautiful girl.

  One ditto of same, singularly disfigured.

  One name on back of photograph--"Jefferson Doman."

  A few moments later a group of anxious gentlemen surrounded Mrs. Porferas she sat motionless at the foot of the tree, her head dropped forward,her fingers clutching a crushed photograph. Her husband raised her head,exposing a face ghastly white, except the long, deforming cicatrice,familiar to all her friends, which no art could ever hide, and which nowtraversed the pallor of her countenance like a visible curse.

  Mary Matthews Porfer had the bad luck to be dead.