Drolls From Shadowland

Joel moistened his lips with his tongue before he answered. "Nawthin', plaise, sir," he gasped out, quakingly.

"Nonsense, my man!" said the hump-back pleasantly, rubbing his hands cheerfully together as he spoke. And Joel noticed that the fingers, though long and skinny--almost wrinkled and lean enough, in fact, to pass for claws--were adorned with several sparkling rings. "Nonsense, my man! I'm your friend--if you'll let me be. O never mind my hump, if it's that that's frightening you, I got that through a fall a long while ago," and the lean brown face puckered into a smile. "Come! In what way can I oblige'ee, friend? I can grant you any wish you like. Say the word--and it's done! Just think what you could do if you had heaps of money, now--piles of suvrins in that owld chest in your bedroom, instead o' they paltry two-an'-twenty suvrins which you now got heeded away in the skibbet."

Joel stared at the speaker with distended eyes: the great beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead.

"How ded'ee come to knaw they was there?" he asked.

"I knaw more than that," said the hump-back, laughing. "I could tell'ee a thing or two, b'leeve, if I wanted to. I knaw tin,[A] cumraade, as well as the next." And with that he began to chuckle to himself.

"Wedn'ee like they two-an'-twenty suvrins in the skibbet made a hunderd-an'-twenty?" asked the hump-back insinuatingly.

"Iss, by Gosh, I should!" said Joel.

"Then gi'me your haand on it, cumraade; an' you shall have 'em!"

"Here goes, then!" said Joel, thrusting out his hand.

The hump-back seized the proffered hand in an instant, covering the grimy fingers with his own lean claws.

"Oh, le'go! le'go!" shouted Joel.

The hump-back grinned; his black eyes glittering.

"I waan't be niggardly to'ee, cumraade," said he. "Every drop o' blood you choose to shed for the purpose shall turn into a golden suvrin for'ee--there!"

"Darn'ee! thee ben an' run thy nails in me--see!"

And Joel shewed a drop of blood oozing from his wrist.

"Try the charm, man! Wish! Hold un out, an' say, Wan!"

Joel held out his punctured wrist mechanically.

"Wan!"

There was a sudden gleam--and down dropped a sovereign: a bright gold coin that rang sharply as it fell.

"Try agen!" said the hump-back, grinning delightedly.

Joel stooped first to pick up the coin, and bit it eagerly.

"Ay, good Gosh! 'tes gowld, sure 'nuff!"

"Try agen!" said the hump-back "Make up a pile!"

Joel held out his wrist and repeated the formula.

"Wan!"

And another coin clinked at his feet.

"I needn' wait no longer, s'pose?" said the hump-back.

"Wan!" cried Joel. And a third coin dropped.

He leaned on his pick and kept coining his blood eagerly, till presently there was quite a little pile at his feet.

The hump-back watched him intently for a time: but Joel appeared to be oblivious of his presence; and the squat little figure stealthily disappeared.

The falling coins kept chiming melodiously, till presently the great stalwart miner had to lean against the wall of the level to support himself. So tired as he was, he had never felt before. But give over his task he either could not, or would not. The chink of the gold-pieces he must hear if he died for it. He looked down at them greedily. "Wan! . . . Wan! . . . Wan! . . ."

Presently he tottered, and fell over on his heap.

At that same moment the halting little hump-back stole out from the shadows immediately behind him, and leaned over Joel, rubbing his hands gleefully.

"I must catch his soul," said the little black man.

And with that he turned Joel's head round sharply, and held his hand to the dying man's mouth.

Just then there fluttered up to Joel's lips a tiny yellow flame, which, for some reason or other, seemed as agitated as if it had a human consciousness. One might almost have imagined it perceived the little hump-back, and knew full well who and what he was.

But there on Joel's lips the flame hung quivering. And now a deeper shadow fell upon his face.

Surely the tiny thing shuddered with horror as the hump-back's black paws closed upon it!

But, in any case, it now was safely prisoned. And the little black man laughed long and loudly.

"Not so bad a bargain after all!" chuckled he.