A VENDETTA AND OTSJSR THINGS. 487
suspicion; then passed to his second homicide, bis third, bis fourth,
and so on. He had always done his murders with a bowie-knife, and
he made all my hairs rise by suddenly snatching it out and showing
it to me.
At the end of this first stance I went home with six of his fearful
secrets ^mong my freightage, and found them a great help to my
dreams, which had been sluggish for a while back. I sought him
again and again, on my Saturday holidays; in fact I spent the
summer with him—all of it which was valuable to me. TTia fascina-
tions never diminished, for he threw something fresh and stirring, in
the way of horror, into each successive murder. He always gave
names, dates, places—everything. This by and by enabled me to
note two things : that he had killed his victims in every quarter of
the globe, and that these victims were always named Lynch. The
destruction of the Lynches went serenely on, Saturday after Saturday,
until the original thirty had multiplied to sixty—and more to be
heard from yet; then my curiosity got the better of my timidity, ajid
I asked how it happened that these justly punished persons all bore
the same name.
My hero said lie had never divulged that dark secret to any living
being; but felt that he could trust me, and therefore be would lay
bare before me the story of his sad and blighted life. He had loved
one * too fair for earth,* and she had reciprocated * with all the sweet
affection of her pure and noble nature/ But he had a rival, a * base
hireling* named Archibald Lynch, who said the girl should be bis, or
he would * dye his hands in her heart's best blood.* Ihe carpenter,
* innocent and happy in love's young dream,1 gave no weight to the
threat, but led his * golden-haired darling to the altar,* and there, the
two were made one; there also, just as the minister's hands were
stretched in blessing over their heads, the fell deed was done—with a
Vnifa—and the bride fell a corpse at her husband's feet. And wfajifc
did the husband dol He plucked forth that knife, and kneeling
by the body of his lost one, swore to * oonseezwte his life to the
extermination of all the human scum that bear the bated name of
Lynch.*
That was it. He had been hunting down the Lynches ortd
slaughtering them, from that day to tfoiq—twenty years. He bad