Jackpot Mines

Jackpot Mines First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, "Here," said he to her, "are the keys of my two large store-rooms; these are those of the chests in which the gold and silver plate, not in general use, is kept; these are the keys of the strong boxes in which I keep my money; these open the caskets that contain my jewels, and this is the master-key of all the rooms. As for this little key, it is that of the closet at the end of the long gallery on the ground floor. Open everything, and go everywhere except into that little closet, which I forbid you to enter, and I forbid you so strictly, that if you should venture to open the door, there is nothing that you may not have to dread from my anger!" She promised to obey his orders to the letter, and, after having embraced her, he got into his coach and set out on his journey.,"It is like the garden of the palace where the Sleeping Beauty dwelt," whispers Mona to Nolly; she is delighted, charmed, lost in admiration.,"It is very hard on Nick," he says disconsolately.,The coulee was a sheltered nook when bitter winds swept the higher grounds above; it was cool when scorching heat yellowed the grasses of the plain.,"What in the world did Hannah Ann write to you for?" queried Elinor absently. "She usually sends her weekly reports to me."，She lowered her voice as two newcomers entered—one a slender, faded young woman with near-sighted pale eyes, and the other a blond girl with a dazzling skin and glorious shimmering hair wound around a shapely head. Both were in aprons, but the younger wore a dull green that set off her fair beauty to perfection, while the checked gingham of the other proclaimed a hopelessly downright taste.，One night all the wolves went down to the pen to get meat, and when they had come close to it, the man-wolf said to his brothers, "Stop here for a little while and I will go down and fix the places so that you will not be caught." He went down to the pen and sprung all the snares, and then went back and called the wolves and the others—the coyotes, badgers, and kit-foxes—and they all went into the pen and feasted and took meat to carry home to their families. In the morning the people found the meat gone and all their snares sprung, and they were surprised and wondered how this could have happened. For many nights the nooses were pulled tight and the meat taken; but once when the wolves went there to eat they found only the meat of a lean and sickly bull. Then the man-wolf was angry, and he cried out like a wolf, "Bad-food-you-give-us-o-o-o! Bad-food-you-give-us-o-o-o-o!"，"It was a little quiet," acknowledged Elinor, "but, at least, they were very pleasant about it. They all agreed that it was the cleverest thing that had been done in that line."It was the cunningest goat you ever saw, lively but good, and so pretty—light gray, with a little beard. Mother had bought it early in the spring. On Sundays it had a blue ribbon around its neck, and other days a red worsted collar with a white button. It was a great pet.

"Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was murmuring in his sleep. Then I heard the doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put him back in his bed, and go downstairs.,A shiver chased up and down Billy’s spine. He knew the Sheriff by sight only; and he was so inseparable from the handcuffs the boy had seen protruding from a pocket, that Billy felt it would “almost fasten suspicion on a fellow just to be seen speaking to the officer.”,Just at this moment Mona comes up to them, smiling and happy.,Bob wondered what had become of Jerry. Could he have gone to warn the bandits? It seemed the most likely thing, yet there was just a chance that as the plot had become so mixed up by Miguel’s failure to pull off the mining of the coffer dam, that Jerry would be busy in another direction. He might have decided to go and tell the cattlemen that a serious hitch had occurred. It was all very puzzling, especially Jerry’s sudden appearance in their room.,Captain Acton paused for a few moments at the foot of the companion ladder with a grave smile on his face.,"Nothin' else," returned Harry. "Nuthin' else that mattered, Bye. A square box there was that I had no time to open a'tall; but whisky! Oh, Billy Bye—there ut was afore me, enough av ut to coax all the blood-suckin' bats and snakes in hades up to mock the consumer av ut.",“We could have sent the horse in to the young gentleman,” he said, with extreme politeness.,In brief, her evidence was as follows: "I am a full-blooded negress, born in Barbadoes. My grandmother came from 'Ashantee,' and knew all about the wand of sleep. She taught me how to manufacture the poison. I came to England with my mistress and met with prisoner, who called at the house. He knew a great deal about Obi and showed me the Voodoo stone. A spirit dances in the stone, and I was bound to do what the spirit told me. It said I was to obey prisoner. Dr. Etwald wanted to marry my young mistress, but she was engaged to Mr. Alymer. Prisoner told me that Mr. Alymer must be got out of the way, and suggested the use of the devil-stick, which he had seen in the smoking-room of Major Jen. I agreed to help him, and by hypnotizing my mistress I made her steal the devil-stick. She brought it to me, all unconscious of having done so, and I filled it with fresh poison. On the night of the murder Mr. Alymer called to see my mistress, also Dr. Etwald. When Mr. Alymer left I gave the stick to prisoner, and he followed deceased to kill him. Next day I heard that Mr. Alymer was dead. After a time prisoner told me that we must steal the body, so that traces of poison should not be found when a post-mortem examination was made. I agreed to help him, and gaining admission into the chamber of death I hid under the bed. When Jaggard fell asleep I drugged him with the poison of the devil-stick and opened the window, outside of which prisoner was waiting. I assisted him to carry the body to his carriage, and then left him. That is all I know.",It would exceed the bounds of possibility to suppose that any charming girl of great sensibility whose heart was disengaged, whose feelings were fresh and sweet, could nurse for the space of five weeks so fine, manly, and[Pg 448] handsome a gentleman as Mr Lawrence without falling in love with him. This may be true of ninety young ladies in every hundred. But what was Lucy Acton's case? She was secretly but deeply in love with Mr Lawrence when his own overmastering passion for her impelled him into the perpetration of an outrage upon her person, and a criminal offence against her father. She had loved him with a passion deep and concealed in her spirit long before her abduction, and Aunt Caroline had guessed the truth. She had loved him with an increasing fervency, even after she had been cruelly abstracted from her home, when she knew that her kidnapper's intention was to rob her father of his ship, and the freighters of their goods, and the crew of their wages. And never had she loved him so well as when she was feigning madness with the aim of being transhipped and sent home by him, and when at every interview his eyes reposed upon her with adoration in their expression and his bearing towards her was as gentle, appealing, respectful, and dignified as though he was courting her in hours of health and content, with her father's sanction, and under her father's roof.,Jen started, and looked sharply at the old man, who, to all appearances, was answering his questions with all possible candor.,She agreed with him with a smile, and with a pleasant salutation of the head, walked on.,Only think! He might have been lying under those waves now!.