Page:The London Magazine, volume 8 (July–December 1823).djvu/146

 even if it were as a day labourer. The stipulated sum was at length all collected within a few hundred dollars: and Schroll was already looking out for some old disused well into which he might throw the dice and then have it filled up: for even a river seemed to him a hiding-place not sufficiently secure for such instruments of misery.

Remarkable it was on the very night, when the last arrears were to be obtained of his father-in-law’s demand,—a night which Schroll had anticipated with so much bitter anxiety,—that he became unusually gloomy and dejected. He was particularly disturbed by the countenance of a stranger, who for several days running had lost considerable sums. The man called himself Stutz; but he had a most striking resemblance to his old comrade, Weber, who had been shot at the Sand-hill; and differed indeed in nothing but in the advantage of blooming youth. Scarce had he leisure to recover from the shock which this spectacle occasioned, when a second occurred. About midnight another man, whom nobody knew, came up to the gaming-table—and interrupted the play by recounting an event which he represented as having just happened. A certain man, he said, had made a covenant with some person or other, that they call the Evil One—or what is it you call him? and by means of this covenant he had obtained a steady run of good luck at play. “Well, Sir” (he went on), “and would you believe it, the other day he began to repent of this covenant: my gentleman wanted to rat, he wanted to rat, Sir. Only first of all, he resolved privately to make up a certain sum of money. Ah! the poor idiot! he little knew whom he had to deal with: the Evil One, as they choose to call him, was not a man to let himself be swindled in that manner. No, no, my good friend. I saw—I mean, the Evil One saw—what was going on betimes; and he secured the swindler just as he fancied himself on the point of pocketing the last arrears of the sum wanted.”

The company began to laugh so loudly at this pleasant fiction as they conceived it, that Madame Von Schrollshausen was attracted from the adjoining room. The story was repeated to her: and she was the more delighted with it, because in the relater she recognized the gay cavalier whom she had met at the inn. Every body laughed again, excepting two persons—Stutz and Schroll. The first had again lost all the money in his purse; and the second was so confounded by the story, that he could not forbear staring with fixed eyes on the stranger, who stood over against him. His consternation increased when he perceived that the stranger’s countenance seemed to alter at every moment; and that nothing remained unchanged in it, except the cold expression of inhuman scorn, with which he perseveringly regarded himself.

At length he could endure this no longer: and he remarked, therefore, upon Stutz’s again losing a bet, that it was now late; that Mr. Stutz was too much in a run of bad luck; and that on these accounts he would defer the further pursuit of their play until another day. And, thereupon, he put the dice into his pocket.

“Stop!” said the strange cavalier; and the voice froze Schroll with horror; for he knew too well to whom that dreadful tone, and those fiery eyes, belonged.

“Stop!” he said again: “produce your dice!” And tremblingly Schroll threw them upon the table.

“Ah! I thought as much,” said the stranger: “they are loaded dice!” So saying, he called for a hammer, and struck one of them in two. “See!” said he to Stutz, holding out to him the broken dice, which in fact seemed loaded with lead. “Stop, vile impostor!” exclaimed the young man, as Schroll was preparing to quit the room in the greatest confusion; and he threw the dice at him, one of which lodged in his right eye. The tumult increased; the police came in; and Stutz was apprehended, as Schroll’s wound assumed a very dangerous appearance.

Next day Schroll was in a violent fever. He asked repeatedly for Stutz. But Stutz had been committed to close confinement; it having been found that he had travelled with false passes. He now confessed that he was one of the sons of the mutineer Weber; that his sickly