The blackies still guarded my sleeping quarters, one relieving the other at midnight. I turned on the current as soon as the first man arrived. Hardly had I begun to doze, when I was aroused by a

sharp, metallic tinkle. There, on the mid-threshold, lay the collar of Dan, my father's St.

Bernard.

My keeper ran to pick it up. He disappeared like a gust of wind, his clothes falling to the floor in

a heap. There was a slight wiff of ozone in the air, but since the principal gaseous components of

his body were hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, which are equally colourless and odourless, there was no other manifestation of his departure. Yet when I shut off the current and removed the A THOUSAND DEATHS

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

8

garments, I found a deposit of carbon in the form of animal charcoal; also other powders, the isolated, solid elements of his organism, such as sulphur, potassium and iron. Resetting the trap, I

crawled back to bed. At midnight I got up and removed the remains of the second black, and then

slept peacefully till morning.

I was awakened by the strident voice of my father, who was calling to me from across the laboratory. I laughed to myself. There had been no one to call him and he had overslept. I could hear him as he approached my room with the intention of rousing me, and so I sat up in bed, the

better to observe his translation--perhaps apotheosis were a better term. He paused a moment at

the threshold, then took the fatal step. Puff! It was like the wind sighing among the pines. He was

gone. His clothes fell in a fantastic heap on the floor. Besides ozone, I noticed the faint, garliclike

Page 12

odour of phosphorus. A little pile of elementary solids lay among his garments. That was all.

The wide world lay before me. My captors were no more.

SAMUEL

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

1

SAMUEL

By Jack London

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

SAMUEL

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

2

Margaret Henan would have been a striking figure under any circumstances, but never more so than when I first chanced upon her, a sack of grain of fully a hundredweight on her shoulder, as she walked with sure though tottering stride from the cart-tail to the stable, pausing for an instant

to gather strength at the foot of the steep steps that led to the grain-bin. There were four of these

steps, and she went up them, a step at a time, slowly, unwaveringly, and with so dogged certitude

that it never entered my mind that her strength could fail her and let that hundred-weight sack fall from the lean and withered frame that wellnigh doubled under it. For she was patently an old

woman, and it was her age that made me linger by the cart and watch.

Six times she went between the cart and the stable, each time with a full sack on her back, and Page 13

beyond passing the time of day with me she took no notice of my presence. Then, the cart empty,

she fumbled for matches and lighted a short clay pipe, pressing down the burning surface of the tobacco with a calloused and apparently nerveless thumb. The hands were noteworthy.