Then, turning to the others, she said:

"Gentlemen, I came here this morning not to make a muss, but to prevent that roaring lion there--who is always going about the world seeking whom he may devour--from gobbling up that innocent lamb of a young girl; and I mean to stay here until I _do_ prevent it. Yes! I'm talking about _you_, you beast!" she exclaimed, suddenly turning upon Anglesea. "And you better not show your ugly mug down in Wild Cats' Gulch, if you don't want to be stood on your head and druv down into the ground like a post, and buried alive! The boys are piping hot after you, they are, I tell you! It was them that put up a pile to send me on here after you!"

The woman was handsome, but short and stout, and, like _Hamlet_, "scant o'

breath." She had talked herself out of wind for the moment.

Anglesea seized the opportunity, controlled his temper by an effort, turned to the gentlemen near him, and said:

"Friends, if that woman can be kept quiet for five minutes, I will answer, to the satisfaction of all here present--though I consider it an outrage that I should be compelled to answer one who ought rather to be arrested and sent off to prison for a most flagrant breach of the peace! Still, if she can keep quiet, I will do so."

"All right, old rooster!" laughed the woman. "It is your play now, and I give you your turn! Down with your best card!"

"Neighbors," continued Col. Anglesea, fully controlling himself, and falling into that confidential tone which he had always found so effectual--"neighbors, I call upon you, in common justice to me, to use your reason and judgment in this matter. You see this woman who has brought forward this most absurd, preposterous, and, I must say, humiliating claim to be my wife. For it is most humiliating, indeed, that any of you should have the faintest shadow of a suspicion that she may be telling the truth. Why, gentlemen, I am from England. She says she is from California. I never was in California in all the days of my life. I never set eyes on this woman before this hour. She is no more my wife than she is the empress of India. I call upon you to look at her, and ask yourselves if it is at all likely or possible that she could, under any circ.u.mstances, be--what she claims to be. You see her appearance; you see her conduct; you hear her speech; is it likely--is it possible--that I could have married such a person? You see the absurdity of the thing. No, gentlemen; this person is a lunatic, laboring under some fantastic hallucination, or she is an impostor, conspiring, with others, to blackmail me. I demand, in the name of justice, that she be arrested and sent to prison for her flagrant breach of the peace in her outrageous a.s.sault upon me this morning."

The colonel, who had completely mastered his emotions, spoke with such candor, judgment and authority that the men present whispered together, and seemed almost inclined to think that they had committed a shameful indiscretion in suspecting so gallant an officer and so perfect a gentleman of any impropriety, on the mere word of a strange woman, who was certainly not a lady.

The stranger saw the tide of sentiment, or of opinion, turning, and her black eyes sparkled, her blooming cheeks glowed and her red lips wreathed in a mocking smile, as she said:

"I declare! If you haven't played the right bower! And you have very nearly took the trick, only for my little joker. Here it is, gentlemen!

See me take this trick! Here! Here's the joker!"

And, with these words, she took a folded parchment from her pocket, and handed it to the rector.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LITTLE JOKER

"What are these?" demanded the reverend gentleman, unfolding the parchment.

"Oh, it's only my little joker, that took his right bower and won the trick," laughed the woman.

"I don't understand," said the rector, while Abel Force, Thomas Grandiere and William Elk drew near and looked over his shoulders at the doc.u.ment.

"Well, read it, and then maybe you will understand. Don't you see it is the marriage certificate?" demanded the woman.

"It is, indeed," said the rector, examining the doc.u.ment. "It is, indeed, a certificate of the marriage of Angus Anglesea, colonel in the Honorable East India service, Anglewood Manor, Lancashire, England, and Ann Maria Wright, widow, of Wild Cats' Gulch, California, signed by the officiating minister, Paul Minitree, pastor of St. Sebastian's Parish, Sebastian, California, and witnessed by Henry Powers, Margaret Rayburn and Philomena Schubert! It is dated August 1, 18--. Col. Anglesea, what explanation can you give of this?" sternly demanded the rector, while the severe faces of the other men emphasized the question.

"Why, he can't give any! The joker takes every trick! It's the highest card in the pack, and I have just played it!"

"The thing is a forgery! I never was in California in my life! And I never set eyes on this woman before this hour! It is a forgery, I say!"

exclaimed the colonel, so positively, so confidently, so authoritatively that the men were once more puzzled.

"Oh, it's a misdeal, then, is it? I'll prove that it isn't!" said the stranger. "Now, then, gentlemen, you can test the truth for yourselves.

Money is no object to you, particularly in such a case as this. You can telegraph to the Rev. Father Paul Minitree, and ask him if this marriage certificate is genuine, and you can telegraph every word of the certificate, word for word. Ask him to compare it with the entry in the parish register of August 1, 18--, and to telegraph the answer, at your expense, mind you; and, though it will be expensive, it will be worth the money, and you won't mind the cost," said the woman.

This settled the question.

Abel Force, the man most deeply concerned of any man present, had made no violent demonstration. He had controlled his just wrath all through the scene. His reverence for the sanctuary had aided his habitual self-government in this ordeal.

Now, turning his back on Col. Anglesea, he said to Leonidas, who had been a silent spectator of the drama enacting around him:

"Go, my dear boy, and order the carriages. I shall take my wife and daughters home."

Le nodded, and went elbowing his way through the crowd--that made room for him--to do his errand.

"Col. Anglesea, we will hereafter be compelled to dispense with your society at Mondreer. Your effects shall be sent to the Calvert Hotel, subject to your orders," he said, turning for a moment to his late guest.

"Sir, you abduct my wife by violence! You do it at your own peril!"

exclaimed the braggart.

The Maryland gentleman bowed gravely, but deigned no reply in words.

"Madam," he said, turning to the stranger, "if you will accept a seat in our carriage, and give us the privilege of your company at our house, Mrs.

Force and myself would like to talk further with you on this subject."

"Oh, yes, thanky'! That I will! For I have got lots and loads to tell you about that grand vilyun! You needn't think I came here to stop the marriage because I cared for him! Not I! I'm that sick of the beast that the very sight of him is tartar emetic! What i' the name o' sense ever come over a purty gal like your daughter to take up with a man like him?

And a man older and uglier than her own father? Good land! I didn't mean to say that! I beg your pardon, sir; I didn't indeed! I meant to say a man not nearly so young and handsome as her own father! That was it!"

exclaimed the stranger.

Mr. Force bowed his acknowledgment of her apology, and then led her up to the pew occupied by his wife and daughters, and introduced her as follows:

"Mrs. Col. Angus Anglesea, my dear. Mrs. Anglesea, my wife, Mrs. Force; our eldest daughter, Miss Force; our younger daughters, Misses Wynnette and Elva; our friend, Miss Meeke."

When rather embarra.s.sed bows and courtesies were exchanged, Mr. Force added:

"Mrs. Anglesea has been so kind as to accept an invitation to return home with us."

"Yes," put in the lady referred to. "Yes, your old man asked me, and I accepted, because I have got such loads and loads and loads to tell you about that grand vilyun. Didn't he come nigh doing for that lamb? Never mind, honey"--this to the half-conscious Odalite--"I know it seems hard for you, 'specially if you was fond of him--though why you should 'a'

been--Lord! Anyhow, bad as it is now, it would 'a' been a heap worse if he'd 'a' married you and then you'd found out as he had another wife a-living."

Odalite took no notice of this speech. Wynnette answered:

"Oh, you needn't fret your nerves to fiddle strings about that--I mean you need not distress yourself, ma'am. She hates him, and so do I. And so does Elva. In spite of prayer book and catechism, we hate him. We can't help it."

"Eh? What's that you say?" inquired Mrs. Anglesea. "You hate him? Then why, in the name o' common sense, did she want to marry, and you all let her, for?"

"It was Old Scratch's doings--I mean it was Satanic agency," Wynnette explained.

At this moment Leonidas Force came up, and said to his cousin:

"The carriages are ready sir. I spoke to the rector, sir, and, with his leave, had them brought around to the vestry door, so that you can all go out that way, and avoid the crowd."

"Thank you, Le. Dear, kind fellow! It was very good and thoughtful of you.

Come, love. Come, children. Le, give your arm to this lady. Mrs. Anglesea, let me introduce my relative, Mr. Leonidas Force."