The Daily Cairo Bulletin

A BAG OF GOLD.

The Story of a Hack Driver.

"Are you engaged, coachman?"

I had stopped at that moment to water my horses, and to quench my own thirst in a saloon near. I had scarcely reached my horses' heads when I heard the above question, and saw, as I turned round, a young lady standing by the side of my cab.

Without delay I answered, and opening the carriage door, I helped the lady in. Her face had a certain hesitating, timid expression, which made me judge that my fare was not an independent lady, but a housekeeper or governess.

She wore a black silk dress and a woolen shawl. Her hands and feet were small, but it did not escape me that her gloves were very much worn.

I asked her where she wished to be carried. She named a locality not of the best fame, and with a trembling voice, as if ashamed of it. I climbed on the box, and whipped up. Although it was nothing to me where my fare wished to go, I felt a sort of curiosity as to who and what the lady might be. I had observed that she seemed to have a pretty face, although the veil that she wore over it did not let me see her features plainly. During the trip I was driven by my curiosity to peep through the carriage window behind me, and saw that she had put up her veil. She looked frightfully pale and thin. Her skin was like wax, and one did not need to be a doctor to know that she was consumptive.

She held in her hands something on which her eyes were fixed, and there came over her face an expression of thankfulness and satisfaction. What the object was I could not tell exactly. I only saw that it was light colored, and had no decided shape. I had only two seconds of time for my observation. I had to see to my horses in the crowded street.

I gave them a lash with the whip, and at a quick trot we soon arrived at the city indicated. As soon as I found the number which the lady had given me, I stopped, got off the box, and opened the door to help her out. She appeared to be in great agitation, as if an unpleasant interview was before her. I received from her, over the price of her fare, which she evidently knew, a little drink-money, thanked her, and she hurried away, while I turned my carriage to a neighboring saloon, to invest the drink-money immediately in a glass of beer.

But before I went in I proceeded to straighten the carriage cushions, and see that all was right inside. As soon as I opened the door again I saw some object lying on the seat. It was a small linen sack—without doubt what the lady had held in her lap. I took it in my hand, and its weight astonished me.

With not a little curiosity I looked at it again and again, and at last tried to open it. It was easily done, for the bag was fastened only by a little piece of string.

One can imagine my surprise when I found that it was filled with gold pieces. I dared not look at them further in this place, as a policeman might possibly notice, and ask how I came by the gold.

Meanwhile I tied the sack again, and put it in the wide pocket of my coat. Instead of indulging myself in a glass of beer, I drove to the nearest hack-stand, and took my place in the rear of the line of carriages, so that I could be sure of not being wanted for the next half hour.

I got into my carriage, as hackmen often do when they want a little rest, and I examined for the second time my new-found treasure. I shook the contents of the bag on the seat, and sat with dazzled eyes before quite a pile of gold.

After delighting my eyes with it for a while, I counted the money, partly twenty, partly ten-dollar pieces, singly, again into the sack, and found that it amounted to exactly the sum of fifteen hundred dollars.

I could not think otherwise than that this money belonged to the pale young lady whom I had last carried. How she came by it, and what she was going to do with it, was another thing. I had found it, and it was a great temptation to me to keep it. What could I not undertake with such capital? I could buy myself a carriage and horses, and instead of being a miserable hired coachman, would myself own carriages, or establish a livery stable, which would make me independent.

The picture of the future which I painted in this way was alluring enough, but along with it was the consideration that I should be a thief if I retained the money. My selfishness had a very severe struggle with my conscience.

While I now looked more closely at the bag, I found written in ink upon it the address, "Miss Mildred Berkeley, No. 4 Madison Place." This address, which had hitherto escaped me, I read with as much disgust as astonishment, for there now remained to me, as an honorable man, but one way. I meditated over it a time, but could come to no conclusion. "With honesty," said one voice in my soul, "you will earn no bread; with honesty you can go, in your old age, to the poor house."

At last selfish interest and conscience came to a compromise, and I resolved to keep the money till the following day. Then, I thought there will be a reward offered, and no one can blame me for at least profiting by that.

I remained all day in a fever of excitement; and when night came I felt really ill. I could not sleep. Next morning I was pale and wretched. I went to breakfast where hackmen are in the habit of drinking their coffee, and eagerly looked for the morning paper.

Sure enough, at the top of the column for lost and found articles I found this advertisement:

Lost.—Yesterday, in a hack, a bag of gold. The finder is earnestly entreated to bring the money to No. 65 Grattan Street, three flights up, where he will receive a liberal reward.

I knew well what this last passage signified, for I had already in many cases learned that this common expression allowed great latitude. A liberal reward meant, perhaps, from one to five dollars and a glass of beer. That would be fine amends for resigning fifteen hundred dollars. I laughed in scorn, and my chagrin was great. My heart hardened toward the person who had inserted this notice, and I no longer felt the least desire to part with my newly-found treasure.

I went about all day with the sack of gold in my pocket, like a madman, which made me once or twice nearly run over people. My night's rest was disturbed by phantoms, and the morning brought me no relief. I felt miserable, and, what was worse, even in my waking hours the phantoms did not fade from my eyes.

To my great surprise, the advertisement was not repeated. I could not explain this to myself, but began to fear that the police were on my track, and that some fine day I must walk into prison.

A week passed, and I had become a mere shadow of the strong, healthy man I had previously been. I could reproach myself only with not having returned the bag to its proper owner. I had not taken a penny of its contents, but I always carried the bag with me, and with feverish anxiety and trembling hand I felt in my pocket from time to time to see that it was still there.

Strangely enough, I had during this time unusual good luck. My carriage was almost always occupied, and I earned a good deal of money. When I reflected on this fact, I believed that Providence thereby gave me a plain hint. I had always been a little religious, and not free from superstition, and this idea came to me. The result was that on the tenth day I came to the resolution to return the lost property. The money had become a curse to me ever since I stretched my hand out toward it. I had no rest by night or day; I felt weak and wretched, and visibly pined away.

I had noted the address given in the advertisement, and so I drove at noon on the tenth day to No. 75 Grattan St. It was the place where I had driven the young lady. The door stood wide open. I called a boy to hold my horse, and went up the stairs. I asked a girl I met for Miss Berkeley, and she thought that such a person lived on the attic floor. I went up higher, and knocked at the door I presumed to be the right one. I could not help feeling that I had been a rascal, and only the consciousness that I was at last going to do right gave any ease to my conscience.

At my knock a weak voice called "Come in!" I opened the door and entered.

For a moment the darkness prevented my seeing the interior. The windows were dim with dust, smoke and dirt, and some broken panes were pasted over with paper. A table and two chairs, with a miserable bed made the whole furniture.

"Step softly. Death is here," said a trembling voice, in which I only too well recognized the young lady whom I had brought there ten days before. But how she had changed in this short time! Her cheeks were hollow, her face was pale as death and her eyes had an unnatural brightness.

When I had gained the necessary self command, I said, with my face turned away—for it was impossible for me to look on myself as other than a cowardly villain:

"I bring the bag of gold which—" and then I muttered something about having only just seen the notice.

"It is too late," she whispered, sadly. "He for whom that money was destined is no longer living. Here he lies. He died some hours ago. Yesterday you could have saved him—saved us both—but now it is too late, too late!"

And she went on murmuring to herself, "Too late!" as if she had fallen into a heart-rending stupor.

Suddenly the poor woman rose slowly from the chair where she sat by the death-bed, and, after walking up and staring at me, gave a hollow cry which thrilled me to the marrow of my bones.

"It is only right that you should know what you have to answer for," she said. "That is your work. You can be proud of it; it has been a complete success."

She laughed wildly—it was more a mingling of laughing and crying—and looked at me.

"He was my husband," she went on, after a while. "We lived apart; why and wherefore is nothing to you. For three years I heard nothing of him. During this time I lived out as governess and earned that money which you hold in your hand. May God forgive you for what you have done!"

Here she had a severe fit of coughing, and when she took the handkerchief from her mouth it was wet with fresh blood. The hectic flush on her cheeks burned deeper than before, and I could plainly see that she had not much longer to live in this world.

"At last he found me," she continued, weakly, "and wrote, begging me to come to him. I came. He lived in this hole in sickness and poverty. Had I not lost my gold then, I would have taken him away, and cared well for him. He died of hunger. We have had no food for the last three days, and there is no other fate for me but to follow him. O, you have done a manly deed! Look there—your work!"

She drew a cloth from the face of the corpse; it looked almost a skeleton, and the sorrow of the sight overpowered her. She threw herself over it, and sobbed violently. This emotion brought on another fit of coughing, with a frightful torrent of blood, during which she expired. Her disease had gone too far for her to survive the shock of her husband's death, and if she could not die in his arms, she died by his side.

Terrified, I spread the sheet over the two dead forms, and hurried to call the landlady. I still held the gold in my hand. It seemed to burn like fire, and I would have hurled it from me if I had not had a duty to fulfill. The landlady was very indifferent about the fate of the unfortunate pair. She merely said that nothing different had been expected, but she was much pleased when I asked what they owed, and proceeded to pay her.

I went to an undertaker, and arranged with him for a fitting funeral for the couple united in death. I could not and would not seek for their friends and relatives to draw suspicion upon myself. It was now clear to me why the advertisement for the loss of the money appeared but once.

The poor souls had not the means to pay for a repetition.

I followed the coffins to the grave. No stone marks it, but I know it well and it often follows me in my dreams.

The very same day I drove to the hospital for consumptives, and put the rest of the bag of gold in the collection-box, for I would rather have died of hunger than have kept a penny.—San Francisco Argonaut.