Achison

“ You have given me the opportunity that I have been waiting for, that I've been living for. There's an old score to settle between this man Achison and myself. He's the greatest crook in the world, but I've never been able to prove it; he's always been too clever for me. But tonight! ”

“ Murder!” he shouted at the top of his voice for Achison's benefit.
Then, wriggling sideways so as to bring his lips down to the mouthpiece, he dictated in lower tone a rapid message to the typist who would transcribe the record.
“Am a prisoner at Achison's bungalow. Counterfeiters working at last house in village a mile away. Get word at once to Hatton of Secret Service to round them up, and then come and get me. Wallace Ramsey.”
Shutting off the power with another touch to the lever, he yelled again for help, and pushed the dictaphone back to where it had stood before. ”

“ Achison turned to him with delightful bonhomie, a twinkle in his eye.
“I don't believe either of us has ever had to hunt very hard for that sort of game,” he countered. “They come to us, 'like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought.' And—er—it is a pity that the good, red-blooded word adventurer is invested with a stigma which makes one hesitate to apply it to a gentleman; so let me say, instead, a traveler. A traveler like yourself must have encountered scores of adventures.” ”

“ Don't you know that in the best crook circles they never practice their nefarious wiles upon their friends? It simply isn't done.”
Half yielding to his compelling magnetism, half resisting it, almost persuaded but not quite, she gave him an enigmatic smile.
“I never apologize, Mr. Achison; I simply ignore. Good-by.” ”

“ Achison thoughtfully lighted a cigarette, and then turned toward her with his persuasive, delightful smile.
“I wouldn't, my dear Mrs. Ames; I really wouldn't, if I were you. Why should you bring a pain of worry to those who love you, and humiliation upon yourself? Chance has made me the sole repository of this secret of yours; let it remain so.”
“But?” she began.
“I know!”—with a wave of his hand. “I know just what you are going to say: that doesn't give you back your bonds. ”

“ Lord knows what she's been up to. She—But that's my train they're calling.” he interrupted himself hastily. “I've got to run. So long!”
“Good-by and good luck,” said Achison heartily. “Enjoy yourself; it's a beautiful world, if you don't bother over trifles.”
“I'll make a try at it, anyhow,” Ames called back over his “You're good medicine, Achison.”
He passed through the gate, and the lawyer, deep in thought, walked out into the crowds and noise and late-afternoon sunshine of Forty-second Street. ”

“ Achison said, praying that he could make the suggestion strong enough. “If you should, it will be because you have delayed signing the will. This other idea you hold is the greatest piece of nonsense I ever heard. Every man who has collected as widely as you have has two or three things which he only shows to the safe few. You bought and paid for the missal. Such things belong to the man who holds them.”
Schofield sank lower in his seat; his mouth was set in a straight line.
“I am too tired to argue,” he replied impatiently. “Come out tomorrow, and I will talk to you about the will.” ”

“ Ramsey went on, “you remain to me an unsolvable enigma. Again and again I have asked myself, why you, holding so much and winning so easily by a sort of divine right the things men struggle and fight for, should deliberately choose the crooked road of danger with its tremendous odds of detection and disgrace.”
Achison gave a slight shrug of the shoulders, but made no answer. His expression was inscrutable as he lighted another cigarette and surveyed his captive through the smoke. ”

“ Again the suave Achison is confronted by his Nemesis, Wallace Ramsey, in the most ingenious story of his career thus far published
BY THE
CLOCK
By
MRS. WILSON WOODROW
RAMSEY looked at his watch, and reassured as to the hour, offered his cigarette-case to the man sitting opposite him at the restaurant table.
“Only eight o'clock,” he said,—“twenty minutes before we need start for the theater. We can drink our coffee comfortably, and not gulp it.” ”

“ Snaith's face was black with suspicion; he looked ready to spring.
“It's an inspiration,” chuckled Achison. “Nothing could be more disarming. Who would expect the loot to be carried off right under the watchdog's nose? Besides, it may relieve you from the too-solicitous attentions you complain of. I'll tell Danby you have consulted me about being shadowed, and that after sounding you thoroughly, I am persuaded neither you nor Madame Adelbron are engaged in any nefarious undertakings at the present time? ”

“ A change of plans is necessary. Some one must act as an intermediary.”
“Ah, Snaith, Snaith!” Achison shook a playful finger at him. “You are willfully playing on my weakness.” He raised his eyes accusingly heavenward. “One would think at my age that I would be immune. But trail even the anise-seed bag of an adventure across my path, and I'm off on the scent of it. You remember that phrase we both decided was the one best calculated to stir a man's blood, 'How would you like an adventure with a bit of money on the side?' Here am I, my holiday over, a staid lawyer back at his desk ”

“ RAMSEY recalled Achison's face as he had seen it less than an hour before. If the owner of the picture were bereaved over his loss, he had certainly concealed it admirably.
“How the deuce the bungalow ever caught on fire is a mystery.” Brown had lighted a cigarette and was leaning back in his chair. “If the caretaker is telling the truth, it must have started on the inside: but nobody had entered the house since he was in there two days ago with the moving-van men. A dropped match or carelessly flung cigarette couldn't possibly have smoldered that long. ”

“ THE group assembled in Professor Hammersley's home that evening was small but carefully selected. It was composed of men of more or less scientific attainment, whose attitude toward the whole affair was speculative, open-minded and yet, either passively or actively critical The only “outsiders,” as they might be called, were Achison and Danby, who came in rather late and together. ”

“ Achison was nonchalantly lighting a cigarette, but no detail of the man approaching was lost upon him. “And why look further?” he asked under his breath. “A famous international crook on board; what more do you want?”
The fellow who swung by them appeared to be a well-bred, well-dressed Englishman of medium size and with a ruddy, tanned face under the visor of his cap. He might have been about thirty-five years old.
“That's the trouble. It's so obvious that it's sure to be wrong.” Danby shook his head pessimistically. “Besides, he'd never try to get by with the stuff himself ”

“ He tells me, for instance, that not one of Thorne's friends has actually increased his subscription to the Willetts defense fund, but that Thorne himself has 'tilted'— Isn't that the word?—the amount contributed by each so as to quadruple the original total. He says that crooks generally are talking of nothing else but the size of the fee you are receiving. Forty thousand dollars they name as the figure—which would be the original ten thousand tilted by just the amount that was taken from Philip's safe.”
The veins on Achison's forehead swelled. ”

“ Jeumalōy, whose tomb is still to be seen not far from the principal mosque of Acheh, is universally revered as a saint by the Achehnese. Pòteu Uëʾ, for whose sake his younger brother drove out the sayyid, and that too with the help of subjects turned from their allegiance, is the founder of the present Achehnese dynasty. No wonder then that the scions of the royal house of Acheh will brook no mention of the Hikayat Pòchut Muhamat and regard it as a forbidden thing for anyone of their family to order or listen to its recitation. ”

“ Political foresight is, in these days at least, foreign to the nature of all Achehnese. A raja of Acheh in particular, who plunged into the fray with persevering self-sacrifice in the interests of the people or their religion would be a phenomenon that the Achehnese themselves would be unable to explain except as a revelation of the boundless miraculous power of God.
To this we may add that nowhere could worse material be found for organizing a stout resistance to foreign invasion than in the lowland districts of Acheh in the immediate neighbourhood of the Dalam. ”

“ Two heroic poems (Malém Dagang and Pòchut Muhamat) dealing with historical facts and legends of the past of Acheh, have been known in written form as far back as the memory of the people extends. Another, which in form and character quite corresponds with the two mentioned above, and which celebrates the heroic deeds of the Achehnese in their war with the Dutch, was composed gradually by a man who could neither read nor write, and was first reduced to writing in its entirety at my own instance. ”

“ That these tailed or tail-less strangers contributed their quota to the composition of the Achehnese race is as little doubted as that the multitude of Klings (Kléug, ureuëng dagang [28] ) in Great Acheh and on the East Coast have brought more half-caste progeny into the world than now commands recognition as such. There have been within the memory of man a large number of Klings in the highlands of Great Acheh (XXII Mukims) living entirely as Achehnese and engaged in agriculture. There were even gampōngs, such as Lam Aliëng, the entire population of which consisted of such hybrid Klings. ”

“ The Achehnese are, comparatively speaking, among the least well-mannered of the inhabitants of the Archipelago, yet in their behaviour towards their chiefs they pay regard to sundry formalities. If a man be sitting on the roadside as the ulèëbalang and his retinue pass by and omits to ask meuʾah or forgiveness for his presence, he may feel sure at the least of a beating from the rakans by way of correction. Both the chiefs and all the members of their retinue are as a rule very free with such sharp admonitions towards persons of low degree. ”

“ The descendants of Acheron will serve him as a nucleus upon which to build, but it is the blood and the bodies of the people of the world today that will furnish the mortar and the stones for the rebuilding. ”

“ It is no empty saying which the Achehnese quote to one another in their councils—keuchiʾ eumbah, teungku ma="the keuchiʾ is (our) father and the teungku (our) mother".
All peace-loving inhabitants of a gampōng are convinced of the necessity for having one person to speak or negotiate in the name of all; the more so because as we shall presently see, sundry family matters such as marriage, divorce, the bringing up of orphans or changes of residence are treated in Acheh as matters affecting the whole gampōng. ”

“ Many chiefs of Achehnese coast-dependencies formally gave in their submission in order to protect their commerce from injury, but the number who withheld their allegiance was greater; and many chiefs in the interior did not consider themselves bound by the promises of the raja of the coast. Furthermore the state of war—as may be learnt from our first chapter—added to the many chiefs who already disputed authority in Acheh a countless number of others: adventurers, religious leaders, military chiefs of every type. ”

“ Imagination runs riot throughout the whole, but the method of expression is thoroughly Achehnese; the thoughts which the poet puts in the mouths of his characters and the scenes which he has lavishly embroidered on the framework of his story, are all derived from the everyday life of the Achehnese people.
Contents of the epic.The poem begins with the first tokens of enmity on the part of Si Ujut, a son of the raja of Malacca, against his benefactor Éseukanda Muda, the powerful ruler of Acheh. ”

“ Achilles held a card in his thin fingers—a card that would admit him to his boy. Yaxis’s eyes were gloomy with dread, and his quick movements were subdued as he went about the business of the shop, carrying the trays of fruit to the stall outside and arranging the fruit under the striped awning. He was not to go out with the push-cart to-day. There was too much work to do—and Achilles could not let the boy go from him. Later, too, Achilles must go to the hospital—and to the big house on the lake, and someone must be left with the shop. ”

“ Thence they draw a considerable portion of their knowledge of the world and of life, and almost all that they know of what has happened in the past, or what goes on outside their own country. Whoever wishes to understand the spirit of the Achehnese must not fail to bear in mind the nature of this, their mental pabulum; and should anyone desire to try to lead the civilization of Acheh along a new channel, it would be undoubtedly worth his while to make his innovations palatable to them by presenting them in 'hikayat' form. ”

“ The popular idea of the Achehnese is that the pitrah which the teungku receives from all at the end of the fasting month is a sort of payment for this trawèh!
If the teungku is more or less malém (skilled in booklore) , this will tend greatly to increase his revenues, as he will then be called in to give his help in all kinds of sickness or other misfortune, and receive payment for his ministrations. Sick children will be brought to him that he may blow on their heads after muttering a tangkay (prayer or formula to lay evil spirits) , or else he will be requested to charm some water. ”