han. And thereupon he thrust his hand into
his breeches' pocket and brought forth the ivory ball.

No sooner did the one eye of the little gentleman in black light upon
the object than a most singular and extraordinary convulsion appeared
to seize upon him. Had a bullet penetrated his heart he could not have
started more violently, nor have sat more rigidly and breathlessly
staring.

Mastering his emotion with the utmost difficulty as Jonathan replaced
the ball in his pocket, he drew a deep and profound breath and wiped
the palm of his hand across his forehead as though arousing himself
from a dream.

"And you," he said, of a sudden, "are, I understand it, a Quaker. Do
you, then, never carry a weapon, even in such a place as this, where
at any moment in the dark a Spanish knife may be stuck betwixt your
ribs?"

"Why, no," said Jonathan, somewhat surprised that so foreign a topic
should have been so suddenly introduced into the discourse. "I am a
man of peace and not of blood. The people of the Society of Friends
never carry weapons, either of offense or defense."

As Jonathan concluded his reply the little gentleman suddenly arose
from his chair and moved briskly around to the other side of the room.
Our hero, watching him with some surprise, beheld him clap to the door
and with a single movement shoot the bolt and turn the key therein.
The next instant he turned to Jonathan a visage transformed as
suddenly as though he had dropped a mask from his face. The gossiping
and polite little old bachelor was there no longer, but in his stead
a man with a countenance convulsed with some furious and nameless
passion.

"That ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and raucous voice. "That ivory
ball! Give it to me upon the instant!"

As he spoke he whipped out from his bosom a long, keen Spanish knife
that in its every appearance spoke without equivocation of the most
murderous possibilities.

The malignant passions that distorted every lineament of the
countenance of the little old gentleman in black filled our hero with
such astonishment that he knew not whether he were asleep or awake;
but when he beheld the other advancing with the naked and shining
knife in his hand his reason returned to him like a flash. Leaping to
his feet, he lost no time in putting the table between himself and his
sudden enemy.

"Indeed, friend," he cried, in a voice penetrated with
terror--"indeed, friend, thou hadst best keep thy distance from me,