Black Bartlemy’s Treasure
By Jeffery Farnol
It was a night of storm with rain and wind, a great wild wind that shouted mightily near and far, filling the world with halloo, while, ever and anon, thunder crashed and lightning flamed athwart the muddy road that wound steeply up betwixt grassy banks topped by swaying trees. Broken twigs, whirling down the wind, smote me in the dark, and fallen branches reached out arms that grappled me unseen, but I held on steadfastly since every stride carried me nearer to vengeance, that vengeance for which I prayed and lived.
So with bared head lifted, crowing to the storm and grasping the stout hedge stake that served me for staff, I climbed the long ascent of Pembury Hill. Reaching the summit at last, I must stay awhile to catch my breath and shelter myself as well as I might underneath the weather bank, for upon this eminence, the rain lashed, and the wind smote me with a fury redoubled. And now, as I stood amid that howling darkness, my back propped by the bank, my face lifted to the storm, I was aware of a strange sound, very shrill and fitful, that reached me ‘twixt the booming wind-gusts, a sound that came and went, now loud and clear, anon faint and remote, and I wondered what it might be.
Then, the rushing dark was split asunder by a jagged lightning flash, and I saw. Stark against the glare rose black shaft and crossbeam, wherefrom swung a creaking shape of rusty chains and iron bands that held together something faded and black and wet with rain, a horrible thing that leapt on the buffeting wind, that strove and jerked as it would fain break free and hurl itself down upon me.
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Jeffery Farnol
Jeffery Farnol (10 February 1878 – 9 August 1952) was a British writer from 1907 until he died in 1952.
Biography.
He was known for writing more than 40 romance novels and swashbucklers, often set in the Georgian Era or English Regency period. He, with Georgette Heyer, largely initiated the Regency romantic genre. John Jeffery Farnol was born in Aston, Birmingham, UK, and was the son of Henry John Farnol, a factory-employed brass founder, and Kate Jeffery. He had two brothers and a sister. His childhood was spent in London and Kent.
After losing his job with a Birmingham metal-working company, he attended the Westminster School of Art. In 1900, he married Blanche Wilhelmina Victoria Hawley (1883–1955), the 16-year-old daughter of noted New York scenic artist H. Hughson Hawley. They relocated to the United States, where he found work as a scene painter. They had a daughter, Gillian Hawley. He returned to England in about 1910 and settled in Eastbourne, Sussex.
In 1938, he divorced Blanche, married Phyllis Mary Clarke on 20 May, and adopted her daughter Charmian Jane. His nephew was Ewart Oakeshott, the British illustrator, collector, and amateur historian who wrote on medieval arms and armour. Farnol died on 9 August 1952 at age 74 in Eastbourne after a long struggle with cancer.
Jeffery Farnol
