Kit Carson, the Prince of the Gold Hunters; Or the Adventures of the Sacramento: A Tale of the New Eldorado, Founded on Actual Facts (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Kit Carson, the Prince of the Gold Hunters; Or the Adventures of the Sacramento: A Tale of the New Eldorado, Founded on Actual Facts

The Merchant's Clerk - The Temptation - The Struggle - The Dream of Wealth - The Student's Strange Secret - A Night Adventure in the City.

Tempter away! wouldst thou beguile?

What! did I list to thee awhile?'

'Hark I hark! the dread alarm!'

From the Old South clock and the State House bell, chimed the hour of nine. The living world of Boston's mighty metropolis was sinking to its nightly rest; the busy marts were closing; the splendid stores of fashionable resort, behind oaken shutters and iron bars were veiling their wealth of costly merchandize; from the brokers' windows of State and Exchange streets, had been withdrawn to the security of 'Salamanders,' the tempting hoard of golden treasures, whose lavish dis play had, that day, realized to many a poor, starving wretch, the torments of Tantalus; 'Change, itself, had, for many hours, been void of its restless tide of speculation, and from all parts of the city, the steady current of home-returning pedestrians proclaimed the advancement of the night.

A half hour later, and the streets of the great city would be nearly deserted. But, in the meantime, within the gorgeous interior of one of the most costly stores of which our time-honored promenade of Washington-st. can boast, at the farther extremity of the massive granite structure itself, a gas-light still was burning in unquenched brilliancy; yet was it like a star veiled by a cloud, for, through the ponderous closed shutters of the lofty-storied structure, no ray of that hidden radiance was suffered to penetrate without.- Fitfully over the bent form of a young man,fitfully over the stained and blotted pages of the ledger before him, flared the gas-light's sickly glare, in bold relief reflecting, despite the shadows and the darkness of the outer night, the appearance of the merchant's clerk.

Singularly at variance with the luxurious aspect of the store and belongings, seemed in truth the somewhat shabby exterior of the young man; whose thread-bare coat, with its well-worn elbows exhibiting more than one prudent darn, gave such suspicious evidence of having been but too often brushed, as did the neglected hat that encumbered the writing cabinet of the counting-room in which he sat; his back rounding, his head resting between his clasped hands upon the unclosed account-book, so that the face could not be seen-his whole crouching attitude expressive of the most utter physical exhaustion. By his hard and sonorous breathing it was not difficult to tell that the over-tasked laborer had fallen asleep at his task!

It was with a violent start that he suddenly woke.

'Ha! where am I?' was his first unconscious exclamation of confused recollection and surprise.

'How! and have I, indeed, been sleeping?' he repeated, 'sleeping at my post? strange that I should so lose myself! and yet not so strange after all. I have been sadly tasked of late, and Nature, though long-enduring, must yield at last. Ah me!' he murmured, 'I am well-nigh worn out, I fear; sixteen hours of the twenty-four spent daily in labor; constant confinement, no recreation, the same eternal round, - alas! what marvel that they should reduce me to this state of bodily prostration?

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