RUTH THE BETRAYER ; OR, THE FEMALE SPY.
By EDWARD ELLIS.
WITH FIFTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS By W. H. THWAITES.
LONDON :
PUBLISHED BY THE PROPRIETORS.
AT THE OFFICE, 25 WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND.

1863.
NO.1.- Ruth The Betrayer.
CHAPTER I.
MAN OR WOMAN.-A DELICATE QUESTION.-THE GALLANT ENTERPRISE OF CAPTAIN CHARLEY CROCKFORD.-A LADY QUITE CAPABLE OF DEFENDING HERSELF.-THE FEMALE DETECTIVE.- THE ENTERPRISE.-UPON THE TRACK OF THE DOOMED.-A THIRST FOR BLOOD.
"I tell you it is a man!"
"And I tell you it is a woman!"
"Do you suppose I have no eyes?"
"And do you suppose I am blind?"
"I�ll bet you a pair of ponies on it."
"How are we to decide?"
"Let�s go and speak to him."
"To her, you mean."
These were two hot-headed young gentlemen, who, one summer�s night, about a year or two ago, had been dining at the Guards� Club, in Pall Mall, and who afterwards, while standing smoking upon the steps, undecided whither they should go to knock out the evening, had got into this dispute about the sex of a mysterious individual who had just passed by, staring them hard in the face.
The person who had attracted their notice and given rise to this dispute was seemingly a youth of eighteen or nineteen, clad in semi-nautical attire, something like a midshipman.
A very handsome youth it was, certainly, with a profusion of golden ringlets clustering round his face; with delicately-chiseled features, bright, white, even teeth, and big blue eyes, deep and expressive; by turns, full of fire and full of languor. If a boy, a very pretty one, surely; but very like a pretty woman in disguise, there was no denying.
Captain Crockford had wagered a pair of ponies that it was a female. He was certain of it, he said - he would stake his life on it. Anyhow he had staked a pair of ponies, and as young Lord Windibank was of a contrary opinion, they determined upon pursuing the mysterious stranger, and having a good look at him.
There was not too much time to spare if they intended to catch him, for he was walking very fast, and they ran down the steps, and long the pavement, in the direction he had taken.
"We have missed him."
"She has given us the slip."
"What has become of him?"
"I can�t see her anywhere."
"Ah ! there she goes."
Crockford had caught sight of the figure of which he was in pursuit.
It had crossed the road, and was making rapidly for the Haymarket. Crockford caught a glimpse of the gold lace upon the midshipman�s cap, as it passed under a gas-lamp.
In another moment he was standing by the stranger�s side, and leering with an impudent smile into his face.
The sailor boy stopped short and drew himself up with an indignant ejaculation, making way for the other to pass.
But Crockford, instead of availing himself of the opportunity thus afforded him, stepped in front of the sailor, and barring the passage with his arms, burst into a aloud, foolish laugh.
"Where are you going to, my pretty dear?"
The youth, if youth it was, stared at him indignantly, and his face flushed crimson.
"Let me pass," he said.
"No - no," replied the gallant Captain, insolently puffing the smoke of his cigar into the other�s face. "Not until you have paid toll, my youthful mariner."
"Stand on one side, you drunken fool," the sailor exclaimed, fiercely, and in a tone which, if feminine, was full of savage determination, and accompanied by an ominous compression of the lips, knitting of the brows, clenching of the teeth, and flashing of the eyes, seemed to indicate that it would not be very safe to provoke their owner much further.
But the Guardsman addressed had been partaking pretty freely of wine before leaving the dinner table, and was not in a state to be too observant of trifling details.
In his eye there was nothing very terrible in the anger of this handsome stranger ; and young Lord Windibank coming up at the moment, the Captain, wishing to distinguish himself before his friend, endeavored to take the sailor round the waist.
But it was a very rash proceeding, for before he could accomplish his object, he had received a violent blow from the stranger�s clenched fist, right in the face.
So well directed and telling a blow, that under it the Guardsman reeled back against a lamp-post, and, losing his balance, fell heavily into the mud, where he lay ignominiously sprawling, wondering very much how he had got there.
Then, taking advantage of the momentary victory thus gained over one of his assailants, the sailor dealt another violent blow to Lord Windibank, which sent that nobleman�s hat flying into the road, and taking to his heels, ran like a greyhound in the direction of Waterloo Place.
The young stranger�s progress in this direction was, however, doomed to meet with fresh obstacles, for he had not gone half a dozen yards before he ran straight into the stomach of the foremost of a file of policemen, at that moment turning the corner from St. James�s Square; and at the same time that he knocked the breath out of his body, knocked him backwards on to the top of the man behind him, who in his turn tripping up the other, and so on to the end of his file, the whole half-dozen fell in an undistinguishable heap against the shutters of the public-house at the corner of the street; while the sergeant, from the violence of the concussion, was precipitated, head first, into the jug and bottle department, to the dire confusion of a maid servant with a quart pot and a pint and half of supper beer, at that instant in the act of issuing there from.
"Murder - murder !" cried Captain Crockford, from the gutter.
"Police !" shouted Lord Windibank, pursuing his hat.
"Take him up !" gasped the sergeant, when he had recovered sufficient breath to speak.
"Who did it?" asked the policeman who had been at the other end of the file.
"This here young sailor," replied another policeman, seizing hold of the cause of the disaster, who was the only one unhurt.
"Take him up !" said the sergeant. "I�ll teach the young jackanapes better manners. Bring him this way, that I may look at him. What do you mean, you young vagabond, by upsetting the civil executive in that sort of way. I�ll let you know what o�clock it is."
"I know the time pretty well as it is, Mr. Hardstaff," said the audacious young stranger, with a merry laugh. "I hope I haven�t hurt you sergeant. I did not mean to do it, upon my honour."
"Why, bless my stars !" the sergeant cried, in blank amazement. "You don�t mean to say that�s you Ma�am, do you ?"
"Hush ! yes. Who else should it be ? Here, leave go of me, stupid !" (addressing one of the policemen). "You�re new in the force I suppose, or you�d have known me. There, don�t stare so. I�m one of you. Give your man the office, sergeant, to let me go."
"Leave go of the lady�s wrist," said Mr. Hardstaff. "We won�t take you up this time, ma�am, only I wish you�d try to turn the corner a little quieter the next time we meet. It rather takes the wind out of a fellow, does one of these headers in the waistcoat, and so I don�t deceive you."
"It was an accident," said the female sailor - for a female it was, undoubtedly. "It was an accident," she said, laughing, "and I�m very sorry; but I was running for my life from two tipsy young Guardsmen, who would not leave me alone."
"Where are they?"
"I knocked one into the mud. I don�t know whether he has got out yet. Ah! there he is, and there�s his friend. Just see if I have hurt them much ; I haven�t time to stop myself."
And so saying, the extraordinary young lady took to her heels, though, as before, Captain Crockford had caught a glimpse of her retreating form, and called to the policemen to stop her.
"Don�t you see him?" he cried, impatiently, as none of the officers attempted to stir. "It�s that sailor fellow I mean. why don�t you stop him?"
But the sergeant, to whom the officer was well known, coming up, touched his hat, and asked respectfully what was the matter.
"Why, that young vagabond," the Captain exclaimed, "struck me in the face, as you see. Look how he has cut my cheek. I shall have a black eye to a certainty."
"You don�t mean that Captain," said the policeman, unable in spite of all his efforts to refrain from a slight smile. "She hits uncommon hard, really."
"She !" repeated the Captain. "Then it is a she? You hear that Windibank? I�ve won my bet ; and that�s one consolation anyhow. Who is she, Hardstaff? Do you know her? Tell me all about her."
"Well, sir," said Hardstaff, with a grin, "we usually don�t tell stories out of school, you know."
"Pooh, nonsense ! Go on !"
"It would be revealing the secrets of the prison-house."
"What do you mean? Is she in the force?"
"Well, Captain, I should have thought you knew her, seeing how down you are to what�s afloat. I should have fancied you knew most of the London celebrities."
"I don�t know her; so come, who is she?"
"It�s on the quiet that I tell you, now."
"You may depend upon me."
"Well then," said the policeman, sinking his voice to a mysterious whisper, "she�s a female detective - a sort of spy we use in the hanky-panky way when a man would be too clumsy."
"By Jove, I�d give a fiver to be introduced to her !"
"Well, I don�t quite see my way to that," replied the policeman. "She�s a very proud, haughty, cold-blooded sort of woman, I can tell you; and when she is off duty, lives in some magnificent house here in the west - though where it is I cannot say exactly - and has her carriages, and horses, and flunkies in livery, and I don�t know what all, besides."
"And her name ?"
"She�s got so many, you see; I don�t know the one she has in private life."
"But the one you know her by?"
"Some call her Ruth Trail; some one thing and some another; but most people call her RUTH THE SPY."
But while these two were conversing, the subject of their conversation was making the best of her way in the direction of Bow Street.
Arriving there safely in rather less than a quarter of an hour, she ran lightly up the steps, and nodding to a constable standing by the door, who obsequiously made room for her to pass, she entered, where the officer on duty was already at his post engaged in taking the night charges.
"Ah, Mrs. Trail !" said, he, looking up, and touching his hat ; "I was almost afraid that you were not coming."
"Why so ?"
"It is so close upon the time you fixed to be here."
"You would not have me before my time, would you?"
"No, nor behind; though ladies usually are, a little."
"I am not," the woman said, with something of contempt in her tone. "I am neither before my time, or after it. I come to the minute. We will proceed to business, if you please."
There was an indescribable something about this woman�s manner, degraded though she was by the hateful calling which she followed of spy and informer, that seemed sufficiently powerful to curb the tongue of the roughest, coarsest, and most lawless, and effectually to check any attempt at familiarity from those persons who might have thought that her temporary association with them, in moments like the present, placed them upon a footing of equality.
But although well known to almost every member of the police force in London, she was not, as Mr. Hardstaff�s words would have led the Captain to believe, a female detective, employed by Government.
On the contrary, she was attached to a notorious Secret Intelligence Office, established by an ex-member of the police force, and her services were only rarely employed, as upon the present occasion, in connexion with the regular police.
That she was employed in a matter of considerable importance this evening was very evident, and that her presence was of very great consequence to the success of the undertaking, might have easily been surmised by the anxiety manifested by the policemen in plain clothes assembled there, who were to place themselves under her directions.
"Do you think it is time to start?" the inspector asked, in a deferential whisper.
"Yes, how many men am I to have?"
"Will four do?"
"Yes; if they are good ones."
"The best in the force."
"Are they armed?"
"Well."
"Then we will go at once."
There was a cab waiting outside the door of the police-station, and in this three policemen seated themselves; while the beautiful female spy went first to show the way in another cab, with a fourth policeman - a sergeant.
Then they turned the horse�s heads to the south, and, crossing Waterloo Bridge, drove rapidly toward the Borough.
For some time after they had started, the woman sat perfectly motionless in one corner of the back seat, whilst the policeman occupied the furthest corner of the seat facing her, and silently pursued their ways without exchanging a word.
What thoughts were passing through her busy brain who can say?
The honest constable, eying her stealthily, could not have guessed at them, to save his life; and he was not trying to do so.
She had taken off her uniform cap, and the lights from the lamps in the shop-windows they were passing by fell full upon her fair face and golden curls.
It was a lovely head thus lit up every now and then by a sudden blaze of light which encircled it like a glory, and then as suddenly lost again in the dim obscurity, only to be again revealed as bright and beautiful as before.
It was the head of a woman of no more than twenty - a pink and white faced beauty, with delicately chiseled features, and a clear, open, frank and honest face, over which, from time to time, there played a gentle smile of so much sweetness, one would scarcely have believed that it could have had birth save in purity and innocence.
But, oh ! who shall say what records of treachery and baseness were hidden beneath that fair, white bosom, which rose and fell as placidly as that of a sleeping babe ?
Who shall say with what black crimes was she not familiar - had she not herself committed - was she not doomed yet to commit, before her allotted race was run, and the lovely head, with its lustrous orbs of blue, its crimson pouting lips, and rich, soft, silken curls, should be in its last bed, beneath earth, and food for worms.
On, on the cab rattles merrily through the busy streets, alive with gay-hearted, careless holiday folks. the policeman nods and dozes, and the Spy, still smiling sweetly to herself, closes her eyes, and dreams of vengeance and death !
On, on ! She is on thy track, wretched, doomed one !
The she-leopard is on thy path !
See how parched are her lips - how hungry her eyes !
She is athirst for thy blood !
She is crouching for a spring, and will be on thee in another moment, rending thee limb from limb !