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[ Rider Aadpards Nowest Besi Movel
(Continued from Preceding Page)
df health as dangerous. As a matter of fact, she was suf
fering from heart disease, that a doctor ean often recog
nize by the color of the lips and which brought about her
, Bleath very suddenly a short time afterward.
Never were a man and a woman happier together than
Natalis and I. Mentally, physically, spiritually, we were
perfectly mated, and we loved each other dearly. Yet
there was something about her that filled me with vague
fear, especially after she found that she was to become a
mother, I would talk to her of the child, but she would
sigh and shake here head, her eyes filling with tears, and
say that we must not count on the continuance of such
happiness as ours, for it was too great.
I tried to langh away her doubt, but to no avail. At
fast I grew terrified and asked her bluntly what she
neant.
“I dont quite know, dearest,”’ she replied, ‘‘eape
| Wally as lam wonderfully well. But—""
‘“But what!’’ I asked.
‘‘J think our companionship is going to be broken for s
Hitle while.”’
““For a little while!”’ I exelatmed.
“Yes, Humphrey. I think I shall be taken away from
you—you know what I mean,’”’ and she nodded toward
the churchyard.
‘“Oh! my darling,”’ I groaned.
‘I want to say this,”’ she added quickly; ‘“that if such
& thing should happen, I implore you, dearest Humphrey,
not to be too much distressed. geoauno I am sure you
will ind me again. No, I can’t explain how or when or
where, since Ido not know. I have prayed for light, but
it has not come to me. ' All I know is I am hot talking of
& reunion in Mr. Bastin’s kind of conventional heaven. It
is something quite different from that, and more real.’’
She bent down ostensibly to pat the head of a littie
black cocker spaniel called Tommy which had been given
to us as a puppy, a highly intelligent and affectionate
animal we bou]:) adored and that loved her as only a dog
can love. I knew it was to hide her tears and fled from
the room lest she should see mine.
As I went I heard the dog whimpering in a peculiar
way, as though some sympathetic knowledge had been
communicated to its wonderful animal intelligence,
That night I spoke to Bickley about the matter, re
peating exactly what had passed. As 1 expected, he
smiled in his grave, rather sarcastic way, and made light
of it.
The days and weeks went by, and in due course the
event happened. Bickley was not attending the case; it
was not in his line, he said, and he preferred that whers
& friend’s wife was concerned, somebody else should be
called in. So it was put in charge of a very good local
man with a large experience in such domestic matters.
But everything went wrong from the first. The other
man had misjudged conditions; nothing could help either
the mother or child, a little girl, who died shortly after
she was born, but not before she had been christened,
also, by the name of Natalie.
I was called in to say farewell to my wife and found
her radiant, triumphant even in her weakness.
“‘I know now,’’ she whispered in a faint voice. ‘I
understand all; but I cannot tell you. Everything is quite
well, my darling. Go where you seem called to go, far
away. Ohl the wonderful plage in which you will find
me, not knowing that you have found me. Goodby, for
a little while; only for a little while; my own, my own!”’
Then she died. And for a time I, too, seemed to die,
but could not. I buried her and the child at Fulcombe;
or rather I buried their ashes, since I could not endure
that her beloved body should see corruption.
Afterward when it was all over, I spoke of those last
words of Natalie’s with both Bickley and Bastin, for
somehow I seemed to wish to learn their separate views,
but neither could enlighten me as to their meaning.
During the next few months my old melancholy re
turned on me with added force. Everything in the house
eried to me of past days and of my old happiness. I felt
I must get away or I should go mad. 9
One afternoon Bastin arrived carrying a book and in
a state of high indignation. This work, written, as he
said, by some ribald traveller, grossly traduced the char
acter of missionaries to the South Sea Islands, especizlly
of those of the society so which he subseribed, ana® he
threw it on the table in righteous wrath. Bickley picked
it up and opened it at a photograph of a very pretty
Bouth Sea Island girl clad in a few flowers and nothing
else, which he held toward Bastin, saying: -
“‘ls this child of Nature what you object to? I eall
her distinctly attractive, though perha%s she does wean
her hibiscus blooms a little lower down than our women.’’
““The Devil is always attractive,”” replied Bastin
gloomily. ‘‘Child of Nature, indeed! I call her a child
of Sin. It is enough to make my poor Sarah turn in her
ave.”’
& “Why?’’ asked Bickley, ‘‘seeing that the wide seas
roll between you and this dusky Venus. Perhaps,’”’ went
on Bickley, ‘‘She’’ (he referred to the late Mrs. Bastin)
would have preferred her like thig,”” and he held up an
‘other illustration of the same woman,
In this she appeared after conversion, clad in broken
down stays, out of which she seemed to bulge in every di
rection, a dirty white dress several sizes too small, a kind
of SBalvation Army bonnet without a crown and a prayer-
Yook which she held pressed to her_ middle; the general
effect being hideous and in some curious way improper.
“‘Certainly,”’ said Bastin, ‘‘though I admit her clothes
do not seem to fit, and she has not buttoned them up as
she ought. But it is not of the pictures, it is of the printed
matter with its false and scandalous accusations that I
: ” -~
c:)u‘l‘p \%;:; do you complain?’’ asked Bickley. ‘“Probably
#t is quite true, though that we could never ascertain
without visiting the lady’s home.”’ S
" 471£ T ecould afford it,”’ exclaimed Bastin with rising
anger, ‘‘l should like to go and expose this vile traducer.”’
«do should I,”” answered Bickley, ‘‘and expose these
{ntroducers of consumption, measles and 'other European
diseases, to say nothing of gin, among an innocent and
Arcadian people.”’ /
T kept the book and read it as a neutral observer, and
pame to the conclusion that these South Sea Islands must
be a charming place in which, perhaps, the stars of the
Tropics and the scent of the flowers might enable one to
forget a little, or, at least, take the edge off memory.
Why should I not visit them and escape another long
and dreary Winter? I could not do so alone, but if
Bastin and Bickley were there their eternal arguments
might amuse me. Well, why should they not come also{
‘When one has money things can always be arranged.
‘“You are very kind,”’ said Bastin when I broached
the idea to him the next night at dinner. ‘‘Certainly I
should like to go and expose that misguided person, who
probably published his offensive work without thinking
that what he wrote might affect the subscriptions to the
missionary societies; also to show Bickley that he is not
always right, as he seems to think.”’
““As for me,’’ said Bickley, ‘‘l mean to come, if only
to show you how continually and persistently you are
wrong. But Arbuthnot, how do you mean to go!’’
“fdon‘t know. In a mail steamer, I suppose.”
“If you ecan run
to it, a yacht would
be much better.”’
‘““That’s a good
idea, for one could
“get out of the beaten
tracks and see the
places that are never,
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“As I clasped Tommy to my
side, whimpering and licking
my face, my last thought was
that all was over and that
presently I should learn every
thing or nothing.”
or seldom visited. I will make inquiries. And now, to
celebrate the occasion, let us all have another glass of
port and drink a toast.”’
They hesitated and were lost. As for me, I laughed
like a boy, and for some unknown reason felt happier
than I had done for months. .
CHAPTER 111. :
The New Adventure.
MADE my inquiries through a London agency which
I hired out yachts, and for an exorbitant price se
cured a yacht named the ‘‘Star of the South,” of
about five hundred and fifty tons, very well built and
smart to look at. I hired her for six months, and the
owners paid the insurance on condition that they ap
pointed the captain and first mate. Owing to some faney
of its builder, the passenger accommodation lay forward
of the bridge, this, with the ship’s storeroom and refrig
ating chamber, being almost in the bows.
The captain, named Astley, was a jovial person, who
held every kind of certificate, but he seemed so extra
ordinarily able at his business that personally I sus
pected him of having made mistakes in the course of his
career not unconnected with the worship of Bacchus.
The first mate, Jacobson, was a melancholy Dane, a
spiritualist, who played the concertina and seemed able
to do without any sleep. The erew of thirty-two men
were a mixed lot, good seamen for the most part and
quite unobjectionable,
The arrangement was that the ‘‘Star of the South”
ghould proceed through the Straits of Gibraltar to*Mar
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seilles, where we could join her, and thence travel via
the Suez Canal to Australia and to the South Seas, re
turning home as our fancy or convenience might dictate.
She duly sailed from the Thames and reached Mar
seilles after & safe and easy passage, where all three of
us boarded her on the 17th of November. I forgot to add
that she had another passenger, the little spaniel Tommy,
who followed me about when I was packing up and re
fused to leave me. He escaped from the hands of the
servant and took refuge, whimpering, on my knees.
After that I felt Destiny intended himsto be our com
panion. { .
We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly. In Egypt, &
land I was glad to revisit, we only stopped a week while
the Star of the South, which we rejoined at Suez. coaled
and went through the canal. Our passage from the red
Sea was cool and agreeable. Thence we shaped our
course for Ceylon.
Leaving Ceylon, we struck across the I‘gd‘i't'n M _f_gr
RS Res i R R e
S E G
g W
iy R
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.
~
companion, and even out of the melancholy Dane, Jacob
son, we had entertainment. He insisted on holding sean
ces in the cabin, at which the usual phenomena occurred.
The table twisted about, voices were heard and Jacob
son’s accordion wailed out tunes above our heads.
These happenings drove Bickley to a kind of madness,
for here were events which he could not explain. He was
convinced that someone was playing tricks upon him and
devised the most elaborate snares to detect the rogue, en
tirely without result.
I should have said that both Bastin and Bickley spent
a number of hours each day in assiduous study of the ‘l)an
gnage of the South Sea Islands, It became a kind of com
petition with them. Even I picked up a good deal of the
language in a quiet way, as much as they did perhaps.
At length we sighted the low shores of Australia and
presently crossed the great Australian Bight of evil rep
utation in the most perfect weather; coaled again at Mel
bourne, and then began our real journey of 1,700 miles
to Suva in Fiji. We had no fixed plan except to go
wherever circumstance and chance might take us. Chance,
I may add, or something else, took full advantage of its
opportunities.
We did not remain in Suva long because persons of
jexperience assured us from certain familiar signs that
one of the terrible hurricanes, with which that region
Perth, in Western Aus
tralia, It was a long
voyage, since to save
eoal we made the most
of it under danvas
However, ‘'we were not
dull, as Captain Ast
ley was a good
was afflicted, was shortly due to arrive and that we
should do well to put ourselves begond its reach. So,
having coaled and watered, we departed in a hurry,
Here I must mention that after we were clear of
Samoa it was discovered that the Danish mate, who was
believed to be in his cabin unwell from something he had
eaten, was missing. The question arose as to whether
we should put back to find him, as we supposed that he
had made a trip inland and met with an accident, or had
been otherwise delayed. I was in favor of doing so, but
the captain. thinking of the threatened hurricane, shook
his head.
On the fourth day, when we were roughly seven hun
dred miles north of Samoa, we met the edge of a great
gale about sundown. The captain put on steam in the
hope of pushing through it, but by eleven o’clock it was
as much as one could do to stand in the cabin, while the
water was washing freely over the deck.
When the light came it was blowing very hard indeed
and the sky was utterly overcast, For quite seventy-two
hours we ran on beneath bare poles before that gals. The
little vessal behaved splendidly, riding the seas like &
duck, but I could ses that Captain Astley was growing
alarmed.
That night during dinner, which now consisted of
tinned foods and whis‘ey and water, for the seas had got
to the galley fire, the gale dropped suddenly, whereat
we rejoiced exceedingly. The captain came down to the
saloon very white and shaken, })thonght, and I asked
him to have a nip of whiskey to warm him up and cele
brate our good fortune in having run out of the wind. He
took the bottle and, to my alarm, poured out a full tumbler
of spirit, which he swallowed undiluted in two or thres
gulps. -
““That’s better!” he said, with a hoarse laugh, ‘‘but
man, what is it you are saying about having run out of
the wind? Look at the glass! We are now facing a South
Sea cyclone of the worst breed,’”’ he told us. ‘‘That
cursed Dane knew it was coming and that’s why he left
the ship.
““Now, then, Mr. Parson, you had better pray that it
will miss us after all. Pray as you never prayed before,’’
and again he stretched out his hand toward the whiskey
bottle. But I stepped between him and it, shaking my
head. Thereon he laughed for the third time and left the
cabin, Though I saw him once or twice afterward, these
were really the last words of intelligible conversation
that I ever had with Captain Astley.
Bickley now suggested that we should go on deck to
see what was happening. 'So we went. Not a breath of
wind as stirring, and even the sea seemed to be settling
down a little: At least so we judged from the motion, for
we could not see either it or the sky; everything was as
black as pitch, We heard the sailors, however, engaged
in rigging guide ropes fore and aft and battening down
the hatches with extra tarpaulins by the light of lanterns.
Presently Bastin joined us on the slippery deck.
“Really, it is quite pleasant here,’’ he said. ‘‘One
never knows how disagreeable so mueh wind is until it
stops.”’
Ilit my pipe, making no answer, and the mateh burned
quite steadily there in the open air.
““What is that?’’ exclaimed Bickley, staring at some
thing which I now saw for the first time. It looked like
a line of white approaching through the gloom. With it
came a hissing sound and, although there was still no
wind, the rigging began to moan mysteriously like a
thing in pain. A big drop of water also fell from the
skies onto my pipe and put it out. Then one of the sailors
cried in a hoarse voice:
““Get down below, Governors, unless you want to go
out to sea.”’
‘“Why 1"’ inquired Bastin,
Why? Becos the hurricane is coming, that’s all. Com
ing as though the devil had kicked it out of hell !’’
Bastin wished to remonstrate at the man’s langnage, but
we pushed him down the companionway_and followed, pro
pelling the spaniel, Tommy, in front®f us. The next
moment I heard the sailors battening the hatch with hur
ried blows, and when this was done to their satisfaction,
heard their feet running into shelter.
Another instant and we were all lying in a heap on the
cabin floor with poor Tommy on top of us. The cyclone
had struck the ship! Above the wash of the waters and the
screaming of the gale we heard other mysterious sounds
which were doubtless caused by the yards hitting the seas,
for the yacht was lying on her side. ‘I thought that all
was over, but presently there came a rending, crashing
noise. The masts, or one of them, had gone and by degrees
we righted.
I could hear the engine working and T think that the bow .
of the vessel was head on to the seas, for instead of rolling
we pitched, or rather the ship stoodfirst upon one end and
then upon the other. This continued for awhile until the
first burst of the eyclone had gone by. Then suddenly the
engine stopped ; I suppose that it had broken down, but I
never learned, for presently we seemed to veer about,
nearly sinking in the process, and to run before the hurri.
cane at terrigc speed.
Presently there came a lull in the force of the wind ; the
fact being I suppose that we had reached the centre of the
cyclone. I suggested that we should try to go on deck to
kee what was happening. So we started only to find that
we could not get out. We knocked and shouted, but'no one
answered. My belief is that at this time everyone on the
yacht except ourselves had been washed away and drowned.
Just then the cyclone began to blow again worse than
ever, but it seemed to us from another direction. On we
sped and on.
The darkness gathered once more. Then of a sudden
something fearful happened. There were stupendous noises
of a kind I had never heard; there were convulsions. It
seemed to us that the ship was flung right up into the air
a hundred feet or more.
““Tidal wave, I expect,”’ shouted Bickley.
Almost while he spoke it came down with the most
appalling crash on something hard, and nearly jarred the
senses out of us. Next the saloon was whirling round and
round and we were carried forward and felt air blowing
upon us. Then our senses left us. As I clasped Tommy
to my side, whim{)ering and licking my face, my last
thought was that all was over and that presently I should
learn everything or nothing.
Copyright 1018, Paget Newspaper Service
(To Bg Continwed Next Sunday)
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